A DREAM of trees, of running along a long moss-grown aisle between their huge boles, pursued ever by what he could not see-Ray awoke. Outside the narrow porthole that gave on the sea, it was night. The other bunk was empty, his cabin mate gone. Yet this time he had awakened with all senses alert, knowing just where he was, as if, beneath that disturbing dream from which he carried only a wisp of memory, some acceptance had been at work. This was the present, and it was as real as the fabric under his hands as he raised himself on the bunk. He reached for the kilt he had thrown aside when he had lain down but found other clothing. Fumbling with unfamiliar buckles and fastenings, he dressed. The sandals were light on his feet as he knotted their thongs clumsily about. his ankles. Then he went into the outer cabin. The rosy light was stronger with the coming of darkness. There was no one there. Should he go on deck or wait? His momentary hesitation made him aware of the polished surface of a mirror, and on impulse he went to face it. A stranger, thin, with a sun-reddened skin and un-ruly brown hair, stared back at him. The scant gray tunic revealed a body that, for all its leanness, promised endurance. Buckles of silver, thickset with small green stones, glittered on his shoulders, and a belt patterned with the same gems encircled his waist. But he was suddenly shy and ill-at-ease. This was not Ray Osborne. And the confidence with which he had awakened began to fade. As he turned abruptly from the mirror, someone entered the cabin. Ray’s eyes widened. This was certainly Cho, but the Murian was now no bedraggled fellow prisoner. A red-gold tunic clung to his body. Jeweled armlets encircled both wrists and upper arms. His sword belt and the hilt of the weapon that swung from it glittered icily. The long hair was swept back and held by a metal band from a face where there was still the imprint of bruises. Like the cabin and its furnishings, his splendor held something of that exuberance of color and ornament that Ray’s time deemed barbaric.
The Murian laughed. “So-you look astounded, brother. Does dress do so much for a man? This is what is due my rank. Nor”-he surveyed Ray critically-“does our garb suit you ill. True Murian you look, or will when your hair grows. It is over-short for a free-born warrior. And now-food!”
Cho clapped his hands, and a man in a plain tunic entered with a tray. The Murian waved Ray to the table, where covered dishes and goblets were being set out. It was difficult, if not impossible, for Ray to identify the contents of those dishes. He had eaten earlier in a daze of hunger and weariness, knowing only that it was food. But now. he was more attentive. There was a stew and a platter of roasted meat already cut into bite-size portions. Small cakes were dipped into individual bowls of thin jam. And with it all, a tart wine.
The Murian sighed when they had finished. “We lack only fresh fruit. But that is not for a ship’s board these many days out of port. You rested well?”
“I dreamed-” Ray did not know why he said that, and he was startled at the sharpness of Cho’s response.
“Dreamed of what, brother?” There was such a note of command in that that Ray answered readily.
“Of trees, such a forest as I found when I came into this time. Of running between them and behind-”
“Behind?” The Murian was still peremptory. “Behind what?” he asked again as Ray did not reply at once.
The American shrugged. “I do not know what, except that I ran from it. No matter, it was only a dream-” He was surprised the other seemed to take it so seriously.
” `Only a dream’-why say you that, brother? Dreams are spirit guides for any man. They forewarn; they
show the feelings our waking minds do not know. Do not the men of your time think any upon the meaning of dreams?”
“Not like that. Anyway, it was perfectly natural for me to dream of running from some mysterious danger in that forest, seeing as how all this began for me there.”
“Perhaps you are right.” But, Ray thought, Cho did not look convinced. “Shall we go on deck?” the Murian said.
He held out a cloak and then took up another for himself. The moon hung round and full above the ship, its clear light cut now and then by a drift of clouds. The oars were inboard, yet the ship drove on, though no sail was set. Ray realized that the ever-present vibration of the fabric of the ship must come from some motorized form of propuls. Cho had gone to stand by the steersman, and now Ray joined him.
“What drives the ship now that your oars are in?”
“This-” Cho answered readily, leading the way down to the waist. On the aisle between the rowing benches was a half-open hatch, and Ray looked down into a small metal-walled cabin. Apu, Cho’s second-incommand, adjusted levers on a box that hummed and droned with life and from which spread that vibration.
“Our energy receiver. Waves of energy are broadcast from land stations and picked up by ships. It cannot be used close to shore or in harbor, and in some of the older ships not even in the Inner Sea. Oars serve them there. Each vessel is assigned a certain wave length from which to draw, and then only at stated times, unless there is an emergency-”
Han came along the deck with a message. Ray began to find his ignorance of the spoken language irksome as Cho translated for him.
“There is a ship to the west. But it cannot be one of ours, for the recall went out long ago. It may be a pirate -or Atlantean. We shall not try to speak it, lest we provoke attack-
“
He was interrupted by a cry from Han. Far out in the black of the sea, an orange light curved up from the surface of the waves. Cho shouted an order, and an instant later an answering green glare sped from the bow of their own vessel. The light out on the sea dimmed and then glowed red.
Cho was calling orders. Ray moved back out of the way of the men, who were running to different stations. Now their own green beam became pearl-white, turning the night ahead of the ship into day but leaving the ship itself in the dark. That glow across the water turned white in answer.
A little of the tense rigidity left Cho. “It is one of ours. Atlantean ships cannot counterfeit that signal. We must learn its mission and why it lingers here after recall.”
Their beam of light became a series of flashes. When the other replied in kind, Cho read it for Ray. “Ship of the fleet, Fire Snake, disabled in storm. Can move by oar power only. Who are you?”
“Signal them aid,” the Murian said to Han. And this time Ray, to his surprise, understood his words.
Again that distant light flashed.
“Ship badly disabled. We cannot make the Inner Sea. The Sunborn Ayna says farewell-”
Once more Cho gave orders. Their own ship changed course to the west, centering on that beam.
“We shall take the crew on board and then sink her,” Cho said. “There can be no lingering to nurse a cripple with the wolves of the Red Land out! Little fortune for the Lady Ayna to so lose her first command-”
“A woman commands a ship?” demanded Ray.
“But of course. All the Sunborn have a duty to the Re Mu. Perhaps a lady will one day be sent as his mouthpiece to some colony. How then may she order the fleet for such an undertaking unless she has already commanded a ship?” Cho asked in-surprise. “Is it not so with your people, brother?”
“No. At least not in my nation.”
“Many must be our differences. Some day we shall compare them. This Lady Ayna is of the house of the
Sun in Uighur. I have never met her but have heard of her wisdom and courage. And she will destroy her ship with her own hand, if that must be done.”
They sped on, that guiding light ever brightening Han still shot flashes from their own ray, answered at intervals from over the waves. Suddenly Cho shouted to Apu tending the receiver. Then he said to Ray, “They have been sighted by a raider. It will be a race as to which of us will reach her first.”
Waves boiled from the knife-edge bow in milky foam. On deck men stood to battle stations with tall shields, swords loose in scabbards, and some busied themselves about squat machines.