The Quillian Sector

A long time ago now, but she had never forgotten and now it was all present in sharp clarity; the old, musty building, the smell of hay and manure, the dampness, the hard benches, the cold impact of the floor against her knees. The dimness. The enigmatic shapes. The monotonous drone of the Elder, who stood fiercely proud of his power and authority and urged them all to be humble and obedient and true servants of the Revealed Truth. A bad time, and one she remembered only in nightmares. But she was dead and not asleep, so why should she be dreaming of the harsh time of childhood?

"Dilys!"

She felt the touch and stirred and looked up into Dumarest's face. And that, too, seemed a dream because he was leaning over her, head thrust into a narrow opening, water running down his hair and face and, behind him, the night blazed with unrestrained violence.

"Dilys!" His hand reached out to slap her cheek. "Wake up, girl! Wake up!"

"Earl?" Water gushed through the opening and she gasped in sudden shock. Abruptly awake, she became aware of the heaving of her chest, the pounding of her heart. "I was asleep, I think. Dreaming. I-"

"You were dying." His voice was harsh with anger. "You kept the lid sealed too long and were breathing your own carbon dioxide."

A mistake both Egulus and Threnond had made as they shared a casket, but which Bochner had not. He had helped to check the lashings and adjust the tattered fabric used as a sail. He had even laughed into the fury of the storm.

"An experience to remember, my friend. At least, the weather is keeping the predators below. Now, if we can remain afloat-"

If the caskets held and the lashing kept them together. If the lightning missed and no rocks waited to rip them open with jagged teeth. If they could run before the wind and not drown or suffocate in their containers then, possibly, they might survive to drift in calm waters. But not yet.

Dilys gasped as Dumarest eased himself into the casket beside her. His clothing was glistening with water and his hands bore thin, ugly welts from the stranded wire used to lash the caskets together. When they were settled close, she said, "Is everything all right?"

"So far, yes."

"You were out there a long time."

Almost too long. He remembered her pallor, the waxen appearance of her face which had given her the likeness of a corpse. A big woman, she needed a lot of oxygen to maintain the fires of her body. He had warned her to keep the lid cracked so as to admit air but she had forgotten, or had been already numbed by inhaling the waste product of her lungs.

Now, shivering, she said, "The water's cold, Earl. So very cold."

"It'll be warm soon."

"I was dreaming," she said, "of when I was young. I came from a stern culture, Earl. Did I tell you that? A farming community which tried to follow the Revealed Truth. We used no machinery of any kind. Nothing but natural fertilizers. No energy other than that provided by natural means-muscles and the use of ropes and levers. Of pulleys and wheels."

"Machinery."

"No, Earl. Such things were not considered to be that. We used no artificial means of power, but we had a windmill and a water wheel and…" She nodded, almost asleep, then jerked in his arms, gasping. "They killed a man. Stoned him to death. They tied him up by the wrists to a post and stood close and threw stones at him until he stopped screaming. Stopped moving. It was horrible!"

Another pause. Water blasted through the narrow crack and drenched her face and hair, and lightning blazed to hurl brilliance through the transparent lid. In its glare her lips looked black and her hair silver.

"Why?" Dumarest shook her. "Why did they kill him?"

"What?" She gasped again, her breasts pressing against his body, eyes blinking as they tried to focus. "The man? Why, he'd devised a system of mirrors to reflect the rays of the sun so as to heat water in a boiler and so produce steam. With it, he turned a painted wheel set with bright crystal. A toy to amuse the children, Earl. A toy-and they killed him because of it."

"For making a machine?"

"Yes," she said dully. "For making a machine."

"And the windmill and water wheel?"

"Were allowed under the Revealed Truth. The wind blew and the water flowed, but the sun did not boil water and to force it to do that was acting against the creed. It was to invite the seeds of destruction to cast down the race again."

Dumarest said quietly, "From terror, they fled to find new places on which to expiate their sins. Only when cleansed will the race of Man be again united."

The creed of the Original People-was Dilys one? Had she originated in a commune of the sect? Had the "Revealed Truth" she had mentioned contained the belief that all men had originated on one world and that world had been possibly Earth?

Terror-Terra.

An easy enough transition from one to the other and if she knew, she might, in her present state of mental fog induced by too high a percentage of carbon dioxide, be induced to betray the closely guarded secret.