Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [31]
“Will’s right,” Felicia said. “So is Dennis-it’s possible that we picked the wrong twins. But the assignment is as close to realistic as it can be, without risking whole classes of cadets by sending them to actual hostile cities.”
“I guess,” Boon said reluctantly.
“Perhaps we’ve been too literal about the clue,” Estresor Fil suggested. “Maybe it means something other than the foot of the hills. Is there a cobbler or something like that nearby?”
Will considered this for a moment. She was right-it was unlikely that Admiral Paris wouldn’t have worked in a twist or two. So they had to look for the less likely possibilities, even the opposite of what appeared to be the meaning. “Maybe we should be looking up,” he announced.
“Up?” Boon repeated. “You’re not making any sense, Riker.”
“Not at first glance,” Will agreed. “But ‘feet’ has multiple meanings, and one of them is as a unit of measurement. Once used, among other things, to indicate altitude.”
“Good point, Will,” Felicia said, touching his upper arm for emphasis. “I agree. We should go up.”
Boon shrugged. “I guess we can’t do any worse than we are down here. Except for the climbing part, I mean.”
They split into two teams, Will and Felicia taking one hill, and Dennis, Boon and Estresor Fil on the other. As they climbed, the late afternoon sun bore down on them. Up here there was only stunted shrubbery, and nothing to shade them from its rays. Will commented on it, and Felicia just laughed at him. “This is nothing compared to summers at home,” she said. “We have heat, humidity, bugs-this is like paradise, here.”
“Climate-controlled paradise,” Will reminded her. “Nothing like this in Alaska, I can tell you.”
“We have cold, too, in the mountains,” Felicia said. “But maybe not like in Alaska.”
“Maybe not,” Will agreed. He picked his way up a faint trail, sidestepping the low brush as he rose. “Valdez is in the southern part of the state, well below the Arctic Circle, and it’s pretty nice this time of year. Buggy, too. Come winter, though, it’s a different story. The sun comes up around ten in the morning and has set by five in the afternoon. In between, it never warms up. There’s snow everywhere-you don’t see the ground until the spring thaw, and then everything that was snow is mud.”
“It doesn’t sound like you miss it much,” she said.
“I love it,” Will told her. “But I couldn’t wait to get away from it. Now that I’m here, I can’t wait to get off the planet.”
She shielded her eyes against the sun and looked across the way at the group climbing the other hill. “We’re ahead,” she said happily. “Maybe this summer-what are you doing for the summer?”
Will nodded eagerly. “I’ve already got my assignment,” he said. “I’m going to Saturn. I’m so anxious to get going I could explode.”
“That’s great, Will,” Felicia enthused. “You didn’t get off-planet last summer, did you?” she asked him.
“Just for a couple of weeks, to New Berlin. But I spent most of the summer in Paris. I’m due for some time off-world, that’s for sure.”
“You’ll love it out there,” she said. “Two more years after this and you’ll be assigned to a starship, and do great things.”
“Unless,” he pointed out, “we can’t find our first checkpoint and we fail miserably at this assignment. In which case maybe they’ll just give us all the boot, and I can go back to Alaska and clean fish.” They were almost to the top now, and while the views were spectacular, they hadn’t seen anything promising. Their boots were getting caked with brown dust, but that was all they’d accomplished.
Suddenly Felicia grabbed his arm, squeezing his biceps tightly and holding on perhaps a little longer than she had to. He found that he didn’t mind. “Look, Will!” she shouted. He followed her pointing hand and saw what she meant. On a flat area near the summit was a dark cylinder, obviously not a natural feature but something left there. Or transported there, Will thought, which was more likely, especially considering the lack of footprints around it.
He and Felicia rushed to the cylinder and found that it had a Starfleet insignia