THE GREEN ODYSSEY By PHILIP JOSE FARMER

“Well I hope those stones will all be tumbled to the ground. In fact, it’s a necessity, if we’re to do what I expect to do.”

He took the bewildered boy by the hand and led him past the cold and silent statue and into the cave’s entrance. “We could use a light,” he said, “but a torch would have been too awkward to carry up that wall, and we can grope our way to the rooms that are lighted.”

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.

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