Tschai - Complete Part 12

"They live like facetious maniacs, from the standpoint of all who annoy them. I have heard that they especially enjoy pranks with a bull Green Chasch and a fledged Phung, together of course. Next, should they be lucky enough to capture a Dirdir and Pnume, these are urged through laughableantics. All in a spirit of fun, of course; the Blue Chasch above all dislike boredom."

"I wonder why there is not a great war to the finish," pondered Reith.

"Are not the Dirdir more powerful than the Blue Chasch?"

"They are indeed; and their cities are grand, or so I have heard. But the Chasch have torpedoes and mines ready to destroy all the Dirdir cities in case of attack. It is a common situation: each is sufficiently strong to obliterate the other; hence neither dares more than minor unpleasantness ... Ah well, so long as they ignore me, I shall do the same for them ... There ahead is North Market. Notice, the Blue Chasch are everywhere at hand.

They love to bargain, though they prefer to cheat. You must be silent. Make no sign, give no nod or shake! Otherwise they will claim that I have sold at some ruinous price."

Emmink turned his dray into an open area protected by an enormous parasol. Now began the most frantic bargaining Reith had ever seen. A Blue Chasch, approaching, examining the reed-walker corpses, would croak a proffer which Emmink would decline in a scream of outrage. For minutes the two would heap abuse on each other, sparing no aspect of the other, until suddenly the Blue Chasch would make a furious gesture of disgust and go to seek his reed-walkers at another dray.

Emmink gave Reith a malicious wink. "Once in a while I hold the price up, just to excite the Blues. Also I find out what the selling prices are about to be. Now we'll try Bonte Bazaar."

Reith started to remind Emmink of the wide oval building, then thought better of it. Crafty Emmink had forgotten nothing. He swung around the dray, drove it out along a road running south a quarter mile inland from the river, with gardens and villas intervening. On the left were small domes and sheds among spa.r.s.e-foliaged trees, areas of dirt where naked children played: the homes of the Chaschmen. Emmink said with a leer: "There's the start of the Blue Chasch themselves; so it was explained to me by one of the Chaschmen in loving detail."

"How so?"

"The Chaschmen believe that in each grows a homunculus which develops throughout life and is liberated after death, to become a full Chasch. So the Blue Chasch teach; is it not ludicrous?"

"So I would say," replied Reith. "Haven't the Chaschmen ever seen human corpses? Or Blue Chasch infants?"

"No doubt. But they supply explanations for every discord and discrepancy. This is what they want to believe: how else can they justify their servitude to the Chasch?"

Emmink was perhaps a more profound individual than his appearance suggested, thought Reith. "Do they think the Dirdir originate in the Dirdirmen? Or w.a.n.kh in the w.a.n.khmen?""As to that," Emmink shrugged, "perhaps they do ... Look now; yonder is your building."

The cl.u.s.ter of Chaschmen huts was behind, concealed by a bank of pale green trees with huge brown flowers. The dray skirted the central node of the city. Beside an avenue were public or administrative buildings, supported on shallow arches, with roof-lines of variously curved surfaces.

Opposite rose the great structure which contained the s.p.a.ce-boat, or so Reith believed. It was as long as a football field and as wide, with low walls and a vast half-ellipsoidal roof: an architectural tour de force by any standards.

The function of the building was not apparent. There were few entrances, and no large openings nor facilities for heavy transport. Reith finally decided that they were traveling along the building's back elevation.

At Bonte Bazaar Emmink sold his corpses to the tune of furious haggling, while Reith kept to the side and downwind from Blue Chasch buyers.

Emmink was not totally pleased with the transaction. Returning to the dray after unloading, he grumbled, "I should have had another twenty sequins; the corpses were prime .... How could I make this clear to the Blue? He was watching you and trying to catch your air; the way you dodged and ducked would have aroused suspicion in an old Chaschwoman.

By all standards of justice you should reimburse me for my loss."

"I hardly think he got the better of you," said Reith. "Come; let's drive back."

"What of my lost twenty sequins?"

"Forget them; they are imaginary. Look; the Blues are watching us."

Emmink hastily jumped into the driver's seat and started up the dray.

Apparently from sheer perversity, he began to return by the same road he had come. Reith spoke sternly: "Drive by the east road, to the front of the big building; let's have no more tricks!"

"I always drive to the west," whined Emmink. "Why should I change now?"

"If you know what's best for you-"

"Ha, threats? In the middle of Dadiche? When all I need do is signal a Blue-"

"It would be the last signal of your life."

"What of my twenty sequins?"

"You've already had fifteen from me, plus your profit. No more of your complaints! Drive as I tell you or I'll wring your neck."

Wheezing, protesting, casting spiteful glances from the side of his face, Emmink obeyed.

The white building loomed ahead. The road ran parallel to the front at a distance of seventy-five yards, with a strip of garden intervening. An accessroad turned off from the main avenue, to run in front of the building. To drive along the access road would have rendered them highly conspicuous, and they continued along the main avenue in the company of other drays and wagons, and a few small cars driven by Blue Chasch. Reith gazed anxiously at the facade. Three large portals broke the front wall. Those to the left and center were shut; the far right portal was open. As they pa.s.sed Reith looked in, to see the loom of machinery, the glow of hot metal, the hull of a platform similar to that which had lifted the s.p.a.ce-boat away from the swamp.

Reith turned to Emmink. "This building is a factory where airs.h.i.+ps and s.p.a.cecraft are built!"

"Yes, of course," grunted Emmink.

"I asked you as much; why did you not tell me?"

"You weren't paying for information. I give nothing away."

"Drive around the building again."

"I must charge you an additional five sequins."

"Two. And no complaints, or I'll rattle your teeth."

Cursing under his breath, Emmink swung the dray around the factory.

Reith asked, "Have you ever looked into the center or the left of the building?"

"Oh yes; several times."

"What is there?"

"How much is the information worth?"

"Not very much. I'd have to see for myself."

"A sequin?"

Reith nodded shortly.

"Sometimes the other portals are ajar. In the center they construct sections of s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, which are then rolled out and carried away for a.s.sembly elsewhere. In the left they build smaller s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, when such are needed. Recently there has been little work; the Blue Chasch do not like to travel s.p.a.ce."

"Have you seen them bring s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps or s.p.a.ce-boats here for repair?

Several months ago?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"The information will cost you money," said Reith. Emmink showed great yellow teeth in a grin of sardonic appreciation and said no more.

They started along the front a second time. "Slow," Reith ordered, for Emmink had pushed the power-arm hard over and the old dray rattled at full speed along the avenue.

Emmink grudgingly obliged. "If we go too slow they'll think us curious, and ask us why we peer and crane our necks."

Reith looked along the road adjacent to the building, along which walked a few Blue Chasch, a somewhat larger number of Chaschmen.Reith said to Emmink, "Pull off the road; stop the dray for a minute or two."

Emmink began his usual protest, but Reith pulled back the power-lever and the dray wheezed to a halt. Emmink stared at Reith, speechless with fury.

"Get out; fix your wheels, or look at your energy cell," said Reith. "Do something to keep occupied." He jumped to the ground, stood looking at the great factory, for such seemed to be the nature of the building. The portal on the right was tantalizingly open. So near yet so far ... If only he dared cross the seventy-five yards to the portal, and look inside!

What then? Suppose he saw the s.p.a.ce-boat. It certainly would not be in operative condition; chances were good that Blue Chasch technicians had at least partially disa.s.sembled the mechanism. They would be a puzzled group, thought Reith. The technology, the engineering, the entire rationale of design would seem strange and unfamiliar. The presence of a human body would only puzzle them the more. The situation was by no means encouraging. The boat was possibly within, in a dismantled and non-usable condition. Or it was not. If it should be there he had not the remotest idea of how to gain possession of it. If it was not in the building, if only Paul Waunder's transcom was there, then he must revise his thinking and make new plans ... But at the moment the first step was to look inside the factory.

It seemed easy. He needed only to walk seventy-five yards and look ... but he did not dare. If only he were in some disguise to deceive the Blue Chasch-which could only mean the guise of a Chaschman. Far-fetched, thought Reith. With his well-marked features, he resembled a Chaschman not at all.

The reflections had occupied him a very short time: hardly a minute, but Emmink clearly was becoming restive. Reith decided to seek his counsel.

"Emmink," said Reith, "suppose you wanted to learn if a certain object- for instance, a small s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p-was inside that building, how would you go about it?"

Emmink snorted. "I would consider no such folly. I would resume my place on the dray and depart while I still had health and sanity."

"You can think of no errand to take us into the building?"

"None whatever. A fantasy!"

"Or close past that open portal?"

"No, no! Of course not!"

Reith longingly considered the building and the open portal. So near and yet so far ... He became furious with himself, at the intolerable circ.u.mstances, at the Blue Chasch, Emmink, the planet Tschai. Seventy- five yards: the work of half a minute. He said curtly to Emmink: "Wait here." And he started walking with long strides across the planted area.

Emmink gave a hoa.r.s.e call. "Come here, come back! Are you insane?"But Reith only hastened his steps. On the walk beside the building were a few Chaschmen, apparently laborers, who paid him no heed. Reith gained the walk. The open portal was ten steps ahead. Three Blue Chasch stepped forth. Reith's heart pounded; his palms were damp. The Blue Chasch must smell his sweat; would they know it for the odor of fear? It seemed as if, engrossed in their own affairs, they might not notice him. Head bowed, loose-brimmed hat in front of his face, Reith hurried past. Then, with only twenty feet to the portal, the three swung around as if activated by the same stimulus. One of the Blue Chasch spoke in a gobbling mincing voice, the words formed by organs other than vocal chords. "Man! Where go you?"

Reith halted and responded with the explanation he had formed as he had crossed from the main avenue. "I came for sc.r.a.p metal."

"What sc.r.a.p metal?"

"By the portal, in a box; so they told me."

"Ah!-" a blowing gasping sound, which Reith was unable to interpret.

"No sc.r.a.p metal!"

One of the others muttered something quietly, and all three emitted a hiss, the Blue Chasch a.n.a.logue of human laughter.

"Sc.r.a.p metal, so? Not at the factory. There: notice that building yonder?

Sc.r.a.p metal yonder!"

"Thank you!" called Reith. "I'll but look." He went the last few steps to the open portal, looked into a great s.p.a.ce murmurous with machinery, smelling of oil and metal and ozone. Nearby were platform components in the process of fabrication. Blue Chasch and Chaschmen alike worked, without obvious caste distinction. Around the walls, as in any Earthly factory or machine shop, were benches, racks and bins. In the center were a cylindrical section of what apparently would be a medium sized s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

Beyond, barely visible, was a familiar shape: the s.p.a.ce-boat on which Reith had come down to Tschai.

He could detect no damage to the hull. If the machinery had been dismantled, no evidence was apparent. But a good deal of distance intervened between himself and the boat, and he had time only for a single glimpse. Behind him the three Blue Chasch stood staring at him, ma.s.sive blue-scaled heads half-inclined as if listening. They were, so Reith realized, smelling him. They seemed suddenly intent, suddenly interested and began to walk slowly back toward him.

One spoke, in his thick queer voice: "Man! Attention! Return here. There is no sc.r.a.p metal."

"You smell of man-fear," said another. "You smell of odd substances."

"A disease," replied Reith.

Another spoke. "You smell like a strangely dressed man we found in a strange s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p; there is about you a fact.i.tious quality.""Why are you here?" demanded the third of the group. "For whom do you spy?"

"No one; I am a drayer, and I must return to Pera."

"Pera is a hive of spies; time perhaps that we sifted the population."

"Where is your dray? You did not arrive on foot?"

Reith started to move away. "My dray is out on the avenue." He pointed, then stared in consternation. Emmink and the dray were no longer to be seen. He called back to the three Blue Chasch, "My dray! Stolen! Who has taken it!" And with a gesture of hasty farewell for the puzzled Chasch, he darted off into the planted area separating the two roads. Behind a hedge of white wool and gray-green plumes he paused to look back and was by no means rea.s.sured. One of the Blue Chasch had run a few steps after him and was pointing some sort of instrument here and there through the planting.

A second was speaking with great urgency into a hand microphone. The third had gone to the portal and was peering toward the s.p.a.ce-boat, as if to verify its presence.

"I've done it for sure," Reith muttered to himself. "I've pulled the whole business down around my ears." He started to turn away, but paused an instant longer to watch as a squad of Chaschmen, wearing uniforms of purple and gray, drove up the factory road on long low slung motorcycles.

The Blue Chasch gave terse instructions, pointing toward the planted area.

Reith waited no longer. He ran to the avenue, and as a dray loaded with empty baskets rolled smartly by, he sprang out, caught hold of the tailgate, pulled himself up on the bed and crawled behind a stack of baskets, without arousing the attention of the draymaster.

Behind came half a dozen motorcycles at great speed. They pa.s.sed the dray with an angry whir of electric propulsion. To set up a roadblock? Or to reinforce the guards at the main gates?

Possibly both, thought Reith. The venture, as Emmink had predicted, was about to end in fiasco. Reith doubted that the Blue Chasch would involve him in their infamous games; they would prefer to extract information from him. And then? At best, Reith's freedom of action would be curtailed. At worst-but this bore little thinking about. The dray was rattling along at a good pace, but Reith knew he had no chance of pa.s.sing through the gate. Close to the North Market Reith dropped to the ground and at once took cover behind a long low structure of porous white concrete: a warehouse or a storage shed. Finding his view constricted, he climbed upon a wall, thence to the roof of the shed. He could see down the main avenue to the gate, and his fears were amply justified: a number of purple and gray-uniformed security police stood beside the portal inspecting traffic with great care. If Reith was going to leave the city he must choose some other route. The river? Conceivably he could wait till night and float down the river unseen. But Dadiche extended a score ormore miles along the riverbank, with other Blue Chasch villas and gardens beyond. Additionally, Reith had no knowledge of the creatures inhabiting the river. If they were as noxious as other forms of Tschai life, he wanted nothing to do with them.

A faint hum attracted Reith's attention. He looked up, startled to see an air-sled, not a hundred yards distant, sliding quietly by. The pa.s.sengers were Blue Chasch, wearing peculiar headgear like enormous moth antennae. Reith was initially sure that he had been seen; then he was sure that the antennae were some sort of olfactory amplifiers: equipment being used to track him down.

The air-sled proceeded without change of course. Reith released his pent breath. His apprehension apparently had been unfounded. What were the tall antennae? Ceremonial vestments? Adornments? "I may never know,"

Reith told himself. He searched the sky for other skysleds, but none could be seen. Raising to his knees, he once again looked all around. Somewhat to the left, behind a screen of the everpresent adarak trees, was North Market: white concrete parasols, suspended discs, gla.s.s screens; moving figures wearing black, dull blue, dull red; scales glinting gunmetal blue.

The breeze, blowing from the north, carried a complicated reek of spice; of sour vegetable matter; of meat cooked, fermented, pickled; of yeasts and mycelium cake.

To the right were the huts of Chaschmen, scattered through the gardens.

Beyond, pressed up against the wall, was a large building screened by tall black trees. If Reith could climb to the top of this building he might possibly cross the wall. He looked at the sky. Dusk was the best time for such a venture, a matter of two or three hours.

Reith descended from the roof, and stood a moment thinking. The Blue Chasch, so sensitive to odors; would they not be able to track him by scent, like bloodhounds? It was not an unreasonable theory, and if so, he had no time to spare.