Tschai - Complete Part 66

Reith turned away. He stood looking over the salt flats. What now?

He had no ideas. His mind was empty. He backed slowly away from the warehouse. Over the main entrance someone had scrawled ONMALE. This was the name of the chief-emblem worn by Traz when Reith had first encountered him on the Kotan steppes. The word prodded at Reith's numbed consciousness. Where were Traz and Anacho?

He went to the office and looked within. Here, while he lay sleeping, gas had stupefied him; Gzhindra had tucked him into a sack and carried him away. Someone else now lay on the couchan old man asleep. Reith knocked on the wall. The old man awoke, opening first one rheumy eye, then the other. Pulling his gray cloak about his shoulders, he heaved himself erect.

"Who is there?" he cried out.

Reith discarded the caution he normally would have used. "Where are the men who worked here?"The door slid ajar; the old man came forth, to look Reith up and down.

'Some went here, some went there. One went ... yonder." He jerked a crooked thumb toward the Gla.s.s Box.

"Who was that?"

Again the cautious scrutiny. "Who would you be that doesn't know the news of Sivishe?"

"I'm a traveler," said Reith, trying to hold his voice calm. "What's happened here?"

"You look like a man named Adam Reith," said the caretaker. "At least that's how the description went. But Adam Reith could give me the name of a Lokhar and the name of a Thang that only he would know."

"Zarfo Detwiler is a Lokhar; I once knew Issam the Thang."

The caretaker looked furtively around the landscape. His gaze rested suspiciously on Zap 210. "And who is this?"

"A friend. She knows me for Adam Reith; she can be trusted."

"I have instructions to trust no one, only Adam Reith."

"I am Adam Reith. Tell me what you have to tell me."

"Come here. I will ask a final question." He drew Reith aside and wheezed in his ear: "At Coad Adam Reith met a Yao n.o.bleman."

"His name was Dordolio. Now what is your message?"

"I have no message."

Reith's impatience almost burst through his restraint. "Then why do you ask such questions?"

"Because Adam Reith has a friend who wants to see him. I am to take Adam Reith to his friend, at my own discretion."

"Who is this friend?"

The old man waved his finger. "Tut! I answer no questions. I obey instructions, no more, and thus I earn my fee."

"Well, then, what are your instructions?"

"I am to conduct Adam Reith to a certain place. Then I am done."

"Very well. Let's go."

"Whenever you are ready."

"Now."

"Come then." The old man started down the road, with Reith and Zap 210 following. The old man halted. "Not her. Just you."

"She must come as well."

"Then we cannot go, and I know nothing."

Reith argued, stormed and coaxed, to no avail. "How far is this place?"

he demanded at last.

"Not far."

"A mile? Two miles?"

"Not far. We can be back shortly. Why cavil? The woman will not run away. If she does, find another. So was my style when I was a buck."Reith searched the landscape: the road, the scattering of huts at the edge of the salt flats, the salt flats themselves. No living creature could be seen: a negative rea.s.surance at best. Reith looked at Zap 210. She looked back with an uncertain smile. A detached part of Reith's brain noted that here, for the first time, Zap 210 had smiled-a tremulous, uncomprehending smile, but nonetheless a true smile. Reith said in a somber voice: "Get in the cabin; bolt the door. Don't open it for anyone. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Zap 210 went into the cabin. The door closed; the bolt shot home. Reith said to the old man: "Hurry then. Take me to my friend."

"This way."

The old man hobbled silently along the road, and presently turned aside along a path which led across the salt flats toward the straggle of huts at the edge of Sivishe. Reith began to feel nervous and insecure. He called out: "Where are we going?"

The old man made a vague gesture ahead.

Reith demanded, "Who is the man we are to see?"

"A friend of Adam Reith's."

"Is it ... Aila Woudiver?"

"I am allowed to name no names. I can tell you nothing."

"Hurry."

The old man hobbled on, toward a hut somewhat apart from the others, an ancient structure of moldering gray bricks. The old man went up to the door, pounded, then stood back.

From within came a stir. Behind the single window was the flicker of movement. The door opened. Ankhe at afram Anacho looked forth. Reith exhaled a great gusty breath. The old man shrilled: "Is this the man?"

Anacho said, "Yes. This is Adam Reith."

"Give me my money then; I am anxious to have done with this line of work."

Anacho went within and returned with a pouch rattling with sequins.

"Here is your money. In a month come back. There will be another waiting for you if you have held your tongue meanwhile."

The old man took the pouch and departed.

Reith asked: "Where is Traz? Where is the ship?"

Anacho shook his long pale head. "I don't know."

"What!"

"This is what happened. You were taken by the Gzhindra. Aila Woudiver was wounded but he did not die. Three days after the event the Dirdirmen came for Aila Woudiver, and dragged him off to the Gla.s.s Box. He complained, he implored, he screamed, but they took him away. I heard later that he provided a spectacular hunt, running in a frenzy like a bull marmont, braying at the top of his lungs ... The Dirdirmen saw the ship when they came to take Aila Woudiver; we feared that they would return.The ship was ready to fly, so we decided to move the ship from Sivishe. I said that I would stay, to wait for you. In the middle of the night Traz and the technicians took the ship up, and flew it to a place that Traz said you would know."

"Where?" Reith demanded.

"I don't know. If I was taken, I wanted no knowledge, so that I could not be forced into betrayal. Traz wrote 'Onmale' on the shed. He said that you would know where to come."

"Let's go back to the warehouse. I left a friend there."

Anacho asked: "Do you know what he means by 'Onmale'?"

"I think so. I can't be sure."

They returned along the trail. Reith asked, "Is the sky-car still available for our use?"

"I carry the call-token. I see no reason why there should be difficulty."

"The situation isn't as bad as it might be then ... I've had an interesting set of experiences." He told Anacho something of his adventures. "I escaped the Shelters. But along the sh.o.r.e of the Second Sea Gzhindra began to follow. Perhaps they were hired by the Khors; perhaps the Pnume sent them after us. We saw Gzhindra in Urmank; probably these same Gzhindra boarded the Nhiahar. They are still on the Saschanese Islands, for all I know. Since then we apparently haven't been followed, and I'd like to leave Sivishe before they pick us up again."

"I'm ready to leave now," said Anacho. "At any instant we may lose our luck."

They turned down the road leading to Woudiver's old warehouse. Reith stopped short. It was as he had feared, in the deepest darkest layer of his subconscious. The door to the office stood ajar. Reith broke into a run, with Anacho coming after.

Zap 210 was nowhere in the office, nor in the ruined warehouse. She was nowhere to be seen.

Directly before the office the ground was damp; the prints of narrow, bare feet were plain. "Gzhindra," said Anacho. "Or Pnumekin. No one else."

Reith gazed across the salt flats, calm in the amber light of afternoon.

Impossible to search, impossible to run across salt marsh and flat, looking and calling. What could he do? Unthinkable to do nothing ... What of Traz, the s.p.a.ceship, the return to Earth which now was feasible? The idea sank from his mind like a waterlogged timber, with only the umbral shape, the afterimage, remaining. Reith sat down upon an old crate. Anacho watched a moment, his long white face drawn and melancholy, like that of a sick clown. Finally, in a somewhat hollow voice, he said, "Best that we be on our way."

Reith rubbed his forehead. "I can't go just yet. I've got to think.""What is there to think about? If the Gzhindra have taken her, she is gone."

"I realize that."

"In such a case, you can do nothing."

Reith looked toward the palisades. "She will be taken back underground.

They will swing her out over a dark gulf and after a time drop her."

Anacho hunched his shoulders in a shrug. "You cannot alter this regrettable fact so put it out of your mind. Traz awaits us with the s.p.a.ceship."

"But I can do something," said Reith. "I can go after her."

"Into the underground places? Insanity! You will never return!"

"I returned before."

"By a freak of fate."

Reith rose to his feet.

Anacho went on desperately: "You will never return. What of Traz? He will wait for you forever. I can't tell him you have sacrificed everything because I do not know where he is."

"I don't intend to sacrifice everything," said Reith. "I intend to return."

"Indeed!" declared Anacho with a sneer of vast scorn. "This time the Pnume will make sure. You will swing out over the gulf beside the girl."

"No," said Reith. "They will not swing me. They want me for Foreverness."

Anacho threw up his arms in bafflement. "I will never understand you, the most obstinate of men! Go underground! Ignore your faithful friends!

Do your worst! When do you go below? Now?"

"Tomorrow," said Reith.

"Tomorrow? Why delay? Why deprive the Pnume of your society a single instant?"

"Because this afternoon I have preparations to make. Come along: let's go into town."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

AT DAWN REITH went to stand at the edge of the salt flats. Here, months before, he and his friends had detected Aila Woudiver's signals to the Gzhindra. Reith also held a mirror; as Carina 4269 lifted into the sky, he swept the reflection back and forth across the salt flats.

An hour pa.s.sed. Reith methodically flashed the mirror, apparently to no avail. Then from nowhere, or so it seemed, came a pair of dark figures.

They stood half a mile away, looking toward Reith. He flashed the mirror.

Step by step they approached, as if fascinated. Reith went to meet them.

Gradually the three came together, and at last stood fifty feet apart.

A minute pa.s.sed. The three appraised each other. The faces of the Gzhindra were shaded under low-crowned black hats; both were pale and somewhat vulpine, with long thin noses and bright black eyes. Presently they came closer. In a quiet voice one spoke: "You are Adam Reith."

"I am Adam Reith."