The hillock rose steeply from the scarred plateau. The heap of sand had steep slopes scalloped by wind. Lanes as wide as air strips, scrubbed clean to bare stone, intersected at its base, separated by the remnant fins and ribs of soil and rubble. The mesh-work of tracks formed a pattern of pentagrams and hexagons that seemed intensely familiar to me, as if I had come here many times before.
I don’t know why I was so startled to see this landscape again. We were headed here, after all. Lady An and I had seen it together via Old Ned’s channel into the Singularity and she had made it her principal destination. Finding Karla was secondary as far as she was concerned. I had no excuse to be standing there all befuddled and tongue-tied.
“I was here … we were here … we came here. This is where we saw that guy.”
“Yes. Of course,” said Lady An. “And there he sits, atop that hillock.”
“Where?” said Brian. “I don’t see nobody. Ain’t nothing there but a pile of sand.”
Lady An gave him a lopsided frown. “Look closely again at that summit. Notice something a little off?”
“Not really,” said Brian.
“Looks … a little hazy,” said Taro.
“Bravo Taro! What we’re seeing at is a mirage. A ruse. Look at all these tracks, the way they crisscross around the hill. Do you think it is chance alone that the Horus keeps returning here only to avoid that one spot? It’s been toying with him. Or perhaps ... it fears him.”
“You make it sound like that thing’s intelligent,” I said.
This time she shared her impatient look with me.
“Smarter than us, at any rate. At least it wants to be here.”
She clambered down the bank onto one of the scoured tracks.
“Hah! He must see us coming. His veil grows thicker.”
The misty translucence that had topped the hillock now appeared completely solid and opaque.
“On guard, everyone. Keep the formation loose. This man could well be dangerous.”
We fanned out at the base of the hillock and started up the slope. Lady An began to sing. The volunteers joined her. Even I couldn’t help but hum along.
We climbed to a place where tiny spinning dust devils kicked up in the hollows cut into the slope and danced across the hillside. Lady An paused to watch them. Brian continued to climb, but he reached a point where his foot refused to make contact with the ground. It was repulsed like a magnet turned pole to pole.
“Stop right there, Brian,” said Lady An.
I reached and touched the ground with my fingertips and the same thing happened, the sand dimpling inward without me touching it. What appeared to be a solid slop of sand was actually a shell only a few grains thick, suspended in the air.
“Hello!” called Lady An. “Mr. Olivier? We mean you no harm. We’ve just come to see how you are.”
Silence.
“We know you … we’ve met … in the Singularity.”
The hillock began to rumble, the vibrations building with a violence that dashed most of our party to the ground, including me and Lady An.
A stentorian voice roared down from the hilltop.
“Flee! Danger! Fuggire! Pericolo! Gefahr! Fliehen! Fuĝi! Danĝero! Flykte! Fare! Fuir! Danger!”
