The general slope of the terrain tilted up against me, and hauling the cart up stone terraces got to be hard work. The dawn mirrors had set and the sun was about to, when I sat in a narrow pass to rest. I had just caught my breath when I saw a trail duck, right there before me in the sand. Four flat rocks laid on top of each other. “Yes!” I exclaimed. I knelt to inspect it. A human construct. I hooted loudly, and leaving the cart I ranged down both sides of the pass looking for another duck. I found nothing. “Which way?” I said, suddenly free to speak. “No one makes only one duck — where’s the next?” In both directions I saw nothing but a rumpled carpet of rock, a shambles of brown and black and red. “Odd. Order leaps to the eye, I should be able to see two ducks, one before, one behind.” But perhaps the others had fallen, or been buried. Or maybe I was supposed to continue in the same direction, and when the route changed direction another duck would appear. “Yes. Carry on, a sign will appear.”
I was tired. By the time I returned to the cart the sun was down, and it was the most I could do to get the tent up and wiggle inside before dark. Once again I made soup, sipped brandy, pored over the map and charted a course for the next day, lay back in my bag, looked up at low dark clouds. Failed to sleep, except in fits and starts near dawn. Dreamed, and forgot the dreams on waking.
Next morning I was stiff, and it took a while to break camp. Before leaving I made a reconnaissance of the area, and over a steep ridge to the east of my pass I found another duck. Sand had drifted around it until it looked like a mound of dust filled with pebbles, but there it was. Lichen growing on the sides of it. I crunched back over the ridge to the cart. The new duck indicated a different course than the one I had charted the night before, but at one-to-one-million scale, the map wasn’t going to give me much help once I got into the immediate area of the red dot, and the duck might be part of a trail leading straight to it. So I hauled the cart over the ridge, and very nearly twisted an ankle. “That will never do.” The tendonitis in my knee was flaring up, but I ignored it. At the second duck I left the cart and searched for a third. I found it over another ridge; it was a fairly big duck, though it had fallen on its side and looked like a talus spill if you didn’t look closely. It was unfortunate the terrain was so rough. But it made sense. The rebels would have put their refuge in the most inaccessible location they could find. Still, it took me nearly an hour to recover from the crossing of that ridge. I turned up my oxygen supply a bit, and searched again.
The next duck led me up a narrow, shallow chute, one that gave me a way to climb a broad tilted face that was like the side of a mountain. Thankful that I was done with ridge crossings, I hauled the cart up the chute twenty steps at a time, pausing after each twenty to catch my breath and strength. Out on the slope it was very hot, at least on the side of me facing the sun. I was surprised to find it was after noon. The sweat on my brow tasted good. When I moved my hand I saw it blur through space a bit. Wondering vaguely when the next duck would appear, I started climbing again.
I was near the top of that pitch, and feeling that the chaos must have turned on its side, when I saw the figure climbing ahead of me. My heart pulsed violently, its thump banged in my ears. “Hey!” I called weakly, and gathered myself for a shout. “Hello! Hellooo!”
The figure kept climbing. It wore a helmeted suit, and was bent nearly double in the steep last section of the chute. It was fast; I would have to hurry to catch up. I turned up my oxygen flow again, and started after this mysterious climbing partner. It disappeared over the top of the chute, and when I topped out myself I was surprised to see it hiking across a plateau that seemed relatively level after the wall we had just ascended.
So the rebels had placed their refuge in a knot of steep hills at the center of the chaos, giving them a view of the whole bowl. Admirable. Sweat got in my eyes and stung them badly; the whole world wavered through my tears. My breath came in such harsh gasps I could hardly talk. “Don’t hike so fast! Hey up there! Stop.”
The plateau suddenly folded up and then dropped away. The edge of the fold led up to the right, and on the plateau’s side it was a broad ridge, easy to climb. But broken layers of rock lay on the ridge like shingles, and pulling the cart up each step was hard. My body felt like the skin was everywhere aflame, and I sloshed in my own sweat. Above me on the ridge the figure was standing upright, looking back at me. It waved a hand, gesturing for me to follow. “Yes! Yes,” I said, and gasped, “only, go slow, er.” But it didn’t, and I had to continue to hurry, losing ground on it all the time. Not far above it was a knob of rock, and above that sky, meaning soon it would top this ridge and head off in another direction. Fearfully I yanked the cart sideways and braked the wheels with stones, then left it and hurried up the ridge by myself. I was glad I had; even alone I could barely walk up the ridge to the top knob, and once there I had to crawl on my hands and knees over the knob, which was not very tall.
Once over the knob I found myself standing on a small saddle that led to an even higher peak. I could see for kilometers, all across a world that curved slightly upward as it moved away from me. We were on a knobby saddlebacked hill, at the bottom of the huge bowl of Aureum. The figure was standing in the saddle, looking at me. Its helmet faceplate reflected the low blood-red sun. I waved a hand over my head several times. The faceplate tilted up and the sun’s reflection disappeared; then the glass came down and turned red again. I stumbled off the lower knob, made my way onto the saddle. All my strength was gone. I could barely walk. Mercifully my companion stayed put. Soon I stood before it. It watched me without moving. I spread my hands. “I’m here.”
No movement. Then it lifted a hand, laconic in gesture, and pointed at its ear.
“You don’t need full helmets anymore,” I said. “There’s air enough to breathe now, air enough to talk in. You can’t talk to me with that on.”
No reply. I lifted my hands and mimed unlatching the helmet, but that got no response either. I took a step forward, it took a step back. I raised my arms and displayed the palms of my gloves; what could I, played out, do to it? Perhaps my companion understood this expression. In any case it allowed me to approach. I came at it from the side, so that the reflected sunlight slid away, and I saw that it was Emma.
She looked almost like the photos: brown eyes, down-swooping mouth, a strand or two of dark hair. All my breath left me. “So you did survive,” I whispered. “Oh, Emma. It’s me. I mean, my name is Hjalmar Nederland. I found you. I came here looking for you. I found your journal. I want to join you out here. I’m not going back, not ever. There’s nothing for me back there—” a wave at the world. “Nothing, I say. I’ve left it for good.”
She nodded once, very slightly, and turned and walked along the saddle’s spine looking once over her shoulder to see if I was following. I kept at her heels, stumbling because I would not look away from her. I could not see enough of her — Emma Weil! There she stood! I could scarcely contain my amazement, my joy. Even when walking she was fast; I had to work to keep up with her runner’s walk, but now I was strong, I could do it.
By the time we closed on the higher peak of the saddleback the sun had set, and we stood in the half light of the evening quartet. Now her faceplate was glass only, and her slim face was clearly visible. I indicated again that she should remove her helmet; she shook her head. She looked older, I was glad to see; she looked a woman my age, in her fourth century of life, skin lined with experience, eyes suffused with wisdom. She led me by the hand up the last slope to the summit, and I saw that under the final nest of peak boulders was a band of empty air. That is, there was a chamber without walls that she led me into. Its floor was flagged with smooth stone, and a circle of fluted columns twice our height was all that stood on this floor; and these pillars held up an equally smooth roof, on which the serrated boulders of the summit knot rested.