"We must return to the island-fortress of Shimdoog."
"What? Why, that's a hundred miles away!"
"Yes, I know. And we won't be able to make the speed going back that we
did coming. We'll have to do quite a lot of tacking to sail against the
wind, and that'll eat up our time. But there's nothing else to do."
"If you say so, father, I believe you. But what is there on Shimdoog?"
"Not on. _In._"
Grizquetr was a bright lad. He was silent for a minute, so silent Green
could imagine he heard the wheels turning within his head. Then he
said, "There must be a cave on Shimdoog like the one on the cannibals'
island. And you must have gone into it that night we stayed in the
'break. I remember waking up and hearing you and Mother say something
about your being gone and about Miran following you."
Grizquetr paused, then said, "If there is a cave-entrance there, why
haven't other people gone into it?"
"Because it has been declared taboo, off limits, by the priests of
Estorya. It was done so long ago that I imagine that the priests
themselves have forgotten why they forbade its access to men. But it's
not hard to reconstruct the historical causes. Once, I suppose, the
island was populated by cannibals. At the time the Estoryans captured
the island they exterminated the aborigines. They found the cave mouth
was a holy place for the savages. So, thinking that it held demons--and
it does, in a way--they built a wall around it and set up a statue of
the Fish Goddess, facing inward and holding in her hand a symbol to
restrain the imprisoned fiends from breaking loose. That symbol, of
course, is the same charm that is sold on the streets of Estorya, that
circumscribes the country and the island of Shimdoog. It is the same as
the spaceship that landed near the King's palace."
Green hailed a rickshaw and continued his account while they rode
through the still-crowded streets. There was so much noise that he felt
quite safe talking, provided he kept his voice soft.
By the time they had reached the northern end of the windbreak, Green
had told the boy all he thought he should hear at that time. If, later
on, his trip to Shimdoog proved successful he would enlighten him even
more.
For the present he was concerned with the problem of getting
transportation. Fortunately they found almost at once a nice little
yacht with speedy lines and a tall mast. The craft must have belonged
to a wealthy man, for a watchman sat close to it before a little fire
just outside his shed. Green walked up to him, and when the fellow
rose, his hand suspiciously resting upon his spear, Green struck him
on the jaw, then followed with a hard right to the pit of his stomach.
Grizquetr completed the job by hitting him over the head with a length
of pipe he'd picked up off the ground.
Green emptied the handbag of the watchman and was pleased to see
several coins of respectable denominations.
"Probably his life-savings," he said. "I hate to rob him, but we
have to have money. Grizquetr, do you remember those slaves who were
drinking and gambling outside the Striped Ape Inn? Run to them and
offer them six _danken_ if they'll tow us out of the 'break. Tell them
we're paying them so much because it's so late at night, and also to
keep their mouths shut."
Grinning, the boy ran off. Green hauled the limp body of the
unconscious watchman behind the hut, bound and gagged him and threw a
tarpaulin over him.
Grizquetr returned, leading six noisy and reeling men, sturdily built,
with legs and backs big-muscled from hauling 'rollers.
At first Green thought he ought to try to make them keep quiet, then
decided that it would look more natural if he let them talk as loudly
as they wished. There was a festive air over the city tonight, and more
than one yacht was going out for a moonlight cruise.
Once out on the plain, Green threw the promised money to the slaves and
cried, "Have a good time!" To himself he muttered, "Because tomorrow
may be your last day." Already, he had a presentiment of what might
happen if he succeeded in tonight's work. There was no telling what
forces he might be unloosing. As he'd said to the boy, there were
demons imprisoned in the bowels of the island of Shimdoog.
26
Just before dawn the yacht coasted to a stop outside the high stone
walls of the north side of the island of Shimdoog. Green had dropped
the sail and, judging his speed exactly, had steered the craft until
its side was almost scraping the wall. As soon as the roller stopped,
Green put Lady Luck in a bag tied to his belt and cautioned her to keep
quiet. Then he began climbing up the rungs nailed to the mast. The boy
followed him, and both crawled out upon the spar. Green tied one end of
a long rope around the end of the spar. Then he let himself down on it
to the ground on the other side of the wall.
After the boy had also descended they paused for a moment, crouched,
ready to run at the first sign they'd been seen. But there was no
outcry.
The big moon, though dropping to the horizon, was bright enough for
them to make good progress. Green led the way up a series of hills,
heading in a circuitous fashion toward the highest. Twice he had to
stop and warn Grizquetr about the towers ahead, where sentries were
stationed. Lady Luck seemed to know she should be silent. Her eyes
glowed and her teeth flashed, but she was only making a soundless snarl.
They saw the fires of the guards and heard their muttered voices,
but none saw them. It was doubtful that the sentinels ever did look
out, for they did not think that any man in his right senses would be
roaming about in the darkness, where it was well known that ghosts and
demons waited for foolish mortals.
Just before they began climbing the slope of the peak that was their
goal, Green whispered. "This island is built much like the first one
we encountered. I think that all of these islands are more or less
similar, all being composed of a base of a mile and a half square of
eternum metal or something like eternum. And all covered with rock and
dirt and trees and vegetation and stocked with birds and beasts. I
suppose that the original builders landscaped these craft for aesthetic
reasons. After all, a sheet of metal with a few metal chambers on
it doesn't look very pretty and would make a blinding glare in the
sunshine."
"Uh," replied the boy, who didn't understand.
"Do you know, it's strange that I was right the first time when I
sarcastically referred to the roaming islands as glorified lawn-mowers?"
"What?"
"Yes, in the beginning there must have been many more than there are
now, enough to keep the vast plains looking neat and well-kept, the
grass clipped, the forests prevented from encroaching well-defined
limits, and so on. But when there were no longer any maintenance men to
keep them going, they stopped, one by one, until at this present time
there are perhaps a few hundred. Though, I don't know, there may be
more. Anyway, whenever one did run down or break down for some reason
or other it was soon erased by a still-functioning island."
"Erased?"
"Yes, for it's quite obvious to me that the islands not only cut grass,
they kept the plains free of obstructions that weren't supposed to be
there. And a dead island would constitute just such a hazard."
Grizquetr spoke in a thin voice, "Perhaps, Father, I may yet understand
you. I must be stupid."
"Far from it. You'll learn in time. Anyway, I should have known what
they really were when I heard the tales of the sailors. Remember
that one about the big hole made by the meteorite? And how something
mysterious filled it in and covered it with turf? And then there was
the way that wrecked 'rollers would vanish down to the last nut and
bolt and the skeletons of the dead aboard. And there was the legend
of Samdroo the Tailor Turned Sailor and what he found in the metal
chambers inside an island. The great white eye through which he saw
what was outside the island. And the other paraphernalia. They weren't
the property of a wicked magician, as the tale would have it. Any
Earthman would recognize TV and radar and dials and controls."
"Tell me more."
"I will when we get over this wall."
Green had stopped before a barrier of stone, reaching at least forty
feet high. A grim crown, it completely encircled the top of the hill.
"Once it must have been difficult to scale, but mortar has crumbled
here and there, and vines grow all the way up. Follow me. I remember
exactly the path I took."
He jumped up on a little ledge, seized a thick vine and hauled himself
up to another minor projection. Unhesitatingly, the boy swarmed up
after him.
Panting, they reached the top, where they rested a moment and wiped
the blood from their lacerated fingertips. The cat was the only one
that seemed unperturbed. Silently, Green pointed out the twenty foot
high statue of the Fish Goddess below, her back turned to them as she
gestured at the cave mouth with the rocket-shaped charm.
For the first time Grizquetr seemed scared. Like all his fellows, he
had an unhealthy awe for the supernatural. This place, so walled off,
so utterly ancient-looking, so invested with all the attributes of
taboo, so invocative of the horrible tales of demons and angry gods,
depressed him. Only his father's seeming indifference to any fiends
they might encounter kept him from turning tail and backing down the
wall.
"One thing I'll bet, and that is that Miran didn't follow me this far
but stayed down on the ground. With that belly of his he'd never have
made it; he'd have tumbled off like a big fat bug and been squashed
like one, too. Wouldn't that have been awful! However, he didn't have
to go all the way with me. The very fact that I would dare to enter
a taboo area is enough to condemn me. I should have slit his throat
when Amra told me he'd been shadowing me. But I couldn't do it without
absolutely convincing evidence, and even if I'd had that I suppose I'm
too civilized to kill him in cold blood."
"You should have told me how you felt," said Grizquetr. "I would have
slipped a dagger through the tallow over his ribs."
"No doubt, and so would your mother. Well, down we go."
And he set the example by throwing his leg over the edge of the wall
and letting himself down, somewhat gingerly. The descent was even worse
than the ascent, but he didn't bother telling the boy that. By the time
he found out he'd be at the bottom.
Even so, when he reached ground, he thought that the lad couldn't be
one whit more shaky than he. Forty feet was a long, long way when you
were up on top looking down, especially in the moonlight.
"This is the second time I've done it, but I don't think I'd have guts
enough for a third time," said Green.
"But we have to climb back out, don't we?"
"Oh, we'll have to go over it, but I hope it won't be so high by then,"
said Green, looking mysterious.
"What do you mean?"
"Well I hope those stones will all be tumbled to the ground. In fact,
it's a necessity, if we're to do what I expect to do."
He took the bewildered boy by the hand and led him past the cold and
silent statue and into the cave's entrance. "We could use a light," he
said, "but a torch would have been too awkward to carry up that wall,
and we can grope our way to the rooms that are lighted."
Wonder why the passageway wasn't lighted, too? he thought. Or had this
cave been added by the savages who used to live on the island, so that
the _sanctum sanctorum_ would have to be approached through darkness?
Perhaps it was, the primitives having constructed such a chamber so
that the initiate into the religion could go through darkness both
literal and symbolical and come into a light that also embraced both
worlds? He didn't and couldn't know; he could only guess.
But I can take advantage of what I do have on hand, he said to himself,
gritting his teeth with determination.
The dust beneath his feet gave way to clean metal. They rounded a
corner and found themselves in a chamber much like the one upon their
first island, except that this had furniture. A skeleton lay in the
middle of the floor, face down. The back of the skull exhibited a great
hole.
"He may have been here for a thousand years or more," said Green. "I'd
like to know his story. But I never will."
"Do you think the Goddess killed him?"
"No, nor the demons either. It was the hand of man struck him down, my
boy. If it's violent death you're trying to explain, don't drag in the
supernatural. There's enough murder in the hearts of humankind to take
care of every case."
In the third room Green said, "There's no wall of dust to stop us. The
ionic charges haven't stopped working. Notice how clean everything is.
Ah, here we are! Before the door!"