weather reports and geology.
His notes by midmorning were mostly botanical, the latest in-
Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 4 3
volving a patch of low scrub of a kind, greenbush, that Marak remembered personally seeding north of the Needle River, oh, six or so hundred years ago. Reference available to Procyon’s casual scan said it tended to be a precursor species. It put down roots, and lighter seed that blew up against it lodged, grew, and fought the precursor species for water, if water was scarce.
Scarce it was not, on the Plateau, and would be less so if the Southern Wall cracked. As the climate changed, precursors and new plants would live and fight each other for sunlight, until their strongest descendants won. But that was in the future. Marak said he was seeding several other plants as they passed, a ground cover, stubweed, and a taller type of shrub, blue dryland windwalker, that, Marak said, might rim a someday sea.
Procyon keyed up images of those plants, too, getting his own picture of what Marak intended and the sort of growth Marak foresaw covering the thin sandy skin of this rise. He didn’t want to make another statement Auguste could gently imply was foolish.
And he was insatiably curious.
Crazy, his younger sister had said about him. Way too serious.
Enjoy life. Who cares about classes? Cut out. Party.
He did enjoy life, precisely because he knew what those plants looked like, because he was planning a way to get into an intelligent dialogue with Auguste in this next report to prove he wasn’t a fool, and because he knew, because Marak hadn’t needed to give his conclusions aloud, but had—that he’d been purposely given a tidbit of information. A living god thought his curiosity was worth rewarding, the way he had rewarded his predecessor’s. Finally.
And that inspired him beyond all expectation. Curiosity was his life. Curiosity made him enjoy getting up in the morning. Curiosity made him dive right in even before the alarm went off—
Hell!
Anniversary. The parental anniversary.
He’d come in here, isolate from the house system, before Sam gave him the scheduled reminder, and he hadn’t remembered to tend to it before work.
He made a note on his hand, as something he’d carry out of the room.
4 4 • C . J . C h e r r y h
He could take care of it. He had an idea. Courier delivery. Peace in the family was the important thing.
Marak and Hati rode, meanwhile, talking quietly, and Procyon listened, only listened.
Eavesdropping on God. Tagging along like a five-year-old, learning everything in the whole world as if it were new, and sometimes almost forgetting to type his notes in the excitement of the instant.
They’d come in sight of the rim of the Needle River Gorge, the edge of the western lowlands. They had reached the narrowest part of the rocky spine, from which they could see the deep of the gorge on one hand and the expanse of the pans in the other, both at the same time.
God, that had to be a view.
“ G R E E N ,” M A R A K S A I D TO H I S wife and his companions, looking back down the curve of the long ridge of rock—desert pans dizzyingly far below on one side, and now the eroding deep of the great gorge on the other side of this resistant, ancient lava flow. He added, for his young watcher, “As far as the eye can see.”
Marak rode comfortably, foot tucked in the curve of the beshta’s neck, rocking gently to a rhythm as steady and eternal as his heartbeat, the line of their caravan still ascending that narrow spit that was part of the Plateau, which became, ultimately, the Southern Wall.
“Green-rimmed like the Paradise,” Hati said, meaning the river of the Refuge, where fields and farms and orchards had skirted the first dependable water of the midlands desert, to welcome the refugees in the days of the Hammerfall.
Plants always came first in their plan. Plants that cleaned and re-plenished the air, not only plants on the land, but algae blown out onto
His notes by midmorning were mostly botanical, the latest in-
Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 4 3
volving a patch of low scrub of a kind, greenbush, that Marak remembered personally seeding north of the Needle River, oh, six or so hundred years ago. Reference available to Procyon’s casual scan said it tended to be a precursor species. It put down roots, and lighter seed that blew up against it lodged, grew, and fought the precursor species for water, if water was scarce.
Scarce it was not, on the Plateau, and would be less so if the Southern Wall cracked. As the climate changed, precursors and new plants would live and fight each other for sunlight, until their strongest descendants won. But that was in the future. Marak said he was seeding several other plants as they passed, a ground cover, stubweed, and a taller type of shrub, blue dryland windwalker, that, Marak said, might rim a someday sea.
Procyon keyed up images of those plants, too, getting his own picture of what Marak intended and the sort of growth Marak foresaw covering the thin sandy skin of this rise. He didn’t want to make another statement Auguste could gently imply was foolish.
And he was insatiably curious.
Crazy, his younger sister had said about him. Way too serious.
Enjoy life. Who cares about classes? Cut out. Party.
He did enjoy life, precisely because he knew what those plants looked like, because he was planning a way to get into an intelligent dialogue with Auguste in this next report to prove he wasn’t a fool, and because he knew, because Marak hadn’t needed to give his conclusions aloud, but had—that he’d been purposely given a tidbit of information. A living god thought his curiosity was worth rewarding, the way he had rewarded his predecessor’s. Finally.
And that inspired him beyond all expectation. Curiosity was his life. Curiosity made him enjoy getting up in the morning. Curiosity made him dive right in even before the alarm went off—
Hell!
Anniversary. The parental anniversary.
He’d come in here, isolate from the house system, before Sam gave him the scheduled reminder, and he hadn’t remembered to tend to it before work.
He made a note on his hand, as something he’d carry out of the room.
4 4 • C . J . C h e r r y h
He could take care of it. He had an idea. Courier delivery. Peace in the family was the important thing.
Marak and Hati rode, meanwhile, talking quietly, and Procyon listened, only listened.
Eavesdropping on God. Tagging along like a five-year-old, learning everything in the whole world as if it were new, and sometimes almost forgetting to type his notes in the excitement of the instant.
They’d come in sight of the rim of the Needle River Gorge, the edge of the western lowlands. They had reached the narrowest part of the rocky spine, from which they could see the deep of the gorge on one hand and the expanse of the pans in the other, both at the same time.
God, that had to be a view.
“ G R E E N ,” M A R A K S A I D TO H I S wife and his companions, looking back down the curve of the long ridge of rock—desert pans dizzyingly far below on one side, and now the eroding deep of the great gorge on the other side of this resistant, ancient lava flow. He added, for his young watcher, “As far as the eye can see.”
Marak rode comfortably, foot tucked in the curve of the beshta’s neck, rocking gently to a rhythm as steady and eternal as his heartbeat, the line of their caravan still ascending that narrow spit that was part of the Plateau, which became, ultimately, the Southern Wall.
“Green-rimmed like the Paradise,” Hati said, meaning the river of the Refuge, where fields and farms and orchards had skirted the first dependable water of the midlands desert, to welcome the refugees in the days of the Hammerfall.
Plants always came first in their plan. Plants that cleaned and re-plenished the air, not only plants on the land, but algae blown out onto
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