Philip Farmer: The Green Odyssey

Wonder why the passageway wasn't lighted, too? he thought. Or had this cave been added by the savages who used to live on the island, so that the sanctum sanctorum would have to be approached through darkness? Perhaps it was, the primitives having constructed such a chamber so that the initiate into the religion could go through darkness both literal and symbolical and come into a light that also embraced both worlds? He didn't and couldn't know; he could only guess.

But I can take advantage of what I do have on hand, he said to himself, gritting his teeth with determination.

The dust beneath his feet gave way to clean metal. They rounded a corner and found themselves in a chamber much like the one upon their first island, except that this had furniture. A skeleton lay in the middle of the floor, face down. The back of the skull exhibited a great hole.

«He may have been here far a thousand years or more,» said Green. «I'd like to know his story. But I never will.»

«Do you think the Goddess killed him?»

«No, nor the demons either. It was the hand of man struck him down, my boy. If it's violent death you're trying to explain, don't drag in the supernatural. There's enough murder in the hearts of humankind to take care of every case.»

In the third room Green said, «There's no wall of dust to stop us. The ionic charges haven't stopped working. Notice how clean everything is. Ah, here we are! Before the door!»

Grizquetr looked puzzled. «Door? I see only a blank wall.»

«That's all I saw too,» said Green, «and that is all I would ever have seen, if it hadn't been for the tale of Samdroo.»

«Let me tell you how you got in!» chattered the boy excitedly. «I know what you were thinking of, what you did. You stood before the wall and you made a sign like this on it!»-He traced a rough outline of a rocket against the cool white metal-«and the wall suddenly slid to one side, and you had an entrance. See!»

A whole section had moved noiselessly into the wall, leaving a round doorway.

«Yes, I remembered the story of Samdroo and, though it was ridiculous to think that it would work, I did what the Sailor did. Remember that the cannibals were after him, and he ran into the cave and came to just such a blank wall. And he, wishing to protect himself against the evil spirits that he was sure lived in the cave, traced the sign that is supposed to prevent them from touching a man. And the door slid open and he plunged on into the chambers of the wicked magician, the savages bowling frustratedly after him.

«And,» continued Green, «I did just what he did, and the sign proved to be an Open, O Sesame for me.»

«A what?»

«Never mind. The point is that the ancient maintenance men must have used just such a gesture to open the door, or else used it in conjunction with other means. And if they did, then they must also have been repair technicians for the ships that landed here. Perhaps the sign of the rocket was a secret symbol for their guild. I don't know, but it sounds reasonable.»

Ignoring the boy's flood of questions, he walked into a great room. It was more bare than he'd expected when he had found it the first time; it contained four machines or their fuel supplies, all concealed in four large square metal containers. In the center of the room was a chair and an instrument panel. The panel contained six TV windows, several oscilloscopes, and dials whose purpose he didn't know. But the controls attached to the arms of the chair seemed simple enough.

«The only trouble,» he said, «is that I don't know where the activating switch is. I tried to find it the other night and couldn't. Yet, it must be so obvious that I'll feel like a fool when I do locate it.»

Vainly he pulled at the little levers set in the arms.

«My failure to activate this was the main reason I returned to the yacht and sailed on to Estorya. Of course, I had to go and find out just what the situation was and get a good idea of my plan of campaign. Perhaps if I'd stayed here and taken a chance on going into the city blind, we'd have been better off. At least, your mother wouldn't now be in prison, and we wouldn't have the additional worry of rescuing her.»

He rose from the chair and began pacing back and forth.

«How ironic if I'd come this far and could get no farther! But then, what else could I expect? It's up to me to solve this, and I'm not infallible, omniscient. It should be functioning as of now. I know that the ring of rocket-shapes has got it paralyzed so it can't act. Nevertheless, unless it's blown a fuse, gone neurotic from frustration, or just worn out, there should be some indication that it is still in operation.»

«What do you mean?» said Grizquetr. «How can the island be paralyzed?»

Green stopped pacing to gesture at the radarscopes. «See those? Well, there should be some funny lines squiggling across it, or little dots moving, or arcs sweeping across it. They would be indicating the shapes of things in the immediate neighborhood outside the island, and the lay of the land. Thus, I imagine that in the ancient days, when it spotted a rocket shape, which would then have been a genuine spaceship and not a mockup, it would have detoured around it. The whole island was, in one of its functions, a field attendant, a scavenger. It removed anything from the plain that wasn't supposed to be there. There's why they now attack 'rollers and crush them and disintegrate the parts that fall beneath their bases. That also explains why the island is trapped by a ring of rocket-shaped towers. The radar detects a complete circle and, being unable to molest any object shaped like a rocket, it squats in one place until it runs down or the rocket shapes are removed.

«Of course, it worked automatically. But there were controls for a man to operate it when there was a special job to do or if he had to take it to another place it ordinarily wouldn't go when on automatic. These controls must be the ones.

«The question is, does the island switch itself off and on at certain intervals, scanning the area around it to see if the inhibiting objects have gone? If so, there's no telling how long we may have to wait before its next sweep. And we just can't afford to wait!»

He was in agony. As long as he could keep his body and brain in action, he felt he was progressing. But as soon as he had to wait upon some inanimate object that he couldn't attack, or came across a seemingly unsolvable problem, he was lost. He just didn't have the patience.

Lady Luck whined. She was tired of being imprisoned in the bag at Green's waist and felt that she had been a good girl long enough.

Absently, he lifted her out and put her on the table. She stretched, yawned, licked her lips, and then padded across the table. Her tail switched back and forth, and its tip brushed the surface of the centrally located TV screen.

Immediately, a metal ball on the panel glowed red and a sharp whistle sounded. Two seconds later, light sprang into being in all of the viewers.

«OH, YOU BEAUTY, YOU DOLL, you lovely Lady Luck! Whatever would I do without you!» shouted Green. He started forward to caress the cat but, alarmed, she jumped from the table and sped across the room.

«Come back, come back!» he called. «I wouldn't hurt a single one of your lovely black hairs! I'll feed you on beer and fish the rest of your life, and you'll never have to put in a day's work!»

«What's the matter?» said Grizquetr.

Green hugged him, then sat down in the chair.

«Nothing, except that that wonderful cat showed me how to activate the equipment. You do so by brushing your hand across this screen. See, I'll bet you do the same when you want to de-activate it!»

He touched the screen. The whistle sounded again, the metal ball ceased glowing and the screens went dead. Once again he touched it, and life came back.