The sun was bright. It shone for miles, reflecting green into the air from a ripple of trees in the garden of Zanphir. Little animals scampered in the grass beneath the pyramid, playing hide and seek with their companions. They sometimes stopped to eat plump red berries from little bushes, which popped up here and there between the trees. A large cat, whose fur was a dark golden color, sat beneath a tree near the pyramid and smiled at Ben while watching with curiosity.
Roqford is that you?
Ben stood on top of the pyramid, which was flat and had a symmetrical surface extending twenty feet in each of the four directions. On top of the pyramid there was a diamond shaped pattern carved into the rock with the top and bottom points of the diamond touching a side of the pyramid. The other two points stopped two feet short of the other two sides. Inside and at the top of the diamond was an eye watching all who stood on top of the pyramid. Also, inside the diamond was a circle touching the four sides of the diamond, and inside the circle there were two rows with seven cylindrical rods in straight lines. They protruded two inches through the flat surface.
A man with white hair and light brown skin, wearing a black and white striped robe, appeared on the far edge of the pyramid across from Ben. With a benevolent smile on his face he started walking toward Ben, and when he was but a few feet away he said, “A near death experience opens the door of the Universe and brings forth intuition seeping into the mind from our Universal knowledge,—pay close attention.
A force inside compels Ben to move forward—walking to the left and stepping upon the second rod from the top and sixth from the bottom, hissing, with dust rising from the hole as the rod moves down, and the air escapes. The force, and Ben moves to the right stepping on the fourth rod from the top. Again there is the hissing and the dust. Then the top rod on the right. Then the second rod from the bottom. Then to the left and the fourth rod from the top. Ben steps down from the pyramid—a giant step. He looks past the garden, and the gates to the valley open wide. He feels a wisp upon his face as if a butterfly has flown close. The man with white hair beckons him from the valley. The sun is rising over the hills. He feels a wisp upon his face. He raises his sword in triumph and moves toward the man. Suddenly, there is a quake shaking the ground and giving off a thunderous noise. The ground begins to move, dust rises blotting out the sun, and a horde of one hundred thousand race toward him in fury. And there is a wisp upon his face . . ..
Ben's eyelids fluttered as he opened them. He looked up at Viella who was wiping the perspiration from his forehead with a white cloth. He looked into her beautiful brown eyes and suddenly it reminded him of the deliciously brown espn trees on his home planet with their long, spreading branches coming off the dark brown trunk and the light brown leaves fluttering from the smaller branches and the delectable chocolate-brown fruit hanging from the branches in clumps. Where is my home planet? he wondered.
"You're awake," she said.
Ben looked around the room. In spite of feeling groggy he was trying to remember where he was. On the other side of the room he saw two men lying in beds. One of the men had his jaw wired and was strapped down with his head and neck tractioned in a cervical harness. The other man had his right foot and leg in a cast. And next to the door was a uniformed guard.
"It's okay," she continued. "You had a nasty wound and Dr. Streum had to repair it." She busied herself for a moment and then said, "Thanks to you I have someone to talk to—not that I would wish injury on you, but it gets boring when there's no one here. Now, there’s three of you in here and five in the other room."
"Where am I?" he asked. And then his current predicament came flooding back like a torrential nightmare of crashing waves. "I'm in prison," he stated, answering his own question. "What day is it?" he asked.
"It's Monday."
The Arians had kept the same seven-day week structure as had been utilized by the Earthians, even keeping the same names for the days. It didn't surprise Ben because over the course of his studies in archaehistory he had found that a lot of civilizations had kept the same or similar time structures as had been constructed by their ancient ancestors. That's right, he thought, I'm a Professor of Archaehistory. "What time is it?"
"It's ten fifteen in the morning."
"Where am I?" He knew he had been sent to prison, but he couldn't remember why he was in this room with this woman.
"You're in a prison hospital," she said. She stopped patting his face and threw the sanitary cloth in a chute, which was whisked away to an incinerator. "Don't you remember the fight?"
"The fight?" Ben tried to sit up, but the attempt brought a stabbing pain from his abdomen, and then he did, indeed, remember the fight. "Oh crap," he said softly, and laid his head back on the pillow.
Viella walked around the bed and picked up the blood pressure cuff. "Just lie back and try to relax," she said. "Your wound is going to take some time to heal." She wrapped the cuff around his arm and pumped it up while positioning the stethoscope.
Now he understood why the man, with his foot in a cast, was scowling at him.
Ben felt himself relax. She was right. If his wound was going to heal quickly and properly, then he had to take it as easy as possible.
"We've never really had a chance to talk," said Ben. "Even though we stand in circles next to each other every morning. Now, it looks like we're going to have that chance. And you're certainly not going to be lonely with eight newly injured prisoners in your hospital."
"You're right," she answered with a smile. "Now be real quiet while I take your blood pressure."
Ben looked at the cuff. An antiquated procedure for taking blood pressure, he thought. Since coming to Ar he had noticed the Arians had a diversity of highly advanced technology from the far reaches of the Galaxy mixed in with archaic machinery from their ancient Earth ties.
Viella took the arms of the stethoscope out of her ears, unwrapped the blood pressure cuff, and set them on a small table next to the bed. "Only slightly low," she mumbled. She wrote the figures on his chart and set it on the same little table.
"So," said Ben, "what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" He had read that phrase in an ancient Earth text, but in Komotu it didn't translate the way he had intended; instead it sounded something like, "What's a nice girl like you wanting to be in this place."
In spite of the misinterpretation she understood his question, and a look of anxiety crossed her face. "I was smuggling some guns into the city and had the misfortune of being caught."
Ben grimaced as a pain shot through his abdomen. He slowly relaxed and then looked at Viella. "Wait a minute," he said, taking a small breath between each word, "you're the woman who was with Em when he was apprehended."
"That's right," she said, remembering that night she first met Em. "He saved my life."
"Well, I'm the one who was studying him before he escaped or maybe I should say, before he ran away."
Viella sat on the bed next to Ben's. "What do you mean you were studying him?"
Ben looked surprised. "No one told you?"
"Told me what?"
"We found Em in a suspended animation chamber in a computer complex beneath Newusa, and according to the time indicator he's more than six hundred years old."
Viella scowled and stood up. "I don't believe you," she said bluntly.
"No, it's true. Why do you think he always walks around like he's in another world?"
For a moment she looked puzzled, then "I don't understand. If you are who you say you are, and he is who you say he is, then why are the two of you in prison?"
"Now that’s a good question," replied Ben. He motioned her closer and when she stood next to his bed he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down. He whispered in her ear. "I've already said too much. We have to be careful what we say." He motioned around the room. "The walls have ears."
She looked around. "What do you mean?" she asked, then it sunk home and before Ben could answer the
first question she asked, "How do you know?"
Ben smiled a calculated smile. "I have an inside source," he whispered.
Viella was about to whisper, "Who?" but just then Dr. Streum walked in.
The look on his face portrayed curiosity as he saw them whispering, but he didn't ask, instead he said, "I see our patient is awake." He walked over to Ben's bed. "You're a very lucky young man," he said as he picked up the chart and read the vital statistics.
"Damn, doc," replied Ben, "where I come from we don't consider it lucky when you get stabbed in the gut with a razor sharp knife."
Dr. Struem chuckled a bit. "What I mean, Dr. Hillar, is that the razor sharp knife missed all the vital organs, and if it had been a half inch further to the right, it would have cut the abdominal aorta wide open." He looked at Ben with a frown. "You would have bled to death within two minutes."
"So I was lucky, and now I get to enjoy the comforts and luxury of prison life."
Viella interrupted, "Lieutenant Sharpie told me to notify her when you became conscious." She left the room without waiting for anyone to answer.
"So, you don't like the comforts of our prison. Well, you'll be happy to know you'll be out of the work force for at least five days, and in three days you'll be back on solid food."
"That quick?"
"Yeah, the drug I used will accelerate the healing process."
"You have xanphiltropin phlorimethanine?" he asked incredulously. This medication was very expensive, and it surprised Ben that they would have it at the prison. This drug was commonly known as SR, for speed repair, and it came from a flower found on only one planet in the Galaxy—in the deepest of jungles.
"I'm impressed," said the doctor. "Your education must expand past that of archaehistory. And to answer your question, 'yes,' we have everything here. The warden insists on it."
"Well," said Ben, "the more I hear about the warden the more I'm beginning to understand him."
Streum didn't ask him what he meant. "I'll be back to check on you this afternoon," he said. He set the chart on the table and left the room.
*