by Jack Vance
A purple dazzle struck the sky, followed immediately by a clap of thunder; down came rain in a torrent. Reith led the girl at a run to the hut. They entered and stood with rain drumming upon the iron roof. “The Khors are an unpredictable people,” said Reith, “but I can’t imagine them visiting their grove on a night like this.”
“Why would they come at any time?” demanded Zap 210 peevishly. “There is nothing here but those grotesque dancers. Do the Khor look like that?”
Reith understood that she referred to the figures carved upon the treetrunks. “Not at all,” he said. “They are a yellow-skinned folk, very neat and precise. The men and women are exactly alike in appearance, and disposition as well.” He tried to recall what Anacho had told him: “A strange secret folk with secret ways, different by day and by night, or at least this is the report. Each individual owns two souls which come and go with dawn and sunset; the body comprises two different persons.” Later, Anacho had warned: “The Khor are sensitive as spice-snakes! Do not speak to them; pay them no heed except from necessity, in which case you must use the fewest possible words. They consider garrulity a crime against nature … Never acknowledge the presence of a woman, do not look toward their children: they will suspect you of laying a curse. Above all ignore the sacred grove! Their weapon is the iron dart which they throw with accuracy. They are a dangerous people.”
Reith paraphrased the remarks to the best of his recollection; Zap 210 went to sit on one of the benches.
“Lie down,” said Reith. “Try to sleep.”
“In the noise of the storm, and this vile smell to all sides? Are all the houses of the ghaun so?”
“Not all of them,” muttered Reith. He went to look out the door. The alteration of lightning glare and dying twilight upon the tree-statues presented the illusion of a frantic erotic jerking. Zap 210 might soon begin to ask questions to which Reith did not care to respond … Upon the roof came a sudden clatter of hail; abruptly the storm passed over, and nothing could be heard but wind sighing in the dyan trees.
Reith returned into the room. He spoke in a voice which rang false even to his own ears: “Now you can rest; at least the sound is gone.”
She made a soft sound which Reith could not interpret, and went herself to stand in the doorway. She looked back at Reith. “Someone is coming.”
Reith hurried to the doorway and looked forth. Across the clearing stood a figure in Khor garments: male or female Reith could not determine. It went into the hut directly opposite their own. Reith said to Zap 210: “We’d better leave while we have a chance.”
She held him back. “No, no! There’s another one.”
The second Khor, entering the clearing, looked up at the sky. The first came from the hut with a flaring cresset on a pole, and the second ran quickly to the hut in which Reith and Zap 210 were concealed. The first took no notice. As the Khor entered Reith struck hard, ignoring all precepts of gallantry; in this case male and female were all the same. The Khor fell and lay limp. Reith jumped forward; the Khor was male. Reith stripped off his cape, tied his hands and feet with sandal thongs and gagged him with the sleeve of his black coat. With Zap 210’s help he dragged the man behind the rack of masks. Here Reith made a quick search of the limp body, finding a pair of iron darts, a dagger and a soft leather pouch containing sequins which Reith somewhat guiltily appropriated.
Zap 210 stood by the door gazing out in fascination. The first to come had been a woman. Wearing a woman-mask and a white frock she stood by the cresset which she had thrust into a socket near the central platform. If she were perplexed by the disappearance of the man who had entered the hut she gave no sign.
Reith looked forth. “Now: while there’s only one woman —”
“No! More come.”
Three persons slipped separately into the clearing, going to the other three huts. One, in a woman-mask and white gown, emerged with another cresset which she placed in a socket and stood quietly like the first. The other two now came forth, wearing man-masks and white gowns like those of the women. They went to the central platform and stood near the women, who made no movement.
Reith began to understand something of the purpose of the sacred grove. Zap 210 stared forth in fascination.
Reith became highly uneasy. If events proceeded as he suspected, she would be shocked and horrified.
Three more persons appeared. One came to the hut where Reith and Zap 210 waited; Reith tried to deal with him as he had the other; but this time the blow was glancing and the man fell with a startled grunt. Reith was instantly upon him and shut off his breath until he fainted. Using sandal thongs and cape as before he tied and gagged the Khor and again robbed the man of his pouch. “I regret becoming a thief,” said Reith, “but my need is far greater than yours.”
Zap 210, standing by the door, gave a startled gasp. Reith went to look. The women — now there were three — had disrobed to stand nude. They began to sing, a wordless chant, sweet, soft, insistent. The three in the man-masks began a slow gyration around the platform.
Zap 210 muttered under her breath: “What are they doing? Why do they reveal their bodies? Never have I seen such a thing!”
“It is only religion,” said Reith nervously. “Don’t watch. Go lie down. Sleep. You must be very tired.”
She gave him a lambent look of wonder and distrust. “You don’t answer my question. I am very embarrassed. I have never seen a naked person. Are all the folk of the ghaun so — so boisterous? It is shocking. And the singing: most disturbing: what are they planning to do?”
Reith tried to stand in front of her. “Hadn’t you better sleep? The rites will only bore you.”
“They don’t bore me! I am astounded that people can be so bold! And look! The men!”
Reith took a deep breath and came to a desperate decision. “Come back here.” He gave her a female mask. “Put that on.”
She jerked back aghast. “What for?”
Reith took a man-mask and fitted it over his face. “We’re leaving.”
“But —” She turned a fascinated look toward the platform.
Reith pulled her back around, fitted one of the Khor hats on her head, arranged the other on his own.
“They’ll certainly see us,” said Zap 210. “They’ll chase us and kill us.”
“Perhaps so,” said Reith. “Nevertheless we’d better go.” He looked around the clearing. “You go first. Walk behind the hut. I’ll come after you.”
Zap 210 departed the hut. The women at the platform chanted with the most compelling urgency; the men stood nude.
Reith joined Zap 210 behind the hut. Had they been noticed? The chanting continued, rising and falling. “Walk out into the grove. Don’t look back.”
“Ridiculous,” muttered Zap 210. “Why shouldn’t I look back?” She marched toward the forest, with Reith twenty feet behind her. From the hut came a wild scream of fury. The chanting stopped short. There was stunned silence.
“Run,” said Reith. Through the sacred grove they fled, throwing away the hats and masks. From behind came calls of passionate fury, but deterred perhaps by their nudity, the Khor offered no pursuit.*
* Later Reith learned more of the sacred groves, and the Khor intersocial relationships. In the towns and villages, men and women wore identical clothes; sexual activity was regarded as unnatural conduct. Only in the sacred groves, with nudity and the ritual masks to emphasize sexual disparity, did procreation occur. Men and women, in assuming the masks, assumed new personalities; children were regarded not as the issue of specific parents, but as the yield of archetypal Man and Woman.
Reith and Zap 210 came to the edge of the grove. They paused to catch their breath. Halfway up the sky the blue moon shone through a few ragged clouds; elsewhere the sky was clear.
Zap 210 looked up. “What are those little lights?”
“Those are stars,” said Reith. “Far suns. Most control a family of planets. From a world called Earth, men came: your ancestors, mine, eve
n the ancestors of the Khor. Earth is the world of men.”
“How do you know all this?” demanded Zap 210.
“Sometime I’ll tell you. Not tonight.”
They set off across the downs, walking through the starry night, and something about the circumstances put Reith in a strange frame of mind. It was as if he were young and roaming a starlit meadow of Earth with a slim girl with whom he had become infatuated. So strong became the dream, or the hallucination, or whatever the nature of his mood, that he groped out for Zap 210’s hand, where she trudged beside him. She turned him a wan uncomplaining glance, but made no protest: here was another incomprehensible aspect of the astounding ghaun.
So they went on for a period. Reith gradually recovered his senses. He walked the surface of Tschai; his companion — he left the thought incomplete, for a variety of reasons. As if she had sensed the alteration of his mood Zap 210 angrily snatched away her hand; perhaps for a space of time she had been dreaming as well.
They marched on in silence. At last, with the blue moon hanging directly above, they reached the sandstone promontory, and found a protected niche at the base. Wrapping themselves in their cloaks, they huddled upon a drift of sand … Reith could not sleep. He lay looking up at the sky and listening to the sound of the girl’s breathing. Like himself, she lay awake. Why had he felt so urgently compelled to flee the Khor grove at the risk of pursuit and death? To protect the girl’s innocence? Ridiculous. He looked to find her face, a pale blotch in the moonlight, turned in his direction.
“I can’t sleep,” she said in a soft voice. “I am too tired. The surface frightens me.”
“Sometimes it frightens me,” said Reith. “Still — would you rather be back in the Shelters?”
As always she made a tangential response. “I can’t understand what I see; I can’t understand myself … Never have I heard such singing.”
“They sang songs which never change,” said Reith. “Songs perhaps from old Earth.”
“They showed themselves without clothes! Is this how the surface people act?”
“Not all of them,” said Reith.
“But why do they act that way?”
Sooner or later, thought Reith, she must learn the processes of human biology. Not tonight, not tonight! “Nakedness doesn’t mean much,” he mumbled. “Everyone has a body much like everyone else’s.”
“But why should they wish to show themselves? In the Shelters we remain covered, and try to avoid ‘boisterous conduct’.”
“Just what is this ‘boisterous conduct’?”
“Vulgar intimacy. People touch other people and play with them. It’s all quite ridiculous.”
Reith chose his words with care. “This is probably normal human conduct — like becoming hungry, or something of the sort. You’ve never been ‘boisterous’?”
“Of course not!”
“You’ve never even thought about it?”
“One can’t help thinking.”
“Hasn’t there ever been a young man with whom you’ve especially wanted to be friendly?”
“Never!” Zap 210 was scandalized.
“Well, you’re on the surface and things may be different … Now you’d better go to sleep. Tomorrow there may be a townful of Khors chasing us.”
Reith finally slept. He awoke once to find the blue moon gone, the sky dark except for constellations. From far across the downs came the sad hooting of a night-hound. When he settled back into his cloak Zap 210 said in a drowsy whisper: “The sky frightens me.”
Reith moved close beside her; involuntarily, or so it seemed, he reached out and stroked her head, where the hair was now soft and thick. She sighed and relaxed, arousing in Reith an embarrassed protectiveness.
The night passed. A russet glow appeared in the east, waxing to become a lilac and honey-colored dawn. While Zap 210 sat huddled in her cloak, Reith investigated the pouches he had taken from the Khors. He was pleased to find sequins to the value of ninety-five: more than he had expected. He discarded the darts, needle-sharp iron bolts eight inches long with a leather tail; the dagger he tucked into his belt.
They set out up the slopes of the promontory, and presently gained the ridge. Carina 4269, rising at their backs, shone along the shore, revealing another sweep of low beach and mud flats, with far off another promontory like the one on which they stood. The Khor town occupied a hillside slope a mile to the left. Almost at their feet a pier zigzagged across the mud flats and out into the sea: a precarious construction of poles, rope and planks, vibrating to the current which swirled around the base of the promontory. Half a dozen boats were moored to the spindly piles: double-ended craft, high at bow and stern like sway-backed dories fitted with masts. Reith looked toward the town. A few plumes of smoke rose from the black iron roofs; otherwise no activity was perceptible. Reith turned back to his inspection of the boats.
“It’s easier to sail than to walk,” Reith told Zap 210. “And there seems to be a fair wind up the coast.”
Zap 210 spoke in consternation: “Out across so much emptiness?”
“The emptier the better,” said Reith. “The sea gives me no worry; it’s the folk who sail there … The same is just as true of the land, of course.” He set off down the slope; Zap 210 scrambled after him. They reached the end of the pier and started along the rickety walkway. From somewhere nearby came a shriek of anger. They saw a half-grown boy racing toward the village.
Reith broke into a run. “Come along, hurry! We won’t have much time.”
Zap 210 came panting behind him. The two reached the end of the pier. “We won’t be able to escape! They’ll follow us in the boats.”
“No,” said Reith. “I think not.” He looked from boat to boat, and chose that which seemed the most staunch. In front of the village excited black shapes had gathered; a dozen started at a run for the pier, followed by as many more.
“Jump down into the boat,” said Reith. “Hoist the sail!”
“It is too late,” cried Zap 210. “We will never escape.”
“It’s not too late. Hoist the sail!”
“I don’t know how.”
“Pull the rope that goes up over the mast.”
Zap 210 clambered down into the boat and tried to follow Reith’s instruction. Reith meanwhile ran along the pier cutting loose the other boats. Riding the current, pushed by the offshore breeze, they drifted away from the dock.
Reith returned to where Zap 210 fumbled desperately with the halyard. She strained with all her might and succeeded in fouling the long yard under the forestay. Reith took a last look toward the screaming villagers, then jumped down into the boat and cast off.
No time to sort out halyards or clear the yard; Reith took up the sweeps, fitted them between the thole pins and put way on the boat. Along the trembling pier surged the screaming Khors. Halting they whirled their darts; up and out flew a volley of iron, to strike into the water an uncomfortable ten or twenty feet short of the boat. With renewed energy Reith worked the sweeps, then went to hoist the sail. The yard swung free, creaked aloft; the gray sail billowed; the boat heeled and churned through the water. The Khors stood silent on the dock, watching after their departing boats.
Reith sailed directly out to sea. Zap 210 sat huddled in the center of the boat. Finally she made a dispirited protest. “Is it wise to go so far from the land?”
“Very wise. Otherwise the Khors might follow along the shore and kill us when we put into land.”
“I have never known such openness. It is exposed — frightfully so.”
“On the other hand, our condition is better than it was yesterday at this time. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“See what’s in that caddy yonder. We may be in luck.”
Zap 210 climbed forward to the locker in the bow, where among scraps of rope and gear, spare sails, a lantern, she found a jug of water and a sack of dry pilgrim-pod cakes.
With the shore at last a blur, Reith swung the boat into t
he northwest, trimming the ungainly sail to the wind. All day the fair wind blew. Reith held a course ten miles offshore, well beyond the scope of Khor vision. Headlands appeared in the murk of distance, loomed off the beam, slowly dwindled and disappeared.
As the afternoon waned the wind increased, sending whitecaps chasing over the dark sea. The rigging creaked, the sails bulged, the boat threw up a bow-wave, the wake gurgled, and Reith rejoiced at every mile so swiftly put astern.
Carina 4269 sank behind the mainland hills; the wind died and the boat lost way. Darkness came; Zap 210 crouched fearfully on the center seat, oppressed by the expanse of the sky. Reith lost patience with her fears. He lowered the yard halfway down the mast, lashed the rudder, made himself as comfortable as possible and slept.
A cool early morning breeze awoke him. Stumbling about in the pre-dawn gloom he managed to hoist the yard; then went aft to the tiller, where he steered half-dozing until the sun arose.
About noon a finger of land thrust forth into the sea; Reith landed the boat on a dismal gray beach and went out foraging. He found a brackish stream, a thicket of dark red dragon-berries, a supply of the ubiquitous pilgrim-pod. In the stream he noticed a number of crustacean-like creatures, but could not bring himself to catch them.
During the middle afternoon they once again put out to sea, Reith using the sweeps to pull the boat away from the beach. They rounded the headland to find a changed landscape shoreward. The gray beaches and mud flats had become a narrow fringe of shingle; beyond were barren red cliffs, and Reith, wary of the lee shore, put out well to sea.
