To relieve the monotony of the journey, it had become the humans' practice to move occasionally from one canoe to the other. It was therefore pure chance that on the afternoon of the fateful fifth day, Wilfred found himself in the company of the Professor and Simms, their crew being led by the young cricket prodigy Heft. At Wilfred's constant urging, they had gradually drawn ahead of the other boat and glancing behind him he was surprised to find it entirely out of sight.
'We'd best wait for them,' he said, and they drew into the bank, clinging to an overhanging tree to avoid being set backwards by the current. Half an hour passed, and with no sign of their companions, they became a little anxious. Had they perhaps taken the wrong branch of the river, while the others, with the benefit of Huft's local knowledge, had taken the correct one?
'Perhaps if we carry on past this island we'll meet up with them,' suggested Simms.
We might as easily find ourselves straying up some minor tributary,' said the Professor. 'I vote we go back.'
They arrived at their earlier stopping place without meeting the other canoe. There was always the possibility that the others had continued to press on, hoping to catch them up, but turning yet again might only make matters worse. They were in the same position as two shoppers finding themselves separated in a busy street, but with no knowledge of the other's intentions.
'We should have provided for this sort of eventuality,' said Wilfred, realising that he of all people should have known better. He wondered what was the penalty for a Pipati who lost half his men — the jalaapa tree, probably.
Hanging several items of clothing prominently about the place, they settled down to wait. Hours passed, and as darkness fell there was still no sign of their companions.
'They'll have turned in for the night,' said Wilfred. 'We might as well do the same.'
The following morning they found a shattered canoe, drifting slowly downstream. Trapped beneath it was the horribly mutilated body of Huft.
All that day and the next and the one after that they paddled back and forth, shouting out for their lost friends, but all they heard in return was the occasional cry from an unseen beast. They even struck off into the jungle, hacking their way into the dark and dangerous interior. It was, of course, hopeless. It would have taken years thoroughly to search even a square mile.
'We've got to make a decision,' said Wilfred finally. 'Even if by some miracle they're still alive, we're not going to find them now, and they wouldn't want us to give up our search for Miss Lambent.'
'But we've lost our guide,' said Simms. 'How can we hope to find Torris Verga now?'
'The name means the red cliffs,' Wilfred reminded him. 'It can only be among those hills in the distance. Besides, what else can we do but go on? There's nothing to go back to.'
So with the agreement of the thaalid they set out once more upon their journey. Never had Venus seemed so hostile or Earth so far away as it did now. Their only remaining hope was to find Daphne and somehow bring her to her throne. Filled with grief and a driving urge to reach their destination, they no longer bothered stopping for darkness. All now took their turn at the paddles, thaal and human alike, and during the deluge they simply tied up among roots of the forest trees.
Gradually, the great waterway upon which they had travelled for so many miles diminished in size until it was little more than a stream, the humid air dancing with insects and the jungle vegetation meeting like a dark tunnel over their heads. Then one day, quite without warning, they found themselves passing into a towering ravine.
'This is a most interesting phenomenon,' said the Professor, gazing upwards. 'Not only does it appear perfectly straight, but observe the sides; they are improbably flat and smooth as high as one can see. Water alone could surely not have done that.'
'Well if it's man-made, it's not very well maintained,' said Wilfred as they edged around a substantial rock-fall. 'There's debris everywhere. That thread of white presumably marks the other end. How far, do you think?'
'A mile or two?' hazarded the Professor, squinting at it. We'll have to be careful the rain doesn't catch us.'
'We've at least a couple of hours,' said Wilfred. 'That ought to be enough.'
'I don't see how you can say that, when you don't know what's at the end of it,' grumbled Simms. Of all of them, he'd been the hardest to convince that they should give up the search for their companions and carry on to their destination. Since then he'd been sullen, cross-grained and argumentative, but neither of the others had the heart to take him to task for it.
They continued cautiously into near darkness, the narrow ribbon of sky, hundreds of feet above them, bringing almost no light to the echoing ravine. A few minutes later they ran aground.
Wilfred rolled up his trousers and scouted ahead, picking his way through the surprisingly cold water. 'Too many rocks,' he reported. 'I'm afraid it's Shank's Pony from here on.'
Unloading the canoe, they shouldered whatever they could carry and abandoned the rest. Wilfred wanted to leave behind the cricket gear but the thaalid wouldn't hear of it, sharing it out between them. They set off, stumbling and splashing along the uneven stream-bed, occasionally having to edge past huge boulders, rounded like pebbles by the daily flood.
After they had been walking for perhaps half an hour Wilfred suddenly stopped and pointed ahead. 'I hope that's not what I think it is,' he said.
Simms nodded grimly. 'Now we're in trouble.'
Situated at the very end of the ravine and quite blocking their way was a towering bronze grill, its thick vertical bars spaced only a hand-span apart. Peering through it they discovered a near-circular tract of largely open countryside, perhaps ten miles in diameter and entirely surrounded by vertiginously steep hills.
'Why, I do believe it's a caldera,' exclaimed the professor. 'If so, the original volcano appears thoroughly quiescent now, if not extinct. This must surely be the hollow mountain mentioned in the Hamafaalid.'
'And there are the red cliffs,' said Wilfred, pointing to some splashes and streaks of carmine on the black rock.
Immediately before them lay a considerable lake, its furthermost end lost in the distance. Indeed, they were standing in it, for it was continuous with the remaining water in the ravine.
'The source of our river, no doubt,' said the Professor.
'And the ravine is its storm drain,' said Simms lugubriously. 'If we can't get out of here, we'll drown like rats.'
'This thing won't be easy to climb,' said Wilfred, gazing upwards. 'There are almost no horizontals and it must be thirty feet tall at least. No, look — it's a gate! There's the bottom pintle. And see on the other side? It's closed with a simple sliding-bolt, albeit a very large one.
'They must be a race of giants then,' said Simms. 'Look at the height of it'.
'Just about right for a tzin, perhaps?' suggested the professor.
'Of course! And if they're in the habit of coming this way we'll have to be careful they don't catch us.'
Simms, gazed at the already darkening sky. 'I'm more concerned about how we get this thing open.'
'That, I think, is a job for a thaal,' said Wilfred.
It took some explaining – they had never seen a gate – but at length Ifty, their small but wiry fourth crewman, spat on his hands and with muscles rippling beneath his silvery pelt and his webbed toes gripping the slick surface of the bars, proceeded to haul himself bodily upwards. Arriving at the bolt, he appeared confused but was eventually induced by dint of much shouting and arm-waving to drag it across. The gate immediately swung outwards, causing the little thaal to shriek with consternation and very nearly fall, occasioning much mirth from his fellow paddlers as they hurried past.
'We should close it behind us, I think,' said the Professor.
Wading ashore and scrambling up the scree slope of the crater wall, they were fortunate enough to find a cave. It was not much more than an overhang of rock, but in it they settled themselves comfortably enough, and dining on the last of thei
r provisions watched the rain pelting down outside. For several hours the roar of the flood-water in the nearby ravine made conversation impossible, and they knew their abandoned canoe must inevitably have been swept away or dashed to splinters against the rocks. Whatever they might find in this strange, hidden land, there was no going back.
They decided to stay where they were overnight. No-one came to disturb them, and as soon as it was light they set out to explore. They had not gone far, picking their way along the reedy edge of the once again peaceful lake, when the thaalid began to chatter excitedly amongst themselves and point to a boiling disturbance in the water.
'Kraatuid!' cried Heft, and they immediately plunged in, comically diving and scrabbling after their prey. In a few minutes they were back, their bags filled with small, pinkish creatures somewhat resembling squid.
'That's lunch taken care of,' said Simms. 'Hullo, what have we here?'
A broad valley rose up from the lake, and on its slopes they discovered an impressive array of ascending stone-walled terraces, each growing a crop of some unidentified grain or vegetable.
'Ingenious,' said the Professor. 'See how the soil is already drying out, no doubt drained by a layer of porous volcanic rock. None is lost to the rain, and I would expect it to be constantly recharged with nutrients from the surrounding hills.'
'Well, we've established that someone lives here at any rate,' said Wilfred. 'The question is, where are they? I suggest we go to the head of the valley. We'll get a better view from up there.'
Above the terraces, the geography of the place became a little more apparent; though much of it was lost in the hazy distance or obscured by softly rolling hills, for the floor of the crater was by no means flat. Almost all the lakeside slopes, near and far, appeared to be under cultivation, while the land above them was locally dominated by dense woodland, its backdrop the looming crater walls.
They could see no town or village, but a couple of miles away was what appeared to be a group of farm buildings. Wishing he had some binoculars, Wilfred fancied he could make out some tiny, slow-moving figures. It seemed much brighter here, as if the cloud might suddenly part to reveal a yearned-for patch of blue, and he had to shade his eyes against the glare of the morning sky. 'Humans, I think,' he said, pointing. 'Planting or harvesting something by the look of it.'
Simms nodded his agreement. 'That's a turn up for the books. First time I've seen a Venusian do anything useful.'
'Assuming they are Venusian.'
Unable to see the subjects of their discussion, the short-sighted Professor had been gazing towards the nearest woodland. 'That seems an uncommonly tall tree, wouldn't you say?'
Wilfred swung round to look at it. 'I don't think it's a tree. It appears to be some kind of tower or pylon. Well done that man! Perhaps their settlement is hidden beneath it. Worth a look anyway. The question is, how do we approach them?'
'We can hardly expect to go undetected for long,' said the Professor. 'I suggest we simply walk in and introduce ourselves.'
'But what if they shoot on sight, or lock us up?' said Simms. 'We no longer have Huft to speak for us. We might do better to try those farmers.'
In the end, it was the thaalid who made the decision for them. Perhaps attracted by the jungle-like familiarity of the wood, they had nonchalantly ambled on ahead. Following them into the trees, the Earthlings discovered them gazing in awe at an enormous windowless edifice, entirely clad in Venusian bronze. Others could dimly be seen through the dense foliage. Disappointingly, they appeared to be in ruins, their collapsing walls half obscured by rampant vegetation and with even large trees growing out of them. Apart from a meandering footpath, the surrounding undergrowth was so thick and tangled as to be almost impassible. It was very quiet, with no sign of sentient life.
'I don't believe these are buildings at all,' said Simms after a while. 'They're spaceships! Look, this one has its ramp down.'
'You are forgetting that the Migraani's palace resembled a spaceship,' said the Professor. 'The ramp might simply be an architectural detail.'
'Anyway, it's enormous,' added Wilfred. 'It must be a hundred feet wide, and the shape's all wrong, more like a bar of soap.'
Plucking up courage, they crept up the ramp and peered inside. It was immediately apparent that Simms had been right — it really was a spaceship, though incomparably larger than anything they had seen before. Even the Ishtan's flagship would have barely filled a corner of it. It was, however, in the last stages of decay. Much of its upper plating was missing, its collapsing skeleton of girders soaring high above their heads, while its enormous twin engines supported a splendid growth of white-flowering creepers.
'Tijit vines,' warned Wilfred.
Examination of the other ships told a similar story. They had stumbled not upon some lost city but a veritable graveyard of space-going leviathans.
'It seems impossible that they could have flown,' marvelled Simms. 'Imagine how much they must have weighed!'
'Once in space they would have weighed nothing,' the Professor reminded him. 'Though the power required to get them there would have been enormous.'
Exploring more widely, they came at last to the tower, a structure that dwarfed even the mightiest of the ships. It was so densely covered with creepers and aerial growth of all kinds that but for its height they might have dismissed it as part of the natural landscape. Here at least was a genuine building, though its purpose they could not fathom. At base it was a great bronze hemisphere, its walls pierced by a series of semicircular arches, but most of its bulk lay in a soaring filigree of braces and girders that seemed to touch the clouds.
By now they felt they had the place to themselves and passed without ceremony into the echoing interior. This they found perfectly empty save for a drift of dead leaves and a fat central column decorated in deep relief with the bronze effigies of strangely familiar anthropomorphic beings, perhaps ten feet tall.
Aren't these the fellows that guarded the entrance to the Migraani's ship?' frowned Simms.
'Goodness me yes — the Fates,' said the Professor, 'But with their heads cut off. How extraordinary.'
'Perhaps it's a temple of some kind, and these are their idols, or were?'
'That is one explanation,' agreed the Professor. It would make a fascinating study if one were not so distracted by . . . events.'
'Well, whatever it is, it's clearly been abandoned for years,' said Wilfred despondently. 'It's starting to look as though we've come to the wrong place.'
Wandering outside, they discovering the thaalid spit-roasting lunch. Smoke from their fire rose and drifted away amongst the trees.
'Kraatu,' said Heft, handing them one each.
Simms nibbled suspiciously at the glutinous flesh. 'Hmm, tastes better than it looks. Thank you, Heft.'
Wilfred had finished his meal and was poking about in the nearby undergrowth when he came upon a small, circular door in a solid wall of vegetation. It was firmly closed but had a lever-like handle neatly recessed into the metal. Oddly, it was relatively bright and clean. He yanked at the handle and jumped back. 'I say, come and look at this,' he said excitedly. 'It seems to be intact.'
Ducking through the door, they looked about them in astonishment, or in the rustic thaalids' case, with gaping incomprehension. If the other ships were whales, this was the merest minnow, comprising only a miniature bridge, six small but beautifully appointed staterooms, a tiny galley, and the engine compartment, which, together with its contents, seemed disproportionately large compared with the rest. Unlike the Migraani's utilitarian vessel everything about it spoke of loving craftsmanship, the finely upholstered seats and wooden panelling reminding Wilfred of Charles's Hispano. All was in perfect condition, so that one almost expected to find a recently abandoned teacup or half-finished novel lying about.
'Why, it's a yacht!' declared Simms. 'What a little beauty!'
They could not, of course, see through the windows, for the accumulated dirt and growth of unt
old years entirely obscured them, and perhaps in their enchantment they had relaxed their vigilance. Even Heft visibly jumped when a voice behind them cried, 'Etaa!'
They turned to find a man and a thaal. Both were wearing nothing but still-dripping breechclouts, and each was brandishing, in a threatening manner, a dangerous-looking trident. Others could be seen outside, some with nets slung over their shoulders.
'We mean no harm,' said the Professor hurriedly. 'We are looking for the Voorni. We believe she might be here.'
Cautiously, Wilfred began to feel in his pocket for the ray pistol.
Chapter 16
Half dozing in the sultry heat, the humans in the ill-fated second canoe were perfectly content to watch Wilfred's crew draw steadily ahead, eventually to disappear round a bend in the river. Not so Huft, who began shrilly to rebuke his fellow thaalid for their laziness. He even took up a paddle himself, the knotted muscles standing out in his one remaining arm as he set them a gruelling pace.
'He says it is dangerous for us to be parted,' translated the Tuuntu. 'He says the Pipati is too brave for his own good.'
'Too foolish, more like,' grumbled Charles. 'He'll wear out his crew to no good purpose and then we'll have to wait around while they rest, like yesterday. God, but these beggars stink! It's worse than a rugger club changing room.'
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