“Voyage’s End—for a ship full of colonists.” Gar traced the line of the hill within the walls. “See how the buildings rise tier upon tier to the highest towers?”
Dirk nodded. “The ship’s still there, just buried. Think they planned it that way?”
“Almost certainly,” Gar replied. “After all, they didn’t have enough fuel to lift off again. Why not make their years-long home part of the landscape? That way, they’d always have it with them.”
Miles and Ciletha listened with wide, wondering eyes. “That right, sentry?” Dirk asked.
“You have guessed correctly, sir,” the robot said. “Will it please you to enter?”
“Hard to say,” Dirk said slowly.
Faint on the night breeze came the belting of hounds.
“On second thought, it would please me very much. Take us in, sentry.”
The robot led the way through the gate.
“Sentry,” Gar said, “there may be some men following us with dogs. Discourage them, will you?”
“Certainly, sir. I will cover your trail with a mild solution of petroleum derivatives—but I don’t think you need fear. These people may have discarded religion, but they are still superstitious.”
“Needs will out,” Dirk muttered.
“Certain primal drives always find expression,” Gar muttered back.
“What on earth are they talking about?” Ciletha wanted to know.
Miles shook his head, bewildered. “I don’t have the faintest idea.”
Gar suddenly reined in his horse. A pace behind him, Dirk asked, “Ghosts?”
“Not many, at least,” Gar answered, “and not malevolent.” If he had been alone, Miles would have run right then. With Ciletha beside him, though, he didn’t dare.
She looked about her, wide-eyed. “What’s he talking about? I don’t see anything, not even those odd dumpy people!” Miles looked down the long, broad, silent boulevard, glancing at each of the buildings. “If there were ghosts, I could believe they’d flock here,” he said slowly, “but I don’t see anything.”
“Would it matter if we did?” Ciletha’s voice trembled. “Where else could we hide that the hounds wouldn’t follow?” Her grip tightened on his arm, and truth to tell, it gave Miles as much reassurance as it seemed to give her.
Dirk pointed to the ruins of what looked like an ancient Greek temple, high above them on the hilltop. “That’s high ground, and it should have back exits.”
“A good choice,” Gar agreed. “Sentry, can you lead us there?”
“Of course, sir,” the robot said, and struck off along the boulevard. Gar and Dirk followed, so Miles and Ciletha had no choice but to go along, though Miles’s stomach hollowed farther with every step.
The boulevard led straight to a wide circular plaza that radiated a dozen streets. Without the slightest hesitation the robot went to the one that sloped up toward the “temple.”
“Odd to rise so,” Dirk commented.
“Yes, sir, but that straight climb was useful. Children used to delight in it when snow fell.”
Ciletha laughed, almost breathless. “How can I fear a place where children used to go sledding?”
“I can’t, either.” Miles grinned. “Especially if their ghosts are happy.”
“They are,” Gar called out ahead.
Miles frowned, and Ciletha asked, “How can he know if a ghost is happy?”
“He’s teasing us,” Miles told her. “There aren’t any ghosts.” He hoped he was right.
The street ran straight up the hill. “They banked this into a long, gentle slope when they buried the ship,” Dirk offered. Gar nodded. “They were building a toboggan run, not a roller coaster.”
“Their secret language again,” Ciletha sighed.
Miles looked at her and grinned. She was amazingly resilient—or very brave. Or both.
Up they climbed, up and up between buildings tinted rose and blue and gray in the moonlight. Empty windows stared down at them, but the buildings seemed to smile. More happy people than miserable ones had lived here. Behind them, the belling of the hounds became louder and louder. Miles couldn’t help but feel safe here, though.
Finally the ground leveled off, and they stood in a great circular plaza with the great temple-like structure towering before them. A long, long stairway led up to a doorway decorated with bas-relief carvings, but its grade was so shallow that Miles didn’t think it would be terribly tiring to climb.
“You must leave your horses here,” the robot told them. “Makes sense.” Dirk dismounted and tied his horse’s reins to a nearby marble post. “Let’s go.”
Gar dismounted too, and the companions climbed up toward the temple. The going was easy, but it was a long, long way at a constant climb, and Miles’s legs began to ache. He kept glancing at Ciletha with concern, but she seemed to have less trouble than he, only breathing heavily as she went, and he could appreciate that.
Finally the stairs ended, and the pillars of the temple loomed above them, far higher than they had seemed from the ground below. Miles stared up at them, awed.
Then the voices of the hounds broke into a frenzy.
“The animals have come out of the forest and struck your trail,” the robot informed them.
Miles turned, his stomach sinking—and saw bolts of lightning strike down from the towers, sheeting between the city and the hunters. He cried out in dismay, “I didn’t mean that people should die so I could escape!”
“None have died,” the robot informed him, with such total assurance that it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “The energy struck far before them, but it has been enough to give them pause. You may hear what they say.” It made no move, but voices suddenly spoke, floating above the steps before them. The hounds barked and whined in fear, and a man’s voice called, “The hounds won’t go ahead now, bailiff.”
“I don’t blame them,” said a heavy voice that Miles knew. “Let them go, forester! If they’ve fled to that place, they’re as good as imprisoned.”
“Aye.” The voice became muffled, as though the man had turned his back. “Anyone who would flee here of his own free will, must be like all the rest of them.”
“Yes,” said another. “If they chose this place, what difference? Here or in the madhouse, it’s all the same.”
The noises of the dogs, and the men’s calls to them, faded, then stopped abruptly.
“Directional sound,” Dirk offered, “automatically adjusting the focal point.”
Gar nodded. “Parabolic audio pickups buried in the wall, at a guess. And that lightning would give them a good reason to stay away.”
“It would scare me.” Dirk turned to the robot. “How did the city know to keep them out, sentry?”
“Why, sir, because you had told this unit you were being chased.”
“So.” Dirk looked up at Gar, interested. “If we tell one part of the city, we tell it all. Central computer somewhere?”
“That sounds likely,” Gar agreed. He turned to Miles. “Why would our coming in here be the same as being imprisoned in a madhouse?”
Miles could only spread his hands, baffled. Ciletha shook her head, equally at a loss.
“Why not ask the people who live here?” Dirk asked softly. They turned and looked into the “temple.” Soft lights had come to life, showing them the line of dumpy-looking people in gorgeous clothing, stepping out to gather in the doorway of the temple.
Orgoru was suspicious of the strangers, as were all his fellow aristocrats, but when the Guardian told them the newcomers were being chased by a bailiff and his foresters, Orgoru felt pangs of sympathy. Then, when the moving picture on the wall of the great hall had shown them the foresters turning away, and they had heard the foresters say the fugitives belonged in the city, King Longar cried, “That is reason enough to trust them, at least enough for a night’s hospitality!”