by Jack Vance
The corridors were desolate and dim; Reith thought them unpromising. He hesitated, feeling tired and futile. The charts, he decided, were of no great help; he needed the assistance, willing or otherwise, of a Pnumekin. He was also very hungry. Gingerly he went to the staircase and, after ten seconds of indecision, descended, begrudging every step which took him farther from the surface. He came out into a small anteroom beside the refectory. A portal nearby gave upon what appeared to be a kitchen. Reith looked in cautiously. A number of Pnumekin worked at counters, presumably preparing food for the children in the exercise room.
Reith backed regretfully away, and went off down a side passage. This was dim and quiet, with only a few light-grains in the high ceiling. After a hundred feet the passage jogged to the side and came to an abrupt end at the brink of a drop-off. From below the sound of running water: more than likely a disposal-place for waste and garbage, Reith reflected. He halted, wondering where to go and what to do, then returned to the anteroom. Here he discovered a small storage chamber in which were stacked bags, sacks and cartons. Food, thought Reith. He hesitated; the chamber must frequently be used by the cooks. From the exercise room came the children, walking in single file, eyes fixed drearily on the floor. Reith backed into the storage room: the children would discern his strangeness far more readily than adults. He crouched at the back of the room, behind a pile of stacked cartons: by no means the most secure of hiding places, but not altogether precarious. Even if someone entered the chamber he stood a good chance of evading attention. Reith relaxed somewhat. He brought forth the portfolio and folded back the limp blue leather cover. The pages were a beautiful soft vellum; the cartography was printed with most meticulous care in black, red, brown, green and pale blue. But the patterns and lines conveyed no information; the legend was set forth in undecipherable characters. Regretfully Reith folded the portfolio and tucked it into his jacket.
From a counter in front of the kitchen the children took bowls and carried them into the refectory.
Reith watched through a cranny between the cartons, more than ever aware of hunger and thirst. He investigated the contents of a sack, to find dried pilgrim-pod, a leathery wafer highly nutritious but not particularly appetizing. The cartons beside him contained tubes of a greasy black paste, rancid and sharp to the taste: apparently a condiment. Reith turned his attention to the serving counter. The last of the children had carried their bowls into the refectory. The serving area was vacant, but on the counter remained a half-dozen bowls and flasks. Reith acted without conscious calculation. He emerged from the storage room, hunched his shoulders, went to the counter, took a bowl and a flask and retreated hurriedly to his hiding place. The bowl contained pilgrim-pod gruel cooked with raisin-like nubbins, slivers of pale meat, two stalks of a celery-like vegetable. The flask held a pint of faintly effervescent beer, with a pleasantly astringent bite. To the flask was clipped a packet of six round wafers, which Reith tasted but found unpalatable. He ate the gruel and drank the beer and congratulated himself on his decisiveness.
To the serving area came six older children: slender young people, detached and broodingly self-sufficient. Peering between the cartons, Reith decided that all were female. Five passed by the counter taking bowls and flasks. The last to come by, finding nothing to eat, stood in puzzlement. Reith watched with the guilty awareness that he had stolen and devoured her supper. The first five went into the refectory, leaving the one girl waiting uncertainly by the counter.
Five minutes passed; she spoke no word, standing with her eyes fixed on the floor. At last unseen hands set another bowl and flask down on the counter. The Pnumekin girl took the food and went slowly into the refectory.
Reith became uneasy. He decided to return up the stairs, to select one of the passages and hope to meet some lone knowledgeable Pnumekin who could be overpowered and put in fear for his life. He rose to his feet, but now the children began to leave the refectory, and Reith stood back. One by one, on noiseless feet, they filed into the exercise room. Once more Reith looked forth and once more retreated as now the five older girls issued from the refectory. They were alike as mannequins from the factory: slender and straight, with skins as pale and thin as paper, arched coal-black eyebrows, regular, if somewhat peaked, features. They wore the usual black cloaks and black hats, which accentuated the quaint and eerie non-earthliness of the earthly bodies. They might have been five versions of the same person, although Reith, even as the idea crossed his mind, knew that each made sure distinctions, too subtle for his knowing, between herself and the others; each felt her personal existence to be the central movement of the cosmos.
The serving area was empty. Reith stepped forth and on long quick strides crossed to the stairs. Only just in time: from the kitchen came one of the cooks, to go to the storage room. Had Reith delayed another moment he would have been discovered. Heart beating fast, he started up the stairs … He stopped short and stood holding his breath. From above came a soft sound: the pad-pad-pad of footsteps. Reith froze in his tracks. The sounds became louder. Down the stairs came the mottled red and black feet of a Pnume, then the flutter of black cloth. Reith hurriedly retreated, to stand indecisively at the foot of the stairs. Where to go? He looked about frantically. In the storage room the cook ladled pilgrim-pod from a sack. The children occupied the exercise-chamber. Reith had a single choice. He hunched his shoulders and stalked softly into the refectory. At a middle table sat a Pnumekin girl, she whose supper he had commandeered. Reith took what he considered the most inconspicuous seat and sat sweating. His disguise was makeshift; a single direct glance would reveal his identity.
Silent minutes passed. The Pnumekin girl lingered over the packet of wafers which she seemed especially to enjoy. At last she rose to her feet and started to leave the chamber. Reith lowered his head: too sharply, too abruptly — a discordant movement. The girl turned a startled glance in his direction and even now habit was strong; she looked past him without directly focusing her eyes. But she saw, she knew. For an instant she remained frozen, her face loose and incredulous; then she uttered a soft cry of terror, and started to run from the room. Reith was instantly upon her, to stifle her with his hand and thrust her against the wall.
“Be quiet!” Reith muttered. “Don’t make any noise! Do you understand?”
She stared at him in a kind of horrified daze. Reith gave her a shake. “Don’t make a sound! Do you understand? Nod your head!”
She managed to jerk her head. Reith took away his hand. “Listen!” he whispered. “Listen carefully! I am a man of the surface. I was kidnapped and brought down here. I escaped, and now I want to return to the surface. Do you hear me?” She made no response. “Do you understand? Answer!” He gave the thin shoulders another shake.
“Yes.”
“Do you know how to reach the surface?”
She shifted her gaze, to stare at the floor. Reith darted a glance toward the serving area; if one of the cooks should happen to look into the refectory, all was lost. And the Pnume who had descended the stairs, what of him? And the balcony! Reith had forgotten the balcony! With a sick thrill of fear he searched the high shadows. No one stood watching. But they could remain here no longer, not another minute. He grasped the girl by the arm. “Come along. Not a sound, remember! Or I’ll have to hurt you!”
He pulled her along the wall to the entrance. The serving area was empty. From the kitchen came a grinding sound and a clatter of metal. Of the Pnume there was no sign.
“Up the stairs,” whispered Reith.
She made a sound of protest; Reith clapped his hand over her mouth and dragged her to the staircase. “Up! Do as I say and you won’t be harmed!”
She spoke in a soft even voice: “Go away.”
“I want to go away,” Reith declared in a passionate mutter. “I don’t know where to go!”
“I can’t help you.”
“You’ve got to help me. Up the stairs. Quick now!”
Suddenly she turned and ran u
p the stairs, so light on her feet that she seemed to float. Reith was taken by surprise. He sprang after her, but she outdistanced him and sped down one of the corridors. In desperation she fled; in equal desperation Reith pursued, and after fifty feet caught her. He thrust her against the wall, where she stood panting. Reith looked up and down the corridor: no one in sight to his vast relief. “Do you want to die?” he hissed in her ear.
“No!”
“Then do exactly what I tell you!” growled Reith. He hoped that the threat convinced her; and indeed her face sagged; her eyes became wide and dark. She tried to speak, and finally asked: “What do you want me to do?”
“First, lead the way to a quiet place, where no one comes.”
With sagging shoulders she turned away, and proceeded along the corridor. Reith asked suspiciously, “Where are you taking me?”
“To the punishment place.”
A moment later she turned into a side corridor which almost at once ended in a round chamber. The girl went to a pair of black flint cabochons; looking over her shoulder like a fairy-tale witch, she pushed the black bulbs. A portal opened upon black space; the girl stepped through with Reith close behind. She touched a switch; from a light-panel came a wan illumination.
They stood on a ledge at the edge of a brink. A crazy insect-leg derrick tilted over profound darkness; from the end hung a rope.
Reith looked at the girl; she looked silently back at him with a kind of half-frightened half-sullen indifference. Holding to the derrick Reith looked gingerly over the brink. A cold draft blew up into his face; he turned away. The girl stood motionless. Reith suspected that the sudden convulsion of events had put her into a state of shock. The tight hat constricted his head; he pulled it off. The girl shrank back against the wall. “Why do you take off the hat?”
“It hurts my head,” said Reith.
The girl flicked her glance past him and away into the darkness. She asked in a soft muffled voice, “What do you want me to do?”
“Take me to the surface, as fast as you can.”
The girl made no answer. Reith wondered if she had heard him. He tried to look into her face; she turned away. Reith twitched off her hat. A strange eery face looked at him, the bloodless mouth quivering in panic. She was older than her underdeveloped figure suggested, though Reith could not accurately have estimated her age. Her features were wan and dreary, so regular as to be nondescript; her hair, a short black mat, clung to her scalp like a cap of felt. Reith thought that she seemed anemic and neurasthenic, at once human and non-human, female and sexless.
“Why do you do that?” she asked in a hushed murmur.
“For no particular reason. Curiosity, perhaps.”
“It is intimate,” she muttered, and put her hands up to her thin cheeks. Reith shrugged, uninterested in her modesty. “I want you to take me to the surface.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She made no answer.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” Reith asked gently.
“Not so much as the pit.”
“The pit is yonder, and convenient.”
She gave him a startled glance. “Would you throw me into the pit?”
Reith spoke in what he hoped to be a menacing voice. “I am a fugitive; I intend to reach the surface.”
“I don’t dare help you.” Her voice was soft and matter-of-fact. “The zuzhma kastchai would punish me.” She looked at the derrick. “The dark is terrible; we are afraid of the dark. Sometimes the rope is cut and the person is never heard again.”
Reith stood baffled. The girl, reading a dire meaning into his silence, said in a meek voice: “Even if I wished to help you, how could I? I know only the way to the Blue Rise pop-out, where I would not be allowed, unless,” she added as an afterthought, “I declared myself a Gzhindra. You of course would be taken.”
Reith’s scheme began to topple around his head. “Then take me to some other exit.”
“I know of none. Those are secrets not taught at my level.”
“Come over here, under the light,” said Reith. “Look at this.”
He brought forth the portfolio, opened it and set it before her. “Show me where we are now.”
The girl looked. She made a choking sound and began to tremble. “What is this?”
“Something I took from a Pnume.”
“These are the Master Charts! My life is done. I will be thrown into the pit!”
“Please don’t complicate such a simple matter,” said Reith. “Look at the charts, find a route to the surface, take me there. Then do as you like. No one will know the difference.”
The girl turned him a wild, unreasoning gaze. Reith gave her thin shoulder a shake. “What’s wrong with you?”
Her voice came in a toneless mutter. “I have seen secrets.”
Reith was in no mood to commiserate with troubles so abstract and unreal. “Very well; you’ve seen the charts. The damage is done. Now look again and find a way to the surface!”
A strange expression came over the thin face. Reith wondered if she had gone mad for a fact. Of all the Pnumekin walking the corridors, what wry providence had directed him to an emotionally unstable girl? … She was looking at him, for the first time directly and searchingly. “You are a ghian.”
“I live on the surface, certainly.”
“What is it like? Is it terrible?”
“The surface of Tschai? It has its deficiencies.”
“I now must be a Gzhindra.”
“It’s better than living down here in the dark.”
The girl said in her dull voice, “I must go to the ghaun.”
“The sooner the better,” said Reith. “Look at this map again. Show me where we are.”
“I can’t look!” moaned the girl. “I dare not look!”
“Come now!” snapped Reith. “It’s only paper.”
“Only paper! It crawls with secrets, Class Twenty secrets. My mind is too small!”
Reith suspected incipient hysteria, although her voice had remained a soft monotone. “To become a Gzhindra you must reach the surface. To reach the surface we must find an exit, the more secret the better. Here we have secret charts. We are in luck.”
She became quiet and even glanced from the corner of her eyes toward the portfolio. “How did you get this?”
“I took it from a Pnume.” He pushed the portfolio toward her. “Can you read the symbols?”
“I am trained to read.” Gingerly she leaned over the portfolio, to jerk instantly back in fear and revulsion.
Reith forced himself to patience. “You have never seen a map before?”
“I have a level of Four; I know Class Four secrets; I have seen Class Four maps. This is Class Twenty.”
“But you can read this map.”
“Yes.” The word came with sour distaste. “But I dare not. Only a ghian would think to examine such a powerful document …” Her voice trailed away to a murmur. “Let alone steal it …”
“What will the Pnume do when they find it is gone?”
The girl looked off over the gulf. “Dark, dark, dark. I will fall forever through the dark.”
Reith began to grow restive. The girl seemed able to concentrate only on those ideas rising from her own mind. He directed her attention to the map. “What do the colors signify?”
“The levels and stages.”
“And these symbols?”
“Doors, portals, secret ways. Touch-plates. Communication stations. Rises, pop-outs, observation posts.”
“Show me where we are now.”
Reluctantly she focused her eyes. “Not this sheet. Turn back … Back … Back … Here.” She pointed, her finger a cautious two inches from the paper. “There. The black mark is the pit. The pink line is the ledge.”
“Show me the nearest route to the surface.”
“That would be — let me look.”
Reith managed a distant and reflective smile: once diverted from her woes, which
were real enough, Reith admitted, the girl became instantly intense, and even forgot the exposure of her face.
“Blue-Rise pop-out is here. To get there one would go by this lateral, then up this pale orange ramp. But it is a crowded area, with administrative wickets. You would be taken and I likewise, now that I have seen the secrets.”
The question of responsibility and guilt flickered through Reith’s mind; he put it aside. Cataclysm had come to his life; like the plague it had infected her as well. Perhaps similar ideas circulated in her mind.
She darted a quick sidelong glance again. “How did you come in from the ghaun?”
“The Gzhindra let me down in a sack. I cut my way out before the Pnumekin came. I hope they decide that the Gzhindra lowered an empty sack.”
“With one of the Great Charts missing? No person of the Shelters would touch it. The zuzhma kastchai* will never rest until both you and I are dead.”
* zuzhma kastchai: the contraction of a phrase: the ancient and secret world-folk derived from dark rock and mother-soil.
“I become ever more anxious to escape,” said Reith.
“I also,” remarked the girl with ingenuous simplicity. “I do not wish to fall.”
Reith watched her a moment or two, wondering that she appeared to bear him no rancor; it was as if he had come to her as an elemental calamity — a storm, a lightning-bolt, a flood — against which resentment, argument, entreaty would have been equally useless. Already, he thought, a subtle change had come over her attitude; she bent to inspect the chart somewhat less gingerly than before. She pointed to a pale brown Y. “There’s the Palisades exit, where trading is done with the ghian. I have never been so far.”
“Could we go up at this point?”
“Never. The zuzhma kastchai guard against the Dirdir. There is continual vigilance.”
Reith pointed to other pale brown Y’s. “These are other openings to the surface?”
“Yes. But if they believe you to be at large, they will block off here and here and here —” she pointed “— and all these openings are barred, and these in Exa section as well.”