Wyst: Alastor 1716

by Jack Vance

  Olin’s smile trembled uncertainly; Esteban’s handsome eyebrows peaked emphatically. “My dear fellow!” exclaimed Esteban. “Are you really in earnest?”

  “Of course! Everyone gains. I earn extra tokens and also avoid the nuisance of running about performing favors. You in turn augment your capabilities.”

  For a moment Esteban stood speechless. Then, half-laughing, he said: “But Jantiff, dear naive Jantiff! I don’t want to augment my capabilities! This implies a predisposition for work. For civilized men work is an unnatural occupation!”

  “I suppose there is no inherent virtue in work,” Jantiff conceded. “Unless, of course, it is performed by someone else.”

  “Work is the useful function of machines,” said Esteban. “Let the machines augment their capabilities! Let the automatons ponder and drudge! The span of existence is oh! so brief; why should a single second be wasted?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Jantiff. “An ideal concept and all very well. In practice however both you and Olin already have wasted two or three hours inspecting Olin’s screen, exclaiming at the flaw, formulating plans and coming here. Assume that I agreed to look into the matter, then you and Olin must return to Olin’s apartment to watch me make the repair. Let us say a total of four hours apiece. Eight man-hours as a grand total, not even counting my time, when Olin probably could have set the matter to rights in ten, minutes. Isn’t this a case where capabilities saves time?”

  Esteban gave his head a grave shake. “Jantiff, above all you are a master of casuistry. This ‘capability’ implies a point of view quite at odds with the beatific[17] life.”

  “I feel that I must agree to this,” said Olin.

  “You’d rather lose the use of your screen than fix it yourself?”

  Esteban’s versatile eyebrows performed another feat, this time indicating quizzical distaste. It goes without saying! This practicality of yours is a backward step. I also might mention that your proposed class is exploitative, and would surely excite the Monitors.”

  “I hadn’t thought in those terms,” said Jantiff. “Well, in all candor, I find that these little favors are taking too much of my time and destroying the beatitude of my life. If Olin wants to work my next drudge, I’ll fix his screen.”

  Olin and Esteban exchanged amused glances. Both shrugged, turned away and departed the apartment.

  From Zeck came a parcel for Jantiff, containing pigments, applicators, papers and mats. Jantiff immediately set to work making, real the images which haunted his imagination. Skorlet occasionally watched him, making no comments and asking no. questions; Jantiff did not trouble to ask her opinion.

  In the refectory one day, the girl whom Jantiff previously had admired plumped herself down opposite him. With her lips twitching against a grin of sheer exuberance, she pointed a finger toward Jantiff. “Explain something: do! Every time I come, to the wumper you stare at me first from one side of your face and them the other. Why should this be? Am I so outrageously attractive and extraordinarily beautiful.”

  Jantiff grinned sheepishly. “I find you outrageously attractive and extraordinarily beautiful.”

  “Sh!” The girl glanced mischievously right and left. “Already I’m considered a sexivationist. You’ll absolutely confirm the general suspicion!”

  ‘Well, be that as it may, I can’t keep my eyes off of you, and that’s the truth of it.”

  “And all you do is look? How odd! But then, you’re an immigrant.”

  “Just a visitor. I hope that my coarse behavior hasn’t disturbed you.”

  “Not in the slightest. I’ve always thought you rather pleasant. We’ll copulate if you like; you can show me some new and amusing antics. No, not now; low drudge awaits me, curse all of it. Another time, if you’re of a mind.”

  “Well, yes,” said Jantiff. “I suppose it boils down to that. Your name, I believe, is Kedidah.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Skorlet told me.”

  Kedidah made a wry face. “Skorlet doesn’t like me. She says I’m flippant, and an arrant sexivator, as I mentioned.”

  “I’m bewildered. Why?”

  “Oh—I don’t really know. I like to tease and play. I arrange my hair to suit my mood. I like men to like me and I’m not concerned about women.”[18]

  “These aren’t flagrant crimes.”

  “Ma! Ask Skorlet!”

  “I’m not concerned for Skorlet’s opinions. In fact, I find her overly intense. My name, incidentally, is Jantiff Ravensroke.”

  “What an odd name! No doubt you’re an ingrained elitist. How are you adapting to egalism?”

  “Quite well: Although I’m still perplexed by certain of the Arrabin customs.”

  “Understandably. We’re a most complicated people, maybe to compensate for our egalism.”

  “I suppose that’s possible. Would you like to visit other worlds?”

  “Of course, unless I had to toil constantly, in which case I’ll stay here where life is gay. I have friends and clubs and games; I never gloom because I think only of pleasure. In fact, some of us are going out on forage in a day or so; you’re welcome to come along if you like.”

  “What’s a ‘forage’?”

  “An expedition into the primitive! We ride up into the hills, then maraud south into the Weirdlands. This time it’s to be Parnatra Valley, where we know secret places. Well hope to find some very good boater; but even if not, it’s always a lark.”

  “I’d like to go, if I’m not on drudge.”

  “We’ll start Twisday morning, right after wump and return Fyrday night, or even Dwanday morning.”

  “That suits me very well.”

  “Good. We’ll meet here. Bring some sort of robe, since we’ll probably sleep in the open. With luck we’ll find all kinds of tasty things.”

  Early Twisday morning, as soon as the refectory opened its doors, Jantiff went to take his breakfast. On Skorlet’s advice he carried a knapsack containing, a blanket, a towel and two days advance ration of gruff. Skorlet had spoken brusquely of the expedition, with something of a sneer: “You’ll get wet in the fog and scratch yourself on brambles and run through the night until you’re exhausted and if you’re lucky you’ll build a fire if someone thinks to bring along matches. Still, by all means, go out and flounder through the forest and dodge the man-traps and who knows? Maybe you’ll find a berry or two or a bit of toasted meat. Where are you going?”

  “Kedidah spoke of secret places in Pamatra Valley.”

  “Pah. What does she know of secret places, or anything else for that matter? Esteban is planning a real bonterfest before long; save your appetite for that.”

  “Well, I’ve already agreed to go with Kedidah’s group.”

  Skorlet shrugged and sniffed. “Do as you like. Here, take these matches and be prepared, and don’t eat toad-wort, otherwise you’ll never return to Uncibal. As for Kedidah, she’s never been right about anything, and I’m told she doesn’t clean herself, when you copulate you never know what you’re wading around in.”

  Jantiff mumbled something incoherent and busied himself with his painting. Skorlet came to look over his shoulder., “Who are those people?”

  ‘They’re the Whispers, receiving a committee of contractors in Serce.”

  Skorlet gave him a searching scrutiny. “You’re never been to Serce.”

  “I used a photograph from the Concept. Didn’t you see it?”

  “No one sees anything in the Concept except hussade announcements.” She studied another picture: a view along Uncibal River. She gave her head a shake of distaste. “All those faces, each so exact! It quite makes me uneasy!”

  “Look carefully,” Jantiff suggested. “Are there any you recognize?”

  After a moment’s silence Skorlet said: “To be sure! There’s Esteban! And can this be me? Very clever; you have a remarkable knack!” She took up another sheet. “And what is this? the wumper? All these faces again; they seem so blank.” She turned Ja
ntiff another searching look. “What effect is this?”

  Jantiff said hurriedly: “Arrabins seem, somehow, composed, let us say.”

  “Composed? What a thought! We’re fervent, idealistic, reckless—when we have the opportunity—mutable, passionate. All these, yes. Composed? No.”

  “No doubt you’re right,” said Jantiff. “Somehow I haven’t captured this quality.”

  Skorlet turned away, then spoke over her shoulder. “I wonder if you could spare some of that blue pigment? I’d like to paint symbols on my cult globes.”

  Jantiff looked first up at the constructions of paper and wire, each a foot in diameter, then to the wide coarse brush which Skorlet habitually employed, and finally with eyebrows ruefully raised, to the rather small capsule of blue pigment. “Really, Skorlet, I don’t see how this is possible. Can’t you use house paint or ink, or something similar?”

  Skorlet went pink in the face. “And how or where can I get house paint? Or ink? I know nothing of these things; they aren’t available to just anyone, and I’ve never been on a drudge where I could snerge any.”

  “I think I saw ink for sale on Counter 5 at the Area Store,” Jantiff said cautiously. “Perhaps—”

  Skorlet made a vehement gesture, expressing rejection and disgust. “At a hundred tokens the dram? You foreigners are all alike, so pampered by your wealth, yet heartless and selfish beneath it all!”

  “Oh, very well,” said Jantiff despondently. “Take the pigment if you really need it. I’ll use another color.”

  But Skorlet, flouncing away, went to the mirror and began to change the decoration of her ears. Jantiff heaved a sigh and continued with his painting.

  The foragers gathered in the lobby of Old Pink; eight men and five women. Jantiff’s knapsack instantly aroused jocular attention. “Ha, where does Jantiff think we’re off to, the Par Edge?”

  “Jantiff, dear fellow, we’re only going on a bit of a forage, not a migration!”

  “Jantiff is an optimist! He takes trays and bags and baskets to bring home his banter!”

  “Bah, I’ll bring mine home, too, but on the inside!”

  A young man named Garrace, portly and blond, asked:

  “Jantiff, tell us really and in truth: what are you carrying?” Jantiff, grinning apologetically, said: “Actually, nothing of any consequence: a change of clothes, a few cakes of gruff, my sketch pad, and, if you must know the truth, some toilet paper.”

  “Good old Jantiff! He is at least candid!”

  “Well then, let’s be off, toilet paper and all!”

  The group proceeded to the man-way, rode to Uncibal River, moved west for an hour, changed to a lateral which took them south into the hills.

  Jantiff had studied a map the day previously, and now tried to identify features of the landscape. He pointed to a great granite abutment looming over the way ahead. “That must be the Solitary Witness; am I right?”

  “Exactly,” said Thworn, an assertive young man with russet. hair. “Over and beyond is the Near Wold and a spate of banter if we’re lucky. See that notch? That’s. Hebron Gap; it will take us into Pamatra Valley and that’s where we’re bound.”

  “I suspect we’d do better out on the Middle Wold, toward Fruberg,” said a saturnine young man named Uwser. “Some people. I know worked Pamatra Valley two, or three months ago and came home, hungry.”

  “Nonsense,” scoffed Thworn. “I can smell the vat-berries dripping from here! And don’t forget the Frubergers: a stone-throwing gang of villains!”

  “The Valley folk are no better,” declared Sunover, a girl as tall as Jantiff and of far more impressive girth. “On the whole, they’re fat and smelly, and I don’t like to copulate with them.”

  “In that case, run,” said Uwser. “Have you no imagination?”

  “Eat, copulate, run,” intoned Garrace. “The three dynamics of Sunover’s existence.”

  Jantiff asked Sunover: “Why either copulate or run, if you’re not of a mind to do so?”

  Sunover merely made an impatient clucking sound. Kedidah gave Jantiff a pat on the cheek. “They’re both good for the soul, dear boy, and sometimes they aid one’s comfort as well.”

  Jantiff said in a worried voice: “I’d like to know what’s expected of me. Do I copulate or do I run? What are the signals? And where do we find the bonter?”

  “Everything happens at once,” said Garrace with an impish grin.

  “All in good time, Jantiff!” spoke the imperious Thworn. “Don’t become anxious at this stage of the game!”

  Jantiff shrugged and gave his attention to a set of industrial buildings toward which most of the traffic on the man-way seemed to be directed. In response to his question Garrace informed him that here those hormones which figured largely in Arrabin exports were extracted, refined and packaged. “You’ll get your notice before long,” Garrace told him. “It’s our common fate. Into the plant like so many automatons, down on the pallet, along the operation line. They milk your glands, distill your blood, tap your spinal ducts, and in general have their way with all your most private parts. Don’t worry; you’ll have your turn.”

  Jantiff had not previously known of this aspect to life in Arrabus. He frowned over his shoulder toward the cluster of pale brown buildings. “How long does all this take?”

  “Two days, and for another two or three days you are totally addled. Still, export we must, to pay for maintenance, and what, after all, is two days a year in the interests of egalism?”

  Thee man-way ended at a, depot, where the group boarded an ancient omnibus. Swaying and wallowing perilously, the omnibus slid them up the road between slopes overgrown with blue canker-wort and black dendrons studded with poisonous scarlet seed balls.

  After an hour’s ride the bus arrived at the, head of Hebron Gap. “End of the road, all out!” cried Thworn. “Now we must march off on foot, like the adventurers of old!”

  The troop set off along a lane leading downhill through a stand of kirkash trees smelling strong and sweet of resin. Ahead the land flattened to become Pamatra Valley; beyond stretched the Weirdlands under a smoke-colored shroud of forest.

  Garrace called over his shoulder: “Jantiff, shake a leg there; you’ll have to keep up. What are you doing?”

  “Just making a sketch of that tree. Look at the way the branches angle out! They’re like dancing maenads!”

  “No time for sketching!” Thworn called back. “We’ve still got five or ten miles to go.”

  Jantiff reluctantly put away his sketch pad and caught up with the others.

  The lane swung out on a meadow and broke into a half-dozen trails leading off in various directions. Here the group encountered another set of foragers. “Hello there!” called Uwser, “what’s your house?”

  “We’re desperadoes from Bumbleville in Two-twenty.”

  “That’s a long way from us. “Were all Old Pinkers, from Seventeen—except Woble and Vich; they’re denizens of the infamous White Palace. What luck are you having?”

  “Nothing to speak of. We heard a rumor of a lovely bitter-nut tree, but we couldn’t find it. We ate a few sweet-hops and looked into an orchard, but the locals warned us off and sent a boy to spy us clear of the premises. What are you for?”

  “Bonier of all sorts, and we’re a determined group. We’ll probably push south five or ten miles before we start our forage.”

  “Good luck to you!”

  Thworn led the Old Pinkers south along a trail which took them at once into a dense forest of black, mace trees. The air in the shade was dank and chill and smelled strong of mouldering vegetation. Thworn called out: “Everyone watch for bitternuts and remember there’s a wild plum tree somewhere in the vicinity!”

  A mill passed with no evidence either of nuts or plums, and the trail came to a fork. Thworn hesitated. “I don’t recall this fork… I wonder if we set off along the wrong trail? Well, no matter; the, bonter is—out there somewhere! So then—the right-hand fork!”

 
Ernaly, a rather frail girl with a fastidious manner, said plaintively: “How far must we, go? I’m really not all that keen on hiking, especially if you don’t know the way.”

  Thworn said sternly: “My dear girl, naturally we’ve got to hike! We’re in the middle of the forest with nothing to eat but skane bark.”

  “Please don’t talk about eating,” cried Rehilmus, a blonde kitten-faced girl with small feet and a ripe figure displayed almost to the point of sexivation, “I’m ravenous right now.”

  Thworn swung his arm, in a gesture of command. “No complaints! Up and away and after the banter!”

  The group set out along the right-hand path, which presently dwindled to a trail winding this way and that under the lowering mace trees. Kedidah, walking at the rear with Jantiff, grumbled under her breath. “Thworn doesn’t know where he’s going any more than I do.”

  “What, exactly, are we looking for?” Jantiff asked.

  “These Wold farms are the richest of Weirdland, because they fringe on the Pleasant Zone. The farmers are mad for copulation; they give baskets of banter for a bit of fondling. You can’t imagine the tales I’ve heard: roasted fowl, fried salt-side, pickled batracher, baskets of fruit! All for a brisk bit of copulation.”

  “It seems too good to be true.”

  Kedidah laughed. “Only if there’s fair play. It’s not unknown that while the girls are copulating the men are eating until there’s nothing left, and the walk home is apt to be moody.”

  “So I would imagine,” said Jantiff. “Sunover, for instance, would never accept such a situation without protest.”

  “I suspect not. Look, Thworn has discovered something!”

  In response to Thworn’s signals the group fell silent. They advanced cautiously, at last to peer through the foliage out upon a small farmstead. To one side a half-dozen cattle grazed the meadow; to the other grew rows of bantock and mealie-bush and tall racks of vat-berries. At the center stood a rambling structure of timber and petrified soil.

  Garrace pointed: “Look—yonder! Lyssum vines! Is anyone about?’