Planet of Adventure Omnibus (73 page)

Reith stood
baffled. The girl, reading a dire meaning into his silence, said in a meek
voice: “Even if I wished to help you, how could I? I know only the way to the
Blue Rise pop-out, where I would not be allowed, unless,” she added as an
afterthought, “I declared myself a Gzhindra. You of course would be taken.”

Reith’s
scheme began to topple around his head. “Then take me to some other exit.”

“I know of
none. Those are secrets not taught at my level.”

“Come over
here, under the light,” said Reith. “Look at this.”

He brought
forth the portfolio, opened it and set it before her. “Show me where we are
now.”

The girl
looked. She made a choking sound and began to tremble. “What is this?”

“Something I
took from a Pnume.”

“These are
the Master Charts! My life is done. I will be thrown into the pit!”

“Please don’t
complicate such a simple matter,” said Reith. “Look at the charts, find a route
to the surface, take me there. Then do as you like. No one will know the difference.”

The girl
stared with a wild, unreasoning gaze. Reith gave her thin shoulder a shake. “What’s
wrong with you?”

Her voice
came in a toneless mutter. “I have seen secrets.”

Reith was in
no mood to commiserate with troubles so abstract and unreal. “Very well; you’ve
seen the charts. The damage is done. Now look again and find a way to the
surface!”

A strange
expression came over the thin face. Reith wondered if she had gone mad for a
fact. Of all the Pnumekin walking the corridors, what wry providence had
directed him to an emotionally unstable girl? ... She was looking at him, for
the first time directly and searchingly. “You are a
ghian
.”

“I live on
the surface, certainly.”

“What is it
like? Is it terrible?”

“The surface
of Tschai? It has its deficiencies.”

“I now must
be a Gzhindra.”

“It’s better
than living down here in the dark.”

The girl said
in her dull voice, “I must go to the
ghaun
.”

“The sooner
the better,” said Reith. “Look at this map again. Show me where we are.”

“I can’t
look!” moaned the girl. “I dare not look!”

“Come now!”
snapped Reith. “It’s only paper.”

“Only paper!
It crawls with secrets, Class Twenty secrets. My mind is too small!”

Reith
suspected incipient hysteria, although her voice had remained a soft monotone. “To
become a Gzhindra you must reach the surface. To reach the surface we must find
an exit, the more secret the better. Here we have secret charts. We are in
luck.”

She became
quiet and even glanced from the corner of her eyes toward the portfolio. “How
did you get this?”

“I took it
from a Pnume.” He pushed the portfolio toward her. “Can you read the symbols?”

“I am trained
to read.” Gingerly she leaned over the portfolio, to jerk instantly back in
fear and revulsion.

Reith forced
himself to patience. “You have never seen a map before?”

“I have a
level of Four; I know Class Four secrets; I have seen Class Four maps. This is
Class Twenty.”

“But you can
read this map.”

“Yes.” The
word came with sour distaste. “But I dare not. Only a
ghian
would think
to examine such a powerful document ...” Her voice trailed away to a murmur. “Let
alone steal it...”

“What will
the Pnume do when they find it is gone?”

The girl
looked off over the gulf. “Dark, dark, dark. I will fall forever through the
dark.”

Reith began
to grow restive. The girl seemed able to concentrate only on those ideas rising
from her own mind. He directed her attention to the map. “What do the colors
signify?”

“The levels
and stages.”

“And these
symbols?”

“Doors,
portals, secret ways. Touch-plates. Communication stations. Rises, pop-outs,
observation posts.”

“Show me
where we are now.”

Reluctantly
she focused her eyes. “Not this sheet. Turn back ... Back ... Back ... Here.”‘
She pointed, her finger a cautious two inches from the paper. “There. The black
mark is the pit. The pink line is the ledge.”

“Show me the
nearest route to the surface.”

“That would
be-let me look.”

Reith managed
a distant and reflective smile: once diverted from her woes, which were real
enough, Reith admitted, the girl became instantly intense, and even forgot the
exposure of her face.

“Blue-Rise
pop-out is here. To get there one would go by this lateral, then up this pale
orange ramp. But it is a crowded area, with administrative wickets. You would
be taken and I likewise, now that I have seen the secrets.”

The question
of responsibility and guilt flickered through Reith’s mind, but he put it
aside. Cataclysm had come to his life; like the plague it had infected her as
well. Perhaps similar ideas circulated in her mind.

She darted a
quick sidelong glance again. “How did you come in from the
ghaun
?”

“The Gzhindra
let me down in a sack. I cut my way out before the Pnumekin came. I hope they
decide that the Gzhindra lowered an empty sack.”

“With one of
the Great Charts missing? No person of the Shelters would touch it. The
zuzhma
kastchai
will never rest until both you and I are dead.”

“I become
ever more anxious to escape,” said Reith.

“I also,”
remarked the girl with ingenuous simplicity. “I do not wish to fall.”

Reith watched
her a moment or two, wondering that she appeared to bear him no rancor; it was
as if he had come to her as an elemental calamity-a storm, a lightning-bolt, a
flood-against which resentment, argument, entreaty would have been equally
useless. Already, he thought, a subtle change had come over her attitude; she
bent to inspect the chart somewhat less gingerly than before. She pointed to a
pale brown Y. “There’s the Palisades exit, where trading is done with the
ghian
.
I have never been so far.”

“Could we go
up at this point?”

“Never. The
zuzhma
kastchai
guard against the Dirdir. There is continual vigilance.”

Reith pointed
to the other pale brown Y’s. “These are other openings to the surface?”

“Yes. But if
they believe you to be at large, they will block off here and here and here”-she
pointed-”and all these openings are barred, and these in Exa section as well.”

“Then we must
go somewhere else: to other sectors.”

The girl’s
face twitched. “I know nothing of such places.”

“Look at the
map.”

She did his
bidding, running her finger close above the mesh of colored lines, but not yet
daring to touch the paper itself. “I see here a secret way, Quality Eighteen.
It runs from the passage out yonder to Parallel Twelve, and it shortens the way
by a half. Then we might go along any of these adits to the freight docks.”

Reith rose to
his feet. He pulled the hat over his face. “Do I look like a Pnumekin?”

She gave him
a brief unsympathetic inspection. “Your face is strange. Your skin is dark from
the
ghaun
weather. Take some dust and wipe it on your face.”

Reith did as
he was bid; the girl watched with an expressionless gaze; Reith wondered what
went on in her mind. She had declared herself an outcast, a Gzhindra, without
overmuch agony of the spirit. Or did she contrive a subtle betrayal? “Betrayal”
was perhaps unfair, Reith reflected. She had pledged him no faith, she owed him
no loyalty, indeed, something considerably the reverse. So how could he control
her after they set forth through the passages? Reith pondered and studied her,
while she became increasingly agitated. “Why do you look at me like that?”

Reith held
out the blue portfolio to her. “Carry this under your cloak, where it won’t be
seen.”

The girl
swayed back aghast. “No.”

“You must.”

“I don’t
dare. The
zuzhma kastchai
-”

“Conceal the
charts under your cloak,” said Reith in a measured voice. “I’m a desperate man,
and I’ll stop at nothing to return to the surface.”

With limp
fingers she took the portfolio. Turning her back, and glancing warily over her
shoulder at Reith, she tucked the portfolio out of sight under her cloak. “Come
then,” she croaked. “If we are taken, it is how life must go. Never in my
dreaming did I expect to be a Gzhindra.”

She opened
the portal and looked out into the round chamber. “The way is clear. Remember,
walk softly, do not lean forward. We must pass through Fer junction, and there
will be persons at their affairs. The
zuzhma kastchai
wander everywhere;
if we meet one of these, halt, step into the shadows or face the wall; this is
the respectful way. Do not move quickly; do not jerk your arms.”

She stepped
out into the round room and set off along the passage. Reith followed five or
six paces behind, trying to simulate the Pnumekin gait. He had forced the girl
to carry the charts; even so, he was at her mercy. She could run screaming to
the first Pnumekin they came upon, and hope for mercy from the Pnume ... The
situation was unpredictable.

They walked
half a mile, up a ramp, down another and into a main adit. At twenty-foot
intervals the narrow doorways opened into the rock; beside each was a fluted
pedestal with a flat polished upper surface, the function of which Reith could
not calculate. The passage widened and they entered Fer Junction, a large
hexagonal hall with a dozen polished marble pillars supporting the ceiling. In
dim little booths around the periphery sat Pnumekin writing in ledgers, or
occasionally holding vague and seemingly indecisive colloquies with other
Pnumekin who had come to seek them out.

The girl
wandered to the side and halted. Reith stopped as well.

She glanced
at him, then looked thoughtfully toward a Pnumekin in the center of the room: a
tall haggard man with an unusually alert posture. Reith stepped into the shadow
of a pillar and watched the girl. Her face was blank as a plate but Reith knew
her to be reviewing the circumstances which had overwhelmed her pale existence,
and his life depended on the balance of her fears: the bottomless gulf against
the windy brown skies of the surface.

Slowly she
moved toward Reith and joined him in the shadow of the pillar. For the moment
at least she had made her decision.

“The tall man
yonder: he is a Listening Monitor.
[xxii]
Notice how he observes all? Nothing escapes him.”

For a period
Reith stood watching the Listening Monitor, becoming each minute more disinclined
to cross the chamber. He muttered to the girl, “Do you know another route to
the freight docks?”

She pondered
the matter. Having committed herself to flight, her personality had become
somewhat more focused, as if danger had drawn her up out of the dreaming
inversion of her former existence.

“I think,”
she said dubiously, “that another route passes by way of the work halls; but it
is a long way and other Listening Monitors are on hand.”

“Hmmf.” Reith
turned to watch the Listening Monitor of Fer Junction.

“Notice,” he
said presently, “he turns to look this way and that. When his back is toward
us, I’ll move to the next pillar, and you come after me.”

A moment
later the Monitor swung around. Reith stepped out into the chamber, sauntered
to the nearest of the marble pillars. The girl came slowly after him, still
somewhat indecisively, or so it seemed to Reith.

Reith could
not now peer around the pillar without the risk of attracting the Monitor’s
attention. “Tell me when he looks away,” he muttered to the girl.

“Now.”

Reith gained
the next pillar and, using a file of slow-moving Pnumekin as a screen,
continued on to the next. Now a single open area remained. The Monitor swung
about abruptly, and Reith ducked back behind the pillar: a deadly game of
peek-a-boo. From a passage to the side a Pnume entered the chamber, coming
softly on forward-padding legs.

The girl
hissed under her breath, “The Silent Critic ... take care.” she drifted away,
head downcast, as if in an abstraction. The Pnume halted, not fifty feet from
Reith, who turned his back. Only a few strides remained to the north of the
passage. Reith’s shoulder blades twitched. He could bear to stand by the pillar
no longer. Feeling every eye in the chamber pressing upon him he crossed the
open area. With each step he expected a cry of outrage, an alarm. The silence
became oppressive; only by great effort could he control the urge to look over
his shoulder. He reached the mouth of the passage and turned a cautious glance
over his shoulder-to stare full into the eye sockets of the Pnume. With
pounding heart Reith turned slowly and proceeded. The girl had gone ahead. He
called to her in a soft voice, “Run ahead; find the Class Eighteen passage.”