“I can tell you something else,” said Marko. “They didn’t find these trees here. They planted them.”
“Really! How do you know?”
“Look at those even rows! No natural forest ever grew in a formation like that.”
Halran wiped his glasses. “By the gods, you are right! With my weak sight, I should never have noticed in this inadequate light. The Afkans must have an advanced technology.”
Thereafter, the travelers had to save their breath for walking. Their captors, surrounding them with spears warily leveled, set a brisk pace. Both were weary and footsore when, over an hour later, they came to the end of the forest.
Ahead lay cultivated fields, from which Afkans were on their way home to supper. They marched in gangs, each under control of an overseer with a whistle.
In the twilight, the fields gave way to a perfectly square town. Houses of timber and plaster, of severely plain, square, monotonous design, were set on streets laid in a square grid pattern. An Afkan was lighting lamps at the street corners with a long-handled device.
“Not what one would call charm,” said Hakan. “It is like an overgrown barracks.”
“At least,” said Marko, recalling the tangled alleys of Niok and Lann, “it should be easy to find one’s way around.”
The escort stopped in front of a building, distinguished from the rest only by its greater size. A pair of sentries, armed with swords and crossbows, stood rigidly hi front of the entrance. The lamplight gleamed on their polished bronzen cuirasses and helmets.
He of the toga went in. After a long wait, he returned with several others of his kind.
“Follow us,” he said through the interpreter.
Inside, the building was bare and functional. The travelers were ushered into a large room. Black men sat impassively hi chairs. Marko and Halran remained standing, each with a pair of spearmen to guard him.
For the next hour, the travelers were minutely questioned about their origin, their purpose, and the nature of Halran’s flying machine. Their inquisitors at first all looked alike to Marko, the more so since they never allowed a flicker of expression to ruffle their dignity. By and by, however, he began to distinguish them. One man, a little shorter and stouter than the others, seemed to be an object of deference.
Then another black arrived. This was an elderly man in a white toga, with a conical hat on his kinky gray hair. He spoke to the inquisitors and then, in good Anglonian, to the travelers.
“We can dispense with this clumsy interpretation,” he said. “I am Ndovu, high priest of Laa. That”he indicated the stout man“is Chaka, the Kabaka of Afka. The others are his ministers. I was absent when you arrived but came as soon as I heard. Repeat, briefly, what you have told the Kabaka.”
“Please sir, may we sit down?” said Halran. “I am ready to faint with weariness.”
Ndovu nodded and spoke to the spearman, who brought stools. When Halran had been through his tale once again, the high priest said: “It is plausible. You say this flying device is your invention?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hm. It is too bad that we shall have to kill a man of your gifts, Professor.”
“Oy! What have we done to deserve this fate?”
“You have set foot on the sacred soil of Afka, that is what you have done. For hundreds of years, we have published abroad the fact that we want no contact with outsiders and that any who come here without special authorization are liable to death. You have aggravated your offense by not only coming here but also by inventing a device whereby others could easily do likewise, thus imperiling our isolation.”
“Why are you so insistent on your precious isolation?”
“To preserve the purity of our blood. If outsiders were let in, sooner or later one would contract a liaison with one of our women. Our racial integrity would be threatened.”
Marko spoke: “How long have we, sir?”
“Until morning. We do things here hi proper order, and it will take that long for the courts to process your case. But see here, my man, it is for us to ask questions, not you!”
The high priest spoke to the guards, who began to hustle Marko and Halran out.
“Holy Father!” cried Halran. “At least you owe us ahspiritual consolation, don’t you?”
As the guards hesitated, the high priest gave a faint smilethe first expression that Marko had yet seen on an Afkan face. “I suppose so. I shall visit you later this evening, after the supper you so inconveniently interrupted.”
When Ndovu came to their cell, he said: “I take it that the true faith of Laa is not known in your barbarous land?”
“Indeed not, sir,” said Hakan. “Enlighten us, I pray.”
“Well, in the beginning Laa created the heavens and the earth. He also created the first man and woman, named Kongo and Kenya respectively.
“For many centuries, the descendants of Kongo and Kenya dwelt happily in the land. Then some of the people fell into sinful ways. I do not have tune for all the details, but suffice it to say that Laa cursed these sinful ones by bleaching their skins. Before then, all mankind had been black, like us.
“More time passed. Then the cursed ones, the paleskins, waxed in numbers. By a sudden onset, they overcame the virtuous blackskins and made slaves of them. For many generations, they forced the blackskins to labor at menial tasks.
“At last, Laa sent the captive blackskins a leader, named Mozo, to lead them out of captivity. Mozo warned the king of the paleskins that, unless he let Laa’s chosen people go, the king’s folk would suffer grievous chastisement.
“But the king did not believe this. He drove Mozo out with scorn and insults. As a result, his folk were afflicted with incursions of transors and other pests, drouth, epidemics, and other misfortunes. After seven of these plagues had befallen the paleskins, their king at last agreed to let Laa’s folk go. So they went forth under the guidance of Mozo.
“Then the king repented him of having yielded to Mozo’s threats and set out in pursuit with his army. But, when the blackskins came to the shores of the Medranian Sea, Mozo prayed to Laa, who parted the waters of the sea. Thus Laa’s folk crossed over to Afka dry-shod. But when the king of the paleskins and his army sought to follow, the waters returned and drowned them all.
“Ere he died, Mozo called his people together and propounded a code of laws for them. Amongst these laws, besides the usual prohibitions of lying, theft, murder, impiety, and so on, he ordained that all Af-kans must be efficient, energetic, and industrious. They must arm to the teeth and be ready at all times to defend themselves and the land that Laa had given them.
“The cursed ones had enslaved them, he said, because they had taken life too easily. In enjoying life, they had let the paleskins get ahead of them in organization and technology. This, he said, must never happen again. It is ordained that, the more a man gives up the pleasures of life in this world, the greater shall be his pleasures in Earth.”
“You Afkans seem like a grimly puritanical lot,” said Halran, “if you will excuse my saying so.”
Ndovu beamed. “No apologies needed. What you say is high praise here. Now, Mozo also insisted upon the racial purity of the folk, if they wished Laa to continue to love and protect them. During then: time of slavery, there had naturally been some mixture between the two races, so that many blackskins were actually of paler shades. Ever since, if a newborn infant betrays paleskin blood by its color, it is destroyed. Thus we have weeded out nearly all trace of the blood of the cursed ones, and we are determined to maintain this purity at all costs. Now do you understand?”