by Jack Vance
“Hmm.” Reith rubbed his chin. “What of our boat, in this case?”
Cauch shrugged, somewhat too casually or so it seemed to Reith. “What is a boat? A floating shell of wood.”
“We had planned to sell this valuable boat at Urmank,” said Reith. “Still, to save myself the effort of navigation, I will let it go here for less than its full value.”
With a quiet laugh Cauch shook his head. “I have no need for so clumsy and awkward a craft. The rigging is frayed, the sails are by no means the best; there is only a poor assortment of gear and rope in the forward caddy.”
After an hour and a half of proposals and counter-proposals Reith disposed of the boat for forty-two sequins, together with all costs of accommodation at Zsafathra, and transportation to Urmank on the morrow. As they bargained they consumed quantities of the pepper tea, a mild intoxicant. Reith’s mood became loose and easy. The present seemed none too bad. The future? It would be met on its own terms. At the moment the failing afternoon light seeped through the enormous ouinga trees, pervading the air with dusty violet, and the pond mirrored the sky.
Cauch went off about his affairs; Reith leaned back in his chair. He considered Zap 210, who also had drunk a considerable quantity of the pepper tea. Some alteration of his mood caused him to see her not as a Pnumekin and a freak but as a personable young woman sitting quietly in the dusk. Her attention was fixed on something across the pavilion; what she saw astonished her and she turned to Reith in wonder. Reith noticed how large and dark were her eyes. She spoke in a shocked whisper. “Did you see ... that?.”
“What?”
“A young man and a young woman—they stood close and put their faces together!”
“Really!”
“Yes!”
“I can’t believe it. Just what did they do?”
“Well—I can’t quite describe it.”
“Was it like this?” Reith put his hands on her shoulders, looked deep into the startled eyes.
“No ... not quite. They were closer.”
“Like this?”
Reith put his arms around her. He remembered the cold water of the Pagaz lake, the desperate animal vitality of her body as she had clung to him. “Was it like this?”
She pushed back at his shoulders. “Yes ... Let me go; someone might think us boisterous.”
“Did they do this?” Reith kissed her. She looked at him in astonishment and alarm, and put her hand to her mouth. “No ... Why did you do that?”
“Did you mind?”
“Well, no. I don’t think so. But please don’t do it again; it makes me feel very strangely.”
“That,” said Reith, “is the effects of the diko wearing off.” He drew back and sat with his head spinning. She looked at him uncertainly. “I can’t understand why you did that.”
Reith took a deep breath. “It’s natural for men and women to be attracted to each other. This is called the reproductive instinct, and sometimes it results in children.”
Zap 210 became alarmed. “Will I now be a mother-woman?”
“No,” said Reith. “We’d have to become far friendlier.”
“You’re sure?”
Reith thought that she leaned toward him. “I’m sure.” He kissed her again, and this time, after a first nervous motion, she made no resistance ... then she gasped. “Don’t move. They won’t notice us if we sit like this; they’ll be ashamed to look.”
Reith froze, his face close to hers. “Who won’t notice us?” he muttered.
“Look—now.”
Reith glanced over his shoulder. Across the pavilion stood two dark shapes wearing black cloaks and wide-brimmed black hats.
“Gzhindra,” she whispered.
Cauch came into the pavilion, and went to talk with the Gzhindra. After a moment he led them out into the road.
Dusk became night. Across the pavilion the serving girls hung up lamps with yellow and green shades, and brought new trays and tureens to the buffet table. Reith and Zap 210 sat somberly back in the shadows.
Cauch, returning to the pavilion, joined them. “Tomorrow at dawn we will depart for Urmank, and no doubt arrive by noon. You know the reputation of the Thangs?”
“To some extent.”
“The reputation is deserved,” said Cauch. “They cheat in preference to keeping faith; their favorite money is stolen money. So be on your guard.”
Reith asked casually, “Who were the two men in black with whom you spoke half an hour ago?”
Cauch nodded as if he had been awaiting the question. “Those were Gzhindra, or Ground-men as we call them, who sometimes act as agents for the Pnume. Their business tonight was different. They have taken a commission from the Khors to locate a man and a woman who desecrated a sacred place and stole a boat near the town of Fauzh. The description, by a peculiar coincidence, matched your own, though certain discrepancies enabled me to state with accuracy that no such persons had been seen at Zsafathra. Still, they may discuss the matter with people who do not know you as well as I; to avoid any possible confusion of identities, I suggest that you alter your appearance as dramatically as possible.”
“That is easier said than done,” said Reith.
“Not altogether.” Cauch put his fingers into his mouth, producing a shrill whistle. Without surprise or haste one of the serving girls approached: a pleasant creature, broad in hips, shoulders, cheekbones and mouth, with nondescript brown hair worn in a wildly coquettish array of ringlets. “Well, then, you desire something?”
“Bring a pair of turbans,” said Cauch. “The orange and white, with black bangles.”
The girl procured the articles. Going to Zap 210, she wound the orange and white cloth around the black cap of hair, tied it so that the tasseled ends hung behind the left ear, then affixed black bangles to swing somewhat in front of the right ear. Reith marveled at the transformation. Zap 210 now seemed daring and mischievous, a gay young girl costumed as a pirate.
Reith was next fitted with the turban; Zap 210 seemed to find the transformation amusing; she opened her mouth and laughed: the first occasion Reith had heard her do so.
Cauch appraised them both. “A remarkable difference. You have become a pair of Hedaijhans. Tomorrow I will provide you with shawls. Your very mothers would not know you.”
“What do you charge for this service?” demanded Reith. “A reasonable sum, I hope?”
“A total of eight sequins, to include the articles themselves, fitting, and training in the postures of the Hedaijhans. Essentially, you must walk with a swagger, swinging your arms—so.” Cauch demonstrated a mincing lurching gait. “With your hands—so. Now, lady, you first. Remember, your knees must be bent. Swing, swagger...”
Zap 210 followed the instructions with great earnestness, looking toward Reith to see if he laughed.
The practice went on into the night, while the pink moon sailed behind the ouinga trees, and the blue moon rose in the east. Finally Cauch pronounced himself satisfied. “You would deceive almost anyone. So then, to the couch. Tomorrow we journey to Urmank.”
The sleeping cubicle was dim, cracks in the rattan wall admitting slits of green and yellow light from the pavilion lamps, as many more from the pink and blue moons shining from different directions to make a multicolored mesh on the floor.
Zap 210 went to the wall and peered through the cracks out toward the avenue which ran under the ouingas. She looked for several minutes. Reith came to join her. “What do you see?”
“Nothing. They would not let themselves be seen so easily.” She turned away and with an inscrutable glance toward Reith went to sit on one of the wicker couches. Presently she said, “You are a very strange man.”
Reith had no reply to make.
“There is so much you don’t tell me. Sometimes I feel as if I know nothing whatever.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How people of the surface act, how they feel ... why they do the things they do...”
Reith went
to where she sat and stood looking down at her. “Do you want to learn all these things tonight?”
She sat looking down at her hands. “No. I’m afraid ... Not now.”
Reith reached out and touched her head. He was suddenly wildly tempted to sit down beside her and tell her the tale of his remarkable past ... He wanted to feel her eyes on him; to see her pale face attentive and marveling ... In fact, thought Reith, he had begun to find this strange girl with her secret thoughts stimulating.
He turned away. As he crossed to his own couch he felt her eyes on his back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE MORNING SUNLIGHT entered the cubicle, strained by the withes of the wall. Going out upon the pavilion, Reith and Zap 210 found Cauch making a breakfast of pilgrim-pod cakes and a hot broth redolent of the shore. He inspected Reith and Zap 210 narrowly, paying particular attention to the turbans and their gait. “Not too bad. But you tend to forget. More swagger, lady, more shrug to your shoulders. Remember when you leave the pavilion you are Hedaijhans, in case suspicions have been aroused, in case someone waits and watches.”
After breakfast, the three went out upon the avenue which led northward under the ouinga trees, Reith and Zap 210 as thoroughly Hedaijhan as turban, shawl and mincing gait could make them, to a pair of carts drawn by a type of animal Reith had not previously seen: a gray-skinned beast which pranced elegantly and precisely on eight long legs.
Cauch climbed aboard the first cart; Reith and Zap 210 joined him. The carts departed Zsafathra.
The road led out upon a damp land of reeds, water-plants, isolated black stumps trailing lime-green tendrils. Cauch gave a great deal of his attention to the sky, as did the Zsafathrans in the cart behind. Reith finally asked: “What are you watching for?”
“Occasionally,” said Cauch, “we are molested by a tribe of predatory birds from the hills yonder. In fact, there you see one of their sentinels.” He pointed to a black speck flapping across the southern sky; it appeared the size of a large buzzard. Cauch went on in a voice of resignation. “Presently they will fly out to attack us.
“You show no great alarm,” said Reith.
“We have learned how to deal with them.” Cauch turned and gestured to the cart behind, then accelerated the pace of his own cart, to open up a gap of a hundred yards between the two. Out of the southern skies came a flock of fifty or sixty flapping bird-creatures. As they drew near Reith saw that each carried two chunks of stone half the size of his head. He looked uneasily toward Cauch. “What do they do with the rocks?”
“They drop them, with remarkable accuracy. Assume that you stood in the road, and that thirty creatures flew above you at their customary height of five hundred feet. Thirty stones would strike you and crush you to the ground.”
“Evidently you have learned how to frighten them off.”
“No, nothing of the sort.”
“You disturb their accuracy?”
“To the contrary. We are essentially a passive people and we try to deal with our enemies so that they disconcert or defeat themselves. Have you wondered why the Khors do not attack us?”
“The thought has occurred to me.”
“When the Khors attack—and they have not done so for six hundred years—we evade them and by one means or another penetrate their sacred groves. Here we perform acts of defilement, of the most simple, natural and ordinary sort. They no longer can use the grove for procreation and must either migrate or perish. Our weapons, I agree, are indelicate, but typify our philosophy of warfare.”
“And these birds?” Reith dubiously watched the approach of the flock. “Surely the same weapons are ineffectual?”
“I would presume so,” Cauch agreed, “though for a fact we have never tested them. In this case we do nothing whatever.”
The birds soared overhead; Cauch urged the dray-beast into a sinuous lope. One by one the birds dropped their stones, which fell to strike the road behind the cart.
“The birds, you must understand, can only compute the position of a stationary target; in this case their accuracy is their undoing.„
The stones were all dropped; with croaks of frustration the birds flew back to the mountains. “They will more than likely return with another load of stones,” said Cauch. “Do you notice how this road is elevated some four feet above the surrounding marsh? The toil has been accomplished by the birds over many centuries. They are dangerous only if you stand to watch.”
The carts moved through a forest of wax-brown trees, seething with hordes of small white fuzz-balls, half-spider, halfmonkey, which bounded from branch to branch, venting raucous little screams and hurling twigs at the travelers. The road then led twenty miles across a plain littered with boulders of honey-colored tuff, toward a pair of tall volcanic necks, each growing into an ancient weathered castle, in ages past the headquarters of hermetic cults but now, according to Cauch, the abode of ghouls. “By day they are never seen, but by night they come down to prowl the outskirts of Urmank. Sometimes the Thangs catch them in traps for use at the carnival.”
The road passed between the peaks and Urmank came into view: a disorderly straggle of high, narrow houses of black timber, brown tile and stone. A quay bordered the waterfront, where half a dozen ships floated placidly at moorages. Behind the quay was the marketplace and bazaar, to which a flutter of orange and green banners gave a festive air. A long wall of crumbling brick bounded the bazaar; a clutter of mud huts beyond seemed to indicate a caste of pariahs.
“Behold Urmank!” said Cauch. “The town of the Thangs. They are not fastidious as to who comes and who goes, provided only that they take away fewer sequins than they brought.”
“In my case they will be disappointed,” said Reith. “I hope to gain sequins, by one means or another.”
Cauch gave him a marveling side-glance. “You intend to take sequins from the Thangs? If you control such a miraculous power please share it with me. The Thangs have cheated us so regularly that now they regard the process as their birthright. Oh, I tell you, in Urmank you must be wary!”
“If you are cheated, why do you deal with them?”
“It seems an absurdity,” Cauch admitted. “After all, we could bring a ship and sail it to Hedaijha, the Green Erges, Coad—but we are a wry people; it amuses us to come to Urmank where the Thang provide entertainments. Look yonder; see the area wrapped around with brown and orange canvas? There is the site of the stilting. Beyond are the games of chance, where the visitor invariably loses more than he gains. Urmank is a challenge to Zsafathra; always we hope to outwit the Thangs.”
“Our joint efforts may yield a profit,” said Reith. “At least I can bring a fresh outlook to bear.”
Cauch gave an indifferent shrug. “Zsafathrans have tried to outdo the Thangs from beyond the brink of memory. They deal with us by formula. First we are enticed by the prospect of quick gain; then after we have put down our sequins the prospects recede ... Well, first we will refresh ourselves. The Inn of the Lucky Mariner has proved satisfactory in the past. As my associate you are safe from thuggery, kidnap and slave-taking. However, you must guard your own money; the Thangs can be coerced only so far and no further.”
The common room at the Inn of the Lucky Mariner was furnished in a style Reith had not seen previously on Tschai. Angular chairs of wooden posts and poles lined the walls, which were whitewashed brick. In alcoves glass pots displayed the movement of iridescent seaworms. The chief functionary wore a brown caftan buttoned down the front, a black skullcap, black slippers and black finger-guards. His face was bland, his manners suave; he proffered for Reith’s inspection a pair of adjoining cubicles furnished with couch, nightstand and lamp, which, with fresh body linen and foot ointment, rented for the inclusive sum of three sequins. Reith thought the figure reasonable and said as much to Cauch.
“Yes,” said Cauch. “Three sequins is no great amount, but I recommend that you make no use of the foot ointment. As a new amenity, it arouses suspicion. It may stain the woodwork
, whereupon you will be levied an extra charge. Or it may contain a pulsing vescient, the balm for which sells at five sequins the dram.”
Cauch spoke in full earshot of the functionary, who laughed quietly and without offense. “Old Zsafathran, you are overskeptical for once. Recently we were required to accept a large stock of tonics and ointments in lieu of payment, and we have merely put these substances at the disposal of our guests. Do you require a diuretic or a vermifuge? We supply these at only a nominal charge.”
“At the moment, nothing,” said Cauch.
“What of your Hedaijhan friends? Everyone is the better for an occasional purge, which we offer at ten bice. No? Well then, for your evening meal let me recommend The Choicest Offerings of Land and Sea a few steps to the right along the quay.”
“I have dined there on a previous occasion,” said Cauch. “The substances set before me would have quelled the appetite of a High-castle ghoul. We will buy bread and fruit in the market.”
“In that case, be so good as to patronize the booth of my nephew, opposite the depilatorium!”
“We will inspect his produce.” Cauch led the way out upon the quay. “The Lucky Mariner’s comparatively scrupulous; still, as you see, one must be alert. On my last visit, a troupe of musicians played in the common room. I stopped for a moment to listen and on my reckoning discovered a charge of four sequins. As far as the offer of purgative at little or no charge”—here Cauch coughed—”this is all very well. On a previous visit to Urmank a similar offer was put to my grandfather, who accepted and thereafter discovered a lock on the door to the convenience, and consequent usage charge. The medication, in the long run, cost him dearly. It is wise in one’s dealings with the Thangs to examine every aspect of a situation.”
The three strolled along the quay, Reith examining the ships with interest. These were all fat-bellied little cogs, with high poops and foredecks, propelled by sails when the wind was fair and an electric jet-pump otherwise. In front of each a board announced the name of the ship, the port of destination and the date of sailing.
