Jack Vance - Gaean Reach 01 (13 page)

Jemasze trimmed the sails; the land-yawl jerked forward and gained a speed which Elvo estimated to be quite thirty miles an hour.

The yawl needed little attention at the helm; Elvo used a claw-shaped device to engage the wheel and rose to his feet to revel in the motion. Kurgech and Gerd Jemasze were similarly affected. Kurgech stood by the mainmast, the wind ruffling his sparse amber curls; Jemasze stretched out in the cockpit and broached one of the casks of beer with which he had provisioned the yawl. “No question but what there are worse ways to live,” he said.

Methuen rose up the sky. No. 2 Depot had disappeared astern. The sarai looked as before: a dun flatland, relieved here and there by wisps of crisp yellow straw and an occasional low flat flower. Cloud shadows coursed across the soum; the air was fresh, neither cool nor warm, and smelled faintly of straw and a more subtle fragrance from the lichen. There was nothing to be seen, yet Elvo found the landscape anything but monotonous; it changed constantly in a manner he could not easily define: perhaps through clouds and shadows. The wheels, whispering with speed, left a dark track across the soum; occasionally other traces indicated that at some time in the past other sail-wagons had come this way.

Elvo noticed Kurgech and Jemasze talking together and staring astern. Elvo rose to his feet and scanned the southern horizon. He saw nothing and resumed his seat. Since neither Kurgech nor Jemasze saw fit to enlighten him, he asked no questions.

Halfway through the afternoon a group of small humps marked the horizon, which as they approached proved to be sizable hillocks flanked by fields of growing stuff: grain, melons, fruit trees, bread-and-butter plant, pepper plants, elixir vines. The plots were each about an acre in extent; each was watered by a system of tubes radiating from a pond, and each was guarded by a conspicuous fiap.

The time was now late afternoon, and with the pond affording a pleasant place to bathe, Jemasze elected to camp. Elvo looked at the fruit trees, but Jemasze indicated the fiaps. “Beware!”

“The fruit is ripe! In fact some is rotting, going to waste!”

“I advise you to leave it alone.”

“Hmmf. What would happen if I ate, say, one of those tangerines?”

“I only know that your madness or death would inconvenience us all, so please control your appetite.”

“Certainly,” said Elvo stiffly. “By all means.”

The three lowered sails, blocked the wheels, bathed in the pond, prepared a meal over a small campfire, then sat back over cups of tea and watched another magnificent sunset.

Twilight became night; the sky shone with stars beyond number. The constellation Gyrgus looped across the zenith; to the southwest shone the Pentadex; in the east rose the blazing miracle which was Alastor Cluster. The men put down pads loose-packed with aerospore on the deck of the yawl and lay down to sleep.

At midnight Elvo half-awoke and lay drowsily musing over the episode of the night before. Reality? Hallucination?…Out on the Palga sounded a soft eery whistle, followed a few minutes later by another such whistle from a different direction. Elvo quietly rose to his feet and went to stand by the mast. A man loomed above him in the starlight. Elvo’s heart jumped up in his throat; he gave a croak of dismay. The man turned and made a gesture of annoyance; Elvo recognized Kurgech. He whispered: “Did you hear the whistles?”

“Insects.”

“Then why are you standing here?”

“The insects whistle when they are disturbed—perhaps by a night-hawk or a walkinger.”

From a distance of no more than ten yards sounded a clear fluting warble. “Gerd Jemasze is down there,” muttered Kurgech. “He watches against the skyline.”

“For what?”

“For whatever has been following us.”

The two stood quiet in the starlight. Half an hour passed. The yawl quivered; Gerd Jemasze spoke in a soft voice. “Nothing.”

“I felt nothing,” said Kurgech.

“I should have brought a set of sensors,” grumbled Jemasze. “Then we could sleep in peace.”

“The bugle-bugs serve us as well.”

Elvo said: “I thought the Wind-runners molested no one.”

“The Srenki molest as they see fit.”

Jemasze and Kurgech returned to their pads; Elvo Glissam presently followed.

Dawn flooded the east with pink-crimson light. Clouds burned red, and the sun appeared. No breath of air fluttered the silk whisks on the yawl’s shrouds, and the three made no haste over breakfast.

With the wagon becalmed Elvo climbed to the summit of a nearby hill and descended the opposite side, where he discovered a copse of wild pawpaws, apparently unguarded by fiap. The fruit appeared ripe and succulent: round red globes with orange stars at the ends, surrounded by black voluted foliage. Elvo nonetheless eyed the fruit askance and passed it by.

Returning around the base of the hill he met Kurgech with a sack of crayfish he had taken from an irrigation ditch. Elvo mentioned the pawpaws and Kurgech agreed that a good lunch could be made of boiled crayfish and fruit; the two returned to the copse. Kurgech searched for fiaps and found none; the two men picked as much fruit as they could carry and returned around the hill.

Arriving at the land-yawl, they found it looted of all portable gear, equipment and provisions. Gerd Jemasze, coming from a morning plunge in the pond, joined them a moment after they discovered the loss.

Kurgech uttered a set of sibilant Uldra curses directed at Moffamides. “His fiaps were as weak as water; he sent us forth naked.”

Gerd Jemasze gave his characteristic curt nod. “Nothing unexpected, of course. What do you see for tracks?”

Kurgech examined the soum. His nose twitched; he leaned closer to the ground and sighted along the surface. “A single man came and went.” He moved off twenty yards. “Here he climbed on his vehicle and departed yonder.” Kurgech pointed west, around the base of the hills.

Jemasze considered. “There’s still only a trace of wind. He can’t move at any speed—if he’s in a sail-wagon.” He squinted along the trail of the vehicle, a pair of dark marks on the soum. “The trail curves; he’s sailing around the hill. You follow the track; I’ll cut across the hill; we’ll catch him on the other side. Elvo, you stay and guard the yawl before someone steals the whole affair.”

The two men set off, Kurgech trotting after the tracks; Jemasze scrambling up the hillside.

Kurgech came in sight of the thief-wagon first: a small tall-masted skimmer with three spindly wheels and slatting sails, moving no faster than a walk. At the sight of Kurgech the occupant trimmed his sail, scanned the sky and looked around the circle of the horizon, but saw nothing except Gerd Jemasze approaching from the direction in which he was headed.

Jemasze reached the craft first and held up his hand. “Stop.”

The occupant, a middle-aged man of no great stature, turned pale buff eyes up and down Jemasze’s frame, luffed his sail and applied the brake. “Why do you hinder my passage?”

“Because you have stolen our belongings. Turn around.”

The Wind-runner’s face became mulish. “I took only what was available.”

“Did you not see our fiaps?”

“The fiap is dead; it spent its magic last year. You have no right to transfer fiaps; such an act is the paltry play of children.”

“Last year’s fiaps, eh?” mused Jemasze. “How do you know?”

“Isn’t it evident? Do you not see the pink strand on the orange? Stand aside; I am not a man for idle conversation.”

“Nor are we,” said Jemasze. “Turn your craft and sail back to our yawl.”

“By no means. I do as I please and you cannot protest; my fiap is fresh and strong.”

Jemasze approached the hull of the skimmer. He pointed to the hillside. “See those stones yonder? What if we pile them in front of you and astern? Will your fiap carry you over two piles of rocks?”

“I will sail on before you pile the rocks.”

“Then you will sail over my body.”

“What of that? Your personal fiap is a joke. Who do you think to befuddle? The fiap was hung on a beer vat to guard the malt from going sour.”

Jemasze laughed and pulling the fiap from his head threw it to the ground. “Kurgech, bring stones. We’ll wall in this thief so that he’ll never depart.”

The Wind-runner gave a passionate cry of outrage. “You are morphotes in disguise! Must I always lose my gains to plunderers? Is justice gone from the Palga?”

“We will talk philosophy after we regain our belongings.”

Cursing and muttering, the Wind-runner came about and sailed back the way he had come, with Kurgech and Jemasze walking behind. Halting beside the land-yawl the Wind-runner ill-naturedly passed across the goods he had taken.

Jemasze asked: “Where are you bound?”

“To the depot; where else?”

“Seek out Moffamides the priest; tell him you have met us; tell him what occurred, and tell him that if the fiaps guarding the sky-car are as false as those he gave us, we’ll take him down to the Alouan and lock him in a cage forever. He’ll never escape us; we’ll follow his track wherever he goes. Take him that message, and be certain that he hears you out!”

The Wind-runner, clench-mouthed with rage, tacked off into the south on a freshening breeze.

Elvo and Jemasze loaded the yawl while Kurgech boiled the crayfish for lunch to be consumed on the way. The sails were hoisted; the yawl rolled briskly into the northeast.

At noon Kurgech pointed across the bow to the sails of three lofty brigantines bellying in the wind. “The first of the tracks.”

“If Moffamides gave us proper directions.”

“He gave us proper directions; I read at least this much truth in his mind. I read mischief as well, and this has been demonstrated.”

“I understand now why Outkers seldom visit the Palga,” said Elvo glumly.

“They are not welcomed; this is true.”

The brigantines passed in front of the yawl: three beer-wagons, each loaded with three enormous hogsheads. The crews watched the yawl incuriously and ignored Elvo Glissam’s wave.

The yawl crossed the track—an avenue of compressed soum—and pointed once more across the open sarai.

An hour later they sailed past another set of irrigated tracts. Wind-runner families worked at the plots: tilling, pulling weeds, harvesting legumes, plucking fruit; their sail-wagons standing nearby. At mid-afternoon the yawl overtook just such a wagon: a six-wheeled schooner with a pair of high masts, three jibs and topsails. Two men leaned on the after rail; children played on the deck; a woman peered through the casements of the aft cabin as the yawl approached. Elvo steered to pass downwind, which he deemed to be the courteous tactic. The Wind-runners however failed to recognize the nicety and gave no acknowledgment to Elvo’s cheerful wave. Peculiar people, thought Elvo glumly. Shortly after, the schooner changed course and trundled off to the north, to become a far white spot, then disappear.

The wind had become gusty; to the south a scurf of black clouds rose up into the sky. Jemasze and Kurgech reefed the mainsail, lowered the mizzen and took in the jib; still the yawl bowled across the soum on hissing wheels.

The clouds raced overhead; rain began to fall. The three men hauled down all sails, braked and blocked the wheels, tossed to the ground a heavy metal chain connected through the shrouds to the lightning rod, then took refuge in the aft cuddy. For two hours lightning clawed at the sarai, generating an almost continuous reverberation of thunder; then the storm drifted north; the rain stopped; the wind died, leaving behind an uncanny silence.

The three men crawled forth from the cuddy to find the sun setting through a confused storm-wrack and the sky an inverted carpet of flaring purple-red. While Gerd Jemasze and Elvo put the yawl to rights, Kurgech boiled up a soup in the forward cuddy, and the three men took a supper of pawpaws, soup and hard-bread.

A slow and easy breeze came to blow the remaining storm clouds north; the sky was clear and effulgent with stars. The sarai seemed utterly vacant and lonely, and Elvo was surprised to find Kurgech in a state of obvious uneasiness. After a few minutes Elvo became infected with nervousness and asked: “What’s the trouble?”

“Something is drawing upon us.”

Jemasze raised his hand to feel the wind. “Shall we sail for an hour or two? There’s nothing we can run into.”

Kurgech readily agreed. “I will be happy to move.”

The sails were hoisted; the yawl swerved around and bore off on a quartering reach into the northeast at an easy ten miles an hour. Kurgech steered by Koryphon’s North Star Tethanor, the Toe of the Basilisk.

Four hours they sailed, until midnight, when Kurgech declared: “The imminence is gone. I no longer feel pressure.”

“In that case, it is time to stop,” said Jemasze. The sails were dropped; the brakes were set; the three laid out their beds and slept.

At dawn they hoisted sail in preparation for the morning wind, which once more came tardily, and the three men sat silently waiting. At last the monsoon arrived and the yawl slid off into the northeast.

After an hour of sailing they crossed the second track, though no sails were visible save a tall narrow triangle far astern.

The sarai began to rise and fall, at first almost imperceptibly, then in long wide hills and dales. Ledges of black trap slanted up from the soum, and for the first time navigation demanded a degree of foresight and strategy. The easiest route most usually lay along the ridges, where the wind blew most freshly and where the ground lay generally flat. Often these ridges ran in inconvenient directions; then the helmsman must direct the craft down one slope and up the one opposite, and often the auxiliary motor was needed to propel the yawl the last fifty or hundred feet to the ridge.

A river meandered across the countryside, at the bottom of a steep-sided terraced valley where the land-yawl could not go, and for several miles they sailed along the brink of the valley, until the river once more swung north.

The tall-sailed wagon they had noticed previously had gained appreciably upon them. Jemasze took binoculars and inspected the craft, then handed the glasses to Kurgech who looked and uttered a soft Uldra curse.