It was Bahkh’rahm who spotted the descriptive book, where it was balanced on a crude short stool. Carrad examined the age’s phrases, while Bahkh and his brother Glas’gehdee examined the tunnel that stretched ahead. They returned quickly. There were no other exits, a nara plug ended the tunnel less than 20 feet beyond. The creatures must have come through the book. Glas had found the writer’s linking book in the wreckage of the owners wine rack.There was no sign this age had ever been submitted for the guilds review. Not usually a good sign, but according to the historical accounts, Gahro-kahzee was an excellent writer, just a bit ..circuitous.. in his reasoning. No apparent contradictions met Carrad’s eyes, though writer’s choices were unusual. It was a frosty world surely, but not beyond habitation. He looked at the window of the linking book. It had a purple sky? This reminded him of the experimental descriptive books Atrus had shown him long ago. So, this was an early D’ni researcher. The question was, what was he studying?
The moment of truth had come. There was an age here. It wasn’t likely there would be survivors. If there were, they would know nothing of the fall of D’ni. But the missing people mentioned, made him hesistate to put it aside. They might have descendants. Carrad sighed. A hard choice, should he risk his small team on so slim a chance? Even as he put the question to himself, he knew what he was going to do. He nodded at Bahkh. Bakh helped him finish the suit preparations and seal the mask. He reached out and touched the panel....
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An artic vista strewn with varied debris stretched out before Glas. The glorious purple sunset reflected upon the endless frozen wasteland. He drank in its severe beauty, absorbing the brisk, faint scents of wet birds, old fish, less unidentifiable things painfully into his lungs, carried as they were by continual bitter winds.
The linking area was in a sheltered place at the foot of an unbroken cliff on the sparkling white frosty sand beach that ran to a partially frozen shoreline half a mile east of him . Both features ran as far as the eye could see north and south.
The shoreline of this Age held skeletons large and small. A huge dragon-like beast had been devoured where it fell. The marks of the feed still visible in the sand. Waddling footprints showed who the devourers were, a piece of flapping hide revealed that the Dragon had once had been neapolitan-striped. Poor thing. Further on, a whark -like creature had died of indigestion, its belly still filled with a thousand inflated plastic penguins. Its great eye rolled up heaven-ward in a perpetual cry for Pepto-Bismol. What a horrible way to go. Glas noted the techniques of these destructive polluters, making some plans for defense should it be required.
Looking back he could see the others in the search party mapping out the wreckage. The Writer had set up an outpost on the other side of the link. This where they had found what remained of the D’ni researcher, Gahro-kahzee. He had been buried in his own food preservor. No sign of any other D’ni was found within the camp itself.
Carrad set himself to study Kahzee’s journals. They described the antics of silly black and white birds over a period of several years. It seems they clustered in here at roughly regular intervals, apparently following some odd migratory pattern of their own. Carrad estimated they had about two months until their next return judging from the the signs. Nevertheless he set guard duties to everyone, including himself.
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