"PROLOGUE\n\n\nAfterwards, she was taken down to the sea.\n\nShe didn't feel too well, so she sat on a rock down where the sand was\nwet and scrunched her bare toes in and out of the cool surface.\n\nShe turned away, looked toward the water, and hunched her shoulders a\nlittle. \"I think it was awful,\" she said. \"I think it was pretty\nterrible. Why did you show it to me? He was just a little boy. What\nreason could they have possibly had for doing that to him?\"\n\n\"It was just a film,\" he said. \"We showed it to you so you would learn.\"\n\n\"But it was a film of something that really happened.\"\n\n\"It happened several years ago, several hundred miles away.\"\n\n\"But it did happen; you used a tight beam to spy on them, and when the\nimage came in on the vision screen, you made a film of it, and--But why\ndid you show it to me?\"\n\n\"What have we been teaching you?\"\n\nBut she couldn't think, and only had the picture in her mind, vivid\nmovements, scarlets, and bright agony. \"He was just a child,\" she said.\n\"He couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve.\"\n\n\"You are just a child,\" he said. \"You are not sixteen yet.\"\n\n\"What was I supposed to learn?\"\n\n\"Look around you,\" he said. \"You should see something.\"\n\nBut the picture in her mind was still too vivid, too bright.\n\n\"You should be able to learn it right here on this beach, in the trees\nback there, in the rocks, in the bleached shells around your feet. You\ndo see it; you just don't recognize it.\" Suddenly he changed his tone.\n\"Actually you're a very fine student. You learn quickly. Do you remember\nanything about telepathy? You studied it months ago.\"\n\n\"'By a method similar to radio broadcast and reception,'\" she recited,\n\"'the synapse patterns of conscious thoughts are read from one cranial\ncortex and duplicated in another, resulting in similar sensual\nimpressions experienced--'\" Suddenly she broke off. \"But I can't do it,\nso it doesn't help me any!\"\n\n\"What about history, then?\" he said. \"You did extremely well during the\nexamination. What good does knowing about all the happenings in the\nworld before and after the Great Fire do you?\"\n\n\"Well, it's ...\" she started. \"It's just interesting.\"\n\n\"The film you saw,\" he said, \"was, in a way, history. That is, it\nhappened in the past.\"\n\n\"But it was so--\" Again she stopped. \"--horrible!\"\n\n\"Does history fascinate you because it's just interesting?\" he asked.\n\"Or does it do something else? Don't you ever want to know what the\nreason is behind some of the things these people do in the pages of the\nbooks?\"\n\n\"Yes, I want to know the reasons,\" she said. \"Like I want to know the\nreason they nailed that man to the oaken cross. I want to know why they\ndid that to him.\"\n\n\"A good question,\" he mused. \"Which reminds me, at about the same time\nas they were nailing him to that cross, it was decided in China that the\nforces of the universe were to be represented by a circle, half black,\nhalf white. But to remind themselves that there was no pure force, no\npurely unique reason, they put a spot of white paint in the black half\nand a spot of black paint in the white. Isn't that interesting?\"\n\nShe looked at him and wondered how he had gotten from one to the other.\nBut he was going on.\n\n\"And do you remember the goldsmith, the lover, how he recorded in his\nautobiography that at age four, he and his father saw the Fabulous\nSalamander on their hearth by the fire; and his father suddenly smacked\nthe boy ten feet across the room into a rack of kettles, saying\nsomething to the effect that little Cellini was too young to remember\nthe incident unless some pain accompanied it.\"\n\n\"I remember that story,\" she said. \"And I remember that Cellini said\nthat he wasn't sure if the smack was the reason he remembered the\nSalamander, or the Salamander the reason he remembered the smack.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" he cried. \"That's it. The reason, the reasons ... Don't you\nsee the pattern?\"\n\n\"Only I don't know what a Salamander is,\" she told him.\n\n\"Well, it's like the blue lizards that sing outside your window\nsometimes,\" he explained. \"Only it isn't blue, and it doesn't sing.\"\n\n\"Then why should anyone want to remember it?\" she grinned. It was an\nattempt to annoy him, but he was not looking at her, and was talking of\nsomething else.\n\n\"And the painter,\" he was saying, \"he was a friend of Cellini, you\nremember, in Florence. He was painting a picture of \"La Gioconda.\" As a\nmatter of fact, he had to take time from the already crumbling picture\nof \"The Last Supper\" of the man who was nailed to the cross of oak to\npaint her. And he put a smile on her face of which men asked for\ncenturies, 'What is the reason she smiles so strangely?' Yes, the\nreason, don't you see? Just look around.\"\n\n\"What about the Great Fire?\" she asked. \"When they dropped flames from\nthe skies and the harbors boiled, that was reasonless. That was like\nwhat they did to that boy.\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" he said to her. \"Not reasonless. True, when the Great Fire\ncame, people all over the earth screamed, 'Why? Why? How can man do this\nto man? What is the reason?' But just look around you, right here. On\nthis beach.\"\n\n\"I guess I can't see it yet,\" she said. \"I can just see what they did to\nhim, and it was awful.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the man in the dark robe, \"perhaps when you stop seeing\nwhat they did so vividly, you will start seeing why they did it. I think\nit's time for us to go back now.\"\n\nAs she slid off the rock and started walking beside him, barefooted in\nthe sand, she asked, \"That boy--I wasn't sure, he was all tied up, but\nhe had four arms, didn't he?\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"You know, I can't just go around saying it was awful. I think I'm going\nto write a poem. Or make something. Or both. I've got to get it out of\nmy head.\"\n\n\"That wouldn't be a bad idea,\" he mumbled as they approached the trees\nin front of the river. \"Not at all.\"\n\nAnd several days later, and several hundred miles away ...\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nWaves flung themselves at the blue evening. Low light burned on the wet\nhulks of ships that slipped by mossy pilings into the docks as water\nsloshed at the rotten stone embankment of the city.\n\nGangplanks, chained from wooden pullies, scraped into place on concrete\nblocks, and the crew, after the slow captain and the tall mate,\ndescended raffishly along the wooden boards which sagged with the\npounding of bare feet. In bawling groups, pairs, or singly they howled\ninto the narrow waterfront streets, into the yellow light from open inn\ndoors, the purple shadowed portals leading to dim rooms full of blue\nsmoke and stench of burnt poppies.\n\nThe captain, with eyes the color of sea under fog, touched his sword\nhilt with his fist and said quietly to the mate, \"Well, they're gone. We\nbetter start collecting new sailors for the ten we lost at Aptor. Ten\ngood men, Jordde. I'm sick when I think of the bone and broken meat they\nbecame.\"\n\n\"Ten for the dead,\" sneered the mate, \"and twenty for the living we'll\nnever see again. Any sailor that would want to continue this trip with\nus is insane. We'll do well if we only lose that many.\" He was a tall,\nwire bound man, which made the green tunic he wore look baggy.\n\n\"I'll never forgive her for ordering us to that monstrous island,\" said\nthe captain.\n\n\"I wouldn't speak too loudly,\" mumbled the mate. \"Yours isn't to forgive\nher. Besides, she went with them, and was in as much danger as they\nwere. It's only luck she came back.\"\n\nSuddenly the captain asked, \"Do you believe the sailor's stories of\nmagic they tell of her?\"\n\n\"Why, sir?\" asked the mate. \"Do you?\"\n\n\"No, I don't,\" said the captain with a certainty that came too quickly.\n\"Still, with three survivors out of thirteen, that she should be among\nthem, with hardly a robe torn.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they wouldn't touch a woman,\" suggested the mate, Jordde.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said the captain.\n\n\"And she's been strange,\" continued Jordde, \"ever since then. She walks\nat night. I've seen her going by the rails, looking from the sea-fire to\nthe stars, and then back.\"\n\n\"Ten good men,\" mused the captain. \"Hacked up, torn in bits. I wouldn't\nhave believed that much barbarity in the world, if I hadn't seen that\narm, floating on the water. It gives me chills now, the way the men ran\nto the rail to see, pointed at it. And it just raised itself up, like a\nbeckoning, a signal, and then sank in a wash of foam and green water.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the mate, \"we have men to get.\"\n\n\"I wonder if she'll come ashore?\"\n\n\"She'll come if she wants, Captain. Her doing is no concern of yours.\nYour job is the ship and to do what she says.\"\n\n\"I have more of a job than that,\" and he looked back at his still craft.\n\nThe mate touched the captain's shoulder. \"If you're going to speak\nthings like that, speak them softly, and only to me.\"\n\n\"I have more of a job than that,\" the captain repeated. Then, suddenly,\nhe started away, and the mate was following him down the darkening\ndockside street.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe dock was still for a moment. Then a barrel toppled from a pile of\nbarrels, and a figure moved like a bird's shadow across the opening\nbetween mounds of cargo set about the pier.\n\nAt the same time two men approached down a narrow street filled with the\nday's last light. The bigger one threw a great shadow that aped his\ngesticulating arms behind him on the greenish faces of the buildings.\nBare feet like halved hams, shins bound with thongs and pelts, he waved\none hand in explanation, while he rubbed the back of the other on his\nshort, mahogany beard.\n\n\"You're going to ship out, eh friend? You think they'll take your rhymes\nand jingles instead of muscles and rope pulling?\"\n\nThe smaller, in a white tunic looped with a thick leather belt, laughed\nbeneath his friend's rantings. \"Fifteen minutes ago you thought it was a\nfine idea; said it would make me a man.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's a life to make,\" his hand went up, \"and it's a life to break\nmen,\" and it fell.\n\nThe slighter one pushed back black hair from his forehead, stopped, and\nlooked at the ships. \"You still haven't told me why no ship has taken\nyou on in the past three months,\" he said absently, following the rope\nrigging against the sky like black knife slashes on blue silk. \"A year\nago I'd never see you in for more than three days at once.\"\n\nThe gesticulating arm suddenly encircled the smaller man's waist and\nlifted a leather pouch from the wide belt. \"Are you sure, friend Geo,\"\nbegan the giant, \"that we couldn't use up some of this silver on wine\nbefore we go. If you want to do this right, then right is how it should\nbe done. When you sign up on a ship you're supposed to be broke and a\nlittle tight. It shows that you're capable of getting along without the\ninconvenience of money and can hold your liquor, too.\"\n\n\"Urson, get your paw off that.\" Geo snatched the purse away.\n\n\"Now here,\" countered Urson, reaching for it once more, \"you don't have\nto grab.\"\n\n\"Look, I've kept you drunk five nights now, and it's time to sober up.\nAnd suppose they don't take us, who's going--\" But Urson, the idea\nhaving taken the glow of a game, made another swipe with his big hand.\n\nGeo leapt back with the purse. \"Now cut that out,\" he began; but in\nleaping, his feet struck the fallen barrel, and he fell backwards to the\nwet cobbles. The pouch splattered away, jingling.\n\nBoth of them scrambled.\n\nThen the bird's shadow moved in the opening between the cargo piles, a\nslight figure bounded forward, swept the purse up with one hand, pushed\nhimself away from the pile of cargo with another, and there were two\nmore fists pumping at his side as he ran.\n\n\"What the devil,\" began Urson, and then, \"What the _devil_!\"\n\n\"Hey you,\" called Geo, lurching to his feet. \"Come back!\" And Urson had\nalready loped a couple of steps after the fleeting mutant, now halfway\ndown the block.\n\nSuddenly, from behind them, like a wine-glass stem snapping, only twenty\ntimes as loud, a voice called, \"Stop, little thief. Stop.\"\n\nThe running form stopped as though it had hit a wall.\n\n\"Come back, now! Come back!\"\n\nThe figure turned, and docilely started back, the movements so lithe and\nswift a moment ago, now mechanical.\n\n\"It's just a kid,\" Urson said.\n\nHe was a dark-haired boy, naked except for a ragged breech. He\napproached staring fixedly beyond them toward the boats. And he had four\narms.\n\nNow they turned and looked also.\n\nShe stood at the base of the ship's gangplank, against what sun still\nwashed the horizon. One hand held something close at her throat, and\nwind, caught in a veil, held the purple gauze against the red swath at\nthe world's edge, and then dropped it.\n\nThe boy, like an automaton, approached her.\n\n\"Give that to me, little thief,\" she said.\n\nHe handed her the purse. She took it, and then suddenly dropped her\nother hand from her neck. The moment she did so, the boy staggered\nbackwards, turned, and ran straight into Urson, who said, \"Ooof,\" and\nthen, \"God damn little spider.\"\n\nThe boy struggled to get away like a hydra in furious silence. But Urson\nheld. \"You stick around ... Owww!... to get yourself thrashed....\nThere.\" The boy got turned, his back to the giant; one arm locked across\nhis neck, and the other hand, holding all four wrists, lifted up hard\nenough so that the body shook like wires jerked taut, but he was still\nsilent.\n\nNow the woman came across the dock. \"This belongs to you, gentlemen?\"\nshe asked, extending the purse.\n\n\"Thank you, ma'am,\" grunted Urson, reaching forward.\n\n\"I'll take it, ma'am,\" said Geo, intercepting. Then he recited:\n\n    \"_Shadows melt in light of sacred laughter.\n    Hands and houses shall be one hereafter._\n\n\"Many thanks,\" he added.\n\nBeneath the veil, on her shadowed face, her eyebrows raised. \"You have\nbeen schooled in courtly rites?\" She observed him. \"Are you perhaps a\nstudent at the university?\"\n\nGeo smiled. \"I was, until a short time ago. But funds are low and I have\nto get through the summer somehow. I'm going to sea.\"\n\n\"Honorable, but perhaps foolish.\"\n\n\"I am a poet, ma'am; they say poets are fools. Besides, my friend here\nsays the sea will make a man of me. To be a good poet, one must be a\ngood man.\"\n\n\"More honorable, less foolish. What sort of a man is your friend?\"\n\n\"My name is Urson,\" said the giant, stepping up. \"I've been the best\nhand on any ship I've sailed on.\"\n\n\"Urson?\" said the woman, musing. \"The Bear? I thought bears did not like\nwater. Except polar bears. It makes them mad. I believe there was an old\nspell, in antiquity, for taming angry bears....\"\n\n    \"_Calmly brother bear,_\" Geo began to recite.\n    \"_calm the winter sleep.\n    Fire shall not harm,\n    water not alarm.\n    While the current grows,\n    amber honey flaws,\n    golden salmon leap._\"\n\n\"Hey,\" said Urson. \"I'm not a bear.\"\n\n\"Your name means bear,\" Geo said. Then to the lady, \"You see, I have\nbeen well trained.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I have not,\" she replied. \"Poetry and rituals were a hobby\nof a year's passing interest when I was younger. But that was all.\" Now\nshe looked down at the boy whom Urson still held. \"You two look alike.\nDark eyes, dark hair.\" She laughed. \"Are there other things in common\nbetween poets and thieves?\"\n\n\"Well,\" complained Urson with a jerk of his chin, \"this one here won't\nspare a few silvers for a drink of good wine to wet his best friend's\nthroat, and that's a sort of thievery, if you ask me.\"\n\n\"I did not ask,\" said the woman, quietly.\n\nUrson huffed.\n\n\"Little thief,\" the woman said. \"Little four arms. What is your name?\"\n\nSilence, and the dark eyes narrowed.\n\n\"I can make you tell me,\" and she raised her hand to her throat again.\n\nNow the eyes opened wide, and the boy pushed back against Urson's belly.\n\nGeo reached toward the boy's neck where a ceramic disk hung from a\nleather thong. Glazed on the white enamel was a wriggle of black with a\nsmall dot of green for an eye at one end. \"This will do for a name,\" Geo\nsaid. \"No need to harm him. Snake is his symbol; Snake shall be his\nname.\"\n\n\"Little Snake,\" she said, dropping her threatening hand, \"how good a\nthief are you?\" She looked at Urson. \"Let him go.\"\n\n\"And miss thrashing his backside?\" objected Urson.\n\n\"He will not run away.\"\n\nUrson released him, and four hands came from behind the boy's back and\nbegan massaging one another's wrists. But the dark eyes watched her\nuntil she repeated, \"How good a thief are you?\"\n\nWith only a second's indecision, he reached into his clout and drew out\nwhat seemed another leather thong similar to the one around his neck. He\nheld up the fist from which it dangled, and the fingers opened slowly to\na cage.\n\n\"What is it?\" Urson asked, peering over Snake's shoulder.\n\nThe woman gazed forward, then suddenly stood straight. \"You ...\" she\nbegan.\n\nSnake's fist closed like a sea-polyp.\n\n\"You are a fine thief, indeed.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Urson asked. \"I didn't see anything.\"\n\n\"Show them,\" she said.\n\nSnake opened his hand, and on the dirty palm, in coiled leather, held by\na clumsy wire cage, was a milky sphere the size of a man's eye, lucent\nthrough the shadow.\n\n\"A very fine thief indeed,\" repeated the woman in a low voice tautened\nstrangely from its previous brittle clarity. She had pulled her veil\naside now, and Geo saw, where her hand had again raised to her throat,\nthe tips of her slim fingers held an identical jewel, only this one in a\nplatinum claw, hung from a wrought gold chain.\n\nHer eyes, unveiled, black as obsidian, raised to meet Geo's. A slight\nsmile lifted her pale mouth and then fell again. \"No,\" she said. \"Not\nquite so clever as I thought. At first I believed he had taken mine. But\nclever enough. Clever enough. You, schooled in the antiquity of Leptar's\nrituals, are you clever enough to tell me what these baubles mean?\"\n\nGeo shook his head.\n\nA breath passed her pale mouth now, and though her eyes still fixed his,\nshe seemed to draw away, blown into some past shadow by her own sigh.\n\"No,\" she said. \"It has all been lost, or destroyed by the old priests\nand priestesses, the old poets.\n\n    \"_Freeze the drop in the hand\n    and break the earth with singing.\n    Hail the height of a man\n    and also the height of a woman._\n\n    _The eyes have imprisoned a vision_ ...\"\n\nShe spoke the lines almost reverently. \"Do you recognize any of this?\nCan you tell me where they are from?\"\n\n\"Only one stanza of it,\" said Geo. \"And that in a slightly different\nform.\" He recited:\n\n    \"_Burn the grain speck in the hand\n    and batter the stars with singing.\n    Hail the height of a man,\n    and also the height of a woman._\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the woman. \"You have done better than all the priests and\npriestesses of Leptar. What about this fragment? Where is it from?\"\n\n\"It is a stanza of the discarded rituals of the Goddess Argo, the ones\nbanned and destroyed five hundred years ago. The rest of the poem is\ncompletely lost,\" explained Geo. \"I found that stanza when I peeled away\nthe binding paper of an ancient tome that I found in the Antiquity\nCollection in the Temple Library at Acedia. Apparently a page from an\neven older book had been used in the binding of this one. I assume these\nare fragments of the rituals before Leptar purged her litanies. I know\nat least my variant stanza belongs to that period. Perhaps you have\nreceived a misquoted rendition; for I will vouch for the authenticity of\nmine.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, almost regretfully. \"Mine is the authentic version. So,\nyou too, are not that clever.\" She turned back to the boy. \"But I have\nneed of a good thief. Will you come with me? And you, poet, I have need\nof one who thinks so meticulously and who delves into places where even\nmy priests and priestesses do not go. Will you come with me?\"\n\n\"Where are we going?\"\n\n\"Aboard that ship,\" she said, smiling toward the vessel.\n\n\"That's a good boat,\" said Urson. \"I'd be proud to sail on her, Geo.\"\n\n\"The captain is in my service,\" the woman told Geo. \"He will take you\non. Perhaps you will get a chance to see the world, and become the man\nyou wish to be.\"\n\nGeo saw that Urson was beginning to look uneasy, and said, \"My friend\ngoes on whatever ship I do. This we've promised each other. Besides, he\nis a good sailor, while I have no knowledge of the sea.\"\n\n\"On our last journey,\" the woman explained, \"we lost men. I do not think\nyour friend will have trouble getting a berth.\"\n\n\"Then we'll be honored to come,\" said Geo. \"Under whose service shall we\nbe, then, for we still don't know who you are?\"\n\nNow the veil fell across her face again. \"I am a high priestess of the\nGoddess Argo. Now, who are you?\"\n\n\"My name is Geo,\" Geo told her.\n\n\"Of the Earth, then, your name,\" she said. \"And you, Urson, the bear.\nAnd Lamio, the little Snake. I welcome you aboard our ship.\"\n\nJust then, from down the street, came the captain and the mate, Jordde.\nThey emerged from the diagonal of shadow that lanced over the cobbles,\nslowly, heavily. The captain squinted out across the ships toward the\nhorizon, the copper light filling his deepening wrinkles and burnishing\nthe planes of flesh around his gray eyes. As they approached, the\npriestess turned to them. \"Captain, I have three men as a token\nreplacement at least for the ones my folly helped lose.\"\n\nUrson, Geo, and Snake looked at each other, and then toward the captain.\n\nJordde looked at all three.\n\n\"You seem strong,\" the captain said to Urson, \"a sea-bred man. But this\none,\" and he looked at Snake now, \"one of the Strange Ones....\"\n\n\"They're bad luck on a ship,\" interrupted the mate. \"Most ships won't\ntake them at all, ma'am. This one's just a boy, and for all his spindles\nthere, couldn't haul rope or reef sails. Ma'am, he'd be no good to us at\nall. And we've had too much bad luck already.\"\n\n\"He's not for rope pulling,\" laughed the priestess. \"The little Snake is\nmy guest. The others you can put to ship's work. I know you are short of\nmen. But I have my own plans for this one.\"\n\n\"As you say, ma'am,\" said the captain.\n\n\"But Priestess,\" began Jordde.\n\n\"As you say,\" repeated the captain, and the mate stepped back, quieted.\nThe captain turned to Geo now. \"And who are you?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm Geo, before and still a poet. But I'll do what work you set me,\nsir.\"\n\n\"And you?\" Jordde asked Urson.\n\n\"I'm a good sea-son of the waves, can stand triple watch without\nflagging, and I believe I'm already hired.\" He looked to the captain.\n\n\"But what do they call you?\" Jordde asked. \"You have a familiar look,\nlike one I've had under me before.\"\n\n\"They call me the handsome sailor, the fastest rope reeler, the quickest\nline hauler, the speediest sheaf reefer....\"\n\n\"Your name, man, your name,\" Jordde demanded.\n\n\"Some call me Urson.\"\n\n\"That's the name I knew you by before! Do you think I'd sail with you\nagain, when I myself put it in black and white and sent it to every\ncaptain and mate in the dock? For three months now you've had no berth,\nand if you had none for three hundred years it would be too soon.\"\n\nJordde turned to the captain now. \"He's a troublemaker, sir, a\nfight-starter. Though he's as wild as waves and with the strength of\nmizzen spars, spirit in a man is one thing, and a fight or two the same;\nbut good sailor though he be, I've sworn not to have him on ship with\nme, sir. He's nearly murdered half a dozen men and probably has murdered\nhalf a dozen more. No mate who knows the men of this harbor will take\nhim on.\"\n\nThe Priestess of Argo laughed. \"Captain, take him.\" Now she looked at\nGeo. \"The words for calming the angry bear have been recited before him.\nNow, Geo, we will see how good a poet you are, and if the spell works.\"\nAt last she turned toward Urson. \"Have you ever killed a man.\"\n\nUrson was silent a moment. \"I have.\"\n\n\"Had you told me that,\" said the Priestess, \"I would have chosen you\nfirst. I have need of you also. Captain, you must take him. If he is a\ngood sailor, then we cannot spare him. I will channel what special\ntalents he may have. Geo, since you said the spell, and are his friend,\nI charge you with his control. Also, I wish to talk with you, poet,\nstudent of rituals. Come, you all may stay on board ship tonight.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nAn oil lamp leaked yellow light on the wooden walls of the ship's\nforecastle. Geo wrinkled his nose, then shrugged.\n\n\"Well,\" said Urson, \"this is a pleasant enough hole.\" He climbed one of\nthe tiers of bunked beds and pounded the ticking with the flat of his\nhand. \"Here, I'll take this one. Little wriggly arms, you look like you\nhave a strong stomach, so you take the middle. And Geo, sling yourself\ndown in the bottom there.\" He clumped to the floor again. \"The lower\ndown you are,\" he explained, \"the better you sleep, because of the\nrocking. Well, what do you think of your first forecastle, Geo?\"\n\nThe poet was silent. As he turned his head, double pins of light struck\nyellow dots in his dark eyes, and then went out as he turned from the\nlamp.\n\n\"I put you in the bottom because a little rough weather can unseat your\nbelly pretty fast if you're up near the ceiling and not used to it,\"\nUrson expanded, dropping his hand heavily on Geo's shoulder. \"I told you\nI'd look out for you, didn't I, friend?\"\n\nBut Geo turned away and seemed to examine something else.\n\nUrson looked at Snake now, who was watching him from against one wall.\nUrson's glance was puzzled. Snake's only silent.\n\n\"Hey.\" Urson spoke to Geo once more. \"Let's you and me take a run around\nthis ship and see what's tied down where. A good sailor does that first\nthing--unless he's too drunk. But that lets the captain and the mate\nknow he's got an alert eye out, and sometimes he can learn something\nthat will ease some back-bending later on. What do you say?\"\n\n\"Not now, Urson,\" interrupted Geo. \"You go.\"\n\n\"And would you please tell me why my company suddenly isn't good enough\nfor you. This sudden silence is a bilgy way to treat somebody who's\nsworn himself to see that you make the best first voyage that a man\ncould have. Why, I think ...\"\n\n\"When did you kill a man?\" Geo suddenly turned.\n\nThe giant stood still, his hands twisting into double knots of bone and\nmuscle. Then they opened. \"Maybe it was a year ago,\" he said softly.\n\"And maybe it was a year, two months, and five days, on a Thursday\nmorning at eight o'clock in the brig of a heaving ship. Which would make\nit about five days and ten hours.\"\n\n\"How could you kill a man?\" Geo asked. \"How could you go for a year and\nnot tell me about it, and then admit it to a stranger just like that?\nYou were my friend, we've slept under the same blanket, drank from the\nsame wineskin. But what sort of a person are you?\"\n\n\"And what sort of a person are you?\" said the giant. \"A nosy bastard\nthat I'd break in seven pieces if ...\" he heaved in a breadth. \"If I\nhadn't promised I'd make no trouble. I've never broken a promise to\nanyone, alive or dead.\" The fists formed, relaxed again.\n\nSuddenly he raised one hand, flung it away, and spat on the floor. Then\nhe turned toward the steps to the door.\n\nThen the noise hit them. They both turned toward Snake. The boy's black\neyes darted under twin spots of light from the lamp, to Urson, to Geo,\nthen back.\n\nThe noise came again, quieter this time, and recognizable as the word\n_Help_, only it was no sound, but like the fading hum of a tuning fork\ninside their skulls, immediate, yet fuzzy.\n\n_... You ... help ... me ... together_ ... came the words once\nmore, indistinct and blurring into one another.\n\n\"Hey,\" Urson said, \"is that you?\"\n\n_... Do ... not ... angry_ ... came the words.\n\n\"We're not angry,\" Geo said. \"What are you doing?\"\n\n_I ... thinking_ ... were the words that seemed to generate from the\nboy now.\n\n\"What sort of a way to think is that if everyone can hear it?\" demanded\nUrson.\n\nSnake tried to explain. _Not ... everyone ... Just ... you ... You ...\nthink ... I ... hear ..._ came the sound again. _I ... think ... You ...\nhear._\n\n\"I know we hear,\" Urson said. \"It's just like you were talking.\"\n\n\"That's not what he means,\" Geo said. \"He means he hears what we think\njust like we hear him. Is that right, Snake?\"\n\n_When ... you ... think ... loud ... I ... hear._\n\n\"I may just have been doing some pretty loud thinking,\" Urson said. \"And\nif I thought something I wasn't supposed to, well, I apologize.\"\n\nSnake didn't seem interested in the apology, but asked again, _You ...\nhelp ... me ... together_.\n\n\"What sort of help do you want?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"And what sort of trouble are you in that you need help out of it?\"\nadded Urson.\n\n_You ... don't ... have ... good ... minds_, Snake said.\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean?\" Urson asked. \"Our minds are as good as\nany in Leptar. You heard the way the priestess talked to my friend the\npoet, here.\"\n\n\"I think he means we don't hear very well,\" said Geo.\n\nSnake nodded.\n\n\"Oh,\" Urson said. \"Well, then you'll just have to go slow and be patient\nwith us.\"\n\nSnake shook his head. _Get ... hoarse ... when ... shout ... so ...\nloud._ Suddenly he went over to the bunks. _You ... hear ... better ...\nsee ... too if ... sleep._\n\n\"Sleep is sort of far from me,\" Urson said, rubbing his beard with the\nback of his wrist.\n\n\"Me too,\" Geo admitted. \"Can't you tell us something more?\"\n\n_Sleep_, Snake said.\n\n\"What about talking like an ordinary human being?\" suggested Urson,\nstill somewhat perplexed.\n\n_Once ... speak_, Snake told them.\n\n\"You say you could speak once?\" asked Geo. \"What happened?\"\n\nHere the boy opened his mouth and pointed.\n\nGeo stepped forward, held the boy's chin in his hand and examined the\nface and peered into the mouth. \"By the Goddess!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"What is it?\" Urson asked.\n\nGeo came away now, his face lined in a sickly frown. \"His tongue has\nbeen hacked out,\" he told the giant. \"And not too neatly, either.\"\n\n\"Who on the seven seas and six continents did a thing like that to you,\nboy?\" Urson demanded.\n\nSnake shook his head.\n\n\"Now come on, Snake,\" he urged. \"You can't keep secrets like that from\nfriends and expect them to rescue you from I don't know what. Now who\nwas it hacked your voice away?\"\n\n_What ... man ... you ... kill ..._ came the sound.\n\nUrson stopped, and then he laughed. \"All right,\" he said. \"I see.\" His\nvoice rose once more. \"But if you can hear thoughts, you know the man\nalready. And you know the reason. And this is what we'd find out of you,\nand only for help and friendship's sake.\"\n\n_You ... know ... the ... man_, Snake said.\n\nGeo and Urson exchanged puzzled frowns.\n\n_Sleep_, said Snake. _You ... sleep ... now._\n\n\"Maybe we ought to try,\" said Geo, \"and find out what's going on.\" He\ncrossed to his bunk and slipped in. Urson followed and hoisted himself\nonto the upper berth, dangling his feet against the wooden support.\n\"It's going to be a long time before sleep gets to me tonight,\" he said.\n\"You know the rituals and about magic. Aren't the Strange Ones some sort\nof magic?\"\n\n\"The only mention of them in rituals says that they are ashes of the\nGreat Fire. The Great Fire was back before the purges, the ones I spoke\nto the priestess about, so I don't know anything more about them.\"\n\n\"Sailors have stories of the Great Fire,\" Urson said. \"They say the sea\nboiled, great birds spat fire from the sky, and beasts rose up from the\nwaves and destroyed the harbors. But what were the purges you\nmentioned?\"\n\n\"About five hundred years ago,\" Geo explained, \"all the rituals of the\nGoddess Argo were destroyed. A completely new set were initiated into\nthe temple practices. All references to them were destroyed also, and\nwith them, much of Leptar's history. Stories have it that the rituals\nand incantations were too powerful. But this is just a guess, and most\npriests are very uncomfortable about speculating.\"\n\n\"That was after the Great Fire?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"Nearly a thousand years after,\" Geo said.\n\n\"It must have been a Great Fire indeed if ashes from it are still\nfalling from the wombs of healthy women.\" He looked down at Snake. \"Is\nit true that a drop of your blood in vinegar will cure gout? If one of\nyou kisses a female baby, will she have only girl children?\" He laughed.\n\n\"You know those are only tales,\" Geo said.\n\n\"There used to be a one with two heads that sat outside the Blue Tavern\nand spun a top all day. It was an idiot, though. But the dwarfs and the\nlegless ones that wheel about the city and do tricks, they are clever.\nBut strange, and quiet, usually.\"\n\n\"You oaf,\" chided Geo, \"you could be one too. How many men do you know\nwho reach your size and strength by normal means?\"\n\n\"You're a crazy liar,\" said Urson. Then he scrunched his eyebrows\ntogether in thought, and at last shrugged. \"Well anyway, I never heard\nof one who could hear what you thought. It would make me uncomfortable\nwalking down the street.\" He looked down at Snake between his legs. \"Can\nyou all do that?\"\n\nSnake, from the middle bunk, shook his head. Urson stretched out on his\nback, but then suddenly looked over the edge of the berth toward Geo.\n\"Hey, Geo, what about those little baubles she had. Do you know what\nthey are?\"\n\n\"No, I don't,\" Geo said. \"But she was concerned over them enough.\" He\nlooked up over the bunk bottom between himself and Urson. \"Snake, will\nyou give me another look at that thing?\"\n\nSnake held out the thong and the jewel.\n\n\"Where did you get it?\" Urson asked. \"Oh, never mind. I guess we learn\nthat when we go to sleep.\"\n\nGeo reached for it, but Snake's one hand closed and three others sprang\naround it. \"I wasn't going to take it,\" explained Geo. \"I just wanted to\nsee.\"\n\nSuddenly the door of the forecastle opened, and the tall mate was\nsilhouetted against the brighter light behind him. \"Poet,\" he called.\n\"She wants to see you.\" Then he was gone.\n\nGeo looked at the other two, shrugged, and then swung off the berth,\nmade his way up the steps and into the hall.\n\nOn deck it was completely dark. As he walked, a door before him opened\nand a blade of illumination sliced the deck. He jumped.\n\n\"Come in,\" summoned the Priestess of Argo, and he turned into a\nwindowless cabin and stopped one step beyond the threshold. The walls\nrippled tapestries, lucent green, scarlet. Golden braziers perched on\ntapering legged tripods beneath plumes of pale blue smoke that lent thin\nincense in the room, pierced faintly but cleanly into his nostrils like\nknives. Light lashed the polished wooden newels of a great bed on which\nsat swirls of silk, damasked satin, brocade. A huge desk, cornered with\nwooden eagles, was spread with papers, meticulous instruments of\ncartography, sextants, rules, compasses, and great shabby books were\npiled on one corner. Above, from the beamed ceiling, hung by thick\nchains, swayed a branching candelabra of oil cups, some in the hands of\ndemons, the mouths of monkeys, burning in the bellies of nymphs, or\nbetween the horns of satyrs' heads--red, clear green, or yellow-white.\n\n\"Come in,\" repeated the priestess. \"Close the door.\"\n\nGeo obeyed.\n\nShe walked behind her desk, sat down, and folded her hands in front of\nher veiled face. \"What do you know of the real world, outside Leptar?\"\n\n\"That there is much water, some land, and mostly ignorance.\"\n\n\"What tales have you heard from your bear friend, Urson? He is a\ntraveled man and should know some of what there is of the earth.\"\n\n\"The stories of sailors,\" said Geo, \"are menageries of beasts that no\none has ever seen, of lands for which no maps exist, and of peoples whom\nno man has met.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Since I boarded this ship I have heard many tales from\nsailors, and I have learned more from them than from all my priests.\nYou, on the docks there, this evening, have been the only man to give me\nanother scrap of the puzzle except a few drunken seamen, misremembering\nold fantasies.\" She paused. \"What do you know of the jewels you saw\ntonight?\"\n\n\"Nothing, ma'am.\"\n\n\"A common thief hiding on the docks had one; I, a priestess of Argo,\npossess another; and if you had one, you would probably exchange it for\na kiss with some tavern maid. What do you know of the god Hama?\"\n\n\"I know of no such god.\"\n\n\"You,\" she said, \"who can spout all the rituals and incantations of the\nwhite goddess Argo, you do not even know the name of the dark god Hama.\nWhat do you know of the Island of Aptor?\"\n\n\"Nothing, ma'am.\"\n\n\"This boat has been to Aptor once and now will return again. Ask your\nignorant friend the Bear to tell you tales of Aptor; and blind, wise\npoet, you will laugh, and probably he will, too. But I will tell you:\nhis tales, his legends, and his fantasies are not a tithe of the truth,\nnot a tithe. Perhaps you will be no help after all. I am thinking of\ndismissing you.\"\n\n\"But, ma'am ...\" Geo began.\n\nThe priestess looked up, having been about to begin some work.\n\nGeo regained himself. \"Ma'am, what can you tell me about these things?\nYou have scattered only crumbs. I have extensive knowledge of\nincantation, poetry, magic, and I know these concern your problem. Give\nme what information you have, and I will be able to render mine in full.\nI am familiar with many sailors' tales. True, none of Aptor, or Hama,\nbut I may be able to collate fragments. I have learned the legends and\njargon of thieves through a broad life; this is more than your priests\nhave, I'll wager. I have had teachers who were afraid to touch books I\nhave opened. And I fear no secret you might hold.\"\n\n\"No, you are not afraid,\" admitted the priestess. \"You are honorable,\nand foolish--and a poet. I hope the first and last will wipe out the\nmiddle one in time. Nevertheless, I will tell you some.\" She stood up\nnow, and drew out a map.\n\n\"Here is Leptar,\" she pointed to one island. Then her finger moved over\nwater to another. \"This is Aptor. Now you know as much about it as any\nordinary person in Leptar might. Aptor is a barbaric land, uncivilized.\nYet they occasionally show some insidious organization. Tell me, what\nlegends of the Great Fire have you heard?\"\n\n\"I know that beasts are supposed to have come from the sea and destroyed\nthe world's harbors, and that birds spat fire from the sky.\"\n\n\"The older sailors,\" said the priestess, \"will tell you that these were\nbeasts and birds of Aptor. Of course, there is fifteen hundred years of\nretelling and distortion in a tradition never written down, and perhaps\nAptor has simply become a synonym for everything evil, but these stories\nstill give you some idea. Chronicles, which only three or four people\nhave had access to, tell me that once five hundred years ago, the forces\nof Aptor actually attempted to invade Leptar. The references to it are\nvague. I do not know how far it went nor how successful it was, but its\nmethods were insidious and very unlike any invasion you may have read of\nin history. So unlike, that records of it were destroyed, and no mention\nof it is made in the histories given to school children.\n\n\"Only recently have I had a chance to learn how strange and inhuman they\nwere. And I have good reason to believe that the forces of Aptor are\ncongealing once more, a sluggish but huge amoeba of horror. Once fully\nawake, once launched, it will be irrevocable. Tendrils have reached into\nus for the past few years, probed, and then withdrawn before they were\nrecognized. Sometimes they dealt catastrophic blows to the center of\nLeptar's government and religion. All this has been assiduously kept\nfrom the people. I have been sent to clear perhaps just one more veil\nfrom our ignorance. And if you can help me in that, you are welcome.\"\n\n\"What of the jewels, and of Hama?\" inquired Geo. \"Is he a god of Aptor\nunder whom these forces are being marshaled? And are these jewels sacred\nto him in some way?\"\n\n\"Both are true, and both are not true enough,\" replied the priestess.\n\n\"And one more thing. You say the last attempted invasion by Aptor into\nLeptar was five hundred years ago? It was five hundred years ago that\nthe religion of Argo in Leptar purged all her rituals and instituted new\nones. Was there some connection between the invasion and the purge?\"\n\n\"I am sure of it,\" declared the priestess. \"But I do not know what it\nis. However, let me now tell you the story of the jewels. The one I wear\nat my neck was captured, somehow, from Aptor during that first invasion.\nThat we captured it may well be the reason that we are still a free\nnation today. Since then it has been guarded carefully in the temple of\nthe Goddess Argo, its secrets well protected, along with those few\nchronicles which mention the invasion, which ended, incidentally, only a\nmonth before the purges. Then, about a year ago, a small hoard of horror\nreached our shore from Aptor. I cannot describe it. I did not see any of\nwhat transpired. But they made their way inland, and managed to kidnap\nArgo herself.\"\n\n\"You mean Argo incarnate? The highest priestess?\"\n\n\"Yes. Each generation, as you know, the youngest daughter of the past\ngeneration's highest priestess is chosen as the living incarnation of\nthe white Goddess Argo. She is reared and taught by the wisest priests\nand priestesses. Her youngest daughter, when she dies, becomes Argo. At\nany rate, she was kidnaped. One of the assailants was hacked down;\ninstantly it decayed, rotted on the floor of the convent corridor. But\nfrom the putrescent mass of flesh, we salvaged a second jewel from\nAptor. And before it died, it was heard to utter the lines I quoted to\nyou before. So, I have been sent then, to find what I can of the enemy,\nand to rescue or to find the fate of my sister.\"\n\n\"I will do whatever I can,\" said Geo, \"to help save Leptar and to\ndiscover the whereabouts of your sister priestess.\"\n\n\"More than my sister priestess,\" said the woman softly, \"my sister in\nblood. I am the other daughter of the last Argo: that is why this task\nfell to me. And until she is found dead, or returned alive ...\" here she\nrose from her bench, \"... I am the White Goddess Argo Incarnate.\"\n\nGeo dropped his eyes as Argo lifted her veil. Once more that evening she\nheld forth the jewel. \"There are three of these,\" she said. \"Hama's sign\nis a black disk with three white eyes. Each eye represents a jewel. With\nthe first invasion, they probably carried all three jewels, for they are\nthe center of their power. Without them, they would have been turned\nback immediately. With them, they thought themselves invincible. But we\ncaptured one, and very soon unlocked its secrets. I have no guards with\nme. With this jewel I need none. I am as safe as I would be with an\narmy, and capable of nearly as much destruction. When they came to\nkidnap my sister a year ago, I am convinced they carried both of their\nremaining jewels, thinking that we had either lost, or did not know the\npower of the first. Anyway, they reasoned, they had two to our one. But\nnow, we have two, and they are left with only one. Through some complete\ncarelessness, your little thief stole one from me as I was about to\nboard when we first departed two months ago. Today he probably\nrecognized me and intended to exact some fee for its return. But now, he\nwill be put to a true thief's task. He must steal for me the third and\nfinal jewel from Hama for me. Then we shall have Aptor, and be rid of\ntheir evil.\"\n\n\"And where is this third jewel?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said the woman, \"perhaps it is lodged in the forehead of the\nstatue of the dark god Hama that sits in the guarded palace somewhere in\nthe center of the jungles of Aptor. Do you think your thief will find\nhimself challenged enough?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" answered Geo.\n\n\"Somewhere in that same palace is my sister, or her remains. You are to\nfind them, and if she is alive, bring her back with you.\"\n\n\"And what of the jewels?\" asked Geo. \"When will you show us their power\nso that we may use them to penetrate the palace of Hama?\"\n\n\"I will show you their power,\" said Argo, smiling. With one hand she\nheld up the map over which she had spoken. With the other she tapped the\nwhite jewel with her pale fingernail. The map suddenly blackened at one\nedge, and then flared. Argo walked to a brazier and deposited the\nflaming paper. Then she turned again to Geo. \"I can fog the brain of a\nsingle person, as I did with Snake; or I can bewilder a hundred men. As\neasily as I can fire a dried, worn map, I can raze a city.\"\n\n\"With those to help,\" smiled Geo, \"I think we have a fair chance to\nreach this Hama, and return.\"\n\nBut the smile with which she answered his was strange, and then suddenly\nit was completely gone. \"Do you think,\" she said, \"that I would put such\ntemptation in your hands? You might be captured, and if so, then the\njewels would be in the hands of Aptor once more.\"\n\n\"But with them we would be so powerful....\"\n\n\"They have been captured once; we cannot take the chance that they be\ncaptured again. If you reach the palace, if you can steal the third\njewel, if my sister is alive, and if you can rescue her, then she will\nknow how to employ its power to manipulate your escape. However, if you\nand your friends do not accomplish _all_ these things, the trip will be\nuseless; and so perhaps death would be better than a return to watch the\nwrath of Argo in her dying struggle, for you would feel it more horribly\nthan even the most malicious torture of Aptor's evil.\"\n\nGeo did not speak.\n\n\"Why do you look so strangely?\" asked Argo. \"You have your poetry, your\nspells, your scholarship. Don't you believe in their power? Go back to\nyour berth, and send the thief to me.\" The last words were a sharp\norder, and Geo turned from the room into the night's darkness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nGeo walked down into the forecastle, still deserted except for Urson and\nSnake. \"Well?\" asked Urson, sitting up on the edge of his berth. \"What\ndid she tell you?\"\n\n\"Why aren't you asleep?\" Geo said heavily. He touched Snake on the\nshoulder. \"She wants to see you now.\"\n\nSnake stood up, started for the door, but then turned around.\n\n\"What is it?\" Geo asked.\n\nSnake dug into his clout again and pulled out the thong with the jewel.\nHe walked over to Geo, hesitated, and then placed the thong around the\nolder boy's neck.\n\n\"You want me to keep it for you?\" Geo asked.\n\nBut Snake turned around and was gone.\n\n\"I wonder what they do?\" said Urson. \"Or did you find out. Come on, Geo,\ngive up what she told you.\"\n\n\"Did Snake say anything to you while I was gone?\"\n\n\"Not a peep,\" answered Urson. \"I came no nearer sleep than I came to the\nmoon. Now come on, what's this about?\"\n\nGeo told him.\n\nWhen he finished, Urson said, \"You're crazy. Both you and her.\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Geo said. He concluded his story by recounting\nArgo's demonstration of the jewel's power.\n\nUrson fingered the stone on Geo's chest. \"All that in this little thing?\nTell me, do you think you can figure out how it works?\"\n\n\"I don't know if I want to,\" Geo said. \"It doesn't sound right.\"\n\n\"You're damn straight it doesn't sound right,\" Urson reiterated. \"What's\nthe point of sending us in there with no protection to do something that\nwould be crazy with a whole army. What's she got against us?\"\n\n\"I don't think she has anything against us,\" Geo said. \"Urson, what\nstories do you know about Aptor? She said you might be able to tell me\nsomething.\"\n\n\"I know that no one trades with it, everyone curses by it, and the rest\nis a lot of rubbish not worth saying.\"\n\n\"What rubbish?\"\n\n\"Believe me, it's just bilge water,\" insisted Urson. \"Do you think you\ncould figure out that little stone there, if you had long enough, I\nmean? She said that the priests five hundred years ago could, and she\nseems to think you're as smart as some of them. I wouldn't doubt if you\ncould work it.\"\n\n\"You tell me some stories first,\" said Geo.\n\n\"Oh, they talk about cannibals, women who drink blood, things neither\nman nor animal, and cities inhabited only by death. Sailors avoid it,\nsave to curse by.\"\n\n\"Do you know anything more than that?\"\n\n\"There's nothing more to know,\" shrugged Urson.\n\n\"She said the stories you'd tell would not be one tenth of the truth.\"\n\n\"She must have meant that there wasn't even a tenth part of the truth in\nthem. And I'm sure she's right. You just misunderstood.\"\n\n\"No, I heard her correctly,\" Geo assured him.\n\n\"Then I just don't believe it. There are half a dozen things that don't\nmatch up in all this. First, how that little four-armed fellow happened\nto be at the pier after two months just when she was coming in. And to\nhave the jewel still, not have traded it, or sold it already....\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" suggested Geo, \"he read her mind too, when he first stole it,\nthe same way he read ours.\"\n\n\"And if he did, maybe he knows how to work the things. I say let's find\nout when he comes back. And I wonder who cut his tongue out. Strange one\nor not, that makes me sick,\" said the big man.\n\n\"About that,\" Geo started. \"Don't you remember? He said you knew the man\nit was.\"\n\n\"I know many men,\" said Urson, \"but which one of the many I know is it?\"\n\n\"You really don't know?\" Geo asked, quietly.\n\n\"You say that in a strange way,\" Urson said, frowning.\n\n\"I'll say the same thing he said,\" went on Geo. \"What man did you kill?\"\n\nUrson looked at his hands for a moment, stretched the fingers, turned\nthem over in his lap like meat he was examining. Then, without looking\nup, he said, \"It was a long time ago, friend, but the closeness of it\nshivers in my eyes. I should have told you, yes. But it comes to me,\nsometimes, not like a memory, but something I can feel, as hard as\nmetal, taste as sharp as salt, and the wind brings back my voice, his\nwords, so clearly that I shake like a mirror where the figure on the\ninside pounds his fists on the fists of the man outside, each one trying\nto break free.\n\n\"We were reefing sails in a flesh-blistering rain, when it began. His\nname was Cat. The two of us were the two biggest men aboard, and that we\nhad been put on the reefing team together meant that this was an\nimportant job and one to be done well and right. Water washed our eyes,\nour hands slipped on wet ropes. It was no wonder my cloth suddenly flung\naway from me in a gust, billowing down in the rain, flapping against\nhalf a dozen ropes and breaking two small stays. 'You clumsy thing'\nbawled the mate from the deck. 'What sort of fish-fingered sailor, are\nyou?'\n\n\"And through the rain I heard Cat laugh from his own spar. 'That's the\nway luck goes,' he cried, catching at his own cloth that threatened to\npull loose. I pulled mine in and bound her tight. The competition that\ngoes rightly between two fine sailors drove a seed of fury into my flesh\nthat should have bloomed as a curse or a returned jibe, but the rain\nrained too hard, and the wind was too strong; so I bound my sail with\nsilence.\n\n\"I was last down, of course, and with only a few lads below on deck,\nwhen I saw why my sail had come loose. A worn mast ring had broken,\ncaused a main rope to fly and my canvas to come tumbling. But the ring\nalso had held the nearly broken aft mast together, and in the wind, a\nsplit twice the length of my arm pulled open and snapped to again and\nagain like a child's noise clapper. There was a rope near, and inch\nthick line coiled on a spike. Holding myself to a rat line by not much\nmore than my toes, I secured the rope and bound the base of the broken\npole. Each time it snapped to, I looped it once around and pulled the\nwet line tight. They call this whipping a mast, and I whipped it till\nthe collar of rope was three feet long to the top of the cleft and she\ncouldn't snap any more. Then I hung the broken ring on a peg near by so\nI could point it out to the ship's smith and get him to replace the rope\nwith a metal band.\n\n\"That evening at mess, with the day's incidents out of my mind and hot\nsoup in my mouth, I was laughing over some sailor's tale about another\nsailor and another sailor's woman, when the mate strode into the hall.\n'Hey, you sea scoundrels,' he bellowed. There was silence. 'Which of you\nbound up that broken mast aft?'\n\n\"I was about to call out, 'Aye, it was me,' when another man beat me by\nbawling, 'It was the Big Sailor, sir!' That was a name both Cat and I\nwere often hailed by.\n\n\"'Well,' snarled the mate, 'the captain says that such good thinking in\ntimes so hard as these should be rewarded. He's seen the job and\napproved.' He took a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it on the\ntable in front of Cat. 'There you go, Big Sailor. But I think it's as\nmuch as any man should do.' And then he turned and clomped from the mess\nhall. A cheer went up for Cat as he pocketed the coin; I couldn't see\nhis face.\n\n\"The anger in me started now, but without direction. Should it go to the\nsailor who'd called out the name of the hero? Naw, for he had been down\non deck, and through rain and darkness probably he could not have told\nme from my rival anyway at that distance. At Cat? But he was already\ngetting up to leave the table. And the first mate, the same first mate\nof this ship here, friend, that we're on now, he was out stomping\nsomewhere on deck.\n\n\"Perhaps it was this that caused my anger to break out the next morning\nwhen we were in calmer weather. A careless salt jarred me in a passage\nway, and suddenly I was all fists and fire. We scuffled, we banged, we\ncursed, we rolled. In fact, we rolled right under the feet of the mate\nwho was coming down the steps at the time. He sent a boot into us and\neight different curses, and when he recognized me, he sneered, 'Oh, the\nclumsy one.'\n\n\"Now I'd had a fiery record before. Fights on ship are a breach few\ncaptains will allow. This was my third, and one too many. And the mate,\nprompted by his own opinion of me, got the captain to order me flogged.\n\n\"So, like a carcass to be sliced and bid on, I was lead out before the\nassembled sailors at the next sunrise and bound to the main mast. I\nthought my wrath went all toward the first mate now. But black turned\nwhite in my head, into something that I could bite into, when he flung\nthe whip to Cat and cried, 'Here, Big Sailor, you've done your ship one\ngood turn. Now rub sleep off your face and do it another. I want ten\nstripes on that one's back deep enough to count easily with a finger\ndipped in salt.'\n\n\"They fell, and I didn't breathe the whole time. Ten lashes is a\nwhipping a man can recover from in a week. Most go down to their knees\nwith the first one, if their rope is slack enough. I didn't fall until\nthey finally cut the ropes from my wrists. Nor was it till I heard a\nsecond gold coin rattle down on the deck from the first mate's hand and\nthe words to the crew, 'See how a good sailor gets rich,' that I made a\nsound. And it was lost in the cheer which sprung from the other men.\n\n\"Cat and one other lugged me to the brig. As I fell forward, hands\nscudding into straw, I heard Cat's voice come, 'Well, brother, that's\nthe way the luck goes.'\n\n\"Then the pain made me faint.\n\n\"A day later, when I could pull myself up to the window and look out on\nthe back of the ship, we caught the worst storm I'd ever seen, and the\nslices in my back made it no easier on me. Pegs threatened to pull from\ntheir holes, boards to part themselves; one wave washed four men\noverboard; and while others ran to save them, another came and swept off\nsix more. It had come so suddenly that not a sail had been raised, and\nnow the remaining men were swarming to the ratlines.\n\n\"From my place at the brig's window I saw it start to go and I howled\nlike an animal, tried to pull the bars away. But legs passed my window\nrunning, and none stopped. I screamed at them, and I screamed again. The\nship's smith had not yet gotten to fix my makeshift repair on the aft\nmast with another metal band. Nor, with my anger, had I yet even pointed\nit out to him as I had intended. It didn't hold a quarter of an hour.\nWhen it gave there was a snap like thunder. Under the tugging of half\nfurled sails, ropes popped like threads. Men were whipped off like drops\nof water shaken from a wet hand. The mast raked across the sky above me\nlike a claw, and then fell against the high mizzen, snapping more ropes\nand scraping men from their perches as you'd scrape ants from a tree.\n\n\"The crew's number was halved, and when somehow we crawled from under\nthe sheets of rain, one mast fallen and one more ruined, the broken\nbodies with still some life numbered eleven. A ship's infirmary holds\nten, and the overflow goes to the brig. The choice of who became my mate\nwas between the man most likely to live, figuring that he could take the\nharder situation more easily than the others, and the man most likely to\ndie, figuring that it would probably make no difference to some one that\nfar gone. The choice was made, the latter choice, and the next morning\nthey carried Cat in and laid him beside me on the straw while I slept.\nHis spine had been crushed at the pelvis and a spar had pierced his side\nwith a hole big enough to put your hand into.\n\n\"When he came to, all he did was cry--not with the agonized howls I had\ngiven the day before when I watched the mast topple, but with a little\nsound that escaped from clenched teeth, like a child who doesn't want to\nshow the pain. It didn't stop for hours, and such a soft sound, it\nburned into my gut and my tongue deeper than any animal wailing would.\n\n\"The next dawn stretched copper foil across the window and reddish light\nfell on the straw, the board floor, and the filthy, crumpled blanket\nthey had laid him in. The crying had stopped and was replaced now by a\ngasped breath, sharp every few seconds, irregular, loud. I thought he\nmust be unconscious, but when I kneeled to look, his eyes were opened\nand he stared straight into my face. 'You ...' he said to me with the\nnext gasp. 'It hurts ... You ...'\n\n\"'Be still,' I said. 'Here, be still.'\n\n\"The next word I thought I heard was water, but there wasn't any in the\ncell. I should have realized that the ship's supplies had probably gone\nfor the most part overboard. But by now, hungry and thirsty myself, I\ncould see it as nothing less than a stupendous joke when one slice of\nbread and a single tin cup of water were finally brought and\nembarrassedly and silently handed in to us about seven that morning.\n\n\"Nevertheless, I opened his mouth and tried to pour some of it down his\nthroat. They say a man's mouth and tongue turn black from fever and\nthirst after a while. It's not true. The color is the deep purple of\nrotten, shriveled meat. And every taste bud on the dead flesh was tipped\nwith that white stuff that gets in your mouth when your bowels are\nupset. He couldn't swallow the water. It just dribbled over the side of\nhis mouth that was scabbed with purple crust.\n\n\"He blinked his eyes and once more got out, 'You ... you please ...' and\nthen he began to cry again.\n\n\"'What is it?' I asked.\n\n\"Suddenly he began to struggle and got his hand into the breast of his\ntorn tunic and pulled out a fist. He held it out toward me and said,\n'Please ... please ...'\n\n\"The fingers opened and I saw three gold coins, two of whose histories\nsuddenly leapt into my mind like stories of living men.\n\n\"I moved back as if burned; then I leaned forward again. 'What do you\nwant?' I asked.\n\n\"'Please ...' he said, moving his hand toward me. 'Kill ... kill ...'\nand then he was crying once more. 'It hurts so bad ...'\n\n\"I got up. I walked across to the other side of the cell. I came back.\nThen I broke his neck with my knee and my two hands.\n\n\"I took my pay up. Later I ate the bread and drank the rest of the\nwater. Then I went to sleep. They took him away without question. And\ntwo days later, when the next food came, I realized, sort of absently,\nthat without all of that first bread and water I would have starved to\ndeath. They finally let me out because they needed the muscle, what was\nleft of it. And the only thing I sometimes think about, the only thing I\nlet myself think about, is whether or not I earned my pay. I guess two\nof them were mine anyway. But sometimes I take them out and look at\nthem, and wonder where he got the third one from.\"\n\nUrson put his hand in his tunic and brought out three gold coins. \"Never\nbeen able to spend them, though,\" he said. He tossed the little pile\ninto the air, and then whipped them back into his fist again, and\nlaughed. \"Never was able to spend them on anything.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Geo said after a moment.\n\nUrson looked up. \"Why? I guess these are my jewels, huh? Maybe everyone\nhas theirs some place. You think it was old Cat, maybe, sometimes when I\nwas in the brig, perhaps, earning that third coin, slicing out that\nlittle four-armed monster's tongue? Somehow I doubt it.\"\n\n\"Look, I said I was sorry, Urson.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Urson said. \"I know. I guess I've met a hell full of people in\nmy short, wet life, and it could be any one of them.\" He sighed. \"Though\nI wish I knew which. But I don't think that's the answer.\" He lifted his\nhand to his mouth now and gnawed at his thumb nail. \"I hope that kid\ndoesn't get as nervous as I do,\" he laughed. \"He'll have such a hell of\na lot of nails to bite.\"\n\nThen their skulls nearly split apart.\n\n\"Hey,\" said Geo, \"that's Snake.\"\n\n\"And he's in trouble too,\" said Urson. He leaped onto the floor and\nstarted up the passageway. Geo came after him.\n\n\"Let me go first,\" Geo said, \"I know where he is.\"\n\nThey reached the deck, raced along the side of the cabins, until they\nreached the door.\n\n\"Move,\" ordered Urson. Then he rammed against the door and it flew open.\n\nInside, behind her desk, Argo whirled, her hand on her jewel. \"What is\nthe ...\"\n\nBut the moment her concentration turned, Snake, who had been immobile\nagainst the opposite wall, suddenly vaulted across the table toward Geo.\nGeo grabbed the boy to steady him, and immediately one of Snake's hands\nwas at Geo's chest where the jewel hung.\n\n\"You fools!\" hissed Argo. \"Don't you understand? He's a spy for Aptor.\"\n\nThere was a sudden silence.\n\nThen Argo said, \"Close the door.\"\n\nUrson closed it. Snake still held Geo and the jewel.\n\n\"Well,\" she said. \"It is too late now.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"That had you not come blundering in, one more of Aptor's spies would\nhave yielded up his secrets and then been reduced to ashes.\" She\nbreathed deeply. \"But he has his jewel now, and I have mine. Well,\nlittle thief, there's a stalemate. The forces are balanced now.\" She\nlooked at Geo. \"How do you think he came so easily by the jewel? How do\nyou think he knew when I would be at the shore? Oh, he's a clever one,\nwith all the intelligence of Aptor working behind him. He probably even\nhad you planted without your knowing it to interrupt us at just that\ntime.\"\n\n\"No, he ...\" began Urson.\n\n\"We were walking by your door,\" Geo interrupted, \"when we heard a noise\nand thought there might be trouble.\"\n\n\"Your concern may have cost us all our lives.\"\n\n\"If he's a spy, I gather that means he knows how this thing works,\" said\nGeo. \"Let Urson and I take him ...\"\n\n\"Take him anywhere you wish!\" hissed Argo. \"Get out!\"\n\nJust then the door opened. \"I heard a sound, Priestess Argo, and I\nthought you might be in danger.\" It was the first mate.\n\nThe Goddess Incarnate breathed deeply. \"I am in no danger,\" she said\nevenly. \"Will you please leave me alone, all of you.\"\n\n\"What's the Snake doing here?\" Jordde suddenly asked, seeing Geo still\nholding the boy.\n\n\"I said, leave me!\"\n\nGeo turned, away from Jordde, and stepped past him onto the deck, and\nUrson followed him. Ten steps farther on, he glanced back, and seeing\nthat Jordde had emerged from the cabin and was walking in the other\ndirection, he set Snake down on his feet. \"All right, Little One.\nMarch!\"\n\nIn the passage to the forecastle, Urson asked, \"Hey, what's going on?\"\n\n\"Well, for one thing, our little friend here is no spy,\" said Geo.\n\n\"How do you know?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"Because she doesn't know he can read minds.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"First of all, I was beginning to think something was wrong when I came\nback from talking to the priestess. You were too, and it lay in the same\nvein you were talking about. Why would our task be completely useless\nunless we accomplished all parts of her mission? Wouldn't there be some\nvalue in just returning her sister, the rightful head of Leptar, to her\nformer position? And I'm sure her sister may well have collected some\nuseful information that could be used against Aptor, so that would be\nsome value even if we didn't find the jewel. It doesn't sound too\nsisterly a thing to me to forsake the young priestess if there is no\njewel in it for her. And her tone, the way she refers to the jewel as\n_hers_. There's an old saying, from before the Great Fire even: Power\ncorrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And I think she has\nnot a little of the un-goddess-like desire for power first, peace\nafterwards.\"\n\n\"But that doesn't mean this one isn't an Aptor spy,\" said Urson.\n\n\"Wait a minute. I'm getting there. At first I thought he was too. The\nidea occurred to me first when I was talking to the priestess and she\nfirst mentioned that there were spies from Aptor. The coincidence of his\nappearance, that he had even managed to steal the jewel in the first\nplace, that he would present it to her the way he did; all this hinted\nsomething so strange, that spy was the first thing I thought of, and I'm\nsure it was the first thing she thought as well. And she especially\nwould think this if she did not know that Snake could read minds and\nbroadcast mentally, because ignorance of his telepathy removes the one\nother possible explanation of the coincidences. But, Urson, why did he\nleave the jewel with us before he went to see her?\"\n\n\"Because he thought she was going to try and take it away from him.\"\n\n\"Exactly. When she told me to send him up to her, I was fairly sure that\nwas the main reason she wanted him. But if he was a spy, and knew how to\nwork the jewel, then why not take it with him, present himself to Argo\nwith the jewel, showing himself as an equal force, and then come calmly\nback, leaving her in silence and us still on his side, especially since\nhe would be revealing to her something of which she was nine-tenths\naware of already, and would watch him no more carefully than she would\nwere it not confirmed.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Urson, \"why not?\"\n\n\"Because he was not a spy, and didn't know how to work the jewel. Yes,\nhe had felt its power once. Perhaps he was going to pretend he had it\nhidden on his person. But he did not want her to get her hands on it for\nreasons that were strong, but not selfish.\n\n\"Here, Snake,\" said Geo. \"You know how to work the jewel now, don't you;\nbut you learned from Argo just now.\"\n\nThe boy nodded.\n\n\"Here, then, why don't you take it?\" Geo lifted the jewel from his neck\nand held it out to him.\n\nSnake drew back and shook his head violently.\n\nUrson looked puzzled.\n\n\"Snake has seen into human minds, Urson. He's seen things directly which\nthe rest of us only learn from a sort of second hand observation. He\nknows that the power of this little bead is more dangerous to the mind\nof the person who wields it than it is to the cities it may destroy.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Urson, \"as long as she thinks he's a spy, at least we'll\nhave one of them little beads and someone who knows how to use it. I\nmean if we have to.\"\n\n\"I don't think she thinks he's a spy any more, Urson.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"I give her credit for being able to reason at least as well as I can.\nOnce she found out he had no jewel on him, she knew that he was as\ninnocent as you and I are. But her only thought was to get it in any way\nshe could. When we came in, just when she was going to put Snake under\nthe jewel's control, guilt made her leap backwards to her first and\nseemingly logical accusation for our benefit. Evil likes to cloak itself\nas good.\"\n\nThey stepped down into the forecastle. By now a handful of sailors had\ncome into the room, mostly drunk and snoring on berths around the walls.\nOne had wrapped himself completely up in a blanket in the middle berth\nof the tier that Urson had chosen for the three. \"Well,\" said Urson to\nSnake, \"it looks like you'll have to move.\"\n\nSnake scrambled to the top bunk.\n\n\"Now look, that one was mine.\"\n\nSnake motioned him up.\n\n\"Huh? Two of us in one of those?\" demanded Urson. \"Look, if you want\nsomeone to keep warm against, go down and sleep with Geo there. It's\nmore room and you won't get squashed against the wall. I'm a thrasher\nwhen I sleep.\"\n\nSnake didn't move.\n\n\"Maybe you better do what he says,\" Geo said. \"I have an idea that ...\"\n\n\"You've got another idea now?\" asked Urson, \"Oh, damn, I'm too tired to\nargue.\" He vaulted up to the top bunk. \"Now move over and be very\nsmall.\" He stretched out, and Snake's slight body was completely hidden.\n\"Hey, get your elbows out of there,\" Geo heard Urson mutter before there\nwas only a gentle thundering of his snore.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Silver mist suffused the deck of the ship and wet lines glowed a\nphosphorescent silver; the sky was pale as ice; pricks of stars dotted\nover the whole bowl. The sea, once green, seemed bleached to blowing\nclouds of white powder. The door of a cabin opened and white veils flung\nforward from the form of Argo who emerged like silver from the\nbone-colored door. The whole movement of the scene made it look like a\npicture imagination fastens in the slow ripplings of gauze under breeze.\nOne dark spot was at her throat, pulsing darkly, like a heart, like a\nblack flame. She walked to the railing, peered over. In the white\nwashing a skeletal hand appeared. It raised on a beckoning arm, then\nfell forward in the water. Another arm raised now, a few feet away,\nbeckoning, gesturing. Then three at once; then two more._\n\n_A voice as pale as the vision spoke \"I am coming. We sail in a hour.\nThe mate has been ordered to put the ship out before dawn. You must tell\nme now, creatures of the water.\"_\n\n_Two glowing arms raised up, and then an almost featureless face. Chest\nhigh in the water, it listed backwards and sank again._\n\n_\"Are you of Aptor or Leptar?\" spoke the apparitional figure of Argo\nagain in the thinned voice. \"Are your allegiances to Argo or Hama? I\nhave followed thus far. You must tell me before I follow farther.\"_\n\n_There was a whirling of sound which seemed to be the wind attempting to\nsay, \"The sea ... the sea ... the sea ...\"_\n\n_But Argo did not hear, for she turned away and walked from the rail,\nback to her cabin._\n\n_Now the scene moved, turned toward the door of the forecastle. It\nopened, moved through the hall, the walls, more like polished steel than\nweathered wood, and went on. In the forecastle, the yellow oil lamp\nseemed a white flaring of magnesium._\n\n_The movement stopped in front of a tier of three berths; on the bottom\none lay a young man with a starved, pallid face. His mop of hair was\nbleached white. On his chest was a pulsing darkness, a black flame, a\ndark heart, shimmering with the indistinctness of absolute shadow. On\nthe top bunk a great form like a bloated corpse lay. One huge arm hung\nover the bunk, flabbed, puffy, without muscle._\n\n_In the center berth was an anonymous bundle of blankets completely\ncovering the figure inside. On this the scene fixed, drew closer ... and\nthe paleness suddenly faded before darkness, into shadow, into nothing._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGeo sat up and knuckled his eyes.\n\nThe dark forecastle was relieved by the yellow glow of the lamp. The\ngaunt mate stood across the room. \"Hey, you,\" he was saying to a man in\none of the bunks, \"up and out. We're sailing.\"\n\nThe figure roused itself from the tangle of bedding.\n\nThe mate moved to another. \"Up, you dog face. Up, you fish fodder. We're\nsailing.\" Turning around, he saw Geo watching him. \"And what's wrong\nwith you?\" he demanded. \"We're sailing, didn't you hear? Naw, you go\nback to sleep. Your turn will come, but we need experienced ones now.\"\nHe grinned briefly, and then went on to one more. \"Eh, you stink like an\nold wine cask. Raise yourself out of your fumes. We're sailing!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\n\"That dream,\" Geo said to Urson a moment after the mate left. Urson\nlooked down from his bunk.\n\n\"You had it too?\"\n\nBoth turned to Snake.\n\n\"I guess that was your doing, eh?\" Urson said.\n\nSnake scrambled down from the upper bunk.\n\n\"Did you go wandering around the deck last night and do some spying?\"\nGeo asked.\n\nBy now most of the other sailors had risen, and one suddenly stepped\nbetween Urson and Geo. \"'Scuse me, mate,\" he said and shook the figure\nin the second berth. \"Hey, Whitey, come on. You can't be that soused\nfrom last night. Get up or you'll miss mess.\" The young sailor shook the\nfigure again. \"Hey, Whitey.\" The figure in the blankets was\nunresponsive. The sailor gave him one more good shake, and as he rolled\nover, the blanket fell away from the blond head. The eyes were wide and\ndull, the mouth half open. \"Hey, Whitey,\" the black sailor said again,\nand then he stepped back, slowly.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMist enveloped the ship three hours out from port. Urson was called for\nduty right after breakfast, but no one bothered either Snake or Geo that\nfirst morning. Snake would slip off somewhere and Geo would be left to\nwander the ship alone. He was walking beneath the dories when the heavy\nslap of bare feet on the wet deck materialized in Urson. \"Hey,\" greeted\nhis friend. \"What are you doing under here?\"\n\n\"Nothing much,\" Geo said.\n\nUrson was carrying a coil of rope about his shoulder. Now he slung it\ndown into his hand and leaned against the support shaft and looked out\ntoward the fog. \"It's a bad beginning this trip has had,\" he said. \"What\nfew sailors I've talked to don't like it at all.\"\n\n\"Urson,\" said Geo, \"have you any idea what actually happened this\nmorning?\"\n\n\"Maybe I have and maybe I haven't,\" Urson said. \"What ones have you?\"\n\n\"Do you remember the dream?\" he asked.\n\nUrson scrunched his shoulders as if suddenly cold. \"I do,\" he said.\n\n\"It was like we were seeing through somebody else's eyes, almost.\"\n\n\"Our little four-armed friend sees things in a strange way if that's the\ncase.\"\n\n\"Urson, that wasn't Snake's eyes we saw through. I asked him, just\nbefore he went off exploring the ship. It was somebody else. All he did\nwas get the pictures and relay them into our minds. And what was the\nlast thing you saw?\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" Urson said, turning, \"I think he was looking at\npoor Whitey's bunk.\"\n\n\"And who was supposed to be sleeping in poor Whitey's bunk?\"\n\n\"Snake?\"\n\n\"Exactly. Do you think perhaps White was killed?\"\n\n\"Could be, I guess. But how, and why, and who?\"\n\n\"Somebody who wanted Snake killed. Maybe the same person who cut his\ntongue out a year and a half ago.\"\n\n\"I thought we decided that we didn't know who that was.\"\n\n\"A man you know, Urson,\" Geo said. \"What man on this ship have you\nsailed with before?\"\n\n\"Don't you think I've been looking?\" Urson asked. \"There's not a\nfamiliar face on deck, other than maybe one I've seen in a dockside bar,\nbut never one whose name I've known.\"\n\n\"Think, Urson, who on this ship you've sailed with before,\" Geo asked\nagain, more intently.\n\nSuddenly Urson turned. \"You mean the mate?\"\n\n\"That's just who I mean,\" said Geo.\n\n\"And you think he tried to kill Snake. Why didn't Snake tell us?\"\n\n\"Because he thought if we knew, we'd get in trouble with it. And he may\nbe right.\"\n\n\"How come?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"Look, we know something is fishy about Argo. The more I think about it,\nthe less I can put my hands on it. But if something is fishy about the\nmate too, then perhaps he's in cahoots with her. What about when he came\ninto Argo's cabin last night when we were there?\"\n\n\"Maybe he was just doing what we said we were; walking by when he heard\na noise. If it was his eyes we were seeing through, then he sees things\nawfully funny, then.\"\n\n\"Maybe he's a strange one too, like Snake who 'hears' things funny. Not\nall strangeness shows,\" Geo reminded him.\n\n\"You could be right,\" said Urson. \"You could be right.\" He stood up from\nwhere he had leaned against a lifeboat support. \"Well, you think some\nmore friend, and I'll listen. I'll see you later.\" He hauled up his rope\nagain and started off in the mist.\n\nGeo decided to search for Snake. A ladder led to the upper deck, and\nclimbing it, he saw across the deck a tall, fog-shrouded figure. He\npaused, and then started forward. \"Hello,\" he said.\n\nThe captain turned from the railing and looked at him.\n\n\"Good morning sir,\" Geo said. \"I thought you might be the mate.\"\n\nThe captain was silent for a while, and then said, \"Good morning. What\ndo you want?\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to disturb you if you were ...\"\n\n\"No disturbance,\" said the captain.\n\n\"How long will it take us to get to Aptor?\"\n\n\"Another three weeks. Shorter if this wind keeps up.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Geo. \"Have you any idea of the geography of Aptor?\"\n\n\"The mate is the only one on board that has ever set foot on Aptor and\ncome off it alive. Except Priestess Argo.\"\n\n\"The mate, sir? When?\"\n\n\"On a previous voyage he was wrecked there. He made a raft and drifted\ninto the open sea where he had the good fortune to be picked up by a\nship.\"\n\n\"Then he will lead whatever party goes to the place?\"\n\n\"Not him,\" said the captain. \"He's sworn never to set foot on the place\nagain. Don't even ask him to talk about it. Imagine what sort of a place\nit must be if probable death on the open sea is better than struggling\non its land. No, he'll pilot us through the bay to the river's estuary,\nbut other than that, he will have nothing to do with the place.\n\n\"Two other men we had on board who'd been there and returned. They went\nwith the Priestess Argo in a boat of thirteen. Ten were dismembered and\nthe pieces of their bodies were thrown in the water. Two survived to row\nthe Priestess back to the boat. One was the sailor who died in the\nforecastle this morning. Not half an hour ago, I received news that the\nother one went overboard from the rigging and was lost in the sea. This\nis not a good trip. Men are not to be lost like coins in a game. Life is\ntoo valuable.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Geo. \"Thank you for your information and time, sir.\"\n\n\"You are welcome,\" the captain said. Then he turned away.\n\nGeo descended the ladder again and walked slowly forward. Something\ntouched him on the shoulder and he whirled.\n\n\"Snake, God damn it, don't do that!\"\n\nThe boy looked embarrassed.\n\n\"I didn't mean to yell,\" Geo said, putting his arm around the boy's\nshoulder. \"Come on, though. What did you find? I'll trade you what I\nknow for what you do.\"\n\n_You ... sleep_, came from Snake.\n\n\"I'm sorry, friend,\" laughed Geo. \"But I couldn't take a nap now if you\npaid me. Now tell me, whose eyes were we seeing through last night? The\ncaptain's?\"\n\nSnake shook his head.\n\n\"The mate's?\"\n\nSnake nodded.\n\n\"I thought so. Now, did he want to kill ... wait a minute,\" said Geo.\n\"Can the mate read minds, too? Is that why you're keeping things from\nus?\"\n\nSnake shrugged.\n\n\"Come on now,\" Geo said. \"Do a little yelling and explain.\"\n\n_Don't ... know_, Snake thought out loud. _Can ... see ... what ...\nhe ... sees ... hear ... what ... he ... hears. But ... no ... hear ...\nthoughts ..._\n\n\"I see. Look, take a chance that he can't read minds and tell me, did he\nkill the man in the bed you should have been in.\"\n\nSnake paused for a minute. Then nodded.\n\n\"Do you think he was trying to kill you?\"\n\nSnake nodded again.\n\n\"Did you know that the man killed this morning in your place was one of\nthe two men who came back from Aptor with the Priestess?\"\n\nSnake looked surprised.\n\n\"And that the other one drowned this morning, fell overboard, and was\nlost?\"\n\nSnake nearly jumped.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n_Look ... for ... him ... all ... morning. He ... not ... dead ...\nhear ... thoughts ... dim ... low._\n\n\"Who's not dead?\" Geo asked. \"Which one?\"\n\n_Second ... man._\n\n\"Did you find him?\" Geo asked.\n\n_Can't ... find_, Snake said. _But ... alive ... I ... know._\n\n\"One other question,\" Geo raised the jewel from where it hung against\nhis chest. \"How do you work this silly thing?\"\n\n_Think ... through ... it_, said Snake.\n\nGeo frowned. \"What do you mean? Can you tell me how it works?\"\n\n_You ... have ... no ... words_, Snake said. _Radio ... electricity ...\ndiode ..._\n\n\"Radio, electricity, diode?\" repeated Geo, the sounds coming\nunfamiliarly to his tongue. \"What are they?\"\n\nSnake shrugged.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGeo got a chance to report his findings to Urson that evening and the\nbig man was puzzled.\n\n\"Can you add anything?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"All I've had a chance to do is work,\" grumbled Urson. They were\nstanding by the edge of the rail beyond which the mist steeped thickly,\nmaking sky and water indistinguishable and grave. \"Hey, Four-arms,\"\nUrson suddenly asked. \"What are you looking at?\"\n\nSnake stared at the water but said nothing.\n\n\"Maybe he's listening to something,\" suggested Geo.\n\n\"You'd think there were better things to eavesdrop on than fishes,\" said\nUrson. \"I guess Argo's given special orders that you two get no work.\nSome people! Let's go eat.\" As they started toward the convergence of\nsailors at the entrance of the mess hall, Urson said, \"Oh, guess what?\"\nHe turned to Geo and picked up the jewel from the boy's chest. \"All you\npeople are going around with such finery, I took my coins to the smithy\nand had him put chains on them. Now I'll strut with the best of you.\" He\nlaughed, and then went through the narrow way, crowding with the other\nsailors into the wide hall.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor two weeks, nights without dreams left them early, and the boat\nrolled from beneath the fog. Dawn was gray, but clear; then, by one\nbreakfast time the ragged slip of Aptor's beach hemmed the horizon.\n\nOn the wheel deck the sailors clustered to the rail, and before them\nrocks struck like broken teeth from the water. Urson, in his new, triple\nneckchain, joined Snake and Geo at the rail. \"Whew,\" he said. \"Getting\nthrough them is going to be fun.\"\n\nSuddenly heads turned. Behind them now, Argo's dark veils, bloated with\nthe breeze, filled about her as she mounted the steps to the wheel\ndeck. The sailors moved away from her. Then, one hand on a stay rope,\nshe stared across the gray water to the dark tongue of land.\n\nFrom the wheel the captain spoke, \"Jordde, disperse the men and take\nover the wheel.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" said the mate. \"You, you, and you to the tops.\" He pointed\namong the men. \"You also, and you. Hey, didn't you hear me?\"\n\n\"Me, sir?\" Geo turned around.\n\n\"Yes, you, up to the top spar there.\"\n\n\"You can't send him up,\" Urson called out. \"He's never been topside at\nall before. It's too choppy for any lad's first time up. He doesn't even\nknow ...\"\n\n\"And who asked you?\" demanded the mate.\n\n\"Nobody asked me, sir,\" said Urson, \"but--\"\n\n\"Then you get below before I have you brigged for insubordination and\nfine you your three gold baubles. Don't you think I recognize dead man's\ngold?\"\n\n\"Now look here,\" Urson roared.\n\nGeo glanced from Argo to the captain. The bewilderment that flooded the\nface of the Priestess shocked him.\n\nJordde suddenly seized up a marlin pin, raised it, and shouted at Urson,\n\"Get down below before I break your skull open.\"\n\nUrson's fists sprang up.\n\n\"Calmly, brother bear,\" Geo began.\n\n\"In a bitch's ass,\" snarled Urson and swung his huge arm forward.\nSomething leaped on Jordde from behind--Snake! The marlin pin veered\ninches away from Urson's shoulder. The flung fist sunk into the mate's\nstomach and he reeled forward, passing Urson, with Snake still clawing\nat his back. He reached the rail, bent double over it, and Snake's legs\nflipped up. When Jordde rose, he was free of encumbrance.\n\nGeo rushed to the edge and saw Snake's head emerge in the churning\nwater. Behind him, Urson yelled, \"Look out!\" Jordde's marlin made an\ninch of splinters in the length of wood against which he had been\nleaning.\n\n\"Not him!\" cried Argo. \"No, no! Not him!\"\n\nBut Jordde had seized Geo's shoulder and whirled him back against the\nrail. Geo saw Urson grab a loose rope behind them and suddenly swing\nforward, intending to knock Jordde away with his feet. But suddenly Argo\nmoved in the way of his flying body, turned, saw him, and raised her\nhands to push him aside so that he swung wide of them and landed on the\nrailing a yard from where they struggled.\n\nGeo's feet slipped on the wet boards, and he felt his body suddenly\nhurled backwards onto the air. Then his back slapped water. As he broke\nsurface, Urson, still on the rail called to him, \"Hang on, friend Geo,\nI'm coming!\" Urson's arms swung back, and then forward as he dove into\nthe sea.\n\nNow Geo could see only Argo and Jordde at the rail. But they were\nstruggling. Urson and Snake were near him in the water. The last thing\nhe saw was Jordde suddenly wrest something from Argo's neck and then\nfling it out into the sea. The Priestess' hands reached for the flying\njewel, followed its arc as she screamed toward the water.\n\nThen hands were at his body. Geo turned in the water as Snake\ndisappeared from beside him and Urson suddenly cried out. Hands were\npulling him down.\n\nRoughness of sand beneath one of his sides and the flare of sun on the\nother. His eyes were hot and his lids were orange over them. Then there\nwas a breeze. He opened his eyes, and shut them quick, because of the\nlight. Then he turned over, thought about pillows and stiff new sheets.\nReaching out, he grabbed sand.\n\nHe opened his eyes and pushed himself up from the beach with both hands\nspread in warm, soft crumblings. Over there were rocks, and thick\nvegetation behind them. He swayed to his knees, the sand grating under\nhis kneecaps. He looked at his arm in the sun, flecked with grains. Then\nhe touched his chest.\n\nHis hand came to one bead, moved on, and came to another! He looked\ndown. Both the chain with the platinum claw and the thong with the wire\ncage hung around his neck. Bewildered, he heaved to his feet, and\nimmediately sat down again as the beach went red with the wash of blood\nbehind his eyeballs. He got up again, slowly.\n\nCarefully Geo started down the beach, looking toward the land. When he\nturned to look at the water, he stopped.\n\nAt the horizon, beyond the rocks, was a boat with lowered sails. So they\nhadn't left yet. He swung his eyes back to the beach: fifty feet away\nwas another figure lying in the sun.\n\nHe ran forward, now, the sand splashing around his feet, sinking under\nhis toes, so that it was like the slow motion running of dreams. Ten\nfeet from the figure he stopped.\n\nIt was a young black, very dark, skin the color of richly humused soil.\nThe long skull was shaved. Like Geo, he was almost naked. There was a\nclot of seaweed at his wrist, and the soles of his feet and one\nup-turned palm were grayish and shriveled.\n\nGeo frowned and stood for a full minute. He looked up and down the beach\nonce more. There was no one else. Just then the man's arm shifted across\nthe sand.\n\nImmediately Geo fell to his knees beside the figure, rolled him over and\nlifted his head. The eyes opened, squinted in the light, and the man\nsaid, \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"My name is Geo.\"\n\nThe man sat up, and caught himself from falling forward by jamming his\nhands into the sand. He shook his head, and then looked up at Geo again.\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"I remember you. What happened? Did we founder? Did the\nship go down?\"\n\n\"Remember me from where?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"From the ship. You were on the ship, weren't you?\"\n\n\"I was on the ship,\" Geo said. \"And I got thrown overboard by that\ndamned first mate in a fight. But nothing happened to the ship. It's\nstill out there, you can see it.\" Suddenly Geo stopped. Then he said,\n\"You're the guy who discovered Whitey's body that morning!\"\n\n\"That's right.\" He shook his head again. \"My name is Iimmi.\" Now he\nlooked out to the horizon. \"I see them,\" he said. \"There's the ship. But\nwhere are we?\"\n\n\"On the beach of Aptor,\" Geo told him.\n\nIimmi screwed his face up into a mask of dark horror. \"No,\" he said\nsoftly. \"We couldn't be. We were days away from her....\"\n\n\"How did you fall in?\"\n\n\"It was blowing up a little,\" Iimmi explained. \"I was in the rig when\nsuddenly something struck me from behind and I went toppling. In all the\nmist, they didn't see me, and the current was too strong for me,\nand ...\" He looked around.\n\n\"You've been on this beach once before, haven't you?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"Once,\" said Iimmi. \"Yes, once.\"\n\n\"Do you realize how long you've been in the water?\" Geo asked.\n\nIimmi looked up.\n\n\"Over two weeks,\" Geo said. \"Come on, see if you can walk. I've got a\nlot of things to explain, if I can, and we've got some hunting to do.\"\n\nIimmi steadied himself once more, and together they started up the\nbeach.\n\n\"What are you looking for?\" Iimmi asked.\n\n\"Friends,\" Geo said.\n\nTwo hundred feet up, the rocks and torpid vegetation came down to the\nwater, cutting off the beach. Scrambling over boulders and through\nvines, they emerged on a rock embankment that dropped fifteen feet into\nthe wide estuary of a ribbon of water that wound back into the jungle.\nTwenty feet further, the bank dropped to the river's surface, and they\nboth fell flat at the edge of a wet table of rock and sucked in cool\nliquid, watching blue stones and the white and red pebbles shivering six\nfeet below clear ripples.\n\nThere was a sound. Both sprang back from the water, turned, and crouched\non the rock.\n\n\"Hey,\" Urson said, through leaves. \"I was wondering when I'd find you.\"\n\nLight through branches lay on the gold coins hung against his hairy\nchest. \"Have you seen Snake?\"\n\n\"I was hoping he was with you,\" said Geo. \"Oh, Urson, this is Iimmi, the\nother sailor who died two weeks ago.\"\n\nBoth Iimmi and Urson looked puzzled. \"Have a drink of water,\" Geo said,\n\"and I'll explain as best I can.\"\n\n\"Don't mind if I do,\" said Urson.\n\nWhile the bear man lay down to drink, Geo began the story of Aptor and\nLeptar for Iimmi. When he finished, Iimmi asked, \"You mean those fish\nthings in the water carried us here? Whose side are they on?\"\n\n\"Apparently Argo isn't sure either,\" Geo said. \"Perhaps they're\nneutral.\"\n\n\"And the mate?\" asked Iimmi. \"You think he pushed me overboard after he\nkilled Whitey?\"\n\n\"I thought you said he was trying to kill Snake,\" said Urson, who had\nfinished drinking.\n\n\"He was,\" explained Geo. \"He wanted to get rid of all three. Probably\nSnake first, and then Whitey and Iimmi. He wasn't counting on our fishy\nfriends, though. I think it was just luck that it was Whitey he got\nrather than Snake. If he can't read minds, which I'm pretty sure he\ncan't, he probably overheard you assigning the bunks for us to sleep in,\nUrson. When he found out he had killed Whitey instead, it just urged him\nto get Iimmi out of the way more quickly.\"\n\n\"I could easily have been pushed,\" Iimmi agreed. \"But I still don't see\nwhy.\"\n\n\"If there is a spy from Aptor on the ship, then Jordde is it,\" said Geo.\n\"The captain told me he had been to Aptor once before. It must have been\nthen that he was enjoined into their forces. Iimmi, both you and Whitey\nhad also been on Aptor's shore, if only for a few hours. There must be\nsomething that Jordde learned from the island that he was afraid you\nmight learn, something you might see. Something dangerous, dangerous for\nAptor, something you might see just from being on the beach. Probably it\nwas something you wouldn't even recognize, something you'd maybe not see\nthe significance of until much later. But probably something very\nobvious.\"\n\nNow Urson spoke. \"What did happen when you were on Aptor? How were those\nten men killed?\"\n\nThough the sun was warm, Iimmi shivered. He waited for a moment, and\nthen he began. \"We took a skiff out from the ship and managed to get\nthrough the rocks somehow. It was evening when we started and the moon,\nI remember, had risen just above the horizon, though the sky was still\ndeep blue. 'This light of the full moon is propitious to the White\nGoddess Argo,' she said from her place at the bow of the boat. By the\ntime we landed, the sky was black behind her, and the beach was all\nsilvered by the light, up and down. Whitey and I were left to guard the\nskiff at the water's edge, and sitting on the gunwales, shoulders\nhunched in the slight chill, we watched the others go up the beach, five\nand five, with Argo behind them.\n\n\"Suddenly there was a scream, and the first man fell. They came from the\nair like vultures. The moon was overhead by now, and a cloud of them\ndarkened the white disk with their wings. They scurried after the\nfleeing men, over the sand. All we could really make out was a dark\nbattling against the silver. There were swords raised in the white\nlight, screams, and howls that nearly sent us back into the ocean. But\nArgo and a handful of those men left began to run toward the boat. They\nfollowed them down to the edge of the water, loping behind them, half\nflying, half running, hacking one after another down with swords. I saw\none man fall forward and his head roll from his body while blood\nsquirted ten feet along the sand, crimson under the moon. One actually\ncaught at her veils, but she screamed and slipped from it into the water\nnow, and climbed back into the boat, panting. You would think a woman\nwould collapse, but no. She stood in the bow while we rowed our arms\noff. They would not come over the water, apparently, and somehow we\nmanaged to get the skiff back to the ship without foundering against the\nrocks.\"\n\n\"Our aquatic friends may have had something to do with that,\" said Geo.\n\"Iimmi, you say her veils were pulled off. Tell me, do you remember if\nshe were wearing any jewelry or not?\"\n\n\"She certainly wasn't,\" Iimmi said. \"She stood there in only her dark\nrobe, her throat as bare as ivory.\"\n\n\"She wasn't going to bring the jewel to Aptor where those monsters could\nget their hands on it again,\" said Urson. \"But Geo, if Jordde's the spy,\nwhy did he throw the jewel in the sea?\"\n\n\"Whatever reason he had,\" said Geo, \"our friends have given it to me\nnow.\"\n\n\"You said Argo didn't know whose side these sea creatures were on,\nLeptar's or Aptor's,\" said Iimmi. \"But perhaps Jordde knows, and that's\nwhy he threw it to them.\" He paused for a moment. \"Friend, I think you\nhave made an error; you tell me you are a poet, and it is a poet's\nerror. The hinge in your argument that Snake is no spy is that Argo must\nhave dubious motives to send you on such an impossible task, without\nprotection, saying that it would be meaningful only if all its goals\nwere accomplished. You reasoned, how could an honest woman place the\nlife of her sister below the value of a jewel ...\"\n\n\"Not just her sister,\" interrupted Geo, \"but _the_ Goddess Argo\nIncarnate.\"\n\n\"Be patient,\" said Iimmi. \"Only if she wished to make permanent her\ntemporary condition, you thought, could she set such an impossible task.\nThere may be some truth in what you say. But she herself would not bring\nthe jewel to the shores of Aptor, though it was for her own protection.\nThanks to you, all three jewels are now in Aptor, and if any part of her\nstory is true, Leptar is now in more danger than it has been in five\nhundred years. You have the jewels, two of them, and you cannot use\nthem. Where is your friend Snake who can? Both Snake and Jordde could\neasily be spies and the enmity between them feigned, so that while you\nfocused on one, you could be misled by the other. You say he can move\ninto men's minds? Perhaps he clouded yours.\"\n\nThey sat silent for the lapsing of a minute.\n\n\"Argo may be torn by many things,\" continued Iimmi. \"But you, in\nwatching some, may have been deluded by others.\"\n\nLight from the river quivered on the undersides of leaves. Urson spoke\nnow. \"I think his story is better than yours, Geo.\"\n\n\"Then what shall we do now?\" asked Geo, softly.\n\n\"Do what the Goddess requests as best we can,\" said Iimmi. \"Find the\nTemple of Hama, secure the stone, rescue the young Goddess, and die\nbefore we let the jewels fall into hands of Aptor.\"\n\n\"From the way you describe this place,\" muttered Urson, \"that may not be\nfar off.\"\n\n\"Still,\" mused Geo, \"there are things that don't mesh. Like why were\nyou saved too, Iimmi? Why were we brought here at all? And why did\nJordde want to kill you and the other sailor?\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Iimmi, \"the god Hama has a strange sense of humor and we\nshall be allowed to carry the jewels up to the temple door before we are\nslaughtered, dropping them at his feet.\" He smiled. \"Then again, perhaps\nyour theory is the correct one, Geo, and I am the spy, sent to sway your\nreason.\"\n\nUrson and Geo glanced at each other.\n\n\"There are an infinite number of theories for every set of facts,\" said\nthe Negro. \"Rule number one: assume the simplest; that includes all the\nknown conditions to be true until more conditions arise for which your\ntheory no longer holds. Rule number two: then, and not until, change\nit.\"\n\n\"Then we go on into the jungle,\" Geo said.\n\n\"I guess we do,\" said Urson.\n\n\"Since we've got this job, we've got to trust ourselves and do it right.\nLet's see if we can put one more of those things around your neck before\nwe're through.\" He pointed to the two jewels hanging at Geo's chest.\nThen he laughed. \"One more and you'll be all the way up to me,\" and he\nrattled his own triple necklace.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nLight lowered in the sky as they walked beside the river, keeping close\nto the rocky edge and brushing away vines that strung into the water\nfrom hanging limbs. Urson broke down a branch as thick as his wrist and\nas tall as himself and smote the water with it, playfully. \"That should\nput a welt on anyone's head who wants to bother us.\" He raised the\nstick from the water and drops ran along the bark, moving sparks at the\nends of dark lines.\n\n\"We'll have to turn into the woods for food soon,\" said Iimmi, \"unless\nwe wait for animals who come down to drink.\"\n\nUrson tugged at another branch, and it twisted loose from fibrous white\npulp. \"Here,\" he handed it to Iimmi. \"I'll have one for you in a moment,\nGeo.\"\n\n\"And maybe we could explore a little, before it gets dark,\" Geo\nsuggested.\n\nUrson handed him the third staff. \"There's not much here I want to see,\"\nhe muttered.\n\n\"Well, we can't sleep on the bank. We've got to find a place hidden in\nthe trees.\"\n\n\"Can you see what that is through there?\" Iimmi asked.\n\n\"Where?\" asked Geo. \"Huh...?\" Through the thick growth was a rising\nshadow. \"A rock or a cliff?\" he suggested.\n\n\"Maybe,\" mused Urson, \"but it's awfully regular.\"\n\nGeo started off into the underbrush, and the others followed. Their goal\nwas further and larger than it had looked from the river. Once they\npassed across a section of ten or twelve stones, rectangular and side by\nside, like paving. Small trees had pushed up between some of them, but\nfor thirty feet, before the edge sank beneath the soft jungle floor it\nwas easier going. Suddenly the growth became thin again and they were at\nthe edge of a relatively clear area. Before them loomed the ruins of a\ngreat building. Six girders cleared the highest wall, implying an\noriginal height of eighteen or twenty stories. One wall was completely\nsheared away and fragments of it chunked the ground. The revealed dark\ncaves of broken rooms and cubicles suggested an injured granite hive.\nThey approached slowly.\n\nTo one side a great metal cylinder lay askew a heap of rubbish. A flat\nblade of metal transversed it, one side twisting into the ground where\nskeletal girders shown beneath ripped plating. A row of windows like\ndark eyes lined the body, and a door gaped in an idiotic oval halfway\nalong its length.\n\nFascinated, they turned toward the injured wreck. As they neared, a\nsound came from inside the door. They stopped, and their staves leapt a\nprotective inch from the ground. In the shadow of the door, ten feet\nfrom the ground, another shadow moved, resolving itself into an animal\nhead, long, muzzled, gray. Then they could see the forelegs. It looked\nlike an immense dog, and it was carrying a smaller animal, obviously\ndead, in its mouth. It saw them, watched them, was still.\n\n\"Dinner,\" Urson said softly. \"Come on.\" They moved forward again. Then\nthey stopped.\n\nSuddenly the beast sprang from the doorway. Shadow and distance had made\nthem completely underestimate its size. Along the sprung arc flowed a\ncanine body nearly five feet long. Urson struck up at it and knocked it\nfrom its flight with his stick. As it fell, Iimmi and Geo were upon it\nwith theirs, clubbing its chest and head. For six blows it staggered and\ncould not gain its feet. Then, as it threatened to heave to standing,\nUrson rushed forward and brought his stave straight down on the chest:\nbones snapped and tore through the brown pelt, only to have their blue\nsheen covered a moment later by a well of blood. It howled, kicked its\nhind feet at the stake with which Urson held it to the ground, and then\nstretched out its limbs and quivered. The front legs stretched, and\nstretched, while the torso seemed to pull in on itself, shrinking in the\ndeath agonies. The long mouth, which had dropped its prey, gaped open as\nthe head flopped from side to side, the pink tongue lolling, shrinking.\n\n\"My God,\" said Geo.\n\nThe sharp muzzle blunted now and the claws in the padded paw stretched,\nopened into human fingers and a thumb. The hairlessness of the\nunder-belly had spread to the entire carcass. Hind legs lengthened,\njoints reversed themselves, and bare knees bent as human feet dragged\nthemselves through fragments of brown leaves over the ground and a human\nthigh gave a final contraction, stilled, and then one leg fell out\nstraight again. A shaggy, black-haired man lay still on the ground, his\nchest caved and bloody. In one last throw, he flung his hands up to\ngrasp the stake and pull it from his chest, but too weak, they slipped\ndown as his lips curled back from his mouth revealing a row of\nperfectly white, blunt teeth.\n\nUrson stepped back, and then back again. The stave fell, pulled loose\nwith a sucking explosion from the ruined mess of lung. The bear man had\nraised his hand to his own chest and seized his triple, gold token. \"In\nthe name of the Goddess,\" he finally said.\n\nIimmi walked forward now, picked up the carcass of the smaller animal\nthat had been dropped, and turned away. \"Well,\" he said, \"I guess dinner\nisn't going to be as big as we thought.\"\n\n\"I guess not,\" Geo said.\n\nThey walked back to the ruined building, away from the corpse.\n\n\"Hey, Urson,\" Geo said at last to the big man who was still holding his\ncoins, \"Snap out of it. What's the matter?\"\n\n\"The only man I've ever seen whose body was that broken in that way,\" he\nsaid slowly, \"was one whose side struck into by a ship's spar.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey decided to settle that evening at the corner of one of the\nbuilding's ruined walls. They produced fire with a rock against a\nsection of slightly rusted girder. And after much sawing on a jagged\nmetal blade protruding from a pile of rubble, they managed to quarter\nthe animal and rip most of the pelt from its red body. With thin\nbranches to hold the meat, they did a passable job of roasting. Although\npartially burned, partially raw, and without seasoning, they ate it, and\ntheir hunger ceased. As they sat huddled by the wall, ripping red juicy\nfibers from the last bones with their teeth, night swelled through the\njungle, imprisoning them in the shell of orange flicking from their\nfire.\n\n\"Shall we leave it going?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"Fire keeps animals away,\" Iimmi said.\n\nOn leaves piled together now they stretched out by the wall of the\nbroken building. There was quiet--an insect hum, no un-namable\nchitterings, except for the comforting rush of the river's water.\n\nGeo was first to awake, his eyes filled with silver. The entire clearing\nhad been flooded by white light from the huge disk of the moon that sat\non the rim of the trees. Iimmi and Urson beside him looked uncomfortably\ncorpse-like, and he was about to reach over and touch Iimmi's\noutstretched arm when there was a noise behind him, like beaten cloth.\nHe jerked his head around, and was staring at the gray wall by which\nthey had camped. He looked up at the spreading plane that tore off\nraggedly against the night. Fatigue had washed into something unpleasant\nand hard in his belly that had little to do with tiredness. He stretched\nhis arm in the leaves once more and put his cheek down on the cool flesh\nof his shoulder.\n\nThe beating sound came again and continued for a few seconds. He rolled\nhis face up and stared at the sky. Something crossed on the moon. It\nseemed to expand a moment, spread its wings, and draw them in again.\n\nHe reached out, his arm over the leaves like thunder, and grabbed\nIimmi's black shoulder. Iimmi grunted, started, then rolled over on his\nback, and opened his eyes. Geo saw the black chest drop with expelled\nbreath, the only recognition given. A few seconds later the chest rose\nagain. Iimmi turned his face to Geo and raised his finger to his lips.\nThen he turned his face back up to the night. Three more times the\nflapping sounded behind them, behind the wall, Geo realized. Once he\nglanced down again and saw that Iimmi had raised his arm and put it over\nhis eyes.\n\nThey passed years that way. Then a flock suddenly leapt from the wall.\nSome of them fell twenty feet before their wings filled with air and\nthey rose again. They circled wider and before they returned, another\nflock dropped off into the night.\n\nAs they fell this time, Geo suddenly grabbed Iimmi's arm and pulled it\ndown from his eyes. The figures dropped through the dark like kites,\nsixty feet above them, forty feet, thirty; then there was a thin,\npiercing shriek. Iimmi was up on his feet in a second, and Geo beside\nhim, their staffs in hand.\n\n\"Here it comes,\" breathed Iimmi. He kicked at Urson, but the big man\nwas already on his knees, and then feet. The wings beat insistently and\ndarkly before them as they stood against the wall. The figures flew\ntoward them and at the terrifying distance of five feet, reversed. \"I\ndon't think they can get in at the wall,\" said Iimmi.\n\n\"I hope the hell they can't,\" Urson said.\n\nThe figures dropped to the ground, black wings crumpling to their bodies\nin the moonlight. In the growing hoard of shadow in front of them, light\nsnagged on a metal blade.\n\nThen two of the creatures detached from the others and hurled themselves\nforward, swords arcing suddenly above their heads.\n\nThey swung their staffs as hard as they could, catching both beasts on\nthe chest. They fell backwards in a sudden expansion of rubbery wings,\nas though they had stumbled into billowing dark canvas.\n\nThree more now leapt over the fallen ones, shrieking. As they came,\nUrson looked up and jammed his staff into the belly of a fourth monster\nwho was about to fall on them from above. One got past Iimmi's whistling\nstaff and Geo had to stop swinging and grab a furry arm. He pulled it to\nthe side, overbalancing the huge, sailed creature. It dropped its sword\nas it lay for a moment, struggling on its back. Geo grabbed the blade\nand brought it straight from the ground up into the gut of another of\nthe creatures who spread open its wings and staggered back. He wrested\nthe blade free, and then turned it down into the body of the fallen one;\nit made a thick sound like a crushed sponge. As the blade came out again\nand he hacked into a shadow on his left, a voice suddenly sounded, but\ninside his head.\n\n_The ... jewels ..._\n\n\"Snake!\" bawled Geo. \"Where the hell are you?\" He was still holding his\nstaff, and now he flung it forward, spear-like, into the face of an\nadvancing beast. Struck, it opened up like a black parachute, knocking\naway three of its companions, before it fell.\n\nIn the view, cleared for an instant, Geo saw a slight, spidery form,\ndart from the jungle edge into the clearing. With his free hand Geo\nripped the jewels from his neck and flung the confused handful of thong\nand chain over the heads of the shrieking beasts. The beads made a\ndouble eye in the light at the top of their arc before they fell on the\nleaves beyond. Snake picked them up and held them above his head.\n\nFire leapt from the boy's hands in a double bolt that converged in the\ncenter of the dark bodies. A red flair silhouetted the jagged edge of a\nwing. A wing flamed, waved flame, and the burning beast tried to take\nair before it fell, splashing fire about it. Orange light caught sharp\non brown faces chiseled with shadow, caught in the terrified red bead of\nan eye or along double fangs behind dark lips.\n\nBurning wings withered on the ground; dead leaves had sparked now, and\nwhips of light ran on the clearing floor. The beasts retreated and the\nthree men stood against the wall, panting.\n\n\"Watch out!\" Iimmi suddenly called.\n\nSnake looked up as the great wings tented over him, hiding him\nmomentarily. Red flared beneath them, and suddenly the beasts fell away,\ntheir sails sweeping over the dead leaves, moved by wind or life, Geo\ncouldn't tell. Dark flappings rose on the moon, grew further away, and\nwere gone.\n\nAway from the wall, they saw the fire had blown up against the wall and\nwas dying. They ran quickly toward the edge of the forest. \"Snake,\" said\nGeo when they stopped. \"This is Iimmi, this is Snake. We told you about\nhim.\"\n\nIimmi extended his hand. \"Glad to meet you.\"\n\n\"Look,\" said Geo, \"he can read your mind, so if you still think he's a\nspy ...\"\n\nIimmi grinned. \"Remember the general rule? If he is a spy, it's going to\nget much too complicated trying to figure why he saved us like that.\"\n\nUrson scratched his head. \"If it's a choice between Snake and nothing,\nwe better take Snake. Hey, Four Arms, I owe you a thrashing.\" He paused,\nthen laughed. \"I hope some day I get a chance to give it to you.\"\n\n\"Where have you been, anyway?\" Geo asked. He put his hand on the boy's\nshoulder. \"You're wet.\"\n\n\"Our water friends again?\" suggested Urson.\n\n\"Probably,\" said Geo.\n\nSnake now held one hand toward Geo.\n\n\"What's that? Oh, you don't want to keep them?\"\n\nSnake shook his head.\n\n\"All right,\" said Geo. He took one jewel and put it around his neck.\n\nGeo took the wrought chain with the platinum claw from his neck and hung\nit around Iimmi's. The white eye shown on his dark chest in the\nmoonlight. Now Snake beckoned them to follow him back across the\nclearing. They came, stopping to pick up swords from the shriveled\ndarknesses on the ground about the clearing. As they passed around the\nedge of the broken building, Geo looked for the corpse they had left\nthere, but it was gone.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" asked Urson.\n\nSnake only motioned them onward. They neared the broken cylinder and\nSnake scrambled up the rubble under the dark hole through which the\nman-wolf had leaped earlier that evening.\n\nAt the door, Snake turned and lifted the jewel from Geo's neck, and held\nit aloft. The jewel glowed now, with a blue-green light that seeped into\nthe corners and crevices of the ruined entrance. Shreds of cloth hung at\nthe windows, most of which were broken. Twigs and rubbish littered the\nmetal floor. They walked between double seats toward a door at the far\nend. Effaced signs still hung on the walls.\n\nN .. SM .. K .. G\n\nThe door at the end was ajar, and Snake opened it all the way. Something\nscuttered through a cracked window. The jewel's light showed two seats\nbroken from their fixtures. Vines covered the front window in which only\na few splinters of glass hung on the rim. Draped in rotten fabric, a few\nmetal rings about wrists and ankles, two skeletons with silver helmets\nhad fallen from the seats. Snake pointed to a row of smashed glass disks\nin front of the broken seats.\n\n_Radio_ ... they heard in their minds.\n\nNow he reached down into the mess on the floor and dislodged a chunk of\nrusted metal. _Gun_, he said, showing it to Geo.\n\nThe three men examined it. \"What's it good for?\" asked Urson.\n\nSnake shrugged.\n\n\"Are there any electricities, or diodes around?\" asked Geo, remembering\nthe words from before.\n\nSnake shrugged again.\n\n\"Why did you want to show us all this?\" Geo asked.\n\nThe boy only turned and started back toward the door. When they were\nstanding in the oval entrance, about to climb down, Iimmi pointed to the\nruins of the building ahead of them. \"Do you know what that building was\ncalled?\"\n\n_Barracks_, Snake said.\n\n\"I know that word,\" said Geo.\n\n\"So do I,\" said Iimmi. \"It means a place where they used to keep\nsoldiers all together. It's from one of the old languages.\"\n\n\"Where to now?\" Urson asked Snake.\n\nThe boy climbed back down into the clearing and they followed him into\nthe denser wood where only pearls of light scattered through the trees.\nThey emerged at a broad ribbon of silver, the river, broken by rocks.\n\n\"We were right the first time,\" Geo said. \"We should have stayed here.\"\n\nThe sound of rippling, sloshing, the full whisper of leaves and foliage\nalong the edges of the forest--these accompanied them as they lay down\non the dried moss behind the larger rocks. And with the heaviness of\nrelease on them, they dropped, like stones down a well, the bright pool\nof sleep.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_The bright pool of silver grew and spread and wrinkled into the\nfamiliar shapes of mast, the rail of the deck, and the whiteness of the\nsea beyond the ship. The scene moved down the deck, until another gaunt\nfigure approached from the other direction. The features, though\nstrangely distorted by whiteness and pulled to grotesquerie, were\nrecognizable as those of the captain as he drew near._\n\n_\"Oh, mate,\" said the captain._\n\n_Silence, while the mate gave an answer they couldn't hear._\n\n_\"Yes,\" answered the captain. \"I wonder what she wants, too.\" His voice\nwas hollow, etiolated like a flower grown in darkness. The captain\nturned and knocked on Argo's cabin door. It opened, and they stepped\nin._\n\n_The hand that opened the door for them was thin as winter twigs. The\nwalls of the room seemed draped in spider webs and hangings\ninsubstantial as layered dust. The great desk seemed spindly, grotesque,\nand the papers on top of it were tissue thin, threatening to scutter and\ncrumble with a breath. The chandelier above gave more languishing white\nsmoke than light, and the arms, branches, and complexed array of oil\ncups looked like a convocation of spiders._\n\n_Argo spoke in a pale white voice that sounded like the whisper of thin\nfingers tearing webs._\n\n_\"So,\" she said. \"We will stay at least another seven days.\"_\n\n_\"But why?\" asked the captain._\n\n_\"I have received a sign from the sea.\"_\n\n_\"I do not wish to question your authority, Priestess,\" began the\ncaptain._\n\n_\"Then do not,\" interrupted Argo._\n\n_\"My mate has raised the objection that ...\"_\n\n_\"Your mate has raised his hand to me once,\" stated the Priestess. \"It\nis only in my benevolence ...\" Here she paused, and her voice became\nmore unsure, \"... that I do not destroy him where he stands.\" Beneath,\nher veil, a face could be made out that might have belonged to a dried\nskull._\n\n_\"But,\" began the captain._\n\n_\"We wait here by the island of Aptor another seven days,\" commanded\nArgo. She looked away from the captain now, in a direction that must\nhave been straight into the eyes of the mate. From behind the veil, hate\nwelled like living liquid from the seemingly empty sockets. They turned\nto go, and once more on deck, they stopped to watch the sea. Near the\nindistinct horizon, a sharp tongue of land outlined itself with\nmountains. The cliffs were chalky on one side, then streaked with red\nand blue clays on the other. There was a reddish glow beyond one\nmountain, like the shimmering of a volcano. And dark as most of it was,\nit was a distinct darkness, backed with purple, or broken by the warm,\ndiffering grays of individual rocks. Even through the night, at this\ndistance, beyond the silver crescent of the beach, the jungle looked\nrich, green even in the darkness, redolently full and quiveringly heavy\nwith life._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then the thin screams ...\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nGeo rolled over and out of sleep, stones and moss beneath his shoulder.\nHe grabbed his sword and was on his feet instantly. Iimmi was also\nstanding with raised blade. The river sloshed coldly behind them.\n\nThe thin screaming came again, like a hot wire drawn down the gelid\nmorning. Snake and Urson were also up, now. The sounds came from the\ndirection of the ruined barracks. Geo started forward, cautiously,\ncuriosity drawing him toward the sound, fear sending him from the\nrelatively unprotected bank and into the woods. The others followed him.\n\nAbruptly they reached the edge of the forest's wall, beyond which was\nthe clear space before the broken building. They crouched now, behind\nthe trees, watching, fascinated.\n\nBetween ape and man, it hovered at the edge of the forest in the shadow.\nIt was Snake's height, but more of Urson's build. An animal pelt wrapped\nits middle and went over its shoulder, clothing it more fully than\neither of the four humans were clothed. Thick-footed, great-handed, it\nloped four steps into the clearing, uttered its piercing shriek, and\nfell on a hunk of flesh that last night's beasts had dropped from the\nsky. Its head rocked back and forth as it tore at its food. Once it\nraised its head and a sliver of flesh shook from its teeth before the\nface dropped again to devour.\n\nThey watched the huge fingers upon broad flat palms, tipped with\nbronze-colored claws, convulse again and again, reflexively, into the\ngray, fibrous meat while the fanged mouth ripped.\n\nWhether it was a shift of breeze, or a final reflex, Geo couldn't tell,\nbut one of the membranous sails raised darkly and beat about the\noblivious animal that fed on its corpse.\n\n\"Come on,\" Urson said. \"Let's go.\"\n\nA thin scream sounded behind them, and they whirled.\n\nIt crouched apishly, the bronze-clawed fingers opened and closed like\nbreathing, and the shaggy head was knotted with dirt and twigs. The\nbreath hissed from the faintly moving, full lips.\n\nUrson reached for his sword, but Iimmi saw him and whispered, \"No,\ndon't.\"\n\nThe Negro extended his hand and moved slowly forward. The hulking form\ntook a step back, and mewed.\n\nGeo suddenly caught the idea. Coming up beside Iimmi, he made a quick\nseries of snaps with his fingers and said in a coaxing, baby voice.\n\"Come, come, come.\" He laughed softly to Urson back over his shoulder.\n\"It won't hurt us,\" he said.\n\n\"If we don't hurt it,\" added Iimmi. \"It's some sort of necrophage.\"\n\n\"A what?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"It only eats dead things,\" Geo explained. \"They're mentioned in some of\nthe old legends. Apparently, after the Great Fire, so the story goes,\nthere were more of these things around than anything else. In Leptar,\nthough, they became extinct.\"\n\n\"Come here, cutie,\" said Iimmi. \"Nice little, sweet little, pretty\nlittle thing.\"\n\nIt mewed again, bowed its head, came over and rubbed against Iimmi's\nhip. \"Smells like hell,\" the Negro observed, scratching behind its ear.\n\"Watch out there, big boy!\" The beast gave a particularly affectionate\nrub that almost upset Iimmi's balance.\n\n\"Leave your pet alone,\" said Urson, \"and let's get going.\"\n\nGeo patted the ape-like skull. \"So long, beautiful,\" he said. They\nturned toward the river again.\n\nAs they emerged on the rocky bank, Geo said, \"Well, at least we know we\nhave seven days to get to the Temple of Hama and out again.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"Don't you remember the dream, back on the ship?\"\n\n\"Who was thinking that?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"Jordde, the first mate.\"\n\n\"He makes everybody look dead. I thought I was having a nightmare. I\ncould hardly recognize the captain.\"\n\n\"You see one reason for believing he's a spy?\"\n\n\"Because of the way he sees things?\" Again he smiled. \"A poet's reason,\nI'm afraid. But I see.\"\n\nThe thin shriek sounded behind them, and they turned to see the hulking\nform crouched on the rocks above them.\n\n\"Uh-oh,\" said Urson, \"there's your cute friend.\"\n\n\"I hope we haven't picked up a tag-a-long for the rest of the trip,\"\nsaid Geo.\n\nIt loped down over the rocks and stopped just before them.\n\n\"What's it got?\" Iimmi asked.\n\n\"I can't tell,\" said Geo.\n\nReaching into the bib of its animal skin, it brought out a gray hunk of\nmeat and held it toward them.\n\nIimmi laughed. \"Breakfast,\" he said.\n\n\"That!\" demanded Urson.\n\n\"Can you suggest anything better?\" Geo asked. He took the meat from the\nbeast's claws. \"Thanks, gorgeous.\"\n\nIt turned, looked back, and bounded up the bank and into the forest\nagain.\n\nWith fire from the jewels, and wooden spits from the woods, they soon\nhad the meat crackling and brown and the grease bubbling down its sides\nand hissing onto the hot stones they had used to rim the flame. Urson\nsat apart, sniffed, and then moved closer, and finally scratched his big\nfingers through his hairy stomach and said, \"Damn it, I'm hungry.\" They\nmade room for him at the fire without comment.\n\nSun struck the tops of the trees for the first time that morning and a\nmoment later splashed copper in concentric curves on the water by the\nrock's edge, staining it further with dull gold.\n\n\"You seem to know your way around awfully well. Have you ever been on\nAptor before?\" Iimmi asked Snake suddenly.\n\nSnake paused for a moment. Then he nodded, slowly.\n\nThey were all silent now.\n\nFinally Geo asked, \"What made you ask that?\"\n\n\"Something in your first theory,\" Iimmi said. \"I've been thinking it for\nsome time, and I guess you knew I was thinking it too, Four Arms. You\nthought Jordde wanted to get rid of me, Whitey, and Snake, and that it\nwas just an accident that he caught Whitey first instead of Snake. You\nthought he wanted to get rid of Whitey and me because of something we'd\nseen, or might have seen, when we were on Aptor with Argo. I just\nthought perhaps he wanted to get rid of Snake for the same reason. Which\nmeant he might have been on Aptor before, too.\"\n\n\"Jordde was on Aptor before,\" said Urson. \"You said that's when he\nbecame a spy for them.\"\n\nThey all turned to Snake who stood quietly.\n\n\"I don't think we ought to ask him any more questions,\" said Iimmi. \"The\nanswers aren't going to do us any good, and no matter what we find out,\nwe've got a job to do, and seven, no--six and a half days to do it in.\"\n\nSnake quietly handed the metal chain with the pendant jewel back to\nIimmi. The dark man put it around his neck once more and they turned up\nthe river.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBy twelve, the sun had parched the sky. Once they stopped to swim and\ncool themselves. Chill water gave before reaching arms and lowered\nfaces. They even dove in search of their aquatic helpers, but grubbed\nthe pebbly bottom of the river with blind fingers instead, coming up\nwith dripping twigs and smooth wet stones. Soon, they were in a\nsplashing match, of which it is fair to say, Snake won--hands down.\n\nHunger thrust its sharp finger into their abdomens once more, only a\nmile on. \"Maybe we should have saved some of that stuff from breakfast,\"\nmuttered Urson.\n\nIimmi suddenly broke away from the bank toward the forest.\n\n\"Come on,\" he said. \"Let's get some food.\"\n\nThe building they suddenly came upon had tongues of moss licking twenty\nto fifty feet up the loosely mortared stones. A hundred yards from the\nwater, the jungle came right to its edges. The whole edifice had sunk a\nbit to one side in the boggy soil. It was a far more stolid and\nprimitive structure than the barracks. They scraped and hacked in front\nof the entrance where two great columns of stone, six feet across at the\nbase, rose fifty feet to a supported arch. The stones of the building\nwere rough and unfinished.\n\n\"It's a temple,\" Geo suddenly said.\n\nAnd again they fell back to work. What spots of light spilled through\nthe twisted net of jungle stopped at the total shadow beneath the great\narch. A line of blackness up one side of the basalt door showed that it\nwas ajar. Now they mounted the steps, moving aside a fallen branch which\nchattered leaves at them. Geo, Iimmi, then Snake, and at last Urson,\nsqueezed through the door.\n\nCeiling blocks had fallen from the high vault so that three shafts of\nsun struck through the continual shift of dust to the littered floor.\n\n\"Do you think it's Hama's temple?\" Urson asked. His voice came back in\nthe stone room, small and hollow.\n\n\"I doubt it,\" said Iimmi. \"At least not the one we're supposed to find.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's an abandoned one,\" said Geo, \"and we can find out something\nuseful from it.\"\n\nSomething large and dark suddenly flapped through a far shaft of sun.\nThey stepped back. After a moment of silence, Geo handed his jewel to\nSnake. \"Make some light in here,\" he said.\n\nThe blue green glow flowed from the up-raised jewel in Snake's hand. As\nthe light flared, and flared brighter, they saw that the flapping had\ncome from a medium-sized bird that was perched harmlessly on an arch\nthat ran between two columns. It ducked its head at them, cawed harshly,\nand then flapped from its perch and out one of the apertures in the\nceiling, the sound of its wings still thrumming in echo seconds after it\nwas gone.\n\nThere were doors between the columns, and one far wall had not withstood\ntime's sledge. A gaping rent was nearly blocked with vines except for a\ndim, green-tinted shimmer that broke in here and there through the\nuneven foliage.\n\nBehind a twisted metal rail and raised on steps of stone, the ruins of a\nhuge statue sat. Carved from black rock, it represented a man seated\ncross-legged on a dais. An arm and shoulder had broken off and lay in\npieces on the altar steps. The hand, its fingers as thick as Urson's\nthigh, lay just behind the altar rail. The head was completely missing.\nBoth the hand still on the statue and the one in front of them on the\nsteps looked as though they had once held something, but whatever it was\nhad been removed.\n\nIimmi was moving along the rail to where a set of stone boxes were\nplaced like foot stones along the side of the altar. \"Here, Snake,\" he\ncalled. \"Bring a light over here.\" Snake obeyed, and with Geo's and\nUrson's help, he loosened one of the lids.\n\n\"What's in there?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"Books,\" said Iimmi, lifting out one dusty volume. Geo peered over his\nshoulder while the dark fingers turned the pages. \"Old rituals,\" Iimmi\nsaid. \"Look here,\" and he pointed to one of them. \"You can still read\nthem.\"\n\n\"Let me see,\" Geo said. \"You know I studied with Eadnu at the University\nof Olcse Olwnh.\"\n\nIimmi looked up and laughed. \"I thought some of your ideas sounded\nfamiliar. I was a pupil of Welis.\"\n\n\"You were at Olcse Olwnh too?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"Um-hm,\" said Iimmi turning the pages. \"I signed aboard this ship as a\nsummer job. If I'd known where we'd end up, I don't think I'd have gone,\nthough.\"\n\nStomach pangs were forgotten.\n\n\"These rituals are not at all like those of the Goddess,\" Iimmi\nobserved.\n\n\"Apparently not,\" agreed Geo. \"Wait!\" Iimmi had been turning pages at\nrandom. \"Look there!\" Geo pointed.\n\n\"What is it?\" Iimmi asked.\n\n\"The lines,\" Geo said. \"The ones Argo recited.\" He read out loud:\n\n    \"_Forked in the heart of the dark oak\n    the circlet of his sash\n    rimmed where the eye of Hama broke\n    with fire, smoke, and ash._\n\n    _Freeze the drop in the hand\n    and break the earth with singing.\n    Hail the height of a man\n    and also the height of a woman._\n\n    _The eyes have imprisoned a vision.\n    The ash tree dribbles with blood.\n    Thrust from the gates of the prison\n    smear the yew tree with mud._\"\n\n\"It's the other version of the poem I found in the pre-purge rituals of\nArgo. I wonder if there were any more poems in the old rituals of Leptar\nthat parallel those of Aptor and Hama?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" Iimmi said. \"Especially if the first invasion from Aptor\ntook place just before, and probably caused, the purges.\"\n\n\"What about food?\" Urson suddenly asked from where he now sat on the\naltar steps. \"You two scholars have the rest of time to argue. But we\nmay starve before you can enjoy the leisure.\"\n\n\"He's right,\" said Iimmi. \"Besides, we have to get going.\"\n\n\"Would you two consider it an imposition to set your minds to procuring\nus some food?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Iimmi said. \"Here's a section on the burial of the\ndead. Yes, I thought so.\" He read out loud now:\n\n    \"_Sink the bright dead with misgiving\n    from the half-light of the living ..._\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"It means that the dead are buried with all the accoutrements of the\nliving. That means that they put food in the graves.\"\n\n\"Over here,\" cried Iimmi. With Snake following, they came to the row of\nsealed doors behind the columns along the wall. Iimmi looked at the\ninscription. \"Tombs,\" he reported. He turned the handles, a double set\nof rings, which he twisted in opposite directions. \"In an old,\nuncared-for temple like this, the lock mechanisms must have rusted by\nnow if they're at all like the ancient tombs of Leptar.\"\n\n\"Have you studied the ancient tombs?\" asked Geo excitedly. \"Professor\nEadnu always considered them a waste of time.\"\n\n\"That's all Welis ever talked about,\" laughed Iimmi. \"Here, Urson, you\nset your back to this a moment.\"\n\nGrumbling, Urson came forward, took the rings, and twisted. One snapped\noff in his hand. The other gave, with a crumbling sound inside the door.\n\n\"I think that does it,\" Iimmi said.\n\nThey all helped pull now, and suddenly the door gave an inch, and then,\non the next tug, swung free.\n\nSnake proceeded them into the tiny stone cell.\n\nOn a rock table, lying on its side, was a bald, shriveled, sexless body.\nAround the floor were a few sealed jars, heaps of parchment, and a few\npiles of ornaments.\n\nIimmi moved among the jars. \"This one has grain,\" he said. \"Give me a\nhand.\" Geo helped him lug the big pottery vessel to the door.\n\nSuddenly a thin shriek scarred the dusty air, and both boys stumbled.\nThe jar hit the ground, split, and grain heaped over the floor. The\nshriek came again.\n\nGeo saw, there on the edge of the broken wall across the temple from\nthem five of the ape-like figures crouched before the thickly shingled\nleaves, just visible in the uneven light. One leapt from the wall now\nand ran wailing across the littered temple floor, straight for the door\nof the tomb. Two others followed, and then two others. More had mounted\nthe broken ridge of stone.\n\nOnly a greenish rectangle of light fell through the tomb's door as the\nloping forms burst into the room, one, and then its two companions.\nClaws and teeth closed on the shriveled skin. The body rolled beneath\nthe ripping hands and mouths, for one arm swept into the air above their\nlowered heads and humped backs. It fell on the edge of the rock table,\nbroke at the mid-forearm, and the skeletal hand fell to the floor,\nshattering like china, into a dozen pieces.\n\nThey backed to the temple door. Then they turned and ran down the temple\nsteps. The sunlight on the broad rocks touched them; they became still,\nbreathed deeply. They walked quietly. Hunger returned slowly after that,\nand occasionally one would look aside into the faces of the others in\nattempt to identify the horror that still pulsed behind their eyes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nIt was Urson who first pointed it out. \"Look at the far bank,\" he said.\n\nAcross from them, they could make out an obviously man-made stone\nembankment.\n\nA few hundred feet further on, Iimmi sighted the spires above the trees,\nstill across the river from them. They could figure nothing for an\nexplanation, till suddenly the trees ceased on the opposite bank and the\nbuildings and towers of a great city broke the sky. Elevated highways\nlooped tower after tower, many of them broken, their ends dangling\ncolossaly to the streets. The docks of the city just across from them\nwere completely deserted.\n\nIt was Geo who suggested, \"Perhaps Hama's temple is in there. After all,\nArgo's largest temple is in Leptar's biggest city.\"\n\n\"And what city in Leptar is _that_ big?\" breathed Urson, awfully.\n\n\"How do we get across?\" asked Iimmi.\n\nBut Snake had already started down to the water.\n\n\"I guess we follow him,\" said Geo, climbing down over the rocks.\n\nSnake dove into the water. Iimmi, Geo, and Urson followed. Before he had\ntaken two strokes, Geo felt familiar hands suddenly grasp his body from\nbelow. This time he did not fight, and there was a sudden sense of\nspeed, of sinking through consciousness.\n\nThen he was bobbing up through chill water with the rising embankment of\nstones to one side and the broad river to the other. He switched from\nskulling into a crawl now, wondering how to scale the stones when he saw\nthe rusted metal ladder leading into the water. He caught hold of the\nsides and pulled himself up.\n\nSnake came up now, and then Urson. And, at last Iimmi joined them on the\nbroad ridge of concrete that walled the flowing river. Together now on\nthe wharf, they turned to the city.\n\nNear them, piles of debris lay between two taller buildings. After a few\nminutes' walk the building walls had reached canyon size. \"Now, how are\nyou going to go about looking for the temple?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"Maybe we can take a look from the top of one of these buildings,\" Geo\nsuggested.\n\nThey turned toward a random building. A slab of metal had torn away from\nthe wall, and stepping through, they found themselves in a huge hollow\nroom. Dim light came from a number of white tubes set around the wall.\nOnly a quarter of them were lit, and one was flickering. Hung from the\ncenter of the room was a metal sign which read:\n\n    NEW EDISON ELECTRIC COMPANY\n\nand beneath it, in smaller letters:\n\n    \"LIGHT DOWN THE AGES\"\n\nOne of the huge cylinders, across the floor, was buzzing.\n\nAs they mounted a spiral staircase to the next floor the great room\nturned about them, sinking. At last they stepped up into a dark\ncorridor. A red light glowed at the end which said: EXIT.\n\nDoors outlined themselves along the hall in a red haze. Geo moved to one\nat random and opened it. Natural light fell in on them as the others\ncame to see. They entered a room whose outer wall was torn away. The\nfloor broke off irregularly over thrusting girders.\n\n\"What could have happened to it?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"See,\" Iimmi explained. \"That roadway must have crashed into the wall\nand knocked it away.\"\n\nA twenty-foot ribbon of road veered into the room at an insane angle.\nThe railing was twisted, but there were the stalks of street lights\nstill intact along the edges.\n\n\"Do you think we could climb that?\" asked Geo. \"It doesn't look too\nsteep.\"\n\n\"For what?\" Urson wanted to know.\n\n\"To get some place high enough to see if there's anything that looks\nlike a temple.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Urson in a reconciled voice.\n\nIn general the walk was in good shape. Occasional sections of railing\nhad twisted away, but the road itself mounted surely between the\nsheering faces of the buildings on either side of them through advancing\nsunset.\n\nIt branched before them and they went left. It branched again and again\nthey avoided the right-handed road. A sign, half the length of a three\nmasted ship, hung lopsidedly above them on a building to one side.\n\n    WMTH\n\n    THE HUB OF WORLD NEWS, COMMUNICATION, & ENTERTAINMENT\n\nAs they rounded the corner of the building, Snake suddenly stopped and\nput his hand to his head.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Geo.\n\nSnake took a step backward. Then he pointed to WMTH. _It ... hurts._\n\n\"What hurts?\" asked Iimmi.\n\nSnake pointed to the building again.\n\n\"Is there someone in there thinking too loud?\"\n\n_Thinking ... machine_, Snake said. _Radio ..._\n\n\"A radio is a thinking machine and there's one in there that's hurting\nyour head?\" interpreted Iimmi, tentatively, and with a question mark.\n\nSnake nodded.\n\n\"How come the one he showed us before didn't hurt him?\" Urson wanted to\nknow.\n\nIimmi looked up at the imposing housing of WMTH. \"Maybe this one's a lot\nbigger.\"\n\n\"Look,\" Geo said to Snake, \"you stay here, and if we see anything, we'll\ncome back and report, all right?\"\n\n\"Maybe it stops later on,\" Urson said, \"and if he ran forward, he could\nget out the other side. It may just stop after a hundred feet or so.\"\n\n\"Why so anxious?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"The jewels,\" said Urson. \"Who's going to get us out of trouble if we\nshould meet up with anything else?\"\n\nThey were silent then. Their shadows faded over the pavement as the\nyellow tinge in the sky turned blue. \"I guess it's up to Snake,\" Geo\nsaid. \"Do you think you can make it?\"\n\nSnake paused for a moment, then shook his head.\n\n\"Well,\" Geo said to the others, \"come on then.\"\n\nAround them was a sudden click, and lights flickered all along the edges\nof the road.\n\n\"Come on,\" Geo said again, and once more they started, passing the\nlights which wheeled double and triple shadows about them over the road\nand the opposite railing. When they reached the next turn off that led\nto a still higher ramp, Geo looked back. Snake's miniature figure sat on\nthe edge of the road's railing, his feet on the lower rung, one pair of\narms folded, one pair of elbows on his knees. The light above him.\n\n\"Keep track of the turns,\" said Geo.\n\n\"I'm keeping,\" Iimmi assured him.\n\n\"By the time we get to the top of whatever we're trying to get to the\ntop of,\" rumbled Urson, \"we won't be able to see anything. It'll be too\ndark.\"\n\n\"Then let's hurry,\" Geo admonished.\n\nSunset stained one side of the towers copper while blue shadows hugged\nthe other. By way of a plastic-domed stairway, they mounted another\neighty feet to a broader highway where they could look down on the band\nof lights which was the one they had just left. They were beginning to\nclear the roofs of the lower buildings now.\n\nOn this road fewer lights were working. They were just about to enter a\ndark section when a figure appeared in silhouette at the other end.\n\nThey stopped, but the figure was suddenly gone. A little farther, Geo\nsuddenly halted and said, \"There!\"\n\nTwo hundred feet ahead of them, what may have been a naked woman rose\nfrom the ground, and began to walk backwards until she disappeared into\nthe next dark length of road.\n\n\"Do you think she was running away from us?\" Iimmi asked.\n\nUrson reached out and touched Iimmi's jewel. \"I wish we have some more\nlight around here.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Iimmi agreed. They continued.\n\nThe skeleton lay at the twilight edge of the next stretch of functioning\nlights. The rib cage marked sharp lines on the pavement with shadow from\nthe lamps' glare.\n\n\"Do we turn back now?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"A skeleton can't hurt you,\" Iimmi said.\n\n\"But what about the live one we saw?\" countered Urson.\n\n\"... and here she comes now,\" Geo whispered in a cynical stage voice.\n\nIn fact two figures approached them through the shadow. As Urson, Geo\nand Iimmi moved closer, one stopped, and then the other a few steps\nbefore the first. Then they dropped. Geo couldn't tell if they fell, or\nlay down quickly on the roadway. But they seemed to have disappeared.\n\n\"Go on?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"Go on,\" said Geo.\n\nPause. \"Go on,\" from Geo.\n\nTwo more skeletons lay on the road where the figures had disappeared a\nminute before. \"They don't seem dangerous,\" Geo said. \"But what do they\ndo? Die every time they see us?\"\n\n\"Hey,\" Iimmi said. \"What's that? Listen.\"\n\nIt was a sickly liquid sound, like mud dropping into itself. Something\nwas falling from the sky. No, not the sky, but from the roadway that\ncrossed fifty feet above them. Looking down again, they saw that a blob\nof something was growing on the pavement ten feet from them.\n\n\"Come on,\" Geo said, and they skirted the mess dripping from above them,\nand continued up the road, passing four more skeletons. The sound behind\nthem turned into a wet sloshing. Turning, they saw it emerge into the\nlight--shapeless and jelly-green under the white flare. Impaling its\nmembrane on the skeletons, the mass flowed around them, faster, covering\nthem, molding to them. There was a final surge, a shrinking, and its\nshapelessness contracted into limbs, a head, feet. The naked man-thing\npushed itself to its knees and then stood straight, the flesh by now\nopaque. Eye sockets caved into the face. A mouth ripped apart on the\nskull, and the chest began to move with a wet steamy sound in irregular\ngasps.\n\nIt began to walk toward them, raising its hands from its sides. Then,\nbehind it in the darkness, they saw more coming.\n\n\"_Damn_,\" said Urson. \"What do they...?\"\n\n\"One, or both, of two things,\" Iimmi answered, backing away. \"More meat,\nor more bones.\"\n\n\"Whoops,\" Geo said. \"Look back there!\"\n\nThey whirled and saw seven more figures standing quietly behind them,\nwhile the ones in front advanced.\n\nA covered flight of stairs had its entrance nearby, leading to the next\nlevel of highway. They ducked into it and fled up the steps. Geo glanced\nback once; one of the forms had reached the entrance and had started to\nclimb. He was also, he realized, high enough to get some idea of the\ncity, which stretched, beyond the transparent covering of the steps,\naway in a web of lighted roadways, rising, looping, descending. Two\nglows caught him: one, beyond the river, a red haze that flickered\nbehind the trees and was reflected on the water itself. The other was\nwithin the city itself, orange white, nested among the buildings.\n\nHe turned back up the steps. A gurgling sound neared them as they\nreached the top entrance. Geo had only gotten half clear of the entrance\nwhen he yelled, \"Yikes,\" and then, \"Duck!\"\n\nThey slipped from the doorway and nearly fell, avoiding a mass of jelly\nthe size of a two-story house which flopped against the entrance. They\nedged by its pulsing, transparent sides. The lamp light pierced into it\na yard, and once a skull swirled toward the surface and then sank again.\n\nSuddenly it sucked away from the entrance and shivered ponderously\ntoward them. Something was happening at the front. Figures, three or\nfour of them, were detaching themselves from the mother mass and\npreceding it.\n\nThey turned and ran along the road, plunging suddenly into an extended\ndarkened section. A moment later there was a glow in front of them and\nsuddenly Urson yelled, \"Watch it!\"\n\nAbruptly the road sheered off in front of them; they halted, and then\napproached the edge slowly. The surface of the road tore away and the\ngirders descended, webbing toward the ruined stump of a building from\nwhich the orange-white glow rose. The glow came from the heart of the\nedifice. \"What do you think it is?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Iimmi.\n\nThey looked, and in the shadow, numberless figures were marching after\nthem. Suddenly the figures fell to the ground, and flesh rolled forward\nfrom bone, congealed, and rose quiveringly into the edge of the light.\n\nIimmi started out first on the skeletal, twisted structure that\ndescended to the glowing pit. \"You're crazy,\" Geo said. The thing\nflopped forward another yard with a sick sound. \"Hurry up,\" Geo added.\nWith Urson in the middle, they started out along the twenty-inch wide\ngirder. Lit from beneath, their bodies were in the shadow of the girder.\nOnly their outstretched arms burned in the pale orange light as they\nbalanced themselves.\n\nBefore them, faintly legible on the broken building into which they were\ndescending was the sign: ATOMIC ENERGY FOR THE BETTERMENT OF MAN\n\nIt was flanked by two purple trefoils. The beam twisted sideways, and\nthen dropped. Iimmi made the turn, dropped to his knees and hands, and\nthen started to let himself down the four feet to the next small section\nof concrete. Once he saw something, let out a low whistle, but continued\nto lower himself to the straightened girder. Urson made the turn next,\nwhile Geo knelt in front of him. When Urson saw what Iimmi had seen, his\nhand shot to Geo's chest and grabbed the jewel. Geo took his wrist.\n\"That won't help us now,\" he said.\n\nUrson expelled a breath, and then continued down, slowly. Quickly Geo\nturned to drop now.\n\nThe entire beam structure over which they had just come was coated with\na trembling thickness of the stuff. Globs dripped from the steel shafts,\nglowing in the light from below, quivering, smoking, splashing off into\nthe darkness. Here and there something half human would rise either to\nlook around or to pull the collective mass further on, but then it would\nfall back and dissolve. It bulged forward, smoking now, bits of it\nshriveling off and falling away. Geo was about to descend, but suddenly\nhe called, \"Wait a minute.\" The others stayed still.\n\nIt wasn't making progress. It rolled to a certain point in the pale,\nsherbert-colored light, globbed up, smoked, and fell away. And smoked.\nAnd dripped.\n\n\"Can't it get any farther?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"It doesn't look it,\" said Geo.\n\nA skeleton stood up, flesh-covered in the orange light. It tottered, its\nsurface steaming, and then fell with a sucking noise, down into the\nhundreds of feet of shadow. Geo was holding tight onto the girder in\nfront of him.\n\nThe pale light fell cleanly over his hand, wrist, and midway up his\nforearm.\n\nWhat happened now made him squeeze until sweat came: the entire\nGargantuan mass, which had only extended tentacles till now, pulsed to\nthe edge of the jagged road, draped itself over the web of girders, and\nflung itself forward on the spindly metal threads. It careened toward\nthem, and the three jerked themselves back.\n\nThen it stopped, quivering. It boiled, it burned, it writhed, sinking,\nsmoking through the spaces in the naked girder work. It tried to crawl\nbackwards. Human figures leaped from its mass toward the edge of the\nroad, missed, and plummetted like smoking bullets. It hurled a great\npseudopod back toward the safety of the road; it fell short, flopped\ndownward, and the whole mass shook beneath the smoke that rose from it.\nIt pulled free of the support, tentacles sliding across steel, whipping\ninto the air. Then it dropped into the shadows, breaking into a half\ndozen pieces before they lost sight of it below.\n\nGeo released his hand. \"My arm hurts,\" he said, shaking it.\n\nThey climbed up to the road again, carefully. \"Any ideas what happened?\"\nasked Iimmi.\n\n\"What ever it was, I'm glad it did,\" said Urson.\n\nSomething clattered before them in the darkness.\n\n\"What was that?\" asked Urson, stopping.\n\n\"My foot hit something,\" Geo said.\n\n\"What was it?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"Never mind,\" said Geo. \"Come on.\"\n\nFifteen minutes brought them to the stairway that went to the lower\nhighway. Iimmi's memory proved good, and for an hour they went quickly,\nIimmi making no hesitation it turnings.\n\n\"God,\" Geo said, rubbing his forearm with his other hand. \"I must have\npulled hell out of it back there. It hurts like the devil.\"\n\nUrson looked at his hand and rubbed them together.\n\n\"My hands feel sort of funny too,\" Iimmi said. \"Like they've been\nwind-burned.\"\n\n\"Wind-burned nothing,\" said Geo. \"This hurts.\"\n\nTwenty minutes later, Iimmi said, \"Well, this should be about it.\"\n\n\"Hey,\" said Urson. \"There's Snake.\" As they ran forward, now, the boy\njumped off the rail, grabbed their shoulders, and grinned. Then he began\nto tug them forward.\n\n\"You lucky little so and so,\" said Urson. \"I wish you'd been with us.\"\n\n\"He probably was, in spirit, if not in body,\" Geo laughed.\n\nSnake nodded.\n\n\"What are you pulling for?\" Urson asked. \"Say, if you're going to get\nheadaches like that, you'd better teach us what to do with them beads\nthere.\" He pointed to the jewel at Iimmi's and Geo's necks.\n\nSnake nodded and tugged forward again.\n\n\"He wants us to hurry,\" Geo said. \"We better get going.\"\n\nThe road finally tore completely away, and four feet below them, over\nthe twisted rail, was the mouth of a street that led into the\nwaterfront. Snake, Iimmi and then Urson vaulted over. Urson shook his\nhands painfully when he landed.\n\n\"Give me a hand, will you?\" Geo asked. \"My arm is really shot.\" Urson\nhelped his friend over.\n\nAlmost as though it had been in wait, thick liquid gurgling sounded\nbehind them. Like a wounded thing it emerged from behind the broken\nhighway, bulging up into the light which shone on the ripples in its\nshriveled membrane.\n\n\"Run it!\" bawled Urson, and they took off down the street. In the\nmoonlight, the ruined piers spread along the waterfront to either side\nof them, some even slanting into the silvered water.\n\nTurning once, they saw it bloat the entrance of the street, fill it, and\nthen pour across the broken stones, slipping across the rubble of the\nsmashed wharf.\n\nWhen Geo hit water, he was aware of two things immediately as the hands\nreached for his body. First, the thong was yanked from around his neck.\nSecond, pain seared his arm as if the bones and ligaments were suddenly\nreplaced by white-hot cords of steel, and every vein and capillary had\nbecome part of a webbing of red fire.\n\nIt was a long time before consciousness. Once he was lifted. And when he\nopened his eyes, the white moon was moving incredibly fast above him\ntoward the dark shapes of leaves. Was he being carried? And his arm\nhurt. There was more drowsy half consciousness, and once a great deal of\npain. When he opened his mouth to scream, however, darkness flowed in,\nswathed his tongue, and he swallowed the darkness down into his body and\ninto his head, and called it sleep--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_A spool of copper wire unrolled over the black tile floor. Scoop it up\nquick. Damn, let me get out of here. I run past the black columns,\nglimpsing the cavernous room, and the black statue at the other end,\nhuge, and rising into shadows. Men in dark robes are walking around.\n(Not only could they see, this time; they could hear the thinking.) Just\ndon't feel up to praying this afternoon. I am before the door, and above\nit, a black disk with three white eyes on it. Through the door, up black\nstone steps. Wonder if anyone will be up there now. Just my luck I'll\nfind the Old Man himself. Another door with a black circle above it.\nPush it open slowly, cool on my hands. A man is standing inside, looking\ninto a large screen of glass. Figures moving on it. Can't make them out,\nhe's in the way. Oh, there's another one._\n\n_\"I don't know whether to call it success or failure,\" one says._\n\n_\"The jewels are ... safe or lost?\"_\n\n_\"What do you call it?\" the first one asks. \"I don't know any more.\" He\nsighs. \"I don't think I've taken my eyes off this thing for more than\ntwo hours since they got to the beach. Every mile they've come closer\nhas made my blood run colder.\"_\n\n_\"What do we report to Hama Incarnate?\"_\n\n_\"It would be silly to say anything now. We just don't know.\"_\n\n_\"Well,\" says the other, \"at least we can do something with the City of\nNew Hope since they got rid of that super-amoeba.\"_\n\n_\"Are you sure they really got it?\"_\n\n_\"After the burning it received over that naked atom pile? It was all it\ncould do to get to the waterfront. It's just about fried up and blown\naway already.\"_\n\n_\"And how safe would you call them?\" the other asks._\n\n_\"Right now? I wouldn't call them anything.\"_\n\n_Something glitters on the table by the door. Yes, there it is. In the\npile of strange equipment is a U-shaped scrap of metal. Just what I\nneed. Hot damn, adhesive tape too. Quick, there, before they see. Fine.\nNow, let the door close, real slow. Ooops. It clicked. Now come on, look\ninnocent, in case they come out. I hope the Old Man isn't watching.\nGuess they're not coming. And down the stairs again, the black stone\nwalls moving past. Out another door, into the garden, dark flowers,\npurple, deep red, some with blue in them, and big stone urns. Some\npriests are coming down the path. Ooops again, there's old Dunderhead.\nHe'll want me inside praying. Duck down behind that urn. Here we go.\nWhat'll I do if he catches me? Really sir, I have nothing under my choir\nrobe. Peek out._\n\n_Very, very small sigh of relief, now. Can't afford to be too loud\naround here. They're gone. Let's examine the loot. The black stone urn\nhas one handle above. It's about eight feet tall. One, two, three: jump,\nand ... hold ... on ... and ... pull. And try to get to the top. There\nwe go. Cold stone between my toes. And over the edge, where it's filled\nwith dirt. Pant. Pant. Pant._\n\n_Should be just over here, if I remember right. Dig, dig, dig. Damp\nearth feels good in your hands. Ow! my finger. There it is. A brown\npaper bag under granules of black earth. Lift it out. Is it all there?\nOpen it up, peer in. Down at the bottom, beyond the folds of the edges\nwhere the top had been twisted tightly together, are the tiny scraps of\ncopper, a few long pieces of dark metal, a piece of board, some brads.\nTo this my grubby little hand adds the spool of copper wire and the\nU-shaped scrap of metal. Now, slip it into my robe and--once you get up\nhere, how the hell do you get down? I always forget. Turn around, climb\nover the edge, like this, and let yourself down. Damn, my robe's caught\non the handle._\n\n_And drop._\n\n_Skinned my shin again. Some day I'll learn._\n\n_Now let's see if we can figure this thing out. Gotta crouch down and\nget to work. Here we go. Open the bag, and turn the contents out in the\nlap of the dark-colored robe, grubby hands poking._\n\n_The U-shaped metal, the copper wire, fine. Hold the end of the wire to\nthe metal, and maneuver the spool around the end of the wire to the\nmetal, and maneuver the spool around the end of the rod. Around. And\naround. And around. Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry\nbush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush; I'll have\nme a coil by the morning._\n\n_Suddenly a harsh voice in the distance: \"And what do you think you're\ndoing?\"_\n\n_Dunderhead rides again. \"Nothing, sir,\" as metal and scraps and wires\nfly frantically into the paper bag._\n\n_The voice: \"All novices under twenty must report to afternoon services\nwithout fail!\"_\n\n_\"Yes, sir. Coming right along, sir.\" Paper bag jammed equally\nfrantically into the folds of my robe. Not a moment's peace. Not a\nmoment's! Through the garden with lowered eyes, past a dour-looking\npriest with a small paunch. There are mirrors along the vestibule, huge\nslabs of glass that rise thirty feet, reflecting the blue and yellow\nlight back and forth from the colored windows of the temple. In the\nmirror I see pass: a dour-looking priest, proceeded by a smaller figure\nwith short red hair and a spray of freckles over a flattish nose. And as\nwe pass into prayer, there is the maddening, almost inaudible jingling\nof metal scraps, muffled by the dark robe._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGeo woke up, and almost everything was white.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nThe pale woman with the tiny eyes rose from over him. Her hair dropped\nlike white silk threads over her shoulders. \"You are awake?\" she asked.\n\"Do you understand me?\"\n\n\"Am I at--at Hama's temple?\" he asked, the remnants of the dream still\nblowing in at the edges of his mind, like shredding cloth. \"My friends,\nwhere are they?\"\n\nThe woman laughed. \"Your friends are all right. You came out the worst.\"\nAnother laugh. \"You ask if this is Hama's temple? But you can see, can\nyou not? You have eyes. Don't you recognize the color of the White\nGoddess Argo?\"\n\nGeo looked around the room. It was white marble, and there was no direct\nsource of light. The walls simply glowed.\n\n\"My friends....\" Geo said again.\n\n\"They are fine. We were able to completely restore their flesh to\nhealth. They must have exposed their hands to the direct beam of the\nradiation for only a few seconds. But the whole first half of your arm\nhad apparently lain in the deadly rays for some minutes. You were not as\nlucky as they.\"\n\nAnother thought rushed Geo's mind now. \"The jewels ...\" he started to\nsay, but instead of sounding the words, he reached to his throat with\nboth hands. One fell on his naked chest. And there was something very\nwrong with the other. He sat up in the bed quickly, and looked down. \"My\narm,\" he said.\n\nSwathed in white bandages, the limb ended some foot and a half short of\nwhere it should have.\n\n\"My arm...?\" he asked again, with a child's bewilderment. \"What happened\nto my arm?\"\n\n\"I tried to tell you,\" the woman said, softly. \"We had to amputate half\nof your arm. If we had not, you would have died.\"\n\n\"My arm,\" Geo said again, and lay back in the bed.\n\n\"It is difficult,\" the woman said. \"It is only a little consolation, I\nknow, but we are blind here. What burned your arm away, took our sight\nfrom us when it was much stronger, generations ago. We learned how to\nbattle many of its effects, and had we not rescued you from the river,\nall of you would have died. You are men who know the religion of Argo,\nand adhere to it. This another of your party has told us. Be thankful\nthen that you have come under the wing of the Mother Goddess again, for\nthis is a hostile country.\" She paused. \"Do you wish to talk?\"\n\nGeo shook his head.\n\n\"I hear the sheets rustle,\" the woman said, smiling, \"which means you\neither shook or nodded your head. I know from my study of the old\ncustoms that one means 'yes' and the other 'no.' But you must have\npatience with us who cannot see. We are not used to your people. Do you\nwish to talk?\" she repeated.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Geo. \"No. No, I don't.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" the woman said. She rose, still smiling. \"I will return\nlater.\" She walked to a wall in which a door slipped open, and then it\nclosed again, behind her.\n\nHe lay still on the bed for a long time. Then he turned over on his\nstomach. Once he brought the stump under his chest and held the clean\nbandages in his other hand. Very quickly he let go, and stretched the\nlimb sideways, as far as possible away from him. That didn't work\neither, so he moved it back down to his side, and let it lay by him\nunder the white sheet.\n\nAfter a long while, he got up, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked\naround the room. It was completely bare, with neither windows nor\nvisible doors. He went to the spot through which she had exited, but\ncould find not seam or crack. His tunic, he saw, had been washed,\npressed, and laid on the foot of the bed. He slipped it over his head,\nfumbling with only one arm. Getting the belt together started out to be\na problem, but he hooked the buckle around one finger and maneuvered the\nstrap through with the other. He adjusted his leather purse, now empty,\non his side. Then he saw that the sword was gone.\n\nAn unreal feeling, white like the walls of the room, was beginning to\nfill him up like a pale mixture of milk and water. He walked around the\nedge of the room once more, looking for some break.\n\nThere was a sound behind him and the tiny-eyed woman in her white robe\nstood in a triangular doorway. \"You're dressed,\" she smiled. \"Good. Are\nyou too tired to come with me? You will eat and see your friends if you\nfeel well enough. Or, I can have the food brought.\"\n\n\"I'll come,\" Geo said.\n\nShe turned, and he followed her into a hall of the same luminous\nsubstance. Her heels touched the back of her white robe with each step,\nbut she was silent. His own bare feet on the cool stones seemed louder\nthan those of the blind woman before him. Suddenly he was in a larger\nroom, with benches. It was a chapel, obviously of Argo because of the\naltar at the far end, but its detail was strange. Everything was\narranged with the white simplicity that one would expect of a people to\nwhom visual adornment meant nothing. He sat down on a bench as the woman\nsaid, \"Wait here.\" She disappeared down another hall.\n\nSuddenly the woman returned from the other hallway, followed by Snake.\nGeo and the four-armed boy looked at each other, silently, as the woman\ndisappeared again. A wish, like a living thing, suddenly writhed into a\nknot in Geo's stomach, that the boy would say something. He himself\ncould not.\n\nAgain she returned, this time with Urson. The big man stepped into the\nchapel, saw Geo, and exclaimed, \"Friend, what happened?\" He came to him\nquickly and placed his warm hands on Geo's shoulders. \"What ...\" he\nbegan, and shook his head.\n\nGeo grinned suddenly, and patted his stump with his good hand. \"I guess\njelly-belly got something from me after all.\"\n\nUrson held his own forearm next to Geo's and compared them. There was\npaleness in both. \"I guess none of us got out completely all right. I\nwoke up once while they were taking the scabs off. It was pretty bad,\nand I went to sleep again fast.\"\n\nIimmi came in now. \"Well, I was wondering ...\" He stopped, and let out\na low whistle. \"I guess it really got you, brother.\" His own arms looked\nas though they had been dipped in bleach up to the mid forearms.\n\n\"How did this happen?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"When we were back doing our tightrope act on those damn girders,\"\nexplained Iimmi, \"our bodies were in the shadow of the girders and the\nrays only got to our arms. I've got something you'll be interested in\ntoo, Geo.\"\n\n\"Just tell me where the hell we are,\" Urson said.\n\n\"We're in a monastery sacred to Argo,\" Iimmi told him. \"It's across the\nriver from the City of New Hope, which is where we were.\"\n\n\"That name sounds familiar; in the ...\" began Urson. Snake gave him a\nquick glance, and he stopped, and then frowned.\n\n\"We knew of your presence in the City of New Hope,\" explained the blind\nPriestess, \"and we found you by the riverside after you swam across. You\nmanaged to cling to life long enough for us to get you back to the\nmonastery and apply what art we could to sooth the burns from the deadly\nfire.\"\n\nGeo suddenly saw that there was no jewel around Iimmi's neck either. He\ncould almost feel the hands ripping it from his neck in the water. Iimmi\nmust have made the same discovery, because his pale hand raised to his\nown chest.\n\nThe Priestess beckoned and started down another hall, and again they\nfollowed. They arrived at an even larger room, this one set with white\nmarble benches and long white tables. \"This is the main dining room of\nthe monastery,\" their guide explained. \"One table has been set up for\nyou. You will not eat with the other priestesses, of course.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Iimmi.\n\nSurprise flowed across the blind face. \"You are men,\" she told them,\nmatter of factly. Then she led them to a table where wine, meat, and\nbowls piled with strange fruit were placed. As they sat down, she\ndisappeared once more.\n\nGeo reached for a knife. For a moment there was silence at the table as\nthe nub of the arm jutted over food. \"I guess I just have to learn,\" he\nsaid after the pause.\n\nHalfway through the meal, Urson said, \"What about the jewels? Did the\nPriestess take them from you?\"\n\n\"They came off in the water,\" said Iimmi.\n\nGeo nodded corroboration.\n\n\"Well, now we really have a problem,\" said Urson. \"Here we are, at a\ntemple of Argo's where we could return the jewels and maybe even get\nback to the Priestess on the ship, and out of the silly mess, and the\njewels are gone.\"\n\n\"I guess that also means our river friends are working for Hama,\" said\nGeo.\n\n\"Well,\" Iimmi said, \"Hama's got his jewel then, and we're out of the\nway. Perhaps he delivered us into Argo's hands as a reward for bringing\nthem this far?\"\n\n\"Since we would have died anyway,\" said Geo, \"I guess he was doing us a\nfavor.\"\n\n\"And you know what that means,\" Iimmi said, looking at Snake now.\n\n\"Huh?\" asked Urson. Then he said, \"Oh, let the boy speak for himself.\nAll right, Four Arms, are you or are you not a spy for Hama?\"\n\nA pained expression came over Snake's face, and he shook his head not in\ndenial but bewilderment. Suddenly he got up from the table, and ran from\nthe room. Urson looked at the others. \"Now don't tell me I hurt his\nfeelings by asking.\"\n\n\"You didn't,\" said Iimmi, \"but I may have. I keep on forgetting that he\ncan read minds.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"Just when you asked him that, a lot of things came together in my mind\nthat would be pretty vicious for him if any of it were true.\"\n\n\"Huh?\" asked Urson.\n\n\"I think I know what you mean,\" said Geo.\n\n\"I still--\"\n\n\"It means that he is a spy,\" explained Iimmi, \"and among other things,\nhe was probably lying about the radio back at the city. And that cost\nGeo his arm.\"\n\n\"Why the--\" began Urson, and then looked down the hall where Snake had\ndisappeared.\n\nThey didn't eat much more. When they got up, Urson felt sleepy and was\nshown back to his room.\n\n\"May I show my friend what you showed me?\" Iimmi asked the Priestess\nwhen she returned. \"He is also a student of rituals.\"\n\n\"Of course you may,\" smiled the Priestess.\n\nA door opened and they entered another room similar to the one in which\nGeo had awakened. As she was about to leave, Iimmi asked, \"Wait. Can you\ntell us how to leave the room ourselves?\"\n\n\"Why would you want to leave?\" she asked.\n\n\"For exercise,\" offered Geo, \"and to observe the working of the\nmonastery. Believe us, we are true students of Argo's religion.\"\n\n\"Simply press the wall with your hand, level at your waist, and the door\nwill open. But you must not wander about the monastery. Rites which are\nnot for your eyes are being carried out. Not for your eyes,\" she\nrepeated. \"Strange, this is a phrase that has never left our language.\nSuddenly, confronted by people who can see, it makes me feel\nsomehow ...\" she paused. \"Well, that is how to leave the room.\"\n\nShe stepped out, and the door closed behind her.\n\n\"Here,\" said Iimmi, \"this is what I wanted to show you.\" On his bed were\na pile of books, old, but legible. Geo flipped through a few pages.\nSuddenly he looked up at Iimmi.\n\n\"Hey, what are they doing with _printed_ books?\"\n\n\"Question number one,\" said Iimmi. \"Now, for question number two. Look\nhere.\" He reached over Geo's shoulder and hastened him to one page.\n\n\"Why it's the ...\" began Geo.\n\n\"You're darn right it is,\" said Iimmi.\n\n          HYMN TO THE GODDESS ARGO\n\n    _Forked in the eye of the bright ash\n    there the heart of Argo broke\n    and the hand of the goddess would dash\n    through the head of flame, and the smoke._\n\n    _Burn the grain speck in the hand\n    and batter the stars with singing.\n    Hail the height of a man,\n    and also the height of a woman._\n\n    _The eyes have imprisoned a vision,\n    the ash-tree dribbles with blood.\n    Thrust from the gates of the prison,\n    smear the yew-tree with mud._\n\n\"That must be the full version of the poem I found the missing stanza to\nback in the library at Leptar.\"\n\n\"As I was saying,\" said Iimmi, \"Question number two: what is the\nrelation between the rituals of Hama and the old rituals of Argo.\nApparently this particular branch of the religion of the Goddess\nunderwent no purge. And no one at Olcse Olwnh was supposed to know about\nthem.\"\n\n\"I wonder why?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"That is question number three.\"\n\n\"How did you get a hold of them?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Iimmi, \"I sort of suspected they might be here. So I just\nasked for them. And I think I've got some answers to those questions.\"\n\n\"Fine. Go ahead.\"\n\n\"We'll start from three, go back to one, and then on to two. Nice and\norderly,\" said Iimmi. \"Why wasn't anybody supposed to know about the\nrituals? Simply because they were so similar to the rituals of Hama. You\nremember some of the others we found in the abandoned temple? If you\ndon't, you can refresh your memory right here. The two sets of rituals\nrun almost parallel, except for a name changed here, a color switched\nfrom black to white, a switch in the vegetative symbolism. I guess what\nhappened was that when Hama's forces invaded Leptar five hundred years\nago, it didn't take Leptar long to find out the similarity. From the\nlooks of the City of New Hope, I think it's safe to assume that at one\ntime or another, say five hundred years ago, Aptor's civilization was\nfar higher than Leptar's, and probably wouldn't have had too hard a time\nbeating her in an invasion. So when Leptar captured the first jewel,\nand somehow did manage to repel Aptor, the priests of Leptar assumed\nthat the safest way to avoid infiltration by Hama and Aptor again would\nbe to make the rituals of the two as different as possible from the ones\nof their enemy, Hama.\n\n\"The ghouls, the bats, they parallel the stories I've heard other\nsailors tell too closely to be accidents. How many people do you think\nhave been shipwrecked on Aptor and gotten far enough into the place to\nsee what we've seen, and then gotten off again to tell about it?\"\n\n\"I can think of two,\" said Geo.\n\n\"Huh?\" said Iimmi.\n\n\"Snake and Jordde,\" answered Geo. \"Remember that Argo said there had\nbeen spies from Aptor before. And Jordde is definitely one, and I guess\nso is Snake.\"\n\n\"True enough,\" said Iimmi. \"I guess that fits into Rule Number One.\" He\ngot up from the bed. \"Come on. Let's take a walk. I want to see some\nsunlight.\" They went to the wall. Geo pressed it and a triangular panel\nslipped back.\n\nWhen they had rounded four or five turns of hallway, Geo said, \"I hope\nyou can remember where we've been.\"\n\n\"I've got a more or less perfect memory for directions,\" Iimmi said.\n\nSuddenly the passage opened onto steps, and they were looking out upon a\nhuge, unrelieved white chamber. Down a set of thirty marble steps\npriestesses filed below them in rows, their heads fixed blindly forward.\n\nAt the far end was a raised dais with a mammoth statue of a kneeling\nwoman, sculptured of the same effulgent, agate material. \"Where do these\nwomen come from?\" whispered Geo. \"And where do they keep the men?\"\n\nIimmi shrugged.\n\nSuddenly, the figure of the blind Priestess was beside them.\n\n\"Excuse me, ma'am,\" Iimmi said, sensing her disapproval of their\npresence, \"we didn't mean to be disrespectful, but we are creatures who\nare used to natural day and night. We are used to fresh air, green\nthings. This underground whiteness is oppressive to us and makes us\nrestless. Is there any way that you could show us a way into the open?\"\n\n\"There is not,\" returned the blind Priestess quietly and motioned them\nto follow her from the chamber. \"Besides, night is coming on and you are\nnot creatures who relish darkness.\"\n\n\"The night air and the quiet of evening is refreshing to us,\" countered\nIimmi.\n\n\"What do you know of the night,\" answered the priestess with faint\ncynicism in her low voice. Now they reached the chapel where the friends\nhad first met after their rescue.\n\n\"What can you tell us about the Dark God Hama?\" Geo asked.\n\nThe blind Priestess shrugged, and sat down on one of the benches. \"There\nis little to say. Today he is a fiction, he does not exist. There is\nonly Argo, the One White Goddess.\"\n\n\"But we've heard--\" Geo began.\n\n\"You were at his abandoned temple,\" said the Priestess. \"You saw\nyourselves. That is all that is left of Hama. Ghouls prey on the dust of\nhis dead saints. Perhaps, somewhere behind the burning mountain a few of\nhis disciples are left. But Hama is dead in Aptor. You have seen the\nremains of his city, the City of New Hope. You have also been the first\nones to go in and return in nearly five hundred years.\"\n\n\"Is that how long the city has been in ruin?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"What can you tell us about the city?\" Iimmi said.\n\nThe Priestess sighed again. \"There was a time,\" she began, \"generations\nago, when Hama was a high God in Aptor. He had many temples,\nmonasteries, and convents devoted to him. We had few. Except for these\nreligious sanctuaries, the land was barbaric, wild, uninhabitable for\nthe most part. There had once been cities in Aptor, but these had been\ndestroyed even earlier by the Great Fire. All that we had was a\nfantastic record of an unbelievable time before the rain of flame of\ntremendous power, vast science, and a towering, though degenerate,\ncivilization. These records were extensive, and entirely housed within\nthe monasteries. Outside the monasteries, there was only chaos, where\nhalf the children were born dead, and the other half deformed. And with\nthe monstrous races that sprang up over the island now as a reminder to\nus, we declared that the magic contained in these chronicles was evil,\nand must never be released to the world again. But the priests of Hama,\ndecided to use the information in these chronicles, spread it to the\npeople, and declared they would not commit the same mistakes that had\nbrought the Great Fire. They opened the books, and the City of New Hope\ngrew on the far shore of the river. They made giant machines that flew\nthrough the air. They constructed immense boats which could sink into\nthe sea and emerge hundreds of miles away in another harbor in another\nland. They even harnessed for beneficial use the fire metal, uranium,\nwhich had brought such terror to the world before and had brought down\nthe flames.\"\n\n\"But they made the same mistake as the people before the Great Fire\nmade?\" suggested Iimmi.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" said the Priestess. \"That is, they were not so stupid as\nto misuse the fire metal which ravaged the world so harshly before.\nHistory is cyclic, not repetitive. A new power was discovered that\ndwarfed the significance of the fire metal. It could do all that the\nfire metal could do, and more efficiently: destroy cities, or warm\nchilly huts in winter; but, it could also work on men's minds. They say,\nthat before the Great Fire, men wandered the streets of the cities\nterrified that flames would descend on them any moment and destroy them.\nThey panicked, bought flimsy useless contraptions to guard themselves\nfrom the fire. Geo, Iimmi, have you any idea how terrifying it would be\nto know that while walking the streets, at any moment, your mind might\nbe snatched from you, raped, violated, and left broken in your own\nskull?\n\n\"Only three of these instruments were constructed. But the moment their\nexistence was made known by a few fantastic demonstrations, the City of\nNew Hope began the swerve down the arc of its own self-destruction. It\nlasted for a year, and ended with the broken wreck you escaped from last\nnight. During that year invasions were launched on the backward nations\nacross the sea with whom months before there had been friendly trade.\nCivil wars broke out and internal struggles caused the invasions to fall\nback to the homeland. The instruments were hopelessly lost, but not\nbefore the bird machines had even dropped bombs on the City of New Hope\nitself. The house of the fire metal was broken open to release its death\nonce more. For a hundred years after the end, say our records, the city\nflamed with light from the destroyed power house. During the first\nhundred years more and more of our number were born blind because of the\nsinking fire in the city. At last we moved underground, but it was too\nlate.\" She rose from her seat. \"And so you see, Hama destroyed himself.\nToday, loyal to Argo, are all the beasts of the air, of the land ... and\nof the water.\"\n\n\"What about the--the three instruments?\" Geo asked. \"What happened to\nthem?\"\n\nThe blind Priestess turned to him. \"Your guess,\" she said, smiling, \"is\nas good as mine.\" She turned again and glided softly from the room.\n\nWhen she left, Iimmi said, \"Something is fishy.\"\n\n\"But what is it?\" said Geo.\n\n\"Well, for one thing,\" said Iimmi, \"we know there is a Hama. From the\ndream I would say that it's just about the size and organization of this\nplace.\"\n\n\"Just how big is this place anyway?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"Want to do some more exploring?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he answered. \"Do you think she does know about Hama but was just\npretending?\"\n\n\"Could be,\" said Iimmi. They started off down another corridor. \"That\nbit about going into men's minds with the jewels,\" Iimmi went on. \"It\ngives me the creeps.\"\n\n\"It's a creepy thing to watch,\" said Geo. \"Argo used it on Snake the\nfirst time we saw her. It just turns you into an automaton.\"\n\n\"Then it really is our jewels she was talking about.\"\n\nStairs cut a white tunnel into the wall before them, and they mounted\nupward, coming finally to another corridor. They turned down it and for\nthe first time saw recognizable doors in the wall. \"Hey,\" said Iimmi,\n\"maybe one of these goes outside.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" said Geo. \"This place is beginning to get me.\" He pushed open a\ndoor and stepped in. Except for the flowing white walls, it duplicated\nin miniature the basement of the New Edison building. Twin dynamos\nwhirred and the walls were laced with pipes.\n\n\"Nothing in here,\" said Iimmi.\n\nThey tried a door across the hall now. In this one sat a white porcelain\ntable and floor to ceiling cases of glittering instruments. \"I bet this\nis the room your arm came off in,\" Iimmi said.\n\n\"Probably,\" replied Geo.\n\nThey came out and continued even farther. In the next room the glow was\ndimmer, and there was dust on the walls. Iimmi ran his finger over it\nand looked at the gray crescent left on the bleached flesh.\n\nTwo huge screens leaned out from the face of a metal machine. A few\ndials and a glass meter hung beneath each two yard rounded-rectangle of\nopaque glass. In front of each was a stand which held something like a\nset of binoculars and what looked like a pair of ear muffs.\n\n\"I bet this place hasn't been used since before these girls went blind,\"\nsaid Geo.\n\n\"It looks it,\" Iimmi said. He stepped up to one of the screens, the one\nwith the fewer dials on it, and turned a switch.\n\n\"What did you do that for?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"Why not?\" said Iimmi. Suddenly a flickering of colored lights ran over\nthe screen, swellings of blue, green, shiny scarlets. They blinked.\n\"That's the first color I've seen since I've been here,\" Iimmi said. The\ncolors grayed, dimmed, congealed into forms, and in a moment they were\nlooking at a bare white room in which stood two barefoot young men. One\nwas a dark Negro with pale hands. The other had an unruly shock of black\nhair and only one arm.\n\n\"Hey,\" gestured Iimmi, and the figure on the screen gestured too.\n\"That's us.\" He walked forward and the corresponding figure advanced on\nthe screen. He flicked a dial and the figures exploded into colors and\nthen focused again. \"What's that?\" asked Iimmi.\n\nIn a room stood three of the blind women. On one wall was a smaller\nscreen similar to the one in their own room. The women, of course, were\noblivious to the picture on it, but it was the picture on the screen\nthat had stopped Geo. It was a face. A man's face.\n\nOne of the women had on an ear muff apparatus and was talking into a\nsmall metal rod which she carried with her as she paced.\n\n\"But the picture! Don't you recognize him?\" demanded Geo.\n\n\"It's Jordde!\" exclaimed Iimmi. \"They must have gotten in contact with\nour ship and are arranging to send us back.\"\n\n\"I wish I could hear what they're saying,\" said Geo.\n\nIimmi looked around and then picked up the metal ear muffs from the\nstand in front of the screen. \"That's what she seems to be listening\nthrough,\" said Iimmi, referring to the Priestess in the picture. \"Try\nthem. Go on.\" He helped Geo fit them over his ears. \"Hear anything?\"\n\nGeo listened.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" the Priestess was saying.\n\n\"She is set upon staying in the harbor for three more days, to wait out\nthe week,\" reported Jordde. \"I am sure she will not remain any longer.\nShe is still bewildered by me, and the men have become uneasy and may\nwell mutiny if she stays longer.\"\n\n\"We will dispose of the prisoners this evening. There is no chance of\ntheir returning,\" stated the Priestess.\n\n\"Detain them for three days, and I do not care what you do with them,\"\nsaid Jordde. \"She does not have the jewels, she does not know my--our\npower; she will be sure to leave at the end of the week.\"\n\n\"It's a pity we have no jewels for all our trouble,\" said the Priestess.\n\"But at least all three are back in Aptor, and potentially within our\ngrasp.\"\n\nJordde laughed. \"And Hama never seems to be able to keep hold of them\nfor more then ten minutes before they slip from him again.\"\n\n\"Yours is not to judge either Hama or Argo,\" stated the Priestess. \"You\nare kept on by us only to do your job. Do it, report, and do not trouble\neither us or yourself with opinions. They are not appreciated.\"\n\n\"Yes, mistress,\" returned Jordde.\n\n\"Then farewell until next report.\" She flipped a switch and the picture\non the little screen went gray.\n\nGeo turned from the big screen now, and was just about to remove the\nhearing apparatus when he heard the Priestess say, \"Go, prepare the\nprisoners for the sacrifice of the rising moon. They have seen enough.\"\nThe woman left the room, Geo finished removing the phones, and Iimmi\nlooked at him.\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\nGeo turned the switch that darkened the screen.\n\n\"When are they coming to get us?\" Iimmi asked excitedly.\n\n\"Right now, probably,\" Geo said. Then, as best he could, he repeated the\nconversation he had overheard to Iimmi, whose expression grew more and\nmore bewildered as Geo went on.\n\nAt the end the bewilderment suddenly flared into frayed indignation.\n\"Why?\" demanded Iimmi. \"Why should we be sacrificed? What is it we've\nseen too much of, what is it we know? This is the second time it's come\nclose to getting me killed, and I wish to hell I knew what I was\nsupposed to know?\"\n\n\"We've got to find Urson and get out of here,\" said Geo. \"Hey, what's\nwrong?\"\n\nThe indignation had turned into something else. Now Iimmi stood with his\neyes shut tight and his face screwed up. Suddenly he relaxed. \"I just\nthought out a message as loud as I could for Snake to get up here and to\nbring Urson if he's anywhere around.\"\n\n\"But Snake's a spy for ...\"\n\n\"... for Hama,\" said Iimmi. \"And you know something? I don't care.\" He\nclosed his eyes again. After a few moments, he opened them. \"Well, if\nhe's coming, he's coming. Let's get going.\"\n\n\"But why...?\" began Geo, following Iimmi out the door.\n\n\"Because I have a poet's feeling that some fancy mind reading may come\nin handy.\"\n\nThey hurried down the hall, found the stairs, ducked down, and ran along\nthe lower hall. Rounding a second corner, they emerged into the little\nchapel simultaneously with Urson and Snake.\n\n\"I guess I got through,\" said Iimmi. \"Which way do we go?\"\n\n\"Gentlemen, gentlemen,\" came a voice from behind them.\n\nSnake took off down one of the passages, and they followed, Urson\nlooking particularly bewildered.\n\nThe Priestess glided behind them, calling softly, \"Please, my friends,\ncome back. Return with me.\"\n\n\"Find out from her how the hell to get out of this place!\" Iimmi bawled\nup to Snake. The four-armed boy suddenly darted up a flight of stairs,\nturned a corner, and darted up another. They came out on a hall and\nfollowed Snake to the end.\n\nAll four of the boy's hands flew at the door handle, turning it\ncarefully, this way, and back.\n\nTwo, three seconds.\n\nGeo glanced back and saw the Priestess mount the top of the stairs and\nbegin to come toward them. She seemed to float, her white robes flaring\nout from her, brushing at the walls.\n\nThe door came open, they broke through leaves, and were momentarily\nstanding in a huge field of grass, surrounded by woods. The night was\nfully lit by the moon.\n\nAs they ran through the silver-washed grass, Geo turned to look behind\nhim. The blind Priestess had slowed, her white face turned to the moon.\nHer hands went to her throat, she unclasped her robe, and the first\nlayer fell away behind her. As she came on, the second layer began to\nunfold, wet, deathly white, spreading, growing to her arms, articulating\nitself along the white spines; then, with a horribly familiar shriek,\nshe leapt from the ground and soared upward, her white wings hammering\nthe air.\n\nThey fled.\n\nAnd other dark forms were shadowing the moon. The priestesses across\nthe field joined her aloft in the moon-bleached sky. She overtook the\nrunning figures, turned above them, and swooped. The moon lanced white\nalong bared fangs. The night breeze touched pale furry breasts, filled\nthe bellying wings. Only the tiny, darting, blind eyes were red, rubied\nin a whirl of white.\n\nThey crashed into the protective bushes where the winged things could\nnot follow. Branches raked his face as he ran behind the sound the\nothers made. Once he thought he had lost them, but a second later he\nbumped against Iimmi, who had stopped behind Snake and Urson, in the\ndarkness. Above the trees was a sound like beaten cloth, diminishing,\ngrowing, but constant as once more they began to trod through the\ntangled darkness.\n\n\"What the hell ...\" Iimmi finally breathed softly, after a minute of\nwalking.\n\n\"You know it's beginning to make sense,\" Geo said, his hand on Iimmi's\nshoulder. \"Remember that man-wolf we met, and that blob in the city? The\nonly thing we've met on this place that can't change shape is the\nghouls. I think most animals on this island undergo some sort of\nmetamorphosis.\"\n\n\"What about those first flying things we met?\" whispered Urson. \"They\ndidn't change into anything.\"\n\n\"We have probably just been guests of the female of the species,\" said\nGeo.\n\n\"You mean those others could have changed into men too if they wanted?\"\nUrson asked.\n\n\"If they wanted,\" answered Geo.\n\nIn front of them now appeared faint shiftings of silver light. Five\nminutes later, they were crouching at the edge of the forest, looking\ndown over the rocks at the white shimmerings over the river.\n\n\"Into the water?\" Geo asked.\n\nSnake shook his head. _Wait_ ... came the familiar sound in their heads.\n\nSuddenly a hand raised from the water. Wet and green, it stood a foot or\nso from the shore in the silver ripples. The chain and the leather thong\ndangled down the wrist, and swaying there were two bright beads of\nlight.\n\nIimmi and Geo froze. Urson said, \"The jewels....\"\n\nSuddenly, crouched low like an animal, the big man sprang onto the rocks\nand ran toward the river's edge.\n\nThree shadows, one white, two dark, converged above him, cutting the\nmoonlight away from him. If he saw them, he did not stop.\n\nIimmi and Geo stood up from their crouched positions.\n\nUrson reached the shore, threw himself along the rock, and swiped at the\nhand. Instantly he was covered by flailing wings. The membranous sails\nsplashed in the water. Two seconds later, Urson rolled from beneath the\nlayers of membrane that still struggled half on land and half in the\nwater. He started forward up the rocks. He slipped, regained his\nfooting, and then came on, nearly falling into Geo's and Iimmi's waiting\narms.\n\n\"The jewels,\" Urson breathed.\n\nThe struggle continued a minute longer on the water. Something was\nholding them down, twisting at them. Then suddenly, the creatures\nstilled, and like great leaves, the three forms drifted apart, caught\nquietly in the current, and floated away from the rocks.\n\nThen two more forms bobbed to the surface, faces down, rocking gently,\nbacks slicked wet and green, shiny under the moonlight.\n\n\"But those were the ones who--\" Geo began. \"Are they dead?\" His face\nsuddenly hurt a little, with something like the pain of verging tears.\n\nSnake nodded.\n\n\"Are you sure?\" asked Iimmi. His voice came slowly.\n\n_Their ... thoughts ... have ... stopped_, Snake said.\n\nCrouched down in front of them, Urson opened his great hands. The\nglobes blazed even in the dim light through the leaves, and the chain\nand the wet thong hung over his palm to the ground. \"I have them,\" he\nsaid, \"... the jewels!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nSnake reached down, picked the beads up from Urson's hand. The sound of\nwings had stopped.\n\n\"Where do we go now?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"Follow the general rule, I guess,\" said Iimmi. \"Since we know Hama does\nhave a temple somewhere, we try to find it, get the third jewel, and\nrescue Argo Incarnate. Then get back to the ship.\"\n\n\"In three days?\" asked Urson. They had related the rest of what they had\nfound to him by now. \"Well, where do we start looking?\"\n\n\"The Priestess said something about a band of Hama's disciples behind\nthe fire mountain. That must mean the volcano we saw from the steps in\nthe City of New Hope.\" Iimmi turned to Snake. \"Did you read her mind\nenough to know if she was telling the truth?\"\n\nSnake nodded.\n\nIimmi paused for a moment. \"Well, since the river is that way, we should\nhead,\" he turned and pointed, \"... in that direction.\"\n\nThey fixed their stride now and started through the moon-brushed\nfoliage.\n\n\"I still don't understand what was going on back at the monastery,\" Geo\nsaid. \"Were they really priestesses of Argo? And what was Jordde doing?\"\n\n\"I'd say yes on the first question, and guess that Jordde was a spy for\nthem for an answer to the second.\"\n\n\"But what about Argo--I mean Argo on the ship?\" asked Geo. \"And what\nabout Snake here?\"\n\n\"Argo on the ship apparently doesn't know about Argo on Aptor,\" said\nIimmi. \"That's what Jordde meant when he reported to the priestesses\nthat she was bewildered. She probably thinks just like we did, that\nhe's Hama's spy. And this one here,\" he gestured to Snake, \"I don't\nknow. I just don't know.\"\n\nIn the distance was a red glow in which they could make out the faint\nlines of the volcano's cone. Snake made lights with the jewels, and once\nmore they began to pick their way over the terrain, barer and barer of\nvegetation. The earth became cindery and the air bore the acrid smell of\nold ashes.\n\nSoon the rim of the crater hung close above them.\n\nIimmi gazed up at the red haze above them. \"I wonder what it's like to\nlook into that thing in the middle of the night?\" Twenty feet later\nSnake's light struck a lava cliff that sheered up into the darkness.\nGoing on beside it, they found a ledge that made an eighteen-inch\nfootpath diagonally up the face.\n\n\"We're not going to climb that in the dark, are we?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"Better than in the light,\" said Urson. \"This way you can't see how far\nyou have to fall.\"\n\nThirty feet on, instead of petering out and forcing them to go back, the\nlip of rock broadened into a level stretch of ground and again they\ncould go straight forward toward the red light above them.\n\n\"This is changeable country,\" Urson muttered.\n\n\"Men change into animals,\" said Geo, \"jungles turn to mountains.\" He\nreached around and felt the stub of his arm in the dark. \"I've changed\ntoo, I guess.\"\n\nIimmi recited:\n\n    \"_Change is neither merciful nor just.\n    They say Leonard of Vinci put his trust\n    in faulty paints: Christ's Supper turned to dust._\"\n\n\"What's that from?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"That's one of my bits of original research,\" Iimmi explained. \"It comes\nfrom a poem dating back before the Great Fire.\"\n\n\"Who was Leonard of Vinci?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"An artist, another poet or painter, I suppose,\" said Iimmi. \"But I'm\nnot really sure.\"\n\n\"Who's Christ?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"Another god.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere were more rocks now, and Geo had to brace his stub against the\nwalls of fissures and hoist himself up with his good hand. The igneous\nstructures were sharp in his palm.\n\nThrough the night the glowing rim dropped toward them. With it came a\nbreeze that pushed sulfa powder through their hair and made the edges of\ntheir nostrils sting.\n\nThe earth became scaley and rotten under their feet. Fatigue tied tiny\nknots high in their guts so that their stomachs hung like stones.\n\n\"I didn't realize how big the crater was,\" Iimmi said. The red glow cut\noff at the bottom and took up a quarter of the sky.\n\n\"Maybe it'll erupt on us,\" Urson muttered. He added, \"I'm thirsty.\"\n\nThey climbed on. Once Urson looked back and saw Geo had stopped some\ntwenty feet behind them at a niche in the ledge. He turned around and\ndropped back himself. There was sweat on the boy's up-turned face as the\nbig man came toward him. He could see it in the red haze from the rim.\n\n\"Here,\" Urson said. \"Give me a hand.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" Geo said softly, \"or I'll fall.\"\n\nUrson reached down, now, caught the boy around the chest, and hoisted\nhim over the cropping of rock. \"Take it easy,\" Urson instructed. \"You\ndon't have to race with anybody.\" Together they made their way after the\nothers.\n\nIimmi and Snake cleared the crater rim first; then Urson and Geo joined\nthem on the pitted ledge. Together they looked into the volcano as red\nand yellow light fell over their chests and faces.\n\nGold dribbled the internal slope. Tongues of red rock lapped the sides,\nand the swirling white basin belched brown blobs of smoke which rose up\nthe far rocks and spilled over the brim a radion away. Light leapt in\nwavering pylons of blue flame, then sank back into the pit. Winding\ntrails of light webbed the crater's walls, and at places ebon cavities\njeweled among the light.\n\nWind fingered the watchers' hair.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIimmi saw her first, two hundred feet along the rim. Her drapes, died\nred and orange in the flame, blew about her as she walked toward them.\nIimmi pointed to her, and the others looked up.\n\nAs she neared, Geo saw that though she stood very straight, she was old.\nHer short white hair snapped at the side of her head in the warm breeze.\nFirelight and shadow fell deeply into the wrinkles of her face. As she\napproached them, light running like liquid down the side of her winded\nrobe, she smiled and held out her hand.\n\n\"Who are you?\" Geo suddenly asked.\n\n    \"_Shadows melt in light of sacred laughter,\n    Hands and houses shall be one hereafter._\"\n\nrecited the woman in a calm, low voice.\n\nShe paused. \"I am Argo Incarnate, of Leptar.\"\n\n\"But I thought ...\" Iimmi started.\n\n\"What did you think?\" inquired the elderly woman, gently.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Iimmi.\n\n\"He thought you were a lot younger,\" Urson said. \"We're supposed to take\nyou home.\" Suddenly he pointed in to the volcano. \"Say, this isn't any\nof that funny light like back in the city that burned our hands, only\nthis time it made you old?\"\n\nShe glanced at the pool of light. \"This is natural fire,\" she assured\nthem, \"a severed artery of the earth's burning blood. But wounds are\nnatural enough.\"\n\nGeo shifted his feet and rubbed his stump.\n\n\"We were supposed to take the younger sister of the present Argo\nIncarnate and return with her to Leptar,\" Iimmi explained.\n\n\"There are many Argos,\" smiled the woman. \"The Goddess has many faces.\nYou have seen quite a few since you arrived in this land.\"\n\n\"I guess we have,\" Urson said.\n\n\"Are you a prisoner of Hama?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"I am with Hama,\" said the woman.\n\n\"We are supposed to secure the third jewel and bring it back to the\nship. We don't have much time....\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Argo.\n\n\"Hey, what about that nest of vampires down there,\" Urson said, thumbing\nviciously toward the black behind them. \"They said they worshiped Argo.\nWhat have you got to do with them? I don't trust anything on this place\nvery much.\"\n\n\"The nature of the Goddess is change,\" said the woman, looking sadly\ntoward the slope, \"from birth, through life, to death,\" she looked back\nup at them, \"to birth again. As I said, Argo has many faces. You must be\nvery tired.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Geo.\n\n\"Then come with me. Please.\" She turned, and began to walk back along\nthe rim. Snake and Iimmi started after her, and then came Geo and Urson.\n\n\"I don't like any of this,\" the big man whispered to Geo as they came\nalong. \"Argo doesn't mean the same thing in this land like she means on\nLeptar. There's nothing but more evil to come out of this. She's leading\nus into a trap, I tell you. I say the best thing to do is take the\njewels we have, turn around, and get the hell out of here. I tell you,\nGeo....\"\n\n\"Urson,\" Geo said.\n\n\"Huh?\" the big man asked.\n\n\"Urson, I'm very tired.\"\n\nThey walked silently for a few steps more. Then Urson heaved up a half\ndisgusted breath, and put his arm around Geo's shoulder. \"Come on,\" he\ngrunted, supporting Geo against his own great form as they progressed\nalong the rocky ledge, following the new Argo.\n\nAt last she turned down a trail that dropped into the crater. \"Walk\ncarefully here,\" she said as they turned into the huge pit.\n\n\"Something is not right,\" Urson said softly. \"It's a trap I tell you.\nHow does that thing go? I could use it now. _Calmly brother bear ..._\"\n\n    \"_Calm the winter sleep,\n    Fire shall not harm,_\"\n\ncontinued Geo.\n\n\"Says who,\" mumbled Urson glancing into the bowl of flame. Geo went on:\n\n    \"_water not alarm.\n    While the current grows,\n    amber honey flows,\n    golden salmon leap._\"\n\n\"Like I once said before,\" mused Urson, \"In a ...\"\n\n\"In here,\" came the voice of Argo. They turned into the dark mouth of\none of the caves which pocked the crater's inside wall. \"No,\" she said\nto Snake, who was about to use the jewels for illumination. \"They have\nbeen used too much already.\"\n\nWith a small stick taken from a pocket in her robe, she struck a flame\nagainst the rock, then raised it to an ornate, branching candelabra that\nhung from the stone ceiling by brass chains. Flame leapt from cast oil\ncup to oil cup, from the hand of a demon to a monkey's mouth, from a\nnymph's belly to the horns of a satyr's head. Chemicals in the cups\ncaused each flame to burn a different color; green, red, blue, and\norange white light filled the small chapel and played across the tops of\nthe benches. On the altar sitting on one side of the room were two\nstatues of equal height: a man sitting, and a woman kneeling. Iimmi\nlooked at the altar. Geo and Urson stared at the candelabra.\n\n\"What is it?\" Iimmi asked when he saw where their eyes were fixed.\n\n\"There's one of those things in Argo's cabin on board the ship,\" Geo\nsaid. \"And look over there. Where did we see one of those before?\" It\nwas a machine with an opaque glass screen, identical to the one in the\nmonastery of Argo.\n\n\"Sit down,\" Argo said. \"Sit down.\"\n\nThey sank to the benches; the climb, once halted, knotting their calves\nand the low muscles on their backs.\n\n\"Hama has allowed you the privilege of a chapel even in captivity,\"\ncommented Iimmi, \"but I see you have to share your altar with him.\"\n\n\"But I am Hama's mother,\" smiled Argo.\n\nGeo and Urson frowned.\n\n\"The rituals say that Argo is the mother of all things, the begetter and\nbearer of all life. I am the mother of all gods as well.\"\n\n\"Those blind women down in the ground,\" asked Urson, \"they aren't really\nyour priestesses, are they? They wanted to kill us. I bet they were\nreally dupes of Hama.\"\n\n\"It isn't so simple,\" replied Argo. \"They are really worshipers of Argo,\nbut as I said, I have many faces. Death as well as life is my province.\nThe dwellers in that convent from which you escaped are a--how shall I\nsay, a degenerate branch of the religion. They were truly blinded by the\nfall of the City of New Hope. To them, Argo is only death, the dominator\nof men. For not only is Argo the mother of Hama, she is his wife and\ndaughter.\"\n\n\"Then it's like we figured,\" said Iimmi. \"Jordde isn't a spy for Hama.\nHe's working for the renegade priestesses of Argo.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" returned Argo, \"except that renegade is perhaps the wrong word.\nThey believe that their way is correct, and a respect for belief is\nessential to the understanding of Man. And it is through understanding\nthat the mysteries that still remain in your mind will be solved.\"\n\n\"Then they must be responsible for all that was going on in Leptar, only\nsomehow blaming it on Hama,\" said Iimmi. \"They were probably just after\nthe jewels, too. You don't look like a prisoner. That must be the whole\nthing. You're here in league with Hama to prevent the priestesses of\nArgo from taking over Leptar.\"\n\n\"Nothing could be simpler,\" said the Goddess. \"Unfortunately you are\nwrong in nearly every other point.\"\n\n\"But then why did Jordde throw the jewel after us when he tore it from\nArgo's--I mean the other Argo's throat?\"\n\n\"When he snatched the jewel from around my daughter's neck,\" added Argo,\n\"he threw it to the creatures of the sea because he knew they would take\nit back to Aptor. With it once again in the island, the priestesses\nwould have a better chance of getting it; my daughter, acting Argo\nIncarnate in my absence and her sister's, does not know that what she is\nfighting is another face of Argo. As far as she is concerned, all her\nefforts are against the mischief Hama has caused, and truly caused, in\nLeptar. This ignorance is far greater than you imagine, for beyond these\nblind creatures is a far greater enemy that she must vanquish.\"\n\n\"Hama...?\" began Iimmi.\n\n\"Greater than Hama,\" said old Argo. \"It is herself. It is hard for me to\nwatch her and not occasionally call out a word of guidance. With the\nscience here in Aptor it would not be difficult. But I must refrain. I\nsuppose she has actually done well. But there is so much more to do. She\nhas directed you well, and assigned your tasks properly. And until now\nyou have carried them out well.\"\n\n\"She said we were to steal the final jewel from Hama and return with you\nto the ship,\" said Geo. \"Can you help us with either of these things?\"\n\n\"The moment I compliment you,\" laughed Argo, \"you completely confuse\nyour mission. Once the jewel is stolen, whom are you supposed to take\nback to Leptar?\"\n\n\"Argo Incarnate,\" Urson said.\n\n\"You said that Argo back in the ship was your daughter,\" said Geo, \"but\nshe said you were her younger sister.\"\n\n\"She said nothing of the sort,\" Argo corrected. \"I have two daughters.\nYou have already met one. Now you must rescue the other. When my\nyoungest daughter was ... kidnaped here to Aptor, I was already here,\nwaiting for her. Look.\"\n\nShe turned a dial beneath the screen and lights flickered over the glass\nuntil they formed a sleeping figure. She had short red hair, a splash of\nfreckles over a blunt nose, and her hand lay curled in a loose fist near\nher mouth. A white sheet covered the gentle push of adolescent breasts,\nand on the table beside her bed was a contraption made of a U-shaped\npiece of metal mounted on a board, an incomplete coil of wire, and a few\nmore bits of metal, all sitting on top of a crumpled paper bag.\n\n\"That is my youngest daughter,\" Argo said, switching off the picture.\n\"She is the one you must take back to the ship.\"\n\n\"How shall we steal the jewel?\" asked Geo.\n\nArgo turned to Snake. \"I believe that was your task.\" Then she looked\naround at the other three. \"You will need rest. After that you can see\nabout the jewel and my daughter. Come with me, now. Pallets have been\nset up for you in the far room where you may sleep.\" She rose and led\nthem to a further chamber. The blankets over the loose boughs seemed to\npull them down. Argo pointed to a trickle of water that ran from a basin\ncarved in the rock wall. \"This stream is pure. You may drink from it.\"\nShe pointed to a cloth sack in the corner. \"There is fruit in there if\nyou become hungry.\"\n\n\"Sleep!\" said Urson, jammed his two fists in the air, and yawned.\n\nAs they settled, Argo said, \"Poet?\"\n\n\"Yes?\" answered Geo.\n\n\"I know you are the tiredest, but I must talk to you alone for a moment\nor two.\"\n\nAs Geo raised himself, Urson stood up too. \"Look,\" he said to Argo, \"he\nneeds the rest more than any of us. If you want to question him about\nrituals and spells, take Iimmi. He knows just as much as Geo.\"\n\n\"I need a poet,\" smiled Argo, \"not a student. I need one who has\nsuffered as he has. Come.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Urson said. He picked the jewel from Geo's chest where Snake had\nreturned it when they entered the chapel. \"You better leave this with\nme.\"\n\nGeo frowned.\n\n\"It still may be a trap,\" said Urson.\n\n\"Leave it with him,\" suggested Argo, \"if it eases him.\"\n\nGeo let the great hand lift the thong from his neck.\n\n\"Now come with me,\" said Argo.\n\nThey left the room and walked back through the chapel to the door. Argo\nstood in the entrance, looking down at the molten rock. The light sifted\nthrough her robe, leaving the darker outline of her body. Without\nturning, she began to speak. \"The fire is a splendid symbol for life, do\nyou agree?\"\n\n\"And for death,\" said Geo. \"One of Aptor's fires burned my arm away.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she turned now. \"You and Snake have had the hardest time. Both of\nyou have left your flesh to rot in Aptor. I guess that gives you a\ncloseness to the land.\" She paused. \"You know, he had a great deal more\npain than you. Do you know how he lost his tongue? I watched it all from\nthis same screen inside the chapel, and could not help. They jammed\ntheir knuckles in his jaws and when the mouth came open, Jordde caught\nthe red flesh with pincers that closed all the way through, and\nstretched it out as far as it would go. Then he looped the tongue with a\nthin wire, and then he threw a switch. You do not know what electricity\nis, do you?\"\n\n\"I have heard the word.\"\n\n\"Let me just say that when a great deal of it is passed through a thin\nwire, the wire becomes very hot, white hot. And the white hot loop was\ntautened until the rope of muscle seared away and just the roasted stump\nwas left. But the child had fainted already. I wonder if the young can\nreally bear more pain than older people.\"\n\n\"Jordde and the blind priestess did that to him?\"\n\n\"Jordde and some men on the boat that picked up the two of them from the\nraft on which they had left Aptor.\"\n\n\"Who is Jordde?\" Geo asked. \"Urson knew him before this as a first mate.\nBut Urson's story told me nothing.\"\n\n\"I know the story,\" Argo said, \"and it tells you something, but\nsomething you would perhaps rather not know.\" She sighed. \"Poet, how\nwell do you know yourself?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"How well do you know the workings of a man, how he manages to function?\nThat is what you will sing of if your songs are to become great.\"\n\n\"I still don't ...\"\n\n\"I have a question for you, a poetic riddle. Will you try to answer\nit?\"\n\n\"If you will answer a not too poetic riddle for me.\"\n\n\"Will you do your best to answer mine?\" Argo asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then I will do my best to answer yours. What is your question?\"\n\n\"Who is Jordde and why is he doing what he's doing?\"\n\n\"He was at one time,\" Argo explained, \"a very promising novice for the\npriesthood of Argo in Leptar, as well as a scholar of myths and rituals\nlike Iimmi and yourself. He also took to the sea to learn of the world,\nbut his boat was wrecked, and he and a few others were cast on Aptor's\nshore. They strove with Aptor's terrors as you did, and many succumbed.\nTwo, however, a four-armed cabin boy whom you call Snake, and Jordde\nwere each exposed to the forces of Argo and Hama as you have been. One,\nin his strangeness, could see into men's minds. The other could not.\nSilently, one swore allegiance to one force, while one swore allegiance\nto the other. The second part of your question was _why_. Perhaps if you\ncan answer my riddle, you can answer that part yourself. I do know that\nthey were the only two who escaped. I do know that Snake would not tell\nJordde his choice, and that Jordde tried to convince the child to follow\nhim. When they were rescued, I know that the argument continued, and\nthat Snake held back with childish tenacity both his decision and his\nability to read minds, even under the hot wire and the pincers. The hot\nwire, incidentally, was something Jordde brought with him from the blind\npriestesses, according to him, to help the people of Leptar with. It\ncould have been a great use. But recently all he has done with the\nelectricity is construct a larger weapon with it. However, Jordde became\na staunch first mate in a year's time. Snake became a waterfront thief.\nBoth waited. Then, when the opportunity arose, both acted. Why? Perhaps\nyou can tell me, poet.\"\n\n\"Thank you for telling me what you know,\" Geo said. \"What is your\nquestion?\"\n\nShe glanced at the flame through the door once more and then recited:\n\n    \"_By the dark chamber sits its twin,\n    where the body's floods begin;\n    and the two are twinned again,\n    turning out and turning in._\n\n    _In the bright chamber runs the line\n    of the division, silver, fine,\n    diminishing along the lanes\n    of memory to an inward sign._\n\n    _Fear floods in the turning room;\n    Love breaks in the burning dome._\"\n\n\"It is not one that I have heard before,\" Geo said. \"I'm not even sure I\nknow what the question is. I'm familiar with neither its diction nor\nstyle.\"\n\n\"I doubted very much that you would recognize it,\" smiled Argo.\n\n\"Is it part of the pre-purge rituals of Argo?\"\n\n\"It was written by my youngest daughter,\" Argo said. \"The question is,\ncan you explain it?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Geo. \"I didn't realize....\" He paused. \"By the dark chamber\nsits its twin, moving in and out; and that's where the floods of the\nbody begin. And it's twinned again. The heart?\" he suggested. \"The\nfour-chambered human heart? That's where the body's flood begins.\"\n\n\"I think that will do for part of the answer.\"\n\n\"The bright chamber,\" mused Geo. \"The burning dome. The human mind, I\nguess. The line of division, running down the lane of memory--I'm not\nsure.\"\n\n\"You seem to be doing fairly well.\"\n\n\"Could it refer to something like 'the two sides of every question'?\"\nGeo asked. \"Or something similar?\"\n\n\"It could,\" Argo said, \"though I must confess I hadn't thought of it in\nthat way. But it is the last two lines that puzzle me.\"\n\n\"_Fear floods in the turning room_,\" repeated Geo; \"_Love breaks in the\nburning dome._ I guess that's the mind and the heart again. You usually\nthink of love with the heart, and fear with the mind. Maybe she meant\nthat they both, the heart and the mind, have control over both love and\nfear.\"\n\n\"Perhaps she did,\" Argo smiled. \"You must ask her--when you rescue her\nfrom the clutches of Hama.\"\n\nBefore turning back to the room with his companions, he looked once more\nout at the fires of the volcano. Light whirled white and red. Blue\ntongues licked at black rock siding. He turned away now and went back\ninto the darkness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\nDawn light lay a-slant the crater's ridge. Argo pointed down the\nopposite slope. A black temple was visible at the bottom among trees and\nlawns. \"There is Hama's temple,\" Argo said. \"You have your task. Good\nluck.\"\n\nThey started down the incline of cinders. It took them an hour to reach\nthe first trees that surrounded the dark buildings and the great\ngardens. Entering on the first lip of grass, they heard a sudden cluster\nof notes from one of the trees.\n\n\"A bird,\" Iimmi said. \"I haven't heard one of those since I left\nLeptar.\"\n\nSuddenly, bright blue and the length of a man's forefinger, a lizard ran\nhalfway down the trunk of the tree. It's sapphire belly heaved in the\nearly light with indrawn breath; then it opened its red mouth, its\nthroat warbled, and there was another burst of music.\n\n\"Oh well,\" said Iimmi. \"I was close.\"\n\nThey walked further, until Iimmi mused, \"I wonder why you always think\nthings are going to turn out like you expect.\"\n\n\"Because when something sounds like that,\" declared Urson, \"it usually\nis a bird!\" Suddenly he gave a little shiver. \"Lizards,\" he said.\n\n\"It was a pretty lizard,\" said Iimmi.\n\n\"Going around expecting things to be what they seem can get you in\ntrouble--especially on this island,\" Geo commented.\n\nThe angle at which they walked made one of the clumps of tree before\nthem seem to fall apart. A man standing in the center raised his hand\nand said briskly, \"Stop!\"\n\nThey stopped.\n\nHe wore dark robes, and his short white hair made a close helmet above\nhis brown face.\n\nUrson's hand was on his sword. Snake stood with his feet wide, his hands\nout from his sides.\n\n\"Who are you?\" the dark man declared.\n\n\"Who are you?\" Urson parried.\n\n\"I am Hama Incarnate.\"\n\nThey were silent. Finally Geo said, \"We are travelers in Aptor. We don't\nmean any harm.\"\n\nAs the man moved forward, splotches of light from the trees slipped\nacross his robe. \"Come with me,\" Hama said. He turned and proceeded\namong the trees. They followed.\n\nThey passed into the temple garden. It was early enough in the morning\nso that the sunlight lapped pink tongues over the giant black urns that\nsat along the edges of the path. Now they passed into the temple.\n\nAs they passed, Hama turned, looked at the jewels on Iimmi's and Geo's\nnecks, and then looked up at the gazing eye of the statue at the end of\nthe altar. He made no other sign, but turned again and continued. \"The\nmorning rites have not yet started,\" he said. \"They will begin in a half\nan hour. By then I hope to have divined your purpose in coming here.\"\n\nAt the other side of the stairway they mounted a stairway, and then\nentered a door above which was a black circle dotted with three eyes.\nJust as they were about to go in, Geo looked around, frowned, and caught\nIimmi's eye. \"Snake?\" he mouthed.\n\nIimmi looked around and shrugged.\n\nThe man turned and faced them, apparently unaware of Snake's departure.\nAs he closed the door, now, he said, \"You have come to oppose the forces\nof Aptor, am I right? You come to steal the jewel of Hama. You have come\nto kidnap the Incarnate Argo. Is that not your purpose. Keep your hand\noff your sword, Urson! I can kill you in a moment. You are defenseless.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Damn! I'm sleepy.\" She rolled over and cuddled the pillow. Then she\nopened her eyes, one at a time, and lay watching the nearly completed\nmotor of metal bars and copper wire that sat on the table beside her\nbed. She stood up.\n\nThen she collapsed on the bed and jammed her feet under the covers\nagain. With thirty feet of one and a half inch brass pipe, she mused\nsleepily, I could carry heat from the main hot-water line under the\nfloor which I would estimate to be about the proper surface area to keep\nthese stones warm; let me see, thirty feet of one and a half inch pipe\nhave a surface area of 22/7 times 3/2 times 30 which is 990 divided by 7\nwhich is ... Then she caught herself. Damn, you're thinking this to\navoid thinking about getting up. She opened her eyes once more, put feet\non the stone, and held them there while she scratched vigorously at her\nuneven mop of red hair.\n\nShe looked at the clock. \"Yikes!\" she said softly, and ran out the door,\nand slammed it behind her--almost. She whirled around, caught it on her\npalms before it banged shut, and then closed it with gingerly care the\nfinal centimeter and a half of the arc. Are you trying to get caught?\nshe asked herself as she tiptoed to the next door.\n\nShe opened it and looked in. Dunderhead looks cute when he's asleep, she\nthought. There was a cord on the floor that ran from under the table by\nthe priest's bed, over the stones, carefully following the zigzag of the\ncrevices between them, and at last the end lay in the corner of the door\nsill. You really couldn't see it if you weren't looking for it, which\nhad more or less been the idea when she had put it there last night\nbefore the priests had come back from vespers. The far end was tied in a\nknot of her own invention to the electric plug of his alarm clock.\nDunderhead had an annoying habit of re-setting his clock every evening\nmaking sure that the red second hand was still sweeping away the\nminutes. (In her plans for this morning she had catalogued his every\nhabitual action, and had observed this one for three nights running,\nhanging upside down from the bulky stone portcullis above and outside\nhis window.)\n\nTugging on the string, she saw it leap from the crevices into a straight\nline and then lift from the floor as she drew it tauter, and then go\nslack as the plug blipped quietly onto the floor.\n\nNext she pulled the string again until the slack left and raised her end\na few inches from the floor. With her free hand now she gave the string\na small twit and watched the vibration run up and down the string twice.\nThe knot's invention was an ingenuous one. At the vibration, two opposed\nloops shook away from a third, and a four millimeter length of rubber\nband that had been sewn in tautened and released a fourth loop from\naround a small length of number four gauge wire with a holding tonsure\nof three quarters of a gram, and the opposing vibration returning up the\nthread loosed a similar apparatus on the other side of the plug. The\nknot fell away, and she wound it quickly around her hand. She stood up,\nclosed the door, and the oiled lock was perfectly silent. The door knob\nwas just the slightest bit greasy, she noted. Careless.\n\nBack in her room, it was standing on the table. Sunlight from the high\nwindow fell red across the board. It was very early in the morning. She\ntook the parts of the motor up in her hands. \"I guess we try you out\ntoday? No?\" She answered herself, \"Yes.\" Finally she put the parts in\nthe paper bag, strode out of the room, and slammed the ... whirled\naround and caught it once more. \"Gnnnnnnn,\" she said. \"Do you want to\nget caught?\" For the second time she answered herself, \"Yes. And\nremember that too. Or you'll never get through it.\"\n\nAs she walked down the hall, she heard through one of the windows the\nchirp of a blue lizard from the garden. \"The sound I wanted to hear,\"\nshe smiled to herself. \"A good sign.\"\n\nTurning into the temple, she started down the side aisle. The great\nblack columns passed before her. Something moved between the columns\nalong the other side, swift and indistinct as a bird's shadow. At least\nshe thought she saw something. \"Remember,\" she reminded herself, \"you\nhave guilt feelings about this whole thing, and you could very easily be\nmanufacturing delusions to scare yourself out of going through with it.\"\nShe went on, passed two more columns, and saw it again. \"Or,\" she went\non with her monologue, \"you could be purposefully ignoring the very\nobvious fact that there is somebody over there who is going to see you.\nSo watch it.\" There were mirrors somewhere in the temple, but they\nweren't on the opposite wall, so she couldn't be seeing herself. In fact\nthe mirrors were out in the vestibule through which she had come and\nmaybe this other person had come, so maybe it was seeing her as a\nreflection of ... \"Unscramble that syntax,\" she told herself. \"You think\nlike that and you'll never make it.\"\n\nBut there was somebody, with no clothes on (for all practical purposes)\nsneaking between the pillars. And he had four arms. That made her start\nto think of something else, but the thought as it arrowed into the past,\nsuddenly got deflected, turned completely about, and jammed into her\nbrain again, because he was staring directly at her.\n\n_If he starts walking toward me_, she thought, _I'm going to be scared\nout of my ears. So I better start walking toward him. Besides, I want to\nsee what he looks like._ She started out from the columns. Glancing\nquickly both ways, she saw that the temple was deserted save for them.\n\n_He's a kid_, she thought, three quarters of the way across. _My age_,\nshe added, and again a foreign thought attempted to intrude itself on\nher but never made it, because he was coming toward her now. At last he\nstopped before her, silent, muscles like tight wire under the brown\nskin, black hair massing low on his forehead, his eyes deep beneath the\nblack shrub of brows.\n\nShe gulped and asked him, \"What are you doing here? Do you know somebody\ncould catch you in here and get mad as hell? I know I couldn't possibly\nhave, but I think I've seen you before some place; if somebody comes\nalong, they might even think you were trying to steal Hama's eye.\" _I\nshouldn't have said that_, she thought, _because he moved funny._ \"You\nbetter get out of here because everybody will be up here in a half an\nhour for morning services.\"\n\nAt that news, he suddenly darted forward, passed her, and sprinted down\ntoward the altar.\n\n\"Hey!\" she called and ran after him.\n\nSnake vaulted over the brass altar rail.\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" she called, catching up. \"Wait, will you!\"\n\nSnake turned as she slung her leg across the brass bar. \"Look, I realize\nI gave away my hand. But that was only guilt feelings. You gave yours\naway too, though. And if you don't think you've got guilt feelings, boy,\nyou're crazy.\"\n\nSnake frowned, tilted his head, and then grinned.\n\n\"So we'll help each other see,\" she said. \"You want it too, don't you.\"\nShe pointed up to the head of the statue towering above them. \"So let's\nco-operate. I'll get it for a little while. Then you can have it.\" He\nwas listening, she saw, so she guessed her strategy was working. _Play\nit by ear now_, she thought. \"We'll help each other. Shake on it, huh?\"\nShe stuck out her hand.\n\nAll four hands reached forward.\n\n_Whoops_, she thought, _I hope he's not offended._\n\nBut the four hands grasped hers, and she added her second to the\njuncture. \"All right,\" she said. \"Come on. Now I had all this figured\nout last night. And we don't have much time. Let's go around ...\" But he\nwalked over to where the stalks of wheat spired from the altar base up\nthrough Hama's fist, and grabbed a stalk with the three hands, and hand,\nover hand, over hand, began to hoist himself up to where the first broad\nsheets of metal leaves leaned out to form a small platform. At first his\ndirty feet swung out frog-like, but then he caught the stem with his\ntoes and at last hoisted himself to the front and looked down at her.\n\n\"I can't climb up there,\" she said, \"I don't have your elevation power.\"\n\nSnake looked down and shrugged.\n\n\"Oh damn,\" she said. \"I'll do it my way.\" She ran across the altar to\nthe great foot of the statue. Sitting cross-legged, Hama's foot was on\nhis side. Using the ridges made by the toes as steps, she clammered up\nto the dark bulge of the deity's godlike bunion. She made her way across\nthe ankle, up the slanting shin, back down the black thigh, until she\nstood at the crevice where the leg and torso met.\n\nOut beyond the great knee, Snake regarded her from his perch in the\ngroin of yellow leaf. They were about equal height.\n\n\"Yoo-hoo,\" she waved. \"Meet you at the clavicle.\" Then she stuck her\ntongue out. The bulges in the belly of the god made a treacherous ledge\nalong which she inched until she arrived at the cavernous naval, leaving\nwet handprints on the black stone.\n\nThe god's belly button from this intimate distance revealed itself as a\ncircular door about five feet in diameter and controlled by a\ncombination lock. She missed the first number twice, dried her hands\noff, and began again. According to the plans in the main safe of the\ntemple (on which she had first practiced combination breaking) there was\na ladder behind this door which led up into the statue. She remembered\nit clearly; and saved her life by doing so.\n\nBecause when she caught the second number, reversed the direction and\nfelt the telltale click of the third, she pulled on the handle and was\nalmost pushed from the ledge by the swinging circular door. She grabbed\nat a handle that she hardly saw on the door's inside, just as the stone\nslipped from beneath her feet. Then she was hanging five feet out in the\nair over the sacred groin some fifty feet below.\n\nThe first thing she tried, after closing her eyes and mumbling a few\nlaws of motion, was to swing the door to. When she swung out, however,\nthe door swung closed; and when she swung in, the door swung opened.\nAfter a while, she just hung. She gave small thanks that she had dried\nher hands. When her arms began to ache, she wished that she hadn't,\nbecause then it would be over by now. She went over what she knew about\ntaking judo falls.\n\nThen the door swung closed, and someone grabbed her around the waist.\nShe didn't open her eyes, but felt her body pressed against the tilting\nstone. Her arms fell tingling to her sides. The ligaments flamed with\npain. Then the pain dulled to throbbing, and she opened her eyes. \"How\nthe hell did you get down here?\" she asked Snake. With his help she\nstaggered through the open door and stopped to rub her arms. \"How did\nyou know about the ladder?\"\n\nThey were standing in the shaft now, with the ladder beside them running\nup into the darkness.\n\nHe looked at her with a puzzled expression.\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked. \"Oh, I'll be able to climb up there, never you\nworry. Hey, can you speak?\"\n\nSnake shook his head.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said. Something started at the edge of her mind again, a\npicture of something unpleasant. Snake had started up the ladder, which\nhe had come down so quickly a minute ago. She glanced out the door, saw\nthat the temple was empty, pulled the door to, and followed.\n\nThey ascended into complete darkness. Her arms were beginning to ache\nagain, just slightly. She reached up for the next rung, and found it in\nits proper place. Then the next. And then again the next.\n\nShe started counting steps now, and when seventy-four, seventy-five, and\nseventy-six dropped below her, there was a missing rung. She reached\nabove it, but there was none. She ran her hand up the edge of the ladder\nand found that it suddenly curved into the wall. \"Hey, you,\" she said in\nthe darkness.\n\nSomething touched her waist. \"Gnnnnnggggg,\" she said. \"Don't _do_ that.\"\nIt touched her on the leg, took hold of her ankle, and pulled. \"Watch\nout,\" she said.\n\nIt pulled again. She raised her foot, and it was tugged sideways a good\nfoot and a half and set on solid flooring. Then a hand (her foot was not\nreleased) took her arm, and another held her waist, and tugged. She\nstiffened for one instant before she remembered the number of limbs her\ncompanion had. Then she came off the ladder, sideways into the dark,\nafraid to put her other foot down lest she step headlong into the\nseventy-five foot plus shaft.\n\nBut he tugged again, and in losing her balance, her foot came down on\ncool, solid stone. Holding her arm now, he led her along the tunnel.\nThey passed into a steep incline. Now down the upper arm, she recalled.\n\n\"I feel like Eurydice,\" she said aloud.\n\n_You ... funny ..._ an echoing voice sounded in her skull.\n\n\"Hey,\" she said. \"What was that?\" But the voice was silent. The wall\nturned abruptly and the floor leveled out. They were in a section of the\npassage now that corresponded roughly to the statue's radial artery. At\nthe wrist, there was a light. They mounted a stairway, came out a trap\ndoor, and found themselves standing high in the temple. Below them the\ngreat room spread, vastly deep, and still empty. Beside them, the stems\nof the bronze wheat stalks rose up through the fist and spired another\nfifty feet before breaking into clusters of golden grain and leaves.\nAcross from them, over the dark curve of Gargantuan chest, in the\nstatue's other hand, the shaft of the scythe leaned away into shadow.\n\n\"Look,\" she said. \"You follow me now.\" She started back along the top of\nthe forearm and then began the tedious climb over the rippling biceps,\ntill at last they reached the broad shoulder. They walked across the\nhollow above the collar bone until they stood just below the great\nscooping shell of the ear.\n\nShe took the paper bag she had stuffed into her belt, tied one end of\nthe string around the neck, and then, holding the other, she heaved the\nbag up and over the ear. She got the other end of the string, knotted it\nas high as she could reach, and gave it a tug. \"I hope this works,\" she\nsaid. \"I had it all figured out yesterday. The tensile strength of this\nstuff is about two hundred and fifty pounds, which ought to do for you\nand me.\" She planted her foot on the swell of the neck tendon, and in\nseven leaps she made it to the lobe of the ear. She swung around into\nthe hollow, using the frontal wing as a pivot. Crouching in the hollow\ntrumpet, she looked down at Snake. \"Come up,\" she said. \"Hurry up.\"\n\nSnake joined her a moment later.\n\nThe ear was hollow, too. It led back into a cylindrical chamber which\nwent up through the head of the god. The architect who had designed the\nstatue had conveniently left the god's lid flipped. They climbed the\nladder and emerged amid the tangle of pipes which represented the hair\nof the god. They made their way forward through the mass of pipes to\nwhere the forehead sloped dangerously forward. They could see the\nforeshortened nose and the rim of the statue's middle eye above that.\nThere wasn't much of anything after that for the next thousand feet\nuntil the base of the altar. \"Now you can really be some help,\" she told\nhim. \"Hold on to my wrist and let me down. I'll get the jewel.\"\n\nThey grabbed wrists, and Snake's three other hands, as well as the\njoints of his knees, locked around the base of five pipes that sprouted\naround them.\n\nSlowly she slid forward, until her free hand slipped on the stone and\nshe dropped the length of their two arms and swung just above the\nstatue's nose. The eye opened in front of her. The lid arced above her,\nand the white of either side of the ebony iris shone faintly in the half\ndarkness. At the center of the iris, in a small hollow, sitting on the\ntop of a metal support, was the jewel.\n\nShe reached her free hand toward it as she swung.\n\nFrom somewhere a gong suddenly sounded. Light flooded over her. Looking\nup, she saw white sockets of light shining down into her own eyes.\nPanicking, she almost released Snake's wrist. But a voice in her head\n(hers or someone else's, she couldn't tell) rang out. _Hold ... on ...\ndamn ... it ..._\n\nThen she grabbed the jewel. The metal shaft in which the jewel had stood\nwas not steady, and tilted as her hand came away from it. The tilting\nmust have set off some clockwork mechanism, because the great eyelid was\nslowly lowering over the ivory and ebony eye. She swung again at the end\nof the rope of bone and flesh; half blinded by the lights above her, she\nlooked over her shoulder, into the temple below. There was singing, the\nbeginning of a processional hymn. The morning rites had started!\n\nLight glinted on the stone limbs of the god. Figures were pouring into\nthe temple. They must have seen her, but the hymn, sonorous and\ngigantic, rose like flood water, and she suddenly thought that if she\nfell, she would drown in the sound of it.\n\nSnake was pulling her up. Stone against her arm, against her cheek. She\nclenched her other fist tightly at her side. Another hand came down and\nhelped pull her. Then another. Then she was lying among the metal pipes,\nand he was loosening her fingers from his wrist. He tugged her to her\nfeet, and for a moment she was looking out over the now filled temple.\n\nNervous energy contracted coldly along her body, and the sudden sight of\nthe great drop filled her eyes and her head, and she staggered. Snake\ncaught her and at last helped her back to the ladder. \"We've got it,\"\nshe said to him before they started down. She breathed deeply. Then she\nchecked in her palm to see if it was still there; it was, and again she\nlooked out over the people below. Light on the up-turned faces made them\nlook like scattered pearls on the dark floor. An exaltation suddenly\nburst in her shoulders, flooded her legs and arms and for a moment\nwashed the pain away. Snake, with one hand on her shoulder, was grinning\nalso. \"We've got it!\" she said again.\n\nThey went down the ladder into the statue's skull. Snake preceded her\nout the hollow ear. He reached around, caught the cord, and let himself\ndown to the shoulder.\n\nShe hesitated for a moment, then put the jewel in her mouth, and\nfollowed him. Standing beside him once more, she removed it, and then\nrubbed her shoulders. \"Boy, am I going to have some Charley horse by\ntomorrow,\" she said. \"Do me a favor and untie my bag for me?\"\n\nSnake untied the parcel from the end of the cord, and together now they\nclimbed down the bicep and back over the forearm to the trap door in the\nwrist.\n\nShe glanced down at the faces of the worshipers just before they\ndisappeared into the tunnel. Snake was taking the jewel from her hand.\nShe let him have it, and watched him raise it up above his head.\n\nImmediately, when he raised the jewel, the pearls of faces went out like\nextinguished flames as heads bent all through the temple.\n\n\"That's the ticket,\" grinned Argo. \"Come on.\" But Snake did not go into\nthe tunnel. Instead he walked around the fist, took hold of one of the\nbronze wheat stems, and slid down through an opening between the thumb\nand forefinger. \"That way?\" asked Argo. \"Oh well, I guess so. You know\nI'm going to write an epic about this.\"\n\nBut Snake had already gone. She followed him, clutching her feet around\na great bunch of stems. He was waiting for her at the plateau of leaves,\nand nestled there, they gazed out once more at the fascinated\ncongregation.\n\nAgain Snake held aloft the jewel, and again heads bowed. The hymn began\nto repeat itself, the individual words lost in the sonority of the hall.\nThey started down the last length of stems now, coming quickly. When\nthey stood at last on the base, she put her hand on his shoulder and\nlooked across the brass altar rail. The congregation pressed close,\nalthough she did not recognize an individual face. Yet a mass of people\nstood there, enormous and familiar. As Snake started forward, holding up\nthe jewel, the people fell back from the rail. Snake climbed over the\naltar rail, and then helped her over.\n\nHer shoulders were beginning to hurt now, and the enormity of the theft\nran chills up and down, up and down her spine. The black marble altar\nstep as she put her foot down was awfully cold.\n\nThey started forward again, and the last note of the hymn echoed to\nsilence, filling the hall with the roaring quiet of the hushed breathing\nof hundreds.\n\nSimultaneously, both she and Snake got the urge to look back at the\ngreat diminishing height of Hama behind them. All three eyes were shut\nfirmly now. A quiet composed of the rustling of a hundred dark robes\nupon another hundred hissed about them as they started forward again.\n\nThere was a spotlight on them, she suddenly realized. That was why the\npeople, hovering back from the circular effulgence over the floor around\nthem seemed so dim. Her heart had become a pulse at the bottom of her\ntongue. They kept on going forward, into the shadowed faces, into the\nparting sea of dark cloaks and hoods.\n\nThen the last of the figures stepped aside from the temple door, and she\ncould see the sunlight out in the garden. They stood still for a\nmoment, Snake holding high the jewel; then they burst forward, out\nthrough the door and down over the bright steps.\n\nInstantly the hymn began again behind them, as if their departure had\nbeen a signal. The music flooded after them, and when they reached the\nbottom step, they both whirled, crouching like animals, expecting the\ncongregation to come welling darkly out after them. But there was only\nthe music, flowing into the light, washing around them, a transparent\nriver, a sea.\n\n    \"_Freeze the drop in the hand,\n    and break the earth with singing.\n    Hail the height of a man,\n    and also the height of a woman._\"\n\nOver the music came a brittle chirping from the trees. Fixed with fear,\nthey watched the temple door as the hymn progressed. Then Snake suddenly\nstood up straight and grinned.\n\nShe scratched her red hair, shifted her weight, and looked at Snake. \"I\nguess they're not coming,\" she said, sounding almost disappointed. Then\nshe giggled. \"Well, I guess we got it.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Don't move,\" repeated Hama Incarnate.\n\n\"Now look--\" began Urson.\n\n\"You are perfectly safe,\" the god continued, \"unless you do anything\nfoolish. You have shown great wisdom. Continue to show it. I have a lot\nto explain to you.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"I'll start with the lizards,\" smiled the god.\n\n\"The what?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"The singing lizards,\" said Hama. \"You walked through a grove of trees\njust a few minutes ago. You had just been through a series of happenings\nthat was probably the most frightening in your life. Suddenly you heard\na singing in the trees. What was it?\"\n\n\"I thought it was a bird,\" Iimmi said.\n\n\"But why a bird?\" asked the god.\n\n\"Because that's what a bird sounds like,\" stated Urson impatiently. \"Who\nneeds an old lizard singing to them on a morning like this?\"\n\n\"Your second point is much better than your first,\" said the god. \"You\ndo not need a lizard, but you did need a bird. A bird means spring,\nlife, good luck, cheerfulness. You think of a bird singing and you think\nof thoughts that men have been thinking for thousands upon thousands of\nyears. Poets have written of it in every language, Catullus in Latin,\nKeats in English, Li Po in Chinese, Darnel X24 in New English. You\nexpected a bird because after what you had been through, you needed to\nhear a bird. Lizards run from under wet rocks, scurry over gravestones.\nA lizard is not what you needed.\"\n\n\"So what do lizards have to do with why we're here?\" demanded Urson.\n\n\"Why are you here?\" repeated the god, subtly changing Urson's question.\n\"There are many reasons, I am sure. You tell me some of them.\"\n\n\"You have done wrongs to Argo--at least to Argo of Leptar,\" Geo\nexplained. \"We have come to undo them. You have kidnaped the young Argo,\nas well as her mother apparently. We have come to take her back. You\nhave misused the jewels. We have come to take the last one from you.\"\n\nHama smiled. \"Only a poet could see the wisdom in such honesty. I\nthought I might have to wheedle to get that much out of you.\"\n\n\"I guess it was pretty certain that you knew that much already,\" Geo\nsaid.\n\n\"True,\" answered Hama. Then his tone changed. \"Do you know how the\njewels work?\"\n\nThey shook their heads.\n\n\"They are basically very simple mechanical contrivances which are\ndifficult in execution, but simple in concept. I will explain. Human\nthoughts, it was discovered after the Great Fire during the first\nglorious years of the City of New Hope, did not produce waves similar to\nradio waves, but the electrical synapse pattern, it was found, can be\nread by radio waves, in the same way a mine detector reads the\nexistence of metal.\"\n\n\"Radio?\" Geo said.\n\n\"That's right,\" Hama said. \"Oh, I forgot, you don't know anything about\nthat at all. Well, I can't go through the whole thing now. Suffice it to\nsay that each of the jewels contains a carefully honed crystal which is\nconstantly sending out beams which can read these thought patterns. Also\nthe crystal acts like a magnifying glass or a mirror, and reflects and\nmagnifies the energy from the brain into heat or light or any other kind\nof electromagnetic radiation--there I go again--so that you can send\ngreat bolts of heat with them, as you have seen done.\n\n\"But the actual workings of them are not important. And their ability to\nsend heat out is only their secondary power. Their primary importance is\nthat they can be used to penetrate the mind. Now we come to the\nlizards.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Geo said. \"Before we get to the lizards. Do you mean go\ninto minds like Snake does?\" Suddenly he remembered that the boy was not\nthere.\n\nBut the god went on. \"Like Snake,\" he said. \"But different. Snake was\nborn with the ability to transmute the brain patterns of his thoughts to\nothers; in that he has a power something like the jewels, but nowhere as\nstrong. But with the jewels, you can jam a person's thoughts....\"\n\n\"Just go into his mind and stop him from thinking?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"No,\" said the god. \"Conscious thought is too powerful. Otherwise, you\nwould stop thinking every time Snake spoke to you. It works another way.\nHow many reasons does a man have for any single action?\"\n\nThey looked at him uncomprehendingly.\n\n\"Why, for example, does a man pull his hand from a fire?\"\n\n\"Because it hurts,\" said Urson. \"Why else?\"\n\n\"Yes, why else?\" asked Hama.\n\n\"I think I see what you mean,\" said Iimmi. \"He also pulls it out because\nhe knows that outside the fire his hand isn't going to hurt. Like the\nbird, I mean the lizard. One reason we reacted like we did was because\nit sounded like a bird. The other reason was because we wanted to hear\na bird just then. The man pulls his hand out because the fire hurts, and\nbecause he wants it not to hurt.\"\n\n\"In other words,\" Geo summarized, \"there are at least two reasons for\neverything.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" explained Hama. \"And notice that one of these reasons is\nunconscious. But with the jewel, you can jam the unconscious reason; so\nthat if a man has his hand in a fire, you can jam his unconscious reason\nof wanting it to stop hurting. Completely bewildered, and in no less\npain, he will stand there until his wrist is a smoking nub.\"\n\nGeo reached over and felt his severed arm.\n\n\"Dictators during the entire history of this planet have used similar\ntechniques. By not letting the people of their country know what\nconditions existed outside their boundaries, they could get the people\nto fight to stay in those conditions. It was the old adage, convince a\nslave that he's free, and he will fight to maintain his slavery. Why\ndoes a poet sing? Because he likes music; and because silence frightens\nhim. Why does a thief steal? To get the goods from his victim; also to\nprove that his victim cannot get him.\"\n\n\"That's how Argo got Snake back,\" Geo said to Urson. \"I see now. He was\njust thinking of running away, and she jammed his desire not to get\ncaught; so he had nothing to direct him in which direction to run. So he\nran where she told him, straight back to her.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Hama said. \"But something else was learned when these\njewels were invented. Or rather a lesson which history should have\ntaught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man can\nwield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. For\nno matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his\nalternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of the people and\nultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom would\nwant this power, would conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom\nwill turn him into a slave of this power. For this reason, the jewels\nare evil. That is why we have summoned you to steal them from us.\"\n\n\"To steal them from you?\" asked Geo. \"Why couldn't you have simply\ndestroyed them when you had them.\"\n\n\"We have already been infected,\" smiled the god. \"We are a small band\nhere on Aptor. To reach the state of organization, to collect the\nscattered scientific knowledge of the times before the Great Fire, was\nnot easy. Too often the jewels have been used, and abused, and now we\ncannot destroy it. We would have to destroy ourselves first. We kidnaped\nArgo and left you the second jewel, hoping that you would come after the\nthird and last one. Now you have come, and now the jewel is being\nstolen.\"\n\n\"Snake?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"That's right,\" replied Hama.\n\n\"But I thought he was your spy,\" Geo said.\n\n\"That he is our spy is his unconscious reason for his actions,\"\nexplained Hama. \"He is aware only that he is working against the evil he\nhas seen in Jordde. Spy is too harsh a word for him. Say, rather, little\nthief. He became a spy for us quite unwittingly when he was on the\nisland as a child with Jordde. I have explained something to you of how\nthe mind works. We have machines that can duplicate what Snake does in a\nsimilar way that the jewels work. This is how the blind priestesses\ncontacted Jordde and made him their spy. This is how we reached Snake.\nBut he never saw us, never even really talked to us. It was mainly\nbecause of something he saw, something he saw when he first got here.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Iimmi said. \"Jordde wanted to kill me, and did kill\nWhitey because of something we might have seen. I bet this was the same\nthing. Now, what was it?\"\n\nHama smiled. \"My telling you would do no good. Perhaps you can find out\nfrom Snake, or my daughter, Argo Incarnate.\"\n\n\"But what do we do now?\" Geo interrupted. \"Take the jewels back to Argo,\nI mean Argo on the ship? She's already used the jewels to control minds,\nat least Snake's, so that means she's infected, too.\"\n\n\"Once you guessed the reason for her infection,\" said Hama. \"We have\nbeen watching you on our screens since you landed. Do you remember what\nthe reason was?\"\n\n\"Do you mean her being jealous of her sister?\" Geo asked.\n\n\"Yes. On one side her motives were truly patriotic for Leptar. On the\nother hand they were selfish ones of power seeking. But without the\nselfish ones, she would have never gotten so far as she did. You must\nbring young Argo back and give the infection a chance to work itself\nout.\"\n\n\"But what about the jewels?\" asked Geo. \"All three of them will be\ntogether. Isn't that a huge temptation?\"\n\n\"Someone must meet this temptation, and overcome it,\" said Hama. \"You do\nnot know how much danger they are in while they are here on Aptor. Even\nif the final danger is only delayed, that delay will make it safer to\nbring them to Leptar.\"\n\nSuddenly Hama turned to the screens and pushed a switch to on position.\nThe opaque glass was filled with a picture of the interior of the\ntemple. On the huge statue, a spotlight was following two microscopic\nfigures over the statue's shoulder. They were climbing over the statue's\nelbow.\n\nHama increased the size. It was two people, not bugs, climbing down the\ngigantic sculptured figure. They made their way along the statue's\nforearm now, to the golden stalks of wheat in the god's black fist. One,\nand then the other began to shimmy down the stems. They arrived at the\nbase and climbed over the rail. The screen enlarged again.\n\n\"It's Snake,\" said Geo.\n\n\"And he's got the jewel,\" Urson added.\n\n\"That's Argo with him,\" Iimmi put in. \"I mean--one of the Argos.\" They\nclustered around the screen, watching the congregation give way before\nthe two fearful children. The red-haired girl in the short white tunic\nwas holding onto Snake's shoulder.\n\nSuddenly Hama turned the picture off, and they looked away from the\nscreen now, puzzled. \"So you see,\" said the god, \"the jewel has already\nbeen stolen. For the sake of Argo, and of Hama, carry the jewels back to\nLeptar. Young Argo will help you. Though her mother and I are pained to\nsee her go, she is as prepared for the journey as you are, if not more.\nWill you do it?\"\n\n\"I will,\" Iimmi said.\n\n\"Me too,\" said Geo.\n\n\"I guess so,\" Urson said.\n\n\"Good,\" smiled Hama. \"Then come with me.\" He turned from the screen and\nwalked through the door. They followed him down the long stairway, past\nthe stone walls, into the hall, and along the back of the church. He\nwalked slowly, and smiled like a man who had waited long for something\nfinally arrived. They turned out of the temple and descended the bright\nsteps.\n\n\"I wonder where the kids are?\" Urson asked.\n\nBut Hama led them on, across the broad garden to where the great black\nurns sat in a row close to a wall of shrubbery. A woman--old\nArgo--suddenly joined them. She had apparently been waiting for them.\nShe gave them a silent smile of recognition, and they continued across\nthe garden path.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLight fell through the shrubbery across her white tunic and Snake's bare\nback as they crouched over the contraption of coils and metal. She\ntwisted two pieces of wire together in a final connection as Snake\nplaced the jewel on an improvised thermocouple. Then they bent over it\nand both concentrated their thoughts on the bead. The thermocouple\nglowed red, and electricity jumped in the copper veins, turning the\nmetal bone into a magnet. The armature tugged once around its pivot, and\nthen tugged around once more. Finally it was whipping around steadily,\nthe brushes on its shaft reversing the magnetic poles with each half\ncircle of the arc. It gained speed until it whirred into an invisible\ncopper haze between them. \"Hey,\" she breathed, \"look at it go, will you!\nJust look at it go.\" And the young thieves crouched over the humming\nmotor, oblivious to the eyes of the elder gods that smiled at them from\nthe edge of the green shift of shadow and sunlight, by the side of the\nmarble urn.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nUnder the trees, she raised up on tiptoe and kissed the balding forehead\nof a tall, dark-robed priest. \"Dunderhead,\" she said, \"I think you're\ncute.\" Then she blinked very rapidly and knuckled beneath her eye. \"Oh,\"\nshe added, remembering, \"I was making yogurt in the biology laboratory\nyesterday. There's two gallons of it fermenting under the tarantula\ncage. Remember to take it out. And take care of the hamsters. Please\ndon't forget the hamsters.\"\n\nFinally, they started once more around the slope of the volcano, and the\ntemple and grove fell black and green away behind them.\n\n\"Two days to get to the ship,\" said Geo, squinting at the pale sky.\n\n\"Perhaps we had better put the jewels together,\" said Urson. \"Keep them\nout of harm's way, since we know their power.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Iimmi asked.\n\nUrson took Geo's leather purse from his belt. Then he took the jewel\nfrom Geo's neck and dropped it in the purse. Then he held the purse out\nfor Iimmi to do the same.\n\n\"I guess it can't hurt,\" Iimmi said, dropping his chain into the pouch.\n\n\"Here's mine too,\" Argo said. Urson pulled the purse string closed and\ntucked the pouch in at his waist.\n\n\"Well,\" said Geo, \"I guess we head for the river, so we can get back to\nyour sister and Jordde.\"\n\n\"Jordde?\" asked Argo. \"Who's he?\"\n\n\"He's a spy for the blind priestesses. He's also the one who cut Snake's\ntongue out.\"\n\n\"Cut his--?\" Suddenly she stopped. \"That's right: four arms, his\ntongue--I remember now, in the film!\"\n\n\"In the what?\" asked Iimmi. \"What do you remember?\"\n\nArgo turned to Snake. \"I remember where I saw you before!\"\n\n\"You know Snake?\" Urson asked.\n\n\"No, I never met him. But about a month ago I saw a movie of what\nhappened. It was horrible what they did to him.\"\n\n\"What's a movie?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"Huh?\" said Argo. \"Oh, it's sort of like the vision screens, only you\ncan see things that happened in the past. Anyway, Dunderhead showed me\nthis film about a month ago. Then he took me down to the beach and said\nI should have seen something there, because of what I'd learned.\"\n\n\"See something?\" Iimmi almost yelled. \"What was it?\" He took her\nshoulder and shook it. \"What was it you were supposed to see?\"\n\n\"Why...?\" began the girl, startled.\n\n\"Because a friend of mine was murdered and I almost was too because of\nsomething we saw on that beach. Only I don't know what it was.\"\n\n\"But ...\" began Argo. \"But I don't either. I couldn't see it, so\nDunderhead took me back to the temple.\"\n\n\"Snake?\" Geo asked. \"Do you know what they were supposed to see? Or why\nArgo was taken to see it after she was shown what happened to you?\"\n\nThe boy shrugged.\n\nIimmi turned on Snake. \"Do you know, or are you just not telling? Come\non now. That's the only reason I stuck with this so far, and I want to\nknow what's going on!\"\n\nSnake shook his head.\n\n\"I want to know why I was nearly killed,\" shouted the Negro. \"You know\nand I want you to tell me!\" Iimmi raised his hand.\n\nSnake screamed. The sound tore over the distended vocal cords. Then he\nwhirled and ran.\n\nUrson caught him and brought the boy crashing down among leaves. \"No you\ndon't,\" the giant growled. \"You're not going to get away from me this\ntime. You won't get away from me again.\"\n\n\"Watch it,\" said Argo. \"You're hurting him. Urson, let go!\"\n\n\"Hey, ease up,\" said Iimmi. \"Snake, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell.\nBut I do want you to tell me. Very much.\"\n\nUrson let the boy up, still mumbling, \"Well, he's not going to get away\nagain.\"\n\n\"When did he get away from you the first time?\" Geo said, coming over to\nthe boy. \"Let him go. Look, Snake, do you know what there was about the\nbeach that was so important?\"\n\nSnake nodded.\n\n\"Can you tell?\"\n\nNow the boy shook his head and glanced at Urson.\n\n\"You don't have to be afraid of him,\" Geo said, puzzled. \"Urson won't\nhurt you.\"\n\nBut Snake shook his head again.\n\n\"Well,\" said Geo, \"we can't make you. Let's get going.\"\n\n\"I bet I could make him,\" the giant mumbled.\n\n\"No,\" said Argo. \"I don't think you could. I watched the last time\nsomebody tried. And I don't think you could.\"\n\nLate morning flopped over hotly in the sky and turned into afternoon.\nThe jungle became damp, and bright insects plunged like tiny knives of\nblue or scarlet through leaves. Wet foliage brushed against their\nchests, faces, and shoulders.\n\n\"Why would they show you a film of something awful before taking you to\nthe beach.\" Iimmi asked.\n\n\"Maybe it was supposed to have made me more receptive to what we saw,\"\nsaid Argo.\n\n\"If horror makes you receptive to what ever it was,\" said Iimmi, \"I\nshould have been about as receptive as possible.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Geo.\n\n\"I just watched ten guys get hacked to pieces all over the sand,\nremember?\"\n\nThey walked silently for a time.\n\n\"We'll come out at the head of the river. It's a huge marsh that drains\noff into the main channel,\" said Argo presently.\n\nLate afternoon darkened quickly.\n\n\"I was wondering about something,\" Geo said, after a little while.\n\n\"What?\" asked Argo.\n\n\"Hama said that once the jewels had been used to control minds, the\nperson who used them was infected--\"\n\n\"Rather the infection was already there,\" corrected Argo. \"That just\nbrought it out.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Geo. \"Anyway, Hama also said that he was infected. When did\nhe have to use the jewels?\"\n\n\"Lots of times,\" Argo said. \"Too many. The last time was when I was\nkidnaped. He used the jewel to control pieces of that thing you all\nkilled in the City of New Hope to come and kidnap me and then leave the\njewel in Leptar.\"\n\n\"A piece of that monster?\" Geo exclaimed. \"No wonder it decayed so\nrapidly when it was killed.\"\n\n\"Huh?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"Argo, I mean your sister, told me they had managed to kill one of the\nkidnapers, and it melted the moment it died.\"\n\n\"We couldn't control the whole mass,\" she explained. \"It really doesn't\nhave a mind. But, like everything alive, it has, or had, the double\nimpulse.\"\n\n\"But what did kidnaping you accomplish, anyway?\" Iimmi asked.\n\nArgo grinned. \"It brought you here. And now you're taking the jewels\naway.\"\n\n\"Is that all?\" asked Iimmi.\n\n\"Well,\" said Argo, \"Isn't that enough?\" She paused for an instant. \"You\nknow I wrote a poem about all this once, the double impulse and\neverything.\"\n\nGeo recited:\n\n    \"_By the dark chamber sits its twin,\n    where the body's floods begin,\n    and the two are twinned again,\n    turning out and turning in._\"\n\n\"How did you know?\" she asked.\n\n\"The dark chamber is Hama's temple,\" Geo said. \"Am I right?\"\n\n\"And it's twin is Argo's,\" she went on. \"They should be twins, really.\nAnd then the twins again are the children. The force of age in each one\nopposed to the young force. See?\"\n\n\"I see,\" Geo smiled. \"And the body's floods, turning in and out?\"\n\n\"That's sort of everything man does, his going and coming, his great\nideas, his achievements, his little ideas too. It all comes from the\ninterplay of those four forces.\"\n\n\"Four?\" said Urson. \"I thought it was just two.\"\n\n\"But it's thousands,\" Argo explained.\n\nThe air was drenching. The leaves had been shiny before. Now they\ndripped water on the loose ground. Pale light lapsed through the\nbranches, shimmered, reflected from leaf to the wet underside of leaf.\nThe ground became mud.\n\nTwice they heard a sloshing a few feet away, and then the scuttling of\nan unseen animal. \"I hope I don't step on something that decides to take\na chunk out of my foot.\"\n\n\"I'm pretty good at first aid,\" Argo said. \"It's getting chilly,\" she\nadded.\n\nJust then Geo slipped and sank knee-deep in a muddy pool. Urson raced to\nthe edge of the quicksand bog and grabbed Geo by his good arm. He pulled\ntill Geo emerged, coated to the thigh with gray mud.\n\n\"You all right?\" Urson asked. \"You sure you're all right?\"\n\nGeo nodded, rubbing the stump of his arm with his good hand. \"I'm all\nright,\" he said. The trees had almost completely given out. Geo suddenly\nsaw the whole swamp sinking in front of him. He splashed a step\nbackwards, but Urson caught his shoulder. The swamp wasn't sinking,\nthough. But ripples had begun to appear over the water, spreading,\ncrossing, webbing the whole surface with a net of tiny waves.\n\nThen they began to rise up. Green backs broke the surface, wet and\nslippery. They were standing now, torrents cascading their green faces,\ngreen chests. Three of them, now a fourth. Four more, and then more, and\nthen many more. They stood, now, these naked, green, mottled bodies.\n\nGeo felt a sudden tugging in his head, at his mind. Looking around he\nsaw that the others felt it too.\n\n\"Them ...\" Urson started.\n\n\"They're the ones who carried us ...\" Geo began. The tug came again, and\nthey stepped forward.\n\nIimmi put his hand on his head. \"They want us to go with them....\" And\nsuddenly they were going forward, slipping into the familiar state of\nhalf-consciousness which had come when they had crossed the river, to\nthe City of New Hope, or when they had first fallen into the sea.\n\nWet hands fell on their bodies as they were guided through the swamp.\nThey were being carried through deeper water. Now they were walking over\ndry land where the vegetation was thicker, and slimy boulders caught\nshards of sunset on their wet flanks, blood leaking on the gray, the wet\ngray, and the green.\n\nThrough a rip in the arras of vegetation, they saw the moon push through\nthe clouds, staining them silver. A rock rose in silhouette against the\nmoon. On the rock a naked man stood, staring at the white disk. White\nhighlighted one side of his body. As they passed, he howled (or anyway,\nopened his mouth and threw his head back. But their ears were full of\nnight and could not hear.) and dropped to all fours. A breeze blew\nmomentarily in the sudden plume of his tail, in the scraggly hair of the\nunder-belly, and light lay white on the points of his ears, his\nlengthened muzzle, his thinned hind legs. The animal turned its head\nonce, and then scampered down the rock and into the darkness as a\ncurtain of trees swung across the opened sky.\n\nEyes of flame whipped ahead of them as water swirled their knees once\nmore. Then the water went down and sand washed back under the soles of\ntheir feet on the dark beach. The beating of the sea, the rush of the\nriver, and the odor of the wet leaves that fingered their cheeks,\nprodded their shins, and slapped against their bellies as they moved\nforward, all this fell away. Red eyes wavered into flaming tongues, and\nthe tongues showed themselves housed in the mouths of a dozen caves.\n\nLight flickered on the wet rocks and they entered the largest one. Their\neyes suddenly focused once more. Foam washed back and forth over the\nsand floor, and black chains of weeds, caught in crevices on the rock,\nlengthened over the sand with the inrush of water. Webbed hands\nreleased them.\n\nBrown rocks rose around in the firelight. They raised their eyes to\nwhere the Old One sat. The long spines were strung with shrunken\nmembrane. His eyes, gray and indistinct, were close to the surface of\nhis broad nostriled face. A film of water trickled over the rock where\nhe sat. Others stood about him, on various levels of the rock.\n\nThe tugging left them, and they glanced at one another now. Outside the\ncave it was raining hard. Geo saw that Argo's hair had wet to dark\nauburn and hugged her head now, making little streaks down her neck.\n\nSuddenly a voice boomed at them, like an echo, more than the\nreverberation that the cave would give. \"Carriers of the jewels,\" it\nbegan, and suddenly Geo realized that it was the same hollowness that\naccompanied Snake's soundless messages. \"We have brought you here to\ngive a warning. We are the oldest forms of intelligence on this planet,\"\ncontinued the Old One from the throne. \"We have watched from the delta\nof the Nile the rise of the pyramids; we have seen the murder of Caesar\nfrom the banks of the Tiber. We watched the Spanish Armada destroyed by\nEnglish, and we followed Man's great metal fish through the ocean before\nthe Great Fire. We have never aligned ourselves with either Argo or\nHama, but rise in the sexless swell of the ocean. We can warn you, as we\nhave warned man before. As before, some will listen, some will not. Your\nminds are your own, now. That I pledge you. Now, I warn you; cast the\njewels into the sea.\n\n\"Nothing is ever lost in the sea, and when the evil has been washed from\nthem with time and brine, they will be returned to man. For then time\nand brine will have washed away his imperfections also.\n\n\"No living intelligence is free from their infection, nothing with the\ndouble impulse of life. But we are old, and can hold them for a million\nyears before we will be so infected as you are. Your young race is too\ncondensed in its living to tolerate such power at its fingers now. Again\nI say: cast these into the sea.\n\n\"The knowledge which man needs to alleviate hunger and pain from the\nworld of men is contained in two monasteries on this island. Both have\nthe science to put the jewels to use, to the good use which is possible\nwith them. Both have been infected. In Leptar, however, where you carry\nthese jewels, there is no way at all to utilize them for anything but\nevil. There will only be the temptation to destroy.\"\n\n\"What about me?\" Argo suddenly piped up. \"I can teach them all sorts of\nthings in Leptar.\" She took one of Snake's hands. \"We used one for our\nmotor.\"\n\n\"You will find something else to make your motor turn,\" came the voice.\n\"You still have to see something that you have not yet seen?\"\n\n\"At the beach?\" demanded Iimmi.\n\n\"Yes,\" nodded the Old One, with something like a sigh, \"at the beach. We\nhave a science that allows us to do things which to you seem\nimpossibilities, as when we carried you in the sea for weeks without\nyour body decaying. We can enter your mind as Snake does. And we can do\nmuch else. We have a wisdom which far surpasses even Argo's and Hama's\non Aptor. Will you then cast the jewels into the sea and trust them with\nus?\"\n\nHere Urson interrupted. \"How can we give you the jewels?\" he said. \"How\ncan we be sure you're not going to use them against Argo and Hama once\nyou get them. You say nobody is impervious to them. And we've only got\nyour say so on how long it would take you to fall victim. You can\nalready influence minds. That's how you got us here. And according to\nHama, that's what corrupts. And you've already done it.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" Geo said. \"There's something else. We've nearly messed this\nthing up a dozen times trying to figure out motives and counter motives.\nAnd it always comes back to the same thing: we've got a job to do, and\nwe ought to do it. We're suppose to return Argo and the jewels to the\nship, and that's what we're doing.\"\n\n\"He's right,\" said Iimmi. \"It's the general rule again. Act on the\nsimplest theory that holds all the information.\"\n\nThe Old One sighed again. \"Once, fifteen hundred years ago, a man who\nwas to maneuver one of the metal birds walked and pondered by the sea.\nHe had been given a job to do. We tried to warn him, as we tried to warn\nyou. But he jammed his hands into the pockets of his khaki uniform, and\nuttered to the waves the words you just uttered, and the warning was\nshut out of his mind. He scrambled up over the dunes on the beach, never\ntaking his hands out of his pockets. The next morning, at five o'clock,\nwhen the sun slanted red across the air field, he climbed into his metal\nbird, took off, flew for some time over the sea, looking down on the\nwater like crinkled foil under the heightening sun, until he reached\nland again. Then he did his job: he pressed a button which released two\nshards of fire metal in a housing of cobalt. The land flamed. The sea\nboiled in the harbors. And two weeks later he was also dead. That which\nburned your arm away, poet, burned away his whole face, boiled his lungs\nin his chest and his brain in his skull.\"\n\nThere was a pause. And then, \"Yes, we can control minds. We could have\nrelieved the tiredness, immobilized the fear, the terror, immobilized\nall his unconscious reasons for doing what he did, just as man can now\ndo with the jewels. But had we, we would have also immobilized the--the\nhonor which he clung to. Yes, we can control minds, but we do not.\" Now\nthe voice swelled. \"But never, since that day on the shore before the\nGreat Fire, has the temptation to do so been as great as now.\" Again the\nvoice returned to normal. \"Perhaps,\" and there was almost humor in it\nnow, \"the temptation is too great, even for us. Perhaps we have reached\nthe place where the jewels would push us just across the line where we\nhave never before gone, make us do those things that we have never done.\nYou have heard our warning now. The choice, I swear to you, is yours.\"\n\nThey stood silent in the high cave, the fire on their faces weaving\nbrightness and shadow. Geo turned to look at the rain-blurred darkness\noutside the cave's entrance.\n\n\"Out there is the sea,\" said the voice again. \"Your decision quickly.\nThe tide is coming in....\"\n\nIt was snatched from their minds before they could articulate it. Two\nchildren saw a bright motor turning in the shadow. Geo and Iimmi saw the\ntemples of Argo in Leptar. Then there was something darker. And for a\nmoment, they all saw all the pictures at once.\n\nA wave splashed across the floor, like twisted glass before the rock on\nwhich the fire stood. Then it flopped wetly across the burning driftwood\nwhich hissed into darkness. Charred sticks turned, glowing in the water,\nand were extinguished.\n\nRain was buffeting them; hands held them once more, pulling them into\nthe warm sea, the darkness, and then nothing....\n\nSnake was thinking again, and this time through the captain's eyes.\n\n_The cabin door burst open in the rain. Wind whipped her wet veils about\nher in the door as lightning made them transparent, blackening her\nbody's outline. Jordde rose from his seat. She closed the door on\nthunder._\n\n_\"I have received the signal from the sea,\" she said. \"Tomorrow you\npilot the ship into the estuary.\"_\n\n_The captain's voice: \"But Priestess Argo, I cannot take the ship into\nAptor. We already have lost ten men; I cannot sacrifice ...\"_\n\n_\"And the storm,\" smiled Jordde. \"If it is like this tomorrow, how can I\ntake her through the rocks?\"_\n\n_Her nostrils flared as her lips compressed to a chalky line. She was\nregarding Jordde._\n\n_The captain's thoughts: What is between them, this confused tension. It\nupsets me deeply, and I am tired._\n\n_\"You will pilot the boat to shore tomorrow,\" Argo nearly hissed. \"They\nhave returned, with the jewels!\"_\n\n_The captain's thoughts: They speak to each other in a code I don't\nunderstand. I am so tired, now. I have to protect my ship, my men, that\nis my job, my responsibility._\n\n_But Argo turned to the captain. \"I hired you to obey me. I order you to\npilot this ship to Aptor's shore tomorrow morning.\"_\n\n_The captain's thoughts; Yes, yes. The fatigue and the unknowing. But I\nmust fulfill, must complete. \"Jordde,\" he began._\n\n_\"Yes, captain,\" answered the mate, anticipating. \"If the weather is\npermitting, sir, I will take the ship as close as I can get.\" He smiled\nnow, a thin curve over his face, and turned toward Argo._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n\nRoughness of sand beneath one of his sides, and the flare of the sun on\nthe other. His eyes were hot and his lids were orange over them. He\nturned over, and reached out to dig his fingers into the sand. Only one\nhand closed; then he remembered. Opening his eyes, he rolled to his\nknees. The sand grated under his knee caps. Looking out toward the\nwater, he saw that the sun hung only seeming inches above the horizon.\nThen he saw the ship.\n\nFrom its course, he gathered it was heading toward the estuary of the\nriver down the beach. He began to run toward where the rocks and\nvegetation cut off the end of the beach. The sand under his feet was\ncool.\n\nA moment later he saw Iimmi's dark figure come from the jungle. He was\nheading for the same place. Geo hailed him, and panting, they joined\neach other. Then, together they continued toward the rocks.\n\nAs they broke through the first sheet of foliage, they bumped into the\nred-haired girl who stood, knuckling her eyes in the shadow of the broad\npalm fronds. When she recognized them, she joined them silently. Finally\nthey reached the outcropping of rock a few hundred feet up the river\nbank.\n\nThe rain had swelled the river's mouth to tremendous violence. It\nvomited surges of brown water into the ocean, frothed against rocks, and\nboiled opaquely below them. It was nearly half again as wide as Geo\nremembered it.\n\nAlthough the sky was clear, beyond the brown bile of the river, the sea\nsnarled viciously and bared white teeth in the sun. It took another\nfifteen minutes for the boat to maneuver through the granite spikes\ntoward the rocky embankment a hundred yards away.\n\nGlancing down into the turbulence, Argo breathed, \"Gee.\" But that was\nthe only human sound against the water's roaring.\n\nThe boat's prow doffed in the swell, and then at last her plank swung\nout and bumped unsteadily on the rocky bank. Figures were gathering on\ndeck.\n\n\"Hey,\" Argo said, pointing toward one. \"That's Sis!\"\n\n\"Where the hell are Snake and Urson?\" Iimmi asked.\n\n\"That's Snake down there,\" Geo said. \"Look!\" He pointed with his nub.\n\nThey could see Snake crouched near the gangplank itself. He was behind a\nledge of rock, invisible to the people on the ship, apparently, but\nplain to Geo and his companions.\n\n\"Watch it,\" Geo said. \"I'm going down there. You stay here.\" He ducked\noff through the vines, keeping in sight of the rocks' edge and the\nboiling foam. The ship grew before him, and at last he reached a\nsheltered rise, just ten feet above the nest of rock in which the\nfour-armed boy was crouching.\n\nGeo looked out at the boat. Jordde stood at the head of the gangplank.\nThe eighteen feet of board was unsteady with the roll of the ship.\nJordde held something like a black whip in his hand, only the end went\nto a box-like contraption strapped to his back. With the lash raised, he\nstepped onto the shifting plank.\n\nGeo wondered what the whip contrivance was. The answer came with the\nhollow sound of Snake's thoughts. _That ... is ... machine ... he ...\nuse ... to ... cut ... tongue ... with ... only ... on ... whip ...\nnow ... not ... wire ..._ So Snake knew he was just behind him. As he\nwas trying to figure exactly the implications of what Snake had said,\nsuddenly, with the speed of a bird's shadow, Snake leaped from his\nhiding place and landed on the shore end of the plank. He recovered from\nhis crouch, and rushed down the plank toward Jordde, apparently\nintending to knock him from the board.\n\nJordde raised the lash and it fell across the boy's shoulder. It didn't\nland hard; it just dropped. But Snake suddenly reeled, and went down on\none knee, grabbing the sides of the plank. Geo was close enough to hear\nthe boy scream.\n\n\"I cut your tongue out once with this thing,\" Jordde said, matter of\nfactly. \"Now I'm going to cut the rest of you to pieces.\" He adjusted a\ncontrol at his belt and raised the lash again.\n\nGeo leapt for the plank. He faced Jordde over the crouching boy, he\nwondered how wise it had been. Then he had to stop wondering and try to\nduck the falling lash. He couldn't.\n\nIt landed with only the weight of gravity, brushing his cheek, then\ndropping across his shoulder and down his back. He screamed; the whole\nside of his face seemed seared away, and an inch crevice burned into his\nshoulder and back the length it touched him. He bit into white fire,\ntrying not to leap aside into the foaming chasm between rocks and boat.\nAs the lash rasped over his shoulder, sweat flooded his eyes. His good\narm, which held the edge of the plank, was shaking like a plucked string\non a loose guitar. Snake lunged back against him, almost knocking him\nover. When Geo blinked the tears out of his eyes, he saw two bright\nwelts over Snake's shoulder. He also saw that Jordde had stepped out\nupon the plank and was smiling.\n\nWhen the line fell again, he wasn't sure just what happened. He leaned\nin one direction, and suddenly Snake was a dive of legs in the other.\nNow Snake was just four sets of fingers on the edge of the plank. Geo\nscreamed again and shook.\n\nTwo sets of fingers disappeared from one side of the board and\nreappeared on the other. As Jordde raised the lash a fourth time to rid\nthe plank of this last one-armed nuisance, the fingers worked rapidly\nforward toward Jordde's feet, until suddenly an arm raised from beneath\nthe plank, grabbed Jordde's foot, and tugged. The lash fell far from Geo\nwho was still trembling, trying to move backwards off the unsteady\nplank, and keep from vomiting at the same time.\n\nJordde tripped, but turned in time to grab the edge of the ship's gate\nand steady himself. At the same time, one leg, and then another, came up\nthe other side of the plank, and then Snake rolled to a crouching\nposition on the board's top.\n\nGeo got his feet under him now, and stumbled backwards, off the plank,\nand then sat down hard a few feet back on the rocks. He clutched his\ngood arm across his stomach, and without lowering his eyes, leaned\nforward to cool his back.\n\nJordde, half-seated on the board now, lashed the whip sideways. Snake\nleaped a foot from the plank as the line swung beneath his feet. All\nfour arms went spidering out to regain equilibrium. The whip struck the\nside of the boat, left a burn along the hull, and came swinging back\nagain. Snake leapt once more and made it.\n\nSuddenly there was a shadow over him, and Geo saw Urson stride up to the\nend of the plank. His back to Geo, he crouched bear-like at the plank's\nhead. \"All right, now try someone a little bigger than you. Come on,\nkid, get off there. I want my turn.\" Urson's sword was drawn.\n\nSnake turned, grabbed at something on Urson, but the big man knocked him\naway as he leapt diagonally onto the shore. Urson laughed over his\nshoulder. \"You don't want the ones around my neck,\" he called back.\n\"Here, keep these for me.\" He tossed the leather purse from his belt\nback to the shore. Snake landed just as Jordde flung the lash out again.\nUrson must have caught the line across his chest, because they saw his\nback suddenly stiffen. Then he leapt forward and came down with his\nsword so hard that had Jordde still been there, his leg would have come\noff. Jordde leapt back onto the edge of the ship, and the sword sliced\nthree inches into the plank. As Urson tried to pull the blade out once\nmore, Jordde sent his whip singing again. It wrapped Urson's mid-section\nlike a black serpent, and it didn't come loose.\n\nUrson howled. He flung his sword forward, which probably only by\naccident thwunked seventeen inches through Jordde's abdomen. He bent\nforward, grabbed the line with both hands, and tugged backwards,\nscreaming.\n\nJordde took two steps onto the plank, his mouth open, his eyes closed,\nand fell over the side.\n\nUrson heaved backwards, and toppled from the other side. For a moment\nthey hung with the whip between them over the board. The ship heaved,\nrolled to. The plank swiveled, came loose; and with the board on top of\nthem, they crashed into the water.\n\nGeo and Snake were at the rocks' edge. Iimmi and Argo were coming up\nbehind them.\n\nBelow them, limbs and board bobbed through the foam once. The line had\nsomehow looped around Urson's neck, and the plank had turned up almost\non end. Then they went under again.\n\nWith nothing between it and the rock wall of shore, the boat began to\nroll in. With each swell, it came in six feet, and then leaned out\nthree. Then it came back another six. It took four swells, the time of\nfour very deep breaths, until the side of the boat was grating up\nagainst the rocks. Geo could hear the plank splintering down in the\nwater. But the sound of the water blanketed anything else that was\nbreaking down there.\n\nGeo took two steps backwards, clutched at his stubbed arm, and threw up.\n\nSomebody, the captain, was calling, \"Get her away from the rocks. Away\nfrom the rocks, before she goes to pieces!\"\n\nIimmi took Geo's arm. \"Come on, boy,\" he said, and managed to haul him\nonto the ship. Argo and Snake leapt on behind them, as the boat\nfloundered away from the shore.\n\nGeo leaned against the rail. Below him the water turned on itself in the\nrocks, thrashed along the river's side, and then, as he raised his eyes,\nstretched out along the bright blade of the beach. The long sand that\nrimmed the island dropped away from them, a stately and austere arc\ngathering in its curve all the sun's glare, and throwing it back on\nwave, and on wave. His back hurt, his stomach was shriveled and shaken\nlike an old man's palsied fist, his arm was gone, and Urson....\n\nAnd then Argo said, \"Look at the beach!\"\n\nGeo flung his eyes up and tried in one moment to envelop whatever he\nsaw, whatever it would be. Beneath the roar was a tide of quiet. The\nsand along the naked crescent was dull at depressions, mirror bright at\nrises. At the jungle's edge, leaves and fronds sped multi-textured\nrippling along the foliage. Each single fragment in that green carpet\nhung up in the sun was one leaf, he reflected, with two sides, and an\nentire system of skeleton and veins, as his hand and arm had been. And\nmaybe one day would drop off, too. He looked from rock to rock now. Each\nwas different, shaped and lined distinctly, but losing detail as the\nship floated out, as the memory of his entire adventure was losing\ndetail. That one there was like a bull's head half submerged; those two\nflat ones together on the sand looked like the stretched wings of\neagles. The waves, measured and magnificent, followed one another onto\nthe sand, like the varying, never duplicated rhythm of a good poem,\npeaceful, ordered, and calm. He tried to pour the chaos of Urson\ndrowning from his mind onto the water. It flowed into each glass-green\nwave's trough in which it rode, suddenly quiet, up to the beach. He\nspread the pain in his own body over the web of foam and green\nshimmering, and was surprised because it fit easily, hung there well,\nquieted, very much quieted. Somewhere at the foot of his brain, an\nunderstanding was beginning to effloresce with the sea's water, under\nthe sun.\n\nGeo turned away from the rail, and with the wet deck slipping under his\nbare feet, he walked toward the forecastle. He released his broken limb,\nand his hand hung at his side.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Snake came down that evening, Geo was lying on his back in the\nbunk, following the grain of the wood on the bottom of the bed above\nhis. He had his good arm behind his neck now. Snake touched his\nshoulder.\n\n\"What is it?\" Geo asked, turning on his side and sitting out from under\nthe bunk.\n\nSnake held out the leather purse to Geo.\n\n\"Huh?\" Geo asked. \"Didn't you give them to Argo yet?\"\n\nSnake nodded.\n\n\"Well, why didn't she take them. Look, I don't want to see them again.\"\n\nSnake pushed the purse toward him again, and added, _Look_ ...\n\nGeo took the purse, opened the draw string, and turned the contents out\nin his hand: there were three chains, on each of which was a gold coin\nfastened by a hole near the edge. Geo frowned. \"How come these are in\nhere?\" he asked. \"I thought--where are the jewels?\"\n\n_In ... ocean_, Snake said. _Urson ... switched ... them._\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" demanded Geo. \"What is it?\"\n\n_Don't ... want ... tell ... you ..._\n\n\"I don't care what you want, you little thief.\" Geo grabbed him by the\nshoulder. \"Tell me!\"\n\n_Know ... from ... back ... with ... blind ... priestesses_, Snake\nexplained rapidly. _He ... ask ... me ... how ... to ... use ...\njewels.. when ... you ... and ... Iimmi ... exploring ... and ...\nafter ... that ... no ... listen ... to ... thoughts ... bad ...\nthoughts ... bad ..._\n\n\"But he--\" Geo started. \"He saved your life!\"\n\n_But ... what ... is ... reason_, Snake said. _At ... end ..._\n\n\"You saw his thoughts at the end?\" asked Geo. \"What did he think?\"\n\n_You ... sleep ... please_, Snake said. _Lot ... of ... hate ... lot ...\nof ... bad ... hate ..._ There was a pause in the voice in his head ...\n_and ... love ..._\n\nGeo began to cry. A bubble of sound in the back of his throat burst, and\nhe turned onto the pillow and tried to bite through the sound with his\nteeth, the tiredness, the fear, for Urson, for his arm, and the change\nwhich hurt. His whole body ached, his back hurt in two sharp lines, and\nhe couldn't stop crying.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIimmi, who had now decided to take the bunk above Geo, came back a few\nminutes after mess. Geo had just awakened.\n\nGeo laughed. \"I found out what it was we saw on the beach that made us\nso dangerous.\"\n\n\"How?\" asked Iimmi. \"When? What was it?\"\n\n\"Same time you did,\" Geo said. \"I just looked. And then Snake explained\nthe details of it to me later.\"\n\n\"When?\" Iimmi repeated.\n\n\"I just took a nap, and he went through the whole thing with me.\"\n\n\"Then what was it you saw, we saw?\"\n\n\"Well, first of all; do you remember what Jordde was before he was\nshipwrecked on Aptor?\"\n\n\"Didn't Argo say he was studying to be a priest. Old Argo, I mean.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Geo. \"Now, do you remember what my theory was about what\nwe saw?\"\n\n\"Did you have a theory?\" Iimmi asked.\n\n\"About horror and pain making you receptive to whatever it was.\"\n\n\"Oh, that,\" Iimmi said. \"I remember. Yes.\"\n\n\"I was also right about that. Now add to all this some theory from\nHama's lecture on the double impulse of life. It wasn't a thing we saw,\nit was a situation, or rather an experience we had. Also, it didn't have\nto be on the beach. It could have happened anywhere. Man, and his\nconstantly diametric motivations, is always trying to reconcile\nopposites. In fact, you can say that an action _is_ a reconciliation of\nthe duality of his motivation. Now, take all that we've been through,\nthe confusion, the pain, the disorder; then reconcile that with the\ngreat order obvious in something like the sea, with its rhythm, its\ntides and waves, its overpowering calm, or the ordering of cells in a\nleaf, or a constellation of stars. If you can do it, something happens\nto you: you grow. You become a bigger person, able to understand, or\nreconcile, more.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Iimmi.\n\n\"And that's what we saw, or the experience we had when we looked at the\nbeach from the ship this morning; chaos caught in order, the order\ndefining chaos.\"\n\n\"All right again,\" Iimmi said. \"And I'll even assume that Jordde knew\nthat the two impulses of this experience were one--something terrible\nand confused, like seeing ten men hacked to pieces by vampires, or\nseeing a film of a little boy getting his tongue pulled out, or coming\nthrough what we came through since we landed on Aptor; and\ntwo--something calm and ordered, like the beach and the sea. Now, why\nwould he want to kill someone simply because they might have gone\nthrough what amounts, I guess, to the basic religious experience?\"\n\n\"You picked just the right word,\" Geo smiled. \"Now, Jordde was a novice\nin the not too liberal religion of Argo. Jordde and Snake had been\nthrough nearly as much on Aptor as we had. And they survived. And they\nalso emerged from that jungle of horror onto that great arcing rhythm of\nwaves and sand. And they went through just what you and I and Argo went\nthrough. Little Argo, I mean. And it was just at that point when the\nblind priestesses of Argo made contact with Jordde. They did so by means\nof those vision screens we saw them with, which can receive sound and\npictures from just about any place, but can also project, at least\nsound, to just about anywhere too. In other words, right in the middle\nof this religious, or mystic, or whatever you want to call it,\nexperience, a voice materialized out of thin air that claimed to the\nvoice of The Goddess. Have you any idea what this did to his mind?\"\n\n\"I imagine it took all the real significance out of the whole thing,\"\nIimmi said. \"It would for me.\"\n\n\"It did,\" said Geo. \"Jordde wasn't what you'd call stable before that.\nIf anything, this made him more so. It also stopped his mental\nfunctioning from working in the normal way. And Snake who was reading\nhis mind at the time, suddenly saw himself watching the terrifying\nsealing up process of an active and competent, if not healthy, mind. He\nsaw it again in Urson. It's apparently a pretty stiff thing to watch.\nThat's why he stopped reading Urson's thoughts. The idea of stealing the\njewels for himself was slowly eating away Urson's balance, the\nunderstanding, the ability to reconcile disparities, like the incident\nwith the blue lizard, things like that, all of which were signs we\ndidn't get. Snake contacted Hama by telepathy, almost accidentally. And\nHama was something to hold onto for the boy.\"\n\n\"Still, why did Jordde want to kill anybody who had experienced this,\nvoice of God and all?\"\n\n\"Because Jordde had by now managed to do what a static mind always does.\nThe situation, the beach, the whole thing suddenly meant for him the\nrevelation of a concrete God. Now, he knew that Snake had contacted\nsomething also, something which the blind priestesses told him was\nthoroughly evil, an enemy, a devil. On the raft, on the boat, he\nreligiously tried to 'convert' Snake, till at last, in evangelical fury,\nhe cut the boy's tongue out with the electric generator and the hot wire\nwhich the blind priestesses had given him before he left. Why did he\nwant to get rid of anybody who had seen his beach, a sacred place to him\nby now? One, because the devils were too strong and he didn't want\nanybody else possessed by them; Snake had been too much trouble\nresisting conversion. And two, because he was jealous that someone else\nmight have that moment of exaltation and hear the voice of The Goddess\nalso.\"\n\n\"In other words,\" summarized Iimmi, \"he thought what happened to him and\nSnake was something supernatural, actually connected with the beach\nitself, and didn't want it to happen to anybody else.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Geo, lying back in his bunk. \"Which is sort of\nunderstandable. They didn't come in contact with any of the technology\nof Aptor, and so it might well have seemed that way.\"\n\nIimmi leaned back also. \"Yeah,\" he said. \"I can see how the same thing\nalmost--almost might have happened to me. If everything had been the\nsame.\"\n\nGeo closed his eyes. Snake came down and took the top bunk; and when he\nslept, Snake told him of Urson, of his last thoughts, and surprisingly,\nthings he mostly knew.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEmerging from the forecastle the next morning, he felt bright sunlight\nslice across his face. He had to squint, and when he did so, he saw her\nsitting cross-legged on the stretched canvas topping of a suspended\nlifeboat.\n\n\"Hi, up there,\" he called.\n\n\"Hello,\" she called down. \"How are you feeling?\"\n\nGeo shrugged.\n\nArgo slipped her feet over the gunwale and with paper bag in hand,\ndropped to the deck. She bobbed up next to his shoulder, grinned, and\nsaid, \"Hey, come on back with me. I want to show you something.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" He followed her.\n\nSuddenly she looked serious. \"Your arm is worrying you. Why?\"\n\nGeo shrugged. \"You don't feel like a whole person. I guess you're not\nreally a whole person.\"\n\n\"Don't be silly,\" said Argo. \"Besides, maybe Snake will let you have one\nof his. How are the medical facilities in Leptar?\"\n\n\"I don't think they're up to anything like that.\"\n\n\"We did grafting of limbs back in Aptor,\" Argo said. \"A most interesting\nway we got around the antibody problem, too. You see--\"\n\n\"But that was back in Aptor,\" Geo said. \"This is the real world we're\ngoing into now.\"\n\n\"Maybe I can get a doctor from the temple to come over,\" she shrugged.\n\"And then, maybe I won't be able to.\"\n\n\"It's a pleasant thought,\" Geo said.\n\nWhen they reached the back of the ship, Argo took out a contraption from\nthe paper bag. \"I salvaged this in my tunic. Hope I dried it off well\nenough last night.\"\n\n\"It's your motor,\" Geo said.\n\n\"Um-hm,\" said Argo. She put it on a low set of lockers by the cabin's\nback wall.\n\n\"How are you going to work it?\" he asked. \"It's got to have that stuff,\nelectricity.\"\n\n\"There is more than one way to shoe a centipede,\" Argo assured him. She\nreached behind the locker and pulled up a strange gizmo of glass and\nwire. \"I got the lens from Sis,\" she explained. \"She's awfully nice,\nreally. She says I can have my own laboratory all to myself. And I said\nshe could have all the politics, which I think was wise of me,\nconsidering. Don't you?\" She bent over the contraption. \"Now, this lens\nhere focuses the sunlight--isn't it a beautiful day--on these\nthermocouples. I got the extra metal from the ship's smith. He's sweet.\nHey, we're going to have to compare poems from now on. I mean I'm sure\nyou're going to write a whole handful about all of this. I certainly am.\nAnyway, you connect it up here.\"\n\nShe fastened two wires to two other wires, adjusted the lens, and the\ntips of the thermocouple glowed red. The armature tugged once around its\npivot, and then tugged around once more. Geo glanced up and saw Snake\nand Iimmi standing above them, looking over the rail on the cabin's\nroof. They grinned at each other, and then Geo looked back at the motor.\nIt whipped around steadily, gaining speed until it whirred into an\ninvisible copper haze. \"Look at that thing go,\" breathed Argo. \"Will you\njust look at that thing go!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nQUEST AMID FUTURITY'S RUINS\n\n\nWhat was the strange impetus that drove a group of four widely different\nhumans to embark on a fear-filled journey across a forbidden sea to a\nlegendary land?\n\nThis was Earth still, but the Earth of a future terribly changed after a\nplanet-searing disaster, a planet of weird cults, mutated beasts, and\npeople who were not always entirely human. As for the four who made up\nthat questing party, they included a woman who was either a goddess, a\nwitch, or both, a four-armed boy whose humanity was open to question,\nand two more men with equally \"wild\" talents.\n\nThe story of their voyage, of the power-wielding \"jewels\" they sought,\nof the atomic and post-atomic terrors they encountered, is a remarkable\nscience-fiction Odyssey of the days to come."