Assignment Moon Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  Suddenly he saw all the tools he needed as Tanya stood up. He began to relax, then.

  At a height of ten feet above the pit floor, Mahmoud suddenly yanked his chain and the bucket tipped and spilled the food without ceremony to the sand. The tiger moved to it, rumbling, and began to eat the lumps of meat there. The bucket rose swiftly. There came a long pause. Tanya stood, dazzling in her ropes of pearls, jewels, and bangles. Presently Mahmoud’s hands appeared again, and two small goatskin bags came hurtling down. They landed with a thud near the tiger, who seemed used to the process, and did not pause in his feeding.

  “That is for us,” Tanya said. “Water in one bag.

  Meat and meal in the other.”

  “After you,” Durell said.

  The tiger went off, dragging his gray meat with him, looking back at Durell for a challenging moment before he disappeared into the cave. Durell watched the girl open the leather bags and arrange two bowls in them and pour a kind of gruel equally into each. The smaller bag contained water, brackish and warm. He drank sparingly, washing out his mouth, and swallowed in small amounts.

  “How long have I been here, Tanya?” he asked.

  She did not look at him. “I don’t know. I was asleep. When I awoke, you were here.”

  “This morning?”

  “I think it was yesterday.”

  “Was I feverish, or babbling?”

  She shook her head. Her thick hair swung and caught on the necklaces she wore, and she untangled it impatiently, concentrating too much attention on this detail, he thought. “You said what you said. You, too, have been on the moon.”

  “Did you see your father, Tanya?”

  “No.”

  “But he is here, you know.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He’s a prisoner, too. We were together for a long time.” He scrubbed knuckles across his beard and tried to estimate how long it had been since he had shaved. Maybe two weeks. “Don’t you want to help your father? Don’t you want to get out of here?”

  “It is hopeless.”

  “It’s never hopeless.”

  “Ah, you optimistic Americans.”

  “What does the tiger do after he eats?”

  “He sleeps, just as we shall sleep.”

  “In the cave?”

  “Yes, he stays in the cave.”

  “Good,” Durell said. “Let me have one of those bracelets on your arm.”

  She drew back quickly, like a miserly child. “No, I like them. They amuse me.”

  “They’re the only excuse for tools that we have, Tanya. You’ve had scientific training. You know how to tackle problems logically. Now use the sense you were born with, and help me.”

  She clutched her necklaces with tight hands under her chin. “How can we escape?”

  “This pit we’re in was once a cistern, in ancient times. The nomads of the desert often use them to live in, and some are interconnected underground. There may be another opening, back in the caves, that could prove a way out.”

  “That’s only a guess,” she said.

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Why do you want my jewels?”

  “To help dig and scratch. These walls are soft stone. We might scrape away enough to dislodge one or two of the blocks. It can’t be done with our fingernails.”

  Her chin carne up. “You need not sound so patient with me. I am not a fool. I can be as rational as you.”

  “Then try. Can you befriend the tiger?”

  “No, I—I stay away from him.”

  “Well, I’ll make him my buddy.”

  “He’ll kill you.”

  “We’re dead if we stay here, anyway,” Durell said.

  The animal sprawled across the cave entrance, blocking the way into the interior. He had finished his raw meat, and lay with his great head on one paw, watching Durell. Durell began to walk around the pit casually, studying the walls. He took a bowl and filled it with water and moved toward the cat. Instantly, the beast lifted its head and growled. Durell spoke soothingly to it, put down the water, and retreated. The cat watched him with glowing eyes, then got up and drank noisily.

  “Now give me your necklaces,” he said. Tanya unhooked them, and he added, “Try to fasten them to make the longest length you can. Choose the strongest. Add your bracelets, anything at all.”

  “I’ve never had jewelry before,” she said oddly.

  “They belong to Ali Baba, not you,” he told her.

  The sun went down while he worked closer to the cat. Finally he was able to sit not more than four feet away from it. Before the darkness of night filled the pit, he could see beyond the beast into the tunnel. The gateway by which he had entered and escaped last time would be securely guarded now. But he remembered the small side caves and tunnels, only glimpsed in his previous flight. His optimism was not as high as he pretended to Tanya. But it was all he had.

  Dusk filled the pit like a rising tide in a pool. Tanya said, “Here is the rope I made,” and handed him a three-foot length of jeweled chain. He tested it, and doubted if the linked bracelets and necklaces would hold his weight. The gold was soft, the wires thin. But they might serve the purpose. He spoke to the cat quietly. Its tail twitched and thumped heavily on the hard sand. He took more water from the goatskin bag and filled the bowl again, and this time placed the bowl on the opposite side of the pit. The tiger did not stir. It didn’t seem thirsty anymore. Durell felt the growing chill of approaching night, aware of his nakedness and of a hundred aches and bruises in his body.

  “He will not let us go by,” Tanya said.

  “You give up too easily.”

  “I have been through too much, and I am tired.”

  “I’ve been to the same places as you,” he said, and grinned. “But you don’t want to’ discuss that, do you? Do you know what really happened to you, Tanya?”

  “l think so.”

  “But you don’t trust me to talk about it?”

  “You are an American spy. I cannot trust you.”

  He had never met a more adamant, suspicious woman, he thought. He started to turn from her, and suddenly the tiger got up from the cave entrance and crossed the pit and drank again from the bowl he had put on the other side.

  “Move quietly, but quickly,” Durell said.

  He took Tanya’s hand and crossed the place where the tiger had sprawled, and entered the cave. Tanya shivered. He pulled her after him. The smell of the cat’s lair was overpowering. The tiger growled and immediately bounded after them.

  “Stop,” Durell said to Tanya.

  The gloom and the fetid smell cloaked them. Durell felt defenseless in his nakedness. He did not move except to make the jewelry chain swing back and forth from his fingers. The cat’s eyes followed the movement, and he paused. They had stepped over his usual resting place, and now the tiger stood between them and the pit. A rumbling came from his throat. Tanya drew a shuddering breath.

  “He will spring at us.”

  “No.”

  “He has been trained as a kind of watchdog—?”

  “But he’s gotten accustomed to us. He’s used to being close to us.” The cat suddenly sank down on its belly, head on the sand, watching them. Durell relaxed a bit. “It’s all right now.”

  “C-can we move?” Tanya whispered.

  “Nothing to do but try.”

  They stepped backward into the dark cave. The tiger grumbled once more, licked its chops, yawned, and remained where he was. So much, Durell thought, for animal-conditioning.

  He considered Tanya as he thought it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  DURELL wished he had Aladdin’s lamp. Ahead, the evening light failed to penetrate the gloom of the cave. The cave was a natural one, hollowed out by ages of dripping water that had helped make their prison cistern useful to ancient man. There was no sound except the soft slide of their feet as they edged into the tunnel. There was a curve to the right, then a length of about forty feet to
the iron gateway by which he had entered before. When he passed the curve, he saw a glimmer of evening dusk through the bars.

  “Open sesame,” he whispered wryly.

  But he had no magical powers. He approached the gate with care, expecting a guard there. But new bolts and padlocks secured the old barrier tightly. He stood for a moment, breathing cool desert air that swept in from the tiny valley beyond. It seemed a long time since he had come here to Iskander’s Garden to get Tanya out the first time. He didn’t think it would be as easy or lucky as then.

  “You see, it is hopeless,” Tanya whispered. “We got past the cat, but to what purpose?”

  “Maybe just to find a pair of pants for myself.”

  For the first time, her smile was genuine. He turned away from the gate barrier and rounded the curve until he could see the cat again at the opposite end. At this point, the side chambers were just visible. The first to his left contained the chests of jewels and clothing. Probably, Durell thought, this was Har-Buri’s political treasury for rebellion, the scrapings and donations of a thousand sympathizers who had been cajoled and browbeaten into giving up their pitiful items of value. But he wondered why Har-Buri had chosen to keep it all down here, in this prison pit. Perhaps it was the best place to hide it from the greed of his lieutenants. Thieves were always ready to fall out, he thought, for a quick and easy profit.

  The chests were of solid wood, with iron straps on the lids. He ignored the jewelry that Tanya hadn’t used and turned to the clothing. There were embroidered, silken women’s robes, which he ignored with a grin at Tanya. In another, however, he found real treasure. He chose a shirt and trousers that fitted reasonably well, and felt much more secure beside Tanya. He wished he could find an arsenal of weapons, but that was too much to hope for. There was none.

  “Why are these uniforms stored here?” Tanya asked.

  Durell pinned on a colonel’s pips. “Har-Buri’s real name is Ramsur Sepah. He’s planning a military coup. He’ll dress his stooges as Army officers, infiltrate them into Teheran, and take command of strongpoints before anyone suspects the officers are phony.”

  “But where would he get arms, then?”

  “From Ta-Po and Madame Hung.”

  “Yes. It forms a logical pattern.”

  “You fit into it, too. When you were first heard of, wandering around and announcing your identity, Har-Buri figured you could bring a. high price from Ta-Po in the form of military and revolutionary aid. That’s why he wanted you so badly. That’s why he kept you here.”

  “But I am of no real value to the Chinese.”

  In the darkness, he tried to read the puzzled look on her face. She bit her lips. He said, “We both know that, and your father knows it, too. But no one else seems to know it." He paused. “You're coming out of it, aren’t you?

  “My mind is filled with conflicting memories,” she admitted. I wonder why the experience did not affect you for as long as it did me?”

  Because I guessed the truth before it began. Come along. We have work to do, and only tonight to do it.”

  “Durell —”

  He halted. turned back to her. Her pale hair gathered what little light was left in the cave and shone about her lovely face.

  “Durell, I need help . . .”

  “I know you do.”

  “Only my father can help me.”

  “And he’s here. We’ll find him.”

  He was not as optimistic as he pretended. There was no way out of the cave containing the chests of uniforms and jewels. He returned to the main corridor. At once, the waiting tiger growled and walked toward them from the cave mouth. Durell ignored the beast. It stood rumbling. tail stiff and twitching. Then it decided there was no harm in what its fellow-prisoners were doing, and went back to its accustomed place.

  The second cave was rougher, empty and dark. Durell felt along the floor and found a small stone and tossed it up against the invisible wall. He could not see a ceiling. The stone went far up, hit the wall, and bounced down again, dislodging a small shower of sandy gravel.

  "We’re in another cistern,” he said

  "But the top is sealed.”

  “All we have to do is get up there. Have you explored this place?”

  “No. I was afraid of the cat.”

  He felt along the sides of this cave with painstaking care. Very little light penetrated here, and it faded before he was halfway around. The walls were circular, smaller in diameter than the big pit where he had awakened. The sandstone was soft and crumbly under his fingertips, and when he used the chain of hard jewels against it, he found he could scratch it away fairly easily. But he did not come to what he wanted until he had almost completed the first circumference. Then his groping fingers found a deep irregularity, a kind of recess in the wall. He made a soft sound of satisfaction.

  “What is it?” Tanya whispered.

  “What I hoped for. Steps, I think. The nomads either used ladders or the old steps the ancients cut to get down to where the water-level might be. The women came down to fill their pitchers and water jars.”

  “But there are no steps—”

  “They’ve been walled up, down here. But if we can remove some of these blocks . . .”

  She became all efficiency and cool mechanical ability, once she understood the task. He divided the jewels with her, and they set to work in the darkness, using only their sense of touch, to enlarge the small cavity he

  had found. He worked first at the joints between the stones, and the old mortar crumbled out easily. But when he had removed as much as he could from the first block, he could not budge it. He knelt on the sandy floor and pushed and pulled and twisted. Tanya tried to help. Nothing happened. He couldn’t pull the stone free. He began to sweat, and he heard the tiger getting restless in the corridor outside. It was full night now. He fell back, panting, for another effort.

  “Wait,” Tanya said. “We must remove or loosen the block above first.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “The chest of uniforms. It had iron straps. If we could break one off and use it as a lever . . .”

  It took a precious hour, and a dangerous hour because of the prowling cat, before he succeeded in wrenching the lid of the chest apart. The splintering of wood seemed abnormally loud over their labored breathing. He used his weight to snap the small boards free of the bolted iron strap-hinge, and then he returned to where Tanya had continued to labor at the wall, scraping diligently at the joints. In a few moments, by touch alone, he wedged the small strap of leather between the blocks and heaved. There came a distant grinding sound, higher up in the wall. Sand and pebbles showered down upon them. Tanya groaned.

  “We will raise an alarm.”

  “Can’t be helped.”

  He gave another heave, and the first and most difficult block of stone came free of the wall. Quickly, he shoved it toward the cave entrance, intending to build a kind of barricade with them. Then he returned to help Tanya clear away the debris.

  “You were right,” she whispered. “It feels like a step.”

  They lost all track of time as they labored, after that. Some of the stones came away easily, loosened by age-long water erosion. Others were stubborn and deadly. Their hands began to bleed as they struggled against the adamant objects. But they made progress, step by step. The old stone stairway curved with the walls of the cistern, rising steadily. As they worked their way up, the stones became easier to dislodge. Fortunately, none was too heavy to manage, although twice a block slipped from his grip and thudded down into the darkness below. He tried to get Tanya to rest at times, but she refused. She was obsessed with the need to escape now, once she accepted his reasoning behind the effort. He did not mention the problems that waited for them when they got to the top. There was a stone or wooden cap above that might prove impossible to remove. And even if they got that open, they might find—anything.

  He did not know how many hours of the night passed before he could reach up a
nd touch the “ceiling” of the cistern. For the first few groping moments, his heart sank. He touched only smooth stone. When he pressed up with all his strength, nothing happened. He had to remove one more pile of rubble on the next curved step before he could stretch farther.

  He touched a wooden plank.

  The steps they had uncovered were too narrow to permit Tanya to work beside him. He judged they had climbed over twenty feet above the bottom of the cave. A slip and a fall now could end everything. His perch was precarious as he stretched again for the plank. Yes, there were several of them, bound by a crossbeam that felt dry and brittle. He could not judge how big the lid was, or how heavy.

  “We’ll rest a bit,” he whispered to Tanya.

  She sank down on the step below and leaned her head against his knee. It was the first sign of weakness she had allowed herself. He felt his muscles tremble with fatigue. He wished he could see her, but the darkness was complete, even though they touched one another. When she spoke, her voice was tight, as if it took all her effort to keep from sobbing.

  “I am so tired, Durell.”

  “You’ve been wonderful,” he said, and he touched her long, silken hair.

  “No, I have been a cold, inhuman bitch. Perhaps I deserve this whole nightmare that has happened to me. And yet, why did my father, and all the others, do this to me, Durell? All the drills and tests and exercises, to get to the moon. It was so hard, so hard! I told myself I was a scientist, and could not afford to be a woman. But I—I want to be a woman, Durell. But now it is too late for me.”

  “Let’s not give up now,” he said gently.

  “To what purpose do we struggle? Let them have me. Let them know the truth. Why do you fight on?”

  “I don’t know. I must, that’s all.”

  “You are not a bad man, for an American.”

  He laughed softly. “No better or worse than most.”

  “I want to cry,” she said after a moment, “but I cannot. I have never wept, that I can remember. Always, Papa said I must be adult and use my mind to serve the state. I thought this was the greatest happiness one could achieve. But now the tears come.”