Planet of Adventure Omnibus (41 page)

After a
quarter-mile the trail left the jungle, and angled off across the swampy
foreshore of the lake. The Hoch Har village stood on stilts over the water,
terminating in a float to which a dozen plank boats were tied. On the shore a
score of men stood in attitudes of nervous truculence, striding back and forth,
bushknives and long spring-bows at the ready.

The travelers
approached.

The tallest
and heaviest of Hoch Hars called out in a ridiculously shrill voice: “Who are
you?”

“Travelers on
the way to Kabasas.”

The Hoch Hars
stared incredulously, then peered back up the trail toward the mountains. “Where
is the rest of your band?”

“There is no
band; we are alone. Can you sell us a boat and some food?”

The Hoch Hars
put aside their weapons. “Food is hard to come by,” groaned the first man. “Boats
are our dearest possessions. What can you offer us in exchange?”

“Only a few
sequins.”

“What good
are sequins when we must visit Cath to spend them?”

Helsse
muttered in Reith’s ear. Reith said to the Hoch Hars, “Very well then, we shall
continue. I understand that there are other villages around the lake.”

“What? Would
you deal with petty thieves and cheats? It is all those folks are. Well, to
save you from your own folly, we will strain ourselves to work out some sort of
arrangement.”

In the end
Reith paid two hundred sequins for a boat in fair condition and what the Hoch
Har chief gruffly claimed to be sufficient provisions to take them all the way
to Kabasas: crates of dried fish, sacks of tubers, rolls of pepper-bark, fresh
and preserved fruit. Another thirty sequins secured the services, as a guide,
of a certain Tsutso, a moon-faced young man somewhat portly, with an affable
big-toothed smile. Tsutso declared the first stages of their journey to be the
most precarious: “First, the rapids; then the Great Slant, after which the
voyage becomes no more than drifting downstream to Kabasas.”

At noon, with
the small sail set, the boat departed the Hoch Har village, and through the
long afternoon sailed the dark water south toward a pair of bluffs which marked
the outlet of the lake and the head of the Jinga River. At sunset the boat
passed between the bluffs, each crowned by a tumble of ruins, black on the
brown-ash sky. Under the bluff to the right was a small cove with a beach; here
Reith wanted to camp for the night but Tsutso would not hear of it. “The
castles are haunted. At midnight the ghosts of old Tschai walk the pavings. Do
you want us all put under a taint?”

“So long as the
ghosts keep to the castle, what’s to prevent us from using the cove?”

Tsutso gave
Reith a wondering look, and held the boat to midstream between the opposing
ruins. A mile downstream the Jinga split around a rocky islet, to which Tsutso
took the boat. “Here nothing from the forest can molest us.”

The travelers
supped, laid themselves down around the campfire and were troubled by no more
than soft whistles and trills from the forest, and once, far in the distance,
the mournful call of the night-hounds.

On the next
day they passed across ten miles of violent rapids, during which Tsutso ten
times over earned his fee, in Reith’s estimation. Meanwhile the forest dwindled
to clumps of thorn; the banks became barren, and presently a strange sound made
itself heard from ahead: a sibilant all-pervading roar. “The Slant,” explained
Tsutso. The river disappeared at a brink a hundred yards ahead. Before Reith or
the others could protest, the boat had pitched over the verge.

Tsutso said, “Everyone
alert; here is the Slant. Hold to the middle!”

The roar of
water almost overwhelmed his voice. The boat was sliding into a dark gorge;
with amazing velocity the rock walls passed astern. The river itself was a
trembling black surface, lined with foam static in relation to the boat. The
travelers crouched as low as possible, ignoring Tsutso’s condescending grin.
For minutes they dashed down the race, finally plunged into a field of foam and
froth, then floated smoothly out into still water.

The walls
rose sheer a thousand feet: brown sandstone pocked with balls of black
starbush. Tsutso steered the boat to a fringe of shingle. “Here I leave you.”

“Here? At the
bottom of this canyon?” Reith asked in wonder.

Tsutso
pointed to a trail winding up the slope. “Five miles away is the village.”

“In that
case,” said Reith, “goodbye and many thanks.”

Tsutso made
an indulgent gesture. “It is nothing in particular. Hoch Hars are generous
folk, except where the Yao are concerned. Had you been Yao, all might not have
gone so well.”

Reith looked
toward Helsse, who said nothing. “The Yao are your enemies?”

“Our ancient
persecutors, who destroyed the Hoch Har empire. Now they keep to their side of
the mountain, which is well for them, as we can smell out a Yao like a bad
fish.” He jumped nimbly ashore. “The swamps lie ahead. Unless you lose
yourselves or arouse the swamp people you are as good as at Kabasas.” With a
final wave he started up the path.

The boat
drifted through sepia gloom, the sky a watered silk ribbon high above. The
afternoon passed, with the walls of the chasm gradually opening out. At sunset
the travelers camped on a small beach, to pass a night in eerie silence.

The next day
the river emerged into a wide valley overgrown with tall yellow grass. The
hills retreated; the vegetation along the shore became thick and dense, and
alive with small creatures, half-spider, half-monkey, which whined and yelped
and spurted jets of noxious fluid toward the boat. Other streams made
confluence; the Jinga became broad and placid. On the following day trees of
remarkable stature appeared along the shore, raising a variety of silhouettes
against the smoke-brown sky, and by noon the boat floated with jungle to either
side. The sail hung limp; the air was dank with odors of wet wood and decay.
The hopping tree-creatures kept to the high branches; through the dimness below
drifted gauze-moths, insects hanging on pale bubbles, bird-like creatures which
seemed to swim on four soft wings. Once the travelers heard heavy groaning and
trampling sounds, another time a ferocious hissing and again a set of strident
shrieks, from sources invisible.

By slow
degrees the Jinga broadened to become a placid flood, flowing around dozens of
small islands, each overgrown with fronds, plumes, fan-shaped dendrons. Once,
from the corner of his eye, Reith glimpsed what seemed to be a canoe carrying
three youths wearing peacock-tail headdresses, but when he turned to look he
saw only an island, and was never sure what in fact he had seen. Later in the
day a sinuous twenty-foot beast swam after them, but fifty feet from the boat
it seemed to lose interest and submerged.

At sundown
the travelers made camp on the beach of a small island. Half an hour later Traz
became uneasy and, nudging Reith, pointed to the underbrush. They heard a
stealthy rustling and presently sensed a clammy odor. An instant later the
beast which had swum after them lunged forth screaming. Reith fired one of his
explosive pellets into the very maw of the beast; with its head blown off it
careened in a circle, using a peculiar prancing gait, finally floundering in
the water to sink.

The group
gingerly resumed their seats around the campfire. Helsse watched Reith return
the handgun to his pouch, and could no longer restrain his curiosity. “Where,
may I ask, did you obtain your weapon?”

“I have
learned,” said Reith, “that candor makes problems. Your friend Dordolio thinks
me a lunatic; Anacho the Dirdirman prefers the term ‘amnesiac.’ So-think
whatever you like.”

Helsse
murmured, as if for his own ears: “What strange tales we all could tell, if
candor indeed were the rule.”

Zarfo
guffawed. “Candor? Who needs it? I’ll tell strange tales as long as someone
will listen.”

“No doubt,”
said Helsse, “but persons with desperate goals must hold their secrets close.”

Traz, who
disliked Helsse, looked sideways with something like a sneer. “Who could this
be? I have neither secrets nor desperate goals.”

“It must be
the Dirdirman,” said Zarfo with a sly wink.

Anacho shook
his head. “Secrets? No. Only reticences. Desperate goals? I travel with Adam
Reith since I have nothing better to do. I am an outcast among the sub-men. I
have no goals whatever, except survival.”

Zarfo said, “I
have a secret: the location of my poor hoard of sequins. My goals? Equally
modest: an acre or two of river meadow south of Smargash, a cabin under the
tayberry trees, a polite maiden to boil my tea. I recommend them to you.”

Helsse,
looking into the campfire, smiled faintly. “My every thought, willy-nilly, is a
secret. As for my goals-if I return to Settra and somehow can appease the
Security Company, I’ll be well content.”

Reith looked
up to where clouds were clotting out the stars. “I’ll be content to stay dry
tonight.”

The group
carried the boat ashore, turned it over and, with the sail, made a shelter. Rain
began to fall, extinguishing the campfire and sending puddles of water under
the boat.

Dawn finally
arrived: a blear of rain and umber gloom. At noon, with the clouds breaking
apart, the travelers once more floated the boat, loaded the provisions and set
off to the south.

The Jinga
widened until the shores were no more than dark marks. The afternoon passed;
sunset was a vast chaos of black, gold, and brown. Drifting through the gloom,
the travelers sought for a place to land. Mud flats lined the shore, but at
last, as purple-brown dusk became night, a sandy bluff appeared under which the
travelers landed for the night.

On the
following day they entered the swamps. The Jinga, dividing into a dozen
channels, moved sluggishly among islands of reeds, and the travelers passed a
cramped night in the boat. Toward evening of the day following they came upon a
canted dyke of gray schist which, rising and falling, created a chain of rocky
islands across the swamp. At some immensely remote time, one or another people
of old Tschai had used the islands to support a causeway, long toppled to a
crumble of black concrete. On the largest of the islands the travelers camped,
dining on the dried fish and musty lentils provided by the Hoch Hars.

Traz was
restless. He made a circuit of the island, clambered to the highest jut, looked
back and forth along the line of the ancient bridge. Reith, disturbed by Traz’s
apprehension, joined him. “What do you see?”

“Nothing.”

Reith looked
all around. The water reflected the dusky mauve of the sky, the hulks of the
nearby islands. They returned to the campfire, and Reith set sentry watches. He
awoke at dawn and instantly wondered why he had not been called. Then he
noticed that the boat was gone. He shook Traz, who had stood the first watch. “Last
night, whom did you call?”

“Helsse.”

“He did not
call me. And the boat is missing.”

“And Helsse
as well,” said Traz.

Reith saw
this to be the case.

Traz pointed
to the next island, forty yards across the water. “There is the boat. Helsse
went for a midnight row.”

Going down to
the water’s edge Reith called: “Helsse! Helsse!”

No response.
Helsse was not visible.

Reith
considered the distance to the boat. The water was smooth and opaque as slate.
Reith shook his head. The boat so near, so obvious: bait? From his pouch he
took the hank of cord, originally a component of his survival kit, and tied a
stone to one end. He heaved the stone at the boat. It fell short. Reith dragged
it back through the water. For an instant the line went taut and quivered to
the presence of something strong and vital.

Reith
grimaced. He heaved the stone again, and now it wedged inside the boat. He
pulled; the boat came back across the water.

With Traz,
Reith returned to the neighboring island, to find no trace of Helsse. But under
a jut of rock they found a hole slanting down into the island. Traz put his
head close to the opening, listened, sniffed, and motioned Reith to do the
same. Reith caught a faint clammy odor, like that of earthworms. In a subdued
voice he called down into the hole: “Helsse!” and once again, louder: “Helsse!”
To no effect.

They returned
to their companions. “It seems that the Pnume play jokes,” said Reith in a
subdued voice.

They ate a
silent breakfast, waited an indecisive fidgeting hour. Then slowly they loaded
the boat and departed the island. Reith looked back through the scanscope until
the island no longer could be seen.

THE CHANNELS
OF the Jinga came together; the swamp became a jungle. Fronds and tendrils hung
over the black water; giant moths floated like ghosts. The upper strata of the
forest were a distinct environment: pink and pale yellow ribbons writhed
through the air like eels; black-furred globes with six long white arms swung
nimbly from branch to branch. Once, far off along an avenue of vision, Reith
saw a cluster of large woven huts high in the branches and a little later the
boat passed under a bridge of sticks and coarse ropes. Three naked people came
to cross the bridge as the boat drifted close: frail thin-bodied folk with
parchment-colored skin. Observing the boat, they halted in shock, then raced
across the bridge and disappeared into the foliage.