The voting went quickly after that. Abara slipped into shadow and
shook his head before Wright could call his name. Sears voted for Paul
with a wry attempt at a grin. Surok hesitated; his tawny face smiled
at Paul with apology and he said, "Spearman." Golden Lisson voted the
same way. The other giant women and Elis voted for Paul. The children
were quiet, not needing to be told that this was grown-up business.
When one of the smallest boys started to hum, little Dunin squatted
behind him and covered his mouth.
All the pygmy captains but one had followed Pakriaa's lead, after a
pantomime of meditation, probably for the record. Now, with a vote of
10-10, this one captain was full of trouble. She understood that she
would be the last to vote and must break the tie. This was Nisana,
taciturn, with the white scar of a wound that had destroyed her lower
left breast and run jaggedly down her side; Paul had seen her often
but knew little of her. She was studying the candidates with a
manifestly honest, tormenting effort to decide, and she avoided
Pakriaa's astounded glare. The green eyes fixed themselves at last on
one candidate with a blinding innocence.
"Paul Mason."
Pakriaa started as if slapped, but recovered quickly. She said,
"Tocwright, is Abara not to vote?"
Abara shuffled a step backward, two steps forward. It brought him
nearer the bulk of Sears Oliphant. His bulging eyes tried to escape
Wright's look, and Pakriaa's; his ugly lips wobbled. He squeaked:
"Paul Mason."
"Twelve-ten," Wright said. "Abro Pakriaa, I am grateful--"
Pakriaa ignored him. She was saying with acid sweetness, "Abroshin
Nisana, perhaps you wish to remain here?"
It seemed to Paul that a mechanical force within him was taking over,
unsought, at a moment of greatest need. "That would be excellent, Abro
Pakriaa. If I am commander, I need one of you here: I am glad to
select Abroshin Nisana."
The princess faced him. Her eyelids flickered--usually a sign of pygmy
amusement more revealing than laughter, but one never knew, exactly.
The machine labored, weighing dangers and advantages. A direct order
now might win over Pakriaa or lose her completely and all the twelve
hundred. She understood and admired aggressiveness; she was also a
bundle of touchy personal pride. And--the slim spear in her hand could
strike like a cobra. Paul said, "Abro Pakriaa, you will tell the other
leaders our decision, and if they agree, have them come here at
once." There was a gray-white shadow at his left. The balance,
swinging delicately, was visible in Pakriaa's almost sleepy eyes. He
thought: _One thing quicker than a pygmy's arm--a giant's_. At least
he would not be pierced with white-stone, while Mijok stood there.
Pakriaa's arm swung--the harmless right arm, a harmless beckoning
gesture to six of her captains, who followed her out of the fortress,
leaving Abroshin Nisana staring at the ground and very much alone.
Spearman came alive. He spoke plainly, cheerfully: "Paul, count on me
for anything. Do whatever I can." His voice had full sincerity. If his
eyes were a little too steady, too candid--never mind it. It was a
pleasure to take his hand, thank him, turn to immediate needs.
"Two lifeboat trips right away, Ed, in what's left of daylight. Ann,
Samis, and the four smallest giant children on the first. All the
carpentry and garden tools. Third trip in the morning." Wright's
sudden relaxation was praise....
Ann left, with no more protest than a backward look. But at the last
moment she ran back to kiss Wright on the mouth....
And when Ed was returning from the second flight, which had carried
Dunin and four other giant children to the island--when it was night
and the red eye of the lifeboat was slipping down from above the
hills, then the drums began.
4
Paul heard the drums from within the room that was his and
Dorothy's--merely a section of the thatched lean-to inside the
fortress wall, but Dorothy had given it the reality of a living place.
There were no chairs: one sat on a rug which was a cured uskaran pelt,
a gift from Abro Brodaa, whose people had hunted down the tigerish
beast after it raided her village. The bed was only a clumsy framework
with an asonis hide stretched across it. But the shelter had become
dear with use, and Dorothy had hung a few of Paul's paintings on the
walls--a portrait of Mijok, one of Christopher Wright which had caught
something of the old man's brooding alertness. The red jungle flowers
were too cloyingly rich to be kept here, but Dorothy had found a blue
meadow shrub, and a white bloom that hid in shady ground and recalled
the scent of jonquils....
It was too dark to see her plainly; Paul knew her eyes were open on
him. Barely audible against his shoulder, she said, "I thought I'd be
insatiable. I only want to be near and not think." Nevertheless
thought goaded her. "Ten thousand--ten thousand--What can you _do_?"
All he could say was rehearsed, mechanical, and she had heard it
before. "Frontal attack first, because the pygmies couldn't be led
into anything else. But I shall turn it into an ordered retreat--to
the island. Drive south, skirt the southern end of the hills, then
straight for the coast. We'll be at the island in--oh, soon--"
"But the range--the coastal mountains opposite the island--you can't
cross them--they rise so sheer--"
"Remember the river that flows almost due west from these little
hills? It comes to the sea north of the range. We'll make rafts to get
down that, I think. There aren't any falls. At the coast we'll
contrive something--dugouts with outriggers. I've already shown old
Rak how to make one; he may be working on it now."
Dorothy pressed a hand over his mouth. She stammered, "Make this
moment last." But even during the fine sharp agony there were words:
"I shall keep--a bonfire on that beach--night and day...." and when
his hand was slack in her hair and she seemed to be hardly breathing,
Paul heard the drums.
They were far off and everywhere. Only the remembering brain insisted they
were on the lake. They were not sound at all, at first. A pressure pain in
the back of the skull, a rasping of nerve endings. Nothing but drums.
Hollow logs with a hide membrane, rubbed and pounded by tiny painted
savages. "You must go tonight after all." Dorothy could not speak. He put
Helen in her fumbling arms; he hurried out to the open space, saw the eye
of the lifeboat returning. The drums took on a rhythm, a throbbing in 5/8
time, rapid, venomous. But far away. Still not quite
sound--_Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah, _ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah--growing no nearer, no louder,
but gaining in vicious urgency, relentless as a waterfall, a runaway
machine. _Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah....
Paul hoped that Wright and Sears might be sleeping. It would be an
hour yet before Pakriaa could return with the other leaders, if indeed
she ever did. Elis and Abara were on sentry duty. The three giant
children still at the camp--would they be sleepless, keyed up to vivid
fantasies of the island, like Charin children before a great journey?
Kamon sat alone by the gate. A small figure drooped at the other end
of the enclosure. Since there was no immediate task for her, Paul had
told Abroshin Nisana to rest, but he knew her little bald head turned
to follow him. "Kamon--I'm going to have the third flight made
tonight. There would be room for you too in the boat. Will you go?"