The Search for Zei

CHAPTER VII

Again the dark-green rampart of reeds that marked the Koloft Swamp slid past Dirk Barnevelt and George Tangaloa. This time, however, they lounged on the bow of a river-barge, the Chaldir, which wafted down the Pichide on the conviction of the current and the pull of a single triangular sail slung at the bow from one stubby mast. The prevailing westerly carried the smoke of their cigars down the river. Less welcomely it also brought them the smells of the cargo of green hides and of the team of six-legged shaihans on the fantail, who at the conclusion of the journey would pull the boat back upstream by the tow-path. They chain-smoked to offset the stench.

Now came into view the landing where they had tied up on the ill-omened picnic the week before, and then the ruin, still keeping to itself whatever secret it harbored. Then Qou, small and squalid, opened into view on the south bank and as quietly glided out of sight again.

"ZFT! Ghuvoi zu!" shrieked Philo the macaw from his cage.

Barnevelt, practicing lunges, said: "I'm still surprised how human these Krishnans seem to be."

Tangaloa had weakened to the point of buying a mace, half a meter long, with a stout wooden shaft and a spoked iron head. The shaft he had now stuck through his belt. He sat crosslegged like a large bronze Buddha with his back against their duffelbag, looking, with his brown skin and Mongoloid cast of features, Dirk thought, a lot more authentically Krishnan than he himself.

Tangaloa cleared his throat, indicating that a lecture was taking form, and began: "That has been figured out, Dirk. A civilized species must have certain physical characteristics: eyes to see and at least one arm or tentacle to manipulate with, for instance. And it can't be too large or too small. Well, it works out similarly with mental characteristics. Intelligence alone is not sufficient. If the species is too uniform in its mental qualities it won't achieve the division of labor needed for a high culture—while, if it's too variable the smart ones will tyrannize too easily over the rest, which again results in a static society. If they're too erratic or maladjusted they will be unable to cooperate, whereas if they are too well-adjusted they won't produce schizoid types like you to create new ideas."

"Thanks for the implied compliment," said Barnevelt. "Any time I feel the stirrings of genius I'll let you know."

"Even so," continued Tangaloa, "there is much variation among extra-terrestrials, like those things on Sirius Nine with their ant-like economy. It just happens that of all intelligent species the Krishnans are the most humanoid…"

"Har 'immal Har 'immal" screamed Philo.

"If that actually means what I think," said Barnevelt, "Queen Alvandi will have to be pretty broadminded to put up with it."

"She may not even understand him. The Qiribo dialect differs a lot from standard Gozashtandou, you know. It preserves the middle voice in verbs…"

Barnevelt ended his practice and went forward to look at the shaihans, with whom he had made firm friends, and to scratch their shaggy foreheads.

At night they anchored in the shallows, there being no settlement near. Roqir sank beneath the low horizon in the polychrome glory of a Krishnan sunset; the master's wife prepared the evening meal; the night noises of the small things that lived in the reeds came over the water, and the boatmen set up their little altars and prayed to their various gods before turning in.

So passed the days while they followed the Pichide as it wound across the Gozashtandou Plain on its leisurely way to the Sadabao Sea. They considered how they should approach Gorbovast in Majbur, and Queen Alvandi in Ghulinde, and what means they should employ to overcome the perils of the Sunqar. Dirk Barnevelt acquired a sunburned nose, the knack of wearing a sword without getting fouled up in it, a fair facility with his new languages, and a certain hard self-confidence he had never known on Earth.

He wryly debated with himself whether this feeling came from a chance to indulge a long-suppressed romanticism; a chauvinistic feeling of superiority to the Krishnans; or simply getting away from his mother. He was relieved to discover that his killing of two Krishnans brought on no violent emotional reaction, then or later. On the other hand he suffered occasional nightmares wherein he fled, yelling for his mother, from a swarm of huge hornets.

He knew, however, that it did no good to unburden himself to Tangaloa, who would merely make a joke of his broodings.

While George had a remarkable mind (he showed an amazing flair for languages and had soaked up a vast deal of xenological lore) he would not bother with anything he found hard, like working when he did not feel like it, perhaps because some things were so easy for him, or perhaps because of his indulgent Polynesian upbringing. Though kind and good-natured in a vague impersonal way, he had no emotional depth or drive; brilliantly superficial, a facile talker but a feeble doer, and no man to lead enterprises of great pith and moment. Barnevelt was sure that, though George was older than he and his nominal superior, the whole responsibility would sooner or later come to rest upon his own bony shoulders.

At last the river broadened out until from one side the houses on the other were as matchboxes, and the folk as ants. The Chaldir followed the bank past the villas of the rich of Majbur, whose young played piggy-back polo on the lawns or pushed each other off the docks with shrieking and loud laughter. Here much water traffic was to be seen: anchored rowboats with men fishing from them; another river-barge like their own, wallowing across the river under sail to set her team ashore on the tow-path on the northern side.

Since the tubby Chaldir had but small powers of maneuver, the master asserted his right-of-way by banging a gong of dented copper whenever they neared another vessel. They almost collided with a timber raft which, being even less agile, drifted tranquilly in their path until the raftmen and the Chaldir's crew were forced to hold off from each other with poles, shouting abuse until the Earthmen half expected the two crews to fall upon each other with knives, and the shai-hans in the stern bellowed uneasily. However, once the barge had been poled around the raft so that the way again lay clear, all passed off amiably enough.

The villas gave way to suburbs and the suburbs to the central city: with neither the onion-domed opulence of Her-shid nor the frowning gray fortress-look of Mishe, but a character of its own. It was a city of many graceful arches with intricate and fantastic carvings, buildings of five and six stories, and a seething timeless traffic tangle.

Along the shore appealed wharves and piers at which were tied up many barges like their own. Beyond them, Barnevelt saw the spiky tangle of masts and spars of the port's deep-water shipping. The Chaldirs master, spotting a vacant place, brought his craft angling in to shore, a couple of her people grunting at long sweeps to counteract the current. A fishing-craft with sails sprouting at all angles, like a backyard on Monday, had marked the same parking-space and tried to nose out the barge, but not quickly enough. Philo the parrot added screeches to the imprecations of the crews of the two vessels.

The sun was high in the heavens when the barge tied up at last. Barnevelt and Tangaloa bid goodbye to the master and his people and climbed on to the wharf to search out the office of Gorbovast, Barnevelt with the usual feeling of butterflies in the belly that afflicted him whenever he was called upon to walk in on a stranger and introduce himself.

He need not have worried. Gorbovast received them, Barnevelt thought, "with garrulous ease and oily courtesies" on the strength of their letter from Castanhoso. This sleek Krish-nan gentleman had long defied the dictum about the difficulty of serving two masters, for, while acting as the commissioner for King Eqrar of Gozashtand in Majbur, he had also for years augmented his income by sending information to the Viagens Interplanetarians Security Force at Novo-recife.

"The Synol of Pleshch? And gvam-hunting in the Sunqar, eh?" he said, pronouncing Barnevelt's Nyami name "Esnyol"— as for that matter did all Gozashtandou-speaking Krishnans. "Well, his the riches whose is the risk, as it says in Nevhav-end's proverbs. You know the Banjoa Sea has become a nest of most irregulous bloody pirates, and there's no putting 'em down because Dur in its arrogance subsidizes 'em with tribute so they'll hurt the trade of smaller powers like Majbur and Zamba. Moreover rumor links these same knaves to the janru trade, which makes every independent man shudder o' nights."

Barnevelt told him a little about the unmasking of Vizqash at Novorecife.

"So," said Gorbovast, "the cullions have been operating in these parts, eh? Well, well, and well. 'Twill do no harm to slip a word to the Chief Syndic, for the folk of Majbur mortally fear the stuff should spread among 'em and give their women the upper hand. While we be not so susceptible as the silly Earthmen, whom the merest whiff reduces to servile jelly, still much havoc could be wrought upon us by this subtle means. As to a letter to the Douri of Qirib, you shall have it straight. 'Twere well to hasten if you would deliver it."

"Why, is the old man-eater dying?"

"Nay—because so 'tis said in the mughouses, she intends, once her present consort be unheaded in accordance with their barbarous and bloody custom, the throne in favor of her daughter Zei to resign."

Barnevelt raised his eyebrows, and his glued-on antennae rose with them. Qirib under a young and newly-enthroned queen sounded more attractive than under a tough old Tatar like Alvandi. "I hadn't heard that angle. Perhaps, Master Gorbovast, you'd give us two letters of introduction, one to each dame."

"The very thing. And watch well your step among these masterful dames, for 'tis gossip that they keep their men subdued by this same drug…" And he told them what they needed to know about tickets and train times, adding: "As the glass shows that the celestial wheel has not yet turned to the meridian, you'll have time to view our jewel of a city ere sallies forth the southbound daily express."

And view it they did, wandering down to the waterfront to photograph the ships—mere dories compared with Earthly ships, but impressive enough in their own setting. There were high-sided square-riggers from Dur in the Va'andao Sea, lanteeners from Sotaspe and other Sadabao ports, and even a catamaran with a crescent sail from Malayer in the far South. And long low war galleys, outstanding among them the pride of Majbur's navy, the quinquireme Junsar, with her bank of five-man oars belayed to her sides, her high gilded stern, and her toothed ram projecting at the waterline fox-ward.

They braced themselves to withstand the odors of the seafood market and sampled one of the lunches the counters of this section offered.

Barnevelt soon regretted his curiosity, for the object placed before him in a bowl of soup, a sea creature something like a large slug with tentacles, had the curious property of remaining alive and wriggling for some time after being cooked. He got down a couple of writhing bites before his gorge rose and interrupted the experiment.

"You effete Westerners," chuckled Tangaloa, finishing his sea slug and wiping his mouth.

"Damn you," growled Barnevelt, and doggedly resumed his assault until his organism, too, was gone.

Then they took in the municipal zoo. Barnevelt, remembering his swim in the Pichide, winced at the sight of a half-grown awal in a tank. But then he would have loitered all afternoon watching the things in the cages until even Tangaloa, who almost never hurried, had to remind him of train time and drag him away.

In the park they came upon an open-air performance by a ballet-troupe of dancers from the temple of Dashmok, the Free City's own special god of commerce. A priest was passing the hat—or rather a gourd-like container—as part of the temple's drive for some fund. Watching the leaping girls, Barnevelt felt a blush qf embarrassment sweep over his face. Chautauqua County was never like this.

Tangaloa dryly remarked: "You see, Dirk, different cultures differ as to what should be covered. Few cultures other than your own Western one have that violent nudity-tabu that came into it from the old Syriac civilization via Judaism and its offshoot, Christianity…"

A shower ended the dance and scattered the audience. The Earthmen made their way to the terminal, to find that the train was not made up yet and would not leave for at least a Krishnan hour after its scheduled time. Since the station agent could give them no more definite statement than that, there was nothing to do but sit and smoke while waiting.

Presently a man in a pale blue costume, wearing a light and strictly ornamental silver helmet with a pair of silver aqebat-wings sprouting from its sides, strolled in with a big bag over his shoulder and took a place on the bench next to the Earthmen.

While Barnevelt had never had much talent for picking up conversations with strangers, the uninhibited Tangaloa was soon in animated discussion with the helmeted man.

"This," said the Krishnan, pointing to his helmet, "means I toil for the Mejrou Quarardena, bearing fardels hence to thither." (The name meant roughly Reliable Express Company.) "Our Company's motto is: 'Neither storm, nor night, nor beast of prey, nor men of evil intent stay our carriers in the swift performance of their duties.' "

"A fine motto," said Barnevelt. "Matter of fact it sounds familiar."

"No doubt word of our company has reached far Nya-madze," said the courier. "And some day shall we extend our services even unto that chilly clime. O masters, I could tell you tales of the deeds of our people that would make your antennae stand upright with terror. At the time my friend Gehr carried a parcel into the heart of the dread Sunqar and delivered it to the chief pirate himself, the fearsome Sheafase."

Both Barnevelt and Tangaloa leaned forward, the former saying: "What sort of person is this She—this pirate king?"

"As to that, my friend Gehr knows no more than you, for Sheafase shows himself to none but his own subjects. But since Gehr could not leave ere the consignee signed his receipt, 'twas finally arranged that the arch-robber should thrust his hand through a gap in a curtain to wield the pen. And Gehr thus caught a glimpse—ah, masters, what a dreadful thing was that! No human hand, but a shuddersome structure of claws and scales, like the foot of the fearful pudamef that haunts the glaciers of your own land. So Sheafase must be a creature, not of our own honest world, but of some depraved unwholesome other planet in the deeps of space—like that called Earth, for instance, the home of all the baneful and goetic sorceries…"

"Pun dessoi!" called the gatekeeper.

The expressman got up and shouldered his parcel sack, and the Earthmen picked up their duffel bag and birdcage. So Earth was a depraved and unwholesome planet, eh? thought Barnevelt, amused and patriotically irked at the same time. Unfortunately he was in no position to start waving the checkered World Federation flag.

The train consisted of five little four-wheeled carriages: two flatcars heaped with goods and three passenger cars that looked like converted stagecoaches, running on a track of about one-meter gage. The locomotive was a bishtar, hitched to the leading car by a rope harness. The beast stood, swinging its two trunks, switching its tail, and swivelling its trumpet-like ears.

The rearmost car was occupied by a noisy family comprising a small male, a large female, three young, and one of the portable incubators in which Krishnans carried their un-hatched eggs. To avoid the woman's chatter, Barnevelt and Tangaloa and their new acquaintance took the foremost car.

When all the waiting passengers were stowed, the mahout on the bishtar's neck blew a little trumpet and whacked his beast with his goad. The links between the cars clanked as the slack was taken up, and the car occupied by the Earth-men started with a jerk. They clicked over switch points and rolled past a bishtar moving cars on an adjoining track, so close that Barnevelt, had he been so rash, could have reached out and touched one of its six columnar legs.

They rolled out of the yard, along a right-of-way between building lots, and finally out on to one of Majbur's main streets, down whose middle ran two tracks. Presently they passed a local headed in the opposite direction and standing at an intersection to discharge passengers.

Other Krishnans swarmed the street, some on scooters, some on short six-legged ayas or tall four-legged shomals, and some in carriages. A team of six ay a pulled a great double-decked contraption, evidently a public omnibus. At a main intersection an official-looking Krishnan in a helmet directed traffic with a sword, which he waved with such verve that Barnevelt half expected to see him slice an ear from some passing pedestrian.

Barnevelt quoted: "New things and old co-twisted, as if time were nothing."

Gradually the traffic thinned and the houses got smaller. The railroad left the middle of the street for its own right-of-way again, and a branch line curved off to the right, up-river. The city turned to suburbs, and then houses alternating with cultivated plots. The two tracks became one, and they were in open country. Once they stopped to let the frontier guards of the Republic of Mikardand, men in Moorish-looking armor, look them over and wave them through.

The ride was uneventful, save when they stopped at a nameless hamlet to water the bishtar and let the passengers eat a snack and otherwise care for their comfort, and the oldest child of the noisy family aft stealthily uncoupled the rearmost car, so that when the train started up it was left standing with the fat woman screeching louder than Philo. The train halted and the male passengers pushed the abandoned car along the track until its connection with the train was reestablished, the conductor all the while calling upon Qondyor, Dashmok, Bakh, and other deities to destroy the young culprit in some lingering and humorous manner.

The expressman explained why he merely showed a pass instead of presenting a ticket: The Mejrou Qurardena had an arrangement with all the main transportation media like the railroad to carry its couriers on credit and then bill the express company for mileage.