This time he was just passing through, and wanted to catch a sleeper train to Sabishii. So after dinner she walked with him up the staircase streets to the station, arm in arm, and as they approached the station he laughed and said, “I have to tell you my latest Maya dream.”
“Maya dream?”
“Yes. I have them every year or so. I dream about all of us, really. But this one was funny. I dreamed I was going to Underhill to attend some conference, on gift economies or something, and I got there and lo and behold you were there too, attending a hydrological conference. A coincidence. And not only that, but we were staying at the same hotel—”
“A hotel in Underhill?”
“In my dream it was a city like any other, with skyscrapers and a lot of hotels. A conference center or something like that. So anyway, not only were we both staying at the same hotel, but they had made a mistake and booked us into the same room. We were happy to see each other in the lobby, because we hadn’t known we were both going to be in town, but we didn’t discover we were accidentally put in the same room until we were up there in the hall, looking at our key tabs. And so, being responsible people, we went back down to the desk to explain the error—”
Maya snorted at this, feeling her arm tighten reflexively on his, and he grinned and waved her off with his other hand—
“But then when we got to the desk, the night clerk gave us the same look you’re giving me now, and he said, ‘Listen you two, I am Cupid, the god of love, and I made that mistake on purpose, to give you two a chance to be together without having planned it, so get back up there and have fun, and don’t try to cross me anymore!’ ”
Maya was laughing out loud, and Desmond laughed too.
“A great dream,” Maya said, and stopped him and held his hands. “And then?”
“Ah, well, then I woke up! I was laughing too hard, just like now. I said, No, no, don’t wake up yet! The good part is coming!”
She laughed and squeezed his hands. “No. The good part had already happened.”
He nodded and they hugged each other. Then his train pulled in and he was off.
Chapter 6
Four Teleological Trails
1. Wrong Way
Dawn patrol up the west inner wall of Crommelin Crater. Tram at the Bubbles, climb one of the steepest trails in the crater, take the rim trail around to the pond at Featherbed, drop down a new trail, and walk the ring road back to the tram, just a couple of kilometers.
But that morning it was raining hard, and misty too, not much wind, and within a hundred meters of leaving the tram turnabout I was lost. I followed what I thought was the path and it petered out almost immediately, so it wasn’t the trail; but rather than go back down I figured the trail was over to my right, and I angled up that way to run into it, but I never found it. But every route goes into Crommelin, you know, except for parts of Precipice Arc, so I decided to bushwhack on up with the hope of running into the trail eventually. I kept seeing what looked like an older version of the trail anyway—three or four stacked steps up a break in a wall; a long depression; some broken branches; and, most of all, rectangular gray paint marks on trees. They looked like the trail blazes you see on trees in the Cimmerian Forest. I was surprised anyone had chosen gray for the paint, and suspected it might be some kind of lichen, but it looked like paint no matter how close I got to it, even when I scraped it with my fingernail. Paint, I swear, and splashed on about chest or head high on trees, in a rough makable line up the slope. It was a broken ledgy crater wall, lots of trees, and then some worn old ramparts, and a few walls of bare rock that you had to get around or find cracks up. I figured anywhere trees grew I could scramble up, so I followed ramps of trees winding up through brecciated battlements, ducking under the branches. It was pouring down rain, so the showers I brought down on myself by moving the branches meant nothing to me. My real concern was my footing, because the leaf mats made lots of wet trapdoors in the basalt jumble of the ramps.
I kept slogging uphill, hoping of course that none of the battlements to left and right would extend unbroken across my path. And still wondering if I was on an old trail, drowned in leaves. Every time the gap between battlements became tight I would see rough stacks of stones helping me up, barely visible under the years of clutter. Then just as I was sure it was a trail it would all go away and I would be thrashing up through forest again. The question became the salient feature of the climb, absorbing all my thinking, all my rain-blurred inspection of the wall dripping around me, squishing and slipping underfoot—there, were those rocks stacked by hand to aid my way? Was that a gray trail blaze, on the tree right there in the middle of that tight little copse? But why put it there?
Up I fought, ducking to guard my face from scratchers, shouldering through larger branches. Always there was a way up and on, but no matter how hard I studied the landscape, I couldn’t decide the question of the trail one way or another. It often looked like untraveled wild hillside. But then another little stair section would appear and help me up and through a tight spot.
The climb went on so long I began to wonder about it. The ascent was only four hundred meters—surely I had done that already? The rain cloud thinned and I had more light. Rain continued, however, and it got windy, in downgusts. The slope lay back and I came across a flat strip filled with trees, floored by an old rusty tram track. A little shock to see it. I recalled reading of an old cog tram to the peak, but that had been on the south wall of the crater. A little farther I came on West Apron Road, which takes the rim for its last up, and jogged along it for a few minutes before I came to the shop and cable-car facility on the rim. It was nice to have topped out and to know exactly where on the rim I was, but I had taken twice as long as expected, and used up three times the energy, and when I continued north on the rim trail, I lost it again! It was both raining and foggy, and the west rim is very broad, all open rock in broken terraces, with stone stacks marking the trail, and small head-high or waist-high forests here and there, all very tight and gnarly. A lot of trails ran into these trees and worked for a while and then petered off into a bramble. I got frustrated; also worried that I would be really late getting back to the house. On dawn patrols I try to get back while people are still getting up, or getting breakfast.
So I stopped and thought it over. My glasses were misted with rain, and the air was whipping by in a pure fog. I couldn’t see more than twenty yards in any direction, and up here it wasn’t enough.
I turned back and whacked along the rim to the road, deciding I would run down the wall road to the crater floor, then over to the Bubbles and the tram. All the distances in the crater are so small, I figured at most it would be 10 k, and downhill most of the way. Not so much fun as a rain scramble, but faster.
Before I took off I went into the shop and bought a soda. They had just opened up. I took it to the counter and two young women stared at me as I took my wallet out of my pocket, from under my rain pants you know. But the wallet was wet, and even my card inside the wallet was wet. I might as well have just dived into the lake. I decided to pass on explaining and drink the soda outside.
Running down the road was spacey. It switched back and forth, always in heavy mist and rain. I had no idea how high on the wall I was. I passed a bluff cut by the road, now a waterfall, very pretty. Got into the trees, then under them, a long green canopy tunnel floored by the road, and the rain still bombing down on us. Got back to the station and trammed home, but I missed breakfast that day.