The Connatic said reflectively: “A thousand a week in a
population of three billion is not a large percentage.”
Orgold replied in a business-like manner, which affected the
Connatic more favorably than did Orgold’s coarse and vaguely untidy appearance.
“Our facilities already are overextended. At this moment we need eighteen new
sturge plants—”
Lemiste helpfully inserted an annotation: “‘Sturge’ is raw
food-slurry.”
“—a new deep layer of drains, tanks and feeders, a thousand
new blocks. The toil involved is tremendous. The Arm-bins do not wish to devote
whole lifetimes to toil. So steps must be taken. First, and perhaps least—if
only to quiet Delfin—the influx of immigrants must be halted.”
“Difficult,” said the Connatic. “Basic Law guarantees freedom
of movement.”
Delfin cried out: “Egalism is envied across the Cluster!
Since all Alastor cannot come to Arrabus, then egalism must be spread across
the Cluster. This should be your immediate duty!”
The Connatic showed the trace of a somber smile. “I must
study your ideas with care. At the moment their logic eludes me.”
Delfin muttered_ under his breath, and swung sulkily sideways
in his chair. He snapped across his shoulder: “The logic is the immigrants’
feet; in their multitudes they march on Arrabus!”
“A thousand a week? Ten times as many Arrabins commit suicide.”
“Nothing is, thereby proved!”
The Connatic gave an indifferent shrug and turned a dispassionate
inspection around the group. Odd, he reflected, that Orgold, Lemiste and
Fausgard, while patently uninterested in Delfin’s views, should allow him to
act as spokesman, and to present absurd demands, thereby diminishing the dignity
of them all. Lemiste’s perceptions were perhaps the keenest of the group. He
managed a deprecatory smile. “The Whispers are necessarily strong-minded, and
we do not always agree on how best to solve our problems.”
Fausgard said shortly: “Or even to identify them, for that
matter.”
Lemiste paid her no heed. “In essence, our machinery is obsolescent.
We need new equipment, to produce more goods more efficiently.”
“Are you then requesting a grant of money?”
“This certainly would help, on a continuing basis.”
“Why not reclaim the lands to north and south? At one time
they supported a population.”
Lemiste gave his head a dubious shake. “Arrabins are an
urban folk; we know nothing of agriculture.”
The Connatic rose to his feet. “I will send expert investigators
to Arrabus. They will analyze your situation and make recommendations.”
Tension broke loose in Fausgard; she exclaimed sharply: “We
don’t want investigators or study commissions; they’ll tell us: ‘Do this! Do
that!’—all contra-egalistic! We want no more competition and greed; we can’t
abandon our gains!”
“Be assured that I will personally study the matter,” said
the Connatic.
Orgold dropped his air of stolid detachment. “Then you will
come to Wyst?”
“Remember,” Lemiste called out cheerfully, “you are invited
to participate at the Centenary!”
“I will consider the invitation most carefully. Now then, I
noticed you showed only small interest in the collation I set forth; you might
prefer a more adventurous cuisine, and I wish you to be my guests. Along
the lower promenades are hundreds of excellent restaurants; please dine where
you like and instruct the attendant to place all charges to the Connatic’s
account.”
“Thank you,” said Fausgard rather tersely. “That is most gracious.”
The Connatic turned to go, then halted as if on sudden
thought. “By the way, who is Jantiff Ravensroke?”
The Whispers stared at him in frozen attitudes of doubt and
wonder. Lemiste said at last: “Jantiff Ravensroke? I do not recognize the name.”
“Nor I!” cried Delfin, hoarse and truculent.
Fausgard numbly shook her head and Orgold merely gazed
impassively at a point above the Connatic’s head.
Lemiste asked: “Who is this Jantiff?”
“A person who has corresponded with me; it is no great
matter. If I visit Arrabus I will take the trouble to look him up. Good evening
to you all.”
His image moved into the shadows at the side of the room,
and faded.
In the dressing room the Connatic removed his casque. “Esclavade?”
“Sir?”
‘What do you think of the Whispers?”
“An odd group. I detect voice tremor in Fausgard and
Le-mists. Orgold’s assurance is impervious to tension. Delfin lacks all
restraint. The name ‘Jantiff Ravensroke’ may not be unfamiliar to them.”
“There is a mystery here,” said the Connatic. “Certainly
they did not travel all the way from Wyst to make a series of impossible
proposals, quite at odds to their stated purposes.”
“I agree. Something has altered their viewpoint”
“I wonder if there is a connection with Jantiff Ravensroke?”
Jantiff Ravensroke had been born in comfortable circumstances
at Frayness on Zeck, Alastor 503. His father, Lile Ravensroke, calibrated
micrometers at the Institute of Molecular design; his mother held a part-time
job as technical analyst at Orion Instruments. Two sisters, Ferfan and Juille,
specialized respectively in a sub-phase of condaptery
[5]
and the carving of mooring posts.
[6]
At the junior academy Jantiff, a tall thin young man with a
long bony face and lank black hair, trained first in graphic design, then,
after a year, reoriented himself into chromatics and perceptual psychology. At
senior school he threw himself into the history of creative imagery, despite
the opinion of his family that he was spreading himself too thin. His father
pointed out that he could not forever delay taking a specialty, that unrelated
enthusiasms, while no doubt entertaining, would seem to merge into frivolity
and even irresponsibility.
Jantiff listened with dutiful attention, but soon thereafter
he chanced upon an old manual of landscape painting, which insisted that only
natural pigments could adequately depict natural objects; and, further, that synthetic
substances, being bogus and unnatural, subconsciously influenced the craftsman
and inevitably falsified his work. Jantiff found the argument convincing and
began to collect, grind and blend umbers and others, barks, roots, berries, the
glands of fish and the secretions of nocturnal rodents, while his family
looked on in amusement.
Lile Ravensroke again felt obliged to correct Jantiff’s instability.
He took an oblique approach to the topic. “I take it that you are not
reconciled to a life of abject poverty?”
Jantiff, naturally mild and guileless, with occasional
lapses into absent-mindedness, responded without hesitation: “Certainly not! I
very much enjoy the good things of life!”
Lile Ravensroke went on, in a casual voice: “I expect that
you intend to earn these good things not by crime or fraud but through your own
good efforts?”
“Of course!” said Jantiff, now somewhat puzzled. “That goes
without saying.”
“Then how do you expect to profit from your training to
date: which is to say, a smattering of this and an inkling of that? ‘Expertise’
is the word you must concentrate upon! Sure control over a special technique:
this is how you put coin in your pocket!”
In a subdued voice Jantiff stated that he had not yet discovered
a specialty which he felt would interest him across the entire span of his existence.
Lile Ravensroke replied that to his almost certain knowledge no divine fiat had
ever ordained that toil must be joyful or interesting. Aloud Jantiff
acknowledged the rightness of his father’s views, but privately clung to the
hope that somehow he might turn his frivolity to profit.
Jantiff finished his term at senior school with no great distinction,
and the summer recess lay before him. During these few brief months he must
define the course of his future: specialized study at the lyceum, or perhaps
apprenticeship as a technical draftsman. It seemed that youth, with all its
joyful vagaries, lay definitely behind! In a morose mood Jantiff happened to
pick up the old treatise on the depiction of landscapes, and there he
encountered a tantalizing passage:
For certain craftsmen, the depiction of landscapes becomes a lifelong
occupation. Many interesting examples of the craft exist. Remember: the
depiction reflects not only the scene itself but the craftsman’s private point
of view!
Another aspect to the craft must at least be mentioned: sunlight.
The basic adjunct to the visual process varies from world to world, from a
murky red glow to a crackling purple-white glare. Each of these lights makes
necessary a different adjustment of the subjective-objective tension. Travel,
especially trans-planetary travel, is a most valuable training for the
depictive craftsman. He learns to look with a dispassionate eye; he clears away
films of illusion and sees objects as they are.
There is one world where sun and atmosphere cooperate to produce
an absolutely glorious light, where every surface quivers with its true and
just color. The sun is the white star Dwan and the fortunate world is Wyst, Alastor 1716.
Juille and Ferfan decided to cure Jantiff of his wayward
moods. They diagnosed his problem as shyness, and introduced him to a
succession of bold and sometimes boisterous girls, in the hope of enhancing his
social life. The girls quickly became either bored, puzzled or uneasy. Jantiff
was neither ill-favored, with his black hair, blue-green eyes and almost
aquiline profile, nor shy; nevertheless he lacked talent for small talk, and,
he suspected, justly enough, that his unconventional yearnings would only
excite derision were he rash enough to discuss them.
To avoid a fashionable social function, Jantiff, without informing
his sisters, took himself off to the family houseboat, which was moored at a
pier on the Shard Sea. Fearful that either Juille or Ferfan or both might come
out to fetch him, Jantiff immediately cast off the mooring lines and drove
across Pallas Bay to the shallows, where he anchored his boat among the reeds.
Solitude the peace at last, thought Jantiff. He boiled up a
pot of tea, then settled into a chair on the foredeck and watched the orange
sun Mur settle toward the horizon. Late-afternoon breeze rippled the water; a
million orange coruscations twinkled among the slender black reeds. Jantiff’s
mood loosened; the quiet, wide sky, the play of sunlight on the water were balm
to his uncertain soul. If only he could capture the peace of this moment and
maintain it forever! Sadly he shook his head: life and time were inexorable;
the moment must pass. A photograph was useless, and pigment could never
reproduce such space, such glitter and glow. Here in fact was the very essence
of his yearnings: he wanted to control that magic linkage between the real and
the unreal, the felt and the seen. He wanted to pervade himself with the secret
meaning of things and use this lore as the mood took him. These “secret
meanings” were not necessarily profound or subtle; they simply were what they
were. Like the present circumstances for instance: the mood of late afternoon,
the boat among the reeds, with—perhaps most important of all—the lonely figure
on the deck. In his mind Jantiff composed a depiction, and went so far as to
select pigments… He sighed and shook his head. An impractical idea. Even
were he able to achieve such a representation, what could he do with it? Hang
it on a wall? Absurd. Successive viewings would neutralize the effect as fast
as repetition of a joke.
The sun sank; water moths fluttered among the reeds. From
seaward came the sound of quiet voices in measured discussion. Jantiff listened
intently, eerie twinges co along his skin. No one could explain the sea-voices.
If a person tried to drift stealthily near in a boat the sounds ceased. And the
meaning, no matter how intently one listened, always just evaded
intelligibility. The sea voices had always haunted Jantiff. Once, he had recorded
the sounds, but when he played them back, the sense was even more remote.
Secret meanings, mused Jantiff… He strained to listen. If he could comprehend,
only a word so as to pick up the gist, then he might understand
everything. As if becoming aware of the eavesdropper, the voices fell silent,
and night darkened the sea.
Jantiff went Into the cabin. He dined on, bread, meat and
beer, then returned to the deck. Stars blazed across the sky; Jantiff sat
watching, his mind adrift among the far places, naming those stars he
recognized, speculating about others.
[7]
So much existed: so much to be felt and seen and known! A single
life was not enough… Across the water drifted a murmur of voices, and
Jantiff imagined pale shapes floating in the dark, watching the stars… The
voices dwindled and faded. Silence. Once more Jantiff retreated into the cabin,
where he boiled, up another pot of tea ..
Someone had left a copy of the
Transvoyer
on the
table. Leafing through the pages Jantiff’s attention was caught by a heading:
THE ARRABIN CENTENARY:
A
Remarkable
Era of Social Innovation on
the
Planet Wyst: Alastor 1716
Your Transvoyer correspondent visits Uncibal, the mighty city
beside the sea. Here he discovers a dynamic society, propelled by novel
philosophical energies. The Arrabin goal is human fulfillment, in, a condition
of leisure and amplitude. How has this miracle been accomplished? By a
drastic revision of traditional priorities. To pretend that racks and stress do
not exist would cheapen the Arrabin achievement, which shows no signs of flagging.
The Arrabins are about to celebrate their first century. Our correspondent
supplies the fascinating details.
Jantiff read the article with more than casual interest;
Wyst rejoiced in the remarkable light of the sun Dwan, where—how did the phrase
go?—“every surface quivers with its true and just color.” He put the magazine
aside, and went once more out upon the deck. The stars had moved somewhat
across the sky; that constellation known locally as the “Shamizade” had risen
in the east and was reflected on the sea. Jantiff inspected the heavens, wondering
which star was Dwan. Stepping back into the cabin, he consulted the local
edition of the Alastor Almanac, where Dwan was identified as a dim white star
in the Turtle constellation, along the edge of the carapace.
[8]
Jantiff climbed to the top deck of the houseboat and scanned
the sky. There, to the north, under the Stator hung the Turtle, and there shone
the pale flicker of Dwan. Perhaps imagination played Jantiff tricks, but the
star indeed seemed charged with color.
The information regarding Wyst might have been only of idle
interest, had not Jantiff on the very next day noticed an advertisement
sponsored by Central Space Transport Systems, announcing a promotional
competition. For that depiction best illustrating the scenic charm of Zeck,
the System would provide transportation to and from any world of the Cluster,
with an additional three hundred ozols spending money. Jantiff instantly
assembled panel and pigments and from memory rendered the shallows of the Shard
Sea, with the houseboat at anchor among the reeds. Time was short; he worked in
a fury of concentrated energy, and submitted the composition to the agency only
minutes before the deadline.
Three days later he was notified, not altogether to hi, surprise,
that he had won the grand prize.
Jantiff waited until evening to break the news to his family.
They were astounded both that Jantiff’s daubings could command value and that
he yearned for far strange worlds. Jantiff tried earnestly to explain his
motives. “Naturally I’m not unhappy at home; how could I be? I’m just at loose
ends. I can’t settle myself. I have the feeling that just out of sight, just
past the corner of my eye, something new and shimmering and wonderful waits
for me—if only I knew where to look!”
His mother sniffed. “Really, Jantiff, you’re so fanciful.”
Lile Ravensroke asked sadly: “Haven’t you any ambition for a
normal and ordinary life? No shimmering flapdoodle, just honest work and a
happy home?”
“I don’t know what my ambitions are! That’s the entire
difficulty. My best hope is to get away for a bit and see something of the
Cluster. Then perhaps I’ll be able to settle down.”
His mother in distress cried, “You’ll go far from here and
make your career, and well never see you again!”
Jantiff gave an uneasy laugh. “Of course not! I plan nothing
so stern! I’m restless and uneasy; I want to see how other people live so that
I can decide how I want to live myself.”
Lile Ravensroke said somberly: “When I was young I had similar
notions. For better or worse, I put them aside and now I feel sure that I acted
for the best. There’s nothing out there that isn’t better at home.”
Ferfan said to Jantiff, “There’ll never be sour-grass pie,
or brunts, or shushings the way mother cooks.”
“I’m prepared to rough it for a bit. I might even like the
exotic foods.”
“Ugh,” said Juille. “They all sound so odd and rank.”
The group sat silent for a moment. Then: “If you feel you
must go,” said Juille’s father, “our arguments won’t dissuade you.”
“It’s really for the best,” said Jantiff hollowly. “Then,
when I come back, with the wander-dust off my heels, I’ll hopefully be settled
and definite, and you’ll be proud of me.”
“But Janty, we’re proud of you now,” said Ferfan without any
great conviction.
Julie asked: “Where will you go, and what will you do?’
Jantiff spoke with spurious joviality: “Where will I go?
Here, there, everywhere! And what will I do? Everything! Anything! All for the
sake of experience. I’ll try the carbuncle mines on Arcady; I’ll visit the Connatic
at Lusz; perhaps I’ll drop at Arrabus and spend a few weeks with the emancipated
folk.”
“‘Emancipated folk’ ?” growled Lile Ravensroke. “A twittering
brook of dilly-bugs is more likely.”
“Well, that’s their claim. They only work thirteen hours a week, and it seems to agree with them.”
Juille cried: “You’ll settle in Arrabus and, become emancipated
and we’ll never see you again!”
“My dear girl, there is not the slightest chance of such a thing.”
“Then don’t go to Wyst! The Transvoyer article said that
people arrive from everywhere and never leave.”
Ferfan, who also cherished secret dreams of travel, said
wistfully: “If it’s such a wonderful place, perhaps we’d all better go there.”
Her father laughed humorlessly. “I can’t spare the time from
work.”