we shall not encounter such a predator without adequate protection.”
“Not here. The yeki is mainly a plains dweller, found in places like the prairies of Ruz. Here, the largest beast of prey is the yeki’s smaller cousin, the kargan, which seldom bothers game of our size. The most dangerous are the wild eshuna, which run in packs; but they avoid parties like ours.”
“You relieve my apprehensions. I think I shall measure the bodily temperature of the bishtars.” Mulroy produced a clinical thermometer. “I do not believe it has yet been ascertained.”
“Hey!” said Reith. “If you try to stick that up its—”
“Have no fears, Fergus. That is not how one does it with a large, formidable animal.”
“How, then?”
“It is simple. One follows the organism until it defecates and inserts the thermometer into a fresh dropping.” The professor ambled off, expectantly watching the bishtars.
Having finished his lunch, Reith said in a low voice: “Ken, could you step over this way with me? I want to hear about Zir, but I’d rather my geese didn’t overhear our talk.”
“Weel, Fergus, Zir is a wild bit of mountainous country at the northwest corner of the Va’andao. Dur and Gozashtand both lay claim to it whiles, but neither can make its claim stick. The country’s too rugged, and the Ziruma make things lively for outsiders.”
“What about this fellow who calls himself lord of Zir?”
“Some years ago, Barré vas-Sarf got his start as a mere bandido, raiding the lowlands. Both Tashian and Eqrar have sent armies in after him, but they wore themselves out climbing mountain trails and were picked off in surprises and ambushes until they gave it up as a bad job.
“Meanwhile, Barré got more and more clans under his control, until he started calling himself the Dasht of Zir. Eqrar and Tashian have ordered him to declare fealty to them, but he’s told them where to stuff their demands.”
“And you think he’ll let you run Tashian’s railroad through his country?”
“Tashian thinks that, with the railroad, he can maintain enough soldiers at the end of the line to keep Barré from interfering. I hae ma doutes, but meanwhile Tashian’s paying enough gold in at Novo to make it worth Siggy’s and my while.”
“How about the so-called Witch of Zir?”
Strachan laughed. “That’s your goddamned missionaries. Why they let those maggot-mongers in, while they won’t allow honest technicians like me to teach the Krishnans something useful, I dinna ken. Political influence in high places, I suppose. If they let in the Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and such, they have to admit all the daft little cults, too. Like that fellow we met in Suruskand, who went about telling the Krishnans they were the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. He argued that, since a Krishnan animal called a shomal looks something like a camel, the names ‘shomal’ and ‘camel’ must come from the same root—some ancient Hebrew word, gamal I think.
“All this proselyting stirs up more violence and bloodshed than all the inventions of the Industrial Revolution put together. Anyhow, one of them converted a local priestess, years ago, and she built her own cult of his teachings. Now Shosti’s the leader of a far-flung sect: the Ultimate Verity, I suppose you’d call it in English. She holds that the universe is the scene of a vast war between two hostile groups of interplanetary entities, the good and the bad. We Ertsuma are the bad. There’s an unconfirmed rumor that the French swindler, Felix Borel, found refuge with her.”
“But if he’s one of the evil entities—”
“As I say, lad, it’s not known if he went there or not. We’ve heard nocht direct since he disappeared into the mountains. Here comes the daily.”
Another train, of five cars drawn by a single bishtar, appeared on the main track. Brave in red and blue paint, it rumbled past the sidetracked special. The Krishnans on the daily exchanged shouts and
“Not here. The yeki is mainly a plains dweller, found in places like the prairies of Ruz. Here, the largest beast of prey is the yeki’s smaller cousin, the kargan, which seldom bothers game of our size. The most dangerous are the wild eshuna, which run in packs; but they avoid parties like ours.”
“You relieve my apprehensions. I think I shall measure the bodily temperature of the bishtars.” Mulroy produced a clinical thermometer. “I do not believe it has yet been ascertained.”
“Hey!” said Reith. “If you try to stick that up its—”
“Have no fears, Fergus. That is not how one does it with a large, formidable animal.”
“How, then?”
“It is simple. One follows the organism until it defecates and inserts the thermometer into a fresh dropping.” The professor ambled off, expectantly watching the bishtars.
Having finished his lunch, Reith said in a low voice: “Ken, could you step over this way with me? I want to hear about Zir, but I’d rather my geese didn’t overhear our talk.”
“Weel, Fergus, Zir is a wild bit of mountainous country at the northwest corner of the Va’andao. Dur and Gozashtand both lay claim to it whiles, but neither can make its claim stick. The country’s too rugged, and the Ziruma make things lively for outsiders.”
“What about this fellow who calls himself lord of Zir?”
“Some years ago, Barré vas-Sarf got his start as a mere bandido, raiding the lowlands. Both Tashian and Eqrar have sent armies in after him, but they wore themselves out climbing mountain trails and were picked off in surprises and ambushes until they gave it up as a bad job.
“Meanwhile, Barré got more and more clans under his control, until he started calling himself the Dasht of Zir. Eqrar and Tashian have ordered him to declare fealty to them, but he’s told them where to stuff their demands.”
“And you think he’ll let you run Tashian’s railroad through his country?”
“Tashian thinks that, with the railroad, he can maintain enough soldiers at the end of the line to keep Barré from interfering. I hae ma doutes, but meanwhile Tashian’s paying enough gold in at Novo to make it worth Siggy’s and my while.”
“How about the so-called Witch of Zir?”
Strachan laughed. “That’s your goddamned missionaries. Why they let those maggot-mongers in, while they won’t allow honest technicians like me to teach the Krishnans something useful, I dinna ken. Political influence in high places, I suppose. If they let in the Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and such, they have to admit all the daft little cults, too. Like that fellow we met in Suruskand, who went about telling the Krishnans they were the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. He argued that, since a Krishnan animal called a shomal looks something like a camel, the names ‘shomal’ and ‘camel’ must come from the same root—some ancient Hebrew word, gamal I think.
“All this proselyting stirs up more violence and bloodshed than all the inventions of the Industrial Revolution put together. Anyhow, one of them converted a local priestess, years ago, and she built her own cult of his teachings. Now Shosti’s the leader of a far-flung sect: the Ultimate Verity, I suppose you’d call it in English. She holds that the universe is the scene of a vast war between two hostile groups of interplanetary entities, the good and the bad. We Ertsuma are the bad. There’s an unconfirmed rumor that the French swindler, Felix Borel, found refuge with her.”
“But if he’s one of the evil entities—”
“As I say, lad, it’s not known if he went there or not. We’ve heard nocht direct since he disappeared into the mountains. Here comes the daily.”
Another train, of five cars drawn by a single bishtar, appeared on the main track. Brave in red and blue paint, it rumbled past the sidetracked special. The Krishnans on the daily exchanged shouts and
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