Mists of Dawn (101 page)

Mark
sat
silently
for
a
moment,
trying
to
get
himself
adjusted
to
things.
He
looked
at
little
Fang
dozing in
the
armchair.
How
different
the
cocker
spaniel
was from
the
wolf-dog
he
had
left
in
the
shadows
of
the Ice
Age!

“It’s
stopped
raining,
hasn’t
it?”
he
asked
after
a short
time. “Yes.”

“Let’s
go
outside,
Uncle
Bob.
Let’s
just
go
out
and walk
around
for
a
while.”

“Good
idea,
son,”
Doctor
Nye
smiled.
“But
first
I think
you
better
change
your
clothes,
before
someone takes
a
pot
shot
at
you
for
looking
like
a
man
from Mars
or
something.”

Mark
grinned
back,
beginning
to
relax
a
little,
and hurried
up
to
change.
His
own
clothes
were
too
small for
him,
but
he
made
them
do.
His
feet,
however, flatly
refused
to
suffer
through
a
pair
of
shoes,
so
he kept
his
Danequa
sandals
on.
He
glanced
at
the
man who
looked
back
at
him
out
of
his
mirror,
hardly
recognizing
him.
He
felt
like
a
spy,
an
alien,
in
his
own room
and
he
left
rapidly
and
rejoined
his
uncle
in the
sitting
room.

“That’s
better,”
Doctor
Nye
approved,
puffing
on his
pipe.
“Come
on.
We’ll
walk
up
to
the
Point.”

They
went
outside,
into
the
cool
night
air
and
the silence,
and
Mark
Nye
instantly
relaxed.
There
was the
smell
of
the
familiar
pines
in
the
air,
and
the
freshly washed
earth
was
heavy
with
clean
scent.
The
black clouds
had
broken
above
them,
and
the
frosted
stars twinkled
coldly
in
the
black
sky.
A
full
moon
raced along
behind
the
scudding
clouds,
turning
them
into a
silver
sea
and
itself
into
a
circular
ship
of
frozen ice
that
sailed
in
and
out
among
them.
Mark
breathed deeply,
glad
to
be
alive.

Neither
man
spoke.
They
walked
along
the
path through
the
moonlit
night
until
they
came
to
the
Point, and
there
they
stopped.
The
Point
was
an
outcropping of
rock
that
looked
down
into
the
light-pointed
valley below.
It
was
free
of
trees,
and
the
soft
night
wind whispered
around
it
eerily.
A
transport
plane,
high in
the
sky,
winged
along
above
them,
its
engines
muted by
distance,
its
red
and
green
running
lights
blinking in
the
stars.

The
full
moon
sailed
clear
of
the
silver-flecked clouds,
and
Mark
watched
it
with
a
heavy
heart.
His friends
were
dead,
dead
and
ashes
in
the
mists
of
time. Tlaxcan
smiled
no
more,
and
little
Tlax
had
lived
and dreamed
and
died
and
was
gone
forever.
Nranquar, and
Roqan,
and
the
proud
Qualxen—where
were
they now?

Gone.
Lost
in
the
dust
of
ages
.
.
. Mark
looked
at
his
uncle,
puffing
his
pipe
in
silence beneath
the
moon.
He
was
glad
to
be
back
with
him again.
This,
after
all,
was
where
he
belonged.
He
had no
choice.
This
was
his
world,
with
all
its
problems, and
it
was
here
that
his
life
must
be
lived. And
yet-There
was
the
full
moon.
How
long
ago
had
it
been that
he
sang
the
song
of
die
Danequa
beneath
that same
full
moon,
with
the
excitement
of
the
quaro
hunt 
racing
in
his
blood?
Had
it
been
a
few
days,
a
few months—or
almost
fifty-two
thousand
years
ago?
The moon
smiled
down
on
him,
and
Mark
closed
his
eyes. Clear
and
strong
across
the
ages,
clean
as
silver
bells, he
heard
again
the
chant
of
the
Danequa
.
.
.