Terra Incognita Page 13
He looked up again and stared vaguely off to the left of the waterfall. I took the opportunity to snatch the log out of his hands.
“The waterfall, you pony-brained nonsentient!” I said, pointing, and he shifted his gaze in the right direction, though who on hell knows what he was really looking at—a cloud, maybe, or some rock slung halfway down the cliff.
“Do the Boohteri have a name for the waterfall?” Carson said patiently.
“Vwarrr,” Bult said.
“That’s the word for water,” Carson said. “Do you have a name for this waterfall?” and Bult looked at Carson with that peculiar questioning look, and I thought, amazed, He’s trying to figure out what Carson wants him to say.
“You said your people had never been in the mountains,” Carson said, prompting him, and Bult looked like he’d just remembered his line.
“Nah nahm.”
“You can’t call it Nah Nahm,” Ev said from behind us. “You’ve got to name it something beautiful. Something grand!”
“Grand Canyon!” I said.
“Something like Heart’s Desire,” Ev said. “Or Rainbow’s End.”
“Heart’s Desire,” Carson said thoughtfully. “That’s not bad. Bult, what about the canyon? Do the Boohteri have a name for that?”
Bult knew his line this time. “Nah nahm.”
“Crown Jewels Canyon,” Ev said. “Starshine Falls.”
“It should really be an indidge name,” Carson said piously. “Remember what Big Brother said. ‘Every effort should be made to discover the indigenous name of all flora, fauna, and natural landmarks.’ ”
“Bult just told you,” I said. “They don’t have a name for it.”
“What about the cliff, Bult?” Carson said, looking hard at Bult. “Or the rocks? Do the indidges have a name for those?”
Bult looked like he needed a prompter, but Carson didn’t seem mad. “What about the crystals?” he said, digging in his pocket. “What did you name that crystal?”
The roaring of the falls seemed to get louder.
“Thitsserrrah,” Bult said.
“Yeah,” Carson said. “Tssarrrah. You said Crystal Falls, Ev. We’ll name it Tssarrrah after the crystals.”
The roar got so loud it made me go dizzy, and I grabbed on to the pony.
“Tssarrrah Falls,” Carson said. “What do you think, Bult?”
“Tssarrrah,” Bult said. “Nahm.”
“How about you?” Carson said, looking at me.
Ev said, “I think it’s a beautiful name.”
I walked over to the edge of the overhang, still feeling dizzy, and sat down.
“That settles it,” Carson said. “Fin, you can send it in. Tssarrrah Falls.”
I sat there listening to the roar and watching the glittering spray. The sun went in behind a cloud and burst out again, and rainbows darted across and above the cliff like shuttlewrens, sparkling like glass.
Carson sat down beside me. “Tssarrrah Falls,” he said. “It was lucky the indidges had a word for those crystals. Big Brother’s been wanting us to give more stuff indigenous names.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Lucky. What does tssarrrah mean, did Bult say?”
“ ‘Crazy female,’ probably,” he said. “Or maybe ‘heart’s desire.’ ”
“How much did you have to bribe him with? Next year’s wages?”
“That was what was funny,” he said, frowning. “I was going to give him the pop-up since he likes it so much. I figured I might have to give him a lot more than that after the oil field, but I asked him if he’d help, and he said yes, just like that. No fines, nothing.”
I wasn’t surprised.
“Did you get the name sent?” he said.
I looked at the falls for a long minute. The water roared down, dancing with rainbows. “I’ll do it on the way down. Hadn’t we better get going?” I said, and stood up.
“Yeah,” he said, looking south at where the clouds were accumulating again. “Looks like it’s going to rain again.”
He held out his hand, and I yanked him to his feet. “You didn’t have any business going off like that,” I said.
He still had hold of my hand. “You didn’t have any business nearly getting yourself killed.” He let go of my hand. “Bult, come on, you’ve got to lead us back down.”
“How on hell are we supposed to do that when the ponies won’t backtrail?” I said, but Bult’s pony walked right through the silvershims and down into the narrow canyon, and ours followed single file without so much as a balk.
“Dust storms aren’t the only things being faked around here,” I muttered.
Nobody heard me. Carson was up behind Bult, still doing the leading, down the side canyon, back through the one where the ponies had given us so much trouble, and then into another side canyon. I let them get ahead and looked back at Ev. He was bent over his terminal, probably looking at shuttlewren stats. I called C.J.
After I talked to her, I looked ahead and caught a glimpse of the side of the falls. The rainbows were lighting up the sky. Ev caught up to me. “They’ll never get it on the pop-ups like it really was,” he said.
“No,” I said. “They won’t.”
The canyon widened, and we could see the falls from an angle, the water leaping sideways off the crystal-studded cliff and straight down.
“Speaking of which,” Ev said, “what’s Carson’s first name?”
I’d told Carson he was smart. “What?”
“His first name. I got to thinking that I don’t know it. On the pop-ups, you never call each other anything but Findriddy and Carson.”
“It’s Aloysius,” I said. “Aloysius Byron. His initials are A.B.C. Don’t tell him I told you.”
“His first name’s Aloysius,” he said thoughtfully. “And yours is Sarah.”
As smart as they come.
“Did you know that in some species the males all compete for the most desirable female?” he said, smiling wryly. “Most of them don’t stand a chance, though. She always picks the one who’s the bravest. Or the smartest.”
“Speaking of which, you were pretty smart to figure out the shuttlewrens built the Wall.”
He brightened. “I still have to prove it,” he said. “I’m going to have to run content analyses and work/size probabilities when I get back to King’s X. And write it up.”
“It’ll be on the pop-ups, too,” I said. “You’ll be famous. Ev Parker, socioexozoologist.”
“You think so?” he said, as if it hadn’t occurred to him before.
“I know so. A whole episode.”
He looked hard at me. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one writing the episodes. You’re Captain Jake Trailblazer.”
“Nope,” I said, “but I know who is.” And her initials are C.J.T., I thought. “My shit, you may get a whole series.”
The canyon opened out, and we were on another overlook, as big as a field this time, and lower down. Off to one side, there was a way down, a slope leading back along the canyon to its floor. Beyond the canyon you could see the plains, pink and lavender. I could see the bluff that backed the anticline off to the east, too far off the scans to notice anything.
“Rest stop,” Bult said, and got off his pony. He sat down under a silvershim and opened out the pop-up.
“Do you hear that?” Carson said, looking up in the sky.
“It’s C.J.,” I said. “I told her to come get Ev so he can work on his theory. He’s gotta run some tests.”
“Is she doing aerials?” he said, looking anxiously back in the direction of the bluff.
“I told her to go south and come in over the Ponypiles, that we needed an aerial of them,” I said.
“What about on the way back?”
“Are you kidding? She’s going to have Ev
with her. She won’t be running any aerials with him in the heli. My shit, she probably forgot to do the aerials on the way down, she was so excited.”
Carson looked at me questioningly. The heli swooped in and hovered above the field. C.J. jumped down from the bay, ran across to Ev, and practically knocked him down, kissing him.
“What’s all that about?” Carson said, watching them.
“Courtship ritual,” I said. “I told her Ev named the falls after her. I told her he named it Crystal Falls.” I looked at Carson. “It was the only way he was ever going to get a jump. On this planet, anyway.”
They were still in a clinch.
“When she finds out what we really named it,” Carson said, grinning, “she’s gonna be really mad. When are you gonna tell her?”
“I’m not,” I said. “That’s the name I sent.”
He quit grinning. “What on hell did you do that for?”
“The other day Ev almost got a name past me. Crisscross Creek. You were worrying about what Bult was up to, and I was busy trying to load everything on the ponies, and when he asked me what we were going to name that little stream we crossed, I wasn’t paying any attention. It wouldn’t have gotten past Big Brother, but it got past me. Because I was busy worrying about something else.”
Ev and C.J. had come out of their clinch and were looking at the waterfall. C.J. was making squealing noises that practically drowned out the falls.
“Crystal Falls won’t get past Big Brother either,” Carson said. “And Tssarrrah Falls would have.”
“I know,” I said, “but maybe they’ll be so busy yelling at us over naming it that and killing the tssi mitss that they’ll forget about the oil field.”
He stared at Ev. C.J. was kissing him again. “What about Evie?”
“He won’t tell,” I said.
“What about Bult? How do we know he won’t lead us out of these mountains and straight into another anticline? Or a diamond deposit?”
“That’s not a problem either. All you’ve got to do is tell him.”
He turned and looked at me. “Tell him what?”
“Can’t you tell when somebody’s got a crush on you? Making you fires, watching your scenes on the pop-ups over and over, giving you presents—”
“What presents?”
“All those dice. The binocs.”
“They were our binocs.”
“Yeah, well, the indidges seem to have a little trouble with that word. He gave you half a shuttlewren, too. And an oil field.”
“That’s why he said he’d help me with the waterfall.” He stopped. “I thought Ev said he was a male.”
“He is,” I said, grinning. “And apparently he’s got as much trouble telling what sex we are as we did with him.”
“He thinks I’m a female?”
“It’s an easy enough mistake,” I said, grinning. I started to walk away.
He grabbed my arm and swung me around to face him. “You’re sure you want to do this? We could get fired.”
“No, we won’t. We’re Findriddy and Carson. We’re too famous to get fired.” I smiled at him. “Besides, they can’t. After this expedition, we’re going to owe them our wages for the next twenty.”
We went over to C.J. and Ev, who were glued together again. “Ev, you and your pony go back with C.J. to King’s X,” I said. “You’ve gotta get that theory on the Wall written up.”
“Evelyn told me about his theory,” C.J. said. I wondered when he’d had the time. “And how he saved you from the tssi mitss.”
“We’re gonna go ahead and finish out the expedition,” Carson said, dragging Ev’s pony over. “I thought we’d survey the Ponypiles as long as we’re here.”
We heaved the pony into the bay, and told C.J. to swing west over the Ponypiles and then north on the way home and try to get an aerial.
She wasn’t paying any attention. “Take all the time you need surveying,” she said, climbing on. “And don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.” She went forward.
Carson handed Ev his pack. “If you could take holos of the Wall at different places, I’d appreciate it,” Ev said. “And samples of the plaster.”
Carson nodded. “Anything else we can do?”
Ev looked up at the heli. “You’ve already done quite a bit.” He shook his head, grinning. “Crystal Falls,” he said, looking at me. “I still think we should’ve named it Heart’s Desire.”
He climbed up into the bay, and C.J. took off, dipping so close to the ground we both ducked.
“Maybe we did too much,” Carson said. “I hope C.J. isn’t so grateful she kills him.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said. The heli circled the canyon like a shuttlewren and swooped down in front of the falls for a last look. They flew off, straight north across the plains, which meant we weren’t going to get any aerials.
“We’re just postponing the inevitable, you know,” he said, looking after the heli. “Sooner or later Big Brother’s going to figure out we’ve been having way too many dust storms, or Wulfmeier’ll stumble onto that vein of silver in 246-73. If Bult doesn’t figure out what he could get for this place and tell them first.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as we think. They didn’t build the Wall, did you know that? They just moved in afterward, clunked the natives on the head, and took over. Bult’d probably own Starting Gate and half of Earth inside a year.”
“And build a dam over the falls,” he said.
“Not if it was a national park,” I said. “You heard what Ev said about how he’d wanted to see the silvershims and the Wall, especially when they find out who built it. I figure people would come a long way to see something like this.” I gestured at the falls. “Bult could charge admission.”
“And fine them for leaving footprints,” he said. “Speaking of which, what’s to stop Bult from getting a crush on you once I tell him I’m not a female?”
“He thinks I’m a male. You said yourself, half the time you can’t tell what sex I am.”
“And you’re never going to let me forget it, are you?”
“Nope,” I said.
I went over to where Bult was sitting, watching the pop-up of Carson holding Skimpy Skirt’s hand. “Come with me,” Carson said.
“Come on, Bult,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
Bult shut the pop-up and handed it to Carson.
“Congratulations,” I said. “You’re engaged.”
Bult got out his log. “Disturbance of land surface,” he said to me. “One-fifty.”
I climbed up on Useless. “Let’s go.”
Carson was looking at the falls again. “I still think we should’ve named it Tssarrrah Falls,” he said. He went over to his pony and started rummaging in his pack.
“What on hell are you doing now?” I said. “Let’s go!”
“Inappropriate tone and manner,” Bult said into his log.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I said. “What are you looking for?” I said to Carson.
“The binocs,” Carson said. “Have you got ’em?”
“I gave ’em to you,” I said. “Now, come on.”
He got on his pony and we started off down the slope after Bult. Out beyond the cliff, the plain was turning purple in the late afternoon. The Wall curved down out of the Ponypiles and meandered across it, and beyond it you could see the mesas and rivers and cinder cones of uncharted territory, spread out before me like a present, like a bowerbird’s treasures.
“You did not give the binocs back to me,” Carson said. “If you lost ’em again—”
“Not much is impossible.”
—Steve Williams, Industrial Light and Magic
“The girl seems to have talent, but the boy can do nothing.”
HOUSE LIGHTS DOWN
BEFORE TITLES
I saw her again tonight. I wasn’t looking for her. It was an early Spielberg liveaction, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a cross between a shoot-’em-up and a VR ride and the last place you’d expect tap shoes, and it was too late. The musical had kicked off, as Michael Caine so eloquently put it, in 1965.
This liveaction was made in ’84, at the very beginning of the computer graphics revolution, and it had a few CG sections: digitized Thugees being thrown off a cliff and a pathetically clunky morph of a heart being torn out. It also had a Ford Tri-Motor plane, which was what I was looking for when I found her.
I needed the Tri-Motor for the big good-bye scene at the airport, so I’d accessed Heada, who knows everything, and she’d said she thought there was one in one of the liveaction Spielbergs, the second Indy maybe. “It’s close to the end.”
“How close?”
“Fifty frames. Or maybe it’s in the third one. No, that’s a dirigible. The second one. How’s the remake coming, Tom?”
Almost done, I thought. Three years off the AS’s and still sober.
“The remake’s stuck on the big farewell scene,” I said, “which is why I need the plane. So what do you know, Heada? What’s the latest gossip? Who’s ILMGM being taken over by this month?”
“Fox-Mitsubishi,” she said promptly. “Mayer’s frantic. And the word is, Universal’s head exec is on the way out. Too many addictive substances.”
“How about you?” I said. “Are you still off the AS’s? Still assistant producer?”
“Still playing Melanie Griffith in Working Girl,” she said. “Does the plane have to be color?”
“No. I’ve got a colorization program. Why?”
“I think there’s one in Casablanca.”
“No, there’s not,” I said. “That’s a two-engine Lockheed.”
She said, “Tom, I talked to a set director last week who was on his way to China to do stock shots.”