rattle of pulley blocks, lines were belayed to each of the tugs. These craft then towed the Sárbez into the inner harbor.
As the ship, moving with glacial slowness, neared the pier, John Turner plucked Reith’s sleeve. “Hey, Fearless! What’s that thing? Fry my guts if it doesn’t look like a steamboat—an old-time paddle-wheeler!”
Turner handed his binoculars to Reith, who looked and turned to the inspector, saying: “What is that, sir?”
“Oh,” said the inspector. “That is the new ship, hight Mokinam, of Prince Ferrian of Sotaspé. This potentate does even now pay a visit of state to our majestic sovran. Know you the tale? This Ferrian, a wight of pith and spirit, has purloined from you Ertsuma a mort of secrets of the engineering crafts. By means of these, this saucy swain does raise his minikin isle to be the mightiest power maritime of the Middle Sea. They say he’s even built a kind of flying machine, propelled through the air by combustion of yasuvar pollen, wherewith we build fireworks to celebrate holidays.
“Time was when he and our gracious ruler were in hot and hostile rivalry; but, happily, that’s now composed. The lordly twain do seek to cement their love by mutual alliance. And—oh—ere I forget—Prince Ferrian were vastly wroth, did one of you honored visitors employ a picture-taking machine upon his proud ship Mokinam. He fears a repetition of his disaster of a few years back.”
“What disaster?” asked Reith.
“Why, with the help of a renegade Ertsu, he’d built a similar craft, clept Kerukchi. Getting wind of this, the Ertsuma of Novorecife swooped upon Majbur, hired a ship, and caught and burned the Kerukchi in open sea.” The Krishnan made the curious noise that served as a chuckle. “By this outrageous violation of the Krishnan nations’ sovran rights, they thought to stop the spread of their knowledge scientifical, fearing lest we Krishnans overtake them in this race for wisdom and rape them of their advantage in dealing with us. But little they recked of our yaresome princeling! Having a set of plans for the Kerukchi safe at home in Sotaspé, he escaped the wreck and set himself to fabricate another craft, of design improved in light of his experience with the first. Yonder lies the terror of the sapphire Sadabao!”
Reith turned to his tourists. “He says no photographs of the steamship.” He looked hard at Otto Schwerin. “Kein Bild!”
Schwerin smiled vaguely and bobbed his head.
###
Ashore, it took Reith over an hour to round up transport for his tourists and another to locate the shánenesb. On the outskirts of Reshr was an open area with an elliptical racecourse and a small grandstand. There were concessions and dust and noise. A conjuror, a juggler, a seller of nostrums, and a puppet show were all going full blast in noisy competition.
Reith would have liked to buy tickets for seats in the grandstand, but the stand was already full of upper-class Krishnans. The sword-clanking males were in cloaks of emerald and purple and scarlet over the Krishnan loin garment. This could be either an oversized diaper, or a land of divided kilt. The females wore bare-breasted dresses, inciting Pride to utter bad jokes. The Terrans had to wriggle through a much larger crowd of smellier and more drably clad Krishnans, who lined the fence on either side of the grandstand.
The Krishnans stared at their exotic visitors but then turned their attention back to the field within the race track, puffing cigars of ultra-strong Krishnan tobacco. Reith thought that if early Terran visitors had introduced tobacco before the I.C. had clamped down the technological blockade, they should at least have let in soap as well. The perfumes used by even poor Krishnans failed to cover the aroma of unsoaped Krishnan. Khorsh said: “Senhor Reith, they tell me the races are already over. The next event will be a drill by the Royal Zamban Lancers.”
Reith and his people stood, shifting from
As the ship, moving with glacial slowness, neared the pier, John Turner plucked Reith’s sleeve. “Hey, Fearless! What’s that thing? Fry my guts if it doesn’t look like a steamboat—an old-time paddle-wheeler!”
Turner handed his binoculars to Reith, who looked and turned to the inspector, saying: “What is that, sir?”
“Oh,” said the inspector. “That is the new ship, hight Mokinam, of Prince Ferrian of Sotaspé. This potentate does even now pay a visit of state to our majestic sovran. Know you the tale? This Ferrian, a wight of pith and spirit, has purloined from you Ertsuma a mort of secrets of the engineering crafts. By means of these, this saucy swain does raise his minikin isle to be the mightiest power maritime of the Middle Sea. They say he’s even built a kind of flying machine, propelled through the air by combustion of yasuvar pollen, wherewith we build fireworks to celebrate holidays.
“Time was when he and our gracious ruler were in hot and hostile rivalry; but, happily, that’s now composed. The lordly twain do seek to cement their love by mutual alliance. And—oh—ere I forget—Prince Ferrian were vastly wroth, did one of you honored visitors employ a picture-taking machine upon his proud ship Mokinam. He fears a repetition of his disaster of a few years back.”
“What disaster?” asked Reith.
“Why, with the help of a renegade Ertsu, he’d built a similar craft, clept Kerukchi. Getting wind of this, the Ertsuma of Novorecife swooped upon Majbur, hired a ship, and caught and burned the Kerukchi in open sea.” The Krishnan made the curious noise that served as a chuckle. “By this outrageous violation of the Krishnan nations’ sovran rights, they thought to stop the spread of their knowledge scientifical, fearing lest we Krishnans overtake them in this race for wisdom and rape them of their advantage in dealing with us. But little they recked of our yaresome princeling! Having a set of plans for the Kerukchi safe at home in Sotaspé, he escaped the wreck and set himself to fabricate another craft, of design improved in light of his experience with the first. Yonder lies the terror of the sapphire Sadabao!”
Reith turned to his tourists. “He says no photographs of the steamship.” He looked hard at Otto Schwerin. “Kein Bild!”
Schwerin smiled vaguely and bobbed his head.
###
Ashore, it took Reith over an hour to round up transport for his tourists and another to locate the shánenesb. On the outskirts of Reshr was an open area with an elliptical racecourse and a small grandstand. There were concessions and dust and noise. A conjuror, a juggler, a seller of nostrums, and a puppet show were all going full blast in noisy competition.
Reith would have liked to buy tickets for seats in the grandstand, but the stand was already full of upper-class Krishnans. The sword-clanking males were in cloaks of emerald and purple and scarlet over the Krishnan loin garment. This could be either an oversized diaper, or a land of divided kilt. The females wore bare-breasted dresses, inciting Pride to utter bad jokes. The Terrans had to wriggle through a much larger crowd of smellier and more drably clad Krishnans, who lined the fence on either side of the grandstand.
The Krishnans stared at their exotic visitors but then turned their attention back to the field within the race track, puffing cigars of ultra-strong Krishnan tobacco. Reith thought that if early Terran visitors had introduced tobacco before the I.C. had clamped down the technological blockade, they should at least have let in soap as well. The perfumes used by even poor Krishnans failed to cover the aroma of unsoaped Krishnan. Khorsh said: “Senhor Reith, they tell me the races are already over. The next event will be a drill by the Royal Zamban Lancers.”
Reith and his people stood, shifting from
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