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Must be a few hundred people at least, Martha thought. They were dressed simply, a twisted loincloth for the men and a short skirt for the women; otherwise their brown skins were bare to the late-day sun. As the Bentley came into sight they stood for a moment stock-still and amazed. They were almost close enough to see expressions, more than close enough to hear the terror that sent men and women pelting screaming back toward their homes, that drove canoes ashore with flashing blades. A warbling, bellowing sound came from the low earth platform in the center. Conch-shell trumpet, she knew with a tremor that chilled even in this steam-oven heat. From there, order spread through the panic and chaos of the village. A small knot of men descended from the mound, the sun bright on their cloaks and masks and vestments, on nodding plumes and ba
Despite herself, Martha leaned forward in fascination. Among the crowd on the riverbank, circles opened up, and men were swinging lines around their heads. From them came a whirring, thuttering roar that shivered down into the bass notes and back up again, each a little out of time with the others. Bullroarers. The conch trumpet wailed, and beneath it came the beating of a drum-a massive, booming, thudding sound that echoed down from the mound and against the trees on the other side of the river. Her head came up. Faint and far, another echoed it, the same irregular staccato rhythm.
"Signal drum," she said, touching Lisketter on the arm. "They're sending the news upstream."
They waited, sweating, as the sun crept lower in the sky.
She tried not to think about Jared, without much success. Poor bear. He'd be fretting so… Lisketter paced, watching the shore.
"Why don't they send anyone out?" she asked fretfully, slapping at her face. A red splotch appeared where the mosquito had been. "What are they waiting for?"
"Waiting for us, I think," Martha said. Lisketter glanced at her, and she sat back against the rail. "No. This foolishness is your idea. You can force me into the boat, but you can't make me think or talk."
David Lisketter was thin and pale, but the wrist hadn't festered. He pushed forward. "I'll do it, Pam," he said. "I've been studying that Mayan dictionary."
Much good may it do you, Martha thought, but did not say. The archaeologists didn't have a clue what language the Olmecs spoke, since they hadn't left any written records. The theory that they'd been Mayan-speakers depended on a single very late inscription resembling the Mayan calendar. For that matter, the language ancestral to modern Mayan would be unrecognizably different in the thirteenth century B.C. Only a professional linguist would be able to tell that some barbarian dialect in Germany-to-be this night was going to turn into English in the course of the next three thousand-odd years.
There was a good deal of arguing, but eventually David Lisketter and three others lowered the boat that hung at the Bentley's stern and tumbled down the rope ladder into it. She saw that he had a pistol strapped to his left hip; Lisketter saw in the same instant, opened her mouth, and then closed it. Silence fell as the boat approached the shore. The thudding drum on the platform rose to a crescendo and then stopped along with the conch and bullroarer; it was only then she knew how the great drum had come to dominate the scene, like the heartbeat of a giant who'd swallowed them all. Then she realized that it hadn't stopped, not completely. The upstream echo of the rhythm went on for three seconds after the drum in the village had halted. Then true silence fell, quiet enough that the cries of the birds were the loudest things they heard. Flocks swirled in toward the treetops backlit by the setting sun. The way the river bent southward here put a tongue of jungle between them and the west.
The schooner's lifeboat grounded among the beached canoes of the villagers. David Lisketter and his companions advanced toward the clump of brightly clad watchers, their open hands-only one, in his case-held out in sign of peace. Headdresses of plumes and fur nodded as the locals stood to meet them.
"I can't see what's going on," Pamela Lisketter fretted.
"It wouldn't do you any good if you could," Martha muttered. You couldn't predict what a people this alien were going to do on first contact. It all depended on how the strangers fit into the local belief structure. Did gods come from the east? Cortez had used that myth, which might or might not be present here-and-now. Or perhaps they had a belief like the Balinese, that evil came from the sea and goodness from inland. Or they might be perfectly ready to deal with strangers as humans, odd but otherwise like themselves.
A tossing confusion went through the meeting ahead. Shouts arose. Then a sound this river had never heard before: the flat snapping crack of a light automatic pistol. "What is he doing?" Lisketter cried, shrill fear in his voice.
Trying to save his life, Martha knew. It was the only reason someone like Lisketter's brother would shoot at his precious Olmecs.
Everyone on board had eyes glued to the shore now, difficult though the fading light made it. There was a swirling eddy in the crowd around the Americans, shouts and screams. Weapons moved, flourished overhead or driving forward; she couldn't see precisely what they were, except in a general way. Despite the danger, Martha felt a small chilly satisfaction. She'd been waiting for something like this since Lisketter's brother came into her library behind a gun. That gun cracked again and again, and men toppled-some of them men in elaborate cloaks, as well as the near-naked peasant spearmen. A bubble of space grew around the Americans for a second, and they took advantage of it, toppling backward into their boat and shoving off. Two dragged a third, and David Lisketter walked backward toward them, holding the gun threateningly.
Some of the Olmecs had fled-all villagers in loincloths, Martha noted, not the men in bright costumes. Others stood their ground, waving weapons and fists; several lay still, or writhed groaning on the ground. The ones still hale took fresh heart when the boat slid out into the water.
The… priests? nobles? officers? Martha wondered; men in authority, at any rate-pushed and yelled them forward. The boat went slowly. Pamela Lisketter's hands gripped the rail with a force that turned the fingers white as flung spears and darts beat the water around it or stuck quivering in the wood. Her brother fumbled with the pistol, reloading, then began to shoot back as the others rowed. Another Olmec toppled, but most of the bullets went astray or inflicted only wounds; it was too far, the boat too unstable, and the light too uncertain for the gun to be very deadly.
Then one of the rowers stood, screaming. A black-hafted dart sprouted between his ribs. He fell, thrashing and moaning, and the boat capsized with him. The others were thrown into the water. Lisketter screamed again and again. Others rushed aimlessly around the deck of the Bentley; a few with more presence of mind dashed below and returned with weapons. Martha intercepted one of them and snatched the gun away; it was a.22 target rifle, a bolt-action toy with a tubular magazine. She'd never done any shooting to speak of herself, but Jared had shown her some things on general principle. Men from the village danced and screamed triumph on the beach; others were ma
If we can beat them back, we can get out of here, Martha thought. Not even Lisketter would be crazy enough to linger after this.