"Are you quite awake?" Vauna would ask me in her musical Benzendella
words. "You speak better today. Your friend Campbell has brought you
more recordings of our language, so you can learn to speak more. My
father is eager to talk with you. But you must sleep more. You are
still weak."
It gave me a weird sensation to awaken in the night, trying to adjust
myself to my surroundings. The Benzendellas were sleep-singers. By
night they murmured mysterious little songs through their sleep.
Strange harmonies whispered through the caves.
And if I stirred restlessly, the footsteps of Vauna might come to me
through the darkness. In her sleeping garments she would come to me,
faintly visible in the pink light that filtered through from some
corridor. She would whisper melodious Benzendella words and tell me to
go back to sleep, and I would drift into the darkness of my endless
dreams.
The day came when I awakened to see both Vauna and her father standing
before me. Stern old Tomboldo, with his chalk-smooth face and not a
hint of an eyebrow or eyelash, rapped his hand against my ribs, shook
the fiber bed lightly, and smiled. From a pocket concealed in his
flowing cape, he drew forth the musical watch, touched the button, and
played, "Trail of Stars."
"I have learned to talk," I said.
"You have had a long sleep."
"I am well again. See, I can almost walk." But as I started to rise,
the wave of blackness warned me, and I restrained my ambition. "I will
walk soon."
"We will have much to talk about. Your friend has pointed to the stars
and told me a strange story of your coming. We have walked around the
ship. He has told me how it rides through the sky. I can hardly make
myself believe." Tomboldo's eyes cast upward under the strong ridge of
forehead where the eyebrows should have been. He was evidently trying
to visualize the flight of a space ship. "We will have much to tell
each other."
"I hope so," I said. "Campbell and I came to learn about the _serpent
river_." I resorted to my own language for the last two words, not
knowing the Benzendella equivalent. _I_ made an eel-like motion
with my arm. But they didn't understand. And before I could explain,
the footsteps of other Benzendellas approached, and presently I looked
around to see that quite an audience had gathered. The most prominent
figure of the new group was the big muscular guard of the black and
green diamond markings--Gravgak.
"You get well?" Gravgak said to me. His eyes drilled me closely.
"I get well," I said.
"The blow on the head," he said, "was not meant."
I looked at him. Everyone was looking at him, and I knew this was meant
to be an occasion of apology. But the light of fire in Vauna's eyes
told me that she did not believe. He saw her look, and his own eyes
flashed darts of defiance. With an abrupt word to me, he wheeled and
started off. "Get well!"
The crowd of men and women made way for him. But in the arched doorway
he turned. "Vauna. I am ready to speak to you alone."
She started. I reached and barely touched her hand. She stopped. "I
will talk with you later, Gravgak."
"Now!" he shouted. "Alone."
He stalked off. A moment later Vauna, after exchanging a word with her
father, excused herself from the crowd and followed Gravgak.
From the way those in the room looked, I knew this must be a dramatic
moment. It was as if she had acknowledged Gravgak as her master--or her
lover. He had called for her. She had followed.
But her old father was still the master. He stepped toward the door.
"Vauna!... Gravgak!... Come back."
(I will always wonder what might have happened if he hadn't called
them! Was my distrust of Gravgak justified? Had I become merely a
jealous lover--or was I right in my hunch that the tall muscular guard
was a potential traitor?)
Vauna reappeared at once. I believe she was glad that she had been
called back.
Gravgak came sullenly. At the edge of the crowd in the arched doorway
he stood scowling.
"While we are together," old Tomboldo said quietly, looking around at
the assemblage, "I must tell you the decision of the council. Soon we
will move back to the other part of the world."
There were low murmurs of approval through the chamber.
"We will wait a few days," Tomboldo went on, "until our new friend--"
he pointed to me--"is well enough to travel. We would never leave him
here to the mercy of the savage ones. He and his helper came through
the sky in time to save us from being destroyed. We must never forget
this kindness. When we ascend the _Kao-Wagwattl_, the ever moving
_rope of life_, these friends shall come with us. On the back of
the Kao-Wagwattl _they shall ride with us across the land_."
5.
From that moment on, there was more buzzing around the caverns than
a hive of bees. It was like a spaceport before the blastoff of a big
interplanetary liner. The excitement was enough to cause a sick man to
have a relapse--or get well in a hurry to join in on the commotion. I
did my best to get well quick!
"Where is Campbell? Bring me my friend Campbell, please."
Omosla, the pretty attendant and companion of Vauna, was always glad, I
noticed, to be sent on an errand to Split Campbell, wherever he was.
From all reports he was reinforcing the defenses at one point or
another where these caverns led up to the surface. They told me he was
a busy man. The attacks of the savage ones had grown more vicious.
They had evidently learned that the Benzendellas intended to move back
to other lands; so they had grown bold in their raids, attempting to
steal not only the Benzendellas' treasurers but also their women. They
had not been successful. My good lieutenant, navigator and scientist,
equipped with capsule explosives, had blown one group of them into a
fountain of dismembered arms and legs. I could just picture him hurling
those miniature bombs at the split-second when they would create the
most panic.
The Benzendellas had been quick to recognize a good thing. They only
wished he were quadruplets or better, to stand guard continuously at
many entrances. They brought him their rare foods, and furnished him
with a comfortable couch; they offered him gifts. In short, they loved
him for his efficiency, and for himself. Especially (according to the
rumors that reached my ears) Omosla.
Pretty little Omosla, I fear, loved him with a love that might have
overwhelmed a lesser man. But I knew that Split Campbell would not
be swerved. He was devoted to duty, dignity, and the Code. The Code
forbade intermarriage with the natives.
Why did I keep thinking of the Code? It shouldn't have crossed my
thoughts so often. I hardly dared stop to ask myself what continually
brought it to mind. But I knew. The flare of jealously I had felt when
Gravgak had tried to call Vauna away from the crowd....
"You are feeling better, Captain?" Vauna said to me as she watched me
pace the floor. "You find that you can walk, so you keep walking?"
"I need to walk so I can think."
"If you wish to think, you should sit out on the hillside at the time
of sunset. You understand my words?"
"I understand," I smiled. Then, rashly, I added, "I understand your
words. I don't always understand you."
"And you wish to understand me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I could think of more answers than my vocabulary could handle. I said
simply, "When I go back to my own world I should be able to say that I
understand the people of this world."
"But you _do_ understand us. You see how we live. You hear how we
talk. There." She pressed my hand. "That is all you need to understand,
isn't it? I am the one who does not understand you."
"How do you mean?"
"I do not see how you live. I do not hear how you talk." She gave a
little laugh. "Only see how you walk when you think, but I do not know
what you think."
"I think about you," I said.
"That is very nice. I think about you, too, Jim. Since the night you
saved us from the savage ones, I have thought about you."
I stopped walking in circles and looked at her. The soft light from the
luminous rock walls gave an ivory tint to her bare shoulders. She wore
a dress of soft woven material, designed with a diagonal line of little
hand-painted sponge-trees. From the curve of her breasts to the lithe
gracefulness of her thighs, the close-fitting garment accentuated her
beauty.
She was backing away from me, smiling as if wondering if I would follow
her. Her arms were bare except for the ornaments of fur around her
elbows. These were evidently an insignia of Benzendella womanhood, for
no woman of this realm was to be seen without them.
"Come," Vauna said, beckoning me. "Put your ear against the wall. What
do you hear?"
She pressed her head against the wall and I did the same. Finally I
made out the faint vibrations of some distant rumbling. I asked, "What
is it?"
"Kao-Wagwattl."
"The round river that moves like a serpent?"
"It is an endless rope," she said. "It is life."
"Life?"
"It gathers water and food within itself. It gives life to those who
seek life. It gives life--"
She stopped, and her pretty poetic expression vanished. My hands
touched her hands, my fingers moved gently along her wrists, her
forearms--then as my touch neared her fur-covered elbows, a look of
shock came into her eyes. "Jim!"
"Yes, Vauna?"
"I was trying to tell you--"
"_What?_"
For a moment she only looked at me, searching my eyes. "We _don't_
understand each other, do we?"