The Other

by Matthew Hughes

  Imbry was revising his estimation of the who and why behind his being dropped on Fulda. Someone wanted him to suffer not just embarrassment but incarceration, at least, and probably brutalization. And perhaps even death. He was becoming increasingly sure that the motivation behind his circumstances was revenge.

  There were more than a few inhabitants of Old Earth, not to mention a score or better of the Ten Thousand Worlds, whose lives had turned for the worse after they had intersected with Luff Imbry. His nemesis was unlikely to be one of the collectors from whom he had stolen works of significant value, or to whom he had sold works of dubious provenance. It was more likely to be some fellow denizen of Olkney’s halfworld, perhaps a competitor whom Imbry had done out of some coveted prize. It could even be a thief who had stolen one of Imbry’s fakes, thinking it real, only to have been made to look a fool or a grifter when he—though it could also be a she—tried to sell it on to a buyer who knew what to look for.

  It would also have to be someone who was capable of acquiring at least the use of a spaceship—ownership was usually the hallmark of wealth—and who knew enough of Imbry’s affairs to discover that he used Barlo Krim as one of his middlers. The latter was not information widely shared; Krim was someone to whom Imbry went when he needed him, and rarely did the course of their business flow in the opposite direction. The very purpose of a middler was to disguise the hand that operated him. Someone who could put Krim and Imbry together would have to be more than ordinarily knowledgeable.

  Come at from that direction, the problem was less diffuse. Krim was the end of a string that, when tugged, might cause a skein to unravel. If only Imbry were in his operations center, disguised as a rundown house in one of Olkney’s least fashionable districts, it would have taken his custom-built communications and research nexus no more than a fragment of a moment to winnow a welter of parameters and relationships. It would provide the fat man with a list of suspects in order of probability.

  But instead he was stuck on a primitive world without integrators or a connectivity worthy of the name, where even the most basic instruments of research were denied to him by the prejudices of the Ideals. And the nature of this strange little planet was another factor Imbry would have liked to feed into his research nexus: who knew of Imbry who would also know of Fulda?

  These thoughts crowded the fat man’s mind as he curried and brushed the barbarels, filled their feeding bags with fragrant malted mash, and positioned the leather sacks over their agile mouths. The beasts grunted their satisfaction and fell to. A moment later, Imbry heard Taggar calling for him and Wintle to come to the show tent. The troupe leader was setting out the rundown for the evening’s performance.

  “I am not fit to sing,” Imbry said. His bruised ribs ached when he took a deep breath.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Taggar. “Decider Brosch has said you are not to appear in public. He will speak with you before the show.” The big man thought for a moment, then said, “You will be on your best behavior with the arbiter.”

  “When am I not?” Imbry said.

  “Decider Brosch has the power to deliver you back to the incarcery. You would do well to tread lightly around him.”

  “Like a sylph,” said the fat man.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Ideals came with the twilight, arriving in couples, trios, or small groups. They brought no children with them, although Imbry, watching through a ventilation slit in the main pavilion, saw a gaggle of half-grown youths, their pouches daringly worn on the left side, being turned away when they reached the edge of the waste ground. The man who sent them packing wore a black-hat and pouch, his hair grizzled by age. On his hat and baldric were wide silver circles. Imbry thought he was the man he had seen standing on the steps of the big building in the town square, although telling Ideals apart at a distance was an art that he had not yet mastered. The man had about him the same sense of authority: though the approaching boys had been loud with hoots and laughter, raucously egging each other on, the moment the elder interrupted their riotry they turned silent and round shouldered, slinking away without a murmur.

  The seating had been divided into two sections, with a wide aisle between them. Down the center of the aisle, along its entire length, a heavy black curtain was draped over a rope supported by poles higher than an Ideal’s head. Imbry noticed now that the groups approaching the tent were never of mixed sexes and that when they arrived, the audience segregated themselves, with the men on one side of the drape and the women on the other. As the seats filled, a susurration of whispered conversations arose, with here and there a suppressed giggle.

  As the first Ideals approached, Imbry had withdrawn behind the curtain at the back of the stage, but he studied the Fuldans through a peephole in the thick black felt. Their bland uniformity went beyond physical similarity, remarkable as that was; it extended to stance, facial expression, manner of speech, gesture. They walked the same, stood the same, sat the same, spoke the same. It was a triumph of conformity, and the sight of it put a shiver up Imbry’s spine.

  In came two men whose hats and pouches were dark brown, one of them with the insignia of two gold circles. Imbry was sure that the older of the two was the conflicted investigator who had arrested and beaten him. Nervous, the senior provost’s man glanced about as if he had never before seen the interior of a show pavilion. He and his partner took seats in the front row on the men’s side, where they frequently twisted in their seats and looked around. Now that Imbry was focused on the matter, he could see that every member of the audience was seized by the same anxious expectation. But Breeth seemed even more wrought up than the rest.

  The final few seats now filled as latecomers hurried in. The elder with the black-hat and pouch who had shooed away the youths was the last through the door of the tent. He did not sit, but rather stood in the opening, tugging at its sides until he had drawn it closed behind him. There he remained, arms folded. A younger man and a woman with gray streaks in her hair, also wearing black accoutrements, had preceded him. The younger man wore a single silver circle of rank, smaller than the older man’s. The woman’s hat and baldric were unmarked.

  She situated herself between the stage and the first row of seats on the female side of the tent; the younger man took up a post at the corresponding position on the men’s side; both remained standing, their backs to the stage.

  Taggar came out from one of the small compartments, brushed past Imbry, and stepped out from behind the curtain. He made as if to ascend the stage, but stopped and instead went up the center aisle, head bowed and with the pussyfooting gate he had taught Imbry, and careful not to touch the dividing curtain. When he reached the elder standing in front of the entrance flap, he bowed. Some words passed between them, though Imbry could hear only the rumble of the black-hat’s deep voice. It sounded like the voice he had heard down the corridor outside his cell in the provost’s station.

  Taggar bowed again and returned the way he had come, but now the elder followed him. The man called the younger male black-hat over to him and spoke briefly. The younger man turned to the audience and said, “There will be a brief delay.” Imbry saw Breeth—he was sure now that it was the investigator, seated with his fellow provost’s man in the front row—react to the announcement: his hands clenched and his jaw tightened, and he stared at the elder and Taggar.

  Taggar parted the curtain and the older man stepped into the passageway behind the stage. The troupe leader let the curtain close. Meanwhile, the black-hat regarded Imbry with a hard and searching appraisal. The fat man did not have to be reminded to drop his own gaze. He looked at the bare ground that was the floor of the tent and bowed.

  “His name, Decider,” said Taggar, “is Imbry. I believe he comes from another world.”

  “Is this true?” said the elder.

  “Yes,” said Imbry.

  “Yes, Decider,” Taggar corrected him.

  “Yes, Decider,” said Imbry. “Please forgive my ignorance of your
rules.”

  “Why did you come to Fulda?”

  “I was kidnapped, Decider, and left here.”

  “By whom, and why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Decider,” Taggar prompted Imbry.

  “I am sorry,” Imbry said. “Decider, I do not know who kidnapped me nor why. The man who carried out the crime said he acted on behalf of another, but he was killed before I could question him.”

  “He was the irregular whose body Investigator Breeth brought in?”

  “Yes, Decider.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No, Decider. I believe he was thrown from an aircraft.”

  “Fulda has no aircraft.”

  “The ship that brought me had a flying vehicle to travel between the ground and orbit.” After a moment, he remembered to add, “Decider.”

  “What passed between you and the investigator at the station?”

  Imbry hesitated.

  “Speak,” said Taggar. “You have nothing to fear.”

  “I am not sure what is proper to say.”

  “The truth,” said the black-hat.

  “The investigator questioned me, Decider. Then he tied me to the wall and beat me.”

  “Why did he beat you?”

  “He did not say, Decider. It was not to encourage me to talk, because he asked no further questions. I could not see him, because he put a hood over my head.”

  “Did you touch him?”

  “No, Decider. I was restrained.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  Imbry understood. “Not without gloves on.”

  The old man was silent. Imbry peeked and saw that the black-hat was deep in thought. Taggar stood by, nervous. After a moment, the elder said, “Are you hurt?”

  “My ribs are sore, Decider.”

  “Does it pain you to take a deep breath?”

  Imbry tried and winced.

  “Very well,” said the older man. To Taggar, he said, “Put him in the end compartment,” gesturing with his chin to the booth at the end of the passageway, behind Imbry. To the fat man, he said, “You will not perform tonight.”

  “Yes, Decider,” Imbry said. He noted that Taggar looked relieved.

  The black-hat turned and went to the split in the curtain, waiting there until Taggar hurried up and pulled aside the black cloth, wide enough that the elder could duck through without being touched. When the barrier was closed again, Taggar came to Imbry and said, “You can watch through the peephole. When it’s over, go to the booth up there and stay out of sight.”

  “What was that all about?” Imbry said.

  Taggar looked worried. “It is possible that Investigator Breeth has formed a troublesome attachment to you.”

  Imbry blinked in surprise. “He has an odd way of expressing it.”

  “Not like that,” said the big man. “It’s something they don’t talk about to us, something to do with their beliefs.”

  “Am I in danger?”

  “The arbiter will protect you.”

  “Arbiter?”

  Taggar twisted his face. “You don’t know anything, do you?” he said. “That man was Superior Arbiter Brosch. He is the senior officer of the Arbitration in Pilger’s Corners, but his reputation extends far.”

  “I thought he was a decider.”

  “Deciding is what arbiters do. Decider is what you call them when you speak to them.”

  From out in the main part of the pavilion, they heard the old man’s sepulchral voice say, loudly, “Begin.”

  Taggar turned on his heel, saying over his shoulder, “I must go start the show. You can watch, but when it’s over go into the end compartment.” He went to the split in the curtain, took a moment to compose himself, then stepped through.

  Imbry put his eye to the peephole again. The crowd of Ideals sat silently waiting. He saw Taggar climb three steps to the stage then turn to face the Ideals. Imbry half expected some theatricality—a sweeping bow, a flourish of the hands, a smile and some patter—but as he watched through the peephole he saw the strongman raise his eyes to the twin peaks of the pavilion’s roof and with his arms hanging loose at his sides say, “Our first presenter is Ebblin, who dances.”

  With that, Taggar stepped down from the stage and came back through the curtain. The tiny-headed woman was already on her way to the slit, which the troupe leader held open for her. She ascended to the stage, walked light-footed to its center, then, humming softly to herself, she began to sway and shuffle her feet to the rhythm of a wordless song. After a few preparatory motions, she commenced a gliding, circular progress about the stage, dipping her shoulders and moving her arms with a fluid grace that surprised Imbry. She danced three circuits of the stage in one direction, then turned and went three times around in the opposite. And, like Taggar, she never once lowered her eyes to the rows of seated Ideals, but kept her gaze fixed on the black cloth ceiling above them.

  When she finished, there was no applause. Indeed, the Ideals sat stiff and silent as troops on parade, although Imbry saw eyes shifting from right to left, as the people in the audience sought to see what their neighbors were doing without turning their heads. The black-hatted man and woman had spent the performance studying not the dancer but the spectators, even moving up and down the sides of their sections to peer closely at individuals.

  Ebblin finished her motions and stood still for a moment at the center of the stage. She made neither bow nor curtsy, but dropped her eyes to her feet and shuffled back to the stairs. A moment later, she passed Imbry in the space behind the rear curtain and went to one of the small compartments. As she was about to disappear from his view, she turned and gave him a smile that he could not decipher. It was the kind of smile that fellow sufferers give to each other, one that says, Ours is a none-too-desirable fate, yet we bear it as best we can, which would have been less mysterious to the fat man if anyone had told him what that fate was supposed to be.

  Taggar, meanwhile, had stepped out onto the stage. Again with his eyes upturned, he announced that the next performer would be Wintle, who would recite The Sojourner’s Lament. The youth was already en route, passing Imbry with a shrug of his shoulders and a similar smile to the one Ebblin had given him. A moment later he was standing in the center of the stage, his gaze also turned to the roof above, and intoning in a clear and practiced voice the first stanza of some story told in rhyming couplets about a fellow who had fared forth into the world to seek his fortune.

  Imbry did not bother to listen to the tale, which started off with a misadventure and, given the title, did not promise a happy conclusion. Nor did he watch the dog-faced youth, who stood with hands limp at his sides and face upturned. Instead, he watched the Ideals. As during Ebblin’s performance, they sat as if petrified, scarcely blinking as they watched the boy deliver his recitation. And, as before, the man and woman in black again ranged up and down the aisles, studying the audience. Imbry saw the woman take a stylus and pad from her pouch and make a brief note. The elder in the doorway to the tent regarded the stage with a face like a stone carving.

  No one in the seats moved. The tent was silent save for the boy’s high-pitched voice intoning the ridiculous poem and the whisper of a mass of people breathing. But there was an almost palpable tension in the enclosed space. Imbry had no doubt that, here before his eyes, something was transpiring that was of great importance to the Ideals. Certainly, they had not come to be entertained by indifferent dancing and amateur recital.

  Wintle finished, stood still for a moment in the silence, then left the stage. Taggar stepped up and announced Shan-Pei. The fur-covered woman climbed onto the stage and drew from her pouch four balls, each of a different color and of a size to fit into her palm, and began to juggle them. Her gaze remained fixed on top of one of the tent posts. The eyes of the audience did not try to follow the balls through their various permutations, but watched only Shan-Pei. The black-hats went up and down, observing and taking notes. At the end, as the p
erformer left the stage, they conferred with each other briefly, parting in agreement as Malweer was introduced.

  The thin man sang three ballads in a surprisingly rich baritone while again the Ideals sat as if paralyzed. Then came Thelia, who danced even more gracefully than Ebblin. Finally Taggar announced himself and performed feats of strength involving iron bars and powerful springs. When he was done, he said, “That is all,” and left the stage amid the usual silence. The man and woman in black accoutrements came together again and compared their observations then looked expectantly toward Brosch standing granite faced in the entrance. The arbiter made a gap in the cloth and spoke in his sepulchral voice: “Finished. Depart.”

  The audience rose. Again eyes moved from side to side, heads turned fractionally, as if there were something to see in the countenances of their virtually identical neighbors. If there was some mark to be seen in any of the bland and nondescript faces, Luff Imbry could not make it out. But the black-hats could. As the Ideals filed past the gray-haired man at the exit, his two assistants nodded from time to time. At their signal, the elder would touch the designated man or woman on the cheek. The person thus singled out did not depart the tent, but went to stand to the side of the entrance. When the process was finished, four men and three women, each as alike to the others as if they had been grown in vats, waited for whatever was to come next. Even through his spy hole from across the tent, Imbry could see their breath come quickly and their lips and limbs tremble with repressed excitement.

  The black hats gathered around the seven chosen. Imbry could hear the rumble of the elder’s voice, apparently giving instructions, though the fat man could not make out the words. He saw the selected ones signifying acceptance of what was being said to them, their reverence for the gray-haired man as plain as the excitement they sought to restrain. The elder turned, and beckoned them to follow him toward the slit in the rear curtain through which the performers had entered and left.