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13-475: After many false starts and real tribulations, Adam Reith has nearly finished building a spaceship to take him home. He and his two trusted companions had been betrayed by Aila Woudiver, the underworld kingpin who had provided the necessary men and equipment in return for an extortionate amount of money. However, Reith was able to turn the tables and take Woudiver captive (as described in The Dirdir ). Even as

26-629: A prisoner though, Woudiver is a dangerous enemy. Somehow, he manages to interest the Pnume in Reith. The Pnume are the sentient native race of Tschai. Driven underground by three separate alien invasions (by the Chasch, Wankh and Dirdir), they view the other species as welcome additions to the pageantry unfolding on their world stage. In the same light, they are intrigued by the Earthman, abducting him to become

39-542: A second. He decides to build a ship from scratch, a task requiring vast amounts of sequins, the universal currency of Tschai. The only way to raise that much quickly is to brave the Carabas, the Dirdir hunting preserve, where sequins grow as crystalline nodes. Men prospect for the nodes, while the Dirdir hunt the men. Those they catch, they eat. Reith turns the tables on the Dirdir. He ambushes their hunting parties and takes

52-515: A specimen in their museum. Reith is lowered into the vast Pnume underground. He manages to free himself and hide before he can be taken by human Pnumekin, servants of the Pnume, to the Museum of Foreverness. Perplexed at finding an empty bag, they summon a Pnume Sector Warden, who consults its Master Charts, detailing all the various tunnels and hidden adits . Determining that there is one possible escape route, they leave to check it. Before it departs,

65-563: A teenage barbarian chieftain, and Ankhe at afram Anacho, an outcast Dirdirman. Reith has failed twice to acquire a spaceship (as recounted in City of the Chasch and Servants of the Wankh ). His exploits bring him to the unwanted attention of the Dirdir. As Anacho explains, his former masters are rarely subtle: they want to question and then kill him. Reith manages to wipe out the first "Initiative" sent after him, but sooner or later, there will be

78-499: Is a science fiction adventure novel by American writer Jack Vance , the third in the tetralogy Tschai, Planet of Adventure . It tells of the efforts of the sole survivor of the destruction of a human starship to return to Earth from the distant planet Tschai. Adam Reith is stranded on Tschai, a distant planet shared by four alien, mutually hostile, advanced species (the Chasch, Wankh, Dirdir and native Pnume). On his quest to get home, he acquires two human companions, Traz Onmale,

91-430: The diko she had been fed to keep her body from developing normally. Eventually, she and Reith become lovers. When they reach the city, Reith finds Anacho waiting for him. He learns that, shortly after Reith's abduction, Woudiver had been taken to be prey for a Dirdir hunt. The ship had been seen, so Traz moved it to a location known only to Reith. However, when they prepare to leave, they find Zap 210 missing, captured by

104-617: The Pnume. Despite Anacho's protestations, Reith gives himself up to the Pnume (after making certain preparations). He bargains with them, threatening to give copies of the Master Charts to the Dirdir unless they release Zap 210. He also demands that they free all the Pnumekin from their freakish existence. The Pnume have no choice; they agree to his terms. Reith and Zap 210 return to the surface, link up with Anacho and Traz, and finally depart for Earth. The Dirdir The Dirdir

117-463: The Sector Warden hides its maps in a secret compartment, but Reith is a witness. He steals them, but is unable to decipher their contents. He kidnaps a young Pnumekin woman to interpret for him. Once Reith forces her to look at the Master Charts, she realizes her life is now forfeit if she is captured, so she cooperates. Upon questioning, Reith learns that she has no name; she simply belongs to

130-571: The Zith group in the Athan area of the Pagaz zone, with a rank of 210, so he names her Zap 210. After a journey of indeterminate length, mostly spent on a barge, they finally escape to the surface. They make their way toward the city of Sivishe, where the spaceship is being built. As their trek continues, Zap 210's colorless personality begins to change, free of the peculiar constraints of Pnumekin society and

143-493: The arch-criminal is too clever for him and all three are handed over to the Dirdir. However, Reith demands arbitration, invoking a tradition too strong for the Dirdir to ignore, even from a "subman". When the judgment goes against him, he challenges the Dirdirman arbitrator. By Dirdir custom, the victor of hand-to-hand combat wins the case. Reith dispatches his foe, only to face a second set of charges. This time, he has to fight

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156-457: The sequins they acquired from their victims. When the Dirdir finally take notice, Reith and his friends barely manage to escape, but they have amassed a fortune; in fact, they have so many sequins, they are forced to leave behind a substantial hidden cache. They journey to the cosmopolitan city of Sivishe, where there are shipyards. They find that they must deal with Aila Woudiver, an enormously obese man with monstrous appetites. The construction of

169-480: The spaceship progresses satisfactorily, but Woudiver demands ever more money, threatening to turn them over to the Dirdir if he is not paid. Finally, Reith has no choice but to go back to the Carabas to retrieve the hidden sequins, leaving Traz and Anacho to keep watch. When he returns however, he finds that Woudiver, who desires above all else to be a Dirdirman, has betrayed Anacho to the Dirdir. Reith risks his life rescuing Anacho. Then he goes to confront Woudiver, but

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