"We should check out the neighborhood," Shannon said.
Quinn pointed downhill. MacArthur pushed off without further discussion. As he made his way down the steep path the corporal glanced into the blue skies and saw two motes circling high overhead.
"We're being watched," he said, pointing out the flyers.
"You think they got Lieutenant Buccari's book?" Shannon asked.
"You think they can really read?" Petit asked. "They're stupid animals."
"You can read, can't you?" MacArthur chuckled. "Sort of?" "Bite my—"
"I told you to cut it out," Shannon snapped. "Especially you, Mac."
"Sorry, Petit," MacArthur apologized. "But someone patched me up, and if it ain't those ugly buggers, then something else lives up there."
Petit grumbled an acknowledgment.
"Let's move," Quinn ordered, taking the lead.
The rocky trail fell precipitously as it reached toward the river, switching back and forth across the face of the gorge. MacArthur saw the bridge long before the patrol reached it. Shrouded in river mist, the bridge spanned the river at its darkest and narrowest point, reaching almost two hundred meters in length. At its lowest point the bridge was fifty meters above the frothing white torrent. Upstream, at a level higher than the bridge, the river crashed over tall cataracts, throwing thick mists into the air, obscuring the view and making conversation impossible. Downstream, swirling waters careened between the gorge walls, swinging to the north and out of sight.
The immensity of the plateau was even more spectacular from this lowest of vantage points. Rock walls mounted vertically, their imperceptible slant exaggerating a sense of infinity with incredible perspectives. The sun, just past its zenith, was already setting behind towering cliffs, and river mists fractured the rays of light, sending improbable rainbows across the chasm.
MacArthur again detected two cliff dwellers gliding through the mists, heading for wet rocks above the bridgehead on the opposite side.
"Suspension…chain link…!" shouted Quinn over the river's roar.
MacArthur examined the fist-sized links and followed the converging and diverging catenaries of the support cables as they swooped down from the cliffs on either side of the river. Parallel chains came out of the bedrock at his feet, forming a narrow bridge bed. Wooden treads, slick with moisture, were firmly attached at half-pace intervals, presenting more open space then floor. The view of the roiled water through the bottom of the bridge was unnerving.
MacArthur checked the chain cables for corrosion but found only traces of oxidation. Some of the mist-chilled and dripping links appeared newer than their neighbors, as if they had been replaced. The workmanship was rough and unpolished, but the individual links were well forged and continuous. He placed a foot on the first tread and tentatively tested his weight. The bridge was solid. MacArthur walked across, gingerly avoiding a misstep into the tread gaps. The others followed, one at a time. The river below served notice of its power, not that MacArthur needed reminding.
Once across there was no place to go but to follow the trail. It tracked upstream along the steep cliffside of the opposite bank for a hundred paces and then climbed sharply to a point where the rock wall of cliff plunged sharply to meet it. Reaching the bottom of the vee, they found themselves in the narrow valley observed from the heights of opposite bank. The trail leveled and meandered upward, traversing the valley's steeply sloping sides, making for a distant point at the head of the valley. Small stands of yellow-barked fir sprinkled the vale, but for the most part, the rock-strewn valley was devoid of vegetation.
They walked through the afternoon, stopping next to a rock-bottomed brook that defined the fall line. The trail leveled, and intermittent patches of taiga prairie grew larger and more continuous. Behind them the plateau was undiminished—a ziggurat hanging high over their heads. Craning his neck, MacArthur turned to scan the massif, subconsciously taking a step rearward. Upstream, the face of the plateau curved gracefully away until it presented its profile, revealing the irregularity of its surface. Terraces, overhangs, prominences and craggy pinnacles ranged along the silhouetted granite.
Flows of steam emanated from the river, climbing in snaky streamers from the base of the cliff. The thick tendrils ascended on humid air currents and merged with other wisps and vapors appearing to vent from the cliffs themselves. As the afternoon breezes died and the temperatures dropped, the veils of steam visibly thickened and grew more persistent, approaching and occasionally ascending past the crest of the cliffs—thin, black wisps against the yellow gold of the evening sky. The shadowed cliff face turned gray and flowed upwards.
MacArthur forced his gaze from the steam-faced colossus. The rivulet they had been following had diminished to a trickling, flower-shrouded seep. MacArthur stood erect and sniffed. "You smell it?"
"Smell what?" Petit asked. "All I can smell are my own armpits."
"Animals, millions of them," MacArthur replied. "Musk oxen or buffalo, or something. When we get to the top you'll see them, and, man, will you ever smell them."
"Commander," Shannon said, biting at the air like a big dog. "We should make camp for the night as soon as we get to the top. I don't see much benefit in hiking out on the plains. We're totally exposed. No campfires tonight."
"You call the shots out here, Sergeant," Quinn answered.
Daylight retreated. The insidious pressures of the spreading openness nagged at the men, their discomfiture exacerbated by the looming presence of the plateau at their backs. They finally walked upon the spreading prairie, and as they walked the smell took on a metallic palpability, a foreboding essence. The patrol topped a tundra-covered hillock and the distant herd of musk-buffalo came dimly into view. The humans studied the serenely grazing animals.
"Phew!" Petit moaned. "We ain't going to camp in the middle of this shit stink are we?"
"Stow it, Petit," Shannon said.
"I gotta' agree with Petit on this one, Sarge," MacArthur said. "Why don't we head back to the spring and make camp. The smell wasn't too bad back there. Shouldn't take us more than a half hour. Tomorrow we go back and pick up the trail to the valley."
"Sounds good to me," Quinn agreed. "What do you think, Sarge?"
"I just want to get off this open ground," Shannon said. He took one last look at the musk-buffalo, turned about, and started walking toward the river; the others followed. The horizon line formed by the plateau was high above them, a starkly black silhouette against the last deep red tints of twilight. A thick flight of first magnitude stars already sparkled overhead. Darkness descended, and the rolling hills of the taiga plains lost their definition in the dusk.
"What's that?" Shannon gasped. "Look! Up there! And there—"
"Yeah!" Petit whispered. "I see 'em. Lights, all over the cliff."
The men stood as statues, staring at the solid blackness rising before them. Faint lights, subdued glows, flickered intermittently along the face of the cliff. The yellow-tinted emanations faded and returned, screened by the currents of steam wafting vertically. Faint, almost imperceptible lights, were sprinkled across the face of the plateau, lending it a magical, ephemeral quality. The face of the plateau ceased to be rock but instead became a galaxy of stars, embedded with shifting constellations.
"That's worth the walk," Quinn whispered.
Braan listened to the long-legs' exclamations and understood their awe. The lights of the cliff had been a source of strength and a beacon of safety for countless hunters returning from the limitless plains.
"What are you thinking?" Craag asked.
"They have seen our homes," Braan said. "We have little left to hide."