“Seal off the space-port. Allow no egress from the planet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Send a team down to Uncibal central; determine the source
of the transmission. Notify me at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Monitor all air traffic. If anyone is moving, discover his
destination.”
“Yes, sir.”
Shermatz leaned back in his seat. He spoke to Jantiff: “After
today your life may seem pallid and uneventful.”
“I won’t complain as to that.”
“I am alive only through your common sense, of which I myself
showed a dismal lack.”
“I wish this ‘common sense’ had come to life sooner.”
“Be that as it may. The past is fixed, and the dead
are dead. I am alive and thankful for the fact. In reference to the future, may
I inquire your goals?”
“I want to repair my vision. It is starting to blur. Then I
will go back to Balad and try to learn what happened to Glisten.”
Shermatz gave his head a sad shake. “If she is dead,
you’ll search in vain. If she is alive, how will you find her in the Weirdland
forests? I have facilities for such a search; leave the matter in my hands.”
“Just as you say.”
Shermatz turned back to his control panel. “Corchione.”
“Sir?”
“Order the
Isirjir Ziaspraide
down to Uncibal space-port,
and also a pair of patrol cruisers. The
Tressian
and the
Sheer
are
both at hand.”
“Very good, sir.”
Shermatz said to Jantiff: “In times of uncertainty, it is
wise to display symbols of security. The
Isirjir Ziaspraide
admirably suits this purpose.”
“How will you deal with the Whispers?”
“I can’t quite make up my mind. What would you suggest?”
Jantiff shook his head in perplexity. “They have committed awful
deeds. No penalty seems appropriate. Merely to kill them is an anticlimax.”
“Exactly! The drama of retribution should at least equal that
of the crime: in this case an impossible undertaking. Still something must be
contrived. Jantiff, put your fecund mind to work!”
“I am not skilled at inventing punishments.”
“Nor are they to my taste. I enjoy creating
conditions of justice. All too often, however, I must ordain harsh penalties.
It is the disagreeable side to my work. The preferences of the criminal, of
course, can’t be considered; as often as not, he will opt for leniency or even
no punishment whatever.”
A chime sounded. Shermatz touched a button; Corchione spoke.
“The transmission originated at a lodge owned by Contractor
Shubart, on the upper slopes of Mount Prospect, eighteen miles south of
Uncibal.”
“Send out an assault force; seize the Whispers and bring
them to the
Ziaspraide
.”
“At once, sir.”
The
Isirjir Ziaspraide,
flagship of the Thaiatic
[42]
Fleet, and a vessel of awesome magnitude, served less as a weapon of war than
as an instrument of policy. Wherever the
Isirjir Ziaspraide
showed
itself, the majesty of the Connatic and the force of the Whelm were manifest.
The great hull, with its various sponsons, catwalks and rotundas,
had long been regarded as a masterpiece of the naaetic
[43]
art. The interior was no less splendid, with a main saloon a hundred feet long
and thirty-seven feet wide. From the ceiling, which was enameled a warm
lavender-mauve, hung five scintillants. The floor, of a dead-black substance,
lacked all luster. Around the periphery white pilasters supported massive
silver medallions; depictions of the twenty-three goddesses, clothed in
vestments of purple, green and blue, occupied the spaces between. Jantiff,
upon entering the saloon, studied the intricacy of these designs with wondering
envy; here were subtle skills, of draughtsmanship and understated color, beyond
his present capacity. Sixty officers of the Whelm, wearing white, black and
purple dress uniforms, followed him into the saloon. They ranged themselves
along the walls to either side and stood in silence.
A far sound broke the silence: a drum roll, and another, and
another, in fateful slow cadence. The sound grew loud. Into the hall marched
the drummer, somberly costumed after the ancient tradition, with a black mask
across the upper half of his face. Behind came the Whispers, each accompanied
by a masked escort: first Esteban and Sarp. then Skorlet and Shubart. Their
faces were bleak; their eyes glistened with emotion.
The drummer led the way to the end of the hall. He ceased
drumming and stepped aside. The ensuing silence tingled with imminence.
The Commander of the
Isirjir Ziaspraide
stepped out
upon a raised platform, and seated himself behind a table. He addressed the
Whispers: “By the authority of the Connatic, I fix upon you the guilt of
multiple murders, in yet unknown number.”
Sarp clenched his fingers together; the others stood
rigid. Esteban spoke out in a brassy voice: “One murder, many murders: what is the difference? The crime is not multiplied.”
“The point is of no consequence. The Connatic admits himself
in a quandary. He feels that in regard to your case, death is an almost trivial
disposition. Nevertheless, after taking advice, he has issued the following
decree. You shall immediately be housed in spheres of transparent glass twenty
feet above the Field of Voices. The spheres shall be twenty feet in diameter,
and furnished with a minimum of facilities. One week hence, after your crimes
have been elucidated in full detail to all Arrabus, you shall be taken into a
vehicle. At the hour of midnight this vehicle will rise to an altitude of seven
hundred and seventy-seven miles and there explode with a spectacular effulgence
of light. Arrabus will thereby be notified that your deeds have been expiated.
That is to be your fate. Take your farewells of each other; you will meet again
but only briefly, one week hence.”
The Commandant rose to his feet and departed the hall. The
four stood stiffly, showing no desire to exchange sentiments of any sort
whatever.
The drummer stepped forward, and ruffled his drums; again
,
again, at a portentous tempo. The escorts led the four back down the,
length of the hall. Esteban’s eyes darted this way and that, as if he intended
a desperate act; the escort at his elbow paid no heed. Esteban’s gaze suddenly
became fixed. His head thrust forward; he stopped short and pointed a finger. “There
stands Jantiff! Our black demon! We have him to thank for our fate!”
Skorlet, Sarp and Shubart turned to look; their gazes struck
into Jantiff’s face. He stood coldly watching.
The escorts touched the arms of their charges; the group
moved on, at the tempo of the drum roll.
Jantiff turned away, to find Shermatz at his side.
“Events have run their course, so far as you and I are concerned,”
said Shermatz. “Come; the commander has assigned us comfortable quarters, and
for a period we can relax without startlements or dismal duties.”
An ascensor lifted them to a high rotunda. Entering, Jantiff
stopped short, taken aback by opulence on a scale which exceeded all his
previous concepts. Shermatz could not restrain a laugh; he took Jantiff’s arm
and led him forward. “The appointments are perhaps a trifle grand,” said Shermatz,
“but, adaptable as you are, you will quickly find them comfortable. The
view, especially when the
Ziaspraide
coasts quietly among the stars, is
superb.”
The two seated themselves on couches upholstered in purple
velvet. A mess boy, stepping from an alcove, proffered a tray from which
Jantiff took a goblet carved from a single topaz crystal. He tasted the wine,
looked deep into the swimming depths, tasted again. “This is very good wine
indeed.”
Shermatz took, a goblet of the same vintage. “This is the
Trine Aegis. As you see, we who labor in the Connatic’s service enjoy
perquisites as well as hardships. On the whole it is not a bad life; sometimes
pleasant, sometimes frightening, but never monotonous.”
“At the moment I would enjoy a certain level of monotony,”
said Jantiff. “I feel almost inanimate. There is still a single matter which
gnaws at my mind: probably something which is futile to think about. Still
…” He fell silent.
Shermatz reflected a moment. “I have made certain arrangements.
Tomorrow your eyes will be repaired; you will see better than ever. In about a
week’s time the
Ziaspraide
leaves Wyst, and will cruise down the
Fayarion. Zeck is not far to the side, and so you shall be delivered to your
very doorstep. In fact, we will have the
Ziaspraide
hover over Frayness
and send you down in the gig.”
“That is hardly necessary,” mumbled Jantiff.
“Perhaps not, but you are spared the inconvenience of
finding your own way home from the space-port. So shall it be done. Along the
way of course you will use these chambers.”
“What of yourself? Why not come visit me at our house
in Tanglewillow Glen? My family will make you most welcome and you would very
much enjoy our houseboat, especially when we moor it among the reeds on the
Shard Sea.”
“The prospect is appealing,” said Shermatz. “But to my vast
distaste I must remain at Uncibal, and help put together a new Arrabin
government. I expect that the cursars, in all discretion, will manage Arrabus
perhaps for decades, until the Arrabins regain their morale. They are
now confirmed city-dwellers, and generally indecisive. Each person is isolated;
among the multitudes he is alone. Detached from reality he thinks in abstract
terms; he thrills to vicarious emotions. To ease his primal urges he contrives
a sad identification with his apartment block. He deserves better than this;
so does anyone. The blocks of Arrabus will come down, and the folk will go
north and south to reclaim the Weirdlands and again they will become competent
individuals.”
Jantiff drank from his goblet. “I remember the farmers of
Blale: famous witch-chasers all.”
Shermatz laughed. “Jantiff, you are unkind! You would have
these poor folk moving from one extreme to the other! Are there no farmers on
Zeck? Surely they are not witch-chasers!”
“That’s true. Still, Wyst is quite a different world.”
“Precisely so, and these concepts must be carefully weighed
when one works in the service of the Connatic. Does such a career attract your
interest? Don’t tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ at this instant; take time to collect
your thoughts. A message sent to my name in care of the Connatic at Lusz will
always be delivered.”
Jantiff found difficulty in expressing himself. “I very much
appreciate your kind interest.”
“Nothing of the sort, Jantiff; the thanks are on my side.
Were it not for you, I would be part of the atmospheric dust.”
“Were it not for you, I would be blind and dead on the beach
beside the Moaning Ocean.”
“Well then! We have traded good deeds, and this is the stuff
of friendship. So now, your immediate future is arranged. Tomorrow the ophthalmologists
will repair your eyes. Shortly thereafter you depart for home. As for the other
matter which preys on your mind, I have a dreary suspicion that all is
finished, and that you must turn your mind away.”
Jantiff said: “Quite candidly, I still feel impelled to go
south and search the Sych. If Glisten is dead: well then, she is dead. If she
escaped Booch and still lives, then she is wandering alone in the forest, a
poor lost little waif.”
“I half expected such an intention on your part,” said
Shermatz. “Now I see that I must reveal a plan which I kept secret for fear of
arousing your hopes. Today I am sending a team of experienced trackers south.
They will probe all circumstances and make a definite determination one way or
another. Will this satisfy you?”
“Yes, of course. I am more than grateful.”
The
Isirjir
Ziaspraide
hovered over Frayness,
and while all came out to watch, a gig descended into Tanglewillow Glen and
delivered Jantiff to his front door.
“Jantiff, what does all this mean?” gasped his father.
“Not a great deal,” said Jantiff. “I may go into the Connatic’s
service, and on this account was accorded the courtesy of transportation to my
home. But I will tell you all about it, and I assure you there is a great deal
to tell!”
One morning two months later a set of chords announced the
presence of a visitor. Jantiff went to the door and slid it aside. On the porch
stood a slender blonde girl. Jantiff’s voice stuck in his throat. He could
manage only a foolish grin.
“Hello, Jantiff,” said the girl. “Don’t you remember me? I’m
Glisten.”
1. Wyst is the single planet of Dwan, the Eye of the Crystal
Eel, in Giampara’s Realm
[44]
,
low to the side of Alastor Cluster. Wyst is small, damp, cool and unremarkable
except for its history, which is as extravagant, desperate and strange as any
of the Cluster.
The four continents of Wyst: Zumer and Pombal, Trembal and
Tremora, had been settled by different fluxes of peoples. Each evolved in
isolation with little interaction until the Great Hemispheric War between Trembal
and Tremora, which destroyed the social order of both continents and reduced
the lands to wilderness.
Trembal and Tremora faced each other across the narrow
Salaman Sea, a drowned rift valley. The littoral strip between palisades and
water—mud flat and swamp for the most part—was the land of Arrabus, inhabited
only by a few farmers, bird trappers and fishermen. To Arrabus now, for want of
better destination, migrated refugees from both continents: for the most part
members of the gentry. These folk, with neither training nor inclination for
agriculture, organized small factories and technical shops, and within three
generations were the privileged class of Arrabus, while the native Arrabins
became a caste of laborers. With a great increase in population, food was
imported for the new gentry and synthesized for the laboring classes.
The social contrasts necessarily created dissatisfactions,
ever more acerb. A certain Ozzo Disselberg presently published a tract, “Protocols
of Popular Justice,” in which he not only codified the general discontent, but
went considerably further, into allegations which might or might not be
accurate, and in any event were scarcely susceptible to proof. He asserted that
the Arrabin industries were purposefully operated at low efficiency, that
enormous toil was wasted upon archaic flourishes and unnecessary refinements,
in order to restrict real production. By this callous policy, declared
Disselberg, the carrot was suspended tantalizingly just beyond the nose of the
worker, so that he would strive for rewards always to be denied him. He further
asserted that the Arrabin industries could easily provide everyone with the
goods and services now enjoyed only by the privileged few, at a cost of half as
much human toil.
The gentry predictably denounced Disselberg as a demagogue,
and refuted his arguments with statistics of their own. Nevertheless, the Protocols
gained wide currency and, for better or worse, altered the attitudes of the
working population.
One dismal morning, on a date later to be celebrated as the “Day
of Infamy,” Disselberg was discovered dead in his bed, apparently the victim of
assassination. Ulric Caradas
[45]
immediately called for a massive demonstration, which escalated first into violence,
then disintegration of the old government. Caradas organized the First
Egalistic Manifold and proclaimed Disselberg’s principles to be the law of the
land; overnight Arrabus was transformed.
The erstwhile gentry responded variously to the new
conditions. Some emigrated to worlds where they had providentially invested
funds; others integrated themselves into the new order; still others took
themselves north or south into the Weirdlands
[46]
,
or districts beyond, such as Blale and Froke.
Thirty years later, Ozzo Disselberg might have considered
himself vindicated. The labor force, striving under the exhortations of Caradas
and the Egalistic Manifold, had performed prodigies of construction: a magnificent
system of sliding roadways, that the folk might be freely transported; a
complex of food synthesizers, to ensure everyone at least a minimum diet; row
after row, sector after sector, of apartment blocks, each to house three
thousand folk. The Arrabins, emancipated from toil and need at last, were free
to exercise those prerogatives of leisure once solely at the disposal of the
gentry.
2. From
Owl-thoughts of a Peripatetic Pedant
Arrabus makes few if any concessions to the visitor, and the
casual tourist is not likely to discover much comfort or convenience, let alone
luxury. At Uncibal City a single hotel serves the needs of transients: the
rambling old Travelers Inn at the space-port, where ordinary standards of
hospitality are for the traveler no more than a pious hope. Immigrants
encounter an even more desolate welcome; they are hustled into a great gray
barracks where they wait, perforce with stoicism, until they are assigned to
their blocks. After a few meals of “gruff” and “deedle” they are likely to ask
themselves: “Is this why I came to Wyst?” and many hurry back the way they
came. On the other hand, the visitor who has firmly established his departure
date may well find Arrabus exhilarating. The Arrabins are gregarious,
extroverted, and dedicated to pleasure; the visitor will make dozens of
friends, who as often as not will dispose themselves for his erotic recreations.
(As a possible irrelevance, it may be noted that in an absolutely egalistic society,
the distinction between male and female tends to become indistinct.)
The visitor, despite the animation of his friends and the
insistent gaiety of their company, will presently begin to notice a pervading shabbiness,
only thinly disguised under coats of color-wash. The original “sturge” plants
have never been replaced; it is still nothing but “gruff” and “deedle” “with
wobbly to fill up the cracks,” as the popular expression goes. The folk work
thirteen hours a week at “drudge,” high and low, but they hope to reduce the
stint to ten hours and eventually six. “Low” toil—anything to do with
machinery, assembly, repair, cleaning or digging—is unpopular. “High” toil—records,
calculation, decoration, teaching—is preferred. Essential maintenance and
major construction are contracted out to companies based elsewhere. Foreign
exchange is earned through the export of fabric, toys, and glandular extracts,
but production is inefficient. Machinery falters; the labor force constantly shifts.
Management (“high” drudge shared in turn by all), by the nature of things,
lacks coercive power. Critical jobs are left to the contractors, whose fees
absorb all the foreign exchange. Arrabin money, therefore, is worthless elsewhere.
How can such an economy survive? Miraculous to state, it
does: unevenly, veering and jerking, with surprises and improvisations;
meanwhile the Arrabins live their lives with zest and charming ingenuousness. Public
spectacles are popular. Hussade assumes an exotic and even grotesque
semblance, where catharsis supersedes skill. “Shunkery” includes combats,
trials, races and games involving enormous ill-smelling beasts from Pombal. The
shunk riders have recently become disaffected and are demanding higher wages,
which the Arrabins resist.
Naturally, despite general gaiety and good cheer, all is not
positive in this remarkable land. Frustration, annoyance, inconvenience are
endemic. Bizarre and incessant erotic activity, petty thievery, secret malice,
stealthy nuisances: these are commonplaces of the Arrabin scene, and the
Arrabins are certainly not a folk of strong psychological fiber. Each society,
so it is said, generates its characteristic set of crimes and vices. Those of
Arrabus exude the cloying stink of depravity.
3. Asteroids, stellar detritus, broken planets and the like,
afford bases to the pirates and raiders whom even the Whelm seems unable to
expunge.
Andrei Simić, the Gaean philosopher, has theorized that
primitive man, evolving across millions of years in chronic fear, pain,
deprivation and emergency, must have adapted intimately to these excitations.
In consequence, civilized men will of necessity require occasional frights and
horrors, to stimulate their glands and maintain their health. Simić has
jocularly proposed a corps of dedicated public servants, the Ferocifers, or
Public Terrifiers, who severely frighten each citizen several times a week, as
his health requires.
Uncharitable critics of the Connatic have speculated that he
practices a version of the Simić principle, never eradicating the
starmenters once and for all, to ensure against the population becoming bland
and stolid. “He runs the Cluster as if it were a game preserve,” declares one
of these critics. “He stipulates so many beasts of prey to so many ruminants,
and so many scavengers to devour the carrion. By this means he keeps all his animals
in tone.”
A correspondent of the
Transvoyer
once asked the Connatic
point-blank if he subscribed to such a doctrine. The Connatic replied only that
he was acquainted with the theory.
4. For a detailed discussion of hussade see
Trullion:
Alastor 2262.
Like most, if not all, games, hussade is symbolic war. Unlike
most games, hussade is played at a level of intensity transcending simple competitive
zeal. At hussade, the penalties of defeat are extremely poignant, comparable to
the penalties of defeat at war. A team, when defeated at a ploy, or play series,
pays a financial indemnity to ransom the honor of its sheirl. The game
proceeds until a team is defeated in so many successive ploys that its game
fund is exhausted, whereupon the sheirl of the defeated team undergoes a more
or less explicit ravishment at the hands of the victors, depending upon local
custom. The losers suffer the humiliation of submission. Hussade is never
played in lackadaisical style. Spectators, victors and vanquished alike
experience a total emotional discharge: hence the universal popularity of the
game.
Hussade puts a premium not only on strength, but on skill,
agility, fortitude, and careful strategy. Withal, hussade is not a violent
game; personal injury, aside from incidental scrapes and bruises, is almost
unknown.
5. According to the canons of Alastrid mythology,
twenty-three goddesses rule the twenty-three segments of the Cluster. Each goddess
is a highly individual entity; each expresses a different set of attributes.
Discord often results from the disparities. None of the goddesses is content to
confine herself to her own realm; all constantly meddle in the affairs of other
realms. When a man encounters an extraordinary circumstance, he more or less
jocularly cites the influence of a goddess. Jantiff hence gives thanks to Cassadense,
whose realm includes Zeck. For this reason she is presumably concerned with Jantiff’s
welfare, especially since he travels the realm of her great rival Giampara.