They were making their way back up to the tent when Orion stopped and said, “There’s a light.”
Ozzie looked down the canyon where the boy was pointing. A tiny golden spark was shining a long way downstream. He wasn’t even sure it was on their side of the river. His retinal insert zoom function couldn’t get a clear image; no matter how high the magnification, it remained a flickering blur. When he switched to infrared, it barely registered. Not a fire, then.
“Probably someone else walking the path,” he said with a reassurance he didn’t feel.
Tochee had seen the light as well, though the alien’s eye was unable to focus on it either. They kept watching it as they ate their evening meal of tasteless fruit and cold water, but it wasn’t moving. Ozzie and Tochee took turns through the night to make sure it didn’t come any closer. It was Ozzie who got the midnight to morning shift. He sat on a flattish rock beside the tent, dressed in his cords and checked shirt, with his sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders like a blanket. The river murmured away quietly, and occasionally he heard a low rattling wheeze from Tochee that he classed as alien snoring; other than that there was only the deep silence he would always associate with this world.
A brilliant multitude of stars shone down through the cloudless, moonless sky. He’d never seen so many before, not even when he went worldwalking on new Commonwealth worlds before they were contaminated by civilization’s light pollution. One hazy nebula, four or five times larger than Earth’s moon, kept drawing his attention. It bent sharply at one end, with a reddish spike protruding away from the main haze. He couldn’t remember any astronomical phenomenon remotely like that being close to the Commonwealth. The Devil’s Tail, he named it. Shame nobody would ever know.
In the wilderness hours just before dawn he heard voices. He sat up immediately, unsure if he’d been drifting off to sleep. They could have been the start of some dream. But they weren’t human voices, or at least not ones speaking any language he recognized.
The spark of light hadn’t moved. He switched his inserts to infrared and slowly scanned around, turning a complete circle.
The voices came again. Definitely not a dream. They swept past him, causing him to turn so fast he almost lost his balance. Several of them babbling together. A nonhuman language. They sounded urgent. Frightened.
But it was only the sound. Nothing moved in the canyon. Nothing physical.
Almost he asked: “Who’s there?” Except that really was the stuff of late-night horror DVDs. Dumb.
Whispers slithered past him, somebody—something—whimpering into the distance. Ozzie dropped the sleeping bag and held his arms out, concentrating on his hands, trying to feel air being stirred, the tiniest hint of movement. He closed his eyes, knowing that a visual sense was no longer any use to him. Listening, stroking the air. The sound came again, conjuring up the old phrase “voices on the wind.” He heard what was said, and repeated it back to them softly. It made no difference. They carried on past him, paying no attention.
That was how Orion found him as the first wave of a pale dawn lifted over the canyon walclass="underline" standing motionless with arms outstretched like some religious statue, mumbling words in an alien tongue. The boy clambered out of the tent, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he yawned. “What are you doing?”
Ozzie sighed and let his arms down with a suspiciously yogalike sweeping motion. He gave Orion an inscrutable grin. “Talking to the ghosts.”
Orion’s head whipped around, trying to find… anything. “Are you all right? Did you hit your head or something?”
“Not since that bar on Lothian, and that was years ago. This world is haunted.”
“Ow come on, Ozzie, that’s not funny. Not here. This whole planet is creepy.”
“I know, man. I’m sorry. But I did hear something, like a bunch of people or aliens.”
“The Silfen?”
“No, I know their language. I don’t know what these guys were saying, but you get a feel from the tone. They were sad, or frightened. Maybe both.”
“Hey, quit it! I don’t like this.”
“Yeah. I know. I think that’s the point, man.”
“The point of what?”
“Whatever I experienced.” He frowned. “What did I experience? Accept there’s no such thing as ghosts, so… some kind of projection? Bit childish just to spook travelers. I mean, why not go the whole hog and put a white sheet over your head and jump out on them from behind a rock?”
“You said the Silfen did have an afterlife,” Orion said quietly.
Ozzie gave him a thoughtful look. “You really do pay attention, don’t you?”
“Sometimes.” The boy shrugged as he smirked.
“Okay then, let’s think about this. None of our electronics are working, so the ghosts can’t be any kind of normal projection, holograms, sound focus, that kind of crap. The Silfen are active here, which implies it must be happening with their knowledge or consent.”
“Unless it’s them doing it,” Orion said, suddenly excited. “There’s nothing alive here. We haven’t seen any animals or insects. Maybe this is their afterworld, where all the Silfen ghosts live.”
Ozzie grimaced, and looked around the stark, massive canyon. “Somehow I think not. I’d expect something a little more impressive. But I could be wrong.” He finished up by looking along the canyon. “Yo, can’t see the light anymore, either.”
Tochee slithered up between them, raising a limb of manipulator flesh. WHAT’S HAPPENING? the patterns in its eye asked.
“This should test our vocabulary,” Ozzie muttered.
By midmorning, they could see the black pillars ahead were indeed trees. Even by this world’s standards they were giants, perfect thin cones reaching over a hundred fifty yards into the air. They had been planted in a double row, half a mile to the side of the river, forming an impressive avenue down the canyon.
“Somebody does live here, then,” Orion said as they drew near to the start of the avenue.
“Looks that way.” Ozzie tilted his head back to see the tops of the first trees. “You know, either they’re made out of a wood harder than steel, or there’s hardly any wind here, ever.”
“Is that important?”
“I dunno, dude. But it’s definitely a spike on the bizarro graph.”
Orion giggled. “This whole place is a spike.”
“I’m not arguing.”
An hour later, when the canyon walls straightened out, allowing them to see ahead for miles, they made out a group of figures walking along the avenue ahead of them. Seven people, a long way in front, moving at a steady pace.
BIPEDS LIKE YOU, Tochee’s patterns declared. THEY MADE THE LIGHT LAST NIGHT.
Could have done, Ozzie wrote.
THEY MOVE SLOWER THAN US. WE CAN CATCH THEM TODAY IF WE INCREASE SPEED.
Ozzie had been thinking the same thing. Of course if he really wanted to attract their attention there were several flares left in his backpack, though he didn’t want to use them for anything less than a genuine emergency. And the group in front would have to be looking around at the right moment. He was slightly surprised they hadn’t seen them already, especially given the way Tochee’s fabulous technicolor coating clashed against the drab ironstone.
Speeding up will be hard on us. We will reach them eventually.
AGREED.
In the afternoon, when they’d been walking down the empty avenue for several hours, they came to the first ruin. A small stream wriggled across the canyon, running from the base of the cliff wall down to the river, crossing through the avenue at right angles. At some time long ago, a simple curved stone bridge had carried the path over it. Now all that was left were the solid foundations on either side, sticking up from the dusty ground like a set of broken teeth.