Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [67]
Matthew took firmer hold of the bag containing the essence of his former life, and began to struggle free of the disintegrating wrapping that had confined him. He hoped that there would be a crowd to greet him, even if circumstance dictated that it could not possibly be more than seven strong. He had always liked to look upon faces that were pleased to see him, and this was the kind of moment that demanded a veritable host of sympathetic witnesses.
PART TWO
Delving into the Past
SIXTEEN
Had the landing worked out exactly as planned it would only have been necessary for Matthew to step down onto the new world’s surface, exactly as he had imagined doing. Unfortunately, the braking shuttle had been driven by the wind into an inconvenient stand of treelike structures, where the parachute-web had become entangled with the branches. Although the capsule itself was far too heavy to be prevented from descending to solid ground it had come to a rest at an awkward tilt.
The hatchway from which Matthew had to make his escape was three meters above the ground and his egress was blocked by clustered “leaves,” which bore more resemblance to plastic plates and leathery fans than the leaves of Earthly trees. Some of these structures had shattered, leaving jagged shards hanging loosely from broken branches, but the majority were whole, their more elastic elements having grudgingly made way for the arrival of the capsule in their midst.
He could see through the tangle that there was a crowd hurrying to greet him—seven strong, as he had hoped—but they were still some way off, descending a slope made treacherous by loose gravel. He knew that he must be almost completely hidden from them, and had not space to wave a greeting. The manner of his entrance was obviously going to leave much to be desired: he would have to force his way through the purple tangle in a most ungainly fashion, confused as much by the peculiar textures of the barrier as by the sudden recovery of almost all his Earthly weight.
“Can you get down?” Vince Solari asked, having divined that there were problems.
“It’s okay,” Matthew assured him, after further investigation. “Not many thorns, no vicious wildlife. It’s just a matter of treading carefully.”
Fortunately, the branches of the dendrite seemed strong enough and dense enough to facilitate a gradual descent. He hesitated slightly over the business of thrusting himself into their midst, because he was wary of the sudden intimate contact with any local life-form, no matter how innocuous it seemed to be, but he wanted to proceed with an appropriate boldness and he did.
The twisted “boughs” of the dendrite looked and felt more like a work of art than an active organism, the foundations in which the plates and fans were set having a texture more like vulcanized rubber than wood. He was glad that there would be no need to handle any of the bulbous structures that were suspended from the end of each branch, although he had no reason to think that they were dangerous.
Eventually, he arrived on the ground and scrambled out into the open.
By this time the people he had seen approaching were all gathered about the thicket, but they hung back and waited for him to emerge, having realized that pressing forward would only make things more difficult.
Lynn Gwyer was the first to step forward and the only one to hug him, although Ikram Mohammed’s greeting was only marginally less enthusiastic. It was Ikram Mohammed who introduced him to the others, but the round of handshakes was hectically confused. He had expected to be able to recognize the faces readily enough from the photographs Vince Solari had displayed on the wallscreen, but the heavy-duty smartsuits made more difference than he had expected to their coloring and their hairstyles. Maryanne Hyder had preserved her blond tresses, albeit in a more economical form, but Lynn Gwyer had opted to go bald. Dulcie Gherardesca’s scars were no longer visible beneath the extra dermal layer and Godert Kriefmann looked a good deal younger than his picture. Tang Dinh Quan