At a third riverbed they found a pool of standing water and stopped, the sky on fire behind them, a deepening blue ahead. "Honey, I'm home!" Ico called, heaving off his pack in relief. They guessed they'd come ten miles.
Daniel was the only one who hadn't brought a tent, deciding to rely on a light tarp instead. Bright fabric mushrooms puffed up from the other three to form an instant village, the thin nylon a comfortable shield against the emptiness of this great outside. There was a bit of awkward unfamiliarity as they set up their stoves and prepared their first real meal, sharing dishes, but also good humor at the fact they were succeeding on their own with these simple tasks. Tucker dragged in some wood and lit a fire with a match. Its purpose was more psychological than to heat or cook. "Man is here!" Tucker shouted to the desert. "He will prevail!" The noise drifted away across the sand.
"And woman." Amaya had erected her tent first.
"There's only one of you," Ico noted.
"She'll prevail anyway," Daniel predicted. "Smarter, saner, and more centered than any of us."
She grinned at him. "Centered, or self-centered?"
"The center of our universe," Ico crooned.
As the light disappeared, so did the flies. Stars began to pop out, first like isolated beacons and then faster and faster, like a growing storm of snow. The night shone with starlight, the silken ribbon of the Milky Way a familiar streak but the constellations strange. Amaya pointed to a cluster of stars to the south. "The Southern Cross," she said. "We'll keep it on our right as we travel."
Sparks climbed skyward and seemed to join the stars. Daniel got a laugh with his story of how he'd started a tiny blaze in his apartment.
"I'll pay fifty bucks to see you do that again," offered Ico.
"You brought money?"
"Just what I had. In case we got held up somewhere." He shrugged. "I'll probably keep it though, for emergencies, and pay you at home."
"That's crazier than rubbing sticks, you know that?"
"Come on, I want to see you do it."
"No, I'm too tired. Last time it took me hours. Besides, you'll get to see me do it for free once we run out of matches."
"Civilization starting to look better then?" He held up a match.
"Not good enough that I'd want to be carrying seventy-five pounds, like you're doing."
Ico grinned. "It gets lighter with every match."
The light and food and rest relaxed them, erasing memories of the heat of the day. They laughed at Ico's espresso maker with its solar battery chip, but they each had a cup.
"See, what I'm looking for is balance," he explained. "I know this shit is silly, but why not take the best of both worlds and enjoy ourselves out here? It's society I don't like, not technology. Bureaucracy, not gadgets. My goal is to find out what's really necessary, what's really important, and then plan permanent escape. I take the essentials into a wild pocket of the world- maybe even sneak back here- and live my life, not theirs. Even Robinson Crusoe had a lot of shipwreck gear to salvage. I'd want that too."
"You don't happen to have an ice cream maker stuffed away, do you, Crusoe?" Tucker asked. "I'm craving strawberry ripple."
"Nah. But maybe there's still wild cows in Australia. If you catch one, Freidel, I'll make you a latte."
Despite his weariness from the day's walk, Daniel was too restless to immediately sleep. He strolled up the riverbed, the gray sand shimmering under the stars and the night strangely comforting in its glow. This was not a scary place at all, he decided. He also liked the smell of Australia. There was none of the odor of moist soil and decay like some wet northern forests he had hiked in, but rather a scent of dry wood and plant oils that strangely reminded him of dusty furniture. The aridity seemed clean. He could hear animals scuttling away in the night and he wondered who the group's neighbors were. There were no large predators in Australia, he knew. Eventually they might run into wild domestics- dogs, camels, cows, pigs- but for the moment nature seemed unfamiliar, harmless, and discreet.
He sat on a log, looked up into the night sky, and shivered. The glorious immensity! Not just of the universe, but this strange red desert. It was intimidating to think of being so far from help, but liberating too. He could go anywhere, do anything. Be anything. All the restraints were off except the ones remaining in his head. This could be heaven, he thought: roaming endlessly with his house on his back and exploring the uncharted terrain of his own spirit. He could do it forever with the right person. Daniel wondered if Raven was out there somewhere, and if so whether she was walking with a man other than himself. He wondered if he'd ever see her again.
There was a rustle and he turned. It was Amaya.
"Can I join you?"
He beckoned and she sat down on the log next to him. "It's nicest at night," she said. "No wonder that's when most of the desert creatures move about."
"I think we're going to have to change our habits. Move early and late, hole up at midday. We're prisoners of that sun."
"Prisoners? I thought we came here for freedom, Daniel."
"Oops."
"We just need to get in rhythm."
"That's what I meant. But it was an interesting slip. I've heard that when you're jailed long enough you never really get free. You become a prisoner in your own mind. Everything looks like a wall. And you learn to like your jailers."
"You're worried that's you."
"Of course."
"We do have to be realistic about what we can achieve out here," she said. "Animals aren't really free. They spend their lives bound by the weather, the seasons, and hunting or being hunted. We shouldn't romanticize them or their existence or pretend we can find a life without limitations. But I liked what you said today about getting away from numbers and schedules and maps. I think we're here to break bad habits, or at least recognize and examine them."
He looked at her face, pale in the starlight. Amaya was actually quite pretty, he decided- not beautiful in the conventional sense of a model but rather kind, good, with bright, intelligent eyes, a wide smile, and a grounded sensibility he found reassuring. Her appeal snuck up on you. It was interesting she'd sought him out. "I think the voice of reason so far has been you," he said. "Us boys can get kind of silly sometimes. We enjoy the arguing. It's like a game."
"I know."
They sat for a while, staring up at the sky.
"I never knew there could be so many stars," Daniel said. "We never see them at home. The light they cast is amazing."
"Maybe someday those stars will be our new wilderness, do you think? A wilderness to explore that goes on to infinity. But not yet. We've barely put our toe into space, so for now this is as far out as people like you and I can get."
"Did you ever want to be an astronaut?"
She shivered. "No. Space seemed too cold."
"So now you're a bush ranger instead."
"I'm just a woman who wants to fall in love with this world as it is, or rather was. I don't need the planets. I want to feel at home here."
"And do you?"
"After one day? It's too early to tell. But I'm glad I came."
"I was right about you being centered. You seem the most balanced of any of us. You recognize what we're seeing, you don't complain, and your gear seems well organized. You're so normal I'm wondering what you're doing here."