Dragon and Herdsman

Twice she accepted Jack's invitation to pair up for one of the two-player games he hadn't played since Uncle Virgil's death. He beat her both times, but by a much smaller margin the second time. Clearly, she was a fast learner.

For all her hermit tendencies, her mealtime conversation was bright and cheerful. But it was mostly empty words, the sort of chatter Uncle Virgil had taught Jack how to do when he wanted to fill time without actually saying anything. Jack's efforts to get past the surface froth got him nowhere.

Which was extremely irritating, and not just for Jack. By the fourth day Uncle Virge, who was as frustrated at Jack's failures to dig anything out of the girl as Jack himself was, began pushing for Jack to let him have a go at her.

It was a ridiculous suggestion, of course. Even if Uncle Virge was careful with his voice and mannerisms, Alison would be bound to notice the sudden change in the computer's personality. But he kept pushing, until Jack finally had to give him a direct order not to bring it up again.

That stopped the demands. But it did nothing to lower the tension. Between Uncle Virge's sulking and Alison's useless conversation, Jack was thoroughly sick of both of them by the time they finally reached Rho Scorvi.

"There," Alison said, pointing out the cockpit canopy at a large, dark green forest at the edge of a wide plain. "That's where they'll be putting down."

"Nice," Jack commented, studying the area. The forest was about a hundred miles across, lying mostly to the east of a range of snow-covered mountains. A churning river rolled down the slopes, widening as it went, cutting through the center of the forest and then continuing eastward across the plain. "If you like that sort of thing."

"I take it you don't?"

"I prefer my nature in nice, neat layer gardens," Jack said. "So what are they coming here for?"

"There's a colony of nomads that travel around the edge of the forest," she said. "My friends are supposed to be doing some trading with them."

"What kind of trading?"

"Some kind of wild herbs, I think," Alison said. "I'm a little foggy on the details. The Erassvas—those are the natives—hang around the edge of the forest picking fruit, digging up roots, and pulling edible bark off the trees. They get clothing materials from other plants."

"Hunter-gatherer types, then?"

"Right, minus the hunter part," Alison said. "They're nomadic, too. Once they've cleared out an area, they move on around the edge of the forest. By the time they've made a complete circle, it's been a couple of years and the stuff's all grown back."

"Sounds like your basic Garden of Eden," Jack suggested.

"More or less," Alison agreed. "They just have to make sure they don't go too deep into the forest, where all the nastier creatures live."

"How nasty?"

"I don't think anyone knows," she said. "No one's ever seen them, except maybe the Erassvas, and they're not talking. But there are legends, and the handful of researchers who've gone into the forest have found and documented some very intriguing claw marks on trees and even on some of the big rocks."

Jack winced. That sounded ominous. "Lucky for us, we aren't going in there," he said, keying in the landing sequence. As he did so, there was a quiet beep from the board. "Computer?" he asked, frowning.

"Another power glitch," Uncle Virge confirmed. He was still trying to sound like a normal P/S computer, but Jack could hear the tightness in his voice. "Still unable to locate the source."

Jack drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the edge of the control board. This was the third time since leaving Bigelow that this mysterious power dip had happened, as if some system aboard the Essenay had suddenly decided to take an extra helping of power without telling anyone. Uncle Virge had run the diagnostics a dozen times but hadn't found anything out of place. "Any ideas?" Jack asked, looking over his shoulder at Alison.

She shook her head. "I just hope it's nothing serious."

"Well, you won't have to worry about it much longer," Jack said. "Computer, do you have a line on those nomads yet?"

"I'm picking up a group of beings at the southern edge of the forest," Uncle Virge said. "I'm not sure how many—the forest canopy is scrambling the infrared readings."

"That's probably them," Alison said. "There shouldn't be anyone else around. I'll go get my stuff together."

"Need any help?" Jack asked with just a touch of sarcasm. At their first fueling stop, at Jack's suggestion, Alison had gone off to do some shopping. From the size of the two travel bags she'd lugged back to the Essenay, he figured she'd decided to get started on next year's wardrobe.

"I can manage," she assured him. If she'd noticed the sarcasm, she didn't mention it. "See you."

She left the cockpit. "You really can't track this power glitch?" Jack asked when she was out of sight.

"No, and it's driving me crazy," Uncle Virge said irritably. "It's like there's an intermittent power drain somewhere. Probably in the ECHO."