by Jack Vance
The grove loomed above them, the exterior boles leaning outward, the fronds hanging down in a great parasol. The headland conceivably concealed a village, but at the moment they were the only animate creatures under the half-black, half-golden-brown sky.
Reith imparted none of his misgivings to Zap 210, who was sufficiently occupied with her own. Exposure to the sunlight had flushed her face. In the rather flimsy and clinging gray undergown, with the black hair beginning to curl down on her forehead and her ears, she seemed a somewhat different person than the pallid wretch Reith had met in the Pagaz refectory ... Was his imagination at fault? Or had her body become fuller and rounder? She noticed his gaze and gave him a glare of shame and defiance. “Why do you stare at me?”
“No particular reason. Except that you look rather different now than when I first saw you. Different and better.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she snapped. “You’re talking foolishness.”
“I suppose so ... One of these days—not just now—I’ll explain how life is on the surface. Customs and habits are more complicated—more intimate, even more ‘boisterous’—than in the Shelters.”
“Hmmf,” sniffed Zap 210. “Why are you heading toward the forest? Isn’t it another secret place?”
“I don’t know.” Reith pointed to the clouds. “See the black trails hanging below? That’s rain. Under the trees we might stay dry. Then, night is coming soon, and the night-hounds. We have no weapons. If we climb a tree we’ll be safe.”
Zap 210 made no further comment; they approached the grove.
The dyans reared high overhead. At the first lines of boles they stopped to listen, but heard only a breath of wind from the oncoming storm.
Step by step they entered the grove. The sunlight shining past the clouds projected a hundred shafts and beams of dark golden light; Reith and Zap 210 walked in and out of shadow. The nearest branches were a hundred feet above; the trees could not be climbed; the grove offered little more security from night-hounds than did the open downs ... Zap 210 stopped short and seemed to listen. Reith could hear nothing. “What do you hear?”
“Nothing.” But she still listened, and peered in all directions. Reith became highly uneasy, wondering what Zap 210 sensed that he did not.
They proceeded, wary as cats, keeping to the shadows. A clearing free of boles opened before them, shrouded by a continuous roof of foliage. They looked forth into a circular area containing four huts, a low central platform. The surrounding boles had been carved to the semblance of men and women, a pair at each tree. The men were represented with long nutcracker chins, narrow foreheads, bulging cheeks and eyes; the females displayed long noses and lips parted in wide grins. Neither resembled the typical Khor man or woman, who, as Reith recollected, almost exactly resembled one another in stature, physiognomy and dress. The poses, conventionalized and rigid, depicted the act of copulation. Reith looked askance at Zap 210, who seemed blankly puzzled. Reith decided that she interpreted the not-too-explicit attitudes as representations of sheer sportiveness, or simple “boisterous conduct.”
The clouds submerged the sun. Gloom came to the glade; drops of rain touched their faces. Reith scrutinized the huts. They were built in the usual Khor style, of dull brown brick with conical black iron roofs. There were four, facing each other at quadrants around the clearing. They appeared to be empty. Reith wondered what the huts contained. “Wait here,” he whispered to Zap 210, and ran crouching to the nearest hut. He listened: no sound. He tried the door, which swung back easily. The interior exhaled a heavy odor, almost a stink, of poorly cured leather, resin, musk. On a rack hung several dozen masks of sculptured wood, identical to the male faces of the carved trees. Two benches occupied the center of the room; no weapons, no garments, no articles of value were to be seen. Reith returned to Zap 210 to find her inspecting the carved tree trunks, eyebrows lifted in distaste.
A purple dazzle struck the sky, followed immediately by a clap of thunder; down came rain in a torrent. Reith led the girl at a run to the hut. They entered and stood with rain drumming upon the iron roof. “The Khors are an unpredictable people,” said Reith, “but I can’t imagine them visiting their grove on a night like this.”
“Why would they come at any time?” demanded Zap 210 peevishly. “There is nothing here but those grotesque dancers. Do the Khor look like that?”
Reith understood that she referred to the figures carved upon the tree trunks. “Not at all,” he said. “They are a yellow-skinned folk, very neat and precise. The men and women are exactly alike in appearance, and disposition as well.” He tried to recall what Anacho had told him: “A strange secret folk with secret ways, different by day and by night, or at least this is the report. Each individual owns two souls which come and go with dawn and sunset; the body comprises two different persons.” Later, Anacho had warned: “The Khor are sensitive as spice-snakes! Do not speak to them; pay them no heed except from necessity, in which case you must use the fewest possible words. They consider garrulity a crime against nature ... Never acknowledge the presence of a woman, do not look toward their children: they will suspect you of laying a curse. Above all ignore the sacred grove! Their weapon is the iron dart which they throw with accuracy. They are a dangerous people.”
Reith paraphrased the remarks to the best of his recollection; Zap 210 went to sit on one of the benches.
“Lie down,” said Reith. “Try to sleep.”
“In the noise of the storm, and this vile smell to all sides? Are all the houses of the ghaun so?”
“Not all of them,” muttered Reith. He went to look out the door. The alternation of lightning glare and dying twilight upon the tree-statues presented the illusion of a frantic erotic jerking. Zap 210 might soon begin to ask questions to which Reith did not care to respond ... Upon the roof came a sudden clatter of hail; abruptly the storm passed over, and nothing could be heard but wind sighing in the dyan trees.
Reith returned into the room. He spoke in a voice which rang false even to his own ears: “Now you can rest; at least the sound is gone.”
She made a soft sound which Reith could not interpret, and went herself to stand in the doorway. She looked back at Reith. “Someone is coming.”
Reith hurried to the doorway and looked forth. Across the clearing stood a figure in Khor garments: male or female Reith could not determine. It went into the hut directly opposite their own. Reith said to Zap 210: “We’d better leave while we have a chance.”
She held him back. “No, no! There’s another one.”
The second Khor, entering the clearing, looked up at the sky. The first came from the hut with a flaring cresset on a pole, and the second ran quickly to the hut in which Reith and Zap 210 were concealed. The first took no notice. As the Khor entered Reith struck hard, ignoring all precepts of gallantry; in this case male and female were all the same. The Khor fell and lay limp. Reith jumped forward; the Khor was male. Reith stripped off his cape, tied his hands and feet with sandal thongs and gagged him with the sleeve of his black coat. With Zap 210’s help he dragged the man behind the rack of masks. Here Reith made a quick search of the limp body, finding a pair of iron darts, a dagger and a soft leather pouch containing sequins, which Reith somewhat guiltily appropriated.
Zap 210 stood by the door gazing out in fascination. The first to come had been a woman. Wearing a woman-mask and a white frock, she stood by the cresset which she had thrust into a socket near the central platform. If she were perplexed by the disappearance of the man who had entered the hut she gave no sign.
Reith looked forth. “Now: while there’s only one woman—”
“No! More come.”
Three persons slipped separately into the clearing, going to the other three huts. One, in a woman-mask and white gown, emerged with another cresset which she placed in a socket and stood quietly like the first. The other two now came forth, wearing man-masks and white gowns like those of the women. They went to the central platform and stood
near the women, who made no movement.
Reith began to understand something of the purpose of the sacred grove. Zap 210 stared forth in fascination.
Reith became highly uneasy. If events proceeded as he suspected, she would be shocked and horrified.
Three more persons appeared. One came to the but where Reith and Zap 210 waited; Reith tried to deal with him as he had the other; but this time the blow was glancing and the man fell with a startled grunt. Reith was instantly upon him and shut off his breath until he fainted. Using sandal thongs and cape as before he tied and gagged the Khor and again robbed the man of his pouch. “I regret becoming a thief,” said Reith, “but my need is far greater than yours.”
Zap 210, standing by the door, gave a startled gasp. Reith went to look. The women—now there were three—had disrobed to stand nude. They began to sing, a wordless chant, sweet, soft, insistent. The three in the man-masks began a slow gyration around the platform.
Zap 210 muttered under her breath: “What are they doing? Why do they reveal their bodies? Never have I seen such a thing!”
“It is only religion,” said Reith nervously. “Don’t watch. Go lie down. You must be very tired.”
She gave him a lambent look of wonder and distrust. “You don’t answer my question. I am very embarrassed. I have never seen a naked person. Are all the folk of the ghaun so-so boisterous? It is shocking. And the singing: most disturbing. What are they planning to do?”
Reith tried to stand in front of her. “Hadn’t you better sleep? The rites will only bore you.”
“They don’t bore me! I am astounded that people can be so bold! And look! The men!”
Reith took a deep breath and came to a desperate decision. “Come back here.” He gave her a female mask. “Put that on.”
She jerked back aghast. “What for?”
Reith took a man-mask and fitted it over his face. “We’re leaving.„
“But—” She turned a fascinated look toward the platform.
Reith pulled her back around, fitted one of the Khor hats on her head, arranged the other on his own.
“They’ll certainly see us,” said Zap 210. “They’ll chase us and kill us.”
“Perhaps so,” said Reith. “Nevertheless we’d better go.” He looked around the clearing. “You go first. Walk behind the hut. I’ll come after you.”
Zap 210 departed the hut. The women at the platform chanted with the most compelling urgency; the men stood nude.
Reith joined Zap 210 behind the hut. Had they been noticed? The chanting continued, rising and falling. “Walk out into the grove. Don’t look back.”
“Ridiculous,” muttered Zap 210. “Why shouldn’t I look back?” She marched toward the forest, with Reith twenty feet behind her. From the but came a wild scream of fury. The chanting stopped short. There was stunned silence.
“Run,” said Reith. Through the sacred grove they fled, throwing away the hats and masks. From behind came calls of passionate fury, but deterred perhaps by their nudity, the Khor offered no pursuit.[12]
Reith and Zap 210 came to the edge of the grove. They paused to catch their breath. Halfway up the sky the blue moon shone through a few ragged clouds; elsewhere the sky was clear.
Zap 210 looked up. “What are those little lights?”
“Those are stars,” said Reith. “Far suns. Most control a family of planets. From a world called Earth, men came: your ancestors, mine, even the ancestors of the Khor. Earth is the world of men.”
“How do you know all this?” demanded Zap 210.
“Sometime I’ll tell you. Not tonight.”
They set off across the downs, walking through the starry night, and something about the circumstances put Reith in a strange frame of mind. It was as if he were young and roaming a starlit meadow of Earth with a slim girl with whom he had become infatuated. So strong became the dream, or the hallucination, or whatever the nature of his mood, that he groped out for Zap 210’s hand, where she trudged beside him. She turned him a wan uncomplaining glance, but made no protest: here was another incomprehensible aspect of the astounding ghaun.
So they went on for a period. Reith gradually recovered his senses. He walked the surface of Tschai; his companion—He left the thought incomplete, for a variety of reasons. As if she had sensed the alteration of his mood Zap 210 angrily snatched away her hand; perhaps for a space of time she had been dreaming as well.
They marched on in silence. At last, with the blue moon hanging directly above, they reached the sandstone promontory, and found a protected niche at the base. Wrapping themselves in their cloaks, they huddled upon a drift of sand ... Reith could not sleep. He lay looking up at the sky and listening to the sound of the girl’s breathing. Like himself, she lay awake. Why had he felt so urgently compelled to flee the Khor grove at the risk of pursuit and death? To protect the girl’s innocence? Ridiculous. He looked to find her face, a pale blotch in the moonlight, turned in his direction.
“I can’t sleep,” she said in a soft voice. “I am too tired. The surface frightens me.”
“Sometimes it frightens me,” said Reith. “Still, would you rather be back in the Shelters?”
As always she made a tangential response. “I can’t understand what I see; I can’t understand myself ... Never have I heard such singing.”
“They sang songs which never change,” said Reith. “Songs perhaps from old Earth.”
“They showed themselves without clothes! Is this how the surface people act?”
“Not all of them,” said Reith.
“But why do they act that way?”
Sooner or later, thought Reith, she must learn the processes of human biology. Not tonight, not tonight! “Nakedness doesn’t mean much,” he mumbled. “Everyone has a body much like everyone else’s.”
“But why should they wish to show themselves? In the Shelters we remain covered, and try to avoid ‘boisterous conduct.’ “
“Just what is this ‘boisterous conduct’?”
“Vulgar intimacy. People touch other people and play with them. It’s all quite ridiculous.”
Reith chose his words with care. “This is probably normal human conduct—like becoming hungry, or something of the sort. You’ve never been ‘boisterous’?”
“Of course not!”
“You’ve never even thought about it?”
“One can’t help thinking.”
“Hasn’t there ever been a young man with whom you’ve especially wanted to be friendly?”
“Never!” Zap 210 was scandalized.
“Well, you’re on the surface and things may be different .... Now you’d better go to sleep. Tomorrow there may be a townful of Khors chasing us.”
Reith finally slept. He awoke once to find the blue moon gone, the sky dark except for constellations. From far across the downs came the sad hooting of a night-hound. When he settled back into his cloak Zap 210 said in a drowsy whisper: “The sky frightens me.
Reith moved close beside her; involuntarily, or so it seemed, he reached out and stroked her head, where the hair was now soft and thick. She sighed and relaxed, arousing in Reith an embarrassed protectiveness.
The night passed. A russet glow appeared in the east, waxing to become a lilac and honey-colored dawn. While Zap 210 sat huddled in her cloak, Reith investigated the pouches he had taken from the Khors. He was pleased to find sequins to the value of ninety-five: more than he had expected. He discarded the darts, needle-sharp iron bolts eight inches long with a leather tail; the dagger he tucked into his belt.
They set out up the slopes of the promontory, and presently gained the ridge. Carina 4269, rising at their backs, shone along the shore, revealing another sweep of low beach and mud flats, with far off another promontory like the one on which they stood. The Khor town occupied a hillside slope a mile to the left. Almost at their feet a pier zigzagged across the mud flats and out into the sea: a precarious construction of poles, rope and planks, vibrating to the current which swirled
around the base of the promontory. Half a dozen boats were moored to the spindly piles: double—ended craft, high at bow and stern like swaybacked dories fitted with masts. Reith looked toward the town. A few plumes of smoke rose from the black iron roofs; otherwise no activity was perceptible. Reith turned back to his inspection of the boats.
“It’s easier to sail than to walk,” Reith told Zap 210. “And there seems to be a fair wind up the coast.”
Zap 210 spoke in consternation: “Out across so much emptiness?”
“The emptier the better,” said Reith. “The sea gives me no worry; it’s the folk who sail there ... The same is just as true of the land, of course.” He set off down the slope; Zap 210 scrambled after him. They reached the end of the pier and started along the rickety walkway. From somewhere nearby came a shriek of anger. They saw a half-grown boy racing toward the village.
Reith broke into a run. “Come along, hurry! We won’t have much time.”
Zap 210 came panting behind him. The two reached the end of the pier. “We won’t be able to escape! They’ll follow us in the boats.”
“No,” said Reith. “I think not.” He looked from boat to boat, and chose that which seemed the most staunch. In front of the village excited black shapes had gathered; a dozen started at a run for the pier, followed by as many more.
“Jump down into the boat,” said Reith. “Hoist the sail!”
“It is too late,” cried Zap 210. “We will never escape.”
“It’s not too late. Hoist the sail!”
“I don’t know how.”
“Pull the rope that goes up over the mast.”
Zap 210 clambered down into the boat and tried to follow Reith’s instruction. Reith meanwhile ran along the pier cutting loose the other boats. Riding the current, pushed by the offshore breeze, they drifted away from the dock.
