Planet of Adventure

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.