W A N DERER ROGER DAVENPORT Sky Pony Press New York
ONE The blue-stripe was sleeping in the heat of the day with only the raised line on its back showing through the fine dry dirt visible as a whorl of blue Kean took note of a nearby rock before he stretched out his six-fingered hand the one that was abnormal and poised it above the snake He flexed his fingers and relaxed them breathed in breathed out His hand darted down and caught the blue stripe’s tail and with a throwing action cast it up and then down whip-cracking its head against the rock The body was still twitching as he stuffed it into the leather sack on his belt He looked back to where light danced on the reflective surfaces of the big low tent a whole mile distant across the scrubland They would all be asleep Ahead the landscape became paler more like desert terrain Specks of quartz caught the white heat of the sun and sparkled dazzlingly Good prospecting territory The valley was hundreds of miles
2 long and over three hundred and fifty miles wide and while anywhere or everywhere there were treasures to be found just below the surface the drier the ground the easier it was to dig It was not quartz or other minerals he was after the prize find was fragments of metal but one might also turn up other materials It was a very long way from camp though and he was already well beyond the limits of safety Untroubled by the weight of his soft stained leather clothing he loped onward across the wasteland breathing easily in a temperature of over 110 degrees and feeling spo radic movement on his thigh through the sack The nerves and muscles in the snake’s body would go on functioning for several hours O By the time you reached the final level of education you’d had enough of it Feeling drowsy Essa looked around the white-walled classroom to keep herself awake It was a large space yet the pyramid city of Arcone was so vast that there were those living here who had never entered it The Mentor spoke again She seemed to be musing aloud but they all knew it was a question Does beauty have a purpose She was a girl not much older than Essa wearing a metal bracelet that denoted her rank as citizen Her tunic was very short and very white Many here wore their tunics short because of thrift most chose a drab color that could stand a few marks on it Essa’s own tunic was a washed-out brown
