But the cargoes were made up for overseas shipment, or broken up for internal distribution, in Pemath Old Port. Which was something else again. The dirty, slow, powerful paratugs, obsolete elsewhere for years, still plied their ways through the oily, shallow waters of the Inner Sea, north and south of the Double Ports, towing behind them their liqueous cargo in great, fish-shaped tows of tough but flexible plastoid, which ran more below the water than above it. A skilled “tow-tapper,” as these latter-day pirates were called, adjusting his paravanes to a nicety, could sweep down of a dark night, cut the tow loose, and carry it away behind his own — fleeter, armed — vessel, without losing a drop of it. Sometimes a firm of tow-shippers was informed that “a loose tow had been found adrift” — or, “washed ashore” — and those whose prize it was by right of salvage would sell it back at a reasonable price. But often as not no open traces were ever observed again. Owners’ names could not be stamped upon a liquid. The trade, or profession, was a risky one; it usually paid off well, though.
Crime, however, is rarely sterile, and organized crime never is. Infection breeds infection; officials who wink at one class of offenses soon become stone-blind to others. Some who become aware do not always abhor, and very often they envy, and very often they emulate. Behind the lion (so ran a proverb of Ancient Earth: proverb no more than a statement of fact) followed the hyena, and behind the hyena, the jackal. In Pemath a man who merely deprived another man of property suffered little stigma — unless, of course, he should be caught and punished — he paid, instead, in keeping corrupt officials and in risking and often suffering the depredatory attacks of those whose policy was to do unto others what those others had done unto others yet. Big thieves have little thieves to bite ‘em. And bought officials demonstrate their corroded morality by often not staying bought. Tow-tappers, however neatly and cleanly they tapped their tows, had to fight off the human hyenas and jackals who snarled and yelped and snapped for a bite of the carcass …
And those who had owned the carcass while it was still a live thing, however used to the circumstances of Pemathi commerce and Pemathi crime they might be, did not necessarily always shrug philosophically and obey the great eternal commercial adage, Pass it along to the consumer.
“Oh, come,” Atén aDuc said, disparagingly, lifting the lid off a section of the bright copper complex, and fishing out a goody which he popped into his mouth; chewed; swallowed; brushed scented water across his lips and wiped them dry. Continued, “Surely you don’t believe that the Joint Commission or the Interleague Powers hired a man to sling leeri at you?”
Jerred Northi stretched out in his up-seat and looked at the carven ceiling. “Not directly, no. But it’s the IL nations who’ve been clamoring for a crackdown on piracy, as they’re pleased to call it. ‘Wherever it may be found’ — a pretty piece of funny talk; where is it found? Only here. And the Joint Commission is their local arm and hand. So the JC puts the screws on its Pemathi members until they can’t get by with smiles and lies and promises. Well, ‘Ten … What do you suppose? Your government, or what passes for it, may be resigned, if it has to, to going without the graft that tow-tapping means — for a while. But they’re not for a while or a minute going to risk an actual investigation. Are they? Why should they trust me? I don’t trust them. Why shouldn’t Governancer uFon or Militar iGer or the rest of them want me out of the way? Think how embarrassing for them if I were got into the interrogation seat and made to answer questions about whom I bribed and with how much or how often? Your governancers and militars would think no more of leeri-ing me than of cracking a flea.”
Atén aDuc sucked a last shred of savor from his teeth. “Or of breaking a butterfly on a wheel, since we seem to be drawing metaphors from the insect world. As far as scruple was concerned. But the effort rules it out. No. I am not convinced.”
Neither was his younger guest. Still, he had no other notions. Once again he went through the night’s events, beginning with the even earlier events — the crackdown on tow-tapping, the raid on the little South Coast harbor where he’d set up headquarters over two years ago, the sequestration of his account in the National Fiscal, the appearance of Pemathi police and militia in three successive places he passed through on his flight north — which, he was convinced, had served somehow as a prelude. “I wasn’t fool enough to keep very much … comparatively … in the NatFisc, of course. I’ve got quite a bit, well, some place else. Not that I mistrust you, you understand. That wasn’t what I went to New Port for, though. And I really had thought that no one there connected me — me, I mean, the tow-tapper, with the me who’d been keeping up my old apartments there. So it was rather a chill to spot the JC’s plaindressmen keeping watch outside. That indefinable, unmistakable look they have, you know —
“Well, that stamped it and sealed it, as far as I was concerned. I’ve been in Pemath most of my life, and despite all my bitching and slanging, I’m used to it and hadn’t planned on quitting it. Not so soon as this, anyway. But what else is there to do? Obviously I can’t leave by any of the open ways. Not now. So I went up to Matan iNac’s three-dish place to make the other kind of connection. Said the right words, everything. And they — he — whoever — was ready and waiting for me. First the fire-charge, then the leeri. So: if it’s not your chiefs of state, then who in the Hell is it?”
Atén aDuc picked up from the little stand beside him a thular, long, and dark of wood, and rich with inlays and bandings of silver and gold, and blew a rift of soft, deep notes from it. Only a fragment of music, brief, but it evoked faint conjectures of the time when Pemath and her people were not divided between the oppressing few and the oppressed many. With an abrupt gesture quite different from his usual mannered calm, he put the instrument back on its elaborately carven stand, turned his full attention to his younger friend once more.
“The time to reflect on that and on other matters of philosophical inquiry will be when you are far away and safe. You ought to have realized that Matán iNac can operate only with someone’s — quite a few someones’ — connivance. As it happens, that particular graft is one of the plums of two of my fellow-countrymen whose names you mentioned just a little while ago: Governancer uFon and Militar iGer. They could have wanted you out of the way: true. They could have figured that sooner or later you would wind up at Tan’s: true. They could have had a man waiting to fire-charge you: true. But … they could have the same man — or another — waiting to leeri you? Not true. Leeri are too new, and if one thing is sure it is that Pemath does not try new things. That is why we are what we are and how we are. Psychologically, I tell you, it is impossible that what passes for our government should have tried that. And it seems to me equally impossible, psychologically, that anyone who would try leeri would have first tried an attack with anything as old-fashioned and clumsy as a fire-charge. So — well — add it up. What do you get?”
Jerred said, promptly, “I get the message that I better get out of here and far away from here, and quietly, and quickly. Because, although I don’t know who or why, someone (or, as you’d put it) a few someones besides the government of Pemath is after my ass. You know almost everything. Do you know who?”
Atén aDuc shook his head, pulled at his lower lip. “No. I repeat, that’s not the prime question. Better ask: where is it you’re going that’s far away from here? And how are you going to do it quietly and quickly? I don’t know those answers, either. I know who does, though … for a price of course … need I say? … in Pemath? … for a price … . Lady Mani.”
The younger man made a small sound of surprise, quickly overcome by a long souad of disgust.
“But why?” aDuc was himself surprised at this reaction.
A look of loathing, hatred, contempt, of even physical revulsion, writhed upon Jerred Northi’s face.
“There’s a why,” he said, after a moment, “and there’s a why not. It’s not because she was certainly once a whore, though she’s pretty much covered that up. And it’s not beca
use she’s certainly still herself a whoremonger, though she pretty much covers that up. I have no right to despise the shopkeeper where I’ve gone myself to shop. But — damn it, ‘Ten! She runs the biggest kiddy fair cartel in the country. Doesn’t she? I mean — child hunts!”
The older man sighed. “You haven’t lived in Pemath long enough, Jer,” he said, “no matter how long you have lived here, if you still react like that. Pemath is not Tarnis. Or Baho or Lermencas. Or anywhere else. Do you know how many of our children die of hunger alone every day? You say, ‘Oh, how dreadful that this child should be hunted!’ I say, ‘The day the child is hunted is the day it’s sure to eat.’ Don’t bother me with your tender stomach. Pushipushi. What, you are still making faces? By my forefathers’ foreskins! Why?”
“Because,” said Northi, in a low voice that commanded attention better than a shout. “Because … I think … that I was once, myself … I’m not sure, I’m not sure, but I’m sure enough … that I was at least one time a huntee-kid myself — ” He looked sick. He seemed to crouch, and he swallowed hard.
Atén aDuc’s face for a moment showed shock, then sympathy. Then simply fatigue. Then all three vanished. The urbane mask slid into place again. He shrugged. “Well, there you are. And you are alive and almost thirty years old and coarsely healthy and you have had much sport and pleasure in your life and you hope to grow much older and stay at least as healthy and have much more sport and pleasure. So you will allow me to gamble on the likelihood that you were not followed here, and to introduce you to the presence of Lady Mani — not so simple or easy, you know — and allow her to take it (and you) from there. Or perhaps you prefer to go on dodging around until someone sets you on fire or loops a leeri around your neck. Eh?”
“No … .”
Atén aDuc stroked his thin, red moustache. He gave a very small, very short sigh. Then he reached over for his thular once again. “By and by I shall set things in motion. It’s still too early. Meanwhile, there is food, there is drink, there are things to inhale, there is also some music about to be played. Or you may simply wish to sleep.”
He placed the thular to his lips. The notes came forth, slow, simple at first, then less slow and more intricate. His face changed utterly. It became the face of a lover, lost in the contemplation of his love.
Jerred Northi crouched on the up-seat.
CHAPTER TWO
Ronk Krakar, a typical Bahon (so he thought of himself and was content to have others think of him) with a typically explosive Bahon name, was feeling altogether rather explosive. It wasn’t that the Tarnisi were unpleasant to him. At least, certainly not unpleasant in a way he’d met with elsewhere, because he was a Bahon … the way some other nationals were unpleasant because the United Syndicates of Bahon had a deserved reputation for staunchly looking out for their own interests. There had never been any disgusting incident of going to the Tarnisi theater and being obliged to walk out in the middle of a so-called comedy because the thing contained actors made up as caricatures of Bahon. That had happened to him before; he grunted angrily as he recalled his then-host following him out with feigned regret which broke into uncontrolled laughter as he recalled the stage mockery he was even then deploring: mock Bahon names, mock Bahon accents. No —
There was nothing coarse about the Tarnisi. And they had no particular prejudice against Baho or the Bahon. It was simply that they were concerned only with themselves, and seemed unable ever to regard foreigners as fellow adults. Here, for example: He’d been waiting many minutes in the guest rooms of the office in Tarnis Town of their current Commercial Deputy, Hob Mothiosant. For a man not to be prompt for an appointment was bad enough, for a businessman it ought to have been out of the question, but for a government official … ! And then this effete nonsense of “guest rooms” as office adjuncts! Krakar had come on business, important business, traveling thousands of miles, and not to be shown into some sort of — he lacked the words, the experience — was brusque to the pretty girl who was opening boxes of games (games!) and offering to show him how they were played and to play with him (play!) — or to dance with him or for him, or to employ various musical instruments in his entertainment. No, he did not desire that, nor did he wish to swim or to bathe … his mind, not too accomplished in the language, backtracked, corrected itself, was scandalized: She had offered to bathe him! How effete, how typical!
He cleared his throat, glanced around the (admittedly) gracious chambers, resisted an angry impulse to stride out, flung himself down in a chair and picked up a book without looking at it. In an instant the guest-girl, not ruffled in the slightest, was at his side, turning the pages for him.
“See, this is a very ancient illustrated text, my great lord,” she said, in her pleasant voice, “of our national epic, The Volanthani. Lord Maddary rides home from the hunting and finds his wife has been rapted away by the Volanth … .” Her slender hands turned the page, rings flashing on long, lovely fingers. Tarnisi in archaic costume made stylized gestures, were attacked by a multitude of ugly, stunted, apelike figures, caricatures, uniformly evil of expression. “See, my great lord: the Volanth. Ugh, how disgusting!” Gradually Krakar allowed the pleasure of voice and presence to soothe him of his annoyance, took no particular notice of the narrative except to derive mild, automatic, low-keyed pleasure from the soft colors of the pictures. Was, at length, caught up with some confusion and surprise at the end.
“I don’t understand. I thought she was his wife.”
“She was his wife, great lord.”
“Then why did he kill her?”
“She could not have returned to live with him, great lord, after the disgrace of being held in capture by the Volanth.”
“I see … .” But did he? “Well. In that case, since he could not keep her, why did he bother to go after her in the first place?”
The girl seemed at some loss to know what to answer. Probably no one had ever brought this inconsistence to her attention before. Chimes sounded. She rose from her knees, gently closed the book. “Pemathi boy is coming presently, my great lord.”
The “boy” turned out to be a portly, elderly Pemathi, grey shot all through his once red hair, and dressed in a fashion which he, Krakar, had never observed in Pemath — or, indeed, anywhere else outside of books. Drab kilt and coat and cap, unknown in Pemath proper for generations, were evidently still not merely traditional, but required, here among the sojourning Pemathi servant class in Tarais.
“Master, we go-see Himself now. Sorry for bad delay. My own guilt.”
Ronk Krakar did not believe it for a moment, of course, but at least the excuse returned him to a familiarity where tardiness was at least a matter incurring guilt and requiring excuses. Behind him he heard the guest-girl murmur, “Return another time, my great lord, and renew my joy.” He grew a trifle warm about the skin, reflecting on the phrase, and its possible (though this time unjustified) implications. If someone had told him that the offices of the Commercial Deputation were the suites of a palace, Krakar would not have had any trouble believing it. Astonishing! How could so impractical a people have amassed such richness? The nuances of the beauty might be open to discussion, subject to opinion; the richness, never.
Mothiosant greeted him with some politely subdued murmur of a phrase which might have meant, My cousin’s uncle, or, My uncle’s cousin … not so near a degree of kinship which would have required them to kiss, not so distant a one which might have offended. Assuming Krakar to be susceptible to offenses of that sort. Tardiness as a matter of offense evidently did not cleave to the Tarnisi Commercial Delegate’s mind.
“I have been painting leaves again,” the man said, gesturing to a complex of art supplies which should have been sufficient to paint an entire forest. The gesturing hand came to rest in mid-air, fingers limp and languid before a sheet of some dark substance on which was a darker smudge. “You do not care for it,” he said, after a moment’s polite uncomprehending silence. “You are correct not to. What says
Sohalion? and, after all, Sohalion is leaves: if Sohalion has not said something on the subject, let no one now venture to bother saying it. ‘One should begin to paint leaves at the age of ten, one should continue painting leaves for another thirty years; after that, one may have arrived at the possibility of knowing how to paint leaves.’ Well — ” He lifted his hand, his face, his eyebrows. “And I have done none of these things. Of course it is but a wretched daub, tear it up, destroy it, Arád iGen.”
“I go-do so, Yourself,” the aid said, obediently.
Krakar ventured to turn the talk onto the proper track. “Sir, the purchasing contracts for the resins — ”
“Ah, why speak of the dull past?” Mothiosant arose from the contoured bench. “We have a pleasant, I must hope, a fascinating, I must hope, section of the present to enjoy. What says Alanas? ‘The present is a cross section of eternity,’ is it not so? Yellowtrees, have you never been there? You will enjoy, I must hope, your visit. I know that I and all of us will enjoy your visit. So. Give me your august sleeve, and I will, as we leave, point out to you one or two or at most three things of worth (some would say, ‘beauty’; such presumption is not for me) which do not disgrace this building, sordid function though it serves.”
He took hold of the tiniest bit of Ronk Krakar’s sleeve with his thumb and forefinger. The Bahon’s eyes, bewildered, met those of the Pemathi, who said, “Before, we go-take Master clotes and oter tings, go-pack tern good. Master needn’ go-worry. Go-have nice visit on Yellowtrees, Himself’s estate.”
Urged forward by the most infinitesimal of physical pressures, yet able no more to resist than if drawn by titan engines, Krakar could not on the other hand completely surrender his proper purpose. “Sir,” he said, firmly, as they walked through the corridor; “Sir, concerning the purchasing contracts for the resins — ”
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 2