Grove of the Unborn

by Lyn Venable

highly ornamented robe of the Arrillian noble.Tyndall knew he was no ordinary prisoner, and somehow, this fact madehim doubly uneasy.

  And then, tonight, the ship had blasted off without him. Tyndall couldeasily reconstruct what had happened when his crewmates had inquiredabout him, at the palace and in town. "Tyn-Dall?" Then, a sorrowfulexpression, a shrugging of the shoulders, a pointing toward thedeath-infested jungle, and a mournful shaking of the head, sign languagewhich in any tongue meant, "Tyn-Dall wanders too far from your ship. Hebecomes lost. Alas, he does not know our jungle and its perils." Thosewho spoke a little English would make some expression of sympathy.

  Maybe the crew was a little suspicious, maybe they thought there wassomething fishy about the thing, and then they thought of the unhappyresults of what was commonly referred to as an "interplanetaryincident." Ever since the people of the second planet of Alpha Centauri,in the early days of extraterrestrial exploration, had massacred anentire expedition because the captain had mortally insulted a triballeader by refusing a sacred fruit, such incidents had been avoided atall costs.

  And so, they dared not offend the Arrillians by questioning the veracityof their statements. And the jungle was deadly, so they looked a littlelonger, and asked a few more questions. After a little while, thescientists had completed their work and were anxious to get home, andso, the ship blasted off, without him.

  All this had passed kaleidoscopically in Tyndall's mind as he lay on thecouch in his luxurious prison, too numb to weep or even curse. Hisreverie was broken by the clicking of the lock and he raised up to seethe door opening. An Arrillian servant stood there, his silver hair doneup in the complicated style which denoted male house servants. He wasunarmed. The houseman smiled, roared in imitation of a rocket, made aswooping gesture with one hand to indicate the departing ship, thenpointed at Tyndall and at the open door. The servant bowed and departed,leaving the door slightly ajar. Now that the ship was gone, he was freeto leave his room.

  Tyndall stepped cautiously out of the room and found himself in a longhall, with many doors opening from it on either side, much like a hotelcorridor. One end of the hall seemed to open out onto a garden and hestarted in that direction.

  The doorway opened out into a patio which overlooked a vast andperfectly tended garden. The verdant perfection of the scene was marredonly by one of the Bugs, sunning itself and gnawing on the stem of aflower. Tyndall was impressed again with the repulsive ugliness of thething. This one was the size of a small adult human, and even vaguelyhuman in outline, although the brownish armored body was still moresuggestive of a big bug than anything else known to him. There were evenrudimentary wings furled close to the curving back, and the undersidewas a dirty, striped gray. Tyndall shuddered, wondering why theArrillians, who so loved to surround themselves with beauty, shouldchoose so horrendous a creature as the object of their worship, orprotection.

  He heard running footsteps behind him, and turned to see the Arrillianhouseman, breathless, with an expression of greatest concern on hisface. The servant bowed respectfully before Tyndall, then gestured atthe garden, shook his head vigorously from side to side and tugged atthe Earthman's sleeve.

  "Forbidden territory, eh? Okay, old fellow, what now?"

  The servant motioned for Tyndall to follow him, and ushered him down thehall from whence he had just come, and into another of the rooms openingoff from it. The very old man reclining upon the low, Roman-like couch,Tyndall recognized at once as his host, the Rhal of Arrill.

  The Rhal touched the fingertips of both hands to his forehead in theArrillian gesture of greeting, and Tyndall did the same. He noticedseveral male Arrillians standing near the back of the room, although theservant had bowed and retired.

  "Well, Tyn-Dall, how do you enjoy the hospitality of Ahhreel?" He, ofcourse, gave the native pronunciation to the name which was almostTeutonic in sound and unpronounceable for Tyndall because of the soundgiven to the double aspirate, for which he knew no equivalent.

  "Your English, Dheb Rhal, has improved greatly since our last meeting,"commented Tyndall guardedly, using the Arrillian prefix of extremerespect.

  The old man smiled. "Your friends were kind enough to lend me books andalso the little grooved disks that make voice." He gestured toward anold-fashioned wind-up type phonograph which Tyndall recognized at onceas being standard aboard interstellar vessels, and for just such apurpose. The Rhal continued, "For teaching English very fine. How areyou enjoying our hospitality, I ask again?"

  Tyndall was stuck on Arrill and he knew it. There was no need to cookhis own goose by being deliberately offensive. "I appreciate thehospitality of Arrill, I express my thanks for the consideration of myhosts but--if I may ask a question?"

  "Yes?"

  "What, in the wisdom of the Dheb Rhal, is the reason formy--er--detainment?"

  "To answer that, Tyn-Dall, I must tell you something of the past ofAhhreel, and of her destiny." At these words, the other Arrillians inthe room drew closer, and the Rhal motioned them to a couch at his feetand nodded toward Tyndall, requesting that he join them. Tyndall noticedthat the others were gazing up into the old man's face with anexpression of raptness, even of reverence. He knew that the Rhal did notpossess an especially exalted position politically, even though he washead of the city. He guessed therefore that the Rhal must be thereligious ruler of Arrill as well.

  The Rhal began, intoning the words as though he were reciting a ritual,"There was a time, many thousands of Khreelas ago, when the kingdom ofAhhreel was not one small city, as you see it now, but a mighty empire,girdling the world in her vastness. But the people of Ahhreel had becomeevil in their ways, and her cities were black with sin. It was then thatXheev himself left his kingdom in paradise and appeared to the people ofAhhreel, and he told them that he was displeased, and that bad timeswould fall upon Ahhreel, and that her people would dwindle in number,and became exceedingly few, and the jungle would reclaim her emptiedcities. One city, and only one, would survive and prosper, and thepeople of that city would be given the chance to redeem Ahhreel, andremove the heavy hand of Xheev's terrible punishment.

  "All this came to pass, and in the dark Khreelas that followed, all ofAhhreel vanished except this city. Now, for many, many thousands ofKhreelas, the people of this city have striven to redeem Ahhreel byobeying the sacred laws of Xheev.

  "Xheev had promised that when the punishment was ended, he would send asign, and his sign would be that a great silver shell should fall fromthe heavens, and within would be Xheev's own emissary, who must wed theranking priestess of Xheev, establishing again the rapport between thekingdom of paradise and the world of Ahhreel."

  When the Rhal had finished, the other Arrillians in the room fastenedthe same look of reverence upon Tyndall which they had formerly reservedfor the Rhal.

  Tyndall chose his words carefully. "But there were many aboard myvessel. Why did you, Dheb Rhal, select me as the emissary of Xheev?"

  "Xheev selected you, I recognized you, as of all your companions, youand you alone have the sun-colored hair, which is the sacred color ofXheev."

  Tyndall was able to question the Rhal almost coolly, the trap wasalready sprung, the ship was gone. Now, he only wanted to know the how,and the why. An accident of pigmentation, only that had brought him tothis. Sun-colored hair!

  "But, Dheb Rhal, did my friends and I not often tell you of ourselves,of the place from which we came? A world, a world like your own?"

  The old man smiled. "Do not think me naive, Tyn-Dall. I am quite awarethat you are but a man, a man from another world, although quite anincredible world it must be. I know also that you were, until this hour,unaware of your destiny. I knew that when my priest reported that youignored the Ritual Of The Time, until literally forced to obey. That iswhy we had to use ... devious means to make certain that your companionswould not prevent the fulfillment of the prophesy. Now, of course, youunderstand.

  "I do not think the priestess Lhyreesa will make you unhappy, Tyn-Dall."

 
* * * * *

  This was not Earth and these people were not Earthmen. The thought nowdid not bring the bitter pain it had at first, right after the shipleft. Earth already was becoming hazy in Tyndall's mind, a lovely globeof green somewhere ... somewhere far, and home once, a long time ago.

  No, the Arrillians were not Earthmen, but they were human, and anattractive, gracious race. Life would not be bad, among the Arrillians,especially as the espoused of the ranking priestess of Arrill. Tyndallfingered the rich material of his Arrillian robe; he thought of thefood, the wine, the servants. No, he decided, not bad at all. Onething, though--this priestess Lhyreesa ...

  "I have, then, but one request to make, Dheb Rhal, I would like to seethe priestess Lhyreesa."

  The old man almost chuckled, "That is understandable, Tyn-Dall, but itis not yet The