"--Or Not to Be"
The Lady Rakshasi spoke, and her voice was just what Ramey thought it
would be. Throaty and mellow, caressing-low with a throbbing undertone
of promise. She addressed Sugriva, and her words included all present,
but there was that in her tone, her manner, the sidelong appraisal of
her eyes, which made Ramey feel her welcome was for him alone.
"Greetings, Sire. My brother tells me the Children of the Gods favor us
with a visit. I come to welcome them."
Red Barrett made no attempt to conceal his frank admiration. He said,
"Don't mention it, baby. Boy, Ramey, I'm getting gladder we come
every minute. They grow 'em terrific around these parts! First little
carrot-top, here, then this Ziegfeld doll--"
The Lady Rakshasi looked confused.
"I am sorry," she apologized. "The red-haired god no doubt speaks words
of great wisdom. But his humble maid-servant does not understand."
"It is nothing," Ramey assured her hastily. "The red-haired god but
expresses his pleasure." Aside to Barrett he whispered, "Utcay the
ackscray, opeday!" and Lake O'Brien guffawed loudly.
The interview was brief. That was Sugriva's doing. Politely, but with
gentle firmness, he told her, "You have done well, Lady Rakshasi. The
gods are pleased with your attendance. But now you must leave, for they
would rest. They have come from afar to visit their worshippers, and
they are weary."
The lovely Rakshasi bowed obedience. "Yes, Sire. I hear and obey. But
ere I go, my brother bids me tender unto you his humblest apology for
that which transpired in this hall. He bitterly rues his hastiness. He
was confused, he bids me say, and overcome with awe by the presence of
gods."
"It is forgotten," said Sugriva graciously. "Go now in peace, my lady.
Convey to your brother our forgiveness."
Rakshasi left, but Ramey's eyes followed her to the door. And the
golden creature knew it, for just as she slipped from the chamber she
turned once more, and for a fleeting instant her green eyes met Ramey's
fascinated gray ones. And the look that passed between them held little
of piety.
Then she was gone, and with her departure it was as if a disturbing
fever had left the room. Ramey, feeling the gaze of Lake O'Brien
curious upon him, felt a stab of warmth in his cheeks, and wondered
just how much an ass he had made of himself. Apparently he had done a
pretty fair job of it, for the one person whose eyes would not meet
his was Sheila. And strangely, now that Rakshasi was gone, it was the
clear, mist-blue sanity of Sheila's eyes that Ramey wanted most to look
upon. He shook himself angrily and turned to Sugriva.
* * * * *
"Sire, you permitted the Lady Rakshasi to believe we are gods. Why?
When you know we are not."
The Venusian overlord nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, my friend, I did not
disabuse her belief. But it was no useless deceit. What I did, I did
for your own safety."
"Our safety, my Lord?"
"You have probably already guessed that Ravana is no more of this earth
than am I. As my people come from Gaanelia, that planet which you know
as the morning or evening star, he and his giant underlings spring from
the red desert planet of Videlia."
"Videlia?" repeated Dr. Aiken. "You mean--Mars?"
Sugriva searched his brain, nodded.
"Yes. That is its name in your language."
Lake O'Brien moaned.
"Sweet saints, 'what fools we mortals be'! And men think they are
intelligent. Yet here, five thousand years before our time, the
civilizations of our two neighboring worlds have simultaneously
developed spaceflight--"
"No, my friend. It was we, and only we, who learned the secret of
spaceflight. And like fools, we gave it away."
"Gave it to the Videlians?"
"Yes. We Gaanelians are a quiet, peaceloving people. For centuries our
culture has been great. Our cities dwarf anything you humans know. Our
commerce, agriculture and industry are great. We want for nothing. Thus
we have turned our leisure hours to the pursuit of knowledge and the
refinement of art.
"Our science discovered the secret of flight amongst the stars. Our
expeditions flew to all the children of the Sun; to the planets you
know as Mercury, Mars, even massive Jupiter and far, frozen Pluto.
"Only on three other planets, however, did we find life. Here on
Earth--crude, nomadic barbarism for the most part, with only in one or
two places the rude beginnings of a social culture--on the second moon
of Jupiter, and on Mars.
"The Martian, or Videlian, culture alone was in any way equal to our
own. In our blind altruism we freely gave the videlian giants our great
secret--" Sugriva smiled ruefully--"and now we regret it. For we have
learned that the Videlians are not such lovers of peace as we. They are
hard cruel people, greedy and grasping, predatory. Their space-vessels,
like ours, have brought colonists to Earth. And of these interlopers,
Lord Ravana is ruler. Lately it has became increasingly clear that he
has not the same benevolent designs on the people of Earth that I was
sent here to bring about."
"You mean he wants Earth for himself?"
* * * * *
"That is what I suspect and fear. Consider. With a whole wide world of
pleasant hills and valleys in which to establish himself, Ravana chose
to construct his fortressed capital on an inaccessible island sixty
miles off this mainland--the Isle of Lanka.
"While he has pretended friendship, visiting me here and occasionally
inviting me to his island stronghold, I have heard strange rumors about
his over-lordship. Where as it has ever been the Gaanelian desire to
achieve harmony between our race and yours, it is hinted that the
humans who serve Ravana do so not as willing subjects but as--slaves!
We have tried to pass on to our neighbors something of our learning and
culture, exhibiting good will and friendliness. But I am told that what
Ravana wants he exacts by forceful means.
"It was to investigate these rumors that I recently sent for
representatives of all Earth's governments to meet here at Chitrakuta.
You saw these representatives, I believe, in the altar room?"
Ramey nodded. "They didn't seem to be particularly fond of Ravana. I
don't blame them much. There's a brutal streak in the guy. His first
idea, when the idol spoke, was to pacify it with a human sacrifice.
If we hadn't spiked that deal, I'm afraid this young lady--" He
nodded toward the chestnut-haired beauty clinging close to Barrett's
side--"wouldn't be with us now.
"Well, Sugriva, I'm beginning to understand the setup now. It's not so
unusual. The world we left behind was being sadly muddled by a mob with
pretty much the same idea as the Videlians. They want to be top-dogs
or nothing. So, now that we're here, what can we do to help you out?
You want us to continue playing gods while you hold your round table
conferences with the boys in the back room?"
But Sugriva shook his head. "Not now, my friend. I shall explain that
later. First you must have food, rest, time to collect your thoughts.
Meanwhile, guard carefully the Bow. It is of vital importance.
Kohrisan--" The ape-captain saluted smartly--"Show our guests to
chambers where they may rest and refresh themselves."
The time-farers allowed themselves to be led away.
* * * * *
So began the incredible adventure, the "strange journey" of which
Johnny Grinnell, in the prescience of life's ending, had spoken.
It was Syd O'Brien's idea when, that evening, after having bathed,
napped or refreshed themselves as each saw fit, they gathered again
in the garden-close outside their quarters, that they should bring
this episode to a close. The gloomy twin looked--if such a thing were
possible--more disgruntled than ever.
"If you ask me," he said, "we ought to get going."
"Going?" repeated his brother.
"That's what I said. I don't like this business of messing around in
things that happened five thousand years before we were born. It's not
normal and it's not right. No good will come of it. I'm for getting
back to the time-cabinet and pulling out of there before something
happens and we can never get back."
Sheila gasped, "And miss this marvelous opportunity to discover the
truth about things men have always wondered about, argued over? Why,
Syd, we haven't even begun to discover the marvels of Angkor!"
Dr. Aiken said seriously, "Yes, Sydney, Sheila is right. Fate has
granted us an opportunity to solve more of the mysteries of Man's
beginnings than all earth's savants have been able to uncover in two
thousand years. It is more than an opportunity; it is an obligation! We
cannot leave yet. Why--" His fine old eyes glowed--"this afternoon as
the rest of you slept, I wandered through the courts and the temples,
conversing in their ancient tongues with men whose races were vanished
before the first recorded history was written! Already I have learned
enough to establish an entirely new chronology of history. And I have
merely skimmed the surface!"
"Just the same--" grumbled Syd.
"Just the same," snapped his brother, "you're nuts! Back in our time,
these temples are probably crawling with a regiment of vengeful Japs,
wondering where the hell we disappeared to. It would be suicidal to
go back now. We'd better just sit tight for a week or so ... take
advantage of our opportunity, and return to our own time with a real
contribution to science."
* * * * *
So it was decided. And somehow a week passed. Where fled those warm
days and even more languorous nights, Ramey Winters could never
afterward tell. For there was much to be seen and done, and once the
weird comprehension of their actually _being_ here established itself
in his mind, Ramey, like all the others, dipped eagerly into the
garnering of new knowledge.
With the Lord Sugriva they spent many hours. Even feeling sure, as they
did, that everything the blue lord of Angkor told them was true, some
of his statements were so fantastic as to be almost incredible. As when
Dr. Aiken queried him on the extent of Gaanelian colonization.
"I do not know, exactly," admitted Sugriva. "But there must be five,
six, perhaps more colonies. One of my compatriots, I know, governs an
outpost south and west of here. A desolate territory bordered on the
north by vast desertland. Another bears the light of culture to jungle
natives on a far continent, a hemisphere removed. Still a third has
established himself on a tiny island to the west, where the mighty sea
begins."
"Lower Egypt!" cried Dr. Aiken raptly. "Its culture, differing sharply
from that of the Upper Kingdom, has always puzzled archeologists. The
lost Merouvian civilization which left great paved roads and cities
where now is Peru. And a tiny island--?"
"_England!_" cried Sheila. "Daddy, that explains why the legend of
the 'blue gods' persists in ancient Anglo-Saxon history. The Druids
worshipped 'men from the skies.' They had their 'sky-blue heaven' of
Tir-n'a-nog. And as late as 1,000 A.D. the Picts went forth to battle
with their bodies painted with blue pigment!"
But again, as before, arose the question: if these colonies now
existed, into what darkness had they disappeared that those of the
Twentieth Century knew them only as legend? This was a cause of great
sadness to Sugriva.
"I can only confess," he conceded regretfully, "that somehow our
mission, the bringing of culture to your less enlightened Earth races,
must have failed. Why, I do not know."
* * * * *
Here a great thought struck Ramey Winters.
"But if we could only find out what destroyed your attempt, perhaps
we could do something to prevent it!" His eyes glowed. "What a
glorious thing for mankind! Already you have converted men from
nomadic wanderers into a semi-cultured people. If that cause which
destroyed--or is to destroy--your tutorship were to be removed--" Ramey
faltered over the use of tense, feeling keenly the anomaly of their
position as men of a future age, living in a past, being part of that
past, yet knowing inerrably that which was to come--"Why, then, the
whole history of mankind could be changed! There would be no decay in
Egyptian culture, no Rome rising mightily, then toppling, no long Dark
Ages. There would be only steady progress, ever forward, upward, to
greater knowledge!"
Syd sniffed, "You're day-dreaming, Ramey. The fact that we exist proves
that the history of mankind took a certain channel. There's no way of
changing that. Is there, Doctor?"
"I don't know, Sydney. There is much to be said on either side. It may
be that history is, as you say, unchangeable. But there is the problem
of causality. Once this era _was_. We, having not been born then, were
not here. Causes developed effects new causes--and a course of history
was written leading to the world we know.
"But a new factor enters an old equation. This era again _is_, but
we who do not properly belong here have entered into the picture by
way of a time-machine. It is conceivable that our very _being here_
is sufficient of a cause to change and divert the entire sequence of
events which would otherwise have been the 'future.'"
"Rot!" snorted Syd. "Excuse me, Doctor, but that's not logical. For if
our being here were to change history in any slightest way--then we
would automatically cease to exist! Because the exact and precarious
chain of circumstances which brought us into being would have been
altered."