Dully, despite all his hopes and plans, he knew himself a complete and
total failure as a god.
* * * * *
Her hair was black as the tip of a raven's wing, parted in the middle,
and drawn back over tiny ears. She had black eyes and a wide, crimson
mouth that kept smiling at him, gently. She stood in the midst of the
cloaked _ardth_-men who stared at him as they listened to the voices of
the airmen who had captured him.
Tyr grew uncomfortable under her steady gaze. He shifted his feet,
feeling silly, looming so big above the smaller pilots. He felt that
they all were laughing at him. What a god he was! No wonder they
laughed at him secretly. A god who was the protector of his race,
allowing capture by three pilots he could have killed with three blows
of his big hands.
The eyes and the mockery of the men he did not mind, but the steady
eyes of the woman--
Forget her, and look about you, Tyr. This is a room of the Old Ones,
with its silver and black-glass windows arching a hundred feet up along
the wall, and the hooded eagle design carven into the stone and wood.
A highbacked chair stood empty on a rostrum as the man who usually
filled it stood with the others, watching him. This was wealth, from
the priceless red damask drapes at the windows to the hand-laid tiles
beneath his feet.
It was no use. Her dark eyes were too steady.
"A lie," said one of the Old Ones calmly. "No man could do what he did."
"He is no man, sire. He is the one the Trylla worship. He is--Tyr!"
They started at that. The pilot had told his story cleverly. He grinned
with self-appreciation as the murmurs and the cries rewarded him. Tyr
knew the closer scrutiny of the eyes beneath drawn brows. They ate him
up, those eyes. Especially the eyes of the woman.
A lean man with a bald head and iron-grey mustache stepped forward
and walked around Tyr, his glittering eyes probing. Shaking his head
dubiously, he said, "Katha, you're our biochemical expert. Can it be?"
The woman with the black hair came toward him, swaying gracefully.
"I must make tests, Space Commander," she said, and Tyr liked the
hoarse vibrancy of her voice. It sent tingles down his spine. But maybe
that was the black eyes of her that smiled up at him as she asked, "Is
it true, what he says?"
"Yes, it's true. I outran their planes. I could have killed them, but I
did not choose to."
"Then why didn't you?" she smiled.
"Because I--show me to your commander. I want to treat with him. That
is why I suffered capture. I will offer peace for peace. All I ask--"
The lean man with the bald head came around in front of Tyr and stared
at him with cold eyes.
"I am Space Commander Ronald Mason," he said flatly. "I am in charge of
Expeditionary Space Force to the Fornax Cluster. You will offer peace?
But there is no war."
Tyr held the snarl in his throat as he replied, "But there will be war,
unless the _ardth_ are willing to deal with me for the liberty of the
Trylla."
Mason smiled, but Tyr saw the flecks of passion deep in his ice-blue
eyes. "The Trylla are a free race."
Tyr said patiently, "The Trylla worship me. They think I am a god. I
know, and you know, that I am nothing of the sort. Yet I would help
them, if I could. You cannot keep me here, if I seek to escape. I can
plunge this planet into the bloodiest war you ever saw. But I do not
want to do that. I seek only peace. Peace, and some sort of pride for
the Trylla, that they may once again hold up their heads--"
Mason interposed, "A laudable desire. But the Trylla are quite content.
Otho tells me they will make no trouble. As for your idle boast of
escaping--"
Space Commander Mason gestured and turned away with, "Test him, Katha.
See why his responses vary so far from the norm."
Red anger beat up in Tyr in mounting pulsings. He bit into his lip and
eased up to the tips of his toes. His muscles writhed. He--
A cool hand touched his forearm. The black eyes were there again, and
the red mouth was smiling at him.
"The tests? Please?"
Tyr licked his lips, confused. He looked at the _ardth_, and down at
the girl, whose eyes were sapping the mad rage in his heart. He said,
"Yes, the tests."
"Follow me."
* * * * *
The room was big and white, and fantastically clean. Chrome and
plasticine gleamed and shone under the bluish-white ceiling that
diffused soft brightness into every corner. A fluoroscope machine
stood against the north wall. On tables were set scalpels and needles
and rolls of cotton. Electronic ray-machines, microscopes and
cyclotroncancereas peered beyond them. This was the biochemical science
of the Old Ones inside four walls.
Katha closed the door behind her and loosed her black cloak. She was
garbed in black blouse with a star-and-bar in silver threaded into the
material. Tight trousers, white, gave her a streamlined look.
"Be comfortable, please. This will not hurt, what I am about to do."
Tyr watched her roll a big machine out, saw her thrust a needle with
a handle into a jar of white liquid. She saw him watching her, and
laughed softly.
"You are like a caged animal. You do not like walls, do you?"
"No. I prefer the desert."
"You have spent all your life on the desert?"
"All. Ever since I was small."
She turned from a wad of cotton that she was unrolling to regard him
thoughtfully from under long black lashes.
"A boy. What of your parents?"
"I don't remember them, if there were any to remember. The first thing
I recall is sand under my feet, and running. The sun was always my
friend. I love the sun. It feeds me. I need nothing to exist, other
than the sun."
Her left hand was warm where it caught his wrist. The damp cotton was
swept across his flesh swiftly.
"I remember a lot of things about my youth. Unconnected things, like
the first day I found the blue lake and the silver forest. The day I
killed a _panth_ with my bare hands. The first night I saw the stars,
and recognized them for what they were."
Katha held his hand in hers and said, "I am going to draw blood. It
will hurt--a little." As the ruby liquid oozed from his wrist, the
woman went on speaking. "And you cannot recall anything beyond that?
Only that you were a boy, and that you grew up?"
"Only that. It was many years before I saw another ... human. The
Trylla are not desert-dwellers. They like their cities. But I saw a
caravan, and came close to examine it, and when the guards saw me, I
ran so swiftly they started rumors."
Her mouth smiled in amusement as she walked across the room.
"No wonder. A man who can outrun three aircraft is quite a runner."
"From that began the tales about me. A hunter would shoot and miss.
That started my invincibility legend. After many years, during which I
found the Tower, they sent a delegation to me, to ask me to be their
god, to take the ruby throne."
"How did you learn to speak, if you never knew other men and women?"
Tyr paused. Some of his education he had gotten from the books in
the Tower. His other knowledge, and it was vast, he secured from
eavesdropping in the narrow alleys of Yawarta.