The Pnume

by Jack Vance

  Reith followed and found her lying on one of the couches. “Don’t you feel well?”

  “No.”

  “Come outside. You’ll be worse in here.”

  She staggered out upon the deck.

  “Keep your eyes on the horizon,” said Reith. “When the ship moves, keep your head level. Do that for a while and you’ll feel better.”

  Zap 210 stood by the rail. The clouds loomed overhead and the wind died; the Nhiahar lay wallowing with slatting sails ... From the sky came a purple dazzle, slanting and slashing at the sea—once, twice, three times, all in the flicker of an eye-blink. Zap 210 gave a small scream and jerked back in terror. Reith caught her and held her as the thunder rumbled down. She moved uneasily; Reith kissed her forehead, her face, her mouth.

  The sun settled into a tattered panoply of gold and black and brown; with the dusk came rain. Reith and Zap 210 retreated to their cabin, where the steward served supper: mincemeat, seafruit, biscuits. They ate, looking out through the great windows at the sea and rain and lightning, and afterwards, with lightning sparking the dark, they became lovers.

  At midnight the clouds departed; stars burnt down from the sky. “Look up there!” said Reith. “Among the stars are other worlds of men. One of them is called Earth.” He paused. Zap 210 lay listening, but Reith for some obscure reason could say no more, and presently she fell asleep.

  The Nhiahar, driven by fair winds, plunged down the Second Sea, crashing through great white billows of foam. Cape Braise reared up ahead; the ship put into the ancient stone city of Stheine to take on water, then fared forth into the Schanizade.

  Twenty miles down the coast a tongue of land hooked out to the west. Along the foreshore a forest of dark blue trees shrouded a city of flat domes, cambered cusps, sweeping colonnades. Reith thought to recognize the architecture, and put a question to the captain: “Is that a Chasch city?”

  “It is Songh, most southerly of the Blue Chasch places. I have taken cargoes into Songh, but it is risky business. You must know the games of the Chasch: antics of a dying race. I have seen ruins on the Kotan steppes: a hundred places where Old Chasch or Blue Chasch once lived, and who goes there now? Only the Phung.”

  The city receded into the distance and disappeared from view as the ship passed south beyond the peninsula. Not long after a cry from one of the crew brought everyone out on deck. In the sky a pair of airships fought. One was a gleaming contrivance of blue and white metal, shaped to a set of splendid curves. A balustrade contained the deck, on which lay a dozen creatures in glistening casques. The other craft was austere and bleak: a vessel sinister, ugly, gray, built with only its function in mind. It was slightly smaller than the Blue Chasch ship and somewhat more agile; in the dorsal bubble crouched the Dirdir crew, intent at the work of destroying the Chasch ship. The vessels circled and swung, now high, now low, careening around each other like venomous insects. From time to time, as circumstances offered, the ships exchanged volleys of sandblast fire, without noticeable effect. Far up into the gray-brown sky spun the sparkling shapes, to spiral giddily down, one after the other, veering only yards above the ocean’s surface.

  The whole company of the Nhiahar came on deck to watch the battle, even the two old women who had not previously shown themselves. As they scanned the sky the hood fell back from the head of one of them to reveal a keen pale countenance. Zap 210, standing beside Reith, uttered a soft gasp, and quickly turned away her gaze.

  The Blue Chasch ship slid suddenly down; the bow guns struck under the counter of the Dirdir ship, knocking it up, tumbling it over and down into the sea, where it struck with a soundless splash. The Blue Chasch vessel swung in a single grand circle, then cruised back toward Songh.

  The old women had disappeared below. Zap 210 spoke in a tremulous whisper: “Did you notice?”

  “Yes. I noticed.”

  “They are Gzhindra.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am sure.”

  “I suppose Gzhindra make voyages like other folk,” said Reith, somewhat hollowly. “So far at least they’ve done nothing to bother us.”

  “But they are here, aboard the ship! They do nothing without purpose!”

  Reith made another skeptical sound. “Perhaps so—but what can we do about it?”

  “We can kill them!”

  Zap 210, for all the strictures of her upbringing, was still a creature of Tschai, thought Reith. He said: “We’ll keep close watch on them. Now that we know who they are, and they don’t know that we know, the advantage is ours.”

  It was Zap 210’s turn to make a skeptical sound. Reith nevertheless refused to waylay the old women in the dark and strangle them.

  The voyage proceeded, southwest toward the Saschan Islands. Days passed without event more noteworthy than the turn of the heavens. Each morning Carina 4269 broke through the horizon into a dull bronze and old rose dawn. By noon a high haze had formed, to filter the sunlight and lay a sheen like antique silk on the water. The afternoons were long; sunsets were sad glories; allegorical wars between dark heroes and the lords of light. After nightfall the moons appeared: sometimes pink Az, sometimes blue Braz, and sometimes the Nhiahar rode under the stars.

  For Reith the days and nights would have been as pleasant as any he had known on Tschai except for the worry which nagged him: what was happening at Sivishe? Would he find the spaceboat intact or destroyed? What of crafty Aila Woudiver; what of the Dirdir in their horrid city across the water? And what of the two old women, who might be Gzhindra? They never appeared except in the deep of night, to walk the foredeck. One dark evening Reith watched them, the hair prickling at the nape of his neck. Either they were Gzhindra or they were not, but lacking information Reith felt obliged to assume the worst—and the implications were cause for the most dismal foreboding.

  One pale umber morning the Saschan Islands loomed out of the sea: three ancient volcanic necks surrounded by shelves of detritus where grew groves of psilla, kianthus, candlenut, lethipod. On each island a town climbed the central crag, beehive huts stacked one on the other like the cells of a wasp-nest. Black openings stared out to sea; wisps of smoke rose into the air.

  The Nhiahar entered the inner bay and, swerving to avoid a ferry, approached the south island. On the dock waited bowlegged Saschanese longshoremen in black breech-clouts and black roll-toed ankle-boots. They took the hawsers; the Nhiahar was warped alongside. As soon as the gangplank settled into place the longshoremen swarmed aboard. Hatches were opened; bales of leather, sacks of pilgrim-pod meal, crated tools were taken to the dock.

  Reith and Zap 210 went ashore. The captain called dourly after them: “I make departure at noon exactly, aboard or not.”

  The two walked along the esplanade, the crag and its unnatural encrustation of huts rearing above them. Zap 210 glanced over her shoulder. “They are following us.”

  “The Gzhindra?”

  “Yes.”

  Reith grunted in disgust. “It’s definite then. They have orders not to let us out of their sight.”

  “And we are as good as dead.” Zap 210 spoke in a colorless voice. “At Kazain they will report to the Pnume and then nothing can help us; we’ll be taken down into the dark.”

  Reith could think of nothing to say. They came to a small harbor protected from the sea by a pair of jetties, which narrowed to become a ferry slip. Reith and Zap 210 paused to watch the ferry arrive from the outer islands: a wide scow with control cabins at either end, carrying two hundred Saschanese of all ages and qualities. It nosed into the slip; the passengers debarked. As many more paid toll to a fat man sitting before a booth and surged aboard; immediately the ferry departed. Reith watched it cross the water, then led Zap 210 to a waiting area set with benches and tables beside the ferry slip. Reith ordered sweet wine and biscuits from a serving boy, then went to confer with the fat fare-collector. Zap 210 looked nervously here and there. In the shadow of a flight of steps she thought to glimpse two shapes robed in gray. They
wonder what we’re doing, Zap 210 told herself.

  Reith returned. “The next ferry leaves in something over an hour—a few minutes before noon. I’ve already paid our fares.”

  Zap 210 gave him a puzzled inspection. “But we must be aboard the Nhiahar at noon!”

  “True. Are the Gzhindra nearby?”

  “They’ve just taken seats at the far table.”

  Reith managed a grim chuckle. “We’re giving them something to think about.”

  “What should they think about? That we might take the ferry?”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “But why should they think that? It seems so strange!”

  “Not altogether. There might be a ship at one of the other islands to take us somewhere beyond their knowledge.”

  “Is there such a ship?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “But if we take the ferry the Gzhindra will follow, and the Nhiahar will leave without all of us!”

  “I expect so. The captain would have no qualms whatever.”

  The minutes passed. Zap 210 began to fidget. “Noon is very close.” She studied Reith, wondering what went on in his mind.

  No other man of Tschai—at least none she had yet seen—resembled him; he was of a different sort.

  “Here comes the ferry,” said Reith. “Let’s go down to the slip. We want to be the first in line.”

  Zap 210 rose to her feet. Never would she understand Reith! She followed him down to the waiting sea. Others came to join them, to push and squirm and mutter. Reith asked: “What of the Gzhindra?”

  Zap 210 glanced over her shoulder. “They’re standing at the back of the crowd.”

  The ferry entered the slip; the barriers opened and the passengers surged ashore.

  Reith spoke in Zap 210’s ear. “Walk close by the collector’s hut. As we pass, duck inside.”

  “Oh.”

  The gate opened. Reith and Zap 210 half-walked, half-ran down the way. At the collector’s hut, Reith lowered his head and slipped within; Zap 210 followed. The embarking passengers pushing past, handed their fares to the collector and marched down to the ferry. Near the end of the line came the Gzhindra, trying to peer through the surge ahead of them. They moved with the crowd, down the ramp, aboard the ferry.

  The barrier closed; the ferry moved out. Reith and Zap 210 emerged from the hut. “It’s almost noon,” said Reith. “Time to return aboard the Nhiahar.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  SOUTHEAST TOWARD KISLOVAN gusty winds drove the Nhiahar. The sea was almost black. The swells which rolled up and under the ship spilled rushes of white foam ahead.

  One blustery morning Zap 210 joined Reith where he stood at the bow. For a moment they stood looking ahead across the heaving water to where Carina 4269 dropped prisms and fractured shards of golden light.

  Zap 210 asked, “What lies ahead?”

  Reith shook his head. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  “But you worry. Are you afraid?”

  “I’m afraid of a man named Aila Woudiver. I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead.”

  “Who is Aila Woudiver, that you fear him so?”

  “A man of Sivishe, a man to fear ... I think he must be dead. I was kidnapped out of a dream. In the dream I saw Aila Woudiver’s head split open.”

  “So why do you worry?”

  Sooner or later, thought Reith, he must make all clear. Perhaps now was the time. “Remember the night I told you of other worlds among the stars?”

  “I remember.”

  “One of these worlds is Earth. At Sivishe I built a spaceship, with Aila Woudiver’s help. I want to go to Earth.”

  Zap 210 stared ahead across the water. “Why do you want to go to Earth?”

  “I was born there. It is my home.”

  “Oh.” She spoke in a colorless voice. After a reflective silence of fifteen seconds, she turned him a sidelong glance.

  Reith said ruefully, “You wonder if I am insane.”

  “I’ve wondered many times. Many, many times.”

  Though Reith himself had put the suggestion, he was nonetheless taken aback. “Indeed?”

  She smiled her sad grimace of a smile. “Consider what you have done. In the Shelters. At the Khor grove. When you changed eels at Urmank.”

  “Acts of desperation, acts of a frantic Earthman.”

  Zap 210 brooded across the windy ocean. “If you are an Earthman, what do you do here on Tschai?”

  “On the Kotan steppes my spaceship was wrecked. At Sivishe I’ve built another.”

  “Hmmf ... Is Earth such a paradise?”

  “The people of Earth know nothing of Tschai. It’s important that they do know.”

  “Why?”

  “A dozen reasons. Most important, the Dirdir raided Earth once; they might decide to return.”

  She gave him her swift side-glance. “You have friends on Earth?”

  “Of course.”

  “You lived there in a house?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “With a woman? And your children?”

  “No woman, no children. I’ve been a spaceman all my life.”

  “And when you return—what then?”

  “I’m not thinking past Sivishe right now.”

  “You will take me with you?”

  Reith put his arm around her. “Yes. I will take you with me.”

  She heaved a sigh of relief. Presently she pointed ahead. “Beyond where the sun glints—an island.”

  The island, a great crag of barren black basalt, was the first of a myriad, to scarify the surface of the sea. The area was home to a host of sea-foragers, of a sort beyond Reith’s previous experience. Four oscillating wings supported a cluster of dangling pink tentacles and a central tube ending in a bulbous eye. The creatures drifted high and low, dipping suddenly to seize some small wriggling sea-thing. A few drifted toward the Nhiahar; the crewmen lurched back in dread and took shelter in the forecastle.

  The captain, who had come up on the foredeck, sneered in disgust. “They consider these the guts and eyes of drowned seamen. We sail the Channel of Death; these rocks are the Channel Teeth.”

  “How do you navigate by night?”

  “I don’t know,” said the captain, “for I have never tried. It is risky enough by day. Around each of those rocks lies a hundred hulks and heaped white bones. Do you notice, far ahead, the loom? There is Kislovan! Tomorrow will find us docked at Kazain.”

  As evening approached long strands of clouds raced across the sky and the wind began to moan. The captain took the Nhiahar into the lee of one of the larger black rocks, nosing close, close, close, until the sprit almost scraped the wet black stone. Here the anchor was dropped and the Nhiahar rode in relative safety as the wind became a screaming gale. Great swells drove through the black crags; foam crashed high up and fell slowly back. The sea boiled and surged; the Nhiahar wallowed, jerking at the anchor line, then floating suddenly loose and free.

  With the coming of darkness the wind died. For a long period the sea rose and fell in fretful recollection, but dawn found the Charnel Teeth standing like archaic monuments on a sea of brown glass. Beyond lay the bulk of the continent.

  Proceeding through the Charnel Teeth under power, the Nhiahar at noon nosed into a long narrow bay and by late afternoon drew alongside the pier at Kazain.

  On the dock two Dirdirmen paused to watch the Nhiahar.

  Their caste was high, perhaps Immaculate; they were young and vain; they wore their false effulgences aslant and glittering. Reith’s heart rose in his throat for fear that they had been sent to take him into custody. For such a contingency he had no plans; he sweated until the two sauntered off toward the Dirdir settlement at the head of the bay.

  There were no formalities at the dock; Reith and Zap 210 carried their belongings ashore and without interference made their way to the motor-wagon depot. An eight-wheeled vehicle stood on the verge of departure across the neck of Kis
lovan; Reith commissioned the most luxurious accommodation available: a cubicle of two hammocks on the third tier with access to the rear deck.

  An hour later the motor-wagon trundled forth from Kazain. For a space the road climbed into the coastal uplands, affording a view over the Channel of Death and the Charnel Teeth. Five miles north the road swung inland. For the rest of the day the motor-wagon lumbered beside bean-vine fields, forests of white ghost-apple, an occasional little village.

  In the early evening the motor-wagon halted at an isolated inn, where the forty-three passengers took supper. About half seemed to be Grays; the rest were people Reith could not identify. A pair might have been steppe—men of Kotan; several conceivably were Saschanese. Two yellow-skinned women in gowns of black scales almost certainly were Marsh-folk from the north shore of the Second Sea. The various groups took the least possible notice of each other, eating and returning at once to board the power-wagon. The indifference Reith knew to be feigned; each had gauged the exact quality of all the others with a precision beyond any Reith could muster.

  Early in the morning the power-wagon once more set forth and met the dawn climbing over the edge of the central plateau. Carina 4269 rose to illuminate a vast savanna, clumped with alumes, gallow-trees, bundle-fungus, patches of thorn-grass.

  So passed the day, and four more: a journey which Reith hardly noticed for his mounting tension. In the Shelters, on the great subterranean canal, along the shores of the Second Sea, at Urmank, even aboard the Nhiahar, he had been calm with the patience of despair. The stakes were once again high. He hoped, he dreaded, he strained for the power-wagon to go faster, he shrank from the thought of what he might find in the warehouse on the Sivishe salt flats. Zap 210, reacting to Reith’s tension, or perhaps beset with premonitions of her own, retired into herself, and took small interest in the passing landscape.

  Over the central plateau, down through a badlands of eroded granite, out upon a landscape farmed by clans of sullen Grays, went the power-wagon. Signs of the Dirdir presence appeared: a grey butte bristling with purple and scarlet towers, overlooking a rift valley, walled by sheer cliffs, which served the Dirdir as a hunting range. On the sixth day a range of mountains rose ahead: the back of the palisades overlooking Hei and Sivishe. The journey was almost at an end. All night the motor-wagon lumbered along a dusty road by the light of the pink and blue moons.