by Jack Vance
Traz shrugged. “Perhaps; who knows?”
The Dirdirman came wearily across the plaza and took shelter only a few yards from the foot of the pedestal, where he wrapped himself in his tattered garments and bedded himself down. Traz grumbled under his breath and lay back into the twigs and seemed to go instantly to sleep. Reith looked out across the old city and mused upon his extraordinary destiny … Az appeared in the east, glowing pale pink through the haze to send a strange light along the ancient avenues. The vista was one of eerie fascination: a scene unreal, the stuff of strange dreams. Now Braz lifted into the sky; the broken columns and toppled structures cast double shadows. One particular shape at the end of an avenue resembled a brooding statue. Reith wondered why he had not noticed it previously. It was a gaunt man-shaped figure seven or eight feet tall, legs somewhat apart, head bowed as if in intense concentration, one hand under the chin, the other behind the back. The head was covered by a soft hat with a drooping brim; a cloak hung from the shoulders; the legs seemed encased in boots. Reith looked more intently. A statue? Why did it not move?
Reith brought forth his scanscope. The creature’s visage was in dark shadow; but, adjusting focus, zoom and gain, Reith was able to glimpse a long gaunt countenance. The gnarled half-human, half-insect features were set in a frozen grimace; as Reith watched, the mouth-parts worked slowly, moving in and out … The creature moved, taking a single long stealthy step forward, again freezing into position. It held a long arm aloft in a minatory gesture, for no purpose comprehensible to Reith. Traz had awakened; he followed Reith’s gaze. “Phung!”
The creature whirled about as if it had heard the sound and danced two great strides to the side.
“They are insane,” whispered Traz. “Mad demons!”
The Dirdirman was not yet aware of the Phung. He fretfully moved his cloak, trying to make himself comfortable. The Phung made a gesture of gleeful surprise, and gave three bounds which took him to a spot only six feet from the Dirdirman who still fidgeted with his cloak. The Phung stood looking down, again non-moving. It stooped, picked up several small bits of gravel. Holding its long arm over the Dirdirman it dropped one of the pebbles.
The Dirdirman gave a fretful jerk, but still not seeing the Phung, settled himself again. Reith winced and called out: “Hey!”
Traz hissed in consternation. The effect upon the Phung was comical. It gave a great leap back, turned to stare toward the pedestal, arms outspread in extravagant surprise. The Dirdirman, on his knees, discovering the Phung, could not move for horror.
“Why did you do that?” cried Traz. “It would have been content with the Dirdirman!”
“Shoot it with your catapult,” Reith told him.
“Bolts won’t touch it, swords won’t cut it.”
“Shoot at its head.”
Traz gave a despairing sound, but bringing forth his catapult, he aimed, snapped the release. The bolt sped toward the pallid face. At the last second, the head jerked aside, the bolt clashed against a stone buttress.
The Phung picked up a chunk of rock, swung back its long arm, hurled the rock with tremendous force. Traz and Reith fell flat; the stone splintered behind them. Reith wasted no further time and aimed his gun at the creature. He touched the button; there was a click, a hiss; the needle struck into the Phung’s thorax, exploded. The Phung leapt into the air, uttered a croak of dismay and came down in a heap.
Traz clutched Reith’s shoulder. “Kill the Dirdirman, quick! Before he flees!”
Reith descended from the pedestal. The Dirdirman snatched forth his sword: apparently the only weapon he carried. Reith put his gun in his belt, held up his hand. “Put up your sword; we have no reason to fight.”
The Dirdirman, puzzled, moved back a step. “Why did you kill the Phung?”
“It was about to kill you; why else?”
“But we are strangers! And you —” the Dirdirman peered through the gloom “— are sub-men. Do you think to kill me yourself? If so —”
“No,” said Reith. “I only want information; then, so far as I am concerned, you may go your way.”
The Dirdirman grimaced. “You are as mad as the Phung. Still, why should I persuade you differently?” He came a step or two forward, to inspect Reith and Traz at closer range. “Do you inhabit this place?”
“No; we are travelers.”
“Then you would not know of a place suitable for me to spend the night?”
Reith pointed to a pedestal. “Climb to the top, as we have done.”
The Dirdirman gave his fingers a petulant flicker. “That is not to my taste, not at all. And there may well be rain.” He looked back to the slab of concrete under which he had taken shelter, then to the corpse of the Phung. “You are an obliging pair: docile and intelligent. As you see, I am tired and must be allowed to rest. You are at hand; I would like you to stand guard while I sleep.”
“Kill the nauseous brute!” muttered Traz in a passion.
The Dirdirman laughed: a queer gasping chuckle. “That’s more the way of a sub-man!” He spoke to Reith. “Now you are a queer one. I can’t place your type. Some strange hybrid? Where, then, is your home region?”
Reith had decided that the less attention drawn to himself the better; he would say no more of his terrestrial origin. But Traz, stung by the Dirdirman’s condescension, cried out: “Not a region! He is from Earth, a far world! The home of true men like myself! You are a freak!”
The Dirdirman wagged his head reproachfully. “Of mad-folk, a pair. Well, then, what can one expect?”
Reith, uncomfortable at Traz’s disclosures, quickly changed the subject. “What do you do here? Was the Dirdir flyer searching for you?”
“Yes, I fear so. They did not find me, I took good care to ensure.”
“You are a fugitive?”
“Precisely.”
“What is your crime?”
“No matter; you would hardly understand; it is beyond your capabilities.”
Reith, more amused than annoyed, turned back to the pedestal. “I plan to sleep. If you intend to live till morning, I suggest that you climb high, out of reach of the Phung.”
“I am puzzled by your solicitude,” was the Dirdirman’s wry remark.
Reith made no reply. He and Traz returned to their pedestal and the Dirdirman gingerly climbed another nearby.
The night passed. The clouds pressed heavily upon them, but produced no rain. Dawn came imperceptibly; and presently brought light the color of dirty water. The Dirdirman’s pedestal was bare. Reith assumed that he had gone his way. He and Traz descended to the plaza, built a small fire to dispel the chill. Across the plaza the Dirdirman appeared.
Observing no signs of hostility, he approached step by step, at last to stand a wistful fifty feet away, a long loose-limbed harlequin with garments much the worse for wear. Traz scowled and prodded the fire but Reith gave him a civil greeting: “Join us, if you’re of a mind.”
Traz muttered, “A mistake! The creature will do us harm! Such as he are smooth-tongued and supercilious; and man-eaters to boot.”
Reith had forgotten this latter characteristic and gave the Dirdirman a frowning inspection.
For a period there was silence. Then the Dirdirman said tentatively, “The longer I consider your conduct, your garments, your gear, the more puzzled I become. Whence did you claim to originate?”
“I made no claims,” said Reith. “What of yourself?”
“No secret there. I am Ankhe at afram Anacho; I was born a man at Zumberwal in the Fourteenth Province. Now, having been declared a criminal and a fugitive, I am of no greater consequence than yourselves, and I will make no pretensions otherwise. So here we are, three unkempt wanderers huddled around a fire.”
Traz growled under his breath. Reith, however, found the Dirdirman’s frivolity, if such it was, refreshing. He asked, “What was your crime?”
“You would find it difficult to understand. Essentially, I disregarded the perquisites of a certain Enze E
do Ezdowirram, who brought me to the attention of the First Race. I trusted to ingenuity and refused to be chastened. I compounded my original offense; I exacerbated the situation a dozen times over. At last in a spasm of irritation I dislodged Enze Edo from his seat a mile above the steppe.” Ankhe at afram Anacho made a gesture of whimsical fatalism. “By one means or another I evaded the Derogators; so now I am here, without plans and no resources other than my —” Here he used an untranslatable word, comprising the ideas of intrinsic superiority, intellectual élan, the inevitability of good fortune deriving from these qualities.
Traz gave a snort and went off to hunt his breakfast. Anacho watched with covert interest and presently sauntered after him. The two ran here and there through the rubble, catching and eating insects with relish. Reith contented himself with a handful of pilgrim pods.
The Dirdirman, hunger appeased, returned to examine Reith’s clothes and equipment. “I believe the boy said ‘Earth, a far planet’.” He tapped his button-nose with a long white finger. “I could almost believe it, were you not shaped precisely like a sub-man, which renders the idea absurd.”
Traz said in a somewhat lordly tone, “Earth is the original home of men. We are true men. You are a freak.”
Anacho gave Traz a quizzical glance. “What is this, the creed of a new sub-man cult? Well then, it is all the same to me.”
“Enlighten us,” requested Reith in a silky voice. “How did men come to Tschai?”
Anacho made an airy gesture. “The history is well-known and perfectly straightforward. On Sibol the home-world the Great Fish produced an egg. It floated to the shore of Remura and up the beach. One half rolled into the sunlight and became the Dirdir. The other rolled into the shade and became Dirdirmen.”
“Interesting,” said Reith. “But what of the Chaschmen? What of Traz? What of myself?”
“The explanation is hardly mysterious; I am surprised that you ask. Fifty thousand years ago the Dirdir drove from Sibol to Tschai. During the ensuing wars Old Chasch captured Dirdirmen. Others were taken by the Pnume; and later by the Wankh. These became Chaschmen, Pnumekin, Wankhmen. Fugitives, criminals, recalcitrants and biological sports hiding in the marches interbred to produce the sub-men. And there you have it.”
Traz looked to Reith. “Tell the fool of Earth; explain his ignorance to him.”
Reith only laughed.
Anacho gave him a puzzled appraisal. “Beyond question you are a unique sort. Where are you bound?”
Reith pointed to the northwest. “Pera.”
“The City of Lost Souls, beyond the Dead Steppe … You will never arrive. Green Chasch range the Dead Steppe.”
“There is no way to avoid them?”
Anacho shrugged. “Caravans cross to Pera.”
“Where is the caravan route?”
“To the north, at no great distance.”
“We will travel with a caravan then.”
“You might be taken and sold for a slave. Caravan-masters are notoriously without scruple. Why are you so anxious to reach Pera?”
“Reasons sufficient. What are your own plans?”
“I have none. I am a vagabond no less than yourself. If you do not object I will travel in your company.”
“As you wish,” said Reith, ignoring Traz’s hiss of disgust.
They set forth into the north, the Dirdirman maintaining an inconsequential chatter which Reith found amusing and occasionally edifying, and which Traz pretended to ignore. At noon they came to a range of low hills. Traz shot a skate-shaped ruminant with his catapult. They built a fire, broiled the animal on a spit and made a good meal. Reith asked the Dirdirman, “Is it true that you eat human flesh?”
“Certainly. It can be the most tender of meats. But you need not fear; unlike the Chasch, Dirdir and Dirdirmen are not compulsive gourmands.”
They climbed up through the hills, under low trees with soft blue and gray foliage, trees laden with plump red fruits which Traz declared poisonous. Finally they breasted the ridge, to look out over the Dead Steppe: a flat, gray waste, lifeless except for tufts of gorse and pilgrim plant. Below, almost at their feet, ran a track of two wide ruts. It came up from the southeast, skirted the base of the hills, passed below, then three miles northwest turned among a cluster of rock towers, or outcrops, which rose near the base of the hills like dolmens. The track continued to the northwest, dwindled away across the steppe. Another track led south through a pass in the hills, another swung away to the north-east.
Traz squinted down at the outcrops, then pointed. “Look yonder through your instrument.”
Reith brought forth his scanscope, scrutinized the outcrops.
“What do you see?” asked Traz.
“Buildings. Not many — not even a village. On the rocks, gun emplacements.”
“This must be Kazabir Depot,” mused Traz, “where caravans transfer cargo. The guns protect against Green Chasch.”
The Dirdirman made an excited gesture. “There may even be an inn of sorts. Come! I am anxious to bathe. Never in my life have I known such filth!”
“How will we pay?” asked Reith. “We have no coin, no trade-goods.”
“No fear,” declared the Dirdirman. “I carry sequins sufficient for us all. We of the Second Race are not ingrates and you have served me well. Even the boy shall eat a civilized supper, probably for the first time.”
Traz scowled and prepared a prideful retort; then, noticing Reith’s amusement, managed a sour grin of his own. “We had best depart; this is a dangerous place, a vantage for the Green Chasch. See the spoor? They come up here to watch for caravans.” He pointed to the south, where the horizon was marked by an irregular gray line. “Even now a caravan approaches.”
“In that case,” said Anacho, “we had best hurry to the inn, to take accommodation before the caravan arrives. I have no wish for another night on the gorse.”
The clear Tschai air, the extent of the horizons, made distances hard to judge; by the time the three had descended the hills the caravan was already passing along the track: a line of sixty or seventy great vehicles, so tall as to seem top-heavy, swaying and heaving on six ten-foot wheels. Some were propelled by engines, others by hulking gray beasts with small heads which seemed all eyes and snout.
The three stood to the side and watched the caravan trundle past. In the van three Ilanth scouts, proud as kings, rode on leap-horses: tall men, wide-shouldered, narrow of hip, with keen sharp features. Their skins were radiant yellow; their raven-black hair, tied into stiff plumes, glistened with varnish. They wore long-billed black caps crowned by jawless human skulls, and the plume of hair rose jauntily just behind the skull. They carried a long supple sword like that of the Emblems, a pair of hand-guns at their belts, two daggers in their right boot. Riding past on their massive leap-horses they turned uninterested glances down at the three wayfarers, but deigned no more.
Great drays rumbled past. Some were top-heavy with bales and parcels; others carried tiers of cages, in which blank-faced children, young men, young women, were mixed indiscriminately. Every sixth vehicle was a gun-cart manned by gray-skinned men in black jerkins and black leather helmets. The guns were short wide-mouthed tubes for the discharge, apparently by propulsor-field, of projectiles. Others, longer, narrow of muzzle, were hung with tanks, and Reith presumed them flame-ejectors.
Reith said to Traz, “This is the caravan we met at Iobu Ford.”
Traz gave a gloomy nod. “Had we taken it I might yet have carried Onmale … But I am not sorry. There was never such a weight as Onmale. At night it would whisper to me.”
A dozen of the drays carried three-story lodges of black-stained timber, with cupolas, decks and shaded verandahs. Reith looked at them with envy. Here was the comfortable way to travel the steppes of Tschai! A particularly massive dray carried a house with barred windows and iron-bound doors. The front deck was enclosed by heavy wire mesh: in effect, a cage. Looking forth was a young woman, with a beauty so extraordinary that it s
eemed to have a vitality of its own, like the Onmale emblem. She was rather slight, with skin the color of dune sand. Dark hair brushed her shoulders; her eyes were the clear brown-gold of topaz. She wore a small rose-red skull-cap, a dull red tunic, trousers of white linen, rumpled and somewhat soiled. As the dray lurched past she looked down at the three wayfarers. For an instant Reith met her eyes, and was shocked by the melancholy of her expression. The dray rolled past. In an open doorway at the rear stood a tall woman, bleak-featured, with glittering eyes, an inch-long bristle of brown-gray hair. In vast curiosity Reith applied to Anacho for information but to no avail. The Dirdirman had neither knowledge nor opinion.
The three followed the caravan past the fortified rock-juts, into a wide sandy compound. The caravan master, a small intensely active old man, ranged the vehicles in three ranks: the cargo wagons next to the depot warehouse, then the slave-carriers’ houses and barracks, and finally the gun-carts with the weapons directed toward the steppe.
Across the compound stood the caravansary, a slope-sided two-storied structure of compacted earth. The tavern, kitchen and common-room occupied the lower floor; on the second was a row of small chambers opening upon a porch. The three wayfarers found the innkeeper in the common-room: a burly man in black boots and a brown apron, with skin as gray as wood-ash. With raised eyebrows he looked from Traz in nomad costume to Anacho and his once-elegant Dirdir garments to Reith, in Earth-style whipcord breeches and jacket, but made no difficulty about providing accommodation and agreed to provide new garments as well.
The chambers were eight feet wide, ten feet long. There was a bed of leathern thongs across a wooden frame, with a thin pallet of straw, a table with basin and ewer of water. After the journey across the steppe, the accommodations seemed almost luxurious. Reith bathed, shaved with the razor from his survival kit, donned his new garments in which he hoped to be less conspicuous: loose trousers of brown-gray canvas, a shirt of rough white homespun, a black short-sleeved vest. Stepping out on the porch he looked down into the compound. His old life on Earth: how remote it seemed! Compared to the bizarre multiplicity of Tschai, the old existence was drab and colorless — though not the less desirable for all that. Reith was forced to admit that his initial desolation had become somewhat less poignant. His new life, for all its precariousness, held zest and adventure. Reith looked across the compound toward the dray with the iron-bound house. The girl was a prisoner: so much was evident. What was her destiny that she should display such anguish?