by Jack Vance
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.”
Chapter 19
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.”
Glossary
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 sy
stem 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.
Notes
[1] The colors served as a code to local conditions. By adjusting a switch, the Connatic might select any of several categories of reference. With the switch in its ordinary position, at General, the Connatic at a glance could gauge the circumstances in aggregate of three trillion people. When the Connate touched one of the lights, its name and number appeared on a pane. If he should increase the pressure, information cards detailing recent and significant local events dropped into a slot. Should he speak a number, the world so designated showed a brief burst of white light and again the cards were produced.
[2] Shunk: monstrous creatures indigenous to the Pombal swamps, notably cantankerous and unpredictably vicious. They refuse to thrive on Zumer, though the Zur are considered the most adept riders. At the Arrabin stadia spectacles involving shunk are, along with the variety of hussade, the most, popular of entertainments.
[3] See Glossary #1.
[4] Cursar: the Connatic’s local representative, usually based in an enclave known as “Alastor Centrality.”
[5] From the Gaean condaptriol: the science of information management, which includes the more restricted field of cybernetics.
[6] Zeck is a world of a hundred thousand islands scattered across a hundred seas, inlets and channels; the single continent is mottled with lakes and waterways. Many families live aboard houseboats, and often own a sea-sailer as well. Mooring posts are ornate constructions, symbolic of status, profession, or special interests.
[7] For the folk of Alastor Cluster, the stars are near and familiar, and “astronomy” (star-naming) is taught to all children. A k
nowledgeable person can name a thousand stars or more, with as many apposite anecdotes. Such star-namers in the olden times commanded great fame and prestige.
[8] It is no doubt unnecessary to point out that constellations as seen from one world of the Cluster differ from those of every other; accordingly, each, world uses its local nomenclature. On the other hand, certain structural features of the Cluster—for instance, the Flamifer, the Crystal Eel, Koon’s Hole, the Ooodby Place—are terms in the common usage.
[9] See Glossary, No. 2.
[10] Ozols: a monetary unit roughly equivalent to the Gaean SVU: the value of an adult’s unskilled labor under standard conditions for the duration of an hour.
[11] The illicit Arrabin intoxicant: a heavy beer prepared from salvaged gruff, industrial glucose and sometimes tar-pods from’ the roof garden.
[12] Mutuality: the Arrabin code of conduct, with force deriving not from abstraction, or tradition, but from mutuality of interest
[13] Reference to a peculiar vice associated with food, encountered almost exclusively on Wyst.
[14] An almost fabulous starmenter, guilty of the most atrocious ravages. See Glossary #3.
[15] Jantiff would later learn that many folk furnished their apartments in unique, or even bizarre, styles, scrounging and pilfering materials over a period of years, and spending immense effort to achieve some special effect. Such apartments were generally considered unegalistic, and those who lived there often incurred derision.
[16] Hussade: See Glossary, #4.
[17] An arbitrary rendering of a word in the Arrabin dialect, expressing the quality of leisurely, luxurious and well-arranged existence.
[18] A more or less accurate paraphrase. The Arrabin dialect avoids distinction of gender. Masculine and feminine pronouns are suppressed in favor of the neutral pronoun. “Parent” replaces “mother” and “father”; “sibling” serves for both “brother” and “sister!’ When distinction!’ must be made, as in the conversation transcribed above, colloquialisms are used, almost brutally offensive in literal translation, reference being made to the genital organs.
