"How did he escape?"
"That was the weirdest of all."
First came a description of the chaitla, which was the Talavat nickname for chaitu-iticcan, the "devil dragon." This giant beast was the most feared carnivore in the jungle and was even avoided by the Raks. Almost the size of a rhinoceros, it was something like a giant saber-toothed tiger with a residual mixture of saurian features. Its lower backbone had a bony ridge that terminated in a powerful reptilian tail. Its fearsome head was also bone-rimmed and its three lambent-yellow eyes were protected by flared, horny sockets that made it look like an oncoming nightmare, especially with its multiple fighting fangs. It could charge "like Husu the storm god" on its four running legs but was also equipped with two extra limbs in front which could serve as legs or arms, depending upon its needs at the moment. Centaur-like, it could raise the forward part of its torso almost erect and tear at an enemy with its powerful talons and sharp incisors.
Sam interrupted at this point. He referred to the Memory of Nature again, which revealed that in the course of all prehuman evolutions a number of experimentations had always occurred.
"Maybe that's why the chaitlas are rare and seldom seen," commented Danny. "They're dying out like the Raks."
"Stragglers and leftovers from a previous lifewave," said the swami as if to himself. "So it was a chaitla, then, that tore open Jerry's cage and killed the guard. How did Jerry survive?"
"Well, this gets into some of your territory, Sam. At least it must have something to do with your levels-of-consciousness bit. There's some kind of strange rapport between the chaitlas and the dakshas."
"You mean the 'dog-faced' men?"
"Yes, and in this case I'm speaking of Red, the one we captured."
"And Jerry set free."
"Exactly. Red was an imitator, you'll recall. When he saw Jerry in a cage he must have decided to return the favor. Those little satyr buggers can ride the chaitlas."
"Aha, the lost faculty! But I'll wager the Moals are behind it somewhere. That's where the real symbiosis lies."
"Right you are, but you're getting ahead of me. Anyway, that night Jerry went through the Looking Glass. He rode with a satyr on the back of a tiger dragon and ended up in fantasy-land."
Thus, Jerry Fontaine, the gentle dreamer whose elfin soul had been caged by the world-cult package. Confused by his star-crossed displacement, disillusioned and withdrawn in lovelorn despair, he had found the one place in creation where his psyche could survive and heal itself. Deep in the forest and mountain vastness he had come among the Moals in their hidden retreat, a mythological world existing in unborn time. Red was his passport, and his understanding of earth forces and an intuitive feeling for the beauty of innocence had done the rest. He had settled among the rose-tinted nymphs with their unseeing eyes and their seventh sense.
Sam seemed to understand more than Danny the reasons for Jerry's hermitage and his occult rapport with this more esoteric realm of nature. Probably a part of the magic had been the negative rapture of isolation from sorrow, hurt, and ugliness. It was a finality he accepted as irreversible, like a soul-commitment to other-dimensional destiny. The soaring cloisters of the forest were his troll-like sanctuary, forming a cordon sanitaire between the predawn children and the far Babylon he had failed to cope with. The green, gold, and purple galleries, the branching grottos and verdured chambers of the multi-terraced jungles with their cathedral shafts of light from flower-framed windows in the lofty canopies above these were the enchanted halls of a timelorn castled city, peopled by mythical beings long lost to racial memory, whether this was Lemuria or a parallel world in some forgotten universe.
Here he had entered into the symbiosis. He had linked himself to the between consciousness of prehuman creatures in a fairy-ringed unreality that was functional to his nature. The birds of gorgeous plumage and song, the giant scarlet-winged butterflies and bronze-golden spiders and brilliant-veined fungi and the spiral-striped serpents that lurked in the hidden hollows or hung in living-tinsel camouflage from orchid-trailing giant lianas these and the life-giving streams and fish and a myriad of other small details of his primordial environment formed a bounteous secret kingdom that dissolved the bars caging his being. In a kind of ecstatic madness of newfound release, he had embraced the Moals and their dog-faced brother orphans of evolution as his own.
Their seventh sense, described by Sam as an intuitive collective consciousness, was capable of warding off the carnivores and even keeping the one-eyed Raks at bay. The swami also explained that this group-spirit cognizance altered the responses of animal instinct and turned beast awareness back to its dreamless state. Whatever the reason, the unconscious power of the Moals was like a spell cast upon the forest. Since the advent of Maitluccan, however, the sightless but seeing ones had withdrawn into a world known to themselves.
Within that ring-pass-not of seclusion, Jerry had been "blindly" accepted by the furtive nymph race because he at once knew their language, unable to reproduce its nature music but responding en rapport. Here among them he met that same undine spirit he had first discovered by a forest pool and described to Danny and Mabuse. The prepagan rose-petal creature, the girl genie with the golden-brown gossamer hair and her exotic nonhuman face – this flowerlike child-adult being had provided solace to the unrequited stranger in a land less strange than the world that had rejected him. He had come to know the dryad caress of her delicate cool hands and the strangely vital warmth of her fay young breasts. Because of her laughing imitation of rippling streams which sounded like ukulele, he had fondly named her Buli.
All this Danny had learned later. Before he went on with his story, the swami gave him information that helped to explain a part of the incredible event he was about to describe.
"You know the anthropologists in the colony have taken a great interest in the Moals, Raks and the dakshas," said Sam. "Of course they don't understand the real laws of retardation working in evolution but they have at least observed some important facts. And our original contact with Ravano and Akala also filled in some of the missing pieces. For example, there has been hybridization between separate species. The Raks have often taken Talavat and Golak females for mating purposes and the surprising result is the dakshas, the dog-faced men. On the other hand, the Moals so far have appeared to be monogenetic." Sam chuckled. "If I had told them the Moals have evolved from a previous androgynous species, they would have subjected me to their own inquisitor's rack."
He went on to describe some heavy arguments he had gotten into with Tallullah and Odell and others on this general subject. The Raks were a hominid species which was dying out, because apparently sterility had begun to set in on the male side whenever there were human crossings with Raks. He had again pointed to the Wisdom of Nature in this regard, or to a Universal Intelligence which guided evolution. The case of the mule, a hybrid between horse and donkey, was a typical example of a line being drawn against further hybridization.
"Darwin's famous observation of the Andaman islanders even failed to convince them that an actual Intelligence in Nature will control cross-breeding when a time comes for it to be controlled," he explained. "When white settlers began to mate with them, the women became sterile. This process of sterilization is occurring with the Raks. It appears to be very rare now that a daksha will be born as the result of a Talavat or Golak woman being raped by a Rak."
Sam went on to say that Tallullah's group had been very anxious to observe the Moals in their native habitat, but they had very rarely been able to even see one of the furtive subrace creatures. Only through Akala had Lalille and Nolokov learned that the Moals were not dying out.
"As Marius says, modern empiricists are lying dead on marble slabs as far as any knowledge of actual evolutionary principles are concerned. I can only tell you that the Moals, Raks and dakshas are of a previous lifewave. The Raks are stragglers who are failing to cross over into the present life wave. The dakshas could possibly begin to be monocrenetic, in w
hich case they might well become the progenitors of the future anthropoids of this planet. The Moals are definitely making the crossover. They are emerging successfully toward the human level."
"Are you saying that a time will arrive when your Intelligence in Nature might turn on the hybridization process, between Moals and humans?"
"Not only might but shall."
"Okay – then that will explain what happened ... I can go on with the story..."
* * * *
Danny's discovery of Jerry had almost cost both of them their freedom. The event had occurred more than a year after the breakout at the base and Ravano's liberation. He and Makart had gone with a group of native scouts into the Upper Basin country to do some hunting and reconnaissance. Talavat observers had reported the presence in the area of a heavily armed exploration party from Terra Nova. They had a bush cutter with them and were making a new road as they went, working by day and camping by night. Evidently they were planning to expand their mining operations.
The Upper Basin was rugged canyon country although probably the most scenic part of the local terrain. Its riotous flowering jungles, vine-grown cliffs, racing rivers and waterfalls created the prepagan mood Jerry had once described in connection with the animal vitality of the land and the voluptuousness of the "universal earth mother." Here was a mythological enchantment which could harbor nymph, satyr, or cyclops, and much more of an unknown nature.
Suddenly, while making their own camp one late afternoon, they were surprised by an air car. It had fired at them and they had scattered, only to run into ground troops who had been alerted by the air car's radio signals. A skirmish had ensued, and men had died on both sides. Then there had been a running confusion and sporadic hand-to-hand fighting.
"That's when it happened," said Danny. "Makart and I and two of the Tallies came running into a small kettle basin between the overgrown cliffs. I remember it was sunset, and a pinkish twilight glow had filtered through the big trees on the western rim, but that was only part of the unreal nature of the place. Other figures were flitting about in the midst of hurried chirping and musical sounds as if a covey of quail had been flushed from their nests. When we also saw the chattering dakshas scampering about, we knew. We had stumbled into a Moal community. They were scattering in all directions.
"Two things happened then that brought us to a dead stop. For one thing, our pursuers showed up on two sides and suddenly had the drop on us. Some of them were Pike's regulars, some from the geology group – and also I remember seeing Ricky Campara, one of the medi-techs. But the real stopper for everybody was the figure at the cave entrance between us.
"At first we thought we were looking at a bearded, long-haired caveman, but he was too erect and alert looking for that although he was only wearing a skimpy loincloth and carrying a spear. I remember feeling cold all of a sudden as if I were seeing a ghost. It was Jerry Fontaine."
"Did you speak to him?"
"Too much was happening. Two of the militia men recognized him and yelled at him to freeze. They knew they had a prize catch. Just then, however, the shock of the evening hit us. Out of the cave stepped Buli, the Moal girl with the golden brown hair and the pointed ears. One surprise was that she was no longer blind. Her big, shining green eyes were looking right at us out of that mythological nymph face."
"Ah!" said Sam with a note of intensity. "The great transition on the Shadowy Arc! She's an advanced type, gaining earthly sight at the cost of inner vision. Her name should have been Eve!"
"Well she ate the apple, all right. She was all rounded out in front, pregnant as hell."
"Pregnant? But–"
"Leave it to Jerry, Sam. With him, if it's not supposed to happen, it does. The poor lonely bastard had dropped his cookies into a fairy crock, and God knows what the offspring would have been!"
"Would have been?"
"That's right. Jerry's jinx hit him again, in a way. The next thing we knew, hell on six legs came tearing into the clearing. The screaming roar alone, with that snarling three-eyed devil face, was enough to paralyze us, but the way that chaitla moved and bowled over armed men with its whipping dragon's tall and ripped them to shreds with its flying claws – it seemed that bullets wouldn't have time to reach him. All I remember is running. It was a blur. I thought I saw Jerry chasing Buli in our general direction.
"To make a short story shorter, Makart and I and one of the Tallies got away. I couldn't find Jerry. At the time I assumed that he had either been killed or captured, or he and his pregnant pixy had made it to another hiding place."
"But you've seen him since. You said he found the temple for you. Where is the girl, Buli?"
"Probably dead. Jerry never found her again."
During the rest of the long trek, Danny finished telling the saga of Jerry Fontaine. It was during his months of searching for Buli in the hidden places of her people that he had discovered the once lost temple of the Lahas. It had been obscured from the Tallies for God knows how long because the area had been Rak country until recently. The temple meant nothing to him at the time because he had been faced with a new problem. Something was happening to the Moals. The crisis in which Buli had been lost with her unborn child had been some kind of trigger. The nymph-like subrace began to lose its faculty of collective consciousness. The faithful and protective dakshas seemed to have more of the seventh sense than they did. An unexpected number of the Moals began to demonstrate that they could see physically with their eyes.
Yet with the loss of the old faculty they became more helpless and were soon pathetically dependent upon Jerry. They followed him with their old companions, the dakshas, accepting him as their leader.
"His responsibility was far greater than he may have realized," Sam commented as this point. "The Moals were actually in racial transition. They were crossing over, emerging from a between world of waiting, into the fourth kingdom of Man. In a historical sense, Jerry's role was like that of a World Watcher."
"A what?"
"A Laha, one of the Great Ones. There's too much to tell, Danny. Go on with your story."
"There's not much more of it to bring you up to date. Jerry hadn't lost his wits, as it turned out. He knew of our plans. He contacted Noley and me, finally, and had us make a proposition to Ravano. He wanted passage to the new land for the Moals, in exchange for leading us to the lost temple.
"Ravano agreed because the Moals have always been sacred to his people, but the temple was everything, being a part of their prophecies. In one sense it was a drawback to our plans because once he and his Krias found the temple the rites of na-thitasu started. The Call was out for the Oracle. That was more than a year ago. Some of the Moals have been taken over to the mainland. The rest will go in the final evacuation. In the meantime, Jerry still sticks to the jungle as if hoping to locate Buli somewhere. Maybe it's just that his whole experience, the Star Quest itself and the twisted results of it here, has made him distrust his own race."
"It could be a form of self-rejection," suggested Sam.
"It's ironical since he doesn't see his own hidden strength."
"And what would that be?"
"There's much to tell."
"Damn it, you keep saying that, Sam! When is it all going to be told?"
"Soon, perhaps."
They discussed the mystery of why Terra Nova had never been informed about Jerry's survival. They both agreed that perhaps Alonso and Tallullah had considered Lalille. They still couldn't know if he was alive, and any future contact with him could only lead to more grief. Legally, at least, Jerry was persona non grata to the Council.
"Which leaves us with my first question," said Danny. "Should we tell her he's alive?"
"Under present circumstances, no." After a few moments, Sam returned to the principal subject. Again Danny noted the curious change in the holy man's voice. He spoke with a new and authoritative confidence. "As to the rites of na-thitasu in the temple, don't look upon that phase as an obstacle, Danny. The Oracle m
ay be the key to Ravano's decision."
"What makes you think there's actually going to be an Oracle?"
"All evolution and history is cyclic. There are great transition stages between such cycles, and this young world is now at such a Threshold. At such times, intervention is permitted."
"Intervention? By whom?"
"The World Watchers."
Danny was silent for almost a minute as they rode along the trail. "Sam, you know Poyntner and his hardheads would call you a nut for saying a thing like that. I can't afford the dreams, Swami. I have to deal with reality!"
Sam smiled secretly behind Danny's shoulder. His voice deepened slightly. "Such as the reality of thought in the Golden Acre of Earth's so-called ancient history? – the flowering of wisdom through Chaldea and Babylon and through Egypt and Persia and Greece? Such as the reality of the Renaissance, the fall of the Ancien Regime and the divine right of kings? – the French and American revolutions and the quantum jumps of the industrial revolution? – the acquisition of nuclear power by the democracies in World War Two? – the rise of New Age Consciousness which abolished the Bomb and forged a global society? – or now the Star Quest itself...? These things are not accidental, my son, no more than your unsolved mystery of the UFOs or the Devil's Triangle. Men will not always persist in lying blind and deaf on their marble slabs. The bondage of Illusion–"
"Aw come on, Sam!" Danny exclaimed irritably. "Look, I'm sorry old buddy, but that's all wishful thinking!"
"Then what about the reality that you yourself experienced – the Barrier Wall which prevents untimely crossings of cultures in the universe."
"Theory!"
"Was it theory that swept the star ship unaccountable light-years through time and space?"
Danny frowned. "You mean, that was intervention?"
"Precisely, as I've said all along."
"I don't believed it!"
"Belief is a weak word. It implies a confused dichotomy of mental orientation. There is either knowing or not knowing."
Star Quest Page 17