Ghost of a Chance - Mark Garland [43]
From where they stood, the village seemed to go on endlessly in all directions. They were only four houses from the nearby intersection that was shaped like a crow's foot. And the area was busy indeed. The smooth dirt streets were lined with houses and shops, many of them two stories high.
People walked in and out of numerous shops, and the Drenarians' now familiar beasts of burden pulled wagons loaded with goods and children down the center of each street. Again, Janeway was reminded of a frontier town--or perhaps an early American Indian village, she reflected, as she watched a woman pass by carrying a baby on her back in what could easily have passed for a papoose board.
Janeway watched a young man making his way toward them. He was carrying a stool and lighting oil lamps that hung on wooden poles. No moths gathered near his flames, nor did she note any other kind of insect. She had been stung and bitten on dozens of worlds like this one, but here insects were not a problem. This was not paradise, she realized. The planet's ecosystem was breaking down utterly, yet another indication of the Drenarians' grim situation.
A small crowd began to gather in front of Nan Loteth's house, their eyes wide under their heavy brows, to observe the strange new visitors.
Their expressions were familiar enough to Janeway.
She never ceased to be amazed by how similar most intelligent peoples were, not so much physiologically, but inside, in their hearts and minds, and how easily one could see that, even in the most alien eyes.
Janeway and her officers greeted the other Drenarians, then stood about for a long, awkward moment.
"You came from up there, from the night, just as the demons did."
Nan Loteth pointed toward the sky. "The Jun-Tath have shown me this."
Janeway looked up. The stars had begun to appear and, with them, all three of the planet's moons, each one no more than a crescent. The smallest moon had just appeared over the big hills to the east and seemed to be chasing the others into the sky.
Janeway looked at Nan Loteth and saw the glow in his eyes suddenly dim.
"You do not answer," he said glumly.
"Yes," she said, nodding. "Yes, we came from the sky."
"Which star is yours?" he asked.
Janeway looked at him with mild surprise. It was one thing for a primitive people to imagine beings, perhaps gods or demons, descending from the sky or from mountaintops, or arriving from across the seas, from some far distant and unexplored part of their own world.
Humanity's past was filled with gods of every manner and purpose--angels and spirits had filled mankind's mythical skies by day and by night--beings who controlled all the functions of the heavens from mountains and unseen worlds.
But that was not what Nan Loteth had said at all.
"What do you know of the stars?" she asked, regarding him more seriously now.
"I have seen them."
"What do you mean?" Janeway asked, glancing at Kim and Tuvok, both of whom seemed as fascinated as she was.
"Wait right here," Nan Loteth said, his eyes suddenly wide and full of excitement. "I will show you."
The old man disappeared back inside his cabin with a spry dash that made Janeway blink. She waited only a moment for his return.
"This is how I see," Nan Loteth exclaimed. He held in his hands a long, smooth wooden tube, which he gingerly handed to Janeway.
She quickly recognized the device; it was composed of two tubes, one slightly smaller than the other, allowing it to slide in and out, thereby changing the overall tube length. A neatly cut glass disc had been fitted into either end of the tube.
"You look through it, like this," Nan Loteth explained, gently taking the tube back. He raised the device lengthwise toward the sky, then put the smaller end up to this right eye. Holding it steady, he aimed at the largest of the three moons, which had nearly reached its apex.
Janeway watched him with fresh regard.
"Look," he said excitedly. "You look." He handed