Эрл Гарднер - The Human Zero. The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

She paused and the parrot took up the refrain.

“Down, down, ark! ark! awarrruk!”

“And we’re raising ’em up,” chanted the woman. “Up, up, up! And our work can’t be interfered with. You two: what are you? Just two insignificant lives in the Wheel of Life. But what are we? What’s our work? We’re dealing with millions of souls, restoring them to free will and understanding.

“It will take time. Oh, yes. It’ll take time, all right! We’ve been at it a couple of thousand years, and we’ll be at it a couple of thousand years more. But we’ve got two souls! Hear that! Two of our monkeys have developed above the group soul of animals into the individual souls of men. You don’t know, you two. You’ll say they’re just well-trained monkeys. But we know. We can see the soul gleaming through their eyes. Before the work of saving those two souls, bringing up the whole band into light of understanding, your lives aren’t worth that!”

She tried to snap her fingers, but the claws gave only a rasping sound of skin rubbing against skin.

“The Grandharaus are servants of Agni, the god of light; bodyguard of Soma, right-hand assistants to Varuna the divine judge. There are twenty-seven in all. Three groups of nine, and each of the nines is split into three groups. Three of the Grandharaus are from the subjects of Hanuman. And we’ve brought to light two of those suppressed Grandharaus of the monkey men! They’ve been weighted down by thousands of lives of sin. Their destinies, their karma has slipped until they’ve almost been blotted out in a single group soul. But we’ve got their souls back. One of the two is the judge. You’ll be taken to his court. The other one you can’t see. He’s preparing for his wedding. Yes, a wedding. We’ve got to have an Apsaras for the Grandharaus. And we’ve found her, a woman with monkey eyes!”

The parrot chanted.

“Monkey eyes, arawk! The woman with monkey eyes.”

Forbes shot a meaning gaze at Nickers. Phil felt a cold sweat bursting from the pores of his skin. The crone went on:

“Who can tell, maybe a million years ago, maybe two million years there came the dividing line. One branch of the souls went down. The other branch was held chained to the Wheel of Life, through hundreds of thousands of incarnations. Life after life, death after death. And one soul slipped down, and one went up. But the things that are to be will be. And always there remains the carry-over of karma. And the humans that left the monkey karma have a look in their eyes. One can always tell. And we’re bringing them back together. The two paths are coming together again. That’s our work. That’s the work of the priests of Hanuman. I’ve told you so you’ll know what the trial is about. And you’ll know why we can’t allow a pair of human lives to interfere with that work now it’s so near completion. You’d be willing to die rather than to plunge the whole monkey tribe back a million years in the cosmic scheme of things, wouldn’t you?”

And the parrot, teetering back and forth on the palsied shoulder, joined in a toneless chorus.

“Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? Arawwwwk!”

“Good God, they’re not kidnaping a white girl to mate with a monkey?” hissed Nickers, and then was sorry he spoke, for the skin upon Arthur Forbes’s face was as white as parchment. The veins stood knotted upon his forehead, and the taut skin gleamed with slimy perspiration.

“Come and be tried. Come and be tried!” chanted the old witch.

“Come and be tried,” squawked the parrot.

And the two natives, whirling deftly, presented the points of their keen knives just below their left shoulder blades. Under the prick of those knives they followed the woman as she turned and slippety-slopped, shufflety-slapped her lethargic feet along the clay-bricked floor.

“Come and be tried, come and be tried!” chanted the woman, her feet shuffling through the dust, sending little clouds of powdery white eddying up around her legs.

Nickers gave a longing look at the open ground, at the cool shadows of the forest. For a moment he felt the urge to jump wildly forward and sprint for the cover of those trees. But what he saw in the shadows stopped him.

Monkeys were gathered upon the limbs, watching in silent conclave. They were so still, so motionless that he had some difficulty in seeing them at all. But, after he once saw them, he realized something of the numbers of the monkey colony. They were by the thousands, the ten thousands, and they seemed to have some peculiar psychic alignment with those priests of Hanuman, those red-eyed fanatics who had started with a theory of a division in the life-stream, back in the dim antiquity of a million or more years ago.

“Come and be tried! Come and be tried!”

A door, studded with gold letters, swung noiselessly open and the two prisoners were ushered into something that served as an assembly room and a court of justice.

Instead of chairs running in a circle around the floor, against the walls, there was a long rail, and back of this rail were elevated perches, strung in tiers up to the ceiling. Upon these perches, sitting noiselessly, necks craned forward, moist eyes swimming with interest and curiosity, were the monkey people.

A raised platform, made of dark, polished wood, was in the center of the railed-off space. Upon this platform were several chairs. Back of one of the chairs was a dark curtain of black tapestry, embroidered with gold.

The chairs were occupied by the native fanatics. In one of the center chairs sat the withered old man who had led the procession to the plane.

The prisoners were placed before the platform. The old witch circled thrice around the dais.

“Come and be tried! Come and be tried!” she chanted.

And then there was silence, a tense silence, a waiting, quivering silence of suspense. All were waiting for something to happen. All eyes were turned upon the vacant chair back of which was the black curtain.

The curtain bellied, shook, parted. A robed body came through the parted cloth. And, in the brief glimpse that Nickers had of the robed figure, before it came into the light, he could have sworn that a pair of human hands pushed the body out through the curtains.

But when the curtains fell back into place, leaving the robed judge well within the room, there was no further hesitation. The figure walked awkwardly around the chair and took a seat. A dark hand plucked off the hood that had shielded the features.

Nickers gave an audible gasp.

He had expected a monkey, some larger ape than the average of his species. He had even been prepared for some evidences of trained intelligence. But he was totally unprepared for that which his eyes actually encountered.

The face had simian features, but those features had, somehow, taken on the caricature of a human face. The long upper lip, the short nose, the glittering eyes, round and swimming with a moist film, were startlingly human. And the face was almost white, nearly hairless. Perhaps it was a dye, perhaps it was some freak of breeding, but the fact remained that the beast was a gross caricature of a man.

“Steady, old chap,” muttered Forbes, but his voice showed that he, too, despite his assumption of ease, was shocked and surprised.

The ape, almost as large as a man, seemed to have some of the intelligence of humankind, coupled with the cunning of a beast. He surveyed the gathering with round, moist eyes. Then his paw banged upon the arm of the chair, and every one in the room stood up. Again the arm banged. The audience resumed their seats.

The old man arose, pointed to Forbes, then to Nickers.

The old man sat down.

The ape turned his head aimlessly from side to side as though wondering what was expected of him next. The old hag again circled the platform.