2
Paul glanced down at sunrise-tinted snow on the highest peak of thecoastal range, thirteen thousand feet above the sea. Prairie spreadfor thirty miles east of its base; then came a region of forest andsmall lakes fed by the outlet of Lake Argo, which was the core of theempire of Lantis, Queen of the World.
Pakriaa's information on Lantis was a murky blend of truth andfantasy. Lantis claimed birth from Ismar-Creator-and-Destroyer.Pakriaa had different theories. Originally ruler of a single village,Lantis consolidated by conquest. Instead of annihilating defeatedvillages she took their populations captive, sorting out threecategories: potential followers, slave laborers, and meat. Many in thefirst class became fanatically converted; those in the second provideda year or so of work before dying of whippings and other abuse;captives of the third class were forced to eat the green-flowered weedthat numbed the brain and were bled out at the right stage of fatness.In fifteen years one riverside village had swollen to a city of sixtythousand, fed by expeditions far to the east, and Lantis named hercity Vestoia--Country of Freedom and Joy. "Got anything new in the'scope?"
Sears groaned: "There _are_ more boats above the falls."
The boats, they knew, were broad canoes roofed like sampans againstthe omasha, but with no sail. "Not moving, are they?"
"No--anchored maybe." Sears mopped his round face.
Without the telescope, Paul could see brownness on the water of LakeArgo's southern end, near the spot where the outlet tumbled over ahigh falls to a smaller lake. It meant that hundreds more must havebeen portaged past the falls from Vestoia during his two days on theisland....
The fifty red-green flowing miles became a pain of delay. Sears toowould be aching for the gray square of their "fortress" to claim theeye in the north, touched by early sunlight, a brave structure twelvefeet high, fifty square, built of split stone by the labor of giantfriends. Outside it ran a moat twenty feet wide, ten deep, with adrawbridge of logs, bark matting, grass-fiber ropes, the bottomflooded with lake water. There was room within for living quarters, asupply of smoked meat, dried vegetables.
Lantis understood scaling ladders, Pakriaa said. Lantis had patiencefor a siege. There was no defense, Pakriaa said, in these measures.The only defense was to attack, to retreat, and attack again. It hadalways been so in the old wars. It was still so with this Lantis andher Big-Village-Vestoia, this bastard begotten of a red worm andInkar, goddess of kaksmas. It would always be so--at least, until....Paul remembered Dorothy, cherishing Helen at her brown breast, askingneutrally, "Until what, Abro Pakriaa?"
Pakriaa had studied the giants' walls with contempt. "Until I shamethis worm spawn Lantis into meeting me alone. She must respect custom.Her first answer is a--what word?--rejection, because she has fear. Ihave sent a second challenge. She will meet me, or her own people willcondemn her. I will pin her belly to the ground. Her government willbe mine." There had been no mistaking it: for the first time in theyear since the idol of Ismar fell and was not restored, Pakriaa wasmaking vast decisions wholly her own, with only perfunctory interestin what the Charins might think. In her wrath against the mightysoldier ruler in the south there was natural grief at the outrages ofpast years, but something else too. Her red face glaring southwardsaid: _She has what I desire; she is doing what I would do_. Pakriaahad finished her answer quietly: "It is _I_ who will be Queen of theWorld."
Three days ago. It could have been a mistake to leave the camp at all.Now--a streak of sunshine on gray at the end of familiar meadow. Withfuel for only a few more flights, Paul knew he had never made a betterlanding. The drawbridge was down. Dorothy ran to meet him. Sears wasshouting, "Chris! It's perfect--no kaksmas--everything Paul said itwas--"
Paul stammered, "You look like a million dollars."
"Dollars. What're those?"
"I forget. What's news?"
"Your funny mouth is tickling my ear."
"That isn't news, Dope. Helen--"
"Full of the best gurgles. Come and see." He thought: _How do I tellher of the boats, the thirty-mile hive of savage hatreds_--but Searswas already talking of it. Wright had no smile for Paul, only a warmgray-eyed stare and pressure of the hand. Paul asked, "Where's Ed?Mijok and the boys?"
Ann looked up from cutting a square of hide. She had not come to meetthem. Ann's way nowadays; one's mind insisted: _It doesn't meananything_. "Ed's hunting. Should have been back last night."
Dorothy added: "Mijok's off missionarying, with Elis and Surok. Theytook Blondie--Lisson, I mean: moral support."
Wright was hag-ridden. "Sears, if it were only Pakriaa'stribe--but--not fuel enough to fly all the giants over. We cannotabandon _them_."
"Then let's get the women there and the rest of us go overland."
Ann said, "I'm going overland."
Wright muttered, "Damn it, Nancy--"
Sears patted her shoulder and ignored her speech as she ignored thetouch. "Chris, I've labored, myself, over that damn knotty littlebrain of Pakriaa's. She can't see things our way. We need a hundredyears."
The conference lengthened into the morning. Sometimes it seemed toPaul that his teacher's stubbornness degenerated into the obsession ofa man who won't leave a blazing house until the rugs are saved. Wrightlonged for the island, which he had seen only in photographs. Therehad always been some compelling reason why he must stay by thefortress, if only to hoe voracious weeds out of the gardens. Yet toWright it was unthinkable that the island community should startwithout the pygmies: he returned to it with haggard insistence. "Iknow--I can't actually like Pakriaa--she's got a mind like a greasedeel; but we've made a beginning. They speak our tongue--well. A peopleintelligent as they are--"
Paul thought: _It's not Lucifer that's aged him--it's us. We are notbig enough_. Aloud he suggested: "Doc, can't we make a start withoutthem and just keep the door open? Bring them in when we're strongerourselves?"
"Oh, son, if we desert Pak now, she's finished. Over-confidence.Lantis will go over her like a tide. We might just turn that tide. Ifnot, we _must_ be ready to help her escape with--whatever's left....Well, at least we agree on this: Helen and the women must go to theisland, at once."
"Tomorrow." Dorothy choked. "If the boats haven't started yet--"
"All right, dear. Tomorrow. And one man should go with them."
"You," Paul said. "You."
Wright said inexorably, "No." His stare groped at Sears Oliphant.
Sears was nakedly desperate. "Chris, I beg of you--you must not ask meto go away from this battle." He was sweating, white. "I am--in asense--a religious man. The--Armageddon within, your ownphrase--please understand without my saying any more. Don't ask me togo."
"Ed won't go.... Paul?"
_Leave him, with Sears' inner torments and Ed's arrogance?_ "No, Doc."
Ann Bryan said, "I'm staying for the show."
Dorothy lowered her cheek to the brown fuzz of Helen's head; thebaby's absurd square of palm found Paul's finger. Helen was almosteight months old--Lucifer months. The new life in Dorothy had beenconceived in the last month of the rains. Dorothy said, "I'm going,Nancy, with Helen. As a valuable brood mare, I can't afford heroism.Neither can you."
The giant women crossed the bridge; they had lingered outside, knowingthe Charins needed to talk alone. Ann said, "I've heard the argument.I'm not pregnant yet. I've learned to shoot damn' well."
Wright asked, "Will you abide by a vote when Ed gets back?"
Ann pushed her fingers into black hair, cut short as a man's. "Isuppose I must.... If no men get to the island, how do two women and agirl child increase and multiply, or shouldn't I ask?"
Wright mumbled inadequately, "We'll reach the island."
Ann said, "Then you already see it as a retreat?"
Wright was silent. He tried to smile with confidence at the giantwomen and children, who were sober with reflected unhappiness--all butnine-year-old Dunin, who trotted to Paul and hugged him with her largearms and announced: "I learned six words while you were gone. Hi,listen!
'Brain': that's here and here. 'Me-di-tation': that happens inthe brain when it's quiet. Mm-mm.... 'Breast': that's these. And'breath': that's ooph, like that. 'Breeze': that's a breath withnobody blowing it.... I forgotten six."
Dorothy murmured. "Tem--tem--"
Dunin hopped up and down. "'Tempest!' Big _big_ breeze--"
"That's perfect," said Paul. "Perfect...."
Before the five-month rainy season had made travel on the sodden,gasping ground too miserable, Mijok had explored a half circle ofterritory forty miles in radius east of the hills, for others whomight be willing to learn new ways. It was slow work, oftendiscouraging. He had located two bands of free-wandering women andchildren--twenty in all--and stirred their curiosity and friendliness.But he had been able to recruit only three other males. There was Rak.Blackfurred Elis and tawny Surok were in vigorous middle years, hardto convince but quick to learn once the barrier was down.
Kamon was accepted leader of the women. White with age, gaunt,flat-breasted, stooped but quick on her feet, Kamon rarely smiled, buther good nature was profound. "Ann," she said, "you ought to go.We--if we cannot fight off these southern pygmies, we can escape. Butyou? One of us would have to carry you. And as Mashana Dorothy says,your womb is needed." (Mashana--sweetheart, mother, hunting companion,friend.)
Wright said, "You, Dorothy, Helen, and the giant children."
That brought murmuring. Kamon checked it: "Only four children stillneed milk. You, Samis, your breasts are big: you will go." Kamonturned with gentle deference to one authority she felt to be strongerthan her own under the laws: "Doc?" Paul found it comfortable, nolonger even amusing, that Wright should be known to the giants by hisinevitable nickname. The pygmies disliked the short sound, and initial_D_ always bothered them. To them he was Tocwright, or more oftenTocwright-Who-Plays-with Gray-Fur-at-His-Throat.
"Yes, Kamon. Samis too. Paul, how many trips will that take?"
"Three--leaving fuel for about three more of the same length."
Wright nodded. "Ed has a notion of using the lifeboat for a weapon.Hedgehop, scare 'em to hell. But with fuel so low--"
There was shadow at the drawbridge. Ed Spearman flung aside thecarcass he had brought. Ann's white face was still, though she clungto him briefly when he kissed her. It had occurred to Paul that Ann'simage of love would not be given reality anywhere in the galaxies: shewished moments to be eternities and a human self to be a mirror ofdesire. _But Dorothy and I--somehow we've learned to let each otherlive...._ "More news," Spearman said. "I stopped at the village. A spyof Pakriaa's came home last night--must be a sharp article: did thesixty-odd miles up the lake shore in nothing flat, with facts andfigures."
"Lantis is moving." Wright dropped his hands to his bony knees.
"No, Doc, but will in a day or so." Spearman sat down, holding Ann'sfingers till she pulled them away. He nodded to Sears and Paul. "Goodtrip?" He had grown even more rugged in a year of Lucifer. He woreonly shorts and Earth-made shoes; months of handling a heavy bow hadmade his upper arms almost as thick as the narrow part of Mijok'sforearm. His face had deepened its lines; he had never smiled easily.
"Very good," Sears said. "The island is--" He was silent.
Spearman grunted. "You're sold too? Well, here's the news. One: youremember Pakriaa's second challenge, sent by two warriors, correct andformal--trust Pak for that. One of those messengers is returning. Thespy ran on ahead--with part of the body of the other ambassador." Hestudied the sickened faces. "Two: the spy says Lantis plans to sendfour thousand on the lake boats, another six thousand overland.Pakriaa--who is in a state of mind I don't know how to describe, notjitters exactly--Pakriaa thinks we may feel the lake-boat drumstomorrow. She doesn't know what they are, by the way--invention ofLantis, I guess. From her description they must be drums, maybe hollowlogs mounted on boats. She heard them last year in the war weinterrupted. You feel them before you hear them, she says: she thinksit was a lake devil consulting with the Queen of the World. Three: thespy wasn't sure, but thinks Lantis has already sent six hundred eastof the lake to make a big circle, come down on the settlement from thenortheast."
"Smart," Paul said. "To drive us into the kaksma hills?"
"The kaksma hills." Spearman's gray eyes squinted in a sort oflaughter. "They're not so bad. The critters may be all they say, afterdark, but--I'd better own up: I've gone that way on my last three solotrips. Safe enough in daylight, when they're half blind. I killed afew today."
Sears asked quickly, "Bring back specimens?"
Spearman teased the fat man with waiting and chuckled and nodded atthe asonis carcass. "Tied to one of the hoofs. Don't look so worried,Doc--I waded plenty of streams on the way back." He rose with heavygrace and strolled out on the bridge. "Come a minute, some of you."Paul joined him; Wright stayed as he was; Sears was examining thekaksma's gray, thick-tailed body, holding back its pinkish lip. Paulcaught a repellent glimpse of the jutting upper canines; the molarswere shearing tools like a cat's. He saw the spade claws of theforefeet. The jet eyes were like a mole's. "Look," Spearman said, "thehills. Notice that hogback at the southern end--it's five miles long.Riddled with burrows. They must live on small game on the meadow belowand hunt the other side of the hills too, where it's jungle." Hisfingers dug at Paul's shoulder. He spoke loudly enough to be heard byall: "Listen: the earth at the burrows is red ocher. Understand?Hematite."
Wright let out his breath sharply. "So--"
"Yeah. Just a five-mile mountain of iron ore. Merely what I've beenlooking for ever since we crashed. For a start. From iron to steelto--ah.... And just when we've _got_ it--God! with organized pygmylabor--" He strode back into the fortress, glancing obliquely at thesilent giant women. "The pygmies do understand work, you know. Well,never mind it now. Of course we must get the baby and the women toyour island right away. As a temporary refuge, we must use it." Hewatched Wright with unqualified sadness. "Apart from that, you knowwhat I think of your Island of Lotos-Eaters--"
"That's not just, Ed."
"Adelphi then. Well, the women and Helen--"
"And the giant children, with Samis to nurse the youngest."
Spearman asked evenly, "Paul, how's the charlesite?"
"After the trips Doc mentioned, enough for three more."
Ann's keen ears caught a far-off sound. "Mijok's coming back."
The music grew slowly manifest: Mijok, in an Earth song more than twohundred years old. Long-flowing chanteys and slower spirituals suitedhim. He had teased Ann to teach him all she knew, even after she lostinterest. Swift melodies and rapid syllables were beyond him--thedepth of his tone rendered them grotesque. More than a mile away, hewas wallowing in "Shenandoah"--Mijok, to whom the ocean was only aword and a river steamboat the cloudiest of legends. Other voices,true on pitch, followed his solo:
"_Away--we're bound away...._"
Paul asked, "How many, Nan?"
Ann shut her eyes. "Four, besides Mijok and--yes, Lisson's singing. Atleast two new recruits. Ah--they can sing before they talk." Shehurried into that thatched house-within-a-house which was her comer ofprivacy on Lucifer. The giant women were smiling, though Kamon's eyesfollowed Ann with trouble and pity. They hummed in three-partcounterpoint. Their voices had the range of a Charin baritone; Paulmissed Muson, who could approach the tenor. Sears' bass moved in, awell-behaved trombone teasing a crowd of bassoons. Dorothy's altoadded a warm thread of sound....
The tall children and women poured out over the bridge when Mijok andhis companions were still distant. Musical thunder in the woods pulsedalong the ground. Spearman smiled indulgently. "Just like a bunch ofkids."
"Yes," Wright said. "The pygmies are more serious. They have wars."
Sears stopped humming and mumbled, "Don't, Chris...."
Mijok brought in his triumph, beaming and warm. "And my smallestwoman?" Dorothy placed the naked morsel that was Helen in his waitinghands. Mijok was bemused. "How can anything be so small?"
Dorothy claimed: "Seven pounds at birth--that ain't ha
y, Mijok."
"Growing too," Elis said. The golden-furred girl Lisson tickledHelen's chest with the tip of a forefinger, and Mijok introduced thenewcomers. One was timid. "Just a boy," Mijok explained. "Knows somewords already, though. Danik?"
The giant boy whispered, "Good day." The other was older, black likeElis, trying to display stern indifference, but Surok eased him intorelaxation with a few words in the old language.
For Mijok, speech had still the brilliance of newness but was whollyflexible; he reveled in colloquialisms, acquired mainly from Sears andDorothy. "While the boys and I were out having a hell of a time,what's with local industries? The island, gentlemen?"
"Good," Sears said. "Better than I dared dream."
"And those tough babies in the south--anything new?"
Sears winced. "That part ain't good."
Mijok fondled the fat man's arm with a hand mild as silk. "Now, Jock,now. We'll give 'em hell, that's what we'll do. Hey, Paul?"