by Hans Kneifel
"It'll be tight, Doc," the bearded prospector said and shook Rhodan's hand. "What's going on, anyway? Why did you suddenly come here?"
Rhodan and Solina briefly recounted what had happened. There were some relieved cries and remarks came from within the cabin, then laughter. The impulse engines of the flying, compact laboratory hummed. Hot air jets blew the windows clear. The Akonians talked among themselves and, a short time later, Hyman Mahal squeezed into the cabin of Crawler VIII as the last man aboard.
Rhodan, Solina, and Shimon went back to the Shift. The crawler took off, hovered for a few seconds at a low altitude, then went unhindered into a steep climb. It shot upwards at a steep angle beneath the huge, shining cloud. Within moments, the prospecting vehicle had disappeared.
"That's one or two fewer problems," Rhodan said. "They'll probably have a hard time finding the ship without radio guidance—but they're professionals."
"They'll manage it even flying just visually," Shimon said.
The confidence of those who remained behind grew. The spindles had apparently decided to allow the Shift and the crawler to take off. The next test of the communication system and the multifunction wristbands resulted in error messages, as expected. Rhodan sat down on the edge of the airlock hatch and looked into the faces of his companions. "Where should we go? To the ark commander's mistress? To the large ark section? To the occupants of the ark's landing shuttle? Or back to our own ships? I suspect that our skeptical friends"—he pointed to the swarm, still circling without any change—"are unlikely to give the ships their freedom just yet."
"Let's fly back to Chibis-Nydele," Denetree suggested. "That's the shortest distance, isn't it?"
"You're right," Kealil Ron replied. "Those glow-things might think of something even worse to pull on us, and at least there we'll be out of the cold and snow." "Then what are we waiting for?" Ameda waved to the light spindles above and climbed bent over through the hatch. Even so, she rammed her forehead into the upper edge of the inner frame and blurted out a not very suppressed curse.
Minutes later, Kealil Ron was flying the Shift in a southerly direction. When they reached an altitude of several kilometers, they attempted to orientate themselves. Soon they were on the right course towards the dunes and the LEMCHA OVIR's escape module.
The Menttia of the Sand Blossoms had given up their distrustful observation of a single intruder. In their evaluation, the female stranger was as harmless as the Water Seekers between the dunes.
—She is alone.—
—And she moves as though she is frail.—
—She has nothing to do with those strangers with whom we fought.—
The fiery spindles, mostly invisible above the dunes and the sand, had exchanged their observations with the other swarms. Without being frightened, but with curiosity and benign expectation, they learned of the attempt at communication by the stranger that had taken place in the Lands of the White Winds. That had never happened in the past, not even once.
The female stranger stayed in the metal cylinder for a long time. Next to that fragment, she had erected a shade out of a thin metal sheet. It shone as golden as a pair of Menttia that had found each other and were fluttering together in the dance of mating. At night, the stranger stood or sat by her tent and seemed to admire the starry sky and the distant veils and clouds of shining gases.
Among the Menttia of the Sand Blossoms arose the desire to communicate with this stranger. They exchanged thoughts for a long time, and at last they found a way to express themselves similar to that of the other stranger in the snow.
In the cramped interior of the Shift, tiredness overcame Perry Rhodan. In spite of his cell activator, he felt hunger, thirst, and lack of sleep, and yearned desperately for a good long shower. In these circumstances it was no different for any of the other team members. But they had not alternative but to continue with their mission.
Although the hyperdetector's syntronic memory storage had been "turned off" by the fire spindles, Arsis Tachim and Kealil Ron were able to find the ark commander's escape module once more without too much random searching. A kind of tent made of thin gold-colored foil had been put up on the highest and most overgrown dune. The late afternoon sun reflected off the foil with a reddish glow.
Arsis determined the wind direction and turned the Shift. After circling, he descended towards approximately the same landing site as before, and set the craft down in the sand. The cloud that whirled up blew through the dunes. The wind had almost completely erased the earlier tracks. Shining sparks and flashes on the side of a dune facing the sun piqued Rhodan's curiosity.
One after another, the team members clambered out of the airlock and helped each other out of their spacesuits. The heat that the sand gave off was hardly lessened by the warm wind, but the breeze blew an unpleasant cloud of odor into the noses of the Akonians and Terrans.
"Friends," Ameda said, doing some stretching exercises with a groan, "we smell a little ripe. In fact, I'd say we stink."
"That's not surprising," the pilot said as she stowed one spacesuit after another into closable compartments on the crawler hull. "In certain circumstances, hot sand will clean just as well as hot water."
"Please try it later," Solina urged and laid the folder with the damp document sheets in a corner of the airlock that was out of the wind. "Chibis-Nydele will surely make an allowance for sweaty space travelers."
Chibis-Nydele stepped out of the hatchway, shaded her eyes with her hand, and waved. She turned and ducked back into the darkness of the cylindrical ark module. The team members slowly waded through the sand to the half blown away ramp and approached the shattered hatch. Denetree yawned and looked at her surroundings as though she was seeing them for the first time.
"Welcome!" Nydele called. She came into the sunlight carrying a tray with eight beakers and two large pitchers. "Something told me I should be expecting you. Where is your flying machine, Perry Rhodan?"
"Somewhere in space," he replied, and once again sensed the charm that this mutant radiated. "It's a long, complicated story."
"Come up to the tent. It is a good place for listening to long stories."
They followed her and sat down on the sand in the shade. Nydele filled the beakers and passed them around. A cooling wind blew under the gold awning.
Nydele smiled at Rhodan and Denetree and said, "Fresh hot Huccar. It drives away hunger, thirst, and, for a while, exhaustion. You look as though you need strengthening."
"Thank you."
She sat down on a stool whose legs were half sunken in the sand, and looked at the team members one after the other with a questioning smile. She was barefoot and wore a half transparent cloak that reached down to her ankles.
Rhodan took a deep drink without tasting it, and suddenly felt the invigorating effect of the tartly bubbling drink. An exchange of glances with Denetree was enough to decide what to do next and he gestured for her to go ahead. "Tell what we've experienced." He tapped on his wristband unit. "If anything changes with the energy supply, I'll know. So we have plenty of time."
Denetree drank, pressed the cup into the ground so it could not tip over, and tried to give a summary of events. Now and then, one of their companions interrupted with a brief clarification.
As Denetree told of Rhodan's attempt at communication, Nydele raised her hand and pointed over to the dunes. "The nights are lovely, gentle, and wonderful. All the stars, and the colors of the nebulae." Only now the slender beauty of her slim hands struck Rhodan. "These spindles, as you call them, shining with the light of the sun, dance silently at night over my home and the sand. They have drawn traces in the dunes with thin lines of fire. You should take a look at them, Immortal Rhodan. Before the wind blows them away."
"We'll go soon," Rhodan replied. "Let's first hear the story to its end."
Denetree told of the flight of the Halutian, the destruction of the base and the black sphere, and of the take-off of the crawler and the Shift. "And so it will still be
a while before we are able to take you to the survivors and to return to our ship," she finished.
"I ... I am not yet ready for that," Nydele said softly. She turned her head and looked down at the ark commander's grave.
"There isn't any hurry at the moment," Isaias Shimon said.
Rhodan emptied the beaker, stood up, nodded to Denetree, and left the shade. He walked through undisturbed sand to the indicated place, which he had noticed during the landing. Hopeful thoughts went through his mind as he began to see the shapes in the dune slope more clearly. Could his attempt at communication have possibly been a beginning for further exchanges between the spindles and the visitors to their world?
As though with a concentrated, hair-thin heat ray, grains of sand had been melted and baked together like glass into circles, lines, and simple figures. Rhodan focused on the leftmost visible image and tried to identify the series of figures correctly interpret them.
Three spindles. Above them a lens-shaped spiral. Rhodan whistled through his teeth. A swarm of fire spindles, then. Next to a spindle connected by a line with a depiction of the Space-Jet and the Halutian. That's clear enough. So it had to do with a collective intelligence and the portion of it above the dunes knew what those over the polar region were doing. Again a spindle, which was in contact with a single two-legger. Chibis-Nydele. Then a large circle accompanied by three small circles: the planet. Next, the curve of the planet. Two small circles above it: the starships. And at the end, again the symbol of a swarm, circling over the horseshoe-shaped piece of the ark. Several lines connected the swarm and the iron dwelling of the surviving Lemurians. Another attempt at contact?
"Or a suggestion that spindles and Lemurians can cooperate?" Rhodan murmured, and looked up at the pale second moon, which hovered above the distant forest. "The Shift and the crawler probably weren't important enough." Behind him he heard steps crunching in the sand. He turned around and looked into Nydele's face.
"Can you understand what the shining and dancing beings want to tell me?" she asked shyly.
Rhodan was silent for a moment. He enjoyed the sight of her face. "Some of it," he then replied. "I don't think they have hostile intentions towards you and your people. The Lemurians, I mean ... " Obeying a sudden impulse, he continued speaking. "You, and Denetree who fled from another starship ... It's a bitter truth that we've kept from all the Lemurians so far."
"Ah, immortal Perry," she said, and was as much aware of her effect on him as he was. He was on the point of losing himself in the look of her gentle eyes. "Bitter truths are not unknown to me. I know them as well as you do. Not as well as Atubur Nutai, my only love. Do you think you can astonish me?"
"I don't know," Rhodan replied. "The truth is ... About 50,000 years have passed since your ship set out. You were in a closed system. Outside of that system, a great many things have changed. Don't be frightened. You are the last Lemurians. You are the ancestors of the Akonians and the Terrans. I am a Terran myself. Think about it ... and be careful with this knowledge. The survivors are 50 millennia removed from their forebears. For the moment, don't speak of this with Denetree—she is still too young and the weight of this knowledge might be too much for her."
The other team members approached from the tent.
Nydele wrapped her fingers softly but emphatically around Rhodan's wrist. "I will be careful with this knowledge. Give me time—I have learned much from Atubur. Wait, consider, weigh the possible against the desirable. Tell me one thing: will we ever be able to leave this planet?"
Rhodan reflected for several moments. "No," he then replied. "I don't see any possibility of that."
"Not even with your help?"
"Perhaps. But ... where would you go? This is a world on which you could settle and flourish. The fire spindles seem to have made peace with you. Your OVIR is destroyed and will never be able to take off again."
"Before your friends hear what we are speaking of and misunderstand ... I must think about this. Do the Lemcharoys know yet that we must settle here?"
"I don't know," Rhodan replied. "But they will find out soon. Some, the determined and intelligent among them, have certainly accepted the idea."
Nydele lowered her head and seemed to consider whether any power could transport her steel home to the vicinity of a future settlement. She gave the melted drawings in the sand a doubtful glance. "You asked about records. I have been searching systematically for Atubur's logbooks and notes but I haven't found anything so far."
They went towards the rest of the team.
"The crawler must have reached the PALENQUE by now," Isaias remarked.
"And the spindles must have realized by this time how important communication is for us," Kealil Ron added angrily. "Don't we want to fly to the survivors? It'll be pitch dark in three hours."
"Agreed," Rhodan said. "Do you wish to continue enjoying your solitude, Chibis-Nydele?"
"I was lonely for a long time." Nydele accompanied the team members to the Shift and sat down on the caterpillar track cover. "Now I must attempt to cope with being alone."
Solina bent down in the airlock. She held the half-dried bundle of papers in the sunlight, and leafed through the first few pages that had been separated from each other. After a while, she raised her head and held the white sheets out to Ameda Fayard. "I'll summarize the text on the first page. A child really did write on it that the 'burning spindles' in the sky come to a certain place twice a year in order to mate and reproduce. The place is a sacred ground, and it lies in a large rocky valley in the north."
"A northern valley," Rhodan said, not showing any great surprise. "The text matches the location of that base we just barely managed to escape."
The archaeologist had been continuing to read. "Here it says that the young Akonian had been observing the beings. He calls them 'Menittia, Menthians, or Menttia.' Those aren't Akonian terms. I haven't found a date, either. But he writes that the valley is filled with wonderful plants that blossom during the mating and give off an enchanting fragrance."
"That was many thousands of years ago, before snow and ice covered the abandoned base," Isaias Shimon said. "What else have you found?"
"Later the beings are just called 'Menttia.' They must be our glowing spindles."
"I'm positive of it." Arsis Tachim climbed through the hatch and moved around the pilot's seat.
Rhodan listened carefully to what Solina and Ameda were able to interpret, with considerable effort, from the text. The story in a child's handwriting, but possibly written by an old man, was proof enough for him. It transpired that the Akonians had driven the Menttia out of a "holy" gathering place and subsequently fought with them. This seemed entirely credible to Rhodan. Although these events lay thousands of years in the past, the base existed, they had seen it just today.
"There are too many assumptions," he said to Chibis-Nydele. "If the Menttia can remember battles and defeats over such a long time, they should also be able to recognize that we are harmless. They consider all of us—Lemurians, Terrans, and Akonians—to be the descendants of their former enemies. That's why they distrusted and feared us."
"Not all of us, as it turned out," Denetree put in. "Perhaps they feared only the large starships."
Kealil Ron wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I think our ancestors defeated the Menttia with their superior technology after they—maybe even without realizing it—had taken their mating valley away from them."
"Very possibly," Rhodan said and drew Nydele out from under the shade. "These bits of knowledge and insight are enlightening, but they won't get us any further. Shall we go?"
"Back into the can," Isaias grumbled and helped Denetree through the hatch.
Rhodan pressed the Lemurian's hand, "You have the communicator," he said. "We'll come back. But first we have to make contact with our ship."
"I shall wait here and search for data storage units, Immortal."
The team squeezed itself once more into the Shift's cabin. When Nydele had
moved far enough away from the craft, Arsis took off and struck a course for the wreckage section of the LEMCHA OVIR. The vessel sped at a low altitude, into the red sun that stood over the horizon among long, narrow bands of clouds.
It looked as though all the Menttia on Mentack Nutai had gathered above the ship-wrecked Lemcharoys. The camp had spread out, with no order or design, in a half circle around the huge wreck section. The two shuttles stood on a level stretch of ground some 500 paces from the edge of the ridge that had been plowed up in the crash. Ethereal light and long shadows lay over the impact site. The reddish shine of sunlight mixed with the glow that came from the huge crowd of Menttia. The planet's natives had formed a disc-shaped cloud that was as large as a hurricane. The survivors had stopped working. Gray streams of smoke rose into the evening wind from two fires that no one was watching any longer.
The Shift flew at an altitude of 200 meters towards the wreckage, came into the area of the pale golden light, and made a wide circle around the camp before Arsis set it down by the shuttles.
"By the Great Eye! The scene looks ominous," she said through clenched teeth and shut off the engines. "I think your skill in graphic communication is called for, Terran Rhodan."
Denetree opened the hatch and extended the ramp. The Shift's landing did not seem to interest anyone. The Lemurians stared fearfully at the Menttia cloud and appeared to be expecting an attack or some other terrible calamity.
Rhodan followed Denetree outside. "This is a rather confused situation," he said. "The Menttia have accepted us—the Shift's crew—but whether that's enough ... ?"
He looked around, eyed the soot-covered walls of the wreck and looked for an open space on the ground. The Menttia exchanged information in some mysterious manner. He was convinced of that. But did this huge gathering of natives know about the destruction of the base and the flight of the Halutian? Even if that was the case ... could they be convinced that the Lemurians were harmless?