"This joint would seem to be a temple of the sun, eh, chief?" grinned Phath sarcastically.
"Your Venusian compatriot is completely accurate in his guess, sir," spoke a deep, resonant voice from behind them. They turned to see a tall imposing Earthling with iron-gray hair, attired in yellow robes blazoned on breast and back with the omnipresent solar emblem. He had a weathered, long-jawed face, with blue eyes which bore within their depths a humorous twinkle.
"This is, indeed, the First Temple of Our Lord the Sun, friends, and you are more than welcome! I am Father Langston ... and if you are wondering that my little flock and I worship anything so simple and obvious as the sun, recall that so did the wise Egyptians and Babylonians and Incas of ancient times, back Earthside. Not only do the beneficent rays of the sun warm our worlds, drive away cold and bitter darkness, bring health and sustain nourishment and life itself, but the sun is the source of all life and the author of our being."
The tall priest made a self-deprecating gesture that was somehow modest and even endearing. "Oh, don't misunderstand me, friends! It is not the actual sundisc itself, the sphere of super-heated gases, that we worship, but That which the sun symbolizes and stands for: light, warmth, goodness—the antithesis of darkness, depravity and evil."
The tall priest grinned suddenly.
"In the days before I—ah—I have to say 'saw the light,' although I deplore the play on words as bordering on irreverence!"—and here he chuckled a little—"I was a mineralogist in the pay of Mercury Metals & Minerals, and as a scientist I knew that the sun was the very source and origin of those precious minerals I was paid to discover. Of course, this was long before I came to realize that Our Lord the Sun was so very much more than merely a great light in the sky, that it was the source of spiritual illumination and the visible symbol of the creative and paternal force in the universe ... but I suspect my fervor has run away with my tongue, and that you men are here about quite another business—?"
"True enough," nodded Star, and asked a few questions. Father Langston told him that not only had Borden and McCallister not been communicants of his Temple, but that his little flock consisted only of native Mercurians, and, while outworlders were welcome, none had yet converted to the solar faith.
"They are a poor, downtrodden folk," murmured Langston. "Few of them aspire to a good education in the free schools the Colonial Government has established, and fewer yet rise beyond the lowly rank of clerk or computer programmer ... although some do become jurists, physicians, even spaceship officers. The sun was the object of their ancient faith, and in bringing them before His altars again I am but bringing them home to the most ancient and sacred of their ancestral traditions ..."
Star queried the friendly priest about the myth of the Fire Trolls, and as to whether Langston believed such creatures might actually exist, hidden away in some, remote fastness of the hostile and all-but-impenetrable Sunside. The priest pursed his lips judiciously and would not give an opinion on this.
"In Mercurian myth, they represent the deadly side of the solar force ... for the sun can warm and bless living things, but it can also kill them swiftly and mercilessly, like any other great natural force ... beyond that, I would not care to venture an opinion."
They thanked the gray-haired man and left the Sun Temple, heading back to their ship. Star carried with him the beginnings of a liking for the older man, who might well prove a friend in need.
VII. "Star Pirate to the Rescue!"
Back at the Jolly Roger, Star Pirate and Phath made a few calls to Patrol headquarters for the Mercury/Venus jurisdiction, and checked on a few things with the vast archives of Computer Central, where exhaustive records of every description were stored for instant access.
They dined that evening at Governor Kirkland's executive mansion, where the cuisine was an interesting mixture of traditional Earthling dishes, such as sirloin of beef, asparatus in mustard sauce and chef's salad, and certain exotic native Mercurian dishes, including deliciously crunchy fried moss-cakes, a simmering stew of spicy tubers swimming in fungus-broth, and tasty, tender lichen-balls with Sunside pepper.
The only other guest at the Governor's table was Hardrock, the police commissioner. He was a grim, taciturn fellow, and said little outside of an occasional grunt and nod of the head during the meal. Afterwards, in the Governor's library over a superb Martian brandy and aromatic cigars of golden-ripe Venusian tobacco, the commissioner waxed a little more eloquent.
"Understand you've been questioning that crazed charlatan, who calls himself the 'High Priest of the Sun,' " he said gruffly.
"We have," Star nodded quietly. "But while he may prove to be a charlatan of sorts, I didn't find him 'crazed' in particular.*'
Hardrock gave vent to a harsh bark of laughter. "Fellow has high degrees in his field from Earth's finest universities," he growled. "Had an excellent job here with Mercury Metals, checking sites in the Belt for unsuspected deposits of rare radioactives. Threw the whole thing over—job, career, everything!—to go bump his forehead on the ground, grovelling before the cursed sun. Mad—and dangerous!"
Star cocked one eyebrow quizzically. "How—’dangerous’?" he inquired in lazy tones. The heavy-faced man scowled at him with eyes like cold steel.
"A fanatic, isn't he? All fanatics are dangerous ... or can be!"'
"Maybe ... but he seemed sane and normal when I talked to him, and he answered my questions openly and frankly enough," commented Star.
Hardrock showed him a nasty, thin-lipped grin.
"Probably didn’t know who you were," the bigger man grunted. "May find it kinda hard to get folks to answer your questions from here on in, Mr. Star Pirate—now that everybody in town knows you're here on Mercury, hoping to bust these Fire Troll murders wide open!"
"What do you mean?" asked Star with a slight frown.
The commissioner chuckled, put down his cigar, and drew a crumpled sheet of flimsy paper from the inner pocket of his uniform tunic. He rapped it with a blunt forefinger.
"That fat fool who runs the Horseshoe must have blabbed his head off," growled Hardrock. "’Cause the afternoon newsfax has your picture smeared all over the front page, under big scare headlines."
And he showed Star the afternoon edition of the Belt City Sentinel. Just as he had said, an excellent likeness of the redheaded adventurer and his Venusian sidekick occupied most of the front page, under roaring headlines that announced—
STAR PIRATE TO THE RESCUE!
Famed Adventurer to Bat tie Fire Troll!
Star bit his lip in vexation. It had not occurred to him to ask the manager of the Golden Horseshoe to keep his, Star’s, presence on Mercury a secret. ...
While the Governor’s private flyer had picked them up at the field and had flown them to the executive mansion, Star elected to stroll back to where they had berthed their trim little speedster, afoot. It was a mild and splendid night, with a pleasant breeze from the north, redolent of the strange but not unpleasant aroma of native moss-farms and lichen-groves. Stars blazed in the dim amber-purplish haze that was the sky of the Twilight Belt and very few were abroad, except for alert and wary officers on patrol against further enormities by the Fire Troll.
Phath eyed the night sky dubiously.