Ulysses, seeing that the rest of the Dhulhulikh had dropped quietly out of the holes in which they had come, put the match box in the pocket of his kilt and ran to help his people. He got there in time to pick up a spear and with it run a bat-man through the back. The survivors of the last attack, four Dhulhulikh, fluttered away and dived out through holes in the skin.
They were all so tired that they could barely move, and one Wufea slumped down and died. But Ulysses insisted that three repair the leak in the gas cell and the others come with him to the gondola. There would be no sleep for him until he got the Blue Spirit back to the land of the Neshgai.
As it turned out, he got several nights’ sleep. The dirigible took fifteen hours to fight against the headwind while it slowly lost altitude. The crew looked for leaks and found four tiny ones but could not locate the others. By the time the airship had left The Tree, it was cruising in the lower levels of the great plant. This helped the speed in one way because there was no wind there. But the demands on the steersman were great. He had to sail between trunks and branches, under branches, between vine complex and branch, sometimes narrowly squeaking through. Ten miles past the last of The Tree, the dirigible settled down on the grassy plains and collapsed.
The survivors crawled out from under the great bulk with their supplies, after which Ulysses set fire to the ship to make sure that it did not fall into hostile hands. Not that he had seen any bat-men, but he was taking no chances. If there was one thing he did not want, that was the Dhulhulikh learning how to make dirigibles of their own.
They set out across the plains toward the mountains, on the other side of which was the country of the Neshgai. The other airships had gone on ahead long ago. Their motors, working against the wind, had tired swiftly, and the ships had to get back before the vegetable-muscle motors died of exhaustion.
Two days later, they saw the great cigar shape of a dirigible coming after them. As promised over the radio, the ship had returned for them after the motors had been rested.
Once the ship was in sight of the people on the ground, its radio went into action. Kafbi, a Vroomaw officer, spoke to Ulysses.
“We were lucky to get away, my Lord. The whole country is knee-deep in blood. While we were gone, the slaves and the Vroomaw rose against the Neshgai. All is chaos. The Neshgai hold some parts of the land and the rebels other parts. The other ships were attacked and destroyed on the field by the Neshgai, but we drove them off. Then we came after you. The slaves and the Vroomaw look to you to lead them to victory. They say that you are the god of the humans, and that you have been destined from time immemorial to free them and to rid the world of the elephant-headed monsters.”
The Tree would hear of this soon enough, if it had not already heard. It would rally the Dhulhulikh and summon the hordes that lived on it and strike while the Neshgai and the humans were at each others’ throats. If only the humans had put off their uprising until their greatest enemy had been conquered… but sentients did not follow cold logic, not very often, anyway. They lived in little opaque cells of time.
“The ruler and the high priest were killed,” Kafbi said. “Shegnif, the Grand Vizier, now rules. His forces are holed up in the palace complex, and, so far, we have failed to take it.”
Ulysses sighed. Twenty million years of bloodshed, pain and horror were behind him. And it looked as if more would be ahead of him if he were to live that long.
So be it.
He stood on the great plain with Awina by his side, her tail flicking across the calf of his right leg as she nervously waited for the airship to maneuver. Awina said, “My Lord, after we have conquered the Neshgai, what do we do?”
He patted her furry shoulder and said, “I like your optimism. After we have conquered, not if, right? I wonder what I would have done without you.”
For a few seconds, he felt cold in the pit of his stomach. There had been so many times when she could have been killed, and he would have had to do without her.
He said, “There is no reason why the slaves and the Vroomaw have to decimate themselves in order to slaughter all the elephant-heads. I think that it would be far better for everybody if we had a truce and arranged for a new society, one in which Neshgai are neither masters nor slaves but equals with the humans. We need them as much as they need us in the battle against The Tree. We must think about compromise, Awina. It is not weakness to seek for compromise. Strength is in compromise and in alliance.”
“The slaves and the Vroomaw want revenge,” she said. “They have suffered for hundreds of years under their masters. Now they want to pay them back.”
“I understand that,” he said. “But the sufferers can forget the past, if they’re offered a good future.”
“They can?” she said.
“They have. In my time old enemies forgot the past wounds and indignities and even became friends.”
“My Lord,” she said, swaying so that her hip brushed against his, her tail lashing across his calf, and her eyes looking sidewise at him, “you will be talking of making a compromise with The Tree next! With our ancient enemy, the Destroyer!”
Who knows? he thought. If the mind of flesh can meet with another mind of flesh, why not with a vegetable mind? Who knows?
Philip José Farmer, The Stone God Awakens
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