Planet of Adventure Omnibus (88 page)

“I carry the
call-token. I see no reason why there should be difficulty.”

“The
situation isn’t as bad as it might be then ... I’ve had an interesting set of
experiences.” He told Anacho something of his adventures. “I escaped the
Shelters. But along the shore of the Second Sea Gzhindra began to follow.
Perhaps they were hired by the Khors; perhaps the Pnume sent them after us. We
saw Gzhindra in Urmank; probably these same Gzhindra boarded the
Nhiahar
.
They are still on the Saschanese Islands, for all I know. Since then we
apparently haven’t been followed, and I’d like to leave Sivishe before they
pick us up again.”

“I’m ready to
leave now,” said Anacho. “At any instant we may lose our luck.”

They turned
down the road leading to Woudiver’s old warehouse. Reith stopped short. It was
as he had feared, in the deepest darkest layer of his subconscious. The door to
the office stood ajar. Reith broke into a run, with Anacho coming after.

Zap 210 was
nowhere in the office, nor in the ruined warehouse. She was nowhere to be seen.

Directly
before the office the ground was damp; the prints of narrow, bare feet were
plain. “Gzhindra,” said Anacho. “Or Pnumekin. No one else.”

Reith gazed
across the salt flats, calm in the amber light of afternoon. Impossible to
search, impossible to run across salt marsh and flat, looking and calling. What
could he do? Unthinkable to do nothing ... What of Traz, the spaceship, the
return to Earth which now was feasible? The idea sank from his mind like a
waterlogged timber, with only the umbral shape, the afterimage, remaining.
Reith sat down upon an old crate. Anacho watched a moment, his long white face
drawn and melancholy, like that of a sick clown. Finally, in a somewhat hollow
voice, he said, “Best that we be on our way.”

Reith rubbed
his forehead. “I can’t go just yet. I’ve got to think.”

“What is
there to think about? If the Gzhindra have taken her, she is gone.”

“I realize
that.”

“In such a
case, you can do nothing.”

Reith looked
toward the palisades. “She will be taken back underground. They will swing her
out over a dark gulf and after a time drop her.”

Anacho
hunched his shoulders in a shrug. “You cannot alter this regrettable fact so
put it out of your mind. Traz awaits us with the spaceship.”

“But I can do
something,” said Reith. “I can go after her.”

“Into the
underground places? Insanity! You will never return!”

“I returned
before.”

“By a freak
of fate.”

Reith rose to
his feet.

Anacho went
on desperately: “You will never return. What of Traz? He will wait for you
forever. I can’t tell him you have sacrificed everything because I do not know
where he is.”

“I don’t
intend to sacrifice everything,” said Reith. “I intend to return.”

“Indeed!”
declared Anacho with a sneer of vast scorn. “This time the Pnume will make
sure. You will swing out over the gulf beside the girl.”

“No,” said
Reith. “They will not swing me. They want me for Foreverness.”

Anacho threw
up his arms in bafflement. “I will never understand you, the most obstinate of
men! Go underground! Ignore your faithful friends! Do your worst! When do you
go below? Now?”

“Tomorrow,”
said Reith.

“Tomorrow?
Why delay? Why deprive the Pnume of your society a single instant?”

“Because this
afternoon I have preparations to make. Come along: let’s go into town.”

AT DAWN REITH
went to stand at the edge of the salt flats. Here, months before, he and his
friends had detected Aila Woudiver’s signals to the Gzhindra. Reith also held a
mirror; as Carina 4269 lifted into the sky, he swept the reflection back and
forth across the salt flats.

An hour
passed. Reith methodically flashed the mirror, apparently to no avail. Then
from nowhere, or so it seemed, came a pair of dark figures. They stood half a
mile away, looking toward Reith. He flashed the mirror. Step by step they
approached, as if fascinated. Reith went to meet them. Gradually the three came
together, and at last stood fifty feet apart.

A minute
passed. The three appraised each other. The faces of the Gzhindra were shaded
under low-crowned black hats; both were pale and somewhat vulpine, with long
thin noses and bright black eyes. Presently they came closer. In a quiet voice
one spoke: “You are Adam Reith.”

“I am Adam
Reith.”

“Why did you
signal us?”

“Yesterday
you came to take my companion.”

The Gzhindra
made no remark.

“This is
true, is it not?” Reith demanded.

“It is true.”

“Why did you
do this?”

“We hold such
a commission.”

“What did you
do with her?”

“We delivered
her to such a place as we were bid.”

“Where is
this place?”

“Yonder.”

“You have a
commission to take me?”

“Yes.”

“Very well; “
said Reith. “You go first. I will follow.”

The Gzhindra
consulted in whispers. One said: “This is not feasible. We do not care to walk
with others coming at our backs.”

“For once you
can tolerate the sensation,” said Reith. “After all, you will thereby be
fulfilling your commission.”

“True, if all
goes well. But what if you elect to burn us with a weapon?”

“I would have
done so before,” said Reith. “At the moment I only want to find my companion
and bring her back to the surface.”

The Gzhindra
surveyed him with impersonal curiosity. “Why will you not walk first?”

“I don’t know
where to go.”

“We will
direct you.”

Reith spoke
so harshly that his voice cracked. “Go first. This is easier than carrying me
in a sack.”

The Gzhindra
whispered to each other, moving the corners of their thin mouths without taking
their eyes off Reith. Then they turned and walked slowly off across the salt
flats.

Reith came
after, remaining about fifty feet to the rear. They followed the faintest of
trails, which at times disappeared utterly. A mile, two miles, they walked. The
warehouse and the office diminished to small rectangular marks; Sivishe was a
blurred gray crumble at the northern horizon.

The Gzhindra
halted and turned to Reith, who thought to detect a fugitive flicker of glee. “Come
closer,” said one of the Gzhindra. “You must stand here with us.”

Reith
gingerly came forward. He brought out the energy gun which he had only just
purchased, and displayed it. “This is precautionary. I do not wish to be
killed, or drugged. I want to go alive down into the Shelters.”

“No fear
there, no fear there!” “Have no doubts on that score!” said the Gzhindra,
speaking together. “Put away your gun; it is without significance.”

Reith held
the gun in his hand as he approached the Gzhindra.

“Closer,
closer!” they urged. “Stand within the outline of the black soil.”

Reith stepped
on the patch of soil designated, which at once settled into the ground. The
Gzhindra stood quietly, so close now that Reith could see the minute creases in
the skin of their faces. If they felt alarm for his weapon they showed none.

The
camouflaged elevator descended fifteen feet; the Gzhindra stepped off into a
concrete-walled passage. Looking over their shoulders they beckoned. “Hurry.”
They set off at a swinging trot, cloaks flapping from side to side. Reith came
behind. The passage slanted downward; running was without sensible effort. The
passage became level, then suddenly ended at a brink; beyond stretched a
waterway. The Gzhindra motioned Reith down into a boat and themselves took
seats. The boat slid along the surface, guided automatically along the center
of the channel.

For half an
hour they traveled, Reith looking dourly ahead, the Gzhindra sitting stiff and
silent as carved black images.

The channel
entered a larger waterway; the boat drifted up to a dock. Reith stepped ashore;
the Gzhindra came behind, and Reith ignored the near-transparent glee with as
much dignity as he could muster. They signaled him to wait; presently from the
shadows a Pnumekin appeared. The Gzhindra muttered a few words into the air,
which the Pnumekin seemed to ignore, then they stepped back into their boat and
slid away, with pale backward glances. Reith stood alone on the dock with the
Pnumekin, who now said: “Come, Adam Reith. We have been awaiting you.”

Reith said, “The
young woman who was brought down yesterday: where is she?”

“Come.”

“Where?”

“The
zuzhma
kastchai
wait for you.”

A sensation
like a draft of cold air prickled the skin of Reith’s back. Into his mind crept
furtive little misgivings, which he tried to put aside. He had taken all
precautions available to him; their effectiveness was yet to be tested.

The Pnumekin
beckoned. “Come.”

Reith
followed, resentful and shamed. They went down a zigzag corridor walled with
panes of polished black flint, accompanied by reflections and moving shadows.
Reith began to feel dazed. The corridor widened into a hall of black mirrors;
Reith now moved in a state of bewilderment. He followed the Pnumekin to a
central column, where they slid back a portal. “You must go onward alone, to
Foreverness.”

Reith looked
through the portal, into a small cell lined with a substance like silver
fleece. “What is this?”

“You must
enter.”

“Where is the
young woman who was brought here yesterday?”

“Enter
through the portal.”

Reith spoke
in anger and apprehension: “I want to talk to the Pnume. It is important that I
do so.”

“Step into
the cell. When the portal opens, follow, follow the trace, to Foreverness.”

In a state of
sick fury Reith glared at the Pnumekin. The pale face looked back with
fish-like detachment. Demands, threats, rose up in Reith’s throat only to
dwindle and die. Delay, any loss of time, might result in terrible
consequences, the thought of which caused his stomach to jerk and quiver. He
stalked into the cell.

The portal
closed. Down slid the cell, dropping at a rapid but controlled rate. A minute
passed. The cell halted. A portal flew open. Reith stepped forth into black
glossy darkness. From his feet a trail of luminous yellow dots wound off into
the gloom. Reith looked in all directions. He listened. Nothing, no sound, no
pressure of any living presence. Burdened with a sense of destiny, he set off
along the trace.

The line of
luminous spots swung this way and that. Reith followed them with exactitude,
fearing what might lie to either side. On one occasion he thought to hear a far
hushed roar, as of air rising from some great depth.

The dark
lightened, almost imperceptibly, to a glow from some unseen source. Without
warning he came to a brink; he stood at the edge of a darkling landscape, a
place of objects faintly outlined in gold and silver luminosity. At his feet a
flight of stone steps led down; Reith descended, step after step.

He reached
the bottom and halted in an uncontrollable pang of terror; in front of him
stood a Pnume.

Reith pulled
together the elements of his will. He said in as firm a voice as he could
muster: “I am Adam Reith. I have come here for the young woman, my companion,
whom you took away yesterday. Bring her here immediately.”

From the
shape came the husky Pnume whisper: “You are Adam Reith?”

“Yes. Where
is the woman?”

“You came
here from Earth?”

“What of the
woman? Tell me!”

“Why did you
come to Old Tschai?”

A roar of
desperation rose in Reith’s throat. “Answer my question!”

The dark
shape slid quietly away. Reith stood a moment, undecided whether to stand or
follow.

The gold and
silver luminosities seemed to become brighter; or perhaps Reith had begun to
cast order upon the seemingly unrelated shapes. He began to see outlines and
tracts, pagoda-like frameworks, a range of columns. Beyond appeared silhouettes
with gold and silver fringes, as yet unstructured by his mind.

The Pnume
stalked slowly away. Reith’s frustration reached an intensity where he felt
almost faint; then he experienced a rage which sent him bounding after the
Pnume. He seized the harsh shoulder-element and jerked; to his utter
astonishment the Pnume dropped as if falling over backward, the arms swinging
down to serve as forelegs. It stood ventral surface upmost, head swiveling
strangely down and over, so that the Pnume took on the aspect of a night-hound.
While Reith gaped in awe and embarrassment the Pnume flipped itself upright, to
regard Reith with chilling disfavour.