Planet of Adventure Page 47

  "What are the rules of combat?" asked Reith. "I do not wish to commit any fouls upon you."

  "There are no fouls," said the Immaculate. "We use hunt rules: you are the game!" He uttered a wild screech and launched himself upon Reith, in what seemed an ineffectual sprawl, until Reith touched the creature's white body and found it all tense muscle and gristle. Reith fended aside the rush, but was ripped by artificial talons. He attempted an armlock, but could not secure a leverage. He struck the Immaculate a blow under the ear, tried to hack the larynx and missed.

  The Immaculate stood back in annoyance. The spectators gasped in excitement. The Immaculate again launched himself upon Reith, who caught the long forearm and sent the Dirdirman staggering. Woudiver could not contain himself; he rushed out and struck Reith a buffet across the side of his head. Traz yelled in protest and whipped his chain across Woudiver's face. Woudiver screamed in agony and sat squashily upon the ground. Anacho wrapped his chain around Woudiver's neck and yanked it tight. The Elite Dirdirman leaped forward, snatched away the chain.

  Woudiver lay gasping, his face the color of mud.

  The Immaculate had taken advantage of Woudiver's attack to seize Reith and bear him to the ground. The wire-tense arms clasped Reith's body; sharp long teeth tore at his neck. Reith freed his arms. With all his force he clapped his cupped hands upon the white ears. The Immaculate emitted a strangled squeal and rolled his head in agony. Momentarily he went limp. Reith straddled the thin body, as if he rode a white eel. He began to work at the bald head. He tore away the false effulgences, teased the head this way and that, then gave a great twist.

  The Immaculate's head hung askew; his body thrashed and floundered, then lay still.

  Reith rose to his feet. He stood shaking and panting. "I am vindicated," he said.

  "The charges of the fat sub-man are invalid," intoned the Excellent. "He may therefore be held to account."

  Reith turned away. "Halt!" said the Excellent, its voice taking on a throaty vibrato. "Are there further charges?"

  A Dirdir of the Elite caste, effulgences rigid and sparkling with crystal coruscations, spoke: "Does the beast still call dr'ssa?"

  Reith swung around, half-intoxicated by fatigue and the aftermath of struggle.

  "I am a man, you are the beast."

  "Do you demand arbitration?" the Excellent asked. "If not, let us be away."

  Reith's heart sank. "What are the new charges?"

  The Elite stepped forward. "I charge that you and your henchmen trespassed upon the Dirdir Hunting Preserve and there treacherously slaughtered members of the Thisz Sept."

  "I deny the charge," said Reith in a hoarse voice.

  The Elite turned to the Excellent. "I request that you arbitrate. I request that you give me this beast and his henchmen and mark him exclusive quarry of the Thisz."

  "I accept the onus of arbitration," fluted the Excellent. To Reith, in a tone nasal and coarse: "You trespassed in the Carabas, this is true."

  "I entered the Carabas. No one ordered me not to do so."

  "The proscription is general knowledge. You furtively assaulted several Dirdir; this is true."

  "I assaulted no one who did not attack me first. If the Dirdir wish to act like wild beasts then they must suffer the consequences."

  From the crowd came a murmur of wonder and what seemed muted approval. The Excellent turned to glance around the plaza. Instantly the sound was muted.

  "It is Dirdir tradition to hunt. It is sub-man tradition and his essential character to serve as quarry."

  "I am no sub-man," said Reith. "I am a man and quarry to no one. If a wild beast attacks me I will kill it."

  The bone-white face of the Excellent showed no quiver of feeling. But the effulgences began to glow, and to become rigid. "The verdict must adhere to tradition," the creature intoned. "I find against the sub-man. This farrago is now at an end. You must be taken to the Glass Cage."

  "I challenge the arbitration!" cried Reith. Stepping forward, he buffeted the Excellent on the side of the head. The skin was cold and somewhat flexible, like tortoiseshell; Reith's hand stung from the blow. The Excellent's effulgences stood like hot wires; it vented a thin whistle. The crowd stood in unbelieving silence.

  The Excellent reached its great arms to the front in a clutching, ripping gesture. It vented a gurgling scream and poised to leap.

  "A moment," said Reith, stepping back. "What are the rules of combat?"

  "There are no rules. I kill as I choose."

  "And if I kill you, I am vindicated, and my friends as well?"

  "That is the case."

  "Let us fight with swords."

  "We will fight as we stand."

  "Very well," said Reith.

  The fight was no contest. The Excellent came forward, swift and massive as a tiger. Reith took two quick steps back; the Excellent launched itself. Reith seized the horny wrist, planted a foot in the torso; falling backwards he threw the creature in a sprawling somersault. It landed on its neck, to lie in a daze.

  Instantly Reith was upon it, locking the taloned arms. The Excellent writhed and thrashed; Reith banged its head against the pavement until the bone cracked and whitish-green ichor began to exude. He panted: "What of the arbitration? Was it right or wrong?"

  The Excellent keened-a weird wailing sound, expressing no emotion known to human experience. Reith banged down the harsh white head again and again. "What of the arbitration?" He slammed the head against the pavement. The Dirdir made a great effort to dislodge Reith and failed. "You are the victor. My arbitration is refuted."

  "And I, with my friends, are now held guiltless? We may pursue our activities without persecution?"

  "This is the case."

  Reith called to Anacho, "Can I trust it?"

  Anacho said, "Yes, it is tradition. If you want a trophy, pluck out his effulgences."

  "I want no trophy." Reith rose to his feet and stood swaying.

  The crowd regarded him with awe. Erlius turned on his heel and strode hastily away. Aila Woudiver backed slowly toward his black car.

  Reith pointed a finger: "Woudiver-your charges were false and you now must answer to me."

  Woudiver snatched out his power-gun: Traz leaped forward, hung on the vast wrist. The gun discharged, scorching Woudiver's leg. He bawled in agony and fell to the ground. Anacho took the gun; Reith tied one of the chains around Woudiver's neck and gave it a harsh tug. "Come, Woudiver." He led the way to the black car, through the hastily retreating onlookers.

  Woudiver hulked himself within and lay groaning in a heap. Anacho started the vehicle and they departed the oval plaza.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THEY DROVE TO the shed. The technicians, in the absence of Deine Zarre, had not reported for work. The shed felt dead and abandoned; the space-boat, which had seemed on the verge of coming alive, lay desolate on its chocks.

  The three marshaled Woudiver within, as they might lead a cantankerous bull, and tied him between two posts, Woudiver making a continual moaning complaint.

  Reith watched him a moment. Woudiver was not yet expendable. Certainly he was still dangerous. For all his display and expostulation, he watched Reith with a clever and hard gaze.

  "Woudiver," said Reith, "you have worked great harm upon me and my friends."

  Woudiver's great body became racked with sobbing; he seemed a monstrous and ugly baby. "You plan to torment me, and kill me."

  "The thought has presented itself," Reith admitted. "But I have more urgent desires. To finish the ship and return to Earth with news of this hellish planet I would even forgo the pleasure of your death."

  "In that case," said Woudiver, suddenly businesslike, "all is as before. Pay over the money, and we will proceed."

  Reith's jaw hung in disbelief. He laughed in admiration for Woudiver's wonderful insouciance.

  Anacho and Traz were less amused. Anacho poked the great belly with a stick.

  "What of last night?" he demanded in a suave voi
ce. "Do you recall your conduct?

  What of the electric probes, and the wicked harness?"

  "What of Deine Zarre, the two children?" spoke Traz.

  Woudiver looked appealingly toward Reith. "Whose words carry weight?"

  Reith chose his words carefully. "All of us have cause for resentment. You would be a fool to expect ease and conviviality."

  "Indeed, he shall suffer," said Traz through gritted teeth.

  "You shall live," said Reith, "but only to serve our interests. I don't care a bice for your life unless you make yourself useful."

  Again in Woudiver's eyes Reith discerned a cold and crafty glint. "So it shall be," said Woudiver.

  "I want you to hire a competent replacement for Deine Zarre, at once."

  "Expensive, expensive," said Woudiver. "We were lucky in Zarre."

  "The responsibility for his absence is yours," said Reith.

  "No one goes through life without making mistakes," Woudiver admitted. "This was one of mine. But I know just the man. He will come high, I warn you."

  "Money is no object," said Reith. "We want the best. Secondly, I want you to summon the technicians back to work. All by telephone, of course."

  "No difficulties whatever," declared Woudiver heartily. "The work will proceed with dispatch."

  "You must arrange immediate delivery of the materials and supplies yet needed.

  And you must pay all costs and salaries incurred henceforth."

  "What?" roared Woudiver.

  "Further," said Reith, "you will remain tied between those posts. For your sustenance you must pay a thousand-or better, two thousand sequins each day."

  "What!" cried Woudiver. "Do you think to cheat and bewilder poor Woudiver?"

  "Do you agree to the conditions?" Reith asked. "If not I will ask Anacho and Traz to kill you, and both of them bear you grudges."

  Woudiver drew himself to his full height. "I agree," he said in a stately voice.

  "And now, since it seems that I must sponsor your hallucinations and suffer the backbreaking expense in the bargain, let us instantly get to work. The moment I see you vanish into space will be a happy one, I assure you! Now then, release these chains so that I may go to the telephone."

  "Stay where you are," said Reith. "We will bring the telephone to you. And now, where is your money!"

  "You can't be serious," Woudiver exclaimed.

  THE PHUME

  CHAPTER ONE

  IN THE WAREHOUSE at the edge of the Sivishe salt flats, Aila Woudiver sat perched on a stool. A chain connected the iron collar around his neck to a high cable; he could walk from his table to the closet against the wall where he slept, the chain sliding behind him.

  Aila Woudiver was a prisoner on his own premises, insult added to injury, which by all accounts should have provoked him to spasms of tooth-chattering fury. But he sat placidly on the stool, great buttocks sagging to either side like saddlebags, wearing an absurd smile of saintly forbearance.

  Beside the spaceship which occupied the greater part of the warehouse Adam Reith stood watching. Woudiver's abnegation was more unsettling than rage. Reith hoped that whatever schemes Woudiver was hatching would not mature too quickly. The spaceship was nearly operative; in a week, more or less, Reith hoped to depart old Tschai.

  Woudiver occupied himself with tat-work, now and then holding it up to admire the pattern-the very essence of patient affability. Traz, coming into the warehouse, scowled toward Woudiver and asserted the philosophy of the Emblem nomads, his forebears: "Kill him this moment; kill him and have an end!"

  Reith gave an equivocal grunt. "He's chained by the neck; he does us no harm."

  "He'll find a means. Have you forgotten his tricks?"

  "I can't kill him in cold blood."

  Traz gave a croak of disgust and stamped from the warehouse. Anacho the Dirdirman declared, "For once I agree with the young steppe-runner: kill the great beast!"

  Woudiver, divining the substance of the conversation, displayed his gentle smile. He had lost weight, so Reith noticed. The once-bloated cheeks hung in wattles; the great upper lip drooped like a beak over the pointed little chin.

  "See him smirk!" hissed Anacho. "If he could he'd boil us in nerve-fire! Kill him now!"

  Reith made another sound of moderation. "In a week we'll be gone. What can he do, chained and helpless?"

  "He is Woudiver!"

  "Even so, we can't slaughter him like an animal."

  Anacho threw up his hands and followed Traz outside the warehouse. Reith went into the ship and for a few minutes watched the technicians. They worked at the exquisitely delicate job of balancing the power pumps. Reith could offer no assistance. Dirdir technology, like the Dirdir psyche, was beyond his comprehension. Both derived from intuitive certainties, or so he suspected; there was little evidence of purposeful rationality in any aspect of Dirdir existence.

  Long shafts of brown light slanted through the high windows; the time was almost sunset. Woudiver thoughtfully put aside his fancy-work. He gave Reith a companionable nod and went off to his little room against the wall, the chain dragging behind him in a rattling halfcatenary.

  The technicians emerged from the ship as did Fio Haro the master mechanic. All went off to their supper. Reith touched the unlovely hull, pressing his hands against the steel, as if he could not credit its reality. A week-then space and return to Earth! The prospect seemed a dream; Earth had become the world remote and bizarre.

  Reith went to the larder for a chunk of black sausage, which he took to the doorway. Carina 4269, low in the sky, bathed the salt flats in ale colored light, projecting long shadows behind every tussock.

  The two black figures which of late had appeared at sunset were nowhere to be seen.

  The view held a certain mournful beauty. To the north the city of Sivishe was a crumble of old masonry tinted tawny by the slanting sunlight. West across Ajzan Sound stood the spires of the Dirdir city Hei and, looming above all, the Glass Box.

  Reith went to join Traz and Anacho. They sat on a bench tossing pebbles into a puddle: Traz, blunted-featured, taciturn, solid of bone and muscle, Anacho, thin as an eel, six inches taller than Reith, pallid of skin, long and keen of feature, as loquacious as Traz was terse. Traz disapproved of Anacho's airs; Anacho considered Traz crass and undiscriminating. Occasionally, however, they agreed-as now, on the need to destroy Aila Woudiver. Reith, for his own part, felt more concern for the Dirdir. From their spires they could almost look through the portals of the warehouse at the work within. The Dirdir inactivity seemed as unnatural as Aila Woudiver's smile, and to Reith implied a dreadful stealth.

  "Why don't they do something?" Reith complained, gnawing at the black sausage.

  "They must know we're here."

  "Impossible to predict Dirdir conduct," Anacho replied. "They have lost interest in you. What are men to them but vermin? They prefer to chivy the Pnume from their burrows. You are no longer the subject of tsaugsh: this is my supposition."

  Reith was not wholly reassured. "What of the Phung or Pnume, whatever they are, that come to watch us? They aren't there for their health." He referred to the two black shapes which had been appearing of late on the salt flats. Always they came to stand against the sunset, gaunt figures wearing black cloaks and wide-brimmed black hats.

  "Phung go alone; they are not Phung," said Traz. "Pnume never appear by daylight."

  "And never so close to Hei, for fear of the Dirdir," Anacho said. "So, then-they are Pnumekin, or more likely Gzhindra."

  On the occasion of their first appearance the creatures stood gazing toward the warehouse until Carina 4269 fell behind the palisades; then they vanished into the gloom. Their interest seemed more than casual; Reith was disturbed by the surveillance but could conceive of no remedy for it.

  The next day was blurred by mist and drizzle; the salt flats remained vacant. On the day following, the sun shone once more, and at sundown the dark shapes came to stare toward the shed, again afflicting Re
ith with disquietude. Surveillance portended unpleasant events: this on Tschai was an axiom of existence.

  Carina 4269 hung low. "If they're coming," said Anacho, "now is the time."

  Reith searched the salt flats through his scanscope.* "There's nothing out there but tussocks and swamp-bush. Not even a lizard."

  Traz pointed over his shoulder. "There they are."

  "Hmrnf," said Reith. "I just looked there!" He raised the magnification of the scanscope until the jump of his pulse caused the figures to jerk and bounce. The faces, back-lit, could not be distinguished. "They have hands," said Reith.

  "They are Pnumekin."

  Anacho took the instrument. After a moment he said: "They are Gzhindra: Pnumekin expelled from the tunnels. To trade with the Pnume you must deal through the Gzhindra; the Pnume will never dicker for themselves."

  "Why should they come here? We want no dealings with the Pnume."

  "But they want dealings with us, or so it seems."

  "Perhaps they're waiting for Woudiver to appear," Traz suggested.

  "At sunset and sunset alone?"

  To Traz came a sudden thought. He moved away from the warehouse and somewhat past Woudiver's old office, an eccentric little shack of broken brick and flints, and looked back toward the warehouse. He walked a hundred yards further, out upon the salt flats, and again looked back. He gestured to Reith and Anacho, who went out to join him. "Observe the warehouse," said Traz. "You'll now see who deals with the Gzhindra."

  From the black timber wall a glint of golden light jumped and flickered.

  "Behind that light," said Traz, "is Aila Woudiver's room."

  "The fat yellow shulk is signaling!" declared Anacho in a fervent whisper.

  Reith drew a deep breath and controlled his fury: foolish to expect anything else from Woudiver, who lived with intrigue as a fish lives with water. In a measured voice he spoke to Anacho: "Can you read the signals?"

  "Yes; ordinary stop-and-go code. '... Suitable ... compensation ... for ...