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Authors: L. Sprague de Camp

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BOOK: The Hostage of Zir
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Strachan smiled. “His Excellence is daft to modernize his country whether the Duruma want to be modernized or not. One of his projects is this railroad along the shores of the Va’andao to Zir. He hopes to extend it around the comer to Gozashtand, to join the main line from Hershid to Qadr and from Majbur to Jazmurian, if he can ever agree with that fussy little King Eqrar. And if the stagecoach magnates don’t derail the whole project first, or the old nobility don’t hatch a revolt to pay Tashian back for screeding their feudal privileges.

“Weel, Tashian sent out word he had good jobs for Krishnans who could build a railroad. A couple of rascally Majburuma took him in with extravagant promises, but their work turned out all wrong. The roadbed was so rough, not even a pushcart could stay on the rails. Those gaberlunzies claimed to have hired twice as many workers as they had, to pocket the difference. Tashian found them out as they were getting ready to flee with their loot.”

“What did he do?”

“Chopped off their thieving heads, that’s what. The heads were still on spikes over the West Gate when Siggy and I arrived. As you can imagine, this discouraged other would-be railroaders; so at last His Excellence appealed to Novorecife. We had just finished a job for the Republic of Suruskand, so Kennedy recommends us.”

“I thought nobody who’s had this new Saint-Rémy treatment can teach Krishnans anything technical.”

“We teach them nocht they don’t already know. We merely apply existing principles. The general idea of bishtar-powered railroads either existed here when the planet was first discovered or was divulged by one of the first Terrans to explore it, before the I.C. clamped down. Somebody could get a Ph.D. thesis out of that question. At the present rate of progress, though, somebody’s bound to invent a powered vehicle soon.”

“Aren’t you afraid for your heads?” asked Reith.

Strachan chuckled. “Kennedy made Tashy post a muckle bond with Novo to assure our safe return. The Regent bellowed a bit at the cost, but we wudna come otherwise. Anyway, we try to be reasonably honest. Bill Kennedy doesn’t want any more mysterious disappearances, like that of Felix Borel.”

“What happened to him?”

“We don’t know. He came out to the end of the line and took off into the deep woods. Some Krishnan he’d swindled was after him. There’s a rumor the Frenchie tried his tricks once too often, either on the self-styled Dasht of Zir or on the so-called Witch of Zir, but nobody knows. Mjipa wanted to drop a bomb to teach the beggars a lesson, as he put it Percy’s an able chap but a bit of an old-fashioned imperialist, and that’s out of fashion.” Strachan looked at Reith. “Come to think, Borel had red hair like yours.”

“It’s a wonder mine isn’t gray, after what I’ve been through with my geese.”

“Oh? Tell me your sorrowful tale.” Strachan spoke in Durou to the servitor, ordering another round.

Reith narrated the adventures of his party at Gadri, at Mafbur, and at Reshr. “After that, they calmed down pretty well. In Chesht that bleep Schwerin got in trouble again by taking pictures. Seems the Pandr of Lusht had granted a monopoly to some local photographer. This Krishnan used a camera like those of the first photographers on earth: a great big box on a tripod, and some sort of pollen sprinkled on a pan to make a flash.

“Then, while I was getting Otto out of this pickle, Valerie Mulroy, our resident nymphomaniac, was seducing an acolyte in the local temple of Kangand. I begged him off the flogging the priests were going to give him for breaking his vows; but then the poor fellow hanged himself in his cell. And Madame Jussac had some jewelry stolen, but she’s a good sport—said it was only junk.

“Next, Valerie made a pitch for Guzmán-Vidal, and I had a job to keep Señora Pilar from killing Valerie. In Uporé, Shirley Waterford, the black lady, almost started a riot by making a speech on the evils of racism to a crowd of tailed slaves. She’d found some broken-down, drunken old earthman to translate for her. She’s a good-hearted soul, full of high ideals but with no common sense. To make it worse, Khorsh was off on some priestly errand, and I didn’t know a word of Katai-Jhogorai. Some slave owners tried to get up a mob to lynch us, but we got back to the ship before they got organized.

“Since then we’ve been on shipboard, and the weather’s been too lousy to let them get into more mischief. Tell me, are there any Terrans in Baianch besides Mjipa?”

“Couple of missionaries of Terran cults, a con man or two, and a lady anthropologist who goes around measuring the Krishnans’ heads. When they tell you all
Ertsuma
are daft, they cite her as their prime example. Right now, in addition, there’s me, but I’m here for only a few days. I understand you and your people are coming out to Gha’id with me.”

“Yes.”

“Weel, I hope they don’t mind really roughing it,” said Strachan. “Out our way, everything bites, stings, or stinks, and anything nasty is twice as nasty as the corresponding Terran pest.”

“They’ve stood up pretty well so far,” said Reith. “Old Mrs. Scott looks feeble, but she must be made of rubber bands and piano wires. But tell me about yourself, Ken. I’ve always wanted to see Scotland, where my folks came from.”

“Aye? Let me tell you, it’s not so romantical to one born and reared there. I come from Aberdeenshire, at the foot of the Grampians, and my one ambition was to get the hell out. You might say I’d succeeded better than anyone could have expected.” Strachan took a big gulp, threw back his head, and sang:

Barren are Caledonia’s hills,

Infertile are her plains.

Bare-legged are her brawny nymphs,

Bare-arsed are her swains.

“Wait till you hear me play it on my bagpipes.”

“Whose is that?” asked Reith.

“A Scot named Rennie, centuries back. He was an engineer, the same as I. In these degenerate days, of course, they’re not bare-arsed any more. When they wear the kilt, they put panties on underneath. I must get a local tailor to make me a kilt someday, if I can show him how. ’Tis no so simple as it looks.” Strachan hiccupped. “How about a game of
piza?
Loser of two out of three pays for the drinks.” He indicated the checkerboard pattern inlaid in the top of the little table on which they rested their mugs. “Just like Tashy, to charge his guests for the wee bit of liquor they drink.”

“How do you play it?” asked Reith.

“I’ll show you.” Strachan took pieces out of a drawer in the table and set them on the table top. “First, a piece can move one square in any direction—forward, back, sideways or diagonally . . .”

The game belonged to the family of checkerlike Terran games, but with more pieces on a side than checkers and more complex rules about jumping and capturing. Strachan easily won the first game. Reith asked: “What was that about the self-styled Dasht of Zir and somebody called the Witch? Shouldn’t I know about them?”

“Just a couple of local power-grabbers, out beyond the present end of the line. When we try to lay rails into Zir, there may be fireworks. That’s one of my reasons for this visit. We heard that the Witch of Zir put a curse on the line, so half our workers quit I had to come back to Baianch to recruit some more. Your first move this time.”

On this occasion, Strachan barely nosed out Reith. “You catch on fast,” he said. “I’d better quit while I’m ahead.” He looked at the water clock against the wall. “Maun be going, laddie; I have a date for a good fuck. Would you want one, too? I can arrange it. Krishnan dames warm up faster than ours.”

Reith hid his surprise. “I’d better not, thanks. I’ve got to be up early to keep my geese out of trouble.”

“Weel, you know best; but don’t let your moral standards worry you. The guid beuk forbids fornication with human beings and bestiality with sheep and other dumb brutes, but it says nocht about wimbling with extraterrestrial hominoids. It’s giving the Terran preachers a hell of a time.”

With a mug of kvad still half-full, Reith kept his seat while Strachan strode briskly off. Reith took out his notebook and ran over his list of the irregular verbs of Durou, while finishing his drink in leisurely fashion. Now that Khorsh had returned to his priestly duties in the temple of Bákh, Reith was oppressed by the need fully to master this exotic language without delay.

At last he paid up and rose to leave the New Palace. He found himself a little unsteady on his feet; he must have drunk more than he meant to. A man tried to keep up with Strachan in that activity at his peril.

He pulled himself together and set out for the entrance, walking with self-conscious precision. Mjipa’s words about not letting the side down before extraterrestrials came to his mind. He had to make several turns and go through doors, where armored guardsmen stood impassively in pairs. They gave him only cursory glances.

He pushed through one pair of doors and recoiled in dismay. He found himself, not in the vestibule of the entrance as he expected, but in a sitting room. At a table, playing a game, sat Vázni and an older female Krishnan. Vázni gave a pleased squeal at the sight of Reith, who fumbled for the doorknob and stammered: “I—so sorry—lost my ways.”

“How fortunate!” cried the Douri. “Then you shall remain to entertain me, as a penance most condign for your mistake. Take a chair, good Master Reese!”

While Reith hesitated, Vázni spoke to her companion. The other Krishnan got up, bowed, said polite things, and departed.

Now Reith was truly appalled. From what he had read of Terran history, he believed that, in a medieval court, to be caught alone with a royal female was enough to get a man shortened by a head. On the other hand, he was afraid openly to flout the princess’ commands.

“Go on, sit you!” said Vázni. “At least, herein we need not shout to be heard above the uproar, as at today’s party. Now tell me more of your far, exotical homeland!”

“I—I speak your language so bad—”

“Nonsense; ’twill give you good practice. I’ll correct your errors. Do you take a single spouse apiece, or does each male wed a multitude of females, as among the heathen of Nich-Nyamadzë?”

Reith began a stumbling, laborious explanation of Terran marital customs. By switching the subject to the rearing of children, he hoped to divert Vázni’s mind from the form and functions of human genitalia.

As he spoke, Reith became aware of internal discomfort. As he knew, he had drunk more kvad than he usually allowed himself. Now this intake of liquid was having its effect. He had no idea of what to do. What did one say on Krishna, especially to a princess? “May I wash my hands, please?” or “I’ve got to see a man about a dog?”

Such circumlocutions would only bewilder her, even if he could put them into Durou. Did these folk use such euphemisms, or did they come right out . . . Squirming in his seat, he said: “Highness, I beg you excuse me. Must see to my earthmen.”

“Nay, linger a little while yet,” she said. “Can I order a drink for you?”

“Thanks; I already have too much.”

She looked sharply at him. “Sweat bedews your brow, good my sir. Find you the air too hot?”

“Nay, I—It just fine am.” He gritted his teeth and tensed his sphincters. “Tell me, why do the Regent of richest Varasto kingdom dress so—so . . .” Reith tried to think of a Duro equivalent of “unpretentious.”

She laughed. “Because my cousin, albeit the richest wight of the Triple Seas, is the most penurious. When I chide him for his beggarly raiment, he retorts that everyone in Dur knows him anyway, so where were the object of dressing up?”

“Better to err that way than other—to spend kingdom’s money on show.”

“For him, I ween ’tis his affair. What riles me is when he seeks the same regimen to impose on me. ’Tis said I’m not truly ugly; yet I might as well be, for the few wretched rags my beggarly clothing stipend allows me.”

“I think you dress beautiful.”

“Nay, flatterer; there’s many a dame, wife of a merchant or even an artisan, better bedight than I. But now, I’d fain know more of the methods of begetting among the
Ertsuma,
whereof this afternoon you did begin to tell me. For ensample, what’s the size and form of the organ male? And what confers upon it the necessary stiffness—why, Master Reese, find you that chair lacking in comfort? You fidget so. Here, take this one.”

“No; it is not chair. I are not well. Must get back to my room for medicine.” He started to rise.

“Alas, poor fellow! Is there aught I can—”

The door opened, and there stood the Regent, staring down from his nearly two hundred centimeters of height. In no friendly tone, Tashian said: “By Tyazan’s nose, Master Reese! Little did I reck on finding you here.”

Vázni burst into rapid speech. From the occasional word he caught, Reith inferred that she was explaining that he had merely lost his way, blundered into her quarters, and tried to withdraw, but she had detained him.

“I am sorry,” said Reith, rising. “I should have ask guard the way, but my speech so bad is. Was just going.”

Tashian looked the pair over narrowly. Although those flattish, semi-oriental Krishnan faces were not very expressive, Reith guessed that the Regent was weighing the facts that the two were seated across the table from each other, that their clothing was in order, and that Vázni could have called to the guards outside if Reith had attempted undue familiarities. Also, Reith thought, he doesn’t want to spoil the tourist business in the bud. At last Tashian said: “Well, Master Reese, we’ll forget this trifling error. A Krishnan would not have paid such a lone nocturnal visit, but I believe your intent was innocent, and much can be excused a stranger.”

“Your Excellency,” said Reith desperately, “speak you any Terran tongue?”

“A few words of Portuguese. Why?”

“Then please—
onde posso urinar?”

Tashian’s antennae twitched, as happened when Krishnans were startled. Then he burst into a roar of laughter and smote Reith on the back. He almost knocked the smaller earthman down and, more importantly, nearly made him lose control of his abdominal muscles.

“So, that’s what you were seeking! My good fellow, I’ll show you straightaway. Off to bed with you, Vázni, ere you corrupt any more of our visitors from distant worlds. The stars give you a good night. Come with me, O Reese.”

BOOK: The Hostage of Zir
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