"Then you did have more than the dreams to back you when you argued with
Fenniston!" Shann cut in.
Thorvald's eyes were on him again. "When did you hear that, Lantee?"
To his great embarrassment, Shann found himself flushing. "I heard you,
the day you left for Headquarters," he admitted, and then added in his
own defense, "Probably half the camp did, too."
Thorvald's gathering frown flickered away. He gave a snort of laughter.
"Yes, I guess we did rather get to the bellowing point that morning. The
dreams--" he came back to the subject--"Yes, the dreams
were--are--important. We had their warning from the start. Lorry was the
First-In Scout who charted Warlock, and he is a good man. I guess I can
break secret now to tell you that his ship was equipped with a new
experimental device which recorded--well, you might call it an
"emanation"--a radiation so faint its source could not be traced. And it
registered whenever Lorry had one of those dreams. Unfortunately, the
machine was very new, very much in the untested stage, and its
performance when checked later in the lab was erratic enough so the
powers-that-be questioned all its readings. They produced a half dozen
answers to account for that tape, and Lorry only caught the recording as
long as he was on a big bay to the south.
"Then when two check flights came in later, carrying perfected machines
and getting no recordings, it was all written off as a mistake in the
first experiment. A planet such as Warlock is too big a find to throw
away when there was no proof of occupancy. And the settlement boys
rushed matters right along."
Shann recalled his own vivid dream of the skull-rock set in the lap of
water--this sea? And another small point fell into place to furnish the
beginning of a pattern. "I was asleep on the raft when I dreamed about
that skullmountain," he said slowly, wondering if he were making sense.
Thorvald's head came up with the alert stance of Taggi on a strong game
scent.
"Yes, on the raft you dreamed of a skull-rock. And I of a cavern with a
green veil. Both of us were on water--water which had an eventual
connection with the sea. Could water be a conductor? I wonder...." Once
again his hand went into his blouse. He crossed the strip of gravel
beach and dipped fingers into the water, letting the drops fall on the
carved disk he now held in his other hand.
"What are you doing?" Shann could see no purpose in that.
Thorvald did not answer. He had pressed wet hand to dry now, palm to
palm, the coin cupped tightly between them. He turned a quarter circle,
to face the still distant open sea.
"That way." He spoke with a new odd tonelessness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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