The old man looked slowly from Sinead to Declan and back again before replying.
"What I tell you now is partly speculative rather than entirely factual," he said, "because, regrettably, we Taelons do not have the intense levels of physical attraction and emotional involvement that are possessed by your shortlived species. It is possible that, even though you disliked each other intensely in the beginning, when continued close proximity and shared dangers forced you into recognizing each other's better qualities and depths of character, the emotional potential that built up between you was so intense that when the change of feeling came and you joined, the stimulation of your future time sense was unique in its strength. On Taelon such an intensity of emotional bonding is unknown, and on your own world it must be rare. That is the best answer I can give you."
Sinead looked uncomfortable and said, "Ma'el, are you telling us that we are the greatest lovers there have ever been?"
Declan gave a small laugh to hide his embarrassment. "I would think that all lovers feel like this about each other," he said, then added thoughtfully, "but in this case it is probably true."
Before Sinead could reply, Ma'el raised a hand to point and said, "Your moon is less than two of its diameters distant and you have work to do. Declan, position the vessel for a landing in that large crater with the low, central peak."
"Someday," Sinead said in a quiet voice, "somebody is going to name it Tycho." At last the lessons were over for the day in a place where there was neither day nor night, Ma'el had urged them to rest and placed them in a small room whose walls had been made opaque except for the one that looked out on the beautiful blue and white Earth that was hanging low above the crater's rim and dimming the background stars only slightly. Sinead was trying to do the impossible, which was to move her body closer than it already was to his.
"Earlier," she said softly, "you told Ma'el that the most beautiful and wonderful thing you had ever seen was the Earth and the stars in space. You also said that we were the world's greatest lovers, probably. Probably?"
Declan raised a hand to caress the back of her neck at the hairline, then moved his fingers slowly and lightly down the length of her spine, hearing her soft, ragged intake of breath.
"The Earth and stars don't wrap themselves as tightly around me as you do," he said, "and as for being the world's greatest lovers, we need more practice…"
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ma'el Report. Day 112,178…
The advanced instruction in ship handling was completed with the period it took for their moon to circle twice around its parent planet, a learning time that I consider not only satisfactory but impressive. The operating principle governing instantaneous navigation through the dimensional layers of quasireality, while they learned to perform the required hand movements with precision, were difficult for them to grasp. In a gross oversimplification, I finally explained it by spreading out Sinead's white linen burnoose, marking it with a spot of dark liquid, and then fold it so that the stain was copied onto a different part of the garment before spreading it flat again to show the distance that could be traveled instantaneously between the two marked places. The demonstration enabled them to understand how, if not why, interdimensional travel worked.
"This illustrates once again the essential difference between intelligence and education. These people of Earth are uncivilized, technologically backward, and woefully ignorant, but they are highly adaptable and intelligent. With the possession of intelligence, especially where these two are concerned, ignorance is a temporary condition.
"With this purely organic life-form, a prolonged stay in the light gravity of their moon means that muscular deterioration with a consequent loss of physical coordination will gradually take place. This could prove embarrassing and even dangerous for them in the Earth environment, so their return should not be long delayed.
"The lack of a breathable atmosphere on this world means that they have been unable to leave the ship, but this close confinement together does not seem to worry them…"
–
They had come out of orbit over the Mediterranean and were descending toward Alexandria to overfly the course they had been following in the wagon at an altitude at which the vessel's physical shape would be mistaken for that of a high-flying bird, but low enough for them to see clearly the remembered contours until they passed over the caravanserai and new territory began to unroll like an endless carpet below them.
They continued to follow the well-used camel trail that some poetically minded merchant had named the Golden Road to Samarkand and on to the famed Dzungarian Gate in the mountains above Lake Ebi Nor, and thence across central India with its green jungles, lush grassland, deserts, and richly decorated palaces to the Jade Gate that was set in the spectacular and recently completed Great Wall which guarded the eastern flank of the world's most ancient civilization and empire of Cathay. They were staring in awe and wonder at the structure that followed the contours of the mountains and valleys like an endless square worm of stone, when Ma'el broke a lengthy silence.
"This is the surface route I originally intended to follow," he said, looking at Sinead in the control position but addressing both of them, "when it seemed desirable to conceal from you my true nature and that of the work I came to do on this world. You can estimate for yourselves the proportion of your short lives that would have been wasted merely in traveling to visit the far-flung places and people in order to update my report. That wastage, and the secrecy that would have caused it, is no longer necessary because your limited life spans and abilities, especially your timesight, and those of Declan as a protector and emissary, must be put to more effective use. When we pass over the Imperial City of Xian, bear south and cross the coast to the islands of Nippon and thence across the ocean until you pass over the eastern seaboard of a vast, rich, and beautiful land that is as yet unknown to you except in legend. It is a land of great mountain ranges, rich forests, and vast plains teeming with animal life beyond number as well as the life of its hunting tribes that is far above the animal level. There are the beginnings of empires, too, and civilizations built on human sacrifice and unthinking cruelty. We will return to visit all these places, but for now it is only necessary to prove to you that they exist. You will find a desolate and deserted place in this land and alight there…"
'These animals that you say are numerous beyond counting," said Sinead sadly, her eyes seeming to look far into space and time, "so that the thunder of their hooves makes the very land tremble. They are like monstrous, hairy cattle with heavy shoulders, enormous heads, and wide-spreading horns. I see them extinct."
Ma'el was silent for a moment, then he went on as if she had not spoken, "… So that you can both learn how to make this vessel obey you while you are at a distance from it. You will also exercise and strengthen muscles grown weak during your stay on the moon when you are not listening to me explaining more of my magic."
Apart from it having air to breathe, the place where they landed was as lifeless and arid as the Moon they had left. Instead of being surrounded by crater walls there was a strange, flat-topped mountain and several enormous, rocky pinnacles that poked out of the surrounding desert like black, misshapen fingers. They would provide ideal navigational obstacles, Ma'el insisted, while he was showing them how to remotely control their ship.
On the ground outside their tents, Ma'el unfolded and spread before them a new chart. Instead of showing pictures of the land relayed from orbit, this one reproduced in half of the original dimensions all of the control symbols from the surface of the vessel's forward canopy. He explained that the smaller size would require their hand and finger movements across it to be even more precise than those they had learned on the moon, that this was the means by which he had called down the so-called djinn which had ended the attack on the caravans, and that he had every confidence in their ability to perform the task.