by Jack Vance
The thought of ahulphs urged him to his feet. When sure of a trail, they moved swiftly; he was not yet beyond their reach.
He found that his legs had become stiff, and his feet ached. He should never have seated himself to rest. As fast as he was able, he limped on down the road into Seamus.
An hour before dawn he passed a village: a dozen cottages around a small neat square paved with slabs of slate. To the rear stood silos, a warehouse, and the bulbous tanks of a small brewery. A three-story building beside the road was evidently an inn. Folk were already astir in the cook shed to the rear; Etzwane saw the blink of a fire. Beside the inn waited three large vans loaded with fresh white butts and tubs of Shimrod Forest larch destined for one or another of the distilleries. From the stable behind the inn a groom was bringing draft animals: bullocks derived from terrestrial beef stock, placid and dependable but slow.[****] Etzwane dodged past, hoping not to be seen in the predawn murk.
The road ahead crossed a flat waste strewn with rocks. No shelter was visible, nor any plantation from which he might have gleaned a bite or two of nourishment. His spirits dropped to their lowest ebb; he felt as if he could walk no more; his throat was parched, and his stomach ached with hunger. Only fear of the ahulph restrained him from seeking a hidden spot among the rocks in which to make himself a bed of dry leaves. Finally fatigue overcame the fear. He could walk no longer. He stumbled to a spot behind a ledge of rotten shale. Wrapping himself in his robe, he lay down to rest. He lapsed into a numb daze, something other than sleep.
A grating, grumbling sound aroused him: the passage of the vans. The suns were an hour into the sky; though he had not slept, or thought he had not slept, daylight had come without his notice.
The vans passed by and rumbled away into the west. Etzwane jumped up to look after them, thinking that here was an opportunity to confuse the ahulphs. The teamsters rode on the forward benches and could not see to the rear. Etzwane ran to catch up. He swung himself aboard the last van and sat with his feet hanging over the bed. After a few moments he drew himself farther back into a convenient crevice. He intended to ride only a mile or two, then jump down, but so convenient and comfortable was his seat, so restful and secure seemed the dark nook, that he became drowsy and fell asleep.
Etzwane awoke and blinked out from his cranny at a pair of unrecognizable rectangles, one impinged on the other. The first blazed lavender-white; the second was a panel of striated dark green. Etzwane's mind moved sluggishly. What was this odd scene? He crawled slowly to the back of the van, his mind still fuzzy. The white was the wall of a whitewashed building in the full glare of noon sunlight. The dark green panel was the side of a van thrust across his field of vision. Etzwane remembered where he was. He had been asleep; the cessation of motion had wakened him. How far had he come? Probably to Carbade, in Seamus. Not the best place to be if the oddments of information he had picked up along Rhododendron Way were to be believed. The folk of Seamus reputedly gave nothing and took whatever might be had. Etzwane climbed stiffly from the van. Best to be on his way before he was discovered. No more fear of the ahulphs, at any rate.
From not too far away came the sound of voices. Etzwane slipped around the van, confronting a black-bearded man with hollow white cheeks and round blue eyes. He wore a teamster's black canvas trousers, a dirty white vest with wooden buttons; he stood with legs apart, hands held up in surprise. He seemed pleased rather than angry. "And what have we here in this young bandit? So this is how they train them, to raid the cargo hardly before the wheels come to a stop. And not even a torc around his neck."
Etzwane spoke in a tremulous voice, that he tried to hold grave and earnest. "I stole nothing, sir; I rode only a short way in the van."
"That's theft of transportation," declared the teamster. "You admit the fact yourself. Well, then, come along."
Etzwane shrank back. "Come along where?"
"Where you'll learn a useful trade. I'm doing you a favor."
"I have a trade!" cried Etzwane. "I'm a musician! See! Here is my khitan!"
"You're nothing without your torc. Come along."
Etzwane tried to dodge away; the teamster caught him by the gown. Etzwane kicked and struggled; the teamster cuffed him, then held him off. "Do you want worse? Mind your manners!" He pulled at the khitan; the instrument fell to the ground where the neck snapped away from the box.
Etzwane gave a stifled cry and stared down at the tangle of wood and string. The teamster seized his arm and marched him into the depot to a table where four men sat at a gaming board. Three were teamsters; the fourth was a Seam, the conical straw hat pushed up from his round red face.
"A vagabond in my van," said Etzwane's captor. "Looks to be bright and lively; no torc, notice; what should I do to help him?"
The four gave Etzwane a silent inspection.
One of the teamsters grunted and turned back to the dice. "Let the lad go his way. He doesn't want your help."
"Ah, but you're wrong! Every citizen of the realm must toil; ask the job-broker here. What do you say, job-broker?"
The Seam leaned back in his chair, pushed his hat back at a precarious angle. "He's undersized; he looks unruly. Still, I suppose I can get him a post, perhaps up at Angwin. Twenty florins?"
"For the sake of quick business—done."
The Seam rose ponderously to his feet He signaled to Etzwane. "Come along."
Etzwane was confined in a closet for the better part of a day, then marched to a wagon and conveyed a mile south of Carbade to the balloon-way depot. Half an hour later the southbound balloon Misran appeared, wind on a broad reach, the dolly singing up the slot. Observing the semaphore, the wind-tender eased his forward cables, allowing the Misran to fall broadside to the wind and. lose way. A quarter mile down the slot from the depot the tackle-man hooked a drag to the dolly, brought it to a halt, pinned the after trucks with an anchor-bolt. The spreader-bar was detached; the balloon-guys were slipped into snatch-blocks on the front trucks; now the Judas dolly was hauled south along the slot, pulling the balloon to the ground.
Etzwane was taken to the gondola and put into the charge of the wind-tender. The Judas-dolly was rolled back along the track and engaged with the spreader-bar, the balloon rising once more to its running altitude. The anchor-pin was removed from the after trucks. Front trucks, thirty-foot spreader-bar, and after trucks constituted the working-dolly; the Misran once more rode free. The wind-tender winched in the forward guys, warping the balloon across the wind; off and away up the slot sang the dolly, gathering speed, and Carbade was left behind.[††††]
For Etzwane, the world of his daydreams was gone and lost irrevocably, like last year's flowers. He knew something of the balloon-way work-gangs; their lots were drudgery and compulsion. Technically free men, in practice they were seldom able to pay off their indentures. The condition of Etzwane was even worse; without a torc he had no status; he could appeal to no one; the work-master could set any value he chose on Etzwane's indenture. Once clamped with a torc, the Faceless Man would enforce the terms of his contract. Foreboding lay like a stone in his stomach; he felt numb and confused.
Deep inside his mind a voice began to yell. He would run away. He had escaped the Chilites; he would evade the work-gang. What had his mother told him? "Defeat adversities rather than accept them." Never would he let himself be victimized; after they clamped on his torc, he would win his way to Garwiy and there make a case to the Faceless Man: both for himself and his mother. He would ask a terrible punishment for the teamster who broke his khitan; he had neglected to notice the teamster's torc, but never would he forget the pale, black-bearded face!
Stimulated by his hate and his resolve, he began to take an interest in the balloon and the landscape: low rolling hills rippling with ripe barley, cylindrical stone farm places, round grain towers, and, at intervals, the breweries, with their curious bulging tanks.
During the middle afternoon the wind shifted forward; the wind-tender winched in his forward g
uy, to close-haul the balloon; driven closer to the ground, he canted the bridles to provide lift, to raise the Misran into a clear stream of air.
The rolling barley fields gave way to rocky hills splotched with thickets of blue and dark orange fester-shrub, from which the ancient ahulphs had cut their weapons. To the south rose the Hwan, the great central spine of Shant, across which ran the Great Transverse Route. Late in the afternoon the Misran rushed up the last steep ten miles of slot and reached Angwin North Station where a work-gang shifted the guys to a shackle on a mile-long endless cable suspended across a gorge. The work-gang turned a windlass, the Misran was guided sedately up to Angwin Junction where the North Spur joined the Great Transverse Route. The guys were shifted to another endless loop, reaching across an even more stupendous gorge to Angwin proper, and here the Misran descended. The wind-tender took Etzwane to the Angwin superintendent, who at first grumbled. "What kind of whiffets and sad bantlings are they sending me now? Where can I use him? He lacks weight to push a windlass; also, I don't like the look in his eye."
The wind-tender shrugged and glanced down at Etzwane. "He's a bit under the usual standard, but that's no business of mine. If you don't want him, I'll take him back down to Pertzel."
"Hmmf. Not so fast. What's his price?"
"Pertzel wants two hundred."
"For a creature like that? I'll give a hundred."
That's not my instructions."
"Instructions be damned. Pertzel's using us both for fools. Leave the creature here. If Pertzel won't take a hundred, pick him up on your next trip. Meanwhile, I'll hold off his torc."
"A hundred is cheap. He'll grow; he's nimble; he can switch as many shackles as can a man."
This I realize. He'll go across to Junction, and I'll bring the top man over here for the windlass."
The wind-tender laughed. "So you're getting a windlass-man for the price of a hundred-florin boy?"
The superintendent grinned. "Don't tell Pertzel that."
"Not I. It's between the two of you."
"Good. Ride him back to Junction; I'll flash over a message." He frowned down at Etzwane. "What's expected of you, boy, is brisk, accurate work. Do your stint and the balloon-way is not so bad. If you shirk or perform, you'll find me harsh as hackle-bush...."
Etzwane rode back across the gorge to Angwin Junction. The Misran was hauled down by a hand-winch, a blond stocky youth not much older than Etzwane turning the crank.
Etzwane was put down; the Misran rose once more into the gathering dusk and was hauled down over the gorge to North Station, on the North Spur.
The blond youth took Etzwane into a low stone shed where two young men sat at a table eating a supper of broad-beans and tea. The blond youth announced: "Here's the new hand. What's your name, lad?"
"I am Gastel Etzwane."
"Gastel Etzwane it is. I am Finnerack; yonder is Ishiel the Mountain Poet, and he with the long face is Dickon. Will you eat? Our fare is not the best: beans and bread and tea, but it's better than going hungry."
Etzwane took a plate of beans, which were barely warm. Finnerack jerked his thumb to the east. "Old Dagbolt rations our fuel, not to mention our water, provisions, and everything else worth using."
Dickon spoke in a surly voice: "Now I'll have to go grind windlass under Dagbolt's very nose. No talk, no chaffer; quiet, orderly work, that's Dagbolt for you. Here at least a man can spit in any direction he chooses."
'It's the same for all of us," said Ishiel. "In a year or two they'll bring me across, then it will be Finnerack's turn. And in the course of five or six years Gastel Etzwane will make the change, and we'll be reunited."
"Not if I can avoid it," said Dickon. "I'll put in for slot-cleaning duty and at least be on the move. If Dagbolt turns me down, I'll become the premier gambler of the Junction. Never fear, lads, I'll be out of my indenture before ten years have passed."
"My good wishes," remarked Finnerack. "You've won all my money; I hope you get the service of it."
In the morning Finnerack instructed Etzwane in his duties. He would stand shifts in turn with Finnerack and Ishiel. When a balloon passed along the Great Transverse Route, he must ease the clamp and shackle around the idler sheave. When a balloon came up the North Spur, or returned, the man on duty, using a claw-lever chained to the floor, hooked into the guys and switched the balloon from one cable to the other. As the youngest member of the crew, Etzwane was also required to oil the sheaves, keep the hut swept out, and boil the morning gruel. The work was neither arduous nor complicated; the crew had ample leisure, which they spent crocheting fancy vests for sale in the town and gambling with the proceeds to earn enough to pay off their indenture. Finnerack told Etzwane, "Over at Angwin, Dagbolt forbids gambling. He says he wants to stop the fights. Bah. From time to time some lucky chap wins enough to buy himself free, and that's the last thing Dagbolt wants."
Etzwane looked around the station. They stood on a bleak windswept ledge fifty yards across, directly below the stupendous mass of Mount Mish and between two gorges. Etzwane asked, "How long have you been here?"
"Two years," said Finnerack. "Dickon has been here eight."
Etzwane studied Mount Mish and was daunted: impossible to scale the crag that beetled over the station. The precipices that descended into the gorges were no less baleful. Finnerack gave a sad, knowing laugh. "You'd like to find a way down?"
"Yes, I would."
Finnerack showed neither surprise nor disapproval. "Now's the time, before they clamp on your torc. Don't think I haven't considered it, torc and all."
At the edge of the precipice they looked down and off across a gulf of air. "I've stood here by the hour," said Finnerack wistfully, "tracing how I'd climb down to the valley. From here down to that nose of red granite a person would need a length of rope, or he might scramble down that fissure, had he the nerve. Then he'd have to work himself across the face of that scarp—it looks worse than it is, I dare say. From there to that tumble of scree should not be impossible, and only hard work thereafter down to the valley floor. But then what? It's a hundred miles to a village, with no food nor water. And do you know what you'd find along the way?"
"Wild ahulph."
"I wasn't thinking of ahulph, but you'd find them, too, the wicked Phag brood." Finnerack searched the valley floor. "I saw one just the other day." He pointed. "Look! By that needle of black rock. I think there's a cave or a shelter there. It's where I saw the other."
Etzwane looked and thought to see a stir of movement. "What is it?"
"A Roguskhoi. Do you know what that is?"
"It's a kind of mountain savage that can't be controlled except by its yearning for strong drink."
"Great womanizers, as well. I've never seen one close at hand, and I hope I never do. What if they took it into their heads to climb up here? They'd chop us to bits!"
"Much to Dagbolt's horror," suggested Etzwane.
"Too right! He'd have to buy in three new in- dentures. He'd rather we'd die of overwork or old age."
Etzwane looked wistfully down the valley. "I had planned to be a musician. . . . Does anyone ever earn enough to buy off their indentures?"
"Dagbolt does his best to prevent it," said Finnerack. "He operates a commissary where he sells Seam beer, fruit, sweetmeats, and the like. When the men gamble, it always seems to be one of the career ratings who wins the money, and no one knows how they achieve such luck. One way or another, it's not all so bad. Perhaps I'll make a career myself. There are always jobs opening up below—on the windlass or as a slot-cleaner or motive man. If you learn electrics, you might get into communications. As for me, I'd like to be a wind-tender. Think of it!" Finnerack flung back his head, looked around the sky. "Up in the balloon, running the winches, with the dolly skirring along the slot below. There's sheer fun I And one day it's Pagane and Amaze, the next Garwiy, then off over the Great Transverse Route to Pelmonte and Whearn and the Blue Ocean."
"I suppose it's not a bad life," said Etzw
ane dubiously. "Still—" he could not bring himself to finish.
Finnerack shrugged. "Until they torc you, you're free to run off. Be sure I won't stop you, or Ishiel. In fact well lower you down the cliff. But it's terrible country, and you'd be going to your death. Still—were I you, without my torc, perhaps I'd try." He raised his head as a horn sounded. "Come along; a balloon is crossing over from Angwin."
They returned to the station. The shift was technically Etzwane's; Finnerack was standing by to break him in. The approaching balloon hung aslant the sky, lurching and bobbing as the cable drew it against the wind. The guys, fore and aft, were shackled to an iron ring, which in turn was chained to a grip on the drive-line. The ring bore a black marker, indicating that it must be switched down the North Spur. The grip entered the sheave and passed halfway around the circumference. Finnerack pushed an electric signal to the windlass chief at Angwin and threw a brake that halted the drive-line. He hooked the claw-lever into the ring, worked the arm to pull down the ring and loosen the grip. Etzwane transferred the grip to the North Spur line; Finnerack disengaged the lever-jack; the balloon now hung on the North Spur drive-line. Finnerack pushed the electric signal to the windlass at North Station; the drive-line tautened, the balloon drifted away on the south wind.
Half an hour later another balloon arrived from the east, lurching and straining to the breeze blowing down from Mount Mish. The grip passed across the idler sheave without attention from Finnerack or Etzwane; the balloon continued across the gorge to Anwin, thence on toward Garwiy.
Not long after, another balloon came in from the west, destined as before to the North Spur. Etzwane said to Finnerack, "This time let me do the whole transfer. You stand to the side and watch that I do everything correctly."
"Just as you like," said Finnerack. "I must say you're very keen."
"Yes," said Etzwane. 'Tm very keen indeed. I plan to take your advice."
