Finally Amra interrupted him.
"What is the matter, Alan? Have you been bitten by the Green Bird of Happiness, which sometimes flies over these plains? Or has the White Bird of Terror nipped you while you slept last night upon the open deck?"
Green paused and looked steadily at her. Could he tell her the truth, now he was so near salvation? It was not that he was worried about her or the others stopping him from making contact with the expedition. Nothing could stop him now, he was sure of that.
It was just that he hesitated to tell her that he would be leaving her. The idea of hurting her was agony to him.
He started to speak in English, caught himself, and switched to her language. "Those vessels-- they have brought my people from across the space between the stars. I came to this world in just such a vessel, a spaceroller, you might say. My ship crashed, and I was forced to descend upon this-- your-- world. Then, I heard that another ship had landed near Estorya and that King Raussmig had put the crew in prison and was going to sacrifice them during the Festival of the Sun's Eye. I had little time to get to Estorya before that happened, so I talked Miran into taking me. That was why I left you, that..."
He trailed off because he did not understand the expression upon her face. It was not the great hurt he'd expected, nor the wild fury he thought might result from his explanation. If anything, she looked pitying.
"Why, Alan, whatever are you talking about?"
He pointed at the line of spaceships.
"They're from Terra, my home planet."
"I don't understand what you mean by your home planet," she replied still pityingly. "But those are not spaceships. Those are the towers built by the Estoryans a thousand years ago."
"Wha-what do you mean?"
Stunned, he looked at them again. If those weren't star-ships he'd eat the yacht's canvas. Yes, and the wheels, too.
Under the swift wind, the 'roller swept closer and closer while he stood behind Amra and thought that he'd break into little pieces if his tension didn't find some release.
Finally it did find an outlet. Tears welled in his eyes, and he choked. His breast seemed as if it would swell up and burst.
How cleverly the ancient builders had fashioned those towers! The landing struts, the big fins, the long sweeping lines ending in the pointed nose, all must have been built with a spaceship as a model. There was no escaping such a conclusion; coincidence couldn't explain it.
Amra said, "Don't cry, Alan. Your people will think you weak. Captains don't weep."
"This captain does," he replied, and he turned and walked the length of the yacht to the stern and leaned over the taffrail where no one could see him as he shook with sobs.
Presently he felt a hand upon his.
"Alan," she said gently. "Tell me the truth. If those had been ships on which you could leave this world and travel into the skies, would you have taken me along? Were you still thinking that I was not-- not good enough for you?"
"Let's not talk about it now," he said. "I can't. Besides, there are too many people listening. Later, when everybody's asleep."
"All right, Alan."
She released his hand and left him alone, knowing that that was what he wanted. Mentally, he thanked her for it, because he knew what it was costing her to exercise restraint. At any other time, in a like situation, she would have thrown something at him.
After he had calmed down somewhat he returned to the helm and took over from Miran. From then on he was too busy to think much about his disappointment. He had to report to the port officer and tell his story, which took hours, for the officer called in the others to hear his amazing tale. And they questioned Miran and Amra. Green anxiously listened to the merchant's account, fearful that the fellow would disclose his suspicions that Green was not what he claimed to be. If Miran had any such intentions, however, he was saving them for their arrival in Estorya itself.
The officers all agreed that they had heard many wonderful stories from sailors but never anything to match this. They insisted upon giving a banquet for Miran and Green. The result was that Green got a much-needed and desired bath, hair cut and shave. But he also had to endure a long feast in which he had to stuff himself to keep from offending his hosts and also was forced to enter a drinking contest with some of the younger blades of the post. His Vigilante could handle enormous amounts of food and alcohol, so that Green appeared to the soldiers to be something of a superman. At midnight the last officer had dropped his head upon the table, dead drunk, and Green was able to get up and go to his yacht.
Unfortunately he had to carry the fat merchant out on his shoulders. Outside the banquet room he found a few rickshaw boys standing around a fire, huddled together, waiting for a customer so drunk he wouldn't fear thieves or ghosts. He gave one of them a coin and told him to deliver Miran to the yacht.
"What about yourself, honored sir? Don't you wish to ride home, too?"
"Later," said Green, looking up past the fort and at the hills behind it. "I intend to take a walk to clear my head."
Before the rickshaw men could question him further he plunged into the darkness and began striding swiftly toward the highest peak upon the island.
Two hours later he suddenly appeared in the moonlight-drenched windbreak, walked past the many vessels tied down for the night and crawled aboard his own yacht. A glance around the deck convinced him that everybody was sleeping. He stepped softly past the prostrate forms and lay down by Amra. Face up, his hands behind his head, he stared at the moon, a thoughtful expression upon his face.
Amra whispered, "Alan, I thought you were going to talk to me tonight."
He stiffened but did not turn his head to look at her.
"I was, but the officers kept us up late. Didn't Miran get here?"
"Yes, about five minutes before you did."
He rose on one elbow and looked searchingly at her. "What?"
"Is there anything strange about that?"
"Only that he was so drunk he'd passed out and was snoring like a pig. The fat son of an izzot! He must have been faking! And he must have..."
"Must have what?"
Green shrugged. "I don't know."
He couldn't tell her that Miran must have followed him up into the hills. And that if he had the fellow must have seen some very disturbing things.
He stood up and gazed intently at the dark forms stretched out here and there. Miran was sleeping upon a blanket behind the helm. Or was pretending to do so.
Should he kill him? If Miran turned him in to the authorities in Estorya...
He sat down again and fingered his dagger.
Amra must have guessed his thoughts, for she said, "Why do you want to kill him?"
"You know why. Because he could have me burned."
She sucked her breath in with a hiss.
"Alan, it can't be true! You can't be a demon!"
To him the accusation was so ridiculous that he didn't bother to answer. He should have known better, because he was well aware of how seriously these people took such things. However, he was thinking so furiously about what he could do to forestall Miran, that he completely forgot about her. Not until he heard her muffled sobs did he come out of his reverie. Surprised, he said, "Don't worry. They're not going to burn me."
"No, they're not," she said, choking on every other word. "I don't care if you are a demon. I love you, and I'd go to hell for you or with you!"
It took him a few seconds to understand that she did believe he was a demon and that it made no difference to her. Or, rather, she was determined to ignore the difference. What a sacrifice of her natural feelings she must have made for him! She, like everybody upon this world, had been trained from childhood to develop a fierce disgust and horror of devils and to be always upon her guard for them when they appeared in human form. What an abyss she had to cross in order to conquer her deep revulsion! In a way, her feat was greater than crossing the chasm between the stars.
"Amra," he said, deeply
touched, and he bent down to kiss her.
To his surprise she turned her face away.
"You know my lips don't belch fire, like the devils' in the legends," he said, half-jestingly, half-pityingly. "Nor will I suck your soul into my mouth."
"You have already done that," she said, still not facing him.
"Oh, Amra!"
"Yes, you have! Else why should I follow you when you deserted me to run away on the Bird? And why should I still want to follow you, to be with you, even if those towers had turned out to be your what-do-you-call-'em? and you had sailed away into the skies on them? Why would any decent human woman want to do that? Tell me!"
She, too, rose on an elbow, her face now turned to him. He scarcely recognized her, her features were so twisted and her skin was so livid.
"A hundred times during this voyage I've wished you would die. Why? Because then I wouldn't have to think about the time to come when you would leave this world forever, leave me forever! But when you were in danger, then I almost died, too, and I knew I didn't really wish your death. It was just wounded pride on my part. And I couldn't face the moment of your departure! Or the fact that you must come from a superior race, a people more like gods than demons!
"Oh, I didn't know what to think! Whether you were a devil, or a god, or just a man who was somehow more of a man than any I knew. I could ignore such things as your wounds healing up faster than they should and scar tissues disappearing. But I couldn't ignore your knowledge that Aga would be killed if she touched that wall in the room on the cannibals' island. Nor the fact that your teeth grew back in after they were knocked out during the escape from the island. Nor your too obvious interest in those two demons held prisoner in Estorya. Or..."
"Not so loud, Amra," he interrupted. "You'll wake everybody up."
"All right, all right. Better to keep quiet and pretend to be stupid. But I can't, I'm not built that way. So... what are you going to do, Alan?"
"Do? Do?" he repeated miserably. "Why, somehow or other I'm going to free those two poor devils and escape in their spaceship."
"Devils? Then they are demons!"
"Oh, no, that was just a manner of speaking. I said poor devils because of what they must have gone through in that barbarous prison. They might as well have been in the hands of the cannibals as at the mercy of the priests of this wretched planet."
"Yes, that's what you really think of us, isn't it? That we're all murderous, dirty and stinking savages."
"Oh, not all of you," he replied. "You're not, Amra. By any standards, you're a wonderful woman."
"Then why can't..?"
She bit her lip and turned away from him. She would not humble herself by asking him to take her with him. It was up to him to make the offer.
Green did not know what to say, though he knew that it was necessary to say something at once.
He just could not make up his mind as to how she would fit into Earth civilization.
How could he teach her that if somebody whom you didn't like differed with you, you just didn't try to tear them apart? Or that if the person you hated was too powerful for you to settle matters with personally you didn't resort to professional assassins?
How could he teach her to love the same things he did, the music and literature of his own culture? Her roots were in an entirely different culture. She couldn't possibly understand what he understood, thrill to that which thrilled him, catch the subtleties that he caught, see what lay behind the nuances of his civilization. She'd be a stranger in a world not made for her.
Of course, he thought, there were plenty of women upon Earth and her star-colonies who didn't share his culture, even if they'd been brought up in it. But their case was simply a matter of taste. And they could still share a certain amount with him, just because they'd breathed the same atmosphere and talked the same words as he. Not that he would have cared to live with them, because he wouldn't. But Amra, desirable in so many ways, just would not understand what was taking place around her or in the minds of those she would have to live with.
He looked down at Amra. Her back was turned, and she seemed to be breathing the easy breath of deep sleep. Though he doubted very much that she could be sleeping, he decided to accept things as they looked. He wouldn't answer her now, though he knew that when morning came her eyes would be asking the same question, even if she didn't voice it.
At least, he thought, she'd been diverted from her curiosity about what he'd been doing that night. That was something. He didn't want anybody to know about that. Not until the time for action came!
Provided, that is, that he could do anything even then. He'd discovered certain things tonight that could mean his salvation if he could utilize them.
That was the rub, as some poet or other had once said.
Wondering just who had originated that saying, he fell asleep. Woolgathering had always been a favorite occupation of his when people left him alone to do it. That was the rub. They didn't.
25
SHORTLY AFTER DAWN the yacht set sail and sped toward Estorya, a hundred miles west. The breeze was a strong thirty-five miles an hour, precursor of the violent winds that roared across the Xurdimur during the rainy season. Green set every inch of sail he had and took over the helm himself. Steering was not as simple as it had been, for traffic was getting heavy. In an hour he saw no less than forty 'rollers, ranging in size from small merchants not much larger than his own craft to tremendous three-decker 'rollers-of-the-line from far-off Batrim, convoying even larger merchant vessels, high-pooped and richly decorated. Then, as they came to within fifty miles of their destination, small pleasure yachts appeared in increasing numbers. And by the time they saw the white rocket-shaped towers that stretched from horizon to horizon, Green was sweating at the manner in which craft were shooting back and forth in front of him.
Miran said, "The entire nation is surrounded by these white towers and by many fortresses interspersed between them. Inside the great circle of towers the Estoryans have many rich farms on the plains. The city proper, however, is built on three roaming islands that were captured by their magic many centuries ago."
Green raised his eyebrows at this information. "Indeed? And where is the vessel that brought the two demons down from the skies?"
Miran locked blankly at the Earthman, though he knew well enough that he was keenly interested in the so-called demons.
"Oh, it is located close to the palace of the king himself, but not on the hills. It landed on the plain."
"Hmm. And the strangers will be burned during the Festival of the Eye of the Sun?"
"If they have lived, they will be."
Green didn't like to think about their dying. If they had, then his problem was solved. He stayed upon this planet and did the best he could here.
There was one thing he had to admit. That was that having Amra as his wife made such an event not so calamitous as it might have been. She'd keep him so interested that time would pass swiftly, even on this barbarous place.
In that case, he thought, why was he hesitating about taking her to Earth, if he got the chance? No matter where he was she'd see that life was a whirlpool of action. And she'd only begun to disclose the deeps within her. Give her an education, and what a creature might evolve!
What's the matter with you, Green? he said to himself. Don't you know your own mind? Are you so capable at handling physical events but a complete muckup when it comes to psychical? Why..?
"Look out!" cried Miran, and Green threw the helm hard aport to avoid crashing into a small freighter. The captain, standing on the foredeck behind his own helmsman, leaned over the rail and shook his fist at Green and cursed. Green cursed back but after that he didn't allow himself to begin thinking about Amra until he had steered the 'roller into the 'break.
The rest of the day he was busy getting cleared with the port authorities. Fortunately he had a letter from the officer of the island-fortress. It explained why he happened to be in possession of a foreign
craft and also recommended that Green be given a chance to sign up in the Estoryan 'roller-fleet if he wished. Even so, he had to tell his story so many times to an admiring and amazingly credulous audience that it was dusk before he could get free. Outside the customs building he found Grizquetr waiting for him.
"Where's your mother?" he asked.
n=justify class="i"> "Oh, she knew you'd be tied up for a long time, so she went ahead and got a room in an inn. They're very hard to get during the Festival, almost impossible. But you know Mother," said Grizquetr, winking. "She gets what she goes after, every time."
"Yes, I'm afraid so. Well, where's this inn?"
"It's clear across town, but it's within sight of the wall that's built around the demons' skyship."
"Wonderful! Rooms must be twice as difficult to get there as on the edge of town. How did Amra do it?"
"She gave the innkeeper three times his asking price, which was high enough. And he found a pretext to quarrel with a man who had long ago reserved a room, threw him out and gave it to us!"
"Ah? And where did she get this money?"
"She sold a ruby to a jeweler who kept shop close to the 'break. He's sort of shady, I guess, and he didn't give Mother what the ruby was worth."
"Now, where would she get a ruby or any kind of jewel?"
Grizquetr grinned crookedly but delightedly. "Oh, I imagine that a certain fat one-eyed merchant-captain who shall remain nameless must have had one or two rubies within that bag he keeps inside his shirt."
"Yes, I can imagine. The question that alarms me is how did she get it off Miran? He'd sooner lose a quart of blood than one of his precious jewels. And he'd notice its loss quicker than he would the blood."
Grizquetr looked thoughtful. "I really don't know. Mother didn't say,"
He brightened with a smile and said, "But I'd like to know how she did it! Maybe she'll teach me some day."
"She seems to have a lot to teach both of us," said Green.
He sighed. "Well, I'm eternally indebted to her. No getting out of it. Let's call a rickshaw and see what kind of a place she has selected."