He could walk without Jamak’s cane, although his leg still ached and he limped a little. His uniform had been buried near the wrecked capsule, but he wore a coarse shirt, trousers and boots donated by the old man. He knew this might lend itself to an espionage charge, but it seemed the least of several evils. It had been strange to come upon the wrecked space capsule in the ravine the day before. Even from an open vantage point above, he missed it until Lissa pointed it out for him. Having crashed at night, the area looked totally unfamiliar. The one-ton mushroom bell had floated down on its parachute apparatus at the same angle of descent as the slope of a gravel spill at the head of the ravine, and the rock slide it had started on impact was already darkened by the recent rains into a similarity of appearance with the other slopes. Rugged pines grew here, and their green upper limbs formed a canopy over the shattered brush below. It was as if the capsule had slid conveniently into a tunnel for camouflage.
