The Sword Lord by Robert Leader Read Free Book Online Page B

He had not spoken to Laurya directly, and deliberately chose to avoid her. In fact he hardly dared to look into her eyes. Forest pool or sunbird’s wing, he still could not decide, but they were familiar. He knew her, or at least, he knew the soul behind the eyes. It was an insane thought and he wondered if he were on the edge of madness. Until these last few days he had not even been sure that he had believed in souls. He had taught the doctrine of the Atman, the Divine Self that was in all things, and all beings, but like all his teachings of the gods, and the whole body of his religious belief, it had been an act of faith which rose dominant over a partially open mind.
    He finally heard Kananda speak and forced his attention back to their present conversation.
    â€œBut where is the bow?” Kananda had asked.
    Zela laughed, understanding his mental predicament. “There is no bow, Kananda. Your language does not have the words for me to explain. But the ship shoots into the sky—as if it were shot from a bow.”
    â€œLike an arrow that is shot without a bow? And it shoots all the way to the stars?” Kaseem tried to concentrate, fearing to say that her words were false and yet unable to believe her.
    â€œNot to the stars,” Zela said. “The stars are like other suns. Our world is like your world, it circles this sun.”
    Their faces were blank. Zela was momentarily at a loss, but then she broke off a twig of foliage and, began to draw a sketch of the solar system on a patch of smooth earth. “Here is the sun,” she pointed to the, small circle in the centre of her map. “There are ten worlds that circle the sun.” She drew in the ten orbits like rapidly widening ripples round a pebble. “Your world—this world—which you call Earth—is here. It is the third world from the sun. Our world, which we call Dooma, is here. It is the fifth planet from the sun.”
    The old man and the youth both crouched to stare at what she had drawn but their faces showed no enlightenment. Then Kaseem reached tentatively for the twig. He drew his own map, in which there was just the central pebble and one orbiting ripple.
    â€œOur world,” the priest insisted, pointing at the centre of his universe. The twig sketched the single orbit around it once again and then he pointed upward. “Our sun.”
    â€œNo,” Zela said, and again she went over the details of her own map. Kaseem scratched his head and then squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun. This new idea was an almost impossible one to accept.
    Zela tried again, describing the solar system for the third time, and struggling to explain its relationship to the stars and galaxies. Kaseem shared the struggle with her, the old priest desperately wanted to understand. But Kananda was losing interest in these dry scratchings in the dust. The frontal zip on Zela’s silver suit was almost imperceptibly sliding downward as she talked, and he could see again a tantalizing and gradually expanding view of her breasts. He began to wish fervently that Kaseem would shut up and go away.
    The old man was oblivious to the desires of youth. He squatted with his robe clutched tight around him, listening intently with his gaze moving constantly from the drawings to the woman’s face, but to his frustration he comprehended little. The woman was talking about the stars, but in among the Hindu words she had learned were strange words from her own language which had no meaning for him. In the end he gave up and changed the subject to one that was dearer to his own heart.
    â€œYou are from the gods,” he challenged her. “Do you know the gods? Are they in the stars?”
    Zela sighed. “You ask difficult questions, friend Kaseem. No, we are not gods. Nor are we messengers from your gods. We are people like yourselves, from another planet in this solar system which is much like your own.”
    â€œBut