Deyv felt desolate and lonely. He would miss the two very much, not only for their protection but for their companionship and their knowledge. Also, he and Vana would have to take turns carrying the baby. And they would no longer have the vessel to take refuge in.
Vana’s face showed that she was thinking the same thoughts.
‘If the Yawtl had stolen our eggs, there’d be no doubt about what we’d do,’ she said slowly. ‘But-’
‘That’s true,’ Deyv said. ‘So…’
They looked at each other, and Deyv said, ‘We’ll go with you!’
The Shemibob, fingering her Emerald, said, ‘I thought so. This stone predicted that you would. But I really didn’t have to consult it.’
Deyv did not like I-told-you-so’s, even from one of the higher beings. But he was too happy about the decision to resent The Shemibob very long. The only shadow in his joy was the thought that this was only putting off the inevitable. When they came near their homeland, they would have to make up their minds again. No, they would not. There could not be any doubt that they would have to say good-bye then.
Or was there?
42
‘There it is,’ The Shemibob said. ‘The gateway.’
Sloosh did not comment that that was an obvious remark. He never said that to her, though he was quick enough to say it when a human uttered one.
They were in a thick part of the jungle, halfway up a high hill. Here, perhaps a hundred feet above and close to a thick branch of a giant tree, was the swelling, shrinking, dazzling bright and dread-making circle. They had located it after much questioning of many tribes in a wide area. These would not have given answers to the two humans if they had been alone. They would, instead, have killed them. But the Archkerri and The Shemibob frightened them. The tribes thought they were either gods or demons, and they usually ran when they saw the two. Then the strangers just stayed in the village or House until the tribespeople decided that perhaps the two terrible beings were not intent on destroying their homes. Seeing that the three humans associated on familiar terms with these creatures also helped to reassure them.
One or two braver ones would venture timidly near them. The Shemibob and Sloosh would make signs of peace, and eventually most of the tribe would straggle in. The snake-centaur would draw a picture of the gateway in the mud and would try, through sign language, to make them understand what she was seeking. For a long time, the tribespeople did not comprehend her.
But the twelfth folk they came to spoke a tongue related to Vana’s. Though it was only half-intelligible to her, she could still get enough of a message across. These directed them to a tribe which had once lived near the gateway. The tribe had come to the Place of the Trading Season, where, through the Trade Language, its members told of the shining horror. To this tribe went the five travellers, where they learned enough of the trade tongue to ask their questions and be answered.
Their informants were not aware of the exact location of the gateway. They could give a general direction and a vague estimate of the distance to it. Having learned this, Sloosh used his prism to communicate with the plants. After a long long time, from breakfast almost till supper, the Archkerri got the location. This was not exact, but as they travelled Sloosh kept using the prism. The closer they got, the better their information became. Two sleep-times before they got there, he had pinpointed it.
Vana, after one glance upward, had kept her eyes on the ground. Her belly was huge now. The baby would come in a little over twelve and a half circuits of The Dark Beast.
‘Now that we’ve found it,’ she said, ‘what do you two intend to do?’
Sloosh said, ‘When my people get here, I’ll go through the gateway with them. Of course, some won’t want to stop their particular researches and so won’t come now. Or perhaps not at all.’
‘I will stay here to help him build a bridge to the gateway,’ The Shemibob said.
Then we’ll stay awhile and rest,’ Deyv said.
The Shemibob smiled knowingly. ‘You might as well delay the inevitable. It can’t hurt.’
Deyv did not reply. He helped Vana untie the cube and take it down from Sloosh’s back. The Archkerri picked it up and went down to the foot of the hill. A swamp surrounded the hill, a foul place stinking from many sources, choked with plants of many kinds, buzzing with insects, croaking with froggish monsters, dangerous with poisonous things, insectile, reptilian and mammalian. Sloosh would have preferred to expand the cube at a higher place, but the only flat ground was by the water.
The three humans went with him. Vana wanted to put the baby in the vessel for a nap, where it would be undisturbed by the insects. Sloosh pulled the rod. The craft unfolded slowly. Too slowly, according to Sloosh.
‘It’s a good thing the journey’s ended. The power supply is almost exhausted.’
He looked at the vessel. ‘It’s too bad, though. The Shemibob and I have been tracing its circuits. We think we know which controls start its propelling power. We’re afraid, however, to activate it. There’s no telling what might happen. Still-’
‘I want to be a long way off if you decide to experiment,’ Deyv said.
After making sure the baby was comfortable, Deyv called Aejip and Jum. He told Vana that he was going hunting, and he waded through the green-coated water and black mud towards higher ground. Much later he was far from the home base, still unsuccessful in getting game. He was stalking a large bird with bronze-coloured feathers, a white-edged fantail and a red bag hanging from its neck when he heard voices. He froze, along with the two animals.
The speakers came nearer, talking softly, but they were near enough for him to determine that their language was unfamiliar. Or was it? Didn’t it sound somewhat like Vana’s?
Unable to suppress his curiosity, he snaked through the foliage. Aejip and Jum followed him. He stopped when he saw a trail before him. Going away from him were two men, tall, skins a little darker than his wife’s but with kinky hair like hers, though brown instead of yellow. They wore bark-cloth kilts and carried the standard weapons of jungle dwellers everywhere: blowguns, flint or chert tomahawks, knives and spears. Their legs were painted black to just above the knees, and their spines were coloured with red.
They stopped to talk about something before they came to a bend. They turned towards him a moment. Their eyes were slanted. No. Not really slanted. That impression was caused by a fold of flesh in the inner side of their eyelids. Their noses were blobs, quite unlike his beautiful long curving nose. Their lips were very thin and a blue band was painted below the lower one. The nipples were encircled with red. Radiating from each side of these were two seven-pointed stars.
One carried over his shoulder the same kind of bird Deyv had been hoping to kill.
He decided that they were returning home from the hunt. He waited until they had gone round the bend before following them. It was necessary to know where the enemy lived and how many there were. Also, how well defended they were and the degree of their aggressiveness. He did not need to show himself to find out. His long experience had given him some ability to judge defence and aggression by just watching people in their daily routine.
The trail led to lower ground, where there was a small swamp. The men ahead waded through it as if they knew that it was not dangerous. Deyv saw a gliding animal, its hundred ribs spread out to make the thin air act like thick water. It swooped over the heads of the two men, but they paid it no visible attention. The creature curved upward near Deyv and landed on a branch of a tree. Seeing Deyv, it turned its triangular head downward and made a clattering sound. Though its body was snake-like, it had a sleek bluish fur and greenish eyelids. Deyv ignored it, since the men must know what was dangerous.
His animals growled very softly and sidled by, their eyes intent on it until they were well past.
Deyv, equally softly, said, ‘Calm down, Jum, Aejip. It doesn’t mean ill to you.’
Presently, the two men came to a hill and climbed up its steep s
lope. It was naked of trees, having been cleared long ago. It had also been planted with some tall pod-bearing vegetable which did not require terracing. The trail led up the hill and onto a small plateau in the centre of which was a stockaded village.
Deyv could not follow beyond the swamp, but he climbed a very tall tree whose top was level with that of the hill. Beyond the wall of thick logs he could see the roofs of some conical huts on the far side.
Unable to see more than a few of the villagers, he started to climb down. He stopped when a giant rodent emerged from the swamp and began to eat the plants on its edge. It was furred in black except for its ears, which were red. Its body was thick with fat, and it looked as if it would be two feet higher than he if it were to stand up on its two legs.
Unnoticed for some time, it devoured plants, blue stalks and white heads and green pods. Then a boy on a high wooden observation tower began shouting. In a short time the men, followed by women and children, raced down the trail. Deyv did not know whether the entire population was there, but he counted two hundred and twenty. He felt an irrelevant sense of pride that he could now do this. Sloosh had taught him well.
The beast had stopped eating when the first wave of warriors poured down the hill. It regarded the yelling, spear-brandishing figures for a moment before turning to amble off through the swamp. About thirty men waded after it, some throwing their spears. Most of these missed; those that hit bounced off. Several blowgun darts struck and also failed to stick.
Deyv looked through the now open gate. Directly in his line of sight was a man-sized idol, a thing with a fierce scowling face, two long tusks sticking upward from the lower jaw, four arms and an enormous belly. The face was human enough, but the upper part of the head was shaped into something bird-like, a creature with half-opened wings and a tremendous beak.
On the other side of the hill was a tree even taller than the one on which he stood. He climbed down and worked his way around through the swamp, Jum and Aejip following. They waited at its base while he climbed this, though they did not like standing in water up to their shoulders. When he got near to the top, Deyv found that he could see the whole village. It was arranged like most such places, with a shaman’s house in the centre. There were, however, large wooden tanks containing water. He supposed that these were reserves to be used if an enemy besieged them. There were also many roofed bins containing the pods.
In one corner was a soul-egg tree.
This explained why the tribe had selected such an inconvenient place. Rather than live in an advantageous site and make sure that their precious tree was well hidden, they had chosen to erect houses and a stockade around it.
By then the hunters and plant gatherers and fruit gatherers were coming in. He made another count, making two hundred and fifty.
The cooking began. The shaman came out of his house bearing a wooden table at each end of which were affixed small reproductions of the idol. He set the table down before the god. After a dance the villagers swarmed round it, throwing pieces of cooked meat and fruit on the table. The shaman danced again around the table, apparently blessing the food or making an offering of it to the god. A hare was brought out of a cage. The shaman cut its throat and carried it by its legs over the food, its blood dripping over it.
After this, the shaman ate a piece of the bloodied meat, and the villagers, in a single file, came round the table. The adult males ate the meat, and the women and children the fruit. After that they departed for their own huts and supper.
Deyv left. He got lost once but found his way after some searching and after a long while was back at the vessel. The others were relieved to see him; they had been afraid that something bad had happened. He told them his story while he ate.
‘I doubt they’ll come round here,’ Sloosh said. ‘They must know about the gateway, but they’d be afraid of it. This place is probably taboo.’
After breakfast, they set to work to build the bridge to the gateway. Deyv climbed up to the branch by the abomination and let down the rope of The Shemibob to haul up bamboo logs. As long as he kept his back to the shimmering, he could work. But when he accidentally glimpsed it, he had to stop until his fear and nausea passed.
They did not have many flint tools with which to cut the bamboo. However, Deyv’s sword and the Yawtl’s, which they had taken from his body, and Sloosh’s axe could hack wood all day without the edges becoming dulled. Eventually they had a structure from the ground to the branch above that near the gateway. This enclosed a lift. A pulley arrangement on roughly carved wheels and spindles allowed them to haul themselves up, though only one at a time.
The Shemibob did most of the work of building the bridge out to the gateway. She was better able to withstand the effects than the others.
‘A good solid engineering tool,’ Sloosh said. ‘Now, if only an earthquake doesn’t shake it down.’
He and the snake-centaur went up with poles and probed the shimmering. They lost some poles, though they were aware that they could not withdraw them the tiniest bit without their being severed.
When they came back down, The Shemibob said, ‘There’s a solid floor about fifteen feet below the gateway. It’s probably earth or sand. We could push the poles in an inch or so after they met resistance. We don’t know, of course, how far the floor extends in any direction.’
‘Also, of course,’ Sloosh said, ‘we can’t know how hot or cold it is there. It might be on top of a mountain from which it’ll be impossible to climb down. Or it might be a very small island far away from a large land mass and without any wood with which to build a boat. Or it might be snow on top of an ice pack. If it’s a very young planet, the air might be poisonous. Then-’
‘Shut up!’ Deyv said.
‘Why are you so fearful?’ the plant-man asked. You’re not going there.’ He paused, then said, ‘Or is it possible that you do have some faint desire to get out of this doomed world?’
‘None at all,’ Deyv said. He was not sure that he was not lying, though.
During sleep-time, Deyv’s grandmother came to him out of the dark mists of his dream.
Deyv said, ‘It is pleasant to see you again, Grandmother. You haven’t visited me for a long time.’
‘It’s not for pleasure that I come to you,’ she said. ‘The dead have no pleasure. I have come to help you with your problem. You want to take Vana to your tribe as your wife, and she wants to take you to hers as her husband. You are both very stubborn. Neither will give in. You won’t even accept the sensible suggestion of the plant-man that you throw a pointed stick up in the air and let its fall decide which path to take.
‘So I have come to tell you what you must do. The dead have no pleasure, but: they do have wisdom. You must obey me.’
‘I will do what you say, Grandmother,’ Deyv said. ‘Only… I hope that you remember that I am of your flesh and blood, of your tribe, and that you favour me.’
‘Vana has borne a child which is of my flesh, and she will soon bear another. I can’t favour you over her. Here is what you must do to satisfy yourself and her. Also, to save your people and hers.’
He woke Vana after his grandmother had floated backward into the mists. He insisted they should go into another room of the vessel, where their talking would not disturb anybody. There he told her of his dream.
‘So, you see that she has found the solution. We will tell our tribes that there is a way out from the death that grows closer with each circuit of The Dark Beast. We will tell them that our two tribes must become one. That way, we have no troublesome dispute, and we save our people and our children for generations to come. We will lead them here and pass through to a better world.’
‘You’re mad!’ Vana said. ‘They would never listen to us!’
Sloosh, hearing about this during breakfast, had a similar reaction. After thinking about it for some time, though, he said that perhaps the idea was not so bad after all.
‘You two alone cannot convince your peoples. But if you
were to be accompanied by The Shemibob and myself, you might do it. We would give you the authority you’ll need. They’ll be awed by us, and whereas your testimony that the world will soon be unsafe for life would mean nothing, ours will.’
‘Why should you do that? It’ll be a long, hard and dangerous journey.’
‘I have nothing else to do except wait for my people. In fact, I don’t even have to do that. They’re capable of going through the gateway without my aid. However, I do plan to try to get the locals to go through it, too.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ Vana said. ‘Why are you so intent on saving humans? They’re a danger to you here. And if they go to that other world, they will be dangerous there. They might even try to exterminate the Archkerri.’
‘True. I’m acting on something you don’t understand because you’re a tribal creature. I have a much broader and more humane attitude. Humans are sentients. Therefore, however inferior they may be to us Archkerri, they are still our brothers. I will try to save even the Yawtl people if I get a chance.
‘Also, let’s say that I’m paying a debt. It was the humans who made us vegetable-sentients. It was done when humans had a great civilization and were, in many ways, as wise and humane as we. If it hadn’t been for them, we would never have existed. So… I’m acting out of gratitude. Can you understand that?’
‘No,’ Deyv said ‘But I’m glad that you feel that way.’
‘I will teach you and your kind how to feel as I do.’
43
The first step in the journey was not the packing. Sloosh said he must find the location of their two tribes. From the information collected from his plant-people, he would make a simple map. This would be in mud, since he had no papyrus. But the Archkerri only had to look at it once to have it fixed in his mind.
The process would take at least five sleep-times and possibly extend to eight. He went to work at once. In the meantime, Deyv, The Shemibob and the two animals left to spy on the local tribe. The Beast was again covering the sky, making conditions more favourable for them to escape detection. They got quite close to the village during the sleep-time, halfway up the hill before a sharp-eyed sentinel saw them. His alarm brought the warriors racing from the gate. By then all four had got safely into the swamp.
The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage Page 55
