Free The Adversary - 4 by Julian May Page B

toward that landmark that had somehow become symbolic of their guilt and daring. They had crossed more than 1500 kilometres of Pliocene wilderness-swamps and jungles, waterless desert, and most recently the Rif Range-and now rolled through the sere hills and scrub thickets covering the upper extremity of the broken Gibraltar Isthmus. Logic had told the expedition's leader, Hagen Remillard, to bear farther east on a more direct course to the flooded Mediterranean Basin, which they would have to cross in order to rendezvous with Cloud in Afaliah. But logic faltered before the irresistible glamour of the Waterfall. How could they pass it by? They had shared in its creation when they joined minds with their parents and helped mad Felice admit the western ocean waters into the Empty Sea. To view it was a psychological imperative.
    The five youngsters of Ocala's meagre third generation, called the Cubs, were even more eager than their parents. When a towering column of vapour signalling the cascade finally appeared on the horizon, the little ones dissolved into a frenzy of fidgeting. It became evident that none of them would be able to sleep that night without first beholding the marvel; so Hagen decided to forgo the usual sunset bivouac and press on. There, would be plenty of moonlight to illumine the scene.
    Hagen regretted his impulse when Phil Overton caved in to the winsome coercion of his four-year-old, Calinda, who had been begging to sit with her father in the leading ATV. Brokenhearted protests from the other Cubs, both vocal and excruciatingly telepathic, were inevitable. In spite of Hagen's objections, nothing would do but that all of the little ones transfer to the command module. Diane Manion traded places with Nial Keogh and swore to Hagen that she would use every erg of her redactive metafunction to keep the Cubs under control, and the complaisant Overton was demoted from navigator to assistant babysitter. But the closer they came to the Waterfall, the more disorderly the children became.
    "Daddy, turn on the peep-sweep again!" Calinda pleaded.
    "This time, I know we'll be able to scan the falls!"
    "The peep-sweep! The peep-sweep!" chanted Joel Strangford and Riki Teichmann, who were four-and-a-half and five. They tussled with each other, trying to get closer to the cockpit's terrain holo display, and shoved little Hope Dalembert to the deck in the process. She began to wail.
    "Meatheads!" The indictment of six-year-old Davey Warshaw was pitying. "A TSL can't see a hole in the ground when there are hills in the way."
    "It can too! It can too!"
    "Only if the refractive angle's right," Davey sneered. "And it's not. You think the Gibraltar Gate's some little bitty thing like a dry wadi or a sandpit that the peep can analog? Hah!"
    "Then farsense it for us, Mr. Smarty!" Calinda demanded.
    Although incapable of such a feat, Davey used his imagination to conjure a vision that stunned the other Cubs to silence: a planetary orb cleft like a gigantic melon, with a fountain of water gushing into outer space.
    Gently, Diana Manion emended the picture. "It's more likely to look like this, dear."
    All the Cubs squealed in disappointment.
    "But that's just a little waterfall," Riki protested. "Like in my Nana's book about the Old World. Niagara.
    Our waterfall's bigger than any in the whole world that ever was!"
    Calinda's lip thrust out. "Don't want to see a little waterfall.
    Hagen-you said it would be humongous."
    "Humongous," repeated little Hope Dalembert, through tears.
    "Phil, Phil, turn on the peep-sweep!" Joel cried, and the others chimed in, swarming over the hapless Overton and crowding Hagen at the command console until he fended them off with his PK and uttered a simultaneous mental expostulation: All of you be quiet!
    Miraculously, they were.
    Aloud, Hagen said, "Now listen, you Cubs. We're almost there. I think I sense something! You might, too, if you just pipe down for a damn minute ... "
    The whine of the turbine