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Chapter 26
GONE FISHING
"Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."
BOSWELL, Life of Johnson
Hendrick Sills took Skeeter Four south toward Mucking Great Mountain. His back and shoulders and mind ached from three solid weeks of work, and he was more than ready for a rest.
Catfish had been sighted down south of Mucking Great. And plentiful samlon.
The monsters were all dead. Ding dong! The work was well and fully done, and it was time for a rest in the hinterlands. Only two days, there was work to do; but two days. Just him and a German shepherd and a fishing pole. Just a forty-eight hour rest from troubleshooting the troubled Colony's many troubles. For a little while he didn't want to hear about flow rate and freshwater access, electricity, sewage and all the other little things. He didn't want to muck around doing brain surgery on Cassandra. He didn't want to oversee another team jury-rigging the veterinary clinic's ailing apparatus. "I'm tired of doing your job as well as mine, Carolyn McAndrews!" he shouted. The entire ordeal had been a drain, and now that the weeks and months of unrelieved tension were over, he was ready for some fun. Ding dong!
Company would have been nice. But Harry Siep had twisted an ankle. He wouldn't say how, but Hendrick suspected it involved back windows and the inopportune arrival of a husband. He'd be on his ass in the com shack for a week to come. And Phyllis, lovely Phyllis, was on duty.
Boogie Boy was tied to the passenger seat by a short leash. In the early days, they had tried longer cords, but one night an overexcited dog had leaped out at a pterodon. The poor creature had nearly lynched itself before the beleaguered chopper pilot could set the Skeeter down again. In the air, short leashes were s.o.p.
Hendrick peered out through the flowing, eternal mists. Cadma
The cultivated area of the plateau was begi
And then there was the main house itself.
It had grown up the mountainside now. An underground house could be expanded far more readily than a traditional structure, and Cadma
Deadfall boulders poised above the paths up either side. Naturally. Hendrick chuckled. And in a cleared strip at the bottom was the minefield that could be activated at the touch of a switch. "Can't blame him, maybe," Hendrick said aloud. Boogie Boy's tail thumped against the deck. "But damn it all, there's got to be a better way." The dog whined in sympathy.
Hendrick swerved up through the clouds and around the edge of Mucking Great Mountain. He headed south, picking up speed as he went. Two days. Then, perhaps, when he returned to camp, he would make a decision about Phyllis.
Baby fever! The contagion had infected the camp. Even Phyllis McAndrews, the eternal fiancee, had gotten gooey-eyed at the sight of Jessica Weyland. And last night, after an especially intense evening (God. Where did she get the energy? Or the flexibility?), Phyllis had hinted broadly of shooting the rapids. That the beautiful physicist might want a baby didn't surprise Hendrick: that she might want to be tied down to one tall, rawboned engineer did.
He laughed to himself. The tragedy that had befallen the Colony had an interesting side effect: ten surplus women in a community of fewer than two hundred. Hendrick was seriously tempted to remain a roving bachelor—yet he wondered if he could ever have claimed a prize like Phyllis back on Earth.
Decisions, decisions...
There was the strike camp. Overgrown now, but still clearer than the jungle that pressed in from all sides. Cadma
The Skeeter settled with a bump. He unhooked Boogie Boy. The shepherd jumped down and sniffed the ground, bounded around in a circle and then set his paws back on the doorframe, begging Hendrick to come out and play.
Creepers and grass pushed back through the blackened earth and formed a thick cushion underfoot. He wished that the wind would clear away the mists, let him see the stars. There was nothing that Hendrick loved more than to lie on his back beneath a canopy of stars.
He'd done a lot of that when he was a boy in Michigan. Now Kalamazoo seemed just exactly as far away as it was. Impossibly far away, never to be seen again. Those had been good times, although the area was no longer as rural as it had been in his grandfather's day, when deer would come up to the back door.
Grandfather would have approved of Avalon.
Hendrick set up his lamp, then unrolled the air mattress and opened the valve. The mattress sucked air.
Boogie Boy bounded around him, then jumped onto the mattress, tail idling. When Hendrick said "Hey!" Boogie's tail whipped like a rotor. Hendrick shoved him away. The dog barked in frustration, then gave up and ran off toward the bushes.
Hendrick opened his fishing kit and examined the rod and reel. He checked his hooks and lures, and the play in his line, and was satisfied. Tomorrow was going to be a good fishing day. For now, there was little to do but sleep.
"Boogie?" The dog was gone, didn't answer, didn't bound back to the camp. Hendrick strolled down to the river and played his handlamp across the foam.
Beautiful. The light danced across the surface, and below its floating oval the water shifted with thick, dark shapes. Tomorrow would be a wonderful day for fishing.
The dog wasn't in sight, but Hendrick didn't worry. Boogie would be back.
He returned to camp. He peeled back the cover, slipped into the bag, and began to put himself to sleep.
Someone pounded twice on their door, then yelled, "Goddammit, open up!"
Rachel rubbed Zack's nose firmly with hers. "That's what I get for sleeping with the boss."
"I can't believe this," Zack muttered resentfully. He rolled away and continued rolling until he was out of the bed. He pulled on his robe as he padded through the living room. He paused, gathering himself together before he swung the front door open.
Mary A
Zack pulled his robe tighter. "I'm sure you're right. I'd better let you in anyway."
They filed in like a jury prepared to deliver a death sentence. Each of the three looked to the others to speak first.
Rachel spoke from the bedroom. "What's going on?"
Her voice seemed to break Sylvia's mental dam. "What I remembered first was an African frog."
Mary A
"Diamonds and frogs and Escher drawings, Rachel. It was so simple that none of us could see it."
"See what?" Zack sat, trying to stay calm. "Slow down a little, will you?"
"Yes. Fine." Sylvia took a deep breath. "There's an African frog with nasty habits."
"Yes, yes, they eat—they eat their children!" Mary A
"They eat the tadpoles," Sylvia said.
Zack waited. He heard Rachel move into the kitchen and start coffee.
Coffee was for emergencies; Zack feared her instinct was right.
"It doesn't sound like a workable ecology, but it is," Sylvia said.
"The simplest ecology you can imagine. Frogs and algae and nothing else. No insects, no fish. The frogs are carnivores. They can't eat algae. But the ecology's stable."