"Forget the hunting camps," Cale said. "The buildings are usually made of native woods, for 'atmosphere' and wouldn't last 500 years. A power station sounds good, if it hasn't been looted. Lots of high-grade, heavy metals, suitably weathered. But that means people would go to a lot of trouble to loot them. A scientific station might be our best bet."
"I'd bet nobody looted a station on South continent," Dee said, "And we're unlikely to be interrupted by unfriendly strangers there."
Cale grinned. "True. Unfriendly animals, however . . . "
That night they both slept under the hypnogogue, and both awoke with roaring headaches. They practiced conversing in 'modern Jumbo' until Tess pronounced herself satisfied.
"Now, all we have to do," Cale said, "is figure out how to deliver us inconspicuously to the edge of civilization in a spaceship or a lifeboat that roars like a volcano, and produces a fire trail that can be seen for miles."
Tess produced a sound suspiciously like a snicker. "That is true. Cheetah is many things, but subtle is not one of them, especially in atmosphere. And primitive people are typically very careful observers of the world around them. I doubt there is a human on Jumbo who does not know there is a spaceship on Jumbo, or at least that there are mysterious lights appearing in the sky, and strange, loud noises."
"I thought we were going to use the lifeboat," Dee said.
Cale shook his head. "I thought so too, at first. But while the lifeboat is smaller than Cheetah, and not as loud, she still produces a fire trail and roar. That's probably how the nomads were able to track us. If a fire trail ends anywhere near a town, the people will be looking for strange happenings associated with it."
"The flitter in my cargo hold is nearly silent, and does not produce a fireball," Tess said. "But we are a long way from the inhabited area. It would take weeks to get there in a flitter; and of course, it would run out of fuel before making it across the sea.
"My suggestion," she continued, "would be to gather your trade goods here, and perhaps make a trader's cart that can be disassembled and stowed in the flitter. Then, you can occupy the flitter while I fly us across the sea and to an isolated area. If I am not seen to ground, my flight will become just another isolated incident; but if I open my cargo hatch, we may be able to jettison the flitter, and you can fly it to walking distance of a town, assemble and load your cart, and become traders."
"It sounds dangerous to me," Dee said.
Cale was frowning. "Yeah, me, too. Tess, you may be a hot pilot, but I'm just average. I don't think I'd like to fly a flitter out a hatch and into an airstream of hundreds of miles per hour!"
"The timing will be tricky," Tess admitted. "But I estimate the chances of success at over 70%. I will approach land in a horizontal attitude, similar to that of an aircraft. When we reach the proper point, I will slow to minimum, and use my attitude jets to reverse my attitude and kill nearly all my forward velocity, and then adjust to a vertical orientation, with my cargo door open, facing behind. For just a moment, I will be hovering on thrust alone. At that moment, I will eject you on an opposite trajectory into nearly stationary air. Once you are clear, I will apply thrust and boost for a low geocentric orbit," she said. "This will require additional fuel usage, but I have adequate reserves. I will monitor you with my cameras and maintain contact via ultraradio. Should an emergency develop, an approaching fireball should discourage it."
"Can you really do that, Tess?" asked Dee. "I mean, don't you have to orbit to slow down and stuff?"
"This is not the first century A.E., Dee," Tess replied primly. "First, the velocity required to maintain position will not be extreme. Second, the ablative qualities of my hull are state-of-the-art."
Cale snickered. "State of the art four hundred years ago."
"True," Tess replied in a more normal tone. "But the state of the art has not progressed much."
Cale grinned. "Okay. If you can do all that, you really are a hot pilot! The hottest!" He turned to Dee. "This will be more exciting than any carnival ride ever built!"
Dee just rolled her eyes and shook her head. Men!
But no one could come up with a better option, so the next morning Cheetah descended to the empty wildlife station.
The station was grim. It had been a wildlife research station, protected by a force field powered by the broadcast power grid. When the grid went down, so did the station's protection. The station had no intercontinental transport of its own, and in the chaos, no one had come to retrieve the residents. Even after 500 years, the signs of a desperate struggle for survival were everywhere. Weapons lockers gaped emptily. Doorways had been barricaded and brown stains, claw marks on walls and furniture, and old bone fragments testified to the station's last days.
But the Empire built to last. The plascrete buildings were beginning to crumble slightly, but only beginning; they still protected their contents. Piles of rusty metal marked the final resting places of iron and steel weapons and implements, and most of the plas artifacts had turned to dust. But there were enough stainless and alloy implements, and even glass and ceramics, to make any local a rich man.
While the humans collected and sorted their finds, Tess's 'bots were busy. A stand of trees had grown up around the station, and the 'bots were cutting them down and turning them into a reasonable facsimile of a trader's two-wheeled cart Tess had observed at Valhalla.
One huge tree, probably already large when the station had been active 500 years ago, was felled and sliced by laser to make solid-wood wheels a hundred and fifty cems in diameter. Other 'bots cut the huge trunk into usable pieces by laser, and treated the green wood to stabilize it. Then still others came behind with knives and axes found at the station, hacking and scarring the now-aged-looking wood to make it look hand-hewn.
The cart was carefully designed to permit disassembly and storage inside the flitter. Tess had also designed-in a hidden compartment, that would contain the off-world artifacts Cale had requested, and Tess's own addition: a first-aid kit.
Their collection completed and agreed upon, Cale and Dee practiced assembling the cart twice before Tess pronounced herself satisfied, and the vehicle was moved to the flitter.
It was tricky fitting the big wheels through the flitter's hatch, but they finally did it. With the cart and their trade goods stowed aboard, the humans were barely able to clamber into the remaining two seats for their flight to North continent. Still, Tess found room for one of her smaller "hands" to accompany them. It would guard the flitter while they were gone, and provide Tess with some ability to help, if necessary.
They had decided to approach Nirvana from the direction of the Giant Forest, a dense stand of huge trees hundreds of meters tall, that stretched for thousands of kiloms and formed a natural barrier to the east of the old city. In the old days, the Giant Forest had been a favorite of hunters pursuing game carefully bioengineered to be dangerous. 500 years later, the former prey had become the masters of the forest, and few humans dared brave its dangers.
Cale, Dee and Tess decided that a noisy fireball above the Giant Forest was unlikely to be witnessed from close range; any human luckless enough to be close enough to spot the flitter was certain to be much more interested in the activities of the predators stalking him. Of course, if the plan didn't work and they crashed, they would be the preoccupied ones!
Despite Tess's confidence, Cale and Dee knew that the maneuver she planned was incredibly dangerous. Tess knew it too: a 70% confidence expressed by a pilot whose ship had literally been her body for over 400 years was hardly reassuring.