The Isle of Slaves
"Sheila!" cried Ramey Winters. "Sheila--kidnapped! But Ravana wouldn't
dare! And why should he--?" He stopped suddenly, the full and terrible
import of Syd's words dawning upon him. Again he seemed to hear the
soft voice of the Lady Rakshasi purring in his ears. "'_Thou and I,
my Lord ... sweeping all others before us. Nor shall we stand alone.
For, lo--there is even my brother Ravana, whose heart hungers after the
goddess Sheilacita._...'"
And Ramey saw, now, the full price he was paying for one careless
slip of the tongue last night. So long as he and his companions were
considered gods by the superstitious Videlians, none would have dared
lay a hand on any of them. But he had dispelled that illusion, and the
bold Ravana, aware at last that it was only men with whom he had to
deal, had moved toward the accomplishment of his ambitions.
Ramey's fists knotted at his sides. He cried harshly, "Well, what are
we waiting for? After them! Sugriva--surely you know which way they
went?"
"Without a doubt," admitted the blue lord of Chitrakuta, "to Ravana's
island stronghold of Lanka. And--Kohrisan _was_ organizing a company to
pursue them. But now he cannot."
"Cannot? Why not?"
"The Bow! Did you not say the Bow had been stolen?"
"Yes, but--"
"If Ravana turns it against us," declared the Gaanelian sombrely, "then
are we all destroyed. And the plight of Sheila Aiken is an hundredfold
worse."
"But the Bow ain't working," pointed out Red Barrett swiftly. "Ramey
and me tried it out. Nothing happened."
Sugriva turned to the young airman eagerly. "Is this true, Ramey
Winters?"
Ramey nodded. "I told you about it, my lord, remember? And you said it
was just as well it wasn't operating. I pressed all the triggers, or
grips, or whatever they are, but nothing happened. Nothing that Red and
I could see, anyway. As a matter of fact, we couldn't even figure out
what was supposed to happen."
Sugriva said, "You would have seen, my friend, had a charge fueled the
Bow. I know not where you made this experiment, but believe me, had
its chamber been munitioned, every living thing within range of the
Bow's tremendous arc would have instantly withered and flamed in sudden
death. Never in the world was there ever a more terrible weapon than
that invented by my brother Rudra."
Red said, "You mean the Bow is a sort of a--a heatray, or something?"
"You might call it that," agreed the blue lord. "It might more
accurately be termed a projector of _cold_ heat."
"Cold heat?" snorted Lake O'Brien. "That's rhetorical jabberwocky!
Sounds like 'dark light'!"
* * * * *
Dr. Aiken raised a thoughtful head. "Yes, Lake, but don't forget--there
_is_ such a thing as dark light. Rays that span distances invisible,
and remain unseen until they touch the object upon which they are
focussed. I can conceive of a cold heat which might be similar. A
fierce, burning ray which does not expend its force until it touches
the living object on which it has been aimed. Is this what you mean,
Sugriva?"
The blue lord nodded. "Exactly, my friend. But not necessarily must
the Bow be aimed at its target. Whatever it touches, that it consumes.
Once--" His eyes clouded and he shook his head sorrowfully--"once,
some decades ago when our colonies were first established, we were
constrained to employ force against a camp of rebel Earthlings who
seized and held one of our citadels. The destruction was--horrible. The
entire fortress was seared clean of life. The very stones in the walls
melted and ran together."
The maid Evavne spoke. "Yes, my lords, the governor Sugriva speaks
truly. This happened even in my own land. There on a lifeless hill
still stands the molten fortress, desolate and parched as if stricken
by the lightnings."[8]
[Footnote 8: "The wrath of Azuria, because the other peoples of this
earth would not turn blue to suit her.... In the vitrified forts of
a few parts of Europe we find data that the Humes and Gibbons have
disregarded. The vitrified forts surrounding England ... the vitrified
forts of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany and Bohemia.
"Or that, once upon a time, with electric blasts, Azuria tried to swipe
this earth clear of the peoples who resisted her. The whitish, or
yellowish, or brownish peoples of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany ... built
forts, or already had forts, on hilltops. Something poured electricity
upon them. The stones of these forts exist to this day, vitrified or
melted and turned to glass.
"The stones of these forts are vitrified in no reference to cementing
them ... they are cemented here and there, in streaks, as if special
blasts had struck, or played, upon them ..." from "The Book of the
Damned" by Charles Fort.--Ed.]
Ramey Winters was chafing with inactivity. Now he growled, "All right!
But even granting the Bow is a frightful weapon, why should that stop
us if it is not charged?"
"That is just the point," Sugriva told him. "It may be charged by now.
There is no doubt but that the lord Ravana knows the manner of its
fueling."
"Manner? You mean it requires some strange kind of ammunition?"
"Even so. That which must be fed into the operating chambers is a rare
and obscure metal. I doubt that in all Chitrakuta there is sufficient
of this precious element to charge the Bow a single time. But Ravana,
having plotted this move for a long time, will have secretly stored
fuel to gorge its lethal maw. We have no way of knowing, of course. But
it would be suicidal to move against Ravana until we _do_ know."
Red grunted, "Then we've got to find out, that's all! If he ain't
got ammunition for the Bow, we've got to close in on him. If he has,
somehow we got to get the Bow back. That right, Ramey?"
But it was not Ramey who answered. The reply sprang from an unexpected
source. From the _bonze_, Sheng-ti, who now moved forward thoughtfully.
* * * * *
This was a different Sheng-ti from him who had eked out a squalid
existence in the labyrinths of Angkor Vat. The elderly priest was
clean, erect; eyes which had once veiled lurking mists of insanity now
gleamed with shrewd reason.
"I am a man of peace, O my friends," he said. "Yea, even a priest of
the very God of Peace. Yet much have I seen and learned in this strange
world, much thought since my brain was swept clear of its fog by the
lord Sugriva.
"And methinks the Way of Peace, which is the way of the lord Sugriva,
now trembles under the blows of the Way of Darkness. Surely my Lord
Buddha would advise that in a time like this a man must make a choice.
"So--mark ye! The Lord Ravana knows me not. I have been hid from his
sight throughout the days of our stay here. My skin is yellow as that
of the natives of these parts. Is there not some way in which I might
gain entrance to Ravana's stronghold and there, perchance, regain the
stolen weapon?"
Sugriva said slowly. "That might be possible. Yes ... it _is_
possible...."
"Where is this Isle of Lanka?" demanded Ramey hotly.
"Not far from here. But a few hours' journey. It is a tiny island
securely situated in the center of a great lake which lies to the
south."
"Tonlé Sap!" cried Lake O'Brien with sudden comprehension. "That's the
only great lake around these parts!" But Ramey was still pressing the
ruler of Chitrakuta breathlessly.
"Your people are artists in many ways, my lord. Say, do they not also
know the art of disguise? You have paints and pigments. Can you not
darken my skin, make me seem like a wanderer from the Indies, and let
me accompany Sheng-ti?"
Sugriva nodded. "Yes, it could be done, my son."
Dr. Aiken cried, "But, no, Ramey! We need you here with us. Let
Sheng-ti go alone--"
"I got us into this mess," gritted Ramey, "and it's up to me to get us
out again. There's no use talking, Doc, I've made up my mind. The rest
of you stay here and plan a campaign against Lanka. Sheng-ti and I are
going to get the Bow--and Sheila!"
* * * * *
Thus it was that before the sultry tropic sun hung high in the heavens,
two seeming native coolies shuffled down the road that stretched beside
the grey and greasy Siem-Reap to the lake called Tonlé Sap. Scuffed
sandals shod their feet, loose hats of woven rush shadowed their faces,
and the rudest of garments, tattered and begrimed, hung from their
shoulders. Only, hot and heavy next to his skin, concealed by the
folds of his coolie wrapper, Ramey Winters felt the reassuring bulk of
an Army automatic; sole note, in this strange, forgotten world, of a
civilization left behind--a civilization not yet born.
The scenery about him was not unfamiliar. The slow years work few
changes in areca and coconut. Great, writhing diptocarpus trees flung
air-roots ten feet in diameter across laboring branches; the sluggish
river swelled into stagnant pools aflame with hyacinth and lily; from
the all-engulfing jungle whispered the furtive sounds of hotland life.
Once a mild, incurious water buffalo rose, snorting, from its muddy
wallow to watch their passage; once a gaunt crane rose before them,
lifting awkwardly on wings that flailed the sodden air as if too weak
to bear their burden.
The scenery was not unfamiliar--save in one respect. The road on which
they walked. It was not the typical baked-clay road of the Cambodia
Ramey Winters had known. It was a broad and well-paved highway, sturdy
enough to bear even the transport of a highly mechanized era. Treading
its solid surface, Ramey marveled aloud, as oft before, that such a
civilization should have been lost to man's very memory in the mists of
time.
"I can't understand, Sheng-ti, what can have brought this great
Gaanelian culture to an end. These roads ... those mighty temples at
Chitrakuta ... the city itself! Why, it is a city of millions!"
The aged bonze said quietly. "The jungle is life-in-death, my friend.
It is the mother who destroys her young."
"I know, but--"
"Let Man desert his cities for a decade," said Sheng-ti sombrely, "and
the jungles will reclaim her own. The hardy grass will shatter these
roads, impervious to wheel and boot. The tendril will bruise the rock,
the soft shoot bring ruin to walls which withstand the battering-ram.
Thus ever Nature reclaims such little space as Man borrows for his
brief moment."
Ramey said, "I guess you're right. It doesn't take long either, does
it? Even in our young country, the United States, we have ghost-towns.
Abandoned cities, now overgrown with weeds, already crumbling into
decay." And then, because his soldier instincts always lay closer to
the front of his mind than any other, his thoughts returned to the main
problem confronting them. "What I can't see is just what we're going
to do about Ravana, anyway. If that bodyguard is any sample of his
army, he has a tough force to overcome. Giants, every one of them. And
Sugriva's 'militia' is nothing but a few, scantily-armed companies of
trained apes!"
* * * * *
The Buddhist priest glanced at him searchingly. "I should not dismiss
them so lightly, Ramey Winters."
"But that's all they are! Monkeys masquerading as men. Talking baboons,
dressed in mens' clothing--"
His companion made a swift, indecipherable gesture. It might have been
one of annoyance; it might have held some unknown religious symbolism.
His voice was sharp, reproving.
"You know not whereof you speak, child of a younger culture! Hark
ye! We of China are old; much lore had we forgotten before your
white-skinned forebears built their first hopeful empire. In our
ancient annals are tales ... legends of those jungle-bred warriors
you call 'ape-men.' And great is the honor our elders paid to them.
The _Chu-King_ tells of a day when their prowess saved all earth for
mankind--"
"Maybe so," said Ramey dubiously, "but they don't look much like
fighters to me. Their captain--what's his name?--Kohrisan; a posing
little jackanapes if I ever saw one."
"And what is Man himself," asked Sheng-ti, "but an ape bereft of
his tail? No, Ramey Winters, you have not read aright the character
of Kohrisan. I have talked with him. I know that beneath that hairy
breast, beneath those over-gaudy habiliments, there beats a heart as
warmly human as mine--or yours. It was a great thing the governor
Sugriva did when he created out of the beasts of the jungle these new
men."
It was Ramey's turn to stare. This was something he had not known
before. A marvel it had not occurred to him to question.
"_Created!_ Sugriva created--?"
"But, yes; did you not know? Sugriva is a wise man. He realized that
the difference between man and the lower ape is slight. And he is a
brilliant technician in matters pertaining to the brain. Kohrisan and
the troops he leads are jungle creatures educated by Sugriva, given
human thought and a knowledge of human tongues by the _vilyishna_.[9]
The governor Sugriva's dream brought to fruition ... a proud, new race
of intelligent beings hand-forged from Nature's rawest materials. A
race of new men."
[Footnote 9: _vilyishna_: A Gaanelian machine which transfers
knowledge from one brain to another by rearranging the electrical
thought-patterns.--Ed.]
"New men!" repeated Ramey. "A race of new men!"
"Yes. But, now--" They had rounded a curve in the road; Sheng-ti's
voice assumed a note of warning--"Quiet, my son! For we have come to
the ferry-port!"
And Ramey saw that the sluggish stream beside which they walked had
now widened, disgorging into a gigantic body of water. Its name he
knew. It was the Tonlé Sap, the Great Lake of Indo-China. A tremendous
expanse of brazen blue, 70 miles long and fifteen wide. And in its
center, secure as if surrounded by barrier walls of steel, nestled
a mist-veiled island which Ramey knew must be the stronghold of the
Martian lord, Ravana. The citadel isle of Lanka.
* * * * *
But scant was the attention he could give this place now. For there was
great activity before them. On the shore of the lake, but a few hundred
yards distant, were numberless quais and wharves. These landing-docks
were aswarm with the warriors of Ravana--and others! Small, frightened
Annamese, bewildered little yellow men huddled together in tiny
groups--no, not merely huddled! Chained! Chained in long queues, saw
Ramey, and being herded into an endless stream of ferries shuttling
back and forth across the lake!
He turned to Sheng-ti. "Sugriva was right! Ravana _is_ enslaving the
natives! These men do not _want_ to be taken to Lanka. They're being
_forced_ there!"
"Quiet!" warned Sheng-ti. A frown creased his forehead; he moved as if
to draw Ramey back with him into the shadow of overhanging brush. "This
ruins our plan, Ramey Winters. We dare go to Lanka as freemen, but not
as slaves--"
His warning, his change of heart, came too late. For interrupting him
there came a loud cry from one of the Videlian soldiers. "_Over there!
Two more of them!_" And before the pair could move a step, they were
surrounded and seized by giant sons of the desert planet.