The Jewels of Aptor Part 34

"The knowledge which man needs to alleviate hunger and pain from the world of men is contained in two monasteries on this island. Both have the science to put the jewels to use, to the good use which is possible with them. Both have been infected. In Leptar, however, where you carry these jewels, there is no way at all to utilize them for anything but evil. There will only be the temptation to destroy."

"What about me?" Argo suddenly piped up. "I can teach them all sorts of things in Leptar." She took one of Snake's hands. "We used one for our motor."

"You will find something else to make your motor turn," came the voice.

"You still have to see something that you have not yet seen?"

"At the beach?" demanded Iimmi.

"Yes," nodded the Old One, with something like a sigh, "at the beach. We have a science that allows us to do things which to you seem impossibilities, as when we carried you in the sea for weeks without your body decaying. We can enter your mind as Snake does. And we can do much else. We have a wisdom which far surpa.s.ses even Argo's and Hama's on Aptor. Will you then cast the jewels into the sea and trust them with us?"

Here Urson interrupted. "How can we give you the jewels?" he said. "How can we be sure you're not going to use them against Argo and Hama once you get them. You say n.o.body is impervious to them. And we've only got your say so on how long it would take you to fall victim. You can already influence minds. That's how you got us here. And according to Hama, that's what corrupts. And you've already done it."

"Besides," Geo said. "There's something else. We've nearly messed this thing up a dozen times trying to figure out motives and counter motives.

And it always comes back to the same thing: we've got a job to do, and we ought to do it. We're suppose to return Argo and the jewels to the s.h.i.+p, and that's what we're doing."

"He's right," said Iimmi. "It's the general rule again. Act on the simplest theory that holds all the information."

The Old One sighed again. "Once, fifteen hundred years ago, a man who was to maneuver one of the metal birds walked and pondered by the sea.

He had been given a job to do. We tried to warn him, as we tried to warn you. But he jammed his hands into the pockets of his khaki uniform, and uttered to the waves the words you just uttered, and the warning was shut out of his mind. He scrambled up over the dunes on the beach, never taking his hands out of his pockets. The next morning, at five o'clock, when the sun slanted red across the air field, he climbed into his metal bird, took off, flew for some time over the sea, looking down on the water like crinkled foil under the heightening sun, until he reached land again. Then he did his job: he pressed a b.u.t.ton which released two shards of fire metal in a housing of cobalt. The land flamed. The sea boiled in the harbors. And two weeks later he was also dead. That which burned your arm away, poet, burned away his whole face, boiled his lungs in his chest and his brain in his skull."

There was a pause. And then, "Yes, we can control minds. We could have relieved the tiredness, immobilized the fear, the terror, immobilized all his unconscious reasons for doing what he did, just as man can now do with the jewels. But had we, we would have also immobilized the--the honor which he clung to. Yes, we can control minds, but we do not." Now the voice swelled. "But never, since that day on the sh.o.r.e before the Great Fire, has the temptation to do so been as great as now." Again the voice returned to normal. "Perhaps," and there was almost humor in it now, "the temptation is too great, even for us. Perhaps we have reached the place where the jewels would push us just across the line where we have never before gone, make us do those things that we have never done.

You have heard our warning now. The choice, I swear to you, is yours."

They stood silent in the high cave, the fire on their faces weaving brightness and shadow. Geo turned to look at the rain-blurred darkness outside the cave's entrance.

"Out there is the sea," said the voice again. "Your decision quickly.

The tide is coming in...."

It was s.n.a.t.c.hed from their minds before they could articulate it. Two children saw a bright motor turning in the shadow. Geo and Iimmi saw the temples of Argo in Leptar. Then there was something darker. And for a moment, they all saw all the pictures at once.

A wave splashed across the floor, like twisted gla.s.s before the rock on which the fire stood. Then it flopped wetly across the burning driftwood which hissed into darkness. Charred sticks turned, glowing in the water, and were extinguished.

Rain was buffeting them; hands held them once more, pulling them into the warm sea, the darkness, and then nothing....

Snake was thinking again, and this time through the captain's eyes.

_The cabin door burst open in the rain. Wind whipped her wet veils about her in the door as lightning made them transparent, blackening her body's outline. Jordde rose from his seat. She closed the door on thunder._

_"I have received the signal from the sea," she said. "Tomorrow you pilot the s.h.i.+p into the estuary."_

_The captain's voice: "But Priestess Argo, I cannot take the s.h.i.+p into Aptor. We already have lost ten men; I cannot sacrifice ..."_

_"And the storm," smiled Jordde. "If it is like this tomorrow, how can I take her through the rocks?"_

_Her nostrils flared as her lips compressed to a chalky line. She was regarding Jordde._

_The captain's thoughts: What is between them, this confused tension. It upsets me deeply, and I am tired._

_"You will pilot the boat to sh.o.r.e tomorrow," Argo nearly hissed. "They have returned, with the jewels!"_

_The captain's thoughts: They speak to each other in a code I don't understand. I am so tired, now. I have to protect my s.h.i.+p, my men, that is my job, my responsibility._

_But Argo turned to the captain. "I hired you to obey me. I order you to pilot this s.h.i.+p to Aptor's sh.o.r.e tomorrow morning."_

_The captain's thoughts; Yes, yes. The fatigue and the unknowing. But I must fulfill, must complete. "Jordde," he began._

_"Yes, captain," answered the mate, antic.i.p.ating. "If the weather is permitting, sir, I will take the s.h.i.+p as close as I can get." He smiled now, a thin curve over his face, and turned toward Argo._

CHAPTER XII

Roughness of sand beneath one of his sides, and the flare of the sun on the other. His eyes were hot and his lids were orange over them. He turned over, and reached out to dig his fingers into the sand. Only one hand closed; then he remembered. Opening his eyes, he rolled to his knees. The sand grated under his knee caps. Looking out toward the water, he saw that the sun hung only seeming inches above the horizon.

Then he saw the s.h.i.+p.

From its course, he gathered it was heading toward the estuary of the river down the beach. He began to run toward where the rocks and vegetation cut off the end of the beach. The sand under his feet was cool.

A moment later he saw Iimmi's dark figure come from the jungle. He was heading for the same place. Geo hailed him, and panting, they joined each other. Then, together they continued toward the rocks.

As they broke through the first sheet of foliage, they b.u.mped into the red-haired girl who stood, knuckling her eyes in the shadow of the broad palm fronds. When she recognized them, she joined them silently. Finally they reached the outcropping of rock a few hundred feet up the river bank.

The rain had swelled the river's mouth to tremendous violence. It vomited surges of brown water into the ocean, frothed against rocks, and boiled opaquely below them. It was nearly half again as wide as Geo remembered it.

Although the sky was clear, beyond the brown bile of the river, the sea snarled viciously and bared white teeth in the sun. It took another fifteen minutes for the boat to maneuver through the granite spikes toward the rocky embankment a hundred yards away.

Glancing down into the turbulence, Argo breathed, "Gee." But that was the only human sound against the water's roaring.

The boat's prow doffed in the swell, and then at last her plank swung out and b.u.mped unsteadily on the rocky bank. Figures were gathering on deck.

"Hey," Argo said, pointing toward one. "That's Sis!"

"Where the h.e.l.l are Snake and Urson?" Iimmi asked.

"That's Snake down there," Geo said. "Look!" He pointed with his nub.

They could see Snake crouched near the gangplank itself. He was behind a ledge of rock, invisible to the people on the s.h.i.+p, apparently, but plain to Geo and his companions.

"Watch it," Geo said. "I'm going down there. You stay here." He ducked off through the vines, keeping in sight of the rocks' edge and the boiling foam. The s.h.i.+p grew before him, and at last he reached a sheltered rise, just ten feet above the nest of rock in which the four-armed boy was crouching.

Geo looked out at the boat. Jordde stood at the head of the gangplank.

The eighteen feet of board was unsteady with the roll of the s.h.i.+p.

Jordde held something like a black whip in his hand, only the end went to a box-like contraption strapped to his back. With the lash raised, he stepped onto the s.h.i.+fting plank.

Geo wondered what the whip contrivance was. The answer came with the hollow sound of Snake's thoughts. _That ... is ... machine ... he ...

use ... to ... cut ... tongue ... with ... only ... on ... whip ...

now ... not ... wire ..._ So Snake knew he was just behind him. As he was trying to figure exactly the implications of what Snake had said, suddenly, with the speed of a bird's shadow, Snake leaped from his hiding place and landed on the sh.o.r.e end of the plank. He recovered from his crouch, and rushed down the plank toward Jordde, apparently intending to knock him from the board.