He had noticed it before, of course—when they went over the map in his
house and when they had first landed. But in the largeness of the country
shown on the map, the massive forest the map showed, the river was a
small thing, and he had negated it.
It wound out the bottom of the lake, the southern end, and headed
southeast down into the lakes below and was lost, and he had not followed
it except to note the name.
The Necktie River.
“Isn’t that a funny name,” his mother had said, and Derek had laughed.
5 “There are lakes named Eunice, or Bootsock—there are so many lakes and
rivers, the original mapmakers just made up names as they went. The
person drawing the map was probably wearing a tie and thought it would
make a good name. Many of them aren’t named at all—just numbered.”
The Necktie River, Brian saw, led south and down and drew his eyes away
from the lake.
The map was laid out in square five-thousand-meter grids—five-kilometer
squares—and he saw that in some places the river wound back almost on
itself inside the same five thousand square meters. But in other places it
ran straight for a considerable distance and he followed it, through smaller
lakes and what he thought must be swamps, through the darker green
portions that meant heavier forest.
It kept going south to the edge of the map, where it was folded, and he
unfolded the next section and spread it in the sun. He did not know why
the river drew him, pulled at him.
Then, halfway though the second page, he saw it. The river had grown all
along, gotten wider so that it made a respectable blue cut across the map
and where it made a large bend, cutting back nearly straight east, there
was a small circle drawn and the words: