The Hand of Zei

CHAPTER SEVEN

The stagecoach to which they had changed in Alvid stopped at the border between Suruskand to the south and Qirib to the north. On the Qirib side of the line was the usual Amazon guard, the usual inspection, and the usual warning that Barnevelt's sword would have to be wired up in accordance with Qiribo law.

"And now," said the customs inspector while a guard went to fetch the wire kit, "your names?"

Barnevelt had not given the question of identification a thought. Therefore he simply answered, "I'm Snyol of Pleshch, and this young lady is Zei bab-Alvandi…"

"What?" cried the inspector, her voice leaping an octave. "So she is! Your Altitude!" The inspector knelt. "We were commanded to watch for you."

Barnevelt started to say, "Oh, let's not make a fuss…"

"Girls! The princess is saved! Light a fire in the smoke box to send a signal message to the capital! But Your Preemin-encies cannot continue on in a vulgar noisome common carrier! Our dispatch coach is at your service, and I myself will escort you. Descend, I pray. Your baggage? None? What ignominy you must have suffered! Girls, hitch up the carriage. Saddle jap—let's see—five aya. Vaznui, you shall command the post till my return. Rouse the second watch from their slothful beds and bid 'em don parade uniforms, with boot and lance for escort duty…"

Half an hour later, Barnevelt found himself speeding toward Shaf in the back seat of the official barouche, with the top down, Zei beside him, and the customs inspector, her knees touching theirs, facing them from the front seat. The vehicle had a plain black-lacquered body with the royal arms in gold on the doors. A mere male drove the two oversized aya, while the five customs guards, resplendent in purple and gilded brass, galloped before and behind. To clear the road when they approached a settlement, the leader of these blew a shrill little silver trumpet.

Although this was both faster and less smelly than the public tallyho they had just quitted, Barnevelt was not altogether pleased by the change, for his intimacy with Zei was now cut off. Besides, the accouterments of the escort clattered so that one had to shout to be heard, and on the dry stretches one had to breathe the clouds of dust the hooves of those in front stirred up. Finally, Barnevelt had no escape from the chatter of the inspector, a gushy female. She gar-ruled on about the gloom that had descended upon the realm with Zei's disappearance and the unbounded joy that would now reign…

By frequent changes of teams they kept up their headlong pace, save when a rain slowed them during the afternoon. The second day after passing the frontier saw them winding along the road on the north shore of the Qiribo peninsula, the same road on which the emissaries of the Morya Sunqaruma under Gavao had ambushed Barnevelt and Tangaloa on their first approach to Ghulinde. This time, however, there was no interference. To the left crawled the emerald waters of Baj-jai Bay; to the right rose the shaggy peaks of the Zogha.

Roqir was descending behind them when they came in sight of the capital of Qirib. Barnevelt had not seen Ghulinde from this angle, whence the colossal image of the god Qunjar showed his profile, brooding over the spired city on his knees like an overstuffed Buddha with a birthday cake in his lap.

To the left and lower lay the harbor of Damovang. As it came clearly into view, Barnevelt saw the harbor was crammed with shipping. Moreover, most of the ships were war galleys, making a much larger fleet than the/ modest navy he knew Qirib to possess.

"What's all that?" he asked the customs inspector.

"Know you not? Of course, I'm a witless wench, how could you? 'Tis the combined fleet of the powers of the Sadabao Sea, which our magnificent monarch seeks to plat into a firm alliance for the extirpation of the scoundrels who've so grievously affronted us. She does but wait to be sure of the fate of my lady princess ere setting her martial machine into motion. Yonder lie the battleships of Majbur, of Zamba, of Darya, and of other powers of the western Sadabao. Never since Dezful the Golden reigned in riotous ribaldry in Ulvanagh has the sea groaned beneath such armament."

"What kind of ship is that?" asked Barnevelt, pointing. "The galley with a roof."

The ship in question did indeed look like an enormous galley with a flat roof over it.

The inspector giggled and said, "It is a ship of Prince Ferrian of Sotaspe, who's ever dazzling the world with some new thing. One of his subjects has invented a glider of novel design, differing from other gliders in that 'tis propelled through the empyrean by engines pyrotechnic. This galley is adapted to bear a score of such devices on its roof, where-with, 'tis said, he hopes to assail these pirates in their swampy home by flying over them and lapidating them with missiles. But hold, we must make arrangements for your arrival."

She called to the leading customs guard and gave her instructions to gallop on to the palace while the coach dawdled to give the queen time to get organized.

Thus, when the barouche drew up in front of the palace, all the elements of a royal reception were present: Amazons with lances presented, trumpeters blowing flourishes, and the royalty of Qirib and its neighbors drawn up on the steps in glittering array.

Ta-raa went the trumpets. Barnevelt almost glanced over his shoulder to see if there wasn't a movie camera on a boom dolly hovering behind him, so cinematogenic was the scene. Then he remembered the camera on his own finger, and pressed the stud as he advanced toward the queen. A few paces from Queen Alvandi in the front rank, George Tangaloa flashed him a wink, while moving his fist in a way that showed that he, too, was filming the performance.

Barnevelt knelt to the queen while the latter embraced her daughter, then rose at the sound of Alvandi's stentorian voice:

"… inasmuch as our state, in accord with its divinely ordained institutions, does not possess an order of knighthood, I cannot confer it on you as a token of the favor and esteem in which I hold you, General Snyol. I do however hereby confer upon you honorary citizenship in the Monarchy of Qirib, with full rights appertaining not only to the male but to the female as well—together with a draft upon our treasury for fifty thousand karda.

"Now let me present you to these lords and princes gathered here. Ferrian bad-Arjanaq, Prince Regent of Sotaspe. King Rostamb of Ulvanagh. President Kangavir of Suruskand. Sofkar bad-Herg, Dasht of Darya. Grand Master Juvain of the Order of the Knights of Qara of Mikardand. King Penjird the Second of Zamba…"

Having tucked the draft into his jacket, Barnevelt tried to impress on his memory the long roll of names and faces. The first Krishnan whose thumb he grasped, the famous Prince Ferrian, proved a youngish-looking fellow of middle height, slim, swarthy, and intense-looking, wearing a cuirass of overlapping plates, of black-oxidized steel damascened with gold. Next came Rostamb of Ulvanagh, big, burly, and wearing a straggly caricature of a beard, who looked at Barnevelt with dour intentness. After that, however, the unfamiliar names and faces merged into one big confusion in his mind.

The queen was speaking again, "Where's Zakkomir, Master Snyol?"

"I don't know, Your Altitude, but I fear the worst. We got separated while they were chasing us in the Sunqar."

"A woeful loss, but we'll keep hope for the nonce. Let's within, to restore your tissues before the banquet."

Banquet? Barnevelt feared there'd be speeches, and after all his narrow escapes from death it would catch up with him in the form of acute boredom.

They filed into the palace and were passed mugs of spiced kvad. Barnevelt had his thumb wrung by admirers until he thought it would come off. He couldn't get near Zei who, still in her seagoing rig, was surrounded by the gilded youth of the land packed four deep.

The President of Suruskand, a stout little party in hornrimmed spectacles and vermilion toga, astonished Barnevelt by producing a little native notebook and a pen-and-inkwell set from the folds of his garment, saying, "General Snyol, since my elevation has my eldest chick besought me to exploit my station to gather for him autographs of the great. So, sir, if you'd not mind posing your signature hereon…"

Barnevelt laboriously indited a series of Gozashtandou curleycues upon the proffered sheet. "Excuse me, Your Beneficence," said Barnevelt and tore himself away. Since Zei had disappeared, he went over to speak to Tangaloa, who was quietly swilling his drink and waiting.

The big brown man was as stout and jovial as ever. Wringing Barnevelt's hand, the xenologist said, "My God, cobber, but you resemble a swagman!"

"You would, too, if you'd been with us. When did she let you out of pokey?"

"As soon as she got word by that smoke-telegraph thing that you and the sheila were safe."

"How's your arm?"

"Nearly as good as new. But you're the lad with things to yarn about. Let's have the dinkum oil."

Barnevelt gave a synopsis of his adventures. "… so we can take it as proved that this Osirian, Sheafase, is the boss of the buccaneers. Further, he's put Igor under Osirian pseudo-hypnosis, so that our cream of the Muscovite team doesn't know who he is any more. It was only those silver helmets that saved Zakkomir and me from the same fate."

Tangaloa clucked. "That'll complicate our efforts to rescue him, but I daresay something will turn up. Go on."

When Barnevelt told of setting fire to Fossanderan, he was surprised to see Tangaloa's good-humored face take on a look of stern disapproval.

"What's the matter?" said Barnevelt.

"That was a hang of a thing to do! Think of all the good timber you destroyed! On Earth we have to watch every stick of it. And what happened to the tailed men?"

"How should I know? Maybe they got roasted. Maybe they swam over to the mainland on the other side. What about them?"

"Why, there's a whole culture group that has never been investigated! They sound like the same species as those of Koloft and Za, but the culture may be quite different. These groups are all enclaves of the tailed species that were left when the tailless Krishnans overran the country thousands of years ago. Perhaps our hosts here derived their cannibalism from the tailed aborigines they displaced. Oh, there are all sorts of possibilities—or there were until you burned the evidence. How could you, Dirk?"

"Jeepers!" cried Barnevelt. "What the hell d'you expect me to do, let these bloody savages eat me so you can come along later with your little notebook to study 'em?"

"No, but…"

"Well, it was them or us. As for the trees, Krishna's only got a small fraction of Earth's population, with three or four times the land area, so we needn't worry about its natural resources yet. Tailed men, fool!"

"But when I think of the scientific data going to waste… What happened next?"

Barnevelt told the tale of their adventures in the forest of Rakh. "The only thing that saved us," he said, "was stumbling on a cache of eggs. Four big ones. I don't know which of the local critters laid 'em. Anyway, mama was away from the nest, so we scooped up the eggs and legged it."

"How'd you cook them?"

"Set them on the ground beside the fire and turned them every few seconds. Turned out all right—they must have been freshly laid. Otherwise the yekya would be gnawing our bones in the somber forest of Rakh."

"Oh, nonsense, cobber, don't make such a big thing of it! A healthy young couple like you and the princess could have gone for weeks without food before you collapsed. We did on Thor, when they thought we'd stolen their sacred pie and we had to shoot our way out. We didn't even have shellfish and-berries, let alone eggs to eat." Tangaloa looked down at his paunch. "I was actually slender when we'd finished that stroll. And, by the bye, how much film did you get?"

"Not enough. We were in the Sunqar only overnight, and after we got away I hardly gave the Hayashi a thought until now. The forest was mostly too dark anyway. I have some exposed rolls in my pocket, if the water hasn't gotten into the capsules. But what'll we do about Igor? He'll have to be taken by force."

"That will take care of itself," grinned Tangaloa.

"How d'you mean?" said Barnevelt uneasily.

"The queen is pushing you for commander-in-chief of this expedition against the pirates."

"Me? Why me?"

"Because you're a famous general, if you've forgotten. As you're from a distant country, she figures these temperamental skites might agree on you when they wouldn't let one of their own group lord it over the rest. Penjird is jealous of Ferrian, Ferrian is jealous of Rostamb, and Rostamb is jealous of everybody."

"But I'm no admiral. I couldn't even keep control of the crew of a little fourteen-oared smuggler."

"They'll never know that if you don't tell 'em. Here they have been beating their brains out to think of a way through the sea vine, and you've solved it."

"You mean my skis? Maybe…"

Barnevelt hesitated. On one hand, the expedition would furnish a good excuse to get clear of Qirib before he fell so deeply in love with Zei that his will power could no longer extricate him. Besides, something had to be done about Igor Shtain and the Cosmic Features contract. On the other hand, his old shyness filled him with dread at having to stand up in front of hordes of strangers and shoulder vast responsibilities to which he was unequal.

"Of course it is all nonsense," said Tangaloa. "If Castan-hoso had given me the name he gave you, I should have been chosen admiralissimo instead of you. As it is, having no military ambitions, I will happily shoot film while you wrestle with logistics."

The flash of jewels in the gaslight caught Barnevelt's eye. Here came Zei, freshly scrubbed and waved, in gauzy tunic and glittering tiara, dodging through a scrimmage of painted youths towards himself and George. Barnevelt whistled his admiration and quoted:

"Let never maiden think, however fair, She is not fairer in new clothes than old!"

"What's that, my lord?" she asked, and he translated.

She turned to Tangaloa. "Does he narrate our adventures, Master Tagde? The telling could never in a millennium do justice to the doing, for compared to our struggles were the Nine Labors of Qara as nought. Has he told you of the time, after we attained the mainland, when we were treed by a yeki? Or again how, after his lighter broke down, he made a fire by rubbing sticks together?"

"No—did you?" asked Tangaloa.

"Yes. The Boy Scout handbooks are right. It can be done if you have dry wood and the patience of Job. But I don't advise…" He glanced at the clepsydra on the wall. "I'd better get washed and dressed:

"The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing."