Jack Vance - Planet of Adventure

Reith rubbed his forehead. "I can't go just yet. I've got to think."

"What is there to think about? If the Gzhindra have taken her, she is gone."

"I realize that."

"In such a case, you can do nothing."

Reith looked toward the palisades. "She will be taken back underground. They will swing her out over a dark gulf and after a time drop her."

Anacho hunched his shoulders in a shrug. "You cannot alter this regrettable fact so put it out of your mind. Traz awaits us with the spaceship."

"But I can do something," said Reith. "I can go after her."

"Into the underground places? Insanity! You will never return!"

"I returned before."

"By a freak of fate."

Reith rose to his feet.

Anacho went on desperately: "You will never return. What of Traz? He will wait for you forever. I can't tell him you have sacrificed everything because I do not know where he is."

"I don't intend to sacrifice everything," said Reith. "I intend to return."

"Indeed!" declared Anacho with a sneer of vast scorn. "This time the Pnume will make sure. You will swing out over the gulf beside the girl."

"No," said Reith. "They will not swing me. They want me for Foreverness."

Anacho threw up his arms in bafflement. "I will never understand you, the most obstinate of men! Go underground! Ignore your faithful friends! Do your worst!

When do you go below? Now?"

"Tomorrow," said Reith.

"Tomorrow? Why delay? Why deprive the Pnume of your society a single instant?"

"Because this afternoon I have preparations to make. Come along: let's go into town."

AT DAWN REITH went to stand at the edge of the salt flats. Here, months before, he and his friends had detected Aila Woudiver's signals to the Gzhindra. Reith also held a mirror; as Carina 4269 lifted into the sky, he swept the reflection back and forth across the salt flats.

An hour passed. Reith methodically flashed the mirror, apparently to no avail.

Then from nowhere, or so it seemed, came a pair of dark figures. They stood half a mile away, looking toward Reith. He flashed the mirror. Step by step they approached, as if fascinated. Reith went to meet them. Gradually the three came together, and at last stood fifty feet apart.

A minute passed. The three appraised each other. The faces of the Gzhindra were shaded under low-crowned black hats; both were pale and somewhat vulpine, with long thin noses and bright black eyes. Presently they came closer. In a quiet voice one spoke: "You are Adam Reith."

"I am Adam Reith."

"Why did you signal us?"

"Yesterday you came to take my companion."

The Gzhindra made no remark.

"This is true, is it not?" Reith demanded.

"It is true."

"Why did you do this?"

"We hold such a commission."

"What did you do with her?"

"We delivered her to such a place as we were bid."

"Where is this place?"

"Yonder."

"You have a commission to take me?"

"Yes."

"Very well; " said Reith. "You go first. I will follow."

The Gzhindra consulted in whispers. One said: "This is not feasible. We do not care to walk with others coming at our backs."

"For once you can tolerate the sensation," said Reith. "After all, you will thereby be fulfilling your commission."

"True, if all goes well. But what if you elect to burn us with a weapon?"

"I would have done so before," said Reith. "At the moment I only want to find my companion and bring her back to the surface."

The Gzhindra surveyed him with impersonal curiosity. "Why will you not walk first?"

"I don't know where to go."

"We will direct you."

Reith spoke so harshly that his voice cracked. "Go first. This is easier than carrying me in a sack."

The Gzhindra whispered to each other, moving the corners of their thin mouths without taking their eyes off Reith. Then they turned and walked slowly off across the salt flats.

Reith came after, remaining about fifty feet to the rear. They followed the faintest of trails, which at times disappeared utterly. A mile, two miles, they walked. The warehouse and the office diminished to small rectangular marks; Sivishe was a blurred gray crumble at the northern horizon.

The Gzhindra halted and turned to Reith, who thought to detect a fugitive flicker of glee. "Come closer," said one of the Gzhindra. "You must stand here with us."

Reith gingerly came forward. He brought out the energy gun which he had only just purchased, and displayed it. "This is precautionary. I do not wish to be killed, or drugged. I want to go alive down into the Shelters."

"No fear there, no fear there!" "Have no doubts on that score!" said the Gzhindra, speaking together. "Put away your gun; it is without significance."

Reith held the gun in his hand as he approached the Gzhindra.

"Closer, closer!" they urged. "Stand within the outline of the black soil."

Reith stepped on the patch of soil designated, which at once settled into the ground. The Gzhindra stood quietly, so close now that Reith could see the minute creases in the skin of their faces. If they felt alarm for his weapon they showed none.

The camouflaged elevator descended fifteen feet; the Gzhindra stepped off into a concrete-walled passage. Looking over their shoulders they beckoned. "Hurry."

They set off at a swinging trot, cloaks flapping from side to side. Reith came behind. The passage slanted downward; running was without sensible effort. The passage became level, then suddenly ended at a brink; beyond stretched a waterway. The Gzhindra motioned Reith down into a boat and themselves took seats. The boat slid along the surface, guided automatically along the center of the channel.

For half an hour they traveled, Reith looking dourly ahead, the Gzhindra sitting stiff and silent as carved black images.

The channel entered a larger waterway; the boat drifted up to a dock. Reith stepped ashore; the Gzhindra came behind, and Reith ignored the near-transparent glee with as much dignity as he could muster. They signaled him to wait; presently from the shadows a Pnumekin appeared. The Gzhindra muttered a few words into the air, which the Pnumekin seemed to ignore, then they stepped back into their boat and slid away, with pale backward glances. Reith stood alone on the dock with the Pnumekin, who now said: "Come, Adam Reith. We have been awaiting you."

Reith said, "The young woman who was brought down yesterday: where is she?"

"Come."

"Where?"

"The zuzhma kastchai wait for you."

A sensation like a draft of cold air prickled the skin of Reith's back. Into his mind crept furtive little misgivings, which he tried to put aside. He had taken all precautions available to him; their effectiveness was yet to be tested.

The Pnumekin beckoned. "Come."

Reith followed, resentful and shamed. They went down a zigzag corridor walled with panes of polished black flint, accompanied by reflections and moving shadows. Reith began to feel dazed. The corridor widened into a hall of black mirrors; Reith now moved in a state of bewilderment. He followed the Pnumekin to a central column, where they slid back a portal. "You must go onward alone, to Foreverness."

Reith looked through the portal, into a small cell lined with a substance like silver fleece. "What is this?"

"You must enter."

"Where is the young woman who was brought here yesterday?"

"Enter through the portal."

Reith spoke in anger and apprehension: "I want to talk to the Pnume. It is important that I do so."

"Step into the cell. When the portal opens, follow, follow the trace, to Foreverness."

In a state of sick fury Reith glared at the Pnumekin. The pale face looked back with fish-like detachment. Demands, threats, rose up in Reith's throat only to dwindle and die. Delay, any loss of time, might result in terrible consequences, the thought of which caused his stomach to jerk and quiver. He stalked into the cell.