Part 1

THE TEMPLE OF EARTH

BY POUL ANDERSON

ILLUSTRATED BY ORBAN

All his life, Rikard had defied the warlords of Coper City, but even the stoutest outlaw could be outnumbered. Now Rayth offered him freedom for the death of the Chief Engineer. It seemed simple enough--until Rikard began to learn the History of Earth!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Rocket Stories, July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"Here they come!"

Leda's voice vibrated in the ears of the four men with her. They stood with their helmets touching so they could talk, eyes looking down the rugged sweep of Copernicus to the force which came running upward against them. At their backs, the brutal heights of rock climbed for the stars, but they stood in a recess between looming crags, as good a defensive position as they could hope for.

"Eight, nine--" Rikard strained his eyes through the queer tricky light and shadow--the brilliant rushing blue of Earth nearly in full phase, the utter dark of knife-edged umbras, a sprawling savage confusion of spires and cliffs tumbling down toward the far ghostly shimmer of the plain. "Ten at least, I make it, probably more. It'll be a rough fight."

The tiny metal-glinting specks bounded closer, twenty-foot leaps from height to height, and now they could see the sheen of Earthglow on spears and axes. Rikard said slowly: "It will most likely be death if we make a stand. Let anyone who wishes go down to them now, and I will not think the less of him."

"Down to execution or enslavement? You should know us better than that," said Huw. He hefted his own ax, and shadows crept over the folds of his flexicord suit. "Heh, they'll have to come at us only a few at a time. We'll mince 'em as they do."

A mutter of assent rumbled from Jonak and Chungti. Leda remained silent, but one gauntletted hand closed on Rikard's arm.

The outlaw chief's gaunt dark face flashed in a brief grin. "Thank you," he said. "We'll at least show the damned Copers that Nyrac can still fight."

He moved away from the group and strung his bow. It was a big one, suitable for the giant who wielded it, and had been in his family for a long time. Plastic bow, wire string, steel arrows that leaped out with a hundred pounds of force behind them--such a weapon could pierce a spacesuit and come out the other side in a rush of air. Wood and cord were of little use on the surface; they dried and cracked in the sucking vacuum, sizzled by day and froze by night. But with this weapon he had sent more men than he remembered to Earth.

Standing in the abysmal shadow of a crag, he nocked an arrow and took aim. The bow thrummed in his hand and a bright shaft sprang forth. One of the attacking band suddenly leaped up, fell, and rolled down the long slope with the moisture-laden air gushing out like his fleeing soul.

"There's one less!" cried Leda savagely, and raised her pike. None heard her speak in the looming silence, but they saw her lips laughing behind the plastic helmet. Rikard turned for a glimpse of her, the strong fair face, the heavy yellow hair--turned blue and green now by the pouring Earthlight, but not the less good to look on.

He had stolen her three years before, in a raid on Moonburg, and she had fought him bitterly for awhile. But later there had been understanding between them, and when the Copers overran Nyrac and he and a few men fled into rebellious exile, she was the only one of his wives who had come with him. They smiled briefly at each other and then he faced back toward the enemy.

His bow throbbed again, and he cursed as the shaft whipped past a nearing figure. The man hurled a spear; it bounced off the crag and Huw stepped forth to seize and throw it back. Rikard fired once more, and another warrior tumbled to the stony ground, to freeze in death.

Now they were close, terribly close, a good dozen of them rushing in on him. He sent a final snapped shot against them, dropped the bow, and grabbed up his ax. Swiftly the outlaws fell into a defending line: Rikard, Huw, and Jonak, the heaviest, standing shoulder to shoulder between the two great pillars; Leda and Chungti just behind them with pikes at the ready.

The first of the Copers hit Rikard with the furious velocity of a broad jump, ax swinging down against the chief's helmet. Rikard caught the blow on his own weapon's handle, twisted it down, and kicked the attacker in the belly. He bounced away, wide open for assault, but it wouldn't do to leave the line. The next was almost instantly on the outlaw, blade cleaving vacuum. Rikard's ax blurred down and crashed into the space helmet. The shock of the blow rammed home in his own muscles, but it had burst open the tough plastic. Air whirled out, white with frost, red with the blood that suddenly foamed from mouth and nose.

The enemy's own ax had dropped from his fingers as Rikard's blade smashed home, and clanged off the chief's helmet. Rikard smote at the warrior beyond, hit a metal shoulder plate, and dodged a counterblow. Leda thrust between him and Jonak, driving the pike home with a terrible force that split the Coper's suit at the belly. He lurched back, clutching futile hands against the streaming air, his face distorted with unheard screams.

Two of them were on Rikard now, ax and spear, blows clattering off his helmet and shoulder plates as he dodged and parried and hewed. He whirled his weapon over his head, brought it crashing down to break another helmet and the skull beneath, and his own yelling rang in his ears.

From the corner of one eye he saw Jonak fall. Snarling, he swung on the killer, his blow parried by the other axhead. "Go to Mars, you bastard!" he growled, and hailed blow after blow against the enemy's guard, a leaping dancing fury of steel that drove the fellow back until he was against a cliff. Rikard sprang in and slew him.

Panting, he whirled around to see that the Copers had broken his line, that they raged three or four about each of the survivors, thrusting and smiting, a flicker of light and hard metal against the monstrous blacknesses of shadow. Even as he watched, Chungti went down with a spear in him. Huw and Leda stood back to back, beating off the pack that snarled around them, and Rikard launched himself across the space between to fall on the Copers. He clove one helmet from behind, pitched another man aside, parried a thrust and kicked the thruster back, and joined his comrades.

A cloudiness of freezing moisture fogged his helmet, and Huw toppled against him. He stood over the body and struck home. Leda swept her pike in a wide arc, got it between a man's legs and tripped him, and stabbed him before he could rise. Then a Coper got between her and Rikard, threw his arms around her from behind and dragged her to the ground.

They closed in on Rikard, hemming him in a solid wall of armored bodies, bearing him down and holding him fast with four men on each arm. When they brought forth wire and began lashing his hands together he kicked out, rose to his feet and knocked them away as they came on him, until someone else tackled him and he went down once more.

Captured! By the living Earth, no clean death in battle, but captured!

He lay gasping the hot foul air of his suit, looking up to the crystal dark of heaven, a million needle-sharp stars and the ghostly glory of the Milky Way, up to Earth's huge blue disc, and the world, the Moon-world of witchlight and shadow and cruel fanged stone, reeled about him with his dismay. Captured!

A tall man, apparently the chief of the band, counted the survivors and then put his helmet against Rikard's. His face was sharply carved, dark-eyed, with the pointed beard of a Coper noble and the hollow cheeks corpse-blue in the light. He said slowly: "Yes, you are the rebel leader. I'm glad we took you alive."

Rikard looked sullenly back at him.

"Behave yourself," advised the other. "Remember we hold the woman too."

* * * * *

They scaled the heights of Copernicus and descended to the plain which the crater ringed in. Not far off was an armored dome with sentries before it, one of the airlocks leading to a tunnel. They entered this and came to the long tube-lit bareness underground. A few Coper soldiers were posted here, taking turns at guard duty on the outside.

Like all their city freemen they wore more clothes than the outlying barbarians, who rarely donned more than a pocketed kilt if that much--these had tunics as well, and flat steel helmets, and carried the swords that were useful underground though ineffective against a spacesuit; nor did they have the war-paint of barbarian fighters. They did not mock the prisoners--the name of Rikard of Nyrac had been too frightening for the past year--but they leered at Leda.

Even the outlaws were glad to shed their spacesuits. Sweat and the needs of nature made it uncomfortable to be outside more than a few hours at a time. They were stripped, their hands bound behind them, and marched between an alert guard down the tunnel toward Coper City. It went rapidly, the long bounding pace of men in home territory who had no ambush to fear.

Rikard's mind whirled over the catastrophes of the past hours. He and his men--some fifty in all--had been living mostly on the outside since the fall of Nyrac a year ago. They had had seal-tents which they moved from place to place, and had descended into the tunnels and cities often through old unguarded airlocks to raid for food, water, air, and the killing of Coper men. While they fought, they had been a symbol of resistance to the free people within and beyond the expanding Coper empire, they had checked its advance a little, they had been a rallying force and many young men had come to join them. There had been hope.

Then--Rikard and his four companions returned from a scouting trip to find their camp in the hands of the enemy. They had fought clear, had been pursued, and finally this squad had hunted them down and captured the two rebel leaders--and that was all there was to it. That was the end--the end of the fight, the end of hope, the end most likely of life.

His bitter dark eyes turned on the leader of the squad. That one had donned a tunic of brilliant colors, the dress of a mighty noble, and the sword at his waist was jeweled. "Who are you?" he asked coldly.

The lean face smiled. "I am Rayth, prince of Coper City," he answered. "It was--fortunate for both of us--that I should have happened to lead the group that found you. Others would have had you killed out of hand, but I can find better uses for you." He nodded at Leda. "Yes indeed."

Her head lifted haughtily, shining raw gold of hair spilling over broad shoulders to her supple waist. Rikard snarled and wrenched at his bonds. They dug harshly into his wrists, and a guard pricked him with a spear.

Rayth held Rikard's bow between his hands, "This is an unusually fine weapon," he said. "I hadn't thought the barbarians had anything so good. You may get it back, but you'll have to earn it."

* * * * *

The tunnel opened into a great cavern, a reaching vastness whose farther walls could not be seen. It was farmland, peasants going between the long rows of tanks and tending a riotous greenery of food plants, an occasional hard-faced overseer pausing in his rounds to salute the prince. They went by a stockyard, cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry in their pens, slaves cleaning and feeding. Not far off was a slaughterhouse, and Rayth's aristocratic nose crinkled.

A winding ramp led up through other levels. They passed the drab, huddled compartments of the lower classes, gray-clad peasants crowded with their families into doorless rooms. Above that was a factory level, where acolyte engineers labored over weapons and tools, over ore-smelting and refining, and other workmen turned out clothes and cord and the remaining necessities of life. The party stopped here to deliver the battle-torn spacesuits for repair. Flexicord would be mended, plastic melted together again; nobody cared about the stripped bodies withering on the outside.

Rikard could not forbear to ask: "Where is your air factory?"

"That is farther up, in the Temple and in direct charge of the Chief Engineer," said Rayth politely. "It is, after all, among the most vital jobs." He raised his eyebrows. "You didn't have an air plant at Nyrac, did you?"

"No. We bought or took it from elsewhere as needed."

"Ah, I thought so. Most of the barbarians do. Now, Rikard, you are a man of intelligence, and I ask you to think a bit. We must have extra air, to replace that which is lost one way or another, but it takes skill and some equipment to get it from the minerals in which it is locked. Rather than war on us, one of the few places where they can produce it, would it not have been wiser to accept us in friendship and receive from us a steady and dependable supply?"

"We were freemen. Now we are slaves, and must grovel to your overlords and give them all we make in exchange for a miserly ration. That is reason enough to fight you."

"I don't think," said Rayth sardonically, "that your own slaves notice any change."

Rikard clamped his lips tight.

Above the factory level was a park. It was known that the life of the air, and hence of man, depended on green plants, so even the smallest village had its farms and even the outlaws' crowded seal-tents had contained some pots of vegetation. But Rikard and Leda had never seen anything like this riot of blooms and rearing trees, had never felt grass soft and cool beneath their bare feet, and the girl drew a gasp of wonder and buried her face in a huge sweet cluster of roses.

Rayth drew his sword and cut the flowers and handed them to her with a bow. "No fairer than you," he smiled.

She cursed and threw them at his feet.

There were folk of noble class around, warriors, administrators, ranking Engineers, and their children and colorfully gowned women. They gathered about, laughing, shouting, cheering, and Rayth nodded affably but led the way onward.

Above the park were the levels of the spacious upper-class apartments, where others of gentle birth went about in litters and slaves scurried humbly on their errands. Rikard noticed the guardsmen standing rigidly here and there, and decided that the power of the overlords was not so secure as it might look.

On and on, until at last they stood before a high wall ornamented with murals of ancient triumphs and festivals. Four sentries stood in front of the door, bringing their spears to rigid salute as Rayth approached. A footman opened the door and they were ushered into the prince's home.

It was richly furnished, with hangings and vases and furniture of priceless ancient work--older than the Fall, it must be--as well as the clumsier recent articles of carved wood and hammered metal. Rayth led the way to a spacious chamber whose outer window looked on the sky. Automatically, Rikard stepped over there to make a survey. This place must be high in the dome which rose over the city's underground levels. He could look down the great sweep of metal and concrete to the rugged plain beneath, and out toward the sharply curving horizon and the mighty ringwall which shouldered above it. The stars thronged and blazed in a cold glory of sky.

"Unbind them," said Rayth.

Rikard stretched mightily, rubbing cramped arms. Leda stepped over beside him and her hand stole into his. The guards marched out, except for two who stood alertly against the wall.

"And now what?" asked the barbarian.

"Why, I suppose you will want to clean yourselves. There is a bathroom over that way. Afterward we will eat, and then we can talk."

* * * * *

There were garments for the prisoners, of a soft colorfulness such as they had not known since the last time Nyrac captured a trading caravan in the tunnels, and there was a feast of skillfully prepared meat and bread, fresh fruit, wine and delicacies for which they had no name. They sat around the table and gorged.

Rayth exerted himself to be pleasant. He brought in slave girls to dance and play, he kept the wine glasses full, and the words that flowed from his smiling lips had nothing to do with immediate reality. Despite himself, Rikard had to listen with interest and reply where he could, and Leda sat enchanted.

The prince got onto ancient history, which seemed to be a pet subject of his. He discoursed of a thousand years of war, politics, conquest and liberation, dynasties and gods and people, and after the vague heroic songs of the barbarians it was a new experience to listen to his crisp cynical prose. They could still read and write in Coper City, though only a few nobles besides the Engineers took the trouble to learn, and so they remembered with precision.

"But the Fall?" whispered Leda. "What was that?"

"The Fall from Earth?" Rayth smiled and arched his brows. "Well, my fair one, suppose you tell me what you think."

"Why--I never thought much about it," she said, her broad clear forehead wrinkling above the steady blue eyes. "They say that man came from Earth originally, and sinned, and was condemned to dwell in the world here until the sin is redeemed. The souls of the dead return to Earth--"

"Or to Mars, if they are criminals or Copers," grunted Rikard.

Leda threw him a little frown and spread her hands helplessly. "That is all I know."

"Hm--well, it's the general story. Our Engineers tell it to our own commons, since it helps keep them in check. But what would you say if I told you Earth is another world like our own?"

"It couldn't be," said Leda. "The story is that on Earth you can walk on the outside without a spacesuit. And there is green everywhere, and great pools of water, and everyone has enough to eat."

"Oh, yes, beyond doubt Earth is not quite the same as Luna. After all, man and his animals are so ill suited to life here that I think it only reasonable to suppose they came from Earth--not in any mystic Fall, but by ordinary physical means."

"They jumped?" asked Rikard scornfully.

"No, they--well--I'll come to that later. They had ways. Such few books as have survived tell something about what happened. Men came here from Earth to look for minerals which they needed. Cities were built here and there over the face of Luna, and tunnels cut to connect them and to get at the ores. They were wise, those ancients. They built not only the things we now have and use in a blind fashion, by rote, without much understanding--smelters, sun-power accumulators, spacesuits, and all the rest--but they had other things as well. Weapons more deadly than bow or ax, machines which carried them over the surface and hauled their loads and did the work we must do by hand--but those things have long worn out or been destroyed, and their remnants have been wrecked for the metal in them. We have a few relics in our Temple here, that is all." Rayth's eyes gleamed briefly.

He went on in a moment. "The sin and the Fall were something different from what the Engineers have said in their sermons. I don't know exactly what happened, except that even those wise ancients were not united, they were divided into--cities, I suppose--and the separate colonies here were owned by these various cities. A war broke out, not a war as we know war but something with doom in it, all the power of the machines turned loose to blast and burn. It must have destroyed civilization on Earth; at least there have been no visitors from there in a thousand years or more. Here on Luna the colonies also fought, but in a more limited way since they had not the greatest engines of destruction. But it was enough to wipe out many cities--you must have seen some of the ruins--and to destroy most of the equipment. Such wise men as survived had not the tools to work with to rebuild all they must have, and the turbulent new generations paid little heed to teachings which had no relation to their own experience. The remaining machines wore out, the wise men died, the cities fought with swords and spears for the necessities of life, and finally the long night of ignorance fell on us. And that is the true story of the Fall."

"How do you know?" challenged Rikard.

"Oh, I have read the remaining old books and fragments of books, and used my own head to piece together what little was known. Coper City has kept more knowledge than the others anyway. Those went back to naked barbarism, retaining barely enough tradition to survive; but we, living in what had been the most important of the old colonies, kept somewhat more than that. There have always been a few in Coper City who knew the truth, though they lacked means to do anything about it."

Rikard leaned back in his chair and surveyed the prince with arrogant eyes. "All right," he said. "I'll accept it. What's the difference anyway? What do you have us here for and why are you telling us this?"

"Oh--I wanted you to realize that our frank goal of conquering the world is not the unmitigated evil you insist. It will bring knowledge to the barbarians, give them back their heritage, and end their stupid squabbling in a unity of all mankind."

"At the price of making them slaves and paupers!"

"Well, I didn't say we were doing this for our health," said Rayth mildly. "The outlier raids have been more than a little costly and annoying to us, and of course we can always use more workers. However, please don't tell me you are some kind of martyr whose heart bleeds only for your poor oppressed people. You are angry because your wealth and power were stripped from you. If you could get those back threefold--"

* * * * *

His keen features jutted over the table as he leaned forward. "We will impose the social pattern of Coper City everywhere, yes, because it is our own. But we'll have to take the most able and trustworthy barbarians into our own noble ranks as full citizens. How would you like to trade the circumscribed darkness of Nyrac for a dwelling like this, a score of slaves, a personal guard, a city for your private estate? How would you like a hand in shaping the future?"

"Hm." Rikard scowled and ran a hand through his stiff black hair. "You won't give me that for nothing."

"No, no. But you'll need a strong patron, my friend. Everyone else will assume as a matter of course that you'll be executed or sent to the mines. It will take all my influence to get you pardoned. In exchange, you can do me a few services." His teeth flashed white in his beard. "The first of which can begin now!"

"_Hm?_"

"I want you to kill a man for me."

"Well--" Rikard sat thinking a moment, "Who is he?"

"I'll come to that. It's nobody you know or care about. If you fullfil that mission, there will be others, and your rise can be swift."

"You turn me loose with a sword," said the barbarian slowly, "and expect me to do just what you want?"

"Naturally," said Rayth, "I will keep your charming lady as a hostage." He smiled on Leda and a slow hot flush crept up her cheeks and stained her breast. "I shall see that she is not bored."

* * * * *

With a shave and a haircut, a decent tunic and a sword at his waist and a feather-cap tilted rakishly over one ear, Rikard could pass for anyone but the hunted rebel of Nyrac--a young guardsman off duty, perhaps, recruited from some recently conquered province and swaggering into the civilization which had swallowed his people. He drew no special attention as he pushed through the crowded hubbub of the city, except from an occasional bold-eyed maiden.