"You are not only a weakling but a coward, brother," Vala said. "Very well, I will be the first."
Stung, Ariston started towards the spinning hexagon but stopped when a few feet from it. He stared at it and continued to stand motionless while Vala jeered him. She shoved him to one side so hard he staggered and fell on the gray surface. Then she crouched before the golden cycler and studied it intently for several minutes. Suddenly, she launched herself forward and went through the opening headfirst. The gate whirled on around.
Ariston arose without looking at the others or replying to their taunts. He walked up to the gate, bent his knees, and dived through. And he came out on the other side and fell on the gray surface. Wolff, the first to him, turned him over.
Ariston's mouth hung open; his eyes were glazing; his skin was turning gray.
Wolff stood up and said, "He went through the wrong side. Now we know what kind of gate this is."
"That bitch Vala has all the luck!" Tharmas said. "Did you notice which side she went through?"
Wolff shook his head. He studied the frame in the pink dusk. There were no markings of any kind on either side to distinguish one from the other. He spoke to Luvah, and they picked up Ariston's body by the feet and shoulders. They swung it back and forth until, at Wolff's shout, they released the corpse at the height of its forward swing. It shot through the frame and came out on the other side and fell on the surface.
Wolff and Luvah went to the other side and once more swung his body and then cast it through the frame. This time it did not reappear. Wolff said to Rintrah, "Are you counting?"
Rintrah nodded his head. Wolff said, "Lift your finger, and when the right side comes around, point it. Do it swiftly!"
Rintrah waited until two more turns had been made, then stabbed his finger. Wolff hurled himself through the frame, hoping that Rintrah had not made a mistake. He landed on Ariston's body. There was the sound of sea and a red sky above. Vala was standing nearby and laughing softly as if she were actually enjoying their father's joke.
They were back on an island of the waterworld.
XIV
THE OTHER LORDS CAME THROUGH THE GATE ONE BY ONE, RINTRAH last. They did not look as downcast as might have been expected. At least, they were on familiar grounds, almost home, one might say. And, as Theotormon did say, they could eat all they wanted.
The gate through which they had entered was the right one of an enormous pair. Both stood on a low hill. The immediate terrain looked familiar. After the Lords had gone to the shore to quench their thirst, they cooked and ate the fish that Theotormon caught. They set up a guard-rotation system and slept. The next day, they explored.
There was no doubt that they were back on the great island the natives called the "Mother of Islands."
"Those gates are the same ones that started us off on the not-so-merry-go-round," Wolff said. "We went through the right-hand one. So, the left one may lead to Urizen's world."
Tharmas said, "Perhaps . . . well, this is not the most desirable of worlds. But it is better to enjoy life here than to die or live in pain in one of Urizen's cells. Why not forget that gate? There is food and water here and native women. Let Urizen sit in his seat of power forever and rot waiting for us to come to him."
"You forget that, without your drugs, you will get old and will die," Wolff said. "Do you want that? Moreover, there is no guarantee that Urizen will not come to us if we don't go to him. No, you may sit here in a lotus-eater's dream if you want, but I intend to keep fighting."
"You see, Tharmas," Vala said, smiling crookedly. "Jadawin has stronger reasons than we do. His woman-who is not a Lord, by the way, but an inferior breed from Earth-is a prisoner of Urizen's. He cannot rest while he knows she is in our father's hands."
"It's up to you to do what you want," Wolff said. "But I am my own master."
He studied the red heavens, the two huge-seeming planets that were in sight at this tune, and a tiny streak that could have been a black comet. He said, "Why go through the front door, where Urizen expects us? Why not sneak through the back door? Or, a better metaphor, through a window?"
In answer to their questions, he explained the idea that had come to him when he looked at the other planets and the comet. They replied that he was crazy. His concepts were too fantastic.
"Why not?" he said. "As I've said, everything we need can be gotten, even if we have to go through the gates again. And Appirmatzum is only twenty thousand miles away. Why can't we get there with the ship I proposed?"
"A balloon spacecraft?" Rintrah said. "Jadawin, your life on Earth has addled your wits!"
"I need the help of every one of you," Wolfi said. "It's an undertaking of large magnitude and complexity. It'll take tremendous labors and a long time. But it can be done."
Vala said, "Even if it can be accomplished, what's to prevent our father from detecting our craft as it comes through the space between this world and his?"
"We'll have to take the chance that he's not set up detectors for spacecraft. Why should he? The only entrance to this universe is through the gate that he made himself."
"But what if one of us is a traitor?" she said. "Have you thought that one of us may be in Urizen's service and so spying for him?"
"Of course I've considered that. So has every one else. However, I can't see a traitor putting himself through the extreme dangers that we just went through."
"And how do we know that Urizen is not seeing and hearing everything right now?" Theotormon said.
"We don't. That's another chance well have to take."
"It's better than doing nothing," Vala said.
There was much argument after that with all the Lords finally agreeing to help him in his plan. Even the objectors knew that if Wolff succeeded, those who refused to aid him would be marooned on this island. The thought that their brothers might be true Lords again while the objectors would be no better than the natives was too much for them.
The first thing Wolff did was to find out the temper of the neighboring natives. To his surprise, he found that they were not hostile. They had seen the Lords disappear into the gate and then come out again. Only the gods or demigods could do this; therefore, the Lords must be special-and dangerous-creatures. The natives were more than happy to cooperate with Wolff. Their religion, a debased form of the Lords' original religion, determined this decision. They believed in Los as the good God and in Urizen as the evil one, their version of Satan. Their prophets and medicine men maintained that some day the evil one, Urizen, would be overthrown. When that happened, they would all go to Alulos, their heaven.
Wolff did not try to set them straight on the facts. Let them believe what they wished as long as they helped him. He set everybody to work on the things that could be done immediately and with materials available on this world. Then, he went through the gate that led to the other planets. Luvah went with him. Both were buoyed up by gas-bladders strapped to their backs and armed with short spears and bows and arrows. Through gate after gate they traveled, searching for the things that Wolff needed. They knew what to expect and what dangers to avoid. Even so, the adventures they met on this trip and the many trips thereafter were enough to have filled several books. But there were no more casualties.
Later, Vala and Rintrah accompanied Wolff and Luvah. They brought back chunks of the vitreous stuff from the world of the skating and suction-pad animals. From the Weltthier, they brought back piles of bird-droppings. These, added to the store of their own and the natives' excrement, were to provide the sodium nitrate crystals in Wolff's plan.
The mercury was gotten from the natives, who had large supplies picked up from the island after the showers that came with the black comets. The mercury droplets were religious objects and were given to Wolff only after he argued that they were to be used against Urizen. He discovered that one of the plants on the island was a source of wood alcohol. Other plants could be burned to give the charcoal he needed. And the planet of the tempusfudgers furni
shed sulphur.
Wolff had to have a platinum catalyst in the making of nitric acid. While on the cylinders of the birling world, he had thought that the cylinders might be composed of platinum or of a platinum alloy. This metal had a melting point of 1773.5 Centigrade and was resistant to cutting. Wolff had no means to melt it in the birling world or any tools sharp enough to cut out chunks from a cylinder. Luvah pointed this out, to which Wolff replied that they would use Urizen's own devices for the job.
He took all the Lords with him, even though Theotormon and Tharmas strongly objected. They cornered the mobile twin gates and then pulled them to the edge of the cylinder. Here Theotormon found out why it was necessary for him to make the trip. His weight was needed to force the gates halfway down over the arc of the edge of the cylinder. The forces that kept the gates upright were strong but could not resist the combined weight and muscles of the Lords.
A portion of the arc went through one of the gates. Had the gate been held motionless, the piece of the cylinder would merely have projected through its matching gate on another cylinder. But when the gate was pulled sidewise along the edge, something had to give. The gate acted like a shears and cut off the part which went through the frame.
After setting the gate upright, the Lords went through it to the next cylinder, where they found a chunk of the platinum. And they used the next gate to cut the chunk into smaller pieces.
On the cylinder of the whirling death-gate, Wolff tested it with several stones. As soon as a stone disappeared, he marked the safe side with a dab of yellow paint brought from the waterworld. Thereafter, they had no trouble distinguishing the death-side from the safe side.
Wolff had the gates that could be moved in the various worlds transported to a more advantageous location.
The island on the waterworld became one vast forge of smoke and stink. The Lords and the natives complained mightily. Wolff listened, scoffed, laughed, or threatened, as the occasion demanded. He drove them on. Three hundred and sixty dark moons passed. The work was slow, disappointing many times, and often dangerous. Wolff and Luvah kept on making trips through the gates, bringing back from the still perilous circuit the materials they needed.
By this time the balloon spacecraft was half-built. When finished, it would ascend with the Lords until it rose above the atmosphere. Here the pseudogravity field weakened rapidly---if Theotormon was to be believed-and the craft would use the drag of the dark moon to pick up more speed. Then blackpowder rockets would give it more velocity. And steering would be done through small explosions of power or through release of gas-jets from bladders.
The gondola would be airtight. Wolff had not yet worked out the problem of air-renewal and circulation or the other problems brought on by nongravity. Actually, they should have a certain amount of gravity. They would not be getting into space as a rocket does, which attains escape velocity. Levitated by the expanding gas in the lift-bladders, they would rise until the atmosphere gave out. Once past the atmosphere, the craft would lose its buoyancy, and would have to depend upon the pull of the moon and the weak reaction of wooden-cased rockets to give them thrust enough to escape the waterworld's grip.
Moreover, if they did pull loose from the waterworld, they would be in danger of being seized by the field of the moon.
"There's no way of determining the proper escape path and necessary vectors by mathematics," Wolff said to Luvah. "We'll just have to play it by ear."
"Let's hope we're not tone-deaf," Luvah said. "Do you think we really have a chance?"
"With what I have in mind, I think there is," Wolff replied. "Just now, today, I want to think of other things. There are the spacesuits to work on for instance. We'll have to wear them while in the gondola, since we can't rely on the gondola being too airtight."
The fulminate of mercury for the explosive caps was made. This was a dark-brown powder formed by reaction of mercury, alcohol, and concentrated nitric acid.
The nitric acid, which oxidized sulfur to sulfuric acid, was obtained through a series of steps. The sodium nitrate, gotten by crystallization from the bird droppings and human excrement, was heated with sulfuric acid. (The sulfuric acid was derived by burning sulfur with saltpeter, that is, potassium or sodium nitrate.)
Free nitrogen of the air was "fixed" by combining it with hydrogen (from the gas bladders) to form ammonia. The ammonia was mixed with oxygen (from an oxygen-producing bladder) at the correct temperature. The mixture was passed over a fine wire gauge made from smooth compact platinum to catalyze for catalysis.
The resulting nitrogen oxides were absorbed in water; the dilute acid was gotten by concentration through distillation.
The materials for the furnaces and containers and pipes were furnished by the vitreous stuff from the planet of skaters.
Black gunpowder was made from charcoal, sulfur, and the saltpeter.
Wolff also succeeded in making ammonium nitrate, a blasting powder of considerable power.
One day Vala said, "Don't you think that you're making far too many explosives? We can't take more than a fraction on the ship. Otherwise, the ship'll never get off the ground."
"That's true," he replied. "Maybe you were also wondering why I've stocked the explosives at widely separated locations. That's because gunpowder is unstable. If one pile goes up, the others won't be affected."
Some of the Lords paled. Rintrah said, "You mean the explosives we'll be taking on the ship could go off at any time?"
"Yes. That's one more chance we'll be taking. None of this is easy or safe, you know. But I'd like to add a possibly cheering note. It is ironic and laughable, if we succeed, that Urizen himself has supplied the materials for his own undoing. He has furnished us with the basic weapons which might overthrow his supertechnology."
"If we live, we'll laugh," Rintrah said. "I think, however, that Urizen will be the laugher."
"Old Earth proverb: We'll at least give him a run for his money. Another proverb: He who laughs last laughs best."
That night Wolff went to Luvah's hut. Luvah woke up swiftly on feeling Wolffs hand on his shoulder. He started to draw the knife made of flint from the tempusfudger planet. Wolff said, "I'm here to talk, not kill. Luvah, you are the only one I can trust to help me. And I need help."
"I am honored, brother. You are by far the best man among us. And I know that you are not about to propose treachery."
"Part of what I plan may seem at first to be treachery. But it is necessary. Listen carefully, young brother."
Within the hour, they left the hut. Carrying digging and hacking tools, they went to the hill on which stood the twin gates. Here they were met by twenty natives, all of whom Wolff was sure he could trust. They began cutting and digging through the tangle of decayed vegetation and bladder roots that formed the island. All worked swiftly and hard, so that by the time the moon had passed and taken night with it, they had completed a trench around the hill. They kept on working until there was only a few inches of roots to go before coming to the water level. Then the natives placed ammonium nitrate and fulminate caps in the trench. When this was done, they threw in the chopped up roots and dirt and made an attempt to cover the signs of excavation.
"Anybody can see at a glance that digging has been done here," Wolff said. "I'm banking on nobody coming here, however. I told all of you that today would be a rest day so that you wouldn't rise until late."
He looked at the gates. "Now you and I must travel the circuit again. And we must do it swiftly."
When they came to the planet of the tempusfudgers, Wolff gave Luvah one of his blowguns. This was made of the hollow bamboo-like plants that grew on the mother-island. The natives used them to shoot darts tipped with a stupefacient made from a certain species of fish. They hunted the birds and the rats on the island with these.
Wolff and Luvah went into a canyon and there knocked out five of the fudgers. Wolff searched until he found the entrance to a burrow in which chronowolves lived. He placed the end of the blowgun in
side the burrow and expelled the dart. After waiting a minute, he reached in and dragged out a sleeping wolf.
The animals, still unconscious, were cast into the gate that would open into Urizen's world. Or it should lead there. It was possible that both gates merely led to the next secondary planet, as the gates on the birling world had.
"I hope the little animals will trigger off Urizen's alarms," Wolff said. "The alarms will keep him busy for a while. There's also the possibility that the fudgers' and wolf's time-leaping and duplicating abilities will enable them to survive for a while. They may even multiply and spread through the palace and set off any number of traps and alarms. Urizen won't know what the hell's going on. And he’ll be diverted from the gate through which he expected us to come."
"You don't know that," Luvah said. "Both these gates here, and both those on the waterworld, may just lead to another secondary."