The Asutra

by Jack Vance

  The others in the room hastened to contradict him. "Your information is inaccurate. Four of the black globes attacked two of the copper disks, and the copper ships were broken into fragments."

  "I wonder if we refer to the same battle," Ifness mused. "When did your affair occur?"

  "Only two days ago; we have spoken of little else since. Such events have never before occurred in the Mirkil district."

  "Where did this battle take place? " asked Ifness.

  "Over yonder in the Orgai Mountains," said Fabrache. "Behind Thrie Orgai, or so it is said; I have not been there myself."

  "Think of it, so close to Shagfe! " exclaimed Baba the innkeeper. "Hardly two days ride on a sound pacer! "

  "We are traveling in that direction," said Ifness. "I would like to inspect the locality. " He addressed the Lucky Little Survivor. "Would you care to act as our guide?"

  Fabrache tugged at his beard. He glanced aside at one of his fellows. "What is the news of the Gogursk clan? Have they made their west-faring?"

  "No fear for the Gogursks," said his friend. This-year they drive south to Lake Urman for crabs. The Orgai is empty of threat, except naturally for the predations of Hozman Sore-throat."

  From outside the inn sounded a thud of hooves, the creaking of leather, hoarse voices. The landlord looked out through the doorway and spoke over his shoulder, "Kash Blue-worms."

  At this two of the men present rose quickly and departed by the back corridor. Another called out, "Fabrache, what of you? Did you not take four Blue-worm girls to Hozman?"

  "I am not one to discuss my business in public," said the Lucky Little Survivor. "In any case, the incident occurred last year."

  The tribesmen entered the room. After glaring through the dimness they strode to tables and rapped on the planks for drink. They were nine in number, burly, moon-faced men with fringe beards, wearing limp leather trousers, black boots studded with flint cabochons, blouses of faded green Jute, headgear of dry seed pods sewed into the shape of a pointed casque; these rattled with each motion of the head. Etzwane thought them the most ruffianly band of his experience, and leaned back from the unpleasant odors that had accompanied them into the room.

  The oldest of the Kash gave his head-rattles a shake, and called out in a roaring voice, ''Where is the man who buys slaves at high prices?"

  Fabrache responded in a subdued voice, Tie is not present."

  Baba the innkeeper asked cautiously, "You have slaves to sell?"

  "We do indeed, consisting of those persons now present, save only the innkeeper. Please consider yourselves our captives."

  Fabrache uttered a cry of indignation. This is not customary procedure! A man is entitled to drink beer at Shagfe in security! "

  "Additionally," Baba declared, "I will tolerate no such conduct. What would happen to my custom? You must retract your threat."

  The old Kash grinned and rattled his seed pods. "Very well; in view of the general protest we will put our best interests to the side. Still, we must have a word with Hozman Sore-throat. He has treated the Kash clan with severity; where does he sell so many of our folk?"

  "Others have put similar questions, but received no answer," said Baba. "Hozman Sore-throat is not now in Shagfe, and I know nothing of his plans."

  The old Blue-worm made a gesture of resignation. "In that case we will drink your cellar brew and make a meal of your cooked food, the odor of which I detect."

  "All very well, and how will you pay?"

  "We carry with us sacks of safad oil, to settle our score."

  Baba said, "Bring in the oil, while I work the scum off a new cask of cellar brew."

  The evening passed without bloodshed. Ifness and Etzwane sat to the side watching the burly figures lurch back and forth across the firelight. Etzwane tried to define the way in which these roaring celebrants differed from the general population of Shant: intensity, gusto, a focus of every faculty upon the immediate instant-such qualities characterized the folk of Caraz. Trivial acts induced exaggerated reactions. Laughter racked the ribs; rage came fierce and sudden; woe was so intense as to be intolerable. Upon every aspect of existence the clansmen fixed a keen and minute perception, allowing nothing to go unnoticed. Such raptures and transports of emotion left little time for meditation, Etzwane mused. How could a Blue-worm Hulka become a musician when he suffered a congenital lack of patience? Wild dancing around the camp-fire, melees, and murders-this was more the barbarian style… Etzwane and Ifness presently departed the company. They unrolled their blankets under the overhang of the courtyard and lay down to rest. For a period Etzwane lay listening to the muffled revels from the common room. He wanted to ask Ifness his theories regarding the battle between spaceships which had occurred behind Thrie Orgai, but had no stomach for a caustic or ambiguous reply… If the asutra and their hosts had manned the copper disks, what race had built black space-globes? For that matter, what race of men with magic weapons had destroyed the Roguskhoi? Why had men, Roguskhoi, copper and black spaceships all come to Caraz to do battle?… Etzwane put a cautious question to Ifness, "Do any of the Earth worlds build space-vessels in the shape of black globes?"

  The question was succinct and precise; Ifness could find no fault with it. He answered in an even voice, "To my knowledge, no. " And he added, "I am as puzzled as yourself. It would appear that the asutra have enemies somewhere among the stars. Perhaps human enemies."

  "This possibility alone justifies your defiance of Dasconetta," declared Etzwane.

  "So it might seem."

  The Kash Blue-worms chose to sleep in the open beside their pacers; Etzwane and Ifness passed a tranquil night.

  In the cool mauve morning Baba brought them mugs of hot cellar brew with floating dollops of the sour local cheese. "If you fare toward Thrie Orgai, depart early. You will cross the Wild Waste by midafternoon, and can spend the night in a tree along the Vurush."

  "Good advice," said Ifness. "Prepare us a breakfast of fried meat and bread, and send a boy to arouse Fabrache. Additionally, we will drink herbal tea with our meal, rather than this excellent but over nutritious brew."

  "Fabrache is on hand," said the innkeeper. "He wants to leave while the Blue-worms are still torpid. Your breakfast is already prepared. It consists of porridge and locust paste, like everyone else's. As for the tea, I can boil up a broth of pepperweed, if this suits your taste."

  Ifness gave a resigned acquiescence. "Bring our pacers around to the front; we depart as soon as possible."

  CHAPTER 5

  The Kash Blue-worms. were stirring when Ifness, Etzwane, and Fabrache rode forth. One man growled a malediction; another half rose to look after them; but they were in no mood for exertion.

  From Shagfe the three rode west across the Wild Waste, an alkali flat stretching out to the limits of vision. The surface was a hard bone-white crust, powdered with a soft, acrid dust. Across the waste marched a dozen wind-devils, back and forth like dancers of a pavane, out to the horizon and back again, some tall and stately against the brilliant sky, others low to the ground, scurrying without dignity, presently collapsing into purposeless puffs and wisps. For a period Fabrache kept a watch to the rear, but when the huddle of huts disappeared into the dusty lavender distance and no bounding black shapes came in pursuit, he showed a somewhat more confident disposition. Looking sidewise toward Ifness, he spoke in a cautious voice, "Last night we struck no formal contract, but I assume that we travel in confederacy and that neither party will attempt subjugation of the other."

  Ifness endorsed this point of view. "We have no particular interest in slavery," said Ifness. "We sold a pair of prime Somkhs on our way into Shagfe, but to speak frankly, the life of a slaver is too precarious and unrewarding, at least in the Mirkil district."

  The region is over exploited," said Fabrache. "Since Hozman Sore-throat became active the population has diminished by a half. At Shagfe Inn we would see many strange faces, many different costumes and styles. Each Hulka clan maintained from thr
ee to seven fetish groups; then there would be Sorukhs from Shillinsk district, Shovel-heads and Alulas from Lake Nior, folk from over the Kuzi Kaza. A small slaver such as myself could earn a modest livelihood and keep a girl or two for his own use. Hozman Sore-throat has put an end to all this. Now we must scour the countryside for sheer sustenance."

  "Where does Hozman Sore-throat market his merchandise?"

  "Hozman keeps good secrets," said Fabrache with a spiteful sniff. "Someday he will go too far. The world is going sour; it was not thus when I was a boy. Think of it! Spaceships in battle; Red Devils looting and killing; Hozman Sore-throat and his illusory boon of inflationary prices. Then when he destroys us and depopulates Mirkil district, he will move on and work the same outrage elsewhere."

  "I look forward to meeting Hozman," said Ifness. "He must have interesting tales to tell."

  "To the contrary; he is as terse as a costive chumpa."

  "We shall see, we shall see."

  As the day progressed, the air quieted and the wind-devils disappeared; the three crossed the flat with no discomfort other than the baking heat/ By midafternoon the first slopes of the Orgai bulked ahead and the Wild Waste lay behind. As the three suns dropped behind the mountains, they rode over a hill and saw before them the broad Vurush, flowing from behind the Thrie Orgai and north into the haze. A grove of gnarled yews grew down to the water's edge, and here Fabrache chose to camp for the night, though chumpa traces were evident along the shore.

  "They cannot be avoided, no matter where we camp," said Fabrache. "Three men with firebrands can keep them at a distance, if such a need arises."

  "Then we must keep watch during the night?"

  "Not at all," replied Fabrache. "The pacers will watch, and I will keep the fire ablaze."

  He tethered the pacers to a tree and built a fire on the shore. Then, while Ifness and Etzwane collected a stack of resinous yew branches, Fabrache snared a dozen mud crabs, which he cracked, cleaned, and toasted, and meanwhile cooked meal cakes on hot, flat stones. "You are highly efficient," said Ifness. "It is a pleasure to watch you at work."

  Fabrache gave his head a dour shake. "I know nothing else but this; a skill acquired across a lifetime of hardship. I take no great pleasure from your compliment."

  "Surely you have other skills?"

  "Yes. I am reckoned a good barber. Occasionally in jest I imitate the mating antics of the ahulphs. But these are modest accomplishments; ten years after my death I will be forgotten, and one with the soil of Caraz. Still, I consider myself a fortunate man, more so than most. I have often wondered why it was given to me to live the life of Kyril Fabrache."

  "These reflections, at one time or another, have occurred to all of us," said Ifness, "but unless we are agreed upon a religion of gradated reincarnation, the question is ingenuous. " He rose to his feet and surveyed the landscape. "I assume that the Red Devils never ranged this far west?"

  Piqued by Ifness' indifference to his quest for personal truth, Fabrache gave only a short reply. "They never even reached Shagfe. " He went off to tend the pacers.

  Ifness considered the mass of the Orgai to the north, where the crag Thrie Orgai flared purple in the last rays of the setting suns. 'In this case, the spaceship battle would seem isolated from the slaughter of the Roguskhoi," he mused. "The events are of course related; there can be no doubt of this much.… Tomorrow will be an interesting day. " He made one of his rare gesticulations. "If I can produce a spaceship, even a hulk, I am vindicated. Dasconetta will be gray with rage; even now he gnaws his knuckles by the hour… We can only hope that these spaceships exist in fact, that they are something more than mare's nests."

  Etzwane, vaguely irked by the nature of Ifness' aspirations, said, "I can see no value to a wrecked spaceship; they have been known for thousands of years, and must be common throughout the system of Earth worlds."

  "True," declared Ifness, still elevated by his visions of triumph, "but these are the product of human knowledge, and many knowledges exist."

  "Bah," growled Etzwane. "Iron is iron, glass is glass, and this is the same here or at the end of the universe."

  "True once more. The gross elementals are known to all. But there is no finite limit to knowledge. Each set of apparent ultimates is susceptible to examination and must be analyzed in new terms. These succeeding layers of knowledge are numberless. Those familiar to us are each derived from the level above, or below. Conceivably entire disassociated phases of knowledge exist; the field of parapsychology comes to mind. The basic law of the cosmos is this: in a situation of infinity, whatever is possible exists in fact. To particularize, the technology which propels an alien spaceship may be different from that of Earth, and such a technology must be a matter of intense interest, if only philosophically. " Ifness considered the fire. "I must remark that augmented knowledge is not necessarily a boon, and might easily be dangerous."

  "In that case," Etzwane asked, "why are you so anxious to broadcast this knowledge?"

  Ifness chuckled. "First, it is my normal human inclination to do so. Second, the group of which I am part- from which Dasconetta would naturally be expelled- is competent to control the most dangerous secrets. Thirdly, I cannot overlook my personal advantage. If I deliver an alien spaceship to the Historical Institute, even a wrecked hulk, I will gain great prestige."

  Etzwane turned away to make up his bed, reflecting that of Ifness' three reasons, the last was probably the most cogent.

  The night passed without incident. Three times Etzwane awoke. Once he heard from far off the rumbling -challenge of a chumpa and from an even greater distance the answering calls of an ahulph tribe, but none came to disturb the camp by the river.

  Fabrache awoke before dawn. Blowing up the fire, he prepared a breakfast of porridge boiled with pepper meat and tea.

  Not long after dawn the three mounted their pacers and set off to the south along the banks of the Vurush. Gradually they rose into the Orgai.

  Shortly before noon Fabrache jerked his pacer to a halt. He cocked his head as if listening, and looked slowly to all sides.

  "What is the matter? " asked Ifness.

  Fabrache said nothing. He pointed ahead toward the gap into a stony valley. "Here is where the black globes discovered the disk ships; here is where the battle took place. " Rising to stand in his stirrups he searched the hillsides and reexamined the sky.

  "You have a presentiment," said Etzwane softly.

  Fabrache pulled nervously at his beard. "The valley has known a wonderful event; the air still tingles… Is there not something more? " Fretfully he swung his gaunt body around in the saddle, rolling his eyes from side to side. There is pressure upon me."

  Etzwane scanned the valley. To right and left, harsh gullies cut into sandstone, the high areas baking white-violet in the sunlight, the deep shadows a black bottle-green. A flicker of motion caught his eye; not a hundred feet distant crouched a large ahulph, considering whether or not to hurl a stone. Etzwane said, "Perhaps you feel the gaze of yonder ahulph."

  Fabrache swung about, annoyed that Etzwane had seen the creature first. The ahulph, a blue-black buck of a variety unknown to Etzwane, shook its ear fibers uneasily and started to move away. Fabrache called out in de-da pidgin. The ahulph paused. Fabrache spoke again, and with the swaggering waggishness typical of the higher ahulphs, it bounded down from the jut. Politely it released a waft of "gregariousness "0

  •The higher ahulphs control four odors, signifying gregariousness, hostility, and two varieties of excitement unknown to the and sidled forward. Fabrache dismounted from his pacer and signaled Etzwane and Ifness to do likewise. Tossing a chunk of cold grain cake to the ahulph, he spoke again in de-da. The ahulph made a fervent and elaborate response. _

  Fabrache turned to Ifness and Etzwane. "The ahulph watched the battle. He has explained to me the sequence of events. Two copper disk-ships landed at the end of the valley and remained there almost a week. Persons came out to walk around. They stood on two feet,
but exuded a nonhuman odor. The ahulph paid no attention to their appearance. They did nothing during their stay and came outside only at dawn and dusk. Three days ago, at noon, four black globes appeared a mile overhead. The disk-ships were taken by surprise. The black globes sent down lightning bolts and exploded both disk-ships, then departed as abruptly as they had come. The ahulphs watched the wrecks, but felt diffident about approaching. Yesterday a large disk-ship dropped from the sky. After hovering an hour, it lifted the hulk which had suffered the least damage and carried it away. Fragments of the second hulk remain."

  "Interesting news," murmured Ifness. 'Toss the creature another morsel of grain cake. I am anxious to inspect the shattered hulk."

  Fabrache scratched his chin where the first hairs of human race. The innumerable races of lower ahulphs vent only hostility and an attractive scent. The ahulph mentality at times seems to resemble human intelligence, but the similarity is misleading, and attempts to deal with ahulphs on a basis of human rationality end in frustration. The ahulph, for instance, cannot understand working for hire, no matter how carefully the matter is explained. his beard had their roots. "I must admit to a diffidence not unlike that of the ahulph. The valley holds an uncanny presence which I do not care to test."

  "Do not apologize," said Ifness. "You are not known as the Lucky Little Survivor for nothing. Will you await us here, in company with the ahulph?"

  "This I will do," said Fabrache.

  Ifness and Etzwane set off up the valley. They rode a mile, the sandstone rising to either side in crags and juts. The valley floor widened to become a sandy flat, and here they found the hulk of the second ship. The outer skin had been rent and torn in a dozen places; one entire section had disappeared. From the gaps spewed tangled metal and viscous oozes. The top surface had been exploded into tatters, which lay scattered across the plain; the ground below showed rings of white, green, and yellow powder.

  Ifness gave a hiss of vexation. He snatched out his camera and photographed the hulk. "I had expected nothing better than this; still I had hoped. What a trophy had the ship been susceptible to study! A new cosmology, in effect, to compare with our own! A tragedy to find it thus! "