The first few told concisely of the establishment on Earth of this outpost, of the local defeat and abandonment. There were some heroic scenes there, but Craig hurried through them, drawn to the next series of paintings, yet unwilling to turn his eyes to them.
They were Biblical and as stunningly familiar as if he'd lived with them all his life.
Feeling churned at his insides again.
One of the first immortalized Noah, or whoever had been the actual hero of the first version of the Flood story. The painting of the sea and the dark doomsday clouds over it was so real that Craig took a step backward. Mountainous wave masses were battered white by an incredible rain. Heaved aslant, decks tumbling water, dwarfed by the seas, was the wooden ship. A few half-drowned domestic animals stared in terror, lashed to their pens on deck. The bearded man who stood on wide-planted giant's legs, rope-like fingers gripping a tiller that strained to escape, was bedraggled but staunch and muscled to meet the sea. A woman clung to one arm. She had been painted not delicately, but with a strong beauty that spoke in thunder of the artist's piercing compassion.
There was the crossing of the Red Sea, and the painting showed clearly how some force held aside the water. The artist had evidently been fascinated by the still-puddled seabottom.
There were more, but Craig passed them, drawn like a fish on a line to the painting of the man on the cross. The body, more cruelly punished than the Bible recorded, strained in an agony that communicated itself to Craig's own. The face, twisted with pain, sagging with exhaustion, the tortured soft brown eyes, held no bitterness, no accusation.
The accusation was the painting itself. The bitterness and rage (and remorse?) was the painter's own.
Craig, frightened and miserable, looked at the others. Dientes showed only awe and humility. Rabar was holding himself tautly, but terror showed in his eyes. Brulieres shook with overflowing emotions, his face mirroring worship, glory, worry and doubt. He met Craig's eyes. His voice higher-pitched and cracked with feeling, he said, "Have you noticed—this?"
He was standing before a vertical slab of rough stone which had obviously been used to close up a tunnel. The sealing had been done with melted rock, roughly, leaving a groove around the edge. The job suggested haste. Craig's insides writhed at what might lie behind the slab.