Iago Iago is like a massive ball of yarn left lying in the hall of
the universe by some capricious cosmic cat. It is emerald in hue, and
when it is viewed from a great distance its atmosphere lends it a soft
and fuzzy effect. This effect diminishes as the distance decreases,
finally ceases to be a factor, and the planet emerges as a bright green
Christmas-tree ornament hanging upon the star-bedight spruce of space.
The Polysirians were expecting Nathaniel Drake. They had been expecting
him for many months. "I will arise and come back to you," he had said.
"I will appear in your sky, and come down to you, and you will know
then that His ghost did truly walk, and that it did not walk in vain."
Nathaniel Drake did not know that they were expecting him, however, nor
did he know that he had said these words.
He brought the _Fly by Night_ down in a grassy meadow, parked it on
extended anti-grav jacks, and drifted down to the ground. He heard
the shouts then, and saw the Polysirians running toward him out of a
nearby forest. He would have re-boarded his ship and closed the lock
behind him, but the tenor of their shouts told him that he had nothing
to fear, and he remained standing in the meadow, tall and gaunt and
ghostly, waiting for them to come up.
They halted a dozen yards away and formed a colorful semicircle. They
wore flowers in their hair, and their sarongs and lap-laps were made
of pastelsilk. The pastelsilk was decades-old. Had another trader come
down out of the heavens in times past and defiled this virgin ground?
Presently the semicircle parted, and an old woman stepped into the
foregound. Drake saw instantly that she was not a Polysirian. Her
Church of the Emancipation uniform stood out in jarring contrast to the
colorful attire of the natives, but it was not one of the mass-produced
uniforms worn by her compeers in the civilized sections of the satrapy.
It had been spun and cut and sewn by hand, and in its very simplicity
had attained a dignity that its civilized cousins could never know.
Somehow he got the impression that she was wearing it for the first
time.
She began walking toward him through the meadow grass. There was
something tantalizingly familiar about the way she moved; something
nostalgic. The brim of her kepi kept her eyes in shadow, and he could
not see into them. Her cheeks were sere and thin, yet strangely lovely.
She stopped before him and looked up into his face with eyes into which
he still could not see. "The people of Iago Iago welcome you back,
Nathaniel Drake," she said.
The heavens seemed to shimmer; the terrain took on an unreal cast. The
semicircle knelt and bowed its be-flowered heads. "I don't understand,"
he said.
"Come with me."
* * * * *
He walked beside her over the meadow, the ranks of the people parting,
and the people falling in behind; over the meadow and through the
park-like forest and down the street of an idyllic village and up a
gentle hill that swelled like a virgin's breast into the sky. The
people began to sing, and the tune was a thrilling one, and the words
were fine and noble.
On top of the hill lay a lonely grave. The old woman halted before it,
and Drake halted beside her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a
tear flash down her withered cheek. At the head of the grave there was
a large stone marker. The marker was intended for two graves, and had
been placed in such a way that when the second grave was dug the stone
face would be centered behind both.
"_Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord_;" the
Polysirians sang. "_He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of
wrath are stored; HE hath loosed the fearful lightning of his terrible
swift sword, His truth is marching on._"
Nathaniel Drake looked at the marker's stone face. One half of it was
blank. On the other half--the half that overlooked the grave--the
following letters had been inscribed: