CHAPTER XV
Land-bridge to Lanka
It is in moments of great stress that man's emotions play the strangest pranks.
When he heard that voice, Ramey Winters had been on the verge of firing into the pale heart of mist that engulfed him. Now suddenly his fingers were nerveless, the automatic tumbled unheeded from his hand, and his voice cracked with a cry of almost hysterical laughter.
"Red! Red, it's me—Ramey! And Sheng-ti."
Now wood scraped wood, another boat loomed dark beside them, and Red Barrett's hard, familiar features stared across at Ramey. The redhead's eyes were wide with gladness; with joyous abandon he brandished his own pistol in delighted circles.
"Ramey, you old son-of-a-gun! Am I ever glad to see you! We'd just about given you up for—"
He stopped, hesitant, apologetic. Ramey grinned.
"Dead? Nothing like it, guy. I take a lot of killing. But I wouldn't like to check out on the friendly accident list. You'd better put that pea-shooter away before you hurt somebody."
Barrett said, "Hold the boat, chum, I'm coming over." To a dim figure in his own craft, "Take this crate home again, James. I won't be needing it no more tonight."
"Who was that with you?" asked Ramey curiously when his friend had safely trans-shipped. "One of the O'Briens?"
"Syd and Lake? No, they're in a huddle with Sugriva and Doc Aiken and Kohrisan. My chauffeur was one of them ape-soldiers. You know what, Ramey? We had them all wrong. You get to know those hairy little guys and they're okay."
"I've been meeting some people like that," Ramey nodded, "myself. How strong a force have you gathered?"
Red said, "Gimme them oars, Sheng-ti. You look like you're pooped. Me and Ramey can take her in from here. You said 'force', keed? Well, now, that all depends. If we was back in the good old Twentieth A. D. I'd say it wasn't worth a hoot in hell. Hitler's blitzers would make hash out of it in something like ten seconds of the first round. But for this day and age, it ain't bad. About six divisions of talking apes, and maybe twice that many natives. But the hell with that. How about you? What have you been doing? And did you get the Bow? And where's Sheila?"
"I'll explain everything," said Ramey, "when we meet the others. Let's dock this jaloppy first."
"And that," concluded Ramey some time later, "is how things stood when we fled Lanka. Ravana still has the Bow, but it has not yet been charged. Sheila is under lock and key in the innermost chambers of the palace. Vibhishana is fighting to maintain a foothold within the citadel itself. How his fight is coming along we have no way of knowing, but it's a damned sure thing he can't hold out forever. We must come to his assistance, and do it before either his force is wiped out or Ravana fuels the Bow. Or—"
He shrugged expressively. Sugriva finished for him,
"Or Earth," he said soberly, "will be a vassal state to the Videlian overlord for the gods only know how many centuries. Yes, Ramey Winters, we must move—and move fast."
"You have mapped out a campaign?"
"Tentatively. Our native friends are throwing boats together for us ... boats, rafts, skiffs, anything navigable. Under cover of tomorrow's midnight we had hoped to have enough of these to land a small scouting force. A suicide squadron whose sole purpose would be to effect a landing, open a land salient. If they can hold their ground for twenty-four hours, we should be able to reinforce with another three or four divisions."
Barrett glanced at his friend anxiously.
"Well, Ramey? What do you think of it?"
Ramey shook his head slowly.
"It won't do. It's the old story of Britain in our time: 'Too little and too late.' Sheng-ti and I have viewed Lanka and its defenses. Ravana has been preparing for this, Lord Sugriva, ever since he usurped the throne from his blood-brother. Lanka is a gigantic fortress, protected by a horde of armed and ready warriors. They would wipe out our 'token army' before it ever set foot within the castle walls."
The blue lord of Chitrakuta bowed his head sorrowfully. "You are right, my friend. And the fault is mine because I tried ever to espouse the dream of friendship amongst men, art, beauty. I have failed in my duty as a ruler and a protector of earth. I should have anticipated this eventuality and prepared for it."
Dr. Aiken said gently, "It is not your fault, Lord Sugriva, that the hearts of some are good and the hearts of others evil. But—what can we do, Ramey?"
"I'm trying to think," fumed Ramey desperately. "I know we must do something—and swiftly!—but the fact remains that we stand here boatless, powerless to move against Ravana's Gibraltar—Gibraltar!" He laughed ruefully. "The Isle of Lanka is more secure from invasion than even that bit of rock, because it's farther from the mainland."
Syd O'Brien said gloomily, "Yes, but don't forget, Winters, there's an Achilles' heel to any place if you can only find it. Armies have been trying unsuccessfully to take Gibraltar for centuries. But it's invaded every night by those who know how to do it."
Red Barrett stared at the pessimistic twin, puzzled.
"Invaded? Old Gib invaded? What are you trying to hand us, chum? You mean from the air? But we ain't got no airplanes—"
Dr. Aiken said, "No, Barrett, that's not what Sydney means. He is referring to a well-known fact which has baffled engineers, soldiers and scientists alike for many years: the fact that the Rock of Gibraltar, though a rock-bound island, is 'invaded' and deserted at will by the Barbary Apes."
"The who-berry which?"
"Barbary Apes. The monkeys whose natural habitat is the African coast, some twelve miles distant. How these Apes enter and leave the Rock is, and has been, and probably always will be a mystery."[11]
Ramey said impatiently, "Very interesting. But we've no time for legends now, Doctor. Suppose we—"
He was interrupted by the single member of that assemblage least prone to voicing opinions. That one was the monkey-captain, Kohrisan. It was hard to read emotion on his curiously wizened face, but his eyes had widened as Dr. Ian Aiken spoke. Now he leaped from his seat excitedly, pushed forward.
"Excuse me, my Lord Janakan," he chattered in that voice which, though it spoke human words, would always carry a flavor of the jungles whence he had sprung. "Excuse me—but—these invaders you called 'apes.' Were they 'new men' like myself?"
"Yes, Captain Kohrisan. Quite like yourself. Save that they do not speak the tongue of men—"
"The Burrowers!" cried Kohrisan. "I have heard of them not only at this 'Jibra altar' you speak of but here—here at the Lake of Lanka! It may be true, the tales I have heard!" The little warrior was wildly excited now, beside himself with thoughts incomprehensible to the less impetuous humans. "Excuse me, my Lords! Your permission to withdraw, my Lord Sugriva? Thank you!" And without even waiting for the Gaanelian's acquiescence, he scampered from the meeting.
Red Barrett stared after him, amused.
"Nice little guy, just the same," he said. "Kind of whacky, maybe, but a lot of humans are that way, too. You were saying, Ramey—?"
"I was saying," continued Ramey, "that our best bet seems to be another attempt to get the Bow of Rudra. We must give up our dream of an invasion in force. Select a group of our sturdiest fighters, join Vibhishana and somehow gain our way to Ravana's chamber. Once we have the Bow—"
"We are still powerless," finished Sugriva. "Hate me, O my friends, for ever thus disrupting your dreams. But the fact remains that we, no more than Ravana, have the fuel with which to charge the precious weapon!"
Lake O'Brien, who had been strangely silent for one usually so volatile, glanced at Ramey quizzically now.
"Touché, Winters," he acknowledged. "The Bow is no earthly use to us if it isn't working. And we have even less likelihood of fueling it within the deadline than has Ravana. Damn his rotten hide," he concluded almost as an afterthought.
It was, thought Ramey Winters with a sickening sense of fate preordained, like standing up against a fighter who outweighed you by fifty pounds. Whose skill and reach and strength were all greater than yours. Every time a plan presented itself, logic came rushing in to overthrow it.
He said, shakenly, "And what is this fuel, Sugriva? Have you none whatsoever at Chitrakuta?"
The blue lord shook his head regretfully.
"Not an ounce, child of earth. It is too rare. My brother Rudra, with all his scientific wisdom, succeeded in deriving only a tiny amount for his purposes from the mines at our disposal. Now all that has been used up.
"It is a metal. A most precious metal, ash-silver in hue, light as the down of a swan's breast, smooth to the touch—"
Ramey surrendered. "Okay," he said haggardly. "I'm licked. That's what Vibhishana told me, too. So I guess my idea wasn't so good, either. We'll have to think of some—"
"Sugriva!" That was Dr. Aiken breaking into the conversation. "The rare and precious metal you spoke of—"
"Banaratha," supplied the blue lord. "That is its name."
"Banaratha," nodded the old archeologist. "Would it by any chance look like—this?"
And he brought from his pocket an object, handed it to the Gaanelian. For the first time since they had met him, Sugriva's calm was shattered into a thousand bits. His mouth dropped agape, his eyes widened, he rose, hand half-atremble. "But this—" he cried—"this is banaratha itself! The pure metal, the rare and vital gem of metals!"
"Sweet potatoes!" howled Red Barrett. "Now where'd Doc get a hunk of that boogie-woogie stuff? Give me a gander, Doc!" Then, as he craned at the object Sugriva so tremulously held in his palm, his tone changed to one of disappointment. "Why, what's all the shouting about? That stuff's nothing but plain, old everyday—"
"Aluminum!" cried Lake O'Brien, glimpsing it. "Now I understand, Doctor! Of course it was rare—in this day and age! Until 1886 aluminum was so rare and so expensive as to be a laboratory curiosity.[12] Then Charles Martin Hall discovered that an electrolysis of bauxite dissolved in cryolite did the trick! So that's the 'rare metal' which fuels the Bow? Then, boys, we're walking ore-mines! Turn out your pockets!"
Ramey Winters had no pockets to turn out. He still wore the garb in which he had first visited Lanka, not having found time yet to change back to more comfortable garments. But his contribution was not needed. Dr. Aiken, Syd and Lake O'Brien, Red Barrett, all wore Twentieth Century clothes. They went to work on themselves, "Like mongrels scratching for fleas!" as Lake O'Brien put it. And the result of their self-appraisal was, a few minutes later, a pile of miscellaneous objects on a table before them which Sugriva declared positively would not only charge, but re-charge and charge yet again the dreadful Bow of Rudra!
Tunic-buttons, "luck-pieces" Barrett had picked up in Shanghai, a belt-buckle, suspender-clips from Syd's gaudy braces ... these were some of the aluminum items they found on them. The tiny reflector Dr. Aiken had first shown Sugriva, a waterproof match-box from Syd, a patent screw-top container of ephedrine-inhalant used by Lake in hay-fever season ... these joined the growing pile. It was an amazing assortment of junk. But looking upon it, the time-farers felt new hope dawning within them for the first time since Ravana's flight from Chitrakuta. And Ramey cried exultantly:
"We'll go back to the plan I suggested! We'll take the Bow from Ravana if I have to kill him with my bare hands to do it! We'll reach Lanka if we have to swim there—"
"But—" chattered a shrill and jubilant voice from the doorway—"it will not be necessary to do that, my Lord Ramaíya!"
Ramey whirled to look into the grinning face of the ape-captain, Kohrisan.
"Eh? What's that, Captain? Why not?"
"Because," declared the furry warrior staunchly, "I have won us new allies and found a better way. We will walk to the Isle of Lanka!"