Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [107]
He had no answer for her, and it was a question he avoided asking himself. With the gateway destroyed he couldn’t even send a search party after Picard, in direct defiance of his orders no less. Wherever his friend was, he hoped he was safe and would return soon.
It was considerably more comfortable when Picard woke the following morning. The sun was rising in the sky and he could tell the villagers had been moving about for a little while now. People were already eating, children were chasing a wooden hoop, and something that seemed more pet dog than wild beast was snuffling around the waste pit.
Hamish was tending the fire, which never seemed to die out, when Picard approached. He had already been offered some food and drink so felt refreshed. He liked these people and could only wish them well. Still, he felt the press of time, and needed to be on his way.
“I need a direction so my journey can continue,” Picard said.
“You really cannot linger any longer?”
“Would that time permitted me, but without this object, people will continue to die.”
Hamish looked at him with a grave expression on his face. It seemed to just be dawning on him the importance of the task. “This item you seek it has that much power?”
“It is a key to something that will give me the power to save lives.”
“The remainder of this world is very different from our village, is it not?”
“I have not seen it all, but can tell you that it is very lively and I would like to keep it that way.”
“You will make a great God,” Hamish said with finality.
Picard winced but shook his head slightly. “I am trying to be a good man, first.”
An hour later, he was on a worn path leading away from the village, heading in a southeastern direction. Hamish had insisted on giving him two skins of water and some dried meats tied in a large leaf for safekeeping. He tried to extract a promise of a return visit from Picard, but the captain dodged it while trying to remain respectful.
He truly enjoyed their company and had wanted to spend more time, but like the Petraw, he was forced to keep moving. Now, he was walking in and out of shade, as he skirted the edge of a forest. The trees grew quite tall, with thin but sturdy sand-colored trunks. As the village was near water, Picard could hear a stream or river to his right, assuming most of the people lived near whatever natural sources they could find. The smaller trees that seemed to be closer to the water were short and more like overeager bushes, but they burst with orange and beige fruits.
It was quiet and Picard was alone with his thoughts. How different this world was from the harsh remains of Iconia, he considered. Knowing they spent time here would force him to reconsider their path across the galaxy, and he was mentally ordering information for the eventual paper that he would write. This pleasant world was well on its way to full recovery from whatever the Iconians had left behind, and he would have to stop and take some tricorder readings to help determine the age of these artifacts. If the City was what he imagined to be their largest remains, he would have plenty of samples to work from.
He was also pleased to note that the lighter gravity gave an extra bounce to his step and he was making rather good time. The sun was not too hot compared with yesterday, and Picard hoped he would see the City before nightfall and reach it by sundown tomorrow. Hamish and the villagers didn’t measure distance in miles or kilometers. They apparently had little dealing with those beyond the village so they never quite developed a precise measurement for such distances. Within time, Picard noticed tracks in the path, parallel ruts that indicated some form of wheeled vehicle had been by, recently enough for the tracks not to have been washed away by the previous day’s rain. He saw no such thing at the village so presumed it to be from a neighboring enclave. This led him to conjecture about differing developmental paths for humanoids in