“Having successfully completed phase one,” said Kellie, “we should turn our attention to figuring out how to plant the pickups.”
They brought up images of the cities and looked through them one by one. All had waterfront areas, and that’s where the shops tended to be. And where the population clustered. “I say we go into downtown Athens,” Digger said. “How many pickups do we have? Six?”
“Five,” said Kellie. “Including the notebooks.”
There was one other assignment: The Academy wanted information on Goompah nutrition. During the past two weeks, they’d seen the Goompahs eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish. (At least, that’s what it looked like through the telescopes.) Some of the fruit they’d seen hung on trees in their immediate area. Red pears, large golden melons that looked delicious, small silver apples. They picked up samples of everything.
In addition to buildings that appeared to be ordinary cabins or dwellings for housing individuals or small families, there were structures clearly intended to be living quarters, but they were big, rambling places, with wings and upper floors, large enough to provide shelter to fifty or more. And the places looked occupied and busy.
When they had seen enough, they retired to the lander to await the coming of dark.
IT DIDN’T TAKE long. A twenty-two-hour rotational period created a short day. Jack napped, while Kellie watched for intruders and Digger watched Kellie. But the woods stayed quiet, and the afternoon passed without incident. Winnie informed them that there was still occasional traffic on the highway, in case they “wanted to try again.” She sounded serious. Digger half expected that the palace guard and the local militia would arrive to put a volley of arrows into whatever the thing was that had been seen terrifying travelers along the isthmus road. But the area remained quiet, and Winnie observed nothing that looked like a militia response.
Clouds gathered, and rain began to fall. By sunset it was a steady downpour. Ideal weather for strange creatures that needed to get out and do some lurking.
When night came, it grew absolutely dark. Back-of-the-basement locked-in-the-storage-bin dark. There wasn’t a speck of light out there anywhere. There was no way to judge, of course, the quality of the locals’ ability to see at night, but they did have large eyes.
Jack, however, had a substantial advantage: night goggles. Kellie got them out of the supply locker, and ten minutes later the lander, operating in silent mode, drifted through heavy rain over Athens and its harbor.
Athens was medium-sized, compared with the other Goompah cities. It was located on the eastern side of the isthmus. Four piers jutted out into the harbor, where a few ships lay at anchor. Tumbledown storage facilities lined the waterfront. Lights flickered in one or two of them. The streets were deserted. “A part of Athens you don’t usually hear about,” said Digger.
Jack smiled in the glow of the instrument panel. “Nobody uses Doric columns to build warehouses,” he said. His tone suggested it was wisdom for the ages.
Kellie brought them down alongside one of the piers. Jack turned in his seat and looked back at Digger. “Listen, if you want, I’m willing to do this.”
Digger would have been happy to turn the job over to him. But Kellie would never have approved, would have seen it as an act of cowardice. Jack was not young, was slow afoot, and would have a difficult time if the mission went wrong. This was a rare chance for Digger to show off. And he suspected there was no real danger. Goompahs were terrified of him, so what did he have to fear? “You don’t have the build,” he said laconically. “Or the clothes.”
He stuffed the pickups and the notebooks into a bag and headed for the airlock. “Be careful,” Kellie said. She surprised him with a quick embrace.
He slipped through the hatch, looked around, saw nothing moving, and stepped out onto the pier.
The sea was high, and the wind tried to push him into the water. The e-suit kept him comfortable but he knew it was cold out there.
He signaled to Kellie, and she began to pull away. “Good luck, Champ,” she said.
Digger hurried off the pier and slipped into a narrow street. There were small wooden buildings on either side, mostly sheds. But there was noise ahead: music and loud gargling sounds and pounding like the pounding he’d heard on the road. He rounded a corner and saw an open-front café.
It was half-empty, but the Goompahs inside were drinking, eating, dancing, and having a good time. The café was located in a dreary four-story stone building. A stout wooden canopy was erected to protect daytime patrons from the sun. He stood beneath it, peering into the interior, when two Goompahs he had not seen passed behind him and wandered into the café without giving him a second look.
He strolled closer, squeezing down inside his shirt and pulling his wide-brimmed hat down over his face.
The pickups, because they were jury-rigged, were of different sizes and shapes. Each had a strip of adhesive affixed that would allow him to attach it to a flat surface.
The café was an ideal spot, and the obvious flat surface was in the juncture of cross-fitting wooden beams supporting the canopy. Digger wandered casually close to it, and was able to stay out of sight of the customers while he put one of the notebooks in place. He’d have preferred to install it higher, where it would be less visible and out of everyone’s reach. But it was reasonably well hidden, and he thought it would probably be okay for a while.
He withdrew into the shadows and away from the noise. “Jack,” he said. “I just planted number four. How’s it look?”
“Good. Perfect. One thing, we won’t have any problem hearing them.”
The area was lined with wooden stalls hung with skins. Rain poured down on them. Somewhere, down the street and around a corner, there was more noise. Another drinking establishment, obviously. He tried to look in a couple of the shops, but they were locked.
The streets were becoming a swamp. Occasionally, figures hurried along, bundled against the downpour, too intent on keeping dry to think much about strangers. One of these came out from behind a wall without warning and almost collided with Digger. The creature said something, glanced at him, and its eyes went wide. Digger smiled back and said, “Hi,” in his best falsetto.
The creature shrieked.
Digger broke into a run, turned left behind a shed, cut across a muddy expanse of open ground, and found himself in a quiet street of stone-and-brick houses. He listened for a long moment, heard sounds of commotion behind him, but there was no evidence of pursuit.
“How you doing?” asked Kellie. He jumped at the sound of the voice.
“I just crashed into one of them.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I never kid. I think the thing saw enough of me to realize I wasn’t a local.” He couldn’t altogether keep the pride out of his voice.
“Are you okay now?”
He found an alley and turned into it. “I think so.”
“If he gets too curious, just show him what you really look like.”
“Har, har.” The sounds behind him were dying down. And the street remained empty.
“Maybe you should just plant the pickups and get back here.”
“Relax,” he said. “Everything’s under control.” But something was coming. Two animals, large-jawed, trimmer than the rhinos, sort of like fat horses. Two Goompahs rode them, bent against the storm. He hurried to the other end of the alley and came out on a street that was given over to more shops.
He found occasional bits of vegetable and meat or fish lying about. He recovered them and dropped them into sample bags, grateful for the Flickinger field that prevented his having to touch them. Some of the stuff looked repulsive.