The Lokhars went first, hulk-shouldered, knowing what lay ahead. Reith, Traz and Anacho followed.
"All! Stand on the deck, at the gunwales, in a neat line. Turn your backs." And the Wankhman brought out their handguns.
The Lokhars started to obey. Reith had not expected such casual and perfunctory slaughter. Furious that he had not resisted from the first he cried out: "Should we let them kill us so easily? Let's make a fight of it!"
The Wankhmen gave sharp orders: "Unless you wish worse, quick! To the gunwales!"
Near the barge the water roiled. A black shape floated lazily to the surface and produced four plangent chimes. The Wankhmen stiffened; their faces sagged into sneers of annoyance. They waved at their captives. "Back then, into the cockpit."
The barge returned to the great black fortress, the Wankhmen muttering among themselves. It passed behind a breakwater, magnetically clamped itself to a pier. The prisoners were marshaled ashore and through a portal, into Ao Khaha.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SURFACES OF BLACK glass, stark walls and areas of black concrete, angles, blocks, masses: a negation of organic shape. Reith wondered at the architecture; it seemed remarkably abstract and severe. Into a cul-de-sac, walled on three sides with dark concrete, the captives were taken. "Halt! Remain in place!" came the command.
The prisoners, with no choice, halted and stood in a surly line.
"Water yourselves at that spigot. Perform evacuation into that trough. Make no noise or disturbance." The Wankhmen departed, leaving the prisoners unguarded.
Reith said in a wondering voice, "We haven't even been searched! I still have my weapons."
"It's not far to the portal," said Traz. "Why should we wait here to be killed?"
"We'd never reach the portal," growled Zarfo.
"So we must stand here like docile animals?"
"That's what I plan to do," said Belje, with a bitter glance toward Reith. "I'll never see Smargash more, but I may escape with my life."
Zorofim gave a rude laugh. "In the mines?"
"I know only rumor of the mines."
"Once a man goes underground he never emerges. There are ambushes and terrible tricks by Pnume and Pnumekin. If we are not executed out of hand we will go to the mines."
"All for avarice and mad folly!" lamented Belje. "Adam Reith, you have much to answer for!"
"Quiet, poltroon," said Zarfo without heat. "No one forced you to come. The fault is your own. We should abase ourselves before Reith; he trusted our knowledge; we showed him ineptitude."
"All of us did our best," said Reith. "The operation was risky; we failed; it's as simple as that ... As for trying to escape from here-I can't believe that they'd leave us alone, unguarded, free to walk away."
Jag Jaganig snorted sadly. "Don't be too sure; to the Wankhmen we are animals."
Reith turned to Traz, whose perceptions at times bewildered him. "Could you find your way to the portal?"
"I don't know. Not directly. There were many turns. The buildings confuse me."
"Then we had best remain here ... There's a bare chance that we can talk our way out of the situation."
The afternoon passed, then the long night, with Az and Braz creating fantasies of shapes and shadows. In the chill morning, cantankerous with stiff joints and hunger, and increasingly restless because of their captors' inattention, even the most fearful of the Lokhars were peering out of the cul-de-sac and speculating as to the whereabouts of the portal through the black glass wall.
Reith still counseled patience. "We'd never make it. Our only hope as I see it is that the Wankh may decide to be lenient with us."
"Why should they be lenient?" sneered Thadzei. "Their justice is forthright: the same justice we use toward pests."
Jag Jaganig was no less pessimistic. "We will never see the Wankh. Why else do they maintain the Wankhmen, except to stand between themselves and Tschai?"
"We shall see," said Reith.
The morning passed. The Lokhars slumped torpidly against a wall. Traz, as usual, maintained his equanimity. Contemplating the boy, Reith could not help but wonder as to the source of his fortitude. Innate character? Fatalism? Did the personality of Onmale, the emblem he had worn so long, still shape his soul?
But other problems were more immediate. "This delay can't be accidental," Reith fretted to Anacho. "There must be a reason. Are they trying to demoralize us?"
Anacho, as peevish as any of the others, said, "There are better ways than this."
"Are they waiting for something to happen? What?"
Anacho could supply no answers.
Late in the afternoon three Wankhmen appeared. One of these, wearing thin silver greaves and a silver medallion on a chain around his neck, appeared to be a person of importance. He surveyed the group with eyebrows lofted in mingled disapproval and amusement, as if at naughty children. "Well then," he said briskly, "which among you is the leader of this group?"
Reith came forward with as much dignity as he could summon. "I am."
"You? Not one of the Lokhars? What did you hope to achieve?"
"May I ask who adjudicates our offense?" Reith asked.
The Wankhman was taken aback. "'Adjudication'? What needs to be adjudicated? The only point at issue, and a minor one, is your motive."
"I can't agree with you," said Reith in a reasonable voice. "Our transgression was a simple theft; only by sheer accident did we take aloft a Wankh."
"A Wankh! Do you realize his identity? No, of course not. He is a savant of the highest level, an Original Master."
"And he wants to know why we took his spaceship?"
"What then? It is no concern of yours. You need only transmit the information on through me; that is my function."
"I'll be glad to do so, in his presence, and, I hope, in surroundings more appropriate than a back alley."
"Zff, but you are a cool one. Do you answer to the name of Adam Reith?"
"I am Adam Reith."
"And you recently visited Settra in Cath, where you associated with the so-called 'Yearning Refluxives'?"
"Your information is at fault."
"Be that as it may, we want your reason for stealing a spaceship."
"Be on hand when I communicate with the Original Master. The matter is complex and I am certain he will have questions which cannot be answered casually."
The Wankhman swung away in disgust.
Zarfo muttered, "You are a cool one indeed! But what do you gain by talking to the Wankh?"
"I don't know. It's worth trying. I suspect that the Wankhmen report only as much as suits their purposes."
"That's understood by everyone but the Wankh."
"How can it be? Are they innocent? Or remote?"
"Neither. They have no other sources of information. The Wankhmen make sure the situation remains that way. The Wankh have small interest in the affairs of Tschai; they're only here to counter the Dirdir threat."
"Bah," said Anacho. "The Dirdir threat' is a myth; the Expansionists are gone thousands of years."
"Then why are they still feared by the Wankh?" demanded Zarfo.
"Mutual distrust; what else?"
"Natural antipathy. The Dirdir are an insufferable race."
Anacho walked away in a huff. Zarfo laughed. Reith shook his head in mild disapproval.
Zarfo now said, "Take my advice, Adam Reith: don't antagonize the Wankhmen, because you can't win but through them. Ingratiate, truckle, fawn-and at least they'll bear you no malice."
"I'm not too proud to truckle," said Reith, "if it would do any good-which it won't. Our only hope is to push ahead .... And I've come up with an idea or two which may help our case, if we get a chance to talk with the Wankh."