Tower of Zanid Read online

  And then into the Kharju, where the sextuple clop of the hooves of the ayas drawing the carriages of the rich mingled with the cries of newsboys selling the Rashm, and pushcart peddlers hawking their wares; the rustle of cloaks and skirts; the clink of scabbards; the faint rattle of bracelets and other pieces of heavy jewelry; and over it all the murmur of rolling, rhythmic sentences in the guttural, resonant Balhibo tongue.

  In the Kharju, Fallon found the establishment of Ve’qir the Exclusive and pushed boldly into the hushed interior. At that moment Ve’qir himself was selling something frilly to the jagaini of the hereditary Dasht of Qe’ba, while the Dasht sat on a stool and grumped about the cost. Ve’qir glanced at Fallon, twitched his antennae in recognition, and turned back to his customer. Ve’qir’s assistant, a young female, came up expectantly, but Fallon waved her aside.

  “I’ll see the boss himself when he’s through,” he said. As the assistant fell back in well-bred acquiescence, Fallon murmured into Gazi’s large pointed ear: “Stop going over those fabrics. You’ll have the old fastuk raising the price.”

  A voice said: “Hello, Mr. Fallon. Is Mr. Fallon, yes?”

  Fallon spun round. There was the white-haired archeologist, Julian Fredro. Fallon acknowledged the greeting, adding: “Just sightseeing, Fredro?”

  “Yes, thank you. How is project coming?”

  Fallon smiled and waved toward Gazi. “Working on it now. This is my jagaini, Gazi er-Doukh.” He performed the other half of the introduction in Balhibou, then switched back to English. “We’re dressing her properly for a binge tomorrow night. The mad social whirl of Zanid, you know.”

  “Ah, you combine the business with the pleasure. Is this a part of the project?”

  “Yes. Kastambang’s party. He’s promised me information.”

  “Ah? Fine. I have invitation to this party too. I shall see you there. Mr. Fallon—ah—where is this public bath I hear about, that takes place today?”

  “Want to see the quaint native customs, eh? Stay with us. We’re, on our way to one after we finish here.”

  The ci-devant feudal lord completed his purchase, and Ve’qir came over to Fallon rubbing his hands together. Fallon demanded the best in evening wear, and presently Gazi was pirouetting slowly while Ve’qir tried one thing after another on her unclad form. Fallon chose a spangled skirt of filmy material so expensive that even Gazi was moved to protest.

  “Oh, go on!” he said. “We’re only middle-aged once, you know.”

  She threw him a look of venom but accepted the skirt. Then the couturier fitted her with a gold-lace ulemda set with semiprecious stones—a kind of harness or halter worn by upper-class Balhibo women on the upper torso on formal occasions, adorning without concealing.

  At last Gazi stood in front of the mirror, turning slowly this way and that. “For this,” she said to Fallon, “I’d forgive you much. But since you’re so rich for the nonce, why get you not something for yourself? ‘Twould pleasure me to pick a garment for you.”

  “Oh, I don’t need anything new. And it’s getting late…”

  “Yes you do, my love. That old rain-cloak of yours is unfit for the veriest beggar, so patched and darned is it.”

  “Oh, all right.” With money in his scrip, Fallon could not long withstand the urge to buy. “Ve’qir, have you got a man’s rain-cloak in stock? Nothing fancy just good sound middle-class stuff.”

  Ve’qir, as it happened, had.

  “Very well,” said Fallon, having tried on the garment. “Add it up, and don’t forget my discount.”

  Fallon completed his purchases, hailed a khizun, and started back toward the Juru with both Gazi and Fredro. Gazi said: “ ’Tis unwontedly open-handed of you, my love. But tell me, how got you such a vast reduction from Ve’qir, who’s known for squeezing the last arzu from those so mazed by the glamor of his reputation as to venture into his lair?”

  Fallon smiled. “You see,” he said, repeating each phrase in two languages, “Ve’qir the Exclusive had an enemy—one Hulil, who preceded Chilian as Zanid’s leading public menace. This Hulil was blackmailing Ve’qir. Then the silly ass leaned too far out of a window and broke his skull on the flagstones below. Well, Ve’qir insists that I had something to do with it, though I proved to the prefect’s investigators that, at the time, I was in conference with Percy Mjipa and couldn’t have pushed the blighter.”

  As they passed the Safq, Fredro craned his neck to stare at it and began to babble naively about getting in, until Fallon kicked his shins. Fortunately Gazi knew a mere half-dozen words of English, all of them objectionable.

  “Where we going?” asked Fredro.

  “To my house to drop off these packages and put on our sufkira.”

  “Please, can we not stop to look at Safq?”

  “No, we should miss our bath.”

  Fallon glanced at the sun with concern, wondering if he was not late already. He had never gotten altogether used to doing without a watch; and the Krishnans, though they now made crude wheeled clocks, had not yet attained to watch-culture.

  Gazi and Fredro kept Fallon busy interpreting, for Gazi knew practically nothing of the Terran tongues and Fredro’s Balhibou was still rudimentary; but Fredro was full of questions about Krishnan housewifery, while Gazi was eager to impress the visitor. She tried to disguise her embarrassment when they stopped in front of the sad-looking little brick house that Fallon called home, jammed in between two larger houses, and with big cracks running across the tiles where the building had settled unevenly. It did not even have a central court, which in Balhib practically relegated it to the rank of hovel.

  “Tell him,” Gazi urged, “that we do but dwell here for the nonce, till you can find a decent place to suit us.”

  Fallon, ignoring the suggestion, led Fredro in. In a few minutes, he and Gazi reappeared, clad in sufkira—huge togalike pieces of towelling wrapped around their bodies.

  “It’s only a short walk,” said Fallon. “Be good for you.”

  They walked east along Asada Street until this thoroughfare joined Ya’fal Street coming up from the southwest and turned into the Square of Qarar. As they walked, more people appeared, until they were engulfed in a sufkid-wrapped crowd.

  Scores of Zaniduma were already gathered in the Square of Qarar where, only the night before, Fallon and his squad had stopped the sword-fight. There were but few non-Krishnans in sight; many non-Krishnan races did not care for the Balhibo bath-customs. Osirians, for example, had no use for water at all, but merely scrubbed off and replaced their body-paint at intervals. Thothians, expert swimmers, insisted on total immersion. And most human beings, unless they had become well assimilated to Krishnan ways, or came from some country like Japan, observed their planet’s tabu against public exposure.

  The water-wagon, drawn by a pair of shaggy, six-legged shaihans, stood near the statue of Qarar. The cobbles shone where they had been watered down and scrubbed by the driver’s assistant, a tailed Koloftu of uncommon brawn, now securing his long-handled scrubbing-brush to the side of the vehicle.

  The driver himself had climbed up on top of the tank and was extending the shower-heads over the crowd. Presently he called out: “Get ye ready!”

  There was a general movement. Half the Krishnans’ took off their sufkira and handed them to the other half. The unclad ones crowded forward to get near the shower-heads, while the rest wormed their way back toward the outer sides of the square.

  Fallon handed his sufkir to Fredro, saying: “Here, hold these for us, old man!”

  Gazi did likewise. Fredro looked a little startled but took the garments, saying: “Used to do something like this in Poland before period of Russian domination two centuries ago. Russians claimed it was nye kulturno. I suppose one cannot have the bath without someone to hold these things?”

  “That’s right. The Zaniduma are a light-fingered lot. This’ll be almost the first time Gazi and I have been able to take our bath at the same time. If you’d like to take yours
afterward…”

  “No thank you! Is running water in hotel.”

  Fallon, holding the family cake of soap in one hand, and towing Gazi with the other, wormed his way toward the nearest shower-head. The driver and his assistant had finished tightening the joints of their extensible pipe-system and now laid hold of the handles at the ends of the walking-beam that worked the pump. They tugged these handles up and down, grunting, and presently the shower-heads sneezed and began to spray water.

  The Zaniduma yelled as the cold fluid struck their greenish skins. They laughed and splashed each other; it was a festive occasion. The land of Zanid rose out of the treeless prairies of west-central Balhib, not many hundred hoda from where these gave way to the vast dry steppes of Jo’oPand Qaath. Water for the city had to be hauled up from deep wells, or from the muddy trickle of the shallow Eshqa. There was a water-main from the Eshqa above the city and a system of shaihan-powered pumps for raising the water, but this served only the royal palace, the Terran Hotel, and a few of the mansions in the Gabanj.

  Fallon and Gazi had gotten reasonably clean, and were picking their way out of the crowd, when Fallon stiffened at the sight of Fredro, on the edge of the square, with their two sufkira draped over one shoulder, focussing his camera for a shot of the crowd.

  “Oy!” said Fallon. “The damned fool doesn’t know about the soul-fraction belief!”

  He started toward the archeologist, pulling Gazi, when she pulled back, saying: “Look! Who’s that, Antane?”

  A voice resounded through the square. Turning, Fallon saw, over the heads of the Krishnans, that an Earthman in a black .suit and a white turban had climbed up on the wall around the base of the tomb of King Balade, to harangue the bathers:

  “…for this one God hates all forms of immodesty. Beware, sinful Balhibuma, lest ye mend not your iniquitous ways and He deliver you into the hands of the Qaathians and the Gozashtanduma. Dirt is a thousand times better than exposure to…”

  It was Welcome Wagner, the American Ecumenical Monotheist. Fallon observed that the heads of the Krishnans were turning, one by one, toward the source of this stentorian outcry.

  “…for in the Book, it says that no person shall expose his or her modesty before another. And furthermore…”

  “Is everybody trying to start a riot?” sighed Fallon. He turned back toward Fredro, who was aiming his camera at the backs of the crowd, and hurried over to the archeologist, barking: “Put that thing away, you idiot!”

  “What?” asked Fredro. “Put away camera? Why?”

  The crowd; still looking at Wagner, began to grumble. Wagner kept on in his piercing rasp:

  “Nor shall ye eat the flesh of those creatures ye call safqa, for it was revealed that the One God deems sin the eating of those Terran creatures called snails, clams, oysters, scallops, and other animals of the shellfish kind…”

  Fallon said to Fredro: “The Balhibuma believe that taking a picture of them steals a piece of their souls.”

  “But that cannot be the right I took—I took pictures at festival and nobody minded.”

  Some of the crowd had begun to answer, “We’ll eat as pleases us!” “Go back to the planet whence you came!”

  Fallon said tensely: “They had their clothes on! The tabu applies only when they’re stripped!”

  The crowd had become noisier, but Welcome Wagner merely yelled louder. The driver of the water-wagon and his-assistant, becoming absorbed in the scene, stopped pumping. When the water ceased to flow, those who had been standing around the wagon began straggling across the square to the denser crowd that was forming around the tomb.

  Fredro said: “Just one more picture, please.”

  Fallon impatiently grabbed for the camera. Instead of letting go, Fredro tightened his grip upon the device, shouting: “Psiakrew! What you doing, fool?”

  As they struggled for possession of the camera, the sufkira slid off Fredro’s shoulder to the ground. Gazi, with an exclamation of irk (for she would have to wash the garments) picked them up. Meanwhile Fredro’s shout, and the struggle between the archeologist and Fallon, had drawn the attention of the nearer Zaniduma. One of the latter pointed and cried: “Behold these other Earthmen! One of them is trying to steal our souls!”

  “Oh, he is, is he?” said another.

  Glancing around, Fallon saw that he and his party had in their turn become the focus of hostile glances. Around the tomb of Balade, the noise of the hecklers had nearly drowned out the powerful voice of Welcome Wagner. That crowd was working itself up to the stage where they would soon pull the Earthman down off the wall and beat him to death, if they did not kill him in some more lingering and humorous manner. Even the water-wagon driver and his assistant had gotten down off the vehicle and trailed over to see what was happening.

  Fallon jerked Fredro’s sleeve. “Come on, you idiot. Shift-ho!”

  “Where?” asked Fredro.

  “Oh to hell with you!” cried Fallon, ready to dance with exasperation.

  He caught Gazi’s wrist and started to lead her toward the water-wagon. A Zanidu stepped up close to Fredro, stuck out his tongue, and shouted: “Bakhan Terraol”

  The Krishnan aimed a slap at the archeologist’s face. Fallon heard the slap connect, and then the more solid sound of Fredro’s fist. He glanced back to see the Zanidu fall backwards to a sitting position on the cobbles. The scientist, if elderly, still had plenty of steam left in his punches.

  The other Zaniduma began to close in, shouting and waving their fists. Fredro, as if aware for the first time of the trouble that he had fomented, started after Fallon and Gazi. The little camera swung on the end of its strap as Fredro turned as he ran, shouting polysyllabic Polish epithets.

  “The wagon!” said Fallon to his jagaini.

  Reaching the water-wagon, Gazi turned long enough to toss the bundle of towelling into Fallon’s hands, and swung herself up on to the driver’s seat by the hand-holds. Then she held out her hands for the sufkira, which Fallon threw to her before climbing up himself. Right after him, came the bulky body of Julian Fredro.

  Fallon pulled the whip out of its socket, cracked it over the heads of the shaihans, and shouted: “Hao! Haoga-i!”

  The bulky brutes stirred their twelve legs and lunged forward against their harness. The wagon started with a jerk. At that moment, Fallon had no particular thought of interfering in the quarrel between the citizens of Zanid and Welcome Wagner. However, the wagon happened to be headed straight for this scene of strife, so that Fallon could not help seeing that bare arms were reaching up from the crowd and trying to pull down the preacher, who clung to the top of the wall, still shouting.

  Little though he really cared about Wagner’s fate, Fallon could not resist the temptation to try to cut a fine figure in the sight of Gazi and Fredro. He cracked his whip once more, yelling: “Vyant-hao!”

  At the cry, the rearmost Zaniduma turned and tumbled out of the way as the team lumbered in among them.

  “Vyant-hao!” screamed Fallon, cracking his whip over the heads of the throng.

  Chapter VII

  The wagon drove in among the crowd, dividing it as a ship does flotsam, while the Balhibuma who had started to chase Fredro ran in behind it, shouting threats and objurgations. Under Fallon’s guidance the wagon slewed up against the wall around the tomb, like a motorboat coming in to dock, where Welcome Wagner was shakily getting to his feet again.

  “Jump aboard!” yelled Fallon.

  Wagner jumped, almost falling off on the far side of the water-tank. A few more cracks of the whip, and the team broke into a shambling run for the nearest exit from the Square of Qarar.

  “Au!” shrieked the driver. “Come back with my wagon!”

  The driver ran up alongside the wagon and began to swing himself aboard. Fallon hit him a sharp rap over the head with the butt of the whip, at which he fell back upon the cobbles. A glance to the rear showed Fallon that several others were trying to climb up also, but Fredro got rid of one b
y kicking him in the face while Wagner stamped on the fingers of another as he grasped one of the hand-holds. Fallon leaned forward and snapped his whip against the bare hide of yet another, who was trying to seize the bridle of one of the animals. With a howl, the Krishnan hopped away to nurse his welt.

  Fallon urged the shaihans to greater speed as the wagon rumbled into the nearest street. It seemed to Fallon that half the people of Zanid must be chasing his vehicle. But with the water-tank three-quarters empty, the team made good speed, sending chance pedestrians leaping for safety.

  “Where—where are we going?” asked Gazi.

  “Away from that mob,” growled Fallon, jerking his thumb back toward the horde. “Hold on!”

  He pulled the team into a tight turn around a corner, so that the wagon rocked and skidded perilously. Then he did another, and another, zigzagging until, despite his own familiarity with the city, he was a bit confused himself as to where he was. A few more turns and the mob seemed to have been left behind, so he let the team drop back to their six-legged trot. People along the street stared with interest as the water-wagon went by, bearing three Earthmen—two in their native costume and one nude, and an equally unclad Krishnan woman.

  Wagner spoke up: “Well, say, I don’t know who you are, but I’m glad you got me out of that. I guess I hadn’t ought to have stirred up these heathens so. They’re kind of excitable.”

  Fallon said: “My name’s Fallon, and these are Gazi er-Doukh and Dr. Fredro.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Wagner. “Say, aren’t you two gonna put your clothes back on?”

  “When we get around to it,” said Fallon.

  “It makes us kind of conspicuous,” said Wagner.

  Fallon was about to reply that nothing prevented Wagner from getting off, when the wagon rumbled into the park around the Safq. Fredro gave an exclamation.

  Wagner looked at the looming structure, and he shook a fist, crying: “If I could blow up that lair of heathen idolatry, I wouldn’t care none if I got blown up with it!”