Eric splashed into the lazy river below, counting himself lucky he hit no rocks. He surfaced, and the dead raptor promptly fell behind him. The raft floated overturned, Rachel and Cobb nearby. Not twenty feet away was the shore, a sandy bank, he took Professor Temerin’s shoulder and helped him swim forward. His all-weather clothes had kept the water out; only his head, hands, and feet were soaked. He staggered to his feet, beside Selva.
A group of men, humans with dark skin and vaguely Asiatic features, were approaching with spears in hand. Fighting raptors was one thing, but people... Eric hoped it would not come to that. The men slowed and seemed to relax their weapon as the rest of the expedition swam ashore.
One man, in a wide-brimmed straw hat, gestured with his rusty spear to the raptor carcass and said, “Who killed it?” The language he spoke was the Druza Freeholds one, too close to Greek and Latin to be a coincidence. Just like the architecture they’d seen in orbital surveys, the mysterious Founders of Meridian had set it up that way.
Eric raised a hand. “That, uh, would be me.”
“We heard their calls and came running. Are there any more?”
“No, that was the last of the ones we saw.” Several men raised their spears again upon hearing Selva speak.
The first man continued, “You are starmen.”
Even without Selva, that would have been obvious enough—four strange humans, taller than the local average, sporting strange clothes and white teeth.
Temerin nodded. (The Founders had kept that expression, too.) “We are travelers, hoping to reach the Druza Freeholds. Any chance you could point us in the right direction?”
“This river marks the boundary. Beyond that is wild lands, where savages and swiftclaws dwell.” He indicated the raptor again. “But you have slain a great evil today, let us celebrate.”
Eric and Cobb wound up helping some of the other men carry the dead dinosaur into the village on poles, where a group of women in multicolored robes set to work dressing the carcass and preparing it for cooking. The scene was decidedly preindustrial, even pre-antiquity, with mud-bricked, thatch-roofed huts and animals in rough-made pens. Gaggles of children watched the new arrivals with a mix of hesitation and wonder.
Temerin wandered around the village, Eric followed. Observing the structures and fence around the small settlement’s perimeter, he said, “Looks like the biggest threat to these people are dinosaurs. And...”
He sniffed at the air and found his way to a latrine pit with a ghastly stench wafting out. A narrower hole, for a well, was perhaps a stone’s throw away. Temerin went and found the man who had first met them, the village leader named A’fesh, and asked:
“Do you ever get cases here, of a disease where people void themselves from both ends until they die?”
A’fesh’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“The matter which causes it is found in human excrement.” Temerin pointed to the latrine. “Move your well, and draw water from where it cannot seep.”
Best the Professor could do without explaining germ theory, Eric decided.
They were served raptor stew in bowls made from the skull-domes of pachys, Eric added a dash of antimicrobial powder and dug in, finding it far better than he would’ve expected from such a primitive place. As they ate, Temerin inquired again about the Freeholds, and offered metal slips from the supply they’d brought for horses.
“The closest city is River-Shore, to the east, half a day’s journey along the road. No horses, I am sorry, but I can give you a donkey for your lady.”
Night came, they shared a cramped hut with A’fesh, his wife, and four children—Selva and Temerin thought it best not to show off any more fancy starman technology with their insta-tents. At dawn, they set off, using the donkey for baggage.
“Makes me wish I was an aven, or a Baharn,” Eric adjusted his cap as the sun beat down. Meridian’s star, K-type, hung oversized in the sky. “Flying would sure beat...this.”
“Hey, this is how humans traveled for hundreds of thousands of years,” Cobb said, peeling an apple with a knife as they trudged along. “Settled every Terran continent save Australia and Antarctica on foot alone.”
They spotted a few gryphons off in the distance, perhaps messengers or scouts, and another village with men tending its fields. Finally, they came upon a scene like an Old Testament walled city transported to an Ancient American prairie of fire-resistant grass. A low stone wall surrounded it, and a gate sat open.
A small crowd gathered around them as they entered, chattering about starmen and the various wonders they’d heard they were capable of. The city streets were narrow, covered in dirt and animal droppings, and the area inside the gate was lined with merchant stalls in a semicircular shape.
The people were pressing in, one woman reached out and poked Eric in the shoulder, as if testing whether he was real. Temerin’s eyes fell on a man standing in the back with his arms crossed, wearing robes festooned with necklaces and ornaments. Eric followed the Professor as he pushed through the crowd.
“You a merchant?” Temerin asked.
“That I am.” He spoke the Druza language with a different accent. “I am Matreo, from Whitecliff-by-the-Shore. Is it true that starmen are from another world?”
“More than one, actually.” He explained their status as travelers into the Freeholds, and followed up with, “What sort of wares do you carry?”
“Many things, but what could a starman possibly need? I have seen your flying ships and horseless steel carriages.”
“You may find we’re not all that different.”
Matreo led them away to a boxy wagon further down the street, the sides of which unfolded to reveal an impressive array of merchandise: clothes, daggers, jewelry, maps, seeds. Temerin took a stack of robes and passed then out, when everyone found one that fit he paid with a little slip of silver-ish metal.
“What is this?” Matreo studied it, rapped it with his fingernail.
“Aluminum—metallic alum. I doubt anyone on this world can produce it.”
Matreo looked astounded. “Is...is there anything else I can do for you?”
“There is one thing,” answered Temerin. “Got any horses?”
After Matreo roped in some more merchants, they came away with six horses and an agreement he would take them as far as Marstath’s Rock, a major city to the east, along the way to the Freeholds’ capital of Primus.
“That thing about aluminum, though,” Rachel said in Americ as they headed off to find an inn and tavern. “What was that about?”
“It used to be worth more than gold,” Eric replied.
Temerin elaborated:
“Human antiquity knew only seven metals: lead, tin, copper, mercury, silver, iron, and gold. The concept of a periodic table would not come around for over a millennium.”
Nightfall found them gathered atop an inn’s roof, under the starry sky. Meridian’s ecliptic hosted few interplanetary debris and thus no discernable zodiacal light shone above the horizon. The planet’s single small moon, sweeping out its short orbit, would set soon as well. For now, it resembled a knobby lightbulb reflecting with a dull white glow.
Selva had set up a device mounted on a small tripod, a laser communicator to enable communication with the Existential Risks Directorate ship in orbit. Agent Vela had done something to the Patrol satellites orbiting the planet (hacking, he was led to believe, though of course she would never say for certain) to ensure they would not be spotted that way, and the general secrecy demanded by their mission prevented tapping into them for communication. Thus, Selva’s communicator was restricted to working only when they had line-of-sight with the Directorate ship.
“Just got an update from Mara.” She snapped out of the trance she’d been in while her cybernetic implants were interfacing. “An army appears to be mustering in the northwest of Arztillan; Dulaine may be preparing to move around the sea and begin attacking the Freeholds from the north.”
“Does this change the plan?” Temerin asked.
She nodded. “We’ll have to skip on going to the capital, our best bet after we reach Marstath’s Rock will be to gather what help we can and head north to start assisting the lords there. I have more data to review; try to get some sleep.”
She packed up the laser communicator and took the ladder back down to their inn room. Eric unrolled his sleeping bag and laid down, closing his eyes.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He sat up. Had he fallen asleep? The moon seemed nearer to the horizon, so maybe for a bit. Temerin and Cobb seemed to be dozing off, Rachel and Selva would be downstairs.
Thump. Thump.
Movement caught his eye. There, on the other side of the city! He saw something silhouetted against the night sky—big, but not a tree, and not a building either. Outside the wall, and moving closer.
The gate was open; his mind did not register the significance at first. Then the creature’s head bent down and nudged it aside. A three-toed foot splashed in the mud with another thump, and a long tail swished in the air.
He didn’t need Rachel to tell him what species this was.
