[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Fine! We'll take both cars."
But just as they were about to split up, Max pulled Ukiah aside and checked
that he had the tracer on.
***
Whereas traveling south from Pendleton to the town of Ukiah had been a slow
climb up into steep hills, going east up into the Blue Mountains was a
stunning transition. At Weston, both cars turned off the almost-flat Route 11
and started to climb the first mountain on 204. Within five miles, they
rounded a corner for a view that stretched for twenty miles out over the
plateau. In another five miles, there was a scenic viewpoint, looking west
into the heart of the mountains as if the plateau never existed. Pines leapt
up, a hundred feet tall, crowding close to the road, and the wind-swept
treeless plain was forgotten. Another ten miles, and they turned off onto a
road of packed dirt, and civilization fell behind.
"This is the Oregon I remember," Ukiah said.
"This part doesn't look much different than when I first saw it," Rennie said
as he gazed out the passenger windows.
Ukiah sensed that Rennie was scanning the mountains for something as they
drove along the forest road. "What are you looking for?"
"What I always look for in Oregon." Rennie continued to gaze out the window.
"The scout ship.
There's a hole in our memory, of how it came down and where exactly it
landed."
A hole would indicate that Prime had been injured and never recovered the
memories. "Do you think it crashed?"
"Prime would have tried to destroy it before it reached Earth. It would make
sense that he did something that made the landing rough. They certainly didn't
land on the plains."
"You sure?"
Rennie barked a laugh. "No. We're not sure of anything. It's all mixed up and
full of holes. Who knows what happened!"
Max had taught Ukiah problem-solving. Always make sure, he said, you knew what
was supposed to happen before you try to determine where things went wrong.
"Well, we know how it should have gone," Ukiah said. "Hexadecimal all six of
Hex was to explore the landing site of the mother ship. Check it for
geographical anomalies. Secure it against native life, yada, yada, yada." To
steal one of Max's phrases the memories he shared with Rennie had a complete
command list for the mission. "Prime managed to add himself to the crew." At
that time, the Ontongard did not guard from attacks from within. They were, in
essence, one sprawling creature. That part of itself would attack the whole
had been unimaginable for the Ontongard. "We can recall the scout ship's
approach, and then something must have gone wrong, because after that, Prime
only remembers one Hex."
Rennie grunted an affirmation. "And Prime diverted that one Hex by sending him
after the native life to start up a breeding program."
Page 102
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Ukiah found himself blushing slightly. "Which is where I come in."
Rennie scratched at his nose, thinking aloud. "Hex needed to get the Mars
Rover within seven hundred feet of the mother ship in order to lower the
shields. With human technology, the only way Hex could have positioned the
Rover with that accuracy was via a transmission from the mother ship
itself sometime before the shields went up giving its location."
"Knowing that the mother ship was intact on Mars," Ukiah followed the line of
logic, "Hex probably
would have taken the scout ship to Mars if it was capable of lifting off."
"But instead, he started a breeding program."
"So the damage was great enough that he committed himself for the duration,"
Ukiah said.
"Which leaves the question, where is the scout ship?" Rennie waved at the
soaring mountains.
"We've never found trace of it. They were aiming for the plateau prairie
between the Cascade Mountains and the Blue Mountains. We think they missed,
but they might have hit hard, somewhere close to a river, which later eroded
the crash site. Or they went down in mountains. Our first outdoor memory from
Prime is in the mountains, but he's already airborne and running at that
point and which mountains?"
"Coyote doesn't know?"
Rennie laughed. "Doesn't know, doesn't care. Despite the centuries he's been
in human form, he's more wolf than man. What matters to him is now.
He can't even tell us when Prime made him a Get. He spent countless days
drifting as a Pack-blooded wolf, and then, once he started to change into a
man, he lived years with the natives, mostly the Nez Perce. They're the ones
that named him Coyote. He remembers Lewis and Clark, who came through Oregon [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]