Beneath the Eye of God (The Commodore Ardcasl Space Adventures Book 1) (11 page)

Ohan, the old man and Alexander ventured no opinion. They were already outside the temple in the warm night air, breathing deeply. They had left immediately after the discovery of the fur rug.

It was lying in a corner behind the sarcophagus, apparently thrown casually aside. A tanned skin of some kind, it was still supple and well-preserved. It took a few minutes before the Commodore recognized it. He took it away from Ohan who was examining it curiously. "Put it down and back off, lad. You're not going to like what it is."

Ohan looked at him uncomprehendingly. "It's the skins of some of your people, lad. About a dozen of them, I'd say. All cut and neatly sewed together."

That's when Ohan and the old man decided to get some air.

"What in the world is this all about?" Leahn asked when they were gone. "What happened here?"

"Obviously not what the fellow who built this place had in mind," the Commodore replied. He turned to the twins. "Any thoughts?"

Elor fingered the rug they had laid over the spaceman. "This is not impossible to explain," he said. "A number of primitive societies take and use the skins of their enemies. Such practices are associated in certain religions with seasonal rebirth. The buds of some plants appear to burst through their skins in springtime. Many species of reptile grow new skin and discard the old. A warrior may acquire some of his defeated enemy's strength or essence by wrapping himself in his foe's skin. Whether any of these explanations fit this particular situation is not clear but a rug made of human hide is not completely out of place inside an ancient pyramid.

"The fellow in the spacesuit is, however, a different matter. The suit is old and it is tempting to associate this spaceman with the ancient spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit above the coast but we will need considerably more data before we can hazard a guess. One thing is already clear about this fellow, though."

"Oh?' said the Commodore.

"He was not hung here by his friends."

***

Two days later, they took their leave of Alexander and the old man. Everything had been carefully recorded and the body in the spacesuit left on top of the sarcophagus covered by the fur. The stone door was pushed back into place and the floor of the temple replaced, sealed and covered again with a layer of dirt.

"You and Alexander know what's under there," the Commodore explained to the old man. "And the people who will return one day from the sky know what's under there. But we don't necessarily want every passerby to know what's under there. Someday people will come . . . "

"The people from the sky?"

"Yes. If they do not come soon, then they will come later. But they will come and they will appreciate what you have done."

For their last night together, Ohan and Leahn rode back out to the half arch and dug up a load of tubers. They also snared a young ground bird as a special treat for the old man. Alexander didn't mind.

After supper they sat for the last time on the broad steps before the old man's door and watched the sunset. Alexander lay in the grass with his head in Leahn's lap while she scratched behind his ears. The Commodore brought out another bottle from the tavern and passed it around. Ohan wondered idly how many he had. He decided not to ask.

"We wish you could stay but we know you have to be moving on," the old man said.

"As a matter of fact," the Commodore replied, "we have to go see Ohan's people."

"Who?" Ohan choked.

"It's only reasonable, lad. You were hired as our guide, right?"

"Yes, but . . . "

"So it's time you earned your pay. My associates feel that a visit with some of your people would be profitable, ethnologically speaking."

"Pay?"

"Don't turn nasty on me, lad. It's time to visit the folks. We heard rumors in the taverns back at the edge of the forest about secret ceremonies, the smoking of strange herbal substances accompanied by hallucinogenic visions of other planes of being. If true, that's the kind of thing that might make the counter on the twins' little machine dance across the scale. It hasn't so much as burped here in this ancient metropolis. But the twins insist, contrary to all reason, that it isn't broken."

"You mean the ceremony my people use to attune themselves to the dreams of the world?" Ohan asked.

The Commodore stared at him in surprise. "The dreams of the world? Do you know about such ceremonies?"

Ohan shrugged. "Sure. I've been going to them ever since I attained manhood and joined my clan as an adult."

The Commodore gave him a funny look. "Now wait a minute," he said slowly. "I'm talking about strange and mystic journeys to other planes of being and perception, the elemental forces of existence, opening doors into alternate dimensions of consciousness, toying with the very powers of reason itself." He cast a critical eye at Ohan. "You mean to say you've been doing all that since you were twelve!"

Ohan nodded reluctantly. The Commodore's attitude suggested that he should have mentioned it earlier.

"So have I," the old man said sadly. "But that was long ago, when there were people here. I'd almost forgotten about the world's dreams. They was something to see, all right."

The Commodore turned to Leahn. "What about you, my dear? Have you any pipelines to other dimensions you would care to share with us?"

"If I had any supernatural powers at my command, I would have called upon them years ago. I've never even heard of such things."

"It won't be easy to find any clans around here," Ohan protested. "They could be anywhere and we're a long way from the part of the forest I know best."

The Commodore smiled. "If it were easy, we could do it ourselves. And there's no hurry, lad. We have an interesting and potentially profitable story unfolding here but we have to fill in all the blanks."

The old man cackled. "If they ain't in any hurry, Ohan, just pick yourself a big water tree and sit down to wait till somebody shows up. Shouldn't be more than 30 or 40 seasons."

"Well," Ohan said thoughtfully, "I know of several clans back between us and the forest's edge. I'm sure I could find one without much . . . "

The Commodore shook his head. "I'm afraid that won't do. Never backward, ever onward, that's my motto. We're heading toward the sea. That's where the 500-year-old spaceship is, hanging over a spot that sends the twins' meter right off the scale."

"I've never seen the sea," Ohan said.

"Good. It will be a new experience for you. That's what keeps us young, lad."

Chapter 8

They watered the horses from the pit one last time and were off soon after daybreak. Ohan experienced again the exhilaration of departure. The sorting and packing, the sleepless night of anticipation, the early morning confusion of loading up, the sad farewells and then the trail.

He had been far too hung over to properly appreciate the experience last time. Now he found it exciting. Even as strange a place as the lost city had become familiar over the several days of their visit. He could sense the patterns of a daily routine beginning to form like tiny threads, tying him, even to this bizarre place.

Now all was swept away. They were on the move again, each day to awaken in a new place far from where they had ever been before. The Commodore seemed to sense his mood as they rode across the broad market square and headed out on one of the other roads. "Nothing but memories behind, adventure ahead and all your possessions in your saddlebags, lad. That's the way for a man to live."

Leahn rode up to join them on the wide roadway. "Or a woman," he added, "if she is the hardy sort."

"As hardy as all the rest of you put together," she smiled. "With nothing in the world except a single account that must be settled."

"But it is sad to leave Alexander and the old man," Ohan said, changing the subject. "I doubt that we will ever see them again."

The Commodore nodded. "To friends we bring what we are and take what is offered. Those two back there have two very important things. They have each other and they have a mission. That's more than most have. And they aren't travellers. As sorry as they are to see us go, they have already begun to realize how much we disrupted their routine, how much they have to do to catch up and how pleasant it is to fall back into familiar habits. We brought them three gifts—our visit, our departure and some memories that are now theirs. We can do no more."

They rode on in silence for several minutes before Leahn broached a new subject. "Your talk last night about the sea concerns me. I too, have never seen it but it is not where I must go. Perhaps it's time for me to just . . . "

The Commodore looked straight ahead. "Your time is not your own, my dear. You are not free to go where or when you please. You are bound in service by debt to my young friend here. You serve him as bodyguard just as he serves me as guide. His loan to you of 87 coppers still stands, as does his debt to me in the same amount. There are, of course, those who assume obligations with no intention of paying them off. If you are one of those, then you are indeed free to ride off as you . . . "

Leahn had gone pale, her knuckles white on the reins. "I pay my debts in full. That is something both you and my uncle will discover."

"Splendid," the Commodore said brightly. "You and Ohan will love the sea. The great thing about the sea is its patience. It waits and all the waters of the world flow to it."

He grew serious again. "I understand vengeance, my dear. I have had more practice with it than you can imagine. Like the sea it waits and all the waters of the world only serve to make it greater."

Leahn kicked her horse and galloped off ahead of them and was soon lost to sight among the trees.

***

They followed the road for two days, then turned off into the forest. The hunting was good and Ohan found himself delighted to be once again in familiar surroundings after the strangeness of the city. Even Leahn gradually returned to her good humor.

"I'm sorry, sport." The evening's hunt had been successfully completed earlier than usual and they were sitting on a branch at the lowest level of the forest cover listening to the sounds around them, not yet ready to return to camp. "I forgot for a minute who I was, what I was, where I was, what I signed on to do and how much I owed you, money and otherwise."

Ohan never knew how to respond to these kinds of conversations. "That's all right. I'm sure the Commodore didn't really mean what he . . . "

"I think he probably always means what he says, even when we think he's kidding. He may even be right. There's no rush and I do owe it to you to get you where you're going. It was just the surprise of being reminded that I'm not yet free to do as I please."

"You don't really owe me any . . . "

"For the first half of my life I could do whatever I wanted. And then suddenly I couldn't. It was a shock. I hadn't realized how much freedom I had until it was gone. Now I'm kind of in-between. We're free to ride and hunt and nobody makes me do really awful things . . . and that fooled me. I thought for a minute that I could just walk away. I even forgot that we were a team, that I had signed on as your bodyguard."

She shifted around on the branch and moved closer to him. "What if the old man back there had been crazy instead of nice? What if he had tried to lop off your head when he snuck up on you that first time? What if Alexander heard about that tusker we knocked off back in the forest and it was a relative of his? He could have had half your leg eaten before I got to you across that avenue. Some bodyguard I am." She put her arm around his shoulder. "From now on, sport, it's you and me to the end, wherever that may be."

"That's just it," Ohan said. "I'm not really going anywhere. I'm just following along where everybody wants me to go. My mother wanted me to go to school so I went. There they wanted me to study various things so I did. Now the Commodore says we're going to the sea and I have to find some of the forest people so I'm trying to do that. You said when you were young you were free to do as you pleased. I don't think I've ever been free like that. But even if I were, there's nothing I want to do. If my mother and my teachers and the Commodore weren't always pushing me along, I probably wouldn't ever gave gotten anywhere." He turned to Leahn in the darkness. "I wouldn't have met you. And that would have been awful."

She hadn't taken her arm from his shoulder. "Yeah, I know. I would have hated to miss meeting you too." She giggled. "I'd feel like the old man if he had never met Alexander. The Commodore would probably have some smart-ass thing to say about destiny, if he were here." She gave him a shove that almost knocked him off the branch. "But if one of us has to play Alexander in this relationship, sport, it's going to be you."

She raced him back to camp through the twilight and Ohan was surprised to find he couldn't quite catch her. They arrived laughing and out of breath. Leahn laughed more than necessary at the Commodore's stories that night to show she forgave him and was through sulking. The Commodore responded by continuing exactly as he had before, except that he winked once at Ohan and congratulated him on his "way with women."

***

They rode into the abandoned settlement near midday. Ohan breathed a sigh of relief. Finding the camps of his people was not easy. This one had been abandoned for two seasons but it offered several clues as to who had lived here and in which direction they had gone.

The great water tree that the clan had toppled was still largely intact, though the agents of decay and renewal were already at work. In the course of another dozen seasons they would reduce the forest giant to its component parts which, in turn, would nourish the seedlings already sprouted along its fallen trunk. One of these, the fastest growing, luckiest, or most aggressive, would eventually overshadow and choke off its siblings and emerge as the single successor to its fallen parent—a mighty water tree, the largest thing in the forest.

Ohan showed his companions where the deep-reaching root of the felled tree had wrenched free of the ground as the tree went over, leaving a deep, water-filled hole that would sustain the clan and its crops for three, perhaps four seasons before it dried up and forced them to move on. The fall of the forest giant had taken a great swatch of lesser trees with it, opening a large hole in the canopy where sunlight streamed in to nourish the clan's crops. The branches of the great tree had been bent and woven into rooms and communal areas for the community, many of them up among the main branches above the fallen trunk.

Climbing through the empty rooms, Ohan and Leahn came to the topmost one where vines from the surrounding forest had already begun to pick away the interwoven twigs that formed its walls. "I love it!" Leahn cried, leaning out over the low railing. "This is where I'd build my room, way up on top."

"They always drop the tree so the dwellings in the branches will look back across the opening in the forest toward the Eye of God," Ohan explained.

"It must be kind of nice," Leahn mused, "living here in the forest, having kids, growing crops, weaving your own house and watching the world go by."

"It was fun to be a kid here, moving from place to place, playing in the trees and learning to hunt. I thought I'd live here forever. But then my mother sent me off to school and now that I've seen a little of the rest of the world . . . well, I'm not so sure anymore."

Leahn smiled at him. "You just haven't met the right girl yet. Once you do, you'll suddenly discover that settling down is exactly what you want to do."

Ohan looked down at the fallen trunk surrounded by overgrown fields, then up to the sky-filled opening between the trees. "Most of the people here don't realize that there's so much else going on, so many places to see. It just seems as if the farther along this path I go, the less likely it is I'll ever find my way back."

She put her hand on his arm. "All you need is the right little brown girl. We'll look around when we catch up with this clan. I'll find one for you."

Ohan took her hand in his and turned to face her. "What about you? Is that all you need? To find the right man?"

Leahn turned away. "Maybe someday. But not now."

A shout from below interrupted them. "Ahoy up there. If you're through playing house and have charted our course, it's time to heave anchor and get underway, lad."

As they rode back into the familiar gloom of the forest, Ohan pulled up beside the Commodore. "Thinking of setting up housekeeping in a little bungalow among the treetops, lad?"

Ohan sighed. "Leahn thinks all I need is the right girl."

"She does, eh? The problem with a wife is that if she isn't exactly right, she'll drive you crazy. But if you wait for someone exactly right, you'll die a lonely unwed old man."

Ohan thought about that for a while as they rode. "I guess you've never found the right girl then?"

"On the contrary. I've found dozens of the right girls and sometimes I've had to be pretty quick to keep them from finding me."

Ohan didn't understand the Commodore and told him so.

"As mere men, I'm not sure we're supposed to. I would give you advice but it wouldn't be worth much since I don't clearly understand the process myself."

"Do you supposed Leahn will ever find the right man?" Ohan asked.

"Not so long as she is possessed with the idea of vengeance. It is a truly consuming passion that leaves little room for any other. You had best leave her be, lad, until she has worked it through."

The idea of Leahn consumed by something that had turned her aside from the normal pleasures of life, made Ohan unutterably sad.

***

Two nights later they met the first members of the forest clan they sought. They were just setting up camp when three young men appeared among the trees. They spoke formally to Ohan who answered with a ritual greeting that included his lineage and clan. With that, the young men visibly relaxed, brought in a freshly-killed ground bird and began to build a fire.

They asked no questions but chatted amiably with Ohan and among themselves. Ohan explained that though they were dying of curiosity, a direct question would be impolite and was a privilege reserved for the clan chief. The young men tried not to stare at the twins but displayed an open fascination with both Leahn and the horses.

"I'm afraid you're going to be stared at a lot," Ohan said apologetically to Leahn. "My own clan has always lived near the forest edge. I had forgotten how much more of the world we've seen than these people. These are their first horses and you're their first smooth-skinned woman."

Leahn laughed. "I hope both the horses and I will be a credit to our respective breeds."

The young men were gone at daybreak. The others were soon packed and mounted behind Ohan who followed the trail their visitors had left.

It was well past midday when they burst into the sunlit clearing. One minute they were riding through the forest, then suddenly they were in bright sunlight between rows of crops. Ohan heard the gasps from his companions as they emerged into the light behind him. "This is a well-run clan," he said to them over his shoulder. "No one is allowed to make a mess at the edge of the clearing. Everything is in its proper place and everyone has a job. I could tell by looking at their last camp. They have a strong headman. Not all clans are as lucky."

As they rode between the tall rows they became aware of eyes, round with wonder, watching from behind the stalks. There was a scurrying of small brown bodies behind the rows parallel with theirs. They emerged suddenly beside the great trunk of the fallen tree at the center of the clearing where two dozen people, obviously a formal welcoming party, stood ready to greet them. Ohan recognized the three young men they had met the previous evening. They were ranged around the headman, ready to make introductions.