The Hollow Earth, page 18
“They’re angels!” raved Eddie. “They flew from the sky!” Our captors—there were perhaps thirty of them—paid little attention to our expostulations. Most of the pale people clustered around Otha, staring at him in solemn wonder, haltingly reaching out to touch his skin. One of them put her necklace around Otha’s neck. Several of them made as if to kiss Otha’s hands and feet; others began to chant.
Had they never seen a Negro before? Even more ridiculous, those few not worshiping Otha were enthralled by Arf. Ever accepting the moment, Arf had stopped barking and was now wagging his tail and licking the face of the youth who held him. The youth simpered and began to lick Arf back. Several others pressed forward and licked Arf s nose as well.
While these odd displays continued. I had ample opportunity to examine our captors. They were so pale-skinned that their veins showed. Each of them had a thick shock of fair hair cut bowl-style. Their features were delicate, even beautiful, their teeth regular and white. They were short and slender, with the exception of their legs, which were thick and heavily muscled. Their necklaces held crystals, shells, and carved bits of wood. Some were also clothed in bright fluttering togas made of fresh flower petals, and each of them had oddly trimmed petalbases strapped to their legs. The leathery, tubular petalbases were like spats—I grasped their purpose when I saw a girl hop up into the air and kick her way outward from the giant flower. Each time she kicked backward, her leggings filled out and caught the air, driving her forward. Airfins! Wings!
“Ahnaa bogbog du smeeepy flan? Mii’iim doc janjee?” One of the pink-dressed girls was standing over me.
“Set me free,” I begged her, holding up my bound ankles.
She laughed and made a dismissive gesture. “Ah’mbaa na toloo klick gorwaay,” said she. Her voice was calm and musical, and she lingered over the long vowels, singing them each through a tone or two. She and her companion took hold of my arms and, with a sudden spring, launched us into the sky. They kicked their legs in steady rhythm, popping the strong petalparts against the air. The rest of them followed us, bearing Otha, Eddie, Jeremiah, and Arf.
We worked our way around the giant waterdrop that occupied our flower’s center and flew out toward the great yellow disk’s edge. There, in the surface of the flower, was a large ragged hole, and lying next to it was the great noise-tube we’d seen from afar. All the yellow cells with their seeds had been cleared away here—perhaps for food—leaving an open hexagon a hundred yards wide. My bearers kickpopped down to land us in the hexagon. The ground here was tough dark green vegetable matter, presumably the same material as our great flower’s vines and leaves. The wall openings in the cells facing the open space had been widened, so that the effect was of a village green surrounded by stores and houses. Numerous faces peeped out from the cells.
Seeing their defenders land with all intruders tightly bound, the fair flowerpeople came surging out into the green. When they glimpsed black Otha and hairy Arf, their excitement knew no limits. It was only a moment till they were all around us, shouting in nasal singsong. Everyone wore the petal leggings; many wore nothing else. Several of them to beat on big hollow seed-pods, someone else produced a trumpetlike hollow plantstem and began to play, and now a slight youth flew to the big tube that had attracted us and began yelling into one end. The tube’s ends were covered over with tight-stretched membranes (one with a small central hole), thus turning the tube into a huge reverberator. Giants indeed! Moist slices of what seemed to be flowerseeds appeared, and the flowerpeople began celebrating in earnest.
As always here, the sky was filled with pink flickers; it was perhaps as bright as early dusk. We four were propped up sitting back to back in the green’s center. Otha and I were side to side, with Eddie and Jeremiah behind us. Arf, who’d been set free, lay at my side, alertly watching the noisy crowd.
“Maybe they cannibals, Mase? Some do have a nasty look.”
“You’re right. See how that one has his teeth sharpened? And the woman over there... see the way she’s painted her body? These are real savages, Otha. It’s strange because they’re so—”
“They be so white. They look too good to talk to the like of me, Mase, they look like the first families of Virginia. And then they carry on this-a-way. Looky there!”
As the drumming grew wilder, the dancers threw themselves around more and more wildly, emitting fearful whoops and making hideous grimaces. Several couples even progressed to public embraces of an ultimate intimacy. Those who had to relieve themselves did so quite openly. It was unpleasant and singular to see such fine-looking people exhibit this bestial behavior.
Just when the orgy had reached fever pitch, the drumming stopped and all began crooning a single utterance: Quaihlaihle! They pronounced the barbaric name much as we would say “quite likely.”
A lone figure appeared from one of the empty seedcells: a tall bejeweled woman, with skin as white as the inside of a puffball mushroom. Her scalp was shaved and painted black. This was Quaihlaihle, the queen of the flowerpeople. She walked slowly toward us, ignoring the filth that had been scattered by the dancers. She was clothed in dyed and lacquered plant parts that fit her like armor. The bright plates of her plant armor were spangled with glittering bits of stone and shell. Unlike the other flowerpeople, Quaihlaihle had the thick lips and dark eyes of a Negro. Yet her skin was, as I say, utterly white. When her gaze lighted on Otha, her face split in a fierce smile. Her glistening teeth were a bloody ruby-red.
“She look jus’ like ’Lijah,” Otha breathed.
“And like the redclaws,” I added. I still had the head and pelt of one of the red-toothed antarctic beasts—not to mention my gun and Peter’s knife. Our savage captors had not thought to search us.
“Lamalama tekelili?” said Quaihlaihle to Otha. Noticing Arf, she stooped to pet him, long and slow.
“Yes ma’am,” said Otha. “I’m the boss of this party, sho. That’s my dog, too. I hopes you treat us nice. How ’bout you unties us to start with, Quaihlaihle?” He raised up his bound feet and hands.
“Bogbog doc janjee!” exclaimed Quaihlaihle. “Ombondoohoo!” One of the men nearby sprang forward and used a dagger of sharpened shell to cut Otha’s bonds.
“Me, too,” I urged, holding up my hands. “Untie me, too.”
“Yes,” said Otha, standing and rubbing his wrists. “Untie all of us, Quaihlaihle.”
She stepped forward, took Otha’s head in her hands, and licked him all over his face. Though Otha was tall, she was every bit as big as him. As she greeted Otha in this barbaric fashion, the flowerpeople began again to chant. She gave another command, and the man with the shell knife moved around the three of us, cutting the tight vines that had bound our hands and feet.
“That’s a relief,” said Jeremiah. “We should present them with a gift. What do you have in your pockets, Eddie?”
“An empty flask,” said Eddie. “A pocketknife. A twist of tobacco. Virginia’s tee—” He cut the word short and hastily continued. “Paper with a few verses and—deuce take it! My pen and ink are lost.”
“What do you have, Mason?”
I didn’t want to tell them of my gun. “How about a redclaw pelt? I’ve still got one. The queen should like that; it has red teeth like hers. Maybe she can wear it for a hat.”
“Excellent,” said Jeremiah. “Give it to me.”
“To you?”
“I’m the leader, Mason. I’ve dealt with savages before. Trust me.”
So I pulled the wadded up redclaw pelt out of my pocket and slipped it to Jeremiah. The scabby pelt was wrapped around the red-toothed head. With a flourish, Jeremiah spread the skin and head out on his two flattened hands, stepped forward, and crouched before Queen Quaihlaihle, making his offering. He was the very image of a humble subject.
The turmoil that ensued is hard to describe. The queen began to scream most terribly, and a second later a woman with a long thorn-rapier had darted forward and plunged her point through Jeremiah’s heart. He gave a terrible groan and fell sideways. The man with the shell knife darted forward and sawed open the dying Jeremiah’s throat, sawed as if to cut his head off. Great quantities of blood gushed forth, some of it floating off in bright globules. Still screaming, Quaihlaihle snatched up the offending redclaw and crammed it down into the yawning hole that the man had cut in Jeremiah’s neck.
I drew out the big knife I’d gotten from Peters and took off running, making ten or twenty feet with each bound. I heard someone close behind me. If I went to the flower’s surface or the sky, I wouldn’t have a chance. Instead, I dove into one of the open cell doors and raced through to the next and the next and the next. All the cells I entered were empty save for seeds and central pillars. Most of the seeds were dry, juiceless husks. Someone was still close behind me. I blundered on for ages and finally, out of breath, I caught hold of a cell’s central tube and hid behind it. When my follower entered the cell, I leaped out roaring with my blade raised high.
“Don’t, Mason, don’t kill me!” shrieked Eddie, for it was only he.
“Thank God it’s you, Eddie.” I could have kissed him. “Let’s go deeper into the maze until they calm down. We’ll escape when...”
“When it gets dark?” Eddie smiled.
“Some way. What happened just now?”
“I surmise that the redclaws are viewed as sacred beasts and that Jeremiah has borne Peters’s punishment for having killed one. The queen had red teeth as well. Did you see how quick she was to push the redclaw into Jeremiah’s gullet?”
“I saw it.”
“Quite extraordinary. It was as if she meant to plant the slain beast’s mana in poor Reynolds’s hale frame. As if he were a sarcophagus and the pelt a pharaoh. I wish I had my pen! I need to write! So many choice happenings are flitting by. We must find a way back to Earth, Mason. My narrative of this trip could make my fortune. Make our fortune. Promise me that you will cast your lot with mine, Mason. I...” Eddie’s voice faltered. “I know that you think ill of me. No man is a hero to his valet, but—”
“I’m not your valet, Eddie.”
“If Otha is your slave, then you are my valet and Arf is Otha’s dog. Arf and Otha are ensconced in the camp of the flowerpeople. You and I must stand together or die, young Reynolds. You know this, yet you find our union a heavy duty. You despise me, do you not? You think me a cold-blooded murderer. You do not forgive me for the death of Virginia.”
“You poisoned her, and I do not doubt that you violated her dead body. It is a certainty that you pulled out her teeth; you bear the teeth with you still. You killed Virginia and you defiled her corpse. She deserved better, Eddie. She was only a child.”
We were wandering side by side through the cells. Each cell was a hexagon in floor plan, with six rectangular walls ten to fifteen feet in height. As we moved away from the flower’s edge and toward its center, the cells grew larger. Every wall had a small tentlike rent at its base. Wishing to ensure that Quaihlaihle’s folk did not follow us, we moved rapidly through the rooms as we argued. At the moment I threw my indictment at Eddie, we were near the center of a cell.
The sky sputtered to bright; Eddie blanched pale and dour. “Forgive me, Mason. I am three parts mad, this is no secret—but, pray, I am no fiend! The teeth... the teeth were my only violation. I had no thought of killing Sis. Truly, Mason, you do me grave dishonor. Were we in the real world and I in my right mind, I would horsewhip you or challenge you to a duel! But this is not Earth but Htrae, to be followed by MirrorHtrae and MirrorEarth.... I’ve had visions of the rest of our journey, Mason. We’ll travel on through the center—”
“The Anomaly, I call it,” said I as we pushed on into another cell. The three seeds in this cell were full and turgid.
“How apt, my boy, how scientific! Through the Anomaly we shall go, and then—I do not quite grasp what I have forseen—into an antiworld which has its own MirrorHtrae and its own MirrorEarth surface to tunnel up to.... Believe of me what you will, I do not trouble to deny it. I am marked for torment and death, but also am I marked for greatness. I am not like other men! Do say now that you throw in your lot with mine.”
“Eddie, I—”
“Hsst!”
He cut me off with a quick light touch. There was someone in the next cell! Once again, I drew my knife and crouched behind the room’s central pillar. Eddie got close behind me. The plant parts whispered as the person pushed through the wall rent. Delicate footfalls. A light rasping noise and then faint slurping. Ever so slowly, I eased my head out from around the pillar. A beautiful blond maiden was there, pressing her mouth to one of the seeds. She was naked save for her legfins, a loincloth, and an elaborately patterned necklace.
“Seize her,” hissed Eddie, peering out from behind me. Even as she looked up, I sprang forward and clamped my left arm around her waist. She screamed but struggled little. I sheathed my knife and pressed my right hand gently to her mouth. Her mouth was slick with the seed’s albuminous juices.
“Don’t be frightened. I’m Mason, and that’s Eddie. We want to be friends. Yes, we want to be friends.” Her rolling eyes fastened on my face. Such bright, intelligent features she had. Her eyes were hazel. Her nose was small and gently curved. Her upper lip was fuller than her lower lip; this upper lip was a smooth, kissable band, with only the smallest of indentations at its center. I smiled and nodded. “If I let you go, do you promise not to scream?”
She regarded me calmly. I smiled once more, and slowly I took my hand off her mouth. Her mouth moved slightly—I made a small cry and cut it off by slapping my hand over my own mouth. The smell of her saliva was wonderful. My arm around her waist held her body tight against me. She was marvelously supple and alive. I pretended to struggle at the hand over my mouth, popping my eyes and blowing my cheeks out. She stared, understood, giggled. I dropped my hand from my mouth and put it around her waist to meet my other. Everything about her looked and felt right. I almost blurted out that I loved her, but instead I just stared in her light brown eyes.
“Emthonjeni womculo,” she said. “Thul’ulale.”
“Dear girl,” put in Eddie, striding forward and startling her. “Be assured that Mason and Eddie are kind and funny men. I am Mason’s master.” Fixing an impudent simper on his face, he drew out a handkerchief and deftly knotted it into the shape of a rabbit. The girl stared at him in puzzlement that changed to fear as Eddie waggled the rabbit’s ears and began to dart the head oddly,
“Stop it, Eddie,” said I. “Sit down and be quiet or, better yet, go away for an hour. I saw this girl first. She’s mine.”
For a wonder, he left quietly.
“Sini lindile,” said the girl. “Nansi Seela.” She made a graceful gesture at herself and then at me. “Gooba'am?”
“Mason,” said I, tapping my chest. I was wearing trousers, boots, a collarless shirt, and a jacket. She wore but her leggings and her breechcloth, both made of white flowerpetal. “I’m Mason and you are Seela?”
“Seeylaaah,” she said, imitating my voice. “Nansi Seela. Ma’aassong?”
“Mason,” I said, correcting her. After a few more tries, I could say her name the way she wanted me to. She taught me that the embryonic seeds were called juube, and she showed me how to bite off a piece of a juube’s rind and lap up the thick clear juice. The juice was something like sweetened eggwhite, with a bitter aftertaste. It was invigorating, and a bit dizzying. As we taught each other our names for this and that, I grew warmer and warmer. My feet were uncomfortable in my wet boots, so I took them off, also my jacket, also my shirt.
Seela plucked at my trousers. “Nicabange orlooah?” She stood and fluttered her legs. Her petal leggings popped against the air and drove her up the cell’s leathery yellow ceiling. She drifted back down. “Gooba’am?”
I kicked my legs, but of course my trousers did nothing for me. Seela plucked at my trousers again, talking volubly. I went ahead and took them off. I was not to wear a full suit of clothes again for six months.
So there we were, nearly naked in our yellow cell, Seela and I. Her hair was yellow-blond. Her face was neat and fine, with a firm round jaw. Her eyes were greenish-brown, her teeth strong and white. Her limbs were pleasingly proportioned, and her body a wonderland of young womanly curves. Did she mean for us to make love? Suddenly, she picked up my big knife, lying by my boot. From everything I’d seen so far, metal was unknown to the flowerpeople.
I took the knife from her and stabbed it into one of the juube seeds, showing her how sharp it was. Then I turned it sideways and let her look into it as if into a mirror. She was briefly fascinated. She stared at her own eyes for a minute, then put the knife between us and moved it up and down, swapping her view of my eyes with her view of her own reflected eyes. Our eyes were remarkably similar. More and more, I felt that this woman was meant for me.
Just as I was about to kiss her, she leapt up the ceiling and made a big slash in it with my knife. She did this two more times till she’d cut out a triangular hole. She pulled herself out through the hole and beckoned to me. Before following, I rolled all my clothes together into a bundle and stashed them under the curve of a juube. Seela called to me from above; I crouched, then leaped with all my strength. In the low gravity, my leap was enough to shoot me right through the hole. Seela caught hold of my bare foot as I flew past her.
“Nicabange smeeepy doolango,” she said.
I sat on the flower’s cut edge and peered around. The village hexagon was far off, though closer to us than I had hoped. I could make out a few figures moving in the air over the hexagon. At this distance they looked like large insects. Seeing them, I instinctively flattened myself against the flower’s surface. Seela looked at me curiously. I pointed over to the hexagon and made a stabbing gesture at my throat. “They don’t like me,” I told her. “Quaihlaihle killed one of us already.”
