The Dogtown Tourist Agency (12 page)

“What did you do there?”

“I yield no information.”

Hetzel grimaced in frustration. “I have come far to talk to you, a noble and notable Ubaikh warrior.”

The translator evidently failed to reproduce the exact implications of Hetzel’s remark, for the Ubaikh emitted a hiss which the tape merely identified in red italics as “anger”. The Ubaikh said, “My rank is high, and more than high: I am a chieftain. Did you come to traduce me in the very shadow of my castle?”

“Not at all,” said Hetzel hastily. “There has been a misunderstanding. I came respectfully to request information of you.”

“I yield no information.”

“I will express my appreciation with a metal tool.”

“Your bargains are worthless, like all Gaean bargains.” Words appeared on the tape faster than Hetzel could read them. “The Gomaz were defeated by metal and energy, not by courage. It indicates weakness that the Gaeans and Olefract and Liss hide in metal cells and send forth mechanical objects to fight for them. The Gomaz are strong warriors, the Ubaikh are supreme. They often defeat the Kzyk, whom the Gaeans choose to favor. The Gaeans are deceitful. The Ubaikh demand equal access to the secrets of metal and energy. Since we are denied, the Kzyk must suffer a Class III ‘Rivalry’ war, to the detriment of our long ages of love and war and esteem. The Liss
and the Olefract are intractable cowards. The Gaeans are cowards, traitors and lie mongers. The Kzyk will never profit from the scandal of their activities. Bantlings and striplings must be tested and trained. The Kzyk will become a race of diseased monsters, sapped of strength, unworthy of love, but the Ubaikh will destroy the sept. We too are anxious for the secrets of metal and energy, but we will never become suppliants.”

The spate of words ended abruptly. Hetzel made what he thought might be a conciliatory statement: “The Triarchy intends justice for the noble Ubaikh sept.”

The Ubaikh’s wattles became mottled with green patches. Hetzel watched in fascination. The Ubaikh produced sounds, and the translator printed out a new storm of words. “The remark is empty of meaning. The Gomaz are constrained by strength of metal and bite of energy. Otherwise we would bring a Class III war upon our enemies. The Triarchy is a monument to pusillanimity. Will the Triarchs dare to fight any of us? They sit in fear.”

“The Triarchs were killed before they could deal with your business. Two of your companions were killed as well.”

The Ubaikh stood silently.

Hetzel said, “The killer of these individuals has wronged us all. Will you return to Axistil and help to apprehend the criminal?”

“I will never return to Axistil. The Triarchs are excellently killed. The Gomaz are an oppressed folk; their current status is a tragedy. Let the Gaeans teach all Gomaz the secrets of fire and metal, rather than just the Kzyk, then all will join to defeat the mutual enemy. Be off with you; this is the vicinity of the superlative Ubaikh sept. I would grind you to a powder if I did not fear your weapons.” The creature turned and stalked away.

The Gomaz were an obstinate race, thought Hetzel. He returned to the air-car.

Janika asked, “Well, who killed the Triarchs?”

“He wouldn’t tell me anything except that he approved of the whole affair.” Hetzel took the air-car aloft.

“Now where?”

“Where are the Kzyk territories?”

“A hundred miles north, more or less. Beyond the Shimkish Mountains yonder.”

Hetzel studied the chart, then considered the sun, which hung halfway down the western sky. He turned the car toward the Black Cliff Inn, and Janika relaxed into her seat.

“What do you want with the Kzyk?”

Hetzel passed her the translator tape. “It’s more or less a tirade on the sins of the Gaeans.”

Janika read the tape. “It sounds as if he went to Axistil to protest favors to the Kzyk.”

“And why should the Kzyk get special treatment?”

“I don’t know,” said Janika.

“I don’t know either. But it might be Istagam.”

The Black Cliff Inn hung half over the brink of a mighty basalt scarp, under a complex of titanic ruins. Below spread a landscape which might have been contrived by a mad poet: a sodden moor clotted with turf of an unreal magenta, clumped with black water willow and an occasional eruption of extravagantly tall and frail galangal reeds glistening like silver threads.

Hetzel came out upon the terrace, to find a dozen other guests taking refreshment and enjoying the smoky-green sunset. He seated himself at a table and ordered a beaker of pomegranate punch with two stone-and-silver goblets. The perquisites of his occupation were occasionally most pleasant, thought Hetzel. The air drifting up from the plain brought a musky reek of moss and galangal and a dozen unnamable balsams. From far across the moor, thin, high-pitched calls shivered the quiet, and once a distant ululation evoked so much mystery and solitude that the hair rose at the back of Hetzel’s neck.

Janika slipped into the chair beside him. She wore a soft white frock and had combed her hair into lustrous loose curls. A most appealing creature, thought Hetzel, and quite probably as careless and candid as she appeared. He poured her a goblet of punch. “Sunset at the Black Cliff Inn is a remarkable occasion, and Vv. Byrrhis is a remarkable man for having created all this.”

“No doubt about that,” said Janika in an even voice. “Vv. Byrrhis is a remarkable man.”

“These inns—how many are there? Six? Seven?…They represent considerable capital. I wonder how Byrrhis financed such an operation.”

Janika gave her fingers a flick to indicate her lack of interest in the matter. “I’m not supposed to know anything about it—and actually, I don’t. But…it’s well known that Sir Estevan Tristo is very wealthy.”

“It seems a chancy investment,” said Hetzel. “There’s no possibility of firm title to the real estate.”

“Vv. Byrrhis has as good title as anyone else. The Gomaz don’t object; ruined castles are taboo. Black Cliff is famous for sunsets,” said Janika. “And tonight we’ll see ghosts.”

“Ghosts? Are you serious?”

“Of course. The Gomaz call the plain yonder the Place of Wandering Dreams.”

“Do persons other than the Gomaz see the ghosts?”

“Certainly. A few dull souls see only wisps of marsh gas, or white-veiled night crakes, but no one believes such drab nonsense.”

Other guests came out on the terrace. “The inn must be almost full,” said Hetzel. “I suspect that Vv. Byrrhis is coining money.”

“I don’t know. He seems harried and anxious most of the time. I suspect that he isn’t as prosperous as he would like to be, but who is?”

“Certainly not I.”

“Suppose you solved this case brilliantly and Gidion Dirby gave you a million-SLU bonus—what would you do with it?”

“More likely a million loquats from Gidion Dirby. From Sir Ivon Hacaway…” Hetzel gave his head a rueful shake. “First I have to solve the case.” He brought forth the translator tape and studied it a moment. “The tirade includes a few scintillas of information, no doubt by mistake. Someone is teaching the Kzyk ‘secrets of fire and metal’. Who? Why? Istagam naturally comes to mind. The Kzyk provide labor and are paid off in technology, which I presume to be illegal. The Ubaikh object. The Liss and the Olefract are also certain to object, so their Triarchs are killed off for this reason. Just speculation, of course.”

“A rather frightening speculation.” Janika looked uneasily up and down the terrace.

Hetzel put away the tape. “Tomorrow we’ll visit the Kzyk, or at least look them over. But now let’s talk of something more interesting. Lljiano Reyes of Varsilla, for instance.”

“I don’t want to talk about me…Though, for a fact…well, I’d better not say it.”

“You’ve aroused my curiosity.”

“It’s not all that interesting. When I wanted to leave Palestria, everyone said I was foolish and perverse, which may be true. But tonight at the Black Cliff Inn is what I wanted to find.” She made an exasperated gesture. “I know I’m not making myself clear. But look, up there hangs the green moon, and here we sit looking out over the Place of Wandering Dreams, waiting for ghosts and drinking pomegranate punch. At home I’d be doing something ordinary. No green moon, no pomegranate punch, no ghosts.”

Hetzel had no comment to make; for a period they sat in silence.

Across the moon floated a gaunt black shape on slow-beating wings. “There’s a ghost now,” said Hetzel.

“I don’t think so. Ghosts don’t fly like that…It’s too long and frail for a gargoyle…It’s probably a black angel.”

“And what’s a black angel?”

“If I’m right, it’s the thing we just saw.”

Hetzel rose to his feet. “Hunger is confusing both of us. I suggest that we have our dinner.”

Within the ruins of the central tower, six iron legs supported a stone disk forty feet in diameter—the adjunct to some ancient Gomaz rite. At the center a post of twisted black iron rose twelve feet, to fracture into several black iron branches tipped with small clusters of yellow flames—luminous fruits on a grotesque tree. Hetzel and Janika mounted iron steps; a steward in green-and-black livery conducted them to a table spread with white linen, laid with silver and crystal.

Hetzel looked up to see open sky, with wan moonlight slanting in against the northern wall. “And in bad weather, what then?”

“In the rainy season we send people south to the Andantinai Desert, where they can see volcanoes and carrier kites and the Great Cairn. Vv. Byrrhis has thought of everything.”

“Vv. Byrrhis is a very resourceful man, and no doubt very stimulating to work with.”

Janika laughed. “He wanted to take me out to Golgath Inn on the Plain of Skulls, but I thought better of it, and he hasn’t been stimulating since. If he knew I were here with you, he’d be furious. Or so I suppose. Even on so innocent an occasion.”

Vv. Byrrhis’ emotional problems seemed remote and inconsequential. “Whom does he think you’re here with?”

“He didn’t ask. I didn’t specify.”

The steward served a salad of native herbs, which Hetzel found pleasantly tart; a ragoût of ingredients beyond conjecture; thin cakes of crisp bread; two flasks of imported Zenc wine, the first yellow, the second dark amber swimming with an oily violet luster.

Janika performed the conventional Zenc wine ceremony, pouring half a goblet of dark, wiping away the luster with a square of soft fabric, and immediately filling the goblet with yellow.

“Except for the wine, everything is Maz produce,” Janika said. “When I first arrived, I thought everything tasted of moss and hardly ate anything; now I’m much more tolerant. But I still think of Varsilla sea bakes and pepper pots and yams stuffed with mulberries…Let’s take our dessert out on the terrace and look for ghosts.”

The dessert, a pale-green sherbet, was served with goblets of a pungent hot brew steeped from the bark of a desert shrub. For an hour they stood on the terrace over the plain. They heard far wistful calls and soft secret hooting, but saw no ghosts. Janika presently went off to bed. Hetzel drank another cup of tea, and once more considered the translator tape.

A most complicated situation, he reflected, with the parts not merely contradictory but apparently unrelated. High stakes were obviously involved; no one would go to such lengths to
motivate Gidion Dirby for trivial reasons. And how strange that Casimir Wuldfache, whom he had traced to Twisselbane on Tamar for Madame X, should now play a role in the Dirby-Istagam affair. Coincidence? Hetzel gave his head a dubious shake. The unmistakable reek of danger hung in the air; persons who had evolved such elaborate schemes would hardly balk at a life or two; perhaps they had already killed a Liss, an Olefract, and two Ubaikh Gomaz. Double vigilance was necessary; he must guard Janika as well as himself.

During the night Hetzel was aroused by the muted whine of an energy converter. He went to the window and looked out through the night. Across the sky, dim in the light of the low green moon, drifted the shape of a receding air-car. Odd, thought Hetzel. Odd indeed.

In the pale light of morning, Hetzel and Janika breakfasted on the terrace. Janika seemed wan and thoughtful, and Hetzel wondered at her somber face. He asked, “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough.”

“You seem very pensive this morning.”

“I don’t want to go back to Dogtown and the tourist agency.”

“We’ve got to go back to Dogtown,” said Hetzel. “But you don’t have to go back to the tourist agency.”

“I signed a six-month contract. I’d lose half of what I’ve got coming if I quit now.”

Hetzel sipped his tea. “Since you don’t like Dogtown, where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Varsilla?”

“Oh…sooner or later. But not just now. I don’t know what I want to do. I guess I’m just in a bad mood.”

Hetzel thought a few moments. “Vv. Byrrhis might let you break the contract.”

“I don’t think so. He’s made jocular remarks which weren’t really funny. But maybe I’ll quit anyway.”

“Vv. Byrrhis might be more cooperative than you expect. He’d get no benefit from a sulky or apathetic receptionist. In the second place…But why anticipate events?”

Janika took Hetzel’s hand and squeezed it. “I feel more cheerful already.”

Hetzel settled the account. Janika made a tentative effort to pay half of the bill, which Hetzel refused to allow, citing the generosity of his client, Sir Ivon Hacaway. They went out to the landing stage and climbed into the Hemus Cloudhopper. “Good-bye, Black Cliff Inn,” said Hetzel. He looked at Janika. “Why the long face?”

“I don’t like to say good-bye to anything.”

“You’re as sentimental as Gidion Dirby,” said Hetzel. He took the air-car aloft. “Now to Axistil by way of Kzyk castle. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch a glimpse of Istagam.”

Janika showed no enthusiasm for the detour. “There won’t be much to see from the air, and it’s worth our lives to land.”

“We won’t take chances, especially since a visit to the Triskelion will probably clear things up.”

“Oh? What will you find there?”

“The agenda, or the calendar, whatever it’s called, of the Triarchs. I want to learn how long ago the Ubaikh scheduled their visit.”