The Best of Jack Vance (1976) SSC

by Jack Vance

  As she marched down the corridor she was surprised to find that she was angry with herself as well as irritated with Mr. Mycroft. He had no right making people wonder about themselves. It wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t wondering a little already.

  But this was all nonsense. Two million dollars was two million dollars. When she was rich, she’d call on Mr. Mycroft and ask him if honestly he didn’t think it was worth a few little lapses.

  And today—up to Abercrombie Station. She suddenly became excited.

  III

  The pilot of the Abercrombie supply barge was emphatic. “No, sir, I think you’re making a mistake, nice little girl like you.”

  He was a chunky man in his thirties, hard-bitten and positive. Sparse blond hair crusted his scalp, deep lines gave his mouth a cynical slant. Webbard, the Abercrombie chief steward, was billeted astern, in the special handling locker. The usual webbings were inadequate to protect his corpulence; he floated chin-deep in a tankful of emulsion the same specific gravity as his body.

  There was no passenger cabin and Jean had slipped into the seat beside the pilot. She wore a modest white frock, a white toque, a gray-and-black-striped jacket.

  The pilot had few good words for Abercrombie Station. “Now it’s what I call a shame, taking a kid like you to serve the likes of them…Why don’t they get one of their own kind? Surely both sides would be the happier.”

  Jean said innocently, “I’m going up for only just a little bit.”

  “So you think. It’s catching. In a year you’ll be like the rest of them. The air alone is enough to sicken a person, rich and sweet like olive oil. Me, I never set foot outside the barge unless I can’t help it.”

  “Do you think I’ll be—safe?” She raised her lashes, turned him her reckless sidelong look.

  He licked his lips, moved in his seat. “Oh, you’ll be safe enough,” he muttered. “At least from them that’s been there a while. You might have to duck a few just fresh from Earth…After they’ve lived on the Station a bit their ideas change, and they wouldn’t spit on the best part of an Earth girl.”

  “Hmmph.” Jean compressed her lips. Earl Abercrombie had been born on the Station.

  “But I wasn’t thinking so much of that,” said the pilot. It was hard, he thought, talking straight sense to a kid so young and inexperienced. “I meant in that atmosphere you’ll be apt to let yourself go. Pretty soon you’ll look like the rest of ‘em—never want to leave. Some aren’t able to leave—couldn’t stand it back on Earth if they wanted to.”

  “Oh—I don’t think so. Not in my case.”

  “It’s catching,” said the pilot vehemently. “Look, kid—I know. I’ve ferried out to all the stations, I’ve seen ‘em come and go. Each station has its own kind of weirdness, and you can’t keep away from it.” He chuckled self-consciously. “Maybe that’s why I’m so batty myself…Now take Madeira Station. Gay. Frou-frou.” He made a mincing motion with his fingers. “That’s Madeira. You wouldn’t know much about that…But take Balchester Aerie, take Merlin Dell, take the Starhome—”

  “Surely, some are just pleasure resorts?”

  The pilot grudgingly admitted that of the twenty-two resort satellites, fully half were as ordinary as Miami Beach. “But the others—oh, Moses!” He rolled his eyes back. “And Abercrombie is the worst.”

  There was silence in the cabin. Earth was a monstrous green, blue, white and black ball over Jean’s shoulder. The sun made a furious hole in the sky below. Ahead were the stars—and a set of blinking blue and red lights.

  “Is that Abercrombie?”

  “No, that’s the Masonic Temple. Abercrombie is on out a ways…” He looked diffidently at her from the corner of his eyes. “Now—look! I don’t want you to think I’m fresh. Or maybe I do. But if you’re hard up for a job—why don’t you come back to Earth with me? I got a pretty nice shack in Long Beach—nothing fancy—but it’s on the beach, and it’ll be better than working for a bunch of sideshow freaks.”

  Jean said absently, “No thanks.” The pilot pulled in his chin, pulled his elbows close against his body, glowered.

  An hour passed. From behind came a rattle, and a small panel slid back. Webbard’s pursy face showed through. The barge was coasting on free momentum, gravity was negated. “How much longer to the Station?”

  “It’s just ahead. Half an hour, more or less, and well be fished up tight and right.”

  Webbard grunted, withdrew.

  Yellow and green lights winked ahead. “That’s Abercrombie,” said the pilot. He reached out to a handle. “Brace yourself.” He pulled. Pale blue check-jets streamed out ahead.

  From behind came a thump and an angry cursing. The pilot grinned. “Got him good.” The jets roared a minute, died. “Every trip it’s the same way. Now in a minute he’ll stick his head through the panel and bawl me out.”

  The portal slid back. Webbard showed his furious face. “Why in thunder don’t you warn me before you check? I just now took a blow that might have hurt me! You’re not much of a pilot, risking injuries of that sort!”

  The pilot said in a droll voice, “Sorry, sir, sorry indeed. Won’t happen again.”

  “It had better not! If it does, I’ll make it my business to see that you’re discharged.”

  The portal snapped shut. “Sometimes I get him better than others,” said the pilot. “This was a good one, I could tell by the thump.”

  He shifted in his seat, put his arm around Jean’s shoulders, pulled her against him. “Let’s have a little kiss, before we fish home.”

  Jean leaned forward, reached out her arm. He saw her face coming toward him—bright wonderful face, onyx, pale rose, ivory, smiling, hot with life…She reached past him, thrust the check-valve. Four jets thrashed forward. The barge jerked. The pilot fell into the instrument panel, comical surprise written on his face.

  From behind came a heavy resonant thump.

  The pilot pulled himself back into his seat, knocked back the check-valve. Blood oozed from his chin, forming a little red wen. Behind them the portal snapped open. Webbard’s face, black with rage, looked through.

  When he had finally finished, and the portal had closed, the pilot looked at Jean, who was sitting quietly in her seat, the corners of her mouth drawn up dreamily.

  He said from deep in his throat, “If I had you alone, I’d beat you half to death.”

  Jean drew her knees up under her chin, clasped her arms around and looked silently ahead.

  Abercrombie Station had been built to the Fitch cylinder design: a power and service core, a series of circular decks, a transparent sheath. To the original construction a number of modifications and annexes had been added. An outside deck circled the cylinder, sheet steel to hold the magnetic grapples of small boats, cargo binds, magnetic shoes, anything which was to be fixed in place for a greater or lesser time. At each end of the cylinder, tubes connected to dependent constructions. The first, a sphere, was the private residence of the Abercrombies. The second, a cylinder, rotated at sufficient speed to press the water it contained evenly over its inner surface to a depth of ten feet; this was the Station swimming pool, a feature found on only three of the resort satellites.

  The supply barge inched close to the dock, bumped. Four men attached constrictor tackle to rings in the hull, heaved the barge along to the supply port. The barge settled into its socket, grapples shot home, the ports sucked open.

  Chief Steward Webbard was still smoldering, but now a display of anger was beneath his dignity. Disdaining magnetic shoes, he pulled himself to the entrance, motioned to Jean. “Bring your baggage.”

  Jean went to her neat little trunk, jerked it into the air, found herself floundering helpless in the middle of the cargo space. Webbard impatiently returned with magnetic clips for her shoes, and helped her float the trunk into the Station.

  She was breathing different, rich air. The barge had smelled of ozone, grease, hemp sacking, but the Station…Without consciously trying to ide
ntify the odor, Jean thought of waffles with butter and syrup mixed with talcum powder.

  Webbard floated in front of her, an imposing spectacle. His fat no longer hung on him in folds; it ballooned out in an even perimeter. His face was smooth as a watermelon, and it seemed as if his features were incised, carved, rather than molded. He focused his eyes at a point above her dark head. “We had better come to an understanding, young lady.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Webbard.”

  “As a favor to my friend, Mr. Fotheringay, I have brought you here to work. Beyond this original and singular act, I am no longer responsible. I am not your sponsor. Mr. Fotheringay recommended you highly, so see that you give satisfaction. Your immediate superior will be Mrs. Blaiskell, and you must obey her implicitly. We have very strict rules here at Abercrombie—fair treatment and good pay—but you must earn it. Your work must speak for itself, and you can expect no special favors.” He coughed. “Indeed, if I may say so, you are fortunate in finding employment here; usually we hire people more of our own sort, it makes for harmonious conditions.”

  Jean waited with demurely bowed head. Webbard spoke on further, detailing specific warnings, admonitions, injunctions.

  Jean nodded dutifully. There was no point antagonizing pompous old Webbard. And Webbard thought that here was a respectful young lady, thin and very young and with a peculiar frenetic gleam in her eye, but sufficiently impressed by his importance…Good coloring too. Pleasant features. If she only could manage two hundred more pounds of flesh on her bones, she might have appealed to his grosser nature.

  “This way, then,” said Webbard.

  He floated ahead, and by some magnificent innate power continued to radiate the impression of inexorable dignity even while plunging headfirst along the corridor.

  Jean came more sedately, walking on her magnetic clips, pushing the trunk ahead as easily as if it had been a paper bag.

  They reached the central core, and Webbard, after looking back over his bulging shoulders, launched himself up the shaft.

  Panes in the wall of the core permitted a view of the various halls, lounges, refectories, salons. Jean stopped by a room decorated with red plush drapes and marble statuary. She stared, first in wonder, then in amusement.

  Webbard called impatiently, “Come along now, miss, come along.”

  Jean pulled herself away from the pane. “I was watching the guests. They looked like—” She broke into a sudden giggle.

  Webbard frowned, pursed his lips. Jean thought he was about to demand the grounds for her merriment, but evidently he felt it beneath his dignity. He called, “Come along now, I can spare you only a moment.”

  She turned one last glance into the hall, and now she laughed aloud.

  Fat women, like bladder-fish in an aquarium tank. Fat women, round and tender as yellow peaches. Fat women, miraculously easy and agile in the absence of gravity. The occasion seemed to be an afternoon musicale. The hall was crowded and heavy with balls of pink flesh draped in blouses and pantaloons of white, pale blue and yellow.

  The current Abercrombie fashion seemed designed to accent the round bodies. Flat bands like Sam Browne belts molded the breasts down and out, under the arms. The hair was parted down the middle, skinned smoothly back to a small roll at the nape of the neck. Flesh, bulbs of tender flesh, smooth shiny balloons. Tiny twitching features, dancing fingers and toes, eyes and lips roguishly painted. On Earth any one of these women would have sat immobile, a pile of sagging sweating tissue. At Abercrombie Station—the so-called “Adipose Alley”—they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs, and their faces and bodies were smooth as butterballs.

  “Come, come, come!” barked Webbard. “There’s no loitering at Abercrombie!”

  Jean restrained the impulse to slide her trunk up the core against Webbard’s rotund buttocks, a tempting target. He waited for her at the far end of the corridor. “Mr. Webbard,” she asked thoughtfully, “how much does Earl Abercrombie weigh?”

  Webbard tilted his head back, glared reprovingly down his nose. “Such intimacies, miss, are not considered polite conversation here.”

  Jean said, “I merely wondered if he were as—well, imposing as you are.”

  Webbard sniffed. “I couldn’t answer you. Mr. Abercrombie is a person of great competence. His—presence is a matter you must learn not to discuss. It’s not proper, not done.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Webbard,” said Jean meekly.

  Webbard said, “You’ll catch on. You’ll make a good girl yet. Now, through the tube, and I’ll take you to Mrs. Blaiskell.”

  Mrs. Blaiskell was short and squat as a kumquat. Her head was steel-gray, and skinned back modishly to the roll behind her neck. She wore tight black rompers, the uniform of the Abercrombie servants, so Jean was to learn.

  Jean suspected that she made a poor impression on Mrs. Blaiskell. She felt the snapping gray eyes search her from head to foot, and kept her own modestly downcast.

  Webbard explained that Jean was to be trained as a maid, and suggested that Mrs. Blaiskell use her in the Pleasaunce and the bedrooms.

  Mrs. Blaiskell nodded. “Good idea. The young master is peculiar, as everyone knows, but he’s been pestering the girls lately and interrupting their duties; wise to have one in there such as her—no offense, miss, I just mean it’s the gravity that does it—who won’t be so apt to catch his eye.”

  Webbard signed to her, and they floated off a little distance, conversing in low whispers.

  Jean’s mouth quivered at the corners. Old fools!

  Five minutes passed. Jean began to fidget. Why didn’t they do something? Take her somewhere. She suppressed her restlessness. Life! How good, how zestful! She wondered, Will I feel this same joy when I’m twenty? When I’m thirty, forty? She drew back the corners of her mouth. Of course I will! I’ll never let myself change…But life must be used to its best. Every flicker of ardor and excitement must be wrung free and tasted. She grinned. Here she floated, breathing the overripe air of Abercrombie Station. In a way it was adventure. It paid well—two million dollars, and only for seducing an eighteen-year-old boy. Seducing him, marrying him—what difference? Of course he was Earl Abercrombie, and if he were as imposing as Mr. Webbard…She considered Webbard’s great body in wry speculation. Oh well, two million was two million. If things got too bad, the price might go up. Ten million, perhaps. Not too large a cut out of a billion.

  Webbard departed without a word, twitching himself easily back down the core.

  “Come,” said Mrs. Blaiskell. “I’ll show you your room. You can rest and tomorrow I’ll take you around.”

  IV

  Mrs. Blaiskell stood by, frankly critical, while Jean fitted herself into black rompers. “Lord have mercy, but you mustn’t pinch in the waist so! You’re rachity and thin to starvation now, poor child; you mustn’t point it up so! Perhaps we can find a few airfloats to fill you out; not that it’s essential, Lord knows, since you’re but a dust-maid. Still, it always improves a household to have a staff of pretty women, and young Earl, I will say this for him and all his oddness, he does appreciate a handsome woman…Now then, your bosom, we must do something there; why, you’re nearly flat! You see, there’s no scope to allow a fine drape down under the arms, see?” She pointed to her own voluminous rolls of adipose. “Suppose we just roll up a bit of cushion and—”

  “No,” said Jean tremulously. Was it possible that they thought her so ugly? “I won’t wear padding.”

  Mrs. Blaiskell sniffed. “It’s your own self that’s to benefit, my dear. I’m sure it’s not me that’s the wizened one.”

  Jean bent over her black slippers. “No, you’re very sleek.”

  Mrs. Blaiskell nodded proudly. “I keep myself well shaped out, and all the better for it. It wasn’t so when I was your age, miss, I’ll tell you; I was on Earth then—”

  “Oh, you weren’t born here?”

  “No, miss, I was one of the poor souls pressed and ridden by gravity, and I burned up my body wi
th the effort of mere conveyance. No, I was born in Sydney, Australia, of decent kind folk, but they were too poor to buy me a place on Abercrombie. I was lucky enough to secure just such a position as you have, and that was while Mr. Justus and old Mrs. Eva, his mother—that’s Earl’s grandmother—was still with us. I’ve never been down to Earth since. I’ll never set foot on the surface again.”

  “Don’t you miss the festivals and great buildings and all the lovely countryside?”

  “Pah!” Mrs. Blaiskell spat the word. “And be pressed into hideous folds and wrinkles? And ride in a cart, and be stared at and snickered at by the home people? Thin as sticks they are with their constant worry and fight against the pull of the soil! No, miss, we have our own sceneries and fetes; there’s a pavanne for tomorrow night, a Grand Masque Pantomime, a Pageant of Beautiful Women, all in the month ahead. And best, I’m among my own people, the round ones, and I’ve never a wrinkle on my face. I’m fine and full-blown, and I wouldn’t trade with any of them below.”