Lord Tyger (Grandmaster Series)

  "It didn't matter, because I heard the copter coming. There was only one thing to do. I didn't want to do it, but at least that way we just might get but alive. If we stayed on the island, I'd get killed for sure, and I didn't know what the men in that copter had in mind for you. Maybe they had different orders now.

  "So I just let the current carry the boat, and I shoved hard to help it along. I steered it into the cave just as the copter came around the bend. The men in it must have seen us, because it came straight after us. It didn't come into the cave--the entrance was big enough to let it in but not big enough so they'd have a margin of safety--but it shone a searchlight on us. It was terrible. The river rushed and boiled, because the channel suddenly got narrower. Then we went around a bend and almost capsized when we hit the side. The boat began to toss more than ever, and I couldn't see a thing. We were almost washed off by the waves.

  "I prayed--even though I don't believe in God and still don't--and then the boat hit something and we were rolled right off it into water. But the water was shallow, and I got us up on higher ground, a rock reef, that is. I used my lighter, it was in your bag, luckily, and I saw that we were at the entrance to a side tunnel, a big one. It must be the bed for another river, dry now. The boat was gone, carried off. I didn't care about it, because I didn't intend to get back on it. We got lucky; at least, I'll think so until something bad happens. We can follow this old river bed on up to... who knows?"

  Her voice trembled as she ended, and suddenly she was crying and hugging him. He held her for a while and then said that they should go on. He felt as if he had been weakened, but he was still strong enough to go for a long way.

  "Tell me if you start to see or hear or feel anything unusual," she said. "Sometimes a psychedelic drug has a recurring effect."

  He still felt somewhat dislocated, but any man who had seen what he had seen could expect this for a while.

  His arm went around her shoulders, and they set off into the darkness. She could not stop shivering, she said, because she was so cold, cold not only from the cold of the wet stone but from fear. Every once in a while, she snapped on the light so that she could reassure herself there were no pits ahead, or to identify some obstacle that usually turned out to be a large boulder that the violence of the now-dead river had carried along its bed.

  They walked for a time, the length of which they could not estimate, and occasionally drank from the little stream, which seemed to be pure. Ras said that their situation could be worse. At least, they did not have to worry about dying of thirst. Eeva did not laugh.

  The time came when she insisted that she had to sleep. Despite the cold and the hunger pangs, she was so exhausted that she could no longer stay awake. They lay down on a rough, hard shelf of stone that seemed drier than the rock near the stream, and, though both awoke frequently, they did sleep. When neither was able to go back to sleep, they untwined from each other, rose stiffly, and began their tiresomely slow progress. However, they were able to proceed more swiftly than if there was no stream. As long as they were walking in water, Ras said, they did not have to worry about falling into abysses. Their feet were numbed by the water and their legs ached with the cold, but it was the safest road to travel. Moreover, the water was moving slightly, hence was flowing downhill, and the fact that they were going uphill encouraged them. They had no logical reason to believe so, but they did believe that the uphill direction would end in their coming out above the ground. And they had only one route to follow.

  To himself, he said that they couldn't get lost, yes, but they could be lost. If the source of the stream turned out to be a small hole in the stone wall, and they could go no farther... well, he would wait until this happened. He did not really believe that it would happen.

  They shuffled on until Eeva said that she had to rest again. She stopped and snapped on the lighter again for a quick look around before much of the almost-expended fuel was gone. She gave, a cry and shrank back into Ras's arm. A few feet away, on top of a boulder, looking at first like a giant skeleton hand, were the bones of a bat.

  Ras whooped with joy, and, shouting to her to keep the light on, ran ahead and around the corner. As he did so, he heard the distant roar he had hoped for. He called to her, and they walked for perhaps a hundred yards more. The roar increased, a faint light appeared ahead and grew larger and brighter, the air became so damp it was a cloud, and soon they were on the edge of a hole about forty feet wide and thirty feet high. The source of the stream was a number of trickles down the wall that converged to form a pool just inside the entrance. They were in the midst of a deafening roar and almost in solid water.

  Ras put his mouth close to her ear and shouted, "I've been here before! This cave is behind one of the falls! I found it when I was a child! I explored this far, where the dead bat is! We're almost home! We've circled!"

  Seven days later, at noon, they lay behind a bush on the edge of a high hill. The steep and rocky slope was sparsely grown with bushes and small trees. At its foot was a comparatively open space about two hundred feet wide and three hundred yards long. Beyond, the forest was a tangled denseness. Shouts and an infrequent rifle shot weakly climbed up the hill to them from somewhere in the forest.

  Both Ras and Eeva had gained some weight, and their eyes were less black and hollowed. They wore antelope-skin clothes, and in their cave high up on, the cliffs, their night retreat, were more antelope, monkey, and leopard skins to keep them warm. Both had bows and arrows that Ras had taken from the tree house, along with other items they needed. Eeva had been afraid for him to go near it, because she feared that the man on top of the pillar had set a watch there or perhaps had hidden TV cameras around it. Both had cautiously approached the two houses and prowled around for four hours before they decided that no men or cameras had been planted there. But they did not talk while they were taking what they needed, because Eeva had said that listening devices were so easily hidden or disguised.

  The first four days had been busy with finding a warm, safe, well-hidden base, coverings, and food. Ras had hunted well, and they had more food than they could eat. The last three days they had spent observing the many flights of two copters from the pillars and some of the search parties in the forest and hills.

  Eeva said that something had stirred them up; they acted as if they were under pressure or had a time limit. One copter spent all day over this area, and the other evidently was exploring south of the plateau. There was also a third, much larger copter that came once a day from over the top of the cliffs, and this, she said, must be bringing in fuel and supplies and also, to judge from the number on foot, more men. She doubted that there would have been any reason to have kept that many on top of the pillar all this time; it would have crowded them and also made a supply problem.

  There were ten newcomers. Five were Negroes, like the Wantso, but much taller. Three had equally dark skins, but their noses were hawkish and their hair was straight. Two were white men, one much darker than the other, who was as tall as Ras and had bright red hair and pale blue eyes and a big scar down his right cheek. The dark white man led one party; the red-hair, another. These started out each day at distances from each other and worked toward each other.

  Each party also had two animals that he recognized as "dogs" because he had seen them illustrated in several of the books that had been in the lakeside cabin before it burned down. Eeva said two were German shepherds and two were Doberman pinschers.

  Ras could not understand why they were searching the forest. They should think that the river in the cave had gobbled them up.

  Eeva said, "If he thinks you're dead, he might as well go back to wherever he came from--South Africa, I would think. But maybe he can't because evidence of what he's done still exists. Rather, somebody who knows what he's done is still alive."

  "Who could that be?" Ras said.

  Eeva shrugged and said, "I don't know. Maybe somebody got disgusted and tried to quit, or maybe some prisoner got loose. From
what you've told me about hints dropped by your parents and from what that dummy, that Wizozu, said, you were supposed to be provided with a woman. Maybe that woman was brought in, but escaped, and they're looking for her. Maybe other explorers flew in and the same thing happened to them that happened to Mika and me. We haven't seen any wrecked planes, but that means nothing. The plane could easily be hidden anywhere in the forest on the plateau or could have fallen into the lake."

  Much of the big animal life in the area had fled the noisy intruders and gone to other parts of the plateau or up into the hills. So far, the two parties had killed a leopard and three gorillas, apparently for no other reason than to kill, because a leopard wasn't going to attack so many men unless it was cornered, and the gorillas wouldn't attack except under circumstances that were not likely to occur with such noisy hunters.

  Eeva thought that this was significant. This unnecessary killing would not be permitted unless there was no longer a need to conserve the animals in the valley.

  "If he is interested only in killing whoever he's chasing, not in capturing him, he'll send in a copter as soon as the person is spotted and drop a napalm bomb."

  Now, he and Eeva were up on the hill and trying to glimpse the hunters and the hunted. The shouts became louder, and the barking of dogs also louder and more frequent. From the noises, Ras thought that the two parties were closing in on somebody between them.

  Then a figure burst out of the green into the sunshine of the clearing. Ras gasped and said, "Jib!"

  Jib was shorter than Ras by a head, and he was emaciated and naked. His black, gray-threaded beard reached to his knees, and his hair fell over his face and also fell to the back of his knees. He sprinted across the clearing and then started up the hill and was lost from view for a moment by the jagged, wildly tilted boulders that covered the hillside.

  Ras got to his feet to wave at Jib with the hopes of directing him to where he was hidden. He was not sure that he would not spook Jib as much as the men after him. Though he had played with Jib many times when he was young, he had always had to re-establish a new relationship after every long absence from him. Jib was as shy and frightened as the gorillas he lived with.

  Ras forgot about Jib. Another figure had bounded from the solid green wall and was racing across the clearing on pathetically short and bowed legs. He was black and wore a shirt that had once been white, and had a long, gray beard.

  Ras screamed, "Yusufu! Yusufu!"

  His first feeling was almost insane joy. The next was almost insane fear for him.

  He stooped over and picked up his spear. Eeva said, "What do you think you're doing?"

  "I'm going to help him!"

  "It's too late! You can't do anything now, and if they see you, they'll never stop until they find out if I'm alive or not!"

  He jerked his head to follow the line of her shaking finger. Two dogs had run out of the forest, but they were being held on leashes by men. Other men were running after Yusufu, and three long-legged Negroes were only a few paces behind him. Yusufu turned then, and something that flashed in the sun flew out from his hand, and the legs of the foremost Negro failed him, his arms flew outward, and he slid on his face. Then Yusufu was running again, but the second Negro was on him and over him, and the two were rolling in the tall grasses. The third Negro rapped Yusufu on the head with the butt of a revolver, and the two Negroes carried him off between them. The rest of the party came on up the hill after Jib.

  Jib reappeared from behind a slanting boulder. He bounded upward with many desperate glances behind him. His squalling became audible. Ras said, "Save your breath!" and he started toward him, then stopped. He did not love Jib; he did love Yusufu. If he put himself into danger for Jib's sake now, he might not be able to help Yusufu afterward. If he let Jib go on by with the two parties at his heels, the two men guarding Yusufu would be left behind. And he could deal with them.

  Eeva pointed at one of the men, who was carrying a big, black, shiny object on his back and speaking into something he carried in his hand.

  "He's calling in the copter. It'll be here in a few minutes!"

  "Follow me," he said, and he began to work his way down the side of the hill away from the pursued and the pursuers. When they had reached the forest, he told her to wait for him. She said that she did not want to, that the two men left with Yusufu were armed and that she was skillful with a bow. He did not argue.

  They were behind a tree on the edge of the clear space and only twenty yards from Yusufu and the two Negroes, when they heard the copter. They could not see it, and the foliage thinned its sound, but they knew that it must be coming from the pillar.

  Eeva cursed. Ras said, "I'll shoot the man on the right. You take the one on the left. Then we run out, and I'll get Yusufu and you get the rifles. The copter people won't be expecting us. We can catch them by surprise and you can shoot them again, blow them up, as you did on the lake."

  They stood up and aimed very carefully while the noise from the copter increased. Ras gave the signal, and both released their strings and then picked up another arrow stuck upright into the ground. Ras's arrow went halfway through the thigh of his target, and the man dropped, screaming, onto the ground. Eeva's arrow hit her target but glanced off against the ribs and went up into the air. Her man was staggered for a moment; then he dropped to one knee and picked up a rifle. Eeva's second arrow drove into his forehead. Ras's second arrow again went too low; this time it ended quivering in the earth a few feet before the man with the arrow in his thigh.

  The man sat up, screaming, and then he became silent and fell onto his side and started to work his way, on his left side, toward something in the grass--presumably, a rifle. Ras yelled and dropped his bow and picked up his spear and charged out of the forest. At that moment the copter's shadow fell on Ras; the roaring beat at his ears. He paid it no attention and kept on charging. The wounded man was sitting up now and had the rifle to his shoulder, and then a pair of little black feet rose from the grass by his side and kicked so hard against his shoulder that he dropped the rifle and fell over on his side.

  Yusufu, his hands bound behind him, was up on his feet, and had leaped through the air. The Negro sat up again just in time to receive the impact of two iron-callused feet against the chin. He fell down again and did not get up.

  Ras looked up at the copter now. It was across the clearing by now and was rising at a slant. Ras at once understood that the men in the copter had not looked down at the scene below them; they were intent on getting Jib first.

  He cut the ropes around Yusufu's wrists and then, smiling, tears blinding him, pushed Yusufu away and said, "Later, father! We got to get away!"

  Eeva picked up the rifles. Ras carried the belts of ammunition the two men had been wearing. Yusufu took their knives and the items he looted from their pockets. The man with the arrow in his thigh was dead or close to death from loss of blood and shock; the wonder was that he had been able to recover enough to go after his weapon.

  Abruptly, Ras gave his burden to Yusufu and Eeva and ran across the clearing to the man whom Yusufu had felled with his knife while being chased. He pulled the knife from the corpse's solar plexus. He got back to the forest without anybody on the hillside seeing him, as far as he knew. Once in the protective shade and green, he dropped his burden and took Yusufu into his arms. They cried and kissed and tried to tell each other at the same time what had happened. But they had barely started when they released each other and fell silent as they stared out at the top of the hill.

  The hill looked as if it were spouting fires from its top. Flames climbed upward; smoke as black and thick as a thundercloud poured upward. The copter was off to one side, circling out of reach of the heat. The men on the ground were behind boulders.

  Yusufu said, "They wanted me alive for some reason. Perhaps because Boygur wanted to talk to me to find out what was going on or maybe to torture me. But he didn't have any use for Jib; he just wanted to destroy Jib so nobody would g
et his fingerprints."

  "What are you talking about?" Ras said.

  Yusufu said, "I have much to talk about, but we don't have time. That copter, and those men, will be back, and as soon as they find those dead men, they'll be after me. You, too, because they won't think I could carry the rifles alone."

  Eeva said, "Does he know how to shoot?"

  She spoke in English, but Yusufu did not understand her way of speaking it. Ras translated into their type of English for the little man.

  Yusufu replied that he had once been a trick shooter, but that he had not had a gun in his hands since just before Ras was born. Eeva showed him how to operate one of the rifles, which she said was an M-15. Ras watched interestedly and said that he would like to try shooting one. Eeva was firm in refusing to let Ras handle one. She said that a man used to guns could shoot one of these without too much practice. But he knew nothing of guns, and they had neither the time nor ammunition for practice.

  By then the copter was hovering above the bodies, and the seven men and four dogs were coming down the hill. Eeva spoke to Yusufu, who still did not understand her. Ras translated for her. Yusufu seemed dubious. He thought they should get away as swiftly as possible before another napalm bomb was dropped. Then he said that perhaps she was right. They had to fight back some time, and they might never again be in such a good position for ambush. If only the chopper would come closer!

  It did. The men in it apparently did not want to wait until the men on foot got down from the hill. About twenty feet above the corpse nearest the forest, the copter was turning around on a vertical axis while the man at the machine gun looked into the forest--or tried to do so. Then the copter settled down, and the roar lessened and the whirling blades above it became visible.

  Eeva said that the pilot had undoubtedly informed the pillar of what was happening. And if another copter were available, it would soon be here to join the hunt.

  The grasses were tall enough to hide them, now that the copter was down on the ground. Eeva went to one side and Yusufu to another. Ras stayed in the forest in a tree and sat on a branch while he fixed an arrow to his bow. From his vantage point he could see both of them moving in. Then Eeva got up on one knee and started firing, and Yusufu began to shoot a few seconds later. His fire was not as accurate as hers; his stream of bullets climbed into the air and expended itself on nothing. But he stopped firing and began over again and this time he hit where he was aiming.