by Jack Vance
Zarfo returned to the saloon. “The ship is in order. But it’s an unfamiliar model, as I feared.”
“Can we take it up?”
“We’ll have to make sure we know what we are doing. It may be minutes or hours.”
“Then we can’t let the Wankh go.”
“Awkward,” said Zarfo.
The Wankh thrust forward; Reith pushed it back and displayed his hand gun. The Wankh uttered a loud chime. Zarfo made a chirping sound. The Wankh drew back.
Reith asked: “What did you say?”
“I just gave the pidgin sound for ‘danger’. It seems to understand well enough.”
“I wish it would sit down; it makes me nervous standing there.”
“Wankh almost never sit,” said Zarfo and went to seal the entrance port.
Time passed. From various locations about the ship came calls and exclamations from the Lokhars. At Reith’s direction, Traz stood in the observation dome, watching over the field. The Wankh stood stolidly, apparently at a loss for action.
The ship shuddered; the lights flickered, went dim, came on bright once more. Zarfo looked into the saloon. “We’ve got the engines pumping. Now if Thadzei can figure out the control configurations —”
Traz called down: “The car is coming back. The floodlight has just gone on, to light the field.”
Thadzei ran through the saloon, jumped up to the control console. He peered this way and that, while Zarfo stood by his side urging him to haste. Reith set Anacho to guarding the Wankh, joined Traz in the observation dome. The car was slowing to a stop beside the ship.
Zarfo pointed here and there across the control panel; Thadzei nodded doubtfully, thrust at a set of pressure pads. The ship shuddered and heaved; Reith felt acceleration underfoot. He was departing Tschai! Thadzei made adjustments; the ship pitched. Reith reached for a stanchion; the Wankh stumbled and fell upon the settee, where it remained. From elsewhere about the ship came full-throated Lokhar curses.
Reith made his way to the bridge, to stand beside Thadzei, who desperately worked the controls, testing first one pad, then another. Reith asked: “Is there an automatic pilot?”
“Bound to be, somewhere. I can’t locate the engagement. These are by no means standard controls.”
“Do you know what you are doing?”
“No.”
Reith looked down at the dark face of Tschai. “So long as we are going up and not down, we’re in good shape.”
“If I had an hour, a single hour,” moaned Thadzei, “I could trace out the circuits.”
Jag Jaganig came into the saloon to make a querulous protest. Thadzei called back: “I’m doing the best I can!”
“It’s not good enough! We’ll crash!”
“Not yet,” said Thadzei grimly. “I see a lever I haven’t tried.” He pulled the lever; the ship skidded alarmingly and thrust off at great speed to the east. Once more the Lokhars gave a series of anguished cries. Thadzei moved the lever back to its original position. The ship came to a trembling stasis. Thadzei gave a great tremulous sigh, peering back and forth across the panel. “Like none I have ever seen!”
Reith looked out the port but saw nothing but darkness. Zarfo spoke in a calm voice: “Our altitude is not quite a thousand feet … Now it is nine hundred …”
Thadzei desperately worked the controls. Once again the ship lurched and fled eastward. “Up, up!” screamed Zarfo. “We’re diving into the ground!”
Thadzei brought the ship back to a halt. “Well then, this toggle will surely activate the repulsors.” He gave it a twitch. From aft came a sinister crackle, a muffled explosion. The Lokhars yelled mournfully. Zarfo read the altimeter. “Five hundred … Four hundred … Three … Two … One …”
Contact: a splash, a bobbing and pitching, then silence. The ship was afloat, apparently undamaged, in an unknown body of water. The Parapan? The Schanizade? Reith threw up his hands in fatalistic despair. Back once more to Tschai.
Reith jumped down to the saloon. The Wankh stood like a statue. Whatever its emotions, none were evident.
Reith went aft to the engine room, where Jag Jaganig and Belje looked disconsolately at a smouldering panel. “An overload,” said Belje. “Circuits and nodes are certainly melted.”
“Can we make repairs?”
Belje made a glum sound. “If tools and parts are aboard.”
“If time is given to us,” said Jag Jaganig.
Reith returned to the saloon. He threw himself down upon a settee and stared bleakly at the Wankh. The plan had succeeded … almost. He leaned back, sodden with fatigue. The others must be feeling the same. No useful purpose could be served by going longer without rest. He got to his feet, called the group together. Two-man watches were set; the others slumped upon settees to sleep as best they might.
The night passed. Az raced across the sky, followed by Braz. Dawn revealed a placid expanse which Zarfo identified as Lake Falas. “And never has it served a more useful purpose!”
Reith went out on the top surface of the hull, and searched the horizons through his scanscope. Hazy water stretched to south, east and west. To the north was a low shore toward which the ship was drifting, propelled by a gentle breeze from the south. Reith went back into the ship. The Lokhars had detached a panel and were unenthusiastically discussing the damage. Their attitudes gave Reith all the information he needed.
In the saloon he found Anacho and Traz gnawing on spheres of black paste encased in a hard white rind which they had taken from a locker. Reith offered one of the spheres to the Wankh, who paid no heed. Reith ate the sphere himself, finding it similar to cheese. Zarfo presently joined him and verified what Reith already had guessed. “Repairs are not feasible. A whole bank of crystals is destroyed. There are no spares aboard.”
Reith gave a gloomy nod. “As I expected.”
“What next?” demanded Zarfo.
“As soon as the wind blows us ashore we disembark and return to Ao Hidis for another try.”
Zarfo grunted. “What of the Wankh?”
“We’ll have to let him go his own way. I certainly don’t plan to murder him.”
“A mistake,” sniffed Anacho. “Best kill the repulsive beast.”
“For your information,” said Zarfo, “the main Wankh citadel Ao Khaha is situated on Lake Falas. It will not be far distant.”
Reith went back out on the foredeck. The first tussocks of the shore were only half a mile distant; beyond lay quagmire. To ground at the edge of such a morass would be highly inconvenient, and Reith was glad to see that the wind, shifting to the east, seemed to be moving the ship slowly to the west, perhaps aided by a sluggish current. Turning the scanscope along the shore Reith was able to distinguish a set of irregular juts and promontories far to the west.
From within came the sound of expostulation, followed by the thud of heavy footsteps. Out on the foredeck came the Wankh, followed by Anacho and Traz. The Wankh fixed Reith for half a second with its flicking vision, long enough to register an image, then turned by slow degrees to look around the horizon. Before Reith could prevent it — even were he able to do so — the Wankh stepped forward, ran with its peculiar lurching gait down the side of the ship and plunged into the water. Reith caught a glimpse of wet black hide, then the creature was gone into the depths.
Reith searched the surface for a period but saw no more of the Wankh. An hour later, checking the progress of the vessel, he once more turned the scanscope on the western shore. To his cold dismay he saw that the shapes he had thought to be crags were the black glass towers of an extensive Wankh fortress city. Wordlessly Reith handed the scanscope to Anacho, who made a sound of discouragement. Reith examined the swamp to the north with a new interest born of desperation.
Tussocks of white grass protruded like hairy wens from fields of black slime and stagnant ponds. Reith went below to seek material for a raft, but found nothing. The padding of the settee was welded to the structure and came away in shreds and chunks. There was
no lifeboat aboard. Reith returned to the deck and wondered what his next move should be. The Lokhars joined him: disconsolate figures in wheat-colored smocks, wind blowing the white hair back from their craggy black faces.
Reith spoke to Zarfo: “Do you know the place yonder?”
“It must be Ao Khaha.”
“If we are taken, what can we expect?”
“Death.”
The morning passed; the sun climbing toward noon dissolved the haze which shrouded the horizons, and the towers of Ao Khaha stood distinct.
The ship was noted. On the water under the city appeared a barge, which surged across the water leaving a ribbon of white wake. Reith studied it through the scanscope. Wankhmen stood on the deck: perhaps a dozen, curiously alike: slender men with death-pale skins, saturnine or, in some instances, ascetic features. Reith considered resistance: perhaps a desperate attempt to seize the barge? He decided against such a trial, which almost certainly could not succeed.
The Wankhmen scrambled aboard the ship. Ignoring Reith, Traz and Anacho, they addressed the Lokhars. “All down to the barge. Do you carry weapons?”
“No,” grunted Zarfo.
“Quick then.” Now they noticed Anacho. “What is this? A Dirdirman?” And they gave chuckles of soft surprise. They inspected Reith. “And what sort is that one?” “A motley crew, to be sure!” “Now then, all down to the barge!”
The Lokhars went first, hulk-shouldered, knowing what lay ahead. Reith, Traz and Anacho followed.
“All! Stand on the deck, at the gunwales, in a neat line. Turn your backs.” And the Wankhmen brought out their handguns.
The Lokhars started to obey. Reith had not expected such casual and perfunctory slaughter. Furious that he had not resisted from the first he cried out: “Should we let them kill us so easily? Let’s make a fight of it!”
The Wankhmen gave sharp orders: “Unless you wish worse, quick! To the gunwales!”
Near the barge the water roiled. A black shape floated lazily to the surface and produced four plangent chimes. The Wankhmen stiffened; their faces sagged into sneers of annoyance. They waved at their captives. “Back then, into the cockpit.”
The barge returned to the great black fortress, the Wankhmen muttering among themselves. It passed behind a breakwater, magnetically clamped itself to a pier. The prisoners were marshaled ashore and through a portal, into Ao Khaha.
Chapter XV
Surfaces of black glass, stark walls and areas of black concrete, angles, blocks, masses: a negation of organic shape. Reith wondered at the architecture; it seemed remarkably abstract and severe. Into a cul-de-sac, walled on three sides with dark concrete, the captives were taken. “Halt! Remain in place!” came the command.
The prisoners, with no choice, halted and stood in a surly line.
“Water yourselves at that spigot. Perform evacuations into that trough. Make no noise or disturbance.” The Wankhmen departed, leaving the prisoners unguarded.
Reith said in a wondering voice, “We haven’t even been searched! I still have my weapons.”
“It’s not far to the portal,” said Traz. “Why should we wait here to be killed?”
“We’d never reach the portal,” growled Zarfo.
“So we must stand here like docile animals?”
“That’s what I plan to do,” said Belje, with a bitter glance toward Reith. “I’ll never see Smargash more, but I may escape with my life.”
Zorofim gave a rude laugh. “In the mines?”
“I know only rumor of the mines.”
“Once a man goes underground he never emerges. There are ambushes and terrible tricks by Pnume and Pnumekin. If we are not executed out of hand we will go to the mines.”
“All for avarice and mad folly!” lamented Belje. “Adam Reith, you have much to answer for!”
“Quiet, poltroon,” said Zarfo without heat. “No one forced you to come. The fault is our own. We should abase ourselves before Reith; he trusted our knowledge; we showed him ineptitude.”
“All of us did our best,” said Reith. “The operation was risky; we failed; it’s as simple as that … As for trying to escape from here — I can’t believe that they’d leave us alone, unguarded, free to walk away.”
Jag Jaganig snorted sadly. “Don’t be too sure; to the Wankhmen we are animals.”
Reith turned to Traz, whose perceptions at times bewildered him. “Could you find your way to the portal?”
“I don’t know. Not directly. There were many turns. The buildings confuse me.”
“Then we had best remain here … There’s a bare chance that we can talk our way out of the situation.”
The afternoon passed, then the long night, with Az and Braz creating fantasies of shapes and shadows. In the chill morning, cantankerous with stiff joints and hunger, and increasingly restless because of their captors’ inattention, even the most fearful of the Lokhars were peering out of the cul-de-sac and speculating as to the whereabouts of the portal through the black glass wall.
Reith still counseled patience. “We’d never make it. Our only hope as I see it is that the Wankh may decide to be lenient with us.”
“Why should they be lenient?” sneered Thadzei. “Their justice is forthright: the same justice we use toward pests.”
Jag Jaganig was no less pessimistic. “We will never see the Wankh. Why else do they maintain the Wankhmen, except to stand between themselves and Tschai?”
“We shall see,” said Reith.
The morning passed. The Lokhars slumped torpidly against a wall. Traz, as usual, maintained his equanimity. Contemplating the boy, Reith could not help but wonder as to the source of his fortitude. Innate character? Fatalism? Did the personality of Onmale, the emblem he had worn so long, still shape his soul?
But other problems were more immediate. “This delay can’t be accidental,” Reith fretted to Anacho. “There must be a reason. Are they trying to demoralize us?”
Anacho, as peevish as any of the others, said, “There are better ways than this.”
“Are they waiting for something to happen? What?”
Anacho could supply no answers.
Late in the afternoon three Wankhmen appeared. One of these, wearing thin silver greaves and a silver medallion on a chain around his neck, appeared to be a person of importance. He surveyed the group with eyebrows lofted in mingled disapproval and amusement, as if at naughty children. “Well then,” he said briskly, “which among you is the leader of this group?”
Reith came forward with as much dignity as he could summon. “I am.”
“You? Not one of the Lokhars? What did you hope to achieve?”
“May I ask who adjudicates our offense?” Reith asked.
The Wankhman was taken aback. “‘Adjudication’? What needs to be adjudicated? The only point at issue, and a minor one, is your motive.”
“I can’t agree with you,” said Reith in a reasonable voice. “Our transgression was a simple theft; only by sheer accident did we take aloft a Wankh.”
“A ‘Wankh’! Do you realize his identity? No, of course not. He is a savant of the highest level, an Original Master.”
“And he wants to know why we took his spaceship?”
“What then? It is no concern of yours. You need only transmit the information on through me; that is my function.”
“I’ll be glad to do so, in his presence, and, I hope, in surroundings more appropriate than a back alley.”
“Zff, but you are a cool one. Do you answer to the name of Adam Reith?”
“I am Adam Reith.”
“And you recently visited Settra in Cath, where you associated with the so-called ‘Yearning Refluxives’?”
“Your information is at fault.”
“Be that as it may, we want your reason for stealing a spaceship.”
“Be on hand when I communicate with the Original Master. The matter is complex and I am certain he will have questions which cannot be answered casually.”
The Wankhman swung away in disgust.
Zarfo muttered, “You are a cool one indeed! But what do you gain by talking to the Wankh?”
“I don’t know. It’s worth trying. I suspect that the Wankhmen report only as much as suits their purposes.”
“That’s understood by everyone but the Wankh.”
“How can it be? Are they innocent? Or remote?”
“Neither. They have no other sources of information. The Wankhmen make sure the situation remains that way. The Wankh have small interest in the affairs of Tschai; they’re only here to counter the Dirdir threat.”
“Bah,” said Anacho. “The ‘Dirdir threat’ is a myth; the Expansionists are gone thousands of years.”
“Then why are they still feared by the Wankh?” demanded Zarfo.
“Mutual distrust; what else?”
“Natural antipathy. The Dirdir are an insufferable race.”
Anacho walked away in a huff. Zarfo laughed. Reith shook his head in mild disapproval.
Zarfo now said, “Take my advice, Adam Reith: don’t antagonize the Wankhmen, because you can’t win but through them. Ingratiate, truckle, fawn — and at least they’ll bear you no malice.”
“I’m not too proud to truckle,” said Reith, “if it would do any good — which it won’t. Our only hope is to push ahead … And I’ve come up with an idea or two which may help our case, if we get a chance to talk with the Wankh.”