Cycle of Fire

wood and when these burn he uses them to light larger ones.”

The creature had doubts. So did most of the others; there was a general grunt of agreement when he said, “I will have to see this.” Dar carefully refrained from giving openly his equivalent of a smile.

“Will your Teachers be willing to wait until he has shown you, or should this thing be shown to them also?” This question caused some rapid discussion among the villagers, which culminated in a rapid journey by one of them to a small hut which stood near one side of the cluster of dwellings. Dar watched with interest as the fellow disappeared inside, and endeavored to decipher the faint mutters of speech that came out. He failed in this attempt and had to await the messenger’s return.

“The Teacher says to bring wood, such as the strange one needs, and let him see the building of the fire.” The natives scattered at once to their huts, while Dar filled Kruger in on the numerous items he had missed in the conversation. By the time this was accomplished wood was arriving from all directions.

None of it had come straight from the jungle; it had evidently been cut some time before and been drying in the huts. There was no reason from the shape of the pieces to suppose that it had been originally obtained for firewood, and every reason from the background of the people to suppose that it had not, but there it was. Kruger selected a few pieces and shaved them into slivers with his knife, then made up a small armful of larger material and stood up, signifying that he was ready. Dar started to lead the way toward the hut where the messenger had gone.

Instantly he was interrupted.

“Not that way, stranger!”

“But is not that where your Teachers are?”

“In a little place like that? Certainly not. They talk there, it is true, but they wish to see you and your fire-maker. Come this way.” The speaker started to retrace the path by which they had come to the village and the prisoners followed him. The rest of the population trailed along.

A well-marked path wound among the hot springs. The captives followed it toward an unusually large pool near the side of the clearing away from the now distant sea. Apparently this one overflowed more frequently than the others or else had a greater supply of mineral in whatever subterranean source it sprang from, for its edge was nearly three feet high. The water within the rim steamed and bubbled furiously.

The area around the pool was clear except at one point, where an object that looked like a detached lump of travertine projected from the rim. It was dome-shaped except for the flattened top and was about as high as the rim and perhaps five feet in diameter. Its surface was mostly smooth, but there were a number of deep pits scattered around its sides.

Kruger would not have looked at it twice, except for the fact that they were stopped in front of it and the entire population of the village gathered around. This caused the boy to examine the outcrop more closely and he decided that someone had done a rather skillful bit of masonry. Presumably the Teachers were inside; the small holes must serve as spy-ports and ventilators. No entrance was visible. Perhaps it was inside the pool rim, where he could not see, or even some distance away and connected by a tunnel. He was not surprised to hear a voice come from the mound of stone.

“Who are you?” The question was not ambiguous; the grammatical arrangements of the language left no doubt that Kruger was the one addressed. For an instant the boy was not sure how to answer, then he decided simply to tell the truth.

“I am Nils Kruger, pilot-cadet of the cruiser Alphard.” He had to translate the nouns into similes in the Abyormenite language but was reasonably satisfied with the job. The next question made him wonder whether he was doing the right thing, however.

“When do you die?”

Kruger found himself at a slight loss for an answer to this question. It seemed to be nothing but a simple, straightforward one about how long he had to live, but he found himself unable to answer it.

“I do not know,” was the only response he could give. This led to a silence from the stone at least as long as the one his own hesitation had caused. With the next words the hidden speaker gave the impression of one who has shelved, for the time at least, a puzzling subject.

“You are supposed to be able to make fire. Do so.” Kruger, completely at a loss as to where he stood with the invisible questioner, obeyed. There was no difficulty to the job; the wood was dry and Arren furnished all the radiation the little battery needed. The snap of the high-tension sparks sent the nearer villagers back in momentary alarm, though to Kruger it sounded much like Dar’s crossbow. The shavings caught instantly and sixty seconds later a very respectable little fire was blazing on the stone a few yards from the rock shelter of the Teachers. Throughout the operation questions had kept coming and Kruger had been answering them: why the wood had to be small at first, why he had chosen wood that was dry, and what was the source of the sparks. The answering was extremely difficult. Kruger faced roughly the same problem as would a high-school student asked to give a lecture on high- school-level physics or chemistry in French after perhaps a year’s study of the language. As a result he was still trying to improvise signs and words when the fire burned out.

The creature within the rock shelter finally satisfied himself on fires — or, more probably, on what Kruger knew about them — and proceeded to a matter which seemed to interest him more.

“Are you from another world traveling about Theer, or from one circling Arren?”

Dar simply did not understand, but Kruger understood much too well. He was thunderstruck, after the usual fashion of human beings who find their pet theories suddenly untenable.

“Witch-doctor my eye!” he muttered under his breath, but was able to think of no coherent answer for the moment.

“What was that?” Kruger had forgotten for a moment that hyper-acute hearing seemed rather common on this world.

“An expression of surprise, in my own language,” he answered hastily. “I do not think I understood your question.”

“I think you did.” Unhuman though the accents were Kruger had a sudden picture of a stern schoolmaster on the other side of the barrier, and decided that he might as well continue his policy of frankness.

“No, I do not come from Arren; I do not even know whether it has any planets, and Theer has no others.” The listener accepted the new word without comment; its meaning must have been obvious enough from context. “My home world travels about a sun much fainter than Arren, but much brighter than Theer, whose distance from this system I cannot give in your language.”

“Then there are other suns?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you come here?”

“We were exploring — learning what other worlds and their suns were like.”

“Why are you alone?”

Kruger related in detail the accident that had dropped his space-suited form into a mud pot, the natural conclusion of his friends that he had perished, and his survival by means of a fortuitous tree root.

“When will your people return?”

“I do not expect them back at all. They had no reason to believe this world had inhabitants; the cities of Dar’s people, which he has told me about, were not seen, and the village of these people of yours could not possibly have been detected. In any case the ship was on a survey trip which would last for quite a number of your years, and it might be fully as long after it returned home before the data on this system was even examined. Even then there will be no particular reason to come back; there is much to do a great deal closer to home.”

“Then to your people you are dead already.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Do you know how your flying vessels work?” Kruger hesitated at this question, then remembered that he had described himself already as a pilot cadet.

“I know the forces and technology involved, yes.”

“Then why have you not tried to build one and return to your world?”

“Knowledge and ability are two different things. I know how this world came into being, but couldn’t do the job myself.”

“Why are you with this one you call Dar?”

“I met him. Two people can get along better than one. Also, I was looking for a place on this world cool