Uncharted Territory Read Online Free PDF Page B

next to the Wall, about twenty kloms down from where we’d crossed, an area of grayish igneous hills covered with knee-high scourbrush, which was probably the reason we’d skirted it.
    I asked for an aerial. C.J.’d sideswiped 248-76 on one of her trips home. I put privacies on and asked for visuals. It looked the way I remembered it—hills and scourbrush, a few roadkill. The visual said fine-grained schist with phyllosilicates all the way down. I asked for the earlier log. That expedition we were south of it. It was hills and scourbrush on mat end, too.
    The schist we’d found on Boohte wasn’t gold-bearing, and there were no signs of salt or drainage anomalies, so it wasn’t an anticline. And we’d had good reasons for missing it both times—the first time we’d been following the Wall, looking for a break, and the second time we were trying to avoid 246-73. I couldn’t see any indications either time that Bult was avoiding it. Even if he was, it was probably because the ponies would balk at the steepness of the hills.
    On the other hand, we’d gone right by it twice, and you could hide almost anything in those hills. Including a gate.
    I erased my transactions, took the privacies off, and walked back to the bunkhouse to talk to Carson.
    Ev was leaning against the door. He looked so sappy-eyed and relaxed I wondered if C.J.’d broken down and given him a jump. She used to and then tried to get the loaners to name something for her afterward, but half the time they forgot, and she decided it worked better the other way around. But I figured the way she was looking at him at dinner it was just possible.
    “What are you doing out here?” I asked him.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” he said, looking out in the direction of the ridge. “I still can’t convince myself I’m really here. It’s beautiful.”
    He had that right. All three of Boohte’s moons were up, strung out in a row like an expedition and turning the ridge a purplish-blue. I leaned against the other side of the door.
    “What’s it like, out in uncharted territory?” he said.
    “It’s like those mating customs of yours,” I said. “Part instinct, part survival strategies, way too many variables. Mostly, it’s a lot of dust and triangulations,” I said, even though I knew he wouldn’t believe me. “And ponypiles.”
    “I can’t wait,” he said.
    “Then you’d better be getting to bed,” I said, but he didn’t move.
    “Did you know a lot of species perform their courtship rituals by moonlight?” he said. “Like the whippoorwill and the Antarrean cowfrog.”
    “And teenagers,” I said, and yawned. “We’d better be getting to bed. We’ve got a lot to do in the morning.”
    “I don’t think I could sleep,” he said, still with that dopey look. I began to wonder if I’d been wrong about him being all that smart.
    “I saw the vids, but they don’t do it justice,” he said, looking at me. “I had no idea everything would be so beautiful.”
    “You should be using that line on C.J. and her nightie,” Carson said, poking his head around the door. He was wearing his liner and his boots. “What on hell’s going on out here?”
    “I was telling Ev how he’d better get to bed so we can start in the morning,” I said, looking at Carson.
    “Really?” Ev said. The sappy-eyed look disappeared. “Tomorrow?”
    “Sunup,” I said, “so you’d better get back to your bunk. It’s the last chance you’ll have at a mattress for two weeks,” but he didn’t show any signs of leaving, and I couldn’t talk to Carson with him hanging over me. “Where are we going?”
    “Uncharted territory,” I said. “But you’ll be asleep in the saddlebone and miss it if you don’t get to bed.”
    “Oh, I couldn’t possibly sleep now!” he said, gazing out at the ridge. “I’m too excited!”
    “You’d better pack your gear then,” Carson said.
    “I’m all packed.”
    C.J. came out, pulling a hide-nothing robe on over her