Orbit 2 - Anthology

by Edited by Damon Knight

  Garcia called from behind. “What do you see, Kinross? Why have you stopped?”

  “I see one more step and death, I think,” Kinross called back. “It’s a waterfall. We’ll have to climb the bank here if we possibly can.”

  He made no move to return, but stared down into the pit. Abruptly the urge came to him to surrender, to let the water carry him over the brink. It was sudden and overpowering, almost sexual, a savage assault on his spirit. He clung desperately to the rock face and muttered a prayer under his breath, “Mother of God, spare me now.”

  The compulsion, still powerful, withdrew a little distance. “Garcia,” he called, “start climbing, in the name of God. Keep talking to me.”

  “There’s a ledge back here, slanting up,” Garcia said from above. “Come back under me and I’ll give you a hand up.”

  Kinross edged back around the rock shoulder and scrambled up to join Garcia. The Mexican led the way up the narrow ledge.

  “There’s something up ahead that will take your breath away,” Kinross warned him. “A pit. Wait till you see it. And when you do, hang on to yourself.”

  Garcia grunted and kept climbing. The ledge petered out and the way became more difficult and dangerous. Then they were standing on a rocky headland falling steeply on three sides into the great pit that was all around them.

  “Madre de Dios!” breathed Garcia. He repeated it several times, otherwise speechless. Both men stood silently, gazing into the pit. Finally Garcia raised a hand and whispered, “Listen!”

  Kinross listened. He heard a crackling of brush and a rattling of dislodged pebbles. It came from the left, seemingly not far off.

  “Something’s coming up out of the pit,” he whispered.

  “What’s coming? Kinross, we ain’t alone in this world!”

  “We’ve got to go closer,” Kinross said. “Have to know. Walk easy.”

  They stalked the sound, retreating from the headland and skirting the edge of the pit. As they neared the source of the noise, the brush became tangled and waist-high and they made noises of their own, unavoidably. Then all was silent and Kinross feared their quarry was alarmed until he heard a snuffling, whimpering noise that set his nerves still more on edge. They crept closer. Then Garcia grasped his arm and pulled him to a crouch.

  Kinross strained his eyes toward where the Mexican was pointing. Suddenly, taking vague form in the pattern of silvery light and shadow, he saw a human figure not fifty feet away. “We capture him,” he told Garcia in dumb show. The Mexican nodded. Both men rose and rushed headlong.

  Kinross’ longer legs got him there first. The figure rose and fled a step or two before he brought it down with a flying tackle. A split second later the stocky Mexican added his considerable weight to the tangle of arms and legs and then a despairing, agonized scream arose from the captive. Electric surprise jolted Kinross.

  “Let go, Garcia,” he commanded. “Get up. It’s a woman!”

  * * * *

  She was Mary Chadwick and she had three strong brothers who could clobber any man in Queensland and Kinross and Garcia were beasts and savages and they were to take her home immediately or it would be the worse for them. Then she clung to Kinross and cried hysterically.

  While Kinross tried awkwardly to comfort her, day came, less abruptly than usual but swiftly enough to remind Kinross how unaccountably time still ran. The light was harsh and bright and he saw the disk of the sun for the first time. The familiar overcast was gone, the sky clear and blue. Sight of the two bearded men did not seem to reassure the woman.

  She was quite young and dressed for riding, khaki shirt and trousers, with laced boots, outlining a tall and generous figure. Honey-colored hair hung loose to her shoulders. Her eyes, swollen with crying, were an intense blue verging on violet. Her fair skin was tanned to pale gold and a dusting of freckles lay across the bridge of her strong nose.

  She recovered quickly. “Who are you?” she asked in a clear but low-pitched voice. “What is this place? Nothing like it in the Coast Ranges I ever heard of.”

  The men introduced themselves. Kinross failed completely to make her understand the nature of the world around them.

  “Ships? Sailors? What rot!” she exclaimed. “You say you don’t understand it yourselves, so go along with that nonsense. All we need do is walk until we find a track or see smoke or—you know all that.”

  “Okay, we’re lost then,” Kinross agreed. “We’re somewhere in Australia, I take it?”

  “Yes, Queensland, and somewhere on the south fork of the Herbert River. I was riding along and I must have fallen asleep . . . where my horse is, I’m sure I have no earthly notion.”

  Kinross and Garcia exchanged glances. “Excuse me, Mary,” the Mexican said, his black eyes blazing with excitement. “I just have to talk crazy for a minute to my friend here.” Then to Kinross, “How come? According to the soldiers of Tibesti story the gate should be in the Indian Ocean. Has this world got more than one hole in it, you suppose?”

  “That’s bothering me, too. The way I’ve always understood it, without ever believing any of it, mind you, the two worlds are not superimposed. They just have that one small area in common, the gate. . .”

  “Well, if it opens on land. . .”

  “I know what you’re thinking. But we’ve got to give Kerbeck and Silva a chance. Anyway, those two.” Kinross turned to the girl.

  “Mary,” he asked, “can you remember exactly where in that pit you first found yourself? Did you mark the spot?”

  “No, why should I have? I’ll not go back down there for all the mad fossickers in the entire North. Take me to your camp or your diggings or whatever. I hope someone there will talk sense to me.”

  The Mexican laughed suddenly. “I just remembered old Bart Garcia, my first ancestor in Mexico, was a prospector too,” he said. “That was a new world and he had a rough time in it. Lead on, Kinross.”

  “All roads lead to Kruger,” said Kinross, striding off.

  “All but one,” Garcia corrected, looking back at the great pit, shadowed now by slanting sunlight.

  * * * *

  The way back was rugged at first, then more gentle. Kinross exclaimed in pleased surprise when a bird fluttered through the brush and Garcia said, “So that’s what I been hearing.” Then Kinross heard it too, a multitudinous chirping and twittering all around them. But the birds, like the indefinite trees and shrubs, were always annoyingly peripheral to direct vision. They were wing flashes, darting colors at the edge of sight.

  “Doesn’t it bother you, not being able to look at them?” he asked the girl.

  “But I can see them,” she said. “You strange men. . .”

  Keck-keck-keck-kee-rack! came a noise from the brush and Kinross jumped.

  “There!” the girl pointed. “It’s a coach whip. Can’t you see him now?”

  Kinross could not. “There,” she insisted, “hopping about in the wattle. Just look, won’t you!”

  Garcia saw it first. Finally Kinross believed he saw the small, dark green thrush shape with white throat, long, perky tail and black crest. But he felt uneasily that he was really seeing a verbal description. Keck-keck-keck kee-rack! He jumped again and felt foolish.

  As they walked, Kinross questioned the girl. She lived on a small cattle station in the mountains south of Cairns with her father and three brothers. She was twenty-four and unmarried, had spent a year at school in Brisbane, didn’t like cities. Her brothers worked part-time in the mines. This would be first-rate country for running stock and she couldn’t imagine how the land survey had missed it.

  “Look at the sun, Kinross,” Garcia said once. “We’re going west. Feels good to be able to say that.”

  The sun was low when they reached the height of land above the valley. “Kruger Valley,” Kinross called it, since the girl demanded a name. The stupendous wooded slope rising on three sides from the cave mouth was touched with a glory by the declining sun and her pose of matter-of-fact assuranc
e broke once more.

  “Nothing like that in the Coast Ranges,” she whispered. “I just know it.”

  When they started down the slope west of the forested area, Kinross was impressed too. Trees stood out in clear view, unique, individual. The coarse grass was plain to see, as well as clumps of flowers in bright colors. Small, brightly varicolored birds flitted ahead of them and Kinross knew that he was really seeing them. The flat sameness of color and the smooth regularity of form were gone from the land. Kinross with rising excitement pointed out to Garcia rock outcrops, gullies and patches of erosion-bared earth.

  “Something’s happened, Garcia,” he said. “Here, inside the re-entry barrier, the land sticks backward into time now.”

  “Looks sure enough real,” the Mexican agreed. “Wonder if we could light a fire tonight?”

  “Yes, and chop trees,” Kinross almost shouted. “Mary will need a shelter.”

  “Of course a fire,” the woman said. “We shall want to roast things, I suppose.”

  “Maybe knock down some birds,” Garcia said. “I’m hungry for meat.”

  “No!” the girl cried in outrage. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Not these pretty little ones,” Garcia hastily assured her. “What do you call them, anyway?”

  “They’re pittas,” she said. “Noisy little paint pots, aren’t they? They say ‘walk-to-WORK, walk-to-WORK.’“

  “That’s what we’re doing, I guess,” Garcia chuckled.

  They picked their way down the fairly steep hillside, Kinross preparing the girl for what she would find down by the stream, when she interrupted him.

  “Who are they?” she asked, pointing to the left.

  Kinross and Garcia could see nothing. “What is it you see?” Kinross asked.

  “A whole band of blacks, myalls,” she whispered, obviously disturbed. “On their knees, in the bush.”

  “Now I partly see them,” the Mexican said. “It’s worse than the birds were this morning.”

  “I can’t see a thing,” Kinross complained. “Only trees and shrubs.”

  “Look slantwise,” Garcia urged. “Let your eyes go slack. Every kid knows how to do that.”

  Kinross tried to unfocus his gaze and suddenly he saw them, dozens of them. Dwarfs, black with red eyes. Naked and grotesquely formed, huge hands and feet, knobbed joints, slubber lips, limbs knotted with muscles. They were looking back at him, but without apparent interest. Alarm bit into him.

  “My God!” he breathed.

  “They’re a pack of devils,” Garcia muttered. “Kinross, what in hell are they?”

  “They’re blacks,” the girl said. ‘‘Back in the earlies they used to spear white men sometimes in the Coast Ranges, but they’re tame enough now. We must just walk by and pretend not to see them. They’re supposed to be in the spirit world.”

  “They’re dwarfs, pygmies,” Kinross objected. “Do you have pygmies in Queensland?”

  “They’re on their knees,” she answered sharply, “hiding from us in one of their spirit places. Come along! Walk by and pretend not to see them.”

  “Let’s try,” Kinross assented.

  They walked on without incident until they reached the valley floor. As they walked along the level Garcia began looking sharply to left and right.

  “Kinross, something’s dogging us, slipping through the brush after us on both sides,” he said.

  “Those black things?” Kinross asked, stomach muscles knotting.

  “No, can’t see well, but they’re taller and graylike.”

  “I can see them,” the girl said. “They’re gins, Binghi women of that mob we passed. They look like ghosts when they smear themselves with wood ashes.”

  “What are they after?” Kinross asked, half seeing the elusive shapes in the corner of his eye.

  “They want to trail us to our camp so they can steal and beg,” the girl said. “Mind you send them away straight off when they come in.”

  Garcia said, “They got nice shapes, now that I know they’re women. Kinross, can you see them yet?”

  “Just partly,” Kinross said.

  The flitting shapes left them before they reached the stream. As they stood doubtfully on the bank, distant shouting came from the hillside they had just descended. Kinross saw Kerbeck charging through the scrub, black motes scattering before him.

  “God!” he gasped. “Kerbeck’s fighting the black things!”

  “Winning, too,” Garcia commented, less perturbed than Kinross. “Look at ‘em run.”

  “He shouldn’t,” the girl said. “They’ll creep back and spear him tonight. All of us, perhaps.” She shuddered.

  Kerbeck came plunging down the hill in great leaps. He crossed the quarter mile of valley floor, in and out of sight, looming up bronzed and gigantic. His floating hair and beard were an aureole in the light of the westering sun. He shouldered Kinross aside and grasped the girl by her upper arms, staring fixedly into her eyes. He was humming and buzzing frantically.

  Kinross pulled vainly at one of the great arms, protesting. Then the Swede quieted, releasing the girl, smiling and humming placidly.

  “It’s all right,” the girl said. “He wanted to be sure that my eyes had pupils.”

  Kinross looked blankly from her blue-violet eyes to the flat blue eyes of the huge Norseman.

  “He’s been chasing the devil-devils,” she explained. “He thought I might be one. Their eyes don’t have pupils, just black smudges on white eyeballs.” Kerbeck hummed happily. Kinross shook his head.

  “She’s right, Kinross,” Garcia said. “I got part of it. It’s another one of them things, you got to listen sideways-like.”

  “They turn into trees and rocks when he catches them,” the girl added. “He’s been up a gum tree for days about them and he’s glad you two are back.”

  “Oh lord!” Kinross groaned. “I feel like a damned infant. So you do agree they’re devils now?”

  “No more!” she said sharply. “They’re abos on a spirit-land walkabout. The whole push of you are mad as snakes.”

  “Let’s make a fire,” Kinross said, turning away.

  There was plenty of dried grass and fallen branches, unlike before. Garcia had matches, soon had a fire. Kinross borrowed Kerbeck’s belt knife to trim poles from the branches the giant Swede obligingly pulled off the trees, and work on a small hut went forward rapidly. Garcia cut fronds from a palmettolike tree to weave between the upright poles, and the girl gathered brownish wool from the top of it to make herself a bed. “Burrawang,” she called it. She pronounced the finished effort a passable “humpy.”

  Under the darkness they roasted nubbly breadfruit in the coals and peeled bananas. Kerbeck melted into the night. All ate in silence. Finally the girl said, “Where are we? Fair truth, now. Where are we?”

  “Like I told you this morning—” Kinross began, but she stopped him.

  “I know. I believe it has to seem that way to you. But do you know where I am?”

  Both men murmured their question.

  “In Alcheringa,” she said. “In the Binghi spirit land. I fell into it somehow, riding through one of the old sacred places. There are picture writings all along the South Herbert. Today, when I saw the abos, I knew. . .”

  “Mary, they were dwarfs,” Kinross said. “They were not human.”

  “When the abos go back to the spirit land they are not human either,” she said. “And at the same time something more than human. I’ve heard mobs of talk about it. But those gins—they shouldn’t be here. Nor I. It’s frightful bad luck for a woman to enter the spirit land. When I was a little girl I used to think it blanky unfair. . .”

  “How do the natives get in and out of. . . Alcheringa?” Kinross asked with quickened interest.

  “They dance and sing their way, paint themselves, use churingas—oh, all sorts of rites,” she said. “No one must be about, especially no women.”

  From the darkness overhead a weird, whistling wail floated down.
Both men jumped to their feet.

  “Sit down,” the girl bade them. “At home, on Chadwick Station, I would call that the cry of a stone curlew. They fly about and call in the darkness. The blacks call them the souls of children trying to break out of the spirit world in order to be born. What are they here, I wonder?”

  She looked upward. Kinross and Garcia sat down again. Then a slender bird with thin legs and long, curving beak dropped into the firelight to perch on her shoulder.