color?”
“That’s right. Great, beautiful physical specimens. Rather a golden color.”
The captain fiddled with his small zoomer again, finally located something and switched it to the compartment’s large screen for all to see.
It was a small group of the Dawnworld people, both men and women. All were dressed in no more than loin cloths, or short kilts. All seemed approximately twenty-five years of age. All were in obvious sparkling health.
“These, eh?” the captain said, his voice strange.
Ronny looked at him. “Yes, of course. Those are the Dawnmen. They don’t look particularly hostile or aggressive, do they?”
Volos said very slowly, “That wasn’t a Dawnman on the top of the pyramid.”
Ronny said, “If Baron Wyler is in the vicinity, it means two things: No matter how much of a headstart he got on us, he hasn’t managed to get what he came after, as yet. Which means, in turn, that we’ve got to get a move on.”
All the others looked at him.
“Well, what’s the program?” Birdman asked.
“The Baron—if that’s his craft we’ve detected—is on the ground,” Ronny said thoughtfully. “We’re going to have to land, too. Skipper, what say that you edge over a mile or so, beyond the limits of this city, or whatever it is, and drop one of us to reconnoiter?”
The captain turned to his control panel, silently.
He drifted the
Ronny went to the hatch, Birdman and Takashi accompanying him, the others remaining in the control compartment, glued to the screens.
Lieutenant Takashi eyed the scanners built into the bulkhead over the hatch. “Almost identical to Earth atmosphere, Bronston,” he reported.
Ronny said, “Well, here goes nothing, then.”
The captain came up behind them.
“Citizen Birdman, Lieutenant, would you leave me with Citizen Bronston for a moment?”
Phil’s eyebrows raised and he looked at Ronny, but then shrugged, and following the junior officer, went back into the control room.
Ronny asked, “What was it you saw at the top of the pyramid?”
“That’s what I came back to tell you. I thought perhaps you’d just as well not alarm the girl—and the balance of the ship’s complement, for that matter.”
Ronny looked at him.
The captain cleared his throat. “It was what seemed to be an altar, and on it, a man.”
“A Dawnman?”
“An Earthman. Or, to be more accurate, I suppose, a Phrygian. But, at any rate, a member of the human race, not a Dawnman.”
Ronny sucked in air. Finally, he said, “All right. Drop me. Then take off again. I’ll keep in touch, through Agent Birdman. If anything happens to me, he’s in command.”
“Right,” Volos said. There was a certain respect in his voice now, which had hardly been there in his early dealings with the Section G operatives.
When Ronny Bronston had gotten a good thousand yards from the
He turned and looked about him.
It was still a park. A garden.
He shook his head in disbelief.
And not ten feet from him, some sort of door opened in empty space. For the briefest of moments, he could see into what seemed to be living quarters of a man-type being. Chairs, tables, decorations…
But then a body blocked his view. A Dawnman came out and began walking toward him. The door, or whatever the opening was closed again.
Ronny was gaping, his jaw sagging. He shook his head for clarity.
The Dawnman, walking briskly and looking to neither left nor right, passed him by no more than three feet.
He could have stepped off a pedestal in a Greek temple devoted to the god Apollo. He was approximately six and a half feet tall and would have weighed approximately one hundred and ninety. His skin was golden, his hair dark cream. His eyes were blue and very clear, and there was the slightest of smiles on his lips.
He wasn’t ignoring Ronny Bronston blindly, he was ignoring him enthusiastically, avidly, even vigorously, if that made sense.
He walked right on by and went about his business.
Ronny stood there for a long moment, blankly.
Perhaps the other was blind.
No. Ridiculous. A man didn’t stride along as carefree as this young man was doing, without benefit of sight. He was about to top a slight hill, and would be lost to view. On an impulse, Ronny ran after him.
He called, “Say!”
The Dawnman either didn’t hear, or didn’t bother to answer. He strode on. Back from him floated a trill of song. Well, not exactly a song. Sort of a happy cross between song and whistle. It had a beautiful lilt.
Ronny called, realizing that the use of Earth Basic was ridiculous, “Wait! I want to talk to you!”
But the Dawnman passed over the rise and, by the time Ronny Bronston got to the top of the hillock, the Dawnman had disappeared.
Ronny looked about him, bewildered. There was no place for him to have gone in such short order. But then he remembered how the Dawnman had emerged from what had seemed open space. Without doubt, he had disappeared into another such… such… What was it?
And even with these thoughts in mind, Ronny walked full into… what was it? He smashed, at full pace, into an invisible barrier. He sat down, abruptly, his hand to his nose, which, he at first thought, must be broken. It wasn’t. In a couple of minutes, still sitting, he got the nosebleed under control.
Then he stared accusingly at… at what? At nothing. Immediately before him seemed a beautifully kept lawn leading to a small grove of trees. Beyond the grove he could see a stream of unbelievably clear water.
He reached a hand forward, tentatively.
He could feel… what? A glass-like substance? He supposed so. He traced it from the ground up as far as he could reach, and then he walked slowly along it, ever feeling.
Seemingly, it was a wall. But he could see through it perfectly. No matter how close he brought his eyes, he could not see it, however.
He could hear his communicator hum in his pocket. He took it out and flicked open the lid. Phil Birdman was on the screen.
He said, anxiously, “For a minute, there, we thought we saw one of these Dawnmen right near you.”
“You did.”
“Well, what happened to him?”
Ronny said sourly, “He evidently came out of one house, walked down the street aways and into another.”
Phil said, “Are you all right?”
“Except for a busted nose, I’m all right. This planet isn’t depopulated. They evidently just don’t like the idea of cluttering up the scenery with a lot of buildings, so they camouflage them. For all I know. I’m in the middle of a big city right now. No, I guess I couldn’t be, or I’d see more people out here in the open.”
“Camouflage? We don’t see any camouflage.”
“Oh, knock it,” Ronny told him. “It’s
“Right. I talked with Sid Jakes. He said to play it by ear.”
Ronny grunted. “Tell him I’m playing it by nose, instead.” He flicked the communicator off.
