The Pnume

by Jack Vance

  She spoke softly: “Why do you look at me like that?”

  “I was thinking,” he said, “that, considering the circumstances, you appear remarkably unconcerned.”

  She made no immediate reply. There was a heavy silence in the dim passage. Then she said, “I float upon the current of life; how should I question where it carries me? It would be impudent to think of preferences; existence, after all, is a privilege given a very few.”

  Reith leaned back against the wall. “A very few? How so?”

  The girl became uneasy; her white fingers twisted. “How it goes on the ghaun I don’t know; perhaps you do things differently. In the Shelters[11] the mother-women spawn twelve times and no more than half, sometimes less—survive ...” She continued in a voice of didactic reflection: “I have heard that all the women of the ghaun are mother-women. Is this true? I can’t believe it. If each spawned twelve times, and even if six went to the pit, the ghaun would boil with living flesh. It seems unreasonable.” She added, as a possibly disconnected afterthought, “I am glad that I will never be a mother-woman.”

  Again Reith was puzzled. “How can you be sure? You’re young yet.”

  The girl’s face twitched with what might have been embarrassment. “Can’t you see? Do I look to be a mother-woman?”

  “I don’t know what your mother-women look like.”

  “They bulge at the chest and hips. Aren’t ghian mothers the same? Some say the Pnume decide who will be mother-women and take them to the creche. There they lie in the dark and spawn.”

  “Alone?”

  “They and the other mothers.”

  “What of the fathers?”

  “No need for fathers. In the Shelters all is secure; protection is not needed.”

  Reith began to entertain an old suspicion. “On the surface,” he said, “affairs go somewhat differently.”

  She leaned forward, and her face displayed as much animation as Reith had yet noticed. “I have always wondered about life on the ghaun. Who chooses the mother-women? Where do they spawn?”

  Reith evaded the question. “It’s a complicated situation. In due course I suppose you’ll learn something about it, if you live long enough. Meanwhile, I am Adam Reith. What is your name?”

  “‘Name’? I am a female.”

  “Yes, but what is your personal name?”

  The girl considered. “On the invoices persons are listed by group, area and zone. My group is Zith, of Athan Area, in the Pagaz Zone; my ranking is 210.”

  “Zith Athan Pagaz, 210. Zap 210. It’s not much of a name. Still, it suits you.”

  At Reith’s jocularity the girl looked blank. “Tell me how the Gzhindra live.”

  “I saw them standing out on the wastelands. They pumped narcotic gas into the room where I slept. I woke up in a sack. They lowered me into a shaft. That’s all I know of the Gzhindra. There must be better ways to live.”

  Zap 210, as Reith now thought of her, evinced disapproval. “They are persons, after all, and not wild things.”

  Reith had no comment to make. Her innocence was so vast that any information whatever could only cause her shock and confusion. “You’ll find many kinds of people on the surface.”

  “It is very strange,” the girl said in a vague soft voice. “Suddenly all is changed.” She sat looking off into the darkness. “The others will wonder where I have gone. Someone will do my work.”

  “What was your work?”

  “I instructed children in decorum.”

  “What of your spare time?”

  “I grew crystals in the new East Fourth Range.”

  “Do you talk with your friends?”

  “Sometimes, in the dormitory.”

  “Do you have friends among the men?”

  Under the shadow of the hat the black eyebrows rose in displeasure. “It’s boisterous to talk to men.”

  “Sitting here with me is boisterous?”

  She said nothing. The idea probably had not yet occurred to her, thought Reith; now she considered herself a fallen woman. “On the surface,” he said, “life goes differently, and sometimes becomes very boisterous indeed. Assuming that we survive to reach the surface.”

  He brought out the blue portfolio. As if by reflex Zap 210 drew herself back. Reith paid no heed. Squinting through the dim light he studied the tangle of colored lines. He put his finger down, somewhat tentatively. “Here, it seems to me, is where we are now.” No response from Zap 210. Reith, aching, nervous and exhausted, started to reprimand her for disinterest, then caught his tongue. She was not here of her own volition, he reminded himself; she deserved neither reprimands nor resentment; by his actions he had made himself responsible for her. Reith gave a grunt of annoyance. He drew a deep breath and said in his most polite voice, “If I recall correctly, this passage leads over here” he pointed—”and comes out into this pink avenue. Am I right?”

  Zap 210 looked down askance. “Yes. This is a most secret way. Notice, it connects Athan with Zaltra; otherwise one must go far around, by way of Fei’erj Node.” Grudgingly she came closer and brought her finger to within inches of the vellum. “This gray mark is where we want to go: to the freight-dock, at the end of the supply arterial. By Fei’erj it would be impossible, since the route leads through the dormitories and the metalspinning areas.”

  Reith looked wistfully at the little red circles which marked the pop-outs. “They seem so close, so easy.”

  “They will certainly be guarded.”

  “What is this long black line?”

  “That is the freight canal, and is the best route away from Pagaz Zone.”

  “And this bright green spot?”

  She peered and drew a quick breath. “It is the way to Foreverness: a Class Twenty secret!” She sat back and huddled her chin into her knees. Reith returned to the charts. He felt her gaze and looked up to find her studying him intently. She licked her colorless mouth. “Why are you such an important item?”

  “I don’t know why I’m an ‘item’ at all.” Though this was not precisely true.

  “They want you for Foreverness. Are you of some strange race?”

  “In a way,” said Reith. He heaved himself painfully to his feet. “Are you ready? We might as well be going.”

  She rose without comment and they set off along the dim passage. They walked a mile and came to a white wall with a black iron door at the center. Zap 210 put her eye to the peep-lens. “A dray is passing ... persons are near.” She looked back at Reith. “Hold your head down,” she said in a critical voice. “Pull the hat lower. Walk quietly, with your feet pointed straight.” She turned back to the peephole. Her hand went to the door-catch. She pressed, and the door opened. “Quick, before we are seen.”

  Blinking and furtive, they entered a wide arched passage. The pegmatite walls were studded with enormous tourmalines which, excited to fluorescence by some means unknown, glowed pink and blue.

  Zap 210 set off along the passage; Reith followed at a discreet distance. Fifty yards ahead a low dray loaded with sacks rolled on heavy black wheels. From somewhere behind them came the sound of hammers tapping at metal and a scraping noise, the source of which Reith never learned.

  For ten minutes they plodded along the corridor. On four occasions Pnumekin passed, shadowed faces averted, thoughts exploring areas beyond Reith’s imagination.

  The polished pegmatite altered abruptly to black hornblende, polished back from veins of white quartz which seemed to grow like veins over the black matrix, the end-product of unknown centuries of toil. Far ahead, the passage dwindled to a minute black half-oval, which by insensible degrees grew larger. Beyond was black vacancy.

  The aperture expanded and surrounded them; they came out on a ledge overlooking a void as black and empty as space. Fifty yards to the right a barge, moored against the dock, seemed to float in midair; Reith perceived the black void to be the surface of a subterranean lake.

  A half dozen Pnumekin worked listlessly upon the dock,
loading the barge with bales.

  Zap 210 sidled into a pocket of shadow. Reith joined her, standing somewhat too close for her liking; she moved a few fastidious inches away. “What now?” asked Reith.

  “Follow me aboard the barge. Say no word to anyone.”

  “No one objects? They won’t put us off?”

  The girl gave him a blank look. “Persons ride the barges. This is how they see the far tunnels.”

  “Ah,” said Reith, “wanderlust among the Pnumekin; they go to look at a tunnel.”

  The girl gave him another blank look.

  Reith asked, “Have you ever traveled on a barge before?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know where this barge goes?”

  “It goes north, to the Areas; it can go nowhere else.” She peered through the gloom. “Follow me, and walk with decorum.”

  She set off along the dock, eyes downcast, moving as if in a reverie. Reith waited a moment, then went after her.

  She paused beside the barge, looked vacantly across the black void; then, as if absentmindedly, she stepped across to the barge. She walked to the outboard side and merged with the shadow of the bales.

  Reith imitated her demeanor. The Pnumekin on the dock, immersed in their private thoughts, paid him no heed. Reith stepped aboard the barge and then could not control the acceleration of his pace as he slipped into the shade of the cargo.

  Zap 210, tense as wire, peered at the dock-workers. Gradually she relaxed. “They are disconsolate; otherwise they would have noticed. Do the ghian always lurch and lope when they move about?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Reith. “But no harm done. Next time—” He stopped short. At the far end of the dock stood a dark shape. It stirred, came slowly toward the barge, and entered the zone of illumination. “Pnume,” whispered Reith. Zap 210 stood soundless.

  The creature padded forward, oblivious to the dock-workers, who never so much as glanced aside. It stepped softly along the dock, and halted near the barge.

  “It saw us,” whispered the girl.

  Reith stood heavy-hearted, bruises aching, legs and arms nerveless and dull. He could not survive another fight. In a husky whisper he asked, “Can you swim?”

  A horrified gasp and a glance across the black void. “No!”

  Reith searched for a weapon: a club, a hook, a rope; he found nothing.

  The Pnume passed beyond the range of vision. A moment later they felt the barge tremble under its weight.

  “Take off your cloak,” said Reith. He slipped out of his own and, wrapping up the portfolio, shoved both into a crevice of the cargo. Zap 210 stood motionless.

  “Take off your cloak!”

  She began to whimper. Reith clapped his hand over her mouth. “Quiet!” He pulled the neck laces and, touching her fragile chin, found it trembling. He jerked off her cloak, put it with his own. She stood half-crouching in a knee-length shift. Reith, for all the urgency of the moment, resisted an insane desire to laugh at the thin adolescent figure under the black hat. “Listen,” he said hoarsely. “I can tell you only once. I am going over the side. You must follow immediately. Put your hands on my shoulders. Hold your head from the water. Above all, do not splash or flounder. You will be safe.”

  Not waiting for her acknowledgment, he lowered himself over the side of the barge. The frigid water rose up his body like a ring of icy fire. Zap 210 hesitated only for an instant, then went over the side, probably only because she feared the Pnume more than the wet void. She gasped when her legs hit the water. “Quiet!” hissed Reith. Her hands went to his shoulders; she lowered herself into the water, and in a panic threw her arms around his neck. “Easy!” whispered Reith. “Keep your face down.” He drifted in under the gunwale, and gripped a bracket. Unless someone or something peered over the side of the barge, they were virtually invisible.

  A half-minute passed. Reith’s legs began to grow numb. Zap 210 clung to his back, chin at his ear; he could hear her teeth chattering. Her thin body pressed against him, trapping warm pockets of water which pulsed away when one or the other moved. Once, as a boy, Reith had rescued a drowning cat; like Zap 210 it had clung to him with desperate urgency, arousing in Reith a peculiarly intense pang of protectiveness. The bodies, both frightened and wet, projected the same elemental craving for life ... Silence, darkness, cold. The two in the water listened ... Along the deck of the barge came a quiet sound: the click of horny toes. It stopped, cautiously started, then stopped once more, directly overhead. Looking up, Reith saw toes gripping the edge of the gunwale. He took one of Zap 210’s hands, guided it to the bracket, then the other. Once free, he turned to face outward from the barge.

  Unctuous ripples moved away from him; lenses of quince-colored light formed and vanished.

  The toes over Reith’s head clicked on the gunwale. They shifted their position. Reith, lips drawn away from his teeth in a ghastly grimace, lunged up with his right arm. He caught a thin hard ankle, pulled. The Pnume croaked in dismal consternation. It teetered forward and for a moment leaned at an incredible angle, almost horizontal, supported only by the grip of its toes. Then it fell into the water.

  Zap 210 clutched at Reith. “Don’t let it touch you; it will pull you apart.”

  “Can it swim?”

  “No,” she said through chattering teeth. “It is heavy; it will sink.”

  Reith said, “Climb up on my back, take hold of the gunwale, pull yourself aboard the barge.”

  Gingerly she swung behind him. Her feet pushed against his back; she stood on his shoulder, then clambered aboard the barge. Reith laboriously heaved himself up after her to lie on the deck, totally spent.

  Presently he gained his feet, to peer toward the dock. The Pnumekin worked as before.

  Reith moved back into the shadows. Zap 210 had not moved. The shift clung to her underdeveloped body. She was not ungraceful, reflected Reith.

  She noticed his attention and huddled back against the cargo.

  “Take off your undergown and put on your cloak,” Reith suggested. “You’ll be warmer.”

  She stared at him miserably. Reith pulled off his own sodden garments. In horror almost as intense as she had shown toward the Pnume, she jerked herself around. Reith found the energy for a sour grin. With her back turned she draped the cloak over her shoulders and by some means unknown divested herself of her undergarments.

  The barge vibrated, lurched. Reith looked past the cargo to see the dock receding. It became an oasis of light in the heavy blackness. Far ahead showed a wan blue glimmer toward which the barge silently moved.

  They were underway. Behind lay Pagaz Zone and the way to Foreverness. Ahead was darkness and the Northern Areas.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE BARGE CARRIED a crew of two, who kept to the apron at the bow of the barge. Here was a small pantry, a cook-bench, an island of dim yellow illumination. There seemed to be at least two other passengers aboard, perhaps as many as three or four, who were even less obtrusive than the crew, and manifested themselves only at the pantry and the cook-bench. The food seemed to be free to the use of all. Zap 210 would not allow Reith to go forward for food. When the pantry and cook-bench were not in use Zap 210 procured food for both: cakes of pilgrim-pod meal, candied plum-shaped objects which might have been fruit or possibly leech-like insects, bars of meat-paste, sweet and salty wafers of a delicate crisp white substance which Zap 210 considered a delicacy, but which left an unpleasant aftertaste in Reith’s mouth.

  Time passed: how long Reith had no way of knowing. The lake became a river which in turn became an underground canal fifty or sixty feet wide. The barge moved without a sound, propelled, so Reith guessed, by electric fields cycling along the keel. Ahead gleamed a dim blue light serving as a fix for the barge’s steering sensor; when one blue light passed overhead, another always shone far ahead. At long intervals the barge passed lonesome little piers and docks, with passages leading away into unknown fastnesses.

  Reith ate a
nd slept; how many times he lost count. His cosmos was the barge, the dark, the unseen water, the presence of Zap 210. With nothing but time and boredom, Reith set himself to the task of exploring her personality. Zap 210, on her part, treated Reith with suspicion, as if begrudging even the intimacy of conversation: a skittishness and prim reserve peculiar in a person who, to the best of his knowledge, had not even a distorted understanding of ordinary sexual processes. Primordial instinct at work, Reith surmised. But how in good conscience could he turn her loose on the surface in such a condition of innocence? On the other hand the prospect of explaining human biology to Zap 210 was not a comfortable one.

  Zap 210 herself never seemed to become bored with the passage of time; she slept or sat looking off into the darkness as if she watched passing vistas of great fascination. Vexed with her self-sufficiency, Reith would occasionally join her, taking no notice of her slight shift of fastidious withdrawal. Conversation with Zap 210 was never exhilarating. She had unalterable preconceptions regarding the surface: she feared the sky, the wind, the space of the horizons, the pale brown sunlight. Her anticipations were melancholy: she foresaw death under the club of a yelling barbarian. Reith tried to modify her views but encountered distrust.

  “Do you think that we are ignorant of the surface?” she asked in calm scorn. “The zuzhma kastchai know more than anyone; they know everything. Knowledge is their existence. They are the brain-life of Tschai; Tschai is body and bones to the zuzhma kastchai.”

  “And the Pnumekin: how do they fit into the picture?”

  “The ‘persons’? Long ago the zuzhma kastchai gave refuge to certain men from the surface, with some females and some mother-women. The ‘persons’ proved their diligence by polishing stones and perfecting crystals. The zuzhma kastchai provided peace, and so it has been, for all the ages.”

  “And where did men come from originally, do you know this?”