The Jewels of Aptor Page 11

  CHAPTER X

  Dawn light lay a-slant the crater's ridge. Argo pointed down theopposite slope. A black temple was visible at the bottom among trees andlawns. "There is Hama's temple," Argo said. "You have your task. Goodluck."

  They started down the incline of cinders. It took them an hour to reachthe first trees that surrounded the dark buildings and the greatgardens. Entering on the first lip of grass, they heard a sudden clusterof notes from one of the trees.

  "A bird," Iimmi said. "I haven't heard one of those since I leftLeptar."

  Suddenly, bright blue and the length of a man's forefinger, a lizard ranhalfway down the trunk of the tree. It's sapphire belly heaved in theearly light with indrawn breath; then it opened its red mouth, itsthroat warbled, and there was another burst of music.

  "Oh well," said Iimmi. "I was close."

  They walked further, until Iimmi mused, "I wonder why you always thinkthings are going to turn out like you expect."

  "Because when something sounds like that," declared Urson, "it usuallyis a bird!" Suddenly he gave a little shiver. "Lizards," he said.

  "It was a pretty lizard," said Iimmi.

  "Going around expecting things to be what they seem can get you introuble--especially on this island," Geo commented.

  The angle at which they walked made one of the clumps of tree beforethem seem to fall apart. A man standing in the center raised his handand said briskly, "Stop!"

  They stopped.

  He wore dark robes, and his short white hair made a close helmet abovehis brown face.

  Urson's hand was on his sword. Snake stood with his feet wide, his handsout from his sides.

  "Who are you?" the dark man declared.

  "Who are you?" Urson parried.

  "I am Hama Incarnate."

  They were silent. Finally Geo said, "We are travelers in Aptor. We don'tmean any harm."

  As the man moved forward, splotches of light from the trees slippedacross his robe. "Come with me," Hama said. He turned and proceededamong the trees. They followed.

  They passed into the temple garden. It was early enough in the morningso that the sunlight lapped pink tongues over the giant black urns thatsat along the edges of the path. Now they passed into the temple.

  As they passed, Hama turned, looked at the jewels on Iimmi's and Geo'snecks, and then looked up at the gazing eye of the statue at the end ofthe altar. He made no other sign, but turned again and continued. "Themorning rites have not yet started," he said. "They will begin in a halfan hour. By then I hope to have divined your purpose in coming here."

  At the other side of the stairway they mounted a stairway, and thenentered a door above which was a black circle dotted with three eyes.Just as they were about to go in, Geo looked around, frowned, and caughtIimmi's eye. "Snake?" he mouthed.

  Iimmi looked around and shrugged.

  The man turned and faced them, apparently unaware of Snake's departure.As he closed the door, now, he said, "You have come to oppose the forcesof Aptor, am I right? You come to steal the jewel of Hama. You have cometo kidnap the Incarnate Argo. Is that not your purpose. Keep your handoff your sword, Urson! I can kill you in a moment. You are defenseless."

  * * * * *

  "Damn! I'm sleepy." She rolled over and cuddled the pillow. Then sheopened her eyes, one at a time, and lay watching the nearly completedmotor of metal bars and copper wire that sat on the table beside herbed. She stood up.

  Then she collapsed on the bed and jammed her feet under the coversagain. With thirty feet of one and a half inch brass pipe, she musedsleepily, I could carry heat from the main hot-water line under thefloor which I would estimate to be about the proper surface area to keepthese stones warm; let me see, thirty feet of one and a half inch pipehave a surface area of 22/7 times 3/2 times 30 which is 990 divided by 7which is ... Then she caught herself. Damn, you're thinking this toavoid thinking about getting up. She opened her eyes once more, put feeton the stone, and held them there while she scratched vigorously at heruneven mop of red hair.

  She looked at the clock. "Yikes!" she said softly, and ran out the door,and slammed it behind her--almost. She whirled around, caught it on herpalms before it banged shut, and then closed it with gingerly care thefinal centimeter and a half of the arc. Are you trying to get caught?she asked herself as she tiptoed to the next door.

  She opened it and looked in. Dunderhead looks cute when he's asleep, shethought. There was a cord on the floor that ran from under the table bythe priest's bed, over the stones, carefully following the zigzag of thecrevices between them, and at last the end lay in the corner of the doorsill. You really couldn't see it if you weren't looking for it, whichhad more or less been the idea when she had put it there last nightbefore the priests had come back from vespers. The far end was tied in aknot of her own invention to the electric plug of his alarm clock.Dunderhead had an annoying habit of re-setting his clock every eveningmaking sure that the red second hand was still sweeping away theminutes. (In her plans for this morning she had catalogued his everyhabitual action, and had observed this one for three nights running,hanging upside down from the bulky stone portcullis above and outsidehis window.)

  Tugging on the string, she saw it leap from the crevices into a straightline and then lift from the floor as she drew it tauter, and then goslack as the plug blipped quietly onto the floor.

  Next she pulled the string again until the slack left and raised her enda few inches from the floor. With her free hand now she gave the stringa small twit and watched the vibration run up and down the string twice.The knot's invention was an ingenuous one. At the vibration, two opposedloops shook away from a third, and a four millimeter length of rubberband that had been sewn in tautened and released a fourth loop fromaround a small length of number four gauge wire with a holding tonsureof three quarters of a gram, and the opposing vibration returning up thethread loosed a similar apparatus on the other side of the plug. Theknot fell away, and she wound it quickly around her hand. She stood up,closed the door, and the oiled lock was perfectly silent. The door knobwas just the slightest bit greasy, she noted. Careless.

  Back in her room, it was standing on the table. Sunlight from the highwindow fell red across the board. It was very early in the morning. Shetook the parts of the motor up in her hands. "I guess we try you outtoday? No?" She answered herself, "Yes." Finally she put the parts inthe paper bag, strode out of the room, and slammed the ... whirledaround and caught it once more. "Gnnnnnnn," she said. "Do you want toget caught?" For the second time she answered herself, "Yes. Andremember that too. Or you'll never get through it."

  As she walked down the hall, she heard through one of the windows thechirp of a blue lizard from the garden. "The sound I wanted to hear,"she smiled to herself. "A good sign."

  Turning into the temple, she started down the side aisle. The greatblack columns passed before her. Something moved between the columnsalong the other side, swift and indistinct as a bird's shadow. At leastshe thought she saw something. "Remember," she reminded herself, "youhave guilt feelings about this whole thing, and you could very easily bemanufacturing delusions to scare yourself out of going through with it."She went on, passed two more columns, and saw it again. "Or," she wenton with her monologue, "you could be purposefully ignoring the veryobvious fact that there is somebody over there who is going to see you.So watch it." There were mirrors somewhere in the temple, but theyweren't on the opposite wall, so she couldn't be seeing herself. In factthe mirrors were out in the vestibule through which she had come andmaybe this other person had come, so maybe it was seeing her as areflection of ... "Unscramble that syntax," she told herself. "You thinklike that and you'll never make it."

  But there was somebody, with no clothes on (for all practical purposes)sneaking between the pillars. And he had four arms. That made her startto think of something else, but the thought as it arrowed into the past,suddenly got deflected, turned completely about, and jammed into herbrain again, because he
was staring directly at her.

  _If he starts walking toward me_, she thought, _I'm going to be scaredout of my ears. So I better start walking toward him. Besides, I want tosee what he looks like._ She started out from the columns. Glancingquickly both ways, she saw that the temple was deserted save for them.

  _He's a kid_, she thought, three quarters of the way across. _My age_,she added, and again a foreign thought attempted to intrude itself onher but never made it, because he was coming toward her now. At last hestopped before her, silent, muscles like tight wire under the brownskin, black hair massing low on his forehead, his eyes deep beneath theblack shrub of brows.

  She gulped and asked him, "What are you doing here? Do you know somebodycould catch you in here and get mad as hell? I know I couldn't possiblyhave, but I think I've seen you before some place; if somebody comesalong, they might even think you were trying to steal Hama's eye." _Ishouldn't have said that_, she thought, _because he moved funny._ "Youbetter get out of here because everybody will be up here in a half anhour for morning services."

  At that news, he suddenly darted forward, passed her, and sprinted downtoward the altar.

  "Hey!" she called and ran after him.

  Snake vaulted over the brass altar rail.

  "Wait a minute," she called, catching up. "Wait, will you!"

  Snake turned as she slung her leg across the brass bar. "Look, I realizeI gave away my hand. But that was only guilt feelings. You gave yoursaway too, though. And if you don't think you've got guilt feelings, boy,you're crazy."

  Snake frowned, tilted his head, and then grinned.

  "So we'll help each other see," she said. "You want it too, don't you."She pointed up to the head of the statue towering above them. "So let'sco-operate. I'll get it for a little while. Then you can have it." Hewas listening, she saw, so she guessed her strategy was working. _Playit by ear now_, she thought. "We'll help each other. Shake on it, huh?"She stuck out her hand.

  All four hands reached forward.

  _Whoops_, she thought, _I hope he's not offended._

  But the four hands grasped hers, and she added her second to thejuncture. "All right," she said. "Come on. Now I had all this figuredout last night. And we don't have much time. Let's go around ..." But hewalked over to where the stalks of wheat spired from the altar base upthrough Hama's fist, and grabbed a stalk with the three hands, and hand,over hand, over hand, began to hoist himself up to where the first broadsheets of metal leaves leaned out to form a small platform. At first hisdirty feet swung out frog-like, but then he caught the stem with histoes and at last hoisted himself to the front and looked down at her.

  "I can't climb up there," she said, "I don't have your elevation power."

  Snake looked down and shrugged.

  "Oh damn," she said. "I'll do it my way." She ran across the altar tothe great foot of the statue. Sitting cross-legged, Hama's foot was onhis side. Using the ridges made by the toes as steps, she clammered upto the dark bulge of the deity's godlike bunion. She made her way acrossthe ankle, up the slanting shin, back down the black thigh, until shestood at the crevice where the leg and torso met.

  Out beyond the great knee, Snake regarded her from his perch in thegroin of yellow leaf. They were about equal height.

  "Yoo-hoo," she waved. "Meet you at the clavicle." Then she stuck hertongue out. The bulges in the belly of the god made a treacherous ledgealong which she inched until she arrived at the cavernous naval, leavingwet handprints on the black stone.

  The god's belly button from this intimate distance revealed itself as acircular door about five feet in diameter and controlled by acombination lock. She missed the first number twice, dried her handsoff, and began again. According to the plans in the main safe of thetemple (on which she had first practiced combination breaking) there wasa ladder behind this door which led up into the statue. She rememberedit clearly; and saved her life by doing so.

  Because when she caught the second number, reversed the direction andfelt the telltale click of the third, she pulled on the handle and wasalmost pushed from the ledge by the swinging circular door. She grabbedat a handle that she hardly saw on the door's inside, just as the stoneslipped from beneath her feet. Then she was hanging five feet out in theair over the sacred groin some fifty feet below.

  The first thing she tried, after closing her eyes and mumbling a fewlaws of motion, was to swing the door to. When she swung out, however,the door swung closed; and when she swung in, the door swung opened.After a while, she just hung. She gave small thanks that she had driedher hands. When her arms began to ache, she wished that she hadn't,because then it would be over by now. She went over what she knew abouttaking judo falls.

  Then the door swung closed, and someone grabbed her around the waist.She didn't open her eyes, but felt her body pressed against the tiltingstone. Her arms fell tingling to her sides. The ligaments flamed withpain. Then the pain dulled to throbbing, and she opened her eyes. "Howthe hell did you get down here?" she asked Snake. With his help shestaggered through the open door and stopped to rub her arms. "How didyou know about the ladder?"

  They were standing in the shaft now, with the ladder beside them runningup into the darkness.

  He looked at her with a puzzled expression.

  "What is it?" she asked. "Oh, I'll be able to climb up there, never youworry. Hey, can you speak?"

  Snake shook his head.

  "Oh," she said. Something started at the edge of her mind again, apicture of something unpleasant. Snake had started up the ladder, whichhe had come down so quickly a minute ago. She glanced out the door, sawthat the temple was empty, pulled the door to, and followed.

  They ascended into complete darkness. Her arms were beginning to acheagain, just slightly. She reached up for the next rung, and found it inits proper place. Then the next. And then again the next.

  She started counting steps now, and when seventy-four, seventy-five, andseventy-six dropped below her, there was a missing rung. She reachedabove it, but there was none. She ran her hand up the edge of the ladderand found that it suddenly curved into the wall. "Hey, you," she said inthe darkness.

  Something touched her waist. "Gnnnnnggggg," she said. "Don't _do_ that."It touched her on the leg, took hold of her ankle, and pulled. "Watchout," she said.

  It pulled again. She raised her foot, and it was tugged sideways a goodfoot and a half and set on solid flooring. Then a hand (her foot was notreleased) took her arm, and another held her waist, and tugged. Shestiffened for one instant before she remembered the number of limbs hercompanion had. Then she came off the ladder, sideways into the dark,afraid to put her other foot down lest she step headlong into theseventy-five foot plus shaft.

  But he tugged again, and in losing her balance, her foot came down oncool, solid stone. Holding her arm now, he led her along the tunnel.They passed into a steep incline. Now down the upper arm, she recalled.

  "I feel like Eurydice," she said aloud.

  _You ... funny ..._ an echoing voice sounded in her skull.

  "Hey," she said. "What was that?" But the voice was silent. The wallturned abruptly and the floor leveled out. They were in a section of thepassage now that corresponded roughly to the statue's radial artery. Atthe wrist, there was a light. They mounted a stairway, came out a trapdoor, and found themselves standing high in the temple. Below them thegreat room spread, vastly deep, and still empty. Beside them, the stemsof the bronze wheat stalks rose up through the fist and spired anotherfifty feet before breaking into clusters of golden grain and leaves.Across from them, over the dark curve of Gargantuan chest, in thestatue's other hand, the shaft of the scythe leaned away into shadow.

  "Look," she said. "You follow me now." She started back along the top ofthe forearm and then began the tedious climb over the rippling biceps,till at last they reached the broad shoulder. They walked across thehollow above the collar bone until they stood just below the greatscooping shell of the ear.

  She took the paper bag she had stuffed into
her belt, tied one end ofthe string around the neck, and then, holding the other, she heaved thebag up and over the ear. She got the other end of the string, knotted itas high as she could reach, and gave it a tug. "I hope this works," shesaid. "I had it all figured out yesterday. The tensile strength of thisstuff is about two hundred and fifty pounds, which ought to do for youand me." She planted her foot on the swell of the neck tendon, and inseven leaps she made it to the lobe of the ear. She swung around intothe hollow, using the frontal wing as a pivot. Crouching in the hollowtrumpet, she looked down at Snake. "Come up," she said. "Hurry up."

  Snake joined her a moment later.

  The ear was hollow, too. It led back into a cylindrical chamber whichwent up through the head of the god. The architect who had designed thestatue had conveniently left the god's lid flipped. They climbed theladder and emerged amid the tangle of pipes which represented the hairof the god. They made their way forward through the mass of pipes towhere the forehead sloped dangerously forward. They could see theforeshortened nose and the rim of the statue's middle eye above that.There wasn't much of anything after that for the next thousand feetuntil the base of the altar. "Now you can really be some help," she toldhim. "Hold on to my wrist and let me down. I'll get the jewel."

  They grabbed wrists, and Snake's three other hands, as well as thejoints of his knees, locked around the base of five pipes that sproutedaround them.

  Slowly she slid forward, until her free hand slipped on the stone andshe dropped the length of their two arms and swung just above thestatue's nose. The eye opened in front of her. The lid arced above her,and the white of either side of the ebony iris shone faintly in the halfdarkness. At the center of the iris, in a small hollow, sitting on thetop of a metal support, was the jewel.

  She reached her free hand toward it as she swung.

  From somewhere a gong suddenly sounded. Light flooded over her. Lookingup, she saw white sockets of light shining down into her own eyes.Panicking, she almost released Snake's wrist. But a voice in her head(hers or someone else's, she couldn't tell) rang out. _Hold ... on ...damn ... it ..._

  Then she grabbed the jewel. The metal shaft in which the jewel had stoodwas not steady, and tilted as her hand came away from it. The tiltingmust have set off some clockwork mechanism, because the great eyelid wasslowly lowering over the ivory and ebony eye. She swung again at the endof the rope of bone and flesh; half blinded by the lights above her, shelooked over her shoulder, into the temple below. There was singing, thebeginning of a processional hymn. The morning rites had started!

  Light glinted on the stone limbs of the god. Figures were pouring intothe temple. They must have seen her, but the hymn, sonorous andgigantic, rose like flood water, and she suddenly thought that if shefell, she would drown in the sound of it.

  Snake was pulling her up. Stone against her arm, against her cheek. Sheclenched her other fist tightly at her side. Another hand came down andhelped pull her. Then another. Then she was lying among the metal pipes,and he was loosening her fingers from his wrist. He tugged her to herfeet, and for a moment she was looking out over the now filled temple.

  Nervous energy contracted coldly along her body, and the sudden sight ofthe great drop filled her eyes and her head, and she staggered. Snakecaught her and at last helped her back to the ladder. "We've got it,"she said to him before they started down. She breathed deeply. Then shechecked in her palm to see if it was still there; it was, and again shelooked out over the people below. Light on the up-turned faces made themlook like scattered pearls on the dark floor. An exaltation suddenlyburst in her shoulders, flooded her legs and arms and for a momentwashed the pain away. Snake, with one hand on her shoulder, was grinningalso. "We've got it!" she said again.

  They went down the ladder into the statue's skull. Snake preceded herout the hollow ear. He reached around, caught the cord, and let himselfdown to the shoulder.

  She hesitated for a moment, then put the jewel in her mouth, andfollowed him. Standing beside him once more, she removed it, and thenrubbed her shoulders. "Boy, am I going to have some Charley horse bytomorrow," she said. "Do me a favor and untie my bag for me?"

  Snake untied the parcel from the end of the cord, and together now theyclimbed down the bicep and back over the forearm to the trap door in thewrist.

  She glanced down at the faces of the worshipers just before theydisappeared into the tunnel. Snake was taking the jewel from her hand.She let him have it, and watched him raise it up above his head.

  Immediately, when he raised the jewel, the pearls of faces went out likeextinguished flames as heads bent all through the temple.

  "That's the ticket," grinned Argo. "Come on." But Snake did not go intothe tunnel. Instead he walked around the fist, took hold of one of thebronze wheat stems, and slid down through an opening between the thumband forefinger. "That way?" asked Argo. "Oh well, I guess so. You knowI'm going to write an epic about this."

  But Snake had already gone. She followed him, clutching her feet arounda great bunch of stems. He was waiting for her at the plateau of leaves,and nestled there, they gazed out once more at the fascinatedcongregation.

  Again Snake held aloft the jewel, and again heads bowed. The hymn beganto repeat itself, the individual words lost in the sonority of the hall.They started down the last length of stems now, coming quickly. Whenthey stood at last on the base, she put her hand on his shoulder andlooked across the brass altar rail. The congregation pressed close,although she did not recognize an individual face. Yet a mass of peoplestood there, enormous and familiar. As Snake started forward, holding upthe jewel, the people fell back from the rail. Snake climbed over thealtar rail, and then helped her over.

  Her shoulders were beginning to hurt now, and the enormity of the theftran chills up and down, up and down her spine. The black marble altarstep as she put her foot down was awfully cold.

  They started forward again, and the last note of the hymn echoed tosilence, filling the hall with the roaring quiet of the hushed breathingof hundreds.

  Simultaneously, both she and Snake got the urge to look back at thegreat diminishing height of Hama behind them. All three eyes were shutfirmly now. A quiet composed of the rustling of a hundred dark robesupon another hundred hissed about them as they started forward again.

  There was a spotlight on them, she suddenly realized. That was why thepeople, hovering back from the circular effulgence over the floor aroundthem seemed so dim. Her heart had become a pulse at the bottom of hertongue. They kept on going forward, into the shadowed faces, into theparting sea of dark cloaks and hoods.

  Then the last of the figures stepped aside from the temple door, and shecould see the sunlight out in the garden. They stood still for amoment, Snake holding high the jewel; then they burst forward, outthrough the door and down over the bright steps.

  Instantly the hymn began again behind them, as if their departure hadbeen a signal. The music flooded after them, and when they reached thebottom step, they both whirled, crouching like animals, expecting thecongregation to come welling darkly out after them. But there was onlythe music, flowing into the light, washing around them, a transparentriver, a sea.

  "_Freeze the drop in the hand, and break the earth with singing. Hail the height of a man, and also the height of a woman._"

  Over the music came a brittle chirping from the trees. Fixed with fear,they watched the temple door as the hymn progressed. Then Snake suddenlystood up straight and grinned.

  She scratched her red hair, shifted her weight, and looked at Snake. "Iguess they're not coming," she said, sounding almost disappointed. Thenshe giggled. "Well, I guess we got it."

  * * * * *

  "Don't move," repeated Hama Incarnate.

  "Now look--" began Urson.

  "You are perfectly safe," the god continued, "unless you do anythingfoolish. You have shown great wisdom. Continue to show it. I have a lotto explain to you."

  "Like what?" asked Geo.

&nb
sp; "I'll start with the lizards," smiled the god.

  "The what?" asked Iimmi.

  "The singing lizards," said Hama. "You walked through a grove of treesjust a few minutes ago. You had just been through a series of happeningsthat was probably the most frightening in your life. Suddenly you hearda singing in the trees. What was it?"

  "I thought it was a bird," Iimmi said.

  "But why a bird?" asked the god.

  "Because that's what a bird sounds like," stated Urson impatiently. "Whoneeds an old lizard singing to them on a morning like this?"

  "Your second point is much better than your first," said the god. "Youdo not need a lizard, but you did need a bird. A bird means spring,life, good luck, cheerfulness. You think of a bird singing and you thinkof thoughts that men have been thinking for thousands upon thousands ofyears. Poets have written of it in every language, Catullus in Latin,Keats in English, Li Po in Chinese, Darnel X24 in New English. Youexpected a bird because after what you had been through, you needed tohear a bird. Lizards run from under wet rocks, scurry over gravestones.A lizard is not what you needed."

  "So what do lizards have to do with why we're here?" demanded Urson.

  "Why are you here?" repeated the god, subtly changing Urson's question."There are many reasons, I am sure. You tell me some of them."

  "You have done wrongs to Argo--at least to Argo of Leptar," Geoexplained. "We have come to undo them. You have kidnaped the young Argo,as well as her mother apparently. We have come to take her back. Youhave misused the jewels. We have come to take the last one from you."

  Hama smiled. "Only a poet could see the wisdom in such honesty. Ithought I might have to wheedle to get that much out of you."

  "I guess it was pretty certain that you knew that much already," Geosaid.

  "True," answered Hama. Then his tone changed. "Do you know how thejewels work?"

  They shook their heads.

  "They are basically very simple mechanical contrivances which aredifficult in execution, but simple in concept. I will explain. Humanthoughts, it was discovered after the Great Fire during the firstglorious years of the City of New Hope, did not produce waves similar toradio waves, but the electrical synapse pattern, it was found, can beread by radio waves, in the same way a mine detector reads theexistence of metal."

  "Radio?" Geo said.

  "That's right," Hama said. "Oh, I forgot, you don't know anything aboutthat at all. Well, I can't go through the whole thing now. Suffice it tosay that each of the jewels contains a carefully honed crystal which isconstantly sending out beams which can read these thought patterns. Alsothe crystal acts like a magnifying glass or a mirror, and reflects andmagnifies the energy from the brain into heat or light or any other kindof electromagnetic radiation--there I go again--so that you can sendgreat bolts of heat with them, as you have seen done.

  "But the actual workings of them are not important. And their ability tosend heat out is only their secondary power. Their primary importance isthat they can be used to penetrate the mind. Now we come to thelizards."

  "Wait a minute," Geo said. "Before we get to the lizards. Do you mean gointo minds like Snake does?" Suddenly he remembered that the boy was notthere.

  But the god went on. "Like Snake," he said. "But different. Snake wasborn with the ability to transmute the brain patterns of his thoughts toothers; in that he has a power something like the jewels, but nowhere asstrong. But with the jewels, you can jam a person's thoughts...."

  "Just go into his mind and stop him from thinking?" asked Iimmi.

  "No," said the god. "Conscious thought is too powerful. Otherwise, youwould stop thinking every time Snake spoke to you. It works another way.How many reasons does a man have for any single action?"

  They looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  "Why, for example, does a man pull his hand from a fire?"

  "Because it hurts," said Urson. "Why else?"

  "Yes, why else?" asked Hama.

  "I think I see what you mean," said Iimmi. "He also pulls it out becausehe knows that outside the fire his hand isn't going to hurt. Like thebird, I mean the lizard. One reason we reacted like we did was becauseit sounded like a bird. The other reason was because we wanted to heara bird just then. The man pulls his hand out because the fire hurts, andbecause he wants it not to hurt."

  "In other words," Geo summarized, "there are at least two reasons foreverything."

  "Exactly," explained Hama. "And notice that one of these reasons isunconscious. But with the jewel, you can jam the unconscious reason; sothat if a man has his hand in a fire, you can jam his unconscious reasonof wanting it to stop hurting. Completely bewildered, and in no lesspain, he will stand there until his wrist is a smoking nub."

  Geo reached over and felt his severed arm.

  "Dictators during the entire history of this planet have used similartechniques. By not letting the people of their country know whatconditions existed outside their boundaries, they could get the peopleto fight to stay in those conditions. It was the old adage, convince aslave that he's free, and he will fight to maintain his slavery. Whydoes a poet sing? Because he likes music; and because silence frightenshim. Why does a thief steal? To get the goods from his victim; also toprove that his victim cannot get him."

  "That's how Argo got Snake back," Geo said to Urson. "I see now. He wasjust thinking of running away, and she jammed his desire not to getcaught; so he had nothing to direct him in which direction to run. So heran where she told him, straight back to her."

  "That's right," Hama said. "But something else was learned when thesejewels were invented. Or rather a lesson which history should havetaught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man canwield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. Forno matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, hisalternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of the people andultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom wouldwant this power, would conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedomwill turn him into a slave of this power. For this reason, the jewelsare evil. That is why we have summoned you to steal them from us."

  "To steal them from you?" asked Geo. "Why couldn't you have simplydestroyed them when you had them."

  "We have already been infected," smiled the god. "We are a small bandhere on Aptor. To reach the state of organization, to collect thescattered scientific knowledge of the times before the Great Fire, wasnot easy. Too often the jewels have been used, and abused, and now wecannot destroy it. We would have to destroy ourselves first. We kidnapedArgo and left you the second jewel, hoping that you would come after thethird and last one. Now you have come, and now the jewel is beingstolen."

  "Snake?" asked Geo.

  "That's right," replied Hama.

  "But I thought he was your spy," Geo said.

  "That he is our spy is his unconscious reason for his actions,"explained Hama. "He is aware only that he is working against the evil hehas seen in Jordde. Spy is too harsh a word for him. Say, rather, littlethief. He became a spy for us quite unwittingly when he was on theisland as a child with Jordde. I have explained something to you of howthe mind works. We have machines that can duplicate what Snake does in asimilar way that the jewels work. This is how the blind priestessescontacted Jordde and made him their spy. This is how we reached Snake.But he never saw us, never even really talked to us. It was mainlybecause of something he saw, something he saw when he first got here."

  "Wait a minute," Iimmi said. "Jordde wanted to kill me, and did killWhitey because of something we might have seen. I bet this was the samething. Now, what was it?"

  Hama smiled. "My telling you would do no good. Perhaps you can find outfrom Snake, or my daughter, Argo Incarnate."

  "But what do we do now?" Geo interrupted. "Take the jewels back to Argo,I mean Argo on the ship? She's already used the jewels to control minds,at least Snake's, so that means she's infected, too."

  "Once you guessed the reason for her infection," said Hama. "We
havebeen watching you on our screens since you landed. Do you remember whatthe reason was?"

  "Do you mean her being jealous of her sister?" Geo asked.

  "Yes. On one side her motives were truly patriotic for Leptar. On theother hand they were selfish ones of power seeking. But without theselfish ones, she would have never gotten so far as she did. You mustbring young Argo back and give the infection a chance to work itselfout."

  "But what about the jewels?" asked Geo. "All three of them will betogether. Isn't that a huge temptation?"

  "Someone must meet this temptation, and overcome it," said Hama. "You donot know how much danger they are in while they are here on Aptor. Evenif the final danger is only delayed, that delay will make it safer tobring them to Leptar."

  Suddenly Hama turned to the screens and pushed a switch to on position.The opaque glass was filled with a picture of the interior of thetemple. On the huge statue, a spotlight was following two microscopicfigures over the statue's shoulder. They were climbing over the statue'selbow.

  Hama increased the size. It was two people, not bugs, climbing down thegigantic sculptured figure. They made their way along the statue'sforearm now, to the golden stalks of wheat in the god's black fist. One,and then the other began to shimmy down the stems. They arrived at thebase and climbed over the rail. The screen enlarged again.

  "It's Snake," said Geo.

  "And he's got the jewel," Urson added.

  "That's Argo with him," Iimmi put in. "I mean--one of the Argos." Theyclustered around the screen, watching the congregation give way beforethe two fearful children. The red-haired girl in the short white tunicwas holding onto Snake's shoulder.

  Suddenly Hama turned the picture off, and they looked away from thescreen now, puzzled. "So you see," said the god, "the jewel has alreadybeen stolen. For the sake of Argo, and of Hama, carry the jewels back toLeptar. Young Argo will help you. Though her mother and I are pained tosee her go, she is as prepared for the journey as you are, if not more.Will you do it?"

  "I will," Iimmi said.

  "Me too," said Geo.

  "I guess so," Urson said.

  "Good," smiled Hama. "Then come with me." He turned from the screen andwalked through the door. They followed him down the long stairway, pastthe stone walls, into the hall, and along the back of the church. Hewalked slowly, and smiled like a man who had waited long for somethingfinally arrived. They turned out of the temple and descended the brightsteps.

  "I wonder where the kids are?" Urson asked.

  But Hama led them on, across the broad garden to where the great blackurns sat in a row close to a wall of shrubbery. A woman--oldArgo--suddenly joined them. She had apparently been waiting for them.She gave them a silent smile of recognition, and they continued acrossthe garden path.

  * * * * *

  Light fell through the shrubbery across her white tunic and Snake's bareback as they crouched over the contraption of coils and metal. Shetwisted two pieces of wire together in a final connection as Snakeplaced the jewel on an improvised thermocouple. Then they bent over itand both concentrated their thoughts on the bead. The thermocoupleglowed red, and electricity jumped in the copper veins, turning themetal bone into a magnet. The armature tugged once around its pivot, andthen tugged around once more. Finally it was whipping around steadily,the brushes on its shaft reversing the magnetic poles with each halfcircle of the arc. It gained speed until it whirred into an invisiblecopper haze between them. "Hey," she breathed, "look at it go, will you!Just look at it go." And the young thieves crouched over the hummingmotor, oblivious to the eyes of the elder gods that smiled at them fromthe edge of the green shift of shadow and sunlight, by the side of themarble urn.