Orion in the Dying Time by Ben Bova Page A

night, where it gives light to men in the dark hours, light that is brighter than the moon's.
    The legend of Prometheus thrown against the background of the stars. What Kraal was telling me could make sense only if the Sun were accompanied by another star, a dim brownish red dwarf that orbited far out in the deeper distances of the solar system. Yet the Sun was a single star, accompanied by a retinue of planets, not by a companion star. Through all of my journeys across the spacetime continuum the Sun had always been a solitary star.
    Until now.
    "And what of the Punisher?" I heard myself ask.
    "The Sun and the other gods become angry when the Stealer robs fire from the Sun," Kraal went on. "The Punisher tears at the Light-Giver, rips into its guts again and again, all year long, forever."
    The companion star has a planet of its own orbiting around it, I translated mentally. From the Earth they can see it bobbing back and forth, disappearing behind the star and reappearing on its other side. A Punisher ripping into the Light-Stealer's innards, like the vulture that eats out Prometheus' liver once the gods have chained him to the rock.
    "That is how fire was given to us, Orion," said Kraal. "It happened a long time ago, long before my grandfather's grandfather hunted around this lake. The stars show us what happened, to remind us of our debt to the gods."
    "But from what you say," I replied, "the gods are not friendly to us."
    "All the more reason to respect and fear them, Orion." With that he walked away from me, back toward the camp, with the air of a man who had made an unarguable point.
    By now the Sun was fully risen over the lake's farther shore and the men were up, stretching and muttering, relieving themselves against a couple of trees. They shared the food they had remaining, Kraal's men and my own, and washed it down with water from the lake, which Chron and one-armed Pirk brought up to our makeshift camp in animal bladders.
    "Now for our fight," said Kraal, picking his long spear up from the ground. His men arrayed themselves behind him, each of them gripping spears, while my band came together behind me. The dogs lay sleepily on their bellies, tongues lolling. But their eyes took in every move.
    "You are twelve, we are only nine," I said.
    He shrugged. "You should have brought more men."
    "We don't have any more."
    Kraal made a gesture with his free hand that said, That's your problem, not mine.
    "Instead of all of us fighting," I suggested, "why not an individual combat: one against one."
    Kraal's brow furrowed. "What good would that do?"
    "If your side wins, my men will go back to their home and never come here again."
    "And if my side loses?"
    "We can both hunt in this area, in peace. There's plenty of game for us both."
    "No, Orion. It will be better to kill you all and be finished with it. Then we can take your women, too. And any other tribes who come by here will know that this is our territory, and they must not hunt here."
    "How will they know that?"
    He seemed genuinely surprised by such a stupid question. "Why, we will mount your heads on poles, of course."
    "Suppose," I countered, "we kill all of you? What then?"
    "Nine of you? Two of them lads and one of the men with a bad arm?" Kraal laughed.
    "One of us has killed a dragon," I said, making my voice hard.
    "So you claim."
    "He did! He did!" my men shouted.
    I silenced them with a wave of my hand, not wanting a fight to break out over my claims of prowess. An idea was forming itself in my brain. I asked Chron to bring me my bow and arrows.
    "Do you know what this is?" I held them up before Kraal.
    "Certainly. Not much good against a spear, though. The bow is a weapon of ambush, not face-to-face fighting."
    Handing the bow and arrows to him, I said, "Before we start the fighting, why don't you shoot me with this."
    Kraal looked surprised, then suspicious. "What do you mean?"
    Walking toward a stately old elm, I explained, "Fire an arrow at me. I'll stand