Journey into Otherness

James Abraham Carter

It was evening, and a steady wind was blowing. A full moon laid its track of light across the placid water, and the imperturbable stars looked down upon the world. Avram Drake tasted salt on his lips, the grit of the North Atlantic hardening on his skin. He'd been sailing for days, the ever-present rhythm of the waves a lullaby that almost masked the unease gnawing at him. He was traversing the Bermuda Triangle, a graveyard whispered about in hushed tones by seasoned sailors. The Intrepid, his beloved yacht, sliced through the water, heading southeast toward Puerto Rico, his holiday destination.

An hour ago, the lights of Nassau, the capital of New Providence, the most populous island in the Bahamas, had faded behind him, a fleeting beacon in the growing darkness. Now, only the stars offered companionship. Drake adjusted his course, a hand resting on the worn wooden helm. The sea was unusually calm, a glassy stillness that felt unnatural.

Then it began.

Without the slightest hint of what was about to happen, swirling filaments of emerald light, like an underwater aurora, erupted beneath the Venture’s keel. The wind died instantly, the sails collapsing. Panic clawed at Drake's throat. He gripped the helm, wide-eyed, his knuckles white as he stared in disbelief. The spiraling threads formed a luminous disc at least two hundred yards across. In all the years he had spent at sea, he had never encountered anything remotely like it. The swirling light intensified, a hypnotic vortex pulling at the yacht. The ship, now infused with a greenish radiance, began to spin; slowly at first, then gradually faster, a dizzying pirouette in concord with the strange phenomenon.

Drake shook off the paralysis of shock gripping him. There really was an unknown force hereabouts. It was no drunken sailor’s myth. He had to get out of here, and fast. With the yacht becalmed, the engine was his only hope. Clinging with one hand to the wheel to brace himself against the ship’s rotation, he frantically pushed the starter button. Nothing happened. Drake swore lividly. He scrambled awkwardly below deck, unbalanced, reeling, fighting his panic and the growing nausea induced by the spinning ship.

Drenched with the sweat of terror, he barely reached the engine room. With a prayer, Drake frantically sought the problem, but to no avail. The Rolls-Royce marine diesel refused to power up. He cursed violently as the yacht’s spin suddenly accelerated. He felt the ship lift. It rose into the air, trapped in a beam of swirling light that shot up from the mysterious depths of the sea. Drake lost his balance, and the centrifugal force slammed him against a bulkhead. Darkness swallowed him whole.

When Drake awoke, the spinning had mercifully stopped. A soft, diffused light filtered through the engine room doorway. He groaned, pushing himself up. His head throbbed, and his body ached. He climbed painfully out onto the deck, expecting to see the familiar expanse of the North Atlantic.

He saw… something else entirely.

The sea was a pale, lavender hue, stretching to a horizon painted with luminous golden mist. The sky, an inverted bowl of the same weird light, was devoid of sun or moon. The Intrepid drifted gently at the whim of a mild breeze. He had been cast into an unknown world by mysterious forces that defied all that he was familiar with. Incredible as it was, the harsh reality of his situation was impossible to deny.

Drake turned in a circle, his heart pounding. To port, a large island rose from the lavender sea, a bright tapestry of lush, bronze-colored vegetation clinging to jagged cliffs. He grabbed the helm, his mind reeling. He had to make for land where answers might be found. Other ships and aircraft had mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps, like him, there were survivors. He steered the Intrepid toward the mysterious island, a knot of apprehension tightening in his gut. What awaited him in this strange, new world?

He dropped anchor in the shallows of a small, secluded cove. The lavender sea, tinged with unknown minerals, lapped against the hull. Tentatively, Drake touched the strange liquid with a bare foot. The water was surprisingly warm. No burning sensation accompanied the contact. It was harmless despite its outlandish color. He took a deep breath and plunged into the alien sea, swimming toward the shore.

Emerging onto the beach of rose-colored sand, he was immediately met with a brutal reality. Six figures leaped from the dense, bronze-colored jungle that closely hugged the shore, their movements swift and deadly. Drake barely had time to react before they were rapidly upon him. He managed to leap aside and avoid one assailant. But another being swiftly slammed against him, felling him to the sand. They wrestled violently, twisting and turning like writhing pythons. Then the rest fell upon him. He struggled desperately against the grasping hands, but there were too many, too strong. He was subdued and swiftly bound, completely overwhelmed.

Drake’s captors hauled him to his feet, and now he had a chance to get a better look at them. They were female, undeniably human in form, but their skin was a pale orange, and their braided hair was a darker shade, with purple eyes completing their alien coloration. All were dressed in brief skirts made of brown leather. Tough sandals clad their feet. Their large breasts were bare. They were armed with carefully crafted spears and daggers – efficient and deadly despite being made of a glassy, jade-like stone.

Fortunately, they hadn’t employed their armament, and their expressions were more curious than hostile, which added to the impression that they wanted him alive. Drake’s fears of imminent death eased as the women spoke among themselves in an unknown tongue, touching his black hair and sun-bronzed skin with fascination. One of his captors addressed him, but the language was completely incomprehensible.

“Sorry,” he replied. “I can’t understand you.”

The woman grunted in annoyance at the communication impasse and gave orders to her companions. They seized Drake and forced him into the bronze-hued jungle, pausing only to retrieve a slain animal that looked something like a scaly, olive-green warthog. Clearly, he had been captured by a hunting party that had obviously seen his yacht approaching and had lain in wait for him.

It took about two tiring hours of traversing jungle trails to reach the settlement of his captors, which lay on the other side of the island at its narrowest point. Drake’s first sight of the community was its high, dry stone walls that enclosed the village in a triangle of defensive ramparts about 15 feet tall. Passing through the narrow gate, they entered the settlement, which consisted of many large beehive-shaped huts constructed from gray shingles that housed a population of 300. Drake was shoved through the narrow streets, past curious faces, to the largest hut in the center of the unusual habitation.

Passing through the trapezoidal doorway, he was led into the presence of Tarsu, the leader of the Kamit as these people called themselves. The room he entered was a type of foyer where the rega (leader) met her subjects. Its semicircular walls were plastered with clay and painted in bright abstract patterns that stood out strongly against the white background. The rega sat on an ornately carved and polished timber stool. She was taller than the other women, her orange skin gleaming in the flickering light of clay oil lamps. Her eyes, a deep, intense purple, studied him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. She appeared to be about twenty, ten years his junior. Drake stared back, lost in her exotic beauty.

Communication was impossible. Drake’s tongue was English; she spoke the language of her people - a series of clicks, guttural sounds, and melodic inflections. Tarsu, frustrated but clearly intrigued by this strange creature from another world, issued a command.

“Mazara,” she said to one of her adjuncts, “I sense this strange being poses no threat. Conduct him to the hut reserved for guests, and arrange for his comfort. When he is settled, I will send my sister Majanna to instruct him in our language. When he has achieved sufficient fluency, I will have him brought to me again so that I can question him.”

Drake was taken to the designated building. It was primitive but clean, with woven walls, a thatched roof, and a clay floor. Large baskets used for storage were present, along with some stools, a hammock, and various forms of pottery. Shortly thereafter, a teenage girl of perhaps seventeen arrived. As she stepped through the doorway, the Earthman saw that she bore a striking resemblance to Tarsu. The lass touched her breast. “Majanna,” she said, and thus Drake’s education in her people’s tongue began.

The next six months were a blur of arduous daily lessons, frustrating repetition, and slow, incremental progress. He learned their language, Kamit, a complex and nuanced tongue. Gradually, he began to comprehend their customs, their beliefs, and their history.

He also learned about the unsettling differences between the men and women of the Kamit. The women were tall, strong, and intelligent, possessing a natural grace and authority. The men, however, were… different. They were short, squat, and hairy, with ape-like features and disturbingly prominent genitalia, quite obvious as they wore no clothes at all. Their intelligence seemed limited; they were relegated to simple tasks, such as tending crops and carrying heavy loads. They were, in a word, brutish.

Brutish they were in form, and so too in other matters. Drake had witnessed shocking evidence of it. Upon one occasion, he had stepped out of his hut and had seen, in the middle of the narrow street, a young woman on all fours, completely nude. And adding to the shock - a male was mounting her with all the strength and fury of a rutting bull.

Drake stood there in a state of complete disbelief as she let out an intense orgasmic scream with the final vicious thrust and collapsed in the dirt, a glazed look on her face. The brute grunted, filling the girl to overflowing with his copious seed. The male withdrew his huge phallus. Green semen bubbled from her distended slit as the beast staggered off in a state of complete siation.

A hand on his shoulder brought Drake out of his stupefaction. He turned to see Majanna staring at him. “You seem surprised,” she said. “Is it not done like this where you are from?”

Drake, now reasonably conversant in her language, looked at her, aghast. “Not in the middle of the street,” he stammered.

“The males become unruly when denied.” explained Majanna. “It keeps them happy, and as you saw, it is pleasant for us also. I’m surprised you haven’t mounted me like that.”

Drake was too aghast at her nonchalance to reply.

That had been several days ago. Currently, Drake was sitting on the beach of rose-colored sand beneath the shade of an overarching bronze-hued tree, thinking about everything he had learned. Another disturbing fact was the transformation that the male children underwent. As toddlers, they appeared normal, indistinguishable from the female children, except for the obvious differences in gender. But as they matured, they slowly devolved into the hulking, dim-witted creatures he saw around him.

He pondered the reasons for this disparity, his mind racing. He was a marine engineer by profession, not a biologist, but his curiosity was piqued. This world, Ikthon, as the Kamit called it, was a bizarre and unsettling place.

His current musings were interrupted by a summons. A female warrior, her face impassive, conducted him to Tarsu's hut and then to the room where he had first met the rega. He had at last achieved a passable fluency in Kamit, enough to hold a meaningful conversation.

"Avram Drake," Tarsu said, her voice surprisingly gentle as she gestured for him to sit on an adjacent stool. "Tell me about yourself. I admit you fascinate me. Majanna’s reports have been most favorable. You are a man, but one with intelligence equal to a woman, unlike our males who are little more than beasts. You are the kind of man that I and my sister would eagerly mate with," she concluded with a sultry expression as she raised her leg and placed her foot upon the seat, giving him an unimpeded view of her hairless slit.

“Um… I’m flattered,” replied the Earthman, taken aback by her frankness and her pose.

Drake, with considerable effort, managed to get his thoughts in order. With concise words, he sketched his childhood in England, his love of the sea; then of Earth, its oceans, continents, and cultures. He spoke of airplanes, cars, and computers, machines that were beyond her comprehension. He described the stars, the sun, the moon – concepts that were foreign to Tarsu as the glowing heavens veiled all celestial bodies. Tarsu listened, enthralled.

Then the pleasantness was violently shattered. War horns blared dramatically, their strident bellowing swiftly followed by a deafening explosion. The building shook. Dust fell from the high ceiling.

"The Ux!" Tarsu screamed, her eyes flashing with fury as she leaped to her feet. "We are under attack!"

They rushed outside to a scene of chaos. Scaly gray humanoids, their yellow eyes burning with malevolent glee, poured through a shattered gate in the village’s enclosing wall. The explosion had breached their defenses. The Ux were armed with bronze spears and oval shields, their movements swift and determined. Drake recognized the acrid smell of gunpowder hanging in the air. But there was no time to puzzle over how explosives could exist in a society of bronze age technology.

The Kamit women, warriors from a young age, met the Ux onslaught with ferocity while their dullard men milled about in wide-eyed confusion. The Amazons fought with controlled fury, their spears finding their marks with deadly accuracy. Drake watched, horrified, as the battle raged.

A scaly warrior rushed at him, spear thrusting like a bayonet. Drake ducked the stab. He snatched up dirt and threw it into his attacker’s face. The Ux warrior hissed in pain. Drake tore the spear from its weakened grip and thrust. The lizard-man fell, blood gushing from the fatal wound. Reality became a series of wildly attacking figures, of viciously thrusting weapons, of screams and blood, and death.

Drake, drenched in sweat and gore, jerked his spear from the latest of his slain opponents. Breathing hard and muscles trembling from exertion, he turned and saw that the Kamit, despite being outnumbered, had managed to repel the Ux attack. The scaly humanoids were retreating through the shattered gate, carrying their wounded with them. But the victory was bittersweet.

He saw Tarsu searching frantically among the fallen, her face etched with worry. Then, she let out a cry of despair.

"Majanna! She is gone!"

Majanna, Tarsu's younger sister, was neither among the dead nor the living. She had been kidnapped by the Ux, likely for sacrifice to Hokkom, their vile god. Drake tried to comfort Tarsu, but she was inconsolable; her grief was raw and profound.

"The men are useless!" she lamented to Drake, her voice filled with bitterness. "If they could fight, we would have more than enough combatants to attack the Ux village and rescue my sister. But they are too stupid to be trained as warriors!"

In a profound moment, Drake suddenly understood. He remembered the nightly ritual, an integral part of the Kamit religion - the communal drinking of a potent herbal concoction that induced visions of the spirit world. He realized that the drug must be the key. It must interfere with the development of the male children, deforming them and inhibiting their intelligence.

He explained his theory to Tarsu, his words tumbling over each other in his eagerness. "The drug! It's affecting the males! They need to stop drinking it!"

Tarsu listened, her eyes widening with understanding. Desperate to save her sister and protect her people, she agreed. She announced a new edict: henceforth, the drug was forbidden to all males.

The effect of the ban was almost immediate. Within days, the men began to change. Their brutish features softened, their posture straightened, and a spark of intelligence flickered in their eyes. Their speech became clearer, more articulate. They began to understand complex ideas, to reason, to strategize.

Tarsu, with Drake's assistance, organized the men into a fighting force. They trained with the women, learning to wield spears and shields. They became warriors, not just in body but also in mind.

Together, the Kamit, men and women united, prepared for battle. Their war canoes had been scuttled by the Ux, but the scaly humanoids hadn’t known of Drake’s yacht, and so, under the cover of darkness, when the luminous sky dimmed to a radiance as soft as moonlight, the avenging warriors piled onto the Intrepid and set sail for the island of the lizard-men.

By now, Drake knew that the world of Ikthon was a world of islands, some small and others very large. The Kamit were familiar with about five, which lay within a hundred nautical-mile radius of their homeland. All had been settled by a variety of intelligent humanoids, with the Ux being the most aggressive species that periodically raided their neighbors for sacrificial victims.

After about two hours, they arrived undetected at the island of Uxom, the home of the enemy. Most of the journey had been made under the power of the yacht’s engines for speed; then, when near, by sail for the sake of stealth. Silently, the Intrepid glided into a small lagoon where the anchor was quietly lowered. The rescue party swam ashore, and after fifteen minutes of creeping through the jungle, arrived at the foe’s village. The Ux, confident that the Kamits could not pursue them due to the scuttling of their canoes, had left their walls unguarded. They were all busy preparing for the sacrificial ritual in which Majanna would be killed.

Drake climbed a tall, palm-like tree so he could peer into the village, which was surrounded by a high circular stone wall. Looking down from the advantage of height, he saw that the Ux huts were of circular design, with woven walls and tall thatched roofs resembling witches' hats, the ‘brims’ forming an encircling veranda.

But what really drew his attention was located in the middle of the compound: it was the wreckage of a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. Drake remembered that on December 5, 1945, Flight 19, which consisted of five of these aircraft, had mysteriously vanished over the Bermuda Triangle. Here was the explanation for these Bronze Age beings having gunpowder: at least one of the airmen had survived and, for whatever reason, had passed on the knowledge of its manufacture.

What was left of the aircraft’s fuselage rested on a stone platform carved with images of Hokkom, the hideous reptilian god of the Ux. The bomber had become a fetish - an object of fanatical veneration associated with the tribal deity. Drake’s gaze shifted. Majanna was bound spreadeagled to an altar beneath the plane’s bent propeller. She screamed in fear as the leering shaman-chief of the lizard-men drew a painted line between her naked breasts and to her hairless cleft - a guide to the slicing blade that would eviscerate her. Drake, sick with fear, bit back a curse. The bloody ceremony was fast approaching, for the entire village had gathered before the wreckage.

His reconnaissance complete, Drake swiftly descended the tree and rapidly explained the perilous situation and the layout of the village to Tarsu.

“We have to move quickly,” he urged in a hurried conclusion. “Not much time remains.”

The rega nodded and rapidly issued orders. The Kamit men, their newfound confidence and intelligence burning brightly within them, ran forward and swiftly cast wooden grappling hooks that caught on the crenellations of the wall.

Drums began to thunder. The horrid ritual had commenced. It spurred the men as they scrambled up the ropes, their long, powerful arms enabling them to climb with the swift agility of primates as Majanna struggled desperately against her bonds.

The hideous shaman-chief loomed over the girl. The horrid creature’s knife was poised to plunge between her heaving sweat slick breasts. Eyes wide with terror, Majanna stared at the glinting bronze. The girl screamed as the dagger was about to strike; then another wild cry of swift alarm rang out. The shaman-chief jumped in fright; the blade was arrested by the frenzied shout. Majanna turned her head. Dimly, she saw brawny figures by the gate, swinging it wide. Hissing lizard-men rushed to stop them, but it was too little, too late. The way was open, and Kamit warriors, savage cries of hot revenge bursting from their throats, stormed the village in a surge of righteous fury.

A fierce battle erupted with all the violent force of an explosion as the two mortal enemies came together in a savage clash of arms. Shrieks of agony filled the air. Scaly warriors fell. The earth was watered with spurting gore. The Ux, caught completely by surprise, fought with all the wildness of desperate ferocity. But the Kamit were too strong, too disciplined, and too driven by their desire for vengeance to be easily repelled.

In the chaos of brutal bloodshed, Tarsu and Drake, with six other Kamit warriors, fought their way through the raging fighters to the sacrificial altar. The Earthman blocked a savage blow with his shield. He thrust his scaly foe through the throat with his spear as Tarsu felled another leaping enemy.

A gap opened in the swirling melee, and through it, Drake saw a frightening sight illuminated by the lurid light of leaping flames, for someone had set several huts ablaze. The shaman-chief, having recovered from the shock of the surprise attack and seeing that the tide of battle had turned against the Ux, was about to complete the bloody ritual in a desperate bid to gain the intervention of Hokkom.

The horrid creature could be clearly seen in the crimson firelight. It stood over the whimpering girl, the glittering blade raised high above its head in preparation for the gutting stroke. Majanna screamed in wild fear. But before the shaman-chief could complete the brutal act, Drake’s spear, hurled with all his skill and strength, struck the creature in the center of its scaly chest.

The shaman-chief toppled backward as Drake raced forward and began hacking at the ropes that bound the fainting girl. Tarsu swiftly joined him, and with her help, Majanna was quickly freed from her bonds as the accompanying warriors protected them with shields.

With her sister safe Tarsu hacked off the shaman-chief’s head, impaled it on her spear and raised the gory object high for all to see. A great wailing cry of despair was uttered by the Ux when they realized that their spiritual and temporal leader had been slain. The Kamit warriors cheered at the sight. Thus inspired, they redoubled the ferocity of their attack and drove back their demoralized opponents.

Drake, Majanna in his arms and protected by his companions, rejoined the main body of the Kamit fighters. With her sister safe, Tarsu sounded her war-horn, and the Kamit warriors began an orderly withdrawal, leaving the Ux village in complete chaos and burning brightly in the darkness.

By the time they reached the lagoon where the Intrepid was anchored, Majanna had recovered sufficiently to walk. But as Drake set the girl on her feet, a tremendous explosion shook the earth, and she clung to him, her fear renewed.

“What was that?” she cried.

“It’s all right,” soothed Drake. “The fire must have reached the stored explosives. Further destruction has been wrought upon the enemy. It will be a long time before they recover from this disaster.”

“Then our revenge is complete,” announced Tarsu as she hugged her sister. “Let us swiftly depart from this place of death and evil.”

**********

They returned to their island, victorious and without incident.

The celebrations lasted for days. Tarsu and Majanna, their faces radiant with joy and gratitude, turned to Drake, who sat next to them, watching the dancers, whose dramatic leaps and twirls were as wild as the throbbing of the drums.

"Avram Drake," said Tarsu, her voice soft and full of warmth. "You have saved my sister, my people. Stay with us, and share your knowledge so we can be better than we are. As an incentive, Majanna and I wish to marry you in a polygamous union. Before, our men were brutish, and we had no desire to bind ourselves to them; thus, wedlock was an unknown custom until you told us about it."

Drake was considerably surprised by the unexpected proposal, but as he looked into the two women’s eyes and saw their character, their intelligence, and their unwavering spirit, he knew he would be a fool to turn the offer down. He thought of his old life, the humdrum monotony of it, broken only by an occasional holiday, and he suddenly realized that he would not go back to Earth even if he could. He belonged here, with Tarsu and Majanna, in this strange, savage, and beautiful world.

"I accept," he said, his voice filled with conviction as he put aside his inhibitions. "I will stay. I will be a husband to both of you and your helper."

And so, Avram Drake, the lonely sailor who had stumbled into another world, began his new life, a life of adventure, of love, and of leadership, on the primitive and savage world of Ikthon. His journey had just begun.

The End