The Pnume

by Jack Vance

  THE PNUME

  (Planet of Adventure: Book 4)

  Jack Vance

  CHAPTER ONE

  IN THE WAREHOUSE at the edge of the Sivishe salt flats, Aila Woudiver sat perched on a stool. A chain connected the iron collar around his neck to a high cable; he could walk from his table to the closet against the wall where he slept, the chain sliding behind him.

  Aila Woudiver was a prisoner on his own premises, insult added to injury, which by all accounts should have provoked him to spasms of tooth-chattering fury. But he sat placidly on the stool, great buttocks sagging to either side like saddlebags, wearing an absurd smile of saintly forbearance.

  Beside the spaceship which occupied the greater part of the warehouse Adam Reith stood watching. Woudiver’s abnegation was more unsettling than rage. Reith hoped that whatever schemes Woudiver was hatching would not mature too quickly. The spaceship was nearly operative; in a week, more or less, Reith hoped to depart old Tschai.

  Woudiver occupied himself with tat-work, now and then holding it up to admire the pattern—the very essence of patient affability. Traz, coming into the warehouse, scowled toward Woudiver and asserted the philosophy of the Emblem nomads, his forebears: “Kill him this moment; kill him and have an end!”

  Reith gave an equivocal grunt. “He’s chained by the neck; he does us no harm.”

  “He’ll find a means. Have you forgotten his tricks?”

  “I can’t kill him in cold blood.”

  Traz gave a croak of disgust and stamped from the warehouse. Anacho the Dirdirman declared, “For once I agree with the young steppe-runner: kill the great beast!”

  Woudiver, divining the substance of the conversation, displayed his gentle smile. He had lost weight, so Reith noticed. The once-bloated cheeks hung in wattles; the great upper lip drooped like a beak over the pointed little chin.

  “See him smirk!” hissed Anacho. “If he could he’d boil us in nerve-fire! Kill him now!”

  Reith made another sound of moderation. “In a week we’ll be gone. What can he do, chained and helpless?”

  “He is Woudiver!”

  “Even so, we can’t slaughter him like an animal.”

  Anacho threw up his hands and followed Traz outside the warehouse. Reith went into the ship and for a few minutes watched the technicians. They worked at the exquisitely delicate job of balancing the power pumps. Reith could offer no assistance. Dirdir technology, like the Dirdir psyche, was beyond his comprehension. Both derived from intuitive certainties, or so he suspected; there was little evidence of purposeful rationality in any aspect of Dirdir existence.

  Long shafts of brown light slanted through the high windows; the time was almost sunset. Woudiver thoughtfully put aside his fancy-work. He gave Reith a companionable nod and went off to his little room against the wall, the chain dragging behind him in a rattling halfcatenary.

  The technicians emerged from the ship as did Fio Haro the master mechanic. All went off to their supper. Reith touched the unlovely hull, pressing his hands against the steel, as if he could not credit its reality. A week—then space and return to Earth! The prospect seemed a dream; Earth had become the world remote and bizarre.

  Reith went to the larder for a chunk of black sausage, which he took to the doorway. Carina 4269, low in the sky, bathed the salt flats in ale colored light, projecting long shadows behind every tussock.

  The two black figures which of late had appeared at sunset were nowhere to be seen.

  The view held a certain mournful beauty. To the north the city of Sivishe was a crumble of old masonry tinted tawny by the slanting sunlight. West across Ajzan Sound stood the spires of the Dirdir city Hei and, looming above all, the Glass Box.

  Reith went to join Traz and Anacho. They sat on a bench tossing pebbles into a puddle: Traz, blunt-featured, taciturn, solid of bone and muscle, Anacho, thin as an eel, six inches taller than Reith, pallid of skin, long and keen of feature, as loquacious as Traz was terse. Traz disapproved of Anacho’s airs; Anacho considered Traz crass and undiscriminating. Occasionally, however, they agreed—as now, on the need to destroy Aila Woudiver. Reith, for his own part, felt more concern for the Dirdir. From their spires they could almost look through the portals of the warehouse at the work within. The Dirdir inactivity seemed as unnatural as Aila Woudiver’s smile, and to Reith implied a dreadful stealth.

  “Why don’t they do something?” Reith complained, gnawing at the black sausage. “They must know we’re here.”

  “Impossible to predict Dirdir conduct,” Anacho replied. “They have lost interest in you. What are men to them but vermin? They prefer to chivy the Pnume from their burrows. You are no longer the subject of tsau’gsh[1]: this is my supposition.”

  Reith was not wholly reassured. “What of the Phung or Pnume[2], whatever they are, that come to watch us? They aren’t there for their health.” He referred to the two black shapes which had been appearing of late on the salt flats. Always they came to stand against the sunset, gaunt figures wearing black cloaks and wide-brimmed black hats.

  “Phung go alone; they are not Phung,” said Traz. “Pnume never appear by daylight.”

  “And never so close to Hei, for fear of the Dirdir,” Anacho said. “So, then—they are Pnumekin, or more likely Gzhindra.” [3]

  On the occasion of their first appearance the creatures stood gazing toward the warehouse until Carina 4269 fell behind the palisades; then they vanished into the gloom. Their interest seemed more than casual; Reith was disturbed by the surveillance but could conceive of no remedy for it.

  The next day was blurred by mist and drizzle; the salt flats remained vacant. On the day following, the sun shone once more, and at sundown the dark shapes came to stare toward the shed, again afflicting Reith with disquietude. Surveillance portended unpleasant events: this on Tschai was an axiom of existence.

  Carina 4269 hung low. “If they’re coming,” said Anacho, “now is the time.”

  Reith searched the salt flats through his scanscope.[4] “There’s nothing out there but tussocks and swamp-bush. Not even a lizard.”

  Traz pointed over his shoulder. “There they are.”

  “Hmrnf,” said Reith. “I just looked there!” He raised the magnification of the scanscope until the jump of his pulse caused the figures to jerk and bounce. The faces, back-lit, could not be distinguished. “They have hands,” said Reith. “They are Pnumekin.”

  Anacho took the instrument. After a moment he said: “They are Gzhindra: Pnumekin expelled from the tunnels. To trade with the Pnume you must deal through the Gzhindra; the Pnume will never dicker for themselves.”

  “Why should they come here? We want no dealings with the Pnume.”

  “But they want dealings with us, or so it seems.”

  “Perhaps they’re waiting for Woudiver to appear,” Traz suggested.

  “At sunset and sunset alone?”

  To Traz came a sudden thought. He moved away from the warehouse and somewhat past Woudiver’s old office, an eccentric little shack of broken brick and flints, and looked back toward the warehouse. He walked a hundred yards further, out upon the salt flats, and again looked back. He gestured to Reith and Anacho, who went out to join him. “Observe the warehouse,” said Traz. “You’ll now see who deals with the Gzhindra.”

  From the black timber wall a glint of golden light jumped and flickered.

  “Behind that light,” said Traz, “is Aila Woudiver’s room.”

  “The fat yellow shulk is signaling!” declared Anacho in a fervent whisper.

  Reith drew a deep breath and controlled his fury: foolish to expect anything else from Woudiver, who lived with intrigue as a fish lives with water. In a measured voice he spoke to Anacho: “Can you read the signals?”

  “Yes; ordin
ary stop-and-go code. ‘... Suitable ... compensation ... for ... services ... time ... is ... now ... at ... hand...”

  The flickering light vanished. “That’s all.”

  “He’s seen us through the crack,” Reith muttered.

  “Or he has no more light,” said Traz, for Carina 4269 had dropped behind the palisades. Looking across the salt flats, Reith found that the Gzhindra had gone as mysteriously as they had come.

  “We had better go talk to Woudiver,” said Reith.

  “He’ll tell anything but the truth,” said Anacho.

  “I expect as much,” said Reith. “We may be informed by what he doesn’t tell us.”

  They went into the shed. Woudiver, once again busy with his tat-work, showed the three his affable smile. “It must be close to suppertime.”

  “Not for you,” said Reith.

  “What?” exclaimed Woudiver. “No food? Come now; let us not carry our little joke too far.”

  “Why do you signal the Gzhindra?”

  Beyond a lifting of the hairless eyebrows, Woudiver evinced neither surprise nor guilt. “A business affair. I occasionally deal with the under-folk.”

  “What sort of dealings?”

  “This and that, one thing and another. Tonight I apologized for failing to meet certain commitments. Do you begrudge me my good reputation?”

  “What commitments did you fail to meet?”

  “Come now,” chided Woudiver. “You must allow my few little secrets.”

  “I allow you nothing,” said Reith. “I’m well aware that you plot mischief.”

  “Bah! What a canard! How should I plot anything trussed up by a chain? I assure you that I do not regard my present condition as dignified.”

  “If anything goes wrong,” said Reith, “you’ll be hoisted six feet off the ground by the same chain. You’ll have no dignity whatever.”

  Woudiver made a gesture of waggish distaste and looked off across the room. “Excellent progress seems to have been made.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Ah! You minimize my aid! Who provided the hull, at great pains and small profit? Who arranged and organized, who supplied invaluable acumen?”

  “The same man that took all our money and betrayed us into the Glass Box,” said Reith. He went to sit across the room. Traz and Anacho joined him. The three watched Woudiver, now sulking in the absence of his supper.

  “We should kill him,” Traz said flatly. “He plans evil for all of us.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” said Reith, “but why should he deal with the Pnume? The Dirdir would seem the parties most concerned. They know I’m an Earthman; they may or may not be aware of the spaceship.”

  “If they know they don’t care,” said Anacho. “They have no interest in other folk. The Pnume: another matter. They would know everything, and they are most curious regarding the Dirdir. The Dirdir in turn discover the Pnume tunnels and flood them with gas.”

  Woudiver called out: “You have forgotten my supper.”

  “I’ve forgotten nothing,” said Reith.

  “Well, then, bring forth my food. Tonight I wish a whiteroot salad, a stew of lentils, gargan-flesh and slue, a plate of good black cheese, and my usual wine.”

  Traz gave a bark of scornful laughter. Reith inquired, “Why should we coddle your gut when you plot against us? Order your meals from the Gzhindra.”

  Woudiver’s face sagged; he beat his hands upon his knees. “So now they torture poor Aila Woudiver, who was only constant to his faith! What a miserable destiny to live and suffer on this terrible planet!”

  Reith turned away in disgust. By birth half-Dirdirman, Woudiver vigorously affirmed the Doctrine of Bifold Genesis, which traced the origin of Dirdir and Dirdirman to twin cells in a Primeval Egg on the planet Sibol. From such a viewpoint Reith must seem an irresponsible iconoclast, to be thwarted at all costs.

  On the other hand, Woudiver’s crimes could not all be ascribed to doctrinal ardor. Recalling certain instances of lechery and self-indulgence, Reith’s twinges of pity disappeared.

  For five minutes longer Woudiver groaned and complained, and then became suddenly quiet. For a period he watched Reith and his companions. He spoke and Reith thought to detect a secret glee. “Your project approaches completion—thanks to Aila Woudiver, his craft, and his poor store of sequins, unfeelingly sequestered.”

  “I agree that the project approaches completion,” said Reith.

  “When do you propose to depart Tschai?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Remarkable!” declared Woudiver with unctuous fervor. Reith thought that his eyes sparkled with amusement. “But then, you are a remarkable man.” Woudiver’s voice took on a sudden resonance, as if he could no longer restrain his inner mirth. “Still, on occasion it is better to be modest and ordinary! What do you think of that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “True,” said Woudiver. “That is correct.”

  “Since you feel disposed for conversation,” said Reith, “why not tell me something about the Gzhindra.”

  “What is there to tell? They are sad creatures, doomed to trudge the surface, though they stand in fear of the open. Have you ever wondered why Pnume, Pnumekin, Phung and Gzhindra all wear hats with broad brims?”

  “I suppose that it is their habit of dress.”

  “True. But the deeper reason is: the brims hide the sky.”

  “What impels these particular Gzhindra out under the sky which oppresses them?”

  “Like all men,” said Woudiver, somewhat pompously, “they hope, they yearn.”

  “In what precise regard?”

  “In any absolute or ultimate sense,” said Woudiver, “I am of course ignorant; all men are mysteries. Even you perplex me, Adam Reith! You harry me with capricious cruelty; you pour my money into an insane scheme; you ignore every protest, every plea of moderation! Why? I ask myself, why? Why? If it were not all so preposterous, I could indeed believe you a man of another world.”

  “You still haven’t told me what the Gzhindra want,” said Reith.

  With vast dignity Woudiver rose to his feet; the chain from the iron collar swung and jangled. “You had best take up this matter with the Gzhindra themselves.”

  He went to his table and after a final cryptic glance toward Reith took up his tatting.

  CHAPTER TWO

  REITH TWITCHED AND trembled in a nightmare. He dreamt that he lay on his usual couch in Woudiver’s old office. The room was pervaded by a curious yellow-green glow. Woudiver stood across the room chatting with a pair of motionless men in black capes and broad-brimmed black hats. Reith strained to move, but his muscles were limp. The yellow-green light waxed and waned; Woudiver was now frosted with an uncanny silver-blue incandescence. The typical nightmare of helplessness and futility, thought Reith. He made desperate efforts to awake but only started a clammy sweat.

  Woudiver and the Gzhindra gazed down at him. Woudiver surprisingly wore his iron collar, but the chain had been broken or melted a foot from his neck. He seemed complacent and unconcerned: the Woudiver of old. The Gzhindra showed no expression other than intentness. Their features were long, narrow and very regular; their skin, pallid ivory, shone with the luster of silk. One carried a folded cloth; the other stood with hands behind his back.

  Woudiver suddenly loomed enormous. He called out: “Adam Reith, Adam Reith: where is your home?”

  Reith struggled against his impotence. A weird and desolate dream, one that he would long remember. “The planet Earth,” he croaked. “The planet Earth.”

  Woudiver’s face expanded and contracted. “Are other Earthmen on Tschai?”

  “Yes.”

  The Gzhindra jerked forward; Woudiver called in a horn-like voice: “Where? Where are the Earthmen?”

  “All men are Earthmen.”

  Woudiver stood back, mouth drooping in saturnine disgust. “You were born on the planet Earth.”

  “
Yes.”

  Woudiver floated back in triumph. He gestured largely to the Gzhindra. “A rarity, a nonesuch!”

  “We will take him.” The Gzhindra unfolded the cloth, which Reith, to his helpless horror, saw to be a sack. Without ceremony the Gzhindra pulled it up over his legs, tucked him within until only his head protruded. Then, with astonishing ease, one of the Gzhindra threw the sack over his back, while the other tossed a pouch to Woudiver.

  The dream began to fade; the yellow-green light became spotty and blurred. The door flew suddenly open, to reveal Traz. Woudiver jumped back in horror; Traz raised his catapult and fired into Woudiver’s face. An astonishing gush of blood spewed forth—green blood, and wherever droplets fell they glistened yellow ... The dream went dim; Reith slept.

  Reith awoke in a state of extreme discomfort. His legs were cramped; a vile arsenical reek pervaded his head. He sensed pressure and motion; groping, he felt coarse cloth. Dismal knowledge came upon him; the dream was real; he indeed rode in a sack. Ah, the resourceful Woudiver! Reith became weak with emotion. Woudiver had negotiated with the Gzhindra; he had arranged that Reith be drugged, probably through a seepage of narcotic gas. The Gzhindra were now carrying him off to unknown places, for unknown purposes.

  For a period Reith sagged in the sack numb and sick. Woudiver, even while chained by the neck, had worked his mischief! Reith collected the final fragments of his dream. He had seen Woudiver with his face split apart, pumping green blood. Woudiver had paid for his trick.

  Reith found it hard to think. The sack swung and he felt a rhythmic thud; apparently the sack was being carried on a pole. By sheer luck he wore his clothes; the night previously he had flung himself down on his cot fully dressed. Was it possible that he still carried his knife? His pouch was gone; the pocket of his jacket seemed to be empty, and he dared not grope lest he signal the fact of his consciousness to the Gzhindra.

  He pressed his face close to the sack hoping to see through the coarse weave, unsuccessfully. The time was yet night; he thought that they traveled uneven terrain.