Julian May - Dune Roller

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DUNE ROLLER

by Julian May

Originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction

eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 11-28-02 [v1.0]

There were only two who saw the meteor fall into Lake Michigan, long ago. One was a Pottawatomie

brave hunting rabbits among the dunes on the shore; he saw the, fire-streak arc down over the water

and was afraid, because it was an omen of ill favor when the stars left the heaven and drowned

themselves in the Great Water. The other who saw was a sturgeon who snapped greedily at the

meteor as it fell—quite reduced in size by now—to the bottom of the fresh water sea. The big fish

took it into his mouth and then spat it out again in disdain. It was not good to eat. The meteor drifted

down through the cold black water and disappeared. The sturgeon swam away, and presently, he

died. . . .

Dr. Ian Thorne squatted beside a shore pool and netted things. Under the sun of late July, the

lake waves were sparkling deep blue far out, and glass-clear as they broke over the sandbar into Dr.

Thorne's pool. A squadron of whirligig beetles surfaced warily and came toward him leading little

v-shaped shadow wakes along the tan sand bottom. A back-swimmer rowed delicately out of a green

cloud of algae and snooped around a centigrade thermometer which was suspended in the water from

a driftwood twig.

3:00 p.m., wrote Dr. Thorne in a large, stained notebook. Air temp 32, water temp—he leaned

over to get a better look at the thermometer and the back-swimmer fled —28. Wind, light variable;

wave action, diminishing. Absence of drifted specimens. He dated a fresh sheet of paper, headed

it Fourteenth Day, and began the bug count.

He scribbled earnestly in the sun, a pleasant-faced man of thirty or so. He wore a Hawaiian shirt

and shorts of delicious magenta color, decorated with most unbotanical green hibiscus. An old

baseball cap was on his head.

He skirted the four-by-six pool on the bar side and noted that the sand was continuing to pile up.

It would not be long before the pool was stagnant, and each day brought new and fascinating changes

in its population. Gyrinidae, Hydrophilidae, a Corixa hiding in the rubbish on the other end. Some

kind of larvae beside a piece of water-logged board; he'd better take a specimen or two of that. L.

intacta sunning itself smugly on the thermometer.

The back-swimmer, its confidence returned, worked its little oars and zig-zagged in and out of

the trash. N. undulata, wrote Dr. Thorne.

When the count was finished, he took a collecting bottle from the fishing creel hanging over his

shoulder and maneuvered a few of the larvae into it, using the handle of the net to herd them into

position.

And then he noticed that in the clear, algae-free end of the pool, something flashed with a light

more golden than that of mere sun on water. He reached out the net to stir the loose sand away.

It was not a pebble or a piece of chipped glass as he had supposed; instead, he fished out a

small, droplike object shaped like a marble with a tail. It was a beautiful little thing of pellucid amber

color, with tiny gold flecks and streaks running through it. Sunlight glanced off its smooth sides, which

were surprisingly free of the surface scratches that are the inevitable patina of flotsam in the

sand-scoured dunes.

He tapped the bottom of the net until the drop fell into an empty collecting bottle and admired it

for a minute. It would be a pretty addition to his collection of Useless Miscellanea. He might put it in a

little bottle between the tooled brass yak bell and the six-inch copper sulfate crystal.

He was collecting his equipment and getting ready to leave when the boat came. It swept up out

of the north and nosed in among the sand bars offshore, a dignified, forty-foot Matthews cruiser

named Carlin, which belonged to his friend, Kirk MacInnes.

"'Hoy, Mac!" Dr. Thorne yelled cordially. "Look out for the new bar the storm brought in!"

A figure on the flying bridge of the boat waved briefly and howled something unintelligible around

a pipe clamped in its teeth. The cruiser swung about and the mutter of her motors died gently. She lay

rocking in the little waves a few hundred feet offshore. After a short pause a yellow rubber raft

dropped over the stern.

Good old Mac, thought Thorne. The little ex-engineer with that Skye terrier moustache and the

magnificent boat visited him regularly, bringing the mail and his copy of the Biological Review, or

bottled goods of a chemistry designed to prevent isolated scientists from catching cold. He was a

frequent and welcome visitor, but he had always come alone.

Previous to this.

"Well, well," said Dr. Thorne, and then looked again.

The girl was sitting in the stern of the raft while MacInnes paddled deftly, and as they drew closer

Thorne saw that her hair was dark and curly. She wore a spotless white playsuit, and a deep blue

handkerchief was knotted loosely around her throat. She was looking at him, and for the first time he

had qualms about the Hawaiian shorts.

The yellow flank of the raft grated on the stony beach. MacInnes, sixty and grizzled, a venerable

briar between his teeth, climbed out and wrung Thorne's hand.

"Brought you a visitor this time, Ian. Real company. Jeanne, this gentleman in the shorts and

fishing creel is Dr. Ian Thorne, the distinguished writer and lecturer. He writes books about dune

ecology, whatever that is. Ian, my niece, Miss Wright."

Thorne murmured politely. Why, that old scoundrel. That sly old dog. But she was pretty, all

right.

"How engaging," smiled the girl. "An ecologist with a leer."

Dr. Thorne's face abruptly attempted to adopt the protective coloration of his shorts. He said,

"We're really not bad fellows at heart, Miss Wright. It's the fresh air that gives us the pointed ears."

"I see," she said, in a tone that made Thorne wonder just how much she saw. "Were you

collecting specimens here today, Dr. Thorne?"

"Not exactly. You see, I'm preparing a chapter on the ecology of beach pool associations, and

this little pool here is my guinea pig. The sand bar on the lake side will grow until the pool is

completely cut off. As its stagnation increases, progressive forms of plant and animal life will inhabit

it—algae, beetles, larvae, and so forth. If we have calm weather for the next few weeks, I can get an

excellent cross section of the plant-animal societies which develop in this type of an environment. The

chapter on the pool is one in a book I'm doing on ecological studies of the Michigan State dunes."

"All you have to do is charge him up," MacInnes remarked, yawning largely, "and he's on the air

for the rest of the day." He pulled the raft up onto the sand and took out a flat package. "I brought

you a present, if you're interested."

"What is it? The mail?" . '

"Something a heck of a lot more digestible. A brace of sirloins. I persuaded Jeanne to come

along today to do them up for us. I've tasted your cooking."

"I can burn a chop as well as the next man," Thorne protested with dignity. "But I think I'll

concede the point. I was finished here. Shall we go right down to the shack? I live just down the

shore, Miss Wright, in a place perched on top of a sand dune. It's rugged but it's home."

MacInnes chuckled and led the way along the firm damp sand near the water's edge.

In some places the tree-crowned dunes seemed to come down almost to the beach level. Juniper

and pines and heavy undergrowth were the only things holding the vast creeping monster which are

the traveling dunes. Without their green chains, they swept over farms and forests, leaving dead trees

and silver-scoured boards in their wake.

The three of them cut inland and circled a great narrow-necked valley which widened out among

the high sand hills. It was a barren, eery place of sharp, wind-abraded stumps and silent white spaces.

"A sand blow," said Thorne. "The winds do it. Those dunes at the end of the valley in there are

moving. See the dead trees? The hills buried them years ago and then moved on and left these

skeletons. These were probably young oaks."

"Poor things," said the girl, as they moved on.

Then the dismal blow was gone, and green hills with scarcely a show of sand towered over them.

At the top of the largest stood Thorne's lodge, its rustic exterior blending inconspicuously into the

conifers and maples which surrounded it on three sides. The front of the house was .banked with yew

and prostrate juniper for sand control.

A stairway of hewn logs came down the slope of the dune. At its foot stood a wooden bench, a

bright green pump, and an old ship's bell on a pole.

"A dunes doorbell!" Jeanne exclaimed, seizing the rope. "Nobody home yet," Thorne laughed,

"but that's the shack up there."

"Yeah," said MacInnes sourly. "And a hundred and thirty-three steps to the top."

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