Lord Tern's appearance, but how could he explain what he and Dorland had felt inside that room? 'Maybe the Tal Tahir transmitted the image from somewhere else.'
'Transmitted?' Selmer asked.
'Like fartalk, but with pictures as well as words.' That would explain why Lord Tern hadn't left the chauka, even though Paul was sure the creature had sensed their presence in the cabinet. If he was only a projected image . . .
But if he was only an image, how could he detect our presence^
Karyn shook her head. 'I don't get it.'
'Paul's suggesting that the picture of Lord Tern was sent from someplace else,' Selmer said. His eyes returned to Paul. 'There would have to be a receiver.' He hesitated. 'The chaukaT'
Paul shrugged. 'Could be.'
Karyn's brow furrowed. 'If the picture was transmitted, where did it come from?'
That was the obvious question. 'There's no way to know,' Paul admitted. 'If the transmitter's powerful enough, it could send the image from anywhere on the planet. Most of Clarion hasn't even been charted. There might be a Tal Tahir city that hasn't been found yet. Or the Tal Tahir may not even be on Clarion anymore. The chauka may be capable of communicating over a long distance.'
'Well . . . maybe,' she said doubtfully. 'But that would mean they've been communicating with elders of the Holy Order for two hundred years. Why wouldn't they come here?'
Paul shrugged. 'There are a lot of questions. We may never know all the answers.'
'We know one thing for sure,' she said. 'The chauka is the link between High Elder Brill and Lord Tern. There's no doubt of that. That means we have to get back to the temple and destroy it.'
'No.'
Everyone turned to look at Dorland.
'We can't do that,' he said. His eyes were clear now, and filled with a certainty of purpose that Paul had never seen before. 'The chauka is our 116 William Greenleaf CLARION 117
only way to contact Lord Tern. We have to keep it open.'
Paul issued a harsh bark of laughter. 'You can talk to Lord Tern if you want to. I never want to see him again.'
'We have to.'
'No, we don't. Maybe arkies will someday, but not us. Besides, you're forgetting something. We can't reach Lord Tern or anyone else with the chauka because we don't know how to operate it.'
'Let's go back and break it,' said Selmer.
'Nobody wants to do that more than me,' Paul said. 'But I don't think we'll be able to get back into the temple so easily. There were more sentries than you expected tonight. Brill has obviously pumped up security around the temple. Now that he knows we got inside, he's likely to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.'
'They haven't had time to get organized,' Karyn argued. 'They won't expect us to hit them again so soon.'
'I think there's someplace else we should go,' Dorland said.
Karyn opened her mouth, then looked at
Dorland and kept silent.
'The pedestals we saw inside the chamber—I've seen them before.'
'Where?' Karyn asked.
'A place my father took me to,' Dorland said.
'We were exploring. My father was Second Speaker. He could move freely through Chalcharuzzi. We had gone to the other side of the city, close to the river, when we came across a building that caught my father's interest.' He
