Jack Vance: The Asutra

"Near the settlement Shillinsk, on the Keba River. " "I will check my references tonight. Tomorrow we will depart. There is no room for delay."

Etzwane became silent. The reality of the situation now faced him; he felt a mood of awe and presentiment. In a thoughtful voice he said,"I will be ready."

Late in the evening Etzwane once more called upon Aun Sharah, who showed no surprise to learn of Etzwane's plans. "I can supply another trifle-no, two trifles-of information. The first is negative, in that we have spoken to mariners from other shores of Caraz. None mention Roguskhoi. The second item is a rather vague report of spaceships, which might or might not have been sighted in the Orgai region, west of the Kuzi Kaza. The report goes no further than this. I wish you good luck and will anxiously await your return. I understand your motives but I doubt if they would persuade me to venture into central Caraz."

Etzwane gave a hollow chuckle. "I have nothing better to do at the moment."

, Etzwane arrived early at Fontenay's Inn. He wore a suit of gray hard-cloth, a jacket of water-repellent bast against the mists and rains of Caraz, ankle boots of chumpa [6]leather. In his pouch he carried the energy gun Ifness had given him long ago.

Ifness was nowhere upon the premises. Once again Etzwane walked fretfully up and down the avenue. An hour passed; then a diligence drew up beside him. The driver signaled. "You are Gastel Etzwane? Please come with me."

Etzwane scrutinized the man with suspicion. "Where?"

To a place north of the city; such are my instructions."

"Who instructed you?"

"A certain Ifness."

Etzwane entered the diligence. They drove north beside the Jardeen estuary, which presently spread wide to become the Sualle. The city fell behind; they followed a waterfront road through a dreary wasteland of rubble, nettles, sheds and warehouses, and a few dilapidated cabins. At an ancient house built of slag bricks the diligence halted. The driver made a sign; Etzwane alighted. The diligence drove back the way it had come.

Etzwane knocked on the door of the house, evoking no response. He went around to the back, where at the foot of a rocky slope a boathouse extended over the water. Etzwane followed a path down the slope and looked into the boathouse, to find Ifness loading parcels into a sail boat.

Etzwane stood wondering if Ifness had lost his faculties. To sail such a boat across the Green Ocean, around the north coast of Caraz to Erbol, thence up the Keba River to Burnoun was, to say the least, impractical, if for no other reason than the length of the journey.

Ifness seemed to read his mind. In a dry voice he said, "By the very nature of our research, we cannot fly grandly about Caraz in an air-yacht. Are you ready to depart? If so, step into the boat."

"I am ready. " Etzwane took himself aboard the boat. Ifness cast off the mooring lines and pushed the boat out upon the face of the Sualle. "Be so good as to raise the sail."

Etzwane heaved upon the halyard; the sail billowed; the boat moved out upon the water. Etzwane seated himself gingerly upon a thwart and considered the receding shore. He glanced into the cabin at the parcels Ifness had brought aboard and wondered what they contained. Food and drink? Enough for three days, at the most a week. Etzwane shrugged and looked out over the Sualle. Suns' light glinted from ten million cat's-paws in thirty million pink, blue, and white sparks. Astern rose the wonderful glass shapes of Garwiy, colors muted by distance. He might never see the glass towers of Garwiy again.

For an hour the boat sailed out upon the Sualle until the shores were indistinct and no other boats could be seen. Ifness said curtly, "You may lower the sail and then unship the mast."

Etzwane obeyed. Ifness meanwhile brought forth sections of transparent stuff, which he fitted into a windscreen around the cockpit. Etzwane watched silently. Ifness made a last survey around the horizon, then raised the cover from a cuddy at the stern. Etzwane noticed a black panel, a set of white, red, and blue knobs. Ifness made an adjustment. The boat lifted into the air, dripping water, then slanted into the sky. Ifness touched the knobs; the boat curved west, to fly high over the mud flats of Fenesq. Ifness said in a casual voice, "A boat is the least conspicuous vehicle in which to travel; it arouses attention nowhere, not even in Caraz."

"An ingenious artifice," said Etzwane.

Ifness nodded indifferently. "I lack accurate charts and we must navigate by rule of thumb. Shant maps are only guesses. We will follow the Caraz coast to the mouth of the Keba River, something over two thousand miles, so I should reckon. We can then follow the Keba south without risk of losing our way."

Etzwane recalled the great map in the Jurisdictionary. In the general area of Shillinsk he had noticed several rivers; the Panjorek, the Blue Zura, the Black Zura, the Usak, the Bobol. To attempt an overland short cut was to risk coming down upon the wrong river. He turned his attention down upon the flatlands of Canton Fenesq, tracing the canals and waterways which radiated from the four Fen towns. The cantonal border appeared in the distance: a line of black alyp-tus trees; beyond the bogs and moors of Canton Gitanesq extended into purple murk.

Ifness, crouching in the cabin, brewed a pot of tea. Sitting up under the forward screen, with wind hissing overhead, the two drank tea and ate nut cakes from one of the parcels Ifness had brought aboard. Etzwane thought that Ifness seemed relaxed and almost genial. To attempt a conversation was to risk rebuff, but now Ifness himself vouchsafed a remark. "Well, we are off in good style and without interference from any source."

"Did you expect any?"

"Not seriously. I doubt if the asutra maintain agents in Shant; the area can be of little real interest to them. Dasconetta might have placed an information with the Institute monitors, but I believe we were too quick for them."

Tour relationship with Dasconetta seems awkward indeed."

Ifness gave a nod of acquiescence. "In an organization such as the Institute, a Fellow achieves status by demonstrating judgment superior to that of his colleagues, particularly those who are reckoned astute. I have outmaneuvered Dasconetta so decisively that I begin to be worried: what is he up to? How can he thwart me without endorsing my viewpoint? It is a dangerous and complicated business."

Etzwane frowned sidewise at Ifness, whose motivations and attitudes, as usual, he found incomprehensible. "Dasconetta concerns me less than our work in Caraz, which perhaps is not so complicated but equally dangerous. Dasconetta, after all, is neither a ritual murderer nor a cannibal."

"Such acts have not been proved against him, certainly," said Ifness with a faint smile. "Well well, perhaps you are right. I must turn my attention to Caraz. According to Kreposkin [7]the region of the middle Keba is relatively placid, especially north of the Urt Unna foothills. Shillinsk would seem to lie within this area. He mentions river pirates and a local tribe, the Sorukh. On the river islands live the degenerate Gorioni, whom even the slavers ignore. ".

Below rose the Hurra Hills, and where the Cliffs of Day hurled back the swells of the Green Ocean, Shant came to an end. For an hour they flew over blank, empty water, then at the horizon appeared a vague dark mark: Caraz. Etzwane stirred himself. Ifness sat with his back to the wind, cogitating over his notebook. Etzwane asked, "How do you propose to conduct the investigation?"

Ifness closed his notebook, looked over the side and around the sky before replying. "I have no specific plans. We are setting out to solve a mystery. First we must gather facts, then draw our conclusions. At the moment we know very little. The Roguskhoi seem to have been artificially developed as an antihuman weapon. The asutra who control them are a parasitical race, or, more sympathetically, might be said to live in symbiosis with their hosts. The Roguskhoi failed in Shant. Why do we find them in Caraz? To conquer territory? To guard a colony? Develop a resource? At the moment we can only wonder."