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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 51: Cooper 89
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 272
As the Venusian helpers tied rough leather straps to his chest and legs, Cooper wondered if his customary equanimity and amiability might have worked against him in this case. He was used to climbing mountains in his native California, and he had climbed the South Peak over Anderberg, and Last Mountain over Berkeley, but he had yet to throw himself off a mountain.
That was about to change.
“Terri, you are done. Good flight,” the Venusian said politely to him before wishing him the protection of the Shining Silent Light which was no doubt less reassuring than he had hoped. For one thing, Cooper was a Calvinist and did not worship the goddess of Venus, but also because it suggested he needed such protection.
Picking up the hang glider bar in both hands, he positioned it before his chest. Ahead of him Ren ran off the edge of the plateau, dropped out of sight, and rose back up floating away on the winds. Angle was next, then Brimble, and then it was Cooper’s turn. Clutching his nerve to the sticking point, he ran across the top of the Venusport plateau and flung himself off the edge.
A sudden drop followed by a clear understanding that he was about to die was replaced by a stomach-shocking lurch upward, and a cheer burst from his lips at the realization that he was not about to plunge five hundred feet into the Venusian jungle below. The leather and wood creaked, and he found himself drifting off to the right away from the rest. Ren spiraled back around and yelled for him to tilt the other way. With his legs supported by a leather rope to the leather sail above him, he moved in the opposite direction.
Suddenly he was falling on his side. He had gone too far. The other way, the other way! He yelled and threw himself hard that way--which at first did nothing, and then too much, with him almost flipping over.
“Smaller motions!” Ren was yelling as he dove to keep up with Cooper who had lost a hundred feet in a few seconds.
I am in Sovereign Hands, Cooper reminded himself, and fear distanced itself, and math came clearly to his head. A small movement did so much, but it was not enough. Two and a half times that was just a titch too much. He leveled out at two hundred fifty feet above the jungle. A relieved looking Ren came sailing on the winds down near him, and checked him out. Cooper nodded back.
Ren made the follow me gesture. Cooper turned back to the plateau wondering if his ride was done. No, Ren went right at the granite promontory, and then turned sharply right, ninety degrees, and began rising and cutting back and forth, staying near the mass of granite. Winds blowing into one side of the rock were shoved upward, and Ren was riding an invisible elevator. Cooper joined in, and keeping his math in mind and his life in Sovereign Hands rode the elevator up to a hundred feet above the top. From there he was able to look down on the Venusport shantytown, the entrances to the tunnels, and three iron-walled spaceships standing like darts on their tails, including The Energetic.
Ren signaled and they left the dimming elevator and set out after the others who had been circling a quarter mile away. Joining them they followed the flights of birds to see where the air thermals were. Eventually they caught up to a river, but while they ran next to it they did not fly above it, as cooler air sank toward the water. Miles passed, and Cooper saw a carpet of thick jungle beneath him. Several times they had to turn aside as the pattering of rain interrupted their flight.
A small volcano dribbling out magma provided a great opportunity to rise, so they circled there for half an hour. But even up high the rain caught them, and so they left and began coasting toward their final destination for the day. Tedys Glysov held ancient ruins from before the birth of the Venusian race, it was said. Ten easy miles of coasting, and toward the end he saw a giant tree. It sent out loops of sticky vine to catch birds and flying lizards out of the sky, but instead of eating them it rubbed them in pollen and released them to wobble away, shedding pollen behind them.
The river ended, or began really, in a large placid lake with several small islands in its middle. On the far shore, on high ground, stood four separate quarters of ancient granite ruins. The North Quarter, he had been told, was shattered by volcanic ejecta, and from here he could see the broken temples and buildings and fountains. They flew in over it and landed lightly in the Central Square. It would have dwarfed Times Square or even the Red Square in Moscow.
He was surprised how easy it was to land, and Ren who landed by him spoke up in response to his question.
“According to the Venusians, the Central Square is blessed by the Shining Light. Ancient spells from the People Before still hold strong here.”
“Not so in the Quarters,” Kark said, cracking the knuckles of his four hands. Ren agreed.
“Treasure and adventure await. But first, let us name ourselves.” Everyone got out of their hang gliders, and all eight of the crewmen from The Energetic tied down their gear. No one would steal it, he was informed. No one wanted to risk the curse of the Shining Light. According to local legend, it was here where she had first set foot down on Venus after leaving her husband, Solaris Prime, on Mars. Most of the sailors were somewhat skeptical of such specific legends, but in the vast square with misty fogs drifting by and towering temples in the distance it was less easy to be noncommittal, and more easy to be respectful of local tales about the unseen powers.
The group trudged with their light packs toward the West Quarter. As they got close to the two story granite wall surrounding the square, Cooper saw an open gate into the West Quarter. Getting closer, he saw names inscribed on the wall. Some were painted, others chiseled, or cut, or even one seemed to be melted in place with melted blobs of stone around the letters. It said in swooping, huge English letters ‘Whisp was here!’ Hundreds of names existed there, in singletons, and duos, and scrawling lines of multiple names extending for ten yards or more, and neat columns arranged with military or geometric precision, and Cooper felt divided. On the one hand, he had been taught not to defile archeological monuments. But really, this was a tradition which had clearly been going on for decades, at least. Would it be right to refuse it? In the end, he took up the copper hammer and chisel one of the others had picked up from the ground nearby, and added his full name, Brian Edwin Cooper, to the columnar list of eight men under the heading of ‘Sailors of The Energetic’. He, as the most junior, was last.
It felt good. He put the hammer and chisel back down on the ground for the next group of explorers, and they passed through the gateway in the wall to the ruins of the West Quarter as rain caught them again.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
