The Queen of Zamba

XI.

"Excuse me, chum," said Hasselborg to his companion. "I see an old friend."

He walked down the length of the bench and placed a hand gently on Chuen's shoulder, saying: "Ni hau bu hau?"

Chuen turned his head with a slight smile and no sign of surprise. "Wo hau," he replied in Chinese, then switched back to Gozashtandou: "Fancy meeting you here! Sanandaj, this is my old friend—ah—my old friend—"

"Kavir bad-Ma'lum," said Hasselborg.

"Of course. Sanandaj has been telling me about almanacs. Most fascinating business." He tipped a wink at Hasselborg. "I wondered how long it would take you to notice me. How about your friend, the sailor?"

"He sings."

"Indeed? Then we must introduce them. Master Sanandaj can tell the mariner about almanacs while latter sings. Most jolly arrangement."

"Okay. Ahoy, there, Morbid!" Hasselborg dragged the more or less unwilling sailor down and set him to singing to Chuen's friend, who kept right on talking almanacs, trying to shout down his new acquaintance. Under cover of the resulting racket, Hasselborg asked Chuen: "What name are you going by?"

"Li-yau, which is the nearest they can come to first part of my name. The surname they cannot manage at all; it comes out Chuvon or something like that. Now, tell me of your adventures."

"Not just yet. Suppose you tell me yours. This is a funny way to investigate economic conditions with a view to arranging high-grade imports and exports, isn't it?"

"A little unusual, perhaps."

"Chum, you're no more an economic official than I am; you're a cop."

Chuen smiled. "Shi bu sh'i?"

"Perfeitamente. Now, I think we can do each other more good by working together than separately."

"So? What do you propose?"

"A general laying of cards on the table. D'you follow me?"

"Very interesting idea."

"Oh, I know, you're wondering how you can be sure I'm honest, and how can I be sure you are, and so on. Do you know my mission?"

"No. You never told me."

"Well then, I'll tell you, and you can decide whether it's worth your while to be equally frank. I don't think you'll have any motive for putting a spoke in my wheel, and I trust I'll feel the same way about you." Hasselborg went on to tell of the pursuit of the truant Julnar Batruni.

Chuen looked really surprised when he had finished, saying: "You mean this man sends you off on this great expensive dangerous trip merely for petty personal motives?"

"If you call wanting to get his daughter back a petty personal motive, yes."

"But—but that is sheer romanticism! And I thought all the time you were involved in some profound matter of interplanetary intrigue; something to do with government policies and interstellar relations! Now turns out nothing but pursuit of runaway young woman!" He shook his head.

"Okay, but how about your opening up with me? I may need help on my project, and I can't hire a local yokel for reasons you can guess. Maybe you're in the same fix. How about it, huh?"

Chuen thought a while, then said: "I—ah—I think maybe you have reason, so here goes: I'm an agent for Chinese government with special commission from World Federation. I started out to try trace a shipment of fifty machine guns consigned from factory in Detroit to my government for their security police. These guns start out all right but don't arrive.

"Now, economically speaking, fifty machine guns is nothing at all to big government, but still nobody likes to have stolen guns floating around in hands of the criminal class. So, they put Chuen on job. Trail leads first to gangsters in Tientsin, who keep only twenty-six of guns and pass the other twenty-four on to an official of Viagens Interplanetarias.

"Things are obviously getting beyond national scope, so my government gets me a special commission from W. F. to run down missing guns. I find they've been brought to Krishna, to be smuggled out of Novorecife for delivery to some local potentate. The local potentate will use them to conquer the planet, or at least as much of it as can manage."

"Who was to do the smuggling out of Novorecife?" asked Hasselborg.

"Don't know. Somebody on the inside, no doubt."

Hasselborg nodded. "But who gets the guns? Don't tell me, let me guess. Anthony Fallon, right?"

"Right again."

Hasselborg lit a cigar. "Have one? No wonder I ran into you here. It seemed too good for a coincidence, but with you on the track of Tony's guns, and me after his girl, our paths were bound to cross. Where are the guns now?"

Chuen shrugged. "Wish I knew. I heard a story that a mysterious crate has been hidden in the Koloft Swamp by one of gangs of robbers that live there, but was no way for me to find them. Swamp not only big, but full of unpleasant monsters, too. However, since I felt sure they'd be delivered to Majbur for Fallon to pick them up, I came here to try intercept them. Been here days, checking boats and rafts that come down the river and trying to pick up a lead in bars and restaurants."

Hasselborg said: "I may be able to help you there," and told the rumor of Fallon's impending arrival in Majbur. "I imagine whoever's in charge of the guns will arrange to have them here when Fallon arrives."

"I imagine, too. What connections you got in Majbur?"

"King Eqrar gave me a letter to his envoy Gorbovast."

"Good. Can you ask Gorbovast when Fallon is expected?"

"Not very well; I'm supposed to be here on a short vacation and not to be interested in Fallon, and I suppose old Eqrar will check up on me through Gorbovast. Could you?"

"Maybe. I am friend of Chief Syndic, who know Gorbovast. Maybe the syndic knows. We see."

The following afternoon, Chuen came upon Hasselborg sitting on the top of a pile on the biggest pier and giving a convincing imitation of a congenital loafer. Chuen said:

"The syndic say Fallon due to arrive tomorrow night or early next day. Guns must arrive soon. Are you sure nothing's come in this morning?"

"Not a thing except a towboat with two passengers and no freight at all, and a timber raft from way up-river with nothing on it except a stove and a tent for the raftmen. Tamates, haven't we forgotten about Qadr? Any piers over there?"

"Yes, but they're only used for fishing boats and such. All big commercial traffic uses this side."

"Well, mightn't our mysterious friends be landing in Qadr for just that reason?"

"Maybe, now that you mention it. What shall we do about it?"

"Suppose you take over here, and I'll go across the river and look around."

"All right."

It transpired that the ferry was across the river and would not return for another hour. Hasselborg killed time by strolling about the piers and through nearby streets to orient himself and by pumping another sucker in a bar. Another empty sack. Fortunately impatience was not prominent among Hasselborg's vices.

When he returned to the ferry pier, it was to find a crowd watching the efforts of a crew in the uniform of railroad employees trying to keep a bishtar calm. The ferry was unloading. The spectators watched with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension, holding themselves poised for flight in case the huge animal got out of control.

When the last wagon rumbled off and the sails had been furled and reset, the ferry master signaled to board the boat. Some of those who had been intending to do so, seeing that they were to share the craft with the bishtar, changed their minds. Others got on, but huddled in the corners of the vessel, leaving as large a clear space as possible for the monster.

The bishtar, under the urging of its keepers, put out a foot and gingerly tried the deck of the ferry. Apparently not liking the yielding sensation, it shied back. The men yelled and whacked it with sticks and pulled on goads, which they hooked into its thick hide. The bishtar squealed angrily and rolled ugly little eyes this way and that but finally let itself be driven aboard, one foot after another. The ferry settled visibly as it took the weight.

Then the sailors cast off the lines and pushed off with poles. The oarsmen ran out their sweeps and set to their task, backing out from the pier and turning the scowlike vessel towards Qadr, grunting with every heave. As they came about, the sailors shook out the sails, whose flapping startled the bishtar. The animal set up an ominous squealing, swinging its head from side to side, shifting its feet, and lashing the air with its stubby trunks.

Hasselborg had stood on the wales, holding a stay, where he could leap ashore at the last minute if the animal ran amok. While wondering what all this portended, he noticed a bulge in one of his pockets and remembered that he still had one of the fruits he had bought on the ferry the day before. Some he had eaten, some he had fed to Avvau, and the rest he had stowed in his pockets this morning for lunch. Now one was left, a thing that looked like a tangerine but tasted quite different.

Hasselborg stepped near the bishtar's head and called up to the mahout on its neck: "Ohe there! Will he eat this if I give it to him?"

"Yes, sir, that she will," the man said.

Hasselborg extended the fruit in gingerly fashion, fatalistically half expecting the beast to grab his arm in a trunk and beat him to bits against the nearest mast. The bishtar, however, after a wary look, put out a trunk and delicately took the fruit. Chomp. Then it stood quietly wagging its ears, since the sails, having filled, were no longer flapping.

"Thank you, sir," said the mahout.

"No trouble. What's she being taken over for?"

"That I know not. They do say we're to run a double-header to Hershid tomorrow, or perhaps the next day."

"A big load?"

"So I suppose. If ye'd really like to know, ask the station agent in Qadr."

So far, thought Hasselborg, he and Chuen had assumed that Fallon would simply come into Majbur in one of his ships, take delivery on his guns, and sail away again to Zamba unless stopped. Could it be that he was planning a lightning descent on Hershid to seize the whole Empire of Gozashtand? It was a little odd for an invading army to come in on the daily train. Come to think of it, however, Fallon's men would be sailors, as out of place on an aya or shomal as a horse on a house top. Moreover, such a sudden move by Fallon, outpacing even the rumor of his coming, would catch the dour entirely unpre-pared.

A fishy smell announced that they were drawing near to Qadr. When they docked at the ferry pier, Fallon watched the railroad men get the bishtar in motion again. The animal got off with much more alacrity than it had shown on the other side and lumbered up the main street, while small tame eshuna ran out of the sagging shacks that lined the street to yowl at it.

Hasselborg, after pleasantly greeting the dour's frontier guards loafing on the pier, followed the bishtar to the railroad yard, his boots squilching in the mud. Here he loafed around the station, smoking, until nobody would take him for an importunate inquirer. Finally he got into conversation with the station agent and said:

"That bishtar you fellows brought over on the ferry this afternoon nearly scared the daylights out of the passengers. She doesn't like boats."

"No, that's a fact, they don't," said the agent. "But with the river so wide here, we can't build a bridge, so we must needs use the ferry to move bishtars and rolling stock between Majbur and Qadr."

"Are you planning to run some big train soon?"

"So they tell us. Somebody's coming in with a great crew of men to take to Hershid. Yesterday a man comes up to buy twenty-six tickets in advance. Who he be I know not; howsomever, since he had the gold, we've no choice but to get ready."

They were still engaged in small talk when Hasselborg heard the warning bell from the ferry. Knowing that this was the last trip that day, he had to run to make it, arriving just as the lines were being cast off.

He leaped the two-meter space between the barge and the pier and sat down to puff. He had not had time to snoop around for the guns, although this news about twenty-six tickets for Hershid was probably more urgent.

Chuen seemed to think so, too. "Nothing has come, sir. One large towboat with some baggage aboard, but nothing that could hold machine guns."

"There's no other way from the Koloft Swamp to Majbur?"

"Are roads from the swamp to Mishe. One runs straight south from Novorecife and the other from the village of Qou at edge of the swamp. So you could take these guns to Mishe and then by big highway from there to Majbur. I think that unlikely, because it's more roundabout, and also the Order of Qarar polices the Republic of Mikardand very thoroughly. So chances of getting them through would be less."

"It'll be dinner time soon," said Hasselborg, looking at another stunning Krishnan sunset.

"Do you want go eat while I watch river and then take my place?"

"Okay—say, what's that?"

Up-river, its one lateen sail pink in the sunset, a boat was approaching. Chuen, following Hasselborg's gaze, reached out and gave his companion's wrist a quick squeeze of warning. "It's type of boat I saw used around Qou," he murmured.

As the boat came closer, it resolved into a kind of wherry with a single mast stepped in the bow and eight or ten oars on a side.

"Better get back a little from the end of the pier," muttered Hasselborg.

"Shi. You take base of this pier; I take base of second pier up," said Chuen. "You got a cigar? I'm all out."

Hasselborg yawned, stretched, and sauntered back towards shore, to resume his loafing against a warehouse wall. Chuen departed up-river.

Hasselborg watched the boat with ostentatious lack of interest. Between the current, the breeze, and the efforts of the oarsmen, the boat soon arrived off their sections of the waterfront. Down came the sail with a rattle of blocks, and the boat crawled toward shore under oar-power alone. The crew were tough-looking types, and in front of the tillerman in the stern lay a large packing case.

The boat was pulling into the dock that Chuen had chosen to watch. Hasselborg strolled in that direction as the boat tied up and the crew manhandled the case ashore. Nobody paid them any heed as they rigged a sling with two carrying-poles through the loops. Two of them got under each end of each pole, put pads on their shoulders, and hoisted the case into the air with a simultaneous grunt. The eight carriers set off briskly towards the base of the pier, the case bobbing slightly and the ropes creaking with every step. Two others of the crew went with them, while the rest sat on the pier, smoked, and waited.

Chuen followed the shore party, and Hasselborg followed a little behind Chuen. After a couple of turns in the narrow streets, they stopped at the door of a big featureless building with windows high up. Chuen kept right on walking past them, while Hasselborg became interested in the creatures displayed in the window of a wholesale sea food establishment, although the wobbly Krishnan glass made the things seem even odder than they were.

The man who had held the tiller plied the big iron knocker on the door of the house. Presently the door opened. There was a conversation, inaudible from where Hasselborg stood, and the bearers took up their burden and marched into the house. Slam!

After a while they came out again; or rather, nine of the ten came out. Hasselborg kept his eyes glued to the sea food, especially one thing that seemed to combine the less attractive features of a lobster, an octopus, and a centipede, as they walked past behind him. He drew a long breath of relief when they went by without trying to stab him in the back.

Chuen popped out of the alley into which he had slipped and came towards Hasselborg, saying: "I looked around back of building. No windows on ground floor."

"Then how do we get in?"

"There's one window a little way up. Maybe two and a half meters. If we had something to stand on, could get in."

"If we had a ladder—and a crow."

"A crow? Bird?"

"No, a pry-bar—you know, a jimmy."

"Oh, you mean one of those iron things with hook on the end?"

"Uh-huh. I don't know what they call it in Gozashtandou."

"Neither do I, but can do lots with sign language. One of us must go buy while other one watches."

"Hm-m-m," said Hasselborg. "I suppose whatever they have in the way of hardware stores are closed up by now."

"Maybe some open. Majbur keeps very late hours."

"Okay, d'you want me to hunt while you watch? My legs are longer than yours."

"Thanks, but better you watch while I hunt. You got sword and know how to use. I don't."

Forebearing to argue, Hasselborg took up his post while Chuen toddled off on his short legs. The polychrome lights faded from the sky, and all three of the moons cast pyramidal shadows into the narrow, smelly streets. Peopled passed occasionally," sometimes leading beasts of burden. A man whom Hasselborg did not recognize—not one of the boatmen, surely—came out of the building and pushed off on a scooter. Hasselborg was just wondering whether to give his second cigar one more puff or put it out when Chuen reappeared lugging a short ladder.

"Here," said Chuen, thrusting a pry bar with a hooked end into Hasselborg's hand.

They glanced about. As nobody seemed to be in sight at the moment, they slipped into the alley that led to the rear of the warehouse.

Chuen had neglected to state that the medium-low window opened on a little court or backyard isolated by a substantial wall with spikes along the top. That, however, represented only a momentary check. They set the ladder against the wall, swarmed up it, and balanced themselves on top of the wall while they hauled the ladder up after them and planted it on the ground on the opposite side. Then down again; then to put the ladder against the wall of the warehouse itself.

Hasselborg mounted the ladder first. He attacked the window—a casement-type affair having a lot of little diamond-shaped panes—with the bar. Since he was an old hand at breaking and entering in line of duty, the window presently opened with a slight crunching of splintered wood. He stuck his head inside.

By the narrow beams of moonlight, which slanted in through the high windows, and the faint light reflected from a candle out of sight somewhere on the other side of the structure, he could see the tops of what looked like acres of bales, crates, and boxes. No movement; no sound.

Hasselborg whispered to Chuen: "I think we can get down to the floor level from here without hauling the ladder in. I'm going to drop down inside and scout around. If I find it's okay, I'll tell you to come down after me. If not, I'll ask you to hand me down the ladder, so we'll have a way out. Got my sword? Okay, here goes."

And Victor Hasselborg slid off the window sill into the darkness inside.