Grizquetr grinned feebly, but when his father told him to stand behind him so he, too, could learn how to operate, he gained color and confidence.
"When we get to Estorya I may have to leave this chamber, and I"ll need somebody who can see me through the TV"s and answer my signals. You"re the candidate. You may he only a kid, but anybody who can calmly talk of slipping a knife through a man"s ribs has what it takes."
"Thank you," breathed Grizquetr in all sincerity.
"Here"s what I"ll do," said Green. "I"ll roll this island back and forth until the soldiers are thoroughly panicky and seasick. And the walls around the cave are tumbled down. Then we"ll lower to earth again and give the rats a chance to desert the ship. But we"re no sinking ship, not us. After everybody that"s able has fled to the plains, we"ll take off at top speed for Estorya."
Fascinated, the boy watched the screens and saw the soldiers run off into the early morning light, yelling, their eyes and mouths bulging with horror. Some, wounded, crawled off.
"I feel sorry for them," said Green, "but somebody"s got to get hurt before this is over and I"d rather it wasn"t us."
He pointed to the "scopes, which still indicated the ring of towers.
"As long as this island was on automatic it couldn"t pa.s.s those inhibitories. But I"ve by-pa.s.sed that with this switch. Now, we go ahead, and not over the towers, as we could easily do, but through them. I think we"ve got the weight behind us."
There was a slight shock, the rooms trembled, then the towers before them were gone and they were speeding across the plain. Minute by minute Green increased their rate, until he thought they must be making about a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour.
"Those dials are probably telling me my speed," he said to Grizquetr. "But I can"t read their alphabet or numerical system. It doesn"t matter."
He laughed as he watched "rollers wheel hard aport or hard to starboard in a frenzy to get out of their way. The rails and ratlines were lined with white faces, like rags of terror fluttering in the breeze of the island"s pa.s.sage.
"If there were time to send a message, I imagine we"d encounter the whole Estoryan fleet," said Green. "What a battle that would be! Rather, what a ma.s.sacre, for this craft is built for eating up whole navies."
"Father," said Grizquetr, "we could be king over the whole world, we could rule the Xurdimur and take tribute off every "roller that sailed!"
"Yes, I suppose we could, you little barbarian, you," replied Green. "But we won"t. We"re using this for just one purpose, rescuing the Earthman and your mother and sisters. After that..."
"Yes?"
"I don"t know."
He fell into a reverie as the plain beneath raced past, the white sails of the "rollers blooming from small patches to great flags, then dwindling as swiftly.
Finally, rousing from his thoughts, he began to explain a little to the boy.
"You see, many thousands of years ago there was a great civilization that had many machines that would seem to you even more magical than this one. They traveled to the stars and there found worlds much like this one, and they put colonies upon them. They had swift skips that could jump across the vast abyss between these worlds and so keep in fairly close touch.
"But something happened, some catastrophe. I can"t imagine what it could be, but it must have happened. While it would be interesting to know the cause, all we can know is the effect. Travel ceased, and as time went by the colonies, which were probably rather small to begin with, lost their civilization. The colonies must have been rather dependent upon supplies shipped to them, and they must have had a limited number of highly trained scientists and specialists among them. Anyway, whatever the reason, they relapsed into savagery. And it was not until ages had pa.s.sed that some of these colonies, utterly without memory of their glorious heritage, except perhaps disguised in myth and legend, attained a high technology again. Others stayed in savagery; some, like your world, Grizquetr, are in the transition stage. Your culture is roughly a.n.a.logous to the ones that existed on Earth between 100 A.D. and 1000 A.D. Those dates mean nothing to you, I know, but let me a.s.sure you that we present-day Terrestrials regard those times as being, well, rather hazardous and, uh, unreasonable in their conduct."
"I only half-understand you," replied the boy. "But didn"t you say that nothing of the wisdom of the ancients survived on your planet? Well, why had it done so on ours? These islands must be the work of the old ones."
"Correct! And that"s not all. So is the Xurdimur itself."
"What?"
"Yes, it"s obvious to me that this planet must once have been a tremendous clearing-house and landing field for s.p.a.cecraft. These plains couldn"t be natural; they must have been leveled out by machinery. A laboratory-born gra.s.s was planted that had all the characteristics needed to hold the soil together and keep erosion away. Plus the fact that the islands themselves were, you might say, caretakers, and kept the whole field spruced up.
"G.o.ds! I can imagine what a traffic this planet must have had to build such a landing-field! Ten thousand miles across! The mind boggles before the thought. They must have done things on a big scale then. Which makes it all the more difficult to figure out how they could have come to ruin. Will we ever know what force wrecked them?"
Grizquetr, of course, had even less of an answer than Green. Both were silent for a while; then they cried out simultaneously when the pointed tips of the white towers surrounding Estorya glittered upon the horizon. One of the screens began flashing a series of cone shapes that indicated the towers.
"If the island were still on automatic it would be forced to go around the entire nation," said Green. "But I"m running it now, and we"re paying no attention to those towers."
"Knock "em down!"
"That"s just what I intend to do. But not right now. Let"s see. Wonder how high we can go. Only one way to find out. Upsydaisy!"
He pulled back the lever and the island began rising, though still maintaining its horizontal att.i.tude.
"The ancients, like us moderns, knew how to build antigravity machines. And they also must have kept building their s.p.a.ceships in the conventional rocket-form long after there was any need for it. Perhaps, though, they did so in order for the islands to have a more definite radar image. Maybe. No one really knows."
He spoke to himself, meanwhile glancing at the screen which showed him the plains and the city of Estorya beneath, ever-dwindling as their height increased.
"Do me a favor, Grizquetr. Run out to the cave"s mouth and tell me if those walls have fallen over. And on your way back, close the door to this room. It"s going to get colder very quickly, and the air will be thin. But I imagine that this room is equipped with automatic heat and oxygen. If it isn"t I want to find out now."
The boy began running back. "The walls are all shaken down, all right!" he said, breathlessly. "And the Fish G.o.ddess fell over, and her head almost blocks up the cave"s mouth. I wriggled through without any trouble. I think you can squeeze through."
Green felt a little sick. That possibility had not occurred to him. It would have been ironic if the statue had completely blocked the entrance and he"d had to stay inside until he starved to death. The Estoryans, of course, would have considered his death a case of poetical justice... No, he wouldn"t have died, either! He"d just have gone back to the controls and rolled the island over on one side until the statue"s head came loose. But what if the big stone blocks from the tumbled wall had fallen down behind the statue so that they wedged her too tightly to be released? He sweated at the thought and glanced fondly at the black cat. He wasn"t superst.i.tious, not at all, but it seemed to him that his luck had been better since she"d adopted him. Of course, that wasn"t the scientific att.i.tude to take; nevertheless he felt comforted just knowing she was around.
By now, the whole nation of Estorya could be encompa.s.sed in one glance. And the sky was getting darker.
"We"re high enough." He stopped the island. "If anybody didn"t get off, he must be dead by now, the air"s so thin. And I was right. We do have automatic heat and air-providers. Very comfortable in here. I only wish we had something to eat."
"Why not lower us to the height where I can go out and find food in the garrison"s kitchens?" said Grizquetr. "n.o.body"ll be alive to stop me."
Green thought that was an excellent suggestion. He was very hungry, for he always had to eat for two, himself and the Vigilante. If the symbiote within his body provided him with more than normal strength and powers, it also demanded fuel on which to operate. And, deprived of food, it would survive by living upon Green"s tissue. A Vigilante wasn"t all advantage; it had its dangers.
He lowered the island to about two thousand feet, set the controls on neutral, then decided that it would be safe to go out with the boy. Just as he got to the doorway, however, he began feeling uneasy and wondering what he would do if, somehow, the door closed and he couldn"t get it open again. That would be a fine situation, to be stuck two thousand feet in the air, and no parachute!
Perhaps he was silly, absurdly apprehensive, but he wasn"t going to take any more chances. Grinning sheepishly, he told the boy to go on by himself. He"d decided to study the controls more closely and think out his strategy in finer detail.
When Grizquetr returned with a basket loaded with food and wine, Green swore at himself for his moment"s weakness, then forgot it. After all, discretion was the better part and all that, and he was only playing it smart.
Greedily, he devoured the food and drank half a bottle of wine, knowing the Vigilante would use alcohol before food and that little of it would remain in his bloodstream before being consumed. Between bites, he told Grizquetr what he planned.
"We"ll descend as soon as we"re finished eating. I"ll write a note, and you"ll drop it over the side upon the steps of the palace. The note will inform the King he"d better release his prisoners, unharmed, just outside the windbreak. There we may easily pick them up and then take off like the proverbial big bird. If he refuses we will proceed to lower the island upon the Temple of the Fish G.o.ddess, crushing it and her jewel-encrusted golden idol. And if he still isn"t convinced we"ll then smash the palace, not to mention toppling over the entire ring of towers around the country. Of course, before we drop the note we"ll knock over a few anyway just to show him we"re not bluffing."
Grizquetr"s eyes shone. "Can the island crush a big building?"
"Yes, though I think that there"s a possibility we could as easily disintegrate it. I"ve wondered how the island cut the gra.s.s, and can only conclude that it must use a device similar to one we have on Earth. It cuts through objects by breaking up their atomic structure with a beam that is only a molecule-thick. When on gra.s.s-cutting duty, the island must emit such a beam, and only beneath its base. Of course, it must have other machines, too, for cleaning up wreckage and debris and other stuff that its memory banks tell it has no business being on the field. But I don"t know how to operate these."
Grizquetr looked reproachfully at Green.
"Well, I don"t know everything. I"m not a superman, am I?"
The boy did not reply, but his expression conveyed the idea that he had thought his foster-father was just that. Green shrugged his shoulders and sent the boy out to get paper, pen and ink from the garrison. By the time the boy returned, Green had lowered the island to about fifty feet above the palace. He hastily wrote a note, put it in the basket, which had a cover that could be snapped shut, and told Grizquetr to throw it over the side, aiming at the steps.
"I know you"re going to be worn out with all this running back and forth," he said, "but you can do it. You"re big and strong."
"Sure I am," said the boy. Chest expanded, he dashed from the room, almost tripped going through the door, recovered, and disappeared. Grinning, Green began to watch the crowds that had gathered below. Presently he saw the basket hurtle toward a group of priests upon the great stairway. His grin broadened when the group disintegrated in panic and several of them lost their footing and rolled down the steps.
He waited until one of them got enough courage to return and open the basket. Then he lowered the island another twenty feet. At the same time, he saw a cannon being hauled into the square before the palace and its nose being raised so that it could fire upon him.
"Have to give the beggars credit for guts," he murmured. "Or for sheer folly, I don"t know which. Well, fire away, friends."
They didn"t, because a priest came running to stop them. Evidently, his note, though written in Huinggro, had been translated swiftly enough, and the Estoryans were taking no hasty action.
"While we"re waiting for them to make up their minds we"ll give them a taste of the feast they can expect if they aren"t reasonable," Green said.
He then proceeded to push over about twenty towers just outside the windbreak. It was great fun, and he"d have liked to knock down a hundred or so more, but he was too anxious to find out about Amra and the Earthman. He returned to his former vigil above the palace steps.
Impatiently, he waited for ten minutes that seemed like ten hours. Finally, when he could bear it no longer, he growled, "I"m going to squat on the roof of the Temple and make them hurry up. Do they think this is a diplomatic conference or something, that they can dillydally about like this?"
"No, father," said Grizquetr. "There they come! Mother and Paxi and Soon and Inzax! And a strange man! He must be the demon!"
"Demon, your horned hoof!" snorted Green. "That man"s as human as I am. And the poor fellow must have gone through h.e.l.l. Even from this height I can see he looks bad. Look how he has to be supported between two soldiers."
Amra and the others, he was happy to note, seemed to be unharmed.
Nevertheless he was anxious about them during their ride through the city"s streets and out to the windbreak. The Estoryans might have plans for a sudden attack, though he didn"t see how they could expect to surprise him, since from his vantage point, he would notice any concentration of troops immediately. Or, a fanatical priest might take it into his head to kill them.
Neither of these possibilities happened. The prisoners were released outside the fallen towers, and the soldiers retreated into the city. Grizquetr left the control room to guide them onto the island. In fifteen minutes he ran back.
"Here they are, Father! Saved! Now, get off the ground before the Estoryans change their minds."
"We"re going back," replied Green, looking in vain for the others and then deciding that the boy had outstripped them in his haste to report. He shoved the lever forward and the ship-- he was beginning to think of the island as a ship-- soared toward the cone of the s.p.a.cecraft, which he could see glittering in the sun inside its wall near the palace. When Amra and the girls ran into the chamber and wished to throw their arms around him, he told them he"d be very glad to give each a big warm kiss later on. Right now he had work to do.
Amra"s smile was replaced by a frown.
"Do you mean you"re still thinking of leaving on the demon"s ship?" she said harshly.
"That depends on certain factors about which I don"t have enough information as yet to act on," he replied, somewhat stiffly.
The Earthman limped in. He was a tall, broad-shouldered but emaciated man. His bushy beard made his long, lean, big-eared, hawk-nosed face resemble Lincoln"s.
"Captain Walzer of the Terrestrial Interstellar Fleet, Intelligence," he said, weakly.
"Alan Green, marine food specialist. I"ve a long story to tell and no time to tell it. I would like to know if you can pilot that s.p.a.cer and if it"s in operating condition. Otherwise we might as well forget it and go elsewhere."
"Yes, I"m the pilot. Ha.s.san was the navigator and communications officer. Poor devil, he died in agony! Those beasts...!"
"I know how you feel, but we"ve no time to go into that. Is the ship ready to take off?"
Walzer sat down and leaned his head wearily to one side. Grizquetr offered him wine, and he took two long swallows and smacked his lips before replying.
"Ah, that"s the first drink I"ve had for two years! Yes, the bird"s ready to take off on a moment"s notice. We"d been on a mission whose purpose I can"t tell you. Security, you know. We were returning when we encountered this system. Since it"s part of our duty to report any T-type planet if we"ve time, we decided to stop off and stretch our legs. We"d been in s.p.a.ce so long we were beginning to suffer from claustrophobia and were ready to fly at each other"s throats. You know how it is if you"ve made any very long voyages. And those scouts have especially cramped quarters. They"re not made for long trips, but the nature of our mission required the use of one... well, we won"t go into that.
"Anyway, we were wild to breathe fresh air again, to see a horizon, to feel gra.s.s beneath our bare feet, to go swimming, to eat freshly killed meat and freshly picked fruit. We rationalized ourselves into the idea that it was our duty to land. We decided on this city because it was so conspicuous, stuck out here in the middle of this incredible plain. And, of course, when we got close enough to see that it seemed to be surrounded by a ring of s.p.a.ceships we had to enter the city itself and inquire about this phenomenon. We were greeted friendly enough, lulled into being off guard, then attacked. The rest of the story you know."
Green nodded and said, "Here we are. Just above the ship."
He rose from the chair and faced the group. "But before we take any further steps I think we ought to thrash out something right now that has been bothering Amra and me. Tell me, Walzer, is there enough room for Amra, Paxi, Soon, Grizquetr and myself? And perhaps for Inzax, if she wished to come along?"
Walzer"s eyes widened. "No, man, absolutely not! There"s barely s.p.a.ce for you, let alone anybody else."
Green held out his hands to Amra. "You see? I was afraid of this all the time. I"ll have to go without you."
He paused, swallowed, then said, "But I"ll return! I swear I will! I"ll get the Interstellar Archaeology Bureau interested in this planet. When I tell them of the Xurdimur, of the rocket-shaped towers, of the islands with their anti-gravity machines, they"ll not hesitate a moment in organizing an expedition. The chance of solving the mystery of how man spread all over the Galaxy in prehistoric times will be too strong for them.
"And I"ll come back with them. And I"ll make this planet my life work. I"ve a Ph.D. in ichthyology, and I can get accredited as a scientific member of the expedition. There"s no doubt about it!"
Amra fell into his arms, weeping, crying that she had known all the time that he couldn"t leave her. Then in the next breath she was swearing that he was just promising to return so he would avoid a scene.
"I know men well, Alan Green, and I know you, especially. You won"t come back!"
"Yes, I will, I swear it. If you know men so well, you ought to know that no man who is worthy of being called a man could even think of leaving a woman like you."
She smiled through her tears and said, "That"s what I wanted to hear you say. But, oh, Alan, it"ll be so long. Won"t it take at least two years?"
"Yes, at least. But it can"t be helped. I"ll worry about you while I"m gone. Or I would if I didn"t know how capable you were."
"I can learn how to run this island," she said half-sobbing, half-smiling. "By the time you get back I"ll probably be Queen of the Xurdimur. I could contact the Vings, and together we could have the whole plain and every city along its border under our thumbs. And..."
He laughed and said, "That was what I was afraid of."
Turning to Walzer, he said, "Look, you"re too weak to consider another long trip immediately. Why don"t you just follow this island in your ship until we get to a safe distance from here, say about a thousand miles due north? We"ll live on the island until you get your strength back and get over your claustrophobia. I imagine it wasn"t helped any by being cooped up in that dungeon. When you"re ready we"ll take off. In the meantime I can be showing Amra and Grizquetr just what can be done with the island. She can be living on it while I"m gone. We"ll trap wild life to replace the animals that were strangled when I went up too high for them to breathe. She can shuttle back and forth over the Xurdimur, or over the whole planet if she wishes. And she will, I hope, stay out of mischief until I get back."
"That"s fine," said Walzer. "I"ll get in the ship and follow you.
Three weeks later, the two Earthmen boarded the scout and closed the port behind them, the port that would not open again until they were on Earth, some four months subjective time away. They sat down in the control cabin, and Walzer began pushing b.u.t.tons and throwing switches.
Green wiped the sweat from his brow, the tears from his eyes, and said, "Whew!"
"A fine woman," said Walzer, sympathetically. "A rare beauty. She has a tremendous impact upon one."
"Something like crashing into a planet head-on," said Green. "She has the faculty of wringing out every last bit of energy left in the particular emotion she happens to be feeling at the moment. A great actress who believes in her roles."
"Her children are fine children, too," Walzer added, slowly and as if he were about to say something that might hurt Green"s feelings but was anxious not to do so. "You will be glad to see them again, of course."
"Of course. After all, Paxi"s my daughter, I love the others as if they were also mine."
"Ah," breathed Walzer. "Then you are going back to her?"
Green didn"t express surprise or anger, because he had guessed from Walzer"s actions just what he was thinking.
"You can"t imagine my wanting to live on that barbaric planet with that woman, can you?" he said, evenly. "That after all, there are serious gaps in our ways of thinking, in our behavior, in our education. Isn"t that what you meant by your statement?"
Walzer glanced out of the corners of his eyes at Green, then replied warily, "Well, yes. But you know what you want far better than I do." He paused, then added, "I must say I admire your courage."