He shrugged. "Very well. But . . . why is she giving me the gifts?"
After listening to Wassruss, Branwen said, "The moment she saw you, she knew that you must be the one for whom the sigils have been waiting. Just as you will know the person to whom you are to give the three ssuzz'akon ."
Wassruss spoke again.
"She said that there is a tradition that eventually the makers of the sigils will get them back."
"Sounds like a lot of ancient nonsense to me," Ramstan said.
Wassruss spoke weakly to Branwen.
"She says that she hasn't even told you what's most important. And she doesn't have much time left."
Doctor Hu said, "We can give her more time."
Branwen told Wassruss this.
The seal-centaur said, "Tssisskooss."
"She says, 'No.'"
Wassruss went into a long speech. When Branwen had heard her out, she frowned.
"She says the bearer of the gifts is also taught a mystery chant when she receives the gifts. She doesn't know what it means, but she thinks she could find out the meaning if her destiny depended upon it. Destiny? That may not be the correct translation. I just don't know her language well enough. Anyway, you must remember that the gifts may get you out of one danger but at the same time put you in another. She says that good has its evils and evils their good. The universe is tricky, the ultimate and the biggest trickster.
"Now she's going to recite the chant, the mystery. She thinks that you'll have to figure it out. The time for it is ready, and you are the one who has arrived at the time when it must be . . . uh . . . unspooled? . . . unraveled? . . . threaded through the Great Eye? What she said, literally, is that the spooling and the unspooling go through the eye of the same needle. You yourself are needle and eye and threader and unspooler and spooler. This is very strange, since the Webnites know very little about spinning or needles."
Wassruss said something.
Branwen said, "She says that the chant will be your property, yours, Captain, and yours only."
Ramstan said, "Property?"
"She doesn't use that word exactly as we do. Anyway, take the sigils now."
Ramstan held out his left hand. Wassruss said something weakly. Davis said, "No. Your right hand."
Ramstan obeyed. Wassruss extended her huge, brown-webbed hand and dropped the three objects into his palm. His fingers closed over them. They felt slimy.
... 12 ...
Wassruss began chanting. It was obvious from the alternate deepening and raising of her voice, combined with significant pauses, that she was representing two speakers. Branwen translated after each phrase.
"'What is the number of the worlds?'
"'More than many.'
"'What is the number of paths?'
"'More than many. Yet they are one.'
"'What is at the ends of the paths that are one?'
"'Death or wisdom or both. And one more thing.'
"'What is the way to the three?'
"'There are many places to start. Webn is one.'
"'And then?'
"'Ring the bell at the first entrance past Webn.'
"'And then?'
"'Enter.'
"'And then?'
"'Ring the bell at the third entrance.'
"'And then?'
"'Enter.'
"'And then?'
"'Ring the bell at the fifth entrance.'
"'And then?'
"'Enter.'
"'And then?'
"'Ring the bell at the seventh entrance.'
"'And then?'
"'Enter.'
"'And then?'
"'Ring the bell at the ninth entrance.'
"'And then?'
"'Go to the only place to go.'
"'And then?'
"'To the tree which does not stand alone.'
"'And then?'
"'To the well.'
"'What is in the well?'
"'The wise one who swims,
"'The laugher who hops,
"'The cold-blood who drinks hot blood.'
"'Is this the end?'
"'Near the well is an old house. It is older than many stars.'
"'And then?'
"'Knock at the entrance.'
"'Who shall open the door?'
"'Three who should be dead.'
"'And then?'
"'Ask, but be willing to pay the price.'"
No one spoke for a moment. The only sound was Wassruss's whistling breath.
At last, Ramstan said hesitantly, "Do the Webnites have bells?"
Branwen said, "Yes. At the entrances to their underwater caverns and to their stone houses on the islands."
"So what you translate as bells isn't a mistranslation or a substitute translation? Tell me, are there puns in the Webnitos' language?"
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"I'll tell you later."
Wassruss's eyes became larger as if she had just seen something surprising. The frosted glass within them spread out. A sound as of mice feet scratching on a metal floor came from her mouth. Then she sighed.
The monitors emitted unmodulated beeps; the green lines on the 'scopes were like arrow shafts. Hu turned the machines off and did not think it worth the effort to apply the mentoscope to Wassruss.
Branwen held the big, brown hand for a minute, then gently lowered it.
"She was holding off until she had passed on the gifts and the mystery."
He looked at the triangle, square, and circle.
"I'll put these in my cabin-safe. Their status can be determined later."
"Status?" Hu said.
"Yes, whether they are my property or the government's. After all, they can't be said to be bribes."
"You don't know the twisted ingenuity of our bureaucrats," Toyce said.
The medical corps people came to take Wassruss's body away. Branwen seemed to be waiting for Ramstan to say something to her, but he walked out and went to his quarters. Instead of placing the gifts in the safe, he kept them in his pocket. He did not know why he had changed his mind. Then he tried to communicate with the glyfa. If it was receiving, it was not transmitting. He gave up after five minutes and went to mess. Hu came in late and sat down in the space reserved for her, the chair rising from the deck as she lowered her buttocks.
"Lieutenant Davis's fever -- its cause -- is as mysterious as ever. But I have a hunch. . . yes, smile, it's okay, a hunch. She is trying to tell us something. Or perhaps she is sick so that she won't have to do something she doesn't want to do."
Ramstan did not comment. When mess was over, he excused himself and went to the sickbay now formed to hold Davis alone. A marine stood guard at the entrance. Ramstan went in, the entrance closing behind him. Branwen was lying in bed staring up at the overhead. A large plate had been transformed into a screen on which an old 4-D movie was being shown. Her lackluster eyes did not brighten when he entered. She told ship to turn off the movie, and there was silence and less light.
"You look sick and are," Ramstan said. "Frankly. I think that Doctor Hu may be right. Your fever is psychosomatically engendered. Are you repressing something?"
She burst into tears and put her hands over her face.
Ramstan waited for a minute, then said, "What is it?"
She took her hands away. The eyes were brighter now because of the tears.
"You're wrong, sir," she said. "I'm hiding nothing. I don't know why I'm sick. I wept because it seemed so unjust to be accused of deliberately making myself sick. It's almost like being accused of malingering."
"There's nothing illegal about that type of goldbricking. But I get the feeling that you're . . . not quite truthful."
Indignation burned in her eyes. Or was it the fever?
"I'm not hiding anything," she said, and she began weeping again.
... 13 ...
"The Tolt ship is now in stationary orbit, sir," the petty officer said. "She's directly above the island. As you ordered, a message is being transmit
ted to her. But so far she hasn't responded."
Ramstan refrained from looking upward. He knew he could not see it, but he had an impulse to bend his neck back and gaze into the bright blue.
"Very well," he said. "Continue transmitting. If it does nothing else, it will annoy them. And it will serve notice that we're aware of them."
Al-Buraq, panting yellow, lay about fifty meters away. She was in starfish-shape now. Crewpeople were strolling around it, most of them nude, taking the opportunity to absorb some natural sunshine.
Another fifty meters in the opposite direction, the green-blue ocean lashed great white-capped waves at the yellow sands of the beach. The wind blew from the west, bringing with it a spicy odor from a large tree-capped island-peak 10 kilometers distant. The trees near Ramstan resembled Terran palms. Their fronds waved in the breeze. Yellow-and-scarlet birds with black toucanlike beaks and cartilaginous horns on top of their heads swooped over the crew. From the top of a double-trunked baobablike plant an enormous green many-angled insect dropped a sticky noose. Presently, along came a tiny bird, and the noose jerked and ensnared the bird. Screaming, it was drawn up toward the mouth into which the long gelatinous rope was disappearing.
Branwen shuddered.
"Webn is beautiful, but it has its sinister features."
"Nonsense," Toyce said. "There is nothing evil about that insect. It has to eat, doesn't it? And it really is beautiful. Would you like to take a closer look?"
She held out an electron-telescope.
"No, thanks. I've seen them before at close range."
Branwen's fever was now very low; her body temperature was only one-tenth of a degree above normal. Hu had given her permission to go as interpreter with the burial party. It had just come back from half a kilometer offshore where Wassruss, weighted down with rocks tied to her, a wreath of flowers and weeds attached to her chest, had been dropped into the sea. There were thousands of dark-brown, flippered giants in the water, floating in concentric circles around the corpse and singing joyous songs.
There was no reason, now that Ramstan had carried out his promise to Wassruss, for ship to stay here. Yet Ramstan did not give the order to take off. No one seemed to have made any criticism of this. The crew had been on extended shore leave, but it did not object to going on another. Though al-Buraq was not a cramped vessel, she could not offer open skies and ground to run on and vegetation and a natural sun. Moreover, there was fishing and swimming with the friendly seal-centaurs and hiking through the woods and hills and much discreet lovemaking behind trees or boulders.
The Tolt ship hanging above, invisible to the naked eye, mute, sinister, could be forgotten easily enough by all but Ramstan. He was aware of it in every waking moment and sometimes in his dreams. It was an unseen shadow that darkened the beauty and glory of island and sea.
Ramstan, thinking of this, walked through the woods on a path which large beasts had made. The wild animals were so unafraid of the strangers that they seemed almost domesticated. When he reached the foot of the basalt mountain dominating the island, he turned back. But he halted within a few meters. Stocky, bull-necked, Assyrian-bearded Benagur blocked his way.
"I didn't know Hu had given you permission to leave ship," Ramstan said.
"I've been a good boy," Benagur said sarcastically. "And I've shown no signs of misintegration since my outburst. Which I don't think was a symptom of craziness. You don't believe in God, and you have stolen the glyfa. But. . ." he paused . . . "perhaps I was wrong in one thing. You do believe in a god, the Tenolt god."
"You'll only do yourself a disservice if you keep saying that," Ramstan said.
Benagur's bellow seemed to be the echo of the distant sea crashing against the base of the cliffs on the western shore. Like the sound of the ocean, it held a suggestion of danger.
"It's very frustrating for me! I know that you took the glyfa, yet I can't prove it! And if I accuse you officially, you will just have me locked up or sickbayed again! But you're the crazy man, Ramstan! You've put us all in the most extreme jeopardy, but you don't seem to care at all! You'll die for your sin, and so will we, the innocents!"
Ramstan felt sick with guilt and with hatred of Benagur. His hands curled into half-fists. He took one step forward. Benagur did not flinch. He crouched, and his left shoulder rose a trifle as if he was on the verge of adopting a boxer's stance. His hands, too, were partly clenched.
Ramstan felt like hurling himself at Benagur. But be saw something flicker at the base of a huge tree near the foot of the low hills beyond Benagur. The flicker became a figure in green. Its hood and robes were bright green; the face below the hood was featureless, shrouded in darkness. An arm rose, and its hand moved slowly back and forth at a 45-degree angle upward to the ground. The hood moved as if the turbaned head within it was moving to the right and then the 1eft. It said as plainly as if it were speaking, "No!"
Al-Khidhr, the Green One, the Wanderer.
If he was indeed Elijah, the ancient Hebrew, he was watching over Ramstan, protecting the atheist ex-Muslim, not the devout Jew, Benagur.
But al-Khidhr was a Sufi, the pristine Sufi, and Sufis could be Jewish or Christian as well as Muslim.
Then Ramstan thought, I'm crazy. Benagur is right, I am crazy.
The green figure flickered and was gone.
Ramstan stepped back and straightened his fingers. His voice shook.
"You're the dangerous one, Benagur, the mad one. You almost provoked me into attacking you."
He took another step back.
"Is this a trap? Are you transmitting to my officers through the skinceiver?"
Benagur scowled.
He roared, "No! I came here to make a final appeal to your honor and your duty! To your reason or what's left of it! But I can see that it's useless!"
"And now what?"
"I will make official charges! You can do your best to get me locked up again, but the charges can't be ignored! They'll have to be investigated! Your quarters will be searched! And the glyfa will be found! Then . . ."
"Then . . . ?" Ramstan said softly. His voice was now as steady as a steel beam on bedrock.
"Perhaps they . . ." Benagur pointed up at the invisible Tolt vessel . . . "they will be satisfied with the return of their god! My God, Ramstan! Crazy as you are, surely you see what danger we're all in! We could all be killed, killed for no good reason! I don't know what impelled you to take the glyfa, what foul lust, what . . ."
"That's a strange word," Ramstan said, smiling slightly. "Lust! What made you say that?"