‘They could never have succeeded. If they had not brought down Tribulation which all but destroyed them; then they would have bred with the carelessness of animals until they had reduced themselves to poverty and misery, and ultimately to starvation and barbarism. One way or another they were foredoomed because they were an inadequate species.’
It occurred to me again that these Sealanders had no little opinion of themselves. To one brought up as I had been this irreverence for the Old People was difficult to take. While I was still wrestling with it Rosalind asked:
‘But you? Where do you come from?’
‘Our ancestors had the good fortune to live on an island — or, rather, two islands — somewhat secluded. They did not escape Tribulation and its effects even there, though it was less violent there than in most places, but they were cut off from the rest of the world, and sank back almost to barbarism. Then, somehow, the strain of people who could think-together began. In time, those who were able to do it best found others who could do it a little, and taught them to develop it. It was natural for the people who could share thoughts to tend to marry one another, so that the strain was strengthened.
‘Later on, they started to discover thought-shape makers in other places, too. That was when they began to understand how fortunate they had been; they found that even in places where physical deviations don’t count for much people who have think-together are usually persecuted.
‘For a long time nothing could be done to help the same kind of people in other places — though some tried to sail to Zealand in canoes, and sometimes they got there — but later, when we had machines again, we were able to fetch some of them to safety. Now we try to do that whenever we make contact — but we have never before made contact at anything like this distance. It is still a strain for me to reach you. It will get easier, but I shall have to stop now. Look after the little girl. She is unique and tremendously important. Protect her at all costs.’
The thought-patterns faded away, leaving nothing for a moment. Then Petra came in. Whatever she may have failed to make of the rest, she had caught the last part all right.
‘That’s me,’ she proclaimed, with satisfaction and totally unnecessary vigour.
We rocked, and recovered.
‘Beware, odious smug child. We haven’t met Hairy Jack yet,’ Rosalind told her, with subduing effect. ‘Michael,’ she added, ‘did all that reach you, too?’
‘Yes,’ Michael responded with a touch of reserve. ‘Condescending, I thought. Sounded as if she were lecturing to children. Still coming from a devil of a long way away, too. I don’t see how they can come fast enough to be any help at all. We shall be starting after you in a few minutes now.’
The great-horses clumped steadily on. The landscape continued to be disturbing and alarming to one brought up in respect for the propriety of forms. Certainly, few things were as fantastic as the growths that Uncle Axel had told of in the south; on the other hand, practically nothing was comfortably familiar, or even orthodox. There was so much confusion that it did not seem to matter any more whether a particular tree was an aberrate or just a miscegenate, but it was a relief to get away from trees and out into open country for a bit — though even there the bushes weren’t homogeneal or identifiable, and the grass was pretty queer, too.
We stopped only once for food and drink, and for no more than half an hour before we were on our way again. Two hours or so later, after several more stretches of woodlands, we reached a medium-sized river. On our side the level ground descended in a sharp, steep bank to the water; on the other stood a line of low, reddish cliffs.
We turned downstream, keeping to the top of the bank. A quarter of a mile along, at a place marked by a grossly deviational tree shaped like a huge wooden pear, and with all its branches growing in one big tuft at the top, a runnel cut well back into the bank and made a way for the horses to get down. We forded the river obliquely, making for a gap in the opposite cliffs When we reached it, it turned out to be little more than a cleft, so narrow in some places that the panniers scraped both walls, and we could scarcely squeeze through. There was quite a hundred yards of it before the way widened and began to slope up to normal ground level.
Where the sides diminished to mere banks seven or eight men stood with bows in their hands. They gaped incredulously at the great-horses, and looked half-inclined to run. Abreast of them, we stopped.
The man in the other pannier jerked his head at me.
‘Down you get, boy,’ he told me.
Petra and Rosalind were already climbing down from the leading great-horse. As I reached the ground the driver gave a thump and both great-horses moved ponderously on. Petra clasped my hand nervously, but for the moment all the ragged, unkempt bowmen were still more interested in the horses than in us.
There was nothing immediately alarming about the group. One of the hands which held a bow had six fingers; one man displayed a head like a polished brown egg, without a hair on it, or on his face; another had immensely large feet and hands; but whatever was wrong with the rest was hidden under their rags.
Rosalind and I shared a feeling of relief at not being confronted with the kinds of grotesquerie we had half expected. Petra, too, was encouraged by finding that none of them fulfilled the traditional description of Hairy Jack. Presently, when they had watched the horses out of sight up a track that disappeared among trees, they turned their attention to us. A couple of them told us to come along, the rest remained where they were.
A well-used path led downwards through woods for a few hundred yards, and then gave on to a clearing. To the right ran a wall of the reddish cliffs again, not more than forty feet high. They appeared to be the reverse side of the ridge which retained the river, and the whole face was pocked by numerous holes, with ladders, roughly made of branches, leading to the higher openings.
The level ground in front was littered with crude huts and tents. One or two small cooking fires smoked among them. A few tattered men and a rather larger number of slatternly-looking women moved around with no great activity.
We wound our way among hovels and refuse-heaps until we reached the largest of the tents. It appeared to be an old rick-cover — the loot, presumably, of some raid — fastened over a framework of lashed poles. A figure seated on a stool just inside the entrance looked up as we approached. The sight of his face jolted me with panic for a moment — it was so like my father’s. Then I recognized him — the same ‘spider-man’ I had seen as a captive at Waknuk, seven or eight years before.
The two men who had brought us pushed us forward, in front of him. He looked the three of us over. His eyes travelled up and down Rosalind’s slim straight figure in a way I did not care for — nor she, either. Then he studied me more carefully, and nodded to himself, as if satisfied over something.
‘Remember me?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I told him.
He shifted his gaze from my face. He let it stray over the conglomeration of hutches and shacks, and then back again to me.