“ARRGH!”
Groork raised his arms to shield his eyes as the shining creature’s side opened and more blinding violet light poured from within. Clearly this appointment had been preordained and marked the moment that the Lifemaker had chosen to make known to Groork the purpose for which the whole of his life so far had been the preparation. A chorus of voices sang thunderously from a bulge on the creature’s back, rising to a crescendo as if to announce the arrival of some great presence, and then faded. Groork moved his fingers from an eye to look...then gasped, and raised his head hesitantly in awe and terror. A figure had appeared, barely visible in silhouette against the glare from the shining creature’s interior. Its outline took on form and substance as it emerged—a broad, round-headed angel with a face that shone as fire, wreathed in glowing vapors—sent down from the celestial realm as the Lifemaker’s personal emissary to Groork.
“Oh, get up off your knees, you fool,” Zambendorf said irritably.
The screen of the transmogrifier that he was holding displayed REMOVE UP FROM YOUR KNEES. YOU ARE JOKING.
“Delete,” Zambendorf told it with a sigh. “Substitute: Rise up.”
“Arise,” the angel boomed, and advanced slowly a few paces. It held a frond from some strange tree that Groork didn’t recognize. A second angel had appeared behind it, standing in the opening in the shining creature’s side.
“There, Vernon,” Zambendorf said into his helmet mike. “Your first Taloid at close quarters.” The Taloid was wearing a tunic of woven wire, a thick cloaklike garment, and a dark cap of some rubbery-looking material. As it climbed slowly to its feet, it picked up a staff of metal tubing that it had laid by its side.
“It’s...amazing,” Price’s voice replied haltingly. “It’s so different from watching recordings up in the ship.” There was a second or two of silence. “What do you think it’s doing up here?”
“I’ve no idea...attracted by our lights and the flyer’s thermal radiation, probably. From some of the things Galileo said, I wouldn’t be surprised if it thinks we’re gods or something.”
“It’s uncanny,” Price said, staring.
“I am Zambendorf,” Zambendorf said, activating the transmogrifier again and pointing to himself; then he instructed the instrument: “Get name.”
“I am the Wearer,” the angel announced as the computers returned the Taloid pulse-sequence that had been equated to “Zambendorf”—the Wearer of the sacred Symbol of Life, Groork decided. Then the angel asked, “What is your name?”
“Groork, known as Hearer-of-Voices, son of Methgark and Coorskeria, and brother of Thirg,” Groork answered. He was surprised that the angel didn’t know.
“No, too long. Shorter please,” the angel said.
The celestial voices were rising and falling in the background again. They seemed to be saying, “Light and awe. Light and awe...” Or was it “Send light and awe”? Groork frowned as he tried to make sense of it. The angel was still standing and waiting. Why wouldn’t the angel accept his name? What were the voices trying to say?
And then Groork understood. This was his moment of spiritual rebirth, which would be symbolized by his being rebaptized with a new name. The angel wished him to repeat the name by which the Lifemaker wanted him to be known from now on, and which the voices were telling him. “Enlightener!” he exclaimed as the inspiration struck. “I am called the Enlightener!”
NAME OBTAINED, the transmogrifier screen reported. ENGLISH MATCH REQUIRED.
Zambendorf thought for a moment, and then said, “Moses. Spell M-O-S-E-S.”
Moses? the screen repeated.
“Okay.”
“I shall go forth from this place as the Lifemaker commands and enlighten the world,” the Enlightener declared, his voice rising in fervor. “I shall destroy the blasphemers and smite down the unbelievers who bow themselves not before the holy words that I shall bring unto them. I shall—“
“Stop! Thou jabberest. Makest not sense any. More simple. Shorter please.”
It wasn’t the angel that spoke, but the frond that the angel was holding, the Enlightener realized with a start—the angel was teaching the frond to speak. He stared in wonder. Then he realized that it was a miracle to show that the angel was truly a messenger from the Lifemaker. That explained its questions: The frond was like a child, and obviously couldn’t be expected to comprehend all the complexities of speech in an instant. “My task now,” he said to it, making his phrases short and simple. “Talk to world. Kill all Lifemaker’s enemies.”
“Talk to world means talk to robeings?” the frond asked.
“Yes,” the Enlightener answered.
MOSES’ JOB AT PRESENT—TALKING TO TALOIDS; KILLING HERETICS, the screen informed Zambendorf.
Zambendorf shook his head. “No! No! Killing each other is not the way. You have to understand that!”
The screen offered NOT KILLING EACH OTHER IS NOT A GOOD METHOD. HIGHLY PROBABLE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND.
“Damn,” Zambendorf muttered beneath his breath. “Delete. Substitute: Do not kill each other. Imperative that you understand.”
(Phrase 1) DO NOT KILL.
(Phrase 2) IMPERATIVE THAT = command?
“Oh hell...Delete phrase two,” Zambendorf ordered.
And the frond said, “Thou shall not kill.”
“Clarissa,” Zambendorf called into his radio. “How are you doing in there?”
“Nearly through. Why?”
“Is there any chance Otto can come out here? He’s more used to this damn transmogrifier thing than I am.”
“I’m done. I’ll be out as soon as I get a helmet on,” Abaquaan’s voice said.
Meanwhile the Enlightener was standing transfixed in wonderment. He had heard the divine command. But what new wisdom was the Lifemaker revealing? Was His power so strong and invincible that His faithful need have no fear of enemies? Were heretics, blasphemers, and unbelievers not to be punished? The Enlightener stared at the frond in the angel’s hand and puzzled over what the utterance meant. And then, slowly, his inner eye was opened. What did killing another robeing signify, apart from brutality and ignorance, and an inability to persuade by other means? It required no learning or schooling, no discipline and development of self, no comprehension of worth, or any aspiration to higher things. The lowest savages in the farthest reaches of the swamplands south of Serethgin were capable of that. They knew of no other way to settle their differences.
Truly this was a sacred moment that would be recorded in the Scribings, and this spot a holy place that would be visited by pilgrims and penitents for all the twelve-brights that were left to come until the world ended. The moment should be symbolized by an act that would immortalize it, the Enlightener thought, and the spot marked as the selected place of the angels’ coming. He looked around him and saw a smooth, flat rock, obviously placed there to serve his purpose. He moved over to it, and with the tip of his staff inscribed slowly and solemnly near the top of the slab the words:
THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
When he had finished he looked up, and saw that a third angel had appeared. “What more of me does the Lifemaker command?” he asked meekly.
Abaquaan took the transmogrifier from Zambendorf. “He seems pretty impressed by the message,” he said. “Maybe it’s a new idea to these guys. He wants to know if you’ve got any more of ‘em.”
“They mustn’t believe anyone who tries to tell them they’re worthless or inferior,” Zambendorf said. “But neither must they believe they are superior to any of the neighboring nations. All the nations must accept each other as equal partners and learn to cooperate in building a better future for all.” After some exchanges with the transmogrifier, Abaquaan had reduced this to something the machine could accept.
And the frond spoke once more. The Enlightener listened, then added the numeral 1 before his previous inscription and wrote underneath it:
2. THOU ART THY NEIGHBOR’S EQUAL. HELP THY NEIGHBOR, AND THY NEIGHBOR SHALL HELP THEE.
The Enlightener was being enlightened, as he would bring enlightenment to others. With just a few simple words, the Lifemaker had opened up a vision of a whole new world that could come to be, a world in which all robeings everywhere would prosper and help one another grow strong in a spirit of compassion, cooperation, tolerance, and understanding. All would be brothers, like Thirg. A new era would come to pass, in which killing and violence would be renounced and universal love among robeings would prevail—a stronger, deeper, and more enduring force to shape the world than anything ever conceived previously.
“What’s he doing?” Price asked as the Taloid finished scratching a second row below the marks that it had made on a large ice slab with its staff.
“Looks like he doesn’t carry a notebook,” Abaquaan replied. “I guess we must be saying the right things.”
Price stared at the Taloid for a few seconds longer. “I’ll be back out in a second,” he said, and disappeared into the open outer door of the flyer’s airlock.
“I’m all through,” Clarissa’s voice informed them. “How’s it with Rin-Tin-Tin out there?”
“We need a few more minutes,” Zambendorf said. He switched back to local to address Abaquaan. “They shouldn’t blindly accept anything that others tell them to believe. Facts are the only guide to what is true, and facts can’t be changed by wishing them to be otherwise.”
The Enlightener wrote finally:
3. BEWARE THE TONGUES OF DECEIVERS. LET THY WORDS BE KEEN HEEDERS OF TRUTH, FOR TRUTH IS NO HEEDER OF WORDS.
It went on until the Taloid had written several more rows, and then Price reappeared carrying a video camera-copier and a light-duty general-purpose plasma torch from the flyer’s tool locker. “What are you doing?” Zambendorf asked.
“Saving him the trouble of having to come all the way back up here if he forgets any of it,” Price replied. “Also I’m collecting samples of Taloid handscript.” He used the camera to transmit several shots of the slab into the flyer’s computer storage system, and then, satisfied that a record of the original script had been preserved, carefully traced over the markings with the torch to melt a deeper, clearer impression into the ice. After taking several shots of this too, he directed one of them to the recorder’s local hardcopier, and a few seconds later a sheet of Titan-duty plastic was ejected into his gauntlet and quickly rigidified in the low-temperature surroundings.
“You know, Vernon, sometimes I get the impression you’re too sentimental,” Abaquaan remarked.
“Maybe,” Price agreed cheerfully. He looked around, picked up one of the smaller ice flakes that lay all over the summit, and used the torch in fan-mode to melt its top surface all over. Then he pressed the plastic down onto it and waited a few seconds for the flake to refreeze, welding the ice and the plastic inseparably together. Finally, as an afterthought he melted some extra slivers of ice and allowed the water to flow over the face of the tablet, sealing the plastic beneath a thin protective layer of glasslike ice. The result was quite pleasing. He held it out toward the Taloid. “Here you are, Moses, old buddy—something for you to hang on the wall when you get home.”
“We’d better wrap this up,” Abaquaan said. “Time’s getting on.”
“Otto’s right,” Zambendorf agreed. “Happy now, Vernon?”
“I guess so. It just seemed...oh, like a nice thing to do.”
The Enligbtener gazed down in wonder at the holy Tablet lying in his arms, still glowing faintly—the Lifemaker’s commandments entrusted to him, the Enlightener, as the Lifemaker’s messenger chosen to carry the sacred Word to the robeing race. There was nothing he could say. The emotions surging within him were too violent and confusing for him to be able even to think coherently.
“Farewell, Enlightener,” the frond said. “Our work awaits. Do not remain here now. Good fortune to thee.” The Enlightener looked up and saw the frond-bearing angel turn away and return into the shining creature. Then the second angel—the one that had caused the living plant to bring forth the Tablet written in fire and sealed inside the solid rock—followed. Finally the angel that had appeared first of all backed slowly to the glowing opening, raised an arm in salutation, and was swallowed up by the light. Moments later the opening closed, and the cone of radiance that the shining creature had been emitting from a point just above vanished suddenly.
“Take thee hence from this place, Enlightener,” the creature roared, “or thou wilt surely be burned.” As if in a trance, clutching the Tablet securely under one arm and taking his staff in the other, the Enlightener retreated from the summit.
Only when the creature was lost to view behind the intervening rocks did his faculties begin functioning again. Still in a daze he retraced his steps downward to the stream. “Indeed thou wert meant to bring me to this place,” he murmured to his steed as he untethered it and remounted. “Now may we rest easy in our minds that Meerkulla has received many blessings in return for his sacrifice.” He turned the horse round and descended the slopes below. Only when he was almost at the trail did he see Captain Horazzorgio and the company of Kroaxian Royal Guard waiting for him.
According to Clarissa, they were between Padua and Genoa, at a point almost at the edge of the desert in which the first Terran-Taloid meeting had occurred—in fact not that far at all from the very spot at which it had taken place. Therefore the cruising time to Genoa would only be about fifteen minutes. Things hadn’t worked out too badly at all, Zambendorf thought to himself as he stood in the cockpit doorway and watched the takeoff routine.
“Any sign of Moses down there?” Price asked curiously from the cabin behind.
Abaquaan brought up a series of infrared views on the copilot’s scanner screen until one showed a bright dot on the lower part of a broad slope some distance below the summit on the side of the mountain down which Moses had disappeared. He switched in the telescopic viewer and produced a large, clear image. “He’s got a horse,” Abaquaan said. “Must have left it lower down someplace.”
“He’s riding a horse back down the mountain, with the slab you gave him under his arm,” Zambendorf said over his shoulder. “Want to come and see?”
Price moved forward beside Zambendorf and studied the screen for a few seconds. Moses had stopped and seemed to be staring down the hill at something. Abaquaan switched back to a low-resolution image, which showed more dots clustered together not far away below. A close-up revealed them to be more Taloids, also mounted. “I wonder who they are,” Price murmured. “Do you think Moses might be in some kind of trouble down there?”
“I don’t know,” Zambendorf replied slowly. He sounded concerned. After a second or two he turned his head toward Clarissa and said, “Take it down lower. Let’s have a closer look at what’s going on.”
“I have no fear of thee now, Horazzorgio, Defender-of-False-Faith,” the Enlightener called down the hillside, his voice loud and firm and his eyes glinting brightly. “For verily have I climbed the mountain and seen the angels, and I return now to be known henceforth as the Enlightener, who has been chosen to carry the Lifemaker’s true Word to all corners of the world and bring a new faith of love and brothership to all robeings. Heed my words well, Horazzorgio, for they are indeed His, the Lifemaker’s.” He held high a slab of ice that he was carrying. “Swear your allegiance now to the true faith of which I speak, and renounce thy false creeds, and thy transgressions shall be forgiven thee. Dost thou so swear, Horazzorgio?”
Uncertain if he could believe his ears, Horazzorgio was still too astonished to reply when he saw the sky-dragon rising from the mountaintop in the background. His imagers dulled in cold fear, and his body trembled. Twice now he had come to Xerxeon in pursuit of one or the other of this pair of accursed brothers, and twice they had eluded him. And now, just as before, the dragons of the sky-beings were appearing in the sky to protect them. He wasn’t about to mess with dragons a second time, he decided. No way was he going through that again...not for anything or anybody.
Horazzorgio jumped down from his saddle and fell to his knees. “I swear, O Enlightener!” he shouted. “Horazzorgio has found the true faith! I believe! I believe! Truly thou speakest the Lifemaker’s Word. What is thy wish, Chosen One? Thy servant awaits thy command.”
The troopers behind were looking at each other in amazement and murmuring among themselves. “What sorcery has this hearer worked?”
“Horrazorgio on his knees? This is surely a miracle.”
“What wondrous faith is this of which the hearer speaks?”
“I see no miracle.”
Then the flier swooped down low over the riders, released two flares, turned on its searchlight, and circled slowly to observe the scene. All around Horazzorgio, metal figures were hurling themselves to the ground and adding to a rising chorus of terrified voices.
“We believe! We believe!”
“Behold the Enlightener, the Chosen One!”
“Spare us sinners, O Dragon. We repent! We repent!”
Even the Enlightener was astounded by the efficacy of his own words.
“All this, and with such economy of effort?” he murmured to his horse as he stared disbelievingly. “I must truly be inspired.”
“What’s going on down there?” Clarissa demanded, totally bemused. “Karl, what in hell did you say to that guy?”
Price was looking worried. “Why are they all falling off their horses?” he asked. “Are they okay? What’s happening to them?”
“They look as if they’re worshipping Moses,” Abaquaan said incredulously. “He’s waving that videocopy you gave him.”
Zambendorf had gone very quiet. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he continued staring at the screen. At last he said in a faraway voice, “They’re all dressed very similarly, which suggests they’re soldiers. And this is a part of Padua, isn’t it.”
“So?” Clarissa asked.
“Galileo says that the Paduan horse-guards are among the most zealous and fanatical soldiers anywhere on this part of Titan,” Zambendorf replied. “Yet we’ve just demolished a whole squadron of them...and without a single one of the weapons that Arthur is yelling that he has to have—which we’d have a hard job getting our hands on anyway, even if we thought it was the right way for him to go.”
Silence fell for a few seconds while the others absorbed what he had said. At last Price asked him, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Zambendorf frowned, rubbed his beard, and looked back at the screen. “Believe it or not, but I’ve absolutely no idea, Vernon,” he replied candidly. “I do have a strange feeling, however, that we might just have stumbled on the answer to Arthur’s problem with the Druids.”