Planet of Adventure Omnibus (4 page)

While Reith’s
bones mended his only contacts were with women, a spiritless group, and with
Traz Onmale, who spent the greater part of each morning with Reith, talking,
inspecting Reith’s habiliments, teaching the Kruthe language. This was
syntactically regular but rendered difficult by scores of tenses, moods and
aspects. Long after Reith was able to express himself, Traz Onmale, in the
stern manner so much at odds with his years, would correct him and indicate
still another intricacy of usage.

The world was
Tschai, so Reith learned; the moons were Az and Braz. The tribesmen were Kruthe
or “Emblem Men,” after the devices of silver, copper, stone and wood which they
wore on their hats. A man’s status was established by his emblem, which was
reckoned a semidivine entity in itself, with a name, detailed history,
idiosyncrasies and rank. It was not too much to say that rather than the man
carrying the emblem, the emblem controlled the man, as it gave him his name and
reputation, and defined his tribal role. The most exalted emblem was Onmale,
carried by Traz, who prior to assuming the emblem had been an ordinary lad of
the tribe. Onmale was the embodiment of wisdom, craft, resolution and the
indefinable Kruthe virtu. A man might inherit an emblem, take possession after
killing its owner, or fabricate a new emblem for himself. In the latter case,
the new emblem held no personality or virtu until it had participated in
noteworthy feats and so acquired status. When an emblem changed hands the new
owner willy-nilly assumed the personality of the emblem. Certain emblems were
mutually antagonistic, and a man coming into possession of one of these at once
became the enemy of the holder of the other. Certain emblems were thousands of
years old, with complex histories; some were fey and carried a weight of doom;
others impelled the wearer to hardihood or some specific sort of berserker élan.
Reith was sure that his perception of the symbolic personalities was pale and
gray compared to the intensity of the Kruthe’s own comprehensions. Without his
emblem the tribesman was a man without a face, without prestige or function. He
was in fact what Reith presently learned himself to be; a helot, or a woman,
the words in the Kruthe language being the same.

Curiously, or
so it seemed to Reith, the Emblem Men believed him to be a man from a remote
region of Tschai. Far from respecting him for his presence aboard the
space-boat, they thought him a subordinate to some non-human race unknown to
them, as the Chaschmen were subordinate to the Blue Chasch, or the Dirdirmen to
the Dirdir.

When Reith
first heard Traz Onmale express this point of view, he refuted the idea
indignantly. “I am from Earth, a far planet; we are not ruled by anyone.”

“Who built
the space-boat then?” Traz Onmale asked in a skeptical voice.

“Men,
naturally. Men of Earth.”

Traz Onmale
gave his head a dubious shake. “How could there be men so far from Tschai?”

Reith gave a
laugh of bitter amusement. “I’ve been asking myself the same question: How did
men come to Tschai?”

“The origin
of men is well-known,” said Traz Onmale in a frigid voice. “We are taught this
as soon as we can speak. Did you not receive the same instruction?”

“On Earth we
believe that men evolved from a protohominid, which in turn derived from an
ancient mammal; and so on back to the first cells.”

Traz Onmale looked
askance at the women who worked nearby. He gave them a brusque signal. “Be off,
we are discussing men’s matters.”

The women
departed with clacking tongues, and Traz Onmale looked after them in disgust. “The
foolishness will be all over camp. The magicians will be annoyed. I must
explain to you the true source of men. You have seen the moons. The pink moon
is Az, abode of the blessed. The blue moon is Braz, a place of torment, where
evil folk and
kruthsh’geir
[i]
are sent after death. Long ago the moons collided; thousands of folk were
dislodged and fell to Tschai. All now seek to return to Az, good and evil
alike. But the Judgers, who derive wisdom from the globes they wear, separate
good men from the bad and send them to appropriate destinations.

“Interesting,”
said Reith. “What of the Chasch and the Dirdir?”

“They are not
men. They came to Tschai from beyond the stars, as did the Wankh; Chaschmen and
Dirdirmen are unclean hybrids. Pnume and Phung are spew of the northern caves.
We kill all with zeal.” He regarded Reith sidelong, brows knit severely. “If
you derive from a world other than Tschai, you cannot be a man, and I should
order you killed.”

“That seems
overly harsh,” said Reith. “After all, I have done you no harm.”

Traz Onmale
made a gesture to indicate that the argument had no relevance. “I will defer
judgment.”

Reith
exercised his stiff limbs, and diligently studied the language. The Kruthe, he
learned, held to no fixed range, but wandered the vast Aman Steppe, which
spread across the south of the continent known as Kotan. They had no great
knowledge of conditions elsewhere on Tschai. There were other
continents--Kislovan to the south; Charchan, Kachan, Rakh on the other side of
the world. Other nomad tribes roamed the steppe; in the marshes and forests to
the south lived ogres and cannibals, with a variety of supernatural powers. The
Blue Chasch were established to the far west of Kotan; the Dirdir, who
preferred a cold climate, lived on Haulk, a peninsula reached south and west of
Kislovan, and on the northeast coast of Charchan.

Another alien
race, the Wankh, were also established on Tschai, but the Emblem Men knew
little of these folk. Native to Tschai was an eerie race known as the Pnume,
also their mad relatives, the Phung, regarding whom the Kruthe were reluctant
to speak, lowering their voices and looking over their shoulders when they did
so.

Time passed:
days of bizarre events, nights of despair and longing for Earth. Reith’s bones
began to knit and he unobtrusively explored the camp.

About fifty
sheds had been erected in the lee of the hill, the roofs butted end to end to
form what from the air would seem a fold or declivity on the hillside. Beyond
the sheds was a cluster of enormous six-wheeled motor drays, camouflaged under
tarpaulins. Reith was awed by the bulk of the vehicles and would have examined
them more closely were it not for the band of sallow urchins which followed him
about, attentive to his every move. Intuitively they sensed his strangeness and
were fascinated. The warriors, however, ignored him; a man without an emblem
was little more than a ghost.

At the far
end of camp Reith found an enormous machine mounted on a truck: a giant
catapult with a thrust-arm fifty feet long. A siege engine? On one side was
painted a pink disc, on the other a blue disc: reference, so Reith assumed, to
the moons Az and Braz.

Days passed,
weeks, a month. Reith could not understand the inactivity of the tribe. They
were nomads; why did they keep so long to this particular camp? Every day the
four scouts rode forth, while overhead swung the black kite, veering and
dipping while the rider’s legs swung doll-like back and forth. The warriors
were clearly restive, and occupied themselves practicing the use of their
weapons. These were of three sorts: a long flexible rapier with a cutting and
stabbing tip, like the tail of a ray: a catapult, which used the energy of
elastic cables to shoot short feathered bolts; a triangular shield, a foot in
length, nine inches across the base, with sharp elongated corners and
razor-sharp side-edges serving additionally as a thrusting and hacking weapon.

Reith was
tended first by the eight-year-old urchin, then by a small hunched crone with a
face like a raisin, then by a girl who, were it not for her joylessness, might
have been attractive. She was perhaps eighteen years old, with regular
features, fine blonde hair typically tangled with twigs and bits of fodder. She
went barefoot, wearing only a smock of coarse gray homespun.

One day, as
Reith sat on a bench, the girl came past. Reith caught her around the waist,
pulled her down upon his knee. She smelled of furze and bracken, and the moss
of the steppes, and a faintly sour scent of wool. She asked in a husky alarmed
voice, “What do you want of me?” And she tried half-heartedly to rise.

Reith found
her warm weight comforting. “First, I’ll comb the twigs from your hair ... Sit
still now.” She relaxed, eyes turned sidelong at Reith; puzzled, submissive,
uneasy. Reith combed her hair, first with his fingers, then with a chip of
broken wood. The girl sat quietly.

“There,” said
Reith presently. “You look nice.”

The girl sat
as in a dream. Presently she stirred, rose to her feet. “I must go,” she said
in a hurried voice. “Someone might see.” But she lingered. Reith started to
pull her back, then thought better of the impulse and let her hurry away.

The next day
she chanced past again, and this time her hair was combed and clean. She paused
to look over her shoulder, and Reith could remember the same glance, the same
attitude from a hundred occasions on Earth; and the thought made him sick with
melancholy. At home the girl would be reckoned beautiful; here on Aman Steppe,
she had no more than a dim awareness of such matters ... He held out his hand
to her; she approached, as if drawn against her will, which was undoubtedly the
case, for she knew the ways of her tribe. Reith put his hands on her shoulders,
then around her waist, kissed her. She seemed puzzled. Reith asked, smiling, “Hasn’t
anyone done that before?”

“No. But it’s
nice. Do it again.”

Reith heaved
a deep sigh. Well, why not? ... A step behind him: a buffet sent him sprawling
to the ground, accompanied by a spate of words too fast for his understanding.
A booted foot struck into his ribs, sending shivers of pain through his mending
shoulder.

The man
advanced on the cringing girl, who stood with fists pressed to her mouth. He
struck her, kicked her, pushed her out into the compound, cursing and bawling
insults: “disgusting intimacy with an outland slave; is this your regard for
the purity of the race?”

“Slave?”
Reith picked himself up from the floor of the shed. The word rang in his mind.
Slave?

The girl ran
off to huddle under one of the towering wagons. Traz Onmale came to look into
the uproar. The warrior, a stalwart buck of about Reith’s own age, pointed a
quivering finger toward Reith. “He is a curse, a dark omen! Was not all this
foretold? Intolerable that he should spawn among our women! He must be killed,
or gelded!”

Traz Onmale
looked dubiously toward Reith. “It seems that he did small damage.”

“Small damage
indeed! But only because I happened past! With so much energy for ardor, why is
he not put out to work? Must we pamper his belly while he sits on pillows? Geld
him and set him to toil with the women!”

Traz Onmale
gave a reluctant assent, and Reith, with a sinking heart, thought of his
survival kit dangling from the tree, with its drugs, transcom, spanscope,
energy pack, and, most especially, weapons. For all their present benefit to
him they might as well be with the
Explorator IV
.

Traz Onmale
had summoned the butcher-woman. “Bring a sharp knife. The slave must be made
placid.”

“Wait!”
gasped Reith. “Is this any way to treat a stranger? Have you no tradition of
hospitality?”

“No,” said
Traz Onmale. “We do not. We are the Kruthe, driven by the force of our Emblems.”

“This man
struck me,” protested Reith. “Is he a coward? Will he fight? What if I took his
emblem from him? Would I not then be entitled to his place in the tribe?”

“The emblem
itself is the place,” Traz Onmale admitted. “This man Osom is the vehicle for
the emblem Vaduz. Without Vaduz he would be no better than you. But if Vaduz is content with Osom, as must be so, you could never take Vaduz.”

“I can try.”

“Conceivably.
But you are too late; here is the butcherwoman. Be good enough to disrobe.”

Reith turned
a horrified glance upon the woman, whose shoulders were broader than his own
and inches thicker, and who advanced upon him wearing a face-splitting grin.

“There is
still time,” muttered Reith. “Ample time.” He turned upon Osom Vaduz, who
snatched forth his rapier with a shrill whine of steel against hard leather.
But Reith had stepped in close, within the six-foot reach of the blade. Osom
Vaduz tried to leap back; Reith caught his arm, which was hard as steel; in his
present condition Osom Vaduz was by far the stronger man. Osom Vaduz gave his
arm a mighty jerk to fling Reith to the ground. Reith pulled in the same
direction, swung around to drag Osom Vaduz reeling off-balance. Reith thrust up
his shoulder, Osom Vaduz rolled across his hip and crashed to the ground. Reith
kicked him in the head, grounding his heel into Osom Vaduz’s throat, to crush
the windpipe. As Osom Vaduz lay twitching and croaking his hat rolled off;
Reith reached for it but the Chief Magician snatched it away.

“No, by no
means!” cried the magician in a passion. “This is not our law. You are a slave;
a slave you remain!”

“Must I kill
you too?” asked Reith, edging ominously forward.

“Enough!”
cried Traz Onmale peremptorily. “There has been enough killing. No more!”