Tom Swift and His Electronic Retroscope (9 page)

"Good afternoon, Mr. Swift," the man said, extending his hand. "I am Dr. Stephenus Liu; and may I present my beloved wife, Jiang." The woman bobbed her head slightly. "Now, now, my dear, you really must try, you know."

"Yes, I try. Good day to you," she murmured shyly, her accent very thick. "I am pleased."

Tom smiled and nodded. "I am pleased as well, ma’am." He introduced Bud and Chow, then asked Dr. Liu how he came to be passing through Huratlcuyon.

The man smiled broadly. "To take your question literally, we are here because we walked here overland from the town of Tiasardes, where we have rented a small house—where, it seems, we are rarely at home! But as to our larger purpose, it’s a bit of a story indeed.

"I am a Hawaiian of Chinese descent," he continued; "Jiang-Ma was born in China and is only now learning English. Sometimes I think my breezy American ways shock her!

"I am associated with the Honolulu Institute of Ethnographic Linguistics. Ah, I see those familiar looks of puzzlement! We study the migrations of the human species, as it were, from place to place, using
language
as our tool—that is, the development of certain word-forms and colloquial expressions over great lengths of time. Do you see?"

Tom nodded respectfully. "I believe so. Then you’re here to study this Mayan dialect, I take it?"

Liu bobbled his head negatively. "No, no. What I am doing, with my wife as my assistant, is quite different. Indeed, one might say it verges upon the interesting." His eyes twinkled.

He spoke to his wife softly, a few words that Tom assumed was Chinese. In response she withdrew a small box from her pack and handed it to her husband. As Tom and the others leaned forward with interest, Dr. Liu took out a small object and held it in the sunlight. "This little implement was once used for grinding corn, about one thousand years ago."

Wilson Hutchcraft shoved his face close to the tool and scrutinized it. "Tarascan, I’d say, from the Pacific coastal region."

"I am glad to have you confirm my own conclusions, Mr. Hutchcraft. Now then, I ask you all to consider these four small markings upon the part used as a handle."

"Yes, typical decorative features," stated Hutchcraft in his usual smug tone. "Entirely common."

"Indeed so," said the Chinese. "Tell me, do any of you here read Chinese writing? That is, the ideogram characters? No one? Well, let me suggest a little something to your minds." He pointed at one of the inscribed figures. "What does this look like to you?"

Chow squinted at it. "Some kind o’ animal head. A horse maybe?"

Hutchcraft snorted. "Horses were unknown here before the advent of the Europeans. It is their conventional stylization of the head of a jaguar."

Liu nodded. "So we are told. And next to it, a snake; and here, the sun rising upon water. Yes? –But now, I turn the tool over, and the figures are upside down."

"Upside down they don’t really look like much of anything," remarked Doc Simpson.

"But to my eyes, to the eyes of my wife—they do. You see, gentlemen, I have come to believe that certain decorative motifs like this did not originally represent animals and so forth. They are, in truth, rather degraded and much-altered
Chinese
characters in the formal high court calligraphy of the great T’ang Dynasty." Dr. Liu paused dramatically. "Do you understand? I am saying that the Chinese came to the shores of Mexico more than
twelve hundred years ago!"

"WHAT an amazing theory!" exclaimed Professor Castillez.

"And not an utterly novel one, I might say," sniffed Wilson Hutchcraft disdainfully. "These legends of ‘strangers from the west’ arriving in ‘great floating palaces’ are no longer taken seriously."

"Not by the mainstream of archaeology, I will admit," Dr. Liu said very soberly. "But Jiang and I take the possibility quite seriously indeed."

Bud asked what the Chinese characters said.

Liu pointed to the inscriptions one by one and provided a translation. "
‘Given for the celestial and eternal honor of the Son of Heaven Hsuan Tsung.’
That is my interpretation, anyway, with which my wife is pleased to concur. Hsuan Tsung was an Emperor of the T’ang Dynasty."

Tom asked if he had made translations of other ancient inscriptions, and Dr. Liu nodded vigorously. "Very many; for such decorative motifs were most common in the native cultures of that time and place. They are all short phrases, rather disjoint, having to do with matters of trade and commerce, as well as a few stamps of ownership. I believe the local peoples did not conceive of these marks as writing, but merely decoration, perhaps with some ceremonial significance; and so they copied them. My guess at the larger picture is that the T’angs sent a trading fleet eastward from southern China, perhaps in vessels provided by Arabs or the Malays—as I fear my ancestors were themselves deficient in the art of shipbuilding. Some sort of trading post or small settlement may have been established on the Pacific coast, enduring for a short time, probably in the Eighth Century. No doubt it was finally overrun and destroyed by warlike peoples migrating from the north."

"I’ll give you high marks for creativity," commented Hutchcraft. "But as we are nowhere near the Pacific, why
have
you come to Huratlcuyon?"

"I have reason to think that an important trade route passed through this region during that era, connecting the Pacific tribes with the Maya of Chiapas, Yucatan, and Guatemala," replied the scientist. "This may be a fruitful place to discover the sort of relics we are interested in."

"Then you may be interested in the paved roadway we think we’ve discovered," Tom declared. "It may have something to do with your trade route."

"Or it may not be a paved road at all," added Hutchcraft snidely.

Doc Simpson spoke up. "My medical research is relevant to all this. I see many signs of Asian ancestry in these village people. If your theory is correct, Dr. Liu, the inhabitants of the Chinese settlement may have fled overland and eventually intermarried with the Mayan people already settled here."

"It is possible, surely. How thrilling it would be to confirm such a thing."

After further conversation, Dr. Liu politely indicated that he would leave now to set up his tent at the outskirts of the village clearing. Immediately Chief Quetzal held up a forbidding hand. "No you will not," he commanded in a voice of decree. "In this village, strangers are treated well. We will provide a hut for you."

As Liu thanked the
ahau,
Bud whispered to Tom: "At this rate old Quetzal’s going to run out of huts!"

Chow overheard Bud’s joking remark. With a glance up at the sun, still high in the sky, the cook unobtrusively went off to speak to Hu-Quetzal.

Tom and Bud hurried to the hut the chief had provided them and set up the main components of the retroscope for Tom to experiment with.

"Any ideas on how to make your gizmo ‘see back’ with 20/20 vision?" asked Bud as they worked.

"Have to identify the source of the problem first," Tom replied. "I have a few good guesses, though." He explained that he thought background radiation—cosmic rays from the sky above—was throwing off the baseline-establishing detector system. "It’s not a matter of shielding the sensors. The problem is the constant interaction between the rays and the surface of the rock. It’s creating—well, it’s like the layer of sizzling grease in a pan when you’re frying bacon."

"So is there a way to drain it off?"

"No," responded the young inventor; "but I may be able to teach the camera to ignore it."

In the meantime Chow was busy on a project of his own. With Ahau Quetzal’s permission the grizzled Texan had organized a crew of Quetzal’s subjects to build a special hut for Tom Swift’s group and the other outsiders, so that the chief could return to his own quarters.

"You are thoughtful!" the chief said when Chow had asked his approval. "In this you are like the Maya."

First the tribesmen scattered into the forest with axes and machetes to cut and trim the necessary timber. Quetzal himself chose each piece with the skilled, loving eye of a craftsman.

After he had marked out a site at one end of the village, a series of stakes were driven into the ground. These were of young sapodilla wood and formed the walls of the hut. The stakes were tied together with palm fibers and daubed with a thick coating of mud.

"Don’t you folks ever use hammer an’ nails?" Chow asked, puzzled.

Quetzal broke into one of his rare smiles. "I have seen such tools when I lived in Mérida," he replied. "Stucco, steel beams, glass windows, concrete foundations. But we Maya have no need of them. Here, we have chosen the ways of our ancestors."

Meanwhile, other native workmen were laying floor planks of mahogany and Spanish cedar. A framework was then raised to support the ridge-pole and thatching of the roof.

"Brand my ole Mayan fryin’ pan," Chow reflected, "when it comes to slappin’ a house together fast, these little folks really know their business!"

Standing nearby, Professor Castillez chuckled. "Let us call it ‘instant housing’!"

Tom was busily at work with Bud assembling various transistors and other parts in the priming detector eye when Doc Simpson stuck his head into the hut. "Lots going on out here," he remarked. "How goes it with you two?"

"Almost finished with my long-pass solution and ready for the test," Tom replied. "I just have the hookup to do and a little adjusting. Now if my camera still works, we’re in business!"

Tom had just finished checking out the whole setup when Chow came clumping into the hut, beaming mysteriously, followed by Hu-Quetzal.

"Got somethin’ to show you, boss!" the seasoned ranch cook announced. "Come along an’ see!"

Tom and Bud trooped after him, curious to find out what was up. They stared in amazement when Chow showed them the spanking new hut, almost, not quite, larger than any other in the village.

"You mean it’s ours?" Tom gasped.

"Ours,"
corrected Wilson Hutchcraft pointedly; "and Dr. and Mrs. Liu, of course; and Castillez if he likes. I suppose I wouldn’t mind sleeping indoors for a time."

"What a wonderful gift!" exclaimed Stephenus Liu.

"Yes,
wonderful,"
repeated Mrs. Liu timidly.

"The labor of many," the chief responded. "A present from my people to our friends from
Los Estados Unidos!"

Touched, Tom made a short speech of thanks and said he would move the retroscope there later, after supper.

This was Chow’s cue. "Now that
that’s
over—come an’ get it!" he bawled.

He stepped from the crowd, banging a native gong. Then the cook turned to Wilson Hutchcraft. "You’re invited too, pardner."

"I assumed so," replied the man suavely.

In the center of the clearing the women had spread large ferns for a "table." At each place was a crude mat woven from the leaves of the guano palm. The "dishes" were fashioned from hollowed-out pieces of a banana-tree trunk. As the men and children scrambled for places, the women served the delicious native food, a traditional Mayan feast prepared while the men labored on the new hut.

First course for the Norte-Americanos was
mamee
—a sweet, red-treated fruit. Next, Chow, acting as their server, brought around a steaming platter of stewed chicken, covered with a rich dark-brown sauce.

"Mm!" Bud, a young man of large appetite, closed his eyes and inhaled the strange-scented aroma. Then he added, pointing to the sauce, "But what’s this stuff?"

"It’s called
mole,"
Chow exclaimed proudly. "Somethin’ special—made out o’ real chocolate from the bean plant, an’ spices. You kin get it in a lot o’ Mexican restaurants, but this here’s the gen-yoo-ine article. The womenfolk showed me how to whip it up. You jest taste it!"

The Americans were a bit dubious about the idea of combining chocolate sauce with chicken. But after sampling a few bites of the dish, they fell to avidly.

"Sounds crazy," Doc remarked between bites, "but it tastes wonderful!"

The chicken was accompanied by side dishes of tortillas, baked native squash called
chayote,
and a sort of raw turnip, jicama. For dessert, the feast was topped off with avocados and oranges.

"Chow, old boy, you’ve done us proud!" Bud said as he sat back and loosened his woven belt.

"One of the best meals I ever ate," Tom agreed, and Chow grinned. Tom turned and nodded deeply to the women and girls. "We thank you."

"And now there is more, to celebrate this new hut in
xeuyta
Huratlcuyon," declared the Chief. When the remains of the feast had been cleared away, he clapped his hands to call for music. A dozen of the Mayan men brought out drums, gourd rattles, wooden flutes, and other instruments. Then a group of native dancers came forward, balancing bottles, crocks, and jugs on top of their flat, broad heads.

"What in tarnation is all the crockery for?" Chow wondered. The other visitors were equally mystified.

The answer soon became evident. As the musicians played a gay Spanish tune, the dancers whirled and stepped without disturbing the articles on their heads. Evidently it was a mark of skill to keep the objects balanced.

"Hey, they’re good!" Bud exclaimed, clapping his hands in time to the music. Even Wilson Hutchcraft seemed to be twitching his foot rhythmically, perhaps without realizing it.

By now, it was deep twilight and the blazing fire that had been built to celebrate the feast made the scene even more colorful. Chow watched in grinning admiration. Finally some of the women dancers beckoned him to join in as the little children giggled with glee.

"Go on, Chow! Show ’em a Texas reel!" Bud urged. "And don’t forget your headpiece!" Seizing a large clay water jug, he placed it atop the cook’s wide bald head.

Chow, full of enthusiasm, needed little urging. He waddled out among the dancers, balancing the jug precariously to everyone’s surprise. Soon the chef was dancing a lively jig.

"What a man!" Bud roared, as he and the rest of Tom’s group shook with laughter.

Puffing and panting, red in the face, Chow edged closer to his friends to show off his skill. But the jug was wobbling more and more wildly. Suddenly, as Chow reached up to steady it, the jug arced from his head.