8
A Gift of the Gods
The paraglider had been made and Mawgri had brought it home the night before, so I had already inspected it and found it true to my specifications. I woke eager to go to the mountain, but Mawgri, to tease me, pretended to want to loll around in bed.
“Come back. What is your rush?”
“Mawgri, you know this is important to me. I know from the logbook—‘the sacred, unreadable book’—that Captain Hennessey and his ship are in the cave on the mountain.”
“Very well. I’ll go with you to the airbase.”
“Airbase?”
“Yes, the Emperor Sacacon is having one of his best, most trusted pilots fly you, and he has ordered a cameraman to film your flight, so his forces can study how you manipulate the paraglider. We have two hours before flight time.”
We cleaned and dressed. I donned my uniform and full body armor with weapons and helmet. Mawgri, who had pulled a simple black bodysuit over his pale green-and-yellow scales, said, “Ah, you are magnificent: the warrior of Earth.”
“Cut the cracks. I’m ready. All my bags are packed. Don’t forget to take them with you.”
“I won’t.”
“When will you come to get me?”
“Tomorrow morning. That will give you a day and night on the mountain.”
“Let’s go.”
Luvark, assigned by the Emperor, drove us in the yellow car, but we didn’t discuss what we were up to. I told him I was testing a new parachute that Sacacon wanted for his paratroopers. The drive to the airbase took us down the mountain, across the plateau, and down another ridgeline.
From our final descent, I could see the airbase below in the desert basin, and I then realized how intensely the Saca Empire was preparing for conflict. The airbase was huge, encompassing kilometers and kilometers of runway, at least a dozen different strips, and hundreds of hangers and other buildings. Up close were shiny single-engine metal propeller planes, some with broad flat noses and others with pointed noses. There must have been hundreds of those types of planes, some of which were taking off and landing and flying around the base in formations. Farther away were two-engine propeller planes bristling with guns and with open bomb bays. Across from those were other unarmed two-engine planes that must have been cargo planes. Around all of those planes, mechanics and weapon-loaders streamed back and forth like ants. Much farther, beyond the smaller planes were huge four-engine bombers, which were likewise being serviced by antlike Putkurs.
“I can see that Saca is indeed readying for war.”
Luvark said, “Za Malcolm, what other choice do we have with Radimeer making so many threats?”
The gate of the airbase was heavily guarded, so Luvark had to stop and present his pass from the emperor in order to enter. The guards glanced at it and waved us in.
Luvark hadn’t driven more than a half kilometer into the base when he turned right and headed to a hanger where small single-engine planes waited. He stopped beside the first hanger, and we got out of the car and pulled the yellow paraglide chute from the trunk. I had packed it into a bright red parachute pack given to me by Sacacon.
A pilot came up to us and bowed and said, “Za Mawgri, Za Malcolm, I am glad to meet you. I am your pilot, Captain Jirkra.”
Mawgri said, “Greetings, but only Za Malcolm is going with you. I have other business to attend to and must leave him to your care.”
Captain Jirkra bowed to him. “By your leave.”
Mawgri gave me a little salute and grin and then turned, rejoined Luvark in the car, and off it sped back to Sacawyz.
Jirkra led me to a small, single-engine, high-wing airplane with two front seats and two back seats. The cameraman was loading his gear into the back. Jirkra said, “Za Malcom, you will sit up front next to me. When you are ready to jump, let me know, and then wait for my signal.”
We squeezed into the little airplane, Jirkra started the engine, which sputtered, roared and finally settled into a high hum like an angry bee. The noxious, carbonic exhaust floated around us. He spoke into a radio and voices answered him. Then we began rolling down a runway, gained speed, and at last rose slowly into the air. When we had gained enough altitude, Jirkra leveled the plane and said, “My instructions are to fly to the Mt. Zaput area for you to begin your dive. None of the fighter formations will be practicing in that sacred and forbidden area, so it will be safe for us.”
I settled down and enjoyed the scenery. To the east I could see the desert basin dotted with oil derricks drilling into the earth. We were about a kilometer up in the atmosphere and flying parallel with the ridge on which Sacawyz was built. Soon we passed over the city, and I tried to pick out Mawgri’s villa and finally thought I saw it with a tiny yellow car in front. Then the air grew cooler and the mountains grew taller and were covered with dark foliage.
Then as we flew parallel to a high plateau, Jirkra leaned toward me and said, pointing a scaled finger ahead to a high mountain covered with black fir trees except for its barren rocky top, “That’s Mount Zaput. The village at the foot of the mountain is where the ecclesiastic guards live to protect the holy mountain. I’m climbing to two kilometers.”
The plane nosed up into a shallow climb and soon we were above the mountain in cold air. The cameraman tapped the captain to let him know he was ready. “All right, Za Malcolm, anytime you want, you can jump.”
I opened the door, which slid back into the fuselage. “Thanks,” I said. “Here goes.” I stepped out into the frigid air and fell, arms and legs spread. I never looked at the plane, but I knew it would be circling and the cameraman would be shooting. I fell a few hundred feet and then I pulled the ripcord. The chute unfurled, filled and suddenly popped open, jerking me upward into a draft. I grabbed the lines and tested to make sure I knew which were which; then I parasailed in a broad counterclockwise circle. The paraglider functioned smoothly. On the western arc, I saw the mountain below me and drifted that way. I could hear the airplane buzzing somewhere above me.
The bird’s eye view was spectacular. Saca was a beautiful land with its deserts, dark valleys and broad mountains. Since I was still above the mountain, I circled again, but a tighter circle, so when I came around to the west, I would yet be slightly above the mountain. I came around and saw I was almost even with its broad top. I knew that the cave was on the eastern side just above the tree line. I circled again, tighter, and when I came around I was just below the eastern tip of the mountain. Then I performed a figure eight, which was something acrobatic for the cameraman, but also gave me a good view of my target area as I swept back and forth. I turned abruptly toward the mountain and went skimming for the tree line.
Then before me to the right, I saw the dark mouth of the cave. I adjusted the chute so it took me there, and I dropped down gently onto the ledge in front of the cave, released the chute pack, and walked quickly inside the cave as the chute, now with little weight to impede it and caught by the wind, blew up and north and disappeared around the mountain.
The cave seemed dense with darkness, and my eyes had little time to adjust from the bright white of the sky when a voice said, “Nice landing, Za Malcolm.”
I pulled my flashlight from the belt and shined its tight beam of light toward the voice, which seemed familiar. It wasn’t Mawgri’s voice, but it belonged to someone I had spoken to before. The light fell on the yellow eyes and scaly face of Sacacon. I bowed and said, “Sacacon, what are you doing here?”
“I came to visit my god. I figured I could help you on your mission, too. And, by the way, let’s drop the royal formality. You and I are both educated enough to know that it’s a bunch of foolishness. What I love about Mawgri is that he knows it, too, and we long ago came to an understanding as equals—one of the few real friends I have.”
Sacacon was dressed in warm brown hiking boots and thick clothing with none of the pomp of an emperor. Beside him were a backpack, a rifle and a valise. He held two picks in his imbricated left hand. He leaned one pick against his leg and offered me the other. “Shall we go find my god?”
I felt his tongue lightly and companionably on my forehead and said, “Yes, let’s.” I grabbed the pick and we set off for the rear of the cave. As we walked, I said, “I gather that Mawgri has told you what I found in the book.”
“Yes, and I wasn’t surprised. Why would a god write in a book when it could write in the sky or on the face of a mountain if it wished its worshippers to know something? And why write in a language the worshippers could not understand? That never made sense. A god would only write in another language if that was the language of the gods and there were many of them, which defeats the idea of one god.”
At the rear of the cave, we took the picks, which had one sharp, pointed tip at one end and at the other end a three-pronged iron claw for pulling away rocks, and began to remove rocks and stones and boulders until there was enough room for a Putkur to enter, which left plenty of room for a human. We hunched over and duck-walked into the burial site, for that is what it was.
Once inside, we stood next to the spacecraft, the lighter from
Martian Moons. Inside the craft were three skeletons wearing spacesuits. Next to one was a pistol. I picked up the pistol and saw that engraved on the handle was “C. Hennessey, Love, Dad.” I showed it to Sacacon and read the inscription aloud. “It was perhaps a gift for graduating from a military academy.”
“Take it with you. . . . So this suit of bones is Christopher Hennessey, the founder of our religion and composer of our written language and the one who taught us to read and write. We owe him a lot. He really did do us a service by advancing our civilization hundreds of years. Who knows what we would have become otherwise?”
He held up a square of hide and wooly fur that had covered the body. “This must be the skin of the zeboc he killed, which became his shroud. I will take it for the priests.”
“What if the Stuwkreen had arrived to find you illiterate hunters and gatherers and worshippers of trees and rocks?”
“That is not a pleasant thought. But here’s a better thought: You humans have been around for eons and are more advanced than we in the Za system. I would love to visit your system.”
“Such a thing is possible, but only if humans become aware that you are here. Another possibility is that the Stuwkreen take you there. I think they will soon have that capacity.”
We looked around the lighter, but I found nothing else that I could take with me. Sacacon, however, recognized that the engine of the lighter might be advancement over anything his people currently had, and might help his side in the looming conflict with Radimeer. He studied its dimensions, made some notes and finally returned to my side.
“That engine could be useful.”
“But how do you get it out of the cave and down the mountain past the ecclesiastic guards?”
“I’ll think of something. After all, I am Zacon’s chosen ruler and the de facto head of the religion.”
“How did you explain your climb up the mountain?”
“To commune with Zacon and seek guidance for the political crisis.”
“Then all you have to say is that Zacon has left a gift for his people, but it must be extracted from the cave.”
“Yes. I’ll start the process as soon as I return to Sacawyz.”
“I would like to bury the crew.”
“Ok. Let’s do that.”
We dug a trench next to the lighter, pulled out the three suited human skeletons (I relieved Hennessey of his force-field belt) and laid them at long last to rest and covered them with earth. I said a few words honoring them, especially Captain Christopher Hennessey.
We returned to the mouth of the cave and I put Hennessey’s pistol and force-field belt into my pack. Then we went outside and looked out over Saca land. “You have a beautiful country,” I said.
“Yes, and it has been good to us. I hope we can defend it well and survive this conflict with Radimeer.”
“The civilization that empowers the most people usually wins in otherwise equal contests. You have begun to empower your people by educating them and moving them toward self-government and by encouraging individual achievement, and your chief ally is the democracy Kunwyz, which has the most empowered people, so I’m optimistic you will prevail . . . if not at first, then ultimately.”
He leaned against the outcropping at the mouth of the cave and looked at me inquiringly, “What do you think of Mawgri?”
“What do you mean? You know he is trustworthy.”
“He is so many things, but does anyone really know him? Do you know him?”
“I love him, but I see what you are getting at. He never reveals everything, so I always have a sense that he is keeping part of himself to himself alone.”
“What is that part that no one knows, that no one can see into?”
“I don’t know.”
End of Chapter 8
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