Planet of Adventure Omnibus (16 page)

The innkeeper
was a small plump man with a neat red beard, protuberant red-brown eyes. His hands
were in ceaseless motion and his feet shifted back and forth as if haste
dominated his life. At Reith’s request for accommodation he waved his hands in
despair. “Have you not heard? The green demons destroyed Baojian’s train. Here
are the survivors, and I must find room. Some cannot pay; what of that? I am
ordered by Naga Goho to extend shelter.”

“We were also
with the caravan,” said Reith. “However, we can pay.”

The innkeeper
became more optimistic. “I’ll find you a single room; you must make the best of
this. A word of advice.” Here he looked swiftly over his shoulder. “Be
discreet. There have been changes at Pera.”

The three
were shown to a cubicle of adequate cleanliness; three pallets were brought in.
The inn could provide no dry clothing; with garments still damp the three
descended to the common-room, where now they discovered Anacho the Dirdirman,
who had arrived an hour before. Off to the side, staring thoughtfully into the
fire, was Baojian.

For supper
they were served ample bowls of stew, wafers of hard bread. While they were
eating seven men entered the room to stand looking truculently this way and
that. All were strong big-boned men, a trifle fleshy with ease, florid with
good living. Six wore dull red gowns, stylish black leather slippers, rakish
caps hung with baubles. Gnashters, thought Reith. The seventh, wearing an
embroidered surcoat, was evidently Naga Goho: a man tall and thin, with a
peculiarly large vulpine head. He spoke to a room which had become hushed: “Welcome
all, welcome all to Pera! We have a happy orderly city, as you will notice.
Laws are sternly enforced. A sojourn tax is collected as well. If anyone lacks
funds he must contribute his labor for the common benefit. So, then-are there
questions or complaints?” He looked about the room, but no one spoke. The
Gnashters circulated through the room, collecting coins. Reith grudgingly paid
a tax of nine sequins for himself, Traz and the Flower of Cath. None of the
folk present seemed to find the exaction unreasonable. So pervasive was the
lack of social discipline, Reith decided, that exploitation of advantage was
taken for granted.

Naga Goho
noticed the Flower of Cath and stood erect, preening his mustache. He signaled
to the innkeeper, who hastened to present himself. The two held a muttered
colloquy, Naga Goho never taking his eyes from Ylin-Ylan.

The innkeeper
crossed the room, muttered in Reith’s ear. “Naga Goho has taken note of the
woman.” He indicated the Flower. “He wants to know her status: is she slave?
daughter? wife?”

Reith glanced
sidewise at Ylin-Ylan, at a loss for immediate response; already he saw the
girl stiffening. If he declared her to be alone and independent he put her at
the mercy of Naga Goho. If he claimed her as his own he would no doubt provoke
her indignant disclaimer. He said, “I am her escort, she is under my
protection.”

The innkeeper
pursed his lips, shrugged and went to report to Naga Goho, who made a small
curt gesture and turned his attention elsewhere. Not long after he departed.

In the small
room Reith found himself in a state of disturbing propinquity with the Flower
of Cath. She sat on her pallet, clasping her knees disconsolately. “Cheer up,”
said Reith. “Things aren’t all that bad.”

She gave her
head a mournful shake. “I am lost among barbarians: a pebble dropped in Tembara
Deep, gone from mind.”

“Nonsense,”
scoffed Reith. “You’ll be traveling home with the next caravan to leave Pera.”

Ylin-Ylan was
unconvinced. “At home they will name another the Flower of Cath; she will take
my flower at the Banquet of the Season. The princess will beseech the girls to
name their names, and I will not be there. No one will ask me and no one will
know my names.”

“Tell me your
names then,” said Reith. “I’d like to hear.”

The Flower
turned to look at him. “Do you mean this? Do you mean what you ask?”

Reith was
puzzled by her intensity. “Certainly.”

The girl
turned a swift glance toward Traz, who was occupied in arranging his pallet. “Come
outside,” she whispered in Reith’s ear and jumped to her feet.

Reith followed
her to the balcony. For a period they leaned together, elbows touching, looking
out over the ruined city. Az rode high among broken clouds; below were a few
dismal lights; from somewhere came a reedy chant, the twang of a plectrum. The
Flower spoke in a quick hushed voice: “My flower is the Ylin-Ylan, and this you
know; my Flower name. But that is a name used only at demonstrations and
pageants.” She looked toward him breathlessly, leaning so close that Reith
could smell the clean tart-sweet scent of her person.

Reith asked
in a husky voice, “You have other names too?”

“Yes.”
Sighing, she edged closer to Reith, who began to feel out of his depth. “Why
have you not asked before? You must have known I would tell.”

“Well, then,”
asked Reith, “what are your names?”

Demurely, she
said, “My court name is Shar Zarin.” She hesitated then, leaning her head on
his shoulder (for Reith’s arm was around her waist), she said, “My child name
was Zozi, but only my father calls me that.”

“Flower name,
court name, child name ... What other names do you have?”

“My
friend-name, my secret name, and-one other. My friend-name, would you hear it?
If I tell you, then we are friends, and you must tell me your friend-name.”

“Certainly,”
croaked Reith. “Of course.”

“Derl.”

Reith kissed
her upturned face. “My first name is Adam.”

“Is that your
friend-name?”

“Yes ... I
suppose you’d call it that.”

“Do you have
a secret name?”

“No. Not that
I know of.”

She gave a
small nervous laugh. “Perhaps it is just as well. For if I asked you, and you
told me, then I would know your secret soul, and then-” Breathlessly she looked
up at Reith. “You must have a secret name; one that only you know. I have.”

Intoxicated,
Reith tossed caution to the winds. “What is yours?”

She raised
her mouth to his ear. “L’lae. She is a nymph who lives in clouds over Mount
Daramthissa, and loves the star-god Ktan.” She looked toward him, melting,
expectant, and Reith kissed her fervently. She sighed. “When we are alone, you
shall call me L’lae and I will call you Ktan and that shall be your secret
name.”

Reith
laughed. “If you like.”

“We shall
wait here, and soon there will be a caravan east: back across the steppe to
Coad, then by cog across the Draschade, to Vervode in Cath.”

Reith put his
hand on her mouth. “I must go to Dadiche.”

“Dadiche? The
city of the Blue Chasch? Are you still so obsessed? But why?”

Reith raised
his eyes, looked off into the night-sky, as if to draw strength from the stars,
though none of those visible could possibly be the Sun ... What could he say?
If he told the truth she would think him insane, even though her ancestors had
beamed signals to Earth.

So he
hesitated, disgusted by his own softness of spirit. The Flower of
Cath--Ylin-Ylan, Shar Zarin, Zozi, Derl, L’lae, according to the social circumstances-put
her hands on his shoulders and peered up into his face. “Since I know you for
Ktan and you know me for L’lae, your mind is my mind; your pleasure is my
pleasure. So-what prompts you for Dadiche?”

Reith drew a
deep breath. “I came to Kotan in a space-boat. The Blue Chasch almost killed
me, and conveyed the space-boat to Dadiche, or so I suppose. I must recover it.”

The Flower
was bewildered. “But where did you learn to fly a spaceboat? You are no
Dirdirman or Wankhmen ... Or are you?”

“No, of course
not. No more than you. I was instructed.”

“It is all
such a mystery.” Her arms twitched on his shoulders. “And were you able to
recover the space-boat, what would you do?”

“First, take
you to Cath.”

The fingers
now gripped his shoulders, the eyes searched his through the darkness. “Then
what? You would return to your own land?”

“Yes.”

“You have a
woman-a wife?”

“Oh no. No
indeed.”

“Someone who
knows your secret name?”

“I had no
secret name until you gave me one.”

The girl took
her hands from his shoulders, and, leaning on the rail, stared moodily out
across old Pera. “If you go to Dadiche, they will smell you and kill you.”

“‘Smell me?
How do you mean?”

She turned
him a quick look. “You are a puzzle! So much you know, and so little! One would
think you from the farthest island of Tschai! The Blue Chasch smell as
accurately as we can see!”

“I still must
make the trial.”

“I don’t
understand,” she said in a dull voice. “I have told you my name; I have given
what is most precious to me; and you are unmoved. You do not alter your way.”

Reith took
her in his arms. She was stiff, then gradually yielded. “I am not unmoved,”
said Reith. “Far from it. But I must go to Dadiche--for your sake as well as
mine.”

“How my sake?
To be carried back to Cath?”

“That, and
more. Are you happy to be dominated by Dirdir and Chasch and Wankh, not to
mention the Pnume?”

“I don’t know
... I had never thought of it. Men are freaks, afterthoughts, so they tell us.
Though Mad King Hopsin insisted that men came from a far planet. He called to
them for help, which of course never came. That was a hundred and fifty years
ago.”

“It’s a long
time to wait,” said Reith. He kissed her once more; she submitted listlessly.
The fervor was gone.

“I
feel-strange,” she mumbled. “I don’t know how I feel.”

They stood by
the rail, listening to the sounds of the inn: soft hoots of laughter from the
pot-room; complaints of children, the scolding of their mothers. The Flower of
Cath said, “I think I will go to bed now.”

Reith held
her back. “Derl.”

“Yes?”

“When I come
back from Dadiche-”

“You will
never come back from Dadiche. The Blue Chasch will take you for their games ...
Now I will try to sleep, and forget that I am alive.”

She went back
into the cubicle. Reith remained out on the balcony, first cursing himself,
then wondering how he could have acted differently, unless he were composed of
something other than flesh and blood.

Tomorrow,
then: Dadiche, to learn once and for all the shape of his future.

THE NIGHT
PASSED; morning came: first a wash of sepia light, then a wan yellow glare,
then the appearance of Carina 4269. From the kitchens rose the smoke of fires,
the rattle of pans. Reith descended to the common-room, where he found Anacho
the Dirdirman before him, sitting over a bowl of tea. Reith joined him and was
likewise brought tea by a kitchen-wench. He asked, “What do you know of
Dadiche?”

Anacho warmed
his long pale fingers around the bowl. “The city is relatively old: twenty
thousand years or so. It is the main Chasch spaceport, though they have little
communication with their homeworld Godag. South of Dadiche are factories and
technical plants, and there is even some small trade between Dirdir and Chasch,
though both parties pretend to the contrary. What do you seek at Dadiche?” And
he fixed Reith with his owlish water-gray eyes.

Reith
reflected. He gained nothing by confiding in Anacho, whom he still regarded as
something of an unknown quantity. Finally he said, “The Chasch took something
of value from me. I want to get it back, if possible.”

“Interesting,”
said Anacho with a sardonic overtone to his voice. “I am piqued. What could the
Chasch take from a sub-man that he would travel a thousand leagues to recover?
And how could he expect to recover it, or even find it?”

“I can find
it. What happens next is the problem.”

“You intrigue
me,” said the Dirdirman. “What do you propose to do first?”

“I need
information. I want to learn if persons such as you and I can enter Dadiche and
depart without hindrance.”

“Not I,” said
Anacho. “They would smell me for a Dirdirman. They have noses of astonishing
particularity. The food you eat delivers essences to your skin; the Chasch can
identify these, and separate Dirdir from Wankh, marsh-dwellers from steppe-men,
rich from the poor; not to mention the variations caused by disease,
uncleanliness, unguents, waters, a dozen other conditions. They can smell salt
air in a man’s lungs if he has been near the ocean; they can detect ozone on a
man coming down from the heights. They sense if you are hungry, or angry, or
afraid; they can define your age, your sex, the color of your skin. Their noses
provide them an entire dimension of perception.”

Reith sat
reflecting.

Anacho arose,
went to a nearby table where sat three men in rough garments: men with waxy
white-gray skins, light-brown hair, mild large eyes. To Anacho’s questions they
gave deferent responses; Anacho ambled back to Reith.