Planet of Adventure Omnibus (32 page)

Heizari
brought Reith a goblet of wine. “I have a wonderful idea.”

“Which is?”

“You must
leave the ship at Wyness, come to Orchard Hill and assist my father’s fencing
academy. An easy life, without worries or fear.”

“The prospect
is pleasant,” said Reith. “I wish I could ... but I have other
responsibilities.”

“Put them
aside! Are responsibilities so important when one has a single life to live?
But don’t answer.” She put her hand on Reith’s mouth. “I know what you will
say. You are a strange man, Adam Reith, so grim and so easy all at once.”

“I don’t seem
strange to myself. Tschai is strange; I’m quite ordinary.”

“Of course
not!” laughed Heizari. “Tschai is-” She made a vague gesture. “Sometimes it is
terrible ... but strange? I know no other place.” She rose to her feet. “Well
then, I will pour you more wine and perhaps I will drink as well. On so quiet a
day what else is there to do?”

The captain
passing near, halted. “Enjoy the calm while you can; winds are coming. Look to
the north.”

On the
horizon a bank of black clouds; the sea below glimmered like copper. Even as
they watched a breath of air came across the sea, a curiously cool waft. The
sails of the
Vargaz
flapped; the rigging creaked.

From the
cabin came Dordolio. He had changed his garments; now he wore a suit of somber
maroon, black velvet shoes, a billed hat of black velvet. He looked for
Ylin-Ylan; where was she? Far forward on the forepeak, she leaned on the rail,
looking off to sea. Dordolio hesitated, then slowly turned away. Palo Barba
handed him a goblet of wine; Dordolio silently took a seat under the great
brass lantern.

The bank of
clouds rolled south, giving off flashes of purple light, and presently the low
grumble of thunder reached the
Vargaz
.

The lateen
sails were furled; the cog moved sluggishly on a small square storm sail.

Sunset was an
eerie scene, the dark brown sun shining under the black clouds. The Flower of
Cath came from the stern-castle: stark naked she stood, looking up and down the
decks, into the amazed faces of the passengers.

She held a
dart pistol in one hand, a dagger in the other. Her face was set in a peculiar
fixed smile; Reith, who had known the face under a host of circumstances, would
never have recognized it. Dordolio, giving an inarticulate bellow, ran forward.

The Flower of
Cath aimed the pistol at him; Dordolio dodged; the dart sang past his head. She
searched the deck; she spied Heizari, and stepped forward, pistol at the ready;
Heizari cried out in fear, ran behind the mainmast. Lightning sprang from cloud
to cloud; in the purple glare Dordolio sprang upon the Flower; she slashed him
with the dagger; Dordolio staggered back with blood squirting from his neck.
The Flower aimed the dart-gun, Dordolio rolled over behind the hatch. Heizari
ran forward to the forecastle; the Flower pursued. A crewman emerged from the
forecastle-to stand petrified. The Flower stabbed up into his astounded face;
the man tumbled backward, down the companionway.

Heizari stood
behind the foremast. Lightning spattered across the sky; thunder came almost at
once.

The Flower
stabbed deftly around the mast; the orange-haired girl clutched her side,
tottered forth with a wondering face. The Flower aimed the dart gun but Palo
Barba was there to knock it clattering to the deck. The Flower cut at him, cut
at Reith who was trying to seize her, ran up the ladder to the forepeak,
climbed out on the sprit.

The cog rose
to the waves; the sprit reared and plunged. The sun sank into the ocean; the
Flower turned to watch it, hanging to the forestay with one arm.

Reith called
to her, “Come back, come back!”

She turned,
looked at him, her face remote. “Derl!” called Reith. “Ylin-Ylan!” The girl
gave no signal she had heard. Reith called her other names: “Blue Jade Flower!”
Then her court name: “Shar Zarin!”

She only gave
him a regretful smile.

Reith sought
to coax her. He used her child name: “Zozi ... Zozi ... come back here.”

The girl’s
face changed. She pulled herself closer to the stay, hugging it.

“Zozi! Won’t
you talk to me? Come here, there’s a good girl.”

But her mind
was far away, off where the sun was setting.

Reith called
her secret name: “L’lae! Come, come here! Ktan calls you, L’lae!”

Again she
shook her head, never taking her eyes from the sea.

Reith called
the final name though it felt strange to his lips: her love name. He called,
but thunder drowned the sound of his voice, and the girl did not hear. The sun
was a small segment, swimming with antique colors. The Flower stepped from the
sprit, and dropped into a hissing surge of spume. For an instant Reith thought
he saw the spiral of her dark hair, and then she was gone.

Later, in the
evening, with the
Vargaz
pitching up the great slopes and wallowing in a
rush down into the troughs, Reith put a question to Ankhe at afram Anacho, the
Dirdirman. “Had she simply lost her reason? Or was that
awaile
?”

“It was
awaile
.
The refuge from shame.”

“But-” Reith
started to speak, but could only make an inarticulate gesture.

“You gave attendance
to the Cloud Isle girl. Her champion made a fool of himself. Humiliation lay
across the future. She would have killed us all had she been able.”

“I find it
incomprehensible,” muttered Reith.

“Naturally.
You are not Yao. For the Blue Jade Princess, the pressure was too great. She is
lucky. In Settra she would have been punished at a dramatic public torturing.”

Reith groped
his way out on deck. The brass lantern creaked as it swung. Reith looked out
over the blowing sea. Somewhere far away and deep, a white body floated in the
dark.

FREAKISH
WINDS BLEW throughout the night: gusts, breaths, blasts, whispers. Dawn brought
an abrupt calm, and the sun found the
Vargaz
wallowing in a confused
sea.

At noon a
terrible squall sent the ship scudding south like a toy, the bluff bow
battering the sea to froth. The passengers kept to the saloon, or to the trunk
deck. Heizari, bandaged and pale, kept to the cabin she shared with Edwe. Reith
sat with her for an hour. She could speak of nothing but her terrible
experience. “But why should she do so dreadful a deed?”

“Apparently
the Yao are prone to such acts.”

“I have heard
as much; but even insanity has a reason.”

“The
Dirdirman says she was overwhelmed by shame.”

“What folly!
A person as beautiful as she? What could she have done to affect her so?”

“I wouldn’t
care to speculate,” muttered Reith.

The squalls
became gigantic hills lofting the
Vargaz
high, heaving the round hull
bubbling and singing down the long slopes. Finally one morning the sun shone
down from a dove-brown sky clean of clouds. The seas persisted a day longer,
then gradually lessened, and the cog set all sail before a fair breeze from the
west.

Three days
later a dim black island loomed in the south, which the captain declared to be
the haunt of corsairs; he kept a sharp lookout from the masthead until the
island had merged into the murk of evening.

The days
passed without distinguishing characteristic: curiously antiseptic days
overshadowed by the uncertainty of the future. Reith became edgy and nervous.
How long ago had been the events at Pera: a time so innocent and uncomplicated!
At that time, Cath had seemed a haven of civilized security, with Reith certain
that the Blue Jade Lord through gratitude would facilitate his plans. What a
callow hope!

The cog
approached the coast of Kachan, where the captain hoped to ride north-flowing
currents up into the Parapan.

One morning,
coming on deck, Reith found a remarkable island standing off the starboard
beam: a place of no great extent, less than a quarter-mile in diameter,
surrounded at the water’s edge by a wall of black glass a hundred feet high.
Beyond rose a dozen massive buildings of various heights and graceless
proportion.

Anacho the
Dirdirman came to stand beside him, narrow shoulders hunched, long face dour. “There
you see the stronghold of an evil race: the Wankh.”

“‘Evil’?
Because they are at war with the Dirdir?”

“Because they
will not end the war. What benefit to either Dirdir or Wankh is such a
confrontation? The Dirdir offer disengagement; the Wankh refuse. A harsh
inscrutable people!”

“Naturally, I
know nothing of the issues,” said Reith. “Why the wall around the island?”

“To daunt the
Pnume, who infest Tschai like rats. The Wankh are not a companionable folk. In
fact-look down yonder below the surface.”

Reith,
peering into the water, saw gliding beside the ship at a depth of ten or
fifteen feet a dark man-like shape, with a metal structure fixed across its
mid-body, moving without motion of its own. The figure twisted, slanted away
and vanished into the murk.

“An
amphibious race, the Wankh, with electric jets for their underwater sport.”

Reith once
more raised the scanscope. The Wankh towers, like the walls, were black glass.
Round windows were discs blacker than black; balconies of frail twisted crystal
became walkways to far structures. Reith spied movement: a pair of Wankh?
Looking more closely he saw the creatures to be men-Wankhmen, beyond all doubt,
with flour-white skins and black pelts close to somewhat flat scalps. Their
faces seemed smooth, with still, saturnine features; they wore what appeared to
be one-piece black garments, with wide black leather belts, on which hung small
implements, tools, instruments. As they moved into the building, they looked
out at the
Vargaz
and for an instant Reith saw full into their faces. He
jerked the scanscope from his eyes.

Anacho eyed
him askance. “What is the trouble?”

“I saw two
Wankhmen ... Even you, weird mutated freak that you are, seem ordinary by
comparison.”

Anacho gave a
sardonic chuckle. “They are in fact not dissimilar to the typical sub-man.”

Reith made no
argument; in the first place he could not define the exact quality he had seen
behind the still white faces. He looked again, but the Wankhmen had
disappeared. Dordolio had come out on deck and now stared in fascination at the
scanscope. “What instrument is that?”

“An
electronic optical device,” said Reith without emphasis.

“I’ve never
seen its like.” He looked at Anacho. “Is it a Dirdir machine?”

Anacho made a
quizzical dissent. “I think not.”

Dordolio gave
Reith a puzzled glance. “Is it Chasch or Wankh?” He veered at the engraved
escutcheon. “What writing is this?”

Anacho
shrugged. “Nothing I can read.”

Dordolio
asked Reith: “Can you read it?”

“Yes, I
believe so.” Impelled by a sudden mischievous urge, Reith read:

“Federal Space Agency

Tool and Instrument Division

Mark XI Photomultiplying Binocular Telescope

1x-1000x

Nonprojective, inoperable in total darkness.

BAF-1303-K-29023

Use Type D5 energy slug only. In poor light,
engage color compensator switch. Do not look at sun or high-intensity
illumination; if automatic light-gate fails, damage to the eyes may result.”

Dordolio
stared. “What language is that?”

“One of the
many human dialects,” said Reith.

“But from
what region? Men everywhere on Tschai, to my understanding, speak the same
language.”

“Rather than
embarrass you both,” said Reith. “I prefer to say nothing. Continue to think of
me as an amnesiac.”

“Do you take
us for fools?” growled Dordolio. “Are we children to have our questions
answered with flippant evasions?”

“Sometimes,”
said Anacho, speaking into the air, “it is the part of wisdom to maintain a
myth. Too much knowledge can become a burden.”

Dordolio
gnawed at his mustache. From the corner of his eye he glanced at the scanscope,
then swung abruptly away.

Ahead three
more islands had appeared, rising sharply from the sea, each with its wall and
core of eccentric black buildings. A shadow lay on the horizon beyond: the
mainland of Kachan.

During the
afternoon the shadow took on density and detail, to become a hulk of mountains
rising from the sea. The
Vargaz
coasted north, almost in the shadow of
the mountains, with black dip-winged kites swooping around the masts, emitting
mournful hoots and clashing their mandibles. Late in the afternoon the
mountains fell away to reveal a landlocked bay. A nondescript town occupied the
south shore; from a promontory to the north rose a Wankh fortress, like a
growth of undisciplined black crystals. A spaceport occupied the flat land to
the east, where a number of spaceships of various styles and sizes were
visible.