The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (12 page)

Of course he had the gun, but so what? Could he hold up the herd and force them to let him go? They didn’t look as if they would be aroused even by gunshots. And if he did arouse them, would they obey him, or would they rush the cage and spear him despite his fire, or would they scatter into the woods and leave him there to starve? Unless he could be sure they would follow the first of these courses there was no point in killing a few, which would merely enrage the rest.

Could he open fire now and massacre the lot before they awoke? He had 42 shots—fourteen in the gun and two spare magazines—but there were over a hundred Dzlieri present. And anyway he did not know how sound asleep they were. So that was out, especially since he was not sure he could make every shot count in this fading light. Could he blast the lock with his pistol? Maybe, but the ironwork looked solid if crude, and perhaps he would merely jam the works so the door could not be opened without a cutting torch, and even if he succeeded they might wake up . . .

No, altogether shooting did not seem to be the answer except as a last-ditch measure. He went through the pockets and attachments that hung from his belt. The most promising item seemed to be the sheath knife. If he had a stout cord to fasten the knife to the end of his pole with, perhaps he could saw the cord that held the key. Unfortunately he had not brought any string along either, and the nearest cord was that which held the key in question.

Well, perhaps he could improvise some string. The canes had twigs with long slim leaves, and by twisting a lot of these together he managed to achieve a fairly secure lashing. Then with the knife on the end of the pole, he reached out and began to saw the cord. He dreaded pricking the Dzlieri with the knife point and bringing the extra-terrestrial up with a roar of rage, but he had to take that chance. And he couldn’t exert any really powerful force on the knife for fear of breaking his slender canes or his precarious lashing.

His arms ached from muscular tension. At this rate it would be black by the time he finished . . . And then the cord parted. Beck scraped the key towards himself, losing it in the semi-darkness several times and having to feel for it. But at last it was his.

He stowed the knife and the string from the key, released the safety of his pistol, and unlocked the door. The screech of the lock he expected to bring all the Dzlieri up standing, but it failed to arouse them.

He picked his way through the gloom among the sprawled Vishnuvans until he found Koshay, whose shoulder he shook.

“Que quer você?”
mumbled the entrepreneur, rubbing his eyes. These eyes widened suddenly when they took in Beck. Koshay tensed himself for action, but subsided when Beck shoved the pistol into his face.

“Shut up,” whispered Beck. “One yell and it’ll be your last. Roll over on your face and put your hands behind your back.”

When Koshay had obeyed, Beck sat on him and tied his wrists together with the key string. When he felt what was happening, Koshay started to struggle. However, the pressure of the muzzle on the back of his head quieted him.

“Now come along,” said Beck. He marched Koshay over to the edge of the corral, looking about him as he did so. He could not find his walking stick, and for negotiating the swampy parts of the trail a pole or staff of some sort was a practical necessity. Therefore he finally pulled a javelin from one of the Dzlieri’s quivers.

As they plunged into the woods, the darkness compelled Beck to use his flashlight. This confronted him with a problem: he needed three hands for light, javelin, and pistol. Not daring to entrust any of these articles to his prisoner, Beck compromised by leaving the pistol in its holster and following Koshay at a distance of three paces with the light in his left hand and the javelin in his right. Now, if Koshay tried to run, he could throw the spear at him and still draw and fire before the man could get out of range. Nobody, he thought, could be very agile with his hands tied behind him.

“Hey,” said Koshay, “if I’m going ahead, untie my hands and give me the javelin to feel my way.”

“And have you stick me with it? No sir!”

“Then at least give me the light so I can see where I’m walking.”

“So you can put it out and bolt?”

“Oh my God, what a suspicious character! Then you go ahead and let me follow.”

“And trust you behind me? How silly do
I
look, anyway?”

“But say, I’m liable to walk into a hole and go in over my head! Or step on some monster. I knew a man once who stepped into the mouth of a mudworm on a trail like this, and it swallowed him down, gulp, before he could even yell.”

“That would be a small loss in your case.”

“Don’t you care what happens to me? After all we are fellow human beings . . .”

“I care about as much as you did what happened to me a couple of hours ago. Go on.”

They plowed through the slime. The occasional stir of an animal in the vegetation halted them. The hair on Beck’s neck prickled.

Koshay grumbled: “You’re not so damn smart as you think. Anybody could figure out a way to get away from those dumb Dzlieri.”

And again: “You think you’re brave as all hell, don’t you? Well, you’re not. You’re just one of those optimistic dopes who thinks everything will always come out right for him. You’ll see. When the Dzlieri wake up they’ll come after us.”

“Not at night,” said Beck, “and tomorrow’ll be too late. Pipe down and keep going.”

Because of the darkness, and the fact that Koshay in his bound condition had to go slowly, the hike back to Koshay’s house took nearly all night. They arrived in the pre-dawn twilight. Koshay was covered with mud and filth from having stepped into holes and fallen down; Beck heartlessly had forced him to scramble up again as best he could.

Then there was nothing to do but wait for the helicopter.

###

On the ship for Krishna, Koshay made a nuisance of himself. He remembered, for instance, that he was supposed to be a pious Muslim, and pestered Beck five times a day to ask the navigator to calculate the direction of the Solar System so he could pray towards Mecca, though sometimes he almost had to stand on his head to do so. Beck was glad to deliver him into the custody of the regular
polícia
at Novorecife.

Preliminary hearings were being held that session by Judge Keshavachandra, whose brows soared up his bald brown forehead like a bird taking off when he heard the case against the prisoner.

“You mean,” he said, “that you intend to prosecute this man for arms traffic because he sold animal crackers to these warring tribes?”

“That’s right, your honor,” said Beck.

“But how in the Galaxy can animal crackers be considered arms?”

Beck explained.

Koshay protested: “That’s ridiculous, your honor. Suppose I sold golf clubs to the human beings here at Novorecife—you do have a course, don’t you?—well, if I did, and then a golfer killed another with a club in a fit of rage, that wouldn’t make me guilty of arms running.”

“It’s a matter of intent, your honor,” said Beck. “If Senhor Darius sold golf clubs with the intent that they should be used as golf clubs, well and good; but if he sold them as weapons, then it’s a violation of the statute. See the case of—
People versus Terszczansky,
I think it was; the regular prosecutor can tell you. And if you don’t think this magic is effective against beings who believe in it, I urge that you bind the prisoner over while I go back to Vishnu and fetch a Dzlieri and a Romeli. It’ll only take a couple of weeks, since the planets are almost in conjunction.”

“And what then?”

“We’ll stage a duel to demonstrate.”

“You mean to have that centaur and that six-legged ape stand up on opposite sides of my courtroom and eat animal crackers at each other?”

“Yes sir.”

The judge sighed, then said with a twinkle: “We’d be famous for all time, no doubt, but it wouldn’t be law. If the stunt didn’t work we’d make ourselves ridiculous and accomplish nothing, while if it did we’d all be accessories to a murder. No, I’m afraid I shall have to discharge your man with a warning. Don’t take it too hard, Inspector Beck. Morally you’re right, and I’m going to see what I can do about revoking his entrepreneur’s license. However, you’d never make your charge stand up at a regular trial, I can assure you.”

Beck left the court with chin up but spirits drooping, not looking back lest he meet Koshay’s triumphant grin. He had begun to feel like that fellow in the myth who was condemned to roll a boulder uphill again and again. Good-bye to his scholarship!

###

When the next ship for Vishnu took off some days later, Beck was exasperated to learn that Koshay was a fellow passenger.

“What are you up to now, Senhor Koshay?” he said.

Koshay grinned unregenerately. “I’ve got a load of golf clubs and balls. You remember that crack of mine at the hearing? Well, it gave me an idea. I bought up all the surplus equipment at Novorecife and made arrangements with the shop to make me some more. I’m betting the Romeli will make great golfing enthusiasts.”

“Where’d you get the money?”

“Oh, I salvaged enough of those Romeli songs, so my credit’s good. This time I’ll really hit the jackpot.”

“Is your license still valid?”

“Nobody had said otherwise up to the time I left. I’ve got friends, you know. And if old Keshavachandra did get it revoked, that wouldn’t affect me until somebody caught up with me and delivered the news. Which might not be easy.”

There’s a catch somewhere, thought Beck gloomily, and kept away from Koshay the rest of the trip.

When Beck resumed his post as customs inspector at Bembom, his first customer was naturally Darius Koshay. Again, however, the baggage proved to have nothing objectionable in it. Koshay, whistling cheerfully, rented the light tractor and trailer to haul his gear out to his house, and vanished into the jungle.

A couple of hours later he was back, panting, with an arrow sticking in his gluteus maximus. While sawbones extracted it, he told his story to Comandante Silva, Inspector Beck, and Sergeant Martins: “I never saw anything like it; a party of mixed Romeli and Dzlieri, and instead of fighting each other they took after me! I just managed to get turned around in time, and I had to cut loose the trailer with all my stuff on it. You should have seen me bouncing along that lousy little road with the things whooping after me! If they hadn’t stopped to pull my baggage apart they’d have had me.”

“I told you they weren’t fighting anymore,” said Silva.

“Yes, I know you did, but why aren’t they?”

“I arranged a treaty between them.”

“You did? I don’t think it can be done!”

“Yes; that’s the mixed border patrol you saw. They police the boundary zone between the tribes to see that none of either species crosses it and starts more trouble. I warned you not to go in there.”

“You might have made it more specific,” growled the sufferer. “Hell, this is no place for a real man any more. I can see it’s going to be all fouled up with red tape like the rest of the universe. I’m clearing out. When does the
Cabot
leave? Tomorrow? Swell.”

When Koshay had limped off to gather his remaining belongings, Beck asked:
“Chefe,
what’s this treaty really? How did you work it?”

“Simple enough. I persuaded Kamatobden to visit Koshay’s house with me, and showed him that Koshay was supplying both sides. It took the evidence of the stored crackers to do it, because those types are stubborn. Then I did the same with Daatskhuna, and in that way I got them together for a friendly talk for the first time in known history.”

Beck said: “That’s fine. I wish I’d had a hand in it, though. I nearly got killed, and all I got to show for it was the merry ha-ha after that hearing on Krishna.”

“Oh, you’ll be all right, Luther. If you hadn’t taken Koshay out of circulation so he wasn’t there to foul things up, I could never have worked on the chiefs. As a reward, I’ve recommended you for that scholarship, and I’m sure you’ll get it—hey, doctor! I think he’s going to faint!”

A.D. 2135-2148

Git Along!

Darius Mehmed Koshay looked at the fat slob across the table, and then at the prettier though hardly rounder wall clock. In three hours the ship from Earth would arrive at the Uranus spaceport, bearing, nine chances out of ten, a warrant for the arrest of Darius Koshay.

Three hours in which somehow to convert the fat slob into a means of escape from the Solar System. Escape to where his talents would be appreciated instead of thwarted. More to the point, escape to where Earthly writs did not run—at least not for such minor errors as an overenthusiastic prospectus for a new company to raise Ganeshan doodle birds on Mars.

It was a gruesome choice between the clock and Moritz Gloppenheimer, who was not only fat but also a loud-mouthed vulgar bounder. Gloppenheimer, in fact, must have been the man for whom the English word “slob” had been invented. He had dirt under his nails—Koshay stole a look at his own fastidiously manicured digits—and unpleasant breath.

And most unkindest cut of all, the slob had hit upon a scheme that Koshay wished he had thought of. In fact Koshay was sure he
would
have thought of it if given a little time. Therefore the scheme by rights belonged to him—

“Go on, pal,” said Koshay with an ingratiating smile, like the smile that caused a certain legendary heroine to remark: “What big teeth you have, Grandma!”

The encouragement was hardly necessary, for Gloppenheimer was a nonstop talker. The problem was to turn him off once he got started—like a Scotch faucet in reverse:
“. . . und so,
when I saw this adwertisement for a chenuine American dude ranch in the Bawarian Alps, I said to myself, ‘why cannot you use the idea use, my boy? You have the cinema dealing with the American Wild West many times seen. You can a month at this ranch to pick up the tricks of the trade shpend, and away you go!’ ”

“Where to?” said Koshay, with just the right mixture of interest and nonchalance to encourage his acquaintance without rousing his suspicions.

“To a not-too-distant, humanoid-inhabitants-possessing, to Earthly-private-enterprises-hospitable planet. So, I inwestigate. What find I? Mars and Wenus are for this purpose useless; Mars had not enough air and its people are too insectlike, while Wenus is too hot and has no intelligent inhabitants at all. The most promising planet from my point of wiew is Osiris in the Procyonic System. The people are reptilian but highly ciwilized, friendly, with an extreme capitalistic economy, and to Earthly fads and fashions giwen. To Osiris then shall I, as soon as I can my materials collect, go.”

“What materials?” asked Koshay, lighting a cigarette.

“Ah. A cowboy suit of the old American type. I know all this costumery a choke is; not for centuries have the Americans by such picturesque methods their cattle reared. I have once a ranch in Texas seen—like a laboratory, with the cowboys walking about in white coats, carrying test tubes and taking their animals’ temperatures. But there is in this dude-ranch business still money to be gained. It even gives a
dzudzu ranchi
in Japan, I am told.

“But to get back to my materials: a rope or lasso. An ancient single-action rewolwer-type pistol such as one sees in museums. Textbooks and romantic nowels dealing with the Wild West. A guitar, bancho, or similar song-accompanying instrument in the evening by the campfire to play. I wisit the ranch; I buy the materials—”

“How’s the monetary exchange between the Procyonic System and ours?” said Koshay.

Gloppenheimer belched loudly. “Wide open! One can Osirian money to World Federation dollars limitlessly conwert. Of course one must first a partner or shponsor find. It is a rule for strange planets, a native partner to get, and one’s own operations in the background to keep. Otherwise someday arises a character crying: ‘The Earthman exploits us; tear the monster to pieces!’ ”

“Have you got all this stuff with you?”

“Yes, yes. Oh, waiter!” barked Gloppenheimer. “Bring another round. At once, you undershtand?”

Koshay smiled. “Put it on my bill,” he added softly. A plan was beginning to form which, if successful, would well repay him for treating the oaf from his dwindling cash.

Three rounds later Gloppenheimer showed a tendency to drop his head on his forearms and go to sleep.

Koshay said: “Let me help you back to your room, Herr Gloppenheimer.”

“Wery goot,” mumbled Gloppenheimer. “A true friend. Remind me to set my alarm; my ship goes soon.
Ja,
I should not so much drinken. My third wife always said—” And the slob began to blubber, presumably over the memory of his third wife.

###

They zigzagged through the passageways, ricocheting from one bare bulkhead to the other like animated billiard balls until they reached Gloppenheimer’s compartment. This lay two doors from Koshay’s own room in the transient section of this underground rabbit warren. (Neptune and Pluto had similar spaceports; Uranus was at this time the transfer point to the Procyonic and Sirian systems because it alone happened to be on the right side of the Solar System.)

Gloppenheimer flopped onto his bunk and began to snore like a sawmill almost before his head hit the pillow.

When he had satisfied himself that Gloppenheimer could not be roused even by severe shaking, Koshay went through the man’s papers and effects. He took Gloppenheimer’s keys from his pocket and opened the trunk standing upright by the door. There hung the cowboy outfit and its accessories. Gloppenheimer’s ordinary clothes lay in his suitcase. This suitcase, about the size of Koshay’s own, was covered by an almost identical fabric. A piece of luck! Allah was evidently going to see to it that Koshay got his just due.

Koshay examined Gloppenheimer’s passport for some minutes.

Finally, he tiptoed back to his own compartment, picked up his own suitcase, and looked cautiously out of his door. The room between his and Gloppenheimer’s was occupied by an eight-legged native of Isis who looked like the result of an incredible miscegenation between an elephant and a dachshund. As the Isidian normally kept his door closed to enjoy a raised air pressure like that of his own planet, he was unlikely to burst out suddenly. Still, you couldn’t be too careful.

He listened. From the Isidian’s room, muffled by the door, came the faint
tonk-tonk
of the occupant’s phonograph; Isidian music, Koshay knew, was made by a lot of Isidians holding little hammers in their trunks and hitting pieces of wood of various sizes and shapes with them. The effect was ultra-Cuban, and not much improved by the background of Gloppenheimer’s snores.

Koshay carried his suitcase swiftly to Gloppenheimer’s room and, after making sure that Gloppenheimer was still somnolent, opened it. Out of a false bottom came an assortment of pens, ink bottles, stamps, engraving tools, and other equipment not usually carried by honest travelers. Out also came several passports with Koshay’s fingerprints and photograph, but without the passport holder’s name.

He stamped the name “Moritz Wolfgang Gloppenheimer” in the appropriate places so that it looked like typescript. Then he practiced Gloppenheimer’s signature a few times on a sheet of stationery and signed the document.

He looked again at Gloppenheimer’s passport. If he could only furnish Gloppenheimer with a similar passport made out to Darius Mehmed Koshay—but he lacked equipment for such a comprehensive job of forgery. He did the next best thing, which was to forge for Gloppenheimer, with his own name, a little identity card bearing the legend, in the Brazilo-Portuguese of the spaceways:

TEMPORARY CARD

Issued on Loss of Passport

Pending Receipt of New Passport

He then took a small strip of fabric like that which covered his suitcase and ran it through a gadget that stamped “M.W.G.” on it in gold letters. He picked with his nails at the initials on his own suitcase until a corner of a similar strip came up, and then tore it off altogether and glued the new strip on in place of the old. Then he glued a strip bearing the initials “D.M.K.” over the initials on Gloppenheimer’s suitcase so that unless you looked closely, you would have thought that this suitcase bore Koshay’s initials.

Then he checked through Gloppenheimer’s clothes to make sure none of them had any initials or other marks of identity. When he finished the job, he exchanged wallets with Gloppenheimer, checking all the papers, cards, tickets, and other things in both. He kept his regular passport and enough papers to identify him as Darius Koshay if necessary, packing these in the false bottom of his bag. The ticket to Osiris was especially welcome, as he did not have enough money to buy one of his own.

Koshay’s pride troubled him a little during this transfer of identities, for he usually considered himself above vulgar thievery. To salve his sense of fitness he made a vague resolution to repay Gloppenheimer someday, when he could do so without personal sacrifice or inconvenience. Although he had made these resolutions before when circumstances had forced him to bend even his very pliable moral code, nothing had ever come of them.

And anyway, a man had to stand up for his rights, didn’t he?

###

The passenger agent of the Viagens Interplanetarias looked up to see a man, one of that last lot that came in from Earth on the
Antigonos
, standing before him.

“Que quer você, senhor?”
asked the
fiscal.

“Excuse me,” said the man in excellent Portuguese, “but I’m Moritz Gloppenheimer, en route from Earth to Osiris, and I have Compartment 9 in the Transient Section.”

(The official wondered a little at this. He seemed to remember Gloppenheimer as fat, blond, boorish, and voluble, with a strong German accent, while this fellow was slim, dark, elegant, quiet, and younger-looking. No doubt he had confused the names.)

“One of my fellow travelers,” continued Koshay, “has passed out in the corridor in front of my door. Will you take care of the poor chap?”

“Do you know who he is?” said the agent, rising.

“I know who he said he was: Darius Koshay. We were drinking in the bar when he said he felt sick and excused himself. Later in going to my room I found him.”

Just then a little door behind the
fiscal
opened and the head security officer of the port came in and whispered to the agent. Both men turned eyes on Koshay. The
fiscal
said: “A thousand thanks to you,
senhor;
it transpires that the man is wanted on Earth. A warrant just came in on the
Kepler.
Had you not told us, he might have slipped away on the outgoing
Cachoeira
before we could get the alarm out.”

“Tamates,
that reminds me!” said Koshay. “I have about fifteen minutes to get aboard the
Cachoeira
myself.
Até à vista!”

A few minutes later two processions passed each other in the corridor. One consisted of a porter trundling Gloppenheimer’s trunk and Koshay’s suitcase on an electric truck, and behind him Koshay ambling along with hands in pockets. The other comprised three Viagens policemen and a staggering, half-asleep Gloppenheimer, blubbering through his tears:
“Aber, ich bin doch nicht dieser Koshay!”
(Belch.)
Ich habe von dem Kerl niemals gehört!”

The Viagens men, who probably did not understand German, paid no attention. Meanwhile, Koshay blessed the prudence that had inhibited him from telling Gloppenheimer his name. What people didn’t know—

###

Six months later—subjective time—Darius Koshay, still posing as Moritz W. Gloppenheimer, sat—or rather squatted—in conference with the three mayors of Cefef Aqh, Osiris. (The Osirians had explained to him that they used committees of three for all executive positions because they feared that one Osirian by himself might commit impulsive or sentimental acts.) They looked like small bipedal dinosaurs, a head taller than a man.

“No,” he said firmly in the Sha’akhfi tongue, in which he was becoming as fluent as one lacking Sha’akhfi vocal organs could. “I will not form a partnership with you all. I will form a stock corporation with one of you, whichever gives me the best deal. Which shall it be?”

The three Sha’akhfi, like three Shakespearean witches, looked uneasily at Koshay and then at each other. Their forked tongues flicked out nervously. The one called Shishirhe, with scales covered with solid silver paint, said: “You mean whichever of us offers you the largest share of the stock?”

“Precisely,” said Koshay. The Sha’akhfi knew all about corporation finance. In fact their economy reminded visitors of the wildest days of unregulated capitalism on Earth in the late nineteenth century.

Yathasia, the one with the red-and-black pattern painted on his hide, jumped up and began pacing back and forth on his birdlike feet. “That is not how I understood it at all when I introduced you to this honorable committee. I thought we should each take a fourth, as is the custom.”

Koshay said: “I am sorry if you got the wrong idea, but those are my terms. If you don’t like them, I shall go hunting another trio of mayors.”

“Most unfair!” cried Yathasia. “The monster is trying to set us one against the other. Let us refuse to deal with him!”

“Well?” said Koshay, looking at the other two.

Shishirhe, after some hesitation, said: “I will offer thirty percent.”

“What?” cried Yathasia. “You surprise me, honorable colleague. I had thought you a person of more refined sentiments. However, I will not let you have the corporation for the asking. Forty percent!”

Koshay looked towards the third of the trio, Fessahen, the one with the blue-green-and-orange pattern.

The latter waved his claws in the gesture of negation. “I am not in on this, having too many interests already. You, Shishirhe?”

“Forty-five,” said Shishirhe.

“Forty-nine,” hissed Yathasia.

“Fifty,” said Shishirhe.

“Fifty-two,” said Yathasia, his shrillness suggesting rage.

Fessahen observed: “Are you mad, Yathasia? That will give the Earthman control of the corporation!”

“I know,” said Yathasia, “but our laws will protect my interest, and he knows how to run the business better than I in any case.”