A Time of Changes

39

The voyage to the southern continent was conducted as though in a dream. Not once did I question the wisdom of undertaking the journey, nor did I pause to ask myself why it was necessary for me to take part in person, rather than let Schweiz make the trip alone, or send some hireling to gather the drug on our behalf. I simply set about the task of arranging for our passage.

No commercial shipping goes regularly between Velada Borthan and Sumara Borthan. Those who would travel to the southern continent must charter a vessel. This I did, through the instrumentality of the High Justiciary, using intermediaries and dummy signatories. The vessel I chose was no Mannerangi craft, for I did not care to be recognized when we sailed, but rather a ship of the western province of Velis that had been tied down in Manneran Harbor for the better part of a year by a lawsuit. It seemed there was some dispute over title to the ship going on in its home port, and the thicket of injunctions and counterinjunctions had succeeded in making it impossible for the vessel to leave Manneran after its last voyage there. The captain and crew were bitter over this enforced idleness and had already filed a protest with the Justiciary; but the High Justice had no jurisdiction over a lawsuit that was being fought entirely in the courts of Velis, and we therefore had had to continue the stay on the vessel’s departure until word came from Velis that title was clear. Knowing all this, I issued a decree in the High Justice’s name that would permit the unfortunate craft temporarily to accept charters for voyages to points “between the River Woyn and the eastern shore of the Gulf of Sumar.” That usually was taken to mean any point along the coast of the province of Manneran, but I specified also that the captain might hire himself out for trips to the northern coast of Sumara Borthan. Doubtless that clause left the poor man puzzled, and it must have puzzled him even more when, a few days later, he was approached by my agents and asked to make a voyage to that very place.

Neither Loimel nor Halum nor Noim nor anyone else did I tell of my destination. I said only that the Justiciary required me to go abroad for a short while. At the Justiciary I was even less specific, applying to myself for a leave of absence, granting it at once, and informing the High Justice at the last possible moment that I was not going to be available for the immediate future.

To avoid complications with the collectors of customs, among other things, I picked as our port of departure the town of Hilminor, in southwestern Manneran on the Gulf of Sumar. This is a medium-sized place that depends mainly on the fishing trade, but which serves also as a halfway stop for ships traveling between the city of Manneran and the western provinces. I arranged to meet our chartered captain in Hilminor; he then set out for that town by sea, while Schweiz and I made for it in a groundcar.

It was a two-day journey via the coastal highway, through a countryside ever more lush, ever more densely tropical, as we approached the Gulf of Sumar. Schweiz was in high spirits, as was I. We talked to one another in the first person constantly; to him it was nothing, of course, but I felt like a wicked boy sneaking off to whisper “I” and “me” in a playmate’s ear. He and I speculated on what quantity of the Sumaran drug we would obtain, and what we would do with it. No longer was it just a question of my getting some to use with Halum: we were talking now of proselytizing everyone and bringing about a wholesale liberation of my self-stifling countrymen. That evangelical approach had crept gradually into our plans almost without my realizing it, and had swiftly become dominant.

We came to Hilminor on a day so hot the sky itself seemed to break out in blisters. A shimmering dome of heat covered everything, and the Gulf of Sumar, as it lay before us, was golden-skinned in the fierce sunlight. Hilminor is rimmed by a chain of low hills, which are thickly forested on the seaward side and desert on the landward; the highway curved through them, and we stopped at one point so that I could show Schweiz the flesh-trees that covered the parched inland slopes. A dozen of the trees were clustered in one place. We walked through crackling tinder-dry underbrush to reach them: twice the height of men they were, with twisted limbs and thick pale bark, spongy to the touch like the flesh of very old women. The trees were scarred from repeated tapping of their sap, making them look all the more repugnant. “Can we taste the fluid?” Schweiz asked. We had no implements for making the tap, but just then a girl of the town came along, perhaps ten years old, half-naked, tanned a deep brown to hide the dirt; she was carrying an auger and a flask, and evidently had been sent out by her family to collect flesh-tree sap. She looked at us sourly. I produced a coin and said, “One would show his companion the taste of the flesh-tree.” Still a sour look; but she jammed her auger into the nearest tree with surprising force, twisted it, withdrew, and caught the gush of clear thick fluid. Sullenly she handed her flask to Schweiz. He sniffed it, took a cautious lick, finally had a gulp. And whooped in delight. “Why isn’t this stuff sold all over Velada Borthan?” he asked.

“The whole supply comes from one little area along the Gulf,” I told him. “Most of it’s consumed locally, and a lot gets shipped to Threish, where it’s almost an addiction. That doesn’t leave much left over for the rest of the continent. You can buy it in Manneran, of course, but you have to know where to look.”

“You know what I’d like to do, Kinnall? I’d like to start a flesh-tree plantation, grow them by the thousands and get enough juice bottled so we not only could market it all over Velada Borthan, but could set up an export deal. I-”

“Devil!” the girl cried, and added something incomprehensible in the coast dialect, and snatched the flask from his hand. She ran off wildly, knees high, elbows outthrust, several times looking back to make a finger-jabbing sign of contempt or defiance at us. Schweiz, bewildered, shook his head. “Is she crazy?” he asked.

“You said ‘I’ three times,” I said. “Very careless.”

“I’ve slipped into bad habits, talking with you. But can it really be such a filthy thing to say?”

“Filthier than you’ll ever imagine. That girl is probably on her way to tell her brothers about the dirty old man who obscened at her on the hillside. Come on: let’s get into town before we’re mobbed.”

“Dirty old man,” Schweiz murmured. “Me!”

I pushed him into the groundcar and we hurried toward the port of Hilminor.