 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson, San Jose, California. The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer. Chapters 19 through 21. Then Agha was blotted out by the dense cloud of dust that billowed out over her and filled the whole room. With it came an intense heat. Green opened his mouth to cry out to Amra and Paxi to cover their faces and especially their noses. Before he could do so, his own open mouth was packed with dust and his nostrils were full. He began sneezing and coughing explosively, while his eyes ran tears in their effort to wash out the dirt that caked and burned them. Clods of dirt struck him, hurled by the blast. They didn't hurt because they were so small and so fluffy. But they fell so swiftly and in such numbers that he was half buried under them. Even in the midst of his shock, he couldn't help being thankful that he'd been breathing out when the heat struck him. Otherwise he'd have sucked in air that would have seared his lungs and he'd have dropped dead. As it was, wherever his skin had not been covered by cloth, he felt as if he were suffering a bad case of sunburn. Painfully he rose on all fours and began crawling toward the other room, where he thought the dust would not be so thick. At the same time he tugged at Amra's arm, at least he supposed it was her arm, since she'd been so close to him when the explosion took place. His gesture was intended to tell her that she should follow him. She rose and followed him, touching him from time to time. Once she stopped and he turned to find out what was bothering her, even if he felt that he couldn't stand much more of the almost solid dust in his lungs and had to get out to open air or strangle. Then he knew that the woman was Amra, for she was carrying a child in her arms. The child had a scarf around her head, and as he remembered Paxi was the only infant so dressed. Coughing violently he rose to his feet, pulling Amra to hers, and swiftly walked toward where he hoped the exit was. He knew he'd fallen on his face in the general direction of the doorway. If he kept in a straight line he might make it without wandering off to one side. He found soon enough that he was going just opposite, for he fell headlong over a body on the floor. When he got up again he ran his hands over the body. The skin was crusty, scaly. Aga's burned corpse. The cutlass was lying by her side, assuring him of her identity. Reoriented he turned back, still pulling Amra by the hand. This time he ran into a wall, but he had his free hand stretched out in front of him for just such an event. Frantically he groped to his left until he came to the corner of the room. Then, knowing that the doorway lay back to his right, he turned and felt along the metal until he came to the opening. He plunged through it, almost fell into the other room, which was as dark and dusty as the one he'd just left. He trotted on ahead, bumped into another wall, groped to his right, found the next exit and ran through that. Here the air was much more free of dust. He could actually make out outlines of his companions as the light was penetrating the fainter haze. Nevertheless he and the others were coughing and weeping as if they were trying to eject lungs and eyeballs alike. Spasm after spasm shook them. Green decided that this room wasn't really much better than the others, so he led Amra and Paxi around the right-angled corner and into the dark tunnel. Here his violent rackings began to quiet down, and by rapid blinking, which forced tears, he cleaned his eyes of much of the dust. Anxiously he peered down the passageway towards its end, where the cave mouth formed a dim arch in the moonlight outside. It was as he feared. Somebody stood there, outlined in the beams, bent forward, peering in. He thought that it must be the priestess, for the figure was slight and the hair was pulled up on top of the head in a great psyche knot with a feather stuck through it. Moreover, around her feet were four or five cats. His coughing betrayed him, for the priestess suddenly whirled and trotted off on her stick-like legs. Green dropped Amra's hand and ran, at the same time drawing his stiletto from his belt, as he'd lost his cutlass during the explosion. He had to stop the priestess, though he didn't know what good it would do. The savages, sooner or later, would come to the sanctuary to ask if she'd seen any of the refugees. And if they couldn't find her, they would at once suspect what had happened. The chances were that they already knew. Surely the noise of the blast must have penetrated even to their ears. Or had it. The air waves had to round several perpendicular turns before reaching the cave-mouth, and it might be that the noise had seemed much greater to green than it actually was because he'd been so close to it. Perhaps there was some hope. He ran into the clearing before the cave-mouth. The sun was just coming over the horizon so he could see things clearly. The old woman was nowhere in sight. The only live things were several drunken cats. One of these began to rub its back against Green's leg and purred loudly. Automatically he stooped down and caressed it, though his gaze flickered everywhere for a sign of the priestess. The door of her hut was open, and since it was so small he could be certain that she had no room in there to hide from him. She must have run off down the path. If so, she wasn't making any noise about it. There were no outcries from her to call her companions to her help. He found her lying face down on the path, halfway down the hill. At first he thought she was playing possum, so he turned her over, his stiletto ready to shut off any outcry. A glance at her hanging jaw and ashen color convinced him that her possum-playing days were over. At first he thought she'd tripped and broken her neck, but an examination disproved this. The only thing he could think of was that her old heart had given away under the sudden fright and the stress of running. Something brushed his ankles. So startled was he, so convinced that a spear had just missed him, he leaped into the air and whirled around. Then he saw that it was only the cat that had rubbed against him when he'd first come out of the tunnel. It was a large female cat with a beautiful long black silky coat and with golden eyes. It exactly resembled the earth-cat and was probably descended from the same ancestors as its terrestrial counterpart. Wherever Homo sapiens of the unthinkably long ago had penetrated he seemed to have taken his canine and feline pets. You like me, ha! said Green. Well, I like you, too, but I'm not going to if you keep on scaring me. I've been through enough tonight for a lifetime. The cat, purring, paced delicately toward him. Maybe you can do me some good, he said, and lifted the cat to his shoulder where he crouched, vibrating with contentment. I don't know what you see in me, he confided softly to her. I must be a frightful-looking object, what with being covered with dust and my eyes red and raw and running, but then you're not so delightful yourself, what with your beery breath blowing in my face. I like you very much. What's your name? What is your name? Let's call you Lady Luck. After all, when I rubbed you I found the priestess dead. If she hadn't died she'd have run away to warn the cannibals. And obviously you, her luck, had deserted her for me. So Lady Luck it will be. Let's go back up the hill and see what's happened to the rest of my friends. He found Amra sitting down at the cave's mouth, cuddling Paxi in an effort to quiet her. Nine others were there, too. Gris Quetter, Soon, Miran, Inzax, three women, two little girls. The rest, he presumed, were lying dead or unconscious in the altar room. They made a dirty-looking, red- eyed, weary group, not good for much except lying down and passing out. Look, he said. We have to get some sleep, whatever else happens. We'll go back into the first chamber and get some there. And, as one, the others protested that nothing would get them to return anywhere near that horrible, fiend-haunted room. Green was at a loss. He thought he knew exactly what had happened, but he just could not explain to these people in terms they'd understand. And they probably would have a dark distrust of him from then on. He decided to take the simple, if untrue explanation. Undoubtedly, Aga provoked a host of demons by striking at that wall behind the altar, he said. I tried to warn her. You all heard me. But those demons won't bother us again, for we are now under the protection of the cat, the cannibals totem. Moreover, it is the nature of such beings that, once they've released their fury and have taken some victims, they are harmless, quiescent for a long time after. It takes time for them to build up strength enough to hurt human beings again. They swallowed this offering as they never would have his other explanation. If you will lead the way, they said, we will return. We put our lives in your hands. Before going into the cave, he paused to take another survey. From his spot in the clearing, which was almost on the top of the hill, he could look out over the treetops and see most of the island, except where other hills barred his view. The island had stopped moving, and had settled down against the plain itself. Now, to the untutored eye, the entire mass looked like a clump of dirt, rocks, and vegetation, for some reason rising in the grassy seas. It would remain so until dusk, when it would again launch itself upon its five-mile-an-hour journey to the east. And once, having reached a certain point there, it would reverse itself and begin its nocturnal pilgrimage toward the west. Back and forth, shuttling for how many thousands of years, what was its purpose and whom had its builders been? Surely they could not have conceived in their wildest dreams of its present use a mobile fortress for a tribe of cannibals, nor could they have seen to what uses their dust collectors would be put. They couldn't have guessed that, millennia thence, men ignorant of their originally intended purpose, would be using the devices as part of their religious ritual and of human sacrifice. Green left the others in the room next to the one where the explosion had taken place. They lay down on the hard floor and at once went to sleep. He, however, felt that there were certain things that had to be done, and that he was the only one physically capable of doing them. Though he hated to go back into the altar room, he forced himself. The scene of carnage was bad enough, but not as repulsive as he'd expected. Dust had thrown a gray veil of mercy over the bodies. They looked like peaceful gray statues. Most of them had not burned on the outside, but had died because they'd breathed the first lung-scorching wave of air directly. Nevertheless, despite the look of peace and antiquity, the odor of burned flesh from Aga hung heavy. Lady Luck bristled and arched her back, and for a moment Green thought she was going to leap from his shoulder and run away. He said, Take it easy. Then decided that she must have smelled this often before. Her present reaction was based on past episodes. Probably there had been great excitement then. The cats, being taboo animals, must have been figures of some importance in the sacrificial ceremonies. Cautiously, the man approached the wall of dirt behind the altar, even though he did not think there would be any danger for some time to come. The altar itself was comparatively undamaged. Surprised at this, he ran his hand over it, and found out that it was composed of baked clay, hard as rock. The chair and metal rod had not been torn loose. Both were tightly bolted down with huge studs, which he supposed had been taken off wrecked rollers. The victims that were tied in the chair by the savages must have been sitting looking at the audience, so that their backs were to the wall itself. That meant that when the rod was dropped to make contact between the wall and the victim, the discharge only burned the sacrifice's head. Evidence of that was the fact that only skulls were stacked around the altar. The charred head was severed, and the body carted outside to one destination or another. What puzzled Green was how the audience managed to escape the fury of the blast and of the dust, even if they stood at the farthest end of the room. Determined to find out what happened at those times, he returned to the doorway. Just around its corner, in the second room, he discovered what he'd not noticed before, probably because it was placed so upright and so firmly against one side of the wall, and because its back, which was turned away from the wall, was also made of gray metal. When he switched it around so he could see its other side, he was staring into a mirror about six feet high and four feet wide. Now he could visualize the ceremony. The victim was strapped into the chair, and a rope was tied around the rod. Everybody but the priestess, or whoever conducted the rites, retreated from the altar room. The conductor himself, or herself, then stood in the doorway and released the cord. Before the rod could make contact, the conductor had stepped around the corner. And there the audience saw in the mirror, placed in the doorway so it reflected the interior of the altar room, the ravening discharge of a tremendous electrostatic blast. And immediately afterward, no doubt, they saw nothing because of the dust that would fill the two rooms. Strange and strong magic to the savages. What myths they must have built around this room? What tales of horrible and powerful gods or demons imprisoned in that wall of dirt? Surely their old women must whisper to the wide-eyed children stories of how the great cat-spirit had been caught by their legendary strongman and savior, some analog to Hercules or Gilgamesh or Thor, and how the cat-spirit was the tribes to keep prisoner with their magic and to appease from time to time with human kills from other tribes lest it become so angry it burst through the wall of earth and devour everybody upon the floating island. Green knew that it was hopeless to try to dig through that wall, even if it would be safe for days. It might only be several feet thick, or it might be twenty or more. But however thick it was, he bet that anybody who had the tools, time and strength to excavate would find, embedded somewhere in that mass, several large dust collectors. He didn't know what shape they'd take, because that would depend on the culture that had built them, and their tastes and decorations would differ from Green's multi-millennia later of society. But if they had architectural ideas similar to present-day Terrans, they would have constructed the collectors in the shape of busts, or of animals' heads, or even of bookcases with false backs of books filling them, books that would in reality have been both chargers and filters. The busts, or books, would have been pierced with so many tiny holes, and through these holes the charged particles of dust would have drifted. Once inside the collectors they would have been burned. Looking at the blank dirt before him, Green could see what had happened through the ages. Some part of the burning mechanism had gone wrong, as was the custom of mechanisms everywhere. But the charging effect had continued, and though the dust had piled up around the collectors, the extraordinarily powerful fields had continued to work even through the thick blanket. In the beginning, of course, their field could not have caused any human being harm. But these batteries must have been built to adjust to whatever demand was made of them, though their builders, of course, could have had no idea of how great that demand would some day be. Nevertheless it had come, and the batteries had been equal to it. By the time the savages had found this room they were blocked off by this imposing wall. Through the death of their fellows they had discovered that touching the wall caused a terrible discharge of electrostatic electricity. The rest of the apparatus for execution and the ritual that went with it was foregone and logical, religiously speaking. Green swore with frustration. How he would love to get through that dirt before another charge built up. On the other side must be another doorway, and it must lead to the fuel and control rooms for this whole island. If he could get inside and there figure out the controls he'd turn this island upside down and shake off the man-eating monsters. There'd be no holding him then. He remembered the story of Sam Drew, the tailor who turned sailor. The legend went that Sam Drew, his roller wrecked upon just such a roaming island as this one, had wandered into just such a cave and threw rooms like these. But he'd found no barrier of electrically charged dirt and had walked into a room which contained many strange things. One of them was a great eye that allowed Sam Drew to seen it what was happening outside the cave. Another was a board which contained many round faces over which raced little squiggles and lines. Of course the story had its own explanations for what these things were, but Green could hardly fail to recognize TV, oscilloscopes, and other instruments. Unfortunately his knowledge was going to do him no good. He wasn't going to get through that dirt. Nor was he to be allowed time for excavation and exploration. Every minute on this island meant that he was traveling back to Quartz and its revengeful Duchess and getting farther from Astoria where the two spacemen and their ship were. He had to find a way of getting off this place and onto some means of transportation. He left the death chamber and went into the next room. After slumping down against the wall between Amra with Paxi in her arms and Inzaks with Gris Quetter in hers, he chewed some dried meat. Lady Luck meowed for some and he gladly gave her all she wanted. When he'd swallowed all he could hold without bursting, and had washed that down with great drafts of the warm and sweet beer taken from the priestess's hut, he closed his eyes. Now it was up to his vigilante to take the food and rebuild his wasted tissue, throw off the effects of the auto-intoxication, tone his tired muscles, relax his two taut nerves, readjust his hormonal balance. Green dreamed that his mouth and nose were clogged with dirt and that he was suffocating. He woke to find that, while there was no earth upon him, he was having a difficult time getting his breath. Remedying that by removing the cat from his face, he rose. What do you want? He asked her. She was mewing and striking gently at him. She padded toward the doorway to the outside, so he imagined that she wished him to follow him. Grasping his cutlass, he walked after her and out to the tunnel that led to the cave mouth. Not until then did he hear the booming of cannon, far away. The cat meowed plaintively. Evidently she'd heard cannon fire before and had not liked the results. Once out of the cave he stopped to look up at the sun. It was on its downward path from the zenith, about four o'clock in the afternoon. He'd slept about ten hours. Unable to see much from where he stood, he climbed up the rocks outside the cave and soon stood upon the very top of the hill, a little table-land about ten feet square. From there he commanded as good a view of the island as anyone could get. Tacking around the periphery of the island were three long, low, black-hulled rollers with over-large wheels and scarlet sails. Occasionally a lance of red spurred it from one of the vessel's ports. A boom reached Green's ears a few seconds later and he would see the iron ball climb up and up, then fall toward the village. A tree around the clearing would lose a limb or a spurt of dust would show where a ball landed in the clearing itself. Two of the long houses had big holes in their roofs. The village itself was deserted, as no one with good sense would have remained there. None of the cannibals were visible, but that wasn't surprising considering how thick the woods were. Green hoped the Vings would land soon and clean out the savages. That would leave him and his party a clear field, unless the pirates investigated the cave in the same day. If they didn't, then the refugees could leave the island and take to the plains under cover of the night. Anxiously Green traced the path that led from the hilltop where he stood and wound down to the village. It was a narrow trail and he often lost sight of it, but always there was a difference in the shading of the treetops along the trail and the rest of the forest. With his eye he could follow the shading to the village and beyond, toward the back or western part of the island. It was here that he came across the first sign of hope he had had since the wreck of the Bird of Fortune. It was a small break in the vegetation which ran uninterrupted to the very edge of the island, a shelf of seemingly smooth earth, almost hidden from him by the slope of the terrain. Indeed he could barely make it out and might have missed it altogether, but he saw the masts of three small rollers projecting from above the slope and followed them down toward the hulls. All three were yachts, obviously not of islander make. Beyond the stolen craft were the uprights of davits. These were behind a wall of branches, camouflaged for anybody outside the island, but visible to those on the inside. It was all Green could do to keep from whooping with joy. Now he and his party wouldn't have to cast themselves on foot on the dangerous plains. They could sail in comparative safety. Now, while the cannibals were cowering helplessly under the bombardment, Green could lead his people through the woods to the yachts. When dust came and the island began moving again, they could lower a yacht from the davits and set sail. He went back to the cave entrance, where he found everybody awake, waiting for him. He told them what he'd seen and added, If the vings come aboard, we'll take advantage of the confusion and escape. Moran looked at the sun and shook his head. The vings won't attack now. It's too close to dusk. They'll want a full day for fighting. They'll follow the island to night. When dawn comes and the island stops, they'll board. I bow to your superior experience, Green said. Only I'd like to ask you one thing. Why don't the vings launch their small craft at night and land boarding parties from them? Moran looks surprised. No one does that. It's unthinkable. Don't you know that at night the planes abound in spirits and demons? The vings wouldn't think of taking a chance on what the magic of the savages might eluse against them in the darkness. I knew of the general attitude, but it had slipped my mind, admitted Green. But if this is so, why did you all wander about this place the night the bird was wrecked? That was a situation where we preferred the somewhat uncertain possibility of stumbling across demons to the certainty of being killed by the cannibals, said Moran. To be honest, said Amra, I was too scared to think of ghosts. If I had, I might have stayed where I was. No, I wouldn't either. I've never seen a ghost, but I had seen those savages. Well, said Green, all of you might as well make up your mind that, come ghosts, demons, or men, we're walking through the dark tonight. All those too scared will have to stay behind. He began issuing orders, and in a short time he had the sleepy eyed, bedraggled, and dirty-looking party ready. After that he turned to watch the bombardment. By then it had largely ceased. Only occasionally did one of the vessels loose a single cannon-shot. The rest of the time they spent intacting back and forth and running up close to the very edge of the island. I think they are trying the temper of the island's inhabitants, Green said. They don't know whether the woods can seal a hundred savages or a thousand, or whether they're armed with cannons and musket or just with spears. They want to draw fire so they can get an estimate of what they're facing. He turned to Moran. Which reminds me, why is it that the natives don't use guns? They must have had a chance to get their hands on many from the wrecks. The fat merchant shrugged and rolled his one good eye to indicate that he didn't really know, but was making a guess. Probably they have a taboo against using firearms. Whatever the reason, they're evidently suffering because they neglect them. Look how few they are. Only fifty men. They must have lost quite a few through raids from other savage tribes, both from those who live upon the plain itself and from those who live on the other roaming islands. They're down to the point now where they must die out within a generation, even without help from such as those, he said, pointing to the wing-rollers. Yes, and I suppose that during the daytime, when the island is stopped, grass-cats and dire-dogs board it. These must take their toll of the humans. He gazed again at the red sails and wheels of the wings. I'd think that those pirates would take every island they could and would use them as bases from which to operate. They do, said Amra. For a generation now, the wings have been scouring the plains, locating the islands and exterminating the savages on them. Then they fortified the islands, so that you might say that today the excertimer is dominated by them. But there's a drawback to an island as a harbor. No large rotor may get very close, except in the daylight. They have to put out to the grass every night and follow their base at a safe distance until dawn. However, though the fings are well established on many roamers, they're often attacked by navies of various nations and sometimes driven off. Then the nation that takes possession of the island has a nice little base. And, of course, quite often they use it to launch their own piratical ventures against the craft of countries at peace with them. Oh, the excertimer is a land where every man's hand is against the other, and the devil take the ones with short sail. A man may make his fortune or break his heart, all in a night's work. But then you know that only too well. Green interrupted. We'll leave them and the natives too when the moonlight gets here. I only hope that there aren't other ving-craft in the neighborhood. What a God's will happens, replied Moran. His sad face projected the belief that if he, the favorite of Menorocs, could come to the grief, then Green could expect even worse. When dusk came, Green walked from the cave into the dark and hard rain. Behind him came Amra, one hand upon his shoulder, the other supporting Paxi. The rest were stretched out in a line behind her, each person's hand on the shoulder of the one ahead. The black cat was underneath Green's coat, riding in a large pocket of his shirt. She had made it plain to him that where he went, she went. And Green, to avoid a big fuss, and also because he was beginning to feel very affectionate toward her, allowed her to come along. The descent from the hill-top was an anxious and stumbling trip. Green, after ten minutes of groping along the path, had to acknowledge he did not know where he was. So many windings had the path taken that he did not know whether he was going east, north, south, or in the right direction, west. Actually, it didn't matter as long as it brought him to the edge of the island. He could skirt the edge until he arrived at the fleet-craft that would give them a chance for flight. The trouble was in finding that rim. He was afraid that it would be possible to wander in circles and figure eights until moonlight. Then, though they'd be able to orient themselves, they'd also be exposed to the view of the cannibals. And if they found themselves, say, at the eastern edge, their journey around would be perilous indeed. Occasional lightning flashed, and then he could make out his immediate environment. These brief revelations weren't much help. All he could see were the solid-seeming walls of tree trunks and bushes. Suddenly, Amra spoke. Do you think we're getting close? He stopped so suddenly that the entire line lurched into him. Lightning burst again, quite close by. The cat, curled in his coat-pocket, spat and tried to shrink into an even smaller ball. Absently, Green patted her from outside the coat. He said, Your name is Lady Luck. I just saw the village. Now we're getting someplace. I really needed that reference. He wasn't worried about the inhabitants of the village. All were undoubtedly cowering under the roofs of their longhouses, praying to whatever gods they worshipped that they would not send the lightning their way. There would be little danger if the whole party were to walk through the center of the village. He planned to take no chances at all, however, and ordered everybody to follow him around the clearing. It won't be long now, he said to Amra. Pass the word back and cheer everybody up. Half an hour later he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. It was true that he'd followed the wandering path to the cove where the boats were kept. But he'd at once drawn his dread in pain of surprise. A lightning bolt had illuminated the gray rock walls of the cove, its broad shelf, and the high black iron davits. But the yachts were gone. End of chapters 19 through 21. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson, San Jose, California. The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer. Chapters 22 through 24. Later Green thought that if ever the time came when he should have cracked up, that instant of loss, white and sudden as the lightning itself, should have been the one. The others cried out loudly in their grief and shock. But he was as silent as the empty stone shelf. He could not move nor utter a word. All seemed hopeless, so what was the use of motion or talk? Nevertheless he was human, and human beings hope, even when there is no justification for it. Nor could he remain frozen until the next stroke of lightning would reveal to the others the state of their leader. He had to act. What if his actions were meaningless? Mere movement answered for the demands of the body, and at that moment it was his body that could move. His mind was congealed. Shouting to the others to scatter and look about in the brush, but not to scatter too far, he began climbing up the slope of the hill. When he had reached its top he left the path and plunged into the forest to his right, on the theory that if the yachts were anywhere they must be there. He had two ideas about where they might be. One was that the Vings had spotted them, and had sent in a party aboard a gig to push them over the side of the island. Thus, when the island had begun its nightly voyage, it had left the rollers sitting upon the plane. The other theory was also inspired by the presence of the Vings. Perhaps the savages had hidden their craft, because of just such an event as his first theory put forth. To do that they would have had to haul the rollers up the less steep slant of the cove. At the point where he would have looped a rope around a tree and used it to pull a yacht up hill, he saw all three of the missing craft. They were nestling side by side just over the lip of the slope, their hulls hidden by brush piled up before them. Their tall masts, of course, would be taken for tree trunks by anybody but a very close observer. Green yelled with joy, then whirled to run back and tell the others, and slammed into a tree trunk. He picked himself up, swearing because he'd heard his nose, and tripped over something and fell again. Thereafter he seemed to be in a nightmare of frustration, of conspiracy between tree and night to catch and delay him. Where his trip up had been easy, his trip back was a continued barking of shins, bumping of nose, and tearing loose from clutching bushes and thorns. His confusion wasn't at all helped when the lightning ceased, because he'd been guiding himself by its frequent flashes. And Lady Luck, alarmed at all the hard knocks she was getting, struggled out of his shirt pocket and slipped into the forest. He called to her to come back, but she had had enough of him, for the time being, anyway. For a brief moment he thought of the fantastic device of grabbing hold of her tail and following her through the dark. But she was gone, and the idea wouldn't have worked anyway. More than likely she'd have turned and bitten his hands until he released her. There was nothing to do but make his own way back. After ten minutes of frantic struggling, during which he suddenly realized he turned the wrong way and was wandering away from the edge of the island, he saw the clouds disappear. With the bright moon came vision and sanity. He turned around and in a short time was back at the cove. What happened to you, asked Amra. We thought maybe you'd fallen off the edge. That's about all that didn't happen, he said, irritated now that he'd been so easily lost. He told them where the yachts were, and added, We'll have to let one down by a rope before we can connect it to the davits. It'll take a lot of pushing and pulling, a lot of muscle. Everybody up on the hill, including the children. Wearily they climbed up the slope to the top and shoved one of the rollers up the slight incline of the depression to the lip of the hill. Green picked up one of the wet ropes lying on the ground and passed it around the tree. Its trunk had a groove where many ropes had worn a path during similar operations. One end he gave to half of the party, putting Moran in charge of them. The other end he tied in a bow knot to a huge iron eye which projected from the stern of the craft. Then, ordering the other half of the women to help him push, he got the roller over the lip and down the slope, while the rope gang slowly released the double loop around the tree in short jerks. When the craft had halted by the davits, green untied the rope. His next step would be to back the yacht in between the davits so that he could hook up its ropes and lift it. Fortunately there was a winch and a cable for this. Unfortunately the winch was hand operated and had been allowed to get rusty. It would work only with great resistance and with loud squeaking. Not that more noise mattered, for the party had made so much that only the fact that the wind was from the east could have kept the savages in ignorance of the survivor's whereabouts. It was as if his thinking of them had brought them upon the scene. Gris Quetter, who'd been stationed in a tree as a sentinel, called down. I see a torch. It's somewhere in the woods, about a half-mile away. Oh! There's another one! And another one! Green said. Do you think they're on the path that leads here? I don't know. But they're coming this way, winding here and there, wandering like Sam Drew when he was lost in the mirrored mazes of the Gil Kaku, the black one. Yes, they must be on the path. Green began feverishly tying the davit ropes to the axles of the craft. He sweated with anxiety and cursed when his fumbling fingers got in the way of his haste. But the tying of the four bonots actually took less than a minute, in spite of the way time seemed to race past him. That done, he had to order off the yacht some of the women who had climbed aboard. Only the women who had to take care of very small infants and the older children were to be on that boat. Just who do you think is going to work the winch? he barked at the two eager. Now jump to it! One of the women on the roller wailed. Are you going to stay on that island and leave us all alone on this roller in the midst of the exerdimer? No, he answered as calmly as possible. We're going to lower you to the ground. Then we're going back up the hill and shove the other rollers over the edge so that they can't be used by the savages to come after us. We'll jump off and walk back to you. Seeing that the women were still not convinced and softened by their pitiable looks, he called to Gris Quetter. Come down and get on the boat! And when the boy had run down the slope and halted by his side, breathing hard and looking up at him for his orders, Gris said, I'm delegating to you to guard these women and babies until we arrive, OK? OK, said Gris Quetter, grinning, his chest swelling because of the importance of the duty. I'm the captain until you climb aboard, is that it? You're a captain and a good one too, said Gris, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. Then he ordered the winches turned until the roller was hoisted into the air a few inches. As soon as the rusty machines had groaningly fulfilled their functions, he had the craft lowered over the edge and down to the plane. The transition was smoothly made. The yacht's wheels began turning, the nose lifted only slightly because of the superior pull on the ropes tied to the bow. The stern ropes were paid out a little to equalize the strain. Then, obeying Gris' gesture, the women aboard it pulled at the bow knots, which untied simultaneously. Not until then did he breathe a little easier, for if one or more had refused to slip loose as swiftly as another the craft might have been pulled up on one side or dragged around by either end and thus capsized. For a few seconds he watched the rollers slip away, coasting on its momentum but headed at right angles to the direction of the island. Then it had stopped and it began to grow smaller as the island left it behind. From it came the thin wailing of his daughter Paxi. It broke the spell that momentarily held him. He began running up the slope, shouting, Follow me! Reaching the crest of the hill ahead of the others, he took time for a glance through the woods. Sure enough, torches bobbed up and down and flickered in and out as they passed between tree-trunks, and there were drums beating somewhere on the island. Lady Luck shot out of the woods, leaped upon Green's knee, scaled his shirt front, and came to rest on his shoulder. Ah! you wandering wench, you, he said. I knew you couldn't stay away from my irresistible charm, now could you? Lady Luck didn't reply, but gazed anxiously at the forest. Never fear, my pretty little one, he said, they'll not touch a hair of my fine blonde head, nor a silky black one of yours. By then the others, puffing and panting, had gained the top of the hill. He sent them to pushing on the stern of a yacht, and in a minute they had sent it headlong down the hill. When it rushed over the edge and disappeared with a crash on the plain below, they had all they could do to restrain their cheers. Small revenge for the suffering they'd had to undergo, but it was something. Now for the other, said Green, then everybody run as if the demons of Gil-Kakoo were on your tails. Grunting they pushed the last roller up the little incline, then gathered their strength for the final heave that would launch it to upon its last voyage, and at that moment some savages who'd been running ahead of the torch-bearers burst out of the woods. Green took one look and realized that they would get between the edge of the island and his party. There were about ten of them. They not only outnumbered his own force, but were strong men against women, and they had spears, where his people were armed mainly with cutlasses. Green didn't waste any time in meditation. Everybody aboard except Moran and me, he said loudly, don't argue, get in, we're riding through them, lie flat on the deck. Screaming the women scrambled over the low rail and onto the deck, and as soon as the last one was on, the earth-man and Moran put their shoulders to the stern and pushed. For a second it looked as though their combined strength would not be enough, as if the party should have shoved the craft a little farther over the lip of the hill before stopping. There's not time to get them out again to help us, panted Green. Dig in, Moran, get that fat into gear. Shove, damn you, shove! It seemed to him that he was breaking his own collarbone under the pressure, and that he'd never felt such a hard and cutting wood in all his life. And it seemed that the roller was stubbornly refusing to move until the cannibals arrived in time to save it, like the Marines. His legs quivered, and his intestines, he was sure, were writhing about like snakes, striking here and there against the wall of his belly, seeking a weak place where they might erupt through into the open air and leave this man who subjected them to such toil. There was a shout from the warriors assembled below, and a thud of their feet as they charged up. Now or never, shouted Green, his face felt like one big blood vessel, and he was sure that he was going to blow his top, literally. But the roller moved forward, crept slowly, groaned, or was that he, and began moving swiftly, too swiftly, down the slope, too swiftly because he had to run after it, grab the taff rail and haul himself over, and while he was doing that he had to extend a hand to Moran, who wasn't as fast on his feet. Fortunately Amra had the presence of mind enough to grab Moran by the shoulder of his shirt and help pull. Over the rail he came, crying out in pain as his big stomach burned against the hard mahogany, but not forgetting the bag of jewels clutched in his hand. Lady Luck had already deserted her post on Green's shoulder when he began pushing. Now she meowed softly and pressed against him, scared at the shaking of the deck and the rumbling of the wheels as the craft sped downhill. He pulled her to him in the protection of the crook of his arm, and reared up on his elbow to see what he could see. What he saw was a spear flying straight at him. It shot by so close he fancied he could feel the sharp edge of its blade graze him, and there was nothing of his imagination about the woman's scream that rose immediately afterward. It sounded so much like Amra that he was sure she'd been hit. However, he had no time to turn and find out. An islander had appeared by the side of the yacht, and as the deck was on a level with his chest the fellow could see them all easily enough. His arm flew back, then leaped forward, and the spear he held darted straight at Green. No, not at him, but at Lady Luck. Another warrior, a little farther down the slope, screaming something, also thrust at the cat. Evidently, felines were no longer taboo on this island. The former worshippers considered that their totem had deserted them, and therefore deserved death. Lady Luck, however, had the traditional line lives. None of the razor-sharp blades came very close to her, and in the next few seconds the savages were left howling upon the slope, or lying unconscious on the spot where the roller had struck them. The vessel sped down the steep incline, bumped hard as it roared out upon the stone shelf and flew into the air. Green flattened himself out against the deck, hoping thus to dampen the effect of the three-foot drop onto the plane. Somehow he became separated from the deck, was floating in the air and saw the planks rushing up at him. There was a brief interlude of darkness before Green awoke, and realized that the meeting of the deck and his face had done the latter no good at all, and might have resulted in considerable damage. He was sure of it when he spit out his two front teeth. However, his pain was overwhelmed by the rush of joy at having escaped, for the island was retreating across the flat moonlit exurdimer while its inhabitants screamed and jumped with fury and frustration on the rim, unable to bring themselves to leap after the refugees. Home was where the island was, and they weren't going to get left behind for the sake of revenge. I hope the Vings exterminate you to-morrow, muttered Green. Wearily and painfully he rose to his feet and surveyed what was left of the clan F. and Iken. Amra was unhurt. If it was she who'd screamed when the spear had passed over Green, she'd done it from fright. The spear itself was sticking out from the base of the mast, its head half buried in the wood. He climbed over the side and inspected the damage done by the three-foot drop. One of the wheels had fallen off, and an axle was bent. Shaking his head, he spoke to the others. This roller is done for. Let's start walking. We've a boat to catch. Two weeks later the yacht was scutting along under a 20 mile an hour wind. It was high noon, and everybody except the helmsman, Amra and Moran was eating. They were lunching on steaks carved from a hoober which Green had shot from the deck, and which had been cooked on the fireplace, placed under a hood immediately aft of the small foredeck. There was no lack of food, despite the fact that the yacht had not been stocked. Fortunately the savages who'd owned it had not bothered to remove the several pistols and the keg of powder and sack of balls from its locker. With this Green killed enough deer and hoovers to keep everybody well fed. Amra supplemented their protein diet with grass, which her culinary art turned into a halfway decent salad. At times when they neared a grove of trees, Green would stop the yacht. They would go foraging for berries and for a large plant which could be beaten until soft, mixed with water, kneaded and baked into a kind of bread. Once a grass cat dashed out from behind a tree, making straight for inzaks. Green and Moran, both firing at the same time, crumpled it within ten yards of the little blonde. The grass cats, big cheetah-like creatures with long, slim legs built for running, were only apparel when the party left the yacht, though fully capable of leaping aboard when the roller was in movement, they never did. Sometimes they might pace it for a mile or so, then they would contemptuously walk away. Green wished he could say the same for the dire dogs. These were almost as large as the grass cats and ran in packs from six to twelve. Sinister-looking with their gray and black-spotted coats, pointed wolfish ears and massive jaws, they would run up to the very wheels, howling and snapping with their monstrous yellow fangs. Then one would be inspired with the idea of leaping aboard and finding out how the occupants tasted. Up he would come, easily sailing over the railing. Usually the occupants would discourage him with a well-placed thrust from a spear or an amputating swing of a cutlass. Sometimes they missed, and he would land on the deck, which enabled the sailors to try again with better success. Back over the rail his body would go, back to his fellows, many of whom would stop the chase to devour their dead comrade. Those who persisted in the hunt would then try their luck, bounding upon the yacht, snarling hideously, trying to scare their quarry into a complete paralysis and sometimes succeeding. No lives were lost to the dire dogs, but almost everybody bore scars. Only Lady Luck managed to stay unscathed. Every time she heard their distant howling, she scaled amassed and would not come down until the danger was over. Today they had not been bothered. Everybody relaxed, chattering and munching happily the unexciting but nutritious meat of the Hooper. Moran stood upon the foredeck, sighting at the sun through his sextant. This also had been found in the locker, along with some charts of the excertimer. Though the charts had had their locations marked in an alphabet unknown to anybody aboard, Moran had been able to compare them in his mind to the charts he'd left on the Bird of Fortune. He had crossed out the foreign names and put in names in the Kilkrizen alphabet. He'd done this only at the insistence of Green, who didn't trust Moran to translate for him, and wanted to be able to read the maps himself. Not only that, he'd forced the fat merchant to teach both him and Amra how to use the clumsy and complicated, but fairly accurate, sextant. A few days later, after Green and his wife had begun to study the navigation instrument, there occurred the accident that forced Green to take further measures to safeguard himself. He and Moran had been standing at the stern, ready with their pistols while Amra steered the yacht toward a group of Hoopers. They were going through their usual maneuver of running down a herd until the exhausted animals could be overtaken. Just as they neared an orange-coloured stallion galloping furiously, Green raised his pistol. At the same time he was vaguely aware that Moran had also sited but had stepped back, behind and to one side of him. Sensitive about wasting any of the valuable ammunition, Green had turned his head to warn Moran not to shoot unless he, Green, missed. It was then that he saw the muzzle swerving toward the back of his head. He ducked, fully expecting to get his brains blown out before he could shout a warning. But Moran, seeing his reaction, lowered the muzzle and puzzedly asked Green what he was doing. Green didn't answer. Instead he took the gun away from Moran's limp grip and silently put it away in the locker. Neither he nor the merchant ever referred to the incident, nor did Moran ask why he was not permitted to take part in any shooting thereafter. That convinced Green that the fellow had fully intended to shoot him and then claim to the others that it had been an accident. To forestall any more attempts at accidents, Green told Amra that if he were to disappear some dark night she was to see that a certain person was shot and thrown overboard. He did not name the certain person, but he mentioned his sex and as Moran was the only other man on the yacht there was no doubt about to whom he referred. Thereafter Moran was most cooperative, always smiling and joking. However Green caught him now and then with frowning brows and a thoughtful expression. He was either fingering a stiletto or the bag of jewels he carried inside his shirt. Green could imagine that he was planning something for the day they reached Astoria. Now on this day two weeks after they left the island Moran was shooting the sun and Green was waiting until he was through so he could check on him. If his calculations were correct the yacht should be directly east of Astoria, two hundred miles. If they maintained their average rate of twenty-five miles an hour they'd reached the windbreak in a little over eight hours. The fat merchant quit looking through the eyepiece of his instrument and walked to the cockpit where his charts and papers were. Green took the sextant from him and made his own observations, then checked with Moran in the narrow and crowded cockpit. We agree, said Green, indicating with the pencil tip a round scarlet spot on the chart. We should be siding this island within four hours. Yes, replied Moran, that is an old landmark. It has been there a hundred miles due east of Astoria since before my grandfather's time. It was once a roaming island, but it long ago quit moving and has stayed on that one spot. That is nothing unusual. Every captain knows of these fixed islands scattered all over the Exerdimer and every now and then we have to add a new red mark to our charts because one of the roamers has settled down. He paused, then added a statement that set Green's heart to beating fast. The unusual thing about this island is that it did not stop of its own accord. It was halted by the magic of the Astorians, and it has been kept in that one place ever since by their magic. What do you mean? asked Green eagerly. Moran's round pale blue eyes stared at him blankly. What do you mean what do I mean? I mean just what I said, nothing more. I mean what magic did they contrive to halt this roamer? Why, they put up certain peculiar towers in its path, and when the island began going backwards to get out of the trap and go around it, they moved other towers to block its retreat. These towers moved fast on many well-greased wheels. Once the circle was complete the island couldn't move, nor has it been able to move since. These towers intrigue me. How did the Astorians know how to halt these islands? And if they've succeeded with one, why not with the others? I do not know. Perhaps because the towers are huge and costly and don't move too fast. Perhaps it is not worthwhile to the Astorians to capture many. As for their knowledge, I think they got it from their ancestors. It was their great great great and then some grandfathers who originally built Astoria in the middle of the plain and protected it from being crushed by these islands by placing these many towers all around their city. But it cost them much wood and time and perhaps they lost interest after that. Moran indicated a castle inked in beside the red spot. That castle means that a military or naval fortification has been built there on the island. It was the furthest eastern garrison of the Astorians. When we come within sighting distance of it, we are supposed to report. Of course, if we wish to avoid it, we may sail to the north or south and swing around it. But then we will have to report to the windbreak master of the city itself. They are rather hostile to captains who have failed to have their papers checked at the fort of Shemduk. Even if the craft is such a small and weak one as this, the Astorians are a suspicious people. Yes, thought Green, and I'll bet that you intend to inflate their distrust with certain information about me. He rose from the cockpit, and at the same time he heard Amra hail him from her station at the helm. Island on the horizon, she said, and many glittering white objects placed before it. Green refrained from comment. But he had a hard time concealing his excitement, which grew with every turn of the wheels. He paced back and forth, stopping now and then to shade his eyes and look long at the white towers. Finally, as they got so near that he could no longer be mistaken about their size or the details of their peculiar structure, he could contain himself no longer. He whooped with joy and kissed Amra on the cheek, and danced around and around the foredeck, while the women stared with embarrassment and concern, and the children giggled, all wondering if he'd gone mad. Spaceships, spaceships, he howled in English, dozens of them, it must be an expedition. I'm saved, saved, spaceships, spaceships. They were a magnificent sight, those many cones pointing their skyscraping noses upward, and their spreading landing struts sinking into the soft earth. Their white eternal metal gleamed in the sun, dazzling the spectator who happened to catch their radiance full in the eyes. They were glorious, embodying all the vast wisdom and skill of the greatest civilization of the galaxy. No wonder, thought Green, that I dance and howl, while these people look at me if I'm mad, and Amra, tears in her eyes, shakes her head and says something to herself, what can they know of the meaning of those splendors? What indeed? Hey, shouted Green, hey, here I am, an earthman. Maybe I look like one of these barbarians with my long hair and bushy beard and dirty skin, but I'm not. I'm Alan Green, an earthman. Of course they couldn't have heard him at that distance, even if somebody had been standing beneath the spaceships to hear him, but he howled with sheer exuberance, not worrying about wasting his breath and making himself hoarse. Finally, Amra interrupted him. What is the matter, Alan? Have you been bitten by the green bird of happiness which sometimes flies over these plains, or has the white bird of terror nipped you while you slept last night upon the open deck? Green paused and looked steadily at her. Could he tell her the truth? Now he was so near salvation. It was not that he was worried about her, or the others, stopping him from making contact with the expedition. Nothing could stop him now. He was sure of that. It was just that he hesitated to tell her that he would be leaving her. The idea of hurting her was agony to him. He started to speak in English, caught himself, and switched to her language. Those vessels. They have brought my people from across the space between the stars. I came to this world in just a vessel, a space-roller, you might say. My ship crashed, and I was forced to descend upon this, your world. Then I heard that another ship had landed near Astoria, and that King Rasmug had put the crew in prison, and was going to sacrifice them during the Festival of the Sun's Eye. I had little time to get to Astoria before that happened, so I talked Maran into taking me. That was why I left you. That. He trailed off because he did not understand the expression upon her face. It was not the great hurt he'd expected, nor the wild fury he thought might result from his explanation. If anything, she looked pitying. Why, Alan, whatever are you talking about? He pointed at the line of spaceships. They're from Tara, my home planet. I don't understand what you mean by your home planet, she replied, still pityingly. But those are not spaceships. Those are towers built by the Astorians a thousand years ago. Well, what do you mean? Stunned, he looked at them again. If those weren't starships, he'd eat the yacht's canvas. Yes, and the wheels, too. Under the swift wind, the roller swept closer and closer while he stood behind Amra, and thought that he'd break into little pieces if his tension didn't find some release. Finally, it did find an outlet. Tears welled in his eyes, and he choked. His breast seemed as if it would swell up and burst. How cleverly the ancient builders had fashioned those towers. The landing struts, the big fins, the long sweeping lines ending in the pointed nose, all must have been built with a spaceship as a model. There was no escaping such a conclusion. Coincidence couldn't explain it. Amra said, Don't cry, Alan. Your people will think you weak. Captains don't weep. This captain does, he replied, and he turned and walked the length of a yacht to the stern, and leaned over the taff rail where no one could see him as he shook with sobs. Presently he felt a hand upon his. Alan, she said gently, tell me the truth. If those had been ships on which you could leave this world and travel into the skies, would you have taken me along? Were you still thinking that I was not not good enough for you? Let's not talk about it now, he said. I can't. Besides, there are too many people listening. Later, when everybody's asleep. All right, Alan. She released his hand and left him alone, knowing that that was what he wanted. Mentally he thanked her for it, because he knew what it was costing her to exercise restraint. At any other time, in a like situation, she would have thrown something at him. After he had calmed down somewhat, he returned to the helm and took over from Miran. From then on he was too busy to think much about his disappointment. He had to report to the port officer and tell his story, which took hours, for the officer called in the others to hear his amazing tale. And they questioned Miran and Amra. Green anxiously listened to the merchant's account, fearful that the fellow would disclose his suspicions that Green was not what he claimed to be. If Miran had any such intentions, however, he was saving them for their arrival in Astoria itself. The officers all agreed that they had heard many wonderful stories from sailors, but never anything to match this. They insisted upon giving a banquet for Miran and Green. The result was that Green got a much needed and desired bath, haircut, and shave. But he also had to endure a long feast in which he had to stuff himself to keep from offending his hosts, and was also forced to enter a drinking contest with some of the younger blades of the post. His vigilante could handle enormous amounts of food and alcohol so that Green appeared to the soldiers to be something of a superman. At midnight the last officer had dropped his head upon the table, dead drunk, and Green was able to get up and go to his yacht. Unfortunately he had to carry the fat merchant out on his shoulders. Outside the banquet room he found a few rickshaw boys standing around a fire, huddled together, waiting for a customer so drunk he wouldn't fear thieves or ghosts. He gave one of them a coin and told him to deliver Miran to the yacht. What about yourself, honoured sir? Don't you wish to ride home too? Later, said Green, looking up past the fort and at the hills behind it, I intend to take a walk to clear my head. Before the rickshaw men could question him further he plunged into the darkness and began striding swiftly toward the highest peak on the island. Two hours later he suddenly appeared in the moonlight drenched windbreak, walked past the many vessels tied down for the night, and crawled aboard his own yacht. A glance around the deck convinced him that everybody was sleeping. He stepped softly past the prostrate forms and laid down by Amra. Face up, his hands behind his head, he stared at the moon, a thoughtful expression upon his face. Amra whispered. He stiffened but did not turn his head to look at her. I was, but the officers kept us up late. Did Miran get here? Yes, about five minutes before you did. He rose on one elbow and looked searchingly at her. What? Is there anything strange about that? Only that he was so drunk he'd passed out and was snoring like a pig. The fat son of an Ezit. He must have been faking, and he must have— Must have what? Green shrugged. I don't know. He couldn't tell her that Miran must have followed him up into the hills, and that if he had the fellow must have seen some very disturbing things. He stood up and gazed intently at the dark form stretched out here and there. Miran was sleeping upon a blanket behind the helm, or was pretending to do so. Should he kill him? If Miran turned him into the authorities in a storia, he sat down again and fingered his dagger. Amra must have guessed his thoughts before she said, Why do you want to kill him? You know why, because he could have me burned. She sucked her breath in with a hiss. Alan, it can't be true. You can't be a demon. To him the accusation was so ridiculous that he didn't bother to answer. He should have known better, because he was well aware of how seriously these people took such things. However, he was thinking so furiously about what he could do to forestall Miran that he completely forgot about her. Not until he heard her muffled sobs did he come out of his reverie. Surprised, he said, Don't worry, they're not going to burn me. No, they're not, she said, choking on every other word. I don't care if you're a demon. I love you, and I'd go to hell for you or with you. It took him a few seconds to understand that she did believe he was a demon and that it made no difference to her. Or rather, she was determined to ignore the difference. What a sacrifice of her natural feelings she must have made for him. She, like everybody upon this world, had been trained from childhood to develop a fierce disgust and horror of devils and to be always upon her guard for them when they appeared in human form. What an abyss she had to cross in order to conquer her deep revulsion. In a way, her feet was greater than crossing the chasm between the stars. Amra, he said, deeply touched, and he bent down to kiss her. To his surprise, she turned her face away. You know my lips don't belch fire at the devils and the legends, he said, half jestingly, half pityingly. Nor will I suck your soul into my mouth. You have already done that, she said, still not facing him. Oh, Amra. Yes, you have. Else why should I follow you when you deserted me to run away on the burn? And why should I still want to follow you, to be with you, even if those towers had turned out to be your what you call them, and you had sailed away in the skies on them? Why would any decent human woman want to do that? Tell me. She too rose on an elbow, her face now turned to him. He scarcely recognized her. Her features were so twisted and her skin was so livid. A hundred times during this voyage I wished you would die. Why? Because then I wouldn't have to think about the time to come when you would leave this world forever, leave me forever. But then you were in danger, then I almost died too, and I knew I didn't really wish your death. It was just wounded pride on my part. And I couldn't face the moment of your departure, or the fact that you must come from a superior race of people more like gods than demons. Oh, I didn't know what to think. Whether you were a devil or a god, or just a man who was somehow more of a man than any I knew. I could ignore such things as your wounds healing up faster than they should and scarred tissues disappearing, but I couldn't ignore your knowledge that Aga would be killed if she touched that wall in the room on the cannibals' island, nor the fact that your teeth grew back in after they were knocked out during the escape from the island, nor your too obvious interest in those two demons held prisoner in Astoria, or, not so loud, Amra, he interrupted, you'll wick everybody up. All right, all right, better to keep quiet and pretend to be stupid. But I can't, I'm not built that way. So, what are you going to do, Alan? Do? Do, you repeated miserably. Why, somehow or other, I'm going to free those two poor devils and escape in their spaceship. Devils? Then they are demons? Oh, no, that was just a manner of speaking. I said poor devils because of what they must have gone through in that barbarous prison. They might as well have been in the hands of the cannibals, as at the mercy of the priests of this wretched planet. Yes, that's what you really think of us, isn't it? That we're all murderous, dirty and stinking savages. Oh, not all of you, he replied. You're not, Amra. By any standard you're a wonderful woman. Then why can't? She bit her lip and turned away from him. She would not humble herself by asking him to take her with him. It was up to him to make the offer. Green did not know what to say, though he knew that it was necessary to say something at once. He just could not make up his mind as to how she would fit into Earth's civilization. How could he teach her that if somebody whom you didn't like differed with you, you just didn't try to tear them apart, or that if the person you hated was too powerful for you to settle matters with personally, you didn't resort to professional assassins? How could he teach her to love the same things he did, the music and literature of his own culture? Her roots were in an entirely different culture. She couldn't possibly understand what he understood, thrilled to that which thrilled him, catch the subtleties that he caught, see what lay behind the nuances of his civilization. She'd be a stranger in a world not made for her. Of course he thought there were plenty of women upon Earth and her star colonies who didn't share his culture, even if they'd been brought up in it. But their case was simply a matter of taste. And they could still share a certain amount with him, just because they'd breathe the same atmosphere and talk the same words as he. Not that he would have cared to live with him because he wouldn't. But Amra, desirable in so many ways, just would not understand what was taking place around her, or in the minds of those she would have to live with. He looked down at Amra, her back was turned, and she seemed to be breathing the easy breath of deep sleep. Though he doubted very much that she could be sleeping, he decided to accept things as they looked. He wouldn't answer her now, though he knew that when morning came her eyes would be asking the same question, even if she didn't voice it. At least he thought she'd be diverted from her curiosity about what he'd been doing that night. That was something. He didn't want anybody to know about that, not until the time for action came. Provided, that is, that he could do anything even then. He discovered certain things tonight that could mean his salvation if he could utilize them. That was the rub, as some poet or other had once said. Wondering just who had originated that saying he fell asleep. Wool gathering had always been a favorite occupation of his when people left him alone to do it. That was the rub. They didn't. CHAPTERS 25 AND 26 Shortly after dawn the yacht set sail and sped toward Astoria, a hundred miles west. The breeze was a strong thirty-five miles an hour, precursor of the violent winds that roared across the exurdimer during the rainy season. Green set every inch of sail he had and took over the helm himself. Steering was not as simple as it had been, for traffic was getting heavy. In an hour he saw no less than forty rollers, ranging in size from small merchants, not much larger than his own craft, to tremendous three decker rollers of the line from far off-batrum, convoying even larger merchant vessels, high-pooped and richly decorated. Then, as they came to within fifty miles of their destination, small pleasure-yachts appeared in increasing numbers, and by the time they saw the white rocket-shaped towers that stretched from horizon to horizon, Green was sweating at the manner in which craft were shooting back and forth in front of him. Moran said, The entire nation is surrounded by these white towers, and by many fortresses interspersed between them. Inside the great circle of towers the historians have many rich farms on the plains. The city proper, however, is built on three roaming islands that were captured by their magic many centuries ago. Green raised his eyebrows at this information. Indeed, and where is the vessel that brought the two demons down from the skies? Moran looked blankly at the earthman, though he knew well enough that he was keenly interested in the so-called demons. Oh, it is located close to the palace of the king himself, but not in the hills, it landed on the plain. And the strangers will be burned during the festival of the Eye of the Sun? If they have lived, they will be. Green didn't like to think about their dying. If they had, then his problem was solved. He stayed on this planet and did the best he could here. There was one thing he had to admit. That was that having Amra as his wife made such an event not so calamitous as it might have been. She'd keep him so interested that time would pass swiftly, even on this barbarous place. In that case he thought, why was he hesitating about taking her to earth if he got the chance? No matter where he was, she'd see that life was a whirlpool of action, and she'd only begun to disclose the deeps within her. Give her an education and what a creature might evolve. What's the matter with you, Green, he said to himself? Don't you know your own mind? Are you so capable at handling physical events, but a complete muck up when it comes to psychical? Why? Look out! cried Moran, and Green threw the helm hard afort to avoid crashing into a small freighter. The captain, standing on the foredeck behind his own helmsman, leaned over the rail and shook his fist at Green and cursed. Green cursed back, but after that he didn't allow himself to begin thinking about Amra until he had steered the roller into the brake. For the rest of the day he was busy getting cleared with the port authorities. Fortunately he had a letter from the officer of the island fortress. It explained why he happened to be in possession of a foreign craft, and also recommended that Green be given a chance to sign up in the historian roller fleet if he wished. Even so he had to tell his story so many times to an admiring and amazingly credulous audience that it was dusk before he could get free. Outside the customs building he found Gris Quetter waiting for him. Where's your mother? he asked. Oh, she knew you'd be tied up for a long time, so she went ahead and got a room at an inn. They're very hard to get during the festival, almost impossible. But you know Mother, said Gris Quetter, winking. She gets what she's after every time. Yes, I'm afraid so. Well, where's this inn? It's clear across town, but it's within sight of the wall that's built around the demon's sky ship. Wonderful! Rooms must be twice as difficult to get there as on the edge of town. How did Amra do it? She gave the innkeeper three times his asking price, which was high enough, and he found a pretext to quarrel with a man who had long ago reserved a room, threw him out, and gave it to us. Ah, and where did she get this money? She sold a ruby to a jeweler who kept shop close to the break. He's sort of shady, I guess, and he didn't give Mother what the ruby was worth. Now, where would she get a ruby or any kind of jewel? Gris Quetter grinned crookedly, but delightedly. Oh, I imagine that a certain fat one-eyed merchant captain who shall remain nameless must have had one or two rubies within that bag he keeps inside his shirt. Yes, I can imagine. The question that alarms me is, how did she get it off Maran? He'd sooner lose a quart of blood than one of his precious jewels, and he'd notice it quicker than he would the blood. Gris Quetter looked thoughtful. I really don't know. Mother didn't say. He brightened with a smile and said, But I'd like to know how she did it. Maybe she'll teach me some day. She seems to have a lot to teach both of us, said Green. He sighed. Well, I'm eternally indebted to her. No getting out of it. Let's call a rickshaw and see what kind of a place she has selected. Once both had settled in the high-backed chair of their vehicle, and the two men who pulled it had begun their slow trotting through the crowded streets. Green said, Have you any idea where Maran is? Some. He was detained by the port officers, too, because he had to explain what had happened to his roller. Then he called a rickshaw and left in a big hurry. He had an officer with him, not a naval officer, a soldier from the palace, one of the king's own. Green felt a sinking sensation. Already? Tell me, does he know where we are staying? Oh, no! When I saw him coming out of the customs house, I hid behind a bale of cotton. Mother had told me to stay out of his sight. She explained how treacherous he is, and how he hates you because he thinks you brought all his bad luck upon him. That's only the half of it, Green replied. He was silent for a while, thinking, his gaze roving idly over the crowds. There were many foreigners in town, sailors from every nation that had a border on the Exertimer, pilgrims who belonged to the far-flung cult of the Fish Goddess, and had come here for the festival. The majority, however, were historians, a fairly tall people, brown or red-haired, green or blue-eyed, with big noses, thick lips and a slight epicanthic fold. They spoke a guttural, polysyllabic, semi-analytic language. They wore broad-rimmed hats shaped like open umbrellas, tight neck shirts with long string ties, and pants that were skin-tight from crotch to knee, then ballooned out into many ruffles. Little bells tinkled on their ankles, and the women carried canes. All had a fish, a star, or a rocket-shaped tower tattooed on their cheeks. Along the narrow winding street were many little shops, flowering with a variety of articles. Green was intrigued by the magical charms being hawked everywhere. Many of these were little towers, replicas of the large ones that encircled the country. On earth they could have passed for toy spaceships. He bought one. It was made of white painted wood, and was about seven inches long. The big flaring fins and landing struts were well reproduced, but there weren't any of the fine details they could have found in such a toy on earth. There were no holes in the stern or nose for the drive exhaust, or any indications of doors or detector apparatus. He gave it to Gris Quetter and leaned back to do some more thinking. The charm hadn't disappointed him because he had not expected any more from what he'd seen. If, in the beginning, those models had been furnished with every little detail, the passage of many thousands of years would have seen blunted and reduced to their present state of fuzzy symbolic images. Time ate down to the skeleton of things. He wondered how the charm could have survived up to the present, because it surely must have been over twenty thousand years ago that the prototype, the real spaceship, disappeared, and man sank back to savagery again. Then why had this lasted here, whereas it had not done so on other planets, earth included? Abruptly he noticed that his rickshaw had stopped. A procession of priests going to the palace of the king where they will spend all night preaching to the demon, said one of the rickshaw boys. He yawned and stretched. I suppose that it will be a fine burning since the priests have predicted that the sun will shine at high noon. They're safe doing that, as it has not failed to shine on Festival Day for a thousand years. Green leaned forward, his hands gripping the sides of his chair and said, Demon? You met demons, didn't you? Weren't there two of them? Oh yes, there were, but one died two days ago, hung himself, I heard, though I can't swear to it since the priests have released no details. The holy ones have been given the demons a rough time. Demons, said Gris Quetter, snorting with disbelief and disgust, doesn't the very fact that one killed himself prove they're not fiends? Everyone knows that a demon can't kill himself. Quite true, my small friend, replied the taxi man, the priests have admitted their error. They are truly sorry, so they say. Then aren't they letting the other man loose? Oh no, because he may still be a demon. Tomorrow, at high noon, the prisoner goes under the son's eye and there meets the only death a demon may know. By fire he was born, by fire he shall perish. Chapter 20, verse 62. Or so I remember the high grouching saying in his sermon yesterday, Myself, I'm not much for reading. Too busy making a living, running my legs off, killing myself so my wife and kids may eat and have clothes on their backs. Green scarcely heard the garrulous rickshaw man, so shocked was he at the news. Had he been too late? What if the man who died was the pilot and the other was unable to handle the ship? The rest of the ride he was sunk in such deep gloom he hardly saw any of the many sights that Gris Quetter kept pointing out. But he did rouse when the boy said, Look, Father, there's the king's palace, on top of the hill. Behind that is the ship of the demon. You can't see it from here, but you will tomorrow when you go to the burning. Don't be so heartless, said Green. But he looked carefully at the great marble structure that rambled all over the hill. Somewhere below that, probably filled with dirt, undoubtedly forgotten, was just such an entrance as he'd found on the island of the cannibals. He'd also discovered a similar one upon the fortress of Shimdoug, the night before when he'd gone exploring and Moran had followed him. The palace, he thought, looked quite romantic and beautiful, enveloped in a dim red haze cast by the setting sun, which lay directly behind it. Perhaps it would look different to the harsh glare of day when the dirt and garbage would be so apparent. The area in which Amra had rented the room was one which had once belonged to the rich and the noble, but had decayed when the aristocracy moved their homes elsewhere. The inn before which the rickshaw boys stopped was a three-story pile of granite blocks. It had an enormous porch and six huge pillars in the image of the fish goddess. Green could not help admiring the building, even in its present state of decay, because he knew that it must have cost a fortune to build it. The granite would have had to be transported by a roller across the excertimer, since there would be no stone in this neighborhood. He imagined that the landlord charged high rents, and that Amra must have paid up pretty price indeed if she'd given him three times the usual amount. One thing you could say for her, when she traveled, she did it in style. The cariates of the fish goddess also interested him, and at another time he'd have examined them closely by the light of the torches in the hands of the servants standing by them. The cult of the goddess indicated that the original historians must have migrated from the Oceanside to the center of the vast and level plains. And here they must have built this imposing city, which was to become such a great focus of trade. Its central location made it a great clearing-house for goods from every country bordering the excertimer. He wondered whether it was pure accident that they had brought with them the charms and the shapes of spaceships, and if they'd also accidentally discovered that towers modeled after the charms would stop the roaming islands. Whatever the answer, it lay buried in the prehistoric. Hurry up, said Gris Quetter, pulling on Green's hand. Mother has a surprise for you, but don't tell her I told you. That's nice, replied Green absently, his mind still upon the news of the earthman's death. Hang it all, why must he always be kept in suspense, must always be improvising from moment to moment, always in the dark, never knowing what was coming next nor what he was going to have to do. Oh, for one day of peace and assurance! Father! What, what! said Green, startled out of his reverie and stopping halfway up the steps to the porch. Suddenly something black and small launched itself at him and landed on his shoulder. Lady Luck! Why are you shivering so? Better run, Dad! said Gris Quetter. There's Moran coming out of the door and soldiers behind him. He ended with a wail. Mother! The sight of Amra in Zaks and the children being marched out between the musket men was enough for Green. He turned away and spoke softly but savagely. Keep your backs to them. Don't look back. We're far enough away in the dark so they might not recognize us, especially in this crowd. A minute later, he and the boy and the cat were looking around the corner of a large building. They saw the soldiers come into your rickshaw and put the prisoners in it. Then four of them walked behind the vehicle as it was pulled away. They'll be put in the tower of the grass-cat, said the boy, shaking with fury. Oh, that devil Moran! That fat old devil! He's the one who's accused Mother of Witchcraft. I know! I know! He didn't accuse her, said Green, but me. She's guilty through association with me. Well, at least we'll know where they are for a while. There go Moran and the soldiers back into the hotel. Waiting for us, said Green. They'd have a long wait. Well, let's go. First things first. We'll buy a ticket, see the ship. I have to know where it's located, what type it is, etc. Luckily I have enough money on me to do that. But we'll be broke then. You have any? Ten XR. Well, that's not much, but it's enough to pay for a rickshaw ride to the windbreak. At the box office Green bought two tickets, then walked up the steep flight of steps with Gris Quetter. At the top he found himself in a large group standing on a platform beneath a wooden roof. This was for the curious who wanted to get a preview of the demon's vessel. Tomorrow the gates would be open to admit a vast crowd who would sit on the hard wooden seats of the amphitheater that had been built fairly close to the ship. The ship itself was an earth naval vessel, a two-man scout. It pointed its needle nose upward, resting upon eight jet struts, gleaming in the moonlight. Its naval insignia, a green globe crossed with a rocket and olive branch, was a smudge in the shadows. Nevertheless he could make it out. He felt his breast swell and he choked with homesickness. Ah, so near yet so far, he murmured. Even if I get to you, then what? What if the poor devil of a survivor turns out to be a navigator? Still he ought to know enough to get her off the ground and into space. And from there on, with interstellar drive, we ought to be able to get home, somehow. He sounded plaintive even to himself, for he knew how vast space was and how complicated astro-mathematics was, and of course there was no guarantee that the earthman would even be a navigator, he might just be an officer or perhaps a civilian official who was being ferried in on one of the swift or small ships. Then there was the awful possibility that the vessel might have landed here because there was something wrong with it and that it could not rise again even if it had a full crew. In fact, that was the most logical explanation. He sighed and turned to the boy. This may be for nothing, but we can't just sit down and watch. Let's take off for the windbreak. What are we going to do there? asked his quitter as they walked down the steps. Well, we're not going back to the yacht, Green answered. Soldiers will be waiting there to arrest us. No, we'll go to the other side of the break. Stealing another roller isn't going to get us in any more trouble than we're already in. The boy's eyes widened. What are we doing that for? We must return to the island fortress of Shimdougue. What? Why? That's a hundred miles away. Yes, I know, and we won't be able to make the speed going back that we did coming. We'll have to do quite a bit of tacking to sail against the wind, and that'll eat up our time. But there's nothing else to do. If you say so, Father, I believe you. But what is there on Shimdougue? Not on. In. Gris Quitter was a bright lad. He was silent for a minute, so silent Green could imagine he heard the wheels turning within his head. Then he said, There must be a cave on Shimdougue, like the one on the cannibals island. And you must have gone into it that night we stayed in the break. I remember waking up and hearing you, and Mother saying something about your being gone and about Miran following you. Gris Quitter paused, then said, If there is a cave entrance there, why haven't other people gone into it? Because it has been declared taboo, off limits by the priests of Astoria. It was done so long ago that I imagined that the priests themselves have forgotten why they forbade its access to men. But it's not hard to reconstruct the historical causes. Once, I suppose, the island was populated by cannibals. At the time the Astorians captured the island, they exterminated the Aborigines. They found the cave-mouth was a holy place for the savages, so, thinking that it held demons, and it does in a way, they built a wall around it and set up a statue of the fish goddess, facing inward and holding in her hand a symbol to restrain the imprisoned fiends from breaking loose. That symbol, of course, is the same charm that is sold on the streets of Astoria, that circumscribes the country and the island of Shimdougue. It is the same as the spaceship that landed near the king's palace. Green hailed a rickshaw and continued his account while they rode through the still-crowded streets. There was so much noise that he felt quite safe talking, provided that he kept his voice soft. By the time they had reached the northern end of the windbreak, Green had told the boy all he thought he should hear at that time. If, later on, his trip to Shimdougue proved successful, he would enlighten him even more. For the present, he was concerned with the problem of getting transportation. Fortunately, they found almost at once a nice little yacht with speedy lines and a tall mast. The craft must have belonged to a wealthy man, for a watchman sat close to it before a little fire just outside his shed. Green walked up to him, and when the fellow rose, his hands suspiciously resting upon his spear, Green struck him on the jaw, then followed with a hard right to the pit of his stomach. Gris Quetter completed the job by hitting him over the head with a length of pipe he picked up off the ground. Green emptied the handbag of the watchman, and was pleased to see several coins of respectable denominations. Probably his life savings, he said. I hate to rob him, but we have to have money. Gris Quetter, do you remember those slaves who were drinking and gambling outside the striped ape inn? Run off to them and offer them six Duncan if they'll tow us out of the break. Tell them we're paying them so much because it's so late at night, and also to keep their mouths shut. Grinning, the boy ran off. Green hauled the limp body of the unconscious watchman behind the hut, bound and gagged him, and threw a tarplin over him. Gris Quetter returned, leading six noisy and reeling men, sturdily built with legs and backs big muscled from hauling rollers. At first Green thought he ought to try to make them keep quiet, then decided that it would look more natural if he let them talk as loudly as they wished. There was a festive air over the city tonight, and more than one yacht was going out for a moonlight cruise. Once out on the plane, Green threw the promised money to the slaves and cried, Have a good time! To himself he muttered, Because tomorrow may be your last day. Already he had a presentiment of what might happen if he succeeded in tonight's work. There was no telling what forces he might be unloosing. As he'd said to the boy, there were demons imprisoned in the bowels of the island of Shimdougue. Just before dawn the yacht coasted to a stop outside the high stone walls of the north side of the island of Shimdougue. Green had dropped the sail, and judging his speed exactly, had steered the craft until its side was almost scraping the wall. As soon as the roller stopped, Green put Lady Luck in a bag tied to his belt and cautioned her to keep quiet. Then he began climbing up the rungs nailed to the mast. The boy followed him and both crawled out upon the spar. Green tied one end of a long rope around the end of the spar. Then he let himself down on it to the ground on the other side of the wall. After the boy had also descended they paused for a moment, crouched, ready to run at the first sign they'd been seen. But there was no outcry. The big moon, though dropping to the horizon, was bright enough for them to make good progress. Green led the way up a series of hills, heading in a circuitous fashion toward the highest. Twice he had to step and warn Gris Quetter about the towers ahead, where sentries were stationed. Lady Luck seemed to know she should be silent. Her eyes glowed and her teeth flashed, but she was only making a soundless snarl. They saw the fires of the guards and heard their muttered voices, but none saw them. It was doubtful that the sentinels ever did look out, for they did not think that any man in his right senses would be roaming about in the darkness, where it was well known that ghosts and demons waited for foolish mortals. Just before they began climbing the slope of the peak that was their goal, Green whispered, This island was built much like the first one we encountered. I think that all of these islands are more or less similar, all being composed of a base of a mile and a half square of Eternum metal, or something like Eternum, and all covered with rock and dirt and trees and vegetation and stock with birds and beasts. I suppose that the original builders landscape these craft for aesthetic reasons. After all, a sheet of metal with a few metal chambers on it doesn't look very pretty, and would make a blinding glare in the sunshine. Uh? replied the boy who didn't understand. Do you know? It's strange that I was right the first time when I sarcastically referred to the roaming islands as glorified lawnmowers. What? Yes, in the beginning there must have been many more than there are now, enough to keep the vast plains looking neat and well kept, the grass clipped, the forests prevented from encroaching well-defined limits and so on. But when there were no longer any maintenance men to keep them going, they stopped, one by one, until at this present time there were perhaps a few hundred. Though I don't know, there may be more. Anyway, whenever one did run down or break down, for some reason or other, it was soon erased by a still functioning island. Erased? Yes, for it's obvious to me that the islands not only cut grass, they kept the plains free of obstructions that weren't supposed to be there, and a dead island would constitute just such a hazard. Grisquitter spoke in a thin voice. Perhaps, Father, I may yet understand you. I must be stupid. Far from it. You'll learn in time. Anyway, I should have known what they really were when I heard the tales of the sailors. Remember that one about the big hole made by the meteorite? And how something mysterious filled it in and covered it with turf? And then there was the way that wrecked rollers would vanish down to the last nut and bolt and the skeletons of the dead aboard. And there was a legend of Sam Drew, the tailor turned sailor, and what he found in the metal chambers inside an island, the great white eye through which he saw what was outside the island, and the other paraphernalia. They weren't the property of a wicked magician as the tale would have it. Any earthman would recognize TV and radar and dials and controls. Tell me more. I will when we get over this wall. Green had stopped before a barrier of stone reaching at least 40 feet high. A grim crown it completely encircled the top of the hill. Once it must have been difficult to scale, but mortar has crumbled here and there and vines grow all the way up. Follow me. I remember exactly the path I took. He jumped up on a little edge, seized a thick vine, and hauled himself up to another minor projection. Unhesitatingly the boy swarmed up after him. Panting they reached the top, where they rested a moment and wiped the blood from their lacerated fingertips. The cat was the only one that seemed unperturbed. Silently Green pointed out the 20-foot high statue of the fish goddess below. Her back turned to them as she gestured at the cave mouth with a rocket-shaped charm. For the first time, Gris Quetter seemed scared. Like all his fellows, he had an unhealthy awe for the supernatural. This place, so walled off, so utterly ancient looking, so invested with all the attributes of taboo, so invocative of the horrible tales of demons and angry gods depressed him. Only his father's seeming indifference to any fiends they might encounter kept him from turning tail and backing down the wall. One thing I'll bet, and that is that Moran didn't follow me this far but stayed down on the ground. With that belly of his he'd never have made it. He'd have tumbled off like a big fat bug and been squashed like one too. Wouldn't that have been awful? However, he didn't have to go all the way with me. The very fact that I would dare to enter a taboo area is enough to condemn me. I should have slit his throat when Amra told me he'd been shadowing me. But I couldn't do it without absolutely convincing evidence. And even if I'd had that, I suppose I'm too civilized to kill him in cold blood. You should have told me how you felt, said Gris Quetter. I would have slipped a dagger through the taboo over his ribs. No doubt, and so would your mother. Well, down we go. And he set the example by throwing his leg over the edge of the wall and letting himself down, somewhat gingerly. The dissent was even worse than the assent, but he didn't bother telling the boy that. By the time he found out he'd be at the bottom. Even so, when he reached the ground, he thought that the lad couldn't be one whit more shaky than he. Forty feet was a long, long way when you're up on top looking down, especially in the moonlight. This is the second time I've done it, but I don't think I'd have the guts enough for a third time, said Green. But we have to climb back out, don't we? Oh, we'll have to go over it, but I hope it won't be so high by then, said Green, looking mysterious. What do you mean? Well, I hope these stones will all be tumbled to the ground. In fact, it's a necessity, if we're to do what I expect to do. He took the bewildered boy by the hand and let him pass the cold and silent statue and into the cave's entrance. We could use a light, he said, but a torch would have been too awkward to carry up that wall, and we can grope our way to the rooms that are lighted. Wonder why the passageway wasn't lighted too, he thought, or had this cave been added by the savages he used to live on the island, so that the sanctum sanctorum would have been approached through darkness. Perhaps it was, the primitives having constructed such a chamber so that the initiate into the religion could go through darkness both literal and symbolical and come into a light that also embraced both worlds. He didn't and couldn't know. He could only guess. But I can take advantage of what I do have on hand, he said to himself, greeting his teeth with determination. The dust beneath his feet gave way to clean metal. They rounded a corner and found themselves in a chamber much like the one upon their first island, except that this had furniture. A skeleton lay in the middle of the floor, face down. The back of the skull exhibited a great hole. He may have been here for a thousand years or more, said Green. I'd like to know his history, but I never will. Do you think the goddess killed him? No, nor demons either. It was the hand of man that struck him down, my boy. If it's violent death you're trying to explain, don't drag in the supernatural. There's enough murder in the hearts of human kind to take care of every case. In the third room, Green said, there's no wall of dust to stop us. The ionic charges haven't stopped working. Notice how clean everything is. Ah, here we are, before the door. Gris Quetter looked puzzled. Door? I see only a blank wall. That's all I saw, too, said Green, and that is all I would have ever seen if it hadn't been for the tale of Sam Drew. Let me tell you how you got in, chattered the boy excitedly. I know what you were thinking of, what you did. You stood before the wall and you made a sign like this on it. He traced a rough outline of a rocket against the cool white metal, and the wall suddenly slid to one side and you had an entrance, see? A whole section had moved noiselessly into the wall, leaving a round doorway. Yes, I remembered the story of Sam Drew, and though it was ridiculous to think that it would work, I did what the sailor did. Remember that the cannibals were after him, and he ran into the cave and came through just a blank wall. And he, wishing to protect himself against the evil spirits that he was sure lived in the cave, traced the sign that is supposed to prevent them from touching a man. And the door slid open, and he plunged on into the chambers of the wicked magician, the savages howling frustratingly after him. And, continued Green, I did just what he did, and the sign proved to be an open o' sesame for me. A what? Never mind, the point is that the ancient maintenance men must have used just such a gesture to open the door, or else used it in conjunction with other means. And if they did, then they must have also been repair technicians for the ships that landed here. Perhaps the sign of the rocket was a secret symbol for their guild. I don't know, but it sounds reasonable. Ignoring the boy's flood of questions, he walked into a great room. It was more bare than he'd expected when he had found it the first time. It contained four machines or their fuel supplies, all concealed in four large square metal containers. In the center of the room was a chair and an instrument panel. The panel contained six TV windows, several oscilloscopes, and dials whose purpose he didn't know. But the controls attached to the arms of the chair seemed simple enough. The only trouble, he said, is that I don't know where the activating switch is. I tried to find it the other night and I couldn't. But it must be so obvious that I'll feel like a fool when I do locate it. Vainly he pulled at the little lever set in the arms. My failure to activate this was the main reason I returned to the yacht and sailed on to Astoria. Of course I had to go and find out just what the situation was and get a good idea of my plan of campaign. Perhaps if I'd stayed here and taken a chance on going into the city blind we'd have been better off. At least your mother wouldn't now be in prison and we wouldn't have the additional worry of rescuing her. He rose from the chair and began pacing back and forth. How ironic if I'd come this far and could get no farther. But then what else could I expect? It's up to me to solve this and I'm not infallible, omniscient. It should be functioning as of now. I know that the ring of rocket ships has got it paralyzed so it can't act. Nevertheless, unless it's blown a fuse, gone neurotic from frustration or just worn out, there should be some indication that it is still in operation. What do you mean? said Grisquetter. How can the island be paralyzed? Green stopped pacing to gesture at the radar scopes. See those? Well, there should be some funny lines squiggling across it or little dots moving or arcs sweeping across it. They should be indicating the shapes of things in the immediate neighborhood outside the island and the lay of the land. Thus I imagined that in the ancient days when it spotted a rocket ship which would then have been a genuine spaceship and not a mock-up it would have detoured around it. The whole island was, in one of its functions, a field attendant, a scavenger. It removed anything from the plane that wasn't supposed to be there. There's why they now attack rollers and crush them and disintegrate the parts that fall beneath their bases. That also explains why the island is trapped by a ring of rocket-shaped towers. The radar detects a complete circle and, being unable to molest any object shape like a rocket, it squats in one place until it runs down or the rocket shapes are removed. Of course, it worked automatically. But there were controls for a man to operate it when there was a special job to do, or if he had to take it to another place it ordinarily wouldn't go when on automatic. These controls must be the ones. The question is, does the island switch itself off and on at certain intervals, scanning the area around to see if the inhabiting objects have gone? If so, there's no telling how long we may have to wait before its next sweep, and we just can't afford to wait. He was in agony. As long as he could keep his body and brain in action, he felt he was progressing. But as soon as he had to wait upon some inanimate object he couldn't attack, or came across a seemingly unsolvable problem, he was lost. He just didn't have the patience. Lady Luck winded. She was tired of being imprisoned in the bag at Green's Waste and felt that she had been a good girl long enough. Absently he lifted her out and put her on the table. She stretched, yawned, licked her lips, and then patted across the table. Her tail switched back and forth, and its tip brushed the surface of the centrally located TV screen. Immediately a metal ball on the panel glowed red and a sharp whistle sounded. Two seconds later light sprang into being in all of the viewers. End of chapters 25 and 26