“Really lucky!” Carson said, his mustache quivering. “So, what do you want to name it?”
“Name it?” Ev’s head jerked around to look at Carson, and I thought, Well, so much for birds and scenery, we’re back to sex.
“Yeah,” Carson said. “It’s a natural landmark. It’s gotta have a name. How about Rainbow Falls?”
“Rainbow Falls?” I snorted. “It’s gotta have a better name than that,” I said. “Something big, something that’ll give some idea of what it looks like. Aladdin’s Cave.”
“Can’t name it after a person.”
“Prism Falls, Diamond Falls.”
“Crystal Falls,” Ev said, still staring at it.
He’d never get it past them. Chances were Big Brother, ever vigilant, would spot it and send us a pursuant that said Crissa Jane Tull worked on the survey team and the name was ineligible, and this time they’d be able to prove a connection, and we’d get fined to within an inch of our lives. It was too bad, because Crystal Falls was the perfect name for it. And until Big Brother caught it, Ev would get a lot of jumps out of C.J. “Crystal Falls,” I said. “You’re right. It’s perfect.” I looked at Carson, wondering if he was thinking the same thing, but he wasn’t even listening. He was looking at Bult, who had his head bent over his log.
“What’s the Boohteri name for the waterfall, Bult?” Carson asked, and Bult glanced up, said something I couldn’t hear, and looked down at his log again.
I left Ev drooling into the canyon and went over by them, thinking, Great, it’s going to end up being called Dead Soup Falls or, worse, “Ours.” “What’d he say?” I shouted to Carson.
“Damage to rock surface,” Bult said. He was catching up his fines. “Damage to indigenous flora.”
I figured he was going to have to add, “Inappropriate tone and manner,” but Carson didn’t look so much as annoyed. “Bult,” he shouted, but only because of the roar, “what do you call it?”
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 in 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.”