LONESOME AND A LONG WAY FROM HOME

Six days after he said goodbye to the girl he loved and set out to explore the world, Carlos Montero found himself approaching the coast of Midland.

A warm wind out of the west snapped at the frayed sails of his canoe, tugged at the lines clasped within his chapped hands. He guided the Orion toward the subcontinent’s western shore, squinting against the midday sun as he searched the limestone bluffs for a suitable spot to make landfall. As he drew closer, though, it became apparent that this was unlikely; surf crashed against sharp boulders beneath the sheer rock walls, sending foamy blue water straight into the air.

It had taken Carlos a full day and a night to cross the broad delta that marked the confluence of the Great Equatorial River and the East Channel (he couldn’t think of it as the Montero Delta even though he had named it after himself, the first time he saw it only a couple of weeks earlier). He had slept only a few hours the night before, and only then after he folded the sails and locker the rudder in place. Lacking a compass, he had navigated by dead reckoning, depending upon sunrise and sunset for his bearings. He was filthy and hungry, and down to the last few sips of fresh water in his catskin flasks, yet as much as he wanted solid ground once more, any attempt to sail through the shoals would be suicidal. Like it or not, he’d have to go farther down the river.

He pulled on the lines, tacking to the southwest; the canoe gradually turned, its prow slicing through the cool water. The bluffs loomed above him, a weather-beaten buttress of white stone. Brush and a few stands of faux birch grew along the ridgeline, and swoops pinwheeled above the cliffs, mocking him with their ragged cries.

I love watching them, Wendy said. The way they catch the thermals . . . I mean, it’s like they could just soar forever.

She sat only a few feet away, her back braced against the sailboard. The wind caught her ash blond hair, cast it away from her bare shoulders; she’d removed her halter, and the warm sun freckled the soft skin of her breasts. She didn’t mind him seeing her like this; now that the others were gone, it was just the two of them.

“Yeah, they’re awesome, all right,” he replied, but when he looked her way, she wasn’t there. The canoe remained empty save for his few belongings.

“Well, okay then.” He gazed at the bluffs again, tried not to think about her. “Guess I’ll just have to study them all by myself.”

The sail fluttered softly, the mast creaking against the wind, as the Orion moved past the rocky western coast of Midland.

About five miles past the delta, the bluffs tapered away, revealing a low, sandy shoreline that offered plenty of places he could run aground. Yet if he was going to make camp for a few days, he wanted to find just the right beach, so he opened his map and studied it. The map was a composite of orbital photos taken from the Alabama, so it lacked much in the way of fine topographical detail, yet it appeared as if a stream made its way down from the inland hills and emptied into the Equatorial only a few miles from his present position.

That looked good; he’d need a source of fresh water. Glancing up from the map, Carlos could just make out a line of blue-tinged mountain peaks somewhere to the northeast. There were still a few hours of daylight left; he could stand to tough it out just a little longer. So he continued sailing along the southern coast, his weary eyes seeking the inlet.

The sun was beginning to set to the west, the leading edge of Bear’s ring plane coming up over the eastern horizon, when he finally spotted the inlet. Carlos tacked to starboard and let the wind carry him all the way to shore; perhaps it wasn’t the safest way to approach, and he prayed that there weren’t any reefs lurking just beneath the waves, yet he was just too tired to paddle the rest of the way in.

Sand crunched beneath the canoe’s keel as it coasted into the shallows. His legs stiff and aching, he climbed out and shoved the canoe onto the beach. Once it was out of the water, he furled the sail, then waded ashore.

He was more exhausted than he thought. He was only halfway to the trees marking the edge of the beach when his vision blurred, and he felt his legs begin to give way beneath him. Intending only to lie down for a minute and catch his breath, he collapsed on the sand.

Rolling over on his back, he gazed up at the darkening sky. Then his eyes closed, and within moments he was asleep.

In his dreams, once again he was aboard the Alabama.

He was alone. The circular corridor that curved its way around the ship’s hub was deserted, yet beneath the ominous thrum of the engines he could make out voices, unintelligible yet distinct, as if they were just around the bend.

He was naked, his bare skin cold and slippery with the gelatinous blue fluid of the biostasis cell from which he had just emerged, yet he was no longer thirteen years old and shaven bald, but his present age of sixteen, with his hair grown past his shoulders. Not wanting anyone to find him without his clothes on, he began to hurry down the passageway.

Just ahead, he spotted a floor hatch leading down to the hab modules. If he could duck down the manhole, he might be able to make it back to his bunk before he was spotted. Yet the hatch cover was shut; he knelt before it and twisted at the lockwheel, yet it refused to budge.

Somewhere behind him, footsteps. Now the voices were closer, and he was certain one of them belonged to his father. He had to get away, or Papa would scold him for wandering around the ship naked. Standing up from the manhole, he turned to run down the passageway, yet it felt as if his feet had turned to lead; try as he might, he could barely move.

There was a fishing pole in his hand. From its hook dangled a boy’s vest, stitched together from creek cat skin. Desperate for clothing, he started to put it on, until he realized that he had seen it before. It had once belonged to David Levin. It was much too small for him, and besides (David was dead) David would be angry if he found him wearing it.

Still carrying the vest—the fishing pole had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared—he continued trudging down the corridor. He could move a little faster, yet the voices were just behind him, and there were no more hatches. There was wetness against his feet; looking down, he saw there was an inch of brackish water on the floor, as if a pipe had burst somewhere deep within the bulkheads. The ship was being flooded; he had to find a way to plug the leak, or everyone would drown.

Looking up again, he found he was no longer alone. An old man stood in the passageway. Wearing a long robe, his back half-turned to him, he was carefully painting the corridor wall, a slender brush grasped within his right hand. Carlos didn’t recognize him, but the painting was all too familiar: it was one of the murals the crew and passengers of the Alabama had found when they awoke from biostasis, 230 years after leaving Earth.

The old man lowered his brush, slowly turned to him. He regarded Carlos with solemn grey eyes. Have you read my book? he asked, even though his lips never moved.

“Please . . . can I borrow your robe?”

The old man ignored the question. Water sloshed around his ankles, but he didn’t seem to notice. Have you read my book? he asked again.

“Yeah, yeah, I read your book!” He could hear the voices again; they had become angry, and they were just a few feet away. “Please . . . I need to put something on, and the ship’s getting flooded!”

The old man regarded him sadly, then turned back to the wall. When you’re done, let me know how it turns out.

Finally, Carlos could see what the old man was painting. It was a picture of Prince Rupurt. Yet instead of Rupurt’s face, he saw his own. . . .

Suddenly, he heard Papa’s voice: Carlos! Where did you leave the canoe?

He whipped around, expecting to see his father. Instead, he found a boid. The giant avian crouched within the corridor, its enormous beak stained with blood, its tiny eyes locked on him with murderous intent.

The creature threw itself upon him. . . .

Screaming, Carlos hurtled out of sleep.

He was on the beach once more. Night had fallen, and the tide was beginning to rise; cold surf lapped at his bare feet, and Bear had fully risen above the horizon, shrouded by filmy grey clouds. His canoe gently bobbed with each wave that came ashore; if he didn’t do something about it, the tide would soon drag his craft out into the river and carry it away, leaving him marooned and without any supplies.

Carlos scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the Orion by its bow deck, hauled the canoe out of the water and all the way up onto dry land. Once he was sure that it was safely beyond the high-water mark, he fumbled around in its middeck until his hands located his pack.

His flashlight was in the top of the pack. Its solar battery hadn’t been recharged lately and its beam was dim, so he kept it on only long enough to let him see what he was doing. Once he’d unloaded his gear—a bedroll, a rolled-up tarp, some cookware in a five-gallon pot, an automatic rifle and a fishing pole, a near-empty food locker, a couple of catskin flasks, and a bag filled with hand tools—he took down the mast and placed it on the beach alongside the rest of his stuff.

By then his eyes had become night-adjusted, so he switched off the flashlight and worked by the wan light cast by the ringed planet. Above the rumble of the surf, he heard the nocturnal chitter of grasshoarders; every now and then, his ears picked up the mating cry of boids, yet they were so far away that he wasn’t alarmed. On the other hand, he was reluctant to start a fire, or at least until he was sure of his surroundings; the creatures tended to be drawn by light, and he didn’t want to tempt fate just to make himself a little more comfortable.

So he laid his tarp down next to the canoe, unrolled his blankets on top of the plastic sheet, and placed his rifle next to it, where he could easily reach it. The night was cool, so he put on long pants and a sweater—a vague memory of his dream; had he been naked?—and once he was burrowed beneath the blankets, he reached up and pulled the canoe upside down over him, forming a shelter that would protect him from any early-morning rain showers.

He was still thirsty, and his stomach growled and felt sore, yet there was nothing he could do about that until morning. Tomorrow, he’d take care of all those things. For the moment, though, he was warm and dry, and reasonably secure.

Yet as Carlos dropped off to sleep once more, he couldn’t shake the uneasy notion that he’d been paid a visit from the spirit world. Not by his late father, who figured somewhere in his half-forgotten dream, or even by David, whose death had haunted him for the last several days, but by the person who’d painted the murals: Leslie Gillis, the crewman who had been accidentally revived shortly after the Alabama left Earth, and who had spent the next thirty-two years alone aboard the starship, writing a fantasy story about the adventures of Prince Rupurt and using the corridor walls as another medium of expression.

Carlos had read the entire book, but he’d never met Gillis. How strange it was that he would dream of him.

The following morning, Carlos carried his fishing rod over to a nearby inlet. After giving himself a drink, he dropped a line into the water and waited for breakfast. It wasn’t long before a redfish snagged the small piece of bread he put on the hook; he carried his catch back to the beach, where he cleaned it and cooked it on a spit over a small driftwood fire. The fish was good, and it filled his stomach; when he was done, he wrapped its head and guts in a plastic bag and put them in the food locker. Sometime later, he’d use them as bait for a trout line.

He found a thicket of spider bush near the beach and had a long, satisfying squat, and when he was done he carefully buried his leavings beneath dead brush; no sense in letting the neighbors know he was there. Returning to the stream, he took off his clothes, waded in, and gave himself a bath. He luxuriated in the clear, fresh water, letting the slow current peel away the grime and dried sweat, and when he finally emerged he felt better than he had in several days.

The next order of business was setting up camp. He didn’t intend to remain there for very long, but in the meantime he had no desire to continue sleeping beneath an overturned canoe, nor did he want to put up a tarp. If boids were nesting nearby, neither his boat nor a tent would protect him should they discover his presence. So he had to build shelter, however temporary it might be.

About fifty yards from the beach, a short hike along the stream bank through tall sourgrass, Carlos discovered a small grove of blackwood trees, faintly resembling Japanese bonsai yet much larger, with deep knotted roots and flat-topped upper branches that spread out over ninety feet to form a thick umbrella. He sauntered among them until he found a tree with a branch low enough for him to pull himself up. Even more fortunate, nearby was a dead faux birch, apparently struck by lightning during a storm long ago; its branches littered the ground, and most of them were still solid and hadn’t yet been rotted by rain or flood.

He tied his shirt around the blackwood to mark it, then returned to the beach, gathered his gear, put it back in the canoe, and paddled up the stream until he reached the grove. He hauled the canoe up on the muddy bank, unloaded his belongings and carried them to the tree he’d selected, then pulled out the tool bag and went to work.

By midafternoon, he’d managed to saw enough of the faux birch branches and lash them together with nylon rope to create a small, rectangular platform, about eight by six feet. Two lower branches of the blackwood grew close enough together to support it without much of a tilt, but high enough above the ground to keep him away from any boids that might happen to roam that way. All he had to do was hoist it up into the tree.

Carlos had just untied the ropes from canoe’s sail lines when he heard a faint electronic chirp. For a moment he thought it was a small animal, but when it repeated a moment later he realized that it was coming from the satphone.

He’d pulled the unit out of the backpack shortly after he made camp, unfolding its miniature parabolic antenna before he put it aside. Activating the satphone so that it could receive radio transmissions from Liberty had been something of an afterthought; he had no real desire to speak to anyone from the colony. Apparently, though, someone wanted to talk to him.

His first impulse was to ignore the call. It might be important, though. Marie, his younger sister, was still there; if something had happened to her, he’d want to know about it. And then there was Wendy . . .

Carlos walked over, picked up the unit. He toggled the RECEIVE switch, held the satphone to his ear. “Yes,” he said, “what is it?”

Carrier static. A couple of seconds went by, then he heard a voice: “Carlos? Is that you?”

He grinned in wry amusement as he glanced up at the sky. He couldn’t see the Alabama during daytime, yet he knew that it was passing overhead as it did eight times a day, dutifully bouncing the transmission from Liberty. “Sorry, wrong number. I think you’re looking for Carlos Montero. This is Carlos’s Pizza. Can I take your order, please?”

Another pause. He waited impatiently, wanting the call to be over; the day was getting short, and he still had to put up his platform, and after that rig a trout line and gather wood for a fire. The voice returned. “Carlos, this is Robert Lee. I’m very glad to hear you, son. We’ve been trying to reach you for almost a week now. Are you all right?”

Robert Lee, sometimes also known as Captain Lee: former commanding officer of the Alabama, current mayor of Liberty. The man who’d led 104 people across forty-six light-years to a satellite of 47 Ursae Majoris B. Carlos had little doubt that, if the colony somehow managed to survive, one day there would be a statue erected in his honor.

“Today’s special is the Coyote Supreme,” he said. “That’s goat cheese, creek crab, and redfish, served with a pint of our own sourgrass ale.” On reflection, it didn’t sound half-bad. Except maybe the creek crab. “Will that be take-out or delivery?”

This time, the pause was a little longer. Carlos shifted from one foot to another. Come on, hurry up . . .

“That’s funny,” Captain Lee said at last, although he didn’t sound a bit amused. “I guess . . . I mean, I suppose that means you’re doing okay.”

Carlos said nothing, and finally Lee spoke again. “Yes, well . . . look, Carlos there’s no reason for you to do this. No one here blames you for what happened. You and the others just made a mistake, that’s all. We just want you to turn around and come home. Everything will be . . .”

“Sorry, but this offer has just expired. Thank you, call again soon. Bye.”

He lowered the satphone, clicked it off. He stared at it for a few seconds before he folded the antenna and put the unit aside. Then he returned to the task of building a tree house.

Taking up residence in a blackwood was a little more difficult than he thought. Although he was safe from any predators on the ground—boids couldn’t climb any better than they could fly, and creek cats tended to shy away from humans larger than a small child—the swoops that also made the tree their home didn’t care much for his presence. All through the night, Carlos was subjected to angry screeches and a steady rain of twigs as the birds attempted to drive him out, and when morning came he awoke to find his sleeping bag spotted with their droppings. Clearly, he was going to have to build a roof for his little tree house.

The trout line, though, was a success; when he pulled it out of the stream, he found two large redfish dangling from its hooks. He cooked one for breakfast, then cleaned the other and laid it out on a rack on the beach to dry. Yet he knew he couldn’t get by on a diet of fish alone; although there were plenty of creek crab to be found in the stream’s shallows, he had never developed a fondness for them. Like it or not, he’d have to go hunting.

So Carlos slung his rifle over his shoulder and set out on foot across the rolling meadows north of camp (which he had already marked on his map as “Carlos’s Pizza”). Midland wasn’t as flat as New Florida; not far away were a line of low hills, and he set out toward them, following an animal trail he’d discovered earlier while scavenging firewood. He found clusters of ball plants along the way, which he carefully avoided lest he be swarmed by the pseudowasps that nested around them; now and then he came upon ropy brown turds he recognized as belonging to creek cats. Their flesh was barely edible, but their hide was perfect for clothing; if he tracked their scat, he might have a chance of bagging one.

By early afternoon, he’d climbed to the top of the highest hill, where he found a small clearing among the faux birch. The sky was clear, the sun warm; in the far distance, he could make out a range of green mountains, their summits still frosted with snow. Between where he stood and there were miles upon miles of grassland and forest, with streams and tributaries cutting through them like the seamwork of an intricately woven carpet.

Forgetting for the moment the purpose of his long hike, Carlos sat down on a fallen tree, pulling the rifle off his shoulders and leaning it against the trunk next to him. It wasn’t just the aching beauty of the land that caught his attention; there was also an eerie sense of déjà vu, for it seemed as if the place was familiar, even though he was consciously aware that he was the first human ever to set foot there. Then why would . . . ?

No. He had seen the place before. Not on Earth, though, but elsewhere. Aboard the Alabama. The mural in the ring corridor, painted by Leslie Gillis, depicting an imaginary scene from his Prince Rupurt book.

In that instant, a fragment of a half-forgotten dream: When you’re done, let me know how it turns out. . . .

Carlos suddenly became aware that the clearing around him had become very quiet. The grasshoarders had stopped chirping, the swoops had gone silent. Now there was a stillness, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Something stirred behind him.

Carlos turned his head, peered over his shoulder.

The boid was only a couple of dozen yards away. It wasn’t very large—barely five feet tall, perhaps a young adult—but its enormous head lowered upon its thick neck, and it froze in midstep, suddenly aware that its intended prey had spotted it. In that instant, Carlos realized that, just as he had been stalking creek cat, so the boid had been stalking him, patiently keeping its distance while remaining downwind, waiting for the moment when he’d drop his guard.

For a few seconds, the two hunters regarded each other, neither daring to move first. Standoff. The boid opened its beak and shrieked, then it charged.

Snatching up the rifle, Carlos threw himself belly down behind the tree trunk. A snap of the left forefinger and the safety was disengaged; the holographic sight appeared above the barrel, but already the boid was too close for it to be of much use. Cradling the stock against his shoulder, bracing his arms against the log, he aimed straight at the boid and fired.

The rifle trembled in his hands; spent shells rattled off the wood. Bullets ripped across the boid; blood and feathers spewed from its chest. Howling in outraged agony, its head thrashing back and forth, the creature staggered on its backward-jointed legs, its clawed forearms briefly rising as if in a vain attempt to deflect the fusillade.

Yet it kept coming. Now it was only a dozen feet away. Carlos took a bead on its left eye, squeezed the trigger once more, and was rewarded by the sight of bone and brains exploding from the back of its skull just below the cranial tuft.

Even though it was dead the moment it hit the ground, the boid’s limbs twitched spasmodically, as if the creature was still trying to run. Carlos stood up, waited silently behind the tree until the boid had gone still. In the far distance, he could hear gunfire reverberating off the hills.

“That . . . that . . .” he whispered. He couldn’t finish what he wanted to say—that’s for my mother and father—for somehow it didn’t seem right. This hadn’t been for them. It was for himself. So he let it go.

Carlos sat down on the log and stared at the dead boid for a long time. At last, he put aside the gun and pulled out his knife.

He would eat well tonight. Yet that wasn’t the only thing he wanted.

He had just finished dinner when the satphone chirped.

Again, he considered ignoring it. It was the perfect end of a perfect day; twilight tinted the high clouds above the river in shades of gold and purple as the evening tide gently lapped at the beach. He didn’t want to risk spoiling it by having another conversation with Captain Lee, yet he knew that he had to maintain contact with the colony; otherwise, they might get seriously concerned and send out a shuttle to find him.

Water boiled in the cook pot he had suspended above the fire. Walking over to where he had placed the satphone on top of his pack, he briefly raised the pot lid to check the contents. Satisfied by what he saw, he put the lid back in place, then picked up the satphone.

“Carlos’s Pizza. May I help you?”

“Umm . . . yeah, I’d like a twelve-inch sausage and mushroom, please.”

Wendy.

“I’m sorry, but our only toppings are creek crab and redfish.” He grinned. “And boid, too, but that’ll cost you extra.”

A quiet chuckle. “I don’t think a boid pizza would be very good. It’d probably eat you before . . .” A sharp intake of breath. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

“Don’t worry about it.” His parents had been killed by a boid; she’d forgotten that for a moment, but he was not offended. Captain Lee must have urged her to call him; that was the only way she could have anticipated the pizza joke. Whatever the reason, he was glad to hear from her. “Actually, boid isn’t all that bad. A little stringy, but it tastes sort of like . . .”

“Let me guess. Chicken.” Now there was surprise in her voice. “You killed a boid?”

“Uh-huh. Took one down this afternoon.” As he sat down on a driftwood branch, his gaze wandered to the skillet and cookware resting near the fireplace. When he was done, the next chore would be to scrub everything he’d used that night. At the moment, though, he couldn’t resist the urge to brag. “Wasn’t much of a fight. I don’t think it was full-grown. Didn’t quite know how to sneak up on me.” He chuckled. “And no, it doesn’t taste like chicken. More like . . . I dunno. Corned beef, maybe.”

“Carlos . . .” She hesitated. “Look, I’m glad you . . . y’know, that you got it, but you shouldn’t be walking around out there on your own.”

“Like I’ve got a choice?”

“Of course you do.” Another pause. “Carlos, you don’t have to do this. No one’s being punished for what we did. Chris and Barry aren’t in the stockade, and Kuniko told everyone that what happened to David was an accident.”

He closed his eyes, said nothing. Memories. Stealing the canoes from the boathouse. Escaping from Liberty. Crossing the Eastern Divide. The long journey down East Channel to the Great Equatorial River. The encounter with the catwhale. Losing David, and almost losing Wendy as well. Getting shipwrecked on the southern coast of New Florida. Leaving Wendy and the others behind to go off on his own, taking the only remaining canoe and what few supplies they had left. Errors of judgment leading to fatal mistakes, one on top of the next, with everything leading up to the death of a friend. Perhaps others might be willing to forgive him, yet it would be a long time before he’d be able to forgive himself.

“Carlos? You still there?”

“Sorry. Just thinking.” His eyes felt moist as he opened them again. “I’m fine. Like I told you, there’s a lot of stuff I’ve got to work out.” He took a breath. “What about you? I mean, y’know . . . the other thing.”

“The other thing. Right.” Now there was chill quality to her voice. “I’m so glad to hear that you’re concerned about the other thing.”

“C’mon, I didn’t mean . . .”

“The other thing is fine. Kuniko examined me after we got back and said that we’re both in good shape. And since the Town Council decided to let me make my own choice, I don’t need to have an abortion. So the other thing will be born right on schedule. Not that this is any of your concern. . . .”

He stood up. “Wendy, I didn’t mean to . . .”

“You want to know something else? Kuni performed a blood test on Chris and matched it against a uterine sample from the . . . the thing, as you call it. Guess what she found out?”

A chill ran down his back. “What did she . . . ?”

“Sorry, pizza boy. I’m not going to tell you. If you’re really interested, you can call me sometime. Right now, though . . . well, you’ve pissed me off.” A breath rattled against his ear like a winter wind. “God, this was a mistake. Shouldn’t have let them make me call you, but I was worried.”

“Wendy, please . . . !

“I’m glad you’re alive, and that you’ve killed your first boid. Hope you finally got it out of your system.”

“I didn’t . . . !”

“Goodbye.” A pause. “Take care of yourself.”

The satphone went dead.

He had a sudden impulse to chuck it into the surf, but he’d done that once already: Kuniko’s unit, the day they left Liberty. And he needed it to keep in touch with the colony, didn’t he?

Carlos considered the question for a minute or so before he folded the antenna and carefully put the satphone back in his pack. Then he walked over to the fire pit.

Bear was beginning to rise above the horizon, its rings shrouded by clouds. It looked as if it might rain later that evening, and he had never gotten a chance to build a roof for his tree house. He’d have to rig the tarp above his platform before he went to bed.

But not just yet. He lifted the top of the pot; hot rancid steam rose from the churning, fat-soaked water. He picked up a stick, stuck it into pot, fished around in its foul contents until he skewered the object he had been cooking all evening. He raised it from the pot, closely inspected it by firelight.

The boid skull was flensed clean to the bone, its flesh and feathers stripped away by boiling salt water. A trophy for the hunter.

Carlos remained on the southwestern shore of Midland for another three weeks, longer than he had originally intended. He finished building his tree house, adding a ceiling and finally four walls, and hung the boid skull from the above the narrow door; it looked good there, and it also had the unexpected effect of scaring away the swoops who’d nested in the upper limbs. Within a few days, the birds ceded the blackwood to him, and he slept undisturbed. Although he continued to hear boids at night, for some reason he never saw any within a couple of miles of camp. Like the swoops, they seemed to be keeping their distance from Carlos’s Pizza.

As a side project, he cut down a long, green branch of faux birch, and at night while squatting by the fire on the beach, he carved a hunting bow from it. He was running low on ammo, and he needed to conserve what few rounds he had left to defend himself should the boids return. A couple of days earlier, he had shot a creek cat; once he skinned its hide and used its flesh for fishing bait, he boiled its upper intestines, allowed it to cure, then cut a long, slender bowstring from it. Once he’d fashioned a dozen slender shafts from faux birch, he gathered some flinty stones and sharpened them into arrowheads; some swoop feathers he found on the ground beneath his tree made good fletches. When he wasn’t doing anything else, he practiced archery, shooting at a small target he’d made of a piece of catskin lashed to the side of a tree. After a time, he became proficient enough to take down a swamper he discovered scavenging in the garbage pit he’d dug near the beach.

He kept the satphone turned off. He didn’t want to hear from Wendy, and after a while there were days when he seldom thought of her at all. Every now and then he’d switch on the unit, and it wouldn’t be long before he’d hear it chirp, like a neglected pet trying to get his attention. Yet he never spoke to whoever was attempting to contact him; he’d pick up the satphone, click the RECEIVE switch a couple of times—yes, I’m still alive, thanks for asking, goodbye—then turn it off and put it away. Let ’em eat static: Carlos’s Pizza was no longer accepting orders.

He stopped keeping track of the days. He knew that it was sometime in or early Hamaliel, by the LeMarean calendar, but whether it was Rap or Anna, Kaf or Sam, or any of the other nine days in the week, he hadn’t the foggiest notion, nor really cared. Yet although Coyote’s seasons were almost as long as a year back on Earth, the summer solstice was long past; already, he was beginning to notice that the days were getting a little shorter, and Bear was rising a bit earlier each evening. And he was getting restless. If he still wanted to continue his exploration of the Equatorial, he’d have to leave soon.

Carlos spent the next few days repairing the sail and waterproofing the canoe’s seams with boiled fat from a creek cat he’d killed with his bow, then early one morning he packed up his belongings, took them down from his tree house, and loaded them aboard the Orion. He tied the boid skull to the bow as a sort of figurehead—if it frightened away the swoops and boids, maybe it would do the same for any catwhales he happened to encounter—and he made sure the tree house door was bolted shut, just in case he happened to come that way again. For all intents and purposes, though, Carlos’s Pizza was closed for good.

By midday he was back on the river. Head west, with no particular destination in mind, no objective except to see how far he could go.

Day in and day out, over the course of the next four weeks, he paddled along the southern coast of Midland, always keeping within sight of the shore.

Since he was below Coyote’s equator, the prevailing winds were almost always coming from the east; seldom was he able to raise his sails, so the progress was slow, which suited him well. Occasionally a rainstorm would come upon him; usually he’d just ride it out, although if he heard thunder, he’d head for land as quickly as possible. When the sun was at his back, that meant the day was coming to an end, and he’d guide his canoe to the nearest available beach. He’d pull up his canoe, pitch his tarp, gather some wood for a fire, then cook whatever he’d managed to shoot with his bow or catch with his rod. Coyote was generous, though; he rarely went to bed hungry.

With each passing day, Coyote revealed a little more of itself; he marveled at how much the world changed the farther he traveled from New Florida, which he now realized was a rather mundane island, a flat and innocuous bayou. The mountains he’d seen from the hilltop where he’d killed the boid gradually grew closer until he could make out flat-topped mesas only a few miles from the river. He marked them on his map as the Gillis Range. The faux birch growing in abundance along the shore gradually gave way to what first appeared to be gigantic mushrooms, until he paddled closer and saw that they were actually tall, slender trees whose willowlike branches grew so close together that they formed an almost-solid canopy. He called them parasol trees. Now and then, he spotted herds of large animals roaming through swamps along the river edge, great shaggy beasts that faintly resembled bison save for their sloping heads and long, tusked snouts. He decided that shags was an appropriate name.

He also observed a different species of swoop. Unlike the ones that lived in the blackwoods on New Florida and on the western side of Midland, these swoops were aquatic. They cruised high above the river until they spotted their prey, at which point they’d fold their narrow wings against their bodies and dive headfirst into the water, emerging moments later with a channelmouth or weirdling wiggling from their elongated bills. The river swoops traveled in flocks, yet he could never figure out where they nested; when the sun started to go down, he’d see them turn and head not for the nearby coastline, but instead toward the eastern horizon.

Wendy would have been fascinated. But she wasn’t with him.

He awoke alone and he traveled alone; there was no one to share his campfire at the end of the day, and when he went to bed he had only the stars for company. After a time, he caught himself talking to absent friends, as if they were riding in the canoe with him. Wendy was usually his invisible passenger, but sometimes it would be Chris whom he’d imagine sitting in the bow . . . Chris when he was still his best friend, always ready to share a laugh. At night, gazing up at Bear as he sat on some lonely beach, he’d hear Barry playing his guitar on the other side of his campfire, picking out an old blues song from the twentieth century.

Now and then, David would show up, too. He never spoke, but simply sat and stared at him, a silent ghost whose brief appearances Carlos dreaded.

This wasn’t the only specter who paid him a visit. One night, while he was cooking the channelhead he’d hooked earlier that day, his father came to sit with him.

What do you think you’re doing? Papa asked.

“Making dinner.” Carlos stared at the filet he was spit-roasting over the fire he’d built. “I’ve got another plate if you want some.”

He was perfectly aware that his father was dead, along with his mother. Mama never visited him, but Papa sometimes did, although usually in his dreams. He felt a certain chillness against his back, which wasn’t caused by the evening breeze.

That’s not what I mean, Papa said. As always, he was stern but not unkind. You’re only sixteen. What are you trying to prove? That you’re now a man?

“Not trying to prove anything. And I know I’m a man. I couldn’t have survived for long if I wasn’t, could I?”

Animals survive, son. A coyote caught in a trap gnaws its own leg off to escape. A man doesn’t run away. He accepts responsibility for his own actions, even when he doesn’t want to. . . .

“Not running away from anything.” Carlos pulled the spit from the fire, closely examined his dinner. Nicely charred on one side, but still a little pink on the other. He turned the filet over and held it above the coals. “I’m exploring the world. Finding out what this place looks like. Someone has to be the first. Might as well be me.”

That’s what you tell yourself, but you’re a liar.

“Go away. Leave me alone.” Closing his eyes, he let his head fall on his folded arms. After a while, he no longer felt the presence of his father.

He heard a soft crackling sound. Looking up again, he saw that the spit had dropped from his hands, and the fish he was cooking for dinner lay among the burning driftwood, its flesh curling up and turning black.

Dinner was ruined, but it didn’t matter. He was no longer hungry.

A week later, Carlos reached the southeastern tip of Midland, and found he had to make a crucial decision.

A new channel opened before him, leading to the north. He was now above the equator again, and able to use his sails. According to his map, if he sailed all the way up the channel, he’d eventually reach the northeastern end of Midland, where it would connect with a major river running east and west across the thirty-fifth line of parallel. If he followed the river west across the northern coast of Midland and past the confluence of East Channel, eventually it would become the West Channel; all he had to do then was locate Sand Creek’s northern inlet and make his way across New Florida until he reached Liberty.

The trip home would take at least four or five weeks, maybe longer. If the prevailing winds in the northern latitudes weren’t in his favor, though, he would have to paddle the entire distance. In that case, he might not reach Liberty until the end of summer, perhaps even later, and Carlos was all too aware that he was ill equipped to face the cold nights of Coyote’s autumn.

His second choice was to cross the channel to a large island lying just above the equator, then sail along its southern coast as he continued east along the Great Equatorial River. In doing so, he’d cross the meridian into Coyote’s eastern hemisphere; just off the island’s southeastern coast, below the equator, lay a long string of tiny isles that stretched out into the Meridian Sea. If he could make it to the distant archipelago, he could then turn around and catch the easterlies in the southern hemisphere, which would eventually carry him home.

The first option was a relatively safe bet; if the winds were in his favor, he could be home before the end of summer. The second option meant that he’d be gone much longer; the risks would be greater, yet he would see things no one else had ever seen before. Tough choice, and not one to be made lightly.

Perhaps he should talk it over with someone.

He made camp that night on a rocky point overlooking Midland Channel; once he was through with dinner, he pulled out the satphone. Its memory retained the number of the last satphone that had been used to call him; he pushed the RETURN button and waited impatiently while it buzzed. Since the sun had gone down about an hour ago, Carlos figured it was probably late afternoon or early evening back in Liberty. Wendy would probably be home, helping Kuniko make dinner. If Dr. Okada picked up, he’d have a short chat with her, then ask to speak with Wendy. Shouldn’t be a problem if . . .

He heard a click. “Hello?”

The voice was male; familiar, but not one he immediately recognized. Yet this had to be Kuniko’s satphone; the call-back feature guaranteed that.

“Is Wendy there?”

A pause. “Figured you’d call eventually. My luck I’d be the one to talk to you.”

“Who’s . . . ?” Then he recognized the voice. “Chris? Is that you?”

“Uh-huh. Been a long time. Not since you ditched us and ran away.”

Carlos winced. The last time he’d seen Chris, it was the night they made their way back to New Florida after the catwhale attack. Chris had lost his brother that afternoon; if his left arm hadn’t been broken, Carlos had little doubt that he would have tried to kill him. There hadn’t been a fight that evening, though, nor even any words that Carlos could remember; the last thing he remembered of his former best friend was the dark look in his eyes before he crawled into their remaining tent. Carlos didn’t sleep that night; after he used the satphone, which until then he’d kept hidden in his pack, to call back to Liberty and request rescue for the rest of the expedition, he had gathered up the remaining supplies and set out on his own. When he left at dawn, the only person to see him go was Wendy.

“I didn’t ditch you,” Carlos said. “It was something I had to do. . . .”

“Oh, yeah, I believe that. Couldn’t bear to face me again in the morning, could you?”

“Chris, I didn’t . . .” He sighed, shook his head. “Look, forget it. Just put Wendy on, will you?” What was Chris doing with the satphone, anyway?

“Not until you and I are done. You know, I’m actually glad you’re gone. It’s better you die out there by yourself. This way, none of us have to put up with your shit anymore.”

“Chris, I . . .” He closed his eyes. “What do you want from me? I’m not going to die, if that’s what you really want, and I’m not going to let you . . .”

He stopped himself, but not soon enough; Chris knew him all too well. “You’re not going to let me do what?” he demanded. “Take your girl? Hey, man . . . why do you think I’m at her place?”

Something cold and malignant uncoiled deep within his chest, wrapped itself around his heart. “You really think she’s been pining for you all this time?” Now there was malicious glee in Chris’s voice. “The only reason why she called before is because you wouldn’t talk to the captain, and so he had her talk to you instead. She doesn’t care about you any more than I do.”

“That’s not true . . .” Almost a whisper.

“What’d you say?” Chris didn’t wait for him to repeat himself. “She’s going to have a baby soon, and the kid’s going to need a father who won’t run off when things get tough. You’ve had your shot, and you blew it. I proposed to her last night. . . .”

“You what?” Carlos was instantly on his feet.

“Oh-ho! Got your attention, didn’t it? Yeah, man, I asked her to marry me. And you know what else? She . . .”

A loud noise from somewhere in the background. Muffled voices, indistinct yet angry. A slight scuffling sound as if someone’s hand was being clasped over the unit. A minute went by. Then he heard Wendy.

“Carlos? Are you there?”

“I’m here. Look, I . . .”

“No, wait. I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened. Chris got to the phone while we were out in the garden. Whatever he said, it’s . . . I don’t know, but . . .”

There was too much going through his mind; he could barely think straight. “Look, just tell me two things,” he said, pacing back and forth before the fire. “Just two things, and be honest with me.”

Hesitation. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

“Are you going to marry Chris?”

Silence. “He’s asked me, yes.” Lower voice. “I don’t know if I’m going to take him up on it. I’m thinking about it.”

He nodded as if she could see him. Fair enough; a truthful answer, if not complete. “Okay. Second question . . . is the baby mine or his?”

Another pause, a little longer this time. “It’s yours. Kuniko thinks it’s going to be a girl.”

He let out his breath, sat down heavily. It was a warm night, but he was glad to be near the fire; he felt himself beginning to tremble. “Do you want me to come home?” he asked.

“I thought you said . . .”

“I’m giving myself a bonus question. Do you want me to come home? To be there when the baby’s born?”

Another minute went by before she spoke again. He heard crackles and static fuzz as Alabama began to slip over the horizon. “You can do whatever you want,” she said at last. “That’s what you always do anyway, don’t you?”

Then the satphone went dead.

The next morning, Carlos packed up his gear, stowed it in his canoe, and set sail once again. It wasn’t until he was a hundred yards away from shore, though, that he finally made up his mind which way he’d go. Tacking the sail to the catch the westerly winds, he turned Orion to the southeast and set out to cross the Midland Channel, heading for the island and, beyond it, the Meridian Sea.

The wind was strong that day, the water choppy but the current with him; the journey across the channel took only eleven hours. When he came upon the island shortly before sundown, he had no problem finding a place to go ashore. A sun-baked expanse of sand and high grass shaded now and then by parasol trees, it was as flat as New Florida. River-swoops circled the beach as he pulled out the canoe; he had been seeing them all day, sometimes dozens at a time. He wondered if this was the place where they nested, yet as the sun went they soared away to the east. They had to be sleeping on the river, he concluded, but that couldn’t be where they nested. There was a mystery there, one whose solution continued to elude him.

He built a fire, then cleaned and cooked a channelmouth he had caught that afternoon. The night sky was cloudless, the stars brilliant; looking up, he saw the Alabama glide across the zenith, briefly appearing as a tiny black dash as it moved past Bear. It was a warm evening; there was little chance of rain, so he decided to sleep out in the open. He moved his bedroll from beneath the tarp he’d pitched and laid it out next to the fire, and once he’d put his rifle and bow where he could reach them quickly, he lay down and went to sleep.

Sometime during the night, he was awakened by scurrying noises, as if an animal was prowling through the campsite. Opening his eyes but being careful not to move, he looked first one way, then the next. The fire had died down, but Bearlight illuminated the beach. At first he saw nothing, and for a moment he thought he might have only been dreaming. Then, from the direction of his canoe, he caught a ragged scraping sound, as if something was gnawing at the mooring line.

He counted to three, then quickly sat up, grabbing his rifle and pointing it toward the canoe. As he flicked on the infrared range finder, for a brief instant he caught a glimpse of a couple of diminutive figures crouched near the canoe’s bow. Yet the moment the invisible beam touched them, they emitted a tinny, high-pitched chaawp! and vanished before he got a chance to fire.

In the same instant, he heard something move behind him, near the tarp. Swinging the rifle in that direction, he spotted through the scope a small, dark-furred form that stood upright on pair of forward-jointed legs. He had an impression of oversize eyes above a tiny mouth, with a pair of tendrils spouting from a low forehead. Then it made a startled cheeep! as it dropped something and bolted into the darkness.

Carlos yelled and leaped to his feet, then fired a couple of rounds into the air. From all around him, a half dozen more of the creatures fled for their lives. He heard the clatter of cookware, the static buzz of his satphone, the rustle of a shirt he’d washed and laid out to dry. He fired another round to chase the tiny thieves away, but they were already gone. From somewhere out in the high grass, he heard them chawp and cheep and coo-coo, like fairy children giggling about the mean prank they’d just played on the giant found slumbering in their midst.

He gathered what he could find lying in the sand—fortunately, they hadn’t gone very far with the satphone—then stayed awake the rest of the night, the gun propped in his lap. When morning came, he walked up and down the beach, picking up the stuff they had dropped: a spoon, his flashlight, the cook pot, a shirt. Yet when he took inventory of his belongings, there were also several things missing: a fork, a pen, an extra spool of fishing line and some hooks. Nothing very large; everything that had been either ignored or abandoned weighed more than an ounce or so. His packs remained where they were, although he noticed that their drawstrings had been untied instead of being ripped apart.

Their footprints were small, paw-shaped impressions, with smaller clawlike prints where they had dropped to all fours to escape. Judging from their size and distance from one another, Carlos estimated that the creatures couldn’t have stood more than two feet tall. And he couldn’t shake the impression that they were much like the swampers that infested New Florida, yet more highly evolved, their actions more . . . deliberate.

Yet the biggest shock came when he inspected his canoe. The boid skull lay next to the bow. The fact that they’d tried to steal it didn’t surprise him; indeed, it was their attempt to do so that awakened him in the first place. When he knelt to tie the skull back in place, though, he saw that the lines that had held it place had been severed clean.

Something jabbed against his knee. He reached down to toss it away, then did a double take. It was a long piece of flint, no larger than the first two knuckles of his index finger, its edges scraped and honed to razor-sharpness. Dried grass was carefully woven around its haft, forming a handle that could be easily grasped by a tiny hand.

Carlos gazed in wonder at the miniature knife. It hadn’t been made by an animal. There was intelligence behind the tool; it was the product of a sapient mind.

There was someone else on Coyote.

For the next week, he sailed along the southern coast of the island. He would have liked to give himself more time to study the sandthieves, as he named them, yet their larcenous nature made that difficult.

Every evening when he came ashore, he had to take special precautions to ensure that the rest of his belongings wouldn’t vanish during the night. Although they shied away from him, the sandthieves obviously weren’t afraid of his fire, and as soon as they were sure he was asleep they would emerge from the darkness to raid his camp. When he tried hanging his gear from a parasol tree, they soon demonstrated that they were willing and able to climb up to get to it. Burying his stuff didn’t work, nor did hiding it beneath the canoe or even placing everything next to him while he slept. Carlos finally had to resort to leaving everything aboard the Orion, then anchoring the craft in the water six feet away from shore, making camp with little more than his bedroll; either the sandthieves weren’t able to swim, or piracy wasn’t something they’d learned yet.

The few times he saw them, the more he became convinced they were intelligent. Their high-pitched vocal sounds were evidently a form of language, not simply animal noises; on a couple of occasions, he noted that some of them wore breechcloths woven from parasol leaves, even necklaces of tiny pebbles held together by braided grass. From time to time, while paddling close to shore, he spotted tall, cone-shaped dwellings made of mud and sand, rising nine feet or taller above the nearby grasslands, their packed-dirt walls honeycombed with holes large enough for them to enter. Twice he saw slender trails of smoke rising from their tops, indicating the presence of interior fireplaces.

He was tempted to make a satphone call back to Liberty and tell someone of his discovery. Yet he knew that if he did so, within a couple of hours a shuttle would descend upon the island, carrying teams of overeager scientists ready to document, record, perhaps even capture a specimen or two. The more he considered that mental picture, the less he liked it; the last thing a primitive civilization needed was an alien invasion.

No. The sandthieves would remain unknown to everyone else. Once he returned to Liberty, he’d tell everyone this particular island was little more than a large sandbar, uninteresting and worthless. He decided to name it Barren Isle; he would have marked it as such on his map, were it not for the fact that his pen was among the items the sandthieves had stolen.

On the morning of his last day on the island, he left Barren Isle for the last time. As he raised his sail and set out toward the nearby archipelago, he looked over his shoulder to take a long, final look at his secret place. For the first time in many days, he found himself smiling.

Since he had long since lost track of the days, Carlos was unaware that it was Uriel 48, halfway through last month of Coyote summer. Had he been able to compare this the date to a Gregorian calendar, he would have discovered, by Earth reckoning, he was 247 years old.

It was his seventeenth birthday, and he didn’t even know it.

He sailed southeast, crossing the equator once again as he entered the Meridian Sea, the point at which the Great Equatorial River became so broad that nearly twelve hundred miles lay between the southeastern tip of Barren Isle and the nearest subcontinent in the southern hemisphere. Between them lay the Meridian Archipelago.

Carlos spent three days and two nights at sea. He subsisted upon the dried fish and fresh water he had stockpiled in anticipation of the journey. The sun became his enemy; he covered himself with his tarp during the day to avoid heatstroke and sipped water to keep from becoming dehydrated. A brief rainstorm on the second day came as blessed relief; he stripped off his clothes and took a shower while standing naked in the stern of his canoe, scrubbing furiously at his matted hair and beard, then quickly refilled his water flasks.

He slept little, and only after he furled the sail and locked the rudder in place. He sang to himself to keep himself amused, and carried on imaginary conversations with the boid skull; for some reason, he was no longer visited by anyone he knew. On three different occasions he spotted catwhales, and on the second occasion he saw one as it breached the surface only a few hundred feet from his boat, hurling itself high into the air. He was unafraid of these giants, though, having long since realized that the only reason why one of them attacked his party was because David opened fire on it. He left the rifle alone—which was just as well, for there were only four rounds left in its clip anyway—and the catwhales spared him from anything more than a curious glance.

He navigated by following the flight of the river-swoops. There were dozens of them, great flocks of broad-winged birds that soared across the sky, sometimes hurling themselves headfirst into the sea to snatch up fish. By morning, they flew northwest, heading in the direction from which he had come; during midday he saw but a few, but by evening they would return, riding the twilight thermals as they made their way to the east. So long as he trailed them, Carlos knew he couldn’t get lost. Or at least that was what he believed.

Four days after he left Barren Isle, the winds shifted to come from the east, in the direction toward which he was traveling. Carlos reluctantly folded his sail and lowered the mast. Now he had to depend solely upon his paddle; the current was mild, but it, too, was going in the wrong direction. It was hard work; the canoe, that had once glided effortlessly across the water, had to be pushed along one foot at a time.

As the day wore on, he mechanically pumped the oar, staring down at his knees. His thoughts kept returning to Wendy, that moment with her on the beach just before he left. I love you, he’d said; why hadn’t she responded in kind? Good luck, she said, I’ll be waiting for you. No, that wasn’t right; what she’d really said was, We’ll be waiting for you. Meaning who? Her and the baby? That was what he thought she meant, but maybe she was really thinking about Chris?

How had their relationship gone wrong? She’d accused him of being self-centered; the more he thought about it, the more he realized that she was right. When they’d left Liberty, all he could think about was having sex with her; when she refused—and of course she would; she’d just learned she was pregnant by him—he’d become cold toward her. No wonder she had fallen out of love with him. Perhaps he’d seen himself as an adult, but the fact of the matter was that he’d acted childishly.

And then he’d abandoned her. Not just Wendy . . . everyone else as well. When he was sure everyone was asleep, he’d taken the rest of their supplies and the remaining canoe. The only reason why he’d said goodbye to her was because she woke up early and caught him. Was it really because he wanted to see the world, as he’d told her, or was there another reason?

Of course there was. David was dead, and he couldn’t deal with his responsibility for his death. There had been a certain look in Chris’s eyes, one he’d never seen before, and he couldn’t bear to see it again. So he’d split before he had to face his friend again.

Realizing these things, he winced with self-loathing. Why had it taken so long for him to see things so clearly? For weeks he’d sailed on the Great Equatorial, putting as much distance between him and everyone else as he possibly could. Now he was thousands of miles from Liberty, nearly half a world away from everyone he knew. . . .

And yet, no matter how far he traveled, he couldn’t escape from himself.

Was it too late for him to go home? Should he even bother?

The harsh cries of river-swoops broke his train of thought. For the first time in hours, he raised his eyes. And suddenly, he discovered that he had reached the end of his journey.

The Meridian Archipelago lay before him as an endless string of tiny isles, stretching away across the horizon. Yet they were islands unlike any he’d seen before: enormous massifs hundreds of feet tall, slender towers of rock looming above the water like the columns of some vast temple whose roof had long since collapsed. Thick blankets of vegetation covered their summits, from which long vines dangled. Countless years of tides and storms had gradually eroded them, leaving behind these uninhabited stone pillars.

No . . . not quite uninhabited. Swoops orbited the islands, their raucous voices echoing off the sheer rock walls. Above the nearest massif, dozens of birds, perhaps even hundreds, weaved around each other in a complex gyre. Sometimes they came down to rest, but more often than not they launched themselves in angry, seemingly random attacks upon other swoops. The water lapping against the base of the island was filthy with feathers, and sky about it was filled with the shriek of constant, unending warfare.

Carlos gradually began to comprehend what he was seeing. This one island was only a few hundred feet wide; the swoops must be fighting for space upon which to build their nests. And since there were hundreds of thousands of birds living upon the islands, territory would be at a premium. Not only that, but they’d have to range farther and farther away in order to gather food for their nestlings. At one time they might have preyed upon the inhabitants of Barren Isle, yet the sandthieves had evolved into intelligent tool-users, capable of building shelters, who only roamed at night. So now the swoops ruled the archipelago; they had chased off everything else and had only each other as enemies.

A cycle of life, as ancient as time itself. He’d reached the center of the world, yet he couldn’t remain there. There was no beach upon which to land, no place he could set up camp. Even if there was, the swoops would never let him stay; this was a society of predators, and they wouldn’t tolerate the presence of a stranger. He’d either have to raise sail, turn around, and go home . . . or continue southeast past the archipelago, and never see home again.

There were no other options. Go forward, or go back.

Putting down his oar, he crawled forward along the canoe until he found his pack. Opening it, he dug through his clothes until he found the satphone. He didn’t know what time it was, but it was midafternoon; if he was lucky, the Alabama should be somewhere overhead. Unfolding the antenna, he squatted on the sailboard and pushed the RETURN button.

The unit clicked a few of times as it sought to achieve uplink, then he heard a familiar buzz. He waited patiently, watching the swoops as they wheeled around the island. After a minute, someone picked up.

“Yes? Who’s calling?”

Carlos recognized the voice: Captain Lee. “Carlos. I’d like to talk to Wendy.”

“Carlos! Where are you?”

Why tell him? “Could I speak to Wendy? It’s really important.”

Pause. “I can’t do that. She’s gone into labor.”

Carlos sat up. She wasn’t due until sometime in Uriel. How long had he been gone? “What . . . I mean, how . . . ? Is she . . . ?”

“She’s doing fine. Don’t worry. Kuniko’s with her, and so far . . . look, where are you?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“She wants you here. I’ve been standing by the satphone, just in case you called.” Another pause. “Carlos, listen to me. Don’t hang up again. She broke water last night, and since then you’re the only thing she’s asked for. She needs you to be here.”

As he listened, Carlos gazed at his boat. Fourteen feet long, made of faux birch and catskin, with a boid skull lashed to its bow. A small craft that had served him well. It would be easy to raise the mast and unfurl the sail once more; a good breeze was coming from the west, and he still had enough food and water to last a while longer. He’d learned how to live with this planet. He could take his time returning home. If he returned home . . .

“Carlos, listen.” The captain’s voice had become urgent. “Just leave your antenna open and the phone switched on. We can find your current position from your uplink and send a shuttle out to get you. Two hours, and you’ll be home. . . .”

There was still much left to be learned. Yet, hadn’t he learned enough already? And what’s the point of knowledge if you don’t use it?

“Do you copy? Carlos, answer me, please.”

“I copy.” He let out his breath. “Will do. Tell Wendy I’m on my way.”

Being careful not to switch off, he placed the satphone on top of his pack, then reached forward to pick up a flask. He took a long drink of tepid water, spit it out, then splashed some on his face. No more need to conserve. He’d have to abandon the Orion once the shuttle arrived, along with everything else he couldn’t carry. A shame, but it couldn’t be helped.

Carlos crawled to the bow. He untied the boid skull and put it aside, gathered up his map and stuck it in his bag. Then, taking off his shirt and wadding it behind his head, he lay back against the sailboard and idly studied the birds as he watched for the shuttle.

His family was waiting for him. It was a good day to go home.