The instant uproar among the Wankhmen convinced Reith that his accusations had struck home. Again they were silenced.
Helsse played the instrument with the air of a man astounded by his own actions.
"Tell them," said Reith, "that the Wankhmen have systematically distorted truth.
They undoubtedly have prolonged the Dirdir war. Remember, if the war ended, the Wankh would return to their home world, and the Wankhmen would be thrown upon their own resources."
Helsse, gray-faced, struggled to drop the instrument, but his fingers refused to do his bidding. He played. The other Wankhmen stood in dead silence. This was the most telling accusation of all. The senior Wankhman shouted: "The interview is at an end! Prisoners, form your line! March!"
Reith told Helsse: "Request that the Wankh order all the other Wankhmen to depart, so that we may communicate without interruption."
Helsse's face twitched; sweat poured down his face.
"Translate my message," said Reith.
Helsse obeyed.
Silence held the chamber, with the Wankhmen gazing in apprehension toward the Wankh.
The Master uttered two chimes.
The Wankhmen muttered among themselves. They came to a terrible decision. Out came their weapons; they turned them, not upon the prisoners, but upon the four Wankh. Reith and Traz sprang forward, followed by the Lokhars. The weapons were wrested away.
The Master uttered two quiet chimes.
Helsse listened, then slowly turned to Reith. "He commands that you give me the weapon you hold."
Reith relinquished the gun. Helsse turned toward the other three Wankhmen, pushed the trigger-button. The three fell dead, their heads shattered.
The Wankh stood a moment in silence, assessing the situation. Then they departed the hall. The erstwhile prisoners remained with Helsse and the corpses. Reith took the gun from Helsse's cold fingers, before he thought to use it again.
The chamber began to grow murky with the coming of dusk. Reith studied Helsse, wondering how long the hypnotic state would persist. He said, "Take us outside the walls."
"Come."
Through the black and gray city Helsse took the group, finally to a small steel door. Helsse touched a latch; the door swung aside. Beyond, a spine of rock led through the dusk to the mainland.
The group filed through the gap into the open air. Reith turned to Helsse. "Ten minutes after I touch your shoulder, resume your normal condition. You will remember nothing of what has happened during the last hour. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Reith touched Helsse's shoulder; the group hurried away through the twilight.
Before a jut of rock hid them from sight Reith looked back. Helsse stood where they had left him, looking somewhat wistfully after them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN A PATCH of rough forestland the group slumped down in total fatigue, their stomachs crawling with hunger. By the light of the two moons Traz searched through the undergrowth and found a clump of pilgrim plant, and the group made their first meal in two days. Somewhat refreshed, they moved on through the night, up a long slope. At the top of the ridge, they turned to look back, toward the gloomy silhouette of Ao Khaha on the moonlit sky. For a few minutes they stood, each man thinking his own thoughts, then they continued north.
In the morning over a breakfast of toasted fungus, Reith opened his pouch. "The expedition has been a failure. As I promised, each man receives another five thousand sequins. Take them now, with my gratitude for your loyalty."
Zarfo took the purple-glowing pellets gingerly, weighed them in his fingers.
"Above all I am an honest man, and since this was the structure of the contract, I will accept the money."
Jag Jaganig said: "Let me ask you a question, Adam Reith. You told the Wankh that you were a man from a far world, the home of man. Is this correct?"
"It is what I told the Wankh."
"You are such a man, from such a planet?"
"Yes. Even though Anacho the Dirdirman makes a wry face."
"Tell us something of this planet."
Reith spoke for an hour, while his comrades sat staring into the fire.
Anacho at last cleared his throat. "I do not doubt your sincerity. But, as you say, the history of Earth is short compared to the history of Tschai. It is obvious that far in the past the Dirdir visited Earth and left a colony from which all Earthmen are descended."
"I could prove otherwise," said Reith, "if our venture had been successful and we had all journeyed to Earth."
Anacho poked the fire with a stick. "Interesting ... The Dirdir of course would not sell or transfer a spaceship. Such a theft as we perpetrated upon the Wankh would be impossible. Still-at the Great Sivishe Spaceyards almost any component can be acquired, by purchase or discreet arrangement. One only needs sequins, a considerable sum, true."
"How much?" asked Reith.
"A hundred thousand sequins would work wonders."
"No doubt. At the moment I have barely the hundredth part of that."
Zarfo threw over his five thousand sequins. "Here. It pains me like the loss of a leg. But let these be the first coins in the pot."
Reith returned the money. "At the moment they would only make a forlorn rattling sound."
Thirteen days later the group came down out of the Ifnets to Blalag, where they boarded a power wagon and so returned to Smargash.
For three days Reith, Anacho and Traz ate, slept and watched the young folk at their dancing.
On the evening of the third day Zarfo joined them in the taproom. "All look sleek and lazy. Have you heard the news?"
"What news?"
"First, I have acquired a delightful property on a bend of the Whisfer River, with five fine keels, three psillas and an asponistra, not to mention the tayberries. Here I shall end my days-unless you tempt me forth on another mad venture. Secondly, two technicians this morning returned to Smargash from Ao Hidis. Vast changes are in the wind! The Wankhmen are departing the fortresses; they have been driven out and now live in huts with the Blacks and Purples. It appears that the Wankh will no longer tolerate their presence."
Reith chuckled. "At Dadiche we found an alien race exploiting men. At Ao Hidis we found men exploiting an alien race. Both conditions are now changed. Anacho, would you care to be liberated from your enervating philosophy and become a sane man?"
"I want demonstration, not words. Take me to Earth." "We can hardly walk there."
"At the Great Sivishe Spaceyards are a dozen spaceboats, needing only procurement and assembly."
"Yes, but where are the sequins?"
"I don't know," said Anacho.
"Nor I," said Traz.
THE DIRDIR
CHAPTER ONE
THE SUN CARINA 4269 had passed into the constellation Tartusz, to mark the onset of Balul Zac Ag, the "unnatural dream time," when slaughter, slave-taking, pillage and arson came to a halt across the Lokhar Highlands. Balul Zac Ag was the occasion for the Great Fair at Smargash, or perhaps the Great Fair had come first, eventually to generate Balul Zac Ag after unknown hundreds of years. From across the Lokhar Highlands and the regions surrounding Xar, Zhurveg, Seraf, Niss and others came to Smargash to mingle and trade, to resolve stale feuds, to gather intelligence. Hatred hung in the air like a stench; covert glances and whispered curses, in-drawn hisses of detestation accented the color and confusion of the bazaar. Only the Lokhars (the men black-skinned and white-haired, the women whiteskinned and black-haired) maintained faces of placid unconcern.