Observing no signs of hostility, he approached step by step, at last to stand a wistful fifty feet away, a long loose-limbed harlequin with garments much the worse for wear. Traz scowled and prodded the fire, but Reith gave him a civil greeting: "Join us, if you're of a mind."
Traz muttered, "A mistake! The creature will do us harm! Such as he are smooth-tongued and supercilious; and man-eaters to boot."
Reith had forgotten this latter characteristic and gave the Dirdirman a frowning inspection.
For a period there was silence. Then the Dirdirman said tentatively, "The longer I consider your conduct, your garments, your gear, the more puzzled I become.
Whence did you claim to originate?"
"I made no claims," said Reith. "What of yourself?"
"No secret there. I am Ankhe at afram Anacho; I was born a man at Zumberwal in the Fourteenth Province. Now, having been declared a criminal and a fugitive, I am of no greater consequence than yourselves, and I will make no pretensions otherwise. So here we are, three unkempt wanderers huddled around a fire."
Traz growled under his breath. Reith, however, found the Dirdirman's frivolity, if such it was, refreshing. He asked, "What was your crime?"
"You would find it difficult to understand. Essentially, I disregarded the perquisites of a certain Enze Edo Ezdowirram, who brought me to the attention of the First Race. I trusted to ingenuity and refused to be chastened. I compounded my original offense; I exacerbated the situation a dozen times over. At last in a spasm of irritation, I dislodged Enze Edo from his seat a mile above the steppe." Ankhe at afram Anacho made a gesture of whimsical fatalism. "By one means or another I evaded the Derogators; so now I am here, without plans and no resources other than my-" Here he used an untranslatable word, comprising the ideas of intrinsic superiority, intellectual elan, the inevitability of good fortune deriving from these qualities.
Traz gave a snort and went off to hunt his breakfast. Anacho watched with covert interest and presently sauntered after him. The two ran here and there through the rubble, catching and eating insects with relish. Reith contented himself with a handful of pilgrim pods.
The Dirdirman, hunger appeased, returned to examine Reith's clothes and equipment. "I believe the boy said 'Earth, a far planet.' " He tapped his button-nose with a long white finger. "I could almost believe it, were you not shaped precisely like a sub-man, which renders the idea absurd."
Traz said in a somewhat lordly tone, "Earth is the original home of men. We are true men. You are a freak."
Anacho gave Traz a quizzical glance. "What is this, the creed of a new sub-man cult? Well then, it is all the same to me."
"Enlighten us," requested Reith in a silky voice. "How did men come to Tschai?"
Anacho made an airy gesture. "The history is well-known and perfectly straightforward. On Sibot the home-world the Great Fish produced an egg. It floated to the shore of Remura and up the beach. One half rolled into the sunlight and became the Dirdir. The other rolled into the shade and became Dirdirmen."
"Interesting," said Reith. "But what of the Chaschmen? What of Traz? What of myself?"
"The explanation is hardly mysterious; I am surprised that you ask. Fifty thousand years ago the Dirdir drove from Sibol to Tschai. During the ensuing wars Old Chasch captured Dirdirmen. Others were taken by the Pnume; and later by the Wankh. These became Chaschmen, Pnumekin, Wankhmen. Fugitives, criminals, recalcitrants and biological sports hiding in the marshes interbred to produce the sub-men. And there you have it.
Traz looked to Reith. "Tell the fool of Earth; explain his ignorance to him."
Reith only laughed.
Anacho gave him a puzzled appraisal. "Beyond question you are a unique sort.
Where are you bound?"
Reith pointed to the northwest. "Pera."
"The City of Lost Souls, beyond the Dead Steppe ... You will never arrive. Green Chasch range the Dead Steppe."
"There is no way to avoid them?"
Anacho shrugged. "Caravans cross to Pera."
"Where is the caravan route?"
"To the north, at no great distance."
"We will travel with a caravan, then."
"You might be taken and sold for a slave. Caravan-masters are notoriously without scruple. Why are you so anxious to reach Pera?"
"Reasons sufficient. What are your own plans?"
"I have none. I am a vagabond no less than yourself. If you do not object, I will travel in your company."
"As you wish," said Reith, ignoring Traz's hiss of disgust.
They set forth into the north, the Dirdirmen maintaining an inconsequential chatter which Reith found amusing and occasionally edifying, and which Traz pretended to ignore. At noon they came to a range of low hills. Traz shot a skate-shaped ruminant with his catapult. They built a fire, broiled the animal on a spit and made a good meal. Reith asked the Dirdirman, "Is it true that you eat human flesh?"
"Certainly. It can be the most tender of meats. But you need not fear, unlike the Chasch, Dirdir and Dirdirmen are not compulsive gourmands."
They climbed up through the hills, under low trees with soft blue and gray foliage, trees laden with plump red fruits which Traz declared poisonous.
Finally they breasted the ridge, to look out over the Dead Steppe: a flat, gray waste, lifeless except for tufts of gorse and pilgrim plant. Below, almost at their feet, ran a track of two wide ruts. It came up from the southeast, skirted the base of the hills, passed below, then three miles northwest turned among a cluster of rock towers, or outcrops, which rose near the base of the hills like dolmens. The track continued to the northwest, dwindled away across the steppe.
Another track led south through a pass in the hills, another swung away to the north-east.
Traz squinted down at the outcrops, then pointed. "Look yonder through your instrument."
Reith brought forth his scanscope, scrutinized the outcrops.
"What do you see?" asked Traz.
"Buildings. Not many-not even a village. On the rocks, gun emplacements."
"This must be Kazabir Depot," mused Traz, "where caravans transfer cargo. The guns protect against Green Chasch."
The Dirdirman made an excited gesture. "There may even be an inn of sorts. Come!
I am anxious to bathe. Never in my life have I known such filth!"
"How will we pay?" asked Reith. "We have no coin, no trade-goods."
"No fear," declared the Dirdirman. "I carry sequins sufficient for us all. We of the Second Race are not ingrates and you have served me well. Even the boy shall eat a civilized supper, probably for the first time."
Traz scowled and prepared a prideful retort; then, noticing Reith's amusement, managed a sour grin of his own. "We had best depart; this is a dangerous place, a vantage for the Green Chasch. See the spoor? They come up here to watch for caravans." He pointed to the south, where the horizon was marked by an irregular gray line. "Even now a caravan approaches."
"In that case," said Anacho, "we had best hurry to the inn, to take accommodation before the caravan arrives. I have no wish for another night on the gorse."
The clear Tschai air, the extent of the horizons, made distances hard to judge; by the time the three had descended the hills the caravan was already passing along the track: a line of sixty or seventy great vehicles, so tall as to seem top-heavy, swaying and heaving on six ten-foot wheels. Some were propelled by engines, others by hulking gray beasts with small heads which seemed all eyes and snout.
The three stood to the side and watched the caravan trundle past. In the van three Ilanths scouts, proud as kings, rode on leaphorses: tall men, wide-shouldered, narrow of hip, with keen sharp features. Their skins were radiant yellow; their raven-black hair, tied into stiff plumes, glistened with varnish. They wore long-billed black caps crowned by jawless human skulls, and the plume of hair rose jauntily just behind the skull. They carried a long supple sword like that of the Emblems, a pair of hand-guns at their belts, two daggers in their right boot. Riding past on their massive leap-horses they turned uninterested glances down at the three wayfarers, but deigned no more.