Planet of Adventure Omnibus (51 page)

Reassured,
the three proceeded to the front of the inn and pushed through a heavy timber
door into a great hall. A halfdozen men with sparse sandy hair and pale bland
faces stood by the fireplace nursing pewter mugs. They wore rough garments of
gray and brown fustian, knee-high boots of well-oiled leather; Reith took them
for fishermen. Conversation halted. All turned narrow gazes toward the
newcomers. After a moment they reverted to the fire, their mugs, their terse
conversations.

A strapping
woman in a black gown appeared from a back chamber. “Who be you?”

“Travelers.
Can you give us meals and lodging for the night?”

“What’s your
nature? Are you fjord men? Or Rab?”

“Neither.”

“Travelers
often be folk who do evil in their own lands and are sent away.”

“This is
often the case, I agree.”

“Mmf. What
will you eat?”

“What is to
be had?”

“Bread and
steamed eel with hilks.”

“This then
must be our fare.”

The woman
grunted once more and turned away, but served additionally a salad of sweet
lichen and a tray of condiments. The inn, so she informed them, had originally
been the residence of the Foglar pirate kings. Treasure was reputedly buried
below the dungeons. “But digging only uncovers bones and more bones, some
broken, some scorched. Stern men, the Foglars. Well, then, do you wish tea?”

The three
went to sit by the fire. Outside the wind roared past the eaves. The landlady
came to stoke the blaze. “The chambers are down the hall. If you need women, I
must send out; I myself can’t serve owing to my sore back, and there will be
additional charge.”

“Don’t
trouble in this regard,” Reith told her. “So long as the couches are clean we
will be content.”

“Strange
travelers that come in so grand a sky-car. You”-she pointed a finger toward
Anacho-- “might well be a Dirdirman. Is that a Dirdir sky-car?”

“I might be a
Dirdirman and it might be a Dirdir sky-car. And we might be engaged upon
important work where absolute discretion is necessary.”

“Aha, indeed!”
The woman’s jaw slacked. “Something to do with the Wankh, no doubt! Do you
know, there’s been great changes to the south? The Wankhmen and the Wankh are
all at odds!”

“We are so
informed.”

The woman
leaned forward. “What of the Wankh? Are they in withdrawal? So it is rumored.”

“I think not,”
said Anacho. “While the Dirdir inhabit Haulk, so long will the Wankh hold their
Kislovan forts, and the Blue Chasch keep their torpedo pits ready.”

The woman
cried, “And we, poor miserable humans: pawns of the great folk, never knowing
which way to jump! I say Bevol take ‘em all, and welcome!”

She shook her
fist to south, to southwest and northwest, the directions in which she located
her principal antagonists; then she departed the chamber.

Anacho, Traz
and Reith sat in the ancient stone hall, watching the fire flicker.

“Well, then,”
asked Anacho. “What of tomorrow?”

“My plans
remain the same,” said Reith. “I intend to return to Earth. Somewhere, somehow,
I must gain possession of a spaceship. This program is meaningless for you two;
you should go where you feel secure: the Isles of Cloud, or perhaps back to
Smargash. Wherever you decide, we will go; then perhaps you will allow me to
continue in the sky-car.”

Anacho’s long
harlequin face assumed an expression almost prim. “And where will you take
yourself?”

“You
mentioned the spaceyards at Sivishe; this will be my destination.”

“What of
money? You will need a great deal, as well as subtlety and, most of all, luck.”

“For money
there is always the Carabas.”

Anacho
nodded. “Every desperado of Tschai will tell you the same. But wealth does not
come without extreme risk. The Carabas lies within the Dirdir Hunting Preserve;
trespassers are fair game. If you evade the Dirdir, there is Buszli the Bandit,
the Blue Band, the vampire women, the gamblers, the hook-men. For every man who
gains a handful of sequins, another three leave their bones, or fill Dirdir
guts.”

Reith gave an
uneasy grimace. “I’ll have to take my chances.”

The three sat
looking into the fire. Traz stirred. “Once long ago I wore Onmale and never am
I entirely free of the weight. Sometimes I feel it calling from under the soil.
In the beginning it ordained life for Adam Reith; now, even if I wished, I
would not desert Adam Reith for fear of Onmale.”

“I am a
fugitive,” said Anacho. “I have no life of my own. We have destroyed the first
Initiative,
[ix]
but sooner or later there will be a second Initiative. The Dirdir are
pertinacious. Do you know where we might find the most security? At Sivishe,
close under the Dirdir city Hei. As for the Carabas ...” Anacho gave a doleful
sigh. “Adam Reith seems to have a knack for survival. I have nothing better to
do. I will take my chances.”

“I’ll say no
more,” said Reith. “I’m grateful for your company.”

For a space
the three looked into the flames. Outside the wind whistled and blustered. “Our
destination, then, is the Carabas,” said Reith. “Why should not the sky-car
give us an advantage?”

Anacho
fluttered his fingers. “Not in the Black Zone. The Dirdir would take note and
instantly be upon us.”

“There must
be tactics of some sort to lessen the danger,” said Reith.

Anacho gave a
grim chuckle. “Everyone who visits the Zone has his private theories. Some
enter by night; others wear camouflage and puff boots to muffle their tracks.
Some organize brigades and march as a unit; others feel more secure alone. Some
enter from Zimle; others come down from Maust. The eventualities are usually
the same.”

Reith rubbed
his chin reflectively. “Do Dirdirmen join the hunt?”

Anacho smiled
into the flames. “The Immaculates have been known to hunt. But your concept has
no value. Neither you nor Traz nor I could successfully impersonate an
Immaculate.”

The fire
became coals; the three went to their tall dim chambers and slept on hard
couches under linens smelling of the sea. In the morning they ate a breakfast
of salt biscuit and tea, then settled their tariff and departed the inn.

The day was
dreary. Cold tendrils of fog sifted through the chymax trees. The three boarded
the sky-car. Up they rose through the overcast, and finally broke out into the
wan amber sunlight. Westward they flew, over the Draschade Ocean.

THE GRAY
DRASCHADE rolled below: the ocean which Reith-it seemed an eon ago-had crossed
aboard the cog
Vargaz
. Anacho flew close above the surface, to minimize
the risk of detection by Dirdir search-screens. “We have important decisions to
make,” he announced. “The Dirdir are hunters; we have become prey. In
principle, a hunt once initiated must be consummated, but the Dirdir are not a
cohesive folk like the Wankh; their programs result from individual
initiatives, the so called
zhna-dih.
This means a great dashing leap,
trailing lightning-like sparks. The zeal expended upon finding us depends upon
whether the hunt-chief--he who performed the original
zhna-dih
was
aboard the skycar and is now dead. If so, there is a considerable diminution of
risk, unless another Dirdir wishes to assert
h’so
-a word meaning ‘marvelous
dominance’-and organizes another
tsau’gsh
, whereupon conditions are as
before. If the hunt-chief is alive, he becomes our mortal enemy.”

Reith asked
in wonder, “What was he before?”

Anacho ignored
the remark. “The hunt-chief has the force of the community at his disposal,
though he asserts his
h’so
more emphatically by
zhna-dih
.
However, if he suspects that we fly the sky-car, he might well order up
search-screens.” Anacho offhandedly indicated a disk of gray glass to the side
of the instrument panel. “If we touch a search-screen you’ll see a mesh of
orange lines.”

The hours
went by. Anacho somewhat condescendingly explained the operation of the
sky-car; both Traz and Reith familiarized themselves with the controls. Carina
4269 swung across the sky, overtaking the skycar and dropping into the west.
The Draschade rolled below, an enigmatic gray-brown waste, blurring and merging
into the sky.

Anacho began
to talk of the Carabas: “Most sequin-takers enter at Maust, fifty miles south
of the First Sea. At Maust are the most complete outfitters’ shops, the finest
charts and handbooks, and other services. I consider it as good a destination
as any.”

“Where are
the nodes usually found?”

“Anywhere
within the Carabas. There is no rule, no system of discovery. Where many folk
seek, nodes are naturally few.”

“Then why not
choose a less popular entry?”

“Maust is
popular because it is most convenient.”

Reith looked
ahead toward the yet unseen coast of Kislovan and the unknown future. “What if
we use none of these entries, but some point in between?”

“What is
there to gain? The Zone is the same from any direction.”

“There must
be some way to minimize risks and maximize gains.”

Anacho shook
his head in disparagement. “You are a strange and obstinate man! Isn’t this
attitude a form of arrogance?”

“No,” said
Reith. “I don’t think so.”

“How,” argued
Anacho, “should you succeed with such facility where others have failed?”

Reith
grinned. “It’s not arrogant to wonder why they failed.”

“One of the
Dirdir virtues is
zs’hanh
,” said Anacho. “It means ‘contemptuous
indifference to the activity of others.’ There are twenty-eight castes of
Dirdir, which I will not enumerate, and four castes of Dirdirmen: the
Immaculates, the Intensives, the Estranes, the Cluts.
Zs’hanh
is
reckoned an attribute of the fourth through the thirteenth Dirdir grades. The
Immaculates also practice
zs’hanh
. It is a noble doctrine.”

Reith shook
his head in wonder. “How have the Dirdir managed to create and coordinate a
technical civilization? In such a welter of conflicting wills--”

“You
misunderstand,” said Anacho in his most nasal voice. “The situation is more
complex. To rise in caste a Dirdir must be accepted into the next highest
group. He wins acceptance by his achievements, not by causing conflicts.
Zs’hanh
is not always appropriate to the lower castes, nor for the very highest, which
use the doctrine of
pn’hanh
: ‘corrosive or metal-bursting sagacity.’ “

“I must
belong in a high caste,” said Reith. “I intend to use
pn’hanh
rather
than
zs’hanh
. I want to exploit every possible advantage and avoid every
risk.”

Reith,
looking sidewise at the long sour face, chuckled to himself.
He wants to
point out that my caste is too low for such affectations,
thought Reith,
but
he knows that I’ll laugh at him.

The sun sank
with unnatural deliberation, its rate of decline slowed by the westward
progress of the sky-car. Toward the end of the afternoon a gray-violet bulk
rose above the horizon, to meet the disc of the pale brown sun. This was the
island, Leume, close under the continent of Kislovan.

Anacho turned
the sky-car somewhat to the north and landed at a dingy village on the sandy
north cape. The three spent the night at the Glass Blower’s Inn, a structure
contrived of bottles and jugs discarded by the shops at the sand-pits behind
the town. The inn was dank and permeated with a peculiar acrid odor; the
evening meal of soup, served in heavy green glass tureens, evinced something of
the same flavor. Reith remarked on the similarity to Anacho, who summoned the
Gray
[x]
servant and put a haughty question. The servant indicated a large black insect
darting across the floor. “The skarats do indeed be pungent creatures, and
exhale a chife. Bevol made a plague on us, until we put them to use and found
them nutritious. Now we hardly capture enough.”

Reith long
had been careful never to make inquiry regarding foods set before him, but now
he looked askance into the tureen. “You mean ... the soup?”

“Indeed,”
declared the servant. “The soup, the bread, the pickles: all be
skarat-flavored, and if we did not use them of purpose, they’d infest us to the
same effect, so we make a virtue of convenience, and think to enjoy the taste.”

Reith drew
back from the soup. Traz ate stolidly. Anacho gave a petulant sniff and also
ate. It occurred to Reith that never on Tschai had he noticed squeamishness. He
heaved a deep sigh, and since no other food was forthcoming, swallowed the
rancid soup.

In the dim
brown morning breakfast was again soup, with a garnish of sea vegetables. The
three departed immediately after, flying northwest across Leume Gulf and the
stony wastes of Kislovan.