«Keepers of the Secrets», Philip Farmer
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Although the editors insist upon publishing this work as a novel under my by-line,it is really the work of James Caliban, MD. Doc Caliban wrote this story in thethird person singular, though it is autobiographical. He feels that this approachenables him to be more objective. My opinion is that the use of the first person singular would make him feel very uncomfortable. Doc Caliban does not like toget personal; at least, he doesn't like to do so with most people. Even the largestmountain throws a shadow.
Three figures moved in and out of the shadows of clouds and trees. The moonwas riding high over the alpine mountain of Gramz in the Black Forest of southern Germany, only a few miles from the Swiss border. Long black cloudsraced under it like lean wolves lashed by moonlight beams. Their shadow selvesloped over the precipitous western side of Gramz Berg, bounding over the squatand massive stone pile of the castle on top of the mountain, writhing down thejagged slope toward the narrow sheen of the Toll River two thousand feet below.
The three figures were men toiling up the rock-strewn, pine-dotted slant. Onewas six feet seven inches high. He had the body of a Hercules. His bare headglinted dark-bronzish in the moonlight. If there had been more light, his eyeswould have been a very light grey-green with many flecks of bright yellow.
The second man was about six feet tall but seemed much shorter because of the enormous breadth of shoulders and trunk. His arms were disproportionately longand his legs almost freakishly short. The forehead was low and backwardslanting. The ridges of bone above his eyes were massive. His nose was a flatwide-nostriled blob, and his chin receded. His ears stuck out like the wings of anowl. His hair was the colour of a rusty nail.
The last in line was also six feet tall, but he had the body of a greyhound. Hisface was that of a handsome fox. His hair was as black and as straight as anApache's.
The lead man climbed swiftly, though he was burdened with an enormousbackpack. The second man, huffing and puffing, called out. He sounded like thegrunting of a bear at the end of a long hollow log.
'Have a heart, Doc! You're killing me!'
The third man said, 'Yeah, Doc, maybe you ought to put him on your back, too!Carry old softy Pauncho van Veelar like the baby he is! Forget your pacifier,Pauncho? I brought one along just in case!'
The gorilla-bodied man turned and said, 'Barney Banks! You gotta lotta guts! If it wasn't for you hanging onto my coattails, if I didn't have to drag you along, too, Iwouldn't be near so tired! Besides, you ain't got the weight I got to carry, youscarecrow!'
'We'll rest,' the big man said. His voice was deep and resonant, as if his throatcontained many small bronze gongs. He sat down on a boulder and waited patiently. Though he could have kept on going without rest at twice the speed allthe way to the top, he did not mind stopping. Nor did he mind the bickering of
Pauncho van Veelar and Barney Banks. It reminded him of the old days, whentheir fathers, who looked and sounded so much like them, had carried on asimilar running verbal battle.
While the two murmured blistering insults, he looked up the silver-and-black-brindled mountainside. A cloud whipped past the moon, and its lights shoneagain on the black many-turreted schloss still six hundred feet above. The lowerwall looked as smooth as the palm of his hand from this distance. But, havinggone near it in a helicopter in the daytime, he knew that there were projections and fissures on it. He had studied the photo-graphs and planned the exactcourse he would take and alternate routes if circumstances barred him from thefirst.
Doc Caliban reached into a pocket of the vest under his thick jacket and pulledout two pills. He gave one to Barney Albany Banks and one to William Grier vanVeelar. They popped them into their mouths and, a few seconds later, felt invigorated.
Doc Caliban began climbing again. The moon raced the clouds and lost but stillgained distance across the starry arc. The last six hundred feet were thetoughest. Here the mountain became solid perpendicular rock. The three put bigflexible plastic discs on their hands and applied these to the rock. The degree of suction was controlled by the degree of pressure on the handles inside the discs.
They reached the junction of rock and the base of the castle. Here they clung totheir discs. Their progress was slower from this point on. The alternation ofexposed moon and concealing clouds flickered light over them. They seemed like lumps of stone, so minute was their ascent. But as time went by they gained theirgoal: a narrow opening about sixty feet from the base.
A minute before Doc Caliban pulled himself level with the bottom of theembrasure, a light shone in it.
Doc hung by one disc while he squeezed the other down into a small cylindrical form and stuck it in a pocket in his vest. He then took out a small handweaponfrom a pocket in his jacket. This was of .15 calibre and shot explosive bullets witha velocity of 4,000 feet a second. The accuracy was, of course, limited, but byholding on the trigger, the entire clip of fifty bullets would be emptied within six