by Jack Vance
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the clerk. “This is impossible at the moment.”
Jantiff stared aghast. “Impossible? Why?”
“The cursar is not presently in Uncibal.”
Jantiff barely restrained a cry of anguish. He looked over his shoulder. The compound was empty. “Where is he? When will he return?”
“He has gone to Waunisse; he counsels the Whispers before they leave for Numenes. He returns Aensday with the Whispers aboard the Sea Dirk.”
“Aensday? Three days from now! What will I do till then? I’ve discovered a dangerous plot against the Connatic!”
Clods looked dubiously sideways at Jantiff. “If such is the case, the cursar must be informed as soon as possible.”
“If I survive until Aensday. I have no place to go.”
“What of your apartment?”
“It’s not safe for me. Why can’t I stay here?”
“The chambers are locked. I can’t let you in.”
Jantiff darted another glance over his shoulder. “Where shall I go?”
“I can only suggest the Travelers Inn.”
“But my money is gone; it’s been taken from me!”
“You need not pay your bill until Aensday. The cursar will surely advance you funds.”
Jantiff gave a glum nod. He thought carefully and brought the matrix from his pocket. “Please give me paper.”
Clode tendered paper and stylus. Jantiff wrote:
This is the matrix from my camera. Certain of the pictures indicate a plot. The Connatic himself may be threatened. The people responsible live in Old Pink, Block 17-882. Their names are Esteban, Skorlet and Sarp. There is another unknown person. I will return Aensday unless I am killed.
Jantiff Ravensroke,
Frayness, Zeck.
Jantiff wrapped the message around the matrix and handed the parcel to Clode. “This must be kept safe and delivered to the cursar at the earliest opportunity! In the event that I—” here Jantiff’s voice quavered a trifle—“that I am killed, will you do this?”
“Certainly, sir, I’ll do my very best.”
“Now I must go, before someone thinks to look for me here. Inform no one of my whereabouts!”
Clode managed a strained grin. “Naturally not.”
Jantiff slowly turned away, reluctant to leave the relative security of the Centrality. But no help for it: he must immure himself in the Travelers Inn until Aensday, and all would be well.
In the shadows under the portal he halted and surveyed the-territory beyond. He spied Esteban immediately, not fifty yards distant, striding purposefully toward the Centrality. Jantiff’s jaw dropped in consternation. He shrank back into the compound and pressed himself to, the inner surface of the portal. There, holding his breath, he waited.
Footsteps. Esteban marched past and away across the compound. As soon as Jantiff saw the retreating back he slipped through the portal and raced away on long fleet-footed strides toward the man-way.
“Hey! Jantiff!” Esteban’s furious cry struck at his back. As Jantiff stepped aboard the man-way he looked over his shoulder, to find that Esteban had halted at the portal to stand swaying, as if in response to conflicting urgencies.
Jantiff wondered what might have ensued had the cursar been on hand.
Jantiff jumped across to the speed lane. He looked back to catch a last glimpse of Esteban, still under the portal, then was carried past the range of vision.
At the Travelers Inn Jantiff signed the register as Arlo Jorum of Pharis, Alastor 458. Without comment the clerk assigned him a chamber.
Jantiff bathed and stretched himself out on his couch, aware of aching muscles and comprehensive fatigue. He closed his eyes; the three days to Aensday would pass most rapidly in sleep.
Jantiff inhaled and exhaled several deep breaths. Circumstances at last were under control. The Travelers Inn at the very least provided security; if Esteban offered offense, Jantiff need merely notify the Mutuals[30] on duty at the inn.
‘Jana opened his eyes, blinked and grimaced and closed them again. Images from across the terrible day passed before his eyes; Jantiff writhed on the couch.
His stomach began to gripe; Jantiff sat erect He needed food. Dressing, he went down to the cafeteria where he made a meal of gruff, deedle, and a bowl of wobbly, which he charged to his account.
The public address system, which had been projecting a series of lethargic popular tunes, suddenly enunciated a bulletin:
“Attention all! Take note of a heinous murder, just reported to the Uncibal Mutuality. The assassin is one Jantiff Ravensroke, a probationary visitor, originally of Zeck. He is a man of early maturity, tall, slender, with dark hair worn nondescript. He has a thin face, a long nose and eyes noticeably green in color. The Mutuals urgently require that he be held in detention, pending full investigation of his foul act A search at the highest level of intensity is already being prosecuted. Egalists all! Keep a vigilant watch for this dangerous alien!”
Jantiff jumped to his feet to stand quivering in consternation. He went on delicate steps to the arch giving on the lobby. At the registration desk two men in low-crowned black hats loomed over the clerk. Jantiff’s heart rose into his throat: Mutuals! Responding with nervous volubility, the clerk waved a long pale finger toward the ascensor and Jantiff’s room.
The two men turned from the desk and strode to the as-censor. As soon as they were gone, Jantiff stepped out into the lobby, sidled unobtrusively around the far wall to the door and departed into the night.
Chapter 9
Disjerferact, the carnival strip along the mud flats, had never failed to fascinate Jantiff with its contrasts and paradoxes. Disjerferact! Gaudy and gay, strident and makeshift, trading brummagem for equally valueless tokens, achieving no more than the dream of a dream! By the light of Divan, and from a distant perspective, the dark red paper pavilions, the tall blue tents, the numberless festoons, banners, and whirligigs conjured, a brave and splendid fantasy. By night uncounted flambeaux flared to the sea breeze; the consequent gleams and shadows, darting and jerking, suggested a barbaric frenzy—in the end as factitious as all else of Disjerferact. Still, the confusion and helter-skelter provided Jantiff an effective refuge: who at Disjerferact cared a whit for anything other than his own yearnings?
For three days Jantiff skulked through nooks and back passages, venturing never a step without seeking the low black hats of Mutuals or the dread shape of Esteban. During daylight hours he occupied a cranny between the booth of a pickle merchant and a public latrine. By night he ventured forth, disguised by a mustache fashioned from his own hair and a head rag in the fashion of the Carabbas Islanders. His tokens—those remaining to him after paying bonterfest fees—he grudgingly exchanged for poggets and cornucopias of fried kelp. He slept by day in fits and starts, disturbed by the calls of hawkers, the puffworm vendor’s bugle, the screeching of child acrobats, and from a booth across the way, the thud of clog-dancing and simulated enthusiasm from shills.
Early Aensday morning, while Jantiff lay half-torpid, the public megaphones spoke loud across the mud flats.
“Attention, all! Today greet the Whispers as they embark on their mission to Numenes! As adumbrated in recent statements, they intend a daring and innovative program, and they have proclaimed a slogan for the next century: Viable egalism must fulfill both needs and aspirations, and provide scope for human genius! They go to Lusz Tower to urge the Connatic’s sympathetic support for the new scheme, and they will draw strength from your advocacy. Therefore, come today to the Public Zone. The Whispers fly from Waunisse aboard the Sea Disk; their time of arrival is high noon and they will speak from the Pedestal.”
Jantiff listened apathetically while the megaphones broadcast a second and yet a third repetition of the message. For an instant, while the echoes died, Disjerferact hung suspended in an unnatural silence; then the customary tumult returned.
Jantiff rose to a kneeling position, peered right and left from his cranny,
then, finding nothing to foster his anxieties, he stepped out into the flow of pleasure-seeker& At a nearby refreshment booth he exchanged a token for a spill of fried kelp. Leaning against a wall he consumed the crisp, if insipid, strands, then for want of a better destination he wandered eastward toward the Public Zone, or the Field of Voices, as it was sometimes called. The cursar returned with the Whispers aboard the Sea Disk; he would not be likely to return to the Centrality before the Whispers departed for Numenes: so there was time enough for Jantiff to hear the remarks of the Whispers, perhaps at close range.
Jantiff sauntered eastward, across Disjerferact and the mud flats beyond, over the Whery Slough Bridge and out upon the Public Zone: an expanse a mile long and almost as wide. At regular intervals poles rose high to support quatrefoil megaphones, each pole likewise displaying a numerical code to assist in the arrangement of rendezvous. Almost against the eastern boundary a pylon, held aloft a circular platform under a glass parasol: this was the so-called “Pedestal.” Beyond spread the scarred grounds of the space-port.
By the time Jantiff crossed over the Whery Slough Bridge, folk by the thousands were migrating across the field, to pack into a vital sediment around the Pedestal. Jantiff was annoyed to find that he could approach, no closer than a hundred’ yards to the Pedestal, which would hardly allow him an intimate inspection of the Whispers.
As Dwan rose toward the zenith, crowds debouched from Uncibal River in a solid mass, to disperse and sift across the Zone, until presently no further increment was possible: the Zone was occupied to its capacity and, past. Those arriving on Uncibal River could not alight, but must continue into the round-about, and return the way they had come. On the Zone folk stood elbow to elbow, chin to shoulder. A sour-sweet odor arose’ from the crowd to drift away on airs from the sea. Jantiff recalled his first impressions of Arrabus, upon debarking from the spaceship: at last he could identify that odor which then had caused him puzzlement and perhaps a trace of revulsion.
Jantiff attempted to calculate the number of persons surrounding him, but became confused: the number was surely somewhere among the millions … He felt a pang of claustrophobic alarm: he was confined, he could not move! Suppose something prompted these millions of entities into a stampede? A horrifying thought! Jantiff pictured tides of people surging over one another, rising and climbing, at last to topple and break in churning glimpses of arms, faces, legs… The crowd produced a sudden mumble of sound, as out over the water appeared the Sea Disk, inbound from Waunisse. The vessel veered over the space-port, descended in a smart half-spiral and dropped to a landing near the Public Zone. The port opened; an attendant stepped out, followed by the four Whispers: three men and a woman wearing formal robes. Ignoring the crowd they disappeared into a subsurface walkway. Two minutes passed. Out on the Zone gazes lifted to the platform at the top of the Pedestal.
The Whispers appeared. For a moment they stood looking over the crowd: four small figures indistinct in the shade of the parasol. Jantiff tried to match them with the Whispers he had seen, on the screen. The woman was Fausgard; the men were Orgold, Lemiste and Delfin. One of the men spoke—which could not be discerned Gum below—and a thousand quatrefoil megaphones broadcast his words.
“The Whispers are revivified by this contact with the folk of Uncibal! We take nourishment from your benevolence; it flows in upon us like a mighty tide! We shall bring it forth when we confront the Connatic, and the sheer power of egalistic doctrine shall overcome every challenge!
“Great events are in the offing! At our noble Centenary we celebrate a hundred years of achievement! A new century lies before us, and succeeding, centuries in grand succession, each to ratify anew our optimum style of life. Egalism shall sweep Alastor Cluster, and all the Gaean Reach! So much is foreordained, if it be your will! Is it so?”
The Whisper paused; a somewhat perfunctory and even uncertain mutter of approval arose from the crowd. Jantiff himself was puzzled. The tone of the address was not at all consonant with the announcement he, had heard that morning in Disjerferact
“So be it!” declared the Whisper, and a thousand quatrefoil megaphones magnified his words. “There shall be no turning back, or faltering! Egalism forever! Man’s great enemies are tedium and drudgery! We have broken their ancient tyranny; let the contractors do the drudge for their lowly pittances. Egalism shall ensure the final emancipation of Man!
“So now your Whispers go forth to Numenes, impelled by our composite will. We shall take our message to the Connatic and make our three important desires known.
“First: no more immigration! Let those who envy us impose egalism on their own worlds!
“Second: Arrabins are a peaceful folk. We fear no attack; we intend no aggression. Why then must we subsidize the Connatic’s power? We require none of his advice, nor the force of his Whelm, nor the supervision of his bureaucrats. We will therefore require that our annual tax be reduced, or even abolished.
“Third: our exports are sold at the cheap, yet the items we import come dear. Effectually, we subsidize those inefficient systems still in force elsewhere. Believe this: your Whispers shall press for a new schedule of exchange between the token and the ozol; in fact, they should go at par! Is not an hour of our toil equal to that hour worked by some whey-faced diddler of, let us say, Zeck?”
Jantiff jerked his head and frowned in displeasure. The remarks seemed both absurd and inappropriate.
The megaphones rang on.
“Our Centenary is at hand. At Lusz we shall invite the Connatic to visit Arrabus, to join our festival, and appraise for himself our great achievements. If he declines, the loss is his own. In any case, we shall make our report to you at a great rally of the Arrabin egalists. We now depart for Numenes; wish us well!” The Whispers raised arms in salute; the crowd responded with a polite roar. The Whispers stepped back and disappeared from view. Several minutes later they emerged from the ingress kiosk out, upon the space-port. A car awaited them; they entered and were conveyed to the great hulk of the spaceship Moan).
The crowd began to depart the field, but without haste. Jantiff, now impatient, thrust, sidled and slid through the obstructive masses to no great effect, and a full two hours elapsed before he managed to squeeze aboard Uncibal River, sweating, tired and temper at the quick.
He rode directly to Alastor Centrality. Entering the structure he found behind the counter, not Clode, but a woman tall and portly, with an imposing bust and austere features. She wore a severe gown of gray twill over a white blouse; her hair was drawn to the back of her head and held in a handsome silver clip. As in the case of Clode, her place of origin was clearly other than Arrabus. She spoke in a formal voice: “Sir, how may .I assist you?”
“I must see the cursar at once,” said Jantiff. Out of reflexive habit he darted a nervous glance over his shoulder. “The matter is most urgent”
The woman inspected Jantiff for a long five seconds, and Jantiff was made conscious of his disheveled appearance. She answered in a voice somewhat crisper than before. “The cursar is not in his office. He has not yet returned from Waunisse.”
Jantiff stood rigid with disappointment. “I expected him today,” he said fretfully. “He was to have returned with the Whispers. Is Clode here?”
The woman turned another searching inspection upon Jantiff who became uneasy. She said “Clode is not here. I am Aleida Gluster, clerk in the Connatic’s service, and I can discharge any business which you might have had with Clode.”
“I left a parcel with him, a photographic matrix, for delivery to the cursar. I merely wanted to assure myself of its safety.”
“There is no such parcel in the office; Clode Morre, I regret to say, is dead.”
Jantiff stared aghast, “Dead?” He collected his wits. “How did this happen? And when?”
“Three days ago. He was attacked by a ruffian and stabbed through the throat. It is tragic for us all.”
Jantiff asked in a hollow voice: “Has the murderer been apprehen
ded?”
“No. He has been identified as a certain Jantiff Ravensroke, of Zeck.”
Jantiff managed to blurt a question: “And the parcel I left is gone?”
“There is definitely no such parcel in the office.”
“Has the cursar been notified?”
“Naturally! I telephoned him immediately at the Waunisse Centrality.”
“Then call Waunisse now! If the cursar is there I must speak to him. The matter is most important, I assure you.”
“And what name shall I announce if he is there?”
Jantiff made a feeble attempt to wave the question aside. “It is really of no great consequence.”
“Your name is of considerable consequence,” said Aleida crisply. “Is it by any chance ‘Jantiff Ravensroke’?”
Jantiff quailed before the searching inspection. He nodded meekly. “I am Jantiff Ravensroke. But I am no murderer!”
Aleida gave him a level glance of unreadable significance and turned to the telephone. She spoke: “This is Aleida, at Uncibal Centrality. Is Cursar Bonamico anywhere at hand?”
A voice responded: “Cursar Bonamico has returned to Uncibal. He departed this morning on the Sea Disk, in company with the Whispers.”
“Odd. He has not yet looked into his office.”
“Evidently there has been some delay.”
“Yes, quite likely. Thank you.” Aleida Gluster turned back to Jantiff. “If you are not the assassin, why do the Mutuals insist otherwise?”
“The Mutuals are mistaken! I know the murderer; he has influence with Contractor Shubart, who contracts the services of the Mutuals. I am anxious to lay all facts before the cursar.”
“Doubtless.” Aleida looked past Jantiff through the glass panels of the front wall. “Here are the Mutuals now. You can place your information before them.”
Jantiff turned a glance of startled terror over his shoulder, to see two men in low black hats marching in ponderous certitude across the compound. “No! They will take me away and kill me! I have urgent news for the cursar; they wish to stifle me!”
