Planet of Adventure Page 48

  services ... time ... is ... now ... at ... hand..."

  The flickering light vanished. "That's all."

  "He's seen us through the crack," Reith muttered.

  "Or he has no more light," said Traz, for Carina 4269 had dropped behind the palisades. Looking across the salt flats, Reith found that the Gzhindra had gone as mysteriously as they had come.

  "We had better go talk to Woudiver," said Reith.

  "He'll tell anything but the truth," said Anacho.

  "I expect as much," said Reith. "We may be informed by what he doesn't tell us."

  They went into the shed. Woudiver, once again busy with his tat-work, showed the three his affable smile. "It must be close to suppertime."

  "Not for you," said Reith.

  "What?" exclaimed Woudiver. "No food? Come now; let us not carry our little joke too far."

  "Why do you signal the Gzhindra?"

  Beyond a lifting of the hairless eyebrows, Woudiver evinced neither surprise nor guilt. "A business affair. I occasionally deal with the under-folk."

  "What sort of dealings?"

  "This and that, one thing and another. Tonight I apologized for failing to meet certain commitments. Do you begrudge me my good reputation?"

  "What commitments did you fail to meet?"

  "Come now," chided Woudiver. "You must allow my few little secrets."

  "I allow you nothing," said Reith. "I'm well aware that you plot mischief."

  "Bah! What a canard! How should I plot anything trussed up by a chain? I assure you that I do not regard my present condition as dignified."

  "If anything goes wrong," said Reith, "you'll be hoisted six feet off the ground by the same chain. You'll have no dignity whatever."

  Woudiver made a gesture of waggish distaste and looked off across the room.

  "Excellent progress seems to have been made."

  "No thanks to you."

  "Ah! You minimize my aid! Who provided the hull, at great pains and small profit? Who arranged and organized, who supplied invaluable acumen?"

  "The same man that took all our money and betrayed us into the Glass Box," said Reith. He went to sit across the room. Traz and Anacho joined him. The three watched Woudiver, now sulking in the absence of his supper.

  "We should kill him," Traz said flatly. "He plans evil for all of us."

  "I don't doubt that," said Reith, "but why should he deal with the Pnume? The Dirdir would seem the parties most concerned. They know I'm an Earthman; they may or may not be aware of the spaceship."

  "If they know they don't care," said Anacho. "They have no interest in other folk. The Pnume: another matter. They would know everything, and they are most curious regarding the Dirdir. The Dirdir in turn discover the Pnume tunnels and flood them with gas."

  Woudiver called out: "You have forgotten my supper."

  "I've forgotten nothing," said Reith.

  "Well, then, bring forth my food. Tonight I wish a whiteroot salad, a stew of lentils, gargan-flesh and slue, a plate of good black cheese, and my usual wine."

  Traz gave a bark of scornful laughter. Reith inquired, "Why should we coddle your gut when you plot against us? Order your meals from the Gzhindra."

  Woudiver's face sagged; he beat his hands upon his knees. "So now they torture poor Aila Woudiver, who was only constant to his faith! What a miserable destiny to live and suffer on this terrible planet!"

  Reith turned away in disgust. By birth half-Dirdirman, Woudiver vigorously affirmed the Doctrine of Bifold Genesis, which traced the origin of Dirdir and Dirdirman to twin cells in a Primeval Egg on the planet Sibol. From such a viewpoint Reith must seem an irresponsible iconoclast, to be thwarted at all costs.

  On the other hand, Woudiver's crimes could not all be ascribed to doctrinal ardor. Recalling certain instances of lechery and self-indulgence, Reith's twinges of pity disappeared.

  For five minutes longer Woudiver groaned and complained, and then became suddenly quiet. For a period he watched Reith and his companions. He spoke and Reith thought to detect a secret glee. "Your project approaches completion-thanks to Aila Woudiver, his craft, and his poor store of sequins, unfeelingly sequestered."

  "I agree that the project approaches completion," said Reith.

  "When do you propose to depart Tschai?"

  "As soon as possible."

  "Remarkable!" declared Woudiver with unctuous fervor. Reith thought that his eyes sparkled with amusement. "But then, you are a remarkable man." Woudiver's voice took on a sudden resonance, as if he could no longer restrain his inner mirth. "Still, on occasion it is better to be modest and ordinary! What do you think of that?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "True," said Woudiver. "That is correct."

  "Since you feel disposed for conversation," said Reith, "why not tell me something about the Gzhindra."

  "What is there to tell? They are sad creatures, doomed to trudge the surface, though they stand in fear of the open. Have you ever wondered why Pnume, Pnumekin, Phung and Gzhindra all wear hats with broad brims?"

  "I suppose that it is their habit of dress."

  "True. But the deeper reason is: the brims hide the sky."

  "What impels these particular Gzhindra out under the sky which oppresses them?"

  "Like all men," said Woudiver, somewhat pompously, "they hope, they yearn."

  "In what precise regard?"

  "In any absolute or ultimate sense," said Woudiver, "I am of course ignorant; all men are mysteries. Even you perplex me, Adam Reith! You harry me with capricious cruelty; you pour my money into an insane scheme; you ignore every protest, every plea of moderation! Why? I ask myself, why? Why? If it were not all so preposterous, I could indeed believe you a man of another world."

  "You still haven't told me what the Gzhindra want," said Reith.

  With vast dignity Woudiver rose to his feet; the chain from the iron collar swung and jangled. "You had best take up this matter with the Gzhindra themselves."

  He went to his table and after a final cryptic glance toward Reith took up his tatting.

  CHAPTER TWO

  REITH TWITCHED AND trembled in a nightmare. He dreamt that he lay on his usual couch in Woudiver's old office. The room was pervaded by a curious yellow-green glow. Woudiver stood across the room chatting with a pair of motionless men in black capes and broad-brimmed black hats. Reith strained to move, but his muscles were limp. The yellow-green light waxed and waned; Woudiver was now frosted with an uncanny silver-blue incandescence. The typical nightmare of helplessness and futility, thought Reith. He made desperate efforts to awake but only started a clammy sweat.

  Woudiver and the Gzhindra gazed down at him. Woudiver surprisingly wore his iron collar, but the chain had been broken or melted a foot from his neck. He seemed complacent and unconcerned: the Woudiver of old. The Gzhindra showed no expression other than intentness. Their features were long, narrow and very regular; their skin, pallid ivory, shone with the luster of silk. One carried a folded cloth; the other stood with hands behind his back.

  Woudiver suddenly loomed enormous. He called out: "Adam Reith, Adam Reith: where is your home?"

  Reith struggled against his impotence. A weird and desolate dream, one that he would long remember. "The planet Earth," he croaked. "The planet Earth."

  Woudiver's face expanded and contracted. "Are other Earthmen on Tschai?"

  "Yes."

  The Gzhindra jerked forward; Woudiver called in a horn-like voice: "Where? Where are the Earthmen?"

  "All men are Earthmen."

  Woudiver stood back, mouth drooping in saturnine disgust. "You were born on the planet Earth."

  "Yes."

  Woudiver floated back in triumph. He gestured largely to the Gzhindra. "A

  rarity, a nonesuch!"

  "We will take him." The Gzhindra unfolded the cloth, which Reith, to his helpless horror, saw to be a sack. Without ceremony the Gzhindra pulled it up over his legs, tucked him within until on
ly his head protruded. Then, with astonishing ease, one of the Gzhindra threw the sack over his back, while the other tossed a pouch to Woudiver.

  The dream began to fade; the yellow-green light became spotty and blurred. The door flew suddenly open, to reveal Traz. Woudiver jumped back in horror; Traz raised his catapult and fired into Woudiver's face. An astonishing gush of blood spewed forth-green blood, and wherever droplets fell they glistened yellow ...

  The dream went dim; Reith slept.

  Reith awoke in a state of extreme discomfort. His legs were cramped; a vile arsenical reek pervaded his head. He sensed pressure and motion; groping, he felt coarse cloth. Dismal knowledge came upon him; the dream was real; he indeed rode in a sack. Ah, the resourceful Woudiver! Reith became weak with emotion.

  Woudiver had negotiated with the Gzhindra; he had arranged that Reith be drugged, probably through a seepage of narcotic gas. The Gzhindra were now carrying him off to unknown places, for unknown purposes.

  For a period Reith sagged in the sack numb and sick. Woudiver, even while chained by the neck, had worked his mischief! Reith collected the final fragments of his dream. He had seen Woudiver with his face split apart, pumping green blood. Woudiver had paid for his trick.

  Reith found it hard to think. The sack swung and he felt a rhythmic thud; apparently the sack was being carried on a pole. By sheer luck he wore his clothes; the night previously he had flung himself down on his cot fully dressed. Was it possible that he still carried his knife? His pouch was gone; the pocket of his jacket seemed to be empty, and he dared not grope lest he signal the fact of his consciousness to the Gzhindra.

  He pressed his face close to the sack hoping to see through the coarse weave, unsuccessfully. The time was yet night; he thought that they traveled uneven terrain.

  An indeterminate time went by, with Reith as helpless as a baby in the womb. How many strange events the nights of old Tschai had known! And now another, with himself a participant. He felt ashamed and demeaned; he quivered with rage. If he could get his hands on his captors, what a vengeance he would take!

  The Gzhindra halted, and for a moment stood perfectly quiet. Then the sack was lowered to the ground. Reith listened but heard no voices, no whispers, no footsteps. It seemed as if he were alone. He reached to his pocket, hoping to find a knife, a tool, an edge. He found nothing. He tested the fabric with his fingernails: the wave was coarse and harsh, and would not rip.

  An intimation told him that the Gzhindra had returned. He lay quiet. The Gzhindra stood nearby, and he thought that he heard whispering.

  The sack moved; it was lifted and carried. Reith began to sweat. Something was about to happen.

  The sack swung. He dangled from a rope. He felt the sensation of descent: down, down, down, how far he could not estimate. He halted with a jerk, to swing slowly back and forth. From high above came the reverberation of a gong: a low melancholy sound.

  Reith kicked and pushed. He became frantic, victim to a claustrophobic spasm. He panted and sweated and could hardly catch his breath; this was how it felt to go crazy. Sobbing and hissing, he took command of himself. He searched his jacket, to no avail: no metal, no cutting edge. He clenched his mind, forced himself to think. The gong was a signal; someone or something had been summoned. He groped around the sack, hoping to find a break. No success. He needed metal, sharpness, a blade, an edge! From head to toe he took stock. His belt! With vast difficulty he pulled it loose, and used the sharp pin on the buckle to score the fabric. He achieved a tear; thrusting and straining he ripped the material and finally thrust forth his head and shoulders. Never in his life had he known such exultation! If he died within the moment, at least he had defeated the sack!

  Conceivably he might score other victories. He looked along a rude, rough cavern dimly illuminated by a few blue-white buttons of light. The floor almost brushed the bottom of the bag; Reith recalled the descent and final jerk with a qualm.

  He heaved himself out of the sack, to stand trembling with cramp and fatigue.

  Listening to dead underground silence, he thought to hear a far sound.

  Something, someone, was astir.

  Above him the cavern rose in a chimney, the rope merging with the darkness.

  Somewhere up there must be an opening into the outer world-but how far? In the bag he had swung with a cycle of ten or twelve seconds, which by rough calculation gave a figure of considerably more than a hundred feet.

  Reith looked down the cavern and listened. Someone would be coming in answer to the gong. He looked up the rope. At the top was the outer world. He took hold of the rope, started to climb. Up he went, into the dark, heaving and clinging: up, up, up. The sack and the cavern became part of a lost world; he was enveloped in darkness.

  His hands burned; his shoulders grew warm and weak; then he reached the top of the rope. Groping, fumbling, he discovered that it passed through a slot in a metal plate, which rested upon a pair of heavy metal beams. The plate seemed a kind of trapdoor, which clearly could not be opened while his weight hung on the rope ... His strength was failing. He wrapped the rope around his legs and reached out with an arm. To one side he felt a metal shelf; it was the web of the beam supporting the trapdoor, a foot or more wide. He rested a moment-time was growing short, then lurched out with his leg, and tried to heave himself across. For a sickening instant he felt himself falling. He strained desperately; with his heart thumping he dragged himself across to the web of the beam. Here, sick and miserable, he lay panting.

  A minute passed, hardly long enough for the rope to become still. Below four bobbing lights approached. Reith balanced himself and heaved up at the metal plate. It was solid and heavy; he might as well have been shoving at the mountainside. Once again! He thrust with all his might, without the slightest effect. The lights were below, carried by four dark shapes. Reith pressed back against the vertical section of the beam.

  The four below moved slowly in eerie silence, like creatures underwater. They went to examine the sack and found it empty. Reith could hear whispers and mutters. They looked all around, the lights blinking and flickering. By some kind of mutual impulse all stared up. Reith pressed himself flat against the metal and hid the pallid blotch of his face. The glow of the lights played past him, upon the trapdoor, which he saw to be locked by four twist-latches controlled from above. The lights, veering away, searched the sides of the shaft. The folk below stood in puzzled consultation. After a final inspection of the cavern, a last flicker of light up the shaft, they returned the way they had come, flashing their lights from side to side.

  Reith huddled high in the dark, wondering whether he might not still be dreaming. But the sad desolate circumstances were real enough. He was trapped.

  He could not raise the door above him; it might not be opened again for weeks.

  Unthinkable to crouch bat-like, waiting. For better or worse, Reith made up his mind. He looked down the passage; the lights, bobbing will-o'-the-wisps, were already far and dim. He slid down the rope and set off in pursuit, running with long gliding steps. He had a single notion, a desperate hope rather than a plan: to isolate one of the dark figures and somehow force him to lead the way to the surface. Above burned the first of the dim blue buttons, casting a glow dimmer than moonlight, but sufficient to show a way winding between rock buttresses advancing alternately from either side.

  Reith presently caught up with the four, who moved slowly, investigating the passage to either side in a hesitant, perplexed fashion. Reith began to feel an insane exhilaration, as if he were already dead and invulnerable. He thought to pick up a pebble and toss it at the dark figures ... Hysteria! The notion instantly sobered him. If he wanted to survive he must take a grip on himself.

  The four moved with uneasy deliberation, whispering and muttering among themselves. Dodging from one pocket of shadow to another Reith approached as closely as he dared, to be ready in case one should detach himself. Except for a fleeting glimpse in the dungeons at Pera, he had never seen a P
nume. These, from what Reith could observe of their posture and gait, seemed human.

  The passage opened into a cavern with almost purposeful roughnessor perhaps the rudeness concealed a delicacy beyond Reith's understanding, as in the case of a shoulder of quartz thrusting forth to display a coruscation of pyrite crystals.

  The area seemed to be a junction, a node, a place of importance, with three other passages leading away. An area at the center had been floored with smooth stone slabs; light somewhat stronger than that in the cavern issued from luminous grains in the overhead rock.

  A fifth individual stood to the side; like the others he wore a black cloak and wide-brimmed black hat. Reith, flat as a cockroach, slid forward into a pocket of dense shadow close by the chamber. The fifth individual was also a Pnumekin; Reith could see his long visage, dismal, white and bleak. For an interval he took no notice of the first four and they appeared not to see him, a curious ritual of mutual disregard which aroused Reith's interest.

  Gradually the five seemed to wander together, none looking directly at the others.

  There came a hushed murmur of voices. Reith strained to listen. They spoke the universal tongue of Tschai; so much he could understand from the intonations.

  The four reported the circumstances attendant upon finding the empty sack; the fifth, an official or monitor, made the smallest possible indication of dismay.

  It seemed that restraint, unobtrusiveness, delicacy of allusion were key aspects of sub-Tschai existence.

  They wandered across the chamber and into the cavern close by Reith, who pressed himself against the wall. The group halted not ten feet distant, and Reith could now hear the conversation.

  One spoke in a careful, even voice: "... Delivery. This is not known; nothing was found."

  Another said: "The passage was empty. If defalcation occurred before the bag was lowered, here would be an explanation."

  "Imprecision," said the monitor. "The bag would not then have been lowered."

  "Imprecision exists in either case. The passage was clear and empty."

  "He must still be there," said the tunnel monitor; "he cannot be anywhere else."