The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage

by Philip José Farmer

  Deyv got inside first, then turned to pull Sloosh in. The Archkerri fell in just as the leader snapped at his hind legs. Vana stepped into the breach and slammed the edge of her tomahawk down across the top of the brute’s head. The beast fell back, stunned. Some of those directly behind it leaped over its body and jammed themselves into the doorway. Others began tearing at the leader. The door started swinging inward. Sloosh reached up and pressed an inset plate inside the doorway.

  All this action had taken place within a few seconds. Then the cylinder, still turning, also began rolling over. The door closed just in time. And they were off, the wind spinning the cylinder across the plain. Inside, all five were running to keep from being turned over. It did not help any of them, since the room was square and they missed their step when they tried to get off the floor to the wall, which became the floor for a few seconds. Then the ceiling became the floor, then the wall, then they were back to the floor again. That it was totally dark inside made the situation worse. Deyv fell through the door into the next room and slammed against a wall so hard that he was stunned.

  A moment later, Jum, yelping, rammed into him.

  Deyv was beaten, bruised, and shaken up worse than when he had been thrown off the tharakorm.

  The nightmare finally ended, as all nightmares do. The cylinder stopped with a crash, and its occupants lay wherever they had fallen. There were groans and moans and whimperings. Deyv got up and groped to the doorway, the bottom of which was at chest-level. He hoisted himself through it into the first room. At least, he hoped it was the room with the door to the outside. In his confusion, he might have got into the room which led to the interior.

  From the noise, though, he was sure he was in the right place. He checked everybody. Nobody was incapable of responding, but all were complaining of numerous pains.

  His hands found the doorway, and a moment later he pressed the inset plate. Light flooded in as the door opened. It was at a 45-degree angle to the ground. Righting the cylinder was easy, however, as soon as they shifted their weight properly. Then all got out and were glad to do so.

  The cylinder had stopped by the trees at the edge of the plain. Far off was the pack of grey cross-marked brutes. They were heading after some horned animal.

  ‘Something happened there while we were rolling along,’ Sloosh said. ‘Did you press any other plates?’

  Deyv looked inside. The furniture was gone.

  Sloosh went back in but came back out in a few minutes.

  ‘Where the furniture was there are now a few places almost imperceptibly thicker than the floor,’ he said. ‘The furniture just folded up. But what caused it to do that?’

  Deyv said he had no idea, which, of course, Sloosh knew. He’d survived the ordeal and wanted nothing more to do with the cause of it. Even if he were as curious as the Archkerri, he did not have the knowledge to dare experiment.

  Sloosh insisted they make a bunch of torches from rushes, which they soaked with flammable sap. After eating, they set out – in, rather – to explore the cylinder’s interior. It was not easy even to walk around in it. Because of its extreme lightness, it tended to roll when they started up the steps to the upper level. They retreated, made some crude wooden shovels, and then piled earth along the bottom. They also lugged in a big pile of heavy stones to place on the bottom floor. Since stones were scarce in the area, a long time was spent in search of them.

  By then it was past sleep-time. Despite the plant-man’s protests, they bedded down. Whatever else it was good for, the cylinder made a perfect protection from the rain. The door could not be shut entirely because they would soon exhaust the oxygen supply. With the animals stationed just behind the opening, they could sleep in relative safety, especially after they had erected a barricade of thorn bushes across it.

  When they did begin their investigation, Vana and Deyv held the torches for Sloosh. It was tedious work for them and a little spooky. The lack of good air circulation drove them outside from time to time. Sloosh was hot on the scent, though, and he wasn’t to be stopped by anything.

  Most of the rooms were empty. The plant-man pointed out the very thin thickenings, which he said were collapsed furniture or devices. He ran his fingers along the walls and ceilings, tracing thin lines throughout the cylinder.

  ‘These must be strips through which power was applied. So, let’s track down the power supply.’

  They found it in the central portion. It was a cube about six inches wide. From one side of it protruded a long thin rod.

  ‘I think it can be pushed in,’ Sloosh said. ‘But I won’t do that. No telling what might happen. I wish I knew what fuel is used. There must be some left, even after this long time. Otherwise, the door wouldn’t have opened.’

  Finally, they entered the nose of the cylinder. This contained two chairs and a number of square very thin plates on a curve in front of the chairs.

  Sloosh studied the room for a while.

  ‘This must be a vehicle. Probably to fly through the air. It’s even possible it travelled through space. Those plates would be viewscreens of some sort. They indicated flight data and who knows what else?’

  Sloosh traced some of the strips. Finally, he stopped at a cluster of thumbprint-size plates. He reached out a finger to one, hesitated, then pressed. The humans jumped back, alarmed, as the chairs and the plate before them shrank, then folded up.

  ‘Hmm! All this collapsing!’ Sloosh said. ‘Could it be that …’

  He stopped his buzzes and closed his eyes. Deyv looked at Vana and rolled his eyes. She coughed from the dark fumes of the torches.

  Sloosh led them out of the room and back to the power cube. He looked at it for a while, then said, ‘Let’s get all the rocks out of here.’

  ‘Why?’ Deyv asked.

  ‘No time to waste breath now. I’ll tell you why later. If I’m right, it’ll be obvious why I want the stones out. By the way, pick up all the torches you dropped and clean the sap off the floors. I don’t want anything in here that wasn’t here when we entered.’

  By sleep-time, the rocks were gone and with them any trace of the travellers. Sloosh told Deyv and Vana to stand back from the cylinder, and he went inside. Deyv had expected, for some reason, that Sloosh would go to the upper deck where the cube was. How he was going to do that without tipping the ‘Vehicle’ over, Deyv did not know. However, Sloosh went only just past the doorway, reached up above it to press something, and then came out, rather quickly for him.

  ‘Maybe we should get even farther away,’ he said.

  Except for the plant-man, none knew what to expect. Deyv had some fantasies about it, but what happened was not one of them.

  Slowly, the cylinder collapsed, then began to fold up. The two sides straightened up, forming a flat oval. Then a seam appeared along the middle, and it folded, folded, folded.

  When this process had ceased, the cylinder had become a cube with a thin rod sticking out by an inch. The rod was the same one Deyv had seen projecting from the power supply. The cube was almost three feet across.

  Though Sloosh’s face could not show expression, his delight was obvious. He danced around like a drunken elephant, his fingers snapping, his beak buzzing nonsense. When he regained his usual demeanour, he went to the cube and pulled on the rod. The cylinder started to unfold, but after a few seconds he pushed the rod in. It folded once more.

  ‘Of all the ancients’ inventions, this must have been the most wondrous!’

  ‘It is indeed a great and awesome magic,’ Deyv said. ‘But what will we do with it?’

  ‘For the time being, we’ll make straps, a saddle and a girth so I can carry it on my back,’ Sloosh said. ‘At sleep-time, we’ll use it for protection. It’s also useful as a refuge in times of danger. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.’

  Deyv reddened. ‘I know all that. I was just wondering if perhaps… well, maybe if it’s supposed to fly, we could fly it. And then we could easily find the Yawtl.’

&n
bsp; ‘A good idea but most impracticable. Perhaps. In the meantime…’

  16

  ‘There it is,’ Sloosh said, pointing down. ‘The Yawtl’s impression.’

  Deyv looked but of course did not see the tracks. What he did see was a very wide valley through the centre of which a river snaked. All five were standing high on the slope of a mountain. The plant-man had insisted that they climb over it so that he could get a view of a large expanse of territory. The labour had been hard but had paid off.

  ‘The thief came round the foot of that mountain,’ Sloosh said. He indicated one to his left. –Then he made a dug-out or a raft and went down the river to that point there.’ His finger jabbed towards a mountain across the valley to the right. ‘He abandoned his dug-out or raft and went through that pass there.’

  Vana groaned and said, ‘I hope he’s getting close to his home. Do you realize that we must have travelled over four hundred miles?’

  ‘Five hundred and fifty-six to be exact,’ Sloosh said. ‘That is, if you include both horizontal and vertical travel.’

  Deyv did not ask him how he could be so certain. Though the plant-man had little sense of time, he seemed to have an inborn sense of distance. Actually, Deyv’s own idea of it was rather vague. A vathakishmikl, a mile, was a measure which depended upon psychical as well as physical factors. If a half-vathakishmikl tired you as much as a full vathakishmikl did, then one length was equal to the other.

  Sloosh estimated that the travel from where they were to the place at which the Yawtl had left the river would take four sleep-times. That is, approximately forty miles. But if the terrain slowed them down, then it might be fifty miles. Or even more.

  As it turned out, it took them sixty miles. What delayed them was the Athmau.

  They went down the mountain, built a raft with a rudder, and floated down to where the thief’s trail went ashore. The path he’d taken led them to a village on a tributary of the river. After creeping round this, they travelled on another much less used path. Two sleep-times later, they came to an open area. Long before they reached it, they heard a hubbub which made them very cautious.

  From the jungle they peered out at an interesting but possibly dangerous situation.

  In the midst of the clearing was a low broad hill made of a cement-like substance resembling that which the honey beetles excreted. It was dotted with numerous small holes. At the moment hordes of creatures were pouring out of them to defend themselves. These were a strange mixture, purple ant-like things about a foot long and six inches high, covered all over with breathing pipes, ten-to twelve-foot-long snakes, and furry bipedal mammals. The latter were about two feet high and grey-coloured except for their badger-like faces, which were white. The paws were wide and armed with short curving nails. Their teeth looked like the teeth of humans.

  A hundred or so human warriors, all wearing wet bark-cloth filters over their noses and mouths, were battling against the hill-things. They had the light skin, thin lips and kinky yellow hair of Vana’s tribe. Deyv thought they must be from three different tribes who had banded together for the onslaught. A third of them wore feathered headdresses; another, fur caps with horns; and the rest, tall conical hats of woven reeds. All carried shields with the different tribal markings, and they fought with spears, axes and flails. Some carried nets, but these warriors hung behind the others until a furry biped had been seized. Then they dashed in and threw the net over the captive, tied it up and dragged it off struggling to the edge of the clearing.

  ‘The Athmau,’ Deyv said. ‘I’ve heard of them, though they live far away from my tribe. My grandfather, however, said he once brought one home.’

  He became aware of a musky reek and said, ‘That strange odour’s from the Athmau. We’d better move on.’

  Sloosh was curious, as usual. ‘Why the face masks?’

  ‘The Athmau exudes a perfume which makes those who breathe it very happy but also very indolent. That’s why the tribes are raiding. They want to bring the Athmau to their villages. They’ll put them in cages and then enjoy them. The trouble is, the Athmau don’t breed in captivity, and they die too soon.’

  There were about ten of the little animals in nets, lying together, five warriors standing guard over them. Their captors had paid for them, however. The poisonous snakes had felled four men; the long mandibles of the antoids had severely wounded six and killed three. And the Athmau’s claws had dragged down and ripped apart five.

  ‘Why don’t they just stay in the hill?’ Vana said.

  ‘If they did, they’d be smoked out. They know that, so they come out and fight. At least, that’s what my grandfather said.’

  By now the men were outnumbered six to one. Though the flails crushed the antoids and the spears stabbed the snakes, there were not enough men to stop the hill-things. A tall warrior wearing an orange kilt, the only such colour among the raiders, blew a piercing note on a bone whistle. Immediately, the warriors turned and ran for the jungle. The netted Athmau were picked up and carried away.

  However, one of the furry bipeds was being pursued by two men. It ran directly towards the hiding place of the travellers.

  Deyv said, ‘Run!’

  It was too late. Before they could get back on the path, the Athmau had burst through the foliage and was among them. Behind it came the two warriors. One of them threw his axe, and its blunt side caught the animal on the back of its head. It was an excellent throw, doing just what it was intended to do. It stunned the Athmau, which fell by Deyv’s feet.

  Aejip leaped for the axe thrower’s throat. Jum grabbed the leg of the other, whose spear was raised to drive into the dog’s back. Vana forestalled him by hitting him on the head with the sharp edge of her axe. Then she slammed the tomahawk into the side of the other warrior’s head. Aejip finished him off.

  Meanwhile, Deyv had sat down with the Athmau in his arms. He cuddled it, rocking it back and forth, and looking pleased and dreamy.

  Vana started towards him. Sloosh buzzed. ‘Stop! He’s been caught by the perfume! Don’t go near him! I’ll do it!’

  The Archkerri grabbed hold of the still half-senseless creature. Deyv tightened his embrace on it. Sloosh said. ‘Let go!’

  He lifted the Athmau up with Deyv clinging to it. At that moment another warrior, bleeding from a dozen wounds, staggered through the bush. Aejip leaped on him, and the man went down screaming.

  Sloosh dropped Deyv and the Athmau, and he grabbed Deyv’s hands and pulled them outward. The animal fell away, rolled over, then stood up unsteadily, chirruping. Sloosh seized it and threw it at least ten feet. It rolled away behind a bush.

  Vana pulled Deyv to his feet. He stood smiling, seeming not to hear her cries to run. By then the cat had stopped the warrior’s screams by tearing out his throat. The yells of men on the other side of the bushes showed that they were aware that something was wrong.

  Vana took Deyv’s hand and pulled him along, at the same time ordering Aejip and Jum to leave the trail. She dragged Deyv off it after them, and Sloosh joined them a few seconds later. By the time they’d pushed and shoved their way through the dense undergrowth, far enough so that the tribesmen’s voices were faint, Deyv had begun to recover.

  ‘What happened?’ Deyv asked.

  Vana told him. He looked ashamed, but he said, ‘I couldn’t help it. And it was a wonderful experience. Better even than when I chew thrathyumi.’

  ‘Think about that when they find you and kill you,’ Vana said.

  Deyv said angrily, ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  By then the warriors were beating the bush. Sloosh led his companions through the heavy thick vegetation, his great body crushing the growth. He made noise, but their hunters were yelling so loudly at one another and thrashing around so much that they would not be able to hear the Archkerri. After a long struggle, the party came to a trail. Possibly, this was the one they had left, but some tracks in the soft earth had clearly been made by some very large hoofed animals.


  Presently they came to another plain covered with yellow grass, dotted here and there with trees. Halfway across, they heard the yells of their pursuers. These warriors had come along the same trail and now, twenty strong, were running after them, their spears held high.

  Sloosh said that there was only one thing they could do. Which they did. They removed the cube from his back and he pulled out its rod. By the time the warriors reached them, they found the cylinder fully expanded and their quarry inside. Fortunately, the wind was not strong enough to roll the cylinder with its occupants.

  After a long while, during which they heard no sound, Sloosh opened the door. A cautious reconnoitre convinced him that the men had given up. Since there had been no beating on the walls, the warriors probably had not even come close to this strange and thus frightening object.

  Sloosh looked across the plain to its far end.

  ‘There are the impressions of the Yawtl. We won’t have to backtrack to pick them up.’

  Deyv awoke after the next sleep-time to find the rooms of the vehicle ablaze with light. He jumped up, his heart beating hard, and called, ‘Sloosh!’

  The plant-man appeared from the next room a minute later. ‘I found the plate that activates the mechanisms that provide the illumination.’

  ‘Where does it come from?’ Deyv said.

  ‘From the entire material itself. Note that there are no shadows. I have also located the plates for the illumination of individual rooms. I’m progressing, progressing.’

  Deyv was pleased that they would no longer have to be in the dark. However, the Archkerri’s investigations made him uneasy. Sooner or later he would make a mistake and press the wrong plate. Then, willy-nilly, they’d be flying through the air with no idea of how to pilot the vehicle. They went on through a high pass, and they came to another valley. This was far broader than the one behind them. Sloosh stood looking down the slope at the smaller mountains in the valley.