said Belle. “They’re all silent.”
“Belle,” I said, “are any of them geostationary?”
“What’s geostationary?” asked Gabe. “I’ve heard the term but I don’t know what it means. Something about standing still?”
“Yes. It’s a satellite whose orbital velocity matches the rotation, so it always appears to be in the same place in the sky. It’s used for communications. The advantage of it is that once the transmitter is aimed at it, you don’t have to make adjustments.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
Belle said,
We were passing over a city at the time, with the same towering structures we’d seen elsewhere, streets and highways, groves and meadows, a couple of fenced places with benches on both sides, resembling athletic fields. But trees and bushes were growing all over everything. There was nothing remotely resembling park maintenance.
Gabe looked uncertain. Finally he shook his head. “I think it’s time to go down and try again.”
“Why?” I asked. “We already know they don’t want us around.”
“I don’t know,” said Gabe. “I just don’t want to simply walk away.”
“Gabe, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Why do we keep having the same conversation? Look, take us down to one of the small towns. You stay in the lander, all right? I’ll go knock on doors. There must be somebody home somewhere.”
I told Belle that if something happened and we didn’t come back, she should return home. In reality there would be nothing else she do.
We passed over more small towns, open fields, and occasional lone houses. I was astonished at the resemblance to Rimway. “The reality,” said Gabe, “is that there are only so many ways to construct roads and houses. I guess everything will always look like home.” I didn’t say anything more as we got into the lander and launched. I just sat there staring out at the countryside and waiting for him to tell me where he wanted to go. “Belle,” I said, “what’s the atmosphere look like?”
“Glad to hear it,” Gabe said. I didn’t comment and eventually he sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Chase, but you didn’t used to be so negative. What’s happened to you?”
“What’s the way to take it?”
“Come on, kid. You know what I mean. I’m in favor of being cautious. But sometimes you just have to take a chance.” We floated over a town surrounded by hills. A road led through it, forked, and disappeared toward more hills in one direction and a lake in the other. There was still no sign of occupants. No one came out to look up at us. No vehicle moved anywhere, although there were several on the side of the road, and others in carports and garages. If there’d been lawns at one time, they were seriously overgrown now.
We took the road that went toward the lake and stayed with it as it turned north, eventually passing a house. It was a chalet really, a cabin with broad overhanging eaves. A field full of what were probably weeds. “That might be a good place to try,” Gabe said. “It’s out of sight of everywhere else.”
We descended in the lander. The field had plenty of room for us. There was an animal, though. It looked like a canine and was gnawing on something. A shed stood off to one side, with the rear end of a vehicle that might have been a tractor parked halfway out.
Vegetation was flourishing. The sun shone in a cloudless sky. As we neared the ground a group of birds left their perches on the chalet’s roof and fluttered away. The canine continued to ignore us.
I concentrated my attention on the back door. I was wishing it would open and something would come out and scare Gabe off. Finally the canine noticed us and ran away just before we touched down.
I shut off the drive unit and we sat unmoving. Gabe finally tucked his blaster into his belt, stood up, and went into the air lock. “Stay here, Chase,” he said.
I wasn’t ready for another argument, and anyhow I still hadn’t gotten those creeping vines out of my mind. I made sure I had weapons close at hand and told him okay. “If you really want to do it this way.” I handed him a link. “Put this somewhere so I can watch what happens.”
“I’ll be fine, Chase.” He clipped it to his shirt. “If something bad happens,” he said, “I don’t want you coming after me. I’m pretty well armed.”
I nodded. “Leave the hatches open.” He took that frustrated look at the distant sky. Then he went through the air lock, checked outside in both directions, signaled that the canine wasn’t visible, and got out. The display was still blank. “Gabe,” I said, “turn the link on.”
The monitor lit up just in time for me to see the canine charging out of the trees. It resembled a mastiff and was half as big as Gabe was. He fired the blaster into the air. The animal stopped, thought about it, and came for him again. He took aim and blew it apart. “I hope,” I said, “we didn’t just kill someone’s pet.”
He stood for a minute, waiting to see if the noise would draw attention from someone in the house. I was thinking he should come back into the lander. But nothing changed. No one came out of the chalet. Gabe waved to signify he was okay. Then he started for the back door. It had a knob.
He walked over, knocked, and got no response. Then he pulled on it, and it opened. He yelled, “Hello,” and went inside, into an area that had two wooden chairs and a large sofa and a table. I caught my breath: There was a skeleton. It wasn’t human; the skull was too large and the arms too long. It was sprawled on the floor near the entry to a corridor. Tatters of clothes surrounded it. Gabe took a moment to look down the corridor, from where he could see into another room that housed more chairs and a larger table. He knelt down to examine the skeleton. he said. After a minute he got up and entered another room. This one had a sink, something that looked like a refrigerator, and an electronic device that might have been an oven. He tried to open the refrigerator, but the door wouldn’t move. There was another door at the end of the corridor. And a set of stairs ascended to the upper floor. He looked up the stairway, saw nothing of interest, and walked over to the door. He pushed on it and it opened. A glass outer door looked across the front. Its glass was shattered.
He came back outside and returned to the lander. “I don’t know what killed him,” he said.
“Is it a male? Can you tell?”
“I’ve no clue.”
“I wonder if the rest of the area is like this?”
“Probably.”
I was wondering about the rest of the . I was ready to go back to the . “What do you want to do next?” I asked. He settled into his seat and we lifted off.
“Follow the road. Let’s see what else is here.”
We found another town nestled against a river a few kilometers away. But the place had been torched. Almost every house, every building, had burned to the ground. A car that had plunged into a ditch contained four skeletons. Its windows were broken, and it was rusted. It had been white at one time, a smooth, sleek vehicle, and would have fit into the traffic at home without drawing much attention. Except maybe that it was large.