The room was not large. It stank of fish oil from the lamps. The walls had been scrubbed unnumerable times to remove lampblack, and there was only a tiny suggestion of design or color to them.
There was not much else to see. A small box with crank handles and a seat stood in the middle of the room. Wires ran from that to a small table set against one wall. Above the table was what looked like a dark windowpane. Kleinst, wearing a dark monk’s hood, sat in front of the desk. He stood when MacKinnie entered.
Nathan looked around the room in confusion. “Where is this fabulous machinery?” he asked.
LeMoyne chuckled. “Your friend there asked the same question.” He pointed at the table. “There it is.”
“No more than that?”
LeMoyne nodded. “No more than that. You could put all the knowledge of the human race in four units like that.”
MacKinnie did not believe him, but there was no point in arguing. He turned to Kleinst. “Have you made any progress?”
The scholar’s eyes gleamed. “Yes! Would you like to see?”
“Of course-”
“The sound units?” Kleinst asked, looking to LeMoyne. When LeMoyne nodded, Kleinst sat again at the console and touched small squares on it.
A tiny voice came from the walls. MacKinnie looked around in amazement.
“And except those days be shortened, there should not be any living creature survive,” the voice said.
“Matthew,” LeMoyne said. “Whoever was last down here loaded in that. The Temple priests have been listening to it ever since. They don’t know how to change record units. The audio unit discharges the accumulators in less than an hour and the power system is so weak that it takes days to charge up again.”
MacKinnie shook his head. “Do you understand this?” he asked Kleinst.
“Yes! Or almost. It is a new concept, yet not in principle different from photographic and recording equipment we use at home. Although more compact. And I don’t understand everything about it. I don’t know if we could read the tapes and cubes if we had them back at the University.”
“And if we can’t?” MacKinnie demanded.
“Then I must learn what we need,” Kleinst said. “I have a photographic memory. It is one reason I was selected for this journey.”
“There are many blanks in storage,” LeMoyne said. “It will not be difficult to copy them. But I fear your friend is correct. The equipment needed to read these records is very complex.” He went to a small, ornately carved cabinet near the table and laughed. “They made this into a tabernacle,” he said. He opened it and took out a small block. “We could put most of what you need in two or three of these, if only you had means to read it.”
“Copying them is simple!” Kleinst exclaimed. “Once we have more electrical power we can copy — and there is everything here! Textbooks for children which tell of physical laws no one at home has understood for hundreds of years. Handbooks, maintenance manuals for equipment I can’t describe — look! Sit down there.” He pointed to the box with handles. “Sit there, and turn that crank, and I will show you marvels—”
MacKinnie shrugged and did as he was told. The box made a whining noise as he spun the handles.
The dark glass above the table came to light. A diagram of some kind of complex equipment appeared. Then words.
“See! “Kleinst shouted.
“What does it mean?” MacKinnie asked.
“I don’t know. But — with time I will. And if not, some of the younger students can be trained. We will learn.”
“We have to,” MacKinnie said.
“I don’t quite understand who you are,” LeMoyne said. “But if His Reverence is satisfied, I am.”
“How long?” MacKinnie asked. “How long until we can have copies of everything?”
LeMoyne pursed his lips. “How long can you turn that crank?”
“It’s tiring. An hour, perhaps—”
“It would be useful to build a powered unit, but that is not easily done down here. If we could move this up to where we could connect water power—”
“Impossible,” MacKinnie said. “We hold this Temple, true, but these people are volatile. If we moved the relics they’d be scandalized, and God knows what they’d do.”
“Then you had better put your own officers to guard the doors,” LeMoyne said. “We can make the copies in four hours, but—”
“But indeed. But how long for you to learn?’’ MacKinnie asked Kleinst.
“I could study for years and not learn it all—”
“We don’t have years. We have weeks at most.”
“I know,” Kleinst said. “I will do the best I can. And we will make the copies …”
“Which we may not be able to read.” MacKinnie sighed. “The winter storms are coming. And we don’t know what’s happening at home. I know you’ll do your best.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
JURAMENTADO
Firelight flickered across an old man’s face.
Datu Attik’s eyes dimmed with hidden tears as he watched two juramentados complete their ritual washing. The women came forward to hold high the crimson cloths for the binding. The young men’s bodies shone in the yellow firelight.
They sang. Their death chants rang through the darkness around the camp. Otherwise there was silence. Later the others of the band, warriors and women alike, would sing death chants for these two, but for now the tribe had seen too much of death.
Eight hundred of the clan lay beneath the wheat stubble beyond the fire. Eight hundred stiffened and cold in the earth, eight hundred among the thousands who had fallen to the Temple army. How would the clan live without the young men? And now two more would join them, and one the son of the Datu.
Futile. Futile, thought Datu Attik. My son will die, and for nothing, for less than nothing, for worse than nothing. The Temple is strong. The robed fools have found new strength with their new sultan.
He ground his teeth at the memory. It had been so nearly done! The black-robed ones of the Great Temple of Batav had been defeated, done, were finished, penned into their city to starve while the maris roamed at will, ate the city’s crops, rode to the very walls in challenge and laughed at the black robes—
And then came the new sultan from the far west, a giant of a man who made walls march and destroyed the greatest force the maris had ever assembled together.
It was done, it was done, Allah’s will was done, and the maris must now return to their barren hills, but first let the city feel sorrow as the maris sorrowed. Let no man say his triumph was complete. Let the Temple mourn as Datu Attik mourned.
“No good will come of this.” The voice came from his right side, from where his second son lay at his father’s feet. “The sultan cannot be killed. My brother will make new war, and it is war we cannot win.”
“Silence. Your brother sings his farewell.” But it was true, Datu Attik thought. The sultan has said that if there is more war between the maris and the Temple, the marching walls will come to the fields in winter and pursue the maris to the end of the world.
He will do as he has said, and my sons will die, and my people will die. Why has Allah spared me to watch? Does He hate me so?
The song of the juramentados burst out and struck Attik like a blow, and the old man knew it was too late. These messengers of death could not be turned from their task, not by him or by anyone. Only their death would slow them now.
“O God Thou are Almighty, Allah Thou are Almighty, we witness that God is one God, we witness that Allah is Almighty!
“When the leaves of the Book shall be unrolled, when Hell shall blaze forth, when Paradise is near, then shall every soul know what works it hath made! Witness that Allah is One, witness that Allah is Almighty!”
Veiled women came now to aid the juramentados. They bound the young bodies tightly with scarlet cloths, tightly to hold the blood, scarlet to hide the blood from their enemies. Young, young men, his son was a young man, and now would die, but he would die for the glory of Allah—