Part 3 (1/2)
It wasn't extremely likely, he thought, that any of them would livelong enough for him to fulfill his threat. Yet, it was a necessary threat, both to maintain discipline and to establish his place (probably briefly, all things considered) in the hierarchy of the tribe. He felt a cold trickle of sweat run down his back, but refused to shudder. If one was going to die, he reflected, allowing a handful of dust to sift through his fingers as he maintained a stony-faced demeanor, it was better to die as a man than as a beast. He thought of his young, fat wives, and wondered who would inherit them, then brought his line of thinking up short. This was no way for a sub-chieftain of the mighty, fearless Waziri to die, if die he must!
Chapter X.
”Men and Beasts!”
NIGHT settled upon the jungle and the desert and the hidden city of Opar. It settled as well upon the Silver Globe and the crouching, patient Tarzan, once more restored to his senses. Night settled, also, to the savage horde of Waziri and beasts of the jungle crouched on the plain leading to the one known tunnel leading to the mysterious city. N'Gogo, shoulders crawling in superst.i.tious fear, suggested softly to Basuli, chief of the Waziri, that their men might take heart from a campfire or two.
Basuli shook his head and grunted a negative. ”It will make the beasts uneasy,” he explained.
”It is cold, O chief,” complained N'Gogo. ”And the warriors s.h.i.+ver. We have not the s.h.a.ggy hides of others.”
Basuli allowed a moment of silence before he answered. ”Not so cold as the bare bones picked so by the hyena. Not so cold as death. There will be no fires tonight.” He grunted with a dry humor unusual in a Waziri warrior. ”Think of thy fat wives and keep warm, N'Gogo.”
”Or my first wife, and grow even colder,” complained N'Gogo.
Basuli smiled thinly. ”There is that. One chooses.”
N'Gogo grunted, scooped out a bit of sand and a couple of hard rocks from under his hips, making himself as comfortable as possible under the circ.u.mstances. Just before he settled himself loan uneasy slumber, he asked his chief, ”Shall I not set guards for this night”
Basuli stretched beside him. ”Not needed. We have many guards around us. Guards who wake at night. No need.”
N'Gogo heard, just then, the faint pad of the paws of Simba the lion pa.s.sing within a few feet and, shuddering, lay back down. Was one being guarded, he wondered, or kept alive for the breakfast of a beast? He'd had a hard two days and nights of it, and finally dropped off to a slumber, a deep slumber marred only by uneasy and fitful dreams of his first wife, that cold hag.
Night fell elsewhere, although the impatient Glamo, high in his control chamber aboard the Silver Globe was only aware of it in pa.s.sing. After all, the day and night periods meant little to this member of Venusian aristocracy; as a matter of fact Glamo was immune to the normal ”wake-sleep” habits of warm-blooded sentient creatures of planets away from his own. He glanced, this time without interest, at Jane Clayton, privately wondering if it would be worth the effort to add her to his already exotic collection of Earth specimens. A number of the Followers had come aboard the Globe and were in their communal, reeking pit, well down in the bowels of the interplanetary craft. Adjusting his golden armor, the Venusian took a last quick check of his instruments, and leaving Tarzan's mate behind him, unconscious, descended innumerable silvery pa.s.sageways. He paused, opposite the entrance to the cage that had held the renegade ape Jedak, frowning at the warning signal over the entry. He pressed a switch at the side of the door and peered through the revealed transparency. Empty!
Cursing Marda silently for causing this delay mid the now apparent damage to the exterior skin of the Silver Globe, he pressed the computer studs on his belt and watched carefully as the mighty s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p healed itself.
He stood, irresolute, for a few seconds, uneasily aware that there was a missing factor for which he would be held accountable - the white ape. So be it.
Deeper into the s.p.a.ce craft he descended, activating the door which allowed him to enter the fetid pit of the Followers. They lay in a great intertangled loathsome ma.s.s which took him some period of time to mentally separate. All were accounted for with the exception of two, it seemed. He strode forward to double check and their writhing tentacles shrank back from his golden armor, the one metal their otherwise practically indestructible bodies could not tolerate.
He nodded shortly, satisfied with his count, stepped outside and activated the external lock to the chamber of the beasts, so that none inside Could leave, but so that those outside would still be able to enter.
Something, some atavistic instinct, warned the Englishman that there was a something here that must be fought to the death. Ordinary rules did not apply. Besides, from his crouched position outside the Globe, he felt - rather than heard - a throb, hum, call it what you will, of energy, as if the mighty foreign object was preparing for something. Flight, perhaps. Lord Greystoke, b.l.o.o.d.y, scarred, seeking his mate, Jane, tried desperately to recall what had happened up to this point, from the time he'd been battered senseless until the moment when he'd regained his senses.
Tarzan eased himself into a more comfortable position, resigning himself to watch. He half-dozed, his enormous, more than human vitality drained to almost utter exhaustion from his trials. There was little he could do until Goro, the Moon, rose to illuminate the Silver Globe and the surrounding area. Tarzan slept, hand upon the handle of his knife, ears on the alert, now able to discern the ordinary night sounds aside from the uneasy purr of the mighty generators of the Silver Globe as Glamo impatiently paced its silver decks, waiting for his mechanism to warm up to flight pitch. Jane had long since been consigned to a cargo s.p.a.ce where she floated in a state of suspended animation, and Marda, known as ”La” for so many years, was making her cautious way to the side of Glamo. Her only entrance to the Globe was through the pit of the Followers, she knew, and she shuddered as she adjusted her golden armor, the only means of fending off their death-dealing tentacles.
Half-dawn broke, and N'Gogo felt himself nudged in the ribs by Basuli, who regarded him wryly, not quite smiling, yet with the suggestion of a smile upon his ebon countenance. ”The old wife?” Basuli inquired after N'Gogo's dreams, impolitely, for dreams were private.
N'Gogo squinted upward at the half-rays of sun, forgetting for the moment the vast hordes of beasts surrounding him and the rest of the Waziri, instead finding a source of indignation at even Basuli, who dared pry into the innermost thoughts of a warrior. Basuli again smiled. ”Your face looked like a sour fruit,” he said, softly. ”It could have been but your first wife, the old one.”
N'Gogo, outraged at this intrusion upon his innermost thoughts, started to sit abruptly upright, was restrained by his chieftain's firm, sinewy hand. Softly,” whispered Basuli. ”Look about you. Your night picket is both hungry and thirsty. Blood, for some, makes an excellent subst.i.tute for other liquids.”
N'Gogo looked again. Restlessly, about the encampment of the Waziri, all of them asleep - or feigning sleep - prowled the night predators. Lion. Leopard. One black leopard, notoriously a knave of the forest, rolled piercing yellow eyes at the rec.u.mbent figure of the sub-chief of the natives, curling a lip over a startling protrusion of yellowed fangs, emitting a soft hiss.
N'Gogo gulped. ”Yes, mighty Basuli,” he agreed, under his breath, ”Softly, indeed. But you reached a sort of agreement with these creatures, is this not true?” He felt a little more cheerful.
Basuli, impa.s.sive, appeared to meditate. ”True, yes. But that was at nightfall. And that is a long time ago, valued one. Who knows what these creatures may be thinking by now, hours later?”
”I thirst.”
The Waziri chieftain nodded. ”And so do they. There are no waterholes here, and the beasts are notoriously impatient. We are men, and we understand thirst. They do not” He watched carefully. ”Go now and waken the others of our tribe. Crawl like a snake, with your belly deep in the sand, so that Simba will not notice you. It is his feeding time. Quickly, before first light, but carefully.”
With great distaste for his appointed task, N'Gogo made his way carefully, cautiously among the others of the tribe, waking them one by one, cautioning them all to silence and circ.u.mspection. The warning, once each warrior was awake, was hardly necessary. Never, had any of them slept so close to so many beasts.
Now dawn started to streak the plain with roseate streamers of light. The mighty elephant - Tantor - got to his feet, as did the near-sighted Buto, the rhino, snuffling, searching for the water which had been denied them by the terrain. Horta, the boar, one of the most savage of all the jungle denizens, rooted futilely in. the dry sands looking in vain for a sign of moisture while the great cats snarled their disapproval of the entire proceedings, then slunk off to find shelter in the shade of such few boulders and clumps of brush as might be seen.
As the cats disappeared into the shade, the Waziri cautiously stretched, yawned, stood erect. From a previously unnoticed swale, also p.a.w.ning and scratching, emerged two of the great apes, and they waddled carefully toward Basuli, who alone of all the Waziri warriors spoke their language.
They stood at a respectful distance.
”I see you,” said Nendat, chief of the apes.
”And I see you,” grunted Basuli.
”I also,” grunted Leena, Nendat's she.
With a mighty backhanded blow which would have torn the head off a man, Nendat disciplined his mate. ”This is talk for hes,” he reprimanded her, as she scuttled, whimpering, away from the feet of the two oddly-matched tribal leaders. He apologized to Basuli. ”My apologies. Shes are this way.”
The Waziri solemnly inclined his head. indeed. And you rule your tribe wisely. This is indeed talk for men.”
Nendat thumped one mighty paw half-heartedly upon his breast, not at all sure he should have slapped his mate with such vigor. ”Although, to give that one credit, it was she who brought much of this to our attention.”
Basuli, slipping a wise eye around at N'Gogo, asked the great ape, ”You have other mates, certainly?”
”Not our custom. One such is certainly enough for any he. More would be a sign of weakness. And foolishness.”
N'Gogo looked elsewhere in embarra.s.sment, as his own chief nodded a.s.sent. ”Correct. Now, shall we get to work?”
”You have given this thought?”
”There was little else to do during the hours of darkness. When the night beasts were roaming about.”
Nendat let sand sift through his fingers. ”An uneasy truce.”
”Yes.” Basuli let the thought lay, turning over the possibilities in his own mind, all the time keeping a stony visage. Could the great ape note human expressions? Could he, mighty Basuli, read the expression on the face of a great ape? There was a certain mutual distrust between the pair, as there was, in greater or lesser degree, between all humans and sub-humans. Yet, as he studied the muzzle of the mighty primate, Basuli could not help but be impressed by Nendat's apparent, almost obvious sincerity in the latter's concern for the whereabouts and the safety of Tarzan. Finally, Basuli spoke again. ”We have certain tools. Do I speak with wisdom? We, you and I, serve the same master, Tarzan.”
Surprisingly, the leader of the great apes bared yellowed fangs, dancing about in awkward shuffles that raised little puffs of desert sand, and beat upon his breast defiantly. Startled lions and leopards snarled in protest of this unseemly exhibition, but Nendat ignored them all. ”I serve no master!” the giant ape roared. ”I am the master of my people!” He growled, deep in his throat, tiny red-rimmed eyes glowing, wickedly. He picked up a pawful of dust, threw it into the air, indicating that the discussion was either closed, or that mortal combat was next on the agenda.
N'Gogo searched around for a creva.s.se or a swale in which to hide himself. He knew nothing of the language being spoken, but he sensed the antagonism in the air.