[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

willy-nilly, is a secret. As for my goals-if I return to Settra and somehow
can appease the Security Company, I'll be well content."
Reith looked up to where clouds were clotting out the stars. "I'll be content
to stay dry tonight."
The group carried the boat ashore, turned it over and, with the sail, made a
shelter. Rain began to fall, extinguishing the campfire and sending puddles of
water under the boat.
Dawn finally arrived: a blear of rain and umber gloom. At noon, with the
clouds breaking apart, the travelers once more floated the boat, loaded the
provisions and set off to the south.
The Jinga widened until the shores were no more than dark marks. The afternoon
passed; sunset was a vast chaos of black, gold, and brown. Drifting through
the gloom, the travelers sought for a place to land. Mud flats lined the
shore, but at last, as purple-brown dusk became night, a sandy bluff appeared
under which the travelers landed for the night.
On the following day they entered the swamps. The Jinga, dividing into a dozen
channels, moved sluggishly among islands of reeds, and the travelers passed a
cramped night in the boat. Toward evening of the day following they came upon
a canted dyke of gray schist which, rising and falling, created a chain of
rocky islands across the swamp. At some immensely remote time, one or another
people of old Tschai had used the islands to support a causeway, long toppled
to a crumble of black concrete. On the largest of the islands the travelers
camped, dining on the dried fish and musty lentils provided by the
Hoch Hars.
Traz was restless. He made a circuit of the island, clambered to the highest
jut, looked back and forth along the line of the ancient bridge. Reith,
disturbed by Traz's apprehension, joined him. "What do you see?"
"Nothing."
Reith looked all around. The water reflected the dusky mauve of the sky, the
hulks of the nearby islands. They returned to the campfire, and Reith set
sentry watches. He awoke at dawn and instantly wondered why he had not been
called.
Then he noticed that the boat was gone. He shook Traz, who had stood the first
watch. "Last night, whom did you call?"
Page 60
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Helsse."
"He did not call me. And the boat is missing."
"And Helsse as well," said Traz.
Reith saw this to be the case.
file:///G|/rah/Jack%20vance%20-%20Tschai%202%20-%20Servants%20of%20the%20Wankh
.txt (53 of 74) [2/14/2004 12:23:49 AM]
file:///G|/rah/Jack%20vance%20-%20Tschai%202%20-%20Servants%20of%20the%20Wankh
.txt
Traz pointed to the next island, forty yards across the water. "There is the
boat. Helsse went for a midnight row."
Going down to the water's edge Reith called: "Helsse! Helsse!"
No response. Helsse was not visible.
Reith considered the distance to the boat. The water was smooth and opaque as
slate. Reith shook his head. The boat so near, so obvious: bait? From his
pouch he took the hank of cord, originally a component of his survival kit,
and tied a stone to one end. He heaved the stone at the boat. It fell short.
Reith dragged it back through the water. For an instant the line went taut and
quivered to the presence of something strong and vital.
Reith grimaced. He heaved the stone again, and now it wedged inside the boat.
He pulled; the boat came back across the water.
With Traz, Reith returned to the neighboring island, to find no trace of
Helsse. But under a jut of rock they found a hole slanting down into the
island.
Traz put his head close to the opening, listened, sniffed, and motioned Reith
to do the same. Reith caught a faint clammy odor, like that of earthworms. In
a subdued voice he called down into the hole: "Helsse!" and once again,
louder:
"Helsse!" To no effect.
They returned to their companions. "It seems that the Pnume play jokes," said
Reith in a subdued voice.
They ate a silent breakfast, waited an indecisive fidgeting hour. Then slowly
they loaded the boat and departed the island. Reith looked back through the
scanscope until the island no longer could be seen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CHANNELS OF the Jinga came together; the swamp became a jungle. Fronds and
tendrils hung over the black water; giant moths floated like ghosts. The upper
strata of the forest were a distinct environment: pink and pale yellow ribbons
writhed through the air like eels; black-furred globes with six long white
arms swung nimbly from branch to branch. Once, far off along an avenue of
vision, Reith saw a cluster of large woven huts high in the branches and a
little later the boat passed under a bridge of sticks and coarse ropes. Three
naked people came to cross the bridge as the boat drifted close: frail
thin-bodied folk with parchment-colored skin. Observing the boat, they halted
in shock, then raced across the bridge and disappeared into the foliage.
For a week they sailed and paddled uneventfully, the Jinga growing ever wider.
One day they passed a canoe from which an old man netted fish; the next day
they saw a village on the banks; the day after a power-boat throbbed past.
On the night following they halted at a town and spent the night in a
riverside inn, standing on stilts over the water.
Two more days they sailed downstream, to a brisk wind from astern. The Jinga
was now wide and deep and the wind raised sizable waves. Navigation began to
be a problem. Coming to another town they saw a river packet headed
downstream;
abandoning the boat they took passage for Kabasas on the Parapan.
Three days they rode the packet, enjoying the comfort of hammocks and fresh
food. At noon on the fourth day, with the Jinga so broad that the far shore
could not be seen, the blue domes of Kabasas appeared on rising land to the
west.
Page 61
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Kabasas, like Coad, served as a commercial depot for extensive hinterlands and
like Coad seemed to seethe with intrigue. Warehouses and sheds faced the
docks; behind, ranks of arched and colonnaded buildings, of beige, gray, white
and dark blue plaster, mounted the hills. A wall of each building, for reasons
never clear to Reith, leaned either inward or out, giving the city a curiously
irregular appearance by no means dissonant with the conduct of the
inhabitants. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]