The Hostage of Zir (2 page)

“Akk ja!
Those little toothpicks are all right for a couple yentlemen in silk breeches and powdered vigs, on level ground vit seconds to see everything is done by the rules. Here, the Terran comes up against a Krishnan in armor, and his blade bends double. Or the Krishnan hits his blade real hard and snaps it. Then the gallant earthman is dead. So, for these conditions, nineteenth-century saber is the thing.
En garde!”

###

Reith ended the day with his right arm black and blue to the shoulder where Heggstad had whacked him. He joined his tourists on their return from the Hamda’. This was a suburb of Novorecife outside the wall. The dwellers were a raffish lot of deracinated Krishnans and broken-down Terran adventurers. There one could buy native artifacts, gimcrack souvenirs, and real or fake antiquities.

Old Mrs. Scott had bought a pair of earrings allegedly worn by the pirate Dezful. Turner came back festooned with a necklace said to have been worn by Dángi when she was imprisoned in the haunted tower. Considine and Pride each got a sword supposed to have belonged to the hero Qarar. When Reith spoke to Aimé Jussac, the portly jeweler smiled indulgently.

“They tried all sorts of junk on me,” he said. “Me, I played dumb. The dumber I played, the more fantastic the stories they told about their little pieces of jewelry. Then Castanhoso let slip that I was the retired vice president of Tiffany and Company.
Zut!
You should have seen their faces. But then we settled down to a plain business talk, with the little Hercules interpreting. I picked up a piece not bad, at a good price.”

Jussac showed a fire-opal ring. “Of course,” he continued, “the art of faceting is in its infancy here. I could show them a thing or two, if that Saint-Rémy treatment did not tie the tongue whenever an earthman tries to give a Krishnan technical information. In passing,” he added with a shrewd look, “do you get a commission from local merchants to whom you steer your tourists, the way guides do on earth?”

“No,” said Reith. “For that, you have to live in the place. At Magic Carpet, we disapprove of such commissions. We can’t control the local guides, but we bear down on couriers from the home base.”

###

During the following days, when not straining his guts in Heggstad’s gymnasium, or being lashed and prodded with a fencing saber, or cracking his skull over the Gozashtando and Duro tongues, Fergus Reith learned to ride. He rode an aya, which had six legs, horns, a hard trot, and a mean disposition. He also rode a shomal, which had only four legs, looked something like a humpless camel, and tended to balk like a mule.

He learned to use Krishnan eating tools, which were little spears held like chopsticks.

Although Reith felt like a heretic on the losing side of a theological argument with the Chief Inquisitor, he tried not to complain. His ancestor Robert the Bruce, he told himself, had not complained in equally dire straits.

While Reith was being hardened for his task, Castanhoso took Reith’s tourists up the Pichidé River to Rimbid and down the river to Qou. At Qou they saw a village of the tame Koloftuma—the tailed primitives of Krishna. The sight touched off a furious argument between Professor Winston Mulroy and Shirley Waterford.

“They were still at it when I left them,” Castanhoso told Reith. “Mulroy brought in intelligence tests, interspecies fertility, and those fossil Terran apemen called austral-something. The Senhorita Waterford just talked louder and louder about his racism. Anyway, nobody got lost or hurt.”

###

One of Reith’s last conferences before leaving was with Pierce Angioletti, the Comptroller. Angioletti was a thin-lipped, graying, reserved man with a Bostonian twang. After they had gone over maps, written accounts of the lands the party was to see, and the expedition’s financial accounts, Angioletti said: “I can’t tell you too often to be careful. Between us, I opposed letting a mob of tourists loose on Krishna yet.”

“Too risky, you think?”

“Just so. We have enough trouble when the people we’ve been getting—missionaries, scientists, and adventurers—go off and disappear. The I.C. insists we avoid anything smacking of imperialism, while the Terran governments give us a hard time when we can’t find out what happened to their citizens, let alone rescue them. The French even put pressure on us when that fellow Borel vanished in Dur, although everyone knew he was just a con man.”

“What did happen to him? After all, we’re going to Dur.”

Angioletti shrugged. “If I knew, there wouldn’t be any mystery. But God knows what’ll happen when you set out with a dozen
Ertsuma,
some of them obvious damned fools. If nobody gets murdered or seized for ransom, I’ll eat my codfish with chocolate sauce.”

Reith sighed. “I can only do my best. What did Castanhoso mean, warning me against the Regent Tashian? Could he have had anything to do with Borel’s disappearance?”

“I don’t know. Tashian’s a shrewd operator with no more scruples than you expect of a Renaissance prince. But it’s to his advantage to build up tourist traffic to Dur, so he’ll probably stand by his promises.

“I don’t think he did Borel in. Felix Borel disappeared in one of the wilder parts, not under the government’s control. The kind of man he was, he had it coming to him sooner or later. He tried one of his con games on that Russian big shot, Trofimov. But he picked the wrong sucker. Trofimov caught on and might have had Borel jailed, or perhaps quietly murdered, if Borel hadn’t skedaddled.

“Mr. Reith, just imagine you’re Thomas Cook, but living in, say, the eighteenth century. You’re taking a party of Europeans on a tour of North America, visiting the most warlike tribes, like the Iroquois and the Blackfeet. That gives you an idea.”

“You sure fill me with confidence,” said Reith.

“Oh, don’t let it worry you. If you get into trouble in Majbur, go see Gorbovast, the Gozashtando commissioner. He does some chores for us, and he can fix anything.”

###

Later, on one of the paths of the compound, Reith fell into talk with Magistrate Keshavachandra. The judge was a slight, brown-skinned man, shorter than Reith, with bushy gray eyebrows and a fringe of gray hair around his bald head.

“Judge,” said Reith, “I’m discouraged. I must have done something pretty awful in a previous incarnation to be put in this fix.”

“How so?”

“I’m not an experienced tourist guide; yet, circumstances have dumped me into a situation where I need to be Hercules, d’Artagnan, and Talleyrand, all at once. But I’m not. Heggstad has been training me physically, but it would take years to make me into the kind of muscle man he is. I’ve been practicing Durou and Gozashtandou with some help from Sivird, but all I can say is a few simple things like, ‘Pour me a drink,’ and ‘Where is the toilet?’ It’s one thing to say ‘two fried eggs, please,’ in a foreign language, but quite another to carry on an intelligent conversation. I have just the merest smattering of all the things I’m supposed to know, and no time to master any of them.

“I feel doomed; but we’ve taken these yucks’ money, so ifs up to me to give them their tour if it kills me.”

Keshavachandra asked: “Are you familiar with the
Bhagavad Gítá,
Mr. Reith?”

Reith looked puzzled “No. That’s some Hindu legend, isn’t it?”

“It’s much more than that. Let me explain. The
Bhagavad Gítá
is a section of the
Mahâbhârata,
the old Indian epic, sometimes called the world’s longest poem. As a scientific materialist, I don’t believe the legends; but like your Bible it has some useful philosophy.

The
Bhagavad Gítá
tells how Prince Arjuna is about to fight in a great battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Arjuna’s charioteer is Krishna, an incarnation of God. Arjuna gets qualms about fighting against some of his own kinsmen. But Krishna tells him that since God has made him a warrior, his job is to be the best warrior he can and not to worry about who gets killed.

“So, young man, let me be your Krishna. You find yourself in a fix for which you are not prepared. Well, make yourself prepared. What you don’t know, learn. Practice your exercises and your languages every spare minute, and you may find that you do better than you think possible.”

###

Reith went to the gym to find Heggstad practicing tumbling. “Ivar,” he said, “I’d like to borrow some of that fencing stuff to take on the tour. A couple of those jackets and masks—”

“Hey!” said Heggstad. “Not my good fencing sabersh! I couldn’t replace them. Here, you can have these.”

The gymnast produced a pair of singlesticks, the thickness of broom handles, with bowl-shaped wicker guards. “Have you got a real sword for yourself?”

“No. Was I supposed to?”

“How much good you think one of those sticks would do you against a real blade? Sivird can sell you one at a fair price. Not so pretty as you get in the Hamda’, but good steel.”

“I can charge it to the tourist agency. How do I keep it from getting tangled up in my legs?”

“Vear it high and hold the scabbard when you come to stairsh and suchlike. Don’t vear it around native taverns, or some drunken tough guy may pick a fight; but you get more respectable treatment from ordinary Krishnans when you vear vun. Who you going to fence vit? Poor old Mrs. Scott?”

Reith smiled. “Maybe I can con Mr. Pride into a match. One good whack at his fat butt would be worth the trip.”

II

RIVER-BOAT FOLLIES

The priest whom Regent Tashian was sending as guide and interpreter was supposed to arrive on the tenth of Khastin. When he failed to appear, some of the tourists grumbled. Santiago Guzmán-Vidal shrugged, saying: “What do you expect of these half-barbarous people? They have no sense of time.”

Fergus Reith looked hard at Guzmán-Vidal, who was late for everything. Reith spent the extra time grimly working at his new skills. When, after a session with Heggstad, he emerged panting from the gym, Valerie Mulroy asked: “Do you really like that sort of thing, Fearless?” To his tourists, Reith had become “Fearless Leader” or simply “Fearless.”

“No, I hate it.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because I hate worse being caught with my pants down.”

She gave him a look that in a man would have been called a leer. “I could make a dirty crack about that. But you’re overconscientious; you take life too hard. Take things as they come, the way I do.”

“Easy for you to say, Valerie. You don’t have the respon—”

“Fergus!” bellowed Heggstad. “Get back in here! You got to learn to nail your man when he parries in
seconde!”

When Reith had returned and resumed his mask, Heggstad went on: “On earth, ve have learned better. Ve parry low-right in octave, so ve don’t vaste time turning the hand back to supine. That fraction of a second can make all the difference. Now, you lunge, low and to your left. When I parry in
seconde,
double and kill me!”

Before Reith could obey, Castanhoso’s voice called: “Senhor Reith! Come quickly! I think your man is arriving!”

Still wearing his fencing jacket, Reith followed the security officer down through the river gate and out on the pier. Across the river, small in the distance, he saw a barge being towed upstream by a team of shaihans.

The animals plodded up the tow path to a point across the river, where another small pier led out from the shore. The crew tied up, unhitched the team, and took them aboard the vessel. They set out under oars and a triangular sail across the current to the north side.

As the Krishnans tied up at the Novorecife pier, a Krishnan in a long robe stepped ashore. After him came two servants carrying baggage. Castanhoso accosted the man: “The Senhor is Khorsh baf-Ferzao?”

“That is so,” said the man in good Portuguese. “Bless you, my sons.”

“Thank you,” said Castanhoso. When he had introduced Reith, he added: “We expected you several days ago.”

“What is one day more or less in eternity?” replied Khorsh. “I was detained in Majbur on sacerdotal business.”

###

Next day, Reith’s tourist party, together with several other passengers, boarded the
Zaidun
for the return to Majbur. The shaihans remained in their shipboard stall, for they were used on upstream journeys only. Going downstream, the current and sail sufficed.

When Reith had counted his tourists and their pieces of baggage twice and had thrice checked through his papers to be sure of all the maps, letters of introduction, and other documents, the crew pushed out from the pier. They rowed to the middle of the stream, where the current ran most swiftly. Thereafter, one man at the tiller and two more on oars sufficed to keep the craft in mid-stream.

Captain Ozum said to Reith, in broken Portuguese: “Ship all cleaned up, specially you-for. You like?”

“Estupendo,”
said Reith. Although there had been some scrubbing, the vessel still stank of the shaihans and of the cargo carried on previous voyages. Since the shaihans were in the stern and the passengers in the bow, and since the prevailing wind was from the west, there was no escaping the draft beasts’ aroma.

They sailed eastward, paralleling the massive concrete wall that ran along the riverside to protect Novorecife. The pier and the boathouse were soon out of sight.

The terrain along the south bank flattened out, until there was nought to see between river and sky save a dark-green strip of tall reeds, with a scattering of exotic-looking multicolored trees. Flying creatures on brown, leathery wings rose, squawking and honking and whistling, from the reeds. They circled and flapped away.

The reeds gave way to low brown bluffs. A sloping green area, littered with large, regular-looking stones, came in sight.

“That is a ruined city,” said Khorsh, while Reith translated. “Nobody knows who built it or when. It is locally called Saba-o-Astiremá, which means merely ‘place of stones.’ Could these stones speak, who knows what tales they might tell?”

They neared Qou on the south bank. Reith asked: “Does anyone want to stop here? It’s on our itinerary; but were behind schedule, and you’ve already seen it with Castanhoso.”

“I want to,” said Shirley Waterford. “I’m going to give that official a piece of my mind, about the slavery and the discrimination against the tailed Krishnans—”

“Oh, no, you’re not!” said Reith. “We run enough risks without stirring up more alligators. You can look. You can even take pictures if you re discreet. But you’re not to say a word against local customs or beliefs.” He added in Gozashtandou: “Steady as you go, Captain Ozum. We shall not stop.”

“Squalid little place,” said Considine. “Hardly like one of the cities Dunsany saw along the Yann.”

Reith said: “So long as you’re wearing that sword, Maurice, how about a little practice in using it?”

Soon they were cutting and thrusting with the singlesticks. Although he looked twice as muscular as Reith, Considine was the first to admit fatigue.

“You’ve been touring and taking it easy while I was working out in Heggstad’s gym,” said Reith.

Considine peeled off his white protective jacket and mopped his streaming forehead. “How about a swim, Fearless? We could easily keep up with the boat.”

Reith asked Khorsh. The priest threw up his hands. “Nay, my son, broach not such a thought! Know that in these waters dwells a creature called the
avval,
which could seize and devour you in a trice. And how should we replace so valiant a youth?”

“That’s right; I remember reading about it.” Reith turned to his party. “They have here a kind of cross between a crocodile and a junior sea serpent, so we’d better not. Professor Mulroy, how would you like to tell us about the local fauna and flora?”

On his South American tour, Reith had learned that, to keep his charges out of mischief, it was well to arrange some event for them whenever they had a long, inactive period. The elderly paleontologist was soon in full form:

“. . . you see, vertebrate evolution on Krishna has followed a course in many ways parallel to but also quite distinct from that on earth. Whereas on earth, one group of fishes, the Crossopterygii, made the transition from water to land, on Krishna two groups did it: the Tetrapoda, which have remained oviparous although they include the hominoid species, and the Hexapoda, who early developed viviparity.”

“Why was that?” asked Mrs. Whitney Scott, who missed little.

“Probably a result of the fact that on earth, the continents are islands surrounded by a worldwide ocean, whereas on Krishna the seas are lakes surrounded by one worldwide land mass. So the transition from water to land was made twice independently. We have an earthly parallel, in the Periphthalmidae—”

“The what?” said Considine.

“A family of semiterrestrial gobies called mud skippers, from Southeast Asia. They have begun the transition to life on land. On the other hand, Krishnan land vertebrates do not show the sharp distinctions among Amphibia, Reptilia, and Mammalia that we are accustomed to. Homoiothermism—warm-bloodedness, I suppose I should say—evolved early in both taxa—”

“How about birds?” asked Shirley Waterford.

“It is like the snakes of Ireland: there are none. Krishnan life has never developed the feather, so the flying organisms are more comparable to our bats and pterosaurs than to the class Aves. Now, as we ascend the evolutionary scale—”

“Excuse me, Professor,” said a pudgy brown passenger, one of the several who did not belong to Reith’s party. “You seem to accept the false theory that all these evidences for evolution, on earth and other planets, testify to actual events.”

“Well?” snapped Mulroy.

“We servants of the Lords of Light know that truth is different. Divine revelation proves that all those fossil bones and things were put in the ground by the Lords of Darkness—what you would call the Devil—to seduce men away from the truth of God’s creation—”

“You are, sir—?” said Mulroy.

“Excuse me; I am Ganesh Kosambi of Bombay, humble representative of Board of Missions of the Church of the Lords of Light—”

Reith interrupted: “Mr. Kosambi, please let Professor Mulroy finish his lecture. We have plenty of time between here and Majbur. If you want to preach this afternoon, I’m sure we’d be glad to hear you.”

Kosambi subsided. When afternoon arrived, those not sleeping gathered in the bow to hear the missionary. Kosambi told how his sect was founded by Tallal Homsi, a Syrian whom God had directed to dig up a book in unknown writing on sheets of electrum. God also furnished him with a pair of miraculous spectacles. These enabled Tallal Homsi—before he was martyred by his Muslim fellow villagers—to read and transcribe the contents of the wonderful book. The book explained how God had sent out the Lords of Light, otherwise angels, to all habitable planets, bearing the seeds of living things of all kinds . . .

Silvester Pride turned away, remarking loudly: “Haw, what a lot of bullshit!”

Kosambi looked pained but carried on. Reith privately agreed about Kosambi’s theology but would not have hurt the earnest little man’s feelings.

###

Next morning, the
Zaidun
reached Gadri, larger than Qou but no metropolis. Reith told his people: “There’s not much to see here except the market and one temple. The things for sale are mostly staples and everyday working artifacts—no tourist gimcracks. The people haven’t yet become attuned to tourism, but give ’em time. In any case, I advise you not to load yourselves down with junk this early. You’ll have plenty of chances later.”

They tramped from the waterfront to the main square, a few blocks away. Every time they stopped to look at something, curious Krishnans gathered around to stare. These temporary crowds grew until Reith felt apprehensive. While the Krishnans seemed good-natured, anything might happen if some trivial mischance touched off a disturbance.

At the temple, a plainly massive structure of rust-red sandstone, Khorsh, the Duro priest, spoke to the doorkeeper and then told Reith it would be all right to enter. Of course, a free-will offering in the collection box would be appreciated.

Inside, the gilded statue of the god sat cross-legged on its dais at the far end. The feeble flames of the lamps were reflected from the statue’s gilt and the back wall of polished black onyx. Since the idol had four legs, its pose meant a complicated tangle of limbs. It also bore eight arms.

“It looks a little like Shiva,” said Kosambi, who had tagged along. Reith was hardened to free-loaders who attached themselves to tour groups.

“It looks like a centipede to me,” said Pride loudly. “Boy, couldn’t he dance a jig, with all those legs? Like this.” Pride began to demonstrate, hopping grotesquely in his shorts with his potbelly bouncing.

“Stop it, you damned fool!” hissed Reith.

“What? Who?” said Pride. “Look here, squirt—”

“If he doesn’t stop you, I will!” said Mrs. Whitney Scott. The old lady limped forward, gripping her walking stick like a club.

“Oh, all right,” mumbled Pride. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

Outside, they toured the market, where Pride insisted on buying and wearing a hat resembling a pink Terran lampshade. They viewed an undistinguished little municipal hall and started back towards the pier. Turner said: “Hey, Fearless! Maurice and I want to stop off for a drink. That’s a place that sells ’em, isn’t it?” He pointed to a tavern.

“I don’t like to let the party split up—” said Reith.

“Oh, come on. We know the way back. If you take the others to the boat and get worried, you can come back here for us.”

“All right,” said Reith. Then the Mulroys and the Jussacs decided to stop for a drink, too.

“Only,” said Jussac, “you will have to order and pay for us, since we don’t speak the language.”

Reith entered the tavern with the six drinkers and found a table. “Reverend Khorsh, will you please stay with them and order for them?”

“A strange request, my son, to me who drinks not. But for your sake I will do it. Who knows what unlooked-for wisdom I may acquire thereby?”

“Thanks. Remember, the rest of you, come straight back to the boat when you finish.”

When he went out to lead the remaining half of his gaggle back, Reith found that Schwerin had disappeared. After a frantic search, he found the man perched on the corner of a roof, photographing the square. The usual crowd of curious Krishnans had gathered below him, staring up.

As Reith fumed, a fragment of his rusty German returned.
“Herr Schwerin!
he shouted.
“Bitte, kommen Sie herunter, sofort!”

Schwerin gave a vague wave and smile and continued his photography. Reith took the remaining five back to the
Zaidun.

He was about to return to gather up the rest of his group when a disturbance drew his attention. Maurice Considine appeared running, his empty scabbard slapping against his legs. After him came a big Krishnan waving a sword.

Considine pounded out on the pier and leaped aboard the
Zaidun.
So did the Krishnan. The other passengers scattered with cries of alarm, falling over one another to get out of the way.

Reith looked about for something to stop the pursuer. His eye lighted upon a pile of fencing equipment against the bulwark. He and Guzmán-Vidal had placed it there after a practice bout that morning. He snatched up one of the singlesticks.

As Considine ran past him, Reith stepped into the path of the Krishnan. He wanted to order the man to stop but could not think of the right words. He shouted: “Stop!
Halte-là! Pàre!”
in hope that his tone would convey his meaning.