Reith struck with his left hand; Artilo cut up; Reith seized his wrist, whirled, bent, heaved, threw him far across the room where he lay in a crumpled heap.
Reith dragged him to the door, threw him outside into a puddle of slime.
Artilo painfully hoisted himself to his feet and limped over to the black car.
In a passionless matter-of-fact fashion, never looking toward the shed, he scraped the mud from his garments, entered the car and departed.
Anacho said in a disapproving voice, "You should have killed him. Matters will be worse than ever."
Reith had no reply to make. He became conscious of the blood oozing down his side. Pulling up his shirt he found a long thin slash. Traz and Anacho applied a dressing; the girl somewhat timidly approached and tried to help. She seemed deft and capable; Anacho moved aside. Traz and the girl completed the job.
"Thank you," said Reith.
The girl looked up at him, her face full of a hundred different meanings. But she could not bring herself to speak.
The afternoon waned. The girl and boy stood in the doorway looking up the road.
The technicians departed; the shed was silent.
The black car returned. Deine Zarre stepped stiffly forth, followed by Woudiver.
Artilo, going to the luggage compartment, brought forth four energy cells, which he carried at a painful hobble into the shed. His manner, as far as Reith could see, was no different from usuaclass="underline" dour, impersonal, silent.
Woudiver turned a single glance toward the girl and the boy, who shrank back into the shadows. Then he approached Reith. "The energy canisters are here. They are approved by Zarre. They cost a great deal of money. Here is my statement for next month's rent and Artilo's salary-"
"Artilo's salary?" demanded Reith. "You must be joking."
"-the total, as you see, is exactly one hundred thousand sequins. The sum is not subject to diminution. You must pay at once or I will evict you from the premises." And Woudiver pursed his lips in a cold smile.
Reith's eyes misted with hate. "I can't afford this amount of money."
"Then you must go. Further, since you are no longer my client, I will be obligated to make a report of your activities to the Dirdir."
Reith nodded. "One hundred thousand sequins. And after that, how much more?"
"Whatever sums you require me to lay out."
"No further blackmail?"
Woudiver drew himself up. "The word is capricious and vulgar. I warn you, Adam Reith, that I expect the same courtesy that I accord."
Reith managed a sad laugh. "You'll have your money in five or six days. I don't have it now."
Woudiver cocked his great head skeptically sidewise. "Where do you propose to secure this money?"
"I have money waiting for me in Coad."
Woudiver snorted, wheeled and marched to his car. Artilo hobbled after him. They departed.
Traz and Anacho came to watch after the car.
In a wondering voice Traz asked, "Where will you get a hundred thousand sequins?"
"We left as much buried in the Carabas," said Reith. "The only problem is bringing it back-and perhaps it won't be so much of a problem after all."
Anacho's lank white jaw dropped. "I've always suspected you of insane optimism
..."
Reith held up his hand. "Listen. I will fly north by the same route the Dirdir themselves use. They will take no notice, even should a search-screen be operating, which is doubtful. I will land after dark, to the east of the forest.
In the morning I will dig up the sequins and take them back to the sky-car and at dusk I will fly back to Sivishe like a party of Dirdir returning from the hunt."
Anacho gave a derogatory grunt. "You make it sound so simple."
"As probably it will be, if all goes well."
Reith looked wistfully back toward the shed and the half-complete spaceship. "I might as well start now."
"I'll go with you," said Traz. "You'll need help."
Anacho made a dreary sound. "I had better go as well."
Reith shook his head. "One can do the job as well as three. You two remain here and keep our affairs moving."
"And if you don't return?"
"There are sixty or seventy thousand sequins still in the pouch. Take the money and leave Sivishe ... But I'll be back. I can't doubt this. It's not possible that we should toil and suffer so greatly only to fail."
"Hardly a rational assessment," Anacho said dryly: "I expect never to see you again."
"Nonsense," said Reith. "Well, I'll get started. The sooner I leave, the sooner I return."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE SKY-CAR SAILED quietly through the night of old Tschai, over landscape ghostly in the light of the blue moon. Reith felt like a man drifting through a strange dream. He mused over the events of his life, his childhood, his years of training, his missions among the stars and finally his assignment to the Explorator IV. Then Tschai: destruction and disaster, his time with the Emblem nomads, the journey across Aman Steppe and the Dead Steppe to Pera; the sack of Dadiche; the subsequent journey to Cath and his adventures at Ao Hidis. Then the journey to Carabas, the slaughter of the Dirdir, the construction of the spaceship in Sivishe. And Woudiver! On Tschai both virtue and vice were exaggerated; Reith had known many evil men, among whom Woudiver ranked high.
The night advanced; the forests of central Kislovan gave way to barren uplands and silent wasteland. In all the circle of vision, no light, no fire, no sign of human activity was visible. Reith consulted the course monitor, adjusted the automatic pilot. The Carabas lay only an hour ahead. The blue moon hung low; when it set the landscape would be dark until dawn.
The hour passed. Braz sank behind the horizon; in the east appeared a sepia glimmer announcing the nearness of dawn. Reith, dividing his attention between the course monitor and the ground below, finally thought to glimpse the shape of Khusz. At once, he dropped the car low to the ground and veered to the east, swinging behind the Boundary Forest. As Carina 4269 thrust a first cool brown sliver over the edge of the horizon Reith landed, close under the first great torquils of the forest.
For a period he sat watching and listening. Carina 4269 rose into the sky and the low light shone directly upon the sky-car. Reith gathered broken fronds and branches, which he laid against the car, camouflaging it to some extent.
The time had come when he must venture into the forest. He could delay no longer. Taking a sack and a shovel, tucking weapons into his belt, Reith set forth.
The trail was familiar. Reith recognized each bole, every dark sheaf of fungus, every hummock of lichen. As he passed through the forest he became aware of a sickening odor: the reek of carrion. This was to be expected. He halted. Voices?
Reith jumped off the trail, listened.
Voices indeed. Reith hesitated, then stole forward through the heavy foliage.
Ahead lay the site of the trap. Reith approached with the most extreme caution, creeping on his hands and knees, finally crawling on his elbows ... He looked forth upon an eerie sight. To one side, in front of a great torquil, stood five Dirdir in hunting regalia. A dozen gray-faced men stood in a great hole, digging with shovels and buckets: this was the hole, greatly enlarged, in which Reith, Traz and Anacho had buried the Dirdir corpses. From the splendid rotting carrion came an odious stench ... Reith stared. One of these men was surely familiar-it was Issam the Thang. And next to him worked the hostler, and next, the porter at the Alawan. The others Reith could not positively identify, but all seemed somehow familiar, and he assumed them to be folk with whom he had dealings at Maust.