The Hostage of Zir (3 page)

The Krishnan kept on, shouting,
“Baghan!”
and swinging up his sword. Reith parried and felt the steel blade bite into the wood. There was a quick exchange of cuts and thrusts.

Reith lunged, aiming low and to his left. The Krishnan brought his blade around in a whistling parry in
seconde.
If it had landed, it might have severed the singlestick.

Remembering what Heggstad had pounded into him, Reith doubled and thrust. The point of the Krishnan’s sword scarred the deck planks as Reith’s blunt wooden point took the Krishnan in the chest. Reith put all his strength into the push.

As the two had circled, the Krishnan had come to stand with his back to the gunwale. Hence, as Reith pushed him, he backed into the low bulwark and fell over backwards. Splash!

Keith stepped after the Krishnan and looked down. The Krishnan’s head emerged from the brown water with a strangled yell.

“He says ‘Help!’ ” said Ganesh Kosambi, who had appeared beside Reith. “He cannot swim.”

“Serve him right if he drowns,” said Reith.

“You had better pull him out,” said the missionary. “Otherwise there will be complications. You may find yourself in the Gadri jail. It is not a nice place.”

Reith sighed. “I suppose you’re right, damn it Captain Ozum! Have you—what the devil’s the word for ‘rope’?”

The Krishnan, who had lost his sword, was pulled out. Reith said to Kosambi: “Tell him, please, that I don’t know what started it, but I can’t have people carving up my tourists.”

Kosambi spoke. The Krishnan spat at Reith’s feet and stalked off, just as the remaining tourists straggled back to the ship.

Now that it was over, Reith suddenly realized how close he had come to being killed. His knees sagged, and for an instant he thought he was going to faint He grasped the gunwale to steady himself as his tourists flocked around. They drenched him with praise:

“Fearless, you were wonderful!” “He really is fearless, isn’t he?” “A real swashbuckler!”

Reith managed a wan smile.

When the crowd had dispersed, Aimé Jussac confided to Reith: “I saw it. Mr. Turner got to talking to Valerie Mulroy. You know, she would try even him, and she made her intentions evident. So Considine, jealous I suppose, made a—what you call a pass at this Krishnan, who was minding his own business at the next table. They had six or seven words of Portuguese in common, but—
chouette!—
it was enough.”

That evening, when they were again out in mid-river, Reith got Considine aside and asked for his side of the story. Considine professed ignorance of the cause of the disturbance.

“Sure you didn’t try—ah—undue familiarity with him?” asked Reith.

“I did not!” retorted Considine, drawing himself up. “I know what you mean. Look here, just because I have my own sexual preferences doesn’t mean I’m some cruising queen. One more crack like that and I’ll—”

“Okay, have it your own way. Just don’t do it again, see? Did you lose your sword there?”

“Yeah. When he drew on me, I drew, too, but he knocked it out of my hand. Too bad; it belonged to that hero, what’s his-name.”

Reith smiled. “My dear Maurice, if Qarar had really owned half the swords attributed to him, he’d have needed one of those Krishnan elephants called bishtars to carry them. You can buy as many as you like in Majbur, all just as authentic”

III

THE EMERALD IDOL

On the right, along the low shores of the Pichidé estuary, the piers and wharves of the Free City of Majbur came into view. About these landing places clustered a swarm of local and river craft. There were fishing smacks, river barges, timber rafts, pleasure yachts, ferries, and water taxis. Beyond these, around the curve of the shore, rose a spiky fence of the masts and yards of deepwater ships. Here lay high-sided square-riggers from the stormy Va’andao Sea and lateeners with slanting yards from the more southerly ports. Here, too, were war galleys with bronzen beaks and gilded sterns, gleaming in the ruddy afternoon light of Roqir, under a greenish sky.

With much shouting of threats and curses towards other ships, Captain Ozum worked the
Zaidun
under oar power towards a berth. Reith asked: “Father Khorsh, they sound as if they were going to riot. Is there any danger?”

“No, my son. They are always noisy, but rarely does anything come of it.”

Reith consulted his notebook. “I’m supposed to get them to Haftid’s Inn, at Forty-six Shodsir. Where would that street be?”

“Shodsir is not a street.”

“O que?
What is it, then?”

“O my son, have they not told you of the system of addresses used here? Shodsir is a block, and Forty-six is the forty-sixth building in that block.”

“The forty-sixth counting from where?”

“Not the forty-sixth in any geographical sense, but the forty-sixth in order of construction.”

Reith digested this concept. “Well, suppose I want to meet a fellow on a given street. Where do I tell him to go?”

“Streets in Majbur have no names. If you wished to meet your man on the street bounding the Shodsir on the north, you would say, ‘Shodsir North’. It is simple.”

“To you, maybe. Then how do I find the Shodsir block?”

“Any hackney driver or litter bearer can take you thither.”

“Bem.
How shall I find these drivers and bearers? We shall also need porters.”

Khorsh smiled. “Fear not, my son. The gods will provide.”

Reith asked Khorsh about the rates for portage and transportation. “I hope you can translate for me. I’ve been practicing my Gozashtandou, but when they all start to chatter at once, it’s just a buzz of noise.”

“Com gôsto!
Permit me to recommend litters instead of carriages. During the Festival of Dashmok, traffic is such that you will find litters more practical.”

“Oh, yes, the Festival. We timed our arrival for it, and we plan to attend the grand ballet. Yes, Mr. Kosambi?”

The plump Indian had oozed quietly up. “While you are viewing these pagan orgies, Mr. Reith, I trust you will also bring them to the Church of the Lords of Light You should show them not only the past of this backward planet but also the future, which I am sure will be a brighter one. Compared to the temple of Dashmok nearby, our fane is a humble one, but it represents the true enlightenment.”

“Thank you,” said Reith. “When will there be a service or meeting or whatever you call it?”

“The day after tomorrow, at high noon. Your presence will be most welcome.”

“I’ll try to work it into our schedule.”

After a wait, a small red-sailed coaster pulled out from the wharf. Captain Ozum slipped the
Zaidun
into the vacated dock, while Krishnans on other waiting craft screamed maledictions. Reith saw what Khorsh had meant by the gods providing portage and transport As soon as those on shore realized that the
Zaidun
carried passengers, they swarmed towards that part of the wharf, shouting. Some proclaimed their might and skill as porters or chairmen; some offered services as guides; others waved articles of merchandise.

Reith lined up his tourists, saying: “Stick together and carry your own small hand luggage. We’re taking litters.”

“Huh?” said Pride. “What’s that?”

“Sedan chairs.”

The gangplank was thrust over the side. Two of the
Zaidun
’s boatmen stood at the shore end with belaying pins, to discourage unauthorized boarders.

With his heart nervously pounding, Reith stepped up on the gangplank and called in Gozashtandou: “I want twelve porters!”

From the shoving, shouting mob, Reith chose his dozen. He passed them, one at a time, aboard the ship. Then he lined them up on deck and explained that they were going to Haftid’s Inn in the Shodsir. When they seemed to understand, he went ashore to round up chairmen. The tourists straggled up the plank after him. He was hiring his litters when Shirley Waterford spoke: “Fearless, I can’t ride in one of those things.”

He turned. “Why not?”

“It’s not decent, using people as beasts of burden. It’s a kind of racism.”

“Oh, my God, Shirley, don’t start that now! This is the local custom, and we’re expected to follow it. Besides, if we don’t hire these poor fellows, how will they make their living?”

“I don’t care; I just won’t do it. It’s an insult to human dignity. Why can’t I take this carriage?”

The harried Reith asked the hackney driver for his price. The reply was in such strong Majburo dialect that Reith had to find Khorsh to translate.

When Miss Waterford was in the carriage, Considine and Turner decided that they, too, would prefer to ride behind an aya than be jounced in a litter. They scurried to the carriage and leaped in. Their chairman broke into voluble protests.

“What are they saying, Father Khorsh?” asked Reith.

“They say you have a legitimate contract with them, my son. They say you owe them for the portage, whether or not they carry these two earthmen.”

Reith restrained himself from pulling his coppery hair. “What should I do? Pay them for the trip or tell them to go to Hishkak?”

“Permit me to ponder, my son. Ah! I think I have it. In your haste, you neglected to order transport either for yourself or for me.”

“I was going to walk, to watch the porters. I’m sorry to have forgotten about you.”

“In that case, let us occupy the two vacant chairs, thereby satisfying everyone, as Kurdé the Wise is said to have done in the legend.”

“If none of my people or their baggage gets lost.”

The litter resembled a telephone booth with a seat inside and a pair of wooden shafts extending fore and aft. Reith squirmed into the seat, getting tangled in his sword. The two chairmen, each of whom wore a leather harness depending from his shoulders to take some of the weight, stooped and hoisted the chair.

The procession set out. Reith craned his neck out the window to see how his convoy was doing. He was in the middle of the string of litters. After the litters came the porters, and after the porters, the carriage.

The column plunged into the streets beyond the waterfront. These streets were so narrow and crooked that the chairmen had to crowd to one side to let pedestrians squeeze past. Because none of these streets ran straight for more than two blocks, Reith soon lost sight of the ends of his column.

When the route straightened out enough to allow a clear view to the rear, the carriage was not to be seen. The porters were plodding along with their loads, but the coach, with Shirley Waterford and the dear boys, was gone.

Reith wondered whether the vehicle was stuck at a corner, or had been caught in a riot, or had been attacked by kidnappers. He asked himself whether he ought to run back. Then he committed his missing tourists to the mercy of Dashmok. If they got lost, it would be their own stupid fault.

###

Roqir was setting in the full scarlet-and-purple glory of a Krishnan sunset when the litters drew up at a nondescript stone-and-timber building, with the skull of some Krishnan beast above the door. A hand-lettered wooden sign bore a row of fishhook characters, looking something like Arabic and something like shorthand. Reith guessed that they gave the name of Haftid’s Inn.

Reith spent a frantic half-hour paying off the porters and the chairmen and collecting his tourists and their baggage. There was no sign of the carriage. At last, while Reith was wondering how to organize a search party, the sextuple clop of an aya’s hooves resounded, and the carriage arrived. The press of traffic had thinned with the arrival of supper hour.

“Got caught in a jam,” said Considine. “I thought we left earth to get away from those, but . . . Hey, where’s my little blue case?”

Considine was examining the pile of baggage. Reith knew the case in question. In it, Maurice Considine kept the ornaments and jewelry with which he enhanced his looks. Reith, too, failed to find the case.

“God damn it!” yelled Considine. “One of these gooks stole it. I’ll—”

“Calm down, Maurice,” said Reith. “I told you to carry small hand luggage. If you didn’t—”

“Oh, screw you! Some of that junk was valuable! I’ll raise hell! I won’t stand for it!”

“Looks as if you’ll have to,” said Reith. “Now I’ve got to see to our accommodations. Stay here, everybody. Father Khorsh, will you come along?”

Reith pushed through swinging doors and entered the common room of Haftid’s Inn. One side was for eating and drinking, with benches and long tables. A few customers sat at these. The other side included some crude stools and a large desk. Behind the desk sat a stout Krishnan running calculations with an abacus and writing them down with pen and ink. Reith gave his name and said in careful Gozashtandou: “We have a reservation for sixteen, thirteen
Ertsuma
and three Krishnans, in the name of the Magic Carpet Travel Agency.” He flourished a paper.

The Krishnan glowered up. “No room.”

“What?”
Reith turned to Khorsh, who corroborated the statement. “But—but I have a definite reservation, with a deposit paid in advance!” Reith waved the paper under the Krishnan’s nose.

The Krishnan, whom Reith supposed to be Haftid himself, flapped his hands in the Krishnan equivalent of a shrug. “All full. Festival of Dashmok.”

“But I have your own signature here! Get the other people out!”

“I cannot. Too bad.” The Krishnan returned to his accounts.

“Now look here, Master Haftid—” said Reith in rising anger. He touched the Krishnan’s shoulder.

“Do not, my son!” said Khorsh.

Haftid looked up with a sudden glare. He rose slowly, towering over Reith. “Get ye gone,
Ertsu!
We are full, and that’s that!” He pointed doorward.

Enraged, Reith was tempted to draw the sword that clanked about his legs. The fit quickly passed as he recalled that, in a strange city, lost among thousands of beings of another species, he and his tourists could easily drop out of sight for good and all. He cursed himself for not having foreseen this contingency.

In desperation, he turned to Khorsh. “You heard, Father?” he said in Portuguese. “What does one do in a case like that? On earth I’d have some idea, but not here.”

Khorsh spread his hands. “I can say very little, my son. He can claim that some guests unexpectedly prolonged their stay, and the law does not let him evict them for a later arrival. You could sue him in the civil courts for the return of the deposit, but that would take years and cost many times the amount at issue.”

Reith turned back to the innkeeper and spoke slowly, in the most polite voice he could manage: “Master Haftid, will you do me the goodness to recommend another inn, where I can lodge my people?”

Haftid looked up from his accounts. “I could recite some names, my good foreigner, but ’twould avail you little. All, including those accepting earthmen as guests, are replete with multitudes arriving for the Festival. In every hostelry, be it manor house or hovel, ye’ll find folk sleeping on pallets in the common room, for want of better lodging.”

Considine called from the doorway: “Hey, Fearless, how much longer you going to keep us standing out here?”

Reith turned back to Khorsh. “Father, have you any idea of where I could put my people? I could doss down on the floor, but I can’t ask it of them.”

The priest spread hands in resignation. “Alas, my son, I know little of the local hospices. When I travel, I can always put up at a temple; but such accommodations are not open to laymen.”

Reith racked his brains. Then he remembered the words of Pierce Angioletti at Novorecife: “If you get into trouble in Majbur, go to see Gorbovast . . . he can fix anything.”

“Master Haftid,” said Reith, “will you be so kind as to direct me to the office of Commissioner Gorbovast?”

Now that he no longer faced a confrontation, the innkeeper became more agreeable. “Out the front door, turn left, go to the first crossing, turn right, straight ahead two blocks, and there it is. ’Twere unlikely ye’ll find Gorbovast so late in the day, for already Roqir’s disk does osculate the far horizon.”

Reith made Haftid repeat the directions. Then he hurried out. His tourists set up an outcry, all asking questions: What was wrong? Was there a hitch? Where was he going to put them? Why hadn’t the agency made better arrangements? Where was his efficiency? When did they eat?

Considine yelled: “Where’s my little blue case?”

“You’ll have to sit on your luggage for a while, folks,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He set off at a jog trot, holding his scabbard in his left hand to keep it from tripping him. Dodging beggars and pimps, he soon reached the area to which he had been directed. Then, unable to read the signs over the doors, he realized that he could not tell one office from another. He had a horrid vision of trying every door in the block and asking those within, in broken Gozashtandou, for directions.

As he stood in perplexity, working up his nerve, a trio of Krishnans came out of a building a few doors away. With a large key, one of the three locked the door behind him. Two of the three wheeled out vehicles like an adult version of a Terran child’s scooter.

Reith hurried up to the group, panting. When he could speak, he said: “Beg excuse, sirs, but could you tell me which is office of Commissioner Gorbovast?”

The smallest of the three turned. In the fading light, this proved an elderly Krishnan with tiny wrinkles all over his face and hair faded to pale jade, now turning silvery in the fading light. Instead of answering the question, tins one asked:
“Se fala português? Parlez-vous français?
Do you speak English?
Tum Hindi boltâ ho?”