Resurgence

Darya stood frozen for a second or two, then realized that she must take another look. Maybe Hans’s words had made her imagine things that weren’t there. This time she moved the green scale aside and held the light steady. The cone-growth had a yellow axis running up its middle. Five multi-legged objects hung suspended there. Darya thought at first that they were living creatures, and she hesitated to touch one; but they did not move. Finally she found the nerve to reach out her gloved hand and pluck one away from the plant’s central bole.

It was dark brown and about the length of her forearm. And it was dead. Not just dead but mummified, so it appeared almost as it must have been in life. She turned it. Two big compound eyes sat on either side of a fanged maw. They seemed to stare accusingly at Darya.

So Hans was wrong. There were animals. She did not find comfort in that fact. She slipped the little creature into an outside pocket of her suit and continued downhill toward the stream.

The water was clear and swift-flowing over a bed of gravel and fist-sized rocks. Darya looked closely, but saw nothing living. The water moved, and that was all. She waded carefully across and kept stepping forward until she came to the gray strip.

It was a road, no doubt about that, and it had been kept in good condition. A pile of stone by the roadside about two hundred meters away was an obvious source of materials for regular maintenance.

Where did the road lead?

Darya stared to her left, then to her right. She saw no sign of buildings, but maybe a kilometer away some dark object stood on the road itself.

She turned on her suit radio. “Hans?”

“I hear you.”

“There are animals. I found them. Or at least, I found some dead ones. Now I’m across the stream and standing on a road. No buildings, but I see something else sitting on the road itself. It’s within walking distance. I thought I might take a look at it.”

“Might as well. There’s nothing for you to do back here. I fixed up Ben as best I can, but he’s still asleep. One thing, though. We don’t know how long the day is here, but it’s my impression that the sun is lower in the sky. Don’t stay away too long.”

Darya stared off to her left. The sun seemed to her to be in about the same position, though it was certainly darker. Rain clouds, maybe? If nothing else, the stream guaranteed a supply of drinking water.

She opened her faceplate. Even if the sun was going down, the air felt as hot as ever. She headed off in the opposite direction, away from the sun. Progress was much faster now that she was on a solid level surface. The dark object on the road grew steadily, transforming from a shapeless blob to a definite oval outline. It was a huge humpbacked body, supported on six thick limbs.

Could that be another dead animal, somehow frozen and mummified in the very act of walking?

As Darya came closer yet, she revised her idea of what she was seeing. Legs, yes, each one solid and thick, but this was no animal. It was a walking vehicle. The great “head” facing Darya contained a transparent window where you might expect eyes to be, allowing her to look through to the interior. Two shapes, pale-yellow and motionless, sat within. The still forms had a disturbing familiarity.

Darya kept walking. The whole front of the vehicle formed a single door. She located the handle, reached out, and swung it open.

A gust of warm air touched her face. It carried the smell of something old and rancid, but that was not what made her shiver. She recognized the creatures sitting lifeless on the two broad seats. She had seen them, or their relatives before—although never in life.

She slammed the door closed.

“Hans?” She could hear the tremble in her voice. “Hans?”

“Darya? Are you all right?”

“I’m not right at all. Hans, you won’t believe this, but we’re on Marglot. I’ve just seen some of the Marglotta. They are here in front of me. They are dead. I think they are all dead. We arrived here too late.”

* * *

Darya wanted Hans Rebka to see the walking vehicle and confirm her suspicions as to what she was seeing inside it. But there were two problems. Hans should not leave Ben Blesh alone until it was safe to do so; and Darya doubted her ability to navigate the six-legged walking vehicle off the road and up the hillside—even assuming that she overcame her squeamishness at pushing the mummified body out of the driver’s seat.

While she tried to decided what to do next, another factor entered. It started to rain. Great spherical drops as big as marbles drifted down from the warm and clouded sky. When one of them burst on the nose of Darya’s upturned face, she slammed shut her suit’s visor, jerked open the door of the car, and scrambled inside closing it behind her.