‘I think they’re going to bury us!’
By then the others were awake. The baby began crying. Deyv told Vana to take her where she would not be disturbed.
‘Not until I know what’s going on!’
He told her what he’d seen.
She said, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I’ve fed and changed Keem.’
The Shemibob picked up the spear. They mean business. They must have worked themselves into a frenzy to attack us, though.’
Sloosh buzzed the equivalent of the human snort.
‘Ancestors? Their ancestors are themselves telling themselves what they want to hear! It’s my opinion that they also drugged themselves, all of them, to get their courage up.’
‘It doesn’t matter why now,’ the snake-centaur said. ‘It’s what they’re doing that counts. Also, what we do.’
There seemed to be only two choices. They could stay inside and be buried. Eventually, since the power supply was low, the air-making machine would pack up and they would be asphyxiated. Or they could storm out, hoping to scare the people into taking refuge in the stockade again.
‘I think we’d be dead before they had a chance to get frightened,’ Deyv said.
The plant-man said that there was only one way to test that speculation.
‘We must do something quickly,’ Deyv said. ‘That hole looked as if it’s about half-done. All six tribes must be working on it. It’s mud, easy to dig.’
‘Ah well,’ Sloosh said. ‘This is what I deserve for trying to save the unsavable.’
There was silence for a while. Sloosh was leaning up against a wall, his eyes shut. The Shemibob stood on her forty feet, swaying slightly, silvery eyelids half-closed, her fingers steepled. Deyv was sitting with his back against the wall, a physical simile of the situation they were in.
What to do? What: to do?
He could put himself into a sleep and try to summon his grandmother again. However, she had said she would come no more, and she might be angry if he summoned her. If he was to have a good idea, he must do it by himself. The Shemibob and the Archkerri, the higher beings, were as empty of fruitful thought as he.
Vana entered, holding the baby to her breast. Evidently she had been unable to wait until after Keem was fed. Deyv told her just what they could do. He did not try to make it seem that they had much chance to get out alive. He would not have fooled her if he had.
‘Oh, if only you still had your bag of treasures, your powers,’ she said to The Shemibob.
‘That’s it!’ Deyv shouted as he sprang up from the floor. ‘Power! Power!’
The Shemibob blinked and said, ‘What do you mean? What power? I have none.’
‘You don’t!’ he cried. ‘But the vessel does!’
She and Sloosh looked at each other. The plant-man said, ‘We don’t know how to operate it. We could kill ourselves. But we’ll die anyway.’
‘Better that than to choke to death or be run through with spears,’ The Shemibob said. ‘We’ll at least be trying.’
‘There might be enough fuel left to get us a short way into the air and a longer way horizontally. It might be enough to give us a chance to outdistance them. Or they might be so scared they would not dare chase us. But the impact when we come down… most desperate, most desperate.’
‘Come with me,’ The Shemibob said. ‘We’ll see if we can make even more sense of the circuits. We have not much time.’
The two hurried out. They would be careful to stay in the central portion so that their weight on the upper level would not roll the craft over. Vana came to Deyvand said, ‘Hold us.’
He embraced her. The baby started crying again. Deyv stepped back and said. ‘She’s afraid I’ll take her from you. I wish that was all she had to fear.’
Time passed. Deyv went up the stairs in the middle and sat down on the corridor floor. He could see The Shemibob and Sloosh working in the control room. Presently, she looked up and saw him.
‘We’re almost ready,’ she called out.
The chairs had not been unfolded, since neither of the two could sit on them. The panel had been moved down at a 45-degree angle to the floor. Lights twinkled on them. On the panel were a large dial and a slim stick.
Suddenly, the floor began to tilt upward.
Deyv cried out.
Sloosh buzzed, ‘No! We haven’t started it! The tribesmen are starting to carry us to the hole!’
Vana’s voice came to him from below. ‘What is it?’
Deyv could see the section of wall in front of the two operators become silvery. Then it cleared, and he was looking at the slope of the hill and the village on it.
‘We’ve got it!’ The Shemibob said.
The back end began to tilt. Soon the floor was level.
Sloosh turned and said, ‘You and Vana get into a room and put your backs against the rear wall. We don’t know whether we can control the acceleration!’
Deyv hastened to obey. As soon as they were settled, The Shemibob’s voice came faintly through the door. ‘They’re carrying us to the hole! Hang on!’
Deyv did not know what to expect, a mighty roar, a surge that would throw them into the wall, or what.
They fell hard, and then they felt a bumping.
The people had dropped the vessel. It was moving slowly up the hill.
He could imagine those outside, screaming, running in every direction to get away from the suddenly animated vessel. Perhaps they thought that the magicians inside had made it come alive and that now it would be chasing them to eat them. They would also be regretting very much that they had not accepted the offer of friendship.
The front end rose high, then flopped down. It bumped a little more. It stopped.
The Shemibob’s face was in the doorway. She looked serious but undisturbed.
‘It just doesn’t have enough energy left to get us off the ground. We’re inside the village walls now. We went through the entrance. You two get out and bar the gate.’
She withdrew. Deyv and Vana opened the door and he stepped out. Vana followed him a moment after, having placed the baby on the floor first. She was screaming as if she were trying to vomit her lungs.
Together, they ran to the gateway. The tribes were standing in the swamp near the trees and looking up at them. Their voices, shrill and quavery, floated up faintly.
Though it was a task for six men, Deyv and Vana managed to shoot across the massive wooden bar. He stepped back, panting but grinning. He did not know why he was so exultant, since their situation had improved only a little. Those who had been outside were inside. Nevertheless, they had an extension of life. It might not last for long. But it had given them a chance to stretch their lives out a little longer.
They returned to the vessel, noting on the way that it had knocked over the statues of the ancestors and the tables in front of them. The nose of the vessel was almost touching the opposite wall. Sloosh and The Shemibob were outside now, pushing it away from the wall. Before Deyv reached them, they had turned the vessel round to face the gate. From within the opened door came the baby’s crying.
Vana hastened inside to take care of her. Deyv asked, ‘Why didn’t you steer it into the swamp?’
‘Because my cabbage-head friend suggested that we could still get the tribes to follow us through the gateway.’
‘Why is it that when someone thinks of something that another should have thought of, the first person is subjected to insults by the second?’ Sloosh asked.
The Shemibob laughed and said, ‘His idea put us in more jeopardy. But it might work.’
She told Deyv what it was. They got busy then, carrying the wooden statues into the vessel. It was he who suggested that they could strengthen the plan by picking the eggs from the soul-egg tree. The Shemibob replied that that would take more time, which they might not have.
Deyv climbed the ladder to the walk behind the wall and looked over. By then most of the people had come out from the swamp and were massed along the
bottom of the hill. The six shamans were sitting in a circle, with the Chaufi’ng apparently doing most of the talking. At least, his hands were flying more and faster than the others.
Many of the people were staggering or lying on their backs. Sloosh had been right when he had said that they had drugged themselves to gain courage.
Deyv climbed down and reported,
‘I think we’ve got enough time.’
The Shemibob sent Vana to watch the tribes. Then the three worked swiftly, knocking off the ripe soul eggs with a pole or breaking off the others with clubs. When they had piled all the eggs in a back room on the lowest level, they sat down to rest awhile.
Presently, Vana called out that the warriors were gathering at the foot of the path. Deyv ran to help her observe. He had been with her for only a moment when the men, waving their spears, yelling, hopping, whirling, came slowly up towards them. He helped her get down with the baby, and they sped back to the vessel.
‘They’re going to attack.’
‘Are the shamans leading them?’ Sloosh said.
‘No. They’re watching from the bottom.’
‘I thought not.’
They got into the craft. The Shemibob and Sloosh went up into the pilot room. Deyv wanted to go with them, but she said that he might tip the vessel over. As it was, the two controllers had to be very careful about shifting their weight.
‘There must be some way this vessel maintained its stability, but we’ve not been able to locate the controls. You stay below with Vana.’
The vessel moved again across the earth of the enclosure, tipped down, and began bumping along. Deyv hoped that it had enough energy to carry them far past the tribespeople. If the power failed while they were still on the hill or only a little way past it, they would be in trouble again.
They were, he could tell, going down the slope. Then the floor became level, though there was some bobbings, due to their disturbance of the water. A little time passed, far too little, he thought. And there was a cessation of movement.
Sloosh came down first.
‘We travelled about a mile. Get rid of all the eggs now and all the statues later. Except Tsi’kzheep. I’ll carry it.’
The vessel was floating in water about two feet deep. They threw out the eggs, which sank into the mud. The vessel was pushed towards a bed of tall reeds, and the statues were removed and hidden within these. Sloosh pulled the rod, hoping that there was enough energy to collapse the vessel for the final time. This was half-realized.
‘Well, at least it’ll be easier to conceal,’ Sloosh said. He picked it up and waded to the muddy shore and disappeared in the jungle. When he came back he said, ‘Help me wipe out my tracks.’
After this was done they headed for the hill of the gateway. Now and then they could faintly hear the voices of their pursuers.
‘I hope they don’t get faint hearts when they come near the gateway,’ he said. ‘But they must be very angry because we took their ancestors and their eggs.’
The Shemibob said that they could always make more statues and wait until new eggs had grown.
‘Let’s hope they’re so furious and drugged they won’t think of that,’ the plant-man said. ‘Anyway, Be’nyar said that her tribe believed that it would be safe and prosperous only as long as Tsi’kzheep was in existence. That suggests that they wouldn’t think of replacing it.’
Once they were some distance away from the place where they had dropped the eggs and the statues, they did their best to leave tracks, torn leaves and broken branches behind them. The baby began crying again. Vana started to hush her. The Shemibob said that she should be allowed to bawl. The pursuers might hear her and so know that they were on the right trail.
By the time they reached their goal, they were all, except for the baby, very tired. They rested awhile at the bottom. Before they had got their wind back, they heard voices among the trees in the swamp.
‘They didn’t follow us,’ Deyv said. ‘They must’ve taken a short cut. They guessed that we’d be coming here.’
The Archkerri said that that was good. If the tribes had taken the same path, they might have stumbled over the statues. They rose and toiled up the slope to the tree above, by which the swelling, dwindling abomination shone. One by one they pulled themselves up on the lift, Keem excepted.
Vana held her. After throwing their weapons through the shimmering, they sat down on the great branch, keeping their faces away from the gateway.
‘I hope all this was worth while,’ Deyv said. ‘If we go through, and then we find that we’re back on Earth again -’
Sloosh said, ‘I have a theory about that. Not that it will make you feel any easier about our ending up on this world. I think that it’s possible that most of the gateways admit to a younger world. Just as heat won’t radiate from one body to a hotter body, so the gateways won’t let objects through from one world to an older world or one just as old. Admittedly, the analogy could be false, I have no evidence to support it. But-’
‘How then do you explain those gateways that only admit objects from one place on this planet to another?’ The Shemibob asked.
‘Those are local aberrations. By “aberrations”, I mean that they are anomalies only from our viewpoint. They’re just as natural as anything else. But the sentient tends to think in terms of everything being either malignant or beneficial, in the way that it affects him. The malignant is, therefore, unnatural. Philosophically, I don’t admit such terms. But as a living being who’s concerned about survival, though not to the extent of these humans, I sometimes lapse into egoism.’
‘You still haven’t given an explanation of the local routes.’
‘I’ll think of something. Just now I’m too busy with them.’
He pointed at the first of the pursuers to emerge from the cover of the trees.
Others followed. When the stragglers caught up, there were an estimated five hundred and twenty gathered at the foot of the hill. These included the young children.
‘The mothers wanted to be in at the death so fiercely they even brought along their infants,’ Sloosh said. ‘They are very angry about the sacrilege. Good. I didn’t like to think that the babies would be abandoned to starve to death.’
‘You forget that they would have gone back to fetch them if they decided to go through the gateway,’ Deyv said.
‘I doubt it. By then they would have recovered from the effects of the drug.’
While the rest stayed knee-deep in the greenish water, the six shamans slowly advanced up the hill. They were singing a ritual chant designed to placate The Shimmering Demon. They begged its pardon for treading upon the forbidden ground, but they had to save their ancestors from the terrible blasphemy which the monstrous strangers had caused. They would atone for it by casting the offenders into the demon’s mouth.
Deyv had to smile at that.
46
He waited until they were within easy speaking distance. He rose and called, ‘Hold!’
The shamans stopped, holding their left hands to shade their eyes so they could see him but not the brightness. They were crouching as if they expected some demonic whip to lash down upon their backs.
Deyv lifted the statue of Tsi’kzheep, found it too heavy, and gave it to Sloosh.
‘See your ancestor!’ he called. ‘The founding father of the Chaufi’ng! I have cast the ancestors of the other tribes into the gateway to the other world! They are waiting for you to join them so that your people may live for ever and worship them for ever! If they had stayed here, they would have perished along with their descendants! But we have talked to them and they have seen our wisdom! They agreed to go through the entrance to a better place, and they are growing impatient because you are not there to solace them with sacrifices and prayers! They are becoming angry because you would leave them there while you stay here through cowardice and let them fade away, unnourished by the blood you once gave them to eat: and by your dreams, in which they would come to you a
nd advise you on what you should do to keep the tribe healthy and prosperous and great in war!’
The Shemibob said softly, ‘That is fine rhetoric, Deyv, but don’t get carried away. A few strong words are better than many weak ones.’
‘I think I’m doing fine,’ he said with some sharpness.
He gestured at the statue of Tsi’kzheep.
‘All but one of your ancestors have gone to that other world and with them the soul eggs of the Chaufi’ng! Chaufi’ng, if you will have the eggs for the babies to be born, you must go after them!’
‘Don’t dwell on that point too long.’ The Shemibob said.
‘The soul-egg trees of the other tribes are untouched. Stress the ancestors.’
‘You told me I was to talk to them. Don’t interrupt -please!’
It was a frightening yet heady experience to tell The Shemibob to keep quiet. But, though she was not in a situation where she could reprimand him, she would probably do so later. If there was a later.
He indicated the statue again.
‘Now Tsi’kzheep goes to join the others! And he has told us that he wants you to follow him!’
Sloosh walked out onto the bridge, his eyes closed but his ears open to Deyv’s soft instructions. When he heard Deyv tell him to stop, he halted a few feet from the shimmering.
‘Now,’ Deyv said, ‘lift it up, slowly. Stop! You’ve got it centred. Now, pitch it straight forward!’
The shamans and the people at the bottom of the hill cried out in horror as the figure disappeared.
Vana said, ‘If they do go through, they’re going to be very angry. There won’t be any eggs, which will infuriate the Chaufi’ng, and the other tribes won’t have their ancestors. Moreover, if Sloosh is right, there won’t be any soul-egg trees either.’
‘I know that,’ Deyv said. Then, seized by impulse, he said, ‘Give me your egg.’
‘Why?’
He was afraid if he told her, she’d refuse.
The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage Page 58