The Hand of Zei Read online

  The Hand of Zei

  L. Sprague de Camp

  CONTENT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  On a fine clear morning, the sun rose redly over the rim of the Banjao Sea. The three moons of Krishna, which—as happens but seldom on that planet—were all in opposition to the sun at once, slipped one by one below the western horizon.

  The rising sun, which the Krishnans call Roqir and the Earthmen call Tau Ceti, cast its ruddy rays slantwise across a vast floating swamp. Near the northern margin of this marine morass, these rays picked out a movement. A small ship crept eastward along the ragged edge of the swamp, where the floating continent of terpahla sea vine frayed out into streamers and floating islands.

  A high-peaked, triangular lateen sail, barely filled by the faint dawn breeze from the north, flew from the single mast. To speed the little craft along, seven heavy-shouldered Krishnans sat in a row down each side of the deck, each man heaving on an oar. At the stern a stocky, gnarled old Krish-nan, looking like some barnacled sea monster, gripped the tiller. A pair of staring eyes were painted upon the bow; while, across the transom of the stern, a row of hooked characters gave the ship's name as Shambor.

  Driven by its sail and its fourteen oars, the Shambor forged ahead into the sunrise, now and then altering its course to dodge a patch of terpahla. After each swerve, however, the steersman swung his vessel back towards a single objective: a primitive seagoing raft, with a tattered sail flapping feebly in the faint breeze. This derelict floated awash a few bowshots ahead.

  Two persons lay prone on the rotting planks of this craft, peering towards the approaching ship from under their hands. At first sight they looked like Krishnans, a man and a woman. That is, they were of much the same size and shape as Earthmen, but with minor differences.

  Thus their skins had a faint olive-greenish tinge, and the woman's dark hair was decidedly green. The man's head, however, was shaven, although a coarse bronze fuzz had begun to sprout from his scalp. Their ears were larger than those of Terrans, rising to points that gave them an elfin look. From the forehead of each, just above the inner ends of the eyebrows, rose a pair of the feathery antennae, like extra eyebrows, which served Krishnans as organs of smell.

  The woman was young, tall, and superbly proportioned, with dark eyes and a prominent aquiline nose. She wore only the remains of a gown of gauze, shortened to knee-length by pulling up through her girdle. The garment, however, was so tattered that it was hardly better than none at all. The right shoulder strap had parted, exposing more of the girl's beauty than many Earthmen would consider seemly. Her bare feet had been chafed raw in places.

  The man was tall and muscular, although his large-boned form, with knobby joints and oversized hands and feet, would not have been deemed a thing of beauty. He wore a stained and faded suit of pale blue, with short baggy breeches and a jacket with silver buttons. Thin leather boots rose to his calves. Beside him, on the deck, lay a dented ornamental helmet of thin silver, from which sprouted a pair of batlike silver wings.

  The costume was, in fact, the uniform of the Mejrou Qurardena, which may be translated as Reliable Express Company. In this disguise, the man had sought to enter the Sunqar—the floating swamp—and snatch away two persons whom the pirates of that sinister place held captive. He had succeeded with one, the girl beside him.

  Also on the planks of the raft lay four boards, a little over six feet long and whittled into crude skis, together with the ropes that had served as lashings and the oars the fugitives had used as balancing poles. It was on these skis that the man and the woman had escaped the previous night from the settlement of the Morya Sunqaruma—the freebooters of the Sunqar. In all the many centuries of Krishnan history, nobody had ever before thought of using this method of passage over the otherwise impassable mat of terpahla vine.

  The terpahla lay all around the raft: a tangle of brown seaweed upheld by grapelike clusters of purple bladders. Peering over the side, one could sometimes catch a flash of motion where the fondaqa, the large venomous eels of the Sunqar, pursued their prey.

  The man, however, was not studying the sea life of the Sunqar. He was frowning towards the approaching ship, which showed a faint whitish triangle of sail above the swampy surface. Now and then he cast a glance to southward, towards the main body of the floating continent of terpahla. A vast congeries of derelict vessels broke the horizon in that direction. Here the beaked galleys of Dur and the tubby roundships of Jazmurian slowly rotted in the unbreakable grip of the vine.

  Even the violent storms of the Krishnan subtropics could no more than ruffle the surface of the Sunqar. From time to time, however, the swamp heaved and bubbled with the terrible sea life of the planet, the most fell of which was the gvam or harpooner.

  But no monsters now broke the sluggish surface. Here in the growing light reigned silence and haze and the stench of the strangling vine.

  Here, also, rose the works of man. The Morya Sunqaruma had built a floating city of derelicts. They kept a passage clear from the margins of the vine to their settlement, whence from time to time they sallied forth in reconditioned derelicts, or ships made from the sounder timbers of such, to work their will upon the nations and mariners of the Triple Seas.

  Now, as the man on the raft looked towards the settlement, faint plumes of blue smoke arose from the ramshackle cluster of improvised houseboats. Along with domestic doings, the Morya were beginning the day's run of janru—that amazing drug which, extracted from the terpahla and incorporated in perfumery, gave any woman, either Krishnan or Terran, what power she wished over any man. By devious routes the stuff was smuggled from the Sunqar to Earth, where it wrought much social havoc.

  Looking back towards the approaching Shambor, the man on the raft muttered: "It's our ship, all right, but…"

  "But what, O Snyol?" said the girl.

  "Because, Zei darling, it shouldn't have that sail up. Anybody with a telescope could see the sail from the settlement. So either my boys are being stupid, or they're not my boys."

  The man had spoken Gozashtandou, the common speech of the western shores of the Triple Seas. He spoke with a marked accent, which he asserted to be that of Nyamadze, the antarctic Krishnan land he claimed as his home. One skilled in such matters, however, would easily have recognized his dialect for that of an Earthman.

  For the man was neither Snyol of Pleshch, an exiled officer and adventurer from cold Nyamadze, nor yet the expressman Gozzan, both of which he had at various times pretended to be. He was Dirk Cornelius Barnevelt, a native of New York State, United States of America, Terra. The points on his ears, the antennae on his brow, and the faint greenish flush to his skin were all artificial, wrought upon his person by the skill of the barber at Novorecife, the outpost on Krishna of the Viagens Interplanetarias.

  Moreover, Barnevelt was an employee of the firm of Igor Shtain, Limited. He was in fact the ghost writer for the firm. The corporation included the explorer Shtain himself, who traveled in far places and brought back reels of data; Barnevelt, who composed articles and lectures about these travels; and an actor, made up to look like Shtain, who delivered the lectures. In this age of specialization, the firm also kept a xenologist, who told the others what
to think about the data that the intrepid Shtain had gathered.

  Zei said: "When yestereve the brabble broke forth upon the ship, you would fain have trussed an Earthman who dwelt among the Sunqaruma, tossed him into the treasure chest, and borne him forth. You recall the man—a stubby wight with wrinkled, ruddy face, blue eyes, and stiff gray hair, growing upon his upper lip as well as on his pate?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, at that time, you said you'd vouchsafe me anon the reason for this antic. Methinks the time has come for full confession. So answer, sir: wherefore this caprice?"

  Barnevelt took so long about answering that she said: "Well, dear my lord?"

  "That man," said Barnevelt carefully, "is Igor Shtain, a Terran who disappeared from the ken of his kind. I promised the Earthmen at Novorecife—for a consideration—to try to find and rescue him. Well, as you saw, he doesn't want to be rescued. Evidently that dinosaur thing who heads the gang—Sheafase—has put the Osirian hex on friend Shtain, so he no longer knows who he is but thinks he's just another Sunqaro buccaneer. At the time I signed up, of course, I didn't know I'd be called upon to rescue you, too."

  "How sad that my poor self should thus by inadvertence clog the cogwheels of your worthy enterprise!"

  "Oh, don't talk nonsense, darling. I'd rather rescue one of you than a dozen Shtains. Give me a kiss!"

  Again, Barnevelt demonstrated the Earthly custom that he had taught Zei while they waited on the raft for dawn. Aside from the natural pleasure of making love to this gorgeous creature, he hoped thus to distract her mind from further questions.

  Moreover, he was more than half in love with her and suspected that—as nearly as one could tell in dealing with one of another species—she felt the same towards him. They had become good friends during the time that he and George Tangaloa, the xenologist, had stayed at Ghulinde, capital of Qirib. Although Zei was the only daughter of Queen Al-vandi, a combination of circumstances had caused Barnevelt and Tangaloa to be welcomed at the palace as distinguished and sought-after guests while they abode in Ghulinde. They had been outfitting an expedition, supposedly for hunting gvam stones but actually for seeking the missing Shtain.

  Then the pirates of the Sunqar had raided Ghulinde and carried off Zei. In the fracas, Tangaloa had been wounded. Fierce old Queen Alvahdi had seized the genial Samoan as a hostage to force Barnevelt, still under his alias of Snyol, to try to recover her daughter. Although he had succeeded with Zei, two rescues at once had proved too many. So Shtain, still believing himself a Sunqaruma, remained behind in the settlement.

  The daring rescue and the brilliant improvisation of skis to cross the uncrossable weed had naturally enlarged Barnevelt still further in the eyes of the princess. In fact, an hour earlier, when they had removed their soaking garments and hung them on the mast stay to dry, they had come perilously close to consummating their mutual* desire.

  Two natures had struggled for supremacy in Barnevelt. One was the healthy young animal, which was all for it; the other was the cautious, calculating man of affairs. The latter nature had warned that such intimacy might cost Barnevelt his head.

  For Qirib was a matriarchate, where the queen took a new consort every year. At the end of the year, the old king was executed and ceremonially eaten at a solemn religious festival. It was this festival, the kashyo, which the piratical raid had interrupted. In the confused fighting, old King Kaj had perished, struck down while wielding the executioner's axe, in a last-minute recovery of his manhood, against the raiders.

  Barnevelt, knowing that Queen Alvandi meant to abdicate in favor of her daughter, foresaw a year of bliss for himself—followed, however, by the chopping block and the stew pan. While his impulses contended, the sight of the Shambor had tipped the scale in favor of cautious self-restraint.

  Zei kissed him briefly but continued to ask questions. After all, even though hers was a mild and friendly nature, as a princess she was used to having her own way with everybody except her mother.

  "Then," said she, "that tale of the search for gvam stones was but a taradiddle wherewith to cozen us?"

  "Not entirely. I hoped to pick up some of the stones, too, in case I failed with Shtain." (Always, he told himself, mix enough truth with your lies and vice versa to make it hard to separate the true from the false.)

  "Then neither of us is wholly what he seems." She looked back at the Shambor, slowly meandering towards them. "Will they never come nigh enough to settle our doubts?"

  "They have to zigzag to avoid the weed, so it takes much longer than you'd think."

  She glanced towards the settlement, springing into full view in the strengthening light. "Is there no shift whereby we could get word of young Zakkomir's fate?"

  " 'Fraid not. He's on his own."

  Zakkomir was a young Qiribu, a ward of the crown, who had come with Barnevelt on his expedition out of admiration for the heroic deeds of the supposed General Snyol of Pleshch. In the fight on the ships they had become separated. Zakkomir fled in one direction, and Zei and Barnevelt in the other.

  Barnevelt peered again at the Shamhor. "By Bakh, that's Chask, my boatswain, at the tiller!" He stood up, waved, and whooped: "O Chask! Ship ahoy! Here we are!

  "It'll take them some time yet," he told Zei. "Let's hope the Sunqaruma don't see us."

  " 'Tis a wonder they returned to rescue us, once they'd won free. Snyol of Pleshch must command deathless loyalty from his men."

  "I'm not so good as all that, darling. In fact, Chask is the only one I'd really trust, and I daresay it was his doing that the ship's here."

  Barnevelt then confessed to having spoiled his sailors at the start of the voyage by treating them in too familiar and democratic a manner. After one of them had been snatched from the deck by a sea monster, the rest in terror wished to turn back, and he had almost had to quell a mutiny.

  "That smart young squirt Zanzir's at the bottom of the trouble," he growled. "Instead of encouraging him, I should have gotten rid of him the first chance I had."

  As the Shatnbor nosed through the weed a few meters from the raft, Barnevelt remembered one of his duties. He stood up and pointed his fist at the ship, moving it slowly back and forth. For the big ring on his finger was really a Hayashi motion-picture camera, and he was filming the approach of the Shambor.

  Igor Shtain, Limited, had a contract with Cosmic Features for 50,000 meters of film about the Sunqar. One task of Barnevelt and Tangaloa had been to shoot as much of this film as possible to keep the firm from going bankrupt. Although the regulations of the Interplanetary Council forbade the importation into Krishna of inventions not already known there, an exception was made for the Hayashi camera, because it was so small and inconspicuous that it could hardly upset Krishnan culture. Besides, a destructor spring would make it fly apart in a fine mist of tiny wheels and lenses if a tyro tried to open it up.

  "What's that?" said Zei. "Dost cast a spell?"

  "Of sorts. Get your sandals on. Here we go." He boosted Zei over the rail and climbed aboard himself, grumpily telling himself that he had been lucky to escape from forming an intimate connection with the princess and ending up as an Earthburger at the next kashyo festival. But, at the same time, the less practical side of his nature— the romantic-dreamer side—whispered: Ah, but you do love her! And some day, perhaps, you and she will be united somehow, somewhere. Some day. Some day…

  CHAPTER TWO

  As Barnevelt and Zei came over the rail, Chask called another man to the tiller, came forward, and cried: " 'Tis the Lady Zei herself! The sea gods have surely prospered our enterprise!"

  He knelt to the princess while grasping Barnevelt's thumb, looking like some gnarled old sea god himself.

  Barnevelt gave the rest of the crew a wave and a grin. "Greetings, men!"

  The sailors, resting on their oars or standing by the lines, looked back in silence. One or two smiled feebly,, but the rest seemed to glower. With a chill of self-doubt, Barnevelt reflected that he had never been able to get
back on good terms with them since he turned down their demand for giving up the expedition.

  Chask said: "Is it your pleasure that we make for Palindos Strait with all possible dispatch, Captain?"

  "Absolutely!"

  "Aye-aye, sir. Back oars!" When they were out of the weed: "Forward on the starboard bank… Now all together… Haul the sheet. Up the tiller… Now row for your worthless lives, ere the Sunqaro galleys find you. Ave, set course northeast, sailing full and by." He turned back to Barnevelt. "What befell you, sir, and where's the young fan-tastico who accompanied you?"

  "Step into the cabin with us," said Barnevelt.

  While Barnevelt salved and bandaged Zei's feet with supplies from the first-aid cabinet, Chask rustled them a snack and told his tale.

  "We lay at the pier, ye see, until the other shallop ties up beside us, and a battalia of pirates disembarks to mount the gangplank to the big galley. Next we know, one of our seamen leaps from the galley's deck into the briny and clambers over our gunwhale, crying that all is lost and we must needs flee. Whilst we hesitate, unwilling to push off whilst hope remains, down come the men of the Sunqar with weapons bared, crying to take us.

  "At that we went, pausing but to cut the rigging of the other shallop, pursuit to incommode. Then forth we row, leaving tumult in our wake, to give the chasers slip under cloak of night. In sooth we hid behind a hulk that lay upon the terpahla's edge and heard the galleys go by close, searching for us. With dawn we issued from our hidey-hole and, seeing no Sunqaro ships, sought this rendezvous in recollection of our skipper's parting orders."

  "Good," said Barnevelt. "But why did you keep your sail up after the sky had become light? That's asking for the Sunqaruma to come out and pick you up."

  "The lads would have it, sir, misliking to do all the work of moving the ship themselves. 'Twas all I could do to bully and persuade them to turn aside from their flight to pick you up." Chask gave Barnevelt an accusing stare, which said as plainly as words: You're the one who ruined the discipline on this ship, so don't blame me. "And now, Captain, will ye not tell me what befell you?"