“That may be true,” Ashe assented.
“You mean the sight you have had into our future says that this happens? Yes, to stake all and to lose—not only for ourselves, but for all others here—that is a weighty decision to make, Gordoon. But the trap promises. Let us think on it for a space. Do you also consult with the Rovers if they wish to take part in what may be desperate folly.”
Torgul paced the afterdeck, well away from the tent which sheltered the Foanna, but with his eyes turning to it as Ross explained what might be a good attack.
“Those women-killers would have no fear of Foanna magic, rather would they come to seek it out? It would be a chance to catch leaders in a trap?”
“You have heard what the prisoners said or thought. Yes, they would seek out such knowledge and we would have this chance to capture them—”
“With what?” Torgul demanded. “I am not Ongal to argue that it is better to die in pursuit of blood payment than to take an enemy or enemies with me! What chance have we against their powers?”
“Ask that of them!” Ross nodded toward the still silent tent.
Even as he spoke the three cloaked Foanna emerged, pacing down to mid-ship where Torgul and his lieutenants, Ross and Ashe came to meet them.
“We have thought on this.” The lilting half chant which the Foanna used for ordinary communication was a song in the dawn wind. “It was in our minds to retreat, to wait out this troubling of the land, since we are few and that which we hold within us is worth the guarding. But now, what profit such guardianship when there may be none to whom we may pass it after us? And if you have seen the truth, elder brother”—the cowled heads swung to Ashe—”then there may be no future for any of us. But still there are our limitations. Rover,” now they spoke directly to Torgul, “we can not put your men within the citadel by desiring—not without certain aids which lie sealed there now. No, we, ourselves, must win inside bodily and then . . . then, perhaps, we can pull tight the lines of our net!”
“To run a cruiser through the gate—” Torgul began.
“No, not a ship, Captain. A handful of warriors in the water can risk the gate, but not a ship.”
Ashe broke in, “How many gill-packs do we have?”
Ross counted hurriedly. “I left one cached ashore. But there’s mine and Karara’s and Loketh’s—also two more—”
“To pass the gates,” that was the Foanna, “we ourselves shall not need your underwater aids.”
“You,” Ross said to Ashe, “and I with Karara’s pack—”
“For Karara!”
Both the men looked around. The Polynesian girl stood close to the Foanna, smiling faintly.
“This venture is mine also,” she spoke with conviction. “As it is Tino-rau’s and Taua’s. Is that not so, Daughters of the Alii of this world?”
“Yes, Sea Maid. There are weapons of many sorts, and not all of them fit into a warrior’s hand or can be swung with the force of a man’s arm and shoulder. Yes, this venture is yours, also, sister.”
Ross’s protests bubbled unspoken; he had to accept the finality of the Foanna decree. It seemed now that the make-up of their task force depended upon the whims of the three rather than the experience of those trained to such risks. And Ashe was apparently willing to accept their leadership.
So it was an odd company that took to the water just as dawn colored the sky. Loketh had clung fiercely to his pack, insisted that he be one of the swimmers, and the Foanna accepted him as well. Ross and Ashe, Loketh, and Baleku, a young under officer of Ongal’s, accorded the best swimmer of the fleet, Karara and the dolphins. And with them those three others, shapes sliding smoothly through the water, as difficult to define in this new element as they had been in their tent. Before them frisked the dolphins. Tino-rau and Taua played about the Foanna in an ecstatic joy and when all were in the sea they shot off shoreward.
That sub within the sea gate, had it unleashed the same lethal broadcast as the one at Kyn Add? But the dolphins could give warning if that were so.
Ross swam easily, Ashe next, Loketh on his left, Baleku a little behind and Karara to the fore as if in vain pursuit of the dolphins—the Foanna well to the left. An odd invasion party, even odder when one totaled up the risks which might lie ahead.
There was no mist or storm this morning to hide the headlands where the Foanna citadel stood. And the promontories of the sea gate were starkly clear in the growing light. The same drive which always was a part of Ross when he was committed to action sustained him now, though he was visited by a small prick of doubt when he though that the leadership did not lie with Ashe but with the Foanna.
No warning of any trouble ahead as they passed between the mighty, sea-sunk bases of the gate pillars. Ross depended upon his sonic, but there was no adverse report from the sensitive recorder. The terrible chill of the water during the night attack had been dissipated, but here and there dead sea things floated, being torn and devoured by hunters of the waves.
They were well past the pillars when Ross was aware that Loketh had changed place in the line, spurting ahead. After him went Baleku. They caught up with Karara, flashed past her.
Ross looked to Ashe, on to the Foanna, but saw nothing to explain the action of the two Hawaikans. Then his sonic beat out a signal from Ashe.
“Danger . . . follow the Foanna . . . left.”
Karara had already changed course to head in that direction. Ahead of her he could see Loketh and Baleku both still bound for the mid-point of the shore where the jetty and the sunken cutters were. Ashe passed before him, and Ross reluctantly followed orders.
A shelf of rock reached out from the cliff wall, under it a dark opening. The Foanna sought this without hesitation, Ashe, Karara, and Ross following. Moments later they were out of the water where footing sloped back and up. Below them Tino-rau and Taua nosed the rise, their heads lifting out of the water as they “spoke.” And Karara hastened to reply.
“Loketh . . . Baleku . . .” Ross began when he caught a mental stroke of anger so deadly that it was a chill lance into his brain. He faced the Foanna, startled and a little frightened.
“They will not come—now.” A knob-crowned wand stretched out in the air, pointing to the upper reaches of the slope. “Nor can any of their blood—unless we win.”
“What is wrong?” Ashe asked.
“You were right, very right, men out of time! These invaders are not to be lightly dismissed. They have turned one of our own defenses against us. Loketh, Baleku, all of their kind, can be made into tools for a master. They belong to the enemy now.”
“And we have failed so early?” Karara wanted to know.
Again that piercing thrust of anger so vivid that it was no mere emotion but seemed a tangible force.
“Failed? No, not yet have we even begun to fight! You were very right; this is such an evil as must be faced and fought, even if we lose all in battle! Now we must do that which none of our own race has done for generations—we must open three locks, throw wide the Great Door, and seek out the Keeper of the Closed Knowledge!”
Light, a sharp ray sighting from the tip of the wand. And the Foanna following that beam, the three humans coming after . . . into the unknown.
16: The Opening of the Great Door
It was not the general airlessness of the long-closed passage which wore on Ross’s nerves, made Karara suddenly reach out and clasp fingers about the wrists of the two men she walked between; it was a crushing sensation of age, of a toll of years so long, so heavy, as to make time itself into a thick flood which tugged at their bodies, mired their feet as they trudged after the Foanna. This sense of age, of a dead and heavy past, was so stifling that all three humans breathed in gasps.
Karara’s breaths became sobs. Yet she matched her pace to Ashe and Ross, kept going. Ross himself had little idea of their surroundings, but one small portion of his brain asked answerless questions. The foremost being: Why did the past crush in on him here? He had traveled time, but never before had he been beaten with the feel of countless dead and dying years.