Jack Vance - The Houses of Iszm

“He’s coming around, sir.”

“Bring him up here.”

Aile Farr awoke in a pod with dust-yellow walls, a dark brown ceiling vaulted with slender ribs. He raised his head and blinked around the pod. He saw square, dark, heavy furniture: chairs, a settee, a table scattered with papers, a model house or two, and an antique Spanish buffet.

A wispy man with a large head and earnest eyes bent over him. He wore a white cloth jacket, he smelled of antiseptic: a doctor.

Behind the doctor stood Penche. He was a large man but not as large as Farr had pictured him. He crossed the room slowly and looked down at Farr.

Something stirred in Farr’s brain. Air rose in his throat, his vocal chords vibrated; his mouth, tongue, teeth, palate shaped words. Farr heard them in amazement.

“I have the tree.”

Penche nodded. “Where?”

Farr looked at him stupidly.

Penche asked, “How did you get the tree off Iszm?”

“I don’t know,” said Farr. He rose up on his elbow, rubbed his chin, blinked. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t have any tree.”

Penche frowned. “Either you have it or you don’t.”

“I don’t have any tree.” Farr struggled to sit up. The doctor put an arm under his shoulders and helped him up. Farr felt very weak. “What am I doing here? Somebody poisoned me. A girl. A blonde girl in the tavern.” He looked at Penche with growing anger. “She was working for you.”

Penche nodded. “That’s true.”

Farr rubbed his face. “How did you find me?”

“You called the Imperador on the stereo. I had a man in the exchange waiting for the call.”

“Well,” said Farr wearily. “It’s all a mistake. How or why or what—I don’t know. Except that I’m taking a beating. And I don’t like it.”

Penche looked at the doctor. “How is he?”

“He’s all right now. He’ll get his strength back pretty soon.”

“Good. You can go.”

The doctor left the pod. Penche signaled a chair up behind him and sat down. “Anna worked too hard,” said Penche. “She never should have used her sticker.” He hitched his chair closer. “Tell me about yourself.”

“First,” said Farr, “where am I?”

“You’re in my house. I’ve been looking for you.”

“Why?”

Penche rocked his head back and forth, a sign of inward amusement. “You were asked to deliver a tree to me. Or a seed. Or a seedling. Whatever it is, I want it.”

Farr spoke in a level voice. “I don’t have it. I don’t know anything about it. I was on Tjiere atoll during the raid—that’s the closest I came to your tree.”

Penche asked in a quiet voice that seemed to hold no suspicion, “You called me when you arrived in town. Why?”

Farr shook his head. “I don’t know. It was something I had to do. I did it. I told you just now I had a tree. I don’t know why…”

Penche nodded. “I believe you. We’ve got to find out where this tree is. It may take a while, but—”

“I don’t have your tree. I’m not interested.” He rose to his feet. He looked around and started for the door. “Now—I’m going home.”

Penche looked after him in quiet amusement. “The doors are cinched, Farr.”

Farr paused, looking at the hard rosette of the door. Cinched—twisted shut. The relax-nerve would be somewhere in the wall. He pressed at the dusty yellow surface, almost like parchment.

“Not that way,” said Penche. “Come back here, Farr…”

The door unwrapped itself. Omon Bozhd stood in the gap. He wore a skin-tight garment striped blue and white, a white cloche flaring rakishly back on itself, up over his ears. His face was austere, placid, full of the strength that was human but not Earth-human.

He came into the room. Behind came two more Iszic, these in yellow and green stripes: Szecr. Farr backed away to let them enter.

“Hello,” said Penche. “I thought I had the door cinched. You fellows probably know all the tricks.”

Omon Bozhd nodded politely to Farr. “We lost you for a certain period today; I am glad to see you.” He looked at Penche, then back at Farr. “Your destination seems to have been K. Penche’s house.”

“That’s the way it looks,” said Farr.

Omon Bozhd explained politely. “When you were in the cell on Tjiere, we anesthetized you with a hypnotic gas. The Thord heard it. His race holds their breath for six minutes. When you became dazed he leaped on you, to effect a mind transfer and fixed his will on yours. A suggestion, a compulsion.” He looked at Penche. “To the last moment he served his master well.”

Penche said nothing; Omon Bozhd returned to Farr. “He buried the instructions deep in your brain; then he gave you the trees he had stolen; Six minutes had elapsed. He took a breath and became unconscious. Later we took you to him, hoping this would dislodge the injunction. We met failure; the Thord astounded us with his psychic capabilities.”

Farr looked at Penche, who was leaning negligently against the table. There was tension here, like a trick jack-in-the-box ready to explode at the slightest shock.

Omon Bozhd dismissed Farr from his attention. Farr had served his purpose. “I came to Earth,” he told Penche, “on two missions. I must inform you that your consignment of Class AA houses cannot be delivered, because of the raid on Tjiere atoll.”

“Well, well,” said Penche mildly. “Not so good.”

“My second mission is to find the man Aile Farr brings his message to.”

Penche spoke in an interested voice. “You probed Farr’s mind? Why weren’t you able to find out then?”

Iszic courtesy was automatic, a reflex. Omon Bozhd bowed his head. “The Thord ordered Farr to forget, to remember only when his foot touched the soil of Earth. He had enormous power; Farr Sainh has a brain of considerable tenacity. We could only follow him. His destination is here, the house of K. Penche. I am able therefore to fulfill my second mission.”

Penche said, “Well? Spit it out!”

Omon Bozhd bowed. His own voice was calm and formal. “My original message to you is voided, Penche Sainh. You are receiving no more Class AA houses. You are receiving none at all. If ever you set foot on Iszm or in Iszic suzerainty, you will be punished for your crime against us.”

Penche nodded his head, his sign of inner sardonic mirth. “You discharge me, then. I’m no longer your agent.”

“Correct.”

Penche turned to Farr and spoke in a startling sharp voice. “The trees—where are they?”

Involuntarily Farr put his hand to the sore spot on his scalp.

Penche said, “Come over here, Farr, sit down. Let me take a look.”

Farr growled, “Keep away from me I’m not cat’s-paw for anybody.”

Omon Bozhd said, “The Thord anchored six seeds under the skin of Farr Sainh’s scalp. It was an ingenious hiding place. The seeds are small. We searched for thirty minutes before we found them.”

Farr pressed his scalp with distaste.

Penche said in his hoarse harsh voice, “Sit down, Farr. Let’s find out where we stand.”

Farr backed against the wall. “I know where I stand. It’s not with you.”

Penche laughed. “You’re not throwing in with the Iszic?”

“I’m throwing in with nobody. If I’ve got seeds in my head, it’s nobody’s business but my own!”

Penche took a step forward, his face a little ugly.

Omon Bozhd said, “The seeds were removed, Penche Sainh. The bumps which Farr Sainh perhaps can feel are pellets of tantalum.”

Farr fingered his scalp. Indeed—there they were: hard lumps he had thought part of the scab. One, two, three, four, five, six… His hand wandered through his hair and stopped. Involuntarily he looked at Penche, at the Iszic. They did not seem to be watching him. He pressed the small object he found in his hair. It felt like a small bladder, a sac, the size of a grain of wheat, and it was connected to his scalp by a fiber. Anna, the blonde girl, had seen a long gray hair…