Planet of Adventure Omnibus (78 page)

Zap 210 stood
by the door gazing out in fascination. The first to come had been a woman.
Wearing a woman-mask and a white frock, she stood by the cresset which she had
thrust into a socket near the central platform. If she were perplexed by the
disappearance of the man who had entered the hut she gave no sign.

Reith looked
forth. “Now: while there’s only one woman-”

“No! More
come.”

Three persons
slipped separately into the clearing, going to the other three huts. One, in a
woman-mask and white gown, emerged with another cresset which she placed in a
socket and stood quietly like the first. The other two now came forth, wearing
man-masks and white gowns like those of the women. They went to the central
platform and stood near the women, who made no movement.

Reith began
to understand something of the purpose of the sacred grove. Zap 210 stared
forth in fascination.

Reith became
highly uneasy. If events proceeded as he suspected, she would be shocked and
horrified.

Three more
persons appeared. One came to the but where Reith and Zap 210 waited; Reith
tried to deal with him as he had the other; but this time the blow was glancing
and the man fell with a startled grunt. Reith was instantly upon him and shut
off his breath until he fainted. Using sandal thongs and cape as before he tied
and gagged the Khor and again robbed the man of his pouch. “I regret becoming a
thief,” said Reith, “but my need is far greater than yours.”

Zap 210,
standing by the door, gave a startled gasp. Reith went to look. The women-now
there were three-had disrobed to stand nude. They began to sing, a wordless
chant, sweet, soft, insistent. The three in the man-masks began a slow gyration
around the platform.

Zap 210
muttered under her breath: “What are they doing? Why do they reveal their
bodies? Never have I seen such a thing!”

“It is only
religion,” said Reith nervously. “Don’t watch. Go lie down. You must be very
tired.”

She gave him
a lambent look of wonder and distrust. “You don’t answer my question. I am very
embarrassed. I have never seen a naked person. Are all the folk of the
ghaun
so-so boisterous? It is shocking. And the singing: most disturbing. What are
they planning to do?”

Reith tried
to stand in front of her. “Hadn’t you better sleep? The rites will only bore
you.”

“They don’t
bore me! I am astounded that people can be so bold! And look! The men!”

Reith took a
deep breath and came to a desperate decision. “Come back here.” He gave her a
female mask. “Put that on.”

She jerked
back aghast. “What for?”

Reith took a
man-mask and fitted it over his face. “We’re leaving.„

“But-” She
turned a fascinated look toward the platform.

Reith pulled
her back around, fitted one of the Khor hats on her head, arranged the other on
his own.

“They’ll
certainly see us,” said Zap 210. “They’ll chase us and kill us.”

“Perhaps so,”
said Reith. “Nevertheless we’d better go.” He looked around the clearing. “You
go first. Walk behind the hut. I’ll come after you.”

Zap 210
departed the hut. The women at the platform chanted with the most compelling
urgency; the men stood nude.

Reith joined
Zap 210 behind the hut. Had they been noticed? The chanting continued, rising
and falling. “Walk out into the grove. Don’t look back.”

“Ridiculous,”
muttered Zap 210. “Why shouldn’t I look back?” She marched toward the forest,
with Reith twenty feet behind her. From the but came a wild scream of fury. The
chanting stopped short. There was stunned silence.

“Run,” said
Reith. Through the sacred grove they fled, throwing away the hats and masks.
From behind came calls of passionate fury, but deterred perhaps by their
nudity, the Khor offered no pursuit.
[xxiv]

Reith and Zap
210 came to the edge of the grove. They paused to catch their breath. Halfway
up the sky the blue moon shone through a few ragged clouds; elsewhere the sky
was clear.

Zap 210
looked up. “What are those little lights?”

“Those are
stars,” said Reith. “Far suns. Most control a family of planets. From a world
called Earth, men came: your ancestors, mine, even the ancestors of the Khor.
Earth is the world of men.”

“How do you
know all this?” demanded Zap 210.

“Sometime I’ll
tell you. Not tonight.”

They set off
across the downs, walking through the starry night, and something about the
circumstances put Reith in a strange frame of mind. It was as if he were young
and roaming a starlit meadow of Earth with a slim girl with whom he had become
infatuated. So strong became the dream, or the hallucination, or whatever the
nature of his mood, that he groped out for Zap 210’s hand, where she trudged
beside him. She turned him a wan uncomplaining glance, but made no protest:
here was another incomprehensible aspect of the astounding
ghaun
.

So they went
on for a period. Reith gradually recovered his senses. He walked the surface of
Tschai; his companion- He left the thought incomplete, for a variety of
reasons. As if she had sensed the alteration of his mood Zap 210 angrily
snatched away her hand; perhaps for a space of time she had been dreaming as
well.

They marched
on in silence. At last, with the blue moon hanging directly above, they reached
the sandstone promontory, and found a protected niche at the base. Wrapping
themselves in their cloaks, they huddled upon a drift of sand ... Reith could
not sleep. He lay looking up at the sky and listening to the sound of the girl’s
breathing. Like himself, she lay awake. Why had he felt so urgently compelled
to flee the Khor grove at the risk of pursuit and death? To protect the girl’s
innocence? Ridiculous. He looked to find her face, a pale blotch in the
moonlight, turned in his direction.

“I can’t sleep,”
she said in a soft voice. “I am too tired. The surface frightens me.”

“Sometimes it
frightens me,” said Reith. “Still, would you rather be back in the Shelters?”

As always she
made a tangential response. “I can’t understand what I see; I can’t understand
myself ... Never have I heard such singing.”

“They sang
songs which never change,” said Reith. “Songs perhaps from old Earth.”

“They showed
themselves without clothes! Is this how the surface people act?”

“Not all of
them,” said Reith.

“But why do they
act that way?”

Sooner or
later, thought Reith, she must learn the processes of human biology. Not
tonight, not tonight! “Nakedness doesn’t mean much,” he mumbled. “Everyone has
a body much like everyone else’s.”

“But why
should they wish to show themselves? In the Shelters we remain covered, and try
to avoid ‘boisterous conduct.’ “

“Just what is
this ‘boisterous conduct’?”

“Vulgar
intimacy. People touch other people and play with them. It’s all quite
ridiculous.”

Reith chose
his words with care. “This is probably normal human conduct-like becoming
hungry, or something of the sort. You’ve never been ‘boisterous’?”

“Of course
not!”

“You’ve never
even thought about it?”

“One can’t
help thinking.”

“Hasn’t there
ever been a young man with whom you’ve especially wanted to be friendly?”

“Never!” Zap
210 was scandalized.

“Well, you’re
on the surface and things may be different .... Now you’d better go to sleep.
Tomorrow there may be a townful of Khors chasing us.”

Reith finally
slept. He awoke once to find the blue moon gone, the sky dark except for
constellations. From far across the downs came the sad hooting of a
night-hound. When he settled back into his cloak Zap 210 said in a drowsy
whisper: “The sky frightens me.

Reith moved
close beside her; involuntarily, or so it seemed, he reached out and stroked
her head, where the hair was now soft and thick. She sighed and relaxed,
arousing in Reith an embarrassed protectiveness.

The night
passed. A russet glow appeared in the east, waxing to become a lilac and honey-colored
dawn. While Zap 210 sat huddled in her cloak, Reith investigated the pouches he
had taken from the Khors. He was pleased to find sequins to the value of
ninety-five: more than he had expected. He discarded the darts, needle-sharp
iron bolts eight inches long with a leather tail; the dagger he tucked into his
belt.

They set out
up the slopes of the promontory, and presently gained the ridge. Carina 4269,
rising at their backs, shone along the shore, revealing another sweep of low
beach and mud flats, with far off another promontory like the one on which they
stood. The Khor town occupied a hillside slope a mile to the left. Almost at
their feet a pier zigzagged across the mud flats and out into the sea: a
precarious construction of poles, rope and planks, vibrating to the current
which swirled around the base of the promontory. Half a dozen boats were moored
to the spindly piles: double-ended craft, high at bow and stern like swaybacked
dories fitted with masts. Reith looked toward the town. A few plumes of smoke
rose from the black iron roofs; otherwise no activity was perceptible. Reith
turned back to his inspection of the boats.

“It’s easier
to sail than to walk,” Reith told Zap 210. “And there seems to be a fair wind
up the coast.”

Zap 210 spoke
in consternation: “Out across so much emptiness?”

“The emptier
the better,” said Reith. “The sea gives me no worry; it’s the folk who sail
there ... The same is just as true of the land, of course.” He set off down the
slope; Zap 210 scrambled after him. They reached the end of the pier and
started along the rickety walkway. From somewhere nearby came a shriek of
anger. They saw a half-grown boy racing toward the village.

Reith broke
into a run. “Come along, hurry! We won’t have much time.”

Zap 210 came
panting behind him. The two reached the end of the pier. “We won’t be able to
escape! They’ll follow us in the boats.”

“No,” said
Reith. “I think not.” He looked from boat to boat, and chose that which seemed
the most staunch. In front of the village excited black shapes had gathered; a
dozen started at a run for the pier, followed by as many more.

“Jump down
into the boat,” said Reith. “Hoist the sail!”

“It is too
late,” cried Zap 210. “We will never escape.”

“It’s not too
late. Hoist the sail!”

“I don’t know
how.”

“Pull the
rope that goes up over the mast.”

Zap 210
clambered down into the boat and tried to follow Reith’s instruction. Reith
meanwhile ran along the pier cutting loose the other boats. Riding the current,
pushed by the offshore breeze, they drifted away from the dock.

Reith
returned to where Zap 210 fumbled desperately with the halyard. She strained
with all her might and succeeded in fouling the long yard under the forestay.
Reith took a last look toward the screaming villagers, then jumped down into
the boat and cast off.

No time to
sort out halyards or clear the yard; Reith took up the sweeps, fitted them
between the thole pins and put way on the boat. Along the trembling pier surged
the screaming Khors. Halting, they whirled their darts; up and out flew a
volley of iron, to strike into the water an uncomfortable ten or twenty feet
short of the boat. With renewed energy Reith worked the sweeps, then went to
hoist the sail. The yard swung free, creaked aloft; the gray sail billowed; the
boat heeled and churned through the water. The Khors stood silent on the pier,
watching after their departing boats.

Reith sailed
directly out to sea. Zap 210 sat huddled in the center of the boat. Finally she
made a dispirited protest. “Is it wise to go so far from the land?”

“Very wise.
Otherwise the Khors might follow along the shore and kill us when we put into
land.”

“I have never
known such openness. It is exposed-frightfully so.”

“On the other
hand, our condition is better than it was yesterday at this time. Are you
hungry?”

“Yes.”

“See what’s
in that caddy yonder. We may be in luck.”

Zap 210
climbed forward to the locker in the bow, where among scraps of rope and gear,
spare sails, a lantern, she found a jug of water and a sack of dry pilgrim-pod
cakes.

With the shore
at last a blur, Reith swung the boat into the northwest, trimming the ungainly
sail to the wind.

All day the
fair wind blew. Reith held a course ten miles offshore, well beyond the scope
of Khor vision. Headlands appeared in the murk of distance, loomed off the
beam, slowly dwindled and disappeared.

As the
afternoon waned the wind increased, sending whitecaps chasing over the dark
sea. The rigging creaked, the sails bulged, the boat threw up a bow-wave, the
wake gurgled, and Reith rejoiced at every mile so swiftly put astern.