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.Soon the room was full of meckie tenchnicians, searching for a loose piece, a pulled wire, or anything else that might have caused yet another failure.But Lord Abercrombie sensed this search would do no good.This planet is cursed, he thought.Someone has made it uninhabitable for beings like me.“Hit ‘em with anything we’ve got left!” Lord Abercrombie shouted.“Try wind, earthquakes, anything!”It was midday, with three synchronized Corkian suns blazing overhead.As Javik stood with his companions at the edge of Dusty Desert, he felt cool in his vari-temp coat.The coat fluttered in a light wind.Behind them loomed the wall of closely fitted granite stones that formed this far side of the bowl holding the desert.“That rain was really something,” Rebo said.“Came right up out of the desert.Damndest thing I ever saw.”“I’ve seen it before,” Prince Pineapple said.“It’s become rather commonplace on Cork.”“We’ve seen it too,” Wizzy said, hovering nearby.“When our ship was approaching the planet.”Brother Carrot waved from the deck of his desert schooner as it pulled away.“Good luck, my friends!” he yelled.Javik heard him say something after that, but the words were lost in the wind.The Freedom One picked up speed, cutting through rapidly moving clouds of surface grit.“Nice fellow,” Namaba said.Prince Pineapple searched the wall for a place to climb.“I don’t think Fruits and Vegetables are so different,” Wizzy said, perching on a wall stone near Prince Pineapple.“Brother Carrot carried a folding shovel on his belt, just like yours.He had a barbed cord, too.”“Pshaw!” Prince Pineapple said, finding a foothold to begin his ascent.“Fruits are superior.Everyone knows that.We grow on trees and high vines, while Vegetables grow next to the dirty ground.” He climbed partway up the wall.Wizzy glowed red as he retrieved data from his internal storehouse.Prince Pineapple neared the top of the wall.“There is no comparison,” he said.He lifted himself to the top of the wall and stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at the others with an air of superiority.Wizzy flew up to hover in the prince’s face, “What about strawberries?” Wizzy asked.“They’re Fruit, and they grow along the ground.”“A strawberry is not Fruit!” Prince Pineapple exclaimed.“What an odd notion!”“Enough of this,” Javik said, climbing the wall by the same route Prince Pineapple had taken.“You’re wrong, Prince!” Wizzy said.“Extremely wrong! And what about green beans? They grow on high vines, which would make them as good as any Fruit.”“Preposterous!” Prince Pineapple thundered.Reaching the top of the wall, Javik stepped between them.“Stop this!” he snapped.“Some of us do not have time to stand around arguing.Unlike his Royal Hind Ass here, my food source is not unlimited.”Prince Pineapple scowled ferociously.Wizzy added Javik’s expletive to his own stored arsenal.Namaba and Rebo scaled the wall without help from Javik’s Tasnard rope.As Namaba reached the top, she gave Javik a scolding smile.He looked away.“All right,” he said.“Let’s find the trail and get a move on.”When they had descended the other side of the wall, Javik told Prince Pineapple to bring out the scroll.“Idiots,” the prince muttered as he handed over the scroll he still could not see.“I am surrounded by idiots.”Javik knelt on the ground, where he spread open the scroll.“We’re here,” he said, pointing to one side of the Dusty Desert.To Prince Pineapple’s eyes, it looked as though Javik were pointing at the ground.“Draw me a map in the dirt,” the prince demanded, “so that I may see too.”Hurriedly, Javik used a stick to scratch out a portion of the scroll map on the ground.“Here’s the Dusty Desert,” he explained as he drew.“And icy Valley.Just beyond that is a forest.We’ll camp there.”“The valley must be behind us,” Prince Pineapple said, turning and pointing at a misty area between two snow-covered hills.“Tomorrow we cross Bottomless Bog,” Javik said.“If these distances are correct.”“Where’s that Moha shown?” the prince asked.“Something disturbingly familiar about that name.”“Here,” Javik said, making a mark in the dirt.Just then, a ferocious wind roared across their position, obliterating the dirt scratchings and nearly tearing the parchment from Javik’s grasp.“Lord Abercrombie is angry,” Prince Pineapple said.“He will not let us pass without a fight.”“You think he caused that wind?” Javik asked.“Naw.There’s no weather control here.”“We will see,” Prince Pineapple said, groping for the scroll he could not see.Javik released the scroll and watched the prince roll it carefully.Namaba tied it with the piece of leather cord.When the Sacred Scroll of Cork was safely secure beneath his coat, Prince Pineapple turned away from the wind, taking the path that led toward the misty valley.Javik removed his vari-temp coat and stuffed it in the pack.He felt the warmth of three suns on the back of his neck as he followed the others.Javik imagined tiny solar nutrients entering his body, and tried to convince himself that his strength was returning.But this was a ruse.He knew he was declining, and had a frightening thought: What if the whole planet was against him?Can such a thing be? he wondered.Javik felt that forces were whipsawing him—doing with him whatever they wished.He felt the suns cool, and looked back.Clouds were moving in from behind.Ahead, curls of fog were approaching, running out of the valley to greet them.A shiver ran down the back of his neck and through his shoulder blades.He stopped to put the coat back on.When Javik caught up with the others, Rebo and Namaba were zipping up their heavy club jackets and pulling the collars around the lower parts of their long necks.Prince Pineapple stood to one side of the trail, apparently expecting Javik to assume the lead.Wizzy hovered nearby.“You lead,” Javik said to the prince.“Then the Moravians.”Prince Pineapple frowned and stomped ahead, negotiating a narrow, rocky path that sloped gently downward from the desert plateau.They passed a number of AmFed garbage cannisters here, and at Javik’s suggestion these were given a wide berth.“Many are radioactive,” he told them.Swirls of fine, light gray mist curled ahead of them like a graceful, supernatural life form that was beckoning to the travelers
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