"So we'll help each other see," she said. "You want it too, don't you." She pointed up to the head of the statue towering above them. "So let's co-operate. I'll get it for a little while. Then you can have it." He was listening, she saw, so she guessed her strategy was working. Play it by ear now, she thought. "We'll help each other. Shake on it, huh?" She stuck out her hand.
All four hands reached forward.
Whoops, she thought, I hope he's not offended.
But the four hands grasped hers, and she added her second to the juncture. "All right," she said. "Come on. Now I had all this figured out last night. And we don't have much time. Let's go around ..." But he walked over to where the stalks of wheat spired from the altar base up through Hama's fist, and grabbed a stalk with the three hands, and hand, over hand, over hand, began to hoist himself up to where the first broad sheets of metal leaves leaned out to form a small platform. At first his dirty feet swung out frog-like, but then he caught the stem with his toes and at last hoisted himself to the front and looked down at her.
"I can't climb up there," she said, "I don't have your elevation power."
Snake looked down and shrugged.
"Oh damn," she said. "I'll do it my way." She ran across the altar to the great foot of the statue. Sitting cross-legged, Hama's foot was on his side. Using the ridges made by the toes as steps, she clammered up to the dark bulge of the deity's godlike bunion. She made her way across the ankle, up the slanting shin, back down the black thigh, until she stood at the crevice where the leg and torso met.
Out beyond the great knee, Snake regarded her from his perch in the groin of yellow leaf. They were about equal height.
"Yoo-hoo," she waved. "Meet you at the clavicle." Then she stuck her tongue out. The bulges in the belly of the god made a treacherous ledge along which she inched until she arrived at the cavernous naval, leaving wet handprints on the black stone.
The god's belly button from this intimate distance revealed itself as a circular door about five feet in diameter and controlled by a combination lock. She missed the first number twice, dried her hands off, and began again. According to the plans in the main safe of the temple (on which she had first practiced combination breaking) there was a ladder behind this door which led up into the statue. She remembered it clearly; and saved her life by doing so.