The Stones of Nomuru

They rolled through a suburb of Henderson and into the city itself. Eventually they passed under an arch in the old city wall. This rampart of stone had replaced the wooden stockade that the first settlers, arriving on the Maravilla, had erected for protection. Now the city had expanded well beyond the wall; nobody guarded the gates, the valves of which had long since vanished.

Salazar said: "There was a movement years ago, before I met you, to tear down the wall, since it restricts travel in and out of the city. I was new to Kukulcan then; but with the rashness of youth, I started a counter-movement to preserve it."

"I never knew that!" said Kara.

"Yep. My party carried the day, but it was a mighty close thing."

"Really!" said Kara. "You always have a surprise up your sleeve. I wonder that you won, since most of the early settlers didn't give a damn for historic preservation."

"Like Bergen." Salazar chuckled. "I turned my knowledge of history to account; I dangled the prospect of money. I pointed out that in nineteenth-century Europe, many cities tore down their medieval walls, thinking themselves modern or progressive. A century later the few towns that had kept theirs, like Chester and Carcassonne, found their walls a mighty tourist attraction and a hefty source of revenue. Of course, they had to cut passages here for some avenues and the railroad."

Salazar waved towards the terminal of the Imperial Feënzun Railroad. On one of the tracks alongside the modest terminal building, a train was made up. The little locomotive, with a vertical boiler, was getting up steam as a Kookish fireman shoveled in coal. Attached to the engine were three small, four-wheeled flat cars, each with a railing around its edge. Here the Kooks were satisfied to ride standing, clutching the rail. A fourth flat car, in deference to Terran tastes, had benches and an overhead frame on which canvas could be spread in wet weather.

"You know they could have much bigger, more efficient trains," said Kara. "I've seen pictures of the huge locomotives they have on Earth, which would make that little thing look like a toy."

Salazar smiled. "They know about our monster engines but don't want them. Those engines are much too heavy for their tracks, so they'd have to roll new rails and lay new tracks; and they think electrical machinery harms their ancestral spirits."

"What a mulish lot of stick-in-the-muds!"

"Absolutely; it makes them exasperating to deal with. No sense of humor to speak of, and an insanely complex family, clan, and caste organization. But it also has advantages."

"Such as?" she countered.

"Compared to us, they have a pretty stable history, without many of the social pathologies we've developed on Terra. They have little crime, and they're pretty honest and trustworthy. When they say they'll do something, expect them to do it or perish trying. They think we are a frivolous, treacherous lot and have a saying: Trust a dry river bed before a fyunga, and a fyunga before a Terran."

"Serves us right, I suppose," said Kara. "I contributed to our troubles by urging you to take that guiding job with Conrad."

"And I was just as dumb, showing off the dig to those guys and not guessing they were the ones planning to develop it. I should have known they didn't give a damn for science."

"Don't blame yourself. You were marvelous after we got out of the cage."

"So were you. Are you quite sure—?"

Kara stopped. "I turn off here, Keith."

She held out a hand, which Salazar clasped. He would have kissed her, but she forestalled that by holding her arm rigidly extended. Salazar said: "Tell me, would you have really stabbed me if I had, as you put it, 'crawled in my sleep'?"

"N-no; but I'd have still fought you off. You'd have looked the way you did after your bout with Conrad."