Planet of Adventure Omnibus by Jack Vance

steppe-travelers’
garments which made no distinction between male and female. Presently she
emerged, still half-damp, wearing the gray breeches and tan tunic, and they
once more went down to the common-room, and out upon the compound, to discover
an atmosphere of urgency, occasioned by the Green Chasch, who had approached to
within a mile of the caravansary. The gun emplacements on the rock juts had
been manned; Baojian was driving his gun-carts up into the openings where they
commanded all avenues of approach.
    The Green
Chasch showed no immediate disposition to attack. They brought up their own
wagons, ranged them in a long line, erected a hundred tall black tents.
    Baojian
pulled at his chin in vexation. “The North-South train will never join us with
nomads so near. When their scouts see the camp they’ll back away and wait. I
foresee delay.”
    The Grand
Mother set up an indignant outcry. “The Rite will proceed without us! Must we
be thwarted in every particular?”
    Baojian held
out his hands to implore reason. “Can’t you see the impossibility of leaving
the compound? We would be forced to fight! We may have to do so in any event!”
    Someone
called, “Send the priestesses forth to dance their ‘Rite’ with the Chasch!”
    “Spare the
unfortunate Chasch; “ spoke another impudent voice. The priestesses retreated
in a fury.
    Dusk settled
over the steppe. The Green Chasch started up a line of fires, across which
their tall shapes could be seen to pass. From time to time they seemed to halt
and stare toward the caravansary.
    Traz told
Reith, “They are a telepathic race; they know each other’s minds. Sometimes
they seem to read the thoughts of men ... I myself doubt that they do.
Still-who knows?”
    A scratch
meal of soup and lentils was served in the common room, with dim lights to
prevent the Chasch from silhouetting those on guard. A few quiet games were
played to the side. The Ilanths drank distillation, and presently became loud
and harsh, until the innkeeper warned them that he maintained as stringent a
policy as did the caravan-master, and that if they wished to brawl they must go
forth on the steppe. The three hunched forward over their table, hats pulled
thwartwise across their yellow faces.
    The
common-room began to empty. Reith took Ylin-Ylan the Beauty Flower to a cubicle
beside his own. “Bolt your door,” he told her. “Do not come out until morning.
If anyone tries the door, pound on the wall to wake me.”
    She looked at
him through the doorway with an unreadable expression and Reith thought never
had he seen more appealing a sight. She asked, “Then you really do not intend
me to be a slave?”
    “No.”
    The door
closed, the bolt struck home. Reith went to his own cubicle.
    The night
passed. On the following day, with the Green Chasch still camped before the
caravansary, there was nothing to do but wait.
    Reith, with
the Flower of Cath close by his side, inspected the caravan guns-the so-called “sand
blasts”-with interest. He learned that the weapons indeed fired sand, charging
each grain electrostatically, accelerating it violently almost to light speed,
augmenting the mass of each grain a thousandfold. Such driven sand-grains,
striking a solid object, penetrated, then gave up their energy in an explosion.
The weapons, Reith learned, were obsolete Wankh equipment, and were engraved
with Wankh writing: rows of rectangles of different sizes and shapes.
    Returning to
the caravansary, he found Traz and Anacho arguing as to the nature of the
Phung. Traz declared them to be creatures generated by Pnumekin upon the
corpses of Pnume. “Have you ever seen a pair of Phung? Or an infant Phung? No.
They go singly. They are too mad, too desperate, to breed.”
    Anacho waved
his fingers indulgently. “Pnume go singly as well, and reproduce in a peculiar
manner. Peculiar to men and sub-men, I should say, for the system seems to suit
the Pnume admirably. They are a persistent race. Do you