Charlie's

9

The Survey Office called it an All-Purpose Logistical Support Surface Vehicle. I called it a skiff. It was as exciting as what I imagine an oxcart to be, and probably neck-and-neck for speed. The main differences were that it was an antigrav platform with seats and an on-demand polarizable force-canopy. And it didn't have an ox.

Sarah might have found an ox more interesting. It certainly wasn't an exciting craft; the most rise I got out of her was when I drove the skiff right over a ravine, and she tensed while looking at the bottom hundreds of feet below. Then we crossed over to the other side, and neither of us said a thing.

I don't know what I was expecting from her. I saw the landscape there as beautiful, but also sort of as an abstraction; after enough years of geology I sort of have a built-in heads-up display, noting likely chemical compositions in soil color, former sea levels from the smoothness of wind erosion, past volcanic activity in the grooves of the terrain and so on. Looking at rocks and hills and not seeing numbers and labels is practically an act of will for me.

Whereas Sarah, wherever she was from, probably wasn't seeing the terrain at all as much as the absence of anything familiar. There was nothing man-made, except the station, the skiff and any equipment I might have set out. There were no streets, no street lights, no commercial establishments, no cars, no people. Even nature was lacking, with nothing recognizable in the way of vegetation. No trees. No bodies of water. No wildlife.

I watched her reflection in the control screens as I drove. She started out attentive, trying to see what this detention world had to offer. That seemed to fade to a stunned realization that there really wasn't anything here for her. Over time her face seemed to slip towards boredom, but there was a touch of haunted in her eyes, as if she was afraid the landscape would actually suck something out of her.

I tried pillars and chimneys. I tried crystal formations, thinking maybe she'd like shiny. I tried painted vistas, with the sunlight angling down and bringing out colored glints in the soil. I tried talking expansively about the wildness, the natural untouched look of the place, and as I talked she shrank into herself a little more.

When I finally ran out of words, the only sound was the wind, as she and I and the skiff glided along. Until finally she said in a small voice, "Can I go back now?"