The Dark Design

They waited, some of them sweating despite the damp, cold air. The guards exchanged some words, somebody must have cracked a joke, judging by their laughter, then the relieved men said good night. The torches showed that two were going to homes in the forward part. The other two went in the opposite direction, causing a swift retreat by the invaders.

  Burton, watching from the corner said, “Those two are separating, Kazz, do you think you could get one of them?”

  “No sweat, Burton-naq,” Kazz said, and he was gone.

  Both the torches were almost out of sight when Burton saw one of them drop. A minute later it lifted, becoming more bright as it approached them.

  By then, Burton had moved the group from the side to the back of the building. He did not want a guard to walk past the front and see the torch.

  Kazz had thrown his hood back. His big, blocklike teeth gleamed in the light of the flames. In one hand he held the heavy oak spear tipped with a long hornfish horn which he had taken from the guard. His belt held a chert knife set in a heavy wooden handle and a flint-headed axe. These he passed out to Frigate and Alice. His club went to the Arcturan.

  “I hope you didn’t kill him,” Monat whispered.

  “That depends on how thick his skull is,” Kazz said.

  Monat grimaced. He had an almost pathological abhorrence of violence, though he could be an effective fighter in self-defense.

  “Will your leg handicap you?” Burton said. “Think you can throw that axe as effectively as usual?”

  “I think so,” Frigate said. He was shaking now, though he would be steady when the fighting started. Like the Arcturan, he dreaded physical conflict.

  Burton told them what to do, then he led Kazz and Alice around one side toward the front. The others went around the opposite corner.

  Burton peered around the corner. The four guards were standing close together, facing each other, and talking. A moment later, a torchlight appeared around the corner. The guards did not see it until it was close. As soon as Burton saw them turn toward it, calling a challenge, he moved out.

  Kazz, his features shrouded by his hood, got near to them before he was required to stop. Probably, the guards thought that he was one of the relieved men, returned for some reason.

  By the time the mistake was discovered, it was too late for them. Kazz grasped his spear just behind its head, and, using it as a quarterstaff, struck its butt against the side of a guard’s neck.

  Burton, holding his knife in his left hand, chopped the edge of his right against the back of the neck of another man. He had no wish to kill, and he had ordered the bloodthirsty Kazz to avoid using the spearhead if he could do so.

  Frigate’s axe whirled out of the grayness and caught a third in the chest. It was thrown not quite accurately enough, or perhaps Frigate was trying not to kill. In which case, his axe-throwing was superb. The blunt forefront, not the cutting edge, struck, and the man fell back, the wind knocked out of him. Before he could recover it, he was knocked out by Burton’s savage kick to the side of his head.

  At the same time as the others, Monat struck, and the fourth crumpled from a blow on the head.

  There was silence for a moment as they waited to find out if anyone had heard the fight. Then they picked up the torches from the deck, and Burton unbarred the door. The fallen were dragged inside, where Monat examined them.

  “Very good. They’re all alive.”

  “Some of them’ll be coming to soon,” Burton said. “Watch them, Kazz.”

  He held a torch above the free-grail rack. “We’re beggars no longer.”

  He hesitated. Should just seven grails be taken? Why not all thirty? The extras could be used to trade for wood and sails for the new boat to be built.

  Honor Not Honors was his motto, but this was a matter of recompense, not thievery.

  He gave the order, and each took five grails. They put the wide handle of one grail over their head, letting it hang behind them by the neck and thrust each arm through the handles of two grails. Then they left the building, barred the door, and followed the leather cord to the canoe. The torches were left upon the deck outside the storehouse.

  Loghu said, “Isn’t it about time the Indians attacked?”

  “Past time, I would say,” Monat replied.

  The canoe loaded, they paddled away. Their destination was the south bank, which they intended to follow upRiver until just before dawn. Burton was worried about the extra grails. If the local authorities saw them, they might seize them. Even if they didn’t, greedy individuals would try to steal them.

  There was only one way to hide them. The extras were filled with water. Sections of leather line were cut, and one end of each was tied to a handle. The other end was tied to the upper part of the canoe framework through a hole punched in the skin.

  The drag on the canoe was heavy, but fortunately they were very close to the bank. They stopped at a dock complex near a grailstone and tied the canoe to a piling under a dock.

  They sat down under the stone and waited. Dawn and hundreds of citizens came. Burton’s group introduced itself and requested permission to use the stone. This was given gladly, since the south-bank locals were peaceful. In fact, they welcomed strangers, a source of news and gossip.

  The fog burned away. Burton got on top of the stone and looked toward the spire. Its base was about 2.5 nautical miles distant, which, from his altitude, put the horizon 4 miles away. He could see the larger buildings and the idol but the flames he had expected to be rising from them were nonexistent. Perhaps the Shaawanwaaki had not set them afire. After all, they might have wanted to keep the raft intact until it could be taken to the shore and dismantled. Its logs were valuable.

  Instead of pushing on that day, he decided that they would rest. That afternoon a Ganopo party landed, the chief among them. Burton questioned him.

  The chief laughed. “Those Shaawanwaaki turtleheads completely missed the raft. They couldn’t see the fire, though how they could not, I don’t understand. Anyway, they paddled around for hours, and when the fog lifted they found that the current had taken them five stones below the island. What a bunch of bums!”

  “Did the Babylonians say anything to you about their missing canoe? Not to mention the guards we had to rough up?”

  Burton thought it best not to say anything about the grails.

  The chief laughed again. “Yes, they came storming ashore before the stone flamed. They were very angry, though they did not say why. They knocked us around a little, but the bruises and the insults did not bother us because we were happy that you had made fools of them. They searched the island thoroughly, but they did not find you, of course. They did find the ashes of the fire and asked us about it. I told them that it was a ceremonial fire.

  “They didn’t believe me. I think they must have guessed the truth. You won’t have to worry about them sending out search parties for you. Every one of them, including Metuael, is straining to get the raft off today. They must expect another attack tonight.”

  Burton asked the chief why the Shaawanwaaki didn’t attack in the daylight. They could easily overwhelm the Babylonians.

  “That is because there is an agreement among the states in this area to protect strangers. So far, it has been honored and with good reason. The other states would be compelled to go to war against the aggressor. However, the Shaawanwaaki were hoping to keep it a secret. If they were to be found out, they would say that the raftspeople had refused to pay compensation for the damage done to us.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps the Shaawanwaaki will give up the idea. Still, there are many among them who would like to make a raid just for the sake of excitement.”

  Burton never found out what happened to the Babylonians. He decided that they should leave that day. After the canoe was on its way, the grails were pulled up, emptied, and placed in the bottom of the canoe.

  After traveling 200 kilometers, Burton found an area suitable for boat construction. It was not determined by the wood ava
ilable, since all places had plenty of pine, oak, yew, and bamboo. What was now difficult to find was flint and chert for cutting timber. Even in the beginning, these stones were restricted to certain sites, some being rich in them, others comparatively poor, and many lacking them entirely. Wars for flint had been common in the old days.

  The minerals were even rarer now. Hard as they were, flint and chert wore out, and new supplies were almost unheard of. As a result, the end of 32 A.R.D. (After Resurrection Day) was also the near end of large-vessel construction. At least, it was in the countries through which Burton had passed, and he presumed that it was the same everywhere.

  The area at which he stopped was one of the very few that still had a plentiful store. The locals, a majority of pre-Columbian Algonquins and a minority of pre-Roman Picts, were well aware of the value of their stones. Their chief, a Menomini named Oskas, haggled fiercely with Burton. Finally, he stated that his rock-bottom price was seven thousand cigarettes of tobacco, five hundred of marijuana, twenty-five hundred cigars, forty packages of pipe tobacco, and eight thousand cupfuls of liquor. He also suggested that he would like to sleep with the blonde, Loghu, every five days or so. Actually, he would prefer that it be every night, but he did not think his three women would like that.

  Burton took some time to recover from his shock. He said, “That’s up to her. I don’t think either she or her man would agree to it. Anyway, you’re asking far too much. None of my party would have booze or tobacco for a year.”

  Oskas shrugged and said, “Well, if it isn’t worth it to you… ?”

  Burton called a conference and told his crew what Oskas demanded. Kazz objected the most.

  “Burton-naq, I lived all my life on Earth, forty-five summers, without whiskey or nicotine. But here I got hooked and if I go a day without either, I am ready, as you put it, to climb the wall. You know that I tried to quit both at different times, and before a week was gone I was ready to bite my tongue off. I was as mean as a cave bear with a thorn in his paw.”

  Besst said, “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “If there was no alternative, we’d have to do it,” Burton said. “It’d be cold turkey or no boat. But we do have the extra grails.”

  He returned to Oskas and, after they had smoked a pipe, he got down to business.

  “The woman with the yellow hair and blue eyes says the only part of her you’ll get is her foot, and you might have a hard time pulling it out of your ass.”

  Oskas laughed loudly and slapped his thigh.

  When he had dried his tears, he said, “Too bad. I like a woman with spirit, though not with too much.”

  “It so happens that some time ago I got hold of a free-grail. Now, I am willing to trade that for a place in which to build our boat and the materials to build it.”

  Oskas did not ask him how he got it, though it was evident that he thought Burton had stolen it.

  “If that is so,” he said, smiling, “then we have a deal.”

  He stood up. “I will see that things are arranged at once. Are you sure that the blonde is not just playing hard to get?”

  The chief took the grail to the council’s stronghouse, adding it to the twenty-one free-grails there. These had been collected through the years for the benefit of himself and his subchiefs.

  Here, as everywhere, special people made sure that they got special privileges.

  It took a year to build another cutter. When it was half-finished, Burton decided not to name it after its predecessors, Hadji I and Hadji II. Both had come to bad ends, and, though he denied it, he was superstitious. After some talk with his crew, it was agreed that Snark was suitable. Alice liked the name because of her association with Lewis Carroll, and she agreed with Frigate that it was most appropriate.

  Smiling, she recited part of the Bellman’s speech from The Hunting of the Snark.

  “He had bought a large map representing the sea, Without the least vestige of land:

  And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

  A map they could all understand.

  “‘What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,

  Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?’

  So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply

  ‘They are merely conventional signs!

  “‘Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

  But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank’

  (So the crew would protest) ‘that he’s bought us

  A perfect and absolute blank!’”

  Burton laughed, but he was not sure that Alice was not obliquely insulting his abilities as a captain. Lately, they had not been getting along so well.

  “Let’s hope the voyage in the new boat won’t be another agony in eight fits!” Alice cried.

  “Well,” Burton said, grinning savagely at her, “this Bellman knows enough not to get the bowsprit mixed up with the rudder sometimes!

  “Nor,” he added, “is there a Rule 42 of the boat’s code. No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm.”

  “Which,” Alice said, her smile gone, “was decreed by the Bellman himself. And the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one.”

  There was a short silence. All felt the tension between the two, and they looked uneasy, dreading another violent explosion of their captain’s temper.

  Monat, eager to avoid this, laughed. He said, “I remember that poem. I was especially struck by ‘Fit the Sixth, The Barrister’s Dream.’ Let me see, ah, yes, the pig was on trial for having deserted its sty, and the Snark, dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending it.

  “The indictment had never been clearly expressed, And it seemed that the Snark had begun,

  And had spoken three hours, before any one guessed

  What the pig was supposed to have done.”

  He paused, rolled his eyes, and said, “I have it. That one quatrain which so impressed me.

  “But their wild exultation was suddenly checked When the jailor informed them with tears,

  Such a sentence would not have the slightest effect, As the pig had been dead for some years.”

  They all laughed, and Monat said, “Somehow, that verse squeezes out the essence of Terrestrial justice, its letter if not its spirit.”

  “I am amazed,” Burton said, “that in your short time on Earth you managed not only to read so much but to remember it so well.”

  “The Hunting of the Snark was a poem. I believe that you can understand human beings better through poetry and fiction than through so-called fact-literature. That is why I took the trouble to memorize it.

  “Anyway, an Earth friend gave it to me. He said that it was one of the greatest works of metaphysics that humanity could boast of. He asked me if Arcturans had anything to equal it.”

  Alice said, “Surely he was pulling your leg?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Burton shook his head. He had been a voracious reader, and he had an almost photographic memory. But he had been on Earth sixty-nine years, whereas Monat had lived there only from 2002 to 2008 A.D. Yet, during the years they had voyaged together, Monat had betrayed a knowledge that no human could have accumulated in a century.

  The conversation ended since it was time to go back to work on the boat. Burton had not forgotten Alice’s seeming barb, however. He brought it up as they got ready to go to bed.

  She looked at him with large, dark eyes, eyes that were already retreating into another world. She almost always withdrew when he attacked, and it was this that heated his anger from red to white-hot.

  “No, Dick, I wasn’t insulting you. At least, I wasn’t doing so consciously.”

  “But you were doing it unconsciously, is that it? That’s no excuse. You can’t plead that you have no control of that part of you. What your unconscious thinks is just as much you as the conscious is. It’s even worse. You can dismiss your conscious thoughts, but what you really believe is what that shadowy thing believes.”

  H
e began pacing back and forth, his face looking like a demon’s in the faint light cast by the small fire on the stone hearth.

  “Isabel worshipped me, yet she was not afraid to argue violently with me, to tell me when she thought I was doing something wrong. But you… you harbor resentment until it makes an absolute bitch of you, yet you won’t come out with it. And that makes things even worse.

  “There’s nothing evil about a hammer-and-tongs, screaming, throwing argument. It’s like a thunderstorm, frightening when it happens; but it clears the air after it’s over.

  “The trouble with you is that you were raised to be a lady. You must never lift your voice in anger, you must always be calm and cool and collected. But that shadowy entity, that hindbrain, that inheritance from your ape ancestors, is tearing at the bars of its cage. And, incidentally, tearing at you. But you, you won’t admit it.”

  Alice lost her dreamy look, and she shouted at him.

  “You’re a liar! And don’t throw up your wife to me! We agreed never to compare each other’s spouse, but you do it every time you wish to get me angry! It isn’t true that I lack passion. You of all people should know that, and I don’t just mean in bed.

  “But I won’t go into a rage over every petty word and incident. When I get mad it’s because the situation demands it. It’s worth getting angry about. You… you’re in a perpetual state of rage.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “I don’t lie!”

  “Let us get back to the point,” he said. “What is there about my capacity as commander that you don’t like?”

  She bit her lip, then said, “It’s not how you run the boat or how you treat your crew. That’s such an obvious matter, and you do fine at it. No, what troubles me is the command, or lack of it, over yourself.”

  Burton sat down, saying, “Let’s have it. Just what are you talking about?”

  She hitched forward on the chair and leaned over so that her face was close to his.

  “For one thing, you can’t stand to stay in one place more than a week. Before three days are up, you get uneasy. By the seventh day you’re like a tiger pacing back and forth in his cage, a lion throwing himself against the bars.”