Planet of Adventure Omnibus (64 page)

“He said
Anacho was a criminal, that I came here to exploit him. How can I argue?”

Traz curled
his lip. “And Anacho?”

“In the Glass
Box. Woudiver says it’s easy to get in but impossible to get out.” Reith walked
back and forth across the shed. Halting in the doorway, he looked across the
water toward the great gray shape. He spoke to Traz: “Will you ask Deine Zarre
to step out here?”

Deine Zarre
appeared. Reith asked, “Have you ever visited the Glass Box?”

“Long ago.”

“Woudiver
tells me that a man might lower a rope from the upper gallery.”

“Should he
care so little for his life.”

“I want two
quantities of high-potency battarache-enough, say, to destroy this shed ten
times over. Where can I get it in a hurry?”

Deine Zarre
reflected a moment, then gave a slow fateful nod. “Wait here.”

He returned
in something over an hour with two clay pots. “Here is battarache; here are
fuses. It is contraband material; please do not reveal where you obtained it.”

“The subject
will never arise,” said Reith. “Or so I hope.”

SHROUDED IN
GRAY cloaks Reith and Traz crossed the causeway to the mainland. By a fine wide
avenue, surfaced with a rough white substance that rasped underfoot, they
entered the Dirdir city Hei. To either hand rose spires, purple and scarlet;
those of gray metal and silver stood far to the north behind the Glass Box. The
avenue led close beside a hundred-foot shaft of scarlet. Surrounding this was
an expanse of clean white sand upon which rested a dozen peculiar objects of
polished stone. Art-things? Fetishes? Trophies? There was no way of knowing. In
front of the spire, on a circular plat of white marble, stood three Dirdir. For
the first time Reith saw a Dirdir female. The creature was shorter and seemed
less resilient, less flexible, than the male; her head was wider at the scalp
and pointed at the area corresponding to a chin; she was somewhat darker in
color: a pallid gray subtly shaded with mauve. The two stood contemplating the
third, a male Dirdir whelp, half the size of the adult. From time to time the
effulgences of the three twitched to point to one or another of the polished
rock-pieces, an activity which Reith made no effort to understand.

Reith watched
them in a mingling of revulsion and reluctant admiration, and he could not
avoid thinking of the “mysteries.”

Some time
previously Anacho had explained the Dirdir sexual processes. “Essentially, the
facts are these: there are twelve styles of male sexual organs, fourteen of the
female. Only certain pairings are possible. For instance, the Type One Male is
compatible only with Types Five and Nine Female. Type Five Female adjusts only
to Type One Male, but Type Nine Female has a more general organ and is compatible
with Types One, Eleven and Twelve Male.

“The matter
becomes fantastically complex. Each male and female style has its specific and
theoretical attributes, which are very seldom realized-as long as an individual’s
type is secret! These are the Dirdir ‘mysteries’! Should an individual’s type
become known, he is expected to conform to the theoretical attributes of the
type, regardless of inclination; he rarely does so, and is constantly
embarrassed on this account.

“As you can
imagine, a matter so complicated absorbs a great deal of attention and energy
and, perhaps, by keeping the Dirdir fragmented, obsessed and secretive, has
prevented them from overrunning the world of space.”

“Amazing,”
said Reith. “But if the types are secret and generally incompatible, how do
they mate? How do they reproduce?”

“There are
several systems: trial marriage, the so-called ‘dark gatherings,’ anonymous
notices. The difficulties are transcended.” Anacho paused a moment, then
proceeded delicately. “I need hardly point out that low-caste Dirdirmen and
Dirdirwomen, lacking the ‘noble divinity’ and without ‘secrets,’ are thus held
to be deficient and somewhat clownish.”

“Hmm,” said
Reith. “Why do you specify ‘low-caste Dirdirmen’? What of the Immaculates?”

Anacho
cleared his throat. “The Immaculates obviate shame by elaborate surgical
methods. They are allowed to alter themselves in accordance with one of eight
styles; thus they are conceded ‘secrets’ as well, and may wear Blue and Pink.”

“What about
mating?”

“It is more
difficult, and in fact becomes an ingenious analogue of the Dirdir system. Each
style will match at most two styles of the other sex.”

Reith could
no longer restrain his mirth. Anacho listened with an expression, half-grim,
half-rueful. “What of yourself?” asked Reith. “How far did you involve
yourself?”

“Not far
enough,” said Anacho. “For certain reasons I wore Blue and Pink without
providing myself the requisite ‘secret.’ I was declared an outlaw and an
atavism: this was my situation at our first meeting.”

“A curious
crime,” said Reith.

Now Anacho
darted for his life across the simulated landscape of Sibol.

The avenue
leading to the Glass Box became even broader, as if in some attempt to keep it
in scale with the vast bulk. Those who walked the rasping white surface-Dirdir,
Dirdirmen, common laborers in gray cloaks-seemed artificial and unreal, like
figures in classical perspective exercises. As they walked they looked neither
right nor left, passing Reith and Traz as if they were invisible.

Scarlet and
purple spires reared to all sides; ahead stood the Glass Box, dwarfing all
else. Reith began to suffer oppression of the spirit; Dirdir artifacts and the
human psyche were in discord. To tolerate such surroundings, a man eventually
must deny his heritage and submit to the Dirdir world-view. In short, he must
become a Dirdirman.

They came up
beside two other men, like themselves muffled in hooded gray cloaks. Reith
spoke: “Perhaps you will inform us. We want to visit the Glass Box but we do
not understand the procedure.”

The two men
gave him an uncertain appraisal. They were father and son, both short,
round-faced, with round little paunches, thin arms and legs. The older man said
in a reedy voice, “One merely mounts by the gray ramps; there is no more to
know.”

“You
yourselves go to the Glass Box?”

“Yes. There
is a special hunt at noon, for a great Dirdirman villain, and there may well be
a tossing.”

“We had heard
nothing of this. Who is this Dirdirman villain?”

The two again
examined him dubiously, apparently from a condition of innate uncertainty. “A
renegade, a blasphemer. We are scourers at the Number Four Fabrication Plant;
we received information from the Dirdirmen themselves.”

“You go often
to the Glass Box?”

“Often
enough.” The father spoke rather tersely. The son amplified: “It is authorized
and endorsed by the Dirdirmen; there is no expense.”

“Come,” said
the father. “We must hurry.”

“If you have
no objection,” said Reith, “we will follow you and take advantage of your
familiarity with the procedures.”

The father
agreed with no great enthusiasm. “We do not care to be delayed.” The two set
off up the avenue, heads crouched upon their shoulders, a gait characteristic
to the Sivishe laborers. Imitating the sag-necked slouch Reith and Traz
followed. The glass walls reared overhead like vitreous cliffs, showing spots
of a red-magenta glow where the illumination from within penetrated the glass.
Angling along the sides were ramps and escalators coded by color; purple,
scarlet, mauve, white and gray, each rising to different levels. The gray ramps
led to a balcony only a hundred feet from the ground, evidently the lowest.
Reith and Traz, joining a stream of men, women and children, climbed the ramp,
passed through an ill-smelling passage which twisted forward and back and
suddenly emerged upon a bright bleak expanse, illuminated by ten miniature
suns. There were low crags and rolling hills, thickets of harsh vegetation:
ocher, tan, yellow, bone-white, pale whitish brown. Below was a brackish pond,
a thicket of hard white cactus-like growths; in the near distance stood a
forest of bone-white spires identical in shape and size to the Dirdir
residential towers. The similarity, thought Reith, could not be coincidental;
on Sibol the Dirdir evidently inhabited hollow trees.

Somewhere
among the hills and thickets wandered Anacho, in fear of his life, bitterly
regretting the impulse which had brought him to Sivishe. But Anacho was not to
be seen; in fact nowhere was there sign of either man or Dirdir. Reith turned
to the two laborers for explanation.

“It is a
quiet period,” stated the father. “Notice the hill yonder? And its equal at the
far north? These are base camps. During a quiet period the game takes refuge at
one or the other of the camps. Let me see; where is my schedule?”

“I carry it,”
said the son. “Quiet continues yet an hour; the game is at this close hill.”

“We are in
good time. According to rules of this particular cycle, there will be darkness
in one hour, for a period of fourteen minutes. Then South Hill becomes fair
territory and the game must vacate to North Hill, which in its turn becomes
refuge. I am surprised that with so notorious a criminal, they do not allow
Competition rules.”

“The schedule
was established last week,” replied the son. “The criminal was taken only a day
or so ago.”

“We still may
see good techniques, and perhaps a tossing or two.

“In one hour,
then, the field goes dark?”

“For fourteen
minutes, during which the hunt begins.”

Reith and
Traz returned to the outside balcony and the suddenly dim landscape of Tschai.
Pulling their hoods close, hunching their necks, they sidled down the ramp to
the ground.

Reith looked
in all directions. Cloaked laborers marched stolidly up the gray ramp.
Dirdirmen used the white ramps; Dirdir rode mauve, scarlet and purple
escalators to the high balconies.

Reith went to
the gray glass wall. He sat down and pretended to adjust his shoe. Traz stood
in front of him. From his pouch Reith brought forth a pot of battarache and an
attached timer. He carefully adjusted a dial, pulled a lever, laid it beside a
shrub, against the glass wall.

No one
heeded. He adjusted the timer on the second pot of battarache, gave pouch,
battarache and timer to Traz. “You know what to do.”

Traz
reluctantly took the pouch. “The plan may succeed, but you and Anacho will both
certainly be killed.”

Reith
pretended that Traz was wrong for once, for the encouragement of them both. “Drop
off the battarache-you’ll have to hurry. Remember, just opposite to here. There
isn’t much time. And I’ll see you at the construction shed.”

Traz turned
away, concealing his face in the folds of his hood. “Very well, Adam Reith.”

“But just in
case something goes wrong: take the money and leave as fast as you can.”

“Goodbye.”

“Hurry now.”

Reith watched
the gray shape diminish along the base of the Glass Box. He drew a deep breath.
There was little time. He must commit himself at once; if darkness arrived
before he had located Anacho, all the effort and risk were in vain.

He returned
back up the gray ramp, passed through the portal into the Sibol glare.

He scanned
the field, taking careful note of landmarks and directions, then moved south
around the deck, toward South Hill. The spectators became less numerous, most
tending toward the middle or the north.

Reith
selected a spot near a stanchion. He looked right and left. No one stood within
two hundred feet of him. The decks above were empty. He brought out a coil of
light rope, parted it, passed it around the stanchion, threw the parts down.
With a look to right and left he swung himself over the rail, lowered himself
to the hunting ground.

He did not go
unnoticed. Pallid faces peered down in wonder. Reith paid them no heed. He no
longer shared their world; he was game. He pulled the rope down and ran off
toward South Hill, coiling the rope as he ran through forests of bristle, over
limestone juts and coffee-colored chert.

He neared the
first slopes of South Hill, sighting neither hunters nor game. The hunters
would now be taking such positions as tactics dictated; the game would be
lurking at the base of South Hill, wondering how best to reach the sanctuary of
North Hill. Reith suddenly came upon a young Gray, crouched in the shadow of a
white bamboo-like growth. He wore sandals and a breech-clout; he carried a club
and a cactus-prong dagger. Reith asked him, “Where is the Dirdirman, the one
just put out on the field?”

The Gray gave
his head an indifferent jerk. “There might be one such around the hill. Leave
me; you create a flurry of darkness with your cloak. Drop it off; your skin is
the best camouflage. Don’t you know the Dirdir observe your every move?”

Reith ran on.
He saw two elderly men, stark naked, with stringy muscles and white hair,
standing poised like specters. Reith called out, “Have you seen the Dirdirman
anywhere near?”