Yakow Harolsson, High Commander of the Companions of the Arena, followed. He was clad the same as his men, except for adding a purple cloak. Though his beard was white and his features scored, the spare form remained erect. Ivar snapped him a salute.
Yakow returned it and in the nasal Anglic of the region said: “Be greeted, Firstling of Ilion.”
“Have … Terrans gone … sir?” Ivar asked. His pulse banged, giddiness passed through him, the cool underground air felt thick in his throat.
“Yes. You may come forth.” Yakow frowned. “In disguise, naturally, garb, hair and skin dyes, instruction about behavior. We dare not assume the enemy has left no spies or, what is likelier, hidden surveillance devices throughout the town—perhaps in the very Arena.” From beneath discipline there blazed: “Yet forth shall you come, to prepare for the Deliverance.”
Erannath stirred. “I could ill pass as an Orcan,” he said dryly.
Yakow’s gaze grew troubled as it sought him. “No. We have provided for you, after taking counsel.”
A vague fear made Ivar exclaim, “Remember, sir, he’s liaison with Ythri, which may become our ally.”
“Indeed,” Yakow said without tone. “We could simply keep you here, Sir Erannath, but from what I know of your race, you would find that unendurable. So we have prepared a safe place elsewhere. Be patient for a few more hours. After dark you will be led away.”
To peak afar in wilderness, Ivar guessed, happy again, where he can roam skies, hunt, think his thoughts, till we’re ready for him to rejoin us—or we rejoin him—and afterward send him home.
On impulse he seized the Ythrian’s right hand. Talons closed sharp but gentle around his fingers. “Thanks for everything, Erannath,” Ivar said. “I’ll miss you … till we meet once more.”
“That will be as God courses,” answered his friend.
The Arena took its name from the space it enclosed. Through a window in the Commander’s lofty sanctum, Ivar looked across tier after tier, sweeping in an austere but subtly eye-compelling pattern of grand ellipses, down toward the central pavement. Those levels were broad enough to be terraces rather than seats, and the walls between them held arched openings which led to the halls and chambers of the interior. Nevertheless, the suggestion of an antique theater was strong.
A band of Companions was drilling; for though it had seldom fought in the last few centuries, the order remained military in character, and was police as well as quasi-priesthood. Distance and size dwindled the men to insects. Their calls and footfalls were lost in hot stillness, as were any noises from town; only the Linn resounded, endlessly grinding. Most life seemed to be in the building itself, its changeful iridescences and the energy of its curves.
“Why did Elders make it like this?” Ivar wondered aloud.
A scientific base, combining residences and workrooms? But the ramps which connected floors twisted so curiously; the floors themselves had their abrupt rises and drops, for no discernible reason; the vaulted corridors passed among apartments no two of which were alike. And what had gone on in the crater middle? Mere gardening, to provide desert-weary eyes with a park? (But these parts were fertile, six million years ago.) Experiments? Games? Rites? Something for which man, and every race known to man, had no concept?
“Jaan says the chief purpose was to provide a gathering place, where minds might conjoin and thus achieve transcendence,” Yakow answered. He turned to his escort. “Dismissed,” he snapped. They saluted and left, closing behind them the human-installed door.
It had had to be specially shaped, to fit the portal of this suite. The outer office where the two men stood was like the inside of a multi-faceted jewel; colors did not sheen softly, as they did across the exterior of the Arena, but glanced and glinted, fire-fierce, wherever a sunbeam struck. Against such a backdrop, the few articles of furniture and equipment belonging to the present occupancy seemed twice austere: chairs fashioned of gnarly starkwood, a similar table, a row of shelves holding books and a comset, a carpet woven from the mineral-harsh plants that grew in Orcan shallows.
“Be seated, if you will,” Yakow said, and folded his lankness down.