William Dietrich - Getting back

The eavesdropper grinned. "At least I tried. We hairless apes need information to survive. Right?"

"Which we don't have," Daniel said.

"Well," Ico added, "I know where we aren't."

"Kansas?" asked Tucker.

"No, where we're supposed to be." He enjoyed their mystification. "Since I was awake anyway, I had a little fun at the transfer point. They tied tags to us like corpses to sort us out. I had a minute to shift them while we waited on gurneys in the dark. We've been put where one quartet was supposed to be and they've been put in our place. Funny, no?"

"You switched our destination?" Amaya asked. "Why?"

"We don't know where we are. But now they don't either." He bent back his head to shout to the sky. "You lost your luggage, you arrogant bastards!" Some of the birds flew up in alarm.

Daniel shook his head. "You're crazy, you know that?"

"Damn right I'm crazy. Why else would I be here?"

There was some befuddled silence as the others digested what Ico had done. It shouldn't matter, should it? "So," Daniel said, "we don't know where we are or exactly where we have to go. Should we talk some strategy?"

"Australia generally gets wetter the farther east you go," Amaya recited, remembering the geography they'd been briefed on. "The desert looks pretty dry beyond the trees of this oasis. Judging from that, I'd say we have a long ways to go."

"That's good," Tucker said. "I came for a long ways."

"Let's be pessimistic," Daniel said. "Say a thousand straight-line miles to the coast, and we average fifteen a day."

"But only ten in a straight line," Amaya amended.

"Yeah, okay. So that's a hundred days. A bit over three months. We can do that, right?"

"I don't know if we can move even that fast," Tucker cautioned. "Eventually we have to look for food, water. Finding our way…"

"We should allow for injuries and rest," Amaya said. "And some R and R."

"We should allow for the possibility they set us down ten miles from the west coast and we have to walk across the whole bloody continent, which is as big as the United States," said Ico.

"Which is exactly the puzzle we asked for, right?" added Tucker.

"We know the most important thing," Daniel said. "We have to walk toward that rising sun. Exodus Port is on the east coast."

"And maybe we do know more," Ico added.

Tucker grinned. "Uh-oh, here it comes. He heard something after all."

"No. But I wasn't content with being spoon-fed by Outback Adventure, either. As far as I was concerned, they were the first challenge, with their 'we'll tell you this but not that' bullshit. So I did a little research outside the envelope."

"And?" Amaya asked.

"I bought a map."

"What! How?"

"You can get all kinds of stuff on the black market."

"They didn't confiscate it?"

"Not unless they unsewed my sleeping bag." He bent to his pack. "I put it in my lining."

Tucker was shaking his head. "You're something else, you know that, Washington? What you did is against the rules. What you did does defeat the purpose."

Ico was using a penknife to cut a small slit in his sleeping bag. "It defeats their purpose, which is to have us wandering around the desert like morons. My purpose is to prove I can beat the system and think for myself." He brought out a folded paper. "We're at war, people. With nature, with Outback Adventure, and with time. I intend to win." He unfolded the map. "Ta-da!"

"It doesn't matter," Daniel dismissed.

"Here, see?" Ico held it up proudly.

"It's useless, Ico."

He looked irritated. "What do you mean?"

"Show me on that map where we are."

"We're going to figure out where we are. With landmarks."

"Show me where we're going."

"Give me time, Dyson."

"Even if we had a clue where we are on your map, we don't know if it's fake or real. It could lead us astray as easily as take us where we need to go. It's a complete waste of time and money." He didn't like the fact that Ico had brought a map without telling them. Or eavesdropped. Or switched their drop-off point. It was an arrogant little stunt.

"Daniel…" Amaya mediated.

"Maybe," Ico said. "Or it just may save your ass." He was defiant. "I checked my supplier out. I believe this is real. And I'm trying to play the game by my rules."

"No you're not. You're trying to cheat. I want to beat them fairly, by finding our own way."

"You want to jump through their hoops. Good doggie."

"I think you should have stayed home if you need a damn road atlas…"

"Boys! Please!" Amaya looked like an exasperated schoolteacher. "Is this some kind of testosterone thing, or what?"

"It's a philosophical discussion," Daniel said.

"About ends and means," Ico added.

"Well, this boy thinks we ought to stop talking and start walking," Tucker said. "You two can argue along the way. About a hundred paces behind Amaya and me, please."

Ico sighed and shrugged. "Okay, I'll tuck the map away for now. You'll be asking for it later. In the meantime, which way, Mister Let's-Do-It-The-Hard-Way?"

Daniel pointed toward the rising sun. "That way."

Before they set out they filtered and drank water from the pools until they were satiated, trying to flush the last of the sleep chemicals from their systems. Then they filled all the water containers they had. With several weeks of food on their backs, they agreed, water posed their biggest challenge. They had to find it every two to three days, at most. Then, that goal established, they started east, following the base of a rocky ridge that led roughly in that direction. The walking was neither particularly difficult nor easy. There was little soil, the ground instead dominated by sand, clay, rocks, and a dry, clumpy grass that pricked at them when they brushed it, forcing a meandering course between its tufts. "Spinifex," Amaya identified. It was necessary to watch constantly where one stepped, but the route was fairly level and it was not hard to make progress in an easterly direction and keep oriented.

As delighted as they were to finally be in Australia, Daniel thought, it was satisfying to begin making progress across it. Ahead was their simple new goal, behind a confirmation of how far they'd come. Progress! A mile already. He knew he shouldn't be counting steps, but the habit of setting a schedule, measuring miles, and listing goals was impossible to break. They were not accustomed to wander.

The air had the same astonishing clarity of the videos they'd seen, with no atmospheric haze to soften what seemed a hard, angular land. The few clouds that had been present at dawn disappeared, leaving a blank blue sky of steadily increasing heat. As the sun rose and the shadows shrank, every grain of sand and waxy leaf seemed picked out in detail. In this light there was no mystery about the kind of place they had come to. It was brittle, thin, challenging.

"This is real in-your-face kind of country," Tucker called it.

As if to make his description literal, the flies came as the morning warmed, swarming in numbers beyond the experience of any in the quartet. The insects didn't bite but they orbited the adventurers' heads with a persistence that soon grew annoying. They buzzed into ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, seeking human fluids, and were kept at bay only with a tiresome flapping of the arm.

"Lord Almighty," Tucker complained. "I don't remember being told about these."

"I read about them," Amaya said. "The joke is that your waving arm was the Australian salute. Some claim the Europeans brought them. They're a curse, for despoiling the land."

"I just got here. They should go curse someone else."

A hot breeze kept the bugs at bay for a while but any stillness brought them back. "A thousand miles with these guys?" Ico panted.

"There's about thirty that have landed on that house you're carrying on your back," Tucker said. "Not that you'd feel the difference."