The Ruins of Isis by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley [Bradley, Marion Zimmer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

of the wonder and awe she had felt there last night. Or had it all been hallucination, illusion, delusion, a kind of mass hallucination? Tentatively, she glanced at the spaceship, at the faint light she had seen in the ruins, but, though deep canyons of shadow lay across the city, darkening the area around the spaceship, there was no sign nor glimmer of reflected light.

Had it all been illusion, then? She glanced at Laurina, and saw, in shock, that a faint trace of the ecstasy and awe were outlined on her companion's face. Laurina said in a whisper, "I wish I could be sure that They did not feel our presence was irreverent, Cendri."

Cendri felt like saying a fervent, "Me, too!" But she knew this was completely irrational. She glanced at Dal—had he too been touched by the wonder of the site, by any trace of that contact?

Evidently not; Dal, was murmuring into his voice-scriber, transcribing his personal notes on each successive feature of the ruins. He looked happy and completely preoccupied with what he was doing; but as Cendri approached him, he broke into a grin.

He said in their own language, "Cendri, is that what it seems to be?"

"The spaceship? Yes, of course."

"That doesn't belong to the ruins. It's not more than three hundred years old, and it looks in worse preservation than they do!"

She had noticed that herself. She said, "As a matter of fact, it has been here sixty-nine years, sidereal Unity time. It is the ship which carried the Isis/Cinderella colony here."

"Hell of a place to land a starship," Dal commented, voicing the thought Cendri had had, "What do you suppose made them pick out a spot like this?"

She could not comment on that without going into the belief of the Pro-Matriarch that they had been guided there, and that would inevitably have led to some kind of discussion of her own experience there. And unless Dal himself sensed something in the area, she could not bring it up. He would call her imaginative, superstitious .. .she couldn't face that, not now.

And if he does feel it, how will he be able to make his exploration of the ruins? she wondered. She herself could hardly force her dragging feet to cross the great expanse of—was it stone? Concrete?—around the starship.

Dal furrowed his brow and murmured, "What is it they call this place?"

"We-were-guided," she said, and he raised his brows and said,

"Extraordinary. I wonder what made them think of that? That

would be your province, of course, alien psychology___ " and went a little closer to the starship. "What a very strange place to land. I wonder why?"

Laurina was moving around, slowly recording the ruins and the ship from all angles. Cendri made a note of the time and angles, but her mind was busy elsewhere. Faintly, dimly, like an illusion, a dream within a dream, she remembered the night before, when a flooding warmth and joy had gone all through her....

Laurina said, "I wonder, sometimes, if They

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