Страница 36 из 51
Of course the reality was nothing so romantic. There was a place where the cliffs dipped to sea level and yielded to a crescent harbor, and here a squalid settlement existed, the shacks of a few dozen Sumarnu who had taken to living here so that they might meet the needs of such ships as occasionally did come from the northern continent. I had thought that all the Sumarnu lived somewhere in the interior, naked tribesmen camping down by the volcanic peak Vashnir, and that Schweiz and I would have to hack our way through the whole apocalyptic immensity of this mysterious land, unguided and uncertain, before we found what passed for civilization and made contact with anyone who might sell us that for which we had come. Instead, Captain Khrisch brought his little ship smartly to shore by a crumbling wooden pier, and as we stepped forth a small delegation of Sumarnu came to offer us a sullen greeting.
You know my fantasy of fanged and grotesque Earthmen. So, too, I instinctively expected these people of the southern continent to look in some way alien. I knew it was irrational; they were, after all, sprung from the same stock as the citizens of Salla and Ma
There were eight or nine of them. Two, evidently the leaders, spoke the dialect of Ma
“What is?”
“Tonight we sleep here. Tomorrow they’ll guide us to a village that produces the drug. They don’t guarantee we’ll be allowed to buy any.”
“Is it only sold at certain places?”
“Evidently. They swear there’s none at all available here.”
I said, “How long a journey will it be?”
“Five days. On foot. Do you like jungles, Ki
“I don’t know the taste of them yet.”
“It’s a taste you’re going to learn,” said Schweiz.
He turned now to confer with Captain Khrisch, who was pla
Schweiz and I had a shack for ourselves, on a lip of rock overlooking the harbor. Mattresses of leaves, blankets of animal hide, one lopsided window, no sanitary facilities: this is what the thousands of years of man’s voyage through the stars have brought us to. We haggled over the price of our lodgings, finally came to an agreement in knives and heat-rods, and at sundown were given our di
This close to the equator, darkness came on swiftly, a sudden black curtain rolling down. We sat outside a little while, Schweiz favoring me with some more astronomy, and testing me on what I had already learned. Then we went to bed. Less than an hour later, two figures entered our shack; I was still awake and sat up instantly, imagining thieves or assassins, but as I groped for a weapon a stray moonbeam showed me the profile of one of the intruders, and I saw heavy breasts swinging. Schweiz, out of the dark far corner, said, “I think they’re included in tonight’s price.” Another instant and warm naked flesh pressed against me. I smelled a pungent odor, and touched a fat haunch and found it coated in some spicy oil: a Sumarnu cosmetic, I found out afterward. Curiosity warred with caution in me. As I had when a boy taking lodgings in Glain, I feared catching a disease from the loins of a woman of a strange race. But should I not experience the southern kind of loving? From Schweiz’s direction I heard the slap of meat on meat, hearty laughter, liquid lip-noises. My own girl wriggled impatiently. Parting the plump thighs, I explored, aroused, entered. The girl squirmed into what I suppose was the proper native position, lying on her side, facing me, one leg flung over me and her heel jammed hard against my buttocks. I had not had a woman since my last night in Ma
41
Five days. Six, actually: either Schweiz had misunderstood, or the Sumarnu chieftain was poor at counting. We had one guide and three bearers. I had never walked so much before, from dawn to sunset, the ground yielding and bouncy beneath my feet. The jungle rising, a green wall, on both sides of the narrow path. Astonishing humidity, so that we swam in the air, worse than on the worst day in Ma