02 Quetzals Flock

QUETZAL'S FLOCK
sometime in his future, which would be sometime in their past! He felt in his guts,
that it was going to lead to all sorts of complications.
Urartu was the key. He had been living when Kane had made his 'first' visit, so
it could not be so very long before. Then there was Hammadi, who was of the firm
opinion that Kane was his long lost father. Hammadi was no more than Kane's age -
which dated his previous visit at no more than twenty-five Earth years earlier. It was a
more manageable time frame. The Master of Dreams had a good deal of information
about the Pentacles and he also knew of an undefined danger associated with the
image of the hawk-featured man hidden beneath his Kous. The reference to 'the one
he loved' held a threat and a promise and he had no idea what it meant.
He needed answers. The Bole occupied the centre of the floor and for the want
of something better to do, he activated it.
"Status."
"Integrity."
Kane relaxed. Apparently, it had survived the Psi journey and didn't seem the
worse for wear, despite the being jolted across a thousand kilometres of desert in
above tolerance temperatures.
"I want a full run down on this planet."
"Insufficient data."
Kane suppressed his irritation it was a predictable answer.
"Tell me how many elapsed hours since we left the Lynxe star system?"
"One hundred and five Old Earth hours."
Kane nodded, his estimate of the passing of time had been roughly correct.
"What is the duration of a day on this planet?"
"One day is as a thousand years."
Kane stared at the Bole.
"I didn't request quotations from literature, ancient and poetic! I asked for the
duration of this planet's day!"
"Sensory observation indicates that this planet has an axial speed of 0.00049
degrees - to five decimal places - during the equivalent period of one Old Earth day.
The full axis is completed in approximately seven hundred and thirty thousand Old
Earth days. Calculated into Old Earth years, this equals two thousand. It is estimated
that the day and night periods are equal - with an adjustment for orbital speed.
Therefore, one day is as a thousand years!"
The pronouncement was clean and logical - and also unbelievable. If the Bole
had been capable of self satisfaction, it would have been well pleased with itself for a
masterly piece of deductive reasoning. Thankfully, it was not capable of selfsatisfaction.
It waited for further input. Kane had enough to think about, he
deactivated it and wished he hadn't been so inquisitive.
He would have been happier without the information, it raised all sorts of
unpalatable conclusions. His escort had spoken in terms of days. The one who had
been killed at the ocean boundary was described as being 'only two'. According to the
Bole, that meant either two or four thousand Old Earth years, depending if the nights
were included. Urartu had said that Kane had been with them two days earlier. The
same arithmetic applied. He had last visited them either two or four thousand years
earlier!
He needed another interview with Urartu. He needed clarification of what they
considered to be a day. He need an explanation of the length of time these people
lived. They looked human but the comparison would end if their life span was
measured in thousands of Earth years.
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