However, three mysterious jet planes did not make a Russland. Blade laughed at his own overactive imagination. He couldn't afford to spend too much time worrying about unanswerable questions. This Dimension had a civilization, that civilization was technologically advanced, and he was going to find it. He was also going to keep out of sight as much as possible on his way to find it.
That was enough for the moment. Blade found a branch lying on the ground, large enough and sound enough to make a good club. He shouldered it and set off, still heading downstream.
Chapter 3
For the next three days Blade tramped steadily downstream, never more than a hundred yards from the riverbank and never that far from the cover of the trees. He didn't risk a fire, but there was plenty of food to be eaten raw. He found berries, edible mushrooms, a small reddish fish, and something like a rabbit-sized squirrel with long floppy ears. None of them tasted very good, but together all of them kept him alive. After the second day he had enough skins from the squirrel-rabbits to make himself sandals and a loinguard.
The winged-disk jet planes passed low overhead at least once each day. Sometimes they carried the gray cylinders, at other times large yellow tanks. Twice Blade saw the vapor trails of other jets flying too high to be identified, and once he heard something that sounded vaguely like a helicopter. Once he heard a more ominous sound in the distance, a series of echoing roars like explosions.
On the fourth day Blade reached a point where the river broke through the foothills of the mountains, forming a rugged canyon. He had an all-day struggle to get through the canyon. Several times he ended up clinging by fingers and toes to sheer rock faces with long drops to the rapids below him. Both his grip and his luck held. By late afternoon he was out of the canyon, facing the wooded lowlands beyond.