 CHAPTER XVIII After much puffing and panting, modern encouragements to each other and occasional cursing, they finally reached the summit of the tallest hill. Abruptly they found themselves facing a clearing which ran around its crown. Finally ahead of them was a forest of totem poles, all gleaming palely in the moonlight. Beyond it was the dark yawning of a large cave. Green walked out of the shadows of the branches to take a closer look. When he came back he said, There's a little hut by the side of the cave I looked in the window, an old woman's asleep in it, but her cats are wide awake and likely to wake her up. All those totem poles bear the heads of cats, said Aga. This place must be their holy of holies. It's probably taboo to all but the old priestess. Maybe so, replied Green, but they must hold religious services of some sort here. There's a big pile of human skulls on the other side of the cave-mouth and also a stake covered with bloodstains. We can do two things. Go on down the other side of this hill, jump off onto the plain and take our chances there, or else hide inside the cave and hope that because it's taboo nobody will explore it to look for us. It seems to me that's the first place they look into, said Aga. Not if we don't wake the old woman. Then if the savages come along later and ask her if anybody's come by they'll get no for an answer. What about the cats? Green shrugged his shoulders. You'll have to take that chance. Perhaps if once we get by them and into the cave they may quiet down. He was referring to their catawalling which was beginning to sound dreadful. No, said Aga. That noise will be a signal to the islanders. They'll know something's up. Well, replied Green, I don't know what you intend doing, but I'm going into that cave. I'm too tired to run any further. So are we, affirmed the other women. We've reached the end of our strength. There was a silence, and into that silence came a voice, a man's. It whispered, Please do not be startled, be quiet, it is I. Miran stepped out of the shadows behind him, holding his finger to his lips, his one eye round and pale in the moonlight. He was a ragged captain, not at all the elegantly uniformed commander of the bird of fortune and the wealthy appearing patriarch of the clan Efenneken. But he carried in his other hand a canvas bag. Green, seeing it, knew that Miran had managed somehow not only to escape with his skin, but had also carried off a treasure in jewels. Behold! he announced, waving the bag, all is not lost. Green thought that he was referring to the jewels. However, Miran had turned and beckoned to someone in the darkness behind him. Out of it slipped Grisquitter, tears shone in his eyes as he ran to his mother and fell into her arms. Amra began weeping softly. Until now she had repressed her grief over the children she thought for ever lost to her. All thought had been directed to saving her own life in the lives of the two girls who had survived with her. Now seeing her eldest son emerge from the shadows as if from the grave had thawed the frozen well of sorrow. She sobbed, I thank the gods that they have given me back, my son! If the gods are so wonderful, why did they kill your other two children? asked Miran sourly. And why did they kill my clansmen? And why did they smash my bird? Why? Shut up! said Green. This is no time to cry about anything. We have to get out with whole hides. The philosophizing and tears can come later. Many rocks is an ungrateful god, muttered Miran. After all I did for him too. Amra dried her tears and said, How did you escape? I thought all the males who hadn't been killed in the wreck were speared. Almost everybody was, replied Grisquitter, but I crawled down into the hold and slipped to a hiding-place beneath one of the fish-tanks which had overturned. It was wet there and there were dead fish nestling beside me. The savages did not find me, though doubtless they would have when they began salvaging. It was thinking about that that decided me to crawl back out on the other side of the roller away from the savages. I did so, and I found that I could belly my way through the grass growing on the edge. I almost died of fright, though, because I crawled head-on into Miran and he was hiding there too. I was thrown off the foredeck by the impact, interrupted the captain. I should have broken every bone in my body, but I had landed on a hull sail which had come down and was lying on the starboard side supported by the fallen mast. It was like falling into a hammock. From there I dropped into the grass and snaked along the very edge of the island. Several times I almost fell off, and I would have if I had been a pound fatter and an inch wider, as it was, listen, said Grisquetter, breaking in, this island is the Wuru. What do you mean, said Green? While I was clinging to the edge of the island I thought I'd hang down over it and see if there was any place there to hide. There wasn't, because the underside of the island is one smooth sheet. I know, because I could see in the moonlight clear to the other side. It was smooth, smooth like a slab of iron, and that's not all. You know how the grass on the plains here about has been tall uncut? Well, the grass just ahead of the edge was uncut, but the grass underneath the island was being cut off rather it was vanishing. The top of the grass was just disappearing into air. Only the lawn of grass about an inch high was left. Then this island is one big lawnmower, said Green. More than just interesting, but we'll have to investigate that later. Now, and he walked toward the little hut by the cave mouth. As he approached it several large house cats streaked out of the doorway. A moment later Green came out. He grinned broadly. The priestess has passed out. The place smells like a brewery. The cats are in their cups too, all drinking from bowls set on the ground for them, staggering around, yowling, fighting. If they don't wake her up, nothing can. I have heard that these old priestesses are often drugards, said Amran. They lead a lonely life because they're taboo and nobody ever goes near them except during certain religious customs. They have only their bottle and their cats to keep them company. Ah, said Meadon, you are thinking of the tale of Samdru, the tailor who turns sailor. Yes, that is supposed to be a story to entertain children, but I'm beginning to think there is a great deal to it. Remember, the story describes just such a hill and just such a cave. It is said that every roaming island has just such a place, and you talk too much, broken Aga Horsley, let's get on into the cave. Green could appreciate what Aga's comment meant. Meadon had lost face because he'd allowed his vessel to be wrecked and his clansmen murdered Omos. To Aga and the other women he was no longer Captain Meadon the rich patriarch. He was Meadon the shipwrecked sailor, a fat old sailor, just that, nothing more. He could have redeemed himself if he had committed suicide. But his eagerness to live had resulted in his placing himself on an even lower level in their estimation. Meadon must have realized this, for he did not reply, instead he stood to one side. Green walked thirty paces into the cave then looked back over his shoulder. The entrance was still visible, an arch outlined in the bright moonshine. Someone coughed. Green was about to caution them to keep quiet when he felt his nostrils tickling and had to fight down a loud sneeze himself. Dust! Good! said Green. Maybe they never come down here. Maybe the tunnel turned at right angles to the left. The little light that penetrated from the entrance disappeared in total blackness. The party halted. What if there are traps set for intruders, wailed insects. That's a chance we'll have to take, Green growled. We'll go in the dark until we come to another turn, then we'll light up a torch or two. The natives won't be able to see the glow. He walked ahead feeling the wall with his left hand. Suddenly he stopped, Amra bumped into him. What is it? She asked anxiously. The rock wall has now become metal. Feel here. He guided her hand. You're right, she whispered. There's a definite seam and I can tell the difference between the two. The floor is metal, too, at it soon. My feet are bare and I can feel it. What's more, the dust is all gone. Green went ahead, and after thirty more paces he came to another ninety degree turn to the right. The walls and floor were composed of the smooth, cool metal. After making sure that the entire party was around the corner, he told a woman carrying some torches taken from a long house to light one. Its bright flair showed the group staring round-eyed at the large chamber in which they stood. There were bare-grave metal walls and floors, no furniture of any kind, nor a speck of dust. There's a doorway to another room, he said. We might as well go on in. He took the torch from the woman, and holding a cutlass in the other, he led the way. Once across the threshold he halted. This room was even larger than the other, but it had furnishings of a sort, and its further wall was not metal but earth. At the same time the room began to brighten with light coming from an invisible source. Soon screamed and threw herself against her mother, clinging desperately to her waist. The babies began howling, and the other adults acted in the various ways that panic affected them. Green alone remained unmoved. He knew what was happening, but he couldn't blame the rest for their behaviour. They had never heard of an electronic eye, so they couldn't be expected to maintain coolness. The only thing that Green feared at that moment was that the outcries would be heard by the savages outside the cave, so he hastened to assure the women that this phenomenon was nothing to be frightened about. It was common in his home country, a mere matter of white magic that anyone could practice. They quieted down, but were still uneasy. Wide-eyed they bunched up about him. The natives themselves aren't scared of this, he said. They must come here at times, see? There's an altar built against that dirt wall, and from the bones piled beneath it I'd say that sacrifices were held here. He looked for another door. There seemed to be none. He found it hard to believe that there couldn't be. Somehow he'd had the feeling that great things lay ahead of him. These rooms and this lighting were evidences of an earlier civilization that quite possibly had been on a level with his own. He'd known that the island itself must be powered with an automatically working anti-gravity plant, fueled either atomically or from the planet's magnetogravitic field. Why the whole unit should be covered with rocks and soil and trees, he didn't know, but he had been sure that somewhere in the bowels of this mass of land was just such a place as this. And more. Where was the power plant? Was it sealed up so that no one could get to it? Or as was likely, was there a door to the plant which could not be opened unless one had a key of some sort? First he had to find the door. He examined the altar which was made of iron. It was a platform about three feet high and ten feet square. Upon it stood a chair fashioned from pieces of iron. From its back rose a steel rod about half an inch in diameter and ten feet long. Its lower end held secure between two uprights by a thick iron fork. Once the fork was withdrawn the rod would obviously fall over against the earth wall behind it, though the lower end would still remain on the uprights and would, in fact, stick against whoever was sitting in the chair at the moment. Odd, said Green, if it weren't for those cat-head idols on the ends of the platform and the bones at its foot, I'd not know this was an altar. Bones. They're black, burned black. He looked again at the rod. Now, he said half to himself, if I were to withdraw the fork and the rod fell it would strike the wall, that is evident. But what is it all about? Amra brought him some long pieces of rope. These were stacked against the wall, she said. Yes? Ah! Now, if I were to tie one end of this rope about the apex of that rod and someone else were to stand upon the altar and take out the fork, then I could control which direction the rod would fall by pulling it toward me or allowing it to go away from me, and the person who had taken the fork out would then have plenty of time to get down from the altar and back to the region of safety where the rope wielder and his friends would be stationed. Alas! The poor fellow sitting in the chair. Yes, I see it all now. He looked up from the rope he held in his hand. Ah! God! He said sharply, get away from that wall. The tall, lean woman was walking past the altar, holding her bare cutlass in her hand. When she heard green she paused in her stride, gave him an astonish look, then continued. You don't understand, she called back over her shoulder. This wall is in solid earth. It's fluffy, like a young chick's feathers. It's dust, dust. I think we can knock it down, cut our way through. There must be something on the other side. Agha! he yelled, don't stop where you are. But she had lifted her blade and brought it down in a hard stroke that was to show him how easy this stuff would be to slash away. Green grabbed Amra and Poxie and dived to the floor, pulling them with him. Thunder-roared and lightning filled the room, dazzling and deafening him. Even in its midst he could see the dark figure of Agha transfixed, crucified in white fire. CHAPTER XIX 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. He then opened his mouth to cry out to Amra and Poxie 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 efforts to wash out the dirt that caked and burned them. Plods 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 he 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 Poxie 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 Poxy around the right angled corner and into the dark tunnel. Here his violent wrackings began to quiet down and by rapid blinking which forced tears he cleaned his eyes of much of the dust. Sanctiously he peered down the passageway toward its end where the cave mouth formed a dim arch in the moonlight outside. It was as he'd 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 the feather stuck through it. Moreover over 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 airwaves 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 ashing 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. King 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 his self 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, huh?' 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 she 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 got a way 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 happening to the rest of my friends.' He found Amra sitting down at the cave's mouth, cuddling poxy, in an effort to quiet her. Nine others were there too. This quitter, soon, Miran, Insox, 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 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 Agha provoked a host of demons by striking at the 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 cannibal's totem. Moreover, it is the nature of such beings that, once they've released their fury and 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 would never 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 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 above 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. CHAPTER XXX 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 had 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 long 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 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 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 big 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 had 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 rights 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 about 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 that legendary strong man and saviour. From 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 walls of the 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 take because that would depend on the culture that had built them and their tastes and decorations would differ from Green's multi-millennial later 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 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 common 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. After 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 someday 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 tiller who turned sailor. The legend went that Sam Drew had rode erect upon just such a roaming island as this one, had wandered into just such cave and through 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 see in 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 the 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 Poxy in her arms and Inzok with Grisquetter in hers, he chewed some dried meat. Lady lucked me out for some and he gladly gave her all she wanted. When he'd swallowed all he could without bursting and had washed that down with great draughts 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 auto-intoxication, tone his tired muscles, relax his two taunt-nerds, readjust his hormonal balance. CHAPTER XXI Green dreamed that his mouth and nose were clogged with dirt and that he was suffocating. He woked 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 patted toward the doorway to the outside, so he imagined that she wished him to follow her. 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. Suddenly 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 his 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 black-hulled rollers with over-large wheels and scarlet sails. Occasionally a lance of red spurted 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 hill-top 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 above 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 mass of three small rollers projecting from above the slope and follow them down toward the hills. 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 dusk 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. Medan 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 of 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 landboarding parties from them? Medan looked surprised. No one does that. It's unthinkable. Don't you know that at night the plains abound in spirits and demons? The Vings wouldn't think of taking a chance on what the magic of the savages might unloose 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 wonder 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 Medan. 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 lose a single cannon-shot. The rest of the time they spent in tacking back and forth and in running up close to the very edge of the island. I think they are trying the temper of the audience's inhabitants, Green said. They don't know whether the woods conceal a hundred savages or a thousand, or whether they're armed with cannons and muskets are just with spears. They want to draw fire so they can get an estimate of what they're facing. He turned to meet on, which reminds me, why is it that the natives don't use guns? They must have 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've a taboo against using fire-orns. For 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 those who live upon the plain itself and from those who live on other roaming islands. They're down to the point where they must die out within a generation. Even without help from such as those, he said pointing to the vang-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 total the humans. He gazed again at the red sails and wheels of the vangs. I 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 vangs have been scouring the plains, locating the islands and exterminating the savages on them. Then they fortify the islands so that you might say that today these Ormidore is dominated by them. But there's a drawback to an island as a harbor. No large roller may get very close except in the daylight. They have to put out the grass every night and follow their base at a safe distance until dawn. However, though the vangs are well established on many nomers, they are often attacked by the natives 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 Zormador 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 moonlight gets here. I only hope that there aren't others being craft in the neighborhood. What the gods will, happens, replied Miran. His ad-face reflected the belief that if he, the favorite of Minerox, could come to 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 Poxie. 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. Obviously it didn't really 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 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. Everything burst again quite close by. The cat curled in his coat-pockets 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 roost of their long houses 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 chance 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 kept his mouth shut. It was true that he'd followed the wandering path to the cove where their boats were kept. But he'd at once drawn his breath in pain of surprise. A lightning-boat had illuminated the gray rock walls of the cove, its broad shelf, and the high black iron davits. But the yachts were gone. CHAPTER XXII. 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. But 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 roller sitting upon the plain. 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 masks, of course, would be taken for tree-trunk by anybody but a very close observer. Vings 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 wondering 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 had so easily been 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 rotors 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. Each trunk had a groove where many ropes had worn a path during similar operations. One end he gave to half of the party, putting Miran 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 in cable for this. Unfortunately the winch was hand operated and had been allowed to get rusty. Green 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. Griskwetter, who had been stationed in a tree as a sentinel, called down, I see a torch. It's somewhere in the woods about half a 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, wondering like some drew when he was lost in the mirrored maces of Gilkaku, the black one. Yes, they must be on the path. Green began feverishly tying the davit ropes to the axels 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 the island and leave us all alone on this roller in the midst of the Zormador? 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. Thinking that the women were still not convinced and softened by their pitiable looks, he called to Gritzquetter, Calm 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, Green said, I'm delegating you to guard these women and babies until we arrive, OK? OK," said Gritzquetter, grinning, his chest swelling because of the importance of the duty. I'm captain until you climb aboard, is that it? You're a captain and a good one," said Green, 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 rope's tie to the bow. The stem ropes were paid out a little to equalize the strain. Then, obeying Green's gesture, the women boarded pulled at the bonots 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 roller 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 whaling of his daughter, Poxy. 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 the 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 rust upon his shoulder. "'Ah! you wondering whench 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. They set 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 plane below, they had all they could do to restrain their cheers. Small revenge for the suffering they've 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. During they pushed the last roller up the little incline, then gathered their strength for the final heave that would launch it too 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, whereas his people were armed mainly with cutlasses. Green didn't waste any time in meditation. "'Everybody aboard except Miran and me,' he said loudly, "'don't argue, get in. We're riding through them, live flat on the deck.' Screaming, the women scrambled over the low rail and onto the deck. As soon as the last one was on, the earthmen and Miran 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 further over the lip of the hill before stopping. "'There's not time to get them out again to help us,' panted Green. "'Dig in, Miran. Get that fat into gear. Shoved them, you shove!' It seemed to him that he was breaking his own collarbone under the pressure, and that he'd never felt such 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 it 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 thought 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 Medan who wasn't as fast on his feet. Fortunately, Amra had presence of mind enough to grab Medan 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 further down the slope, screaming something also thrust at the cat. Evidently felines were no longer taboo upon this island. The former worshippers considered that their totem had deserted them and therefore deserved death. Lady Luck, however, had the traditional nine 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 onto 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 in 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 in the rush of joy at having escaped, for the island was retreating across the flat moonlit Zormador 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 veins exterminate you to-morrow, muttered Green. Wearily and painfully he rose to his feet and surveyed what was left of the clan of Finnecan. Amra was unhurt. If it was she who had 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 was done for. Let's start walking. We've a boat to catch. End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose former. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 23 Two weeks later the yacht was scutting along under a twenty mile an hour wind. It was high noon and everybody except the helmsmen, Amra and Miran, 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 far place, placed under a hood immediately apt of the small four-deck. There was no lack of food despite the fact that the yacht had not been stocked. Fortunately, the savages who owned it had not bothered to remove the several pistols and keg of powder and sack of balls from its locker. With this, Green killed enough deer and houbers to keep everybody well fed. Amra supplemented their protein diet with grass which her culinary art turned into a half-way 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 inzox. Green and Miran, 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 a peril 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 while 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 of 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 the mast 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. Medan stood upon the foredeck sighting on the sun through his sextant. This also had been found in the locker along with some charts of the Zormador. Though the charts had had their locations marked in an alphabet unknown to anybody aboard, Medan had been able to compare them in his mind to the charts he left on the bird of fortune. He had crossed out the foreign names and put in names in the Kilosan alphabet. He done this only at the insistence of Green who didn't trust Medan 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 navigational instrument, there occurred an accident that forced Green to take further measures to safeguard himself. He and Medan 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-colored stallion, galloping furiously, Green raised his pistol. At the same time he was vaguely aware that Medan had also sighted 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 Medan 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. Medan, seeing his reaction, lowered the muzzle and puzzledly asked Green what he was doing. Green didn't answer. Instead he took the gun away from Medan's limp grip and silently put it away in the locker. Neither he nor the merchant ever referred to the incident, nor did Medan ask why he was not permitted to take part in any shooting thereafter. It convinced Green that the fellow had fully intended to shoot him, and then claimed 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 Medan was the only other man on the yacht there was no doubt about to whom he referred. Thereafter Medan 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 his 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, Medan 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 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 Medan in the narrow and crowded cockpit. We agree, said Green, indicating with a pencil-sip around Scarlett spot on the chart. We should be sighting this island within four hours. Yes, replied Medan, that's 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 in that one spot. That is nothing unusual. Every captain knows of these fixed islands scattered all over the Zormador, 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. Medan'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 completed 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. Medan indicated a castle inked in beside the red spot. This castle means that a military or naval fortification has been built there on the island. It is the furthest eastern garrison of the Astorians. When we come within sighting distance of it we are supposed to report. Of course if you 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. Then they are rather hostile to captains who have failed to have their papers checked at the fort of Shemdug. 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. Then 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! End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose, former. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 24 They were a magnificent sight, those mini-cones pointing their sky-scraping noses upward and their spreading landing struts sinking into the soft earth. Their white eternum 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 as 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? But 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. Body 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? What 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 such 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 Rasmig 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 Miron into taking me. That is 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 had 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. There from Terra, 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 the towers built by the Astorians a thousand years ago. 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 the 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. As Captain does, he replied, and he turned and walked the length of the 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 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 this 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 and 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 him offending his hosts, and also was 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 upon 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 lay down by Amra. Face up, his hands behind his head. He stared at the moon, a thoughtful expression upon his face. Amra whispered, Alan, I thought you were going to talk to me tonight. He stiffened, but did not turn his head to look at her. I was, but the officers kept us up late. Didn't Bidon 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 had passed out and was snoring like a pig. The fat son of an isot. He must have been faking. And he must have... must have what? Green shrugged. I don't know. He couldn't tell her that Bidon 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. Bidon was sleeping upon a blanket behind the helm, or was pretending to do so. Should he kill him? Bidon turned him into the authorities in Astoria. He sat down again and fingered his dagger. Amrah must have guessed his thoughts, for 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 are a demon. I love you and I 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 feeling she must have made for him. She, like everybody on 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 like the devils in the legends, he said, half justingly, 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 bird, and why should I still want to follow you to be with you even if those towers had turned out to be your, what do you call them, and you had sailed away into 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 when 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 don't know what to think, whether you are 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 scar tissues disappearing, but I couldn't ignore your knowledge that Aga would be killed if she touched that wall in the room on the Cannibal's 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 wake 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? He 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 matter 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 standards, 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 breathed the same atmosphere and talked 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 been 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 he could do anything even then. He'd 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. Will Gathering had always been a favorite occupation of his when people left him alone to do it. That was the rub. They didn't.