Philip Farmer - The Green Odyssey

«Nothing to it. But chances are I'd never have found out how simple it was.»

He began sobering up. «Down to work. Let's see…»

The six TV windows showed them the north, east, south, west, above and below. As the island was resting upon solid dirt there was, of course, nothing to see beneath.

«We'll remedy that. But first I think we'd better see if these screens give expanding and contracting views.»

He fiddled around with the levers. When he depressed the second one, the room jumped. Hastily replacing it in neutral, Green said, «Well, we know what that one does. I'll bet the people outside think they had a slight earthquake. They've seen nothing yet. Hmmm. Here, I think, is the one I want.»

He twisted a knob on the right-hand arm. All the TV's began narrowing their field of vision. Reversing the knob, however, made them spread out their view, though the objects in them, of course, became smaller.

It took him five minutes more of cautious testing before he felt justified in beginning operations. Then he raised the island off the ground about twenty feet and rocked it back and forth. Lady Luck leaped for his lap and cowered down in it. Grizquetr, bracing himself against the table, turned pale.

«Relax, kid,» called Green. «As long as you're going along on the ride you might as well enjoy it.»

Grizquetr grinned feebly, but when his father told him to stand behind him so he, too, could learn how to operate, he gained color and confidence.

«When we get to Estorya I may have to leave this chamber, and I'll need somebody who can see me through the TV's and answer my signals. You're the candidate. You may he only a kid, but anybody who can calmly talk of slipping a knife through a man's ribs has what it takes.»

«Thank you,» breathed Grizquetr in all sincerity.

«Here's what I'll do,» said Green. «I'll roll this island back and forth until the soldiers are thoroughly panicky and seasick. And the walls around the cave are tumbled down. Then we'll lower to earth again and give the rats a chance to desert the ship. But we're no sinking ship, not us. After everybody that's able has fled to the plains, we'll take off at top speed for Estorya.»

Fascinated, the boy watched the screens and saw the soldiers run off into the early morning light, yelling, their eyes and mouths bulging with horror. Some, wounded, crawled off.

«I feel sorry for them,» said Green, «but somebody's got to get hurt before this is over and I'd rather it wasn't us.»

He pointed to the 'scopes, which still indicated the ring of towers.

«As long as this island was on automatic it couldn't pass those inhibitories. But I've by-passed that with this switch. Now, we go ahead, and not over the towers, as we could easily do, but through them. I think we've got the weight behind us.»

There was a slight shock, the rooms trembled, then the towers before them were gone and they were speeding across the plain. Minute by minute Green increased their rate, until he thought they must be making about a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour.

«Those dials are probably telling me my speed,» he said to Grizquetr. «But I can't read their alphabet or numerical system. It doesn't matter.»

He laughed as he watched 'rollers wheel hard aport or hard to starboard in a frenzy to get out of their way. The rails and ratlines were lined with white faces, like rags of terror fluttering in the breeze of the island's passage.

«If there were time to send a message, I imagine we'd encounter the whole Estoryan fleet,» said Green. «What a battle that would be! Rather, what a massacre, for this craft is built for eating up whole navies.»

«Father,» said Grizquetr, «we could be king over the whole world, we could rule the Xurdimur and take tribute off every 'roller that sailed!»

«Yes, I suppose we could, you little barbarian, you,» replied Green. «But we won't. We're using this for just one purpose, rescuing the Earthman and your mother and sisters. After that…»

«Yes?»

«I don't know.»

He fell into a reverie as the plain beneath raced past, the white sails of the 'rollers blooming from small patches to great flags, then dwindling as swiftly.

Finally, rousing from his thoughts, he began to explain a little to the boy.

«You see, many thousands of years ago there was a great civilization that had many machines that would seem to you even more magical than this one. They traveled to the stars and there found worlds much like this one, and they put colonies upon them. They had swift skips that could jump across the vast abyss between these worlds and so keep in fairly close touch.

«But something happened, some catastrophe. I can't imagine what it could be, but it must have happened. While it would be interesting to know the cause, all we can know is the effect. Travel ceased, and as time went by the colonies, which were probably rather small to begin with, lost their civilization. The colonies must have been rather dependent upon supplies shipped to them, and they must have had a limited number of highly trained scientists and specialists among them. Anyway, whatever the reason, they relapsed into savagery. And it was not until ages had passed that some of these colonies, utterly without memory of their glorious heritage, except perhaps disguised in myth and legend, attained a high technology again. Others stayed in savagery; some, like your world, Grizquetr, are in the transition stage. Your culture is roughly analogous to the ones that existed on Earth between 100 A.D. and 1000 A.D. Those dates mean nothing to you, I know, but let me assure you that we present-day Terrestrials regard those times as being, well, rather hazardous and, uh, unreasonable in their conduct.»

«I only half-understand you,» replied the boy. «But didn't you say that nothing of the wisdom of the ancients survived on your planet? Well, why had it done so on ours? These islands must be the work of the old ones.»

«Correct! And that's not all. So is the Xurdimur itself.»

«What?»

«Yes, it's obvious to me that this planet must once have been a tremendous clearing-house and landing field for spacecraft. These plains couldn't be natural; they must have been leveled out by machinery. A laboratory-born grass was planted that had all the characteristics needed to hold the soil together and keep erosion away. Plus the fact that the islands themselves were, you might say, caretakers, and kept the whole field spruced up.

«Gods! I can imagine what a traffic this planet must have had to build such a landing-field! Ten thousand miles across! The mind boggles before the thought. They must have done things on a big scale then. Which makes it all the more difficult to figure out how they could have come to ruin. Will we ever know what force wrecked them?»

Grizquetr, of course, had even less of an answer than Green. Both were silent for a while; then they cried out simultaneously when the pointed tips of the white towers surrounding Estorya glittered upon the horizon. One of the screens began flashing a series of cone shapes that indicated the towers.

«If the island were still on automatic it would be forced to go around the entire nation,» said Green. «But I'm running it now, and we're paying no attention to those towers.»

«Knock 'em down!»

«That's just what I intend to do. But not right now. Let's see. Wonder how high we can go. Only one way to find out. Upsydaisy!»

He pulled back the lever and the island began rising, though still maintaining its horizontal attitude.

«The ancients, like us moderns, knew how to build antigravity machines. And they also must have kept building their spaceships in the conventional rocket-form long after there was any need for it. Perhaps, though, they did so in order for the islands to have a more definite radar image. Maybe. No one really knows.»