by Jack Vance
Reith agreed to pay for energy and a reasonable amount for provisions, but not the installation of new water tanks, extra foul-weather gear, good-luck fetishes for the prow; furthermore he insisted on departure the following day, at which Hrostilfe gave a sour chuckle. “There’s one in the eye for the old Lokhar. He had counted on swanking it a week or more at the Sea Dragon.”
“He can stay as long as he likes,” said Reith, “provided that he pays.”
“Small chance of that,” chuckled Hrostilfe. “Well then, what about provisions?”
“Buy them. Show me an itemized tally, which I will check in detail.”
“I need an advance: a hundred sequins.”
“Do you take me for a fool? Remember, tomorrow noon we leave.”
“The Pibar will be ready,” said Hrostilfe in a sullen voice.
Returning to the Sea Dragon Inn, Reith found Anacho on the terrace. Anacho pointed to a black-haired shape leaning against the seawall. “There he stands: Helsse. I called him by name. It was as if he never heard.”
Helsse turned his head; his face seemed deathly white. For a moment or two he watched them, then turned and walked slowly away.
At noon the travelers embarked on the Pibar. Hrostilfe gave his passengers a brisk welcome. Reith looked skeptically here and there, wondering in what fashion Hrostilfe thought he had won advantage for himself. “Where are the provisions?”
“In the main saloon.”
Reith examined boxes and crates, checked them against Hrostilfe’s tally sheet, and was forced to admit that Hrostilfe had secured good merchandise at no great price. But why, he wondered, were they not stored forward in the lazaret? He tried the door, and found it locked.
Interesting, thought Reith. He called Hrostilfe: “Best to stow the stores forward in the lazaret, before we start pitching to the waves.”
“All in good time!” declared Hrostilfe. “First things first! Now it’s important that we make the most of the morning current!”
“But it will only require a moment. Here, open the door; I will do it myself.”
Hrostilfe made a waggish gesture. “I am the most finicky of seamen. Everything must be done just so.”
Zarfo, who had come into the saloon, gave the lazaret door a speculative frown. Reith said, “Very well then, just as you like.” Zarfo started to speak but catching Reith’s gaze, shrugged and held his tongue.
Hrostilfe nimbly hopped here and there, casting off lines, starting the jet, and finally jumping into the control pulpit. The boat surged out to sea.
Reith spoke to Traz, who went to stand behind Hrostilfe. Bringing forth his catapult Traz checked its action, dropped a bolt into the slot, cocked it and hung it loosely at his belt.
Hrostilfe grimaced. “Careful, boy! A foolhardy way to carry your catapult!”
Traz seemed not to hear.
Reith, after a word or two with Zarfo and Anacho, went to the foredeck. Setting fire to some old rags, he held them in the forward ventilator, so that smoke poured down into the lazaret.
Hrostilfe cried out in anger: “What nonsense is this? Are you trying to set us afire?”
Reith set more rags burning and dropped them into the ventilator. From below came a choked cough, then a mutter of voices and a stamping of feet. Hrostilfe jerked his hand toward his pouch, but noticed Traz’s intent gaze and his ready catapult.
Reith sauntered aft. Traz said, “His weapon is in his pouch.”
Hrostilfe stood rigid with dismay. He made a sudden move but stopped short as Traz jerked up the catapult. Reith detached the pouch, handed it to Traz, took two daggers and a poniard from various parts of Hrostilfe’s person. “Go below,” said Reith. “Open the door to the lazaret. Instruct your friends to come forth one at a time.”
Hrostilfe, gray-faced with fury, hopped below and, after an exchange of threats with Reith, opened the door. Six ruffians came forth, to be disarmed by Anacho and Zarfo and sent up to the deck where Reith thrust them over the side.
The lazaret at last was empty of all but smoke. Hrostilfe was hustled up on deck, where he became unctuous and over reasonable. “All can be explained! A ridiculous misunderstanding!” But Reith refused to listen and Hrostilfe joined his fellows over the side, where, after shaking his fist and bellowing obscenities at the grinning faces aboard the Pibar, he struck out for the shore.
“It appears,” said Reith, “that we now lack a navigator. In what direction lies Zara?”
Zarfo’s manner was very subdued. He pointed a gnarled black finger. “That should be our heading.” He turned to look aft toward the seven bobbing heads. “Incomprehensible to me, the greed of men for money! See to what disasters it leads!” And Zarfo gave a sanctimonious cluck of the tongue. “Well then, an unfortunate incident, happily in the past. And now we command the Pibar! Ahead: Zara, the Ish River, and Smargash!”
* * *
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALL DURING THE first day the Parapan was serene. The second day was brisk with the Pibar pitching up and over a short chop. On the third day a black-brown cloud loomed out of the west, stabbing the sea with lightning. Wind came in massive gusts; for two hours the Pibar heaved and tossed; then the storm passed over, and the Pibar drove into clement weather.
On the fourth day Kachan loomed ahead. Reith steered the Pibar alongside a fishing craft and Zarfo asked the direction of Zara. The fisherman, a swarthy old man with steel rings in his ears, pointed wordlessly. The Pibar surged forward, entering the Ish estuary at sunset. The lights of Zara flickered along the western shore, but now, with no reason to put into port, the Pibar continued south up the Ish.
The pink moon Az shone on the water; all night the Pibar drove. Morning found them in a rich country with rows of stately keel trees along the banks. Then the land began to grow barren, and for a space the river wound through a cluster of obsidian spires. On the next day a band of tall men in black cloaks were seen on the riverbank. Zarfo identified them as Niss tribesmen. They stood motionless, watching the Pibar surge upstream. “Give them a wide berth! They live in holes like night-hounds and some say the night-hounds are kinder.”
Late in the afternoon sand dunes closed in upon the river and Zarfo insisted that the Pibar be anchored in deep water for the night. “Ahead are sandbars and shallows. We would be certain to run aground and undoubtedly the Niss have followed. They would grapple the boat and swarm aboard.”
“Won’t they attack us if we lay at anchor?”
“No, they fear deep water and never use boats. At anchor we are as safe as if we were already at Smargash.”
The night was clear with both Az and Braz wheeling through the sky of old Tschai. On the riverbank the Niss boldly lit their fires and boiled their pots, and later started up a wild music of fiddles and drums. For hours the travelers sat watching the agile shapes in black cloaks dancing around the fires, kicking, jumping, heads up, heads low; swinging, whirling, prancing with arms akimbo.
In the morning the Niss were nowhere to be seen. The Pibar passed through the shallows without incident. Late in the afternoon the travelers came to a village, guarded from the Niss by a line of posts to each of which was chained a skeleton in a rotting black cloak. Zarfo declared the village to be the feasible limit of navigation with Smargash yet three hundred miles south, across a land of deserts, mountain pinnacles and chasms. “Now we must travel by caravan, over the old Sarsazm Road, to Hamil Zut under the Lokhara Uplands. Tonight I’ll make inquiry and learn what’s to our advantage.”
Zarfo stayed ashore overnight, returning in the morning with the news that by dint of the most furious bargaining he had exchanged the Pibar for first class passage by caravan to Hamil Zut.
Reith calculated. Three hundred miles? Two hundred sequins a person, at maximum: eight hundred for the four. The Pibar was worth ten thousand, even at a sacrifice price. He looked at Zarfo, who ingenuously returned the gaze. “You will recall,” said Reith, “the ill feeling and dissension at Kabasas?”
“Of c
ourse,” declared Zarfo. “To this day I become anguished by the injustice of your hints.”
“Here is another hint. How much extra did you demand for the Pibar and receive?”
Zarfo gave an uneasy grimace. “Naturally, I was saving the news to be a glad surprise.”
“How much?”
“Three thousand sequins,” muttered Zarfo. “No more, no less. I consider it a fair price up here, far from wealth.”
Reith allowed the figure to pass without challenge. “Where is the money?”
“It will be paid when we go ashore.”
“And when does the caravan leave?”
“Soon-a day or so. There is a passable inn; we can spend the night ashore.”
“Very well; let us all go now and collect the money.”
Somewhat to Reith’s surprise the sack which Zarfo received from the innkeeper contained exactly three thousand sequins, and Zarfo gave a sour sneer and, going into the tavern, called for a pot of ale.
Three days later the caravan started south: a file of twelve power wagons, four mounted with sandblasts. Sarsazm Road led through awesome scenery: gorges and great precipices, the bed of an ancient sea, vistas of distant mountains, sighing forests of keel and blackfern. Occasionally Niss were sighted but they kept their distance and on the evening of the third day the caravan pulled into Hamil Zut, a squalid little town of a hundred mud huts and a dozen taverns.
In the morning Zarfo engaged pack-beasts, equipment and a pair of guides, and the travelers set forth up the trail into the Lokharan highlands.
“This is wild country,” Zarfo warned them. “Dangerous beasts are occasionally seen, so be ready with your weapons.”
The trail was steep, the terrain indeed wild. On several occasions they sighted Kar Yan, subtle gray beasts slinking through the rocks, sometimes erect on two legs, sometimes dropping to all six. Another time they encountered a tiger-headed reptile gorging upon a carcass, and were able to pass unmolested.
On the third day after leaving Hamil Zut, the travelers entered Lokhara, a great upland plain; and in the mid-afternoon Smargash appeared ahead. Zarfo now told Reith: “It occurs to me, as it must have to you, that yours is a very ticklish venture.”
“Agreed.”
“Folk here are not indifferent to the Wankh, and a stranger might easily talk to the wrong people.”
So.
“It might be better for me to select the personnel.”
“Certainly. But leave the question of payment to me.”
“As you wish,” growled Zarfo.
The countryside was now a prosperous well-watered land, populated by peasant farms. The men, like Zarfo, were tattooed or dyed black, with a mane of white hair. The skins of the women, in contradistinction, were chalky white, and their hair was black. Urchins showed white or black hair according to their sex, but their skins were uniformly the color of the dirt in which they played.
A road ran on a riverbank, under majestic old keels. To either side were small bungalows, each in its bower of vines and shrubs. Zarfo sighed with vast feeling. “Observe me, the transient worker returning to his home. But where is my fortune? How may I buy my cottage by the river? Poverty has forced me to strange ways; I am thrown in with a stone-hearted zealot, who takes his joy thwarting the hopes of a kind old man!”
Reith paid no heed, and presently they entered Smargash.
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
REITH SAT IN the parlor of the squat cylindrical cottage he had rented, overlooking the Smargash common, where the young folk spent much time dancing.
Across from him, in wicker chairs, sat five white-haired men of Smargash, a group screened from the twenty Zarfo originally had approached. The time was middle afternoon; out on the common, dancers skipped and kicked to music of concertina, bells and drums.
Reith explained as much of his program as he dared: not a great deal. “You men are here because you can help me in a certain venture. Zarfo Detwiler has informed you that a large sum of money is involved; this is true, even if we fail. If we succeed, and I believe the chances are favorable, you will earn wealth sufficient to satisfy any of you. There is danger, as might be expected, but we shall hold it to a minimum. If anyone does not care to consider such a venture, now is the time to leave.”
The oldest of the group, one Jag Jaganig, an expert in the overhaul and installation of control systems, said, “So far we can’t say yes or no. None of us would refuse to drag home a sack of sequins, but neither would we care to challenge impossibility for a chancy bice.”
“You want more information?” Reith looked from face to face. “This is natural enough. But I don’t want to take the merely curious into my confidence. If any of you are definitely not disposed for a dangerous but by no means desperate venture, please identify yourself now.”
There was a slight stir of uneasiness, but no one spoke out.
Reith waited a moment. “Very well; you must bind yourselves to secrecy.”
The group bound themselves by awful Lokhar oaths. Zarfo, plucking a hair from each head, twisted a fiber which he set alight. Each inhaled the smoke. “So we are bound, one to all; if one proves false, the others as one will strike him down.”
Reith, impressed by the ritual, had no more qualms about speaking to the point. “I know the exact location of a source of wealth, at a place not on the planet Tschai. We need a spaceship and a crew to operate it. I propose to commandeer a spaceship from the Ao Hidis field; you men shall be the crew. To demonstrate my sanity and good faith, I will pay to each man on the day of departure five thousand sequins. If we try but fail, each man receives another five thousand sequins.”
“Each surviving man,” grumbled Jag Jaganig.
Reith went on: “If we succeed, ten thousand sequins will seem like ten bice. Essentially, this is the scope of the venture.”
The Lokhars shuffled dubiously in their chairs. Jag Jaganig spoke. “We obviously have the basis for an adequate crew here, at least for a Zeno, or a Kud, or even one of the small Kadants. But it is no small matter to so affront the Wankh.”
“Or worse, the Wankhmen,” muttered Zorofim.
“As I recall,” mused Thadzei, “no great vigilance prevailed. The scheme, while startling, seems feasible-provided that the ship we board is in operative condition.”
“Aha!” exclaimed Belje. “That’ provided that’ is the key to the entire exploit!”
Zarfo jeered: “Naturally there is risk. Do you expect money for nothing?”
“I can hope.”
Jag Jaganig inquired: “Assume that the ship is ours. Is further risk entailed?”
“None.”
“Who will navigate?”
“I will.”
“In what form is this ‘wealth’?” demanded Zorofim. “Gems? Sequins? Precious metal? Antiques? Essences?”
“I don’t care to go any further into detail, except to guarantee that you will not be disappointed.”
The discussion proceeded, with every aspect of the venture subjected to attack and analysis. Alternative proposals were considered, argued, rejected. No one seemed to regard the risk as overwhelming, nor did anyone doubt the group’s ability to handle the ship. But none evinced enthusiasm. Jag Jaganig put the situation into focus. “We are puzzled,” he told Reith. “We do not understand your purposes. We are skeptical of boundless treasures.”
Zarfo said, “Here I must speak. Adam Reith has his faults which I won’t deny. He is stubborn and unwieldy; he is crafty as a zut; he is ruthless when opposed. But he is a man of his word. If he declares a treasure to exist for our taking, that aspect of the matter is closed.”
After a moment Belje muttered: “Desperate, desperate! Who wants to learn the truth of the black boxes?”
“Desperate, no,” countered Thadzei. “Risky, yes, and may demons runoff with the black boxes!”
“I’ll take the chance,” said Zorofim.
“I as well,” said jag Jaganig. “Who lives forever?”
Belje finally capitulated and declared himself committed. “When shall we leave?”
“As soon as possible,” said Reith. “The longer I wait, the more nervous I get.”
“And more the chance of someone else running off with our treasure, hey?” exclaimed Zarfo. “That would be a sad case!”
“Give us three days to arrange our affairs,” said Jag Jaganig.
“And what of the five thousand sequins?” demanded Thadzei. “Why not distribute the money now, so that we may have the use of it?”
Reith hesitated no longer than a tenth of a second. “Since you must trust me, I must trust you.” He paid to each of the marveling Lokhars fifty purple sequins, worth a hundred white sequins each.
“Excellent!” declared jag Jaganig. “Remember all! Utter discretion! Spies are everywhere. In particular I distrust that peculiar stranger at the inn who dresses like a Yao.”
“What?” cried Reith. “A young man, black-haired, very elegant.
“The person precisely. He stares out over the dancing field with never a word to say.”
Reith, Zarfo, Anacho and Traz went to the inn. In the dim taproom sat Helsse, long legs in tight black twill breeches stretched under the heavy table. Brooding, he looked straight ahead and out the doorway to where black-skinned white-haired boys and white-skinned blackhaired girls skipped and caracoled in the tawny sunlight.
Reith said: “Helsse!”
Helsse never shifted his gaze.
Reith came closer. “Helsse!”
Helsse slowly turned his head; Reith looked into eyes like lenses of black glass.
“Speak to me,” urged Reith. “Helsse! Speak!”
Helsse opened his mouth, uttered a mournful croak. Reith drew back. Helsse watched him incuriously, then returned to his inspection of the dancing field and the dim hills beyond.
