Darwinia

“They all learn,” the frontiersman said. “Everybody learns. If the country doesn’t kill ’em first.”

Tom Compton’s pipe smoke made Guilford feel lighter and simpler. Events slowed to a crawl or leaped forward without interval. By the time he found his bunk aboard the Argus he was able to remember only fragments of the day.

He remembered following Dr. Sullivan and Tom Compton to a wharfside tavern where brown beer was served in steins made from the boles of dried flute reeds. The steins were porous and would begin to leak if you let them sit too long. It encouraged a style of drinking not conducive to clarity of thought. There had been food, too, a Darwinian fish draped across the plate like a limp black stingray. It tasted of salt and mud; Guilford ate sparingly.

They argued about the expedition. The frontiersman was scornful, insisting the journey was only an excuse to show the flag and express American claims to the hinterland. “You said yourself, this man Finch is an idiot.”

“He’s a clergyman, not a scientist; he just doesn’t know the difference. But he’s no idiot. He rescued three men from the water at Cataract Canyon — carried a man with double pleurisy safely to Lee’s Ferry. That was ten years ago, but I’m sure he’d do the same tomorrow. He planned and provisioned this expedition and I would trust him with my life.”

“Follow him into the deep country, you are trusting him with your life.”

“So I am. I couldn’t ask for a better companion. I could ask for a better scientist — but even there, Finch has his uses. There’s a certain climate of opinion in Washington that frowns on science in general: we couldn’t predict and can’t explain the Miracle, and in certain people’s minds that’s the next thing to responsibility. Idols with feet of clay fare badly in the public budget. But we can hold up Finch to Congress as a sterling example of so-called reverential science, not a threat to home or pulpit. We go to the hinterland, we learn a few things — and frankly, the more we learn, the shakier Finch’s academic position becomes.”

“You’re being used. Like Donnegan. Sure, you collect a Few samples. But the money people want to know how far the Partisans have come, whether there’s coal in the Ruhr valley or iron in Lorraine…”

“And if we reconnoiter the Partisans or spot some anthracite — does it matter? These things will happen whether we cross the Alps or not. At least this way we gain a little knowledge from the bargain.”

Tom Compton turned to Guilford. “Sullivan thinks this continent is a riddle he can solve. That’s a brave and stupid idea.”

Sullivan persisted. “You’ve been farther inland than most trappers, Tom.”

“Not as far as all that.”

“You know what to expect.”

“Go far enough, no one knows what to expect.”

“Still, you’ve had experience.”

“More than you.”

“Your skills would be invaluable.”

“I have better things to do.”

They drank in silence for a while. Another round of beer gave the conversation a philosophical bent. The frontiersman confronted Guilford, his weathered brown face ferocious as a bear’s muzzle. “Why are you here, Mr. Law?”

“I’m a photographer,” Guilford said. He wished he had his camera with him; he wanted to photograph Tom Compton. This sun-wrinkled, beard-engulfed wild animal.

“I know what you do,” the frontiersman said. “Why are you here?”

To further his career. To make a name for himself. To bring back images trapped in glass and silver, of river pools and mountain meadows no human eye had seen. “I don’t know,” he heard himself say. “Curiosity, I guess.”

Tom Compton squinted at Guilford as if he had confessed to leprosy. “People come here to get away from something, Mr. Law, or to hunt for something. To make a little money or maybe even, like Sullivan here, to learn something. But the I don’t knows — those are the dangerous ones.”

One other memory came to Guilford as he was lulled to sleep by the rocking of Argus on the rising tide: Sullivan and Tom Compton talking about the back country, the frontiersman full of warnings: the new continent’s rivers had cut their own beds, not always according to the old maps, the wildlife was dangerous, the forage so difficult that without provisions you might as well be crossing a desert. There were unnamed fevers, often fatal. And as for crossing the Alps: well, Tom said, some few trappers and hunters had thought of crossing by the old St. Gothard route; it wasn’t a new idea. But tales came back, ghost stories, rumors — plain nonsense, Sullivan said scornfully — and maybe so, but enough to make a sane man reconsider… which excludes you, Sullivan said, and Tom grinned hugely and said, you too, you old madman, leaving Guilford to wonder what unspoken agreement had been reached between the two men and what might be waiting for them in the deep interior of this huge and chartless land.

Chapter Six