"As you wish."
The villager's name was Duane Garcia. He was in his late forties, with thick curly black hair and a slightly rounded face to which a smile came easily. He was healthy and fit-looking in that way all people who led and relished outdoor lives appeared to be. Thinking back, Lawrence hadn't yet seen a villager who lacked vitality. Even the elderly ones seemed unrestricted by their age, while the little kids were like a gang of unruly miniature angels.
It started raining heavily as the four Skins and two villagers trudged down the path. Mud splattered Lawrence's legs up to his crotch. The droplets messed up half of his helmet sensors, producing blurred visual images.
Duane Garcia pulled his sweater's hood up over his head and whistled happily.
"Who's this temple dedicated to?" Kibbo asked.
"We don't worship gods," Duane said. "The universe is a natural phenomenon."
"Amen to that," Lawrence said.
"So why the temple?" Kibbo persisted.
"It's not a temple in the standard sense. We call it that because the architecture is a homage to some of Earth's historic buildings. The man who designed and built it was a good friend of my grandfather. Apparently he was quite upset when people started calling it the temple."
They topped a small rise, and the forest fell away along with the ground. Beneath them was an alarmingly steep slope that led down into a heavily forested little valley. It was vistas like this that gave rise to the notion of Shangri-la. And Lawrence could well understand why. Mount Kenzi, the second-largest of the Mitchell peaks, stood guard at the far end, a tremendous rugged wall of rock whose upper reaches were cloaked in a thick layer of snow. Below the frostline, waterfalls tumbled hundreds of meters down its sides to vanish into the upper strata of forest with a continuous explosion of white spray englobed by rainbows. The valley itself was the gulf between two of Kenzi's buttresslike foothills, with a river running its length. Tributaries slithered along the base of every crease in the land.
Directly below where they stood was a perfectly circular crater lake that had bitten slightly into the northern wall, resulting in a crescent cliff. A small island rose out of the center, like the back of some slumbering marine giant. At its highest it could only have been a few meters above the surface of the lake. A few trees grew around the edges, their sun-bleached roots struggling for purchase among the boulders.
There was a simple structure in the middle of the island: five columns of black-and-white fluted marble that supported a wide arched stone roof. Underneath it were two tiers of circular stone seating that could probably hold about twenty people. The whole thing did look distinctly Hellenistic.
A gravel path led away from it to a small wooden jetty. An identical jetty had been constructed on the shore of the lake opposite. A rowboat was tied up to the end.
"That's it?" Ntoko asked.
"Yes," Duane Garcia said.
The sergeant scanned his helmet sensors around. The path in front of them switchbacked down the risky slope. In several places, where the drop was sheer, the villagers had built handrails. Seventy meters below, the path wound into the dense forest again to emerge by the jetty.
"Okay, we've seen enough." Ntoko turned around and started walking back to the wool center. The other Skins went with him.
Lawrence remained on the top of the ridge. He still had that feeling that the villagers were having them on somehow. The rain was easing off now, boisterous clouds rolling away to the south, retreating from Mount Kenzi's imposing bulk. He requested a full-spectrum sensor sweep from his suit AS and targeted the temple. Nothing registered. There was no electromagnetic activity down there. No heat. It was just inert stone. Large gray-and-white birds flapped sedately through the air, their reflections keeping pace on the still black water.
"Hell."
As his sensors shifted their focus back, he was mildly surprised to see Duane Garcia was still waiting for him. "Checking on me?"
"Certainly not. It's a difficult path back, and there are several forks. We wouldn't want you to get lost."
Lawrence chuckled as they started walking. "Funny, I'd have said that was exactly what you wanted to happen."
Duane Garcia acknowledged the gibe with a slight grin. "I admit your arrival here is not the most welcome visit we've ever had. But I really don't want you having a genuine accident out here, if for no other reason than I doubt your commanding officer would believe it was an accident."
"True enough. Can I ask you something?"
"Certainly."
"Where's your jail?"
"A jail? I'm sorry, we don't have one."
"So in a settlement of at least six hundred people, there are no sinners. Sounds like paradise."
"I'm afraid not. We do have miscreants, of course, every community does. It's just that we don't believe in incarceration as a form of correction or punishment. Other penalties are applied. Restrictions, both physical and material."
"Humm. For the record, I don't believe all this Zen bullshit you people are selling the captain. This whole community is way too nice. Normally, by the third generation, any community founded around a single principle has developed a lot of dissenting voices."
"You have seen the way we live. There is little here to complain about. And if you do, you are free to leave."
"Nope. I still don't buy it."
"You're very adamant about that. Why?"
"I was born a third-generation colonist myself. I know all about the resentment directed toward obsolete restrictive ideals."
"That might just be you. Or perhaps our ideals are more appealing than those of your homeworld."
"Touchй." But I still know you're hiding something, he thought.
Captain Lyaute decided that it was safe for the patrol to stay in the village for the night. The villagers clearly didn't represent the kind of threat evident in Dixon.
Families were temporarily evicted from various A-frame houses to make way for the squaddies. Lawrence was billeted with Ntoko, Amersy and 435NK9's latest recruit, Nic Fuccio. Their A-frame was one of those overlooking the central park where the convoy vehicles were drawn up. Five comfortable bedrooms, three bathrooms, a lounge, study, reception room, dining kitchen, a family room full of toys; all arranged in a T-shape. As he walked through it, Lawrence thought about some middle managers from Z-B he knew whose apartments were a lot more cramped. He claimed a bedroom with a big sliding glass door and stripped off his Skin. The bulky suitcase of field-support equipment extruded eight umbilical cords, and he plugged them into the suit. Blood and other fluids began to cycle through the flaccid synthetic muscle.
A warm shower washed off the blue dermalez gel, and he dressed in an olive-green sweatshirt and gray shorts to join his housemates on the balcony. Amersy had already found the drinks cabinet and mixed a jug of some lemon-based cocktail. Lawrence went for a can of Bluesaucer. The beer tasted better than it ever had down in Memu Bay.
He hadn't realized it before, but the village was situated on a gentle slope. Half of their A-frame was supported on thick wooden stilts to keep it level. From the balcony they could see out over a broad shallow valley where the forest formed an unbroken dark blue-green cloak.
"Do we ever get any runaways, Sarge?" Nic asked as he settled back in a cushioned sun lounger.
"No. We're too obvious. Why, you thinking of it?"
Nic gestured round the clearing. Eight of the convoy's squaddies remained in Skin, guarding the trucks and jeeps. It was an easy duty. The kids were hanging around the vehicles, with the Skins letting them sit in the driving seats. Several girls had appeared, in their teens or early twenties. Lawrence was sure they hadn't been around before. He would have remembered. Like the tourists at Memu Bay, they didn't wear much, T-shirts or halter tops, and shorts. From his angle, most of them looked cute to beautiful. They belonged perfectly to the idyll image. The duty Skins were very busy talking to them.
"Got to admit," Nic said. "It's tempting. I can see myself living like this once I've earned a big enough stake."
"I couldn't," Lawrence said.
"Why the hell not? A place like this, you've got everything you could possibly need. Hey, I wonder if they go in for that trimarriage lark? Country folk always stick with the original traditions longer than the townies."
Ntoko chuckled and pushed his cocktail glass toward the tall, healthy girls gathered round a jeep. "Two of them together would finish you off, man."
"There are worse ways to go."
"This whole living with nature in the forest crap is a dead end," Lawrence said.