Part 8 (2/2)

'They say the jungle is a perfect circle,' Fremlin said.

'Perfect? Have they any conception of that word's meaning in our language?'

'Yes, Shaker. Of course, they speak in generalizations when they use it now. But what they mean is that this jungle before us is, to the eye, as perfect a circle as you or I could imagine. Their sight is far more critical than ours.'

Sandow's heart beat a little faster, and his spine was swept its length with a s.h.i.+vering sense of expectancy. Ahead lay the unknown and the keys to unlock all these secret places. 'It fits with what I said to the commander just before you came to us a while ago. This jungle, I am convinced, is artificially contained. For what purpose and by whom, I cannot guess. But this report from your feathered charges goes a long way toward proving my suppositions.'

'There's more yet,' Fremlin said.

The birds chortled.

'They speak of a part of the jungle which is crystalized. They speak of trees with leaves like lacy sugar works, with boles like compacted diamonds. They speak of plants the color and the texture of crushed rubies and emeralds. They say the jungle has a diameter of five miles and that the northern mile and a half is all constructed of the most marvelous gems we might wish to see.'

'They do not lie?' Sandow asked.

Fremlin looked hurt.

'Forgive, please,' Sandow said. 'I am foolish. Of course they do not lie. What would they have to gain from it? But we must get this information to the commander. And we must get moving. I want to see this marvel by this day's light and not by tomorrow's sun!'

16.

They progressed in an odd and ungainly manner, though none of the trouble they put themselves to was wasted. Rather than use their two machetes immediately and hack their way into the dark heart of the rain forest, they split into five groups and paralleled each other with six feet between the lines. They climbed over the snaking boles that wound across the fertile earth, wriggled through patches of dense ferns and s.n.a.t.c.hing, semi-sentient vines whose green tendrils more than once ensnared a man beyond the point where he could struggle free on his own. They helped one another, moved some thousand feet from the jungle's edge only with a great deal of effort. There, Richter called them together into one group, where they formed a single line and began using the machetes, clearing a path before them. But when they had gone only another thousand feet, the old officer ordered the original five lines formed again, and again they moved out without leaving much if any trail behind them. Even if trackers picked up their path a thousand feet into the forest, they would not be able to follow it and swiftly overtake the Darklands unit.

Once, when Richter was considering abandoning this tack and moving the rest of the way as one group, behind a single cleared trail, his decision to be careful was reinforced by the flickering sound of something huge and powerful as it made its way over the heavily thatched roof of palms above them.

Everyone stopped, listening. Faces paled, and hands went to daggers.

'It must be one of the aircraft,' Richter said, calling back the lines of frightened men. 'The ones our spies have told us circle round the castle keep of Jerry Matabain.'

'Tis not something that should be in the skies!' one of the men said, shuddering.

'Wrong,' Shaker Sandow called. 'It was made for the skies. The skies are exactly where it belongs. In the days before the Blank, there were thousands of such vehicles in the heavens, and any one of us-or all of us-might have owned one for traveling.'

Fear was replaced, to a small degree, by awe. Then the noise was gone, and there was nothing to do but advance toward the region of the crystal trees.

Slowly, the landscape around them seemed to change. The trees and the plants seemed filmed with something misty which refracted the light and made them glitter. A hand drawn over the leaves, though, felt nothing amiss. Step-by-step, the mist became heavier until, in scattered spots, small, sprouting cl.u.s.ters of jewels seemed to grow directly from the trees, like thumb-sized mushrooms.

The men broke them off, examined them as they marched, stuffed their pockets full of them.

'Could they be real jewels?' Daborot asked the Shaker, turning around from his place before the magician to show a fungus of rubies.

'Perhaps,' the Shaker said. 'I am no expert of such things. But even if they are priceless, why stuff your clothes with them here? So the birds say, there are more and better wonders ahead.'

'Just the same,' Daborot said, his broad face flushed and beaded with sweat, 'I'll keep 'em. Being so recently near death, the nice things in life seem all the nicer. You know?'

'Indeed,' the Shaker said.

Soon, the sound of their feet on the trail rose differently to their ears, with a grinding noise that echoed for a short way through the jungle before the heavy growth impeded all sound and returned silence to them. It was as if they were walking on ground gla.s.s, on a thousand shattered store windows. Commander Richter called a halt, and they fell to examining what lay beneath the cut ferns over which they had been moving. When the tight undergrowth was pulled back far enough, they could see that, rather than soil, the land was composed of a powder of diamonds, glittering with all the colors of the spectrum.

'What do you make of it, Shaker?' Richter called, holding up a handful of the powdery soil and letting it flow brilliantly through his hand.

'I think, at one time, the crystal disease-if disease it was-reached this part of the forest, though it did not attack the larger growths. Whether for reasons of its innate nature or because it was losing potency, I could not say. For a while, however, it crystallized the ferns, the smaller and simpler forms of plant life. And then it lost its hold and real ferns returned, crumbling the diamond plants beneath them.'

'Why don't we just load up on this stuff and return to Darklands?' Crowler asked. 'We wouldn't have to fight Oragonia then; we could buy the whole d.a.m.ned country!'

'Aye, return and find we've carried nothing but ground gla.s.s across the Cloud Range and the Banibals!' someone said, and the laughter at Crowler's remark ceased.

'What about it, Shaker?' Richter asked. 'Real gems or gla.s.s we walk upon?'

'Real,' Fremlin said before the Shaker could make testament to his ignorance on the subject 'And how would you know?' Richter asked.

'I have some small interest in stones myself, Comander,' the Squealer master said. 'My brother is a jeweler in Dunsamora, back home. I've spent time with him, learning the trade. When I get too old for scaling mountains, perhaps I'll take my birds and open some jewelry shop somewhere.'

'Aye,' Crowler said, 'and have them flit around and steal your wares for you. A smart way to build an inventory!'

Shaker Sandow desperately wanted to cease this conversation-or at least to finish it as they walked. But he could see the salutory effect this jocularity had upon them, and he was not going to be the one to break the first mood of optimism to pa.s.s through the ranks since they had left Perdune. All of them needed to laugh. Even he and Mace and Gregor. But the sun was going to be behind the mountains soon, and the forests of diamond trees lay so close ahead!

'But real, then?' Richter asked Fremlin.

'Yes, real. Or as near as couldn't tell the difference. But real I think.'

'Hear this, then,' Richter said, sweeping the men with steady, clear eyes. 'I will permit every man to pack upon his person the equivalent of two pounds of the gem stones, though no more than that. This has been a h.e.l.lish journey, and the very least that all of you deserve is a moderate wealth upon our return to the Darklands!'

There was a rousing cheer delivered there, hands raised in the fisted salute of appreciation for their master. The troops were positively beaming with good humor.

'But mind you: no more than two pounds. For one thing, a great abundance of gems in the Darklands will only bring the prices down. For another, climbing back across the Cloud Range and then the Banibals will be task enough-without a huge burden of diamonds and emeralds on each man's shoulders.'

'Aye, but maybe we are destined to return home by air!' Crowler said, his tone not argumentive, only friendly. He was acting as a bit of comic relief, and he knew it.

The men cheered that thought.

'And maybe not,' Richter said, acting as the balancing force of sobriety.

Whether or not they have planned this act and used it before, they are excellent at it, the Shaker thought. One works to raise the men's spirits while the other works to dampen them just enough to add caution to their good nature.

'In any event,' Commander Richter said, 'two pounds and not a stone more. But I would also advise you that you wait until we find this place which the birds have reported, for there may be higher quality gems to be found.'

In agreement, men began emptying their pockets of the treasures they had stored there, and they picked up the pace of the march again-faster and more jubilant than ever.

The trees around them were shot through with strips of bright jewels, like veins of coal or gold striking through earth, beveled and fractured, casting back amber here like the rustling silk of heavy curtains! here crimson as bright as blood! here blue like deep waters! here blue like a high morning sky! now and then catching their images, casting them back in multi-faceted fantasies! cold to the touch of a hand, cloyding with the evaporation of perspiration from the offending fles.h.!.+ here orange and s.h.i.+mmering with the stinging beams of filtered sunlight stabbing through the canopy of palm fronds! singing with a clear bell note when snapped with the nail of a finger! here green, casting back the colors of the forest that were not affected with the jewel disease!

'Soon now,' Daborot said, turning to the Shaker, his broad face alight.

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