The trip to the site where the capsule was found is purely physical, arduously physical at that. I could fly in but now that my “something is unusual” flags are fully raised I decide to come in by land and get a full feel for the territory—taking full advantage of my physical body.
There are two other reasons to come in by land. First, this part of the world is unsettled. This means that the net is skimpy here, so the support it can give is skimpy and the people who live here are those who like it that way. If I come in by air, brandishing a lot of net support, I’ll be labeled as just another effete city-slicker, not far removed from a slug. The locals won’t offer much support or any insight into local conditions. But this place being practically off-net, local conditions are all-important.
The second reason is that I decide to hire the two rabbit hunters who found the capsule as guides and I’m sure not going to find them on the net! I do some inquiries and find out where they are. As expected their cyber presence can politely be described as skimpy—these two will be a pair of cyberhaters. I cover up most of my cybergoodies that show and stuff my wallet with cash.
I find them in a bar. They’ve been drinking hard for a couple days but because most of the media types are blatant cyberphiles they’ve waved off most of the publicity and publicity trouble. If I give them a night to sleep it off and a couple of sober-up pills they’ll be ready tomorrow morning.
“Buzz off, stranger. We ain’t licensed to do cybertours,” they tell me as I stand at their table.
“Are you licensed to take a Hennesy from a friendly stranger?” I reply, holding up a bottle.
“Well sure. That we can do! Where’d you find Hennesy? I thought we drank Harry out of that three hours ago?”
“You did. I brought it from down the way.” In fact this pair and the media crews had cleaned the town out. I had this bottle expressed in from the next settlement as soon as I found out what their preference was.
“Well, that’s right neighborly of you to share. What can we do for you, youngster?”
I sit down and start pouring.
It’s so sweet and simple if you just take the time to know people and show an interest. We talk and drink. I’m patient as their friends come and go. After only a couple hours:
I’m pretty sure I have their trust when they don’t ask me for triple their usual guide price the way they had the media types.
The next day we bounce and jounce out to the site in their Land Cruiser. After a couple of hours of this I’m ready for some replacement kidneys but I don’t complain. I don’t hear them complain and I’ve read that these frontier types think it’s “womanly” to talk about obvious discomforts. That’s what they call it … womanly.
We started at 4 am. It was crazy. It should have been pre-dawn dark. But this is Antarctic summertime and it doesn’t get dark. I would have complained about the starting time but if this pair was two days drunk and still felt they should start at 4 am who was I to argue? Still … the longer I bounce along the crazier this whole idea seems.
Two hours later and we’re there. And I’m immediately glad I’ve come. The Rhapsody Glacier has been retreating slowly compared to its neighbors so it is still deep in its valley and heavily forested to quite close to the glacier face. This means that remote sensing has a lot of noise to sort through to find anything valuable and that’s why the area hasn’t been studied hard before now. The drive up the valley is on a deeply-rutted but lightly traveled trail through tall pines—a tough road even for seasoned off-roaders.
As we travel I see lots of lumps between the trees. These rabbit hunters pay no attention to the lumps but I see them as trash the glacier has dropped as it retreated—some of them could be as interesting as Methuselah. … It’s times such as these that I really love being physical. Plus I get to breathe deeply of the fresh pine-scented dawn forest air. I do that. I breathe deeply. In spite of getting up at 4 am it’s going to be a wonderful day!
Jay and Willie are glad to have me along. I have clearance codes so they can get back up this valley for the first time since the news broke. First we’ll check out the Methuselah site proper. The capsule itself has been airlifted out and moved to a lab set up near the county seat, giving the cyber community full access to it over the net. There have been some surveys done of this area where it came from but nothing unusual has been noted.
As we start up Rhapsody Valley Jay and Willie wake up from travel daze and start looking out intensely.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Now is when you gets to pay attention, youngster,” says Willie. “This is rat country, as well as rabbit. Don’t you be wandering off. And if one of us says ‘Boo!’ you hightail it back into this truck. Close the door, but for God’s sake, don’t lock it. You understand?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Do more than understand,” says Jay, “Do it! And do it fast. Rats are partial to arms and I’ve seen one take an arm off in ten seconds. We think you’re OK or we wouldn’t bring you out here. But … we also know you’re still a wet-behind-the-ears city slicker. Just don’t act like one.”
Their transformation from hard drinking-bums through dazed napping off-roaders into serious professional woodsmen is amazing to watch. No wonder the media didn’t think there was much use for them back in town.
We arrive at the site and the first thing we do is practice rat alerts. We don’t get to explore until they’re satisfied that I really can “hightail it” back to the truck properly.
Once I master that drill we start to look around. The scenery is impressive. There’s a river flowing out from under the glacier and it’s cut a huge tunnel in the ice—you could drive a bus through that tunnel.
“They picked that library thing up from right over there,” Willie points. It’s now just a circular spot with some survey stakes to mark it out.
I look around. The view—with the ice wall on one side, a rocked corridor up the center, and deep pine forest on the other—is awe-inspiring. This will definitely become my favorite cyber backdrop in the future. But there is more. Here and there are these big anomalous lumps that are covered with moss. They could be just big boulders or they could be low-density objects … hollow things with interesting contents.
“How often have you boys been up here?” I ask.
“This is our second time. Rhapsody ain’t our fav—Rat!” We are all hightailing for the truck. The drill works, I’m in in a flash, followed by Willie and the door slams shut. Jay’s already in on the far side. We’re all in breathing hard.
The rat is half the size of the truck and lightning fast even when it’s just snooping around.
Jay looks a little disappointed. He says, “That’s it. We’re done. If it decides to go after our tires it’ll be a long drive home.”
“Pardon me if I sound like a total idiot, but can we shoot it?” I ask.
“We ain’t set up for rat. If you want to do rat, you bring three trucks and you armor up the beds so’s you can shoot from there. If you stand outside to shoot like as not you’ll get bit. Plus they travel in packs. There’s more than one even if we don’t see the others.
“No. … It’s time to leave. In this part of the world, the Rat is still King.” Jay fires up the engine, and we start back.