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"You mean that the ancients made these signals that long ago?"
"Yes."
"But they're still operating?"
"Why do you insist on commenting on the obvious?" Vana had overheard most of the conversation. She said, "Then the poles are not gods and their flashing eyes are not really eyes?"
"In a sense, they are eyes. They detect traffic, and when there is a chance of collision they emit the red lights to stop traffic on one road so that traffic on the other may go through unimpeded! But the poles have other means of detection than visual ones."
"What kind of traffic did the ancients have?" Deyv asked. "Why should the ancients worry about people on foot? Or did they ride animals, as the legends say?"
"They rode in great metal vehicles which were suspended above the road by a power which you wouldn't understand without a great deal of explanation. Though I'll be happy to explain. They went at speeds unmatched even by the swiftest of birds. As fast as the greatest of winds."
"By Tirsh!" Vana swore. "Why didn't you tell me what they were instead of letting me make obeisance to them?"
"You didn't ask me about them."
Vana threw her hands up in disgust.
Deyv, using his own language, said, "You are a cabbageheadl"
If Sloosh was affected by their gestures and inflections of disgust, he didn't show it. He merely ambled ahead, leaving them standing, looking at each other.
Two sleep-times passed. Except for a pride of spotted lions, they came across nothing disturbing. The lions, however, had just eaten a large animal, and so they only roared at the travelers to keep their distance.
After the third sleep-time, they came to another junction. The Archkerri and Deyv walked through the signals as if they didn't exist. Deyv was amused, though, when he saw Vana start to get down on her knees, then, with a shamefaced look at him, resume walking. Old habits were hard to break.
By then Sloosh had described, in general terms, the kind of power the ancients' vehicles had used to float and to propel themselves. Sloosh also gave as his opinion that the power source for the signals came from the core of the Earth. There was still enough heat there to supply the power.
"But sometime in the future the heat will be gone, and the lights will cease operating. Or the highway will break someplace, and the circuit through which the power flows, that is, the highway itself, will be severed."
Deyv asked why he had gotten a shock from the highway near the flashing lights.
"I suspect that the quake caused a malfunction. Or perhaps something else did. Whatever caused it, a shock, something like that which a lightning bolt gives, was transmitted for a certain distance along the road. Or perhaps ..."
Sloosh listed ten other possibilities, none of which Deyv wholly listened to. It was the shock itself, not its reasons, that concerned him.
Slowly, The Dark Beast passed over them and then dipped beyond the horizon. They were thrown to the ground four times by quakes. They came to an intersection where the road had been so violently twisted that the lights were parallel to the ground.
"Amazing stuff the ancients used to make these highways," Sloosh said. "Its stretching capabilities are incredible. Moreover, it has a built-in self-straightening quality. Within thirty sleep-times, this junction will have righted itself, and the signals will be in their normal position. That is, they will be if they're not further disturbed. Which isn't likely."
Deyv asked if the ancients who'd made the roads were the same as those who'd made the Houses.
"No. The House-Makers preceded them. By the time the most recent ancients started to ascend from savagery to civilization, the Houses were deeply buried. Most of them, that is. But the Earth's upheavals and the effects of erosion have exposed many."
Deyv wondered which ancients had made the sword his father had given him.
"I could tell you if I had my crystal."
The rains ceased, and the clouds ceased to drift over. The blazing jampack above made every sleep-time hotter. Their eyes began to suffer from brightness, so they made wooden protectors with narrow slits for their eyes. Now the leaves of the plants stayed curled up longer, the tough thick undersides reflecting the heat and preserving the moisture inside.
"This is the longest time without rain that I can remember," Vana said.
"Not I," Sloosh said.
"How old are you?"
"About six of your generations. If nothing happens to me, I should live about ten more."
The two humans were awed. In his eyes they could be only children. Perhaps he couldn't be blamed for his attitude of superiority. It would be nice, however, if he would not be so frank about it. But then a plant-man couldn't be expected to understand human feelings.
Meanwhile, the Yawtl's pace had slowed. Though he left no tracks on the highway, the color of his linked impressions was getting deeper. According to Sloosh, he could not be more than a sleep-time and a half ahead of them.
"Either he thinks we have given up, which is doubtful," the Archkerri said, "or the heat is fatiguing him.
Unfortunately, it is also weakening us. We're pushing harder, but I don't know how long you two can keep this pace up. Your animals are suffering even more than you. And, to tell the truth, I'm not as energetic as I'd like to be."
Finally, the snout of The Beast poked over the horizon behind them. A cooling wind raced ahead of it, and several light showers wet them. As this happened, the leaves and petals of the plants unfolded.
"We're only three-quarters of a sleep-time behind the Yawtl now," Sloosh said. "If only he would decide to take a long rest, we might catch up with him."
"I could stand a long, long rest, too," Vana said.
They were walking toward another junction then. They had to stop for a while because a herd of strange animals was passing through it. These stood about twelve feet high at the shoulders, had four massive legs, and long thick tails. Their necks were very long, terminating in relatively small sleepy-eyed heads about twenty feet from the ground. Their hairless skins were pale gray.
"They look like some of the herbivorous monsters that lived when the Earth was young," the Archkerri said. "Those were warm-blooded, too, but, unlike these, they were not mammals."
The herd passed, and the party resumed their walk, glad for the enforced rest. However, when they got to the junction, Sloosh turned onto the road to the left. The humans didn't ask him why. Evidently, the
Yawtl had also taken this direction.
After half a sleep-time, the Archkerri left the road and headed for the jungle on the right.
"His impressions don't come back out," he said. "So he didn't go in there just to sleep. Perhaps he is getting close to his home."
There were high mountains straight ahead. If the thief was headed for them, he had about three sleeptimes before getting to the foothills. Traveling in the jungle was not so swift as on the open roads.
Before they had gone a few steps into the foliage, Deyv said, "Sloosh, we'll have to quit using the whistles so much. Their sound carries farther than voices. Even though you can buzz softly, you should do so only when it's absolutely necessary."
"In that case," Sloosh said, "why don't you quit using your whistles? I can understand you when you speak Vana's language, you know."
Deyv gritted his teeth, and Vana's face and body grew red.
"Do you mean that we've been blowing these whistles all this time and we didn't have to?"
"Yes," the Archkerri said. "I had thought that was obvious until you made that remark a moment ago. I didn't know you were so stupid."
"By Tirsh and her nameless sister!" Vana said. "Sometimes, sometimes—"
"I see you're angry again, and as usual I have no idea why. How could I have correlated my buzzes to the sounds of your language unless I could understand them? I thought you knew but just wanted to practice with the whistles so you could be fluent with them. So ... that's why Vana's tribe never spoke to me but always used their whistles."