The Green Odyssey

18

AFTER MUCH PUFFING and panting, muttered encouragements to each other, and occasional cursing, they finally reached the summit of the tallest hill. Abruptly, they found themselves facing a clearing which ran around its crown. Directly ahead of them was a forest of totem poles, all gleaming palely in the moonlight. Beyond it was the dark yawning of a large cave.

Green walked out from the shadows of the branches to take a closer look. When he came back he said, «There's a little hut by the side of the cave. I looked in the window. An old woman's asleep in it. But her cats are wide-awake and likely to wake her up.»

«All these totem poles bear the heads of cats,» said Aga. «This place must be their holy of holies. It's probably taboo to all but the old priestess.»

«Maybe so,» replied Green. «But they must hold religious services of some sort here. There's a big pile of human skulls on the other side of the cave mouth, and also a stake covered with bloodstains.

«We can do two things. Go on down the other side of this hill, jump off onto the plain and take our chances there. Or else hide inside the cave and hope that because it's taboo nobody will explore it to look for us.»

«It seems to me that's the first place they'd look into,» said Aga.

«Not if we don't wake the old woman. Then if the savages come along later and ask her if anybody's come by they'd get no for an answer.»

«What about the cats?»

Green shrugged his shoulders. «We'd have to take that chance. Perhaps, if once we get by them and into the cave, they may quiet down.»

He was referring to their caterwauling, which was beginning to sound dreadful.

«No,» said Aga, «that noise will be a signal to the islanders. They'll know something's up.»

«Well,» replied Green, «I don't know what you intend doing, but I'm going into that cave. I'm too tired to run any further.»

«So are we,» affirmed the other women. «We've reached the end of our strength.»

There was a silence, and into that silence came a voice, a man's.

It whispered, «Please do not be startled. Be quiet. It is I….»

Miran stepped out of the shadows behind them, holding his finger to his lips, his one eye round and pale in the moonlight. He was a ragged captain, not at all the elegantly uniformed commander of the Bird of Fortune and the wealthy-appearing patriarch of the Clan Effenycan. But he carried in his other hand a canvas bag. Green, seeing it, knew that Miran had managed somehow not only to escape with his skin but had also carried off a treasure in jewels.

«Behold,» he announced, waving the bag, «all is not lost.»

Green thought that he was referring to the jewels. However, Miran had turned and beckoned to someone in the darkness behind him.

Out of it slipped Grizquetr. Tears shone in his eyes as he ran to his mother and fell into her arms.

Amra began weeping softly. Until now she had repressed her grief over the children she thought forever lost to her. All thought had been directed to saving her own life and the lives of the two girls who had survived with her. Now, seeing her eldest son emerge from the shadows as if from the grave had thawed the frozen well of sorrow.

She sobbed, «I thank the gods that they have given me back my son.»

«If the gods are so wonderful why did they kill your other two children?» asked Miran sourly. «And why did they kill my Clansmen, and why did they smash my Bird? Why…?»

«Shut up!» said Green. «This is no time to cry about anything. We have to get out with whole hides. The philosophizing and tears can come later.»

«Mennirox is an ungrateful god,» muttered Miran. «After all I did for him, too.»

Amra dried her tears and said, «How did you escape? I thought all the males who hadn't been killed in the wreck were speared?»

«Almost everybody was,» replied Grizquetr. «But I crawled down into the hold and slipped through to a hiding place beneath one of the fish tanks, which had overturned. It was wet there, and there were dead fish nestling beside me. The savages did not find me, though doubtless they would have when they began salvaging. It was thinking about that that decided me to crawl back out on the other side of the 'roller away from the savages. I did so, and I found that I could belly my way through the grass growing on the edge. I almost died of fright, though, because I crawled head on into Miran. He was hiding there, too.»

«I was thrown off the foredeck by the impact,» interrupted the captain. «I should have broken every bone in my body, but I landed on a hull sail, which had come down and was lying on the starboard side, supported by the fallen mast. It was like falling into a hammock. From there I dropped into the grass and snaked along the very edge of the island. Several times I almost fell off, and I would have if I'd been a pound fatter, an inch wider. As it was…»

«Listen,» said Grizquetr, breaking in. «This island is the wuru!»

«What do you mean?» said Green.

«While I was clinging to the edge of the island I thought I'd hang down over it and see if there was any place there to hide. There wasn't, because the underside of the island is one smooth sheet. I know, because I could see in the moonlight clear to the other side. It was smooth, smooth, like a slab of iron.

«And that's not all! You know how the grass on the plains hereabouts has been tall, uncut? Well, the grass just ahead of the edge was uncut. But the grass underneath the island was being cut off. Rather, it was vanishing! The top of the grass was just disappearing into air! Only a lawn of grass about an inch high was left!»

«Then this island is one big lawnmower,» said Green. «More than just interesting. But we'll have to investigate that later. Right now…»

And he walked toward the little hut by the cave mouth. As he approached it several large house cats streaked out of the doorway. A moment later Green came out. He grinned broadly.

«The priestess has passed out. The place smells like a brewery. The cats are in their cups, too. All drinking from bowls set on the ground for them, staggering around, yowling, fighting. If they don't wake her up, nothing can.»

«I have heard that these old priestesses are often drunkards,» said Amra. «They lead a lonely life because they're taboo, and nobody even goes near them except during certain religious customs. They have only their bottle and their cats to keep them company.»

«Ah,» said Miran, «you are thinking of the Tale of Samdroo, the Tailor Who Turned Sailor. Yes, that is supposed to be a story to entertain children, but I'm beginning to think there is a great deal to it. Remember, the story describes just such a hill and just such a cave. It is said that every roaming island has just such a place. And…»

«You talk too much,» broke in Aga harshly. «Let's get on into the cave.»

Green could appreciate what Aga's comment meant. Miran had lost face because he'd allowed his vessel to be wrecked and his Clansmen murdered en masse. To Aga and the other women he was no longer Captain Miran, the rich patriarch. He was Miran, the shipwrecked sailor. A fat old sailor. Just that. Nothing more.

He could have redeemed himself if he had committed suicide. But his eagerness to live had resulted in his placing himself on an even lower level in their estimation.

Miran must have realized this, for he did not reply. Instead he stood to one side.

Green walked thirty paces into the cave, then looked back over his shoulder. The entrance was still visible, an arch outlined in the bright moonshine.

Someone coughed. Green was about to caution them to keep quiet, when he felt his nostrils tickling and had to fight to down a loud sneeze himself.

«Dust.»

«Good,» said Green. «Maybe they never come down here.»

Suddenly the tunnel turned at right angles, to the left. The little light that penetrated from the entrance disappeared in total blackness, The party halted.

«What if there are traps set for intruders?» wailed Inzax.

«That's a chance we'll have to take,» Green growled. «We'll go in the dark until we come to another turn. Then we'll light up a torch or two. The natives won't be able to see the glow.»

He walked ahead feeling the wall with his left hand. Suddenly he stopped. Amra humped into him.

«What is it?» she asked anxiously.

«The rock wall has now become metal. Feel here.»

He guided her hand.

«You're right,» she whispered. «There's a definite seam, and I can tell the difference between the two!»

«The floor's metal, too,» added Soon. «My feet are bare, and I can feel it. What's more, the dust is all gone.»

Green went ahead, and after thirty more paces he came to another ninety-degree turn, to the right, The walls and floor were composed of the smooth, cool metal. After making sure that the entire party was around the corner, he told a woman carrying some torches taken from a long house to light one. Its bright flare showed the group staring round-eyed at the large chamber in which they stood.

Everywhere were bare gray metal walls and floors. No furniture of any kind.

Nor a speck of dust.

«There's a doorway to another room,» he said. «We might as well go on in.»

He took the torch from the woman and, holding a cutlass in the other, he led the way. Once across the threshold he halted.

This room was even larger than the other. But it had furnishings of a sort. And its further wall was not metal but earth.

At the same time the room began to brighten with light coming from an invisible source.

Soon screamed and threw herself against her mother, clinging desperately to her waist. The babies began howling, and the other adults acted in the various ways that panic affected them.

Green alone remained unmoved. He knew what was happening, but he couldn't blame the rest for their behavior. They had never heard of an electronic eye, so they couldn't be expected to maintain coolness.

The only thing that Green feared at that moment was that the outcries would be heard by the savages outside the cave. So he hastened to assure the women that this phenomenon was nothing to be frightened about. It was common in his home country. A mere matter of white magic that anyone could practice.

They quieted down but were still uneasy. Wide-eyed, they bunched up about him.

«The natives themselves aren't scared of this,» he said. «They must come here at times. See? There's an altar built against that dirt wall. And from the bones piled beneath it I'd say that sacrifices were held here.»

He looked for another door. There seemed to be none. He found it hard to believe that there couldn't be. Somehow he'd had the feeling that great things lay ahead of him. These rooms, and this lighting, were evidences of an earlier civilization that quite possibly had been on a level with his own. He'd known that the island itself must be powered with an automatically working anti-gravity plant, fueled either atomically or from the planet's magneto-gravitic field. Why the whole unit should be covered with rocks and soil and trees he didn't know. But he had been sure that somewhere in the bowels of this mass of land was just such a place as this. And more. Where was the power plant? Was it sealed up so that no one could get to it? Or, as was likely, was there a door to the plant which could not be opened unless one had a key of some sort?

First he had to find the door.

He examined the altar, which was made of iron. It was a platform about three feet high and ten feet square. Upon it stood a chair, fashioned from pieces of iron. From its back rose a steel rod about half an inch in diameter and ten feet long, its lower end held secure between two uprights by a thick iron fork. Once the fork was withdrawn, the rod would obviously fall over against the earth wall behind it, though the lower end would still remain on the uprights and would, in fact, stick against whoever was sitting in the chair at the moment.

«Odd,» said Green. «If it weren't for those catheaded idols on the ends of the platform, and the bones at its foot, I'd not know this was an altar. Bones! They're black, burned black.»

He looked again at the rod. «Now,» he said, half to him.-self, «if I were to withdraw the fork, and the rod fell, it would strike the wall. That is evident. But what is it all about?»

Amra brought him some long pieces of rope.

«These were stacked against the wall,» she said.

«Yes? Ah! Now, if I were to tie one end of this rope about the apex of that rod, and someone else were to stand upon the altar and take out the fork, then I could control which direction the rod would fall by pulling it toward me. Or allowing it to go away from me. And the person who had taken the fork out would then have plenty of time to get down from the altar and back to the region of safety, where the rope-wielder and his friends would be stationed. Alas, the poor fellow sitting in the chairs. Yes, I see it all now.»

He looked up from the rope he held in his hand. «Aga!» he said sharply. «Get away from that wall!»

The tall, lean woman was walking past the altar, holding her bare cutlass in her hand. When she heard Green she paused in her stride, gave him an astonished look, then continued.

«You don't understand,» she called back over her shoulder. «This wall isn't solid earth. It's fluffy, like a young chick's feathers. It's dust, dust. I think we can knock it down, cut our way through. There must be something on the other side….»

«Aga!» he yelled. «Don't! Stop where you are!»

But she had lifted her blade and brought it down in a hard stroke that was to show him how easy the stuff would be to slash away.

Green grabbed Amra and Paxi and dived to the floor, pulling them with him.

Thunder roared and lightning filled the room, dazzling and deafening him! Even in its midst he could see the dark figure of Aga, transfixed, crucified in white fire.