The Houses of Iszm

II

The Lhaiz was a two-masted barque the shape of a Dutch wooden shoe, with purple sails and a commodious cabin. It had been grown on a special boat-tree, one piece even to the main-mast, which originally had been the stem of the pod. The foremast, sprit, booms and rigging were fabricated parts, a situation as irking to the Iszic mind as mechanical motion to an Earth electronics engineer. The crew of the Lhaiz sailed west. Atolls rose over the horizon, then sank astern. Some were deserted little gardens; others were given to the breeding, seeding, budding, grafting, sorting, packing and shipping of houses.

As a botanist, Farr was most strongly interested in the plantations, but here the surveillance intensified, becoming a review of his every motion.

At Tjiere atoll irritation and perversity led Farr to evade his guards. The Lhaiz sailed up to the pier and two of the crew passed lines ashore while the others furled sail and cradled booms. Aile Farr jumped easily from the after-deck down to the pier and set off toward the shore. A mutter of complaints came from behind; these gave Farr malicious amusement.

He looked ahead to the island. The beach spread wide to either side, pounded by surf, and the slopes of the basalt ridge were swathed in green, blue and black vegetation—a scene of great peace and beauty. Farr controlled the urge to jump down on the beach to disappear under the leaves. The Szecr were polite, but very quick on the trigger.

A tall strong man appeared upon the dock ahead. Blue bands circled his body and limbs at six inch intervals, the pallid Iszic skin showing between the rings. Farr slackened his pace. Freedom was at an end.

The Iszic lifted a single-lensed lorgnette on an ebony rod, the viewer habitually carried by high-caste Iszic, an accessory almost as personal as one of their organs. Farr had been viewed many times; it never failed to irritate him. Like any other visitor to Iszm, like the Iszic themselves, he had no choice, no recourse, no defense. The radiant injected into his shoulder had labeled him. He was now categorized and defined for anyone who cared to look.

“Your pleasure, Farr Sainh?” The Iszic used the dialect which children spoke before they learned the language of their caste.

Farr resignedly made the formal reply. “I await your will.”

“The dock-master was sent to extend proper courtesy. You perhaps became impatient?”

“My arrival is a small matter, please don’t trouble yourself.”

The Iszic flourished his viewer. “A privilege to greet a fellow-scientist.”

Farr said sourly, “That thing even tells you my occupation?”

The Iszic viewed Fair’s right shoulder. “I see you have no criminal record; your intelligence index is 23; your persistence level is Class 4… There is other information.”

“Who am I privileged to address?” asked Farr.

“I call myself Zhde Patasz. I am fortunate enough to cultivate on Tjiere atoll.”

Farr reappraised the blue-striped man. “A planter?”

Zhde Patasz twirled his viewer. “We will have much to discuss… I hope you will be my guest.”

The dock-master came puffing up. Zhde Patasz flourished his viewer and drifted away.

“Farr Sainh,” said the dock-master, “your modesty leads you to evade your entitled escort. It saddens us deeply.”

“You exaggerate.”

“Hardly possible. This way, Sainh.”

He marched down the concrete incline into a wide trench, with Farr sauntering behind so leisurely that the dock-master was forced to halt and wait at hundred-foot intervals. The trench led under the basalt ridge, then became a subterranean passage. Four times the dock-master slid aside plate-glass panels, four times the doors swung shut behind. Farr realized that search-screens, probes, detectors, analyzers were feeling him, testing his radiations, his mass and metallic content. He strolled along indifferently. They would find nothing. All his clothing and personal effects had been impounded; he was still wearing the visitor’s uniform, trousers of white floss, a jacket striped gray and green, and the loose dark green velvet beret.

The dock-master rapped at a door of corrugated metal. It parted in the middle into two interlocking halves, like a medieval portcullis. The passage opened into a bright room. Behind a counter sat a Szecr in the usual yellow and green stripes.

“If the Sainh pleases—his tri-type for our records.”

Farr patiently stood on the disk of gray metal.

“Palms forward, eyes wide.”

Farr stood quietly. Feeler-planes brushed down his body.

“Thank you, Sainh.” Farr stepped up to the counter. “That’s a different type than the one at Jhespiano. Let’s see it.”

The clerk showed him a transparent card with a manlike brownish splotch on its middle. “Not much of a likeness,” said Farr.

The Szecr dropped the card into a slot. On the counter-top appeared a three-dimensional replica of Farr. It could be expanded a hundred times, revealing fingerprints, cheek-pores, ear and retinal configuration.

“I’d like to have this as a souvenir,” said Farr. “It’s dressed. The one at Jhespiano showed my charms to the world.”

The Iszic shrugged. “Take it.”

Farr put the replica in his pouch.

“Now, Farr Sainh, may I ask an impertinent question?”

“One more won’t hurt me.”

Farr knew there was a cephaloscope focused on his brain. Any pulse of excitement, any flush of fear would be recorded on a chart. He brought the image of a hot bath to the brink of his mind.

“Do you plan to steal houses, Farr Sainh?”

Now: the placid cool porcelain, the feel of warm air and water, the scent of soap.

“No.”

“Are you aware of, or party to, any such plan?”

Warm water, lie back, relax.

“No.”

The Szecr sucked in his lips, a grimace of polite skepticism. “Are you aware of the penalties visited upon thieves?”

“Oh yes,” said Farr. “They go to the Mad House.”

“Thank you, Farr Sainh, you may proceed.”