Planet in Peril

VI. Temple of the Sun

The site where McCallister collapsed after dragging himself on the Fire Troll's trail nearly two blocks from the narrow alley behind the saloon where he had encountered the fiery monster, was depressingly ordinary. A mere rectangle of muddy soil, of rank and sour dirt pounded by innumerable feet. The site was still marked off by the four spikes and red ribbons the Patrol cops had left. Star scrutinized the immediate vicinity with a variety of miniaturized but surprisingly powerful and sensitive detecting instruments, finding nothing of interest.

He rose to his feet, dusted his knees, and looked around keenly. A dilapidated row of ramshackle sheet-plastic huts with tarpaper or rust-red corrugated iron sheeting roofs were all that was to be seen. The narrow street seemed deserted at this hour. Some of the rundown structures were residences, others were shops. There was a native openfront wineshop which offered the heavy, syrupy mead made from Northlands moss which the natives fancied, and one or two Mercurians lounged within at small tables, tossing dice or snoozing over their bottles. A slovenly native woman polishing mugs watched the two of them with unreadable golden eyes as they went by.

A small grocery store purveyed hydroponic vegetables from the colony farms: turnips, red beans, a paltry selection of wilted greens and overripe fruit, parsnips, potatoes. Another shop, scarcely bigger than a mere booth, sold tobacco-derivatives, licorice, magazines.

At the far end of the block, however, rose a more imposing edifice of glazed mustard-yellow brick set in step-back tiers like a pyramid or ziggurat. Its roof tapered to a blunt spire topped by a revolving jag-edged disc of gold-colored plastic.

"That must be the temple the Uranian mentioned, chief," observed the Venusian. Star nodded.

"The Patrol cops will already have questioned everybody on the street as to whether they saw or heard anything interesting, but let's talk to the temple staff," he suggested. They entered the tall doors of imitation bronze, which stood open as if to welcome devotees and would-be converts. Inside the two found rows of pews with a long aisle between, leading to an altar of the same bright-glazed bricks of the facade, blazing brilliantly under the beams of track-lighting in the ceiling overhead. Behind the altar a huge jag-edged mirror caught and reflected blindingly the rays of light from above.

"This joint would seem to be a temple of the sun, eh, chief?" grinned Phath sarcastically.

"Your Venusian compatriot is completely accurate in his guess, sir," spoke a deep, resonant voice from behind them. They turned to see a tall imposing Earthling with iron-gray hair, attired in yellow robes blazoned on breast and back with the omnipresent solar emblem. He had a weathered, long-jawed face, with blue eyes which bore within their depths a humorous twinkle.

"This is, indeed, the First Temple of Our Lord the Sun, friends, and you are more than welcome! I am Father Langston ... and if you are wondering that my little flock and I worship anything so simple and obvious as the sun, recall that so did the wise Egyptians and Babylonians and Incas of ancient times, back Earthside. Not only do the beneficent rays of the sun warm our worlds, drive away cold and bitter darkness, bring health and sustain nourishment and life itself, but the sun is the source of all life and the author of our being."

The tall priest made a self-deprecating gesture that was somehow modest and even endearing. "Oh, don't misunderstand me, friends! It is not the actual sundisc itself, the sphere of super-heated gases, that we worship, but That which the sun symbolizes and stands for: light, warmth, goodness—the antithesis of darkness, depravity and evil."

The tall priest grinned suddenly.

"In the days before I—ah—I have to say 'saw the light,' although I deplore the play on words as bordering on irreverence!"—and here he chuckled a little—"I was a mineralogist in the pay of Mercury Metals & Minerals, and as a scientist I knew that the sun was the very source and origin of those precious minerals I was paid to discover. Of course, this was long before I came to realize that Our Lord the Sun was so very much more than merely a great light in the sky, that it was the source of spiritual illumination and the visible symbol of the creative and paternal force in the universe ... but I suspect my fervor has run away with my tongue, and that you men are here about quite another business—?"

"True enough," nodded Star, and asked a few questions. Father Langston told him that not only had Borden and McCallister not been communicants of his Temple, but that his little flock consisted only of native Mercurians, and, while outworlders were welcome, none had yet converted to the solar faith.

"They are a poor, downtrodden folk," murmured Langston. "Few of them aspire to a good education in the free schools the Colonial Government has established, and fewer yet rise beyond the lowly rank of clerk or computer programmer ... although some do become jurists, physicians, even spaceship officers. The sun was the object of their ancient faith, and in bringing them before His altars again I am but bringing them home to the most ancient and sacred of their ancestral traditions ..."

Star queried the friendly priest about the myth of the Fire Trolls, and as to whether Langston believed such creatures might actually exist, hidden away in some, remote fastness of the hostile and all-but-impenetrable Sunside. The priest pursed his lips judiciously and would not give an opinion on this.

"In Mercurian myth, they represent the deadly side of the solar force ... for the sun can warm and bless living things, but it can also kill them swiftly and mercilessly, like any other great natural force ... beyond that, I would not care to venture an opinion."

They thanked the gray-haired man and left the Sun Temple, heading back to their ship. Star carried with him the beginnings of a liking for the older man, who might well prove a friend in need.