For many days, Flane rode across the desert. This was the Barrenland
out here, uncharted, unexplored. For a thousand miles, the dun sands
flung their sheathing blanket over the earth. Only here and there was
anything other than this deadly sand: a rocky escarpment, or a stone
plateau with dry weeds blowing in the breeze. And the rock was as dead
as the sand.
A man could die easily out here, from thirst or hunger, or the terrible
heat. When he was two days on an aimless trail, Flane found water
bubbling under a lip of rock; that gave him strength to run down a
sand-hare and spit it with his blade. After that it was much the same,
for the hares abounded, and there was always Flane's deep spring.
The _megathon_ ate the sparse weeds, and thrived. Flane shared the cool
water with him, and rubbed him down nightly after stripping off the
ornate saddle and blanket. Together, they roved the Barrenland, always
learning. Affection born of the great still places of a world grew
between them, as it will wherever there are planets that bear diverse
forms of life.
On the roan's back, Flane ranged far and wide. He came to know the
vermilion sunset coating the sand in blood and the sunrise tinting it
with gold. In the saddle he stared at strange ruins poking above the
hiding sands, puzzled and wondering. He discovered olden roads beneath
scudding dust, and queer little beasts who scampered from his shining
sword.
Mount and rider grew lean and hard. Flane lost track of the days, being
too concerned with keeping soul fastened to his body to care much about
anything else; though often he sat and brooded on the lost key to the
Machine.
And over the fires that he made from weed-roots at the entrance to his
little cave, he thought of the girl with the flaming hair. Her features
nestled there amid the darting flames, eyes wide and searching as they
met his, her mouth seeming to yearn toward him. Occasionally he would
bury his face in his hands, and shudder.
Then came the morning when he filled his flagons with springwater, and
walked toward the roan _megathon_. Holding the beast's head on his
shoulder, he stroked the satiny jaw and pulled the short ears.
"We rot here, Saarl," he whispered, looking out across the desert. "We
could die as well by riding forward to seek our fate."
The _megathon_ tossed its shapely head and whinnied.
Flane grinned and hit his heavily muscled shoulder lightly. He threw
blanket and saddle on him, and buckled the cinch. Swinging upward, he
kicked a heel into Saarl's ribs.
Flane found the going not too difficult. The months they had spent at
the cave inured them to the mad sun, and to little water. And Flane
already knew the signs that meant the sand-hares were about. They rode
on and on, into the sea of sand, week after week.
It was the stallion that first sensed the thing in the distance. He
stood with nostrils flaring, head up, looking to the west. Flane rose
in his stirrups, staring. There was something yellow and sparkling
there, with something else twisted and caught around it.
"Let's go see, Saarl," he whispered, and let the roan run.
They circled the spaceship warily, the _megathon_ stepping on dainty
hooves, alert to fly. Flane had a hand on his sword-hilt, but when his
eyes beheld the evidence of years that had dwelt here a while and gone
away, he relaxed.
When they were closer to the ship, Flane saw the gigantic prism, and
awareness came upon him.
"It's the Great Prism," he told the animal, in awe. "We always thought
it half a legend, though the Princess assured me that it was real. But,
without the Machine, there were none who dared to seek it, for only a
few knew the way that led here."
* * * * *
Flane walked on foot around it. Built of sheets of glass, fitted and
joined together with the cunning of a master scientist, it glowed like
amber fire in the blaze of the sun. Though it nearly blinded him, Flane
went nearer and stared down through the sheets of glass, into the
interior. He saw great whitish globes standing on coiled springs, and
where the whiteness was, was a glowing fire that looked like the heart
of the sun.
Flane rubbed his eyeballs, turning away.
The rusted hull of the spaceship lured him. His gaze found a burst-open
section and he peered within. Backing out, he stared from prism to
ship, and back again.
"This fell from the sky," he mused, in the manner of men long used to
their own company. "It broke the prism, and--"
Flane gasped.
Could it be that this had something to do with the stopping of the
Machine? But no, no. In that event, there would be no need for a
key to operate the Machine. Yet deep inside him, Flane thought that
this tragedy might have to blame itself for what had happened to the
Klarnva. Somehow, at least.
Nimbly he went inside the ship and walked its metal floor. Here was
wonder piled upon wonder. This vessel was a city-state all by itself.
In the domed ceilings were lights, and in the rooms he passed were
machines, many and varied, strange. The lights and the machines were
dead. Had they been alive, it would have been even more miraculous to
Flane, for he had been brought up in a world where everything that
moved by motor depended upon the Machine. Curious, he went and ran his
hands over the smooth sides of the things he saw.
Do they, too, lie quiet because the Machine is dead? he puzzled. Yet
this thing that must have come out of the sky in this deserted place
was not like the magniships that the Klarnva had. It could not depend
on the Machine. No. It must have power of its own.
Elated, he ran from chamber to chamber, until he stood in a small room
with compressed quartz for windows. Dust was piled thickly on floor and
bench, and there were two queerly human heaps of dust sprawled on the
floor. Flane felt that he stood in the presence of a very great sorrow.
Childlike, he searched throughout the ship. In a drawer he found
pictures on paper, pictures far more lifelike than the paintings that
hung in the Museum of Art back in Klarn. He held the photographs to the
light, and gasped.
_He was in that picture!_
Flane felt faint, staring at himself. It was he, it was. The tall man,
lean and dark, with black hair was Flane. He was not mistaken. But the
garments the man wore were so odd! And the woman beside him, with the
tiny baby in her arms--Flane was positive he did not know her.
Flane sat down to riddle himself the question.
He remembered now that all his life he had been a little different from
the Klarnva. Where they were dull and apathetic, he was bursting with
vigour. Curious he had ever been, to the dismay of the Princess Gleya.
Often he was wont to take apart the various machines that the Klarnva
owned; dead machines they were, but exasperating to Flane, who wondered
why they did not work. In those days, he had not understood about the
Machine. He recalled now that Vawdar had said once to the Princess, "It
is his heritage. The space-wanderers' blood is in his veins." That used
to fret him, but now--
Now he understood. That man was his father, and that woman, his true
mother. The hate of the Klarnva for him, that expressed itself when the
_mekniks_ spoke of him among themselves, was explained. He was brood
of those who had smashed the prism. And, possibly, the Machine. They
beheld Flane, a living monument to The Catastrophe, always before
their eyes. Flane chuckled, understanding.
He stood up. If these were his people, then he was home. And, if this
were his home, he should know all he could of it.
His search of the ship was thorough, and it took five days. Some of
that time he spent in the saddle, for he had to eat, and there was
always the problem of water. On the third day he solved that problem.
He discovered hermetically-sealed tanks deep in the bowels of the ship,
and when he learned that they held water, his respect for his race
zoomed skyward. The water was warm, but it was pure.
At last he chanced upon a room that was filled with fascination.
From floor to ceiling, it housed machines. He spent hours over them,
pondering. They were different from the machines of the Klarnva, for
all of their machines had tiny globes atop them. These had no globes.
They had wires connecting them to the walls. Eventually he realized
that their sources of power were dissimilar.
If only he could learn the power of these people! The thought buoyed
him like a drug. After two days spent in the room, he was dispirited.
Whatever power the space-wanderers used was as dead as the Machine.
Flane swore and heaved a wrench at a wall.
The wall opened.
Something tumbled out, and from the mouth of it a purple flame sizzled
and burned, and ate away the wall and the wall beyond that.
Flane yelped and sprang. He stared in numb horror until he saw the
button on the thing, a button as obvious as a trigger. He crept close,
pressed it, and the violet flame stopped.
Flane shook for minutes, kneeling on the metal floor with the deadly
thing in his hands.
* * * * *
He knew nothing of atomic power, did Flane, but the quick mind of him
was alert to the power he held in his palms. Tentatively he pressed the
button again, directed the lavender fire, watched it eat up whatever
stood in its path.
"This is a weapon that is a weapon," he breathed, patting its shining
sides, his eyes dancing. With this in his hands, he could remake a
world.
Where the violet flame had been was an empty hole. Flane stared into
it, seeing twisted girders and gaping hullsides, and black sands below.
That was the desert, down there, and--
Something gleamed whitely beneath him. Stretching far out, he
scrutinized it. A skeleton lay there, blasted into fragments, scattered
apart. At one time that had been a man. From his position, Flane
thought that the spaceship must have killed him; caught him on the
sands, and crushed him, throwing his body.
Something else shone and glittered down in the sands. Something long
and bright, and with darkness at one end, although that darkness
glittered.