by John Rickham
“We’ve lost our head start,” he said, and then I saw the boat. It was right out on the very fringe of visibility, but it was there, scudding over the sparkling sea. Very soon it was near enough for us to make out detail. It looked a little bigger than ours.
“Private yacht,” Carson muttered. “And he knows exactly where to go. He’s seen the anchorage.”
“How the hell could they follow us that accurately?” I demanded, and he shook his head. Looking again at the boat I saw the how-wave slacken as it veered and pointed for the little cove.
“Not following. Why would he? There are other Verlan packs, other healer-chiefs, other gems needing a recharge. Zeb would know how to extract information, the hard way.
“So he must know about the gem?” Fiona gasped.
“Right! And the cache. God help anyone who gets between Zeb and that nest egg, now.
“That spout will make him think,” I said, and Carson nodded.
“Maybe. It should slow him down a bit, anyway. Here, you take the glass, watch what they do. Fiona, you can help me check our bearings on that marker down there. Keep your head down!”
It was a very good glass, and it took me a moment to overcome the unreal sense of being close enough to reach and touch, yet not being able to hear the shouts as they swung in alongside. The flat-decked craft was more ornate and chrome-decorated than ours. The crew appeared to be all Oriental, but I couldn’t say whether Chinese, Malay, or what. I’m no expert on criminals, and they looked, all five of them, common place and ordinary, but they knew their business with the boat. In very short order they had it secured and were out on the dockside, waiting, it was obvious, for the great man to make his appearance.
Then came an enormous black figure, a giant in a white loincloth, to hoist a gangway as if it had been a toy, and fling it across the narrow gap.
“You weren’t joking, about the black giant,” I muttered, and Carson lifted his head from his instrument a moment, to look.
“That’s Hovac. According to the rumors, he is almost a moron, is Zeb’s tool absolutely, and, they say, he was force-fed to be that size, on some illegal growth hormones, or something like that.”
Peering again, I could well believe it. And now came Acco Zeb himself. A small man, just as Dr. Bernard had said, squarish built, nothing impressive apart from a deliberate manner of moving, and quite simply dressed in a loose smock of gold stuff. Reaching the solid rock, he turned and made a gesture that said, unmistakably, “Bring it,” and I saw the light flash from a bracelet on that wrist. Hovac ran back aboard, to reappear dragging a pitiful little Verlan, half-blind and Out of his mind with fear.
“Let me look!” Fiona dropped down beside me, and I gave her the glass, bringing her up to date as I followed the dismal procession down there with the naked eye, as far as the spout. There was an argument that I couldn’t guess at, then Fiona gasped, and her face went white as death.
“What?” Carson demanded, settling on her far side.
“They stood there,” she said, unsteadily, “and I could see the Verlan telling them that the stuff was down in the hole. Then that black devil picked him up, shook him, and ditched him like a doll. Dead. Just like that.”
“Learn!” Carson’s voice was like steel. “That’s Zeb’s style. You’ve just seen the destruction of a whole Verlan pack, and Zeb knows it as well as we do. Without their chief, and the gem, the pack will perish by painful degrees. It won’t trouble him for one moment. Take it from me, he would snuff us out with the same indifference should we get in his way.”
“You want us to be afraid of him?” I demanded.
“Choose your own words. I’ll tell you this. I consider Zeb to be a damn sight more dangerous than that water hole trap. And get this. We have no leeway for heroics. Zeb is a host in himself, and he has six men helping him. We are three. Forget all the nonsense about goodies being better than badies. That Hovac could tear the two of us apart without exerting himself. If we are going to do anything useful at all, we do it without Zeb even suspecting we are on the job. Once he knows, we might as well give up.”
“Isn’t that what they are doing?” Fiona pointed down the slope again and we saw the boat backing away from the wall, to go driving rapidly out to sea.
“Going,” Carson agreed. “But giving up? Not Zeb. He’s off to get gear, equipment of some kind. I don’t know exactly what, that’s up to him, but I’d say we have something like nine or ten hours, at least. He won’t go back to Outpost One because he doesn’t know how much fuss we’ve kicked up. So he will have to hit the next nearest city on the coast. Takes time. Call it nine hours, at the best speed that craft can make.” He sat up now, cautiously, and we followed suit. Fiona brushed at her prominent curves and made a shaky laugh.
“All this crawling about on my face isn’t doing a thing for my epidermis,” she said, but Carson refused to play her game.
“If that’s all you have to worry about before we’re through, you’ll be a lot more fortunate than I anticipate. Now, how to use the time best? Obviously we can’t now afford to ferry our friends back to their home land. I hope they won’t mind that.”
“I don’t know,” I said, “whether it had occurred to you to wonder if they mind us attacking their sacred remains?"
“I had thought of it,” he said frowning. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way of asking them without going too far. It looks as if our best bet will be to avoid it altogether. If we can send them home without us—well, what they don’t see can’t upset them. Point is now, how much longer are they going to take with this ritual?”
“I’ll go and ask the assistant,” Fiona said, and went away through the gap in the wall. Carson stared after the boat thoughtfully until it was lost to view. I could almost hear the wheels buzzing in his head.
“Do you reckon Zeb will figure out a way to beat that water-trap?”
“I think so,” he said quietly. “I could, given time. Which he has, and we don’t.” He got out his gyro again, studying it.
“Why so keen to take fixes on everything?” I asked, and he grinned.
“Habit, mostly. But necessary here. Do you think you could find your way back down that passage, or return here, without guidance? Just supposing you had to? With this, I can. Standard equipment for any exploring team. It’s a miniature version of the same thing I had in my control cabin on every ship I was ever in charge of. I’ll show you.” There was a certain fascination in seeing the delicate but precise skill of his fingers, and the incisive way in which he presented me with the essential facts so that I could readily grasp them. A miniature battery, a tiny motor, a constant-running gyro totally gimbaled, all inside a compact case, and it presented him with an unvarying pointer relevant to the rotation of the planet, and a reliable horizon at all times. “You can do a lot,” he said, “so long as you have those two items of data. But there’s something else bugging me: that dead Verlan down there.”
“Nothing much we can do about it, now.
“Well, there is this. If we can get down there before the old man and his helper, we can conceal the evidence; save them that much distress.”
“How do we do that?”
“That passage has more kinks in it than the Mississippi. If we go straight down, on the surface, we should beat them easily. It’s not as bad as it looks, you know. This rock is all flat sections.”
That was easy enough to say, for him. The prospect paralyzed my tongue to the point where I couldn’t offer any objection until it was too late. While I was still trying to speak, I heard a strangely piercing “twang” as if someone had snapped a silver wire.
“Hah!” Carson was on his feet in a moment. I followed him back through the gap and saw Uhumeelee dart out from his precious shadow and grab the jewel, then scurry for the cave-mouth, almost knocking Fiona down on the way, as she had just emerged. She waved to us.
“That’s it. Let’s go!”
“Tell them to go ahead,” Carson called. “We’re going
the overland route. It’s faster.”
She comprehended instantly, turned to yelp something to the Verlan, then came scrambling up the rock to where we were. “Now you’re talking,” she enthused. “I prefer the fresh air every time. This should be a breeze!”
It probably was, for those two. Carson, slinging his pack securely across his back, led off by leaping bodily down the first three or four ledges in a series, then halted only a moment to estimate the neat lot. She went down after him like a goat, only no goat was ever such a shape. It was left for me to follow as best I could. It was very like that effort needed to dive into icy water and get it over with, a steeling of one’s nerves and a determination not to even think ahead. I went down, not gracefully, not lightly, not very fast, and certainly not with any enjoyment, but I went. In fact I was kept so busy not falling, watching them to see which way they went, trying to pick the easiest way, and using my hands as much as possible to save dropping all my weight on my feet, that my nauseous fear of that yawning drop never had the chance to get beyond the edge of awareness. But it was there all the time, nevertheless.
There were broad jumps, stomach-heaving drops, unexpected faults to cross, and frequently slides of loosened stone. I have never perspired so freely before in all my life, and it wasn’t all heat. Like it or not, I had to look down, over and over again, to see where she had led, and every time I did my stomach left me for somewhere else. There came one needed break, about halfway down. We came across a small, leaping stream, and stopped to try it, to rinse ourselves in it and feel somewhat refreshed. I have a vivid picture, still, of Fiona standing knee-deep and scooping the warm water up over her head and letting it run down over her body, looking as fit and full of energy as if she had just begun.
“It wouldn’t hurt to follow this for a way,” she suggested, and he agreed.
“I was just thinking the same. A source of water is always handy to know about.”
So we scrambled along for a while in the rocky bed of the stream, until it cheated us by diving underground and escaping from us.
“Never mind,” he said cheerfully. “It has to come out somewhere. At least we know roughly where to look, should we need it.”
At this point I was calm enough to notice that we were not, in fact, headed for the water hole, but aiming for the second harbor, where our craft was stowed.
“That’s right,” Carson said, when I asked him. “We have time in hand, so we’re going straight to the boat to get gear, and then we’ll make our way to the hole and see what we can do.”
“You still think it’s possible to go down there?”
“I do, yes. We’ll see.”
And then we were off again. To know that he had not abandoned his insane scheme helped me not at all. That last mad scramble down the side of the mountain is only a vague blur in my mind. By the time we achieved a measure of level footing and were within sight of the dock I was shaking all over, and running with sweat. Fiona made it that much worse by waiting for me at the end, standing insolently erect, breathing a little strongly but otherwise tin-distressed, to punch me vigorously on the arm and say, “And there I was, thinking this was all muscle. The way you’re blowing, it must be flab!”
“I’m sorry about that.” I puffed. “I’ll be all right in a minute. The thing Is, I’ve no head for heights, at all, never did have. The highest I’ve ever gone with pleasure was up a small tree.”
“Oh, my God!” She was instantly stricken, coming close to hug me hard. “You idiot! Why the devil didn’t you say so?”
“You’re not the only one with a stiff neck!”
“We make a fine pair, us and our pride.”
“Pride be damned,” I told her. “I’d gladly do that all over again, blindfolded, rather than have Carson try diving down that death-trap. He can’t be serious, surely?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said airily. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” and went leaping on ahead, leaving me to follow and remember where I’d heard that before. By the time I reached the boat, Carson was already rummaging in the fore peak. Hauling out lines and blocks and alloy rings. By my watch, we had made the descent in a little under two and a half hours, which put us well ahead of the Verlan, with ample time to get to the spout before they could. We even had time for a quick bowl of soup and some protein-meal squares, as well as being able to discard our minimum clothing and break out fresh.
When we did start out for the waterspout, we were well laden. Each of us carried a forty-foot coil of what I have been calling nylon rope up till now but which Carson had explained to me was not nylon, but some other synthetic, the name of which I forget. At any rate, it was light enough to float, had bulk enough to grip, and was powerful enough to bold back several tons of dead weight. In addition, he had a set of light alloy blocks and a mass of line to go with them. I had the oxy-nitrogen cylinder of a submersible set, and Fiona had the rest of it: the harness, mask, mouthpiece and flippers, and a headlight. She seemed a trifle preoccupied, I thought, possibly wondering about the ordeal we were walking into.
It was a fair walk, but the shadow of the mountain cooled it just a little for us. I had almost forgotten about the Verlan corpse, and the sudden sight of that lifeless clump of pelt-covered body was quite a shock, one I could have done without. We made a small pile of our equipment, about seven or eight feet away from the spout-hole edge, where only the periodic spray fell on us, and Carson took a moment to read us a repeat lesson.
“Take a good look”—he thumbed toward the corpse— “and remember. No stupid heroics. Three against seven makes heroism silly. That is why we are doing this now, simply because we must avoid a head-on clash with Zeb at all costs. Is that understood?”
“Even to running away?” Fiona murmured, and be aimed a steady stare at her.
“That’s one thing we won’t do, because I can’t visualize the situation that would make it work. We won’t get the chance! Right, we will hide the body somewhere—” It didn’t take long. “And now, let’s work this thing out as carefully as we can. We’ll check that inflow cleft again, just to start with.”
I went with him. Although it was not protected, like the recess in the wall opposite, there was room to duck back and lie down as the worst of the furious upsurge swept over us. The cleft itself was, as I had guessed, about nine feet broad at the top, but within about five feet it had shrunk to inches. He took a metal tube from his pack that was about a foot long and as thick as my wrist. This he laid in the jaws of the cleft and stamped on it again and again until it was jammed securely.
“Note,” he said, “that the gap narrows just here in that direction, so, come what may, that bar will not pull out that way. Check me, just to be sure.”
Then we made our way back to where Fiona waited, and he explained to us just what he had in mind, how the ropes would be, and what we were to do. It sounded workable, sensible, and the only thing to do. All I had against it was my conviction that to go down that hole in any circumstances was madness, and that was hardly a logical point, so I kept silent. Then Fiona spoke up.
“I like it,” she said. “I think it deserves to work. It’s worth a try, anyway. There’s only one thing wrong with it.”
“And that is—?” Carson demanded.
“That you are going down there. You. That won’t work. At all. If anyone goes down there—it has to be me. That’s obvious.”
VII
IT WAS NOT obvious to me, at all. I thought she had gone crazy, and I said as much. “You can’t mean it, Fiona! To think of Carson going down there is bad enough, but it was, after all, his idea. And he-well—it’s just not on! You can’t!”
She took absolutely no notice of me at all, but kept her eyes on Carson. He lost his easy smile altogether.
“Steady, Fiona,” he said, very quietly. “This is no stunt. Remember what I said about heroics? Damn it, you know there’s no need to prove to us that you’re a member of the team. That goes. But this—well, I don’t want to lean on i
t overmuch, but it’s going to be damned dodgy, and I can’t very well ask anyone else to do it in my place.”
“You are not asking me, Neil. I’m telling you. I know how difficult it is. How dangerous it is—and also how essential it is. It’s our only chance, or we wouldn’t even be talking about it.”
“That’s right.”
“So who’s being heroic now? Neil, what do you weigh?”
“Oh, come now!”
“What do you weigh? Over two hundred pounds? And Alan. At a guess, goes more, about two twenty. And I weigh only one hundred thirty. That’s just one point. There are others, you know. You know damned well that I can swim rings around you any time. I’ve done lots of this stuff. You are both a lot stronger than I am, where it counts, on hoisting. You want more?”
His face was a study in concern. She expired violently in impatience.
“Get the sex out of our eyes for a minute, please. Neil, you are the man in charge, here. Our leader. You made that point, hard, yourself.”
“That’s right. That’s why I can’t ask anyone else to pull my nuts out of the fire!”
“You fool! What the devil do you think we are going to do if anything happens to you? We’ve followed. You’ve been ahead of us all the time. I doubt if we could find our way home from here, unaided!”
And she was right. All my other faculties rejected the idea as insane, but common sense told me she was absolutely right. I could see it convincing Carson, too. If one could step back and take an impersonal view, she was right all down the line. Then, all at once, he put up his hand, looking away past us.
“Leave it for the moment. Here come our friends.”
Uhuineelee and the others must have run all the way without pausing for rest. They came loping over the rocks toward us now, mewling their curiosity, with Lowloo taking up her favorite position by my side. We moved a few yards away from the intermittent bellow of the waterspout and Fiona began to tell them the latest developments, once they had overcome their surprise at seeing us down here ahead of them. The first item, that we would not be going back with them, they took very well, but when Carson asked her to tell them the next bit, that we proposed to dive down that hell-hole and try to lift the ancient cache, it needed no great acumen to see that they didn’t care for it at all.
