The Valley of Thunder Read online

  The party was conveyed inside what appeared to be a cave that was brightly lit by bulbous globes hanging from its ceiling. Keoti ushered them into a small room that could barely hold the nine of them. When the doors hissed shut and the room began to move downward, Clive knew a sudden moment of panic. The swiftness of their descent left him with the feeling of leaving his stomach in his throat. Beside him, Finnbogg made a low moaning sound.

  Clive learned later that that had been his first introduction to an elevator, a conveyance that moved one from floor to floor in a building without the necessity for stairs. It was only the beginning of the mechanical marvels to be discovered in this wondrous city.

  The elevator let them out at a junction of large hallways, many levels below where they had left the flyers. Abro told them. Three corridors led away from where they stood, with the elevator situated at the joining of the "T" where they met. The walls were smooth here, and the lighting came from the ceiling itself, rather than globes.

  "Where can we find Father Neville?" Clive asked finally.

  "He will see you tomorrow." Keoti replied. "First. I will show you to your rooms, where you may bathe and eat. If you'll follow me?"

  They left the remainder of the Dramaranians there and followed Keoti down a bewildering series of corridors. Finally, she stopped at a door, which hissed open when she laid her palm against a metal plate set in the wall beside the frame.

  "This will be your room," she told Guafe. "If you are unfamiliar with the workings of any of the devices, you have only to speak into this grille and someone will come to help you."

  One by one she showed Finnbogg and Smythe to their rooms. Smythe hesitated at the door of his.

  "Well, then, sah." Smythe said. "I will see you later."

  As the door hissed shut behind him, Keoti led Clive on to his room. When they reached it, she came in with him. Clive stared in open-eyed wonder. The furnishings were spare, but luxurious. A large comfortable bed. Over-stuffed chairs. A false mantel with a mechanism under it that gave the impression that there was a fire burning there.

  Much of what he saw now, he had no vocabulary for. He learned later that the realistic, full-color pictures hanging from the wall—with brushstrokes so liny he could not spy them and too sharp and colorful to be daguerreotypes—were actually photographs. That the curious, windowlike affair in the corner was a video screen. That the feather-soft carpeting underfoot was not wool, but some synthetic material.

  He turned at the sound of a zipper, to see Keoti stripping off her silver bodysuit. She wore nothing underneath it.

  "Shall we bathe?" she asked with a smile.

  "I... that is..."

  Her matter-of-fact boldness left Clive speechless for a few moments. Keoti stepped out of the suit and tossed it onto a chair. Turning from him, she went into another small room that proved to be a washroom. Clive watched the movement of her buttocks as she walked, lifting his gaze when she turned her head slightly toward him.

  "Are you coming?" she asked over her shoulder.

  When he nodded, she disappeared from view. Clive hastily removed his own clothing. By the time he joined her, she was standing in a small stall, water showering over her from a faucet overhead. She drew him inside with her and handed him a bar of soap. It made her skin wonderfully slippery to the touch.

  After a long, messy shower, which left as much water on the floor as had been on them, Keoti shaved his beard and trimmed the wild tangle of his hair. Clive felt like a new man—cleanshaven and civilized—as they retired to the bed. Keoti pressed him down upon the mattress and straddled him.

  "You certainly are a hospitable people," he said, looking up at her.

  She lowered her face to give him a long kiss. He closed his arms around her. drawing her close.

  "Remarkably so." he added.

  "Stop talking." she told him. then indicated other ways in which he could be occupied.

  Fourteen

  As Annabelle's attacker went down, something small whistled quickly by her ear. Poisoned dart, she thought. She ducked instinctively, though the dart had already passed her, so close she'd almost been able to feel it go by. Shaking her head, she moved closer, spear still raised.

  She wanted to help, but all she could see of the two struggling figures was a confusing mix of shadows. She was just as likely to strike her benefactor as the shark man who'd been attacking her. Then someone caught her about the knees and brought her down. She fought the grip until she heard Sidi's voice.

  "Stay down! Let them fight it out, Annabelle—they seem to know who's who better than we could."

  She relaxed in his grip. When he loosed his hand and crawled back toward the tree they'd been leaning against earlier, she followed him, keeping her head low. Sidi was right. The best they could do right now was just stay out of the way.

  Shriek was already there, hunched in a half-crouch, trying to pierce the confusion with her multifaceted eyes, but doing no better than Annabelle had, even with six extra eyes.

  All around them, figures struggled. They heard the familiar, guttural voices of the shark people, raised in cries of both pain and anger. Mixed with them was the sound of drums and different voices that sounded human and almost decipherable. Shapes continued to drop from the trees. Then, suddenly, the surviving shark people broke away.

  Annabelle and Sidi joined Shriek, who had already risen to her feet. As torches flared, they spied Tomàs curled up into a ball near another tree, hands wrapped over his head.

  "It's over now, hero," Annabelle called to him.

  God, what a weasel.

  She turned away as their benefactors approached. Above them, drums continued to sound, but their rhythm was different now—no longer menacing, but joyous. The torches lit up their campsite, scaring away the shadows. And the newcomers...

  How come I'm not surprised? she thought.

  They were ape-men—a whole troop of them. More humanoid in shape than the gorillas and other great apes of her own world, but definitely simian, all the same. As though their evolution from monkeys had taken them along a different route, or wasn't quite fully advanced yet.

  Their brows were high, lower parts of their faces protruding slightly in a chimplike fashion. The eyes were set close together over a broad nose. Their bodies were covered with fur, but they wore various pieces of clothing. All had loincloths, arm bracelets, and neck tores. Some had sashes worn over their shoulders; others, scarves around their necks. Some wore strips of cloth about their brows, or tied on their upper arms or thighs. Earrings glistened in their large earlobes, some having a series that ran up the edge of their ears, as Annabelle's own did.

  Some carried what looked like a kind of throwing stick—foot-long, with a knob at either end. All had knives at their belts or in their hands.

  The foremost one stopped a few feet away from them and said something. Again, it sounded almost familiar, but Annabelle had to shake her head to indicate she didn't understand.

  "We fren'." the ape-man said then. He gave them a wide, toothy grin. "En-mee of—" he said something she didn't quite catch, that sounded like chasuck "—fren' we."

  "You speak English?"

  The Dungeon threw more curves at her than she was ready to catch. With everything that had already happened to them—ape-men who spoke a kind of bastard English?

  He bobbed his head. "Enlish—talk good, yuh?"

  "Very good."

  "Yoo cum we, yuh?"

  Annabelle glanced at her companions. Tomàs was shaking his head no. but the other two indicated their agreement.

  "We'll come with you." she said. "Thank you for your help. What... ah... should we call you?"

  "Huh?"

  "Name you?"

  The ape-man grinned hugely. "Me Chobba. Bigcheef. Kill chasuck—yuh?"

  Annabelle pointed at the dead shark man that had almost gotten her. "That chasuck?"

  The ape-man nodded and spat on the corpse. Kneeling beside it, he drew a knife from his bell and beg
an to saw off the dorsal fin. Many of the other ape-men were already carrying similar trophies. She thought of the leader of the shark people with his staff, and what hung from his bell.

  "Those skulls we saw back at the shark people's village," she said to Sidi.

  He nodded. "Were the shrunken skulls of these ape people, Annabelle."

  When Chobba had the fin cut free, he offered it to Annabelle. She shook her head quickly, but made sure she kept smiling at him as she did so. Annie B.'s rules of etiquette for meeting ape-men in strange jungles number one: Until you figured out the customs, it never hurt to just keep grinning like a loon.

  "No thank you. Chobba. You keep it."

  He nodded. Puncturing it with the tip of his knife, he tied it to his belt with a thong, then replaced the blade in its sheath.

  "Cum," he said. "We go."

  He leapt into the lowest branches of the tree directly above him. All around the clearing, the rest of the troop that was on the ground swung into the trees, joining those who were waiting for them above, drums quiet now, slung onto their backs.

  "Chobba!" Annabelle cried.

  He looked down at her. face wrinkled with a puzzled expression that was almost comical in its broadness.

  "You no cum?"

  Annabelle opened her hands before her in a helpless gesture. "Not good tree cheef like you," she said.

  The look that came into his face then was one that Annabelle had seen before: it was the way a healthy person looked at a cripple. Chobba dropped back down to the ground and approached her slowly. She kept herself still as he readied out and squeezed her upper arm. He shook his head slowly, brows lifting in a question.

  "Sick?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "Just not good in tree."

  "Chobba walk you." he said.

  He turned and called up to his companions. A few torchbearers and one drummer dropped down to the ground. The remainder of the troop swung off into the night, their torches bobbing in among the trees, winking like fireflies as they disappeared behind branches, then reappeared again.

  "We go now." Chobba told her. "Walk on legs, yuh?"

  Annabelle smiled. "Yes." she said. "We'll walk on legs. You don't know a guy named Tarzan, do you?"

  "He is rogha—like me?"

  "No. He's a man in a story—like me. But big and strong, and he can swing through the trees like you."

  Chobba looked around. "He cum soon?"

  Annabelle laughed and shook her head. "It's just us. Chobba."

  He scratched at his temple, then shrugged, leading them back to the game trail, he set off at a pace they could all keep. As they followed him. Annabelle walked at Shriek's side.

  Walking on legs, Shriek said with a grin. What does the Chobba being think of all of mine?

  Annabelle laughed. "What a place. More fun than a barrel of ..."

  "A barrel of what. Annabelle?" Sidi wanted to know when she just let her voice trail off.

  Annabelle looked at Chobba's broad back in front of her. Another rogha walked right behind her, abreast of Sidi. Others ranged farther behind, one tapping a soft rhythm from his drum. Annie B.'s rule of etiquette number two: don't make fun of anyone who's just saved your ass.

  "Never you mind." she told him.

  Naturally, the rogha village was up in the trees—high up in the trees.

  They reached it just as dawn was breaking, the salmon-colored sun waking sharp shadows in the blue-green and burgundy vegetation. Annabelle craned her neck and peered up among the gaps in the leaves to the boughs some sixty feet above to make out the reed huts on platforms. There were already cooking fires, sending their morning smoke into the sky.

  "Home now," Chobba said.

  Annabelle looked away from the village, lowering her gaze to his features.

  "It's very private," she said.

  He blinked, not understanding.

  "Safe," she tried.

  "Many safe," he assured her.

  "And high."

  Chobba squeezed her upper arms again. "Carry yoo, yuh?"

  Annabelle swallowed thickly. "Ah... sure. Why not?"

  "What's the matter, Annabelle?" Sidi asked.

  "Well, you know. Heights scare the shit out of me."

  She remembered the descent from the plateau where they'd first arrived on this level. It had been a little easier to ignore the crawling fear, because the rocks were solid, the grade not too steep, and there were people there to grab onto if she got to feeling too weird. This was going up, and staying there, their destination a bunch of swaying platforms near the top of some of the biggest trees she'd ever seen.

  Sidi gave her a worried look. "Maybe we should make our own camp here below."

  "Right. Where the shark men can come crawling all over us—or Christ knows what else."

  "But if you can't go up..."

  Annabelle drew a steadying breath. "Oh, I can go up." she said. "I just don't know how bad I'm gonna freak once I get there, that's all."

  "No happy?" Chobba asked.

  "I'm delirious with joy." she replied.

  Again, that uncomprehending blink.

  "Many happy."

  Chobba grinned. "Cum," he said.

  He motioned for her to wrap her arms around his neck. Annabelle took a couple more slow breaths, trying to still the sudden, rapid tattoo of her heartbeat. Chobba bent his knees, lowering himself to make it easier for her. She got her arms around his neck, surprised at the clean smell of his fur—it had none of the reek of a ZOO monkey house—and the softness of its texture. He indicated that she should wrap her legs around his middle.

  She tried not to let her fear force her to hold him so tightly that she'd choke him. He straightened for a moment, bouncing lightly on his heels to adjust himself to her weight, then leapt for the lowest branch. Annabelle left her heart behind her on the ground.

  The ascent up through the jungle boughs was just a dizzying blur. She closed her eyes after the first couple of stomach-lurching springs, and kept them tightly shut until they had stopped moving and Chobba was trying to pry her fingers loose. She let her muscles go slack and stumbled. Another of the rogha caught her before she could fall, but not before she had a heart-spinning view of the drop to the jungle floor below.

  A low moan escaped her, and she moved away from the edge of the platform, her grip now desperately tight on the arm of the second rogha. The ape-man grinned reassuringly at her. Gently disengaging her fingers, he steered her to the side of a hut and lowered her down so that she was sitting with her back to the reed wall, the edge of the platform a good ten feet from her.

  Another rogha appeared at the edge then, a scowling Tomàs clinging to his back. As soon as they reached the platform. Tomàs stepped free and nonchalantly swaggered back toward the edge, where he peered down. Years of scrambling through ship's rigging had long ago rid him of any acrophobia he might have had.

  Sidi was next, his brown face creased with worry when he looked in Annabelle's direction.

  "Annabelle," he began as he hurried over to her.

  She tried to copy Tomàs's cool and give Sidi a little careless wave of her hand, but all she could feel was the sway of the platform under her. Her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe.

  "I... I'll be okay. No problem." She gave him what she hoped was a bright smile, but knew it had come out as a grimace. "Where's Shriek?"

  "On her way."

  "Right."

  Of course. Being more spider than human, the arachnid would have no trouble coming up on her own.

  Annabelle worked at calming herself. Breathe in. hold it there for a few counts, breathe out. She tried looking around at what she could see of the village from her perch, legs drawn in close to her chest, arms locked around her knees.

  The huts were similar to those of the shark people— even to the possum dogs hanging from branches and poles by the doors. But there was nothing of the sense of menace that had been in that other village. Here, the people regarded them with f
riendly curiosity—furry women and little children, older men and women, their body fur grizzling and gray. She realized then that Chobba was missing.

  Just as Shriek pulled herself up over the lip of the edge. Chobba reappeared at Annabelle's side. He was carrying a pouch from which he drew a small thick leaf, which he offered to her.

  "Stop scare," he said, pushing the leaf into her hands when she didn't take it right way. "Yoo feel hokay. No more scare, yuh?"

  Annabelle took the leaf dubiously. Oh. yeah? And just what the hell was it. anyway? If it was going to make her feel "hokay," it was probably some kind of drug—and sick though she was, she wasn't into getting freaked out on the local version of who-knew-what.

  "I ... I don't think so." she said. "Don't want too much happy."

  How did she tell him that she wasn't into dope?

  "Not happy," Chobba told her. His face wrinkled comically as he tried to find the right words. "Fetta cheef—she find. Stop scare is all."

  The tree swayed, making her stomach lurch.

  What the hell, she thought.

  She lifted the leaf and put it in her mouth. It was pulpy, juice squeezing out as soon as she bit down on it. The taste was sweet and tart, all at the same time, and went down her throat with a numbing sensation. After a moment, she took the second leaf Chobba offered her.

  "Glad now?" he asked.

  It's a little early, don't you think? Annabelle thought, but then she realized that she did feel better already. Not high—not like taking some hallucinogenic, as she'd feared—but calm. Muscles unknotting. chest loosening, the panic fading. The leaves didn't give her any kind of a buzz at all. They just relaxed her.

  "What do you call this stuff?" she asked.

  "Byrr." Chobba said. "Yoo like?"

  "It's all light," she said.

  She was about to add to that, when a commotion at the far end of the platform caught her attention. She was surprised to see a white man pushing his way through the crowd of rogha. He was slender and wiry, at least in his late fifties, early sixties. A snow white mane of hair and full beard gave him the look of a small, skinny Santa Claus, but he wasn't wearing red.