Return

“Were did you find his document”, demanded Narr.

“In the oldest section, Librarian. Near the back of the Library”, replied Tatt.

“Were there more such as this, Tatt?” asked Narr.

“Yes, Librarian. Many more. A whole shelf of them”, said Tatt in a quaking voice.

“Bring them. Bring every one of them. And tell the other Librarians to come here to me. And quickly, Tatt”, ordered Narr. Tatt rose to his feet and hurried to the rear of the Library and quickly returned with an arm load of documents. Laying them at the Librarian’s feet he retreated and went to summon the other Librarians. Narr picked up a document off the top of the pile and, taking it to the light began to read furiously.

Outside on the field in front of the entrance to the Home Zarb the Builder and Dann the cook were issuing battle orders to the Watchers. The Watchers were divided in to three groups. Each group was given orders describing how to approach Their ship. The plan was drawn to approach the ship from three different directions, south, east and west, in such a way that each group had a clear field of fire and They could only retreat to the north.. Momentarily, each group began to fan out across the Pan, hurrying toward their goal.

Shek jogged ahead of the four others in his group. Rapidly they moved northwest toward the Valley of Kahh. The day was warming early as it always did during this part of the cycle. Shek glanced at the sun to see the First Sun was barely one hand above the mountain ridge and already the air at the horizon was shimmering, making the sun reflect on the surface of the Pan in a silvery mirage. Beads of sweat formed on Shek’s forehead and ran in small rivulets down his cheeks and into his eyes. Coming to a shallow gully Shek stopped and dropped to his stomach motioning the other Watchers to do the same.

“How much farther, Shek”, asked Omeg, the Watcher, as he peered over the edge of the gully and surveyed the Pan. “I see nothing out there but the desert that has always been.”

Wiping the sweat from his eyes Shek only grunted. Raising he crawled up over the edge of the gully and began jogging again toward the northwest, this time somewhat slower than before. As he ran his eyes scanned the Pan to the south as well as to the northwest. The he saw what he had been waiting for. Far out on the Pan to the east there was a flash of light, then another and still another. Immediately, Shek dropped to his knees and reached for the bag at his side. The others stopped beside him and waited patiently while Shek dug in his bag.

Holding the mirror from his bag Shek began using it to catch the sun creating a flash of his own in the direction he had seen. In a few moments there was a flash again from the east which repeated several times then stopped. Putting his mirror back in his bag Shek turned to the others. “Bhaa, Omeg and Mekk go two Las to the northwest then drop there and wait for he signal. Toop you will accompany me.” Raising his hand Shek pointed to the in a direction just north of west. “Their ship is there. We cannot see it yet but Mokk and his group sees it already. They await us. Now hurry”, instructed Shek. Then standing he began running quickly directly toward Their ship followed closely by Toop. The others ran to the north until the sun rose one more finger then turned directly west running harder now.

Shek and the other Watchers could feel the exhilaration of the coming battle. The drove them forward through the heat. Each Watcher could only see the coming battle. Their senses heightened. Like hunters after wounded pray their eyes continuously scanned the horizon. Their breath rasping in their throats as the animal that dwelled within them surfaced in preparation for the coming confrontation.

Then suddenly coming over a small rise Shek saw the pray. He stopped. Toop dropped to his knees and stared. Still many Els ahead was Their ship. It rested in depression behind an arroyo. “No wonder we could not see Their ship from the Home”, said Shek quietly. Taking his mirror again from his bag, Shek flashed to the north. A moment later a flash returned indicating that the others of his group were in position. Then he turned and flashed to the west and again was answered.

Shek sat and pondered. The plan was working well. The three groups were now six smaller groups arranged around three sides of Their ship. Everyone was in position and ready for the attack. Shek felt a growing uneasiness in his stomach. Could this be fear? A Watcher, a great hunter could know no fear. After all Shek had hunted the elusive Kett in this very place. He shook his head to clear these thoughts and sat back on his haunches to wait.

Narr looked at the chronograph on the wall and shouted, “Tatt! Where are you? Come here quickly!” Tatt peek up over a pile of manuscripts on a desk at the far end and responded, “Coming, Librarian.” Tatt hurried in his shuffling way to the Librarian.

Narr was scribbling on a parchment. Shoving it towards the Junior Librarian he said, “Take this to the Priest. And hurry. It’s very important. And hear me! The Priest must come back here with you. Now go.” Narr watched Tatt as he hurried out into the corridor and turned towards the Great Hall. “Damn. It’s late, so late. How could I have lost track of time?” he wondered. Picking up a manuscript, Narr stared at the page in disbelief. Reading and re-reading the words. Then, shaking his head, he neatly folded the document as was his habit and placed it aside for Kalb. “Hurry, Priest. Time is of the essence and we must divert this disaster,” thought Narr as he bent at the waist and placed his head in his hands.

“Librarian. What is this?” said Kalb the Priest as he strode into the room closely followed by Tatt. “I have no time for cryptic notes and riddles, man.”

Narr picked up the manuscript he had been studying and unfolded it. Handing it to the Priest he whispered, “We must stop the Watchers. We are making a horrible mistake, Kalb.”

Kalb took the document and, holding it to the light, began to read. Presently, Kalb sat and looked across the desk at the Librarian. “What foolishness is this?”

“Not foolishness, Priest. I have studied many such manuscripts today. They tell of a story different than we have believed. Over the generations our true history has been twisted. We even read the words of the Great Book incorrectly. These documents tell of a time when we lived in a paradise, a time when water flowed freely upon the surface of the Pan. The say there were once may tribes living here.” Narr stared at the Priest for a moment, then continued, “Then there was a war. Man killing man. Great weapons were developed and made the killing easier. The war lasted for years until finally there was only the Tribe.”

Kalb looked again at the document in his hand, “But why, Narr? And what has this to do with Them?”

The First Sun was sinking below the western ridge. Shek looked at his companion and asked, “Are you afraid, Watcher Toop?”

Toop shook his head and steeling a glance in he direction of the ship, replied “No Watcher, And the time is close. Tonight we will defend the Home.”

Shek only grunted. Then, raising rising from his haunches motioned the Junior Watcher to follow and began moving silently toward the ship in the growing darkness. The two Watchers skirted an outcropping of large rocks and found themselves only two hundred paces from the ship. Shek dropped to his stomach. Pulling his rifle from his shoulder he pulled the charge lever and watched until the red light blinked off. Toop did the same. Now all was ready. They waited for Repp the Senior Watcher to give the signal in the south.

Kalb dropped the manuscript on the desk and leaped up. Running for the door he knew now the truth. He knew now the reason for the Administrator and the Librarian and the Builder and the Cook and even the Priest. Silently he cursed a hundred generations that had come before him. “How could they have forgotten?” Stumbling now on the stone floor, Kalb had to reach out to steady himself on the stone wall as he ran faster than he though possible. Then he was at the entrance and moving up the winding path to the Watching Place. “Stop! Tell them to stop!” he shouted.

From the Watching Place Dann looked down at the Priest struggling up the path. “Go back and hide in your hole, Priest. The battle is about to begin. Look. Repp, the Senior Watcher has already lit the signal fire.”

Captain William Sheffield of the Earth Ship, Searcher, threw off his head set and turned to his co-pilot, Lieutenant Thomas McCarthy. “Well, Tom. I cannot raise anyone. It seems as though we have returned too late. Even the landing port is now gone.” Both looked out on the bleak landscape of the planet of their birth wondering what had happened. Subjectively Captain Sheffield and Lieutenant McCarthy had only been gone for two years. A small amount of time for traveling the distances they had gone. But now he began to wonder how many centuries had passed here since their leaving. Sheffield tried to force his mind to plug two years into the variables on the right side of Ott’s Unified Field Equation but the number of years that were yielded on the Left side due to the doubling effects of velocities far in excess of light speed were larger than his mind could fathom. “They were supposed to wait and watch for us,” he said absently.

“Maybe we can find a few survivors, There is a cave of some sort about 6 miles to the south on the edge of the plain near where the Administration Building was,” said McCarthy. “We have to look. We have a duty to the survivors, Captain. We’ve traveled half across the galaxy and back to find a new home. There must be someone left.” The Captain only shrugged and began making his way back to the airlock.

The darkness was nearly complete now. Shek brought his rifle to his shoulder and began sighting it in on the ship. He made several final adjustments then; content that he would send his bolt of blue fire exactly where he aimed rested the weapon on his forearms.

Excitedly Tott said, “Look Watcher. A light from the ship.”

Shek looked and sure enough there was a light. As he stared the light grew rapidly. Then two figures emerged from the light walking towards the Home. For a moment, Shek was agape with amazement. Then bolts of blue flashed from the west and south. Instantly, Shek and Tott shouldered their weapons and began to fire. The walking figures leaped into the air and fell unmoving but still the blue bolts flashed some striking the bodies, others kicking up dust around them.

Silently, the airlock door on the ship closed sealing forever the secrets hidden inside.

As Kalb climbed the last few steps to stand on the Watching Place Dann pointed to the North. “Look, Priest” he shouted, “Victory is ours!”

Kalb looked out across the wide Pan and saw torches in the darkness. The sounds of chanting came to him. Chants not heard on the Pan for a hundred Generations. Chants of the returning worriers, victorious. Chants of bravery and sacrifice. Chants that, to the Priest, spelled doom for the Tribe. But how could he tell them? How could he say to them that by defending the Home they had lost their last chance of escape from the dismal life they had known for all those generations? So much had been lost over the generations. The memory of the Great War. The memory of sending out one small ship to find a new place for them where they could live a better life free of the trials of daily survival. And more, they had forgotten the very reason the Watchers watched the sky for the return.

Smiling and chanting with the others Shek waved his torch as he jogged back to the Home. Tonight he knew something had changed. He knew that somehow he was different than he had been when he first saw the light in the sky. Shek felt something new, something he had never felt before. No longer was he just a Watcher. The battle had changed him. Now he was something more than he had been. What he felt was not quite elation for that was unknown and foreign to the Tribe. He felt alive for the first time. This feeling intensified as his thoughts moved to Kana. Soon he would be back in her arms and things would be back to normal. After all, this night had not the he and the other Watchers set things right again?

Kalb, the Priest, dropped to his knees and covered his face with his hands. How could this be explained? How could the Tribe be made to understand the utter failure of generations of Elders to maintain the history in proper perspective? Kalb looked on at the Pan, at the returning warriors. How could they be told that their victory was the end of all hope as expressed in the true words of the Great Book?

With growing weariness, Kalb began to slowly make his way back to the Library. “I must talk to Narr,” he thought, “This story can never be told and that fool Librarian must be made to understand.”

The Tribe celebrated the victory many nights following the battle. Stories of bravery and sacrifice grew to legend to be told and retold to generation after generation. And every night, Watchers sat in the Watching Place to watch the sky for what they knew now was a strange acting light in the sky signaling another battle in defense of the Home.