The Dirdir

by Jack Vance

  A voice broke into Reith’s musings: a sighing, rasping, sibilant voice, which Reith could not understand.

  Anacho touched a button; the voice cut off. Anacho showed no concern; Reith forbore to ask questions.

  The afternoon waned; the chasms spread to become flatbottomed gorges full of darkness, while the intervening ridges showed fringes of dark gold. A region as grim and hopeless as the grave, thought Reith. He recalled the village, now far behind, and became melancholy.

  The peaks and ridges ended abruptly to form the front of a gigantic scarp; the floors of the gorges extended and joined. Ahead lay the Draschade. Carina 4269, sinking, laid a topaz trail across the leaden water.

  A promontory jutted into the sea, sheltering a dozen fishing craft, high at bow and stern. A village struggled along the foreshore, lights already glimmering into the dusk.

  Anacho circled slowly above the village. He pointed. “Notice the stone building with the two cupolas and the blue lamps? A tavern, or perhaps an inn. I suggest that we put down to refresh ourselves. We have had a most tiring day.”

  “True, but can the Dirdir trace us?”

  “Small risk. They have no means to do so. I long since isolated the identity crystal. And in any event, that is not their way.”

  Traz peered suspiciously down at the village. Born to the inland steppes, he distrusted the sea and sea-people, considering both uncontrollable and enigmatic. “The villagers may well be hostile, and set upon us.”

  “I think not,” said Anacho in the lofty voice which invariably irritated Traz. “First, we are at the edge of the Wankh realm; these folk will be accustomed to strangers. Secondly, so large an inn implies hospitality. Thirdly, sooner or later we must descend in order to eat and drink. Why not here? The risk can be no greater than at any other inn upon the face of Tschai. Fourthly, we have no plans, no destination. I consider it foolish to fly aimlessly through the night.”

  Reith laughed. “You have convinced me. Let’s go down.”

  Traz gave his head a sour shake, but put forward no further objections.

  Anacho landed the sky-car in a field beside the inn, close under a row of tall black chymax trees which tossed and sighed to a cold wind off the sea. The three alighted warily, but their arrival had attracted no great attention. Two men, hunching along the lane with capes gripped close against the wind, paused a moment to survey the sky-car, then continued with only an idle mutter of comment.

  Reassured, the three proceeded to the front of the inn and pushed through a heavy timber door into a great hall. A halfdozen men with sparse sandy hair and pale bland faces stood by the fireplace nursing pewter mugs. They wore rough garments of gray and brown fustian, knee-high boots of well-oiled leather; Reith took them for fishermen. Conversation halted. All turned narrow gazes toward the newcomers. After a moment they reverted to the fire, their mugs, their terse conversations.

  A strapping woman in a black gown appeared from a back chamber. “Who be you?”

  “Travelers. Can you give us meals and lodging for the night?”

  “What’s your nature? Are you fjord men? Or Rab?”

  “Neither.”

  “Travelers often be folk who do evil in their own lands and are sent away.”

  “This is often the case, I agree.”

  “Mmf. What will you eat?”

  “What is to be had?”

  “Bread and steamed eel with hilks.”

  “This then must be our fare.”

  The woman grunted once more and turned away, but served additionally a salad of sweet lichen and a tray of condiments. The inn, so she informed them, had originally been the residence of the Foglar pirate kings. Treasure was reputedly buried below the dungeons. “But digging only uncovers bones and more bones, some broken, some scorched. Stern men, the Foglars. Well, then, do you wish tea?”

  The three went to sit by the fire. Outside the wind roared past the eaves. The landlady came to stoke the blaze. “The chambers are down the hall. If you need women, I must send out; I myself can’t serve owing to my sore back, and there will be additional charge.”

  “Don’t trouble in this regard,” Reith told her. “So long as the couches are clean we will be content.”

  “Strange travelers that come in so grand a sky-car. You”—she pointed a finger toward Anacho—“might well be a Dirdirman. Is that a Dirdir sky-car?”

  “I might be a Dirdirman and it might be a Dirdir sky-car. And we might be engaged upon important work where absolute discretion is necessary.”

  “Aha, indeed!” The woman’s jaw slacked. “Something to do with the Wankh, no doubt! Do you know, there’s been great changes to the south? The Wankhmen and the Wankh are all at odds!”

  “We are so informed.”

  The woman leaned forward. “What of the Wankh? Are they in withdrawal? So it is rumored.”

  “I think not,” said Anacho. “While the Dirdir inhabit Haulk, so long will the Wankh hold their Kislovan forts, and the Blue Chasch keep their torpedo pits ready.”

  The woman cried, “And we, poor miserable humans: pawns of the great folk, never knowing which way to jump! I say Bevol take ’em all, and welcome!”

  She shook her fist to south, to southwest and northwest, the directions in which she located her principal antagonists; then she departed the chamber.

  Anacho, Traz and Reith sat in the ancient stone hall, watching the fire flicker.

  “Well, then,” asked Anacho. “What of tomorrow?”

  “My plans remain the same,” said Reith. “I intend to return to Earth. Somewhere, somehow, I must gain possession of a spaceship. This program is meaningless for you two; you should go where you feel secure: the Isles of Cloud, or perhaps back to Smargash. Wherever you decide, we will go; then perhaps you will allow me to continue in the sky-car.”

  Anacho’s long harlequin face assumed an expression almost prim. “And where will you take yourself?”

  “You mentioned the spaceyards at Sivishe; this will be my destination.”

  “What of money? You will need a great deal, as well as subtlety and, most of all, luck.”

  “For money there is always the Carabas.”

  Anacho nodded. “Every desperado of Tschai will tell you the same. But wealth does not come without extreme risk. The Carabas lies within the Dirdir Hunting Preserve; trespassers are fair game. If you evade the Dirdir, there is Buszli the Bandit, the Blue Band, the vampire women, the gamblers, the hook-men. For every man who gains a handful of sequins, another three leave their bones, or fill Dirdir guts.”

  Reith gave an uneasy grimace. “I’ll have to take my chances.”

  The three sat looking into the fire. Traz stirred. “Once long ago I wore Onmale and never am I entirely free of the weight. Sometimes I feel it calling from under the soil. In the beginning it ordained life for Adam Reith; now, even if I wished, I would not desert Adam Reith for fear of Onmale.”

  “I am a fugitive,” said Anacho. “I have no life of my own. We have destroyed the first Initiative,[3] but sooner or later there will be a second Initiative. The Dirdir are pertinacious. Do you know where we might find the most security? At Sivishe, close under the Dirdir city Hei. As for the Carabas…” Anacho gave a doleful sigh. “Adam Reith seems to have a knack for survival. I have nothing better to do. I will take my chances.”

  “I’ll say no more,” said Reith. “I’m grateful for your company.”

  For a space the three looked into the flames. Outside the wind whistled and blustered. “Our destination, then, is the Carabas,” said Reith. “Why should not the sky-car give us an advantage?”

  Anacho fluttered his fingers. “Not in the Black Zone. The Dirdir would take note and instantly be upon us.”

  “There must be tactics of some sort to lessen the danger,” said Reith.

  Anacho gave a grim chuckle. “Everyone who visits the Zone has his private theories. Some enter by night; others wear camouflage and puff boots to muffle their tracks. Some organize brigades and
march as a unit; others feel more secure alone. Some enter from Zimle; others come down from Maust. The eventualities are usually the same.”

  Reith rubbed his chin reflectively. “Do Dirdirmen join the hunt?”

  Anacho smiled into the flames. “The Immaculates have been known to hunt. But your concept has no value. Neither you nor Traz nor I could successfully impersonate an Immaculate.”

  The fire became coals; the three went to their tall dim chambers and slept on hard couches under linens smelling of the sea. In the morning they ate a breakfast of salt biscuit and tea, then settled their tariff and departed the inn.

  The day was dreary. Cold tendrils of fog sifted through the chymax trees. The three boarded the sky-car. Up they rose through the overcast, and finally broke out into the wan amber sunlight. Westward they flew, over the Draschade Ocean.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE GRAY DRASCHADE rolled below: the ocean which Reith—it seemed an eon ago—had crossed aboard the cog Vargaz. Anacho flew close above the surface, to minimize the risk of detection by Dirdir search-screens. “We have important decisions to make,” he announced. “The Dirdir are hunters; we have become prey. In principle, a hunt once initiated must be consummated, but the Dirdir are not a cohesive folk like the Wankh; their programs result from individual initiatives, the so called zhna-dih. This means a great dashing leap, trailing lightning-like sparks. The zeal expended upon finding us depends upon whether the hunt-chief—he who performed the original zhna-dih was aboard the skycar and is now dead. If so, there is a considerable diminution of risk, unless another Dirdir wishes to assert h’so—a word meaning ‘marvelous dominance’—and organizes another tsau’gsh, whereupon conditions are as before. If the hunt-chief is alive, he becomes our mortal enemy.”

  Reith asked in wonder, “What was he before?”

  Anacho ignored the remark. “The hunt-chief has the force of the community at his disposal, though he asserts his h’so more emphatically by zhna-dih. However, if he suspects that we fly the sky-car, he might well order up search-screens.” Anacho offhandedly indicated a disk of gray glass to the side of the instrument panel. “If we touch a search-screen you’ll see a mesh of orange lines.”

  The hours went by. Anacho somewhat condescendingly explained the operation of the sky-car; both Traz and Reith familiarized themselves with the controls. Carina 4269 swung across the sky, overtaking the skycar and dropping into the west. The Draschade rolled below, an enigmatic gray-brown waste, blurring and merging into the sky.

  Anacho began to talk of the Carabas: “Most sequin-takers enter at Maust, fifty miles south of the First Sea. At Maust are the most complete outfitters’ shops, the finest charts and handbooks, and other services. I consider it as good a destination as any.”

  “Where are the nodes usually found?”

  “Anywhere within the Carabas. There is no rule, no system of discovery. Where many folk seek, nodes are naturally few.”

  “Then why not choose a less popular entry?”

  “Maust is popular because it is most convenient.”

  Reith looked ahead toward the yet unseen coast of Kislovan and the unknown future. “What if we use none of these entries, but some point in between?”

  “What is there to gain? The Zone is the same from any direction.”

  “There must be some way to minimize risks and maximize gains.”

  Anacho shook his head in disparagement. “You are a strange and obstinate man! Isn’t this attitude a form of arrogance?”

  “No,” said Reith. “I don’t think so.”

  “How,” argued Anacho, “should you succeed with such facility where others have failed?”

  Reith grinned. “It’s not arrogant to wonder why they failed.”

  “One of the Dirdir virtues is zs’hanh,” said Anacho. “It means ‘contemptuous indifference to the activity of others.’ There are twenty-eight castes of Dirdir, which I will not enumerate, and four castes of Dirdirmen: the Immaculates, the Intensives, the Estranes, the Cluts. Zs’hanh is reckoned an attribute of the fourth through the thirteenth Dirdir grades. The Immaculates also practice zs’hanh. It is a noble doctrine.”

  Reith shook his head in wonder. “How have the Dirdir managed to create and coordinate a technical civilization? In such a welter of conflicting wills—”

  “You misunderstand,” said Anacho in his most nasal voice. “The situation is more complex. To rise in caste a Dirdir must be accepted into the next highest group. He wins acceptance by his achievements, not by causing conflicts. Zs’hanh is not always appropriate to the lower castes, nor for the very highest, which use the doctrine of pn’hanh: ‘corrosive or metal-bursting sagacity.’ ”

  “I must belong in a high caste,” said Reith. “I intend to use pn’hanh rather than zs’hanh. I want to exploit every possible advantage and avoid every risk.”

  Reith, looking sidewise at the long sour face, chuckled to himself. He wants to point out that my caste is too low for such affectations, thought Reith, but he knows that I’ll laugh at him.

  The sun sank with unnatural deliberation, its rate of decline slowed by the westward progress of the sky-car. Toward the end of the afternoon a gray-violet bulk rose above the horizon, to meet the disc of the pale brown sun. This was the island, Leume, close under the continent of Kislovan.

  Anacho turned the sky-car somewhat to the north and landed at a dingy village on the sandy north cape. The three spent the night at the Glass Blower’s Inn, a structure contrived of bottles and jugs discarded by the shops at the sand-pits behind the town. The inn was dank and permeated with a peculiar acrid odor; the evening meal of soup, served in heavy green glass tureens, evinced something of the same flavor. Reith remarked on the similarity to Anacho, who summoned the Gray[4] servant and put a haughty question. The servant indicated a large black insect darting across the floor. “The skarats do indeed be pungent creatures, and exhale a chife. Bevol made a plague on us, until we put them to use and found them nutritious. Now we hardly capture enough.”

  Reith long had been careful never to make inquiry regarding foods set before him, but now he looked askance into the tureen. “You mean… the soup?”

  “Indeed,” declared the servant. “The soup, the bread, the pickles: all be skarat-flavored, and if we did not use them of purpose, they’d infest us to the same effect, so we make a virtue of convenience, and think to enjoy the taste.”

  Reith drew back from the soup. Traz ate stolidly. Anacho gave a petulant sniff and also ate. It occurred to Reith that never on Tschai had he noticed squeamishness. He heaved a deep sigh, and since no other food was forthcoming, swallowed the rancid soup.

  In the dim brown morning breakfast was again soup, with a garnish of sea vegetables. The three departed immediately after, flying northwest across Leume Gulf and the stony wastes of Kislovan.

  Anacho, usually nerveless, now became edgy, searching the sky, peering down at the ground, scrutinizing the knobs and bubbles, the patches of brown fur and vermilion velvet, the quivering mirrors which served as instruments. “We approach the Dirdir realm,” he said. “We will veer north to the First Sea, then bear west to Khorai, where we must leave the sky-car and travel the Zoga’ar zum Fulkash am[5] to Maust. Then… the Carabas.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OVER THE GREAT Stone Desert flew the sky-car, parallel to the black and red peaks of the Zopal Range, over parched dust-flats, fields of broken rock, dunes of dark pink sand, a single oasis surrounded by plumes of white smoke-tree.

  Late in the afternoon a windstorm drove lion-colored rolls of dust across the landscape, submerging Carina 4269 in murk. Anacho swung the sky-car north. Presently a black-blue line on the horizon indicated the First Sea.

  Anacho immediately landed the sky-car upon the barrens, some ten miles short of the sea.

  “Khorai is yet hours ahead; best not to arrive after dark. The Khors are a suspicious folk, and flourish their knives at a harsh word. At night they strike without provocation.”


  “These are the folk who will guard our sky-car?”

  “What thief would be mad enough to trouble the Khors?”

  Reith looked around the waste. “I prefer supper at the Glass Blower’s Inn to nothing whatever.”

  “Ha!” said Anacho. “In the Carabas you will recall the silence and peace of this night with longing.”

  The three bedded themselves down into the sand. The night was dark and brilliantly clear. Directly overhead burned the constellation Clari, within which, unseen to the eye, glimmered the Sun. Would he ever again see Earth? Reith wondered. How often then would he lie under the night sky looking up into Argo Navis for the invisible brown sun Carina 4269 and its dim planet Tschai?

  A flicker inside the sky-car attracted his attention: he went to look and found a mesh of orange lines wavering across the radar screen.

  Five minutes later it disappeared, leaving Reith with a sense of chill and desolation.

  In the morning the sun rose at the edge of the flat plain in a sky uncharacteristically clear and transparent, so that each small irregularity, each pebble, left a long black shadow. Taking the sky-car into the air, Anacho flew low to the ground; he too had noticed the orange flicker of the night before. The waste became less forbidding: clumps of stunted smoke-tree appeared, and presently black dendron and bladderbush.

  They reached the First Sea and swung west, following the shoreline. They passed over villages: huddles of dull brown brick with conical roofs of black iron, beside copses of enormous dyan trees, which Anacho declared to be sacred groves. Rickety piers like dead centipedes sprawled out into the dark water; double-ended boats of black wood were drawn up the beach. Looking through the scanscope Reith noted men and women with mustard-yellow skins. They wore black gowns and tall black hats; as the sky-car passed over they looked up without friendliness.