Because of the supreme flatness of its surroundings, the hill was in all probability not as high as it appeared. Jon had no experience of elevations other than the trees and had no way of estimating just how high it was. The hill was also surprisingly regular, almost perfectly cone-like in its dimensions, with what looked like a precisely flat top. It was in fact a good approximation of a frustum – although Jon was innocent of that word.
Despite all his misgivings he decided to press on. Perhaps he could reach the hill before the time of darkness.
Then an amazing thought struck him, a thought so profoundly astounding that he gave a little grunt of wonderment.
Those structures near the top of the elevation – could there be things like him – Jon – there? Could there be more of him in this Universe – more Jons?
It was a truly staggering idea. He had no idea how such a ridiculously outlandish thought could have come to him. He had always thought he knew the Universe. There were night predators, kabarras, akaro trees, soil, stones and – him. Why should there be anything else? How could there be anything else?
Now that the thought had erupted, fully formed, into his mind he felt more determined than ever to reach that hill. He felt a strange certainty that somehow it held answers to these questions that had made these days so strange and bewildering.
With a fresh determination, he struck out into the scrub, leaving the last akaro tree behind him. He felt a strange sense of vulnerability, of a kind of nakedness as he left the forest farther and farther behind. In all his memories, he had never had so much almost empty space around him; there had always been the closeness of the growing things, the great grey gloom cast by the trees; the bushes that tore and impeded his progress. It was almost as if he was floating in a void, cut off from all he had known.
Perhaps things would be better when he was on top of that hill, surrounded by whatever those structures were.
He pressed on. Occasionally he cast a backward glance at the black wall of the forest but as that wall shrank down into a thin line he decided it was too unsettling to see his normal world reduced to insignificance. He decided to rest at a group of boulders that reached up quite a height towards the sky. He didn’t like looking at that sky: there was simply too much of it. Instead of strips of reddish light between the branches there was just one enormous, unblemished dome that seemed to be sucking him upwards, drawing him into a great glowing crimson maw. He had kept his gaze low from then on.
He leaned against the nearest boulder; a great slab of pitted, greyish rock that bore a few films of some kind of barely alive plant.
He realised then that his exertions had given him a terrible thirst. The kabarra flesh had held some water but most of its constituent liquids had been various thick oils. Normally, he would simply break off a branch and suck the moisture out of it but here there was no vegetation large enough to have that kind of branch.
He looked around with growing desperation. Without water, he could not complete his trek and if he attempted to return to the forest, he would arrive at the same time as the darkness and be easy prey for the night creatures. Not for the first time, he cursed the strange compulsion that had come over him and which now looked like bringing him to a premature end. Then on the harsh winds that were playing over his semi-nude body, he detected a familiar odour: the scent of water. Only those who are not short of that lifegiving liquid believe that it is odourless – to those in desperate need it has the sweetest, most wonderful odour imaginable. And Jon knew that it could not be far distant and lay in front of him, not behind.
He set off, imbued with a new spirit of confidence; almost of adventure. This new land was one he would conquer and make his own.
That spirit did not last too long as the ground before him became steadily stonier, more barren and less and less likely to hold any water. A heat haze started to ripple across the more distant vistas, giving false hope that there was indeed standing water not too far away.
Jon cursed his luck using the only curse he knew, the meaningless word that had come to him suddenly, not too long ago.
And then in the rippling distance he saw something that he had never seen before. On a ridge some unguessable distance away were three stick-like objects. At first Jon thought that they were dead trees, rearing leafless branches to the sky. But no! – he saw that they were moving. They were walking upright – like he himself. One question had been answered: there were indeed creatures like him in The Universe. He was not alone!
A wave of previously unknown emotion powered through him then. Others! There was a word which suddenly meant something.
Companionship. He would be able to interact with beings like himself but not himself. It was such an alien concept that for a moment he felt unsteady and had to lean against a rock to avoid collapsing. Would they look exactly like him? (He had no real idea of his appearance as there were no bodies of standing water of any size anywhere in the forest.) Would they be able to speak and if so, would he understand them?
The whirl of sudden possibilities was almost overwhelming. Kabarras he could deal with, the night predators he knew how to avoid – but things like him? The unknown possibilities were almost frightening.
But one thing was sure – if he did not meet up with them he would never know. He raised his spinning head from his chest and looked again where he had seen them.
They were gone.
Jon carried on further into the wilderness, wondering more and more if he was wandering into his doom. But the compulsion would not let him go; like an animal caught in the jaws of a larger beast, he could not change his direction.
And then he found it. Cresting a low ridge, he came across a still expanse of what must be water. It was streaked through with black scum but between the tendrils of that growth he could see the red light reflecting off what could only be a liquid.
Carefully he approached it. If it was indeed water it was the largest body of that substance he had ever seen. There was water aplenty in the forest but it was bound up in the soil and could only be seen as droplets when that substance was compressed by hands or feet. Here it miraculously formed a pool so large that Jon could not have jumped across it. Large indeed. He bent down to investigate it more fully. There were long strips of slime winding their way just under the surface and hordes of tiny black things darting so rapidly over the surface that he could not get a clear view of them. But by carefully angling his interlinked hands into the water he was able to get a sufficient amount to drink and which only contained one or two of the little darting things. The water was warm and had a greasy undertaste which the water from the bushes did not have, but in Jon’s parched state it was the sweetest nectar.
Ignoring the faint wrigglings of the little black things as they disappeared into his digestive tract, Jon looked around with reinvigorated vision. The land was not becoming any more welcoming; quite the opposite in fact. He arose to get a better view of the mysterious hill when he noticed something on the ground. Or rather in the ground for he saw a number of shallow oval depressions.
They could be footprints he decided, putting his own feet next to them. The ground was too hard to give any indication of toes or footwear but the way they were spaced gave a clear indication that something had been striding along next to this pool. The indentations were about the same size as his own feet, which was further proof.
A thrill passed through him. The prints must have been made by the other Jons that he had seen in the distance. He had not imagined them and they must be near! Soon he would meet them and be able to finally have companions in this dreadful world!