Cycle of Fire

V. CONFISCATION

THERE WAS NOTHING else to do; one crossbow can do nothing against two-score. For an instant Dar thought of making a wild break through the surrounding group to the shelter of the nearest building, but he abandoned the idea. Alive, he might recover the books.

“I would prefer to carry them and show them to your Teachers myself,” he suggested.

“There is no need to bring you to them at all unless they order it,” was the reply, “but they will certainly want to see your books. I will go to them and show them the books and ask what is to be done to you.”

“But I want to see them, to explain why I did not know I was breaking their law.”

“I will tell them that. Since you have broken it what you want is not important.”

“But won’t they want to see my companion? You have already said he was different from people.”

“Yes, I will take him.”

“Then you will need me. He knows very little proper speech, and I know some of his words.”

“If the Teachers wish to speak as well as look, and find that they need your aid, you will be sent for.” The speaker held out a hand and Dar reluctantly handed over his priceless pack.

Marching orders were given and the group headed back the way Dar and Kruger had come. However, instead of turning inland when they reached the avenue the pair had followed to the sea, they crossed it and headed toward the seaward side of one of the volcanoes — the one that had been on the left as the wanderers approached the city.

For the first time Dar regretted that he had not insisted on learning more of Kruger’s language. The problem was to get the books back and get out of reach of these people, the sooner the better; failing that, to get out himself and get a report to the Ice Ramparts telling of their location. That had to be done in less than twenty years; no alternative was thinkable. With luck, Nils Kruger would help. Just now it would hardly be advisable to discuss the matter with him; too many of the words they would have to use would be understood by those surrounding them. Later, perhaps they would be left alone; if not, Dar would simply have to make use of the little English he had mastered. In that connection an idea struck him and he spoke to Kruger, using his English vocabulary to the utmost.

“Nils, talk while going. Your tongue. About anything.” He could not be more explicit; he wanted Kruger to discuss what they saw as they went along, in the hope that an occasional word would bear a sufficiently obvious meaning, when considered in connection with the words Dar already knew, for the native to grasp it. Kruger did not understand this, but he could see that Dar had something definite in mind, and endeavored to please. Since the most obvious subject for speech was just what Dar wanted, things did not go too badly.

It was a method which would not have been very practical, used by most human beings, but with the sort of memory Dar possessed it was not completely unreasonable. Even so, the little pilot’s vocabulary increased very, very slowly indeed and frequently had to be corrected.

While this was going on the group passed the volcano, following the narrow beach of pulverized ash between it and the sea. On the other side the jungle came down practically to the shore in scattered tufts of vegetation, separated by piles of ejecta and occasional small sheets of lava. For a couple of hours they threaded their way through these patches of jungle, gradually working away from the sea. The ground did not rise again; they remained about at sea level and Kruger would not have been surprised to encounter another swamp. Instead they finally ran into a region of fog.

This was the first time in his months on Abyormen that Kruger had encountered this phenomenon and he was more than a little surprised. It did not seem to go with the air temperature. Nevertheless the drifting wisps of water vapor were there and as the group advanced they grew larger and more frequent. The boy had a sufficiently good background of physics to attribute the whole thing to one of two causes — either something cooling the nearly saturated air, or a body of water whose temperature was higher than that of the air above it. He was not too startled, therefore, when the second of these situations materialized. Pools of water appeared on both sides of their path, and presently the way led into a clearing two or three hundred yards across, dotted with more bodies of water which were giving off thick plumes of vapor. Some were bubbling violently, others lying quiet in the sunlight, but all seemed to be hot. Dar was visibly nervous — visibly to their captors, that is; Kruger still did not recognize the symptoms. The being who carried the pack was moved to inquire about it.

“Has your companion said something to trouble you?”

“No,” replied Dar, “but it seems to me that if anyone is trespassing on forbidden ground, it is this group, right now.”

“Why? No one has forbidden this area; we were told to live here.”

“By your Teachers?”

“Of course.”

“With all this smoke?”

“It is water-smoke; it hurts no one. See, your friend is not bothered by it.”

Kruger had stepped aside to one of the hot pools, watched alertly but not prevented by his captors, and was examining both the water and the rock around it carefully. Up to now he had seen no limestone on the planet, but this pool was rimmed with travertine. The rim was a foot or so higher than the rock a short distance away.

Kruger looked over these factors and nodded to himself. Then he turned back to the rest — his captors had stopped, with remarkable complaisance, to let him finish his examination — and asked the individual with the pack, “How often do these — —?” He had no word for the verb he wanted, but swung his hands up and outward in a fashion that was clear to everyone but Dar. The leader answered without apparent hesitation.

“No law. Sometimes once in two or three years, sometimes two or three dozen times a year.”

“How high?”

“Sometimes just overflows, sometimes tree-high. Lots of noise, lots of steam.”

There was nothing surprising, of course, about geysers in a volcanic area. However, Kruger had an impression that savage and semicivilized races usually avoided them, and he spent some time wondering whether the answer he had received told him anything about these beings. He decided ruefully that for practical purposes it didn’t.

By the time he had reached this conclusion the journey was almost over. They had crossed the clearing where the geysers were located, and in the jungle on the far side was a collection of structures which proved to be the “city” of their captors. It told a good deal more about the creatures than their words had.

The buildings were plain thatched huts, somewhat more complicated than the ones Kruger had built during the midsummer seasons along their route but much simpler than some that may be found in African kraals. The leader called out as they approached the village, and what turned out to be the rest of the population emerged from the huts to see them arrive.

Kruger had read his share of adventure novels and acquired most of what he thought he knew of primitive races from these. As a result he became distinctly uneasy about one aspect of the crowd which gathered about the captives. They were all the same size, as nearly as his eye could distinguish. The first impression this gave the boy was that this was a war party, with women and children strictly left at home. He relaxed slightly when he saw that only those who had been in the party that captured him and Dar were armed. However, the silence of the newcomers rather affected him after a while. Logically, they should all have been asking questions about the captives; instead they were merely staring at Kruger.

It was Dar who broke the silence, not because he particularly minded being ignored in the circumstances but because he was worried about his books.

“Well, when do we see these Teachers of yours?” he asked. The eyes of the being who had the pack swiveled toward him.

“When they say. We plan to eat first, but while food is being prepared I will report our return to them.”

One of the people who had not been with the party spoke up. “It is reported; we heard you coming and could tell by the alien’s voice that you had succeeded.”

Kruger understood enough of this sentence to see why the villagers were less surprised at their arrival than might have been expected. The party must have been sent out to capture the wanderers; Dar and he must have been seen crossing the clearing to the city. The times involved were reasonable.

“The Teacher who answered said that the party and the captives might eat and that both captives were then to be brought to him.” Neither Kruger nor Dar made any objection to this, though the boy had his usual doubts about the food.

Some of it, which was served first, was vegetation; it came in great baskets which were placed on the ground. Everyone sat around them and helped himself, so Kruger had no difficulty in selecting what he knew to be safe for him. While this was going on, however, a number of villagers had gone out to the geysers carrying other baskets containing cuts of meat. They returned with these and replaced the empty vegetable containers with those they had carried, and Kruger found to his dismay that the meat was hot — too hot to handle comfortably. Apparently it had been cooked in one of the springs.

Both he and Dar were still hungry, but neither dared try the meat after Kruger’s earlier experience. They watched gloomily while the villagers gulped it down, until a point struck the boy.

“Dar, these people are the same as you. The cooking doesn’t spoil the food for them; why don’t you eat, at least? One of us should keep his strength up.” Dar was a little doubtful about his identity with the villagers, but the other point touched his sense of duty and after wrestling with his conscience for a few moments he agreed that his friend was right. His uneasiness as he ate was clear to the people around him and seemed to cause more surprise than Kruger’s appearance had done.

Inevitably, he was asked what the trouble was and the surprised eyes turned back to Kruger as Dar related his unfortunate experience with cooked meat.

“I do not understand how that can be,” remarked one of the villagers. “We have always cooked our meat; it is the rule. Perhaps your friend used a spring which had poison in the water.”

“He did not use a spring at all. There was only the river, which was cold, and we had nothing to hold water — at least, nothing big enough.”

“Then how could he possibly have cooked the meat?”

“He held it over a fire.”

The sudden buzz of conversation which greeted this word seemed to Dar to represent the first reasonable reaction he had obtained from these people, but he quickly found that he had been misunderstood.

“Was the fire near here?” was the next question. “We are ordered to tell the Teachers whenever a volcano other than the ones near the Great City becomes active.”

“It was not a volcano. He made the fire himself.” The eyes swiveled back to Nils Kruger and a dead silence ensued. No one asked Dar to repeat his words; the average Abyormenite had too much confidence in his own hearing and memory to suppose that he might have misunderstood such a simple sentence. There was a distinct atmosphere of disbelief, however. Dar would almost have wagered his books on the question that would come next. He would have won.

“How is this done? He looks strange but not powerful.” The last word did not mean purely physical power; it was a general term covering all sorts of ability.

“He has a device which makes a very tiny fire when he touches it properly. With this he lights small bits of wood and when these burn he uses them to light larger ones.”

The creature had doubts. So did most of the others; there was a general grunt of agreement when he said, “I will have to see this.” Dar carefully refrained from giving openly his equivalent of a smile.

“Will your Teachers be willing to wait until he has shown you, or should this thing be shown to them also?” This question caused some rapid discussion among the villagers, which culminated in a rapid journey by one of them to a small hut which stood near one side of the cluster of dwellings. Dar watched with interest as the fellow disappeared inside, and endeavored to decipher the faint mutters of speech that came out. He failed in this attempt and had to await the messenger’s return.

“The Teacher says to bring wood, such as the strange one needs, and let him see the building of the fire.” The natives scattered at once to their huts, while Dar filled Kruger in on the numerous items he had missed in the conversation. By the time this was accomplished wood was arriving from all directions.

None of it had come straight from the jungle; it had evidently been cut some time before and been drying in the huts. There was no reason from the shape of the pieces to suppose that it had been originally obtained for firewood, and every reason from the background of the people to suppose that it had not, but there it was. Kruger selected a few pieces and shaved them into slivers with his knife, then made up a small armful of larger material and stood up, signifying that he was ready. Dar started to lead the way toward the hut where the messenger had gone.

Instantly he was interrupted.

“Not that way, stranger!”

“But is not that where your Teachers are?”

“In a little place like that? Certainly not. They talk there, it is true, but they wish to see you and your fire-maker. Come this way.” The speaker started to retrace the path by which they had come to the village and the prisoners followed him. The rest of the population trailed along.

A well-marked path wound among the hot springs. The captives followed it toward an unusually large pool near the side of the clearing away from the now distant sea. Apparently this one overflowed more frequently than the others or else had a greater supply of mineral in whatever subterranean source it sprang from, for its edge was nearly three feet high. The water within the rim steamed and bubbled furiously.

The area around the pool was clear except at one point, where an object that looked like a detached lump of travertine projected from the rim. It was dome-shaped except for the flattened top and was about as high as the rim and perhaps five feet in diameter. Its surface was mostly smooth, but there were a number of deep pits scattered around its sides.

Kruger would not have looked at it twice, except for the fact that they were stopped in front of it and the entire population of the village gathered around. This caused the boy to examine the outcrop more closely and he decided that someone had done a rather skillful bit of masonry. Presumably the Teachers were inside; the small holes must serve as spy-ports and ventilators. No entrance was visible. Perhaps it was inside the pool rim, where he could not see, or even some distance away and connected by a tunnel. He was not surprised to hear a voice come from the mound of stone.

“Who are you?” The question was not ambiguous; the grammatical arrangements of the language left no doubt that Kruger was the one addressed. For an instant the boy was not sure how to answer, then he decided simply to tell the truth.

“I am Nils Kruger, pilot-cadet of the cruiser Alphard.” He had to translate the nouns into similes in the Abyormenite language but was reasonably satisfied with the job. The next question made him wonder whether he was doing the right thing, however.

“When do you die?”

Kruger found himself at a slight loss for an answer to this question. It seemed to be nothing but a simple, straightforward one about how long he had to live, but he found himself unable to answer it.

“I do not know,” was the only response he could give. This led to a silence from the stone at least as long as the one his own hesitation had caused. With the next words the hidden speaker gave the impression of one who has shelved, for the time at least, a puzzling subject.

“You are supposed to be able to make fire. Do so.” Kruger, completely at a loss as to where he stood with the invisible questioner, obeyed. There was no difficulty to the job; the wood was dry and Arren furnished all the radiation the little battery needed. The snap of the high-tension sparks sent the nearer villagers back in momentary alarm, though to Kruger it sounded much like Dar’s crossbow. The shavings caught instantly and sixty seconds later a very respectable little fire was blazing on the stone a few yards from the rock shelter of the Teachers. Throughout the operation questions had kept coming and Kruger had been answering them: why the wood had to be small at first, why he had chosen wood that was dry, and what was the source of the sparks. The answering was extremely difficult. Kruger faced roughly the same problem as would a high-school student asked to give a lecture on high-school-level physics or chemistry in French after perhaps a year’s study of the language. As a result he was still trying to improvise signs and words when the fire burned out.

The creature within the rock shelter finally satisfied himself on fires — or, more probably, on what Kruger knew about them — and proceeded to a matter which seemed to interest him more.

“Are you from another world traveling about Theer, or from one circling Arren?”

Dar simply did not understand, but Kruger understood much too well. He was thunderstruck, after the usual fashion of human beings who find their pet theories suddenly untenable.

“Witch-doctor my eye!” he muttered under his breath, but was able to think of no coherent answer for the moment.

“What was that?” Kruger had forgotten for a moment that hyper-acute hearing seemed rather common on this world.

“An expression of surprise, in my own language,” he answered hastily. “I do not think I understood your question.”

“I think you did.” Unhuman though the accents were Kruger had a sudden picture of a stern schoolmaster on the other side of the barrier, and decided that he might as well continue his policy of frankness.

“No, I do not come from Arren; I do not even know whether it has any planets, and Theer has no others.” The listener accepted the new word without comment; its meaning must have been obvious enough from context. “My home world travels about a sun much fainter than Arren, but much brighter than Theer, whose distance from this system I cannot give in your language.”

“Then there are other suns?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you come here?”

“We were exploring — learning what other worlds and their suns were like.”

“Why are you alone?”

Kruger related in detail the accident that had dropped his space-suited form into a mud pot, the natural conclusion of his friends that he had perished, and his survival by means of a fortuitous tree root.

“When will your people return?”

“I do not expect them back at all. They had no reason to believe this world had inhabitants; the cities of Dar’s people, which he has told me about, were not seen, and the village of these people of yours could not possibly have been detected. In any case the ship was on a survey trip which would last for quite a number of your years, and it might be fully as long after it returned home before the data on this system was even examined. Even then there will be no particular reason to come back; there is much to do a great deal closer to home.”

“Then to your people you are dead already.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Do you know how your flying vessels work?” Kruger hesitated at this question, then remembered that he had described himself already as a pilot cadet.

“I know the forces and technology involved, yes.”

“Then why have you not tried to build one and return to your world?”

“Knowledge and ability are two different things. I know how this world came into being, but couldn’t do the job myself.”

“Why are you with this one you call Dar?”

“I met him. Two people can get along better than one. Also, I was looking for a place on this world cool enough for a human being, and he said something about an ice cap to which he was going. That was enough for me.”

“What would you do about others of his kind if you met them at this ice cap?”

“Endeavor to get along with them, I suppose. In a way, they’d be the only people I’d have; I’d treat them as mine, if they’d allow it.” There was a pause after this answer, as though the hidden Teachers were conferring or considering. Then the questions resumed, but this time were directed at Dar Lang Ahn.

In reply, he stated that he was a pilot, normally assigned to the route between the city of Kwarr and the Ice Ramparts. The questioners asked for the location of the city, which Dar had to describe in great detail. He and Kruger both wondered whether the Teachers were really ignorant of it, or testing Dar’s veracity.

No suggestion was made that Dar was not a native of the planet, and as the questioning went on Kruger grew more and more puzzled. It was some time before it occurred to him that since Dar was obviously of the same species as these people they must also be from another world. Why they were living as near-savages on this one was a mystery, but perhaps they had been marooned through damage to their ship. That would account for the questions about his own ability to build a space flier. In fact, for a moment it seemed to account for everything except why the “Teachers” remained in concealment.

“What are these ‘books’ you were carrying and about which you seem so anxious?” This question snapped Kruger’s wandering attention back to the present. He had been wanting to ask the same thing for some time.

“They are the records of what our people have learned and done during their lives. The records which came down to us from those who went before were returned to safety at the Ramparts long ago, after we had learned what they contained, but it is the law that each people shall make its own books, as well, which must then be saved as those made before have been.”

“I see. An interesting idea; we shall have to consider it further. Now, another matter: you have given some of our people the impression that you consider it unlawful to have dealings with fire. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Our Teachers have told us, and our books from times past have said the same.”

“Did they say it would kill you?”

“There was that, but it was something more. Being killed is one thing — we all die when the time comes, anyway — but this seemed to be something worse. I guess you’re deader when you die from heat, or something. Neither the Teachers nor the books ever made it very clear.”

“Yet you accompany this being who makes fires whenever he wishes.”

“It worried me at first, but I decided that since he is not a real person he must have a different set of laws. I felt that bringing information about him back to my people at the Ice Ramparts would outweigh any violations I might commit in other directions. Besides, I kept as far as possible from the fires he made.”

There was another fairly lengthy silence before the Teacher spoke again. When he did, his tone and words were quite encouraging at first.

“You have been informative, cooperative, and helpful — both of you,” the hidden being said. “We appreciate it; therefore we thank you.

“You will remain with our people for the time being. They will see that you are comfortable and fed; I fear we can do nothing now about the coolness the alien wants, but even that may be arranged in time.

“Place the books and the fire-lighting machine on the stone, and let everyone depart.”