Dragon Dance Read online

  Since then, it seemed, although he had won a few minor conflicts, Brad’s view had prevailed on all the major issues. Did this prove him the weaker character? He supposed it must. On the other hand, since Brad was not going to be swayed once he had made his mind up, it always seemed more rational to go along with him. One thing certain about this perilous world was that they were safer together than apart. If they ever got back to their own world, Brad could do whatever crazy thing he liked, and he would wave him a more than cheerful good-bye. But that was a bigger pipe dream than the one the braves were working up to. There was no way back.

  Brad nudged him.

  “What?”

  “I think it’s getting to them. Four pipes in circulation, and they’re reaching the noisy stage. In half an hour, they should start passing out.”

  There was a hush as the chief shaman began to sing again, a wailing chant accompanied by peculiar jerkings of his arms and feet. Outlined against the light of the fire, his antics were bizarre—a comic turn, though definitely not one to be laughed at, especially with the braves high on thorn apple.

  At that point, something even odder happened. Simon heard a resonant bell-like sound, which only slowly and tremblingly died away. And it did not come from the firelit area, but from somewhere out in the shadows. The shaman froze into an immobility as weird as his dancing, and a strange sigh gusted along the ranks of the squatting Indians.

  This was something entirely new, and he wondered what it signified. He whispered to Brad: “What do you think?”

  “Shh . . .”

  From beyond the circle of firelight, figures approached. They wore cloaks over brightly coloured pantaloons, and one had what looked like a bronze helmet. They stooped over the motionless Indians and spoke to them. They were speaking in the Indians’ tongue, but with strange accents.

  “Obey!” Simon heard. “Be still—obey. . . .”

  When they reached Brad and Simon, Simon realized something else: they were not Indians but Orientals.

  A pair of hands grasped his head, and a voice addressed him: “Be still. Obey!”

  After completing the circle of the braves, the newcomers moved away, towards the hut with the women and children. The Indians stayed as they had left them, unmoving.

  Brad said quietly: “I don’t know what this is, but I’m not crazy about it. Ready to go, while they’re offstage?”

  Simon nodded. There was a tight knot of fear in his belly. A few yards away, he saw Night Eagle, blindly staring into space. None of the Indians moved as they cautiously got up and made their way towards the trees. There was plenty of food lying about, but he was no longer concerned about rations for the journey. Getting away would be enough.

  They came to the edge of the trees. He glanced towards Brad, and saw Brad turning to him with a look of warning.

  Save it for later, he thought, and then thought nothing at all as something hit him, very heavily, behind the right ear.

  2

  SIMON WAS LYING BACK ON a reclining seat on the verandah of the tennis club. He felt tired, but pleasantly aware of having just won a hard set of mixed doubles, and with Lucy Gaines as his partner, too. The day was warm and bright, and he could hear the thump of ball on racket and distant voices. The only drawback to perfect happiness was thirst; and at his elbow stood a tall glass of iced lime juice and soda. He took a long swig from it.

  Lucy Gaines was whispering in his ear, which would be very nice if he could make out what she was saying. He listened harder. Her voice was deeper than he remembered. What was she saying?

  “Si! Wake up. Si . . .”

  He didn’t remember her ever calling him Si. But Brad did. In fact, that was Brad’s voice. He opened his eyes, and the sunlit afternoon went. It was dark, with a smell of people and must and spices, and a creaking sound, and a hard surface rocking slightly beneath him. He croaked: “Brad . . .”

  “Okay, buddy?”

  “Thirsty . . .”

  “Hang in there.”

  He tried to marshal his muzzy thoughts, but they slipped away from him. They were going to move on in the morning. . . . Little Green Bird wasn’t going to like losing Brad. . . . The songs at the feast, the shaman’s weird dance . . . He felt the swaying surface, heard the creaking. Suddenly he was alert. He was on a boat: it was unmistakable. But what about the feast?

  He remembered the bell-like sound, the cloaked men moving among the Indians, he and Brad sneaking towards the trees. . . . Where was Brad? He swallowed with a dry throat. Although it was very dark, a lighter rectangle showed above, with a small point of brilliance inside it. A star, seen through an open hatch? He became aware again of the surrounding smell of people. But there was no snoring—no sound of breathing, for that matter.

  Simon’s head started thumping as he heaved himself into a sitting position. He put out a hand and felt cloth, then flesh. It was cold and unresponsive, and he recoiled instinctively. Was it a corpse? Was he surrounded by dead bodies?

  Something obscured the hatch light, and there was the sound of feet on a ladder. He whispered: “Brad?”

  “Here.”

  He felt a metal beaker being presented and drank water gratefully.

  Brad said: “Sorry to be so long. I had to wait while one of the Chinese filled a bucket at the water tank.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Okay, it sounds crazy—but we did find that pagoda. Perhaps in this world they spread east, across the Bering Strait. Perhaps they have a colony up north. In Washington, maybe, or British Columbia.”

  Simon’s thoughts would not come together. “But what are they doing?”

  “I’d think that’s obvious. Slaving.”

  “The Indians, you mean? I touched one of them. I think they’re dead.”

  “No, they’re not dead. It’s some kind of trance state. The gong probably started it off, followed by that business of holding heads and giving commands. They were already high on thorn apple. Maybe that’s why it didn’t work with us—we hadn’t smoked any.”

  Simon reached out again and touched flesh.

  “This one’s really cold.”

  “And scarcely breathing. It’s a deep trance. Blood pressure very low, too, I’d guess. If you pricked his arm, he’d ooze rather than bleed.”

  “I don’t understand.” Simon rubbed his aching head. “Did I get hit?”

  “Yes, you got hit. I thought it made sense to pretend I was tranced, like the Indians. They had two of them carry you here.”

  “We’re on a ship?”

  “Yes. There were boats tied up at the creek the Indians use. I doubt it’s the first time they’ve been here. Remember how Night Eagle reacted to the pagoda. We rowed out to this junk, and then the Indians were ordered into the hold and put back to sleep. I’ve been waiting for you to surface. I thought I might have to wait all night—or longer. I think it was a sandbag you got hit with.”

  Simon moved his head and groaned. “Some sand. How far offshore are we?”

  “Maybe half a mile.”

  “We could swim that!”

  “Yes. How do you feel about tackling the ladder?”

  “Not happy, but it’s better than the alternative. Where’s the hatch? I can’t see it now.”

  “The sky was clouding when I was on deck. Hang on to me.”

  Almost at once, Simon trod on someone. A leg rolled nauseously under his foot, but there was no outcry. He trod on others on the way to the ladder, two lines of rope with wooden rungs. He managed to follow Brad up it, despite a new wave of dizziness, and heaved himself on deck. It was scarcely less dark than below, with no stars or moonlight. A stiffish breeze was blowing. Onshore or off? He put it to Brad.

  “I don’t know. We came in over that bulwark there, but she could have swung on her anchor chain. In fact, she could have swung right round.”

  So was it half a mile to shore, or over five thousand? It made a difference.

  “When it starts to get light . . .”

  “
Yes,” Brad said. “Meanwhile we’d better take cover, in case one of the crew comes along. There’s a pile of cargo amidships.”

  They found a coil of rope to sit on. The wind was freshening further, and there was an occasional drop of rain. Simon said, keeping his voice low: “You really think they’re from the north?”

  “They must be.”

  “You don’t suppose? . . .”

  “What?”

  “That they could have come from China?”

  “Across five thousand miles of ocean? In a junk?”

  Brad’s voice had its impatient, patronizing tone. Of course, it was ridiculous, when one thought about it. Brad went on: “It’s true the Chinese junk was aerodynamically one of the most efficient sailing vessels ever built. In our world they were voyaging to India in the fourth century, to Africa in the Middle Ages. But to travel five thousand miles out of sight of land!”

  “Okay, okay.”

  A patter of running feet put an end to conversation. There was a bustle of activity, voices calling in a strange language. Simon crouched lower. He heard the flap of sail, the rattle of an anchor being weighed. He felt alarm at that. If they were setting sail, it knocked the notion of a short swim to shore on the head. But even if they knew in which direction shore was, they couldn’t dive overboard at the moment without being spotted. He tried to console himself with the thought that the junk would probably stick close to the coast, anyway—perhaps put in at some point before their final destination, wherever that might be.

  After a time, the activity died away, leaving the ordinary sounds of wind and waves and creaking timbers. Simon’s head was thumping still; he felt tired, and a bit sick. He dozed and, coming awake, was aware of an area in which the absolute dark was lightening slightly. Dawn. But the odd thing was that the lighter patch wasn’t on either port or starboard beam, but directly astern. He pointed that out to Brad.

  “Yes, I’d noticed. We may be rounding a headland.”

  Simon began to be able to see his surroundings more clearly. The junk was bigger than the Roman ship in which they had crossed the Atlantic. There were five masts, each carrying a square lugsail. The sails consisted of a series of panels, stiffened by bamboo battens. According to Brad, these functioned like Venetian blinds. The release of a halyard allowed them to fold on top of one another: a quick way of shortening sail. The mast was unsupported by stays or shrouds. At the stern, there was a high section, like the castle in early Western sailing ships.

  The growing light revealed something else—unbroken ocean on all sides. Simon remarked uneasily: “Some headland.”

  There was a pause before Brad said: “Maybe we’d better get below for the time being. We’re a bit conspicuous on deck.”

  “Down among the zombies?”

  “There must be other holds.”

  Simon was happy to leave Brad in charge of the exploration; he still felt woozy. They found another hatch, and Brad went down while Simon squatted at the top. Brad came back up with an uneasy baffled look on his face.

  “It’s occupied. And also by deep sleepers.”

  “More Indians?”

  “No. Chinese.”

  “But . . .”

  “It’s not so crowded, and they’re not lying on bare boards. They’ve got mats and pillows.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “Sun’s almost up.”

  “I know. Come on.”

  They found refuge eventually in a hold packed with sacks and boxes. When they had settled themselves, Simon said: “How far north do you think their home port might be?” Brad did not answer. “Or south?”

  Brad said: “Maybe I got it wrong.”

  “I don’t believe it! You got something wrong—and you’re admitting?”

  Brad was preoccupied.

  “Time and distance are the problem. You couldn’t store enough food and fresh water for the crew of a vessel this big on a voyage lasting that long. And if you pick up a human cargo on the way, it makes it even more impossible. But if the human cargo can sleep through the trip—and you can put the majority of your crew to sleep as well . . . Most of the time you could get by with a handful of men. In emergencies, presumably you could wake them up and send them back to sleep afterwards. It might work. Nothing else fits the facts.”

  “Are you saying they put the Indians—and a lot of their own men—into some kind of hibernation? How?”

  “I don’t know. But in our own world there were mystics who claimed they could control metabolism. Even in the West—the Guinness Book of World Records included a man who survived ten feet underground for more than a hundred days.”

  Simon thought about it. “So you think we might be heading for China, after all?”

  “Could be.”

  He thought about that, too. “It’s a long swim back already. And it would be a long time to go undetected as stowaways. How many Chinese were there in that hold?”

  “A lot. Over fifty.”

  “And how many awake, crewing, would you say?”

  “Once a course was set, two or three should be able to manage.”

  “Two or three,” Simon said, “against two of us. And they don’t know we’re awake.”

  Brad nodded. “It’s something to think about. But we’d better wait for dark.”

  • • •

  It was a long day. They dozed much of the time. At one point, Simon woke with another raging thirst but dared not risk going up on deck to the water tank. When at last the hatch’s square of light faded with dusk, he asked Brad: “What’s the plan of action?”

  “We’ll need to reconnoitre—find out how many there are, and where. Then pick them off.”

  Imminence made the idea less attractive. Simon said: “We might be able to find a dinghy and get away.”

  “We might. I’d think it was easier to jump the Chinese than launch a dinghy without being spotted. Also, we’ve been sailing over twelve hours, and we’re probably in the Kuroshio current, which does better than two knots across the Pacific. Add on wind speed from five large sails, and that makes quite a distance to row back.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Shall we press on?”

  They made a cautious exploration of the deck. Lights showed in the elevated stern section, but they checked the forward deck carefully before heading there. At a suitable observation spot, they settled down to watch comings and goings. One lamp revealed a galley on the lower level, and someone preparing food. Simon whispered: “I make it three—two above and one below.”

  “Check.”

  “The one in the galley’s on his own. If we got close, we could make some sort of noise to attract his attention and jump him when he came out.”

  “We could attract the attention of his buddies, too.”

  Cooking smells wafted to them. It didn’t smell a lot like the Chinese food Simon remembered, but it was tantalizing. He could hear the waves slapping against the junk’s sides, the hiss of wind in the sails. Then another sound: the small boom of a gong.

  “Dinner is served,” Brad said. “Which I guess means the other two have to come below. Let’s move.”

  • • •

  The upper stern deck had cabins fronted by a gangway which ran the width of the junk. There was just one companionway, on the port beam. They stationed themselves on either side, in the shadows.

  If they came down together, it could be tricky, Simon thought, clutching the billet of wood which was his weapon. But only one pair of footsteps sounded on the gangway overhead, and descended the ladder. As the figure came level, he moved out quickly and swung. There was a realization, both satisfying and sickening, of the blow solidly connecting with flesh, followed by a grunt of exhaled breath.

  The man collapsed. Brad ran his hands over him and found a dagger. They pulled him into the shadows as they heard more footsteps. The sick feeling had gone, and Simon felt on top of the world. He counted the descending steps: eleven, twelve . . . Leaping, he swung again, and heard a squawk of anger
.

  This one staggered, but recovered. Brad launched himself at him from the other side, and they struggled. In the lamplight that spilled from the galley, Simon could see two writhing pairs of legs. He got hold of a leg wearing long baggy trousers and pulled violently. The second Chinese hit the deck with a heavy thump. Brad gathered a dagger from him, too, and handed it to Simon as the cook came out. He obviously didn’t suspect anything: he wasn’t even carrying a kitchen knife. Seeing the daggers in their hands, he backed away, muttering.

  “So far, so good,” Simon said happily.

  “Don’t say that,” Brad warned. “Can you bring up one of those coils of rope?”

  Simon tied up the two they had ambushed. The first was flat out, the second conscious but not offering opposition. The cook stood by the open galley door.

  “Him, too?”

  Brad said: “I thought we might talk him into serving supper first.”

  Simon waggled the dagger, and the cook backed into the galley. On the stove there was a large dish of rice and several smaller dishes. Another gesture with the dagger got the right results. The cook ladled food into bowls and handed them to them.

  They ate hungrily, cramming food in with their fingers. There were chopsticks on the table, but Simon didn’t think this was the time to start using them. He emptied his bowl and was about to hand it back for a refill when he saw the cook looking past them, towards the open door. Not that old trick, he thought, but his own eyes followed automatically. Another Chinese stood there, holding a stick.

  Brad had seen him, too. “Looks like we missed one.”

  “But only one.”

  Brad put his bowl down. “I thought it was going too well.”

  “When I give the signal,” Simon said, “we go for him.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “When you give the signal, then. What are we waiting for?”