way to Earth. Instead, he looked at artistic impressions which could have no association with reality. Again he walked along the walls, looking, studying, trying to remember.
Had there been an archer in the skies? A man with the body of a horse drawing a bow? A woman emptying a pot of water? A pair of twins. A set of scales? A crab?
Not actual representations, but a pattern of stars, bright points which if followed with a marker would have left such designs. He remembered nothing, and such rudimentary portraits could not have been forgotten.
Impatiently, Dumarest moved to the books within the cases. The doors were closed and he forced one, leafing through a volume which smelt of mold. The pages were faded, stained. A record, as far as he could see, of names, births, deaths, matings. Another held details as to plantings, yields, types and varieties of vegetation. A third held rough designs of primitive, hand-operated machinery, grinders, scrapers, a potter's wheel.
He replaced it, closed the doors, moved towards the altar and the odd device it contained. Here, perhaps, he would find the answer. The lost but all important coordinates by which Earth could be found.
As he neared it he heard the sound of muffled voices, the creak of the opening doors. Dumarest looked upwards, searching for a place to hide, but the dome was unbroken.
To run was to fight. To fight at this time was to die. When Phal Vestaler entered the Alphanian Chamber attended by a score of guards, he found Dumarest kneeling before the altar, his head bowed, hands clasped in an attitude of supplication.
Chapter Thirteen
'Communing?' Aryan's voice held incredulity. 'It isn't possible! He is unaware of the Mysteries.' He sat at the table, annoyed, irritable at having been summoned so late. 'It was a pretense, a ruse to save his life.'
The truth, but Dumarest didn't like to hear it stated so dogmatically. He stood at the end of the table, uneasily aware of the guards at sides and rear. To them, he had committed an unpardonable crime. They would not hesitate to move in should the word be given. His life, he knew, hung on a thread.
And yet, he had an ally. From where he sat at the head of the table Vestaler said, quietly, 'I told you what I had found. Nothing had been disturbed.'
He had said nothing about the matter of the forced bookcase.
'And what if you hadn't sent for him? Discovered his escape?' Aryan flung the accusations like missiles. 'And why did you send for him at all, Master?'
The question Vestaler had been expecting. Aryan would not take kindly to the intention of a private talk with Dumarest, but the man did not know what Zafra had reported. The hope her words had aroused.
A mistake, he thought, but one done now and impossible to ignore. Yet, if he hadn't sent for Dumarest, discovered him missing and gone with the anxiety of experience directly to the Alphanian Chamber-what then?
His rank and title, certainly. His position and all that went with it. Shame and punishment, reduced to menial labor, shunned and despised as if he had been a ghost.
All that, if the man had lied. If he could not convince the others that he had entered the chamber for reasons other than to rob.
'Kill him!' snapped Aryan. 'Kill him and have done.'
'Wait!' Usdon's hand slammed against the table. 'At least, let us hear what he has to say.'
'He will spill lies,' sneered Croft. 'He knows nothing and-'
'You are certain of that?' Dumarest's voice rose to fill the chamber as he stepped forward, halting as his thighs touched the edge of the table. A calculated move designed to demand attention. 'Do you think you are alone in the universe? The only ones who hold the ancient beliefs?' His voice deepened, grew solemn. 'From terror they fled to find new places on which to expiate their sins. Only when cleansed will the race of Man be again united.' The words he had heard from Leon, words he had heard before.
He fell silent, looking from face to face. Aryan, Croft, Vestaler, Usdon, Barog who as yet had said nothing. An old man who watched and voted, but who rarely spoke.
Now he said, slowly, 'Do you claim to be one of our number?'
'Of your number, no. Of your following, yes. Do you think you are the only ones with such a creed? There are others on a host of worlds. Do you regard it as impossible that I am one of them?'
Croft said, sharply, 'We are the true Original People. Others may claim that, but they lie. They use machines.'
'You have a forge using bellows,' said Dumarest. 'You grind corn with the aid of a millstone, weave with a loom, fashion pots with a wheel. These things are also machines.'
'But they do not use the demon of power.'
'And so you consider yourself justified. A peculiar interpretation of the creed. The cleansing mentioned has a deeper significance.'
'You dare to condemn us? You?'
Aryan said, 'You have still not told us why you entered the Alphanian Chamber.'
To take the opportunity before it was too late. To learn what he could while he was able, but Dumarest couldn't tell him that.
'I am far from my people,' he said quietly. 'A stranger-and I know the rule. In my position, wouldn't you have done the same?'
A good answer, thought Vestaler, but Croft wasn't satisfied. He leaned forward on the table, still brooding over the imagined insult, the sense he had received of being corrected. Machines were the product of evil; because of them Man had become diversified. How could anyone who followed the creed believe otherwise?
He said, curtly, 'I still think you lie.'
'An easy thing to say when you sit in Council backed by your guards,' said Dumarest. 'Would it be as easy if we stood face to face outside? But then, of course, you don't believe in personal combat. Leon told me that.'
'Leon Harvey! That renegade? That coward!'
'Coward?' Dumarest shook his head. 'Call him what you like, but never call him that. Consider what he did. He, alone, left the valley and ventured through the wilderness to the town. A boy doing that and more. He found work, kept himself, gained money, traveled to another world. Coward?' His voice took on a chilling note of contempt. 'From where I stand, it is you who are the coward, not he.'
'Master!'
'You provoked him,' said Vestaler shortly.
'But Leon-'
'We know what Leon Harvey did. There can be no excuse, that I agree.'
'And yet this man defends him!' Croft was repulsive in his anger. 'They are two of a kind. Has he come here to rob us further? A man who claims to have befriended a boy? That is enough to condemn him. I say he is a criminal and deserves to die. The rule demands it!'
The rule, always the rule, the iron barrier which Dumarest had yet to break. Croft was a fanatic as was Aryan, but hope could lie with the others. At least they had not demanded his life.
He said, slowly, 'Have any of you ever stopped to think why Leon ran?'
'Can there be any doubt?' Usdon spoke before Croft could further vent his anger. 'He could not face the ordeal.'
'The ordeal,' said Dumarest. 'To climb to the summit of a pinnacle, to sit there during the night, afraid to sleep in case of falling, listening to the predators below, the things which climb and sting. A healthy lad should have no trouble in staying awake. A fit one to hang on. Agreed?'
Usdon nodded.
'Then why, always, do some fail?'
'Guilt,' snapped Aryan. 'Fear. A knowledge of their own weakness. A proof that they are unfit to survive.'
'No!' said Usdon sharply. 'My-' He broke off, unwilling to mention his own recent loss.
A reluctance Dumarest recognized. A fortunate circumstance which would back his gamble.
'We spoke of cleansing,' he said to Croft. 'You sneer at others who believe as you do, but who use machines. Use them, but are not dominated by them, that is the important difference. Power, in itself, can do no harm. It is like a spear which, in itself, is a useful tool. It is the man using it which makes it evil. A spear, a knife, a gun, all
