The Houses of Iszm Read online

  The Szecr sub-commandant twirled his viewer. “The universe is eight billion years old, the last two billion of which have produced intelligent life. During this time not one hour of absolute equity has prevailed. It should be no surprise to find this basic condition applying to your personal affairs.”

  “In other words—”

  “In other words—tread soundlessly, look around corners, follow enticing females into no dark chambers.”

  He plucked a taut string; a young Szecr appeared. “Conduct Aile Farr Sainh aboard the Andrei Simic. We are waiving all further examinations.”

  Farr stared in disbelief.

  “Yes, Farr Sainh,” said the Szecr. “We feel you have demonstrated your honesty.”

  Farr left the pod in a daze of perplexity. Something was wrong. The Iszic waived examination of no one and nothing.

  Alone in his cubicle aboard the Andrei Simic, he eased himself down on the elastic panel that served as his bed. He was in danger. The Szecr had said so. It was an unsettling idea. Farr had a normal quota of courage. In fighting tangible enemies he would not disgrace himself. But to learn that his life might be taken, to be ignorant of the hows and whys and wherefores—it brought a queasy turmoil to his stomach… Of course, thought Farr, the Szecr sub-commandant might be in error; or he might have used the mysterious threat to speed Farr away from Iszm.

  He rose to his feet and searched his cabin. He found no overt mechanisms, no spy-cells. He arranged his possessions in such a way that he would notice a disturbance. Then, sliding aside the fiber panel, he looked out upon the catwalk. It was a ribbon of striated gray glass—empty. Farr stepped out and walked hurriedly to the lounge.

  He examined the roster. There were twenty-eight passengers including himself. Some of the names he recognized: Mr. and Mrs. Anderview, Jonas Ralf, Wilfred Willeran and Omon Bozhd; others, approximate renderings of alien phonemes, meant nothing.

  Farr returned to his cabin, locked the door, and lay down on the bed.

  VII

  Not till the Andrei Simic was space-borne and the captain came to the lounge for the routine reading of the ship’s regulations did Farr see his fellow passengers. There were seven Iszic, nine Earthers, the three Monagi savants, three Codain monks performing a ritual pilgrimage around the worlds, five others of assorted worlds, most of whom had arrived at Iszm with the ship. Except for Omon Bozhd, the Iszic wore the gold and black stripes of planter’s agents, high-caste austere men, more or less of a type. Farr presumed that two or perhaps three were Szecr. The Earthers included a pair of talkative young students, a grizzled sanitary engineer on leave to Earth, the Anderviews, Ralf and Willeran, and Carto and Maudel Wlewska, a young couple on tour.

  Farr assessed the group, trying to picture each in the role of a potential assassin and finally admitted himself at a loss. Those who had already been aboard the ship seemed automatically eliminated from suspicion, as did the Codain monks and the cherubic Monagi. It was wildly unreasonable to suspect the Iszics, which more or less left the Earthers—but why should any of these seek to harm him? Why should he expect harm from anyone? He scratched his head in perplexity, disturbing the scab he still carried from his slide down the Tjiere root-tube.

  The voyage settled into routine—steady identical hours broken by meals and sleep-periods at whatever rhythm the passenger chose. To while away the tedium, or perhaps because the tedium provided nothing else to think of, Farr began an innocent flirtation with Mrs. Anderview. Her husband was engrossed in writing a voluminous report regarding the achievements of his mission at Dapa Coory, on the planet Mazen, and was seen only at meal-times, leaving Mrs. Anderview much to herself—and to Farr. She was a graceful woman, with a rich mouth and a provocative half-smile. Farr’s part in the affair extended no further than a frame of mind, a warmth of tone, a significant glance or two—a lukewarm matter at best. He was correspondingly surprised when Mrs. Anderview, whose first name he did not know, came quietly into his cabin one evening, smiling with a kind of shy recklessness.

  Farr sat up blinking.

  “May I come in?”

  “You’re already in.”

  Mrs. Anderview nodded slowly and slid the panel shut behind her. Farr noticed suddenly that she was far prettier than he had let himself observe, that she wore a perfume of indefinable sweetness: aloes, cardamon, limone.

  She sat beside him. “I grow so bored,” she complained. “Night after night Merritt writes, it’s always the same. He thinks of nothing but his budget. And I—I like fun.”

  The invitation could hardly have been more explicit. Farr examined first one side of the situation then the other. He cleared his throat, while Mrs. Anderview, blushing a little, watched him.

  There was a rap at the door. Farr jumped to his feet, as if he were already guilty. He eased the panel open. Waiting outside was Omon Bozhd.

  “Farr Sainh, may I consult you for a moment? I would consider it a great favor.”

  “Well,” said Farr, “I’m busy right now.”

  “The matter transcends business.”

  Farr turned to the woman. “Just a minute, I’ll be right back.”

  “Hurry!” She seemed very impatient. Farr looked at her in surprise and started to speak.

  “Sh,” she warned him. Farr shrugged and stepped out into the corridor.

  “What’s the trouble?” he asked Omon Bozhd.

  “Farr Sainh—would you like to save your life?”

  “Very much indeed,” said Farr, “but—”

  “Invite me into your cabin.” Omon Bozhd took a step forward.

  “There’s hardly room,” said Farr. “And anyway—”

  The Iszic said earnestly, “You understand the pattern, do you not?”

  “No,” said Farr. “I’d like to—but I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Omon Bozhd nodded. “Your gallantry must be forgotten. Let us enter your cabin. There is not much time.” Sliding back the panel, he stepped through. Farr followed, sure he was a fool, but not sure exactly what kind of fool.

  Mrs. Merritt Anderview jumped to her feet. “Oh,” she gasped, flushing. “Mr. Farr!”

  Farr held out his hands helplessly. Mrs. Anderview started to march from the cabin, but Omon Bozhd stood in her way. He grinned, his pale mouth split, showing his gray palate and his arch of pointed teeth.

  “Please, Mrs. Anderview, do not leave, your reputation is safe.”

  “I have no time to waste,” she said sharply. Farr saw suddenly that she was not pretty, that her face was pinched, her eyes angry and selfish.

  “Please,” said Omon Bozhd, “not just yet. Sit down, if you will.”

  A rap-rap on the door. A voice hoarse with fury. “Open up, open up in there!”

  “Certainly,” said Omon Bozhd. He flung the panel wide. Anderview stood framed in the opening, the whites of his eyes showing. He held a shatter-gun, his hand was trembling. He saw Omon Bozhd, his shoulders sagged, his jaw slackened.

  “Excuse me for not asking you in,” said Farr. “We’re a little crowded.”

  Anderview reorganized his passion. “What’s going on in here?”

  Mrs. Anderview pushed out upon the catwalk. “Nothing,” she said in a throaty voice. “Nothing at all.” She swept down the corridor.

  In a negligent voice Omon Bozhd spoke to Anderview. “There is nothing for you here. Perhaps you had better join your lady.”

  Anderview slowly turned on his heel and departed.

  Farr felt weak in the knees. Here were depths he could not fathom, whorls of motive and purpose… He sank down on the bunk, burning at the thought of how he had been played for a sucker.

  “An excellent pretext for expunging a man,” remarked the Iszic. “At least in the framework of Earth institutions.”

  Farr glanced up sharply, detecting a sardonic flavor to the remark. He said grudgingly, “I guess you saved my hide—two or three square feet of it, anyway.”

  Omon Bozhd moved his hand, gesturing with a nonexistent viewer. �
�A trifle.”

  “Not to me,” Farr growled. “I like my hide.”

  The Iszic turned to go.

  “Just a minute,” said Farr. He rose to his feet. “I want to know what’s going on.”

  “The matter is surely self-explanatory?”

  “Maybe I’m stupid.”

  The Iszic examined him thoughtfully. “Perhaps you’re too close to the situation to see it in its whole.”

  “You’re of the Szecr?” asked Farr.

  “Every foreign agent is of the Szecr.”

  “Well, what’s going on? Why are the Anderviews after me?”

  “They’ve weighed you, balanced your usefulness against the danger you represent.”

  “This is absolutely fantastic!”

  Omon Bozhd focused both fractions of his eyes on Farr. He spoke in a reflective key. “Every second of existence is a new miracle. Consider the countless variations and possibilities that await us every second—avenues into the future. We take only one of these; the others—who knows where they go? This is the eternal marvel, the magnificent uncertainty of the second next to come, with the past a steady unfolding carpet of denouement.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Farr.

  “Our minds become numbed to the wonder of life, because of its very pressure and magnitude.” Omon Bozhd at last took his eyes off Farr. “In such a perspective this affair has intrinsic interest no more or less than taking a single breath.”

  Farr said in a stiff voice, “I can breathe as many times as I care to. I can die only once, so there does seem a certain practical difference. Apparently you think so too—and I admit to being in your debt. But— why?”

  Omon Bozhd swung his absent viewer. “Iszic rationale is of course different to that of the Earther. We, nevertheless, share certain instincts, such as reverence for vitality and the impulse to aid our acquaintances.”

  “I see,” said Farr. “Your action then was merely a friendly good turn?”

  Omon Bozhd bowed. “You may regard it as such. And now I will bid you good night.” He left the cabin.

  Farr sat numbly upon his bed. In the last few minutes the Anderviews had metamorphosed from a kindly, rather remote, missionary and his attractive wife to a pair of ruthless murderers. But why? Why?

  Farr shook his head in abject puzzlement. The Szecr sub-commandant had mentioned a poisoned thorn and a poisoned drink: evidently their responsibility as well. Angrily he jumped to his feet, strode to the door, which he slid back and looked along the catwalk. To right and left glimmered the gray glass ribbon. Overhead a similar ribbon gave access to the cabins next above. Farr quietly left the cabin, walked to the end of the catwalk, and looked through the arch into the lounge. The two young tourists, the sanitary engineer, and a pair of Iszic were playing poker. The Iszic were ahead of the game, with one fraction of their eyes focused on the cards, the other on the faces of their opponents.

  Farr turned back. He climbed the ladder to the upper deck. There was silence except for the normal half-heard sounds of the ship—the sigh of pumps, the murmur of circulating air, the subdued mutter from the lounge.

  Farr found the door with a placard reading Meritt and Anthea Andervieto. He hesitated, listening. He heard nothing, no sounds, no voices. He put his hand out to knock, then paused. He recollected Omon Bozhd’s dissertation on life, the infinity of avenues to the future… He could knock, he could turn to his cabin. He knocked.

  No one answered. Farr looked up and down the catwalk. He could still return to his cabin. He tried the door. It opened. The room was dark. Farr put his elbow to the molding; light filled the room. Merritt Anderview, sitting stiffly in a chair, looked at him with a wide fearless gaze.

  Farr saw he was dead. Anthea Anderview lay in the lower bunk, relaxed and quite composed.

  Farr made no close inspection, but she was dead too. A shatter-gun vibrating at low intensity had homogenized their brains; their thoughts and memories were brown melange; their chosen avenues into the future had come to a break. Farr stood still. He tried to hold his breath, but he knew the damage had already been done. He backed out and closed the door. The stewards would presently find the bodies… In the meantime—Farr stood thinking with growing uneasiness. He might have been observed. His stupid flirtation with Anthea Anderview might be common knowledge, perhaps even the argument with Merritt Anderview. His presence in the cabin could be easily established. There would be a film of his exhalations on every object in the room. This constituted positive identification in the courtrooms, if it could be shown that no other person aboard the ship fell into his exhalation group.

  Farr turned. He left the cabin and crossed to the lounge. No one appeared to observe him. He climbed the ladder to the bridge and knocked at the door of the captain’s cabin.

  Captain Dorristy slid the panel back—a stocky taciturn man with squinting black eyes. Behind Dorristy stood Omon Bozhd. Farr thought that his cheek muscles tightened and that his hand gave a jerk as if he were twirling his viewer.

  Farr felt suddenly at ease. He had rolled with whatever punch Omon Bozhd was trying to deliver. “Two passengers are dead—the Anderviews.”

  Omon Bozhd turned both eye-fractions on him: cold animosity.

  “That’s interesting,” said Dorristy. “Come in.”

  Farr stepped through the door. Omon Bozhd looked away.

  Dorristy said in a soft voice, “Bozhd here tells me that you killed the Anderviews.”

  Farr turned to look at the Iszic. “He’s probably the most plausible liar on the ship. He did it himself.”

  Dorristy grinned, looking from one to the other. “He says you were after the woman.”

  “I was politely attentive. This is a dull trip. Up to now.”

  Dorristy looked at the Iszic. “What do you say, Omon Bozhd?”

  The Iszic swung his nonexistent viewer. “Something more than politeness brought Mrs. Anderview to Farr’s cabin.”

  Farr said, “Something other than altruism brought Omon Bozhd to my cabin to prevent Anderview from shooting me.”

  Omon Bozhd feigned surprise. “I know nothing whatever of your liaisons.”

  Farr checked his anger and turned to the captain. “Do you believe him?”

  Dorristy grinned sourly. “I don’t believe anyone.”

  “This is what happened. It’s hard to believe but it’s true.” Farr told his story. “… after Bozhd left, I got thinking. I was going to get to the bottom of it, one way or the other. I went to the Anderviews’ cabin. I opened the door, saw they were dead. I came here at once.”

  Dorristy said nothing, but now he was examining Omon Bozhd rather than Farr. At last he shrugged. “I’ll seal the room. You can sweat it out when we get to Earth.”

  Omon Bozhd obscured the lower half of his eyes. He swung the absent viewer nonchalantly. “I have heard Farr’s story,” he said in a thoughtful voice. “He impresses me with his frankness. I believe I am mistaken. It is not likely that he performed the crime. I retract my accusation.” He stalked from the cabin. Farr gazed after him in angry triumph.

  Dorristy looked at Farr. “You didn’t kill them, eh?”

  Farr snorted. “Of course not.”

  “Who did?”

  “My guess would be one or another of the Iszics. Why? I have no idea.”

  Dorristy nodded, then spoke gruffly from the side of his mouth, “Well—we’ll see when we put down at Barstow.” He glanced sidewise at Farr. “I’ll take it as a favor if you keep this matter quiet. Don’t discuss it with anyone.”

  “I didn’t intend to,” said Farr shortly.

  VIII

  The bodies were photographed and removed to cold storage; the cabin was sealed. The ship buzzed with rumor and Farr found the Anderviews a difficult topic to avoid.

  Earth grew closer. Farr felt no great apprehension, but the uncertainty, the underlying mystery remained: why had the Anderviews waylaid him in the first place? Would he run into further danger on Earth? Farr became angry. These intri
gues were no concern of his; he wanted no part of them. But an uncomfortable conviction kept pushing up from his subconscious: he was involved, however bitterly he rejected the idea. He had other things to do—his job, his thesis, the compilation of a stereo which he hoped to sell to one of the broadcast networks.

  And there was something else, a curious urgency, a pressure, something to be done. It came at odd moments to trouble Farr—a dissatisfaction, like an unresolved chord in some deep chamber of his mind. It had no direct connection with the Anderviews and their murderer, no link with anything. It was something to be done, something he had forgotten… or never known…

  Omon Bozhd spoke to him only once, approaching him in the lounge. He said in an offhand voice, “You are now aware of the threat you face. On Earth I may be unable to help you.”

  Farr’s resentment had not diminished. He said, “On Earth you’ll probably be executed for murder.”

  “No, Aile Farr Sainh, it will not be proved against me.”

  Farr examined the pale narrow face. Iszic and Earther—evolved from different stock to the same humanoid approximation: simian, amphibian. But there would never be a rapport or sympathy between the races. Farr asked curiously, “You didn’t kill them?”

  “Certainly it is unnecessary to iterate the obvious to a man of Aile Farr’s intelligence.”

  “Go ahead, iterate it. Reiterate it. I’m stupid. Did you kill them?”

  “It is unkind of you to require an answer to this question.”

  “Very well, don’t answer. But why did you try to pin it on me? You know I didn’t do it. What have you got against me?”

  Omon Bozhd smiled thinly. “Nothing whatever. The crime, if crime it was, could never be proved against you. The investigation would delay you two or three days, and allow other matters to mature.”

  “Why did you retract your accusation?”

  “I saw I had made a mistake. I am hominid—far from infallible.”

  Sudden anger threatened to choke Farr. “Why don’t you stop talking in hints and implications? If you’ve got something to say—say it.”