by John Rickham
I could now look out across the round hole, and there, directly opposite me, was the cleft in the sea wall, just as I had estimated it. That gap was an odd shape, being about seven feet across at the top, then narrowing quickly to only a few inches, in a wedge shape. The narrowness went down perhaps three feet, and then the whole thing opened out widely once more, down where the restless sea surged to and fro. I am no expert on hydrodynamics, but it struck me as obvious that when the accidental wave out there happened to strike that gap just right that peculiar configuration would shape the flow like a funnel and send it storming in here to create the awesome spout we had seen. I had no sooner seen this fact than I heard again that ominous muttering. I saw the leap and rush of a great curling crest dashing in to the gap. The mutter grew to a roar and shout, a breathtaking blast of hot, damp air, and then an upward explosion, of water and spray that engulfed me, deafened me; smashed and battered around in my retreat, hurling me to and fro with it, seeking to sweep me out and up so that I turned and clung frantically to that hack-bar for dear life. Then, for a moment of stillness, I was solidly submerged. Everything seemed to stand still. Then the flow reversed, that great column of water fell away and down, dragging at me, sucking at my legs and body as if determined to have me down into that bore-hole.
Half-dazed, and clinging desperately, I heaved for breath as the water went away, leaving a momentary boil of surf on the flat rocks. Shaking the water from my face I leaned out and saw Fiona and the two Verlan regaining their feet, waving crazily for me to return. Their meaning was obvious, and there was nothing I wanted more, but there was something I needed to settle before I moved from my refuge. The mere thought of being caught halfway round on that ledge was enough to chill me. I had never realized before that ordinary water could hit and smash at a man like that. If this phenomenon had any kind of regularity at all, I had to find it. I settled grimly in my seat and studied what I could see of the wave patterns out there beyond the cleft. Fiona almost ruined it by making a move to follow me, at which I leaned out to where she could see me and bellowed at the top of my voice just the one word, “Wait!”
All in all I sat there twenty-five minutes by my watch, and that fearsome spout came to batter me almost senseless four times more, enough to show that there was a fairly regular interval of between five and seven minutes to the thing. That was ample time to get back. In fact, if one moved reasonably lively, it was long enough time to get right around and go on. I even managed to make a guess at the cause of the uproar itself. Out there in the sea there was a constant succession of cross-waves, none of which caused much more than a surge in the hole. It was only when two of them came together, canceled each other, and came straight at the cleft with double power, that the water leaped and spouted. So, having made the most out of an unfortunate situation, I waited out one more deafening spout, then set away, none too steadily, back to where Fiona stood waiting for me. She was furious.
“What the hell,” she demanded, in crackling deliberation, “were you doing, admiring the beauties of Nature?” I stared at her, shook the water out of my ears, and she added. “Or were you just taking a nap?”
“I was timing the spout,” I said, my voice sounding odd. “Timing it?” she shrieked, raising twin clenched fists as if to beat me. “Are you out of your mind? This is the time to take scientific observations?”
“Don’t be a damned fool!” I said, losing my patience—and at that moment the blasting spout of water came again, drenching us and sending us staggering away from the edge together. She would have fallen had I not caught her arm. In a moment, as the clattering spray ran away around our feet, she gripped me and held me close, staring up, her blue eyes blazing.
“Think a minute!” I suggested angrily. “Do you imagine I wanted to get caught in that, out there on that blasted ledge?”
“Caught?” Her rage flickered and died away into confusion. She twisted her head to stare back there, then again at me. Oh! I never thought—oh, Alan, I was so scared! I couldn’t see you properly. I just wanted you to come back, right away! I couldn’t think of anything else!”
“I don’t blame you for being confused. I was scrambled myself when the spout caught me the first time. Thought I’d had it. But it’s not so bad once you’ve seen what it does.” Her arms went all the way around me and she hugged herself close, putting her face against my shoulder. “So I had to time it, to be sure I would be able to get back. It’s not so bad. In fact, if we’re careful, we can get right around and beyond, and go on, wherever we’re going.”
I felt her stiffen. She put her head back to stare at me and her heart thumped against my chest as she said, “We’re not going anywhere. That’s what the old man brought us here for. Alan, the treasure hoard is down there. Down in that hell-hole!”
VI
WE MOVED FORLORNLY away from the devil-spout to the first spot that seemed convenient to sit on, and we went into a prolonged session with the old chief. The Verlan tongue is no medium for conveying distances and times, nor anything very specific about such things, but we hammered on until we had established the basic details. The fabulous cache of the old wise ones was down that hole. It was secreted in some kind of chamber. And it was a long way down. The nearest we could get was approximately ten times the height of one of us, and that was just a guess, because ten was as far as Uhumeelee could go. It was enough for me right there. I didn’t say it until Fiona, recovering from her fright and carefully refraining from mentioning it again, had gone back two or three times to study the deathtrap in hopeful detail.
“It’s quite a thing,” she said, at last. “Do you suppose they went down there and did their stuff, and then cut that feed channel so as to make a deliberate obstruction?”
“I don’t see that it matters a lot, one way or the other, now.
“No, possibly not. It’s quite a thing. Fifteen feet diameter. The walls are as slick as glass. The standing surface is about thirty feet down. Say the chamber or whatever it is, is thirty feet more—hm. That water down there will be comparatively steady, under the spout. I mean, that’s sea level! Below that it should be reasonably calm. With scuba, and a line, once one got down past the uproar—“ “You must be out of your mind!” I said firmly. “If that’s where the loot is, that is where it stays, for me. Whoever put it there intended it to stay, and I go along with that. Forget it!”
She shrugged, but made no further comment. Instead she started asking the Verlan pair what they had to do next, how they planned to scale the peak, and would they mind waiting until our other partner returned? Lowloo came to snuggle by my side and blink in the shade of my body. I had recovered by now from the holocaust of that shattering spout, but we were near enough to it to be reminded, every six minutes or so, that it was still there. I had my wits again, and they began to chum, as slowly as always. What about tides? Or perhaps there was a way of blocking that influx from the sea?
It was a minute or two less than an hour since he had left us that I saw Carson again, striding easily over the slabby rock with a pack slung over one shoulder. He waved just once, then came to join us.
“There’s another bay, a dead ringer for this one, about two miles up the coast. Ringbolts and everything, so we’re all secure. When do we start up the hill?”
“You need to know something, first,” I told him. “We’ve found the treasure. At least”—as he started in excitement— “we know where it is. I’ll show you.
He lost his easy smile when he saw the waterspout and the dark hole it came from, but he listened carefully as I filled him in on the details. He took a long moment to survey the scene, noting the points, then we went back to where Fiona still sat, her back against a rock and her long legs crossed.
“Call it six minute intervals,” he said quietly. “That’s not much!”
“What about tides?” I made him a gift of my futile deliberations. He shook his head at once.
“None to speak of, only the solar tide, due to Tau Ceti. Not worth
the trouble of calculating. No, we’re going to need diving gear and some good tackle.”
“You’re as bad as her!” I cried. “You can’t seriously contemplate going down there?”
“Can you think of another way? And do you think we’ve come all this way just to throw our hands in, now? But let’s not rush at it. In any case, we had better wait until the chief has done what he came to do. Come on, they seem to be getting restive.”
Uhumeelee and his assistant, fidgeting by this time, were quick away, leading us back to the first harbor area, then a bit beyond, and then up the slab like stones of the mountain until, all at once the pair of them crouched down low in succession and seemed to disappear into the rock. Following, we found an overhanging ledge, and under it a low gap that was no more than three feet high, with a shaft beyond it that ran straight into the rock for about seven or eight yards. Carson led the way, gingerly, with Fiona after him and me last. Or I would have been had it not been for Lowloo who tagged along at my heels. I was thankful to find that very soon the passage opened out and expanded until there was ample room to stand. By extending my arms on all sides I made it to be about six and a half feet high and four feet across. And the sides, everywhere I touched, were as slick as polished glass. There was a steady upward cast to the floor of about one in ten.
“This is surely artificial?” I said, as we three gathered for a moment.
“I would say so,” Carson murmured. “I should have foreseen something like this. I mean, it’s common sense the VerIan wouldn’t like scrambling up the side of a mountain in what is for them blinding daylight. That’s not why I brought the headlights, but just as well I did. You take one, Noble. If you bring up the rear we should only need one. Better not lag, either. There may be side-passages, you never know.”
That turned out to be an understatement. We had gone about eight or nine yards when I saw a fight-hand swing into another gallery, going down, and there were plenty more to follow. Carson kept calling back warnings as the trail swung and twisted crazily, like a snake’s dream. As far as I could see, there were no guide posts or marks, or anything to differentiate this passage from the many others. I couldn’t help wondering at the alien technology that had carved this maze so seemingly random, and yet with such exact finish, for all the walls I touched were of the same glass-smooth texture. I can only guess how long we had been going, following our guides at a steady and swift speed, when my legs began to protest. It felt like two hours, but it could have been less, because I was also laboring under the weight of that shocking death-pit we had just left, and they say mental states affect judgment. However it was, I came to the point that I couldn’t go on any longer, and called for a halt.
“Hold on a bit!” I declared. “Like it or not, if I don’t sit and rest I shall fall down!” At that same moment I also realized that my neck ached quite a bit, possibly from the need to hold my head steady while casting a light for the rest of them. Just ahead of me, Fiona let out a long sigh, and halted, slumping against the wall.
“I’ve been dying for somebody to say that,” she groaned, and slid slowly down to a squat in the angle between wall and floor.
“Why didn’t you sing out?” I lowered myself creakingly down by her side.
“Stiff neck. Weaker vessel. I didn’t want to think I was holding you back.”
Carson came back a dozen steps and joined us, groping in the pack he was carrying. Out came a plastic bottle of wine and packs of protein-meal slabs.
“Field rations,” be announced. “Go easy on the wine, it’s fortified. In any case, drink is going to be our problem unless we find a stream.”
So we munched our meal, sipped sparingly of the wine, and did what we could to relax. That is, Fiona and I did. Carson, after a mouthful or two, was at his pack again, to bring out a slim wallet of toots and unfold it on the floor between his knees. His headlight glinted off an array of silvery chisels and stocks. He chose one, and a shift-wrench to use as a hammer.
Association of ideas,” he said softly. “Thinking of buried treasure made me think of digging, so I brought these along just in case. But if this stuff is what I think it is, I’ve wasted my time. We’ll soon see.”
The sharp rap of metal on metal stirred long echoes in the tunnel and brought questing howls from our guides. By my side, Lowloo shivered and wriggled close. But for all the difference it made to that floor, Carson might just as well have been using a brush.
“Not so much as a scratch,” he said ruefully, rubbing his fingers over the surface. “Diamond hard. Probably some kind of fusing technique.”
“Why would anyone build an ant’s nest like this?” Fiona asked.
“Who knows? Who can think inside someone else’s mind? And these were aliens, remember? It’s tempting to assume they were something like us. We know they ate similar food and had a similar metabolism. The jewel-thing says as much. Also they stood something like our height. But that’s as far as we are entitled to go. This passage, so far, is crazy—but the net effect is a straight line uphill. It’s almost as if it was deliberately designed to be difficult. Or it could be that the builders had to follow strata weaknesses. Who knows?”
“It could be like the pyramids,” she mused, “with all kinds of hidden chambers. On the other hand, possibly they were some kind of termite, unable to stand the light.”
“Speculation is fun,” he said. “We may have a chance to explore later, but right now our best bet is to get to the top and let the old man do what he came for. We can recharge our beamers and lights at the same time. When you’re ready—?”
It took us. I would guess, another two hours of desperate walking, winding and twisting, with many curious side-branching passages to avoid, before we saw daylight ahead. How the Verlan knew their way I can’t begin to guess. As soon as I could see the glow ahead, I extinguished my light and followed the rest until we all stood in a larger cavern, some fifteen feet in all directions, to look out and down into a small natural bowl, a kind of amphitheater resting on the mountain crest. I’d say it was about thirty feet across, very shallow, with a rough wall surrounding it. What mattered was the curious construction in the center. As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was.
“Well I’m damned,” I said. “There’s the old man’s hut—in stone!”
“That’s right.” Carson nodded. “This should be interesting.”
After much whimpering and rubbing at his eyes, the old man made a determined dash from our cavern, down across the floor of the bowl to the long lean-to shape. It was nothing more than two slabs of the black stone resting against each other, edge to edge, with a long narrow capstone resting on the junction. He stopped, groped with one hand until he found the flat top, then carefully set his precious gem on it, full in the warm light. The next moment he had ducked and crawled into the pitiable shelter.
“What do you want to bet,” Carson murmured, “that he has to stay there, and suffer, until the thing is charged? Ritual. Anyway, I think this is a good moment to show you two how to recharge a beamer. Not that ours need it, hut it can’t hurt to learn. Like this.” He shrugged the stubby weapon into his hands and proceeded to break it apart by the handgrip. Then the butt-plate came free, and he drew out the power-pack which looked like nothing more than a dull gray plate. That, he explained, was almost fully charged.
He drew our attention to a thin strip of shining metal on the outer edge.
“When it’s run-down it’s all like that, alloy-shiny. As it charges it goes dull. And that stops it from overcharging, too. You just lay it in the sun, that’s all.”
We practiced this a time or two until we could extract and replace the packs smartly, then we left the things alongside Uhumeelee’s gem, to charge. At the same time Carson laid out several little button like discs for the same purpose. “Just making sure,” he explained. “These are micro-packs, always handy to have. You’ve got ‘em in your headlights. Now, let’s take a look over the wall and see where we are.
Fol
lowing his lead, we scrambled up the shallow slope to the wall and to a place where there was a gap big enough to edge through. As I’ve already said, I have no head for heights, and I didn’t enjoy the view nearly as much as it called for. Beyond the wall, there was a rough ledge of sorts so that we were able to circle, and peer breathlessly down over the precipitous slope, until we spotted the waterspout. Then we sat while he dived into his pock once more and brought out a compact folded-prism monocular and a gyro-compass.
“You seem to have thought of everything,” I remarked, and he grinned.
“I try to, but I’ve never quite made it yet. There’s always something—” With the naked eye I could make out our first harbor, and with a struggle, what had to be the second, where he had bestowed our craft.
“There!” I pointed. “But I can’t see our boat!”
“Not even if you were close to it, Noble. I put up a camouflage screen. It comes as standard equipment on those craft. Hold it a minute while I get a fix on that spout, and line up with our exit hole up here. This damned colored air doesn’t help any. Fiona—would you hop up on the edge and mark me for the—no, hold it! Flat down, everybody!”
The last was in such a crackling tone of command that I obeyed it without question, then raised my head gingerly to see what had stirred him. Fiona lifted her head, too, and we saw him pointing cautiously.
