Would it be night down there, over the edge of the world? Stars shining? Would it be daylight and clouds?

The top of the ridge was a hundred feet away ... ten. Henry flung himself on the ground so if he became dizzy he would not lose his balance and fall. Theta did the same. Side by side, they crept the remaining distance.

What they saw made them stare in open-mouthed amazement.

Before them was another ridge running out from the northern range. It was pretty much like the one they were on.

Between it and them was another valley. Defrost towers rose from among the trees. Over the top of the opposite ridge, they could see still another. The northern mountains were lost in the blue distance.

The shock to both was unnerving. Steeled to look out into Limbo, they found a valley much like their own.

Together they turned and looked back into what could be seen of their own valley.

Even in shape the two were roughly similar. They could see the tall, slim defrost towers, an occasional house and the geometrical designs of the groves and orchards with their orderly rows of trees. There was Town at the lower end of the valley. And there, at the upper end, was something they never knew existed; a large, ivy-clad building that stretched from cliffside to cliffside. And yet above that was a still, blue lake.

Henry looked ahead again.

There was a difference in the other valley. There were no orderly rows of fruit trees, only thick forest like that which grew only in their ravines or beyond the foot of the valley. The defrost towers looked down on multicolored autumn foliage, even in the bottom of the valley where everything should be green.

Why weren't there fruit trees for the defrosters to protect? What kind of a crop did this valley grow? Henry scrambled to his feet.

Theta looked up at him. "What...?"

"I'm going down there."

"What for?"

"To see what they grow. What kind of people they are."

 Prev. P 7/19 next