What loyalty do I owe you or yours? You have given none to me, and would do worse if opportunity offered. Bear in mind, Adam Reith, that friendship must work in two directions. Do not expect what you are unwilling to give. If you find my attributes distasteful, remember that I feel the same about yours. Which of us is correct? By the standards of this time and this place, it is certainly I. You are the interloper; your protests are ludicrous and unrealistic. You blame me for inordinacy. Do not forget, Adam Reith, that you chose me as a man who would perform illegal acts for pay. This is your expectation of me; you care nothing for my security or prospects. You came here to exploit me, to urge me to dangerous acts for trifling sums; you must not complain if my conduct seems merely a mirror of your own."

Reith could find no answer. He turned and left the office.

In the shed, work was proceeding at its usual pace: a haven of normalcy after the Carabas and the mind-twisting colloquy with Woudiver. Traz waited just inside the portal. "What did he say?"

"He said Anacho was a criminal, that I came here to exploit him. How can I argue?"

Traz curled his lip. "And Anacho?"

"In the Glass Box. Woudiver says it's easy to get in but impossible to get out."

Reith walked back and forth across the shed. Halting in the doorway, he looked across the water toward the great gray shape. He spoke to Traz: "Will you ask Deine Zarre to step out here?"

Deine Zarre appeared. Reith asked, "Have you ever visited the Glass Box?"

"Long ago."

"Woudiver tells me that a man might lower a rope from the upper gallery."

"Should he care so little for his life."

"I want two quantities of high-potency battarache-enough, say, to destroy this shed ten times over. Where can I get it in a hurry?"

Deine Zarre reflected a moment, then gave a slow fateful nod. "Wait here."

He returned in something over an hour with two clay pots. "Here is battarache; here are fuses. It is contraband material; please do not reveal where you obtained it."

"The subject will never arise," said Reith. "Or so I hope."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SHROUDED IN GRAY cloaks Reith and Traz crossed the causeway to the mainland. By a fine wide avenue, surfaced with a rough white substance that rasped underfoot, they entered the Dirdir city Hei. To either hand rose spires, purple and scarlet; those of gray metal and silver stood far to the north behind the Glass Box. The avenue led close beside a hundred-foot shaft of scarlet. Surrounding this was an expanse of clean white sand upon which rested a dozen peculiar objects of polished stone. Art-things? Fetishes? Trophies? There was no way of knowing. In front of the spire, on a circular plat of white marble, stood three Dirdir. For the first time Reith saw a Dirdir female. The creature was shorter and seemed less resilient, less flexible, than the male; her head was wider at the scalp and pointed at the area corresponding to a chin; she was somewhat darker in color: a pallid gray subtly shaded with mauve. The two stood contemplating the third, a male Dirdir whelp, half the size of the adult. From time to time the effulgences of the three twitched to point to one or another of the polished rock-pieces, an activity which Reith made no effort to understand.

Reith watched them in a mingling of revulsion and reluctant admiration, and he could not avoid thinking of the "mysteries."

Some time previously Anacho had explained the Dirdir sexual processes.

"Essentially, the facts are these: there are twelve styles of male sexual organs, fourteen of the female. Only certain pairings are possible. For instance, the Type One Male is compatible only with Types Five and Nine Female.

Type Five Female adjusts only to Type One Male, but Type Nine Female has a more general organ and is compatible with Types One, Eleven and Twelve Male.

"The matter becomes fantastically complex. Each male and female style has its specific and theoretical attributes, which are very seldom realized-as long as an individual's type is secret! These are the Dirdir 'mysteries'! Should an individual's type become known, he is expected to conform to the theoretical attributes of the type, regardless of inclination; he rarely does so, and is constantly embarrassed on this account.

"As you can imagine, a matter so complicated absorbs a great deal of attention and energy and, perhaps, by keeping the Dirdir fragmented, obsessed and secretive, has prevented them from overrunning the world of space."

"Amazing," said Reith. "But if the types are secret and generally incompatible, how do they mate? How do they reproduce?"

"There are several systems: trial marriage, the so-called 'dark gatherings,'

anonymous notices. The difficulties are transcended." Anacho paused a moment, then proceeded delicately. "I need hardly point out that low-caste Dirdirmen and Dirdirwomen, lacking the 'noble divinity' and without 'secrets,' are thus held to be deficient and somewhat clownish."

"Hmm," said Reith. "Why do you specify 'low-caste Dirdirmen'? What of the Immaculates?"

Anacho cleared his throat. "The Immaculates obviate shame by elaborate surgical methods. They are allowed to alter themselves in accordance with one of eight styles; thus they are conceded 'secrets' as well, and may wear Blue and Pink."

"What about mating?"

"It is more difficult, and in fact becomes an ingenious analogue of the Dirdir system. Each style will match at most two styles of the other sex."

Reith could no longer restrain his mirth. Anacho listened with an expression, half-grim, half-rueful. "What of yourself?" asked Reith. "How far did you involve yourself?"

"Not far enough," said Anacho. "For certain reasons I wore Blue and Pink without providing myself the requisite 'secret.' I was declared an outlaw and an atavism: this was my situation at our first meeting."

"A curious crime," said Reith.

Now Anacho darted for his life across the simulated landscape of Sibol.

The avenue leading to the Glass Box became even broader, as if in some attempt to keep it in scale with the vast bulk. Those who walked the rasping white surface-Dirdir, Dirdirmen, common laborers in gray cloaks-seemed artificial and unreal, like figures in classical perspective exercises. As they walked they looked neither right nor left, passing Reith and Traz as if they were invisible.

Scarlet and purple spires reared to all sides; ahead stood the Glass Box, dwarfing all else. Reith began to suffer oppression of the spirit; Dirdir artifacts and the human psyche were in discord. To tolerate such surroundings, a man eventually must deny his heritage and submit to the Dirdir world-view. In short, he must become a Dirdirman.

They came up beside two other men, like themselves muffled in hooded gray cloaks. Reith spoke: "Perhaps you will inform us. We want to visit the Glass Box but we do not understand the procedure."

The two men gave him an uncertain appraisal. They were father and son, both short, round-faced, with round little paunches, thin arms and legs. The older man said in a reedy voice, "One merely mounts by the gray ramps; there is no more to know."

"You yourselves go to the Glass Box?"

"Yes. There is a special hunt at noon, for a great Dirdirman villain, and there may well be a tossing."

"We had heard nothing of this. Who is this Dirdirman villain?"

The two again examined him dubiously, apparently from a condition of innate uncertainty. "A renegade, a blasphemer. We are scourers at the Number Four Fabrication Plant; we received information from the Dirdirmen themselves."

"You go often to the Glass Box?"