02 Quetzals Flock

QUETZAL'S FLOCK
He placed the Bole in a surveillance mode. It was to remain silent and
immobile unless it was attacked or moved. It would observe and report all activity.
These were elementary precautions. It could only be a matter of time before someone
took a good look at the Pentacle and identified its image. When that happened, he
would need to be on his guard.
He stretched out on his bedding and stared at the rock ceiling. Urartu intrigued
him. Zayez had been the All Wise. Urartu was the Master of Dreams. What dreams, he
wondered? What visions could the old man see? What implications would they hold
for Kane Ashford and the dormant man he carried within him. On Lynxe, he had been
Taxila. On Jubal, he apparently went under the name of Lord Quetzal and for the
moment, he had chosen to remain quiescent. Lord Quetzal and his Flock. A flock of
what, Kane wondered? Surely not the ridiculous Picun! There was a surge of inner
amusement. Lord Quetzal was not as inactive as he pretended!
Kane fingered the Pentacle at his neck. One of his tasks was obvious. It was to
seek out and befriend the man whose image it carried. Something told him it would
not be easy. Before he left the planet, this man would have to be won over and
agreeable to leaving with him - for what purpose? Danyk had left Lynxe with him -
and he was lost somewhere in the Psi channel they had both entered. Kane had a
sudden longing for his Companion of the Image. He felt an urgent need for support on
a hostile world, whose people appeared to be so totally different to those of Lynxe.
He glanced at the Bole. He had access to time again. He only needed to
activate it and ask. He did so, estimation was an inexact art and impossible in a cavern
hundreds of metres below the surface. Even on the surface, the transit of the sun of
Jubal hadn't helped him to estimate time during his journey. The 0.00049 of a degree,
the Bole had talked about, was imperceptible. To all intents and purposes, the red
giant was motionless. In the normal human lifetime, it would change position only a
little over one and a quarter degrees. The Bole politely provided the information that it
was about four in the afternoon of an average Old Earth day cycle.
Kane's stomach was growling. The diet of hard tack upon which he had
survived whilst crossing the desert, could hardly be described as a gourmet meal. He
hoped it wasn't going to prove to be the staple diet. He remembered the loaded table
in the Thanehold of Lyot and the last evening he had shared a meal with them - and
Maia's small hand creeping into his in an attempt at consolation. He wondered how
many hundreds of years separated him from her. It was possible that those times were
remote history. Perhaps the coming of Taxila at that time was now a legend in which
Maia had the role of the woman he had taken and left, pregnant with his child. The
opposite could also apply and Maia was yet to be born.
He forced the thoughts out of his mind, there was nothing to be gained by self
torture, or false hopes that he might be able to return to her. He was interrupted. Nijah
almost crawled into the room.
"I crave my Lord's forgiveness."
It had a familiar ring to it. Kane sighed in exasperation. It seemed to go with
the territory that he was never going to be treated as a normal human being. People
had the habit of feeling cheated when it was discovered that he had feet of clay. He
had an unpleasant memory of Jabez and his attempt at amateur surgery.
"What's the problem, Nijah?"
"My Lord will surely chastise me!"
"Please explain."
"I failed to provide clean clothing, Lord Quetzal!"
"Is that all?"
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