Wind | Page 2

Jan gripped his clay pipe between his teeth and piloted the
groundcar into the teeth of the Twilight Gale.
Den Hoorn was a comparatively flat desert sweep that ran along the
western side of the Oost Mountains, just over the mountain from
Oostpoort. It was a thin fault area of a planet whose crust was
peculiarly subject to earthquakes, particularly at the beginning and end
of each long day when temperatures of the surface rocks changed. On
the other side of it lay Rathole, a little settlement that eked a precarious
living from the Venerian vegetation. Jan never had seen it.
He had little difficulty driving up and over the mountain, for the Dutch
settlers had carved a rough road through the ravines. But even the
2-1/2-meter wheels of the groundcar had trouble amid the tumbled
rocks of Den Hoorn. The wind hit the car in full strength here and,
though the body of the groundcar was suspended from the axles, there
was constant danger of its being flipped over by a gust if not handled
just right.
The three earthshocks that had shaken Den Hoorn since he had been
driving made his task no easier, but he was obviously lucky, at that.
Often he had to detour far from his course to skirt long, deep cracks in
the surface, or steep breaks where the crust had been raised or dropped

several meters by past quakes.
The groundcar zig-zagged slowly westward. The tattered
violet-and-indigo clouds boiled low above it, but the wind was as dry
as the breath of an oven. Despite the heavy cloud cover, the afternoon
was as bright as an Earth-day. The thermometer showed the outside
temperature to have dropped to 40 degrees Centigrade in the west wind,
and it was still going down.
Jan reached the edge of a crack that made further progress seem
impossible. A hundred meters wide, of unknown depth, it stretched out
of sight in both directions. For the first time he entertained serious
doubts that Den Hoorn could be crossed by land.
After a moment's hesitation, he swung the groundcar northward and
raced along the edge of the chasm as fast as the car would negotiate the
terrain. He looked anxiously at his watch. Nearly three hours had
passed since he left Oostpoort. He had seven hours to go and he was
still at least 16 kilometers from Rathole. His pipe was out, but he could
not take his hands from the wheel to refill it.
He had driven at least eight kilometers before he realized that the crack
was narrowing. At least as far again, the two edges came together, but
not at the same level. A sheer cliff three meters high now barred his
passage. He drove on.
* * * * *
Apparently it was the result of an old quake. He found a spot where
rocks had tumbled down, making a steep, rough ramp up the break. He
drove up it and turned back southwestward.
He made it just in time. He had driven less than three hundred meters
when a quake more severe than any of the others struck. Suddenly
behind him the break reversed itself, so that where he had climbed up
coming westward he would now have to climb a cliff of equal height
returning eastward.

The ground heaved and buckled like a tempestuous sea. Rocks rolled
and leaped through the air, several large ones striking the groundcar
with ominous force. The car staggered forward on its giant wheels like
a drunken man. The quake was so violent that at one time the vehicle
was hurled several meters sideways, and almost overturned. And the
wind smashed down on it unrelentingly.
The quake lasted for several minutes, during which Jan was able to
make no progress at all and struggled only to keep the groundcar
upright. Then, in unison, both earthquake and wind died to absolute
quiescence.
Jan made use of this calm to step down on the accelerator and send the
groundcar speeding forward. The terrain was easier here, nearing the
western edge of Den Hoorn, and he covered several kilometers before
the wind struck again, cutting his speed down considerably. He judged
he must be nearing Rathole.
Not long thereafter, he rounded an outcropping of rock and it lay before
him.
A wave of nostalgia swept over him. Back at Oostpoort, the power was
nuclear, but this little settlement made use of the cheapest, most
obviously available power source. It was dotted with more than a dozen
windmills.
Windmills! Tears came to Jan's eyes. For a moment, he was carried
back to the flat lands around 's Gravenhage. For a moment he was a
tow-headed, round-eyed boy again, clumping in wooden shoes along
the edge of the tulip fields.
But there were no canals here.