Planet of Adventure










TABLE Of CONTENTS
Book One CITY OF THE CHASCH
Book Two SERVANTS OF THE WANKH
Book Three THE DIRDIR
Book Four THE PNUME



CITY OF THE CHASCH
TO ONE SIDE of the Explorator IV flared a dim and aging star, Carina 4269; to 
the other hung a single planet, gray-brown under a heavy blanket of atmosphere. 
The star was distinguished only by a curious amber cast to its light. The planet 
was somewhat larger than Earth, attended by a pair of small moons with rapid 
periods of orbit. An almost typical K2 star, an unremarkable planet, but for the 
men aboard the Explorator IV the system was a source of wonder and fascination.
In the forward control pod stood Commander Marin, Chief Officer Deale, Second 
Officer Walgrave: three men similarly trim, erect, brisk of movement, wearing 
the same neat white uniforms, and so much in each other's company that the wry, 
offhand intonations in which they spoke, the half-sarcastic, half-facetious 
manner in which they phrased their thoughts, were almost identical. With 
scanscopes-hand-held binocular photomultiphers, capable of enormous 
magnification and amplification-they looked across to the planet.
Walgrave commented, "At casual observation, a habitable planet. Those clouds are 
surely water-vapor."
"If signals emanate from a world," said Chief Officer Deale, "we almost 
automatically assume it to be inhabited. Habitability follows as a natural 
consequence of habitation."
Commander Marin gave a dry chuckle. "Your logic, usually irrefutable, is at 
fault. We are presently two hundred and twelve light-years from Earth. We 
received the signals twelve light-years out; hence they were broadcast two 
hundred years ago. If you recall, they halted abruptly. This world may be 
habitable; it may be inhabited; it may be both. But not necessarily either."
Deale gave his head a doleful shake. "On this basis, we can't even be sure that 
Earth is inhabited. The tenuous evidence available to us-"
Beep beep went the communicator. "Speak!" called Commander Marin.
The voice of Dant, the communications engineer, came into the pod: "I'm picking 
up a fluctuating field; I think it's artificial but I can't tune it in. It just 
might be some sort of radar."
Marin frowned, rubbed his nose with his knuckle. "I'll send down the scouts, 
then we'll back away, out of range."
Marin spoke a code-word, gave orders to the scouts Adam Reith and Paul Waunder. 
"Fast as possible; we're being detected. Rendezvous at System axis, up, Point D 
as in Deneb."
"Right, sir. System axis, up, Point D as in Deneb. Give us three minutes."
Commander Marin went to the macroscope and began an anxious search of the 
planet's surface, clicking through a dozen wavelengths. "There's a window at 
about 3000 angstroms, nothing good. The scouts will have to do all of it."
"I'm glad I never trained as a scout," remarked Second Officer Walgrave. 
"Otherwise I also might be sent down upon strange and quite possibly horrid 
planets."
"A scout isn't trained," Deale told him. "He exists: half acrobat, half mad 
scientist, half cat burglar, half-"
"That's several halves too many."
"Just barely adequate. A scout is a man who likes a change."
The scouts aboard the Explorator IV were Adam Reith and Paul Waunder. Both were 
men of resource and stamina; each was master of many skills; there the 
resemblance ended. Reith was an inch or two over average height, dark-haired, 
with a broad forehead, prominent cheekbones, rather gaunt cheeks where showed an 
occasional twitch of muscle. Waunder was compact, balding, blond, with features 
too ordinary for description. Waunder was older by a year or two; Reith however, 
held senior rank, and was in nominal command of the scout-boat: a miniature 
spaceship thirty feet long, carried in a clamp under the Explorator's stern.
In something over two minutes they were aboard the scoutboat. Waunder went to 
the controls; Reith sealed the hatch, pushed the detach-button. The scout-boat 
eased away from the great black hull. Reith took his seat, and as he did so a 
flicker of movement registered at the corner of his vision. He glimpsed a gray 
projectile darting up from the direction of the planet, then his eyes were 
battered by a tremendous purple-white dazzle.
There was rending and wrenching, violent acceleration as Waunder clutched 
convulsively upon the throttle, and the scout-boat went careening down toward 
the planet.
Where the Explorator IV had ridden space now drifted a curious object: the nose 
and stern of a spaceship, joined by a few shreds of metal, with a great void 
between, through which burnt the old yellow sun Carina 4269. Along with crew and 
technicians, Commander Marin, Chief Officer Deale, Second Officer Walgrave had 
become fleeting atoms of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, their personalities, brisk 
mannerisms, and jocularity now only memories.



CHAPTER ONE
THE SCOUT-BOAT, STRUCK rather than propelled by the shockwave, tumbled bow over 
stern down toward the gray and brown planet, with Adam Reith and Paul Waunder 
bumping from bulkhead to bulkhead in the control cabin.
Reith, only half-conscious, managed to seize a stanchion. Pulling himself to the 
panel, he struck down the stabilization switch. Instead of a smooth hum there 
was hissing and thumping; nevertheless the wild windmilling motion gradually was 
damped.
Reith and Waunder dragged themselves to their seats, made themselves fast. Reith 
asked, "Did you see what I saw?"
"A torpedo."
Reith nodded. "The planet is inhabited."
"The inhabitants are far from cordial. That was a rough reception."
"We're a long way from home." Reith looked along the line of non-signifying 
dials and dead indicator lights. "Nothing seems to be functioning. We're going 
to crash, unless I can make some swift repairs." He limped aft to the engine 
room, to discover that a spare energy-cell, improperly stowed, had crushed a 
connection box, creating a chaotic tangle of melted leads, broken crystals, 
fused composites.
"I can fix it," Reith told Waunder, who had come aft to inspect the mess. "In 
about two months with luck. Providing the spares are intact."
"Two months is somewhat too long," said Waunder. "I'd say we have two hours 
before we hit atmosphere."
"Let's get to work."
An hour and a half later they stood back, eyeing the jury-rig with doubt and 
dissatisfaction. "With luck we can land in one piece," said Reith gloomily. "You 
go forward, put some power into the lifts; I'll see what happens."
A minute passed. The propulsors hummed; Reith felt the pressure of deceleration. 
Hoping that the improvisations were at least temporarily sound, he went forward 
and resumed his seat. "What's it look like?"
"Short range, not too bad. We'll hit atmosphere in about half an hour, somewhat 
under critical velocity. We can come down to a soft landing-I hope. The 
long-range prognosis-not so good. Whoever hit the ship with a torpedo can follow 
us down with radar. Then what?"
"Nothing good," said Reith.
The planet below broadened under their view: a world dimmer and darker than 
Earth, bathed in tawny golden light. They now could see continents and oceans, 
clouds, storms: the landscape of a mature world.
The atmosphere whined around the car; the temperature gauge rose sharply toward 
the red mark. Reith cautiously fed more power through the makeshift circuits. 
The boat slowed, the needle quivered, sank back toward a comfortable level. 
There came a soft report from the engine room and the boat began to fall free 
once more.
"Here we go again," said Reith. "Well, it's up to the airfoils now. Better get 
into ejection harness." He swung out the sideflaps, extended the elevators and 
rudder and the boat hissed down at a slant. He asked, "How does the atmosphere 
check out?"
Waunder read the various indices of the analyzer. "Breathable. Close to Earth 
normal."
"That's one small favor."
Looking through scanscopes, they could now observe detail. Below spread a wide 
plain or a steppe, marked here and there with low relief and vegetation. "No 
sign of civilization," said Waunder. "Not below, at any rate. Maybe up there, by 
the horizon-those gray spots ..."
"If we can land the boat, if no one disturbs us while we rebuild the control 
system, we'll be in good shape ... But these airfoils aren't intended for a fast 
landing in the rough. We'd better try to stall her down and eject at the last 
instant."
"Right," said Waunder. He pointed. "That looks like a forest-vegetation of some 
sort. The ideal spot for a crash."
"Down we go."
The boat slanted down; the landscape expanded. The fronds of a dank black forest 
reached into the air ahead of them.
"On the count of three: eject," said Reith. He pulled the boat up into a stall, 
braking its motion. "One-two-three. Eject!"
The ejection ports opened; the seats thrust; out into the air snapped Reith. But 
where was Waunder? His harness had fouled, or the seat had failed to eject 
properly; and he dangled helplessly outside the boat. Reith's parachute opened, 
swung him up pendulum-wise. On the way down he struck a glossy black limb of a 
tree. The blow dazed him; he swung at the end of his parachute shrouds. The boat 
careened through the trees, plowed into a bog, Paul Waunder hung motionless in 
his harness.
There was silence except for the creaking of hot metal, a faint hiss from 
somewhere under the boat.
Reith stirred, kicked feebly. The motion sent pain tearing through his shoulders 
and chest; he desisted and hung limp.
The ground was fifty feet below. The sunlight, as he had noted before, seemed 
rather more dim and yellow than the sunlight of Earth, and the shadows held an 
amber overtone. The air was aromatic with the scent of unfamiliar resins and 
oils; he was caught in a tree with glossy black limbs and brittle black foliage 
which made a rattling sound when he moved. He could look along the broken swath 
to the bog, where the boat sat almost on an even keel, Waunder hanging head-down 
from the ejection hatch, his face only inches from the muck. If the boat should 
settle, he would smother-if he was still alive even now. Reith struggled 
frantically to untangle himself from his harness. The pain made him dizzy and 
sick; there was no strength in his hands, and when he raised his arms there were 
clicking sounds in his shoulders. He was helpless to free himself, let alone 
assist Waunder. Was he dead? Reith could not be sure. Waunder, he thought, had 
twitched feebly.
Reith watched intently. Waunder was slipping slowly into the mire. In the 
ejection seat was a survival kit with weapons and tools. With his broken bones 
he could not raise his arms to reach the clasp. If he detached himself from the 
shrouds he would fall and kill himself... No help for it. Broken shoulder, 
broken collarbone or not, he must open the ejection seat, bring forth the knife 
and the coil of rope.
There was a sound, not too far distant, of wood striking wood. Reith desisted in 
his efforts, hung quietly. A troop of men armed with fancifully long rapiers and 
heavy hand-catapults marched quietly, almost furtively, below.
Reith stared dumbfounded, suspecting hallucination. The cosmos seemed partial to 
biped races, more or less anthropoid; but these were true men: people with 
harsh, strong features, honey-colored skin, blond, blond-brown, blond-gray hair 
and bushy drooping mustaches. They wore complicated garments: loose trousers of 
striped brown and black cloth, dark blue or dark red shirts, vests of woven 
metal strips, short black capes. Their hats were black leather, folded and 
creased with out-turned earflaps, each with a silver emblem four inches across 
at the front of a tall crown. Reith watched in amazement. Barbarian warriors, a 
wandering band of cutthroats: but true men, nonetheless, here on this unknown 
world over two hundred light-years from Earth!
The warriors passed quietly below, stealthy and furtive. They paused in the 
shadows to survey the boat, then the leader, a warrior younger than the rest, no 
more than a youth and lacking a mustache, stepped out into the open and examined 
the sky. He was joined by three older men, wearing globes of pink and blue glass 
on their helmets, who also searched the sky with great care. Then the youth 
signaled to the others, and all approached the boat.
Paul Waunder raised his hand in the feeblest of salutes. One of the men with the 
glass globes snatched up his catapult, but the youth yelled an angry order and 
the man sullenly turned away. One of the warriors cut the parachute shrouds, let 
Waunder fall to the ground.
The youth gave other orders; Waunder was picked up and carried to a dry area.
The youth now turned to investigate the space-boat. Boldly he clambered up on 
the hull and looked in through the ejection ports.
The older men with the pink and blue globes stood back in the shadows, muttering 
dourly through their drooping whiskers and glowering toward Waunder. One of them 
clapped his hand to the emblem on his hat as if the object had jerked or made a 
sound. Then, at once, as if stimulated by the contact, he stalked upon Waunder, 
drew his rapier, brought it flickering down. To Reith's horror Paul Waunder's 
head rolled free of his torso, and his blood gushed forth to soak into the black 
soil.
The youth seemed to sense the act and swung about. He cried out in fury, leaped 
to the ground, marched over to the murderer. The youth snatched forth his own 
rapier, flicked it and the flexible end slashed in to cut away the emblem from 
the man's hat. The youth picked it up, and pulling a knife from his boot hacked 
savagely at the soft silver, then cast it down at the murderer's feet with a 
spate of bitter words. The murderer, cowed, picked up the emblem and moved 
sullenly off to the side.
From a great distance came a throb of sound. The warriors set up a soft hooting, 
either as a ceremonial response or in fear and mutual admonition, and quickly 
retreated into the forest.
Low in the sky appeared an aircraft, which first hovered, then settled: a 
sky-raft fifty feet long, twenty feet wide, controlled from an ornate belvedere 
at the stern. Forward and aft great lanterns dangled from convolute standards; 
the bulwarks were guarded by a squat balustrade. Leaning over the balustrade, 
pushing and jostling, were two dozen passengers, in imminent danger, so it 
seemed, of falling to the ground.
Reith watched in numb fascination as the craft landed beside the scout-boat. The 
passengers jumped quickly off: individuals of two sorts, non-human and human, 
though this distinction was not instantly obvious. The non-human creatures-Blue 
Chasch, as Reith was to learn-walked on short heavy legs, moving with a 
stiff-legged strut. The typical individual was massive and powerful, scaled like 
a pangolin with blue pointed tablets. The torso was wedge-shaped, with 
exoskeletal epaulettes of chitin curving over into a dorsal carapace. The skull 
rose to a bony point; a heavy brow jutted over the ocular holes, glittering 
metallic eyes and the complicated nasal orifice. The men were as similar to the 
Blue Chasch as breeding, artifice and mannerism allowed. They were short, 
stocky, with bandy-legs; their faces were blunt and almost chinless, with the 
features compressed. They wore what appeared to be false craniums which rose to 
a point and beetled over their foreheads; and their jerkins and trousers were 
worked with scales.
Chasch and Chaschmen ran to the scout-boat, communicating in fluting glottal 
cries. Some clambered up the hull, peered into the interior, others investigated 
the head and torso of Paul Waunder, which they picked up and carried aboard the 
raft.
From the control belvedere came a bawled alarm. Blue Chasch and Chaschmen looked 
up into the sky, then hurriedly pushed the raft under the trees and out of 
sight. Once again the little clearing was deserted.
Minutes passed. Reith closed his eyes and considered the evil nightmare from 
which he hoped to wake, secure aboard the Explorator.
&npsb:  A thudding of engines aroused him from torpor. Down from the sky sank 
still another vehicle: an airship which, like the raft, had been built with 
small regard for aerodynamic efficiency. There were three decks, a central 
rotunda, balconies of black wood and copper, a scrolled prow, observation 
cupolas, weapon ports, a vertical fin displaying a gold and black insignia. The 
ship hovered while those on the decks gave the space-boat a fastidious 
inspection. Some of these were not human, but tall attenuated creatures, 
hairless, pale as parchment, with austere countenances, languid and elegant 
attitudes. Others, apparently subordinates, were men, though they displayed the 
same attenuated arms, legs and torso, the sheep-like mannerisms. Both races wore 
elaborate costumes of ribbons, flounces, sashes. Later Reith would know the 
non-human folk as Dirdir and their human subordinates as Dirdirmen. At the 
moment, dazed by the immensity of his disaster, he noted the splendid Dirdir 
airship only with disinterested wonder. The thought, however, seeped into his 
mind that either these tall pale folk or their predecessors at the scene had 
destroyed the Explorator IV, and both had evidently tracked the arrival of the 
scout-boat.
Dirdir and Dirdirmen scrutinized the space-boat with keen interest. One of them 
called attention to the print left by the Chasch raft, and the discovery created 
an instant atmosphere of emergency. Instantly from the forest came stabs of 
purple-white energy; Dirdir and Dirdirmen fell writhing. Chasch and Chaschmen 
charged forth, Chasch firing hand-weapons, Chaschmen running to throw grapples 
at the ship.
The Dirdir discharged their own hand-weapons, which exuded a violet flare and 
whorls of orange plasma; Chasch and Chaschmen were consumed in a purple and 
orange blaze. The Dirdir ship lifted, to be constrained by grapples. The 
Dirdirmen hacked with knives, burnt with energy pistols; the ship broke free, to 
fluting cries of disappointment from the Chasch.
A hundred feet above the bog the Dirdir turned heavy plasma-beams upon the 
forest and burnt a series of reeking avenues, but failed to destroy the raft, 
from which the Chasch were now aiming their own great mortars. The first Chasch 
projectile missed. The second struck the ship under the hull; it slewed around 
under the impact, then gave a great dart off into the sky, flitting, lurching, 
jerking like a wounded insect, upside-down, then right-side up, with Dirdir and 
Dirdirmen falling off, black specks drifting down the slate-colored sky. The 
ship veered south, then east and presently was lost to sight.
Chasch and Chaschmen came forth to gaze after the Dirdir ship. The raft slid 
forth from the forest, hovered over the scoutboat. Grapples were dropped; the 
boat was lifted from the mire. Chasch and Chaschmen climbed aboard the raft; it 
slanted up into the air and moved off to the northeast, with the space-boat 
slung below.
Time passed. Reith hung in his harness, barely conscious. The sun settled behind 
the trees; dimness began to drift over the landscape.
The barbarians reappeared. They went to the clearing, made a desultory 
inspection, looked up into the sky, then turned away.
Reith gave a hoarse call. The warriors snatched out their catapults, but the 
youth made a furious gesture to restrain them. He gave orders; two men climbed 
the tree, cut the parachute shrouds to leave the ejection seat and Reith's 
survival gear swinging in the branches.
Reith was lowered to the ground, none too gently, and his senses went dim at the 
grating of bones in his shoulder. Forms loomed above him, speaking in harsh 
consonants and broad vowels. he was lifted, placed in a litter; he felt the thud 
and swing of footsteps; then he either fainted or fell asleep.



CHAPTER TWO
REITH AWOKE To the flicker of firelight, the murmur of voices. Above was a dark 
canopy, to either side a sky full of strange stars. The nightmare was real. 
Aspect by aspect, sensation by sensation, Reith took stock of himself and his 
condition. He lay on a pallet of woven reeds which exuded a sourish odor, 
half-vegetable, half-human. His shirt had been removed; a harness of withe 
constricted his shoulders and provided support for his broken bones. Painfully 
he raised his head and looked around. He lay in an open-sided shelter of metal 
poles covered with fabric. Another paradox, thought Reith. The metal poles 
indicated a high level of technology; the weapons and manners of the people were 
purely barbaric. Reith tried to look toward the fire, but the effort pained him 
and he lay back.
The camp was in the open country; the forest had been left behind; so much was 
evident from the stars. He wondered about his ejection seat and the attached 
survival pack. Seat and pack had been left dangling, so he recalled to his 
regret. He had only himself and his innate resources to depend upon-a quality 
somewhat augmented by the training forced upon a scout, some of which Reith had 
considered pedantic over-elaboration. He had assimilated vast quantities of 
basic science, linguistic and communication theory, astronautics, space and 
energy technology, biometrics, meteorology, geology, toxicology. So much was 
theory; additionally he had trained in practical survival techniques of every 
description: weaponry, attack and defense, emergency nutrition, rigging and 
hoisting, space-drive mechanics, electronic repair and improvisation. If he was 
not killed out of hand, as had been Paul Waunder, he would live-but to what 
purpose? His chances of returning to Earth must be considered infinitesimal, 
which made the intrinsic interest of the planet less stimulating.
A shadow fell across his face; Reith saw the youth who had saved his life. After 
peering through the dark the youth kneeled down, proffered a bowl of coarse 
gruel.
"Thanks very much," said Reith. "But I don't think I can eat; I'm constricted by 
the splints."
The youth leaned forward, speaking in a rather curt voice. Reith thought his 
face strangely stern and intense for a boy who could not be more than sixteen 
years old.
With great exertion Reith pulled himself up on his elbow and took the gruel. The 
youth rose, moved a few paces back, stood watching as Reith tried to feed 
himself. Then he turned and called a gruff summons. A small girl came running 
forward. She bowed, took the bowl and began to feed Reith with earnest care.
The boy watched a moment, evidently mystified by Reith, and Reith was perplexed 
no less. Men and women, on a world two hundred and twelve light-years from 
Earth! Parallel evolution? Incredible! Spoonful by spoonful the gruel was placed 
in his mouth. The girl, about eight years old, wore a ragged pajama-like 
garment, not too clean. A half-dozen men of the tribe came to watch; there was a 
growl of conversation which the youth ignored.
The bowl was empty; the girl held a mug of sour beer to Reith's mouth. Reith 
drank because it was expected of him, though the brew puckered his lips. "Thank 
you," he told the girl, who returned a diffident smile and quickly departed.
Reith lay back on the pallet. The youth spoke to him in a brusque voice: 
evidently a question.
"Sorry," said Reith. "I don't understand. But don't be irritated; I need every 
friend I can get."
The youth spoke no more and presently departed. Reith leaned back on his pallet 
and tried to sleep. The firelight flickered low; activity in the camp dwindled.
From far off came a faint call, half howl, half quavering hoot, which was 
presently answered by another, and another, to become an almost identical 
chanting of hundreds of voices. Raising up on his elbow once more, Reith saw 
that the two moons, of equal apparent diameter, one pink, the other pale blue, 
had appeared in the east.
A moment later a new voice, nearer at hand, joined the far ululation. Reith 
listened in wonder; surely this was the voice of a woman? Other voices joined 
the first, wailing a wordless dirge, which, joined to the far hooting, produced 
a colloquy of vast woe.
The chant at last halted; the camp became quiet. Reith became drowsy and fell 
asleep.
In the morning Reith saw more of the camp. It lay in a swale between a pair of 
broad low hills, among multitudes rolling off to the east. Here for reasons not 
immediately apparent to Reith the tribesmen elected to sojourn. Each morning 
four young warriors wearing long brown cloaks mounted small electric motorcycles 
and set off in different directions across the steppe. Each evening they 
returned, to make detailed reports to Traz Onmale the boyruler. Every morning a 
great kite was paid out, hoisting aloft a boy of eight or nine, whose function 
was evidently that of a lookout. Late in the afternoon the wind tended to die, 
dropping the kite more or less easily. The boy usually escaped with no more than 
a bump, though the men handling the lines seemed to worry more for the safety of 
the kite; a four-winged contraption of black membrane stretched over wooden 
splints.
Each morning, from beyond the hill to the east, sounded a fearful squealing, 
which persisted for almost half an hour. The tumult, Reith presently learned, 
arose from the herd of multilegged animals from which the tribe derived meat. 
Each morning the tribe butcher, a woman six feet tall and brawny to match, went 
through the herd with a knife and a cleaver, to excise three or four legs for 
the needs of the day. Occasionally she cut flesh from a beast's back, or reached 
through a wound to carve chunks from an internal organ. The beasts made little 
protest at the excision of their legs, which soon renewed themselves, but 
performed prodigies of complaint when their bodies were entered.
While Reith's bones mended his only contacts were with women, a spiritless 
group, and with Traz Onmale, who spent the greater part of each morning with 
Reith, talking, inspecting Reith's habiliments, teaching the Kruthe language. 
This was syntactically regular but rendered difficult by scores of tenses, moods 
and aspects. Long after Reith was able to express himself, Traz Onmale, in the 
stern manner so much at odds with his years, would correct him and indicate 
still another intricacy of usage.
The world was Tschai, so Reith learned; the moons were Az and Braz. The 
tribesmen were Kruthe or "Emblem Men," after the devices of silver, copper, 
stone and wood which they wore on their hats. A man's status was established by 
his emblem, which was reckoned a semidivine entity in itself, with a name, 
detailed history, idiosyncrasies and rank. It was not too much to say that 
rather than the man carrying the emblem, the emblem controlled the man, as it 
gave him his name and reputation, and defined his tribal role. The most exalted 
emblem was Onmale, carried by Traz, who prior to assuming the emblem had been an 
ordinary lad of the tribe. Onmale was the embodiment of wisdom, craft, 
resolution and the indefinable Kruthe virtu. A man might inherit an emblem, take 
possession after killing its owner, or fabricate a new emblem for himself. In 
the latter case, the new emblem held no personality or virtu until it had 
participated in noteworthy feats and so acquired status. When an emblem changed 
hands the new owner willy-nilly assumed the personality of the emblem. Certain 
emblems were mutually antagonistic, and a man coming into possession of one of 
these at once became the enemy of the holder of the other. Certain emblems were 
thousands of years old, with complex histories; some were fey and carried a 
weight of doom; others impelled the wearer to hardihood or some specific sort of 
berserker elan. Reith was sure that his perception of the symbolic personalities 
was pale and gray compared to the intensity of the Kruthe's own comprehensions. 
Without his emblem the tribesman was a man without a face, without prestige or 
function. He was in fact what Reith presently learned himself to be; a helot, or 
a woman, the words in the Kruthe language being the same.
Curiously, or so it seemed to Reith, the Emblem Men believed him to be a man 
from a remote region of Tschai. Far from respecting him for his presence aboard 
the space-boat, they thought him a subordinate to some non-human race unknown to 
them, as the Chaschmen were subordinate to the Blue Chasch, or the Dirdirmen to 
the Dirdir.
When Reith first heard Traz Onmale express this point of view, he refuted the 
idea indignantly. "I am from Earth, a far planet; we are not ruled by anyone."
"Who built the space-boat then?" Traz Onmale asked in a skeptical voice.
"Men, naturally. Men of Earth."
Traz Onmale gave his head a dubious shake. "How could there be men so far from 
Tschai?"
Reith gave a laugh of bitter amusement. "I've been asking myself the same 
question: How did men come to Tschai?"
"The origin of men is well-known," said Traz Onmale in a frigid voice. "We are 
taught this as soon as we can speak. Did you not receive the same instruction?"
"On Earth we believe that men evolved from a protohominid, which in turn derived 
from an ancient mammal; and so on back to the first cells."
Traz Onmale looked askance at the women who worked nearby. He gave them a 
brusque signal. "Be off, we are discussing men's matters."
The women departed with clacking tongues, and Traz Onmale looked after them in 
disgust. "The foolishness will be all over camp. The magicians will be annoyed. 
I must explain to you the true source of men. You have seen the moons. The pink 
moon is Az, abode of the blessed. The blue moon is Braz, a place of torment, 
where evil folk and kruthsh' geir* are sent after death. Long ago the moons 
collided; thousands of folk were dislodged and fell to Tschai. All now seek to 
return to Az, good and evil alike. But the Judgers, who derive wisdom from the 
globes they wear, separate good men from the bad and send them to appropriate 
destinations.
"Interesting," said Reith. "What of the Chasch and the Dirdir?"
"They are not men. They came to Tschai from beyond the stars, as did the Wankh; 
Chaschmen and Dirdirmen are unclean hybrids. Pnume and Phung are spew of the 
northern caves. We kill all with zeal." He regarded Reith sidelong, brows knit 
severely. "If you derive from a world other than Tschai, you cannot be a man, 
and I should order you killed."
"That seems overly harsh," said Reith. "After all, I have done you no harm."
Traz Onmale made a gesture to indicate that the argument had no relevance. "I 
will defer judgment."
Reith exercised his stiff limbs, and diligently studied the language. The 
Kruthe, he learned, held to no fixed range, but wandered the vast Aman Steppe, 
which spread across the south of the continent known as Kotan. They had no great 
knowledge of conditions elsewhere on Tschai. There were other 
continents--Kislovan to the south; Charchan, Kachan, Rakh on the other side of 
the world. Other nomad tribes roamed the steppe; in the marshes and forests to 
the south lived ogres and cannibals, with a variety of supernatural powers. The 
Blue Chasch were established to the far west of Kotan; the Dirdir, who preferred 
a cold climate, lived on Haulk, a peninsula reached south and west of Kislovan, 
and on the northeast coast of Charchan.
Another alien race, the Wankh, were also established on Tschai, but the Emblem 
Men knew little of these folk. Native to Tschai was an eerie race known as the 
Pnume, also their mad relatives, the Phung, regarding whom the Kruthe were 
reluctant to speak, lowering their voices and looking over their shoulders when 
they did so.
Time passed: days of bizarre events, nights of despair and longing for Earth. 
Reith's bones began to knit and he unobtrusively explored the camp.
About fifty sheds had been erected in the lee of the hill, the roofs butted end 
to end to form what from the air would seem a fold or declivity on the hillside. 
Beyond the sheds was a cluster of enormous six-wheeled motor drays, camouflaged 
under tarpaulins. Reith was awed by the bulk of the vehicles and would have 
examined them more closely were it not for the band of sallow urchins which 
followed him about, attentive to his every move. Intuitively they sensed his 
strangeness and were fascinated. The warriors, however, ignored him; a man 
without an emblem was little more than a ghost.
At the far end of camp Reith found an enormous machine mounted on a truck: a 
giant catapult with a thrust-arm fifty feet long. A siege engine? On one side 
was painted a pink disc, on the other a blue disc: reference, so Reith assumed, 
to the moons Az and Braz.
Days passed, weeks, a month. Reith could not understand the inactivity of the 
tribe. They were nomads; why did they keep so long to this particular camp? 
Every day the four scouts rode forth, while overhead swung the black kite, 
veering and dipping while the rider's legs swung doll-like back and forth. The 
warriors were clearly restive, and occupied themselves practicing the use of 
their weapons. These were of three sorts: a long flexible rapier with a cutting 
and stabbing tip, like the tail of a ray: a catapult, which used the energy of 
elastic cables to shoot short feathered bolts; a triangular shield, a foot in 
length, nine inches across the base, with sharp elongated corners and 
razor-sharp side-edges serving additionally as a thrusting and hacking weapon.
Reith was tended first by the eight-year-old urchin, then by a small hunched 
crone with a face like a raisin, then by a girl who, were it not for her 
joylessness, might have been attractive. She was perhaps eighteen years old, 
with regular features, fine blonde hair typically tangled with twigs and bits of 
fodder. She went barefoot, wearing only a smock of coarse gray homespun.
One day, as Reith sat on a bench, the girl came past. Reith caught her around 
the waist, pulled her down upon his knee. She smelled of furze and bracken, and 
the moss of the steppes, and a faintly sour scent of wool. She asked in a husky 
alarmed voice, "What do you want of me?" And she tried half-heartedly to rise.
Reith found her warm weight comforting. "First, I'll comb the twigs from your 
hair ... Sit still now." She relaxed, eyes turned sidelong at Reith; puzzled, 
submissive, uneasy. Reith combed her hair, first with his fingers, then with a 
chip of broken wood. The girl sat quietly.
"There," said Reith presently. "You look nice."
The girl sat as in a dream. Presently she stirred, rose to her feet. "I must 
go," she said in a hurried voice. "Someone might see." But she lingered. Reith 
started to pull her back, then thought better of the impulse and let her hurry 
away.
The next day she chanced past again, and this time her hair was combed and 
clean. She paused to look over her shoulder, and Reith could remember the same 
glance, the same attitude from a hundred occasions on Earth; and the thought 
made him sick with melancholy. At home the girl would be reckoned beautiful; 
here on Aman Steppe, she had no more than a dim awareness of such matters ... He 
held out his hand to her; she approached, as if drawn against her will, which 
was undoubtedly the case, for she knew the ways of her tribe. Reith put his 
hands on her shoulders, then around her waist, kissed her. She seemed puzzled. 
Reith asked, smiling, "Hasn't anyone done that before?"
"No. But it's nice. Do it again."
Reith heaved a deep sigh. Well, why not? ... A step behind him: a buffet sent 
him sprawling to the ground, accompanied by a spate of words too fast for his 
understanding. A booted foot struck into his ribs, sending shivers of pain 
through his mending shoulder.
The man advanced on the cringing girl, who stood with fists pressed to her 
mouth. He struck her, kicked her, pushed her out into the compound, cursing and 
bawling insults: "disgusting intimacy with an outland slave; is this your regard 
for the purity of the race?"
"Slave?" Reith picked himself up from the floor of the shed. The word rang in 
his mind. Slave?
The girl ran off to huddle under one of the towering wagons. Traz Onmale came to 
look into the uproar. The warrior, a stalwart buck of about Reith's own age, 
pointed a quivering finger toward Reith. "He is a curse, a dark omen! Was not 
all this foretold? Intolerable that he should spawn among our women! He must be 
killed, or gelded!"
Traz Onmale looked dubiously toward Reith. "It seems that he did small damage."
"Small damage indeed! But only because I happened past! With so much energy for 
ardor, why is he not put out to work? Must we pamper his belly while he sits on 
pillows? Geld him and set him to toil with the women!"
Traz Onmale gave a reluctant assent, and Reith, with a sinking heart, thought of 
his survival kit dangling from the tree, with its drugs, transcom, spanscope, 
energy pack, and, most especially, weapons. For all their present benefit to him 
they might as well be with the Explorator IV.
Traz Onmale had summoned the butcher-woman. "Bring a sharp knife. The slave must 
be made placid."
"Wait!" gasped Reith. "Is this any way to treat a stranger? Have you no 
tradition of hospitality?"
"No," said Traz Onmale. "We do not. We are the Kruthe, driven by the force of 
our Emblems."
"This man struck me," protested Reith. "Is he a coward? Will he fight? What if I 
took his emblem from him? Would I not then be entitled to his place in the 
tribe?"
"The emblem itself is the place," Traz Onmale admitted. "This man Osom is the 
vehicle for the emblem Vaduz. Without Vaduz he would be no better than you. But 
if Vaduz is content with Osom, as must be so, you could never take Vaduz."
"I can try."
"Conceivably. But you are too late; here is the butcherwoman. Be good enough to 
disrobe."
Reith turned a horrified glance upon the woman, whose shoulders were broader 
than his own and inches thicker, and who advanced upon him wearing a 
face-splitting grin.
"There is still time," muttered Reith. "Ample time." He turned upon Osom Vaduz, 
who snatched forth his rapier with a shrill whine of steel against hard leather. 
But Reith had stepped in close, within the six-foot reach of the blade. Osom 
Vaduz tried to leap back; Reith caught his arm, which was hard as steel; in his 
present condition Osom Vaduz was by far the stronger man. Osom Vaduz gave his 
arm a mighty jerk to fling Reith to the ground. Reith pulled in the same 
direction, swung around to drag Osom Vaduz reeling off-balance. Reith thrust up 
his shoulder, Osom Vaduz rolled across his hip and crashed to the ground. Reith 
kicked him in the head, grounding his heel into Osom Vaduz's throat, to crush 
the windpipe. As Osom Vaduz lay twitching and croaking his hat rolled off; Reith 
reached for it but the Chief Magician snatched it away.
"No, by no means!" cried the magician in a passion. "This is not our law. You 
are a slave; a slave you remain!"
"Must I kill you too?" asked Reith, edging ominously forward.
"Enough!" cried Traz Onmale peremptorily. "There has been enough killing. No 
more!"
"What of the emblem?" asked Reith. "Do you not agree it is mine?"
"I must consider," declared the youth. "In the meanwhile, no more. 
Butcher-woman, take the body to the pyre. Where are the Judgers? Let them come 
forth and judge this Osom who carried Vaduz. Emblems, bring forth the engine!"
Reith moved off to the side. A few minutes later he approached Traz Onmale. "If 
you wish, I will leave the tribe and go off by myself."
"You will know my wishes when they are formulated," declared the lad, with the 
absolute decisiveness conferred upon him by the Onmale. "Remember, you are my 
slave; I ordered back the blades which would have killed you. If you try to 
escape, you will be tracked, taken, flogged. Meanwhile you must gather fodder."
It seemed to Reith as if Traz Onmale were straining for severity, perhaps to 
divert attention-his own as well as everyone else's-from the unpleasant order he 
had given to the butcherwoman and which, by implication, he had rescinded.
For a day the dismembered body of Osom, who once had carried the emblem Vaduz, 
smoldered within a special metal kiln, and the wind blew a vile stench through 
the camp. The warriors uncovered the monstrous catapult, started the engine and 
brought it into the center of the compound.
The sun sank behind a bank of graphite-purple clouds; sunset was an angry welter 
of crimson and brown. Osom's corpse had been consumed; the fire was ashes. With 
all the tribe crouching in murmurous ranks, the Chief Magician kneaded the ashes 
with beast-blood to form a cake, which was then packed into a box and lashed to 
the head of a great shaft.
The magicians looked into the east, where now rose Az the pink moon, almost at 
the full. The Chief Magician called in a great belling voice: "Az! The Judgers 
have judged a man and found him good! He is Osom; he carried Vaduz. Make ready, 
Az! We send you Osom!"
The warriors on the catapult engaged a gear. The great arm swung across the sky; 
the elastic cables ground with tension. The shaft with Osom's ashes was laid in 
the channel; the arm was aimed toward Az. The tribe set up a moan, rising to a 
throaty wail. The magician cried: "Away to Az!"
The catapult gave a heavy twunggg-thwack! The shaft sped away too swiftly to be 
seen. A moment later, high in the sky, appeared a burst of white fire; and the 
watchers gave a sigh of exaltation.
For another half-hour the folk of the tribe stood looking up toward Az. Did they 
envy Osom, Reith wondered, presumably now rejoicing in the Vaduz palace on Az? 
He sought among the dark shapes, lingering before going to his pallet, until, 
with a smile of grim amusement for his own weakness, he realized that he was 
hoping to locate the girl who had occasioned the entire affair.
On the following day Reith was sent forth to gather fodder, a coarse leaf 
terminating in a drop of dark-red wax. Far from resenting the work, Reith was 
happy to escape the monotony of the camp.
The rolling hills extended as far as the eye could reach, alternate cusps of 
amber and black under the windy sky of Tschai. Reith looked south, to the black 
line of forest, where his ejection seat still hung in a tree, or so he hoped. In 
the near-future he would ask Traz Onmale to conduct him to the spot ... Someone 
was watching him. Reith swung around, but saw nothing.
Wary, watching from the corner of his eyes he went about his task, plucking 
leaves, filling the two baskets he carried on a shoulder-pole. He started down 
into a swale, where grew a copse of low bushes, with leaves like red and blue 
flame. He saw the flutter of a gray smock. It was the girl, pretending not to 
see him. Reith descended to meet her and they stood face to face, she 
half-smiling, half-cringing, awkwardly twisting her fingers together.
Reith reached forth, took her hands. "If we meet, if we are friends, we'll get 
in trouble."
The girl nodded. "I know ... Is it true that you are from another world?"
"Yes."
"What is it like?"
"It's hard to describe."
"The magicians are foolish, aren't they? Dead people don't go to Az."
"I hardly think so."
She came closer. "Do that again."
Reith kissed her. Then he took her by the shoulders and held her back. "We can't 
be lovers. You'd be made unhappy, and get more beatings..."
She shrugged. "I don't care. I wish I could go with you back to Earth."
"I wish you could too," said Reith.
"Do that again," said the girl. Just once more..." She gave a sudden gasp, 
looking over Reith's shoulder. He jerked around, to see a flicker of movement. 
There was a hiss, a thud, a heartrending sob of pain. The girl sagged to her 
knees, fell over on her side, clutching at the feathered bolt buried in her 
chest. Reith gave a hoarse call, looked wildly here and there.
The skyline was clear; no one could be seen. Reith bent over the girl. Her lips 
moved, but he could not hear the words. She sighed and relaxed.
Reith stood looking down at the body, rage crowding all rational thought from 
his mind. He bent, lifted her-she weighed less than he expected-and carried her 
back to camp, reeling and straining. He took her to the shed of Traz Onmale.
The boy sat on a stool, holding a rapier which he glumly twitched back and 
forth. Reith lay down the body of the girl as gently as he was able. Traz Onmale 
looked from the body to Reith with a flinty stare. Reith said, "I met the girl 
picking fodder. We were talking-and the bolt hit her. It was murder. The bolt 
might have been meant for me."
Traz Onmale glanced down at the bolt, touched the feathers. Already warriors 
were sauntering close. Traz Onmale looked from face to face. "Where is Jad 
Piluna?"
There were mutters, a hoarse voice, a summons. Jad Piluna approached: one whom 
Reith had noticed on previous occasions: a man of dash and flair, with a keen 
high-colored face, a curious V-shaped mouth, conveying, perhaps unintentionally, 
a continual insolent mirth. Reith stared at him in a fascination of loathing. 
Here was the murderer.
Traz Onmale held out his hand. "Show me your catapult."
Jad Piluna tossed it, an act of casual disrespect, and Traz Onmale turned up a 
glittering glance. He looked at the catapult, checked the claw release and the 
film of grease customarily applied by the warriors after using their weapons. He 
said: "The grease is disturbed; you have fired this catapult today. The bolt"-he 
pointed down at the corpse-"has the three black bands of Piluna. You killed the 
girl."
Jad Piluna's mouth twitched, the V broadened and narrowed. "I meant to kill the 
man. He is a slave and a heretic. She was no better."
"Who are you to decide? Do you carry Onmale?"
"No. But I maintain that the act was accidental. It is no crime to kill a 
heretic."
The Chief Magician stepped forward. "The matter of intentional heresy is 
crucial. This person"-he pointed toward Reith" is clearly a hybrid; I would 
suppose Dirdirman and Pnumekin. For reasons unknown he has joined the Emblem Men 
and now circulates heresy. Does he think we are too stupid to notice? How wrong 
he is! He suborned the young woman; he led her astray; she became worthless. 
Hence when-"
Traz Onmale, again displaying the decisiveness so astonishing in a lad so young, 
cut him short. "Enough. You talk nonsense. The Piluna is notoriously an emblem 
of dark deeds. Jad, the carrier, must be brought to account, and Piluna curbed."
"I claim innocence," said Jad Piluna indifferently. "I give myself to the 
justice of the moons."
Traz Onmale squinted in anger. "Never mind the justice of the moons. I will give 
you justice."
Jad Piluna gazed at him without concern. "The Onmale is not permitted to fight."
Traz Onmale looked around the group. "Is there no noble emblem to subdue the 
murderous Piluna?"
None of the warriors responded. Jad Piluna nodded in satisfaction. "The emblems 
stand aloof. Your call has no effect. But you have laid a slur on Piluna; you 
have used the word 'murderer.' I demand vindication from the moons."
In a controlled voice Traz Onmale said, "Bring forth the disc."
The Chief Magician departed, to return with a box carved from a single huge 
bone. He turned to Jad Piluna. "To which moon do you call for justice?"
"I demand vindication from Az, moon of virtue and peace; I ask Az to demonstrate 
my right."
"Very well," said Traz Onmale. "I beseech Braz, the Hellmoon, to claim you for 
her own."
The Chief Magician reached into the box, brought forth a disc, on one side pink, 
on the other blue. "Stand clear, all!" He spun the disc into the air. It tilted, 
wobbled, seemed to float and glide, and landed with the pink side on top. "Az, 
moon of virtue, has decided innocence!" called the magician. "Braz has seen no 
cause to act."
Reith gave a snort of sour amusement. He turned to Traz Onmale. "I call upon the 
moons for judgment."
"Judgment in regard to what?" demanded the Chief Magician. "Certainly not your 
heresy! That is demonstrable!"
"I ask that the moon Az concede me the emblem Vaduz, so that I may punish the 
murderer Jad."
Traz Onmale gave Reith a startled glance.
The Chief Magician cried out in indignation. "Impossible; how can a slave carry 
an emblem?"
Traz Onmale looked down at the pathetic corpse and gave a curt sign to the 
magician. "I release him from bondage. Throw the disc to the moons."
The Chief Magician stood curiously stiff and reluctant. "Is this wise? The 
emblem Vaduz-"
"-is hardly the most noble of emblems. Throw."
The magician glanced askance at Jad Piluna. "Throw," said Jad Piluna. "Should 
the moons give him to the emblem I will cut him into small strips. I have always 
despised the Vaduz trait."
The magician hesitated, considering first the tall hard-muscled figure of Jad 
Piluna, then Reith, equally tall but thinner and looser, and still lacking his 
full vigor.
The Chief Magician, a cautious man, thought to temporize. "The disc is drained 
of its force; we can have no more judgments."
"Nonsense," said Reith. "The disc is controlled, so you claim, by the power of 
the moons. How can the disc be drained? Throw the disc!"
"Throw the disc!" ordered Traz Onmale.
"Then you must take Braz, for you are evil and a heretic."
"I have called on Az, which can reject me if it chooses."
The magician shrugged. "As you wish. I will use a fresh disc."
"No!" exclaimed Reith. "The same disc."
Traz Onmale sat erect and leaned forward, his attention once again engaged. "Use 
the same disc. Throw!"
With an angry gesture the Chief Magician snatched up the disc, spun it high and 
twinkling into the air. As before, it wobbled, seemed to float, drifted down 
with the pink face up.
"Az favors the stranger!" declared Traz Onmale. "Fetch the emblem Vaduz!"
The Chief Magician stalked to his shed and brought it forth. Traz Onmale handed 
it to Reith. "You now carry Vaduz: you are an Emblem Man. Do you then challenge 
Jad Piluna?"
"I do."
Traz Onmale turned to Jad Piluna. "Are you prepared to defend your emblem?"
"At once." Jad Piluna whipped forth his rapier, flourished it whistling around 
his head.
"A sword and hand-foil for the new Vaduz," said Traz Onmale.
Reith took the rapier which presently was tendered him. He hefted it, whipped 
the blade back and forth. Never had he handled so supple a sword, and he had 
handled many, for swordsmanship was an element of his training. An awkward 
weapon, in some respects, useless for close-range fighting. The warriors at 
practice held their distance from each other, swinging, slashing, lunging, 
swerving the blade down and up, in and out, but using relatively little 
footwork. The triangular knife-foil for the left hand was also strange. He swung 
the blade back and forth, watching Jad Piluna from the corner of his eyes, who 
stood contemptuously at ease.
To attempt to fight the man in his own style was equivalent to suicide, thought 
Reith.
"Attention!" called Traz Onmale. "Vaduz challenges Piluna. Forty-one such 
encounters have occurred previously. Piluna has humiliated Vaduz on thirty-four 
occasions. Emblems, address yourselves."
Jad Piluna instantly lunged; Reith parried without difficulty, hacked down with 
his own blade: a blow which Jad Piluna glossed off with his knife-shield. As he 
did so Reith jumped forward, struck with the point of the knife-shield, to 
puncture Jad Piluna's chest: a trifling wound, but sufficient to destroy 
Piluna's complacence. Eyes bulging in wrath, the red in his face almost 
feverish, he leaped back, then launched a furious attack, overwhelming Reith by 
sheer strength and technical brilliance. Reith was extended to the utmost even 
to fend away the whistling blade, without thought for counterattack. His 
shoulder gave a sudden ominous twinge and began to burn; he panted for breath. 
The blade slashed into his thigh, then his left bicep; confident, gloating, Jad 
Piluna pressed the attack, expecting Reith to fall back, to be carved into 
tatters. But Reith lurched forward, knocked aside the blade with his 
knife-shield, slashed at Jad Piluna's head and struck the black hat askew. Jad 
Piluna stepped back to set his hat straight but Reith jumped forward again, 
inside comfortable fighting distance with the rapier. He struck with the 
knife-shield, batted again at Jad Piluna's hat, knocked it off, and with it the 
emblem Piluna. Reith dropped the knife-shield, seized the hat. Jad, bereft of 
Piluna, stood back aghast, his face ringed by brown curls. He lunged; Reith 
swung the hat, caught the rapier in the ear-flaps. He stabbed with his own 
rapier, piercing Jad's shoulder.
Jad frantically disengaged his rapier, gave ground, anxious to gain more room, 
but Reith, panting and sweating, pressed him.
Reith spoke: "I hold the emblem Piluna, which has rejected you in disgust. You, 
the murderer, are about to die."
Jad gave an inarticulate call, lunged to the attack. Again Reith swung the hat, 
to catch the rapier in the flaps. He thrust and ran Jad, one-time carrier of 
Piluna, through the abdomen. Jad struck down with his foil, knocked the rapier 
from Reith's grip. A grotesque moment he stood looking at Reith in horror and 
accusation, the blade protruding from his body. He tore it out, flung it aside, 
advanced on Reith who groped for his dropped knifeshield. As Jad lunged Reith 
picked up the foil, hurled it point first into Jad's face. The point struck into 
Jad's open mouth and became fixed, like a fantastic metal tongue. Jad's knees 
buckled; he collapsed to the ground, and lay with fingers twitching.
Reith, breath rasping in his throat, dropped the hat with proud Piluna into the 
dirt and went to lean on the pole of a shed.
There was no sound throughout the camp.
Finally Traz Onmale said, "Vaduz has overcome Piluna. The emblem takes on 
luster. Where are the Judgers? Let them come to judge Jad Piluna."
The three magicians came forward, glowering first at the new corpse, at Traz 
Onmale and sidelong at Reith.
"Judge," ordered Traz Onmale in his harsh, old-man's voice. "Be sure to judge 
correctly!"
The magicians consulted in a mutter; then the Chief Magician spoke. "Judgment is 
difficult. Jad lived a hero's life. He served Piluna with distinction."
"He murdered a girl."
"For good cause: the taint of heresy, traffic with an unclean hybrid! What other 
religious man might not do the same?"
"He acted beyond his competence. I instruct you to judge him evil. Put him on 
the pyre. When Braz appears, shoot the evil ashes to hell."
"So be it," muttered the Chief Magician.
Traz Onmale went off into his shed.
Reith stood alone at the center of the compound. In uneasy groups the warriors 
spoke together, glancing toward Reith with distaste. The time was late 
afternoon; a bank of heavy clouds obscured the sun. There were flickers and 
twitches of purple lightning, a hoarse mutter of thunder. Women scurried here 
and there, covering bundles of fodder and jars of food-pod. The warriors 
bestirred themselves to tighten the lines holding the tarpaulins down over the 
great wagons.
Reith looked down at the girl's corpse, which no one seemed interested in 
carrying away. To allow the body to lie out all night in the rain and wind was 
unthinkable. Already the pyre was alight, ready to receive the hulk of Jad. 
Reith lifted the girl's body, carried it to the pyre and, ignoring the 
complaints of the old women who tended the flames, laid the body into the kiln 
with as much composure and grace as he could manage.
With the first spatters of rain, Reith went to that storage shed which had been 
given over to his use.
Outside the rain pelted down. Sodden women built a rude shelter over the pyre 
and continued to feed the flames with brush.
Someone came into the shed. Reith backed into the shadows, then the firelight 
shone on the face of Traz Onmale. He seemed somber, dejected. "Reith Vaduz, 
where are you?"
Reith came forth. Traz Onmale looked at him, gave his head a glum shake. "Since 
you have been with the tribe, everything has gone wrong! Dissension, anger, 
death. The scouts return with news only of empty steppe. Piluna has been 
tainted. The magicians are at odds with the Onmale. Who are you, why do you 
bring us such woe?"
"I am what I told you I am," said Reith: "a man from Earth."
"Heresy," said Traz Onmale, without heat. "Emblem Men are the spill of Az. So 
say the magicians, at least."
Reith pondered a moment, then said, "When ideas are in contradiction, as here, 
the more powerful ideas usually win. Sometimes this is bad, sometimes good. The 
society of the Emblems seems bad to me. A change would be for the better. You 
are ruled by priests who-"
"No," said the boy decisively. "Onmale rules the tribe. I carry that emblem; it 
speaks through my mouth."
"To some extent. The priests are clever enough to have their own way."
"What do you intend? Do you wish to destroy us?"
"Of course not. I want to destroy no one-unless it becomes necessary to my own 
survival."
The boy heaved a heavy sigh. "I am confused. You are wrong-or the magicians are 
wrong."
"The magicians are wrong. Human history on Earth goes back ten thousand years."
Traz Onmale laughed. "Once, before I carried Onmale, the tribe entered the ruins 
of old Carcegus and there captured a Pnumekin. The magicians tortured him to 
gain knowledge, but he spoke only to curse each minute of the fifty-two thousand 
years that men had lived on Tschai ... Fifty-two thousand years against your ten 
thousand years. It is all very strange."
"Very strange indeed."
Traz Onmale rose to his feet, looked up into the sky, where wind-driven wrack 
flew across the night sky. "I have been watching the moons," he said in a thin 
voice. "The magicians are watching likewise. The portents are poor; I believe 
that there is about to be a conjunction. If Az covers Braz, all is well. If Braz 
covers Az, then someone new will carry Onmale."
"And you?"
"I must carry aloft the wisdom of Onmale, and set matters right." And Traz 
Onmale departed the shed.
The tempest roared across the steppe: a night, a day, a second night. On the 
morning of the second day the sun rose into a clear windy sky. The scouts rode 
forth as usual, to return pellmell at noon. There was an instant explosion of 
activity. Tarpaulins were folded, sheds were struck, packed into bundles. Women 
loaded the drays; warriors rubbed their leap-horses with oil, threw on saddles, 
attached reins to the sensitive frontal palps. Reith approached Traz Onmale. 
"What goes on?"
"A caravan from the east has been sighted at long last. We shall attack along 
the Ioba River. As Vaduz you may ride with us and take a share of plunder."
He ordered a leap-horse; Reith mounted the ill-smelling beast with trepidation. 
It jerked to the unfamiliar weight, thrashing up its knob of a tail. Reith 
yanked at the reins; the leap-horse crouched and sprang off across the steppe 
while Reith held on for dear life. From behind came a roar of laughter: the 
hooting and jeering of experts for the tribulations of a tenderfoot.
Reith finally brought the leap-horse under control and came plunging back. A few 
moments later the group swept off to the northeast, the black long-necked brutes 
lunging and foaming, the warriors leaning forward on the saddleplats, knees 
drawn up, black leather hats flapping; Reith could not help but feel an archaic 
thrill at riding in the savage cavalcade.
For an hour the Emblem Men pounded across the steppe, bending low when they 
crossed over skylines. The rolling hills flattened; ahead lay a vast expanse 
streaked with shadows and dull colors. The troop halted on a hill while the 
warriors pointed here and there. Traz Onmale now gave orders. Reith pulled his 
mount up close and strained to listen. "-the south track to the ford. We wait in 
Bellbird Covert. The Ilanths will make the ford first; they will scout Zad Woods 
and White Hill. Then we sweep upon the center and make off with the treasure 
vans. Is all clear? So onward, to Bellbird Covert!"
Down the long slope rushed the Emblems, toward a far line of tall trees and a 
group of isolated bluffs overlooking Ioba River. In the shelter of a deep forest 
the Emblem warriors concealed themselves.
Time passed. From afar sounded a faint rumble, and the caravan appeared. Several 
hundred yards in advance rode three splendid yellow-skinned warriors, wearing 
black caps surmounted by jawless human skulls. Their beasts were similar to, but 
larger and rather more bland than the leap-horses; they carried sidearms and 
short swords, with short rifles laid across their laps.
Now, from the standpoint of the Emblems, everything went awry. The Ilanths 
failed to plunge across the river but waited watchfully for the caravan. To the 
river-bank lumbered motordrays with six-foot wheels, piled to astonishing 
heights with bales, parcels and in certain cases, cages in which huddled men and 
women.
The caravan commander was a cautious man. Before the drays attempted the ford, 
he stationed gun-carts to command all the approaches, then sent Ilanths to scout 
the opposite bank.
In Bellbird Covert the Emblem warriors cursed and fumed. "Wealth, wealth! Goods 
galore! Sixty prime wagons! But suicide to attempt an attack."
"True. The sand-blasts would strike us down like birds!"
"Is it this for which we waited three tedious months in the Walgram Rolls? Is 
our luck then so vile?"
"The omens were wrong; last night I looked up at blessed Az; I saw it jib and 
careen through the clouds: a definite admonition."
"Nothing goes right, all our ventures are thwarted! We are under the influence 
of Braz."
"Braz-or the work of the black-haired sorcerer who slew Jad Piluna."
"True! And he has come to scathe the raid, where we have always enjoyed 
success!"
And sour looks began to be turned toward Reith, who made himself inconspicuous.
The war leaders conferred. "We can achieve nothing; we would strew the field 
with dead warriors and drown our Emblems in Ioba River."
"Well, then-shall we follow and attack at night?"
"No. They are too well-guarded. The commander is Baojian; he takes no risks! His 
soul to Braz!"
"So, then-three months dawdling for naught!"
"Better for naught than for disaster! Back to camp. The women will have all 
packed, and so east to Meraghan."
"East, more destitute than when we came west! What abominable luck."
"The omens, the omens! All are at odds!"
"Back to camp, then; nothing for us here."
The warriors swung about and without a backward look sent the leap-horses 
plunging south across the steppe.
During the early evening, surly and glum, the troop arrived back at the 
campsite. The women, who had all packed, were cursed for neglect; why were not 
cauldrons bubbling? pots of beer ready to hand?
The women bawled and cursed in return, only to be drubbed. All hands finally 
pulled gear and food helter-skelter from the drays.
Traz Onmale stood brooding apart, while Reith was pointedly ignored. The 
warriors ate hugely, grumbling all the while, then, seated and exhausted, lay 
back beside the fire.
Az had already risen, but now up into the sky sailed the blue moon Braz, angling 
athwart the course of Az. The magicians were first to notice and stood with arms 
pointing in awe and premonition.
The moons converged; it seemed as if they would collide. The warriors gave 
guttural sounds of dread. But Braz moved before the pink disc, eclipsing it 
utterly. The Chief Magician gave a wild bellow to the sky: "So be it! So be it!"
Traz Onmale turned and went slowly off to the shadows where by chance stood 
Reith. "What is all the tumult?" Reith asked.
"Did you not see? Braz overpowered Az. Tomorrow night I must go to Az to expiate 
our wrongs. No doubt you will go as well to Braz."
"You mean, by way of fire and catapult?"
"Yes. I am lucky to have carried Omnale as long as I have. The bearer before me 
was not much more than half my age when he was sent to Az."
"Do you think this ritual has any practical value?"
Traz Onmale hesitated. Then: "It is what they expect; they will demand that I 
cut my throat into the fire. So I must obey."
"Better that we leave now," said Reith. "They will sleep like logs. When they 
awake we will be far from here."
"What? The two of us? Where would we fare?"
"I don't know. Is there no land where folk live without murder?"
"Perhaps such places exist. But not on Aman Steppe."
"If we could take possession of the scout-boat, and if I were given time to 
repair it, we could leave Tschai and return to Earth."
"Impossible. The Chasch took the ship. It is lost to you forever."
"So I fear. In any case, we'd do better to depart now than wait to be killed 
tomorrow."
Traz Onmale stood staring up at the moons. "Onmale orders me to stay. I cannot 
pervert the Onmale. It has never fled; it has always pursued duty to the death."
"Duty doesn't include futile suicide," said Reith. He made a sudden motion, 
seized Traz Onmale's hat, wrenched loose the emblem. Traz gave a croak of almost 
physical pain, then stood staring at Reith. "What do you do? It is death to 
touch the Onmale!"
"You are no longer Traz Onmale; you are Traz."
The boy seemed to shrink, to lessen in stature. "Very well," he said in a 
subdued voice. "I do not care to die." He looked around the camp. "We must go 
afoot. If we try to harness leap-horses they will scream and gnash their horns. 
You wait here. I will fetch cloaks and a parcel of food." He departed, leaving 
Reith with the emblem of Onmale.
In the light of the moons he looked at it and it seemed to stare back at him, 
issuing orders of baleful import. Reith dug a hole in the ground, dropped in 
Onmale. It seemed to shiver, give a soundless shriek of anguish; he covered the 
gleaming emblem, feeling haunted and guilty, and when he rose to his feet his 
hands were shaking and clammy, and sweat trickled down his back.
Time passed: an hour? Two hours? Reith was unable to estimate. Since arriving on 
Tschai his time sense had gone awry.
The moons slid down the sky; midnight approached, passed; night sounds came in 
off the steppe; a faint high-pitched yelping of nighthounds, a great muffled 
belch. In the camp the fires dwindled to embers; the mutter of voices ceased.
The boy came silently up behind him. "I'm ready. Here is your cloak and a pack 
of food."
Reith was aware that he spoke in a new voice, less certain, less brusque. His 
black hat seemed strangely plain. He looked at Reith's hands and briefly around 
the shed, but made no inquiry concerning the Onmale.
They slipped off to the north, climbed the hillside so as to walk along the 
ridge. "We'll be easier for the night-hounds to see," muttered Traz, "but the. 
attanders keep to the shadows of the swales."
"If we can reach the forest, and the tree where I hope my harness still hangs, 
we'll be considerably safer. Then..." He paused. The future was a blank expanse.
They gained the crest of the hill and halted a moment to rest. The high moons 
cast a wan light across the steppes, filling the hollows with darkness. From not 
too far to the north came a series of low wails. "Down," hissed Traz. "Lie flat. 
The hounds are running."
They lay without moving for fifteen minutes. The eerie cries sounded again, 
toward the east. "Come," said Traz. "They're circling the camp, hoping for a 
staked child."
They struck off to the south, up and down, avoiding the dark swales as much as 
possible. "The night is old," said Traz. "When light comes the Emblems will 
trail us. If we reach the river we can lose them. If the marshmen take us, we'll 
fare as badly, or worse."
For two hours they walked. The eastern sky began to show a watery yellow light, 
barred by streaks of black cloud, and ahead rose the loom of the forest. Traz 
looked back the way they had come. "The camp will be astir. The women will be 
fire-building. Presently the magicians will come to seek out the Onmale. That 
would have been me. Since I am gone the camp will be in turmoil. There will be 
curses and shouts: high anger. The Emblems will run to their leap-horses, and be 
off pellmell!" Once more Traz searched the horizons. "They'll be along soon."
The two walked, and reached the edge of the forest, still dark and dank and 
pooled with night shadows. Traz hesitated, looking into the forest, then back 
across the steppes.
"How far to the bog?" asked Reith.
"Not far. A mile or two. But I smell a berl."
Reith tested the air and detected an acrid fetor.
"It might be only the spoor," said Traz in a husky voice. "The Emblems will be 
here in a very few minutes. We'd best try to reach the river."
"First the ejection harness!"
Traz gave a fatalistic shrug, plunged into the forest. Reith turned a last look 
over his shoulder. At the far dim edge of vision a set of hurrying black specks 
had appeared. He hurried after Traz, who moved with great care, stopping to 
listen and smell the air. In a fever of impatience Reith pressed at his back. 
Traz speeded his pace, and presently they were almost running over the sodden 
leaf-mold. From far behind Reith thought to hear a set of savage boots.
Traz stopped short. "Here is the tree." He pointed up. "Is that what you want?"
"Yes," said Reith with heartfelt relief. "I was afraid it might be gone."
Traz climbed the tree, lowered the seat. Reith snapped open the flap, with drew 
his hand-gun, kissed it in rapture, thrust it in his belt.
"Hurry," said Traz anxiously. "I hear the Emblems; they're not far behind."
Reith pulled forth the survival pack, buckled it on his back. "Let's go. Now 
they follow at their own risk."
Traz led the way around the bog, taking pains to conceal the signs of their 
passage, doubling back, swinging across a twenty-foot finger of black muck on a 
hanging branch, climbing another tree, letting it bend beneath his weight to 
carry him sixty feet away to the opposite side of a dense clump of reeds. Reith 
followed each of his ploys. The voices of the Emblem warriors were now clearly 
audible.
Traz and Reith reached the edge of the river, a slow-flowing flood of 
black-brown water. Traz found a raft of driftwood, dead lianas, humus, held 
together by living reeds. He pushed it off into the stream. Then he and Reith 
hid in a nearby clump of reeds. Five minutes passed; four of the Emblem Men came 
crashing through the bog along their trail, followed by a dozen more, with 
catapults at the ready. They ran to the river's edge, pointed to the marks where 
Traz had dislodged the raft, searched the face of the river. The mass of 
floating vegetation had drifted almost two hundred yards downstream and was 
being carried by a swirl in the current to the other bank. The Emblems gave 
cries of fury, turned and raced at top speed through the murk and tangle, along 
the bank toward the drifting raft.
"Quick," whispered Traz. "They won't be fooled long. We'll go back along their 
tracks."
Back away from the river, across the bog and once more into the forest, Traz and 
Reith ran, the calls and shouts at first receding to the side, then becoming 
silent, then once again raised in a sound of furious exultation. "They've picked 
up our trail once again," gasped Traz. "They'll be coming on leap-horses; we'll 
never-" He stopped short, held up his hand, and Reith became aware of the acrid 
half-sweet fetor once again. "The berl," whispered Traz. "Through here ... Up 
this tree."
With the survival pack dangling at his back Reith followed the boy up the oily 
green branches of a tree. "Higher," said Traz. "The beast can lunge high."
The berl appeared: a lithe brown monster with a wicked boar's-head split by a 
vast mouth. From its neck protruded a pair of long arms terminating in great 
horny hands which it held above its head. It seemed to be intent on the calls of 
the warriors and paid no heed to Traz and Reith other than a single swift glance 
up toward them. Reith thought he had never seen such evil in a face before. 
"Ridiculous. It's only a beast..."
The creature disappeared through the forest; a moment later the sound of pursuit 
halted abruptly. "They smell the berl," said Traz. "Let's be off."
They climbed down from the tree, fled to the north. From behind them came yells 
of horror, a guttural gnashing roar.
"We're safe from the Emblems," said Traz in a hollow voice. "Those who live will 
depart." He turned Reith a troubled glance. "When they go back to the camp there 
will be no Onmale. What will happen? Will the tribe die?"
"I don't think so," said Reith. "The magicians will see to that."
Presently they emerged from the forest. The steppe spread flat and empty, 
drenched in an aromatic honey-colored light. Reith asked, "What is to the west 
of us?"
"The West Aman and the country of the Old Chasch. Then the Jang Pinnacles. 
Beyond are the Blue Chasch and the Aesedra Bight."
"To the south?"
"The marshes. The marsh men live there, on rafts. They are different from us: 
little yellow people with white eyes. Cruel and cunning as Blue Chasch."
"They have no cities?"
"No. There are cities there"-Traz made a gesture generally toward the north-"all 
ruined. There are old cities everywhere along the steppes. They are haunted, and 
there are Phung, as well, who live among the ruins."
Reith asked further questions regarding the geography and life of Tschai, to 
find Traz's knowledge spotty. The Dirdir and Dirdirmen lived beyond the sea; 
where, he was uncertain. There were three types of Chasch: the Old Chasch, a 
decadent remnant of a once-powerful race, now concentrated around the Jang 
Pinnacles; the Green Chasch, nomads of the Dead Steppe; and the Blue Chasch. 
Traz detested all the Chasch indiscriminately, though he had never seen Old 
Chasch. "The Green are terrible: demons! They keep to the Dead Steppe. The 
Emblems stay to the south, except for raids and caravan pillage. The caravan we 
failed to loot skirted far south to avoid the Greens."
"Where was it bound?"
"Probably Pera, or maybe to Jalkh on the Lesmatic Sea. Most likely Pera. 
North-South caravans trade between Jalkh and Mazuun. EastWest caravans move 
between Pera and Coad."
"These are cities where men live?"
Traz shrugged. "Hardly cities. Settled places. But I know little, only what I 
have heard the magicians say. Are you hungry? I am. Let us eat."
On a fallen log they sat and ate chunks of caked porridge and drank from leather 
flasks of beer. Traz pointed to a low weed on which grew small white globules. 
"We'll never starve so long as pilgrim plant grows ... And see yonder black 
clumps? That is watak. The roots store a gallon of sap. If you drink nothing but 
watak you become deaf, but for short periods there is no harm."
Reith opened his survival pack: "I can draw water from the ground with this 
sheet of film, or convert sea-water with this purifier ... These are food pills, 
enough for a month .... This is an energy cell ... A medical kit ... Knife, 
compass, scanscope ... . Transcom ..." Reith examined the transcom with a sudden 
thrill of interest.
"What is that device?" asked Traz.
"Half of a communication system. There was another in Paul Waunder's pack, which 
went with the space-boat. I can broadcast a signal which will bring an automatic 
response from the other set and give the other set's location." Reith pushed the 
Find button. A compass arrow swung to the northwest; a counter flashed a white 
6.2 and a red 2. "The other set-and presumably the space-boat-is 6.2 times 10 to 
the second, or 620 miles northwest."
"That would be in the country of the Blue Chasch. We knew that already."
Reith looked off to the northwest, ruminating. "We don't want to go south into 
the marshes, or back into the forest. What lies to the east, beyond the 
steppes?"
"I don't know. I think the Draschade Ocean. It is far away."
"Is that where the caravans come from?"
"Coad is on a gulf which connects to the Draschade. Between is all of Aman 
Steppe, the Emblem Men and other tribes as well: the Kite-fighters, the Mad 
Axes, the Berl Totems, the Yellow Blacks and others beyond my knowledge."
Reith considered. His space-boat had been taken by the Blue Chasch into the 
northwest. Northwest therefore seemed the most reasonable direction in which to 
fare.
Traz sat dozing, chin on his chest. Wearing Onmale he had demonstrated a bleak 
unrelenting nature; now, with the soul of the emblem lifted from his own, he had 
become forlorn and wistful, though still far more reserved than Reith thought 
natural.
Reith's own eyelids were drooping with fatigue: the sunlight was warm; the spot 
seemed secure ... What if the berl should return? Reith forced himself to 
wakefulness. While Traz slept he repacked his gear.



CHAPTER THREE
TRAZ AWOKE. HE turned Reith a sheepish look and rose quickly to his feet.
Reith arose; they set forth: by some unspoken understanding into the northwest. 
The time was middle morning, the sun a tarnished brass disc in the slate sky. 
The air was pleasantly cool, and for the first time since his arrival on Tschai 
Reith felt a lifting of the spirits. His body was mended, he had recovered his 
equipment, he knew the general location of the scout-boat: immeasurable 
improvement over his previous situation.
They trudged steadily across the steppe. The forest became a dark blur behind 
them: elsewhere the horizons were empty. After their midday meal they slept for 
a period; then, awakening in the late afternoon, they went on into the 
northwest.
The sun dropped into a bank of low clouds, casting an embroidery of dull copper 
over the top. There was no shelter on the open steppe; with nothing better to do 
they walked on.
The right was quiet and still; far to the east they heard the wailing of 
night-hounds but were not molested.
The following day they finished the food and water from the packs which Traz had 
supplied and began to subsist on the pods of pilgrim plant and sap from watak 
roots: the first bland, the second acrid.
On the morning of the third day they saw a fleck of white drifting across the 
western sky. Traz flung himself flat behind a low shrub and motioned Reith to do 
likewise. "Dirdir! They hunt!"
Reith brought forth his scanscope, sighted on the object. With elbows on the 
ground he zoomed the magnification to fifty diameters, when air vibration began 
to confuse the image. He saw a long flat boat-like hull, riding the air on 
rakish cusps and odd half-crescents: an aesthetic style, apparently, rather than 
utilitarian design. Crouched on the hull were four pale shapes, unidentifiable 
as Dirdir or Dirdirmen. The flyer traveled a course roughly parallel to their 
own, passing several miles to the west. Reith wondered at Traz's tension. He 
asked, "What do they hunt?"
"Men."
"For sport?"
"For sport. For food, as well. They eat man-meat."
"I'd like to have that flyer," mused Reith. He rose to his feet, ignoring Traz's 
frantic protests. But the Dirdir flyer disappeared into the north. Traz relaxed, 
but searched the sky. "Sometimes they fly high and look down until they spot a 
lone warrior. Then they drop like perriaults, to noose the man, or engage him 
with electric swords."
They walked on, always north and west. Toward sunset Traz once again became 
uneasy, for reasons Reith could not discern, though there was a particularly 
eerie quality to the landscape. The sun, obscured by a mist, was small and dim 
and cast a light as wan as lymph over the vastness of the steppe. There was 
nothing to be seen save their own long shadows behind them, but as Traz walked 
he looked this way and that, pausing at times to search the way they had come. 
Reith finally asked, "What are you looking for?"
"Something is following us."
"Oh?" Reith turned to look back across the steppe. "How do you know?"
"It is a feeling I have."
"What would it be?"
"Pnumekin, who travel unseen. Or it might be nighthounds."
"Pnumekin: they are men, are they not?"
"Men in a sense. They are the spies, the couriers of the Pnume. Some say that 
tunnels run beneath the steppe, with secret entrance traps, perhaps under that 
very bush!"
Reith examined the bush toward which Traz had directed his attention, but it 
seemed ordinary enough. "Would they harm us?"
"Not unless the Pnume wanted us dead. Who knows what the Pnume want? ... More 
likely the night-hounds are out early."
Reith brought forth his scanscope. He searched the steppe, but discovered 
nothing.
"Tonight," said Traz, "we had best build a fire."
The sun sank in a sad display of purple and mauve and brown. Traz and Reith 
collected a pile of brush and set a fire.
Traz's instinct had been accurate. As dusk deepened to dark a soft wailing 
sounded to the east, to be answered by a cry to the north and another to the 
south. Traz cocked his catapult. "They're not afraid of fire," he told Reith. 
"But they avoid the light, from cleverness ... Some say they are a kind of 
animal Pnume."
The night-hounds surrounded them, moving just beyond range of the firelight, 
showing as dark shapes, with an occasional flash of lambent white eye-discs.
Traz kept his catapult ready. Reith brought forth his gun and his energy cell. 
The first fired tiny explosive needles, and was accurate to a distance of fifty 
yards. The cell was a multiple-purpose device. At one end a crystal emitted 
either a beam or a flood of light at the touch of a switch. A socket allowed the 
recharging of the scanscope and the transcom. At the other end a trigger 
released a gush of raw energy, but seriously depleted the energy available for 
future use, and Reith regarded the energy cell as an emergency weapon only.
With night-hounds circling the fire he kept both weapons ready, determined not 
to waste a charge unless it was absolutely necessary. A shape came close; Traz 
fired his catapult. The bolt struck home; the black shape bounded high, giving a 
contralto call of woe.
Traz re-cocked the catapult, and put more brush on the fire. The shapes moved 
uneasily, then began to run in circles.
Traz said gloomily, "Soon they will lunge. We are as good as dead. A troop of 
six men can hold off night-hounds; five men are almost always killed."
Reith reluctantly took up his energy-cell. He waited. Closer, in from the 
shadows danced and spun the night-hounds. Reith aimed, pulled the trigger, 
turned the beam halfway around the circle. The surviving night-hounds screamed 
in horror. Reith stepped around the fire to complete the job, but the 
night-hounds were gone and presently could be heard grieving in the distance.
Traz and Reith took turns sleeping. Each thought he kept sharp lookout, but in 
the morning, when they went to look for corpses, all had been dragged away. 
"Crafty creatures!" said Traz in a marveling voice. "Some say they talk to the 
Pnume, and report all the events of the steppe."
"What then? Do the Pnume act on the information?"
Traz shrugged doubtfully. "When something terrible happens it is safe to assume 
that the Pnume have been at work."
Reith looked all around, wondering where Pnume or Pnumekin, or even 
night-hounds, could hide. In all directions lay the open steppe, dim in the 
sepia dawn gloom.
For breakfast they ate pilgrim pod and drank watak sap. Then once more they 
began their march northwest.
Late in the afternoon they saw ahead an extensive tumble of gray rubble which 
Traz identified as a ruined city, where safety from the night-hounds could be 
had at the risk of encountering bandits, Green Chasch or Phung. At Reith's 
question, Traz described these latter: a weird solitary species similar to the 
Pnume, only larger and characterized by an insane craft which made them terrible 
even to the Green Chasch.
As they approached the ruins Traz told gloomy tales of the Phung and their 
macabre habits. "Still, the ruins may be empty. We must approach with caution."
"Who built these old cities?" asked Reith.
Traz shrugged. "No one knows. Perhaps the Old Chasch; perhaps the Blue Chasch. 
Perhaps the Gray Men, though no one really believes this."
Reith sorted over what he knew of the Tschai races and their human associates. 
There were Dirdir and Dirdirmen; Old Chasch, Green Chasch, Blue Chasch and 
Chaschmen; Pnume and the human-derived Pnumekin; the yellow marsh-men, the 
various tribes of nomads, the fabulous "Golds," and now the "Gray Men."
"There are Wankh and Wankhmen as well," said Traz. "On the other side of 
Tschai."
"What brought all these races to Tschai?" Reith asked-a rhetorical question, for 
he knew that Traz would have no answer; and Traz gave only a shrug in reply.
They came to mounds of silted-over rubble, slabs of tip-tilted concrete, shards 
of glass: the outskirts of the city.
Traz stopped short, listened, craned his neck uneasily, brought his catapult to 
the ready. Reith, looking about, could see nothing threatening; slowly they 
moved on, into the heart of the ruins. The old structures, once lofty halls and 
grand palaces, were toppled, decayed, with only a few white pillars, posts, 
pedestals lifting into the dark Tschai sky. Between were platforms and piazzas 
of wind-scoured stone and concrete.
In the central plaza a fountain bubbled up from an underground spring or 
aquifer. Traz approached with great circumspection. "How can there fail to be 
Phung?" he muttered. "Even now-" and he scrutinized the tumbled masonry around 
the plaza with great care. Reith tasted the water, then drank. Traz, however, 
hung back. "A Phung has been here."
Reith could see no evidence of the fact. "How do you know?"
Traz gave a half-diffident shrug, reluctant to expatiate upon a matter so 
obvious. His attention was diverted to another more urgent matter; he looked 
apprehensively around the sky, sensing something below the threshold of Reith's 
perceptions. Suddenly he pointed. "The Dirdir boat!" They took shelter under an 
overhanging slab of concrete; a moment later the flyer skimmed so close above 
that they could hear the swish of air from the repulsors.
The flyer swung in a great circle, returned to hover over the plaza at a height 
of two hundred yards.
"Strange," whispered Traz. "It's almost as if they know we're here."
"They may be searching the ground with an infrared screen," whispered Reith. "On 
Earth we can track a man by the warmth of his footprints."
The flyer floated off to the west, then gathered speed and disappeared. Traz and 
Reith went back out upon the plaza. Reith drank more water, relishing the cold 
clarity after three days of watak sap. Traz preferred to hunt the large 
roach-like insects which lived among the rubble. These he skinned with a quick 
jerk of the fingers and ate with relish. Reith was not sufficiently hungry to 
join him.
The sun sank behind broken columns and shattered arches; a peach-colored haze 
hung over the steppe which Traz thought to be a portent of changing weather. For 
fear of rain, Reith wished to take shelter under a slab, but Traz would not hear 
of it. "The Phung! They would sniff us out!" He selected a pedestal rising 
thirty feet above a crumbled staircase as a secure place to pass the night. 
Reith looked glumly at a bank of clouds coming up from the south but made no 
further protest. The two carried up armloads of twigs and fronds for a bed.
The sun sank; the ancient city became dim. Into the plaza wandered a man, 
reeling with fatigue. He rushed to the fountain and drank greedily.
Reith brought out his scanscope. The man was tall, slender, with long legs and 
arms, a long sallow head quite bald, round eyes, a small button nose, minute 
ears. He wore the tatters of a once-elegant garment of pink and blue and black; 
on his head was an extravagant confection of pink puffs and black ribbons. 
"Dirdirman," whispered Traz, and bringing forth his catapult, took aim.
"Wait!" protested Reith. "What do you do?"
"Kill him, of course."
"He is not harming us! Why not give the poor devil his life?"
"He only lacks the opportunity," grumbled Traz, but he put aside the catapult. 
The Dirdirman, turning away from the fountain, looked carefully around the 
plaza.
"He seems to be lost," muttered Reith. "I wonder if the Dirdir boat was seeking 
him. Could he be a fugitive?"
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 halfhuman, 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 nonmoving. 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, discovered the Phung, and 
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 and 
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 on 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 madfolk, 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 Edo 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 elan, 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 Sibot 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 marshes 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 Dirdirmen 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 Ilanths scouts, proud as kings, rode on leaphorses: 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 
grayskinned 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 lobu 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 blackstained 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 seemed 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 browngold 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 Earthstyle 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?
Reith tried to identify the dray, but among so many humped, peaked and angular 
shapes it could not be found. Just as well, he told himself. He had troubles 
enough without investigating the woe of a slave girl, glimpsed for five seconds 
in all. Reith went back into his room.
Certain items from his survival kit he thrust into his pockets; the rest he 
concealed under the ewer. Descending to the common-room, he found Traz sitting 
stiffly on a bench to the side. In response to Reith's question, he admitted 
that he had never before been in such a place and did not wish to make a fool of 
himself. Reith laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, and Traz managed a 
painful grin.
Anacho appeared, less obviously a Dirdirman in his steppedweller's garments. The 
three went to the refectory, where they were served a meal of bread and thick 
dark soup, the ingredients of which Reith did not inquire.
After the meal Anacho regarded Reith through eyes heavy-lidded with speculation. 
"From here you fare to Pera?"
"Yes."
"This is known as the City of Lost Souls."
"So I understand."
"Hyperbole, of course," Anacho remarked airily. "'Soul' is a concept susceptible 
to challenge. The Dirdir theologies are subtle; I will not discuss them, except 
to remark that-no, best not to confuse you. But back to Pera, the 'City of Lost 
Souls,' as it were, and the destination of the caravan. Rather than walk, I 
prefer to ride; I suggest then that we engage the best and most comfortable 
transport the caravan-master can provide."
"An excellent idea," said Reith. "However, I-"
Anacho fluttered his finger in the air. "Do not concern yourself; I am, for the 
moment at least, disposed kindly toward you and the boy; you are mild and 
respectful; you do not overstep your status; hence-"
Traz, breathing hard, rose to his feet. "I carried Onmale! Can you understand 
that? When I left camp do you think that I neglected to take sequins?" He 
thumped a long bag down upon the table. "We do not depend on your indulgence, 
Dirdirman!"
"As you wish," said Anacho with a quizzical glance toward Reith.
Reith said, "Since I have no sequins, I gladly accept whatever is offered to me, 
from either of you."
The common-room had gradually filled with folk from the caravan: drivers and 
weaponeers, the three swaggering Ilanths, the caravan-master, others. All called 
for food and drink. As soon as the caravan-master had eaten, Anacho, Traz and 
Reith approached him and solicited transportation to Pera. "So long as you are 
in no hurry," said the caravan-master. "We wait here until the Aig-Hedajha 
caravan comes down from the North, then we travel by way of Golsse; if you are 
in haste you must make other arrangements."
Reith would have preferred to travel rapidly: what would be happening to his 
space-boat? But with no swifter form of transport available, he curbed his 
impatience.
Others also were impatient. Up to the table marched two women in long black 
gowns with red shoes. One of these Reith had seen previously, looking from the 
back of the dray. The other was thinner, but taller, with a skin even more 
leaden, almost cadaverous. The tall woman spoke in a voice crackling with 
restrained anger, or perhaps chronic antagonism: "Sir Baojian, how long do we 
wait here? The driver says it may be five days."
"Five days is a fair estimate."
"But this is impossible! We will be overdue at the seminary!"
Baojian the caravan-master spoke in a professionally toneless voice: "We wait 
for the southbound caravan, to exchange articles for transshipment. We proceed 
immediately thereafter."
"We cannot wait so long! We must be at Fasm for business of great importance."
"I assure you, old mother, that I will deliver you to your seminary with all the 
expedition possible."
"Not fast enough! You must take us on at once!" This was the hoarse 
expostulation of the other, the burly slab-cheeked woman Reith had seen 
previously.
"Impossible, I fear," said Baojian briskly. "Was there anything else you wished 
to discuss?"
The women swung away without response and went to a table beside the wall.
Reith could not restrain his curiosity. "Who are they?"
"Priestesses of the Female Mystery. Do you not know the cult? They are 
ubiquitous. What part of Tschai is your home?"
"A place far away," said Reith. "Who is the young woman they keep in a cage? 
Likewise a priestess?"
Baojian rose to his feet. "She is a slave, from Charchan, or so I suppose. They 
take her to Fasm for their triennial rites. It is nothing to me. I am a 
caravaneer; I ply between Coad on the Dwan to Tosthanag on the Schanizade Ocean. 
Whom I convoy, where, to what purpose-" He gave a shrug, a purse of the lips. 
"Priestess or slave, Dirdirman, nomad or unclassified hybrid: it's all the same 
to me." He gave them a cool grin and departed.
The three returned to their table.
Anacho inspected Reith with a thoughtful frown. "Curious, curious indeed."
"What is curious?"
"Your strange equipment, as fine as Dirdir stuff. Your garments, of a cut 
unknown on Tschai. Your peculiar ignorance and your equally peculiar competence. 
It almost might seem that you are what you claim to be: a man from a far world. 
Absurd, of course."
"I made no such claim," said Reith.
"The boy did."
"The question, then, is between you and him." Reith turned to watch the 
priestesses, who brooded over bowls of soup. Now they were joined by two more 
priestesses, with the captive girl between them. The first two reported their 
conversation with the caravan-master with many grunts, jerks of the arms, sour 
glances over the shoulder. The girl sat dispiritedly, hands in her lap, until 
one of the priestesses prodded her and pointed to a bowl of soup, whereupon she 
listlessly began to eat. Reith could not take his eyes from her. She was a 
slave, he thought in sudden excitement; would the priestess sell? Almost 
certainly not. The girl of extraordinary beauty was destined for some 
extraordinary purpose. Reith sighed, turned his gaze elsewhere, and noticed that 
others-namely the Ilanths-were no less fascinated than himself. He saw them 
staring, tugging at their mustaches, muttering and laughing, with such 
lascivious jocularity that Reith became annoyed. Were they not aware that the 
girl faced a tragic destiny?
The priestesses rose to their feet. They stared truculently in all directions 
and led the girl from the room. For a time they marched back and forth across 
the compound, the girl walking to the side, occasionally being jerked into a 
trot when her steps lagged. The Ilanth scouts, coming out of the common-room, 
squatted on their heels by the wall of the caravansary. They had exchanged their 
war-hats with the human skulls for square berets of soft brown velvet, and each 
had pasted a vermilion beauty disc on his lemon-yellow cheek. They chewed on 
nuts, spitting the shells into the dirt and never taking their eyes from the 
girl. There was badinage between them, a sly challenge, and one rose to his 
feet. He sauntered across the compound and, accelerating his steps, came up 
behind the marching priestesses. He spoke to the girl, who looked at him 
blankly. The priestesses halted, swung about. The tall one raised her arm, 
forefinger pointed at the sky, and called out an angry reprimand. The Ilanth, 
grinning insolently, held his ground. He failed to notice the burly priestess 
who came up from the side and dealt him a vicious blow on the side of the head. 
The Ranth tumbled to the compound, but leapt to his feet instantly, spitting 
curses. The priestess, grinning, moved forward; the Ilanth tried to strike her 
with his fist. She caught him in a bear hug, banged his head with her own, 
lifted him, bumped out her belly, propelled him away. Advancing, she kicked him, 
and the others joined her. The Ilanth, surrounded by priestesses, finally 
managed to crawl away and regain his feet. He shouted invective, spat in the 
first priestess's face, then, retreating swiftly, rejoined his hooting comrades.
The priestesses, with occasional glances toward the Ilanths, continued their 
pacing. The sun sank low, sending long shadows across the compound. Down from 
the hills came a group of ragged folk, somewhat undersized, with white skins, 
yellow-brown hair, clear sharp profiles, small slanting eyes. The men began to 
play on gongs, while the women performed a curious hopping dance, darting back 
and forth with the rapidity of insects. Wizened children, wearing only shawls, 
moved among the travelers with bowls, soliciting coins. Across the compound the 
travelers were airing blankets and shawls, hanging the squares of orange, 
yellow, rust and brown out to flap in the airs drifting down from the hills. The 
priestesses and the slave girl retired to their ironbound dray-house.
The sun set behind the hills. Dusk settled over the caravansary; the compound 
became quiet. Pale lights flickered from the dray-houses of the caravan. The 
steppes beyond the outcrops were dim, rimmed by plum-colored afterglow.
Reith ate a bowl of pungent goulash, a slab of coarse bread and a dish of 
preserves for his supper. Traz went to watch a gambling game; Anacho was nowhere 
to be seen. Reith went out into the compound, looked up at the stars. Somewhere 
among the unfamiliar constellations would be a faint and minuscule Cepheus, 
across the Sun from his present outlook. Cepheus, an undistinguished 
constellation, could never be identified by the naked eye. The Sun at 212 
light-years would be invisible: a star of perhaps the tenth or twelfth 
magnitude. Somewhat depressed, Reith brought his gaze down from the sky.
The priestesses sat outside their dray, muttering together. Within the cage 
stood the slave girl. Drawn almost beyond his will, Reith circled the compound, 
came up behind the dray, looked into the cage. "Girl," he said. "Girl."
She turned and looked at him, but said nothing.
"Come over here," said Reith, "so that I can speak to you."
Slowly she crossed the cage to peer down at him.
"What do they do with you?" Reith asked.
"I don't know." Her voice was husky and soft. "They stole me from my home in 
Cath; they took me to the ship and put me in a cage."
"Why?"
"Because I am beautiful. Or so they say... Hush. They hear us talking. Hide."
Reith, feeling craven, dropped to his knees. The girl stood holding to the bars, 
looking from the cage. One of the priestesses came to look in the cage and, 
seeing nothing amiss, returned to her sisters.
The girl called softly down to Reith. "She is gone."
Reith rose to his feet, feeling somewhat foolish. "Do you want to be free of 
this cage?"
"Of course!" Her voice was almost indignant. "I don't want to be part of their 
rite! They hate me! Because they are so ugly!" She peered down at Reith, studied 
him in the flicker from a nearby window, "I saw you today," she said, "standing 
beside the track."
"Yes. I noticed you too."
She turned her head. "They come again. You had better go."
Reith moved away. From across the compound he watched the priestesses thrust the 
girl into the dray-house. Then he went into the common-room. For a period he 
watched the games. There was chess, played on a board of forty-nine squares with 
seven pieces to a side; a game played with a disc and small numbered chips, of 
great complication; several card games. A flask of beer stood by every hand; 
women of the hill tribes wandered through the room soliciting; there were 
several brawls of no great consequence. A man from the caravan brought forth a 
flute, another a lute, another drew sonorous bass tones from a long glass tube; 
the three played music which Reith found fascinating if only for the strangeness 
of its melodic structure. Traz and the Dirdirman had long gone to their 
chambers; Reith presently followed.



CHAPTER FOUR
Reith Awoke with a sense of imminence which for a space he could not comprehend. 
Then he understood its source: it derived from the girl and the Priestesses of 
the Female Mystery. He lay scowling at the plaster ceiling. Utter folly to 
concern himself with matters beyond his comprehension! What, after all, could he 
achieve?
Descending to the common-room, he ate a dish of porridge served by one of the 
innkeeper's slatternly daughters, then went out to sit on a bench, aching for a 
glimpse of the captive girl.
The priestesses appeared, proceeded to the caravansary with the girl in their 
midst, looking neither right nor left.
Half an hour later they returned to the compound, and went to talk to one of the 
small men from the hills, who grinned and nodded obsequiously, eyes glittering 
in a fascination of awe.
The Ilanths trooped from the common-room. With sidelong glances toward the 
priestesses and leers at the girl, they crossed the compound, brought forth 
their leap-horses and began to pare the horny growths which gathered on the 
gray-green hides.
The priestesses ended their discussion with the mountainman and went to walk out 
on the steppe, back and forth in front of the outcrops, the girl lagging a few 
steps behind, to the exasperation of the priestesses. The Ilanths looked after, 
muttering to themselves.
Traz came out to sit by Reith. He pointed across the steppe. "Green Chasch are 
near: a large party."
Reith could see nothing. "How do you know?"
"I smell the smoke of their fires."
"I smell nothing," said Reith.
Traz shrugged. "It is a party of three or four hundred."
"Mmmf. How do you know that?"
"By the strength of the wind, the smell of the smoke. A small group makes less 
smoke than a large group. This is the smoke of about three hundred Green 
Chasch."
Reith threw up his hands in defeat.
The Ilanths, mounting their leap-horses, bounded off into the outcrops, where 
they halted. Anacho, standing by, gave a dry laugh. "They go to plague the 
priestesses."
Reith jumped to his feet, went out to watch. The Ilanths waited till the 
priestesses strode by, then bounded forth. The priestesses sprang back in alarm; 
the Ilanths, cawing and hooting, snatched up the girl, threw her over a saddle 
and carried her off toward the hills. The priestesses stared aghast; then, 
screaming hoarsely, they all ran back to the compound. Seizing upon Baojian the 
caravan-master, they pointed trembling fingers. "The yellow beasts have stolen 
the maid of Cath!"
"Just for a bit of sport," said Baojian soothingly. "They'll bring her back when 
they're through with her."
"Useless for our purposes! When we have journeyed so far and borne so much! It 
is utter tragedy! I am a Grand Mother of the Fasm Seminary! And you will not 
even help!"
The caravan-master spat into the dirt. "I help no one. I maintain order in the 
caravan. I steer my wagons, I have time for nothing else."
"Vile man! Are these not your underlings? Control them!"
"I control only my caravan. The event occurred upon the steppe."
"Oh, what shall we do? We are bereft! There will be no Rite of Clarification!"
Reith found himself in the saddle of a leap-horse, bounding across the steppe. 
He had been activated by an impulse far below the level of his conscious mind; 
even while the leap-horse took him on prodigious bounds across the steppe he 
marveled at the reflexes which had sent him springing away from the 
caravan-master and up onto the leaphorse. "What's done is done," he consoled 
himself, with somewhat bitter satisfaction; it seemed that the plight of a 
beautiful slave-girl had taken precedence over his own woes.
The Ilanths had not ridden far; up a little valley to a small flat sandy area 
under a beetling boulder. The girl stood bewildered and cowering against the 
stone; the Ranths had only just finished tying their leaphorses when Reith 
arrived. "What do you want?" asked one without friendliness. "Away with you; we 
are about to test the quality of this Cath girl."
Another one gave a coarse laugh. "She will need instruction for the Female 
Mysteries!"
Reith displayed his gun. "I'll kill any or all of you, with pleasure." He 
motioned to the girl. "Come."
She looked wildly around the landscape, as if not knowing in which direction to 
run.
The Ilanths stood silently, black mustaches a droop. The girl slowly clambered 
up on the horse in front of Reith; he turned it about and rode off down the 
valley. She looked at him with an unreadable expression, started to speak, then 
became silent. Behind, the Ilanths mounted their own horses and bounded off 
past, yipping, hooting, cursing.
The priestesses stood by the entry to the compound, gazing across the steppe. 
Reith halted the horse and considered the four black-clad shapes, who at once 
began to make peremptory signals.
The girl spoke frantically: "How much did they pay you?"
"Nothing," said Reith. "I came of my own accord."
"Take me home," begged the girl. "Take me to Cath! My father will pay you far 
more-whatever you ask of him!"
Reith pointed to a moving black line at the horizon. "I suspect those are Green 
Chasch. We'd best go back to the inn."
"The women will take me! They will put me in the cage!" The girl's voice 
quavered; her composure-or perhaps it was apathy-began to disintegrate. "They 
hate me, they want to do their worst!" She pointed. "They come now! Let me go!"
"Alone? Out on the steppe?"
"I prefer it!"
"I won't let them take you," said Reith. He rode slowly toward the caravansary. 
The priestesses stood waiting at the passage between the rock juts. "Oh noble 
man!" called the Grand Mother. "You have done a fine deed! She has not been 
defiled?"
"It is no concern of yours," said Reith.
"What's this? Not our concern? How can you say so?"
"She is my property. I took her from the three warriors. Go to them for 
restitution, not to me. What I have taken, I keep."
The priestesses laughed hugely. "You ridiculous cockbird of a man! Give us our 
property, or it will go poorly with you! We are Priestesses of the Female 
Mystery."
"You will be dead priestesses if you interfere with me or my property," said 
Reith. He rode past, into the compound, leaving the priestesses staring after. 
Reith dismounted, helped the girl to the ground, and now he understood why his 
instinct had sent him in pursuit of the Ilanths, all the urging of good judgment 
to the contrary.
"What is your name?" he asked.
She reflected, as if Reith had asked the most perplexing of riddles, and 
answered with diffidence. "My father is lord of Blue Jade Palace." Then she 
said, "We are of the Aegis caste. Sometimes I am announced as Blue Jade Flower, 
at lesser functions Beauty Flower, or Flower of Cath ... My flower-name is 
Ylin-Ylan."
"That is all somewhat complicated," stated Reith, to which the girl nodded, as 
if she too found the matter overly profound. "What do your friends call you?"
"That depends on their caste. Are you high-born?"
"Yes, indeed," said Reith, seeing no reason to claim otherwise.
"Do you intend me to be your slave? If so, it would not be proper to use my 
friend-name."
"I've never owned a slave," said Reith. "The temptation is great-but I think I'd 
rather use your friend-name."
"You may call me the Flower of Cath, which is a formal friend-name, or, if you 
wish, my flower-name, Ylin-Ylan."
"That should do, temporarily at least." He surveyed the compound, then, taking 
the girl's arm, led her into the common-room of the caravansary, and to a table 
at the back wall. Here he studied the girl, Ylin-Ylan, the Beauty Flower, the 
Flower of Cath. "I don't quite know what to do with you."
Out in the compound the priestesses were expostulating with the caravan-master, 
who listened with gravity and politeness.
Reith said, "The problem may be taken out of my hands. I'm not sure of my legal 
footing."
"There are no laws here on the steppe," the girl said. "Fear alone rules."
Traz came to join them. He appraised the girl with disapproval. "What do you 
intend with her?"
"I'd see her home, if I could."
"You would want for nothing, if you did so," the girl told him earnestly. "I am 
the daughter of a notable house. My father would build you a palace."
At this Traz showed less disapprobation, and looked off to the east as if 
envisioning the journey. "It is not impossible."
"For me it is," said Reith. "I must go to find my space-boat. If you want to 
conduct her to Cath, by all means do so, and make a new life for yourself."
Traz looked dubiously out at the priestesses. "Without warriors or weapons, how 
could I convey one like her across the steppes? We'd be enslaved or killed out 
of hand."
Baojian the caravan-master entered the room, approached. He spoke in an even 
voice: "The priestesses demand that I enforce their claims, which I will not do, 
since the transfer of property occurred away from my caravan. However, I agreed 
to put the question: what are your intentions in regard to the girl?"
"It is no concern of theirs," said Reith. "The girl has become my property. If 
they want compensation, they must approach the Ilanths. I have no business with 
them."
"This is a reasonable statement," remarked Baojian. "The priestesses understand 
as much, although they protest their misfortunes. I am inclined to agree that 
they have been victimized."
Reith looked to see if the caravan-master was keeping a straight face. "Are you 
serious?"
"I think only in terms of property rights and security of transfer," declared 
Baojian. "The priestesses have suffered a great loss. A certain sort of girl is 
necessary for their rite; they strove inordinately to procure a suitable 
participant, only to lose her at the last minute. What if they paid a salvage 
fee-let us say, half the price of a comparable female?"
Reith shook his head. "They suffered loss, but I feel no concern whatever. After 
all, they have not come to rejoice with the girl for having regained her 
freedom."
"I suspect that they are in no mood for merrymaking, even at so happy an 
occasion," remarked Baojian. "Well, I will communicate your remarks. Doubtless 
they will make other arrangements."
"I hope the situation will not affect the convenience of our travel?"
"Naturally not," declared the caravan-master emphatically. "I enforce total ban 
upon thieving and violence. Security is my stock in trade." He bowed and 
departed.
Reith turned to Traz and Anacho, who had come to join the group. "Well, what 
now?"
"You are as good as dead," said Traz gloomily. "The priestesses are witch-women. 
We had several such among the Emblems. We killed them and events went for the 
better."
Anacho inspected the Flower of Cath with the cool detachment he might have used 
for an animal. "She's a Golden Yao, an extremely old stock: hybrids of the First 
Tans and the First Whites. A hundred and fifty years ago they became arrogant 
and contrived to build certain advanced mechanisms. The Dirdir taught them a 
sharp lesson."
"A hundred and fifty years ago? How long is the Tschai year?"
"Four hundred and eighty-eight days, though I see no relevance to the 
discussion."
Reith calculated. A hundred and fifty Tschai years was equivalent to about two 
hundred and twelve Earth years. Coincidence? Or had the Flower's ancestors 
dispatched that radio beam which had brought him to Tschai?
The Flower of Cath was regarding Anacho with detestation. She said in a husky 
voice, "You are a Dirdirman!"
"Of the Sixth Estate: by no means an Immaculate."
The girl turned to Reith. "They torpedoed Settra and Balisidre; they wanted to 
destroy us, from envy!"
"'Envy' is not the proper word," said Anacho. "Your people were playing with 
forbidden forces, matters beyond your comprehension."
"What happened after?" asked Reith.
"Nothing," said Ylin-Ylan. "Our cities were destroyed, and the receptories and 
the Palace of Arts, and the Golden Webs-the treasures of thousands of years. Is 
it any wonder we hate the Dirdir? More than the Pnume, more than the Chasch, 
more than the Wankh!"
Anacho shrugged. "Expunging the Yao was not my doing."
"But you defend the deed! This is the same!"
"Let us talk of something else," suggested Reith. "After all, the happening is 
two hundred and twelve years gone."
"Only a hundred and fifty!" the Flower of Cath corrected him.
"True. Well, then, what of you? Would you like a change of clothes?"
"Yes. I have worn these since the unspeakable women took me from my garden. I 
would like to bathe. They allowed me water only enough to drink..."
Reith stood guard while the girl scrubbed herself, then handed in 
steppe-travelers' garments which made no distinction between male and female. 
Presently she emerged, still half-damp, wearing the gray breeches and tan tunic, 
and they once more went down to the common-room, and out upon the compound, to 
discover an atmosphere of urgency, occasioned by the Green Chasch, who had 
approached to within a mile of the caravansary. The gun emplacements on the rock 
juts had been manned; Baojian was driving his gun-carts up into the openings 
where they commanded all avenues of approach.
The Green Chasch showed no immediate disposition to attack. They brought up 
their own wagons, ranged them in a long line, erected a hundred tall black 
tents.
Baojian pulled at his chin in vexation. "The North-South train will never join 
us with nomads so near. When their scouts see the camp they'll back away and 
wait. I foresee delay."
The Grand Mother set up an indignant outcry. "The Rite will proceed without us! 
Must we be thwarted in every particular?"
Baojian held out his hands to implore reason. "Can't you see the impossibility 
of leaving the compound? We would be forced to fight! We may have to do so in 
any event!"
Someone called, "Send the priestesses forth to dance their 'Rite' with the 
Chasch!"
"Spare the unfortunate Chasch; " spoke another impudent voice. The priestesses 
retreated in a fury.
Dusk settled over the steppe. The Green Chasch started up a line of fires, 
across which their tall shapes could be seen to pass. From time to time they 
seemed to halt and stare toward the caravansary.
Traz told Reith, "They are a telepathic race; they know each other's minds. 
Sometimes they seem to read the thoughts of men ... I myself doubt that they do. 
Still-who knows?"
A scratch meal of soup and lentils was served in the common room, with dim 
lights to prevent the Chasch from silhouetting those on guard. A few quiet games 
were played to the side. The Ilanths drank distillation, and presently became 
loud and harsh, until the innkeeper warned them that he maintained as stringent 
a policy as did the caravan-master, and that if they wished to brawl they must 
go forth on the steppe. The three hunched forward over their table, hats pulled 
thwartwise across their yellow faces.
The common-room began to empty. Reith took Ylin-Ylan the Beauty Flower to a 
cubicle beside his own. "Bolt your door," he told her. "Do not come out until 
morning. If anyone tries the door, pound on the wall to wake me."
She looked at him through the doorway with an unreadable expression and Reith 
thought never had he seen more appealing a sight. She asked, "Then you really do 
not intend me to be a slave?"
"No."
The door closed, the bolt struck home. Reith went to his own cubicle.
The night passed. On the following day, with the Green Chasch still camped 
before the caravansary, there was nothing to do but wait.
Reith, with the Flower of Cath close by his side, inspected the caravan guns-the 
so-called "sand blasts"-with interest. He learned that the weapons indeed fired 
sand, charging each grain electrostatically, accelerating it violently almost to 
light speed, augmenting the mass of each grain a thousandfold. Such driven 
sand-grains, striking a solid object, penetrated, then gave up their energy in 
an explosion. The weapons, Reith learned, were obsolete Wankh equipment, and 
were engraved with Wankh writing: rows of rectangles of different sizes and 
shapes.
Returning to the caravansary, he found Traz and Anacho arguing as to the nature 
of the Phung. Traz declared them to be creatures generated by Pnumekin upon the 
corpses of Pnume. "Have you ever seen a pair of Phung? Or an infant Phung? No. 
They go singly. They are too mad, too desperate, to breed."
Anacho waved his fingers indulgently. "Pnume go singly as well, and reproduce in 
a peculiar manner. Peculiar to men and sub-men, I should say, for the system 
seems to suit the Pnume admirably. They are a persistent race. Do you know that 
they have records across a million years?"
"So I have heard," said Traz sourly.
"Before the Chasch came," said Anacho, "the Pnume ruled everywhere. They lived 
in villages of little domes, but all trace of these are gone. Now they keep to 
caves and passages under the old cities, and their lives are a mystery. Even the 
Dirdir consider it bad luck to molest a Pnume."
"The Chasch then came to Tschai before the Dirdir?" Reith inquired.
"This is well-known," said Anacho. "Only a man from an isolated province-or a 
far world-could be ignorant to the fact." He gave Reith a quizzical glance. "But 
the first invaders indeed were the Old Chasch, a hundred thousand years ago. Ten 
thousand years later the Blue Chasch arrived, from a planet colonized an era 
previously by Chasch spacefarers. The two Chasch races fought for Tschai, and 
brought in Green Chasch for shock-troops.
"Sixty thousand years ago the Dirdir arrived. The Chasch suffered great losses 
until the Dirdir arrived in large numbers and so became vulnerable, whereupon a 
stalemate went into effect. The races are still enemies, with little traffic 
between them.
"Comparatively recently, ten thousand years ago, space-war broke out between the 
Dirdir and the Wankh, and extended to Tschai when the Wankh built forts on Rakh 
and South Kachan. But now there is little fighting, other than skirmishes and 
ambushes. Each race fears the other two and bides its time until it can expunge 
all but itself. The Pnume are neutral and take no part in the wars, though they 
watch with interest and take notes for their history."
"What of men?" asked Reith guardedly. "When did they arrive on Tschai?"
Anacho's side-glance was sardonic. "Since you claim to know the world where men 
originated, this information should be in your possession."
Reith refused to be provoked and made no comment.
"Men originated," said the Dirdirman in his most didactic manner, "on Sibol and 
came to Tschai with the Dirdir. Men are as plastic as wax, and some 
metamorphosed, first into marsh-men, then, twenty thousand years ago, into this 
sort." He pointed toward Traz. "Others, enslaved, became Chaschmen, Pnumekin, 
even Wankhmen. There are dozens of hybrids and freakish races. Variety exists 
even among the Dirdirmen. The Immaculates are almost pure Dirdir. Others exhibit 
less refinement. This is the background for my own disaffection: I demanded 
prerogatives which were denied me, but which I adopted in any event..."
Anacho spoke on, describing his difficulties, but Reith's attention wandered. It 
was clear, to Reith at least, how men had come to Tschai. The Dirdir had known 
space-travel for more than seventy thousand years. During this time they 
evidently had visited Earth, twice at the very least. On the first occasion they 
had captured a tribe of photo-Mongoloids; on the second occasion, twenty 
thousand years ago, according to Anacho-they had collected a cargo of 
proto-Caucasoids. These two groups, under the special conditions of Tschai, had 
mutated, specialized, remutated, respecialized to produce the bewildering 
diversity of human types to be found on the planet.
So then: the Dirdir undoubtedly knew of Earth and its human population, but 
perhaps reckoned it still a savage planet. Nothing could be gained by 
advertising the fact that Earth was now a spacefaring world; indeed Reith could 
envision calamity arising from the knowledge. There were no clues aboard the 
space-boat to point to Earth, except possibly the corpse of Paul Waunder. In any 
event the Dirdir had lost possession of the space-boat to the Blue Chasch.
Still unanswered was the question: who had fired the torpedo that destroyed the 
Explorator IV?
Two hours before sundown the Green Chasch broke camp. The high-wheeled wagons 
milled in a circle; the warriors mounted on monstrous leap-horses, lunged and 
bounded; then at some imperceptible signal-perhaps telepathic, reflected 
Reith-the band formed a long line and moved off toward the east. The Ilanth 
scouts set forth and followed at a discreet distance. In the morning they 
returned to report that the band seemed to be veering to the north.
Late in the afternoon the Aig-Hedajha caravan arrived, laden with leather, 
aromatic logs and mosses, tubs of pickles and condiments.
Baojian the caravan-master took his wagons and drays out upon the steppe, to 
effect exchanges and transshipments. Derricks rolled between the two caravans, 
swinging goods back and forth; porters and drivers toiled and strained, sweat 
rolling down their naked backs and into their loose brown breeches.
An hour before sunset the transfer of goods had been effected and a call came 
into the common-room for all passengers. Reith, Traz, Anacho and the Flower of 
Cath started across the compound. The priestesses were nowhere to be seen; Reith 
assumed that they were aboard their house.
They walked out under the rock juts toward the caravan. There was a sudden 
jostle; arms gripped Reith in a bear-hug and he was pressed against a soft 
wheezing body. He struggled; the two toppled to the ground. The Grand Mother 
gripped him in her massive legs. Another priestess seized the Flower of Cath and 
dragged her at an awkward lope out to the caravan. Reith lay enfolded in masses 
of flesh and muscle. A hand squeezed his throat; blood surged through his 
arteries and his eyes began to start. He managed to free an arm, drove stiff 
fingers up into the Grand Mother's face, into something moist. She gasped and 
wheezed; Reith found her nostrils, clenched, twisted; she cried out and kicked; 
Reith rolled free.
An Ilanth was rummaging through his pack; Traz lay limp on the ground; Anacho 
was coolly defending himself against the swordplay of the remaining two Ilanths. 
The Grand Mother grabbed for Reith's legs; Reith kicked furiously, won free, 
lurched aside as the Ilanth investigating his pack looked up and flicked a knife 
at him. Reith struck up at the lemon-yellow chin with his fist; the man went 
down. Reith leapt on the back of one of the Ilanths who were attacking the 
Dirdirman, bore him down, and Anacho deftly stabbed him. Reith side-stepped a 
thrust from the third Ilanth, seized the outstretched arm, threw the man 
cartwheeling over his shoulder. The Dirdirman, standing by, struck down with his 
sword, nearly cutting through the yellow neck. The remaining Ilanth took to his 
heels.
Traz, tottering to his feet, stood holding his head. The Grand Mother was at 
this moment mounting the steps into the drayhouse.
Reith in all his existence had never been so angry. He picked up his pack, 
marched to where Baojian the caravan-master stood directing the passengers to 
their compartments.
"I was attacked!" stormed Reith. "You must have noticed! The priestesses have 
dragged the Cath girl into their house and hold her prisoner!"
"Yes," said Baojian. "I saw something of the sort."
"Well, then, assert your authority! Enforce your ban on violence!"
Baojian gave his head a prim shake. "The affair occurred on that strip of the 
steppe between the compound and the caravan, where I make no effort to maintain 
order. It appears that the priestesses have recovered their property in the same 
manner by which they lost it. You have no cause for complaint."
"What?" roared Reith. "You'll let them inflict an innocent person with their 
Female Mystery?"
Baojian held out his hands. "I have no choice. I cannot police the steppe; I do 
not care to try."
Reith burnt him with a stare of fury and contempt, then turned to examine the 
priestesses' dray-house.
Baojian said, "I must caution you against disorderly conduct while you are a 
passenger. I meticulously enforce caravan discipline."
Reith for a space could find no words. At last he stuttered, "Have you no 
concern for evil deeds?"
"'Evil'?" Baojian laughed sadly. "On Tschai the word has no meaning. Events 
exist-or they do not exist. If a person adheres to some other system of conduct 
he himself will swiftly cease to exist-or else becomes mad as a Phung. So now, 
permit me to show you your compartment, as we set forth at once. I want to put 
leagues behind us this night, before the Green Chasch return. It seems that now 
I have only a single scout."



CHAPTER FIVE
REITH, TRAZ AND Anacho were assigned compartments on one of the barrack drays, 
each containing a hammock and a small locker. Four wagons ahead was the 
dray-house of the priestesses. All night it rolled on its great wheels, showing 
no lights.
Unable to contrive any feasible rescue scheme, Reith went to his hammock, and 
was sent into a sleep almost hypnotic by the motion of the wagon.
Shortly after the wan sun rose from the murk, the caravan halted. The folk of 
the caravan filed past a commissary wagon and each was handed a pancake heaped 
with hot meat, a mug of hot beer. Low mist hung in wisps and drifts; the small 
noises of the caravan only seemed to accentuate the vast silence of the steppe. 
Color was forgotten; there was only the slate of the sky, drab gray-brown of 
steppe, watered milk of the mist. From the dray-house came no sign of life; the 
priestesses did not appear, nor was the Flower of Cath permitted on the caged 
foredeck.
Reith sought out the caravan master. "How far is the way to the seminary? When 
will we arrive?"
The caravan-master munched his pancake while he considered. "We camp tonight by 
Slugah Knoll. Another day to Zadno's Depot, then the next morning to Fasm 
Junction. None too soon for the priestesses; they fear that they will be late 
for their Rite."
"What is this 'Rite'? What goes on?"
Baojian shrugged. "I can only report rumor. They are a select group, the 
priestesses, and they hate men, so I am told, with abnormal fervor. The feeling 
extends to every aspect of the ordinary male-female relationship, and includes 
such women who stimulate erotic conduct. The Rite seems to purge these intense 
emotions; and I am told the priestesses become afflicted with a frenzy during 
the solemnities."
"Two and a half days, then."
"Two and a half days to Fasm Junction."
The caravan moved across the steppe, on a course parallel to the hills which 
heaved up, now high, now low, to the south. Occasionally clefts or chasms led 
away into the hills; occasionally there were copses and groves of spindly 
vegetation. Reith, sweeping the landscape with his spanscope, glimpsed creatures 
watching from the shadows; he guessed them to be Phung, or possibly Pnume.
For the most part his attention was fixed on the dray-house. It evinced no life 
or motion by day, and the dimmest of flickering lamplight by night. Occasionally 
Reith jumped down from the great wagon on which he rode to walk beside the 
caravan. Whenever he approached the dray-house a weaponeer in a nearby guncart 
quickly swiveled around his weapon. Baojian clearly had given orders that the 
priestesses were not to be molested.
Anacho tried to divert him. "Why concern yourself for this isolated female? You 
have spared not a glance for the three slave troupes forward. Everywhere people 
live and die: you are oblivious. What of the victims of the Old Chasch and their 
games? What of the cannibal nomads who herd men and women through the Kislovan 
mid-region as other tribes herd fat-humps? What of the Dirdir and Dirdirmen in 
Blue Chasch dungeons? All these you ignore; you are bemused by moth-dust: a 
fascination with this one female and her grotesque tribulations!"
Reith managed a grin. "One man can't do everything. I'll make a start, saving 
the girl from the Rite ... if I can."
An hour later Traz made a similar protest. "What of your space-boat? Are you 
abandoning your plans? If you interfere with the priestesses, they will have you 
killed or maimed."
To which Reith gave a series of patient nods, admitting the justice of Traz's 
remarks, but not allowing himself to be persuaded by them.
Towards the end of the second day the hills became stony and abrupt, and at 
times cliffs loomed over the steppe.
At sunset the caravan came to Zadno's Depot, a small caravansary dug into the 
face of one of the cliffs, where it halted to discharge parcels of goods and to 
take on rock crystals and slabs of malachite. Baojian marshaled his wagons close 
up under the cliff, with the gun-carts facing the steppe. Reith, passing the 
priestesses' dray-house, was galvanized by a low wail, the poignant call a 
person might give while dreaming. Traz, almost in a panic, seized his arm. 
"Don't you see that you are watched every instant? The master expects you to 
make a disturbance!"
Reith turned a wolfish grin around the caravan. "I'll make a disturbance, no 
fear as to that! Mind you, I want you to stay clear! Whatever happens to me, go 
on your way!"
Traz gave him a glance of reproach and indignation. "Do you think I would stand 
aside? Are we not comrades?"
"Yes. Still-"
"There is no more to be said," stated Traz, with more than a trace of the Onmale 
crispness.
Reith threw up his hands, walked away from the dray-house, out upon the steppe. 
Time was growing short. He must act but when? During the night? During the trip 
to Fasm Junction? After the priestesses left the caravan?
To act now was to bring instant disaster upon himself.
Likewise during the night, or on the morrow, when the priestesses, realizing his 
desperation, would be at their most vigilant.
At Fasm junction, after they had left the protection of the caravan-master, what 
then? This was the unknown quantity. Presumably they would take steps to guard 
themselves well.
Twilight gave way to night; menacing sounds came from the steppe. Reith went to 
his compartment, lay in his hammock. He could not sleep; he did not wish to 
sleep. He jumped to the ground.
The moons were in the sky. Az hung halfway down the west and presently 
disappeared behind a cliff. Braz, low in the east, threw a melancholy glimmer 
across the landscape. The depot was- almost completely dark, except for a few 
guard-lights: no roisterous common-room here. Within the dray-house lights still 
flickered, as the occupants moved here and there, more active than usual, or so 
it seemed. Suddenly the lights were extinguished; the house went dark.
Reith, restless and uneasy, circled back around the dray. A sound? He stopped 
short, peering into the dark. Something was afoot. The sound came again: the 
scrape of a moving vehicle. Abandoning caution, Reith ran forward. He stopped 
short. Near at hand came the sound of low voices. Someone stood even nearer, a 
black bulk in the shadows. There was sudden vicious motion, something struck 
Reith's head. Lights danced in his brain, the world turned over-
He recovered consciousness to the same scraping sound that he had heard before: 
creak-scrape, creak-scrape. From a subconscious reservoir of memory came the 
knowledge that he had been handled, lifted, dealt with... He felt constricted; 
he could not move his arms and legs. Under him was a hard surface which thudded 
and jarred: the cargo deck of a small wagon. Above was the night sky, with crags 
and ridges bulking up at either hand. The wagon evidently proceeded by a rough 
track up through the hills. Reith strained to move his arms. They were tied with 
coarse twine; the effort caused him agonizing cramps. He relaxed, clenching his 
teeth. From the front came gruff conversation; someone looked back at him. Reith 
lay still, feigning insensibility; the dark shape turned away. Priestesses, 
almost certainly. Why was he bound, why had they not killed him out of hand?
Reith thought that he knew.
He strained at his bonds but again succeeded only in causing himself pain. 
Whoever had bound him had been in great haste. Only his sword had been taken 
from him; at his belt was still his pouch.
The wagon gave a great thump; Reith bounced, which gave him an idea. He 
squirmed, inched himself toward the rear of the wagon, sweating for fear that 
someone would turn to look at him. He reached the edge of the deck; again the 
wagon lurched and Reith dropped off. The wagon rumbled on, into the dark. 
Ignoring his bruises, Reith twisted, turned, rolled himself off the track, down 
a rocky slope into deep shade. He lay still, fearful that his fall from the 
wagon had been noticed. The squeak-scrape of the wagon had receded; the night 
was quiet except for a hoarse whisper of wind.
Reith heaved, lurched, raised to his knees. Groping through the dark, he found a 
rough edge of rock and began to grind at his bonds. The process was 
interminable. His wrists became raw and bloody; his head throbbed; a curious 
feeling of unreality overcame him, a nightmarish identification with the dark 
and the rocks, as if all shared the same elemental consciousness. He cleared his 
mind, sawed at his bonds. The cords finally parted; his arms came free.
For a moment he sat back, flexing his fingers, easing his muscles. Then he bent 
to free his legs, an operation maddeningly tedious in the dark.
At last he rose to his feet, to stand swaying, holding to a rock for support. 
Over the highest ridge of mountainside came Braz to fill the valley with the 
palest of illuminations. Reith painfully climbed up the slope and at last gained 
the road. He looked up and down the track. Behind lay Zadno's Depot; ahead at 
some unknown distance rolled the wagon, going creak-scrape, creak-scrape, 
perhaps more rapidly now that the priestesses had discovered his absence. Aboard 
the wagon, almost certainly, was Ylin-Ylan. Reith set out in pursuit, limping, 
hobbling, at as rapid a pace as he could manage. According to Baojian, Fasm 
junction was another half a day by caravan, the Seminary at an unknown distance 
from the junction. This mountain track was evidently a shorter and more direct 
route.
The way began to climb, angling up to a gap through the hills. Reith stumbled 
doggedly forward, gasping for breath. He had no hope of overtaking the wagon, 
which moved at that unvarying pace established by the pad pad pad of the 
pull-beast's eight soft feet. He reached the gap and paused to rest, then set 
off once more, descending toward a forested upland, indistinct in the inkblue 
light of Braz. The trees were wonderful and strange, with trunks of glimmering 
white rising as spirals, winding round and round, sometimes engaging the spirals 
of near trees. The foliage was tattered black floss, and each tree terminated in 
a rough pitted ball, vaguely luminescent.
From the forest came sounds: croaks, groans laden with such human woe that Reith 
paused often in his stride, hand in his pouch on the comforting shape of his 
energy cell.
Braz sank into the forest; wisps of foliage glinted, zones of shimmer moved 
through the trees to keep pace as Reith passed.
He walked, trotted, loped, slowed to a walk once more. A large pallid creature 
glided quietly through the air above him. It seemed as frail as a moth, with 
huge soft wings and a round baby's head. Another time Reith thought to hear 
grave voices speaking, at not too far a distance. When he stopped to listen, 
there was nothing to hear. He continued, fighting the conviction that he moved 
in a dream, through an endless mental landscape, his legs carrying him back 
rather than forward.
The road rose sharply, angled through a narrow gorge. At one time a high stone 
wall had barred the gap; now it lay in ruins. A tall arched portal remained 
standing, under which passed the road. Reith stopped short, disturbed by a 
prickling beneath the surface of his mind. The situation was too blandly 
innocent, or so it seemed.
Reith tossed a rock through the gap. No response, no reaction. He left the road 
and with great care picked his way across the ruined wall, pressing close 
against the side of the gorge. After a hundred feet he returned to the road. He 
looked back, but if danger actually existed at the portal it could not be 
detected in the dark.
Reith pushed forward. Every few minutes he stopped to listen. The walls of the 
gorge fell apart and dwindled in height, the sky came closer, the Tschai 
constellations lit the gray rock of the hillsides.
Ahead: a glow in the sky? A murmur, a sound half-strident, half-harsh. Reith 
went forward at a stumbling run. The road raised, twisted over a knoll, Reith 
stopped, looking down on a scene as weird and wild as Tschai itself.
The Seminary of the Female Mystery occupied an irregular flat area surrounded by 
crags and cliffs. A massive four-story edifice of stone was built in a ravine, 
to straddle a pair of crags. Elsewhere were sheds of timber and wattle, animal 
pens and hutches, outbuildings, cribs and racks. Directly below Reith a platform 
projected from the hill, with a two-story building to the sides and the rear.
Gala events were in progress. Flames from dozens of flambeaux cast red, 
vermilion and orange light upon two hundred women who moved back and forth, 
half-dancing, half-lurching, in a state of entranced frenzy. They wore black 
pantaloons, black boots and were elsewhere naked, with even the hair shaved from 
their heads. Many were without breasts, displaying a pair of angry red scars: 
these women, the most active, marched and trooped, bodies glistening with sweat 
and oil. Others sat on benches slack and dull, resting, or exalted beyond mere 
frenzy. Below the platform, in a row of low cages, a dozen naked men stood 
crouched. These men produced the harsh chant Reith had heard from the hills. 
When one faltered, jets of flame spurted up from the floor beneath him, and he 
once more screamed his loudest. The flames were controlled from a keyboard in 
the front; here sat a woman dressed completely in black, and it was she who 
orchestrated the demoniac uproar. There, thought Reith, but for the bump of a 
wagon-there sing I.
A singer collapsed. Jets of flame only caused him to twitch. He was dragged 
forth; a bag of transparent membrane was pulled over his head and tied at the 
neck; he was tossed into a rack at the side. Into the cage was thrust another 
singer: a strong young man, glaring in hatred. He refused to sing, and suffered 
the jets in furious silence. A priestess came forward, blew a waft of smoke into 
his face; presently he sang with the rest.
How they hated men! thought Reith. A troupe of entertainers appeared on the 
stage-tall emaciated clown-men with skins bleached white, eyebrows painted high 
and black. In horrified fascination Reith watched them cavort and caper and with 
earnest zest defile themselves, while the priestesses called out in delight.
When the clown-men retired a mime appeared: he wore a wig of long blonde hair, a 
mask with wide eyes and a smiling red mouth, to simulate a beautiful woman. 
Reith thought, They hate not only men, but love and youth and beauty!
As the mime expatiated his shocking message, a curtain to the back of the 
platform drew back revealing a huge naked cretin, hairy of body and limb, in a 
state of intense erotic excitement. He worked to gain entry into a cage of thin 
glass rods, but could not puzzle out the working of the latch. In the cage 
cowered a girl wearing a gown of thin gauze: the Flower of Cath.
The androgynous mime finished his curious performance. The singers were 
instructed to a new chant, a soft hoarse baying, and the priestesses crowded 
close around the platform, intent on the efforts of the fumbling brute.
Reith already had departed from his vantage. Keeping to the shadows, he circled 
down around toward the rear of the platform. He passed a shed where the 
clown-men rested. Nearby, a set of pens held two dozen young men, apparently 
destined to sing. They were guarded by a wizened old woman with a gun almost as 
large as herself.
From the front came a sudden avid murmur. The brute apparently had fumbled open 
the latch to the cage. Giving no thought to gallantry, Reith dropped down behind 
the old woman, felled her with a blow, ran along the line of pens, throwing open 
the doors. The men thrust pell-mell out into the corridor, while the troupe of 
clown-men watched in consternation.
"Take the gun," Reith told the freed men. "Free the singers."
He jumped up into the wings of the platform. The brute had entered the cage and 
was ripping the girl's gauze gown. Reith aimed his gun, sent an explosive needle 
into the bulging back. A thwump!--the brute jerked, seemed to puff. He raised on 
tiptoes, twisted about and fell dead. Ylin-Ylan the Flower of Cath, looking 
around with dazed eyes, saw Reith. He motioned; she stumbled from the cage, 
across the platform.
The priestesses cried out first in fury, then in fear, for certain of the free 
men, bringing the gun out on the stage, fired again and again into the audience. 
Others released the singers. The young man most recently caged charged for the 
priestess at the console. He seized her, dragged her to the vacated box, locked 
her within; then returning to the console, pressed home the firevalve, and the 
priestess sang an ululating contralto. Another of the erstwhile captives seized 
a torch, fired one of the sheds; others took clubs and began to bludgeon the 
wailing celebrants.
Reith led the sobbing girl down around the outskirts of the tumult, and was able 
to snatch up a cape which he drew about the shoulders of the girl.
Priestesses were trying to flee the area-up the hillside, down the east road. 
Some tried to wriggle their half-naked bodies under sheds, only to be dragged 
back by the heels and clubbed.
Reith led the girl down the main road toward the east. From the stable came 
rushing a wagon frantically urged by four priestesses. Tall and dominant bulked 
the Grand Mother. As Reith watched, a man vaulted up on the bed of the wagon, 
seized the Grand Mother and sought to strangle her with his bare hands. She 
reached up with her massive arms, drew him down, cast him on the deck and 
started to stamp on his head. Reith leapt up behind her, gave her a push; she 
fell off the wagon. Reith turned to the other priestesses: the three who had 
traveled with the caravan. "Off! To the ground!"
"We'll be killed! The men are mad things! They are killing the Grand Mother!"
Reith turned to look; four men had surrounded the Grand Mother, who stood at 
bay, roaring like a bear. One of the priestesses, taking advantage of Reith's 
distraction, tried to knife him. Reith threw her to the ground, and the other 
two as well. He pulled the girl up beside him and drove down the east road 
toward Fasm Junction.
Ylin-Ylan the Flower of Cath huddled against him, exhausted, apathetic. Reith 
battered, bruised, dry of emotion, hunched in the seat. The sky behind them 
reddened; flames licked up into the black sky.



CHAPTER SIX
AN HOUR AFTER dawn they reached Fasm junction: three bleak structures of earthen 
brick on the edge of the steppe, the tall walls punctuated by the smallest and 
narrowest of black windows, a stockade of timber surrounding. The gate was 
closed; Reith halted the wagon, pounded and called, to no effect. The two, 
comatose from fatigue and the dullness following extreme emotion, settled 
themselves to wait until the folk in the junction saw fit to open the gates.
Investigating the back of the wagon Reith found, among other effects, two small 
satchels containing sequins, to a number Reith could not even estimate.
"So now we have the priestesses' wealth," he told the Flower of Cath. "Enough, I 
should think, to buy you safe passage home."
The girl spoke in a puzzled voice: "You would give me the sequins and send me 
home and you demand nothing in return?"
"Nothing," said Reith with a sigh.
"The Dirdirman's joke seems real," said the girl sternly. "You act as if you 
were indeed from a distant world." And she turned half away from him.
Reith looked off across the steppe, smiling somewhat sadly. Assuming the 
unlikely, that he were able to return to Earth, would he then be content to 
remain, to live his life out and never return to Tschai? No, probably not, mused 
Reith. Impossible to predict official Earth policy, but he himself could never 
be content while the Dirdir, the Chasch and the Wankh exploited men and used 
them as despised subordinates. The situation was a personal affront. Somewhat 
absently he asked Ylin-Ylan, "What do your people think of the Dirdirmen, the 
Chaschmen, the others?"
She frowned in perplexity, and seemed, for some reason obscure to Reith, 
annoyed. "What is there to think? They exist. When they do not disturb us, we 
ignore them. Why do you speak of Dirdirmen? We were speaking of you and me!"
Reith looked at her. She watched him with passive expectancy. Reith drew a deep 
breath, started to move closer to her, when the gate into the depot raised and a 
man looked forth. He was squat, with thick legs, long arms; his face was 
big-nosed and askew, with skin and hair the color of lead: evidently a Gray.
"Who are you? That's a Seminary wagon. Last night flames burnt the sky. Was that 
the Rite? The priestesses are as eerie as potlinks during the Rite."
Reith gave him an evasive answer and drove the wagon into the enclosure.
They breakfasted on tea, stewed herbs, hard bread and went back out to the wagon 
to await the arrival of the caravan. The early morning mood had passed; both 
felt heavy and uncommunicative. Reith relinquished the seat to Ylin-Ylan and 
stretched out in the bed of the wagon. In the warm sunlight both became drowsy 
and slept.
At noon the caravan was sighted: a heaving line of gray and black. The surviving 
Ilanth scout-and a scowling round-faced youth promoted to the position from 
gunner arrived at the junction first, then, wheeling their leap-horses, bounded 
back to the caravan. The tall wagons drawn by soft-footed beasts arrived, the 
drivers hunched in voluminous cloaks, faces thin under long-billed hats. Then 
came barrack-wagons with passengers sitting in the openings to their cubicles. 
Traz greeted Reith with obvious pleasure; Anacho the Dirdirman gave an airy 
flutter of the fingers which might have meant anything. "We were sure that you 
had been killed or kidnapped," Traz told Reith. "We searched the hills, we went 
out on the steppe, but found nothing. Today we were going to seek you at the 
Seminary."
"We?" asked Reith.
"The Dirdirman and myself. He's not such a bad sort as one might think."
"The Seminary no longer exists," said Reith.
Baojian appeared, stopped short at the sight of Reith and Ylin-Ylan but asked no 
questions. Reith, who half-suspected Baojian of facilitating the priestesses' 
departure from Zadno's Depot, volunteered no information. Baojian assigned them 
to compartments, and accepted the priestesses' wagon as passage payment to Pera.
Bundles were discharged at the Junction, others were loaded aboard the wagons, 
and the caravan proceeded to the northeast.
Days passed: easy idle days of trundling across the steppe. For a period they 
skirted a wide shallow lake of brackish water, then with great caution crossed a 
marsh overgrown with jointed white reeds. The scout discovered an ambush laid by 
a dwarfish tribe of marshmen, who at once fled into the reeds before the caravan 
guns could be brought to bear.
On three occasions Dirdir aircraft swooped low to inspect the caravan, on which 
occasions Anacho concealed himself in his compartment. Another time a Blue 
Chasch platform slid overhead.
Reith would have enjoyed the journey had he not been anxious in regard to his 
space-boat. There was also the problem of Ylin-Ylan, the Flower of Cath. Upon 
reaching Pera, the caravan would return to Coad on the Dwan Zher, where the girl 
could take passage aboard a ship for Cath. Reith assumed this to be her plan, 
though she said nothing of the matter and in fact had become somewhat cool, to 
Reith's puzzlement.
So went the days, and the caravan crept northward, under the slate-dark skies of 
Tschai. Twice thunderstorms shattered the afternoon, but for the most part the 
weather was even. They passed through a dark forest, and the next day followed 
an ancient causeway across a vast black quagmire covered with bubble-plants and 
bubble-insects simulating the bubble-plants. The quagmire was the habitat of 
many fascinating creatures: wingless frog-sized things which propelled 
themselves through the air by a vibration of fan-like tails; larger creatures, 
half-spider, half-bat, which, anchoring by means of an exuded thread, rode the 
breeze on extended wings like a kite.
At Wind Mountain Depot they met a caravan bound for Malagash, south behind the 
hills on the Hedajha Gulf. Twice small bands of Green Chasch were sighted, but 
on neither occasion did they attack. The caravan-master declared them to be 
mating groups en route to a procreation area north of the Dead Steppe. On 
another occasion a troop of nomads halted to watch them pass: tall men and tall 
women with faces painted blue. Traz identified them as cannibals and stated that 
the women fought in battle on an even footing with the men. Twice the caravan 
passed close to ruined cities; once it swung south to deliver aromatics, 
essences and amphire wood to an Old Chasch city which Reith found peculiarly 
fascinating. There were myriads of low white domes half-hidden under foliage, 
with gardens everywhere. The air held a peculiar freshness, exuded by tall 
yellow-green trees, not unlike poplars, known as adarak. These, so Reith 
learned, were cultivated by Old Chasch and Blue Chasch alike for the clarity 
which they gave the air.
The caravan halted on an oval area covered with thick short grass, and Baojian 
immediately called all the personnel of the caravan about him. "This is Golsse, 
an Old Chasch city. Do not leave the immediate area, or you may be subject to 
Old Chasch tricks. These can be mere mischiefs' such as trapping you in a maze 
or dosing you with an essence that will cause you to exude a frightful odor for 
weeks. But if they become excited, or feel particularly humorous, the tricks may 
be cruel or fatal. On one occasion they stupefied one of my drivers with 
essence, grafted new features on his face and a great gray beard as well. 
Remember, then: do not under any circumstances stray from this oval, even though 
the Chasch may tease or tempt you. They are an old and decayed race; they are 
without pity and think only of their odors and essences, and their fanciful 
jokes. So be warned: keep to the oval, do not wander off in the gardens, no 
matter what the beguilement, and if you value your life and sanity, do not enter 
the Old Chasch domes."
He said no more.
Goods were loaded upon the low Chasch motor-drays, operated by a few dispirited 
Chaschmen: smaller and perhaps not so evolved as the Blue Chaschmen Reith had 
seen before. They were slight and stooped, with gray wrinkled faces, bulging 
foreheads, mouths puckered into little buds above nonexistent chins. Like the 
Blue Chaschmen they wore a false scalp which butted over their eyes and rose to 
a point. Their demeanor was furtive and hurried, they spoke to none of the 
caravan personnel, and had eyes only for their work. Four Old Chasch presently 
appeared. They walked directly below the barrack car; Reith saw them close at 
hand and was reminded of large silverfish grotesquely endowed with semi-human 
legs and arms. Their skin was like ivory satin, almost imperceptibly scaled; 
they seemed fragile, almost desiccated; they had eyes like small silver pellets, 
independently swiveling and in constant motion. Reith watched them with great 
interest; they felt his gaze and paused to look up to where he sat. They nodded 
and gave him affable gestures, to which Reith replied in kind. For a moment 
longer they inspected him with their bright silver eyes, and then passed on.
Baojian wasted no time at Golsse. As soon as he had reloaded his drays with 
cases of drugs and tinctures, bales of lacy cloth, dried fruit in cakes and 
packs, he marshaled the wagons and set off once more to the north, preferring to 
pass the night on the open steppe rather than risk the caprices of the Old 
Chasch.
The steppe was empty grassland, flat as a table. Standing on the barrack-wagon 
Reith could see twenty miles through his scope, and so spied a large band of 
Green Chasch even before the scouts. He notified Baojian, who immediately 
ordered the caravan into a defensive ring with the guns commanding the entire 
surrounding area. The Green Chasch loped up on their massive beasts, holding 
yellow and black flags afloat on their lances, signifying truculence and 
bellicosity. "They have just come down from the north," Traz told Reith. "This 
is the meaning of the flags. They gorge on fluke-fish and angbut; their blood 
becomes rich and thick, which makes them irritable. When they fly yellow and 
black even the Emblems retire rather than face them in battle."
Yellow and black flags regardless, the Green warriors did not molest the caravan 
but halted a mile distant. Reith studied them through his scope, to see 
creatures vastly different from the Old Chasch. These were seven and eight feet 
tall, massive and thick-limbed, their scales clearly defined and of a glistening 
metallic green. Their faces were small, brooding, wickedly ugly under the 
massive jut of their scalps. They wore rude leather aprons and shoulder harness, 
in which hung swords, battle-picks and catapults similar to those of the 
Emblems. Troublesome creatures to encounter in close combat, thought Reith. They 
sat on their beasts studying the caravan for a full five minutes, then swung 
away and bounded off to the east.
The caravan re-formed itself and continued along the track. Traz was puzzled by 
the diffidence of the Green Chasch. "When they carry yellow and black, they are 
insensate. Perhaps they prepare an ambush from behind a forest."
Baojian suspected a similar stratagem and kept his scouts far forward for the 
next few days. At night there were no special precautions taken, inasmuch as the 
Green Chasch became torpid in the dark and huddled in groaning grunting masses 
until daybreak.
Pera lay ahead: the caravan terminus. Reith's transcom specified a vector of 
sixty miles west to the mate transcom. He made inquiry of the caravan-master, 
who informed him that the Blue Chasch city Dadiche was situated at this 
location. "Avoid them; a wicked lot they are, subtle as the Old Chasch, savage 
as the Greens."
"They have no commerce with men?"
"There is considerable trade; in fact, Pera is a depot for trade with the Blue 
Chasch, which is carried on by a caste of draymen operating out of Pera; only 
these draymen gain access to Dadiche. Of all the Chasch I find the Blues most 
detestable. The Old Chasch are not a friendly folk, but they are malicious, 
rather than harsh. Sometimes of course, the effect is the same, just as the 
storm"-he pointed toward the west where great masses of black cloud filled the 
sky-"will wet us no less than submersion in the ocean."
"You will turn directly about at Pera and return to Coad on the Dwan Zher?"
"Within three days."
"In all likelihood the Princess Ylin-Ylan will return with you and take ship for 
Cath."
"All very well; can she pay?"
"Certainly."
"Then there is no difficulty. What of you? Do you wish to go to Cath likewise?"
"No. I'll probably remain at Pera."
Baojian, with a darting glint of a glance for Reith, gave his head a wry shake. 
"The Golden Yao of Cath are estimable folk. But then, nothing of Tschai is 
predictable except trouble. The Green Chasch are dogging us. A miracle that they 
have not attacked. I begin to hope that we may reach Pera without incident."
Baojian was to be denied. With Pera already in view-a city of ruined halls and 
toppled monuments surrounding a central citadel, much like those others they had 
passed-the Green Chasch bounded in from the east. Coincidentally the storm 
broke. Lightning crashed down upon the steppe; to the south black brooms of rain 
swept down upon the land.
Baojian decided that Pera offered no refuge and ordered the caravan into its 
defensive circle. Barely soon enough: this time the Green Chasch showed neither 
indecision nor diffidence. Bent low on their great beasts, they came charging 
forward, intent only on penetrating the ring of wagons.
The caravan guns gave their curious gurgling belch, barely heard through the 
thunder, and the rain made efficient weapon handling difficult. The Green 
Chasch, coordinated perhaps telepathically, bounded forward; some were struck by 
the sand blast and killed; some were crushed under their toppling beasts. For a 
space there was sheer confusion, then new ranks sprang over the thrashing 
bodies. Again the gunners fired frantically through the rain, with the lightning 
and thunder providing a mind jarring accompaniment to the battle.
The Green Chasch fell faster than they could advance, and changed their tactics. 
Those who had been dismounted, crouched behind leaphorse hulks, brought their 
catapults to bear; the first shower of bolts killed three gunners. The mounted 
warriors charged again, hoping to gain the circle by sheer momentum. Again, they 
were thrown back, the vacated guns having been manned by drivers, and again 
there was a shower of bolts and more gunners dropped from the gun platforms.
The Green Chasch lunged forward a third time, their mounts bounding and 
capering. Behind them, lightning fractured the black sky, with the thunder an 
incessant background to the cries and screams of the battle. The Green Chasch 
were taking terrible losses, the ground heaved with groaning shapes, but others 
leapt forward and at last the guns were in range of Green Chasch swords.
The result of the battle was no longer in doubt. Reith took the Flower of Cath's 
hand, beckoned to Traz. The three struck out for the city, joining a line of 
panic-stricken fugitives from the barrack-wagons, which now was joined by the 
drivers and surviving gunners. The caravan was abandoned.
Screaming in triumph, the Green Chasch bounded among the fugitives, hacking off 
heads, chopping down through necks and shoulders. A flaming-eyed warrior lunged 
at Reith, Ylin-Ylan and Traz. Reith had his gun ready, but hesitated to waste 
the precious pellets and dodged under the hissing sword-stroke. The leap-horse, 
swerving, skidded on the wet turf; the warrior was flung bellowing sidewise. 
Reith ran forward, raised his Emblem cutlass high, hacked at the thick neck, cut 
through cords, filaments and tubes. The warrior kicked and thrashed in appalling 
reluctance to die; the three did not wait. Reith took up the sword, which was 
somewhat crudely forged from a single bar of steel as tall as himself and wide 
as his arm. It was too heavy and long to be wieldy; he cast it down. The three 
proceeded through the rain, now falling in such heavy sheets as to obscure 
vision. The Green Chasch occasionally were glimpsed as bounding phantoms; 
occasionally the wraith-like shapes of fugitives could be seen, bending forward, 
crouched to the rain, hurrying with all speed for the ruins of Pera.
In sodden clothes, with the ground streaming beneath their feet, the three 
finally reached a tumble of concrete slabs marking the outskirts of Pera, and 
considered themselves somewhat safer from the Green Chasch. They took shelter 
under an overhanging jut of concrete, to stand shivering and miserable while the 
rain thrashed down in front of their faces. Traz said philosophically, "At least 
we are at Pera, where we intended to come."
"Ingloriously," said Reith, "but alive."
"Now what do you think to do?"
Reith reached into his pouch, brought forth the transcom, checked the vector 
indicator. "It points to Dadiche, twenty miles west. I suppose I'll go there."
Traz gave a disapproving sniff. "The Blue Chasch will deal severely with you."
The girl of Cath suddenly leaned against the wall, put her face in her hands and 
began to weep: the first time Reith had seen her give way to emotion. Somewhat 
tentatively he patted her shoulder. "What's the trouble? Other than being cold, 
wet, hungry and scared?"
"I'll never be home to Cath. Never! I know this."
"Of course you will! There will be other caravans!"
The girl, clearly unconvinced, wiped her eyes and stood looking out across the 
dismal landscape. The rain now began to slacken. The lightning flickered off to 
the east; the thunder became a sullen rumble. A few minutes later the clouds 
broke and sunlight slanted through the rain to glisten on wet stone and puddles. 
The three, still somewhat damp, emerged from their refuge, almost to collide 
with a small man in an ancient leather cloak, carrying a bundle of faggots. He 
jumped back in alarm, dropped his bundle, darted back to snatch it up and was 
about to race away when Reith caught hold of his cloak. "Wait! Not so fast! Tell 
us where we can find food and shelter!"
The man's face slowly relaxed. Warily, under bushy eyebrows, he looked from one 
to the other, then with great dignity jerked his cloak from Reith's grasp. "Food 
and shelter: these be hard to come by; only by toil. Can you pay?"
"Yes, we can pay."
The man considered. "Now, I have a comfortable dwelling, of three apertures..." 
Reluctantly he shook his head. "But best that you go to the Dead Steppe Inn. If 
I took you in, the Gnashters would gain my profit, and I would have naught."
"The Dead Steppe Inn is the best of Pera?"
"Yes, a fine hostelry indeed. The Gnashters will tax your wealth, but this is 
what we must pay for our security. In Pera no one may rob or rape but Naga Goho 
and the Gnashters; and this is a boon. What if everyone enjoyed this license?"
"Naga Goho is the ruler of Pera, then?"
"Yes, one might say so." He pointed to a massive structure of blocks and slabs 
on the central eminence of the city. "There is his palace, on the citadel, and 
there he lives with his Gnashters. But I will say no more; after all, they have 
worried the Phung out to North Pera; there is trade with Dadiche; bandits avoid 
the city; affairs could be the worse."
"I see," said Reith. "Well then, where do we find the inn?"
"Yonder, at the foot of the hill: at the caravan's end."



CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DEAD STEPPE INN was the most grandiose structure Reith had yet seen in a 
ruined city: a long building with a complicated set of roofs and gables built 
against the central hill of Pera. As in all the inns of Tschai, there was a 
large common-room with trestle-tables, but rather than rude benches, the Dead 
Steppe Inn boasted fine high-backed chairs of carved black wood. Three 
chandeliers of colored glass and black iron illuminated the room; on the walls 
hung a number of very old terra-cotta masks: visages of some fanciful half-human 
folk.
The tables were crowded with fugitives from the caravan; a savory odor of food 
hung in the air. Reith began to feel somewhat more cheerful. Here, at least, 
were a small few concessions to comfort and style.
The innkeeper was a small plump man with a neat red beard, protuberant red-brown 
eyes. His hands were in ceaseless motion and his feet shifted back and forth as 
if haste dominated his life. At Reith's request for accommodation he waved his 
hands in despair. "Have you not heard? The green demons destroyed Baojian's 
train. Here are the survivors, and I must find room. Some cannot pay; what of 
that? I am ordered by Naga Goho to extend shelter."
"We were also with the caravan," said Reith. "However, we can pay."
The innkeeper became more optimistic. "I'll find you a single room; you must 
make the best of this. A word of advice." Here he looked swiftly over his 
shoulder. "Be discreet. There have been changes at Pera."
The three were shown to a cubicle of adequate cleanliness; three pallets were 
brought in. The inn could provide no dry clothing; with garments still damp the 
three descended to the common-room, where now they discovered Anacho the 
Dirdirman, who had arrived an hour before. Off to the side, staring thoughtfully 
into the fire, was Baojian.
For supper they were served ample bowls of stew, wafers of hard bread. While 
they were eating seven men entered the room to stand looking truculently this 
way and that. All were strong big-boned men, a trifle fleshy with ease, florid 
with good living. Six wore dull red gowns, stylish black leather slippers, 
rakish caps hung with baubles. Gnashters, thought Reith. The seventh, wearing an 
embroidered surcoat, was evidently Naga Goho: a man tall and thin, with a 
peculiarly large vulpine head. He spoke to a room which had become hushed: 
"Welcome all, welcome all to Pera! We have a happy orderly city, as you will 
notice. Laws are sternly enforced. A sojourn tax is collected as well. If anyone 
lacks funds he must contribute his labor for the common benefit. So, then-are 
there questions or complaints?" He looked about the room, but no one spoke. The 
Gnashters circulated through the room, collecting coins. Reith grudgingly paid a 
tax of nine sequins for himself, Traz and the Flower of Cath. None of the folk 
present seemed to find the exaction unreasonable. So pervasive was the lack of 
social discipline, Reith decided, that exploitation of advantage was taken for 
granted.
Naga Goho noticed the Flower of Cath and stood erect, preening his mustache. He 
signaled to the innkeeper, who hastened to present himself. The two held a 
muttered colloquy, Naga Goho never taking his eyes from Ylin-Ylan.
The innkeeper crossed the room, muttered in Reith's ear. "Naga Goho has taken 
note of the woman." He indicated the Flower. "He wants to know her status: is 
she slave? daughter? wife?"
Reith glanced sidewise at Ylin-Ylan, at a loss for immediate response; already 
he saw the girl stiffening. If he declared her to be alone and independent he 
put her at the mercy of Naga Goho. If he claimed her as his own he would no 
doubt provoke her indignant disclaimer. He said, "I am her escort, she is under 
my protection."
The innkeeper pursed his lips, shrugged and went to report to Naga Goho, who 
made a small curt gesture and turned his attention elsewhere. Not long after he 
departed.
In the small room Reith found himself in a state of disturbing propinquity with 
the Flower of Cath. She sat on her pallet, clasping her knees disconsolately. 
"Cheer up," said Reith. "Things aren't all that bad."
She gave her head a mournful shake. "I am lost among barbarians: a pebble 
dropped in Tembara Deep, gone from mind."
"Nonsense," scoffed Reith. "You'll be traveling home with the next caravan to 
leave Pera."
Ylin-Ylan was unconvinced. "At home they will name another the Flower of Cath; 
she will take my flower at the Banquet of the Season. The princess will beseech 
the girls to name their names, and I will not be there. No one will ask me and 
no one will know my names."
"Tell me your names then," said Reith. "I'd like to hear."
The Flower turned to look at him. "Do you mean this? Do you mean what you ask?"
Reith was puzzled by her intensity. "Certainly."
The girl turned a swift glance toward Traz, who was occupied in arranging his 
pallet. "Come outside," she whispered in Reith's ear and jumped to her feet.
Reith followed her to the balcony. For a period they leaned together, elbows 
touching, looking out over the ruined city. Az rode high among broken clouds; 
below were a few dismal lights; from somewhere came a reedy chant, the twang of 
a plectrum. The Flower spoke in a quick hushed voice: "My flower is the 
Ylin-Ylan, and this you know; my Flower name. But that is a name used only at 
demonstrations and pageants." She looked toward him breathlessly, leaning so 
close that Reith could smell the clean tart-sweet scent of her person.
Reith asked in a husky voice, "You have other names too?"
"Yes." Sighing, she edged closer to Reith, who began to feel out of his depth. 
"Why have you not asked before? You must have known I would tell."
"Well, then," asked Reith, "what are your names?"
Demurely, she said, "My court name is Shar Zarin." She hesitated then, leaning 
her head on his shoulder (for Reith's arm was around her waist), she said, "My 
child name was Zozi, but only my father calls me that."
"Flower name, court name, child name ... What other names do you have?"
"My friend-name, my secret name, and-one other. My friend-name, would you hear 
it? If I tell you, then we are friends, and you must tell me your friend-name."
"Certainly," croaked Reith. "Of course."
"Derl."
Reith kissed her upturned face. "My first name is Adam."
"Is that your friend-name?"
"Yes ... I suppose you'd call it that."
"Do you have a secret name?"
"No. Not that I know of."
She gave a small nervous laugh. "Perhaps it is just as well. For if I asked you, 
and you told me, then I would know your secret soul, and then-" Breathlessly she 
looked up at Reith. "You must have a secret name; one that only you know. I 
have."
Intoxicated, Reith tossed caution to the winds. "What is yours?"
She raised her mouth to his ear. "L'lae. She is a nymph who lives in clouds over 
Mount Daramthissa, and loves the star-god Ktan." She looked toward him, melting, 
expectant, and Reith kissed her fervently. She sighed. "When we are alone, you 
shall call me L'lae and I will call you Ktan and that shall be your secret 
name."
Reith laughed. "If you like."
"We shall wait here, and soon there will be a caravan east: back across the 
steppe to Coad, then by cog across the Draschade, to Vervode in Cath."
Reith put his hand on her mouth. "I must go to Dadiche."
"Dadiche? The city of the Blue Chasch? Are you still so obsessed? But why?"
Reith raised his eyes, looked off into the night-sky, as if to draw strength 
from the stars, though none of those visible could possibly be the Sun ... What 
could he say? If he told the truth she would think him insane, even though her 
ancestors had beamed signals to Earth.
So he hesitated, disgusted by his own softness of spirit. The Flower of 
Cath--Ylin-Ylan, Shar Zarin, Zozi, Derl, L'lae, according to the social 
circumstances-put her hands on his shoulders and peered up into his face. "Since 
I know you for Ktan and you know me for L'lae, your mind is my mind; your 
pleasure is my pleasure. So-what prompts you for Dadiche?"
Reith drew a deep breath. "I came to Kotan in a space-boat. The Blue Chasch 
almost killed me, and conveyed the space-boat to Dadiche, or so I suppose. I 
must recover it."
The Flower was bewildered. "But where did you learn to fly a spaceboat? You are 
no Dirdirman or Wankhmen ... Or are you?"
"No, of course not. No more than you. I was instructed."
"It is all such a mystery." Her arms twitched on his shoulders. "And were you 
able to recover the space-boat, what would you do?"
"First, take you to Cath."
The fingers now gripped his shoulders, the eyes searched his through the 
darkness. "Then what? You would return to your own land?"
"Yes."
"You have a woman-a wife?"
"Oh no. No indeed."
"Someone who knows your secret name?"
"I had no secret name until you gave me one."
The girl took her hands from his shoulders, and, leaning on the rail, stared 
moodily out across old Pera. "If you go to Dadiche, they will smell you and kill 
you."
"'Smell me? How do you mean?"
She turned him a quick look. "You are a puzzle! So much you know, and so little! 
One would think you from the farthest island of Tschai! The Blue Chasch smell as 
accurately as we can see!"
"I still must make the trial."
"I don't understand," she said in a dull voice. "I have told you my name; I have 
given what is most precious to me; and you are unmoved. You do not alter your 
way."
Reith took her in his arms. She was stiff, then gradually yielded. "I am not 
unmoved," said Reith. "Far from it. But I must go to Dadiche--for your sake as 
well as mine."
"How my sake? To be carried back to Cath?"
"That, and more. Are you happy to be dominated by Dirdir and Chasch and Wankh, 
not to mention the Pnume?"
"I don't know ... I had never thought of it. Men are freaks, afterthoughts, so 
they tell us. Though Mad King Hopsin insisted that men came from a far planet. 
He called to them for help, which of course never came. That was a hundred and 
fifty years ago."
"It's a long time to wait," said Reith. He kissed her once more; she submitted 
listlessly. The fervor was gone.
"I feel-strange," she mumbled. "I don't know how I feel."
They stood by the rail, listening to the sounds of the inn: soft hoots of 
laughter from the pot-room; complaints of children, the scolding of their 
mothers. The Flower of Cath said, "I think I will go to bed now."
Reith held her back. "Derl."
"Yes?"
"When I come back from Dadiche-"
"You will never come back from Dadiche. The Blue Chasch will take you for their 
games ... Now I will try to sleep, and forget that I am alive."
She went back into the cubicle. Reith remained out on the balcony, first cursing 
himself, then wondering how he could have acted differently, unless he were 
composed of something other than flesh and blood.
Tomorrow, then: Dadiche, to learn once and for all the shape of his future.



CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NIGHT PASSED; morning came: first a wash of sepia light, then a wan yellow 
glare, then the appearance of Carina 4269. From the kitchens rose the smoke of 
fires, the rattle of pans. Reith descended to the common-room, where he found 
Anacho the Dirdirman before him, sitting over a bowl of tea. Reith joined him 
and was likewise brought tea by a kitchen-wench. He asked, "What do you know of 
Dadiche?"
Anacho warmed his long pale fingers around the bowl. "The city is relatively 
old: twenty thousand years or so. It is the main Chasch spaceport, though they 
have little communication with their homeworld Godag. South of Dadiche are 
factories and technical plants, and there is even some small trade between 
Dirdir and Chasch, though both parties pretend to the contrary. What do you seek 
at Dadiche?" And he fixed Reith with his owlish water-gray eyes.
Reith reflected. He gained nothing by confiding in Anacho, whom he still 
regarded as something of an unknown quantity. Finally he said, "The Chasch took 
something of value from me. I want to get it back, if possible."
"Interesting," said Anacho with a sardonic overtone to his voice. "I am piqued. 
What could the Chasch take from a sub-man that he would travel a thousand 
leagues to recover? And how could he expect to recover it, or even find it?"
"I can find it. What happens next is the problem."
"You intrigue me," said the Dirdirman. "What do you propose to do first?"
"I need information. I want to learn if persons such as you and I can enter 
Dadiche and depart without hindrance."
"Not I," said Anacho. "They would smell me for a Dirdirman. They have noses of 
astonishing particularity. The food you eat delivers essences to your skin; the 
Chasch can identify these, and separate Dirdir from Wankh, marsh-dwellers from 
steppe-men, rich from the poor; not to mention the variations caused by disease, 
uncleanliness, unguents, waters, a dozen other conditions. They can smell salt 
air in a man's lungs if he has been near the ocean; they can detect ozone on a 
man coming down from the heights. They sense if you are hungry, or angry, or 
afraid; they can define your age, your sex, the color of your skin. Their noses 
provide them an entire dimension of perception."
Reith sat reflecting.
Anacho arose, went to a nearby table where sat three men in rough garments: men 
with waxy white-gray skins, light-brown hair, mild large eyes. To Anacho's 
questions they gave deferent responses; Anacho ambled back to Reith.
"Those three are drovers; they visit Dadiche regularly. The country is safe to 
the west of Pera; the Green Chasch avoid the city guns. No one will molest us 
along the road-"
"'Us'? You are coming?"
"Why not? I have never seen Dadiche or its outlying gardens. We can hire a pair 
of leap-horses and approach Dadiche within a mile or so. The Chasch seldom leave 
the city, so the drovers tell me."
"Good," said Reith. "I'll have a word with Traz; he can keep the girl company."
At a corral to the rear of the inn Reith and the Dirdirman hired leap-horses of 
a tall rubber-legged breed strange to Reith. The ostler threw on the saddles, 
shoved guide-bars through holes in the creatures' brains, at which they screamed 
and whipped the air with their palps. The reins were attached, Reith and Anacho 
vaulted up into the saddles; the beasts made angry sidling leaps, then sprang 
off down the road.
They passed through the center of Pera, where, over a considerable area, folk 
had built all manner of dwellings from the rubble and slabs of concrete. There 
was a greater population than Reith had expected, numbering perhaps four or five 
thousand. And up on top of the old citadel, brooding over all, was the crude 
mansion in which lived Naga Goho and his retinue of Ghashters.
Coming into the central plaza Reith and Anacho stopped short before a display of 
horrid objects. Beside a massive gibbet were flaying-stocks stained with blood. 
Poles held aloft a pair of impaled men. From a derrick swung a small cage; 
inside crouched a naked sun-blackened creature, barely recognizable as a man. A 
Gnashter lounged nearby, a heavy-jowled young man wearing a maroon vest and a 
knee-length black kilt: the Gnashter uniform. Reith reined up the leap-horse 
and, indicating the cage, addressed the Gnashter. "What was his crime?"
"Recalcitrance, when Naga Goho called his daughter to service."
"What then? How long does he swing thus?"
The Gnashter glanced up indifferently. "Another three days he'll last. The rain 
freshened him up; he's full of water."
"What of those?" Reith pointed to the impaled corpses.
"Defaulters. Certain graceless folk begrudge a tithe of their wealth to Naga 
Goho."
Anacho touched Reith's arm. "Come."
Reith slowly turned away; impossible to right all the wrongs of this dreadful 
planet. But looking back toward the wretch in the cage, he felt a flush of 
shame. Still-what options were open to him? To embroil himself with Naga Goho 
could easily mean the loss of his life, with no benefit to anyone. If he were 
able to regain his space-boat and return to Earth, the lot of all men on Tschai 
must be improved. So Reith told himself, and tried to put the dismal scene out 
of his mind.
Beyond Pera were large numbers of irregular plots, where women and girls 
cultivated all manner of crops. Drays loaded with food and farm produce moved 
westward along the road toward Dadiche: a commerce surprising to Reith, who had 
expected no such formalized trade.
The two rode ten miles, toward a low range of gray hills. Where the road rose 
into a steep-walled ravine a gate barred the way and they were forced to wait 
while a pair of Gnashters inspected a dray piled with crates of cabbage-like 
pulps, then levied a toll upon the drayman. Reith and Anacho, passing the gate, 
paid a sequin each.
"Naga Goho misses few chances to profit," Reith grumbled. "What does he do with 
his wealth?"
The Dirdirman shrugged. "What does anyone do with wealth?"
The road wound up, passed through a notch. Beyond lay the land of the Blue 
Chasch: a wooded countryside meshed by dozens of little rivers, easing in and 
out of innumerable ponds. There were a hundred sorts of trees: red feather-palm, 
green conifer-like growths, black trunks and branches hung with white globes; 
and many groves of adarak. The entire landscape was a single garden, tended with 
meticulous care.
Below was Dadiche: low flat domes and curving white surfaces, half-submerged in 
foliage. The size and population of the city was impossible to estimate; there 
was no differentiation between city and park. Reith was forced to admit that the 
Blue Chasch lived in pleasant circumstances.
The Dirdirman, conditioned to other aesthetic precepts, spoke with 
condescension. "Typical of the Chasch mentality: formless, chaotic, devious. You 
have seen a Dirdir city? Truly noble! a sight to stop the heart! This 
half-bucolic botchery"--Anacho made a scornful gesture "reflects the caprice of 
the Blue Chasch. Not as flaccid and decadent as the Old Chasch of 
course-remember Golsse? but then the Old Church have been moribund for twenty 
thousand years ... What do you do? What is that instrument?"
For Reith, unable to contrive a method to read his transcom dials discreetly, 
had brought it forth. "This," said Reith, "is a device which indicates the 
direction and distance of three and a half miles." He sighted along the needle. 
"The line passes through that large structure with the high dome." He pointed. 
"The distance is about right."
Anacho was looking at the transcom with gloomy fascination. "Where did you get 
this instrument? It is of a workmanship I have never seen before. And those 
markings: neither Dirdir nor Chasch nor Wankh! Is there some far corner of 
Tschai where submen make goods of this quality? I am astounded! I have believed 
the sub-men incapable of any activity more complicated than agriculture!"
"Anacho, my friend," said Reith, "you have a great deal to learn. The process 
will come as an appalling shock to you."
Anacho massaged his undershot jaw, pulled the soft black cap down over his 
forehead. "You are as mysterious as a Pnume."
Reith brought the scanscope from his pouch, inspected the landscape. He traced 
the course of the road, down the hill, through a grove of flame-shaped trees 
with enormous green and purple leaves, thence to a wall which he had not 
previously noticed and which evidently guarded Dadiche from the Green Chasch. 
The road passed through a portal in this wall and into the city. At intervals 
along the road were drays entering Dadiche loaded with comestibles, leaving with 
crates of manufactured goods.
Anacho, inspecting the scanscope, made a clicking sound of irritated puzzlement, 
but restrained his comments.
Reith said, "No point in going further down the road; however, if we rode along 
the ridge a mile or two, I could take another sight on that big building."
Anacho made no objection; they rode south almost two miles, then Reith took a 
new reading of the transcom. The line of sight passed through the same large 
domed structure. Reith gave a nod of certainty. "In that building are articles 
which at one time were mine, and which I want to recover."
The Dirdirman's lips twitched in a grin. "All very well-but how? You can't ride 
into Dadiche, pound on the door and cry 'Bring out my object!' You will be 
disappointed. I doubt if you are a thief sufficiently deft to fool the Chasch. 
What will you do?"
Reith looked longingly down at the great white dome. "First, closer 
reconnaissance. I need to look inside that building. Because what I want most 
might not be there at all."
Anacho shook his head in mild reproach. "You talk in riddles. First you declare 
that your articles are there, then that they may not be there after all."
Reith merely laughed, far more confidently than he felt. Now that he was close 
to Dadiche, and presumably to the space-boat, the task of regaining possession 
seemed overwhelming. "Enough for today, at any rate. Let's be back to Pera."
They rode, swaying and lurching on the leap-horses, and returned to the road, 
where they halted for a space watching the drays rumble past. Some were 
propelled by engines, others by slow-going pull-beasts. Those to Dadiche carried 
foodstuffs: melons, stacks of dead reed-walkers, bales of dingy white floss spun 
by swamp insects, nets bulging with purple bladders. "These drays go into 
Dadiche," said Reith. "I'll go with them. Why should there be difficulty?"
The Dirdirman gave his head a lugubrious shake. "The Blue Chasch are 
unpredictable. You might find yourself performing tricks for their amusement. 
Such as walking rods over pits full of filth or white-eyed scorpions. As you 
gain equilibrium, the Chasch heat the rods, or send electricity through, so that 
you bound back and forth and perform desperate antics. Or perhaps you will find 
yourself in a glass maze with a tormented Phung. Or you might be blindfolded and 
set in an amphitheater with a cyclodon, also blindfolded. Or-were you Dirdir or 
Dirdirman, you might be set to solving logical problems to avoid unpleasant 
penalties. Their ingenuity is endless."
Reith scowled down at the city. "The draymen risk all this?"
"They are licensed and go and come unmolested, unless they violate an 
ordinance."
"Then I will go as a drayman."
Anacho nodded. "The obvious stratagem. I suggest that tonight you strip off your 
clothes, rub yourself with damp soil, stand in the smoke of burning bones, walk 
in pull-beast dung, eat panibals, ramp and smudgers, all of which permeate the 
body with odor, and wipe the grease into your skin. Then dress from skin outward 
in drayman's garments. As a last precaution, never pass upwind of a Blue Chasch 
and never exhale where one might detect the odor of your teeth or your breath."
Reith managed a wry grin. "The scheme sounds less feasible every minute. But I 
don't care to die. I have too many responsibilities. Such as returning the girl 
to Cath."
"Bah!" snorted Anacho. "You are a victim of sentimentality. She is a 
troublemaker, vain and self-willed. Leave her to her destiny
"If she were not vain I'd suspect her of stupidity," declared Reith with 
feeling.
Anacho kissed his fingertips: a gesture of Mediterranean fervor. "When you say 
'beauty,' you must mean the women of my race! Ah! Elegant creatures, pale as 
snow, with pates naked and glossy as mirrors! So near to Dirdir that the Dirdir 
themselves are beguiled ... Each to his own taste. The Cath girl can never be 
other than a source of tribulation. Such women trail disaster as a cloud trails 
rain; think of the times she has led you into contention!"
Reith shrugged, and kicked the leap-horse into motion; they bounded east along 
the road, back down upon the steppe, off toward the mound of gray-white rubble 
which was Pera.
Late in the afternoon they entered the ruined city. They returned the 
leap-horses to the stables, crossed the plaza to the long half-subterranean inn, 
with the low sun shining on their backs.
The common-room was half-full of folk consuming an early supper. Neither Traz 
nor the Flower of Cath was here, nor were they in the sleeping cubicles on the 
second floor. Reith returned downstairs and found the innkeeper. "Where are my 
friends: the boy and the Cath girl? They are nowhere on the premises."
The innkeeper drew a sour face, looked everywhere but into Reith's eyes. "You 
must know where she is; how could she be elsewhere? As for the lad, he went into 
an unreasonable fury when they came to take her. The Gnashters broke his head 
and dragged him off to be hanged."
In a voice precise and controlled Reith asked, "How long ago did this occur?"
"Not long. He'll still be kicking. The lad was a fool. A girl like that is 
flagrant enticement; he had no right to defend her."
"They took the girl to the tower?"
"So I suppose. What's it to me? Naga Goho does as he pleases; he wields power in 
Pera."
Reith turned to Anacho, handed over his pouch, retaining only his weapons. "Take 
care of my belongings. If I don't return, keep them."
"You plan to risk yourself again?" asked Anacho in wonder and disapproval. "What 
about your 'object'?"
"It can wait." Reith ran off toward the citadel.



CHAPTER NINE
THE LIGHT OF the setting sun shone full on the stone platforms and mounting 
blocks surrounding the gibbet. Colors held the curious fullness of all the 
Tschai colors: even the browns and grays, mustards, dull ochers, earthen colors 
in the garments of those who had come to watch the hanging imparted a sense of 
rich essence. The dull-red jackets of the Gnashters glowed rich and ripe; there 
were six of these. Two stood by the gibbet rope; two supported Traz, who stood 
on limp legs, head bowed, a trickle of blood down his forehead. One leaned 
negligently by a post, hand by his slung catapult; the last spoke to the 
apathetic herd before the gibbet.
"By order of Naga Goho, this furious criminal who dared use violence upon the 
Gnashters must be hanged!"
The noose was ceremoniously dropped around Traz's neck. He raised his head, 
turned a glassy look around the crowd. If he noticed Reith he gave no sign. "May 
the incident and its consequences teach obedience to all!"
Reith walked around to the side of the gibbet. No time now for delicacy or 
squeamishness-if, in fact, such occasions ever occurred on Tschai. The Gnashters 
at the hoist-rope saw him approach, but his demeanor was so casual that they 
gave him no heed and turned to watch for their signal. Reith slid his knife into 
the heart of the first, who croaked in surprise. The second looked about; Reith 
cut his throat with a back-hand stroke, then threw the knife to split the 
forehead of the Gnashter who stood by the gibbet-pole. In an instant the six had 
become three. Reith stepped forward with his sword and cut down the man who had 
uttered the proclamation, but now the two holding Traz, drawing blades, rushed 
at Reith, jostling each other in outrage. Reith jumped back, aimed his Emblem 
catapult, shot the foremost; the second, now the sole survivor of the six, 
stopped short, Reith attacked him, struck the sword from his hand, felled him 
with a blow to the side of the head. He freed the noose, yanked it tight around 
the neck of the fallen Gnashter, pointed to two men at the front of the 
fascinated onlookers. "Heave now; heave on the rope. We'll hang the Gnashter, 
not the boy." When the men hesitated, Reith cried: "Heave on the rope; do my 
bidding! We'll show Naga Goho who rules Pera! Up with the Gnashter!"
The men sprang to the rope: high into the air swung the Gnashter, kicking and 
flailing. Reith ran over to the derrick. He loosed the rope which held the cage 
aloft, lowered it to the ground, threw open the top. The wretch within, crouched 
and cramped, looked up in fearful expectation, then an impossible hope. He tried 
to raise himself, but he was too weak. Reith reached down, helped him forth. He 
signaled to the men who had hoisted on the rope. "Take this man and the lad to 
the inn; see that they are cared for. You need fear the Gnashters no more. Take 
weapons from the dead men; if Gnashters appear, kill them! Do you understand? 
There are to be no more Gnashters in Pera, no more taxes, no more hangings, no 
more Naga Goho!"
Diffidently men took the weapons, then turned to look up toward the citadel.
Reith waited only long enough to see Traz and the man from the cage helped 
toward the inn, then he turned and ran up the hill toward Naga Goho's makeshift 
palace.
A wall of piled rubble lay across the path, enclosing a courtyard. A dozen 
Gnashters lounged at long tables, drinking beer and munching strips of pickled 
reed-walker. Reith looked right and left, slid along the wall.
The hill fell away below to become a precipice; Reith pressed closer to the 
wall, clung to the corners and crevices of the blocks. He came to an aperture: a 
window crisscrossed by iron bars. Cautiously Reith looked within, to see only 
darkness. Ahead was a larger window, but the way was perilous, sheer over a 
seventy-foot drop. Reith hesitated, then proceeded, moving with painful 
slowness, hanging to the rough edges and crevices by his fingertips. In the 
gathering dusk he was inconspicuous, a blot on the wall. Below spread old Pera, 
with yellow lights beginning to flicker among the ruins. Reith reached the 
window, which was screened by a grille of woven reeds. He looked through, into a 
bed-chamber. On a couch was the outline of someone sleeping-a woman. Sleeping? 
Reith peered through the gloom. The hands were raised in supplication, the legs 
were gracelessly sprawled. The body lay very still. The woman was dead.
Reith tore open the grille, climbed into the room. The woman had been beaten 
about the head and strangled; her mouth was open, her tongue protruded 
foolishly. Alive she had been not uncomely, or so Reith conjectured. Dead, she 
was a sad sight.
Reith took three long strides to the door, looked out into a garden courtyard. 
From an archway opposite came a murmur of voices.
Reith slipped across the courtyard, looked through the archway, into a dining 
hall hung with rugs patterned in yellow, black, red. Other rugs muffled the 
floor; the furnishings were heavy chairs, a table of age-blackened wood. Under a 
great candelabra flaring with yellow lights sat Naga Goho at his evening meal, a 
splendid fur cloak thrown back from his shoulders. Across the room sat the 
Flower of Cath, head downcast, hair hanging past her face. Her hands were 
clasped in her lap; Reith saw that her wrists were bound with thongs. Naga Goho 
ate with exaggerated delicacy, conveying morsels to his mouth with mincing 
twitches of finger and thumb. As he ate he spoke, and as he spoke he flourished 
a short-handled whip in a mood of sinister playfulness.
The Flower sat with a still countenance, never raising her eyes from her lap. 
Reith watched and listened for a moment, one part of him as single-minded as a 
shark, another disgusted and horrified, still another sardonically amused for 
the grotesque surprise awaiting Naga Goho.
He stepped quietly into the room. Ylin-Ylan looked up, face blank. Reith 
signaled her to silence, but Naga Goho perceived the focus of her eyes and swung 
around in his chair. He jumped to his feet, the fur cloak falling to the floor. 
"Ha ho!" he cried out, startled. "A rat in the palace!" He ran to seize his 
sword from the scabbard over the back of the chair; Reith was there first, and, 
not deigning to draw his own blade, struck Naga Goho with his fist and sent him 
sprawling across the table. Naga Goho, a strong active man, turned an agile 
somersault, came up on his feet. Reith leapt after him, and now it developed 
that Naga Goho was as skilled in Tschai hand-fighting as Reith in the intricate 
techniques of Earth. To confuse Naga Goho, Reith began to throw left jabs into 
his face. When Naga Goho grasped for Reith's left arm, to attempt a throw or a 
bone-break, Reith stepped in and hacked at Naga Goho's neck and face. Naga Goho, 
desperate, attempted a terrible sweeping kick, but Reith was ready; seizing the 
foot, he yanked, twisted, heaved, to break Naga Goho's ankle. Naga Goho fell on 
his back. Reith kicked his head and a moment later Naga Goho lay with arms 
triced up behind him, a gag in his mouth.
Reith liberated Ylin-Ylan, who closed her eyes. So pale was she, so drawn, that 
Reith thought that she would faint. But she stood up, to stand weeping against 
Reith's chest. For a moment or two he held her, stroking her head; then he said, 
"Let's be out of here. So far we've had good luck; it may not last. There are a 
dozen or more of his men below."
Reith tied a length of thong around Naga Goho's neck, yanked. "To your feet, 
quick now."
Naga Goho lay back, glaring, making angry sounds through his gag. Reith picked 
up the whip, flicked the side of Naga Goho's face. "Up." He hauled on the thong; 
the erstwhile chieftain rose to his feet.
With Naga Goho hobbling in great pain, they passed along a hall lit with a 
reeking cresset, entered the courtyard where the Gnashters sat over tankards of 
beer.
Reith gave the thong to the Flower. "Walk on through; don't hurry. Pay no heed 
to the men. Lead the Goho on down the road."
Ylin-Ylan, taking the thong, walked through the courtyard leading Naga Goho. The 
Gnashters swung around on their benches, staring in wonder. Naga Goho made 
hoarse urgent noises; the Gnashters rose irresolutely to their feet. One of them 
came slowly forward. Reith stepped into the courtyard holding the catapult. 
"Back; into your seats."
While they stood, he slipped across the courtyard. Ylin-Ylan and Naga Goho were 
starting down the hill. Reith told the Gnashters, "Naga Goho is finished. So are 
you. When you come down the hill, you had better leave your weapons behind." He 
backed out into the dark. "Don't any come after us." He waited. From within came 
a furious babble of talk. Two of the Gnashters strode toward the opening. Reith 
appeared in the gap, shot the foremost with his catapult, stepped back into the 
dark once more. Within the courtyard, while Reith dropped a new bolt into the 
slot, was utter silence. Reith looked back in. All stood at the far side of the 
courtyard, staring at the corpse. Reith turned, ran down the path, where the 
Flower struggled to control Naga Goho, who jerked at the neck thong, trying to 
pull her close so that he might fall upon her, perhaps knock her down. Reith 
took the thong, dragged Naga Goho stumbling and hopping at a smart pace to the 
foot of the hill.
Az and Braz both rode the eastern sky; the white blocks of old Pera seemed to 
glow with a wan intrinsic light.
In the plaza stood a crowd of people, brought forth by rumors and wild reports, 
ready to slink off among the ruins should the Gnashters come marching down from 
the palace. Seeing only Reith, the girl and the stumbling Naga Goho, they called 
out in soft surprise and came step by step closer.
Reith halted, looked around the circle of faces, pallid in the moonlight. He 
gave a yank on the thong, grinned at the crowd. "Well, here is Naga Goho. He is 
chieftain no more. He committed one crime too many. What shall we do with him?"
The crowd moved uneasily, eyes shifting up to the palace, then back to Reith and 
Naga Goho, who stood glaring from face to face, promising dire vengeance. A 
woman's voice low, husky, throbbing with hate, said: "Flay him, flay the beast!" 
"Impalement," muttered an old man. "He impaled my son; let him feel the pole!" 
"The flame!" shrilled another voice. "Burn him with slow fire!"
"No one counsels mercy," Reith observed. He turned to Naga Goho. "Your time has 
come." He pulled off the gag. "Do you have anything to say?"
Naga Goho could find no words, but made only strange noises at the back of his 
mouth.
Reith said to the crowd. "Let's make a quick end to him, though he probably 
deserves worse. You-you-you." He pointed. "Lower the Gnashter. It's the rope for 
Naga Goho."
Five minutes later, with the dark form kicking in the moonlight, Reith spoke to 
the crowd. "I am a newcomer to Pera. But it's clear to me, as it must be to you, 
that the city needs a responsible government. Look how Naga Goho and a few thugs 
brutalized the entire city! You are men! Why act like animals? Tomorrow you must 
meet together, to select five experienced men for your Council of Elders. Let 
them pick a chieftain to rule for, say, a year, subject to the approval of the 
Council, who should also judge criminals and impose penalties. Then you should 
organize a militia, a troop of armed warriors to fight off Green Chasch, perhaps 
hunt them down and destroy them. We are men! Never forget this!" He looked back 
up toward the citadel. "Ten or eleven Gnashters still hold the palace. Tomorrow 
your Council can decide what to do about them. They may try to escape. I suggest 
that a guard be posted: twenty men up along the path should be ample." Reith 
pointed to a tall man with a black beard. "You look to be a stalwart man. Take 
the job in hand. You are captain. Pick two dozen men, or more, and mount guard. 
Now I must go to see my friend."
Reith and the Flower started back to the Dead Steppe Inn. As they moved away 
they heard the black-bearded man say, "Very well, then; for many months we have 
performed as poltroons. We'll do better now. Twenty men with weapons; who'll 
step forward? Naga Goho escaped with simple hanging; let's give the Gnashters 
something better..."
Ylin-Ylan took Reith's hand, kissed it. "I thank you, Adam Reith."
Reith put his arm around her waist; she stopped, leaned against him and once 
again fell to sobbing, from sheer fatigue and nervous exhaustion. Reith kissed 
her forehead; then, as she turned up her face, her mouth, in spite of all his 
good intentions.
Presently they returned to the inn. Traz lay asleep in a chamber off the 
common-room. Beside him sat Anacho the Dirdirman. Reith asked, "How is he?"
Anacho said in a gruff voice, "Well enough, I bathed his head. A bruise, no 
fracture. He'll be on his feet tomorrow."
Reith went back to the common-room. The Flower of Cath was nowhere to be seen. 
Reith thoughtfully ate a bowl of stew and went up to the room on the second 
floor, where he found her waiting for him.
She said, "I have still my last name, my most secret name, to tell my lover 
alone. If you come close-"
Reith bent forward and she whispered the name in his ear.



CHAPTER TEN
ON THE FOLLOWING morning Reith visited the drayage depot at the extreme south of 
town: a place of platforms and bins piled with the produce of the region. The 
drays rumbled up to the loading areas, the teamsters cursing and sweating, 
jockeying for position, oblivious to dust, smell, protest of beast, complaints 
of the hunters and growers, whose merchandise was constantly threatened by the 
jostling wagons.
Some of the wagons carried a pair of teamsters, or a draymaster and a helper; 
others were managed by a single man. Reith approached one of these latter. "You 
haul to Dadiche today?"
The draymaster, a small thin man with black eyes in a face which seemed all nose 
and narrow forehead, gave a suspicious jerk of the head. "Aye."
"When you arrive in Dadiche, what is the procedure?"
"I'll never arrive to begin with, if I waste my time talking."
"Don't worry; I'll make it worth your while. What do you do?"
"I drive to the unloading dock; the porters sweep me clean; the clerk gives me 
my receipt; I pass the wicket and take either sequins or vouchers, depending on 
whether I have an order for return cargo. If I have return cargo I take my 
voucher to the proper factory or warehouse, load and then start back for Pera."
"So, then-there are no restrictions to where you drive in Dadiche?"
"Certainly there are restrictions. They don't like drays along the river-side 
among their gardens. They don't want folk to the south of the city near the 
race-course, where teams of Dirdir pull the chariots, or so it is said."
"Elsewhere, no regulations?"
The draymaster squinted at Reith across the impressive beak of his nose. "Why do 
you ask such questions?"
"I want to ride with you, to Dadiche and back."
"Impossible. You have no license."
"You will provide the license."
"I see. No doubt you are prepared to pay?"
"A reasonable sum. How much will you demand?"
"Ten sequins. Another five sequins for the license."
"Too much! Ten sequins for everything, or twelve if you drive where I bid you."
"Bah! Do you take me for a fool? You might bid me drive you out Fargon 
Peninsula."
"No risk of that. A short distance into Dadiche, to look at something which 
interests me."
"Done for fifteen sequins, no iota less."
"Oh, very well," said Reith. "But I'll expect you to provide me drayer's 
clothes."
"Very well, and I'll give you further instructions: carry none of your old 
metal; this retains a scent to alarm them. Throw off all your clothes, rub 
yourself in mire, and dry yourself with annel leaves, and chew annel to disguise 
your breath. And you must do this at once, for I load and leave in half an 
hour."
Reith did as he was bid, though his skin crawled at the clammy feel of the 
drayer's old garments, and the loose-brimmed old hat of wicker and felt. Emmink, 
as the drayer called himself, checked to make sure Reith carried no weapons, 
which were forbidden within the city. He pinned a plaque of white glass on 
Reith's shoulder. "This is the license. When you pass the gate, call out your 
number, like this: 'Eighty-six!' Then say no more and do not get down from the 
dray. If they smell you out for a stranger, I can do nothing to help, so do not 
look to me."
Reith, already uneasy, was not encouraged by the remarks.
The dray rumbled west toward the crumble of gray hills, carrying a cargo of 
reed-walker corpses, the yellow bills and staring dead eyes alternating with 
rows of yellow feet to form a macabre pattern.
Emmink was surly and uncommunicative, he showed no interest in the motive for 
Reith's visit and Reith, after several attempts at conversation, fell silent.
The dray ground up the road, the torque generators at each wheel spinning and 
groaning. They entered the pass which Emmink named Belbal Gap, and before them 
spread Dadiche: a scene of bizarre and somewhat menacing beauty. Reith's 
uneasiness became keener. Despite his soiled garments, he did not feel that he 
resembled the other drayers and could only hope that he smelled like a drayer. 
What of Emmink? Would he prove dependable? Reith considered him surreptitiously: 
a dry wisp of a man, with skin the color of boiled leather, all nose and narrow 
forehead, his little mouth pinched together. A man like Anacho, like Traz, like 
himself, ultimately derived from the soil of Earth, mused Reith. How dilute now, 
how tenuous, was the terrestrial essence! Emmink had become a man of Tschai, his 
soul conditioned by the Tschai landscape, the amber sunlight, the gunmetal sky, 
the quiet rich colors. Reith cared to trust the loyalty of Emmink no farther 
than the length of his arm, if as far. Looking out over the extent of Dadiche, 
he asked, "Where do you discharge your cargo?"
Emmink delayed before answering, as if searching for a plausible reason to 
decline response. Grudgingly he said, "Wherever I get the best price. It might 
be North Market or River Market. It might be Bonte Bazaar."
"I see," said Reith. He pointed to the great white structure he had located the 
day before. "That building there: what is that?"
Emmink gave his narrow shoulders a twitch of disinterest. "It is none of my 
affair. I buy, transport, and sell; beyond that, I care nothing."
"I see ... Well, I want to drive past that building."
Emmink grunted. "It is to the side of my usual route."
"I don't care if it is. That's what I'm paying you for."
Emmink grunted again, and for a moment was silent. Then he said: "First to the 
North Market, to secure a quote on my corpses, then to the Bonte Bazaar. On the 
way I will pass the building."
They rolled down the hill, across a strip of barrens strewn with junk and 
refuse, then into a garden of feathery green shrubs and mottled black and green 
cycads. Ahead rose the wall surrounding Dadiche, a structure thirty feet high 
built of a brown glossy synthetic material. Through a gate passed drays from 
Pera submitting to scrutiny from a group of Chaschmen in purple pantaloons, gray 
shirts and tall conical hats of black felt. They carried sidearms and long thin 
rods, with which they prodded the loads of incoming drays. "What's the reason 
for that?" Reith asked, as the Chaschmen somewhat lackadaisically stabbed 
through the heaped cargo of the dray ahead.
"They prevent Green Chasch from stealing into the city. Forty years ago a 
hundred Green Chasch entered Dadiche hidden in cargo; there was a great 
slaughter before all the Green Chasch were killed. Oh, Blue Chasch and Green 
Chasch are bitter enemies! They love to see the other's blood!"
Reith asked, "What do I say if they ask me questions?"
Emmink shrugged. "That's your affair. If they ask me, I'll tell them you paid 
for transportation into Dadiche. Is it not the truth? Then you must tell your 
truth, if you dare ... Shout your number when I shout mine."
Reith gave a sour grin but said nothing.
The way was clear; Emmink drove up through the portal and stopped upon a red 
rectangle. "Forty-five," he bawled. "Eighty-six," yelled Reith. The Chaschmen 
stepped forward, thrust rods into the stack of reed-walker corpses while another 
walked around the dray: a stocky man with bandy legs, features crowded together 
at the bottom of his face, as chinless as Emmink but with a small snub nose, a 
lowering forehead rendered grotesque by the false scalp which rose into a cone 
six inches or more above his normal skull. His skin was leaden, tinged with blue 
which might have been cosmetic. His fingers were short and stubby, his feet 
broad. In Reith's opinion he deviated from the human form, as Reith knew it, 
considerably further than did Anacho the Dirdirman. The man glanced 
indifferently at Emmink and Reith, stepped back with a wave of his arm. Emmink 
pushed forward the power-arm and the dray lurched ahead into a wide avenue.
Emmink turned to Reith with a sour grin. "You're lucky none of the Blue Chasch 
captains were on hand. They'd have smelled you sweating. I could almost smell 
you. When a man is afraid he sweats. If you want to pass as a drayman, you'll 
need a cold-blooded disposition."
"That's asking a lot," said Reith. "I'll do my best."
Into Dadiche rolled the dray. Blue Chasch could be seen in their gardens, 
tending arbors, stirring stone troughs, moving quietly in the shadows 
surrounding their round-roofed villas. Occasionally Reith sensed odors from a 
garden or a trough: wafts tart, pungent, spicy, reeks of burnt amber, candied 
musk, anomalous ferments, disturbing by their uncertainty: were they repulsive 
or exquisitely delightful?
The road continued among the villas for a mile or two. The Blue Chasch put no 
store by what Reith considered a normal regard for privacy; and their villas 
seemed spaced without any concern for the road. Occasionally Chaschmen and 
Chaschwomen could be seen at menial or laborious tasks; seldom did Reith notice 
Chaschmen in the company of the Blue Chasch; always they worked separately, and 
when they were by chance in physical contiguity, each ignored the other as if he 
did not exist.
Emmink made no comments or observations. Reith expressed wonder at the apparent 
obliviousness of the Blue Chasch to the drays. Emmink gave a snort of bitter 
amusement. "Don't be fooled! If you think them vague, only try to slip off the 
dray and walk into one of the villas! You'd be pinned down in a trice, and 
conveyed to the gymnasium to demonstrate at their games. Ah, cunning, cunning, 
cunning! As cruel as they are ludicrous! Pitiless and sly! Have you heard of 
their trick with poor Phosfer Ajan the drayer? He stepped down from his dray to 
answer a call of nature: mad folly, of course. What could he expect but 
resentment? So Phosfer Ajan, with feet tied, was placed in a vat, with putrid 
foulness up to his chin. At the bottom was a valve. When the slime became too 
hot, Phosfer Ajan must dive to the bottom, turn the valve, whereupon the stink 
would become bitter cold, and Phosfer must dive and grope again, while slime 
singed and froze him by turns. Still, he persevered; he dived and groped 
stoically, and on the fourth day they allowed him to his dray, so that he might 
bear his tale back to Pera. As may be adduced, they fit the game to the 
occasion, and a more resourceful set of humorists has never been known." Emmink 
turned to Reith his calculating glance. "What offense do you plan against them? 
I can predict to some degree of accuracy how they will respond."
"No offense," said Reith. "I am curious, no more, and wish to see how the Blue 
Chasch live."
"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 laughable antics. 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 
sparse-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 Wankh in 
the Wankhmen?"
"As to that," Emmink shrugged, "perhaps they do ... Look now; yonder is your 
building."
The cluster 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 space-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 access 
road 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 passed 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 space-boat away from the swamp.
Reith turned to Emmink. "This building is a factory where airships and 
spacecraft 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 
spaceships, which are then rolled out and carried away for assembly elsewhere. 
In the left they build smaller spaceships, when such are needed. Recently there 
has been little work; the Blue Chasch do not like to travel space."
"Have you seen them bring spaceships or space-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 space-boat. It certainly would not be in operative 
condition; chances were good that Blue Chasch technicians had at least partially 
disassembled 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 spaceship-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 circumstances, 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 hoarse 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 scrap metal."
"What scrap metal?"
"By the portal, in a box; so they told me."
"Ah!-" a blowing gasping sound, which Reith was unable to interpret. "No scrap 
metal!"
One of the others muttered something quietly, and all three emitted a hiss, the 
Blue Chasch analogue of human laughter.
"Scrap metal, so? Not at the factory. There: notice that building yonder? Scrap 
metal yonder!"
"Thank you!" called Reith. "I'll but look." He went the last few steps to the 
open portal, looked into a great space 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 spaceship. Beyond, barely visible, was a 
familiar shape: the space-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, massive 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 
scrap 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 
spaceship; there is about you a factitious 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 reassured. 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 space-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 passed 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 passing 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 or more 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 passengers 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, glass 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.
He found two short lengths of wood, tied them to his shoes, and, taking long 
steps, stalked carefully away through the garden.
He had traveled only fifty yards when he heard sounds behind him, and instantly 
took cover. Peering back through the shrubbery, he saw that his hunch had not 
only been accurate, but timely. By the shed stood three Chaschmen security 
guards in purple and gray uniforms, with a pair of Blue Chasch, one of whom 
carried a detector-wand connected to a pack and thence to a mask across his 
nasal orifice. The Blue Chasch, waving the wand across the ground, sniffed out 
Reith's tracks without difficulty. At the back of the building the creature 
became confused, but presently discerned evidence of Reith's sojourn on the 
roof. All drew back warily, apparently believing Reith still on top.
From his vantage point fifty yards distant Reith chuckled, wondering what the 
Blue Chasch would think when they found no Reith on the roof and no perceptible 
trace of his departure. Then, still on his wooden clogs, he continued through 
the gardens toward the wall.
With a great caution he approached the large building and halted behind a tall 
tree to take stock of the situation. The building was dark and gloomy, 
apparently unoccupied. As Reith had supposed, the roof was very close to the top 
of the wall.
Reith looked back over the city. More sky-sleds were visible, at least a dozen. 
They flew low over the area he had just crossed, trailing black cylinders on 
wire: almost certainly olfactory pickups. If one passed overhead or downwind, 
whatever distinctive odor Reith exuded must be detected. It was obviously 
important that he take cover swiftly, and the somber building against the wall 
seemed the only practical cover: if it was unoccupied.
Reith watched another few minutes. He could discern no stir of movement within. 
He listened but heard no sounds; still he dared not approach. On the other hand, 
glancing over his shoulder at the air-sleds, he dared not remain. Discarding the 
clogs, he took a tentative step forward-then, hearing sounds behind him, sprang 
back into concealment.
There were measured tones of a gong. Up the road came a procession of Chaschmen 
muffled in gray and white. In the van, four carried a white-draped corpse on a 
bier; behind marched Chaschmen and Chaschwomen sighing and keening. The building 
was a mausoleum or mortuary, thought Reith; the somber aspect was no deception.
The gong strokes slowed. The group halted below the portico of the building. The 
gong became still. In utter silence the bier was brought forward and placed upon 
the porch. The mourners drew back and waited. The gong struck a single tone.
A door slowly opened, a gap which seemed to extend into an infinite void. An 
intense golden ray slanted down upon the corpse. From right and left came a pair 
of Blue Chasch, wearing a ceremonial harness of straps, tabs, golden whorls and 
tassels. They approached the corpse, drew down the pall to expose the face and 
the beetling false skull, then stepped aside. A curtain descended to hide the 
corpse.
A moment passed. The ray of golden light became a glare; there was sudden 
plangent sound, as of a broken harpstring. The curtain lifted. The corpse lay as 
before, but the false skull was split and the cranium as well. In the cold brain 
sat a Blue Chasch imp, staring forth at the mourners.
The gong struck eleven jubilant strokes; the Blue Chasch cried out, "The 
elevation has occurred! A man has transcended his first life! Partake of 
beatitude! Inhale the jubilant odor! The man, Zugel Edgz, has given soul to this 
delightful imp! Could there be greater felicity? Through diligence, by 
application of approved principle, the same glory may come to all! In first life 
I was the man Sagaza Oso-" spoke one. "I was the woman Diseun Furwg," spoke the 
other. "-So with all the others. Depart then in joy! The imp Zugel Edgz must be 
anointed with healthful salve; the empty man-hulk will return to the soil. In 
two weeks you may visit your beloved Zugel Edgz!"
The mourners, no longer dejected, returned down the path to quick strokes of the 
gong, and were lost to sight. The bier with corpse and staring imp slid into the 
building. The Blue Chasch followed, and the door closed.
Reith gave a quiet laugh, which he quickly stifled as a skysled drifted 
alarmingly close. Creeping through the foliage, he approached the mortuary. No 
one, Chasch or Chaschman, was in sight; he slipped around to the rear of the 
building, which almost abutted the wall.
Low to the ground was an arched opening. Reith sidled close, listened, to hear a 
muffled grind of machinery, and he winced at the thought of the grisly work 
being done. He peered into the dimness to see what appeared to be a storeroom, a 
repository for discarded objects. On racks and shelves were pots, jars, heaps of 
old garments, a clutter of dusty mechanisms for purposes unimaginable. The room 
was untenanted, apparently little used. Reith took a final look at the sky and 
slipped into the building.
The room communicated with another, through a wide low arch. Another room lay 
beyond, and another, and another, all illuminated by a sickly glow from ceiling 
panels. Reith was content to crouch behind a rack and wait.
An hour passed, two hours. Reith became restless and made a cautious 
exploration. In a side chamber he found a bin containing false craniums, each 
with a label and a series of characters. He picked one up, tried it on. It 
seemed to fit; Reith detached and discarded the label. From a pile of garments 
he selected an old cloak and drew it up under his chin. From a distance, at a 
casual glance, he might conceivably be taken for a Chaschman.
There was a fading of light at the window; looking forth Reith saw that the sun 
had settled into a wrack of clouds. The adarak trees moved against a background 
of watery light. Reith climbed forth, scrutinized the sky; no sky-sleds were 
immediately evident. Reith went to a convenient tree and started to climb. The 
bark was a slippery pulp, which made the project more difficult than he had 
anticipated. At last, sticky with aromatic sap, sweating under his ill-smelling 
garments, he gained the roof of the mortuary.
He crouched, looked out over Dadiche. The sky-sleds had disappeared; the sky was 
brown-gray with oncoming dusk.
Reith went to the back edge of the roof, looked across at the wall. The top 
surface was about six feet distant, flat, with foothigh prongs at fifty-foot 
intervals. Warring devices? Reith could imagine no other purpose. On the other 
side was a drop of thirty feet-twenty-five feet, if he hung by his hands before 
he let himself fall. Reith appraised the chances of landing without broken bones 
or sprained joints: about two in three, depending upon the ground beneath. With 
a rope, the descent would be effortless. In the basement of the mortuary he had 
seen no ropes, but there were quantities of old garments to be knotted together. 
First: what would happen if he reached the top of the wall?
To learn, Reith doffed his cloak. Moving along the rooftop until he was opposite 
one of the prongs, he swung the cloak out and over the prong.
The result was instant and startling. From the prongs to either side lances of 
white fire darted forth, piercing the cloak, setting it aflame. Reith snatched 
it back, stamped out the blaze, looked hurriedly back and forth along the wall. 
Undoubtedly an alarm had been set off. Should he risk leaping the wall, fleeing 
across the waste? The chances, very bad in any case, would be nonexistent if he 
should become caught in the open. He ran to the tree, descended far more rapidly 
than he had mounted. Over the city sky-sleds were already appearing. Reith heard 
a far weird whistling which set his nerves on edge ... He ran, cloak flapping, 
back under the trees. A gleam of water attracted his attention: a small pond, 
overgrown with pallid white water-plants. Throwing off his cloak and false 
cranium, Reith jumped into the water, submerged himself up to his nose, and 
waited.
Minutes passed. A squad of security guards on electric motorcycles dashed past. 
Two sky-sleds trailing scent-detectors drifted overhead, one to his right, the 
other to his left. They disappeared to the east; clearly the Blue Chasch thought 
he had crossed the wall, that he was at large outside the city. If this was the 
case, if they presently decided that he had escaped into the mountains, his 
chances would be thereby much improved ... He became aware of something moving 
along the bottom of the pond. It felt muscular, purposeful. An eel? a 
watersnake? A tentacle? Reith jumped out of the pond. Ten feet away something 
broke the surface and made a sound like a snort of disgust.
Reith seized up the cloak and the false cranium and trudged dripping back down 
away from the mortuary.
He came upon a small lane winding among the Chaschmen bungalows. By night they 
seemed close, secretive, locked-in. The windows were small and none lower than 
eight feet from the ground. Some exuded a wavering yellow light, as if from a 
lamp, which puzzled Reith. Surely a race as technically capable as the Blue 
Chasch could provide their underlings electric or nucleonic illumination ... 
Another paradox of Tschai.
The wet clothes not only chafed but smelled abominably-a situation which might 
camouflage his own scent, thought Reith. He pulled the false cranium over his 
skull, threw the cloak around his shoulders. Walking slow and stiff-legged, he 
continued toward the gate.
The sky was dark; neither Az nor Braz was in the sky, and the byways of Dadiche 
knew only the most casual illumination. Two Chaschmen came into view. Reith 
pulled down his chin, hunched his shoulders, walked stolidly forward. The two 
passed with no more than a glance.
Somewhat encouraged, Reith reached the central boulevard with the gate two 
hundred yards ahead. High lamps cast a yellow glare into the portal. Three 
guards in purple and gray were still in evidence, but they seemed slack and 
uninterested, and Reith was reinforced in his belief that the Blue Chasch 
thought him gone from the city.
Unfortunately, thought Reith, the Blue Chasch were wrong.
He considered the feasibility of sauntering up to the portal, dashing through 
and away into the darkness. The sky-sleds would instantly be after him, as well 
as platoons of guards on electric motorcycles. What with his reeking clothes, he 
would have no place to hide-unless he discarded all his garments and ran naked 
through the night.
Reith gave a soft grunt of disapproval ... His attention was attracted by a 
tavern in the basement of a tall building. From the low windows came flickering 
red and yellow light, hoarse conversation, an occasional gust of bellowing 
laughter. Three Chaschmen came lurching forth; Reith turned his back and looked 
through the window down into a murky taproom, lit by firelight and the 
ubiquitous yellow lamps. A dozen Chaschmen, faces pinched and twisted under the 
grotesque false crania, sat hunched over stone pots of liquor, exchanging lewd 
banter with a small group of Chaschwomen. These wore gowns of black and green; 
bits of tinsel and ribbon bedizened their false scalps; their pug-noses were 
painted bright red. A dismal scene, thought Reith; still, it pointed up the 
essential humanity of the Chaschmen. Here were the universal ingredients of 
celebration: invigorating drink, gay women, camaraderie. The Chaschman version 
seemed somewhat leaden and dour ... Another pair of Chaschmen passed close to 
Reith without remark. So far the disguise had been effective, though whether it 
would pass a more detailed examination Reith was uncertain. He walked slowly 
toward the gate, until he was barely fifty yards distant. He dared approach no 
further. He slid into a niche between two buildings and settled himself to watch 
the gate.
The night went on. The air became still and cold and Reith became aware of odors 
from the Dadiche gardens.
He dozed. When he awoke Az had appeared behind a line of sentinel adarak. Reith 
shifted his position, groaned, massaged his neck, recoiling at the odor of the 
still damp garments.
At the gate two of the security guards had disappeared. The third stood 
torpidly, half-asleep. In the booths the attendants sat looking morosely out 
over the empty spaces. Reith settled back into his niche.
The east became bright with dawn; the city came alive. New personnel arrived at 
the portal. Reith watched the incoming and outgoing groups exchange information.
An hour later drays began to arrive from Pera. The first, drawn by a pair of 
great draft beasts, brought casks of pickles and fermented meat, and stank with 
a fervor that put Reith to shame. On the driver's bench sat two persons: Emmink, 
more sour, sulky and dire than ever, and Traz. "Forty-three," shouted Emmink. "A 
hundred and one," called Traz. The guards came out, counted barrels, inspected 
the wagon, then ordered Emmink to proceed.
As the wagon passed, Reith emerged from his niche, walked close beside. "Traz.'
Traz looked down and made a small exclamation of satisfaction. "I knew you'd 
still be alive."
"Just barely. Do I look like a Chaschman?"
"Not too much. Keep the cloak over your chin and nose .... When we come back 
from market, up under the right foreleg of the right beast."
Reith turned aside into a secluded little nook behind a shed and watched the 
wagon move off toward the market.
An hour later it returned, moving slowly. Emmink guided it along the right side 
of the road. It passed Reith; he emerged from his hiding place. The wagon 
stopped; Traz jumped down as if to lash the barrels more securely, but blocking 
off the view from the rear.
Reith ran forward, ducked under the draft beast. Between the first and second 
right-hand legs hung a great leathery flap of skin. Between the belly and the 
skin five thongs had been tied to make a tight cramped hammock, into which Reith 
inserted himself. The wagon started forward; Reith could see nothing but the 
gray belly, the dangling flap, the first two legs.
The wagon paused at the gate. He heard voices, saw the pointed red sandals of 
the security guards. After a suspenseful wait, the wagon started forward, 
rumbled out toward the surrounding hills. Reith could see the gravel of the 
road, an occasional bit of vegetation, the ponderous legs, the dangling flap 
which at every step clamped in upon him.
At last the dray halted. Traz peered under the beast. "Out, no one is watching."
With almost insane relief Reith pulled himself from under the beast. He ripped 
off the false cranium, flung it in a ditch, threw off the cloak, the stinking 
jacket, the shirt, clambered up on the bed of the dray, where he slumped back 
against a barrel.
Traz resumed his seat beside Emmink, and the dray started forward. Traz looked 
back with concern. "Are you ill? Or wounded?"
"No. Tired. But alive-thanks to you. And Emmink, as well, or so it appears."
Traz gave Emmink a frowning glance. "Emmink has been no great help. It was 
necessary to make threats, to inflict a bruise or two.
"I see," said Reith. He turned a critical glance upon the draymaster's hunched 
shoulders. "I've had one or two harsh thoughts in connection with Emmink 
myself."
The shoulders quivered. Emmink swung around in his seat, thin face split in a 
yellow-toothed grin. "You'll recall, sir, that I conveyed you and instructed 
you, even before I knew your lordship's high rank."
"'High rank'?" asked Reith. "What 'high rank'?'
"The council at Pera has appointed you chief executive," said Traz. And he 
added, in a disparaging tone: "High rank of a sort, I suppose."



CHAPTER ELEVEN
REITH HAD No inclination to rule Pera. The occupation would exhaust his energy, 
destroy his patience, restrict his scope of action and bring him no personal 
advantage. Perforce, he would tend to govern in terms of Earth social 
philosophy. He considered the population of Pera: a motley group. Fugitives, 
criminals, bandits, freaks, hybrids, nondescripts, nonesuchs: what would these 
poor wretches know of equity, juridical procedure, human dignity, the ideal of 
progress?
A challenge, to say the least.
What of the space-boat, what of his hopes of returning to Earth? His adventures 
in Dadiche had verified only the location of the space-boat. The Blue Chasch 
would doubtless be amused and interested should he demand the return of his 
property.
&nbs;  Inducements? Reith could hardly promise Earth military assistance against 
the Dirdir or the Wankh-whichever were the current adversaries of the Blue 
Chasch. Compulsion? He had no leverage, no force to apply.
Another matter: the Blue Chasch were now aware of his existence. Undoubtedly 
they wondered as to his identity, his homeland. Tschai was vast, with remote 
regions where men might have produced almost anything. The Blue Chasch must even 
now be anxiously consulting their maps.
As Reith reflected, the dray ground up the hill, passed through Belbal Gap, 
rumbled down toward the steppe. Sunlight warmed Reith's skin; the steppe wind 
blew away the stench. He became drowsy and presently fell asleep.
He awoke to find the dray trundling over the ancient pavements of Pera. They 
entered the central plaza at the base of the citadel. As they passed the gibbets 
Reith saw swinging eight new bodies: Gnashters, the rakish swagger of their 
garments now a bedraggled and pathetic joke. Traz explained the circumstances, 
in the most casual of voices. "They decided to come down from the citadel, and 
so they did, waving their hands and laughing, as if the whole affair were a 
farce. How indignant they became when the militia seized them and hoisted them 
aloft! They were dead before they had ceased complaining!"
"So now the palace is empty," said Reith, looking up at the mass of slabs and 
stones.
"So far as I know. I suppose you will choose to live there?"
Traz's voice held a faint note of disapprobation. Reith grinned. The influence 
of Onmale persisted and occasionally manifested itself.
"No," said Reith. "Naga Goho lived there. If we moved in, people would think we 
were a new set of Gohos."
"It is a fine palace," said Traz, dubious now. "It contains many interesting 
objects ..." He turned a quizzical glance toward Reith. "Apparently you have 
decided to rule Pera."
"Yes," said Reith. "Apparently I have."
At the Dead Steppe Inn Reith rubbed himself in oil, soft sand, sifted ashes. He 
rinsed himself in clean water and repeated the process, thinking that soap would 
be one of the first innovations he would bring to the people of Pera, and Tschai 
at large. Was it possible that a substance so relatively simple as soap was 
unknown on Tschai? He would ask Derl, Ylin-Ylan, whatever her name, if soap was 
known in Cath.
Scrubbed, shaved, in fresh linen and new sandals of soft leather, Reith ate a 
meal of porridge and stew in the common room. A change in the atmosphere was 
apparent. The personnel of the inn treated him with exaggerated respect; others 
in the room spoke in quiet voices, watching him from the side of their faces.
Reith noticed a group of men standing in the compound, muttering together and 
peering into the inn from time to time. When he had finished his meal they 
entered and came to stand in a line in front of him.
Reith looked them over, recognizing some who had been present at Naga Goho's 
execution. One was thin and yellow, with burning black eyes: a marsh-man, Reith 
guessed. Another appeared to be a mixture of Chaschman and Gray. Another was 
typical Gray, of medium height, bald with putty-colored skin, a fleshy lump of a 
nose, glossy protuberant eyes. The fourth was an old man from one of the nomad 
tribes, handsome in a haggard, wind-driven fashion; the fifth was short and 
barrel-shaped, with arms dangling almost to his knees, of derivation impossible 
to calculate. The old man of the steppes had been designated spokesman. He spoke 
in a husky voice. "We are the Committee of Five, formed according to your 
recommendation. We have held a long discussion. Inasmuch as you have been of 
assistance in destroying Naga Goho and the Gnashters, we wish to appoint you 
headman of Pera."
"Subject to our restraint and advice," appended the Chaschman-Gray.
Reith had still not come to a definite, irrevocable decision. Leaning back in 
his chair he surveyed the committee, and thought that seldom, if ever, had he 
seen a more heterogeneous group.
"It's not quite so easy," he said at last. "You might not be willing to 
cooperate with me. I wouldn't take on the job unless I was guaranteed that 
cooperation."
"Cooperation toward what?" the Gray asked.
"Toward changes. Extreme, far-reaching changes."
The committeemen examined him cautiously. "We are conservative folk," the 
Chaschman--Gray muttered. "Life is hard; we cannot afford risky experiments."
The old nomad gave a harsh crackling laugh. "'Experiments'! We should welcome 
them! Any change can only be for the better! Let us hear what the man proposes!"
"Very well!" acceded the Chaschman--Gray. "It does no harm to listen; we are not 
committed."
Reith said, "I am of this man's opinion." He indicated the old nomad. "Pera is a 
tumble of ruins. The people here are little better than fugitives. They have no 
pride or self-respect; they live in holes, they are dirty and ignorant, they 
wear rags. What's worse, they don't seem to care."
The committee blinked in surprise. The old nomad gave a hoarse jeering laugh; 
the Chaschman---Gray scowled. The others looked doubtful. Retiring a few paces, 
they muttered among themselves, then turned back to Reith. "Can you explain in 
detail what you propose to do?"
Reith shook his head. "I haven't given the matter any thought. To be blunt, I am 
a civilized man; I was educated and trained in civilized circumstances. I know 
what men can achieve. It is a great deal-more perhaps than you can imagine. The 
folk of Pera are men; I would insist that they live like men."
"Yes, yes," cried the marsh-man, "but how? In what particular?"
"Well, in the first place, I would want a militia, disciplined, and well 
trained, to maintain order, to protect the city and caravans from the Green 
Chasch. I would organize schools and a hospital; later a foundry, warehouses, a 
market. Meanwhile I would encourage people to build houses, in clean 
surroundings."
The committeemen fidgeted uneasily, looking askance at one another and at Reith. 
The old nomad grunted. "We are men, of course; who has denied it? And since we 
are men, we must live carefully. We do not desire to be Dirdir. Suffice that we 
survive."
The Gray said, "The Blue Chasch would never allow such pretensions. They 
tolerate us at Pera only because we are inconspicuous."
"But also because we supply certain of their wants," stated the short man. "They 
buy our produce cheap."
"It is never wise to irritate those in power," argued the Gray. Reith held up 
his hand. "You've heard my program. If you won't cooperate wholeheartedly-select 
another chief."
The old nomad turned a searching glance at Reith, then drew the others apart. 
There was heated argument. Finally they returned. "We agree to your terms. You 
will be our chief."
Reith, who had been hoping that the committee would decide otherwise, heaved a 
small sigh. "Very well, so be it. I warn you, I'll demand a great deal from you. 
You'll work harder than ever before in your lives-for your own ultimate good. Or 
at least I hope so."
He spoke to the committee for an hour, explaining what he hoped to achieve, and 
succeeded in arousing interest, even guarded enthusiasm.
Late in the afternoon, Reith, with Anacho and three of the committee members, 
went to explore the erstwhile palace of Naga Goho.
Up the winding path they walked, with the grim pile of masonry looming overhead. 
They passed through the dank courtyard, into the main hall. Naga Goho's 
cherished possessions: the heavy benches and table, the rugs, wall-hangings, 
tripod lamps, the platters and urns were already filmed over with dust.
Adjoining the hall were sleeping chambers, smelling of soiled clothing and 
aromatic unguents. The corpse of Naga Goho's concubine lay as Reith had first 
discovered it. The group hastily drew back.
On the other side of the hall were storerooms stacked with great quantities of 
loot: bales of cloth, crates of leather, parcels of rare wood, tools, weapons, 
implements, ingots of raw metal, flasks of essence, books written in brown and 
gray dots upon black paper, which Anacho identified as Wankh production manuals. 
An alcove held a chest half-full of sequins. Two smaller coffers contained 
jewels, ornaments, trinkets, trifles: a magpie's hoard. The committeemen 
selected steel swords with filigree pommels and guards for themselves; Traz and 
Anacho did likewise. Traz, after a diffident glance at Reith, arrayed himself in 
a fine golden ocher cloak, boots of soft black leather, a beautifully wrought 
casque of thin steel, drooping and splaying to protect the nape of the neck.
Reith located several dozen energy pistols with spent powercells. These, 
according to Anacho, could be recharged from the power-cells which drove the 
drays: a fact evidently unknown to Naga Goho.
The sun was low in the west when they departed the gloomy palace. Crossing the 
courtyard Reith noticed a squat door set back in a niche. He heaved it open, to 
reveal a flight of steep stone stairs. Up wafted a dismal draft, reeking of 
mold, organic decay, filth-and something else: a musky dank stench which 
stiffened the hairs at the back of Reith's neck.
"Dungeons," said Anacho laconically. "Listen."
A feeble croaking murmur came up from below. Inside the door Reith found a lamp, 
but was unable to evoke light. Anacho tapped the top of the bulb, to produce a 
white radiance. "A Dirdir device."
The group descended the steps, ready for anything, and stepped forth into a 
high-vaulted chamber. Traz, seizing at Reith's arm, pointed; Reith saw a black 
shape gliding quietly off into the far shadows. "Pnume," muttered Anacho, 
hunching his shoulders. "They infest the ruined places of Tschai, like worms in 
old wood."
A high lamp cast a feeble light, revealing cages around the periphery of the 
room. In certain of these were bones, in others heaps of putrefying flesh, in 
others living creatures, from whom issued the sounds which the group had heard. 
"Water, water," moaned the shambling figures. "Give us water!"
Reith held the lamp close. "Chaschmen."
From a tank to the side of the room he filled pannikins of water and brought 
them to the cages.
The Chaschmen drank avidly and clamored for more, which Reith brought to them.
Heavy cages at the far end of the room held a pair of massive motionless figures 
with towering conical scalps.
"Green Chasch," whispered Traz. "What did Naga Goho do with these?"
Anacho said, "Notice: they peer in a single direction only, the direction of 
their horde. They are telepathic."
Reith dipped up two more pans of water, thrust them into the cages of the Green 
Chasch. The creatures reached ponderously, sucked the pans dry.
Reith returned to the Chaschmen. "How long have you been here?"
"A long, long time," croaked one of the captives. "I cannot say how long."
"Why were you caged?"
"Cruelty! Because we were Chaschmen!"
Reith returned to the committeemen. "Did you know they were here?"
"No! Naga Goho did as he pleased."
Reith moved the linch-pins, opened the doors. "Come forth; you are free. The men 
who captured you are dead."
The Chaschmen timorously crept forth. They went to the tank and drank more 
water. Reith turned back to examine the Green Chasch. "Very strange, strange 
indeed."
"Perhaps Goho used them as indicators," Anacho suggested. "He would know at all 
times the direction of their horde."
"No one can talk to them?"
"They do not talk; they transfer thoughts."
Reith turned to the committeemen. "Send up a dozen men, to carry the cages down 
to the plaza."
"Bah," muttered Bruntego the Gray. "Best kill the ugly beasts! Kill the 
Chaschmen as well!"
Reith turned him a quick glare. "We are not Gnashters! We kill from necessity 
only! As for the Chaschmen, let them go back to their servitude, or stay here as 
free men, whatever they wish."
Bruntego gave a sour grunt. "If we do not kill them, they will kill us."
Reith, making no answer, turned the lamp toward the remote parts of the dungeon, 
to find only dank stone walls. He could not learn how the Pnume had departed the 
chamber, nor could the Chaschmen give any coherent information. "They would 
come, silent as devils, to look at us, with never a word, nor would they bring 
us water!"
"Odd creatures," ruminated Reith.
"They are the weirds of Tschai!" cried the Chaschmen, trembling to the emotion 
of their new freedom. "They should be purged from the planet!"
"As well as the Dirdir, the Wankh and the Chasch," said Reith, grinning.
"No, not the Chasch. We are Chasch, did you not know?"
"You are men."
"No, we are Chasch in the larval stage; this is prime verity!"
"Bah!" said Reith, suddenly angry. "Take off those ridiculous false heads." He 
stepped forward, jerked away the conical headpieces. "You are men, you are 
nothing else! Why do you allow the Chasch to victimize you?"
The Chaschmen fell silent, glancing fearfully at the cages as if they expected a 
new incarceration.
"Come," said Reith brusquely. "Let's get out of here."
A week passed. With nothing better to do, Reith flung himself into his job. He 
selected a group of the most obviously intelligent young men and women, whom he 
would teach and who would teach others. He formed a civic militia, delegating 
authority in this case to Baojian, the erstwhile caravan-master. With the help 
of Anacho and Tostig the old Nomad, he drew up a tentative legal code. Over and 
over he explained the benefits to be derived from his innovations, arousing a 
variety of responses: interest, apprehension, dubious sneers, enthusiasm, as 
often as not blank incomprehension. He learned that there was more to organizing 
a government than merely giving orders; he was required to be everywhere at 
once. And always at the back of his mind was apprehension: what were the Blue 
Chasch planning? He could not believe that they had so easily abandoned their 
efforts to capture him. Beyond doubt they employed spies. They would therefore 
be informed of events in Pera, and hence be in no great haste. But sooner or 
later they would come to take him. A man of ordinary prudence would flee Pera 
instantly. Reith, for a variety of reasons, was disinclined to flight.
The Chaschmen from the dungeons displayed no eagerness to return to Dadiche; 
Reith assumed that they were fugitives from Chasch justice. The Green Chasch 
warriors were a problem. Reith could not bring himself to kill them, but popular 
opinion would have been outraged had he released them outright. As a compromise 
the cages stood in the plaza, and the creatures served as a spectacle for the 
people of Pera. The Green Chasch ignored the attention, facing steadily to the 
north, telepathically linked-so stated Anacho-to the parent horde.
Reith's principal solace was the Flower of Cath, although the girl mystified 
him. He could not read her mood. During the long caravan journey she had been 
melancholy, distrait, somewhat haughty. She had become gentle and loving, if at 
times absentminded. Reich found her more alluring than ever, full of a hundred 
sweet surprises. But her melancholy persisted.
Homesickness, decided Reith; almost certainly she longed for her home in Cath. 
With a dozen other preoccupations, Reith postponed the day when he must reckon 
with Derl's yearnings.
The three Chaschmen, so Reith presently learned, were not citizens of Dadiche, 
but hailed from Saaba, a city to the south. One evening in the common-room they 
took Reith to task for what they characterized as "extravagant ambitions." "You 
wish to ape the higher races; you will only come to grief! Sub-men are incapable 
of civilization."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Reith, amused by their 
earnestness.
"Of course we do; are we not Chaschmen, the larval stage of the Blue Chasch? Who 
would know better?"
"Anyone with a smattering of biology."
The Chaschmen made fretful gestures. "A sub-man, you; and jealous of the 
advanced race."
Reith said, "In Dadiche I saw the mortuary or death-house-whatever you call it. 
I saw the Blue Chasch split a dead Chaschman s skull and put a Blue Chasch imp 
into the cold brains. They play games with you; they trick you to ensure your 
servitude. The Dirdir no doubt use a parallel technique upon the Dirdirmen, 
though I doubt if the Dirdirmen expect to become Dirdir." He looked down the 
table to Anacho. "What of that?"
Anacho's voice trembled slightly. "The Dirdirmen do not expect to become Dirdir; 
this is superstition. They are Sun, we are Shade; but both from the Primeval 
Egg. Dirdir are the highest form of cosmic life; Dirdirmen can only emulate, and 
this we do, with pride. What other race has produced such glory, achieved such 
magnificence?"
"The race of men," said Reith.
Anacho's face twitched in a sneer. "In Cath? Lotus-eaters. The Merribs? Vagrant 
artisans. The Dirdir stand alone on Tschai."
"No, no, no!" bawled the Chaschmen simultaneously. "Submen are the culls and 
dross of Chaschmen. Some become clients of the Dirdir. True men come from Zoor, 
the Chasch world."
Anacho turned away in disgust. Reith said, "This is not the case, though I don't 
expect you to believe me. You are both wrong."
Anacho the Dirdirman spoke in a voice carefully casual. "You are so definite; 
you puzzle me. Perhaps you can enlighten us further."
"Perhaps I can," said Reith. "At the moment I don't care to do so."
"Why not?" Anacho persisted. "Such enlightenment would be useful to all of us."
"The facts are as well-known to you as they are to me," said Reith. "Draw your 
own deductions."
"Which facts?" blurted the Chaschmen. "What deductions?"
"Aren't they plain? The Chaschmen are in servitude, precisely as are the 
Dirdirmen. Men are not biologically compatible with either of these races, nor 
with the Wankh nor the Pnume. Men certainly did not originate on Tschai. The 
deduction is that they were brought here as slaves, long ages ago, from the 
world of men."
The Chaschmen grunted; Anacho raised his eyes and studied the ceiling. The men 
of Pera sitting at the table sighed in wonder.
There was further talk, which became excited and vehement as the evening wore 
on. The Chaschmen went off to a corner and argued among themselves, two 
disputing with one.
On the following morning the three Chaschmen departed Pera for Dadiche, riding, 
so it happened, Emmink's dray. Reith watched them go with misgiving. They would 
undoubtedly report upon his activities and radical doctrines. The Blue Chasch 
would not approve. Existence, Reith reflected, had become extremely complex. The 
future seemed murky, even grim. Once again he considered hasty departure into 
the wilderness. But the prospect still had no appeal.
During the afternoon Reith watched the first draft of the militia at drill: six 
platoons of fifty men each, armed diversely with catapults, swords, short 
cutlasses, in striking variety of garments: pantaloons, smocks, burnouses, 
flared jackets with short skirts, rags and strips of fur. Some wore beards, 
others varnished topknots; the hair of others hung to their shoulders. Reith 
thought that never had he seen so sad a spectacle. He watched in mingled 
amusement and despair as they stumbled and slouched, with grumbling bad grace, 
through the exercises he had ordained. The six lieutenants, who showed no great 
enthusiasm, perspired and swore, gave orders more or less at random, while 
Baojian's aplomb was sorely taxed.
Reith finally demoted two lieutenants on the spot and appointed two new men from 
the ranks. He climbed up on a wagon, called the men in about him. "You are not 
performing well! Don't you understand what you are here for? To learn to protect 
yourselves!" He looked from one sullen face to another then pointed down to a 
man who had been muttering to his fellow. "You! What are you saying? Speak up!"
"I said that this prancing and marching is foolishness, a waste of energy; what 
benefit can arise from such antics?"
"The benefit is this. You learn to obey orders, quickly and decisively. You 
learn to function as a corps. Twenty men acting together are stronger than a 
hundred men at odds with each other. In a battle situation the leader makes 
plans; the disciplined warriors carry out these plans. Without discipline, plans 
are useless and battles are lost. Now do you understand?"
"Bah. How can men win battles? The Blue Chasch have energetics and battle-rafts. 
We have a few sand-blasts. The Green Chasch are indomitable; they would kill us 
like emmets. It is easier to hide among the ruins. This is how men have always 
lived in Pera."
"Conditions are different," said Reith. "If you don't want to do a man's work, 
you can do a woman's work and wear woman's clothes. Take your choice." He waited 
but the dissident only glowered and shuffled his feet.
Reith came down from the wagon and gave a series of orders. Certain men were 
sent up to the citadel to fetch bolts of cloth and leather. Others brought 
shears and razors; the men of the militia, despite protests, were shorn clean. 
Meanwhile the women of the city had gathered and were put to work cutting out 
and sewing uniforms: long sleeveless smocks of white cloth with black 
lightning-bolts appliqud to the chest. Corporals and sergeants wore black 
shoulder tabs; the lieutenants had short red sleeves to their uniforms.
On the following day the militia, wearing the new garments, drilled again, and 
on this occasion were noticeably smarter-indeed, thought Reith, almost jaunty.
On the morning of the third day after the Chaschmen's departure Reith's doubts 
were resolved. A large raft, sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, came gliding 
over the steppe. It flew in a single slow circle over Pera, then settled into 
the plaza directly before the Dead Steppe Inn. A dozen burly Chaschmen-Security 
Guards in gray pantaloons and purple jackets-jumped out and stood with hands at 
their weapons. Six Blue Chasch stood on the deck of the raft staring around the 
plaza from under overhanging brows. These Blue Chasch appeared to be special 
personages; they wore tight suits of silver filigree, tall silver morions, 
silver caps at the joints of their arms and legs.
The Blue Chasch spoke briefly to the Chaschmen; two marched to the door of the 
inn, and spoke to the innkeeper. "A man calling himself Reith has established 
himself as your chief. Fetch him forth, to the attention of the Lord Chasch."
The innkeeper, half-awed, half-truculent, was prompted to a snarling 
obsequiousness. "He is somewhere at hand; you will have to wait till he 
arrives."
"Notify him! Be quick!"
Reith received the summons gloomily, but without surprise. He sat thinking a 
moment or two; then, heaving a deep sigh, he came to a decision, which, for 
better or worse, must alter the lives of all the men of Pera, and perhaps all 
the men of Tschai. He turned to Traz, gave a set of orders, then slowly went 
into the common-room of the inn. "Tell the Chasch that I'll speak to them in 
here."
The innkeeper relayed the message to the Chaschmen, who in turn spoke to the 
Blue Chasch.
The response was a set of glottal sounds. The Blue Chasch descended to the 
ground, approached the inn, to stand in a silver-glittering line. The Chaschmen 
entered the inn. One bawled, "Which is the man who is chief? Which is he? Let 
him hold up his hand!"
Reith thrust past them and stepped out into the compound. He faced the Blue 
Chasch, who stared back at him portentously. Reith examined the alien visages 
with fascination: the eyes like small metal balls glistening under the shadow of 
the cephalic overhang, the complex nasal processes, the silver morion and 
filigree armor. At the moment they seemed neither crafty, whimsical, capricious, 
nor given to cruel facetiousness; their mien rather was menacing.
Reith confronted them, arms folded across his chest. He waited, exchanging stare 
for stare.
One of the Blue Chasch wore a morion with a higher spine than the others. He 
spoke, in the strangled glottal voice typical of the race. "What do you do here 
in Pera?"
"I am the chosen chief."
"You are the man who made an unauthorized visit to Dadiche, who visited the 
District Technical Center."
Reith made no reply.
"Well then," called the Blue Chasch, "what do you say? Do not deny the charge; 
your scent is individual. In some fashion you entered and departed Dadiche; and 
made furtive investigations. Why?"
"Because I had never visited Dadiche before," said Reith. "You are now visiting 
Pera without express authorization; however, you are welcome, so long as you 
obey our laws. I would like to think that the men of Pera could visit Dadiche on 
the same basis."
The Chaschmen gave hoarse chuckles; the Blue Chasch stared in gloomy shock. The 
spokesman said, "You have been espousing a false doctrine, and persuading the 
men of Pera to folly. Where do you derive these ideas?"
"The ideas are neither 'false doctrine' nor 'folly.' They are self-evident."
"You must come with us to Dadiche," said the Blue Chasch, "and clarify a number 
of peculiar circumstances. Go aboard the sky-raft."
Reith smilingly shook his head. "If you have questions, ask them now. Then I 
will ask you my questions."
The Blue Chasch made a signal to the Chaschmen guards. They moved forward to 
seize Reith. He took a step back, looked up at the upper windows. Down came a 
fusillade of catapult bolts, piercing the Chaschmen's foreheads and necks. But 
those bolts aimed at the Blue Chasch swerved aside, diverted by a force-field, 
and the Blue Chasch stood unscathed. They seized their own weapons, but before 
they could aim and fire, Reith unfolded his arms. He held his energy cell. In a 
quick sweep of his arm he burnt off the heads and shoulders of the six Blue 
Chasch. The bodies sprang into the air by some peculiar reflex, then sprawled to 
the ground with a multiple thud, where they lay covered by globules of molten 
silver.
The silence was complete. The onlookers seemed to be holding their breaths. All 
turned to look from the corpses to Reith; then, as if by single presentiment, 
all turned to look toward Dadiche.
"What will we do now?" whispered Bruntego the Gray. "We are doomed. They will 
feed us to their red flowers."
"Precisely," said Reith, "unless we take steps to prevent them." He signaled to 
Traz; they collected weapons and other gear from the headless Blue Chasch and 
the Chaschmen; then Reith ordered the bodies carried away and buried.
He went to the sky-raft, climbed aboard. The controls--clusters of pedals, knobs 
and flexible arms-were beyond his comprehension. Anacho the Dirdirman came up to 
look casually into the raft. Reith asked, "Do you understand the working of this 
thing?
Anacho gave a contemptuous grunt. "Of course. It is the old Daidne System."
Reith looked back along the length of the raft. "What are those tubes? Chasch 
energetics?"
"Yes. Obsolete, of course, compared to Dirdir weapons."
"What is the range?"
"No great distance. These are low-power tubes."
"Suppose we mounted four or five sand-blasts on the raft. We'd have considerable 
fire-power."
Anacho gave a curt nod. "Crude and makeshift, but feasible."
On the afternoon of the following day a pair of rafts drifted high above Pera 
and returned to Dadiche without landing. The next morning a column of wagons 
came down from Belbal Gap, conveying two hundred Chaschmen and a hundred Blue 
Chasch officers. Overhead slid four rafts, carrying Blue Chasch gun-crews.
The wagons halted a half-mile from Pera; the troops deployed into four 
companies, which separated and approached Pera from all four sides, while the 
rafts floated overhead.
Reith divided the militia into two squads, and sent them sidling through the 
ruins, to the outskirts of the city on the south and west sides, where the 
Chasch troops would make first contact.
The militia waited until the Chaschmen and the Blue Chasch, moving warily, had 
penetrated a hundred yards into the city. Suddenly appearing from concealment, 
all fired weapons: catapults, sand-blasts, hand-guns from the Goho arsenal, 
those taken from the Chasch corpses.
Fire was concentrated on the Blue Chasch, and of these two-thirds died in the 
first five minutes, as well as half the Chaschmen. The remainder faltered, then 
fled back out onto the open steppe.
The rafts overhead swooped low and began to sweep the ruins with slay-beams. The 
militia now took shelter while the rafts descended even lower.
High above appeared another raft: that which Reith had armed with sand-blasts, 
then had taken five miles out on the steppe and hidden under brush. It dropped 
quietly upon the Chasch rafts, lower, lower, lower ... The men at the 
sand-blasts and at the energetic beams opened fire. The four rafts dropped like 
stones. The raft then crossed the city and opened fire on the two companies 
which were entering the north and east sectors of the city, while the militia 
opened fire from the flanks. The Chasch troops drew back with heavy losses. 
Harassed by the bombardment from the air, they broke ranks and streamed off 
across the steppe in total disorder, pursued by the Peran militia.



CHAPTER TWELVE
REITH CONFERRED WITH his victory-flushed lieutenants. "We won today because they 
took us light. They still can bring overwhelming force against us. My guess is 
that tonight they will organize a strong war party: all their rafts, all their 
troops. Then tomorrow they will come forth to punish us. Does this sound 
reasonable?"
No one made dissent.
"Since we are committed to hostilities, best that we take the initiative, and 
try to arrange a few surprises for the Chasch. They have a poor opinion of men, 
and we might be able to do them some harm. This means taking our limited 
fire-power to where it can do the most damage."
Bruntego the Gray shuddered and clasped his hands to his face. "They have a 
thousand Chaschmen soldiers, and more. They have sky-rafts and energetic 
weapons-whereas we are only men, armed for the most part with catapults."
"Catapults kill a man just as dead as energy beams," Reith commented.
"But the rafts, the projectiles, the power and intelligence of the Blue Chasch! 
They will destroy us totally and reduce Pera to a crater."
Tostig the old nomad demurred. "We have served too well, too cheaply in the 
past. Why should they rob themselves for the sake of sheer drama?"
"Because that is the Blue Chasch way!"
Tostig shook his head. "Old Chasch perhaps. Blue Chasch no. They will prefer to 
besiege us, starve us, and take the leaders back to Dadiche for punishment."
"Reasonable," agreed Anacho, "but can we expect even Blue Chasch to behave 
reasonably? All Chasch are half-mad."
"For this reason," said Reith, "we must match them caprice for caprice!"
Bruntego the Gray said with a sniff, "Caprice is the only quality in which we 
can match the Blue Chasch."
The discussion continued; proposals were set forth and debated and at last 
agreement was grudgingly reached. Messengers were sent forth to arouse the 
population. Amid some small protest and wailing, women, children, the aged and 
the uncooperative were marshaled aboard drays and sent off through the night, to 
a dismal gorge twenty miles south, where they would establish a temporary camp.
The militia assembled with all its weapons, then marched off through the night 
toward Belbal Gap.
Reith, Traz and Anacho remained in Pera. The cage containing the Green Chasch 
warriors had been swathed in cloth and loaded aboard the raft. At sunrise Anacho 
took the raft aloft and sent it sliding in that direction toward which the Green 
Chasch sat staring: north by east. Twenty miles passed beneath, and another 
twenty; then Traz, who sat watching the Green Chasch through a peephole, cried 
out, "They are turning, twisting about-toward the west!"
Anacho swung the raft toward the west, and a few moments later a Green Chasch 
encampment was discovered in a grove of grass-trees beside a swamp. "Don't 
approach too closely," said Reith, examining the camp through his scanscope. 
"It's enough to know that they are here. Back to Belbal Gap."
The raft returned south, skimming the palisades which faced west toward the 
Schanizade Ocean. Passing over Belbal Gap, they settled upon a vantage point 
overlooking both Dadiche and Pera.
Two hours passed. Reith became increasingly fretful. His plans were based upon 
hypothesis and rational supposition; the Chasch were a notoriously capricious 
race. Then from Dadiche, to Reith's vast relief, came a long dark column. 
Looking through his scanscope Reith saw a hundred drays loaded with Blue Chasch 
and Chaschmen, as many others carrying weapons and crates of equipment.
"This time," said Reith, they take us seriously." He scanned the sky. "No rafts 
visible. Undoubtedly they'll send something up for reconnaissance, at the very 
least ... Time to be moving. They'll be coming through Belbal Gap in a 
half-hour."
They took the raft down to the steppe and landed several miles south of the 
road. They rolled the cage to the ground, pulled away the covering cloth. The 
monstrous green warriors sprang forward to peer out across the landscape.
Reith unlocked the door, slipped back the bolt and retreated to the raft, which 
Anacho at once took into the air. The Green Chasch sprang forth with 
ear-splitting yells of triumph, to stand like giants. They rolled their metallic 
eyes up at the raft, raised their arms in gestures of detestation. Turning 
swiftly north, they set off across the steppe, at the stiff-legged Green Chasch 
jog.
Over Belbal Gap came the drays from Dadiche. The Green Chasch stopped short, 
stared in wonder, then jogged forward to a clump of Bart-furze and stood 
immobile, almost invisible.
Down the track came the great days, until the line of vehicles stretched a mile 
across the waste.
Anacho slid the raft up a dark gully, almost to the ridge, and landed. Reith 
searched the sky for rafts, then looked out across the panorama to the east. The 
Green Chasch, among the gartfurze copses, could not be seen. The war force from 
Dadiche was a menacing dark caterpillar crawling toward the ruins of old Pera.
Forty miles north the Green Chasch were camped.
Reith returned to the raft. "We've done what we can. Now, we wait."
The Blue Chasch expedition approached Pera, broke into four companies as before 
and surrounded the deserted ruins. Energetic beams were aimed at suspected 
strong-points; scouts ran forward under cover of the weapons. They gained the 
first tumble of concrete blocks, then, drawing no fire, paused to regroup and to 
select new objectives.
Half an hour later the scouts emerged from the city, herding before them those 
folk who, from obstreperousness or simple inertia, had elected to remain in 
Pera.
Another fifteen minutes passed while these persons were interrogated. There was 
a period of indecision as the Blue Chasch leadership took counsel among 
themselves. Clearly the empty city was an unexpected development, and posed a 
perplexing dilemma.
The companies which had circled the city returned to the main force; presently 
all started back toward Dadiche, disconsolate and grim.
Reith searched the northern waste for movement. If there was validity in the 
theory of telepathic communication between the Green Chasch, if they hated the 
Blue Chasch as furiously as reported, they should now be appearing on the scene. 
But the steppe spread away into the northern murk empty and devoid of movement.
Back toward Belbal Gap moved the Blue Chasch war-force. From the dark green 
gart-furze, from copses of laggard bush, from salt-grass clumps, apparently from 
nowhere, erupted a horde of Green Chasch. Reith could not comprehend how so many 
warriors, riding gigantic leap-horses, had approached so inconspicuously. They 
hurled themselves upon the column, striking ten-foot arcs with their swords. The 
heavy weapons on the drays could not be brought to bear; the Green Chasch raged 
up and down the line doing carnage.
Reith turned away, half-sickened. He climbed aboard the raft. "Back across the 
mountains, to our own men."
The raft joined the militia at the agreed rendezvous, a gully half a mile south 
of Belbal Gap. The militia set off down the hill, keeping to the cover of trees 
and moss-hedge. Reith remained with the raft, searching the sky through the 
scanscope, apprehensive of Blue Chasch reconnaissance rafts. As he watched, a 
score of rafts rose from Dadiche to fly at full speed to the east: apparently 
reinforcement for the beleaguered war-party. Reith watched them disappear over 
Belbal Gap. Turning the scanscope back toward Dadiche, he glimpsed a sparkle of 
white uniforms up under the walls. "Now," he told Anacho. "As good a time as 
any."
The raft slid down toward the main portal into Dadiche: closer and closer. The 
guards, conceiving the raft to be one of their own, craned their necks in 
perplexity. Reith, steeling himself, pulled the trigger of the forward 
sand-blast. The way into Dadiche was open. The Pera militia surged into the 
city.
Jumping down from the raft, Reith sent two platoons to seize the raft depot. 
Another platoon remained at the portal with the greater part of the sand-blasts 
and energetics. Two platoons were sent to patrol the city and enforce the 
occupation.
These last two platoons, as fierce and unrelenting as any other inhabitants of 
Tschai, ranged through the half-deserted avenues, killing Blue Chasch and 
Chaschmen, and any Chaschwomen who offered resistance. The discipline of two 
days swiftly evaporated; a thousand generations of resentment exploded into 
blood-lust and massacre.
Reith, with Anacho, Traz and six others, rode the raft to the District Technical 
Center. The doors were closed; the building seemed vacant. The raft dropped 
beside the center portal; sandblasts broke down the doors. Reith, unable to 
contain his anxiety, ran into the building.
There, as before: the familiar shape of the space-boat.
Reith approached with heart thumping in his throat. The hull was cut open; the 
drive-mechanisms, the accumulators, the converter: all had been removed. The 
boat was a hulk.
The prospect of finding the boat in near-operative condition had been an 
impossible dream. Reith had known as much. But irrational optimism had 
persisted.
Now, irrational optimism and all hope of return to Earth must be put aside. The 
boat had been gutted. The engines had been dismantled, the drive-tank opened, 
the exquisite balance of forces disrupted.
Reith became aware of Anacho standing at his shoulder. "This is not a Blue 
Chasch space-boat," said Anacho reflectively. "Nor is it Dirdir, nor Wankh."
Reith leaned back against a bench, his mind drained of vigor. "True."
"It is built with great skill; it shows refined design," mused Anacho. "Where 
was it built?"
"On Earth," said Reith.
"'Earth'?"
"The planet of men."
Anacho turned away, his bald harlequin-face pinched and drawn, the axioms of his 
own existence shattered. "An interesting concept," he murmured over his 
shoulder.
Reith looked somberly through the space-boat but found little to interest him. 
Presently he returned outside, where he received a report from the platoon 
guarding the portal. Remnants of the Blue Chasch army had been sighted coming 
down the mountainside, in sufficient numbers to suggest that they had finally 
beaten off the Green Chasch.
Those platoons which had been sent to patrol the city were completely out of 
control and could not be recalled. Two platoons held the landing field, leaving 
only a single platoon at the portal-something over a hundred men.
An ambush was prepared. The portal was returned to the similitude of normalcy. 
Three men disguised as Chaschmen stood inside the wicket.
The remnants of the war-force approached the portal. They noticed nothing amiss 
and started to enter the city. Sand-blasts and energetics opened fire; the 
column withered, dissipated. The survivors were too stunned to resist. A few 
tottered wildly back into the parkland, pursued by yelling men in white 
uniforms; others stood in a stupid huddle to be passively slaughtered.
The battle-rafts were luckier. Observing the debacle, they swooped back up into 
the sky. The militia-men, unfamiliar with the Blue Chasch ground guns, fired as 
best they could and, more by luck than by skill, destroyed four rafts. The 
others swung in high bewildered circles for five minutes, then bore south, 
toward Saaba, Dkekme, Audsch.
Spasms of fighting occurred throughout the rest of the afternoon, wherever the 
Peran militia encountered Blue Chasch who sought to defend themselves. The 
remainder-aged, females, imps alike-were slaughtered. Reith interceded with some 
success on behalf of the Chaschmen and Chaschwomen, saving all but the purple 
and gray-clad security guards, who shared the fate of their masters.
The remaining Chaschmen and Chaschwomen, throwing aside their false crania, 
gathered in a sullen crowd on the main avenue.
At sunset the militia, sated with killing, burdened with loot and unwilling to 
prowl the dead city after dark, assembled near the portal. Fires were built, 
food prepared and eaten.
Reith, taking pity on the miserable Chaschmen, whose world had suddenly 
collapsed, went to where they sat in a dispirited group, the women keening 
softly for those who were dead.
One burly individual spoke up truculently. "What do you propose to do with us?"
"Nothing," said Reith. "We destroyed the Blue Chasch because they attacked us. 
You are men; so long as you do us no harm, we shall do you none."
The Chaschman grunted. "Already you have harmed many of us."
"Because you chose to fight with the Chasch against men, which is unnatural."
The Chaschman scowled. "What is unnatural about that? We are Chaschmen, the 
first phase of the great cycle."
"Utter nonsense," said Reith. "You are no more Chasch than the Dirdirman yonder 
is Dirdir. Both of you are men. The Chasch and the Dirdir have enslaved you, 
plundered your lives. High time that you knew the truth!"
The Chaschwomen halted their keening, the Chaschmen turned blank faces toward 
Reith.
"So far as I am concerned," said Reith, "you can live as you like. The city of 
Dadiche is yours-so long as the Blue Chasch do not return."
"What do you mean by that?" quavered the Chaschmen
"Precisely what I said. Tomorrow we return to Pera. Dadiche is yours."
"All very well-but what if the Blue Chasch come back, from Saaba, from Dkekme, 
from the Lizizaudre, as they surely will?"
"Kill them, chase them away! Dadiche is now a city of men! And if you don't 
believe that the Blue Chasch victimized you, go look into the death-house under 
the wall. You are told that you are larva, that the imp germinates in your 
brain. Go examine the brains of dead Chaschmen. You will find no imps, only the 
brains of men.
"So far as we are concerned, you can return to your homes. The only proscription 
I put upon you are the false heads. If you wear them we will consider you not 
men but Blue Chasch and deal with you accordingly."
Reith returned to his own camp; diffidently, as if they could not believe 
Reith's statement, the erstwhile Chaschmen slipped off through the dusk for 
their homes.
Anacho spoke to Reith. "I listened to what you said. You know nothing about the 
Dirdir and the Dirdirmen! Even were your theories valid, we would still remain 
Dirdirmen! We recognize excellence, superlativity; we aspire to emulate the 
ineffable-an impossible ideal, since Shade can never out-glow Sun, and men can 
never surpass Dirdir."
"For an intelligent man," snapped Reith, "you are extremely obstinate and 
unimaginative. Someday I am sure you will recognize your error; until then, 
believe whatever you care to believe."



CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BEFORE DAWN THE camp was astir. Drays laden with loot moved off westward, black 
against the ale-colored sky.
In Dadiche, the Chaschmen, peculiarly bald and gnomish without their false 
skulls, collected corpses, carried them to a great pit and buried them. A score 
of Blue Chasch had been flushed from hiding. The killing lust of the Perans 
having subsided, they were confined in a stockade, from which they stared in 
stone-eyed bewilderment at the coming and going of the men.
Reith was concerned over the possibility of counterattack from the Blue Chasch 
cities to the south. Anacho made light of the matter. "They have no stomach for 
fighting. They menace the Dirdir cities with torpedoes, but only to avoid war. 
They never challenge, they are content to live in their gardens. They might send 
Chaschmen to harass us, but I suspect they will do nothing whatever, unless we 
threaten them directly."
"Perhaps so." Reith released the captive Blue Chasch. "Go to the cities of the 
south," he told them. "Inform the Blue Chasch of Saaba and Dkekme that if they 
molest us we will destroy them."
"It is a long march," croaked the Blue Chasch. "Must we go on foot? Give us one 
of the rafts!"
"Walk! We owe you nothing!"
The Blue Chasch departed.
Still not wholly convinced that the Blue Chasch would refrain from seeking 
vengeance, Reith ordered weapons mounted on those nine rafts captured at the 
Dadiche depot and flew them to secluded areas on the hills.
On the following day, in the company of Traz, Anacho and Derl, he explored 
Dadiche in a more leisurely fashion. At the Technical Center he once more 
examined the hulk of his spaceboat, with an eye to its ultimate repair. "If I 
had the full use of this workshop," he said, "and if I had the help of twenty 
expert technicians, I might be able to build a new drive system. It might be 
more practical to try to adapt the Chasch drive to the boat but then there would 
be control problems ... Better to build a whole new boat."
Derl frowned at the quiet space-boat. "You are so intent, then, on departing 
Tschai? You have not yet visited Cath. You might wish never to depart."
"Possibly," said Reith. "But you have never visited Earth. You might not want to 
return to Tschai."
"It must be a very strange world," mused the Flower of Cath. "Are the women of 
Earth beautiful?"
"Some of them," Reith replied. He took her hand. "There are beautiful women on 
Tschai, as well. The name of one of them is-" And he whispered a name in her 
ear.
Blushing, she put her hand to his mouth. "The others might hear!"



SERVANTS OF THE WANKH



CHAPTER ONE
Two THOUSAND MILES east of Pera, over the heart of the Dead Steppe, the sky-raft 
faltered, flew smoothly for a moment, then jerked and bucked in a most ominous 
fashion. Adam Reith looked aft in dismay, then ran to the control belvedere. 
Lifting the voluted bronze housing, he peered here and there among the scrolls, 
floral hatchings, grinning imp faces which almost mischievously camouflaged the 
engine.* He was joined by the Dirdirman Ankhe at afram Anacho.
Reith asked, "Do you know what's wrong?"
Anacho pinched up his pale nostrils, muttered something about an "antiquated 
Chasch farrago" and "insane expedition to begin with." Reith, accustomed to the 
Dirdirman's foibles, realized that he was too vain to admit ignorance, too 
disdainful to avow knowledge so crass.
The raft shuddered again. Simultaneously from a four-pronged case of black wood 
to the side of the engine compartment came small rasping noises. Anacho gave it 
a lordly rap with his knuckles. The groaning and shuddering ceased. "Corrosion," 
said Anacho. "Electromorphic action across a hundred years or longer. I believe 
this to be a copy of the unsuccessful Heizakim Bursa, which the Dirdir abandoned 
two hundred years ago."
"Can we make repairs?"
"How should I know such things? I would hardly dare touch it.
They stood listening. The engine sighed on without further pause. At last Reith 
lowered the housing. The two returned forward.
Traz lay curled on a settee after standing a night watch. On the green 
crush-cushioned seat under the ornate bow lantern sat the Flower of Cath, one 
leg tucked beneath the other, head on her forearms, staring eastward toward 
Cath. So had she huddled for hours, hair blowing in the wind, speaking no word 
to anyone. Reith found her conduct perplexing. At Pera she had yearned for Cath; 
she could talk of nothing else but the ease and grace of Blue Jade Palace, of 
her father's gratitude if Reith would only bring her home. She had described 
wonderful balls, extravaganzas, water-parties, masques according to the turn of 
the "round." ("Round? What did she mean by 'round'?" asked Reith. Ylin-Ylan, the 
Flower of Cath, laughed excitedly. "It's just the way things are, and how they 
become! Everybody must know and the clever ones anticipate; that's why they're 
clever! It's all such fun!") Now that the journey to Cath was actually underway 
the Flower's mood had altered. She had become pensive, remote, and evaded all 
questions as to the source of her abstraction. Reith shrugged and turned away. 
Their intimacy was at an end: all for the best, or so he told himself. Still, 
the question nagged at him: why? His purpose in flying to Cath was twofold: 
first, to fulfill his promise to the girl; secondly, to find, or so he hoped, a 
technical basis to permit the construction of a spaceboat, no matter how small 
or crude. If he could rely upon the cooperation of the Blue Jade Lord, so much 
the better. Indeed, such sponsorship was a necessity.
The route to Cath lay across the Dead Steppe, south under the Ojzanalai 
Mountains, northeast along the Lok Lu Steppe, across the Zhaarken or the Wild 
Waste, over Achenkin Strait to the city Nerv, then south down the coast of 
Charchan to Cath. For the raft to fail at any stage of the journey short of Nerv 
meant disaster. As if to emphasize the point, the raft gave a single small jerk, 
then once more flew smoothly.
The day passed. Below rolled the Dead Steppe, dun and gray in the wan light of 
Carina 4269. At sunset they crossed the great Yatl River and all night flew 
under the pink moon Az and the blue moon Braz. In the morning low hills showed 
to the north, which ultimately would swell and thrust high to become the 
Ojzanalais.
At midmorning they landed at a small lake to refill water tanks. Traz was 
uneasy. "Green Chasch are near." He pointed to a forest a mile south. "They hide 
there, watching us."
Before the tanks were full, a band of forty Green Chasch on leap-horses lunged 
from the forest. Ylin-Ylan was perversely slow in boarding the raft. Reith 
hustled her aboard; Anacho thrust over the lift-arm-perhaps too hurriedly. The 
engine sputtered; the raft pitched and lurched.
Reith ran aft, flung up the housing, pounded the black case. The sputtering 
stopped; the raft lifted only yards ahead of the bounding warriors and their 
ten-foot swords. The leap-horses slid to a halt, the warriors aimed catapults 
and the air streamed with long iron bolts. But the raft was five hundred feet 
high; one or two of the bolts bumped into the hull at the height of their 
trajectory and fell away.
The raft, shuddering spasmodically, moved off to the east. The Green Chasch set 
off in pursuit; the raft, sputtering, pitching, yawing, and occasionally 
dropping its bow in a sickening fashion gradually left them behind.
The motion became intolerable. Reith jarred the black case again and again 
without significant effect. "We've got to make repairs," he told Anacho.
"We can try. First we must land."
"On the steppe? With the Green Chasch behind us?"
"We can't stay aloft."
Traz pointed north, to a spine of hills terminating in a set of isolated buttes. 
"Best that we land on one of those flat-topped peaks."
Anacho nudged the raft around to the north, provoking an even more alarming 
wobble; the bow began to gyrate like an eccentric toy.
"Hang on!" Reith cried out.
"I doubt if we can reach that first hill," muttered Anacho.
"Try for the next one!" yelled Traz. Reith saw that the second of the buttes, 
with sheer vertical walls, was clearly superior to the first-if the raft would 
stay in the air that long.
Anacho cut speed to a mere drift. The raft wallowed across the intervening space 
to the second butte, and grounded. The absence of motion was like silence after 
noise.
The travelers descended from the raft, muscles stiff from tension. Reith looked 
around the horizon in disgust: hard to imagine a more desolate spot than this, 
four hundred feet above the center of the Dead Steppe. So much for his hope of 
an easy passage to Cath.
Traz, going to the edge of the butte, peered over the cliff. "We may not even be 
able to get down."
The survival kit which Reith had salvaged from the wrecked scout boat included a 
pellet gun, an energy cell, an electronic telescope, a knife, antiseptics, a 
mirror, a thousand feet of strong cord. "We can get down," said Reith. "I'd 
prefer to fly." He turned to Anacho, who stood glumly considering the sky-raft. 
"Do you think we can make repairs?"
Anacho rubbed his long white hands together in distaste. "You must realize that 
I have no such training in these matters."
"Show me what's wrong," said Reith. "I can probably fix it."
Anacho's droll face grew even longer. Reith was the living refutation of his 
most cherished axioms. According to orthodox Dirdir doctrine, Dirdir and 
Dirdirmen had evolved together in a primeval egg on the Dirdir homeworld Sibol; 
the only true men were Dirdirmen; all others were freaks. Anacho found it hard 
to reconcile Reith's competence with his preconceptions, and his attitude was a 
curious composite of envious disapproval, grudging admiration, unwilling 
loyalty. Now, rather than allow Reith to excel him in yet another aspect, he 
hurried to the stern of the skyraft and thrust his long pale clown's face under 
the housing.
The surface of the butte was scoured clean of vegetation, with here and there 
little channels half-full of coarse sand. Ylin-Ylan wandered moodily across the 
butte. She wore the gray steppe dwellers' trousers and blouse, with a black 
velvet vest; her black slippers were probably the first to walk the rough gray 
rock, thought Reith ... Traz stood looking to the west. Reith joined him at the 
edge of the butte. He studied the dismal steppe, but saw nothing.
"The Green Chasch," said Traz. "They know we're here."
Reith once more scanned the steppe, from the low black hills in the north to the 
haze of the south. He could see no flicker of movement, no plume of dust. He 
brought out his scanscope, a binocular photo-multiplier, and probed the 
gray-brown murk. Presently he saw bounding black specks, like fleas. "They're 
out there, for a fact."
Traz nodded without great interest. Reith grinned, amused as always by the boy's 
somber wisdom. He went to the sky-raft. "How go the repairs?"
Anacho's response was an irritated motion of arms and shoulders. "Look for 
yourself."
Reith came forward, peered down at the black case, which Anacho had opened, to 
reveal an intricacy of small components. "Corrosion and sheer age are at fault," 
said Anacho. "I hope to introduce new metal here and here." He pointed. "It is a 
notable problem without tools and proper facilities."
"We won't leave tonight then?"
"Perhaps by tomorrow noon."
Reith walked around the periphery of the butte, a distance of three or four 
hundred yards, and was somewhat reassured. Everywhere the walls were vertical, 
with fins of rock at the base creating crevices, and grottos. There seemed no 
easy method to scale the walls, and he doubted if the Green Chasch would go to 
vast trouble for the trivial pleasure of slaughtering a few men.
The old brown sun hung low in the west; the shadows of Reith and Traz and 
Ylin-Ylan stretched long across the top of the butte. The girl turned away from 
her contemplation of the east. She watched Traz and Reith for a moment, then 
slowly, almost reluctantly, crossed the sandstone surface and joined them. "What 
are you looking at?"
Reith pointed. The Green Chasch on their leap-horses were visible now to the 
naked eye: dark motes hopping and bounding in bone-jarring leaps.
Ylin-Ylan drew her breath. "Are they coming for us?"
"I imagine so."
"Can we fight them off? What of our weapons?"
"We have sandblasts* on the raft. If they climbed the cliffs after dark they 
might do some damage. During daylight we don't need to worry."
Ylin-Ylan's lips quivered. She spoke in an almost inaudible voice. "If I return 
to Cath, I will hide in the farthest grotto of the Blue Jade garden and never 
again appear. If ever I return."
Reith put his arm around her waist; she was stiff and unyielding. "Of course 
you'll return, and pick up your life where it left off."
"No. Someone else may be Flower of Cath; she is welcome ... So long as she 
chooses other than Ylin-Ylan for her bouquet."
The girl's pessimism puzzled Reith. Her previous trials she had borne with 
stoicism; now, with fair prospects of returning home, she had become morose. 
Reith heaved a deep sigh and turned away.
The Green Chasch were no more than a mile distant. Reith and Traz drew back to 
attract no notice in the event that the Chasch were unaware of their presence. 
The hope was soon dispelled. The Green Chasch bounded up to the base of the 
butte, then, dismounting from their horses, stood looking up the cliff face. 
Reith, peering over the side, counted forty of the creatures. They were seven 
and eight feet tall, massive and thick-limbed, with pangolin-scales of metallic 
green. Under the jut of their crania their faces were small, and, to Reith's 
eyes, like the magnified visage of a feral insect. They wore leather aprons and 
shoulder harness; their weapons were swords which, like all the swords of the 
Tschai, seemed long and unwieldy, and these, eight and ten feet long, even more 
so. Some of them armed their catapults; Reith ducked back to avoid the flight of 
bolts. He looked around the butte for boulders to drop over the side, but found 
none.
Certain of the Chasch rode around the butte, examining the walls. Traz ran 
around the periphery, keeping watch.
All returned to the main group, where they muttered and grumbled together. Reith 
thought that they showed no great zest for the business of scaling the wall. 
Setting up camp, they tethered their leap-horses, thrust chunks of a dark sticky 
substance into the pale maws. They built three fires, over which they boiled 
chunks of the same substance they had fed the leap-horses, and at last hulking 
down into toad-shaped mounds, joylessly devoured the contents of their 
cauldrons. The sun dimmed behind the western haze and disappeared. Umber 
twilight fell over the steppe. Anacho came away from the raft and peered down at 
the Green Chasch. "Lesser Zants," he pronounced. "Notice the protuberances to 
each side of the head? They are thus distinguished from the Great Zants and 
other hordes. These are of no great consequence."
"They look consequential enough to me," said Reith.
Traz made a sudden motion, pointed. In one of the crevices, between two vanes of 
rock, stood a tall dark shadow. "Phung!"
Reith looked through the scanscope and saw the shadow to be a Phung indeed. From 
where it had come he could not guess.
It was over eight feet in height, in its soft black hat and black cloak, like a 
giant grasshopper in magisterial vestments.
Reith studied the face, watching the slow working of chitinous plates around the 
blunt lower section of the face. It watched the Green Chasch with brooding 
detachment, though they crouched over their pots not ten yards away.
"A mad thing," whispered Traz, his eyes glittering. "Look, now it plays tricks!"
The Phung reached down its long thin arms, raised a small boulder which it 
heaved high into the air. The rock dropped among the Chasch, falling squarely 
upon a hulking back.
The Green Chasch sprang up, to glare toward the top of the butte. The Phung 
stood quietly, lost among the shadows. The Chasch which had been struck lay flat 
on its face, making convulsive swimming motions with arms and legs.
The Phung craftily lifted another great rock, once more heaved it high, but this 
time the Chasch saw the movement. Venting squeals of fury they seized their 
swords and flung themselves forward. The Phung took a stately step aside, then 
leaping in a great flutter of cloak snatched a sword, which it wielded as if it 
were a toothpick, hacking, dancing, whirling, cutting wildly, apparently without 
aim or direction. The Chasch scattered; some lay on the ground, and the Phung 
jumped here and there, slashing and slicing, without discrimination, the Green 
Chasch, the fire, the air, like a mechanical toy running out of control.
Crouching and shifting, the Green Chasch hulked forward. They chopped, cut; the 
Phung threw away the sword as if it were hot, and was hacked into pieces. The 
head spun off the torso, landed on the ground ten feet from one of the fires, 
with the soft black hat still in place. Reith watched it through the scanscope. 
The head seemed conscious, untroubled. The eyes watched the fire; the mouth 
parts worked slowly.
"It will live for days, until it dries out," said Traz huskily. "Gradually it 
will go stiff."
The Chasch paid the creature no further heed, but at once made ready their 
leap-horses. They loaded their gear and five minutes later had trooped off into 
the darkness. The head of the Phung mused upon the play of the flames.
For a period the men squatted by the edge of the precipice, looking across the 
steppe. Traz and Anacho fell into an argument regarding the nature of the Phung, 
Traz declaring them to be products of unnatural union between Pnumekin and the 
corpses of Pnume. "The seed waxes in the decay like a barkworm, and finally 
breaks out through the skin as a young Phung, not greatly different from a bald 
night-hound."
"Sheer idiocy, lad!" said Anacho with easy condescension. "They surely breed 
like Pnume: a startling process itself, if what I hear is correct."
Traz, no less proud than the Dirdirman, became taut. "How do you speak with such 
assurance? Have you observed the process? Have you seen a Phung with others, or 
guarding a cub?" He lowered his lip in a sneer. "No! They go singly, too mad to 
breed!"
Anacho made a finger-fluttering gesture of fastidious didacticism. "Rarely are 
Pnume seen in groups; rarely do we see a Pnume alone, for that matter. Yet they 
flourish in their peculiar fashion. Brash generalizations are suspect. The truth 
is that after many long years on Tschai we still know little of either Phung or 
Pnume."
Traz gave an inarticulate growl, too wise not to concede the conviction of 
Anacho's logic, too proud to abandon abjectly his point of view. And Anacho, in 
his turn, made no attempt to push a superficial advantage home. In time, thought 
Reith, the two might even learn to respect each other.
In the morning Anacho again tinkered with the engine, while the others shivered 
in the cold airs seeping down from the north. Traz gloomily predicted rain, and 
presently a high overcast began to form, and fog eased over the tops of the 
hills to the north.
Anacho finally threw down the tools in boredom and disgust. "I have done what I 
can. The raft will fly, but not far."
"How far, in your opinion?" asked Reith, aware that Ylin-Ylan had turned to 
listen. "To Cath?"
Anacho flapped up his hands, fluttering his fingers in an unknowable Dirdir 
gesticulation. "To Cath, by your projected route: impossible. The engine is 
falling to dust."
Ylin-Ylan looked away, studied her clenched hands.
"Flying south, we might reach Coad on the Dawn Zher," Anacho went on, "and there 
take passage across the Draschade. Such a route is longer and slower-but 
conceivably we will arrive in Cath."
"It seems that we have no choice," said Reith.



CHAPTER TWO
FOR A PERIOD they followed the southward course of the vast Nabiga River, 
traveling only a few feet above the surface, where the repulsion plates suffered 
the least strain. The Nabiga swept off to the west, demarcating the Dead Steppe 
from the Aman Steppe, and the raft continued south across an inhospitable region 
of dim forests, bogs, and morasses; and a day later returned to the steppe. On 
one occasion they saw a caravan in the distance: a line of high-wheeled carts 
and trundling house-wagons; another time they came upon a band of nomads wearing 
red feather fetishes on their shoulders, who bounded frantically across the 
steppe to intercept them, and were only gradually outdistanced.
Late in the afternoon they painfully climbed above a huddle of brown and black 
hills. The raft jerked and yawed; the black case emitted ominous rasping sounds. 
Reith flew low, sometimes brushing through the tops of black tree-ferns. Sliding 
across the ridge the raft blundered at head-height through an encampment of 
capering creatures in voluminous white robes, apparently men. They dodged and 
fell to the ground, then screaming in outrage fired muskets after the raft, the 
erratic course of which presented a shifting target.
All night they flew over dense forest, and morning revealed more of the same: a 
black, green, and brown carpet cloaking the Aman Steppe to the limit of vision, 
though Traz declared the steppe ended at the hills, that below them now was the 
Great Daduz Forest. Anacho condescendingly took issue, and displaying a chart 
tapped various topographic indications with his long white fingers to prove his 
point.
Traz's square face became stubborn and sullen. "This is Great Daduz Forest; 
twice when I carried Onmale among the Emblems,* I led the tribe here for herbs 
and dyes."
Anacho put away the chart. "It is all one," he remarked. "Steppe or forest, it 
must be traversed." At a sound from the engine he looked critically aft. "I 
believe that we will reach the outskirts of Coad, not a mile farther, and when 
we raise the housing we shall find only a heap of rust."
"But we will reach Coad?" Ylin-Ylan asked in a colorless voice.
"So I believe. Only two hundred miles remain."
Ylin-Ylan seemed momentarily cheerful. "How different than before," she said. 
"When I came to Coad a captive of the priestesses!" The thought seemed to 
depress her and once more she became pensive.
Night approached. Coad still lay a hundred miles distant. The forest had thinned 
to a stand of immense black and gold trees, with intervening areas of turf, on 
which grazed squat six-legged beasts, bristling with bony tusks and horns. 
Landing for the night was hardly feasible and Reith did not care to arrive at 
Coad until morning, in which opinion Anacho concurred. They halted the motion of 
the raft, tied to the top of a tree and hovered on the repulsors through the 
night.
After the evening meal the Flower of Cath went to her cabin behind the saloon; 
Traz, after studying the sky and listening to the sounds of beasts below, 
wrapped himself in his robe and stretched out on one of the settees.
Reith leaned against the rail watching the pink moon Az reach the zenith just as 
the blue moon Braz rose behind the foliage of a far tall tree.
Anacho came to join him. "So then, what are your thoughts as to the morrow?"
"I know nothing of Coad. I suppose we inquire as to transportation across the 
Draschade."
"You still intend to accompany the woman to Cath?"
"Certainly," said Reith, mildly surprised.
Anacho hissed through his teeth. "You need only put the Cath woman on a ship; 
you need not go yourself."
"True. But I don't care to remain in Coad."
"Why not? It is a city which even Dirdirmen visit from time to time. If you have 
money anything is for sale in Coad."
"A spaceship?"
"Hardly ... It seems that you persist in your obsession."
Reith laughed. "Call it whatever you like."
"I admit to perplexity," Anacho went on. "The likeliest explanation, and one 
which I urge you to accept, is that you are amnesiac, and have subconsciously 
fabricated a fable to account for your own existence. Which of course you 
fervently believe to be true."
"Reasonable," Reith agreed.
"One or two odd circumstances remain," Anacho continued thoughtfully. "The 
remarkable devices you carry: your electronic telescope, your energy-weapon, 
other oddments. I cannot identify the workmanship, though it is equivalent to 
that of good Dirdir equipment. I suppose it to be home-planet Wankh; am I 
correct?"
"As an amnesiac, how would I know?"
Anacho gave a wry chuckle. "And you still intend to go to Cath?"
"Of course. What about you?"
Anacho shrugged. "One place is as good as another, from my point of view. But I 
doubt if you realize what awaits you in Cath."
"I know nothing of Cath," said Reith, "other than what I have heard. The people 
are apparently civilized."
Anacho gave a patronizing shrug. "They are Yao: a fervent race addicted to 
ritual and extravaganza, prone to excesses of temperament. You may find the 
intricacies of Cath society difficult to cope with."
Reith frowned. "I hope it won't be necessary. The girl has vouched for her 
father's gratitude, which should simplify matters."
"Formally the gratitude will exist. I am sure of this."
"'Formally'? Not actually?"
"The fact that you and the girl have formed an erotic accommodation is of course 
a complication."
Reith smiled sourly. "The 'erotic accommodation' has long since run its course." 
He looked back toward the deck-house. "Frankly, I don't understand the girl. She 
actually seems disturbed by the prospect of returning home."
Anacho peered through the dark. "Are you so naive? Clearly she dreads the moment 
when she must sponsor the three of us before the society of Cath. She would be 
overjoyed if you sent her home alone."
Reith gave a bitter laugh. "At Pera she sang a different tune. She begged that 
we return to Cath."
"Then the possibility was remote. Now she must deal with reality."
"But this is absurdity! Traz is as he is. You are a Dirdirman, for which you are 
not to blame-"
"No difficulties in either of these cases," stated the Dirdirman with an elegant 
flourish of the fingers. "Our roles are immutable. Your case is different; and 
it might be best for all if you sent the girl home on a cog."
Reith stood looking out over the sea of moonlit treetops. The opinion, assuming 
its validity, was far from lucid, and also presented a dilemma. To avoid Cath 
was to relinquish his best possibility of building a spaceboat. The only 
alternative then would be to steal a spaceship, from the Dirdir, or Wankh, or, 
least appealing of all, from the Blue Chasch: all in all, a nerve-tingling 
prospect. Reith asked, "Why should I be less acceptable than you or Traz? 
Because of the 'erotic accommodation'?"
"Naturally not. The Yao concern themselves with systematics rather than deeds. I 
am surprised to find you so undiscerning."
"Blame it on my amnesia," said Reith.
Anacho shrugged. "In the first place-possibly due to your 'amnesia' you have no 
quality, no role, no place in the Cath 'round.' As a nondescript, you constitute 
a distraction, a zizylbeast in a ballroom. Secondly, and more poignant, is your 
point of view, which is not fashionable in contemporary Cath."
"By this you mean my 'obsession'?"
"Unfortunately," said Anacho, "it is similar to an hysteria which distinguished 
a previous cycle of the 'round.' A hundred and fifty years* ago, a coterie of 
Dirdirmen were expelled from the academies at Eliasir and Anismna for the crime 
of promulgating fantasy. They brought their espousements to Cath, and stimulated 
a tendentious vogue: the Society of Yearning Refluxives, or the 'cult.' The 
articles of faith defied established fact. It was asserted that all men, 
Dirdirmen and sub-men alike, were immigrants from a far planet in the 
constellation Clari: a paradise where the hopes of humanity have been realized. 
Enthusiasm for the 'cult' galvanized Cath; a radio transmitter was constructed 
and signals were projected toward Clari. Somewhere, the activity was resented; 
someone launched torpedoes which devastated Settra and Ballisidre. The Dirdir 
are commonly held responsible, but this is absurd; why should they trouble 
themselves? I assure you that they are much too distant, too uninterested.
"Regardless of agency, the deed was done. Settra and Ballisidre were laid low, 
the 'cult' was discredited; the Dirdirmen were expelled; the 'round' swung back 
to orthodoxy. Now even to mention the 'cult' is considered vulgarity, and so we 
arrive at your case. Clearly you have encountered and assimilated 'cult' dogma; 
it now manifests itself in your attitudes, your acts, your goals. You seem 
unable to distinguish fact from fancy. To speak bluntly, you are so disoriented 
in this regard as to suggest psychic disorder."
Reith closed his mouth on a wild laugh; it would only reinforce Anacho's doubts 
as to his sanity. A dozen remarks rose to his tongue; he restrained them all. At 
last he said, "All else aside, I appreciate your candor."
"Not at all," said the Dirdirman serenely. "I imagine that I have clarified the 
nature of the girl's apprehension."
The Dirdirman blinked up at the pink moon Az. "So long as she was outside the 
'round' at Pera and elsewhere, she made sympathetic allowances. But now return 
to Cath is imminent..." He said no more, and presently went to his couch in the 
saloon.
Reith went to the forward pulpit under the great bow lantern. A cool draft of 
air fanned his face; the raft drifted idly about the treetop. From the ground 
came a furtive crackle of footsteps. Reith listened; they halted, then resumed 
and diminished off under the trees. Reith looked up into the sky where pink Az, 
blue Braz careened. He looked back at the deck-house where slept his comrades: a 
boy of the Emblem nomads, a clown-faced man evolved toward a race of gaunt 
aliens; a beautiful girl of the Yao, who thought him mad. Below sounded a new 
pad of footsteps. Perhaps he was mad indeed ...
By morning Reith had recovered his equanimity, and was even able to find 
grotesque humor in the situation. No good reason to change his plans suggested 
itself, and the sky-raft limped south as before. The forest dwindled to scrub, 
and gave way to isolated plantings and cattle-runs, field huts, lookout towers 
against the approach of nomads, an occasional rutted road. The raft displayed an 
ever more aggravated instability, with an annoying tendency for the stern to 
sag. At mid-morning a range of low hills loomed ahead, and the raft refused to 
climb the few hundred feet necessary to clear the ridge. By the sheerest luck a 
cleft appeared through which the raft wobbled with ten feet to spare.
Ahead lay the Dwan Zher and Coad: a compact town with a look of settled 
antiquity. The houses were built of weathered timber, with enormous high-peaked 
roofs and a multitude of skew gables, eccentric ridges, dormers, tall chimneys. 
A dozen ships rode to moorings; as many more were docked across from a row of 
factors' offices. At the north of town was the caravan terminus, beside a large 
compound surrounded by hostelries, taverns, warehouses. The compound seemed a 
convenient spot to set down the raft; Reith doubted if it could have held itself 
in the air another ten miles.
The raft dropped stern first; the repulsors gave a labored whine and went silent 
with a meaningful finality. "That's that," said Reith. "I'm glad we've arrived."
The group took up their meager luggage, alighted and left the raft where it had 
landed.
At the edge of the compound Anacho made inquiries of a dung merchant and 
received directions to the Grand Continental, the best of the town's hostelries.
Coad was a busy town. Along the crooked streets, in and out of the ale-colored 
sunlight, moved men and women of many casts and colors: Yellow Islanders and 
Black Islanders, Horasin bark-merchants muffled in gray robes; Caucasoids such 
as Traz from the Aman Steppe; Dirdirmen and Dirdirmen hybrids; dwarfish Sieps 
from the eastern slopes of the Ozanalai who played music in the streets; a few 
flat-faced white men from the far south of Kislovan. The natives, or Tans, were 
an affable fox faced people, with wide polished cheekbones, pointed chins, 
russet or dark brown hair cut in a ledge across the ears and foreheads. Their 
usual garments were knee-length breeches, embroidered vest, a round black 
pie-plate hat. Palanquins were numerous, carried by short gnarled men with oddly 
long noses and stringy black hair: apparently a race to themselves; Reith saw 
them in no other occupation. Later he learned them to be natives of Grenie at 
the head of the Dwan Zher.
On a balcony Reith thought he glimpsed a Dirdir, but he could not be certain. 
Once Traz grabbed his elbow and pointed to a pair of thin men in loose black 
trousers, black capes with tall collars all but enveloping their faces, soft 
cylindrical black hats with wide brims: caricatures of mystery and intrigue. 
"Pnumekin!" hissed Traz in a something between shock and outrage. "Look at them! 
They walk among other men without a look aside, and their minds full of strange 
thinking!"
They arrived at the hostelry, a rambling edifice of three stories, with a cafe 
on the front veranda, a restaurant in a great tall covered arbor to the rear and 
balconies overlooking the street. A clerk at a wicket took their money, 
distributed fanciful keys of black iron as large as their hands and instructed 
them to their rooms.
"We have traveled a great dusty distance," said Anacho. "We require baths, with 
good quality unguents, fresh linen, and then we will dine."
"It shall be as you order."
An hour later, clean and refreshed, the four met in the downstairs lobby. Here 
they were accosted by a black-haired blackeyed man with a pinched melancholy 
face. He spoke in a gentle voice. "You are newly arrived at Coad?"
Anacho, instantly suspicious, drew himself back. "Not altogether. We are 
well-known and have no needs."
"I represent the Slave-taker's Guild, and this is my fair appraisal of your 
group. The girl is valuable, the boy less so. Dirdirmen are generally considered 
worthless except in clerical or administrative servitude, for which we have no 
demand. You would be rated a winkle-gatherer or a nut-huller, of no great value. 
This man, whatever he is, appears capable of toil, and would sell for the 
standard rate. Considering all, your insurance will be ten sequins a week."
"Insurance against what?" demanded Reith.
"Against being taken and sold," murmured the agent. "There is a heavy demand for 
competent workers. But for ten sequins a week," he declared triumphantly, "you 
may walk the streets of Coad night and day, secure as though the demon Harasthy 
rode your shoulders! Should you be sequestered by an unauthorized dealer the 
Guild will instantly order your free release."
Reith stood back, half-amused, half-disgusted. Anacho spoke in his most nasal 
voice: "Show me your credentials."
" 'Credentials'?" asked the man, his chin sagging.
"Show us a document, a blazon, a patent. What? You have none? Do you take us for 
fools? Be off with you!"
The man walked somberly away. Reith asked, "Was he in truth a fraud?"
"One never knows, but the line must be drawn somewhere. Let us eat; I have a 
good appetite after weeks of steamed pulses and pilgrim plant."
They took seats in the dining room: actually a vast airy arbor with a glass 
ceiling admitting a pale ivory light. Black vines climbed the walls; in the 
corners were purple and pale-blue ferns. The day was mild; the end of the room 
opened to a view of the Dwan Zher and a wind curled bank of cumulus at the 
horizon.
The room was half-full; perhaps two dozen people dined from platters and bowls 
of black wood and red earthenware, talking in low voices, watching the folk at 
other tables with covert curiosity. Traz looked uneasily here and there, 
eyebrows raised in disapproval of so much luxury: undoubtedly his first 
encounter with what must seem a set of faddish and overcomplicated niceties, 
reflected Reith.
He noticed Ylin-Ylan staring across the room, as if astonished by what she saw. 
Almost immediately she averted her eyes, as if uncomfortable or embarrassed. 
Reith followed her gaze, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He thought better 
of inquiring the cause of her perturbation, not wishing to risk a cool stare. 
And Reith grinned uncomfortably. What a situation: almost as if she were 
cultivating an active dislike for him! Perfectly comprehensible, of course, if 
Anacho's explanations were correct. His puzzlement regarding the girl's 
agitation was now resolved by the sardonic Dirdirman.
"Observe the fellow at the far table," murmured Anacho. "He in the green and 
purple coat."
Turning his head, Reith saw a handsome young bravo with carefully arranged hair 
and a rich mustache of a startling gold. He wore elegant garments, somewhat 
rumpled and well-used: a jacket of soft leather strips, dyed alternately green 
and purple, breeches of pleated yellow cloth, buckled at knee and ankle with 
brooches in the shape of fantastic insects. A square cap of soft fur, fringed 
with two-inch pendants of gold beads, slanted across his head; an extravagant 
garde-nez of gold filigree clung to the ridge of his nose. Anacho muttered, 
"Watch him now. He will notice us, he will see the girl."
"But who is he?"
Anacho gave his fingertips an irritated twitch. "His name? I do not know. His 
status: high, in his own opinion at least. He is a Yao cavalier."
Reith turned his attention to Ylin-Ylan, who watched the young man from the 
corner of her eye. Miraculous how her mood had altered! She had become alive and 
aware, though obviously twitching with nervousness and uncertainty. She flicked 
a glance toward Reith, and flushed to find his eyes on her. Bending her head she 
busied herself with the appetizers: dishes of gray grapes, biscuits, smoked 
sea-insects, pickled fern-pod. Reith watched the cavalier, who was 
unenthusiastically dining upon a black seed-bun and a dish of pickles, his gaze 
off across the sea. He gave a sad shrug, as if discouraged by his thoughts, and 
shifted his position. He saw the Flower of Cath, who feigned the most artless 
absorption in her food. The cavalier leaned forward in astonishment. He jumped 
to his feet with such exuberance as nearly to overturn the table. In three long 
strides he was across the room and down on one knee with a sweeping salute which 
brushed his cap across Traz's face. "Blue Jade Princess! Your servant Dordolio. 
My goals are won."
The Flower bowed her head with an exact modicum of restraint and pleased 
surprise. Reith admired her aplomb. "Pleasant," she murmured, "in a far land to 
chance upon a cavalier of Cath."
"'Chance' is not the word! I am one of a dozen who went forth to seek you, to 
win the boon proclaimed by your father and for the honor of both our palaces. By 
the wattles of the Pnume's First Devil, it has been given to me to find you!"
Anacho spoke in his blandest voice. "You have searched extensively, then?"
Dordolio stood erect, made a cursory inspection of Anacho, Reith, and Traz, and 
performed three precise nods. The Flower made a gay little motion, as if the 
three were casual companions at a picnic. "My loyal henchmen; all have been of 
incalculable help to me. But for them I doubt if I would be alive."
"In that case," declared the cavalier, "they may ever rely upon the patronage of 
Dordolio, Gold, and Carnelian. They shall use my fieldname Alutrin Stargold." He 
performed a salute which included all three, then snapped his finger at the 
serving woman. "A chair, if you please. I will dine at this table."
The serving woman somewhat unceremoniously pushed a chair into place; Dordolio 
seated himself and gave his attention to the Flower. "But what of your 
adventures? I assume them to be harrowing. Still you appear as fresh as 
ever-decidedly unharrowed."
The Flower laughed. "In these steppe-dweller's garments? I have not yet been 
able to change. I must buy dozens of sheer necessities before I dare let you 
look at me."
Dordolio, glancing at her gray garments, made a negligent gesture. "I had 
noticed nothing. You are as ever. But, if you wish, we will shop together; the 
bazaars of Coad are fascinating."
"Of course! Tell me of yourself. My father issued a behest, you say?"
"He did indeed, and swore a boon. The most gallant responded. We followed your 
trail to Spang where we learned who had taken you: Priestesses of the Female 
Mystery. Many gave you up for lost, but not I. My perseverance has been 
rewarded! In triumph we will return to Settra!"
Ylin-Ylan turned a somewhat cryptic smile toward Reith. "I am of course anxious 
to return home. What luck to find you here in Coad!"
"Remarkable luck," said Reith dryly. "We arrived only an hour ago from Pera."
"Pera? I do not know the place."
"It lies at the far west of the Dead Steppe."
Dordolio gave an opaque stare, then once more he addressed himself to the 
Flower. "What hardships you must have suffered! But now you walk under the aegis 
of Dordolio! We return at once to Settra."
The meal proceeded, Dordolio and Ylin-Ylan conversing with great vivacity. Traz, 
preoccupied with the unfamiliar table implements, turned them dour glances, as 
if he suspected their ridicule. Anacho paid them no heed; Reith ate in silence. 
Finally Dordolio sat back in his chair. "Now, as to the practicalities: the 
packet Yazilissa is at mooring, and shortly departs for Vervodei. A melancholy 
task to take leave of your comrades, good fellows all, I'm sure, but we must 
arrange our passage home."
Reith spoke in an even voice. "All of us, so it happens, are bound for Cath."
Dordolio presented his blank questioning stare, as if Reith spoke an 
incomprehensible language.
He rose, helped Ylin-Ylan to her feet; the two went to saunter on the terrace 
beyond the arbour. The serving woman brought the score. "Five sequins, if you 
please, for five meals."
"Five?"
"The Yao ate at your table."
Reith paid over five sequins from his wallet. Anacho watched in amusement. "The 
Yao's presence is actually an advantage; you will avoid attention upon your 
arrival at Settra."
"Perhaps," said Reith. "On the other hand, I had hoped for the gratitude of the 
girl's father. I need all the friends I can find."
"Events sometimes display a vitality of their own," observed Anacho. "The Dirdir 
teleologists have interesting remarks to make on the subject. I recall an 
analysis of coincidences-this, incidentally, not by a Dirdir but by a Dirdirman 
Immaculate..." As Anacho spoke on, Traz went out on the terrace to survey the 
roofs of Coad; Dordolio and Ylin-Ylan walked slowly past, ignoring his presence. 
Seething with indignation Traz returned to Reith and Anacho. "The Yao dandy 
urges her to dismiss us. She refers to us as nomads-rude but honest and 
dependable."
"No matter," said Reith. "Her destiny is not ours."
"But you have practically made it so! We might have remained in Pera, or taken 
ourselves to the Fortunate Isles; instead-" He threw up his arms in disgust.
"Events are not occurring as I expected," Reith admitted. "Still, who knows? It 
may be for the best. Anacho thinks so, at any rate. Would you please ask her to 
step over here?"
Traz went off on his errand, to return at once. "She and the Yao are off to buy 
what they call suitable garments! What a farce! I have worn steppe-dwellers' 
clothes all my life! The garments are suitable and useful."
"Of course," said Reith. "Well, let them do as they wish. Perhaps we also might 
make a change in our appearance."
Toward the dock area was the bazaar; here Reith, Anacho and Traz fitted 
themselves out in garments of somewhat less crude cut and material: shirts of 
soft light linen, short-sleeved vests, loose black breeches buckling at the 
ankle; shoes of supple gray leather.
The docks were but a few steps away; they continued on to inspect the shipping, 
and the Yazilissa immediately engaged their attention: a three masted ship over 
a hundred feet long, with passenger accommodations in a tall many-windowed 
after-house, and in a row of 'tween-decks cabins along the waist. Cargo booms 
hung over the docks; bales of goods were hoisted aloft, swung up, over and into 
the holds.
Climbing the gangplank, they found the supercargo who verified that the 
Yazilissa sailed in three days, touching at ports in Grenie and Horasin, then 
faring by way of Pag Choda, the Islands of Cloud, Tusa Tula at Cape Gaiz on the 
western thrust of Kachan, to Vervodei in Cath: a voyage of sixty or seventy 
days.
Inquiring as to accommodations, Reith learned that all first class staterooms 
were booked as far as Tusa Tula, and all but one of the 'tween-decks cabins. 
There was, however, unlimited deckclass accommodation, which according to the 
supercargo was not uncomfortable except during the equatorial rains. He admitted 
these to be frequent.
"Not satisfactory," said Reith. "At the minimum we would want four second-class 
cabins."
"Unfortunately I can't oblige you unless cancellations come in, which is always 
possible."
"Very well; I am Adam Reith. You may reach me at the Grand Continental Hotel."
The supercargo stared at him in surprise. "'Adam Reith'? You and your group are 
already on the passenger list."
"I'm afraid not," said Reith. "We only arrived in Coad this morning."
"But only an hour ago, perhaps less, a pair of Yao came aboard, a cavalier and a 
noblewoman. They took accommodation in the name of 'Adam Reith'; the grand suite 
in the after-house-that is to say, two staterooms with a private saloon-and deck 
passage for three. I requested a deposit; they stated that Adam Reith would come 
aboard to pay the passage fee, which is two thousand three hundred sequins. Are 
you Adam Reith?"
"I am Adam Reith, but I plan to pay no two thousand three hundred sequins. So 
far as I am concerned, cancel the booking."
"What sort of tomfoolery is this?" demanded the supercargo. "I have no 
inclination for such frivolity."
"I have even less desire to cross the Draschade Ocean in the rain," said Reith. 
"If you want recourse, seek out the Yao."
"A pointless exercise," growled the supercargo. "Well then, so be it. If you 
will be happy with something less than luxury, try aboard the Vargaz: the cog 
yonder. She's departing in a day or so for Cath, and no doubt can find room for 
you."
"Thank you for your help." Reith and his companions walked down the dock to the 
Vargaz: a short high-pooped round-hulled ship with a long bowsprit, sharply 
aslant. The two masts supported a pair of lateen yards with sails hanging limp 
while crewmen sewed on patches of new canvas.
Reith inspected the cog dubiously, then shrugged and went aboard. In the shadow 
of the after-house two men sat at a table littered with papers, ink-sticks, 
seals, ribbons and a jug of wine. The most imposing of these was a burly man, 
naked from the waist up, save for a heavy growth of coarse black hair on his 
chest. His skin was brown, his features small and hard in a round immobile face. 
The other man was thin, almost frail, wearing a loose gown of white and a yellow 
vest the color of his skin. A long mustache drooped sadly beside his mouth; he 
wore a scimitar at his waist. Ostensibly a pair of sinister ruffians, thought 
Reith. "Yes, sir, what do you wish?" asked the burly man.
"Transportation to Cath in as much comfort as possible," said Reith.
"Little enough to ask." The man heaved himself to his feet. "I will show you 
what is available."
Reith eventually paid a deposit on two small cabins for Anacho and Ylin-Ylan, a 
larger stateroom which he would share with Traz. The quarters were neither airy, 
spacious nor over-clean, but Reith thought that they might have been worse.
"When do you sail?" he asked the burly man.
"Tomorrow noon on the flood. By preference, be aboard by midmorning; I run a 
punctual ship."
The three returned through the crooked streets of Coad to the hotel. Neither the 
Flower nor Dordolio were on the premises. Late in the afternoon they returned in 
a palanquin, followed by three porters laden with bundles. Dordolio alighted, 
helped Ylin-Ylan forth; they entered the hotel followed by the porters and the 
chief bearer of the palanquin.
Ylin-Ylan wore a graceful gown of dark green silk, with a dark blue bodice. A 
charming little cap of crystal-frosted net constrained her hair. Seeing Reith 
she hesitated, turned to Dordolio and spoke a few words. Dordolio pulled at his 
extraordinary gold mustache, sauntered to where Reith sat with Anacho and Traz.
"All is well," said Dordolio. "I have taken passage for all aboard the 
Yazilissa, a ship of excellent reputation."
"I fear you have incurred an unnecessary expense," said Reith politely. "I have 
made other arrangements."
Dordolio stood back, nonplussed. "But you should have consulted me!"
"I can't imagine why," said Reith.
"On what ship do you sail?" demanded Dordolio.
"The cog Vargaz."
"The Vargaz? Bah! A floating pigpen. I would not wish to sail on the Vargaz."
"You do not need to do so, if you are sailing on the Yazilissa."
Dordolio tugged at his mustache. "The Blue Jade Princess likewise prefers to 
travel aboard the Yazilissa, the best accommodation available."
"You are a bountiful man," said Reith, "to take luxurious passage for so large a 
group."
"In point of fact, I did only what I could," admitted Dordolio. "Since you are 
in charge of the group's funds the supercargo will render an account to you."
"By no means," said Reith. "I remind you that I have already taken passage 
aboard the Vargaz."
Dordolio hissed petulantly through his teeth. "This is an insufferable 
situation."
The porters and the palanquin carrier drew near, and bowed before Reith. "Permit 
us to tender our accounts."
Reith raised his eyebrows. Was there no limit to Dordolio's insouciance? "Of 
course, why should you not? Naturally to those who commanded your services." He 
rose to his feet. He went to Ylin-Ylan's room, knocked on the rattan door. There 
was the sound of movement within; she looked forth through a peep lens. The 
upper panel of the door slid back a trifle.
Reith asked, "May I come in?"
"But I'm dressing."
"This has made no difference before."
The door opened; Ylin-Ylan stood somewhat sullenly aside. Reith entered. Bundles 
were everywhere, some opened to reveal garments and leathers, gauze slippers, 
embroidered bodices, filigree headwear. Reith looked around in astonishment. 
"Your friend is extravagantly generous."
The Flower started to speak, then bit her lips. "These few things are 
necessities for the voyage home. I do not care to arrive at Vervodei like a 
scullery maid." She spoke with a haughtiness Reith had never before heard. "They 
are to be reckoned as traveling expenses. Please keep an account and my father 
will settle affairs to your satisfaction."
"You put me in a hard position," said Reith, "where inevitably I lose my 
dignity. If I pay, I'm a lout and a fool; if I don't, I'm a heartless 
pinchpenny. It seems that you might have handled the situation more tactfully."
"The question of tact did not arise," said the Flower. "I desired the articles. 
I ordered them to be brought here."
Reith grimaced. "I won't argue the subject. I came to tell you this: I have 
engaged passage to Cath aboard the cog Vargaz, which leaves tomorrow. It is a 
plain simple ship; you will need plain simple garments."
The Flower stared at him in puzzlement. "But the Noble Gold and Carnelian took 
passage aboard the Yazilissa!"
"If he chooses to travel aboard the Yazilissa, he of course may do so, if he can 
settle for his passage. I have just notified him that I will pay neither for his 
palanquin rides, nor his passage to Cath, nor "-Reith gestured toward the 
parcels-"for the finery which he evidently urged you to select."
Ylin-Ylan flushed angrily. "I had never expected to find you niggardly."
"The alternative is worse. Dordolio-"
"That is his friend name," said Ylin-Ylan in an undertone. "Best that you use 
his field name, or the formal address: Noble Gold and Carnelian."
"Whatever the situation, the cog Vargaz sails tomorrow. You may be aboard or 
remain in Coad as you choose."
Reith returned to the foyer. The porters and palanquin carrier had departed. 
Dordolio stood on the front veranda. The jeweled ornaments which had buckled his 
breeches at the knees were no longer to be seen.



CHAPTER THREE
THE COG VARGAZ, broad of beam, with high narrow prow, a cutaway midships, a 
lofty stern-castle, wallowed comfortably at its mooring against the dock. Like 
all else of Tschai, the cog's aspects were exaggerated, with every quality 
dramatized. The curve of the hull was florid, the bowsprit prodded at the sky, 
the sails were raffishly patched.
The Flower of Cath silently accompanied Reith, Traz and Anacho the Dirdirman 
aboard the Vargaz, with a porter bringing her luggage on a hand-truck.
Half an hour later Dordolio appeared on the dock. He appraised the Vargaz a 
moment or two, then strolled up the gangplank. He spoke briefly with the 
captain, tossed a purse upon the table. The captain frowned up sidewise from 
under bushy black eyebrows, thinking his own thoughts. He opened the purse, 
counted the sequins and found an insufficiency, which he pointed out. Dordolio 
wearily reached into his pouch, found the required sum, and the captain jerked 
his thumb toward the sterncastle.
Dordolio pulled at his mustache, raised his eyes toward the sky. He went to the 
gangplank, signaled a pair of porters who conveyed aboard his luggage. Then, 
with a formal bow toward the Flower of Cath, he went to stand at the far rail, 
looking moodily off across the Dwan Zher.
Five other passengers came aboard: a small fat merchant in a somber gray caftan 
and tall cylindrical hat; a man of the Isle of Cloud, with his spouse and two 
daughters: fresh fragile girls with pale skins and orange hair.
An hour before noon the Vargaz hoisted sails, cast off lines, and sheered away 
from the dock. The roofs of Coad became dark brown prisms laid along the 
hillside. The crew trimmed sails, coiled down lines, then unshipped a clumsy 
blast-cannon, which they dragged up to the foredeck.
Reith asked Anacho, "Who do they fear? Pirates?"
"A precaution. So long as a cannon is seen, pirates keep their distance. We have 
nothing to fear; they are seldom seen on the Draschade. A greater hazard is the 
victualing. The captain appears a man accustomed to good living, an optimistic 
sign."
The cog moved easily through the hazy afternoon. The Dawn Zher was calm and 
showed a pearly luster. The coastline faded away to the north; there were no 
ships to be seen. Sunset came: a wan display of dove-brown and umber, and with 
it a cool breeze which sent the water chuckling around the bluff bow.
The evening meal was simple but palatable: slices of dry spiced meat, a salad of 
raw vegetables, insect paste, pickles, soft white wine from a green glass 
demijohn. The passengers ate in wary silence; on Tschai strangers were objects 
of instinctive suspicion. The captain had no such inhibitions. He ate and drank 
with gusto and regaled the company with witticisms, reminiscences of previous 
voyages, jocular guesses regarding each passenger's purpose in making the 
voyage: a performance which gradually thawed the atmosphere. Ylin-Ylan ate 
little. She appraised the two orange-haired girls and became gloomily aware of 
their appealing fragility. Dordolio sat somewhat apart, paying little heed to 
the captain's conversation, but from time to time looking sidewise toward the 
two girls and preening his mustache. After the meal he conducted Ylin-Ylan 
forward to the bow where they watched phosphorescent sea-eels streaking away 
from the oncoming bow. The others sat on benches along the high quarterdeck, 
conducting guarded conversations while pink Az and blue Braz rose, one 
immediately behind the other, to send a pair of trails across the water.
One by one the passengers drifted off to their cabins, and presently the ship 
was left to the helmsman and the lookout.
Days drifted past: cool mornings with a pearly smoke clinging to the sea; noons 
with Carina 4269 burning at the zenith; ale-colored afternoons; quiet nights.
The Vargaz touched briefly at two small ports along the coast of Horasin: 
villages submerged in the foliage of giant gray-green trees. The Vargaz 
discharged hides and metal implements, took aboard bales of nuts, lumps of 
jellied fruit, butts of a beautiful rose and black timber.
Departing Horasin the Vargaz veered out into the Draschade Ocean, steering dead 
east along the equator both to take advantage of the counter-current and to 
avoid unfavorable weather patterns to north and south.
Winds were fickle; the Vargaz wallowed lazily across almost imperceptible 
swells.
The passengers amused themselves in their various ways. The orange-haired girls 
Heizari and Edwe played quoits, and teased Traz until he also joined the game.
Reith introduced the group to shuffleboard, which was taken up with enthusiasm. 
Palo Barba, the father of the girls, declared himself an instructor of 
swordsmanship; he and Dordolio fenced an hour or so each day, Dordolio stripped 
to the waist, a black ribbon confining his hair. Dordolio performed with 
foot-stamping bravura and staccato exclamations. Palo Barba fenced less 
flamboyantly, but with great emphasis upon traditional postures. Reith 
occasionally watched the two at their bouts, and on one occasion accepted Palo 
Barba's invitation to fence. Reith found the foils somewhat long and 
over-flexible, but conducted himself without discredit. He noticed Dordolio 
making critical observations to Ylin-Ylan, and later Traz, who had overhead, 
informed him that Dordolio had pronounced his technique naive and eccentric.
Reith shrugged and grinned. Dordolio was a man Reith found impossible to take 
seriously.
Twice other sails were spied in the distance; on one occasion a long black 
motor-galley changed course in a sinister fashion.
Reith inspected the vessel through his scanscope. A dozen tall yellow skinned 
men wearing complicated black turbans stood looking toward the Vargaz. Reith 
reported as much to the captain, who made a casual glance. "Pirates. They won't 
bother us: too much risk."
The galley passed a mile to the south, then turned and disappeared into the 
southwest.
Two days later an island appeared ahead: a mountainous hump with foreshore 
cloaked under tall trees. "Gozed," said the captain, in response to Reith's 
inquiry. "We'll put in for a day or so. You've never touched at Gozed?"
"Never."
"You have a surprise in store. Or then, on the other hand" here the captain gave 
Reith a careful inspection-"perhaps you don't. I can't say, since the customs of 
your own land are unknown to me. And unknown to yourself perhaps? I understand 
you to be an amnesiac."
Reith made a deprecatory gesture. "I never dispute other people's opinions of 
myself."
"In itself, a bizarre custom," declared the captain. "Try as I may, I cannot 
decide the land of your birth. You are a sort strange to me."
"I am a wanderer," said Reith. "A nomad, if you like."
"For a wanderer, you are at times strangely ignorant. Well then, ahead lies 
Gozed."
The island bulked large against the sky. Looking through the scanscope Reith 
could see an area along the foreshore where the trees had been defoliated and 
trimmed to the condition of crooked poles, each supporting one, two or three 
round huts. The ground below was barren gray sand, clear of refuse and raked 
smooth. Anacho the Dirdirman inspected the village through the scanscope. "About 
what I expected."
"You are acquainted with Gozed? The captain made quite a mystery of the place."
"No mystery. The folk of the island are highly religious; they worship the 
sea-scorpions native to the waters around the island. They are as large or 
larger than a man, or so I am told."
"Why then are the huts so high in the air?"
"At night the scorpions come up from the sea to spawn, which they accomplish by 
stinging eggs into a host animal, often a woman left down on the beach for that 
purpose. The eggs hatch, the 'Mother of the Gods' is devoured by the larvae. In 
the last stages, when pain and religious ecstasy produce a curious psychological 
state in the 'Mother; she runs down the beach and flings herself into the sea."
"An unsettling religion."
The Dirdirman admitted as much. "Still it appears to suit the folk of Gozed. 
They could change anytime they chose. Sub-men are notoriously susceptible to 
aberrations of this sort."
Reith could not restrain a grin, and Anacho examined him with surprise. "May I 
inquire the source of your amusement?"
"It occurs to me that the relationship of Dirdirmen to Dirdir is not unlike that 
of the Gozed toward their scorpions."
"I fail to see the analogy," Anacho declared rather stiffly.
"Simplicity itself: both are victims to non-human beings who use men for their 
particular needs."
"Bah!" muttered Anacho. "In many ways you are the most wrongheaded man alive." 
He walked abruptly aft, to stand staring out over the sea. Pressures were 
working in Anacho's subconscious, thought Reith, causing him uneasiness.
The Vargaz nosed cautiously in toward the beach, swung behind a jut of 
barnacle-encrusted rock and dropped anchor. The captain went ashore in a 
pinnace; the passengers saw him talking to a group of sternfaced men, 
white-skinned, totally naked save for sandals and fillets holding down their 
long iron-colored hair.
Agreement was reached; the captain returned to the Vargaz. A half hour later a 
pair of lighters came out to the boat. A boom was rigged; bales of fiber and 
coils of rope were brought aboard, other bales and crates were lowered to the 
lighters. Two hours after arriving at Gozed the Vargaz backed sail, hoisted 
anchor and set off across the Draschade.
After the evening meal the passengers sat on the deck forward of the sterncastle 
with a lantern swinging overhead, and the talk veered to the people of Gozed and 
their religion. Val Dal Barba, wife of Palo Barba, mother of Heizari and Edwe, 
thought the ritual unjust.
"Why are there only 'Mothers of Gods'? Why shouldn't those flintfaced men go 
down on the beach and become 'Fathers of Gods'?"
The captain chuckled. "It seems as if the honors are reserved for the ladies."
"It would never be thus in Murgen," declared the merchant warmly. "We pay 
sizable tithes to the priests; they take all responsibility for appeasing Bisme; 
we have no further inconvenience."
"A system as sensible as any," agreed Pal Barba. "This year we subscribe to the 
Pansogmatic Gnosis, and the religion has much virtue to it."
"I like it much better than Tutelanics," said Edwe. "You merely recite the 
litany and then you are done for the day."
"Tutelanics was a dreadful bore," Heizari concurred. "All that memorizing! And 
remember that dreadful Convocation of Souls, where the priests were so familiar? 
I like Pansogmatic Gnosis much better."
Dordolio gave an indulgent laugh. "You prefer not to become intense. I myself 
incline in this direction. Yao doctrine, of course, is to some extent a 
syncresis; or, better to say, in the course of the 'round' all aspects of the 
Ineffable are given opportunity to manifest themselves, so that, as we move with 
the cycle, we experience all theopathy."
Anacho, still smarting from Reith's comparisons, looked across the deck. "Well 
then, what of Adam Reith, the erudite ethnologist? What theosophical insights 
can he contribute?"
"None," said Reith. "Very few, at any rate. It occurs to me that the man and his 
religion are one and the same thing. The unknown exists. Each man projects on 
the blankness the shape of his own particular world-view. He endows his creation 
with his personal volitions and attitudes. The religious man stating his case is 
in essence explaining himself. When a fanatic is contradicted he feels a threat 
to his own existence; he reacts violently."
"Interesting!" declared the fat merchant. "And the atheist?"
"He projects no image upon the blank whatever. The cosmic mysteries he accepts 
as things in themselves; he feels no need to hang a more or less human mask upon 
them. Otherwise, the correlation between a man and the shape into which he molds 
the unknown for greater ease of manipulation is exact."
The captain raised his goblet of wine against the light of the lantern, tossed 
it down his throat. "Perhaps you're right, but no one will ever change himself 
on this account. I have known a multitude of peoples. I have walked under Dirdir 
spires, through Blue Chasch gardens and Wankh castles. I know these folk and 
their changeling men. I have traveled to six continents of Tschai; I have 
befriended a thousand men, caressed a thousand women, killed a thousand enemies; 
I know the Yao, the Binth, the Walalukians, the Shemolei on one hand; on the 
other the steppe nomads, the marshmen, the islanders, the cannibals of Rakh and 
Kislovan; I see differences; I see identities. All try to extract a maximum 
advantage from existence, and finally all die. None seems the better for it. My 
own god? Good old Vargaz! Of course! As Adam Reith insists, it is myself. When 
Vargaz groans through the storm waves, I shudder and grind my teeth. When we 
glide the dark water under the pink and blue moons, I play the lute, I wear a 
red ribbon around my forehead, I drink wine. I and Vargaz serve each other and 
the day Vargaz sinks into the deep, I sink with her."
"Bravo!" cried Palo Barba, the swordsman, who had also drunk much wine. "Do you 
know, this is my creed as well?" He snatched up a sword, held it high so that 
lantern-light played up and down its spine. "What the Vargaz is to the captain, 
the sword is to me!"
"Father!" cried his orange-haired daughter Edwe. "And all the time we thought 
you a sensible Pansogmatist!"
"Please put down the steel," urged Val Dal Barba, "before you become excited and 
cut someone's ear off."
"What? Me? A veteran swordsman? How can you imagine such a thing? Well then, as 
you wish. I'll trade the steel for another goblet of wine."
The talk proceeded. Dordolio swaggered across the deck to stand near Reith. 
Presently he said, in a voice of facetious condescension, "A surprise to find a 
nomad so accomplished in disquisition, so apt in subtle distinctions."
Reith grinned at Traz. "Nomads are not necessarily buffoons."
"You perplex me," Dordolio declared. "Exactly which is your native steppe? What 
was your tribe?"
"My steppe is far away; my tribe is scattered in every direction."
Dordolio pulled thoughtfully at his mustache. "The Dirdirman believes you to be 
an amnesiac. According to the Blue Jade Princess you have implied yourself to be 
a man from another world. The nomad boy, who knows you best, says nothing. I 
admit to what may be an obtrusive curiosity."
"The quality signifies an active mind," said Reith.
"Yes, Yes. Let me put what I freely acknowledge to be an absurd question." 
Dordolio examined Reith cautiously sidewise. "Do you consider yourself to be the 
native of another world?"
Reith laughed and groped for an answer. He said: "Four possible conditions 
exist. If I were indeed from another world I could answer either yes or no. If I 
were not from another world I could answer yes or no. The first case leads to 
inconvenience. The second diminishes my self-respect. The third case is 
insanity. The fourth represents the only situation you would not consider an 
abnormality. The question, hence, as you admit it, is absurd."
Dordolio tugged angrily at his mustache. "Are you, by any farfetched chance, a 
member of the 'cult'?"
"Probably not. Which 'cult' is this?"
"The Yearning Refluxives who rode up the cycle to destroy our two gorgeous 
cities."
"But I understood that an unknown agency torpedoed the cities."
"No matter; the 'cult' instigated the attack; they are the cause."
Reith shook his head. "Incomprehensible! An enemy destroys your cities; your 
bitterness is directed not against the cruel enemy but against a possibly 
sincere and thoughtful group of your own people. A displaced emotion, or so it 
seems."
Dordolio gave Reith a cold inspection. "Your analyses at times border upon the 
mordant."
Reith laughed. "Let it pass. I know nothing of your 'cult.' As for my place of 
origin, I prefer to be amnesiac."
"A curious lapse, when otherwise you seem so emphatic in your opinions."
"I wonder why you trouble to press the point," Reith mused. "For instance, what 
would you say if I claimed origin from a far world?"
Dordolio pursed his lips, blinked up at the lantern. "I had not taken my 
thoughts quite so far. Well, we will not pursue the subject. A frightening idea, 
to begin with: an ancient world of men!"
"'Frightening'? How so?"
Dordolio gave an uneasy laugh. "There is a dark side to humanity, which is like 
a stone pressed into the mold. The upper side, exposed to sun and air, is clean; 
tilt it and look below, at the muck and scurrying insects ... We of Yao know 
this well; nothing will put an end to awaile. But enough of such talk!" Dordolio 
gave his shoulders a jerk and a shake, and resumed his somewhat condescending 
tone of voice. "You are resolved to come to Cath; what will you do there?"
"I don't know. I must exist somewhere; why not in Cath?"
"Not too simple for a stranger," said Dordolio. "Affiliation with a palace is 
difficult."
"Odd that you should say that! The Flower of Cath declares that her father will 
welcome us to Blue Jade Palace."
"He would necessarily show formal courtesy, but you could no more take up 
residence at the Blue Jade Palace than you could on the bottom of the Draschade, 
merely because a fish invited you to swim."
"What would prevent me?"
Dordolio shrugged. "No man cares to make a fool of himself. Deportment is the 
definition of life. What does a nomad know of deportment?"
Reith had nothing to say to this. "A thousand details go into the conduct of a 
cavalier," stated Dordolio. "At the academy we learn degrees of address, 
signals, language configuration, in which I admit a deficiency. We take 
instruction in sword address and principles of dueling, genealogy, heraldry; we 
learn the niceties of costume and a hundred other details. Perhaps you consider 
these matters over-arbitrary?"
Anacho the Dirdirman, standing nearby, chose to reply. "'Trivial' is a word more 
apt."
Reith expected an icy retort, at the least a glare, but Dordolio gave only an 
indifferent shrug. "Well, then, is your life more significant? Or that of the 
merchant, or the swordsman? Never forget the Yao are a pessimistic race! Awaile 
is always a threat; we are perhaps more somber than we seem. Recognizing the 
essential pointlessness of existence, we exalt the small flicker of vitality at 
our command; we extract the fullest and most distinctive flavor from every 
incident, by insisting upon an appropriate formality. Trivality? Decadence? Who 
can do better?"
"All very well," said Reith. "But why be satisfied with pessimism? Why not 
expand your horizons? Further, it seems that you accept the destruction of your 
cities with a surprising nonchalance. Vengeance is not the most noble activity, 
but submissiveness is worse."
"Bah," muttered Dordolio. "How could a barbarian understand the disaster and its 
aftermath? The Refluxives in vast numbers took refuge in awaile; the acts and 
the expiations kept our land in a ferment. There was no energy for anything 
else. Were you of good caste, I would cut your heart out for daring so gross an 
imputation."
Reith laughed. "Since my low caste protects me from retribution, let me ask 
another question: what is awaile?"
Dordolio threw his hands in the air. "An amnesiac as well as a barbarian! I have 
no conversation for such as you! Ask the Dirdirman; he is glib enough." And 
Dordolio strode off in a rage.
"An unreasonable display of emotion," mused Reith. "I wonder what my imputation 
was?"
"Shame," said Anacho. "The Yao are as sensitive to shame as an eyeball to grit. 
Mysterious enemies destroy their cities; they suspect the Dirdir but dare no 
recourse, and must cope with helpless rage and shame. It is their typical 
attribute and predisposes them to awaile."
"And this is?"
"Murder. The afflicted person-one who feels shame-kills as many persons as he is 
able, of any sex, age or degree of relationship. Then, when he is able to kill 
no more, he submits and becomes apathetic. His punishment is dreadful and highly 
dramatic, and enlightens the entire population, who crowd the place of 
punishment. Each execution has its particular flavor and style and is 
essentially a dramatic pageant of pain, possibly enjoyed even by the victim. The 
institution permeates the life of Cath. The Dirdir on this basis consider all 
sub-men mad."
Reith grunted. "So then, if we visit Cath, we risk insensate murder."
"Small risk. After all, the acts are not ordinary events." Anacho looked around 
the deck. "But it seems that the hour is late." He bade Reith goodnight and 
stalked off to his bunk.
Reith remained by the rail, looking out over the water. After the bloodletting 
at Pera, Cath had seemed a haven, a civilized environment where just possibly he 
might contrive to patch together a spaceboat. The prospect seemed ever more 
remote.
Someone came to stand beside him: Heizari, the older of Palo Barbar's 
orange-haired daughters. "You seem so melancholy. What troubles you?"
Reith looked down into the pale oval of the girl's face: an arch impudent face, 
at this moment alive with innocent-or not so innocent? coquetry. Reith 
restrained the first words that rose to his lips. The girl was unquestionably 
appealing. "How is it you are not in bed with your sister Edwe?"
"Oh, simple! She is not in bed either. She sits with your friend Traz on the 
quarterdeck, beguiling and provoking, teasing and tormenting. She is much more 
of a flirt than I"
Poor Traz, thought Reith. He asked, "What of your father and mother? Are they 
not concerned?"
"What's it to them? When they were young, they dallied as ardently as any; is 
that not their right?"
"I suppose so. Customs vary, as you know."
"What of you? What are the customs of your people?"
"Ambiguous and rather complicated," said Reith. "There's a great deal of 
variation."
"This is the case with Cloud Islanders," said Heizari, leaning somewhat closer. 
"We are by no means automatically amorous. But on occasions a certain mood comes 
over a person, which I believe to be the consequence of natural law."
"No argument there," Reith obeyed his impulse and kissed the piquant face. 
"Still, I don't care to antagonize your father, natural law or not. He is an 
expert swordsman."
"Have no fears on that score. If you require assurance, doubtless he is still 
awake."
"I don't know quite what I'd ask him," said Reith. "Well then, all things 
considered..." The two strolled forward and climbed the carved steps to the 
forepeak, and stood looking south across the sea. Az hung low in the west laying 
a line of amethyst prisms along the water. An orange haired girl, a purple moon, 
a fairytale cog on a remote ocean: would he trade it all to be back on Earth? 
The answer had to be yes. And yet, why deny the attractions of the moment? Reith 
kissed the girl somewhat more fervently than before and now from the shadow of 
the anchor windlass, a person hitherto invisible jumped erect and departed in 
desperate haste. In the slanting moonlight Reith recognized Ylin-Ylan, the 
Flower of Cath ... His ardor was quenched; he looked miserably aft. And yet, why 
feel guilt? She had long since made it clear that the one-time relationship was 
at an end. Reith turned back to the orange-haired Heizari.



CHAPTER FOUR
THE MORNING DAWNED without wind. The sun rose into a bird's egg sky: beige and 
dove-gray around the horizon, pale gray-blue at the zenith.
The morning meal, as usual, was coarse bread, salt fish, preserved fruit, and 
acrid tea. The company sat in silence, each occupied with morning thoughts.
The Flower of Cath was late. She slipped quietly into the saloon and took her 
place with a polite smile to left and right, and ate in a kind of reverie. 
Dordolio watched her with perplexity.
The captain looked in from the deck. "A day of calm. Tonight clouds and thunder. 
Tomorrow? No way of knowing. Unusual weather!"
Reith irritably forced himself to his usual conduct. No cause for misgivings: he 
had not changed; Ylin-Ylan had changed. Even at the most intense stage of their 
relationship she had at all times kept part of herself secret: a persona 
represented by another of her many names? Reith forced her from his mind.
Ylin-Ylan wasted no time in the saloon, but went out on deck, where she was 
joined by Dordolio. They leaned on the rail, Ylin-Ylan speaking with great 
urgency, Dordolio pulling his mustache and occasionally interposing a word or 
two.
A seaman on the quarterdeck gave a sudden call and pointed across the water. 
Jumping up on the hatch Reith saw a dark floating shape, with a head and narrow 
shoulders, disturbingly manlike; the creature surged, disappeared below the 
surface. Reith turned to Anacho. "What was that?"
"A Pnume."
"So far from land?"
"Why not? They are the same sort as the Phung. Who holds a Phung to account for 
his deeds?"
"But what does it do out here, in mid-ocean?"
"Perhaps it floats by night on the surface, watching the moons swing by."
The morning passed. Traz and the two girls played quoits. The merchant mused 
through a leather-bound book. Palo Barba and Dordolio fenced for a period. 
Dordolio was as usual flamboyant, whistling his steel through the air, stamping 
his feet, flourishing his arms.
Palo Barba presently tired of the sport. Dordolio stood twitching his blade. 
Ylin-Ylan came to sit on the hatch. Dordolio turned to Reith. "Come, nomad, take 
up the foil; show me the skills of your native steppe."
Reith instantly became wary. "They are very few; additionally I am out of 
practice. Perhaps another day."
"Come, come," cried Dordolio, eyes glittering. "I have heard reports of your 
adroitness. You must not refuse to demonstrate your technique."
"You must excuse me; I am disinclined."
"Yes, Adam Reith!" called Ylin-Ylan. "Fence! You will disappoint us all!"
Reith turned his head, examined the Flower for a long moment. Her face, pinched 
and wan and quivering with emotion, was not the face of the girl he had known in 
Pera. In some fashion, change had come; he looked into the face of a stranger.
Reith turned his attention to Dordolio, who evidently had been incited by the 
Flower of Cath. Whatever they planned was not to his advantage.
Palo Barba intervened. "Come," he told Dordolio. "Let the man rest, I will play 
another set of passes, and give you all the exercise you require."
"But I wish to engage this fellow," declared Dordolio. "His attitudes are 
exasperating; I feel that he needs to be chastened."
"If you intend to pick a quarrel," said Palo Barba coldly, "that of course is 
your affair."
"No quarrel," declared Dordolio in a brassy, somewhat nasal voice. "A 
demonstration, let us say. The fellow seems to equate the caste of Cath with 
common ruck. A significant difference exists, as I wish to make clear."
Reith wearily rose to his feet. "Very well. What do you have in mind for your 
demonstration?"
"Foils, swords, as you wish. Since you are ignorant of chivalrous address, there 
shall be none; a simple 'go' must suffice."
"And 'stop'?"
Dordolio grinned through his mustache. "As circumstances dictate."
"Very well." He turned to Palo Barba. "Allow me to look over your weapons, if 
you please."
Palo Barba opened his box. Reith selected a pair of short light blades.
Dordolio stared, eyebrows arched high in distaste. "Child's weapons, for the 
training of boys!"
Reith hefted one of the blades, twitched it through the air. "This suits me well 
enough. If you are dissatisfied, use whatever blade you like."
Dordolio grudgingly took up the light blade. "It has no life; it is without 
movement or backsnap--"
Reith lifted his sword, tilted Dordolio's hat down over his eyes. "But 
responsive and serviceable, as you see."
Dordolio removed the hat without comment, shot the cuffs of his white silk 
blouse. "Are you ready?"
"Whenever you are."
Dordolio raised his sword in a preposterous salute, bowed right and left to the 
spectators. Reith drew back. "I thought you planned to forgo the ceremonies."
Dordolio merely drew back the corners of his mouth, to show his teeth, and 
performed one of his foot-stamping assaults. Reith parried without difficulty, 
feinted Dordolio out of position and swung down at one of the clasps which 
supported Dordolio's breeches.
Dordolio jumped back, then attacked once more, the snarl replaced by a sinister 
grin. He stormed Reith's defense, picking here and there, resting, probing; 
Reith reacted sluggishly. Dordolio feinted, drew Reith's blade aside, lunged. 
Reith had already jumped away; Dordolio's blade met empty air. Reith hacked down 
hard at the clasp, breaking it loose.
Dordolio drew back with a frown. Reith stepped forward, struck down at the other 
clasp, and Dordolio's breeches grew loose about the waist.
Dordolio retreated, red in the face. He cast down the sword. "These ridiculous 
playthings! Take up a real sword!"
"Use any sword you prefer. I will remain with this one. But, first, I suggest 
that you take steps to support your trousers; you will embarrass both of us."
Dordolio bowed, with icy good grace. He went somewhat apart, tied his breeches 
to his belt with thongs. "I am ready. Since you insist, and since my purposes 
are punitive, I will use the weapon with which I am familiar."
"As you like."
Dordolio took up his long supple blade, flourished it around his head so that it 
sang in the air, then, nodding to Reith, came to the attack. The flexible tip 
swung in from right and left; Reith slid it away, and casually, almost as if by 
accident, tapped Dordolio's cheek with the flat of his blade.
Dordolio blinked, and launched a furious prancing attack. Reith gave ground; 
Dordolio followed, stamping, lunging, cutting, striking from all sides. Reith 
parried, and tapped Dordolio's other cheek. He then drew back. "I find myself 
winded; perhaps you have had enough exercise for the day?"
Dordolio stood glaring, nostrils distended, chest rising and falling. He turned 
away, gazed out to sea. He heaved a deep sigh, and turned back. "Yes," he said 
in a dull voice. "We have exercised enough." He looked down at his jeweled 
rapier, and for a moment appeared ready to cast it into the sea. Instead, he 
thrust it into his sheath, bowed to Reith. "Your swordplay is excellent. I am 
indebted for the demonstration."
Palo Barba came forward. "Well spoken, a true cavalier of Cath! Enough of blades 
and metal; let us take a goblet of morning wine."
Dordolio bowed. "Presently." He went off to his cabin. The Flower of Cath sat as 
if carved from stone.
Heizari brought Reith a goblet of wine. "I have a wonderful idea."
"Which is?"
"You must leave the ship at Wyness, come to Orchard Hill and assist my father's 
fencing academy. An easy life, without worries or fear."
"The prospect is pleasant," said Reith. "I wish I could ... but I have other 
responsibilities."
"Put them aside! Are responsibilities so important when one has a single life to 
live? But don't answer." She put her hand on Reith's mouth. "I know what you 
will say. You are a strange man, Adam Reith, so grim and so easy all at once."
"I don't seem strange to myself. Tschai is strange; I'm quite ordinary."
"Of course not!" laughed Heizari. "Tschai is-" She made a vague gesture. 
"Sometimes it is terrible ... but strange? I know no other place." She rose to 
her feet. "Well then, I will pour you more wine and perhaps I will drink as 
well. On so quiet a day what else is there to do?"
The captain passing near, halted. "Enjoy the calm while you can; winds are 
coming. Look to the north."
On the horizon a bank of black clouds; the sea below glimmered like copper. Even 
as they watched a breath of air came across the sea, a curiously cool waft. The 
sails of the Vargaz flapped; the rigging creaked.
From the cabin came Dordolio. He had changed his garments; now he wore a suit of 
somber maroon, black velvet shoes, a billed hat of black velvet. He looked for 
Ylin-Ylan; where was she? Far forward on the forepeak, she leaned on the rail, 
looking off to sea. Dordolio hesitated, then slowly turned away. Palo Barba 
handed him a goblet of wine; Dordolio silently took a seat under the great brass 
lantern.
The bank of clouds rolled south, giving off flashes of purple light, and 
presently the low grumble of thunder reached the Vargaz.
The lateen sails were furled; the cog moved sluggishly on a small square storm 
sail.
Sunset was an eerie scene, the dark brown sun shining under the black clouds. 
The Flower of Cath came from the stern-castle: stark naked she stood, looking up 
and down the decks, into the amazed faces of the passengers.
She held a dart pistol in one hand, a dagger in the other. Her face was set in a 
peculiar fixed smile; Reith, who had known the face under a host of 
circumstances, would never have recognized it. Dordolio, giving an inarticulate 
bellow, ran forward.
The Flower of Cath aimed the pistol at him; Dordolio dodged; the dart sang past 
his head. She searched the deck; she spied Heizari, and stepped forward, pistol 
at the ready; Heizari cried out in fear, ran behind the mainmast. Lightning 
sprang from cloud to cloud; in the purple glare Dordolio sprang upon the Flower; 
she slashed him with the dagger; Dordolio staggered back with blood squirting 
from his neck. The Flower aimed the dart-gun, Dordolio rolled over behind the 
hatch. Heizari ran forward to the forecastle; the Flower pursued. A crewman 
emerged from the forecastle-to stand petrified. The Flower stabbed up into his 
astounded face; the man tumbled backward, down the companionway.
Heizari stood behind the foremast. Lightning spattered across the sky; thunder 
came almost at once.
The Flower stabbed deftly around the mast; the orange-haired girl clutched her 
side, tottered forth with a wondering face. The Flower aimed the dart gun but 
Palo Barba was there to knock it clattering to the deck. The Flower cut at him, 
cut at Reith who was trying to seize her, ran up the ladder to the forepeak, 
climbed out on the sprit.
The cog rose to the waves; the sprit reared and plunged. The sun sank into the 
ocean; the Flower turned to watch it, hanging to the forestay with one arm.
Reith called to her, "Come back, come back!"
She turned, looked at him, her face remote. "Derl!" called Reith. "Ylin-Ylan!" 
The girl gave no signal she had heard. Reith called her other names: "Blue Jade 
Flower!" Then her court name: "Shar Zarin!"
She only gave him a regretful smile.
Reith sought to coax her. He used her child name: "Zozi ... Zozi ... come back 
here."
The girl's face changed. She pulled herself closer to the stay, hugging it.
"Zozi! Won't you talk to me? Come here, there's a good girl."
But her mind was far away, off where the sun was setting.
Reith called her secret name: "L'lae! Come, come here! Ktan calls you, L'lae!"
Again she shook her head, never taking her eyes from the sea.
Reith called the final name though it felt strange to his lips: her love name. 
He called, but thunder drowned the sound of his voice, and the girl did not 
hear. The sun was a small segment, swimming with antique colors. The Flower 
stepped from the sprit, and dropped into a hissing surge of spume. For an 
instant Reith thought he saw the spiral of her dark hair, and then she was gone.
Later, in the evening, with the Vargaz pitching up the great slopes and 
wallowing in a rush down into the troughs, Reith put a question to Ankhe at 
afram Anacho, the Dirdirman. "Had she simply lost her reason? Or was that 
awaile?"
"It was awaile. The refuge from shame."
"But-" Reith started to speak, but could only make an inarticulate gesture.
"You gave attendance to the Cloud Isle girl. Her champion made a fool of 
himself. Humiliation lay across the future. She would have killed us all had she 
been able."
"I find it incomprehensible," muttered Reith.
"Naturally. You are not Yao. For the Blue Jade Princess, the pressure was too 
great. She is lucky. In Settra she would have been punished at a dramatic public 
torturing."
Reith groped his way out on deck. The brass lantern creaked as it swung. Reith 
looked out over the blowing sea. Somewhere far away and deep, a white body 
floated in the dark.



CHAPTER FIVE
FREAKISH WINDS BLEW throughout the night: gusts, breaths, blasts, whispers. Dawn 
brought an abrupt calm, and the sun found the Vargaz wallowing in a confused 
sea.
At noon a terrible squall sent the ship scudding south like a toy, the bluff bow 
battering the sea to froth. The passengers kept to the saloon, or to the trunk 
deck. Heizari, bandaged and pale, kept to the cabin she shared with Edwe. Reith 
sat with her for an hour. She could speak of nothing but her terrible 
experience. "But why should she do so dreadful a deed?"
"Apparently the Yao are prone to such acts."
"I have heard as much; but even insanity has a reason."
"The Dirdirman says she was overwhelmed by shame."
"What folly! A person as beautiful as she? What could she have done to affect 
her so?"
"I wouldn't care to speculate," muttered Reith.
The squalls became gigantic hills lofting the Vargaz high, heaving the round 
hull bubbling and singing down the long slopes. Finally one morning the sun 
shone down from a dove-brown sky clean of clouds. The seas persisted a day 
longer, then gradually lessened, and the cog set all sail before a fair breeze 
from the west.
Three days later a dim black island loomed in the south, which the captain 
declared to be the haunt of corsairs; he kept a sharp lookout from the masthead 
until the island had merged into the murk of evening.
The days passed without distinguishing characteristic: curiously antiseptic days 
overshadowed by the uncertainty of the future. Reith became edgy and nervous. 
How long ago had been the events at Pera: a time so innocent and uncomplicated! 
At that time, Cath had seemed a haven of civilized security, with Reith certain 
that the Blue Jade Lord through gratitude would facilitate his plans. What a 
callow hope!
The cog approached the coast of Kachan, where the captain hoped to ride 
north-flowing currents up into the Parapan.
One morning, coming on deck, Reith found a remarkable island standing off the 
starboard beam: a place of no great extent, less than a quarter-mile in 
diameter, surrounded at the water's edge by a wall of black glass a hundred feet 
high. Beyond rose a dozen massive buildings of various heights and graceless 
proportion.
Anacho the Dirdirman came to stand beside him, narrow shoulders hunched, long 
face dour. "There you see the stronghold of an evil race: the Wankh."
"'Evil'? Because they are at war with the Dirdir?"
"Because they will not end the war. What benefit to either Dirdir or Wankh is 
such a confrontation? The Dirdir offer disengagement; the Wankh refuse. A harsh 
inscrutable people!"
"Naturally, I know nothing of the issues," said Reith. "Why the wall around the 
island?"
"To daunt the Pnume, who infest Tschai like rats. The Wankh are not a 
companionable folk. In fact-look down yonder below the surface."
Reith, peering into the water, saw gliding beside the ship at a depth of ten or 
fifteen feet a dark man-like shape, with a metal structure fixed across its 
mid-body, moving without motion of its own. The figure twisted, slanted away and 
vanished into the murk.
"An amphibious race, the Wankh, with electric jets for their underwater sport."
Reith once more raised the scanscope. The Wankh towers, like the walls, were 
black glass. Round windows were discs blacker than black; balconies of frail 
twisted crystal became walkways to far structures. Reith spied movement: a pair 
of Wankh? Looking more closely he saw the creatures to be men-Wankhmen, beyond 
all doubt, with flour-white skins and black pelts close to somewhat flat scalps. 
Their faces seemed smooth, with still, saturnine features; they wore what 
appeared to be one-piece black garments, with wide black leather belts, on which 
hung small implements, tools, instruments. As they moved into the building, they 
looked out at the Vargaz and for an instant Reith saw full into their faces. He 
jerked the scanscope from his eyes.
Anacho eyed him askance. "What is the trouble?"
"I saw two Wankhmen ... Even you, weird mutated freak that you are, seem 
ordinary by comparison."
Anacho gave a sardonic chuckle. "They are in fact not dissimilar to the typical 
sub-man."
Reith made no argument; in the first place he could not define the exact quality 
he had seen behind the still white faces. He looked again, but the Wankhmen had 
disappeared. Dordolio had come out on deck and now stared in fascination at the 
scanscope. "What instrument is that?"
"An electronic optical device," said Reith without emphasis.
"I've never seen its like." He looked at Anacho. "Is it a Dirdir machine?"
Anacho made a quizzical dissent. "I think not."
Dordolio gave Reith a puzzled glance. "Is it Chasch or Wankh?" He veered at the 
engraved escutcheon. "What writing is this?"
Anacho shrugged. "Nothing I can read."
Dordolio asked Reith: "Can you read it?"
"Yes, I believe so." Impelled by a sudden mischievous urge, Reith read:
"Federal Space Agency
Tool and Instrument Division
Mark XI Photomultiplying Binocular Telescope
1x-1000x
Nonprojective, inoperable in total darkness. BAF-1303-K-29023 Use Type D5 energy 
slug only. In poor light, engage color compensator switch. Do not look at sun or 
high-intensity illumination; if automatic light-gate fails, damage to the eyes 
may result."
Dordolio stared. "What language is that?"
"One of the many human dialects," said Reith.
"But from what region? Men everywhere on Tschai, to my understanding, speak the 
same language."
"Rather than embarrass you both," said Reith. "I prefer to say nothing. Continue 
to think of me as an amnesiac."
"Do you take us for fools?" growled Dordolio. "Are we children to have our 
questions answered with flippant evasions?"
"Sometimes," said Anacho, speaking into the air, "it is the part of wisdom to 
maintain a myth. Too much knowledge can become a burden."
Dordolio gnawed at his mustache. From the corner of his eye he glanced at the 
scanscope, then swung abruptly away.
Ahead three more islands had appeared, rising sharply from the sea, each with 
its wall and core of eccentric black buildings. A shadow lay on the horizon 
beyond: the mainland of Kachan.
During the afternoon the shadow took on density and detail, to become a hulk of 
mountains rising from the sea. The Vargaz coasted north, almost in the shadow of 
the mountains, with black dip-winged kites swooping around the masts, emitting 
mournful hoots and clashing their mandibles. Late in the afternoon the mountains 
fell away to reveal a landlocked bay. A nondescript town occupied the south 
shore; from a promontory to the north rose a Wankh fortress, like a growth of 
undisciplined black crystals. A spaceport occupied the flat land to the east, 
where a number of spaceships of various styles and sizes were visible.
Through the scanscope, Reith studied the landscape and the mountainside sloping 
down to the spacefield from the east. Interesting, mused Reith, interesting 
indeed.
The captain, coming past, identified the port as Ao Hidis, one of the important 
Wankh centers. "I had no intent of faring south so far, but since we're here, 
I'll try to sell my leathers and the Grenie woods; then I'll take on Wankh 
chemicals for Cath. A word of warning for those of you who intend to roister 
ashore. There are two towns here: Ao Hidis proper, which is Man-town, and an 
unpronounceable sound which is Wankh-town. In Man-town are several kinds of 
people, including Lokhars, but mainly Blacks and Purples. They do not mingle; 
they recognize their own kind only. In the streets you may walk without fear, 
you may buy at any shop or booth with an open front. Do not enter any closed 
shop or tavern, either Black or Purple; you'll likely not come out.
There are no public brothels. If you buy from a Black booth, do not stop at a 
Purple booth with your goods; you will be resented and perhaps insulted, or, in 
certain cases, attacked. The opposite holds true. As for Wankh-town, there is 
nothing to do except stare at the Wankh, to which you are welcome, for they do 
not seem to object. All considered, a dull port, with little amusement ashore."
The Vargaz eased alongside a wharf flying a small purple pennon. "I patronized 
Purple on my last visit," the captain told Reith who had come up to the 
quarterdeck. "They gave good service at a fair price; I see no reason to 
change."
The Vargaz was moored by Purple longshoremen: roundfaced, roundheaded men with a 
plum-colored cast to their complexion. From the neighboring Black dock Blacks 
looked on with aloof hostility. These were physiognomically similar to the 
Purples, but with gray skins oddly mottled with black.
"No one knows the cause," the Captain said, in regard to the color disparity. 
"The same mother may produce one Purple child and one Black. Some blame diet; 
others drugs; others hold that disease attacks a color-gland in the mother's 
egg. But Black and Purple they are born; and each calls the other pariah. When 
Black and Purple breed, the union is sterile, or so it is said. The notion 
horrifies each race; they would as soon couple with nighthounds."
"What of the Dirdirman?" asked Reith. "Is he likely to be molested?"
"Bah. The Wankh take no notice of such trivia. The Blue Chasch are known for 
sadistic malice. Dirdir stringencies are unpredictable. But in my experience the 
Wankh are the most indifferent and remote people of Tschai, and seldom trouble 
with men. Perhaps they do their evil in secret like Pnume; no one knows. The 
Wankhmen are a different sort, cold as ghouls, and it is not wise to cross them. 
Well then, we are docked. Are you going ashore? Remember my warnings; Ao Hidis 
is a harsh city. Ignore both Black and Purple; talk to no one; interfere with 
nothing. Last visit I lost a seaman who bought a shawl at a Black shop, then 
drank wine at a Purple booth. He staggered aboard the ship with foam coming from 
his nose."
Anacho chose to remain aboard the Vargaz. Reith went ashore with Traz. Crossing 
the dock they found themselves on a wide street paved with slabs of mica-schist. 
To either side were houses built crudely of stone and timber, surrounded by 
rubbish. A few motor vehicles of a type Reith had not previously seen moved 
along the street; Reith assumed them to be of Wankh manufacture.
Around the shore to the north rose the Wankh towers. In this direction also lay 
the spaceport.
There seemed to be no public conveyances; Reith and Traz set off on foot. The 
huts gave way to somewhat more pretentious dwellings, and then they came to a 
square surrounded on all sides by shops and booths. Half of the folk were Black, 
half Purple; neither took notice of the other. Blacks patronized Blacks; Purple 
shops and booths served Purples. Blacks and Purples jostled each other, without 
acknowledgment or apology. Detestation hung in the air like a reek.
Reith and Traz crossed the square, continued north along a road paved with 
concrete, and presently came to a fence of tall glass rods surrounding the 
spacefield. Reith halted, surveyed the lie of the land.
"I am not naturally a thief," he told Traz. "But notice the little spaceboat! I 
would gladly confiscate that from its present owner."
"It is a Wankh boat," Traz pointed out pessimistically. "You would not know how 
to control it."
Reith nodded. "True. But if I had time-a week or so-I could learn. Spacecraft 
are necessarily similar."
"Think of the practicalities!" Traz admonished him.
Reith concealed a grin. Traz occasionally reverted to the stern personality of 
Onmale, the near-vital emblem which Traz had worn at the time of their first 
meeting. Traz shook his head dubiously. "Are valuable vehicles left unattended, 
ready to fly off into the sky? Unlikely!"
"No one seems to be aboard the small ship," argued Reith. "Even the freighters 
seem to be empty. Why should there be vigilance? Who would wish to steal them, 
except a person like myself?"
"Well then, what if you managed to enter the ship?" Traz demanded. "Before you 
could understand how to operate the machinery, you would be found and killed."
"No question but that the project is risky," agreed Reith.
They returned to the port, and the Vargaz, when once more they were aboard, 
seemed a haven of normalcy.
Cargo was discharged and loaded all during the night. In the morning with all 
passengers and crew members aboard, the Vargaz threw off moorings, hoisted sail 
and glided back out into the Draschade Ocean.
The Vargaz sailed north under the bleak Kachan coast. On the first day a dozen 
Wankh keeps appeared ahead, passed abeam and were left in the haze astern. On 
the second day the Vargaz passed in front of three great fjords. From the last 
of these a motor galley plunged forth, wake churning up astern. The captain 
immediately sent two men to man the blast-cannon. The galley cut through the 
swells to pass behind the cog; the captain instantly put about and brought the 
cannon to bear once more. The galley swung away and off to sea, with the jeers 
and hoots from the men aboard coming faintly across the water.
A week later Dragan, first of the Isles of Cloud, appeared on the port beam. On 
the following day the cog put into Wyness; here Palo Barba, his spouse, and his 
orange-haired daughters disembarked. Traz looked wistfully after them. Edwe 
turned and waved; then the family was lost to sight among the yellow silks and 
white linen cloaks of the dockside crowd.
Two days the cog lay at Wyness, unloading cargo, taking on stores and fitting 
new sails; then the lines were thrown off and the cog put to sea.
With a brisk wind from the west the Vargaz drove through the chop of the 
Parapan. A day passed and a night and another day, and the atmosphere aboard the 
Vargaz became suspenseful, with all hands looking east, trying to locate the 
loom of Charchan. Evening came; the sun sank into a sad welter of brown and gray 
and murky orange. The evening meal was a platter of dried fruit and pickled 
fish, which no one ate, preferring to stand by the rail. The night drew on; the 
wind lessened; one by one the passengers retired to their cabins. Reith remained 
on deck, musing upon the circumstances of his life. Time passed. From the 
quarterdeck came a grumble of orders; the main yard creaked down the mast and 
the Vargaz lost way. Reith went back to the rail. Through the dark glimmered a 
shine of far lights: the coast of Cath.



CHAPTER SIX
DAWN REVEALED A low-lying shore, black against the sepia sky. The mainsail was 
hoisted to the morning breeze; the Vargaz moved into the harbor of Vervodei.
The sun rose to reveal the face of the sleeping city. To the north tall 
flatfaced buildings overlooked the harbor, to the south were wharves and 
warehouses.
The Vargaz dropped anchor; the sails rattled down the mast. A pinnace rowed out 
with lines and the Vargaz was heaved sternfirst against a dock. Port officials 
came aboard, consulted with the captain, exchanged salutes with Dordolio and 
departed. The voyage was at an end.
Reith bade the captain goodbye and with Traz and Anacho went ashore. As they 
stood on the dock Dordolio approached. He spoke in an offhand voice. "I now take 
my leave of you, since I depart immediately for Settra."
Wary and wondering as to Dordolio's motives, Reith asked: "The Blue Jade Palace 
is at Settra?"
"Yes, of course." Dordolio pulled at his mustache. "You need not concern 
yourself in this regard; I will convey all necessary news to the Blue Jade 
Lord."
"Still, there is much that you do not know," said Reith. "In fact, nearly 
everything."
"Your information will be of no great consolation," said Dordolio stiffly.
"Perhaps not. But surely he will be interested."
Dordolio shook his head in sad exasperation. "Quixotic! You know nothing of the 
ceremonies! Do you expect simply to walk up to the Lord and blurt out your tale? 
Crassness. And your clothes: unsuitable! Not to mention the marmoreal Dirdirman 
and the nomad lad."
"We must trust to the courtesy and tolerance of the Blue Jade Lord," said Reith.
"Bah," muttered Dordolio. "You have no shame." But still he delayed, frowning 
off up the street. He said, "You definitely plan to visit Settra then?"
"Yes, of course."
"Accept my advice. Tonight stop at one of the local inns-the Dulvan yonder is 
adequate-then tomorrow or the next day visit a reputable haberdasher and put 
yourself into his hands. Then, suitably clothed, come to Settra. The Travelers' 
Inn on the Oval will furnish you suitable accommodation. Under these 
circumstances, perhaps you will do me a service. I seem to have misplaced my 
funds, and I would be obliged to you for the loan of a hundred sequins to take 
me to Settra."
"Certainly," said Reith. "But let us all go to Settra together."
Dordolio made a petulant gesture. "I am in haste. Your preparations will consume 
time."
"Not at all," said Reith. "We are ready at this moment. Lead the way."
Dordolio scanned Reith from head to toe, in vast distaste. "The least I can do, 
for our mutual comfort, is to see you into respectable clothes. Come along 
then." He set off along the esplanade toward the center of town. Reith, Traz and 
Anacho followed, Traz seething with indignation. "Why do we suffer his 
arrogance?"
"The Yao are mercurial folk," said Anacho. "Pointless to become disturbed."
Away from the docks the city took on its own character. Wide, somewhat stark, 
streets ran between flat-faced buildings of glazed brick under steep roofs of 
brown tile. Everywhere a state of genteel dilapidation was evident. The activity 
of Coad was absent; the few folk abroad carried themselves with self-effacing 
reserve. Some wore complicated suits, white linen shirts, cravats tied in 
complex knots and bows. Others, apparently of lesser status, wore loose breeches 
of green or tan, jackets and blouses of various subdued colors.
Dordolio led the way to a large open-fronted shop, in which several dozen men 
and women sat sewing garments. Signaling to the three following him, Dordolio 
entered the shop. Reith, Anacho, and Traz entered and waited while Dordolio 
spoke energetically to the bald old proprietor.
Dordolio came to confer with Reith. "I have described your needs; the clothier 
will fit you from his stock, at no large expense."
Three pale young men appeared, wheeling racks of finished garments. The 
proprietor made swift selection, laid them before Reith, Traz, and Anacho. 
"These I believe will suit the gentlemen. If they would care to change 
immediately, the dressing rooms are at hand "
Reith inspected the garments critically. The cloth seemed a trifle coarse; the 
colors were somewhat raw. Reith glanced at Anacho, whose reflective smile 
reinforced his own assumptions. Reith said to Dordolio: "Your own clothes are 
the worse for wear. Why not try on this suit?"
Dordolio stood back with eyebrows raised high. "I am satisfied with what I 
wear."
Reith put down the garments. "These are not suitable," he told the clothier. 
"Show me your catalog, or whatever you work from."
"As you wish, sir."
Reith, with Anacho watching gravely, looked through a hundred or so color 
sketches. He pointed to a conservatively cut suit of dark blue. "What of this?"
Dordolio made an impatient sound. "The garments a wealthy vegetable grower might 
wear to an intimate funeral."
Reith indicated another costume. "What of this?"
"Even less appropriate: the lounge clothes of an elderly philosopher at his 
country estate."
"Hm. Well then," Reith told the clothier, "show me the clothes a somewhat 
younger philosopher of impeccable good taste would wear on a casual visit to the 
city."
Dordolio gave a snort. He started to speak but thought better of it and turned 
away. The clothier gave order to his assistants. Reith looked at Anacho with an 
appraising frown. "For this gentleman, the traveling costume of a high-caste 
dignitary." And for Traz: "A young gentleman's casual dress."
New garments appeared, conspicuously different from those ordered out by 
Dordolio. The three changed; the clothier made small adjustments while Dordolio 
stood to the side, pulling at his mustache. At last he could no longer restrain 
a comment. "Handsome garments, of course. But are they appropriate? You will 
puzzle folk when your conduct belies your appearance."
Anacho spoke scornfully. "Would you have us visit Settra dressed like bumpkins? 
The clothes you selected hardly carried a flattering association."
"What does it matter?" cried Dordolio in a brassy voice. "A fugitive Dirdirman, 
a nomad boy, a mysterious nonesuch: is it not absurd to trick such folk out in 
noblemen's costume?"
Reith laughed; Anacho fluttered his fingers; Traz turned Dordolio a glance of 
infinite disgust. Reith paid the account.
"Now then," muttered Dordolio, "to the airport. Since you demand the best, we 
shall charter an air-car."
"Not so fast," said Reith. "As usual you miscalculate. There must be another, 
less ostentatious, means to reach Settra."
"Naturally," said Dordolio with a sneer. "But folk who dress like lords should 
act like lords."
"We are modest lords," said Reith. He spoke to the clothier. "How do you usually 
travel to Settra?"
"I am a man with no great regard or 'place' ;* I ride the public wheelway."
Reith turned back to Dordolio. "If you plan to travel by private air-car, this 
is where we part."
"Gladly; if you will advance me five hundred sequins."
Reith shook his head. "I think not."
"Then I also must travel by wheelway."
As they strode up the street Dordolio became somewhat more cordial. "You will 
find that the Yao set great store by consistency, and a harmony of attributes. 
You are dressed as persons of quality, no doubt you will conduct yourselves in 
consonance. Affairs will adjust themselves."
At the wheelway depot Dordolio bespoke first class accommodation from the clerk; 
a short while later a long car trundled up to the platform, riding a 
wedge-shaped concrete slot on two great wheels. The four entered a compartment, 
seated themselves on red plush chairs. With a lurch and a grind, the car left 
the station and trundled off into the Cath countryside.
Reith found the car intriguing and somewhat of a puzzle. The motors were small, 
powerful, of sophisticated design; why was the car itself so awkwardly built? 
The wheels-when the car reached top speed, perhaps seventy miles an hour-rode on 
cushions of trapped air, at times with silken smoothness, until the wheels came 
to breaks in the slot, whereupon the car jerked and vibrated abominably. The 
Yao, reflected Reith, seemed to be good theoreticians but poor engineers.
The car rumbled across an ancient cultivated countryside, more civilized than 
any Reith had yet seen on Tschai. A haze hung in the air, tinting the sunlight 
antique yellow; shadows were blacker than black. In and out of forests rolled 
the car, beside orchards of gnarled black-leaved trees, past parks and manors, 
ruined stone walls, villages in which only half the houses seemed tenanted. 
After climbing to an upland moor, the car struck east over marshes and bogs, to 
outcrops of rotting limestone. No human being was in sight, though several times 
Reith thought to discern ruined castles in the distance.
"Ghost country," said Dordolio. "This is Audan Moor; have you heard of it?"
"Never," said Reith.
"A desolate region, as you can see. The haunt of outlaws, even an occasional 
Phung. After dark the night-hounds bell..."
Down from Audan Moor rolled the wheelway car, into a countryside of great charm. 
Everywhere were ponds and watercourses, overlooked by towering black, brown and 
rust-colored trees. On small islands stood tall houses with high-pitched gables 
and elaborate balconies. Dordolio pointed off to the east. "See yonder, the 
great manse in front of the forest? Gold and Carnelian: the palace of my 
connections. Behind but you cannot see-is Halmeur, an outer district of Settra."
The car swung through a forest and came out into a region of scattered 
farmsteads with the domes and spires of Settra on the sky ahead. A few minutes 
later the car entered a depot and rolled to a halt. The passengers alighted, and 
walked to a terrace. Here Dordolio said: "Now I must leave you. Across the Oval 
you will find the Travelers' Inn, to which I recommend you and where I will send 
a messenger with the sum of my debt." He paused and cleared his throat. "If a 
freak of destiny brings us together in another setting-for instance, you have 
evinced a somewhat unrealistic ambition to make yourself acquainted with the 
Blue Jade Lord-it might serve our mutual purposes were we not to recognize each 
other."
"I can think of no reason for wanting to do so," said Reith politely.
Dordolio glanced at him sharply, then made a formal salute. "I wish you good 
fortune." He walked off across the square, his strides lengthening as he went.
Reith turned to Traz and Anacho. "You two go to the Travelers' Inn, arrange for 
accommodations. I'm off to the Blue jade Palace. With any luck I'll arrive 
before Dordolio, who seems in a peculiar state of haste."
He walked to a line of motorized tricycles, climbed aboard the first in line. 
"The Blue Jade Palace, with all speed," he told the driver.
The mechanism spun off to the south, past buildings of glazed brick and dim 
glass panes, then into a district of small timber cottages, then past a great 
outdoor market, a scene as brisk and variegated as any Reith had observed in 
Cath. Turning aside, the motor-buggy nosed across an ancient stone bridge, 
through a portal in a stone wall into a large circular plaza. Around the 
periphery were booths, for the most part unoccupied and barren of goods; at the 
center a short ramp led up to a circular platform, at the back of which rose a 
bank of seats. A rectangular frame occupied the front of the platform, of 
dimensions which Reith found morbidly suggestive.
"What is this place?" he asked the driver, who gave him a glance of mild wonder.
"The Circle, site of Pathetic Communion, as you can see. You are a stranger in 
Settra?"
"Yes."
The driver consulted a yellow cardboard schedule. "The next event is Ivensday, 
when a nineteen-score comes to clarify his horrible desperation. Nineteen! The 
most since the twenty-two of Agate Crystal's Lord Wis."
"You mean he killed nineteen?"
"Of course; what else? Four were children, but still a feat these days when folk 
are wary of awaile. All Settra will come to the expiation. If you're still in 
town you could hardly do more for your own soul's profit."
"Probably so. How far to Blue Jade Palace?"
"Through Dalmere and we're almost there."
"I'm in a hurry," said Reith. "As fast as possible."
"Indeed sir, but if I wreck or injure, I'll feel extraordinary shame, to my 
soul's sickness, and I would not care to risk despondency."
"Understandable."
The motor-buggy spun along a wide boulevard, dodging and veering to avoid 
potholes. Enormous trees, black-trunked with brown and purple-green foliage, 
overhung the way; to either side, shrouded in dark gardens, were mansions of the 
most extraordinary architecture. The driver pointed. "Yonder on the hill: Blue 
Jade Palace. Which entrance do you favor, sir?" He inspected Reith quizzically.
"Drive to the front," said Reith. "Where else?"
"As you say, your lordship. Although most of the fronters don't arrive in 
three-wheel motor-buggies."
Up the driveway rolled the vehicle, and under a porte cochere the buggy halted. 
Paying the fare, Reith alighted upon a silken cloth laid under his feet by a 
pair of bowing footmen. Reith walked briskly through an open arch into a room 
paneled with mirrors. A myriad prisms of crystal hung tinkling on silver chains. 
A majordomo wearing russet velvet livery bowed deeply. "Your lordship is at 
home. Will you rest or take a cordial, though my Lord Cizante impatiently awaits 
the privilege of greeting you."
"I will see him at once; I am Adam Reith."
"Lord of which realm?"
"Tell Lord Cizante that I bring important information."
The majordomo looked at Reith uncertainly, his face twisting through a dozen 
subtle emotions. Reith understood that already he had committed gaucheries. No 
matter, he thought, the Blue Jade Lord will have to make allowance.
The majordomo signaled, a trifle less obsequiously than before. "Be good enough 
to come this way."
Reith was taken into a small court murmuring to a waterfall of luminous green 
liquid.
Two minutes passed. A young man in green knickers and an elegant waistcoat 
appeared. His face was wax pale, as if he never saw sunlight; his eyes were 
somber and brooding; under a loose four-corner cap of soft green velvet his hair 
was jet black: a man richly handsome, by some extraordinary means contriving to 
seem both effete and competent. He examined Reith with critical interest, and 
spoke in a dry voice. "Sir, you claim to have information for the Blue Jade 
Lord?"
"Yes. Are you he?"
"I am his aide. You may impart your information to me with assurance."
"I have news relating to the fate of his daughter," said Reith. "I prefer to 
speak to the Blue Jade Lord directly."
The aide made a curious mincing motion and disappeared. Presently he returned. 
"Your name, sir?"
"Adam Reith."
"Follow me, if you will."
He took Reith into a wainscoted room enameled a brownish ivory, lit by a dozen 
luminous prisms. At the far end stood a frail frowning man in an extravagant 
eight-piece suit of black and purple silk. His face was round, dark hair grew 
down his forehead in an elflock; his eyes were dark, far apart, and his tendency 
was to glance sidelong. The face, thought Reith, of a secretive suspicious man. 
He examined Reith with a compression of the lips.
"Lord Cizante," said the aide, "I bring you the gentleman Adam Reith, heretofore 
unknown, who, chancing past, was pleased to learn that you were in the 
vicinity."
There was an expectant silence. Reith understood that the circumstances demanded 
a ritual response. He said, "I am pleased, naturally, to find Lord Cizante in 
residence. I have only this hour arrived from Kotan."
Cizante's mouth tightened, and Reith knew that once again he had made a 
graceless remark.
Cizante spoke in a crisp voice. "Indeed. You have news regarding the Lady Shar 
Zarin?"
This was the Flower's court name. Reith responded in a voice as cool as 
Cizante's own. "Yes. I can give you a detailed account of her experiences, and 
her unfortunate death."
The Blue Jade Lord looked toward the ceiling and spoke without lowering his 
eyes. "You evidently claim the boon?"
The majordomo entered the room, whispered to the aide, who discreetly murmured 
to Lord Cizante.
"Curious!" declared Cizante. "One of the Gold and Carnelian scions, a certain 
Dordolio, likewise comes to claim the boon."
"Send him away," said Reith. "His knowledge of the matter is superficial, as you 
will learn."
"My daughter is dead?"
"I am sorry to say that she drowned herself, after an attack of psychic 
malaise."
The Lord's eyebrows rose more sharply than before. "She gave way to awaile?"
"I would suppose so."
"When and where did this take place?"
"Three weeks ago, aboard the cog Vargaz, halfway across the Draschade."
Lord Cizante dropped into a chair. Reith waited for an invitation to do 
likewise, but thought better of seating himself. Lord Cizante spoke in a dry 
voice: "Evidently she had suffered deep humiliation."
"I couldn't say. I helped her escape from the Priestesses of the Female Mystery; 
thereafter she was secure and under my protection. She was anxious to return to 
Cath and urged me to accompany her, assuring me of your friendship and 
gratitude. But as soon as we started eastward she became gloomy, and, as I say, 
halfway across the Draschade she threw herself overboard."
While Reith spoke Cizante's face had shifted through phases and degrees of 
various emotions. "So now," he said in a clipped voice, "with my daughter dead, 
after circumstances I do not care to imagine, you come hurrying here to claim 
the boon."
Reith said coldly, "I knew then and know nothing now of this 'boon.' I came to 
Cath for several reasons, the least important of which was to make myself known 
to you. I find you indisposed to what I consider civilized standards of courtesy 
and I will now leave." Reith gave a curt nod and started for the door. He turned 
back. "If you wish to learn further details regarding your daughter, consult 
Dordolio, whom we found stranded at Coad."
Reith left the room. The Lord's sibilant murmur reached his ears: "You are an 
uncouth fellow."
In the hall waited the majordomo, who greeted Reith with the faintest of smiles. 
He indicated a rather dim passageway painted red and blue. "This way, sir."
Reith paid him no heed. Crossing into the grand foyer, he left the way he had 
come.



CHAPTER SEVEN
REITH WALKED BACK toward the Oval, pondering the city Settra and the curious 
temperament of its people. He was forced to admit that the scheme to build a 
small spaceboat, which in far-off Pera had appeared at least feasible, now 
seemed impractical. He had expected gratitude and friendship from the Blue Jade 
Lord; he had encountered hostility. As to the technical abilities of the Yao, he 
was inclined to pessimism, and he fell to appraising the vehicles which passed 
along the street. They appeared to function satisfactorily, though giving the 
impression that flair and elegance, rather than efficiency, had been first in 
the minds of the designers. Energy derived from the ubiquitious power cells 
produced by the Dirdir; the coupling was not altogether quiet: an indication, so 
Reith considered, of careless or incompetent engineering. No two were alike; 
each seemed an individual construction.
Almost certainly, reflected Reith, the Yao technology was inadequate to his 
purposes. Without access to standard components, maxima-minima sets, integrated 
circuit blocks, structural forms, computers, Fourier analyzers, macro-gauss 
generators, a thousand other instruments, tools, gauges, standards, not to 
mention clever and dedicated technical personnel, the construction of even the 
crudest spaceboat became a stupendous task, impossible in a single lifetime ... 
He came to a small circular park, shadowed under tall psillas with shaggy black 
bark and leaves of russet paper. At the center rose a massive monument. A dozen 
male figures, each carrying an instrument or tool, danced in a dreadful ritual 
grace around a female form, who stood with arms raised high, upturned face 
twisted in some overpowering emotion. Reith could not identify her expression. 
Exultation? Agony? Grief? Beatification? Whatever the case, the monument was 
disturbing, and rasped at a dark corner of his mind like a mouse in the 
woodwork. The monument seemed very old, thousands of years? Reith could not be 
sure. A small girl and a somewhat younger boy came past. They paused first to 
study Reith; then gave fascinated attention to the gliding figures and their 
macabre instruments. Reith, in a somber mood, continued on his way and presently 
came to the Travelers' Inn. Neither Traz nor the Dirdirman were on the premises. 
They had, however, hired accommodations: a suite of four rooms overlooking the 
Oval.
Reith bathed, changed his linen. When he went down to the foyer, twilight had 
come to the Oval, which was now lit by a ring of great luminous globes in a 
variety of pastel colors. Traz and Anacho appeared on the other side of the 
Oval. Reith watched them with a wry grin. They were basically alien, like cat 
and dog; yet, when circumstances threw them together, they conducted themselves 
with cautious good-fellowship.
Anacho and Traz, so it developed, had chanced upon an area known as "the Mall," 
where cavaliers settled affairs of honor. In the course of the afternoon the two 
had watched three bouts: near-bloodless affairs, Traz reported with a sniff of 
scorn. "The ceremonies exhaust their energy," said Anacho. "After the addresses 
and the punctilio there is little time for fighting."
"The Yao, if anything, are more peculiar than the Dirdirman," said Reith.
"Ha ha! I dispute that! You know a single Dirdirman. I can show you a thousand 
and confuse you totally. But come; the refectory is around the corner. If 
nothing else, the Yao cuisine is satisfactory."
The three dined in a wide room hung with tapestries. As usual Reith could not 
identify what he ate, and did not care to learn. There was yellow broth, faintly 
sweet, with floating flakes of pickled bark; slices of pale meat layered with 
flower petals; a celery-like vegetable crusted with crumbs of a fiery-hot spice; 
cakes flavored with musk and resin; black berries with a flavor of the swamp; 
clear white wine which tingled the mouth.
In an adjacent tavern the three took after-dinner liquors. The clientele 
included many non-Yao folk, who seemed to use the place as a rendezvous. One of 
these, a tall old man in a leather bonnet, somewhat the worse for drink, peered 
into Reith's face. "But I'm wrong, for a fact. I thought you a Vect of Holangar; 
then I asked myself, where are his tongs? And I said, no, it is just another of 
the anomes who creep into Travelers' Inn for a sight of their own kind."
"I'd like a sight of my own kind," said Reith. "Nothing would please me more."
"Yes, isn't this the case? What sort are you, then? I can't put a name to your 
face."
"A wanderer from far lands."
"No farther than mine, which is the far coast of Vord, where Cape Dread holds 
back the Schanizade. I have seen sights, I tell you! Raids on Arkady! Battles 
with sea-folk! I remember an occasion when we drove into the mountains and 
destroyed the bandits ... I was a young man then and a great soldier; now I toil 
for the ease of the Yao, and earn my own ease thereby, and it is not so hard a 
life."
"I should suppose not. You are a technician?"
"Nothing so grand. I inspect wheels at the car yard."
"Many foreign technicians are at work in Settra?"
"True. Cath is comfortable enough, if you can overlook the vagaries of the Yao."
"What about Wankhmen? Are there any such in Settra?"
"At work? Never. When I sojourned at Ao Zalil, to the east of Lake Falas, I saw 
how it went. The Wankhmen will not even work for the Wankh; they have sufficient 
exertion pronouncing the Wankh chimes. Though usually they play the chords on 
remarkable little instruments."
"Who works in the Wankh shops? Blacks and Purples?"
"Bah! One might be forced to handle an article the other had touched. 
Back-country Lokhars for the most part work in the shops. For ten or twenty 
years, or longer, they toil, then they return to their villages rich men. 
Wankhmen at work in the shops? What a joke! They are as proud as Dirdirman 
Immaculates! I see a Dirdirman beside you tonight."
"Yes, he is my comrade."
"Odd to find a Dirdirman so common!" marveled the old man. "I have seen only 
three previously and all treated me like dirt." He drained his goblet, set it 
down with a rap. "Now I must leave; I bid all good evening, Dirdirman as well."
The old man departed. With almost the same swing of the door a pale black-haired 
young man dressed unobtrusively in dark blue broadcloth entered the tavern. 
Somewhere, thought Reith, he had seen this young man, and recently.. . Where? 
The man walked slowly, almost absentmindedly, along the passage beside the wall. 
He went to the serving counter, was poured a goblet of sharp syrup. As he turned 
away his gaze met that of Reith's. He nodded politely and after a moment's 
hesitation approached. Reith now recognized him for Cizante's pallid young aide.
"Good evening," said the young man. "Perhaps you recognize me? I am Helsse of 
Isan, a Blue jade connection. I believe that we met today."
"I had a few words with your master, true enough."
Helsse sipped from his goblet, made a fastidious grimace, placed the goblet on 
the bar. "Let's move to a more secluded place, where we can talk."
Reith spoke to Traz and Anacho, then turned back to Helsse. "Lead the way."
Helsse glanced casually toward the front entrance but chose to leave through the 
restaurant. As they departed Reith glimpsed a man thrusting into the tavern, to 
glare wildly around the room: Dordolio.
Helsse appeared not to notice. "Nearby is a little cabaret, not overly genteel, 
but as good as anywhere else for our talk."
The cabaret was a low-ceilinged room, lit by red and blue lamps with 
blue-painted booths around the periphery. A number of musicians sat on a 
platform, two of whom played small gongs and drum, while a male dancer strode 
sinuously this way and that. Helsse selected a booth near the door, as far as 
possible from the musicians; the two seated themselves on blue cushions. Helsse 
ordered two drams of "Wildwood Tincture" which were presently brought to the 
table.
The dancer departed, the musicians undertook a new selection, with instruments 
similar to oboe, flute, cello, and a kettledrum. Reith listened for a moment, 
puzzled by the plaintive scraping, the thumps of the kettledrum, the sudden 
excited trills of the flute.
Helsse leaned solicitously forward. "You are unfamiliar with Yao music? I 
thought as much. This is one of the traditional forms: a lament."
"It could never be mistaken for a cheerful composition."
"A question of degree." Helsse went on to list a series of musical forms, of 
decreasing optimism. "I do not mean to imply that the Yao are a dour folk; you 
need only attend one of the season balls to appreciate this."
"I doubt if I will be invited," said Reith.
The orchestra embarked upon another selection, a series of passionate phrases, 
taken up by each instrument at varying instants, to terminate in a wild 
sustained quaver. By some cross sensoral stimulus, Reith thought of the monument 
in the circular park. "The music bears some connection with your ritual of 
expiation?"
Helsse smiled distantly. "I have heard it said that the spirit of Pathetic 
Communion permeates the Yao psyche."
"Interesting." Reith waited. Helsse had not brought him here to discuss music.
"I trust that the events of this afternoon caused you no inconvenience?" asked 
Helsse.
"None whatever, other than irritation."
"You did not expect the boon?"
"I knew nothing of it. I expected ordinary courtesy, certainly. My reception by 
Lord Cizante, in retrospect, seems remarkable."
Helsse nodded sagely. "He is a remarkable man. But now he finds himself in an 
awkward position. Immediately upon your departure the cavalier Dordolio 
presented himself to denounce you as an interloper, and to demand the boon for 
himself. To be quite candid, such a proceeding, on Dordolio's terms, would 
embarrass Lord Cizante, when one takes all into consideration. You perhaps would 
not be aware that Blue Jade and Gold-Carnelian are rival houses. Lord Cizante 
suspects that Dordolio would use the boon to humiliate Blue Jade, with what 
consequences no one can foresee."
Reith asked: "Exactly what was the boon promised by Cizante?"
"Emotion overcame his reserve," said Helsse. "He declared: 'Whoever returns me 
my daughter or so much as brings me news, let him ask and I will fulfill as best 
I can.' Strong language, as you see, uttered only for the ears of Blue Jade, but 
the news circulated."
"It appears," said Reith, "that I do Cizante a favor by accepting his bounty."
"This is what we wish to ascertain," said Helsse carefully. "Dordolio has made a 
number of scurrilous statements in regard to you. He declares you a 
superstitious barbarian intent on reviving the 'cult.' If you demanded that Lord 
Cizante convert his palace into a temple and himself join the 'cult,' he might 
well prefer Dordolio's terms."
"Even though I appeared first on the scene?"
"Dordolio claims trickery, and is violently angry. But all this to the side, 
what might you demand of Lord Cizante, in light of the circumstances?"
Reith considered. Unfortunately, he could not afford the prideful luxury of 
refusal. "I'm not sure. I could use some unprejudiced advice, but I don't know 
where to find it."
"Try me," suggested Helsse.
"You are hardly unprejudiced."
"Much more than you might think."
Reith studied the pale handsome face, the still black eyes. A puzzling man was 
Helsse, the more so for his impersonality, neither cordial nor cold. He spoke 
with ostensible candor but permitted no inadvertent or unconscious signals to 
advertise the state of his inner self.
The orchestra had dispersed. To the platform came a somewhat obese man in a long 
maroon robe. Behind him sat a woman with long black hair plucking a lute. The 
man produced an ululating wail: half-words which Reith was unable to comprehend. 
"Another traditional melody?" he inquired.
Helsse shrugged. "A special mode of singing. It is not altogether without value. 
If everyone belabored themselves thusly, there would be far less awaile.'
Reith listened. "Judge me harshly, all," moaned the singer. "I have performed a 
terrible crime; it is because of my despair."
"Offhand," said Reith, "it seems absurd to discuss my best advantage over Lord 
Cizante with Cizante's aide."
"Ah, but your best advantage is not necessarily Lord Cizante's disadvantage," 
said Helsse. "With Dordolio the case is different."
"Lord Cizante showed me no great courtesy," mused Reith. "I am not anxious to do 
him a favor. On the other hand, I do not care to assist Dordolio, who calls me a 
superstitious barbarian."
"Lord Cizante was perhaps shocked by your news," suggested Helsse. "As for 
Dordolio's charge, it is obviously inaccurate and need no longer be considered."
Reith grinned. "Dordolio has known me a month; can you dispute him on the basis 
of such short acquaintance?"
If he had hoped to discomfit Helsse, he was unsuccessful. Helsse's smile was 
bland. "I am usually correct in my appraisals."
"Suppose that I were to make a set of apparently wild assertions: that Tschai 
was flat, that the tenets of the 'cult' were correct, that men could live 
underwater-what would become of your opinion?"
Helsse considered soberly. "Each case is different. If you told me Tschai was 
flat, I would certainly revise my judgment. If you argued the creed of the 
'cult,' I would suspend a decision and listen to your remarks, for here is a 
matter of opinion and no evidence exists, at least to my knowledge. If you 
insisted that men could live underwater I might be inclined to accept the 
statement as a working premise. After all, the Pnume submerge, as do the Wankh; 
why not men, perhaps with special equipment?"
"Tschai is not flat," said Reith. "Men are able to live underwater for short 
periods using artificial gills. I know nothing of the 'cult' or its doctrines."
Helsse sipped from his goblet of essence. The singer had departed; a dance 
troupe now came forth: men in black leggings and sleeves, nude from upper thigh 
to rib cage. Reith stared in fascination for a moment or two, then looked away.
"Traditional dances," explained Helsse, "relating to Pathetic Communion. This is 
'Precursory Movement of the Ministrants toward the Expiator."'
"The 'ministrants' are torturers?"
"They are those who provide latitude for absolute expiation. Many become popular 
heroes because of their passionate techniques." Helsse rose to his feet. "Come. 
You have implied at least a mild interest in the 'cult.' As it happens, I know 
the location of their meeting place, which is not far from here. If you are 
interested, I will take you there."
"If the visit is not contrary to the laws of Cath."
"No fear of that. Cath has no laws, only customs, which seems to suit the Yao 
well enough."
"Peculiar," said Reith. "Killing is not proscribed?"
"It offends custom, at least under certain circumstances. However, the 
professional assassins of the Guild and the Service Company work without public 
reproach. In general the folk of Cath do what they see fit and suffer more or 
less opprobrium. So you may visit the 'cult' and incur, at the worse, 
invective."
Reith rose to his feet. "Very well; lead the way."
They walked across the Oval, through a winding alley into a dim avenue. The 
eccentric silhouettes of the houses opposite leaned across the sky, where Az and 
Braz both ranged. Helsse rapped at a door displaying a pale blue phosphor. The 
two men waited in silence. The door opened a crack; a long-nosed face peered 
forth.
"Visitors," said Helsse. "May we come in?"
"You are associates? I must inform you that here is the district center for the 
Society of Yearning Refluxives."
"We are not associates. This gentleman is an outlander who wishes to learn 
something of the 'cult."'
"He is welcome and yourself as well, since you seem to have no concern for 
'place.' "
"None whatever."
"Which marks you either the highest of the high or the lowest of the low. Enter 
then. We have little entertainment to offer-convictions, a few theories, fewer 
facts." The Refluxive swept aside a curtain. "Enter."
Helsse and Reith stepped into a large low room. To one side, forlorn in so much 
vacant space, two men and two women sat drinking tea from iron pots.
The Refluxive made a half-obsequious, half-sardonic gesture. "Here we are; stare 
yourself full at the dreadful 'cult.' Have you ever seen anything less 
obstreperous?"
"The 'cult,"' said Helsse, somewhat sententiously, "is despised not for the look 
of its meeting halls, but for its provocative assumptions."
"'Assumptions' bah!" declared the Refluxive in a voice of peevish complaint. 
"The others persecute us but we are the chosen in knowledge."
Reith asked: "What, precisely, do you know?"
"We know that men are strangers to Tschai."
"How can you know this?" demanded Helsse. "Human history fades into murk."
"It is an intuitive Truth. We are equally certain that someday the Human Magi 
will call their seed back Home! And then what joy! Home is a world of bounty, 
with air that rejoices in the lungs, like the sweetest Iphthal wine! On Home are 
golden mountains crowned with opals and forests of dreams! Death is a strange 
accident, not a fate; all men wander with joy and peace for company, with 
delicious viands everywhere for the eating!"
"A delightful vision," said Helsse, "but do you not consider it somewhat 
conjectural? Or more properly, institutional dogma?"
"Possibly so," declared the stubborn Refluxive. "Still, dogma is not necessarily 
falsehood. These are revealed truths, and behold: the revealed image of Home!" 
He pointed to a world globe three feet in diameter hanging at eye-level.
Reith went to inspect the globe, tilting his head this way and that, trying to 
identify outline of sea and shore, finding here a haunting familiarity, there 
utter disparity. Helsse came to stand beside him. "What does it look like to 
you?" His voice was light and careless.
"Nothing in particular."
Helsse gave a soft grunt of mingled relief and perhaps disappointment, or so it 
seemed to Reith.
One of the women lifted her obese body from the bench and came forward. "Why not 
join the Society?" she wheedled. "We need new faces, new blood, to augment the 
vast new tide. Won't you help us make contact with Home?"
Reith laughed. "Is there a practical method?"
"To be sure! Telepathy! Indeed, we have no other recourse."
"Why not a spaceship?"
The woman seemed bewildered, and looked sharply to see if Reith was serious. 
"Where could we lay our hands on a spaceship?"
"They are nowhere to be bought? Even a small one?"
"I have never heard of such a case."
"Nor I," was Helsse's dry comment.
"Where would we fare?" demanded the woman, half truculently. "Home is situated 
in the constellation Clari, but space is vast; we would drift forever."
"The problems are large," Reith agreed. "Still, assuming that your premise is 
correct-"
" 'Assume'? 'Premise'?" demanded the fat woman in a shocked voice. 'Revelation,' 
rather."
"Possibly so. But mysticism is not a practical approach to space travel. Let us 
suppose that by one means or another, you find yourself in command of a 
spaceship, then you might very easily verify the basis of your belief. Simply 
fly into the constellation Clari, halting at appropriate intervals to monitor 
the area for radio signals. Sooner or later, if the world Home exists, a 
suitable instrument will detect the signals."
"Interesting," said Helsse. "You assume that such a world, if it exists, is 
sufficiently advanced to propagate these signals?"
Reith shrugged. "Since we're assuming the world, why not assume the signals?"
Helsse had nothing to say. The Refluxive declared, "Ingenious but superficial! 
How, for instance, would we obtain a spaceship?"
"With sufficient funds and technical competence you could build a small vessel."
"To begin with," said the Refluxive, "we have no such funds."
"The least of the difficulties, or so I would think," murmured Helsse.
"The second possibility is to buy a small boat from one of the spacefaring 
peoples: the Dirdir, the Wankh, or perhaps even the Blue Chasch."
"Again a question of sequins," said the Refluxive. "How much would a spaceboat 
cost?"
Reith looked at Helsse, who pursed his lips. "Half a million sequins, should 
anyone be willing to sell, which I doubt."
"The third possibility is the most direct," said Reith. "Confiscation, pure and 
simple."
"Confiscation? From whom? Though members of the 'cult' we are not yet lunatics."
The fat woman gave a sniff of disapproval. "The man is a wild romantic."
The Refluxive said gently, "We would gladly accept you as an associate, but you 
must discover orthodox methodology. Classes in thought control and projective 
telepathy are offered twice a week, on Ilsday and Azday. If you care to attend-"
"I'm afraid that this is impossible," said Reith. "But your program is 
interesting and I hope it brings fruitful returns."
Helsse made a courteous sign; the two departed.
They walked along the quiet avenue in silence. Then Helsse inquired: "What is 
your opinion now?"
"The situation speaks for itself," said Reith.
"You are convinced then that their doctrine is implausible?"
"I would not go quite so far. Scientists have undoubtedly found biological links 
between Pnume, Phung, night-hounds, and other indigenous creatures. Blue Chasch, 
Green Chasch, and Old Chasch are similarly related, as are all the races of man. 
But Pnume, Wankh, Chasch, Dirdir, and Man are biologically distinct. What does 
this suggest to you?"
"I agree that the circumstances are puzzling. Have you any explanation?"
"I feel that more facts are needed. Perhaps the Refluxives will become adept 
telepathists, and surprise us all."
Helsse walked along in silence. They turned a corner. Reith pulled Helsse to a 
halt. "Quiet!" He waited.
The shuffle of footsteps sounded; a dark shape rounded the corner. Reith seized 
the figure, spun it around, applied an arm and neck lock. Helsse made one or two 
tentative motions; Reith, trusting no one, kept him in his field of vision. 
"Make a light," said Reith. "Let's see whom we have. Or what."
Helsse brought forth a glow-bulb, held it up. The captive squirmed, kicked, 
lurched; Reith tightened his grip and felt the snap of a bone, but the figure, 
sagging, toppled Reith off balance. From the unseen face came a hiss of triumph; 
it snatched itself free. Then, to a flicker of metal, it gave a gasp of pain.
Helsse held up his glow-bulb, disengaged his dagger from the back of the 
twitching shape, while Reith stood by, mouth twisted in disapproval. "You are 
quick with your blade."
Helsse shrugged. "His kind carry stings." He turned the body over with his foot; 
a small tinkle sounded as a glass sliver fell against the stone.
The two peered curiously into the white face, half-shrouded under the brim of an 
extravagantly wide black hat.
"He hats himself like a Pnumekin," said Helsse, "and he is pale as a ghost."
"Or a Wankhman," said Reith.
"But I think he is something different from either; what, I could not say. 
Perhaps a hybrid, a mingling, which, so it is said, makes the best personnel for 
spy work."
Reith dislodged the hat, to reveal a stark bald pate. The face was fine-boned, 
somewhat loosely-muscled; the nose was thin and limber and terminated in a lump. 
The eyes, half-open, seemed to be black. Bending close, Reith thought that the 
scalp had been shaven.
Helsse looked uneasily up and down the street. "Come, we must hurry away, before 
the patrol finds us and issues an information."
"Not so fast," said Reith. "No one is near. Hold the light; stand yonder, where 
you can see along the street." Helsse reluctantly obeyed and Reith was able to 
watch him sidelong as he searched the corpse. The garments had a queer musky 
odor; Reith's stomach jerked as he felt here and there. From an inner pocket of 
the cloak he took a clip of paper. At the belt hung a soft leather pouch, which 
he detached.
"Come!" hissed Helsse. "We must not be discovered, we would lose all 'place."'
They proceeded back to the Oval and across to the Travelers' Inn. In the arcade 
before the entrance they paused. "The evening was interesting," said Reith. "I 
learned a great deal."
"I wish I could say the same," said Helsse. "What did you take from the dead 
man?"
Reith displayed the pouch, which contained a handful of sequins. He brought 
forth the clip of paper, and the two examined it in the light streaming out of 
the inn, to find rows of a peculiar writing: a series of rectangles, variously 
shaded and marked.
Helsse looked at Reith. "Do you recognize this script?"
"No."
Helsse gave a short sharp bark of laughter. "It is Wankh."
"Hm. What would be the significance of this?"
"Simply more mystery. Settra is a hive of intrigue. Spies are everywhere."
"And spy devices? Microphones? Eye-cells?"
"It is safe to assume as much."
"Then it would be safe to assume that the Refluxive's hall is monitored ... 
Perhaps I was too free with advice."
"If the dead man were the monitor, your words are now lost. But allow me to take 
custody of the notes. I will have them translated; there is a colony of Lokhars 
nearby and some of them have a smattering of Wankh."
"We will go together," said Reith. "Will tomorrow suit you?"
"Well enough," said Helsse glumly. He looked off across the Oval. "Finally then: 
what must I tell Lord Cizante as to the boon?"
"I don't know," said Reith. "I'll have an answer tomorrow."
"The situation may be clarified even sooner," said Helsse. "Here is Dordolio."
Reith swung around, to find Dordolio striding toward him, followed by two suave 
cavaliers. Dordolio was clearly in a fury. He halted a yard in front of Reith 
and, thrusting forth his head, blurted: "With your vicious tricks, you have 
ruined me! Have you no shame?" He took off his hat, hurled it into Reith's face. 
Reith stepped aside, the hat went wheeling off into the Oval.
Dordolio shook his finger in Reith's face; Reith backed away a step. "Your death 
is assured," bellowed Dordolio. "But not by the honor of my sword! Low-caste 
assassins will drown you in cattle excrement! Twenty pariahs will drub your 
corpse! A cur will drag your head along the street by the tongue!"
Reith managed a painful grin. "Cizante will arrange the same for you, at my 
request. It's as good a boon as any."
"Cizante, bah! A wicked parvenu, a moping invert. Blue Jade shall be nothing; 
the fall of that palace will culminate the 'round'!"
Helsse came slightly forward. "Before you enlarge upon your remarkable 
assertions, be advised that I represent the House of Blue Jade, and that I will 
be impelled to report to his Excellency Lord Cizante the substance of your 
comments."
"Do not bore me with triviality!" stormed Dordolio. He furiously motioned to 
Reith. "Fetch my hat, or tomorrow expect the first of the Twelve Touches!"
"A small concession," said Reith, "if it ensures your departure." He picked up 
Dordolio's hat, shook it once or twice, handed it to him. "Your hat, which you 
threw across the square." He stepped around Dordolio, entered the foyer of the 
inn. Dordolio gave a somewhat subdued caw of laughter, slapped his hat against 
his thigh, and, signaling his comrades, walked away.
In the foyer of the inn Reith asked Helsse, "What are the 'Twelve Touches'?"
"At intervals-perhaps a day, perhaps two days-an assassin will tap the victim 
with a twig. The twelfth touch is fatal; the man dies. By accumulated poison, by 
a single final dose, or by morbid suggestion, only the Assassins' Guild knows. 
And now I must return to Blue Jade. Lord Cizante will be interested in my 
report."
"What do you intend to tell him?"
Helsse only laughed. "You, the most secretive of men, asking me that! Still, 
Cizante will hear that you have agreed to accept a boon, that you probably will 
soon be departing Cath-"
"I said nothing of this!"
"It will still be an element of my report."



CHAPTER EIGHT
REITH AWOKE TO Wan sunlight shining through the heavy amber panes of the 
windows. He lay on the unfamiliar couch, collecting the threads of his 
existence. It was difficult not to feel a profound gloom. Cath, where he had 
hoped to find flexibility, enlightenment, and perhaps cooperation, was hardly 
less harsh an environment than the Aman Steppe. It was obvious folly to dream of 
building a spaceboat in Settra.
Reith sat up on the couch. He had known horror, grief, disillusionment, but 
there had been corresponding moments of triumph and hope, even a few spasmodic 
instants of joy. If he were to die tomorrow-or in twelve days after twelve 
"touches"-he had already lived a miraculous life. Very well then, he would put 
his destiny to the test. Helsse had predicted his departure from Cath; Helsse 
had read the future, or Reith's own personality, more accurately than Reith 
himself.
Breakfasting with Traz and Anacho he described his adventures of the previous 
evening. Anacho found the circumstances perturbing. "This is an insane society, 
constrained by punctilio as a rotten egg is held by its shell. Whatever your 
aims-and sometimes I think that you are the most flamboyant lunatic of all--they 
will not be achieved here."
"I agree."
"Well then," said Traz, "what next?"
"What I plan is dangerous, perhaps rash folly. But I see no other alternative. I 
intend to ask Cizante for money; this we shall share. Then I think it best that 
we separate. You, Traz, might do worse than to return to Wyness, and there make 
a life for yourself. Perhaps Anacho will do the same. Neither of you can profit 
by coming with me; in fact, I guarantee the reverse."
Anacho looked off across the square. "Until now you have managed to survive, if 
precariously. I find myself curious as to what you hope to achieve. With your 
permission, I will join your expedition, which I suspect is by no means as 
desperate as you make it out to be."
"I intend to confiscate a Wankh spaceship from the Ao Hidis spaceport, or 
elsewhere, if it seems more convenient."
Anacho threw his hands in the air. "I feared no less." He proceeded to state a 
hundred objections which Reith did not trouble to contradict. "All very true; I 
will end my days in a Wankh dungeon or a nighthound's belly; still this is what 
I intend to attempt. I strongly urge that you and Traz make your way to the 
Isles of Cloud and live as best you may."
"Bah," snorted Anacho. "Why won't you attempt some reasonable exploit, like 
exterminating the Pnume, or teaching the Chasch to sing?"
"I have other ambitions."
"Yes, yes, your faraway planet, the home of man. I am tempted to help you, if 
only to demonstrate your lunacy."
"As for me," said Traz, "I would like to see this far world. I know it exists, 
because I saw the spaceboat in which Adam Reith arrived."
Anacho inspected the youth with eyebrows raised. "You have not mentioned this 
previously."
"You never asked."
"How might such an absurdity enter my mind?"
"A person who calls facts absurdities will often be surprised," said Traz.
"But at least he has organized the cosmic relationship into categories, which 
sets him apart from animals and sub-men."
Reith intervened. "Come now; let's put our energies to work, since you both seem 
bent on suicide. Today we seek information. And here is Helsse, bringing us 
important news, or so it appears from his aspect."
Helsse approached and gave a polite greeting. "Last night, as you may imagine, I 
had much to report to Lord Cizante. He urges that you make some reasonable 
request, which he will be glad to fulfill. He recommends that we destroy the 
papers taken from the spy and I am inclined to agree. If you acquiesce, Lord 
Cizante may grant further concessions."
"Of what nature?"
"He does not specify, but I suspect he has in mind a certain slackening of 
protocol in regard to your presence in Blue Jade Palace."
"I am more interested in the documents than in Lord Cizante. If he wants to see 
me he can come here to the inn."
Helsse gave a brittle chuckle. "Your response is no surprise. If you are ready I 
will conduct you to South Ebron where we will find a Lokhar."
"There are no Yao scholars who read the Wankh language?"
"Such facility would seem pointless expertise."
"Until someone wanted a document translated."
Helsse gave an indifferent twitch. "At this play of the 'round,' Utilitarianism 
is an alien philosophy. Lord Cizante, for instance, would find your arguments 
not only incomprehensible but disgusting."
"We shall never argue the matter," said Reith equably.
Helsse had come in an extremely elegant equipage: a blue carriage with six 
scarlet wheels and a profusion of golden festoons. The interior was like a 
luxurious drawing room, with gray-green wainscoting, a pale gray carpet, an 
arched ceiling covered with green silk. The chairs were deeply upholstered; to 
the side, under the windows of pale green glass, a buffet offered trays of 
sweetmeats. Helsse ushered his guests into the car with the utmost politeness; 
today he wore a suit of pale green and gray, as if to blend himself into the 
decor of the carriage.
When all were seated, he touched a button to close the door and retract the 
steps. Reith observed, "Lord Cizante, while deriding utilitarianism as a 
doctrine, apparently does not flout its applications."
"You refer to the door-closing mechanism? He is not aware that it exists. 
Someone is always at hand to touch the button for him. Like others of his class 
he touches objects only in play or pleasure. You find this odd? No matter. You 
must accept the Yao gentry as you find them."
"Evidently you do not regard yourself as a member of the Yao gentry."
Helsse laughed. "More tactful might be the conjecture that I enjoy what I am 
doing." He spoke into a mesh. "To the South Ebron Mercade."
The carriage eased into motion. Helsse poured goblets of syrup and proffered 
sweetmeats. "You are about to visit our commercial district; the source of our 
wealth, in fact, though it is considered vulgar to discuss it."
"Strange," mused Anacho. "Dirdir, at the highest level, are never so 
hoity-toity."
"They are a different race," said Helsse. "Superior? I am not convinced. The 
Wankh would never agree, should they trouble to examine the concept."
Anacho gave a contemptuous shrug but said no more.
The carriage rolled through a market area: the Mercade, then into a district of 
small dwellings, in a wonderful diversity of style. At a cluster of squat brick 
towers the carriage halted. Helsse pointed to a nearby garden where sat a dozen 
men of spectacular appearance. They wore white shirts and trousers, their hair, 
long and abundant, was also white; in striking contrast to the lusterless black 
of their skins. "Lokhars," said Helsse. "Migrating mechanics from the highlands 
north of Lake Falas in Central Kislovan. That is not their natural coloration; 
they bleach their hair and dye their skin. Some say the Wankh enforced the 
custom upon them thousands of years ago to differentiate them from Wankhmen, who 
of course are white-skinned and black-haired. In any event, they come and go, 
working where they gain the highest return, for they are a remarkably avaricious 
folk. Some, after laboring in the Wankh shops, have migrated north to Cath; a 
few of these know a chime or two of Wankh-talk and occasionally can puzzle out 
the sense of Wankh documents. Notice the old man yonder playing with the child; 
he is reckoned as adept in Wankh as any. He will demand a large sum for his 
efforts, and in order to forestall even more exorbitant demands in the future I 
must haggle with him. If you will be good enough to wait, I will go to make the 
arrangements."
"A moment," said Reith. "At a conscious level I am convinced of your integrity, 
but I can't control my instinctive suspicions. Let us make the arrangement 
together."
"As you wish," said Helsse graciously. "I will send the chauffeur for the man." 
He spoke into the mesh.
Anacho murmured, "If the arrangements were already made, the qualms of a 
trusting person might easily be drugged."
Helsse nodded judiciously. "I believe I can assuage your anxieties."
A moment later the old man sauntered up to the carriage.
"Inside, if you please," said Helsse.
The old man poked his white-maned face through the door. "My time is valuable; 
what do you want of me?"
"A matter for your profit."
"Profit, eh? I can at least listen." He entered the carriage, and seated himself 
with a comfortable grunt. The air took on the odor of a spicy, slightly rancid 
pomade. Helsse stood in front of him. With a side glance toward Reith he said, 
"Our arrangement is canceled. Do not heed my instructions."
" 'Arrangement'? 'Instructions'? What are you talking about? You must mistake me 
for another. I am Zarfo Detwiler."
Helsse made an easy gesture. "It's all one. We want you to translate a Wankh 
document for us, the guide to a treasure hoard. Translate correctly, you shall 
share the booty."
"No, no, none of that." Zarfo Detwiler waved a black finger. "I'll share the 
booty with pleasure; additionally I want a hundred sequins, and no 
recriminations if I fail to satisfy you."
"No recriminations, agreed. But a hundred sequins for possibly nothing? 
Ridiculous. Here: five sequins and eat your fill of the expensive sweetmeats."
"That last I'll do anyway; am I not your invited guest?" Zarfo Detwiler popped a 
handful of dainties into his mouth. "You must think me a moon-calf to offer but 
five sequins. Only three persons in Settra can so much as tell you which side of 
a Wankh ideogram is up. I alone can read meaning, by virtue of thirty toilsome 
years in the Ao Hidis machine shops."
The haggling proceeded; Zarfo Detwiler eventually agreed to fifty sequins and a 
tenth share of the assumptive spoils. Helsse signaled Reith, who produced the 
documents.
Zarfo Detwiler took the papers, squinted, frowned, ran his fingers through his 
white mane. He looked up and spoke somewhat ponderously: "I will instruct you in 
Wankh communication at no charge. The Wankh are a peculiar folk, totally unique. 
Their brain works in pulses. They see in pulses and think in pulses. Their 
speech comes in a pulse, a chime of many vibrations which carries all the 
meaning of a sentence. Each ideogram is equivalent to a chime, which is to say, 
a whole unit of meaning. For this reason, to read Wankh is as much a matter of 
divination as logic; one must enunciate an entire meaning with each ideogram. 
Even the Wankhmen are not always accurate. Now this matter you have here-let me 
see. This first chimehm. Notice this comb? It usually signifies an equivalence, 
an identity. A square of this texture shading off to the right sometimes means 
'truth' or 'verified perception' or 'situation' or perhaps 'present condition of 
the cosmos.' These marks-I don't know. This bit of shading-I think it's a person 
talking. Since it's at the bottom, the base tone in the chord, it would seem 
that-yes, this trifle here indicates positive volition. These marks--hm. Yes, 
these are organizers, which specify the order and emphasis of the other 
elements. I can't understand them; I can only guess at the total sense. 
Something like 'I wish to report that conditions are identical or unchanged' or 
'A person is anxious to specify that the cosmos is stable.' Something of the 
sort. Are you sure that this is information regarding treasure?"
"It was sold to us on this basis."
"Hm." Zarfo pulled at his long black nose. "Let me see. This second symbol: 
notice this shading and this bit of an angle? One is 'vision'; the other is 
'negation.' I can't read the organizers, but it might mean 'blindness' or 
'invisibility...' "
Zarfo continued his lucubrations, poring over each ideogram, occasionally 
tracing out a fragment of meaning, more often confessing failure, and becoming 
ever more restive. "You have been gulled," he said at last. "I'm certain there 
is no mention of money or treasure. I believe this is no more than a commercial 
report. It seems to say, as close as I can fathom: 'I wish to state that 
conditions are the same.' Something about peculiar wishes, or hopes, or 
volitions. 'I will presently see the dominant man, the leader of our group.' 
Something unknown. 'The leader is not helpful,' or perhaps 'stays aloof.' 'The 
leader slowly changes, or metamorphoses, to the enemy.' Or perhaps, 'The leader 
slowly changes to become like the enemy.' Change of some sort-I can't 
understand. 'I request more money.' Something about arrival of a newcomer or 
stranger 'of utmost importance.' That's about all."
Reith thought to sense an almost imperceptible relaxation in Helsse's manner.
"No great illumination," said Helsse briskly. "Well, you have done your best. 
Here is your twenty sequins."
"'Twenty sequins'!" roared Zarfo Detwiler. "The price agreed was fifty! How can 
I buy my bit of meadowland if I am constantly cheated?"
"Oh very well, if you choose to be niggardly."
"Niggardly, indeed! Next time read the message yourself."
"I could do as well, for all the help you've given us."
"You were duped. That is no guide to treasure."
"Apparently not. Well then, good day to you."
Reith followed Zarfo from the carriage. He looked back in at Helsse. "I'll 
remain here, for a word or two with this gentleman."
Helsse was not pleased. "We must discuss another matter. It is necessary that 
the Blue Jade Lord receives information."
"This afternoon I will have a definite answer for you."
Helsse gave a curt nod. "As you wish."
The carriage departed, leaving Reith and the Lokhar standing in the street. 
Reith said, "Is there a tavern nearby? Perhaps we can chat over a bottle."
"I am a Lokhar," snorted the black-skinned old man. "I do not addle my brains 
and drain my pockets with drink; not before noon, at any rate. However you may 
buy me a fine Zam sausage, or a clut of headcheese."
"With pleasure."
Zarfo led the way to a food shop; the two men took their purchases to a table on 
the street.
"I am amazed by your ability to read the ideograms," said Reith. "Where did you 
learn?"
"At Ao Hidis. I worked as a die cutter beside an old Lokhar who was a true 
genius. He taught me to recognize a few chimes, and showed me where the shadings 
matched intensity vibrations, where sonority equated with shape, where the 
various chord components matched texture and gradation. Both the chimes and the 
ideograms are regular and rational, once the eye and the ear are tuned. But the 
tuning is difficult." Zarfo took a great bite of sausage. "Needless to say, the 
Wankhmen discourage such learning; if they suspect a Lokhar of diligent study, 
he is discharged. Oh, they are a crafty lot! They jealously guard their role as 
intercessors between the Wankh and the world of men. A devious folk! The women 
are strangely beautiful, like black pearls, but cruel and cold, and not prone to 
dalliance."
"The Wankh pay well?"
"Like everyone else, as little as possible. But we are forced to concede. If 
labor costs rose, they would take slaves, or train Blacks and Purples, one or 
the other. We would then lose employment and perhaps our freedom as well. So we 
strive without too much complaint, and seek more profitable employment elsewhere 
once we are skilled."
"It is highly likely," said Reith, "that the Yao Helsse, in the gray and green 
suit, will ask what we discussed. He may even offer you money."
Zarfo bit off a chunk of sausage. "I shall naturally tell all, if I am paid 
enough."
"In that case," said Reith, "our conversation must deal in pleasantries, 
profitless to both of us."
Zarfo chewed thoughtfully. "How much profit had you in mind?"
"I don't care to specify, since you would only ask Helsse for more, or try to 
extract the same from both of us."
Zarfo sighed dismally. "You have a sorry opinion of the Lokhar. Our word is our 
bond; once we strike a bargain we do not deviate."
The haggling continued on a more or less cordial level until for the sum of 
twenty sequins Zarfo agreed to guard the privacy of the conversation as fiercely 
as he might the hiding place of his money, and the sum was paid over.
"Back to the Wankh message for a moment," said Reith. "There were references to 
a 'leader.' Were there hints or clues by which to identify him?"
Zarfo pursed his lips. "A wolf-tone indicating high-level gentry; another 
honorific brevet which might signify something like 'a person of the excellent 
sort' or 'in your own image,' 'of your sort.' It is very difficult. A Wankh 
reading the ideogram would understand a chime, which then would stimulate a 
visual image complete in essential details. The Wankh would be furnished a 
mental image of the person, but for someone like myself there are only crude 
outlines. I can tell no more."
"You work in Settra?"
"Alas. A man of my years and impoverished: isn't it a pity?
But I near my goal, and then back to Smargash, in Lokhara, for a bit of meadow, 
a young wife, a comfortable chair by the hearth."
"You worked in the space shops at Ao Hidis?"
"Yes, indeed; I transferred from the tool works to the space shops, where I 
repaired and installed air purifiers."
"Lokhar mechanics must be very skillful, then."
"Oh, indeed."
"Certain mechanics specialize upon the installation of, say, controls and 
instruments?"
"Naturally. Complex trades, both."
"Have such mechanics immigrated to Settra?"
Zarfo gave Reith a calculating glance. "How much is the information worth to 
you?"
"Control your avarice," said Reith. "No more money today. Another sausage, if 
you like."
"Later, perhaps. Now as to the mechanics: in Smargash are dozens, hundreds, 
retired after lifetimes of toil."
"Could they be tempted to join in a dangerous venture?"
"No doubt, if the danger were scant and the profit high. What do you propose?"
Reith threw caution to the winds. "Assume that someone wished to confiscate a 
Wankh spaceship and fly it to an unspecified destination: how many specialists 
would be required, and how much would it cost to hire them?"
Zarfo, to Reith's relief, did not stare in bewilderment or shock. He gnawed for 
a moment at the last of the sausage. Then, after a belch, he said, "I believe 
that you are asking if I consider the exploit feasible. It has often been 
discussed in a jocular manner, and for a fact the ships are not stringently 
guarded. The project is feasible. But why should you want a spaceship? ,I do not 
care to visit the Dirdir on Sibol or test the infinity of the universe."
"I can't discuss the destination."
"Well then, how much money do you offer?"
"My plans have not progressed to that stage. What do you consider a suitable 
fee?"
"To risk life and freedom? I would not stir for less than fifty thousand 
sequins."
Reith rose to his feet. "You have your fifty sequins; I have my information. I 
trust you to keep my secret."
Zarfo sat sprawled back in his chair. "Now then, not so fast. After all I am old 
and my life is not worth so much after all. Thirty thousand? Twenty? Ten?"
"The figure starts to become practical. How much of a crew will we need?"
"Four or five more, possibly six. You envision a long voyage?"
"As soon as we are in space, I will reveal our destination. Ten thousand sequins 
is only a preliminary payment. Those who go with me will return with wealth 
beyond their dreams."
Zarfo rose to his feet. "When do you propose to leave?"
"As soon as possible. Another matter: Settra is overrun with spies; it's 
important that we attract no attention."
Zarfo gave a hoarse laugh. "So this morning you approach me in a vast carriage, 
worth thousands of sequins. A man watches us even now."
"I've been noticing him. But he seems too obvious to be a spy. Well, then, where 
shall we meet, and when?"
"Upon the stroke of midmorning tomorrow, at the stall of Upas the spice merchant 
in the Cercade. Be certain you are not followed ... That fellow yonder I believe 
to be an assassin, from the style of his garments."
The man at this moment approached their table. "You are Adam Reith?"
"Yes."
"I regret to say that the Security Assassination Company has accepted a contract 
made out in your name: the Death of the Twelve Touches. I will now administer 
the first inoculation. Will you be so good as to bare your arm? I will merely 
prick you with this splint."
Reith backed away. "I'll do nothing of the sort."
"Depart!" Zarfo Detwiler told the assassin. "This man is worth ten thousand 
sequins to me alive; dead, nothing."
The assassin ignored Zarfo. To Reith he said, "Please do not make an undignified 
display. The process then becomes protracted and painful for us all. So then-"
Zarfo roared: "Stand away; have I not warned you?" He snatched up a chair and 
struck the assassin to the ground. Zarfo was not yet satisfied. He picked up the 
splint, jabbed it into the back of the man's thigh, through the rust-ocher 
corduroy of his trousers. "Halt!" wailed the assassin. "That is Inoculation 
Number One!"
Zarfo seized a handful of splints from the splayed-open wallet. "And here," he 
roared, "are numbers Two to Twelve!" And with a foot on the man's neck he thrust 
the handful into the twitching buttocks. "There you are, you knave! Do you want 
the next episode, Numbers Thirteen to Twenty-four?"
"No, no, let me be; I am a dead man now!"
"If not, you're a cheat as well as an assassin!"
Passersby had halted to watch. A portly woman in pink silk rushed forward. "You 
hairy black villain, what are you doing to that poor assassin? He is only a 
workman at his trade!"
Zarfo picked up the assassin's work sheet, looked down the list. "Hm. It appears 
that your husband is next on his list."
The woman looked with startled eyes after the assassin now tottering off down 
the street.
"Time we were leaving," said Reith.
They walked through back alleys to a small shed, screened from the street by a 
lattice of woven withe. "It is the neighborhood corpsehouse," said Zarfo. "No 
one will bother us here."
Reith entered, looked gingerly around the black benches on one of which lay the 
hulk of a small animal.
"Now then," said Zarfo, "who is your enemy?"
"I suspect a certain Dordolio," said Reith. "I can't be sure."
Zarfo scrutinized the work sheet. "Well, we shall see. 'Adam Reith, the 
Travelers' Inn-Contract Number Two-three-o-five, Style Eighteen; prepaid.' Dated 
today, surcharged 'Rush.' Prepaid, eh? Well then, let us try a ruse. Back to my 
cottage."
He took Reith to one of the brick towers, entered by an arched doorway. On a 
table rested a telephone. Zarfo lifted the instrument with cautious fingers. 
"Connect me with the Security Assassination Company."
A grave voice spoke. "We are here to serve your needs."
"I refer to Contract Number Two-three-o-five," said Zarfo, "relating to a 
certain Adam Reith. I can't find the estimate and I wish to pay the charges."
"A moment, my lord."
The voice presently returned. "The contract was prepaid, my lord; and was 
scheduled for execution this morning."
"Prepaid? Impossible. I did not prepay. What is the name on the receipt?"
"The name is Helsse Izam. I'm sure there is no mistake, sir."
"Perhaps not. I'll discuss the matter with the person involved."
"Thank you, sir, for your custom."



CHAPTER NINE
REITH RETURNED TO the Travelers' Inn, and with a certain trepidation, entered 
the foyer where he found Traz. "What has occurred, if anything?"
Traz, the most lucid and decisive of individuals, was less deft when it came to 
communicating a mood. "The Yao-Helsse, is that his name? became silent after you 
left the carriage. Perhaps he found us strange company. He told us that tonight 
we would dine with the Blue Jade Lord, that he would come early to instruct us 
in decorum. Then he drove off in the carriage."
A perplexing sequence of events, reflected Reith. An interesting point: the 
contract had specified Twelve Touches. If his death were urgently required, a 
knife, a bullet, an energy bolt would serve the purpose. But the first of twelve 
injections? A device to stimulate haste?
"Many things are happening," he told Traz. "Events I don't pretend to 
understand."
"The sooner we leave Settra the better," gloomed Traz.
"Agreed."
Anacho the Dirdirman appeared, freshly barbered and splendid in a new 
high-collared black jacket, pale blue trousers, scarlet ankle-high slippers with 
modish upturned toes. Reith took the two to a secluded alcove and described the 
events of the day. "So now we need only money, which I hope to extract from 
Cizante tonight."
The hours of the afternoon passed slowly. At last Helsse appeared, wearing a 
modish suit of canary yellow velvet. He gave polite greetings to the group. "You 
are enjoying your visit to Cath?"
"Indeed yes," said Reith. "I have never felt so relaxed."
Helsse maintained his aplomb. "Excellent. Now, in regard to this evening, Lord 
Cizante suspects that you and your friends might find a formal dinner somewhat 
tedious. He recommends rather a casual and unstructured tiffin, at a time to 
suit your convenience: now, if you so desire."
"We are ready," said Reith. "But, to anticipate any misunderstanding, please 
remember that we insist upon a dignified reception. We do not intend to slink 
into the palace by a back entrance."
Helsse made an easy gesture. "For a casual occasion, casual protocol. That's our 
rule."
"I will be specific," said Reith. "Our 'place' demands that we use the front 
entrance. If Lord Cizante objects, then he must meet us elsewhere: perhaps at 
the tavern around the Oval."
Helsse uttered an incredulous laugh. "He would as soon don a buffoon's cap and 
cut capers in Merrymaker's Round!" He shook his head dolefully. "To avoid 
difficulties we will use the front entrance; after all what difference does it 
make?"
Reith laughed. "Especially since Cizante has ordered us brought in by the 
scullery and will assume that this is how we entered ... Well, it's a fair 
compromise. Let's go."
The trip to Blue Jade Palace was made in a sleek black landau. At Helsse's 
instructions it drove up to the formal portal. Helsse alighted, and with a 
thoughtful glance along the faade of the palace, conducted the three outlanders 
through the main portal and into the great foyer. He muttered a few words to a 
footman, then ushered the three up a flight of shallow stairs, into a small 
green and gold salon overlooking the courtyard.
Lord Cizante was nowhere to be seen.
"Please be seated," said Helsse affably. "Lord Cizante will be with you 
shortly." He gave a jerk of the head and departed the chamber.
Several minutes passed, then Lord Cizante appeared. He wore a long white gown, 
white slippers, a black skullcap. His face was petulant and brooding; he looked 
from face to face. "Which is the man to whom I spoke before?"
Helsse muttered in his ear; he turned to face Reith. "I see. Well then, make 
yourself easy. Helsse, you have ordered a suitable refreshment?"
"Indeed, your Excellency."
A footman rolled in a buffet and offered trays of sweet wafers, saltbarks, cubes 
of spiced meat, decanters of wine, flagons of essence. Reith accepted wine; Traz 
a goblet of syrup. Anacho took green essences; Lord Cizante selected a stick of 
incense and walked back and forth, jerking it through the air. "I have negative 
news for you," he said abruptly. "I have decided to withdraw all proffers and 
undertakings. In short, you may expect no boon."
Reith sipped the wine and gave himself time to think. "You are honoring 
Dordolio's claim?"
"I cannot elaborate upon the matter. The statement may be interpreted in its 
most general sense."
"I have no claim upon you," said Reith. "I came here yesterday only to convey 
the news of your daughter."
Lord Cizante held the incense stick under his nostrils. "The circumstances no 
longer interest me."
Anacho emitted a somewhat startling caw of laughter. "Understandable! To 
acknowledge them would force you to honor your pledge!"
"Not at all," said Lord Cizante. "I spoke only for the attention of Blue Jade 
personnel."
"Ha ha! Who will believe that, now that you have hired assassins against my 
friend?"
Lord Cizante held the incense still and poised. "Assassins? What of this?"
"Your aide"-Reith indicated Helsse--"took out a Type Eighteen contract against 
me. I intend to warn Dordolio; your penury carries a vicious sting."
Lord Cizante turned a frowning glance upon Helsse. "What of this?"
Helsse stood with black eyebrows fretfully raised. "I endeavored only to fulfill 
my function."
"Misplaced zeal! Would you make Blue Jade a laughing stock? If this sordid tale 
gains circulation..." His voice suddenly trailed off. Helsse gave a shrug, and 
poured himself a goblet of wine.
Reith rose to his feet. "Our business appears to be at an end."
"A moment," said Lord Cizante curtly. "Let me consider ... You realize that this 
so-called assassination is a mare's-nest?"
Reith slowly shook his head. "You have blown hot and cold too often; I am 
totally skeptical."
Lord Cizante swung on his heel. The incense stick fell to the rug, where it 
began to smolder. Reith picked it up, placed it on the tray. "Why do you do 
that?" asked Helsse in sardonic wonder.
"You must supply your own answer."
Lord Cizante strode back into the room. He gestured to Helsse, took him into the 
corner, muttered a moment, and once again departed.
Helsse turned to Reith. "Lord Cizante has empowered me to pay over to you a sum 
of ten thousand sequins on condition that you depart Cath instantly, returning 
to Kotan by the first cog out of Vervodei."
"Lord Cizante's impertinence is amazing," said Reith.
Anacho asked casually, "How high will he go?"
"He specified no precise sum," Helsse admitted. "He is interested only in your 
departure, which he will facilitate in every detail."
"A million sequins, then," said Anacho. "If we must acquiesce to this 
undignified scheme, we might as well sell ourselves dear."
"Much too dear," said Helsse. "Twenty thousand sequins is more reasonable."
"Not reasonable enough," said Reith. "We need more, much more."
Helsse surveyed the three in silence. He said at last: "To avoid wasting time I 
will announce the maximum sum Lord Cizante cares to pay. It is fifty thousand 
sequins, which I personally consider generous, and transportation to Vervodei."
"We accept," said Reith. "Needless to say, you must cancel the contract with the 
Security Company."
Helsse smiled a small tremulous smile. "I have already received my instructions 
in this regard. And when will you depart Settra?"
"In a day or so."
With fifty strips of purple-celled sequins, the three left Blue Jade Palace, and 
climbed into the waiting black landau. Helsse did not accompany them.
The landau wheeled east through the cinnamon dusk, under luminants which as yet 
cast no illumination. Off in the parks, palaces and town houses showed clusters 
of blurred lights, and in one great garden a fete was in progress.
The landau rumbled across a carved wooden bridge hung with lanterns, to enter a 
district of crowded timber buildings, with tearooms and cafes jutting over the 
street. They passed through an area of bleak half-deserted tenements, and at 
last came into the Oval.
Reith descended from the landau. Traz sprang past and threw himself on a dark 
silent figure. At the glint of metal Reith ducked to the ground, but failed to 
escape a violent purple-white flash. A hot blow pounded his head; he lay 
half-stunned, while Traz struggled with the assailant. Anacho stepped forward, 
pointed his sting. Out sprang the thin shaft, piercing the man's shoulder. The 
gun clattered to the cobbles.
Reith picked himself up, stood weaving. The side of his head smarted as if by a 
scald; the smell of ozone and burnt hair filled his nostrils. He tottered over 
to where Traz held the hooded figure in an armlock while Anacho removed his 
wallet and dagger. The man wore a half-hood; Reith raised it, revealing, to his 
astonishment, the face of the Yearning Refluxive to whom he had spoken the night 
before.
People here and there about the Oval, at first cautious of the struggle, now 
started to approach. There came the shrill hoot of the patrol whistle. The 
Refluxive struggled to free himself. "Release me; they'll make me a terrible 
example!"
"Why did you try to kill me?" demanded Reith.
"Need you ask? Let me go, I beg you!"
"Why should I? You just tried to murder me! Let them take you."
"No! The association will suffer!"
"Well then-why did you try to kill me?"
"Because you are dangerous! You would divide us! Already there is dissension! A 
few weak souls have no faith; they want to find a spaceship and go off on a 
journey! Folly! The only way is the orthodox way! You are a danger; I thought it 
best to expunge your dissidence."
Reith took a deep breath of exasperation. The patrol was almost upon them. He 
said: "Tomorrow we leave Settra; you've had your trouble for nothing." He gave 
the man a shove which sent him staggering and crying for the pain in his 
shoulder. "Be thankful we are merciful men!"
The Refluxive disappeared in the darkness. The patrol ran up: tall men in 
striped suits of red and black holding staffs terminating in incandescent tips. 
"What is the trouble?"
"A thief," said Reith. "He tried to rob us, then ran off behind the buildings."
The patrol departed; Reith, Anacho, and Traz went into the inn. As they supped 
Reith told of his arrangements with Zarfo Detwiler. "Tomorrow, if all goes well, 
we depart Settra."
"By no means too soon," remarked Anacho sourly.
"True. Already I've been spied on by the Wankh, persecuted by the gentry, shot 
at by the 'cult.' My nerves won't allow much more."
A boy wearing dark red livery came up to their table. "Adam Reith?"
"Who wants him?" Reith asked warily.
"I have a message."
"Give it here." Reith tore apart the folded paper, puzzled out the sense of the 
florid symbols:
The Security Company sends greetings. Be it known that, since you, Adam Reith, 
have attacked an authorized employee in the innocent pursuit of his duties, 
spoiling his equipment and inflicting pain and inconvenience, we demand a 
retributive fee of eighteen thousand sequins. If the sum is not immediately paid 
at our main office, you will be killed by a combination of several processes. 
Your prompt cooperation will be appreciated. Please do not depart Settra or seek 
to deny us in any way, as in that case the penalties must be amplified.
Reith flung the letter down on the table. "Dordolio, the Wankh, Lord Cizante, 
and Helsse, the 'cult,' the Security Company: who is left?"
Traz commented: "Tomorrow may hardly be soon enough."



CHAPTER TEN
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Reith communicated with Blue Jade Palace by means of the 
queer Yao telephones, and was allowed to speak to Helsse. "You have naturally 
canceled the contract with the Security Company?"
"The contract has been canceled. I understand that they have decided to take 
independent action, which of course you must deal with as you see fit."
"Exactly," said Reith. "We are leaving Settra at once and we accept Lord 
Cizante's offer of assistance."
Helsse made a noncommittal sound. "What are your plans?"
"Essentially, to escape Settra with our lives."
"I will arrive shortly and take you to an outlying wheelway station. At Vervodei 
ships leave daily for all quarters and no doubt you will be able to make a 
convenient departure."
"We will be ready at noon, or before."
Reith set out on foot for the Cercade, taking all precautions, and arrived at 
the rendezvous with fair assurance that he had not been followed. Zarfo stood 
waiting, his white hair confined in a bonnet as black as his face. He 
immediately led the way to the cellar of an ale house. They sat at a stone 
table; Zarfo signaled the pot-boy and they were presently served heavy stone 
mugs of a bitter earthy ale.
Zarfo came quickly to business. "Before I disrupt my life by so much as a 
twitch, show me the color of your money."
Without words Reith threw down ten strips of winking purple sequins.
"Aha!" gloated Zarfo Detwiler. "This is true beauty! Is it to be mine? I will 
take custody of it at once, and guard it from all harm."
"Who will guard you?" asked Reith.
"Tish, tush, lad," scoffed Zarfo. "If comrades can't trust comrades in a cool 
ale-cellar, how will it go under adversity?"
Reith returned the money to his wallet. "Adversity is here now. The assassins 
are disturbed by the affair of yesterday. Instead of taking revenge upon you, 
they have threatened me."
"Yes, they are an unreasonable lot. If they demand money, defy them. A man can 
always fight for his life."
"I've been warned not to leave Settra until such a time as they choose to kill 
me. Nevertheless, I propose to depart, and as soon as possible."
"Shrewd." Zarfo quaffed ale and set the mug down with a thud. "But how will you 
evade the assassins? Naturally they ponder your every move."
Reith jerked around at a noise, only to find the pot-boy at hand to refill 
Zarfo's mug. Zarfo pulled at his long black nose to conceal a grin. "The 
assassins are pertinacious, but we shall outwit them, one way or another. Return 
to your hotel and make all ready. At noon I will join you and we shall see what 
we shall see."
"Noon? So late?"
"What difference an hour or two? I must wind up my affairs."
Reith returned to the inn, where Helsse had already arrived in the black landau. 
The atmosphere was strained and taut; at the sight of Reith, Helsse jumped to 
his feet. "Time is short; we have been waiting! Come; we have only enough time 
to catch the first afternoon car for Vervodei!"
Reith asked: "Won't the assassins be expecting just this? It seems an 
unimaginative plan."
Helsse gave an irritable shrug. "Do you have a better idea?"
"I'd like to work one out."
Anacho asked, "Does Lord Cizante keep an air-car?"
"It is not in operation."
"Are any others available?"
"For a purpose of this sort? I should think not."
Five minutes passed. Helsse said mildly, "The longer we wait, the less time 
remains to you." He pointed out of the window. "See the two men in the round 
hats? They wait for you to come forth. Now we cannot even use the car."
"Go out and tell them to go away," suggested Reith.
Helsse laughed. "Not I."
Another half an hour went by. Zarfo swaggered into the foyer. He saluted the 
group with a wave of the hand. "Are all ready?"
Reith pointed to the assassins standing to the side of the Oval. "They are 
waiting for us."
"Detestable creatures," said Zarfo. "Only in Cath would they be tolerated." He 
looked sidelong at Helsse. "Why is he here?"
Reith explained the circumstances; Zarfo looked out upon the Oval. "The black 
car with the silver and blue crest-is that the vehicle in question? If so, 
nothing is simpler. We shall ride off in the car."
"Not feasible," said Helsse.
"Why not?" asked Reith.
"Lord Cizante does not care to become involved in this matter, nor do I. At the 
very least, the Company would include me in the contract."
Reith laughed bitterly. "When you contracted with them in the first place? Out 
to the car, and drive us away from this city of madmen!"
After a moment of incredulous disdain, Helsse gave a curt nod. "As you wish."
The group left the inn and walked to the car. The assassins came forward. "I 
believe that you, sir, are Adam Reith?"
"What of it?"
"May we inquire your destination?"
"The Blue Jade Palace."
"Correct," said Helsse tonelessly.
"You understand our regulations and schedule of penalties?"
"Yes, of course."
The assassins muttered together, then one said: "In this case we think it 
advisable to accompany you."
"There is no room," said Helsse in a cool voice.
The assassins paid no heed. One started to enter the landau. Zarfo pulled him 
back. The assassin looked over his shoulder. "Have a care; I am a guildsman."
"And I am a Lokhar." Zarfo struck him a great clout, sending him sprawling. The 
second assassin stood astounded, then snatched forth a gun. Anacho's sting 
snapped forth, to penetrate his chest. The first assassin tried to crawl away; 
Zarfo gave him a tremendous kick under the chin; he fell flat and limp. "Into 
the car," said Zarfo. "It is time to leave."
"What a fiasco," whispered Helsse. "I am ruined."
"Away from Settra!" cried Zarfo. "By the least obvious route!"
The landau rolled along narrow streets, into a narrow lane, and presently out 
into the countryside.
"Where are you taking us?" demanded Reith.
"Vervodei."
"Ridiculous!" snorted Zarfo. "Drive east into the back country. We must make our 
way to the Jinga River and fare downstream to Kabasas on the Parapan."
Helsse tried a voice of calm reason. "To the east is wilderness. The car will 
stop. We have no spare energy cells."
"No difference!"
"Not to you. But how will I return to Settra?"
"Is this your plan, after what has happened?"
Helsse muttered something under his breath. "I am a marked man. They will demand 
fifty thousand sequins, which I cannot pay-all through your insane 
manipulations."
"Whatever you like. But continue east, until the car stops or the road gives 
out-whichever first."
Helsse made a gesture of fateful despair.
The road led through a weirdly beautiful flatland with slow streams and ponds to 
either side. Trees with drooping black limbs trailed tobacco-brown foliage into 
the water. Reith kept a lookout to the rear, but discovered no sign of pursuit. 
Settra became one with the murk of distance.
Helsse no longer seemed to be sulking, but watched the road ahead with an 
expression that almost seemed anticipation. Reith became suddenly suspicious. 
"Stop a moment."
Helsse looked around. "Stop? Why?"
"What lies ahead?"
"The mountains."
"Why is the road in such good repair? There seems to be no great traffic."
"Ho!" crowed Zarfo. "The mountain camp for insane folk! It must lie ahead!"
Helsse contrived a sickly grin. "You told me to drive you to the end of the 
road; you did not stipulate that I should avoid taking you to the asylum."
"I do so now," said Reith. "Please, no more innocent errors of this sort."
Helsse compressed his lips and once more began to brood. At a crossroad he swung 
south. The ground began to rise. Reith asked, "Where does the road lead?"
"To the old quicksilver mines, to mountain retreats, a few peasant holdings."
Into a forest hung with black moss rolled the car, and the road slanted up even 
more steeply. The sun passed behind a cloud, the forest became dark and dank, 
then gave way to a foggy meadow.
Helsse glanced at an indicator. "An hour more of energy."
Reith indicated the thrust of mountains ahead. "What lies beyond?"
"Wilderness. The Hoch Har tribes. Black Mountain Lake, source of the Jinga. The 
route is neither safe nor convenient. It is, however, an exit from Cath."
Across the meadow they drove. Thick-trunked trees rose at intervals with leaves 
like shelves of yellow fungus.
The road began to fail, and in places was blocked by fallen boughs. The ridge 
loomed above, a great rocky jut.
At an abandoned mine the road ended. Simultaneously the power index reached 
zero. The car halted with a thud and a bump; there was silence except for a sigh 
of wind.
The group alighted with their meager possessions. The fog had dissipated; the 
sun shone cool through a high overcast, washing the landscape in honey-colored 
light.
Reith surveyed the mountainside, tracing a path to the ridge. He turned to 
Helsse. "Well, which is it to be? Kabasas, or back to Settra?"
"Settra, naturally." He looked disconsolately at the car.
"Afoot?"
"Better than afoot to Kabasas."
"What of the assassins?"
"I must take my chances."
Reith brought out his scanscope and studied the way they had come. "There seems 
no sign of pursuit; you-" He halted, surprised by the expression on Helsse's 
face.
"What is that object?" demanded Helsse.
Reith explained.
"Dordolio spoke accurately," said Helsse in a wondering voice. "He was telling 
the truth!"
Half-amused, half-annoyed, Reith said, "I don't know what Dordolio told you, 
other than that we were barbarians. Goodbye, then, and my regards to Lord 
Cizante."
"Wait a moment," said Helsse, staring indecisively west toward Settra. "Kabasas 
may be safer, after all. The assassins would be sure to consider me an auxiliary 
to your offense." He turned, assessed the bulk of the mountain, heaved a gloomy 
sigh. "Total insanity, of course."
"Needless to say, we are not here by our own volition," returned Reith. "Well, 
we might as well start."
They climbed the tailings dump in front of the mine, peered into the tunnel, 
from which issued an ooze of reddish slime. A set of footprints led into the 
tunnel. They were about human size, the shape of a bowling pin or a gourd; two 
inches ahead of the narrow forward end were three indentations as of toes. 
Looking down at the marks Reith felt the hairs rise at the nape of his neck. He 
listened, but no sounds came from the tunnel. He asked Traz, "What sort of 
prints are these?"
"An unshod Phung, possibly-a small one. More likely a Pnume. The prints are 
fresh. It watched our approach."
"Come along; let's leave," muttered Reith.
An hour later they reached the ridge and halted to gaze out over the panorama. 
The land to the west lay drowned in late afternoon murk, with Settra showing as 
a discolored spot, like a bruise. Far to the east glimmered Black Mountain Lake.
The travelers spent an eerie night at the edge of the forest, starting up at far 
noises; a thin uncanny screaming, a rap-rap-rap, like blows against a block of 
hard wood, the crafty hooting of nighthounds.
Dawn came at last. The group made a glum breakfast on pods from a pilgrim plant, 
then proceeded down over a basalt palisade to the floor of a wooded valley. 
Ahead lay the Black Mountain Lake, calm and still. A fishing boat inched across 
the water and presently disappeared behind a jut of rock. "Hoch Har," said 
Helsse. "Ancient enemies of the Yao. Now they remain behind the mountains."
Traz pointed. "A path."
Reith looked. "I see no path."
"Nevertheless it is there, and I smell wood smoke, from a distance of three 
miles."
Five minutes later Traz made a sudden gesture. "Several men are approaching."
Reith listened; he could hear nothing. But presently three men appeared on the 
trail ahead: very tall men with thick waists, thin arms and legs, wearing skirts 
of a dirty white fiber and short capes of the same stuff. They stopped short at 
the sight of the travelers, then turned and retreated along the trail, looking 
anxiously back over their shoulders.
After a quarter-mile the trail left the jungle, and angled off across the swampy 
foreshore of the lake. The Hoch Har village stood on stilts over the water, 
terminating in a float to which a dozen plank boats were tied. On the shore a 
score of men stood in attitudes of nervous truculence, striding back and forth, 
bushknives and long spring-bows at the ready.
The travelers approached.
The tallest and heaviest of Hoch Hars called out in a ridiculously shrill voice: 
"Who are you?"
"Travelers on the way to Kabasas."
The Hoch Hars stared incredulously, then peered back up the trail toward the 
mountains. "Where is the rest of your band?"
"There is no band; we are alone. Can you sell us a boat and some food?"
The Hoch Hars put aside their weapons. "Food is hard to come by," groaned the 
first man. "Boats are our dearest possessions. What can you offer us in 
exchange?"
"Only a few sequins."
"What good are sequins when we must visit Cath to spend them?"
Helsse muttered in Reith's ear. Reith said to the Hoch Hars, "Very well then, we 
shall continue. I understand that there are other villages around the lake."
"What? Would you deal with petty thieves and cheats? It is all those folks are. 
Well, to save you from your own folly, we will strain ourselves to work out some 
sort of arrangement."
In the end Reith paid two hundred sequins for a boat in fair condition and what 
the Hoch Har chief gruffly claimed to be sufficient provisions to take them all 
the way to Kabasas: crates of dried fish, sacks of tubers, rolls of pepper-bark, 
fresh and preserved fruit. Another thirty sequins secured the services, as a 
guide, of a certain Tsutso, a moon-faced young man somewhat portly, with an 
affable big-toothed smile. Tsutso declared the first stages of their journey to 
be the most precarious: "First, the rapids; then the Great Slant, after which 
the voyage becomes no more than drifting downstream to Kabasas."
At noon, with the small sail set, the boat departed the Hoch Har village, and 
through the long afternoon sailed the dark water south toward a pair of bluffs 
which marked the outlet of the lake and the head of the Jinga River. At sunset 
the boat passed between the bluffs, each crowned by a tumble of ruins, black on 
the brown-ash sky. Under the bluff to the right was a small cove with a beach; 
here Reith wanted to camp for the night but Tsutso would not hear of it. "The 
castles are haunted. At midnight the ghosts of old Tschai walk the pavings. Do 
you want us all put under a taint?"
"So long as the ghosts keep to the castle, what's to prevent us from using the 
cove?"
Tsutso gave Reith a wondering look, and held the boat to midstream between the 
opposing ruins. A mile downstream the Jinga split around a rocky islet, to which 
Tsutso took the boat. "Here nothing from the forest can molest us."
The travelers supped, laid themselves down around the campfire and were troubled 
by no more than soft whistles and trills from the forest, and once, far in the 
distance, the mournful call of the night-hounds.
On the next day they passed across ten miles of violent rapids, during which 
Tsutso ten times over earned his fee, in Reith's estimation. Meanwhile the 
forest dwindled to clumps of thorn; the banks became barren, and presently a 
strange sound made itself heard from ahead: a sibilant all-pervading roar. "The 
Slant," explained Tsutso. The river disappeared at a brink a hundred yards 
ahead. Before Reith or the others could protest, the boat had pitched over the 
verge.
Tsutso said, "Everyone alert; here is the Slant. Hold to the middle!"
The roar of water almost overwhelmed his voice. The boat was sliding into a dark 
gorge; with amazing velocity the rock walls passed astern. The river itself was 
a trembling black surface, lined with foam static in relation to the boat. The 
travelers crouched as low as possible, ignoring Tsutso's condescending grin. For 
minutes they dashed down the race, finally plunged into a field of foam and 
froth, then floated smoothly out into still water.
The walls rose sheer a thousand feet: brown sandstone pocked with balls of black 
starbush. Tsutso steered the boat to a fringe of shingle. "Here I leave you."
"Here? At the bottom of this canyon?" Reith asked in wonder.
Tsutso pointed to a trail winding up the slope. "Five miles away is the 
village."
"In that case," said Reith, "goodbye and many thanks."
Tsutso made an indulgent gesture. "It is nothing in particular. Hoch Hars are 
generous folk, except where the Yao are concerned. Had you been Yao, all might 
not have gone so well."
Reith looked toward Helsse, who said nothing. "The Yao are your enemies?"
"Our ancient persecutors, who destroyed the Hoch Har empire. Now they keep to 
their side of the mountain, which is well for them, as we can smell out a Yao 
like a bad fish." He jumped nimbly ashore. "The swamps lie ahead. Unless you 
lose yourselves or arouse the swamp people you are as good as at Kabasas." With 
a final wave he started up the path.
The boat drifted through sepia gloom, the sky a watered silk ribbon high above. 
The afternoon passed, with the walls of the chasm gradually opening out. At 
sunset the travelers camped on a small beach, to pass a night in eerie silence.
The next day the river emerged into a wide valley overgrown with tall yellow 
grass. The hills retreated; the vegetation along the shore became thick and 
dense, and alive with small creatures, half-spider, half-monkey, which whined 
and yelped and spurted jets of noxious fluid toward the boat. Other streams made 
confluence; the Jinga became broad and placid. On the following day trees of 
remarkable stature appeared along the shore, raising a variety of silhouettes 
against the smoke-brown sky, and by noon the boat floated with jungle to either 
side. The sail hung limp; the air was dank with odors of wet wood and decay. The 
hopping tree-creatures kept to the high branches; through the dimness below 
drifted gauze-moths, insects hanging on pale bubbles, bird-like creatures which 
seemed to swim on four soft wings. Once the travelers heard heavy groaning and 
trampling sounds, another time a ferocious hissing and again a set of strident 
shrieks, from sources invisible.
By slow degrees the Jinga broadened to become a placid flood, flowing around 
dozens of small islands, each overgrown with fronds, plumes, fan-shaped 
dendrons. Once, from the corner of his eye, Reith glimpsed what seemed to be a 
canoe carrying three youths wearing peacock-tail headdresses, but when he turned 
to look he saw only an island, and was never sure what in fact he had seen. 
Later in the day a sinuous twenty-foot beast swam after them, but fifty feet 
from the boat it seemed to lose interest and submerged.
At sundown the travelers made camp on the beach of a small island. Half an hour 
later Traz became uneasy and, nudging Reith, pointed to the underbrush. They 
heard a stealthy rustling and presently sensed a clammy odor. An instant later 
the beast which had swum after them lunged forth screaming. Reith fired one of 
his explosive pellets into the very maw of the beast; with its head blown off it 
careened in a circle, using a peculiar prancing gait, finally floundering in the 
water to sink.
The group gingerly resumed their seats around the campfire. Helsse watched Reith 
return the handgun to his pouch, and could no longer restrain his curiosity. 
"Where, may I ask, did you obtain your weapon?"
"I have learned," said Reith, "that candor makes problems. Your friend Dordolio 
thinks me a lunatic; Anacho the Dirdirman prefers the term 'amnesiac.' So-think 
whatever you like."
Helsse murmured, as if for his own ears: "What strange tales we all could tell, 
if candor indeed were the rule."
Zarfo guffawed. "Candor? Who needs it? I'll tell strange tales as long as 
someone will listen."
"No doubt," said Helsse, "but persons with desperate goals must hold their 
secrets close."
Traz, who disliked Helsse, looked sideways with something like a sneer. "Who 
could this be? I have neither secrets nor desperate goals."
"It must be the Dirdirman," said Zarfo with a sly wink.
Anacho shook his head. "Secrets? No. Only reticences. Desperate goals? I travel 
with Adam Reith since I have nothing better to do. I am an outcast among the 
sub-men. I have no goals whatever, except survival."
Zarfo said, "I have a secret: the location of my poor hoard of sequins. My 
goals? Equally modest: an acre or two of river meadow south of Smargash, a cabin 
under the tayberry trees, a polite maiden to boil my tea. I recommend them to 
you."
Helsse, looking into the campfire, smiled faintly. "My every thought, 
willy-nilly, is a secret. As for my goals-if I return to Settra and somehow can 
appease the Security Company, I'll be well content."
Reith looked up to where clouds were clotting out the stars. "I'll be content to 
stay dry tonight."
The group carried the boat ashore, turned it over and, with the sail, made a 
shelter. Rain began to fall, extinguishing the campfire and sending puddles of 
water under the boat.
Dawn finally arrived: a blear of rain and umber gloom. At noon, with the clouds 
breaking apart, the travelers once more floated the boat, loaded the provisions 
and set off to the south.
The Jinga widened until the shores were no more than dark marks. The afternoon 
passed; sunset was a vast chaos of black, gold, and brown. Drifting through the 
gloom, the travelers sought for a place to land. Mud flats lined the shore, but 
at last, as purple-brown dusk became night, a sandy bluff appeared under which 
the travelers landed for the night.
On the following day they entered the swamps. The Jinga, dividing into a dozen 
channels, moved sluggishly among islands of reeds, and the travelers passed a 
cramped night in the boat. Toward evening of the day following they came upon a 
canted dyke of gray schist which, rising and falling, created a chain of rocky 
islands across the swamp. At some immensely remote time, one or another people 
of old Tschai had used the islands to support a causeway, long toppled to a 
crumble of black concrete. On the largest of the islands the travelers camped, 
dining on the dried fish and musty lentils provided by the Hoch Hars.
Traz was restless. He made a circuit of the island, clambered to the highest 
jut, looked back and forth along the line of the ancient bridge. Reith, 
disturbed by Traz's apprehension, joined him. "What do you see?"
"Nothing."
Reith looked all around. The water reflected the dusky mauve of the sky, the 
hulks of the nearby islands. They returned to the campfire, and Reith set sentry 
watches. He awoke at dawn and instantly wondered why he had not been called. 
Then he noticed that the boat was gone. He shook Traz, who had stood the first 
watch. "Last night, whom did you call?"
"Helsse."
"He did not call me. And the boat is missing."
"And Helsse as well," said Traz.
Reith saw this to be the case.
Traz pointed to the next island, forty yards across the water. "There is the 
boat. Helsse went for a midnight row."
Going down to the water's edge Reith called: "Helsse! Helsse!"
No response. Helsse was not visible.
Reith considered the distance to the boat. The water was smooth and opaque as 
slate. Reith shook his head. The boat so near, so obvious: bait? From his pouch 
he took the hank of cord, originally a component of his survival kit, and tied a 
stone to one end. He heaved the stone at the boat. It fell short. Reith dragged 
it back through the water. For an instant the line went taut and quivered to the 
presence of something strong and vital.
Reith grimaced. He heaved the stone again, and now it wedged inside the boat. He 
pulled; the boat came back across the water.
With Traz, Reith returned to the neighboring island, to find no trace of Helsse. 
But under a jut of rock they found a hole slanting down into the island. Traz 
put his head close to the opening, listened, sniffed, and motioned Reith to do 
the same. Reith caught a faint clammy odor, like that of earthworms. In a 
subdued voice he called down into the hole: "Helsse!" and once again, louder: 
"Helsse!" To no effect.
They returned to their companions. "It seems that the Pnume play jokes," said 
Reith in a subdued voice.
They ate a silent breakfast, waited an indecisive fidgeting hour. Then slowly 
they loaded the boat and departed the island. Reith looked back through the 
scanscope until the island no longer could be seen.



CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CHANNELS OF the Jinga came together; the swamp became a jungle. Fronds and 
tendrils hung over the black water; giant moths floated like ghosts. The upper 
strata of the forest were a distinct environment: pink and pale yellow ribbons 
writhed through the air like eels; black-furred globes with six long white arms 
swung nimbly from branch to branch. Once, far off along an avenue of vision, 
Reith saw a cluster of large woven huts high in the branches and a little later 
the boat passed under a bridge of sticks and coarse ropes. Three naked people 
came to cross the bridge as the boat drifted close: frail thin-bodied folk with 
parchment-colored skin. Observing the boat, they halted in shock, then raced 
across the bridge and disappeared into the foliage.
For a week they sailed and paddled uneventfully, the Jinga growing ever wider. 
One day they passed a canoe from which an old man netted fish; the next day they 
saw a village on the banks; the day after a power-boat throbbed past. On the 
night following they halted at a town and spent the night in a riverside inn, 
standing on stilts over the water.
Two more days they sailed downstream, to a brisk wind from astern. The Jinga was 
now wide and deep and the wind raised sizable waves. Navigation began to be a 
problem. Coming to another town they saw a river packet headed downstream; 
abandoning the boat they took passage for Kabasas on the Parapan.
Three days they rode the packet, enjoying the comfort of hammocks and fresh 
food. At noon on the fourth day, with the Jinga so broad that the far shore 
could not be seen, the blue domes of Kabasas appeared on rising land to the 
west.
Kabasas, like Coad, served as a commercial depot for extensive hinterlands and 
like Coad seemed to seethe with intrigue. Warehouses and sheds faced the docks; 
behind, ranks of arched and colonnaded buildings, of beige, gray, white and dark 
blue plaster, mounted the hills. A wall of each building, for reasons never 
clear to Reith, leaned either inward or out, giving the city a curiously 
irregular appearance by no means dissonant with the conduct of the inhabitants. 
These were a slender alert people, with flowing brown hair, wide cheekbones, 
burning black eyes. The woman were notably handsome and Zarfo cautioned all: "If 
you value your lives, pay no heed to the women! Do not so much as look after 
them, even though they provoke and tease! They play a strange game here in 
Kabasas. At any hint of admiration they set up furious outcry and a hundred 
other women, screaming and cursing, rush up to knife the miscreant."
"Hmmf," said Reith. "And the men?"
"They'll save you if they can, and beat the women off, which suits all parties 
very well. Indeed this is the way of courtship. A man desiring a girl will set 
upon her and beat her black and blue. No one would think to interfere. If the 
girl approves, she comes the same way again. When he rushes forth to pummel her, 
she throws herself on his mercy. Such is the painful wooing of the Kabs."
"It seems somewhat awkward," said Reith.
"Exactly. Awkward and perverse. Such are affairs in Kabasas. During our stay you 
had best rely on my counsel. First, I nominate the Sea Dragon Inn as a base of 
operations."
"We'll hardly be here that long. Why not go directly to the dock and find a ship 
to take us across the Parapan?"
Zarfo pulled at his long black nose. "Things are never so easy! And why cheat 
ourselves of a sojourn at the Sea Dragon Inn? ... Perhaps a week or two."
"You naturally intend to pay for your own accommodations?"
Zarfo's white eyebrows dipped sharply. "I am as you know a poor man. My every 
sequin represents toil. On a joint venture of this sort openhanded generosity 
should certainly be the rule."
"Tonight," said Reith, "we stay at the Sea Dragon Inn. Tomorrow we leave 
Kabasas."
Zarfo gave a dismal grunt. "It is not my place to dispute your wishes. Hmmf. As 
I understand the matter, you plan to arrive at Smargash, recruit a team of 
technicians, then continue to Ao Hidis?"
"Correct."
"Discretion then! I suggest that we take ship to Zara across the Parapan and up 
the Ish River. You have not lost your money?"
"Definitely not."
"Take good care of it. The thieves of Kabasas are deft; they use thongs which 
reach out thirty feet." Zarfo pointed. "Observe that structure just above the 
beach? The Sea Dragon Inn!"
The Sea Dragon Inn was indeed a grand establishment, with wide public rooms and 
pleasant sleeping cubicles. The restaurant was decorated to suggest a submarine 
garden, even to the dark grottos where members of a local sect, who would not 
publicly perform the act of deglutition, were served.
Reith ordered fresh linen from the staff haberdashery and descended to the great 
bath on the low terrace. He scrubbed himself and was sprayed with tonic and 
massaged with handfuls of fragrant moss. Wrapping himself in a gown of white 
linen he returned to his chamber.
On the couch sat a man in a soiled dark blue suit. Reith stared. Helsse looked 
back at him with an unfathomable expression. He made no move and uttered no 
sound.
The silence was intense.
Reith slowly backed from the room, to stand uncertainly on the balcony, heart 
pounding as if he had seen a ghost. Zarfo appeared, swaggering back to his room 
with white hair billowing.
Reith signaled to him. "Come, I want to show you something." He took Zarfo to 
the door, thrust it ajar, half-expecting to find the room unoccupied. Helsse sat 
as before. Zarfo whispered: "Is he mad? He sits and stares and mocks us but does 
not speak."
"Helsse," said Reith. "What are you doing here? What happened to you?"
Helsse rose to his feet. Reith and Zarfo moved involuntarily back. Helsse looked 
at them with the faintest of smiles. He stepped out on the balcony, walked 
slowly to the stairs. He turned his head; Reith and Zarfo saw the pale oval of 
his face; then, like an apparition, he was gone.
"What is the meaning of all this?" Reith asked in a husky voice.
Zarfo shook his head, for once subdued. "The Pnume love their pranks."
"Should we have held him?"
"He could have stayed, had he wished."
"But-I doubt if he is sane."
Zarfo's only response was a hunch-shouldered shrug.
Reith went to the edge of the balcony, looked out over the town. "The Pnume know 
the very rooms in which we sleep!"
"A person floating down the Jinga ends up at Kabasas," said Zarfo testily. "If 
he is able, he patronizes the Sea Dragon Inn. This is not an intricate 
deduction. So much for Pnume omniscience."
On the following day Zarfo went off by himself and presently returned with a 
short man with skin the color of mahogany, walking with a sore-footed swagger as 
if his shoes were too tight. His face was seamed and crooked; small nervous eyes 
looked slantwise past the beak of his nose. "And here," declared Zarfo grandly, 
"I give you Sealord Dobagq Hrostilfe, a person of sagacity, who will arrange 
everything."
Reith thought that he had never seen a more obvious rascal.
"Hrostilfe commands the Pibar," explained Zarfo. "For a most reasonable sum he 
will deliver us to our destination, be it the far coast of Vord."
"How much across the Parapan?" Reith asked.
"Only five thousand sequins, would you believe it?" exclaimed Zarfo.
Reith laughed scornfully. He turned to Zarfo: "I need your help no longer. You 
and your friend Hrostilfe can try to swindle someone else."
"What?" cried Zarfo. "After I risked my life in that infernal chute and endured 
all manner of hardship?"
But Reith had walked away. Zarfo came after him, somewhat crestfallen. "Adam 
Reith, you have made a serious mistake."
Reith nodded grimly. "Instead of an honest man I hired you."
Zarfo swelled up indignantly. "Who dares name me other than honest?"
"I do. Hrostilfe would rent his boat for a hundred sequins. He gave you a price 
of five hundred. You told him: 'Why should we not both profit? Adam Reith is 
credulous. I'll name a price and anything over a thousand sequins is mine.' So, 
be off with you."
Zarfo pulled ruefully at his black nose. "You do me vast wrong. I have only just 
come from chiding Hrostilfe, who admitted knavery. He now offers his boat 
at"-Zarfo cleared his throat-"twelve hundred sequins."
"Not a bice more than three hundred."
Zarfo threw his hands into the air and stalked away. Not long after Hrostilfe 
himself appeared with the plea that Reith inspect his ship. Reith followed him 
to the Pibar: a jaunty craft forty feet long, powered by electrostatic jet. 
Hrostilfe kept up a halfhectoring, halfplaintive commentary. "A fast seaworthy 
vessel! Your price is absurd. What of my skills, my sea-lore? Do you appreciate 
the cost of energy? The voyage will exhaust a power cell: a hundred sequins 
which I cannot afford. You must pay for energy and additionally for provisions. 
I am a generous man but I cannot subsidize you."
Reith agreed to pay for energy and a reasonable amount for provisions, but not 
the installation of new water tanks, extra foul-weather gear, good-luck fetishes 
for the prow; furthermore he insisted on departure the following day, at which 
Hrostilfe gave a sour chuckle. "There's one in the eye for the old Lokhar. He 
had counted on swanking it a week or more at the Sea Dragon."
"He can stay as long as he likes," said Reith, "provided that he pays."
"Small chance of that," chuckled Hrostilfe. "Well then, what about provisions?"
"Buy them. Show me an itemized tally, which I will check in detail."
"I need an advance: a hundred sequins."
"Do you take me for a fool? Remember, tomorrow noon we leave."
"The Pibar will be ready," said Hrostilfe in a sullen voice.
Returning to the Sea Dragon Inn, Reith found Anacho on the terrace. Anacho 
pointed to a black-haired shape leaning against the seawall. "There he stands: 
Helsse. I called him by name. It was as if he never heard."
Helsse turned his head; his face seemed deathly white. For a moment or two he 
watched them, then turned and walked slowly away.
At noon the travelers embarked on the Pibar. Hrostilfe gave his passengers a 
brisk welcome. Reith looked skeptically here and there, wondering in what 
fashion Hrostilfe thought he had won advantage for himself. "Where are the 
provisions?"
"In the main saloon."
Reith examined boxes and crates, checked them against Hrostilfe's tally sheet, 
and was forced to admit that Hrostilfe had secured good merchandise at no great 
price. But why, he wondered, were they not stored forward in the lazaret? He 
tried the door, and found it locked.
Interesting, thought Reith. He called Hrostilfe: "Best to stow the stores 
forward in the lazaret, before we start pitching to the waves."
"All in good time!" declared Hrostilfe. "First things first! Now it's important 
that we make the most of the morning current!"
"But it will only require a moment. Here, open the door; I will do it myself."
Hrostilfe made a waggish gesture. "I am the most finicky of seamen. Everything 
must be done just so."
Zarfo, who had come into the saloon, gave the lazaret door a speculative frown. 
Reith said, "Very well then, just as you like." Zarfo started to speak but 
catching Reith's gaze, shrugged and held his tongue.
Hrostilfe nimbly hopped here and there, casting off lines, starting the jet, and 
finally jumping into the control pulpit. The boat surged out to sea.
Reith spoke to Traz, who went to stand behind Hrostilfe. Bringing forth his 
catapult Traz checked its action, dropped a bolt into the slot, cocked it and 
hung it loosely at his belt.
Hrostilfe grimaced. "Careful, boy! A foolhardy way to carry your catapult!"
Traz seemed not to hear.
Reith, after a word or two with Zarfo and Anacho, went to the foredeck. Setting 
fire to some old rags, he held them in the forward ventilator, so that smoke 
poured down into the lazaret.
Hrostilfe cried out in anger: "What nonsense is this? Are you trying to set us 
afire?"
Reith set more rags burning and dropped them into the ventilator. From below 
came a choked cough, then a mutter of voices and a stamping of feet. Hrostilfe 
jerked his hand toward his pouch, but noticed Traz's intent gaze and his ready 
catapult.
Reith sauntered aft. Traz said, "His weapon is in his pouch."
Hrostilfe stood rigid with dismay. He made a sudden move but stopped short as 
Traz jerked up the catapult. Reith detached the pouch, handed it to Traz, took 
two daggers and a poniard from various parts of Hrostilfe's person. "Go below," 
said Reith. "Open the door to the lazaret. Instruct your friends to come forth 
one at a time."
Hrostilfe, gray-faced with fury, hopped below and, after an exchange of threats 
with Reith, opened the door. Six ruffians came forth, to be disarmed by Anacho 
and Zarfo and sent up to the deck where Reith thrust them over the side.
The lazaret at last was empty of all but smoke. Hrostilfe was hustled up on 
deck, where he became unctuous and over reasonable. "All can be explained! A 
ridiculous misunderstanding!" But Reith refused to listen and Hrostilfe joined 
his fellows over the side, where, after shaking his fist and bellowing 
obscenities at the grinning faces aboard the Pibar, he struck out for the shore.
"It appears," said Reith, "that we now lack a navigator. In what direction lies 
Zara?"
Zarfo's manner was very subdued. He pointed a gnarled black finger. "That should 
be our heading." He turned to look aft toward the seven bobbing heads. 
"Incomprehensible to me, the greed of men for money! See to what disasters it 
leads!" And Zarfo gave a sanctimonious cluck of the tongue. "Well then, an 
unfortunate incident, happily in the past. And now we command the Pibar! Ahead: 
Zara, the Ish River, and Smargash!"



CHAPTER TWELVE
ALL DURING THE first day the Parapan was serene. The second day was brisk with 
the Pibar pitching up and over a short chop. On the third day a black-brown 
cloud loomed out of the west, stabbing the sea with lightning. Wind came in 
massive gusts; for two hours the Pibar heaved and tossed; then the storm passed 
over, and the Pibar drove into clement weather.
On the fourth day Kachan loomed ahead. Reith steered the Pibar alongside a 
fishing craft and Zarfo asked the direction of Zara. The fisherman, a swarthy 
old man with steel rings in his ears, pointed wordlessly. The Pibar surged 
forward, entering the Ish estuary at sunset. The lights of Zara flickered along 
the western shore, but now, with no reason to put into port, the Pibar continued 
south up the Ish.
The pink moon Az shone on the water; all night the Pibar drove. Morning found 
them in a rich country with rows of stately keel trees along the banks. Then the 
land began to grow barren, and for a space the river wound through a cluster of 
obsidian spires. On the next day a band of tall men in black cloaks were seen on 
the riverbank. Zarfo identified them as Niss tribesmen. They stood motionless, 
watching the Pibar surge upstream. "Give them a wide berth! They live in holes 
like night-hounds and some say the night-hounds are kinder."
Late in the afternoon sand dunes closed in upon the river and Zarfo insisted 
that the Pibar be anchored in deep water for the night. "Ahead are sandbars and 
shallows. We would be certain to run aground and undoubtedly the Niss have 
followed. They would grapple the boat and swarm aboard."
"Won't they attack us if we lay at anchor?"
"No, they fear deep water and never use boats. At anchor we are as safe as if we 
were already at Smargash."
The night was clear with both Az and Braz wheeling through the sky of old 
Tschai. On the riverbank the Niss boldly lit their fires and boiled their pots, 
and later started up a wild music of fiddles and drums. For hours the travelers 
sat watching the agile shapes in black cloaks dancing around the fires, kicking, 
jumping, heads up, heads low; swinging, whirling, prancing with arms akimbo.
In the morning the Niss were nowhere to be seen. The Pibar passed through the 
shallows without incident. Late in the afternoon the travelers came to a 
village, guarded from the Niss by a line of posts to each of which was chained a 
skeleton in a rotting black cloak. Zarfo declared the village to be the feasible 
limit of navigation with Smargash yet three hundred miles south, across a land 
of deserts, mountain pinnacles and chasms. "Now we must travel by caravan, over 
the old Sarsazm Road, to Hamil Zut under the Lokhara Uplands. Tonight I'll make 
inquiry and learn what's to our advantage."
Zarfo stayed ashore overnight, returning in the morning with the news that by 
dint of the most furious bargaining he had exchanged the Pibar for first class 
passage by caravan to Hamil Zut.
Reith calculated. Three hundred miles? Two hundred sequins a person, at maximum: 
eight hundred for the four. The Pibar was worth ten thousand, even at a 
sacrifice price. He looked at Zarfo, who ingenuously returned the gaze. "You 
will recall," said Reith, "the ill feeling and dissension at Kabasas?"
"Of course," declared Zarfo. "To this day I become anguished by the injustice of 
your hints."
"Here is another hint. How much extra did you demand for the Pibar and receive?"
Zarfo gave an uneasy grimace. "Naturally, I was saving the news to be a glad 
surprise."
"How much?"
"Three thousand sequins," muttered Zarfo. "No more, no less. I consider it a 
fair price up here, far from wealth."
Reith allowed the figure to pass without challenge. "Where is the money?"
"It will be paid when we go ashore."
"And when does the caravan leave?"
"Soon-a day or so. There is a passable inn; we can spend the night ashore."
"Very well; let us all go now and collect the money."
Somewhat to Reith's surprise the sack which Zarfo received from the innkeeper 
contained exactly three thousand sequins, and Zarfo gave a sour sneer and, going 
into the tavern, called for a pot of ale.
Three days later the caravan started south: a file of twelve power wagons, four 
mounted with sandblasts. Sarsazm Road led through awesome scenery: gorges and 
great precipices, the bed of an ancient sea, vistas of distant mountains, 
sighing forests of keel and blackfern. Occasionally Niss were sighted but they 
kept their distance and on the evening of the third day the caravan pulled into 
Hamil Zut, a squalid little town of a hundred mud huts and a dozen taverns.
In the morning Zarfo engaged pack-beasts, equipment and a pair of guides, and 
the travelers set forth up the trail into the Lokharan highlands.
"This is wild country," Zarfo warned them. "Dangerous beasts are occasionally 
seen, so be ready with your weapons."
The trail was steep, the terrain indeed wild. On several occasions they sighted 
Kar Yan, subtle gray beasts slinking through the rocks, sometimes erect on two 
legs, sometimes dropping to all six. Another time they encountered a 
tiger-headed reptile gorging upon a carcass, and were able to pass unmolested.
On the third day after leaving Hamil Zut, the travelers entered Lokhara, a great 
upland plain; and in the mid-afternoon Smargash appeared ahead. Zarfo now told 
Reith: "It occurs to me, as it must have to you, that yours is a very ticklish 
venture."
"Agreed."
"Folk here are not indifferent to the Wankh, and a stranger might easily talk to 
the wrong people."
So.
"It might be better for me to select the personnel."
"Certainly. But leave the question of payment to me."
"As you wish," growled Zarfo.
The countryside was now a prosperous well-watered land, populated by peasant 
farms. The men, like Zarfo, were tattooed or dyed black, with a mane of white 
hair. The skins of the women, in contradistinction, were chalky white, and their 
hair was black. Urchins showed white or black hair according to their sex, but 
their skins were uniformly the color of the dirt in which they played.
A road ran on a riverbank, under majestic old keels. To either side were small 
bungalows, each in its bower of vines and shrubs. Zarfo sighed with vast 
feeling. "Observe me, the transient worker returning to his home. But where is 
my fortune? How may I buy my cottage by the river? Poverty has forced me to 
strange ways; I am thrown in with a stone-hearted zealot, who takes his joy 
thwarting the hopes of a kind old man!"
Reith paid no heed, and presently they entered Smargash.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN
REITH SAT IN the parlor of the squat cylindrical cottage he had rented, 
overlooking the Smargash common, where the young folk spent much time dancing.
Across from him, in wicker chairs, sat five white-haired men of Smargash, a 
group screened from the twenty Zarfo originally had approached. The time was 
middle afternoon; out on the common, dancers skipped and kicked to music of 
concertina, bells and drums.
Reith explained as much of his program as he dared: not a great deal. "You men 
are here because you can help me in a certain venture. Zarfo Detwiler has 
informed you that a large sum of money is involved; this is true, even if we 
fail. If we succeed, and I believe the chances are favorable, you will earn 
wealth sufficient to satisfy any of you. There is danger, as might be expected, 
but we shall hold it to a minimum. If anyone does not care to consider such a 
venture, now is the time to leave."
The oldest of the group, one Jag Jaganig, an expert in the overhaul and 
installation of control systems, said, "So far we can't say yes or no. None of 
us would refuse to drag home a sack of sequins, but neither would we care to 
challenge impossibility for a chancy bice."
"You want more information?" Reith looked from face to face. "This is natural 
enough. But I don't want to take the merely curious into my confidence. If any 
of you are definitely not disposed for a dangerous but by no means desperate 
venture, please identify yourself now."
There was a slight stir of uneasiness, but no one spoke out.
Reith waited a moment. "Very well; you must bind yourselves to secrecy."
The group bound themselves by awful Lokhar oaths. Zarfo, plucking a hair from 
each head, twisted a fiber which he set alight. Each inhaled the smoke. "So we 
are bound, one to all; if one proves false, the others as one will strike him 
down."
Reith, impressed by the ritual, had no more qualms about speaking to the point. 
"I know the exact location of a source of wealth, at a place not on the planet 
Tschai. We need a spaceship and a crew to operate it. I propose to commandeer a 
spaceship from the Ao Hidis field; you men shall be the crew. To demonstrate my 
sanity and good faith, I will pay to each man on the day of departure five 
thousand sequins. If we try but fail, each man receives another five thousand 
sequins."
"Each surviving man," grumbled Jag Jaganig.
Reith went on: "If we succeed, ten thousand sequins will seem like ten bice. 
Essentially, this is the scope of the venture."
The Lokhars shuffled dubiously in their chairs. Jag Jaganig spoke. "We obviously 
have the basis for an adequate crew here, at least for a Zeno, or a Kud, or even 
one of the small Kadants. But it is no small matter to so affront the Wankh."
"Or worse, the Wankhmen," muttered Zorofim.
"As I recall," mused Thadzei, "no great vigilance prevailed. The scheme, while 
startling, seems feasible-provided that the ship we board is in operative 
condition."
"Aha!" exclaimed Belje. "That' provided that' is the key to the entire exploit!"
Zarfo jeered: "Naturally there is risk. Do you expect money for nothing?"
"I can hope."
Jag Jaganig inquired: "Assume that the ship is ours. Is further risk entailed?"
"None."
"Who will navigate?"
"I will."
"In what form is this 'wealth'?" demanded Zorofim. "Gems? Sequins? Precious 
metal? Antiques? Essences?"
"I don't care to go any further into detail, except to guarantee that you will 
not be disappointed."
The discussion proceeded, with every aspect of the venture subjected to attack 
and analysis. Alternative proposals were considered, argued, rejected. No one 
seemed to regard the risk as overwhelming, nor did anyone doubt the group's 
ability to handle the ship. But none evinced enthusiasm. Jag Jaganig put the 
situation into focus. "We are puzzled," he told Reith. "We do not understand 
your purposes. We are skeptical of boundless treasures."
Zarfo said, "Here I must speak. Adam Reith has his faults which I won't deny. He 
is stubborn and unwieldy; he is crafty as a zut; he is ruthless when opposed. 
But he is a man of his word. If he declares a treasure to exist for our taking, 
that aspect of the matter is closed."
After a moment Belje muttered: "Desperate, desperate! Who wants to learn the 
truth of the black boxes?"
"Desperate, no," countered Thadzei. "Risky, yes, and may demons runoff with the 
black boxes!"
"I'll take the chance," said Zorofim.
"I as well," said jag Jaganig. "Who lives forever?"
Belje finally capitulated and declared himself committed. "When shall we leave?"
"As soon as possible," said Reith. "The longer I wait, the more nervous I get."
"And more the chance of someone else running off with our treasure, hey?" 
exclaimed Zarfo. "That would be a sad case!"
"Give us three days to arrange our affairs," said Jag Jaganig.
"And what of the five thousand sequins?" demanded Thadzei. "Why not distribute 
the money now, so that we may have the use of it?"
Reith hesitated no longer than a tenth of a second. "Since you must trust me, I 
must trust you." He paid to each of the marveling Lokhars fifty purple sequins, 
worth a hundred white sequins each.
"Excellent!" declared jag Jaganig. "Remember all! Utter discretion! Spies are 
everywhere. In particular I distrust that peculiar stranger at the inn who 
dresses like a Yao."
"What?" cried Reith. "A young man, black-haired, very elegant.
"The person precisely. He stares out over the dancing field with never a word to 
say."
Reith, Zarfo, Anacho and Traz went to the inn. In the dim taproom sat Helsse, 
long legs in tight black twill breeches stretched under the heavy table. 
Brooding, he looked straight ahead and out the doorway to where black-skinned 
white-haired boys and white-skinned blackhaired girls skipped and caracoled in 
the tawny sunlight.
Reith said: "Helsse!"
Helsse never shifted his gaze.
Reith came closer. "Helsse!"
Helsse slowly turned his head; Reith looked into eyes like lenses of black 
glass.
"Speak to me," urged Reith. "Helsse! Speak!"
Helsse opened his mouth, uttered a mournful croak. Reith drew back. Helsse 
watched him incuriously, then returned to his inspection of the dancing field 
and the dim hills beyond.
Reith joined his comrades to the side where Zarfo poured him a pot of ale. "What 
of the Yao? Is he mad?"
"I don't know. He might be feigning. Or under hypnotic control. Or drugged."
Zarfo took a long draft from his pot, wiped the foam from his nose. "The Yao 
might think it a favor were we to cure him."
"No doubt," said Reith, "but how?"
"Why not call in a Dugbo practitioner?"
"What might that be?"
Zarfo jerked his thumb to the east. "The Dugbo have a camp back of town: 
shiftless folk in rags and tatters, given to thieving and vice, and musicians to 
boot. They worship demons, and their practitioners perform miracles."
"So you think the Dugbo can cure Helsse?"
Zarfo drained his pot. "If he is feigning, I assure you he won't feign long."
Reith shrugged. "We have no better occupation for a day or two.
"Exactly my way of thinking," said Zarfo.
The Dugbo practitioner was a spindly little man dressed in brown rags and boots 
of uncured leather. His eyes were a luminous hazel, his russet hair was confined 
in three greasy knobs. On his cheek pale cicatrices worked and jumped as he 
spoke. He did not appear to consider Reith's requirements surprising and with 
clinical curiosity studied Helsse, who sat sardonically indifferent in one of 
the wicker chairs.
The practitioner approached Helsse, looked into his eyes, inspected his ears, 
and nodded as if a suspicion had been verified. He signaled the fat youth who 
assisted him, then ducking behind Helsse touched him here and there while the 
youth held a bottle of black essence under Helsse's nose. Helsse presently 
became passive and relaxed into the chair. The practitioner set heaps of incense 
alight and fanned the fumes into Helsse's face. Then, while the youth played a 
nose flute the practitioner sang: secret words, close to Helsse's ears. He put a 
wad of clay into Helsse's hand; Helsse furiously began to mold the clay and 
presently set up a mutter.
The practitioner signaled to Reith. "A simple case of possession. Notice: the 
evil flows from the fingers into the clay. Talk to him if you like. Be gentle 
but command, and he will answer you." "Helsse," said Reith, "describe your 
association with Adam Reith."
In a clear voice Helsse spoke. "Adam Reith came to Settra. There had been rumor 
and speculation, but when he arrived, all was different. By strange chance he 
came to Blue Jade, my personal vantage, and there I saw him first. Dordolio came 
after and in his rage maligned Reith as one of the 'cult': a man who fancied 
himself from the far world Home. I spoke with Adam Reith but learned only 
confusion. To clarify by acquiescence, third of the Ten Techniques, I took him 
to the headquarters of the 'cult' and received contradictions. A courier new to 
Settra followed us. I could not dramatically divert, sixth of the Techniques. 
Adam Reith killed the courier and took a message of unknown importance; he would 
not allow me inspection; I could not comfortably insist. I referred him to a 
Lokhar, again 'clarifying by acquiescence': as it eventuated, the wrong 
technique. The Lokhar read far into the message. I ordered Reith assassinated. 
The attempt was bungled. Reith and his band fled south. I received instructions 
to accompany him and penetrate his motivations. We journeyed east to the Jinga 
River and downstream by boat. On an island-" Helsse gave a gasping cry and sank 
back, rigid and trembling.
The practitioner waved smoke into Helsse's face and pinched his nose. "Return to 
the 'calm' state, and henceforth, when your nose is pinched, return; this shall 
be an absolute injunction. Now then, answer such questions as are put to you."
Reith asked, "Why do you spy on Adam Reith?"
"I am obligated to do so; furthermore I enjoy such work."
"Why are you obligated?"
"All Wankhmen must serve Destiny."
"Oho. You are a Wankhman?"
"Yes."
And Reith wondered how he could ever have thought otherwise. Tsutso and the Hoch 
Hars had not been deceived: "Had you been Yao, all would not have gone so well," 
so had said Tsutso.
Reith glanced ruefully at his comrades, then turned back to Helsse. "Why do the 
Wankhmen keep spies in Cath?"
"They watch the turn of the 'round'; they guard against a renascence of the 
'cult.' "
"Why?"
"It is a matter of stasis. Conditions now are optimum. Any change can only be 
for the worse."
"You accompanied Adam Reith from Settra to an island in the swamps. What 
happened there?"
Helsse once more croaked and became catatonic. The practitioner tweaked his 
nose.
Reith asked, "How did you travel to Kabasas?"
Again Helsse became inert. Reith tweaked his nose. "Tell us why you cannot 
answer the questions?"
Helsse said nothing. He appeared to be conscious. The practitioner fanned smoke 
in his face; Reith tweaked his nose and, doing so, saw that Helsse's eyes looked 
in separate directions. The practitioner rose to his feet, and began to put away 
his equipment. "That's all. He's dead."
Reith stared from the practitioner to Helsse and back. "Because of the 
questioning?"
"The smoke permeates the head. Sometimes the subjects live: often, in fact. This 
one died swiftly; your questions ruptured his sensorium."
The following evening was clear and windy with puffs of dust racing over the 
vacant dancing field. Through the dusk men in gray cloaks came to the rented 
cottage. Within, lamps were low and windows shrouded; conversations were 
conducted in quiet voices. Zarfo spread an old map out on the table, and pointed 
with a thick black finger. "We can travel to the coast and down, but this is all 
Niss country. We can fare east around the Sharf to Lake Falas: a long route. Or 
we can move south, through the Lost Counties, over the Infnets and down to Ao 
Hidis: the direct and logical route."
Reith asked, "Sky-rafts aren't available?"
Belje, the least enthusiastic of the adventurers, shook his head. "Conditions 
are no longer as they were when I was a youth. Then you might have selected 
among half a dozen. Now there are none. Sequins and sky-rafts are both hard to 
come by. So now, in pursuit of the one, we lack the use of the other."
"How will we travel?"
"To Blalag we ride by power wagon, where perhaps we can hire some sort of 
conveyance as far as the Infnets. Thereafter, we must go afoot; the old roads 
south have been destroyed and forgotten."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FROM SMARGASH TO the old Lokhar capital, Blalag, was a three-day journey across 
a windy wasteland. At Blalag the adventurers took shelter at a dingy inn, where 
they were able to arrange transportation by motorcart to the mountain-settlement 
Derduk, far into the Infnets. The journey occupied the better part of two days 
under uncomfortable conditions. At Derduk the only accommodation was a 
ramshackle cabin which provoked grumbling among the Lokhars. But the owner, a 
garrulous old man, stewed a great cauldron of game and wild berries, and the 
peevishness subsided.
At Derduk the road south became a disused track. At dawn the now somewhat 
cheerless group of adventurers set forth on foot. All day they traveled through 
a land of rock pinnacles, fields of rubble and scree. At sundown with a chill 
wind sighing through the rocks they came upon a small black tam where they 
passed the night. The next day brought them to the brink of a vast chasm and 
another day was spent finding a route to the bottom. On the sandy floor beside 
the river Desidea, on its way east to Lake Falas, the group camped, to be 
disturbed for much of the night by uncanny hoots and near-human yells, echoing 
and reechoing through the rocks.
In the morning, rather than attempt the south face of the precipice, they 
followed the Desidea and presently found a cleft which brought them out upon a 
high savannah rolling off into the murk.
Two days the adventurers marched south, reaching the extreme ramparts of the 
Infnets by twilight of the second day, with a tremendous vista across the lands 
to the south. When night came a sparkle of far lights appeared. "Ao Hidis!" 
cried the Lokhars in mingled relief and apprehension.
Over the minuscule campfire that night there was much talk of Wankh and 
Wankhmen. The Lokhars were unanimous in their detestation of the Wankhmen: "Even 
the Dirdirmen, for all their erudition and preening, are never so jealous of 
their prerogatives," declared jag Jaganig.
Anacho gave an airy laugh. "From the Dirdirman point of view Wankhmen are 
scarcely superior to any of the other subraces."
"Give the rascals credit," said Zarfo, "they understand the Wankh chimes. I 
myself am resourceful and perceptive; still, in twenty-five years, I learned 
only pidgin chords for 'yes,' 'no; 'stop,' 'go; 'right; 'wrong,' 'good,' 'bad.' 
I must admit to their achievement."
"Bah," muttered Zorofim. "They are born to it; they hear chimes from the first 
instant of their lives; it is no great achievement."
"One that they make the most of, however," said Belje with something like envy 
in his voice. "Think; they work at nothing, they have no responsibilities, but 
to stand between the Wankh and the world of Tschai, and they live in refinement 
and ease."
Reith spoke in a puzzled voice. "A man like Helsse now: he was a Wankhman who 
lived as a spy. What did he hope to achieve? What Wankh interests did he 
safeguard in Cath?"
"Wankh interests-none. But remember, the Wankhmen are opposed to change, since 
any alteration of circumstances can only be to their disadvantage. When a Lokhar 
begins to understand chimes he is sent away. In Cath-who knows what they fear?" 
And Zarfo warmed his hands at the campfire.
The night passed slowly. At dawn Reith looked toward Ao Hidis through his 
scanscope, but could see little for the mist.
Surly with tension and lack of sleep the group once more set off to the south, 
keeping to such cover as offered itself.
The city slowly became distinct; Reith located the dock where the Vargaz had 
discharged-how long ago it seemed! He traced the road which led through the 
market and north past the spacefield. From the heights the city seemed placid, 
lifeless; the black towers of the Wankhmen brooded over the water. On the 
spacefield, plain to be seen, were five spaceships.
By noon the party reached the ridge above the city. With great care Reith 
studied the spacefield, now directly below, through his scanscope. To the left 
were the repair shops, and nearby a bulk-cargo vessel in a state of obvious 
disrepair, with scaffolds raised beside exposed machinery. Another ship, this 
the closest, at the back of the field, seemed to be an abandoned hulk. The 
condition of the other three vessels was not obvious, but the Lokhars declared 
them all operable. "It is a matter of routine," said Zorofim. "When a ship is 
down for overhaul, it is moved close to the shops. The ships in transit dock 
yonder, in the 'Load Zone."'
"It would seem then that three ships are potentially suitable for our purposes?"
The Lokhars would not go quite so far.
"Sometimes minor repairs are done in the 'Load Zone,"' said Belje.
"Notice," said Thadzei, "the repair cart by the access ramp. It carries 
components, cases, and they must come from one of the three ships in the 'Load 
Zone.' "
These were two small cargo ships and a passenger vessel. The Lokhars favored the 
cargo ships, with which they felt familiar. In regard to the passenger vessel, 
which Reith considered the most suitable, the Lokhars were in disagreement, 
Zorofim and Thadzei declaring it to be a standard ship in a specialized hull; 
Jag Jaganig and Belje equally certain that this was either a new design or an 
elaborate modification, in either case certain to present difficulties.
All day the group studied the spacefield, watching the activity of the workshop 
and the traffic along the road. During the middle afternoon a black air-car 
drifted down to land beside the passenger vessel, which now obscured the view, 
but it appeared that there was a transfer between ship and air-car. Somewhat 
later Lokhar mechanics brought a case of energy tubes to the ship, which 
according to Zarfo was a sure signal that the ship was preparing for departure.
The sun sank toward the ocean. The men fell silent, studying the ships which, 
hardly more than a quarter-mile distant, seemed tantalizingly accessible. Still 
the question lingered: Which of the three ships in the "Load Zone" offered the 
maximum opportunity for a successful departure? The consensus favored one of the 
cargo ships, only Jag Jaganig preferring the passenger ship.
Reith's nerves began to crawl. The next few hours would shape his future, and 
far too many variables lay beyond his control. Strange that the ships should be 
guarded so lightly! On the other hand who was apt to attempt the theft of a 
spaceship? Probably not in the last thousand years had such an act occurred, if 
ever.
Dusk fell over the landscape; the group began to descend the mountainside. 
Floodlights illuminated the ground beside the warehouses, the repair shop, the 
depot in back of the loading zone. The remainder of the field remained in 
greater or less darkness, the ships casting long shadows away from the lights.
The men scrambled the last few feet down to the base of the hill, crossed a path 
of dank marshland, and came to the edge of the field, and here they waited five 
minutes, watching and listening. The warehouses showed no activity; in the shops 
a few men still worked.
Reith, Zarfo and Thadzei went forth to reconnoiter. Crouching they ran to the 
abandoned hulk, where they stood in the shadows.
From the machine shop came the whine of machinery; from the depot a voice called 
something unintelligible. The three waited ten minutes. In the town at the back 
of the spacefield long skeins of light had come into being; across the harbor 
the Wankh towers showed a few glimmers of yellow.
The machine shop became quiet; the workers appeared to be leaving. Reith, Zarfo 
and Thadzei moved across the field keeping to the long shadows. They reached the 
first of the small cargo ships, where again they halted to look and listen: 
there were no sounds, no alarms. Zarfo and Thadzei went to the entry hatch, 
heaved it open and entered, while Reith with beating heart stood guard outside.
Ten interminable minutes passed. From within came furtive sounds and once or 
twice a glimmer of light, which aroused in Reith an intense nervousness.
Finally the two Lokhars returned. "No good," grunted Zarfo. "No air, no energy. 
Let's try the other."
They stole quickly across the bands of light and shadow to the second cargo 
ship; as before Zarfo and Thadzei entered while Reith stood at the port. The 
Lokhars returned almost immediately. "Under repair," Zarfo reported glumly. 
"This is where the component cases come from."
They turned to look at the passenger vessel. "It's not a standard design," Zarfo 
grumbled. "Still, the instruments and layout may be familiar to us."
"Let's go aboard and look," said Reith. But now a light flared across the field. 
Reith's first thought was that they had been discovered. But the light played 
toward the passenger vessel. From the direction of the gate came a low 
easy-moving shape. The vehicle stopped beside the passenger vessel; a number of 
dark figures alighted-how many could not be ascertained in the glare. With a 
curiously abrupt and heavy motion, the figures entered the ship.
"Wankh," muttered Zarfo. "They're going aboard."
"It would mean that the ship is ready for departure," said Reith. "A chance we 
can't afford to miss!"
Zarfo demurred. "It's one thing to steal an empty ship, another coping with a 
half dozen Wankh, and Wankhmen as well."
"How do you know Wankhmen are aboard?"
"Because of the lights. Wankh project pulses of radiation and observe the 
reflections."
Behind them came a faint sound. Reith whirled to find Traz. "We became worried; 
you were gone so long."
"Go back; bring everyone here. If we have opportunity, we'll board the passenger 
ship. It's the only one available."
Traz vanished into the darkness. Five minutes later the entire group stood in 
the shadow of the cargo ship.
Half an hour went by. In the passenger ship shapes moved across the lights, 
performing activities beyond the comprehension of the nervous men. In husky 
whispers they debated possible courses of action. Should they try to storm the 
ship now? Almost certainly departure was in the offing. Such action was 
obviously reckless. The group decided to pursue a conservative course and return 
into the mountains to await a more propitious occasion. As they started back, a 
number of Wankh issued from the vessel and lurched to the vehicle, which almost 
immediately left the field. Within the ship lights still glowed. No further 
activity was evident.
"I'm going to give it a look," said Reith. He ran across the field, followed by 
the others. They mounted the ramp, passed through an embarkation port into the 
ship's main saloon, which was unoccupied. "Everybody to his station," said 
Reith. "Let's take it up!"
"If we can," grumbled Zorofim.
Traz cried out a warning: turning, Reith saw that a single Wankh had entered the 
saloon, watching in nonplussed disapproval. It was a black creature somewhat 
larger than a man, with a heavy torso, a squat head from which two black lenses 
flickered at half-second intervals. The legs were short; the feet were played 
webs; it carried no weapons or implements; in fact wore no garment or harness of 
any sort. From a sound organ at the base of the skull came four reverberating 
chimes, which, considering the circumstances, seemed measured and unexcited. 
Reith stepped forward, pointed to a settee, to indicate that it should sit down. 
The Wankh stood motionless, looking after the Lokhars who had gone their various 
ways, checking engines, energy, supplies, oxygen. The Wankh at last seemed to 
understand the events which were taking place. It took a step toward the exit 
port, but Reith barred the way and once again pointed to the settee. The Wankh 
loomed in front of him, the glassy eyes flickering. Once again the chimes 
sounded, more peremptory than before.
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 handgun. 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 in 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 smoldering 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 could.
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."
Zargo 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 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 wheatcolored 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 Wankhman 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 FIFTEEN
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 evacuation 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 your 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."
"You won't defeat the Wankhmen that way," gloomed Zarfo. "They'll tell the Wankh 
only as much as they see fit, and you'll never know the difference."
"What I'd like to do," said Reith, "is work up to a situation where only the 
truth makes sense and where every other statement is an obvious falsity."
Zarfo shook his head in puzzlement and walked to the spigot to drink. Reith 
remembered that none of the group had eaten for almost two days; small wonder 
they were listless and irritable.
Three Wankhmen appeared. The official who previously had spoken to Reith was not 
among them. "Come along. Look sharp, now; form a neat line."
"Where are we going?" Reith asked, but received no reply.
The group walked five minutes, through odd-angled streets and irregular courts, 
by acute and obtuse angles, past unexpected juts and occasional clear vistas, 
through deep shadow and the wan shine of Carina 4269. They entered the ground 
floor of a tower, entered an elevator which took them up a hundred feet and 
opened upon a large octagonal hall.
The chamber was dim; a great lenticular bulge in the roof held water; windblown 
ripples modulated light from the sky and sent it dancing around the hall. 
Tremors of sound were barely audible, sighing chords, complex dissonances; sound 
both more and less than music. The walls were stained and discolored, a fact 
which Reith found peculiar, until looking closer he recognized Wankh ideograms, 
immense and intricately detailed, one to each wall. Each ideogram, thought 
Reith, represented a chime; each chime was the sonic equivalent of a visual 
image. Here, reflected Reith, were highly abstract pictures.
The chamber was empty. The group waited in silence while the almost unheard 
chords drifted in and out of consciousness, and amber sunlight, refracted and 
broken into shimmers, swam through the room.
Reith heard Traz gasp in surprise: a rare event. He turned. Traz pointed. "Look 
yonder!"
Standing in an alcove was Helsse, head bent in an attitude of brooding reverie. 
His guise was new and strange. He wore black Wankhman garments; his hair was 
close-cropped; he looked a person worlds apart from the suave young man Reith 
had encountered in Blue Jade Palace. Reith looked at Zarfo. "You told me he was 
dead!"
"So he seemed to me! We put him out in the corpse shed, and in the morning he 
was gone. We thought the night-hounds had come for him."
Reith called: "Helsse! Over here! It's Adam Reith."
Helsse turned his head, looked at him and Reith wondered how he ever could have 
taken Helsse for anything but a Wankhman. Helsse came slowly across the chamber, 
a half-smile on his face. "So here: the sorry outcome to your exploits."
"The situation is discouraging," Reith agreed. "Can you help us?"
Helsse raised his eyebrows. "Why should I? I find you personally offensive, 
without humility or ease. You have subjected me to a hundred indignities; your 
pro-'cult' bias is repulsive; the theft of a space vessel with an Original 
aboard makes your request absurd."
Reith considered him a moment. "May I ask why you are here?"
"Certainly. To supply information in regard to you and your activities."
Reith mulled the matter over. "Are we so important?"
"So it would seem," said Helsse indifferently.
Four Wankh entered the chamber, and stood by the far wall: four massive black 
shadows. Helsse stood straighter; the other Wankhmen became silent. It was 
apparent, thought Reith, that whatever the total attitude of the Wankhmen toward 
the Wankh might be, that attitude included a great deal of respect.
The prisoners were urged forward, and ranged in a line before the Wankh. A 
minute passed, during which nothing happened. Then the Wankh exchanged chimes: 
soft muffled sounds at half-second intervals, apparently unintelligible to the 
Wankhmen. Another silence ensued, then the Wankh addressed the Wankhmen, 
producing triads of three quick notes, like xylophone trills, in what seemed to 
be a simplified or elemental usage.
The oldest Wankhman stepped forward, listened, turned to the prisoners. "Which 
of you is the pirate-master?"
"None of us," said Reith. "We are not pirates."
One of the Wankh uttered interrogatory chimes. Reith thought he recognized the 
Original Master. The Wankhman, somewhat grudgingly, brought forth a small keyed 
instrument which he manipulated with astonishing deftness.
"Tell him further," said Reith, "that we regret the inconvenience we caused him. 
Circumstances compelled us to take him aloft."
"You are not here to argue," said the Wankhman, "but to render information, 
after which the usual processes will occur."
Again the Master uttered chimes and was answered. Reith asked: "What is he 
saying, and what did you tell him?"
The senior Wankhman said, "Speak only when you are directly addressed."
Helsse came forward, and producing his own instrument, played chimes at length. 
Reith began to feel uneasy and frustrated. Events were ranging far beyond his 
control. "What is Helsse saying?"
"Silence."
"At least inform the Wankh that we have a case which we want to present."
"You will be notified if it becomes necessary for you to testify. The hearing is 
almost at an end."
"But we haven't had a chance to speak!"
"Silence! Your persistence is offensive!"
Reith turned to Zarfo. "Tell the Wankh something! Anything!"
Zarfo blew out his cheeks. Pointing at the Wankhmen he made chirping sounds. The 
senior Wankhman said sternly: "Quiet, you are interrupting."
"What did you tell him?" asked Reith.
"I said, 'Wrong, wrong, wrong.' That's all I know."
The Master spoke chimes, indicating Reith and Zarfo. The senior Wankhman, 
visibly exasperated, said: "The Wankh want to know where you planned to commit 
your piracies, or, rather, where you planned to take the spaceship."
"You are not translating correctly," protested Reith. "Did you tell him that we 
are not pirates?"
Zarfo again made sounds for "Wrong, wrong, wrong!"
The Wankhman said, "You are obviously pirates, or lunatics." Turning back to the 
Wankh, he played his instrument, misrepresenting, so Reith was sure, what had 
been said. Reith turned to Helsse. "What is he telling them? That we are not 
pirates?"
Helsse ignored him.
Zarfo guffawed, to everyone's astonishment. He muttered in Reith's ear: 
"Remember the Dugbo? Pinch Helsse's nose."
Reith said, "Helsse."
Helsse turned him an austere gaze. Reith stepped forward, tweaked his nose. 
Helsse seemed to become rigid. "Tell the Wankh that I am a man of Earth, the 
world of human origin," said Reith, "that I took the spaceship only in order to 
return home."
Helsse woodenly played a set of trills and runs. The other Wankhmen became 
instantly agitated-sufficient proof that Helsse had translated accurately. They 
began to protest, to press forward, to drown out Helsse's chimes, only to be 
brought up short by a great belling sound from the Master.
Helsse continued, and at last came to an end.
"Tell them further," said Reith, "that the Wankhmen falsified my remarks, that 
they consistently do so to further their private purposes."
Helsse played. The other Wankhmen again started a great protest, and again were 
rebuked.
Reith warmed to his task. He voiced one of his surmises, striking boldly into 
the unknown: "Tell them that the Wankhmen destroyed my spaceship, killing all 
aboard except myself. Tell them that our mission was innocent, that we came 
investigating radio signals broadcast a hundred and fifty Tschai-years ago. At 
this time the Wankhmen destroyed the cities Settra and Ballisidre from which the 
signals emanated, with great loss of life, and all for the same reason: to 
prevent a new situation which might disturb the Wankh-Dirdir stalemate."
The instant uproar among the Wankhmen convinced Reith that his accusations had 
struck home. Again they were silenced.
Helsse played the instrument with the air of a man astounded by his own actions.
"Tell them," said Reith, "that the Wankhmen have systematically distorted truth. 
They undoubtedly have prolonged the Dirdir war. Remember, if the war ended, the 
Wankh would return to their home world, and the Wankhmen would be thrown upon 
their own resources."
Helsse, gray-faced, struggled to drop the instrument, but his fingers refused to 
do his bidding. He played. The other Wankhmen stood in dead silence. This was 
the most telling accusation of all. The senior Wankhman shouted: "The interview 
is at an end! Prisoners, form your line! March!"
Reith told Helsse: "Request that the Wankh order all the other Wankhmen to 
depart, so that we may communicate without interruption."
Helsse's face twitched; sweat poured down his face.
"Translate my message," said Reith.
Helsse obeyed.
Silence held the chamber, with the Wankhmen gazing in apprehension toward the 
Wankh.
The Master uttered two chimes.
The Wankhmen muttered among themselves. They came to a terrible decision. Out 
came their weapons; they turned them, not upon the prisoners, but upon the four 
Wankh. Reith and Traz sprang forward, followed by the Lokhars. The weapons were 
wrested away.
The Master uttered two quiet chimes.
Helsse listened, then slowly turned to Reith. "He commands that you give me the 
weapon you hold."
Reith relinquished the gun. Helsse turned toward the other three Wankhmen, 
pushed the trigger-button. The three fell dead, their heads shattered.
The Wankh stood a moment in silence, assessing the situation. Then they departed 
the hall. The erstwhile prisoners remained with Helsse and the corpses. Reith 
took the gun from Helsse's cold fingers, before he thought to use it again.
The chamber began to grow murky with the coming of dusk. Reith studied Helsse, 
wondering how long the hypnotic state would persist. He said, "Take us outside 
the walls."
"Come."
Through the black and gray city Helsse took the group, finally to a small steel 
door. Helsse touched a latch; the door swung aside. Beyond, a spine of rock led 
through the dusk to the mainland.
The group filed through the gap into the open air. Reith turned to Helsse. "Ten 
minutes after I touch your shoulder, resume your normal condition. You will 
remember nothing of what has happened during the last hour. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Reith touched Helsse's shoulder; the group hurried away through the twilight. 
Before a jut of rock hid them from sight Reith looked back. Helsse stood where 
they had left him, looking somewhat wistfully after them.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN A PATCH of rough forestland the group slumped down in total fatigue, their 
stomachs crawling with hunger. By the light of the two moons Traz searched 
through the undergrowth and found a clump of pilgrim plant, and the group made 
their first meal in two days. Somewhat refreshed, they moved on through the 
night, up a long slope. At the top of the ridge, they turned to look back, 
toward the gloomy silhouette of Ao Khaha on the moonlit sky. For a few minutes 
they stood, each man thinking his own thoughts, then they continued north.
In the morning over a breakfast of toasted fungus, Reith opened his pouch. "The 
expedition has been a failure. As I promised, each man receives another five 
thousand sequins. Take them now, with my gratitude for your loyalty."
Zarfo took the purple-glowing pellets gingerly, weighed them in his fingers. 
"Above all I am an honest man, and since this was the structure of the contract, 
I will accept the money."
Jag Jaganig said: "Let me ask you a question, Adam Reith. You told the Wankh 
that you were a man from a far world, the home of man. Is this correct?"
"It is what I told the Wankh."
"You are such a man, from such a planet?"
"Yes. Even though Anacho the Dirdirman makes a wry face."
"Tell us something of this planet."
Reith spoke for an hour, while his comrades sat staring into the fire.
Anacho at last cleared his throat. "I do not doubt your sincerity. But, as you 
say, the history of Earth is short compared to the history of Tschai. It is 
obvious that far in the past the Dirdir visited Earth and left a colony from 
which all Earthmen are descended."
"I could prove otherwise," said Reith, "if our venture had been successful and 
we had all journeyed to Earth."
Anacho poked the fire with a stick. "Interesting ... The Dirdir of course would 
not sell or transfer a spaceship. Such a theft as we perpetrated upon the Wankh 
would be impossible. Still-at the Great Sivishe Spaceyards almost any component 
can be acquired, by purchase or discreet arrangement. One only needs sequins, a 
considerable sum, true."
"How much?" asked Reith.
"A hundred thousand sequins would work wonders."
"No doubt. At the moment I have barely the hundredth part of that."
Zarfo threw over his five thousand sequins. "Here. It pains me like the loss of 
a leg. But let these be the first coins in the pot."
Reith returned the money. "At the moment they would only make a forlorn rattling 
sound."
Thirteen days later the group came down out of the Ifnets to Blalag, where they 
boarded a power wagon and so returned to Smargash.
For three days Reith, Anacho and Traz ate, slept and watched the young folk at 
their dancing.
On the evening of the third day Zarfo joined them in the taproom. "All look 
sleek and lazy. Have you heard the news?"
"What news?"
"First, I have acquired a delightful property on a bend of the Whisfer River, 
with five fine keels, three psillas and an asponistra, not to mention the 
tayberries. Here I shall end my days-unless you tempt me forth on another mad 
venture. Secondly, two technicians this morning returned to Smargash from Ao 
Hidis. Vast changes are in the wind! The Wankhmen are departing the fortresses; 
they have been driven out and now live in huts with the Blacks and Purples. It 
appears that the Wankh will no longer tolerate their presence."
Reith chuckled. "At Dadiche we found an alien race exploiting men. At Ao Hidis 
we found men exploiting an alien race. Both conditions are now changed. Anacho, 
would you care to be liberated from your enervating philosophy and become a sane 
man?"
"I want demonstration, not words. Take me to Earth." "We can hardly walk there."
"At the Great Sivishe Spaceyards are a dozen spaceboats, needing only 
procurement and assembly."
"Yes, but where are the sequins?"
"I don't know," said Anacho.
"Nor I," said Traz.



THE DIRDIR



CHAPTER ONE
THE SUN CARINA 4269 had passed into the constellation Tartusz, to mark the onset 
of Balul Zac Ag, the "unnatural dream time," when slaughter, slave-taking, 
pillage and arson came to a halt across the Lokhar Highlands. Balul Zac Ag was 
the occasion for the Great Fair at Smargash, or perhaps the Great Fair had come 
first, eventually to generate Balul Zac Ag after unknown hundreds of years. From 
across the Lokhar Highlands and the regions surrounding Xar, Zhurveg, Seraf, 
Niss and others came to Smargash to mingle and trade, to resolve stale feuds, to 
gather intelligence. Hatred hung in the air like a stench; covert glances and 
whispered curses, in-drawn hisses of detestation accented the color and 
confusion of the bazaar. Only the Lokhars (the men black-skinned and 
white-haired, the women whiteskinned and black-haired) maintained faces of 
placid unconcern.
On the second day of Balul Zac Ag, as Adam Reith wandered through the bazaar, he 
became aware that he was being watched. The knowledge came as a dismal shock; on 
Tschai, surveillance always led to a grim conclusion.
Perhaps he was mistaken, Reith told himself. He had dozens of enemies; to many 
others he represented ideological disaster; but how could any of these have 
traced him to Smargash? Reith continued along the crowded lanes of the bazaar, 
pausing at the booths to look back the way he had come. But his follower, if in 
fact he existed, was lost in the confusion. There were Niss in black robes, 
seven feet tall, striding like rapacious birds: Xars; Serafs; Dugbo nomads 
squatting over their fires; Human Things expressionless behind pottery 
faceplates; Zhurvegs in coffee-brown caftans; the black and white Lokhars of 
Smargash themselves. There was odd staccato noise: the clank of iron, squeak of 
leather, harsh voices, shrill calls, the whine, rasp and jangle of Dugbo music. 
There were odors: fern-spice, gland-oil, submusk, dust rising and settling, the 
reek of pickled nuts, smoke from grilled meats, the perfume of the Serafs. There 
were colors: black, dull brown, orange, old scarlet, dark blue, dark gold. 
Leaving the bazaar Reith crossed the dancing field. He stopped short, and from 
the corner of his eye glimpsed a figure sliding behind a tent.
Thoughtfully Reith returned to the inn. Traz and the Dirdirman, Ankhe at afram 
Anacho, sat in the refectory making a meal of bread and meat. They ate in 
silence; disparate beings, each found the other incomprehensible. Anacho, tall, 
thin and pallid like all Dirdirmen, was completely hairless, a quality he now 
tended to minimize under a soft tasseled cap after the style of the Yao. His 
personality was unpredictable; he inclined toward garrulity, freakish jokes, 
sudden petulances. Traz, square, somber and sturdy, was in most respects 
Anacho's obverse. Traz considered Anacho vain, over-subtle, over-civilized; 
Anacho thought Traz tactless, severe and over-literal. How the two managed to 
travel in comparative amity was a mystery to Reith.
Reith seated himself at the table. "I think I'm being watched," he announced.
Anacho leaned back in dismay. "Then we must prepare for disaster-or flight."
"I prefer flight," said Reith. He poured himself ale from a stone jug.
"You still intend to travel space to this mythical planet of yours?" Anacho 
spoke in the voice of one who reasons with an obstinate child.
"I want to return to Earth, certainly."
"Bah," muttered Anacho. "You are the victim of a hoax, or an obsession. Can you 
not cure yourself? The project is easier to discuss than to effectuate. 
Spaceships are not wart-scissors, to be picked up at any bazaar booth."
Reith said sadly, "I know this only too well."
Anacho spoke in an offhand manner: "I suggest that you apply at the Grand 
Sivishe Spaceyards. Almost anything can be procured, if one has enough sequins."
"I suspect that I don't," said Reith.
"Go to the Carabas. Sequins can be had by the bucketful."
Traz gave a short snort of derision. "Do you take us for maniacs?"
"Where is the Carabas?" asked Reith.
"The Carabas is in the Dirdir Hunting Preserve, at the north of Kislovan. Men 
with luck and strong nerves sometimes prosper."
"Fools, gamblers and murderers, rather," muttered Traz.
Reith asked, "How do these men, whatever their nature, gain the sequins?"
Anacho's voice was flippant and airy. "By the usual method: they dig up nodes of 
chrysospine."
Reith rubbed his chin. "Is this the source of sequins? I thought that the Dirdir 
or some such folk minted them."
"Your ignorance is that of another planet indeed!" declared Anacho.
The muscles around Reith's mouth gave a rueful twitch. "It could hardly be 
otherwise."
"The chrysospine," said Anacho, "grows only in the Black Zone, which is to say, 
the Carabas, where uranium compounds occur in the soil. A full node yields two 
hundred and eighty-two sequins, of one or another color. A purple sequin is 
worth a hundred clears; a scarlet is fifty, and down through the emeralds, 
blues, sards and milks. Even Traz knows as much."
Traz looked at Anacho with a curled lip. "'Even Traz'?"
Anacho paid him no heed. "All this to the side; we have no certain evidence of 
surveillance. Adam Reith may well be mistaken."
"Adam Reith is not mistaken," said Traz. "'Even Traz,' as you put it, knows 
better than this."
Anacho raised his hairless eyebrows. "How so?"
"Notice the man who just entered the room."
"A Lokhar; what about him?"
"He is no Lokhar. He watches our every move."
Anacho's jaw fell a trifle slack.
Reith studied the man surreptitiously; he seemed less burly, less direct and 
abrupt than the typical Lokhar. Anacho spoke in a subdued voice: "The lad is 
right. Notice how he drinks his ale, head down instead of back ... Disturbing."
Reith muttered, "Who would be interested in us?"
Anacho gave a bark of caustic laughter. "Do you think that our exploits have 
gone unnoticed? The events at Ao Hidis have aroused attention everywhere."
"So this man-whom would he serve?"
Anacho shrugged. "With his skin dyed black I can't even guess his breed."
"We'd better get some information," said Reith. He considered a moment. "I'll 
walk out through the bazaar, then around into the Old Town. If the man yonder 
follows, give him a start and come behind. If he stays, one of you stay, the 
other come after me."
Reith went out into the bazaar. At a Zhurveg pavilion he paused to examine a 
display of rugs, woven, according to rumor, by legless children, kidnapped and 
maimed by the Zhurvegs themselves. He glanced back the way he had come. No one 
appeared to be following. He went on a little way, and paused by the racks where 
hideous Niss women sold coils of braided leather rope, leap-horse harness, 
crudely beautiful silver goblets. Still no one behind. He crossed the passage to 
examine a Dugbo display of musical instruments. If he could take a cargo of 
Zhurveg rugs, Niss silver, Dugbo musical instruments back to Earth, thought 
Reith, his fortune would be made. He looked over his shoulder, and now he 
observed Anacho dawdling fifty yards behind. Anacho clearly had learned nothing.
Reith sauntered on. He paused to watch a Dugbo necromancer: a twisted old man 
squatting behind trays of misshapen bottles, jugs of salve, junction-stones to 
facilitate telepathy, love-sticks, sheafs of curses indited on red and green 
paper. Above flew a dozen fantastic kites, which the old Dugbo manipulated to 
produce a wan wailing music. He proffered Reith an amulet, which Reith refused 
to buy. The necromancer spat epithets and caused his kites to dart and shriek 
discords.
Reith moved on, into the Dugbo encampment proper. Girls wearing scarves and 
flounced skirts of black, old rose and ocher solicited Zhurvegs, Lokhars, 
Serafs, but taunted the prudish Niss who stalked silently past, heads 
out-thrust, noses like scythes of polished bone. Beyond the encampment lay the 
open plain and the far hills, black and gold in the light of Carina 4269.
A Dugbo girl approached Reith, jangling the silver ornaments at her waist, 
smiling a gap-toothed grin. "What do you seek out here, my friend? Are you 
weary? This is my tent; enter, refresh yourself."
Reith declined the invitation and stepped back before her fingers or those of 
her younger sister could flutter near his pouch.
"Why are you reluctant?" sang the girl. "Look at me! Am I not graceful? I have 
polished my limbs with Seraf wax; I am scented with haze-water; you could do far 
worse!"
"No doubt whatever," said Reith. "Still..."
"We will talk together, Adam Reith. We will tell each other of many strange 
matters."
"How do you know my name?" demanded Reith.
The girl waved her scarf at the younger girls, as if at insects. "Who at 
Smargash does not know Adam Reith, who strides abroad like an Ilanth prince, and 
his mind always full of thoughts?"
"I am notorious then?"
"Oh, indeed. Must you go?"
"Yes. I have an engagement." Reith continued on his way. The girl watched after 
him with an odd half-smile, which Reith, looking over his shoulder, found 
disconcerting.
A few hundred yards further along, Anacho approached from a side-lane. "The man 
dyed like a Lokhar remained at the inn. For a period you were followed by a 
young woman dressed as a Dugbo. In the encampment she accosted you, then 
followed no more."
"Strange," muttered Reith. He looked up and down the street. "No one follows us 
now?"
"No one is visible. We might well be under observation. Turn about, if you 
will."
Anacho ran his long white fingers over the fabric of Reith's jacket. "So I 
suspected." He displayed a small black button. "And now we know who tracks you. 
Do you recognize this?"
"No. But I can guess. A tell-tale."
"A Dirdir adjunct for hunting, used by the very young or the very old to guide 
them after their quarry."
"So the Dirdir are interested in me."
Anacho's face became long and pinched, as if he tasted something acrid. "The 
events at Ao Khaha have naturally attracted their attention."
"What should they want with me?"
"Dirdir motives are seldom subtle. They want to ask a few questions and then 
kill you."
"The time has come to move on."
Anacho glanced toward the sky. "That time has come and gone. I suspect that a 
Dirdir sky-car approaches at this very moment ... Give me the button."
A Niss approached, black robes flapping to the stride of his legs. Anacho 
stepped forth, made a swift movement toward the black gown. The Niss sprang 
around with a grunt of menace, and for a moment seemed ready to abandon the 
unnatural restraints of Balul Zac Ag. Then he wheeled and continued along his 
way.
Anacho gave his thin fluting chuckle. "The Dirdir will be puzzled when Adam 
Reith proves to be a Niss."
"Before they learn differently, we had best be gone."
"Agreed, but how?"
"I suggest that we consult old Zarfo Detwiler."
"Luckily we know where to find him."
Skirting the bazaar, the two approached the ale-house, a ramshackle structure of 
stone and weather-beaten planks. Today Zarfo sat within, to escape the dust and 
confusion of the bazaar. A stone crock of ale almost hid his black-dyed face. He 
was dressed in unaccustomed elegance: polished black boots, a maroon cape, a 
black tricorn hat pulled down over his flowing white hair. He was somewhat drunk 
and even more garrulous than usual. With difficulty Reith made him aware of his 
problem. Zarfo at last became exercised. "So, the Dirdir now! Infamous, and 
during Balul Zac Ag! They had better control their arrogance, or know the wrath 
of the Lokhars!"
"All this to the side," said Reith, "how can we most quickly leave Smargash?"
Zarfo blinked and dipped another ladle of ale from the crock. "First I must 
learn where you wish to go."
"The Isles of Cloud, or perhaps the Carabas."
Zarfo let the ladle sag in shock. "The Lokhars are the most avaricious of 
people, yet how many attempt the Carabas? Few! And how many return with wealth? 
Have you noticed the great manor house to the east, with the chain of carved 
ivory around the bower?"
"I have seen the manor."
"There are no other such manors near Smargash," said Zarfo portentously. "Do you 
get my meaning?" He rapped on the bench. "Pot-boy! More ale."
"I mentioned the Isles of Cloud as well," said Reith.
"Tusa Tala on the Draschade is more convenient for the Isles. How to reach Tusa 
Tala? The motor-wagon fares only to Siadz at the edge of the highlands; I know 
of no route down the chasms to the Draschade. The caravan to Zara is two months 
gone. A skyraft is the only sensible conveyance."
"Well, then, where can we obtain a sky-raft?"
"Not from the Lokhars; we have none. Look yonder: a skyraft and a party of rich 
Xars! They are about to depart. Maybe their destination is Tusa Tala. Let us 
inquire."
"A moment. We must get word to Traz." Reith called the potboy, sent him running 
to the inn.
Zarfo strode out across the compound with Reith and Anacho behind. Five Xars 
stood by their old sky-raft: short bullshouldered men with congested 
complexions. They wore rich robes of gray and green; their black hair rose in 
rigid varnished columns, flaring slightly outward and sheared off flat.
"Leaving Smargash so soon, friend Xars?" Zarfo called out in a cheerful voice.
The Xars muttered together and turned away.
Zarfo ignored the lack of affability. "Where then are you bound?"
"Lake Falas; where else?" declared the oldest Xar. "Our business is done; as 
usual we were cheated. We are anxious to return to the swamps."
"Excellent. This gentleman and his two friends need transportation to a point in 
your general direction. They asked me whether they should offer to pay; I said, 
'Nonsense! The Xars are princes of generosity-' "
"Hold!" the Xar called sharply. "I have at least three remarks to make. First, 
our raft is crowded. Second, we are generous unless we lose sequins in the 
process. Third, these two nondescripts have a reckless and desperate air about 
them, not at all reassuring. Is this the third?" The reference was to Traz, who 
had arrived on the scene. "A mere lad but no less dubious for all that."
Another Xar spoke. "Two further questions: How much can they pay? Where do they 
wish to go?"
Reith, considering the uncomfortably scant supply of sequins in his pouch, said, 
"A hundred sequins is all we can offer; and we want to be taken to Tusa Tala."
The Xars threw up their hands in outrage. "Tusa Tala? A thousand miles 
northwest! We head southeast to Lake Falas! A hundred sequins? Is this a joke? 
Mountebanks! Off with all of you,
Zarfo swaggered threateningly forward. "A mountebank, you call me? Were it not 
Balul Zac Ag, the 'unnatural dream time,' I would tweak all of your ludicrously 
long noses!"
The Xars made spitting sounds between their teeth, climbed aboard the raft and 
departed.
Zarfo stared after the departing raft. He heaved a sigh. "In this case, failure 
... Well, all may not prove so churlish. In the sky comes another craft; we 
shall put the proposal to those aboard, or at an extremity, render them drunk 
and borrow the vehicle. A handsome craft, that. Surely-"
Anacho gave a startled outcry. "A Dirdir sky-car! Already they are here! Away to 
concealment, for our very lives!"
He started to dart away. Reith seized his arm. "Don't run; do you want them to 
identify us so quickly?" To Zarfo: "Where shall we hide?"
"In the ale-house storeroom but never forget that this is Balul Zac Ag! The 
Dirdir would never dare violence!"
"Bah," sneered Anacho. "What do they know of your customs, or care?"
"I will explain to them," declared Zarfo. He led the three to a shed beside the 
alehouse, ushered them within. Through a crack in the plank Reith watched the 
Dirdir sky-car settle into the compound. On sudden thought he turned to Traz, 
felt over his garments, and in vast dismay discovered a black disc.
"Quick," said Anacho. "Give it here." He left the shed, went into the ale-house. 
A minute later he returned. "An old Lokhar departing for his cottage now carries 
the tell-tale." He went to a crack, peered out toward the field. "Dirdir, sure 
enough! As always when sport is to be had!"
The sky-car lay quiet: a craft different from any Reith had seen heretofore, the 
product of a sure and sophisticated technology. Five Dirdir stepped to the 
ground: impressive creatures, harsh, mercurial, decisive. They stood 
approximately at human height, and moved with sinister quickness, like lizards 
on a hot day. Their dermal surfaces suggested polished bone; their crania raised 
into sharp blade-like crests, with incandescent antennae streaming back at 
either side. The contours of the faces were oddly human, with deep eye-sockets, 
the scalp crests descending to suggest nasal ridges. They half-hopped, 
half-loped, like leopards walking erect; it was not hard to see in them the wild 
creatures which had hunted the hot plains of Sibol.
Three persons approached the Dirdir: the false Lokhar, the Dugbo girl, a man in 
nondescript gray garments. The Dirdir spoke with the three for several minutes, 
then brought forth instruments, which they pointed in different directions. 
Anacho hissed: "They locate their tell-tales. And the old Lokhar in the alehouse 
still dawdles over his pot!"
"No matter," said Reith. "As well in the ale-house as anywhere else."
The Dirdir approached the ale-house, moving with their curious half-loping 
stride. Behind came the three spies.
The old Lokhar chose this moment to lurch from the alehouse. The Dirdir 
inspected him in puzzlement, and approached by great leaps. The Lokhar drew back 
in alarm. "What have we here? Dirdir? Don't interfere with me!"
The Dirdir spoke in sibilant lisping voices which suggested the absence of a 
larynx. "Do you know a man called Adam Reith?"
"Indeed not! Stand aside!"
Zarfo thrust himself forward. "Adam Reith, you say? What of him?"
"Where is he?"
"Why do you ask?"
The false Lokhar stepped forward, muttered to the Dirdir. The Dirdir said. "You 
know Adam Reith well?"
"Not well. If you have money for him, leave it with me; he would have wanted it 
so."
"Where is he?"
Zarfo looked out across the sky. "You saw the sky-raft which departed as you 
arrived?"
"Yes."
"It might be that he and his friends were aboard."
"Who claims this to be true?"
"Not I," said Zarfo. "I offer only the suggestion."
"Nor I," said the old Lokhar who had carried the telltale.
"What is the direction?"
"Pah! You are the great trackers," sneered Zarfo. "Why ask us poor innocents?"
The Dirdir retreated across the compound in long strides. The skycar darted off 
into the air.
Zarfo confronted the three Dirdir agents, his big face twisted into a malevolent 
grin. "So here you are in Smargash, violating our laws. Do you not know this is 
Balul Zac Ag?"
"We committed no violence," stated the false Lokhar, "but merely did our work."
"Dirty work, conducive to violence! You shall all be flogged. Where are the 
constables? I give these three into custody!"
The three agents were hustled away, protesting and crying and making demands.
Zarfo came to the shed. "Best that you leave at once. The Dirdir will not delay 
long." He pointed across the compound. "The wagon to the west is ready to 
depart."
"Where does it take us?"
"Out to the highland rim. Beyond lie the chasms! A grim territory. But if you 
remain here, you will be taken by the Dirdir. Balul Zac Ag or no."
Reith looked around the compound, at the dusty stone and timber structures of 
Smargash, at the black and white Lokhars, at the shabby old inn. Here had been 
the single interim of peace and security he had known on Tschai; now events were 
forcing him once more into the unknown. In a hollow voice he said, "We need 
fifteen minutes to collect our gear."
Anacho said in a dismal voice, "The situation does not accord with my hopes ... 
But I must make the best of it. Tschai is a world of anguish."



CHAPTER TWO
ZARFO CAME TO the inn with white Seraf robes and spine helmets. "Wear these; 
conceivably you may win an additional hour or two. Hurry-the wagon is at the 
point of departure."
"One moment." Reith surveyed the compound. "There may be other spies, watching 
our every move."
"Well, then, by the back lane. After all, we cannot anticipate every 
contingency."
Reith made no further comments; Zarfo was becoming peevish and anxious to get 
them out of Smargash, no matter in what direction.
Silently, each man thinking his own thoughts, they went to the motorwagon 
terminus. Zarfo told them: "Say nothing to anyone; pretend to meditate: that is 
the way of the Serafs. At sundown face the east and utter a loud cry: 
'Ah-oo-cha!' No one knows what it means but that is the Seraf way. If pressed, 
state that you come to buy essences. So then: aboard the wagon! May you avoid 
the Dirdir and succeed in all your future undertakings. And if not, remember 
that death comes only once!"
"Thank you for the consolation," said Reith.
The motor-wagon trundled off on its eight tall wheels: away from Smargash, out 
over the plain toward the west. Reith, Anacho and Traz sat alone in the aft 
passenger cubicle.
Anacho was pessimistic in regard to their chances. "The Dirdir will not be 
confused for long. The difficulties will only make them keen. Do you know that 
the Dirdir young are like beasts? They must be tamed, then trained and educated. 
The Dirdir spirit remains feral; hunting is a lust."
"Self-preservation is no less a lust with me," Reith stated.
The sun sank behind the rim; gray-brown dust settled over the landscape. The 
wagon paused at a dismal little village; the passengers stretched their legs, 
drank brackish water raised from a well, haggled for buns with a withered old 
crone who asked outrageous prices and laughed wildly at counter-proposals.
The wagon proceeded, leaving the old woman muttering beside her tray of buns.
The dusk faded through umber into darkness. From across the wasteland came a 
weird hooting: the call of night-hounds. In the east rose the pink moon Az, 
followed presently by blue Braz. Ahead loomed a jut of rock: an ancient volcanic 
neck, so Reith surmised. From the summit glowed three wan yellow lights. Looking 
up through his scanscope* Reith saw the ruins of a castle ... He dozed for an 
hour and awoke to find the wagon rolling through soft sand beside a river. On 
the opposite bank psillas stood outlined against the moonlit sky. Presently they 
passed a many-cupolaed manor-house, apparently uninhabited and in the process of 
decay.
Half an hour later, at midnight, the wagon rumbled into the compound of a large 
village, to halt for the right. The passengers composed themselves to sleep on 
their benches or on top of the wagon.
Carina 4269 finally rose: a cool amber disc only gradually dispelling the 
morning mist. Vendors brought trays of pickled meats, pastes, strips of boiled 
bark, toasted pilgrim pod, from which the passengers made a breakfast.
The wagon proceeded to the west toward the Rim Mountains, now jutting high into 
the sky. Reith occasionally swept the sky with his scanscope but discovered no 
signs of pursuit.
"Too early yet," said Anacho cheerlessly. "Never fear; it will come."
At noon the wagon reached Siadz, the terminus: a dozen stone huts surrounding a 
cistern.
To Reith's intense disgust, no transportation, neither motorwagon nor 
leap-horse, could be hired for transportation onward across the rim.
"Do you know what lies beyond?" demanded the elder of the village. "The chasms."
"Is there no trail, no trade-route?"
"Who would enter the chasms, for trade or otherwise? What sort of folk are you?"
"Serafs," said Anacho. "We explore for asofa root."
"Ah, the Serafs and their perfumes. I have heard tales. Well, don't play your 
immortal antics on us; we are a simple people. In any event, there is no asofa 
among the chasms; only cripthorn, spumet and rack-belly."
"Nevertheless, we will go forth to search."
"Go then. There is said to be an ancient road somewhere to the north, but I know 
of none who have seen it."
"What people inhabit the chasms? Are they friendly?"
"'People'? A joke. A few pysantillas, red cors under every rock, bodebirds. If 
you are extremely unlucky you might meet a fere."
"It seems a dire region."
"Aye, a thousand miles of cataclysm. Still, who knows? Where cowards never 
venture, heroes find splendor. So it may be with your perfume. Strike out to the 
north and seek the ancient road to the coast. It will be no more than a mark, a 
crumble. When darkness comes, make yourself secure: night-hounds range the 
wastes!"
Reith said, "You have dissuaded us; we will return east with the motorwagon."
"Wise, wise! Why, after all, throw away your lives, Seraf or no?"
Reith and his companions rode the motor-wagon a mile back down the road, then 
inconspicuously slid to the ground. The wagon lumbered east and presently 
disappeared into the amber murk.
There was silence about them. They stood on coarse gray soil, with here and 
there wisps of salmon-colored thorn and at even greater intervals a coarse 
tangle of pilgrim plant, which Reith saw with a certain glum satisfaction. "So 
long as we find pilgrim plant we won't starve."
Traz gave a dubious grunt. "We had best reach the mountains before dark. On the 
flat night-hounds have advantage over three men."
"I know an even better reason for haste," said Anacho. "The Dirdir won't be 
puzzled long."
Reith searched the empty sky, the bleak landscape. "They might conceivably 
become discouraged."
"Never! When thwarted they grow excited, furious with zeal."
"We're not far from the mountains. We can hide in the shadow of the boulders, or 
in one of the ravines."
An hour's travel brought them under the crumbling basalt palisade. Traz suddenly 
halted, sniffed the air. Reith could smell nothing, but long since had learned 
to defer to Traz's perceptions.
"Phung* droppings," said Traz. "About two days old."
Reith nervously checked the availability of his handgun. Eight explosive pellets 
remained. When these were gone the gun became useless. It might be, thought 
Reith, that his luck was running out. He asked Traz, "Is it likely to be close 
at hand?"
Traz shrugged. "The Phung are mad things. For all I know, one stands behind that 
boulder."
Reith and Anacho looked uneasily about. Anacho finally said, "Our first concern 
must be the Dirdir. The critical period has begun. They will have traced us 
aboard the motor-wagon; they can easily follow us to Siadz. Still, we are not 
completely without advantage, especially if they lack game-finding instruments."
"What instruments are these?" asked Reith.
"Detectors of human odor or heat radiation. Some trace footprints by residual 
warmth, others observe exhalations of carbon dioxide and locate a man from a 
distance of five miles."
"And when they catch their game?"
"The Dirdir are conservative. They do not recognize change," said Anacho. "They 
need not hunt but are driven by inner forces. They consider themselves beasts of 
prey, and impose no restraint upon themselves."
"In other words," said Traz, "they will eat us."
Reith was gloomily silent. At last he said, "Well, we must not be captured."
"As Zarfo the Lokhar said, 'Death comes but once.' "
Traz pointed. "Notice the break into the palisade. If ever a road existed, there 
it must go."
Across barren hummocks of compacted gray soil, around tangles of thorn and 
tumbled beds of rubble, the three hurried, perspiring and constantly watching 
the sky. At last they reached the shadow of the notch, but could find no trace 
of the road. If ever it existed, detritus and erosion had long ago expunged it 
from view.
Anacho suddenly gave a low sad call. "The sky-car. It comes. We are hunted."
Reith forced back a panicky urge to run. He looked up the notch. A small stream 
trickled down the center, to terminate in a stagnant tarn. To the right rose a 
steep slope; to the left, a massive buttress overhung an area of deep shade, at 
the back of which was an even deeper shadow: the mouth of a cave.
The three crouched behind the tumble which choked half the ravine. Out over the 
plain the Dirdir boat, with chilling deliberation, slid toward Siadz.
Reith said in a neutral voice, "They can't detect our radiation through the 
rocks. Our carbon dioxide blows up the notch." He turned to look up the valley.
"No point in running," said Anacho. "There's no sanctuary. If they follow us 
this far they will chase us forever."
Five minutes later the sky-car returned from Siadz, following the road east, at 
an altitude of two or three hundred yards. Suddenly it swerved and circled. 
Anacho said in a fateful voice, "They have found our tracks."
The sky-car came across the plain, directly toward the notch. Reith brought 
forth his handgun. "Eight pellets left. Enough to explode eight Dirdir."
"Not enough to explode one. They carry shields against such missiles."
In another half-minute the sky-car would be overhead. "Best that we take to the 
cave," said Traz.
"Obviously the haunt of Phung," muttered Anacho. "Or an adit of the Pnume. Let 
us die cleanly, in the open air."
"We can walk through the pond," said Traz, "and stand below the overhang. Our 
trail is then broken; they may follow the stream up the valley."
"If we stand here," said Reith, "we're finished for sure."
The three ran through the shallow fringes of the pond, Anacho gingerly bringing 
up the rear. They huddled under the loom of the cliff. The odor of Phung was 
strong and rich.
Over the shoulder of the mountain opposite came the skyboat. "They'll see us!" 
said Anacho in a hollow voice. "We're in plain sight!"
"Into the cave," hissed Reith. "Back, further back!"
"The Phung-"
"There may be no Phung. The Dirdir are certain!" Reith groped back into the 
dark, followed by Traz and finally Anacho. The shadow of the sky-car passed over 
the pond, flitted on up the valley.
Reith flashed his light here and there. They stood in a large chamber of 
irregular shape, the far end obscured in murk. Light brown nodules and flakes 
covered the floor ankle-deep; the walls were crusted over with horny 
hemispheres, each the size of a man's fist.
"Night-hound larvae," muttered Traz.
Anacho stole to the cave-mouth, looked cautiously forth. He jerked back. 
"They've missed our trail; they're circling."
Reith extinguished the light and looked cautiously from the cave-mouth. A 
hundred yards away the sky-car descended to the ground, silent as a falling 
leaf. Five Dirdir alighted. For a moment they stood in consultation; then, each 
carrying a long transparent shield, they advanced into the notch. As if at a 
signal, two leaped forward like silver leopards, peering along the ground. Two 
others came behind at a slow lope, weapons ready; the fifth remained to the 
rear.
The pair in the lead stopped short, communicating in odd squeaks and grunts. 
"The hunting language," Anacho muttered, "from the time they were yet beasts."
"They look no different now."
The Dirdir halted at the far shore of the pond. They looked, listened, smelled 
the air, obviously aware their prey was close at hand.
Reith sighted along his handgun, but the Dirdir continually twitched their 
shields, frustrating his aim.
One of the leading Dirdir searched the valley through binoculars; the other held 
a black instrument before his eyes. At once he found something of interest. A 
great bound took him to the spot where Reith, Traz and Anacho had halted before 
crossing to the cave. Sighting through the black instrument, the Dirdir followed 
the tracks to the pond, then searched the space below the overhang. He gave a 
series of grunts and squeaks; the shields jerked about.
Anacho muttered, "They see the cave. They know we're here."
Reith peered into the back reaches of the cave.
Traz said in a matter-of-fact voice, "There is a Phung back there. Or it has not 
long departed."
"How do you know?"
"I smell it. I feel the pressure."
Reith turned to the Dirdir. Step by step they came, effulgences sparkling up 
from their heads. Reith spoke in a fateful croak: "Back, into the cave. Perhaps 
we can set up some kind of ambush."
Anacho gave a stifled groan; Traz said nothing. The three retreated through the 
dark, across the carpet of brittle granules. Traz touched Reith's arm. He 
whispered, "Notice the light behind us. The Phung is close at hand."
Reith halted, to strain his eyes into the dark. He saw no light. Silence pressed 
upon them.
Reith now thought to hear the faintest of scraping sounds. Cautiously he crept 
back through the dark, gun ready. And now he sensed yellow light: a wavering 
glimmer reflecting against the cave-wall. The scrape-scrape-scrape was somewhat 
louder. With the utmost caution Reith peered around a jut of rock, into a 
chamber. A Phung sat, back half-turned, burnishing its brachial plates with a 
file. An oil lamp emitted a yellow glow; to the side a broad-brimmed black hat 
and a cloak hung from a peg.
Four Dirdir stood in the mouth of the cave, shields in front, weapons ready; 
their effulgences, standing high, furnished their only light.
Traz plucked one of the horny hemispheres from the wall. He threw it at the 
Phung, which gave a startled cluck. Traz pressed Anacho and Reith back behind 
the jut of rock.
The Phung came forth; they could see its shadow against the glimmer of 
lamp-light. It returned into its chamber, once more came forth, and now it wore 
its hat and cloak.
For a moment it stood silent, not four feet from Reith, who thought the creature 
must surely hear the thud-thud-thud of his heart.
The Dirdir came three bounds forward, effulgences casting a wan white glow 
around the chamber. The Phung stood like an eight-foot statue, shrouded in its 
cloak. It gave a cluck or two of chagrin, then a sudden series of whirling hops 
took it among the Dirdir. For a taut instant, Dirdir and Phung surveyed each 
other. The Phung swung out its arms, swept two Dirdir together, squeezing and 
crushing both. The remaining Dirdir, backing silently away, swung up their 
weapons. The Phung leaped on them, dashing the weapons aside. It tore the head 
from one; the other fled, with the Dirdir who had stood guard outside. They ran 
through the pond; the Phung danced a queer circular jig, sprang forth, leaped 
ahead of them, kicking water into a spray. It pushed one under the surface and 
stood on him, while the other ran up the valley. The Phung presently stalked in 
pursuit.
Reith, Traz and Anacho darted from the cave and made for the sky-car. The 
surviving Dirdir saw them and gave a despairing scream. The Phung was 
momentarily distracted; the Dirdir dodged behind a rock, then with desperate 
speed dashed past the Phung. He seized one of the weapons which had previously 
been knocked from his hand, and burned off one of the Phung's legs. The Phung 
fell in a sprawling heap.
Reith, Traz and Anacho were now scrambling into the skycar; Anacho settled to 
the controls. The Dirdir screamed a wild admonition, and ran forward. The Phung 
made a prodigious hop, to alight on the Dirdir with a great flapping of the 
cloak. With the Dirdir at last a tangle of bones and skin, the Phung hopped to 
the center of the pond where it stood like a stork, ruefully considering its 
single leg.



CHAPTER THREE
BELOW LAY THE chasms, separated by knife-edged ridges of stone. Black gash 
paralleled black gash; looking down Reith wondered whether he and his party 
could possibly have survived to reach the Draschade. Almost certainly not. He 
speculated: Did the chasms tolerate life of any sort? The old man at Siadz had 
mentioned pysantillas and fere; who knows what other creatures inhabited the 
gulches far below? He now noticed, wedged in a crevice high between two peaks, a 
crumble of angular shapes like an efflorescence from the mother rock: a village, 
apparently of men, though none could be seen. Where did they find water? In the 
depths of the chasm? How did they provide themselves with food? Why did they 
choose so remote an aerie for their home? There were no answers to his 
questions; the aerie was left behind in the murk.
A voice broke into Reith's musings: a sighing, rasping, sibilant voice, which 
Reith could not understand.
Anacho touched a button; the voice cut off. Anacho showed no concern; Reith 
forbore to ask questions.
The afternoon waned; the chasms spread to become flatbottomed gorges full of 
darkness, while the intervening ridges showed fringes of dark gold. A region as 
grim and hopeless as the grave, thought Reith. He recalled the village, now far 
behind, and became melancholy.
The peaks and ridges ended abruptly to form the front of a gigantic scarp; the 
floors of the gorges extended and joined. Ahead lay the Draschade. Carina 4269, 
sinking, laid a topaz trail across the leaden water.
A promontory jutted into the sea, sheltering a dozen fishing craft, high at bow 
and stern. A village struggled along the foreshore, lights already glimmering 
into the dusk.
Anacho circled slowly above the village. He pointed. "Notice the stone building 
with the two cupolas and the blue lamps? A tavern, or perhaps an inn. I suggest 
that we put down to refresh ourselves. We have had a most tiring day."
"True, but can the Dirdir trace us?"
"Small risk. They have no means to do so. I long since isolated the identity 
crystal. And in any event, that is not their way."
Traz peered suspiciously down at the village. Born to the inland steppes, he 
distrusted the sea and sea-people, considering both uncontrollable and 
enigmatic. "The villagers may well be hostile, and set upon us."
"I think not," said Anacho in the lofty voice which invariably irritated Traz. 
"First, we are at the edge of the Wankh realm; these folk will be accustomed to 
strangers. Secondly, so large an inn implies hospitality. Thirdly, sooner or 
later we must descend in order to eat and drink. Why not here? The risk can be 
no greater than at any other inn upon the face of Tschai. Fourthly, we have no 
plans, no destination. I consider it foolish to fly aimlessly through the 
night."
Reith laughed. "You have convinced me. Let's go down."
Traz gave his head a sour shake, but put forward no further objections.
Anacho landed the sky-car in a field beside the inn, close under a row of tall 
black chymax trees which tossed and sighed to a cold wind off the sea. The three 
alighted warily, but their arrival had attracted no great attention. Two men, 
hunching along the lane with capes gripped close against the wind, paused a 
moment to survey the sky-car, then continued with only an idle mutter of 
comment.
Reassured, the three proceeded to the front of the inn and pushed through a 
heavy timber door into a great hall. A halfdozen men with sparse sandy hair and 
pale bland faces stood by the fireplace nursing pewter mugs. They wore rough 
garments of gray and brown fustian, knee-high boots of well-oiled leather; Reith 
took them for fishermen. Conversation halted. All turned narrow gazes toward the 
newcomers. After a moment they reverted to the fire, their mugs, their terse 
conversations.
A strapping woman in a black gown appeared from a back chamber. "Who be you?"
"Travelers. Can you give us meals and lodging for the night?"
"What's your nature? Are you fjord men? Or Rab?"
"Neither."
"Travelers often be folk who do evil in their own lands and are sent away."
"This is often the case, I agree."
"Mmf. What will you eat?"
"What is to be had?"
"Bread and steamed eel with hilks."
"This then must be our fare."
The woman grunted once more and turned away, but served additionally a salad of 
sweet lichen and a tray of condiments. The inn, so she informed them, had 
originally been the residence of the Foglar pirate kings. Treasure was reputedly 
buried below the dungeons. "But digging only uncovers bones and more bones, some 
broken, some scorched. Stern men, the Foglars. Well, then, do you wish tea?"
The three went to sit by the fire. Outside the wind roared past the eaves. The 
landlady came to stoke the blaze. "The chambers are down the hall. If you need 
women, I must send out; I myself can't serve owing to my sore back, and there 
will be additional charge."
"Don't trouble in this regard," Reith told her. "So long as the couches are 
clean we will be content."
"Strange travelers that come in so grand a sky-car. You"-she pointed a finger 
toward Anacho-- "might well be a Dirdirman. Is that a Dirdir sky-car?"
"I might be a Dirdirman and it might be a Dirdir sky-car. And we might be 
engaged upon important work where absolute discretion is necessary."
"Aha, indeed!" The woman's jaw slacked. "Something to do with the Wankh, no 
doubt! Do you know, there's been great changes to the south? The Wankhmen and 
the Wankh are all at odds!"
"We are so informed."
The woman leaned forward. "What of the Wankh? Are they in withdrawal? So it is 
rumored."
"I think not," said Anacho. "While the Dirdir inhabit Haulk, so long will the 
Wankh hold their Kislovan forts, and the Blue Chasch keep their torpedo pits 
ready."
The woman cried, "And we, poor miserable humans: pawns of the great folk, never 
knowing which way to jump! I say Bevol take 'em all, and welcome!"
She shook her fist to south, to southwest and northwest, the directions in which 
she located her principal antagonists; then she departed the chamber.
Anacho, Traz and Reith sat in the ancient stone hall, watching the fire flicker.
"Well, then," asked Anacho. "What of tomorrow?"
"My plans remain the same," said Reith. "I intend to return to Earth. Somewhere, 
somehow, I must gain possession of a spaceship. This program is meaningless for 
you two; you should go where you feel secure: the Isles of Cloud, or perhaps 
back to Smargash. Wherever you decide, we will go; then perhaps you will allow 
me to continue in the sky-car."
Anacho's long harlequin face assumed an expression almost prim. "And where will 
you take yourself?"
"You mentioned the spaceyards at Sivishe; this will be my destination."
"What of money? You will need a great deal, as well as subtlety and, most of 
all, luck."
"For money there is always the Carabas."
Anacho nodded. "Every desperado of Tschai will tell you the same. But wealth 
does not come without extreme risk. The Carabas lies within the Dirdir Hunting 
Preserve; trespassers are fair game. If you evade the Dirdir, there is Buszli 
the Bandit, the Blue Band, the vampire women, the gamblers, the hook-men. For 
every man who gains a handful of sequins, another three leave their bones, or 
fill Dirdir guts."
Reith gave an uneasy grimace. "I'll have to take my chances."
The three sat looking into the fire. Traz stirred. "Once long ago I wore Onmale 
and never am I entirely free of the weight. Sometimes I feel it calling from 
under the soil. In the beginning it ordained life for Adam Reith; now, even if I 
wished, I would not desert Adam Reith for fear of Onmale."
"I am a fugitive," said Anacho. "I have no life of my own. We have destroyed the 
first Initiative,* but sooner or later there will be a second Initiative. The 
Dirdir are pertinacious. Do you know where we might find the most security? At 
Sivishe, close under the Dirdir city Hei. As for the Carabas ..." Anacho gave a 
doleful sigh. "Adam Reith seems to have a knack for survival. I have nothing 
better to do. I will take my chances."
"I'll say no more," said Reith. "I'm grateful for your company."
For a space the three looked into the flames. Outside the wind whistled and 
blustered. "Our destination, then, is the Carabas," said Reith. "Why should not 
the sky-car give us an advantage?"
Anacho fluttered his fingers. "Not in the Black Zone. The Dirdir would take note 
and instantly be upon us."
"There must be tactics of some sort to lessen the danger," said Reith.
Anacho gave a grim chuckle. "Everyone who visits the Zone has his private 
theories. Some enter by night; others wear camouflage and puff boots to muffle 
their tracks. Some organize brigades and march as a unit; others feel more 
secure alone. Some enter from Zimle; others come down from Maust. The 
eventualities are usually the same."
Reith rubbed his chin reflectively. "Do Dirdirmen join the hunt?"
Anacho smiled into the flames. "The Immaculates have been known to hunt. But 
your concept has no value. Neither you nor Traz nor I could successfully 
impersonate an Immaculate."
The fire became coals; the three went to their tall dim chambers and slept on 
hard couches under linens smelling of the sea. In the morning they ate a 
breakfast of salt biscuit and tea, then settled their tariff and departed the 
inn.
The day was dreary. Cold tendrils of fog sifted through the chymax trees. The 
three boarded the sky-car. Up they rose through the overcast, and finally broke 
out into the wan amber sunlight. Westward they flew, over the Draschade Ocean.



CHAPTER FOUR
THE GRAY DRASCHADE rolled below: the ocean which Reith-it seemed an eon ago-had 
crossed aboard the cog Vargaz. Anacho flew close above the surface, to minimize 
the risk of detection by Dirdir search-screens. "We have important decisions to 
make," he announced. "The Dirdir are hunters; we have become prey. In principle, 
a hunt once initiated must be consummated, but the Dirdir are not a cohesive 
folk like the Wankh; their programs result from individual initiatives, the so 
called zhna-dih. This means a great dashing leap, trailing lightning-like 
sparks. The zeal expended upon finding us depends upon whether the 
hunt-chief--he who performed the original zhna-dih-was aboard the skycar and is 
now dead. If so, there is a considerable diminution of risk, unless another 
Dirdir wishes to assert h'so-a word meaning 'marvelous dominance'-and organizes 
another tsau'gsh, whereupon conditions are as before. If the hunt-chief is 
alive, he becomes our mortal enemy."
Reith asked in wonder, "What was he before?"
Anacho ignored the remark. "The hunt-chief has the force of the community at his 
disposal, though he asserts his h'so more emphatically by zhna-dih. However, if 
he suspects that we fly the sky-car, he might well order up search-screens." 
Anacho offhandedly indicated a disk of gray glass to the side of the instrument 
panel. "If we touch a search-screen you'll see a mesh of orange lines."
The hours went by. Anacho somewhat condescendingly explained the operation of 
the sky-car; both Traz and Reith familiarized themselves with the controls. 
Carina 4269 swung across the sky, overtaking the skycar and dropping into the 
west. The Draschade rolled below, an enigmatic gray-brown waste, blurring and 
merging into the sky.
Anacho began to talk of the Carabas: "Most sequin-takers enter at Maust, fifty 
miles south of the First Sea. At Maust are the most complete outfitters' shops, 
the finest charts and handbooks, and other services. I consider it as good a 
destination as any."
"Where are the nodes usually found?"
"Anywhere within the Carabas. There is no rule, no system of discovery. Where 
many folk seek, nodes are naturally few."
"Then why not choose a less popular entry?"
"Maust is popular because it is most convenient."
Reith looked ahead toward the yet unseen coast of Kislovan and the unknown 
future. "What if we use none of these entries, but some point in between?"
"What is there to gain? The Zone is the same from any direction."
"There must be some way to minimize risks and maximize gains."
Anacho shook his head in disparagement. "You are a strange and obstinate man! 
Isn't this attitude a form of arrogance?"
"No," said Reith. "I don't think so."
"How," argued Anacho, "should you succeed with such facility where others have 
failed?"
Reith grinned. "It's not arrogant to wonder why they failed."
"One of the Dirdir virtues is zs'hanh," said Anacho. "It means 'contemptuous 
indifference to the activity of others.' There are twenty-eight castes of 
Dirdir, which I will not enumerate, and four castes of Dirdirmen: the 
Immaculates, the Intensives, the Estranes, the Cluts. Zs'hanh is reckoned an 
attribute of the fourth through the thirteenth Dirdir grades. The Immaculates 
also practice zs'hanh. It is a noble doctrine."
Reith shook his head in wonder. "How have the Dirdir managed to create and 
coordinate a technical civilization? In such a welter of conflicting wills-"
"You misunderstand," said Anacho in his most nasal voice. "The situation is more 
complex. To rise in caste a Dirdir must be accepted into the next highest group. 
He wins acceptance by his achievements, not by causing conflicts. Zs'hanh is not 
always appropriate to the lower castes, nor for the very highest, which use the 
doctrine of pn'hanh: 'corrosive or metal-bursting sagacity.' "
"I must belong in a high caste," said Reith. "I intend to use pn'hanh rather 
than zs'hanh. I want to exploit every possible advantage and avoid every risk."
Reith, looking sidewise at the long sour face, chuckled to himself. He wants to 
point out that my caste is too low for such affectations, thought Reith, but he 
knows that I'll laugh at him.
The sun sank with unnatural deliberation, its rate of decline slowed by the 
westward progress of the sky-car. Toward the end of the afternoon a gray-violet 
bulk rose above the horizon, to meet the disc of the pale brown sun. This was 
the island, Leume, close under the continent of Kislovan.
Anacho turned the sky-car somewhat to the north and landed at a dingy village on 
the sandy north cape. The three spent the night at the Glass Blower's Inn, a 
structure contrived of bottles and jugs discarded by the shops at the sand-pits 
behind the town. The inn was dank and permeated with a peculiar acrid odor; the 
evening meal of soup, served in heavy green glass tureens, evinced something of 
the same flavor. Reith remarked on the similarity to Anacho, who summoned the 
Gray* servant and put a haughty question. The servant indicated a large black 
insect darting across the floor. "The skarats do indeed be pungent creatures, 
and exhale a chife. Bevol made a plague on us, until we put them to use and 
found them nutritious. Now we hardly capture enough."
Reith long had been careful never to make inquiry regarding foods set before 
him, but now he looked askance into the tureen. "You mean ... the soup?"
"Indeed," declared the servant. "The soup, the bread, the pickles: all be 
skarat-flavored, and if we did not use them of purpose, they'd infest us to the 
same effect, so we make a virtue of convenience, and think to enjoy the taste."
Reith drew back from the soup. Traz ate stolidly. Anacho gave a petulant sniff 
and also ate. It occurred to Reith that never on Tschai had he noticed 
squeamishness. He heaved a deep sigh, and since no other food was forthcoming, 
swallowed the rancid soup.
In the dim brown morning breakfast was again soup, with a garnish of sea 
vegetables. The three departed immediately after, flying northwest across Leume 
Gulf and the stony wastes of Kislovan.
Anacho, usually nerveless, now became edgy, searching the sky, peering down at 
the ground, scrutinizing the knobs and bubbles, the patches of brown fur and 
vermilion velvet, the quivering mirrors which served as instruments. "We 
approach the Dirdir realm," he said. "We will veer north to the First Sea, then 
bear west to Khorai, where we must leave the sky-car and travel the Zoga'ar zum 
Fulkash am* to Maust. Then ... the Carabas."



CHAPTER FIVE
OVER THE GREAT Stone Desert flew the sky-car, parallel to the black and red 
peaks of the Zopal Range, over parched dust-flats, fields of broken rock, dunes 
of dark pink sand, a single oasis surrounded by plumes of white smoke-tree.
Late in the afternoon a windstorm drove lion-colored rolls of dust across the 
landscape, submerging Carina 4269 in murk. Anacho swung the sky-car north. 
Presently a black-blue line on the horizon indicated the First Sea.
Anacho immediately landed the sky-car upon the barrens, some ten miles short of 
the sea.
"Khorai is yet hours ahead; best not to arrive after dark. The Khors are a 
suspicious folk, and flourish their knives at a harsh word. At night they strike 
without provocation."
"These are the folk who will guard our sky-car?"
"What thief would be mad enough to trouble the Khors?"
Reith looked around the waste. "I prefer supper at the Glass Blower's Inn to 
nothing whatever."
"Ha!" said Anacho. "In the Carabas you will recall the silence and peace of this 
night with longing."
The three bedded themselves down into the sand. The night was dark and 
brilliantly clear. Directly overhead burned the constellation Clari, within 
which, unseen to the eye, glimmered the Sun. Would he ever again see Earth? 
Reith wondered. How often then would he lie under the night sky looking up into 
Argo Navis for the invisible brown sun Carina 4269 and its dim planet Tschai?
A flicker inside the sky-car attracted his attention: he went to look and found 
a mesh of orange lines wavering across the radar screen.
Five minutes later it disappeared, leaving Reith with a sense of chill and 
desolation.
In the morning the sun rose at the edge of the flat plain in a sky 
uncharacteristically clear and transparent, so that each small irregularity, 
each pebble, left a long black shadow. Taking the sky-car into the air, Anacho 
flew low to the ground; he too had noticed the orange flicker of the night 
before. The waste became less forbidding: clumps of stunted smoke-tree appeared, 
and presently black dendron and bladderbush.
They reached the First Sea and swung west, following the shoreline. They passed 
over villages: huddles of dull brown brick with conical roofs of black iron, 
beside copses of enormous dyan trees, which Anacho declared to be sacred groves. 
Rickety piers like dead centipedes sprawled out into the dark water; 
double-ended boats of black wood were drawn up the beach. Looking through the 
scanscope Reith noted men and women with mustard-yellow skins. They wore black 
gowns and tall black hats; as the sky-car passed over they looked up without 
friendliness.
"Khors," stated Anacho. "Strange folk with secret ways. They are different by 
day and by night-at least this is the report. Each individual owns two souls 
which come and go with dawn and sunset, so that each is two different persons. 
Peculiar tales are told." He pointed ahead. "Notice the shore, where it draws 
back into a funnel."
Reith, looking in the direction indicated, saw one of the now familiar dyan 
copses and a huddle of dull brown huts with black iron roofs. From a small 
compound a road led south over the rolling hills toward the Carabas.
Anacho said, "Behold the sacred grove of the Khors, in which, so it is said, 
souls are exchanged. Yonder you see the caravan terminus and the road to Maust. 
I dare not take the sky-car further; hence we must land and make our way to 
Maust as ordinary sequin-takers, which is not necessarily a disadvantage."
"And when we return will the sky-car still be here?"
Anacho pointed down to the harbor. "Notice the boats at anchor."
Looking through his scanscope Reith observed three or four dozen boats of every 
description.
"Those boats," said Anacho, "brought sequin-takers to Khorai--from Coad, 
Hedaijha, the Low Isles, from the Second Sea and the Third Sea. If the owners 
return within a year, they sail from Khorai and to their homes. If within the 
year they do not return, the boat becomes the property of the harbor-master. No 
doubt we can arrange the same contract."
Reith made no arguments against the scheme, and Anacho dropped the sky-car 
toward the beach.
"Remember," Anacho warned, "the Khors are a sensitive people. Do not speak to 
them; pay them no heed except from necessity, in which case you must use the 
fewest possible words. They consider garrulity a crime against nature. Do not 
stand upwind of a Khor, nor if possible downwind; such acts are symbolic of 
antagonism. Never acknowledge the presence of a woman; do not look toward their 
children-they will suspect you of laying a curse; and above all ignore the 
sacred grove. Their weapon is the iron dart which they throw with astonishing 
accuracy; they are a dangerous people."
"I hope I remember everything," said Reith.
The sky-car landed upon the dry shingle; seconds later a great gaunt 
brown-skinned man, with deep-sunk eyes, concave cheeks, a crag of a nose, came 
running forward, his coarse brown smock flapping. "Are you for the Carabas, the 
dreadful Carabas?"
Reith gave a cautious assent: "This is our design."
"Sell me your sky-car! Four times I have entered the Zone, creeping from rock to 
rock; now I have my sequins. Sell me your sky-car, so that I may return to 
Holangar."
"Unfortunately we will need the sky-car upon our return," said Reith.
"I offer you sequins, purple sequins!"
"They mean nothing to us; we go to find sequins of our own."
The gaunt man gave a gesture of emotion too wild to be expressed in words and 
lunged off down the beach. A pair of Khors now approached: men somewhat slender 
and delicate of physique, wearing black gowns and cylindrical black hats which 
gave the illusion of height. The mustard-yellow faces were grave and still, the 
noses thin and small, the ears fragile shells. Fine black hair grew up rather 
than down, to be contained within the tall hat. They seemed to Reith a stream of 
humanity as divergent as the Chaschmen-perhaps a distinct species.
The older of the two spoke in a thin soft voice: "Why are you here?"
"We go to take sequins," said Anacho. "We hope to leave the sky-car in your 
care."
"You must pay. The sky-car is a valuable device."
"So much the better for you should we fail to return. We can pay nothing."
"If you return, you must pay."
"No, no payment. Do not insist or we will fly directly to Maust."
The mustard-yellow faces showed no quiver of emotion. "Very well, but we allow 
you only to the month Temas."
"Only three months? Too short a period! Give us until the end of Meumas, or 
better Azaimas."
"Until Meumas. Your sky-car will be secure against all but those from whom you 
stole it."
"It will be totally secure; we are not thieves."
"So be it. Until the first day of Meumas, on the precise instant."
The three took their possessions and walked through Khorai, to the caravan 
terminus. Under an open shed a motor-wagon was being prepared for a journey, 
with a dozen men of as many races standing by. The three made arrangements for 
passage, and an hour later departed Khorai, along the road south to Maust.
Over barren hills and dry swales rolled the motor-wagon, halting for the night 
at a hostel operated by an order of white-faced women. They were either members 
of an orgiastic religious sect or simple prostitutes; long after Reith, Anacho 
and Traz had stretched out upon the benches which served as beds, drunken shouts 
and wild laughter came from the smoky common room.
In the morning the common room was dim and quiet, reeking with spilled wine and 
the smoke of dead lamps. Men huddled face-down over tables, or sprawled along 
benches, their faces the color of ash. The women of the place entered, now 
harsh-voiced and peremptory, with cauldrons of thin yellow goulash. The men 
stirred and groaned, somberly ate from earthenware bowls and staggered out to 
the motorwagon, which presently set forth to the south.
By noon Maust appeared in the distance: a jumble of tall narrow buildings with 
high gables and crooked roof-lines, built of dark timber and age-blackened tile. 
Beyond, a barren plain extended to the dim Hills of Recall. Running boys came 
out to meet the motor-wagon. They shouted slogans and held up signs and banners: 
"Sequin-takers attention! Kobo Hux will sell one of his excellent 
sequin-detectors." "Formulate your plans at the Inn of Purple Lights." "Weapons, 
puffpads, maps, digging implements from Sag the Mercantilist are eminently 
useful." "Do not grope at random; the Seer Garzu divines the location of large 
purple nodes." "Flee the Dirdir with all possible agility; use supple boots 
provided by Awalko." "Your last thoughts will be pleasant if, before death, you 
first consume the euphoric tablets formulated by Laus the Thaumaturge." "Enjoy a 
jolly respite, before entering the Zone, at the Platform of Merriment."
The motor-wagon halted in a compound at the edge of Maust. The passengers 
alighted into a crowd of bawling men, urgent boys, grimacing girls, each with a 
new proffer. Reith, Traz and Anacho pushed through the throng, avoiding as best 
they could the hands which reached to grasp them and their possessions.
They entered a narrow street running between tall, age darkened structures, the 
beer-colored sunlight barely penetrating to the street. Certain of the houses 
sold gear and implements conceivably useful to the sequin-taker: grading kits, 
camouflage, spoor eliminators, tongs, forks, bars, monoculars, maps, guides, 
talismans and prayer powders. From other houses came the clash of cymbals, a 
raucous honking of oboes, accompanied by calls of drunken exaltation. Certain of 
the buildings catered to gamblers; others functioned as inns, with restaurants 
occupying the ground floor. Everywhere lay the weight of antiquity, even to the 
dry aromatic odor of the air. Stones had been polished by the casual touch of 
hands; interior timbers were dark and waxy; the old brown tiles showed a subtle 
luster to glancing light.
At the back of the central plaza stood a spacious hostelry, which appeared to 
offer comfortable accommodation and which Anacho favored, though Traz grumbled 
at what he considered excessive and unnecessary luxury. "Must we pay the price 
of a leap-horse merely to sleep the night?" he complained. "We have passed a 
dozen inns more to my taste."
"In due course you will learn to appreciate the civilized niceties," said Anacho 
indulgently. "Come, let us see what is offered within."
Through a portal of carved wood they entered the foyer. Chandeliers fashioned to 
represent sequin-clusters hung from the ceiling; a magnificent rug, black of 
field with a taupe border and five starbursts of scarlet and ocher, cushioned 
the tile floor.
A majordomo approached to inquire their needs. Anacho spoke for three chambers, 
clean linen, baths and unguents. "And what do you demand in the way of tariff?"
"For such accommodation each must pay a hundred sequins* per day," replied the 
majordomo.
Traz gave an exclamation of shock; even Anacho was moved to protest. "What?" he 
exclaimed. "For three modest chambers, you demand three hundred sequins? Have 
you no sense of proportion? The charges are outrageous."
The majordomo gave his head a curt inclination. "Sir, this is the famous Alawan 
Inn, at the threshold of the Carabas. Our patrons never begrudge themselves; 
they go forth either for wealth or the experience of a Dirdir intestine. What 
then a few sequins more or less? If you are unable to pay our fees I suggest the 
Den of Restful Repose or the Black Zone Inn. Notice, however, that the tariff 
includes access to a buffet of good-quality victuals as well as a library of 
charts, guides and technical advice, not to mention the services of an expert 
consultant."
"All very well," said Reith. "First we will look into the Black Zone Inn, and 
one or two other establishments."
The Black Zone Inn occupied the loft above a gambling establishment. The Den of 
Restful Repose was a cold barracks a hundred yards north of town, beside a 
refuse dump.
After inspecting several other hospices the three returned to the Alawan, where 
by dint of furious haggling they managed to secure a somewhat lower rate, which 
they were forced to pay in advance.
After a meal of stewed hackrod and mealcake, the three repaired to the library, 
at the back of the second floor. The side wall displayed a great map of the 
Zone; shelves held pamphlets, portfolios, compilations. The consultant, a small 
sad-eyed man, sat to the side and responded to questions in a confidential 
whisper. The three passed the afternoon studying the physiography of the Zone, 
the tracks of successful and unsuccessful ventures, the statistical distribution 
of Dirdir kills. Of those who entered the Zone, something under two-thirds 
returned, with an average gain of sequins to the value of about six hundred. 
"The figures here are somewhat misleading," Anacho stated. "They include the 
fringe-runners who never venture more than half a mile into the Zone. The takers 
who work the hills and the far slopes account for most of the deaths and most of 
the wealth."
There were a thousand aspects to the science of sequin-taking, with arrays of 
statistics to illuminate every possible inquiry. Upon sighting a Dirdir band a 
sequin-taker might run, hide or fight with chances of clean escape calculated in 
terms of physiography, the time of day, proximity to the Portal of Gleams. 
Takers organized into bands for self-protection attracted an overcompensating 
number of Dirdir and their chances of survival decreased. Nodes were found in 
all parts of the Zone, most being found in the Hills of Recall and upon the 
South Stage, the savanna at the far side of the hills. The Carabas was reckoned 
no-man's-land, takers occasionally ambushing each other; such acts were reckoned 
as eleven percent of the risk.
Dusk approached, and the library became filled with gloom. The three went down 
to the refectory, where under the light of three great chandeliers, servitors in 
black silk livery had already laid out the evening meal. Reith was moved to 
remark at so much elegance, to which Anacho gave a bark of sardonic amusement. 
"How else to justify such exorbitant tariffs?" He went off to the buffet and 
returned with three cups of spiced wine.
The three, leaning back in the ancient settees, observed the other sojourners, 
most of whom sat alone. A few were in pairs, and a single group of four huddled 
at a far table, in dark cloaks and hoods which revealed only long ivory noses.
Anacho spoke: "Eighteen men in the room, with ourselves. Nine will find sequins, 
nine will find none. Two may locate a node of high value, purple or scarlet. 
Ten, perhaps twelve, will pass through Dirdir guts. Six, or perhaps eight, will 
return to Maust. Those ranging the farthest to find the choicest nodes run the 
most risk; the six or eight will show no great profit."
Traz said dourly, "Every day in the Zone a man faces one chance in four of 
death. His average gain is about four hundred sequins: it would seem that these 
men, and ourselves as well, value life at only sixteen hundred sequins."
"Somehow we've got to change the odds," said Reith.
"Everyone who comes to the Zone makes similar plans," said Anacho dryly. "Not 
all succeed."
"Then we must try something no one else has considered."
Anacho made a skeptical sound.
The three went forth to explore the town. The music houses showed red and green 
lights; on the balconies frozen-faced girls twitched and postured and sang 
strange soft songs. The gambling houses showed brighter lights and more fervent 
activity. Each seemed to specialize in a particular game, as simple as the throw 
of fourteen-faced dice, as complex as chess played against the house 
professionals.
They stopped to watch a game call Locate the Prime Purple Node. A board thirty 
feet long by ten feet wide represented the Carabas. The Forelands, the Hills of 
Recall, the South Stage, the gorges and valleys, the savannas, the streams and 
forests were faithfully depicted. Blue, red and purple lights indicated the 
location of nodes, sparse along the Forelands, more plentiful in the Hills of 
Recall and on the South Stage. Khusz, the Dirdir hunting camp, was a white 
block, with purple prongs rising from each corner. A numbered grid was 
superimposed upon all. A dozen players overlooked the board, each controlling a 
manikin. Also on the board were the effigies of four lunging Dirdir hunters. The 
players in turn cast fourteen-sided dice to determine the movement of all the 
manikins across the grid, as each player elected. The Dirdir hunters, moving to 
the same numbers, endeavored to cross an intersection on which rested a manikin, 
whereupon the manikin was declared destroyed and removed from the game.
Each manikin sought to cross the lights representing sequin nodes, thus 
augmenting his score. Whenever he chose, he left the Zone by the Portal of 
Gleams and was paid his winnings. More often, prompted by greed, the player held 
his manikin on the board until a Dirdir struck it down, by which he lost the 
totality of his gain. Reith watched the game in fascination. The players sat 
clenching the rails of their booths. They stared and fidgeted, calling hoarse 
orders to the operators, yelling in exultation when they won a node, groaning at 
the approach of the Dirdir, leaning back with sick faces when their manikins 
were destroyed and their winnings lost.
The game ended. No further manikins roamed the Carabas.
No Dirdir hunted an empty Zone. The players stiffly descended from their booths; 
those who had won free of the Zone took their winnings. The Dirdir returned to 
Khusz beyond the South Stage. New players bought manikins, climbed into the 
booths and the game began once more.
Reith, Traz and Anacho continued along the street. Reith paused at a booth to 
scan packets of folded paper on display. Placards read:
Meticulously annotated across seventeen years: the chart of Sabour Yan, for a 
mere 1000 sequins, guaranteed to be unexploited.
"and"
The chart of Goragonso the Mysterious, who lived in the Zone like a shadow, 
nurturing his secret nodes like children, at a mere 3500 sequins. Never 
exploited.
Reith looked to Anacho for explanation.
"Simple enough. Such folk as Sabour Yan and Goragonso the Mysterious over the 
years explore the safer regions of the Carabas, seeking out low-grade nodes, the 
waters and milks, the pale blues which are known as sards, the pale greens. When 
they locate such nodes they carefully note their position and conceal them as 
best they may, under heaps of gravel or slabs of shale, thinking to return in 
later years after the nodes mature. If they find purple nodes so much the 
better, but in the near regions which for safety's sake they frequent, purple 
nodes are few save those which as 'waters' or 'milks' or 'sands,' were 
discovered and concealed a generation before. When such men are killed, their 
charts become valuable documents. Unfortunately, buying such a chart can be 
risky. The first person to come into possession of the chart might 'exploit' it, 
removing the choicest nodes, and then putting the chart up for sale as 
'unexploited.' Who can prove otherwise?"
The three returned to the Alawan. In the foyer a single chandelier exuded the 
light of a hundred sullen jewels, which lost itself in the shadows, with only a 
colored gleam here and there on the dark wood. The refectory was also dim, 
occupied by a few murmuring groups. From an urn they drew bowls of pepper-tea 
and settled themselves in a booth.
Traz spoke in a disgruntled voice: "This place is insane: Maust and the Carabas 
together. We should leave and seek wealth in some normal manner."
Anacho gave an airy wave of white fingers and spoke in a didactic and fluting 
voice: "Maust is merely an aspect of the interplay between men and money, and 
must be viewed on this basis."
"Must you always talk gibberish?" demanded Traz. "To gain sequins either in 
Maust or in the Zone is a gamble, at poor odds. I do not care to gamble."
"As far as I am concerned," said Reith, "I plan to gain sequins, but I do not 
intend to gamble."
"Impossible!" Anacho declared. "In Maust you gamble with sequins; in the Zone 
you gamble with your life. How can you avoid doing so?"
"I can try to reduce the odds to a tolerable level."
"Everyone hopes to do the same. But Dirdir fires burn nightly across the 
Carabas, and at Maust the shopkeepers earn more than most sequin-takers."
"Taking sequins is uncertain and slow," said Reith. "I prefer sequins already 
gathered."
Anacho pursed his lips in quizzical calculation. "You plan to rob the 
sequin-gatherers? The process is risky."
Reith looked up at the ceiling. How could Anacho still misread the processes of 
his mind? "I plan to rob no sequin-takers."
"Then I am puzzled," said Anacho. "Whom do you intend to rob?"
Reith spoke with care. "While we watched the hunting game,
I began to wonder: when Dirdir kill a taker, what happens to his sequins?"
Anacho gave his fingers a bored flutter. "The sequins are booty; what else?"
"Consider a typical Dirdir hunt-party: how long will it remain in the Zone?"
"Three to six days. Grand hunts and commemoratives are longer; competition hunts 
are somewhat less extended."
"And, in a day, how many kills will a typical party make?"
Anacho considered. "Each hunter naturally hopes for a trophy each day out. The 
usual well-seasoned party kills two or three times each day, sometimes more. 
They waste much meat, necessarily."
"So that the typical hunting party returns to Khusz with sequins from as many as 
twenty takers."
Anacho said curtly, "So it might be."
"The average taker carries sequins to the value of, let us say, five hundred. 
Hence each hunting party returns with a value of ten thousand sequins."
"Don't allow the calculation to excite you," Anacho remarked in the driest of 
voices. "The Dirdir are not a generous folk."
"The game-board, I take it, is an accurate representation of the Zone?"
Anacho gave a dour nod. "Reasonably so. Why do you ask?"
"Tomorrow I want to trace the hunt routes out from Khusz and back again. If the 
Dirdir come to the Carabas to hunt men, they can hardly protest if men hunt 
Dirdir."
"Who can imagine men hunting the Effulgents?" croaked Anacho.
"It's never been done before?"
"Never! Do gekkos hunt smur?"
"In this case we gain the benefit of surprise."
"No doubt of that!" declared Anacho. "But you must proceed without me; I will 
have none of it."
Traz choked back a guffaw; Anacho swung about. "What amuses you?"
"Your fear."
Anacho leaned back in his seat. "If you knew the Dirdir as I do, you would fear 
too."
"They are alive. Kill, they die."
"They are hard to kill. When they hunt, they use a separate region of their 
mind, what they call the 'Old State.' No man can stand against them. Reith's 
concept verges upon insanity."
"Tomorrow we'll study the hunt board again," said Reith in a soothing voice. 
"Something may suggest itself."



CHAPTER SIX
THREE DAYS LATER, an hour before dawn, Reith, Traz and Anacho departed Maust. 
Passing through the Portal of Gleams, they set out across the Foreland toward 
the Hills of Recall, black on the mottled dark brown and violet sky, ten miles 
to the south. Ahead and behind, a dozen other shapes ran half-crouched through 
the cool gloom. Some had burdened themselves with equipment: digging implements, 
graders, weapons, deodorizing ointment, face-stains, camouflage; others had no 
more than a sack, a knife, a wad of alimentary paste.
Carina 4269 shouldered up through the murk, and some of the takers, crawling 
into patches of scrub, concealed themselves under camouflage cloth, to await the 
coming of dusk before proceeding further. Others plunged ahead, anxious to reach 
the Boulder Patch, accepting the risk of interception. Stimulated by evidence of 
this riskashes mingled with burned bones and scraps of leather-Reith, Traz and 
Anacho accelerated their pace. Half-trotting, half-running they gained the haven 
of the Boulder Path, where Dirdir did not care to hunt, without untoward 
incident.
They put down their packs and stretched out to rest. Almost at once a pair of 
hulking figures drew near: men of no race identifiable to Reith, brown of skin 
with long tangled black hair and curly beards. They wore rags; they stank 
abominably and inspected the three with truculent assurance. "We are in command 
of these premises," groaned one in a guttural voice. "Your cost for respite is 
five sequins each; if you refuse we will thrust you into the open, and notice! 
Dirdir stalk the northern ridge."
Anacho instantly leapt to his feet and with his shovel struck the speaker a 
great blow on the head. The second man swung his cudgel; Anacho cut up with his 
shovel blade, catching the man a maiming blow under the wrists. The cudgel flew 
aside; the man tottered back, looking in horror at his hands. They flapped under 
his wrists like a pair of empty gloves. Anacho said, "Go forth yourself to face 
the Dirdir." He jumped forward with shovel raised; the two shambled off into the 
rocks. Anacho watched them go. "We had better move."
The three took their packs and started away; almost as they did so a great chunk 
of rock flew down to smash into the ground. Traz jumped up on a boulder and 
fired his catapult, evoking a wail of distress.
The three took themselves a hundred yards south, somewhat up the slope from the 
Boulder Patch, where they commanded a view across the Forelands and yet could 
not easily be approached from the rear.
Settling back, Reith brought out his scanscope and studied the landscape. He 
discerned half a dozen furtive takers, and a band of Dirdir on a promontory to 
the east. For ten minutes the Dirdir stood immobile, then suddenly disappeared. 
A moment later he picked them out again, moving with long lunging strides down 
the slope and out upon the Forelands.
During the afternoon, with no Dirdir in view, takers began to venture from the 
Boulder Patch. Reith, Traz and Anacho climbed the slope, making for the ridge as 
directly as caution permitted. They were alone now. Not a sound could be heard.
What with the need for stealth, progress was slow; sunset found them toiling up 
a gulch just below the ridge, and they came forth just in time to see the last 
corroded sliver of Carina 4269 fade from sight. To the south the ground sloped 
in long rolls and swales down to the Stage: rich ground for sequins, but highly 
dangerous owing to the proximity of Khusz, about ten miles to the south.
With twilight a curious mood, mixed of melancholy and horror, settled over the 
Carabas. In all directions, winking fires appeared, each with its macabre 
implication. Amazing, thought Reith, that men, for any inducement whatever, 
would enter such a place. No more than a quarter-mile distant a fire sprang into 
existence, and the three quickly crouched into the shadows. The pale shapes of 
the Dirdir were clear to the naked eye.
Reith studied them through the scanscope. They stalked back and forth, their 
effulgences streaming like long phosphorescent antennae, and they seemed to be 
emitting sounds too soft to be heard.
Anacho whispered, "They use the 'Old State' of their brains; they are truly wild 
beasts, just as on the Sibol plains a million years ago."
"Why do they walk back and forth?"
"It is their custom; they ready themselves for their feeding frenzy."
Reith scrutinized the ground around the fire. In the shadows lay two heaving 
shapes. "They're alive!" whispered Reith in dismay.
Anacho grunted. "The Dirdir don't care to carry burdens. The prey must run 
alongside, hopping and leaping like the Dirdir all day if need be. If the prey 
flags, they sting him with nerve-fire and he runs with greater agility."
Reith put down the scanscope.
Anacho spoke in a voice carefully toneless: "You see them now in the 'Old 
State,' as wild beasts, which is their elemental nature. They are magnificent. 
In other cases they show magnificence of a different sort. Men cannot judge 
them, but merely stand back in awe."
"What of the elite Dirdirmen?"
"The Immaculates? What of them?"
"Do they imitate the Dirdir at hunting?"
Anacho looked off over the dark Zone. In the east a pink flush heralded the 
rising of the moon Az. "The Immaculates hunt. Naturally they cannot match Dirdir 
fervor and they are not privileged to hunt the Zone." He glanced toward the 
nearby fire. "In the morning the wind will blow from us to them. Best that we 
move on through the dark."
Az, low in the sky, cast a pink sheen over the landscape; Reith could think only 
of watered blood. They moved east and south, picking a painful way across the 
rocky bones of old Tschai. The Dirdir fire receded and passed from sight behind 
a bluff. For a period the three descended toward the Stage. They halted to sleep 
a fitful few hours, then once more continued down through the alls of Recall. Az 
now hung low in the west, while Braz lifted into the east. The night was clear; 
every object showed a double pink and blue shadow.
Traz went into the lead, watching, listening, testing each step. Two hours 
before dawn he stopped short and motioned his comrades to stillness. "Dead 
smoke," he whispered. "A camp ahead ... something is stirring."
The three listened. The landscape gave back only silence.
Moving with utmost stealth, Traz angled away on a new route, up over a ridge, 
down through a copse of feather-fronds. Once more halting to listen, Traz 
suddenly gestured the other two back into deep shade. From concealment they saw 
on the brow of the hill a pair of pale shapes, which stood silent and alert for 
ten minutes, then abruptly vanished.
Reith whispered, "Did they know we were near?"
"I don't think so," Traz muttered. "Still, they might have picked up our scent."
Half an hour later they went cautiously forward, keeping to the shadows. Dawn 
colored the east; Az was gone, followed by Braz. The three hurried through 
plum-colored gloom, and finally took shelter in a dense clump of torquil. At 
sunrise, among the litter of twigs and curled black leaves, Traz found a node 
the size of his two fists. When cracked loose from its brittle stem and split, 
hundreds of sequins spilled forth, each glowing with a point of scarlet fire.
"Beautiful!" whispered Anacho. "Enough to excite avidity! A few more finds like 
this and we could abandon Adam Reith's insane plan."
They searched further through the copse, but found nothing more.
Daylight revealed the South Stage savanna stretching east and west into the haze 
of distance. Reith studied his map, comparing the mountain behind with the 
depicted relief. "Here we are." He touched down his finger. "The Dirdir 
returning to Khusz pass yonder, west of the Boundary Woods, which is our 
destination."
"No doubt our destiny as well," remarked Anacho with a pessimistic sniff.
"I would as soon die killing Dirdir as any other way," said Traz.
"One does not die killing Dirdir," Anacho corrected him delicately. "They do not 
permit it. Should someone make the attempt they prickle him with nerve-fire."
"We'll do our best," said Reith. Lifting the scanscope he searched the landscape 
and along the ridge discovered three Dirdir hunting parties, scanning the slopes 
for game. A wonder, thought Reith, that any men whatever survived to return to 
Maust.
The day passed slowly. Traz and Anacho searched under the scrub for nodes, 
without success. During the middle afternoon a hunt crossed the slope not half a 
mile distant. First came a man bounding like a deer, his legs extending mightily 
forward and back. Fifty yards behind ran three Dirdir without exertion. The 
fugitive, despairing, halted with his back to a rock and prepared to fight; he 
was swarmed upon and overwhelmed. The Dirdir crouched over the prostrate form, 
performed some sort of manipulation, then stood erect. The man lay twitching and 
thrashing. "Nerve-fire," said Anacho. "Somehow he annoyed them, perhaps by 
carrying an energy weapon." The Dirdir trooped away. The victim, by a series of 
grotesque efforts, gained his feet, and started a lurching flight toward the 
hills. The Dirdir paused, looked after him. The man halted and gave a great cry 
of anguish. He turned and followed the Dirdir. They began to run, bounding in 
feral exuberance. Behind, running with crazy abandon, came their captive. The 
group disappeared to the north.
Anacho said to Reith, "You intend to pursue your plans?"
Reith felt a sudden yearning to be out of the Carabas, as far away as possible. 
"I understand why the plan hasn't been tried before."
Afternoon faded into a sad and gentle evening. As soon as fires appeared along 
the hillsides, the three departed their covert and set off to the north.
At midnight they reached the Boundary Wood. Traz, fearing the sinuous 
half-reptilian beast known as the smur, was reluctant to enter. Reith made no 
argument and the three kept to the fringe of the forest until dawn.
With the coming of light they performed a cautious exploration, and found 
nothing more noxious than fluke lizards. From the western edge of the woods 
Khusz was clearly visible, only three miles south; entering and leaving the Zone 
the Dirdir skirted the forest.
In the afternoon, after careful assessment of all the potentialities of the 
woods, the three set to work. Traz dug, Anacho and Reith worked to fabricate a 
great rectangular net, using twigs, branches and the cord they had brought in 
their packs.
On the evening of the following day the apparatus was complete. Surveying the 
system Reith alternated between hope and despair. Would the Dirdir react as he 
hoped they might? Anacho seemed to think so, though he spoke much of nerve-fire 
and exhibited intense pessimism.
Middle morning and early afternoon, when the hunts returned to Khusz, were 
theoretically the productive periods. Earlier and later the Dirdir tended to go 
forth; the attention of these groups the three did not care to attract.
The night passed and the sun rose on a day which one way or another must prove 
to be fateful. For a time it seemed that rain would fall, but by midmorning the 
clouds had drifted south; in the suddenly clear air the light of Carina 4269 was 
like an antique tincture.
Reith waited at the edge of the woods, sweeping the landscape through his 
scanscope. To the north appeared a party of four Dirdir loping easily along the 
trail of Khusz. "Here they come," said Reith. "This is it."
The Dirdir came bounding down the trail, giving occasional whistles of 
exuberance. Hunting had been good; they had enjoyed themselves. But look! What 
was there? A man-beast at the edge of the forest! What did the fool do here so 
close to Khusz? The Dirdir sprang in happy pursuit.
The man-beast ran for his life, as did all such creatures. It faltered early and 
stood at bay, back to a tree. Venting their horrifying death-cry the Dirdir 
lunged forward. Under the feet of the foremost the ground gave way; he dropped 
out of sight. The remaining three halted in amazement. A sound: a crackle, a 
thrash; on top of them fell a mat of twigs, under which they were trapped. And 
here came men, unspeakably triumphant! A ruse, a ploy! With rage tearing their 
viscera, they struggled vainly against the mat, desperately intent to win free, 
to submerge the wicked men in hate and horror ...
The Dirdir were killed, by stabbing, hewing and blows of the shovel.
The mat was raised, the bodies stripped of sequins and dragged away, the 
deadfall repaired.
A second group came down from the north: only three, but creatures resplendent 
in casques, with effulgences like incandescent wires. Anacho spoke in awe: 
"These are Hundred-Trophy Excellences!"
"So much the better," Reith signaled to Traz. "Bring them in; we'll teach them 
excellence."
Traz behaved as before, showing himself, then fleeing as if in panic. The 
Excellences pursued without vehemence; they had enjoyed a fruitful hunt. The way 
under the dendrons had been trodden before, perhaps by other hunters. The 
quarry, curiously enough, showed little of the frantic agility which added zest 
to the hunt; in fact, he had turned to face them, his back to an enormous 
gnarled torquil. Fantastic! He waved a blade. Did he challenge them, the 
Excellences? Launch forward, leap on him, rend him to the ground, with the 
trophy to the first to touch him! But! shock!-the ground collapsing, the forest 
falling; a delirium of confusion! And look: submen coming forth with blades, to 
hack, to stab! Mind-bursting rage, a frenzy of struggle, hissing and 
screaming-then the blade.
There were four slaughters that day, four on the next, five on the third day, by 
which time the process had become an efficient routine. During mornings and 
evenings the bodies were buried and the gear repaired. The business seemed as 
passionless as fishing-until Reith recalled the hunts he had witnessed and so 
restored his zeal.
The decision to halt the operation derived not from the diminution of 
profit-each party of hunters carried booty to a value of as much as twenty 
thousand sequins-or any lessening of fervor on the part of the three. But even 
after sorting out the clears, milks and sards the booty was an almost 
unmanageable bulk, and Anacho's pessimism had become apprehension. "Sooner or 
later the parties will be missed. There will be a search; how could we escape?"
"One more kill," said Traz. "Here now comes a group, rich from their hunting."
"But why? We have all the sequins we can carry!"
"We can discard our sards and some emeralds, and carry only reds and purples."
Anacho looked at Reith, who shrugged. "One more band."
Traz went to the edge of the forest and performed his now well-schooled 
simulation of panic. The Dirdir failed to react. Had they seen him? They 
advanced with no acceleration of pace. Traz hesitated a moment, then once again 
showed himself. The Dirdir saw him; apparently they had also seen him on the 
first occasion, for instead of leaping into immediate pursuit, they continued 
their easy jog. Watching from the shadows, Reith tried to decide whether they 
were suspicious or merely sated with hunting.
The Dirdir halted to examine the track into the forest. They came into the wood 
slowly, one in the lead, another behind, two holding up the rear. Reith faded 
back to his post.
"Trouble," he told Anacho. "We may have to fight our way out."
" 'Fight'?" cried Anacho. "Four Dirdir, three men?"
Traz, a hundred yards down the trail, decided to stimulate the Dirdir. Stepping 
into the open, he aimed his catapult at the foremost and fired a bolt into the 
creature's chest. It gave a whistle of outrage and sprang forward, effulgences 
stiff and furiously bright.
Traz dodged back, went to stand in his usual spot, a grin of irrational pleasure 
on his face. He brandished his blade. The wounded Dirdir charged, and crashed 
into the pitfall. Its yells became a weird keening of shock and pain. The 
remaining three stopped short, then came balefully forward, step by step. Reith 
pulled the net release; it dropped, capturing two; one danced back.
Reith came forth. He yelled to Anacho and Traz. "Kill those under the net!" He 
jumped through the tangle to confront the remaining Dirdir. Under no 
circumstances must it escape.
Escape was remote from its mind. It sprang upon Reith like a leopard, ripping 
with its talons. Traz ran forward brandishing his dagger and threw himself on 
the Dirdir's back. The Dirdir rolled over backward, and tearing Traz's legs 
loose, made play with his own dagger. Anacho leaped forward; with one mighty 
swordstroke he hacked apart the Dirdir's arm; with a second blow he clove the 
creature's head. Staggering and tottering, cursing and panting, the three 
finished off the remaining Dirdir, then stood in vast relief that they had fared 
so well. Blood pumped from Traz's leg. Reith applied a tourniquet, opened the 
first-aid kit he had brought with him to Tschai. He disinfected the wound, 
applied a toner, pressed the wound together, sprayed on a film of synthetic 
skin, and eased off the tourniquet. Traz grimaced, but made no complaint. Reith 
brought forth a pill. "Swallow this. Can you stand?"
Traz rose stiffly to his feet.
"Can you walk?"
"Not too well."
"Try to keep moving, to prevent the leg from going stiff."
Reith and Anacho searched the corpses for booty, to their enormous profit: a 
purple node, two scarlets, a deep blue, three pale greens and two pale blues. 
Reith shook his head in marvel and vexation. "Wealth! But useless unless we get 
it back to Maust."
He watched Traz limping back and forth with obvious effort. "We can't carry it 
all."
The corpses they rolled into the pitfall, and covered them over. The net they 
hauled off into the underbrush. Then they sorted out the sequins, making three 
packs, two heavy and one light. There still remained a fortune in clears, milks, 
sards, deep blues and greens. These they wrapped into a fourth parcel, which 
they secreted under the roots of the great torquil.
Two hours remained until dusk. They took up their packs, went to the eastern 
edge of the forest, accommodating their gait to Traz. Here they argued the 
feasibility of camping until Traz's leg had healed. Traz would hear none of it. 
"I can keep up, so long as we don't have to run."
"Running won't help us in any case," said Reith.
"If they catch us," said Anacho, "then we must run. With nerve-fire at our 
necks."
The afternoon light deepened through gold and dark gold; Carina 4269 disappeared 
and sepia murk fell over the landscape. The hills showed minuscule flickers of 
flame. The three set forth, and so the dismal journey began: across the Stage 
from one black clump of dendron to another. At last they came to the slopes, and 
doggedly began to climb.
Dawn found them under the ridge, with both hunters and hunted already astir. 
Shelter was nowhere in sight; the three descended into a gulch and contrived a 
covert of dry brush.
The day advanced. Anacho and Reith dozed while Traz lay staring at the sky; the 
enforced idleness had caused his leg to stiffen. At noon a hunt of four proud 
Dirdir, resplendent in glittering casques, crossed the ravine. For a moment they 
paused, apparently sensing the near-presence of quarry, but other affairs 
attracted their attention and they continued off to the north.
The sun declined, illuminating the eastern wall of the gulch. Anacho gave an 
uncharacteristic snort of laughter. "Look there." He pointed. Not twenty feet 
distant the ground had broken, revealing the wrinkled dome of a large mature 
node. "Scarlets at least. Maybe purples."
Reith made a gesture of sad resignation. "We can hardly carry the fortune we 
already have. It is sufficient."
"You underestimate the rapacity and greed of Sivishe," grumbled Anacho. "To do 
what you propose will require two fortunes, or more." He dug up the node. "A 
purple. We can't leave it behind."
"Very well," said Reith. "I'll carry it."
"No," said Traz. "I'll carry it. You two already have most of the load."
"We'll divide it into three parts," said Reith. "It won't be all that much 
more."
Night came at last; the three shouldered their packs and continued. Traz 
hopping, hobbling, grimacing in pain. Down the north slope they moved, and the 
closer they approached the Portal of Gleams, the more ghastly and detestable 
seemed the Zone.
Dawn found them at the base of the hills, with the Portal yet ten miles north. 
As they rested in a shadowed fissure, Reith swept the landscape through his 
scanscope. The Forelands seemed quiet and almost devoid of life. Far to the 
northwest a dozen shapes made for the Portal of Gleams, hoping to reach safety 
before full daylight. They ran with the peculiar scuttling gait that men 
instinctively used within the Zone, as if they thereby made themselves 
inconspicuous. A band of hunters stood on a relatively nearby crag, still and 
alert as eagles. They watched the fleeing men with regret. Reith put aside all 
hope of reaching the Portal before dark. The three passed another dreary day 
behind a boulder, with camouflage cloth overhead.
During the middle morning a sky-car drifted overhead. "They're looking for the 
missing hunts," said Anacho in a hushed voice. "Undoubtedly there will be a 
tsau'gsh ... We are in great danger."
Reith looked after the sky-car, then gauged the miles to the Portal. "By 
midnight we should be safe."
"We may not last till midnight, if the Dirdir close off the Forelands, as well 
they may do."
"We can't set out now; they'd take us for sure."
Anacho gave a dour nod. "Agreed."
Towards middle afternoon another sky-car came to hover over the Forelands. 
Anacho hissed between his teeth. "We are trapped." But after half an hour the 
sky-car once more drifted south beyond the hills.
Reith made a careful scrutiny of the landscape. "I see no hunts. Ten miles means 
at least two hours. Shall we make a run for it?"
Traz looked down at his leg with a wistful expression. "You two go on. I'll 
follow when the sun goes down."
"Too late by then," said Anacho. "Already it is too late."
Once more Reith searched the ridges. He helped Traz to his feet. "It's all of us 
or none."
They started out across the barrens, feeling naked and vulnerable. Any hunt 
which chanced to look down from the ridge into this particular sector could not 
fail to notice them.
They proceeded for half an hour, scuttling half-crouched like the others. From 
time to time Reith paused to sweep the landscape to the rear with his scanscope, 
dreading lest he see the dire shapes in pursuit. But the miles fell behind, and 
hope correspondingly began to rise. Traz's face was gray with pain and 
exhaustion; nevertheless he forced the pace, tottering at a half-run, until 
Reith suspected that he ran from sheer hysteria.
But suddenly Traz stopped. He looked back at the ridges. "They are watching us."
Reith scrutinized the ridges, slopes and dark gulches, but saw nothing. Traz had 
already set off at an erratic lope, with Anacho hunching along behind. Reith 
followed. A few hundred yards further north he paused again, and this time 
thought he saw a flicker of light reflecting from metal. Dirdir? Reith gauged 
the distance ahead. They had come roughly halfway across the barrens. Reith drew 
a deep breath and ran off after Traz and Anacho. Conceivably the Dirdir might 
not choose to pursue so far across the Forelands.
A second time he halted and looked back. All uncertainty was gone: four shapes 
bounded down the slopes. There could be no doubt as to their intent.
Reith caught up with Traz and Anacho. Traz ran with glaring eyes, mouth open so 
that his teeth showed. Reith took the heaviest bag from the lad's shoulder, 
threw it over his own. If anything, Traz slowed his pace a trifle. Anacho gauged 
the distance ahead, studied the pursuing Dirdir. "We have a chance."
The three ran, hearts pounding, lungs burning. Traz's face was like a skull. 
Anacho relieved him of the remaining parcel.
The Portal of Gleams was visible: a haven of wonderful security. Behind came the 
hunters, by prodigious leaps.
Traz was faltering, with the Portal yet a half-mile ahead. "Onmale!" called 
Reith.
The effect was startling. Traz seemed to expand, to grow tall. He stopped short 
and swung about to face the pursuers. His face was that of a stranger: a person 
sagacious, fierce and dominant, the personification in fact of the emblem 
Onmale.
Onmale was too proud to flee.
"Run!" cried Reith in a panic. "If we must fight, let's fight on our own terms!"
Traz, or Onmale-the two were confused-seized a pack from Reith and one from 
Anacho and sprang ahead toward the Portal.
Reith wasted a half-second gauging the distance to the first Dirdir, then 
continued his flight. Traz soared across the barrens. Anacho, his face pink and 
distorted, pounded behind.
Traz gained the Portal. He turned and waited, catapult in one hand, sword in the 
other. Anacho passed through, then Reith, not fifty feet in advance of the 
foremost Dirdir. Traz backed to stand just beyond the boundary, challenging the 
Dirdir to attack. The Dirdir gave a shrill scream of fury. It shook its head, 
and its effulgences, standing high, vibrated. Then, curvetting, it loped south, 
after its comrades, already on their way back to the hills.
Anacho leaned panting against the Portal of Gleams. Reith stood with the breath 
rasping in his throat. Traz's face was vacant and gray. His knees buckled; he 
fell to the ground and lay quiet, giving not so much as a twitch.
Reith staggered forward, turned him over. Traz seemed not to breathe. Reith 
straddled his body and applied artificial respiration. Traz gave a 
throat-wrenching gasp. Presently he began to breathe evenly.
The solicitors, touts and beggars who normally kept station by the Portal of 
Gleams had scattered, aghast at the approach of the Dirdir. First to return was 
a young man in a long maroon gown, who now stood making gracious movements of 
concern. "An outrage," he lamented. "The conduct of the Dirdir! Never should 
they chase so close to the gate! They have almost killed this poor young man!"
"Quiet," snapped Anacho. "You disturb us."
The young man stood aside. Reith and Anacho lifted Traz to his feet, where he 
stood in something of a stupor.
The young man once again came forward, his soft brown eyes all-seeing, 
all-knowing. "Allow me to assist. I am Issam the Thang; I represent the Hopeful 
Venture Inn, which promises a restful atmosphere. Allow me to assist you with 
your parcels." Picking up Traz's pack he turned a startled gaze toward Reith and 
Anacho. "Sequins?"
Anacho seized his pack. "Be off with you! Our plans are established!"
"As you will," said Issam the Thang, "but the Hopeful Venture Inn is near at 
hand, and something apart from the tumult and gaming. While comfortable, the 
expense does not approach the exorbitant fees of the Alawan."
"Very well," said Reith. "Take us to the Hopeful Venture."
Anacho muttered under his breath; to which Issam the Thang made a delicate 
gesture of reproach. "This way, if you will."
They trudged toward Maust, Traz hobbling on his lame leg.
"My memory is a jumble," he muttered. "I recall crossing the Forelands; I 
remember that someone shouted into my ear-"
"It was I," said Reith.
"--then after, nothing real, and next I lay beside the Portal." And a moment 
later he mused: "I heard roaring voices. A thousand faces looked past me, 
warriors' faces, raging. I have seen such things in dreams." His voice dwindled; 
he said no more.



CHAPTER SEVEN
THE HOPEFUL VENTURE Inn stood at the back of a narrow alley, a brooding, 
age-blackened structure, doing no great business, to judge from the common room, 
which was dark and still. Issam, it now appeared, was the proprietor. He made an 
effusive show of hospitality, ordering water, lamps and linen up to the "grand 
suite," which orders were effected by a surly servant with enormous red hands 
and a shock of coarse red hair. The three mounted a twisting stairway to the 
suite, which comprised a sitting-room, a wash-room, several irregular alcoves 
furnished with sour-smelling couches. The servant arranged the lamps, brought 
flasks of wine and departed. Anacho examined the lead and wax stoppers, then put 
the flasks aside. "Too much risk of drugs or poison. When the man awakes-if he 
awakes-his sequins are gone and he is bereft. I am dissatisfied; we would have 
done better at the Alawan."
"Tomorrow is time enough," said Reith, sinking into a chair with a groan of 
fatigue.
"Tomorrow we must be gone from Maust," said Anacho. "If we are not marked men 
now, we soon will be." He went forth and presently returned with bread, meat and 
wine.
They ate and drank; then Anacho checked the bars and bolts. "Who knows what 
transpires in these old piles? A knife in the dark, a single sound, and who is 
the wiser save Issam the Thang?"
Again checking the locks, the three prepared themselves for sleep. Anacho, 
declaring himself to be easily aroused, put the sequins between himself and the 
wall. Except for a single wavering night light the lamps were extinguished. A 
few moments later Anacho slipped noiselessly across the room to Reith's couch. 
"I suspect peepholes and listening pipes," he whispered. "Here are the sequins. 
Put them beside you. Let us sit quietly and watch for a period."
Reith forced himself into a state of alertness. Fatigue defeated him; his 
eyelids drooped. He slept.
Time passed. Reith was aroused by a prod from Anacho's elbow; he sat up with a 
jerk of guilt. "Quiet," said Anacho in the ghost of a whisper. "Look yonder."
Reith peered through the darkness. A scrape, a movement in the shadows, a dark 
shape-a light suddenly flared up. Traz stood, crouched and glaring, arms 
concealed in the shadow of his body.
The two men by Anacho's couch turned to face the lamp, faces blank and startled. 
One was Issam the Thang; the second was the burly servant who had been groping 
with his enormous hands for the neck of Anacho, presumably asleep on the couch. 
The servant emitted a curious whisper of excitement and hopped across the room, 
hands clutching. Traz fired his catapult into the twisted face. The man fell 
silently, going to oblivion without apprehension or regret. Issam sprang for an 
opening in the wall. Reith bore him to the floor. Issam fought desperately; for 
all his slenderness and delicacy he was as strong and quick as a serpent. Reith 
seized him in an arm-lock and jerked him erect, squeaking in pain.
Anacho flipped a cord around Issam's neck and prepared to tighten the noose. 
Reith grimaced but made no protest. This was the justice of Maust; it was only 
fitting that here, in the flaring lamplight, Issam should go to his doom.
Issam fervently cried out: "No! I am only a miserable Thang! Don't kill me! I'll 
help you, I swear! I'll help you escape!"
"Wait," said Reith. To Issam: "How do you mean, help us escape? Are we in 
danger?"
"Yes, of course. What should you expect?"
"Tell me of this danger."
Sensing reprieve, Issam drew himself up, indignantly shrugged away Anacho's 
hands. "The information is valuable. How much will you pay?"
Reith nodded to Anacho. "Proceed."
Issam gave a heart-rending wail. "No, no! Trade me my life for your three 
lives-is that not enough?"
"If such be the case."
"It is the case. Stand back, then; remove the noose."
"Not until we know the kind of bargain we are making."
Issam looked from face to face and saw nothing to encourage him. "Well, then, 
secret word has come to me. The Dirdir are in a state of frothing fury. Someone 
has destroyed an unlikely number of hunting parties, and stolen the booty-as 
much as two hundred thousands' worth of sequins. Special agents are on 
watch-here and elsewhere. Whoever submits any information will derive great 
benefit. If you are the person of the case, as I suspect, you will never leave 
Maust except in prickle-collars-unless I help you."
Reith asked cautiously, "Help us how?"
"I can and will save you-for a price."
Reith looked toward Anacho, who drew taut the cord. Issam clawed at the 
constriction, eyes bulging in the lamplight. The noose loosened. Issam croaked, 
"My life for yours, that is our bargain."
"Then talk no more of 'price.' Needless to say, don't try to trick us."
"Never, never!" croaked Issam. "I live or die with you! Your life is my life! We 
must leave now. Morning will be too late."
"Leave how? Afoot?"
"It may not be necessary. Make yourselves ready. Do those bags and parcels 
actually contain sequins?"
"Scarlets and purples," said Anacho with sadistic relish. "If you want the same, 
go into the Zone and kill Dirdir."
Issam shuddered. "Are you ready?" He waited impatiently while the three resumed 
their garments. On sudden thought he dropped down to rifle the corpse of the 
servant and clucked with satisfaction at the handful of clears and milks he 
found in the pouch.
The three were ready. In spite of Issam's protest Anacho maintained the noose 
around his neck. "So that you will not misunderstand our intentions."
"Must I always be cursed with suspicious associates?"
The main avenue of Maust vibrated with movement, the shift of faces, colored 
lights; from the taverns came wailing music, drunken belches of laughter, an 
occasional angry outcry. By furtive shortcuts and dark detours Issam took them 
to a stable at the north of town, where a scowling attendant finally responded 
to Issam's pounding. Five minutes of surly haggling resulted in the saddling of 
four leap-horses; ten minutes later, as the moons of Az and Braz simultaneously 
rolled up the eastern sky, Reith, Anacho, Traz and Issam bounded north on the 
gaunt white leaphorses of Kachan, and left Maust behind.
Through the night they rode and at dawn entered Khorai. Smoke trickling up from 
iron chimneys drifted north over the First Sea, which by some trick of light 
appeared as black as a sea of pitch, with the plum-colored northern sky for a 
backdrop.
Through Khorai they pounded and down to the harbor where they dismounted. Issam, 
wearing the most modest of smiles, bowed to Reith, hands folded behind his dark 
red gown. "I have achieved my goal; my friends have been delivered safe to 
Khorai."
"The friends you hoped to strangle a few hours ago."
Issam's smile became tremulous. "That was Maust! One's behavior in Maust must be 
tolerated."
"As far as I am concerned, you may return."
Issam bowed low once more. "May nine-headed Sagorio maim your enemies! So now, 
farewell!" Issam took the pale leaphorses back through Khorai and disappeared to 
the south.
The sky-car rested where they had left it. As they climbed aboard, the 
harbormaster looked on with a saturnine sneer, but made no comment. Mindful of 
Khor truculence the three took pains to ignore his presence.
The sky-car rose into the morning sky, curved along the shore of the First Sea. 
So began the first stage of the journey to Sivishe.



CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SKY-CAR FLEW west. To the south spread a vast dusty desert; to the north lay 
the First Sea. Below and ahead mudflats alternated with promontories of 
sandstone in a monotonous succession, one beyond the other, into the haze at the 
limit of vision.
Traz slept the sleep of sheer exhaustion. Anacho, to the contrary, sat 
unconcerned and careless, as if fear and emergency were foreign to his 
experience. Reith, though he ached with fatigue, could not wrench his gaze away 
from the radar-screen, except to search the sky. Anacho's carefree manner at 
last became exasperating. Reith glared at him through red-rimmed eyes and spoke 
in a dour voice: "For a fugitive you show surprisingly little apprehension. I 
admire your composure."
Anacho made an easy gesture. "What you call composure is childlike faith. I have 
become superstitious. Consider: we have entered the Carabas, killed dozens of 
First Folk and carried off their sequins. So now, how can I take seriously the 
prospect of casual interception?"
"Your faith is greater than mine," growled Reith. "I expect the whole force of 
the Dirdir system to be scouring the skies for us."
Anacho gave an indulgent laugh. "That is not the Dirdir way! You project your 
own concepts into the Dirdir mind. Remember, they do not look upon organization 
as an end in itself; this is a human attribute. The Dirdir exists only as 
himself, a creature responsible only to his pride. He cooperates with his 
fellows when the prospect suits him."
Reith shook his head skeptically, and went back to studying the radar-screen. 
"There must be more to it than that. How does the society hold together? How can 
the Dirdir sustain long-term projects?"
"Very simple. One Dirdir is much like another; there are racial forces which 
compel all alike. In great dilution, the submen know these forces as 
'tradition,' 'caste authority,' 'zest to overachieve'; in the Dirdir society 
they become compulsions. The individual is bound to customs of the race. Should 
a Dirdir need assistance he need only cry out hs'ai hs'ai, hs'ai and he is 
helped. If a Dirdir is wronged, he calls dr'ssa dr'ssa, dr'ssa and commands 
arbitration. If the arbitration fails to suit him he can challenge the 
arbitrator, who is usually an Excellence; if he defeats the arbitrator, he is 
vindicated. More often he himself is defeated; his effulgences are plucked out 
and he becomes a pariah ... There are few challenges of arbitration."
"Under such conditions, the society would seem to be highly conservative."
"This is the case, until there is need for change, and then the Dirdir applies 
himself to the problem with 'zest to over-achieve.' He is capable of creative 
thinking; his brain is supple and responsive; he wastes no energy upon 
mannerism. Multiple sexuality and the 'secrets' of course are a distraction, but 
like the hunt they are a source of violent passion beyond human comprehension."
"All this to the side, why should they give up the search for us so easily?"
"Is it not clear?" demanded Anacho testily. "How could even the Dirdir suspect 
that we fly toward Sivishe in a sky-car? Nothing identifies the men sought at 
Smargash with the men who destroy Dirdir in the Carabas. Perhaps in time a 
connection will be made, if, for example, Issam the Thang is questioned. Until 
then they are ignorant that we fly a sky-car. So why put up search-screens?"
"I hope you're right," said Reith.
"We shall see. Meanwhile-we are alive. We fly a sky-car in comfort. We carry 
better than two hundred thousand sequins. Notice ahead: Cape Braize! Beyond lies 
the Schanizade. We will now alter course and come down upon Haulk from above. 
Who will notice a single sky-car among a hundred? At Sivishe we will mingle with 
the multitude, while the Dirdir seek us across the Zhaarken, or at Jalkh, or out 
on the Hunghus tundra."
Ten miles passed below the sky-car with Reith pondering the soul of the Dirdir 
race. He asked. "Suppose you or I were in trouble and cried dr'ssa dr'ssa, 
dr'ssa?"
"That is the call for arbitration. Hs'ai hs'ai, hs'ai is the cry for help."
"Very well, hsai hsai, hsai-would a Dirdir be impelled to help?"
"Yes; by the force of tradition. This is automatic, a reflexive act: the 
connective tissue which binds an otherwise wild and mercurial race."
Two hours before sunset a storm blew in from the Schanizade. Carina 4269 became 
a brown wraith, then disappeared as black clouds tumbled up the sky. Surf like 
dirty beer-foam swept across the beach, close to the boles of the black dendrons 
which shrouded the foreshore. The upper fronds twisted to gusts of wind, turning 
up glossy gray undersides; roiling patterns moved across the black upper 
surfaces.
The sky-car fled south through the umber dusk, then, with the last glimmer of 
light, landed in the lee of a basalt jut. The three, huddling upon the settees 
and ignoring the odor of Dirdir bodies, slept while the storm hissed through the 
rocks.
Dawn brought a strange illumination, like light shining through brown 
bottle-glass. There was neither food nor drink in the sky-car, but pilgrim pod 
grew out on the barrens and a brackish river flowed nearby. Traz went quietly 
along the bank, craning his neck to peer through the reflections. He stopped 
short, crouched, plunged into the water to emerge with a yellow creature, all 
thrashing tentacles and jointed legs, which he and Anacho devoured raw. Reith 
stolidly ate pilgrim pod.
With the meal finished they leaned back against the sky-car, basking in the 
honey-colored sunlight and enjoying the morning calm. "Tomorrow," said Anacho, 
"we arrive in Sivishe. Our life once more changes. We are no longer thieves and 
desperadoes, but men of substance, or so we must let it appear."
"Very well," said Reith. "What next?"
"We must be subtle. We do not simply apply at the spaceyards with our money."
"Hardly," said Reith. "On Tschai whatever seems reasonable is wrong."
"It is impossible," said Anacho, "to function without the support of an 
influential person. This will be our first concern."
"A Dirdir? Or a Dirdirman?"
"Sivishe is a city of sub-men; the Dirdir and Dirdirmen keep to Hei on the 
mainland. You will see."



CHAPTER NINE
HAULK HUNG LIKE a cramped and distorted appendix from the distended belly of 
Kislovan, with the Schanizade Ocean to the west and the Gulf of Ajzan to the 
east. At the head of the gulf was the island Sivishe, with an untidy industrial 
jumble at the northern end. A causeway led to the mainland and Hei, the Dirdir 
city. At the center of Hei and dominating the entire landscape stood a box of 
gray glass five miles long, three miles wide, a thousand feet high: a structure 
so large that the perspectives seemed distorted. A forest of spires surrounded 
the box, a tenth as high, scarlet and purple, then mauve, gray and white toward 
the periphery.
Anacho indicated the towers. "Each house a clan. Someday I will describe the 
life of Hei: the promenades, the secrets of multiple sex, the castes and class. 
But of more immediate interest, yonder lie the spaceyards."
Reith saw an area at the center of the island surrounded by shops, warehouses, 
depots and hangars. Six large spaceships and three smaller craft occupied bays 
to one side. Anacho's voice broke into his speculations.
"The spaceships are well secured. The Dirdir are far more stringent than the 
Wankh-by instinct rather than by reason, for no one in history has stolen a 
spaceship."
"No one in history has come with two hundred thousand sequins. Such money will 
grease a lot of palms."
"What good are sequins in the Glass Box?"
Reith said no more. Anacho took the sky-car down to a paved area beside the 
spaceyards.
"Now," said Anacho in a calm voice, "we shall learn our destiny."
Reith took instant alarm. "What do you mean by that?"
"If we have been traced, if we are expected, then we will be taken; and soon 
there will be an end to us. But the car yard seems as usual; I expect no 
disaster. Remember now, this is Sivishe, I am the Dirdirman, you are the 
sub-men; act accordingly."
Reith dubiously searched the yard. As Anacho had stated there seemed no untoward 
activity.
The sky-car landed. The three alighted. Anacho stood austerely aside while Reith 
and Traz removed the packs.
A power-wagon approached and fixed clamps to the sky-car. The operator, a hybrid 
of Dirdirman and another race unknown, inspected Anacho with impersonal 
curiosity, ignoring Reith and Traz. "What is to be the disposition?"
"Temporary deposit, on call," said Anacho.
"To what charge?"
"Special. I'll take the token."
"Number sixty-four." The clerk gave Anacho a brass disc. "I require twenty 
sequins."
"Twenty, and five for yourself."
The lift-wagon conveyed the sky-car to a numbered slot. Anacho led the way to a 
slide-way, with Reith and Traz trudging behind with the packs. They stepped 
aboard and were conveyed out to a wide avenue, along which ran a considerable 
traffic of power-wagons, passenger cars, drays.
Here Anacho paused to reflect. "I have been gone so long, I have traveled so 
far, that Sivishe is somewhat strange. First, of course, we need lodgings. 
Across the avenue, as I recall, is a suitable inn."
At the Ancient Realm Inn the three were led down a white and black-tiled 
corridor to a suite overlooking the central court, where a dozen women sat on 
benches watching the windows for a signal.
Two seemed to be Dirdirwomen: thin sharp-faced creatures, pallid as snow, with a 
sparse fuzz of gray hair at the back of their scalps. Anacho surveyed them 
thoughtfully for a moment or so, then turned away. "We are fugitives, of 
course," he said, "and we must be wary. Nevertheless, here in Sivishe where many 
people come and go, we are as safe as we might be anywhere. The Dirdir do not 
concern themselves with Sivishe unless circumstances fail to suit them, in which 
case the Administrator goes to the Glass Box. Otherwise, the Administrator has a 
free hand; he taxes, polices, judges, punishes, appropriates as he sees fit and 
is therefore the least corruptible man in Sivishe. For influential assistance we 
must seek elsewhere; tomorrow I will make an inquiry. Next we will need a 
structure of suitable dimensions, close by the spaceyards, yet inconspicuous. 
Again, a matter requiring discreet inquiry. Then-most sensitive of all-we must 
hire technical personnel to assemble the components and perform the necessary 
tuning and phasing. If we pay high wages we can no doubt secure the right men. I 
will represent myself as a Dirdirman Superior-in fact, my former status-and hint 
of Dirdir reprisals against loose-mouthed men. There is no reason why the 
project should not go easily and smoothly, except for the innate perversity of 
circumstances."
"In other words," said Reith, "the chances are against us."
Anacho ignored the remark. "A warning: the city seethes with intrigue. Folk come 
to Sivishe for a single purpose: to win advantage. The city is a turmoil of 
illicit activity, robbery, extortion, vice, gambling, gluttony, extravagant 
display, swindling. These are endemic, and the victim has small hope of 
recourse. The Dirdir are unconcerned; the antics and maneuvers of the submen are 
nothing to them. The Administrator is interested only in maintaining order. So: 
caution! Trust no one; answer no questions! Identify yourselves as steppe-men 
seeking employment; profess stupidity. By such means we minimize risk."



CHAPTER TEN
IN THE MORNING Anacho went forth to make his inquiries. Reith and Traz descended 
to the street cafe and sat watching the passersby. Traz was displeased with 
everything he saw. "All cities are vile," he grumbled. "This is the worst: a 
detestable place. Do you notice the stink? Chemicals, smoke, disease, rotting 
stone. The smell has infected the folk; observe their faces."
Reith could not deny that the inhabitants of Sivishe were an unprepossessing 
lot. Their complexions ranged from muddy brown to Dirdirman white; their 
physiognomies reflected thousands of years of half-purposeful mutation. Never 
had Reith seen so wary and self-contained a people. Living in contiguity with an 
alien race had fostered no fellowship: in Sivishe each man was a stranger. As a 
positive consequence, Reith and Traz were inconspicuous: no one looked twice in 
their direction.
Reith sat musing over his bowl of pale wine, relaxed and almost at peace. As he 
pondered old Tschai, it occurred to him the single homogenizing force was the 
language, the same across the entire planet. Perhaps because communication often 
represented the difference between life and death, because those who failed to 
communicate died, the language had retained its universality. Presumably the 
language had its roots on ancient Earth. It resembled no language with which he 
was familiar. He considered key words. Vam was "mother"; tatap was "father"; 
issir was "sword." The cardinal numbers were aine, sei, dros, enser, nif, hisz, 
yaga, managa, nuwai, tix. No significant parallels, but somehow, a hunting echo 
of Earth sounds ...
In general, reflected Reith, life on Tschai ranged a wider gamut than did life 
on Earth. Passions were more intense: grief more poignant, joy more exalted. 
Personalities were more decisive. By contrast the folk of Earth seemed pensive, 
conditional, sedate. Laughter on Earth was less boisterous; still, there were 
fewer gasps of horror.
As he often did, Reith wondered: Suppose I return to Earth, what then? Can I 
adjust to an existence so placid and staid? Or all my life will I long for the 
steppes and seas of Tschai? Reith gave a sad chuckle. A problem he would be glad 
to confront.
Anacho returned. After a quick glance to left and right he settled himself at 
the table. His manner was subdued. "I've been optimistic," he muttered. "I've 
trusted too much to my memories."
"How so?" Reith demanded.
"Nothing immediate. It seems, merely, that I have underestimated our impact on 
the times. Twice this morning I heard talk of the madmen who invaded the Carabas 
and slaughtered Dirdir as if they were lippets. Hei throbs with agitation and 
anger, or so it is said. Various tsaugsh are in progress; all would regret to be 
the madmen once they are captured."
Traz was outraged. "The Dirdir go to the Carabas to kill men," he stormed. "Why 
should they resent the case when they themselves are killed?"
"Hist!" exclaimed Anacho. "Not so loud! Do you wish to attract attention? In 
Sivishe no one blurts forth his thoughts; it is unwholesome!"
"Another black mark against this squalid city!" declared Traz, but in a more 
restrained voice.
"Come now," said Anacho nervously. "It is not so disheartening after all. Think 
of it! While Dirdir range the continents, we three rest in Sivishe, at the 
Ancient Realm Inn."
"A precarious satisfaction," said Reith. "What else did you learn?"
"The Administrator is Clodo Erlius. He has just assumed office-not necessarily 
advantageous from our point of view since a new official is apt to stringency. I 
have made guarded inquiries, and since I am a Dirdirman Superior, I did not 
encounter total frankness. However a certain name has been mentioned twice. That 
name is Aila Woudiver. His ostensible occupation is the supply and transport of 
structural materials. He is a notable gourmand and voluptuary, with tastes at 
once so refined, so gross and so inordinate as to cost him vast sums. This 
information was given freely, in a tone of envious admiration. Woudiver's 
illicit capabilities were merely implied."
"Woudiver would appear to be an unsavory colleague," said Reith.
Anacho snorted in derision. "You demand that I find someone proficient at 
conniving, chicanery, theft; when I produce this man, you look down your nose at 
him."
Reith grinned. "No other names were mentioned?"
"Another source explained, in a carefully facetious manner, that any 
extraordinary activity must surely attract the attention of Woudiver. It would 
seem that he is the man with whom we must deal. In a certain sense, his 
reputation is reassuring; he is necessarily competent."
Traz entered the conversation. "What if this Woudiver refuses to help us? Are we 
not then at his mercy? Could he not extort our sequins from us?"
Anacho pursed his lips, shrugged: "No scheme of this sort is absolutely 
reliable. Aila Woudiver would seem to be a sound choice, from our point of view. 
He has access to the sources of supply, he controls transport vehicles, and 
possibly he can provide a suitable building in which to assemble a space-boat."
Reith said reluctantly, "We want the most competent man, and if we get him I 
suppose we can't cavil at his personal attributes. Still, on the other hand ... 
Oh, well. What pretext should we use?"
"The tale you gave the Lokhars-that we need a spaceship to take possession of a 
treasure-is as good as any. Woudiver will discredit all he is told; he will 
expect duplicity, so one tale is as good as another."
Traz muttered: "Attention! Dirdir are approaching."
There were three, striding with a portentous gait. Cages of silver mesh clung to 
the back of their bone-white heads; the effulgences splayed down to either side 
of their shoulders. Flaps of soft pale leather hung from their arms, almost to 
the ground.
Other strips hung down front and back, indited with vertical rows of red and 
black circular symbols.
"Inspectors," muttered Anacho through down-drooping lips. "Not once a year do 
they come to Sivishe-unless complaints are made."
"Will they know you for a Dirdirman?"
"Of course. I hope they do not know me for Ankhe at afram Anacho, the fugitive."
The Dirdir passed; Reith glanced at them indifferently, though his flesh crept 
at their proximity. They ignored the three and continued along the avenue, pale 
leather flaps swinging to their stride.
Anacho's face relaxed from its glare of tension. In a subdued voice, Reith said, 
"The sooner we leave Sivishe the better."
Anacho drummed his fingers on the table and gave a final decisive rap. "Very 
well. I will telephone Aila Woudiver and arrange an exploratory meeting." He 
stepped into the inn and presently returned. "A car will arrive shortly to pick 
us up."
Reith had not been ready for so swift a response. "What did you tell him?" he 
asked uneasily.
"That we wanted to consult him in regard to a business matter."
"Hmf." Reith leaned back in his chair. "Too much haste is as bad as too little."
Anacho threw up his hands in vexation and defeat. "What reason to delay?"
"No real one. I feel strange to Sivishe and unsure of my responses, hence 
worried."
"No worry there. With familiarity Sivishe becomes even less reassuring."
Reith said no more. Fifteen minutes later an antique black vehicle, which at one 
time had been a grand saloon, halted in front of the hotel. A middle-aged man, 
harsh and grim, looked forth. He jerked his head toward Anacho. "You await a 
car?"
"To Woudiver?"
"Get in."
The three climbed into the vehicle, seated themselves on benches. The car rolled 
at no great speed down the avenue, then, turning off toward the south, entered a 
district of slatternly apartment houses: buildings erected with neither judgment 
nor precision. No two doorways were a like; windows of irregular shape and size 
opened at random in the thick walls. Wan-faced folk stood in alcoves or peered 
down into the streets; all turned to watch the passage of the car. "Laborers," 
said Anacho with a sniff of distaste. "Kherman, Thangs, Sad Islanders. They come 
from all Kislovan and lands beyond, as well."
The car continued across a littered plaza, into a street of small shops, all 
fitted with heavy metal shutters. Anacho asked the driver, "How far to 
Woudiver's?"
"Not far." The reply was uttered with hardly a motion of the lips.
"Where does he live? Out on the Heights?"
"On Zamia Rise."
Reith considered the hooked nose, the dour cords of muscle around the colorless 
mouth: the face of an executioner.
The way led up a low hill. The houses became abandoned gardens. The car halted 
at the end of a lane. The driver with a curt gesture signaled the three to 
alight, then silently led them along a shadowy passage smelling of dankness and 
mold, through an archway, across a courtyard, up a shallow flight of stairs into 
a room with walls of mustard-colored tile.
"Wait here." He passed through a door of black psilla bound with iron, and a 
moment later looked forth. He crooked his finger. "Come."
The three filed into a large white-walled chamber. A scarlet and maroon rug 
muffled the floor; for furniture there were settees padded with pink, red and 
yellow plush, a heavy table of carved wax-wood, a censer exuding wisps of heavy 
smoke. Behind the table stood an enormous yellow-skinned man in robes of red, 
black and ivory. His face was round as a melon; a few strands of sandy hair lay 
across his mottled pate. He was a man vast in every dimension and motivated, so 
it seemed to Reith, by a grandiose and cynical intelligence. He spoke: "I am 
Aila Woudiver." His voice was under exquisite control; now it was soft and 
fluting. "I see a Dirdirman of the First-"
"Superior!" Anacho corrected.
"-a youth of a rough unknown race, a man of even more doubtful extraction. Why 
does such an ill-matched trio seek me out?"
"To discuss a matter possibly of mutual interest," said Reith.
The lower third of Woudiver's face trembled in a grin. "Continue."
Reith looked around the room, then turned back to Woudiver. "I suggest that we 
move to another location, out of doors, by preference."
Woudiver's thin, almost-nonexistent eyebrows lofted high in surprise. "I fail to 
understand. Will you explain?"
"Certainly, if we can move to another area."
Woudiver frowned in sudden petulance, but marched forward. The three followed 
him through an archway, up a ramp and out on a deck which overlooked a vast hazy 
distance to the west. Woudiver spoke in a voice now carefully resonant: "Does 
this situation seem suitable?"
"Better," said Reith.
"You puzzle me," said Woudiver, settling into a massive chair. "What noxious 
influence do you so dread?"
Reith looked meaningfully across the panorama, toward the colored towers and 
cloud-gray Glass Box of far Hei. "You are an important man. Your activities 
conceivably interest certain folk to the extent that they monitor your 
conversations."
Woudiver made a jovial gesture. "Your business appears highly confidential, or 
even illicit."
"Does this alarm you?"
Woudiver pursed his lips into a fountain of gray-pink gristle. "Let us get down 
to affairs."
"Certainly. Are you interested in gaining wealth?"
"Poof," said Woudiver. "I have enough for all my small needs. But anyone can use 
more money."
"In essence, the situation is this: we know where and how to obtain a 
considerable treasure at no risk."
"You are the most fortunate of men!"
"Certain preparations are necessary. We believe that you, a man of known 
resource, will be able to provide assistance in return for a share of the gain. 
I do not, of course, refer to financial assistance."
"I cannot say yes or no until I am apprised of all details," said Woudiver in 
the most suave of voices. "Naturally, you may speak without reserve; my 
reputation for discretion is a byword."
"First we need a clear indication of your interest. Why waste time for nothing?"
Woudiver blinked. "I am as interested as is possible in a factual vacuum."
"Very well, then. Our problem is this: we must procure a small spaceship."
Woudiver sat motionless, his eyes boring into Reith's face. He glanced swiftly 
at Traz and Anacho, then gave a short brisk laugh. "You credit me with 
remarkable powers! Not to say reckless audacity! How can I possibly provide a 
spaceship, large or small? Either you are madmen or you take me for one!"
Reith smiled at Woudiver's vehemence, which he diagnosed as a tactical device. 
"We have considered the situation carefully," said Reith. "The project is not 
impossible with the help of a person such as yourself."
Woudiver gave his great lemon-colored head a peevish shake. "So I merely point 
my finger toward the Grand Spaceyards and produce a ship? Is this your belief? 
You would have me bounding through the Glass Cage before the day was out."
"Remember," said Reith, "a large vessel is not necessary. Conceivably we could 
acquire an obsolete craft and put it into workable condition. Or we might obtain 
components from persons who could be induced to sell, and assemble them in a 
makeshift hull."
Woudiver sat pulling at his chin. "The Dirdir certainly would oppose such a 
project."
"I mentioned the need for discretion," said Reith.
Woudiver puffed out his cheeks. "How much wealth is involved? What is the nature 
of this wealth? Where is it located?"
"These are details which at the moment can have no real interest for you," said 
Reith.
Woudiver tapped his chin with a yellow forefinger. "Let us discuss the matter as 
an abstraction. First, the practicalities. A large sum of money would be 
required: for inducements, technical help, a suitable place of assembly, and of 
course for the components you mention. Where would this money come from?" His 
voice took on a sardonic resonance. "You did not expect financing from Aila 
Woudiver?"
"Financing is no problem," said Reith. "We have ample funds."
"Indeed!" Woudiver was impressed. "How much, may I ask, are you prepared to 
spend?"
"Oh, fifty to a hundred thousand sequins."
Woudiver gave his head a shake of indulgent amusement. "A hundred thousand would 
be barely adequate." He turned a glance toward Hei. "I could never concern 
myself in any illicit or forbidden enterprise."
"Naturally not."
"I might be able to advise you, on a friendly and informal basis, for say, a 
fixed fee, or perhaps a percentage of outlay, and a small share in any eventual 
rewards."
"Something of the sort might suit our needs," said Reith. "How long, at an 
estimate, would such a project require?"
"Who knows? Who can prophesy such things? A month? Two months? Information is 
essential, which we now lack. A knowledgeable person from the Grand Spaceyards 
must be consulted."
"Knowledgeable, competent, and trustworthy," amended Reith.
"That goes without saying. I know the very man, a person for whom I have done 
several favors. In the course of a day or two I will see him and bring up the 
matter."
"Why not now?" asked Reith. "The sooner the better."
Woudiver raised a hand. "Haste leads to miscalculation. Come back in two days; I 
may have news for you. But first the matter of finance. I cannot invest my time 
without a retainer. I will need a small sum-say five thousand sequins-as earnest 
money."
Reith shook his head. "I'll show you five thousand." He produced a card of 
purple sequins. "In fact here is twenty thousand. But we can't afford to spend a 
sequin except on actual costs."
Woudiver's face was one vast hurt. "What of my fee, then? Must I toil for joy 
alone?"
"Of course not. If all goes well, you will be rewarded to your satisfaction."
"This must serve for the moment," declared Woudiver in sudden heartiness. "In 
two days I will send Artilo for you. Discuss the matter with no one! Secrecy is 
absolutely essential!"
"This we well understand. In two days then."



CHAPTER ELEVEN
SIVISHE WAS A dull city, gray and subdued, as if oppressed by the proximity of 
Hei. The great homes of Prospect Heights and Zamia Rise were pretentious enough, 
but lacked style and finesse. The folk of Sivishe were no less dull: a somber, 
humorless race, grayskinned and tending toward overweight. At their meals they 
consumed great bowls of clabber, platters of boiled tuber, meat and fish 
seasoned with a rancid black sauce that numbed Reith's palate, though Anacho 
declared that the sauce occurred in numerous variants and was in fact a 
cultivated taste. For organized entertainment there were daily races, run not by 
animals but by men. On the day after the meeting with Woudiver, the three 
watched one of the races. Eight men participated, wearing garments of different 
colors and carrying a pole topped with a fragile glass globe. The runners not 
only sought to outrun their opponents but also to trip them by agile side-kicks, 
so that they fell and broke their glass globes, and were hence disqualified. The 
spectators numbered twenty thousand and maintained a low guttural howl during 
the duration of each race. Reith noticed a number of Dirdirmen among the 
spectators. They bet with as much verve as anyone, but kept themselves 
fastidiously apart. Reith wondered that Anacho would risk recognition by some 
previous acquaintance, to which Anacho gave a bitter laugh.
"Wearing these clothes I am safe. They will never see me. If I wore Dirdirmen 
clothes I would be recognized at once and reported to the Castigators. Already I 
have seen half a dozen former acquaintances. None have so much as glanced at 
me."
The three visited the Grand Sivishe Spaceyards, where they strolled around the 
periphery observing the activity within. The spaceships were long, 
spindle-shaped, with intricate fins and sponsons--totally different from the 
bulky Wankh vessels and the flamboyant craft of the Blue Chasch, just as these 
differed from the starships of Earth.
The yards appeared to operate at less than top efficiency and far below 
capacity; even so, a respectable volume of work was in progress. Two cargo 
vessels were in the process of overhaul; a passenger ship seemed to be under 
construction. Elsewhere they noted three smaller ships, apparently 
uncommissioned warcraft, five or six space-boats in various stages of repair, a 
clutter of hulks on a junk heap to the rear of the shops. At the opposite end of 
the spaceyard three ships in commission rested on large black circles.
"They fare occasionally to Sibol," said Anacho. "There is no great traffic. Long 
ago when the Expansionists held sway Dirdir ships went out to many worlds. No 
longer. The Dirdir are quiescent. They would like to force the Wankh off of 
Tschai and slaughter the Blue Chasch, but they do not marshal their energies. It 
is somehow frightening. They are a terrible and active race and cannot lie quiet 
too long. One of these days they must explode, and go forth again."
"What of the Pnume?" Reith asked.
"There is no established pattern.." Anacho pointed to the palisades behind Hei. 
"Through your electric telescope you might see Pnume warehouses, where they 
store metals for trade with the Dirdir. Pnumekin occasionally come out into 
Sivishe for one purpose or another. There are tunnels through all the hills and 
out into the country beyond. The Pnume observe every move the Dirdir make. They 
never come forth, however, for fear of the Dirdir, who kill them for vermin. On 
the other hand a Dirdir who goes hunting alone may never return. The Pnume have 
taken him down into their tunnels, so it is believed."
"It could only happen on Tschai," said Reith. "The folk trade in mutual 
detestation and kill each other on sight."
Anacho gave a sour snort. "I see nothing remarkable in the fact. The trading 
conduces to mutual profit; the killing gratifies the mutual detestation. The 
institutions have no common ground."
"What of the Pnumekin? Do the Dirdir or Dirdirmen molest them?"
"Not in Sivishe. A truce is observed. Elsewhere they too are destroyed, though 
rarely do they show themselves. There are, after all, relatively few Pnumekin, 
who must be the strangest and most remarkable folk of Tschai ... We must depart 
before we attract the attention of the yard police."
"Too late," said Traz in a dreary voice. "We are being watched at this moment."
"By whom?"
"Behind us, along the way, stand two men. One wears a brown jacket and a loose 
black hat; the other a dark blue cloak and the head-shroud."
Anacho glanced along the avenue. "They are not police-at least not yard guards."
The three turned back to the dingy jumble of concrete which marked the center of 
Sivishe. Carina 4269, glowing through a high layer of haze, cast cool brown 
light over the landscape. Full in the light came the two men, and something in 
their noiseless gait sent a pang of panic through Reith. "Who can they be?" he 
muttered.
"I don't know." Anacho turned a quick glance over his shoulder, but the men were 
no more than silhouettes against the light. "I don't think they are Dirdirmen. 
We have been in contact with Aila Woudiver; it may be that he is watched. 
Woudiver's own men conceivably. Or a criminal gang? After all, we might have 
been noticed coming down in the sky-car, or taking sequins to the vaults-Worse! 
Our descriptions from Maust may have been circulated. We are not undistinctive."
Reith said grimly, "We'll have to find out, one way or another. Notice where the 
street passes closes to that broken building-"
"Suitable."
The three strolled past a crumbling buttress of concrete, then, once out of 
sight, jumped to the side and waited. The two men came running past on long 
noiseless strides. As they passed the buttress, Reith tackled one, Anacho and 
Traz seized the other. With a sudden exclamation Anacho and Traz released their 
grip. For an instant Reith sensed a curious rancid odor, like camphor and sour 
milk. Then a bone-racking shudder of electricity sent him lurching back. He gave 
a croak of dismay. The two men fled.
"I saw them," said Anacho in a subdued voice. "They were Pnumekin, or perhaps 
Gzhindra. Did they wear boots? Pnumekin walk with bare feet."
Reith went to look after the pair, but in some miraculous fashion they had 
disappeared. "What are Gzhindra?"
"Pnumekin outcasts."
The three trudged back through the dank streets of Sivishe.
Anacho presently said, "It might have been worse."
"But why should Pnumekin follow us?"
Traz muttered, "They have been following us since we departed Settra. And maybe 
before."
"The Pnume think strange thoughts," said Anacho in a heavy voice. "Their actions 
seldom admit of sensible explanation; they are the stuff of Tschai itself."



CHAPTER TWELVE
THE THREE SAT at a table outside the Ancient Realm Inn, sipping soft wine and 
watching the passing folk of Sivishe. Music was the key to a people's genius, 
thought Reith. This morning, passing a tavern, he had listened to the music of 
Sivishe. The orchestra consisted of four instruments. The first was a bronze box 
studded with vellum-wrapped cones which when rubbed produced a sound like a 
cornet played at the lowest possible range. The second, a vertical wooden tube a 
foot in diameter, with twelve strings across twelve slots, emitted resonant 
twanging arpeggios. The third, a battery of forty-two drums, contributed a 
complex muffled rhythm. The fourth, a wooden slidehorn, bleated, honked and 
produced wonderful squealing glissandos as well.
The music performed by the ensemble seemed to Reith peculiarly simple and 
limited: a repetition of simple melody, played with only the smallest variation. 
A few folk danced: men and women, face to face, hands at sides, hopping 
carefully from one leg to the other. Dull! thought Reith. Yet, at the end of the 
tune the couples separated with expressions of triumph, and recommenced their 
exertions as soon as the music started again. As minutes passed, Reith began to 
sense complexities, almost imperceptible variations. Like the rancid black sauce 
which drowned the food, the music required an intensive effort even to ingest; 
appreciation and pleasure must remain forever beyond the reach of a stranger. 
Perhaps, thought Reith, these almost-unheard quavers and hesitations were the 
elements of virtuosity; perhaps the folk of Sivishe enjoyed hints and 
suggestions, fugitive lusters, almost unnoticeable inflections: their reaction 
to the Dirdir city so close at hand.
No less an index to the thought-processes of a people was their religion. The 
Dirdir, so Reith knew from conversations with Anacho, were irreligious. The 
Dirdirmen, to the contrary, had evolved an elaborate theology, based on a 
creation myth which derived Man and Dirdir from a single primordial egg. The 
submen of Sivishe patronized a dozen different temples. The observances, as far 
as Reith could see, followed the more or less universal pattern-abasement, 
followed by a request for favors, as often as not foreknowledge regarding the 
outcome of the daily races. Certain cults had refined and complicated their 
doctrines; their doxology was a metaphysical jargon subtle and ambiguous enough 
to please even the folk of Sivishe. Other creeds serving different needs had 
simplified procedures so that the worshipers merely made a sacred sign, threw 
sequins into the priest's bowl, received a benediction and were off about their 
affairs.
The arrival of Woudiver's black car interrupted Reith's musing. Artilo, leaning 
forth with a leer, made a peremptory gesture, then sat crouched over the wheel 
staring off down the avenue.
The three entered the car, which lurched off across Sivishe. Artilo drove in a 
southeast direction, generally toward the spaceyards. At the edge of Sivishe, 
where a last few shacks dwindled out across the salt flats, a cluster of 
ramshackle warehouses surrounded piles of sand, gravel, bricks, sintered marl. 
The car rolled across the central compound and halted by a small office built of 
broken brick and black slag.
Woudiver stood in the doorway. Today he wore a vast brown jacket, blue 
pantaloons, and a blue hat. His expression was bland and unrevealing; his 
eyelids hung halfway across his eyes. He raised his arm in a gesture of measured 
welcome, then backed into the dimness of the hut. The three alighted and went 
within. Artilo, coming behind, drew himself a mug of tea from a great black urn, 
then, hissing irritably, went to sit in a corner.
Woudiver indicated a bench; the three seated themselves. Woudiver paced back and 
forth. He raised his face to the ceiling and spoke. "I have made a few casual 
inquiries. I fear that I find your project impractical. There is no difficulty 
as to work-space, the south warehouse yonder would suit admirably and you could 
have it at a reasonable rent. One of my trusted associates, the assistant 
superintendent of supply at the spaceyards, states that the necessary components 
are available ... at a price. No doubt we could salvage a hull from the 
junkyard; you would hardly require luxury, and a crew of competent technicians 
would respond to a sufficiently attractive wage."
Reith began to suspect that Woudiver was leading up to something. "So, then, why 
is the project impractical?"
Woudiver smiled with innocent simplicity. "For me, the profit is inadequate to 
the risks involved."
Reith nodded somberly and rose to his feet. "I'm sorry then to have occupied so 
much of your time. Thank you very much for the information."
"Not at all," said Woudiver graciously. "I wish you the best of luck in your 
endeavor. Perhaps when you return with your treasure, you will want to build a 
fine palace; then I hope you will remember me."
"Quite possibly," said Reith. "So now..."
Woudiver seemed in no hurry to have them go. He settled into a chair with an 
unctuous grunt. "Another dear friend deals in gems. He will efficiently convert 
your treasure into sequins, if the treasure is gems, as I presume? No? Rare 
metal, then? No? Aha! Precious essences?"
"It might be any or none," said Reith. "I think it best, at this stage, to 
remain indefinite."
Woudiver twisted his face into a mask of whimsical vexation. "It is precisely 
this indefiniteness which gives me pause! If I knew better what I might expect-"
"Whoever helps me," said Reith, "or whoever accompanies me, can expect wealth."
Woudiver pursed his lips. "So now I must join this piratical expedition in order 
to share the booty?"
"I'll pay a reasonable percentage before we leave. If you come with us" Reith 
rolled his eyes toward the ceiling at the thought "or when we return, you'll get 
more."
"How much more, precisely?"
"I don't like to say. You'd suspect me of irresponsibility. But you wouldn't be 
disappointed."
From the corner Artilo gave a skeptical croak, which Woudiver ignored. He spoke 
in a voice of great dignity. "As a practical man I can't operate on speculation. 
I would require a retaining fee of ten thousand sequins." He blew out his cheeks 
and glanced toward Reith. "Upon receipt of this sum, I would immediately exert 
my influence to set your scheme into motion."
"All very well," said Reith. "But, as a ridiculous supposition, let us assume 
that, rather than a man of honor, you were a scoundrel, a knave, a cheat. You 
might take my money, then find the project impossible for one reason or another, 
and I would have no recourse. Hence I can pay only for actual work 
accomplished."
A spasm of annoyance crossed Woudiver's face, but his voice was blandness 
itself. "Then pay me rent for yonder warehouse. It is a superb location, 
unobtrusive, close to the spaceyards, with every convenience. Furthermore, I can 
obtain an old hull from the junkyards, purportedly for use as a storage bin. I 
will charge but a nominal rent, ten thousand sequins a year, payable in 
advance."
Reith nodded sagely. "An interesting proposition. But since we won't need the 
premises for more than a few months, why should we inconvenience you? We can 
rent more cheaply elsewhere, in even better circumstances."
Woudiver's eyes narrowed; the flaps of skin surrounding his mouth trembled. "Let 
us deal openly with each other. Our interests run together, as long as I gain 
sequins. I will not work on the cheap. Either pay earnest-money, or our business 
is at an end."
"Very well," said Reith. "We will use your warehouse, and I will pay a thousand 
sequins for three months' rent on the day a suitable hull arrives on the 
premises and a crew starts to work."
"Hmf. That could be tomorrow."
"Excellent!"
"I will need funds to secure the hull. It has worth as scrap metal. Drayage will 
be a charge."
"Very well. Here is a thousand sequins." Reith counted the sum upon the desk. 
Woudiver slapped down his great slab of a hand. "Insufficient! Inadequate! 
Paltry!"
Reith spoke sharply. "Evidently you do not trust me. This does not predispose me 
to trust you. But you risk nothing but an hour or two of your time whereas I 
risk thousands of sequins."
Woudiver turned to Artilo. "What would you do?"
"Walk away from the mess."
Woudiver turned back to Reith, spread wide his arms. "There you have it."
Reith briskly picked up the thousand sequins. "Good day, then. It is a pleasure 
to have known you."
Neither Woudiver nor Artilo stirred.
The three returned to the hotel by public passenger wagon.
A day later Artilo appeared at the Ancient Realm Inn. "Aila Woudiver wants to 
see you."
"What for?"
"He's got you a hull. It's in the old warehouse. A gang is stripping and 
cleaning it. He wants money. What else?"



CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE HULL was satisfactory, and of adequate dimensions. The metal was sound; the 
observation ports were clouded and stained but well seated and sealed.
Woudiver stood to the side as Reith inspected the hull, an expression of lofty 
tolerance on his face. Every day, so it seemed, he wore a new and more 
extravagant garment, today a black and yellow suit, a black hat with a scarlet 
panache. The clasp securing his cape was a silver and black oval, bisected along 
the minor axis. From one end protruded the stylized head of a Dirdir, from the 
other the head of a man. Woudiver, noticing Reith's gaze, gave a profound nod. 
"You would never suspect as much from my physique, but my father was 
Immaculate."
"Indeed! And your mother?"
Woudiver's mouth twitched. "A noblewoman of the north."
Artilo spoke from the entry port: "A tavern wench of Thang, marshwoman by 
blood."
Woudiver sighed. "In the presence of Artilo, romantic delusion is impossible. In 
any event, but for the accidental interposition of an incorrect womb, here would 
stand Aila Woudiver, Dirdirman Immaculate of the Violet Degree, rather than Aila 
Woudiver, dealer in sand and gravel, and gallant prosecutor of lost causes."
"Illogical," murmured Anacho. "In fact, improbable. Not one Immaculate in a 
thousand retains Primitive Paraphernalia."
Woudiver's face instantly became a peculiar magenta color. Whirling with 
astounding swiftness, he pointed a thick finger. "Who dares talk of logic and 
probability? The renegade Ankhe at afram Anacho! Who wore Blue and Pink without 
undergoing the Anguish? Who disappeared coincidentally with the Excellent 
Azarvim issit Dardo, who has never been seen again? A proud Dirdirman, this 
Ankhe at afram!"
"I no longer consider myself a Dirdirman," said Anacho in a level voice. "I 
definitely have no ambition for the Blue and Pink, nor even the trophies of my 
lineage."
"In this case kindly do not comment upon the plight of one who is unluckily 
barred from his rightful caste!"
Anacho turned away, fuming with anger, but obviously deeming it wise to hold his 
tongue. It appeared that Aila Woudiver had not been idle, and Reith wondered how 
far his researches had extended.
Woudiver gradually regained his composure. His mouth twitched, his cheeks puffed 
in and out. He made a scornful noise. "To more profitable matters. What is your 
opinion of this hulk?"
"Favorable," said Reith. "We could expect no better from the scrap-heap."
"This is my opinion as well," said Woudiver. "The next phase of course will be 
somewhat more difficult. My friend at the spaceyards is by no means anxious to 
run the Glass Box, no more I. But an adequacy of sequins works wonders. Which 
brings us to the subject of money. My out-of-pocket expenses are eight hundred 
and ninety sequins for the hull, which I consider good value. Drayage charge: 
three hundred sequins. Shop rental for one month: one thousand sequins. Total: 
twenty-one hundred and ninety sequins. My commission or personal profit I reckon 
at ten percent, or two hundred and nineteen sequins, to a total of twenty-four 
hundred and nine sequins."
"Wait, wait, wait!" cried Reith. "Not a thousand sequins a month, a thousand for 
three months; that was my offer."
"It is too little."
"I'll pay five hundred, not a clear more. Now in the matter of your commission, 
let us be reasonable. You provide drayage at a profit; I pay a large rent on 
your warehouse; I see no reason to hand over an additional ten percent on these 
items."
"Why not?" inquired Woudiver in a reasonable voice. "It is a convenience to you 
that I can offer these services. I wear two hats, so to speak: that of the 
expediter and that of the supplier. Why, merely because the expediter finds a 
certain supplier convenient, inexpensive and efficient, should he be denied his 
fee? If the drayage were performed elsewhere, the charges would be no less, and 
I would receive my fee without complaint."
Reith could not deny the logic of the presentation, nor did he try. He said, "I 
don't intend to pay more than five hundred sequins for a ramshackle old shed 
you'd be happy renting for two hundred."
Woudiver held up a yellow finger. "Consider the risk! We are about to suborn the 
thievery of valuable property! I am rewarded, please understand, partly for 
services rendered and partly to allay my fear of the Glass Box."
"This is a reasonable statement, from your point of view," said Reith. "As far 
as I am concerned, I want to complete the spaceship before the money runs out. 
After the ship is complete, fueled and provisioned, you can take every sequin 
remaining, for all I care."
"Indeed!" Woudiver scratched his chin. "How many sequins do you have then, so 
that we can plan accordingly?"
"Something over a hundred thousand."
"Mmf. I wonder if the job can be done at all-let alone allow for surplus."
"My point exactly. I want to keep non-construction expenses to the minimum."
Woudiver turned his face toward Artilo. "See how I am reduced. All prosper but 
Woudiver. As usual, he suffers for his generosity."
Artilo gave a noncommittal grunt.
Reith counted out sequins. "Five hundred-exorbitant rent for this ramshackle 
shed. Drayage: three hundred. The hull: eight hundred and ninety. I'll pay ten 
percent on the hull. Another eighty-nine. A total of seventeen hundred and 
seventy-nine."
Woudiver's broad yellow face mirrored a succession of emotions. At last he said, 
"I must remind you that a policy of parsimony is often the most expensive in the 
end."
"If the work goes efficiently," said Reith, "you won't find me parsimonious. 
You'll see more sequins than you ever dreamed existed. But I intend to pay only 
for results. It is to your interest to expedite the space-boat as best you can. 
If the money runs out we're all the losers."
For once Woudiver had nothing to say. He stared dolefully at the glittering heap 
on the table, then, separating purples, scarlets, dark greens, he counted. "You 
drive a hard bargain."
"To our mutual benefit, ultimately."
Woudiver dropped the sequins into his pouch. "If I must I must." He drummed his 
fingers against his thigh. "Well, as to the components, what do you require 
first?"
"I know nothing about Dirdir machinery. We need the advice of an expert 
technician. Such a man should be here now."
Woudiver squinted sidelong. "Without knowledge, how do you expect to fly?"
"I am acquainted with Wankh space-boats."
"Hmmf. Artilo, go fetch Deine Zarre from the Technical Club."
Woudiver stalked off to his office, leaving Reith, Anacho and Traz alone in the 
shed.
Anacho surveyed the hull. "The old hulk has done well. This is the Ispra, a 
series now obsolete, in favor of the Concax Screamer. We must obtain Ispra 
components, to simplify the work."
"Are these available?"
"Undoubtedly. I believe you got the better of the yellow beast. His father an 
Immaculate-what a joke! His mother a marsh-woman-that I can believe! He's 
evidently gone to pains to learn our secrets."
"I hope he doesn't learn too much."
"As long as we can pay, we're safe. We have a sound hull at a fair price, and 
even the rental is not too exorbitant. But we must be careful: normal profits 
won't suit him."
"No doubt he'll swindle us," said Reith. "If we end up with a functioning 
space-boat, I don't really care." He walked around the hull, occasionally 
reaching out to touch it, in a kind of wonder. Here, solid and definite, the 
basis of a vessel to take him home! Reith felt a surge of affection for the cold 
metal, in spite of its alien Dirdir look.
Traz and Anacho went outside to sit in the wan afternoon sunlight, and Reith 
presently joined them. With images of Earth in his mind, the landscape became 
suddenly strange, as if he were viewing it for the first time. The crumbling 
gray city Sivishe, the spires of Hei, the Glass Box reflecting a dark bronze 
shine from Carina 4269, the loom of the palisades through the murk: this was 
Tschai. He looked at Traz and Anacho: these were men of Tschai.
Reith sat down on the bench. He asked, "What's inside the Glass Box?"
Anacho seemed surprised at his ignorance. "It is a park, a simulation of old 
Sibol. Young Dirdir learn to hunt; others take exercise and relaxation. There 
are galleries for onlookers. Criminals are the prey. There are rocks, Sibol 
vegetation, cliffs, caves; sometimes a man avoids the hunt for days."
Reith looked across to the Glass Box. "The Dirdir hunt in there now?"
"So I suppose."
"What of the Dirdirmen Immaculates?"
"They are sometimes allowed to hunt."
"They devour their prey?"
"Of course."
Along the rutted road came the black car. It splashed through a puddle of oily 
slime, halted before the office. Woudiver came to stand in the doorway, a 
grotesque lump in black and yellow finery. Artilo stepped down from the driver's 
bench; from the cab came an old man. His face was haggard and his body seemed 
distorted or twisted; he moved slowly, as if every effort cost him pain. 
Woudiver strutted forward, spoke a word or two, then conducted the old man to 
the shed.
Woudiver spoke: "This is Deine Zarre, who will supervise our project. Deine 
Zarre, I introduce to you this man of no distinguishable race. He calls himself 
Adam Reith. Behind you see a defalcate Dirdirman: a certain Anacho; and a youth 
who appears to derive from the Kotan steppes. These are the folk with whom you 
must deal. I am no more than an adjunct; make all your arrangements with Adam 
Reith."
Deine Zarre gave his attention to Reith. His eyes were clear gray, and in 
contrast to the black of the pupils seemed almost luminous. "What is the 
project?"
Another man to know the secret, thought Reith. Already with Aila Woudiver and 
Artilo, the list was overlong. But no help for it. "In the shed is the hull of a 
space-boat. We want to put it into operative condition."
Deine Zarre's expression changed little. He searched Reith's face a moment, then 
turned and limped into the shed. Presently he reappeared. "The project is 
possible. Anything is possible. But feasible? I don't know." His gaze once more 
searched Reith's face. "There are risks."
"Woudiver shows no great alarm. Of all of us he is the most sensitive to 
danger."
Deine Zarre gave Woudiver a dispassionate glance. "He is also the most supple 
and resourceful. For myself, I fear nothing. If the Dirdir come to take me, I 
shall kill as many as possible."
"Come, come," chided Woudiver. "The Dirdir are as they are: folk of fantastic 
skills and courage. Are we not all Brothers of the Egg?
Deine Zarre gave a dismal grunt. "Who is to supply machinery, tools, 
components?"
"The spaceyards," said Woudiver dryly. "Who else?"
"We will need technicians: at least six men, of absolute discretion."
"A chancy matter," Woudiver admitted. "But the chance can be minimized by 
inducements. If Reith pays them well, the inducement of money. If Artilo 
counsels them, the inducement of reason. If I indicate the consequences of a 
loose tongue, the inducement of fear. Never forget, Sivishe is a city of 
secrets! As witness we who stand here."
"True," said Deine Zarre. Again he searched Reith with his remarkable eyes. 
"Where do you wish to go in your spaceship?"
Woudiver spoke with overtones either of mockery or malice: "He goes to claim a 
fabulous treasure, which we all will share."
Deine Zarre smiled. "I want no treasure. Pay me a hundred sequins a week; it is 
all I require."
"So little?" demanded Woudiver. "You reduce my commission."
Deine Zarre gave him no heed. "You intend to start work at once?" he asked 
Reith.
"The sooner the better."
"I will list immediate needs." To Woudiver: "When can you arrange delivery?"
"As soon as Adam Reith provides the wherewithal."
"Put through the order tonight," said Reith. "I'll bring money tomorrow."
"What of the honorarium for my friend?" demanded Woudiver testily. "Does he work 
for nothing? What of the fee for the warehouse guards? Do they look sideways for 
their health?"
"How much?" asked Reith.
Woudiver hesitated, then said in a dull voice, "Let us avoid a tiresome quarrel. 
I will present the minimum price first. Two thousand sequins."
"So much? Incredible. How many men must be bribed?"
"Three. The assistant supervisor, two guards."
Deine Zarre said, "Give it to him. I dislike haggling. If you must economize, 
pay me less."
Reith started to complain, then shrugged, managed a painful grin. "Very well. 
Two thousand sequins."
"Remember," said Woudiver, "you must bear the inventory cost of the merchandise; 
it is difficult to steal outright."
During the evening four power-wagons unloaded at the shed. Reith, Traz, Anacho 
and Artilo trundled the crates into the shed, as Deine Zarre checked them off 
his master list. Woudiver appeared on the scene at midnight. "All is well?"
Deine Zarre said, "As far as I can tell, the basic needs are here."
"Good." Woudiver turned to Reith, handed him a sheet of paper. "The invoice. 
Notice that it is itemized, and bluster will serve no purpose."
Reith read the total in a weak whisper "Eighty-two thousand sequins."
"Did you expect less?" Woudiver asked jauntily. "My fee is not included. Ninety 
thousand two hundred sequins in all."
Reith asked Deine Zarre, "Is there everything we need?"
"By no means."
"How much time will be required?"
"Two or three months. Longer if the components are seriously out of phase."
"What must I pay the technicians?"
"Two hundred sequins a week. Unlike myself, they are motivated by the need for 
money."
On the screen of Reith's imagination appeared a picture of the Carabas: the dun 
hills, the gray outcrops, the thickets of thorn, the horrid fires by night. He 
remembered the furtive passage across the Forelands, the Dirdir-trap in Boundary 
Forest, the race back to the Portal of Gleams. Ninety thousand sequins 
represented almost half of this ... If the money dwindled too fast, if Woudiver 
became too brazenly corrupt, what then? Reith could not bear to think the 
thought. "Tomorrow I will bring the money."
Woudiver gave a fateful nod. "Good. Or tomorrow night the goods return to the 
warehouse."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WITHIN THE SHED the old Ispra began to come alive. The propulsors were raised 
into their sockets, bolted and welded. Up through the stern access panel the 
generator and converter were hoisted, then slid forward and secured. The Ispra 
was no longer a hulk. Reith, Anacho and Traz wire-brushed, ground, polished, 
removed rotten padding, sour-smelling old settees. They cleaned the observation 
ports, reamed air conduits, installed new seals around the entry hatch.
Deine Zarre did no work. He hobbled here and there, his gray eyes missing no 
details. Artilo occasionally looked into the shed, a sneering droop to his gray 
mouth. Woudiver was seldom to be seen. During his rare appearances he was cold 
and businesslike, all trace of his first jocundity gone.
For an entire month Woudiver did not show himself. Artilo, in a confiding mood, 
spat down at the ground and said, "Big Yellow's out at his country place."
"Oh? What's he do out there?"
Artilo twisted his head sidewise, showing Reith a lopsided grin. "Thinks he's a 
Dirdirman, that's what. That's where his money goes, on his fences and scenery 
and hunts, wicked old beast."
Reith stood stock-still staring at Artilo. "You mean he hunts men?"
"For sure. He and his cronies. Yellow has two thousand acres to his place, 
almost as big as the Glass Box. Walls aren't so good, but he's got them circled 
by electric wires and sting snaps. Don't go to sleep on Yellow's wine; you'll 
wake up to find yourself in the hunt."
Reith forbore to inquire the disposition of the victims; it was information he 
did not want.
Another of the ten-day Tschai weeks passed, and Woudiver appeared, in a surly 
mood. His upper lip was stiff as a shingle, totally concealing his mouth; his 
eyes darted truculently right and left. He strutted close to Reith; the great 
hulk of his torso blotted out half the landscape. He held out his hand. "Rent." 
His voice was flat and cold.
Reith brought forth five hundred sequins and placed them on a shelf. He did not 
care to touch the yellow hand.
Woudiver, in a spasm of petulance, struck out with the back of his hand, 
knocking Reith head over heels. Reith picked himself up in astonishment. His 
skin began to prickle, signaling the onset of fury. From the corner of his eye 
he noticed Artilo lounging against the wall. Artilo would shoot him as calmly as 
he might crush an insect, this he knew. Nearby stood Traz, watching Artilo 
intently. Artilo was neutralized.
Woudiver stood looking at him, eyes cold and expressionless. Reith heaved a deep 
sigh, choked back his wrath. To strike back at Woudiver would gain none of his 
respect, but only stimulate the whole of his rancor. Inevitably something 
dreadful would occur. Reith slowly turned away. "Bring me my rent!" barked 
Woudiver. "Do you take me for a mendicant? I have been sufficiently wounded by 
your arrogance. In the future extend me the respect due to my caste!"
Again Reith hesitated. How much easier to attack the monstrous Woudiver and 
accept the consequences! Which would be wreckage of the program. Again Reith 
sighed. If it were necessary to eat crow, a mouthful was no worse than a taste.
In cold and austere silence he handed the sequins to Woudiver, who only glared 
and made a waggling motion of the hips. "It is insufficient! Why should I 
subsidize your undertaking! Pay me my due! The rent is one thousand sequins a 
month!"
"Here is another five hundred sequins," said Reith. "Please do not demand more, 
because it will not be forthcoming."
Woudiver made a contemptuous sound, wheeled and stalked away. Artilo looked 
after him and spat in the dust. Then he gave Reith a speculative glance.
Reith went inside the shed. Deine Zarre, who had observed the episode, made no 
comment. Reith tried to soothe his humiliation in work.
Two days later Woudiver reappeared, wearing his gaudy black and yellow outfit. 
His truculence of the previous occasion had vanished; he was blandly polite. 
"Well, then, and what is the current state of your project?"
Reith responded in a flat voice. "There have been no major problems. The heavy 
components are in place and connected. The instruments have been installed, but 
are not operative. Deine Zarre is preparing another list: the magnetic 
justification system, navigation sensors, the environment conditioners. Perhaps 
we should also purchase fuel cells at this time."
Woudiver pursed his lips. "Just so. Again the sad occasion arises, of parting 
with your hard-gained sequins. How, may I ask, did you garner so large a sum? It 
is a fortune in itself. With so much in hand I wonder that you risk all on a 
wild-goose chase."
Reith managed a wintry smile. "Evidently I do not regard the expedition as a 
wild-goose chase."
"Extraordinary. When will Deine Zarre have his list in hand?"
"Perhaps -it is finished now."
Deine Zarre had not finished his list but did so while Woudiver waited.
Scanning the list with head thrown back and eyes half-closed, Woudiver said, "I 
fear that the expense will be in excess of your reserves."
"I hope not," said Reith. "How much do you reckon?"
"I can't say for certain; I do not know. But with rent, labor costs, your 
original investments, you cannot have too much money left." He looked at Reith 
questioningly.
The last thing Reith planned to do was confide in Woudiver. "It is essential 
then that we keep costs to a minimum."
"Three basic costs must be met without fail," intoned Woudiver. "The rent, my 
fees, honorariums to my associates. What remains may be spent as you will. This 
is my point of view. And now be so good as to tender me two thousand sequins, 
for the honorariums. The materials, should you be unable to pay, can be returned 
without prejudice and at no cost other than drayage fees."
Gloomily Reith handed over two thousand sequins. He made a mental calculation: 
of something like two hundred and twenty thousand sequins brought from the 
Carabas, less than half remained.
Somewhat later a smaller wagon arrived, with eight canisters of fuel. Traz and 
Anacho started to unload these, but Reith stopped them. "One moment." He went 
into the shed where Deine Zarre checked items off his list. "Did you order 
fuel?"
"Yes."
Deine Zarre seemed pensive, thought Reith, as if his mind wandered afield.
"How long will a canister of fuel drive the ship?"
"Two are needed, one for each cell. These will give about two months' service."
"Eight canisters have been delivered."
"I ordered four, to ensure two spares."
Reith returned to the dray. "Take off four," he told Traz and Anacho. The driver 
sat in the shadow of the cab. Reith leaned in to address him, and to his 
surprise saw Artilo, apparently in no anxiety to identify himself. Reith said, 
"You brought eight cans of fuel; we ordered four."
"Yellow said to bring eight."
"We only need four. Take four back."
"Can't be done. Talk to Big Yellow."
"I need only four cans. That's all I'm taking. Do what you like with the 
others."
Artilo, whistling between his teeth, jumped from the cab, unloaded the four 
extra canisters, carried them over to the shed. Then he climbed back into the 
dray and drove off.
The three stood looking after him. Anacho said in a toneless voice, "Trouble is 
on its way."
"I expect so," said Reith.
"The fuel cells," said Anacho, "are no doubt Woudiver's own property. Perhaps he 
stole them, perhaps he bought them on the cheap. Here is an excellent chance to 
dispose of them at a profit."
Traz made a growling sound in his throat. "Woudiver should be made to carry away 
the cells on his back."
Reith gave an uneasy laugh. "If I only knew how to make him.
"He fears for his life, like anyone else."
"True. But we can't cut off our nose to spite our face."
In the morning Woudiver did not arrive to hear the statements which Reith had 
brooded upon a large part of the night. Reith drove himself to work, with the 
thought of Woudiver pressing on him like the weight of doom.
On this morning Deine Zarre was not on hand either, and the technicians muttered 
among themselves more freely than they dared in Deine Zarre's presence. Reith 
presently desisted from his work and made a survey of the project. There were, 
he thought, good grounds for optimism. The major components were installed; the 
delicate job of tuning proceeded at a satisfactory rate. At these jobs Reith, 
though acquainted with Earth space-drive systems, was helpless. He was not even 
certain that the drives functioned by the same principles.
About noon a line of black clouds broke over the palisades like a scud of surf. 
Carina 4269 went wan, faded through tones of brown, and disappeared; moments 
later rain swept the eerie landscape, blotting Hei from sight, and now plodding 
through the rain came Deine Zarre, followed by a pair of thin children: a boy of 
twelve, a girl three or four years older. The three trudged into the shed, where 
they stood shivering. Deine Zarre seemed drained of energy; the children were 
numb.
Reith broke up some crates, lit a fire in the middle of the shed. He found some 
coarse cloth and tore it into towels. "Dry yourselves. Take off your jackets and 
get warm."
Deine Zarre looked at him uncomprehendingly, then slowly obeyed. The children 
followed suit. They were evidently brother and sister, quite possibly Deine 
Zarre's grandchildren. The boy's eyes were blue; those of the girl were a 
beautiful slate gray.
Reith brought forth hot tea and at last Deine Zarre spoke. "Thank you. We are 
almost dry." And a moment later: "The children are in my care; they will be with 
me. If you find the prospect inconvenient, I must give up my employment."
"Of course not," said Reith. "They are welcome here, as long as they understand 
the need for silence."
"They will say nothing." Deine Zarre looked at the two. "Do you understand? 
Whatever you see must not be mentioned elsewhere."
The three were in no mood for conversation. Reith, sensing desolation and 
misery, lingered. The children watched him warily. "I can't offer you dry 
clothes," said Reith. "But are you hungry? We have food on hand."
The boy shook his head with dignity; the girl smiled and became suddenly 
charming. "We have had no breakfast."
Traz, who had been standing to the side, ran to the larder and presently 
returned with seed-bread and soup. Reith watched gravely. It appeared that 
Traz's emotions had been affected. The girl was appealing, if somewhat peaked 
and miserable.
Deine Zarre finally stirred himself. He pulled his steaming garments taut and 
went to inspect the work done in his absence.
Reith tried to make conversation with the children. "Are you becoming dry?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Define Zarre is your grandfather?"
"Our uncle."
"I see. And now you are to live with him?"
"Yes."
Reith could find nothing more to say. Traz was more direct. "What happened to 
your father and mother?"
"They were killed, by Fairos; " said the girl softly. The boy blinked.
Anacho said, "You must be from the Eastern Skyrise."
"Yes."
"How did you get from there to here?"
"We walked."
"It is a long way, and dangerous."
"We were lucky." The two stared into the fire. The girl winced, recalling the 
circumstances of their flight.
Reith went off to find Deine Zarre. "You have new responsibilities."
Deine Zarre darted Reith a sharp look. "That is correct."
"You work here for less than you deserve to be paid, and I want to increase your 
salary."
Deine Zarre gave a gruff nod. "I can put the money to use."
Reith returned to the floor of the shed, to find Woudiver standing in the 
doorway, a vast bulbous silhouette. His attitude was one of shocked disapproval. 
Today he wore another of his grand outfits: black plush breeches tight around 
his massive legs, a coat of purple and brown with a dull yellow sash. He marched 
forward to stare fixedly down at the boy and girl, one to the other. "Who built 
this fire? What do you do here?"
The girl quavered: "We were wet; the gentleman warmed us before the fire."
"Aha. And who is this gentleman?"
Reith came forward. "I am the gentleman. These are relations of Deine Zarre. I 
built the fire to dry them."
"What of my property? A single spark and all goes up in flames!"
"In the rain I conceived the danger to be slight."
Woudiver made an easy gesture. "I accept your reassurances. How does all 
proceed?"
"Well enough," said Reith.
Woudiver reached into his sleeve and brought forth a paper. "I have here an 
account for the deliveries of last night. The total, you will notice, is 
extremely low, because I was given an inclusive lot price."
Reith unfolded the paper. Black sprawling characters spelled out: Merchandise, 
as supplied: Sequins 106,800.
Woudiver was saying: "-appears we are proceeding in really wonderful luck. I 
hope it will last. Only yesterday the Dirdir trapped two thieves working out of 
the export warehouse and took them instantly to the Glass Box. So, you see, our 
present security is fragile."
"Woudiver," said Reith, "this bill is too high. Far too high. Further, I don't 
intend to pay for extra energy-cans."
"The price, as I noted," said Woudiver, "is an inclusive one. The extra cans 
come at no extra cost. In a sense, they are free."
"This is not the case, and I refuse to pay five times what is reasonable. In 
fact, I don't have enough money."
"Then you must get some more," said Woudiver softly.
Reith snorted. "You make the task sound so easy."
"It is for some," said Woudiver airily. "A most remarkable rumor circulates the 
city. It appears that three men, entering the Carabas, slaughtered an 
astonishing number of Dirdir, subsequently robbing the bodies. The men are 
described as a youth, fair, like a Kotan steppe-dweller; a renegade Dirdirman; 
and a dark quiet man of no distinguishable race. The Dirdir are anxious to hunt 
down these three. Another rumor purports to concern the same three men. The dark 
man reportedly states his origin to be a far-off world from which he insists all 
men derive: in my opinion a blasphemy. What do you think of all this?"
"Interesting," said Reith, trying to conceal his despair.
Woudiver permitted himself to smirk. "We are in a vulnerable position. There is 
danger to myself, grave danger. Should I expose myself for nothing? I assist you 
from motives of comradeship and altruism of course, but I must receive my 
recompense."
"I cannot pay so much," said Reith. "You knew approximately the extent of my 
capital; now you attempt to extort more."
"Why not?" Woudiver could no longer restrain a grin. "Assume that the rumors I 
cited are accurate; assume that by some wild accident you and your henchmen were 
the persons in question: then is it not true that you have shamefully deceived 
me?"
"Assuming as much-not at all."
"What of the wonderful treasure?"
"It is real. Assist me to the best of your abilities. In one month we can depart 
Tschai. In another month you will be repaid beyond your dreams."
"Where? How?" Woudiver hitched himself forward; he loomed over Reith and his 
voice came deep and rich from the far caverns of his chest. "Let me ask 
outright: did you promulgate a tale that the original home of man is a far 
world? Or even more to the point: do you believe this hideous fantasy?"
Reith, with spirits plunging even deeper, tried to sidestep the quagmire. "We 
are dealing with side issues. Our arrangement was clear; the rumors you mention 
have no relevance."
Woudiver slowly, deliberately, shook his head.
"When the spaceship leaves," said Reith, "you shall have every sequin in my 
possession. I can do no better than that. If you make unreasonable demands..." 
He searched for a convincing threat.
Woudiver tilted up the great expanse of his face, chuckled. "What can you do? 
You are helpless. One word from me and you are instantly taken to the Glass Box. 
What are your options? None. You must do as I demand."
Reith looked around the shed. In the doorway stood Artilo, applying ash-gray 
snuff to his nostrils. At his belt hung a handgun.
Deine Zarre approached. Ignoring Woudiver he spoke to Reith. "The energy-cans 
are not to my order. They are a nonstandard size and appear to have been used 
for an indeterminate period. They must be rejected."
Woudiver's eyes narrowed, his mouth jerked. "What? They are excellent 
canisters."
Deine Zarre said in a toneless but utterly definite voice, "For our purposes 
they are useless." He departed. The boy and the girl looked after him wistfully. 
Woudiver turned to examine them, with what appeared to Reith a peculiar 
intensity.
Reith waited. Woudiver swung about. For a moment he regarded Reith through 
narrow-lidded eyes. "Well, then," said Woudiver, "it seems that different 
energy-cans are needed. How do you propose to pay for them?"
"In the usual way. Take back those eight cans of junk; provide four fresh cans 
and submit an itemized bill. A fair account I am able to pay just barely. Don't 
forget, I must meet labor costs."
Woudiver considered. Deine Zarre crossed the shed to speak to the boy and girl 
and Woudiver was distracted. He strutted over to join the group. Reith, limp 
with fatigue, went to the workbench and poured himself a mug of tea, which he 
drank with a shaking hand.
Woudiver had become extremely affable, and went so far as to pat the boy on the 
head. Deine Zarre stood stiff, his face the color of wax.
Woudiver at last turned away. He crossed the shed to Artilo, spoke a moment or 
two. Artilo went outside, where blasts of wind sent ripples scurrying across the 
puddles.
Woudiver signaled Reith with one hand, Deine Zarre with the other. The two 
approached. Woudiver sighed with vast melancholy. "You two are dedicated to my 
poverty. You insist on the most exquisite refinements but refuse to pay. So be 
it. Artilo is taking away the canisters you so condemn. Zarre, come with me now 
and select cells to suit your needs."
"At this moment? I must take care of the two children."
"Now. At once. Tonight I visit my little property. I will not return for a 
period. It is evident that my help is undervalued here."
Deine Zarre acquiesced with poor grace. He spoke to the boy and girl, then 
departed with Woudiver.
Two hours passed. The sun, breaking through the clouds, sent a single ray down 
upon Hei, so that the scarlet and purple towers glittered against the black sky. 
Down the road came Woudiver's black car. It rolled to a halt in front of the 
shed; Artilo alighted. He sauntered into the shed. Reith watched him, wondering 
as to his air of purposefulness. Artilo approached the boy and girl, stood 
looking down at them, and they in turn looked up, eyes wide in their pale faces. 
Artilo spoke a few terse words; Reith could see the corded muscles at the back 
of his jaw jerk as he spoke. The children looked dubiously across the room at 
Reith, then reluctantly started to move toward the door. Traz spoke to Reith in 
a low urgent voice: "Something is wrong. What does he want with them?"
Reith moved forward. He asked, "Where are you taking these two?"
"No affair of yours."
Reith turned to the children. "Don't go with this man. Wait until your uncle 
returns."
The girl said, "He says he is taking us to our uncle."
"He can't be believed. Something is wrong."
Artilo turned to face Reith, an act as sinister as the coiling of a snake. He 
spoke in a soft voice. "I have my orders. Stand away."
"Who gave you the orders? Woudiver?"
"It is no concern of yours." He motioned to the two children. "Come." His hand 
went under his old gray jacket and he watched Reith sidelong.
The girl said, "We are not going with you."
"You must. I'll carry you."
"Touch them and I'll kill you," said Reith in a flat voice.
Artilo gave him a cool stare. Reith braced himself, muscles creaking with 
tension. Artilo brought forth his hand; Reith saw the dark shape of a weapon. He 
lunged, chopped down at the cold hard arm. Artilo had been expecting this; from 
the sleeve of his other hand sprang a long blade, which he thrust at Reith's 
side, so swiftly that Reith, whirling away, felt the sting of the edge. Artilo 
sprang back, knife poised, though he had lost the handgun. Reith, intoxicated 
with fury and the sudden release of tension, edged forward, eyes fixed on the 
unblinking Artilo. Reith feinted. Artilo reacted by not so much as a quiver. 
Reith struck with his left hand; Artilo cut up; Reith seized his wrist, whirled, 
bent, heaved, threw him far across the room where he lay in a crumpled heap.
Reith dragged him to the door, threw him outside into a puddle of slime.
Artilo painfully hoisted himself to his feet and limped over to the black car. 
In a passionless matter-of-fact fashion, never looking toward the shed, he 
scraped the mud from his garments, entered the car and departed.
Anacho said in a disapproving voice, "You should have killed him. Matters will 
be worse than ever."
Reith had no reply to make. He became conscious of the blood oozing down his 
side. Pulling up his shirt he found a long thin slash. Traz and Anacho applied a 
dressing; the girl somewhat timidly approached and tried to help. She seemed 
deft and capable; Anacho moved aside. Traz and the girl completed the job.
"Thank you," said Reith.
The girl looked up at him, her face full of a hundred different meanings. But 
she could not bring herself to speak.
The afternoon waned. The girl and boy stood in the doorway looking up the road. 
The technicians departed; the shed was silent.
The black car returned. Deine Zarre stepped stiffly forth, followed by Woudiver. 
Artilo, going to the luggage compartment, brought forth four energy cells, which 
he carried at a painful hobble into the shed. His manner, as far as Reith could 
see, was no different from usual: dour, impersonal, silent.
Woudiver turned a single glance toward the girl and the boy, who shrank back 
into the shadows. Then he approached Reith. "The energy canisters are here. They 
are approved by Zarre. They cost a great deal of money. Here is my statement for 
next month's rent and Artilo's salary-"
"Artilo's salary?" demanded Reith. "You must be joking."
"-the total, as you see, is exactly one hundred thousand sequins. The sum is not 
subject to diminution. You must pay at once or I will evict you from the 
premises." And Woudiver pursed his lips in a cold smile.
Reith's eyes misted with hate. "I can't afford this amount of money."
"Then you must go. Further, since you are no longer my client, I will be 
obligated to make a report of your activities to the Dirdir."
Reith nodded. "One hundred thousand sequins. And after that, how much more?"
"Whatever sums you require me to lay out."
"No further blackmail?"
Woudiver drew himself up. "The word is capricious and vulgar. I warn you, Adam 
Reith, that I expect the same courtesy that I accord."
Reith managed a sad laugh. "You'll have your money in five or six days. I don't 
have it now."
Woudiver cocked his great head skeptically sidewise. "Where do you propose to 
secure this money?"
"I have money waiting for me in Coad."
Woudiver snorted, wheeled and marched to his car. Artilo hobbled after him. They 
departed.
Traz and Anacho came to watch after the car.
In a wondering voice Traz asked, "Where will you get a hundred thousand 
sequins?"
"We left as much buried in the Carabas," said Reith. "The only problem is 
bringing it back-and perhaps it won't be so much of a problem after all."
Anacho's lank white jaw dropped. "I've always suspected you of insane optimism 
..."
Reith held up his hand. "Listen. I will fly north by the same route the Dirdir 
themselves use. They will take no notice, even should a search-screen be 
operating, which is doubtful. I will land after dark, to the east of the forest. 
In the morning I will dig up the sequins and take them back to the sky-car and 
at dusk I will fly back to Sivishe like a party of Dirdir returning from the 
hunt."
Anacho gave a derogatory grunt. "You make it sound so simple."
"As probably it will be, if all goes well."
Reith looked wistfully back toward the shed and the half-complete spaceship. "I 
might as well start now."
"I'll go with you," said Traz. "You'll need help."
Anacho made a dreary sound. "I had better go as well."
Reith shook his head. "One can do the job as well as three. You two remain here 
and keep our affairs moving."
"And if you don't return?"
"There are sixty or seventy thousand sequins still in the pouch. Take the money 
and leave Sivishe ... But I'll be back. I can't doubt this. It's not possible 
that we should toil and suffer so greatly only to fail."
"Hardly a rational assessment," Anacho said dryly: "I expect never to see you 
again."
"Nonsense," said Reith. "Well, I'll get started. The sooner I leave, the sooner 
I return."



CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE SKY-CAR SAILED quietly through the night of old Tschai, over landscape 
ghostly in the light of the blue moon. Reith felt like a man drifting through a 
strange dream. He mused over the events of his life, his childhood, his years of 
training, his missions among the stars and finally his assignment to the 
Explorator IV. Then Tschai: destruction and disaster, his time with the Emblem 
nomads, the journey across Aman Steppe and the Dead Steppe to Pera; the sack of 
Dadiche; the subsequent journey to Cath and his adventures at Ao Hidis. Then the 
journey to Carabas, the slaughter of the Dirdir, the construction of the 
spaceship in Sivishe. And Woudiver! On Tschai both virtue and vice were 
exaggerated; Reith had known many evil men, among whom Woudiver ranked high.
The night advanced; the forests of central Kislovan gave way to barren uplands 
and silent wasteland. In all the circle of vision, no light, no fire, no sign of 
human activity was visible. Reith consulted the course monitor, adjusted the 
automatic pilot. The Carabas lay only an hour ahead. The blue moon hung low; 
when it set the landscape would be dark until dawn.
The hour passed. Braz sank behind the horizon; in the east appeared a sepia 
glimmer announcing the nearness of dawn. Reith, dividing his attention between 
the course monitor and the ground below, finally thought to glimpse the shape of 
Khusz. At once, he dropped the car low to the ground and veered to the east, 
swinging behind the Boundary Forest. As Carina 4269 thrust a first cool brown 
sliver over the edge of the horizon Reith landed, close under the first great 
torquils of the forest.
For a period he sat watching and listening. Carina 4269 rose into the sky and 
the low light shone directly upon the sky-car. Reith gathered broken fronds and 
branches, which he laid against the car, camouflaging it to some extent.
The time had come when he must venture into the forest. He could delay no 
longer. Taking a sack and a shovel, tucking weapons into his belt, Reith set 
forth.
The trail was familiar. Reith recognized each bole, every dark sheaf of fungus, 
every hummock of lichen. As he passed through the forest he became aware of a 
sickening odor: the reek of carrion. This was to be expected. He halted. Voices? 
Reith jumped off the trail, listened.
Voices indeed. Reith hesitated, then stole forward through the heavy foliage.
Ahead lay the site of the trap. Reith approached with the most extreme caution, 
creeping on his hands and knees, finally crawling on his elbows ... He looked 
forth upon an eerie sight. To one side, in front of a great torquil, stood five 
Dirdir in hunting regalia. A dozen gray-faced men stood in a great hole, digging 
with shovels and buckets: this was the hole, greatly enlarged, in which Reith, 
Traz and Anacho had buried the Dirdir corpses. From the splendid rotting carrion 
came an odious stench ... Reith stared. One of these men was surely familiar-it 
was Issam the Thang. And next to him worked the hostler, and next, the porter at 
the Alawan. The others Reith could not positively identify, but all seemed 
somehow familiar, and he assumed them to be folk with whom he had dealings at 
Maust.
Reith turned to inspect the five Dirdir. They stood stiff and attentive, 
effulgences flaring out behind. If they felt emotion, or disgust, none was 
evident.
Reith did not allow himself to reason, to weigh, to calculate. He brought forth 
his hand-gun; he aimed, he fired. Once, twice, three times. Three Dirdir fell 
dead; the other two sprang around in questioning fury. Four times, five times: 
two glancing hits. Emerging from his cover Reith fired twice more down into the 
thrashing white bodies before they became still.
The men in the pit stood frozen in wonder. "Up!" cried Reith. "Out of there!"
Issam the Thang yelled hoarsely, "It is you, the murderer! Your crimes brought 
us here!"
"Never mind that," said Reith. "Get up out of that hole and fly for your life!"
"What good is that? The Dirdir will track us! They will kill us in some 
abominable fashion-"
The hostler was already out of the hole. He went to the Dirdir corpses, availed 
himself of a weapon, and turned back to Issam the Thang. "Don't bother to climb 
from the hole." He fired; the Thang's yell was cut short; his body rolled down 
among the decaying Dirdir.
The hostler said to Reith, "He betrayed us all, hoping for gain; he gained only 
what you saw; they took him with the rest of us."
"These five Dirdir-were there more?"
"Two Excellences who have gone back to Khusz."
"Take the weapons and go your way."
The men fled toward the Hills of Recall. Reith dug under the roots of the 
torquil. There, the sack of sequins. To the value of a hundred thousand? He 
could not be sure.
Shouldering the pouch, looking for a last time on the scene of carnage and the 
pitiful corpse of Issam the Thang, he departed the scene.
Back at the sky-car he loaded the sequins into the cabin and set himself to 
wait, anxiety gnawing at his stomach. He dared not depart. If he flew low he 
might be seen by hunt parties; if he flew high the screen across the Carabas 
would detect him.
The day passed. Carina 4269 dropped behind the far hills. Sad brown twilight 
fell over the Zone. Along the hills the hateful flickers sprang into existence. 
Reith could wait no longer. He took the sky-car into the air.
Low over the ground he skimmed until he was clear of the Zone, then rising high 
drove south for Sivishe.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE DARK LAND passed astern. Reith sat staring ahead, visions flitting across 
his inner eye: faces, twisted in passion, horror, pain. The shapes of Blue 
Chasch, Wankh, Pnume, Phung, Green Chasch, Dirdir, all leaped upon the stage of 
his imagination, to stand, turn, perform a gesture and leap away.
The night passed. The sky-car slid south and when Carina 4269 rose into the east 
the spires of Hei glistened far ahead.
Without incident Reith landed the sky-car, though it seemed that a passing party 
of Dirdirmen scrutinized him with suspicious intensity as he departed the field 
with his sack of sequins.
Reith went first to his room at the Ancient Realm. Neither Traz nor Anacho were 
on the premises, but Reith thought nothing of this; they often passed the nights 
at the shed.
Reith stumbled to his couch, threw the bag of sequins against the wall, 
stretched out and almost immediately slept.
He awoke to a hand on his shoulder. He rolled over to find Traz standing above 
him.
Traz spoke in a husky voice: "I was afraid you'd come here. Hurry, we must 
leave. The apartment is now dangerous."
Reith, still torpid, swung himself to a sitting position. The time was early 
afternoon, or so he judged by the shadows outside the window.
"What's the trouble?"
"The Dirdir took Anacho into custody. I was out buying food, or they would have 
taken me as well."
Reith was now fully awake. "When did this happen?"
"Yesterday. It was Woudiver's doing. He came to the shed, and asked questions 
about you. He wanted to know if you claimed to come from another world; he 
persisted and would not accept evasion. I refused to speak, as did Anacho. 
Woudiver began to reproach Anacho as a renegade. 'You, a former Dirdirman, how 
can you live like a subman among sub-men?"' Anacho became provoked and said that 
Bifold Genesis was a myth. Woudiver went away. Yesterday morning the Dirdir came 
here to the rooms and took Anacho. If they force him to talk, we are not safe 
and the ship is not safe."
Reith's fingers were numb as he pulled on his boots. All at once the structure 
of his life, contrived at such cost, had collapsed. Woudiver, always Woudiver.
Traz touched his arm. "Come; best that we leave! The rooms may be watched."
Reith picked up the bundle of sequins. They departed the building. Through the 
alleys of Sivishe they walked, ignoring the pale faces looking forth from 
doorways and odd-shaped windows.
Reith became aware that he was ravenously hungry; at a small restaurant they ate 
boiled sea-thrush and spore-cake. Reith began to think more clearly. Anacho was 
in Dirdir custody; Woudiver would certainly be expecting some sort of reaction 
from him. Or would he be so assured of Reith's essential helplessness that he 
would expect matters to go on as before? Reith grinned a ghastly grin. If 
Woudiver reckoned as much, he would be right. Unthinkable to jeopardize the ship 
for any circumstance whatever! Reith's hate for Woudiver was like a tumor in his 
brain, and he must ignore it; he must make the best of an agonizing dilemma.
Reith asked Traz, "You have not seen Woudiver?"
"I saw him this morning. I went to the shed; I thought you might have gone 
there. Woudiver arrived and went into his office."
"Let's see if he's still there."
"What do you intend to do?"
Reith gave a strangled laugh, "I could kill him but it would do no good. We need 
information. Woudiver is the only source."
Traz said nothing; as usual Reith was unable to read his thoughts.
They rode the creaking six-wheeled public carrier out to the construction yard, 
and every turn of the wheels wound the tension tighter. When Reith arrived at 
the yard and saw Woudiver's black car the blood surged through his brain and he 
felt lightheaded. He stood still, drew a deep breath and became quite calm.
He thrust the pouch of sequins upon Traz. "Take it into the shed and hide it."
Traz took the sack dubiously. "Don't go alone. Wait for me."
"I expect no trouble. We can't afford the luxury, as Woudiver well knows. Wait 
for me by the shed."
Reith went to Woudiver's eccentric stone office and entered. With his back to 
the charcoal brazier stood Artilo, legs splayed, arms behind his back. He 
examined Reith without change of expression.
"Tell Woudiver I want to see him," said Reith.
Artilo sauntered to the inner door, thrust his head in, spoke. He backed away. 
The door swung aside with a wrench that almost tore it from its hinges. Woudiver 
expanded into the room: a glaring-eyed Woudiver with great upper lip folded down 
over his mouth. He looked across the room with the unfocused all-seeing glare of 
a wrathful god, then seemed to catch sight of Reith, and his malevolence 
concentrated itself.
"Adam Reith," spoke Woudiver in a voice like a bell. "You have returned. Where 
are my sequins?"
"Never mind your sequins," said Reith. "Where is the Dirdirman?"
Woudiver hunched his shoulders. For a moment Reith thought he was about to 
strike out. If so Reith knew that his selfcontrol would dissolve, for better or 
worse.
Woudiver spoke in a throbbing voice: "Do you think to fatigue me with wrangling? 
Think again! Give me my money and depart."
"You shall have your money," said Reith, "as soon as I see Ankhe at afram 
Anacho."
"You wish to see the blasphemer, the renegade?" roared Woudiver. "Go to the 
Glass Box, you will see him clearly enough."
"He is in the Glass Box?"
"Where else?"
"You are certain?"
Woudiver leaned back against the wall. "Why do you wish to know?"
"Because he is my friend. You betrayed him to the Dirdir; you must answer to 
me."
Woudiver began to swell, but Reith said in a weary voice, "No more drama, no 
more shouting. You gave Anacho to the Dirdir; now I want you to save him."
"Impossible," said Woudiver. "Even if I wished I could do nothing. He is in the 
Glass Box, do you hear?"
"How can you be sure?"
"Where else should he be sent? He was taken for his old crimes; the Dirdir will 
learn nothing of your project, if that is your worry." And Woudiver showed his 
mouth in a gigantic sneer. "Unless, of course, he himself reveals your secrets."
"In which case," said Reith, "you would likewise find yourself in difficulties."
Woudiver had no comment to make.
Reith asked in a gentle voice, "Can money buy Anacho's escape?"
"No," intoned Woudiver. "He is in the Glass Box."
"So you say. How can I be sure?"
"As I informed you-go look."
"Anyone who wishes can watch?"
"Certainly. The Box holds no secrets."
"What is the procedure?"
"You cross to Hei, you walk to the Box, you climb to the upper gallery which 
overlooks the fields."
"Could a person lower a rope, or a ladder?"
"Certainly, but he could not hope for long life; he would be thrust at once down 
upon the field ... If you plan anything of this nature I myself will come to 
watch."
"Suppose I were to offer you a million sequins," said Reith, "could you arrange 
that Anacho escape?"
Woudiver darted his great head forward. "A million sequins? And you have been 
crying poverty to me for three months? I have been deceived!"
"Could you arrange the escape for a million sequins?"
Woudiver showed a dainty pink tip of tongue. "No, I fear not ... a million 
sequins ... I fear not. There is nothing to be done. Nothing. So you have gained 
a million sequins?"
"No," said Reith. "I only wanted to learn if Anacho's escape was possible."
"It is not possible," said Woudiver crossly. "Where is my money?"
"In due course," said Reith. "You betrayed my friend; you can wait."
Again Woudiver seemed on the verge of swinging his great arm. But he said, "You 
misuse language. I did not 'betray': I exposed a criminal to his just deserts. 
What loyalty do I owe you or yours? You have given none to me, and would do 
worse if opportunity offered. Bear in mind, Adam Reith, that friendship must 
work in two directions. Do not expect what you are unwilling to give. If you 
find my attributes distasteful, remember that I feel the same about yours. Which 
of us is correct? By the standards of this time and this place, it is certainly 
I. You are the interloper; your protests are ludicrous and unrealistic. You 
blame me for inordinacy. Do not forget, Adam Reith, that you chose me as a man 
who would perform illegal acts for pay. This is your expectation of me; you care 
nothing for my security or prospects. You came here to exploit me, to urge me to 
dangerous acts for trifling sums; you must not complain if my conduct seems 
merely a mirror of your own."
Reith could find no answer. He turned and left the office.
In the shed, work was proceeding at its usual pace: a haven of normalcy after 
the Carabas and the mind-twisting colloquy with Woudiver. Traz waited just 
inside the portal. "What did he say?"
"He said Anacho was a criminal, that I came here to exploit him. How can I 
argue?"
Traz curled his lip. "And Anacho?"
"In the Glass Box. Woudiver says it's easy to get in but impossible to get out." 
Reith walked back and forth across the shed. Halting in the doorway, he looked 
across the water toward the great gray shape. He spoke to Traz: "Will you ask 
Deine Zarre to step out here?"
Deine Zarre appeared. Reith asked, "Have you ever visited the Glass Box?"
"Long ago."
"Woudiver tells me that a man might lower a rope from the upper gallery."
"Should he care so little for his life."
"I want two quantities of high-potency battarache-enough, say, to destroy this 
shed ten times over. Where can I get it in a hurry?"
Deine Zarre reflected a moment, then gave a slow fateful nod. "Wait here."
He returned in something over an hour with two clay pots. "Here is battarache; 
here are fuses. It is contraband material; please do not reveal where you 
obtained it."
"The subject will never arise," said Reith. "Or so I hope."



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHROUDED IN GRAY cloaks Reith and Traz crossed the causeway to the mainland. By 
a fine wide avenue, surfaced with a rough white substance that rasped underfoot, 
they entered the Dirdir city Hei. To either hand rose spires, purple and 
scarlet; those of gray metal and silver stood far to the north behind the Glass 
Box. The avenue led close beside a hundred-foot shaft of scarlet. Surrounding 
this was an expanse of clean white sand upon which rested a dozen peculiar 
objects of polished stone. Art-things? Fetishes? Trophies? There was no way of 
knowing. In front of the spire, on a circular plat of white marble, stood three 
Dirdir. For the first time Reith saw a Dirdir female. The creature was shorter 
and seemed less resilient, less flexible, than the male; her head was wider at 
the scalp and pointed at the area corresponding to a chin; she was somewhat 
darker in color: a pallid gray subtly shaded with mauve. The two stood 
contemplating the third, a male Dirdir whelp, half the size of the adult. From 
time to time the effulgences of the three twitched to point to one or another of 
the polished rock-pieces, an activity which Reith made no effort to understand.
Reith watched them in a mingling of revulsion and reluctant admiration, and he 
could not avoid thinking of the "mysteries."
Some time previously Anacho had explained the Dirdir sexual processes. 
"Essentially, the facts are these: there are twelve styles of male sexual 
organs, fourteen of the female. Only certain pairings are possible. For 
instance, the Type One Male is compatible only with Types Five and Nine Female. 
Type Five Female adjusts only to Type One Male, but Type Nine Female has a more 
general organ and is compatible with Types One, Eleven and Twelve Male.
"The matter becomes fantastically complex. Each male and female style has its 
specific and theoretical attributes, which are very seldom realized-as long as 
an individual's type is secret! These are the Dirdir 'mysteries'! Should an 
individual's type become known, he is expected to conform to the theoretical 
attributes of the type, regardless of inclination; he rarely does so, and is 
constantly embarrassed on this account.
"As you can imagine, a matter so complicated absorbs a great deal of attention 
and energy and, perhaps, by keeping the Dirdir fragmented, obsessed and 
secretive, has prevented them from overrunning the world of space."
"Amazing," said Reith. "But if the types are secret and generally incompatible, 
how do they mate? How do they reproduce?"
"There are several systems: trial marriage, the so-called 'dark gatherings,' 
anonymous notices. The difficulties are transcended." Anacho paused a moment, 
then proceeded delicately. "I need hardly point out that low-caste Dirdirmen and 
Dirdirwomen, lacking the 'noble divinity' and without 'secrets,' are thus held 
to be deficient and somewhat clownish."
"Hmm," said Reith. "Why do you specify 'low-caste Dirdirmen'? What of the 
Immaculates?"
Anacho cleared his throat. "The Immaculates obviate shame by elaborate surgical 
methods. They are allowed to alter themselves in accordance with one of eight 
styles; thus they are conceded 'secrets' as well, and may wear Blue and Pink."
"What about mating?"
"It is more difficult, and in fact becomes an ingenious analogue of the Dirdir 
system. Each style will match at most two styles of the other sex."
Reith could no longer restrain his mirth. Anacho listened with an expression, 
half-grim, half-rueful. "What of yourself?" asked Reith. "How far did you 
involve yourself?"
"Not far enough," said Anacho. "For certain reasons I wore Blue and Pink without 
providing myself the requisite 'secret.' I was declared an outlaw and an 
atavism: this was my situation at our first meeting."
"A curious crime," said Reith.
Now Anacho darted for his life across the simulated landscape of Sibol.
The avenue leading to the Glass Box became even broader, as if in some attempt 
to keep it in scale with the vast bulk. Those who walked the rasping white 
surface-Dirdir, Dirdirmen, common laborers in gray cloaks-seemed artificial and 
unreal, like figures in classical perspective exercises. As they walked they 
looked neither right nor left, passing Reith and Traz as if they were invisible.
Scarlet and purple spires reared to all sides; ahead stood the Glass Box, 
dwarfing all else. Reith began to suffer oppression of the spirit; Dirdir 
artifacts and the human psyche were in discord. To tolerate such surroundings, a 
man eventually must deny his heritage and submit to the Dirdir world-view. In 
short, he must become a Dirdirman.
They came up beside two other men, like themselves muffled in hooded gray 
cloaks. Reith spoke: "Perhaps you will inform us. We want to visit the Glass Box 
but we do not understand the procedure."
The two men gave him an uncertain appraisal. They were father and son, both 
short, round-faced, with round little paunches, thin arms and legs. The older 
man said in a reedy voice, "One merely mounts by the gray ramps; there is no 
more to know."
"You yourselves go to the Glass Box?"
"Yes. There is a special hunt at noon, for a great Dirdirman villain, and there 
may well be a tossing."
"We had heard nothing of this. Who is this Dirdirman villain?"
The two again examined him dubiously, apparently from a condition of innate 
uncertainty. "A renegade, a blasphemer. We are scourers at the Number Four 
Fabrication Plant; we received information from the Dirdirmen themselves."
"You go often to the Glass Box?"
"Often enough." The father spoke rather tersely. The son amplified: "It is 
authorized and endorsed by the Dirdirmen; there is no expense."
"Come," said the father. "We must hurry."
"If you have no objection," said Reith, "we will follow you and take advantage 
of your familiarity with the procedures."
The father agreed with no great enthusiasm. "We do not care to be delayed." The 
two set off up the avenue, heads crouched upon their shoulders, a gait 
characteristic to the Sivishe laborers. Imitating the sag-necked slouch Reith 
and Traz followed. The glass walls reared overhead like vitreous cliffs, showing 
spots of a red-magenta glow where the illumination from within penetrated the 
glass. Angling along the sides were ramps and escalators coded by color; purple, 
scarlet, mauve, white and gray, each rising to different levels. The gray ramps 
led to a balcony only a hundred feet from the ground, evidently the lowest. 
Reith and Traz, joining a stream of men, women and children, climbed the ramp, 
passed through an ill-smelling passage which twisted forward and back and 
suddenly emerged upon a bright bleak expanse, illuminated by ten miniature suns. 
There were low crags and rolling hills, thickets of harsh vegetation: ocher, 
tan, yellow, bone-white, pale whitish brown. Below was a brackish pond, a 
thicket of hard white cactus-like growths; in the near distance stood a forest 
of bone-white spires identical in shape and size to the Dirdir residential 
towers. The similarity, thought Reith, could not be coincidental; on Sibol the 
Dirdir evidently inhabited hollow trees.
Somewhere among the hills and thickets wandered Anacho, in fear of his life, 
bitterly regretting the impulse which had brought him to Sivishe. But Anacho was 
not to be seen; in fact nowhere was there sign of either man or Dirdir. Reith 
turned to the two laborers for explanation.
"It is a quiet period," stated the father. "Notice the hill yonder? And its 
equal at the far north? These are base camps. During a quiet period the game 
takes refuge at one or the other of the camps. Let me see; where is my 
schedule?"
"I carry it," said the son. "Quiet continues yet an hour; the game is at this 
close hill."
"We are in good time. According to rules of this particular cycle, there will be 
darkness in one hour, for a period of fourteen minutes. Then South Hill becomes 
fair territory and the game must vacate to North Hill, which in its turn becomes 
refuge. I am surprised that with so notorious a criminal, they do not allow 
Competition rules."
"The schedule was established last week," replied the son. "The criminal was 
taken only a day or so ago."
"We still may see good techniques, and perhaps a tossing or two.
"In one hour, then, the field goes dark?"
"For fourteen minutes, during which the hunt begins."
Reith and Traz returned to the outside balcony and the suddenly dim landscape of 
Tschai. Pulling their hoods close, hunching their necks, they sidled down the 
ramp to the ground.
Reith looked in all directions. Cloaked laborers marched stolidly up the gray 
ramp. Dirdirmen used the white ramps; Dirdir rode mauve, scarlet and purple 
escalators to the high balconies.
Reith went to the gray glass wall. He sat down and pretended to adjust his shoe. 
Traz stood in front of him. From his pouch Reith brought forth a pot of 
battarache and an attached timer. He carefully adjusted a dial, pulled a lever, 
laid it beside a shrub, against the glass wall.
No one heeded. He adjusted the timer on the second pot of battarache, gave 
pouch, battarache and timer to Traz. "You know what to do."
Traz reluctantly took the pouch. "The plan may succeed, but you and Anacho will 
both certainly be killed."
Reith pretended that Traz was wrong for once, for the encouragement of them 
both. "Drop off the battarache-you'll have to hurry. Remember, just opposite to 
here. There isn't much time. And I'll see you at the construction shed."
Traz turned away, concealing his face in the folds of his hood. "Very well, Adam 
Reith."
"But just in case something goes wrong: take the money and leave as fast as you 
can."
"Goodbye."
"Hurry now."
Reith watched the gray shape diminish along the base of the Glass Box. He drew a 
deep breath. There was little time. He must commit himself at once; if darkness 
arrived before he had located Anacho, all the effort and risk were in vain.
He returned back up the gray ramp, passed through the portal into the Sibol 
glare.
He scanned the field, taking careful note of landmarks and directions, then 
moved south around the deck, toward South Hill. The spectators became less 
numerous, most tending toward the middle or the north.
Reith selected a spot near a stanchion. He looked right and left. No one stood 
within two hundred feet of him. The decks above were empty. He brought out a 
coil of light rope, parted it, passed it around the stanchion, threw the parts 
down. With a look to right and left he swung himself over the rail, lowered 
himself to the hunting ground.
He did not go unnoticed. Pallid faces peered down in wonder. Reith paid them no 
heed. He no longer shared their world; he was game. He pulled the rope down and 
ran off toward South Hill, coiling the rope as he ran through forests of 
bristle, over limestone juts and coffee-colored chert.
He neared the first slopes of South Hill, sighting neither hunters nor game. The 
hunters would now be taking such positions as tactics dictated; the game would 
be lurking at the base of South Hill, wondering how best to reach the sanctuary 
of North Hill. Reith suddenly came upon a young Gray, crouched in the shadow of 
a white bamboo-like growth. He wore sandals and a breech-clout; he carried a 
club and a cactus-prong dagger. Reith asked him, "Where is the Dirdirman, the 
one just put out on the field?"
The Gray gave his head an indifferent jerk. "There might be one such around the 
hill. Leave me; you create a flurry of darkness with your cloak. Drop it off; 
your skin is the best camouflage. Don't you know the Dirdir observe your every 
move?"
Reith ran on. He saw two elderly men, stark naked, with stringy muscles and 
white hair, standing poised like specters. Reith called out, "Have you seen the 
Dirdirman anywhere near?"
"Up beyond, or so it may be. Take yourself off, with your dark cloak."
Reith scrambled up a jut of sandstone. He called out: "Anacho."
No response. Reith looked at his watch. In ten minutes the field would go dark. 
He searched the side of South Hill. A little distance away he glimpsed movement: 
persons running off through the thicket. His cloak seemed to arouse antagonism; 
he removed it, threw it over his arm.
In a hollow Reith found four men and a woman. They showed him the faces of 
hunted animals, and would not reply to his question. Reith labored up the hill, 
to gain a better view. "Anacho!" he called. A figure in a white smock swung 
around. Reith felt engulfed in relief; his knees felt weak; tears came to his 
eyes. "Anacho!"
"What do you do here!"
"Hurry. This way. We're about to escape."
Anacho looked at him in stupefaction. "No one escapes the Glass Box."
"Come along! You'll see!"
"Not that way," cried Anacho hoarsely. "Safety lies to the north, on North Hill! 
When the darkness comes the hunt starts!"
"I know, I know! We don't have much time. Come this way. We must take cover 
somewhere over yonder; we must be ready."
Anacho threw his hands in the air. "You must know something I don't know."
They ran back the way Reith had come, to the western face of South Hill. As they 
ran Reith gasped out the details of the plan.
Anacho asked in a hollow voice, "You did all this ... for me? You came down here 
on the field?"
"No matter about that. Now-we want to be close to that tall clump of white 
bristles. Where shall we take cover?"
"Within the clump-as good as any. Notice the hunters! They take their positions. 
They must keep off half a mile until the darkness comes. We are just barely 
within the sanctuary. Those four are marking us!"
"Darkness will be coining in seconds. Our plan is this: we run due west, toward 
that mound. From there we work to that bank of brown cactus and around the 
southern edge. Most important: we must not become separated!"
Anacho made a plaintive gesture. "How can we avoid it? We can't call out; the 
hunters will hear us."
Reith gave him an end of the rope. "Hold to that. And if we are separated we 
meet on the west edge of that yellow clump."
They waited for darkness. Out on the field the young Dirdir took up their 
positions, with here and there more experienced hunters. Reith looked to the 
east. By some trick of light and atmosphere the fields seemed to be open and to 
extend to far horizons; only by dint of concentration could Reith make out the 
east wall.
Darkness came. The lights dulled to red, flickered out. Far to the north glowed 
a single purple light, to indicate direction. It cast no illumination. Darkness 
was complete. The hunt had begun. From the north came Dirdir hunting calls: 
chilling hoots and ululations.
Reith and Anacho moved west. From time to time they halted to listen through the 
dark. To their right came a sinister jingling. They stood stock-still. The 
jingling and a pad-pad-pad faded off to the rear.
They arrived at their landmark hummock, and continued toward the clump of 
cactus. Something was near. They halted to listen. It seemed to their straining 
ears, or nerves, that something else paused as well.
From high, high above came a many-voiced cry, ranging up and down the sonic 
range, then another and another. "The huntcalls of all the septs," Anacho 
whispered. "A traditional ritual. Now from the field, all the sept-members 
present must give voice." The calls from above halted; from all parts of the 
hunting field, eerie out of the dark, came the responses. Anacho nudged Reith. 
"While the responses sound, we are free to move. Come."
They set out with long strides, their feet sensitive as eyes. The hunt-slogans 
dwindled away into the distance; again there was silence. Reith struck a loose 
rock with his feet, to cause a distressing rattle. They froze, teeth gritted.
There was no reaction. On they walked, on and on, feeling out with their feet 
for the cactus clump, but encountering only air and harsh soil. Reith began to 
fear that they had passed it by, that the lights would go on to expose them to 
all the hunters, all the spectators.
Seven minutes of darkness had elapsed, or so he estimated. In another minute, at 
the latest, they should find the outskirts of the clump ... A sound! Running 
feet, apparently human, passed not thirty feet distant. A moment later a jogging 
thud, shrill whispers, a jingle of hunting gear. The sounds passed, dwindled. 
Silence returned.
Seconds later they came to the cactus. "Around to the southern side," Reith 
whispered. "Then on hands and knees into the center."
The two pushed through the coarse stalks, meeting sharp side-prongs.
"Light! Here it comes!"
The dark began to dissipate in the style of a Sibol sunrise: up through gray, 
pallid white, into the full glare of day.
Reith and Anacho looked about them. The cactus provided fair concealment; they 
seemed in no imminent peril, though not a hundred yards distant three Dirdir 
scions bounded across the field, heads high, searching in all directions for 
fleeing game. Reith consulted his watch. Fifteen minutes remained-if Traz had 
suffered no mishap, if he had been able to reach the opposite wall of the Glass 
Box.
The forest of white bristle lay a quarter of a mile ahead, across somewhat open 
ground. It might, thought Reith, be the longest quarter-mile he had ever 
traversed.
The two wormed through the cactus to the northern verge. "The hunters keep to 
middle ground for an hour or so," said Anacho. "They restrain quick penetration 
to the north, then they work to the south."
Reith handed Anacho a power-gun, tucked his own into his waistband. He raised to 
his knees. A mile distant he glimpsed movement, Dirdir or game he could not be 
sure. Anacho suddenly pulled him down into concealment. From behind the cactus 
bush trotted a group of Immaculates, hands sheathed in artificial talons, 
simulated effulgences trailing over their shining white pates. Reith's stomach 
twisted; he stifled the impulse to confront the creatures, to shoot them.
The Dirdirmen loped past, and it seemed that they missed seeing the fugitives 
only through the sheerest chance. They angled away to the east, and, sighting 
game, bounded off at full speed.
Reith checked his watch; time was growing short. Rising to his knees, he looked 
in all directions. "Let's go."
They jumped erect, ran off for the white forest.
They paused halfway, crouched behind a little thicket. By South Hill a hot hunt 
was in progress; two bands of hunters converged on game which had taken cover on 
South Hill itself. Reith checked his watch. Nine minutes. The white forest was 
only a minute or two away. The lone spire which he had established as a landmark 
could now be seen, a few hundred yards west of the forest. They set forth again. 
Four hunters stepped from the forest, where they had stationed themselves to spy 
out the game. Reith's heart sank into his boots. "Keep going," he said to 
Anacho. "We'll fight them."
Anacho looked dubiously at the power-gun. "If they take us with guns, they'll 
toss us for days ... but I was to be tossed in any event."
The Dirdir watched in fascination as Reith and Anacho approached. "We must take 
them into the forest," muttered Anacho. "The judges will intervene if they see 
our guns."
"Around to the left then, and behind that clump of yellow grass."
The Dirdir did not advance to meet them, but moved to the side. With a final 
burst Reith and Anacho gained the edge of the forest. The Dirdir screamed their 
hunt slogans and sprang forward, while Reith and Anacho retreated.
"Now," said Reith. They brought forth their guns. The Dirdir gave a croak of 
dismay. Four quick shots: four dead Dirdir. Instantly from high above came a 
great howl: a mind-jarring ululation. Anacho shouted out in sheer frustration, 
"The judges saw. They'll watch us now, and direct the hunt. We are lost."
"We have a chance," Reith insisted. He wiped the sweat from his face, squinting 
against the glare. "In three minutes-if all goes well-the explosion. Let's go on 
to the long spire."
They ran through the forest, and as they emerged they saw hunt-teams loping in 
their direction. The howling overhead rose and fell, then stopped.
They reached the single spire, with the glass wall only a hundred yards distant. 
Above, obscured by glare and reflections, ran the observation decks; Reith was 
barely able to make out the gaping spectators.
He checked his watch.
Now.
An interval, to be expected: the Box was three miles across. Seconds passed, 
then came a great puff of shock and a thunderous reverberation. Lights 
flickered; far to the east they were extinguished. Reith peered but could not 
see the effect of the blast. From overhead, up and down the length of the field, 
came a frantic baying, expressing rage so savage and stupendous that Reith's 
knees became weak.
Anacho was more matter-of-fact. "They direct all hunts east to the rupture, to 
prevent the escape of game."
The hunts which had been converging upon Reith and Anacho turned and raced off 
to the east.
"Get ready," said Reith. He looked at his watch. "To the ground."
A second explosion: a tremendous shatter to gladden Reith's heart, to lift him 
into a state of near religious exaltation. Shards and chunks of gray glass 
whistled overhead; the lights dimmed, went dark. Before them appeared a gap, 
like an opening into a new dimension, a hundred feet wide, almost as high as the 
first observation deck.
Reith and Anacho jumped to their feet. Without difficulty they reached the wall 
and sprang through-away from the arid Sibol, out into the dim Tschai afternoon.
Down the broad white avenue they ran, then at Anacho's direction turned off to 
the north, toward the factories and the white Dirdirman spires, then to the 
waterfront, and across the causeway into Sivishe.
They halted to catch their breath. "Best that you go direct to the sky-car," 
said Reith. "Take it and leave. You won't be safe in Sivishe."
"Woudiver issued the information against me; he'll do the same for you," said 
Anacho.
"I can't leave Sivishe now, with the spaceship so near to completion. Woudiver 
and I must have an understanding."
"Never," said Anacho bleakly. "He is a great wad of malice."
"He can't betray the spaceship without endangering himself," argued Reith. "He 
is our accomplice; we work in his shed."
"He'd explain it away somehow."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. In any event, you must leave Sivishe. We'll share the 
money-then you must go. The sky-car is no more use to me."
Anacho's white face became mulish. "Not so fast, I am not the goal of a tsaugsh, 
remember this. Who will take the initiative to seek me out?"
Reith looked back toward the Glass Cage. "You don't think they'll seek you in 
Sivishe?"
"They are unpredictable. But I'm as safe in Sivishe as anywhere else. I can't go 
back to the Ancient Realm. They won't seek me at the shed unless Woudiver 
betrays the project."
"Woudiver must be controlled," said Reith.
Anacho only grunted. They set off once more, through the mean alleys of Sivishe.
The sun passed behind the spires of Hei and dimness seeped into the already 
shadowed streets. Reith and Anacho rode by public powerwagon to the shed. 
Woudiver's office was dark; within the shed dim lights glimmered. The mechanics 
had gone home; there seemed to be no one on the premises ... In the shadows a 
figure moved. "Traz!" cried Reith.
The lad came forward. "I knew that you would come here, if you won free."
Neither the nomads nor the Dirdirmen were given to demonstration; Anacho and 
Traz merely took note of each other.
"Best that we leave this place," said Traz. "And quickly."
"I said to Anacho, I say to you: take the sky-car and go. There is no reason for 
you to risk another day in Sivishe."
"And what about you?"
"I must take my chances here."
"The chances are very small, what with Woudiver and his vindictiveness."
"I will control Woudiver."
"An impossibility!" Anacho cried out. "Who can control such perversity, so much 
monstrous passion? He is beyond reason."
Reith nodded somberly. "There is only one certain way, and it may be difficult."
"How do you intend this miracle?" Anacho demanded.
"I intend simply to take him at gunpoint, and bring him here. If he will not 
come, I will kill him. If he comes, he will be my captive, under constant guard. 
I can think of nothing better."
Anacho grunted. "I would not object to guarding Big Yellow."
"The time to act is now," said Traz. "Before he knows of the escape."
"For you two, no!" Reith declared. "If I get killed ... too bad but unavoidable. 
It is a risk I have to take. Not so for you. Take the skycar and money, leave 
now while you are able!"
"I remain," said Traz.
"And I as well," said Anacho.
Reith made a gesture of defeat. "Let's go after Woudiver."



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE THREE STOOD in the dark court outside Woudiver's apartments, judging how 
best to open the postern. "We don't dare force the lock," muttered Anacho. 
"Woudiver undoubtedly guards himself with alarms and death-traps."
"We'll have to go over the top," said Reith. "It shouldn't be too hard to reach 
the roof." He studied the wall, the cracked tile, a twisted old psilla. "Nothing 
to it." He pointed. "Up there, across to there-then there and over."
Anacho shook his head gloomily. "I'm surprised to find you still so innocent. 
Why do you think the route appears so simple! Because Woudiver is convinced no 
one can climb? You'd find strings, traps and jangle-buttons every place you put 
your hand."
Reith chewed his lip in mortification. "Well, then, how do you propose we get 
in?"
"Not through here," said Anacho. "We must defeat Woudiver's craft with 
cleverness of our own."
Traz made a sudden motion, and drew the other two back into the deep shadows of 
an area-way.
Along the alley came a shuffle of footsteps. A tall thin shape limped past them 
and went to stand by the postern. Traz whispered: "Deine Zarre! He's in a bitter 
state."
Deine Zarre stood motionless; he brought forth a tool and worked on the lock. 
The postern swung open; he walked through, his pace inexorable as doom. Reith 
sprang forward and held the gate ajar. Deine Zarre limped on unseeing. Traz and 
Anacho passed through the postern; Reith let the gate rest against the lock. 
They now stood in a paved loggia, with a dimly lit passage leading to the main 
bulk of the house. "For the moment," said Reith, "you two wait here; let me 
confront Woudiver alone."
"You'll be in great danger," said Anacho. "It's obvious that you came for no 
good!"
"Not necessarily!" said Reith. "He will be suspicious, certainly. But he can't 
know that I've seen you. If he sees the three of us he'll be on his guard. 
Alone, I have a better chance of outwitting him."
"Very well," said Anacho. "We'll wait here, for a certain period, at any rate. 
Then we'll come in after you."
"Give me fifteen minutes." Reith set off down the passage, which opened into a 
courtyard. Across, in front of a brassbound door, stood Deine Zarre, plying his 
tool. Light suddenly flooded the courtyard. Deine Zarre had apparently tripped 
an alarm.
Into the courtyard stepped Artilo. "Zarre," he said.
Deine Zarre turned about.
"What do you do here?" Artilo asked in a gentle voice.
"It is no concern of yours," said Deine Zarre tonelessly. "Leave me be."
With an uncharacteristic flourish, Artilo brought forth a power-gun. "I have 
been so ordered. Prepare to die."
Reith stepped quickly forward, but the motion of Deine Zarre's eyes gave warning 
to Artilo; he started to look about. With two long strides, Reith was on him. He 
struck a terrible blow at the base of Artilo's skull, and Artilo collapsed dead. 
Reith took up the power-gun, rolled Artilo to the side. Deine Zarre was already 
turning away, as if the circumstances held no interest.
Reith said, "Wait!"
Deine Zarre turned around once more. Reith came forward. Deine Zarre's gray eyes 
were astonishingly clear. Reith asked, "Why are you here?"
"To kill Woudiver. He has savaged my children." Deine Zarre's voice was calm and 
expository. "They are dead, both dead, and gone from this sad world Tschai."
Reith's voice sounded muffled and distant to his own ears.
"Woudiver must be destroyed ... but not until the ship is complete."
"He will never let you complete the ship."
"That is why I am here."
"What can you do?" Deine Zarre spoke contemptuously.
"I intend to take him captive, and keep him until the ship is finished. Then you 
may kill him."
"Very well," said Deine Zarre in a dull voice. "Why not? I will make him 
suffer."
"As you please. You go ahead, I will come close behind, as before. When we find 
Woudiver, upbraid him, but offer no violence. We don't want to drive him to 
desperate action."
Deine Zarre turned without a word. He worked open the door, to reveal a room 
furnished in scarlet and yellow. Deine Zarre entered, and after a quick look 
over his shoulder Reith followed. A dwarfish, dark-skinned servant in an 
enormous white turban stood startled.
"Where is Aila Woudiver?" asked Deine Zarre in his most gentle voice.
The servant became haughty. "He is importantly busy. He has great dealings. He 
cannot be disturbed."
Seizing the servant by the scruff of the neck Reith half raised him off the 
ground, dislodging the turban. The servant keened in pain and wounded dignity. 
"What are you doing? Take your hands away or I will summon my master!"
"Precisely what we want you to do," said Reith.
The servant stood back, rubbing his neck and glaring at Reith. "Leave the house 
at once!"
"Take us to Woudiver, if you want to avoid trouble!"
The servant began to whine. "I may not do so. He'll have me whipped!"
"Look yonder in the courtyard," said Deine Zarre. "You'll see Artilo's dead 
body. Do you wish to join him?"
The servant began to shake and fell on his knees. Reith hoisted him erect. 
"Quick now! To Woudiver!"
"You must tell him I was forced, on threat of my life!" cried the servant with 
chattering teeth. "Then you must swear-"
The portiere at the far end of the room parted. The great face of Aila Woudiver 
peered through. "What is this disturbance?"
Reith pushed the servant away. "Your man refused to summon you."
Woudiver examined him with the cleverest and most suspicious gaze imaginable. 
"For good reason, I am occupied with important affairs."
"None so important as mine," said Reith.
"A moment," said Woudiver. He turned, spoke a word or two to his visitors, 
swaggered back into the scarlet and yellow salon. "You have the money?"
"Yes, of course. Would I be here otherwise?"
For another long moment Woudiver surveyed Reith. "Where is the money?"
"In a safe place."
Woudiver chewed at his pendulous lower lip. "Do not use that tone with me. To be 
candid, I suspect you of contriving an infamy, that which today allowed the 
escape of numerous criminals from the Glass Box."
Reith chuckled. "Tell me, if you please, how I could be two places at once?"
"If you were in a single place, that is enough to damn you. A man corresponding 
to your description lowered himself to the field only an hour before the event. 
He would not have done so had he not been sure of escape. It is noteworthy that 
the renegade Dirdirman seemed to be among those missing."
Deine Zarre spoke: "The battarache came from your store; you will be held 
responsible if I should utter a word."
Woudiver seemed to notice Deine Zarre for the first time. In simulated surprise 
he spoke. "What do you do here, old man? Better be off about your business."
"I came to kill you," said Deine Zarre. "Reith asked that I wait."
"Come along, Woudiver," said Reith. "The game is over." He displayed his weapon. 
"Quickly, or I'll burn some of your hide."
Woudiver looked from one to the other without apparent concern. "Do the mice 
bare their teeth?"
Reith, from long experience, knew enough to expect wrangling, obstinacy, and 
generally perverse behavior. In a resigned voice he said, "Come along, 
Woudiver."
Woudiver smiled. "Two ridiculous little sub-men." He raised his voice a trifle. 
"Artilo!"
"Artilo is dead," said Deine Zarre. He looked right and left in something like 
puzzlement. Woudiver watched him blandly. "You seek something?"
Deine Zarre, ignoring Woudiver, muttered to Reith, "He is too easy, even for 
Woudiver. Take care."
Reith said in a sharp voice, "On the count of five, I'll burn you."
"First, a question," said Woudiver. "Where do we go?"
Reith ignored him. "One ... two..."
Woudiver sighed hugely. "You fail to amuse me."
"... three..."
"Somehow I must protect myself ..."
"... four ..."
". . . so much is clear." Woudiver backed against the wall. The velvet canopy 
instantly slumped on Reith and Deine Zarre.
Reith fired the gun but the folds struck down his arm, and the ray scarred only 
the black and white tiles of the floor.
Woudiver's chuckle sounded muffled but rich and unctuous. The floor vibrated to 
his ominous tread. A vast weight suffocated Reith; Woudiver had flung himself 
down upon his body. Reith lay halfdazed. Woudiver's voice sounded close. "So the 
jackanapes thought to trouble Aila Woudiver? See how he is now!" The weight 
lifted. "And Deine Zarre, who courteously refrained from assassination. Well 
then, farewell, Deine Zarre. I am more decisive."
A sound, a sad sodden gurgle and then a scraping of fingernails upon the tiles.
"Adam Reith," said the voice. "You are a peculiar mad case. I am interested in 
your intentions. Drop the gun, put your arms to the front and do not move. Do 
you feel the weight on your neck? That is my foot. Quick then, arms forward, and 
no sudden motions. Hisziu, make ready."
The folds were pulled back, away from Reith's extended arms. Nimble dark fingers 
bound his wrists with silk ribbon.
The velvet was further drawn back. Reith, still somewhat dazed, looked up at the 
spraddle-legged bulk. Hisziu the servant skipped back and forth, around and 
under, like a puppy.
Woudiver hoisted Reith erect. "Walk, if you will." He sent Reith stumbling with 
a shove.



CHAPTER NINETEEN
IN A DARK room, against a metal rack, stood Reith. His outstretched arms were 
taped to a transverse bar; his ankles were likewise secured. No light entered 
the room save the glimmer of a few stars through a narrow window. Hisziu the 
servant crouched four feet in front of him, with a light whip of braided silk, 
little more than a length of supple cord attached to a short handle. He seemed 
able to see in the dark and amused himself by snapping the tip of the whip, at 
unpredictable intervals, upon Reith's wrists, knees and chin. He spoke only 
once. "Your two friends have been taken. They are no better than you: worse, 
indeed. Woudiver works with them."
Reith stood limp, his thoughts sluggish and dismal. Disaster was complete; he 
was conscious of nothing else. The malicious little snaps of Hisziu's whip 
barely brushed the edge of his awareness. His existence was coming to an end, to 
be no more remarked than the fall of a raindrop into one of Tschai's sullen 
oceans. Somewhere out of sight the blue moon rose, casting a sheen across the 
sky. The slow waxing and equally slow waning of moonlight told the passing of 
the night.
Hisziu fell into a drowse and snored softly. Reith was indifferent. He raised 
his head, looked out of the window. The shimmer of moonlight was gone; a muddy 
color towards the east signaled the coming of Carina 4269. Hisziu awoke with a 
start, and flicked the whip petulantly at Reith's cheeks, raising instant 
bloodblisters. He left the chamber and a moment later returned with a mug of hot 
tea, which he sipped by the window. Reith croaked: "I'll pay you ten thousand 
sequins to cut me loose."
Hisziu paid him no heed.
Reith said, "And another ten thousand if you help me free my friends."
The servant sipped the tea as if Reith had never spoken.
The sky glowed dark gold; Carina 4269 had appeared. Steps sounded; Woudiver's 
bulk filled the doorway. A moment he stood quietly, assessing the situation, 
then, seizing the whip, he gestured Hisziu from the room.
Woudiver seemed exalted, as if drugged or drunk. He slapped the whip against his 
thigh. "I can't find the money, Adam Reith. Where is it?"
Reith attempted to speak in a casual voice. "What are your plans?"
Woudiver raised his hairless eyebrows. "I have no plans. Events proceed; I exist 
as well as I may."
"Why do you keep me tied here?"
Aila Woudiver slapped the whip against his leg. "I have naturally notified my 
kinsmen of your apprehension."
"The Dirdir?"
"Of course." Woudiver gave his thigh a rap with the whip.
Reith spoke with great earnestness. "The Dirdir are no kinsmen of yours! Dirdir 
and men are not even remotely connected; they come from different stars."
Woudiver leaned indolently against the wall. "Where do you learn such idiocy?"
Reith licked his lips, wondering where lay his best hope of succor. Woudiver was 
not a rational man; he was motivated by instinct and intuition. Reith tried to 
project utter certainty as he spoke. "Men originated on the planet Earth. The 
Dirdir know this as well as I. They prefer that Dirdirmen deceive themselves."
Woudiver nodded thoughtfully. "You intend to seek out this 'Earth' with your 
spaceship?"
"I don't need to seek it out. It lies two hundred light-years distant, in the 
constellation Clari."
Woudiver pranced forward. With his yellow face a foot from Reith's he bellowed, 
"And what of the treasure you promised me? You misled, you deceived!"
"No," said Reith. "I did not. I am an Earthman. I was shipwrecked here on 
Tschai. Help me back to Earth; you will receive whatever treasure you care to 
name."
Woudiver backed slowly away. "You are one of the Yao redemptionist cult, 
whatever it calls itself."
"No. I am telling the truth. Your best interest lies in helping me."
Woudiver nodded sagely. "Perhaps this is the case. But first things first. You 
can easily demonstrate your good faith. Where is my money?"
"Your money? It is not your money. It is my money."
"A sterile distinction. Where is, shall we say, our money?"
"You'll never see it unless you perform your obligations."
"This is utter obstinacy!" stormed Woudiver. "You are captured, you are done, 
and your henchmen as well. The Dirdirman must return to the Glass Cage. The 
steppe-boy will be sold into slavery-unless you care to buy his life with the 
money."
Reith sagged and became listless. Woudiver strutted back and forth across the 
room, darting glances at Reith. He came close and prodded Reith in the stomach 
with the whip. "Where is the money?"
"I don't trust you," said Reith in a dreary voice. "You never keep your 
promises." With a great effort, he lifted himself erect and tried to speak in a 
calm voice. "If you want the money, let me go free. The spaceship is almost 
finished. You may come along to Earth."
Woudiver's face was inscrutable. "And then?"
"A space-yacht, a palace-whatever you want. You shall have it.
"And how shall I return to Sivishe?" demanded Woudiver scornfully. "What of my 
affairs? It is plain that you are mad; why do you waste my time? Where is the 
money? The Dirdirman and the steppe-lad have declared with conviction that they 
do not know."
"I don't know either. I gave it to Deine Zarre and told him to hide it. You 
killed him."
Woudiver stifled a groan of dismay. "My money?"
"Tell me," said Reith, "do you intend that I finish the spaceship?"
"It has never been my intention!"
"You defrauded me?"
"Why not? You tried the same. The man that beats Aila Woudiver is cunning 
indeed."
"No question as to that."
Hisziu entered the room and, standing on tiptoe, whispered into Woudiver's ear. 
Woudiver stamped with rage. "So soon? They are early! I have not even started." 
He turned to Reith, his face seething like water in a boiling pot. "Quick then, 
the money, or I sell the lad. Quick!"
"Let us go! Help us finish the spaceship. Then you shall have your money!"
"You unreasonable ingrate!" hissed Woudiver. Footsteps sounded. "I am thwarted!" 
he groaned. "What a sad life is mine. Vermin!" Woudiver spat into Reith's face 
and beat him furiously with the whip.
Into the room, proudly conducted by Hisziu, came a tall Dirdirman, the most 
splendid and strange Reith had yet seen: by all odds an Immaculate. Woudiver 
muttered to Hisziu from the side of his mouth; Reith's bonds were cut. The 
Dirdirman attached a chain to Reith's neck, clasped the other end to his belt. 
Without a word he walked away, shaking his fingers in fastidious disdain.
Reith stumbled after.



CHAPTER TWENTY
BEFORE WOUDIVER'S HOUSE stood a white-enameled car. The Immaculate snapped 
Reith's chain to a ring at the rear. Reith watched in dreary wonder. The 
Immaculate stood almost seven feet tall, with artificial effulgences attached to 
wens at either side of his peaked scalp. His skin gleamed white as the enamel of 
the car; his head was totally hairless; his nose was a ridged beak. For all his 
strange appearance and undoubtedly altered sexuality, he was a man, ruminated 
Reith, derived from the same soil as himself. From the house, at a quick 
stumble, as if shoved, came Anacho and Traz. Chains encircled their necks; 
behind, jerking the loose ends, ran Hisziu. Two Dirdirman Elites followed. They 
shackled the chains to the back of the car. The Immaculate spoke a few sibilant 
words to Anacho and indicated a shelf running across the rear of the car. 
Without looking back, he stepped into the car, where the two Elites already sat. 
Anacho muttered, "Climb aboard, otherwise we'll be dragged."
The three crawled up on the rear shelf, clutched the rings to which their neck 
chains were shackled. In such undignified fashion they departed Woudiver's 
residence. Woudiver's black saloon trundled fifty yards behind, with Woudiver's 
huge bulk crouched over the steering apparatus.
"He wants recognition," said Anacho. "He has assisted at an important hunt; he 
wants a share of the status."
"I made the mistake," said Reith in a thick voice, "of dealing with Woudiver as 
if he were a man. If I had treated him as an animal we might be better off."
"We could hardly be worse."
"Where are we going?"
"To the Glass Box; where else?"
"We are to have no hearing, no opportunity to speak for ourselves?"
"Naturally not," said Anacho curtly. "You are sub-men. I am a renegade."
The white car veered into a plaza and halted. The Dirdirmen alighted and stood 
stiffly apart, watching the sky. A plump, middle-aged man in a rich dark brown 
suit came forward: a person of status and evident vanity, with his hair 
elaborately curled and jeweled. He addressed the Dirdirmen in an easy manner; 
they replied after a moment's meaningful silence.
"That is Erlius, Administrator of Sivishe," grunted Anacho. "He wants to be in 
at the kill too. It seems that we are important game."
Attracted by the activity, the folk of Sivishe began to gather around the white 
car. They formed a wide respectful circle, eyeing the captives with macabre 
speculation, crouching back whenever the glance of a Dirdirman drifted in their 
direction.
Woudiver remained in his car, at a distance of fifty yards or so, apparently 
arranging his thoughts. At last he alighted and seemed to concern himself with 
the matter indited on a fold of paper. Erlius, noticing, quickly turned his 
back.
"Look at the two of them," growled Anacho. "Each hates the other: Woudiver 
ridicules Erlius for lacking Dirdirman blood; Erlius would like to see Woudiver 
in the Glass Box."
"So would I," said Reith. "Speaking of the Glass Box, why are we waiting?"
"For the leaders of the tsaugsh. You will see the Glass Box soon enough."
Reith fretfully wrenched at the chain. The Dirdirmen turned him glances of 
admonition. "Ridiculous," muttered Reith. "There must be something we can do. 
What of the Dirdir traditions? What if I cried h'sai h'sai, h'sai, or whatever 
the call for arbitration?"
"The call is dr'ssa dr'ssa, dr'ssa!"
"What would happen if I called for arbitration?"
"You would be no better than before. The arbitrator would find you guilty and, 
as before: the Glass Box."
"And if I challenged the arbitration?"
"You'd be forced to fight, and killed all the sooner."
"And no one can be taken unless he is accused?"
"In theory," said Anacho curtly, "that is the custom. Who do you plan to 
challenge? Woudiver? It will do no good. He has not accused you, but only 
cooperated with the hunt."
"We will see."
Traz pointed into the sky. "Here come the Dirdir."
Anacho studied the descending sky-car. "The Thisz crest. If the Thisz are 
involved, we can expect brisk treatment indeed. They may even issue a 
proscription, that none but Thisz can hunt us."
Traz strained against the chain shackle without avail. He gave a hiss of 
frustration and turned to watch the descending sky-car. The grayhooded crowd 
drew back from underneath; the sky-car landed not fifty feet from the white 
vehicle. Five Dirdir alighted: an Excellent and four of lower caste.
The Immaculate Dirdirman stepped grandly forward, but the Dirdir ignored him 
with the same indifference he had shown Erhus.
For a moment or two the Dirdir appraised Reith, Anacho and Traz. Then they made 
a signal to the Immaculate and uttered a few brief sounds.
Erlius stepped forward to pay his respects, knees bent, head bobbing. Before he 
could speak Woudiver marched forward and thrust his vast yellow bulk in front of 
Erlius, who was forced to stumble aside.
Woudiver spoke in a high-pitched voice: "Here, Thisz dignitaries, are the 
criminals sought by the hunt. I have participated to no small degree; let this 
be noted upon my scroll of honors!"
The Dirdir gave him only cursory attention. Woudiver, apparently expecting no 
more, bowed his head, swung his arms in an elaborate flourish.
The Immaculate approached the captives and unsnapped the chains. Reith snatched 
his chain free. The Immaculate looked up in slackjawed surprise, the false 
effulgences drooping to the side of his white face. Reith walked forward, heart 
pounding in his throat. He felt the pressure of every eye; with great effort he 
held his gait to a steady, deliberate step. Six feet in front of the Dirdir he 
halted, so close that he could smell their body odor. They regarded him without 
display of any kind.
Reith raised his voice in order to speak clearly: "Dr'ssa! Dr'ssa! Dr'ssa!"
The Dirdir made small movements of surprise.
"Dr'ssa! Dr'ssa! Dr'ssa!" Reith called once more.
The Excellent spoke in a nasal, oboe-sounding voice. "Why do you cry dr'ssa? You 
are a sub-man, incapable of discrimination."
"I am a man, your superior. Hence I cry dr'ssa."
Woudiver pushed forward with a self-important huffing and heaving. "Bah! He is 
mad!"
The Dirdir seemed somewhat perplexed. Reith called out, "Who accuses me? Of what 
crime? Let him come forward and let the case be judged by an arbitrator."
The Excellent spoke: "You invoke a traditional force stronger than contempt or 
disgust. You may not be denied. Who accuses this subman?"
Woudiver spoke. "I accuse Adam Reith of blasphemy, of disputing the Doctrine of 
Double Genesis, of claiming status equal to the Dirdir. He has stated that 
Dirdirmen are not the pure line of the Second Yolk; he has called them a race of 
mutated freaks. He insists that men derive from a planet other than Sibol. This 
is not in accord with orthodox doctrine, and is repugnant. He is a 
mischief-maker, a liar, a provocator." Woudiver accented each of his accusations 
with a stab of his massive forefinger. "Such are my charges!" He favored the 
Dirdir with a companionable smirk, then turned and roared at the crowd. "Stand 
back! Do not press so close upon the dignitaries!"
The Dirdir fluted to Reith. "You claim this accusation to be false?"
Reith stood in perplexity. He faced a dilemma. To deny the charge was to endorse 
Dirdirman orthodoxy. He asked cautiously, "Essentially, I am accused of 
unorthodox views. Is this a crime?"
"Certainly, if the arbitrator declares it so."
"What if these views are accurate?"
"Then you must hold the arbitrator to account. Ridiculous as such an eventuality 
may be, it is tradition and wields its own force."
"Who is the arbitrator?"
The polished bone countenance of the Excellent showed no change, nor did his 
voice. "In this instance I appoint the Immaculate yonder."
The Immaculate stepped forward. In plangent mock-Dirdir tones he spoke: "I will 
be expeditious; the ordinary ceremonies are inappropriate." He spoke to Reith. 
"Do you deny the charges?"
"I neither confirm nor deny them; they are ridiculous."
"It is my opinion that your statement is evasive. It signifies guilt. 
Additionally your attitudes are disrespectful. You are guilty."
"I refuse to accept your verdict," said Reith, "unless you can enforce it. I 
hold you to account."
The Immaculate regarded Reith with scorn and revulsion. "You challenge me, an 
Immaculate?"
"It seems to be the only way I can prove my innocence."
The Immaculate looked at the Dirdir Excellent. "Am I so obligated?"
"You are so obligated."
The Immaculate measured Reith. "I will kill you with my hands and teeth as 
befits a Dirdirman."
"As you please. First, remove this chain from my neck."
"Remove the chain," said the Dirdir Excellent.
The Immaculate said fretfully, "Vulgarity! I lose dignity performing before a 
gaggle of sub-men."
"Do not complain," said the Excellent. "It is I, Captain of the Hunt, who loses 
a trophy. Continue; enforce your arbitration."
The chain was removed. Reith stretched, relaxed, stretched, relaxed, hoping to 
restore tone to his muscles. He had hung all night by his wrists, his body felt 
heavy with fatigue. The Dirdirman stepped forward. Reith became a trifle 
light-headed.
"What are the rules of combat?" asked Reith. "I do not wish to commit any fouls 
upon you."
"There are no fouls," said the Immaculate. "We use hunt rules: you are the 
game!" He uttered a wild screech and launched himself upon Reith, in what seemed 
an ineffectual sprawl, until Reith touched the creature's white body and found 
it all tense muscle and gristle. Reith fended aside the rush, but was ripped by 
artificial talons. He attempted an armlock, but could not secure a leverage. He 
struck the Immaculate a blow under the ear, tried to hack the larynx and missed. 
The Immaculate stood back in annoyance. The spectators gasped in excitement. The 
Immaculate again launched himself upon Reith, who caught the long forearm and 
sent the Dirdirman staggering. Woudiver could not contain himself; he rushed out 
and struck Reith a buffet across the side of his head. Traz yelled in protest 
and whipped his chain across Woudiver's face. Woudiver screamed in agony and sat 
squashily upon the ground. Anacho wrapped his chain around Woudiver's neck and 
yanked it tight. The Elite Dirdirman leaped forward, snatched away the chain. 
Woudiver lay gasping, his face the color of mud.
The Immaculate had taken advantage of Woudiver's attack to seize Reith and bear 
him to the ground. The wire-tense arms clasped Reith's body; sharp long teeth 
tore at his neck. Reith freed his arms. With all his force he clapped his cupped 
hands upon the white ears. The Immaculate emitted a strangled squeal and rolled 
his head in agony. Momentarily he went limp. Reith straddled the thin body, as 
if he rode a white eel. He began to work at the bald head. He tore away the 
false effulgences, teased the head this way and that, then gave a great twist. 
The Immaculate's head hung askew; his body thrashed and floundered, then lay 
still.
Reith rose to his feet. He stood shaking and panting. "I am vindicated," he 
said.
"The charges of the fat sub-man are invalid," intoned the Excellent. "He may 
therefore be held to account."
Reith turned away. "Halt!" said the Excellent, its voice taking on a throaty 
vibrato. "Are there further charges?"
A Dirdir of the Elite caste, effulgences rigid and sparkling with crystal 
coruscations, spoke: "Does the beast still call dr'ssa?"
Reith swung around, half-intoxicated by fatigue and the aftermath of struggle. 
"I am a man, you are the beast."
"Do you demand arbitration?" the Excellent asked. "If not, let us be away."
Reith's heart sank. "What are the new charges?"
The Elite stepped forward. "I charge that you and your henchmen trespassed upon 
the Dirdir Hunting Preserve and there treacherously slaughtered members of the 
Thisz Sept."
"I deny the charge," said Reith in a hoarse voice.
The Elite turned to the Excellent. "I request that you arbitrate. I request that 
you give me this beast and his henchmen and mark him exclusive quarry of the 
Thisz."
"I accept the onus of arbitration," fluted the Excellent. To Reith, in a tone 
nasal and coarse: "You trespassed in the Carabas, this is true."
"I entered the Carabas. No one ordered me not to do so."
"The proscription is general knowledge. You furtively assaulted several Dirdir; 
this is true."
"I assaulted no one who did not attack me first. If the Dirdir wish to act like 
wild beasts then they must suffer the consequences."
From the crowd came a murmur of wonder and what seemed muted approval. The 
Excellent turned to glance around the plaza. Instantly the sound was muted.
"It is Dirdir tradition to hunt. It is sub-man tradition and his essential 
character to serve as quarry."
"I am no sub-man," said Reith. "I am a man and quarry to no one. If a wild beast 
attacks me I will kill it."
The bone-white face of the Excellent showed no quiver of feeling. But the 
effulgences began to glow, and to become rigid. "The verdict must adhere to 
tradition," the creature intoned. "I find against the sub-man. This farrago is 
now at an end. You must be taken to the Glass Cage."
"I challenge the arbitration!" cried Reith. Stepping forward, he buffeted the 
Excellent on the side of the head. The skin was cold and somewhat flexible, like 
tortoiseshell; Reith's hand stung from the blow. The Excellent's effulgences 
stood like hot wires; it vented a thin whistle. The crowd stood in unbelieving 
silence.
The Excellent reached its great arms to the front in a clutching, ripping 
gesture. It vented a gurgling scream and poised to leap.
"A moment," said Reith, stepping back. "What are the rules of combat?"
"There are no rules. I kill as I choose."
"And if I kill you, I am vindicated, and my friends as well?"
"That is the case."
"Let us fight with swords."
"We will fight as we stand."
"Very well," said Reith.
The fight was no contest. The Excellent came forward, swift and massive as a 
tiger. Reith took two quick steps back; the Excellent launched itself. Reith 
seized the horny wrist, planted a foot in the torso; falling backwards he threw 
the creature in a sprawling somersault. It landed on its neck, to lie in a daze. 
Instantly Reith was upon it, locking the taloned arms. The Excellent writhed and 
thrashed; Reith banged its head against the pavement until the bone cracked and 
whitish-green ichor began to exude. He panted: "What of the arbitration? Was it 
right or wrong?"
The Excellent keened-a weird wailing sound, expressing no emotion known to human 
experience. Reith banged down the harsh white head again and again. "What of the 
arbitration?" He slammed the head against the pavement. The Dirdir made a great 
effort to dislodge Reith and failed. "You are the victor. My arbitration is 
refuted."
"And I, with my friends, are now held guiltless? We may pursue our activities 
without persecution?"
"This is the case."
Reith called to Anacho, "Can I trust it?"
Anacho said, "Yes, it is tradition. If you want a trophy, pluck out his 
effulgences."
"I want no trophy." Reith rose to his feet and stood swaying.
The crowd regarded him with awe. Erlius turned on his heel and strode hastily 
away. Aila Woudiver backed slowly toward his black car.
Reith pointed a finger: "Woudiver-your charges were false and you now must 
answer to me."
Woudiver snatched out his power-gun: Traz leaped forward, hung on the vast 
wrist. The gun discharged, scorching Woudiver's leg. He bawled in agony and fell 
to the ground. Anacho took the gun; Reith tied one of the chains around 
Woudiver's neck and gave it a harsh tug. "Come, Woudiver." He led the way to the 
black car, through the hastily retreating onlookers.
Woudiver hulked himself within and lay groaning in a heap. Anacho started the 
vehicle and they departed the oval plaza.



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THEY DROVE TO the shed. The technicians, in the absence of Deine Zarre, had not 
reported for work. The shed felt dead and abandoned; the space-boat, which had 
seemed on the verge of coming alive, lay desolate on its chocks.
The three marshaled Woudiver within, as they might lead a cantankerous bull, and 
tied him between two posts, Woudiver making a continual moaning complaint.
Reith watched him a moment. Woudiver was not yet expendable. Certainly he was 
still dangerous. For all his display and expostulation, he watched Reith with a 
clever and hard gaze.
"Woudiver," said Reith, "you have worked great harm upon me and my friends."
Woudiver's great body became racked with sobbing; he seemed a monstrous and ugly 
baby. "You plan to torment me, and kill me."
"The thought has presented itself," Reith admitted. "But I have more urgent 
desires. To finish the ship and return to Earth with news of this hellish planet 
I would even forgo the pleasure of your death."
"In that case," said Woudiver, suddenly businesslike, "all is as before. Pay 
over the money, and we will proceed."
Reith's jaw hung in disbelief. He laughed in admiration for Woudiver's wonderful 
insouciance.
Anacho and Traz were less amused. Anacho poked the great belly with a stick. 
"What of last night?" he demanded in a suave voice. "Do you recall your conduct? 
What of the electric probes, and the wicked harness?"
"What of Deine Zarre, the two children?" spoke Traz.
Woudiver looked appealingly toward Reith. "Whose words carry weight?"
Reith chose his words carefully. "All of us have cause for resentment. You would 
be a fool to expect ease and conviviality."
"Indeed, he shall suffer," said Traz through gritted teeth.
"You shall live," said Reith, "but only to serve our interests. I don't care a 
bice for your life unless you make yourself useful."
Again in Woudiver's eyes Reith discerned a cold and crafty glint. "So it shall 
be," said Woudiver.
"I want you to hire a competent replacement for Deine Zarre, at once."
"Expensive, expensive," said Woudiver. "We were lucky in Zarre."
"The responsibility for his absence is yours," said Reith.
"No one goes through life without making mistakes," Woudiver admitted. "This was 
one of mine. But I know just the man. He will come high, I warn you."
"Money is no object," said Reith. "We want the best. Secondly, I want you to 
summon the technicians back to work. All by telephone, of course."
"No difficulties whatever," declared Woudiver heartily. "The work will proceed 
with dispatch."
"You must arrange immediate delivery of the materials and supplies yet needed. 
And you must pay all costs and salaries incurred henceforth."
"What?" roared Woudiver.
"Further," said Reith, "you will remain tied between those posts. For your 
sustenance you must pay a thousand-or better, two thousand sequins each day."
"What!" cried Woudiver. "Do you think to cheat and bewilder poor Woudiver?"
"Do you agree to the conditions?" Reith asked. "If not I will ask Anacho and 
Traz to kill you, and both of them bear you grudges."
Woudiver drew himself to his full height. "I agree," he said in a stately voice. 
"And now, since it seems that I must sponsor your hallucinations and suffer the 
backbreaking expense in the bargain, let us instantly get to work. The moment I 
see you vanish into space will be a happy one, I assure you! Now then, release 
these chains so that I may go to the telephone."
"Stay where you are," said Reith. "We will bring the telephone to you. And now, 
where is your money!"
"You can't be serious," Woudiver exclaimed.



THE PHUME



CHAPTER ONE
IN THE WAREHOUSE at the edge of the Sivishe salt flats, Aila Woudiver sat 
perched on a stool. A chain connected the iron collar around his neck to a high 
cable; he could walk from his table to the closet against the wall where he 
slept, the chain sliding behind him.
Aila Woudiver was a prisoner on his own premises, insult added to injury, which 
by all accounts should have provoked him to spasms of tooth-chattering fury. But 
he sat placidly on the stool, great buttocks sagging to either side like 
saddlebags, wearing an absurd smile of saintly forbearance.
Beside the spaceship which occupied the greater part of the warehouse Adam Reith 
stood watching. Woudiver's abnegation was more unsettling than rage. Reith hoped 
that whatever schemes Woudiver was hatching would not mature too quickly. The 
spaceship was nearly operative; in a week, more or less, Reith hoped to depart 
old Tschai.
Woudiver occupied himself with tat-work, now and then holding it up to admire 
the pattern-the very essence of patient affability. Traz, coming into the 
warehouse, scowled toward Woudiver and asserted the philosophy of the Emblem 
nomads, his forebears: "Kill him this moment; kill him and have an end!"
Reith gave an equivocal grunt. "He's chained by the neck; he does us no harm."
"He'll find a means. Have you forgotten his tricks?"
"I can't kill him in cold blood."
Traz gave a croak of disgust and stamped from the warehouse. Anacho the 
Dirdirman declared, "For once I agree with the young steppe-runner: kill the 
great beast!"
Woudiver, divining the substance of the conversation, displayed his gentle 
smile. He had lost weight, so Reith noticed. The once-bloated cheeks hung in 
wattles; the great upper lip drooped like a beak over the pointed little chin.
"See him smirk!" hissed Anacho. "If he could he'd boil us in nerve-fire! Kill 
him now!"
Reith made another sound of moderation. "In a week we'll be gone. What can he 
do, chained and helpless?"
"He is Woudiver!"
"Even so, we can't slaughter him like an animal."
Anacho threw up his hands and followed Traz outside the warehouse. Reith went 
into the ship and for a few minutes watched the technicians. They worked at the 
exquisitely delicate job of balancing the power pumps. Reith could offer no 
assistance. Dirdir technology, like the Dirdir psyche, was beyond his 
comprehension. Both derived from intuitive certainties, or so he suspected; 
there was little evidence of purposeful rationality in any aspect of Dirdir 
existence.
Long shafts of brown light slanted through the high windows; the time was almost 
sunset. Woudiver thoughtfully put aside his fancy-work. He gave Reith a 
companionable nod and went off to his little room against the wall, the chain 
dragging behind him in a rattling halfcatenary.
The technicians emerged from the ship as did Fio Haro the master mechanic. All 
went off to their supper. Reith touched the unlovely hull, pressing his hands 
against the steel, as if he could not credit its reality. A week-then space and 
return to Earth! The prospect seemed a dream; Earth had become the world remote 
and bizarre.
Reith went to the larder for a chunk of black sausage, which he took to the 
doorway. Carina 4269, low in the sky, bathed the salt flats in ale colored 
light, projecting long shadows behind every tussock.
The two black figures which of late had appeared at sunset were nowhere to be 
seen.
The view held a certain mournful beauty. To the north the city of Sivishe was a 
crumble of old masonry tinted tawny by the slanting sunlight. West across Ajzan 
Sound stood the spires of the Dirdir city Hei and, looming above all, the Glass 
Box.
Reith went to join Traz and Anacho. They sat on a bench tossing pebbles into a 
puddle: Traz, blunted-featured, taciturn, solid of bone and muscle, Anacho, thin 
as an eel, six inches taller than Reith, pallid of skin, long and keen of 
feature, as loquacious as Traz was terse. Traz disapproved of Anacho's airs; 
Anacho considered Traz crass and undiscriminating. Occasionally, however, they 
agreed-as now, on the need to destroy Aila Woudiver. Reith, for his own part, 
felt more concern for the Dirdir. From their spires they could almost look 
through the portals of the warehouse at the work within. The Dirdir inactivity 
seemed as unnatural as Aila Woudiver's smile, and to Reith implied a dreadful 
stealth.
"Why don't they do something?" Reith complained, gnawing at the black sausage. 
"They must know we're here."
"Impossible to predict Dirdir conduct," Anacho replied. "They have lost interest 
in you. What are men to them but vermin? They prefer to chivy the Pnume from 
their burrows. You are no longer the subject of tsaugsh: this is my 
supposition."
Reith was not wholly reassured. "What of the Phung or Pnume, whatever they are, 
that come to watch us? They aren't there for their health." He referred to the 
two black shapes which had been appearing of late on the salt flats. Always they 
came to stand against the sunset, gaunt figures wearing black cloaks and 
wide-brimmed black hats.
"Phung go alone; they are not Phung," said Traz. "Pnume never appear by 
daylight."
"And never so close to Hei, for fear of the Dirdir," Anacho said. "So, then-they 
are Pnumekin, or more likely Gzhindra."
On the occasion of their first appearance the creatures stood gazing toward the 
warehouse until Carina 4269 fell behind the palisades; then they vanished into 
the gloom. Their interest seemed more than casual; Reith was disturbed by the 
surveillance but could conceive of no remedy for it.
The next day was blurred by mist and drizzle; the salt flats remained vacant. On 
the day following, the sun shone once more, and at sundown the dark shapes came 
to stare toward the shed, again afflicting Reith with disquietude. Surveillance 
portended unpleasant events: this on Tschai was an axiom of existence.
Carina 4269 hung low. "If they're coming," said Anacho, "now is the time."
Reith searched the salt flats through his scanscope.* "There's nothing out there 
but tussocks and swamp-bush. Not even a lizard."
Traz pointed over his shoulder. "There they are."
"Hmrnf," said Reith. "I just looked there!" He raised the magnification of the 
scanscope until the jump of his pulse caused the figures to jerk and bounce. The 
faces, back-lit, could not be distinguished. "They have hands," said Reith. 
"They are Pnumekin."
Anacho took the instrument. After a moment he said: "They are Gzhindra: Pnumekin 
expelled from the tunnels. To trade with the Pnume you must deal through the 
Gzhindra; the Pnume will never dicker for themselves."
"Why should they come here? We want no dealings with the Pnume."
"But they want dealings with us, or so it seems."
"Perhaps they're waiting for Woudiver to appear," Traz suggested.
"At sunset and sunset alone?"
To Traz came a sudden thought. He moved away from the warehouse and somewhat 
past Woudiver's old office, an eccentric little shack of broken brick and 
flints, and looked back toward the warehouse. He walked a hundred yards further, 
out upon the salt flats, and again looked back. He gestured to Reith and Anacho, 
who went out to join him. "Observe the warehouse," said Traz. "You'll now see 
who deals with the Gzhindra."
From the black timber wall a glint of golden light jumped and flickered.
"Behind that light," said Traz, "is Aila Woudiver's room."
"The fat yellow shulk is signaling!" declared Anacho in a fervent whisper.
Reith drew a deep breath and controlled his fury: foolish to expect anything 
else from Woudiver, who lived with intrigue as a fish lives with water. In a 
measured voice he spoke to Anacho: "Can you read the signals?"
"Yes; ordinary stop-and-go code. '... Suitable ... compensation ... for ... 
services ... time ... is ... now ... at ... hand..."
The flickering light vanished. "That's all."
"He's seen us through the crack," Reith muttered.
"Or he has no more light," said Traz, for Carina 4269 had dropped behind the 
palisades. Looking across the salt flats, Reith found that the Gzhindra had gone 
as mysteriously as they had come.
"We had better go talk to Woudiver," said Reith.
"He'll tell anything but the truth," said Anacho.
"I expect as much," said Reith. "We may be informed by what he doesn't tell us."
They went into the shed. Woudiver, once again busy with his tat-work, showed the 
three his affable smile. "It must be close to suppertime."
"Not for you," said Reith.
"What?" exclaimed Woudiver. "No food? Come now; let us not carry our little joke 
too far."
"Why do you signal the Gzhindra?"
Beyond a lifting of the hairless eyebrows, Woudiver evinced neither surprise nor 
guilt. "A business affair. I occasionally deal with the under-folk."
"What sort of dealings?"
"This and that, one thing and another. Tonight I apologized for failing to meet 
certain commitments. Do you begrudge me my good reputation?"
"What commitments did you fail to meet?"
"Come now," chided Woudiver. "You must allow my few little secrets."
"I allow you nothing," said Reith. "I'm well aware that you plot mischief."
"Bah! What a canard! How should I plot anything trussed up by a chain? I assure 
you that I do not regard my present condition as dignified."
"If anything goes wrong," said Reith, "you'll be hoisted six feet off the ground 
by the same chain. You'll have no dignity whatever."
Woudiver made a gesture of waggish distaste and looked off across the room. 
"Excellent progress seems to have been made."
"No thanks to you."
"Ah! You minimize my aid! Who provided the hull, at great pains and small 
profit? Who arranged and organized, who supplied invaluable acumen?"
"The same man that took all our money and betrayed us into the Glass Box," said 
Reith. He went to sit across the room. Traz and Anacho joined him. The three 
watched Woudiver, now sulking in the absence of his supper.
"We should kill him," Traz said flatly. "He plans evil for all of us."
"I don't doubt that," said Reith, "but why should he deal with the Pnume? The 
Dirdir would seem the parties most concerned. They know I'm an Earthman; they 
may or may not be aware of the spaceship."
"If they know they don't care," said Anacho. "They have no interest in other 
folk. The Pnume: another matter. They would know everything, and they are most 
curious regarding the Dirdir. The Dirdir in turn discover the Pnume tunnels and 
flood them with gas."
Woudiver called out: "You have forgotten my supper."
"I've forgotten nothing," said Reith.
"Well, then, bring forth my food. Tonight I wish a whiteroot salad, a stew of 
lentils, gargan-flesh and slue, a plate of good black cheese, and my usual 
wine."
Traz gave a bark of scornful laughter. Reith inquired, "Why should we coddle 
your gut when you plot against us? Order your meals from the Gzhindra."
Woudiver's face sagged; he beat his hands upon his knees. "So now they torture 
poor Aila Woudiver, who was only constant to his faith! What a miserable destiny 
to live and suffer on this terrible planet!"
Reith turned away in disgust. By birth half-Dirdirman, Woudiver vigorously 
affirmed the Doctrine of Bifold Genesis, which traced the origin of Dirdir and 
Dirdirman to twin cells in a Primeval Egg on the planet Sibol. From such a 
viewpoint Reith must seem an irresponsible iconoclast, to be thwarted at all 
costs.
On the other hand, Woudiver's crimes could not all be ascribed to doctrinal 
ardor. Recalling certain instances of lechery and self-indulgence, Reith's 
twinges of pity disappeared.
For five minutes longer Woudiver groaned and complained, and then became 
suddenly quiet. For a period he watched Reith and his companions. He spoke and 
Reith thought to detect a secret glee. "Your project approaches 
completion-thanks to Aila Woudiver, his craft, and his poor store of sequins, 
unfeelingly sequestered."
"I agree that the project approaches completion," said Reith.
"When do you propose to depart Tschai?"
"As soon as possible."
"Remarkable!" declared Woudiver with unctuous fervor. Reith thought that his 
eyes sparkled with amusement. "But then, you are a remarkable man." Woudiver's 
voice took on a sudden resonance, as if he could no longer restrain his inner 
mirth. "Still, on occasion it is better to be modest and ordinary! What do you 
think of that?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"True," said Woudiver. "That is correct."
"Since you feel disposed for conversation," said Reith, "why not tell me 
something about the Gzhindra."
"What is there to tell? They are sad creatures, doomed to trudge the surface, 
though they stand in fear of the open. Have you ever wondered why Pnume, 
Pnumekin, Phung and Gzhindra all wear hats with broad brims?"
"I suppose that it is their habit of dress."
"True. But the deeper reason is: the brims hide the sky."
"What impels these particular Gzhindra out under the sky which oppresses them?"
"Like all men," said Woudiver, somewhat pompously, "they hope, they yearn."
"In what precise regard?"
"In any absolute or ultimate sense," said Woudiver, "I am of course ignorant; 
all men are mysteries. Even you perplex me, Adam Reith! You harry me with 
capricious cruelty; you pour my money into an insane scheme; you ignore every 
protest, every plea of moderation! Why? I ask myself, why? Why? If it were not 
all so preposterous, I could indeed believe you a man of another world."
"You still haven't told me what the Gzhindra want," said Reith.
With vast dignity Woudiver rose to his feet; the chain from the iron collar 
swung and jangled. "You had best take up this matter with the Gzhindra 
themselves."
He went to his table and after a final cryptic glance toward Reith took up his 
tatting.



CHAPTER TWO
REITH TWITCHED AND trembled in a nightmare. He dreamt that he lay on his usual 
couch in Woudiver's old office. The room was pervaded by a curious yellow-green 
glow. Woudiver stood across the room chatting with a pair of motionless men in 
black capes and broad-brimmed black hats. Reith strained to move, but his 
muscles were limp. The yellow-green light waxed and waned; Woudiver was now 
frosted with an uncanny silver-blue incandescence. The typical nightmare of 
helplessness and futility, thought Reith. He made desperate efforts to awake but 
only started a clammy sweat.
Woudiver and the Gzhindra gazed down at him. Woudiver surprisingly wore his iron 
collar, but the chain had been broken or melted a foot from his neck. He seemed 
complacent and unconcerned: the Woudiver of old. The Gzhindra showed no 
expression other than intentness. Their features were long, narrow and very 
regular; their skin, pallid ivory, shone with the luster of silk. One carried a 
folded cloth; the other stood with hands behind his back.
Woudiver suddenly loomed enormous. He called out: "Adam Reith, Adam Reith: where 
is your home?"
Reith struggled against his impotence. A weird and desolate dream, one that he 
would long remember. "The planet Earth," he croaked. "The planet Earth."
Woudiver's face expanded and contracted. "Are other Earthmen on Tschai?"
"Yes."
The Gzhindra jerked forward; Woudiver called in a horn-like voice: "Where? Where 
are the Earthmen?"
"All men are Earthmen."
Woudiver stood back, mouth drooping in saturnine disgust. "You were born on the 
planet Earth."
"Yes."
Woudiver floated back in triumph. He gestured largely to the Gzhindra. "A 
rarity, a nonesuch!"
"We will take him." The Gzhindra unfolded the cloth, which Reith, to his 
helpless horror, saw to be a sack. Without ceremony the Gzhindra pulled it up 
over his legs, tucked him within until only his head protruded. Then, with 
astonishing ease, one of the Gzhindra threw the sack over his back, while the 
other tossed a pouch to Woudiver.
The dream began to fade; the yellow-green light became spotty and blurred. The 
door flew suddenly open, to reveal Traz. Woudiver jumped back in horror; Traz 
raised his catapult and fired into Woudiver's face. An astonishing gush of blood 
spewed forth-green blood, and wherever droplets fell they glistened yellow ... 
The dream went dim; Reith slept.
Reith awoke in a state of extreme discomfort. His legs were cramped; a vile 
arsenical reek pervaded his head. He sensed pressure and motion; groping, he 
felt coarse cloth. Dismal knowledge came upon him; the dream was real; he indeed 
rode in a sack. Ah, the resourceful Woudiver! Reith became weak with emotion. 
Woudiver had negotiated with the Gzhindra; he had arranged that Reith be 
drugged, probably through a seepage of narcotic gas. The Gzhindra were now 
carrying him off to unknown places, for unknown purposes.
For a period Reith sagged in the sack numb and sick. Woudiver, even while 
chained by the neck, had worked his mischief! Reith collected the final 
fragments of his dream. He had seen Woudiver with his face split apart, pumping 
green blood. Woudiver had paid for his trick.
Reith found it hard to think. The sack swung and he felt a rhythmic thud; 
apparently the sack was being carried on a pole. By sheer luck he wore his 
clothes; the night previously he had flung himself down on his cot fully 
dressed. Was it possible that he still carried his knife? His pouch was gone; 
the pocket of his jacket seemed to be empty, and he dared not grope lest he 
signal the fact of his consciousness to the Gzhindra.
He pressed his face close to the sack hoping to see through the coarse weave, 
unsuccessfully. The time was yet night; he thought that they traveled uneven 
terrain.
An indeterminate time went by, with Reith as helpless as a baby in the womb. How 
many strange events the nights of old Tschai had known! And now another, with 
himself a participant. He felt ashamed and demeaned; he quivered with rage. If 
he could get his hands on his captors, what a vengeance he would take!
The Gzhindra halted, and for a moment stood perfectly quiet. Then the sack was 
lowered to the ground. Reith listened but heard no voices, no whispers, no 
footsteps. It seemed as if he were alone. He reached to his pocket, hoping to 
find a knife, a tool, an edge. He found nothing. He tested the fabric with his 
fingernails: the wave was coarse and harsh, and would not rip.
An intimation told him that the Gzhindra had returned. He lay quiet. The 
Gzhindra stood nearby, and he thought that he heard whispering.
The sack moved; it was lifted and carried. Reith began to sweat. Something was 
about to happen.
The sack swung. He dangled from a rope. He felt the sensation of descent: down, 
down, down, how far he could not estimate. He halted with a jerk, to swing 
slowly back and forth. From high above came the reverberation of a gong: a low 
melancholy sound.
Reith kicked and pushed. He became frantic, victim to a claustrophobic spasm. He 
panted and sweated and could hardly catch his breath; this was how it felt to go 
crazy. Sobbing and hissing, he took command of himself. He searched his jacket, 
to no avail: no metal, no cutting edge. He clenched his mind, forced himself to 
think. The gong was a signal; someone or something had been summoned. He groped 
around the sack, hoping to find a break. No success. He needed metal, sharpness, 
a blade, an edge! From head to toe he took stock. His belt! With vast difficulty 
he pulled it loose, and used the sharp pin on the buckle to score the fabric. He 
achieved a tear; thrusting and straining he ripped the material and finally 
thrust forth his head and shoulders. Never in his life had he known such 
exultation! If he died within the moment, at least he had defeated the sack!
Conceivably he might score other victories. He looked along a rude, rough cavern 
dimly illuminated by a few blue-white buttons of light. The floor almost brushed 
the bottom of the bag; Reith recalled the descent and final jerk with a qualm. 
He heaved himself out of the sack, to stand trembling with cramp and fatigue. 
Listening to dead underground silence, he thought to hear a far sound. 
Something, someone, was astir.
Above him the cavern rose in a chimney, the rope merging with the darkness. 
Somewhere up there must be an opening into the outer world-but how far? In the 
bag he had swung with a cycle of ten or twelve seconds, which by rough 
calculation gave a figure of considerably more than a hundred feet.
Reith looked down the cavern and listened. Someone would be coming in answer to 
the gong. He looked up the rope. At the top was the outer world. He took hold of 
the rope, started to climb. Up he went, into the dark, heaving and clinging: up, 
up, up. The sack and the cavern became part of a lost world; he was enveloped in 
darkness.
His hands burned; his shoulders grew warm and weak; then he reached the top of 
the rope. Groping, fumbling, he discovered that it passed through a slot in a 
metal plate, which rested upon a pair of heavy metal beams. The plate seemed a 
kind of trapdoor, which clearly could not be opened while his weight hung on the 
rope ... His strength was failing. He wrapped the rope around his legs and 
reached out with an arm. To one side he felt a metal shelf; it was the web of 
the beam supporting the trapdoor, a foot or more wide. He rested a moment-time 
was growing short, then lurched out with his leg, and tried to heave himself 
across. For a sickening instant he felt himself falling. He strained 
desperately; with his heart thumping he dragged himself across to the web of the 
beam. Here, sick and miserable, he lay panting.
A minute passed, hardly long enough for the rope to become still. Below four 
bobbing lights approached. Reith balanced himself and heaved up at the metal 
plate. It was solid and heavy; he might as well have been shoving at the 
mountainside. Once again! He thrust with all his might, without the slightest 
effect. The lights were below, carried by four dark shapes. Reith pressed back 
against the vertical section of the beam.
The four below moved slowly in eerie silence, like creatures underwater. They 
went to examine the sack and found it empty. Reith could hear whispers and 
mutters. They looked all around, the lights blinking and flickering. By some 
kind of mutual impulse all stared up. Reith pressed himself flat against the 
metal and hid the pallid blotch of his face. The glow of the lights played past 
him, upon the trapdoor, which he saw to be locked by four twist-latches 
controlled from above. The lights, veering away, searched the sides of the 
shaft. The folk below stood in puzzled consultation. After a final inspection of 
the cavern, a last flicker of light up the shaft, they returned the way they had 
come, flashing their lights from side to side.
Reith huddled high in the dark, wondering whether he might not still be 
dreaming. But the sad desolate circumstances were real enough. He was trapped. 
He could not raise the door above him; it might not be opened again for weeks. 
Unthinkable to crouch bat-like, waiting. For better or worse, Reith made up his 
mind. He looked down the passage; the lights, bobbing will-o'-the-wisps, were 
already far and dim. He slid down the rope and set off in pursuit, running with 
long gliding steps. He had a single notion, a desperate hope rather than a plan: 
to isolate one of the dark figures and somehow force him to lead the way to the 
surface. Above burned the first of the dim blue buttons, casting a glow dimmer 
than moonlight, but sufficient to show a way winding between rock buttresses 
advancing alternately from either side.
Reith presently caught up with the four, who moved slowly, investigating the 
passage to either side in a hesitant, perplexed fashion. Reith began to feel an 
insane exhilaration, as if he were already dead and invulnerable. He thought to 
pick up a pebble and toss it at the dark figures ... Hysteria! The notion 
instantly sobered him. If he wanted to survive he must take a grip on himself.
The four moved with uneasy deliberation, whispering and muttering among 
themselves. Dodging from one pocket of shadow to another Reith approached as 
closely as he dared, to be ready in case one should detach himself. Except for a 
fleeting glimpse in the dungeons at Pera, he had never seen a Pnume. These, from 
what Reith could observe of their posture and gait, seemed human.
The passage opened into a cavern with almost purposeful roughnessor perhaps the 
rudeness concealed a delicacy beyond Reith's understanding, as in the case of a 
shoulder of quartz thrusting forth to display a coruscation of pyrite crystals.
The area seemed to be a junction, a node, a place of importance, with three 
other passages leading away. An area at the center had been floored with smooth 
stone slabs; light somewhat stronger than that in the cavern issued from 
luminous grains in the overhead rock.
A fifth individual stood to the side; like the others he wore a black cloak and 
wide-brimmed black hat. Reith, flat as a cockroach, slid forward into a pocket 
of dense shadow close by the chamber. The fifth individual was also a Pnumekin; 
Reith could see his long visage, dismal, white and bleak. For an interval he 
took no notice of the first four and they appeared not to see him, a curious 
ritual of mutual disregard which aroused Reith's interest.
Gradually the five seemed to wander together, none looking directly at the 
others.
There came a hushed murmur of voices. Reith strained to listen. They spoke the 
universal tongue of Tschai; so much he could understand from the intonations. 
The four reported the circumstances attendant upon finding the empty sack; the 
fifth, an official or monitor, made the smallest possible indication of dismay. 
It seemed that restraint, unobtrusiveness, delicacy of allusion were key aspects 
of sub-Tschai existence.
They wandered across the chamber and into the cavern close by Reith, who pressed 
himself against the wall. The group halted not ten feet distant, and Reith could 
now hear the conversation.
One spoke in a careful, even voice: "... Delivery. This is not known; nothing 
was found."
Another said: "The passage was empty. If defalcation occurred before the bag was 
lowered, here would be an explanation."
"Imprecision," said the monitor. "The bag would not then have been lowered."
"Imprecision exists in either case. The passage was clear and empty."
"He must still be there," said the tunnel monitor; "he cannot be anywhere else."
"Unless a secret adit enters the passage, of which he knows."
The monitor stood straight, arms at his sides. "The presence of such an adit is 
not known to me. The explanation is remotely conceivable. You must make a new 
and absolutely thorough search; I will inquire as to the possibility of such a 
secret adit."
The passage-tenders returned slowly along the cavern, lights flickering up and 
down, back and forth. The monitor stood looking after them. Reith tensed 
himself: a critical moment. Turning in one direction the monitor must certainly 
see Reith, not six feet away. If he turned in the other direction Reith was 
temporarily secure ... Reith considered an attack upon the man. But the four 
were still close at hand; a cry, a sound, a scuffle would attract their 
attention. Reith contained himself.
The monitor turned away from Reith. Walking softly he crossed the chamber and 
entered one of the side passages. Reith followed, running on the balls of his 
feet. He peered down the passage. Each wall was a ledge of pyroxilite. 
Remarkable crystals thrust forth from either side, some a foot in diameter, 
faceted like brilliants: russet-brown, black-brown, greenish-black. They had 
been artfully cleaned and polished, to show to best advantage: enormous effort 
had been spent in this corridor. The crystals offered convenient objects behind 
which to take concealment; Reith set off at a soundless lope after the gliding 
Pnumekin, hoping to take him unawares and put him in fear of his life: a 
primitive and desperate plan, but Reith could think of nothing better ... The 
Pnumekin halted, and Reith jumped nervously behind a shoulder of glossy olive 
crystals. The Pnumekin, after a glance up and down the passage, reached to the 
wall, pushed at a small crystal, touched another. A segment of the wall fell 
aside. The Pnumekin stepped through; the portal closed. The passage was empty. 
Reith was now angry with himself. Why had he paused? When the Pnumekin had 
halted Reith should have been upon him.
He looked up and down the corridor. No one in sight. He went on at a fast trot 
and after a hundred yards came abruptly upon the rim of a great shaft. Far below 
gleamed dim yellow lights and a motion of bulky objects which Reith could not 
identify.
Reith returned to the door through which the Pnumekin had disappeared. He 
paused, his mind racing with angry schemes. For a desperate wretch like himself 
any course of action was risky, but the sure way to disaster was inaction. Reith 
reached out and worked at the rock as he had seen the Pnumekin do. The door fell 
aside. Reith drew back, ready for anything. He looked into a chamber thirty feet 
in diameter: a conference room, or so Reith deduced from the round central 
table, the benches, the shelves and cabinets.
He stepped through the opening and the door closed behind him. He looked around 
the chamber. Light-grains powdered the ceiling; the walls had been meticulously 
chipped and ground to enhance the crystalline structure of the rock. To the 
right an arched corridor, plastered in white, led away; to the left were 
shelves, cabinets, a closet.
From the corridor came a dull staccato knocking, a sound which carried a message 
of urgency. Reith, already as taut as a burglar, looked around in a panic for a 
place to hide. He ran to the closet, slid the door ajar, pushed aside the black 
cloaks hanging from hooks, and squeezed within. The cloaks and the black hats at 
the back gave off a musty odor. Reith's stomach gave a jerk. He huddled back and 
slid the door shut. Putting his eye to a crack, he looked out into the room.
Time stood still. Reith's stomach began to jerk with tension. The Pnumekin 
monitor returned to the chamber, to stand as if in deep thought. The queer 
wide-brimmed hat shadowed his austere features, which, Reith noted, were almost 
classically regular. Reith thought of the other man-composites of Tschai, all 
more or less mutated toward their host-race: the Dirdirmen-sinister absurdities; 
the stupid and brutish Chaschmen; the venal overcivilized Wankhmen. The 
essential humanity of all these, except perhaps in the case of the Dirdirman 
Immaculates, remained intact. The Pnumekin, on the other hand, had undergone no 
perceptible physical evolvement, but their psyches had altered; they seemed as 
remote as specters.
The creature across the room-Reith could not think of him as a man, stood quiet 
without a twitch to his features, just inconveniently too distant for a lurch 
and a lunge out of the closet.
Reith began to feel cramped. He shifted his position, producing a small sound. 
In a cold sweat he pressed his eye to the crack. The Pnumekin stood absorbed in 
reverie. Reith willed him to approach, urged him closer, closer, closer ... A 
thought came to disturb him: suppose the creature refused to heed a threat 
against his life? Perhaps it lacked the ability to feel fear ... The portal 
swung ajar; another Pnumekin entered: one of the passage-tenders. The two looked 
aside, ignoring each other. The newcomer spoke in a soft voice, as if musing 
aloud: "The delivery cannot be found. The passage and shaft have been 
scrutinized."
The tunnel monitor made no response. Silence, of an eerie dream-like quality, 
ensued.
The passage-tender spoke again. "He could not have passed us. Delivery was not 
made, or else he escaped by an adit unknown to us. These are the alternative 
possibilities."
The monitor spoke. "The information is noted. Transit control should be 
instituted at Ziad Level, Zud-Dan-Ziad, at Ferstan Node Six, at Lullil Node and 
at Foreverness Station."
"Such will be the situation."
A Pnume came into the chamber, using an aperture beyond Reith's range of vision. 
The Pnumekin paid no heed, not so much as glancing aside. Reith studied the 
oddly jointed creature: the first Pnume he had seen, except for a darkling 
glimpse in the dungeons of Pera. It stood about the height of a man and within 
its voluminous black cloak seemed slight, even frail. A black hat shaded its 
eye-sockets; its visage, the cast and color of a horse's skull, was 
expressionless; under the lower edge a complicated set of rasping and chewing 
parts surrounded a near-invisible mouth. The articulation of the creature's legs 
worked in reverse to that of the human: it moved forward with the motion of a 
man walking backwards. The narrow feet were bare and mottled, dark red and 
black; three arched toes tapped the ground as a nervous man might tap his 
fingers.
The Pnumekin tunnel monitor spoke softly into the air. "An abnormal situation, 
when an item of delivery is no more than an empty sack. The passage and the 
shaft have been scrutinized; the item either was not delivered, or it made 
evasion by using a secret adit of Quality Seven or higher."
Silence. From the Pnume, in a husky muffled murmur, came words. "Verification of 
delivery cannot be made. The possibility of a classified adit exists, above 
Quality Ten, and beyond the scope of my secrets.* We may properly solicit 
information from the Section Warden."
The tunnel monitor spoke in a voice of tentative inquiry. "The delivery, then, 
is an item of interest?"
The Pnume's toes drummed the floor with the delicacy of a pianist's fingers. "It 
is for Foreverness: a creature from contemporary Man-planet. Decision was made 
to take it."
Reith, cramped in the locker, wondered why the decision had been delayed so 
long. He eased his position, gritting his teeth against the possibility of a 
sound. When once again he put his eye to the crack the Pnume had departed. The 
monitor and the passage-tender stood quietly, taking no notice of each other.
Time passed, how long Reith could not judge. His muscles throbbed and ached, and 
now he feared to shift his position. He took a long slow breath and composed 
himself to patience.
At odd intervals the Pnumekin spoke in murmurs, looking aside all the while as 
if they addressed the air. Reith distinguished a phrase or two: "... The 
condition of Man-planet; there is no knowing ..." "... Barbarians, surface 
dwellers, mad as Gzhindra ..." "... Valuable item, invisible ..."
The Pnume reappeared, followed by another: a creature tall and gaunt, stepping 
with the soft tread of a fox. It carried a rectangular case, which it placed 
with delicate precision upon a bench three feet in front of Reith; then it 
seemed to lose itself in reverie. A moment passed. The passage-tender of lowest 
status spoke first. "When a delivery is signaled by the gong, the bag is usually 
heavy. An empty bag is cause for perplexity. Delivery evidently was not made, or 
the item gained access to a secret adit, over Ten in Quality."
The Warden turned aside and, spreading wide its black cloak, touched the locks 
of the leather case. The two Pnumekin and the first Pnume interested themselves 
in the crystals of the wall.
Opening the case, the Warden brought forth a portfolio bound in limp blue 
leather. The Warden spread it apart with reverent care, turned pages, studied a 
tangle of colored lines. The Warden closed the portfolio, replaced it in the 
case. After a moment of musing, he spoke in a voice so breathy and soft that 
Reith had difficulty understanding him. "An ancient adit of Quality Fourteen 
exists. It courses nine hundred yards northward, descends, and enters the jha 
Nu."
The Pnumekin were silent. The first Pnume spoke. "If the item came into the jha 
Nu, he might traverse the balcony, descend by Oma-Five into the Upper Great 
Lateral. He could then turn aside into Blue Rise, or even Zhu Overlook, and so 
reach the ghaun."
The Warden spoke. "All this only if the item has knowledge of the secrets. If we 
assume his use of a Quality Fourteen adit, then we can assume the rest. The 
manner by which our secrets have been disseminated-if this is the case-is not 
clear."
"Perplexing," murmured the passage-tender.
The monitor said, "If a ghiant knows Quality Fourteen secrets, how can these be 
safe from the Dirdir?"
The toes of both Pnume arched and tapped the stone floor.
"The circumstances are not yet clear," remarked the Warden. "A study of the adit 
will provide exact information."
The low-status passage-tenders were first to leave the room. The monitor, 
apparently lost in reflection, sidled after them, leaving the two Pnume standing 
still and rigid as a pair of insects. The first Pnume went off, padding on soft, 
forward-kicking strides. The Warden remained. Reith wondered if he should not 
burst forth and attempt to overpower the Warden. He restrained himself. If the 
Pnume shared the fantastic strength of the Phung, Reith would be at a terrible 
disadvantage. Another consideration: would the Pnume become pliant with 
pressure? Reith could not know. He suspected not.
The Warden took up the leather case and turned a deliberate stare to all 
quarters of the chamber. It appeared to listen. Moving with uncharacteristic 
abruptness, it carried the case to an expanse of blank wall. Reith watched in 
fascination. The Warden slid forward its foot, delicately touched three knobs of 
rock with its toes. A section of wall fell back, revealing a cavity into which 
the Warden tucked the case. The rock slid back; the wall was solid. The Warden 
went off after the others.



CHAPTER THREE
THE ROOM was empty. Reith stumbled forth from the closet. He hobbled across the 
room. The wall showed no crack, no seam. The workmanship was of microscopic 
accuracy.
Reith bent low, touched the three protuberances. The rock moved back and aside. 
Reith brought forth the case. After the briefest of hesitations, he opened the 
case, removed the portfolio. From the closet he brought a carton of small dark 
bottles, approximately the same weight as the portfolio which he closed into the 
case, and replaced all into the cavity. He touched the knobs; the cavity closed; 
the wall was solid rock.
Reith stood in the center of the room, holding the portfolio, obviously a 
valuable article. If he were able to evade detection and capture, if he were 
able to decipher the Pnume cartography--all of which seemed intrinsically 
unlikely--he might conceivably discover a route to the surface.
From the closet he brought a cloak, which he draped about himself, and a hat, 
somewhat too small, but which by dint of twisting and stretching he managed to 
pull low over his head.
The Pnumekin habit of furtive unobtrusiveness would serve him well; no one would 
attempt greater furtiveness, less obtrusiveness, than himself. Now he must leave 
the immediate area, and find some secluded spot where he might examine the 
portfolio at his leisure. He tucked the portfolio into his jacket and set off 
along the white plastered corridor, putting one foot softly in front of the 
other as he had seen the Pnumekin do.
The corridor stretched long and empty ahead, at last opening upon a balcony 
which overlooked a long room, from which came a hum and shuffle of activity.
The floor of the chamber was twenty feet below. On the walls were charts and 
ideograms; in the center Pnumekin children took instruction. Reith had come upon 
a Pnumekin school.
Standing back in the shadows Reith was able to look down without fear of 
detection. He saw three groups of children, both male and female, twenty to each 
group. Like their elders they wore black cloaks and hats with flattened crowns. 
The small white faces were peaked and pinched, and almost laughably earnest. 
None spoke; staring into empty air they marched softly and solemnly through a 
drill or exercise. They were attended by three Pnumekin women of indefinite age, 
cloaked like the males and distinguishable only by lesser stature and somewhat 
less harshness of feature.
The children padded on and on through the exercise, the silence broken only by 
the shuffle of their feet. Nothing could be learned here, thought Reith. He 
looked in both directions, then set off to the left. An arched tunnel gave upon 
another balcony, which overlooked a chamber even larger than the first: a 
refectory. Tables and benches were ranked down the middle, but the chamber was 
vacant except for two Pnumekin, who sat widely separated, crouched low over 
bowls of gruel. Reith became aware of his own hunger.
He heard a sound. Along the balcony came a pair of Pnumekin, one behind the 
other. Reith's heart began to thump so loudly he feared they would surely hear 
the sound as they approached. He pulled down his head, hunched his shoulders, 
moved forward in what he hoped to be the typical Pnumekin gait. The two passed 
by, eyes averted, thoughts on matters far removed.
With somewhat more assurance Reith continued along the passage, which almost 
immediately expanded to become a roughly circular node, the junction for three 
corridors. A staircase cut from the natural gray rock curved down to the level 
below.
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 half a 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, and 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 up 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 was 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, and 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 eerie 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 as 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 stared with 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, but 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."
"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 the 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."
"Then we must go somewhere else: to other sectors."
The girl's face twitched. "I know nothing of such places."
"Look at the map."
She did his bidding, running her finger close above the mesh of colored lines, 
but not yet daring to touch the paper itself. "I see here a secret way, Quality 
Eighteen. It runs from the passage out yonder to Parallel Twelve, and it 
shortens the way by a half. Then we might go along any of these adits to the 
freight docks."
Reith rose to his feet. He pulled the hat over his face. "Do I look like a 
Pnumekin?"
She gave him a brief unsympathetic inspection. "Your face is strange. Your skin 
is dark from the ghaun weather. Take some dust and wipe it on your face."
Reith did as he was bid; the girl watched with an expressionless gaze; Reith 
wondered what went on in her mind. She had declared herself an outcast, a 
Gzhindra, without overmuch agony of the spirit. Or did she contrive a subtle 
betrayal? "Betrayal" was perhaps unfair, Reith reflected. She had pledged him no 
faith, she owed him no loyalty, indeed, something considerably the reverse. So 
how could he control her after they set forth through the passages? Reith 
pondered and studied her, while she became increasingly agitated. "Why do you 
look at me like that?"
Reith held out the blue portfolio to her. "Carry this under your cloak, where it 
won't be seen."
The girl swayed back aghast. "No."
"You must."
"I don't dare. The zuzhma kastchai-"
"Conceal the charts under your cloak," said Reith in a measured voice. "I'm a 
desperate man, and I'll stop at nothing to return to the surface."
With limp fingers she took the portfolio. Turning her back, and glancing warily 
over her shoulder at Reith, she tucked the portfolio out of sight under her 
cloak. "Come then," she croaked. "If we are taken, it is how life must go. Never 
in my dreaming did I expect to be a Gzhindra."
She opened the portal and looked out into the round chamber. "The way is clear. 
Remember, walk softly, do not lean forward. We must pass through Fer junction, 
and there will be persons at their affairs. The zuzhma kastchai wander 
everywhere; if we meet one of these, halt, step into the shadows or face the 
wall; this is the respectful way. Do not move quickly; do not jerk your arms."
She stepped out into the round room and set off along the passage. Reith 
followed five or six paces behind, trying to simulate the Pnumekin gait. He had 
forced the girl to carry the charts; even so, he was at her mercy. She could run 
screaming to the first Pnumekin they came upon, and hope for mercy from the 
Pnume ... The situation was unpredictable.
They walked half a mile, up a ramp, down another and into a main adit. At 
twenty-foot intervals the narrow doorways opened into the rock; beside each was 
a fluted pedestal with a flat polished upper surface, the function of which 
Reith could not calculate. The passage widened and they entered Fer Junction, a 
large hexagonal hall with a dozen polished marble pillars supporting the 
ceiling. In dim little booths around the periphery sat Pnumekin writing in 
ledgers, or occasionally holding vague and seemingly indecisive colloquies with 
other Pnumekin who had come to seek them out.
The girl wandered to the side and halted. Reith stopped as well.
She glanced at him, then looked thoughtfully toward a Pnumekin in the center of 
the room: a tall haggard man with an unusually alert posture. Reith stepped into 
the shadow of a pillar and watched the girl. Her face was blank as a plate but 
Reith knew her to be reviewing the circumstances which had overwhelmed her pale 
existence, and his life depended on the balance of her fears: the bottomless 
gulf against the windy brown skies of the surface.
Slowly she moved toward Reith and joined him in the shadow of the pillar. For 
the moment at least she had made her decision.
"The tall man yonder: he is a Listening Monitor. Notice how he observes all? 
Nothing escapes him."
For a period Reith stood watching the Listening Monitor, becoming each minute 
more disinclined to cross the chamber. He muttered to the girl, "Do you know 
another route to the freight docks?"
She pondered the matter. Having committed herself to flight, her personality had 
become somewhat more focused, as if danger had drawn her up out of the dreaming 
inversion of her former existence.
"I think," she said dubiously, "that another route passes by way of the work 
halls; but it is a long way and other Listening Monitors are on hand."
"Hmmf." Reith turned to watch the Listening Monitor of Fer Junction.
"Notice," he said presently, "he turns to look this way and that. When his back 
is toward us, I'll move to the next pillar, and you come after me."
A moment later the Monitor swung around. Reith stepped out into the chamber, 
sauntered to the nearest of the marble pillars. The girl came slowly after him, 
still somewhat indecisively, or so it seemed to Reith.
Reith could not now peer around the pillar without the risk of attracting the 
Monitor's attention. "Tell me when he looks away," he muttered to the girl.
"Now."
Reith gained the next pillar and, using a file of slow-moving Pnumekin as a 
screen, continued on to the next. Now a single open area remained. The Monitor 
swung about abruptly, and Reith ducked back behind the pillar: a deadly game of 
peek-a-boo. From a passage to the side a Pnume entered the chamber, coming 
softly on forward-padding legs.
The girl hissed under her breath, "The Silent Critic ... take care." she drifted 
away, head downcast, as if in an abstraction. The Pnume halted, not fifty feet 
from Reith, who turned his back. Only a few strides remained to the north of the 
passage. Reith's shoulder blades twitched. He could bear to stand by the pillar 
no longer. Feeling every eye in the chamber pressing upon him he crossed the 
open area. With each step he expected a cry of outrage, an alarm. The silence 
became oppressive; only by great effort could he control the urge to look over 
his shoulder. He reached the mouth of the passage and turned a cautious glance 
over his shoulder-to stare full into the eye sockets of the Pnume. With pounding 
heart Reith turned slowly and proceeded. The girl had gone ahead. He called to 
her in a soft voice, "Run ahead; find the Class Eighteen passage."
She turned back a startled glance. "The Silent Critic is close at hand. I may 
not run; if he saw he would think it boisterous conduct."
"Never mind the decorum," said Reith. "Find the opening as fast as possible."
She quickened her step, with Reith coming behind. After fifty yards he risked a 
glance to the rear. No one followed.
The corridor branched; the girl stopped short. "I think we go to the left, but I 
am not sure."
"Look at the chart."
With vast distaste, she turned her back and brought the portfolio from under her 
cloak. She could not bring herself to handle it and gave it to Reith as if it 
were hot. He turned the pages till she said, "Stop." While she studied the 
colored lines, Reith kept his gaze to the rear. Far back, where the passage met 
Fer junction, a dark shape appeared in the opening. Reith, every nerve jerking, 
willed the girl to haste.
"To the left, then at Mark Two-one-two, a blue tile. Style Twenty-four--I must 
consult the legend. Here it is: four press points. Three-one-four-two."
"Hurry," Reith said, through gritted teeth.
She turned a startled look back down the passage. "Zuzhma kastchai!"
Reith also looked back, trying to simulate the Pnumekin gait. The Pnume padded 
slowly forward, but with no particular sense of purpose, or so it seemed to 
Reith. He moved off along the passage and overtook the girl. As she walked she 
counted the number marks at the base of the wall: "Seventy-five ... eighty ... 
eighty-five ..." Reith looked back. There were now two black shapes in the 
corridor; from somewhere a second Pnume had appeared. "One hundred ninety-five 
... two hundred ... two hundred and five..."
The blue tile, filmed with an antique red-purple luster, was only a foot from 
the floor. The girl found press-points and touched them; the outline of a door 
appeared; the door slid open.
The girl began to shake. "It is Quality Eighteen. I should not enter."
"The Silent Critic is following us," said Reith.
She gasped and stepped into the passage. It was narrow and dim and haunted by a 
faintly rancid odor Reith had come to associate with the Pnume.
The door slid shut. The girl pushed up a shutter and put her eye to the lens of 
a peephole. "The Silent Critic is coming. It suspects boisterous conduct, and 
wants to issue a punishment ... No! There are two! He has summoned a Warden!" 
She stood rigid, eye pressed to the peephole. Reith waited on tenterhooks. "What 
are they doing?"
"They look along the corridor. They wonder why we are not in view."
"Let's get moving," said Reith. "We can't stand here waiting.
"The Warden will know this passage ... If they come in..."
"Never mind that." Reith set out along the passage and the girl came behind him. 
A queer sight they made, thought Reith, loping through the dark in the flapping 
black cloaks and low-crowned hats. The girl quickly became tired and further 
diminished her speed by looking over her shoulder. She gave a croak of 
resignation and halted. "They have entered the passage."
Reith looked behind. The door stood ajar. In the gap the two Pnume were 
silhouetted. For an instant they stood rigid, like queer black dolls, then they 
jerked into motion. "They see us," said the girl, and stood with her head 
hanging. "It will be the pit ... Well, then, let us go to meet them in all 
meekness."
"Stand against the wall," said Reith. "Don't move. They must come to us. There 
are only two."
"You will be helpless."
Reith made no comment. He picked up a fist-size rock which had fallen from the 
ceiling and stood waiting.
"You can do nothing," moaned the girl. "Use meekness, placid conduct..."
The Pnume came quickly by forward-kicking steps, the white undershot jaws 
twitching. Ten feet away they halted, to contemplate the two who stood against 
the wall. For a half-minute none of the group moved or made a sound. The Silent 
Critic slowly raised its thin arm, to point with two bony fingers. "Go back."
Reith made no move. The girl stood with eyes glazed and mouth sagging.
The Pnume spoke again, in a husky fluting voice. "Go back."
The girl started to stumble off along the passage; Reith made no motion.
The Pnume watched him nonplussed. They exchanged a sibilant whisper, then the 
Silent Critic spoke again. "Go."
The Warden said in an almost inaudible murmur, "You are the item which escaped 
delivery."
The Silent Critic, padding forward, reached forth its arm. Reith hurled the rock 
with all his strength; it struck full in the creature's bone-white face. A 
crunch, and the creature tottered back to the wall, to stand jerking and raising 
one leg up and down in a most eccentric manner. The Warden, making a throaty 
gasping sound, bounded forward.
Reith jumped back, snatched off his cloak, and in an insane flourish threw it 
over the Pnume's head. For a moment the creature seemed not to notice and came 
forward, arms outspread; then it began to dance and stamp. Reith moved 
cautiously in and away, looking for an instant of advantage, and the two in 
their soundless gyrations performed a peculiar and grotesque ballet. While the 
Silent Critic watched indifferently Reith seized the Warden's arm; it felt like 
an iron pipe. The other arm swung about; two harsh finger-ends tore across 
Reith's face. Reith felt nothing. He heaved, swung the Warden into the wall. It 
rebounded and moved quickly upon Reith. Reith slapped tentatively at the long 
pale face; it felt cool and hard. The strength of the creature was inhuman; he 
must evade its grip, which put him in something of a quandary. If he struck the 
creature with his fists he would only break his hands.
Step by step the Warden padded forward, legs bending forward. Reith threw 
himself to the ground, kicked out at the creature's feet, to topple it off 
balance; it fell. Reith jumped up to evade the expected attack of the Silent 
Critic, but it remained leaning gravely against the wall, viewing the battle 
with the detachment of a bystander. Reith was puzzled and distracted by its 
attitude; as a result the Warden seized his ankle with the toes of one foot and 
with an amazing extension reached the other foot toward Reith's neck. Reith 
kicked the creature in the crotch; it was like kicking the crotch of a tree; 
Reith sprained his foot. The toes gripped his neck; Reith seized the leg, 
twisted, applied leverage. The Pnume was forced around on its face. Reith 
scrambled down upon its back. Seizing the head, he gave it a sudden terrible 
jerk backward. A bone or stiff membrane gave elastically, then snapped. The 
Warden thrashed here and there in wild palpitations. By chance it gained its 
feet and with its head dangling backward bounded across the tunnel. It struck 
the Silent Critic, who slumped to the ground. Dead? Reith's eyes bulged. Dead.
Reith leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. Wherever the Pnume had 
touched him was a bruise. Blood flowed down his face; his elbow was wrenched; 
his foot was sprained ... but two Pnume lay dead. A little distance away the 
girl crouched in a shock-induced trance. Reith stumbled forward, touched her 
shoulder. "I'm alive. You're alive."
"Your face bleeds!"
Reith wiped his face with the hem of his cloak. He went to look down at the 
corpses. Drawing back his lips, he searched the bodies, but found nothing to 
interest him.
"I suppose we'd better keep on going," said Reith.
The girl turned and set off down the tunnel. Reith followed. The Pnume corpses 
remained to lie in the dimness.
The girl's steps began to lag. "Are you tired?" asked Reith.
His solicitude puzzled her; she looked at him warily. "No."
"Well, I am. Let's rest for a while." He lowered himself to the floor, groaning 
and complaining. After a moment's hesitation she settled herself primly across 
the passage. Reith studied her with perplexity. She had put the struggle with 
the Pnume completely out of her mind, or so it seemed. Her shadowed face was 
composed. Astonishing, thought Reith. Her life had come apart; her future must 
seem a succession of terrifying question marks; yet here she sat, her face blank 
as that of a marionette, with no apparent distress.
She spoke softly: "Why do you look at me like that?"
"I was thinking," he said, "that, considering the circumstances, you appear 
remarkably unconcerned."
She made no immediate reply. There was a heavy silence in the dim passage. Then 
she said, "I float upon the current of life; how should I question where it 
carries me? It would be impudent to think of preferences; existence, after all, 
is a privilege given a very few."
Reith leaned back against the wall. "A very few? How so?"
The girl became uneasy; her white fingers twisted. "How it goes on the ghaun I 
don't know; perhaps you do things differently. In the Shelters* the mother-women 
spawn twelve times and no more than half, sometimes less-survive ..." She 
continued in a voice of didactic reflection: "I have heard that all the women of 
the ghaun are motherwomen. Is this true? I can't believe it. If each spawned 
twelve times, and even if six went to the pit, the ghaun would boil with living 
flesh. It seems unreasonable." She added, as a possibly disconnected 
afterthought, "I am glad that I will never be a mother-woman."
Again Reith was puzzled. "How can you be sure? You're young yet."
The girl's face twitched with what might have been embarrassment. "Can't you 
see? Do I look to be a mother-woman?"
"I don't know what your mother-women look like."
"They bulge at the chest and hips. Aren't ghian mothers the same? Some say the 
Pnume decide who will be mother-women and take them to the creche. There they 
lie in the dark and spawn."
"Alone?"
"They and the other mothers."
"What of the fathers?"
"No need for fathers. In the Shelters all is secure; protection is not needed."
Reith began to entertain an old suspicion. "On the surface," he said, "affairs 
go somewhat differently."
She leaned forward, and her face displayed as much animation as Reith had yet 
noticed. "I have always wondered about life on the ghaun. Who chooses the 
mother-women? Where do they spawn?"
Reith evaded the question. "It's a complicated situation. In due course I 
suppose you'll learn something about it, if you live long enough. Meanwhile, I 
am Adam Reith. What is your name?"
"'Name'? I am a female."
"Yes, but what is your personal name?"
The girl considered. "On the invoices persons are listed by group, area and 
zone. My group is Zith, of Athan Area, in the Pagaz Zone; my ranking is 210."
"Zith Athan Pagaz, 210. Zap 210. It's not much of a name. Still, it suits you."
At Reith's jocularity the girl looked blank. "Tell me how the Gzhindra live."
"I saw them standing out on the wastelands. They pumped narcotic gas into the 
room where I slept. I woke up in a sack. They lowered me into a shaft. That's 
all I know of the Gzhindra. There must be better ways to live."
Zap 210, as Reith now thought of her, evinced disapproval. "They are persons, 
after all, and not wild things."
Reith had no comment to make. Her innocence was so vast that any information 
whatever could only cause her shock and confusion. "You'll find many kinds of 
people on the surface."
"It is very strange," the girl said in a vague soft voice. "Suddenly all is 
changed." She sat looking off into the darkness. "The others will wonder where I 
have gone. Someone will do my work."
"What was your work?"
"I instructed children in decorum."
"What of your spare time?"
"I grew crystals in the new East Fourth Range."
"Do you talk with your friends?"
"Sometimes, in the dormitory."
"Do you have friends among the men?"
Under the shadow of the hat the black eyebrows rose in displeasure. "It's 
boisterous to talk to men."
"Sitting here with me is boisterous?"
She said nothing. The idea probably had not yet occurred to her, thought Reith; 
now she considered herself a fallen woman. "On the surface," he said, "life goes 
differently, and sometimes becomes very boisterous indeed. Assuming that we 
survive to reach the surface."
He brought out the blue portfolio. As if by reflex Zap 210 drew herself back. 
Reith paid no heed. Squinting through the dim light he studied the tangle of 
colored lines. He put his finger down, somewhat tentatively. "Here, it seems to 
me, is where we are now." No response from Zap 210. Reith, aching, nervous and 
exhausted, started to reprimand her for disinterest, then caught his tongue. She 
was not here of her own volition, he reminded himself; she deserved neither 
reprimands nor resentment; by his actions he had made himself responsible for 
her. Reith gave a grunt of annoyance. He drew a deep breath and said in his most 
polite voice, "If I recall correctly, this passage leads over here" he 
pointed-"and comes out into this pink avenue. Am I right?"
Zap 210 looked down askance. "Yes. This is a most secret way. Notice, it 
connects Athan with Zaltra; otherwise one must go far around, by way of Fei'erj 
Node." Grudgingly she came closer and brought her finger to within inches of the 
vellum. "This gray mark is where we want to go: to the freight-dock, at the end 
of the supply arterial. By Fei'erj it would be impossible, since the route leads 
through the dormitories and the metalspinning areas."
Reith looked wistfully at the little red circles which marked the popouts. "They 
seem so close, so easy."
"They will certainly be guarded."
"What is this long black line?"
"That is the freight canal, and is the best route away from Pagaz Zone."
"And this bright green spot?"
She peered and drew a quick breath. "It is the way to Foreverness: a Class 
Twenty secret!" She sat back and huddled her chin into her knees. Reith returned 
to the charts. He felt her gaze and looked up to find her studying him intently. 
She licked her colorless mouth. "Why are you such an important item?"
"I don't know why I'm an 'item' at all." Though this was not precisely true.
"They want you for Foreverness. Are you of some strange race?"
"In a way," said Reith. He heaved himself painfully to his feet. "Are you ready? 
We might as well be going."
She rose without comment and they set off along the dim passage. They walked a 
mile and came to a white wall with a black iron door at the center. Zap 210 put 
her eye to the peep-lens. "A dray is passing ... persons are near." She looked 
back at Reith. "Hold your head down," she said in a critical voice. "Pull the 
hat lower. Walk quietly, with your feet pointed straight." She turned back to 
the peephole. Her hand went to the door-catch. She pressed, and the door opened. 
"Quick, before we are seen."
Blinking and furtive, they entered a wide arched passage. The pegmatite walls 
were studded with enormous tourmalines which, excited to fluorescence by some 
means unknown, glowed pink and blue.
Zap 210 set off along the passage; Reith followed at a discreet distance. Fifty 
yards ahead a low dray loaded with sacks rolled on heavy black wheels. From 
somewhere behind them came the sound of hammers tapping at metal and a scraping 
noise, the source of which Reith never learned.
For ten minutes they plodded along the corridor. On four occasions Pnumekin 
passed, shadowed faces averted, thoughts exploring areas beyond Reith's 
imagination.
The polished pegmatite altered abruptly to black hornblende, polished back from 
veins of white quartz which seemed to grow like veins over the black matrix, the 
end-product of unknown centuries of toil. Far ahead, the passage dwindled to a 
minute black half-oval, which by insensible degrees grew larger. Beyond was 
black vacancy.
The aperture expanded and surrounded them; they came out on a ledge overlooking 
a void as black and empty as space. Fifty yards to the right a barge, moored 
against the dock, seemed to float in midair; Reith perceived the black void to 
be the surface of a subterranean lake.
A half dozen Pnumekin worked listlessly upon the dock, loading the barge with 
bales.
Zap 210 sidled into a pocket of shadow. Reith joined her, standing somewhat too 
close for her liking; she moved a few fastidious inches away. "What now?" asked 
Reith.
"Follow me aboard the barge. Say no word to anyone."
"No one objects? They won't put us off?"
The girl gave him a blank look. "Persons ride the barges. This is how they see 
the far tunnels."
"Ah," said Reith, "wanderlust among the Pnumekin; they go to look at a tunnel."
The girl gave him another blank look.
Reith asked, "Have you ever traveled on a barge before?"
"No."
"How do you know where this barge goes?"
"It goes north, to the Areas; it can go nowhere else." She peered through the 
gloom. "Follow me, and walk with decorum."
She set off along the dock, eyes downcast, moving as if in a reverie. Reith 
waited a moment, then went after her.
She paused beside the barge, looked vacantly across the black void; then, as if 
absentmindedly, she stepped across to the barge. She walked to the outboard side 
and merged with the shadow of the bales.
Reith imitated her demeanor. The Pnumekin on the dock, immersed in their private 
thoughts, paid him no heed. Reith stepped aboard the barge and then could not 
control the acceleration of his pace as he slipped into the shade of the cargo.
Zap 210, tense as wire, peered at the dock-workers. Gradually she relaxed. "They 
are disconsolate; otherwise they would have noticed. Do the ghian always lurch 
and lope when they move about?"
"I wouldn't be surprised," said Reith. "But no harm done. Next time-" He stopped 
short. At the far end of the dock stood a dark shape. It stirred, came slowly 
toward the barge, and entered the zone of illumination. "Pnume," whispered 
Reith. Zap 210 stood soundless.
The creature padded forward, oblivious to the dock-workers, who never so much as 
glanced aside. It stepped softly along the dock, and halted near the barge.
"It saw us," whispered the girl.
Reith stood heavy-hearted, bruises aching, legs and arms nerveless and dull. He 
could not survive another fight. In a husky whisper he asked, "Can you swim?"
A horrified gasp and a glance across the black void. "No!"
Reith searched for a weapon: a club, a hook, a rope; he found nothing.
The Pnume passed beyond the range of vision. A moment later they felt the barge 
tremble under its weight.
"Take off your cloak," said Reith. He slipped out of his own and, wrapping up 
the portfolio, shoved both into a crevice of the cargo. Zap 210 stood 
motionless.
"Take off your cloak!"
She began to whimper. Reith clapped his hand over her mouth. "Quiet!" He pulled 
the neck laces and, touching her fragile chin, found it trembling. He jerked off 
her cloak, put it with his own. She stood half-crouching in a knee-length shift. 
Reith, for all the urgency of the moment, resisted an insane desire to laugh at 
the thin adolescent figure under the black hat. "Listen," he said hoarsely. "I 
can tell you only once. I am going over the side. You must follow immediately. 
Put your hands on my shoulders. Hold your head from the water. Above all, do not 
splash or flounder. You will be safe."
Not waiting for her acknowledgment, he lowered himself over the side of the 
barge. The frigid water rose up his body like a ring of icy fire. Zap 210 
hesitated only for an instant, then went over the side, probably only because 
she feared the Pnume more than the wet void. She gasped when her legs hit the 
water. "Quiet!" hissed Reith. Her hands went to his shoulders; she lowered 
herself into the water, and in a panic threw her arms around his neck. "Easy!" 
whispered Reith. "Keep your face down." He drifted in under the gunwale, and 
gripped a bracket. Unless someone or something peered over the side of the 
barge, they were virtually invisible.
A half-minute passed. Reith's legs began to grow numb. Zap 210 clung to his 
back, chin at his ear; he could hear her teeth chattering. Her thin body pressed 
against him, trapping warm pockets of water which pulsed away when one or the 
other moved. Once, as a boy, Reith had rescued a drowning cat; like Zap 210 it 
had clung to him with desperate urgency, arousing in Reith a peculiarly intense 
pang of protectiveness. The bodies, both frightened and wet, projected the same 
elemental craving for life ... Silence, darkness, cold. The two in the water 
listened ... Along the deck of the barge came a quiet sound: the click of horny 
toes. It stopped, cautiously started, then stopped once more, directly overhead. 
Looking up, Reith saw toes gripping the edge of the gunwale. He took one of Zap 
210's hands, guided it to the bracket, then the other. Once free, he turned to 
face outward from the barge.
Unctuous ripples moved away from him; lenses of quince-colored light formed and 
vanished.
The toes over Reith's head clicked on the gunwale. They shifted their position. 
Reith, lips drawn away from his teeth in a ghastly grimace, lunged up with his 
right arm. He caught a thin hard ankle, pulled. The Pnume croaked in dismal 
consternation. It teetered forward and for a moment leaned at an incredible 
angle, almost horizontal, supported only by the grip of its toes. Then it fell 
into the water.
Zap 210 clutched at Reith. "Don't let it touch you; it will pull you apart."
"Can it swim?"
"No," she said through chattering teeth. "It is heavy; it will sink."
Reith said, "Climb up on my back, take hold of the gunwale, pull yourself aboard 
the barge."
Gingerly she swung behind him. Her feet pushed against his back; she stood on 
his shoulder, then clambered aboard the barge. Reith laboriously heaved himself 
up after her to lie on the deck, totally spent.
Presently he gained his feet, to peer toward the dock. The Pnumekin worked as 
before.
Reith moved back into the shadows. Zap 210 had not moved. The shift clung to her 
underdeveloped body. She was not ungraceful, reflected Reith.
She noticed his attention and huddled back against the cargo.
"Take off your undergown and put on your cloak," Reith suggested. "You'll be 
warmer."
She stared at him miserably. Reith pulled off his own sodden garments. In horror 
almost as intense as she had shown toward the Pnume, she jerked herself around. 
Reith found the energy for a sour grin. With her back turned she draped the 
cloak over her shoulders and by some means unknown divested herself of her 
undergarments.
The barge vibrated, lurched. Reith looked past the cargo to see the dock 
receding. It became an oasis of light in the heavy blackness. Far ahead showed a 
wan blue glimmer toward which the barge silently moved.
They were underway. Behind lay Pagaz Zone and the way to Foreverness. Ahead was 
darkness and the Northern Areas.



CHAPTER FOUR
THE BARGE CARRIED a crew of two, who kept to the apron at the bow of the barge. 
Here was a small pantry, a cook-bench, an island of dim yellow illumination. 
There seemed to be at least two other passengers aboard, perhaps as many as 
three or four, who were even less obtrusive than the crew, and manifested 
themselves only at the pantry and the cook-bench. The food seemed to be free to 
the use of all. Zap 210 would not allow Reith to go forward for food. When the 
pantry and cook-bench were not in use Zap 210 procured food for both: cakes of 
pilgrim-pod meal, candied plum-shaped objects which might have been fruit or 
possibly leech-like insects, bars of meat-paste, sweet and salty wafers of a 
delicate crisp white substance which Zap 210 considered a delicacy, but which 
left an unpleasant aftertaste in Reith's mouth.
Time passed: how long Reith had no way of knowing. The lake became a river which 
in turn became an underground canal fifty or sixty feet wide. The barge moved 
without a sound, propelled, so Reith guessed, by electric fields cycling along 
the keel. Ahead gleamed a dim blue light serving as a fix for the barge's 
steering sensor; when one blue light passed overhead, another always shone far 
ahead. At long intervals the barge passed lonesome little piers and docks, with 
passages leading away into unknown fastnesses.
Reith ate and slept; how many times he lost count. His cosmos was the barge, the 
dark, the unseen water, the presence of Zap 210. With nothing but time and 
boredom, Reith set himself to the task of exploring her personality. Zap 210, on 
her part, treated Reith with suspicion, as if begrudging even the intimacy of 
conversation: a skittishness and prim reserve peculiar in a person who, to the 
best of his knowledge, had not even a distorted understanding of ordinary sexual 
processes. Primordial instinct at work, Reith surmised. But how in good 
conscience could he turn her loose on the surface in such a condition of 
innocence? On the other hand the prospect of explaining human biology to Zap 210 
was not a comfortable one.
Zap 210 herself never seemed to become bored with the passage of time; she slept 
or sat looking off into the darkness as if she watched passing vistas of great 
fascination. Vexed with her self-sufficiency, Reith would occasionally join her, 
taking no notice of her slight shift of fastidious withdrawal. Conversation with 
Zap 210 was never exhilarating. She had unalterable preconceptions regarding the 
surface: she feared the sky, the wind, the space of the horizons, the pale brown 
sunlight. Her anticipations were melancholy: she foresaw death under the club of 
a yelling barbarian. Reith tried to modify her views but encountered distrust.
"Do you think that we are ignorant of the surface?" she asked in calm scorn. 
"The zuzhma kastchai know more than anyone; they know everything. Knowledge is 
their existence. They are the brain-life of Tschai; Tschai is body and bones to 
the zuzhma kastchai."
"And the Pnumekin: how do they fit into the picture?"
"The 'persons'? Long ago the zuzhma kastchai gave refuge to certain men from the 
surface, with some females and some mother-women. The 'persons' proved their 
diligence by polishing stones and perfecting crystals. The zuzhma kastchai 
provided peace, and so it has been, for all the ages."
"And where did men come from originally, do you know this?"
Zap 210 was uninterested. "From the ghian, where else?"
"Do they teach you of the sun and the stars and the other worlds of space?"
"They teach what we most want to learn, which is decorum and good conduct." She 
heaved a small sigh. "That is all behind me and gone; how the others would 
marvel at me now!"
So far as Reith could comprehend, Zap 210's principal emotion appeared to be for 
her own indecorous conduct.
The barge moved on. Blue glimmer appeared ahead, waxed to become a glare and 
pass overhead, with a new blue glimmer far in the distance. Reith became stale 
and restless. Darkness was almost complete, relieved only by a vague glow from 
the bow apron forward. The feminine voice of Zap 210, herself only a blur, began 
to work upon his imagination; certain of her mannerisms took on the semblance of 
erotic provocations. Only by conscious rational effort could he maintain his 
impersonality. How, he would ask himself, could she provoke or tease when she 
was totally unaware of the male-female relationship? Any urgings from her 
subconscious must seem a peculiar perversion, the most exaggerated form of 
"boisterous conduct." He remembered the vitality of her body when she had clung 
to him in the water; he thought of the look of her soaked body; he began to 
wonder if his instincts might not be more accurate than his reason. Zap 210, if 
she felt anything other than glumness and foreboding, gave no evidence, except a 
somewhat greater willingness to talk. For hours she spoke in a low monotone, of 
everything she knew. She had lived a remarkably drab life, thought Reith, 
without experience of gaiety, excitement, frivolity. He wondered as to the 
content of her imaginings, but of this she said nothing. She recognized 
differences in the personalities of her fellows: subtle variations of decorum 
and discretion which to her assumed the same significance as the more vehement 
personality traits of the surface. She was aware of biological differences 
between male and female, but apparently had never wondered as to their 
justification. All very strange, mused Reith. The Shelters would seem to be an 
incubator for a whole congeries of neuroses. Reith dared venture no inquiries; 
whenever the conversation skirted such matters, she became instantly taciturn. 
Had the Pnume bred sex drive out of the Pnumekin? Did they administer 
depressants, drugs, hormones, to eliminate a troublesome tendency to 
over-reproduce? Reith asked a few cautious questions, to which Zap 210 gave such 
irrelevant and unapposite replies that Reith was sure she didn't know what he 
was talking about. From time to time, Zap 210 admitted, certain persons found 
the Shelters too staid; they were sent up to the surface, into the glare, the 
blowing winds, the empty nights with all the universe exposed, and never allowed 
to return below. "I wonder that I am not more fearful," she said. "Is it 
possible that I have always had Gzhindra tendencies? I have heard that so much 
space creates a distraction; I do not wish to be so affected."
"We're not on the surface yet," said Reith, to which Zap 210 gave a faint shrug, 
as if the matter were of no great importance.
Regarding the reproductive mechanisms of the Pnume she had no sure knowledge; 
she was uncertain whether or not the Pnume regarded the matter as secret, though 
she suspected as much. As to the relative number of Pnume and Pnumekin she was 
also uncertain. "There are probably more zuzhma kastchai. But many are never 
seen; they keep to the Deep Places, where the precious things are kept."
"What precious things?"
Again Zap 210 was vague. "The history of Tschai goes back beyond thought; just 
so far back go the records. The zuzhma kastchai are meticulous; they know 
everything that has ever happened. They consider Tschai to be a great 
conservatory, where every item, every tree, every rock is a cherished curio. Now 
there are off-world folk on the ghian: three different sorts, who have come to 
leave their artifacts."
"Three?"
"The Dirdir, the Chasch, the Wankh."
"What of men?"
"'Men'?" Her voice took on a dubious tone. "I don't know. Perhaps men too are 
off-world. If so, four peoples sojourn in Tschai. But this has happened before; 
many times have strange folk come down to Old Tschai. The zuzhma kastchai 
neither welcome nor repel; they observe, they watch. They expand their 
collections; they fill the museums of Foreverness; they compile their archives."
Reith began to see the Pnume in a new light. It seemed that they regarded the 
surface of Tschai as a vast theater, on which wonderful millennium-long dramas 
were played out: the Old Chasch-Blue Chasch wars; the Dirdir invasion, followed 
by the Wankh counter-invasion; the various campaigns, battles, routs, and 
exterminations; the building of cities, the subsidence of ruins, the coming and 
going of peoples-all of which explained the acquiescence of the Pnume to the 
presence of alien races: from the Pnume point of view, they embellished the 
history of Tschai. As for Zap 210 herself, Reith asked if she had the same 
regard for Tschai. The girl made one of her small apathetic gestures: no, it 
meant nothing; she cared little one way or the other. Reith had a sudden insight 
into the processes of her psyche. Life for Zap 210 was a somewhat insipid 
experience to be tolerated. Fear was reserved for the unfamiliar; joy was beyond 
conjecture. He saw his own personality as it must appear to her: abrupt, brutal, 
crafty, harsh and unpredictable, in whom the worst excesses of boisterous 
conduct must always be feared ... A sad creature, thought Reith, inoffensive and 
colorless. Still, remembering the feel of her clinging to his neck, he wondered. 
Still waters ran deep. In the dark, with nothing to occupy his mind, imaginings 
came to stimulate him and arouse his fervor, whereupon Zap 210, somehow sensing 
his turmoil, moved uneasily off into the shadows, leaving Reith sourly amused by 
the situation. What could be going on in her mind?
Reith invented a new game. He tried to amuse her. He invented grotesque 
incidents, extravagant situations, but Zap 210 was the fairy-tale princess who 
could not laugh. Her single pleasure, insofar as Reith could detect, was the 
sweet-salt wafer which served as a relish to the otherwise bland food; 
unfortunately, the supply of these delicacies was quickly exhausted, a day or 
two after they had boarded the barge. Zap 210 was taken aback by the deficiency. 
"There is always diko in our diet-always! Someone has made a foolish mistake!"
Reith had never seen her quite so emphatic. She became morose, then listless, 
and refused to eat anything whatever. Then she became nervous and irritable, and 
Reith wondered if perhaps the diko contained a habit-forming drug to arouse so 
pronounced a craving.
For a period which might have been three or four days she spoke almost not at 
all, and kept as far from Reith as was practicable, as if she held Reith 
responsible for her deprivation, which was actually the case, reflected Reith. 
Had he not blundered rudely into her cool gray existence, she would be 
conducting her ordinary routine, nibbling diko whenever she was of a mind. Her 
sulkiness waned; she became almost talkative; she seemed to want reassurance, or 
attention, or-could it be--affection. So it appeared to Reith, who found the 
situation as absurd as any he had known.
On and on through the dark moved the barge, from blue light to blue light to 
blue light. They passed along a chain of underground lakes, through still 
caverns draped with stalactites, then for a long period, perhaps three 
days-along a precisely straight bore, with the blue lights spaced ten miles 
apart. The bore gave into another set of caverns, where they once again saw a 
few lonesome docks: islands of dim yellow lights. Then once again the barge rode 
a straight canal. The voyage was approaching its end-the feeling was in the air. 
The crew moved with a somewhat less deliberate gait, and the passengers on the 
starboard side went to stand on the forward apron. Zap 210, returning from the 
pantry with food, announced in a dolorous mutter: "We have almost come to 
Bazhan-Gahai."
"And where is this?"
"At the far side of the Area. We have come a long way." She added in a soft 
voice, "It has been a peaceful time."
Reith thought that she spoke with regret. "Is this place near the surface?"
"It is a trade center for goods from the Stang Islands and Hedaijha."
Reith was surprised. "We are far to the north."
"Yes. But the zuzhma kastchai may be waiting for us."
Reith looked anxiously ahead, at the far blue guide-light. "Why should they be?"
"I don't know. Perhaps they won't."
Blue lights, one after the other: Reith saw them pass with growing tension. He 
became tired, and slept; when he awoke, Zap 210 pointed ahead. "Bazhan-Gahai."
Reith rose to his feet. Ahead the gloom had lightened; the water showed a far 
luminous reflection. With dramatic majesty the tunnel widened; the barge moved 
forward, ponderous as fate. The cloaked shapes at the bow stood in silhouette 
against a great golden space. Reith felt a lifting of the spirit, a mysterious 
exaltation. The voyage which had started in cold and misery was at its end. The 
sides of the tunnel-fluted buttresses of raw rock-began to be visible, 
illuminated on one side, in black shadow on the other. The golden light was a 
blur; beyond, across calm water, white crags rose to a great height. Zap 210 
came slowly forward, to stare into the light with a rapt expression. Reith had 
almost forgotten what she looked like. The thin face, the pallor, the fragile 
bones of jaw and forehead, the straight nose and pale mouth were as he recalled; 
additionally he saw an expression to which he could put no name: sadness, 
melancholy, haunted foreboding. She felt his gaze and looked at him. Reith 
wondered what she saw.
The passage opened and widened. A lake lay ahead, long and twisting. The barge 
proceeded along vistas of uncanny beauty. Small islands broke the black surface; 
great gnarled columns of white and gray rose to the vaulted ceiling far above. 
Half a mile ahead, under a beetling overhang, a dock became visible. From an 
unseen opening a shaft of golden light slanted into the cavern.
Reith could hardly speak for emotion. "Sunlight!" he finally croaked.
The barge eased forward, toward the dock. Reith searched the cavern walls, 
trying to trace out a route to the gap. Zap 210 said in a soft voice, "You will 
attract attention."
Reith moved back against the bales, and again studied the side of the cavern. He 
pointed. "A trail leads up to the gap."
"Of course."
Reith traced the trail along the wall. It seemed to terminate at the dock, now 
only a quarter of a mile distant. Reith noticed several shapes in black cloaks: 
Pnume or Pnumekin, he could not be sure. They stood waiting in what he 
considered sinister attitudes; he became highly uneasy.
Going to the stern of the barge, Reith looked right and left. He returned to Zap 
210. "In a minute or so we'll pass close to that island. That's where we better 
leave the barge. I don't care to land at that dock."
Zap 210 gave a fatalistic shrug. They went to the stern of the barge. The 
island, a twisted knob of limestone, came abeam. Reith said, "Lower yourself 
into the water. Don't kick or flounder; I'll keep you afloat."
She gave him one unreadable side-glance and did as he bid. Holding the blue 
leather portfolio high in one hand he slid into the water beside her. The barge 
moved away, toward whoever or whatever waited on the dock. "Put your hands on my 
shoulders," said Reith. "Hold your face just above the water."
The ground rose under their feet; they clambered up on the island. The barge had 
almost reached the dock. The black shapes came forward. By their gait Reith knew 
them for Pnume.
From the island they waded to the shore, keeping to areas of shadow, where they 
were invisible to those on the dock, or so Reith hoped. A hundred feet above ran 
the trail to the gap. Reith made a careful reconnaissance, and they started to 
climb, scrambling over detritus, clinging to knobs of agate, crawling over humps 
and buttresses. A mournful hooting sound drifted across the water. Zap 210 
became rigid.
"What does that mean?" Reith asked in a hushed voice.
"It must be a summons, or a call ... like nothing I have heard in Pagaz."
They continued up the slope, sodden cloaks clinging to their bodies, and at last 
heaved themselves up on the trail. Reith looked ahead and back; no living 
creature could be seen. The gap into the outer world was only fifty yards 
distant. Once again the hooting sounded, conveying a mournful urgency.
Panting, stumbling, they ran up the trail. The gap opened before them; they saw 
the golden-gray sky of Tschai, where a tumbled group of black clouds floated. He 
took a last look down the trail. With the light of outdoors in his face, with 
tears blurring his vision, he could distinguish only shadows and dim rockshapes. 
The underground was again a world remote and unknown. He took Zap 210's hand, 
pulled her out into the open. Slowly she stepped forward and looked across the 
surface. They stood halfway up the slope of a rocky hill overlooking a wide 
valley. In the distance spread a calm gray surface: the sea.
Reith took a final look over his shoulder at the gap, and started down the hill. 
Zap 210, with a dubious glance toward the sun, followed. Reith halted. He 
removed the hated black hat and sailed it off over the rocks. Then he took Zap 
210's hat and did the same despite her startled protest.



CHAPTER FIVE
FOR REITH THE walk down the wide valley in the brown-gold light of afternoon was 
euphoric. He felt light-headed; his torpor had vanished; he felt strong and 
agile and full of hope; he even felt a new and tolerant affection for Zap 210. 
An odd wry creature, he thought, watching her surreptitiously, and pale as a 
ghost. She clearly felt uneasy in this sudden wilderness of space. Her gaze 
moved from the sky, along the sweep of hills to either side, out to the horizon 
of what Reith had decided must be the First Sea.
They reached the floor of the valley. A sluggish stream wandered between banks 
of dark red reeds. Nearby grew pilgrim plant, the pods of which formed the 
indispensable staple food of Tschai. Zap 210 looked at the gray-green pods 
skeptically, failing to recognize the shriveled dry yellow tablets imported into 
the Shelters. She ate with fatalistic disinterest.
Reith saw her looking back the way they had come, somewhat wistfully, he 
thought. "Do you miss the Shelters?" he asked.
Zap 210 considered her reply. "I am afraid. We can be seen from all directions. 
Perhaps the zuzhma kastchai watch us from the gap. They may send night-hounds 
after us."
Reith looked up toward the gap: a shadow, almost invisible from where they sat. 
He could detect no evidence of scrutiny; they seemed alone in the open valley. 
But he could not be sure. Eyes could be watching from the gap; the black cloaks 
made them conspicuous. He looked toward Zap 210. Almost certainly she would 
refuse to remove the garment ... Reith rose to his feet. "It's growing late; 
perhaps we can find a village along the shore."
Two miles downstream the river spread wide to become a swamp. Along the opposite 
shore grew a dense forest of enormous dyans, the trunks on the periphery 
slanting somewhat outward. Reith had seen such a forest before; it was, so he 
suspected, a sacred grove of the Khors, a truculent folk living along the south 
shore of the First Sea.
The presence of the sacred grove, if such it was, gave Reith pause. An encounter 
with the Khors might immediately validate Zap 210's fears regarding the ghaun, 
and the unpleasant habits of those who lived there.
At the moment there were no Khors in sight. Proceeding along the verge of the 
swamp they came out on a knoll overlooking a hundred yards of mud flat, with the 
sluggish First Sea beyond. Far to right and left were crumbling gray headlands, 
almost lost in the afternoon murk. Somewhere to the southeast, perhaps not too 
far, must lie the Carabas, where men sought sequins and where the Dirdir came to 
hunt.
Reith looked up and down the coast, trying to locate himself by sheer instinct. 
Zap 210 stared glumly off to sea, wondering what the future held. A mile or so 
along the shore to the southeast Reith noticed the crazy stilts of a pier 
extending across the mud flats, out into the sea; at the end half a dozen boats 
were moored. A swelling of ground beyond the swamp concealed the village which 
must lie at the head of the pier.
The Khors, while not automatically hostile, lived by a complicated etiquette, 
transgressions of which were not tolerated. A stranger's ignorance received no 
sympathy; the rules were explicit. A visit with the Khors thus became a chancy 
occasion.
"I don't dare risk the Khors," said Reith. He turned to look back over the 
desolate hills. "Sivishe is a long way south. We'll have to make for Cape 
Braise. If we get there we can take passage by ship down the west coast, 
although at the moment I don't know what we'll use for money."
Zap 210 looked at him in slack-mouthed surprise. "You want me to come with you?"
So here was the explanation for her melancholy inspection of the landscape, 
thought Reith. He asked, "Did you have other plans?"
She pursed her lips sullenly. "I thought that you would want to go your way 
alone."
"And leave you by yourself? You might not fare too well."
She looked at him with sardonic speculation, wondering at the reason for his 
concern.
"There's a good deal of 'boisterous conduct' up here on the surface," said 
Reith. "I don't think you'd like it."
"Oh."
"We'll have to go warily. These cloaks-we'd better take them off."
Zap 210 looked at him aghast. "And go without clothing?"
"No, just without the cloaks. They attract attention and hostility. We don't 
want to be taken for Gzhindra."
"But that is what I must be!"
"At Sivishe you may decide otherwise. If we arrive, of course. We don't help 
ourselves going as Gzhindra." He pulled off his cloak. With her face angrily 
turned away she removed her cloak and stood in her gray undergown.
Reith rolled the cloaks into a bundle. "It may be cold at night; I'll take them 
with us."
He picked up the blue portfolio, which now represented excess baggage. He 
wavered a moment and at last slid the portfolio between the inner and outer 
layers of his jacket.
They set off to the northwest along the shore. Behind them the Khor grove became 
a dark blur; the far headland grew bulky and dark. Carina 4269 moved down the 
sky and the sunlight took on a late afternoon richness. To the north, however, a 
bank of purple-black clouds threatened one of the sudden Tschai thunderstorms. 
The clouds moved inexorably south, muffling, half-concealing spasms of electric 
light. The sea below shone with the sallow luster of graphite. Ahead, close 
underneath the headland, appeared another grove of dyan trees. A sacred grove? 
Reith searched the landscape but saw no Khor town.
The grove loomed above them, the exterior boles leaning outward, the fronds 
hanging down in a great parasol. The headland conceivably concealed a village, 
but at the moment they were the only animate creatures under the half-black, 
half-golden-brown sky.
Reith imparted none of his misgivings to Zap 210, who was sufficiently occupied 
with her own. Exposure to the sunlight had flushed her face. In the rather 
flimsy and clinging gray undergown, with the black hair beginning to curl down 
on her forehead and her ears, she seemed a somewhat different person than the 
pallid wretch Reith had met in the Pagaz refectory ... Was his imagination at 
fault? Or had her body become fuller and rounder? She noticed his gaze and gave 
him a glare of shame and defiance. "Why do you stare at me?"
"No particular reason. Except that you look rather different now than when I 
first saw you. Different and better."
"I don't know what you mean," she snapped. "You're talking foolishness."
"I suppose so ... One of these days-not just now-I'll explain how life is on the 
surface. Customs and habits are more complicated-more intimate, even more 
'boisterous'-than in the Shelters."
"Hmmf," sniffed Zap 210. "Why are you heading toward the forest? Isn't it 
another secret place?"
"I don't know." Reith pointed to the clouds. "See the black trails hanging 
below? That's rain. Under the trees we might stay dry. Then, night is coming 
soon, and the night-hounds. We have no weapons. If we climb a tree we'll be 
safe."
Zap 210 made no further comment; they approached the grove.
The dyans reared high overhead. At the first lines of boles they stopped to 
listen, but heard only a breath of wind from the oncoming storm.
Step by step they entered the grove. The sunlight shining past the clouds 
projected a hundred shafts and beams of dark golden light; Reith and Zap 210 
walked in and out of shadow. The nearest branches were a hundred feet above; the 
trees could not be climbed; the grove offered little more security from 
night-hounds than did the open downs ... Zap 210 stopped short and seemed to 
listen. Reith could hear nothing. "What do you hear?"
"Nothing." But she still listened, and peered in all directions. Reith became 
highly uneasy, wondering what Zap 210 sensed that he did not.
They proceeded, wary as cats, keeping to the shadows. A clearing free of boles 
opened before them, shrouded by a continuous roof of foliage. They looked forth 
into a circular area containing four huts, a low central platform. The 
surrounding boles had been carved to the semblance of men and women, a pair at 
each tree. The men were represented with long nutcracker chins, narrow 
foreheads, bulging cheeks and eyes; the females displayed long noses and lips 
parted in wide grins. Neither resembled the typical Khor man or woman, who, as 
Reith recollected, almost exactly resembled one another in stature, physiognomy 
and dress. The poses, conventionalized and rigid, depicted the act of 
copulation. Reith looked askance at Zap 210, who seemed blankly puzzled. Reith 
decided that she interpreted the not-too-explicit attitudes as representations 
of sheer sportiveness, or simple "boisterous conduct."
The clouds submerged the sun. Gloom came to the glade; drops of rain touched 
their faces. Reith scrutinized the huts. They were built in the usual Khor 
style, of dull brown brick with conical black iron roofs. There were four, 
facing each other at quadrants around the clearing. They appeared to be empty. 
Reith wondered what the huts contained. "Wait here," he whispered to Zap 210, 
and ran crouching to the nearest hut. He listened: no sound. He tried the door, 
which swung back easily. The interior exhaled a heavy odor, almost a stink, of 
poorly cured leather, resin, musk. On a rack hung several dozen masks of 
sculptured wood, identical to the male faces of the carved trees. Two benches 
occupied the center of the room; no weapons, no garments, no articles of value 
were to be seen. Reith returned to Zap 210 to find her inspecting the carved 
tree trunks, eyebrows lifted in distaste.
A purple dazzle struck the sky, followed immediately by a clap of thunder; down 
came rain in a torrent. Reith led the girl at a run to the hut. They entered and 
stood with rain drumming upon the iron roof. "The Khors are an unpredictable 
people," said Reith, "but I can't imagine them visiting their grove on a night 
like this."
"Why would they come at any time?" demanded Zap 210 peevishly. "There is nothing 
here but those grotesque dancers. Do the Khor look like that?"
Reith understood that she referred to the figures carved upon the tree trunks. 
"Not at all," he said. "They are a yellow-skinned folk, very neat and precise. 
The men and women are exactly alike in appearance, and disposition as well." He 
tried to recall what Anacho had told him: "A strange secret folk with secret 
ways, different by day and by night, or at least this is the report. Each 
individual owns two souls which come and go with dawn and sunset; the body 
comprises two different persons." Later, Anacho had warned: "The Khor are 
sensitive as spice-snakes! Do not speak to them; pay them no heed except from 
necessity, in which case you must use the fewest possible words. They consider 
garrulity a crime against nature ... Never acknowledge the presence of a woman, 
do not look toward their children: they will suspect you of laying a curse. 
Above all ignore the sacred grove! Their weapon is the iron dart which they 
throw with accuracy. They are a dangerous people."
Reith paraphrased the remarks to the best of his recollection; Zap 210 went to 
sit on one of the benches.
"Lie down," said Reith. "Try to sleep."
"In the noise of the storm, and this vile smell to all sides? Are all the houses 
of the ghaun so?"
"Not all of them," muttered Reith. He went to look out the door. The alternation 
of lightning glare and dying twilight upon the tree-statues presented the 
illusion of a frantic erotic jerking. Zap 210 might soon begin to ask questions 
to which Reith did not care to respond ... Upon the roof came a sudden clatter 
of hail; abruptly the storm passed over, and nothing could be heard but wind 
sighing in the dyan trees.
Reith returned into the room. He spoke in a voice which rang false even to his 
own ears: "Now you can rest; at least the sound is gone."
She made a soft sound which Reith could not interpret, and went herself to stand 
in the doorway. She looked back at Reith. "Someone is coming."
Reith hurried to the doorway and looked forth. Across the clearing stood a 
figure in Khor garments: male or female Reith could not determine. It went into 
the hut directly opposite their own. Reith said to Zap 210: "We'd better leave 
while we have a chance."
She held him back. "No, no! There's another one."
The second Khor, entering the clearing, looked up at the sky. The first came 
from the hut with a flaring cresset on a pole, and the second ran quickly to the 
hut in which Reith and Zap 210 were concealed. The first took no notice. As the 
Khor entered Reith struck hard, ignoring all precepts of gallantry; in this case 
male and female were all the same. The Khor fell and lay limp. Reith jumped 
forward; the Khor was male. Reith stripped off his cape, tied his hands and feet 
with sandal thongs and gagged him with the sleeve of his black coat. With Zap 
210's help he dragged the man behind the rack of masks. Here Reith made a quick 
search of the limp body, finding a pair of iron darts, a dagger and a soft 
leather pouch containing sequins, which Reith somewhat guiltily appropriated.
Zap 210 stood by the door gazing out in fascination. The first to come had been 
a woman. Wearing a woman-mask and a white frock, she stood by the cresset which 
she had thrust into a socket near the central platform. If she were perplexed by 
the disappearance of the man who had entered the hut she gave no sign.
Reith looked forth. "Now: while there's only one woman-"
"No! More come."
Three persons slipped separately into the clearing, going to the other three 
huts. One, in a woman-mask and white gown, emerged with another cresset which 
she placed in a socket and stood quietly like the first. The other two now came 
forth, wearing man-masks and white gowns like those of the women. They went to 
the central platform and stood near the women, who made no movement.
Reith began to understand something of the purpose of the sacred grove. Zap 210 
stared forth in fascination.
Reith became highly uneasy. If events proceeded as he suspected, she would be 
shocked and horrified.
Three more persons appeared. One came to the but where Reith and Zap 210 waited; 
Reith tried to deal with him as he had the other; but this time the blow was 
glancing and the man fell with a startled grunt. Reith was instantly upon him 
and shut off his breath until he fainted. Using sandal thongs and cape as before 
he tied and gagged the Khor and again robbed the man of his pouch. "I regret 
becoming a thief," said Reith, "but my need is far greater than yours."
Zap 210, standing by the door, gave a startled gasp. Reith went to look. The 
women-now there were three-had disrobed to stand nude. They began to sing, a 
wordless chant, sweet, soft, insistent. The three in the man-masks began a slow 
gyration around the platform.
Zap 210 muttered under her breath: "What are they doing? Why do they reveal 
their bodies? Never have I seen such a thing!"
"It is only religion," said Reith nervously. "Don't watch. Go lie down. You must 
be very tired."
She gave him a lambent look of wonder and distrust. "You don't answer my 
question. I am very embarrassed. I have never seen a naked person. Are all the 
folk of the ghaun so-so boisterous? It is shocking. And the singing: most 
disturbing. What are they planning to do?"
Reith tried to stand in front of her. "Hadn't you better sleep? The rites will 
only bore you."
"They don't bore me! I am astounded that people can be so bold! And look! The 
men!"
Reith took a deep breath and came to a desperate decision. "Come back here." He 
gave her a female mask. "Put that on."
She jerked back aghast. "What for?"
Reith took a man-mask and fitted it over his face. "We're leaving.
"But-" She turned a fascinated look toward the platform.
Reith pulled her back around, fitted one of the Khor hats on her head, arranged 
the other on his own.
"They'll certainly see us," said Zap 210. "They'll chase us and kill us."
"Perhaps so," said Reith. "Nevertheless we'd better go." He looked around the 
clearing. "You go first. Walk behind the hut. I'll come after you."
Zap 210 departed the hut. The women at the platform chanted with the most 
compelling urgency; the men stood nude.
Reith joined Zap 210 behind the hut. Had they been noticed? The chanting 
continued, rising and falling. "Walk out into the grove. Don't look back."
"Ridiculous," muttered Zap 210. "Why shouldn't I look back?" She marched toward 
the forest, with Reith twenty feet behind her. From the but came a wild scream 
of fury. The chanting stopped short. There was stunned silence.
"Run," said Reith. Through the sacred grove they fled, throwing away the hats 
and masks. From behind came calls of passionate fury, but deterred perhaps by 
their nudity, the Khor offered no pursuit.*
Reith and Zap 210 came to the edge of the grove. They paused to catch their 
breath. Halfway up the sky the blue moon shone through a few ragged clouds; 
elsewhere the sky was clear.
Zap 210 looked up. "What are those little lights?"
"Those are stars," said Reith. "Far suns. Most control a family of planets. From 
a world called Earth, men came: your ancestors, mine, even the ancestors of the 
Khor. Earth is the world of men."
"How do you know all this?" demanded Zap 210.
"Sometime I'll tell you. Not tonight."
They set off across the downs, walking through the starry night, and something 
about the circumstances put Reith in a strange frame of mind. It was as if he 
were young and roaming a starlit meadow of Earth with a slim girl with whom he 
had become infatuated. So strong became the dream, or the hallucination, or 
whatever the nature of his mood, that he groped out for Zap 210's hand, where 
she trudged beside him. She turned him a wan uncomplaining glance, but made no 
protest: here was another incomprehensible aspect of the astounding ghaun.
So they went on for a period. Reith gradually recovered his senses. He walked 
the surface of Tschai; his companion- He left the thought incomplete, for a 
variety of reasons. As if she had sensed the alteration of his mood Zap 210 
angrily snatched away her hand; perhaps for a space of time she had been 
dreaming as well.
They marched on in silence. At last, with the blue moon hanging directly above, 
they reached the sandstone promontory, and found a protected niche at the base. 
Wrapping themselves in their cloaks, they huddled upon a drift of sand ... Reith 
could not sleep. He lay looking up at the sky and listening to the sound of the 
girl's breathing. Like himself, she lay awake. Why had he felt so urgently 
compelled to flee the Khor grove at the risk of pursuit and death? To protect 
the girl's innocence? Ridiculous. He looked to find her face, a pale blotch in 
the moonlight, turned in his direction.
"I can't sleep," she said in a soft voice. "I am too tired. The surface 
frightens me."
"Sometimes it frightens me," said Reith. "Still, would you rather be back in the 
Shelters?"
As always she made a tangential response. "I can't understand what I see; I 
can't understand myself ... Never have I heard such singing."
"They sang songs which never change," said Reith. "Songs perhaps from old 
Earth."
"They showed themselves without clothes! Is this how the surface people act?"
"Not all of them," said Reith.
"But why do they act that way?"
Sooner or later, thought Reith, she must learn the processes of human biology. 
Not tonight, not tonight! "Nakedness doesn't mean much," he mumbled. "Everyone 
has a body much like everyone else's."
"But why should they wish to show themselves? In the Shelters we remain covered, 
and try to avoid 'boisterous conduct.' "
"Just what is this 'boisterous conduct'?"
"Vulgar intimacy. People touch other people and play with them. It's all quite 
ridiculous."
Reith chose his words with care. "This is probably normal human conduct-like 
becoming hungry, or something of the sort. You've never been 'boisterous'?"
"Of course not!"
"You've never even thought about it?"
"One can't help thinking."
"Hasn't there ever been a young man with whom you've especially wanted to be 
friendly?"
"Never!" Zap 210 was scandalized.
"Well, you're on the surface and things may be different .... Now you'd better 
go to sleep. Tomorrow there may be a townful of Khors chasing us."
Reith finally slept. He awoke once to find the blue moon gone, the sky dark 
except for constellations. From far across the downs came the sad hooting of a 
night-hound. When he settled back into his cloak Zap 210 said in a drowsy 
whisper: "The sky frightens me.
Reith moved close beside her; involuntarily, or so it seemed, he reached out and 
stroked her head, where the hair was now soft and thick. She sighed and relaxed, 
arousing in Reith an embarrassed protectiveness.
The night passed. A russet glow appeared in the east, waxing to become a lilac 
and honey-colored dawn. While Zap 210 sat huddled in her cloak, Reith 
investigated the pouches he had taken from the Khors. He was pleased to find 
sequins to the value of ninety-five: more than he had expected. He discarded the 
darts, needle-sharp iron bolts eight inches long with a leather tail; the dagger 
he tucked into his belt.
They set out up the slopes of the promontory, and presently gained the ridge. 
Carina 4269, rising at their backs, shone along the shore, revealing another 
sweep of low beach and mud flats, with far off another promontory like the one 
on which they stood. The Khor town occupied a hillside slope a mile to the left. 
Almost at their feet a pier zigzagged across the mud flats and out into the sea: 
a precarious construction of poles, rope and planks, vibrating to the current 
which swirled around the base of the promontory. Half a dozen boats were moored 
to the spindly piles: double-ended craft, high at bow and stern like swaybacked 
dories fitted with masts. Reith looked toward the town. A few plumes of smoke 
rose from the black iron roofs; otherwise no activity was perceptible. Reith 
turned back to his inspection of the boats.
"It's easier to sail than to walk," Reith told Zap 210. "And there seems to be a 
fair wind up the coast."
Zap 210 spoke in consternation: "Out across so much emptiness?"
"The emptier the better," said Reith. "The sea gives me no worry; it's the folk 
who sail there ... The same is just as true of the land, of course." He set off 
down the slope; Zap 210 scrambled after him. They reached the end of the pier 
and started along the rickety walkway. From somewhere nearby came a shriek of 
anger. They saw a half-grown boy racing toward the village.
Reith broke into a run. "Come along, hurry! We won't have much time."
Zap 210 came panting behind him. The two reached the end of the pier. "We won't 
be able to escape! They'll follow us in the boats."
"No," said Reith. "I think not." He looked from boat to boat, and chose that 
which seemed the most staunch. In front of the village excited black shapes had 
gathered; a dozen started at a run for the pier, followed by as many more.
"Jump down into the boat," said Reith. "Hoist the sail!"
"It is too late," cried Zap 210. "We will never escape."
"It's not too late. Hoist the sail!"
"I don't know how."
"Pull the rope that goes up over the mast."
Zap 210 clambered down into the boat and tried to follow Reith's instruction. 
Reith meanwhile ran along the pier cutting loose the other boats. Riding the 
current, pushed by the offshore breeze, they drifted away from the dock.
Reith returned to where Zap 210 fumbled desperately with the halyard. She 
strained with all her might and succeeded in fouling the long yard under the 
forestay. Reith took a last look toward the screaming villagers, then jumped 
down into the boat and cast off.
No time to sort out halyards or clear the yard; Reith took up the sweeps, fitted 
them between the thole pins and put way on the boat. Along the trembling pier 
surged the screaming Khors. Halting, they whirled their darts; up and out flew a 
volley of iron, to strike into the water an uncomfortable ten or twenty feet 
short of the boat. With renewed energy Reith worked the sweeps, then went to 
hoist the sail. The yard swung free, creaked aloft; the gray sail billowed; the 
boat heeled and churned through the water. The Khors stood silent on the pier, 
watching after their departing boats.
Reith sailed directly out to sea. Zap 210 sat huddled in the center of the boat. 
Finally she made a dispirited protest. "Is it wise to go so far from the land?"
"Very wise. Otherwise the Khors might follow along the shore and kill us when we 
put into land."
"I have never known such openness. It is exposed-frightfully so."
"On the other hand, our condition is better than it was yesterday at this time. 
Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"See what's in that caddy yonder. We may be in luck."
Zap 210 climbed forward to the locker in the bow, where among scraps of rope and 
gear, spare sails, a lantern, she found a jug of water and a sack of dry 
pilgrim-pod cakes.
With the shore at last a blur, Reith swung the boat into the northwest, trimming 
the ungainly sail to the wind.
All day the fair wind blew. Reith held a course ten miles offshore, well beyond 
the scope of Khor vision. Headlands appeared in the murk of distance, loomed off 
the beam, slowly dwindled and disappeared.
As the afternoon waned the wind increased, sending whitecaps chasing over the 
dark sea. The rigging creaked, the sails bulged, the boat threw up a bow-wave, 
the wake gurgled, and Reith rejoiced at every mile so swiftly put astern.
Carina 4269 sank behind the mainland hills; the wind died and the boat lost way. 
Darkness came; Zap 210 crouched fearfully on the center seat, oppressed by the 
expanse of the sky. Reith lost patience with her fears. He lowered the yard 
halfway down the mast, lashed the rudder, made himself as comfortable as 
possible and slept.
A cool early morning breeze awoke him. Stumbling about in the pre-dawn gloom he 
managed to hoist the yard; then went aft to the tiller, where he steered 
half-dozing until the sun arose.
About noon a finger of land thrust forth into the sea; Reith landed the boat on 
a dismal gray beach and went out foraging. He found a brackish stream, a thicket 
of dark red dragon berries, a supply of the ubiquitous pilgrim-pod. In the 
stream he noticed a number of crustacean-like creatures, but could not bring 
himself to catch them.
During the middle afternoon they once again put out to sea, Reith using the 
sweeps to pull the boat away from the beach. They rounded the headland to find a 
changed landscape shoreward. The gray beaches and mud flats had become a narrow 
fringe of shingle; beyond were barren red cliffs, and Reith, wary of the lee 
shore, put well out to sea.
An hour before sunset a long low vessel appeared over the northeast horizon, 
faring on a course parallel to their own. With the sun low in the northwest 
Reith hoped to evade the attention of those aboard the ship, which held a 
sinister resemblance to the pirate galleys of the Draschade. Hoping to draw 
away, he altered course to the south. The ship likewise altered course, 
coincidentally or not Reith could not be sure. He swung the boat directly toward 
the shore, now about ten miles distant; the ship again seemed to alter course. 
With a sinking heart Reith saw that they must surely be overtaken. Zap 210 
watched with sagging shoulders; Reith wondered what he should do if the galley 
in fact overtook them. She had no knowledge of what to expect: now was hardly 
the time to explain to her. Reith decided that he would kill her in the event 
that capture became certain. Then he changed his mind: they would plunge over 
the side of the boat and drown together ... Equally impractical; while there was 
life there was hope.
The sun settled upon the horizon; the wind, as on the previous evening, 
lessened. Sunset brought a dead calm with the boats rolling helplessly on the 
waves.
Reith shipped the sweeps. As twilight settled over the ocean he pulled away from 
the becalmed pirate ship toward shore. He rowed on through the night. The pink 
moon rose and then the blue moon, to project tremulous trails across the water.
Ahead, one of the trails ended at a mass of dead black: the shore. Reith stopped 
his rowing. Far to the west he saw a flickering light; to sea all was dark. He 
threw out the anchor and lowered the sail. The two made a meal on berries and 
pilgrim-pod, then lay down to sleep on the sails in the bottom of the boat.
With morning came a breeze from the east. The boat lay at anchor a hundred yards 
offshore, in water barely three feet deep. The pirate galley, if such it was, 
could no longer be seen. Reith pulled up the anchor and hoisted the sail; the 
boat moved jauntily off through the water.
Made cautious by the events of the previous afternoon, Reith sailed only a 
quarter of a mile offshore, until the wind died, halfway through the afternoon. 
In the north a bank of clouds gave portent of a storm; taking up the sweeps, 
Reith worked the boat into a lagoon at the mouth of a sluggish river. To the 
side of the lagoon floated a raft of dried reeds, upon which two boys sat 
fishing. After an initial stir they watched the approach of the boat in 
attitudes of indifference.
Reith paused in his rowing to consider the situation. The unconcern of the boys 
seemed unnatural. On Tschai unusual events almost always presaged danger. Reith 
cautiously rowed the boat to within conversational distance. A hundred feet 
distant on the bank sat three men, also fishing. They seemed to be Grays: a 
people short and stocky, with strongly-featured faces, sparse brownish hair and 
grayish skin. At least, thought Reith, they were not Khors, and not 
automatically hostile.
Reith let the boat drift forward. He called out: "Is there a town nearby?"
One of the boys pointed across the reeds to a grove of purple ouinga trees. 
"Yonder."
"What town is it?"
"Zsafathra."
"Is there an inn or a tavern where we can find accommodation?"
"Speak to the men ashore."
Reith urged the boat toward the bank. One of the men called out in irritation: 
"Easy with the tumult! You'll drive off every gobbulch in the lagoon."
"Sorry," said Reith. "Can we find accommodation in your town?"
The men regarded him with impersonal curiosity. "What do you here, along this 
coast?"
"We are travelers, from the south of Kislovan, now returning home."
"You have traveled a remarkable distance in so small a craft," remarked one of 
the men in a mildly skeptical voice.
"One which strongly resembles the craft of the Khors," noted another
"For a fact," Reith agreed, "it does look like a Khor boat. But all this aside, 
what of lodging?"
"Anything is available to folk with sequins."
"We can pay reasonable charges."
The oldest of the men on the bank rose to his feet. "If nothing else," he 
stated, "we are reasonable people." He signaled Reith to approach. As the boat 
nosed into the reeds he jumped aboard. "So, then: you claim to be Khors?"
"Quite the reverse. We claim not to be Khors."
"What of the boat, then?"
Reith made an ambiguous gesture. "It is not as good as some, but better than 
others; it has brought us this far."
A wintry grin crossed the man's face. "Proceed through the channel yonder. Bear 
to the right."
For half an hour Reith rowed this way and that through a maze of channels with 
the ouinga trees always behind islands of black reeds. Reich presently 
understood that the Zsafathran either was having a joke or sought to confuse 
him. He said, "I am tired; you row the rest of the way."
"No, no," declared the old man. "We are now there, just left through yonder 
channel, and toward the ouingas."
"Odd," said Reith. "We have gone back and forth past that channel a dozen 
times."
"One channel looks much like another. And here we are."
The boat floated into a placid pond, surrounded by reed-thatched cottages on 
stilts under the ouinga trees. At the far end of the pond stood a larger, more 
elaborate structure. The poles were purple ouinga wood; the thatch was woven in 
a complicated pattern of black, brown and gray.
"Our community free-house," explained the Zsafathran. "We are not so isolated as 
you might think. Thangs come by with their troupes and carts, or Bihasu 
peddlers, or wandering dignitaries like yourselves. All these we entertain at 
our free-house."
"Thangs? We must be close upon Cape Braise!"
"Is three hundred miles close? The Thangs are as pervasive as sandflies; they 
appear everywhere, more often than not when they are not wanted. Not too far is 
the great Thang town of Urmank ... You and your woman both are of a race strange 
to me. If the concept were not inherently ludicrous-but no, to postulate 
nonsense is to lose my dignity; I will hazard nothing."
"We are from a remote place," said Reith. "You have never heard of it."
The old man made a sign of indifference. "Whatever you like; provided that you 
observe the ceremonies, and pay your score."
"Two questions," said Reith. "What are the 'ceremonies,' and how much must we 
expect to pay as a daily charge?"
"The ceremonies are simple," said the Zsafathran. "An exchange of pleasantries, 
so to speak. The charges will be perhaps four or five sequins a day. Go ashore 
at the dock, if you will; then we must take your boat away, to discourage 
speculation should a Thang or a Bihasu pass by."
Reith decided to make no objection. He worked the boat to the dock, a 
construction of withe and reeds lashed to piles of ouingawood. The Zsafathran 
jumped from the boat, and gallantly helped Zap 210 to the dock, inspecting her 
closely as he did so.
Reith jumped ashore with a mooring line, which the Zsafathran took and passed on 
to a lad with a set of muttered instructions. He led Reith and Zap 210 through 
the white pavilion and into the great freehouse. "So here you are, take your 
ease. The cubicle yonder is at your service. Food and wine will be served in due 
course."
"We want to bathe," said Reith, "and we would appreciate a change of clothes if 
any such are available."
"The bathhouse is yonder. Fresh garments after the Zsafathran style can be 
furnished at a price."
"And the price?"
"Ordinary suits of gray furze for withe-cutting or tillage are ten sequins each. 
Since your present garments are little better than rags, I recommend the 
expense."
"Under-linen is included in this price?"
"Upon a surcharge of two sequins apiece under-linen is furnished, and should you 
wish new sandals, each must pay five sequins additionally."
"Very well," said Reith. "Bring everything. We'll go first class while the 
sequins last."



CHAPTER SIX
WEARING THE SIMPLE gray smock and trousers of the Zsafathrans, Zap 210 looked 
somewhat less peculiar and conspicuous. Her black hair had begun to curl; 
exposure to wind and sun had darkened her skin; only her perfectly regular 
features and her brooding absorption with secret ideas now set her apart. Reith 
doubted, however, if a stranger would notice in her conduct anything more 
unusual than shyness.
But Cauch, the old Zsafathran, noticed. Taking Reith aside, he muttered in a 
confidential voice, "Your woman: perhaps she is ill? If you require herbs, 
sweat-baths or homeopathy, these are available, at no great cost."
"Everything at Zsafathra is a bargain," said Reith. "Before we leave we might 
owe more sequins than we carry. In this case, what would be your attitude?"
"Sorrowful resignation, nothing more. We know ourselves for a destiny-blasted 
race, doomed to a succession of disappointments. But I trust this is not to be 
the case?"
"Not unless we enjoy your hospitality longer than I presently plan."
"No doubt you will carefully gauge your resources. But again, what of the 
woman's condition?" He subjected Zap 210 to a critical scrutiny. "I have had 
some experience in these matters; I deem her peaked and listless, and somewhat 
morose. Beyond this, I am puzzled."
"She is an unfathomable person," Reith agreed.
"The description, if I may say so, applies to you both," said Cauch. He turned 
his owlish gaze upon Reith. "Well, the woman's morbidity is your affair, of 
course ... A collation has been served on the pavilion, which you are invited to 
join."
"At a small charge, presumably?"
"How can it be otherwise? In this exacting world only the air we breathe is 
free. Are you the sort to go hungry because you begrudge the outlay of a few 
bice? I think not. Come." And Cauch, urging them out upon the pavilion, seated 
them in withe chairs before a wicker table, then went off to instruct the girls 
who served from the buffet.
Cool tea, spice-cakes, stalks of a crisp red water-vegetable were set before 
them as a first course. The food was palatable, the chairs were comfortable; 
after the vicissitudes of the previous weeks the situation seemed unreal, and 
Reith was unable to subdue a nervous mannerism of looking warily this way and 
that. Gradually he relaxed. The pavilion seemed an idyll of peace. Gauzy fronds 
of the purple ouinga trailed low, exhaling an aromatic scent. Carina 4269 
sprinkled dancing spots of dark gold light across the water. From somewhere 
beyond the free-house came the music of water-gongs. Zap 210 gazed across the 
pond in a reverie, nibbling at the food as if it lacked flavor. Becoming aware 
of Reith's attention she straightened primly in the chair.
"Shall I serve more of this tea?" asked Reith.
"If you like."
Reith poured from the bubble-glass jug. "You don't seem particularly hungry," he 
observed.
"I suppose not. I wonder if they have any diko."
"I'm sure that they have no diko," said Reith.
Zap 210 gave her fingers a petulant twitch.
Reith asked, "Do you like this place?"
"It is better than the vastness of the sea."
For a period Reith sipped his tea in silence. The table was cleared; new dishes 
were set before them: croquettes in sweet jelly; toasted sticks of white pith; 
nubbins of gray sea-flesh. As before Zap 210 showed no great appetite. Reith 
said politely, "You've seen something of the surface now. Is it different from 
your expectations?"
Zap 210 reflected. "I never thought to see so many motherwomen," she murmured, 
as if talking to herself.
"'Mother-women' ? Do you mean women with children?"
She flushed. "I mean the women with prominent breasts and hips. There are so 
many! Some of them seem very young: no more than girls."
"It's quite normal," said Reith. "As girls grow out of childhood, they develop 
breasts and hips."
"I am not a child," Zap 210 declared in an unusually haughty voice. "And I ..." 
Her voice dwindled away.
Reith poured another mug of tea and settled back into his chair. "It's time," he 
said, "that I explained certain matters to you. I suppose I should have done so 
before. All women are mother-women."
Zap 210 stared at him incredulously. "This isn't the case at all!"
"Yes, it is," said Reith. "The Pnume fed you drugs to keep you immature: the 
diko, or so I imagine. You aren't drugged now and you're becoming normal-more or 
less. Haven't you noticed changes in yourself?"
Zap 210 sank back in her chair, dumbfounded by his knowledge of her embarrassing 
secret. "Such things are not to be talked about."
"So long as you know what's happening."
Zap 210 sat looking out over the water. In a diffident voice she asked, "You 
have noticed changes in me?"
"Well, yes. First of all, you no longer look like the ghost of a sick boy."
Zap 210 whispered, "I don't want to be a fat animal, wallowing in the dark. Must 
I be a mother?"
"All mothers are women," Reith explained, "but not all women are mothers. Not 
all mothers become fat animals."
"Strange, strange! Why are some women mothers and not others? Is it evil 
destiny?"
"Men are involved in the process," said Reith. "Look yonder, on the deck of that 
cottage: two children, a woman, a man. The woman is a mother. She is young and 
looks healthy. The man is the father. Without fathers, there are no children."
Before Reith could proceed with his explanation, old Cauch returned to the table 
and seated himself.
"All is satisfactory?"
"Very much so," said Reith. "We will regret leaving your village."
Cauch nodded complacently. "In a few poor ways we are a fortunate folk, neither 
rigorous like the Khors, nor obsessively flexible like the Thangs to the west. 
What of yourselves? I admit to curiosity regarding your provenance and your 
destination, for I regard you as unusual folk."
Reith ruminated a moment or two, then said: "I don't mind satisfying your 
curiosity if you are willing to pay my not, unreasonable fee. In fact I can 
offer you various grades of enlightenment. For a hundred sequins I guarantee 
amazement and awe."
Cauch drew back, hands raised in protest. "Tell me nothing upon which you place 
a value! But any oddments of small talk you can spare at no charge will find in 
me an attentive listener."
Reith laughed. "Triviality is a luxury I can't afford. Tomorrow we depart 
Zsafathra. Our few sequins must take us to Sivishe-in what fashion I don't 
know."
"As to this I can't advise you," said Cauch, "not even for a fee. My experience 
extends only so far as Urmank. Here you must go carefully. The Thangs will take 
all your sequins without a qualm. Useless to feel anger or injury! This is the 
Thang temperament. Rather than work they prefer to connive; Zsafathrans are very 
much on their guard when they visit Urmank, as you will see should you choose to 
go in our company to the Urmank bazaar."
"Hmm." Reith rubbed his chin. "What of our boat, in this case?"
Cauch shrugged, somewhat too casually or so it seemed to Reith. "What is a boat? 
A floating shell of wood."
"We had planned to sell this valuable boat at Urmank," said Reith. "Still, to 
save myself the effort of navigation, I will let it go here for less than its 
full value."
With a quiet laugh Cauch shook his head. "I have no need for so clumsy and 
awkward a craft. The rigging is frayed, the sails are by no means the best; 
there is only a poor assortment of gear and rope in the forward caddy."
After an hour and a half of proposals and counter-proposals Reith disposed of 
the boat for forty-two sequins, together with all costs of accommodation at 
Zsafathra, and transportation to Urmank on the morrow. As they bargained they 
consumed quantities of the pepper tea, a mild intoxicant. Reith's mood became 
loose and easy. The present seemed none too bad. The future? It would be met on 
its own terms. At the moment the failing afternoon light seeped through the 
enormous ouinga trees, pervading the air with dusty violet, and the pond 
mirrored the sky.
Cauch went off about his affairs; Reith leaned back in his chair. He considered 
Zap 210, who also had drunk a considerable quantity of the pepper tea. Some 
alteration of his mood caused him to see her not as a Pnumekin and a freak but 
as a personable young woman sitting quietly in the dusk. Her attention was fixed 
on something across the pavilion; what she saw astonished her and she turned to 
Reith in wonder. Reith noticed how large and dark were her eyes. She spoke in a 
shocked whisper. "Did you see ... that?.
"What?"
"A young man and a young woman-they stood close and put their faces together!"
"Really!"
"Yes!"
"I can't believe it. Just what did they do?"
"Well-I can't quite describe it."
"Was it like this?" Reith put his hands on her shoulders, looked deep into the 
startled eyes.
"No ... not quite. They were closer."
"Like this?"
Reith put his arms around her. He remembered the cold water of the Pagaz lake, 
the desperate animal vitality of her body as she had clung to him. "Was it like 
this?"
She pushed back at his shoulders. "Yes ... Let me go; someone might think us 
boisterous."
"Did they do this?" Reith kissed her. She looked at him in astonishment and 
alarm, and put her hand to her mouth. "No ... Why did you do that?"
"Did you mind?"
"Well, no. I don't think so. But please don't do it again; it makes me feel very 
strangely."
"That," said Reith, "is the effects of the diko wearing off." He drew back and 
sat with his head spinning. She looked at him uncertainly. "I can't understand 
why you did that."
Reith took a deep breath. "It's natural for men and women to be attracted to 
each other. This is called the reproductive instinct, and sometimes it results 
in children."
Zap 210 became alarmed. "Will I now be a mother-woman?"
"No," said Reith. "We'd have to become far friendlier."
"You're sure?"
Reith thought that she leaned toward him. "I'm sure." He kissed her again, and 
this time, after a first nervous motion, she made no resistance ... then she 
gasped. "Don't move. They won't notice us if we sit like this; they'll be 
ashamed to look."
Reith froze, his face close to hers. "Who won't notice us?" he muttered.
"Look-now."
Reith glanced over his shoulder. Across the pavilion stood two dark shapes 
wearing black cloaks and wide-brimmed black hats.
"Gzhindra," she whispered.
Cauch came into the pavilion, and went to talk with the Gzhindra. After a moment 
he led them out into the road.
Dusk became night. Across the pavilion the serving girls hung up lamps with 
yellow and green shades, and brought new trays and tureens to the buffet table. 
Reith and Zap 210 sat somberly back in the shadows.
Cauch, returning to the pavilion, joined them. "Tomorrow at dawn we will depart 
for Urmank, and no doubt arrive by noon. You know the reputation of the Thangs?"
"To some extent."
"The reputation is deserved," said Cauch. "They cheat in preference to keeping 
faith; their favorite money is stolen money. So be on your guard."
Reith asked casually, "Who were the two men in black with whom you spoke half an 
hour ago?"
Cauch nodded as if he had been awaiting the question. "Those were Gzhindra, or 
Ground-men as we call them, who sometimes act as agents for the Pnume. Their 
business tonight was different. They have taken a commission from the Khors to 
locate a man and a woman who desecrated a sacred place and stole a boat near the 
town of Fauzh. The description, by a peculiar coincidence, matched your own, 
though certain discrepancies enabled me to state with accuracy that no such 
persons had been seen at Zsafathra. Still, they may discuss the matter with 
people who do not know you as well as I; to avoid any possible confusion of 
identities, I suggest that you alter your appearance as dramatically as 
possible."
"That is easier said than done," said Reith.
"Not altogether." Cauch put his fingers into his mouth, producing a shrill 
whistle. Without surprise or haste one of the serving girls approached: a 
pleasant creature, broad in hips, shoulders, cheekbones and mouth, with 
nondescript brown hair worn in a wildly coquettish array of ringlets. "Well, 
then, you desire something?"
"Bring a pair of turbans," said Cauch. "The orange and white, with black 
bangles."
The girl procured the articles. Going to Zap 210, she wound the orange and white 
cloth around the black cap of hair, tied it so that the tasseled ends hung 
behind the left ear, then affixed black bangles to swing somewhat in front of 
the right ear. Reith marveled at the transformation. Zap 210 now seemed daring 
and mischievous, a gay young girl costumed as a pirate.
Reith was next fitted with the turban; Zap 210 seemed to find the transformation 
amusing; she opened her mouth and laughed: the first occasion Reith had heard 
her do so.
Cauch appraised them both. "A remarkable difference. You have become a pair of 
Hedaijhans. Tomorrow I will provide you with shawls. Your very mothers would not 
know you."
"What do you charge for this service?" demanded Reith. "A reasonable sum, I 
hope?"
"A total of eight sequins, to include the articles themselves, fitting, and 
training in the postures of the Hedaijhans. Essentially, you must walk with a 
swagger, swinging your arms-so." Cauch demonstrated a mincing lurching gait. 
"With your hands-so. Now, lady, you first. Remember, your knees must be bent. 
Swing, swagger..."
Zap 210 followed the instructions with great earnestness, looking toward Reith 
to see if he laughed.
The practice went on into the night, while the pink moon sailed behind the 
ouinga trees, and the blue moon rose in the east. Finally Cauch pronounced 
himself satisfied. "You would deceive almost anyone. So then, to the couch. 
Tomorrow we journey to Urmank."
The sleeping cubicle was dim, cracks in the rattan wall admitting slits of green 
and yellow light from the pavilion lamps, as many more from the pink and blue 
moons shining from different directions to make a multicolored mesh on the 
floor.
Zap 210 went to the wall and peered through the cracks out toward the avenue 
which ran under the ouingas. She looked for several minutes. Reith came to join 
her. "What do you see?"
"Nothing. They would not let themselves be seen so easily." She turned away and 
with an inscrutable glance toward Reith went to sit on one of the wicker 
couches. Presently she said, "You are a very strange man."
Reith had no reply to make.
"There is so much you don't tell me. Sometimes I feel as if I know nothing 
whatever."
"What do you want to know?"
"How people of the surface act, how they feel ... why they do the things they 
do..."
Reith went to where she sat and stood looking down at her. "Do you want to learn 
all these things tonight?"
She sat looking down at her hands. "No. I'm afraid ... Not now."
Reith reached out and touched her head. He was suddenly wildly tempted to sit 
down beside her and tell her the tale of his remarkable past ... He wanted to 
feel her eyes on him; to see her pale face attentive and marveling ... In fact, 
thought Reith, he had begun to find this strange girl with her secret thoughts 
stimulating.
He turned away. As he crossed to his own couch he felt her eyes on his back.



CHAPTER SEVEN
THE MORNING SUNLIGHT entered the cubicle, strained by the withes of the wall. 
Going out upon the pavilion, Reith and Zap 210 found Cauch making a breakfast of 
pilgrim-pod cakes and a hot broth redolent of the shore. He inspected Reith and 
Zap 210 narrowly, paying particular attention to the turbans and their gait. 
"Not too bad. But you tend to forget. More swagger, lady, more shrug to your 
shoulders. Remember when you leave the pavilion you are Hedaijhans, in case 
suspicions have been aroused, in case someone waits and watches."
After breakfast, the three went out upon the avenue which led northward under 
the ouinga trees, Reith and Zap 210 as thoroughly Hedaijhan as turban, shawl and 
mincing gait could make them, to a pair of carts drawn by a type of animal Reith 
had not previously seen: a gray-skinned beast which pranced elegantly and 
precisely on eight long legs.
Cauch climbed aboard the first cart; Reith and Zap 210 joined him. The carts 
departed Zsafathra.
The road led out upon a damp land of reeds, water-plants, isolated black stumps 
trailing lime-green tendrils. Cauch gave a great deal of his attention to the 
sky, as did the Zsafathrans in the cart behind. Reith finally asked: "What are 
you watching for?"
"Occasionally," said Cauch, "we are molested by a tribe of predatory birds from 
the hills yonder. In fact, there you see one of their sentinels." He pointed to 
a black speck flapping across the southern sky; it appeared the size of a large 
buzzard. Cauch went on in a voice of resignation. "Presently they will fly out 
to attack us.
"You show no great alarm," said Reith.
"We have learned how to deal with them." Cauch turned and gestured to the cart 
behind, then accelerated the pace of his own cart, to open up a gap of a hundred 
yards between the two. Out of the southern skies came a flock of fifty or sixty 
flapping birdcreatures. As they drew near Reith saw that each carried two chunks 
of stone half the size of his head. He looked uneasily toward Cauch. "What do 
they do with the rocks?"
"They drop them, with remarkable accuracy. Assume that you stood in the road, 
and that thirty creatures flew above you at their customary height of five 
hundred feet. Thirty stones would strike you and crush you to the ground."
"Evidently you have learned how to frighten them off."
"No, nothing of the sort."
"You disturb their accuracy?"
"To the contrary. We are essentially a passive people and we try to deal with 
our enemies so that they disconcert or defeat themselves. Have you wondered why 
the Khors do not attack us?"
"The thought has occurred to me."
"When the Khors attack-and they have not done so for six hundred years-we evade 
them and by one means or another penetrate their sacred groves. Here we perform 
acts of defilement, of the most simple, natural and ordinary sort. They no 
longer can use the grove for procreation and must either migrate or perish. Our 
weapons, I agree, are indelicate, but typify our philosophy of warfare."
"And these birds?" Reith dubiously watched the approach of the flock. "Surely 
the same weapons are ineffectual?"
"I would presume so," Cauch agreed, "though for a fact we have never tested 
them. In this case we do nothing whatever."
The birds soared overhead; Cauch urged the dray-beast into a sinuous lope. One 
by one the birds dropped their stones, which fell to strike the road behind the 
cart.
"The birds, you must understand, can only compute the position of a stationary 
target; in this case their accuracy is their undoing.
The stones were all dropped; with croaks of frustration the birds flew back to 
the mountains. "They will more than likely return with another load of stones," 
said Cauch. "Do you notice how this road is elevated some four feet above the 
surrounding marsh? The toil has been accomplished by the birds over many 
centuries. They are dangerous only if you stand to watch."
The carts moved through a forest of wax-brown trees, seething with hordes of 
small white fuzz-balls, half-spider, halfmonkey, which bounded from branch to 
branch, venting raucous little screams and hurling twigs at the travelers. The 
road then led twenty miles across a plain littered with boulders of 
honey-colored tuff, toward a pair of tall volcanic necks, each growing into an 
ancient weathered castle, in ages past the headquarters of hermetic cults but 
now, according to Cauch, the abode of ghouls. "By day they are never seen, but 
by night they come down to prowl the outskirts of Urmank. Sometimes the Thangs 
catch them in traps for use at the carnival."
The road passed between the peaks and Urmank came into view: a disorderly 
straggle of high, narrow houses of black timber, brown tile and stone. A quay 
bordered the waterfront, where half a dozen ships floated placidly at moorages. 
Behind the quay was the marketplace and bazaar, to which a flutter of orange and 
green banners gave a festive air. A long wall of crumbling brick bounded the 
bazaar; a clutter of mud huts beyond seemed to indicate a caste of pariahs.
"Behold Urmank!" said Cauch. "The town of the Thangs. They are not fastidious as 
to who comes and who goes, provided only that they take away fewer sequins than 
they brought."
"In my case they will be disappointed," said Reith. "I hope to gain sequins, by 
one means or another."
Cauch gave him a marveling side-glance. "You intend to take sequins from the 
Thangs? If you control such a miraculous power please share it with me. The 
Thangs have cheated us so regularly that now they regard the process as their 
birthright. Oh, I tell you, in Urmank you must be wary!"
"If you are cheated, why do you deal with them?"
"It seems an absurdity," Cauch admitted. "After all, we could bring a ship and 
sail it to Hedaijha, the Green Erges, Coad-but we are a wry people; it amuses us 
to come to Urmank where the Thang provide entertainments. Look yonder; see the 
area wrapped around with brown and orange canvas? There is the site of the 
stilting. Beyond are the games of chance, where the visitor invariably loses 
more than he gains. Urmank is a challenge to Zsafathra; always we hope to outwit 
the Thangs."
"Our joint efforts may yield a profit," said Reith. "At least I can bring a 
fresh outlook to bear."
Cauch gave an indifferent shrug. "Zsafathrans have tried to outdo the Thangs 
from beyond the brink of memory. They deal with us by formula. First we are 
enticed by the prospect of quick gain; then after we have put down our sequins 
the prospects recede ... Well, first we will refresh ourselves. The Inn of the 
Lucky Mariner has proved satisfactory in the past. As my associate you are safe 
from thuggery, kidnap and slave-taking. However, you must guard your own money; 
the Thangs can be coerced only so far and no further."
The common room at the Inn of the Lucky Mariner was furnished in a style Reith 
had not seen previously on Tschai. Angular chairs of wooden posts and poles 
lined the walls, which were whitewashed brick. In alcoves glass pots displayed 
the movement of iridescent seaworms. The chief functionary wore a brown caftan 
buttoned down the front, a black skullcap, black slippers and black 
finger-guards. His face was bland, his manners suave; he proffered for Reith's 
inspection a pair of adjoining cubicles furnished with couch, nightstand and 
lamp, which, with fresh body linen and foot ointment, rented for the inclusive 
sum of three sequins. Reith thought the figure reasonable and said as much to 
Cauch.
"Yes," said Cauch. "Three sequins is no great amount, but I recommend that you 
make no use of the foot ointment. As a new amenity, it arouses suspicion. It may 
stain the woodwork, whereupon you will be levied an extra charge. Or it may 
contain a pulsing vescient, the balm for which sells at five sequins the dram."
Cauch spoke in full earshot of the functionary, who laughed quietly and without 
offense. "Old Zsafathran, you are overskeptical for once. Recently we were 
required to accept a large stock of tonics and ointments in lieu of payment, and 
we have merely put these substances at the disposal of our guests. Do you 
require a diuretic or a vermifuge? We supply these at only a nominal charge."
"At the moment, nothing," said Cauch.
"What of your Hedaijhan friends? Everyone is the better for an occasional purge, 
which we offer at ten bice. No? Well then, for your evening meal let me 
recommend The Choicest Offerings of Land and Sea a few steps to the right along 
the quay."
"I have dined there on a previous occasion," said Cauch. "The substances set 
before me would have quelled the appetite of a High-castle ghoul. We will buy 
bread and fruit in the market."
"In that case, be so good as to patronize the booth of my nephew, opposite the 
depilatorium!"
"We will inspect his produce." Cauch led the way out upon the quay. "The Lucky 
Mariner's comparatively scrupulous; still, as you see, one must be alert. On my 
last visit, a troupe of musicians played in the common room. I stopped for a 
moment to listen and on my reckoning discovered a charge of four sequins. As far 
as the offer of purgative at little or no charge"-here Cauch coughed-"this is 
all very well. On a previous visit to Urmank a similar offer was put to my 
grandfather, who accepted and thereafter discovered a lock on the door to the 
convenience, and consequent usage charge. The medication, in the long run, cost 
him dearly. It is wise in one's dealings with the Thangs to examine every aspect 
of a situation."
The three strolled along the quay, Reith examining the ships with interest. 
These were all fat-bellied little cogs, with high poops and foredecks, propelled 
by sails when the wind was fair and an electric jet-pump otherwise. In front of 
each a board announced the name of the ship, the port of destination and the 
date of sailing.
Cauch touched Reith's arm. "It might be imprudent to evince too great an 
interest in the ships."
"Why?"
"At Urmank it is always the part of wisdom to dissemble."
Reith looked back up the quay. "No one appears to be heeding us. If they are, 
they will take it for granted that I dissemble and actually plan a journey 
overland."
Cauch sighed. "At Urmank life has many surprises for the unwary."
Reith halted by a board. "The ship Nhiahar. Destination: Ching, the Murky Isles, 
the South Schanizade Coast, Kazain. A moment." Reith climbed a gangplank and 
approached a thin and somber man in a leather apron.
"Where is the captain, if you please?"
"I am he."
"In connection with a voyage to Kazain: what fare would you demand for two 
persons?"
"For the Class A cabin I require four sequins per person per diem, which 
includes nutrition. The passage to Kazain is generally thirty-two days; hence 
the total fee for two persons is, let us say, two hundred and sixty sequins."
Reith expressed surprise at the magnitude of the amount, but the captain 
maintained an indifferent attitude.
Reith returned to the dock. "I need something over two hundred and fifty 
sequins."
"Not an impossible sum," said Cauch. "A diligent laborer can earn four or even 
five sequins a day. Porters are always in demand along the docks."
"What of the gambling booths?"
"The district is yonder, beside the bazaar. Needless to say, you are unlikely to 
overcome the Thang gamesters on their own premises."
They walked into a plaza paved with squares of salmon-pink stone. "A thousand 
years ago the tyrant Przelius built a great rotunda here. Only a floor remains. 
There: food-stalls. There: garments and sandals. There: ointments and 
extracts..." As Cauch spoke he pointed toward various quarters of the plaza, 
where the booths offered a great variety of goods: foodstuffs, cloth, leather; 
an earth-colored melange of spices; tinware and copper; black iron slabs, pads, 
rods and bars; glassware and lamps; paper charms and fetishes. Beyond the floor 
of the rotunda and the more or less orderly array of booths were the 
entertainments: orange tents with rugs in front where girls danced to 
nose-flutes and snap-blocks. Some wore garments of gauze; others danced bare to 
the waist; a few no more than a year or two from childhood wore only sandals. 
Zap 210 watched these and their postures with amazement. Then, with a shrug and 
a numb expression, she turned away.
Muffled chanting attracted Reith's attention. A canvas wall enclosed a small 
stadium, from which now came a sudden chorus of hoots and groans. "The stilt 
contests," Cauch explained. "It appears that one of the champions has been 
downed, and many wagers have gone by the boards."
As they passed the stadium Reith caught a view of four men on ten-foot stilts 
stalking warily around each other. One kicked forth with his stilt; another 
struck a blow with a pillow-headed club; a third caught unaware careened away, 
preserving his balance by a miracle, while the others hopped after him like 
grotesque carrion-birds.
"The stilt-fighters are mostly Black Mountain mica-cutters," said Cauch. "The 
outsider who wagers on the bouts might as well drop his money into a hole." 
Cauch gave his head a rueful jerk. "Still, we always hope. My brother's 
name-father won forty-two sequins at the eel-race some years ago. I must admit 
that for two days previously he burnt incense and implored divine intervention."
"Let's watch an eel-race," said Reith. "If divine intervention earns a profit of 
forty-two sequins, our own intelligence should produce at least as much and 
hopefully more."
"This way then, past the brat-house."
Reith was about to inquire what a brat-house might be, when a grinning urchin 
ran dose and kicked Reith on the shins then, dodging back, made an ugly face and 
ran into the brat-house. Reith looked after the child in wrathful puzzlement. 
"What's the reason for that?"
"Come," said Cauch. "I'll show you."
He led the way into the brat-house. On a stage thirty feet distant stood the 
child, who upon their entrance emitted a hideous taunting squeal. Behind the 
counter stood a suave middle-aged Thang with a silky brown mustache. "Nasty 
tyke, don't you think? Here, give him a good pelting. These mud-balls come ten 
bice apiece. The dung-packets are six to the sequin and these prickle-burrs are 
five to the sequin."
"Yah, yah, yah!" screamed the urchin. "Why worry? He couldn't heave a rock this 
far!"
"Go ahead, sir, give it to him," suggested the operator. "Which will it be? The 
mud-balls? The dung-packets make a hideous reek; the brat despises them. And the 
thorn-balls! He'll rue the day he attacked you."
"You get up there," said Reith. "Let me throw at you."
"Prices double, sir."
Reith departed the brat-house with the taunts of both urchin and operator 
accompanying him to the reach of earshot.
"Wise restraint," said Cauch. "No sequins, to be earned in such a place."
"One can't live by bread alone ... but no matter. Show me the eel races."
"Only a few steps further."
They walked toward the sagging old wall which separated the bazaar from Urmank 
Old Town. At the very edge of the open area, almost in the shadow of the wall, 
they came to a U-shaped counter surrounded by two-score men and women, many 
wearing outland garments. A few feet beyond the open end of the U a wooden 
reservoir stood on a concrete platform. The reservoir, six feet in diameter and 
two feet high, was equipped with a hinged cover and emptied into a covered flume 
which ran between the arms of the U, to empty into a glass basin at the far 
bend. The attention of the players was riveted upon the glass basin; as Reith 
watched a green eel darted forth from the chute and into the basin, followed 
after a moment or two by eels of various other colors.
"Green wins again!" cried out the eel-master in a voice of anguish. "Lucky lucky 
green! Hands behind the screen, please, until I pay the winners! I am sorely 
hit! Twenty sequins for this Jadarak gentleman, who risked a mere two sequins. 
Ten sequins for this green-hatted lady of the Azote Coast, who chanced a sequin 
on the color of her hat! ... What? No more? Is this all? I have not been struck 
so sorely as first I feared." The operator cleared the boards of sequins laid 
down upon the other colors. "A new race will now occur; arrange your bets. 
Sequins must be placed squarely upon the chosen color, if you please, to avoid 
misunderstanding. I set no limit; bet as high as you please, up to a limit of a 
thousand sequins, since my total wealth and reserve is only ten thousand. Five 
times already I have been bankrupted; always I have climbed back from poverty to 
serve the gambling folk of Urmank; is this not true dedication?"' As he spoke, 
he gathered the eels into a basket and carried them to the upper end of the 
chute. He hauled on a rope which, passing over a frame, lifted the lid of the 
reservoir. Reith edged close and peered down into the pool of water contained 
within. The eel-master made no objection. "Look your fill, my man; the only 
mysteries here are the eels themselves. If I could read their secrets I would be 
a rich man today!" Within the reservoir Reith saw a baffle which defined a 
spiral channel originating at a center well and twisting out to the chute, with 
a gate to the center well which the eel-master now snapped shut. In the center 
well he placed the eels and closed down the lid. "You have witnessed," he called 
out. "The eels move at random, as free as though they traveled the depths of 
their native streams. They whirl, they race, they seek a ray of light; when I 
raise the gate all will dash forth. Which will win the race to the basin? Ah, 
who knows? The last winner was Green; will Green win again? Place your bets, all 
bets down! Aha! A grandee here wagers generously upon Gray and Mauve, ten 
sequins on each! What's this? A purple sequin upon Purple! Behold all! A 
noblewoman of the Bashai backlands wagers a hundred value on Purple! Will she 
win a thousand? Only the eels know."
"I know too," Cauch muttered to Reith. "She will not win. Purple eel will loiter 
along the way. I predict a win for White or Pale Blue."
"Why do you say that?"
"No one has bet on Pale Blue. Only three sequins are down on White."
"True, but how do the eels know?"
"Herein, as the eel-master avers, lies the mystery."
Reith asked Zap 210: "Can you understand how the operator controls the eels to 
his profit?"
"I don't understand anything."
"We'll have to give this matter some thought," said Reith. "Let's watch another 
race. In the interests of research I'll put a sequin down upon Pale Blue."
"Are all bets made?" called out the eel-master. "Please be meticulous! Sequins 
overlapping two colors are reckoned to fall on the losing color. No more bets? 
Very well then, please keep hands behind the screen. No more bets, please! The 
race is about to begin!"
Stepping to the reservoir, he pulled a lever which presumably lifted the gate in 
front of the spiral baffle. "The race is in progress! Eels vie for light; they 
cavort and wheel in their joy! Down the chute they come! Which is to win?"
The gamblers craned their necks to watch; into the basin streaked the White eel. 
"Ah," groaned the operator. "How can I profit with such uncooperative eels? 
Twenty sequins to this already wealthy Gray; you are a mariner, sir? And ten to 
this noble young slave-taker from Cape Braise. I pay, I pay; where is my 
profit?" He came past, flipping Reith's sequin into his tray. "So then, everyone 
alert for the next race."
Reith turned to Cauch with a shake of his head. "Perplexing, perplexing indeed. 
We had better go on."
They wandered the bazaar until Carina 4269 went down the sky. They watched a 
wheel of fortune; they studied a game where the participants bought a bag of 
irregular colored tablets and sought to fit them together into a checkerboard; a 
half-dozen other games, more or less ordinary. Sunset arrived; the three went to 
a small restaurant near the Inn of the Lucky Mariner, where they dined upon fish 
in red sauce, pilgrim-pod bread, a salad of sea-greens and a great black flask 
of wine. "In only one phase of existence," said Cauch, "can the Thang be 
trusted: their cuisine, to which they are loyal. The reason for this 
particularity escapes me."
"It goes to demonstrate," said Reith, "that you can't judge a man by the table 
he sets."
Cauch asked shrewdly, "How then can a man judge his fellows? For example, what 
is the basis of your calculation?"
"Only one thing I know for certain," said Reith. "First thoughts are always 
wrong."
Cauch, sitting back, inspected Reith under quizzical eyebrows. "True, quite 
possibly true. For instance, you probably are not the cool desperado you appear 
on first meeting."
"I have been judged even more harshly," said Reith. "One of my friends declares 
that I seem like a man from another world."
"Odd that you should say that," remarked Cauch. "A strange rumor has recently 
reached Zsafathra, to the effect that all men originated on a far planet, much 
as the Redeemers of Yao aver, and not from a union of the sacred xyxyl bird and 
the sea-demon Rhadamth. Furthermore, it was told that certain folk from this far 
planet now wander Old Tschai, performing the most remarkable deeds: defying the 
Dirdir, defeating the Chasch, persuading the Wankh. A new feeling is abroad 
across Tschai: the sense that change is on its way. What do you think of all 
this?"
"I suppose the rumor is not inherently absurd," said Reith.
Zap 210 said in a subdued voice: "A planet of men: it would be more strange and 
wild than Tschai!"
"That of course is problematical," remarked Cauch in a voice of didactic 
analysis, "and no doubt irrelevant to our present case. The secrets of 
personality are mystifying. For instance, consider the three of us. One honest 
Zsafathran and two brooding vagabonds driven like leaves before the winds of 
fate. What prompts such desperate journeys? What is to be gained? I myself in 
all my lifetime have not gone so far as Cape Braise; yet I feel none the worse, 
a trifle dull perhaps. I look at you and ponder. The girl is frightened; the man 
is harsh; goals beyond her understanding propel him; he takes her where she 
fears to go. Still, would she go back if she could?" Cauch looked into Zap 210's 
face; she turned away.
Reith managed a painful grin. "Without money we won't go anywhere."
"Bah," said Cauch bluffly, "if money is all you lack, I have the remedy. Once a 
week, each Ivensday, combat trials are arranged. In point of fact, Otwile the 
champion sits yonder." He nodded toward a totally bald man almost seven feet 
tall, massive in the shoulders and thighs, narrow at the hips. He sat alone 
sipping wine, staring morosely out upon the quay. "Otwile is a great fighter," 
said Cauch. "He once grappled a Green Chasch buck and held his own; at least he 
escaped with his life."
"What are the prizes?" Reith inquired.
"The man who remains five minutes within the circle wins a hundred sequins; he 
is paid a further twenty sequins for each broken bone. Otwile sometimes provides 
a hundred-worth within the minute."
"And what if the challenger throws Otwile away?"
Cauch pursed his lips. "No prize is posted; the feat is considered impossible. 
Why do you ask? Do you plan to make the trial?"
"Not I," said Reith. "I need three hundred sequins. Assume that I remained five 
minutes in the ring to gain a hundred sequins ... I would then need ten broken 
bones to earn a further two hundred."
Cauch seemed disappointed. "You have an alternative scheme?"
"My mind reverts to the eel-race. How can the operator control eleven eels from 
a distance of ten feet while they swim down a covered chute? It seems 
extraordinary."
"It does indeed," declared Cauch. "For years folk of Zsafathra have put down 
their sequins on the presumption that such control is impossible."
"Might the eels alter color to suit the circumstances? Impractical, unthinkable. 
Does the operator stimulate the eels telepathically? I consider this unlikely."
"I have no better theories," said Cauch.
Reith reviewed the eel-master's procedure. "He raises the lid of the reservoir; 
the interior is open and visible; the water is no more than a foot deep. The 
eels are placed into the center well and the lid is closed down: this before 
betting is curtailed. Yet the eel-master appears to control the motion of the 
eels."
Cauch gave a sardonic chuckle. "Do you still think you can profit from the 
eel-races?"
"I would like to examine the premises a second time." Reith rose to his feet.
"Now? The races are over for the day."
"Still, let us examine the ground; it is only five minutes' walk."
"As you wish."
The area surrounding the eel-race layout was deserted and lit dimly by the glow 
of distant bazaar lamps. After the animation of the daytime hours, the table, 
reservoir and chute seemed peculiarly silent.
Reith indicated the wall which limited the compound. "What lies to the other 
side?"
"The Old Town and, beyond, the mausoleums, where the Thangs take their dead-not 
a place to visit by night."
Reith examined the chute and reservoir, the lid to which was locked down for the 
night. He turned to Cauch. "What time do the races begin?"
"At noon, precisely."
"Tomorrow morning I'd like to look around some more."
"Indeed," mused Cauch. He looked at Reith sidewise. "You have a theory?"
"A suspicion. If-" He looked around as Zap 210 grasped his arm. She pointed. 
"Over there."
Across the compound walked two figures in black cloaks and wide black hats.
"Gzhindra," said Zap 210.
Cauch said nervously, "Let us return to the inn. It is not wise to walk the dark 
places of Urmank."
At the inn Cauch retired to his chamber. Reith took Zap 210 to her cubicle. She 
was reluctant to enter. "What's the matter?" asked Reith.
"I am afraid."
"Of what?"
"The Gzhindra are following us."
"That's not necessarily true. Those might have been any two Gzhindra."
"But perhaps they weren't."
"In any event they can't get at you in the room."
The girl was still dubious.
"I'm right next door," said Reith. "If anyone bothers you, scream."
"What if someone kills you first?"
"I can't think that far ahead," said Reith. "If I'm dead in the morning, don't 
pay the score."
She wanted further reassurance. Reith patted the soft black curls. "Good night."
He closed the door and waited until the bolt shot home. Then he went into his 
own cubicle and, despite Cauch's reassurances, made a careful examination of 
floor, walls and ceiling. At last, feeling secure, he turned the light down to a 
glimmer and lay himself upon the couch.



CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NIGHT PASSED without alarm or disturbance. In the morning Reith and Zap 210 
breakfasted alone at the cafe on the quay. The sky was cloudless; the smoky 
sunlight left crisp black shadows behind the tall houses and glinted on the 
water of the harbor. Zap 210 seemed less pessimistic than usual, and watched the 
porters, the hawkers, the seamen and outlanders with interest. "What do you 
think of the ghian now?" asked Reith.
Zap 210 at once became grave. "The folk act differently from what I expected. 
They don't run back and forth; they don't seem maddened by the sun-glare. Of 
course"-she hesitated-"one sees a great deal of boisterous conduct, but no one 
seems to mind. I marvel at the garments of the girls; they are so bold, as if 
they want to provoke attention. And again, no one objects."
"Quite the reverse," said Reith.
"I could never act like that," Zap 210 said primly. "That girl coming toward us: 
see how she walks! Why does she act that way?"
"That's how she's put together. Also, she wants men to notice her. These are the 
instincts that the diko suppressed in you."
Zap 210 protested with unusual fervor: "I eat no diko now; I feel no such 
instincts!"
Reith looked smiling off across the quay. The girl to whom Zap 210 had drawn 
attention slowed her step, hitched at the orange sash around her waist, smiled 
at Reith, stared curiously at Zap 210, and sauntered on.
Zap 210 looked sidelong at Reith. She started to speak, then held her tongue. A 
moment later she blurted: "I don't understand anything of the ghian. I don't 
understand you. Just now you smiled at that odious girl. You never-" Here she 
stopped short, then continued in a low voice: "I suppose you blame 'instinct' 
for your conduct."
Reith became impatient. "The time has come," he said, "to explain the facts of 
life. Instincts are part of our biological baggage and cannot be avoided. Men 
and women are different." He went on to explain the processes of reproduction. 
Zap 210 sat rigid, looking across the water. "So," said Reith, "it's not 
unnatural that people indulge in this kind of conduct."
Zap 210 said nothing. Her hands, so Reith noticed, were clenched and her 
knuckles shone white.
She said in a low voice, "The Khors in the sacred grove-is that what they were 
doing?"
"So I suppose."
"And you took me away so I wouldn't see."
"Well, yes. I thought you might be confused."
Zap 210 was silent a moment. "We might have been killed."
Reith shrugged. "I suppose there was a chance."
"And those girls dancing without clothes-they wanted to do that?"
"If someone gave them money."
"And everyone on the surface feels this way?"
"Most of them, I should say."
"Do you?"
"Certainly. Sometimes, anyway. Not all the time."
"Then why-" she stuttered. "Then why-" She could not finish. Reith reached out 
to pat her hand; she snatched it away. "Don't touch me!"
"Sorry ... But don't be angry."
"You brought me to this horrible place; you deprived me of life; you pretended 
to be kind but all the time you've been planning-that!"
"No, no!" cried Reith. "Nothing of the sort! You're quite wrong!"
Zap 210 looked at him with eyebrows coolly raised. "You find me repulsive then?"
Reith threw his hands up in the air. "Of course I don't find you repulsive! In 
fact-"
"In fact, what?"
Cauch, arriving at the table, provided, for Reith, a welcome interruption. "You 
spent a comfortable night?"
"Yes," said Reith.
Zap 210 rose to her feet and walked away. Cauch drew a long face. "How have I 
offended her?"
"She's angry with me," said Reith. "Why-I don't know."
"Isn't this always the case? But soon, for reasons equally unknown, she will 
again become benign. Meanwhile, I am interested in hearing your ideas in regard 
to the eel-races."
Reith looked dubiously after Zap 210, who had returned to the Inn of the Lucky 
Mariner. "Is it safe to leave her alone?"
"Have no fear," said Cauch. "At the inn you and she are known to be under my 
sponsorship."
"Well, then, to the eel-races."
"You understand that they are not yet in operation? The races do not start till 
noon."
"So much the better."
Zap 210 had never been so angry. She half-walked half-ran to the inn, through 
the dim common room to the cubicle where she had spent the night. She entered, 
furiously shot the bolt and went to sit on the couch. For ten minutes she let 
her thoughts rage without control. Then she began to cry, silently, tears of 
frustration and disillusionment welling down her cheeks. She thought of the 
Shelters: the quiet corridors with the black-robed figures drifting past. In the 
Shelters no one would provoke her to anger or excitement or any of the other 
strange emotions which from time to time colored her brain. They would give her 
diko once more ... She frowned, trying to recall the flavor of the crisp little 
wafers. On sudden impulse she rose to her feet, examined herself in the mirror 
which hung on the side wall. The previous evening she had looked at herself with 
no great interest; the face which looked back seemed just a face: eyes, nose, 
mouth, chin. Now she studied herself earnestly. She touched the black hair 
curling down her forehead, combed it with her fingers, studied the effect. The 
face which looked back was that of a stranger. She thought of the lithe girl who 
had regarded Reith with such insolence. She had worn a garment of blue cloth 
which clung to the figure, different from the shapeless gray smock which Zap 210 
now wore. She pulled it off, stood in her white undergown. She turned, studied 
herself from all angles. A stranger now for certain. What if Reith could see her 
now: what would he think? ... The idea of Reith made her furiously angry. He 
considered her a child, or something even more ignoble: she had no word for the 
concept. She felt herself with her hands and, staring in the mirror, marveled at 
the changes which had come over her ... Her original scheme of returning to the 
Shelters dwindled. The zuzhma kastchai would give her to the darkness. If by 
chance she were allowed to keep her life, they would feed her diko again. Her 
lips twitched. No more diko.
Well, then, what of Adam Reith, who considered her so repulsive that-her mind 
refused to complete the train of thought. What was to become of her? She studied 
herself in the mirror and felt very sorry for the dark-haired girl with thin 
cheeks and sad eyes who looked back at her. If she ran away from Adam Reith how 
could she survive? ... She slipped into her gray smock, but decided against 
tying the orange cloth around her head. Instead she tied it around her waist as 
a sash, as she had noticed other girls of Urmank doing. She examined herself in 
the mirror again and rather liked the effect. What would Adam Reith think?
She opened the door, looked up and down the corridor and ventured forth. The 
common-room was empty but for a squat old woman who scrubbed the stone floor 
with a brush and looked up with a sneer. Zap 210 hastened her pace and went out 
into the street. Here she hesitated. She had never been alone before, and the 
sensation was frightening, if thrilling. Crossing to the quay, she watched 
porters unloading a cog. Neither her vocabulary nor her stock of ideas contained 
the equivalent of "quaint" or "picturesque"; nevertheless, she was charmed by 
the bluff-brown craft moving gently to the heave of the water. She drew a deep 
breath. Freak or not, repulsive or not, she had never felt so alive before. The 
ghaun was a wild cruel place-here the zuzhma kastchai had not dissembled-but 
after living in the golden-brown sunlight, how could anyone choose to return to 
the Shelters?
She walked along the quay to the cafe, where somewhat diffidently she looked for 
Reith. What she would say to him she had not yet formulated; perhaps she would 
sweep to her seat with only a haughty glance to let him know what she thought of 
his opinions ... Reith was nowhere to be seen. A sudden terrible fear came over 
her. Had he taken the opportunity to escape, to be rid of her? Impulses urged 
upon her; she wanted to cry out: "Adam Reith! Adam Reith!" She could not believe 
that the reassuring form, so taut and economical of motion, was nowhere to be 
seen ... She turned to leave and stepped full into the advancing body of a tall 
massive man, wearing pantaloons of dove brown leather, a loose white shirt and a 
vest of maroon brocade. A small brimless cap clung to the side of his bald head; 
he gave a soft grunt as she walked into him and held her away with two hands on 
her shoulders. "Where do you go in such haste?"
"Nowhere," stammered Zap 210. "I was looking for someone."
"You have found me, which is not the worst of luck. Come along; I have not yet 
had my morning wine. Then we will discuss our affairs."
Zap 210 stood paralyzed by indecision. She tentatively tried to shrink away from 
the man's grasp, which only tightened. Zap 210 winced. "Come," said the man. She 
stumbled with him to a nearby booth.
The man signaled; a jug of white wine and a platter of fried fishcakes was set 
before them. "Eat," the man told her. "Drink. I stint no one, either in bounty 
or hard knocks." He poured her a liberal goblet of wine. "Now, before we 
proceed, what are your fees? Certain of your number, knowing me for Otwile, have 
attempted nothing less than larceny-to their dissatisfaction, I may say. So 
then: your price?"
"Price for what?" whispered Zap 210.
Otwile's blue eyes widened in surprise. "You are an odd one. What is your race? 
You are too pale for a Thang, too slender for a Gray."
Zap 210 lowered her eyes. She tasted the wine, then searched desperately over 
her shoulder for Reith.
"Ah, but you are shy!" declared Otwile. "And delicate of manner as well!"
He began to eat. Zap 210 tried to slip away. "Sit!" snapped Otwile. She hastily 
returned to her seat. "Drink!" She sipped at the wine, which was stronger than 
any she had yet tasted.
"That is better," said Otwile. "Now we understand each other."
"No," said Zap 210 in her soft voice. "We don't! I don't want to be here! What 
do you want of me?"
Otwile again stared at her in disbelief. "You don't know?"
"Of course not. Unless-you don't mean that?"
Otwile grinned, "I mean precisely that, and more."
"But-I don't know anything about such things! I don't want to learn."
Otwile put down his fishcakes. He said incredulously, "A virgin, wearing a sash. 
Is that how you represent yourself?"
"I don't know what such a thing is ... I must go, to find Adam Reith."
"You have found me, which is somewhat better. Drink wine, to relax yourself. 
Today is to be that particular day you will remember to the end of your time." 
Otwile poured full the goblets. "Indeed, I will join you, to relax myself. Truth 
to tell, I myself have become somewhat excited!"
Reith and Cauch walked through the bazaar, where the fish and produce vendors 
called attention to their merchandise by means of peculiar ululations.
"Are they singing?" asked Reith.
"No," said Cauch, the cries were no more than devices to attract attention. "The 
Thang have no great feeling for music. The selling-screams of the fish-wives are 
inventive and emotional, true; listen and you will hear how they try to outdo 
each other!"
Reith conceded that certain of the advertisements were remarkably intricate. "In 
due course the social anthropologists will record and codify these calls. But 
for the moment I am more interested in the eel-races."
"To be sure," said Cauch. 'Though, as you will notice, they are not yet in 
operation."
They crossed the compound and stood appraising the vacant tables, the reservoir 
and the chute. Looking across the wall, Reith noticed the fronds of a gnarled 
old psilla. "I want to look on the other side of the wall," he said.
"Just so," said Cauch, "and I have the fullest sympathy with your curiosity. But 
are we not at the moment directing our energies to the eel-races?"
"We are," said Reith. "I see a portal through the wall, opposite that vendor of 
amulets. Do you care to accompany me?"
"Certainly," said Cauch. "I am always alert to learn."
They walked along beside the old wall, which in the remote past had been faced 
with brown and white tiles, most of which had fallen away, revealing patches of 
dark brown brick. Passing through the portal, they entered Urmank Old Town: a 
district of huts built of broken tile, brick, fragments of stone, and odd 
lengths of timber. Some were abandoned ruins, others were in the process of 
construction: a continuing cycle of decay and regeneration, in which every 
shard, every stick, every fragment of stone had been used a hundred times over 
twice as many generations. Low-caste Thangs and a squat, big-headed variety of 
Gray peered forth from the doorways as Reith and Cauch went past; stench 
thickened the air.
Beyond the huts lay an area of rubble, puddles of slime, a few clumps of angry 
red bristle-bush. Reith located the psilla of which he had taken note: it stood 
close beside the wall, overhanging a shed built of well-laid bricks. The door 
was solid timber bound with iron, secured with a heavy iron lock. The shed 
backed firmly up against the wall.
Reith looked around the landscape, which was vacant except for a group of naked 
children paddling in a rivulet of yellow slime. He approached the shed. The 
lock, the hasp, the hinges were sound and solid. There was no window to the 
shed, nor any opening other than the door. Reith backed away. "We've seen all we 
need to see."
"Indeed?" Cauch dubiously inspected the shed, the wall, the psilla tree. "I see 
nothing significant. Are you still referring to the eel-races?"
"Of course." They went back through the dismal huddle of huts. Reith said: "Very 
likely we could make all our arrangements alone; still, the help of two 
trustworthy men might prove convenient."
Cauch eyed him with awe and incredulity. "You seriously hope to take money from 
the eel-race?"
"If the eel-master pays all winning bets, I do."
"No fear of that," said Cauch. "He will pay, assuming that there are winnings. 
And on this supposition, how do you propose to share?"
"Half for me, half for you and your two men."
Cauch pursed his lips. "I perceive something of an inequity. From a mutual 
project, one man should not derive three times the share of the others."
"I believe that he should," said Reith, "when otherwise the other three gain 
nothing whatever."
"The point is well-taken," Cauch admitted. "The affair shall go as you 
recommend."
They returned to the cafe. Reith looked for Zap 210, who was nowhere to be seen. 
"I must find my companion," he told Cauch. "No doubt she waits at the inn."
Cauch made an affable gesture; Reith went to the inn, but found Zap 210 nowhere. 
Making inquiries of the clerk he learned that she had come and gone, leaving no 
intimation as to her destination.
Reith went to the doorway and looked up and down the quay. To the right porters 
in faded red kirtles and leather shoulderpads unloaded a cog; to the left was 
the bustle of the bazaar.
He never should have left her alone, he told himself, especially in her mood of 
the morning. He had taken her stability for granted, never troubling to divine 
the state of her mind. Reith cursed himself for callousness and egocentricity. 
The girl had been undergoing the most intense and dramatic emotional strains: 
all the fundamental processes of life at once. Reith strode back to the cafe. 
Cauch eyed him with calm benevolence. "You appear concerned."
"The girl who accompanies me-I can't find her."
"Pah," said Cauch. "They are all alike. She has gone to the bazaar, to buy a 
trinket."
"No. She has no money. She is utterly inexperienced; she would go nowhere-except 
..." Reith turned to look toward the hills, the way which lay between the 
ghoul-castles. Would she seriously consider going down into the Shelters? ... A 
new idea came to turn his bones to ice. The Gzhindra. Reith summoned the Thang 
servant-boy. "I breakfasted this morning with a young woman. Do you recall her?"
"Yes, indeed; she wore an orange turban, like a Hedaijhan, at least on that 
occasion."
"You saw her another time?"
"I did. She sat yonder, wearing the sash of solicitation and consorting with 
Otwile the champion. They drank wine for a period, then went off."
"She went of her own free will?" asked Reith in wonder.
The servant gave a shrug of indifference, covertly insolent. "She wore the sash, 
she uttered no outcry, she leaned on his arm, perhaps to steady herself, for I 
believe her to have been somewhat drunk."
"Where did they go?"
Again the shrug. "Otwile's chambers are not too far distant; perhaps this was 
their resort."
"Show me the way."
"No no." The servant shook his head. "I am at my duties. Also I would not care 
to vex Otwile."
Reith jumped at him; the servant stumbled back in a panic. "Quick!" hissed 
Reith.
"This way then, but hurry; I am not supposed to leave the cafe."
They ran through the dank back alleys of Urmank, in and out of the brown light 
of Carina 4269, which occasionally slanted down past the crooked gables of the 
tall houses. The servant halted, pointed along a walkway leading into a garden 
of green and purple foliage. "At the back of the shrubbery are Otwile's rooms." 
He scuttled back the way he had come. Reith ran along the walkway, through the 
garden. At the back stood a cottage of carved timber and panels of translucent 
fiber. As Reith approached he heard a sudden wordless cry of outrage from 
within. "Unclean!" Then there was the sound of a blow, and a whimper. Reith's 
knees shook, he tottered forward, thrust open the door. On the floor crouched 
Zap 210, glassy-eyed and nude; above her stood Otwile. Zap 210 stared at Reith; 
he saw a red welt on her cheek.
Otwile spoke in a voice of hushed outrage. "Who are you to intrude in my house?"
Reith ignored him. He picked up Zap 210's undergown, a torn tangle of cloth. He 
turned to look at Otwile. Cauch spoke from the doorway. "Come, Adam Reith; fetch 
the girl. Do not trouble yourself."
Reith paid no heed. He moved slowly toward Otwile, who waited, smiling coldly, 
hands on hips. Reith approached to within three feet. Otwile, six inches taller, 
smiled down at him.
Zap 210 said in a husky croak: "It wasn't his fault. I wore an orange sash ... I 
didn't know..."
Reith turned slowly away. He found Zap 210's gray gown, pulled it over her 
slender body. He saw what had outraged Otwile; he could hardly control a great 
cry to express sorrow and pity and terrible grim amusement. He put his arm 
around Zap 210 and started to lead her from the room.
Otwile was dissatisfied. He had been awaiting a touch, a motion, even a word, to 
serve as a trigger for his muscles. Was he to be denied even the gratification 
of beating the man who had invaded his chambers? The bubble of his rage burst. 
He bounced forward and swung his leg in a kick.
Reith was pleased to find Otwile active. Twisting, he caught Otwile's ankle, 
pulled, dragged the champion hopping out into the garden, and sent him careening 
into a thicket of scarlet bamboo. Otwile sprang forth like a leopard. He halted, 
stood with arms out, grimacing hideously, clenching and unclenching his hands. 
Reith punched him in the face. Otwile seemed not to notice. He reached for 
Reith, who backed away, hacking at the heavy wrists. Otwile came forward, 
crowding Reith against the side-wall. Reith feinted, punched with his left hand 
and rapped his knuckles into Otwile's face. Otwile gave a small flat-footed jump 
forward, and another, then he gave a hideous rasping scream, and swung his great 
arm in an open-handed slap. Reith ducked below, hit Otwile full in the belly, 
and as Otwile jerked up his knee, seized the crooked leg, heaved up, and sent 
Otwile down flat on his back with a thud like a falling tree. For a moment 
Otwile lay dazed, then he slowly struggled to a sitting position. With a single 
backward glance Reith led Zap 210 from the garden. Cauch bowed politely toward 
Otwile and followed.
Reith took Zap 210 to the inn. She sat on the couch in her cubicle, clutching 
the gray gown about herself, limp and miserable. Reith sat down beside her. 
"What happened?"
Tears dripped down her cheeks; she held her hands to her face. Reith stroked her 
head. Presently she wiped her eyes. "I don't know what I did wrong-unless it was 
the sash. He made me drink wine until I became dizzy. He took me through the 
streets ... I felt very strange. I could hardly walk. In the house I wouldn't 
take off my clothes and he became angry. Then he saw me and he became even 
angrier. He said I was unclean ... I don't know what to do with myself. I'm 
sick, I'm dying."
Reith said, "No, you're not sick or dying. Your body has started to function 
normally. There's nothing whatever wrong with you."
"I'm not unclean?"
"Of course not." Reith rose to his feet. "I'll send in a maid to take care of 
you. Then just lie quietly and sleep until I return-I hope with enough money to 
put us aboard a ship."
Zap 210 nodded listlessly; Reith departed the cubicle.
At the cafe Reith found Cauch and two young Zsafathrans who had come to Urmank 
aboard the second cart. "This is Schazar; this is Widisch," said Cauch. "Both 
are reckoned competent; I have no doubt but that they will fulfill any 
reasonable requirements."
"In that case," said Reith, "let's be off about our business. We haven't too 
much time to spare, or so I should judge."
The four sauntered off down the quay. Reith explained his theories: "-which now 
we must put to the test. Mind you, I may be wrong, in which case the project 
will fail."
"No," said Cauch. "You have employed an extraordinary mental process to adduce 
what I now see to be limpid truth."
"The process is called logic," said Reith. "It is not always dependable. But we 
shall see."
They passed the eel-race table, where a few folk had already settled at the 
benches, ready for the day's gambling. Reith hurried his steps: under the 
portal, through the dismal byways of Urmank Old Town, toward the shed under the 
psilla tree. They halted fifty yards away and took cover in a ruined hut at the 
edge of the wastelands.
Ten minutes passed. Reith began to fidget. "I can't believe that we've come too 
late."
The young man Schazar pointed across the wastes, to the far end of the wall. 
"Two men."
The men strolled closer. One affected the flowing white robes and square white 
hat of an Erze Island Sage: "The eel-master," muttered Cauch. The other, a young 
man, wore a pink skullcap and a light pink cape. The two walked casually and 
confidently along the trail and parted company near the shed. The eel-master 
continued toward the portal. Widisch said: "Easier merely to waylay the old 
charlatan and divest him of his pouch; the effect, after all, is the same."
"Unfortunately," said Cauch, "he carries no sequins on his person, and makes the 
fact well known. His funds are brought to the eel-races daily by four armed 
slaves under the supervision of his chief wife."
The young man in pink strolled to the shed. He fitted a key in the lock, turned 
it three times, opened the ponderous door and entered the shed. He turned with 
surprise to find that Reith and Schazar had also pushed into the shed beside 
him. He attempted to bluster. "What is the meaning of this?"
"I will speak one time only," said Reith. "We want your unstinting cooperation; 
otherwise we will hang you by the toes to yonder psilla. Is that clear?"
"I understand perfectly," said the young man with a quaver.
"Describe the routine."
The young man hesitated. Reith nodded to Schazar, who brought forth a coil of 
hard cord. The young man said quickly, "The routine is quite simple. I undress 
and step into the tank." He indicated a cylindrical pool four feet in diameter 
at the back of the shed. "A tube communicates with the reservoir; the level in 
the tank and that in the reservoir are the same. I swim through the tube to the 
reservoir and come up into a space in the peripheral frame. As soon as the lid 
is lowered, I open a partition. I reach into the reservoir and move the 
specified eel to the edge of the chute."
"And how is the color specified?"
"By the eel-master's finger-taps on the top of the lid."
Reith turned to Cauch. "Schazar and I are now in control. I suggest that you now 
take your places at the table." He spoke to the young man in pink: "Is there 
sufficient space for two under the reservoir?"
"Yes," said the young man grudgingly. "Just barely. But tell me: if I cooperate 
with you, how will I protect myself from the eel-master?"
"Be frank with him," said Reith. "State that you value your life more than his 
sequins."
"He will say that as far as he is concerned, affairs are reversed."
"Too bad," said Reith. "The hazard of your trade. How soon should we be in 
position?"
"Within a minute or so."
Reith removed his outer garments. "If by some ineptness we are detected ... 
surely the consequences are as plain to you as to me."
The apprentice merely grunted. He doffed his pink robe. "Follow me." He stepped 
into the tank. "The way is dark but straight."
Reith joined him in the tank. The young man drew a deep breath and submerged; 
Reith did the same. At the bottom, finding a horizontal tube about three feet in 
diameter, he pulled himself through, staying close behind the apprentice.
They surfaced in a space about four feet long, a foot and a half high, a foot 
wide. Light entered through artfully arranged crevices, which also allowed a 
view over the gaming tables; Reith thus could see that both Cauch and Widisch 
had found places along the counter.
From near at hand came the eel-master's voice. "Welcome all to another day of 
exciting races. Who will win? Who will lose? No one knows. It may be me, it may 
be you. But we all will enjoy the fun of the races. For those who are new to our 
little game, you will notice that the board before you is marked with eleven 
colors. You may bet any amount on any of the colors. If your color wins, you are 
paid ten times the amount of your bet. Note these eels and their colors: white, 
gray, tawny, light blue, brown, dark red, vermilion, blue, green, violet, black. 
Are there any questions?"
"Yes," called Cauch. "Is there any limit on the betting?"
"The case now being delivered contains ten thousand sequins. This is my limit; I 
pay no more. Please place your bets."
With a practiced eye the eel-master appraised the table. He lifted the lid, set 
the eels into the center of the reservoir. "No more betting, please." On the lid 
sounded tap-tap tap-tap.
"Two-two," whispered the apprentice. "That's green." He pushed aside a panel and 
reaching into the reservoir, seized the green eel and set it into the mouth of 
the chute. Then he drew back and closed the panel.
"Green wins!" called the eel-master. "So then--I pay! Twenty sequins to this 
sturdy seafarer ... Make your bets, please."
Tap tap-tap-tap sounded on the lid. "Vermilion," whispered the apprentice. He 
performed as before.
"Vermilion wins!" called the eel-master.
Reith kept his eye to the crack. On each occasion Cauch and Widisch had risked a 
pair of sequins. On the third betting round each placed thirty sequins on white.
"Bets are now made," came the eel-master's voice. The lid came down. Tap tap 
came the sounds.
"Brown," whispered the apprentice.
"White," said Reith. "The white eel wins."
The apprentice groaned in muted distress. He put the white eel into the chute.
"Another contest between these baffling little creatures," came the complacent 
voice of the eel-master. "On this occasion the winning color is-brown ... Brown? 
White. Yes, white it is! Ha! In my old age I become color-blind. Tribulation for 
a poor old man! ... A pair of handsome winners here! Three hundred sequins for 
you, three hundred sequins for you ... Take your winnings, gentlemen. What? You 
are betting the entire sum, both of you?"
"Yes, luck appears to be with us today."
"Both on dark red?"
"Yes; notice the flight of yonder blood-birds! This is a portent."
The eel-master smiled off into the sky. "Who can divine the ways of nature? I 
pray that you are incorrect. Well, then, all bets are made? Then in with the 
eels, down with the lid, and let the most determined eel issue forth the 
winner." His hand rested a moment on the lid; his fingernail struck the surface 
a single time. "They twist, they search, the light beckons; we should soon have 
a winner ... Here comes-is it blue?" He gave an involuntary groan. "Dark red." 
He peered into the faces of the Zsafathrans. "Your presages, astonishingly, were 
correct."
"Yes," said Cauch. "Did I not tell you as much? Pay over our winnings."
Slowly the eel-master counted out three thousand-worth of sequins to each. 
"Astonishing." He glanced thoughtfully toward the reservoir. "Do you observe any 
further portents?"
"Nothing significant. But I will bet nonetheless. A hundred sequins on black."
"I bet the same," declared Widisch.
The eel-master hesitated. He rubbed his chin, looked around the counter. 
"Extraordinary." He put the eels into the reservoir. "Are all bets laid?" His 
hand rested on the lid; as if by nervous mannerism he brought his fingernails 
down in two sharp raps.
"Very well; I open the gate." He pulled the lever and strode up to the end of 
the chute. "And here comes-what color? Black!"
"Excellent!" declared Cauch. "We reap a return after years of squandering money 
upon perverse eels! Pay over our gains, if you please!"
"Certainly," croaked the eel-master. "But I can work no more. I suffer from an 
aching of the joints; the eel-racing is at an end."
Reith and the apprentice immediately returned to the shed. The apprentice donned 
his pink cape and hat and took to his heels.
Reith and Schazar returned through the Old Town to the portal, where they 
encountered the eel-master, who strode past in a great flapping of his white 
gown. The normally benign face was mottled red; he carried a stout stave, which 
he swung in short ominous jerks.
Cauch and Widisch awaited them on the quay. Cauch handed Reith a pleasantly 
plump pouch. "Your share of the winnings: four thousand sequins. The day has 
been edifying."
"We have done well," said Reith. "Our association has been mutually helpful, 
which is a rare thing for Tschai!"
"For our part we return instantly to Zsafathra," said Cauch. "What of you?"
"Urgent business calls me onward. Like yourselves, my companion and I depart as 
soon as possible."
"In that case, farewell." The three Zsafathrans went their way. Reith turned 
into the bazaar, where he made a variety of purchases. Back at the hotel he went 
to Zap 210's cubicle and rapped on the door, his heart pounding with 
anticipation.
"Who is it?" came a soft voice.
"It is I, Adam Reith."
"A moment." The door opened. Zap 210 stood facing him, face flushed and drowsy. 
She wore the gray smock which she had only just pulled over her head.
Reith took his bundles to the couch. "This-and this-and this-and this-for you."
"For me? What are they?"
"Look and see."
With a diffident side-glance toward Reith, she opened the bundles, then for a 
period stood looking down at the articles they contained.
Reith asked uneasily, "Do you like them?"
She turned to him a hurt gaze. "Is this how you want me to be--like the others?"
Reith stood nonplussed. It was not the reaction he had expected. He said 
carefully, "We will be traveling. It is best that we go as inconspicuously as 
possible. Remember the Gzhindra? We must dress like the folk we travel among."
"I see."
"Which do you like best?"
Zap 210 lifted the dark green gown, laid it down, took up the blood-orange smock 
and dull white pantaloons, then the rather jaunty light brown suit with the 
black vest and short black cape. "I don't know whether I like any of them."
"Try one on."
"Now?"
"Certainly!"
Zap 210 held up first one of the garments, then another. She looked at Reith; he 
grinned. "Very well, I'll go."
In his own cubicle he changed into the fresh garments he had bought for himself: 
gray breeches, a dark-blue jacket. The gray furze smock he decided to discard. 
As he threw it aside he felt the outline of the portfolio, which after a 
moment's hesitation he transferred to the inner lining of his new jacket. Such a 
set of documents, if for no other reason, had value as a curio. He went to the 
common room. Presently Zap 210 appeared. She wore the dark green gown. "Why do 
you stare at me?" she asked.
Reith could not tell her the truth, that he was recalling the first time he had 
seen her: a neurasthenic waif shrouded in a black cloak, pallid and bone-thin. 
She retained something of her dreaming wistful look, but her pallor had become a 
smooth sunshadowed ivory; her black hair curled in ringlets over her forehead 
and ears.
"I was thinking," said Reith, "that the gown suits you very well."
She made a faint grimace: a twitch of the lips approaching a smile.
They walked out upon the quay, to the cog Nhiahar. They found the taciturn 
master in the saloon, working over his accounts. "You desire passage to Kazain? 
There is only the grand cabin to be had at seven hundred sequins, or I can give 
you two berths in the dormitory, at two hundred."



CHAPTER NINE
A DEAD CALM held the Second Sea. The Nhiahar slid out of the inlet, propelled by 
its field engine; by degrees Urmank faded into the murk of distance.
The Nhiahar moved in silence except for the gurgle of water under the bow. The 
only other passengers were a pair of waxen-faced old women swathed in gray gauze 
who appeared briefly on deck, then crept to their dark little cabin.
Reith was well-satisfied with the grand cabin. It ranged the entire width of the 
ship, with three great windows overlooking the sea astern. In alcoves to port 
and starboard were well-cushioned beds as soft as any Reith had felt on Tschai, 
if a trifle musty. In the center stood a massive table of carved black wood, 
with a pair of equally massive chairs at either end. Zap 210 made a sulky 
appraisal of the room. Today she wore the dull white trousers with the orange 
blouse; she seemed keyed up and tense, and moved with nervous abruptness in 
jerks and halts and fidgeting twitches of the fingers.
Reith watched her covertly, trying to calculate the exact nature of her mood. 
She refused to look toward him or meet his gaze. At last he asked: "Do you like 
the ship?"
She gave a sullen shrug. "I have never seen anything like it before." She went 
to the door, where she turned him a sour twitch of a smile-a derisive 
grimace-and went out on deck.
Reith looked up at the overhead, shrugged, and after a final glance around the 
room, followed her.
She had climbed the companionway to the quarterdeck, where she stood leaning on 
the taffrail, looking back the way they had come. Reith seated himself on a 
bench nearby and pretended to bask in the wan brown sunlight while he puzzled 
over her behavior. She was female and inherently irrational-but her conduct 
seemed to exceed this elemental fact. Certain of her attitudes had been formed 
in the Shelters, but these seemed to be waning; upon reaching the surface she 
had abandoned the old life and discarded its points of view, as an insect molts 
a skin. In the process, Reith ruminated, she had discarded her old personality, 
but had not yet discovered a new one ... The thought gave Reith a qualm. Part of 
the girl's charm or fascination, or whatever it was, lay in her innocence, her 
transparency ... transparency?
Reith made a skeptical sound. Not altogether. He went to join her. "What are you 
pondering so deeply?"
She gave him a cool side-glance. "I was thinking of myself and the wide ghaun. I 
remember my time in the dark. I know now that below the world I was not yet 
born. All those years, while I moved quietly below, the folk of the surface 
lived in color and change and air."
"So this is why you've been acting so strangely!"
"No!" she cried in sudden passion. "It is not! The reason is you and your 
secrecy! You tell me nothing. I don't know where we are going, or what you are 
going to do with me."
Reith frowned down at the black boil of the wake. "I'm not sure of these things 
myself."
"But you must know something!"
"Yes ... When I get to Sivishe I want to return to my home, which is far and 
remote."
"And what of me?"
And what of Zap 210? wondered Reith. A question he had avoided asking himself. 
"I'm not sure you'd want to come with me," he replied, somewhat lamely.
Tears glinted in her eyes. "Where else can I go? Should I become a drudge? Or a 
Gzhindra? Or wear an orange sash at Urmank? Or should I die?" She swung away and 
marched forward to the bow, past a group of the spade-faced seamen, who watched 
her from the side of their pale eyes.
Reith returned to the bench ... The afternoon passed. Black clouds to the north 
generated a cool wind. The sails were shaken out, and the cog drove forward. Zap 
210 presently came aft with a strange expression on her face. She gave Reith a 
look of sad accusation and went down to the cabin.
Reith followed and found her lying on one of the couches. "Don't you feel well?"
"No."
"Come outside. You'll be worse in here."
She staggered out upon the deck.
"Keep your eyes on the horizon," said Reith. "When the ship moves, keep your 
head level. Do that for a while and you'll feel better."
Zap 210 stood by the rail. The clouds loomed overhead and the wind died; the 
Nhiahar lay wallowing with slatting sails ... From the sky came a purple dazzle, 
slanting and slashing at the sea-once, twice, three times, all in the flicker of 
an eye-blink. Zap 210 gave a small scream and jerked back in terror. Reith 
caught her and held her as the thunder rumbled down. She moved uneasily; Reith 
kissed her forehead, her face, her mouth.
The sun settled into a tattered panoply of gold and black and brown; with the 
dusk came rain. Reith and Zap 210 retreated to their cabin, where the steward 
served supper: mincemeat, seafruit, biscuits. They ate, looking out through the 
great windows at the sea and rain and lightning, and afterwards, with lightning 
sparking the dark, they became lovers.
At midnight the clouds departed; stars burnt down from the sky. "Look up there!" 
said Reith. "Among the stars are other worlds of men. One of them is called 
Earth." He paused. Zap 210 lay listening, but Reith for some obscure reason 
could say no more, and presently she fell asleep.
The Nhiahar, driven by fair winds, plunged down the Second Sea, crashing through 
great white billows of foam. Cape Braise reared up ahead; the ship put into the 
ancient stone city of Stheine to take on water, then fared forth into the 
Schanizade.
Twenty miles down the coast a tongue of land hooked out to the west. Along the 
foreshore a forest of dark blue trees shrouded a city of flat domes, cambered 
cusps, sweeping colonnades. Reith thought to recognize the architecture, and put 
a question to the captain: "Is that a Chasch city?"
"It is Songh, most southerly of the Blue Chasch places. I have taken cargoes 
into Songh, but it is risky business. You must know the games of the Chasch: 
antics of a dying race. I have seen ruins on the Kotan steppes: a hundred places 
where Old Chasch or Blue Chasch once lived, and who goes there now? Only the 
Phung."
The city receded into the distance and disappeared from view as the ship passed 
south beyond the peninsula. Not long after a cry from one of the crew brought 
everyone out on deck. In the sky a pair of airships fought. One was a gleaming 
contrivance of blue and white metal, shaped to a set of splendid curves. A 
balustrade contained the deck, on which lay a dozen creatures in glistening 
casques. The other craft was austere and bleak: a vessel sinister, ugly, gray, 
built with only its function in mind. It was slightly smaller than the Blue 
Chasch ship and somewhat more agile; in the dorsal bubble crouched the Dirdir 
crew, intent at the work of destroying the Chasch ship. The vessels circled and 
swung, now high, now low, careening around each other like venomous insects. 
From time to time, as circumstances offered, the ships exchanged volleys of 
sandblast fire, without noticeable effect. Far up into the gray-brown sky spun 
the sparkling shapes, to spiral giddily down, one after the other, veering only 
yards above the ocean's surface.
The whole company of the Nhiahar came on deck to watch the battle, even the two 
old women who had not previously shown themselves. As they scanned the sky the 
hood fell back from the head of one of them to reveal a keen pale countenance. 
Zap 210, standing beside Reith, uttered a soft gasp, and quickly turned away her 
gaze.
The Blue Chasch ship slid suddenly down; the bow guns struck under the counter 
of the Dirdir ship, knocking it up, tumbling it over and down into the sea, 
where it struck with a soundless splash. The Blue Chasch vessel swung in a 
single grand circle, then cruised back toward Songh.
The old women had disappeared below. Zap 210 spoke in a tremulous whisper: "Did 
you notice?"
"Yes. I noticed."
"They are Gzhindra."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure."
"I suppose Gzhindra make voyages like other folk," said Reith, somewhat 
hollowly. "So far at least they've done nothing to bother us."
"But they are here, aboard the ship! They do nothing without purpose!"
Reith made another skeptical sound. "Perhaps so-but what can we do about it?"
"We can kill them!"
Zap 210, for all the strictures of her upbringing, was still a creature of 
Tschai, thought Reith. He said: "We'll keep close watch on them. Now that we 
know who they are, and they don't know that we know, the advantage is ours."
It was Zap 210's turn to make a skeptical sound. Reith nevertheless refused to 
waylay the old women in the dark and strangle them.
The voyage proceeded, southwest toward the Saschan Islands. Days passed without 
event more noteworthy than the turn of the heavens. Each morning Carina 4269 
broke through the horizon into a dull bronze and old rose dawn. By noon a high 
haze had formed, to filter the sunlight and lay a sheen like antique silk on the 
water. The afternoons were long; sunsets were sad glories; allegorical wars 
between dark heroes and the lords of light. After nightfall the moons appeared: 
sometimes pink Az, sometimes blue Braz, and sometimes the Nhiahar rode under the 
stars.
For Reith the days and nights would have been as pleasant as any he had known on 
Tschai except for the worry which nagged him: what was happening at Sivishe? 
Would he find the spaceboat intact or destroyed? What of crafty Aila Woudiver; 
what of the Dirdir in their horrid city across the water? And what of the two 
old women, who might be Gzhindra? They never appeared except in the deep of 
night, to walk the foredeck. One dark evening Reith watched them, the hair 
prickling at the nape of his neck. Either they were Gzhindra or they were not, 
but lacking information Reith felt obliged to assume the worst-and the 
implications were cause for the most dismal foreboding.
One pale umber morning the Saschan Islands loomed out of the sea: three ancient 
volcanic necks surrounded by shelves of detritus where grew groves of psilla, 
kianthus, candlenut, lethipod. On each island a town climbed the central crag, 
beehive huts stacked one on the other like the cells of a wasp-nest. Black 
openings stared out to sea; wisps of smoke rose into the air.
The Nhiahar entered the inner bay and, swerving to avoid a ferry, approached the 
south island. On the dock waited bowlegged Saschanese longshoremen in black 
breech-clouts and black roll-toed ankle-boots. They took the hawsers; the 
Nhiahar was warped alongside. As soon as the gangplank settled into place the 
longshoremen swarmed aboard. Hatches were opened; bales of leather, sacks of 
pilgrim-pod meal, crated tools were taken to the dock.
Reith and Zap 210 went ashore. The captain called dourly after them: "I make 
departure at noon exactly, aboard or not."
The two walked along the esplanade, the crag and its unnatural encrustation of 
huts rearing above them. Zap 210 glanced over her shoulder. "They are following 
us."
"The Gzhindra?"
"Yes."
Reith grunted in disgust. "It's definite then. They have orders not to let us 
out of their sight."
"And we are as good as dead." Zap 210 spoke in a colorless voice. "At Kazain 
they will report to the Pnume and then nothing can help us; we'll be taken down 
into the dark."
Reith could think of nothing to say. They came to a small harbor protected from 
the sea by a pair of jetties, which narrowed to become a ferry slip. Reith and 
Zap 210 paused to watch the ferry arrive from the outer islands: a wide scow 
with control cabins at either end, carrying two hundred Saschanese of all ages 
and qualities. It nosed into the slip; the passengers debarked. As many more 
paid toll to a fat man sitting before a booth and surged aboard; immediately the 
ferry departed. Reith watched it cross the water, then led Zap 210 to a waiting 
area set with benches and tables beside the ferry slip. Reith ordered sweet wine 
and biscuits from a serving boy, then went to confer with the fat 
fare-collector. Zap 210 looked nervously here and there. In the shadow of a 
flight of steps she thought to glimpse two shapes robed in gray. They wonder 
what we're doing, Zap 210 told herself.
Reith returned. "The next ferry leaves in something over an hour-a few minutes 
before noon. I've already paid our fares."
Zap 210 gave him a puzzled inspection. "But we must be aboard the Nhiahar at 
noon!"
"True. Are the Gzhindra nearby?"
"They've just taken seats at the far table."
Reith managed a grim chuckle. "We're giving them something to think about."
"What should they think about? That we might take the ferry?"
"Something of the sort."
"But why should they think that? It seems so strange!"
"Not altogether. There might be a ship at one of the other islands to take us 
somewhere beyond their knowledge."
"Is there such a ship?"
"None that I know of."
"But if we take the ferry the Gzhindra will follow, and the Nhiahar will leave 
without all of us!"
"I expect so. The captain would have no qualms whatever."
The minutes passed. Zap 210 began to fidget. "Noon is very close." She studied 
Reith, wondering what went on in his mind.
No other man of Tschai-at least none she had yet seen-resembled him; he was of a 
different sort.
"Here comes the ferry," said Reith. "Let's go down to the slip. We want to be 
the first in line."
Zap 210 rose to her feet. Never would she understand Reith! She followed him 
down to the waiting sea. Others came to join them, to push and squirm and 
mutter. Reith asked: "What of the Gzhindra?"
Zap 210 glanced over her shoulder. "They're standing at the back of the crowd."
The ferry entered the slip; the barriers opened and the passengers surged 
ashore.
Reith spoke in Zap 210's ear. "Walk close by the collector's hut. As we pass, 
duck inside."
"Oh."
The gate opened. Reith and Zap 210 half-walked, half-ran down the way. At the 
collector's hut, Reith lowered his head and slipped within; Zap 210 followed. 
The embarking passengers pushing past, handed their fares to the collector and 
marched down to the ferry. Near the end of the line came the Gzhindra, trying to 
peer through the surge ahead of them. They moved with the crowd, down the ramp, 
aboard the ferry.
The barrier closed; the ferry moved out. Reith and Zap 210 emerged from the hut. 
"It's almost noon," said Reith. "Time to return aboard the Nhiahar."



CHAPTER TEN
SOUTHEAST TOWARD KISLOVAN gusty winds drove the Nhiahar. The sea was almost 
black. The swells which rolled up and under the ship spilled rushes of white 
foam ahead.
One blustery morning Zap 210 joined Reith where he stood at the bow. For a 
moment they stood looking ahead across the heaving water to where Carina 4269 
dropped prisms and fractured shards of golden light.
Zap 210 asked, "What lies ahead?"
Reith shook his head. "I don't know. I wish I did."
"But you worry. Are you afraid?"
"I'm afraid of a man named Aila Woudiver. I don't know whether he's alive or 
dead."
"Who is Aila Woudiver, that you fear him so?"
"A man of Sivishe, a man to fear ... I think he must be dead. I was kidnapped 
out of a dream. In the dream I saw Aila Woudiver's head split open."
"So why do you worry?"
Sooner or later, thought Reith, he must make all clear. Perhaps now was the 
time. "Remember the night I told you of other worlds among the stars?"
"I remember."
"One of these worlds is Earth. At Sivishe I built a spaceship, with Aila 
Woudiver's help. I want to go to Earth."
Zap 210 stared ahead across the water. "Why do you want to go to Earth?"
"I was born there. It is my home."
"Oh." She spoke in a colorless voice. After a reflective silence of fifteen 
seconds, she turned him a sidelong glance.
Reith said ruefully, "You wonder if I am insane."
"I've wondered many times. Many, many times."
Though Reith himself had put the suggestion, he was nonetheless taken aback. 
"Indeed?"
She smiled her sad grimace of a smile. "Consider what you have done. In the 
Shelters. At the Khor grove. When you changed eels at Urmank."
"Acts of desperation, acts of a frantic Earthman."
Zap 210 brooded across the windy ocean. "If you are an Earthman, what do you do 
here on Tschai?"
"On the Kotan steppes my spaceship was wrecked. At Sivishe I've built another."
"Hmmf ... Is Earth such a paradise?"
"The people of Earth know nothing of Tschai. It's important that they do know."
"Why?"
"A dozen reasons. Most important, the Dirdir raided Earth once; they might 
decide to return."
She gave him her swift side-glance. "You have friends on Earth?"
"Of course."
"You lived there in a house?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"With a woman? And your children?"
"No woman, no children. I've been a spaceman all my life."
"And when you return-what then?"
"I'm not thinking past Sivishe right now."
"You will take me with you?"
Reith put his arm around her. "Yes. I will take you with me."
She heaved a sigh of relief. Presently she pointed ahead. "Beyond where the sun 
glints-an island."
The island, a great crag of barren black basalt, was the first of a myriad, to 
scarify the surface of the sea. The area was home to a host of sea-foragers, of 
a sort beyond Reith's previous experience. Four oscillating wings supported a 
cluster of dangling pink tentacles and a central tube ending in a bulbous eye. 
The creatures drifted high and low, dipping suddenly to seize some small 
wriggling sea-thing. A few drifted toward the Nhiahar; the crewmen lurched back 
in dread and took shelter in the forecastle.
The captain, who had come up on the foredeck, sneered in disgust. "They consider 
these the guts and eyes of drowned seamen. We sail the Channel of Death; these 
rocks are the Channel Teeth."
"How do you navigate by night?"
"I don't know," said the captain, "for I have never tried. It is risky enough by 
day. Around each of those rocks lies a hundred hulks and heaped white bones. Do 
you notice, far ahead, the loom? There is Kislovan! Tomorrow will find us docked 
at Kazain."
As evening approached long strands of clouds raced across the sky and the wind 
began to moan. The captain took the Nhiahar into the lee of one of the larger 
black rocks, nosing close, close, close, until the sprit almost scraped the wet 
black stone. Here the anchor was dropped and the Nhiahar rode in relative safety 
as the wind became a screaming gale. Great swells drove through the black crags; 
foam crashed high up and fell slowly back. The sea boiled and surged; the 
Nhiahar wallowed, jerking at the anchor line, then floating suddenly loose and 
free.
With the coming of darkness the wind died. For a long period the sea rose and 
fell in fretful recollection, but dawn found the Charnel Teeth standing like 
archaic monuments on a sea of brown glass. Beyond lay the bulk of the continent.
Proceeding through the Charnel Teeth under power, the Nhiahar at noon nosed into 
a long narrow bay and by late afternoon drew alongside the pier at Kazain.
On the dock two Dirdirmen paused to watch the Nhiahar.
Their caste was high, perhaps Immaculate; they were young and vain; they wore 
their false effulgences aslant and glittering. Reith's heart rose in his throat 
for fear that they had been sent to take him into custody. For such a 
contingency he had no plans; he sweated until the two sauntered off toward the 
Dirdir settlement at the head of the bay.
There were no formalities at the dock; Reith and Zap 210 carried their 
belongings ashore and without interference made their way to the motor-wagon 
depot. An eight-wheeled vehicle stood on the verge of departure across the neck 
of Kislovan; Reith commissioned the most luxurious accommodation available: a 
cubicle of two hammocks on the third tier with access to the rear deck.
An hour later the motor-wagon trundled forth from Kazain. For a space the road 
climbed into the coastal uplands, affording a view over the Channel of Death and 
the Charnel Teeth. Five miles north the road swung inland. For the rest of the 
day the motor-wagon lumbered beside bean-vine fields, forests of white 
ghost-apple, an occasional little village.
In the early evening the motor-wagon halted at an isolated inn, where the 
forty-three passengers took supper. About half seemed to be Grays; the rest were 
people Reith could not identify. A pair might have been steppe-men of Kotan; 
several conceivably were Saschanese. Two yellow-skinned women in gowns of black 
scales almost certainly were Marsh-folk from the north shore of the Second Sea. 
The various groups took the least possible notice of each other, eating and 
returning at once to board the power-wagon. The indifference Reith knew to be 
feigned; each had gauged the exact quality of all the others with a precision 
beyond any Reith could muster.
Early in the morning the power-wagon once more set forth and met the dawn 
climbing over the edge of the central plateau. Carina 4269 rose to illuminate a 
vast savanna, clumped with alumes, gallow-trees, bundle-fungus, patches of 
thorn-grass.
So passed the day, and four more: a journey which Reith hardly noticed for his 
mounting tension. In the Shelters, on the great subterranean canal, along the 
shores of the Second Sea, at Urmank, even aboard the Nhiahar, he had been calm 
with the patience of despair. The stakes were once again high. He hoped, he 
dreaded, he strained for the power-wagon to go faster, he shrank from the 
thought of what he might find in the warehouse on the Sivishe salt flats. Zap 
210, reacting to Reith's tension, or perhaps beset with premonitions of her own, 
retired into herself, and took small interest in the passing landscape.
Over the central plateau, down through a badlands of eroded granite, out upon a 
landscape farmed by clans of sullen Grays, went the powerwagon. Signs of the 
Dirdir presence appeared: a grey butte bristling with purple and scarlet towers, 
overlooking a rift valley, walled by sheer cliffs, which served the Dirdir as a 
hunting range. On the sixth day a range of mountains rose ahead: the back of the 
palisades overlooking Hei and Sivishe. The journey was almost at an end. All 
night the motor-wagon lumbered along a dusty road by the light of the pink and 
blue moons.
The moons set; the eastern sky took on the color of dried blood. Dawn came as a 
skyburst of dark scarlet, orange-brown, sepia. Ahead appeared the Ajzan Gulf and 
the clutter of Sivishe. Two hours later the motor-wagon lumbered into Sivishe 
Depot beside the bridge.



CHAPTER ELEVEN
REITH AND ZAP 210 crossed the bridge amid the usual crowd of Grays trudging to 
and from their work in the Hei factories.
Sivishe was achingly familiar: the background for so much passion and grief that 
Reith found his heart pounding. If, by fantastic luck, he returned to Earth, 
could he ever forget those events which had befallen him at Sivishe? "Come," he 
muttered. "Over here, aboard the transit dray."
The dray creaked and groaned; the dingy districts of Sivishe fell behind; they 
reached the southernmost stop, where the wagon turned east, toward the Ajzan 
shore. Ahead lay the salt flats, with a road winding out of Aila Woudiver's 
construction depot.
All seemed as before: mounds of gravel, sand, slag; stacks of brick and rubble. 
To the side stood Woudiver's eccentric little office, beyond the warehouse. 
There was no activity; no moving figures, no drays. The great doors to the 
warehouse were closed; the walls leaned more noticeably than ever. Reith 
accelerated his pace; he strode down the road, with Zap 210 walking, then 
running, then walking.
Reith reached the yard. He looked all around. Desolation. Not a sound, not a 
step. Silence. The warehouse seemed on the verge of collapse, as if it had been 
damaged by an explosion. Reith went to the side entrance, looked within. The 
premises were vacant. The spaceship was gone. The roof had been torn away and 
hung in shreds. The workshop and supply racks were a shambles.
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 Glass 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 nobleman."
"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 reassurance 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 Glass 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 shore 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 
spaceship, 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 spaceship."
"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 passed. 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 passed. 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."
"Why did you signal us?"
"Yesterday you came to take my companion."
The Gzhindra made no remark.
"This is true, is it not?" Reith demanded.
"It is true."
"Why did you do this?"
"We hold such a commission."
"What did you do with her?"
"We delivered her to such a place as we were bid."
"Where is this place?"
"Yonder."
"You have a commission to take me?"
"Yes."
"Very well; " said Reith. "You go first. I will follow."
The Gzhindra consulted in whispers. One said: "This is not feasible. We do not 
care to walk with others coming at our backs."
"For once you can tolerate the sensation," said Reith. "After all, you will 
thereby be fulfilling your commission."
"True, if all goes well. But what if you elect to burn us with a weapon?"
"I would have done so before," said Reith. "At the moment I only want to find my 
companion and bring her back to the surface."
The Gzhindra surveyed him with impersonal curiosity. "Why will you not walk 
first?"
"I don't know where to go."
"We will direct you."
Reith spoke so harshly that his voice cracked. "Go first. This is easier than 
carrying me in a sack."
The Gzhindra whispered to each other, moving the corners of their thin mouths 
without taking their eyes off Reith. Then they turned and walked slowly off 
across the salt flats.
Reith came after, remaining about fifty feet to the rear. They followed the 
faintest of trails, which at times disappeared utterly. A mile, two miles, they 
walked. The warehouse and the office diminished to small rectangular marks; 
Sivishe was a blurred gray crumble at the northern horizon.
The Gzhindra halted and turned to Reith, who thought to detect a fugitive 
flicker of glee. "Come closer," said one of the Gzhindra. "You must stand here 
with us."
Reith gingerly came forward. He brought out the energy gun which he had only 
just purchased, and displayed it. "This is precautionary. I do not wish to be 
killed, or drugged. I want to go alive down into the Shelters."
"No fear there, no fear there!" "Have no doubts on that score!" said the 
Gzhindra, speaking together. "Put away your gun; it is without significance."
Reith held the gun in his hand as he approached the Gzhindra.
"Closer, closer!" they urged. "Stand within the outline of the black soil."
Reith stepped on the patch of soil designated, which at once settled into the 
ground. The Gzhindra stood quietly, so close now that Reith could see the minute 
creases in the skin of their faces. If they felt alarm for his weapon they 
showed none.
The camouflaged elevator descended fifteen feet; the Gzhindra stepped off into a 
concrete-walled passage. Looking over their shoulders they beckoned. "Hurry." 
They set off at a swinging trot, cloaks flapping from side to side. Reith came 
behind. The passage slanted downward; running was without sensible effort. The 
passage became level, then suddenly ended at a brink; beyond stretched a 
waterway. The Gzhindra motioned Reith down into a boat and themselves took 
seats. The boat slid along the surface, guided automatically along the center of 
the channel.
For half an hour they traveled, Reith looking dourly ahead, the Gzhindra sitting 
stiff and silent as carved black images.
The channel entered a larger waterway; the boat drifted up to a dock. Reith 
stepped ashore; the Gzhindra came behind, and Reith ignored the near-transparent 
glee with as much dignity as he could muster. They signaled him to wait; 
presently from the shadows a Pnumekin appeared. The Gzhindra muttered a few 
words into the air, which the Pnumekin seemed to ignore, then they stepped back 
into their boat and slid away, with pale backward glances. Reith stood alone on 
the dock with the Pnumekin, who now said: "Come, Adam Reith. We have been 
awaiting you."
Reith said, "The young woman who was brought down yesterday: where is she?"
"Come."
"Where?"
"The zuzhma kastchai wait for you."
A sensation like a draft of cold air prickled the skin of Reith's back. Into his 
mind crept furtive little misgivings, which he tried to put aside. He had taken 
all precautions available to him; their effectiveness was yet to be tested.
The Pnumekin beckoned. "Come."
Reith followed, resentful and shamed. They went down a zigzag corridor walled 
with panes of polished black flint, accompanied by reflections and moving 
shadows. Reith began to feel dazed. The corridor widened into a hall of black 
mirrors; Reith now moved in a state of bewilderment. He followed the Pnumekin to 
a central column, where they slid back a portal. "You must go onward alone, to 
Foreverness."
Reith looked through the portal, into a small cell lined with a substance like 
silver fleece. "What is this?"
"You must enter."
"Where is the young woman who was brought here yesterday?"
"Enter through the portal."
Reith spoke in anger and apprehension: "I want to talk to the Pnume. It is 
important that I do so."
"Step into the cell. When the portal opens, follow, follow the trace, to 
Foreverness."
In a state of sick fury Reith glared at the Pnumekin. The pale face looked back 
with fish-like detachment. Demands, threats, rose up in Reith's throat only to 
dwindle and die. Delay, any loss of time, might result in terrible consequences, 
the thought of which caused his stomach to jerk and quiver. He stalked into the 
cell.
The portal closed. Down slid the cell, dropping at a rapid but controlled rate. 
A minute passed. The cell halted. A portal flew open. Reith stepped forth into 
black glossy darkness. From his feet a trail of luminous yellow dots wound off 
into the gloom. Reith looked in all directions. He listened. Nothing, no sound, 
no pressure of any living presence. Burdened with a sense of destiny, he set off 
along the trace.
The line of luminous spots swung this way and that. Reith followed them with 
exactitude, fearing what might lie to either side. On one occasion he thought to 
hear a far hushed roar, as of air rising from some great depth.
The dark lightened, almost imperceptibly, to a glow from some unseen source. 
Without warning he came to a brink; he stood at the edge of a darkling 
landscape, a place of objects faintly outlined in gold and silver luminosity. At 
his feet a flight of stone steps led down; Reith descended, step after step.
He reached the bottom and halted in an uncontrollable pang of terror; in front 
of him stood a Pnume.
Reith pulled together the elements of his will. He said in as firm a voice as he 
could muster: "I am Adam Reith. I have come here for the young woman, my 
companion, whom you took away yesterday. Bring her here immediately."
From the shape came the husky Pnume whisper: "You are Adam Reith?"
"Yes. Where is the woman?"
"You came here from Earth?"
"What of the woman? Tell me!"
"Why did you come to Old Tschai?"
A roar of desperation rose in Reith's throat. "Answer my question!"
The dark shape slid quietly away. Reith stood a moment, undecided whether to 
stand or follow.
The gold and silver luminosities seemed to become brighter; or perhaps Reith had 
begun to cast order upon the seemingly unrelated shapes. He began to see 
outlines and tracts, pagoda-like frameworks, a range of columns. Beyond appeared 
silhouettes with gold and silver fringes, as yet unstructured by his mind.
The Pnume stalked slowly away. Reith's frustration reached an intensity where he 
felt almost faint; then he experienced a rage which sent him bounding after the 
Pnume. He seized the harsh shoulder-element and jerked; to his utter 
astonishment the Pnume dropped as if falling over backward, the arms swinging 
down to serve as forelegs. It stood ventral surface upmost, head swiveling 
strangely down and over, so that the Pnume took on the aspect of a night-hound. 
While Reith gaped in awe and embarrassment the Pnume flipped itself upright, to 
regard Reith with chilling disfavour.
Reith found his voice. "I must talk to responsible folk among you and quickly. 
What I have to say is urgent-to you and to me!"
"This is Foreverness," came the husky voice. "Such words have no meaning."
"You will think differently, when you hear me."
"Come to your place in Foreverness. You are awaited." Once more the creature set 
off. Tears brimmed in Reith's eyes; vast outrage rose up behind his teeth. If 
anything had happened to Zap 210, they would pay, how they would pay! regardless 
of consequence.
For a space they walked and presently passed through a columned portal into a 
new underground realm: a place which Reith associated with some elegant memorial 
garden of old Earth.
Away and along the gold- and silver-fringed prospect stood brooding shapes. 
Reith had no opportunity for speculation. Certain shapes moved forward; he saw 
them to be Pnume, and advanced to meet them. There were at least twenty; by 
their extreme diffidence and unobtrusiveness Reith understood them to be of the 
highest status. Facing the twenty shadows in this shadow-haunted corner of 
Foreverness he could not help but wonder as to the state of his mind. Was he 
wholly sane? In such surroundings orderly mental processes were inapplicable. By 
sheer brutal energy he must impose his personal will-to-order upon the devious 
environment of the Pnume.
He looked around the shadowed group. "I am Adam Reith," he said. "I am an 
Earthman. What do you want of me?"
"Your presence in Foreverness."
"I'm here," said Reith, "but I intend to go. I came of my own volition; are you 
aware of this?"
"You would have come in any event."
"Wrong. I would not have come. You kidnapped my friend, a young woman. I came to 
fetch her away and take her back to the surface."
The Pnume, as if by signal, all took a simultaneous slow step forward: a 
sinister movement, the stuff of nightmare. "How did you expect to effect so 
much? This is Foreverness."
Reith thought for a moment. "You Pnume have lived long on Tschai."
"Long, long: we are the soul of Tschai. We are the world itself."
"Other races live on Tschai; they are people more powerful than yourselves."
"They come and go: colored shadows to entertain us. We expel them as we choose."
"You do not fear the Dirdir?"
"They cannot reach us. They know none of our precious secrets."
"What if they did?"
The dark shapes approached another slow pace.
Reith called out in a harsh voice: "What if the Dirdir know all your secrets: 
all your tunnels and passages and pop-outs?"
"A grotesque situation which can never be real."
"But it can be real. I can make it real." Reith brought forth a folder bound in 
blue leather. "Examine this."
The Pnume gingerly accepted the portfolio. "It is the lost master-set!"
"Wrong again," said Reith. "It is a copy."
The Pnume set up a low whimpering sound, and Reith once again thought of the 
night-hounds; he had often heard just such soft calls out on the Kotan steppes.
The sad half-whispered wails subsided. The Pnume stood in a rigid semicircle. 
Reith could feel their emotion; it was almost palpable, a crazy, irresponsible 
ferocity he heretofore had associated only with the Phung.
"Be calm," said Reith. "The danger is not imminent. The charts are hostage to my 
safety; you are secure unless I do not return to the surface. In this case the 
charts will be given over to the Blue Chasch and the Dirdir."
"Intolerable. The charts must be secured. There is no alternative."
"That is what I hoped you would say." Reith looked around the half-circle. "You 
agree to my conditions?"
"We have not heard them."
"I want the woman whom you brought down yesterday. If she is dead, I plan to 
exact a terrible penalty from you. You will long remember me; you will long 
curse the name Adam Reith."
The Pnume stood in silence.
"Where is she?" demanded Reith in a rasping voice.
"She is in Foreverness, to be crystallized."
"Is she alive? Or is she dead?"
"She is not yet dead."
"Where is she?"
"Across the Field of Monuments, awaiting preparation."
"You say that she is not yet dead-but is she alive and well?"
"She lives."
"Then you are fortunate."
The Pnume surveyed him with incomprehension, and certain of the group gave 
near-human shrugs.
Reith said: "Bring her here, or let us go to her, whichever is faster."
"Come."
They set out across the Field of Monuments: statues or simulacra representing 
folk of a hundred various races. Reith could not avoid pausing to stare in 
fascination. "Who or what are all these creatures?"
"Episodes in the life of Tschai, which is to say, our own lives. There: the 
Shivvan who came to Tschai seven million years ago. This is an early crystal, 
one of the oldest: the memento of a far time. Beyond: the Gjee, who founded 
eight empires and were expunged by the Fesa, who in turn fled the light of the 
red star Hsi. Yonder: others who have dropped by along their way to oblivion."
Along the avenues the group moved. The monuments were black, fringed with 
luminous gold and silver: creatures quadruped, triped, biped; with heads, 
cerebral bags, nerve-nets; with eyes, optical bands, flexible sensors, prisms. 
Here towered a massive bulk with a heavy cranium; it brandished a seven-foot 
sword. The creature Reith saw to be a Green Chasch bull. Nearby a Blue Chasch 
chastened a group of crouching Old Chasch, while three Chaschmen glowered from 
the side. Beyond were Dirdir and Dirdirmen, attended by two men and two women of 
a race Reith failed to recognize. To the side a single Wankh, alone and austere, 
surveyed a gang of toiling men. Beyond these groups, except for a single empty 
pedestal, the avenue led away, down a black slope to a slow black river, the 
surface marked by drifting silver swirls. Beside the river stood a cage of 
silver bars; huddled in the cage was Zap 210. She watched the group approach 
with an impassive face. She saw Reith; her face crumpled into opposed emotions; 
grief and joy, relief and dismay. She had been stripped of her surface clothes; 
she wore only a white shift.
Reith took pains to control his voice; still he spoke thickly. "What have you 
done to her?"
"She has been treated with Liquid One. It invigorates and tones, and opens the 
passages for Liquid Two."
"Bring her forth."
Zap 210 emerged from the cage. Reith took her hand, stroked her head. "You are 
safe. We're going back to the surface." He stood for a few minutes quietly 
waiting while she wept in relief and nervous exhaustion on his shoulder.
The Pnume came close. One said: "The return of all charts is demanded."
Reith managed a thick laugh. "Not yet. I have other demands to make of you-but 
elsewhere. Let us leave this place. Foreverness oppresses me."
In a hall of polished gray marble Reith faced the Pnume Elders. "I am a man; I 
am disturbed to see men of my own kind living the unnatural lives of Pnumekin. 
You must breed no more human children, and the children now underground must be 
transferred to the surface and there maintained until they are able to fend for 
themselves."
"But this means the end of the Pnumekin!"
"So it does, and why not? Your race is seven million years old or more. Only in 
the last twenty or thirty thousand years have you had Pnumekin to serve you. 
Their loss will be no great hardship."
"If we agree-what of the charts?"
"I will destroy all but a very few copies. None will be delivered to your 
enemies."
"This is unsatisfactory! We would then live in constant dread!"
"I can't worry as to this. I must retain control over you, to guarantee that my 
demands have been met. In due course I may return all the charts to you-sometime 
in the future."
The Pnume muttered disconsolately together a few moments. One said in a flat 
whisper: "Your demands will be met."
"In this case, conduct us back to the Sivishe salt flats."
At sunset the salt flats were quiet. Carina 4269 hung in a smoky haze behind the 
palisades, glinting upon the Dirdir towers. Reith and Zap 210 approached the old 
warehouse. From the office came Anacho's spare form. He stepped forward to meet 
them. "The sky-car is here. There is nothing to keep us."
"Let's hurry then. I can't believe that we're free."
The sky-car lifted from behind the warehouse and swept north. Anacho asked: 
"Where do we go?"
"To the Kotan steppes, south of where you and I first met."
All night they flew, over the barren center of Kislovan, then over the First Sea 
and the Kotan marshlands.
At dawn they drifted over the edge of the Steppes while Reith studied the 
landscape below. They crossed a forest; Reith pointed to a clearing. "There: 
where I came down to Tschai. The Emblem camp lay to the east. There, by that 
grove of feather-bush: there we buried Onmale. Drop down there."
The sky-car landed. Reith alighted and walked slowly toward the woods. He saw 
the glint of metal. Traz came forth. He stood quietly as Reith approached. "I 
knew that you would come."
Traz had changed. He had become a man: something more than a man. On his 
shoulder he wore a medallion of metal, stone and wood. Reith said: "You dug up 
the emblem."
"Yes. It called to me. Wherever I walked upon the steppe I heard voices, all the 
voices of all the Omnale chieftains, calling to be taken up from the dark. I 
brought forth the emblem; the voices are now silent."
"And the ship?"
"It is ready. Four of the technicians are here. One stayed at Sivishe, two lost 
heart and set off across the steppes for Hedaijha."
"The sooner we depart the better. When we're actually out in space I'll believe 
that we've escaped."
"We are ready."
Anacho, Traz and Zap 210 entered the spaceship. Reith took a last look around 
the sky. He bent, touched the soil of Tschai, crumbled a handful of mold between 
his fingers. Then he too entered the unlovely hulk. The port was closed and 
sealed. The generators hummed. The ship lifted toward the sky. The face of 
Tschai receded; the planet exhibited rotundity, became a graybrown ball, and 
presently was gone.
