Planet of Adventure Omnibus (31 page)

Reith
expected an icy retort, at the least a glare, but Dordolio gave only an
indifferent shrug. “Well, then, is your life more significant? Or that of the
merchant, or the swordsman? Never forget the Yao are a pessimistic race!
Awaile
is always a threat; we are perhaps more somber than we seem. Recognizing the
essential pointlessness of existence, we exalt the small flicker of vitality at
our command; we extract the fullest and most distinctive flavor from every
incident, by insisting upon an appropriate formality. Trivality? Decadence? Who
can do better?”

“All very
well,” said Reith. “But why be satisfied with pessimism? Why not expand your
horizons? Further, it seems that you accept the destruction of your cities with
a surprising nonchalance. Vengeance is not the most noble activity, but
submissiveness is worse.”

“Bah,”
muttered Dordolio. “How could a barbarian understand the disaster and its
aftermath? The Refluxives in vast numbers took refuge in
awaile;
the
acts and the expiations kept our land in a ferment. There was no energy for
anything else. Were you of good caste, I would cut your heart out for daring so
gross an imputation.”

Reith
laughed. “Since my low caste protects me from retribution, let me ask another
question: what is
awaile
?”

Dordolio
threw his hands in the air. “An amnesiac as well as a barbarian! I have no
conversation for such as you! Ask the Dirdirman; he is glib enough.” And
Dordolio strode off in a rage.

“An
unreasonable display of emotion,” mused Reith. “I wonder what my imputation
was?”

“Shame,” said
Anacho. “The Yao are as sensitive to shame as an eyeball to grit. Mysterious
enemies destroy their cities; they suspect the Dirdir but dare no recourse, and
must cope with helpless rage and shame. It is their typical attribute and
predisposes them to
awaile
.”

“And this is?”

“Murder. The
afflicted person-one who feels shame-kills as many persons as he is able, of
any sex, age or degree of relationship. Then, when he is able to kill no more,
he submits and becomes apathetic. His punishment is dreadful and highly
dramatic, and enlightens the entire population, who crowd the place of
punishment. Each execution has its particular flavor and style and is
essentially a dramatic pageant of pain, possibly enjoyed even by the victim.
The institution permeates the life of Cath. The Dirdir on this basis consider
all sub-men mad.”

Reith
grunted. “So then, if we visit Cath, we risk insensate murder.”

“Small risk.
After all, the acts are not ordinary events.” Anacho looked around the deck. “But
it seems that the hour is late.” He bade Reith goodnight and stalked off to his
bunk.

Reith
remained by the rail, looking out over the water. After the bloodletting at
Pera, Cath had seemed a haven, a civilized environment where just possibly he
might contrive to patch together a spaceboat. The prospect seemed ever more
remote.

Someone came
to stand beside him: Heizari, the older of Palo Barbar’s orange-haired
daughters. “You seem so melancholy. What troubles you?”

Reith looked
down into the pale oval of the girl’s face: an arch impudent face, at this
moment alive with innocent-or not so innocent? coquetry. Reith restrained the
first words that rose to his lips. The girl was unquestionably appealing. “How
is it you are not in bed with your sister Edwe?”

“Oh, simple!
She is not in bed either. She sits with your friend Traz on the quarterdeck,
beguiling and provoking, teasing and tormenting. She is much more of a flirt
than I”

Poor Traz
, thought
Reith. He asked, “What of your father and mother? Are they not concerned?”

“What’s it to
them? When they were young, they dallied as ardently as any; is that not their
right?”

“I suppose
so. Customs vary, as you know.”

“What of you?
What are the customs of your people?”

“Ambiguous
and rather complicated,” said Reith. “There’s a great deal of variation.”

“This is the
case with Cloud Islanders,” said Heizari, leaning somewhat closer. “We are by no
means automatically amorous. But on occasions a certain mood comes over a
person, which I believe to be the consequence of natural law.”

“No argument
there,” Reith obeyed his impulse and kissed the piquant face. “Still, I don’t
care to antagonize your father, natural law or not. He is an expert swordsman.”

“Have no
fears on that score. If you require assurance, doubtless he is still awake.”

“I don’t know
quite what I’d ask him,” said Reith. “Well then, all things considered...” The
two strolled forward and climbed the carved steps to the forepeak, and stood
looking south across the sea. Az hung low in the west laying a line of amethyst
prisms along the water. An orange haired girl, a purple moon, a fairytale cog
on a remote ocean: would he trade it all to be back on Earth? The answer had to
be yes. And yet, why deny the attractions of the moment? Reith kissed the girl
somewhat more fervently than before and now from the shadow of the anchor
windlass, a person hitherto invisible jumped erect and departed in desperate
haste. In the slanting moonlight Reith recognized Ylin-Ylan, the Flower of Cath
... His ardor was quenched; he looked miserably aft. And yet, why feel guilt?
She had long since made it clear that the one-time relationship was at an end.
Reith turned back to the orange-haired Heizari.

THE MORNING
DAWNED without wind. The sun rose into a bird’s egg sky: beige and dove-gray
around the horizon, pale gray-blue at the zenith.

The morning
meal, as usual, was coarse bread, salt fish, preserved fruit, and acrid tea.
The company sat in silence, each occupied with morning thoughts.

The Flower of
Cath was late. She slipped quietly into the saloon and took her place with a
polite smile to left and right, and ate in a kind of reverie. Dordolio watched
her with perplexity.

The captain
looked in from the deck. “A day of calm. Tonight clouds and thunder. Tomorrow?
No way of knowing. Unusual weather!”

Reith
irritably forced himself to his usual conduct. No cause for misgivings: he had
not changed; Ylin-Ylan had changed. Even at the most intense stage of their
relationship she had at all times kept part of herself secret: a persona
represented by another of her many names? Reith forced her from his mind.

Ylin-Ylan
wasted no time in the saloon, but went out on deck, where she was joined by
Dordolio. They leaned on the rail, Ylin-Ylan speaking with great urgency,
Dordolio pulling his mustache and occasionally interposing a word or two.

A seaman on
the quarterdeck gave a sudden call and pointed across the water. Jumping up on
the hatch Reith saw a dark floating shape, with a head and narrow shoulders,
disturbingly manlike; the creature surged, disappeared below the surface. Reith
turned to Anacho. “What was that?”

“A Pnume.”

“So far from
land?”

“Why not? They
are the same sort as the Phung. Who holds a Phung to account for his deeds?”

“But what
does it do out here, in mid-ocean?”

“Perhaps it
floats by night on the surface, watching the moons swing by.”

The morning
passed. Traz and the two girls played quoits. The merchant mused through a
leather-bound book. Palo Barba and Dordolio fenced for a period. Dordolio was
as usual flamboyant, whistling his steel through the air, stamping his feet,
flourishing his arms.

Palo Barba
presently tired of the sport. Dordolio stood twitching his blade. Ylin-Ylan
came to sit on the hatch. Dordolio turned to Reith. “Come, nomad, take up the
foil; show me the skills of your native steppe.”

Reith
instantly became wary. “They are very few; additionally I am out of practice.
Perhaps another day.”

“Come, come,”
cried Dordolio, eyes glittering. “I have heard reports of your adroitness. You
must not refuse to demonstrate your technique.”

“You must
excuse me; I am disinclined.”

“Yes, Adam
Reith!” called Ylin-Ylan. “Fence! You will disappoint us all!”

Reith turned
his head, examined the Flower for a long moment. Her face, pinched and wan and
quivering with emotion, was not the face of the girl he had known in Pera. In
some fashion, change had come; he looked into the face of a stranger.

Reith turned
his attention to Dordolio, who evidently had been incited by the Flower of
Cath. Whatever they planned was not to his advantage.

Palo Barba
intervened. “Come,” he told Dordolio. “Let the man rest, I will play another
set of passes, and give you all the exercise you require.”

“But I wish
to engage this fellow,” declared Dordolio. “His attitudes are exasperating; I
feel that he needs to be chastened.”

“If you
intend to pick a quarrel,” said Palo Barba coldly, “that of course is your
affair.”

“No quarrel,”
declared Dordolio in a brassy, somewhat nasal voice. “A demonstration, let us
say. The fellow seems to equate the caste of Cath with common ruck. A
significant difference exists, as I wish to make clear.”

Reith wearily
rose to his feet. “Very well. What do you have in mind for your demonstration?”

“Foils,
swords, as you wish. Since you are ignorant of chivalrous address, there shall
be none; a simple ‘go’ must suffice.”

“And ‘stop’?”

Dordolio
grinned through his mustache. “As circumstances dictate.”

“Very well.”
He turned to Palo Barba. “Allow me to look over your weapons, if you please.”

Palo Barba
opened his box. Reith selected a pair of short light blades.

Dordolio
stared, eyebrows arched high in distaste. “Child’s weapons, for the training of
boys!”

Reith hefted
one of the blades, twitched it through the air. “This suits me well enough. If
you are dissatisfied, use whatever blade you like.”

Dordolio
grudgingly took up the light blade. “It has no life; it is without movement or
backsnap--”

Reith lifted
his sword, tilted Dordolio’s hat down over his eyes. “But responsive and
serviceable, as you see.”

Dordolio
removed the hat without comment, shot the cuffs of his white silk blouse. “Are
you ready?”

“Whenever you
are.”

Dordolio
raised his sword in a preposterous salute, bowed right and left to the
spectators. Reith drew back. “I thought you planned to forgo the ceremonies.”

Dordolio
merely drew back the corners of his mouth, to show his teeth, and performed one
of his foot-stamping assaults. Reith parried without difficulty, feinted
Dordolio out of position and swung down at one of the clasps which supported
Dordolio’s breeches.

Dordolio
jumped back, then attacked once more, the snarl replaced by a sinister grin. He
stormed Reith’s defense, picking here and there, resting, probing; Reith
reacted sluggishly. Dordolio feinted, drew Reith’s blade aside, lunged. Reith
had already jumped away; Dordolio’s blade met empty air. Reith hacked down hard
at the clasp, breaking it loose.

Dordolio drew
back with a frown. Reith stepped forward, struck down at the other clasp, and
Dordolio’s breeches grew loose about the waist.

Dordolio
retreated, red in the face. He cast down the sword. “These ridiculous
playthings! Take up a real sword!”

“Use any
sword you prefer. I will remain with this one. But, first, I suggest that you
take steps to support your trousers; you will embarrass both of us.”

Dordolio
bowed, with icy good grace. He went somewhat apart, tied his breeches to his
belt with thongs. “I am ready. Since you insist, and since my purposes are
punitive, I will use the weapon with which I am familiar.”

“As you like.”

Dordolio took
up his long supple blade, flourished it around his head so that it sang in the
air, then, nodding to Reith, came to the attack. The flexible tip swung in from
right and left; Reith slid it away, and casually, almost as if by accident,
tapped Dordolio’s cheek with the flat of his blade.

Dordolio
blinked, and launched a furious prancing attack. Reith gave ground; Dordolio
followed, stamping, lunging, cutting, striking from all sides. Reith parried,
and tapped Dordolio’s other cheek. He then drew back. “I find myself winded;
perhaps you have had enough exercise for the day?”

Dordolio
stood glaring, nostrils distended, chest rising and falling. He turned away,
gazed out to sea. He heaved a deep sigh, and turned back. “Yes,” he said in a
dull voice. “We have exercised enough.” He looked down at his jeweled rapier,
and for a moment appeared ready to cast it into the sea. Instead, he thrust it
into his sheath, bowed to Reith. “Your swordplay is excellent. I am indebted
for the demonstration.”

Palo Barba
came forward. “Well spoken, a true cavalier of Cath! Enough of blades and
metal; let us take a goblet of morning wine.”

Dordolio
bowed. “Presently.” He went off to his cabin. The Flower of Cath sat as if
carved from stone.