by Jack Vance
Cauch touched Reith’s arm. “It might be imprudent to evince too great an interest in the ships.”
“Why?”
“At Urmank it is always the part of wisdom to dissemble.”
Reith looked back up the quay. “No one appears to be heeding us. If they are, they will take it for granted that I dissemble and actually plan a journey overland.”
Cauch sighed. “At Urmank life has many surprises for the unwary.”
Reith halted by a board. “The ship Nhiahar. Destination: Ching, the Murky Isles, the South Schanizade Coast, Kazain. A moment.” Reith climbed a gangplank and approached a thin and somber man in a leather apron.
“Where is the captain, if you please?”
“I am he.”
“In connection with a voyage to Kazain: what fare would you demand for two persons?”
“For the Class A cabin I require four sequins per person per diem, which includes nutrition. The passage to Kazain is generally thirty-two days; hence the total fee for two persons is, let us say, two hundred and sixty sequins.”
Reith expressed surprise at the magnitude of the amount, but the captain maintained an indifferent attitude.
Reith returned to the dock. “I need something over two hundred and fifty sequins.”
“Not an impossible sum,” said Cauch. “A diligent laborer can earn four or even five sequins a day. Porters are always in demand along the docks.”
“What of the gambling booths?”
“The district is yonder, beside the bazaar. Needless to say, you are unlikely to overcome the Thang gamesters on their own premises.”
They walked into a plaza paved with squares of salmon-pink stone. “A thousand years ago the tyrant Przelius built a great rotunda here. Only a floor remains. There: food-stalls. There: garments and sandals. There: ointments and extracts...” As Cauch spoke he pointed toward various quarters of the plaza, where the booths offered a great variety of goods: foodstuffs, cloth, leather; an earth-colored melange of spices; tinware and copper; black iron slabs, pads, rods and bars; glassware and lamps; paper charms and fetishes. Beyond the floor of the rotunda and the more or less orderly array of booths were the entertainments: orange tents with rugs in front where girls danced to nose-flutes and snap-blocks. Some wore garments of gauze; others danced bare to the waist; a few no more than a year or two from childhood wore only sandals. Zap 210 watched these and their postures with amazement. Then, with a shrug and a numb expression, she turned away.
Muffled chanting attracted Reith’s attention. A canvas wall enclosed a small stadium, from which now came a sudden chorus of hoots and groans. “The stilt contests,” Cauch explained. “It appears that one of the champions has been downed, and many wagers have gone by the boards.”
As they passed the stadium Reith caught a view of four men on ten-foot stilts stalking warily around each other. One kicked forth with his stilt; another struck a blow with a pillow-headed club; a third caught unaware careened away, preserving his balance by a miracle, while the others hopped after him like grotesque carrion-birds.
“The stilt-fighters are mostly Black Mountain mica-cutters,” said Cauch. “The outsider who wagers on the bouts might as well drop his money into a hole.” Cauch gave his head a rueful jerk. “Still, we always hope. My brother’s name-father won forty-two sequins at the eel-race some years ago. I must admit that for two days previously he burnt incense and implored divine intervention.”
“Let’s watch an eel-race,” said Reith. “If divine intervention earns a profit of forty-two sequins, our own intelligence should produce at least as much and hopefully more.”
“This way then, past the brat-house.”
Reith was about to inquire what a brat-house might be, when a grinning urchin ran dose and kicked Reith on the shins then, dodging back, made an ugly face and ran into the brat-house. Reith looked after the child in wrathful puzzlement. “What’s the reason for that?”
“Come,” said Cauch. “I’ll show you.”
He led the way into the brat-house. On a stage thirty feet distant stood the child, who upon their entrance emitted a hideous taunting squeal. Behind the counter stood a suave middle-aged Thang with a silky brown mustache. “Nasty tyke, don’t you think? Here, give him a good pelting. These mud-balls come ten bice apiece. The dung-packets are six to the sequin and these prickle-burrs are five to the sequin.”
“Yah, yah, yah!” screamed the urchin. “Why worry? He couldn’t heave a rock this far!”
“Go ahead, sir, give it to him,” suggested the operator. “Which will it be? The mud-balls? The dung-packets make a hideous reek; the brat despises them. And the thorn-balls! He’ll rue the day he attacked you.”
“You get up there,” said Reith. “Let me throw at you.”
“Prices double, sir.”
Reith departed the brat-house with the taunts of both urchin and operator accompanying him to the reach of earshot.
“Wise restraint,” said Cauch. “No sequins, to be earned in such a place.”
“One can’t live by bread alone ... but no matter. Show me the eel races.”
“Only a few steps further.”
They walked toward the sagging old wall which separated the bazaar from Urmank Old Town. At the very edge of the open area, almost in the shadow of the wall, they came to a U-shaped counter surrounded by two-score men and women, many wearing outland garments. A few feet beyond the open end of the U a wooden reservoir stood on a concrete platform. The reservoir, six feet in diameter and two feet high, was equipped with a hinged cover and emptied into a covered flume which ran between the arms of the U, to empty into a glass basin at the far bend. The attention of the players was riveted upon the glass basin; as Reith watched a green eel darted forth from the chute and into the basin, followed after a moment or two by eels of various other colors.
“Green wins again!” cried out the eel-master in a voice of anguish. “Lucky lucky green! Hands behind the screen, please, until I pay the winners! I am sorely hit! Twenty sequins for this Jadarak gentleman, who risked a mere two sequins. Ten sequins for this green-hatted lady of the Azote Coast, who chanced a sequin on the color of her hat! ... What? No more? Is this all? I have not been struck so sorely as first I feared.” The operator cleared the boards of sequins laid down upon the other colors. “A new race will now occur; arrange your bets. Sequins must be placed squarely upon the chosen color, if you please, to avoid misunderstanding. I set no limit; bet as high as you please, up to a limit of a thousand sequins, since my total wealth and reserve is only ten thousand. Five times already I have been bankrupted; always I have climbed back from poverty to serve the gambling folk of Urmank; is this not true dedication?”‘ As he spoke, he gathered the eels into a basket and carried them to the upper end of the chute. He hauled on a rope which, passing over a frame, lifted the lid of the reservoir. Reith edged close and peered down into the pool of water contained within. The eel-master made no objection. “Look your fill, my man; the only mysteries here are the eels themselves. If I could read their secrets I would be a rich man today!” Within the reservoir Reith saw a baffle which defined a spiral channel originating at a center well and twisting out to the chute, with a gate to the center well which the eel-master now snapped shut. In the center well he placed the eels and closed down the lid. “You have witnessed,” he called out. “The eels move at random, as free as though they traveled the depths of their native streams. They whirl, they race, they seek a ray of light; when I raise the gate all will dash forth. Which will win the race to the basin? Ah, who knows? The last winner was Green; will Green win again? Place your bets, all bets down! Aha! A grandee here wagers generously upon Gray and Mauve, ten sequins on each! What’s this? A purple sequin upon Purple! Behold all! A noblewoman of the Bashai backlands wagers a hundred value on Purple! Will she win a thousand? Only the eels know.”
“I know too,” Cauch muttered to Reith. “She will not win. Purple eel will loiter along the way. I predict a win for White o
r Pale Blue.”
“Why do you say that?”
“No one has bet on Pale Blue. Only three sequins are down on White.”
“True, but how do the eels know?”
“Herein, as the eel-master avers, lies the mystery.”
Reith asked Zap 210: “Can you understand how the operator controls the eels to his profit?”
“I don’t understand anything.”
“We’ll have to give this matter some thought,” said Reith. “Let’s watch another race. In the interests of research I’ll put a sequin down upon Pale Blue.”
“Are all bets made?” called out the eel-master. “Please be meticulous! Sequins overlapping two colors are reckoned to fall on the losing color. No more bets? Very well then, please keep hands behind the screen. No more bets, please! The race is about to begin!”
Stepping to the reservoir, he pulled a lever which presumably lifted the gate in front of the spiral baffle. “The race is in progress! Eels vie for light; they cavort and wheel in their joy! Down the chute they come! Which is to win?”
The gamblers craned their necks to watch; into the basin streaked the White eel. “Ah,” groaned the operator. “How can I profit with such uncooperative eels? Twenty sequins to this already wealthy Gray; you are a mariner, sir? And ten to this noble young slave-taker from Cape Braise. I pay, I pay; where is my profit?” He came past, flipping Reith’s sequin into his tray. “So then, everyone alert for the next race.”
Reith turned to Cauch with a shake of his head. “Perplexing, perplexing indeed. We had better go on.”
They wandered the bazaar until Carina 4269 went down the sky. They watched a wheel of fortune; they studied a game where the participants bought a bag of irregular colored tablets and sought to fit them together into a checkerboard; a half-dozen other games, more or less ordinary. Sunset arrived; the three went to a small restaurant near the Inn of the Lucky Mariner, where they dined upon fish in red sauce, pilgrim-pod bread, a salad of sea-greens and a great black flask of wine. “In only one phase of existence,” said Cauch, “can the Thang be trusted: their cuisine, to which they are loyal. The reason for this particularity escapes me.”
“It goes to demonstrate,” said Reith, “that you can’t judge a man by the table he sets.”
Cauch asked shrewdly, “How then can a man judge his fellows? For example, what is the basis of your calculation?”
“Only one thing I know for certain,” said Reith. “First thoughts are always wrong.”
Cauch, sitting back, inspected Reith under quizzical eyebrows. “True, quite possibly true. For instance, you probably are not the cool desperado you appear on first meeting.”
“I have been judged even more harshly,” said Reith. “One of my friends declares that I seem like a man from another world.”
“Odd that you should say that,” remarked Cauch. “A strange rumor has recently reached Zsafathra, to the effect that all men originated on a far planet, much as the Redeemers of Yao aver, and not from a union of the sacred xyxyl bird and the sea-demon Rhadamth. Furthermore, it was told that certain folk from this far planet now wander Old Tschai, performing the most remarkable deeds: defying the Dirdir, defeating the Chasch, persuading the Wankh. A new feeling is abroad across Tschai: the sense that change is on its way. What do you think of all this?”
“I suppose the rumor is not inherently absurd,” said Reith.
Zap 210 said in a subdued voice: “A planet of men: it would be more strange and wild than Tschai!”
“That of course is problematical,” remarked Cauch in a voice of didactic analysis, “and no doubt irrelevant to our present case. The secrets of personality are mystifying. For instance, consider the three of us. One honest Zsafathran and two brooding vagabonds driven like leaves before the winds of fate. What prompts such desperate journeys? What is to be gained? I myself in all my lifetime have not gone so far as Cape Braise; yet I feel none the worse, a trifle dull perhaps. I look at you and ponder. The girl is frightened; the man is harsh; goals beyond her understanding propel him; he takes her where she fears to go. Still, would she go back if she could?” Cauch looked into Zap 210’s face; she turned away.
Reith managed a painful grin. “Without money we won’t go anywhere.”
“Bah,” said Cauch bluffly, “if money is all you lack, I have the remedy. Once a week, each Ivensday, combat trials are arranged. In point of fact, Otwile the champion sits yonder.” He nodded toward a totally bald man almost seven feet tall, massive in the shoulders and thighs, narrow at the hips. He sat alone sipping wine, staring morosely out upon the quay. “Otwile is a great fighter,” said Cauch. “He once grappled a Green Chasch buck and held his own; at least he escaped with his life.”
“What are the prizes?” Reith inquired.
“The man who remains five minutes within the circle wins a hundred sequins; he is paid a further twenty sequins for each broken bone. Otwile sometimes provides a hundred-worth within the minute.”
“And what if the challenger throws Otwile away?”
Cauch pursed his lips. “No prize is posted; the feat is considered impossible. Why do you ask? Do you plan to make the trial?”
“Not I,” said Reith. “I need three hundred sequins. Assume that I remained five minutes in the ring to gain a hundred sequins ... I would then need ten broken bones to earn a further two hundred.”
Cauch seemed disappointed. “You have an alternative scheme?”
“My mind reverts to the eel-race. How can the operator control eleven eels from a distance of ten feet while they swim down a covered chute? It seems extraordinary.”
“It does indeed,” declared Cauch. “For years folk of Zsafathra have put down their sequins on the presumption that such control is impossible.”
“Might the eels alter color to suit the circumstances? Impractical, unthinkable. Does the operator stimulate the eels telepathically? I consider this unlikely.”
“I have no better theories,” said Cauch.
Reith reviewed the eel-master’s procedure. “He raises the lid of the reservoir; the interior is open and visible; the water is no more than a foot deep. The eels are placed into the center well and the lid is closed down: this before betting is curtailed. Yet the eel-master appears to control the motion of the eels.”
Cauch gave a sardonic chuckle. “Do you still think you can profit from the eel-races?”
“I would like to examine the premises a second time.” Reith rose to his feet.
“Now? The races are over for the day.”
“Still, let us examine the ground; it is only five minutes’ walk.”
“As you wish.”
The area surrounding the eel-race layout was deserted and lit dimly by the glow of distant bazaar lamps. After the animation of the daytime hours, the table, reservoir and chute seemed peculiarly silent.
Reith indicated the wall which limited the compound. “What lies to the other side?”
“The Old Town and, beyond, the mausoleums, where the Thangs take their dead—not a place to visit by night.”
Reith examined the chute and reservoir, the lid to which was locked down for the night. He turned to Cauch. “What time do the races begin?”
“At noon, precisely.”
“Tomorrow morning I’d like to look around some more.”
“Indeed,” mused Cauch. He looked at Reith sidewise. “You have a theory?”
“A suspicion. If—” He looked around as Zap 210 grasped his arm. She pointed. “Over there.”
Across the compound walked two figures in black cloaks and wide black hats.
“Gzhindra,” said Zap 210.
Cauch said nervously, “Let us return to the inn. It is not wise to walk the dark places of Urmank.”
At the inn Cauch retired to his chamber. Reith took Zap 210 to her cubicle. She was reluctant to enter. “What’s the matter?” asked Reith.
“I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
“The Gzhindra are followin
g us.”
“That’s not necessarily true. Those might have been any two Gzhindra.”
“But perhaps they weren’t.”
“In any event they can’t get at you in the room.”
The girl was still dubious.
“I’m right next door,” said Reith. “If anyone bothers you, scream.”
“What if someone kills you first?”
“I can’t think that far ahead,” said Reith. “If I’m dead in the morning, don’t pay the score.”
She wanted further reassurance. Reith patted the soft black curls. “Good night.”
He closed the door and waited until the bolt shot home. Then he went into his own cubicle and, despite Cauch’s reassurances, made a careful examination of floor, walls and ceiling. At last, feeling secure, he turned the light down to a glimmer and lay himself upon the couch.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NIGHT PASSED without alarm or disturbance. In the morning Reith and Zap 210 breakfasted alone at the cafe on the quay. The sky was cloudless; the smoky sunlight left crisp black shadows behind the tall houses and glinted on the water of the harbor. Zap 210 seemed less pessimistic than usual, and watched the porters, the hawkers, the seamen and outlanders with interest. “What do you think of the ghian now?” asked Reith.
Zap 210 at once became grave. “The folk act differently from what I expected. They don’t run back and forth; they don’t seem maddened by the sun-glare. Of course”—she hesitated—”one sees a great deal of boisterous conduct, but no one seems to mind. I marvel at the garments of the girls; they are so bold, as if they want to provoke attention. And again, no one objects.”
“Quite the reverse,” said Reith.
“I could never act like that,” Zap 210 said primly. “That girl coming toward us: see how she walks! Why does she act that way?”
“That’s how she’s put together. Also, she wants men to notice her. These are the instincts that the diko suppressed in you.”
Zap 210 protested with unusual fervor: “I eat no diko now; I feel no such instincts!”
