“There’s one other difference,” he remarked.
“What’s that?”
“In the jungle, dressed and equipped as you now are, you might live as long as a day. In the swamp, five minutes would be an optimistic estimate.” Sulewayo looked down at the shorts and boots which constituted his costume, and shrugged.
“I admit the point, but I don’t expect to go out this way. What I actually wear and carry, beside my professional equipment, is up to you. Also, I was referring to appearances. Beta Lyrae Nine looked almost as dull as this world from above, and I’ll bet it was as least as deadly when you reached the surface.” McLaughlin had never visited New Sheol, and admitted it, but it took more than that to stop Sulewayo.
“Actually, I was hoping that these hills didn’t turn out to be so covered with soil that any fossils would be yards underground at the best. Do you recall any places where the rock strata themselves were exposed—steep cliffs, or deep stream gullies, perhaps?”
“Definitely yes. The big river cuts right across the range, or else starts in it. It comes out from a canyon like that of the Colorado on Earth, though a lot less spectacular. Actually I don’t know anything about the country more than a couple of miles up that canyon. I was stopped on the river by rapids, and couldn’t get my amphib out on either side. For the most part there simply wasn’t any shore, just cliff.”
“Quite a current, I suppose?” Lampert cut in.
“Actually, not very much. I went swimming in worse, on Earth.”
“That hardly ties in with steep cliffs and a river cutting through a mountain range.”
McLaughlin shrugged. “You’re the geologist. Look it over for yourself. Maybe you’ll just have to add it to the list of things you don’t understand about Viridis.”
“Fair enough.” The pilot-commander-geophysicist nodded. “I did not mean to imply that you were not reporting accurately; but the situation you have described would be a trifle queer on more planets than Earth, I assure you. Still, with luck your cliffs will show fossils. Maybe we’ll solve one problem in exchange for another. Life could be worse.”
“Just hope we don’t solve the first one by proving that certain geophysicists have been talking through their hats,” the hitherto silent Krendall remarked.
“Eh?”
“What would you do if we found a chunk of, say, pegmatite with radioactive inclusions that checked out at half a billion years instead of the thirty-odd million you lads have been giving us as a time scale for this mudball?”
“I should check very carefully under what circumstances and in what location you found it. If necessary, I would admit that the problem had disappeared. Half a billion years would account reasonably well for the evolutionary status of this planet’s life forms, though actually it took Earth a good deal longer to reach a corresponding condition. Frankly, however, I do not expect any such find. We spotted our borings rather carefully, and should have taken pretty representative samples.”
“I’m sure you did. If your results are right, it just means that the problem belongs to Hans and me—and String here had better find us a lot of fossils.”
“You’ll have to find your own bones,” McLaughlin replied. “I’m taking you to the sort of ground you want. A fossil would have to show its teeth in my face before I’d recognize it—and then I’d probably shoot before I realized it was dead.”
“All right,” Sulewayo chuckled. “You take care of the quick, and Krendall and I will worry about the dead. Dr. Lampert can figure out how old the fossils are if we find any, and Take can look for stone axes.”
“Or automobiles, or pieces of space-drive tubes, or other artifacts,” Mitsuitei answered the implied dig. “I plan to sit back and loaf, unless and until one of you lads turns up a skull that could have held more than half an ounce of brain. I am going to be very unscientific. I believe that there is nothing on this planet for an archeologist to do, and I am not going to work myself into a lather to prove myself wrong.”
“You’ve formed an opinion rather early in the game,” Lampert remarked. “After all, remarkably little of this world has been explored. Why should there not be traces of occupation in unknown areas such as we are about to visit?”
“Because, while most of the planet remains unexplored, a very large number of places which should have furnished traces of habitation have failed to do so. We’ve surveyed many spots which were, or are, ideal for cities based on ocean commerce, or market centers for what could be farm areas, or spaceports. After a while you get to a point where such finds can be predicted with some certainty. As I said, I am far from certain, and it would be most unreasonable to say I was; but in the area we are seeking, I see no reason to expect anything of interest to my profession.”
Lampert shrugged and brought his full attention back to the controls. The sun was slowly sinking, bringing into bolder relief the irregularities of the ground as their shadows lengthened. However, these irregularities were still few, and the jungle roof was for the most part evenly illuminated. As McLaughlin had expected, there was nothing that could be used as a landmark. In its own way, the forest was as featureless as the ocean. The pilot kept his gaze riveted ahead, in expectation of the river which the guide had told them to expect; and presently he saw it. Reflecting the color of the faintly purplish sky, it stood out fairly well against the gray-green of the jungle, once they were close enough to penetrate the ever-present haze.
With McLaughlin nodding silent approval, Lampert swung the helicopter to the left and proceeded more nearly straight north, angling gradually toward the river. Now the jungle took on a little more feature, though still nothing that could be used for guidance. At fairly frequent intervals a glint of water became visible through the trees directly below them. Evidently numerous tributaries were feeding into the larger stream; but none of these could be seen from any distance. For the most part they were so narrow that the trees growing on each side met above them.
“I should think that one could cover a great deal of that territory in a boat,” remarked Mitsuitei, after nearly half an hour in the new direction.
“You’d need an amphib,” replied the guide. “A boat is all right for the main stream, but all that stuff coming in from the sides is so shallow that you’d never make progress with anything else. I’ve tried most of them in my own croc. Every time I’ve had to crawl rather than float before I was a mile from the river.”
“How is the ground? Swamp?”
“No, it’s fairly solid for the most part. It doesn’t show very well yet even with the sun as low as it is, but the general ground level is pushing up slowly all along here. We’ll be in sight of your mountains before too long.”
This declaration brought all members of the group to the windows, all five pairs of eyes covering the quadrant of vision below and ahead. The meandering river was now on their left, but just visible through the haze ahead of them was the eastward turn McLaughlin had predicted. Lampert headed a little more to the right in an attempt to cut the final corner, but the helicopter reached the winding purplish band before their goal came in sight in spite of this effort. The flyer hummed on.
The bars of sunlight admitted by the side ports had been nearly horizontal when the turn to the east cut them off. They were only slightly more so when McLaughlin gave a satisfied grunt, and nodded forward. The others followed his gaze.
Straight ahead, little could be seen because of the “bright spot” familiar to every flyer—the shadowless area directly opposite the sun, centered on the aircraft’s own shadow. To either side, however, the promised hills rose out of the jungle to heights exceeding the present flight altitude of the helicopter. Presumably the canyon from which the river