“Yeah? What about paying ’em more squeeze?”
Westerly shook his head. “That isn’t it. They’re scared stiff. Tonight—tomorrow—they’ll slip off.”
Gunther said savagely, “We’ll take turns standing guard.”
Kearney bit his lip. “I dunno. If it comes to a showdown—they might cut our throats rather than go further into the mountains. How about it, Westerly?”
The guide nodded. “They would, all right.”
“So. Suppose we have ’em camp here and wait for us? How does that sound?”
“It’s about the only thing to do,” Westerly said. “It’s wisest, and safest. We can’t be more than four days’ march from—wherever we’re going. Unless the maps are all wrong.”
Well—they were. It took weeks of arduous slogging through the wilderness, foraging as much as possible off the country, and hoping the natives would be waiting for us at the base when we got back. If we got back. Such tribes as we encountered were hostile, but we had our rifles. So it never actually came to a scrap.
Our supplies were low. Kearney’s marksmanship saved us; not a day passed without some sort of fresh meat. For a while, that is. Presently there was little game to be seen as we penetrated farther and farther into those towering, mysterious ranges. They are blank spaces on the map. I’ve been up the Orinoco, and in parts of Africa where white men had never been before; but those mountains on the Burma frontier were the loneliest place in the world.
The point is—we found Eden. And, I think, mostly by accident; a rift chopped out of the heart of the slopes, a gorge-valley a mile wide and perhaps five miles long, winding tortuously between high cliffs. Imagine the Grand Canyon a mile wide. That would be it. There was vegetation down there, green and inviting, and a silvery river that emerged from a cavern in the rock wall to vanish down the valley somewhere.
Babcock stared down, his face white as paper. “Those channels—” he said.
I looked at him. “Eh?”
“See? Dry channels now, but once there were four rivers flowing through that gorge.”
Gunther muttered something in his
beard. I said, “Well, what about it?”
“Eden!” Babcock grimaced with excitement. “The four rivers of Eden! Not the Euphrates Valley, after all. This is the real basis of Genesis—the valley of the four rivers!”
Gunther coughed. “You’re jumping at conclusions. There’s no proof.” But I saw doubt in his eyes.
“There will be ruins down there,” Babcock said confidently. “Wait.”
Kearney was squinting at the depths of the gorge. “First we must get down.”
It wasn’t too difficult. In the beginning, those cliff faces must have been unscalable and perpendicular. Perhaps the natives climbed up and down by means of pegs hammered into the walls. In any case, erosion and earth-slips had done their work, and shifting strata had made ledges and cracks leading down. It was hard, but not too hard. The five of us descended with difficulty, passing along our packs. I paused to take a few camera shots of the scene.
At the bottom—well, it was like a park. The place was very silent. Mist drifted up from the river. A mile away the opposite wall rose to the blue Burma sky.
KEARNEY hefted his rifle. “Something alive there,” he said softly.
We froze, watching a clump of bushes a hundred feet away. Out of it slunk a tiger—an unexpected beast at this altitude.
Kearney’s rifle came up. The tiger stared at us, and then looked away. It seemed to be waiting for something.
There was a scrambling in the rocks above us. I whirled, just in time to see a mountain goat leap entirely over our heads. It came down on the river bank, plunged into the water, and began to swim across.
Puzzled, we watched.
The goat emerged, dripping, and began
to move toward the tiger. Yet, obviously, it had seen the carnivore.
The tiger didn’t move. It just waited, while the goat walked into its jaws. It was the damnedest thing I had ever seen. The striped giant reached out a paw, rolled the goat close, and bit into its neck. There was no—struggle.
The tiger stood up and dragged the goat back into the bushes. That was all.
A small thing. But its significance made my spine crawl. I heard Westerly whisper, “The land where beasts are tame. . . .”
Kearney ruffled his red hair. His pale eyes were ablaze. “Funny,” he said.
Gunther nodded. “Very funny.”
“It’s impossible. It’s a biological impossibility. It violates the basic law of life—preservation of the id, the self. That tiger was waiting. It knew the goat would come. And the goat did. Ruminants don’t commit suicide!”
Westerly was very frightened. I had a hunch his opium supply had run out several days ago. He was nervous, jumpy, fidgety. He said, “Are we going to camp here?”
Kearney moved his heavy shoulders impatiently. “I suppose so. This . . . it’s extraordinary. But we have our guns. Come along.”
We found a shallow ford not far away, and crossed the river there. We struck out downstream, keeping to the open country. I had a feeling that we were being watched. When I turned suddenly, there was movement.
Then I had it. The birds. They were—following us.
I mentioned that to Kearney. He only growled, but Gunther nodded.
“Yeah. They may just be curious. Probably that’s it.”
Yet it was odd. The silence brooding over the valley, and those mountainous, towering ramps shutting us in. I sensed trouble.
A tiger came out of the underbrush and walked toward us. Kearney whipped up his rifle. The carnivore turned its head, staring with amber eyes, and then unhurriedly departed, leaving us vastly puzzled.
Kearney said, “Check and balance.”
I looked at him. “Eh?”
“Nature’s check and balance system. We’re familiar with it in the outside world. But here, under abnormal conditions, it may have developed differently. The natural food of tigers might conceivably be conditioned to act as—food.” Gunther barked a harsh laugh. “Goats conditioned to walk down tigers’ throats? Rot!”
Kearney looked at him steadily. “Got another explanation?”
He was silent. We walked on, rifles ready.
WE FOUND the ruins midway down the gorge. Little ridges of weathered stone, pitted and eroded. Gunther got down on his knees to stare. His beard seemed to bristle with astonishment.
“Granite,” he said. “Good Lord! This is old!”
Little Babcock was crouching beside him. “Any inscriptions?”
“Maybe once. Not now.”
Kearney said, “More of ’em. Over here.”
We were at the edge of a little forest. Dim sunlight slanted through the trees. One, I saw with astonishment, curiously resembled a cycad—a tree-fern. Perhaps I was wrong. A cycad—evolved, changed.
The ruins were in better condition as we went on. We found an inscription at last. Gunther and Babcock were in ecstacies.
“Hieroglyphics.”
“Yeah. Sign-pictures.”
“Egyptian?” I asked.
Gunther glared at me. “Not even Sumerian. I tell you, this is old! Maybe you were right after all, Babcock.”
“Of course I was right! The birthplace of the human race . . .”
We stood on the edge of a little stone pit, staring down at Babcock and Gunther prowling around within it. This ruin seemed in much better condition than the others. I had the curious idea that there was a reason for this. Perhaps the archaic builders of the city had wanted some sort of monument.
Kearney called down, “Any clues? What about translation?”
Babcock shook his head. “Maybe. Can’t tell yet. It’s incredibly old, but that may be an advantage. Inscriptions by decadent races are much harder to decipher.” He spoke briefly with Gunther. “Go on ahead, if you want. We’re going to copy this.”
After a brief hesitation, we obeyed, tossing two rifles down into the pit. We moved furt
her into the grove. Kearney’s face was alight with interest. Westerly was still jittery. He kept looking up at the birds following us. I didn’t feel any too easy myself. Nevertheless, I had my job to do. I used the camera as occasion arose.
“You think this is the garden of Eden?” Westerly asked me, in a low voice.
I shrugged. “It’s old, anyway. These ruins—I don’t know.” I had a sudden mental picture of a race of intelligent, cultured men dwelling in a world filled with brutish Neanderthalers or Cro-Magnons. A few mutants, developed before their time—
What had Earth been like then? Not as it is today, certainly!
We came out into a little clearing. The ruins of a building were there. A circular cleared space, where a pavement might once have been, was surrounded by irregular hummocks and ridges—fallen walls and pillars.
In the circle’s center grew the Red Tree.
IT WAS sentient—alive. I sensed that from the beginning. I knew suddenly, that this was the focal point of the valley.
It looked like a pineapple, five feet high, rugose and red as blood, with a lighter scarlet crown like a big globe atop it. That was all. A tree that made Kearney, the biologist, gasp in wonder.
“No!” he said, and—“Impossible! This thing. . . .”
Westerly was shivering. “That is the Tree. This is Eden—yes!”
Kearney gave him a vicious glance. “Don’t be a fool. It’s a mutation—an unknown species.”
My camera was unreeling busily, with droning clicks. I had color film, luckily. The tree would photograph well.
Kearney walked toward it, staring. “I’m not sure it’s vegetable at all,” he said thoughtfully. “There is—”
The globe atop the pineapple stirred. It lashed into motion. It uncoiled, and the tentacles of some octopoid thing reached out toward Kearney!
By sheer luck it got the rifle first. Kearney yelled and threw himself back. He went down, falling heavily full-length, and tried to roll away. One of those damned tentacles had his foot. I saw him slipping back, clawing at the ground.
I let the camera drop, to dangle from its strap, and leaped toward him. I got him under the shoulders and yanked. No use. The tree was incredibly strong.
Other tentacles reached toward us.
“Westerly!” I shouted. But the guide was cowering back, licking his lips, horribly afraid.
Kearney’s face was white as washed stone. He said, harshly; “Keep pulling. Vail!”
I obeyed, but we were losing ground, and being dragged steadily toward that forest of waving tentacles.
I heard thumping footsteps. Gunther burst into view, summoned by the commotion, his black beard bristling. He saw what was happening, and jerked his rifle up. The bullet sang harmlessly off the Tree’s armored trunk.
He dived past us, yanking a light axe from his belt. He started to chop on the tentacle that held Kearney. Meanwhile, I was still pulling desperately, my heels digging into the ground. Kearney had a knife in his hand, and was slashing at his shoe-laces.
The shoe came off suddenly, and the tentacle whipped back. It coiled around Gunther. It lifted him!
Lifted him high! Abruptly he was wrapped in a cocoon of the scarlet ropes. He was raised up, head down, and then—lowered—
The Tree was hollow. Gunther vanished into it. The tentacles coiled into a bunch at the top, as before. There was no trace of our archeologist.
Kearney was cursing in a steady monotone. He seized a rifle and pumped bullets at the thing. I picked up the hatchet and went gingerly toward the crimson trunk. My first blow was as useless as the last. It was like hitting resilient steel.
Kearney yelled and pulled me back. The tentacles were uncoiling again.
Gunther, still struggling, was flung down at our feet. The red ropes flashed up. They settled in their former position, and remained motionless.
WE SEIZED Gunther, dragging him to a safe distance. He shook himself free, found a bottle in his pocket, and thirstily gulped whiskey.
“You all right?” Kearney asked.
“Yeah . . .I’m okay. Whew!”
Kearney stared at him. “That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. A cannibalistic tree that’s finicky about its food.”
I said, “Just what happened, Gunther?”
He grinned crookedly. “I don’t know. Everything went dark; I kept on fighting; and then I was tossed out.”
Kearney said, “There wasn’t any digestive fluid.” His brows were drawn together. He was vastly puzzled.
Gunther shook his head. “Apparently not. Let’s get out of here.”
We collected Westerly, who was nearly hysterical, and made our way back to the pit where we had left Babcock. We met him halfway, and reassured him.
“I think we’ve done enough exploring for a while,” Kearney said. “Let’s pitch camp.”
Babcock nodded. “Near those inscriptions. I think I can decipher them—they’re surprisingly easy. There’s an odd similarity to the sacred writings of India.”
It was Eden, in a way. We saw no more tigers, though we kept our guns ready. Familiarity bred contempt, and presently we were strolling about the forest as though we had lived there all our lives.
Not Babcock, though. He was busily working on the hieroglyphics. All that afternoon, and through the sudden dusk. Kearney and Gunther went off after a time to look at the Red Tree—from a safe distance. After a time I followed and photographed it again.
Moonlight presently silvered the valley. We sat around our fire, talking, while Babcock kept working on his translation. Gunther didn’t offer to help him.
The little ethnologist looked worried. I glanced at him from time to time, and once he met my gaze, a curious speculation in his eyes. Then he went back to work. We were all waiting anxiously for him to finish.
At last he sighed and put his notebook down. “Everybody here?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Kearney nodded. “What’s the answer?”
But Babcock didn’t seem anxious to begin. “Look,” he said at last, “this is all pretty incredible. And . . . I’m scared as hell.”
We stared at him. Gunther said, “What the devil—”
Babcock said oddly. “You know, don’t you? The Red Tree—caught you—” He glanced around. “I’m wondering whether anyone else was caught.”
There was a puzzled silence. At length Babcock sighed.
“YOU wouldn’t mention it, of course . . . Well, some of us may be all right. Most of us ought to be, I hope. I know I am.”
What on earth are you talking about?” Kearney snapped.
“The Tree,” Babcock said simply. “It’s alive. It’s intelligent. All the life in this valley—birds and beasts—belong to it. Are part of it.”
Gunther growled inarticulately. Babcock’s eyes dwelt on him.
“These inscriptions are a warning. The record of an experience by the pre-Adamite race. Once, very long ago, there was a culture in this valley. They had their science—a form of it.”
“Science in Cro-Magnon days!” I said incredulously.
“These were mutants. And the Earth wasn’t quite the same in those days. Life was still very close to the beginning. There were plenty of mutations. That’s why they made the Tree—were able to make it.”
I stared.
Babcock bit his lip. “Or else it was a natural mutation. The inscriptions aren’t quite clear. The Red Tree destroyed all life—or, rather, all intelligence in this valley. Except the few who were able to escape. The Adam and Eve myth—the Tree of Knowledge. Remember?”
“You’re talking about folk-lore, of course,” Kearney said.
Babcock’s tongue circled his mouth. “No, I’m not. You yourself said the animals here didn’t act normally. They were conditioned—but by what?” He answered his own question. “By the Tree.”
Gunther said, “You’re crazy.”
Suddenly there was a pistol in Babcock’s hand. He held it pointed at Gunther. Kearney said, “Put that down!”
“Not yet. Let me talk. I tell you I’m afraid!” Naked horror showed in his eyes for a brief second. He caught himself, went on quietly:
“What’s symbiosis, Kearney?”
“Give and take. A parasite living off a host. Mutual help. Like the pilot fish and the shark.”
“Is mental symbiosis possible?” Kearney’s eyes hooded. “Mental? You’re getting into metaphysics.”
“The hell I am,” Babcock said sharply. “That Tree is alive! Its intelligent! It has—a brain.”
“It’s a vegetable.”
“You’re a mammal. But your primal ancestors weren’t intelligent, either. You evolved. The Tree is a mutant. Ages on ages ago, Nature experimented with intelligence. Eventually mammals got it. But plants had their chances. Perhaps only once, here, in this valley. A mutant may bring about a superman—that’s an accepted theory. Well, once there was a mutation that caused a super-tree.” Kearney snorted. Babcock’s eyes were desperate.
“I’m translating—and it fits into known scientific facts. I tell you, that Tree is intelligent. A descendant of the original one, perhaps. Living in this valley for uncountable ages—and living by symbiosis.”
“It’s beyond me,” I said.
“Mental symbiosis. It takes—something—from its victims, and gets control of their minds. It assimilates all their knowledge. In return, it gives—what does it give, Gunther?”
We looked at the archeologist. His bearded face was a mask. His eyes were—strange.
He said, “You’re crazy. Come over to the Tree again, and I’ll prove it’s merely a plant.”
“So we can be trapped?” Babcock asked. “As you were? It isn’t you, Gunther. It’s the intelligence of the Tree, talking through your brain.”
Gunther laughed. His words caught us completely by surprise.
“You’re right,” he said. “Soon I shall have you all. Then you will take me to the outer world, which I did not know existed. Living here for ages, seeing only with the brute minds of beasts. . . .”
I HEARD Kearney whisper, “Good God!” Babcock’s gun swung up. I jumped for it, grappled with him. There was a crackle of underbrush, and Gunther was gone, plunging into the forest.
Westerly laughed. There was lunacy in his tone. He kept on laughing.
Collected Fiction Page 238
