"Keep hold," Gretchen said as she dug into her tools. She found a powered wrench, tested the tool – which responded with a high-pitched burring sound – and smiled. "Just for another thirty minutes or so."
Night came on suddenly in the shadow of the Escarpment. One moment Gretchen was working in a diffuse blue dimness, the next everything had plunged into complete darkness. She stopped, a welder sparking blue-white in her hand, and looked up. Hummingbird had found a cave, a deep overhang a kilometer and a half from the mouth of the slot, where they'd dragged the Midge s and their gear. Some shelter from the gusting wind was better than nothing.
"I need some light," Gretchen said into the gloom. There was a click on the comm circuit and the bright white glare of a camp lantern set on high flared around her. "Too bright…thanks."
The circle of illumination dimmed to a reasonable level. Hummingbird's feet appeared out of shadow, boots crunching on scattered, shalelike debris covering the floor of the overhang. The nauallis squatted, watching her work.
Gretchen had laid out an old blanket covered with the bits and pieces of the broken landing gear on top of one of the hextile pads. The main strut had snapped clean off when Hummingbird's Midge corkscrewed into the dunes, and the rest had been badly twisted by the impact. Gretchen was straightening each section of hexsteel with a set of wrenches and a jimmied-up guide. The little welder was on its last legs, but had lasted long enough to get most of the sections patched back together.
"You've done this before," Hummingbird said, fingers intertwined between his knees.
"All the time." Gretchen adjusted her goggles and flicked the welder to life. The burning white point hissed and spat, but there was very little smoke in such an anemic atmosphere. "Mechanical things are born to break in the field – no matter how new they are. Mostly the Company sends me places where there's no support – no handy machine shops, no supply dumps, no warranty service."
She grinned, thinking of the dig water filtration tower on Ugarit. Eighty-six light-years was a long way for a Poseidon SureClean Filtration Systems tech to travel to replace gunked filters or a bacteria separation unit which had failed to separate the more vigorous organisms living in the brown flood of the Hagit River. "You have to be handy with fixing things if you want to survive."
Gretchen set down the main strut, now repaired, and picked among the parts of the wheel housing. "Growing up in high timber on Aberdeen helped, though. Most students out of university don't know how to strip an engine or weld or…well, do any of the things we had to do at home."
"It's good you followed me." Hummingbird's voice had a funny tone and Gretchen looked up, wondering if he were getting sick or something. Then she realized he was trying to be friendly.
"You're welcome," Anderssen said, after thinking about it for a moment. "You needed help, even if you didn't admit it. Like I said before, I can't stand by and let someone else carry all the load. Now – I don't mean to be nosy – but you're used to having an Imperial warship on call, aren't you? Filled with Marines in combat armor and assault shuttles, waiting for your signal."
The nauallis nodded, dipping his head. "Sometimes," he said, "an entire Fleet carrier battle group."
"We don't have one here," Gretchen said, looking up. Her voice was flat and tight. "We don't have spares and mechanics and a medbay an hour away. It's just the two of us. So be careful, old crow. You were stupidly lucky today."
"I know… I was watching for the canyon mouth and didn't…I didn't notice the warning lights on the radar panel until about a second before I hit the edge of the wind."
Gretchen's mouth twitched and she held back a hoarse, mocking laugh. Had trouble seeing, did we? Interesting…
Hummingbird shifted, rolling back on his haunches. In the encompassing light, she could see his dark green eyes clearly, surrounded by a sea of fine wrinkles. "Tomorrow, if the weather permits, we'll need to go into the canyon. I went down to the edge of the funnel a little while ago – the wind has died down – so if we wait until full dark, we should be able to go in."
"Without being blown away." Gretchen nodded, lining up the repaired wheel housing bracket with the main strut. "Do you know what time the wind starts up?"
"Before dawn," he replied, rubbing the back of his head. "Doctor Smalls made a study of the wind patterns in the canyons -"
"He told me," Gretchen interjected. She slid the bracket firmly onto the strut and began repairing the broken weld line connecting the two. Sparks flared and hissed. "We'll only have a couple of hours to look around." Anderssen paused. "I'm coming with you into the canyon?"
"Yes." There was a hiss-hiss sound. "I think two would be better than one."
"Really?" Gretchen gave him a sharp glance. Not a glare, exactly, but enough to make him look away. "Will I need to be quiet again?"
"I don't know." Hummingbird looked out into the darkness. "There is a queer feeling here – something is close by, but I cannot feel more than a pressure. But everything here – rock, sand, cliffs, even the air – feels very, very old."
Gretchen suppressed an involuntary shiver. "The…dreaming power?"
Hummingbird did not answer, his attention fixed on the night. Beyond the mouth of the overhang, the curved ridges of endless dunes marched off toward a starry horizon. After a moment he twitched his shoulders and turned his attention back to her. "Sometimes, Anderssen-tzin, these…powers…have a subtle influence. A matter and degree of atoms. There are…I was once in a place where every action fell just a little foul. If you stepped, you came up just a millimeter short. If you reached, your target was always a fraction away." He shook his head from side to side. "A single misstep is nothing…but a million errors compounded?"
"You escaped." Gretchen held herself to have no powers, but she could feel an almost visible pain radiating from the man – from his tightly clenched fingers, his hunched shoulders – like a chill flame.
"Others – many others – did not." Hummingbird clicked his teeth together. "I was one of few. Anderssen…" The nauallis stopped, apparently unable to force his thought into words, then they came with a rush. "I…I need your help. I can teach you, show you, something of the world I see – quickly, too. Would you…do you want to see?"
Gretchen was nonplussed and carefully turned off the welder before setting her tools down on the blanket. Hummingbird had grown still, his green eyes shadowed.
"What do you mean by see?"
"As I do. You will be able to…apprehend the pattern of things, see that which is obscured by the overwhelming detail of the world, become aware of what is invisible to the lazy eye. I hope you will be able to become properly still as well."
Gretchen felt cold and hot at the same time. Her heart was racing. "How? Don't such things take years of training, meditation, effort?" What will I see? What secrets will be revealed?
Hummingbird reached into the folds of his cloak and drew out a small plain paper packet held between his fore- and middle fingers. The nauallis looked at the packet grimly. "Sometimes there are shorter paths than those trod by tradition."
The packet seemed to swell in Gretchen's sight, becoming enormous. She could hear the stiff paper scratching and rustling against something inside. Grains of sand. A powder.
"And in return? What do you expect of me for this gift?"
Hummingbird set the packet down at the edge of the blanket. "Go with me into the canyon. I want every advantage at my side, Anderssen, including you."