Far to the south a glimmer of darker blue broke the monotony of the plain. Blade narrowed his eyes against the glare of the sun from the miles of bare rock and examined the south still more carefully. The blueness might be just a miles-wide outcropping of another kind of rock, darker that that of the plain. But the way it gleamed? Everything in Blade's survival training and field experience shouted (or whispered) «Water!» Certainly there was nothing else within sight that looked as much like water. Even more certainly, there was nothing here offering a better chance of survival than a large body of fresh water. Probably there would be fish and vegetation, perhaps human settlements along its shores. Certainly any human settlements he was likely to find within easy walking distance would be along the lake.

Unless the water was brackish? He swore mentally at his ingrained habit of considering all the possibilities, even the worst ones. Then he firmly pushed the thought down. Where else in all this endless plain did he have any chance of finding what he needed to survive? When his conditioned pessimism was finally silent, he headed south.

He moved along briskly, trying not to exert himself enough to work up a sweat. There was no point in wasting any moisture if he could avoid it. Distances were deceptive on this high plain, as he already knew. That glimmer of water might have come from twenty miles away.

He loped onward, his shadow black against the lighter blue-gray of the earth at his feet. Sun and wind had powdered a thin layer of that earth, and as he moved along he left footprints and kicked up dust. Under that thin layer the earth was nearly as solid as the rocks that lay in large patches everywhere.

It was a drab land.