[Jan Darzek 04] - Silence is Deadly

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  Finally he stirred himself, slipping cautiously from the cart to allow the restlessly feverish Riklo to continue her sleep. He ate some dried meat, washing it down with pungent Kammian cider, and then he seated himself on a nearby sponge log to meditate.

  When Riklo awoke, still feverish, he tried unsuccessfully to feed her. Finally he decided that she herself was the best judge of what her alien physiology required. He returned to his log, and after a time she joined him there.

  “Feel like talking?” he asked her.

  “No. But I suppose we’d better.”

  “I’ll talk and you listen. Interrupt me when you feel like it. Just for a start, let’s consider a problem in Kammian psychology. You’re the Duke Merzkion. You have a pazul, an invincible death ray. Naturally this is the most valuable thing you own, so for safekeeping you put it in a room at the top of your castle and contrive a booby trap so the thing will kill anyone opening the door. Why?”

  She did not answer.

  “It’s a mystery to me,” Darzek went on meditatively. “But maybe it’s self-evident that this is the best way to protect a pazul. Let it protect itself. I assume there’d be a way to turn the thing on or off from outside the room. But consider this next step. There’s a mysterious stranger loose in your castle, and you suspect that he has designs on your pazul. Do you sit back, chuckling quietly to yourself, and wait for the pazul to kill him—as it did in fact kill another mysterious stranger a couple of nights earlier? You do not. You rush an armed guard to the spot. Is the guard supposed to protect the pazul, which doesn’t need any protection?”

  Again Riklo did not answer.

  “Obviously the guard was there to guard something. If it wasn’t the pazul, which didn’t need it, was there something else of value in that tower? And if there was something else of value there, why wasn’t the pazul placed to guard that along with itself?”

  Riklo said regretfully, “I should have looked when I had the chance.”

  “If you had, you’d be dead. Can you remember any more than you could last night?”

  She could not. She remembered opening the door cautiously and peeking in. The next thing she knew, Darzek was carrying her.

  “When the beam hit you, you staggered backward and collapsed,” Darzek said. “In doing so, you closed the door. That saved your life. It also saved mine. If you hadn’t got there first, I would have found the pazul a few minutes later, and I wouldn’t have opened the door a crack and peeked into the room. I was ducking into those rooms quickly, as Wenz must have, to get out of sight. I would have walked into the full blast of it. Tell me this. If the Duke Merzkion has a pazul, why hasn’t he marched off to conquer Storoz with it? He could, easily.”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” Riklo said. “The Sailor’s League would retaliate if he touched the Free Cities. No ships would come to Storoz. The economy would be ruined.”

  “Would the Sailor’s League retaliate if he limited his conquests to the provinces and didn’t interfere with the Free Cities?”

  “No,” she said, after a moment’s thought. “If he promised to respect the rights of the Free Cities and not interfere with trade, they wouldn’t care who ruled the provinces.”

  “Then why hasn’t he marched? With his pazul, he’d be invincible.”

  Riklo leaped to her feet. She staggered, regained her balance, and excitedly waved away Darzek’s helping hand. “Merzkion isn’t the only province where we’ve lost agents! Some of the other dukes must have pazuls!” She paused to reflect. “The Duke of OO, for one. And probably Fermarz. And there could be others. I’ll go back tonight and look at the pazul through the window. There couldn’t be any danger in that, since it’s aimed at the door. I should have done it last night. Now that we know where it is, and what it does—”

  “No,” Darzek said firmly. “We don’t know how it’s aimed, and we don’t know what it does. And no stranger is going to get into or near the Duke Merzkion’s castle tonight or any other night for a long time. He’ll have the grounds under guard and every approach watched. He’s already searching the countryside. The sooner we leave here, the better. We have work to do. We’ve got to get Wenz’s specimens to the lab. We’ve also got to devise a shield against that metal detector, or we won’t be able to carry secret equipment. After that, I’m going to call on one of the other dukes. It’s reason enough for not marching to war with your pazul if you know your neighbor has one.”

  They returned to Northpor as fast as their three nabrula could take them, traveling by night and hiding by day until they left the province of the Duke Merzkion. And Riklo was ill and feverish most of the way, lying weakly in the cart. Twice she hemorrhaged badly, from the nose, and several times she became disorientated and babbled to Darzek in a language he did not understand.

  The moment they arrived in Northpor, he put her to bed in Wesru’s capable care. He went directly to the moon base, where he transferred the Wenz specimens and then spent a futile hour searching for medicines and medical information that could be helpful to Riklo. The base file had no suggestions concerning pazul disease.

  He was more successful with the metal detector. The file directed him to a special kit of protective films. A few tests told him which film to use, and he returned to Northpor and lined the secret compartments of the cart with it.

  Sajjo and Hadkez burst in upon him to ecstatically recount their enormous success with the perfume sales. They hauled him off to the factory to sample three new scents Hadkez had developed, and Darzek gave Hadkez the task of restocking the cart for its next expedition. The news that Darzek was leaving again plunged Sajjo into gloom, and she dashed off to her own room.

  That night Darzek took over the watch in Riklo’s room. He armed himself with a pad of paper from the moon base. Between his ministrations to the feverish Riklo, he filled the pad, writing down everything that had happened since his arrival, and what he had learned, and what he thought it meant. He also described what he intended to do next, and why. The next morning, he took the pad back to the moon base and left it in a conspicuous place. And he appended a note for the Department of Uncertified Worlds Headquarters, expressing his opinion of departmental procedures where twenty agents could disappear without leaving a single memo that could be useful to those trying to find them.

  Riklo was feeling much better. She’d suffered cruelly in the jolting cart, and a day of rest in a comfortable bed improved her condition drastically; but she was still weak, and her prognosis seemed so uncertain that both she and Darzek accepted without mentioning the fact that it would be a long time before she could travel.

  “You’re leaving at once?” she asked.

  “I must,” Darzek answered. “As long as there’s a possibility that any of the missing agents are alive, I have to keep trying to find them.”

  “You’re going to OO?”

  “Perhaps. But first I’m going to call on the Duke Merzkion’s neighbor, the Duke Fermarz. What do you know about him?”

  “Very little. Most of the dukes seem like blurred copies of each other. When are you leaving?”

  “As soon as I’ve made a few arrangements.”

  On the Northpor quay he spoke to a sea captain, who referred him to another captain; and Darzek quickly negotiated passage for himself, his cart, and his three nabrula to Fermarzpor, a small town that was the Duke Fermarz’s only seaport. The ship would sail with the midnight tide. Darzek went home to make his final preparations.

  He chose his supplies with care and packed them away in the secret compartments of his cart: binoculars, a kit of medical supplies, three extra Winged Beast amulets, a pair of stun rifles, a blade that looked like a machete, a rope equipped with a gun that shot it to a height of twenty meters, half a dozen hand lights, and a torch that produced enough heat to melt metal. As far as Darzek knew, there was no metal in Storoz except coins, but this time he intended to be prepared for anything.

  He drove his cart aboard the ship, got the nabrula comfortably housed in a she
d behind the long cabin, and went home for another farewell with his household. Sajjo was so disconsolate that she would not come down to say good-bye to him.

  * * * *

  The following night, after an unusually fast run down the coast, Darzek harnessed his nabrula to his cart. The sailors unblocked the wheels, the captain—pleased with a passenger who paid in advance in coins, caused no difficulties, and could lift a mug of cider as well as a sailor—raised both hands in farewell, and Darzek drove his cart ashore at the port of Fermarzpor.

  He also drove straight through the pleasant little town and some distance into the country before he found himself a resting place, so as to leave any inquisitive port officials far behind. He unharnessed the nabrula and tied them so they could graze. Then he reached back into the cart for the tarp and blankets he used for bedding—he preferred the ground to the hard boards of the cart bottom.

  His hand encountered something that twisted and struggled. He snatched it away and ripped the canvas flaps open.

  It was Sajjo.

  He regarded her with mingled dismay and amusement, but because she’d been hidden in the cart since the previous night, he only asked, Are you hungry? The light was too dim for talking, but when he brought out food, she ate ravenously.

  The light also was too dim for recriminations. After she had eaten, he waved her back to the comfortable cocoon she had fashioned for herself at the rear of the cart. He made up his own bed on the ground. They would talk in the morning.

  Riklo and Darzek had traveled as husband and wife and as perfumer and keeper of secrets, or fortuneteller. But Sajjo needed no special role beyond that of a perfumer’s daughter, and she assumed it ecstatically. They wended their tedious way from wayside forum to stinking wayside forum, with pleasant interludes of travel through a lovely countryside.

  The Province of Fermarz seemed much more prosperous than that of Merzkion. It was crisscrossed with small farm holdings and dotted with attractive little villages, some of which had their own artisans. But Darzek knew that the Duke Merzkion also had rich farm lands near the coast, and his enormous holdings in sponge forests were worth a very tidy income.

  Sajjo shyly confessed on the first morning that it was Riklo who had suggested stowing away. She said you needed help and someone to look after you.

  Darzek had hardly seen her during his abbreviated stay in Northpor. Now he observed that she was centimeters taller and that her business experience at the Northpor mart had given her a poise that made her seem years older. Her alert young mind had easily picked up the manners and tastes of her stylish mart customers. Now her hair was beautifully dyed and arranged flawlessly, and she wore the simple clothing designs appropriate to her age with an adult flair.

  She immediately made herself invaluable, performing all of the housekeeping, cooking when there was time for it, and vending their perfumes, which permitted Darzek to wander about as much as he liked, talking with peasants or fellow vendors who had the inclination, and observing what he could.

  But there was little enough to observe in a foul-smelling, unkempt forum, where the Mound of the Sun was eroding away and the carved Winged Beast had blown from its pole in the last storm. The peasants continued to worship as though the life pyramid reached its customary height and the Beast were still present. In the rural areas of Kamm, even change did not produce change, and it was a relief to Darzek when, at the end of the fourth day, they came to the castle of the Duke Fermarz.

  It occupied the top of a tall, isolated hill, and at the base of the hill, on the side of easiest approach to the castle, a sizable town had grown. It was large enough to have a formal market square, and Darzek and Sajjo drove directly to it. They set up their display of perfume samples, and then Darzek strolled about for a look at the mart.

  Perfumers, dyers, peddlers, all kinds of itinerant artisans and vendors came to such rural centers of commerce. They did a modest business for a time; and when the townspeople had inspected and sampled their wares, or satisfied a curiosity about what information a new keeper of secrets might have to offer, their trade fell off and they moved along to the next mart.

  Sajjo had a modest rush of customers as soon as they opened for business. Darzek, returning from his circuit of the market place, found her so busy that he joined her, and the two of them dispensed perfumes until evening to a steady stream of townsfolk.

  With the evening came two purple-caped knights to the mart, accompanied by a scribe. One knight took the names and professions of the day’s arrivals, and while the scribe entered this information in his records, the other knight prowled about their carts and tents with something cupped in his hands. Fortunately, the new shielding worked.

  Darzek thoughtfully watched the inspection party move on to the next newly arrived vendor. Then he turned to Sajjo, who had been thoroughly indifferent to the menace of the duke’s knights.

  These new perfumes of Hadkez must he good.

  They are beautiful, Sajjo announced, using the Kammian term of highest approbation. Ours are the favorite scents in the entire Northpor mart. The perfumer Hadkez worked for wanted him to come back, but he wouldn’t.

  They must be beautiful, Darzek agreed. Privately he was less than enthused about this unexpected genius of Hadkez’s for creating new scents. He preferred an anonymous mediocrity to popular success, which could bring more attention than he cared for.

  He went to talk politely with his fellow vendors, who were closing for the night. He asked one or two questions of each, and when he returned to the cart he was in a thoughtful mood.

  What’s the matter? Sajjo asked.

  Tell me why the Duke Fermarz would call in all of his knights and use them to guard his castle, Darzek said.

  Sajjo gazed at him perplexedly.

  Normally the knights are scattered all over the province, Darzek went on. They have important peacekeeping, and judicial, and administrative duties. But now they do nothing but guard the castle. The lane up to the castle has a series of check points, where all traffic is stopped and searched, and the knights are maintaining guard posts all over the hill.

  The duke is afraid of something, Sajjo announced.

  Right, Darzek agreed.

  And since the Duke Fermarz’s call for help seemed to have come only a couple of days after Darzek’s invasion of the Duke Merzkion’s castle, Darzek thought he knew what it was.

  Like the Duke Merzkion, the Duke Fermarz was afraid someone would steal his pazul—or whatever the pazul was guarding. The Duke Merzkion must have sent word to him at once, by fast messenger: Someone tried to steal mine. Better guard yours well. And the Duke Fermarz called in all of his knights.

  Trying to look into an alien mind, Darzek thought, was like peering through the window of a strange room furnished entirely with trick mirrors. In time, the windows that looked out on reality might become the most distorted of all.

  Obviously the dukes did not think of their pazuls as offensive weapons. Otherwise, since the two dukes obviously were in league, why didn’t they conquer Storoz together? But if they thought of their pazuls as defensive weapons, why did they place so little confidence in them?

  He knew he had no chance at all of getting up the hill to the castle. He did not even consider it. At the same time, the Duke Fermarz was so obviously guarding something of immense value that Darzek was reluctant to leave.

  They remained at the mart, and he helped Sajjo handle the rush of perfume trade and watched the formations of purple-caped knights get in each other’s way moving about the ridiculously safeguarded castle hill.

  CHAPTER 11

  With the castle blocked off to him, Darzek fell back on his pastime of studying Kammian psychology. He had been attempting to comprehend the alien mentalities that surrounded him; suddenly, to his vast amusement, he discovered that these aliens were the same vendors and customers he had met on so many worlds.

  The newly arrived vendors moved slowly up and down the rows of tents and carts, craftily weighing the
virtues and liabilities of each vacant space. Those with foodstuffs to sell preferred positions near the entrance. Kammians who followed the old religion would see the looming Winged Beast as they entered the mart and buy something for a sacrifice; and many customers preferred to buy foodstuffs on their way out of the mart, so that their hands and arms would be unencumbered when they haggled over more expensive purchases. Vendors of dyes liked to set up near weavers, who sold quantities of undyed cloth. Perfumers liked a position where there were as few nabrula as possible, so that their scents could be enjoyed by prospective customers without olfactory distractions. All vendors preferred to crowd in with their competition rather than to set up by themselves in a remote part of the mart. A customer seeing display after display of similar merchandise might be moved eventually to stop and buy, and all the vendors benefited. A solitary display did not provide such motivation.

  Having watched for several days this sly maneuvering for desirable sites, Darzek was intrigued to see one newly arrived cart make immediately for the most remote corner of the mart. The elderly driver got out agilely, unharnessed the single nabrulk, and led it to the back of the cart, where he tied it to a feed trough. A pull of a rope folded down a canvas-covered framework at the side of the cart, and a sizable tent had been erected almost instantaneously. While Darzek watched in amazement, the owner deftly pegged it down. A jerk of another rope unrolled a small banner. A moment later, having moved in a few furnishings, the owner was seated in the tent entrance, ready for business.

  Darzek drifted closer, wondering whether the mechanical ingenuity that had produced the unfolding tent could also have fashioned other contrivances. An electrical generator, for example.

  Then he saw something even more startling. While this new vendor was still moving into his tent, a passer-by noticed his banner, turned into the mart, and hurried toward him. Shoppers already in the mart were streaming in that direction. The vendor had scarcely seated himself before he had a waiting line.