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Read Ebook: Sjambak by Vance Jack Finlay Virgil Illustrator
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Ebook has 420 lines and 12568 words, and 9 pages
Frayberg became animated. "There's lots of material out there! Go get it, Wilbur! Life! Sex! Excitement! Mystery!"
"Okay," said Wilbur Murphy.
Cirgames? hung outside the port, twenty thousand miles ahead. The steward leaned over Wilbur Murphy's shoulder and pointed a long brown finger. "It was right out there, sir. He came riding up--"
"What kind of a man was it? Strange-looking?"
"No. He was Cirgameski."
"Oh. You saw him with your own eyes, eh?"
The steward bowed, and his loose white mantle fell forward. "Exactly, sir."
"No helmet, no space-suit?"
"He wore a short Singhal?t vest and pantaloons and a yellow Hadrasi hat. No more."
"And the horse?"
"Ah, the horse! There's a different matter."
"Different how?"
"I can't describe the horse. I was intent on the man."
"Did you recognize him?"
"I must be at my task, sir."
Several hours passed. Cirgames? grew. The Sampan Range rose up like a dark scab; the valley sultanates of Singhal?t, Hadra, New Batavia, and Boeng-Boh?t showed like glistening chicken-tracks; the Great Rift Colony of Sundaman stretched down through the foothills like the trail of a slug.
A loudspeaker voice rattled the ship. "Attention passengers for Singhal?t and other points on Cirgames?! Kindly prepare your luggage for disembarkation. Customs at Singhal?t are extremely thorough. Passengers are warned to take no weapons, drugs or explosives ashore. This is important!"
The warning turned out to be an understatement. Murphy was plied with questions. He suffered search of an intimate nature. He was three-dimensionally X-rayed with a range of frequencies calculated to excite fluorescence in whatever object he might have secreted in his stomach, in a hollow bone, or under a layer of flesh.
His luggage was explored with similar minute attention, and Murphy rescued his cameras with difficulty. "What're you so damn anxious about? I don't have drugs; I don't have contraband ..."
"It's guns, your excellency. Guns, weapons, explosives ..."
"I don't have any guns."
"But these objects here?"
"They're cameras. They record pictures and sounds and smells."
The inspector seized the cases with a glittering smile of triumph. "They resemble no cameras of my experience; I fear I shall have to impound ..."
A young man in loose white pantaloons, a pink vest, pale green cravat and a complex black turban strolled up. The inspector made a swift obeisance, with arms spread wide. "Excellency."
The young man raised two fingers. "You may find it possible to spare Mr. Murphy any unnecessary formality."
"As your Excellency recommends...." The inspector nimbly repacked Murphy's belongings, while the young man looked on benignly.
Murphy covertly inspected his face. The skin was smooth, the color of the rising moon; the eyes were narrow, dark, superficially placid. The effect was of silken punctilio with hot ruby blood close beneath.
Satisfied with the inspector's zeal, he turned to Murphy. "Allow me to introduce myself, Tuan Murphy. I am Ali-Tom?s, of the House of Singhal?t, and my father the Sultan begs you to accept our poor hospitality."
"Why, thank you," said Murphy. "This is a very pleasant surprise."
"If you will allow me to conduct you...." He turned to the inspector. "Mr. Murphy's luggage to the palace."
"We call 'em 'participants'."
"Expressive. And how many participants do you serve?"
"Oh, the Bowdler Index rises and falls. We've got about two hundred million screens, with five hundred million participants."
"Fascinating! And tell me--how do you record smells?"
Murphy displayed the odor recorder on the side of the camera, with its gelatinous track which fixed the molecular design.
"And the odors recreated--they are like the originals?"
"Pretty close. Never exact, but none of the participants knows the difference. Sometimes the synthetic odor is an improvement."
"Astounding!" murmured the prince.
"And sometimes ... Well, Carson Tenlake went out to get the myrrh-blossoms on Venus. It was a hot day--as days usually are on Venus--and a long climb. When the show was run off, there was more smell of Carson than of flowers."
Prince Ali-Tom?s laughed politely. "We turn through here."
They came out into a compound paved with red, green and white tiles. Beneath the valley roof was a sinuous trough, full of haze and warmth and golden light. As far in either direction as the eye could reach, the hillsides were terraced, barred in various shades of green. Spattering the valley floor were tall canvas pavilions, tents, booths, shelters.
They rolled quietly across the square in a surface-car displaying the House emblem. Murphy rested against deep, cool cushions. "Your inspectors are pretty careful about weapons."
"I don't think so."
The car rolled along a narrow avenue, scattering pedestrians to either side like the bow of a boat spreading foam. The men wore loose white pantaloons and a short open vest; the women wore only the pantaloons.
"Handsome set of people," remarked Murphy.
Ali-Tom?s again smiled complacently. "I'm sure Singhal?t will present an inspiring and beautiful spectacle for your program."
"Sjambaks?"
"We are not proud of them. You will hear sly rumor, and it is better that I arm you beforehand with truth."
"What is a sjambak?"
"They are bandits, flouters of authority. I will show you one presently."
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