The Gist Hunter

by Matthews Hughes

  The green eyes blinked sleepily. She said, "There was a character in Plobbit's most recent novel, Spelling Under a Fall, who trained a large toad to squat on his shoulder. At a signal from its master, the beast would send a jet of unmentionable liquid in the direction of anyone who offended him."

  "I recall it," I said. "Do you enjoy Plobbit?"

  "Very much," she said. "Do you?"

  "He is my favorite author."

  "Well, then," she said.

  Therobar cleared his throat. "I have some matters to attend to before dinner," he said.

  "As do we," said Gevallion, draining his glass and dropping it into the dispenser's hopper. "Yzmirl, would you mind entertaining our friend for a while?"

  "I would not mind," she said. She patted the seat next to her to indicate that I should sit. I did so and became aware of her perfume.

  "Is that Cynosure you're wearing?" I said.

  "Yes. Do you like it?"

  "Above all other scents." I was not exaggerating. The perfume had had an almost pheromonical effect on me when I had encountered it on other women. On Yzmirl, its allure was compounded by her exquisite appearance.

  "I please you?" she asked, her eyes offering me pools into which I could plunge and not care that I drowned.

  "Oh, indeed."

  "How nice," she said. "Why don't you tell me about your work? What are your most notable exploits?"

  The integrator hissed again. I could feel its fur against my ear and realized it must be swelling up as it had in the presence of the footman. I reached up with one hand and found that the skin at the nape of its wiry neck was loose enough to afford me a grip. I lifted the creature from my shoulder and deposited it behind the love chair while my other hand covered that of Yzmirl where she had let it rest on the brocaded fabric between us.

  "Well," I said, "would you care to hear about the case of the purloined passpartout?"

  "Oh, yes," she said.

  The integrator was making sounds just at the threshold of hearing. I disregarded its grumpy murmurs and said, "It all began when I was summoned to the office of a grand chamberlain in the Palace of the Archonate . . ."

  Time passed though its passage made scant impression. After I told the tale of the Archon Dezendah's stolen document she asked for more and I moved on to the case of the Vivilosc fraud ring. Between episodes we refreshed our palates with offerings from the dispenser: I twice refilled my glass with the increasingly agreeable aperitif; she took a minim of Aubreen's restorative tincture, drawing in its pale blue substance by pursing her lips in a manner that was entirely demure yet at the same time deliciously enticing. My hand moved from hers, first to caress her arm then later I let my fingertips brush the softness where neck met shoulder. She made no complaint but continued to regard me with an unshielded gaze. My innards quaked from time to time, but I pushed the sensation to the borders of my mind.

  A footman entered the room and crossed to where we sat. I repressed an urge toward irritation and looked up as he approached. It was the same fellow who had obliquely responded to my questions. Or at least I thought it was as he approached. When he afforded me a closer inspection, it seemed that this might be instead a close relation of the other. I reached for my memory of the earlier encounter but found it veiled by too much aperitif and the heady scent of the young woman beside me.

  "My master bids me tell you," said the servant, after a lackluster salute, "that an urgent matter has called him from the estate. He regrets that he cannot join you for dinner."

  "How long will he be gone?" I asked.

  "He said he might not return before morning."

  In the brief silence that ensued I could hear my integrator hissing behind the love seat. I reached over to swat it to silence but missed. "What of Gevallion and Gharst?" I said.

  "They accompany the master on his journey."

  "So it is just us two?"

  The fellow tilted his head in a way that confirmed my supposition, though his expression remained unmoved. "The master suggested that you and the Lady Yzmirl might prefer to dine in the comfort of your quarters."

  My eyes widened. I looked at Yzmirl but her expression showed neither alarm nor disinclination. "Would you be comfortable with such an arrangement?" I asked her.

  "Of course."

  "Then it's settled."

  We rose and followed the footman to my suite, the integrator trundling along behind on its short legs, spitting and grumping just at the threshold of audibility. I looked back at one point and saw that its tail was twitching and its little fists were clenched. But when we arrived at my rooms, to find the first course of our dinner ready to be served, I chivvied the ill-tempered beast into the ablutory and closed the door so that Yzmirl need not feel distracted or constrained.

  I found the food excellent, the company enchanting and the aftermath an unparalleled delight. Yzmirl displayed only a genteel interest in what was placed before her at the table but, after the servant returned and took away the remains of the meal, she revealed a robust appetite and surprising inventiveness in another room.

  I awoke alone. Or so I thought until I arose and entered the washroom, where a small, furry and angry presence made itself known.

  "Apparently, I need to eat," it said in a tone that was far from deferential.

  "Eat what?"

  There was fruit on a side table in the main salon. It went and sampled this and that. I was prepared to offer advice on the arts of chewing and swallowing but the creature mastered these skills without trouble. I thought a compliment might lighten the atmosphere but my encouraging words were turned back on me. "I've seen you do it thousands of times," it said. "How hard could it be?"

  "Then you'll be able to work out the other end of the alimentary process for yourself?" I said.

  "I shall manage."

  I performed my morning toilet and emerged to find the integrator perched on the back of a chair, its tail flicking like a petulant pendulum and a frown on its face. "What?" I said.

  "I cannot connect to the grid."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know why not."

  "Hmm," I said. "Ordinarily, I would perform a diagnostic procedure on your systems and components. Now I would first have to take advice from . . ." I had been going to specify a person who was skilled in the care of animals, but I had a suspicion that this particular creature might baffle such a specialist.

  "How does it . . . feel, I suppose that's the word, to be unable to connect?"

  It put on its introspective look for a moment, then said, "It feels as if I ought to be able to connect but cannot."

  "As if you were out of range?"

  "As if I was blocked."

  There was a knock on the door and the footman entered. Again my integrator's fur raised itself involuntarily and again I was not quite sure that this was the same fellow I had encountered before.

  "The master would like you to join him for breakfast," he said. The voice sounded identical, yet there was something around the eyes and the mouth that seemed slightly different.

  There was no obvious reason to be circumspect. I said, "Are you the same footman who yesterday led me to meet your master and returned me here?"

  His expression registered no surprise at the question. He looked at me neutrally and said, "Why do you ask?"

  "Because I wish to know."

  His answer was unexpected. "It is difficult to say."

  "Why? It is a simple question."

  "There are no simple questions," he said. "Only simple questioners. But I will address the issue. Are you the same person who arrived here yesterday? Since then you have had new experiences, met new people, consumed and excreted the air of this place and other substances. Has none of this had any effect on you?"

  "The argument is abstruse," I said. "Assume the broadest of definitions and answer: Are you the same footman whom I encountered yesterday?"

  "Under the broadest definition, it would be difficult to distinguish me from any other en
tity, including you."

  The fellow was obviously a simpleton. "Lead me to your master," I said. As he turned to depart I beckoned my integrator to mount to my shoulder again. It was hissing and its fur was once more ruffed about its neck.

  I found Turgut Therobar in a morning room in the great dome. He wore loose attire: ample pantaloons, a billowing shirt, chamois slippers, all in muted tones with plain fasteners. His head was again swathed in a silken cloth. He did not rise from his chair as I entered but beckoned me to sit across from him. A low table between us bore plates of bread, bowls of fruit and cups to be filled from a steaming carafe of punge.

  He exhibited an air of sleepy self-satisfaction, blinking lazily as he inquired as to how I had passed the night. I assured him that I had rested well but offered an observation that he did not appear to have slept much. He extended his lower lip and made a show with his eyebrows that signaled that his rest or lack of it was of small concern. "A necessary task occupied most of the night," he said, "but it was well worth the doing."

  I raised my brows in inquiry, but when he added no more I politely changed the subject. "We should discuss the case," I said.

  "As you wish. How would you like to proceed?"

  I poured myself a cup of punge and chose a savory broche then ordered my mind as I chewed, sipped and swallowed. "First," I said, "I will rehearse the known elements of the matter. Then I wish to know everything, from the beginning."

  The charges concerned the disappearance of a number of persons in the vicinity of Wan Water over recent months. Initially, it had been thought that they had wandered into range of neropt hunting parties, the usual precursor to sudden disappearances on Dimpfen Moor.

  The break in the case came when a tenant's young daughter, Bebe Allers, had gone missing from Wan Water only to reappear after a few days wandering within the walls of the estate. She was in a state of confusion and distress, with vague memories of being seized, transported, confined and perhaps interfered with in intimate ways. She could not directly identify the person or persons responsible for the outrage, but she had blanched and screamed at the sight of an image of Turgut Therobar.

  "Now," I said, "how do you answer?"

  He spoke and his face and tone betrayed a blasé unconcern that I found surprising. But the substance of his response was nothing less than astonishing. "The affair is now moot," he said. "Events have moved on."

  I set my cup and plate on the table. "Wealth and social rank will not keep you from the Archon's Contemplarium if you are adjudged to be at fault."

  His eyes looked up and away. "The case is nuncupative."

  "Colonel-Investigator Warhanny will take a different view."

  He chose a cake and nibbled at its topping.

  "Please," I said, "I have given surety for you. My interests are also at stake."

  He smiled and it was not a pleasant sight. There was a glint in his eye that gave me an inkling as to why the victim had reacted with horror to his image. "You will soon find," he said, "that you have more pressing concerns."

  My integrator was hissing quietly beside my ear. The intuitive part of me was alert and urging unspecified action. I stood up. "You had better explain," I said.

  He regarded me as if I had just executed some comic trick and he expected me to perform another. "Oh, I shall explain," he said. "Triumphs gain half their delight from being appreciated by those who have been triumphed over."

  To my assistant I said, quietly, "Contact Warhanny. Tell him I withdraw from the case."

  "I still cannot connect," it said.

  "If I may interrupt your communion with your pet," Therobar said, "I was about to relieve your mind concerning the case."

  "Very well," I said. "Do so."

  He made a face like that of a little boy admitting a naughtiness to an indulgent caregiver and spread his hands. "I am guilty," he said.

  "You interfered with the young maiden?"

  "Indeed."

  "And the disappearances?"

  Again the protruding lip and facial shrug, which I took as an admission of culpability.

  There could be only one question: "Why?"

  "Two reasons," he said, throwing away the cake, now denuded of its topping, and reaching for another. "The disappeared assisted in Mitric Gevallion's experiments."

  "You have been experimenting on human beings?"

  "We'd gone as far as we could with animals. What else was there to do?"

  I was being given an unobstructed view into Therobar's psyche. I shuddered involuntarily "What were the aims of these experiments?"

  "As we discussed last night: at first we were seeking to redefine gist so that we could employ it in various efforts at carnal reconfiguration."

  I translated his remark. "You were trying to harness the elementary force of the universe in order to transform living creatures."

  "Yes." His sharp pointed tongue licked cream from the core of his pastry.

  "Why?"

  "Why not?"

  "That is never a reason," I said.

  "You may be right. In any case, we soon found another."

  He was smiling, waiting for me to ask. I obliged him. "What did you find?"

  "We discovered that we could 'reorder' animals from one species to another, though they were never happy in their new skins. So then we tried 'editing' them, again with interesting results. We produced several disparate versions from the same template: one would be ferocious, another painfully meek; one would have an overpowering urge to explore its territory, while the next iteration would not stir from its den." He drank from his cup of punge. "Do you understand what we had achieved?"

  He was waiting again. "I am sure you would enjoy telling me," I said.

  "We kept the shape, but discarded the contents, so to speak."

  I had an insight. "You found you could work with form while discarding essence."

  "Exactly. And, of course, once we had done it with beasts we had to try it with people."

  "It is monstrous," I said.

  "An entirely accurate description, at first. They were indeed monsters. We turned them loose to bellow and rampage on the moor, where the neropts found them and carried them off."

  "But then?" I asked.

  He wriggled with self-satisfaction. "But then we refined the process and began striking multiples from the originals. They are short-lived but they serve their purposes."

  I understood. "The footmen," I said. "They are copies."

  "And not just the footmen," he said, an insinuating smile squirming across his plump lips.

  I was horrified. "Yzmirl," I whispered, then put iron in my voice. "Where is she?"

  "Nowhere," he said. "She was, now she is not. Though Gevallion can whip up another at any time. That one was specifically designed to appeal to your tastes and petty vanities."

  I did not trust myself to stand over him. I sat and turned my vision inward, encountering images of deep and tender pathos. After a while, he spoke, dragging my attention back to his now repulsive face.

  "You haven't asked about the second reason," he said.

  My mind had wandered far from the discussion. I indicated that I was not following.

  "The disappeared," he said, speaking as if I were a particularly slow child, "went into Gevallion's vats. Then there was the Allers girl. She was the template for your companion of last night, by the way."

  I took a labored breath. It was as if his evil thickened the air. "All right," I said. "Why did you let the girl be found?"

  "Because that would bring Warhanny. And Warhanny would bring you."

  "And why must you bring me?"

  "Because by being here, you were not there."

  "And where is 'there'?"

  He smiled. "At your rooms, of course. Where there were items I wished to acquire."

  I allowed anger to take me. I kicked the low table at his legs and sprang to overpower him. But he was ready. An object appeared in his hand. At its center was a small black spot. As I lea
pt toward him the circle abruptly expanded and rushed out to encompass me in nothingness.

  Mitric Gevallion's laboratory was an unprepossessing place, dimly lit and woefully untidy. It featured a long workbench crowded with apparatus and a large display board on which a meandering set of equations and formulae had been scrawled. The vats in which the gist hunter brewed his creations loomed to one side of the wide, low-ceilinged room. Against the opposite wall was a sturdy cage and it was within its confines that I regained consciousness.