So.”
“So.” He repeated, shrugging, drawing a big zero in the dirt. “I don’t know what to do.”
He threw the stick down in exasperation. It hit the ground harder than he meant, then bounced and skipped into Derek’s briefcase.
Brian saw it as if for the first time. He’d forgotten about it in the crisis and went to it. “What have you got in here?”
It was not locked and he opened it with the two sliding thumb releases on either end of the handle edge.
Inside, there were spiral notebooks. They weren’t anything special—the kind with ruled lines and the twisted wire holding the edge—and each of them was numbered.
He opened number one.
“Arrived,” he read aloud. “Brian demanded that we leave all the gear in the plane or it would ruin the whole experiment.”
Oh, yes,
Brian thought
—I did that. Oh, God, I did that, didn’t I? I stuck my little foot down and dug in and got stubborn and set all this up. What was there? Food and shelter and a gun and all the things I didn’t think we’d need that would make this easier.
“I admire his ethics.” He finished reading the first day. He put the notebook down. “You do, eh? Admire me—the guy who made us lose all that gear?”
He felt like he was prying and decided not to read any more of the notebooks. He started to close the briefcase and saw that there was a folding accordion-style section that collapsed back into the lid.
There was something in the section and he pulled out a folded paper. When he opened it he saw that it was the map.
The same map they had looked at with Brian’s mother. He saw the lake, saw where they had circled it with her, showing where they would be, how . . . how
located
it looked. How easy to see and find and locate.
Derek had had two copies of the map and he’d left one with Brian’s mother. “So you can always tell right where we are.”
Brian remembered sitting there, his mother smiling. All her questions answered, all her doubts gone.
And now look at them.
Derek had brought the other map and kept it when Brian dug his heels in and told him to send everything but the radio back and in some relief Brian had spread the map gratefully on the back of the briefcase—thinking it would help—but now he shook his head and started to fold it. What difference did it make if he knew where they were? It wouldn’t help them.
Then he looked at the lake again, saw how it lay in the wide, flat greenness—how there were many lakes around it.
And he saw the river.
14
H e had noticed it before, of course—when they went over the map in his house and when they had first landed. But in the largeness of the country shown on the map, the massive forest the map showed, the river was a small thing, and he had negated it.
It wound out the bottom of the lake, the southern end, and headed southeast down into the lakes below and was lost, and he had not followed it except to note the name.
The Necktie River.
“Isn’t that a funny name,” his mother had said, and Derek had laughed.
“There are lakes named Eunice, or Bootsock—there are so many lakes and rivers, the original mapmakers just made up names as they went. The person drawing the map was probably wearing a tie and thought it would make a good name. Many of them aren’t named at all—just numbered.”
The Necktie River, Brian saw, led south and down and drew his eyes away from the lake.
The map was laid out in square five-thousand-meter grids—five-kilometer squares—and he saw that in some places the river wound back almost on itself inside the same five thousand square meters. But in other places it ran straight for a considerable distance and he followed it, through smaller lakes and what he thought must be swamps, through the darker green portions that meant heavier forest.
It kept going south to the edge of the map, where it was folded, and he unfolded the next section and spread it in the sun. He did not know why the river drew him, pulled at
“So.” He repeated, shrugging, drawing a big zero in the dirt. “I don’t know what to do.”
He threw the stick down in exasperation. It hit the ground harder than he meant, then bounced and skipped into Derek’s briefcase.
Brian saw it as if for the first time. He’d forgotten about it in the crisis and went to it. “What have you got in here?”
It was not locked and he opened it with the two sliding thumb releases on either end of the handle edge.
Inside, there were spiral notebooks. They weren’t anything special—the kind with ruled lines and the twisted wire holding the edge—and each of them was numbered.
He opened number one.
“Arrived,” he read aloud. “Brian demanded that we leave all the gear in the plane or it would ruin the whole experiment.”
Oh, yes,
Brian thought
—I did that. Oh, God, I did that, didn’t I? I stuck my little foot down and dug in and got stubborn and set all this up. What was there? Food and shelter and a gun and all the things I didn’t think we’d need that would make this easier.
“I admire his ethics.” He finished reading the first day. He put the notebook down. “You do, eh? Admire me—the guy who made us lose all that gear?”
He felt like he was prying and decided not to read any more of the notebooks. He started to close the briefcase and saw that there was a folding accordion-style section that collapsed back into the lid.
There was something in the section and he pulled out a folded paper. When he opened it he saw that it was the map.
The same map they had looked at with Brian’s mother. He saw the lake, saw where they had circled it with her, showing where they would be, how . . . how
located
it looked. How easy to see and find and locate.
Derek had had two copies of the map and he’d left one with Brian’s mother. “So you can always tell right where we are.”
Brian remembered sitting there, his mother smiling. All her questions answered, all her doubts gone.
And now look at them.
Derek had brought the other map and kept it when Brian dug his heels in and told him to send everything but the radio back and in some relief Brian had spread the map gratefully on the back of the briefcase—thinking it would help—but now he shook his head and started to fold it. What difference did it make if he knew where they were? It wouldn’t help them.
Then he looked at the lake again, saw how it lay in the wide, flat greenness—how there were many lakes around it.
And he saw the river.
14
H e had noticed it before, of course—when they went over the map in his house and when they had first landed. But in the largeness of the country shown on the map, the massive forest the map showed, the river was a small thing, and he had negated it.
It wound out the bottom of the lake, the southern end, and headed southeast down into the lakes below and was lost, and he had not followed it except to note the name.
The Necktie River.
“Isn’t that a funny name,” his mother had said, and Derek had laughed.
“There are lakes named Eunice, or Bootsock—there are so many lakes and rivers, the original mapmakers just made up names as they went. The person drawing the map was probably wearing a tie and thought it would make a good name. Many of them aren’t named at all—just numbered.”
The Necktie River, Brian saw, led south and down and drew his eyes away from the lake.
The map was laid out in square five-thousand-meter grids—five-kilometer squares—and he saw that in some places the river wound back almost on itself inside the same five thousand square meters. But in other places it ran straight for a considerable distance and he followed it, through smaller lakes and what he thought must be swamps, through the darker green portions that meant heavier forest.
It kept going south to the edge of the map, where it was folded, and he unfolded the next section and spread it in the sun. He did not know why the river drew him, pulled at
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