had known to a dead and grossly pock-marked world that looked as if it had been visited by some gargantuan plague but still, withal, retaining its own terrible beauty.
They watched and listened to Ma'el as he talked about his plans for them, and filled their minds with answers to questions they knew not how to ask, which were even more exciting and wondrous than the scene outside. He told them that he was the only member of his race to visit Earth. He had been sent there by the Synod, which was the ruling group of the Taelon people, to investigate Earth for as long as he deemed it necessary and to report on his findings-'
'… The completion of my report has become an urgent necessity for several reasons,' he went on. 'Time is not a problem for me, but it is for you and the short-lived race to which you belong. That was why I have decided to disobey the Synod's specific instructions and reveal this and lesser secrets to you…
'That is also why,' he continued, 'I shall take you to Cathay, and to many other lands, by a faster and more direct means than hazardous sailing ships and camel caravans that are prey to robbers. Such methods of travel, while attracting less attention to myself, would waste years of traveling time as well as placing your already short lives in jeopardy.
'You have been given this knowledge because you two, more than any other members of your race previously employed by me, are capable of performing a unique service for myself and ultimately for my people.'
'But who are we,' said Sinead, 'that we should be singled out for this revelation? A young woman damaged in mind and body as a child, but now recovering…' she squeezed Declan's hand, '… and a hulking great warrior with so many muscles that the sharpness of his mind is often hidden by them. I ask again, why us?'
'I am trying to tell you,' said Ma'el gently, 'but you must have the patience to wait until you receive the whole answer. Voluntarily separated as I am from the Commonality and the immaterial mental force that holds the thinking of all our people together, my own ability to foretell my future has been diminishing to a frightening extent The timesight is a vital necessity to the continuance and completion of my work here, but I am fast losing it That is why I have ignored another Taelon prime directive and given timesight to your people so that, through yourself among others, I would be able to see into this world's future. Initially you were a disappointment to me, not through any fault of your own but because of the mind-damaging incident in your past which, I thought wrongly, had rendered you physically and emotionally sterile and, as a result without a genetic extension into the future. I was considering letting both of you go. That would have been the greatest mistake of my life because you, Sinead, have acquired a timesight that is unique in its power, accuracy, and temporal range…'
'But why?' Sinead broke in. She squeezed Declan's hand again and went on, 'I know that I had a change of feeling and that now I will have descendants who will form the organic pathway that gives me timesight into the far future. But why am I so good at it?'
The old man looked slowly from Sinead to Declan and back again before replying.
'What I tell you now is partly speculative rather than entirely factual,' he said, 'because, regrettably, we Taelons do not have the intense levels of physical attraction and emotional involvement that are possessed by your shortlived species. It is possible that, even though you disliked each other intensely in the beginning, when continued close proximity and shared dangers forced you into recognizing each other's better qualities and depths of character, the emotional potential that built up between you was so intense that when the change of feeling came and you joined, the stimulation of your future time sense was unique in its strength. On Taelon such an intensity of emotional bonding is unknown, and on your own world it must be rare. That is the best answer I can give you.'
Sinead looked uncomfortable and said, 'Ma'el, are you telling us that we are the greatest lovers there have ever been?'
Declan gave a small laugh to hide his embarrassment. 'I would think that all lovers feel like this about each other,' he said, then added thoughtfully, 'but in this case it is probably true.'
Before Sinead could reply, Ma'el raised a hand to point and said, 'Your moon is less than two of its diameters distant and you have work to do. Declan, position the vessel for a landing in that large crater with the low, central peak.'
'Someday,' Sinead said in a quiet voice, 'somebody is going to name it Tycho.' At last the lessons were over for the day in a place where there was neither day nor night, Ma'el had urged them to rest and placed them in a small room whose walls had been made opaque except for the one that looked out on the beautiful blue and white Earth that was hanging low above the crater's rim and dimming the background stars only slightly. Sinead was trying to do the impossible, which was to move her body closer than it already was to his.
'Earlier,' she said softly, 'you told Ma'el that the most beautiful and wonderful thing you had ever seen was the Earth and the stars in space. You also said that we were the world's greatest lovers, probably. Probably?'
Declan raised a hand to caress the back of her neck at the hairline, then moved his fingers slowly and lightly down the length of her spine, hearing her soft, ragged intake of breath.
'The Earth and stars don't wrap themselves as tightly around me as you do,' he said, 'and as for being the world's greatest lovers, we need more practice…'
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ma'el Report. Day 112,178…
The advanced instruction in ship handling was completed with the period it took for their moon to circle twice around its parent planet, a learning time that I consider not only satisfactory but impressive. The operating principle governing instantaneous navigation through the dimensional layers of quasireality, while they learned to perform the required hand movements with precision, were difficult for them to grasp. In a gross oversimplification, I finally explained it by spreading out Sinead's white linen burnoose, marking it with a spot of dark liquid, and then fold it so that the stain was copied onto a different part of the garment before spreading it flat again to show the distance that could be traveled instantaneously between the two marked places. The demonstration enabled them to understand how, if not why, interdimensional travel worked.
'This illustrates once again the essential difference between intelligence and education. These people of Earth are uncivilized, technologically backward, and woefully ignorant, but they are highly adaptable and intelligent. With the possession of intelligence, especially where these two are concerned, ignorance is a temporary condition.
'With this purely organic life-form, a prolonged stay in the light gravity of their moon means that muscular deterioration with a consequent loss of physical coordination will gradually take place. This could prove embarrassing and even dangerous for them in the Earth environment, so their return should not be long delayed.
'The lack of a breathable atmosphere on this world means that they have been unable to leave the ship, but this close confinement together does not seem to worry them…'
–
They had come out of orbit over the Mediterranean and were descending toward Alexandria to overfly the course they had been following in the wagon at an altitude at which the vessel's physical shape would be mistaken for that of a high-flying bird, but low enough for them to see clearly the remembered contours until they passed over the caravanserai and new territory began to unroll like an endless carpet below them.
They continued to follow the well-used camel trail that some poetically minded merchant had named the Golden Road to Samarkand and on to the famed Dzungarian Gate in the mountains above Lake Ebi Nor, and thence across central India with its green jungles, lush grassland, deserts, and richly decorated palaces to the Jade Gate that was set in the spectacular and recently completed Great Wall which guarded the eastern flank of the world's most ancient civilization and empire of Cathay. They were staring in awe and wonder at the structure that followed the contours of the mountains and valleys like an endless square worm of stone, when Ma'el broke a lengthy silence.
'This is the surface route I originally intended to follow,' he said, looking at Sinead in the control position but addressing both of them, 'when it seemed desirable to conceal from you my true nature and that of the work I came to do on this world. You can estimate for yourselves the proportion of your short lives that would have been wasted merely in traveling to visit the far-flung places and people in order to update my report. That wastage, and the secrecy that would have caused it, is no longer necessary because your limited life spans and abilities, especially
