within this landlocked water a longer stroke could have been used. I surmised that the rowing arrangements-to use a landsman’s phrase-precluded a long stroke and recovery. The bows were finely molded and high-raked, with much gilding and silver and gold work. She carried no masts. I waited in silence. Now I could hear, above the sounds of the oars and the bubble of water from her stem, shouted commands; the starboard bank backed water, the larboard continued to pull ahead, and the galley swung around smoothly. Another order was followed by the simultaneous lifting of the oars-how often had I given a similar command! — and the galley drifted gently broadside on as I swung down on the current.
From this angle her lines were clearly apparent; long and low as was to be expected, with that high beak and with a high canopied quarterdeck and poop. People thronged her deck. Some of them were waving. I saw white arms and a multitude of colored clothing. There was even music, wafting gently on the breeze.
Had I wanted to escape there was no escape possible.
As I drifted down, a single oar lowered. My boat ran alongside. Still gripping my spear, I leaped out, onto the blade, and men ran lightly up the loom toward the gunwale. It was a stroke oar. I vaulted the rail to land on the quarterdeck. The canopy overhead rustled in the breeze. The deck was as white as any on a King’s Ship. The only person visible here was a man wearing a white tunic and duck trousers who advanced toward me with outstretched hand, smiling, eager.
“Dray Prescot! We are glad to welcome you to Aphrasoe.”
Numbly I shook hands.
Above the quarterdeck the poop rose in a splendor of gilt and ornamentation. Up there would be the quartermasters at the tiller. I turned to look forward. I could see row after row of bronzed upturned faces, all smiling and laughing at me. Brawny arms stretched to the oars and muscles bunched as a girl-a girl! — nodded and beat lightly on a tambourine. In time with her gentle strokes the oars bit into the water and the galley smoothly gathered way.
“You are surprised, Dray? But of course. Allow me to present myself. I am Maspero.” He gestured negligently. “We do not take much pride in titles in Aphrasoe; but I am often called the tutor. But you are thirsty, hungry? How remiss of me-please allow me to offer you some refreshment. If you will follow me-”
He led off to the stern cabin and, dazed, I followed. That girl, with her corn-colored hair and laughing face, banging time with her tambourine-she had not taken the slightest notice of my nakedness. I followed Maspero and once more that sense of foreordained destiny encompassed me. He had known my name. He spoke English. Was I, then, in truth in the grip of a fevered dream, hanging near to death on a torture stake in the African jungle?
The chafe in my wrists had all gone. There was nothing now to chain me to reality.
A last look back over my shoulder at this amazing galley revealed that our prow now pointed at the city. We moved forward with a steady solid motion very strange to a sailor accustomed to the rolling and pitching of a frigate in the great waves of the ocean. A white dove flew down from the bright sky, circled the galley, and alighted on that upthrusting prow. I stared at the dove. I remembered that it had flown into my view many times since that first occasion; but the gorgeous scarlet and golden raptor had not returned. The people I had seen were now drifting back onto the deck and their clothes blazed brilliantly in the sunshine as they laughed and gossiped like merry folk at a fair.
The man called Maspero nodded, smiling and genial. “We attempt always to respect the mores and behavior of the cultures invited to Aphrasoe. In your case we know that nakedness can cause embarrassment.”
“I’m used to it,” I said. But I took from him the plain white shirt and duck trousers-although as my fingers closed on the material I realized I had never encountered it before. It was not cotton or linen. Now, of course, that Earthmen have discovered the use of artificial fibers for clothing, the garments or their like could be found in any chain store. But at the time I was a simple seaman used to heavy worsteds, coarse cottons, and the most elementary of scientific marvels could astonish me. Maspero wore a pair of light yellow satiny slippers. Most of my life-until I eased my way through the hawsehole-I had gone barefoot. Even then my square-toed shoes had been graced by cut-steel buckles, for I could not even afford pinchbeck. Gold buckles, of course, were waiting on the taking of a prize of real value.
We walked through the aft cabin with its simple tasteful furniture constructed from some light wood like sandalwood and Maspero motioned me to a seat beneath the stern windows. Now it was possible to take stock of him. The first and immediately dominating impression was one of vivacity, of aliveness, alertness, and of an abiding sense of completeness that underlay all he did or said. He had very dark curly hair and was clean-shaven. My own thick brown hair was in not too conspicuous a disarray; but my beard was now reaching the silky stage and was not, I venture to think, too displeasing to the eye. Later on, when they were invented, the name torpedo would be given to that style of beard.
Food was brought by a young girl clad in a charming if immodestly brief costume of leaf-green. There was fresh-baked bread in long rolls after the French fashion, and a silver bowl of fruit including, I was pleased to see, some of the yellow port-flavored cherries. I selected one and chewed with satisfaction. Maspero smiled and all the skin around his eyes crinkled up.
“You have found our Kregish palines tasteful? They grow wild all over Kregen wherever the climate is suitable.” He looked at me quizzically. “You seem to be in a remarkable state of preservation.”
I took another cherry-another paline, as I recognized I would have henceforth to call them. I did not understand quite what he meant by the last part of his sentence.
“You see, Dray, there is much to tell you and much you must learn. However, by successfully reaching Aphrasoe, you have passed the first test.”
“Test?”
“Of course.”
I could become angry now. I could lash out in fury at being wantonly dragged through dangers. There was a single redeeming feature in Maspero’s favor. Speaking slowly, I said: “When you brought me here did you know what I was doing, where I was, what was happening to me?”
He shook his head and I was about to let my anger boil.
“But we did not bring you, in that sense, Dray. Only by the free exercise of your will could you contrive the journey. Once you had done that, however, the voyage down the river was a very real test. As I said, I am surprised you look so well.”
“I enjoyed the river,” I told him.
His eyebrows rose. “But the monsters-”
“The scorpion-I suppose he was a house pet of yours? — gave me a fright. But I doubt if he was really real.”
“He was.”
“Sink me!” I burst out. “Suppose I’d been killed!”
Maspero laughed. My fists clenched despite the gracious surroundings and the goblet of wine and the food. “Had there been a chance of you losing your life you would not have been entered on the river, Dray. The River Aph is not to be trifled with.”
I told Maspero of my circumstances when the red eye of Antares had fallen on me in the jungle of Africa and he nodded sympathetically. He began my education there and then, telling me many things about this planet called Kregen. Kregen. How the name fires my blood! How often I have longed to return to that world beneath the crimson and emerald suns!
From an inlaid cabinet Maspero took a small golden box, much engraved, and from this box he lifted a transparent tube. Inside the tube nestled a number of round pills. I had never had much time for doctors; I had seen too much of their bungling work in the cockpit, and I steadfastly refused to be bled or leeched.
“We of Aphrasoe are the Savanti, Dray. We are an old people and we revere what we consider to be the right ways of wisdom and truth, tempered with kindness and compassion. But we know we are not infallible. It may be you are not the man for us. We have many entrants seeking admittance; many are called but few are chosen.”
He lifted the transparent tube. “On this world of Kregen there are many local languages, as is inevitable on any world where growth and expansion is taking place. But there is one language spoken by everyone and this you must know.” He extended the tube. “Open your mouth.”
I did as he bid. Do not ask me what I thought, if perhaps the idea of poison did not cross my mind. I had been brought here, of my own free will-maybe-but all this effort, like the provision of the leaf boat, would scarcely be wasted the moment they had seen me. Or-might it? Might I not already have failed whatever schemes they had
