Poul Anderson - New America

(Mary’s touch was soft. Not that she was an idler. Even on High America, survival required that every healthy adult work, and she did a competent job of keeping the hospital records. But she never had to cut brush, midwife a cow, cook on a wood fire for a campful of loggers, dress an animal she herself had shot and cure its hide. Such was lowlander labor, and it would be death for Highland Mary to try, even as it was death for her to be long marooned in the wilderness around Lake Moondance.)

“Sure,” Eva said gently, “I understand. You’ve fretted your nerves raw.”

“What does bring you here at this hour?”

“The same as you.” She frowned. “Do you think I’m not concerned? Bill Svoboda and the Loch-abers, they’re my friends as well as yours.”

Dan struck fist in palm, again and again. “What can we do?”

“Start a search.”

“Yes. One wretched little aircar available, to scout over how many thousands of square kilometers? It’d take days to assemble a fleet of vehicles. They haven’t got days. Bill does, maybe, but Mary and Ralph… very possibly don’t.”

“Why not? If their helmets are intact——”

“You haven’t seen as many cases as I have. It takes a pretty strong man, with considerable training, to wear one of those rigs almost constantly. When your own chest expansion has to power the reduction pump—the ordinary person can’t sleep in one of them. That, and sheer muscular exhaustion, make the body extra vulnerable to pressure intoxication, when the victim takes the helmet off so he can rest.”

Dan had spoken in a quick, harsh monotone. Eva replied less grimly: “They can’t be any old where. They were homebound, after all.”

“But you know they, the Lochabers, they wanted to see more of the countryside, and Bill promised he’d cruise them around. They’d’ve been zigzagging the whole way. They could have landed at random, as far as we’re concerned, for a closer look at something, and come to grief. Even if we pass near, treetops or crags or mists can hide their vehicle from us.”

“I’m aware that this is a rather large and not especially mapped country.” Eva’s response was dry. It broke into anger. She stamped her foot. “Why are you moping around like this? Dan Coffin, the great discoverer! Won’t you try?”

He hit back indignation of his own. “I intend to start at dawn. I assure you it’s no use flying at night, it’s a waste of fuel. Light-amplifier systems lose too much detail, in that complicated viewfield where the smallest trace may the one that counts. The odds are astronomical against chancing in sight of a beacon fire or in metal-detector range or——” He slumped. “Oh, God, Eva, why am I being sarcastic? You’ve flown more than I have. It’s so huge a territory, that’s all. If I had the slightest clue——”

Once more her manner mildened. “Of course.” Slowly: “Could we maybe have such a lead? Some faint indication that they might have headed one way rather than another? Did Mary—did Mary tell you she was especially interested in seeing some particular sight?”

“Well, the geysers at Ahriman,” he said in his wretchedness. “But the last call-in we got from them was that they’d visited this and were about to proceed elsewhere.”

“True. I’ve played back that tape a few times myself.”

“Maybe you put an idea into their heads. Eva? You saw considerable of them, too, while they were here.”

“So I did. I chatted about a lot of our natural wonders. Ralph’s fascinated by the giant species.” She sighed. “I offered to find him a herd of tera-saur. We flew to Ironwood where one had been reported, but it had moved on northward, the trail was clear but there was a thunderstorm ahead. I had ;rouble convincing Ralph how foolish we’d be to fly near that weather. Just because lowland air currents are slow, those High Americans always seem to think they lack force…. No, Ralph’s bright, he knows better; but he does have a reckless streak. Why am I rambling? We——”

She broke off. Dan had stiffened where he stood. “What is it?” she whispered.

“That could be the clue we need.” The night wind boomed under his words.

“What?” She seized him by the wrist. Only afterward did he notice that her nails had broken his skin.

“Terasaur—they migrate upward in summer, you know. Bill could’ve promised to locate a herd for the Lochabers, maybe the same herd you failed to see. Their tracks are easy enough to spot from above—” He grabbed her to him. “You’re wonderful! It may turn out to be a false lead, but right now it is a lead and that’s plenty. Come daybreak, I’m on my way!”

Tears broke from her, though her voice stayed level. “I’m coming along. You may need help.”

“What? I’ll take a partner, certainly——”

“The partner will be me. I can pilot a car, shoot a gun, or treat an injury as well as anybody else. And haven’t I earned the right?”

In the several years of his career as an explorer, Dan Coffin had often returned to High America. Not only did the scientists and planners want the information he gathered about this planet that they hoped to people with their descendants; but he himself must discuss further expeditions and arrange for equipping them. Moreover, he had family and friends there.

Additionally, at first, he found refreshment of both body and spirit in the land. High America rose above the cloud deck that covered most of Rustum most of the time; its skies were usually clear, its winters knew snow and its summers cool breezes through their warmth. Compared to the low country, it was almost like Earth.

Or so he imagined, until gradually he began to wonder. He had gotten a standard teaching about the variations. The sun was smaller in Earth’s sky though somewhat more intense, its light more yellowish than orangy. Earth took one-point-seven years to complete a circuit around Sol, but spun on its axis in a mere twenty-four hours. There was a single moon, gigantic but sufficiently far off that it showed half the disc that Raksh did and took about eleven days (about thirty Earth-days) for a cycle of phases. Dan Coffin, who weighed a hundred kilos here, would weigh eighty on Earth. The basic biologies of the two worlds were similar but not identical, for instance, leaves yonder were pure green, no blue tinge in their color, and never brown or yellow except when dying….

Searching his memories, then asking questions carefully framed, he came to realize how poorly the older people—even those who had grown to adulthood on Earth, and even when helped by books and films—were able to convey to him some sense of what the mother globe really was like. Did the differences add up to such alienness that they themselves could no longer quite imagine it? And if this was true, what about the younger folk, the Rustumites born? And what about the children whom they in turn were starting to have?

So did Dan Coffin really need High America?

Most humans absolutely did, of course. The air pressure at lower altitudes was too much for them, made them ill if they were exposed more than very briefly, eventually killed them. But his body could take it, actually thrive on it. In fact, on each return he missed more keenly the high-metabolism vigor that was his down below, the clarity of sound and richness of smells. Besides, High America was too damn cramped. Oh, there was still a lot of fallow real estate; but the future belonged to those who could settle the lowlands. Already the whole wild, beautiful, mysterious, limitlessly beckoning surface of the world was theirs.

He continued to enjoy his visits as a change of pace, a chance to meet people, savor the civilized amenities, roister a bit in what few establishments Anchor supported for that purpose. Yet it was always good to get back to Moondance. This became especially true after Eva Spain arrived there.