Perhaps Urizen was watching him now and wondering what he meant to do. If so, by the time he found out, it would be too late.
The natives released the two halves of the ship from its moorings. They rose several feet and then stopped, weighed down by the several tons of explosives. This altitude was all that Wolff desired. He gave the signal and the natives pushed the crafts up the hill until their prows were almost inside the frame. There was just enough room for the ship to slide through the frames. Wolff had ordered it built in two sections because the fully built ship could not have negotiated the space. Even the partial frames had only an inch on either side on top and bottom to spare.
Wolff lit the fuses on each side of the two floating frameworks and signaled his men. Chanting, they pushed the crafts on in. Wolff, standing to one side, could see the landscape of the island on the other side of the gate. The first ship seemed to be chewed up, or lopped off, as it floated through the gate-frame. Presently, all but the aft of the second was gone, and then that, too, had disappeared.
Luvah appeared from the jungle with Vala’s unconscious body over his shoulder. Behind him were the other Lords, alarmed, puzzled, and angry or frightened. Wolff explained to them what he meant to do. He said, “I could tell no one except Luvah because I could trust no one else. I suspect Vala of spying for our father, but she may be innocent. However, I could not take a chance on her. So I had Luvah knock her out while she slept. We’ll take her along in case she is not guilty. By the time she wakes up, she’ll be in the midst of it. Too late for her to do anything then.
“Now, get into the suits. As I’ve explained, they’ll operate under water as well as in space. Better, since they were designed for diving.”
Luvah looked at the gate. “Do you think the explosives went off?
Wolff shrugged and said, “There’s no way of telling. It’s a oneway gate, of course, so there’ll be no indication from the other side. But I hope that by now Urizen’s initial traps have been destroyed. And I hope he’s very upset, wondering what we’ve done.”
Luvah put a suit on Vala and then donned one himself. Wolff supervised the touching off of the fuses to the explosives planted at the bottom of the ditch around the hill. The fuses led through hollow bamboo pipes to the gunpowder, ammonium nitrate, and fulminate of mercury.