Brant and the others stared at this strange sight with wondering eyes. The luminous sea, the naked laughing children on their fantastic flying steeds, the elfin vessel itself—it was all like some scene from a fairy tale, or an illustration in an old children’s book, Brant thought.
What Zuarra, or Suoli, or the other natives thought was beyond conjecture. Perhaps they were beyond amazement itself, by this time, their imaginations stunned by the sheer profusion of marvels they had encountered on this weird journey below the planet’s ancient crust.
The boy who had captured Brant, an eager, bright-eyed little imp, had attached himself to the tall man with a sort of proprietary interest. Seeing that neither could understand each other, the boy laid his hand on his breast and said, carefully, “Kirin!”
Brant nodded, repeating the name a time or two until he had the pronunciation right. Then the lad laid his hand on Brant’s chest with an inquiring look.
“Brant,” the man said, grinning.
“Pran-dt?” murmured the boy. The man shook his head, and kept repeating his name until the lad, Kirin, had it right. Then they began a language-lesson, Brant pointing to various parts of the body, to the sea, to the boat, and so on, and trying to memorize the words that Kirin gave him.
Got to learn the language somehow, thought Brant to himself. We might be here a lot longer than we think.
Will Harbin, in the meantime, was getting language-lessons of his own. His tutor, surprisingly, was a young girl!
They had not realized at once that not all of the slim, golden children were male. Harbin’s teacher, Aulli, was of about the same age as young Kirin, and every bit as long-legged, flat-chested as the boy, her breasts not even having begun to bud. Lacking noticeable breasts, the girls mingled with the boys in one naked, bald, golden mob, to the eyes of the newcomers.
Tuan listened suspiciously for a time to the exchange of nouns and verbs—but they were on to simple verbs by that point, “jump,” “sit,” “run,” and the like. Then he snorted and stalked away to join his men. He had gathered them into a tight group amidship and they kept much to themselves.
It did not occur to Brant to wonder exactly where the ship was heading, until somewhat later. Even if he had thought about it at the time, he could never have guessed.
22 The Monster
When they became hungry or thirsty, the golden children ate or drank, careless of whether their fellows were hungry or not. There seemed to be no particular discipline or regularity about the faery ship that Brant could see.
And when they became sleepy, they simply lay down carelessly wherever they were, and curled up for a nap.
“These kids obviously don’t have any enemies to worry about,” Brant observed to Harbin. “If they did, they wouldn’t be so lax about regulating the things they do. It’s a wonder they ever get anything done.”
“I’ve been wondering why they were flying over the mainland, myself,” mused the scientist. “Maybe just for a boyish romp. …”
Brant called his friend’s attention to two youngsters who were casually making love a little ways apart from where the two men sat.
“Wonder how they keep the birth rate down,” chuckled Brant. Then, as the two lovers reversed position, he reddened and looked hastily away. For they were both boys of about fourteen or so.
“Maybe that’s how!” chuckled Doc.
They ceased puzzling over the motive for the flight of aerial riders who had captured them a bit later on, when a similar flight of whooping boys and girls took off from the perches, and headed out to sea, waving their glassy lances and calling to each other. They returned to the ship an hour later, their lassoes heavy with fat, glistening creatures that flopped and wriggled.
“Sea-slugs,” Harbin decided. “Floating on the surface in schools or whatever the proper term would be, perhaps feeding on algae. The sea has some life, after all!”
Brant grunted a heavy monosyllable, chewing on his under-lip and wondering queasily to himself if that had been the source of the lumps of meat in the peppery sauce of which they had eaten earlier. He put the question firmly out of his mind, deciding he would rather not know.
They watched as the laughing children sliced up the greasy, glistening sluglike creatures, prying out the more succulent inner meat, which they popped into bubbling kettles swung from the rafters of the galley. The superstructure of the ship, by the way, was quite open. There were no walls, just posts and braces, covered with rattan screens you could easily see right through.
Doc ambled over to investigate the cooking pots, and returned with a baffled frown on his face. “Boiling hot water, with herbs and spices in it,” he announced.
“So,” yawned Brant, who was getting sleepy.
“There’s no sign of a fire,” Harbin said. “Be hard enough, even dangerous, to maintain any kind of a fire or oven on a ship as flimsy, and as flammable, as this one is. One strong wave, and the deck would be afire in dozens of places, just from the scattering coals!”
Brant suggested they put the problem down as one more of the many mysteries of this fantastic cavern-world, and rolled over to go to sleep for a while.
Brant awoke a time later when a large hand was laid upon his naked shoulder, then removed. He sat up on one elbow to find Tuan squatting on his heels nearby, looking at him gravely.
“Well, what is it that the chieftain Tuan wishes of Brant?” he asked, using the more polite and formal mode of the Tongue.
“Tuan has conferred with his warriors,” said the other gruffly. “All of us are being borne away into slavery; there is no other answer to the question of why the Strange Ones captured us and are carrying us away.”
“Brant doubts the truth of that supposition, but continue.”
“The children are without weapons—even the strange spears they bear are used only for the control of their riding-beasts,” observed the chieftain. Brant nodded: he had examined one of the lances, finding the flat, leaf-shaped blade dull, with neither edge nor point that was sharp enough to do injury.
“Say on.”
“It is true, even as Brant has spoken, that to fire upon the children would cause a warrior to lose Honor,” muttered Tuan. “But we are all stronger than they are, being grown men and women, and can overpower them with ease, merely binding them. Then we can return to the place of the stair …”
“How does Tuan plan to run the ship?” countered Brant. “Do the warriors of Tuan’s band, stalwart and brave men all, as Brant has no doubt, think to ride the flying-beasts?”
Tuan opened his mouth, then blinked once or twice, eyes dulling. Obviously, he had not thought of that.
“And is Tuan certain of the direction in which the ship must travel, for us to return to the place of the stair?” continued Brant. He knew very well that the People had a mysterious, inborn sense of direction that was often uncanny to Earthsiders, but he doubted if the instinct would work very well down here.
“We … ah … need only go back in the opposite direction,” said Tuan, but he sounded uncertain.
“It seems to Brant that we may have changed direction slightly, or more than slightly, when we slept or feasted or conversed, ceasing to notice such things.”
“What, then, does Brant suggest? Does he wish to become the slave of careless children, and he a grown man, even a warrior of sorts?”
“It is the suggestion of Brant that there be truce between us, the warriors of Tuan and those who accompanied Brant hither, for the time being. Once we have arrived at our destination, whatever it is, there will be time enough to take such actions as seem best to us all. Remember,” he added, falling out of the formal mode of speech and into the vernacular, “the children have not disarmed your warriors, O Tuan. I doubt if they even realize the guns are weapons. So we will get to where we’re going with our arms intact and ready.”