The sun was now a dim yellow disk balanced on the sharp line of the horizon. At this high latitude, instead of dropping straight down out of sight, it slithered slantways along the horizon. When half the disk was obscured, Jason marked the spot on the far rim, then went over and stood the pointed stone up at that spot. Then he returned to the spot where he had been sitting and squinted along his bearing marker.
“Very fine,” he said out loud. “Now I know where the sun sets, but how do I follow that direction after dark? Think, Jason, think, because right now your life depends upon it.” He shivered, surely because of the cold.
“It would help if I knew just where on the horizon the sun set, how many degrees west of north. With no axial tilt, the problem should be a simple one.” He scratched arcs and angles in the sand and mumbled to himself. “If the axis is vertical, every day must be an equinox, which means that day and night are equal every day, which means, ho-ho!” He tried to snap his fingers, but they were too cold to respond.
“That’s the answer! If the length of the night is to equal the length of the day, then there is only one place for the sun to set and rise, at every latitude from the equator north and south. The sun will have to cut a 80-degree arc through the sky, so it must rise due east and set due west. Eureka!”
Jason put his right ann straight out from his shoulder and shuffled around until his finger was pointing exactly at his marker.
“This is simplicity itself. I am pointing west and facing due south. Now I craftily pull up my left arm and I am pointing due east. All that remains now is to stand in this uncomfortable position until the stars come out.”
In the high, thin air, the first stars were already appearing in the east, though twilight still lingered on the opposite horizon. Jason thought for a moment and decided that he could improve upon the accuracy of the finger-pointing technique. He put a stone on the eastern rim of the gully, just above the spot where he had been sitting. Then he climbed the opposite wall and sighted at it over the first marker stone. A bright blue star lay close to the horizon in the correct spot, and a clear Z-shaped constellation was beginning to be visible around it.
“My guiding star, I shall follow you from afar,” Jason said, and snapped open his belt buckle to look down at the illuminated face of his watch. “Cot you. With a zo-hour day, I can say ten hours of darkness and ten of light. So right now I walk directly away from my star. In five hours it will hit its zenith in the south, right on a line with my left shoulder as I waJk. Then it swoops around and dives down to set directly in front of me about dawn. This is simplicity itself as long as I make adjustments for the new position every hour, or half hour, to allow for the changed position with the passage of time. Hah!”
Snorting this last, he made sure that the Z was directly behind his back, shouldered his club and tramped off in the correct direction. Everything seemed secure enough, but he wished, neither for the first nor the last time, that he had a gyrocompass.
The temperature dropped quickly as the night advanced, and in the dear, dry air the stars burned in distant, twinkling points. Overhead, the constellations wheeled silently high, while the little Z hurried in its low arc until it stood at its zenith at midnight. Jason checked his watch, then dropped onto a crackling hummock of grass. He had been walking for over five hours with only a single break. In spite of his training at zG on Pyrrus, the going was hard. He swigged from the drinking skin and wondered what the temperature was. In spite of its mildly alcoholic content, the acha4h was a half-frozen slush.
Felicity had no moons, but there was more than enough light to see by from the stars. The frigid grayness of the plain stretched away on all sides, silent and motionless except for the dark, moving mass coming up behind him.
Slowly, Jason sank to the ground and lay there, frozen, while the moropes and their riders came near, the ground shivering with the rumble of their feet. They passed, no more than 200 meters from where he lay, and he pressed flat and watched the dark, silent silhouettes until they vanished out of sight to the south.
“Looking for me?” he asked himself, standing and brushing at the furs. “Or are they heading for the ship?”
This latter seemed the most obvious answer. The compactness of the group and their hurried pace indicated some specific destination. And why not? He had been brought from the ship along this route, so it was perfectly understandable that others should follow it as well. He considered going over to attempt to follow their trail, but did not think too highly of the idea. There could be a good bit of traffic back and forth from the ship, and he did not feel like being caught on the barbarian highway by daylight.
When he stood up the wind had a chance to get at him, and a fit of shivering shook him with a giant hand. He was as rested as he was ever going to be, so he might as well press on before he froze to death. Slinging the drinking skin over his shoulder and picking up the club, he began walking again in the correct direction, paralleling the raiders’ track..
Twice more during that seemingly endless night, groups of raiders hurried by in the same direction, while Jason concealed himself against chance observation. Each time it was harder to get up and go on, but
the cold ground was a good persuader. By the time the sky began to lighten in the east, the ‘.5 gravIty had exacted its toll. It took Jason an effort of will to put one foot in front of the other. His guiding constellation was on the horizon, fading in the spreading grayness of dawn, and he went on until it was gone.
It was time to stop. Only by promising himself that he would not walk after sunrise had he managed to keep going at all. He could guide himself easily enough by the sun during the day, but it would be too dangerous. A moving figure could easily be seen at great distances on these plains. And, as the ship was not yet in sight, there was a good deal more walking to be done. He would have to get some rest if he were to go on, and this was possible only during the day.
He half fell, half crawled into the next gully. There was a small overhanging ledge, on the northern side where the sun would strike all day, just the burrow for him. The ledge would keep the wind off him and shield him from sight from above. Pulling his legs up to his chest, he tried to ignore the cold of the ground that struck through his furs and insulated clothing. While he was wondering if, chilled, uncomfortable, exhausted, stifling, he could possibly fall asleep, he fell asleep.
Some sound, some presence bothered him, and he opened one eye and peered out from under the edge of the hat. Two gray-furred animals, with skinny tails and long teeth, were surveying him with wide eyes from the other side of the gully. He said “Boo” and they vanished. The sun felt almost warm now and the ground had either warmed up or his side was too numb to feel anything. He went to sleep again.
The next time he awoke the sun had dropped behind the gully wall and he was in shadow. He knew just what a slab of meat in a frozenfood locker felt like. Moving took almost more effort than he cared to make, and he was afraid that, if he struck his hands or feet against anything, they would crack off. There was still some achadh left in the skin and he swilled it down, which brought on an extended coughing fit. When it was over he felt weaker, though a little bit more alive.
Once again he took his direction from the setting sun and, when the stars came out, started on his way. Walking was much worse than it had been the preceding night. Exertion, his wounds, the lack of food and the heightened gravity exacted their toll. Within an hour he was tottering like an octogenarian and knew that he could not go on like this. He dropped to the ground, panting with exhaustion, and pressed the release that dropped the medikit into his hand.
“I’ve been saving you for the last round. And, if I am not mistaken, I have just heard the final bell ringing.”