The gondola glided to the landing. A Szecr in a yellow beret with green tassels was waiting—apparently a man of importance. There was no formal introduction; the Szecr discussed Farr quietly between themselves.
Farr saw no reason to wait, and started up the avenue toward one of the new cosmopolitan hotels. The Szecr made no attempt to stop him; Farr was now on his own, subject only to surveillance.
He relaxed and loafed around the city for almost a week. There were few other off-world visitors; the Iszic authorities discouraged tourism to the maximum degree allowed them by the Treaty of Access. Farr tried to arrange an interview with the Chairman of the Export Council, but an under-clerk turned him away politely but brusquely, upon learning that Farr wished to discuss the export of low-quality houses. Farr had expected no better. He explored the canals and the lagoon in gondolas, and he strolled the avenues. At least three of the Szecr gave him their time, quietly following along the avenues and lounging in nearby pods on the public terraces.
On one occasion he walked around the lagoon to the far side of the island, a rocky sandy area exposed to the wind and the full force of the sun. Here the humbler castes lived in modest three-pod houses, growing in rows with strips of hot sand between the dwellings. These houses were neutral in color, a brownish gray-green with a central tuft of large leaves casting black shade over the pods. Such houses were not available for export and Farr, a man with a highly developed social conscience, became indignant. A shame these houses could not be made available to the under-housed billions of Earth! A whole district of such habitations could be provided for next to nothing: the mere cost of seed! Farr walked up to one of the houses, peered into a low-hanging pod. Instantly a branch dropped down, and had Farr not jumped back he might have been injured. As it was, the heavy terminal frond slapped across his scalp. One of the Szecr, standing twenty yards distant, sauntered forward. “You are not advised to molest the trees.”
“I wasn’t molesting anything or anyone.”
The Szecr shrugged. “The tree thought otherwise. It is trained to be suspicious of strangers. Among the lower castes…” the Szecr spat contemptuously, “feuds and quarrels go on, and the trees become uneasy at the presence of a stranger.”
Farr turned to examine the tree with new interest. “Do you mean that the trees have a conscious mind?”
The Szecr’s answer was no more than an indifferent shrug.
Farr asked, “Why aren’t these trees exported? There would be an enormous market; many people need houses who can afford nothing better than these.”
“You have answered yourself,” responded the Szecr. “Who is the dealer on Earth?”
“K. Penche.”
“He is a wealthy man?”
“Exceedingly wealthy.”
“Would he be equally wealthy selling hovels such as these?”
“Conceivably.”
The Szecr turned away. “In any case, we would not profit. These houses are no less difficult to root, nurture, pack and ship than the Class AA houses we choose to deal in… I advise you not to investigate another strange house so closely. You might well suffer serious injury. The houses are not so tolerant of intruders as their inhabitants.”
Farr continued around the island, past orchards bearing fruit and low coarse shrubs like Earth century plants, from the center of which sprouted a cluster of ebony rods as much as an inch in diameter and ten feet talclass="underline" smooth, glossy, geometrically straight. When Farr went to investigate the Szecr interfered.
“These are not house trees,” Farr protested. “In any event, I plan no damage. I am a botanist and interested in strange plants.”
“No matter,” said the Szecr lieutenant. “Neither the plants nor the craft which has developed them are your property, and hence should be of complete disinterest to you.”
“The Iszics seem to have small understanding of intellectual curiosity,” observed Farr.
“To compensate, we have a large understanding of rapacity, larceny, brain-picking and exploitation.”
Farr had no answer and, grinning wryly, continued around the beach and so back to the rich-colored fronds, pods and trunks of the town.
One phase of the surveillance puzzled Farr. He approached the lieutenant and indicated an operative a few yards away. “Why does he mimic me? I sit down, he sits down. I drink, he drinks. I scratch my nose, he scratches his nose.”
“A special technique,” explained the Szecr. “We divine the pattern of your thinking.”
“It won’t work,” said Farr.
The lieutenant bowed. “Farr Sainh may be quite correct.”
Farr smiled indulgently. “Do you seriously think you can predict my plans?”
“We can only do our best.”
“This afternoon I plan to rent a sea-going boat. Were you aware of that?”
The lieutenant produced a paper. “I have the charter ready for you. It is the Lhaiz, and I have arranged a crew.”
II
The Lhaiz was a two-masted barque the shape of a Dutch wooden shoe, with purple sails and a commodious cabin. It had been grown on a special boat-tree, one piece even to the main-mast, which originally had been the stem of the pod. The foremast, sprit, booms and rigging were fabricated parts, a situation as irking to the Iszic mind as mechanical motion to an Earth electronics engineer. The crew of the Lhaiz sailed west. Atolls rose over the horizon, then sank astern. Some were deserted little gardens; others were given to the breeding, seeding, budding, grafting, sorting, packing and shipping of houses.
As a botanist, Farr was most strongly interested in the plantations, but here the surveillance intensified, becoming a review of his every motion.
At Tjiere atoll irritation and perversity led Farr to evade his guards. The Lhaiz sailed up to the pier and two of the crew passed lines ashore while the others furled sail and cradled booms. Aile Farr jumped easily from the after-deck down to the pier and set off toward the shore. A mutter of complaints came from behind; these gave Farr malicious amusement.
He looked ahead to the island. The beach spread wide to either side, pounded by surf, and the slopes of the basalt ridge were swathed in green, blue and black vegetation—a scene of great peace and beauty. Farr controlled the urge to jump down on the beach to disappear under the leaves. The Szecr were polite, but very quick on the trigger.
A tall strong man appeared upon the dock ahead. Blue bands circled his body and limbs at six inch intervals, the pallid Iszic skin showing between the rings. Farr slackened his pace. Freedom was at an end.
The Iszic lifted a single-lensed lorgnette on an ebony rod, the viewer habitually carried by high-caste Iszic, an accessory almost as personal as one of their organs. Farr had been viewed many times; it never failed to irritate him. Like any other visitor to Iszm, like the Iszic themselves, he had no choice, no recourse, no defense. The radiant injected into his shoulder had labeled him. He was now categorized and defined for anyone who cared to look.
“Your pleasure, Farr Sainh?” The Iszic used the dialect which children spoke before they learned the language of their caste.