The Houses of Iszm Read online

  The dock-master rapped at a door of corrugated metal. It parted in the middle into two interlocking halves, like a medieval portcullis. The passage opened into a bright room. Behind a counter sat a Szecr in the usual yellow and green stripes.

  “If the Sainh pleases—his tri-type for our records.”

  Farr patiently stood on the disk of gray metal.

  “Palms forward, eyes wide.”

  Farr stood quietly. Feeler-planes brushed down his body.

  “Thank you, Sainh.” Farr stepped up to the counter. “That’s a different type than the one at Jhespiano. Let’s see it.”

  The clerk showed him a transparent card with a manlike brownish splotch on its middle. “Not much of a likeness,” said Farr.

  The Szecr dropped the card into a slot. On the counter-top appeared a three-dimensional replica of Farr. It could be expanded a hundred times, revealing fingerprints, cheek-pores, ear and retinal configuration.

  “I’d like to have this as a souvenir,” said Farr. “It’s dressed. The one at Jhespiano showed my charms to the world.”

  The Iszic shrugged. “Take it.”

  Farr put the replica in his pouch.

  “Now, Farr Sainh, may I ask an impertinent question?”

  “One more won’t hurt me.”

  Farr knew there was a cephaloscope focused on his brain. Any pulse of excitement, any flush of fear would be recorded on a chart. He brought the image of a hot bath to the brink of his mind.

  “Do you plan to steal houses, Farr Sainh?”

  Now: the placid cool porcelain, the feel of warm air and water, the scent of soap.

  “No.”

  “Are you aware of, or party to, any such plan?”

  Warm water, lie back, relax.

  “No.”

  The Szecr sucked in his lips, a grimace of polite skepticism. “Are you aware of the penalties visited upon thieves?”

  “Oh yes,” said Farr. “They go to the Mad House.”

  “Thank you, Farr Sainh, you may proceed.”

  III

  The dock-master relinquished Farr to a pair of under-Szecr in pale yellow and gold bands.

  “This way, if you please.”

  Climbing a ramp, they stepped out into an arcade with a glassed-in wall.

  Farr stopped to survey the plantation; his guides made uneasy motions, anxious to proceed.

  “If Farr Sainh desires—”

  “Just a minute,” said Farr irritably. “There’s no hurry.”

  On his right hand was the town, a forest of intricate shapes and colors. To the back grew the modest three-pod houses of the laborers. They could hardly be seen through the magnificent array along the lagoon—houses of the planters, the Szecr, the house-breeders and housebreakers. Each was different, trained and shaped by secrets the Iszic withheld even from each other.

  They were beautiful, thought Farr, but in a weird indecisive way they puzzled him, just as sometimes the palate falters on a new flavor. He decided that environment influenced his judgment. Iszic houses on Earth looked habitable enough. This was Iszm and any attribute of a strange planet shared the basic strangeness.

  He turned his attention to the fields. They spread off to his left, various shades of brown, gray, gray-green, green, according to the age and variety of the plant. Each field had its long low shed where mature seedlings were graded, labeled, potted and packed for destinations around the universe.

  The two young Szecr began to mutter in the language of their caste and Farr turned away from the window.

  “This way, Farr Sainh.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You are the guest of Zhde Patasz Sainh.”

  Excellent, thought Farr. He had examined the houses exported to Earth, the Class AA houses sold by K. Penche. They would compare poorly with the houses the planters grew for themselves.

  He became aware of the two young Szecr. They were standing like statues, staring at the floor of the arcade.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Farr.

  They began to breathe heavily. Farr looked at the floor. A vibration, a low roar. Earthquake! thought Farr. The sound grew louder, the windows rumbled in resonance. Farr felt a sudden wildness, a sense of emergency. He looked out the window. In a nearby field the ground broke up, took on a crazy hump, and erupted. Tender seedlings crushed under tons of dirt. A metal snout protruded, grinding up ten feet, twenty feet. A door clanged open. Squat heavy-muscled brown men leaped out, ran into the fields, and began to uproot young plants. In the door a man, grinning in the extremity of tension, roared out incomprehensible orders.

  Farr watched in fascination; a raid of tremendous scope. Horns rang out from Tjiere town; the vicious fwipp-hiss of shatter-bolts sounded. Two of the brown men became red clots. The man in the doorway bellowed, and the others retreated to the metal snout.

  The port clanged shut; but one raider had waited too long. He beat his fists on the hull, but to no avail. He was ignored. Frantically he pounded and the seedlings he had gathered crushed in his grip.

  The snout vibrated, then lifted higher from the ground. The shatter-bolts from the Tjiere fort began to chip off flakes of metal. A bull’s eye port in the hull snapped open; a weapon spat blue flame. In Tjiere a great tree shattered and sagged. Farr’s head swam to a tremendous soundless scream. The young Szecr dropped gasping to their knees.

  The tree toppled. The great pods, the leaf-terraces, the tendrils, the careful balconies—they whistled through the air and crashed in pitiful tangle. Iszic bodies hurled from the ruins, kicking and twisting.

  The metal snout ground up another ten feet. In a moment it would shake loose the soil, then blast up and out into space. The brown man left outside fought for footing on the heaving soil, still pounding on the hull, but now without hope.

  Fair looked at the sky. Three monitors were slipping down from the upper air—ugly, awkward craft, looking like metal scorpions.

  A shatter-bolt smashed a crater in the soil beside the hull. The brown man was flung a looping sixty feet. He turned three cartwheels and landed on his back.

  The metal hull began to churn back down into the soil, settling slowly at first, then faster and faster. Another shatter-bolt rang on the prow like a great hammer. The metal shriveled and fragmented into ribbons. The hull was under the surface; clods of soil caved in on top.

  Another shatter-bolt threw up a gout of dust.

  The two young Szecr had risen to their feet. They stared out across the devastated field, crying out in a tongue meaningless to Farr. One grasped Farr’s arm.

  “Come, we must secure you. Danger, danger!”

  Farr shook them off. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Farr Sainh, Farr Sainh,” they cried. “Our orders are to see to your safety.”

  “I’m safe here,” said Farr. “I want to watch.”

  The three monitors hung over the crater, drifting back and forth.

  “Looks like the raiders got away,” said Farr.

  “No! Impossible,” cried the Szecr. “It’s the end of Iszm!”

  Down from the sky dropped a slender ship, smaller than the monitors. If the monitors were scorpions, the new vessel was a wasp. It settled over the crater and sank into the loose dirt—slowly, gingerly, like a probe. It began to roar, to vibrate, then it churned out of sight.

  Along the arcade came a dozen men, running with the sinuous back-leaning glide of the Iszic. On an impulse, Farr fell in behind them, ignoring the distress of the two young Szecr.

  The Iszic fled across the field toward the crater. Farr followed. He passed the limp body of the brown man and halted. The man’s hair was heavy, leonine; his features were broad, blunt; his hands still clenched the seedlings he had uprooted. The fingers fell limp even as Farr came to a halt. At the same time the eyes opened. They held full intelligence. Farr bent forward half in pity, half in interest.

  Hands gripped him. He saw yellow and green stripes and furious faces with lips drawn back to show the pallid Iszic
mouth, the sharp teeth.

  “Here!” cried Farr, as he was hustled off the field. “Let go!”

  The Szecr fingers bit into his arms and shoulders. They were obsessed by a murderous madness, and Farr held his tongue.

  A deep far rumble underfoot sounded; the ground heaved.

  The Szecr ran Farr toward Tjiere, then turned aside. Farr began to struggle, to drag his feet. Something hard struck the back of his neck. Half-stunned, he made no further resistance. They took him to an isolated tree near the basalt scarp. It was very old, with a gnarled black trunk, a heavy umbrella of leaves, and two or three withered pods. An irregular hole gaped into the trunk. Without ceremony they thrust him through.

  IV

  Aile Farr, screaming hoarsely, fell through the dark. He kicked and clawed at the air. His head scraped against the side of the shaft. Then his shoulder struck, then his hip, then he was in full contact. The fall became a slide as the tube curved. His feet struck a membrane that seemed to collapse, then another and another. Seconds later he struck a resilient wall. The impact stunned him. He lay quiet, collecting his wits.

  He moved and felt his head. The scrape on his scalp smarted. He heard a peculiar noise, a hissing bumping rush of an object sliding down the tube. Farr scrambled to the side. Something hard and heavy struck him in the ribs; something struck the wall with a thump and a groan. There was silence except for the sound of shallow breathing.

  Farr said cautiously, “Who’s there?”

  No answer.

  Farr repeated the question in all his languages and dialects. Still no answer. He hunched himself up uneasily. He had no light, no means of making fire.

  The breathing became stertorous, labored. Farr groped through the dark and felt a crumpled body. He rose to his knees and laid the unseen figure flat, straightening the arms and legs. The breathing became more regular.

  Farr sat back, waiting. Five minutes passed. The walls of the room gave a sudden pulse and Farr heard a deep sound like a distant explosion. A minute or two later the sound and the pulse occurred again. The underground battle was raging, thought Farr. Wasp against mole, an underground battle to the death.

  A wave of pressure and sound rocked him; the walls heaved. He heard an explosion that had a feeling of finality. The man in the dark gasped and coughed.

  “Who’s there?” Farr called.

  A bright eye of light winked into his face. Farr winced and moved his head. The light followed.

  “Turn that damn thing away!” growled Farr.

  The light moved up and down his body, lingering on the striped visitor’s shirt In the reflected glow Farr saw the brown man, dirty, bruised, haggard. The light issued from a clasp on the shoulder of his tunic.

  The brown man spoke in a slow hoarse voice. The language was unknown to Farr and he shook his head in incomprehension. The brown man regarded him a moment or two longer in careful, if dubious, appraisal. Then he lurched painfully to his feet and ignoring Farr minutely examined the walls, floor and ceiling of the cell. Above, and inaccessible was the opening by which they had entered, to the side was a tightly knotted sphincter. Farr felt sullen and resentful, and the cut on his head smarted. The brown man’s activity irritated him. Obviously there would be no easy escape. The Szecr were nothing if not painstaking in matters of this sort.

  Farr watched the brown man and presently decided him to be a Thord, the most manlike of the Three Arcturian races. There were various disturbing rumors regarding the Thord, and Farr was not too easy at having one of the race for a cell-mate—especially in the dark.

  The Thord completed his study of the walls, and returned his attention to Farr. His eyes glowed softly, deep, cool and yellow, like cabochons of topaz. He spoke once again in his halting husky voice. “This is not a true prison.”

  Farr was startled. Under the circumstances the remark seemed more than peculiar. “Why do you say that?”

  The Thord studied him a full ten seconds before making a reply. “There was great excitement. The Iszt dropped us here for safekeeping. Soon they will take us elsewhere. There are no spy-holes here, nor sound receptors. This is a storage chamber.”

  Farr looked dubiously at the walls. The Thord uttered a low moaning sound which caused Farr new startlement, until he understood that the Thord was merely expressing some unearthly variety of amusement. “You wonder how I can be sure of this,” said the Thord. “It is my ability to feel the weight of attention.”

  Farr nodded politely. The Thord’s unwavering scrutiny was becoming oppressive. Farr turned half-away. The Thord began to mutter to himself: a crooning, monotonous sound. A lament? A threnody? The light dimmed but the Thord’s lugubrious murmur continued. Farr eventually became drowsy and fell asleep. It was a troubled restless sleep. His head seemed to smart and burn. He heard confidential voices and hoarse cries; he was home on Earth, and on his way to see—someone. A friend. Who? In his sleep Farr twisted and muttered. He knew he was asleep; he wanted to wake up.

  The hollow voices, the footsteps, the restless images dwindled, and he slept soundly.

  Light streamed in through an oval gap, silhouetting the frames of two Iszic. Farr awoke. He was vaguely surprised to find the Thord gone. In fact, the entire room seemed different. He was no longer in the root of the gnarled black tree.

  He struggled up in a sitting position. His eyes were dim and watery; he found it hard to think. There was no anchor for his thoughts. It was as if all the faculties of his mind were separate pieces falling free through the air.

  “Aile Farr Sainh,” said one of the Iszic, “may we trouble you to accompany us?” They wore bands of yellow and green: Szecr.

  Farr struggled to his feet and stumbled through the oval door. With one of the Szecr ahead and one behind he walked along a twisting corridor. The foremost Szecr slid back a panel and Farr found himself in the arcade he had traversed before.

  They took him out into the open, under the night sky. The stars glittered; Farr noticed Home Sun a few degrees below a star he knew to be Beta Aurigae. It aroused no pang, no homesickness. He felt emotion toward nothing. He saw without attention. He felt light, easy, relaxed.

  Skirting the tangle of the fallen house, they approached the lagoon. Ahead a great trunk grew from a carpet of soft moss.

  “The house of Zhde Patasz Sainh,” said the Szecr. “You are his guest. He holds to his word.”

  The door slid aside and Farr stepped into the trunk on flexible legs. The door slid quietly shut. Farr stood alone in a tall circular foyer. He clutched at the wall to steady himself, faintly annoyed with the looseness of his perceptions. He made an effort; his faculties drifted closer together, coalesced one by one.

  A young Iszic woman came forward. She wore black and white bands and a black turban. The skin between the bands flushed faintly rose-violet. A black line around her head accented the horizontal division of her eyes. Farr became suddenly aware of his disheveled, dirty, unshaven condition.

  “Farr Sainh,” said the woman, “indulge me with your company.”

  She led him to an elevator duct. The disk lifted them a hundred feet and Farr’s head swam with the movement. He felt the cool hand of the woman.

  “Through here, Farr Sainh.”

  Farr stepped forward, halted, and leaned against the wall until his vision cleared.

  The woman waited patiently.

  The blur lifted. He stood in the core of a branch, the woman supporting him with an arm around his waist. He looked into the pale, segmented eyes. She regarded him with indifference.

  “Your people drugged me,” muttered Farr.

  “This way, Farr Sainh.”

  She started down the corridor with the sinuous gait that seemed to float her upper body. Farr followed slowly. His legs were stronger; he felt a little better.

  The woman stopped by the terminal sphincter, turned, and made a wide ceremonial sweep of her two arms. “Here is your chamber. You will want for nothing. To Zhde Patasz, all of dendronology is an open book. His
groves fulfill every want. Enter and rejoice in the exquisite house of Zhde Patasz.”

  Farr entered the chamber, one of four connecting compartments in the most elaborate pod he had yet seen. This was an eating chamber. From the floor a great rib grew up and splayed to either side to form a table, which supported a dozen trays of food.

  The next chamber, swatched in fibrous blue hangings, appeared to be a rest chamber, and beyond was a chamber ankle deep in pale green nectar. Behind Farr suddenly appeared a small obsequiously sighing Iszic, in the pink and white bands of a house servitor. Deftly he removed Farr’s soiled garments. Farr stepped into the bath and the servant tapped at the wall. From small orifices issued a spray of fresh-smelling liquid which tingled coolly upon Farr’s skin. The servant scooped up a ladle of the pale green nectar, poured it over Farr’s head, and he was instantly covered with a prickling effervescent foam, which presently dissolved, leaving Farr’s skin fresh and soft.

  The servant approached with a husk full of a pale paste. This he carefully rubbed upon Farr’s face with a wisp of bast, and Farr’s beard melted away.

  Directly overhead a bubble of liquid had been forming in a sac of frail membrane. It grew larger, swaying and trembling. Now the servant reached up with a sharp thorn. The sac burst and a soft aromatic liquid smelling of cloves drenched Farr, then quickly evaporated. Farr stepped into the fourth chamber where the servant draped fresh garments upon him, and then fixed a black rosette to the side of his leg. Farr knew something of Iszic folkways and was vaguely surprised. As the personal insignia of Zhde Patasz, the rosette conveyed a host of significances. Farr had been acknowledged the honored house-guest of Zhde Patasz, who thereupon undertook his protection against any and all of Farr’s enemies. Farr was given liberty of the house, with a dozen prerogatives otherwise reserved to the house owner. Farr could manipulate any of the house’s nerves, reflexes, triggers and conduits. He could make himself free of Zhde Patasz’s rarest treasures, and in general was made an alter ego of Zhde Patasz himself. The honor was unusual, and for an Earthman perhaps unique. Farr wondered what he had done to deserve such a distinction. Perhaps it came by way of apology for the rude treatment Farr had experienced during the Thord raid. Yes, Yarr thought, this must be the explanation. He hoped that Zhde Patasz would overlook his ignorance of the highly complex rituals of Iszic courtesy.