Author:	Jack Vance
Copyright:	1970
Date Reviewed:	9/21/01
Rating:	6.5

Synopsis: The final chapter of the "Planet of Adventure" series opens with Woudiver still chained at the warehouse where Reith's spaceboat is being built. He is found to be communicating with two Gzhindra who come to spy each night. Reith knows that Woudiver is up to no good but can't see how he can do any harm, chained as he is. However, upon returning one night, Reith is drugged and carried of to a Pnume underground. He seems to remember Woudiver being shot in the face by one of his friends.

While being lowered in a sack into the underground haven of the Pnume, he breaks free and observes the inhabitants, doing their business. Reith finds an unreadable portfolio of seeming importance and wanders around the corridors trying to find a route to the surface. When he is discovered by a Pnumekin girl, he must kidnap her to avoid further discovery. She reluctantly agrees to read the map in the portfolio to find a route to the surface. The map is a much higher level that this young girl and the punishment for her seeing it is to be cast down into a pit. She must resign herself to becoming a surface Gzhindra. Along the way Reith names the girl Zap 210. She is not significant enough in this society to have her own name.

Reith kills thee Pnume in an attempt to head towards the surface. They board a barge which sails towards the North Area and foreverness. They sail quietly and Reith learns more about Zap 210. Zap 210 knows nothing of the surface and remains despondent about how she will be treated there. She believes she will be attacked and killed as soon as she leaves the shelter. Her only interest is to behave well. Although she has almost no female features, Reith finds himself becoming attracted to her.

After many days they reach the end and find a gap to the surface. They find shelter and from a hut watch a Khor mating ceremony. Zap 210 is confused and disturbed because she has never seen anyone naked. They escape the Khors by attacking a couple and stealing a boat.

After a few days sail, they find refuge in a hidden village and a freehouse. There seems to be a charge for everything here. Reith plans their next move towards returning to his spaceboat and his friends. Their next stop is a Thang village and they are accompanied by a man named Cauch. Meanwhile, Zap 210 begins to learn about men and women.

The Thang village turns out to be a Tschai version of Las Vegas and Reith schemes to win a game to buy passage to their final destination on this planet. While Reith and Cauch reconnoiter to discover how an eelmaster gamer is cheating his customers, Zap 210 is mistaken for a prostitute. The village's champion fighter takes her home and when she refuses to undress, attacks her. Reith comes to Zap 210's rescue. By this time, she has been off the drug that the Pnume fed her to suppress her female hormones and she is becoming a woman. Reith and Cauch defeat the eelmaster at his own game and part company, both now considerably wealthy. On the boat trip back to his friends, Reith and Zap 210 become lovers. They loose two elderly Gzhindra who are following them and go overland to Sivishe.

Reith meets up again with his friends but as they make final plans to leave Tschai, Zap 210 is captured by the Pnume and prepared to be crystallized in the hall of foreverness, their museum cataloging the seven million years of Tschai conquests. Reith is again able to rescue her, this time by threatening to expose all of the secrets in the stolen portfolio. All that the Pnume are, are their secrets and having them exposed would go to the very core of their existence. They agree to release Zap 210 and all the Pnumekin and Reith agrees to keep the portfolio safe. In the end, they all board the spaceboat for Earth and humankind's home.

Review: I rated "The Pnume" slightly higher than the other books of the series because it did a better job of exploring one set of aliens on this world. While we don't learn much of the Pnume, we do learn about the Pnumekin and what makes them tick. I found Zap 210's description of her life and prospects among the Pnume very interesting and her transformation into a woman fascinating. While we had been previously exposed to another altered human, Anacho the Dirdir, he was no more foreign than any other human being. His contempt of anyone or thing without Dirdir influence is all too true of humanities predisposition for prejudice.

The end of the series was very disappointing. Throughout the series Reith performs almost superhuman tasks to achieve his goal but going into the Pnume sanctuary and blackmailing them seems just too much. His return home to Earth and humankind's debate about what to do about Tschai could have been quite interesting, though perhaps not completely adventurous. Just leaving Tschai seemed such a lack luster ending. We knew it would happen early on and there could have been more fanfare associated with the event.