Avery smiled. ‘It doesn’t satisfy me.’
But Barbara’s brief disappointment vanished as he went on.
‘Finding each other is the big thing, but it’s only the first thing. Now we have to build. Not just a house or even—if we get enough children—a village. Not just comfort on a cosy little island for four. But some damn silly compulsive abstraction called civilization…. To hell with Them\ We’ll try to sort.out a few of their riddles when we have nothing better to do in the evenings. But if it’s true what They said, then sooner or later we’re going to have to try our hands at boats. Then we can link up and really grow.’
‘Pooh,’ said Barbara. ‘Let’s wait till somebody comes to visit us.’
Avery ruffled her hair affectionately. ‘Suppose they all think that? Come on, we can argue it out over breakfast. And then we must really look for a select plot of land for a house—the first house.’
As they went back to Camp Two, Avery began to think about Them. Despite the grotesque appearance, there had been something oddly familiar about them.
And suddenly he knew what it was.
He had seen that face—the four faces in one—and that smile before.
He had seen them seventy light-years ago in an illustration in a geography book in an English schoolroom.
The smile on the face of the Sphinx…
Filled with wonder, confusion—and a strange feeling of exhilaration—he helped Barbara to get fruit and some fresh water for breakfast.
The sun was still low, but there was every sign that it was going to be a hot day.
Perhaps, instead of looking for a piece of land to build on, he would paint.
Perhaps, while he was painting, he would dream of building a boat….
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 by Edmund Cooper
First published 1964 by Faber & Faber Ltd
Coronet edition 1973
The characters in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any living person
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed in Great Britain for Coronet Books, Hodder Paperbacks Ltd.,
St. Paul's House, Warwick Lane, E.C.4., by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press), Ltd.,
Bungay, Suffolk.
ISBN 0 340 16464 6