And all of truth.
Let me leave this land of mirthless men
And return to the home of my youth.”
Turning, Alec saw Dr. Lord, the astronomer. The old man was smiling faintly; the Earthlight coming through the window caught the wispy remains of his dead-white hair and produced a halo for him against the darkness of the room’s dim interior lighting.
“I didn’t realize you were a poet,” Alec said.
Dr. Lord’s voice was the whisper of a dying man. “Oh, yes. Back before the sky burned, when there were still girls for me to impress, I spent hours memorizing poetry. Between the poetry and the observation work, I made out rather well. You know, working all night at the observatory... you asked a girl to keep you company.” He chuckled faintly at his memories.
“Has the Council meeting started?” Alec asked.
“Yes, about ten minutes ago. Your mother said the vote won’t come until after considerable debate, and it would be impolite for you to be present while they’re trying to decide.”
Alec nodded. “I wouldn’t want to offend any of the Council members.”
“No, that wouldn’t do,” Dr. Lord agreed.
Turning back to the window, Alec thought, All of beauty’s there, and all of truth... and much, much more.
Dr. Lord moved up to stand beside him at the window, and Alec could see their faint reflections despite the deliberately low lighting of the observation dome. Lord was ancient, frail, his chalky skin stretched over the bones of his face like crumbling antique parchment. He breathed through his mouth, so that his lips were drawn back to reveal big, rodent-like teeth, surprisingly strong and healthy in his deathlike face.
Alec studied his own face and wondered what it would be like if he ever reached Dr. Lord’s age. He was taller than the old man, but not by much. Not as big as his father or most of the men he knew. His features were too delicate, almost feminine, and his hair curled in golden ringlets no matter how short he cropped it. But he had his mother’s dark, smoldering eyes. And he saw that there were tight, angry lines around his mouth. Tension lines. Hate lines.
“I was there when it happened,” Dr. Lord muttered, more to himself than to Alec.
Alec said nothing and hoped that the old man wouldn’t go through his entire litany. For a few moments the only sound in the dome was the faint electrical hum of the air fans.
“We had no idea...” Dr. Lord looked as if he was still dazed by it, even now, more than twenty-five years later. “Oh, I had proposed that perhaps the Sun emits a truly large flare every ten millennia or so... Tommy Gold had suggested it earlier, of course, and I was following his lead.”
He paused, and Alec tensed himself to beg the old man’s permission to leave. But, “When it happened, I was at the observatory in Maine... it was summer, but the nights were cool up on the mountaintop.”
Alec had missed his chance, he knew, and he could not risk being called impolite. So while the old astronomer rambled away, Alec stared out at the luminous crescent of Earth, narrowing his thoughts to the debate going on in the Council. He knew that the choice was between Kobol and himself. Kobol had the advantages of age, experience, and no personal involvement. As a Council member, he was physically present at the debate. No risk of impoliteness for him. Alec’s only advantages were his mother, and the urgings that burned inside his guts.
“...the sky just lit up. For a moment we thought it was dawn, but it was too early. And too bright. The sky burned. It got so bright you couldn’t look at it. The air became too hot to breathe. We ran down to the film vault, down in the basement, behind the safety doors where the airconditioning was always on. But they all died. Peterson, Harding, Sternbach... that lovely Robertson girl. They all died. All of them...”
Alec put a hand on the old man’s frail, bony shoulder. “It’s all right... you made it. You survived.”
“Yes. I saw you here. I saw this dome.” Lord’s soft voice was agitated, shaking. “I think I must have gone a little mad, back then. You have no idea... no conception... everyone dying...”
“But we found you,” Alec soothed. “You’re all right now.”
“It all burned. The sky burned. There was no place to turn to. Nowhere to go.”
Very gently, Alec led the old man away from the window. “Come on, let’s get you down to your quarters. You’re tired.”
Dr. Lord let Alec lead him to the powerlift. Usually it stayed unpowered and people clambered up and down using their own muscles. But for the old man, Alec touched the ON switch. A strong whiff of machine oil puffed up from the recess beside the ladder, and a motor whined to life, complainingly. The ladder rungs began creaking past them. Alec helped the aged astronomer onto one of the steps and hopped onto it beside him. Wordlessly they descended five levels, to the living quarters.
He left the old man at his door, then followed the rough-hewn corridor toward the settlement’s central plaza, where the Council’s meeting room was. The rock walls of the corridor were lined with pipes carrying water, electricity and heat: the settlement’s three necessities. Light tubes shone overhead, not so much for the aid of the pedestrians as for the benefit of the grass that carpeted the corridor floor.
As he padded on slippered feet through the meager, oxygen-producing growth, Alec wondered what it would be like on Earth. To be outside without a suit. Would he be frightened? There were stories about men going crazy, out in the open with nothing to protect them. And the gravity...
With a shake of his head, he dismissed all fears and strode doggedly toward the central plaza and the Council meeting room.
Chapter 9
There was a crowd in the central plaza. Alec knew there would be, but still it shocked him to see so many people in one place, milling around, not working, almost touching each other at random. The big high-domed cavern was buzzing with a hundred muted conversations.
The elaborately carved doors of the Council chamber were still closed. No one was allowed in or out while the Council was in debate. The doors had been lovingly designed and produced by one of the original members of the Council, after he had retired from active duty. He had died not long ago, and willed his remains to the food reprocessors.
Alec drifted through the crowd aimlessly, careful not to touch or be touched by any stranger. He was too nervous to wait in his quarters for word of the Council’s decision. But this crowd was making him even jumpier. He could see that everyone was reacting the same way: the more people who poured into the plaza, the more excited everyone became. The noise level was growing steadily.
“You look like a man in need of refreshment.”
The voice startled Alec. He turned to see Bill Lawrence, one of the settlement’s bright young engineers and one of his lifelong friends. Thick dark hair cropped short, beard neatly trimmed, Lawrence approached the world with a kind of stiff formality that melted into playfulness with his friends.
“Do I look that uptight?” Alec asked him, forcing a grin.
“Everybody’s that uptight,” Lawrence answered. “Why do you think they’re clustering here?”
Lawrence took him by the arm—a privilege granted only to friends—and guided Alec through the shuffling, chattering crowd back toward the stone benches that circled the dwarf trees at the far end of the plaza. Several more of Alec’s closest friends were there, sipping from plastic cups.
Alec sat in their midst, wishing that Lawrence’s brittle bones hadn’t ruled him out of the Earth mission.
