“We had better start back,” Yakow said. “Night draws nigh.”
He turned himself around and then the aircraft. A dusk was already in the cabin, for the storm had thickened. Ivar welcomed the concealment of his face. And did outside noise drown the thud-thud-thud of his pulse? He said most slowly, “You know, Jaan, one thing I’ve never heard bespoken. What does Caruith’s race look like?”
“It doesn’t matter,” was the reply. “They are more mind than body. Indeed, their oneness includes numerous different species. Think of Dido. In the end, all races will belong.”
“Uh-huh. However, I can’t help bein’ curious. Let’s put it this way. What did the body look like that actually lay down under scanner?”
“Why … well—”
“Come on. Maybe your Orcans are so little used to pictures that they don’t insist on description. I assure you, companyo, other Aeneans are different. They’ll ask. Why not tell me?”
“Kah, hm, kah—” Jaan yielded. He seemed a touch confused, as if the consciousness superimposed on his didn’t work well at a large distance from the reinforcing radiations of the underground vessel. “Yes. He … male, aye, in a bisexual warm-blooded species … not mammalian; descended from ornithoids…. human-seeming in many ways, but beautiful, far more refined and sculptured than us. Thin features set at sharp angles; a speaking voice like music— No.” Jaan broke off. “I will not say further. It has no significance.”
You’ve said plenty, tolled in Ivar.
Talk was sparse for the rest of the journey. As the car moved downward toward an Arena that had become a bulk of blackness studded with a few lights, the Firstling spoke. “Please, I want to go off by myself and think. I’m used to space and solitude when I make important decisions. How about lendin’ me this flitter? I’ll fly to calm area, settle down, watch moons and stars—return before mornin’ and let you know how things appear to me. May I?”
He had well composed and mentally rehearsed his speech. Yakow raised no objection; Jaan gave his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “Surely,” said the prophet. “Courage and wisdom abide with you, dear friend.”
When he had let the others out, Ivar lifted fast, and cut a thunderclap through the air in his haste to be gone. The dread of pursuit bayed at his heels.
Harsh through him went: They aren’t infallible. I took them by surprise. Jaan should’ve been prepared with any description but true one—one that matches what Tanya relayed to me from Commissioner Desai, about Merseian agent loose on Aeneas.
Stiffening wind after sunset filled the air around the lower mountainside with fine sand. Lavinia showed a dim half-disc overhead, but cast no real light; and there were no stars. Nor did villages and farmsteads scattered across the hills reveal themselves. Vision ended within meters.
Landing on instruments, Ivar wondered if this was lucky for him. He could descend unseen, where otherwise he would have had to park behind some ridge or grove kilometers away and slink forward afoot. Indeed, he had scant choice. Walking any distance through a desert storm, without special guidance equipment he didn’t have along, posed too much danger of losing his way. But coming so near town and Arena, he risked registering on the detectors of a guard post, and somebody dispatching a squad to investigate.
Well, the worst hazard lay in a meek return to his quarters. He found with a certain joy that fear had left him, as had the hunger and thirst of supperlessness, washed away by the excitement now coursing through him. He donned the overgarment everyone took with him on every trip, slid back the door, and jumped to the ground.
The gale hooted and droned. It sheathed him in chill and a scent of iron. Grit stung. He secured his nightmask and groped forward.
For a minute he worried about going astray in spite of planning. Then he stubbed his toe on a rock which had fallen off a heap, spoil from the new excavation. The entrance was dead ahead uphill, to that tunnel down which Jaan had taken him.
He didn’t turn on the flashbeam he had borrowed from the car’s equipment, till he stood at the mouth. Thereafter he gripped it hard, as his free hand sought for a latch.