The Image and the Likeness Part 6

Suddenly the room lights came on, and the whole structure of the bridge shook as from an earthquake. The guards ahead abruptly turned and scrambled back, knocking us over in their haste. I grabbed the handrail for support, and then became aware of a vast blurry shape looming above and of a hand as large as a building that reached down toward the guards, now halfway back to the projection room. In a sort of hypnotic horror I watched the thumb and forefinger snap them and a thirty foot section of railing off into s.p.a.ce. Then, very gently the hand plucked the roof from the projection room, exposing Baker and the priest.

Yellow-robe dropped his gun and ran towards a corner, but Baker neatly tripped him and then stepped back for Kazu to finish the job.

A moment later Baker came out onto the bridge. Martin tried to frame a question.

"What--how did he--?"

Baker grinned and pointed silently at the screen. We looked and understood. Where a map of the United States should have been was a scrawled message in English: "Priests here taking us captive."

We returned to our lecturing, but after what had happened neither we nor Kazu felt much like concentrating on geographical or other general facts. We all knew that Rau had not given up. For the moment we were protected by Kazu's immense power, but there were some doubts in our minds as to how long this might last. After all, Rau was his lifelong mentor and protector. For the moment the young giant seemed to have taken a liking to us, but perhaps it was only a pa.s.sing whim. Presently Rau would a.s.sert his authority and Kazu, his curiosity satisfied, would hand us over--in exchange, perhaps, for supper.

After about fifteen minutes more of lecturing, Kazu interrupted.

"Soon will be sunset. Suggest we return to privacy of high table to discuss next move."

The transfer took less than a minute. The afternoon, we saw, was indeed far gone. None of us had realized how long we had been in the projection room. Once we were safely back on the table, Kazu addressed us, using his softest voice, which was a hurricane-like whisper.

"Phobat Rau plans for me to go soon to head armies of Asia in fight against west. My study of history has raised doubts of rightness of such war, and what you say strengthen these. Now I must see for myself, without guidance or interference from Rau. But I need a.s.sistance, to direct me how I shall go. I believe you will be fair. Will you help me?"

For a moment the incongruity of that last question prevented our grasping the full implication of Kazu's statement. Then Baker, evidently realizing that this was no time for philosophic quibbling, signified our a.s.sent. Kazu proceeded at once to practical plans.

"Tonight I sleep in usual place, where you disturbed me with small rock slide. But you must stay awake by turns to guard against capture. In morning you direct my steps away from Yat to mainland of Asia, where--"

He stopped. Seeing the direction he was looking, we hastened to the edge of the table. Far below, on the ground, was a railroad train surrounded by a small crowd of priests. For a moment we were puzzled, and then we saw that the train was made up entirely of gondola cars such as are used to carry coal and other bulk cargo. But these cars, a dozen in number, contained a white substance which steamed. We did not require more than one guess. The train brought Kazu's supper.

The giant made a slight bow of thanks to the delegation at his feet, and proceeded carefully to empty the cars into his dish. Then, instead of squatting at his low eating table, he brought the dish and other utensils up to our level and dumped a ton or so of steaming rice at our feet. Evidently he wished us to share his supper. We had no tools other than our hands, but since we had not eaten in almost twenty-four hours, we did not stop for the conventions. Scooping up double handfuls of the unseasoned stuff, we fell to even before Kazu had gotten his ponderous spoon into position. Suddenly, Baker yelled at us.

"Hold it!" He turned to Kazu who had a spoonful poised halfway to his mouth. "Kazu, don't eat. This rice is doped!"

I took a mouthful of the rice. There was not much flavor--only a little salt which I guessed came from seawater. I explored the stuff with my tongue, and presently noticed a familiar taste. It took me a moment to place it. Yes, that was it. Barbiturate. The stuff in sleeping pills.

Kazu bent his great face over us. Baker briefly explained. Kazu appeared at first puzzled. He dropped the spoon into the dish and pushed it away from him. His brow wrinkled, and he glanced down at the ground. Walking to the edge, we saw that the group of priests were standing quietly around the engine, as though waiting for something. What they were waiting for evidently struck Kazu and us at the same time. Kazu leaned toward them and spoke in j.a.panese. His voice was angry. Baker tried to translate.

"He says, 'how dare you poison Buddha'--Look, they're running off--"

The next second things happened too rapidly for translation or even immediate interpretation. Kazu spoke again, his voice rising to an earth shaking roar at the end. The little men below were scattering in all directions, and the train started to back off down its track. Suddenly Kazu turned and picked up his hundred foot steel dish. He swept it across the table and then down in a long curving arc. There was an earth shaking thud and where the running figures and the train had been was now only the upturned bottom of the immense dish. Priests and cars alike were entombed in a thousand tons of hot rice!

Kazu now turned to us. "Come," he said, "Yat is not safe, even for Buddha. Now we must leave here at once."

He extended his hand towards us, and then, with another thought, turned and strode to the leanto. In a moment he returned carrying the projection room, with a tail of structural steel and electric cables hanging below. This he placed on the table and indicated that we were to enter. As soon as we were inside, Kazu clapped on the roof and picked up the stout steel box. We clung to the frame supporting the projectors, while a ma.s.s of slides, film cans and other debris battered us with every swooping motion. We could not see what was going on outside, but the giant seemed to be picking up a number of things from the ground and from inside the leanto. Then he commenced a regular stride across the crater floor. Now at last we got to a window, just in time to glimpse the nearby cliff. On the rim, some hundreds of feet above I saw a group of uniformed men cl.u.s.tered about some device. Then we were closer and I saw that it was an antiaircraft gun, which they were trying to direct at us. I think Kazu must have seen it at the same moment, for abruptly he scrambled up the steep hillside and pulverized gun, crew and the whole crater rim with one tremendous blow of his fist.

I got a brief aerial view of the whole island as Kazu balanced momentarily on the rim, and then we were all thrown to the floor as he stumbled and slid down the hillside to the level country outside of the crater.

V

Up until this moment we had been engaged in an essentially personal enterprise, even though its object was to secure information vital to the United Nations. From this time on, however, the personal element was to become almost completely subordinate to the vast problems of humanity itself, for, as we were to soon find, we had tied ourselves to a symbol that was determined to live up to all that was claimed or expected of him, and further, who depended upon our advice. The situation for us was made much worse because at first we doubted both his sincerity and good sense--in fact, it was not until after the Wagnerian climax of the whole thing that we at last realized, along with the rest of the world, exactly what Kazu Takahas.h.i.+ believed in.

Kazu crossed the flat eastern half of Yat in less than a minute, evidently wis.h.i.+ng to get out of range of Rau's artillery as quickly as possible. His feet tore through the groves as a normal man's might through a field of clover; indeed, he experienced more trouble from the softness of the ground than from any vegetation. As we were soon to learn, one of the disadvantages of Kazu's size lay in the mechanical properties of the world as experienced by him. Kazu stood almost 600 feet high, or roughly 100 times the linear dimensions of a normal man.

From the simple laws of geometry, this increased his weight by 100^3 or 1 million times. But the area of his body, including the soles of his feet which had to support this gigantic load, had increased by but 100^2, or ten thousand times. The ground pressure under his feet was thus 100 times greater, for each square inch, than for a normal man. The result was that Kazu sank into the ground at each step until he reached bedrock, or soil strong enough to carry the load.

At the beach he hesitated briefly, as though getting his bearings, and then waded into the ocean. The surf which had used us so violently was to him only a half inch ripple. He strode through the shallows and past the reef in a matter of seconds, and then plunged into deeper water.

From our dizzy perch, now carried at hip height, we watched the great feet drive down into the sea, leaving green walls of solid water about them.

Although we did not realize it at the time, we later learned that Kazu's wading forays were attended by tidal waves which inundated islands up to a hundred miles away. This trip across a twenty mile strait swamped a dozen native fis.h.i.+ng craft, flooded out four villages and killed some hundreds of people.

We fared better than some of these innocent bystanders, for Kazu carefully held our steel box above the sea, and presently lurched through shallow water to the dry land.

The new island was larger than Yat, and entirely given over to rice growing for Kazu's food supply. He threaded his way easily among the paddies, up through some low hills, and then down a narrow gorge into the sea again.

Ahead lay a much more extensive body of water. The sun was now hardly fifteen degrees above the horizon, and its glare plus a bank of clouds made it difficult to see the distant land. Kazu raised our room to the level of his face.

"Is that Island of Celebes?"

Baker started to pick up the microphone, and then abruptly realizing that it was dead, he shouted back from the projection port.

"I think it is. Let me look for a chart."

Kazu waited patiently while we searched, placing the room on a hilltop to give us a steadier platform. We all began a mad scramble in the ma.s.s of debris. Kazu removed the roof to give more light, but it soon became clear that there wasn't much hope. All that we could find were thousands of slides of the Chinese cla.s.sics. At last we gave up. When we told Kazu this, he looked across the water and wrinkled his brow. We could sense the reason for his anxiety, for the distant sh.o.r.e could hardly be less than seventy miles away. Mentally I reduced this to terms I could understand. Seven tenths of a mile, of which an unknown percentage might be swimming.

Kazu's voice rumbled down to us, "I would prefer to wade. I cannot swim well." He peered down into our roofless box anxiously.

"If we only had one chart," began Baker, when Walt, who had been rummaging near the projector window, called to us.

"Take a look over there, just around the point."

We saw the prow of a s.h.i.+p. There was a moment of terror lest it be an Indonesian coast patrol, and then we saw that it was just a small island steamer of a thousand tons or so, chugging along less than two miles offsh.o.r.e.

I think that the idea hit us all at the same instant. Baker, as spokesman, called to Kazu. The giant, for the first time, grinned at us.

Then he picked up our box and waded into the ocean.

I don't think the people in the little s.h.i.+p even saw us until we were practically upon them, because of the mist and sunset glare. What they thought I can only imagine, for the water was little more than knee deep and Kazu towered fully four hundred feet above it. Then a hand as big as the foredeck reached down and gently stopped them by the simple expedient of forming a V between thumb and fingers into which the prow pushed. I heard the sound of bells and saw tiny figures scurrying about on the deck. On the opposite side a number of white specks appeared in the water as crewmen dove overboard. Our box was now lowered until its door was next to the bridge. We leaped aboard, under cover of a great hand which obligingly plucked away the near wall of the pilot house. We entered the house just as the captain beat a precipitate retreat out the other side, and after a moment in the chartroom we found what we wanted. While Martin stood watch at the far door, we took advantage of the electric lights to examine the chart of the east coast of Celebes.

That island, we found, was only sixty miles away and the deepest sounding was less than six hundred feet. Kazu could wade the whole distance.

The nautical charts did not show much detail for the interior of Celebes, but from our elevation we could see enough of the terrain to guide Kazu quite well. The course which Baker plotted took us across the northern part of the big island, and far enough inland to avoid easy detection from the sea. As the day progressed, the sky gradually filled with clouds, promising more rain, so that I doubt if many people saw us.

Those who did, I suspect, were more interested in taking cover than in interfering with Kazu's progress.

The journey across Celebes took only a couple of hours, and so, by noon, we stood on the sh.o.r.e of the strait of Maca.s.sar, looking across seventy-five miles of blue water to the mountains of Borneo.

It was not until now that Baker explained what he had in mind in choosing this particular route.