Page 36 of Fall
But it was probably wishful thinking on her part. Soon, the fawn wasjoining the others in fleeing.
Lenna and Desh ran after them, coming over a rise to see a long stretchof cold, dead grassland before them. There were several more deer there, andthey joined together as they ran away from Lenna and Desh.
Desh pulled to a stop. “We better stop chasing them or they’ll never stoprunning. Let’s just head in that direction more slowly and maybe we can catchone unaware.”
So they caught their breaths and followed more slowly. Soon the deer wereout of sight, but Lenna knew they’d stop running when they thought they weresafe.
If she secretly hoped she and Desh wouldn’t catch up to them, shecertainly didn’t say as much.
They walked for almost an hour, occasionally catching sight of the deerin the distance, and eventually they were farther away from the cave than Lennahad been since she’d arrived.
Looking around for the first time, she stopped and put a hand out totouch Desh’s arm. “Wait. Do you know where we are?”
“We’re still in no-man’s land. I’d know if we entered another tribe’sterritory.”
“I know, but isn’t that the forbidden mountain?” She gestured to the nextmountain over, where there was a familiar peak higher than the others.
None of the mountains on this planet were very high. Compared to some ofthe mountains on earth, these would barely be classified as hills.
Desh nodded, breathing heavily. “Damn. It is. I hadn’t realized we’dgotten so far.”
“Look,” she said, pointing over to the foot of the forbidden mountain.“There are the deer.”
“Let’s go.”
Lenna felt a brief pull of resistance at the idea of venturing onto theforbidden mountain, although she knew there was no need to worry about it.Primitive myths about ancient warriors climbing the mountain and bringing backfire weren’t any actual danger to her.
So she followed Desh as he quickly paced toward the foot of the mountain.
They hadn’t gone very far up when they walked around a huge cluster ofboulders and saw a thickly matted group of trees that had grown up in a verystrange position, all curved in the same manner.
“I can’t see the deer,” Desh said with a sigh. “Maybe we should head backbefore it gets too late.”
Lenna was about to agree when she noticed something that made her jerk toa stop.
Among the thick growth of trees, she saw something emerging that seemedto be made of metal.
Of metal.
She stepped forward and realized she was looking at the barrel of a laser—thelarge kind that were installed on ships for defense.
Instinctively, she squeezed Desh’s upper arm very hard, hardly able toprocess what she was looking at.
Desh must have seen it too. “Damn,” he breathed. “Maybe this is thesource of those myths about the forbidden mountain.”
Of course it was. All those old stories, passed around among tribes asthe young men left to join others, would have a common source. A spaceship musthave crashed here a long time ago—much bigger than a pod from a planet dump,big enough to make a lasting impact.
In silent agreement, Desh and Lenna approached, pushing through the treesuntil they could orient themselves to the position of the ship and then findone of the doors. They had to break off several branches to get in, but theyfinally were able to hit the emergency release and open the door.
“How old is this thing?” Desh asked, crawling inside.
“Ancient.” Lenna coughed at the old, musty smell. They’d entered a smallhallway, and she started moving toward where she figured the control room mustbe. “This looks like pre-Coalition. It must be many hundreds of years old.”
“It’s big. There must have been dozens of people on board.”
“Close to a hundred by the size of it.” She was opening latches to seesleeping berths and common spaces that suggested the size of the crew and thepassengers on board. “I don’t see any bones. They must have survived.”
“If it’s old enough, maybe the surviving crew and any other passengers ishow this planet was originally populated with humans. Do you think it couldhave been long enough for the memory to turn into myth?”