Lhari

“ It was a Lhari spaceport that lay before him, to all appearances identical with the one on Earth: sloping glass ramps, tall colorless pylons, a skyscraper terminus crowded with men of all planets. But the sun overhead was brilliant and clear gold, the shadows sharp and violet on the spaceport floor. Behind the confines of the spaceport he could see the ridges of tall hills and unfamiliarly colored trees. He longed to explore them, but he got a grip on his imagination, surrendering his ticket stub and false papers to the Lhari and Mentorian interpreter who guarded the ramp. ”

“ Bart remembered, as if it were yesterday, how he and his father had first passed through this doorway. And his father, looking up, had said under his breath "Not for always, Son. Someday men will have a doorway to the stars, and the Lhari won't be standing in the door." ”

“ Someone was pushing at him, babbling words in Lhari, but he heard them through an ever-increasing distance: Vorongil's face bent over his, only a blurred crimson blob that flashed away like a vanishing star in the viewport. It flamed out into green darkness, vanished, and Bart fell through what seemed to be a bottomless chasm of starless night.
When he woke, acceleration had its crushing hand on his chest. He tried to move, discovered that he was strapped hard into a bunk, and fainted again. ”

“ Rugel looked across from his couch. Bart felt that the old, scarred Lhari could read his fear. Rugel said through a wheeze, "No matter how old you get, Bartol, you're still scared when you make a warp-shift. But relax, computers don't make mistakes."
"Catalyst," Vorongil snapped, "Ready—shift!"
At first there was no change; then Bart realized that the stars, through the viewport, had altered abruptly in size and shade and color. They were not sparks but strange streaks, like comets, crossing and recrossing long tails that grew, longer and longer, moment by moment. ”

“ Where had he seen that color? In that stolen glimpse of the Lhari ship landing, long ago? Of all the colors of space, this one he would never know.
He turned away from the unsolvable riddle of the strange constellations; and went to his cabin, to dream of the green star Meristem where he had first plotted known coordinates for a previously unknown world, and to wander in baffling nightmares where he fed jagged, star-colored pieces of hail into the ship's computer and watched them come out as tiny paperdoll spaceships with the letterhead of Eight Colors printed neatly across their sides. ”

“ It's exactly as sensitive to radiation as you are. When it starts to turn orange, it's picking up radiation. If you're aboard the ship, get into the drive chambers—they're lead-lined—and you'll be safe. If you're out on the surface, you'll be all right inside one of the concrete bunkers. But get under cover before it turns red, because by that time every Lhari of them will be stone-cold dead."
Bart let the strip of plastic drop, staring in disbelief at Montano's cold, cruel face. "Kill them? Kill a whole shipload of them? ”

“ Vorongil demanded, and Bart realized that in his excitement he had been shouting in Universal. He drew a long, deep breath.
"Captain, there are lethal radiations being released here," he said. "You have just barely half an hour to gather all the men and get them behind shielding."
"The radiation counter is out of order," Vorongil remarked, unruffled. "How can you possibly know—"
Bart stood in despair. Could he say, A ship has landed here? Could he say, Check that bunker? Even if Montano was a would-be murderer, he was human, and Bart could not betray him to the Lhari. ”

“ Beyond the lagoon lie the hard, sun-baked alluvial flats which border the sluggish river. Upon the southern and western sides of the charming oasis of Masinya’s Kraal stretch the great open grass plains, flecked with springboks, and dotted here and there with a troop of larger game, which fifteen or twenty miles away are checked by the endless and waterless forest and bush of the Kalahari—that vast desert which, thanks to its lack of surface water, lies to this day dim, unknown, and mysterious to all races of mankind, save the wandering Bushmen and Vaalpens who inhabit it. ”

“ Ali did not allow Lawrence to start until after sunset lest any of his followers, whom he could not trust, should see him leave the camp. He kept the journey a secret even from his slaves, gave Lawrence an Arab cloak and headcloth to wrap round his uniform and told the old guide who was to go with him to keep his charge from all questioning and curiosity by the way, and to avoid all camps. The Arabs in Rabegh and the district were of the Harb tribe whose chief was pro-Turkish and had fled to the hills when Ali came to Rabegh with his army. ”

“ Out of the long defiles and valleys we threaded our way into the open country, past the huge flat-topped mountains of Ombokoro, the fastness of the Berg Damaras, thence following the dry river-bed of the Om- Mafako north-east to the confines of the Omaheke desert that great north-western outlier of the true Kalahari not far, indeed, from this very spot! So far the trek had been slow and tedious, but without untoward incident. We were well armed, and those natives who did not avoid us were only too eager to bring in food, or show us water in return for our trade goods. ”

“ As he walked from the station, dreamy but wide awake, it suddenly struck him that the real Shap was not the one walking to Business in black and ugly clothes, but he who roamed along a jungle's edge near the ramparts of an old and Eastern city that rose up sheer from the sand, and against which the desert lapped with one eternal wave. He used to fancy the name of that city was Larkar. "After all, the fancy is as real as the body," he said with perfect logic. ”

“ An old grey-bearded ragged man suddenly appeared, with a face of great power and weariness, and sat down upon Lawrence’s clothes, not seeming to notice them or him. At last he spoke and said: ‘The love is from God; and of God; and towards God.’ It was the strangest thing that Lawrence had ever heard in Arabia. The connection of God with Love was an idea quite foreign to the country. God was Justice, or God was Power or Fear, but never Love. Christianity was not a wholly Semitic creed, but a grafting of Greek idealism upon the hard Law of Moses, the typical Semite. ”

“ It was on the desert tribes that Lawrence depended most for military help in the Arab Revolt, and it was the Arabs of the northern Syrian desert to whom for personal reasons he was most anxious to give freedom. Lawrence has described the process by which the desert tribes come into being. The south-western corner of Arabia, south of the holy city of Mecca, is called Yemen. It is a fertile [62] agricultural district famed for coffee but much overpopulated: and for the surplus population there is no easy outlet. ”

“ They were nobles of the Harith tribe and blood enemies of the Harb clan to which these herdsmen belonged. Fearing that they would be delayed or driven off the water if they were recognized, they pretended to be master and servant from Mecca. Ali ibn el Hussein afterwards became Lawrence’s best friend among the Arab fighting men and at one time saved his life: he had already made a name for himself in the fighting at Medina and had been the leader of the Ateiba tribesmen in much camel-fighting with the Turks. ”

“ Lawrence was never of the tribe which does things because public duty is public duty. He acts in all things for his own best reasons, which though perhaps—I might say ‘certainly’—honourable are never either public or obvious. The Arabs addressed him as ‘Aurans’ or ‘Lurens,’ but his nickname among them was Emir Dinamit, or Prince Dynamite, for his explosive energy. Old Auda, the fighting chief of the Howeitat, used to called him ‘The World’s Imp,’ which is better still. ”

“ Two days were occupied in making preparations, but afterwards I spent a fortnight in my tent at Leh, a city by no means to be passed over without remark, for, though it and the region of which it is the capital are very remote from the thoughts of most readers, it is one of the centres of Central Asian commerce. There all traders from India, Kashmir, and Afghanistan must halt for animals and supplies on their way to Yarkand and Khotan, and there also merchants from the mysterious city of Lhassa do a great business in brick tea and in Lhassa wares, chiefly ecclesiastical. ”

“ For no sooner had they left the wooded 'policies' and surroundings of Lochgarra House than they entered upon a stretch of country the sterility of which might have appalled her if only she had fully comprehended it. Land such as the poorest of Galway peasants would have shunned—an Arabia Petræa—rocks, stones, and heather—wave upon wave of Hebridean gneiss, the ruddy-grey knolls and dips and heights showing hardly a trace of vegetation or of soil. And yet there were human beings here, busy on their small patches ”

“ Lawrence went by armoured car to Azrak and at Bair heard the news that the Turks at Hesa had moved suddenly to Tafileh and were advancing south to the relief of Maan. The chief of the Beni Sakhr who brought the news thought Lawrence mad when he laughed aloud. But, now that the expedition had started, the Turks might relieve Maan and take Aba el Lissan, Guweira, Akaba itself for all he cared. The news meant that the Turks believed in the pretended threat to Amman and were making a counter-stroke. Every man that they sent south was a man, or rather ten men lost. ”

“ That keen Indian watched you, and he said to me in Navajo, 'Bi Nai has lost his God. He has come far to find a wife. Nas Ta Bega is his brother.'... He meant he'll find both God and wife for you. I don't know about that, but I say take the Indian as he thinks he is—your brother. Long before I knew Nas Ta Bega well my wife used to tell me about him. He's a sage and a poet—the very spirit of this desert. He's worth cultivating for his own sake. But more—remember, if Fay Larkin is still shut in that valley the Navajo will find her for you. ”

“ The only way out is east. So the weaker tribes on the Yemen border are constantly pushed out into the bad lands, where farming becomes less and less easy, and farther out still until they become pastoral and finally are forced into the actual desert. There they work about from oasis to oasis perhaps for several generations until they may be strong enough to establish themselves again as agricultural Arabs in Syria or Mesopotamia. This, writes Lawrence, is the natural circulation that keeps Arabia healthy. ”

“ This Indarpuri Kuri said to him, “Will you give up the hiras and manis, or will you fight?” The raja sent the following message to his four sons, “Will you fight to retain possession of the hiras and manis, or will you deliver them up?” They were afraid, so they gave answer, “We will not. Lelha knows all about the hiras and manis. We do not.”
The raja then sent and called Lelha, and enquired, “Will you shew fight, Lelha, or will you give up the hiras and manis?” Lelha replied, “I will fight. I will not part with the hiras and manis. ”

“ The position of Larkhanu, on the opposite side of the Indus, is well marked as the country of Oxycanus, which was famed for its fertility, since Alexander despatched from hence his superannuated soldiers, by the country of the Archoti and Drangi, to Carmania, or Kerman. The great road westward branches from Larkhanu, and crosses the mountains to Kelat by the pass of Bolan, which is the route to Kerman. The modern inhabitants of the Indus have no traditions of the conquest of the Macedonians to assist the enquirer in a subject that excites among civilised nations such intense curiosity. ”

“ Lawrence said he would go to help raise the tribe and would give military advice. So he rode inland in company with Sherif Abd el Kerim, a half brother of the Emir of the Juheina. Lawrence was surprised at the sherif’s colour; Abd el Kerim was a coal-black Abyssinian, son of a slave girl whom the old Emir had married late in life. He was twenty-six years old, restless and active, and was very merry and intimate with, every one. He hated the Turks, who despised him for his colour (the Arabs had little colour-feeling against Africans: much more against the Indians) . ”

“ The Arabs paid no attention to them, busy looting their absolute fill for the first time in their lives. Never was such a litter of household goods—carpets, mattresses, blankets, clothes for men and women, clocks, cooking-pots, food, ornaments and weapons. Camels became common property: each man loaded the nearest with what it would carry and shooed it westward into the desert while he turned to his next fancy. The women, seeing Lawrence unemployed, rushed and caught at him, howling for mercy. ”

“ A tall Arab glided to Loria’s side, and took the checks. “Ahri is my dragoman and body-servant and general factotum,” said Loria, by way of introduction. “This lady, Ahri, is my cousin, Miss Stuart. Her word is law.”
“Yes, Mr. Loria. Miss Stoort is queen of all.”
The man made a salaam of obeisance and turned away to look after the luggage.
“He’s a wonder, that Ahri,” said Carrington Loria, looking after the retreating Arab. “But be very haughty with him, Polly. He presumes upon the least encouragement. Treat him like the dust under your feet, and he’ll adore you.” ”

“ A party of mixed horse and foot from the railway cut off his retreat and more troops appeared in front. There was no escape and the Arabs with Lawrence, taking cover, resolved to hold out to the last. Lawrence, half-glad, saw that all was over. He decided to imitate Farraj and end it quickly. He rode alone against the enemy. The mounted Turks came forward to meet him, finger on trigger, calling out ‘Testify!’ He answered: ‘There is no god but God; and Jesus is a prophet of God’—a queer statement which no Mohammedan could make, and yet no Christian could make either ”