The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (7 page)

“All over,” said Zardeku, sheathing his sword. The outnumbered Sotaspeva had already fallen to their knees before they had either inflicted or suffered much damage. Castanhoso was obviously torn between pride in the drop of blood on his blade and concern for the well-being of the surrendered sailor whose arm he’d nicked.

“Who’s the head man?” demanded Abreu. “You?”

“If it please Your P-pirate ship,” said Qarao. “What
is
all this?”

“Where’s the mummy?”

“In the cabin, sir. May I show you . . . ?”

“Lead on.” Abreu followed the minister to the cabin below the poop. “Ah!”

The mortal remains of King Manzariyé were no prettier than they had been on the previous occasion.

“What do you?” cried Qarao in sudden anguish. “Sacrilege!”

“Bunk!” snorted Abreu, slitting open the mummy with his dagger along the carefully sewn seam in the king’s flank. “Look here!”

“Who be ye?” cried Qarao. “Men of Dur, or disguised Earthmen, or what?”

Ignoring the question, the security officer pried open the mummy and fished out a fistful of small books. “Look, Herculeu,” he said. “Chemistry, structures, heat engineering, electronics, calculus, strength of materials, aeronautics . . . He did a good job. Now,
you!”
He glared at the cringing Qarao. “Would you like to answer questions, or join your lamented master in the sea?”

“I—I’ll answer, good my lord.”

“Good. Who built this ship? I mean, who converted it to a steamship?”

“Ahmad Akelawi, sir.”

“And Ferrian and he fixed up a scheme to take the mummy to Earth, stuff it full of technical literature, and bring it back to Krishna, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did Akelawi get out of it?”

“Oh, His Sublimity had figured out a complicated scheme for converting some of his ancestral treasure into Earthly dollars. Also he was going to make Akelawi his Minister of Science, if Akelawi ever got back to Sotaspé.”

“I see,” said Abreu. “He’s an original, this prince of yours; I’m sorry he’s drowned.”

“Do we arrest this one?” said Castanhoso in Portuguese. “We could take the mummy along for evidence.”

“Hm,” said Abreu. “It occurs to me that we made a serious mistake in letting the mummy back into Krishna without examining it more thoroughly, didn’t we?”

“Pois sim.”

Abreu mused: “And if we arrest this man, and so forth, that fact will come out. The results might be bad for the service, not to mention us.”

“Yessir.”

“If we drag Qarao back to Novorecife on charges of conspiracy to violate I.C. Regulation 368, Section 4, subsection 26, the native Krishnan states will make a terrible howl about illegal arrest, and we’ll be called murderers and imperialists and all sorts of hard names. Whereas if we let this one and his men go with a warning, and burn the ship, the matter will be ended to the satisfaction of all. Since the unfortunate prince is now fish-food, and we’ll be on the watch for Akelawi, there’ll be no more violation of the technological blockade from this source.”

“True,” said Castanhoso, “but I hate to burn this handsome ship. It seems wicked to destroy knowledge.”

“I know,” snapped Abreu, “but we have a policy to carry out. The peace of the universe is more important . . .” He turned to Qarao and spoke in Gozashtandou: “We’ve decided that this conspiracy was not your fault, since you merely carried out your master’s orders. Therefore, as soon as we’ve cleaned up and burned the ship—”

“Iyá!
Generous masters, pray do not burn the pride of the Sotaspeo navy . . .” and Qarao began to shed big tears.

“Sorry, my good sir, but it must be. Zardeku, collect your men . . .”

###

Meanwhile Ferrian bad-Arjanaq, Prince of Sotaspé, clung to the lowest paddle of the port wheel with only his head out of water. He could not been seen from the deck of the
Kerukchi
because the other paddles and the wheel structure were in the way. He had thrown off his helmet and was worming his way between duckings out of his mail-coat. After much straining exertion he got the thing off. It sank silently. Now at least he could swim.

Although he could hear voices on deck, he could not make out the words over the sounds of wind and water, especially since the larger waves ducked him from time to time. A couple of loud splashes told him that the fatal casualties of the light were being disposed of. More tramping and voices, and sounds of things being broken up and moved about.

Then a crackling that he could not at first identify. It took him some minutes to realize that the smell of woodsmoke, which normally clung to the
Kerukchi
, was much stronger than could be accounted for by stoking up the engine. When he realized that his prize ship was actually burning, he cursed by all the gods of his pantheon and added a salt tear or two to the Sadabao Sea.

Well, he couldn’t hold this paddle all day. Presumably the other ship would push off from the
Kerukchi
’s side and stand off a safe distance to windward to make sure that her prey was fully consumed. Nor would the
Kerukchi
simply burn down to the water and then lie sloshing, a waterlogged hulk, as would most ships. The weight of the machinery would take her to the bottom.

Prince Ferrian wormed out of his remaining clothes and struck out for shore, keeping the blazing
Kerukchi
between him and the
Alashtir.
The fresh afternoon breeze blew a long streamer of smoke down over him, making him cough and swallow water but also helping to hide him. The customs of Darya being what they were, he could go ashore as he was without fearing arrest for impropriety.

###

A ten-night later the merchantman
Star of Jazmurian
docked at Sotaspé, and Prince Ferrian, followed by two men carrying a large box, came ashore. Those who saw him almost fell over with astonishment.

“Your Serenity!” babbled a man. “We all thought you dead! Your cousin Prince Savarun is about to declare your eldest son Prince Regent . . .”

“We’ll soon fix that, my good fellow,” said Ferrian. “Get me an aya! I’m for the palace.”

After the excitement had died down, Prince Ferrian made a speech.

“First,” he said, “my thanks to my dutiful subjects who have kept the kingdom running so faithfully in my absence. How many rulers could go away for years and return to find their thrones still their own?

“Second, you know that we’ve suffered a grievous loss. Our sacred relic, our king, is no more. However, I had a replica made of wood in Darya, which will be used in place of the true king. I got the idea from a lawbook I read while among the Terrans.

“Third, polygamy is hereby abolished. While I appreciate the devotion my wives have given me these many years, there are sound reasons against the institution. I might mention that petty jealousy among my wives caused my great design to fail. (No, no, Tánzi, stop your weeping. You’ll be taken care of.)

“Fourth, since my plan for industrializing Sotaspé has failed, I’ve been forced to find a substitute. Why, thought I, should we strain every nerve to steal the secrets of Terran science? Why not develop our own? While reading that book on the history of Earthly law I learned of a system whereby the Earthmen have long promoted knowledge and invention on their own planet. ’Tis called a patent system, and as soon as the Privy Council can work out the details, Sotaspé shall have one too . . .”

###

Abreu, wearing the slightly smug air which success always conferred upon him, reported to Comandante Kennedy on the outcome of his foray into the Sadabao Sea. He ended: “Far be it from me to brag, Senhor William, but thanks to the efforts of the good Herculeu and myself, the most dangerous threat in years against the technological blockade is now over, smashed, finished!”

###

And a few ten-nights later Prince Ferrian, who loved speechmaking and public appearances, stood at the head of the great flight of marble steps in front of Coronation Hall. Before him knelt a shabby little Sotaspeu with his arm in a sling. Ferrian, in stentorian tones, read a proclamation:

“. . . our subject Laiján the carriage-maker has combined the glider wherewith the mainland sportsmen amuse themselves by soaring through the air with the fireworks wherewith we celebrate astrological conjunctions, to create a new and useful device, to wit: a rocket-powered flying-machine with which one can fly like an aqebat whither one wishes. Although the range of the device be yet short, and its control be yet imperfect (as you see from Master Laiján’s broken arm) these difficulties shall be overcome in time.

“Therefore I, Ferrian bad-Arjanaq, Prince of the Realm, do confer up you, Laiján bad-Zagh, Patent Number 37 of the Sotaspeo patent system, together with the rank of knight in recognition of the outstanding quality of the invention.”

He touched the kneeling man with his scepter. “Rise, Sir Laiján.” He hung a medal around the little man’s neck. “And now,” he finished, “let a full holiday be declared, with feasting and fireworks. Henceforth this day shall be known as Liberation Day, for this day the walls of ignorance in which the tyrannical Terrans have long sought to imprison us are overthrown, blasted,
finished!”

A.D. 2117

The Galton Whistle

Adrian Frome regained consciousness to the sound of harsh Dzlieri consonants. When he tried to move, he found he was tied to a tree by creepers, and that the Vishnuvan centaurs were cavorting around him, fingering weapons and gloating.

“I think,” said one, “that if we skinned him carefully and rolled him in salt . . .”

Another said: “Let us rather open his belly and draw forth his guts little by little. Flaying is too uncertain; Earthmen often die before one is half-done.”

Frome saw that his fellow surveyors had indeed gone, leaving nothing but two dead zebras (out of the six they had started out with) and some smashed apparatus. His head ached abominably. Quinlan must have conked him from behind while Hayataka was unconscious, and then packed up and shoved off, taking his wounded chief but leaving Frome.

The Dzlieri yelled at one another until one said: “A pox on your fancy slow deaths! Let us stand off and shoot him, thus ridding ourselves of him and bettering our aim at once. Archers first. What say you?”

The last proposal carried. They spread out as far as the dense vegetation allowed.

The Dzlieri were not literally centaurs in the sense of looking like handsome Greek statues. If you imagine the front half of a gorilla mounted on the body of a tapir you will have a rough idea of their looks. They had large mobile ears, a caricature of a human face covered with red fur, four-fingered hands, and a tufted tail. Still, the fact that they were equipped with two arms and four legs apiece made people who found the native name hard call them centaurs, though the sight of them would have scared Pheidias or Praxiteles out of his wits.

“Ready?” said the archery enthusiast. “Aim low, for his head will make a fine addition to our collection if you spoil it not.”

“Wait,” said another. “I have a better thought. One of their missionaries told me a Terran legend of a man compelled by his chief to shoot a fruit from the head of his son. Let us therefore . . .”

“No! For then you will surely spoil his head!” And the whole mob was yelling again.

Lord, thought Frome, how they talk! He tested his bonds, finding that someone had done a good job of tying him up. Although badly frightened, he pulled himself together and put on a firm front: “I say, what are you chaps up to?”

They paid him no heed until the William Tell party carried the day and one of them, with a trader’s stolen rifle slung over his shoulder, approached with a fruit the size of a small pumpkin.

Frome asked: “Does that gun of yours shoot?”

“Yes,” said the Dzlieri. “I have bullets that fit, too!”

Frome doubted this, but said: “Why not make a real sporting event of it? Each of us put a fruit on our heads and the other try to shoot it off?”

The Dzlieri gave the gargling sound that passed for laughter. “So you can shoot us, eh? How stupid think you we are?”

Frome, thinking it more tactful not to say, persisted with the earnestness of desperation: “Really, you know, it’ll only make trouble if you kill me, whereas if you let me go . . .”

“Trouble we fear not,” roared the fruit-bearer, balancing the fruit on Frome’s head. “Think you we should let go such a fine head? Never have we seen an Earthman with yellow hair on head and face.”

Frome cursed the coloration that he had always been rather proud of hitherto, and tried to compose more arguments. It was hard to think in the midst of this deafening racket.

The pseudo-pumpkin fell off with a thump. The Dzlieri howled, and he who had placed it came back and belted Frome with a full-armed slap across the face. “That will teach you to move your head!” Then he tied it fast with a creeper that went over the fruit and under Frome’s chin.

Three Dzlieri had been told off to lose the first flight.

“Now look here, friends,” said Frome, “you know what the Earthmen can do if they—”

T-twunk!
The bowstrings snapped; the arrows came on with a sharp whistle. Frome heard a couple hit. The pumpkin jerked, and he became aware of a sharp pain in his left ear. Something sticky dripped onto his bare shoulder.

The Dzlieri shouted: “Etsnoten wins the first round!”

“Was that not clever, to nail his ear to the tree?”

“Line up for the next flight!”

“Hoy!” Hooves drummed and more Dzlieri burst into view. “What is this?” asked one in a crested brass helmet.

They explained, all jabbering at once.

“So,” said the helmeted one, whom the others addressed as Mishinatven. (Frome realized that this must be the insurgent chief who had seceded from old Kamatobden’s rule. There had been rumors of war . . .) “The other Earthman knocked him witless, bound him, and left him for us, eh? After slaying our fellows there in the brush?” He pointed to the bodies of the two Dzlieri that had fallen to the machine gun in the earlier skirmish.

Mishinatven then addressed Frome in the Brazilo-Portuguese of the spaceways, but very brokenly: “Who—you? What—name?”

“I speak Dzlieri,” said Frome. “I’m Frome, one of the survey party from Bembom. Your folk attacked us without provocation this morning as we were breaking camp, and wounded our chief.”

“Ah. One of those who bounds and measures our country to take it from us?”

“No such thing at all. We only wish . . .”

“No arguments. I think I will take you to God. Perhaps you can add to our store of the magical knowledge of the Earthmen. For instance, what are these?” Mishinatven indicated the rubbish left by Quinlan.

“That is a thing for talking over distances. I fear it’s broken beyond repair. And that’s a device for telling direction, also broken. That—” (Mishinatven had pointed to the radar target, an aluminum structure something like a kite and something like a street sign) “is—uh—a kind of totem pole we were bringing to set up on Mount Ertma.”

“Why? That is my territory.”

“So that by looking at it from Bembom with our radar—you know what radar is?”

“Certainly; a magic eye for seeing through fog. Go on.”

“So you see, old fellow, by looking at this object with the radar from Bembom we could tell just how far and in what direction Mount Ertma was, and use this information in our maps.”

Mishinatven was silent, then said: “This is too complicated for me. We must consider the deaths of my two subjects against the fact that they were head-hunting, which God has forbidden. Only God can settle this question.” He turned to the others. “Gather up these things and bring them to Amnairad for salvage.” He wrenched out the arrow that had pierced Frome’s ear and cut the Earthman’s bonds with a short hooked sword like an oversized linoleum knife. “Clamber to my back and hold on.”

Although Frome had ridden zebras over rough country (the Viagens Interplanetarias having found a special strain of Grévy’s zebra, the big one with narrow stripes on the rump, best for travel on Vishnu where mechanical transport was impractical), he had never experienced anything like this wild bareback ride. At least he was still alive, and hoped to learn who “God” was. Although Mishinatven had used the term
gimoa-brtsqun,
“supreme spirit,” the religion of the Dzlieri was demonology and magic of a low order, without even a centaur-shaped creator god to head its pantheon. Or, he thought uneasily, by “taking him to God,” did they simply mean putting him to death in some formal and complicated manner?

Well, even if the survey was washed up for the time being, perhaps he could learn something about the missing missionary and the trader. He had come out with Hayataka, the chief surveyor, and Pete Quinlan, a new man with little background and less manners. He and Quinlan had gotten on each other’s nerves, though Frome had tried to keep things smooth. Hayataka, despite his technical skill and experience, was too mild and patient a little man to keep such an unruly subordinate as Quinlan in line.

First the Dzlieri guide had run off and Quinlan had begun making homesick noises. Hayataka and Frome, however, had agreed to try for Mount Ertma by travelling on a magnetic bearing, though cross-country travel on this steaming soup kettle of a planet with its dense jungle and almost constant rain was far from pleasant.

They had heard of the vanished Earthfolk yesterday when Quinlan had raised Comandante Silva himself on the radio: “. . . and when you get into the Dzlieri country, look for traces of Sirat Mongkut and Elena Millán. Sirat Mongkut is an entrepreneur dealing mainly in scrap metals with the Dzlieri and has not been heard of for a Vishnuvan year. Elena Millán is a Cosmotheist missionary who has not been heard of in six weeks. If they’re in trouble, try to help them and get word to us . . .”

After signing off, Quinlan had said: “Ain’t that a hell of a thing, now? As if the climate and bugs and natives wasn’t enough, it’s hunting a couple of fools we are. What was that first name? It don’t sound like any Earthly name I ever heard.”

Hayataka answered: “Sirat Mongkut. He’s a Thai—what you would call a Siamese.”

Quinlan laughed loudly. “You mean a pair of twins joined together?”

Then this morning a party of Dzlieri, following the forbidden old custom of hunting heads, had rushed the camp. They had sent a javelin through both Hayataka’s calves and mortally wounded the two zebras before Frome had knocked over two and scattered the rest with the light machine gun.

Quinlan, however, had panicked and run. Frome, trying to be fair-minded, couldn’t blame the lad too much; he’d panicked on his first trail trip himself. But when Quinlan had slunk back, Frome, furious, had promised him a damning entry in his fitness report. Then they had bound Hayataka’s wounds and let the chief surveyor put himself out with a trance pill while they got ready to retreat to Bembom.

Quinlan must have brooded over his blighted career, slugged Frome, and left him for the Dzlieri, while he hauled his unconscious supervisor back to Bembom.

###

After a couple of hours of cross-country gallop, the party taking Frome to Amnairad began to use roads. Presently they passed patches of clearings where the Dzlieri raised the pushball-sized lettucelike plants they ate. Then they entered a “town,” which to human eyes looked more like a series of corrals with stables attached. This was Amnairad. Beyond loomed Mount Ertma, its top hidden in the clouds. Frome was surprised to see a half-dozen zebras in one of the enclosures; that meant men.

At the center of this area they approached a group of “buildings”—enclosed structures made of poles with sheets of matting stretched between them. Up to the biggest structure the cavalcade cantered. At the entrance a pair of Dzlieri, imposing in helmets, spears, and shields, blocked the way.

“Tell God we have something for him,” said Mishinatven.

One of the guards went into the structure and presently came out again. “Go on in.” he said, “Only you and your two officers, Mishinatven. And the Earthman.”

As they trotted through the maze of passages, Frome heard the rain on the matting overhead. He noted that the appointments of this odd place seemed more civilized than one would expect of Dzlieri, who, though clever in some ways, seemed too impulsive and quarrelsome to benefit from civilizing influences. They arrived in a room hung with drapes, of native textiles and decorated with groups of crossed Dzlieri weapons: bows, spears and the like.

“Get off,” said Mishinatven. “God, this in an Earthman named Frome we found in the woods. Frome, this is God.”

Frome watched Mishinatven to see whether to prostrate himself on the pounded clay floor or what. But as the Dzlieri took the sight of his deity quite casually, Frome turned to the short, burly man with the flat Mongoloid face, wearing a pistol and sitting in an old leather armchair of plainly human make.

Frome nodded, saying: “Delighted to meet you, God, old thing. Did your name used to be—uh—Sirat Mongkut before your deification?”

The man smiled faintly, nodded, and turned his attention to the three Dzlieri, who were all trying to tell the story of finding Frome and shouting each other down.

Sirat Mongkut straightened up and drew from his pocket a small object hung round his neck by a cord: a brass tube about the size and shape of a cigarette. He placed one end of this in his mouth and blew into it, his yellow face turning pink with effort. Although Frome heard no sound, the Dzlieri instantly fell silent. Sirat put the thing back in his pocket, the cord still showing, and said in Portuguese: “Tell us how you got into that peculiar predicament, Senhor Frome.”

Unable to think of any lie that would serve better than simple truth, Frome told Sirat of his quarrel with Quinlan and its sequel.

“Dear, dear,” said Sirat. “One would almost think you two were a pair of my Dzlieri. I am aware, however, that such antipathies arise among Earthmen, especially when a few of them are confined to enforced propinquity for a considerable period. What would your procedure be if I released you?”

“Try to beat my way back to Bembom, I suppose. If you could lend me a Grévy and some rations . . .”

Sirat shook his head, still smiling like a Cheshire cat. “I fear that is not within the borne of practicability. But why are you in such a hurry to get back? After the disagreement of which you apprised me, your welcome will hardly be fraternal; your colleague will have reported his narrative in a manner to place you in the worst possible light.”

“Well, what then?” said Frome, thinking that the entrepreneur must have swallowed a dictionary in his youth. He guessed that Sirat was determined not to let him go, but on the contrary might want to use him. While Frome had no intention of becoming a renegade, it wouldn’t hurt to string him along until he learned what was up.

Sirat asked: “Are you a college-trained engineer?”

Frome nodded. “University of London; Civil Engineering.”

“Can you run a machine shop?”

“I’m not an expert machinist, but I know the elements. Are you hiring me?”

Sirat smiled. “I perceive you usually anticipate me by a couple of steps. That is, roughly, the idea I had in mind. My Dzlieri are sufficiently clever metal workers but lack the faculty of application; moreover I find it difficult to elucidate the more complicated operations to organisms from the pre-machine era. And finally, Senhor, you arrive at an inopportune time, when I have projects under way news of which I do not desire to have broadcast. Do you comprehend?”