"The responsibility for his absence is yours," said Reith."No one goes through life without making mistakes," Woudiver admitted. "This was one of mine. But I know just the man. He will come high, I warn you."

"Money is no object," said Reith. "We want the best. Secondly, I want you to summon the technicians back to work. All by telephone, of course."

"No difficulties whatever," declared Woudiver heartily. "The work will proceed with dispatch."

"You must arrange immediate delivery of the materials and supplies yet needed. And you must pay all costs and salaries incurred henceforth."

"What?" roared Woudiver.

"Further," said Reith, "you will remain tied between those posts. For your sustenance you must pay a thousand-or better, two thousand sequins each day."

"What!" cried Woudiver. "Do you think to cheat and bewilder poor Woudiver?"

"Do you agree to the conditions?" Reith asked. "If not I will ask Anacho and Traz to kill you, and both of them bear you grudges."

Woudiver drew himself to his full height. "I agree," he said in a stately voice. "And now, since it seems that I must sponsor your hallucinations and suffer the backbreaking expense in the bargain, let us instantly get to work. The moment I see you vanish into s.p.a.ce will be a happy one, I a.s.sure you! Now then, release these chains so that I may go to the telephone."

"Stay where you are," said Reith. "We will bring the telephone to you.

And now, where is your money!"

"You can't be serious," Woudiver exclaimed.

THE PHUME.

CHAPTER ONE.

IN THE WAREHOUSE at the edge of the Sivishe salt flats, Aila Woudiver sat perched on a stool. A chain connected the iron collar around his neck to a high cable; he could walk from his table to the closet against the wall where he slept, the chain sliding behind him.

Aila Woudiver was a prisoner on his own premises, insult added to injury, which by all accounts should have provoked him to spasms of tooth- chattering fury. But he sat placidly on the stool, great b.u.t.tocks sagging to either side like saddlebags, wearing an absurd smile of saintly forbearance.

Beside the s.p.a.ceship which occupied the greater part of the warehouse Adam Reith stood watching. Woudiver's abnegation was more unsettling than rage. Reith hoped that whatever schemes Woudiver was hatching would not mature too quickly. The s.p.a.ceship was nearly operative; in a week, more or less, Reith hoped to depart old Tschai.

Woudiver occupied himself with tat-work, now and then holding it up to admire the pattern-the very essence of patient affability. Traz, coming into the warehouse, scowled toward Woudiver and a.s.serted the philosophy of the Emblem nomads, his forebears: "Kill him this moment; kill him and have an end!"

Reith gave an equivocal grunt. "He's chained by the neck; he does us no harm."

"He'll find a means. Have you forgotten his tricks?"

"I can't kill him in cold blood."

Traz gave a croak of disgust and stamped from the warehouse. Anacho the Dirdirman declared, "For once I agree with the young steppe-runner: kill the great beast!"

Woudiver, divining the substance of the conversation, displayed his gentle smile. He had lost weight, so Reith noticed. The once-bloated cheeks hung in wattles; the great upper lip drooped like a beak over the pointed little chin.

"See him smirk!" hissed Anacho. "If he could he'd boil us in nerve-fire!

Kill him now!"

Reith made another sound of moderation. "In a week we'll be gone.

What can he do, chained and helpless?"

"He is Woudiver!"

"Even so, we can't slaughter him like an animal."

Anacho threw up his hands and followed Traz outside the warehouse.

Reith went into the ship and for a few minutes watched the technicians.

They worked at the exquisitely delicate job of balancing the power pumps.Reith could offer no a.s.sistance. Dirdir technology, like the Dirdir psyche, was beyond his comprehension. Both derived from intuitive certainties, or so he suspected; there was little evidence of purposeful rationality in any aspect of Dirdir existence.

Long shafts of brown light slanted through the high windows; the time was almost sunset. Woudiver thoughtfully put aside his fancy-work. He gave Reith a companionable nod and went off to his little room against the wall, the chain dragging behind him in a rattling halfcatenary.

The technicians emerged from the ship as did Fio Haro the master mechanic. All went off to their supper. Reith touched the unlovely hull, pressing his hands against the steel, as if he could not credit its reality. A week-then s.p.a.ce and return to Earth! The prospect seemed a dream; Earth had become the world remote and bizarre.

Reith went to the larder for a chunk of black sausage, which he took to the doorway. Carina 4269, low in the sky, bathed the salt flats in ale colored light, projecting long shadows behind every tussock.

The two black figures which of late had appeared at sunset were nowhere to be seen.

The view held a certain mournful beauty. To the north the city of Sivishe was a crumble of old masonry tinted tawny by the slanting sunlight. West across Ajzan Sound stood the spires of the Dirdir city Hei and, looming above all, the Gla.s.s Box.

Reith went to join Traz and Anacho. They sat on a bench tossing pebbles into a puddle: Traz, blunted-featured, taciturn, solid of bone and muscle, Anacho, thin as an eel, six inches taller than Reith, pallid of skin, long and keen of feature, as loquacious as Traz was terse. Traz disapproved of Anacho's airs; Anacho considered Traz cra.s.s and undiscriminating.

Occasionally, however, they agreed-as now, on the need to destroy Aila Woudiver. Reith, for his own part, felt more concern for the Dirdir. From their spires they could almost look through the portals of the warehouse at the work within. The Dirdir inactivity seemed as unnatural as Aila Woudiver's smile, and to Reith implied a dreadful stealth.

"Why don't they do something?" Reith complained, gnawing at the black sausage. "They must know we're here."

"Impossible to predict Dirdir conduct," Anacho replied. "They have lost interest in you. What are men to them but vermin? They prefer to chivy the Pnume from their burrows. You are no longer the subject of tsaugsh: this is my supposition."

Reith was not wholly rea.s.sured. "What of the Phung or Pnume, whatever they are, that come to watch us? They aren't there for their health." He referred to the two black shapes which had been appearing of late on the salt flats. Always they came to stand against the sunset, gaunt figures wearing black cloaks and wide-brimmed black hats."Phung go alone; they are not Phung," said Traz. "Pnume never appear by daylight."

"And never so close to Hei, for fear of the Dirdir," Anacho said. "So, then-they are Pnumekin, or more likely Gzhindra."

On the occasion of their first appearance the creatures stood gazing toward the warehouse until Carina 4269 fell behind the palisades; then they vanished into the gloom. Their interest seemed more than casual; Reith was disturbed by the surveillance but could conceive of no remedy for it.

The next day was blurred by mist and drizzle; the salt flats remained vacant. On the day following, the sun shone once more, and at sundown the dark shapes came to stare toward the shed, again afflicting Reith with disquietude. Surveillance portended unpleasant events: this on Tschai was an axiom of existence.

Carina 4269 hung low. "If they're coming," said Anacho, "now is the time."

Reith searched the salt flats through his scanscope.* "There's nothing out there but tussocks and swamp-bush. Not even a lizard."

Traz pointed over his shoulder. "There they are."

"Hmrnf," said Reith. "I just looked there!" He raised the magnification of the scanscope until the jump of his pulse caused the figures to jerk and bounce. The faces, back-lit, could not be distinguished. "They have hands,"

said Reith. "They are Pnumekin."

Anacho took the instrument. After a moment he said: "They are Gzhindra: Pnumekin expelled from the tunnels. To trade with the Pnume you must deal through the Gzhindra; the Pnume will never d.i.c.ker for themselves."

"Why should they come here? We want no dealings with the Pnume."

"But they want dealings with us, or so it seems."

"Perhaps they're waiting for Woudiver to appear," Traz suggested.

"At sunset and sunset alone?"

To Traz came a sudden thought. He moved away from the warehouse and somewhat past Woudiver's old office, an eccentric little shack of broken brick and flints, and looked back toward the warehouse. He walked a hundred yards further, out upon the salt flats, and again looked back. He gestured to Reith and Anacho, who went out to join him. "Observe the warehouse," said Traz. "You'll now see who deals with the Gzhindra."

From the black timber wall a glint of golden light jumped and flickered.

"Behind that light," said Traz, "is Aila Woudiver's room."

"The fat yellow shulk is signaling!" declared Anacho in a fervent whisper.

Reith drew a deep breath and controlled his fury: foolish to expect anything else from Woudiver, who lived with intrigue as a fish lives with water. In a measured voice he spoke to Anacho: "Can you read the signals?""Yes; ordinary stop-and-go code. '... Suitable ... compensation ... for ...

services ... time ... is ... now ... at ... hand..."

The flickering light vanished. "That's all."

"He's seen us through the crack," Reith muttered.

"Or he has no more light," said Traz, for Carina 4269 had dropped behind the palisades. Looking across the salt flats, Reith found that the Gzhindra had gone as mysteriously as they had come.

"We had better go talk to Woudiver," said Reith.

"He'll tell anything but the truth," said Anacho.

"I expect as much," said Reith. "We may be informed by what he doesn't tell us."

They went into the shed. Woudiver, once again busy with his tat-work, showed the three his affable smile. "It must be close to suppertime."

"Not for you," said Reith.

"What?" exclaimed Woudiver. "No food? Come now; let us not carry our little joke too far."

"Why do you signal the Gzhindra?"

Beyond a lifting of the hairless eyebrows, Woudiver evinced neither surprise nor guilt. "A business affair. I occasionally deal with the under- folk."

"What sort of dealings?"

"This and that, one thing and another. Tonight I apologized for failing to meet certain commitments. Do you begrudge me my good reputation?"

"What commitments did you fail to meet?"

"Come now," chided Woudiver. "You must allow my few little secrets."

"I allow you nothing," said Reith. "I'm well aware that you plot mischief."

"Bah! What a canard! How should I plot anything trussed up by a chain?

I a.s.sure you that I do not regard my present condition as dignified."

"If anything goes wrong," said Reith, "you'll be hoisted six feet off the ground by the same chain. You'll have no dignity whatever."

Woudiver made a gesture of waggish distaste and looked off across the room. "Excellent progress seems to have been made."

"No thanks to you."

"Ah! You minimize my aid! Who provided the hull, at great pains and small profit? Who arranged and organized, who supplied invaluable ac.u.men?"

"The same man that took all our money and betrayed us into the Gla.s.s Box," said Reith. He went to sit across the room. Traz and Anacho joined him. The three watched Woudiver, now sulking in the absence of his supper.

"We should kill him," Traz said flatly. "He plans evil for all of us.""I don't doubt that," said Reith, "but why should he deal with the Pnume? The Dirdir would seem the parties most concerned. They know I'm an Earthman; they may or may not be aware of the s.p.a.ceship."

"If they know they don't care," said Anacho. "They have no interest in other folk. The Pnume: another matter. They would know everything, and they are most curious regarding the Dirdir. The Dirdir in turn discover the Pnume tunnels and flood them with gas."

Woudiver called out: "You have forgotten my supper."

"I've forgotten nothing," said Reith.

"Well, then, bring forth my food. Tonight I wish a whiteroot salad, a stew of lentils, gargan-flesh and slue, a plate of good black cheese, and my usual wine."

Traz gave a bark of scornful laughter. Reith inquired, "Why should we coddle your gut when you plot against us? Order your meals from the Gzhindra."

Woudiver's face sagged; he beat his hands upon his knees. "So now they torture poor Aila Woudiver, who was only constant to his faith! What a miserable destiny to live and suffer on this terrible planet!"

Reith turned away in disgust. By birth half-Dirdirman, Woudiver vigorously affirmed the Doctrine of Bifold Genesis, which traced the origin of Dirdir and Dirdirman to twin cells in a Primeval Egg on the planet Sibol.

From such a viewpoint Reith must seem an irresponsible iconoclast, to be thwarted at all costs.

On the other hand, Woudiver's crimes could not all be ascribed to doctrinal ardor. Recalling certain instances of lechery and self-indulgence, Reith's twinges of pity disappeared.

For five minutes longer Woudiver groaned and complained, and then became suddenly quiet. For a period he watched Reith and his companions. He spoke and Reith thought to detect a secret glee. "Your project approaches completion-thanks to Aila Woudiver, his craft, and his poor store of sequins, unfeelingly sequestered."

"I agree that the project approaches completion," said Reith.

"When do you propose to depart Tschai?"