with the bright colours of the Caribbean. A community roofed by nature, thought Alex.
Then he pictured the sight from the air. Not as he was seeing it, on a vertical-diagonal, but from above, from a plane. The village - and it was a village - would look like any number of isolated hill communities with thatched roofs and nearby grazing fields. But the difference was in the surrounding mountains. The plateau was an indentation formed at high altitude. This section of the Flagstaff Range was filled with harsh updraughts and uncontrollable wind variants; jets would remain at a six-thousand-foot minimum, light aircraft would avoid direct overhead. The first would have no place to land, the second would undoubtedly crash if it attempted to do so.
The community was protected by natural phenomena above it and by a torturous passage on the ground that could never be defined on a map.
'Not very prepossessing, is it?' Malcolm stood next to McAuliff. A stream of children were running down a bordered path towards the lake, their shouts carried on the wind. Natives could be seen walking around the huts; larger groups strolled by the avenue of water that flowed from the waterfall.
'It's all... very neat.' It was the only word McAuliff could think of at the moment.
'Yes,' replied the Halidonite. 'It's orderly. Come, let's go down. There is a man waiting for you.'
The runner-guide led them down the rocky slope. Five minutes later the three of them were on the western level of the thatched community. From above Alex had not fully realized the height of the trees that were on all sides of the primitive dwellings. Thick vines sloped and twisted, immense ferns sprayed out of the ground and from within dark recesses of the underbrush.
Had the view from the plateau above been fifty feet higher, thought McAuliff, none of what he had seen would have been visible.
Roofed by nature.
The guide started across a path that seemed to intersect a cluster of huts within the junglelike area.
The inhabitants were dressed, like most Jamaican hill people, in a variety of soft, loose clothing, but there was something different that McAuliff could not at first discern. There was a profusion of rolled-up Khaki trousers and dark-coloured skirts and white cotton shirts and printed blouses - all normal, all seen throughout the island. Seen really in all outback areas - Africa, Australia, New Zealand - where the natives had taken what they could - stolen what they could - of the white invaders' protective comforts. Nothing unusual... But something was very different, and Alex was damned if he could pinpoint that difference.
And then he did so. At the same instant that he realized there was something else he had been observing.
Books.
A few - three or four or five, perhaps - of the dozens of natives within this jungle community were carrying books. Carrying books under their arms and in their hands.
And the clothing was clean. It was as simple as that. There were stains of wetness, of sweat, obviously, and the dirt of field work and the mud of the lake... but there was a cleanliness, a neatness, that was not usual in the hill or outback communities. Africa, Australia, New Guinea, or Jacksonville, Florida.
It was a normal sight to see clothing worn by natives in varying stages of disrepair - torn, ripped, even shredded. But the garments worn by these hill people were whole, untorn, unripped.
Not castoffs, not ill-fitting stolen property.
The Tribe of Acquaba was deep within a jungle primeval but it was not - like so many of the isolated hill people - a wornout race of poverty-stricken primitives scratching a bare subsistence from the land.
Along the paths and around the dwellings Alex could see strong black bodies and clear black eyes, the elements of balanced diets and sharp intelligences.
'We shall go directly to Daniel's,' said Malcolm to the guide. 'You are relieved now. And thank you.'
The guide turned right down a dirt path that seemed to be tunnelled under a dense web of thick jungle vines. He was removing his pistol belt, unbuttoning his field jacket. The commando was home, reflected McAuliff. He could take off his costume - so purposely ragged.
Malcolm gestured, interrupting Alex's thoughts. The path on which they had been walking under an umbrella of macca-fats and ceibas veered left into a clearing of matted spider grass. This open area extended beyond the conduit of rushing water that shot out from the base of the high waterfall streaming down the