Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [110]
“Young God Picard, today’s our day for adventure!” Chanik ran across the encampment and held out his hands to help hold the fruit. He must have just woken up but was already at full speed. Picard smiled at this, and appreciated having the extra arms to hold the fruit, which had a fuzzy outerskin, but felt firm and ripe in his hands.
“We’ll eat some and travel with the rest,” Picard said by way of explanation.
Chanik nodded eagerly, impressed with the bounty.
The breakfast went by without incident, and within the hour Picard and Chanik were ready to depart. Yanooth was in good spirits, despite his leg injury, which pleased the captain. He figured the traveling party would be in good shape for the remainder of their journey back to their home village. The grateful man insisted Picard take a leather satchel, and needing something with which to carry supplies, the captain graciously accepted. Limiting his contact with all, after this, was his best course of action, although he suspected shaking Chanik loose would be a problem later on.
“How far to the City?”
Chanik took his first steps on the trail, a small backpack filled with water, fruit, and whatever personal belongings he had tucked in. His smile was bright, despite the dingy teeth, and he pointed up the trail and declared, “We could see it just after midday.”
“Excellent, then let’s begin,” Picard said.
But the boy was already walking briskly ahead of him; the journey was under way. With a smile, Picard picked up his pace and followed along.
The trail continued to skirt the forest, but within two hours, it had thinned and ended, opening up to wide fields that seemed full of grains, growing tall in the sun. The area seemed lush and golden, thanks to the water nearby. He tried to spot animals grazing but saw little beyond native birds that were too high up to study. Chanik was just as comfortable chatting as he was with silence, which only pleased the captain. Were the boy overly inquisitive, he knew, it would only make him defensive, spoiling the hike. They did chat briefly, talking about other places Chanik had been, comparing them with the forests they left behind. The boy seemed to prefer open space to the closed-in feel given by the trees, but he also admitted to minimal experience in forests, since there were not many where he grew up.
As they walked, Picard began to note uniformity to the fields, row upon row of similar grains followed by sections with tidy rows of other plants. Farming principles seem to be fairly universal, he thought. From what he could judge, the society he had encountered had come a far way from the high-tech civilization it had once been, but they had learned to work with nature rather than let it overwhelm them. Had the Iconians abandoned this world two hundred millennia ago, and the Cities all fell to ruin, he estimated the number of centuries before nature thoroughly reclaimed the space. While the technology might have survived the passage of time, nature would find its way to reassert itself. The people might have had a difficult adjustment, but he doubted he would ever learn. He had seen no books yet, just simple people living a peaceful existence. The remains of the Iconian culture obviously had been the foundation for modern mythology, but that was only natural.
“Someone is doing an excellent job maintaining these lands,” Picard noted.
Chanik looked out to see what the captain was talking about. He clearly hadn’t made a point of observing the farmland and was looking at it appraisingly. “How can you tell?”
“The farmers are rotating their crops in the field, keeping everything in neat rows,” Picard said. He gestured and added, “The uniform height of the grains shows they must have been planted at roughly the same time, so they run a well-organized operation.”
The boy nodded, clearly never having considered anything like farming. He was probably more a hunter and gatherer, considering there were no parents to teach him. Picard smiled at the boy with regret crossing his features. Every