Orion in the Dying Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

to the others, who were resting by the river's edge.
    ". . . this our camp," came an echo rebounding from the bowl of rock.
    They leaped to their feet, startled. Before I could go down to them they came rushing up to where I stood.
    "We heard your voice twice," said Noch, fearfully.
    "It is an echo," I said. "Listen." Raising my voice, I called out my own name.
    "Orion!" came the echo floating back to our ears.
    "A god is in the rock!" Reeva said, her knees trembling.
    "No, no," I tried to assure them. "You try it. Shout out your name, Reeva."
    She clamped her lips tight. Staring down at her crusted toes, she shook her head in frightened refusal.
    Anya called out. And then young Chron.
    "It is a god," said Noch. "Or maybe an evil demon."
    "It is neither," I insisted. "Nothing but a natural echo. The sound bounces off the rock and returns to our ears."
    They could not accept a natural explanation, it was clear.
    Finally I said, "Well, if it is a god, then it's a friendly one who will help to protect us. No one will be able to move through this canyon without our hearing it."
    Reluctantly, they accepted my estimate of the situation. As we walked along the narrow trail that wound through the jutting boulders and trees toward the caves it was obvious that they were wary of this strange, spooky bowl of rock. Instead of being exasperated with their superstitious fears I felt almost glad that at last they were showing some spirit, some thinking of their own. They were doing as I told them, true enough, but they did not like it. They were no longer docile sheep following without question. They still followed, but at least they were asking questions.
    Noch insisted on building a cairn at the base of the hollow to propitiate "the god who speaks." I thought it was superstitious nonsense, but helped them pile up the little mound of stones nevertheless.
    "You are testing us, Orion, aren't you?" Noch said, puffing, as he lifted a stone to the top of the chest-high mound.
    "Testing you?"
    The other men were gathered around, watching, now that we had completed the primitive monument.
    "You are a god yourself. Our god."
    I shook my head. "No. I am only a man."
    "No man could have slain the dragon that guarded us," said Vorn, one of the older men. His dark beard showed streaks of silver, his head was balding.
    "The dragon almost killed me. I needed Anya's help, or it would have."
    "You are a full-grown man, yet you grow no beard," Noch said, as if proving his point.
    I shrugged. "My beard grows very slowly. That doesn't make me a god, believe me."
    "You have brought us back to Paradise. Only a—"
    "I am not a god," I said firmly. "And you—all of you—brought yourselves back to Paradise. You walked here, just as I did. Nothing godly about that."
    "Still," Noch insisted, "there are gods."
    I had no answer for that. I knew that there were men and women in the distant future who had godlike powers. And the corrupted egomania that accompanies such powers.
    They were all staring at me, waiting for my reply. Finally I said, "There are many things that we don't understand. But I am only a man, and the voice that comes from the rock is only noise."
    Noch glanced around at the others, a knowing smile on his lips. Eight ragged, dirty Neolithic men—including Chron and the other beardless teenager. They knew a god when they saw one, no matter what I said.
    If they feared me as a god, or feared the echo that they called "the god who speaks," after a few days their fears vanished in the glow of well-being. The caves were large and dry. Game was abundant and easy to catch. Life became very pleasant for them. The men hunted and fished in the stream. The women gathered fruits and tubers and nuts.
    Anya even began to show them how to pick cereal grains, spread the grain on a flat rock, and pound it with stones, then toss the crushed mass into the air to let the breeze winnow away the chaff. By the end of the week the women were baking a rough sort of flat