Shannon keyed his UHF: "Six, stick with five. Proceed to Alpha. Standard procedures. Copy?"

"Six copies," MacArthur came back, matter-of-factly.

Shannon swung around to reestablish contact with the landing site. A turbulent layer of clouds boiled up from behind the mountains to the west and south; ragged pinnacles, their snow-covered granite tops easily reached past his altitude. Shannon moved his gaze downward and observed the sinuous loop of the river delineating his target. He shook out his control shrouds and deployed his high-lift, high-drag secondary. Lieutenant Buccari had put them right on the money—not bad for a Mach twenty pass. Shannon estimated less than thirty minutes to touchdown. He checked his altimeter and, breaking regs, loosened his mask to sniffthe rarefied atmosphere. A hint of sulfur? It was cold—colder than he had expected.

Shannon reviewed the preflight briefing. Hudson's Plateau was immense—fifty kilometers from the cliffs at the river's edge to the first line of jagged mountains. And high—over two thousand meters above sea level, and over a thousand meters above the river valley. The great river encircled much of the massif, and mountains to the south and west encompassed the rest. As Shannon glided over the precipice marking the edge of the plateau, he detected banks of steam spewing from the cliffs. Fingers and spirals of vapor broke loose and sailed in the wind before dissipating. Lakes dotted the granite plain, and a dragon's spine of rocky karsts tailed down from the awesome mountains. Ensign Hudson had described a central lake with three islands that was to mark their primary landing site, and there it was, nestled against the spine.

The last five hundred meters of a drop were the most interesting. Topography that had been one-dimensional at five thousand meters pushed upwards into view. Valleys and mountains, hills and cliffs, rifts and shadows reached out, providing perspective and depth. The pale granite of the high plateau rose to meet him. Shannon located his quick-release fittings one last time and tightened his helmet strap. Flat rocks streaked with crimson and gold lichens skimmed beneath his feet. He yanked on his risers, killing forward velocity and stalling the leading edge of his foil. He took four chopping steps and stopped—a stranger on a new world.

It was very cold.

MacArthur watched Chastain float away from the line of bearing. He locked down his turtle shell and shucked off his harness webbing. Chastain was drifting to the south and losing ground to the east. The other parafoils disappeared against the dark backdrop of the mountains. They would be in for a hike.

As Chastain's foil spiraled mindlessly downward, MacArthur's scrutiny went to the innocent appearing terrain. Treeless, rolling plains stretched northward, meeting the horizon in an indistinct haze. To the south, the river curved toward them, its main watercourse spreading in interwoven braids across sand and gravel bars, the sun glinting dully from the many channels. It was as if four or five rivers had collided together, converging and diverging around shoals and islands, unable to agree within which bank to flow.

Beyond the river to the south, the ground climbed into ragged foothills and beyond that to distant, hoary mountains. Huge clouds roiled around the shoulders and heads of the massive peaks, and a thick layer of altocumulus poured through valleys rife with blue-green glaciers.

The rolling prairie below, mottled brown and green, took on definition. The wind gathered strength and veered from the north. They were being blown closer to the river, but there was ample room; a spreading valley lay between them and the larger river. Two symmetrical peaks venting steam and smoke marked the head of the valley.

At seven hundred meters MacArthur looked down for another check. Something was peculiar—the brown and green pattern of the land slowly shifted; the ground was moving. He stared harder and, doubting his vision, saw animals—in countless numbers. A vast herd of grazing animals covered the visible plain! Several herds, and probably herds of different species. The masses directly below were a deep reddish-brown. Off to both sides and randomly in the distance, he could see smaller groups, lighter colored—golden, almost yellow in tint.

MacArthur verified his drift rate. With some maneuvering he could avoid falling into the herd; its ranks thinned toward the head of the valley, and the wind was bearing him away. Chastain, heavier and unguided, was falling into their midst. He should stay near Chastain, but Chastain could already be dead. Why get caught in a stampede?

But perhaps Chastain was only unconscious and needed first aid. Perhaps Chastain would suffocate in his oxygen mask. Maybe Chastain' s parafoil would catch the strong surface winds and drag him around the countryside; it was windy enough to threaten both men with that prospect. MacArthur grabbed his assault rifle from its attachment point on his turtle pack, checked the magazine, and prepared for landing.

The descent, the illusion of holding gravity at bay, had lasted almost an hour, but the inevitable reality of the looming surface became evident. The animals took individual shape, round-shouldered, big-headed and short-horned, with shaggy coats and thick legs. MacArthur watched Chastain's deadweight landing, practically on the backs of the large beasts. Like a helicopter landing in a wheat field, or a rock being thrown into a still pond, the animals, sensing Chastain' s arrival, recoiled in a pattern of expanding ripples, and the area around Chastain' s point of impact cleared rapidly. Chunks of turf and dirt flew into the air, propelled by the bucking and kicking creatures. The nearer animals surged against their neighbors, and soon a circular area within two hundred meters of the fallen man's flapping parafoil was clear of the large beasts.

Chastain' s inert form collapsed bonelessly onto the ground, face first and helmet bouncing. His parafoil dumped its load and collapsed, only to flutter erect with fitful gusts of air, tugging Chastain's large body across the dung-spotted terrain in slow jerks. MacArthur, still high in the air, maneuvered into the wind, and landed squarely in the middle of Chastain's luffing foil. Grabbing his own shrouds, MacArthur spilled air and released his quick-disconnects. He noticed absently that the ground was soft, boglike, but dry and springy. Tundra! It was tundra, or taiga plains, like the far north of Canada. Memory invoked the hiking and hunting experiences of his youth. It required effort to walk.

After bundling both foils and securing them with shroud lines, MacArthur struggled to clear Chastain from his rig. He lifted the Marine's brawny shoulders from the dung-strewn ground—and dropped him! Slugs! Black, amorphous creatures as big as his thumb exploded from the heaps of greenish-black dung upon which Chastain had come to rest. A host of squirming vermin slithered from the disturbed manure. Most of the wiggling slugs burrowed industriously into the porous undergrowth, but dozens flowed over the prostrate Marine. Fighting his repugnance, and checking the ground under his own boots, MacArthur gingerly rolled the injured man over, pulled him onto some reasonably clear ground, and gently brushed off the slimy worms with his gloved hand. The dropping slugs disappeared immediately into the tundra.

Chastain was breathing but unconscious, nothing obviously broken. MacArthur disconnected him from his harness, allowing the massive pack to fall away. He rolled the big man over on the soft ground, slid open his visor, and released his oxygen mask. Chastain shuddered; his eyes flashed open, wall-eyed with panic; his mouth gaped; he inhaled, only to exhale violently, throwing hands over his mouth and nose, jerking his head spasmodically back and forth.