Reith turned to inspect the five Dirdir. They stood stiff and attentive, effulgences flaring out behind. If they felt emotion, or disgust, none was evident.
Reith did not allow himself to reason, to weigh, to calculate. He brought forth his hand-gun; he aimed, he fired. Once, twice, three times. Three Dirdir fell dead; the other two sprang around in questioning fury. Four times, five times: two glancing hits. Emerging from his cover Reith fired twice more down into the thrashing white bodies before they became still.
The men in the pit stood frozen in wonder. "Up!" cried Reith. "Out of there!"
Issam the Thang yelled hoarsely, "It is you, the murderer! Your crimes brought us here!"
"Never mind that," said Reith. "Get up out of that hole and fly for your life!"
"What good is that? The Dirdir will track us! They will kill us in some abominable fashion-"
The hostler was already out of the hole. He went to the Dirdir corpses, availed himself of a weapon, and turned back to Issam the Thang. "Don't bother to climb from the hole." He fired; the Thang's yell was cut short; his body rolled down among the decaying Dirdir.
The hostler said to Reith, "He betrayed us all, hoping for gain; he gained only what you saw; they took him with the rest of us."
"These five Dirdir-were there more?"
"Two Excellences who have gone back to Khusz."
"Take the weapons and go your way."
The men fled toward the Hills of Recall. Reith dug under the roots of the torquil. There, the sack of sequins. To the value of a hundred thousand? He could not be sure.
Shouldering the pouch, looking for a last time on the scene of carnage and the pitiful corpse of Issam the Thang, he departed the scene.
Back at the sky-car he loaded the sequins into the cabin and set himself to wait, anxiety gnawing at his stomach. He dared not depart. If he flew low he might be seen by hunt parties; if he flew high the screen across the Carabas would detect him.
The day passed. Carina 4269 dropped behind the far hills. Sad brown twilight fell over the Zone. Along the hills the hateful flickers sprang into existence.
Reith could wait no longer. He took the sky-car into the air.
Low over the ground he skimmed until he was clear of the Zone, then rising high drove south for Sivishe.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE DARK LAND passed astern. Reith sat staring ahead, visions flitting across his inner eye: faces, twisted in passion, horror, pain. The shapes of Blue Chasch, Wankh, Pnume, Phung, Green Chasch, Dirdir, all leaped upon the stage of his imagination, to stand, turn, perform a gesture and leap away.
The night passed. The sky-car slid south and when Carina 4269 rose into the east the spires of Hei glistened far ahead.
Without incident Reith landed the sky-car, though it seemed that a passing party of Dirdirmen scrutinized him with suspicious intensity as he departed the field with his sack of sequins.
Reith went first to his room at the Ancient Realm. Neither Traz nor Anacho were on the premises, but Reith thought nothing of this; they often passed the nights at the shed.
Reith stumbled to his couch, threw the bag of sequins against the wall, stretched out and almost immediately slept.
He awoke to a hand on his shoulder. He rolled over to find Traz standing above him.
Traz spoke in a husky voice: "I was afraid you'd come here. Hurry, we must leave. The apartment is now dangerous."
Reith, still torpid, swung himself to a sitting position. The time was early afternoon, or so he judged by the shadows outside the window.
"What's the trouble?"
"The Dirdir took Anacho into custody. I was out buying food, or they would have taken me as well."
Reith was now fully awake. "When did this happen?"
"Yesterday. It was Woudiver's doing. He came to the shed, and asked questions about you. He wanted to know if you claimed to come from another world; he persisted and would not accept evasion. I refused to speak, as did Anacho.
Woudiver began to reproach Anacho as a renegade. 'You, a former Dirdirman, how can you live like a subman among sub-men?"' Anacho became provoked and said that Bifold Genesis was a myth. Woudiver went away. Yesterday morning the Dirdir came here to the rooms and took Anacho. If they force him to talk, we are not safe and the ship is not safe."
Reith's fingers were numb as he pulled on his boots. All at once the structure of his life, contrived at such cost, had collapsed. Woudiver, always Woudiver.
Traz touched his arm. "Come; best that we leave! The rooms may be watched."
Reith picked up the bundle of sequins. They departed the building. Through the alleys of Sivishe they walked, ignoring the pale faces looking forth from doorways and odd-shaped windows.
Reith became aware that he was ravenously hungry; at a small restaurant they ate boiled sea-thrush and spore-cake. Reith began to think more clearly. Anacho was in Dirdir custody; Woudiver would certainly be expecting some sort of reaction from him. Or would he be so assured of Reith's essential helplessness that he would expect matters to go on as before? Reith grinned a ghastly grin. If Woudiver reckoned as much, he would be right. Unthinkable to jeopardize the ship for any circumstance whatever! Reith's hate for Woudiver was like a tumor in his brain, and he must ignore it; he must make the best of an agonizing dilemma.
Reith asked Traz, "You have not seen Woudiver?"
"I saw him this morning. I went to the shed; I thought you might have gone there. Woudiver arrived and went into his office."
"Let's see if he's still there."
"What do you intend to do?"
Reith gave a strangled laugh, "I could kill him but it would do no good. We need information. Woudiver is the only source."
Traz said nothing; as usual Reith was unable to read his thoughts.
They rode the creaking six-wheeled public carrier out to the construction yard, and every turn of the wheels wound the tension tighter. When Reith arrived at the yard and saw Woudiver's black car the blood surged through his brain and he felt lightheaded. He stood still, drew a deep breath and became quite calm.
He thrust the pouch of sequins upon Traz. "Take it into the shed and hide it."
Traz took the sack dubiously. "Don't go alone. Wait for me."
"I expect no trouble. We can't afford the luxury, as Woudiver well knows. Wait for me by the shed."
Reith went to Woudiver's eccentric stone office and entered. With his back to the charcoal brazier stood Artilo, legs splayed, arms behind his back. He examined Reith without change of expression.
"Tell Woudiver I want to see him," said Reith.
Artilo sauntered to the inner door, thrust his head in, spoke. He backed away.
The door swung aside with a wrench that almost tore it from its hinges. Woudiver expanded into the room: a glaring-eyed Woudiver with great upper lip folded down over his mouth. He looked across the room with the unfocused all-seeing glare of a wrathful god, then seemed to catch sight of Reith, and his malevolence concentrated itself.
"Adam Reith," spoke Woudiver in a voice like a bell. "You have returned. Where are my sequins?"
"Never mind your sequins," said Reith. "Where is the Dirdirman?"
Woudiver hunched his shoulders. For a moment Reith thought he was about to strike out. If so Reith knew that his selfcontrol would dissolve, for better or worse.
Woudiver spoke in a throbbing voice: "Do you think to fatigue me with wrangling?