Servants of the Wankh

by Jack Vance

  Reith considered him a moment. “May I ask why you are here?”

  “Certainly. To supply information in regard to you and your activities.”

  Reith mulled the matter over. “Are we so important?”

  “So it would seem,” said Helsse indifferently.

  Four Wankh entered the chamber, and stood by the far wall: four massive black shadows. Helsse stood straighter; the other Wankhmen became silent. It was apparent, thought Reith, that whatever the total attitude of the Wankhmen toward the Wankh might be, that attitude included a great deal of respect.

  The prisoners were urged forward, and ranged in a line before the Wankh. A minute passed, during which nothing happened. Then the Wankh exchanged chimes: soft muffled sounds at half-second intervals, apparently unintelligible to the Wankhmen. Another silence ensued, then the Wankh addressed the Wankhmen, producing triads of three quick notes, like xylophone trills, in what seemed to be a simplified or elemental usage.

  The oldest Wankhman stepped forward, listened, turned to the prisoners. “Which of you is the pirate-master?”

  “None of us,” said Reith. “We are not pirates.”

  One of the Wankh uttered interrogatory chimes. Reith thought he recognized the Original Master. The Wankhman, somewhat grudgingly, brought forth a small keyed instrument which he manipulated with astonishing deftness.

  “Tell him further,” said Reith, “that we regret the inconvenience we caused him. Circumstances compelled us to take him aloft.”

  “You are not here to argue,” said the Wankhman, “but to render information, after which the usual processes will occur.”

  Again the Master uttered chimes and was answered. Reith asked: “What is he saying, and what did you tell him?”

  The senior Wankhman said, “Speak only when you are directly addressed.”

  Helsse came forward, and producing his own instrument, played chimes at length. Reith began to feel uneasy and frustrated. Events were ranging far beyond his control. “What is Helsse saying?”

  “Silence.”

  “At least inform the Wankh that we have a case which we want to present.”

  “You will be notified if it becomes necessary for you to testify. The hearing is almost at an end.”

  “But we haven’t had a chance to speak!”

  “Silence! Your persistence is offensive!”

  Reith turned to Zarfo. “Tell the Wankh something! Anything!”

  Zarfo blew out his cheeks. Pointing at the Wankhmen he made chirping sounds. The senior Wankhman said sternly: “Quiet, you are interrupting.”

  “What did you tell him?” asked Reith.

  “I said, ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong.’ That’s all I know.”

  The Master spoke chimes, indicating Reith and Zarfo. The senior Wankhman, visibly exasperated, said: “The Wankh want to know where you planned to commit your piracies, or, rather, where you planned to take the spaceship.”

  “You are not translating correctly,” protested Reith. “Did you tell him that we are not pirates?”

  Zarfo again made sounds for “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

  The Wankhman said, “You are obviously pirates, or lunatics.” Turning back to the Wankh, he played his instrument, misrepresenting, so Reith was sure, what had been said. Reith turned to Helsse. “What is he telling them? That we are not pirates?”

  Helsse ignored him.

  Zarfo guffawed, to everyone’s astonishment. He muttered in Reith’s ear: “Remember the Dugbo? Pinch Helsse’s nose.”

  Reith said, “Helsse.”

  Helsse turned him an austere gaze. Reith stepped forward, tweaked his nose. Helsse seemed to become rigid. “Tell the Wankh that I am a man of Earth, the world of human origin,” said Reith, “that I took the spaceship only in order to return home.”

  Helsse woodenly played a set of trills and runs. The other Wankhmen became instantly agitated-sufficient proof that Helsse had translated accurately. They began to protest, to press forward, to drown out Helsse’s chimes, only to be brought up short by a great belling sound from the Master.

  Helsse continued, and at last came to an end.

  “Tell them further,” said Reith, “that the Wankhmen falsified my remarks, that they consistently do so to further their private purposes.”

  Helsse played. The other Wankhmen again started a great protest, and again were rebuked.

  Reith warmed to his task. He voiced one of his surmises, striking boldly into the unknown: “Tell them that the Wankhmen destroyed my spaceship, killing all aboard except myself. Tell them that our mission was innocent, that we came investigating radio signals broadcast a hundred and fifty Tschai-years ago. At this time the Wankhmen destroyed the cities Settra and Ballisidre from which the signals emanated, with great loss of life, and all for the same reason: to prevent a new situation which might disturb the Wankh-Dirdir stalemate.”

  The instant uproar among the Wankhmen convinced Reith that his accusations had struck home. Again they were silenced.

  Helsse played the instrument with the air of a man astounded by his own actions.

  “Tell them,” said Reith, “that the Wankhmen have systematically distorted truth. They undoubtedly have prolonged the Dirdir war. Remember, if the war ended, the Wankh would return to their home world, and the Wankhmen would be thrown upon their own resources.”

  Helsse, gray-faced, struggled to drop the instrument, but his fingers refused to do his bidding. He played. The other Wankhmen stood in dead silence. This was the most telling accusation of all. The senior Wankhman shouted: “The interview is at an end! Prisoners, form your line! March!”

  Reith told Helsse: “Request that the Wankh order all the other Wankhmen to depart, so that we may communicate without interruption.”

  Helsse’s face twitched; sweat poured down his face.

  “Translate my message,” said Reith.

  Helsse obeyed.

  Silence held the chamber, with the Wankhmen gazing in apprehension toward the Wankh.

  The Master uttered two chimes.

  The Wankhmen muttered among themselves. They came to a terrible decision. Out came their weapons; they turned them, not upon the prisoners, but upon the four Wankh. Reith and Traz sprang forward, followed by the Lokhars. The weapons were wrested away.

  The Master uttered two quiet chimes.

  Helsse listened, then slowly turned to Reith. “He commands that you give me the weapon you hold.”

  Reith relinquished the gun. Helsse turned toward the other three Wankhmen, pushed the trigger-button. The three fell dead, their heads shattered.

  The Wankh stood a moment in silence, assessing the situation. Then they departed the hall. The erstwhile prisoners remained with Helsse and the corpses. Reith took the gun from Helsse’s cold fingers, before he thought to use it again.

  The chamber began to grow murky with the coming of dusk. Reith studied Helsse, wondering how long the hypnotic state would persist. He said, “Take us outside the walls.”

  “Come.”

  Through the black and gray city Helsse took the group, finally to a small steel door. Helsse touched a latch; the door swung aside. Beyond, a spine of rock led through the dusk to the mainland.

  The group filed through the gap into the open air. Reith turned to Helsse. “Ten minutes after I touch your shoulder, resume your normal condition. You will remember nothing of what has happened during the last hour. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Reith touched Helsse’s shoulder; the group hurried away through the twilight. Before a jut of rock hid them from sight Reith looked back. Helsse stood where they had left him, looking somewhat wistfully after them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IN A PATCH of rough forestland the group slumped down in total fatigue, their stomachs crawling with hunger. By the light of the two moons Traz searched through the undergrowth and found a clump of pilgrim plant, and the group made their first meal in two days. Somewhat refreshed, they moved on through the night,
up a long slope. At the top of the ridge, they turned to look back, toward the gloomy silhouette of Ao Khaha on the moonlit sky. For a few minutes they stood, each man thinking his own thoughts, then they continued north.

  In the morning over a breakfast of toasted fungus, Reith opened his pouch. “The expedition has been a failure. As I promised, each man receives another five thousand sequins. Take them now, with my gratitude for your loyalty.”

  Zarfo took the purple-glowing pellets gingerly, weighed them in his fingers. “Above all I am an honest man, and since this was the structure of the contract, I will accept the money.”

  Jag Jaganig said: “Let me ask you a question, Adam Reith. You told the Wankh that you were a man from a far world, the home of man. Is this correct?”

  “It is what I told the Wankh.”

  “You are such a man, from such a planet?”

  “Yes. Even though Anacho the Dirdirman makes a wry face.”

  “Tell us something of this planet.”

  Reith spoke for an hour, while his comrades sat staring into the fire.

  Anacho at last cleared his throat. “I do not doubt your sincerity. But, as you say, the history of Earth is short compared to the history of Tschai. It is obvious that far in the past the Dirdir visited Earth and left a colony from which all Earthmen are descended.”

  “I could prove otherwise,” said Reith, “if our venture had been successful and we had all journeyed to Earth.”

  Anacho poked the fire with a stick. “Interesting… The Dirdir of course would not sell or transfer a spaceship. Such a theft as we perpetrated upon the Wankh would be impossible. Still-at the Great Sivishe Spaceyards almost any component can be acquired, by purchase or discreet arrangement. One only needs sequins, a considerable sum, true.”

  “How much?” asked Reith.

  “A hundred thousand sequins would work wonders.”

  “No doubt. At the moment I have barely the hundredth part of that.”

  Zarfo threw over his five thousand sequins. “Here. It pains me like the loss of a leg. But let these be the first coins in the pot.”

  Reith returned the money. “At the moment they would only make a forlorn rattling sound.”

  Thirteen days later the group came down out of the Ifnets to Blalag, where they boarded a power wagon and so returned to Smargash.

  For three days Reith, Anacho and Traz ate, slept and watched the young folk at their dancing.

  On the evening of the third day Zarfo joined them in the taproom. “All look sleek and lazy. Have you heard the news?”

  “What news?”

  “First, I have acquired a delightful property on a bend of the Whisfer River, with five fine keels, three psillas and an asponistra, not to mention the tayberries. Here I shall end my days-unless you tempt me forth on another mad venture. Secondly, two technicians this morning returned to Smargash from Ao Hidis. Vast changes are in the wind! The Wankhmen are departing the fortresses; they have been driven out and now live in huts with the Blacks and Purples. It appears that the Wankh will no longer tolerate their presence.”

  Reith chuckled. “At Dadiche we found an alien race exploiting men. At Ao Hidis we found men exploiting an alien race. Both conditions are now changed. Anacho, would you care to be liberated from your enervating philosophy and become a sane man?”

  “I want demonstration, not words. Take me to Earth.” “We can hardly walk there.”

  “At the Great Sivishe Spaceyards are a dozen spaceboats, needing only procurement and assembly.”

  “Yes, but where are the sequins?”

  “I don’t know,” said Anacho.

  “Nor I,” said Traz.

  Footnotes

  [1] Such elaborations were neither ornament nor functional disguise, but expressed, rather, the Chasch obsession for complication as an end in itself. Even the nomadic Green Chasch shared the trait. Examining their saddlery and weapons, Reith had been struck by a similarity to the metalwork of the ancient Scyths.

  [2] Sandblast: a weapon electrostatically charging and accelerating grains of sand to near-light speed, with consequent gain in mass and inertia. Upon penetrating a target, the energy is yielded in the form of an explosion.

  [3] The Emblems: nomads setting great store by small fetishes of metal, wood, and stone, each with a name, history, and personality. The warrior wearing a particular emblem becomes imbued with its essence, and in effect becomes the emblem. Traz carried Onmale, the paramount emblem of the tribe, and so was the ritual chief.

  [4] The Tschai year: approximately seven-fifths the terrestrial year.

  [5] An untranslatable word: the quality a man acquires in greater or lesser extent by the grace of his evolutions upon aspects of the “round.” A fragile, almost frivolous, equilibrium between a man and his peers, instantly disturbed by a hint of shame, humiliation, embarrassment.