Cycle of Fire Read online

  “You mean that there really is a very big area covered with ice.”

  “Two of them.” Dar indicated his charts. Kruger frowned. Ice caps are noticeable features from space, and he had certainly seen none during the landing. Of course, he was not a trained observer, and had been paying more attention to the behavior of the pilot during the landing maneuver; and Abyormen’s atmosphere has its share of clouds. He could quite possibly have missed them for any of those reasons. There was certainly no chance of their having been on the dark side of the planet; at the time of the landing the world’s position with respect to the suns was such that there was no dark side.

  At any rate the presence of a glacial area was extremely encouraging, particularly right now. The jungle did afford some protection from the approaching Theer which had been lacking on the lava desert, but the higher humidity pretty well offset this advantage. Kruger did not dare discard any more of his clothing because of the ultraviolet light coming from Arren.

  As it turned out, he simply had to stop traveling for about fifty hours about the time of Theer’s closest approach — the time for which Dar had a phrase in his language, which Kruger naturally translated as “summer.” They camped by a stream which the boy hoped would not go dry while they remained, built a shelter whose thatched roof was meant to provide shade and was also kept wet to provide some evaporational cooling, and settled down to wait. Theer’s crimson disk, partly visible through the trees, swelled slowly as it moved eastward and slightly higher; continued to swell as it arched across the top of its path and back toward the horizon which Kruger still considered the southeastern one, though his proximity to the pole had made it more like northeast; reached its maximum size, and began visibly to shrink once more before it finally disappeared. It had swung through fully a third of its apparent loop in the sky in only fifty hours, for which Kruger was duly thankful. With its disappearance the journey was resumed.

  “Just how sure are you that we are heading toward the part of the coast nearest the island chain?” This question was finally understood.

  “I can’t be positive, but we’re somewhere near right. I’ve flown over this route a lot.”

  “You can’t be using landmarks, though; we couldn’t see anything much smaller than a mountain with all this jungle, and there haven’t been any mountains. Couldn’t we be working to one side or the other?”

  “It is possible but doesn’t matter greatly. There are low hills — volcanic cones — along the coast and you can climb one of those if we don’t see any islands from the shore.” Kruger skipped for the moment the question of why he should be the one to do the climbing.

  “But suppose even from a hilltop we can’t see any of the island chain. Which way should we travel? Wouldn’t it be better to strike for the coast now, so that there’ll be no doubt of the direction after we get there?”

  “But I don’t know the route you suggest.”

  “You don’t know this one, either; you’ve never walked it before. If your maps are right there’s no chance of getting lost, and much less chance than otherwise of wasting time once we reach the coast.”

  Dar Lang Ahn pondered this bit of wisdom for a few moments and then agreed unreservedly. The course was changed accordingly. All went on as before. It did occur afterward to Dar that perhaps Kruger had been motivated by a desire to get back into a volcanic region sooner.

  There were still several hundred miles to go, though Kruger was not sure of this — scale had been one feature left in considerable doubt on Dar’s maps. A novelist of the nineteenth century could have made much of every mile of it; the way was made difficult by all the natural characteristics of a rain forest. Undergrowth and swamps delayed them; dangerous animals threatened them; time seemed to stretch onward endlessly and unchangingly. An occasional lava outcrop, usually heavily eroded, served to ease travel for a few miles, but the jungle always returned.

  Very gradually, as they advanced, the portion of Theer’s loop above the horizon diminished from the eight days near the mudpots to seven, and then to six. Simultaneously the tilt of Arren’s diurnal circle changed. On the lava field it had been higher in the south than in the north; now the blue star held nearly even altitude all around the horizon. It was this observation which forced on Kruger’s attention the fact that they must be very close to Abyormen’s north pole. That, in a way, was good, but in another it bothered him. If they were practically at the pole, where was this ice cap? Or, since Dar stuck to his claim that it was across an ocean in the direction they were traveling, why wasn’t it at the pole? Kruger was sure that his problem could be solved in minutes by anyone with the training, but a sixteen-year-old cadet whose planned career involves piloting interstellar vessels simply doesn’t get that kind of education.

  In any case he was still not absolutely sure that he was interested in the ice cap itself; it seemed likely that Dar’s people had simply landed their ship at its edge and Dar was using it as a reference point. The boy was not quite sure what he should do when he got to the ship, but there was no doubt in his mind about the advisability of going there.

  All through the long journey the speed and clarity of their conversation improved. The language used was a hodge-podge of the two native tongues involved, but it contained a far larger proportion of Dar’s words. This was deliberate on Kruger’s part; when he did meet others of Dar’s race he wanted to be able to speak to them without needing Dar as an interpreter. Before the pair reached the coast they were talking quite freely, though reiteration and sign language were still frequently necessary; but the basic misunderstanding was still present and seemed less likely than ever to be cleared up. The trouble now was that misunderstandings frequently went unrecognized; each party thought he had expressed himself clearly, or understood perfectly, as the case might be, when actually the thought received was very different from that transmitted. An example of this occurred one day when the question of possible rescue by some of Dar’s people had arisen.

  “You say that a good many of your people make the same trip in gliders that you were making when you crashed,” remarked Kruger. “Mightn’t it be a good idea, when we get to the point on the coast that’s back under your regular route, to light a smudge fire to attract their attention? We might be saved an awful lot of walking.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t see how attracting their attention would help us, even if you could make a big enough fire to be seen.”

  “Wouldn’t they come down and rescue us?”

  “Well — yes, I suppose so. I’m afraid I don’t want to reach the Ramparts quite that quickly, though.”

  In this case, it is possible that the matter might have been cleared up if Kruger had pursued the conversation a little farther, but he had heard Dar speak of the Ramparts earlier and had gathered an impression that when he spoke of the ice region in that way it carried a religious significance which the little pilot was reluctant to discuss. Presumably these trips, then, were scheduled in a fashion which called for Dar’s presence only at certain times. Even mishaps such as those the pilot had suffered had their place in the program. This was a far-fetched idea, of course, but it fitted with many of the things Dar Lang Ahn had said and Kruger did not want to offend his little companion. Therefore the subject of the conversation was changed, and Dar assumed that he had explained what would happen, if by some mischance one of his friends were to examine the neighborhood of a fire closely and find Dar Lang Ahn beside it.

  “What will you do after getting to the ice?” was Kruger’s next question. If that was getting into a dangerous subject he assumed Dar could simply skip any matters he didn’t want to discuss.

  “There are a few years to go,” the other replied calmly. “Twenty-two, if I remember the date correctly. If there is a glider available I suppose I will continue my regular work. If not, then whatever the Teachers say.”

  Kruger had come to interpret the word “year” as a cycle of the red sun; therefore the time Dar had mentioned was about thirte
en months. Before he could ask another question the native put one of his own.

  “What will you do? Will you actually come all the way to the ice and face the Teachers? I rather thought that you might be planning to stay at the coast when we get there.”

  “I think it will be more comfortable for me to go on with you as long as you’ll let me. They’re your people, of course; if you don’t want me to see them, that’s up to you.”

  “I very much want you but wasn’t sure how you’d face the idea.”

  “Why should it bother me? I am in worse need of help than you are, and perhaps your Teachers will be willing to give me the assistance I would like. I suppose your group is busy, if you expect to go right back to work, but I can wait. Perhaps after the time you mention is up they’ll be free to give me a hand. I’ll be willing to do what I can for you folks in the meantime.”

  Dar did not answer this at once; by the time Kruger knew him well enough to have realized what a shock his words must have caused he had forgotten the details of the conversation. In all likelihood he never did realize Dar’s feelings at that moment. The answer was as noncommittal a one as the little pilot could manage at the time.

  “I’m sure something can be worked out.”

  The basic misunderstanding was more firmly entrenched than ever, at least on one side.

  Nevertheless a personal friendship was growing between the two. At any rate Kruger will swear to this; he knows how he felt about Dar, and has some pretty good evidence on how the alien felt about him. One piece of that evidence came during the journey, at the time they reached the coast — which they finally did, with several of the twenty-two “years” Dar had mentioned used up on the way.

  The jungle had thinned somewhat, and patches of lava and volcanic ash were exposed in greater numbers. Evidently the local volcanoes had been active fairly recently as geological phenomena go. There was a great deal more climbing than there had been for some hundreds of miles. None of the elevations was more than a few hundred feet high, but they were frequently fairly steep, the angle of repose for loose volcanic ash is of the order of thirty degrees. Remembering what Dar had said earlier, Kruger suspected that they would come in sight of the sea before very long, but it took him by surprise just the same.

  They had reached the brow of one of the hills, apparently just like all the others, when they came to a clearing larger than most which gave them their first real view ahead for many miles. There was plenty to see.

  Two fairly large volcanic cones, nearly a thousand feet in height, lay on either side of their course to the north. Between these sparkled a field of intense blue that could only be the body df water they had sought so long. Even this, however, did not claim much of the attention of either traveler. Instead, they both spent several minutes staring at the area between them and the sea-a region nestling in the cleft between the volcanoes and spreading part way up their slopes. Then they turned to each other almost simultaneously and asked, “Your people?”

  IV. ARCHAEOLOGY

  STRICTLY SPEAKING, there were no people to be seen, but they had rather evidently been there. Cities do not build themselves, and the area between the cones was a city whether seen by human or Abyormenite eyes. None of the buildings seemed very high. Three or four stories, judging by the window arrangement, was the maximum. The windows were apparently quite large — of course, at this distance, small ones would be pretty hard to see — but there was no reflection suggesting that any of them were glazed. This might, of course, be due to chance, but with both suns in the sky and thousands of windows, the chance that none of them would be reflecting light toward the travelers seemed pretty remote.

  Kruger realized almost instantly that if his ideas about Dar were correct, such a place would hardly have been made by the pilot’s fellows. However, he waited for an answer. This was several seconds in coming; Dar was expecting a reply to his own question. Kruger gave in first.

  “No, that place was not built by my people. I have never seen it or anything much like it before.”

  Dar took this statement with some reservations, but in turn denied any knowledge of the place.

  “The shelters at the ice cap are below,” he said. “These are built on the surface. My own place, Kwarr, is also on the surface, but the shapes and colors of the buildings are very different. I have never seen a place like this — either.” Dar hoped the last word was not too obviously an after-thought.

  “The place looks deserted to me. Let’s look it over, anyway.”

  It was here that Dar gave evidence of the friendship he now felt for the human being. Left to himself, of course, he would have avoided the city by as wide a margin as possible. He was not as happy as he might have been about Kruger’s remark concerning the city’s deserted state; the Teachers had been rather mysterious about some phases of this fire matter. In spite of his doubts, which came very close to being fears, Dar Lang Ahn made no objection to Kruger’s proposal, and the two started down the hill toward the city.

  There were several more miles of jungle to pass before they reached it. Dar noted with interest that even the usual animal sounds from the vegetation around them seemed to be lacking. If Kruger noticed this he did not mention it. He might not have noticed it, Dar realized; he had long since learned that his own hearing was considerably more acute than that of his friend. A lack of wild animals might just possibly mean that the city was not as deserted as Kruger believed, and Dar kept his crossbow ready.

  No reason to use the weapon developed, however. Eventually the two stood with the jungle behind them and only a few hundred yards of relatively open ground between them and the first buildings. They stopped where they were and examined them carefully.

  Still nothing moved and no suspicious sound reached even Dar’s ears. After several minutes of waiting Kruger started forward once more. He did not look back or ask whether Dar was following, but the pilot stayed with him — with thoughts quite indescribable to a human being seething in his head. If anything was going to happen — if his illogical trust of Nils Kruger was unjustified — now was the time it would happen. He still held his bow but, to his credit, it was not aimed anywhere near Kruger.

  The ground underfoot changed suddenly to firm pavement, on which Dar’s claws scraped faintly. Like the buildings, the pavement was made of lava blocks carefully squared and fitted. The buildings were not as high as Kruger had guessed from a distance — that is, not as high in absolute units; they did have the three or four stories that the window arrangement had suggested. Each story, however, averaged about five feet in height.

  The buildings themselves hardly constituted houses, at least from Kruger’s point of view. They were much too open for that. Not only was more than half the wall space taken up by unglazed windows, but the ground level seemed to consist mostly of doorways. They did have solid roofs and would presumably be some protection against rain, but there their usability as dwelling places seemed to stop.

  The doors themselves were a little odd, if they could be called doors. Kruger, after examining the outside of half a dozen buildings, found himself unable to decide whether the lower stories could be said to have a bell-shaped door every few feet, or that the outer walls consisted of oddly shaped pillars. The latter seemed a slightly better way to put it, since calling an opening four feet wide at the bottom, three and a half feet high, and shaped like a probability curve a “door” seemed stretching the usual meaning of the word.

  Both travelers realized one thing rather quickly; each had been telling the truth in denying any connection with the city. The ceilings were too low for human beings, and while Dar could have moved about inside any one chamber without trouble, the doors had certainly not been built for his species either. This realization almost made Dar uncock his weapon — but not quite.

  Kruger wanted to investigate the interiors of some of the buildings, but at Dar’s suggestion decided to get a better idea of the entire city first. They moved on down the street on which they had
found themselves when they first reached pavement.

  This led toward the sea but did not appear to reach it. The plan of the city was sufficiently complicated so that no one street appeared to go entirely across it. Kruger kept on toward the sea, believing that the largest and most informative buildings should be at the waterfront.

  He was partly right. The city did extend down to the sea, with more imposing structures appearing as they proceeded. However, the largest of these were not at the waterfront. They were well out in the harbor.

  It took some little time for Kruger to digest this fact. Dar was even more startled; he had been willing to accept evidence that Kruger had no connection with the builders of this city, but he had been perfectly sure that the builders themselves were fire-lovers — the location as well as the structural materials used seemed to prove that. Such a hypothesis, however, did not square too well with buildings seemingly built under water with complete disregard of the change of environment. Dar knew little about fire, but even he was aware of this inconsistency. He drew a little closer to his large friend.

  “I guess this place must be older than I thought,” Kruger remarked slowly. “It must have taken a long time to drop the coast or raise the water level enough to submerge those buildings. It couldn’t have been a sudden shock or the place wouldn’t be standing.”

  “What are we going to do, then?”

  “Well, I’d still like to go through one of these buildings. There’s no telling what we’ll find that might prove useful, and anyway I’m curious.”

  Dar found that he was curious too, in spite of the weight of eight centuries of tradition, and he followed Kruger without objection as the boy walked over to a nearby building, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled through one of the openings in the wall. Inside, Dar was able to stand up with reasonable head clearance; he walked around freely while Kruger remained on his knees for some time looking about him.