Jefferson nodded but said nothing else. Ethan knew he was as worried about this as everyone else, but he detected a subtle change in an element of Jericho’s thoughts. The man now was not entirely focused on himself, but had opened the cavern of his soul a little bit to allow in concern for the others and the mission ahead. Still…the man had known selfishness all his life, it was part of his being, and he used it as both sword and shield.
Number 712 rumbled on, across a landscape of surreal beauty with its red rock cliffs and formations of stone that seemed fashioned by an alien hand. Mesas and mountains loomed in the misty distance, across a plain of gray-stubbled vegetation. Ethan took it all in with as much interest as any tourist. He’d been aware of Dave’s ruminations on the planet but had lingered there only briefly. If these people knew what he had observed of worlds across the cosmos, they would be amazed by the variety but also frightened, because the physics of this planet did not hold true on others. Some of the civilizations had evolved into pure cerebral energy, others were animalish and still fighting from the mud of their beginnings. Some had found their way to interstellar travel and use of the dimensional portals, others lived in caves. There were great cities and noble rulers, there were harsh prison-states, and males and females who existed as leeches on the societies they commanded. It was out there, a billionfold. And the languages and mathematics, clothing styles and entertainments, fields of study and commerce, rites of passage and customs, mythologies and rituals, sexual practices, births and deaths…beyond counting.
Yet for all this, he was alone.
He was rarely summoned to intervene, but always for a cause that involved the death of a world by conquest. Sometimes the greater power that had created him did not summon him, but the vast network of information that he was tuned to told him civilizations were being destroyed by others either greedy, envious, or in a religious fervor. He understood that he was not called to intervene in the politics and progress of a world, but rather to keep a world from being destroyed by an external force. The Gorgons and Cyphers, their real names impossible for the humans to speak or understand, had been at war over unpopulated planets for eons. They had fought each other across space, over dead pieces of rock and worlds of ice and flame, but in all that time this Earth was the first populated world they had contested. Their self-proclaimed border between what they considered their territories passed directly through the planet.
It could not be allowed, that this world should be destroyed. And why? Was it so important, in the view of the greater power that the peacekeeper obeyed? He had wondered about this but had received no answer. In its silence, the greater power could be very cryptic at times, and also unsettling even to Ethan’s steady nature. He didn’t understand it, but he was not expected to. The ways and plans of the greater power were unknown to him; he was a small part of a massive undertaking that left even his thought processes numbed. He did what he was called to do, though it was left to him to decide the course of action. A test, as Dave had put it? A test of both himself and the will of the inhabitants of this world? He couldn’t say. There was some element of curiosity in the greater power as to how civilizations progressed, he knew that, but even to him, there were many mysteries that would never be revealed.
He kept watch on the trackers. The Cypher tracker remained at the edge of the atmosphere. The Gorgon warship kept its distance of around seventy miles. He had the feeling of many Gorgon eyes and Cypher sensors directed at the bus, as it moved slowly along the highway between cliffs banded with a dozen shades of red. They feared him, but they must have him. They would choose the time and place.
From a pocket of his jeans, Dave drew the many-times-folded and dirty Utah map torn from the road atlas. There were several mountains in the area to which they were headed; they’d have to figure out which one was the White Mansion, because he doubted very much that it would be marked with any kind of sign.
It was a slow progress southward. Hannah was afraid to push the engine or the tires too hard, but at least they were good for fuel. The land flattened out and then rose again toward a mountain range. What appeared to be rugged badlands stretched out on both sides. They passed the black hulks of a tractor-trailer truck and two cars that had collided in what must have been a terrible fireball, but otherwise the highway was empty.
Just after ten o’clock they passed through the center of the town of Monticello, which appeared to be deserted. Highway 191 became Main Street. Dave had given the map plenty of study and knew they had to get into the Manti-La-Sal National Forest, which was off to the west of Monticello. A smaller road, 101, was their way in. A weather-beaten sign in front of the post office at the corner of 191 and West 200 directed them to turn there for the National Forest. In another few minutes West 200 became Abajo Drive, which became 101 and began to climb toward the forested foothills.
Much of the forest had turned brown and died. Pine and birch trees stood bony and bare. Through them, as they continued to climb, Olivia caught sight to their left of a looming mountain with a peak of white stone. All the surrounding mountains were covered with a brown blanket of dead forests. “You see that?” she asked Dave, and pointed.
“I see it. Maybe ten miles away. I don’t know exactly how the hell to get there, but that looks promising. Ethan, is that the mountain?”
“I think it is,” Ethan answered. “It must be.”
“He can sense a spaceship seventy-two miles away and a tracker in outer space but he doesn’t know if that’s the right mountain or not, right in front of him,” Jefferson said. “Great.”
“The tracker is not in outer space,” Ethan corrected him. “As for the mountain, I only know what’s on Dave’s map.”
“There might not be a road,” Hannah said. The engine was straining as 101 steepened. “Looks pretty rugged over that way.”
“We’ll keep going until we can’t go any further,” Dave told her. “Then we’ll figure something else out.”
The road crested and the mountain was in full view. It might have been majestic but for many thousands of dead trees. It was definitely the only peak of white stone in sight. Then the road descended for a stretch, with diseased forests on either side, before it began to climb once more and took a turn to the left.
“She’s chuggin’,” Hannah said, but everyone could already feel the bus shuddering as it fought its way up. Again Highway 101 crested, with another swing to the south, and began a long winding journey down among the foothills from which the white-peaked mountain rose. Hannah was trying to put as light a foot on the brakes as possible, but she couldn’t allow the bus to get out of control descending this road. “I might be burnin’ the brakes up,” she worried. “They’re soggy enough already, and she’s pullin’ to the right.”
“You’re doing fine,” Dave said. He was alert for the smell of burning brakes, though; it would be a long way down if they gave out.
In about four miles or so 101 straightened out again and ran south parallel to the mountain in question. Everyone on the bus was looking for a way up, but there were only thousands of acres of brown trees unbroken by another road.
“I don’t see a way to get any closer,” Hannah said. “From here it’d be one hell of a walk.”
“Keep going,” Dave urged. “Could be a road up on the other side.”
Another two miles passed. A more narrow road branched off from 101 to the right, and Dave told Hannah to take that one. They began climbing again, though moving more to the northwest and away from the white rock peak. Dave said, “I’m not sure this is the way but let’s stick it out for awhile.”