The Image and the Likeness Part 2

As we studied the pictures and charts, Stimson briefed us on the course of action.

"Your first objective is to find out what they're doing in that crater.

Are they building some new weapon, or training an army, or what. You'll have Geiger counters and a krypton a.n.a.lyser of course, although the a.n.a.lyser is no guarantee in detecting fissionable material production.

Then we want to know what their plans are, particularly in the next few days or weeks. Finally, just who is involved in it? Is New Buddhism entirely Asiatic, as they claim, or has Russia cut herself in too?"

"You will be landed on the west coast of the island just after sunset.

The east, with its cliff and entrance channel is undoubtedly too well guarded, but on the west side, with four miles of flat country, they may depend on defense in depth, so that you'll have a better chance of getting past the beach. The plane will come in low, make a landing just off the breakers and drop you off in rubber swim suits. It will then taxi to the north of the island and make a fairly long stop, to divert attention, since it will certainly be picked up by radar. Your job will be to swim ash.o.r.e, bury the rubber suits, and make your way east to the crater. If you reach the rim, see what you can, and report by radio at any hour. If you don't make it to the top, observe as much as possible on the island, make your reports, and rendezvous with the plane at your landing point at 2400 the next day. If you miss that time, a plane will be back daily at the same time for four days. After that, we will a.s.sume that you have been caught."

We were driven to the harbor in the same disreputable taxicab which had brought us to the consulate a few hours before. Time was a little past three in the afternoon as the seaplane roared down a lane in the swarm of junks, tramp freighters and warships of the Indonesian state. We hoped that we were not too well observed; there was no way of knowing until we arrived on Yat, and the learning might not be too pleasant.

The flight northeast from New Maca.s.sar was uneventful. We pa.s.sed over a blue tropical sea, dotted with island jewels. For a time the low coast of the great island of Celebes made a blue haze on the eastern horizon, and then we had the ocean to ourselves. At dusk there were still two hundred miles between us and Yat, a flight of about forty minutes.

Pulling down the shades, lest the cabin lights reveal us to a chance Indonesian patrol, we busied ourselves with packing the portable radio equipment and putting on our watertight clothing.

The last fifty miles were made on the deck--in fact, once or twice the hull actually touched a wave-top. The pilot extinguished the cabin lights and we peered ahead for a first glimpse of our objective. The sky was clear, but the moon would not rise until nine, so that the only indication we had that Yat was at hand was a slight deepening in the tropic night ahead and to the right, which the pilot said marked Mount Kosan, the ancient crater. But no sooner had we gotten this vaguely orienting information, than the flaps were lowered, the plane slowed to under 100 miles per hour, and we touched the water. The co-pilot opened the side door, and we crouched together peering out. The plane taxied over a choppy cross sea toward the shadow of the island, while we squinted through the salt spray. Presently the engines dropped to idle, and the rumble of surf became audible.

"Practically dead calm tonight," said the co-pilot rea.s.suringly. "Wind usually dies out at sunset. You won't have any trouble getting through.

Just watch your step when you're ash.o.r.e."

"That's always good advice for sailors," remarked Baker.

As the plane lost headway, the white line of surf and the silhouettes of cocoa palms took shape. Evidently the plantations came right to the water's edge at this point, a circ.u.mstance for which we were all thankful. I was just turning to Martin with some remark about this when the pilot called softly and urgently. "We're as close as we can drift safely. Jump, and good luck."

"Righto, and thanks," came Baker's voice, and then a splash. I was next.

I took a deep breath, and clutched my rubber covered bundle of radio gear. I leaped out into darkness. An instant later I was gasping for air beside Baker. Two more splashes in quick succession and then the engines picked up speed, the dark shape of the wing overhead moved off, and we were alone.

For a moment we swam in circles, getting our bearings. Baker had removed his gla.s.ses for the jump, and so we depended mainly on Martin for directions. There was really no need for worry, however, for it soon became apparent that a strong onsh.o.r.e current was bringing us in to the breakers at a good clip. The line of phosph.o.r.escence marking their crests was now hardly a hundred yards away.

With Martin in the lead we began to swim. Presently one of the swells picked us up quite gently, moved us forward, and then suddenly exploded into a foamy torrent which tossed us head over heels and left us gasping and spitting sand on the beach.

As quickly as possible we got into the shelter of the first ranks of trees. Here we dug a hole at the base of a great cocoanut palm and buried the rubber suits and cases of radio gear, along with a small vial of radium D. This had been provided for us, along with the Geiger counter, by the thorough Mr. Stimson as a means for locating our cache when we returned, if we should miss our bearings.

It was 7:45 when this ch.o.r.e was completed. We had an hour and twenty-three minutes to moonrise.

Turning inland, we walked in silence through the grove for a few hundred yards, and then came upon a road. This we recognized, from our map study, as the main coastal highway. We hurried across, rather elated at the progress we were making and a little surprised at the lack of fences or other protective devices on the island. Things seemed just too easy.

On the other side of the road we encountered a rice paddy, which made the going a good deal more difficult. But after about ten minutes of sloshing through this, we came to a diagonal road, or rather path which seemed to be going our way. Thanks to this, by 8:45 we felt the ground rising underfoot and sensed a darker bulk in the shadows ahead, which could only be Mount Kosan itself. Here we came to our first fence, an affair of steel posts and barbed wire, which appeared to be a guard against cattle, but hardly more. After inspecting one of the posts for signs of electrification, we crawled under the bottom wire and started up the slope.

"Are you sure we're on the right island?" asked Chamberlin. "From the security measures I don't think we're going to find anything more secret than a copra plantation."

Baker shushed him, and whispered back, "We're on the right island, but that's the only thing that's right. This is simply too easy to be true."

"Well," said Martin, "Stimson could be all wet. Maybe they're just sculping a king sized Buddha after all."

The slope had now steepened considerably, and further conversation died out in the effort of climbing. The volcano was heavily forested all the way up with mahogany and gum trees, and a dense undergrowth of vines and ferns entangled our feet. Twice we came upon rapidly flowing streams.

We were perhaps two thirds of the way up when the moon appeared. Its light didn't penetrate very far into the dense foliage, but it did enable us to make out the top of the mountain, which took the form of a vine covered outcrop of lava. We altered our course slightly, and at 9:50 P.M. the forest fell away and we faced a rough wall of rock some two hundred feet in height.

Before tackling this last obstacle, we paused for a rest and some hot coffee from the thermos which was included in our equipment. Then, at five minutes past ten, we started the final ascent.

The cliff proved to be more of a climb than we had antic.i.p.ated, and the time was close to eleven before we pulled ourselves up over the last boulder and could look across the crater to the other rim.

The last few feet we negotiated with the greatest caution. Martin, I think, was first, and he pulled himself on his belly across to the beginning of the inner slope. He lay quietly for a half minute, then muttered something under his breath which sounded vaguely like "I'll be d.a.m.ned", and made way for Baker, who was next. I squeezed in beside him, and so we got a look into the crater at the same time. Baker, being a very self-contained man, made no audible comment, but I must have, for the sight which met our eyes was certainly the last thing I had expected to see.

The crater of Mount Kosan was filled with steel and concrete structures of gargantuan size, and of the most amazing shapes I had ever seen. I say amazing, but I do not mean in the sense of unfamiliar, on the contrary these incredible objects had the commonest shapes. Had it not been for trees and normal buildings to give the scene a scale, I would have sworn that we were looking into a picnic grounds a hundred feet across instead of a two mile diameter plain ringed by mountains 2,000 feet high. The buildings seen in the aerial photo occupied only a small part of the crater--all of the other structures must have been concealed by clouds.

Directly below our perch the rim dropped vertically into deep shadows, as the moonlight reached but half the crater. A thousand yards west of us, where the light first touched the floor, we could make out several clumps of brush or small trees, among which was set a rectangular concrete surface measuring perhaps four hundred feet square, and resting on hundred foot steel columns. Near this, and partly supported by the side of the mountain was what appeared to be a great table, of roughly the same area, but standing on trussed columns the height of a thirty story building. In front of this was a chair, if by chair you understand me to mean a boxlike building twenty stories high, with a braced back rising as far again. A half mile along the rim was an even larger structure whose dimensions could only be measured in fractions of miles, which resembled nothing more than a vast shed built against the cliff.

Next my attention was attracted to a number of objects lying upon the platform immediately west of us. One of these appeared to be a steel bowl-like container some thirty feet deep and a hundred in diameter, like the storage tanks used in oil fields. Nearby was an open tank measuring perhaps fifty feet in each dimension, and beside this were the most startling of all--several hundred foot pieces of built-up structural steel resembling knife, fork and spoon.

In retrospect, the deduction from this evidence was obvious, but as we stared down at this spectacle, a sort of numbness took hold of our minds. As a later comparison of impressions verified, none of us came remotely near guessing the truth in those incredible seconds. For what seemed like minutes we just stared, and then the spell was broken. Walt had squeezed in beside me, where he gave vent to a low whistle of amazement. Baker shushed him, and then shifted to a better position, in so doing knocking a rock from the ledge. This started a small avalanche which went clattering down the cliff with a sound, to our hypersensitive ears, like thunder. We all froze in our places, abruptly aware that the moon illuminated us like actors in a spotlight. For a good minute we waited tense, and then gradually relaxed. Baker started to say something when without warning the ground beneath us shook, starting a score of rockslides. We recoiled from the edge and braced for a stronger earthquake shock. Then suddenly Baker uttered a hoa.r.s.e cry. He was pointing--pointing down into the blackness at our feet where our eyes had as yet been unable to penetrate. Something was there, something vast and dim and shapeless like a half inflated airship. Then a part of it was detached and came up almost to our level. It moved too rapidly for any detail to be seen--our only impression was of a vast white column large as the Washington monument which swung up into the moonlight and then was withdrawn. At the same time the ground quivered anew, starting fresh slides.

We blinked stupidly for several seconds, and then became conscious for the first time of the sound. It was like a vast cavernous wheeze at first, and then a series of distinct wet thuds followed by a prolonged gurgling rumble. If these descriptive phrases sound strange and awkward, let me give a.s.surance that they are as nothing to the eerie quality of the noises themselves. We lay glued to our rocky perch, hardly daring to breathe, until the last windy sigh had died away.

Baker found his voice first. "Good G.o.d, it's something alive!"

Chamberlin tried to reason. "It can't be--why, it's two hundred feet high--it's just a gas bag, like Stimson said. It's--"

He stopped. The thing had moved again, more rapidly and with purpose.

The great column rose, then pressed down into the ground and pushed the main bulk up out of the shadows. There was a moment of confusion while our senses tried to grasp shape and scale at the same time, and then it all came into focus as the thing arose into the light. At one instant we were sane humans, trying to make out a great billowy form wallowing in the darkness below. In the next instant we were madmen, staring into a human face a hundred feet wide, that peered back at us from the level of the cliff top! For a second we were all still--we four, and that t.i.tanic placid oriental face hanging before us in the moonlight. Then the great eyes blinked sleepily and the thing started to move toward us.

I cannot recall in detail what happened. I remember someone screamed, an animal cry of pure terror. It may have been me, although Baker claims to be the guilty one. In any case the four of us arose as one and plunged headfirst off our rock into the tangle of brush at the top of the cliff.

I think that only the vines saved us from certain death in that first mad instant. I know that we were wrestling with them for what seemed like an eternity. They wrapped around my legs, tangled in my arms. They were like clutching hands, holding me back in a nightmare-like struggle, while the thing in the crater came closer. Then abruptly I realized that they _were_ hands, human hands seizing us, pulling us back from the cliff and then skillfully tieing us up.

It was all over in a moment. The madness was ended. We were once more rational humans, tied hand and foot, and propped against the rocky ledge in front of a dozen yellow-robed men. For a time we just breathed heavily--ourselves and our brown skinned captors alike. Then one of the latter spoke.

"You can stand now, yes?"

Baker struggled to his feet in reply. The rest of us did likewise, aided not unkindly, by the yellow-robed men. Baker found his voice.

"Thank you," he said. In the brightening moonlight we looked more carefully at our captors. They were of small stature, evidently j.a.panese, and, by their costume, all priests.

Baker laughed briefly and glanced at the rest of us. "It would appear,"

he said dryly, "that we have been taken."

III

The leader of the priests indicated by a gesture that he wished us to move along a narrow trail cut in the vines along the rim. I attempted to get another look at the horror within the crater, but the ledge of rock down which we had just fallen stood in the way. We were guided into a pitch black trail which descended steeply into the forest on the outer slope of Mount Kosan.

I lost track of direction almost at once. The trail zigzagged a couple of times, and then I sensed that we were in a covered pa.s.sage. After a few more steps and a turn, a light appeared ahead, to show we were walking in a concrete lined tunnel. Our captors had split themselves into two groups, a half dozen ahead and an equal number behind. Soon there appeared a metal door in one wall, which proved to be the entrance to an elevator. We all squeezed in, and were taken down a distance which surely must have brought us near to the crater floor itself. The door then opened, and again we were escorted along a concrete pa.s.sage. There were many turns. Our captors paused before a narrow door with a tiny barred window. This was unlocked, we were directed to enter, and the door clanked shut behind us.

For the first few minutes no one had anything to say. We examined the interior of our cell, but found nothing more remarkable than concrete, a small ventilator hole near the ceiling, and a wooden bench along the wall opposite the door.