Eye of the Zodiac

"Do you suggest we return?"

"No." Dumarest leaned over the map. It was rough, inaccurate, the product of speculation and surmise, but some things he recognized. "Here." He rested his ringer on a valley, one to the east. "We could try there."

"A valley, we need the heights!" Jalch Moore was impatient. "The fools know nothing. We must climb high and search the peaks."

They lifted too soon in the day, thermals catching the raft, sending it spinning dangerously close to an overhang.

"He'll kill us," said Chaque as he clutched at the raft's edge. "Earl, can't you take over? Stop him?"

"He's a good pilot." That, at least, was true. Jalch could handle a raft, and to argue now was to invite disaster. Dumarest leaned over the edge, looking below, seeing a snarled jumble of crevasses, ridges, naked stone wreathed with massed thorn. He felt the presence of the woman at his side, the warmly soft impact of her arm against his own.

"What are you looking for, Earl? What do you hope to find?"

"Here?"

"Anywhere. You're a traveler, always moving, always looking. Why?"

"Why do you hunt specimens in the field?"

"A job."

"Which could be done as well by others." He turned to face her, catching the speculation in her eyes. "To each their own, Iduna. You have your ways, I have mine."

"You're hard," she said. "Hard and cold. While I wish I didn't, I do admire you. Envy you a little, perhaps. Has any woman ever owned your heart?"

She frowned as he made no answer, recognizing his silence for the barrier it was. Since the night on the dell, she had made no further advances and he had invited none. A thing which perturbed her, offended her femininity.

"You have loved," she decided. "And you have been loved in turn. What happened, Earl? Did she die? Did you leave her? Does some lonely woman sit on some world, waiting for you to return?"

"Does some man wait for you?"

"No, or if they do they are fools. But no man has ever been really close to me. Always there is something, a barrier, between those who want me and those whom I want." She leaned a little further over the edge of the raft. "What was that? An animal?"

There was nothing, or if there had been it had vanished. A diversion, Dumarest guessed. Something to break the trend of the conversation, to shift it from what she could have considered dangerous ground. He felt the raft shift a little as Chaque came towards them.

"Iduna, you've got to stop him." His head jerked to where Jalch sat at the controls. "He wants to climb to the summit of the range, then quest along the entire area. He's mad."

"He is in charge of this expedition," she said coldly.

"Even so, he is mad. The winds-it has never been done before. He doesn't understand and won't listen. Please, you must make him be more cautious. I-" Chaque broke off, cursing as the raft veered. "The fool! Why won't he listen?"

Dumarest moved back from the edge.

"You're the fool," he said sharply. "You're unbalancing us. Get up to the front, quickly!"

It was too late. As the guide moved an updraft, combined with eddys thrown from the flank of the mountain, cojoined to create a turbulence which spun the raft and sent it crashing against a ridge. A near miss, only the bottom was affected, but it was enough.

"Quickly!" Dumarest gripped a bale, threw it over the edge, snatched at another. "Lighten the raft before we drop too low."

Drop into a natural chimney, the mouth of a natural funnel, the vortexes it would contain. The crash had ripped some of the anti-gravity conductors from their housings. Overloaded, most of its lift gone, the raft tilted as it dropped, spinning hopelessly out of control.

"Move!" Dumarest flung another bale over the side, followed it with some of the large metal boxes, a crate of instruments.

"No!" Jalch abandoned the controls, lunging from his seat into the body of the raft, hands clawing at the cargo. "You can't! I need these things! I need them!"

Dumarest struck him once, a hard blow to the jaw which sent the man sprawling and stunned. As Jalch fell Dumarest lunged for the controls, gripped them, fought to steady the raft which was now pitching and tilting. He heard Chaque cry out, saw the side of the chimney coming close. Then, they had hit with a grinding impact.

"The load-dump it!"

Chaque obeyed as the raft veered from the rock, lifting a little, dropping as it hit a mass of cold air, again hitting the slope of the mountain. It turned almost on edge, skidded down a mass of rock, hurtled into space to slam against a boulder lower down. Metal ripped with a thin squeal, and a gush of acrid smoke rose from the controls. Bared wires touching, energy short-circuited, the engine itself falling silent as they fell.

Fell to land in a shallow ravine, the impact cushioned by matted vegetation, which lay in and around the wreckage of the raft.

Chapter Ten

Chaque groaned, rising to nurse his arm, his head. The skin had broken over one temple, blood smearing his cheek. His hair was filled with torn leaves and his blouse was torn at the back and side.