They spent a week examining the shelter, sorting out all the bodies and preserving in crystal everything too fragile to survive casual handling. They discovered several other printed documents, which Saturn pounced upon in delight, and they also discovered a book of pictures. Scenes of the ancient world and the peoples it had contained. The images were so faded that only the palest shades of yellow had survived the ages but they still managed to convey something of the atmosphere of the time. A sense of confidence and optimism that shone through in every happy, smiling face and which Thomas found achingly poignant, knowing the disaster that had befallen the world so soon afterwards.
The wizards were also fascinated by the quality of the pictures. There was no trace of any brushstrokes, nor any trace of sketch or scaffolding lines. The detail was so fine, no matter how closely they examined them, that it was almost like looking through a milky white window. A window so clouded that only the faintest traces of colour were able to penetrate.
"They remind me of photographs," mused Saturn thoughtfully. "Elmias Pastin brought them back from another universe once. They had devices that could produce amazingly detailed pictures simply by pointing them at the scene." He pondered a moment longer. "I wonder whether Rhell's Restorative would restore some of the colour? He owes me a favour."
They used the hanger deck of the Jules Verne as a temporary storage room for the artifacts and bodies, and when it was full the Ship of Space paid a quick visit back to its own universe to teleport it all back to Lexandria.
When the Jules Verne returned they rotated the landing party so that everyone was able to enjoy some shore leave, even some of the moon trogs, whom the felisians were delighted to push around in their padded wheelchairs for as long as they were able to endure the gravity.
"So this is the surface of a human world," said Prup Chull, staring about in wonder.
He, Tassley Kimber and Timothy Birch had come down together as part of the second party, the cleric pushing the Dallakast's chair along the weed-lined street while the wizardess strutted beside him in her skimpiest dress, continuing her efforts to attract his romantic attention. She'd had no luck with him aboard the ship, although she could tell he'd been interested, but that had been with crewmen around them all the time. The cleric might have been worried about his reputation as a man of the Gods, although she knew some clerics of Caroli who had any number of lovers without apparently arousing the displeasure of their Goddess.
Down here, though, it might be different. She might finally be able to trip him up, if only they could get rid of the moon trog. Her private places tingled with frustration. It had been weeks since she'd last had a man! Weeks! She hadn't gone that long without since the age of fourteen!
"How are you feeling?" Timothy asked the moon trog, feeling some concern. His heart was a small, feeble thing, not used to pumping blood all the way up to his head against this much gravity, and he was worried he might suddenly collapse on them.
Prup Chull grinned toothily back at him, though. "I feel very well," he said happily. "I am two hundred years old and I lived most of that time in the tunnels and caverns of Kronos, never dreaming that I might ever see anything else. And now I am here! Surrounded by wonders! If I died now, I would die happy." He stared up at the tall buildings, still having trouble grasping the great open spaces surrounding him. "Do you think it's possible it might rain while we're here? I would love to feel rain on my skin. And wind! And ice, snow! And rainbows! I would love to see a rainbow!"
Timothy smiled, but if it was weather the moon trog wanted they'd picked the wrong day for it. It did indeed rain a lot at some times of the year, but they were currently in the middle of the dry season and the sun was shining down out of a cloudless blue sky.
The air was still and the day had a comfortable warmth that allowed Tassley to leave her arms and legs bare, as well as one shoulder. Then she turned as if to look at something behind the cleric, facing him and allowing him to get a good look at her. She fingered her silky blonde hair in the way she knew men found so arousing. If Saturn saw her flaunting herself like that he'd throw a fit, she knew, but he was back on the Jules Verne, poring over the treasures they'd found in some underground room and it would be days before he showed his face again.
Timothy's eyes were drawn to her and she saw him reacting to her beauty, but he made himself look away and resumed pushing the wheelchair along the street. "There's a river on the edge of the city," he told the moon trog. "Would you like to see it?"
"A river! I've heard of rivers! Yes, Take me there right away! Please," he added apologetically.
Timothy chuckled, turning in the right direction. "One river coming up," he said. "Did you bring a bar of soap? You haven't lived until you've had a bath in a river."
Tassley's heart leapt with excitement. A bath! She and Timothy, naked together! Splashing around in the water. He had fallen for her! She was going to get laid! Finally!
"I've never had a bath," said Prup Chull doubtfully. "Difficult when the water just floats around in wobbling globules. You mean, you actually get into the water? Right into it?"
"That's right," agreed the cleric with a laugh. "You'll love it, I promise."
"So long as you're there to pull me out if necessary."
Tassley's eyes shone as she regarded the strong young cleric, already mentally undressing him, her skin already tingling with his touch. She wanted him so badly she didn't think she'd be able to wait! "Are you okay with that?" she asked, indicating the wheelchair. "Would you like me to take it for a while?"
She put one hand on the handle, overlapping Timothy's hand, and she felt him give an involuntary shudder as he reached to her touch. He left his hand where it was, though, just savouring the touch, and turned his head to look at the girl beside him. Their eyes met, and silent communication passed between them. The understanding of what was going to happen between them at the first available opportunity.
Prup Chull would have had to be blind and deaf not to know what was going on behind him, and he grinned to himself, remembering the days of his own youth. He'd have to let them get together, or they'd start resenting him for being between them and he valued their friendship too much to risk letting that happen. When they came to a place where a collapsed building left a wide open view over the surrounding forest, therefore, he told them to stop there.
"Look at that!" he exclaimed. "Look at those trees! Those hills! Do you understand what that looks like to someone who's spent his whole life underground? I mean, just look at it! Look at those distances!" He paused, as if considering. "Tell you what, why don't the two of you go off and explore on your own for a while? I'd like to stop here for a bit. Give that view a chance to soak in.”
“We couldn’t leave you alone here…” began Timothy.
“I’ll be okay for a few minutes. Go on, I'll be okay here until you get back."
Both Tassley and Timothy knew what the old moon trog was really up to, and they loved him for it. "If you're sure," said the wizardess, her blood almost boiling as she felt the cleric's body brushing against hers.
"Quite sure. Off you go, the two of you. Go and enjoy yourselves."
"We won't go far," promised Timothy. "We'll stay within earshot. Just yell if you need us."
"I will, don't you worry about me."
"We'll be back in a few minutes."
"Half an hour," insisted Tassley, however. "At least."
Timothy stared at her and his face grew red even as he nodded. "At least," he agreed. "Maybe longer..."
"So off you go then!" prompted Prup Chull, almost laughing at the foolishness of youth. "Go on, Go!"
Timothy looked uncertainly at the moon trog, visibly uncomfortable with the idea of leaving him all alone, almost helpless in the high gravity, but Tassley was pulling him away, delighted by the only token resistance he was offering. He looked back once as Tassley led him away, but then he gave up all pretence and helped her look for a soft patch of grass somewhere out of sight.
When they returned, two hours later, ashamed at having lost all track of time, they were relieved to see him surrounded by a small crowd of felisian children, listening in fascination as he described life in the tunnels and caverns of Tharia's smallest moon.
"I see you've found some new friends," said the cleric as they moved aside to make room for him, some of the younger children staring at them with wide eyed fear.
"Delightful little things," said Prup Chull, reaching out to stroke the silky soft fur of the boy sitting beside him. Almost all the children were fully fur covered, and they were staring in fascination at the bare, wrinkly skin of the moon trog's hands and face, some of them visibly revolted by it as if it might be the symptom of some horrid disease. "Are you like that all over?" one of them asked, but Prup's reply was only to laugh with amusement.
Timothy sat down on a hummock of grass beside the wheelchair to try to ease their alarm, and motioned for Tassley to do the same. Gradually the children relaxed, although the wizardess noticed a couple of adults hanging back some distance away, standing by in case the offworlders tried anything. They were watching her particularly closely, she noticed. They must know she was a wizard and were afraid she might start casting spells on them or something.
She was feeling much happier and more relaxed now that her insatiable lusts had been temporarily satisfied, and found herself cooing and aahing over the children as they edged closer to get a better look at her, her maternal instincts taking control. She picked up a little girl with whiskers and pointed ears and sat her on her knee, the child looking alarmed for a moment but then purring with delight as the wizardess tickled her under the chin. The felisian child stretched out her neck, offering it to the human woman for scratching and Tassley obliged, grinning with delight as the girl rolled over onto her back, stretching out luxuriantly across the wizard's lap and stomach.
The other children watched enviously, waiting their own turn, and a couple of boys on either side of Timothy began spitting and growling as they fought for the right to sit on the cleric's lap. "It's alright," said Timothy, laughing. "I've got two hands. See?" He stroked each of them down their furry backs and they cuddled up to him, eyes closed. Expressions of sheerest bliss on their faces.
Suddenly, though, one of the boys winced in pain as the cleric's fingers found an open wound in his side. Timothy sat up, immediately alert, and gently pushed the other child aside as he gave the injured boy his full attention. "It's alright," he crooned, using the power of Caroli's soothing voice to calm his fears. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to see..." Gradually the boy calmed down and allowed the cleric to gently part his fur with his fingers to examine the injury beneath.
Tassley heard him draw in his breath in sympathy. "What is it?" she asked, leaning over to look. "Oh!"
The injury looked to be several days old and had become badly infected. The skin was an angry, swollen red and a trickle of yellow pus seeping from the jagged wound. "Can you heal it?" she asked, staring at the cleric beseechingly.
"I don't know," replied Timothy. "I can just about sense the presence of the Goddess, but so far away..."
He placed his hand over the wound and chanted words in praise of Caroli, beseeching Her aid in healing the nasty injury while Tassley watched closely, willing him to succeed. Would She be able to hear him, and even if She could, would She be able to channel Her holy healing power across the dimensions?
The answer came an instant later, as if the Goddess was eager to reassure Her follower, but Timothy frowned. "So little," he muttered to himself. "The merest trickle!"
The wound responded, though. The redness eased a little and the torn skin closed the smallest amount. He tried again, closing his eyes and concentrating intently. Looking as though he were trying to save a man on the very edge of death.
The effort, following hard on the heels of his more pleasurable exertions, left him exhausted and with a pounding headache, but to his delight the wound healed completely and the other children stared in astonishment, whispering in wonder. The healed boy stared down at himself in surprise, unable to believe what had been done to him, and then he leapt to his feet, crying out in wonder, and sprinted back towards the waiting adults. The other children were drawing back as well, not at all sure what this miracle meant, afraid of it, and a moment later the three crewmen were alone again except for one adult who continued to keep a wary eye on them from a safe distance.
"Well, now we know," said the cleric, gazing after them somberly. "If someone suffers a really bad injury or comes down with a serious illness, I won't be able to help them. Looks like we're back to catgut and bandages." He suddenly realised what he'd said and looked around guiltily to see if any of the cat people had been close enough to overhear.
"It's not that bad," said Tassley, though. "If a really serious medical emergency occurs, we could always take the ship back to our own universe, to where Caroli's full power would be available to you. There’s an Eversleep stone in the stores. The patient can be stored until the portal opens again.”
Timothy brightened immediately, nodding with delight and relief, and the human girl slipped her arm through his, pulling him against her. "That really is a fantastic view," she told the moon trog, staring at the open vista of trees and hills he'd stopped to look at. "You'd probably like to spend another hour or so admiring it, wouldn't you?"
Prup Chull laughed as Timothy grew red with embarrassment, but the cleric's reaction was mingled with eager expectation and the moon trog was grinning with delight as he gestured with his thin, bony arms for the two of them to return to their soft bed of grass.
☆☆☆
"Well?" demanded Strong, joining Saturn where the old wizard was poring over the maps and charts the felisians had delivered. "What do they say?"
"It'll take weeks of study to make sense of it all," replied Saturn, standing back from the table and looking up. "The felisians are very detailed and exhaustive in their reports. They jotted down every tiniest detail. They did provide a brief summary of every new universe they explored, but we'll need to examine the raw data for ourselves. We'll probably have to visit a couple of universes for ourselves, to compare our observations with theirs. If their observations check out, we'll probably be able to trust all their observations."
He sighed. "There are dozens of worlds listed as habitable but uninhabited. Any of them might have been the homeworld of the Shipbuilder civilisation, with the remains of their cities buried under the ground where the felisians missed them. Nowhere, though, did they find any other civilisation capable of space travel. The only world they ever found that they thought might be a threat was ours.”
"Good news," said Strong. "It seems that spacefaring civilisations are not common.”
"They're common enough they we already know of two such civilisations," Saturn reminded him, however. "The Shipbuilders and the Masters. We can be almost certain that they were not the same people but two distinct civilisations. The Shipbuilders used magic in their space program. A strange, alien kind of magic, it's true, but magic nevertheless, whereas the Masters used an advanced form of natural philosophy. I am also now pretty sure that the Citybuilders were not the Shipbuilders. Their civilisation also seems to have been based on natural philosophy, and Gown has been unable to sense any trace of Rossemian magic on any Citybuilder artifact we've so far uncovered."
Strong nodded thoughtfully. "The Citybuilders never ventured out into space, did they?"
"We haven't yet discovered any evidence that they did," said Saturn cautiously.
"Even so, though, as you say, we still have three spacefaring civilisations. The Masters, the Shipbuilders and us. Where there's three, there's sure to be a fourth, a fifth..."
Saturn nodded. "Any of which might one day come through the portal to menace us. We cannot allow our world's isolation so far to lull us into a false sense of security. We are not safe. We have merely been lucky so far."
"But the portal's been there for thousands of years," pointed out the Captain. "We haven't been invaded in all that time..."
"We occupy only one of Tharia's three main continental masses," interrupted the wizard. "Who knows what's set up home on the Western and Southern continents? During our expedition to the Southern Continent we uncovered tantalising evidence that something powerful lives there. Something from beyond the portal, perhaps. We need to explore the Worlds of the Sheaf. We need to know what's out there."
"Agreed," said Strong. "We're almost ready to leave Veglia now. Another couple of days here until the portal opens again, a quick visit home for crew rotation and resupply, and we'll move on. As soon as we've visited a couple of their dead worlds to verify the accuracy of their reports, we'll concentrate on those universes the felisians haven't visited. It's living civilisations we're interested in, after all, and there's no chance they could have overlooked anything capable to being a threat to us. Any such civilisation would be unmissable to even the blindest explorer."
Saturn nodded his agreement. “When we began the Rossem project, we thought we would be visiting one alien universe, one alien world. Now we face the prospect of having to explore hundreds. This mission looks like taking a lot longer than we first anticipated.”