The Golden Skull Part 23

Sign of the Dragon

The convoy formed at dawn. One jeep was left with Pilipil, who had learned to drive while working for the United States Air Force. The other jeep, with Tony, Chahda, and Rick, went ahead as advance guard.

The truck, with Scotty, Angel, Balaban, and Dog Meat, carried the equipment.

The earth scanner had been checked. It worked fine. Picks and shovels were ready, as were Tony's cleaning brushes, knives, and other tools.

When electronic science had located the treasure, old-fashioned digging methods would have to unearth it.

Rifles, carbines, and the single shotgun were loaded and ready. Hunting knives hung at belts.

Rick, driving the lead jeep, followed the twisting road up into the clouds that always seemed to hover at the top of the divide. It was bitter cold, but they were warmly dressed in clothing from their camp supplies. They kept a sharp lookout for Ifugao guards, but the road was deserted.

As the road descended into the Ifugao country, Tony kept watching for the first rice terrace. Soon he motioned to Rick. "Around this turn, I think. Slow."

Rick rounded the turn and emerged on a natural terrace overlooking Banaue Valley. The sun, just risen, was a golden ball veiled by mist. It gave the valley a warm, subdued light that reflected from the green rice, and from the sheen of water in some terraces.

It was a scene of indescribable beauty. For long moments the occupants of truck and jeep just looked and said nothing. Then Dog Meat and Balaban slipped from the truck and went down the road to take up guard positions.

Rick and Tony went to the truck and took the earth scanner from Scotty.

They carried it to the edge of the natural terrace and set it up. The others joined them, weapons in hand.

Chahda watched with special interest as the covers were taken from the portable boxes. He had never seen the earth scanner in operation.

"Plenty magic, I bet. You scientists make poor native boy scared with this machine."

Rick snorted. "Come on and be useful, poor native boy. Connect these leads for me. They go into the Fahnestock clips on those A batteries."

Chahda made the connection with the ease of one who has worked with electronic apparatus before, but he kept muttering about how the poor native boy was "plenty snowed" by wonderful scientists. Rick just grinned and went ahead with connecting up the scanner. Tony didn't quite know what to make of Chahda at first, but soon the Hindu boy's dexterity convinced him that Chahda was pulling his leg.

Scotty threatened Chahda with the b.u.t.t end of his rifle. "I'd offer you to the Ifugaos, if I didn't know they can't use empty heads."

"You let that poor native boy alone," Rick said with false concern. He lifted the probe from its foam rubber-lined receptacle and plugged its cord into the control panel. The earth scanner was ready to operate.

Its appearance was not unusual. There was a power pack, consisting of batteries and a dynamotor, an amplifier, and a control panel. In the control panel was an oscilloscope. The probe looked like an aluminum pipe but was really a special tube built like a segment of coaxial cable. The sensing unit was in an inner core, surrounded by an atmosphere of pressurized helium. At the tip of the probe was the sensing element which looked very much like the Geiger tube of a radiation detector surrounded by a helical coil.

"Come on, you poor native, and I'll show you how it works," Rick invited.

"You not expect to find stuff here. You just testing?" Chahda asked.

"We want to get a standard pattern," Rick said. He pointed to the valley. "The terrace soil and rocks should be no different than those right here. So we'll get the typical response of these, and when we get to our location we won't have to take time--which could be important if we have Ifugao spear throwers shooting at us."

"What's typical response?" Chahda asked.

Rick showed him the helical coil at the end of the probe. "This coil is an antenna. It's shooting out electro-magnetic waves of very high frequency. When those waves. .h.i.t anything, some are reflected. The reflected waves are picked up by the tube inside the coil. You with me?"

"Way ahead of you," Chahda said. "Not all things reflect these waves the same, huh? Maybe the more dense, the better reflect. So loose earth not reflect too good, rocks little better, metal very good, and stuff like crystals best of all."

"Poor native boy," Tony said chidingly. "You knew how it worked all along."

Rick shook his head. "He's never seen it before, Tony. It's just that he's pretty quick on the uptake for a poor native boy."

Chahda grinned. "Okay, chums, I'll drop the gag. Go ahead, Rick, I not know everything yet. Why you testing here?"

"The minerals that make up the rocks and soil here will show a pattern.

We'll mark the pattern on this plastic screen." Rick indicated a circle of white plastic, scaled like the face of the oscilloscope. "Then, when we go hunting, we'll be looking for deviations from the pattern. For instance, there probably is no metal in the ground here. We're looking for metal. When we find it, the blip on the scope will stand out very plainly. Got it?"

"Think so. Sounds easy. Let's see it work."

Rick held the tip of the probe at waist level. Tony adjusted the controls until the scope flickered bright green. A vertical line on the face of the scope was a much lighter green, nearly white. Then, as Tony switched the activation circuit, the vertical line formed a pattern that varied in width from top to bottom. Here and there a blip, a clear horizontal line, thrust out both ways from the center.

The present pattern was not unlike that of a stylized Christmas tree, with broad blips representing branches at the base, and increasingly narrower ones representing the branches at the top. Rick quickly sketched the pattern on the plastic circle.

"Now watch," he said, and put his rifle on the ground under the probe.

The Christmas tree pattern developed a new element that ruined the design. It was a strong blip, thrusting out from center, about halfway up the pattern.

"Steel," Rick said. "Other metals with good reflection qualities would show blips slightly higher or lower on the scale."

"Some gadget," Chahda said admiringly. "What else you need know?"

"That's all." Tony was already closing the cover to the control panel.

"We're ready to move. Rick, suppose we just set this stuff in the back of the jeep instead of disconnecting it? Chahda could carry the probe."

"Good idea. Then it will be ready for use."

Scotty and Angel had been watching for signs of life in the valley below. At Rick's hail they joined the group.

"Last instructions," Tony said. "We will try to persuade Nangolat that our intentions are good, that we do not want to violate taboos, and that we will do everything in our power to persuade the authorities that the artifacts should remain in the Ifugao country."

"If Nangolat is not there," Angel added, "I will explain to the Ifugaos that we are friends, that we are helping them to find sacred things that were lost many years ago."

"And if none of this works," Scotty picked up, "we will make one sweep with the scanner, looking for the cache, while holding off the Ifugaos.

If they "attack", that is. If one sweep turns up nothing, we will then beat a retreat."

"We'll have to worry about spears," Tony said, "but the Ifugao spear is primarily a stabbing weapon, and they are not the marksmen that the Zulu is with an a.s.sagai. The risk will not be very great. I need not warn you to keep under cover as much as possible. And to shoot low if we must shoot. A leg wound will put a man out of action just as effectively as a hole in the head, at least when his only weapon is a spear. We don't want bloodshed. We archaeologists are a peaceful lot."

"Let's go," Scotty said. He climbed into the truck. "Let's make peace with the Ifugaos."

"Put your truck into four-wheel drive," Rick called. He started the jeep, then shifted into his own four-wheel drive. Then, with a toot of the horn, he started off. A few yards down the road Balaban and Dog Meat were waiting. Scotty slowed to let them climb aboard. Then the two-vehicle caravan speeded up to the maximum the mountain road allowed.

Tony leaned forward, watching intently for the turn-off. Rick kept the jeep in second as he led the winding way down the mountainside toward the bottom of the valley. The road was dirt and badly rutted. If they should meet another car, one would have to back up until a turn-around was reached. But it was unlikely that another car would be out at this time of morning. Chances were that a car pa.s.sed this way only once in a great while.

They were among the rice terraces now. No matter which way Rick looked, his eyes met terraces. Some were no bigger than table tops, perhaps filling a tiny s.p.a.ce between bigger terraces. Some retaining walls were only a foot high, while the next step up or down the mountain might be a twenty-foot wall. Irregular giant steps, green with growing rice. Here and there was one with no rice, showing a film of water.

Tony called, "Easy. We turn just a short distance ahead." In another quarter mile he pointed. "Take that road."

It was little more than a path that wound a corkscrew way among the terraces, hugging the mountain wall. This was the way Nangolat had brought Tony, not even bothering to blindfold him. Rick held the wheel tightly to keep it from jerking out of his hands on impact with a rock.

Then, ahead, the road suddenly leveled. Rick recognized the scene. He had been here before, last night, during the hours of darkness.