The Hostage of Zir (10 page)

Lund looked up as the bishtars halted. “Is everything well, Mr. Reith?”

“Fine,” said Reith. “Where would you like us to picnic?”

“Anywhere, so long as you do not get in the way.” Lund returned to his instrument, checking the positions of the row of stakes, which extended off into the forest and out of sight. Reith called: “Hey, Ken, there was a good view about two hundred meters back. Let’s eat there.”

The mahouts turned their animals and retraced their steps. Where a gap in the woods gave an open vista, they halted. The ladders were again unrolled and lowered, and the Terrans descended.

To the east, the forested hills and patchwork farms of Dur spread out before them. Off to the right, the turquoise Va’andao Sea sparkled in the rays of Roqir. At the foot of the slope, the main railroad camp and the village of Gha’id looked like an ants’ nest.

For the next hour, the travelers ate, slapped at small flying pests, and listened to Strachan lecturing on the details of Krishnan railroading. Lund came by, looked the party over, nodded silently, and strode on. Then Reith called: “Okay, folks; time to go.”

Gandubán shouted to the mahouts, who sat on their mounts while the bishtars stuffed greenery into their mouths. Presently, the four beasts were again lined up and the ladders emplaced. Strachan, who remained at the construction site, waved them off.

Soon the howdahs were swaying on the return journey. Since it was downhill, they went faster than they had on the way up.

They had left the construction site behind when an uproar arose. Craning his neck, Reith saw a sudden movement among the workers. Screaming, the Krishnans ran off in all directions and disappeared in the woods.

A swarm of mounted men appeared on the service road, galloping after Reith’s party. As they approached, Reith saw that they were wild-looking Krishnans wearing fur caps and bristling with weapons. They yelled and waved lances, lashing short-legged, scampering ayas.

Reith’s mahout shouted
“Harzí! Harzí!”
The howdah’s motion became violent. Ahead, the other bishtars had speeded up.

Although too heavy to trot or gallop, the animals could work up surprising speed by accelerating their shuffling walk. Nevertheless, the pursuers gained.

Reith looked at the soldier in his howdah, expecting to see preparations for a fight. Instead, the fellow cast his bow to the floor saying: “We can do nought against fifty, sire. Needs must we be calm and pretend to be friendly.”

Ahead, the other soldiers were doing likewise. Reith did not know whether to be angry at this poltroonery or to follow the advice. Before he could make up his mind, the convoy approached the first of the switchbacks.

“My God, Fearless!” quavered Silvester Pride. “At this speed, we’ll never make the turn!”

The first bishtar leaned and skidded into the turn, almost made it, and slipped over the edge. As it disappeared, the second and third followed it.

Reith gripped the side of the howdah until his knuckles were white, wondering whether he should prepare to leap out. He heard his own voice squeak, uselessly addressing the mahout in English: “Don’t! You’ll kill us!”

Shouting to his mount, the mahout paid no heed. The animal hesitated on the brink. Reith heard the rattle of loosened gravel. Then they pitched over, like the first dip on a roller coaster.

Amazed, Reith saw that all the bishtars had kept their feet, even on so steep a slope. Six legs were evidently better than four in such a case. The creatures slid spraddle-legged down the slope, sending an avalanche of stones and dirt ahead of them.

At the bottom, still going too fast to stop, the animals gallumped across the road and down the next slope. Since this one was gentler, they slowed enough to halt on the next switchback.

Behind, the pursuers were also taking the direct route. They slipped and slid, shouting,
“Shtuí! Shtuí!”
This, Reith thought, must mean “halt” in the Ziro dialect.

The first bishtar started down the road but quickly pulled up. Barring the way, another crowd of Ziruma sat their ayas, arrows nocked and lances ready. The bishtars halted. The pursuing riders spread out, surrounding the bishtars, which stood panting with hanging heads. Reith estimated ninety or a hundred Ziruma.

A Ziru, better dressed than the rest, with a red scarf tied around his head, rode his aya out in front and called in Portuguese:
“Vocês! Descei!”

The mahouts climbed from their saddles back into the howdahs and lowered the ladders. Reith called: “He said to get down, people. We’d better do it.”

Pilar Guzmán-Vidal was having hysterics, but her husband pushed and pulled her over the side of the howdah. Soon Reith, the tourists, the mahouts, and the five soldiers were lined up along the road. The well-dressed Krishnan walked up and down, looking over his quarry.

“This is an outrage!” said Considine. “I’ll get the earthmen after you!”

The Krishnan leader looked blank.
“Não entendo. Quem fala Português?”

“You mean he doesn’t understand English?” said Valerie Mulroy. “All right, mister, you know something? You’re full of shit, you son of a bitch!”

“Pipe down, both of you,” said Reith. To the Ziru leader he said: “I speak some Portuguese and some Durou. Which do you prefer?”

“Are you the leader?” said the Krishnan in Durou.

“Aye, of these eleven
Ertsuma.”

“Are you the sightseeing travelers of who I have heard?”

“Aye. Are you Barré vas-Sarf?”

“Barré, Dasht of Zir, if you please. After all, I am who I am. How are you called?”

Reith gave his name. The Krishnan barked a command. Several of his followers dismounted, seized and disarmed the five soldiers, and began tying their wrists behind their backs.

When they sought to take Gandubán’s sword, however, the officer suddenly whipped out the blade, ran the nearest Ziru through, broke away, and ran, leaving his sword in the Krishnan he had skewered. He leaped over the edge and went down the slope with giant strides.

The Ziruma set up a yell. Several shot at him. One arrow struck his back and bounced off his cuirass; another grazed his winged helmet. At a command, three riders spurred over the edge and started down the slope. Before they were halfway to the next switchback, however, Gandubán had reached the bottom, crossed the road, and disappeared into the forest.

Barré shouted; a trumpet blew a flourish. The three pursuers halted and began walking their mounts back up along the road.

The leader stood looking down at the Ziru whom Gandubán had sworded. The Krishnan gave a shuddering breath and lay still.

Barré rattled out a string of commands in local dialect. A couple of his men took the swords away from Reith, Considine, Guzmán-Vidal, and Turner. Others pushed the four bound soldiers to the edge of the road and kicked them to make them kneel. A Ziru with an oversized sword came up behind one and swung. The blade struck home with a meaty sound. The soldiers head flew off and rolled down the slope. The body fell prone, lying half over the edge.

“I didn’t know they had real blue blood,” said Turner.

“It is based on hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin,” said Professor Mulroy. “That’s why they have those greenish complexions. On earth, it is the oxygen-fixing compound in the blood of mollusks and anthropods. It’s less efficient than hemoglobin, but Krishnan organisms have compensatory mechanisms.”

The second soldier lost his head, and then the third. Blue-green blood bubbled, soaking into the loose soil of the bank below the road. Pilar Guzmán-Vidal and Shirley Waterford burst into tears.

“You mean,” said Pride, “these folks are just a kind of glorified oysters? Then we could eat—”

“Shut up,” snarled Reith, “or you may get the same treatment. I’m trying to listen.”

The headsman was about to dispatch the fourth soldier when Barré said:
“Shtuí!”
The Krishnan lowered his sword. The leader spoke to the four mahouts, who scrambled back upon their animals. The bishtars set out at a rapid shuffle on the road to the camp. The chieftain turned to the kneeling soldier and spoke in Durou: “Are you fain to live, goodman?”

“Aye, sir,” said the soldier faintly.

“Then I will enlarge you; but you must then carry out my command.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“You shall forthwith to your base camp proceed. I had hoped the two Terran engineers to reave, but they all too nimbly did flee into the world. When they return, you shall tell them I hold these other Terrans for ransom. Any trickery—an attempt at rescue, for ensample—and they shall die instanter.

“On the morrow, I shall send an emissary to your construction site to present my terms. Should any try to seize his person, the hostages shall perish. If your masters fail to meet my envoy, I shall send him back the next day with a portion of a captive as an earnest, and another part the following day, and so on. Do you understand?”

“Aye, sire.”

“Then cut him loose.”

Freed of his bonds, the soldier rose stiffly and started down the road. Several Ziruma shouted jeers and insults. One drew an arrow and loosed, so that the missile whistled past the head of the soldier, who ducked and began to run. Barré stepped to the archer, struck him in the face, and made him follow the soldier to recover the arrow.

Considine said: “Some hero that Gandubán turned out to be! He talked big, but then he ran off and left us—”

“Keep quiet,” said Reith. “He couldn’t fight a hundred at once.”

“All right,” said Barré in Durou. “You earthmen shall come with us. If anyone attempt to flee, he may anticipate the fate of those imperialist hirelings. March!”

Reith translated. Herding the twelve captives, the Ziruma set out up the switchback. One Ziru walked beside each prisoner, holding a wrist by a thong, while a mounted comrade led his aya.

Presently the party left the road for a forest trail, sloping upward. In despair, Reith plodded ahead, asking himself over and over where his big mistake had been. He tried to ignore the mutterings behind his back: “It’s all Fearless’ fault.”

“Sure. If he had any sense, he wouldn’t have gotten us into this.”

“Damn fool’s obviously incompetent.”

“He never listens to us.”

“He should have left us at that
pueblo,
while he went ahead to esscout the country to see if it was safe.”

“If I ever get out of this alive, I’ll demand my money back.”

The mutterings died away as the captives found they needed all their breath for climbing. Those who were overweight—the Jussacs, Shirley Waterford, and Silvester Pride—kept the rest of the party to a crawl, although prodded with lance points to speed them up.

Reith ruefully recalled his talk with Strachan at Jizorg. He had, he realized, let his own fear of loss of face before his tourists, together with the garrulous Scot’s obvious hunger for human company, overrule his better judgment. It was small comfort to reflect that, if he had turned the group back to Baianch at Jizorg, they would have complained just as loudly. They would have grumbled over losing their money’s worth because of his excessive caution.

VIII

ARMS OF FLAME

When it seemed as though the older and stouter members of Reith’s safari could go no further, the convoy came to a clearing. Here, more Ziruma guarded tethered ayas. The earthfolk were bundled aboard the stocky, six-legged beasts. Their wrists were attached by thongs to the horns on the fronts of the saddles, so that they had some freedom of movement but could not leave their mounts.

“For God’s sake,” said Reith, “don’t fall off or you’ll be dragged!”

“Don’t I know it!” groaned Pride.

Ruddy beams from setting Roqir lanced horizontally through the close-set tree trunks when the party came out on another, larger clearing. Here were rows of tents and more armed Krishnans.

Barré vas-Sarf sprang down from his mount and shouted commands. Krishnans clustered around the tourists, untying their wrists and helping them down. Some could hardly move; several collapsed. Barré said: “I regret the discomfort, good my sirs and madams; but my poor country affords no such luxe as does the imperialists’ railroad. Be assured that you shall be entreated as guests during your stay. If you find your accommodations rude, they still surpass those that we poor fighters for freedom allow ourselves.” He paused for Reith to translate, then went on: “Let us hope that my reasonable demands will be met, so that you shall soon be restored to liberty. My men will lead you to your quarters.”

The quarters were a row of six tents in the middle of the encampment, with a clear space around them.

“They scared we’ve got something catching?” grumbled Considine.

“I think it’s so they can watch us better,” said Reith.

The couples, including Considine and Turner, each seized upon one tent. That left Reith, Pride, Schwerin, and Shirley Waterford with two unclaimed tents.

“I will not share a tent with a man!” said Miss Waterford. “I’m a good Christian, and that’s that.”

“Then we’ll have to split up one of the married pairs,” said Reith.

“You don’t essplit us up!” said Guzmán-Vidal. “A man with balls, like me—”

“We know all about your manhood,” said Reith, “but—”

“Why don’t we take the turnabout?” said Aimé Jussac. “Even the brave Santiago can bear to be parted from his beautiful Pilar one night out of three.”

“Okay,” said Reith before the others could object. “That’s how we’ll do it. Professor Mulroy, will you bunk with me the first night?”

Mulroy nodded. Valerie Mulroy said: “Fearless, you know how Winston snores. If it keeps you awake, I’d be glad to change places—”

Reith interrupted: “Okay, everybody, they’re lining up for chow. We’d better get in line, too.”

He admitted to himself that, for all his neo-Puritan inhibitions, he would have liked a good roll in the hay. Valerie had not only broken him in but had also given him some expertise. But another liaison with her entailed more complications than he could cope with. Their peril was great enough without aggravating it.

“I don’t think I can walk that far,” groaned Pride; but, like the others, he limped and hobbled to the stew pots.

Reith found himself in the chow line between Considine and Turner. These began badgering him: “Look, Fearless, you got us into this. Why don’t you
do
something?”

“Yeah; these guys are liable to kill us.”

“Maybe offer us as sacrifices to the great god Mumbo Jumbo.”

“By slow torture.”

“Or maybe barbecue us for supper.”

“Yeah. Why don’t you threaten ’em with the might of the Terrans? We could blow them—”

“That’s enough!” snapped Reith. “I’m doing what I can, and if you two raise a fuss, it’ll just make my job harder. You were warned there’d be risk on this safari. I told you myself, at the briefing in Philadelphia. You’re no more anxious to get out of here than I am, so don’t hassle me.”

As Barré strolled past, Reith turned and spoke in Durou: “My lord! Do we not get plates to eat from, like unto the rest?”

“Certes!” said the chieftain. “I had forgot you bore no tableware when our hospitality was extended.” A command brought a subordinate with a stack of wooden bowls and a fistful of horn spoons. Soon the hungry tourists’ mouths were too full for complaints.

“Never thought I’d live to like this glop,” sighed Turner, chewing a tough piece of unha meat.

“At least,” said Considine, “it doesn’t wriggle as you’re eating it, like that live spaghetti they fed us at Jizorg.”

Having taken a double-sized portion, Jussac said: “My little friends, you have the wrong attitude toward exotic foods. One should welcome them as part of one’s gustatory experience. Me, I cherish the memory of every taste I have experienced on this planet, even when I found it horrible. To avoid such opportunities is like refusing to look at the buildings and monuments, for fear one might prove ugly.”

“Okay for you, Aimé,” growled Considine. “You always eat everything in sight anyway; and look at you, with that pod!”

Jussac patted his paunch. “But think of all my memories of beautiful meals!”

Reith hurried through his stew and took his spoon and bowl to the cask that served for dishwashing. The water did not seem to have been lately changed, so that tableware washed in it came out hardly cleaner than when it went in. Reith cleaned his gear as best he could, wiping the implements with a handful of leaves. Then he sought out the place where Barré sat on a log, eating with his lieutenants.

“Sir!” said Reith. “Will you now have the goodness to explain—”

A burly Krishnan leaped up with an exclamation and whipped out his sword. Reith thought his time had come until the chieftain barked a command. The subordinate put away his weapon, and Barré explained: “Fear not, Master Reese. My soldiers may not accost me without erst asking leave. Najjim here deemed you guilty of a breach of discipline. For you, howsomever, that rule shall not apply. What would you of me?”

“I do but wish to ask Your Excellence, wherefore you have distrained my party? Speak but slowly, I beg.” At least, that was what Reith thought he had said, but Barré looked puzzled.

“What said you?” asked the chieftain.

Reith repeated the sentence, articulating carefully and correcting errors of grammar and vocabulary.

“Oh,” said Barré with a chuckle. “A transpicuous question, good my fellow.” He waved an arm eastward. “Yonder lies the bloated, sprawling kingdom of Dur, in the avaricious grip of that strait-handed niggard Tashian. Not satisfied with bleeding his own land dry to fill his bulging coffers, he casts his covetous eyes to uswards. He’d add our poor land of cliff and scaur to his possessions, to give his tax collectors another province to exploit. Well, we’ll not endure it. Never shall the brave mountaineers of Zir bow to foreign yoke! Independence forever!”

“But what has that to do with my people?”

“Were numbers equal, never should we seek advantage of weaponry. One freedom-loving Ziru can rout three cowardly lowlanders. But numbers are not equal. For every man whom I can arm, Tashian can bring a dozen to the field. Therefore must we seek advantage by another path.

“Now, ’tis well-known that you earthmen possess fell weapons, whereof any one makes our native armament appear as harmless as children’s toys. You craftily keep them under lock at Novorecife, lest any be smuggled out and copied. One
Ertsu,
not long agone, seized the rule of Zamba and corrupted one of Novo’s petty bureaucrats to spirit him out a crate of these weapons, called ‘arms of flame’ or some such thing. But alas! a brace of
Ertso
agents, disguised as natives of this our world, did intercept the shipment and return it to their masters’ control. The guilty official, I’m told, languishes in gyve and trammel even yet.

“So now, perchance, the headland does begin to loom through the fog of incomprehension? I have you and your fellows, and right gladly will I exchange you for a few cases of your arms of flame.”

“How look you to accomplish that?” said Reith.

“I shall present my demand to Tashian, who will pass it on to Novorecife as speedily as can be. ’Tis in his interest to get this brabble settled, because of his ambition to make his land a favorite haunt of freely spending Terran travelers.”

Reith said: “I think not that Novo will accede. They warn earthmen that, once outside the wall, they’re on their own. If any be slain, that’s regrettable but no cause for interference. So you’re only harming your own interests by holding us.”

“So? Well, we shall see if a hand or a head from one of your party, dissevered from its erstwhile owner, will not soften their severity. In any case, prepare yourselves for a lengthy sojourn; for ’twill consume at least a revolution of Sheb ere my message reach your fellow creatures and their answer be received.”

###

A rainy spell kept Reith’s tourists confined to their tents. There they became more cranky and quarrelsome than ever. When the rain passed, however, their spirits perked up.

Fergus Reith came but of his tent, where he had been calculating expenses, into the sunshine. His people were scattered about the camp, making the best of their circumstances. Shirley Waterford was trimming Silvester Pride’s hair with borrowed shears, while Pride told her a long and dreary tale of what he called his rotten former marriage. Mélanie Jussac was washing the Jussac socks in the communal wash barrel. Professor Mulroy was peering through his pocket lens at a plant he had picked and writing notes. Several younger tourists were playing stickball on the drill field to one side of the camp, using a headless spear shaft for the stick and a stuffed ball of native make.

Valerie Mulroy sat on a log with a Ziru, the burly junior officer who had almost sworded Reith for speaking to Barré without permission. She had begun to pick up a little of the local dialect. Now Valerie was practicing her new language on the Krishnan, who corrected her mistakes with loud laughter.

Otto Schwerin was sputtering indignant German at a group of Krishnans, who laughed at him. One of them had tried to disassemble one of Schwerin’s cameras, using his knife as a screwdriver. Equipped with a self-destruct mechanism, the camera had exploded in a burst of cogwheels and other small parts. The Krishnan was holding his nose, which had been smartly struck by a lens.

“Mr. Reese!” shouted Schwerin.
“Diese barbarischen Einheimischen
my camera and one whole roll of film have ruin—”

Barré appeared among the tents, striding swiftly with a face like a thundercloud. Sighting Reith, he barked: “Master Reese!”

“Aye, Your Excellence?”

“Come with me.”

Reith gave Schwerin a sympathetic but noncommittal wave and followed the Ziru to the latter’s tent, larger than those of the common soldiers but otherwise no fancier. A bronze lamp, hung from above, flickered and smoked.

“Sit down,” said Barré. After a minute of glaring in silence, he said: “My emissary has returned from the rendezvous with Tashian’s response.”

“Well, sir?”

“He tells me Tashian spurns my proposals with scorn and contumely. The losel claims he has no influence at Novorecife; and, moreover, he’ll be damned to Hishkak before he’d provide me weapons wherewith to resist his righteous goal of reuniting his land.”

“Reuniting?”

“The fact that a weak-kneed predecessor of mine once acknowledged Duro sovranty is used by him as a pretext, my submission to claim, notwithstanding that the Duro writ has not run in Zir for a generation.” Barré sat seething silently for another minute, then added: “And furthermore, the
unha
added an insulting coda to his message, telling me where to stick my proposal. That is not a proper tone wherein one sovran should address another.”

Barré, Reith thought, must be pretty naïve in worldly matters, despite his undoubted energy and qualities of leadership. Stumbling along in Durou and correcting himself, he said: “From what little I know of Krishnan politics, I think he is probably right about having no purchase at Novo.”

“If I sent him a piece of one of you—”

“Excuse me, Your Excellence, but if he can’t sway the earthmen, he can’t, and sending him all our heads in a bag won’t change matters. You’d just get Novorecife down on you as well.”

“Think you he were moved by pity for you strangers to bestir himself?”

“I doubt if he knows what pity means. If you want to get a message to Novorecife, why not send a man the other way, by land through Gozashtand? It’s shorter, if I remember the map.”

“Because Eqrar’s men so closely patrol the border zone that not a
burha
can slip through their net, and that little
zeft
is more hostile to Zir’s independence than even Tashian.”

Reith thought, then said: “There’s one
Ertsu
in Baianch who might be able to help.”

“Aye, sir? And who?”

“A man named Mjipa. He’s there to set up a Terran consulate. As an official of my own World Federation, he might have more effect than even the haughty Tashian.”

Barré scowled. “A clever plan—but ’twere not practical. Never would Tashian suffer emissary of mine to travel to Baianch. His own subjects are forbidden contact with off-worlders save when commanded otherwise. From what his messenger told me, Tashian will obstruct any move towards fulfillment of my righteous aims.”

A thought struck Reith. “Well, sir, you might send me as the envoy. Tashian could hardly object to my visiting a fellow earthman.”

“Oho! Sits the wind in that quarter? But nay, my friend. I know somewhat about you
Ertsuma.
You’re not so different from us, behind your ugly noses. Once your head be safely out of the yeki’s mouth, you’ll be in no haste to put it back in, as in the tale of King Sabzavar and the Gavehon thief.

“In fine, Master Reese, did I but let you go, you’d bolt for your Terran stronghold, leaving your charges in the lurch. And thus should I relinquish my strongest piece in this game, to the boon of none but your crafty self.”

“Oh, come, my lord! The first duty of a traveler’s guide is to ward his people’s safety. I take my task to heart.”

Barré laughed and shook his head. “You’re a plausible rascal; but what else would you say, good fellow, were you never so determined to flee these demesnes for ay? Nay, nay, ’tis useless to expostulate. Now if you’ll excuse me—”