She was, of course, well-used to the views from the crests of the hills surrounding the dead city—but those surrounding slopes had all been gentle, their undulations seeming halfhearted and indolent, and there had been so many of them that none could seem out of the ordinary. There had been slopes everywhere, cutting and confusing lines of vision in every direction. Distant horizons must have been visible, but they were always fragmentary; even when the occasional pinnacle of rock provided some relief from the blurred purple curves, it tended to be framed by nearer objects that robbed it of all grandeur. This landscape was conspicuously different. The plateau’s edge extended for kilometer after kilometer in either direction. Its neatness was interrupted here and there by arbitrary landslips and curtains of purple climbers, but the basic line was clear enough, and its convex curvature was too gentle to provide a disappointing cutoff point for a roaming eye. As for the oceanic canopy beyond, it stretched into the distance with a truly majestic sweep, extending to a horizon that was flat and sharp even on a day that was somewhat less bright than its immediate predecessors.
Matthew watched her as she lowered her eyes. Immediately below the plateau’s edge there was the ragged hem of transitional vegetation, which varied in extent from twenty to sixty meters, but he knew that it gave way soon enough to the paradoxical “savannah”: the empire of the grass-analogues that were taller and far more imperious than grass-analogues had any right to be. The structures were all alike at first glance, but even the untrained eye of an anthropologist would probably find it easy enough to pick out a dozen or so variants. Not all anthropologists would have sufficient critical spirit to challenge the crewman who had hung the “grassland” label on the territory, but Matthew was sure that Dulcie had. She would already be beginning to wonder what functions the elaborate crowns performed, given that they could not be seed heads akin to Earthly grasses of Earth. Perhaps she had heard Bernal Delgado talk about the mystery at some length, casually throwing around speculations about sophisticated sporulation mechanisms and gradual chimerical renewal in the plant kingdom. Perhaps she was taking note, as Matthew had, of the fact that the contributors to the oceanic canopy gave the impression of being collaborators rather than competitors, like members of a contentedly multicultural crowd whose collective identity casually overwhelmed the idiosyncrasies of its individual members.
There, if anywhere, she must be thinking, the descendants of the city-dwellers must be. But what kind of social life could they eke out beneath that enigmatic canopy?
Humans, as every anthropologist knew, were products of Earth’s African savannah. The crucial alliance of clever hands, keen eyes, and capacious brains had been forged by a selective regime of terrain where it paid to be tall, to hunt by day, and to develop tools for the primary biotechnologies of cooking and clothing. But none of that pertained to thismock-savannah or to thesehumanoids. The “grasses” hereabouts were far too tall to allow bipedal mammal-equivalents to peer over them. Even by day the world beneath the purple canopy would be dim, and even if the hunting were not poor, what scope could there possibly be for brain-building primary technologies? If there were no fires in the depths of that purple sea, how could there be people? How could the uncaring forces of natural selection ever have molded anything resembling people from its lumpen animal clay?
Matthew was on the brink of losing himself in such thoughts when verstehenbrought him suddenly back to earth, telling him—with some urgency—that something was wrongwith Dulcie Gherardesca’s posture.
It was not her stillness or her self-absorption that struck a warning note in his mind—she had been self-absorbed and seemingly tranquil all day—but a kind of tension that seemed to be building, little by little and not without resistance: a kind of resolve that was forming, little by little, and not untainted by doubt.
The warning note triggered a conviction, and the conviction a sudden determination.
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” he said, trying to keep his voice verysteady.
She heard him, and knew that he could only be speaking to her, but she didn’t turn around. For four long seconds it looked as if she might not deign to reply. Then she did, but still without turning to face him.
“Didn’t what?” she said.
He dared not heave a sigh of relief, even though he knew that the battle was half-won as soon as she consented to enter into a dialogue.
“Didn’t jump,” he offered, by way of unnecessary clarification. He knew that she had understood exactly what he meant. What he didn’t know was what to say next, although he knew that he had to say something, and make it good.
“You know,” he went on, after the slightest pause, “this is one of those embarrassing moments when nothing comes to mind by way of advice or reassurance but hollow clichés. I hope you’ll forgive me for sounding so utterly selfish, but the one reason that springs forth more rapidly than any other is that we really do need you. In fact, we can’t do without you. So even if the reasons for self-destruction were compelling, on a purely introspective basis, I really, reallywould rather you didn’t. Especially not now.”
“You don’t really need me,” she told him, bleakly. “There’s nothing down there, you know. Nothing useful, nothing enlightening. No answers.”
“We don’t know that,” Matthew was quick to say, having no difficulty at all in sounding sincere. “We haven’t the slightest idea what answers we might find down there, to what questions. That’s the whole point: it’s the great unknown. Even in your situation, I couldn’t even entertain the thought of coming this far and not going on.”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant by “your situation.” “Did Solari tell you when you had your little private conference?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “I guessed when I saw you with the artifacts. I knew that Vince wouldn’t have let you take material evidence away unless there was a quid pro quo. You couldn’t have confessed in so many words, of course, but I knew you must have given him to understand that you’d turn yourself in when you got back. So I know that you don’t mean it when you say there’s nothing down there. There’s everythingdown there.”
It wasn’t working, but he had to carry on. “I can’t believe you came here with the intention of not going back,” he said. “The expedition into the interior may be all that’s left to you, but isstill on, still beckoning. You mustn’t let a stray moment of doubt and despair get in the way. Please.”
“Do the others know?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Matthew said. “If they’ve guessed, they’re keeping it to themselves, just as I was. If they only suspect the truth, they’re in no hurry to exchange suspicion for certainty. Bernal expected to find something down there, didn’t he? Maybe not humanoids, but something worthwhile. Serial killer anemones. NV correlated with ER. Something to tip us off as to why this world is at one and the same time so seemingly simple and so obviously weird. We really don’t know what might be down there—and it’s certainly far too soon to despair of making progress when we haven’t even stepped across the threshold.”
Dulcie didn’t turn around, and Matthew could see that her attitude was still all wrong. That line of argument was too familiar to cut through the Gordian knot of her confusion; he needed something that could catch her attention more securely: something that could draw her out of her neurotic self-absorption; something that could surprise her. It had to be true, though. Surprise was no good in itself, and no good at all unless he could startle her with the truth—or something that could pass for the truth.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything that was sure to do the trick. He was tired, and his arm hurt worse than any IT-equipped man ever expected any part of him to hurt, and he had already said most of what there was to be said about the stubborn mysteries of Tyre, alias Ararat, alias humankind’s New World.