Sinister Paradise Part 7

"Yes. Actually, however, we were looking for this island." Swiftly Parker explained what had happened.

"Retch went away, he hired you to bring him back in a s.h.i.+p that flies?"

Rozeno seemed a little perturbed.

For the first time, Ulnar spoke, a single grunted sound. Rozeno answered with a swift flow of gutturals that Parker did not understand. Ulnar grunted again, a hot light appeared in his eyes. "Kill him!" His fist came down upon the table.

Again Rozeno looked pained. "I have worked so long and so hard with him, trying to show him the Way, trying to explain to him that killing is not a part of the Way. But the old savagery is still in his heart. Sometimes I despair of him." He shook his head very gently. The light flowing in from behind him made a halo of his long white hair. His eyes searched Parker. They were the kindest and at the same time the keenest eyes the pilot had ever met. They looked at him and through him; they probed deep down inside of him; they seemed to search down to the bottom of his soul. Parker had the feeling he was being weighed, measured, probed.

"It is not often that I offer a choice to those who come here," Rozeno spoke. "Usually they prefer to live in the village at the base of the cliff. You may live here with us, if you wish." The smile on Rozeno's face was a living thing.

Deep down inside of him, Parker felt his soul come to sudden life. "I'll stay here, Father, if I may."

The smile on Rozeno's face became even brighter. "Good, my son. You have made a very wise choice."

Parker was silent, perturbed, suddenly uneasy. Here in this place two old men lived in rooms near the top of a cliff. Down below was a village where brawling men lived, men who could walk on water. In the night, in this place something called a Jezbro went on the wings of a harp. There was magic here, mysteries that went beyond his understanding. What else was here?

"Tell me about this place, Father?"

Rozeno nodded. "Gladly, my son, gladly. I will show you and tell you as I show you. There are things here that even I do not understand." For a second, the old priest frowned as if he was contemplating mysteries that lay afar. Then his smile came back and he was rising to his feet. "Come with me, my son."

As they moved from the big room, Ulnar grunted hastily and gestured toward the wall slit. Looking through it, Parker saw a speedy craft moving inside the veil--a PT boat. His heart jumped at the thought that the Navy had finally penetrated the secret of this strange island. His heart sank when he saw that even if this was a PT boat, it was not a Navy s.h.i.+p. The craft was dirty, unkempt, it was not the smart, spick and span vessel that the Navy would operate.

As he watched, the boat veered abruptly, slowed, almost came to a halt as if its occupants had suddenly discovered the presence of the island.

Ulnar shook his fist at the boat. "_Vondel me sego!_" he said.

"No, no, Ulnar," Rozeno spoke hastily. "You must not _vondel_ them. They are just some people who have stumbled through the veil and now are bewildered."

"Me make 'em more frightened," the Indian spoke. He brought one fist down into the other fist, a smacking sound.

"What is _vondel_?" Parker spoke.

Rozeno seemed not to hear him. The priest was already moving from the room.

"We do not know who cut these pa.s.sages here," Rozeno said. "We do not know who cut these rooms into the rock. Some race that lived a long, long time ago--perhaps the legendary Murians, perhaps some other race--had this island as an outpost. I think, also, they used it as a scientific laboratory; a dangerous laboratory that they put far away from their homeland. A place where their wise men--their philosophers--could seek out the mysteries of nature."

"Um," Parker said. There was cold in him. He tried to force it away, discovered it would not go.

"There is something else that is very strange about this island," the priest continued. "Time is different here."

"How is time different?"

"In this way," Rozeno answered. "I came to the New World with Cortez."

"I see," Parker said.

"You take it very calmly."

"I do not doubt my own eyes nor do I doubt you."

The old priest glowed. "Good. Good. Tell me, my son, are there many men like you in the world of today? I have a dream, a secret private dream, that the scientists from your world might come here and study the strange things on this island."

"They would come here in droves if they knew about it. And so would everybody else. You would be over-run by hordes of the curious."

"Yes, we know that. That isn't quite what I meant. It was my hope that perhaps we could make this island what it was in the olden days--secret place where the wise men could come to study." The priest's face glowed again. "There is so much here to be learned and here, also, is the time in which to learn. Here great discoveries might be made. Here could possibly be discovered not only the secrets of nature but the secrets of the minds and the hearts of men. From this place, as the centuries pa.s.sed, there might be fed out, little by little, knowledge that would change the world; knowledge that would change the hearts and the minds of men; knowledge that would eliminate poverty, stop wars, knowledge that would help the human race become what it must one day be."

The glow on Rozeno's face was bright. The dream he dreamed was suddenly, in Parker's mind, a living, breathing vital hope, the hope of all honest men everywhere, that tomorrow might be better!

"Would you, my son, help me achieve that dream? Will you go back through the veil and explain to some of your greatest scientists what we have here?"

"I would like nothing better," the big pilot answered. In a way, this was his dream too, though up until now it had always been a secret, hidden, impossible-to-accomplish thing. His hand went out to Rozeno.

Deep inside of him, the glow grew to greater heights. Only one other thing was needed to make this glow a really perfect feeling, Effra, who had found this island and had tried to tell him about it. But Effra was gone.

They moved on to a big room where some of the scientific equipment of the vanished race still functioned. Set in a sunken pool ten feet in diameter in the center of the room was a circle of what looked like mercury. Leading up from it were heavy bus bars of some unknown metal.

The bus bars came together and marched across the room to a control panel, one of the strangest control panels Parker had ever seen. The meters were graduated in colors. In front of the chair where the operator sat was a keyboard like that of a vast pipe organ. How much training would an operator need to operate this keyboard? Directly in front of the operator's seat was a square panel that looked like a television screen.

Set in niches where the right hand of the operator could reach them easily were statuettes of birds, animals, reptiles. Made of some metal, they were perfect representations. Parker saw a condor, a bald-headed eagle, a humming-bird, a cougar, a jaguar, an alligator. His eyes went back to the pool in the center of the room.

"It is generating power," Rozeno said. "As it turns, it creates some force, some energy. I do not understand this energy. No one now alive understands it. Understanding is one of the things I hope your scientists may achieve--come away, Ulnar." The last was spoken as the Indian strayed near the operator's seat.

Ulnar grunted impatiently. There was something about that seat that lured him. But he came away. They went into another room, leaving behind them the pool of mercury that turned slowly, like a miniature earth on some axis of its own. Parker took one look at the contents of this room, and gasped.

The crown jewels of England were no greater than these! Here were crowns of pounded yellow gold; here were gargoyle masks made of the same yellow metal; masks that sparkled with gems. Here, lying on the rock shelves, were ingots of what looked to be solid gold, each one heavy enough to be a full load for a grown man.

Ulnar was examining a gargoyle mask. He touched a gold bar, his old withered fingers seeming to savor the feel of it.

Rozeno smiled gently. "Ulnar treasures these things, they were put in his charge a very long time ago. He has been faithful to his trust."

"But--" Parker whispered.

"This is a part of Montezuma's treasure, a part that Cortez did not get.

There is as much of it here as 400 men could carry away. Ulnar was one of Montezuma's most trusted sub-chiefs. He brought the treasure here, to keep it for his Chieftan."

Ulnar's wrinkled face broke into a grin. "Me take good care," he said simply. "Me clean, me polish, me save for my Chief."

"Tell me one thing?" he said.

"Gladly, my son."

"Does Johnny Retch know this is here?"

"I suppose so. All who live on our island know about it."

Muscles knotted at the corners of Parker's jaws. He pressed his arms down against his jacket so that he could feel the guns in the pockets.

The guns felt good.