It was as muffled as a Lorgalian. But they had appeared to have humanoid bodies covered by ordinary robes. This was as if a creature completely and tightly wound in strips or bandages which reduced it to the likeness of a larva balanced there to confront me.
The coverings, if they were strips of fabric, were crystaled with patterns of ice which had the glory of individual snowflakes and were diamond-bright when the rising sun touched them. But the body beneath was only dimly visible, having at least two lower limbs (were there any arms they were bound fast to the trunk and completely hidden), a torso, and above, a round ball for a head. On the fore of that the crystal encrustrations took the form of two great faceted eyes—at least they were ovals and set where eyes would be had the thing been truly humanoid. There were no other discernible features.
I made what I hoped would be accepted as a gesture of reverence or respect, bowing my head and holding up my hands empty and palm out. And though the thing had no visible ears, I put my plea into speech which emerged from my translator as a rising and falling series of trills, weirdly akin in some strange fashion to the gong note.
“Hail to Zeeta of the clear ice, the ice which holds forever! I seek the favor of Zeeta of the ice lands.”
There was a trilling in return, though I could see that the head had no mouth to utter it.
“You are not of the blood, the bones, the flesh of those who seek Zeeta. Why do you trouble me, strange one?”
“I seek Zeeta as one who comes not empty-handed, as one who knows the honor of the Ice Maiden—” I put out my right hand now, laying on the edge of the nearest table the gift I had prepared with some thought—a thin chain of silver on which were threaded rounded lumps of rock crystal. On one of the inner worlds it had no value, but worth is relative to the surroundings and here it flashed bravely in the sunlight as if it were a string of the crystals such as adorned Zeeta’s wrappings.
“You are not of the blood, the kind of my people,” came her trilling in reply. She made no move to inspect my offering, nor even, as far as I could deduce, to turn her eyes to view it. “But your gift is well given. What ask you of Zeeta? Swift passage across ice and snow? Good thoughts to light your dreams?”
“I ask the word of Zeeta spoken into the ear of mighty Torg, that I may have a daughter’s fair will in approaching the father.”
“Torg also does not deal with men of your race, stranger. He is the Guardian and Maker of Good for those who are not of your kind.”
“But if one brings gifts, is it not meet that the gift-giver be able to approach the Maker of Good to pay him homage?”
“It is our custom, but you are a stranger. Torg may not find it well to swallow what is not of his own people.”
“Let Zeeta but give the foreword to those who serve Torg and then let him be the judge of my motives and needs.”
“A small thing, and reasonable,” was her comment. “So shall it be done.”
She did turn her head then so those blazing crystal eyes were looking to the gong. And though she raised nothing to strike its surface, it suddenly trembled and the sound which boomed from it was enough to summon an army to attack.
“It is done, stranger.”
Before I could give her any thanks she was gone, as suddenly as if her whole crystal-encrusted body had been a flame and some rise of wind had extinguished it. But though she vanished from my sight, I still lifted my hand in salute and spoke my thanks, lest I be thought lacking in gratitude.
As before, the gong note continued to rumble through the air about me, seemingly not wholly sound but a kind of vibration. So heralded, I began to walk to the city.
The way was not quite so far as it seemed and I came to the gates before I was too tired of trudging over the ice-hardened ground. There were people there and they, too, were strangely enough clad to rivet the attention.
Fur garments are known to many worlds where the temperature is such that the inhabitants must add to their natural covering to survive. Such as these, though, I had not seen. Judging by their appearance, animals as large as a man standing at his full height had been slain to obtain skins of shaggy, golden fur. These had not been cut and remade into conventional garb but had retained their original shape, so that the men of Sornuff displayed humanoid faces looking out of hoods designed from the animal heads and still in one piece with the rest of the hide; the paws, still firm on the limbs, they used as cover for hands and feet. Save for the showing of their faces they might well be beasts lumbering about on their hind legs.
Their faces were many shades darker than the golden fur framing them, and their eyes narrow and slitted, as if after generations of holding them so in protection against the glare of sun on snow and ice this had become a normal characteristic.
They appeared to keep no guard at their gate, but three of them, who must have been summoned by the gong, gestured to me with short crystal rods. Whether these were weapons or badges of office I did not know, but I obediently went with them, down the central street. Sornuff had been built in circular form, and its center hub was another cone temple, much larger than Zeeta’s shrine.
The door into it was relatively narrow and oddly fashioned to resemble an open mouth, though above it were no other carvings to indicate the rest of a face. This was Torg’s place and the test of my plan now lay before me.
I could sense no change in warmth in the large circular room into which we came. If there was any form of heating in Sornuff it was not used in Torg’s temple. But the chill did not in any way seem to bother my guides or the waiting priests. Behind them was the representation of Torg, again a widely open mouth, in the wall facing the door.
“I bring a gift for Torg,” I began boldly.
“You are not of the people of Torg.” It was not quite a protest, but it carried a faint shadow of warning and it came from one of the priests. Over his fur he wore a collar of red metal from which hung several flat plaques, each set with a different color stone and so masively engraved in an interwined pattern that it could not be followed.
“Yet I bring a gift for the pleasures of Torg, such as perhaps not even his children of the blood have seen.” I brought out the best of the zorans, a blue-green roughly oval stone which nearly filled the hollow of my hand when I had unrolled its wrappings and held it forth to the priest.
He bent his head as if he sniffed the stone, and then he shot out a pale tongue, touching its tip to the hard surface. Having to pass it through some strange test, he plucked it out of my hold and turned to face the great mouth in the wall. The zoran he gripped between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, holding it in the air at eye level.
“Behold the food of Torg, and it is good food, a welcome gift,” he intoned. I heard a stir and mutter from behind me as if I had been followed into the temple by others.
“It is a welcome gift!” the other priests echoed.
Then he snapped his fingers, or appeared to do so, in an odd way. The zoran spun out and away, falling through the exact center of the waiting mouth, to vanish from sight. The ceremony over, the priest turned once more to face me.
“Stranger you are, but for one sun, one night, two suns, two nights, three suns, three nights, you have the freedom of the city of Torg and may go about such business as is yours within the gates which are under the Guardianship of Torg.”
“Thanks be to Torg,” I answered and bowed my head. But when I in turn faced around I found that my gift giving had indeed had an audience. There were a dozen at least of the furred people staring intently at me. And though they opened a passage, giving me a free way to the street without, one on the fringe stepped forward and laid a paw-gloved hand on my arm.
“Stranger Who Has Given to Torg.” He made a title of address out of that statement. “There is one who would speak with you.”
“One is welcome,” I replied. “But I am indeed a stranger within your gates and have no house roof under which to speak.”
“There is a house roof and it is this way.??
? He trilled that hurriedly, glancing over his shoulder as if he feared interruption. And as it did seem that several others now coming forth from the temple were minded to join us, he kept his grasp on my arm and drew me a step or two away.
Since time was a factor in any trading I would do here, I was willing enough to go with him.
VII
He guided me down one of the side streets to a house which was a miniature copy of shrine and temple, save that the cone tip, though it had been cut away, was mounted with a single lump of stone carved with one of the intricate designs, one which it somehow bothered the eyes to study too closely.
There was no door, not even a curtain, closing the portal, but inside we faced a screen, and had to go between it and the wall for a space to enter the room beyond. Along its walls poles jutted forth to support curtains of fur which divided the outer rim of the single chamber into small nooks of privacy. Most of these were fully drawn. I could hear movement behind them but saw no one. My guide drew me to one, jerked aside the curtain, and motioned me before him into that tent.
From the wall protruded a ledge on which were more furs, as if it might serve as a bed. He waved me to a seat there, then sat, himself, at the other end, leaving a goodly expanse between us as was apparently demanded by courtesy. He came directly to the point.
“To Torg you gave a great gift, stranger.”
“That is true,” I said when he paused as though expecting some answer. And then I dared my trader’s advance. “It is from beyond the skies.”
“You come from the place of strangers?”
I thought I could detect suspicion in his voice. And I had no wish to be associated with the derelicts of the off-world settlement.
“No. I had heard of Torg from my father, many sun times ago, and it was told to me beyond the stars. My father had respect for Torg and I came with a gift as my father said must be done.”
He plucked absent-mindedly at some wisps of the long fur making a ruff below his shin.
“It is said that there was another stranger who came bringing Torg a gift from the stars. And he was a generous man.”
“To Torg?” I prompted when he hesitated for the second time.
“To Torg—and others.” He seemed to find it difficult to put into words what he wanted very much to say. “All men want to please Torg with fine gifts. But for some men such fortune never comes.”
“You are, perhaps, one of those men?” I dared again to speak plainly, though by such speech I might defeat my own ends. To my mind he wanted encouragement to state the core of the matter and I knew no other way to supply it.
“Perhaps—” he hedged. “The tale of other days is that the stranger who came carried with him not one from-beyond-the-stars wonders but several, and gave these freely to those who asked.”
“Now the tale which I heard from my father was not quite akin to that,” I replied. “For by my father’s words the stranger gave wonders from beyond, yes. But he accepted certain things in return.”
The Sororisan blinked. “Oh, aye, there was that. But what he took was token payment only, things which were not worth Torg’s noting and of no meaning. Which made him one of generous spirit.”
I nodded slowly. “That is surely true. And these things which were of no meaning—of what nature were they?”
“Like unto these.” He slipped off the ledge to kneel on the floor, pressing at the front panel of the ledge base immediately below where he had been sitting. That swung open and he brought out a hide bag from which he shook four pieces of rough rock. I forced myself to sit quietly, making no comment. But, though I had never seen greenstone, I had seen recorder tridees enough to know that these were uncut, unpolished gems of that nature. I longed to handle them, to make sure they were unflawed and worth a trade.
“And what are those?” I asked as if I had very little interest in the display.
“Rocks which come from the foot of the great ice wall when it grows the less because the water runs from it. I have them only because—because I, too, had a tale from my father, that once there came a stranger who would give a great treasure for these.”
“And no one else in Sornuff has such?”
“Perhaps—but they are of no worth. Why should a man bring them into his house for safekeeping? They have made laughter at me many times when I was a youngling because I believed in old tales and took these.”
“May I see these rocks from the old story?”
“Of a surety!” He grabbed up the two largest, pushed them eagerly eagerly, with almost bruising force, into my hands. “Look! Did your tale speak also of such?”
The larger piece had a center flaw, but it could be split, I believed, to gain one medium-sized good stone and maybe two small ones. However, the second was a very good one which would need only a little cutting. And he had two other pieces, both good-sized. With such at auction I had my profit, and a bigger, more certain one than I had planned in my complicated series of tradings beginning with the zorans.
Perhaps I could do even better somewhere else in Sornuff. I remembered those other men who had moved to contact me outside the temple before my present host had hurried me off. On the other hand, if I made this sure trade I would be quicker off world. And somehow I had had an eerie sensation ever since I had left the LB that this was a planet it was better to visit as briefly as possible. There were no indications that the outlaws of the port came this far north, but I could not be sure that they did not. And should I be discovered and the LB found—No, a quick trade and a speedy retreat was as much as I dared now.
I took out my pouch and displayed the two small and inferior zorans I had brought.
“Torg might well look with favor on him who offered these.”
The Sororisan lunged forward, his fur-backed hands reaching with the fingers crooked as if to snatch that treasure from me. But that I did not fear. Since I had fed Torg well this morning, I could not be touched for three days or the wrath of Torg would speedily strike down anyone trying such a blasphemous act.
“To gift Torg,” the Sororisan said breathlessly. “He who did so—all fortune would be his!”
“We have shared an old tale, you and I, and have believed in it when others made laughter concerning that belief. Is this not so?”
“Stranger, it is so!”
“Then let us prove their laughter naught and bring truth to the tale. Take you these and give me your stones from the cold wall, and it shall be even as the tale said it was in the days of our fathers!”
“Yes—and yes!” He thrust at me the bag with the stones he had not yet given me, seized upon the zorans I had laid down.
“And as was true in the old tale,” I added, my uneasiness flooding in now that I had achieved my purpose, “I go again into beyond-the-sky.”
He hardly looked up from the stones lying on the fur.
“Yes, let it be so.”
When he made no move to see me forth from his house, I stowed the bag of greenstones into the front of my weather suit and went on my own. I could not breathe freely again until I was back in the ship, and the sooner I gained that safety the better.
There was a crowd of Sororisans in the street outside, but oddly enough none of them approached me. Instead they looked to the house from which I had come, almost as if it had been told them what trade had been transacted there. Nor did any of them bar my way or try to prevent my leaving. Since I did not know how far the protection of Torg extended, I kept a wary eye to right and left as I walked (not ran as I wished) to the outer gate.
Across the fields which had been so vacant at my coming a party was advancing. Part of them wore the fur suits of the natives. But among them were two who had on a queer mixture of shabby, patched, off-world weather clothing. And I could only think they must have connection with the port. Yet I could not retreat now; I was sure I had already been sighted. My only hope was to get back to the LB with speed and raise off world.
The suited men halted as they sighted me. Th
ey were too far away for me to distinguish features within their helmets, and I was sure they could not see mine. They would only mark my off-world clothing. But that was new, in good condition, which would hint to them that I was not of the port company.
I expected them to break from their traveling companions, to cut me off, and I only hoped they were unarmed. I had been schooled by my father’s orders in unarmed combat which combined the lore of more than one planet where man made a science of defending himself using only the weapons with which nature had endowed him. And I thought that if the whole party did not come at me at once I had a thin chance.
But if such an attack was in the mind of the off-worlders, they were not given a chance to put it to the test. For the furred natives closed about them and hustled them on toward the gate of the city. I thought that they might even be prisoners. Judging by the tales I had heard of the port, an inhabitant there might well give reason for retaliation by the natives.
My fast walk had become a trot by the time I passed the shrine of Zeeta and I made the best speed I could back to the LB, panting as I broke the seal and scrambled in. I snapped switches, empowering the boat to rise and latch on to the homing beam to the Wendwind, and threw myself into a hammock for a take-off so ungentle that I blacked out as if a great hand had squeezed half the life out of me.
When I came groggily to my senses again, memory returned and I knew triumph. I had proved my belief in the old story right. Under the breast of my suit was what would make us independent of worry—at least for a while—once we could get it to auction.
I rendezvoused with the ship, thus proving my last worry wrong, and stripped off the weather suit and helmet, to climb to the control cabin. But before I could burst out with my news of success, I saw that Ryzk was frowning.
“They spy-beamed us—”
“What!” From a normal port such a happening might not have been too irregular. After all, a strange ship which did not set down openly but cruised in a tight orbit well away from any entrance lane would have invited a spy beam as a matter of regulation. But by all accounts Sororis had no such equipment. Its port was not defended, needed no defense.