The Rod of Light

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Reddened and magnified, the sun had descended through a clear sky and was poised over the edge of the hilly landscape, when its radiance picked out a burnished metal figure that had climbed to the summit of a turfed ridge. The traveller paused, and for a considerable while gazed intently at the mellowed orb, as though endeavouring to return its eternal stare. For his eyes, like the evening sun itself, were also red and glowing, and seemed to project the same intense presence.

His body was bronze-black, man-shaped and handsome, decorated from head to foot with scroll-like engravings. The face was an enigma: an immobile machine-visage, its expression stern yet hinting at tenderness. Suddenly the robot’s head tilted up, as his attention was caught by a glint of golden light. The sun had caught the underside of a plane’s wing, moving slowly on the end of a newly appeared contrail.

Jasperodus stepped back into the shadow of the ridge, and waited half-kneeling, one arm rested on a bended knee, hoping that the plane’s pilot had not, in turn, spotted him.

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