F

OOTSTEPS whispered behind him, muffled by the grass.

He turned and it shot past him, so close to his face that he jerked back. It struck the edge of the temple’s entrance, rebounded, clattering, and” skittered across the floor, coming to rest in a crevice between stones: a pebble.

She who had thrown it stood several meters up the slope, right hand tucked innocently into a pocket, left hand still curled around more pebbles. She had been swimming again—droplets of water fell from her tangled black hair.

Scofield, always near her, was coming around the hill temple, silhouetted against the pale sky.

“You shouldn’t have moved,” she said. “I might have hit you.” He inclined his head in a mock bow. “Thanks, Margaret. I’ll remember that the next time someone throws stones at me.”

“Do that. Where are the others?”

“Darby’s reworking his notes. Wight’s gone for a walk. Mayeux’s helping me by developing yesterday’s film—”

“—and you’re taking care of today’s filming. How industrious.” He saw her smile widen, realized his was trying to match it for sarcasm and turned away.

“Hello, Schneider.”

A nod. “Scofield. You two enjoy your swim?”

Margaret’s laughter answered. Then: “If you see Wight, tell him I’ll be inside—that I want to talk to him again about Sumer.”

When the faint echoes of her footsteps were gone, Schneider returned the camera to its case, looked up at the overhanging roof, the details of its construction now recorded for experts who would never have to leave their offices. Not glancing at Scofield, he said, “I thought one of the reasons for our coming out here was to avoid the scholarly atmosphere of the ship. Yet between Guevara and Wight—’’

“It’s a different thing.”

“Yeah. Dead myth, instead of a review of new information that might prove useful. Not exactly—” “I’m going to look for Wight.” Schneider sat down on the grass and lit a cigarette as he watched the other man walking off down the valley. Scofield hadn’t been willing to listen to criticism of Margaret, but then what had Schneider expected?

A HALF-HOUR later he was sitting in the aircar, sketching, wishing the radio worked and he could hear a ship voice, when the sound of conversation made him look up from the paper.

Wight was barefoot, his feet caked with mud and dust, boots clutched in one hand. Next to him was Scofield, walking slowly but

looking tense and impatient.

“Schneider,” Wight called, “are you going to join us in the temple?” “No.”

“You should. All this is of great educational value.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“What are you working on?” Wight came to lean over the side of the aircar, myopic eyes squinting as he examined the sketch.

It was a raw but precise beginning. Schneider had sketched in the wall of the largest temple, next to which the aircar rested, and the outlines of the other three temples in the valley: the outward curving walls, the multifaceted domes that seemed to float above, barely touching. The hill temple wasn’t pictured-—it was on the other side of the large temple and what he couldn’t see he wouldn’t add to a sketch.

“Excellent. You’re as careful an artist as you are a photographer.” A suggestion of mockery ran through the comment. Schneider ignored it—many of Wight’s remarks were double-edged.

Scofield called, “Wight, aren’t you coming in?”

He was standing in the temple entrance, even his size dwarfed by the massive opening. Not a door, it was a floor-to-ceiling gap in the wall. Nothing as inharmonious as a door marred the lines of the temples.

“In a few minutes,” Wight said. “Sumer hasn’t been forgotten yet—” Scofield disappeared—“and won’t be for a while. Schneider, you have true talent for copying the physical world.”

“Thank you.” The words held dual meaning again, but why give Wight the satisfaction of reacting to it?

He toyed with the edges of the notebook. More sketches were there, including portraits, but he rarely showed the last to their subjects. Once he had done so, but people never recognized themselves—sometimes they even failed to identify others. He didn’t understand it—he’d compared his work to photographs and the likenesses were exact.

“Wight?”

“Mm?”

“I was thinking a while ago that maybe this isn’t a better way to spend time than staying at the ship, waiting for the great and glorious experts to get here from Earth.” Wight’s smile curved into a grin— he had as little respect for carefully nurtured reputations as anyone. “I mean, Margaret’s going over everything she knows of Earth mythology—”

“And everything I know as well?” A minor joke—Wight had given up the study of dead languages and cultures in middle-age for exo-archeology. Margaret didn’t have the questions needed to request even a small fraction of the man’s knowledge.

“Yeah. It’s not exactly the sort of convivial atmosphere this group was supposed to generate. I said something to Scofield about it, hoping he’d talk to Margaret, but he didn’t want to listen.”

Wight seemed amused. “Did you expect him to?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. After all, I’m the only reason you’re out here. The site had to be photographed.” Wight’s smile had vanished. “Don’t be an ass, Schneider. We didn’t volunteer to come out here because we wanted to keep you company any more than you came because of dedication to your work. None of us wanted to sit around the ship.”

Schneider opened his mouth to object, but said instead, “Do you think they’ve gotten into make-work projects yet, back at the ship?”

“I don’t want to think about it. How they waste their time is none of my business.”

“But for the grace of God—and me—you might be back there with them now.”

“Damn you—” but Wight was chuckling—“and your ego. I’m surprised you didn’t ask for only female volunteers for a harem.”

“If it had occurred to me I would have.”

“No. They’d never have let you off the ship. But it’s a shame that only one woman wanted to come out here.”

“And that she brought her pet bodyguard along.”

“Yes. Well, I have to go in or Margaret will send her pet to retrieve me. See you later.” “Yeah.”

WITH Wight gone Schneider’s restlessness was back. He put the sketchbook aside.

Wight and Scofield would be talking now inside the temple, but no sound reached out here. The corridor wound three times before it opened onto a small, square room. The sanctum, Margaret had decided.

Across the valley the slanting afternoon light set off the facets of the temple roofs. Wight had speculated that once the stone had been polished or covered with a lacquer. The domes would have glittered blindingly. But the truth would remain a speculation—no trace of polish was left. Had it existed it would have eroded away—how long ago? Centuries? Millennia? No artifacts remained in the temples or around them, no debris—it was as though the buildings had been deliberately abandoned, swept clean to leave no evidence of their builders but the strong curving lines of the walls and the low wide benches that filled the sanctums.

No evidence here, but in the town the expedition had first discovered near the ship …

He pushed the nagging thought away. It was bad enough to stay here with a pretense of useful work, knowing that a large town only partially destroyed by fire needed to be explored, mapped, to have its artifacts typed and classified. It would be worse to be one of the hundred-plus waiting in the ship, with that valuable site only a few kilometers away. While back on Earth men who had long ago established themselves as authorities in the field would be setting up their own expeditions and arranging the publicity that would add another layer of fame to their reputations …

He automatically conceded that the custom was unfair, but the injustice had long ceased to rankle. Only for a few, those whose work was a testimony to their ambition, would the delay be a torture. But those few always spread their misery to the rest.

He stretched and leaned back, appreciating the silence.

’Hello, Darby ”

“Hello.”

Why had Darby come here?

Looking down at the lined, somber face, Schneider wondered if he should have continued sketching and ignored the man’s arrival. But it would be rude now not to attempt conversation.

“Working on your notes?”

Darby nodded. “I’d like to give this expedition some type of order. We’ve been here two weeks and only you have been working. And there’s much to be done. For example, we could be measuring the temples, the outside walls, the sizes of the benches, et cetera. We should set up a scale for comparison. Right?”

“Yeah.” At least Darby now said “temple.”

Darby was a purist—worse, an anachronistic purist who should have been born on Earth several centuries before. Alone in the group, he’d insisted on not inferring the mental templates of Earth cultures from alien structures. To him the temples were buildings of unknown function until more evidence was found. But now—

Darby was slipping.

“What else?” Schneider asked. “It’s just an idea now, but I think we should consider an excavation of the tell.”

“What tell?”

“Here.” An index finger stabbed downward.

“The hill?”

“It’s too perfectly round. And this is the only temple not on the valley floor.”

Could there be earlier structures buried beneath the hill temple? Schneider dismissed the possibility. Darby’s wishful thinking was contagious.

“We weren’t sent out here to excavate. We have no tools.”

“No. We don’t even have equipment for the most elementary geophysical testing,” Darby complained.

“Obviously we’re not supposed to start an excavation,” Schneider continued. This line of reasoning was redundant, simplistic, childish—Darby might understand it. “When we get back to the ship the others will hear your theory about the tell and maybe then they’ll give you permission to began an excavation.”

“They’ll give it to someone else.” Schneider didn’t object. That hypocrisy was too much for him. He mumbled “See you later—” and walked away.

A

MONTH of boredom past, a month remaining. Schneider left the temple for a walk. The night was cool around him.

Wight was sitting in the aircar, dictating notes into a recorder. Another popular story of archeologists-at-work, intended for Earth-bound escapists. Schneider halted a few meters away, making no sound, waiting for the older man to finish. Minutes dragged past—then Wight paused for a moment, spoke a final sentence and shut off the recorder.

“Is Margaret looking for me again?”

“No.”

“Then she isn’t holding forth on the mysteries of the past.”

“She has her captive audience again. I believe she has an adequate repertory now. Your assistance is no longer needed.” Wight shrugged. “I was only a

dispensable, minor character in her little drama anyway.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Why should it? It was becoming extremely boring.”

“Not the mythology. Margaret’s obsession with it.”

“Most people have obsessions. Darby’s is excavating; mine, the past in general. And Mayeux is an addict of escapism. Drugs, sex, music, drama—any vehicle of escape will do. Now there is an interesting obsession for you to observe. And there’s your obsession, Schneider. Watching the rest of us. Margaret, who wants to be a goddess. Scofield, who—”

“I know.”

“—wants Margaret and has her. He also derives a great deal of pleasure from your jealousy. If Margaret were trying to make you feel envy you might have a chance with her. But she doesn’t give a damn about you.”

Silence.

“No comments, Schneider?” Stillness.

“All right. I’m through making speeches. Now I have a question. What are you doing out here with the rest of us and our private obsessions?”

“I have as many degrees in archeology as any of you, as well as being the best photographer—” “Don’t be defensive. I know that. So do all the others, here and on the ship. Which stopped none of them from referring to you as a photographer because, despite the degrees, that’s all you are. You have no true interest in the past. No more than a layman’s interest, anyway.”

“True interest? Mine is a more valid interest than yours, Wight. When I was studying on Earth I had a chance to see the ruins of all the grand, dead civilizations you love. I was more dissatisfied than impressed. It took years before I realized that I was unhappy because too many archeologists had been there before me. I couldn’t see the ruins clearly. The buildings were distorted by all the layers of interpretation and opinion, everything that I’d heard or read about them. Did you ever feel, at one of those Earth sites, that a shrine should’ve been built to the archeologists?”

A smile was twitching the stubborn edges of Wight’s mouth. Schneider took a breath and hurried to conclude: “I wanted to see what had not yet been tainted by another man’s interpretation. You can’t do that on Earth.”

The smile still fought to surface. Wight ended it with a cough, then said, “You surprise me. You’re a romantic. Tainted ruins. I’ve never heard of an archeologist searching for innocence, but that seems to be the only way to describe you. Practically lusting after innocence. Except in Margaret’s case, of course.”

“Perhaps, Wight—” Schneider’s voice was steady—“you should consider your own motives. Yours and Darby’s and Margaret’s. What have you done but bring the myths of Earth to another planet? What are you trying to do but apply them to a society that probably had nothing in common with the Su-merians, or the Israelites?”

The shadowy smile again. Wight covered it with his hand, fingers carefully stroking his mustache. “I’ll consider it. Now, Schneider, if you’ll excuse me, I have work—”

II

SCHNEIDER gave up trying to stifle a yawn. With luck, Margaret wouldn’t notice. Neither would Scofield, who had been asleep the past hour. And Wight was playing back his notes. To Schneider, at the opposite end of the bench, the sound was a low murmur, nearly drowned out by Margaret’s voice.

He looked at the pipe and the dwindling supply of hashish Mayeux had left. It would be nice to take some, just a small amount. Mayeux would return in a moment. Schneider was searching through his pockets for something to wrap the hash in when Mayeux burst into the sanctum.

“An aircar!”

Before the echoes had quit he was gone again.

Scofield had jerked awake at the shout—he was a half-step behind

Schneider as they left the sanctum, scrambling and slipping in the darkness.

Once outside, they saw Mayeux standing halfway up the slope to the hill temple, head tilted back as he watched the silver dart-shape glide over the temples, heading south, out over the inland sea.

Mayeux stared down at them, bewilderment clear on his face.

Was there another expedition on the planet? Or was the ship scouting the temple site?

Scofield was shaking his head in confusion.

Wight had come out of the temple but was ignoring them, his gaze fixed on the north side of the building, where their own aircar shouid have been.

“Darby.”

“What?” Scofield whirled, froze when he saw the vacant patch of flattened grass.

“He’s crazy,” Margaret said. “Why should he take the aircar up?”

“Photography.”

“Of the sea?”

Then the high whispering sound was back. The aircar slowed, made a clumsy turn and dropped to the ground within centimeters of the temple wall.

Wight reached it first. He pushed Darby away from the controls, leaned over and stared at the gauges. “The fuel,” he muttered.

Scofield reached around Wight and grabbed Darby by the shoul der. “How long were you up there?”

“I don’t know.”

“How much fuel is left, Wight?” “Not enough to get us back to the ship. And the radio’s out.” Schneider heard a hissing sound and turned to see Margaret standing, fists clenched. He could sense a lynch-mob attitude growing. Worried, he pulled Darby free of Scofield’s grasp. His eyes moved across the hostile faces, came to rest on Wight, who could be reasoned with.

“We don’t have to worry. If we don’t return in three weeks they’ll send an aircar out after us.”

After a moment Wight nodded. He went over to Margaret, whispered to her, then took her arm and led her back to the temple. A moment later Scofield followed.

Schneider removed the camera from its niche in the bottom of the aircar. He fingered the release and two film cartridges rolled out onto his palm. He might as well destroy them. Darby had been flying at too high an altitude for the temples to be photographed properly and his flight had picked up too much of the surrounding land.

“Why, Darby? Did you think you were going to replace me as photographer?”

“I had an idea … Schneider, will you develop the film for me?” “It won’t be worth developing.” “Sure it will. The sunlight was at the best angle. The camera should

have picked up shadow marks as well as crop marks. If there once were any roads here—or buried ruins—they’ll show up on the film.” He beamed. “It should make things much easier for the experts when they arrive. They’ll know where to begin their excavations.”

Mayeux’s mouth had dropped open as he listened. Now it snapped shut. He bent down and ripped a clump of grass from the soil.

“Look, Darby. The roots are only a few centimeters long. Even ten centimeters of topsoil over a paved road would be enough for this grass to grow there as thickly as anywhere else. So you can’t expect crop marks. And shadow marks? From up there?” He gestured toward the hill temple. “We can look out in the morning or afternoon and spot any irregularities on the valley surface.”

Darby shook his head. “You’ll see—after the film’s developed.” “Oh, hell. What’s the use? We’re stuck here now until they come to get us—and all because you expected crop marks.” Mayeux began to search his pockets.

“Inside,” Schneider reminded him.

“Yeah. Do you want to join me, Schneider? If we smoke long enough this is going to seem trivial, maybe even funny.”

“Sure.” He pocketed the cartridges and followed Mayeux into the temple.

WIGHT was standing just inside the temple entrance, watching the first minutes of a shower. Rain fell soundlessly on the roof and rolled off in a heavy curtain.

Schneider walked to stand near him and looked out across the valley. The rain blurred the three smaller temples, obscuring the sharply chiseled stone, the facets of the domes. He could almost see them as mushrooms, gray-white against the green, sheltered by the hills that rimmed the peninsula, coming to a point a quarter of a kilometer behind him.

“I covered the aircar,” Wight said.

Schneider nodded,

“What’s that you’re holding? Are those the lights?”

Schneider stared down at the four hour-glass shaped objects he gripped. Their reflecting surfaces were opaque. “They’ve been replaced.”

“Aren’t they working?” Wight took one and twisted the control that circled the lamp’s waist. He winced at the glare. “Why would they want to replace them?” “Margaret—” this wouldn’t be easy—“wanted torches instead of artificial light, so Scofield cut some branches from that grove at the base of the peninsula—”

“Oh, God. Schneider, I heard them say something about it, but I warned them not to. I didn’t think they’d be so stupid.”

He started down the corridor.

Schneider moved to block his path.

“You can’t reason with Scofield—and I wouldn’t start a fight.”

“No.’’ Wight rubbed a hand across his forehead, sighed. “Torches. Ashes and coals all over the floor. The carbon-fourteen people will want to run tests and we’ll have to explain. We can try to clean away the mess, but we’ll never get all of it.”

“Is that what worries you? Explaining to the others that we were using torches inside a temple because Margaret wanted to play at being a goddess or a priestess for a while?”

“Doesn’t it worry you at all?” “Yes. But I half expected it. Did you really think that we could indulge our fantasies out here, then return to the ship and act as if nothing unusual had been done?” Wight didn’t answer.

The next evening it was still raining. Schneider sketched the blurred hills and temples, his boots sinking deep into soggy ground, rain beating down steadily. Then a breeze from the north bent the curtain of water inward and he retreated to the sanctum.

He sat on the first bench, near Mayeux. Behind him were Scofield and Wight. At the back of the room, Darby had straddled a bench and was examining a foam-lined metal camera casing. Schneider wondered why he had it—the camera was in the aircar.

Margaret stood before them. She spoke without interruption, confirming Schneider’s suspicion that she needed no response from her audience. She stood motionless. Each of the many torches was a reflected pinpoint of light in her eyes and a larger-than-life shadow posed at her back. Torchlight flattered her.

She spoke of the Svetasvatara Upanishad and it was Kali, not Rudra, who turned the Brahma-wheel, creating worlds, destroying them at the end of time. Her speech led them through the labyrinths of Crete to confront, not the Minotaur, but Queen Pasiphae-become- Medusa …

Schneider ceased to listen. Her conversations with Wight had been straight narrations of myth. This was a deliberate scrambling, a hybrid whose wrongness lay uneasily on his nerves.

He looked around at the others.

Wight was listening complacently. If Margaret’s distortions bothered him his face did not show it.

Scofield, sprawled across the bench, appeared to be fighting drowsiness and losing. Eyes halfclosed, he seemed unaware of anyone. Then Schneider noticed that every time Margaret spoke of the consorts of the ancient goddesses, a smile flickered across Scofield’s face.

Darby was twisting the camera casing, trying to wrench it out of shape, failing, trying again. Why?

Mayeux was smoking peacefully. As Schneider watched he turned a cat-curious face. Then he held out the pipe, but Schneider shook his head in refusal. Mayeux shrugged and returned the pipe to his mouth.

Schneider still watched: Mayeux also was flattered by the torchlight. Which was not surprising—he and Margaret looked alike, could have been brother and sister. Almost identical in height and bone structure, features similar, both with black hair and blue-green eyes. Both with skin drawn so tightly over the bone that white ridges could sometimes be glimpsed through the tan. But whereas with Margaret that bone structure suggested a tensile strength, in Mayeux it was a fragility. His profile was a chiseled perfection haloed by the torchlight.

Schneider looked around. For the’first time he noticed that Scofield’s eyes were focused on Mayeux.

Margaret had stopped talking. She stood with eyes closed, either tired and quitting, or planning the next part of her monologue. Either way, Schneider was grateful for the silence.

And then Mayeux began to sing.

Margaret’s eyes snapped open with the first notes. They fastened on Mayeux, but he was oblivious to her anger.

Schneider held his breath.

Mayeux continued to sing.

Finally realizing that he wasn’t going to stop, Margaret launched into her speech again.

Schneider looked down, fighting the first tremors of laughter. When he had quelled them he again paid attention to what Margaret was saying.

“… and despite their loss of authority, there was a partial con-conservation of the ancient mythos . .

He raised an eyebrow in inquiry at Wight.

“Neolithic matriarchies,” Wight explained.

Schneider nodded, let his eyes close, willed himself to fall asleep. Around him, tenor a cappella notes ranged through anger-clipped words.

Ill

DARK spots that were flaws in the stone swarmed antlike up the walls, chased by predatory torchlight.

Even Schneider’s hallucinations were cliches.

He tried to expel the vision. Mayeux’s hand touched his and he relinquished the hash pipe, shook his head, opened his eyes. The spots held steady, but for how long?

The pipe was offered again, Mayeux’s hand resting a few seconds in Schneider’s, an intimacy that made Schneider nervous. But when there was nothing more to object to than a too-long touching of hands, he could not act offended. He took the pipe and inhaled deeply.

Nothing.

The hash pipe had perversely gone out.

Mayeux plucked it from his hand. Numb, Schneider lay back, stretched his legs, contemplated the sanctum wall.

“I’m worried about Margaret,” he said and listened to his distant voice roaring on long after the thought had ended.

“Yes?” Clouds of smoke formed trellises in front of Mayeux’s face. Memories, unbidden, brought to Schneider the folk song Mayeux had sung the week before by torchlight, with Scofield staring at him and Margaret angry. Schneider’s mind played with the notes, amplifying, echoing, rearranging. In his memory a helix of pure sound curved upward, glorifying—what? No matter—the feeling was all.

“Why are you worried about Margaret?” Mayeux asked.

“She’s blending into the myth-figures she talks about.” Schneider frowned, able to concentrate with the return of reality. “Lilith, Kali, Medusa, Isis, Astarte—she’s portraying a schizoid reincarnation of them all, with an emphasis on the bloodthirsty element.”

“Countess Dracula.” Mayeux giggled.

Silence, then footsteps on stone and Scofield came toward them.

“Countess who?” Scofield asked.

The name sounded familiar to Schneider, but the associations slipped away as his mind reached for them.

“Vampire,” Mayeux replied.

Schneider free-associated the word, coming up with medieval nightmare images.

“Gothic castles,” Mayeux added.

Scofield corrected: “Gothic romance, not architecture.”

Schneider nodded and gave up trying to connect bats with flying butresses. It hadn’t seemed right anyway.

A week before the group was to , return to the ship Margaret fell to silence, worry and occasional whispered comments about The Others, of whom she spoke in awe …

A week, and Mayeux no longer asked others if they wished to share his remaining tiny supply of hashish …

A week, and when Scofield spoke to Schneider at all it was with confidence that the people on the ship would come after them promptly…

A week, and Wight’s views exactly opposed Scofield’s …

A week, and Darby had been practically living in the hill temple for days …

Schneider went up to investigate.

He found a scar in the soil, two meters wide, ten meters long, starting at the temple wall and pointing toward the sea. Darby tended that wound carefully, the camera casing in his hands removing the soil, millimeter by millimeter.

Schneider watched and waited for Darby to notice him and explain—watched, without expecting an explanation—and finally left. He wouldn’t tell the other four. They would discover the trench soon enough.

I’VE been considering what you said about layers of interpretation and tainted ruins.”

It was the last evening before the return date. The air was cool and misty. Despite the chill Schneider preferred being outside to the smoky ritual in the sanctum. He twisted around, eyes seeking Wight. There, against the wall, his light clothes blending with the stone, his sun-blackened face obscured by the fog and dusk.

“What—” Schneider began, stopping as he recalled the conversation of a month before. “Well?”

“Well what?” The wraith laughed and moved toward him, solidifying as it neared.

“You’re not attending the lecture this evening?”

Wight shook his head. “As I was saying—I’ve thought about your remarks a great deal. Look at the hill temple and tell me what you see.” Psychological games now? Schneider almost laughed, but Wight’s voice had been serious, almost solemn. He looked.

The temple had become Rorschach blot.

Ears sensitized by concentration he imagined he could hear both Darby busily scraping away at the trench and voices from the temple behind him. But neither should be audible here—all he could really be hearing was Wight’s breathing and his own.

He glanced away from the hill. Wight’s eyes met his, locked, requested an answer.

“I don’t know what you expected me to see. Barring the fact that it looks very impressive in this light— it’s just a temple. Merely a building.”

“Merely a building.” The words were pronounced slowly, as though Wight were savoring them, wondering at them. “Not even an intimation of this culture’s sense of whatever deities were worshipped?”

“I don’t worship the supernatural. I prefer not to be deceived by mists or mysticism.” He was about to congratulate himself on the phrase, but Wight’s somber expression hadn’t changed, so he continued: “I can see things more clearly.”

“You’re blind, Schneider.” And in a moment he was gone, swallowed by the fog as he walked away.

Four days later loneliness sent Schneider up to the hill temple. All but he and Darby had withdrawn into fantasy, becoming autistic strangers who rarely left the sanctum.

He stood at the edge of the trench, now a meter deep. Mounds of damp clay soil covered the uprooted grass and topsoil. Darby glanced up once, wiped a hand across his forehead, leaving red-brown streaks, then returned to digging.

Schneider stood there more than a quarter of an hour, occasionally leaning down to pick up a clod, mold it into a pyramid, crumble it again.

Finally Darby set the mud-encrusted casing aside, leaned against the side of the trench, managed a weary smile. “Did you ever hear of Austen Henry Layard?” he asked.

“The name sounds familiar.”

“I’ve always envied,’’ Darby went on, “his discovery of the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Those nineteenth-century Englishmen—” He shook his head. “That was the time for an archeologist to live.”

Schneider sat down on the grass. He would listen.

The next morning and afternoon passed slowly. Schneider sat in the aircar, sketched and saw no one. In midafternoon he entered the temple.

Once, twice around and he still heard nothing.

Three times and the blackness grayed.

Mayeux was sitting in the corridor, unlit hash pipe cradled in his left hand. His gaze was fastened on it.

“Hello, Schneider.”

“Hello, Mayeux. Are the others—”

Mayeux waved the pipe in the direction of the sanctum. “In there.” Schneider listened for voices coming from the sanctum. None.

Mayeux craned his neck around, stared up at Schneider for a moment, said, “Margaret’s praying. Or meditating. I’m not sure what she calls it.”

Then he turned his attention back to the pipe. Relighting it, he added: “Praying for guidance, I believe. Scofield’s asleep. So’s Wight.”

Schneider stepped over Mayeux’s outstretched legs, moved quietly to the sanctum entrance.

Margaret was on her knees, her back to him.

Scofield was asleep, as Mayeux had said, but Wight wasn’t. He noticed Schneider and smiled.

Schneider turned and went back to Mayeux.

“Kneeling?”

Mayeux shrugged.

“Wight’s awake. And watching.” Mayeux glanced at him curiously. “He finds you interesting,” Mayeux remarked.

“How so?”

“He told me you don’t—” Mayeux waved the pipe as though trying to sketch an answer he couldn’t phrase—“recognize what

is basic. What is necessary.” “What the hell did he mean by that?”

“Ask Wight.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Blank eyes met his.

Ask Wight? Now? Walk into the sanctum and disturb that quiet …

No. There would be another time.

“W ight”

Hours had dragged the afternoon through dusk and into night. Schneider had waited in the aircar for Wight to leave the temple.

“Yes.”

“What is it that is basic that I don’t recognize?”

“What was that, Schneider?’’ Wight took his recorder from the aircar’s storage compartment.

Schneider repeated.

“Who told you I said that?”

“Mayeux. But that was all he told me.”

“And you want an explanation—”

“Yes.”

“—of what I tried to tell you before and failed to make you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Migod, Schneider. I tried to communicate something subtle and complex in the most elementary way possible and you didn’t comprehend. We’re down to the most basic words of a language and now

you want me to take the words apart and explain what the letters mean.”

“I’m sure that if anyone could do it, Wight, you—”

“The sycophant’s costume does not fit you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Of course. All right. I’ll go through the argument once more. I should have realized when you looked at the hill temple that you weren’t viewing it correctly.” “Because I saw it as a building, nothing more?”

“I should have realized that perhaps that was the only way you could see it. But let’s not bother with that now. Since you’re blind, you must settle for mere words. To you a building is a building, a stone, a stone—”

“I’m waiting for the explanation, whenever you want to start.” Wight sighed melodramatically. “I am explaining, so listen. To you objects are their simple physical selves, which makes you ideal as a photographer in this situation. But if you tried to become a painter, say, or even to capture a mood or an idea in a photograph, you’d fail. You don’t like the so-called layers of interpretation, but it’s normal for homo sapiens to invest physical objects with meaning. Only with that extra dimension does the object become fully real.

“I misjudged you badly when I called you a romantic. You suffer from a lack of imagination, not an excess. 1 misinterpreted your comment that the ruins on Earth are tainted. Or perhaps you used the wrong word. Interpretations to you are superfluous.”

“That’s what I told you.” “Damn it,.you’re missing the point again. The reaction of each of us to these temples is necessary— it’s basic—it’s not some frivolous and irrelevant fantasy. Since we don’t know what this area signified to its builders, we have a tabula rasa. We construct meanings.” “That shouldn’t be necessary.” Wight shook his head. “You’ll never understand. So please stop asking me for explanations. I’m beginning to feel responsible for your blindness—and I don’t want that.”

AT DAWN Schneider went up to /.the hill temple. The inland sea was a smooth dull gray, a sheet of metal laid out from the shore.

Scraping noises interrupted his reverie. Darby was already up, digging with one hand while the other stifled yawns.

“Good morning.”

‘“Morning. I see you like to get up early, too.”

“Not always—just this morning.”

“I think,” Darby said, “that I may be able to show you something today.”

“You’ve found some artifacts?” “No.”

“A different type of soil?”

“Not yet.”

“Then what?”

“A feeling, Schneider. A very strong feeling.”

“You’re working on intuition?” “It’s been done before. Successfully, too.”

“Darby—” Schneider’s exasperation was almost a physical pain. If there had been a find here it could have represented a way to pull the others out of their fantasy worlds.

He left Darby, who didn’t look up.

Mayeux came out of the temple later in the morning. Rubbing bloodshot eyes, he fixed a cup of coffee. When he’d drained it, Schneider asked, “Is Margaret still at it?”

“I suppose so. I heard her talking a couple of times during the night, though.”

“What did she say?”

“I couldn’t tell. She was crying, too. I don’t know what she thinks she’ll accomplish. Pray—and God will send a rescue team? Pray—and the fuel tank will be refilled? I’ve seen other religious zealots who believed in miracles, but to cry when one doesn’t happen—”

“Maybe her knees hurt.”

“Don’t be such a sonofabitch. She’s not bothering you.” Mayeux fixed another cup of coffee and took it into the temple.

Schneider leaned against the air-car, his fingers drumming on its metal shell. Just as the noise was becoming an irritant, he saw Mayeux standing in the temple entrance, gesturing to him.

IV

“Margaret told Scofield she wants to talk to to us,”

Mayeux said as they hurried along the corridor.

“Told Scofield?”

“She won’t talk to anyone else yet.”

“What about Darby?”

“What about him?”

“Never mind.”

They were at the entrance of the sanctum. Schneider saw Wight sitting on the front bench, arms folded across his chest. Margaret was talking to Scofield, who was lighting a new set of torches from the stack of branches in the corner.

Margaret.

Her face was ashen under a film of sweat—her eyes were swollen and red. For the first time Schneider pitied her. She might be insane and a threat to the sanity of the others, but her madness was taking its greatest toll of her.

“Margaret—”

He reached out a hand but before it touched her she turned to look directly at him. No. Into him. Through him. He fell back under that gaze.

“The Others haven’t yet come for us?”

“No,” he said quietly.

“I was right, then. They’re angry.”

She went over to Wight and repeated, “I was right.”

He nodded, smiling, mocking her. Schneider expected her to react with fury.

Instead, almost wistfully: “They’re angry.”

“Yes, they’re angry.”

Her eyelids fell. She nodded a few times, acknowledging his agreement. Then she looked at Mayeux. Schneider waited for her to repeat the incantation. He might have to slap her to free her from the delusion.

Mayeux met her gaze for a moment, then reached into a pocket for his pipe, filled and lighted it and walked to the back of the room. He sat down on the last bench.

“Margaret doesn’t like him,” Scofield murmured.

Margaret had turned back to them. She was frowning.

“So what if they’re angry?” Schneider said. “They’ll come after us anyway.”

“No.”

“Yes, Margaret.”

“They’re angry and they have to be appeased.”

He checked his response. Appeased? A new element to her madness. “How?”

There was no answer. He stared past her at Wight, who had switched on the recorder. Schneider pictured the writer/archeologist using all this in some future dissertation, article or book. The thought infuriated him. It was time to put an end to the little drama.

“Aren’t your prayers working, Margaret? Isn’t your make-believe world congenial any more?”

“Leave her alone,” Scofield said, but for the moment he could be ignored. Margaret’s hands were clasped tightly, knuckles showing whitely through the skin.

“Your prayers don’t work, Margaret.”

She nodded. There was a minute’s silence before she said, “The prayers are not enough.”

“What, then?”

“A sacrifice.”

“That’s great. That’s perfect, Margaret. Wight’s recorded that, so when we get back to the ship you’ll be put under sedation until you can be taken to a hospital.”

“We won’t get back to the ship without a sacrifice.” Her voice was patient but stubborn.

“Is that so?” He stepped closer to her and tilted her head back until she was staring directly at him. “And you don’t even look insane.”

Her right hand lashed across his face, rough nails scratching. Reflex ively, he slapped her.

“Schneider.” Wight was shaking his head.

Scofield was backing toward the corner.

“That was a mistake,” Wight said.

“Was it?”

“Yes.” Scofield answered. He watched Schneider while he reached back toward the stack of branches.

Wait a minute. Wight, you know I hit her only to snap her out of it. Scofield, you realize that, don’t you? Help me explain to him. Wight. Mayeux—”

Mayeux’s eyes were glazed. He jerked when he heard his name, then settled back against the wall. The pipe still in his mouth, he began to sing, the words mumbled and distorted.

“Are you out of your mind, too?”

Schneider’s eyes moved from Mayeux to Wight, who hadn’t left the bench, then to Scofield, whose right hand was curled around a heavy branch, which had just metamorphosed into a crude but usable club.

“Wight?”

“I tried to warn you to conform, Schneider, but you never listened. Now—” He shrugged, rubbed his hands together, one over the other. A moment later, as if answering Schneider’s bewilderment, he mumbled a few words. Schneider caught only one clearly, the rest vaguely.

“Pilot? Why are you talking about a pilot now? Help me—talk to Scofield, for God’s sake!”

“Deaf, as well as blind? And in a similar way. You hear the sound but miss the words.”

“You’re all insane.” Schneider took a step backward, another, yet another, then turned and ran. He could hear Scofield following.

He burst out of the temple.

Pilot…

Of course. The aircar—the rest of what Wight had mumbled so indistinctly still made no sense. But the aircar did.

Schneider slowed, sliding across the grass, halted and looked back at the aircar. Scofield was framed by the temple entrance. He was much closer to the machine than Schneider.

Warily Schneider started on a semicircular path around Scofield. He had taken five steps when Scofield left the temple, carelessly swinging the club.

Schneider wheeled to run up the hill.

Near the summit he fell. He caught a glimpse of Scofield, climbing quickly, clutched at the grass and lurched to his feet. The hill temple was only a few meters before him, then beside him, then behind him as he neared the trench.

Darby was there, hands cradling a large white stone.

“Darby—”

The excavator looked up and smiled. “Look, Schneider—a Jericho skull! The first artifact we’ve found—and so close to its Earth counterpart—” His fingers ran over his find, stroking gently.

As mad as the rest.

Schneider slid into the trench. Darby, clasping the featureless rock, backed away.

“You have to be careful with this,” he said. “It’s a skull. It’s fragile.”

Schneider disregarded him, scanning the trench for the camera casing. It would serve as a weapon. He spotted it at the other end of the trench, too far away to reach.

Footsteps behind him, muffled by the grass.

“Give me the skull.”

Schneider lunged forward. Then darkness caught him, falling at the edge of a club.

The cold brought him back to consciousness^—that, and the pressure against the back of his neck. He jerked away from it. The movement brought pain and he moaned.

“Schneider?”

The voice was unfamiliar. He tried craning his neck to look at the speaker, but the agony was too great. He waited for it to subside before moving again. Meanwhile he could see nothing but the cover of an aircar’s seat on which he was lying face down.

“Who are you?” he managed to ask. The words took an effort—his throat was dry and rough and every movement of his mouth as he spoke caused more pain.

“Pam Durrell.” The voice sounded amused by the question. “I’ve only met you once, so you might not

recognize the name.”

He did, though he couldn’t remember the person to whom the name belonged. Risking the hurt again, he asked, “My neck—what’s wrong?”

“You have a bruise. Maybe even a fracture, though I don’t think so. We didn’t bring a doctor when we came out here. We had no idea you’d be fighting each other.” “Fighting?”

“Wight told us all about the rivalry between you and Scofield. Someone at the ship should’ve guessed that with only one woman out here, especially Mar—” Her voice cut off in embarrassment. “Wight told you that?” “Uh-huh. He was sorry they had to tie you up like that, but they were afraid you’d try to kill Scofield if you weren’t restrained. When we got here they had your arms and legs bound to a stone bench.” Schneider listened with detachment. His companions had been ingenious, letting a bench substitute for a sacrificial altar. Given more time, they would have found a religious use for Scofield’s pocket-knife.

“Can I get up? Will it hurt my

neck?”

“1 don’t know—you’ll just have to try it. If you’re careful and don’t jerk your neck—there. That’s it. How do you feel?”

“No worse than before.” He twisted his torso until he could see the woman, who was still holding the damp cloth she’d pressed against his neck. She was young, with short brown hair. He remembered seeing her on the ship, but nothing more about her. “You people waited long enough before coming after us.”

“We didn’t expect to have to rescue you. In fact, it’s going to cut into our working time if one of us has to fly you back to the ship.” “You came out here to work?” he asked, but already he was twisting around, surveying the aircar. It was almost twice the size of the aircar that had brought him out two months earlier and was heavily laden with equipment. Even photographic equipment, he noted. “That’s right.”

“Where are the others?”

“You mean your group? Waiting near one of the buildings while we look for Mayeux.”

“Everyone else—Darby?”

“We found him. Digging a trench, of all things. Wight said you had a lot of trouble with him.” “Wight said,” Schneider echoed. “Wight must have been very busy explaining.”

She was staring at him curiously. “We had to know what was going on. The trench, the torches you used after Darby went crazy and smashed the lights—”

He

So Wight had come up with an explanation for everything unusual that had occurred. It would be up to Schneider to refute Wight’s story—Margaret and Scofield would, of course, back Wight. Mayeux apparently wanted no part of any of this and no one would believe Darby.

studied the girl sitting beside him. She wasn’t one of the ship’s administrators. If he told his story now she might not know how to handle the situation. It would be better to wait until he got back to the ship to explain what had really happened.

Schneider tried twisting around to look back at the temples, finally stood and turned around in the air-car. Scofield, Margaret, Wight and Darby were sitting in a silent group near the entrance of the largest temple. As Schneider watched, Wight glanced up, said something to the others, then stood and walked toward Schneider.

Wight stopped at the side of the aircar and smiled up as though none of the morning’s events had happened.

“I’m glad you’re not hurt badly,” Wight said. “Pam was afraid you might have a fracture or a concussion, but I told her Scofield hadn’t hit you that hard.”

“You told her about everything, didn’t you?” Schneider muttered.

Wight’s smile didn’t change as he looked past Schneider at Pam and said, “Maybe now that your patient is conscious you can finish telling me about the findings in the town. You see, Schneider, the rest of the expedition didn’t stay in the ship. They’ve been working the past six weeks.”

Schneider turned to look at the woman. The movement caused a flash of pain. “Is that true?”

“Yes. The ship’s administrators made the decision. They’ll take responsibility for it. We don’t expect anyone coming from Earth to object too much—they’ll be far too busy. All we’ve done so far is set the computers to translating and organizing the written records we’ve found. And we’ve just started on them. It should take at least a year.”

“So that’s why you weren’t too concerned when we didn’t return on schedule,” Schneider said. “You were coming anyway. How long have you been here?” He’d been unconscious for hours—it was nearly evening.

Wight answered for Pam, “The aircar arrived just a little while after the fight.”

“Yeah. The fight,” Schneider repeated sarcastically. Wight had to be worried about how much of the “explanation” Schneider would contradict—and when.

Schneider was in no hurry. “What were your findings in the town?” Schneider asked. “Did you learn anything about these temples?”

Pam laughed. “That’s interesting, the way all of you refer to these buildings as temples.”

“Aren’t they?” Wight sounded genuinely puzzled. Pam shook her head. “These buildings were a form of art. They also served some other purposes, all mundane—possibly they were intended to produce given psychological effects. The aliens used their architecture to’ produce an emotional response, in the case of these structures, awe and fear. We picked that up in the written records. The corridors force you to walk a greater distance than necessary to the central room, imparting a sense of isolation, of being buried, of being severed from one’s world. I don’t know how you could have spent so much time in there. It made me shiver—” She paused, then said, “Actually we believe the effect may depend a great deal on one’s preconditioning. Anyway, we’ll finish here as quickly as possible and return to the town. Half the buildings there are like these, non functional in our terms. According to the writings we’ve deciphered, some are supposedly erotic in effect. I couldn’t see them that way.” She laughed.

“Schneider didn’t respond to this site,” Wight said.

“Not at all?”

“No.” Wight spoke before Schneider had a chance to say anything.

Pam stared at Schneider for a few seconds. “Well, maybe he’s a little too human—and has rejected standard conditioning.”

“This feeling of awe,” Wight said quickly. “Couldn’t it still have some relevance to the aliens’ religion?”

“Trying to salvage your theory?” Schneider asked.

“No. None whatsoever,” Pam said. “They were an extremely sophisticated, pragmatic species. They had no gods. None. Well, I’ll have to find out if Mayeux has been located yet.”

She climbed out of the aircar and walked away.

“That wasn’t just a fight with Scofield over Margaret,” Schneider said when she was out of earshot.

“I know. I had to tell them something.”

“And when you tied me to that bench, you were planning a sacrifice—’’

“I know what happened, Schneider. No need to remind me.” “I’m going to report everything when we get back.”

“I realize that, Schneider.” Wight turned to go back to where the others were sitting. “You’ll still be all alone.”

“Wight.”

“Yes.” Wight stopped but didn’t look back at Schneider.

“No temples here. No gods.” “None but ours, Schneider.” “None but yours,” Schneider said after a moment, but he had spoken quietly and Wight was already too far away to have heard.

Schneider sat down, then slid until he was lying on his back, staring up at the darkening sky. His head ached. ★