Fanglith by John Dalmas

Author:John Dalmas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 0671559885
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 1985-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

After Arno had left, I lifted again, almost to the cloud cover this time. Then we flew around over the countryside looking for places to hide, places that would be all right when the weather cleared, and where we'd have the best chance to go undetected by the locals. I recorded the coordinates of a few possibilities, but none of them really seemed very good. While this part of Normandy was considerably more forest than field, there was always a castle and an area of farmland not too far away from any hiding place, and the natural openings mostly looked more or less marshy.

Besides that, one of us on the ground would have a hard time finding any given one of the hiding places if he needed to go to it; there just weren't any good landmarks. Not including Bubba, of course; he wouldn't have any trouble at all.

Afterward, we still had most of the afternoon left, and I felt restless. It seemed like there ought to be something valuable for me to do that would take advantage of the stormy weather. Mom went into their sleeping room and settled down with the learning program, while dad sat beside me and watched out the window.

So I flew back down the River Orne to the coast. Along the ocean there were cliffs behind the beach, and I found one hiding place that looked pretty secure. There was a cliffy little ravine that cut back into the tableland and came out about three-fourths of the way down the beach cliff. The tableland above the cliff was forested, and there were clumps of trees in places in the bottom of the ravine, so there were lots of places in it that couldn't be seen from the air. An Evdashian orek would have a hard time climbing in there from above, and from below it would be impossible without mountain-climbing equipment. The brook that ran down it was tiny, even in this weather, leaving plenty of room to park on dry rock. We could hide in there for months.

Of course, we didn't have months, and hiding wasn't what we'd come to Normandy for. But I felt a little better knowing about it, just the same.

Then, just for the heck of it, I flew on northeastward up the coast a way, to see what was there. Basically, it was more of the same.

Meanwhile, something was still bothering me. I decided it was the waiting. I didn't really know whether twenty days was plenty of time, or too little, but it seemed as if we ought to be doing more—that we ought to be hurrying.

On toward evening, we landed in the driest-looking opening I'd found in the neighborhood of Arno's father's fief, Courmeron. The rain had about stopped, but the sky was still dark and cloudy, with occasional drizzles and showers. Dad suggested that I get some sleep if I wanted to, and I did. I can almost always go to sleep if I want to, just by lying down and closing my eyes, and it's better than biting my nails.

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