On the second day of Balul Zac Ag, as Adam Reith wandered through the bazaar, he became aware that he was being watched. The knowledge came as a dismal shock; on Tschai, surveillance always led to a grim conclusion.
Perhaps he was mistaken, Reith told himself. He had dozens of enemies; to many others he represented ideological disaster; but how could any of these have traced him to Smargash? Reith continued along the crowded lanes of the bazaar, pausing at the booths to look back the way he had come. But his follower, if in fact he existed, was lost in the confusion. There were Niss in black robes, seven feet tall, striding like rapacious birds: Xars; Serafs; Dugbo nomads squatting over their fires; Human Things expressionless behind pottery faceplates; Zhurvegs in coffee-brown caftans; the black and white Lokhars of Smargash themselves. There was odd staccato noise: the clank of iron, squeak of leather, harsh voices, shrill calls, the whine, rasp and jangle of Dugbo music.
There were odors: fern-spice, gland-oil, submusk, dust rising and settling, the reek of pickled nuts, smoke from grilled meats, the perfume of the Serafs. There were colors: black, dull brown, orange, old scarlet, dark blue, dark gold.
Leaving the bazaar Reith crossed the dancing field. He stopped short, and from the corner of his eye glimpsed a figure sliding behind a tent.
Thoughtfully Reith returned to the inn. Traz and the Dirdirman, Ankhe at afram Anacho, sat in the refectory making a meal of bread and meat. They ate in silence; disparate beings, each found the other incomprehensible. Anacho, tall, thin and pallid like all Dirdirmen, was completely hairless, a quality he now tended to minimize under a soft tasseled cap after the style of the Yao. His personality was unpredictable; he inclined toward garrulity, freakish jokes, sudden petulances. Traz, square, somber and sturdy, was in most respects Anacho's obverse. Traz considered Anacho vain, over-subtle, over-civilized; Anacho thought Traz tactless, severe and over-literal. How the two managed to travel in comparative amity was a mystery to Reith.
Reith seated himself at the table. "I think I'm being watched," he announced.
Anacho leaned back in dismay. "Then we must prepare for disaster-or flight."
"I prefer flight," said Reith. He poured himself ale from a stone jug.
"You still intend to travel space to this mythical planet of yours?" Anacho spoke in the voice of one who reasons with an obstinate child.
"I want to return to Earth, certainly."
"Bah," muttered Anacho. "You are the victim of a hoax, or an obsession. Can you not cure yourself? The project is easier to discuss than to effectuate.
Spaceships are not wart-scissors, to be picked up at any bazaar booth."
Reith said sadly, "I know this only too well."
Anacho spoke in an offhand manner: "I suggest that you apply at the Grand Sivishe Spaceyards. Almost anything can be procured, if one has enough sequins."
"I suspect that I don't," said Reith.
"Go to the Carabas. Sequins can be had by the bucketful."
Traz gave a short snort of derision. "Do you take us for maniacs?"
"Where is the Carabas?" asked Reith.
"The Carabas is in the Dirdir Hunting Preserve, at the north of Kislovan. Men with luck and strong nerves sometimes prosper."
"Fools, gamblers and murderers, rather," muttered Traz.
Reith asked, "How do these men, whatever their nature, gain the sequins?"
Anacho's voice was flippant and airy. "By the usual method: they dig up nodes of chrysospine."
Reith rubbed his chin. "Is this the source of sequins? I thought that the Dirdir or some such folk minted them."
"Your ignorance is that of another planet indeed!" declared Anacho.
The muscles around Reith's mouth gave a rueful twitch. "It could hardly be otherwise."
"The chrysospine," said Anacho, "grows only in the Black Zone, which is to say, the Carabas, where uranium compounds occur in the soil. A full node yields two hundred and eighty-two sequins, of one or another color. A purple sequin is worth a hundred clears; a scarlet is fifty, and down through the emeralds, blues, sards and milks. Even Traz knows as much."
Traz looked at Anacho with a curled lip. "'Even Traz'?"
Anacho paid him no heed. "All this to the side; we have no certain evidence of surveillance. Adam Reith may well be mistaken."
"Adam Reith is not mistaken," said Traz. "'Even Traz,' as you put it, knows better than this."
Anacho raised his hairless eyebrows. "How so?"
"Notice the man who just entered the room."
"A Lokhar; what about him?"
"He is no Lokhar. He watches our every move."
Anacho's jaw fell a trifle slack.
Reith studied the man surreptitiously; he seemed less burly, less direct and abrupt than the typical Lokhar. Anacho spoke in a subdued voice: "The lad is right. Notice how he drinks his ale, head down instead of back ... Disturbing."
Reith muttered, "Who would be interested in us?"
Anacho gave a bark of caustic laughter. "Do you think that our exploits have gone unnoticed? The events at Ao Hidis have aroused attention everywhere."
"So this man-whom would he serve?"
Anacho shrugged. "With his skin dyed black I can't even guess his breed."
"We'd better get some information," said Reith. He considered a moment. "I'll walk out through the bazaar, then around into the Old Town. If the man yonder follows, give him a start and come behind. If he stays, one of you stay, the other come after me."
Reith went out into the bazaar. At a Zhurveg pavilion he paused to examine a display of rugs, woven, according to rumor, by legless children, kidnapped and maimed by the Zhurvegs themselves. He glanced back the way he had come. No one appeared to be following. He went on a little way, and paused by the racks where hideous Niss women sold coils of braided leather rope, leap-horse harness, crudely beautiful silver goblets. Still no one behind. He crossed the passage to examine a Dugbo display of musical instruments. If he could take a cargo of Zhurveg rugs, Niss silver, Dugbo musical instruments back to Earth, thought Reith, his fortune would be made. He looked over his shoulder, and now he observed Anacho dawdling fifty yards behind. Anacho clearly had learned nothing.
Reith sauntered on. He paused to watch a Dugbo necromancer: a twisted old man squatting behind trays of misshapen bottles, jugs of salve, junction-stones to facilitate telepathy, love-sticks, sheafs of curses indited on red and green paper. Above flew a dozen fantastic kites, which the old Dugbo manipulated to produce a wan wailing music. He proffered Reith an amulet, which Reith refused to buy. The necromancer spat epithets and caused his kites to dart and shriek discords.
Reith moved on, into the Dugbo encampment proper. Girls wearing scarves and flounced skirts of black, old rose and ocher solicited Zhurvegs, Lokhars, Serafs, but taunted the prudish Niss who stalked silently past, heads out-thrust, noses like scythes of polished bone. Beyond the encampment lay the open plain and the far hills, black and gold in the light of Carina 4269.
A Dugbo girl approached Reith, jangling the silver ornaments at her waist, smiling a gap-toothed grin. "What do you seek out here, my friend? Are you weary? This is my tent; enter, refresh yourself."
Reith declined the invitation and stepped back before her fingers or those of her younger sister could flutter near his pouch.
"Why are you reluctant?" sang the girl. "Look at me! Am I not graceful? I have polished my limbs with Seraf wax; I am scented with haze-water; you could do far worse!"