Annie had indicated that the Baalbec drew on her own strength for its power. For that reason, she used it only when the need arose. She did not keep it turned on when there was no immediate requirement. If the Japanese marine had caught her off guard ... Or perhaps it had been turned on. A quick and heavy blow with the carbine might have succeeded anyway. And once Annie was unconscious, would the electrofield continue to function?
He didn't know, couldn't find out, and besides, the whole topic was a distraction from the business of the moment. He had to develop a battle plan, the objective of which was to free Annie from her captors.
"What was that about a crown, old fellow?" Sergeant Smythe was still trying to unravel Finnbogg's snarl of information, superstition, and fears.
Finnbogg, always volatile, had shifted from a sniveling coward to a raging warrior, eager to be away and at the enemy.
Private Onishi, formerly the aggressive marine, had traded roles with Finnbogg and become the coward.
"You've got to calm yourself," Smythe persisted. "We won't get anywhere by going off half-cocked. Now tell me, what was this about a crown? Was this something the Q'oornans told you? Something to do with the Nihonjin? Come along, Finnbogg, you've got to speak up."
Finnbogg slumped back on his haunches. The impact of his massive hindquarters literally shook the earth. "Q'oornans say, Lord of Castle had crown. Couldn't see crown. Crown like ice, like glass, like air. Crown there but cannot see it."
"All right, an invisible crown, eh? Invisible? You know what that is?"
"Yes, yes, invisible crown. But crown visible when True Lord wear it! Finnbogg know that! Q'oornans know that!"
"What Lord of Castle, then? What lord? What castle?"
"Don't know." Finnbogg was becoming downcast. "Don't know. Some castle, some lord. Only know what Q'oornans say."
"All right, then." Smythe cast glances at his prisoner from time to time; the man cowered from Finnbogg. Otherwise, the Japanese was docile enough.
As for Major Folliot, he was attending the dialogue closely. "Now," Smythe asked Finnbogg, "since we don't know anything about this mysterious Lord of the Castle, did the Q'oornans tell you why the lord doesn't have his crown anymore? What are the Japanese doing with it?"
Finnbogg nodded his massive head, delighted to be able to answer Smythe's questions. "Nihonjin raid castle. Long ago, Nihonjin had flying thing. Like cart, like train, like flying enemy on bridge. Nihonjin come to castle in flying thing, kill lord's soldiers, try to steal lady. Big battle. Many of lord's soldiers killed. Many Nihonjin killed, too. Many, many, many! Nihonjin get lord's invisible crown."
He rolled the word invisible gleefully. It was a new word for him. Even Clive Folliot, listening to the dialogue between Smythe and Finnbogg, watching them both as they conversed, could sense Finnbogg's pleasure in the word.
"And then, Finnbogg—what then?"
"Lord of Castle soldiers drive away Nihonjin. Nihonjin fly away."
"And they never attacked again?"
"Nihonjin flying thing no more fly."
"I see." Smythe nodded vigorously. He shot a glance at Clive Folliot.
"Out of fuel, eh, Sergeant? And no refueling station here in the Dungeon. Wonder what the thing worked with. Wood, coal, they should have been able to get something, don't you think?"
Smythe turned to Private Onishi. He tugged his leash to get his attention. "What about that, Private? You blokes have a flying machine? Broke down? Out of fuel? Why didn't you just stoke up with wood, eh?"
The Japanese frowned. "Nakajima requires petrol. No petrol in the Dungeon—or no way to get at it!"
"What's petrol?"
"Fuel! Engine fuel! You would not know about it in your year. It is a liquid. You have alcohol, Englishman?"
"For drinking?"
Clive Folliot put in, "We used other forms of alcohol in the laboratory at Cambridge. The natural philosophers did, that is. It's inflammable stuff, all right. I 'magine it could be used to fuel an engine."
"And this machine—this Nakajima?"
"Model ninety-seven," the Japanese responded. "We were swept from Kwajalein to the Dungeon. We have encountered others here, other men from Earth and other creatures as well. We learned the patois. But we live together! Sixteenth Airborne Marines! Banzai!"
"Yes, that's all very well, Private Onishi."
Onishi looked away from Clive. "Sergeant—Sergeant Smythe." It was obvious that the other's rank had brought Onishi around. Trained in the authoritarian tradition of his empire, he would obey a military man of higher rank. "Sergeant, who is this man?" He indicated Clive.
"This is Major Folliot, Private. You mind your p's and q's around him!"
Onishi snapped to attention, every muscle aquiver. Clive said, "And what of this crown that Finnbogg spoke of? Did you marines really raid some castle and capture an invisible crown? Sounds like a fairy tale to me."
"It is the truth, Major! I was not on the raid. The Nakajima ninety-seven normally carries only three men, four at most. Lieutenant Takamura has the crown now."
"And what's this invisibility business?"
"This is true, Major. The crown—when Lieutenant Takamura takes it off, you can see it, although just barely. It—it seems to flee to the edge of one's vision. Even holding it in the hand—I have never been permitted to touch it, of course, but I have been told—even holding it in the hand, one has to look at the crown from the corner of the eye, and then it can barely be seen."
He shook his head.
"And when one wears it—I have seen Lieutenant Takamura—the crown cannot be seen at all."
"That sound right to you, Finnbogg?" Clive asked. "Q'oornans say, when rightful Lord of Castle wear crown, crown will glow like gold!"
"That true, Onishi? The crown ever glow that you know of?"
"No, sir."
"Who was wearing it when your Nakajima attacked? Did your officers see anyone wear it? Think this is all a fairy tale, do you?"
"No, sir. But I never heard of the crown glowing, sir, Major."
"All right. Now then, how are we going to get Annie away from this chap's people? Don't suppose they'd swap, do you, Smythe?"
"Don't think they would, sah. I don't know a great deal of the Oriental character—"
"More than I, Sergeant!"
"As the major says, sah. But I don't think those blokes would care to swap, no sah."
"Finnbogg go and take a look." The great dwarf jumped up and down, shaking the earth.
"Look where, Finnbogg?"
"Look there." Finnbogg pointed. "Cart come from around hill. Go back around hill. Finnbogg go take a look."
"But they'll see you coming. There's just the one of you."
A sly grin—the first Clive had seen there—creased Finnbogg's massive face. "Finnbogg not go around hill. Finnbogg go over hill. Peep down at Nihonjin."
"You're not afraid of them?"
"No more! Finnbogg ashamed! Finnbogg never be afraid again." He walked around the prisoner, ducking under the leash that Sergeant Smythe still held. Private Onishi shrunk away from Finnbogg, but
Finnbogg grasped the leash and pulled the marine to him. The man, although shorter than either Clive Folliot or Horace Smythe, was still a full head taller than the massive dwarf.
Onishi shook visibly.
Finnbogg rubbed his jaw against the man's torso, circling him completely, dragging his great underslung teeth against Onishi. When he finished, Onishi trembled so hard that he had to crouch, pressing his hands against the earth to steady himself.
Finnbogg bounced up and down, laughing a bloodcurdling laugh.
"I believe you, Finnbogg. But I'm afraid you'll become carried away by passion and try to charge the enemy camp. Can you carry me up the hill with you, Finnbogg? I could walk it, but it would take many hours. Too many hours," Clive said. "We can scout this out together. Promise me, Finnbogg, when we get there you'll stay down. Stay low. Just get to the top of that hill and peer down and when you've
seen what there is to see, you'll just come back to me and report. No one-man raids. No heroics. Are you a member of this band? For better or for worse, I'm the commander of our- little unit, and if you are a member of it you must obey me. Will you do that?"
Finnbogg shook his head up and down, his tongue lolling like that of a dog. "Oh, yes. Major Folliot, commanding officer, yes, yes, yes." Finnbogg snapped a crude version of a salute at Clive and stood clumsily at his version of attention.
"Wonder where Finnbogg learned to do that," Sergeant Smythe muttered.
"All I care about is Annie, now," Clive sighed.
Smythe said, "All right, Private Onishi. You can sit down now. Don't try anything or you're a dead man. How come you've no ammunition for that carbine of yours?"
Onishi, apparently relieved to engage in military shop talk with another soldier, opened up. Clive Folliot stood a few feet away, listening to the conversation without joining in. After all, he was a commissioned officer and these two were enlisted men.
Clive Folliot felt himself swept up and held under one of Finnbogg's mighty arms. Finnbogg started toward the hill behind which the Japanese cart had disappeared.
"Major Folliot all right?” the dwarf asked. He carried Clive as a child carries a doll, as if the man's weight meant nothing to him.
"I'm all right,” Clive managed. "Just get us there, Finnbogg.”
They jounced and pounded up the hillside. Clive knew that he would be more bruised at the end of this ride than ever he had been after the most strenuous of trips on horseback, but he cared nothing about that.
Annie. She was his only thought. Annie. Private Onishi had denied the report that the Nihonjin were cannibals. The man had seemed sincere enough, and yet, if his unit had been wandering twenty years in the Dungeon, any transformation, any accusation brought against them, might be true.
Twenty years!
What if they had indeed become cannibals!
Twenty years!
Another possibility, even more horrifying than that of Annie's death, dawned upon Clive. A band of men, marooned for twenty years in a world unimaginably alien and far from home—and suddenly, in possession of a beautiful young woman! Clive ground his teeth in anguish.
The hillside rolled by beneath Clive's eyes. He felt something chilly and wet on his face and turned his sight skyward. Beyond the shape of Finnbogg's broad shoulders and massive head, the sky over the Dungeon was darkening, darkening with the combination of dusk and rain clouds.
Another drop stung Clive's cheek, and another.
The wind began to whip past him, and the temperature dropped sharply.
Within minutes they sky was a somber gray. Huge, fat-bellied clouds roiled, and the air felt laden with moisture. A bolt of lightning shot from a black cloud to the earth and held its position, sizzling and wavering for a full second before it snapped back out of existence. A few seconds later thunder boomed across the valleys.
Clive looked ahead. They were approaching the crest of the hill. He hissed a warning to Finnbogg. The powerful dwarf halted and placed Clive carefully on his feet. Clive gestured with his hand—down. Finnbogg nodded his comprehension and dropped to the ground, crouching as low as his massive form permitted.
Clive slithered ahead. He peered over the crest of the hill. A cup-shaped valley opened beneath them, surrounded by hills except for an opening at each end. A stream flowed in one end of the depression and out the other. In the center of the little valley it broadened to form a lake. Clive wondered how deep it might be.
Tents and rude shelters were set up around the edges of the pond. Clive tried to remember his geography. The arrangement of the shelters was familiar to him. Yes! If the lake were a lagoon ... if the hills and shelters had been low coral islands ... the arrangement would have been almost identical to a Pacific Ocean atoll.
The Nihonjin had recreated their last base, Kwajalein.
CHAPTER 23
The Sacred
And now the storm struck in all its fury.
In the little valley, campfires had been built, and men in the meticulously preserved and repaired remnants of the uniforms of Imperial Japanese Marines cleaned their weapons, policed their areas, or prepared to cook their evening meal.
It was not clear to Clive what food they were preparing, nor could he fathom where they had obtained their supplies. There were a few patches of land with plants laid out in carefully tended rows. Perhaps the Japanese raised a few vegetables and obtained additional food by forage or hunting. Perhaps there were fish in the stream that passed through this otherworldly Kwajalein, or in the pond that stood in the middle of the encampment.
Marines ran to snatch up burning coals, shoveling them into stone boxes and carrying them beneath their simple shelters. Yes, if they had truly been stranded in the Dungeon for twenty years or more, they would preserve their fires as treasures.
But where was Annie?
Clive grasped Finnbogg by the shoulder, gestured down at the encampment. He had intended to make only a reconnaissance of the enemy position, but the storm offered an opportunity that would not soon return.
By now, the marines had retired to their shelters. Their guards—if they posted guards at all, after twenty years—were huddled in lean-tos, rain-drenched and wind-whipped, warming their hands over precious fires.
There was no path down the hillside, but the descent was fairly easy nonetheless. Clive made his way from one clump of vegetation to the next, stopping to lean against the trunk of a tree now and then and peer ahead. Massive Finnbogg had dropped to all fours; for him the going was easier yet.
Their only peril lay in the darkness and the teeming rain. Rain-soaked grass can become slippery, and uncovered patches of dirt turned to slippery clay and then to running mud as the downpour continued.
Some thirty yards from the bottom of the slope, and another ten from the nearest lean-to, Clive halted, crouched behind a clump of bushes as high as his waist. The rain was still falling but signs had appeared that the storm was beginning to dissipate. There were breaks in the black cloud cover, and a sliver of light from the enigmatic sky reflected off the wind-whipped surface of the lagoon.
The Japanese shelters were barely visible. Cracks of light glowed from most of them. On the opposite side of the lagoon he could make out a strip of land, cleared of vegetation and hard-packed. At one end of it stood a gleaming, streamlined machine unlike anything Clive had ever before laid eyes on. If he could identify it in any way, it was remotely like some of the incredible machines that visionary artists drew for inclusion in the most sensational of publications, machines that were intended to fly above the housetops, even to travel to distant worlds.
This must be the Nakajima that Private Onishi had spoken of.
Clive heard the slow breathing of Finnbogg. He reached to lay a restraining hand on the dwarf's arm. He pointed to the nearest lean-to. The storm was still creating a din, and Clive felt that he could safely speak to Finnbogg. "There's no sign of Annie," Clive whispered. "We've got to locate her!"
Finnbogg grunted his understanding.
"We can separate, Finnbogg. We've got to keep low, keep quiet, get a look into each shelter until we find where she is being held. Then—"
"Then kill Nihonjin!" Finnbogg rumbled. "Kill bad Nihonjin, save good Annie, go back Smythe man."
"Don't be so quick to use violence," Clive whispered. "We don't know how many there are of them, but from the looks of their camp there must be dozens, at least. They have carbines with bayonets but apparently their ammunition was expended years ago. Our cyberclaws will be of some use, but we can hardly take on the whole camp."
"Then how save good Annie?"
"If we can overcome a guard or two and spirit her out—maybe she can do something to help herself with her Baalbec A-nine."
They started forward again.
A huge bolt of lightning flashed between earth and sky. As the bluish yellow bolt cracked and danced and the odor of ozone filled the air,
Clive saw the bright metal of the Nakajima as if the machine were soaring through the heavens, the three-bladed screw on its nose whirling, the glass cage on its back covering a pilot and passenger.
It was the fantasy of a moment, he knew, but a thrill shot through him nonetheless. If this was the product of Earth's future, if this was the artifact of the world that had produced his dear Annie, it was a future he wished to see and to experience if ever the opportunity should present itself.
He started forward, moving stealthily toward the nearest of the marines' lean-tos. Finnbogg was to his right, and he gestured to the dwarf, pointing to the next shelter in that direction.
They separated.
Clive succeeded in reaching the shelter. It was made of wood, painstakingly smoothed and fitted. If the Japanese had been here for twenty years, they had used the time to create homes for themselves with the precision and craftsmanship of true artists.
There was hardly a crack between two planks, but an opening had been left for ventilation, and perhaps to give the occupant of the shelter a view of the out-of-doors. Clive approached it, placed his eye to the opening.
A uniformed marine sat facing directly toward Clive! Only the fact that he was bent over his disassembled carbine, cleaning each piece with the care of a diamond cutter studying and polishing his tools, saved Clive from discovery. The shelter contained a single room, sparse furnishings, few decorations. The stone fire container that the marine had brought from outside cast a flickering light on his expressionless face. A handcrafted religious shrine stood against the wall.
The marine was gray-haired, his face lined by the passage of time.
There was no sign of Annie.
Clive drew away from the shelter, moved slowly to his left, toward the next. The architecture of this lean-to was similar, and he was able to peer within. Two marines sat on the floor, facing each other, the stone fire holder to one side. By its flickering light they were playing a game, moving dark and light pebbles on a wooden board. Occasionally one or the other would mutter a few syllables.