The hostage of zir, p.8
The Hostage of Zir, page 8
He pulled himself together and set out for the entrance, walking with self-conscious precision. Mjipa’s words about not letting the side down before extraterrestrials came to his mind. He had to make several turns and go through doors, where armored guardsmen stood impassively in pairs. They gave him only cursory glances.
He pushed through one pair of doors and recoiled in dismay. He found himself, not in the vestibule of the entrance as he expected, but in a sitting room. At a table, playing a game, sat Vázni and an older female Krishnan. Vázni gave a pleased squeal at the sight of Reith, who fumbled for the doorknob and stammered: “I—so sorry—lost my ways.”
“How fortunate!” cried the Douri. “Then you shall remain to entertain me, as a penance most condign for your mistake. Take a chair, good Master Reese!”
While Reith hesitated, Vázni spoke to her companion. The other Krishnan got up, bowed, said polite things, and departed.
Now Reith was truly appalled. From what he had read of Terran history, he believed that, in a medieval court, to be caught alone with a royal female was enough to get a man shortened by a head. On the other hand, he was afraid openly to flout the princess’ commands.
“Go on, sit you!” said Vázni. “At least, herein we need not shout to be heard above the uproar, as at today’s party. Now tell me more of your far, exotical homeland!”
“I—I speak your language so bad—”
“Nonsense; ’twill give you good practice. I’ll correct your errors. Do you take a single spouse apiece, or does each male wed a multitude of females, as among the heathen of Nich-Nyamadzë?”
Reith began a stumbling, laborious explanation of Terran marital customs. By switching the subject to the rearing of children, he hoped to divert Vázni’s mind from the form and functions of human genitalia.
As he spoke, Reith became aware of internal discomfort. As he knew, he had drunk more kvad than he usually allowed himself. Now this intake of liquid was having its effect. He had no idea of what to do. What did one say on Krishna, especially to a princess? “May I wash my hands, please?” or “I’ve got to see a man about a dog?”
Such circumlocutions would only bewilder her, even if he could put them into Durou. Did these folk use such euphemisms, or did they come right out . . . Squirming in his seat, he said: “Highness, I beg you excuse me. Must see to my earthmen.”
“Nay, linger a little while yet,” she said. “Can I order a drink for you?”
“Thanks; I already have too much.”
She looked sharply at him. “Sweat bedews your brow, good my sir. Find you the air too hot?”
“Nay, I—It just fine am.” He gritted his teeth and tensed his sphincters. “Tell me, why do the Regent of richest Varasto kingdom dress so—so . . .” Reith tried to think of a Duro equivalent of “unpretentious.”
She laughed. “Because my cousin, albeit the richest wight of the Triple Seas, is the most penurious. When I chide him for his beggarly raiment, he retorts that everyone in Dur knows him anyway, so where were the object of dressing up?”
“Better to err that way than other—to spend kingdom’s money on show.”
“For him, I ween ’tis his affair. What riles me is when he seeks the same regimen to impose on me. ’Tis said I’m not truly ugly; yet I might as well be, for the few wretched rags my beggarly clothing stipend allows me.”
“I think you dress beautiful.”
“Nay, flatterer; there’s many a dame, wife of a merchant or even an artisan, better bedight than I. But now, I’d fain know more of the methods of begetting among the Ertsuma, whereof this afternoon you did begin to tell me. For ensample, what’s the size and form of the organ male? And what confers upon it the necessary stiffness—why, Master Reese, find you that chair lacking in comfort? You fidget so. Here, take this one.”
“No; it is not chair. I are not well. Must get back to my room for medicine.” He started to rise.
“Alas, poor fellow! Is there aught I can—”
The door opened, and there stood the Regent, staring down from his nearly two hundred centimeters of height. In no friendly tone, Tashian said: “By Tyazan’s nose, Master Reese! Little did I reck on finding you here.”
Vázni burst into rapid speech. From the occasional word he caught, Reith inferred that she was explaining that he had merely lost his way, blundered into her quarters, and tried to withdraw, but she had detained him.
“I am sorry,” said Reith, rising. “I should have ask guard the way, but my speech so bad is. Was just going.”
Tashian looked the pair over narrowly. Although those flattish, semi-oriental Krishnan faces were not very expressive, Reith guessed that the Regent was weighing the facts that the two were seated across the table from each other, that their clothing was in order, and that Vázni could have called to the guards outside if Reith had attempted undue familiarities. Also, Reith thought, he doesn’t want to spoil the tourist business in the bud. At last Tashian said: “Well, Master Reese, we’ll forget this trifling error. A Krishnan would not have paid such a lone nocturnal visit, but I believe your intent was innocent, and much can be excused a stranger.”
“Your Excellency,” said Reith desperately, “speak you any Terran tongue?”
“A few words of Portuguese. Why?”
“Then please—onde posso urinar?”
Tashian’s antennae twitched, as happened when Krishnans were startled. Then he burst into a roar of laughter and smote Reith on the back. He almost knocked the smaller earthman down and, more importantly, nearly made him lose control of his abdominal muscles.
“So, that’s what you were seeking! My good fellow, I’ll show you straightaway. Off to bed with you, Vázni, ere you corrupt any more of our visitors from distant worlds. The stars give you a good night. Come with me, O Reese.”
Following the Regent out, Reith reached up and gave his head a tug. He wanted to be sure it was firmly attached to him still.
VI
THE RAILROAD TO ZIR
Considine and Turner climbed into the railroad car. Looking at the wooden seats, the former said: “Hey, Fearless, what’s this? A cattle car? I suppose you’d call it a shaihan car, eh?”
Silvester Pride grumbled: “These damned native shoes don’t fit. The right and left are just alike. After I’d stood over the gook and showed him how I wanted them made, too!”
“Where will they put those workmen Mr. Strachan was hiring?” said Santiago Guzmán-Vidal. “We don’t want a lot of essmelly natives in with us.”
“Hae, laddie!” cried Strachan, swinging aboard. “All aboard the Gha’id Special?”
“All present,” said Reith. “They’re worried about the Duruma, though. They—ah—they’d rather not share the car—”
“What a bunch of bloody snobs!” said Strachan. “But they needn’t worry. My Krishnans have two cars of their own. They wouldn’t want to ride with Ertsuma anyway; say they smell bad. There goes our other locomotive. We need a double-header.”
The tourists looked out the window as the second bishtar lumbered past. The animal had a body and limbs of vaguely elephantine shape, save that six pillarlike legs supported the long, cylindrical body. Although furnished with a pair of trunks, the head was not like an elephant’s. It more resembled that of a gigantic tapir, with an elongated, bifurcated proboscis. Each fork of the split trunk was about a meter long. The swiveling ears were of trumpetlike shape. The animal was covered with short, smooth, glossy fur, a deep purplish brown with white spots.
Abaft the ears, a Krishnan mahout sat on a saddle astride the neck, talking to the beast in a language known only to bishtars and their masters. From ahead came a rattle of chains as the second bishtar was harnessed in front of the first.
Then came another long wait, until the tourists squirmed and began asking Reith for explanations. Reith asked Strachan, who asked the conductor.
“Just stowing a piece of freight,” reported Strachan.
“These natives!” said Guzmán-Vidal. “No sense of the time.”
At last someone called: “Byant-hao!” A trumpet blew. The train started with a jerk and a clatter of couplings. It clicked over switch points and out on the qong-wood rails of the main line.
Flanges groaned, axles screeched, couplings clanked, and harness jingled. Under all the noise came the muffled thud of the twelve columnar legs of their power unit. Lurching and swaying, the twelve little wooden cars rolled westward at fourteen or fifteen Terran kilometers an hour.
The track wound along the shore of the Va’andao Sea, of which those in the train caught occasional glimpses to the left. Otherwise an endless panorama of farm and forest swept past. After the first hour, the farms became scarcer.
Most of the time, the train was shut in on both sides by a dense temperate-zone forest. This, despite the rainbow hues of its foliage (like New Hampshire in the fall, said Mrs. Whitney Scott), in time became monotonous. Now and then, a wild Krishnan herbivore, grazing along the right of way, looked up from its nibbling and bolted into the woods as the train rocked past.
When the train began to descend a grade, whistles blew and trainmen shouted. These rushed back and forth to apply hand brakes, lest the cars roll forward and bump the after bishtar.
Turner got up to visit the little toilet enclosure in the end of the car. He grabbed at seat backs as the car lurched. At last he missed a grab and landed in the ample lap of Mélanie Jussac. Madame Jussac said: “Oh, the little boy wants his mozzer, non? You are lucky you did not fall in the lap of the Señora Guzmán, or Santiago would be after you with his sword!”
Laughing, she set Turner back on his feet. He continued his lurching progress saying: “This is worse than the old West Chester local, before they upgraded the roadbed.”
After assuring himself that his tourists were safe for the nonce, Reith got up to explore. Forward, between their car and the two bishtars, were two flatcars piled with freight and lashed down with tarpaulins. Aft were two more coaches, filled with Krishnan workmen, and behind these came two more freight cars. After a look at the meter-wide gap between his own swaying, yawing car and the next one aft, Reith went back into his own car and handed his sword to Guzmán-Vidal, saying: “Would you please hold this, Santiago? I don’t want to jump to the next car and have this thing trip me up.”
Reith jumped the gap and continued into the Krishnan-occupied car. He found Strachan on one of the seats, smoking a powerful Krishnan cigar and talking fluent Durou with one of his workmen.
“Ahoy, laddie!” said Strachan. “Not quite the Royal Scot, is it? But give ’em time. The Industrial Revolution’s on its way. Come back in a hundred years and you won’t know the planet. They’ll probably go through an automobile age, the same as we did, until their petroleum gives out. That is, if they have petroleum.”
“Won’t that lead to a lot of turmoil, revolution, and so on?”
Strachan shrugged. “Belike, but what can we do? Once they know it can be done—and we’ve shown them it can by example—they’ll not rest until they’ve done it, too. It does no good to warn them against Terran mistakes. Still and on, they’re an uncoly volatile, scrappy lot, so a little more violence won’t make much difference.”
“Ken,” said Reith, “you were going to tell me about these characters out in Zir, the Dasht and the Witch.” He had to shout to be heard above the clatter.
“Weel, now—hold on; we’re going into a siding.”
As the train struck a reverse curve, Reith grabbed a seat back to keep from being thrown into a Krishnan’s lap. Trainmen bustled back and forth. Brake shoes ground, and the train slowed to a halt. They stood on a double-tracked section.
“What’s this?” asked Reith.
“We’re stopping for two purposes; namely, to wait for the regular eastbound daily from Jizorg to go by on the main track, and to eat our lunch.”
“I wondered how we’d eat with these things bucking like broncos. Don’t Krishnan railroads have double-tracked lines?”
“Not yet; traffic’s not dense enough. Tell your folk to get off and stretch if they like. We shan’t go off without them.”
Reith hurried back to his own car and handed out the box lunches piled on one of the seats. Presently his tourists were all sitting or standing beside the train, eating and drinking. Up forward, the bishtars had been unhitched and guided to the edge of the forest There they fell to feeding. Each animal grabbed a huge mass of many-colored vegetation in the fork of its cleft trunk, wrenched it loose, and stuffed it into its cavernous maw.
“Sheugh, man!” came a sudden shout from Strachan. “Watch that stuff!”
Reith looked around. Strachan was speaking to Professor Mulroy, who had been about to pick a sprig of a plant with leaves of a striking pattern of black and white stripes. Strachan explained: “That’s the sha’pir, or zebra weed if you prefer. It works like your American poison ivy. Only, in accord with the principle that everything nasty here is twice as nasty, it comes on twice as quick, itches twice as bad, and lasts twice as long.
“When Siggy and I were working in Suruskand, one hot day he took a dip in a pool in a river and then found he had nocht to dry himself with. So he tried to dry his hands, face, and other parts with these leaves. He was laid up so long that it cost us the bonus we’d have earned for finishing the job ahead of time.”
“My word!” said the professor. “I am exceedingly grateful to you, Mr. Strachan. This plant looks interesting. It has evidently evolved a warning coloration, analogous to that of a Terran hornet. I don’t suppose there’s a book on the poisonous plants of Krishna?”
“Not that I know. A couple of years ago, there was a human botanist in Suruskand studying the plants. But the poor birkie went out without an escort once too often, and a yeki ate him.”
“Dear me!” said Mulroy. Several tourists added exclamations. “I trust we shall not encounter such a predator without adequate protection.”
“Not here. The yeki is mainly a plains dweller, found in places like the prairies of Ruz. Here, the largest beast of prey is the yeki’s smaller cousin, the kargan, which seldom bothers game of our size. The most dangerous are the wild eshuna, which run in packs; but they avoid parties like ours.”
“You relieve my apprehensions. I think I shall measure the bodily temperature of the bishtars.” Mulroy produced a clinical thermometer. “I do not believe it has yet been ascertained.”
“Hey!” said Reith. “If you try to stick that up its—”
“Have no fears, Fergus. That is not how one does it with a large, formidable animal.”
“How, then?”
“It is simple. One follows the organism until it defecates and inserts the thermometer into a fresh dropping.” The professor ambled off, expectantly watching the bishtars.
Having finished his lunch, Reith said in a low voice: “Ken, could you step over this way with me? I want to hear about Zir, but I’d rather my geese didn’t overhear our talk.”
“Weel, Fergus, Zir is a wild bit of mountainous country at the northwest corner of the Va’andao. Dur and Gozashtand both lay claim to it whiles, but neither can make its claim stick. The country’s too rugged, and the Ziruma make things lively for outsiders.”
“What about this fellow who calls himself lord of Zir?”
“Some years ago, Barré vas-Sarf got his start as a mere bandido, raiding the lowlands. Both Tashian and Eqrar have sent armies in after him, but they wore themselves out climbing mountain trails and were picked off in surprises and ambushes until they gave it up as a bad job.
“Meanwhile, Barré got more and more clans under his control, until he started calling himself the Dasht of Zir. Eqrar and Tashian have ordered him to declare fealty to them, but he’s told them where to stuff their demands.”
“And you think he’ll let you run Tashian’s railroad through his country?”
“Tashian thinks that, with the railroad, he can maintain enough soldiers at the end of the line to keep Barré from interfering. I hae ma doutes, but meanwhile Tashian’s paying enough gold in at Novo to make it worth Siggy’s and my while.”
“How about the so-called Witch of Zir?”
Strachan laughed. “That’s your goddamned missionaries. Why they let those maggot-mongers in, while they won’t allow honest technicians like me to teach the Krishnans something useful, I dinna ken. Political influence in high places, I suppose. If they let in the Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and such, they have to admit all the daft little cults, too. Like that fellow we met in Suruskand, who went about telling the Krishnans they were the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. He argued that, since a Krishnan animal called a shomal looks something like a camel, the names ‘shomal’ and ‘camel’ must come from the same root—some ancient Hebrew word, gamal I think.
“All this proselyting stirs up more violence and bloodshed than all the inventions of the Industrial Revolution put together. Anyhow, one of them converted a local priestess, years ago, and she built her own cult of his teachings. Now Shosti’s the leader of a far-flung sect: the Ultimate Verity, I suppose you’d call it in English. She holds that the universe is the scene of a vast war between two hostile groups of interplanetary entities, the good and the bad. We Ertsuma are the bad. There’s an unconfirmed rumor that the French swindler, Felix Borel, found refuge with her.”
“But if he’s one of the evil entities—”
“As I say, lad, it’s not known if he went there or not. We’ve heard nocht direct since he disappeared into the mountains. Here comes the daily.”
Another train, of five cars drawn by a single bishtar, appeared on the main track. Brave in red and blue paint, it rumbled past the sidetracked special. The Krishnans on the daily exchanged shouts and gestures of greeting with those waiting on the siding.
Strachan finished his fruit. “I see that Master Kherát, our gallant conductor, is gathering his men and beasts to move out. You’d best collect yours, too.”
Reith got all his people back aboard the train save Otto Schwerin. A frantic search at last discovered Schwerin perched in a tree, photographing.
