The noblekone looked up and said, "You are right-ah. I am dead-ah either way-ah. I die free. Lead-ah and-ah I will follow, Sharl."
Buccari glanced at the Marines one last time, stopping at MacArthur. "We owe them for Nash Hudson and for Bosun Jones," she said grimly. "And for Commander Quinn and Virgil Rhodes. We owe them."
She collected the horses and started walking. Et Silmarn followed. They hiked all night. Gunfire broke the distant stillness on two occasions, yet Buccari was encouraged because each instance was short-lived. The noblekone and the earthwoman kept walking. And kept climbing.
The unlikely duo and their horses hiked throughout the next morning, their view of the ruined settlement eventually hidden by trees and intervening terrain. The sun slipped from its zenith as they reached a tree-dotted ridge near the far end of the valley, the lip of an exposed, talus-strewn bowl. Past a last stand of yellow-barked firs, the bowl rose steeply to the final wall of the valley from which plummeted two separate billowing cascades. These crashing waters joined in a crystalline tarn nestled deeply within the sun-drenched bowl. The confluence of waters smoothly overflowed the granite-cradled pool and continued through a riven channel, journeying onward and downward to the lake in the distant valley, and beyond. Buccari' s and Et Silmarn's path lay across the bowl, opposite the water, where a rock-tumbled cleft angled across the bowl and breached the barren face of the escarpment—a challenge for the horses.
"We'll wait until dusk," Buccari said, wiping her brow. It would require two hours of hard hiking to cross the open stretch of mountainside. Taking the golden horses across the traverse in daylight could expose them to the searching eyes of the aliens.
"You are capable of great-ah effort," Et Silmarn said. The noblekone had kept up, but the increasing elevation was taking its toll.
"Fear pushes hard," she replied. "It's easier to work than to worry."
"Ah, yes...fear. Slow death. It-ah is difficult to face death slowly," the noblekone wheezed. He sat down on a slab of sunlit granite. "Too much time to...consider the, ah...meaning of living. I am afraid, and also very tired."
"You are brave," Buccari said. "Do not talk. Rest now."
"And you, too, are brave," the noblekone replied. "I am not-ah so brave. I am afraid to sleep-ah, for I may never open my eyes. Itah is so cold."
"We'll get more fuel," Buccari answered. "Sleep. Go to sleep. It will be better when you wake up." She pulled supplies from the horses's backs and grabbed several fur hides. She covered the reclining kone with animal skins, wondering how he could be comfortable laying in the sun under layers of fur. The mountain air was brisk, but the exertions of the climb had caused her to perspire freely.
"Ah!" he groaned. "At last-ah warmth. Thang you, Sharl. Thang you."
"Go to sleep." Within seconds she could tell from the kone' s breathing that he had given in to his fatigue. It had been many stressful hours since either one of them had slept. After hobbling the horses she threw down another thick fur, but in the shade. She rolled herself in it and instantly submerged into the deepest of slumbers.
* * *
Direct sunlight assaulted her eyes. Wet with perspiration, she blinked awake, wondering how long she had been asleep. The sun had traveled across a wide arc—she estimated three hours. It seemed like three minutes. She wobbled to her legs and looked at the slumbering kone. Her head ached, and her mouth tasted foul. She struggled to focus her eyes and was startled by a cliff dweller— Tonto—sitting alertly on a rock next to Et Silmarn's head. The hunter, bow in hand, an arrow nocked, was focused on the sleeping kone. Tonto turned and, seeing Buccari awake, hopped away from the kone, stowing his bow and returning the short arrow to its quiver.
Buccari checked the horses grazing across a patch of wildflowers and grasses growing in the shelter of the spindly grove. She moved her trail-battered body close to Tonto. Alert and unafraid, the hunter looked at her. She noticed the scars on his forearms, the vestiges of his broken arm. The day of the earthquake on the plateau lake seemed so long ago. They owed so much to the strange little creatures.
She signed: "Greetings, warrior." Tonto returned the salutation. Buccari pointed to his bow and to the kone and signed: "Why guard?"
Tonto looked at the alien and signed back: "Danger. They kill."
Buccari nodded. She pointed to the cliff dweller and then to herself. "We also kill," she signed. "We friends," and "Bear-person is friend."
The cliff dweller looked over at the kone. The kone slept soundly. "Not friend. Bear people kill your people," Tonto signed.