Planet of Adventure Omnibus (87 page)

“How do you
navigate by night?”

“I don’t
know,” said the captain, “for I have never tried. It is risky enough by day.
Around each of those rocks lies a hundred hulks and heaped white bones. Do you
notice, far ahead, the loom? There is Kislovan! Tomorrow will find us docked at
Kazain.”

As evening
approached long strands of clouds raced across the sky and the wind began to
moan. The captain took the
Nhiahar
into the lee of one of the larger
black rocks, nosing close, close, close, until the sprit almost scraped the wet
black stone. Here the anchor was dropped and the
Nhiahar
rode in
relative safety as the wind became a screaming gale. Great swells drove through
the black crags; foam crashed high up and fell slowly back. The sea boiled and
surged; the
Nhiahar
wallowed, jerking at the anchor line, then floating
suddenly loose and free.

With the
coming of darkness the wind died. For a long period the sea rose and fell in
fretful recollection, but dawn found the Charnel Teeth standing like archaic
monuments on a sea of brown glass. Beyond lay the bulk of the continent.

Proceeding
through the Charnel Teeth under power, the
Nhiahar
at noon nosed into a
long narrow bay and by late afternoon drew alongside the pier at Kazain.

On the dock
two Dirdirmen paused to watch the
Nhiahar
.

Their caste
was high, perhaps Immaculate; they were young and vain; they wore their false
effulgences aslant and glittering. Reith’s heart rose in his throat for fear
that they had been sent to take him into custody. For such a contingency he had
no plans; he sweated until the two sauntered off toward the Dirdir settlement
at the head of the bay.

There were no
formalities at the dock; Reith and Zap 210 carried their belongings ashore and
without interference made their way to the motor-wagon depot. An eight-wheeled
vehicle stood on the verge of departure across the neck of Kislovan; Reith commissioned
the most luxurious accommodation available: a cubicle of two hammocks on the
third tier with access to the rear deck.

An hour later
the motor-wagon trundled forth from Kazain. For a space the road climbed into
the coastal uplands, affording a view over the Channel of Death and the Charnel
Teeth. Five miles north the road swung inland. For the rest of the day the
motor-wagon lumbered beside bean-vine fields, forests of white ghost-apple, an
occasional little village.

In the early
evening the motor-wagon halted at an isolated inn, where the forty-three
passengers took supper. About half seemed to be Grays; the rest were people
Reith could not identify. A pair might have been steppe-men of Kotan; several
conceivably were Saschanese. Two yellow-skinned women in gowns of black scales
almost certainly were Marsh-folk from the north shore of the Second Sea. The
various groups took the least possible notice of each other, eating and
returning at once to board the power-wagon. The indifference Reith knew to be
feigned; each had gauged the exact quality of all the others with a precision
beyond any Reith could muster.

Early in the
morning the power-wagon once more set forth and met the dawn climbing over the
edge of the central plateau. Carina 4269 rose to illuminate a vast savanna,
clumped with alumes, gallow-trees, bundle-fungus, patches of thorn-grass.

So passed the
day, and four more: a journey which Reith hardly noticed for his mounting
tension. In the Shelters, on the great subterranean canal, along the shores of
the Second Sea, at Urmank, even aboard the
Nhiahar
, he had been calm
with the patience of despair. The stakes were once again high. He hoped, he
dreaded, he strained for the power-wagon to go faster, he shrank from the
thought of what he might find in the warehouse on the Sivishe salt flats. Zap
210, reacting to Reith’s tension, or perhaps beset with premonitions of her
own, retired into herself, and took small interest in the passing landscape.

Over the
central plateau, down through a badlands of eroded granite, out upon a
landscape farmed by clans of sullen Grays, went the powerwagon. Signs of the
Dirdir presence appeared: a grey butte bristling with purple and scarlet
towers, overlooking a rift valley, walled by sheer cliffs, which served the Dirdir
as a hunting range. On the sixth day a range of mountains rose ahead: the back
of the palisades overlooking Hei and Sivishe. The journey was almost at an end.
All night the motor-wagon lumbered along a dusty road by the light of the pink
and blue moons.

The moons
set; the eastern sky took on the color of dried blood. Dawn came as a skyburst
of dark scarlet, orange-brown, sepia. Ahead appeared the Ajzan Gulf and the
clutter of Sivishe. Two hours later the motor-wagon lumbered into Sivishe Depot
beside the bridge.

REITH AND ZAP
210 crossed the bridge amid the usual crowd of Grays trudging to and from their
work in the Hei factories.

Sivishe was
achingly familiar: the background for so much passion and grief that Reith
found his heart pounding. If, by fantastic luck, he returned to Earth, could he
ever forget those events which had befallen him at Sivishe? “Come,” he
muttered. “Over here, aboard the transit dray.”

The dray
creaked and groaned; the dingy districts of Sivishe fell behind; they reached
the southernmost stop, where the wagon turned east, toward the Ajzan shore.
Ahead lay the salt flats, with a road winding out of Aila Woudiver’s
construction depot.

All seemed as
before: mounds of gravel, sand, slag; stacks of brick and rubble. To the side
stood Woudiver’s eccentric little office, beyond the warehouse. There was no
activity; no moving figures, no drays. The great doors to the warehouse were
closed; the walls leaned more noticeably than ever. Reith accelerated his pace;
he strode down the road, with Zap 210 walking, then running, then walking.

Reith reached
the yard. He looked all around. Desolation. Not a sound, not a step. Silence.
The warehouse seemed on the verge of collapse, as if it had been damaged by an
explosion. Reith went to the side entrance, looked within. The premises were
vacant. The spaceship was gone. The roof had been torn away and hung in shreds.
The workshop and supply racks were a shambles.

Reith turned
away. He stood looking over the salt flats. What now?

He had no
ideas. His mind was empty. He backed slowly away from the warehouse. Over the
main entrance someone had scrawled ONMALE. This was the name of the
chief-emblem worn by Traz when Reith had first encountered him on the Kotan
steppes. The word prodded at Reith’s numbed consciousness. Where were Traz and
Anacho?

He went to
the office and looked within. Here, while he lay sleeping, gas had stupefied
him; Gzhindra had tucked him into a sack and carried him away. Someone else now
lay on the couchan old man asleep. Reith knocked on the wall. The old man
awoke, opening first one rheumy eye, then the other. Pulling his gray cloak
about his shoulders, he heaved himself erect. “Who is there?” he cried out.

Reith
discarded the caution he normally would have used. “Where are the men who
worked here?”

The door slid
ajar; the old man came forth, to look Reith up and down. ‘Some went here, some
went there. One went ... yonder.” He jerked a crooked thumb toward the Glass
Box.

“Who was
that?”

Again the
cautious scrutiny. “Who would you be that doesn’t know the news of Sivishe?”

“I’m a
traveler,” said Reith, trying to hold his voice calm. “What’s happened here?”

“You look
like a man named Adam Reith,” said the caretaker. “At least that’s how the
description went. But Adam Reith could give me the name of a Lokhar and the
name of a Thang that only he would know.”

“Zarfo
Detwiler is a Lokhar; I once knew Issam the Thang.”

The caretaker
looked furtively around the landscape. His gaze rested suspiciously on Zap 210.
“And who is this?”

“A friend.
She knows me for Adam Reith; she can be trusted.”

“I have
instructions to trust no one, only Adam Reith.”

“I am Adam
Reith. Tell me what you have to tell me.”

“Come here. I
will ask a final question.” He drew Reith aside and wheezed in his ear: “At
Coad Adam Reith met a Yao nobleman.”

“His name was
Dordolio. Now what is your message?”

“I have no
message.”

Reith’s
impatience almost burst through his restraint. “Then why do you ask such
questions?”

“Because Adam
Reith has a friend who wants to see him. I am to take Adam Reith to his friend,
at my own discretion.”

“Who is this
friend?”

The old man
waved his finger. “Tut! I answer no questions. I obey instructions, no more,
and thus I earn my fee.”

“Well, then,
what are your instructions?”

“I am to
conduct Adam Reith to a certain place. Then I am done.”

“Very well.
Let’s go.”

“Whenever you
are ready.”

“Now.”

“Come then.”
The old man started down the road, with Reith and Zap 210 following. The old
man halted. “Not her. Just you.”

“She must
come as well.”

“Then we
cannot go, and I know nothing.”

Reith argued,
stormed and coaxed, to no avail. “How far is this place?” he demanded at last.

“Not far.”

“A mile? Two
miles?”

“Not far. We
can be back shortly. Why cavil? The woman will not run away. If she does, find
another. So was my style when I was a buck.”

Reith
searched the landscape: the road, the scattering of huts at the edge of the
salt flats, the salt flats themselves. No living creature could be seen: a
negative reassurance at best. Reith looked at Zap 210. She looked back with an
uncertain smile. A detached part of Reith’s brain noted that here, for the
first time, Zap 210 had smiled-a tremulous, uncomprehending smile, but
nonetheless a true smile. Reith said in a somber voice: “Get in the cabin; bolt
the door. Don’t open it for anyone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Zap 210 went
into the cabin. The door closed; the bolt shot home. Reith said to the old man:
“Hurry then. Take me to my friend.”

“This way.”

The old man
hobbled silently along the road, and presently turned aside along a path which
led across the salt flats toward the straggle of huts at the edge of Sivishe.
Reith began to feel nervous and insecure. He called out: “Where are we going?”

The old man
made a vague gesture ahead.

Reith demanded,
“Who is the man we are to see?”

“A friend of
Adam Reith’s.”

“Is it ...
Aila Woudiver?”

“I am allowed
to name no names. I can tell you nothing.”

“Hurry.”

The old man
hobbled on, toward a hut somewhat apart from the others, an ancient structure
of moldering gray bricks. The old man went up to the door, pounded, then stood
back.

From within
came a stir. Behind the single window was the flicker of movement. The door
opened. Ankhe at afram Anacho looked forth. Reith exhaled a great gusty breath.
The old man shrilled: “Is this the man?”

Anacho said, “Yes.
This is Adam Reith.”

“Give me my
money then; I am anxious to have done with this line of work.”

Anacho went
within and returned with a pouch rattling with sequins. “Here is your money. In
a month come back. There will be another waiting for you if you have held your
tongue meanwhile.”

The old man
took the pouch and departed.

Reith asked: “Where
is Traz? Where is the ship?”

Anacho shook
his long pale head. “I don’t know.”

“What!”

“This is what
happened. You were taken by the Gzhindra. Aila Woudiver was wounded but he did
not die. Three days after the event the Dirdirmen came for Aila Woudiver, and
dragged him off to the Glass Box. He complained, he implored, he screamed, but
they took him away. I heard later that he provided a spectacular hunt, running
in a frenzy like a bull marmont, braying at the top of his lungs ... The
Dirdirmen saw the ship when they came to take Aila Woudiver; we feared that
they would return. The ship was ready to fly, so we decided to move the ship
from Sivishe. I said that I would stay, to wait for you. In the middle of the
night Traz and the technicians took the ship up, and flew it to a place that
Traz said you would know.”

“Where?”
Reith demanded.

“I don’t
know. If I was taken, I wanted no knowledge, so that I could not be forced into
betrayal. Traz wrote ‘Onmale’ on the shed. He said that you would know where to
come.”

“Let’s go
back to the warehouse. I left a friend there.”

Anacho asked:
“Do you know what he means by ‘Onmale’?”

“I think so.
I can’t be sure.”

They returned
along the trail. Reith asked, “Is the sky-car still available for our use?”