“We do,” Suahrnir agreed.
“Imagine then, up there on the surface. If there are people living up there, then they have developed now for several thousand years without any moral guidance. They will, most certainly, be savages, little more than animals, subservient to their most basic needs. And we have seen, all of us on many Ages, how wild animals behave!”
Aitrus, who had been listening silently, now spoke up. “Unless, like the D’ni, they have an innate morality.”
Veovis smiled and turned to his friend. “I would say that the chances of that were exceeding small, wouldn’t you agree, Aitrus?”
“I…guess so.”
“There!” Veovis said, as if that capped it. “You know, it makes me shudder to think of it. A whole society governed by lust and violence!”
“And the threat of violence,” Fihar added, clearly half-convinced now by the argument.
“Exactly! And where, in such a society, would there be room for the development of true intelligence? No. The most we might expect from the surfacedwellers is a surly, grunting species, a pack of jackals who would as soon bay at the moon as hold a decent conversation!”
There was laughter at that.
“Then you think the Council should reaffirm their decision?” Aitrus asked, returning the conversation to the place where it had begun. “You believe we should have nothing to do with the surface-dwellers?”
“I do indeed,” Veovis said emphatically. “And to be honest with you, I would not have simply sealed the end of the tunnel, I would have destroyed the whole thing altogether!”
“I see.”
“Oh, Aitrus,” Veovis said, leaning toward him. “I realize what sentimental feelings you have toward that expedition, and I admire you for it, but the venture was a mistake. The Council were wrong even to consider it!”
Aitrus said nothing. He merely sipped his wine and stared into the fire.
“And now I’ve hurt your feelings.” Veovis stood. “Look, I apologize. It was, perhaps, insensitive of me.”
Aitrus looked up at him, smiling sadly. “No, Veovis. You spoke as you saw, and I admire you for that. Besides, I have come to feel that maybe you were right after all. Maybe it was a mistake.”
Veovis smiled back at him. “Then you will vote with me in Council this time?”
Aitrus shrugged. “Who knows?”
§
Less than a hundred paces down, the tunnel was blocked again, a second rockfall making it unpassable. Yet to the left of the fall, like a grinning dark mouth, was a crack in the tunnel wall, large enough for Anna to step into, if she wished.
Anna stood on the rim, her left hand holding the edge of the wall, and she leaned into it, the lamp held out.
The crack was deep. Its floor went down steeply into the dark, from which a faint, cold breeze emanated. She could hear the sound of water, muted and distant, far below, and something else—a kind of irregular knocking. A tap, tap, tap that was like the weak blow of a chisel against the rock.
Anna turned, looking back the way she had come, then, deciding that the slope was not too steep, she clipped the lamp to the top of her hard hat and stepped down, steadying herself against the walls with both hands and digging her heels in, so that she would not fall.
The crack was not as long as she’d imagined. After twenty paces it leveled out. For a moment she thought it was a dead end, for the rock seemed to fill the crack ahead of her, but just before that it twisted to the side again, almost at ninety degrees. As she turned that corner, she gave a little cry of surprise.
“It’s a cavern!” she yelled, not know whether he could hear her or not. “A huge cavern!”
That tapping noise was close now and the sound of flowing water much stronger.
Stepping out onto the floor of the cavern, Anna turned, looking about her. The lamp illuminated only a small part of space, yet she could see, at the edge of the light, what looked like a tiny stream, its surface winking back at her.
Water. The most precious thing of all here in the desert. More precious than the silver her father had found for Amanjira.
Anna walked over to it, conscious of the rope trailing out behind her. The stream was crystal clear. She stooped down beside it, dipping her hand into the flow, then put her fingers to her lips.
Ice cold, it was, and pure. Much better than the water in the pool.
She grinned, looking forward to telling her father of her discovery, then she turned and looked up at the ceiling, twenty yards or so overhead.
There it was! The source of the tapping noise. It looked like a bright red hanging of some kind, marble smooth yet thin, the tip of it swollen like a drop of blood. And where it hung in the breeze it tap-tap-tapped against the roof of the cavern.
Anna frowned, then turned, looking for the source of the breeze. The cavern narrowed at its near end, becoming a kind of funnel. The breeze seemed to come from there.
She sniffed the air, surprised by how fresh it was. Usually there was a stale, musty smell in these caverns. A smell of damp and stone. But this was different.
Unclipping the lamp again, she held it up, trying to make out what the red stuff was. It seemed to be trapped in the rock overhead, or to have squeezed through the rock and then congealed.
She took out her notebook; settling it on her knee, she began to write, noting down not merely what she could see but her first notions about the cavern. Such, she knew from experience, could prove important. One might notice something that one afterward overlooked, or simply forgot. It was best to jot down everything, even if most of it proved subsequently to be ill-founded.
Putting the notebook away, she took hold of the rope and pulled a length of it toward her, making sure it was not snagged in the crack. It came easily. Reassured, she walked on, toward the near end of the cavern, toward the “funnel,” glancing from side to side, keen not to miss anything.
Thirty paces from it, she stopped, the slight sense of wrongness she had felt earlier now welling up in her.
There, facing her, filling the whole of one end of the narrowed cavern, was a huge sheet of the red stuff. It looked like a thick, stiff curtain, except that it jutted from the rock like a lava flow.
But it wasn’t lava. Not of any kind she knew, anyway.
It made her think of the circle on the surface. Somehow these two things were connected, but just how she didn’t know.
She could not wait to tell her father of it.
Anna walked over and stood before it, lifting the lamp. It was blood red, but within that redness was a faint vein of black, like tiny wormthreads.
Perhaps it was a kind of lava.
Clipping the lamp to her hat again, she took one of the hammers from her belt and, kneeling beside the wall, tried to chip a small chunk of the stuff away.
After a moment she looked up, puzzled. The hammer had made no impression. The stuff looked soft and felt soft. It gave before the hammer. But it would not chip. Why, it wouldn’t even mark!
Not lava, then. But what precisely was it? Unless she could get a piece for analysis, there was no way of telling.
Anna stood back a couple of paces, studying the wall, trying to see if there might not, perhaps, be a small piece jutting from the rest that would prove more amendable to the hammer, but the stuff formed a smooth unvarying surface.
She turned, looking about her, then laughed. There, only a few paces from her, lay a line of tiny red beads, like fresh blood spots on the gray rock floor. She looked up, seeing how the red stuff formed a narrow vein overhead, as if, under great pressure, it had been squeezed between the lips of the rock.
And dripped.
Anna crouched and, chipping this time into the rock beneath the red stuff, managed to free four samples of it, the largest of them the size of her fist.
As she went to slip the last of them into her knapsack, she turned it beneath the light, then squeezed it in her hand. It was almost spongy, yet it was tougher than marble. Not only that, but it seemed to h
old the light rather than reflect it.
It was time to get back. They would need to analyze this before they investigated any further.
Anna slipped the sack onto her shoulder, then, taking the rope in her right hand, began to cross the cavern again, coiling it slowly as she headed for the crack.
§
The others were gone. Only Veovis and Aitrus remained. They stood in the broad hallway of the Mansion, beneath the stairs, the great stone steps and the tiny harbor beyond visible through the glass of the massive front door.
“Stay the night, Aitrus. You can travel back with me in the morning. The meeting does not start until midday.”
“I would, but there are some people I must see first thing.”
“Put them off. Tell them you have to prepare for the meeting. They’ll understand. Besides, I’d really like to talk to you some more.”
“I, too. But I must not break my word.”
Veovis smiled. “I understand. Your word means much to you, and rightly so. But try and come to me before the meeting. I shall be in my office in the Guild Hall. I would fain speak with you again before you cast your vote.”
Aitrus smiled. “I have decided already, old friend. I shall abstain.”
“Abstain?”
“I feel it would be for the best. I am not convinced by either argument. It may be as you say, and that my hesitancy is only sentiment, yet I still feel as if I would be betraying Master Telanis should I vote against the motion.”
“Then so be it. Take care, dear friend.”
The two men clasped each other’s hands.
“Until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow,” Aitrus echoed, smiling broadly. “And thank you. The evening was a most pleasant one.”
“As ever. Now go. Before I’m angry with you.”
§
“I’ve no idea,” he said, lifting his eye from the microscope.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks…artificial.”
“Impossible,” Anna said, stepping up beside him and putting her own eye to the lens.
“So tell me what it is, then. Have you ever seen stone with that kind of structure before? There’s not a crystal in it! That wasn’t formed. At least, not by any natural process. That was made!”
She shrugged. “Maybe there are processes we don’t know about.”
“And maybe I know nothing about rock!”
Anna looked up and smiled. “Maybe.”
“Well?” he said, after a moment. “Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t see how you could make something like this. The temperatures and pressures you’d need would be phenomenal. Besides, what would the stuff be doing down there, in the cavern? It makes no sense.”
“No…”
She saw the doubt creep back into his face. He looked tired again. They had been working at this puzzle now for close on ten hours.
“You should rest now,” she said. “We’ll carry on with this in the morning.”
“Yes,” he said, but it was clear his mind was still on the problem. “It has to be obvious,” he said, after a moment. “Something we’ve completely overlooked.”
But what could they have overlooked? They had been as thorough with their tests as anyone could be. Had they had twice the equipment and ten times the opportunity to study it, they would still have come up with the same results. This stuff was strange.
§
He had been cheerful that night, more cheerful than he’d been in quite some time. He had laughed and joked. And in the morning he was dead.
She had woken, remembering the dream she’d had of flowers. Blue flowers, like those she had painted for him. Getting up, she had gone through into the galley kitchen and set out their bowls and tumblers, staring out of the window briefly, conscious of how different everything looked in the dawn light. It was only then that she found him, slumped on the floor beside the workroom bench. She knew at once that he was dead, yet it was only when she actually physically touched him that it registered on her.
His flesh was cold, like stone.
For a moment she could not turn him over. For a moment there was a blankness, a total blankness in her mind. Then she blinked and looked down at him again, where he lay.
He must have come here in the night. Unheard by her. And here he had died, silently, without a word to her.
She groaned and closed her eyes, grief overwhelming her.
§
The front lobby of the great guild hall was in turmoil. Aitrus, arriving late, looked about him, then, seeing Veovis to one side of the crowd of senior guildsmen, hurried over to him.
“Veovis. What’s happening?”
“It is Lord Eneah. He was taken ill in the night.”
Lord Eneah was Lord Tulla’s replacement as head of the Council. Without his presence, or the appointment of a Deputy, the business of the Council could not be carried out.
“Then there will be no vote today.”
“Nor for a week or two if the rumors are correct. It seems the Great Lord is at death’s door.”
“Ill tidings, indeed,” said Aitrus.
While none of the D’ni elders could be considered jovial in any way that the young could recognize, Lord Eneah had maintained a sense of humor well into his third century and was wont to control the Council by means of wit rather than chastisement. If he were to die, the Council would indeed lose one of their finest servants.
“What are we to do?” Aitrus asked, looking about him at the crowded vestibule.
“Disperse, eventually,” Veovis answered, “but not until our business here is done. Now, if you would excuse me, Aitrus, I would like to take the chance to talk to one or two waverers.”
Aitrus nodded, letting Veovis go. Unlike Veovis, he had no strong political ambitions, and though he had been appointed to the Council young—as the junior representative of his Guild—it was not because he had pushed for that appointment.
He had moved swiftly through the ranks, becoming a Master in his thirty-eighth year—the youngest in almost seven centuries—and then, three years ago, he had found himself elected to the Council by his fellow guildsmen; an unexpected honor, for there were men almost twice his age, which was fifty five, who had been put up as candidates against him.
And so here he was, at the very center of things. And though his word meant little yet, and his vote was but a tiny weight on the great scales of D’ni government, he was not entirely without influence, for he was a friend of Lord Veovis.
Watching Veovis from across the pillared hallway, seeing how easily the young Lord moved among his peers, how relaxed he was dealing with the high and mighty of D’ni society, Aitrus found it strange how close they had grown since their reunion thirty years ago. If you had asked him then who might have been his closest friend and confidant in later years, he might have chosen anyone but Lord Rakeri’s son, but so it was. In the public’s eyes they were inseparable.
Inseparable, perhaps, yet very different in their natures. And maybe that was why it worked so well, for both had a perfect understanding of who the other was.
Had they been enemies, then there would have been no late-night debates, no agreements to differ, no grudging concessions between them, no final meeting of minds, and that would, in time, have been a tragedy for the Council, for many now recognized that in the persons of Veovis and Aitrus were the seeds of D’ni’s future.
Their friendship had thus proved a good omen, not merely for them but for the great D’ni State.
“Aitrus? How are you? How is your father these days?”
Aitrus turned to greet his interrogator, smiling at the old man, surprised—ever surprised—to find himself in such high company.
“He is well, Grand Master Yena. Very well, thank you.”
§
All was done. The cart was packed, her last farewells made. Anna stood on the far side of the bridge, tearful now that the moment had come, looking back into the empty Lodge.
This h
ad been her home, her universe. She had been born here and learned her lessons in these rooms. Here she had been loved by the best two parents any child could have wished for. And now they were gone.
What remained was stone. Stone and dust and ashes.
Those ashes—her father’s—were in a tiny sealed pot she had stowed carefully on the cart, beside another that held her mother’s ashes.
She turned away, knowing she could not remain. Her future lay elsewhere. Tadjinar, perhaps, or maybe back in Europe. But not here. Not now that he was dead.
Her heart felt heavy, but that, too, she knew, would pass. Not totally, for there would be moments when she would remember and then the hurt would return, yet the grief she now felt would lessen. In time.
She clambered down. The cart was heavy and Tadjinar was far, yet as she leaned forward, taking the strain, beginning to pull it up the shallow slope, the harness ropes biting into the leather pads on her shoulders, she recalled her father’s words:
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
That much remained of him, at least. The memories, the words, and the great wisdom of the man.
She wiped the wetness from her cheeks and smiled. He was in there now, in her head, until she, too, was dust or ashes.
What do you see, Anna?
As she climbed the narrow slope that led out of the valley, she answered him, her voice clear in the desert’s stillness.
“I see the endless desert, and before me the desert moon, rising in the last light of the dusk. And I see you there, everywhere I look. I see you there.”
§
The way to Tadjinar did not take her past the circle, yet she felt compelled to see it. If her future path lay elsewhere, she would at least take the memory of it with her.
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