Dragon's Egg

by Robert L. Forward

  As their line of travel came closer and closer to intersecting the path of the beam from the Inner Eye, the preaching of God’s-Chosen became more and more intense. Hungry-Swift listened intently, for he now respected God’s-Chosen, but he had to admit that despite all the preaching, he still did not believe that his companion was Bright’s chosen one, and that he could bring the Blessing of Bright down upon him.

  “I listen, God’s-Chosen,” Hungry-Swift said. “But I still have trouble with my belief.”

  “Even the act of confessing your disbelief is a motion in the right direction,” God’s-Chosen said. Then turning all of his eyes upward, and slowly counting off the moments since the previous flash of the beam just to the north of him, he chanted.

  “Help, O Bright! Help this unbeliever find faith! Bring down the Blessing of Bright upon Hungry-Swift.”

  Hungry-Swift’s eyes followed those of God’s-Chosen up to the strange formation of seven lights that hung overhead in the sky. He was calmly wondering how they managed to stay in one place while the rest of the stars in the sky moved from east to west—when suddenly his body seemed to explode with pleasure.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Hungry-Swift reveled in the heaven-sent pleasure of Bright’s love. His eye-stubs reached out toward the Eyes in an attempt to copulate with the stars. They writhed back and forth, stretching to their limit—then suddenly they froze as they saw the beam coming down from the Inner Eye of Bright.

  “I see! I see!!” he shouted. Then as quickly as it had come, the warmth stopped.

  Hungry-Swift composed himself and self-consciously wiped the dribbles of yellow-white mating fluid from the orifice under each eye-stub. As he gathered his senses, he could hear God’s-Chosen praying.

  “Thank you, O Bright, for bringing the Vision as well as the Blessing to the Leader of the Combined Clans. I pray that you will guide him to lead all the clans into greater worship of you.”

  Completely convinced, Hungry-Swift also prayed. As Leader of the Combined Clans, he was automatically the head worshiper of Bright. However, the ritual chants that he had learned to use in the worship services now seemed completely inadequate, and he clumsily made up his own prayers.

  “Lead me, O Bright,” he said. “Give me your Word, and I will follow it with all that I command.”

  “I will give you Bright’s Word,” God’s-Chosen said. “For too long Bright has been neglected. Bright has been good to his people. They have grown in numbers and have prospered. What used to be a small clan gathered in the city of Bright’s Heaven is now many clans that are spread out over Bright’s Empire—so powerful that the barbarians shrink from angering them. Yet what have the ungrateful cheela done for Bright in return?”

  “We worship him often,” Hungry-Swift protested.

  “Yes, but where?” God’s-Chosen asked. “In tiny temple areas. What Bright deserves is a temple appropriate to his greatness.”

  “Tell me what is needed,” pleaded Hungry-Swift.

  “You shall build a Holy Temple. It shall be in the shape of Bright, in whose likeness we are but imperfect copies. The outer walls shall be a perfect circle, and a dozen greats of cheela shall be able to line up from one side of the circle to the other without crowding their edges.”

  Hungry-Swift was appalled. “That will be almost as big as the city of Bright’s Heaven!”

  “Yes,” God’s-Chosen went on, unperturbed. “For it must hold all who live in Bright’s Heaven, plus many others. At one dozen places about the circle there shall be placed walls representing the eye-stubs of a cheela at full alert. At the ends of each eye-stub shall be a round mound representing the eyes. Between each pair of eye-stubs there shall be an opening in the Temple walls, representing the orifices that allow things to enter and leave the inner mysteries of Bright’s body. Finally, at the very center of the inner area, there shall be a circular mound representing Bright’s Inner Eye.”

  “I will obey, God’s-Chosen,” Hungry-Swift said. “The Holy Temple to Bright will be built as you say.”

  Still dazed, Hungry-Swift followed God’s-Chosen back to the two encampments. When the squad leader came out to greet them, it was obvious from Hungry-Swift’s demeanor that the Leader of the Combined Clans had felt the Blessing of Bright. He was even more awed when he learned that the Leader had also seen the Blessing, since very few had been allowed by Bright to receive this indication of being one of his chosen ones. The journey into the wilderness over, Hungry-Swift automatically resumed command.

  “Call the troopers to alert,” he ordered. “We return to Bright’s Heaven at once, for there is much to do.”

  Before he left, Hungry-Swift returned for one last visit to his friend and teacher.

  “Are you God?” he asked.

  “No,” God’s-Chosen said. “Bright is God. I am merely Bright’s vehicle by which he sends his Word and his Blessing. You have received the Word. Go and carry it out. Yours will not be an easy task, for it will take a dozen greats of turns to create a temple of that size. But do not worry about the time, for Bright is patient. I will stay here and bring the Blessing of Bright to all the clans. That too will take time, but by the time you have the Holy Temple built, I will have brought the Blessing of Bright to all here in the east and will come to Bright’s Heaven to bring the Blessing down on all who live there—on the Holy Temple itself.”

  “Bright give me strength that I might live to see the time,” said Hungry-Swift.

  “Your work will keep you strong,” God’s-Chosen said. “Now go!”

  At first Hungry-Swift experienced resistance to the project of building the Holy Temple. There were even rumors that some of the underleaders, or even one of the nearby clan leaders, might attempt a formal challenge to his leadership.

  Hungry-Swift quickly eliminated all objections to the building of the Temple by insisting that everyone with any power or authority take a journey to the east to be initiated by God’s-Chosen into the mysteries of the Blessing of Bright. As the converts returned, the enthusiasm for the project grew.

  Fortunately the barbarians were quiet during these times, and the crops grew well without excessive tending, for soon nearly one-third of the population of Bright’s Heaven and surrounding areas was engaged in hauling rocks and loose crustal material to form the outline of a cheela at perfect alert, with twelve round eyes perched out on extended eye-stubs. The first thing built was a round mound at the center that represented the Inner Eye of Bright. Then as the outline of the Holy Temple grew, the old worship area was abandoned and services were held inside the growing Temple, with the High Priest speaking from the Inner Eye mound.

  As the greats of turns passed, God’s-Chosen moved slowly west, pausing to make sure that each clan camp was given the Blessing of Bright. As they moved nearer and nearer to Bright’s Heaven, the clan camps became closer and closer together. They also began to spread more widely to the north and south, because the population pressure had overcome the natural reluctance to engage in travel in the hard direction. It soon became impossible for God’s-Chosen to bring the Blessing to each camp himself. There also came rumors of small groups of cheela who had received the Blessing out in the wilderness without God’s-Chosen being anywhere near. God’s-Chosen then decided that the time had come to give to others the power to bring the Blessing. Since some could see the beam if it were near, he made them his disciples. He sent them off in the hard directions, north and south, with instructions to take the Word to the clans there. They were to watch the Inner Eye carefully and, as the beam approached, time their worship services with the receiving of the Blessing of Bright. The results were not as satisfactory as the well-preached services that God’s-Chosen conducted, but more and more of the cheela in the great Empire felt the miracle of the Blessing of Bright.

  As the greats of turns passed, the Holy Temple neared completion. Nearly all who worked on it had taken time off now to complete a pilgrimage to the east to receive the blessing from God’s-Chosen, and all re
turned to work with renewed vigor. When God’s-Chosen reached the outskirts of the sprawling city of Bright’s Heaven, he left his preaching to Hard-Rock and went ahead to see the Holy Temple.

  When Hungry-Swift heard of the approach of God’s-Chosen to the city, he came out with an honor guard of troopers to greet him. As they moved along the pathway to the city, the troopers would move ahead, lining the pathway and keeping the curious multitudes from bothering God’s-Chosen and the Leader of the Combined Clans as they moved leisurely along, their pace limited by the small tread of God’s-Chosen.

  The crowds that gathered along the pathway were well behaved. The troopers would suffer hatchlings to ooze between them, or allow an eye-stub to be rested on their topsides (especially if the eye-stub belonged to a nubile one of the opposite sex). The onlookers were treated to an unusual sight: a huge battle-scarred warrior with an obvious air of command, who carried the highest rank in Bright’s Empire, maintaining pace and speaking deferentially to a tiny, pale, pink-eyed, clanless one. Yet the pale one had an air of assurance about him that caused the crowd to murmur as he passed. Occasional cheers radiated outward from small groups as the two made their way into the city.

  “How is the Holy Temple proceeding?” God’s-Chosen asked.

  “The basic foundation is done, O God’s-Chosen,” Hungry-Swift said. “And the finishing work is well under way. We should have it completed well before the Blessing of Bright is due to come down upon the Temple grounds.”

  “Good,” God’s-Chosen said. “I would like to see it.”

  As the two took the path to the south to visit the Temple, a squad of troopers formed a chevron in front of them and pushed their way into the hard direction. The two leaders moved comfortably along behind the pathbreakers. As they came closer to the Holy Temple, even God’s-Chosen was impressed, for the outer walls of the Temple seemed to extend almost to the horizon in both directions.

  “It is a fitting monument to the honor of Bright,” he said with obvious satisfaction.

  “Yes,” Hungry-Swift said. “All of us who worked on it are extremely proud that we were allowed to contribute to such an impressive edifice. As you commanded, a dozen greats of cheela can fit between the outer walls. One of the astrologers calculated that the Holy Temple can hold a great of greats of greats of cheela within its walls.”

  “May we bring down the Blessing of Bright upon them all,” said God’s-Chosen.

  The two, together with their honor guard, approached the walls of the Temple. They passed between two of the circular mounds that represented two of the outer eyes of Bright, and moved between the narrowing walls that represented the eye-stubs, until they came to a break in the wall between the two eye-stubs that was one of the entrances to the inner portion of the Temple of Holies.

  As they passed through the Temple orifice and entered the inner yard, God’s-Chosen knew that he had been right. This was the Word of Bright! Ahead he could see the Inner Eye mound, but all around him was a horizon of wall that blocked off the view of the city, leading the eyes naturally upward to look at Bright toward the south and the Eyes of Bright to the east.

  As they entered the Temple, they could see a small crowd around the base of the Inner Eye mound.

  “We have come just at the end of a worship service,” Hungry-Swift said. “Bright’s-First, the High Priest, is on the Inner Eye mound now. Let us go to meet him.”

  They made their way to the rear of the crowd around the mound as the service ended. God’s-Chosen was then bewildered to see a line of cheela, each dragging a sled piled with food, slowly making its way up the mound. At the top, the supplicants left their sleds, where they were taken by apprentice astrologers, while the supplicant went up to the High Priest and slowly rotated around once, while the High Priest touched each eye, one after the other, murmuring as he did so.

  “What is going on?” God’s-Chosen asked of one of the cheela slowly pulling his heavy burden up the slope of the mound.

  “I am bringing my dozeth, and have come to get my blessing,” the cheela said.

  The tread of God’s-Chosen rippled sharply on the crust, “What dozeth, and what blessing?”

  The cheela’s eye-stubs wavered randomly in bewilderment, and Hungry-Swift’s voice broke in from the side.

  “The High Priest has said that those who would divide up their harvest and kill into twelve parts, and give one-twelfth to the Keepers of the Temple, will receive a special blessing from Bright, given by the High Priest himself. He holds a worship service every turn, and these people come from all over Bright’s Empire to give their dozeth and receive Bright’s Blessing.”

  God’s-Chosen was shocked. His tread exploded in a furious shout.

  “No!” he shouted, and scurried up the mound as all eyes turned toward him. “The Blessing of Bright belongs to all, and is freely given. You cannot bribe Bright with gifts!” He moved across the top of the mound to where the apprentice astrologers were taking the sleds of food. With a strength borne of fury, he pushed a load of pods and meat off a sled down the slope. The pods rolled downward, gathering speed and disappearing, to reappear as they came to a stop against the shocked edges of the cheela at the bottom of the mound.

  God’s-Chosen moved back to the center of the mound and repeated in his high-pitched voice, “I will bring you the Blessing of Bright. You do not have to give a dozeth to receive it, but only what you wish to give!”

  God’s-Chosen turned his small pink eyes from the crowd, stared hard at the motionless High Priest, and said, “I do not want my people coerced into worshiping Bright. If the astrologers cannot live on free will offerings, let them work in the fields!”

  A murmur of approval started in the crowd of supplicants, and then grew to a continuous cheer as the crowd began to realize who the pale figure was—and what he had been saying. As the crowd started up the mound to gather around God’s-Chosen, the High Priest moved away down the other side, his apprentices abandoning the sleds and following after him.

  Later in the astrologers’ compound, the High Priest was conferring with Bright’s-Second, the Chief Astrologer.

  “He has no idea what he is doing,” Bright’s-First said.

  “The people are behind him,” Bright’s-Second warned. “Not to mention the Leader of the Combined Clans and all of his underleaders.”

  “But he does not understand the importance of our work,” the High Priest said. “You cannot have apprentice astrologers out tending crops in the fields like common laborers. They will never learn their numbers or how to cast horoscopes with the astrologer sticks.”

  “You are right,” Bright’s-Second said. “He ought to be dealt with in some way. He is disrupting the important duties of the people that work in God’s service.”

  “Unfortunately,” Bright’s-First said, “only Hungry-Swift, the Leader of the Combined Clans, has the authority to do anything about this rabble-rouser, and he is under his spell.”

  The Chief Astrologer hesitated, then said, “His Blessing is a powerful one. You should have come with us when we went east to experience it.”

  The High Priest answered with a sharp ripple, “I have no need of any blessing from the pale one.”

  The turns passed; it was now less than half a great of turns until the Blessing would be on the Temple. As the time grew near, great crowds began to come into Bright’s Heaven, in order to be in the Temple at the time of the dedication. It seemed as if half of the Empire thronged into the city.

  Finally, God’s-Chosen held a gathering outside the eastern orifice of the now completed Temple. As the Blessing of Bright came down upon them once again, God’s-Chosen announced that the next Blessing would come upon the Temple, and that in preparation for that turn, the next half-dozen turns were to be Holy ones. All should stop their labor and prepare for the occasion by prayer. Then at the appointed time, all should be inside the Temple to receive the Blessing.

  TIME: 06:48:47 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

  The science ex
periments console screen blinked.

  EAST SECTOR LASER RADAR SCAN COMPLETED.

  NORTH SECTOR SCAN STARTED.

  Cesar looked up at the words at the top of the screen, and went on with his analysis of the IR scanner data.

  TIME: 06:48:48 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

  Three turns before the dedication of the Holy Temple, God’s-Chosen knew there was a problem. He had seen the pulsating, multicolored beam go south. But then it had stopped. The time came near, and he looked in vain at the Inner Eye. He could see no beams—no light of any kind.

  “Bright is testing my faith,” he said to himself. “For many greats of turns the people have had to accept my word that the Blessing of Bright was coming. Now I am as blind as they are. I must have faith.”

  God’s-Chosen asked that the Temple be cleared, and when the crowds and astrologers were all outside the orifices, he went in alone and climbed up on the Inner Eye mound to pray.

  God’s-Chosen looked out from the central mound across the empty inner court toward the outer walls in the distance. There was no doubt in his mind. This was what Bright had wanted. He turned his eyes to the sky, and looking south toward Bright, began to pray.

  “O Bright. Give me the faith that the others have, and if my belief falters, help me to overcome my weakness so that I may believe in you and your Blessing.”

  God’s-Chosen slowly moved down the inner mound and went out the western orifice toward the astrologers’ compound. As he left, the troopers, who had been keeping the people out, finally let the crowds pour in, for the dedication was only a turn away. For fully half a turn cheela poured through the orifices and gathered around the inner mound. Soon the inner courtyard of the Temple was full, with little groups gathered around outside each of the twelve entrances. Some climbed laboriously up to watch from the top of the walls when they found they could not get inside.