The Human Zero- The Science Fiction Stories Of Erle Stanley Gardner
Page 22
Then I could feel the blood runnin’ over my skin. It got a little lighter, an’ I could see. I was in a bat cave an’ the bats were cornin’ back. They’d found me an’ were settin’ on me in clouds, suckin’ blood.
I tried to fight ’em off, but it was like fightin’ a fog. Sometimes I’d hit ’em, but they’d just sail through the air, an’ I couldn’t hurt ’em. All the time, they was flutterin’ their wings an’ lookin’ for a chance to get more blood.
I’d got the weight of ’em off, though, an’ I staggered out of the cave. They followed me for a ways; but when I got out to where it was gettin’ light they went back in the cave. It gets light quick down there in the tropics, an’ the light hurt their eyes.
I rolled into the sand an’ went to sleep.
When I woke up I heard marchin’ feet. It sounded like an army. They was cornin’ regular like, slow, unhurried, deliberate. It made the chills come up my spine just to hear the boom, boom, boom of those feet.
I crawled deeper into the sand under the shadows of the overhangin’ green stuff. Naked men an’ women filed out onto the beach.
I watched ’em.
Chocolate-colored they were, an’ they talked a funny, squeaky talk. I found afterward some of the words was Fanti and some was a graduated monkey talk. Fanti ain’t never been written down.
It’s one of the Tshi languages. The Ashantis an’ the Fantis an’ one or two other tribes speak branches o’ the same lingo. But these people spoke part Fanti an’ part graduated monkey talk.
An’ among ’em was, a monkey-man. He was a funny guy. There was coarse hair all over him, an’ he had a stub of a tail. His big toes weren’t set like mine, but they was twisted like a foot thumb.
No, I didn’t notice the toes at the time. I found that out later, while he was sittin’ on a limb gettin’ ready to shoot a poisoned arrow at me. I thought every minute was my last, an’ then was when I noticed the way his foot thumbs wrapped around the limb. Funny how a man will notice little things when he’s near death.
Anyway, this tribe came down an’ marched into the water, men, women, an’ children. They washed themselves up to the hips, sort of formal, like it was a ceremony. The rest of them they didn’t get water on at all. They came out an’ rubbed sort of an oil on their arms, chests, an’ faces.
CHAPTER 2
Life or Death
Finally they all went away, all except a woman an’ a little kid. The woman was lookin’ for somethin’ in the water—fish, maybe. The kid was on a rock about eight feet away, a little shaver he was, an’ he had a funny pot-belly. I looked at him an’ I looked at her.
I was sick an’ I was hungry, an’ I was bleedin’ from the bats. The smell of the jungle was in my lungs, so I couldn’t tell whether the air was full of jungle or whether I was breathin’ in jungle stuff with just a little air. It’s a queer sensation. Unless you’ve been through it you wouldn’t understand.
Well, I felt it was everything or nothin’. The woman couldn’t kill me, an’ the kid couldn’t. An’ I had to make myself known an’ get somethin’ to eat.
I straightened out of the sand.
“Hello,” said I.
The kid was squattin’ on his haunches. He didn’t seem to jump. He just flew through the air an’ he sailed right onto his mother’s back. His hands clung to her shoulders an’ his head pressed tight against her skin, the eyes rollin’ at me, but the head never movin’.
The mother made three jumps right up the sand, an’ then she sailed into the air an’ caught the branch of a tree. The green stuff was so thick that I lost sight of ’em both right there. I could hear a lot of jabberin’ monkey talk in the trees, an’ then I heard the squeaky voice of the woman talkin’ back to the monkeys. I could tell the way she was goin’ by the jabber of monkey talk.
No, I can’t remember words of monkey talk. I never got so I could talk to the monkeys. But the people did. I am goin’ to tell you about that. I’m explainin’ about the sleepin’ sickness, an’ about how the memories come back to me after I’ve been asleep.
Maybe they’re dreams, but maybe they ain’t. If they’re dreams, how comes it that when I got to Cape Coast Castle I couldn’t remember where I’d been? They brought me in there on stretchers, an’ nobody knows how far they’d brought me. They left me in the dead o’ night. But the next mornin’ there were the tracks, an’ they were tracks like nobody there had ever seen before.
There’s strange things in Africa, an’ this was when I was a young blood, remember that. I was an upstandin’ youngster, too. I’d tackle anything, even the west coast of Africa on a raft, an’ the Fanti warriors; but I’m cornin’ to that directly.
Well, the woman ran away, an’ the monkeys came. They stuck around on the trees an’ jabbered monkey talk at me. I wished I’d been like the woman an’ could have talked to ’em. But the monkeys ain’t got so many words. There’s a lot of it that’s just tone stuff. It was the ants that could speak, but they rubbed feelers together.
Oh, yes, there was ants, great, woolly ants two inches long, ants that built houses out of sticks. They built ’em thirty feet high, an’ some of the sticks was half an inch round an’ six or eight inches long. They had the ants guardin’ the gold ledge, an’ nobody except Kk-Kk, the feeder, an’ the goldsmith could come near there.
The goldsmith was nothin’ but a slave, anyway. They’d captured him from a slaver that went ashore. The others died of the fever, but the natives gave the goldsmith some medicine that cured him. After that he couldn’t get sick. They could have done the same by me, too, but the monkey-man was my enemy. He wanted Kk-Kk for himself.
Finally I heard the tramp of feet again, an’ the warriors of the tribe came out. They had spears an’ little bows with long arrows. The arrows were as thin as a pencil. They didn’t look like they’d hurt anything, but there was a funny color on the points, a sort of shimmering something.
I found out afterward that was where they’d coated ’em with poison an’ baked the poison into the wood. One scratch with an arrow like that an’ a man or beast would die. But it didn’t hurt the flesh none for eatin’. Either of man or beast it didn’t. They ate ’em both.
I saw it was up to me to make a speech. The men all looked serious an’ dignified. That is, they all did except the monkey-man. He capered around on the outside. His balance didn’t seem good on his two feet, so he’d stoop over an’ use the backs of his knuckles to steady himself. He could hitch along over the ground like the wind. His arms were long, long an’ hairy, an’ the inside of his palms was all wrinkled, thick an’ black.
Anyhow, I made a speech.
I told ’em that I was awful tough, an’ that I was thin, an’ maybe the bat bites had poisoned me, so I wouldn’t advise ’em to cook me. I told ’em I was a friend an’ I didn’t come to bother ’em, but to get away from the big ship that was layin’ offshore.
I thought they understood me, because some of ’em was lookin’ at the ship. But I found out afterward they didn’t. They’d seen the ship, an’ they’d seen me, an’ they saw the dried salt water on my clothes, an’ they figgered it out for themselves.
I finished with my speech. I didn’t expect ’em to clap their hands, because they had spears an’ bows, but I thought maybe they’d smile. They was a funny bunch, all gathered around there in a circle, grave an’ naked like. An’ they all had three scars on each side of their cheek bones. It made ’em look tough.
Then the monkey-man gave a sort of a leap an’ lit in the trees, an’ the monkeys came around and jabbered, an’ he jabbered, an’ somehow I thought he was tellin’ the monkeys about me. Maybe he was. I never got to know the monkey talk.
An’ then from the jungle behind me I heard a girl’s voice, an’ it was speakin’ good English.
“Be silent and I shall speak to my father,” she said.
You can imagine how I felt hearin’ an English voice from the jungle that way, an’ knowin’ it was a girl’s voice. But I knew she wasn’t
a white woman. I could tell that by the sound of the voice, sort of the way the tongue didn’t click against the roof of the mouth, but the lips made the speech soft like.
An’ then there was a lot of squeaky talk from the jungles back of me.
There was silence after that talk, an’ then I heard the girl’s voice again.
“They’ve gone for the goldsmith. He’ll talk to you.”
I didn’t see who had gone, an’ I didn’t know who the goldsmith was. I turned around an’ tried to see into the jungle, but all I could see was leaves, trunks, an’ vine stems. There was a wispy blue vapor that settled all around an’ overhead the air was white way way, up, white with Sahara dust. But down low the jungle odor hung around the ground. Around me the circle stood naked an’ silent. Not a man moved.
Who was the goldsmith?—I wondered. Who was the girl?
Then I heard steps behind me an’ the jungle parted. I smelled somethin’ burnin’. It wasn’t tobacco, not the kind we have, but it was a sort of a tobacco flavor.
A man came out into the circle, smokin’ a pipe.
“How are yuh?” he says, an’ sticks forward a hand.
* * *
He was a white man, part white anyway, an’ he had on some funny clothes. They were made of skins, but they were cut like a tailor would cut ’em. He even had a skin hat with a stiff brim. He’d made the stiff brim out of green skin with the hair rubbed off.
He was smokin’ a clay pipe, an’ there was a vacant look in his eyes, a blank somethin’ like a man who didn’t have feelin’s any more, but was just a man-machine.
I shook hands with him.
“Are they goin’ to eat me?” I asks.
He smoked awhile before he spoke, an’ then he takes the pipe out of his mouth an’ nods his head.
“Sure,” he says.
It wasn’t encouragin’.
“Have hope,” came the voice from the jungle, the voice of the girl. She seemed to be standin’ close, close an’ keepin’ in one place, but I couldn’t see her.
I talked to the man with the pipe. I made him a speech. He turned around and talked to the circle of men, an’ they didn’t say anything.
Finally an old man grunted, an’ like the grunt was an order they all squatted down on their haunches, all of ’em facin’ me.
Then the girl in the jungle made squeaky noises. The old man seemed to be listenin’ to her. The others didn’t listen to anything. They were just starin’ at me, an’ the expression on all of the faces was the same. It was sort of a curiosity, but it wasn’t a curiosity to see what I looked like. I felt it was a curiosity to see what I’d taste like.
Then the goldsmith rubbed some more brown leaf into the pipe, right on top of the coals of the other pipefull.
“The girl is claimin’ you as a slave,” he says.
“Who is the girl?” I asked him.
“Kk-Kk,” he says, an’ I didn’t know whether he was givin’ me a name or warnin’ me to keep quiet.
Well, I figured I’d rather be a slave than a meal, so I kept quiet.
Then the monkey-man in the tree began to jabber.
They didn’t look up at him, but I could see they were listenin’. When he got done the girl squeaked some more words.
Then the monkey-man made some more talk, and the girl talked. The fellow with the pipe smoked an’ blew the smoke out of his nose. His eyes were weary an’ puckered. He was an odd fellow.
Finally the old man that had grunted an’ made ’em squat, gave another grunt. They all stood up.
This is the show-down, I says to myself. It’s either bein’ a white slave or bein’ a meat loaf.
The old man looked at me an’ blinked. Then he sucked his lips into his mouth until his face was all puckered into wrinkles. He blinked his lidless eyes some more an’ then grunted twice. Then all the men marched off. I could hear their feet boomin’ along the hard ground in the jungle, on a path that had been beaten down hard by millions of bare feet. I found out afterward that same path had been used for over a hundred years, an’ the king made a law it had to be traveled every day. That was the only way they could keep the ground hard.
I guess I’m a meal, I thought to myself. I figgered the goldsmith would have told me if I had been goin’ to be a slave. But he’d moved off with the rest, an’ he hadn’t said a word.
The monkey-man kept talkin’ to the bunch. He didn’t walk along the path, but he moved through the trees, keepin’ up in the branches, right over the heads of the others, an’ talkin’ all the time, an’ his words didn’t seem happy words. I sort of felt he was scoldin’ like a monkey that’s watchin’ yuh eat a coconut.
But the old man grunted at him, an’ he shut up like a clam. He was mad, though. I could tell that because he set off through the trees, tearin’ after a couple of monkeys. An’ he pretty nearly caught ’em. They sounded like a whirlwind, tearin’ through the branches. Then the sounds got fainter, an’ finally everything was still.
I looked around. There was nobody in sight. I was there, on the fringe of beach, right near the edge of the jungle, and everything was still an’ silent.
Then there came a rustlin’ of the jungle stuff an’ she came out.
She had on a skirt of grass stuff, an’ her eyes were funny. You know how a monkey’s eyes are? They’re round. They don’t squint up any at the comers. An’ they’re sort of moist an’ glistening on the surface. It’s a kind of a liquid expression.
Her eyes were like that.
For the rest she was like the others. Her skin was dusky, but not black, an’ it was smooth. It was like a piece of chocolate silk.
“I’m Kk-Kk, the daughter of Yik-Yik, and the keeper of the gold ledge,” she said. “I have learned to speak the language of the goldsmith. You, too, speak the same language. You are my slave.”
“Thank God I ain’t a meal,” I said. That was before the doctor guys discovered these here calories in food; but right then I didn’t feel like a half a good-sized calorie, much less a fit meal for a native warrior.
“You will be my slave,” she said, “but if you pay skins to my father you can buy your freedom, and then you will be a warrior.”
“I ain’t never been a slave to a woman,” I told her, me bein’ one of the kind that had always kept from being led to the altar, “but I’d rather be a slave to you than to that old man on the boat out yonder.”
There was something half shy about her, and yet something proud and dignified.
“I have promised my father my share of the next hunt in order to purchase you from the tribe,” she went on.
“Thanks,” I told her, knowin’ it was up to me to say somethin’, but sort of wonderin’ whether a free, white man should thank a woman who had made a slave, outa him.
“Come,” she said, an’ turned away.
I had more of a chance to study her back. She was lithe, graceful, and she was a well-turned lass. There was a set to her head, a funny little twist of her shoulders when she walked that showed she was royalty and knowed it. Funny how people get that little touch of class no matter where they are or what stock. Just as soon as they get royal blood in ’em they get it. I’ve seen ’em everywhere.
I followed her into the jungle, down under the branches where there wasn’t sunlight any more; but the day was just filled with green light.
Finally we came through the jungle an’ into a big clearin’. There were huts around the clearin’ an’ a big fire. The people of the tribe were here, goin’ about their business in knots of two an’ three just like nothin’ had happened. I was a member of the tribe now, the slave of Kk-Kk.
Most of the women stared, an’ the kids scampered away when they seen me look toward ’em; but that was all. The men took me for granted.
CHAPTER 3
Guardians of Gold
The girl took me to a hut. In one corner was a frame of wood with animal skins stretched over it. There were all kinds of skins. Some of ’em I knew, more of ’em I didn’t.
I squatted down on my heels the way the natives did, an’ tried to eat the fruit. My stomach was still pretty full of salt water an’ sand, but the fruit tasted good. Then they gave me a half a coconut shell filled with some sort of creamy liquid that had bubbles cornin’ up in it. It tasted sort of sour, but it had a lot of authority. Ten minutes after I drank it I felt my neck snap back. It was the delayed kick, an’ it was like the hind leg of a mule.
“Come,” says the jane, an’ led the way again out into the openin’.
I followed her, across the openin’ into the jungle, along a path, past the shore of a lagoon, and up into a little canon. Here the trees were thicker than ever except on the walls of the canon itself. There’d been a few dirt slides in that canon, an’ in one or two places the rock had been stripped bare. After a ways it was all rock.
An’ then we came to somethin’ that made my eyes stick out. There was a ledge o’ rock an’ a vein o’ quartz in it. The vein was just shot with gold, an’ in the center it was almost pure gold. The quartz was crumbly, an’ there were pieces of it scattered around on the ground. The foliage had been cleared away, an’ the ground was hard. There was a fire goin’ near the ledge an’ some clay crucibles were there. Then there was a great bellows affair made out of thick, oiled leather. It was a big thing, but all the air came out of a little piece of hollow wood in the front.
I picked up one of the pieces of quartz. The rock could be crumbled between the fingers, an’ it left the gold in my hand. The gold was just like it showed in the rock, spreadin’ out to form sort of a tree. There must have been fifty dollars’ worth in the piece o’ rock that I crumbled up in my fingers.