Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun

Chapter Thirteen

From where he hung over the side of the raft Navalok shouted, "There, Earl! There-to the right and down!"

From his seat at the controls Dumarest saw a scarred slope dotted with scrub, a patch of shadow and something which could have been the opening of a cave. Cutting the power to the antigrav units he allowed the vehicle to fall and come to rest on the slope below the opening.

"Navalok! Wait!"

The boy ignored the command, springing from the raft to run up the slope towards the opening. Dumarest followed more slowly, eyes searching the terrain, noting each rock and clump of scrub. Predators were rare this high in the hills, but there could be stragglers and even a small olcept was to be treated with respect. Above the sun beat down from the zenith and the sky, a clear azure, stretched cloudless to the horizon. A fine day-the second they had been searching.

"Earl!" Dumarest heard the cry of triumph then the bleak admission of failure which followed. "No. No it isn't the one. It's just a shallow cave like all the others. Earl, I'm sorry."

Dumarest led the way back to the raft, lifted it as the boy climbed in. He set the controls so as to hover twenty feet above the ground.

"Navalok, listen to me. When you left the House with your father you headed north. Right?"

"Yes, Earl, as I told you. We traveled from an hour after dawn until noon when we set down and made camp. We ate and I went wandering over the slopes. It must have been say, two hours after landing, maybe a little more."

"And?"

That's it, Earl. I found the place and called my father and we examined it and he said we should return to the House without delay. We climbed into the raft and he set the course and-" His voice broke, but he forced himself to continue. "And then we crashed."

"When was that? Late in the afternoon?"

"Yes. It was dusk before they found us. My father was dead and I was hurt. For a long time I didn't know what had happened, just that I kept having dreams of falling. When I was strong enough they told me father was dead." He added, bleakly, "And that I would be a cripple for the rest of my life."

A lie, a simple operation could cure the boy's injured foot, and Dumarest wondered at the stern morality which had prevented it from having been done. The pride of bearing visible wounds, perhaps, or the result of some harsh tradition born in the past. A matter which faded into insignificance beside one of greater importance.

Where was the cave?

The boy had been certain he knew exactly where it was to be found. He's been wrong and had since compounded the error. Now he was searching with a wild, desperate abandon, trusting more to luck than anything else. A fact he must know and Dumarest had waited for him to realise it.

"Let's start from the beginning," he said. "When you headed north at what point did you aim? Your father must have had some guide. A peak, perhaps, or a pass, try to remember." And then, as the boy began to speak he snapped, harshly, "Think, boy! Think! Close your eyes, remember. You are with your father again, just setting out. It is a clear day and the raft is moving towards a certain point. You know what it is. Tell me!"

"The Prime of the Triades, Earl." Navalok opened his eyes. "It's the highest of three peaks and lies a little to the east of true north. But we've checked it."

One peak of several, the boy impatient, claiming to have recognised familiar signs, guiding the raft well to the east of the Prime. Dumarest lifted the vehicle higher and sent it towards the specified point. Before he reached it he sent the raft towards the House, turned, headed towards the peak as if they had come directly from the ancient building.

"There!" Excitement made the boy's voice shrill. "Earl! There!"

"No."

"It is, Earl. It is."

The spot at which he pointed was too steep for anyone to make camp and, despite the shadow of an opening, Dumarest moved away from it. A jutting promontory lay a little to one side and lower down, scrub thick at the edges and a natural spot for a raft to make a landing. From a height of a dozen feet Dumarest examined the stoney dirt, saw the traces of a long dead fire.

"Do others come here?"

"Yes, Earl. It's a favorite place. Often fathers bring out their children for private tuition."

Long hours spent in learning how to handle a gun. A good place for teaching and one Navalok's father would have known. Dumarest landed, checked the area, and leaving the raft moved towards the uprising slope of the hill.

"Left or right, Navalok? Can you remember?" Then as the boy hesitated, he said, "It was past noon. Which way was your shadow? Behind you, before you, to one side?"

"Behind me," said the boy after a moment's thought. "I walked towards the sun. This way, I think." His hand lifted, pointed. "Yes, Earl. This way."

A small boy wandering at random over rock-strewn slopes, his face towards the sun. The light and the bad footing would have kept his head lowered and so narrowed the field of his vision. His father, watching, would have suspected no danger so the path must have been one of relative safety. A section of the hill clear of scrub, then, and one of easy access. And it was in the nature of an agile young boy to climb.

As it was the tendency of a child to exaggerate the size of an opening.

Navalok had been looking for an open cave-what he had found was a narrow vent half-hidden by fallen debris and masked by a mass of scrub.

Looking at it again he said, dubiously, "I'm not sure, Earl. The place I found was larger and more open."

The reason he had missed it before, but Dumarest was no longer trusting the boy's memory. Time would have wrought changes, rock could have fallen and the passage of years would have thickened masking vegetation.

"We'll check it out," he decided. "Navalok, get back to-" He broke off, looking into the sky, seeing the tiny shape sweeping towards them, the outline of an approaching raft.

Dephine had ridden alone. As she settled the vehicle down beside the one Dumarest had used she said, dryly, "Well, Earl, this is something new. I'd never have taken you for a teacher."

Beside him Navalok lifted the pistol, aimed and fired, the echoes of the report rolling from the slopes to die like muted thunder.

"Another miss!" He lowered the gun, his voice echoing his disappointment. "I can't understand it. Back in the House at the range I did better than this. Now I can't seem to hit a thing."

"That's because you're trying too hard," said Dumarest, patiently. "Think of only one thing at a time and make sure you do that thing well. As it is you're trying to draw, aim and fire all in a split second. Forget the speed of the draw. Forget trying to get off a lot of shots quickly. Now reload and try again." Turning to Dephine as she stepped towards him, he said, "Out for a ride?"

"Out looking for you, Earl. How long are you going to stay away from my side?"

"Well be back tomorrow."

"Why not tonight?" The scent of her perfume filled his nostrils as she rested her hand on his arm. "Why waste time with the boy when you could be with me?"

"Tomorrow." Dumarest frowned as the gun roared and again the boy missed. "I've promised to help him and I keep my word."

"To a cripple?" She recognised her mistake and quickly altered her tone. "I'm sorry-I shouldn't have said that. The poor fool can't help what he is but the traditions of the House are strong. Only the fit deserve to survive and to breed. A woman's instinct, Earl. Beneath the skin we are all alike. We all want the best father we can get for our children. The strongest man we can find to provide."

"There's nothing wrong with Navalok."

"His foot-"

"Can be healed and you know it. All it takes is money."

"And the rest?" She shrugged as the boy fired and again missed. "How long would he last even if he did manage to win his trophy? The first challenge and he would be down. The first argument and he would be dead. You're wasting your time, Earl. He isn't worth it."

"It's my time, Dephine."

"And I am waiting for you, Earl. How long must I wait? I expected you back with your trophy yesterday. We could have been married today. Tomorrow would have seen us in our new home. Am I so repulsive that you prefer the company of a lame boy to what I offer? Must I tell you again that I love you? Earl, damn you, must you torment me?"

A woman in love, pleading, forgetting her pride in the face of a greater need. Standing before him she looked radiant, her hair a flaming glory, her body one of feline grace.

"Tomorrow, Dephine." He needed time in which to search. "Tomorrow."

"And tonight?"

"We'll camp here."

"Not here, Earl. The olcept are on the move and are heading this way. Return to the House and be safe. You promise?" She didn't wait for his answer, confident in his obedience, the power of her attraction. "Tonight, Earl. I'll be waiting."

As her raft lifted Navalok said, "Shall I keep on shooting, Earl?"

"Until you hit the target, yes."

"You didn't want her to see us searching," said the boy shrewdly as he thrust fresh cartridges into the pistol. "That's why you had me shoot, isn't it, Earl? Don't you want her to share our secret?"

As yet they had nothing to share, but the boy had guessed the answer.

Dumarest said, "Look at that point of rock. Keep looking at it and raise the gun. Think of it as a finger which you are pointing to the spot your eyes are fixed on. Concentrate. Don't squeeze the butt too hard. Just close your finger, gently, and don't do it until you feel that you, the gun, is pointing at the target." He grunted as stone chipped a few inches from the point. "Better. Try again."

Fire and keep firing until the sky was clear. In clear air sound traveled a long distance and the woman's ears were sharp. A woman who was determined to get her own way and would do anything to bend him to her will. One who would destroy any clue leading to Earth if she thought it would take him from her side.

As the tiny mote of the raft finally vanished Navalok said, "Enough, Earl?"

"Enough. Now let's go and see what we've found."

The scrub was sturdy, the roots deep, the plants yielding reluctantly as Dumarest tore them free. Loose stone followed, debris rolling down the slope as he cleared the mouth of the narrow vent. It was in the form of a rounded arch, the keystone bearing a worn symbol, a barely discernable disc surrounded with tapering rays. The lower part of the opening was blocked with a mass of gritty soil and shattered stone.

Dumarest tore at it with hands and knife, coughed in a cloud of rising dust, then squinted through the opening. A child could have passed through it with ease. An adult, years ago, with a little wriggling. Fresh falls had piled on old, the roots of the scrub splitting stone to add to the detritus.

"I could get inside, Earl." Navalok thrust himself forward.

"No." Who could tell what might be lurking within. "Help me clear this opening."

Thirty minutes later a path had been cleared for the two of them.

"This is it, Earl," said Navalok as he stared into the thick gloom. "The sun must have been just right when I entered it last. It caught something which gleamed. It was that which attracted me, I remember it now."

"You said the light was bad."

"It was, aside from that one bright place. But I could see what was inside. My father too, Earl, he had no doubt as to the importance of what we'd found. If we wait perhaps the sun will shine inside."

"There's no need to wait," said Dumarest. "I've brought lights."

They were powerful flashlights which threw cones of brilliance into the opening to be reflected back in a dazzling brilliance. Moving the beam Dumarest saw a rounded roof carved with vine-like decorations and set with scraps of crystal in various shapes. The walls too, what he could see of them, were also carved and decorated with strips of red and yellow, amber and green, orange and umber material which held and diffused the light to cast a roseate glow.

Holding back his hand Dumarest said, "Give me the gun."

Reluctantly Navalok parted with it. The weapon at his waist had given him the assurance of a man, without it he felt a child again. He watched as Dumarest checked the load.

"Earl?"

"Wait here. Follow when I call. Stay well back until then. If anything is living in there it may try to break out past me. If it does I don't want you to get hurt."

Navalok said, wonderingly, "Earl, you talk like, like father."

"Maybe I feel like him. Stand back now."

Dirt showered from beneath his knees as Dumarest edged himself up and into the opening. He thrust forward the light in his left hand, the gun ready to fire in his right. It swept up and level as something seemed to move and glare at him, his finger easing its pressure just in time. The light, not the thing had moved and the glare came from a mask not a living face.

Quickly Dumarest scanned the area, sending the beam back into the furthest corner of the cave before focusing it on the mask again. It was an idiot's face, the mouth down-turned, the empty eye-holes adding to the vacuity of the general expression. An object which radiated a sadness and an empty despair. Turning towards the opening he saw another, almost its twin aside from the fact that this was a depiction of humor, the mouth upturned, the eyes blank though they were, seeming to hold a secret merriment.

"Earl?" Navalok called from outside. His voice betrayed his anxiety. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. Come and join me:" Dumarest handed him the gun as he slid down the heap of debris to stand at his side. "Holster this, I want my hands free. Where is the bright thing you saw before?"

It was set high on the rear wall facing the opening; a large disc set with the familiar rays, the whole a dully gleaming golden color. If the opening were cleared the sun, at certain times, would shine on it and be reflected as if from a mirror.

"The Guardians of the Sun," whispered Navalok. "It's the same symbol they wore on their clothing, Earl. You saw it in the Hall of Dreams. But what does it mean?"

A church, a shrine, a place of worship. A cave in which people gathered to pay homage, to remember. Dumarest swept up his torch and saw the gleaming reflections from the crystal in the ceiling, down and saw the glow of warm and lambent colors from the material set all around. The stars? The dawn and sunset? A place in which to recapture the past, to be at one with something held sacred.

The sun.

Which sun?

He looked at the rayed disc its blank face telling him nothing. At the items set all around; the fragments of machinery, small objects which could have been the personal possessions of those now long dead, the scrolls and books and oddly shaped pieces of metal, plastic and crystal. Above the opening the empty, smiling mask told him nothing. A thing set to mock those who would know more than they should? Another symbol depicting-what? The torch flashed as he moved the beam to study the other mask, the one of inane idiocy, the downturned mouth, tragedy as distinct from comedy. The two faces of a universal coin, laughter backed by tears, happiness by misery, joy by sadness life by death.

"Earl!" whispered Navalok. "Earl, look at the ceiling!"

Dumarest shifted his eyes and froze, stunned by what he saw.

The winking points of brilliance shining by the reflected light of the torch, points which vanished even as he studied them. Impatiently he moved a little, the points shining clear again as the beam of the flashlight hit and was reflected from the rayed disc.

"Patterns," said Navalok wonderingly. "They make patterns. Earl. But of what?"

Of stars. Of the Zodiac. Of the constellations seen from Earth.

Here, in this place, could lie the clue which would guide him home!