Reith relinquished the gun. Helsse turned toward the other three w.a.n.khmen, pushed the trigger-b.u.t.ton. The three fell dead, their heads shattered.

The w.a.n.kh stood a moment in silence, a.s.sessing 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 grat.i.tude 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 w.a.n.kh that you were a man from a far world, the home of man. Is this correct?"

"It is what I told the w.a.n.kh."

"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 s.p.a.ceship. Such a theft as we perpetrated upon the w.a.n.kh would be impossible. Still-at the Great Sivishe s.p.a.ceyards 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 w.a.n.khmen are departing the fortresses; they have been driven out and now live in huts with the Blacks and Purples. It appears that the w.a.n.kh 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 s.p.a.ceyards are a dozen s.p.a.ceboats, needing only procurement and a.s.sembly."

"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 pa.s.sed 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 ta.s.seled cap after the style of the Yao. His personality was unpredictable;he inclined toward garrulity, freakish jokes, sudden petulances. Traz, square, somber and st.u.r.dy, 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 s.p.a.ce 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. s.p.a.ceships 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 s.p.a.ceyards. 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 surrept.i.tiously; 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 pa.s.sage 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."