"I wouldn't call it a path," the Mayan said.
"Vell, if it'th like the other plathe, it .can be climbed."
It was, and it could be.
Seven days later, they were on top of the mountain. Snow and ice had made the dangers even greater than anticipated, and the air enfeebled them. Nevertheless, they had struggled up to another plateau. The River was far below, covered by fog.
After a few miles, they descended on a far easier slope. The air was thicker at the bottom and warmer, though still cold. They advanced through an ever-increasing and ever-louder wind until they came to another mountain.
"No uthe even thinking about climbing thith vone. Ve're lucky, though. The big cave of the vindth thyould be to our right a few mileth. Vell, maybe not tho lucky. You'll thee vhen ve get there. But that can vait avhile. I got to retht my thon-of-a-bitching feet again."
The River poured out in a vast and thick stream to descend swiftly down a gentle slope. The roar of water and wind was deafening, but at least it was warmer here. Joe, the veteran of the passage through the cave, led the way. A rope was tied to his waist and tied to the wrists of the others.
Warned by Joe to hang on tight, they went around the corner into the Brobdingnagian hole. Alice slipped and fell off the ledge and was pulled, shrieking, back up. Then Nur, even smaller than she, was blown off, but he too was hauled to safety.
The torches of the Egyptians had been extinguished by the wind when Joe had led them through the bellowing cave. Now, he could see, though not very far. Also, he shouted back to Burton, this ledge was broader than the one on the right.
"Boy, ve'd have been thyit out of luck if the Ethicalth had melted down the ledgeth! I guethth they thought that no vone vould ever get thith far after they took the ropeth avay and plugged the tunnel!"
Burton only heard part of what Joe said but filled in the rest.
They had to stop twice to eat and sleep. Meanwhile, The River gradually dropped away and finally disappeared. Burton, curious to know how deep it was, sacrificed a spare lamp. He counted seconds as its beam turned over and over and became a thread of light before it plunged into the blackness. It had fallen at least three thousand feet.
At last, the grayness that heralded the end of the cave appeared. They came out into the open air, misty but brighter. Above them was a sky which blazed with a multitude of giant stars and gas sheets. The thin cloud closed around them but didn't block their view of the mountain wall to their right. They were almost on the lip of the abyss at the bottom of which The River ran.
"Ve're on the wrong thide here," Joe said. "Ahead, on thith thide, a mountain blockth uth. If ve could only get acrothth to the right thide. But then maybe the Ethical left a vay for uth on thith thide."
"I doubt it," Burton said. "If he did, we'd have to circle completely around the inner wall of the mountains ringing the sea to get to the cave at the bottom. Unless . . ."
"Unlethth vhat?"
"Unless X made two caves and put boats there, too."
Nur said, "One rough ledge they might overlook. But two?"
"Yeah," Joe said. "Tell you vhat. The two thideth of The Valley here get very clothe at the top. The vallth mutht arch over, lean out. There'th only about tventy feet betveen the edgeth at the top. Here. Let me thyow you."
He walked slowly ahead and after about sixty feet stopped.
His beam, added to theirs, clearly showed the other side of the gap.
"God Almighty!" Aphra said. "The Ethical surely didn't expect us to jump across it?"
"The other Ethicals wouldn't think anybody would dare it," Nur said. "But I think X expected us to, yes. I mean, he knew that at least one, maybe more, of any party that got this far would be able to leap across. After all, he picked some very athletic people. Then that person or persons would tie a rope to a rock, and the rest would go over on it."
Burton knew that he couldn't jump that far. He might get close, but close wasn't good enough.
Joe was stronger than two Hercules melded, but he was far too heavy. Ah Qaaq and Gilgamesh were also very strong but too squat and heavy. Good long jumpers weren't built like them. Turpin was tall but too muscular. Nur was very light and had a surprising wiry strength, but he was too short. The two white women and de Marbot were also too short and weren't good jumpers. That left Frigate, Croomes, and Tai-Peng.
The American knew what Burton was thinking. His face was pale. He was even better at long jumping then he'd been on Earth and had once leaped there to an unofficial distance of twenty-five feet during a practice jump but a wind had been behind his back. His normal distance was about twenty-two feet on Earth and twenty-three here. Nor had he ever jumped under such bad conditions.
"We should have brought along Jesse Owens," he said faintly.
"Hallelujah!" Croomes shrieked, startling the others. "Hallelujah! The Lord saw fit to make me a great jumper! I'm one of His chosen! He saw to it that I could leap like a goat and dance like King David for His glory! And now He gives me a chance to jump over the pit of Hell! Thank you, Lord!"
Burton moved close to Frigate and said, softly, "Are you going to allow a woman to jump first? Show you up?"
"It wouldn't be the first time," Frigate said. He shrugged. "Why shouldn't I let her go first? The problem here is not one of sex but of ability."
"You're scared!"
"You bet I am. Anybody but a psychotic would be."
He went to Blessed Croomes, though, and questioned her about her record. She said that she hadn't done much jumping on Earth, but, when she was living in a state called Wendisha, she had made twenty-two feet a number of times.
"How did you know it was that?" Frigate said. "We had an exact system of measurement on the Rex, but very few places would have such."
"What we did," Croomes said, "was guess what a foot was, It looked pretty close to me. Anyway, I know that I can do it! The Lord will buoy me up on the wings of my faith, and I will skip over it like one of His sweet gazelles!"
"Yeah, and you'll fall short, too, and smash your brains out against the edge of the gap," Frigate said.
"Why don't we mark out a distance?" Nur said. "Then you three can practice-jump, and we'll see who's the best."
"On this hard rock? We heed a sand pit!"
Croomes said that they should throw a lantern over to the other side to provide a marker. Frigate cast one attached to a rope, so that it lit near the edge, rolled back, then stopped on its side several inches from the dropoff. Its beam pointed at them over the black abysm.
He pulled it back with the rope and threw it again. This time it rolled, but by whipping the rope he got it to an upright position and the light shone at right angles to them.
"Okay, so it can be done," Frigate said. "But I'll pull it back now. Nobody can jump until he's had a good night's sleep. Anyway, I'm too tired now to try it."
"Let's line up the run path with lanterns," Blessed said. "I'd like to get a good idea of how it'll look."
They did so, and Frigate and Croomes paced to where they would start their run, if they did. The marker for the leap was a lantern a few inches from the edge.
"It has to be a one-time thing," Frigate said. "We'll really have to warm up first. This cold air . . . On the other hand, the air is thinner and offers less resistance. That probably helped that black jumper – what's his name? such is fame – make that fabulous twenty-seven feet and four and a half inches in the Olympics at Mexico City. But, back to the first hand, we haven't really gotten acclimated yet to the high altitude. And .we're sure as hell not in training."
Burton had said nothing to Tai-Peng since he wished to give him a chance to volunteer. The Chinese had been watching the procedure. Now he strode up to Burton and said, "I am a mighty jumper! I'm also sadly out of practice! But I will not allow a woman to be braver than I! I will make the first jump!"
His green eyes shone in the lantern beam.
Burton asked him what distance he'd cleared.
"More than tha
t!" Tai-Peng said, pointing at the gap.
Frigate had been throwing pieces of paper up in the air to test the wind. He came up to Burton then, saying, "It blows on our left side and so it'll carry us a little to the right. But the mountain blocks most of it. I'd say it's a six- or Seven- miles an hour wind."
"Thanks," Burton said. He kept his gaze on the Chinese. Tai-Peng was very good in athletics but not as good as he claimed to be. No one was that good. However, it was his life he was risking, and no one had asked him to do so.
Frigate spoke up loudly.
"Look! I'm really the most experienced jumper! So I should be the one to do it! And I will!"
"You've gotten over your fear?"
"Hell, no! What it is . . . I don't have the guts to let someone else do it. You'd all think I was a coward, and if you didn't, I would."
He turned to Nur.
"I failed to act rationally and logically. I failed you."
Nur smiled grimly at his disciple.
"You didn't fail me. You failed yourself. However, there are so many aspects to consider . . . anyway, you should be the one to jump."
The little Moor went up to the titanthrop and raised his head under Joe's vast nose.
"It may not be necessary for anyone to jump. Joe, do you think that I weigh as much as your pack?"
Joe frowned, and he picked up Nur with one hand under his buttocks. He held him out at arm's length and said, "Not by a long thyot."
When Nur was back on the ground, he said, "Do you think you could throw your pack across to the other side?"
Joe fingered his receding chin. "Vell, maybe. Thay, I thee vhat you're getting at! Vhy don't I try it? It von't make no differenth if the pack'th over, there and ve're over here. Ve got to get acrothth anyvay."
He lifted the enormous pack above his head, walked to the edge, looked once, swung the pack twice, and heaved it. It fell a foot beyond the other edge.
Nur said, "I thought so. Joe, you throw me across now."
The titanthrop picked up the Moor with one hand against the little man's chest and one under his buttocks. Then he swung him back and forth, saying, "Vone, two, three!"
Nur arced across the abyss, landed on his feet a yard beyond the lip, and rolled. When he got up, he danced with joy.
Joe then cast Nur's lantern at the end of a rope. Nur caught it though he staggered back a little.
Nur came back out of the fog a few minutes later.
"I found a big boulder to tie the rope to, but I can't move it by myself! We'll need about five strong men!"
"Over you go!" Joe said, and he swung Burton back and forth. Though Burton wanted to shout that he was much heavier than Nur, he refrained. The gap looked twice as broad as it had up to that moment. Then he was shot up and outward while Joe yelled, "Vatch your athth, Dick!" and his laughter bellowed. The many-thousands-feet abyss was beneath him for a frightening second, and then Burton struck on his feet and was propelled forward. He rolled, but even so the rock thumped him hard.
A moment later, his pack followed. Joe then threw all the packs across, and he lifted Frigate and hurled him on over.
One by one, they followed until Ah Qaaq and Joe were the only ones left. Shouting, "Tho long, fatty!" the titanthrop hurled the Mayan. He hit closer to the edge than anyone but had a foot to spare.
"Now vhat?" Joe yelled.
Burton said, "There's a big boulder that must weigh almost as much as you, Joe. Go roll it up here, and then tie the end of the rope around it."
"That'th half a mile back," Joe said. "Vhy didn't you all thtay here and help me before you vent over?"
"Didn't want you to be too tired from moving the rock to throw us across."
"Jethuth H. Chritht! I do all the hard vork."
He disappeared with his lantern into the fog.
Some of them were bruised, and with torn skin, but all were able to do their share. They followed Nur to the boulder and, after a long rest, they began rolling it over the flat stone surface of the plateau. It wasn't easy since the rock was irregularly shaped and probably weighed more than all of them together.
Rests were frequent because of the thin air. They finally got it near the edge and then collapsed for a while.
A minute later, Joe rolled the boulder from the mists.
"I vath hoping I could beat you runtth to it," he shouted. "I vould've, too, if my boulder had been ath near am yourth." He sat down to pant.
Blessed Croomes complained that she had been cheated out of the chance to jump and so demonstrate her faith in the Lord.
"Nobody stopped you," Frigate said. "Although, to tell the truth, I was disappointed, too. The only thing that kept me back was that, if I did miss, the group would be just that much weaker. Maybe I'll try it anyway just to show I can do it."
He looked at Tai-Peng, and they both burst out laughing.
"You ain't fooling me none," Croomes said in English. "You two men was skeered to do what a woman wasn't afraid to do."
"That's the difference between you and us," Frigate said. "We're not crazy."
When they all were restored, they tied the ends of the long heavy rope around the boulders and chocked them with smaller stones. Joe let himself down over the edge backward, grabbed the sagging rope, and hand-over-handed across it. His friends seized the rope to insure that the boulder wasn't moved by his enormous weight, though it wasn't necessary. When he got quickly to the edge, some left the rope and helped him get up over the edge.
"Boy, I hope I never have to do that again!" he gasped. "I never told you guyth before, but vhen I get on a real high plathe, I alvayth have an urge to jump off."
43
* * *
Getting to the ledge that led along the mountainside to the sea took them ten hours.
"Thith ith narrow enough now, but vhen ve get to the plathe vhere thothe two Egyptianth fell, man, that'th thomething!"
Several thousand feet below was a mass of clouds. They spent eight hours sleeping and continued after they'd had their monotonous breakfast. Though the Egyptians had crawled along this trail, the group faced the rock and edged along, their fingers gripping the holes and small outthrusts of the rock.
The air became somewhat warmer. Here the water still had heat to give up after its long wandering through the arctic regions and its passage through the polar sea.
The ledge was safely traversed: They went on another plateau and came to where, as Joe had said, they would be near the sea. He walked painfully to the edge of the mountain and pointed his lantern beam down on still another ledge.
It began about six feet below the edge of the cliff, was about two feet wide, and continued downward with the same breadth until it was lost in the thin clouds. It sloped at a 45-degree angle to the horizon or would have if there had been one.
"We'll have to abandon some stuff and make our packs smaller," Burton said. "There isn't enough room for them otherwise."
"Yeah, I know. Vhat vorrieth me ith that the Ethicalth might've cut the ledge in half, Jethuth, Dick! Vhat if they found the cave down there?"
"Then we'll have to trust to the inflatable kayak you're carrying to get two of us to the tower. I've mentioned that before."
"Yeah, I know. But that ain't going to keep me from talking about it. It helpth relieve my tenthyon."
The sun never came above the top of the circling mountains. Despite this, there was a twilight illumination.
"I fell off the ledge before I got too far," Joe said. "Tho I don't know how far the path – thome path! – goeth. It may take a whole day, maybe more, to get to the bottom."
"Tom Mix said that Paheri, the Egyptian, told him that they had to stop once and eat before they got to the bottom," Burton said. "That doesn't mean much, though. The journey was fatiguing, and so they'd get hungry sooner than they usually would."
They found a shallow cave. Joe, with the help of the others, rolled a big boulder to partially block the entrance and keep the wind out. They retreated to it to eat their me
al. Two lamps kept the hollow bright, but they weren't enough to cheer them. What they needed was a fire, the ancient shifting brightness and crackling warmth which had cheered their Old Stone Age ancestors and every generation since.
Tai-Peng was the only one in high spirits. He told them stories of his antics and those of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cups, the companions of his old age, and cracked many a Chinese joke. Though the latter couldn't adequately be translated through Esperanto, they were good enough to cause some, and especially Joe Miller, to shout with laughter and pound their thighs. Then Tai-Peng composed some on-the-spot poems and concluded by brandishing his sword at the tower somewhere ahead of them.
"Soon we will be in the fortress of the Big Grail! Let those who've meddled with our lives beware! We will conquer them though they be demons! Old Kung Fu Tze warned us that humans must not concern themselves with spirits, but I was never one to pay attention to that old man! I listen to no man! I follow my own spirit! I am Tai-Peng, and I know no superior!"
He howled, "Watch out, you things that hide and skulk and refuse to face us! Watch out! Tai-Peng comes! Burton comes! Joe Miller comes!"
And so on.
"Ve thyould fathe him our vay," Joe whispered to Burton.
"Ve thyure could uthe all that hot air."
Burton was watching Gilgamesh and Ah Qaaq. They reacted just like the others, laughing and clapping Tai-Peng on. But that could be just good acting by one or both. He was worried. When they got to the cave – if they did – he would have to do something about them. Even if they were innocent, he would have to try to determine if one of them, or both, was X. Either of them could be Loga. Either of them could be Thanabur.
How could he do it?
And what – if anything – was one, or both, plotting?
He ran a scenario through his mind. When they started down the trail, he'd arrange it so that Joe Miller would be in the lead. He'd be second. Ah Qaaq and Gilgamesh would be in the rear. He didn't want them to be the first to get to the cave – if it was still there and not plugged up.