tanker load inside the States. All you need is enough money and you can buy what you want, so long as no one figures it's going overseas.
'Helium from Mineral Wells in Texas. But where would it go? How did this sky city fit into it? And if there really is a sky city, it has to be in name only. We just don't have cities drifting around the sky. What if it was a name an anthropologist or an archeologist, or even a student of history, would recognize? It might not be known as such by the public. It would be in a rare language, rare by virtue of belonging to an isolated group, that is. And if Castilano knew as much of Spanish history as I believe he did, he was pointing straight to the real Sky City.'
'You've been leading us down the garden path, Indy—'
'Not really. It was only when I began to think along those lines that everything fell into place.' He paused, relishing the moment. 'You see, it's an Indian name. The Acoma Indians have occupied a massive redoubt for thousands of years.
In fact, their history claims they lived in their fortified city three thousand years before the time of Christ.'
'Acoma! Of course!' Henshaw exclaimed.
'What is Acoma?' Gale almost begged for the explanation.
'Acoma is the Indian name for our Sky City,' Indy told her. 'It lies roughly southwest of Albuquerque, New
Mexico. It's fairly close to the Zuni Indian Reservation, but it stands by itself.
It's a huge mesa, in places well over three hundred feet high with sheer cliff walls.
More specifically, Sky City in the Acoma language means Old Acoma.
They have a language distinctively their own.
'And they have their specific and particular beliefs, myths and traditions. The Acoma believe they all originated from deep within the earth, from a huge underground chamber they called Shipapu. Their race started with two girls created by their gods—Nautsiti and Iatiku. When the gods created these two girls, suddenly the race of Acoma Indians sprang to life. People, animals, dwellings, agriculture; everything. They built their homes hundreds of feet up in the sky— atop their mesa.
It became known as the Pueblo in the Sky.' 'Sky City,' Gale said softly.
'And it is a natural, powerful fortification, with huge caverns and cave areas big enough to hold half a dozen of those airships. Throughout their history the Acoma Indians defended their territory with a savagery given special notice by the Spaniards when they were moving through those lands in their early conquests north of Mexico. When they reached Acoma—which in various linguistic derivatives means
'the place that always was'—they ran into some very nasty people defending their sacred mesas.'
Indy leaned back and stretched his legs. 'I recall reading the reports of a Spanish expedition leader, Captain Hernando de Alvarado. Back in 1540, Coronado sent him to learn the truth about this great place they'd heard about.
Alvarado was amazed to see the city hundreds of feet above them, the entrances narrow and so well fortified that an attack seemed impossible. In fact, his official report to Coronado stated flatly that Acoma was the most impregnable stronghold he had ever seen. He called it
completely inaccessible, and reported there were more than six to eight thousand Indians living atop the mesa, all of them quite capable of standing off any force the Spaniards might have assembled.'
Indy rubbed his chin, searching his memory for details. 'That's enough of the history, but it lets you know that Acoma is absolutely the perfect operational base for their airship. The local Indians—and the countryside has at least a dozen different tribes—have always believed they had a special connection to heaven. There was a specific event, um, I believe it was the fall of 1846. By now the Spaniards, of course, were gone, and the American army was doing everything it could to control the Indians. This one moment in their history, well, it certainly reinforced the Indians'
beliefs. An American cavalry force was camped about a mile from the sheer cliffs of Acoma, and on this night a tremendous meteor came blasting out of space. In fact, it was so bright it turned the night into day. And it didn't come down. It tore across the sky, level with the horizon, lit up the world, and, apparently, rushed back out into space again.'
'Atmospheric skip,' Henshaw said. 'It happens sometimes. It makes a believer out of you.'
'Well, it's my bet,' Indy said firmly, 'and I'll stake my reputation on it, that's where we'll find that airship. And if they have a real handle on what's happening, then they absolutely must realize things are starting to come unglued with their program.'
Indy showed his concern. 'The way these people have been operating, they've got to make a very serious move.
Which means they could well decide to destroy even an entire city if they wanted to.'
'Destroy a whole city?' Gale showed confusion, even resistance to Indy's statement. 'How could they do that?
One airship, even a dozen, couldn't carry enough bombs to—'
'Indy's right,' Henshaw broke in. 'They wouldn't bother with bombs, Gale.
Too heavy, clumsy. They'd make a lot of noise and fire and kill a few hundred people, perhaps, even wound a few thousand more, but that's nothing on the scale of war.'
Henshaw shook his head. 'We run what we call 'war games' on matters like this.
Like, what would we do if we were in their place?' 'What would you do?'
Gale pushed. 'If my intention was terror and killing on a huge scale, any one of several things or, more likely, a combination of them all. First, either from the air or from the ground you can poison the water supply of a major city. If your poison is slowacting, then enough time passes so that most of the people in your city would have absorbed fatal doses even before the poison starts to kill.
Nerve paralysis, respiratory problems; that sort of thing. Then there are biological agents. It's not well known but at least four countries have already developed a mutation of anthrax that devastates people exposed to it. It could be sprayed from either the airship or those devilish saucers they've got. You wouldn't need great amounts, in terms of weight, that is. England, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, we were all getting into the biological agents game. Nasty and brutish, I'll admit—'
'Horrible, you mean,' Gale said with heat.
