Whatever had happened, it was fixed at its altitude above the island. And it still put up a weak resistance against a horizontal push. Kickaha presumed that its antennas must still be operative to some degree. Otherwise, the bell would net know how to maintain a constant height from the ground.
It gave him his only chance to get to the ground several thousand feet below. He did not know how much of a chance. It might just stay at this level even if the ground beneath it were to suddenly drop away. If that happened, he still might be able to get to the top of the stone pillar.
He put the strap of the beamer over one shoulder, hugged the bell to his chest, and stepped out through the hoop.
His descent was as swift as if he were dangling at the end of a parachute, a speed better than he had hoped for. From time to time, he had to kick against the sides of the pillar because the bell kept drifting back toward it, as if the mass of the pillar had some attraction for it.
Then he was ten feet above the river and released his hold on the bell. He fell a little faster, hit the water, which was warm, and came up in a strong current. He had to fight to get to shore but managed it. After he had regained some of his strength, he walked along the shore until he saw the bell. It was stopped against the side of the pillar, like a baby beast nuzzling its gigantic mother. There was no way for him to get to it nor did he see any reason why he should.
A few yards on, he found the body of the Beller. It had come to rest against a reef of rock which barely protruded above the surface of the small bay. Its back was split open, and the back of the head was soft, as if it had struck concrete instead of water. The knife was still in its solar plexus. Kickaha pulled it out, and cleaned it on the wet hat of the Beller. The fall had not damaged the knife.
He pulled the body from the river. Then he considered the giant gates set hoop-like in the rock like the smaller one in the island in that other world. Two were on this side of the river and two on the other. Each was at the corner of a square two miles long. He walked to the nearest one and threw a stone into it. The stone went through and landed on the rock on the other side. It was one of Red Orc’s jokes. Perhaps all four were just hoops and he would be stuck on this barren world until he starved to death.
The next hoop, in the northeast corner also proved to be just that, a hoop.
Kickaha was beginning to get tired and hungry. He now had to swim over the river, through a very strong current, to get to the other two hoops. The walk from one to the other was two miles, and if he had to test all four, he would walk eight miles. Ordinarily, he would not have minded that at all, but he had been through much in the last few hours.
He sat down for a minute and then he jumped up, exclaiming and cursing himself for a fool. He had forgotten that gates might work when entered in one direction but not work in the other. Picking up a stone, he went around to the other side of the big hoop and cast the stone through it. The hoop was still just a hoop.
There was nothing to do then but to walk back to the first hoop and to test that from the other side. It, too, gave evidence that it was no gate.
He swam the river and got to the other side after having been carried downstream for a half-mile, thus adding to his journey. The beamer made the swimming and the walking more difficult, since it weighed about thirty pounds. But he did not want to leave it behind.