A Far Sunset

TWENTY-TWO

Paul Marlowe was no longer quite so dissatisfied with his ‘Extra-Terrestrial Academy’. In the last few months both Zu Shan and Nemo had made quite remarkable progress. Once Paul had managed to convince them that it was both a privilege and a pleasure for any thinking person to find out as much as possible about the world in which he exists, and that knowledge brought the power to accomplish much that could not be otherwise achieved, the boy and the crippled child became filled with insatiable curiosity.

It was as if something had exploded in their minds, sweeping away all the inhibitions, the closed-thought attitudes, and the deadening traditions of centuries of Bayani culture. The sophisticated savages became primitive scientists. They no longer accepted what they were told. They challenged it, they tried to refute it, they asked awkward questions. By Earth standards, Zu Shan was about fifteen—three or four years younger than his dead brother—and Nemo could not be more than six. Yet hardship and suffering had brought them a premature maturity. So that when they did eventually grasp the importance of learning, they began to learn at a very high speed.

The same could not be said of either the one-armed Bai Lut or Tsong Tsong. They did not have the spark. Their minds would never get into top gear. Temperamentally, they were hewers of wood and drawers of water. They lacked imagination—and that strange ability to take an intuitive leap into the dark. They were content to play with toys, whereas Zu Shan and Nemo, though not above playing with toys, also wished to play with ideas.

Zu Shan, sensing perhaps that there was more to be got from his teacher than could properly be expressed in Bayani, began to learn English. Nemo, not to be outdone, also elected to learn what was for all practical purposes a ‘dead tongue’.

But, besides providing the means for expressing new concepts, it gave them a sense of status to be able to talk to Paul in his own language. It gave them, too, a sense of intimacy, and drew the three of them close together.

Zu Shan was never quite as fluent as his brother in speaking the language of the stranger; but he soon learned enough to say all that he needed to say—if he took his time about it. Nemo, though younger, had an advantage. He had already discovered that on occasion he could establish sufficient en rapport to read minds.

The three of them were sitting on the verandah step one evening while Paul sipped his kappa spirit. It had been a hard but pleasant day, for they had completed the building of the school. It contained chairs and tables, a potter’s wheel, a small furnace for baking pots, a few kappa leaf charts and some tools that the boys had designed themselves. It also contained four rough beds. It was the first boarding school in Baya Nor.

‘You are looking far away, Paul,’ said Zu Shan. ‘What are you thinking about?’

Nemo smiled. ‘He is thinking about many things,’ he announced importantly. ‘He is thinking about the stars, and about the words of the dying Lokhali soldier, and about the star ship in which he came to Altair Five, and about a whiteskinned woman. I have been riding his thoughts, but there are so many different ones that I keep falling off.’

Nemo’s favourite description for his telepathic exercise was ‘riding thoughts’. To him it seemed a very accurate description; for he had discovered that people do not think tidily, and that their mental processes are frequently disjointed—which was why he could not receive for very long without ‘falling off\

Paul laughed as the tiny crippled Bayani recited the revealing catalogue. ‘You will get yourself into trouble one of these days, Nemo,’ he observed. ‘You will ride a thought which tells you that I am about to drop you into the Canal of Life.’

‘Then I shall try to avoid the disaster,’ retorted Nemo complacendy.

‘Have you had any new dreams recendy about the god who brought forth strange children from his belly?’

‘No, only the old dream. I have it quite frequendy now. I’m getting used to it.’

Paul sighed. ‘I wish you could arrange to dream in greater detail. I wish, too, that I knew where you got the dream from. It could, I suppose, be something you have picked up out of my dreams.’

Nemo rolled his oddly ancient eyes. ‘Lord,’ he said in Bayani, ‘I would not dare to trespass in your sleeping journeys.’

Suddenly Zu Shan sat upright. ‘I have just remembered something that may explain Nemo’s dream,’ he said. ‘Have you ever heard the legend of the coming, Paul?’

‘No. Tell me about it.’

‘It is a story that mothers tell their children,’ went on Zu Shan. ‘It must be very, very old … You know, of course, that Oruri can take many shapes?’

‘Yes.’

‘The story goes that long ago there were no people at all in the land of Baya Nor—I mean, on Altair Five—but that Oruri looked down on this world and saw that it was good. Therefore he came and stood on a white mountain and looked over the land. And out of his great happiness, many people were bom, and they walked down from the mountain to play as children in the new world that Oruri had found. According to the legend, Oruri stands waiting on the white mountain. He is waiting until the people are tired of their play. Then they will go back to him and he will return with them to the world from which he came.’

‘It is a good legend,’ commented Paul, taking a draught of his kappa spirit. ‘The plot thickens, does it not?’

‘What do you mean, Paul?’

‘Only that I cannot help seeing Oruri as a star ship … I think too much of star ships, these days … And yet … And yet Nemo dreams of creatures in strange metallic clothing. And his god descends on a column of fire as a star ship would. And the god opens his belly…’

‘Paul.’

‘Yes, Zu Shan?’

‘If the hunters are to be believed there is such a mountain— many days’ travel to the north. They call it the Temple of the White Darkness. They say it is protected by strange voices, and that a man may approach it but the voices will either turn him back or drive him mad. They say that if he is courageous enough to approach the mountain, he will only stiffen and die.’

Paul Marlowe took another drink of the kappa spirit. ‘I am not surprised, Zu Shan. I am not at all surprised … You have never seen snow, have you?’

‘No, you have told us about it. But I don’t think there is anyone in Baya Nor who has ever seen it.’

Paul felt suddenly elated and happy. Maybe it was the kappa spirit. Or maybe…

‘Do you know,’ he said, after a brief silence. ‘I think you two are going to make history. I think you are going to see snow.’ He hiccupped. ‘Damn it, I wonder how much ring money I shall need to buy the services of half a dozen really good hunters?’

‘Paul,’ said Zu Shan, ‘I do not think there is enough ring money in Baya Nor to persuade six hunters to go through the Lokhali country towards the Temple of the White Darkness.’

‘I have something better than ring money,’ said Paul. ‘It is about time I showed you my sweeper rifle. Your brother, who permitted me to keep it, is the only Bayani who has ever seen what it can do.’