by Jack Vance
“You won’t defeat the Wankhmen that way,” gloomed Zarfo. “They’ll tell the Wankh only as much as they see fit, and you’ll never know the difference.”
“What I’d like to do,” said Reith, “is work up to a situation where only the truth makes sense and where every other statement is an obvious falsity.”
Zarfo shook his head in puzzlement and walked to the spigot to drink. Reith remembered that none of the group had eaten for almost two days; small wonder they were listless and irritable.
Three Wankhmen appeared. The official who previously had spoken to Reith was not among them. “Come along. Look sharp, now; form a neat line.”
“Where are we going?” Reith asked, but received no reply.
The group walked five minutes, through odd-angled streets and irregular courts, by acute and obtuse angles, past unexpected juts and occasional clear vistas, through deep shadow and the wan shine of Carina 4269. They entered the ground floor of a tower, entered an elevator which took them up a hundred feet and opened upon a large octagonal hall.
The chamber was dim; a great lenticular bulge in the roof held water; wind-blown ripples modulated light from the sky and sent it dancing around the hall. Tremors of sound were barely audible, sighing chords, complex dissonances; sound both more and less than music. The walls were stained and discolored, a fact which Reith found peculiar, until looking closer he recognized Wankh ideograms, immense and intricately detailed, one to each wall. Each ideogram, thought Reith, represented a chime; each chime was the sonic equivalent of a visual image. Here, reflected Reith, were highly abstract pictures.
The chamber was empty. The group waited in silence while the almost unheard chords drifted in and out of consciousness, and amber sunlight, refracted and broken into shimmers, swam through the room.
Reith heard Traz gasp in surprise: a rare event. He turned. Traz pointed. “Look yonder!”
Standing in an alcove was Helsse, head bent in an attitude of brooding reverie. His guise was new and strange. He wore black Wankhman garments; his hair was close-cropped; he looked a person worlds apart from the suave young man Reith had encountered in Blue Jade Palace. Reith looked at Zarfo. “You told me he was dead!”
“So he seemed to me! We put him out in the corpse shed, and in the morning he was gone. We thought the night-hounds had come for him.”
Reith called: “Helsse! Over here! It’s Adam Reith!”
Helsse turned his head, looked at him and Reith wondered how he ever could have taken Helsse for anything but a Wankhman. Helsse came slowly across the chamber, a half-smile on his face. “So here: the sorry outcome to your exploits.”
“The situation is discouraging,” Reith agreed. “Can you help us?”
Helsse raised his eyebrows. “Why should I? I find you personally offensive, without humility or ease. You have subjected me to a hundred indignities; your pro-‘cult’ bias is repulsive; the theft of a space vessel with an Original aboard makes your request absurd.”
Reith considered him a moment. “May I ask why you are here?”
“Certainly. To supply information in regard to you and your activities.”
Reith mulled the matter over. “Are we so important?”
“So it would seem,” said Helsse indifferently.
Four Wankh entered the chamber, and stood by the far wall: four massive black shadows. Helsse stood straighter; the other Wankhmen became silent. It was apparent, thought Reith, that whatever the total attitude of the Wankhmen toward the Wankh might be that attitude included a great deal of respect.
The prisoners were urged forward, and ranged in a line before the Wankh. A minute passed, during which nothing happened. Then the Wankh exchanged chimes: soft muffled sounds at half-second intervals, apparently unintelligible to the Wankhmen. Another silence ensued, then the Wankh addressed the Wankhmen, producing triads of three quick notes, like xylophone trills, in what seemed to be a simplified or elemental usage.
The oldest Wankhman stepped forward, listened, turned to the prisoners. “Which of you is the pirate-master?”
“None of us,” said Reith. “We are not pirates.”
One of the Wankh uttered interrogatory chimes. Reith thought to recognize the Original Master. The Wankhman, somewhat grudgingly, brought forth a small keyed instrument which he manipulated with astonishing deftness.
“Tell him further,” said Reith, “that we regret the inconvenience we caused him. Circumstances compelled us to take him aloft.”
“You are not here to argue,” said the Wankhman, “but to render information, after which the usual processes will occur.”
Again the Master uttered chimes and was answered. Reith asked: “What is he saying, and what did you tell him?”
The senior Wankhman said, “Speak only when you are directly addressed.”
Helsse came forward, and producing his own instrument, played chimes at length. Reith began to feel uneasy and frustrated. Events were ranging far beyond his control. “What is Helsse saying?”
“Silence.”
“At least inform the Wankh that we have a case which we want to present.”
“You will be notified if it becomes necessary for you to testify. The hearing is almost at an end.”
“But we haven’t had a chance to speak!”
“Silence! Your persistence is offensive!”
Reith turned to Zarfo. “Tell the Wankh something! Anything!”
Zarfo blew out his cheeks. Pointing at the Wankhmen he made chirping sounds. The senior Wankhman said sternly: “Quiet, you are interrupting.”
“What did you tell him?” asked Reith.
“I said ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong’. That’s all I know.”
The Master spoke chimes, indicating Reith and Zarfo. The senior Wankhman, visibly exasperated, said: “The Wankh want to know where you planned to commit your piracies, or, rather, where you planned to take the spaceship.”
“You are not translating correctly,” protested Reith. “Did you tell him that we are not pirates?”
Zarfo again made sounds for ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong!’
The Wankhman said, “You are obviously pirates, or lunatics.” Turning back to the Wankh, he played his instrument, misrepresenting, so Reith was sure, what had been said. Reith turned to Helsse: “What is he telling them? That we are not pirates?”
Helsse ignored him.
Zarfo guffawed, to everyone’s astonishment. He muttered in Reith’s ear: “Remember the Dugbo? Pinch Helsse’s nose.”
Reith said, “Helsse.”
Helsse turned him an austere gaze. Reith stepped forward, tweaked his nose. Helsse seemed to become rigid. “Tell the Wankh that I am a man of Earth, the world of human origin,” said Reith, “that I took the spaceship only in order to return home.”
Helsse woodenly played a set of trills and runs. The other Wankhmen became instantly agitated — sufficient proof that Helsse had translated accurately. They began to protest, to press forward, to drown out Helsse’s chimes, only to be brought up short by a great belling sound from the Master.
Helsse continued, and at last came to an end.
“Tell them further,” said Reith, “that the Wankhmen falsified my remarks, that they consistently do so to further their private purposes.”
Helsse played. The other Wankhmen again started a great protest, and again were rebuked.
Reith warmed to his task. He voiced one of his surmises, striking boldly into the unknown: “Tell them that the Wankhmen destroyed my spaceship, killing all aboard except myself. Tell them that our mission was innocent, that we came investigating radio signals broadcast a hundred and fifty Tschai-years ago. At this time the Wankhmen destroyed the cities Settra and Ballisidre from which the signals emanated, with great loss of life, and all for the same reason: to prevent a new situation which might disturb the Wankh–Dirdir stalemate.”
The instant uproar among the Wankhmen convinced Reith that his accusations had struck home. Again they were silenced. Helsse played
the instrument with the air of a man astounded by his own actions.
“Tell them,” said Reith, “that the Wankhmen have systematically distorted truth. They undoubtedly have prolonged the Dirdir war. Remember, if the war were ended, the Wankh would return to their home world, and the Wankhmen would be thrown upon their own resources.”
Helsse, gray-faced, struggled to drop the instrument, but his fingers refused to do his bidding. He played. The other Wankhmen stood in dead silence. This was the most telling accusation of all. The senior Wankhman shouted: “The interview is at an end! Prisoners, form your line! March!”
Reith told Helsse: “Request that the Wankh order all the other Wankhmen to depart, so that we may communicate without interruption.”
Helsse’s face twitched; sweat poured down his face.
“Translate my message,” said Reith.
Helsse obeyed.
Silence held the chamber, with the Wankhmen gazing in apprehension toward the Wankh.
The Master uttered two chimes.
The Wankhmen muttered among themselves. They came to a terrible decision. Out came their weapons; they turned them, not upon the prisoners, but upon the four Wankh. Reith and Traz sprang forward, followed by the Lokhars. The weapons were wrested away.
The Master uttered two quiet chimes.
Helsse listened, then slowly turned to Reith. “He commands that you give me the weapon you hold.”
Reith relinquished the gun. Helsse turned toward the other three Wankhmen, pushed the trigger-button. The three fell dead, their heads shattered.
The Wankh stood a moment in silence, assessing the situation. Then they departed the hall. The erstwhile prisoners remained with Helsse and the corpses. Reith took the gun from Helsse’s cold fingers, before he thought to use it again.
The chamber began to grow murky with the coming of dusk. Reith studied Helsse, wondering how long the hypnotic state would persist. He said, “Take us outside the walls.”
“Come.”
Through the black and grey city Helsse took the group, finally to a small steel door. Helsse touched a latch; the door swung aside. Beyond, a spine of rock led through the dusk to the mainland.
The group filed through the gap into the open air. Reith turned to Helsse: “Ten minutes after I touch your shoulder, resume your normal condition. You will remember nothing of what has happened during the last hour. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Reith touched Helsse’s shoulder; the group hurried away through the twilight. Before a jut of rock hid them from sight Reith looked back. Helsse stood where they had left him, looking somewhat wistfully after them.
Chapter XVI
In a patch of rough forestland the group slumped down in total fatigue, their stomachs crawling with hunger. By the light of the two moons Traz searched through the undergrowth and found a clump of pilgrim plant, and the group made their first meal in two days. Somewhat refreshed, they moved on through the night, up a long slope. At the top of the ridge, they turned to look back, toward the gloomy silhouette of Ao Khaha on the moonlit sky. For a few minutes they stood, each man thinking his own thoughts, then they continued north.
In the morning over a breakfast of toasted fungus, Reith opened his pouch. “The expedition has been a failure. As I promised, each man receives another five thousand sequins. Take them now, with my gratitude for your loyalty.”
Zarfo took the purple-glowing pellets gingerly, weighed them in his fingers. “Above all I am an honest man, and since this was the structure of the contract, I will accept the money.”
Jag Jaganig said: “Let me ask you a question, Adam Reith. You told the Wankh that you were a man from a far world, the home of man. Is this correct?”
“It is what I told the Wankh.”
“You are such a man, from such a planet?”
“Yes. Even though Anacho the Dirdirman makes a wry face.”
“Tell us something of this planet.”
Reith spoke for an hour, while his comrades sat staring into the fire.
Anacho at last cleared his throat. “I do not doubt your sincerity. But, as you say, the history of Earth is short compared to the history of Tschai. It is obvious that far in the past the Dirdir visited Earth and left a colony of Dirdirmen from which all Earthmen are descended.”
“I could prove otherwise,” said Reith, “if our venture had been successful and we had all journeyed to Earth.”
Anacho poked the fire with a stick. “Interesting … The Dirdir of course would not sell or transfer a spaceship. Such a theft as we perpetrated upon the Wankh would be impossible. Still — at the Great Sivishe Spaceyards almost any component can be acquired, by purchase or discreet arrangement. One only needs sequins — a considerable sum, true.”
“How much?” asked Reith.
“A hundred thousand sequins would work wonders.”
“No doubt. At the moment I have barely the hundredth part of that.”
Zarfo threw over his five thousand sequins. “Here. It pains me like the loss of a leg. But let these be the first coins in the pot.”
Reith returned the money. “At the moment they would only make a forlorn rattling sound.”
Thirteen days later the group came down out of the Infnets to Blalag, where they boarded a power wagon and so returned to Smargash.
For three days Reith, Anacho and Traz ate, slept and watched the young folk at their dancing.
On the evening of the third day Zarfo joined them in the tap-room. “All look sleek and lazy. Have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“First, I have acquired a delightful property on a bend of the Whisfer River, with five fine keels, three psillas and an asponistra, not to mention the tayberries. Here I shall end my days — unless you tempt me forth on another mad venture. Secondly, two technicians this morning returned to Smargash from Ao Hidis. Vast changes are in the wind! The Wankhmen are departing the fortresses; they have been driven out and now live in huts with the Blacks and Purples. It appears that the Wankh will no longer tolerate their presence.”
Reith chuckled. “At Dadiche we found an alien race exploiting men. At Ao Hidis we found men exploiting an alien race. Both conditions are now changed. Anacho, would you care to be liberated from your enervating philosophy and become a sane man?”
“I want demonstration, not words. Take me to Earth.”
“We can hardly walk there.”
“At the Great Sivishe Spaceyards are a dozen space-boats, needing only procurement and assembly.”
“Yes, but where are the sequins?”
“I don’t know,” said Anacho.
“Nor I,” said Traz.
The Dirdir
Chapter I
The sun Carina 4269 had passed into the constellation Tartusz, to mark the onset of Balul Zac Ag, the ‘unnatural dream time’, when slaughter, slave-taking, pillage and arson came to a halt across the Lokhar Highlands. Balul Zac Ag was the occasion for the Great Fair at Smargash, or perhaps the Great Fair had come first, eventually to generate Balul Zac Ag after unknown hundreds of years. From across the Lokhar Highlands and the regions surrounding Xar, Zhurveg, Serafs, Niss and others came to Smargash to mingle and trade, to resolve stale feuds, to gather intelligence. Hatred hung in the air like a stench; covert glances and whispered curses, in-drawn hisses of detestation accented the color and confusion of the bazaar. Only the Lokhars (the men black-skinned and white-haired, the women white-skinned and black-haired) maintained faces of placid unconcern.
On the second day of Balul Zac Ag, as Adam Reith wandered through the bazaar, he became aware that he was being watched. The knowledge came as a dismal shock; on Tschai, surveillance led always to a grim conclusion.
Perhaps he was mistaken, Reith told himself. He had dozens of enemies; to many others he represented ideological disaster: but how could any of these have traced him to Smargash? Reith continued along the crowded lanes of the bazaar, pausing at the booths to look back the way he had co
me. But his follower, if in fact he existed, was lost in the confusion. There were Niss in black robes, seven feet tall, striding like rapacious birds; Xars; Serafs; Dugbo nomads squatting over their fires; Human Things expressionless behind pottery face-plates; Zhurvegs in coffee-brown kaftans; the black and white Lokhars of Smargash themselves. There was odd staccato noise: the clank of iron, squeak of leather, harsh voices, shrill calls, the whine, rasp and jangle of Dugbo music. There were odors: fern-spice, gland-oil, sub-musk, dust rising and settling, the reek of pickled nuts, smoke from grilled meats, the perfume of the Serafs. There were colors: black, dull brown, orange, old scarlet, dark blue, dark gold. Leaving the bazaar Reith crossed the dancing field. He stopped short, and from the corner of his eye glimpsed a figure sliding behind a tent.
Thoughtfully Reith returned to the inn. Traz and the Dirdirman Ankhe at afram Anacho sat in the refectory making a meal of bread and meat. They ate in silence; disparate beings, each found the other incomprehensible. Anacho, tall, thin and pallid like all Dirdirmen, was completely hairless, a quality he now tended to minimize under a soft tasseled cap after the style of the Yao. His personality was unpredictable; he inclined toward garrulity, freakish jokes, sudden petulances. Traz, square, somber and sturdy, was in most respects Anacho’s obverse. Traz considered Anacho vain, over-subtle, over-civilized; Anacho thought Traz tactless, severe and over-literal. How the two managed to travel in comparative amity was a mystery to Reith.
Reith seated himself at the table. “I think I’m being watched,” he announced.
Anacho leaned back in dismay. “Then we must prepare for disaster — or flight.”
“I prefer flight,” said Reith. He poured himself ale from a stone jug.
“You still intend to travel space to this mythical planet of yours?” Anacho spoke in the voice of one who reasons with an obstinate child.
