by Max McCoy
"If only what?"
"If only you would quit trying to save the world," she replied. "The world doesn't want to be saved. If it did, there wouldn't be a Hitler or a Mussolini. And you know what else? In your heart of hearts, you know that one person can't make a difference. It's stupid and useless. And the reason you hate those guys in the starched uniforms so much is because they remind you of yourself. Junior, you would make one perfect Nazi."
Alecia began to laugh.
"I can make a difference," Indy said, nearly pleading. "I have to make a difference...."
As Alecia's laughter died out the face in the hood slowly transformed. The blue eyes turned to golden slits and the hair receded into scales.
"I am the Serpent King," a reptilian voiced boomed from the snake's mouth. "The Wyrm Primeval, consciousness engaged in the field of time, the cycle of life, the consumption of the weak by the strong. There is no meaning to life. It is an unending alimentary canal...."
Indy looked away.
"There is meaning," he said, his knees shaking.
When he dared to glance back he found himself staring into the orbitals of a grinning crystal skull.
"Tell us about the horhai," the skull asked pleasantly in a female voice.
"The triceratops." Indy shook his head in an attempt to understand why he was suddenly talking to the skull.
"Go on."
Indy took a deep breath.
"Continue, I said!"
"Now let me get this straight," Indy said. "You're the all-powerful and all-knowing False Lama, right? Then why are you asking me things that you should already know?"
"Worm bait! How dare you answer my questions with questions."
"Granger," Indy said. "Are you here?"
"Here and there," Granger replied.
"Remember what you asked me to remind you of?"
"Yes," he said.
"Well, it's that time."
Indy spun and grabbed the pike from the surprised monk behind him. He thrust it with all his might toward the throne. The silver blade drove all the way through the robed figure and grated on the sandstone behind. The yellowed crakows danced a jig of death.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
"You killed him," one of the guards said, the Thompson dangling from his limp hands. Granger lunged and jerked the gun free and opened fire. The guard jerked like a marionette as the bullets pierced his body, while the other guard dropped his gun and ran.
Then Granger sprayed the interior of the great hall in a wide arc. Slugs chattered over the stone walls, ricocheted from the ceiling, played the big iron cooking pot like a kettledrum, and spun the prayer wheels in the correct direction. Amid this cacophony of righteous anger, the soldiers and monks ran for cover.
Tzi waddled after them.
"They are out of their minds on redcap," he screamed. "Run for your lives!" The fedora fell from his head and landed upside down on the stone floor.
Tzi and all but the unluckiest monks and soldiers managed to find a hiding place, because Granger was having difficulty distinguishing the real targets from the elves and fairies that he saw capering about the chamber.
"Damn imps," he murmured as he clenched his teeth and laid down another barrage.
A brownie scampered out from behind the iron pot and placed its tiny hands on its hips. "You call that shooting?" it scolded. "My fairy godmother can shoot better than that, and she's been dead for four hundred years!"
"Indy!" Granger shouted. "What in the devil are you doing? Get down here and help me."
Indy had climbed onto the throne and was sitting on the False Lama's lap. He was attempting, with all of his might, to pull free what he believed was the Crystal Skull.
Then the skull dissolved and the wizened head of a very old man took its place between Indy's hands. He released it, and the head lolled on its shoulders and blood dribbled from one corner of its mouth. He was, Indy could see quite clearly now, simply a dead old man in funny clothes.
Indy jumped down and snatched up his fedora, then picked up the machine gun that the guard had abandoned. He also gathered a pair of hand grenades that hung by clips from the dead guard's belt.
"Which way is out?" Granger asked.
"There's a passage behind the throne," Indy said, "hidden by a wall hanging. It has to lead to the outside, because the wall hanging keeps sighing with the wind."
"Yes, but where does it lead?"
"It's obviously an escape route for the so-called black one when things get too hot." Indy fired a burst at a group of soldiers who had dared to peek around a column. "Since he doesn't need it any longer, I think we should make use of it."
"Go," Granger said, pushing Joan in front of him. "Run. It's our only chance, Sister."
She stumbled into the narrow passage. Granger, who had exhausted the clip, threw down his gun and followed. Indy snatched one of the torches that still blazed beside the throne, sent one last burst into the great hall, then followed.
"That was some stunt you pulled back there," Granger said appreciatively as they raced down the corridor. "You nailed that fakir to the throne as if he were an insect you were mounting for your collection."
"Not much of a plan," Joan said. "But it was effective."
"Tell me, Jones. What did you see?"
"Snakes and skulls," Indy said. "A woman I knew. What did you see?"
"Me?" Granger laughed. "I didn't see anything, of course, except a pathetic old man."
"Sure," Indy said as he ran. "That's why you were raving about imps. So that's what you see in your nightmares, huh? Joan, how about you?"
She stumbled, leaned against the wall for support, and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. She was breathing heavily.
"Truth?" she asked, fighting for control. "I saw myself."
Then she heaved.
7
The Flaming Cliffs
"Run!" Indy shouted as he pulled the pins on both grenades. He was waiting, his back against the wall and a grenade clenched in each hand, as the slap of the boots on the floor of the stone corridor grew louder.
When it sounded as if the soldiers were a few yards away, Indy tossed the grenades around the corner. The safety clips sprang from the handles as they rolled toward the soldiers.
Indy ran and threw himself upon the floor. Behind him, on the other side of the corner, the explosions brought the roof of the corridor down, blocking the passage.
"Good show," Granger said.
"What?" Indy asked, shaking his head and tugging at his ears.
Granger simply patted his shoulder.
The corridor spilled the trio out onto the desert floor, inside a corral that held Tzi's horses and camels. It was hidden from view by rocks and scrubby trees. The expedition's two trucks were parked inside the fence. A surprised guard looked at the machine gun in Indy's hands, regarded his own single-shot weapon, then threw down the rifle and ran.
"Wise decision," Indy commented.
Granger's truck had a flat tire—owing to some rough treatment by the soldiers—so they climbed into the cab of the other, the one with the flag that bore the museum's logo, and Indy took the wheel.
"I almost forgot," Indy said.
He opened the door and fired the machine gun into the radiator of the other truck.
"Hey," Granger said. "That's expedition equipment."
"You want them hunting us down and killing us with expedition equipment?" Indy asked. Then he reached for the ignition.
"Where are the keys?" he moaned.
Indy hunched beneath the dash and tugged at a spaghetti-like bundle of wires until he found the colors he needed. "I need a knife, a pair of pliers, something," he said. Granger handed him a pair of nail clippers he found in the glove box. Indy quickly stripped the insulation from the wires, but was careful not to break them. Then he twisted the exposed sections of the copper wire together.
When he pressed the starter with his foot, the engine came promptly to life. Indy put
the truck in gear and drove through the corral gate and onto the plateau. Horses and camels scattered across the desert behind him.
"Which way?" he asked.
"I haven't the faintest," Granger said, "since I don't know where we've been. The only landmark I recognize is the Flaming Cliffs over there, so I suggest we make for them."
Joan looked behind. The Citadel of the False Lama stood within a huge sandstone outcropping that jutted up from the desert floor. There was no suggestion that the interior of the formation was inhabited.
"How long must it have taken them to carve all of that from the inside?" Joan asked.
"You've got to remember that these are descendants of the people that built the Great Wall," Indy said. "I'm sure it took generations, and that Tzi and his dead friend were just the latest squatters to move in."
Indy looked at the gas gauge, then at the base of the cliffs. He tapped the gauge with his finger, and was alarmed when it went down instead of up.
"I hope we can get there," Indy said. "We're practically running on fumes as it is."
Indy reached beneath the dash and pulled the cable that opened the exhaust cutout. The sound of the engine became a throaty roar, like that of an airplane, as the truck sped across the open desert.
Thirty minutes later the engine coughed and died. Indy took the transmission out of gear and let the truck coast a few meters closer to the Flaming Cliffs before the laws of motion finally brought the wheels to a stop. They were almost to the cliffs, close enough to see the fairytale spires and turrets.
"Any sign behind us?" Indy asked.
"No," Granger said. "But there will be, soon enough."
They got out of the truck; Granger inspected the water bag on the front bumper. It was empty. Everything else had been stripped from the truck.
Indy took down the museum flag, carefully folded it into a tight croissant-shaped package just as he had learned to do in Boy Scouts, and tucked it beneath his shirt.
"We're stranded," Joan wailed. "Out in the middle of this godforsaken country with no water and no provisions. What are we going to do?"
"Now we walk," Indy said, striding off toward the cliffs. "And I suggest you pray as you walk."
Half an hour later Granger stopped and placed his hands on his hips. They were within a quarter mile of the base of the cliffs. "Indy," he said. "Do you think we are still feeling the effects of the mushroom?"
"I don't know," Indy replied. "I don't think so. Why?"
"Look there." Granger pointed midway up the cliffs. "Do you see it? There's a castle in the cliffs, same color as the sandstone." He shielded his eyes with his hands.
"Yes," Indy said.
"I thought it was a figment of my imagination, a remnant of the drug perhaps, but I keep seeing people moving about the tops of the towers and prayer flags fluttering in the wind. Am I insane? It's not the imps again, is it? Or have we died out here in the desert and are those the gates of heaven?"
"Maybe they're the gates of hell," Joan suggested.
"It seems that somebody heard our prayers," Indy said. "The gates have opened and they're sending a party out to meet us. And unless Saint Peter or Old Nick has developed an unusual liking for orange robes, I think that is a procession of lamas."
A tall, athletic-looking white man with a flowing white beard was at the head of the procession of lamas, a staff in one hand, his robes flowing behind him. As the trio met the group Granger stuck out his hand and grinned.
"Dr. Starbuck, I presume."
The man grasped Granger's hand warmly.
"Of course," Starbuck said.
"I am Walter Granger. And this is—"
"Indiana Jones," Starbuck said. "It is a pleasure to meet you again, Dr. Jones. I hope that not too many from your expedition were slaughtered by Tzi and his cannibals."
"We're all that are left," Indy said.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Starbuck said. "I hope you didn't risk all of this just in order to find me, because I lost myself quite on purpose. I didn't even tell my daugh—"
Starbuck stared at Joan. A tear was rolling down her dirty cheek. He stepped toward her, took a gourd of water from one of the other monks, and washed her face with his hands.
"Joan?" he asked. "Is that you? Child, I didn't recognize you. Not only do you look older, but you look different somehow. How on earth did you manage to get this far from home?"
Starbuck swept Joan into the folds of his robe while she cried on his shoulder. "Daddy," she said. "I've missed you so much. I thought you were dead. Why didn't you write?"
"It's complicated, my dear," Starbuck said. "Come back with me to the lamastery and it will all be clear to you."
The trio followed Starbuck down corridors that were spotlessly clean and full of light, with cheerful monks who bowed politely as they passed. Indy noted that their robes were of the same rough weave as the piece of cloth he had ripped from the intruder's robe in New York.
"You joined a lamastery?" Granger asked as they walked. "That's why you disappeared from the face of the earth?"
"I joined nothing," Starbuck declared. "After a while, however, one's old clothes simply wear out, and the robes are convenient. The cloth is made and dyed right here, by the brothers."
He led the way up a spiral staircase into one of the towers. At the top of the staircase, he rapped on the wooden trapdoor.
"It's me, Starbuck."
A monk opened the door. The monk looked strangely familiar to Indy, and when he saw that his robe had been patched, Indy knew why.
The three emerged into a warm room. A trio of braziers, fueled by goat droppings, burned constantly. In the center of the room, on a bed of straw, were three eggs. Each was about the size of a football, and they were a peculiar green color that was tinged with pink.
Indy caught his breath.
"I don't believe it." He marveled. "Am I dreaming?"
"You're not dreaming," Starbuck said. "Although that was my first reaction as well. It took quite some time to convince myself that these were authentic dinosaur eggs—but that is the undeniable, if somewhat fantastic, truth."
Indy approached the eggs reverently.
"May I touch them?" he asked.
"Of course," Starbuck said. "But do be careful."
With a lump in his throat, Indy walked over and placed his hand gently on one of the eggs. The shell felt leathery and warm. Indy had the dreamlike feeling that he had stepped through a doorway and was actually touching the past.
Granger and Joan crept up next to him and gazed in wonder at the eggs. "I never imagined that they would be so beautiful," Joan said. Then something inside the egg moved and Indy jerked back his hand.
"These eggs are alive!" he exclaimed.
"We hope so," Starbuck said. "They are triceratops eggs. I am not exactly sure of the gestation period, but I am guessing it is eighteen months. That would put us very near to hatching, considering the length of time the mother has been dead."
"The horn," Indy said. "The horn was from the mother."
"Yes," Starbuck said. "I sent it to Joan at the newspaper before fully realizing where the adventure was to lead me. I knew it was a triceratops horn, of course, and I knew that it was from a living animal. Doubtless you surmised the same, Dr. Jones, or else you wouldn't be here."
"Why did you send it?"
"I was so excited that I wanted Joan to share in the find, although I dared not include a written explanation of its significance. Besides, I knew she would be able to deduce that for herself. Only later did I realize that it was a mistake to send such bait to the world, so a couple of the brothers brought it back. I'm sorry that we were too late to keep you from wasting your time."
"Wasting our time?" Granger asked. "We have living dinosaur eggs. I would hardly say we have wasted our time getting here."
For the first time Indy detected a sense of wonder in Granger's voice.
"And they are going to stay here," Starbuck said. "We are desperately trying to ke
ep them alive. But we don't know what temperature is correct, or how often to turn them, or anything really besides keeping them moist. We brought the eggs here so that we could tend them around the clock and so that they would be safe from predators. These eggs, you see—these eggs represent the last of the kind. We knew of no other such living animal besides the mother."
"I don't know whether leaving them here would be a good idea," Granger said. "They must be studied. They belong in a museum, and we should take them back to New York without delay."
Indy was alarmed at Granger's sudden passion.
Starbuck was about to argue with Granger when Indy, alerted by a sound outside, went to the tower's narrow window.
"I'm afraid there is one other predator that you won't be able to avoid, and I'm afraid we have led him straight to your door," Indy said. "General Tzi. He's out there on the plateau now, planning to lay siege to the lamastery."
Starbuck joined Indy at the window.
"We'll have to get the eggs out of here," Starbuck said.
"Good God," Granger said. "They're unlimbering a howitzer down there. Tzi means business."
"I'll alert the brothers," Starbuck said.
"Professor," Indy said. "Just one more question. I thought I heard you say that you sent the horn to Joan's paper, but that couldn't be right. Didn't you mean you sent the horn to her order?"
"Her order? Order of what?" Starbuck asked as he opened the trapdoor and began to climb down. "Joan is a reporter for the Kansas City Star."
"Sorry," Joan said. "I've been meaning to tell you, but I just didn't know how."
"I think I'll see if Professor Starbuck and the brothers need any help," Granger improvised. "It seems you kids have a few things to work out."
He left the tower also.
"Why the masquerade?" Indy asked.
"Well, if I had told you I was a reporter, would you have taken me as seriously?" Joan asked. "I wanted to find my father, and I knew you were the right man to help me do it, but I didn't have the kind of resources necessary to mount such an expedition. I figured I had to get the resources of the museum behind me, so I just played dumb and made it seem like yours and Brody's idea."
