Nomads of Gor (55 page)

 
my armpits. One of the luminescent, white spheres floated

 
by, quite close to me. To my horror I saw it change its shade

 
as it neared the surface, more closely approaching the light.

 
As it had risen toward the surface, just beneath which it now

 
rested, its pigmentation had changed from a luminescent

 
white to a rather darkish gray. It was clearly photosensitive. I

 
reached out and slashed at it with the quiva, cutting it, and it

 
withdrew suddenly, rolling in the fluid, and the pool itself

 
seemed suddenly to churn with steam and light. Then it was

 
quiet again. Yet somehow I knew now the pool, like all

 
forms of life, had some level of irritability. More of the

 
luminescent, white orbs now floated about me, circling me,

 
but none of them now approached closely enough to allow

 
me to use the quiva.

 
I splashed across the center of the pool, literally swim-

 
ming. As soon as I had crossed the center I felt the fluids of

 
the pool once again begin to yell and tighten. By the time I

 
had reached the level of my waist on the opposite side I

 
could, once again, no longer move toward the edge of the

 
pool. I tried this twice more, in different directions, with

        
identically the same result. Always, the luminescent, photo-

        
sensitive orbs seemed to float behind me and around me in

        
the fluid. Then I was swimming freely in the yellow fluid at

        
the center of the pool. Beneath me, vaguely, several feet

        
under the surface, I could see a collection, almost like

        
threads and granules in a transparent bag, of intertwined,

        
writhing filaments and spheres, imbedded in a darkish yellow

        
jelly, walled in by a translucent membrane.

        
Quiva in my teeth I dove toward the deepest part of the

        
Yellow Pool of Turin, where glowed the quickness and sub-

        
stancc of the living thing in which I swam.

        
Almost instantly as I submerged the fluid beneath me

        
began to jell, walling me away from the glowing mass at the

        
bottom of the pool but, hand over hand, pulling at it and

        
thrusting my way, I forced my way deeper and deeper into it.

        
Finally I was literally digging in it feet below the surface. My

        
lungs began to scream for air. Still I dug in the yellow fluid,

        
hands and fingernails bleeding, and then, when it seemed my

        
lungs would burst and darkness was engulfing me and I

        
would lose consciousness, I felt a globular, membranous

        
tissue, wet and slimy, recoil spasmodically from my touch.

        
Upside down, locked in the gelling fluid, I took the quiva

        
from my mouth and, with both hands, pressed down with the

        
blade against that twitching, jerking, withdrawing membrane.

        
It seemed that the living, amorphous globe of matter which I

        
struck began to move away, slithering away in the yellow

        
fluids, but I pursued it, one hand in the torn membrane and

        
continued to slash and tear at it. Crowded about my body

        
now were entangling filaments and spheres trying, like hands

        
and teeth, to tear me from my work, but I struck and tore

        
again and again and then entered the secret world beneath

        
the membrane slashing to the left and right and suddenly the

        
fluid began to loosen and withdraw above me and within the

        
membranous chamber it began to solidify against me and

        
push me out, I stayed as long as I could but, lungs wrenching,

        
at last permitted myself to be thrust from the membranous

        
chamber and hurled into the loose fluid above. Now below me

        
the fluid began to yell swiftly almost like a rising floor and

        
it loosened and withdrew on all sides and suddenly my

        
head broke the surface and I breathed. I now stood on

        
the hardened surface of the Yellow Pool of Turia and saw

        
the fluids of the sides seeping into the mass beneath me and

        
hardening almost instantly. I stood now on a warm, dry

 
globular mass, almost like a huge, living shell. I could not

 
have scratched the surface with the quiva.

 
"Kill him!" I heard Saphrar cry, and there was suddenly

 
the hiss of a crossbow quarrel which streaked past me and

 
shattered on the curving wall behind me. Standing now on

 
the high, humped dried thing, lofty on that protective

 
coating I leaped easily up and seized one of the low hanging

 
vines and climbed rapidly toward the blue ceiling of the

 
chamber; I heard another hiss and saw a bolt from the

 
crossbow shatter through the crystalline blue substance. One

 
of the crossbowmen had leaped to the now dry floor of the

 
manic basin and stood almost beneath me, his crossbow

 
raised. I knew I would not be able to elude his quarrel. Then

 
suddenly l heard his agonized cry and saw that beneath me,

 
once again, there glistened the yellow fluids of- the pool,

 
moving about him, for the thing perhaps thermotropic

 
had again, as rapidly as it had hardened, liquified and swirled

 
about him, the luminescent spheres and filaments visible

 
beneath its surface. The crossbow bolt went wild, again

 
shattering the blue surface of the dome. I heard the wild,

 
eerie cry of the luckless man beneath me and then, with my

 
fist, broke the blue surface and climbed through, grasping the

 
Iron of a reticulated framework supporting numerous ener-

 
gy bulbs.

 
Far off, it seemed, I could hear Saphrar screeching for

 
more guards.

 
I ran over the iron framework until, judging by the di-

 
tance and curve of the dome, I had reached a point above

 
where Harold and I had waited at the edge of the pool.

 
There, quiva in hand, uttering the war cry of Ko-ro-ba, feet

 
first, I leaped from the framework and shattered through the

 
blue surface landing among my startled enemies The cross-

 
bowmen were each winding their string tight for a new

 
quarrel. The quiva had sought and found the heart of two

 
before even they realized I was upon them. Then another

 
fell. Harold, wrists still bound behind his back, hurled himself

 
against two men and, screaming, they pitched backward into

 
the Yellow Pool of Turia. Saphrar cried out and darted

 
away.

 
The remaining two guardsmen, who had no crossbows,

 
simultaneously whipped out their swords. Behind them, quiva

 
poised in his fingertips, I could see the hooded Paravaci.

 
I shielded myself from the flight of the Paracaci quiva by

 
rushing towards the two guardsmen. But before I reached

 
globular mass, almost like a huge, living shell. I could not

 
have scratched the surface with the quiva.

 
"Kill him!" I heard Saphrar cry, and there was suddenly

 
the hiss of a crossbow quarrel which streaked past me and

 
shattered on the curving wall behind me. Standing now on

 
the high, humped dried Thing, lofty on that protective

 
Coating I leaped easily up and seized one of the low hanging

 
vines and climbed rapidly toward the blue ceiling of the

 
chamber; I heard another hiss and saw a bolt from the

 
crossbow shatter through the crystalline blue substance. One

 
of the crossbowmen had leaped to the now dry floor of the

 
manic basin Ed stood almost beneath me, his crossbow

 
raised. I knew I would not be able to elude his quarrel. Then

 
suddenly l heard his agonized cry and saw that beneath me,

 
once again, there glistened the yellow fluids of- the pool,

 
moving about him, for the thing perhaps thermotropic

 
had again, as rapidly as it had hardened, liquified and swirled

 
about him, the luminescent spheres and filaments visible

 
beneath its surface. The crossbow bolt went wild, again

 
shattering the blue surface of the dome. I heard the wild,

 
eerie cry of the luckless man beneath me and then, with my

 
fist, broke the blue surface and climbed through, grasping the

 
iron of a reticulated framework supporting numerous ener-

 
gy bulbs.

 
Far off, it seemed, I could hear Saphrar screeching for

 
more guards.

 
I ran over the iron framework until, judging by the dis-

 
tance and curve of the dome, I had reached a point above

 
where Harold and I had waited at the edge of the pool.

 
There, quiva in hand, uttering the war cry of Ko-ro-ba, feet

 
first, I leaped from the framework and shattered through the

 
blue surface landing among my startled enemies The cross-

 
bowmen were each winding their string tight for a new

 
quarrel. The quiva had sought and found the heart of two

 
before even they realized I was upon them. Then another

 
fell. Harold, wrists still bound behind his back, hurled himself

 
against two men and, screaming, they pitched backward into

 
the Yellow Pool of Turia. Saphrar cried out and darted

 
away.

 
The remaining two guardsmen, who had no crossbows,

 
simultaneously whipped out their swords. Behind them, quiva

 
poised in his fingertips, I could see the hooded Paravaci.