“Listen,” Jil-Lee, his side padded with bandages, stepped closer—”and tell me, younger brother, what is it that you seek in these towers?”
“On another world there were secrets of the old ones to be found in such ancient buildings. Here that might also be true.”
“And among the secrets of those old ones,” Nolan’s voice was still harsh—”were those which brought us to this world, is that not so?”
“Did any man drive you, Nolan, or you, Tsoay, or you, Jil-Lee, or any of us, to promise to go beyond the stars? You were told what might be done, and you were eager to try it. You were all volunteers!”
“Save for this voyage when we were told nothing,” Jil-Lee answered, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. “Yet, Nolan, I do not believe that it is for more voyage tapes that our younger brother now searches, nor would those do us any good—as our ship will not rise again from here. What is it that you do seek?”
“Knowledge—weapons, maybe. Can we stand against these machines of the Russians? Yet many of the devices they now use are taken from the star ships they have looted through time. To every weapon there is a defense.”
Nolan blinked and for the first time a hint of interest touched the mask of his face. “To the bow, the rifle,” he said softly, “to the rifle, the machine gun, to the cannon, the bomb. The defense can be far worse than the first weapon. So you think that in these towers there may be things which shall be to the Russian’s machines as the bomb is to the cannon of the Horse Soldiers?”
Travis had an inspiration. “Did not our people lay aside the bow for the rifle when we went up against the Bluecoats?”
“We do not so go up against these Russians!” protested Lupe.
“Not now. But what if they come across the mountains, perhaps driving the Tatars before them to do their fighting—?”
“And you believe that if you find weapons in these towers, you will know how to use them?” Jil-Lee asked. “What will give you that knowledge, younger brother?”
“I do not claim such knowledge,” Travis countered. “But this much I do have: Once I studied to be an archaeologist and I have seen other storehouses of these star people. Who else among us can say as much as that?”
“That is the truth,” Jil-Lee acknowledged. “Also there is good sense in this seeking out of the tower things. Let the Russians find such first—if they exist at all—and then we may truly be caught in a box canyon with only death at our heels.”
“And you would go to these towers now?” Nolan demanded.
“I can cut across country and then rejoin you on the other side of the pass!” The feeling of urgency which had been mounting in Travis was now so demanding that he wanted to race ahead through the wilderness. He was surprised when Jil-Lee put out his palm up as if to warn the younger man.
“Take care, younger brother! This is not a lucky business. And remember, if one goes too far down a wrong trail, there is sometimes no returning—”
“We shall wait on the other side of the pass for one day,” Nolan added. “Then—” he shrugged—”where you go will be your own affair.”
Travis did not understand that promise of trouble. He was already two steps down his chosen path.
12
Travis had taken a direct cross route through the heights, but not swiftly enough to reach his objective before nightfall. And he had no wish to enter the tower valley by moonlight. In him two emotions now warred. There was the urge to invade the towers, to discover their secret, and flaring higher and higher the beginnings of a new fear. Was he now a battlefield for the superstitions of his race reborn by the Redax and his modern education in the Pinda-lick-o-yi world—half Apache brave of the past, half modern archaeologist with a thirst for knowledge? Or was the fear rooted more deeply and for another reason?
Travis crouched in a hollow, trying to understand what he felt. Why was it suddenly so overwhelmingly important for him to investigate the towers? If he only had the coyotes with him. . . . Why and where had they gone?
He was alive to every noise out of the night, every scent the wind carried to him. The night had its own life, just as the daylight hours held theirs. Only a few of those sounds could he identify, even less did he see. There was one wide-winged, huge flying thing which passed across the green-gold plate of the nearer moon. It was so large that for an instant Travis believed the helicopter had come. Then the wings flapped, breaking the glide, and the creature merged in the shadows of the night—a hunter large enough to be a serious threat, and one he had never seen before.
Relying on his own small defense, the strewing of brittle sticks along the only approach to the hollow, Travis dozed at intervals, his head down on his forearm across his bent knees. But the cold cramped him and he was glad to see the graying sky of pre-dawn. He ate two rations bars and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of water from his canteen and started on.
By sunup he had reached the ledge of the waterfall, and he hurried along the ancient road at a pace which increased to a run the closer he drew to the valley. Deliberately he slowed, his native caution now in control, so that he was walking as he passed through the gateway into the swirling mists which alternately exposed and veiled the towers.
There was no change in the scene from the time he had come there with Kaydessa. But now, rising from a comfortable sprawl on the yellow-and-green pavement, was a welcoming committee—Nalik’ideyu and Naginlta showing no more excitement at his coming than if they had parted only moments before.
Travis went down on one knee, holding out his hand to the female, who had always been the more friendly. She advanced a step or two, touched a cold nose to his knuckles, and whined.
“Why?” He voiced that one word, but behind it was a long list of questions. Why had they left him? Why were they here where there was no hunting? Why did they meet him now as if they had calmly expected his return?
Travis glanced from the animals to the towers, those windows set in diamond pattern. And again he was visited by the impression that he was under observation. With the mist floating across those openings, it would be easy for a lurker to watch him unseen.
He walked slowly on into the valley, his moccasins making no sound on the pavement, but he could hear the faint click of the coyotes’ claws as they paced beside him, on each hand. The sun did not penetrate here, making merely a gilt fog of the mist. As he approached within touching distance of the first tower, it seemed to Travis that the mist was curling about him; he could no longer see the archway through which he had entered the valley.
“Naye-nezyani—Slayer of Monsters—give strength to the bow arm, to the knife wrist!” Out of what long-buried memory did that ancient plea come? Travis was hardly aware of the sense of the words until he spoke them aloud. “You who wait—shi inday to-dah ishan—an Apache is not food for you! I am Fox of the Itca-tcudnde’yu—the Eagle People; and beside me walk ga’ns of power . . .”
Travis blinked and shook his head as one waking. Why had he spoken so, using words and phrases which were not part of any modern speech?
He moved on, around the base of the first tower, to find no door, no break in its surface below the second-story windows—to the next structure and the next, until he had encircled all three. If he were to enter any, he must find a way of reaching the lowest windows.
On he went to the other opening of the valley, the one which gave upon the territory of the Tatar camp. But he did not sight any of the Mongols as he hacked down a sapling, trimmed, and smoothed it into a blunt-pointed lance. His sash-belt, torn into even strips and knotted together, gave him a rope which he judged would be barely long enough for his purpose.
Then Travis made a chancy cast for the lower window of the nearest tower. On the second try the lance slipped in, and he gave a quick jerk, jamming the lance as a bar across the opening. It was a frail ladder but the best he could improvise. He climbed until the sill of the window was within reach and he could pull himself up and over.