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Chapter 4
Jo
In a canyon above the village meadow, they unloaded four horses and a pack from the freight plane. The breath of the horses hung about them in small, thin puffs. The horses, very recently wild, had not liked the ride and stamped about and snorted when their blindfolds were removed. The air was clear and frosty at this altitude.
Snow from the recent storm covered the world and silenced it.
Angus MacTavish and Parson MacGilvy were with Jo
A week ago Jo
Jo
Jo
Angus and the parson had insisted on coming with him. He had explained the dangers of exposure to radiation to them and had not wanted to put them at risk. But Angus simply waved a breathe-gas bottle and promised to check it out ahead of them and not be foolish about it, and the parson, being a wise and experienced member of the clergy, knew Jo
They knew better than to simply fly a plane into the meadow. The people had seen recon drones all their lives, but a plane close up might terrify them.
Chapter 5
“Wake up, Jo
Jo
Suddenly he grasped the import of what Angus was saying and got up and began to get into his buckskins.
Angus had awakened very early and had been thirsty, and Aunt Ellen had heard him clattering around the buckets. There had been no water and Angus didn't like eating snow, so Aunt Ellen had said she would go get some water. But Angus said no, he'd get the water if she showed him where it was, and she pointed out the spring where everybody got their water on the edge of the village, and he took a hide bucket and went. Because he'd promised Jo
Hopping about with excitement, Angus was handing Jo
Angus stopped him. He triggered the remote.
WHAM!
There was a flash and thud of breathe-gas exploding.
The parson, awakened by the commotion, joined them. Angus did it again for his benefit.
A sudden chill came over Jo
But the villagers, particularly the children and women and older people who did draw water, were daily being hit with radiation. He felt a deeper chill for his people.
Angus wanted to dash up and dig under the snow. Jo
“We've no protective shields,” said Jo
They found by cautious sallies that the radiation from that spot extended, with enough force to explode breathe-gas, about thirty feet in all directions. Angus apparently had hit it dead center. They marked the ring with ashes taken from an abandoned cabin hearth, and with an axe Jo
Jimson, along with some others attracted by the explosions, wanted to know what they were doing. Jo
Dawn was there. They had to work fast to be out of there before midday, and there might be other spots. The recon drone passed near here and lately was overflying around noon. He wanted no pictures of this operation on Terl's screens. A circle of rope was nothing; it would look like a stock corral. Tracks were nothing. People and horses and dogs wandered around. But the plane up the canyon and three differently garbed people were something else.
While they chewed some breakfast Aunt Ellen brought them, Jo
He made up his mind. It was a risk, but very brief exposures, according to toxicology texts, could be tolerated.
He got an air mask and bottles out of the gear Angus had brought. He filled his pockets with breathe-gas flasks. He got a bucket of ashes. He got on one of their horses.
“I am going to crisscross this meadow at a dead run,” he told Angus and the parson. “Back and forth and back and forth on paths thirty feet apart. I’ll be holding a breathe-gas vial in my hand, turned slightly on. Every time it flashes, I’ll throw down a handful of ashes and then hold up my arm. Now, parson, I want you to stand on that knoll and make a sketch of this valley, and you, Angus, tell him each time I hold up my hand. Got it?”
They got it. The parson went up to the knoll with a pad and pen and Angus following him.
The three young men who had voted to move wanted to know whether they could help. Jo
Jo
Only a minute later the vial in his hand flashed. He threw down ashes, raised his arm, and sped on at a dead run. Angus's yell floated to him on the still air. The parson was marking it on his sketch.