The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid (4 page)

IV

Majbur rose behind a kind offence, which resolved itself into the masts and spars of the ships along the waterfront. There were war galleys with gilded figureheads; high-sided square-riggers from the stormy Va’andao Sea; lateen-rigged merchantmen from the Sadabao and Banjao ports, with yards slanting at all angles; and local craft: fishing smacks, river barges, timber rafts, and pleasure yachts.

The ferry crew grunted at their sweeps as the craft crept into its dock, its yellow sails banging and flapping in the uncertain breeze. The sails subsided as crewmen shinnied up the slanting yards to furl them. The passengers streamed ashore. Crewmen heaved the carriage off the ship. Althea and the two Earthmen got back in, and they rolled into Majbur Town.

The carriage picked its way through the traffic, which choked the narrow streets. The second and higher floors of the lofty buildings were built out over the sidewalks, upheld by long rows of arches of intricately carven stonework.

“Damn!” said Kirwan, ever quick to complain. “If I knew where this beggar Gorbovast was, I’d walk.”

When the driver dropped them at Gorbovast’s office and had been paid off, the Earthfolk had another half-hour’s wait before being ushered in.

Gorbovast bad-Sár was an elderly Gozashtandu, his visage covered with tiny wrinkles and his hair faded to the color of pale jade. For decades he had sat behind this desk, serving as resident commissioner in Majbur, first to King Eqrar of Gozashtand and now to his successor, King Kudair. In addition, he fulfilled a number of other functions, some known to his imperial master and some not. He dabbled in the many business enterprises of Majbur. He helped out non-Krishnans who got into trouble. He furnished the Viagens security force with information. There had been talk of establishing a regular Terran consulate in Majbur, as there were in some other Krishnan cities. But nothing had been done, because it was thought that “Gorbovast can fix anything.”

Gorbovast looked up from his mare’s nest of papers and said in accented but adequate English: “Good day, Madame Gorchakova. Good day, Doctor Bahr and Mr. Kirwan. I hope you are in good healt’?”

Althea gasped. Bahr said, “Excuse me, my friend, but how did you know this lady?”

Gorbovast smiled. “It is my business to know sings, sir. You arrived here more soon zan I expected. I suppose you still weesh to sail on ze
Ta’zu
day after tomorrow?”

Kirwan said, “If you know so much, my man, perhaps you can tell if anybody’s following us?”

Gorbovast made a negative gesture. “Alas, Mr. Kirwan! My information does not yet cover zat point. I do not know if Mr. Gorchakov is on ze trail of his run-off bride.”

Althea shuddered. “Then,” said Kirwan, “we’d better get off on an earlier boat, d’ye get me?”

Gorbovast looked dubious but pawed through his papers until he found one that he studied.

“Hm,” he said. “Captain Memzadá sails wit’ his
Labághti
tonight for Darya via Reshr, Jerud, and Ulvanagh, wit’ a cargo of—mmm—never mind ze cargo. He could stop at Zesh. But he will leave wizzin ze hour, to take advantage of ze tide and ze offshore wind. Small ship, not so comfortable as ze
Ta’zu
—but if we hurry we could make arrangements.”

The three Terrans exchanged glances. Althea said, “I don’t like to trouble you boys when you’ve done so much for me, but if there’s any chance of that horrible man . . .”

“We’ll go tonight,” said Kirwan. “Right, Gottfried my boy?”

“Well—ah—all right.”

“I will accompany you to ze ship,” said Gorbovast.

###

The harbor of Reshr, the first stop of the
Labághti
after leaving Majbur, sank below the horizon. Althea Merrick sat on the deck at the bow with her long legs curled under her and her back against the rail. Ahead, the emerald Sadabao Sea lay dark against the darkening evening sky. Aft, the huge lateen mainsail, striped with scarlet and gold, shut off most of the feverishly colored sunset. The forward-raking mast rose almost over Althea’s head.

Below the lower edge of the bellying sail, Althea could see the after-part of the ship, with its smaller mizzenmast and sail. Captain Memzadá, gloomily silent, gripped his tiller on the little poop deck. The captain and the crew were all Daryava, speaking a dialect of Gazashtandu that Althea, despite her conscientious struggle with that language, could hardly make out.

As soon as they had left Majbur, the Daryava had reverted to their native costume, consisting solely of a coating of grease. After the first half-hour, Althea no longer noticed their nudity. The grease gave the brawny skipper a look of a fine bronze statue. The faintly greenish Krishnan complexion aggravated this effect. She could not, however, entirely ignore the smell of the grease.

The little merchantman wallowed sluggishly under her overload through a cross-swell. As the
Labághti
pitched, Althea’s view aft, between sail and ship, alternated between sea and sky, with a glimpse of fading Zamba in between as the poop rose and fell.

Althea had been a good sailor on Earth. Since coming aboard, some of the clouds of despondency had lifted from her. But for her fear of Gorchakov and doubt about her future, she might almost have enjoyed herself. The relaxation, the seemingly aimless wandering of the ship among the fairy-tale islands of this fanciful planet, suited her temperament.

Once, she had thought to find her unknown goal in self-sacrificing service to her mother. Then she had turned to the hope of the primly abstract heaven of Ecumenical Monotheism. This was a powerful syncretic cult combining Judaic, Christian, and Islamic elements, founded by Getulio C&aTilde;o.

Now, however, the catastrophic absence of Bishop Harichand Raman had soured her on his church. She was just as glad to be still sailing under her own name and not the alternative one, such as “Piety” or “Chastity,” which the bishop was to have conferred upon her when he gave her her assignment. Still, if Bishop Raman had materialized upon the
Labághti
right then, conscience would have forced her to obey his commands.

Bahr, endowed like Althea with a sea-going constitution, leaned against one of the crates lashed to the deck and smoked his pipe. The three Terrans had boarded just as the crew were stowing these crates. Since there had been too many crates to fit into the hold, the overflow had been stowed on deck.

Brian Kirwan, looking almost as green as a Krishnan, staggered forward.

“Feeling better?” said Althea.

“Ha! It takes more than a touch of sea to down the great Brian Kirwan for long, though I curse the man who first tied two logs together to make a boat.” The poet shook his head and ran a hand across his forehead. “ ’Twill pass. Now, isn’t that the sight for you?” He waved an arm toward the sunset and broke into guttural Gaelic noises. “That’s a bit of a poem I’m after composing, in Irish, of course. All about how the isle of Zamba sits in the evening on the smaragdine Sadabao Sea, but for all its chlorophyllic greenery it’s not Eire, and wouldn’t be even if it was, because the Ireland that Zamba isn’t doesn’t exist except in the poetical imagination. If I make myself clear.”

Althea did not think that Kirwan had made himself clear but refrained from telling him so. The samples of his verse that he had quoted had impressed Althea as pretty amateurish. In fact, she was becoming convinced that Kirwan was no more than an eccentric idler, who claimed poetic talents to justify an otherwise useless existence. Kirwan continued, “Poignant, isn’t it? But at least Krishna has some color and poetry left to it, unlike my native land, which shows the same dull-gray uniformity as the rest of the Earth. The back of me hand to democracy! We need kings and nobility again, a system with a soul.”

Althea said, “That’s all very well if you happen to be one of the nobles—”

“And who could deny the rank to the great Brian Kirwan? But who can write serious poetry about some ninny passing a civil service examination, so as to be hired as a dark by some stupid board or commission?”

“Ignore him,” said Bahr. “As a poet he feels obliged to affect such attitudes.”

“You crass Philistine, you!” sneered Kirwan. “By God, if I’d known what a dull, stupid, tedious fossil of a man was going to make my life hideous with boredom, I’d have waited for the next ship.”

Bahr urbanely continued. “As I was about to explain, modern psychometry is not a theory but a well-tested body of fact. Also it is not anti-democratic, at least not more than the actual human race.”

“How do you mean, the human race?” said Althea.

“Well, after all these years of education and beautiful constitutions and world government, most human beings still regard public office as an excuse to enrich themselves, reward their friends, and exterminate their enemies. And anyway, democracy is not the same as egalitarianism—”

“It’s wasting your time you are,” said Kirwan. “The girl knows it all already. Got the Truth from her Dago prophet.”

Althea protested. “Everybody seems to think that because I’m a missionary, I must be some sort of grim fanatic. Now really, I don’t know an awful lot about the fine points at Getulio C&aTilde;o’s theology, although I had to accept the fundamentals when I joined the mission. But I can still think for myself.”

“Good for you!” said Bahr. “How did you happen to get into this kind of work?”

“Oh, my mother died and I felt useless and alone. I’d taken care of her for years and didn’t have any good ready way to make a living.”

“What had she lived on?” asked Bahr with a keen look.

“She had money, but she left it all to my brothers. All I got was a useless patch of land near Lake George.”

“The shame of it!” cried Kirwan. “Couldn’t you sue ’em? Or don’t they have laws to protect heirs in America?”

“Oh, I couldn’t sue my
family!”
said Althea.

“By God, I could; or I could bounce a dornick off their ugly heads if the occasion called for it. You’ve got no guts at all, girl. But that doesn’t tell us how you became a missionary lady.”

“Well, I wanted to do some good in the galaxy. So, having been brought up an Ecumenical Monotheist, I went around to our presbyter, and he sent me to training school, and they sent me out here.”

“What ails the young men of Earth? Are they blind, that one of ’em didn’t carry you off to bear his sons, and you so beautiful and all?” asked Kirwan.

“Brian!” said Althea severely. “No, I suppose I might as well tell you. I’ve got three brothers—”

“Your people must have had a high genetic rating,” said Bahr, “four children to be allowed.”

“They did; my father was a brilliant New York lawyer. But after he died, my brothers discouraged my getting married every way they could.
They
didn’t want to take care of Mother, who was a difficult character. As long as I was single, they figured I’d do it. So when I had a boyfriend in, they’d go out of their way to make him uncomfortable. When he’d gone, they’d work on me, telling me what a stupid boor he was. And now I suppose it’s too late.”

“Ah, it’s never too late,” said Kirwan. “Sure, if I didn’t have other plans, I’d have a try at marrying you myself, or at least a damned good seduction.” He grinned lewdly. “However, I suppose your religion protects you against such dangers, darling?”

“It’s supposed to,” said Althea. “Have you a religion?”

“Well, now, a famous Irish scholar, Stephen Mackenna it was, said the best religion for a man to have is to be a bad Catholic. But I’m not even that.”

“What then?”

“I call myself a pseudo-neo-pagan.”

“A what?”

“ ’Tis not surprising you never heard of it, for I’m the only one. I dabble in all the old cults and sects, not taking ’em seriously, but using ’em to stimulate the poetic imagination. You ought to try it.”

###

The day died. Kirwan yawned. “Time we turned in, darling, unless you want to watch the three moons chase one another.”

Althea said, “I think I’ll sleep on deck. I can’t stand the smell of that little cabin, especially that rancid grease the captain and the mate wear.”

Kirwan asked, “Aren’t you afraid one of the sailors will misconstrue you?”

“Oh, nobody bothers a skinny old maid like me.”

“It gets colder than you might think,” said Bahr.

“Well, could one of you lend me a jacket?”

“Sure, sure,” said Kirwan.

He went aft to the small cabin below the poop deck and presently returned with a windbreaker which he gave Althea. He and Bahr said goodnight and departed.

As they entered the cabin, Althea heard Captain Memzadá burst into angry speech. From the few words that she caught, she inferred that he was scolding Bahr for going below while smoking. Bahr murmured an apology and knocked his pipe out against the rail. Althea glimpsed a cloud of red sparks flying off into the dusk and soon fell asleep herself.

She dreamed that she was bound to a stake on the island of Zesh. Brian Kirwan and a gorillalike native, wearing an evening hat, were arguing about what should be done to her. A swarm of naked Roussellians, coated with grease, capered around the stake to the beat of a hollow-log drum. Kirwan wanted to burn her because that was how it was done in the rites of the ancient Numidian god Baal-Glub, while the native (like a tailed and hairier Gorchakov) wanted to save her to found a dynasty with. Gottfried Bahr was proving them both wrong by scientific arguments—Kirwan because she was too green to burn and the Zau because he and she would not prove interfertile.

“That what you think!” said the native. “I show you!” And he started to tear her clothes off.

She awoke to find that her clothes were being, if not torn off, at least taken off. A grease-clad Krishnan sailor squatted over her, fumbling with unfamiliar buttons.

Althea Merrick pressed her palms to the deck, pushing herself back against the gunwale. For the moment she was too frightened and confused to move or speak. Dream and reality were commingled in her mind.

The sailor grinned and muttered. Althea caught the impression that he was explaining that he had never had a good look at a Terran female and wanted to see how one was made. However, his further intentions were obvious to any observant eye.