Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset (68 page)

As he gazed idly at the stars, he began to think. In the journey through the forest – a timeless journey through time – he had apparently cast off the personality and conditioning of Poul Mer Lo. For some reasons he could not understand, in some way he could not understand, he had become very consciously Paul Marlowe, native of Earth, once more.

And the surprising thing was that it no longer hurt. He was a castaway, far from home, and with no hope of returning. Yet, it no longer hurt …

He was amazed at the discovery.

Presently, the talk of the hunters died down and they made ready for sleep. Zu Shan and Nemo were already asleep, having tired themselves out with the day’s journey. Presently, Paul and Shon Hu shared the first watch.

They did not talk. Shon Hu, though satisfied with the day’s progress and relieved now that the forest was behind them, was not inclined to be very communicative. This suited Paul who was able – pleasurably for once – to contemplate the night sky and let his thoughts drift among the stars.

When it was time to wake the two hunters for their spell of watch, Paul felt more exhilarated than tired. Perhaps it was the effect of the cooler, bracing air. Or perhaps it was because they were nearing the end of the journey.

Nevertheless he very quickly fell asleep when at last he lay down.

He was aware of words being spoken loudly and urgently in his head. Vaguely and sleepily he tried to dismiss them as some aspect of a dream that he was not aware of dreaming. But the words would not be dismissed. They were not to be abolished either by sleepiness or willpower. They would not be ignored. They became louder, more insistent.

Until he sat bolt upright, listening to them with a sensation of panic that it was hard to fight down. In the starlight, he could see dimly that the others were also sitting upright. They, too, were listening – motionless, as if the sound that was not a sound had frozen the living flesh. There was also another sound – a real sound – that seemed very far away. With an effort, Paul concentrated on it. With an even greater effort, he managed to analyse it – the sound of Nemo whimpering. Then his thoughts were snapped back by the loud, imperative and utterly soundless message.

The words without sound became silent. No one moved. Shon Hu was the first to speak. ‘Lord,’ he said shakily, ‘we have heard the voice of Oruri and still live. This journey is not favoured. Now must we return.’

Paul tried desperately to marshal his racing thoughts. ‘The voice spoke to you in Bayani, Shon Hu?’

‘Most clearly, lord.’

‘And yet it spoke to me in English – the language of my own country.’

‘Such is the mystery of Oruri.’

‘Not Oruri,’ said Paul positively, ‘but
Aru Re.’

‘Paul,’ said Zu Shan, ‘the voice spoke to me in both English and Bayani.’

Paul was silent for a moment. Then he said in English: ‘That, I suppose, is because you are now able to think in both languages … What about you, Nemo? Are you all right?’

Nemo’s whimpering had stopped. ‘I am very much afraid,’ he confessed in a thin, high voice. ‘I – I cannot remember what language I heard.’

Paul tried to laugh and ease the tension. ‘You are not alone, Nemo. We were all very much afraid.’

‘We shall go back to Baya Nor, then?’ The child’s voice was pleading.

Paul considered for a moment, wondering if he had any right to ask his companions to go farther. But how tantalizing, how heartbreaking to be so near and to have to turn back.

At length he spoke in Bayani. ‘Already, I have asked too much of my friends and brothers,’ he said. ‘We have faced danger, one of us has died and there is, doubtless, much danger still to be faced. I cannot ask more of those who have already shown great courage … Any who wish now to return, having heard what they have heard, will go with my thoughts and prayers. As for me, Shon Hu has fulfilled that which I asked. He has shown me the way. Doubtless, I shall reach the Temple of the White Darkness, if Oruri so desires. I have spoken.’

‘Lord,’ said Shon Hu, ‘truly greatness sits upon you. A man cannot die in better company. This, perhaps, Oruri will consider when the time comes. I will go with you.’

There was a short silence, then one of the two remaining hunters spoke: ‘We are ashamed in the presence of Poul Mer Lo and Shon Hu. Formerly, we were brave men. Forgive us, lord … For some, it seems, there is no end to courage. For others, the end comes quickly.’

‘My brothers,’ said Paul, ‘courage has many faces. I count myself fortunate that I have travelled this far with you … Go when the first light comes, and a man may see the way ahead. Also, take with you Zu Shan and Nemo; for I rejoice in the knowledge that you will bring them safely to Baya Nor.’

‘Lord,’ said Zu Shan in Bayani, ‘the gift of Enka Ne remains with him to whom the gift was made … I think, also, the little one may desire to stay.’

Nemo seemed to have recovered himself. ‘The little one desires much,’ he said, also in Bayani, ‘but he will stay in the shadow of Poul Mer Lo.’

Shon Hu laughed grimly. ‘Thus are we a formidable company.’

‘It is in such company,’ retorted Paul enigmatically, ‘that men may move mountains … Now listen to my thoughts. The voice, it seems, spoke to each of us in a different manner. To me it spoke in my tongue, calling itself
Aru Re
. To you, Shon Hu, it spoke in your tongue. And to Zu Shan in a mixture of my tongue and his. But the message was the same for all of us, I think … Zu Shan, what did you understand by the message?’

‘That we should not go forward, otherwise we should die.’

‘Ah,’ said Paul triumphantly, ‘but that was not what the voice said. It advised us,
if we desired certain things
, to go back. It advised, Zu Shan. It did not command. It advised us – if we desired security, long life, contentment, peace of mind – to return the way we came. But the voice did not advise us what to do if we desired knowledge, did it?’

There was a silence. Eventually, Shon Hu said: ‘Lord, there is much mystery in your words. I do not understand where your thoughts lead, but I have made my decision and I will follow.’

‘What I am trying to say,’ explained Paul patiently, ‘is that I think the voice meant to turn us back only if we did not have the resolution and the curiosity to go forward.’

‘When Oruri speaks,’ said Shon Hu with resignation, ‘who dare question the meaning?’

‘But when
Aru Re
speaks in English,’ said Paul, emphasizing the separate words, ‘the meaning must be sought more carefully.’

‘Lord,’ said one of the hunters who were returning to Baya Nor, ‘we shall not take the barge. We shall leave it in the hope that Poul Mer Lo – who has wrought many wonders – will require it yet again.’

There were no more voices in the dark. Nor did Oruri – or
Aru Re
– utter his soundless words in the daytime. After less than a day’s travel, Paul noticed that the long savannah grass was getting shorter. Presently it was only as high as his knee. Presently, no higher than his ankle. The air grew colder as they came to the uplands.

And there before them, less than half a day’s march away, was the mountain range whose central peak was called the Temple of the White Darkness. All that lay between was a stretch of scrubland, rising into moorland and small patches of coniferous forest.

Suddenly, Paul became depressed. Through the high, clear air, he could see the detail of the jagged rockface of the mountain – capped and scarred by everlasting snow. And sweeping round the base of the mountain was a great glacier – a broad river of ice whose movement could probably be reckoned in metres per year.

As they made their last camp before they came to the mountain, there were distant muted rumbles, as if the mountain were aware of their presence and resented their approach. The three Bayani – the man, the youth and the child – had never heard the sound of avalanches before.

Paul had much difficulty explaining the phenomenon to them. Eventually, he gave it up, seeing that they could not clearly understand. To them, the noise was only one more manifestation of the displeasure of Oruri.

He gazed despairingly at the Temple of the White Darkness, wondering how he could possibly begin his search. He was no mountaineer. Nor was he equipped for mountaineering. And it would be sheer cruelty to drag his companions – children of the forest – across the dangerous slopes of ice and snow. How terrible it was to be so near and yet so helpless. For the first time he was ready to acknowledge to himself the probability of defeat.

Then the sunset came – and with it a sign. Paul Marlowe was not easily moved to prayer. But, on this occasion, prayer was not just the only thing he was able to offer. It seemed strangely appropriate and even inevitable.

There, far above the moorland and the ring of coniferous forest, as the sun sank low, he saw briefly a great curving stem of fire.

He had seen something similar many, many years ago in a world on the other side of the sky. As he watched, and as the sun sank and the stem of the fire dissolved, he remembered how it had been when he first saw sunlight reflected from the polished hull of the
Gloria Mundi
.

Paul Marlowe was alone. He had left his companions on the far side of the glacier. Shon Hu was partly snow blind, Zu Shan’s nose had started to bleed because of the altitude, and little Nemo, wrapped in skins so that he looked like a furry ball, had an almost perpetual aching in his bones.

So Paul had left the three of them on the far side of the glacier and had set off alone shortly after dawn. He had told them that, if he had not returned by noon, they must go without waiting for him. He did not think that they could stand another night on the bare, lower slopes of the mountain.

The glacier had looked much more formidable than it really was. His feet and ankles ached a great deal with the effort of maintaining footholds on the great, tilting ice sheets; and from the way his toes felt it seemed as if sharp slivers of ice might have cut through the tough skins that were his only protection. But on the whole, apart from being bruised by innumerable minor falls, he felt he was in reasonable shape.

And now, here he was, standing near the base of one of the mighty metal shoes that supported the three impossibly slender legs of the great star ship. The shoes rested firmly on a broad flat table of rock in the lee of the mountain, and they were covered to a depth of perhaps three metres by eternal ice. The legs themselves were easily twenty metres tall; and the massive hull of the star ship rose all of two hundred metres above them – like a spire. Like the spire of a vast, buried cathedral.

Paul gazed up at the fantastic shape, shielding his eyes against the glow of its polished surface, and was drunk with wonder.

Then the voice that was no voice spoke in his head.

‘I am beautiful, am I not?’

So much had happened that Paul was beyond surprise. He said calmly: ‘Yes, you are beautiful.’

‘I am
Aru Re
– in your language, Bird of Mars. I have waited here more than fifty thousand planetary years. It may be that I shall wait another ten thousand years before my children are of an age to understand. For I am the custodian of the memory of their race.’

Suddenly, Paul’s mind was reeling. Here he was, a man of Earth, having made a hazardous journey on a strange planet, through primeval forests, across wide savannah, into the mountains and over a high glacier to meet a telepathic star ship. A star ship that spoke in English, called itself the Bird of
Mars and claimed to have been in existence for over fifty thousand years. He wanted to laugh and cry and quietly and purposefully go mad. But there was no need of that. Obviously he was already mad. Obviously, the glacier had beaten him and he was lying now – what was left of him – in some shallow crevasse, withdrawn into a world of fantasy, waiting for the great cold to bring down the final curtain on his psychic drama.

‘No, you are not mad,’ said the silent voice. ‘Nor are you injured and dying. You are Paul Marlowe of Earth, and you are the first man resolute enough to discover the truth. Open your mind completely to me, and I will show you much that has been hidden. I am
Aru Re
, Bird of Mars … The truth, also, is beautiful.’

‘Nothing but a machine!’ shouted Paul, rebelling against the impossible reality. ‘You are nothing but a machine – a sky-high lump of steel, wrapped round a computer with built-in paranoia.’ He tried to control himself, but could not restrain the sobbing. ‘Fraud! Impostor! Bastard lump of tin!’

‘Yes, I am a machine,’ returned the voice of the
Aru Re
, insistently in his head, ‘but I am greater than the sum of my parts. I am a machine that lives. Because I am the custodian and the carrier of the seed, I am immortal. I am greater than the men who conceived me, though they, too, were great.’

‘A machine!’ babbled Paul desperately. ‘A useless bloody machine!’

The voice would not leave him alone. ‘And what of Paul Marlowe, voyager in the
Gloria Mundi
, citizen on sufferance of Baya Nor, Poul Mer Lo, the teacher? Is he not a machine – a machine constructed of bone and flesh and dreams?’

‘Leave me alone!’ sobbed Paul. ‘Leave me alone!’

‘I cannot leave you alone,’ said the
Aru Re
, ‘because you chose not to leave me alone. You chose to know. I warned you to go back, but you came on. Therefore, according to the design, you shall know. Open your mind completely.’