He brightened with a smile and said, "But I'd _like_ to know how she
did it! Maybe she'll teach me some day."
"She seems to have a lot to teach both of us," said Green.
He sighed. "Well, I'm eternally indebted to her. No getting out of it.
Let's call a rickshaw and see what kind of a place she has selected."
Once both had settled in the high-backed chair of their vehicle, and
the two men who pulled it had begun their slow trotting through the
crowded streets, Green said, "Have you any idea where Miran is?"
"Some. He was detained by the port-officers, too, because he had to
explain what had happened to his 'roller. Then he called a rickshaw and
left in a big hurry. He had an officer with him. Not a naval officer. A
soldier from the palace, one of the King's Own."
Green felt a sinking sensation. "Already? Tell me, does he know where
we are staying?"
"Oh, no. When I saw him coming out of the customshouse, I hid behind
a bale of cotton. Mother had told me to stay out of his sight. She
explained how treacherous he is, and how he hates you because he thinks
you brought all his bad luck upon him."
"That's only the half of it," Green replied. He was silent for a
while, thinking, his gaze roving idly over the crowds. There were many
foreigners in town, sailors from every nation that had a border on
the Xurdimur, pilgrims who belonged to the far-flung cult of the Fish
Goddess and had come here for the Festival. The majority, however,
were Estoryans, a fairly tall people, brown or red-haired, green or
blue-eyed, with big noses, thick lips and a slight epicanthic fold.
They spoke a guttural polysyllabic semi-analytic language. They wore
broad-rimmed hats shaped like open umbrellas, tight-necked shirts with
long stringties and pants that were skin-tight from crotch to knee,
then ballooned out into many ruffles. Little bells tinkled on their
ankles, and the women carried canes. All had a fish, a star, or a
rocket-shaped tower tattooed on their cheeks.
Along the narrow winding street were many little shops, flowering with
a variety of articles. Green was intrigued by the magical charms being
hawked everywhere. Many of these were little towers, replicas of the
large ones that encircled the country. On Earth they could have passed
for toy spaceships. He bought one. It was made of white-painted wood
and was about seven inches long. The big flaring fins and landing
struts were well reproduced, but there weren't any of the fine details
that he could have found in such a toy on Earth. There were no holes
in the stern or nose for the drive-exhaust or any indications of doors
or detector apparatus.
He gave it to Grizquetr and leaned back to do some more thinking.
The charm hadn't disappointed him, because he had not expected any
more than what he'd seen. If, in the beginning, those models had been
furnished with every little detail, the passage of many thousands of
years would have seen them blunted and reduced to their present state
of fuzzy symbolic images. Time ate down to the skeleton of things.
He wondered how the charm could have survived up to the present,
because it surely must have been over twenty thousand years ago that
the prototype, the real spaceship, disappeared and man sank back to
savagery again. Then, why had this lasted here, whereas it had not done
so on other planets, Earth included?
Abruptly, he noticed that his rickshaw had stopped.
"A procession of priests, going to the palace of the King, where
they will spend all night preaching to the demon," said one of their
rickshaw boys. He yawned and stretched. "I suppose that it will be a
fine burning, since the priests have predicted that the sun will shine
at high noon. They are safe doing that, as it has not failed to shine
on Festival Day for a thousand years."
Green leaned forward, his hands gripping the sides of his chair, and
said, "Demon? You meant demons, didn't you? Weren't there two of them?"
"Oh yes, there were. But one died two days ago. Hung himself, I heard,
though I can't swear to it since the priests have released no details.
The holy ones have been giving the demons a rough time."
"Demons?" said Grizquetr, snorting with disbelief and disgust. "Doesn't
the very fact that one killed himself prove they're not fiends?
Everyone knows that a demon can't kill himself."
"Quite true, my small friend," replied the taxi man. "The priests have
admitted their error. They are truly sorry--so they say."
"Then aren't they letting the other man loose?"
"Oh no. Because _he_ may still be a demon. Tomorrow, at high noon, the
prisoner goes under the Sun's Eye and there meets the only death a
demon may know. _By fire he was born, by fire he shall perish._ Chapter
Twenty, Verse Sixty-Two. Or so I remember the High Grauchning saying in
his sermon yesterday. Myself, I'm not much for reading. Too busy making
a living, running my legs off, killing myself so my wife and kids may
eat and have clothes on their backs."
Green scarcely heard the garrulous rickshaw man, so shocked was he at
the news. Had he been too late? What if the man who'd died was the
pilot and the other one unable to handle the ship?
The rest of the ride he was sunk in such deep gloom he hardly saw any
of the many sights that Grizquetr kept pointing out. But he did rouse
when the boy said, "Look, Father, there's the King's palace, on top of
the hill! Beyond that is the ship of the demon. You can't see it from
here, but you will tomorrow when you go to the burning."
"Don't be so heartless," said Green, but he looked carefully at the
great marble structure that rambled all over the hill. Somewhere below
that, probably filled with dirt, undoubtedly forgotten, was just such
an entrance as he'd found on the island of the cannibals. He'd also
discovered a similar one upon the fortress of Shimdoog, the night
before when he'd gone exploring and Miran had followed him.
The palace, he thought, looked quite romantic and beautiful, enveloped
in a dim red haze cast by the setting sun, which lay directly behind
it. Probably it would look different in the harsh glare of day, when
the dirt and garbage would be so apparent.
The area in which Amra had rented the room was one which had once
belonged to the rich and the noble but had decayed when the aristocracy
moved their homes elsewhere. The inn before which the rickshaw boys
stopped was a three-story pile of granite blocks. It had an enormous
porch and six huge pillars in the images of the Fish Goddess. Green
could not help admiring the building even in its present state of
decay, because he knew that it must have cost a fortune to build it.
The granite would have had to be transported by 'roller across the
Xurdimur, since there would be no stone in this neighborhood. He
imagined that the landlord charged high rents and that Amra must have
paid a pretty price indeed if she'd given him three times the usual
amount. One thing you could say for her, when she traveled she did it
in style.
The caryatids of the Fish Goddess also interested him, and at another
time he'd have examined them closely by the light of the torches in
the hands of the servants standing by them. The cult of the Goddess
indicated that the original Estoryans must have migrated from the
oceanside to the center of the vast and level plains. And here they
must have built this imposing city, which was to become such a great
focus of trade. Its central location made it a great clearing house for
goods from every country bordering the Xurdimur.
He wondered whether it was pure accident that they had brought with
them the charms in the shapes of spaceships? And if they'd also
accidentally discovered that towers modeled after the charms would stop
the roaming islands?
Whatever the answer, it lay buried in the prehistoric.
"Hurry up," said Grizquetr, pulling on Green's hand. "Mother has a
surprise for you, but don't tell her I told you."
"That's nice," replied Green absently, his mind still upon the news
of the Earthman's death. Hang it all, why must he always be kept in
suspense, must always be improvising from moment to moment, always in
the dark, never knowing what was coming next nor what he was going to
have to do? Oh, for one day of peace and assurance!
"Father!"
"What, what?" said Green, startled out of his reverie and stopping
halfway up the steps to the porch. Suddenly something black and small
launched itself at him and landed on his shoulder.
"Lady Luck! Why are you shivering so?"
"Better run, Dad!" said Grizquetr. "There's Miran coming out of the
door! And soldiers behind him!"