“I wasn’t looting, sir,” he protested as he drew near. “I just picked up a little candle holder fashioned from that black wood. It’s of no value, sir … a souvenir to take home to Prad for my wife… I’ll put it back if you—”
“Never mind that,” Toller interrupted. “1 want this door opened. Fetch whatever tools you need from the ship. Blow it off its hinges if that’s what it takes.”
“Yes, sir!” Looking relieved, Gabbleronn studied the door for a moment, then saluted and hurried away.
Toller sat down on the stone doorsteps and made himself as comfortable as he could while he waited for the sergeant to return. The heat was increasing as the sun climbed higher, and the sky was so bright that only a few of the normal daytime stars were visible. Directly above him, the great disk of Overland occupied the center of the heavens, looking fresh and unsullied in his eyes, and he felt a sudden pang of homesickness for its dew-fresh open spaces. The entire planet of Land was one vast charnel house—exhausted, ghost-ridden, dusty and sad—and even the presence of Vantara somewhere over the horizon scarcely compensated for the gloominess which had begun to impose itself on his mind. It would be different if he could actually be in her company, but this business of being near to her and yet completely cut off from her was much worse than…
What am I doing to myself? he thought suddenly. What kind of man am I becoming? Would that other Toller Maraquine have mooned around in such a manner—lovesick and homesick—like a sallow-faced adolescent?
The questions propelled Toller to his feet and he was pacing in impatient circles, a hand on the hilt of his sword, when he saw Correvalte approaching with the rest of the crew in his wake. The lieutenant was checking his notes as he walked, looking businesslike, competent and very much at ease with himself and his surroundings. Toller felt a twinge of envy coupled with a momentary suspicion that Correvalte had the potential to be the better officer of the two.
“The report is almost complete, sir—except for an inspection of the pumping station,” Correvalte said. “Have you been inside the building?”
“How could I enter the building when the accursed door is barred?” Toller snapped. “Do I look like a wraith which can insinuate itself through cracks in the woodwork?”
The lieutenant’s eyes widened and then became opaquely impersonal. “I’m sorry, sir—I didn’t realize…”
“I have sent Gabbleronn for some tools,” Toller cut in, already ashamed of his display of peevishness. “See if he needs any help in carrying them—I have no wish to linger in this cemetery any longer than necessary.”
He turned away as Correvalte was performing one of his ultra-correct salutes and walked along the bank of the river until he came to a narrow wooden bridge. From a distance the bridge had appeared quite sound, but on close examination he saw that its structure had a grey-white spongy texture which signaled that it had been ravaged by wood-boring insects. He drew his sword and struck at one of the handrail stanchions. It severed with very little resistance to the blade and toppled into the river, taking a section of the rail with it. Half a dozen further blows were sufficient to cut through the two main beams of the bridge, sending the whole rotten edifice plunging down into the water amid puffs of powdered wood and a buzzing of minute winged creatures which had been disturbed in their appointed task.
“You have had a good meal,” Toller said, whimsically addressing the multitudes of insects and their grubs which must have been still inside the fallen timbers, “now you can enjoy a drink.”
The little flurry of physical activity, frivolous though it had been, helped ease the tensions in his mind and he was in a better mood as he retraced his steps to the village. He reached the pumping station just as Gabbleronn and two of his helpers had succeeded in prising the door open with the aid of large crowbars.
“Good work,” Toller said. “Now let us see what marvels of engineering lie within.”
Before arriving on Land he had known from his history tuition that the planet had no metals, and that brakka wood had always been employed for applications where, on Overland, the designer would have chosen iron, steel or some other suitable metal. Nevertheless, machinery whose gearwheels and other highly stressed components were carved from the black wood seemed cumbersome and quaint to his eye, relics of a primitive era.
He led the way along a short passage to a large, vaulted chamber which contained massive pumping machinery. The windows in the roof were heavily encrusted with grime, but there was enough light filtering down from them to show that the machinery, although coated with dust, was complete and in a good state of repair. Those parts not made of brakka—beams and struts—were of the same close-grained wood as the station’s door, a material which evidently resisted wood-boring insects or was not to their taste. Toller tested one of the beams with his thumbnail and was impressed by its hardness, even after fifty years without maintenance.
“I believe it’s called rafter wood, sir,” Steenameert said, coming to his side. “You can see why it was favored by builders.”
“How do you know what it’s called?”
Steenameert blushed. “I have read descriptions of it many times in the—”
“Oh, no!” The voice was that of Lieutenant Correvalte, who had been walking around the perimeter of the chamber, opening the doors into side rooms as he came to them. He was backing off from a doorway, shaking his head, and Toller knew at once that he had witnessed a great obscenity. This, Toller told himself, is what I have been expecting since we entered the village. I knew something bad was in store for us, and I have no wish to set eyes on it.
He knew, also, that he could not avoid personally inspecting the find lest the word get about among the crewmen that he had become soft. The most he could do was to delay the grim moment. He stooped over a control lever and ratchet and brushed the dust away from them, pretending to take a special interest in the precise carving, and while doing so watched his men. Their curiosity aroused by Correvalte’s reaction, they were taking turns at venturing into the room. None stayed longer than a few seconds, and—professionally callous though they were—each looked subdued and thoughtful as he returned to the main chamber.
I have an appointment in that room, Toller thought, and it would be unseemly to delay any longer.
He straightened up, hand unconsciously falling to the hilt of his sword, and walked to the waiting doorway. The room beyond resembled a prison cell. It was devoid of furniture, and was cheerlessly illuminated by a broken skylight in the sloping roof far above. Ranged around the walls, in the seated position, were perhaps twenty skeletons. The wispy remnants of dresses and skirts, plus the presence of necklaces and ceramic bangles, informed Toller that the skeletons were the remains of women.
It isn’t all that bad, he thought. It was a fact of life, a fact of death, that the plague was impartial. It struck down women just as readily as men, and since arriving on this unhappy world I have seen many, many…
His mind seized up, chilled, as he absorbed a fact which had not been readily apparent at first glance. Curled up in the pelvic basin of each of the skeletons was another skeleton—a tiny armature of fragile bones which was all that remained of a baby whose life had ended before it had properly begun.