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Holding the match box in his left hand, Ulysses applied the tip of the match to the side of the box.
"One little flame!" he shouted. "That's all it takes! And we all burn to death!"
A Dhulhulikh wearing a greenish helmet, indicating a rank equivalent to a major, shouted back in a thin
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piping voice, "Then we all die!"
He waved the slender spear and said, "Attack them!"
Without waiting to see if he was being followed, he launched himself from the girder, wings flapping, at
Awina. But the air was thinner here, and he did not glide at quite the correct angle. He struck the rail full
in the middle and Awina hit him over the head with her tomahawk. Fast on his heels came about twenty
more, some of whom made the same error as their commander and slammed into the railing. The others
were met with the weapons of the remaining twelve defenders, who stood back to back, six facing one
way and six the other.
Ulysses, seeing that the rest of the Dhulhulikh had dropped quietly out of the holes in which they had
come, put the match box in the pocket of his kilt and ran to help his people. He got there in time to pick
up a spear and with it run a bat-man through the back. The survivors of the last attack, four Dhulhulikh,
fluttered away and dived out through holes in the skin.
They were all so tired that they could barely move, and one Wufea slumped down and died. But Ulysses
insisted that three repair the leak in the gas cell and the others come with him to the gondola. There
would be no sleep for him until he got theBlue Spirit back to the land of the Neshgai.
As it turned out, he got several nights' sleep. The dirigible took fifteen hours to fight against the headwind
while it slowly lost altitude. The crew looked for leaks and found four tiny ones but could not locate the
others. By the time the airship had left The Tree, it was cruising in the lower levels of the great plant. This
helped the speed in one way because there was no wind there. But the demands on the steersman were
great. He had to sail between trunks and branches, under branches, between vine complex and branch,
sometimes narrowly squeaking through. Ten miles past the last of The Tree, the dirigible settled down on
the grassy plains and collapsed.
The survivors crawled out from under the great bulk with their supplies, after which Ulysses set fire to
the ship to make sure that it did not fall into hostile hands. Not that he had seen any bat-men, but he was
taking no chances. If there was one thing he did not want, that was the Dhulhulikh learning how to make
dirigibles of their own.
They set out across the plains toward the mountains, on the other side of which was the country of the
Neshgai. The other airships had gone on ahead long ago. Their motors, working against the wind, had
tired swiftly, and the ships had to get back before the vegetable-muscle motors died of exhaustion.
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Two days later, they saw the great cigar shape of a dirigible coming after them. As promised over the
radio, the ship had returned for them after the motors had been rested.
Once the ship was in sight of the people on the ground, its radio went into action. Kafbi, a Vroomaw
officer, spoke to Ulysses.
"We were lucky to get away, my Lord. The whole country is knee-deep in blood. While we were gone,
the slaves and the Vroomaw rose against the Neshgai. All is chaos. The Neshgai hold some parts of the
land and the rebels other parts. The other ships were attacked and destroyed on the field by the Neshgai,
but we drove them off. Then we came after you. The slaves and the Vroomaw look to you to lead them
to victory. They say that you are the god of the humans, and that you have been destined from time
immemorial to free them and to rid the world of the elephant-headed monsters."
The Tree would hear of this soon enough, if it had not already heard. It would rally the Dhulhulikh and
summon the hordes that lived on it and strike while the Neshgai and the humans were at each other's
throats. If only the humans had put off their uprising until their greatest enemy had been conquered . . .
but sentients did not follow cold logic, not very often, anyway. They lived in little opaque cells of time.
"The ruler and the high priest were killed," Kafbi said. "Shegnif, the Grand Vizier, now rules. His forces
are holed up in the palace complex, and, so far, we have failed to take it."
Ulysses sighed. Twenty million years of blood-shed, pain and horror were behind him. And it looked as
if more would be ahead of him if he were to live that long.
So be it.
He stood on the great plain with Awina by his side, her tail flicking across the calf of his right leg as she
nervously waited for the airship to manoeuvre. Awina said, "My Lord, after we have conquered the
Neshgai, what do we do?"
He patted her furry shoulder and said, "I like your optimism.After we have conquered, notif, right? I
wonder what I would have done without you."
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For a few seconds, he felt cold in the pit of his stomach. There had been so many times when she could
have been killed, and he would have had to do without her. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]