Vance, Jack - Tschai 4 - The Pnume

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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
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
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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
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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.
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"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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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