As he sat by the bank of the Canal of Life, reviewing the happenings of the last few months, Paul Marlowe was filled with a deep satisfaction. A start had been made. The Bayani were beginning their long and painful march from the twilight world of medieval orthodoxy towards an intellectual and an emotional sunrise. A man’s life was not such a high price for the shaping of a new society…
Paul sat by the Canal of Life for a long time. It was on such an evening as this, when the nine small moons of Altair Five swarmed gaily across the sky, that he had been wont to sit upon the verandah steps drinking cooled kappa spirit and philosophizing in words that Mylai Tui could not understand.
He thought of her now with pleasurable sadness, remembering the baffling almost dog-like devotion of the tiny woman who had once been a temple prostitute, who had taught him the Bayani language and who had become to all intents and purposes his wife. He thought of her and wished that she could have lived to bear the child of whose conception she had been so proud. He wished that she could have known also that Poul Mer Lo, her lord, was destined to become the god-king. Poor Mylai Tui, she would have exploded with self-importance— and love…
Then he thought of Ann, who was already becoming shadowy again in his mind. Dear, remote, elusive Ann—who had once been a familiar stranger. Also, his wife … It was nearly a quarter of a century since they had left Earth together in the Gloria Mundi… He had, he supposed, aged physically not much more than about six years in all that time. But already he felt very old, very tired. Perhaps you could not cheat Nature after all, and there was some delayed after-effect to all the years of suspended animation. Or maybe there was a simpler explanation. Perhaps he had merely travelled too far, seen too much and been too much alone.
The night was suddenly crowded with ghosts. Ann … Mylai Tui … An unborn child … Shah Shan … And a woman with whom he had once danced the Emperor Waltz on the other side of the sky…
He looked up now at this alien sky whose constellations had become more familiar to him than those other constellations of long ago.
He looked up and watched the nine moons of Altair Five swinging purposefully against the dusty backcloth of stars.
And his heart began to beat in his chest like a mad thing.
He counted the moons carefully, while his heart pumped wildly and his arms trembled and his eyes smarted.
He took a deep breath and counted them again.
There were now ten tiny moons—not nine. Surely that could only mean one thing…
Dazed and shaking, he began to run back to the sacred city—back to the private room where he still kept his battered, and so far useless, transceiver.
FORTY
He stood on the small, high balcony of the Temple of the Weeping Sun. His eyes were fixed on the cluster of moons already approaching the horizon. There were still ten.
The transceiver was in his hand, its telescopic aerial extended.
He was still shaking, and sweat made his fingers slip on the tiny studs of the transceiver as he set it for transmission at five hundred metres on the medium wave band. If the tenth moon of Altair Five was indeed a star ship—and what an unlikely if that was! —orbiting the planet, surely an automatic continuous watch would be kept on all wave bands. But if it was a star ship, how the devil could it be a terrestrial vessel? It had arrived at Altair Five less than three years after the Gloria Mundi. Yet, when the Gloria Mundi had left Earth, apart from the American and Russian vessels, no other star ships— so far as Paul knew—had even left the drawing board. On the other hand, if it wasn’t a terrestrial vessel, what else could it be? A large meteor that had wandered in from deep space and ' found an orbital path? A star ship from another system altogether?
Paul’s head was a turmoil of possibilities, impossibilities and plain crazy hopes.
‘Please, God, let it be a ship from Earth,’ he prayed as he pressed the transmit stud on the transceiver. ‘Please, God, let it be a ship from Earth—and let this bloody box work! ’
Then he said, in as calm a voice as he could manage: ‘Altair Five calling orbiting vessel. Altair Five calling orbiting vessel. Come in, please, on five hundred metres. Come in, please, on five hundred metres. Over … Over to you.’
He switched to receive and waited, his eyes fixed hypnotically on the ten small moons. There was nothing—nothing but the sound of a light breeze that rippled the surface of the Mirror of Oruri. Nothing but the stupid, agitated beating of his heart.
He switched to transmit again. ‘Altair Five calling orbiting vessel. Altair Five calling orbiting vessel. Come in, please, on five hundred metres. Come in, please, on five hundred metres. Over to you.’
Still nothing. Presently the moons would be over the horizon, and that would be that. Maybe they were already out of range of the small transceiver. Maybe the damn thing wasn’t working, anyway. Maybe it was an extra-terrestrial ship and the occupants didn’t bother to keep a radio watch because they were all little green men with built-in telepathic antennae. Maybe it was just a bloody great lump of rock—a cold, dead piece of space debris … Maybe … Maybe…
At least the receiving circuits were working. He could now hear the hiss and crackle of static—an inane message, announcing only the presence of an electrical storm somewhere in the atmosphere.
‘Say something, you bastard,’ he raged. ‘Don’t just hook yourself on to a flock of moons and go skipping gaily by … I’m alone, do you hear? Alone … Alone with a bloody great family of children, and no one to talk to … Say something, you stupid, tantalizing bastard! ’
And then it came.
The miracle.
The voice of man reaching out to man across the black barrier of space.
‘This is the Cristobal Colon called Altair Five.’ The static was getting worse. But the words—the blessed, beautiful words—were unmistakable. ‘This is the Cristobal Colon calling Altair Five … Greetings from Earth … Identify yourself, please. Over.’
For a dreadful moment or two he couldn’t speak. There was a tightness in his chest, and his heart seemed ready to burst. He opened his mouth, and at first there was only a harsh gurgling. Instantly—and curiously—he was ashamed. He clenched his fist until the nails dug into his palms, and then he forced out the words.
‘I’m Paul Marlowe,’ he managed to say. ‘The only survivor ’ his voice broke and he had to start again. ‘The only survivor of the Gloria Mundi… When—when did you leave Earth?’
There was no answer. With a curse, he realized that he had forgotten to switch to receive. He hit the button savagely, and came in on mid-sentence from a different voice.
‘—name is Konrad Jurgens, commander of the Cristobal Colon,’ said the accented voice slowly in English. ‘We left Earth under faster than light drive in twenty twenty-nine, four subjective years ago … We are so glad to discover that you are still alive—one of the great pioneers of star flight. What has happened to the Gloria Mundi and your companions? We have seen the canals but have not yet made detailed studies. What are the creatures of this planet like. Are they hostile? How shall we find you?’
Paul’s eyes were on the moons, now very low in the sky. Somehow, he managed to keep his head.