Meridian Days Read Free Page A

time, the reason I told people that I intended to return to Earth one day was so that I might build a psychological momentum and eventually match my words with the deed, escape from what was keeping me on Meridian.
    Still regarding the bird, Abe said, "Bob, you remind me a lot of Terror, here. I saw him being driven from his flock one day and found him down on the beach, injured and forlorn. I've no idea what he did to get himself ostracized like that. He's fit now and perfectly able to leave here — but, as you see, he won't... Perhaps he's too scared to return and face his past."
    "So you think my talk of going back is no more than just that — talk?"
    Abe shrugged. "I think you'd be a damned sight better off if you returned to where you really belonged."
    I was saved from having to reply — if I could have found a suitable response — by the sound of Abe's vid-screen chiming in the lounge. He excused himself, entered the dome and activated the wall-screen. The picture showed an expanse of sand, clearly Brightside, shimmering in a vaporous heat haze. I made out a cage in the foreground, containing an animal.
    I turned my attention to the view of the island chain and contemplated Abe's words. I had assumed until now that I had kept my feelings concerning the accident pretty well concealed — but Abe was more astute a judge of human nature than I had given him credit for. Perhaps I should have felt gladdened at his concern, but instead I felt almost threatened.
    Abe returned a minute later. "That was a remote sensor I have monitoring a cage. I've just trapped the female of a species I hope to breed in captivity." He glanced at his watch. "I really must go and collect it. There'll be time to get there and back before the party starts."
    "Is the cage on Brightside?"
    "Fifty kilometres in. It'll be a hot trip."
    I tried to sound casual. "Any chance of a ride?"
    He looked surprised, then pleased. I was not known to exhibit such camaraderie. "I don't see why not. I could use a hand with the cage. Ever been Brightside before?"
    "No," I lied. "I'd like the experience."
    He nodded. "I've a spare silversuit somewhere."

    ~

    As we kitted-up in the solar-reflective silversuits, water-cooled but light and flexible, I felt a twinge of guilt at deceiving him like this. I salved my conscience with the resolve that this would be the start of a closer friendship with Abe Cunningham.
    Abe's flier was a sleek, silver tear-drop, at rest on the harbour wall but pointing as if in readiness towards Brightside. He opened the wing hatches and we dropped inside. The padded, insulated interior, darkened by the tinted viewscreen and fitted out with hi-tec instruments, brought to mind the pilot's nacelle of a smallship.
    Abe gunned the engine; the jets caught and we streaked away from the island, a metre above the calm surface of the sea.
    A computer screen embedded in the dashboard showed a circular view of the Brightside hemisphere. It was divided into three zones, like a target. Abe explained, "The outer margin is zone blue, the coolest area, suitable for human habitation. The second ring, extending for a couple of hundred kilometres, is zone orange, where you go only if you have good reason. The inner core, zone red, is strictly a no-go area. We're here—" He indicated a small, flashing light moving towards the outer circle. "And the cage is here—" A second point of light well within zone orange.
    We would be venturing further into the zone of fire than ever I had before.
    Ahead, on the horizon, Brightside appeared as a low line just above sea level, shimmering in the convection currents. The sky above the distant landmass was white hot, leached of colour by the incessant and merciless radiation of the sun. Few people, other than the occasional research team, ventured far into this sunward facing hemisphere; no-one had yet made a Brightside crossing. On the equator, the mantle of rock over an area of a thousand square kilometres had formed a