"Helsse!" To no effect.
They returned to their companions. "It seems that the Pnume play jokes," said Reith in a subdued voice.
They ate a silent breakfast, waited an indecisive fidgeting hour. Then slowly they loaded the boat and departed the island. Reith looked back through the scanscope until the island no longer could be seen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CHANNELS OF the Jinga came together; the swamp became a jungle. Fronds and tendrils hung over the black water; giant moths floated like ghosts. The upper strata of the forest were a distinct environment: pink and pale yellow ribbons writhed through the air like eels; black-furred globes with six long white arms swung nimbly from branch to branch. Once, far off along an avenue of vision, Reith saw a cluster of large woven huts high in the branches and a little later the boat passed under a bridge of sticks and coarse ropes. Three naked people came to cross the bridge as the boat drifted close: frail thin-bodied folk with parchment-colored skin. Observing the boat, they halted in shock, then raced across the bridge and disappeared into the foliage.
For a week they sailed and paddled uneventfully, the Jinga growing ever wider.
One day they passed a canoe from which an old man netted fish; the next day they saw a village on the banks; the day after a power-boat throbbed past. On the night following they halted at a town and spent the night in a riverside inn, standing on stilts over the water.
Two more days they sailed downstream, to a brisk wind from astern. The Jinga was now wide and deep and the wind raised sizable waves. Navigation began to be a problem. Coming to another town they saw a river packet headed downstream; abandoning the boat they took passage for Kabasas on the Parapan.
Three days they rode the packet, enjoying the comfort of hammocks and fresh food. At noon on the fourth day, with the Jinga so broad that the far shore could not be seen, the blue domes of Kabasas appeared on rising land to the west.
Kabasas, like Coad, served as a commercial depot for extensive hinterlands and like Coad seemed to seethe with intrigue. Warehouses and sheds faced the docks; behind, ranks of arched and colonnaded buildings, of beige, gray, white and dark blue plaster, mounted the hills. A wall of each building, for reasons never clear to Reith, leaned either inward or out, giving the city a curiously irregular appearance by no means dissonant with the conduct of the inhabitants.
These were a slender alert people, with flowing brown hair, wide cheekbones, burning black eyes. The woman were notably handsome and Zarfo cautioned alclass="underline" "If you value your lives, pay no heed to the women! Do not so much as look after them, even though they provoke and tease! They play a strange game here in Kabasas. At any hint of admiration they set up furious outcry and a hundred other women, screaming and cursing, rush up to knife the miscreant."
"Hmmf," said Reith. "And the men?"
"They'll save you if they can, and beat the women off, which suits all parties very well. Indeed this is the way of courtship. A man desiring a girl will set upon her and beat her black and blue. No one would think to interfere. If the girl approves, she comes the same way again. When he rushes forth to pummel her, she throws herself on his mercy. Such is the painful wooing of the Kabs."
"It seems somewhat awkward," said Reith.
"Exactly. Awkward and perverse. Such are affairs in Kabasas. During our stay you had best rely on my counsel. First, I nominate the Sea Dragon Inn as a base of operations."
"We'll hardly be here that long. Why not go directly to the dock and find a ship to take us across the Parapan?"
Zarfo pulled at his long black nose. "Things are never so easy! And why cheat ourselves of a sojourn at the Sea Dragon Inn? ... Perhaps a week or two."
"You naturally intend to pay for your own accommodations?"
Zarfo's white eyebrows dipped sharply. "I am as you know a poor man. My every sequin represents toil. On a joint venture of this sort openhanded generosity should certainly be the rule."
"Tonight," said Reith, "we stay at the Sea Dragon Inn. Tomorrow we leave Kabasas."
Zarfo gave a dismal grunt. "It is not my place to dispute your wishes. Hmmf. As I understand the matter, you plan to arrive at Smargash, recruit a team of technicians, then continue to Ao Hidis?"
"Correct."
"Discretion then! I suggest that we take ship to Zara across the Parapan and up the Ish River. You have not lost your money?"
"Definitely not."
"Take good care of it. The thieves of Kabasas are deft; they use thongs which reach out thirty feet." Zarfo pointed. "Observe that structure just above the beach? The Sea Dragon Inn!"
The Sea Dragon Inn was indeed a grand establishment, with wide public rooms and pleasant sleeping cubicles. The restaurant was decorated to suggest a submarine garden, even to the dark grottos where members of a local sect, who would not publicly perform the act of deglutition, were served.
Reith ordered fresh linen from the staff haberdashery and descended to the great bath on the low terrace. He scrubbed himself and was sprayed with tonic and massaged with handfuls of fragrant moss. Wrapping himself in a gown of white linen he returned to his chamber.
On the couch sat a man in a soiled dark blue suit. Reith stared. Helsse looked back at him with an unfathomable expression. He made no move and uttered no sound.
The silence was intense.
Reith slowly backed from the room, to stand uncertainly on the balcony, heart pounding as if he had seen a ghost. Zarfo appeared, swaggering back to his room with white hair billowing.
Reith signaled to him. "Come, I want to show you something." He took Zarfo to the door, thrust it ajar, half-expecting to find the room unoccupied. Helsse sat as before. Zarfo whispered: "Is he mad? He sits and stares and mocks us but does not speak."
"Helsse," said Reith. "What are you doing here? What happened to you?"
Helsse rose to his feet. Reith and Zarfo moved involuntarily back. Helsse looked at them with the faintest of smiles. He stepped out on the balcony, walked slowly to the stairs. He turned his head; Reith and Zarfo saw the pale oval of his face; then, like an apparition, he was gone.
"What is the meaning of all this?" Reith asked in a husky voice.
Zarfo shook his head, for once subdued. "The Pnume love their pranks."
"Should we have held him?"
"He could have stayed, had he wished."
"But-I doubt if he is sane."
Zarfo's only response was a hunch-shouldered shrug.
Reith went to the edge of the balcony, looked out over the town. "The Pnume know the very rooms in which we sleep!"
"A person floating down the Jinga ends up at Kabasas," said Zarfo testily. "If he is able, he patronizes the Sea Dragon Inn. This is not an intricate deduction. So much for Pnume omniscience."
On the following day Zarfo went off by himself and presently returned with a short man with skin the color of mahogany, walking with a sore-footed swagger as if his shoes were too tight. His face was seamed and crooked; small nervous eyes looked slantwise past the beak of his nose. "And here," declared Zarfo grandly,
"I give you Sealord Dobagq Hrostilfe, a person of sagacity, who will arrange everything."
Reith thought that he had never seen a more obvious rascal.
"Hrostilfe commands the Pibar," explained Zarfo. "For a most reasonable sum he will deliver us to our destination, be it the far coast of Vord."
"How much across the Parapan?" Reith asked.
"Only five thousand sequins, would you believe it?" exclaimed Zarfo.
Reith laughed scornfully. He turned to Zarfo: "I need your help no longer. You and your friend Hrostilfe can try to swindle someone else."