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.I'd rather believe too manycousins mated with cousins to keep control of thebest homes and richest land, than that I was cursed by the Maker!""You are perfectly correct, sir.We too, after all, are animals.""Hah! What animal could find more stars in the sky than the sacerdotes saywere put there at the Beginning? Oh, take her, and bring me a grand-child if you can.For myself, I'm beyond hope, And--" He hesitated.file:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt (61 of 557)[2/14/2004 12:25:07 AM]file:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt"Yes, Father?" Rainbow prompted, taking his claw in hers."Dream of me as long as you can after I'm dead.Try not to let the dreams beugly ones.""Look, Jing!" Rainbow exclaimed as they left the Count's presence."The skies are clearing! In a little we shall see the sun!"But there were other matters to attend to.Qat was weak, and his servants inscarcely better shape.All of them bore plague-scars.Apparently the illnessbegan with sacs of fluid under the skin, accompanied by fever and delirium.Ifthey burst outward, the patient might survive, at the cost of being marked forlife.If they burst inward, the victim died.Applying cleanlickers wasuseless; none could digest the foul matter exuded by the sores.Neither Jingnor Twig had heard of any disease remotely similar."Maybe this was what the New Star heralded!" said Qat in an access ofbitterness.34THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME"Were that so," Jing responded stonily, "would not I, the most dedicatedseeker of its meaning, have been the first to be struck down?"Thinking how pleased the sacerdotes would be to hear of such a notion.By then it was midday, and the sun shone clear, albeit not very bright, beingat this season close to the horizon.Rainbow was eager to get to theobservatory, and Jing--reluctant though he was to abandon these three whomight well be his last surviving compatriots--was on the point offile:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt (62 of 557)[2/14/2004 12:25:07 AM]file:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt consentingto accompany her, when Keepfire came hurrying with news that settled thePage 39 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlmatter."Sir, Scholar Twig is at the observatory with Shine, and they haveshown me yet more marvels! Come at once!"All else forgotten, they rushed in his wake,"I was right!" Twig crowed."I did see dark patches on the sun! NowShine has seen them too!""It's tree," Shine averred.He had stretched layers of fumimal membraneacross branches of walbush so that one might look at the sun through them.Even so, long staring with the tubed lenses had made his eye visibly sore."And something more, as well!""What?" Jing seized the tube."Look to right and left of the sun's disc, and you'll notice little sparks!They're very faint, but I definitely saw them.Perhaps they're distant stars,far beyond the sun, which just happen to lie in that direction, but yourcharts show that some of the brightest stars in that area of sky must lie nearthe sun right now, and I can't see any of them!"Jing did not need to consult his maps to know what stars were meant.Bracing himself on a stout branch, he aligned the tube.At first his sight,after the low light-levels of winter, would not adjust, and he saw only ablur.file:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt (63 of 557)[2/14/2004 12:25:07 AM]file:///G|/rah/John%20Brunner%20-%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Time.txt"Too bright? I can add another membrane," Shine proposed."No, I'm getting a clearer view now." Jing's ocular muscles were adaptingwith painful speed."And--oh, that's incredible!"What he saw was not a blank white disc.There were three dark spotson it.How could that be?"Do you see the bright sparks?" Shine demanded.But his vision was overloaded.He stood back, relinquishing the tube,and for a long while was unable to make out his immediate surroundings."I was right, wasn't I?" Twig exclaimed."Yes," Jing said soberly."Yes, friend; you were right."This too must be added to his report on their discoveries.And, giventhe delay caused by his grief, it could not possibly be ready for the barqpresently in harbor here.At all costs, however, it must be sent by the nextone
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