He looked back down to the amphitheater as all the torches went out, plunging the valley into darkness. In the next moment, however, an eerie white light rose from the depression.
Carter stood up.
"I do not like this, Nick…" Gabrielle said. She too got to her feet.
Even as he watched, Carter could see the white light shifting back and forth below. It reminded him of the shifting projector light of a drive-in movie when the scenes changed. Movies.
He turned back to the communications dish receiving the laser beam signal and slowly put his hand out so that he interrupted the signal. At the same time he looked down toward the amphitheater. As his hand blocked the laser signal, the white light rising from the valley was abruptly cut off. When he pulled his hand back, the light returned.
The Chinese were sending signals from some inland installation to this dish. From here they were sent by cable down to the amphitheater, probably to the three shiny devices he had noticed in the rock.
They were sending signals. What sort of signals?
"We 're getting out of here right now," Carter said.
"Now you are talking sense," Gabrielle said.
Together they started down the hill. The going was very slow because of the darkness and the loose rocks. But they had the shifting white lights from the amphitheater to guide them until about the halfway point, when Gabrielle suddenly stopped.
"This is close enough," she said.
Carter looked from the valley back up to her.
"We'll have to go along the hill until we find the path on the other side of the meeting place."
Carter came back up to her. She had been so strong when she had escaped from her husband and when she had volunteered to come here with him. But now it seemed as if she were falling apart.
He took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes in the dim light. "You've got to hold yourself together a little while longer, Gabrielle," he said.
"We have to get out of here, Nick. Before they work themselves into another frenzy. They will kill anything in their path."
"We have to find out what is driving them to it."
"Their sacrifices!"
"That's part of it. But there's more."
"No!"
Then you can remain here by yourself. Or go down to the beach," Carter said. He turned and headed down the hill.
"Nick!" she cried.
He ignored her as he carefully picked his way through the darkness. A minute or two later she was beside him without a word. He reached out and took her hand in his, and together they hurried the rest of the way down the hill to within a hundred yards of the rock outcropping at the back rim of the amphitheater.
If there were any sentries. Carter figured they would be stationed around the rim of the depression. So he and Gabrielle would have to be very careful from this point forward.
Carter took out his stiletto, the blade gleaming dully in the shadowy light coming from below, and motioned for Gabrielle to make absolutely no noise even though the natives had begun to howl and scream below.
She came very close to him, her lips just at his right ear, and she whispered, "They will not be able to hear us."
"There may be guards," Carter whispered back. "Stay here for a moment. Don't move, and don't make any noise. I'm going to see if anyone is there."
"Let's get out of here," she whispered, but Carter crouched down and silently worked his way the rest of the distance down the hill.
There was no one there as far as he could determine. Not on the rim above the rocks. Not within the thick undergrowth to both approaches.
The crowd below was screaming in what sounded like rage, the noise almost deafening.
Keeping low, Carter worked his way to the edge of the rim, and flattening his body against a large boulder, he peered down into the amphitheater.
He had been prepared for almost anything except what he was seeing. The three shiny objects high in the rocks were projection lenses that presented a three-dimensional holographic image just above the altar stone.
That part did not surprise Carter. It was what he expected the dish antenna was being used for. But the images being projected were stunning.
It was the same scene, or a variation of the same scene, repeated over and over, in which terrible things were being done by American technicians to native women and children within the radomes of the American satellite receiving station.
The women, and in some cases young girls, were being raped by big, burly technicians. Some of the children were being cut open, their organs being tacked up on poles. In one scene the livers of two young native girls were force-fed to their mothers and sisters.
At each outrage a fresh cry of anger and despair arose from the native gathering.
At least a part of the Chinese strategy suddenly became clear to Carter. The natives would continue to riot against the American receiving site. If any of them were captured and questioned, even under drugs, they would all tell the same quasi-religious story about how their gods told them what the satellite receiving base was for.
Even if the American forces totally wiped out this island or relocated its population, the Chinese could move to another island and begin the same strategy all over again.
Gabrielle eased down beside him and peered over the edge, her breath catching in her throat as she realized what was and had been happening here.
Carter eased back away from the edge, his stomach churning. It had not been the islanders' fault. They were nothing more than simple natives who had been used as pawns in an international game of intrigue… a game that was being played with absolutely no scruples or concern for a naive, trusting people.
Away from the rim, Carter and Gabrielle scrambled back up the hill to the spot where the cable had come to the surface. Carter pulled about Fifteen feet of it clear from the dirt, then with his stiletto he cut one end and then the other, pulling out a fifteen-foot-long piece.
The shifting white light below in the amphitheater went out when he cut the first wire, and a silence almost as loud as the cries of outrage descended on the jungle.
Carter reburied the two severed ends and smoothed out the disturbed earth so that it would be difficult or impossible to tell where the cable had been cut.
Then he sheathed his stiletto, coiled up the fifteen-foot section of wire, and headed east, the direction from where the laser signal had been transmitted.
A rising murmur was coming from the amphitheater. Gabrielle looked over her shoulder into the darkness. It would not be long before the islanders decided to do something. They would probably head across to Hiva Faui tonight for another attack on the base.
It would be very bad for them to be caught anywhere near the beach right now, Carter knew, so they headed partway up the hill, then struck out toward the northeast, giving the amphitheater a wide berth. A couple of miles farther, they turned just south of east, walking toward where Carter figured the Chinese transmitting antenna was located.
He had no real idea what they would find, although he suspected there would be some sort of a small outpost and probably on holy ground so that the natives would not get too close.
The going was rough in the darkness and the rising wind. There would be a storm sometime tonight from the looks of the sky. It was possible, Carter thought, mat if the storm did materialize, it would keep the natives from crossing to the other island for their attack.
He and Gabrielle only had to hold out until tomorrow morning when the Starfish was scheduled to arrive. Whatever was happening here on this island would be brought to an end.
Once they thought they could hear the cries of the natives somewhere far to the southwest, but then the wind gusted and a flash of lightning and crack of thunder made it impossible to tell for sure.