I can predict to some degree of accuracy how they will respond."
"No offense," said Reith. "I am curious, no more, and wish to see how the Blue Chasch live."
"They live like facetious maniacs, from the standpoint of all who annoy them. I have heard that they especially enjoy pranks with a bull Green Chasch and a fledged Phung, together of course. Next, should they be lucky enough to capture a Dirdir and Pnume, these are urged through laughable antics. All in a spirit of fun, of course; the Blue Chasch above all dislike boredom."
"I wonder why there is not a great war to the finish," pondered Reith. "Are not the Dirdir more powerful than the Blue Chasch?"
"They are indeed; and their cities are grand, or so I have heard. But the Chasch have torpedoes and mines ready to destroy all the Dirdir cities in case of attack. It is a common situation: each is sufficiently strong to obliterate the other; hence neither dares more than minor unpleasantness ... Ah well, so long as they ignore me, I shall do the same for them ... There ahead is North Market.
Notice, the Blue Chasch are everywhere at hand. They love to bargain, though they prefer to cheat. You must be silent. Make no sign, give no nod or shake!
Otherwise they will claim that I have sold at some ruinous price."
Emmink turned his dray into an open area protected by an enormous parasol. Now began the most frantic bargaining Reith had ever seen. A Blue Chasch, approaching, examining the reed-walker corpses, would croak a proffer which Emmink would decline in a scream of outrage. For minutes the two would heap abuse on each other, sparing no aspect of the other, until suddenly the Blue Chasch would make a furious gesture of disgust and go to seek his reed-walkers at another dray.
Emmink gave Reith a malicious wink. "Once in a while I hold the price up, just to excite the Blues. Also I find out what the selling prices are about to be.
Now we'll try Bonte Bazaar."
Reith started to remind Emmink of the wide oval building, then thought better of it. Crafty Emmink had forgotten nothing. He swung around the dray, drove it out along a road running south a quarter mile inland from the river, with gardens and villas intervening. On the left were small domes and sheds among sparse-foliaged trees, areas of dirt where naked children played: the homes of the Chaschmen. Emmink said with a leer: "There's the start of the Blue Chasch themselves; so it was explained to me by one of the Chaschmen in loving detail."
"How so?"
"The Chaschmen believe that in each grows a homunculus which develops throughout life and is liberated after death, to become a full Chasch. So the Blue Chasch teach; is it not ludicrous?"
"So I would say," replied Reith. "Haven't the Chaschmen ever seen human corpses?
Or Blue Chasch infants?"
"No doubt. But they supply explanations for every discord and discrepancy. This is what they want to believe: how else can they justify their servitude to the Chasch?"
Emmink was perhaps a more profound individual than his appearance suggested, thought Reith. "Do they think the Dirdir originate in the Dirdirmen? Or Wankh in the Wankhmen?"
"As to that," Emmink shrugged, "perhaps they do ... Look now; yonder is your building."
The cluster of Chaschmen huts was behind, concealed by a bank of pale green trees with huge brown flowers. The dray skirted the central node of the city.
Beside an avenue were public or administrative buildings, supported on shallow arches, with roof-lines of variously curved surfaces. Opposite rose the great structure which contained the space-boat, or so Reith believed. It was as long as a football field and as wide, with low walls and a vast half-ellipsoidal roof: an architectural tour de force by any standards.
The function of the building was not apparent. There were few entrances, and no large openings nor facilities for heavy transport. Reith finally decided that they were traveling along the building's back elevation.
At Bonte Bazaar Emmink sold his corpses to the tune of furious haggling, while Reith kept to the side and downwind from Blue Chasch buyers.
Emmink was not totally pleased with the transaction. Returning to the dray after unloading, he grumbled, "I should have had another twenty sequins; the corpses were prime .... How could I make this clear to the Blue? He was watching you and trying to catch your air; the way you dodged and ducked would have aroused suspicion in an old Chaschwoman. By all standards of justice you should reimburse me for my loss."
"I hardly think he got the better of you," said Reith. "Come; let's drive back."
"What of my lost twenty sequins?"
"Forget them; they are imaginary. Look; the Blues are watching us."
Emmink hastily jumped into the driver's seat and started up the dray. Apparently from sheer perversity, he began to return by the same road he had come. Reith spoke sternly: "Drive by the east road, to the front of the big building; let's have no more tricks!"
"I always drive to the west," whined Emmink. "Why should I change now?"
"If you know what's best for you-"
"Ha, threats? In the middle of Dadiche? When all I need do is signal a Blue-"
"It would be the last signal of your life."
"What of my twenty sequins?"
"You've already had fifteen from me, plus your profit. No more of your complaints! Drive as I tell you or I'll wring your neck."
Wheezing, protesting, casting spiteful glances from the side of his face, Emmink obeyed.
The white building loomed ahead. The road ran parallel to the front at a distance of seventy-five yards, with a strip of garden intervening. An access road turned off from the main avenue, to run in front of the building. To drive along the access road would have rendered them highly conspicuous, and they continued along the main avenue in the company of other drays and wagons, and a few small cars driven by Blue Chasch. Reith gazed anxiously at the facade. Three large portals broke the front wall. Those to the left and center were shut; the far right portal was open. As they passed Reith looked in, to see the loom of machinery, the glow of hot metal, the hull of a platform similar to that which had lifted the space-boat away from the swamp.
Reith turned to Emmink. "This building is a factory where airships and spacecraft are built!"
"Yes, of course," grunted Emmink.
"I asked you as much; why did you not tell me?"
"You weren't paying for information. I give nothing away."
"Drive around the building again."
"I must charge you an additional five sequins."
"Two. And no complaints, or I'll rattle your teeth."
Cursing under his breath, Emmink swung the dray around the factory. Reith asked,
"Have you ever looked into the center or the left of the building?"
"Oh yes; several times."
"What is there?"
"How much is the information worth?"
"Not very much. I'd have to see for myself."