They paused one last time, a hesitation in stride only, as Villiers salaamed to another acquaintance.
“Mr. Finch,” he said.
“Mr. Villiers.”
It was the mutual salute of respect of men bound in opposite directions, one hunting, one being hunted. Then Villiers and Torve boarded the transport car to be driven out to their ship.
* * *
The orange transport car rolled along the sun-bleached roadway to the Port House. Ralph and John were in a tie as they reached the bottom of the stair, still tied when they dashed in front of the car, but Ralph fell well behind before they reached the foot of the matching stair on the other side of the Port House. The transport car, unperturbed, rolled into position to receive a second load of passengers for the Pewamo Redball.
Ralph trudged up to the stair, stopped, took a deep breath, turned and plunked. Then he panted.
John, less winded and interested in establishing the point, said in as concerned a voice as he could muster, “Shouldn’t we keep running?”
“Why? Uncle Walter knows where to find me. Uncle Walter will find me.”
“Well,” said John, looking down, “at least he doesn’t know who I am.”
“Oh, he’ll browbeat that out of me.” Ralph nodded his head in self-confirmation. “Yes. I’d tell.”
“In that case,” John said, staring at palms held like an open book in front of him, and then abruptly snapping the pages closed, “we’ll have to think of something.”
He sat down at Ralph’s left. Both of them fell into thinking postures. Neither of them did any thinking, the result of a combination of lack of sleep and hyperventilation.
After a few minutes, John said, “What are we supposed to be thinking about?”
Ralph wasn’t tracking enough to process the question. Sleep, stupor, call it what you will. He caught up to the question the third time it was asked and answered it just in time to forestall a fourth.
“My uncle,” he said, very slowly. “I must have been very drunk or very excited not to think about him.”
“You were quietly excited last night.”
“Drunk?”
“Perhaps a little,” John said. Then, “We’ll have to keep you away from your uncle for a while.”
“Very good. That’s very good,” Ralph said. “That’s it, until my mother talks to my aunt and my aunt talks to my uncle. But where?”
“We’ll have to think about that.”
Both Ralph and John came by their fatigue honestly. Ralph needed a full nine hours of sleep every night and hadn’t had it. John had worked three intensive days on a report and had gone for a late night walk to try to relax after finishing it.
Some minutes later, John said, “Ralph?” A note of inquiry.
“I’m thinking,” Ralph said, very slowly. He said it over again and it deteriorated into a mumble.
“Awake, awake,” John said. “Wake up. I have a scholarship and today I want to keep it. Last night, I didn’t. Today I do. So we have to keep you away from your uncle—carve you out a new secret life. You know, there are times when I would like to drop everything and be Robin Hood up in the hills. Only I’d have a secret paint factory and I’d dash into town at night and paint a building puce or chartreuse, or maybe both. Puce and chartreuse, isn’t that a thought?”
“I like it,” Ralph said.
John instantly bristled. “What do you know?”
“Well, I don’t know very much about art, but”—he paused as though he were shuffling phrases—“it sounds exciting to me.”
“It would be fun, but it wouldn’t be safe. What I really would like is something besides Mrs. Waldo Wintergood. A secret factory.”
“I do like it,” Ralph said. “I saw what you meant. But it wouldn’t be safe. Not with my uncle around.”
John said, “Ralph?” He said it very thoughtfully.
“Yes?”
“How is your money situation?”
“Pretty good. Why?”
“Who is that in the transport going out to the Pewamo Excursion?”
John was referring to Villiers and Torve the Trog, who were, in fact, indisputably in the transport car—same car, bright orange—bound along the hedgerows for the Pewamo Intrasystem Excursion Ship.
“It is, it is, it is,” said Ralph.
“How would you like to spend a vacation on Pewamo? Would your uncle think of looking for you there?”
“How would you like to spend a vacation on Pewamo?” Ralph said, pointing a you-have-just-won-a-prize finger at John. “I’ll buy the tickets.”
“You buy the tickets. I’ll make some calls. You know, Ralph, you’re not so bad.”
Ralph nodded acknowledgment of the accolade.
* * *
Klavan Guillaume blinked in the hot morning sunshine. He was so uneasy that he ached. You sit until sitting becomes unbearable. Then you run without courage to stop. He both hated and envied Villiers for being calm—not excessively, just token dashes of hate and envy.
Guillaume crossed toward the flitter stand for the ride that would carry him into the more obscure reaches of the planet. He shifted the single bag he allowed himself from left hand to right.
“Hold on, Klavan.”
He turned. It was Finch. Finch, damn him. Hi sighed, dropped his bag and began to run, but it was a perfunctory gesture. There was nowhere to run.
2
SUCCESSFUL ROBBERS MUST BE STURDY MATURE MEN in peak physical condition—it is an occupational requirement. A murderer, on the other hand, can be a two-year-old child or a bed-bound grandmother.
Crimes like uttering-and-publishing and housebreaking leave rubble heaps of evidence. Many murders are never recognized. Most are never solved.
Murder, as a crime, is safe, easy and inexpensive to commit, and impossible to prevent. There is no man in the universe, including the Nashuite Emperor behind his doors, who cannot be killed if enough will exists.
However, murder requires more determination than other crimes, which explains why such a simple crime is so comparatively rare. Would-be murderers botch their crimes. Successful murderers throw themselves into the arms of the police. All because nerve fails.
This raises a rather difficult problem. What do you do if you have an urgent murder to commit and totally lack the nerve to commit it? There is one answer which increases the danger of the crime, but which does get it accomplished. That is, to save your allowance and hire it done.
First, discreet inquiries. Then, a meeting in pleasant surroundings, a comfortable chat. Consideration, agreement, an exchange of money. Finally, after several months, a news account of a death.
But then, what if the news account never arrives? A hired assassin, after all, may have his own qualms to overcome.
* * *
As Sophocles later introduced the third actor, making possible the ménage à trois, Aeschylus is given credit for the second actor who made possible that standard tear-jerker so valued by the Greek audience and all those that have followed—the Recognition Scene. Literature is full of incognito wanderers home after ten years of adventure, anxious to be discovered and loved.
In real life, however, most meetings after ten years are more prosaic. Here is what might happen:
Villiers found a seat beside a lean young man with an overlarge blond mustache. Torve sat down on a large couch nearby and contentedly began reading Mrs. Waldo Wintergood.
“I should have known,” the young man said. “How did you do it, Tony?”
“Hmm?” Villiers said, raising his brows questioningly.
“It’s been ten years since we last saw each other. In the meantime, I’ve grown two inches and lost fifty pounds, and I’m wearing a mustache which is intended to keep people from recognizing me. I was going to enjoy watching you try to find me. Only you did find me. How?”
“I’m not sure I ought to say. I think I enjoy giving the impression of secret powers.”
“I know you do.”
�
��I looked at everybody, Fred, and none of them was you. So I looked again for a young man with a very large mustache, and there you were.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all right. Remember, I was expecting that you would be aboard. I don’t think you’re going to be recognized.”
“God, I hope not,” Fred said.
“And how did you recognize me after ten years? You didn’t have the advantage of pictures. I’d hate to think how many important backgrounds I’ve seen you gracing.”
“You haven’t changed that much,” Fred said. “And I can’t think of anybody but you who’d think to travel with a Trog.”
* * *
The orange car made its final offering of people and the Pewamo Excursion honored it by accepting them. Ralph and John led the last passengers aboard. The doors of the ship closed behind. The orange car moved smartly off in search of a new ship to wag its tail in front of.
Ralph said to John, “Why do you always use Mrs. Wintergood as a bad example? I’ve heard you do it four or five times.”
John shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s about the ultimate example of what I’d replace if I had the chance.”
Ralph said, “I happen to like those books. I love them, in fact. They are old-fashioned and stodgy, but they speak to me. I don’t want them replaced. I just want variety. If your secret factory couldn’t find a comer for Mrs. Waldo Wintergood, I don’t think I’d like it after all.”
John owed Ralph the cost of his ticket to Pewamo, which meant he had substantial reason to be agreeable. On the other hand, John was an intelligent student while Ralph was a less intelligent yagoot, which meant equally substantial reason not to be agreeable. However, neither gratitude nor knowledge of innate superiority determined John’s reaction. He had surprised himself by deciding that he liked Ralph. That was the determining factor.
He said, “If I ever find a way of changing things, I’ll do my best to keep Mrs. Waldo Wintergood. Actually, I liked those books when I was younger, too.”
Notice the difference: Ralph still liked them; John had put them aside. Ralph no longer slept with his stuffed bear, but it had its place of honor on a shelf over his bed; John no longer slept with a stuffed bear, and would be unwilling to admit that he ever had. Adulthood is achieved by some with rejection of childhood, by others with acceptance.
“There’s Villiers,” Ralph said. “Oh, and there’s Torve.”
* * *
Disliking embarrassment as I do, it seems to me that it is always best to be frank about deficiency and error. Hide naught, fear naught.
It has always been my conviction that a story with a young personable unmarried man ought to have an attractive girl as well, for companionship’s sake. So far, there are half a dozen such young men in our story, and no attractive young ladies at all. Unfortunately, there are unlikely to be many.
In those years on the Tanner Trust planets women were more sheltered than is generally common. Few but eccentrics moved about freely in public, and personal unattractiveness is often what makes eccentrics eccentric. We have little help from that quarter.
Pewamo was far more liberal, since it was no part of the Tanner Trust territories. For many years it had been a Closed Planet. It was now open, but its only year-round population was I.S. caretakers and a handful of development concessionaires, and it is a fact of nature that young civil servants and bright young businessmen are always married. Pewamo’s small population was almost totally composed of tight little families.
That leaves to us only those females aboard the ship bound to Pewamo. I propose to pick the best of them, admire her qualities briefly and appropriately, and thereby free us to pass on to those subjects of greater moment with which we are to be faced.
Potential embarrassment is not past, however. The best of those aboard, one of only three young ladies neither matrons nor children, was a gawk. She was seated in a row not far from Villiers and Fred. She was younger than they, about the age of Ralph and John. She was tall, thin, and awkward. Her nose was too large for her face. Her shoulders sloped. Her figure was forgettable.
Well, let us honor her nonetheless. Not everyone may respond to it, but there is a quality of fascination about gawky girls, and great promise to them.
The fascination is that females so superficially unfeminine can be sexually attractive. But they can be. The promise is that while many gawks remain gawks all their lives, neotenic anomalies, some few become something more. Late and suddenly they mature into a rare breed—long, cool, rawboned, small-breasted, uncoy, frank, strong, a bit fragile, with long, long mileage if treated well.
So—hail to thee, blithe gawk! Hail to thee, and good luck.
And with that behind us, let us proceed.
* * *
Torve continued to read. On his left hand, Ralph was asleep. On his right hand, John was asleep.
Fred said, “How many more can we expect?” The idea of this vacation was to reduce the number of people in his life, not increase it, and there was an edge to his question.
Villiers said, “No more. Only Torve.”
Torve looked up.
Villiers said, “I’m afraid so. You can camp out with us or you can do whatever Ralph and John want to do. Stay at a resort, I imagine.”
“I will camp,” Torve said and returned to his book. He surfaced to say, “Is good book,” and then resubmerged.
“Just three of us,” Fred said. “Good. I hate crowds.”
He was an interesting person. He was extremely bright, and a curious mixture of sophistication and innocence. Born into the wrong family, he had been raised in circumscribed formality, disliking the rituals he was called upon to perform, doing them badly as a child, mechanically as an adult. In the meantime, against his family’s advice, he had trained himself as an extremely competent theoretical agrostologist. Only in the past several years had it been possible for him to gain practical experience to supplement his formal knowledge. Though he had taken an unorthodox route in his specialty, at a comparatively early age he had made a secure place for himself.
Fred and Villiers had been at school together. People had been afraid of Fred and avoided him. Villiers, for his part, had been unofficially recognized as the school’s Independent Force, and as such was free to take up with Fred. He had, and they had been firm friends.
The two had recently fallen into contact again, and being in reasonable proximity had determined to meet and have a reunion vacation. In the interim of their acquaintance, Fred had developed a taste for the outdoors. He had suggested Pewamo. And here the two were, on their way.
“Let’s swap,” Fred said. “You tell me what’s happened to you, and I’ll tell you what’s happened to me.”
Villiers nodded and yawned. “Only a couple,” he said. “I didn’t get any sleep last night and I’m tired.”
“All right. Tell me something.”
Villiers thought. Then he held up his left hand. Half the first joint of his little finger was missing. It was neither a deformity nor a handicap, but rather the sort of thing you add to your repertoire of jokes, amusements, and party tricks. Villiers, of course, was above such things.
Villiers said, “I lost this two or three years ago. Somebody tried to kill me. The tripwire just took the end of my finger, though.”
“You mean that somebody tried to assassinate you? That’s funny. Nobody has ever tried to assassinate me.”
“You are loved by all, Fred. But it wasn’t really an assassination attempt. I’m hardly a likely target. Does it bother you much to lie?” The question was an inquiring addendum.
“That depends,” Fred said, and paused to think of conditions.
“That’s probably the only sane answer,” Villiers said, toying with the end of his shortened finger. “I just wonder why it’s that one that nags me. Oh, well. Tell me about your weight loss. You’re looking very fit.”
“Oh, that,” Fred said, thoroughly pleased. His mustache rippled as he smiled. He pointed to a met
al emblem on his coat. It was an over-toothy little animal. “The Big Beavers. They made me Manitou. It’s one of those things that you get assigned and you can’t avoid.”
“I know,” Villiers said. “I was the head of Segosta Cheki, the Big Beaver affiliate on Charteris. Maybe I still am. That would be amusing.”
“Well, the discrepancy between me, Fred, and me, the Manitou of the Big Beavers, began to bother me. I wasn’t interested, and beneath that I was afraid, and finally I really wasn’t interested. But I got over being afraid, and after I did become interested, I found I could do it all. I’ve got Chief Beaver or the equivalent on six planets.”
“I can’t begin to match that,” Villiers said. “My conscience only took me to Segosta Savoda—Honored Chief Beaver. I’m very impressed.”
Fred was in a position to enumerate his three “Honored Chief Beavers” (or equivalents) and his “Exalted Misboa” in the difficult Barks Mode. However, modesty, good taste, and his conviction that Villiers really was impressed led him to say only, “And that’s how I lost fifty pounds.” Ten years before, it would have been otherwise.
Villiers said, “Let me see. I was married.” He cast it out as a possible topic and Fred rose to it.
“Oh?”
“Did you ever notice that out here in the fringes the nobility are calm and temperate? Charteris is one of the most placid holds in the Empire. But my father wants to make secure alliances.”
“ ‘Secure alliances,’ ” Fred said tiredly.
“Yes. So I found myself married for two years. That’s the way my father wanted it. But at the end of two years, he wanted to renew and so did Evelyn’s father, but neither Evie nor I did. Two more mismatched people you will never see. So we didn’t renew. Evie went into a Unitarian convent and writes me beautiful letters. She reads. She sends me book lists, but I can never keep up. My father and I had our final break when I didn’t renew the marriage.”
“I remember that you were at odds.”
“We were. We are. I travel. He sends a remittance from time to time. I work, too, sometimes, but I don’t tell him about that.”
New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers Page 18
