The Hostage of Zir Read Free Page B

you going to fence vit? Poor old Mrs. Scott?”
    Reith smiled. “Maybe I can con Mr. Pride into a match. One good whack at his fat butt would be worth the trip.”

II
    RIVER-BOAT FOLLIES

    The priest whom Regent Tashian was sending as guide and interpreter was supposed to arrive on the tenth of Khastin. When he failed to appear, some of the tourists grumbled. Santiago Guzmán-Vidal shrugged, saying: “What do you expect of these half-barbarous people? They have no sense of time.”
    Fergus Reith looked hard at Guzmán-Vidal, who was late for everything. Reith spent the extra time grimly working at his new skills. When, after a session with Heggstad, he emerged panting from the gym, Valerie Mulroy asked: “Do you really like that sort of thing, Fearless?” To his tourists, Reith had become “Fearless Leader” or simply “Fearless.”
    “No, I hate it.”
    “Then why do it?”
    “Because I hate worse being caught with my pants down.”
    She gave him a look that in a man would have been called a leer. “I could make a dirty crack about that. But you’re overconscientious; you take life too hard. Take things as they come, the way I do.”
    “Easy for you to say, Valerie. You don’t have the respon—”
    “Fergus!” bellowed Heggstad. “Get back in here! You got to learn to nail your man when he parries in seconde!”
    When Reith had returned and resumed his mask, Heggstad went on: “On earth, ve have learned better. Ve parry low-right in octave, so ve don’t vaste time turning the hand back to supine. That fraction of a second can make all the difference. Now, you lunge, low and to your left. When I parry in seconde, double and kill me!”
    Before Reith could obey, Castanhoso’s voice called: “Senhor Reith! Come quickly! I think your man is arriving!”
    Still wearing his fencing jacket, Reith followed the security officer down through the river gate and out on the pier. Across the river, small in the distance, he saw a barge being towed upstream by a team of shaihans.
    The animals plodded up the tow path to a point across the river, where another small pier led out from the shore. The crew tied up, unhitched the team, and took them aboard the vessel. They set out under oars and a triangular sail across the current to the north side.
    As the Krishnans tied up at the Novorecife pier, a Krishnan in a long robe stepped ashore. After him came two servants carrying baggage. Castanhoso accosted the man: “The Senhor is Khorsh baf-Ferzao?”
    “That is so,” said the man in good Portuguese. “Bless you, my sons.”
    “Thank you,” said Castanhoso. When he had introduced Reith, he added: “We expected you several days ago.”
    “What is one day more or less in eternity?” replied Khorsh. “I was detained in Majbur on sacerdotal business.”

    ###

    Next day, Reith’s tourist party, together with several other passengers, boarded the Zaidun for the return to Majbur. The shaihans remained in their shipboard stall, for they were used on upstream journeys only. Going downstream, the current and sail sufficed.
    When Reith had counted his tourists and their pieces of baggage twice and had thrice checked through his papers to be sure of all the maps, letters of introduction, and other documents, the crew pushed out from the pier. They rowed to the middle of the stream, where the current ran most swiftly. Thereafter, one man at the tiller and two more on oars sufficed to keep the craft in mid-stream.
    Captain Ozum said to Reith, in broken Portuguese: “Ship all cleaned up, specially you-for. You like?”
    “Estupendo,” said Reith. Although there had been some scrubbing, the vessel still stank of the shaihans and of the cargo carried on previous voyages. Since the shaihans were in the stern and the passengers in the bow, and since the prevailing wind was from the west, there was no escaping the draft beasts’ aroma.
    They sailed eastward, paralleling the massive concrete wall that ran along the riverside to