Template: A Novel of the Archonate

by Matthew Hughes

  They took the deposit book to the counter where the Trust’s examining devices accepted that Conn was the owner of the funds. Conn arranged for a credit draft that could be exchanged for local currency throughout the worlds of The Spray. He next contacted the Arbitration, determined the amount of his indebtedness as an indentee and paid it in full. If the holder of his contract ever arrived on Thrais, the sum would be paid over. That was doubtful, of course, since an arrest for the murder of Ovam Horder would immediately follow.

  “I will conduct you to the FRP offices and confer auxiliary status on you,” Klepht said. “You will have just enough time to catch the Dan.

  When they reached the street, Klepht waved Conn into the passenger compartment of the FRP aircar. The discriminator then boarded and began to close the hatch.

  “Wait!” said Jenore. “What about me?”

  Klepht’s brow formed the shape of a question. “What about you?”

  “Hallis’s note asked Conn to help me.”

  The policeman’s puzzlement did not lessen. “The request did not amount to a contractual obligation.”

  The woman was speechless.

  Conn spoke from the rear seat. “We are pressed for time.”

  “The man died under torture by people who want to kill you,” Jenore said. “He left you wealth and freedom. And you don’t feel any obligation to carry out his last wish?”

  Conn spoke as if to a child. “What have I to gain by doing so? Hallis Tharp did not make the fortune contingent on my aiding you. Nor did he ask a price for resisting torture. The matters are not congruent.”

  “Have you no heart?” said the woman. “Not one of you?”

  Klepht made a gesture that signaled incomprehension and made again to close the hatch.

  “Wait!” Jenore said again.

  “We cannot wait,” said Conn.

  “I have an offer to make.”

  “Then be quick.”

  “You are going to Old Earth?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you any idea of the complexity of social relations there?”

  Conn thought about it. He had heard that Old Earth had some peculiar ways, and his infrequent encounters with visitors from there underscored that reputation. “What is your offer?”

  “Do you know the correct style of greeting between a person of indeterminate rank and any of the seven levels of aristocracies?”

  Conn admitted he did not.

  “Then you will need a guide.”

  He found himself disliking this woman. “I will hire a menial when I arrive,” he said.

  “You may not get what you bargain for,” she said. “Off-world visitors are often viewed as plums to be picked.”

  Now Conn was shocked. “Are you saying that contracts are not honored on Old Earth? How does society endure?”

  “Some are honored, some are not. Circumstances often dictate behavior. Character can also be an issue.”

  “How do I know that your character is trustworthy?”

  She blinked way a fresh start of tears. “I will help you for Hallis Tharp’s sake.”

  “But he is dead.”

  “Exactly.”

  Conn did not understand and had no time to unravel the disconnections that somehow made up the thinking processes of Jenore Mordene. He made room for her in the aircar and she climbed in. The vehicle ascended and headed for FRP headquarters. “We can establish terms once we are on board the Dan,” he said.

  “Whatever,” she said. “But we must also stop at the pledgeman’s and recover the paduay set.”

  “Pointless,” said Conn. “A waste of time.”

  She set her jaw and said, “It is one of my terms.”

  From the front seat, Klepht said he would send a constable to collect the object while they were commissioning Conn as an auxiliary. He spoke into the communicator and gave orders then turned to regard Jenore Mordene. “Are there many like you on Old Earth?” he asked.

  “I am not much out of the ordinary,” she said, “except that I had an urge to go off-world.”

  “Remarkable,” said the discriminator.

  Thrais had not been one of the worlds settled during the first wave of the Effloration, as the advance of human settlement along The Spray had come to be known. The long wraithlike arm of the galaxy, now home to the peoples of The Ten Thousand Worlds, had offered more hospitable places than Thrais’s largely grim terrains and for millennia the planet had attracted only eccentrics and enthusiasts for modes of life that challenged their capabilities, even to the point of lethal danger.

  It was a dry world. Most of it was rocky desert and most of what was not desert was chill tundra. Its flora and fauna were scant and thorny. Only along the equator, where the Serpentine Sea undulated like a fat snake, was the climate within tolerable norms. Except for occasional dust storms, the weather was predictable and water was in reliable supply, so it was to the southern edge of the largest northern continent that the Transactualists came in a flotilla of spacecraft and established the settlement that grew to become Bay City. Here they could put their philosophies into practice without hindrance or oversight.

  Transactualism was a utilitarian system that held that existence conducted under rules of zero-sum accounting offered a high degree of orderliness, a characteristic that the system’s adherents prized above all. They rejected abstract concepts in favor of quantifiable realities and erected a framework of laws and customs that allowed the citizens of Thrais to live in freedom from all obligations except those they had willingly and knowingly agreed to honor.

  All were at liberty to strive for whatever benefits moved them, each receiving according to the value that another might place on his abilities in an agreed-upon transaction. Nebulous concepts such as “the public good” or “the common weal” were swept away by the brisk winds of the open marketplace; all goods were private and could be bought or sold freely. On other worlds, it might be fashionable to make distinctions between animate or inanimate goods, between human or nonhuman. On Thrais, these arbitrary differences were not recognized. Freedom was absolute.

  As the Dan broke into the darkness of space, Jenore stood at the view port, looking back on the dwindling ocher and gray sphere with an expression Conn Labro could not accurately read. The twin suns known collectively as Aumbispero – the name was said to derive from an ancient language and meant “A Man and His Dog” – soon fell behind as the ship increased speed and made for the whimsy that connected this system to that of Holycow. When Aumbispero was a fading point, she turned at last from the view and shook herself as if waking from a dream.

  The Dan was not a luxury vessel like the Itinerator of the Gold Phoenix Line or the Amboy Fleet’s Grandeur. It catered to that class of passengers for whom a safe and timely arrival at their destination outweighed the value of the perquisites and pampering experienced in transit. But the ship did offer moderate comforts and entertainments, including a small casino in the lower forward compartment, where passengers could compete against gaming machines or each other.

  Conn and Jenore found the gaming room after the latter had insisted on a tour of the Dan.

  “Why?” he asked when she proposed exploring the ship.

  “Curiosity, if nothing else,” she said. “Are you not subject to the emotion?”

  Conn’s upbringing had not encouraged him to examine his motives or moods. His life so far had been a succession of tasks and contests that had grown more complex as he had become better able to meet them. Between assignments, he rested or prepared for the next encounter. He rarely asked himself what he thought or felt about anything, unless it was to check his preconceptions to avoid a complacency that an opponent could use against him.

  “I do not think I am curious,” he said.

  “Do you never wonder about things?” she said. “How the universe came to be, why you are here in the midst of it, and where it all goes from this fleeting point?”

  “What would I gain from such specula
tion?”

  She spread her arms, palms upraised. “Enlargement of the spirit, perspective on the meaning of your existence, a sense of wonder.”

  “And how would these nebulous qualities assist me?”

  “They would give you a reason for getting up in the morning.”

  Conn pursed his lips then relaxed them. “I usually have an even more compelling reason – a full bladder.”

  He saw exasperation in the set of her lips and brow as she said, “And after you’ve emptied it, then what?”

  “Then one thing leads to another. There is always something to do.”

  “So you exist because you have something to do? The meaning of life is a succession of chores?”

  Conn had not thought about it. He did so now. “Until lately,” he said after a moment’s reflection, “that has been so.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I must find out who wishes me dead and prevent him from achieving his wish.”

  “Why?” said Jenore. “So you can continue to fill and empty your bladder?”

  It was a good question, he had to admit, and one for which he did not have a definitive answer. “Still,” he said, “if life requires a meaning, I will not be able to find it if I am dead. So I had better keep on filling and voiding for at least as long as it takes to deal with whoever wishes to kill me. After that, I can safely consider abstract issues.”

  She blinked and shook her head as if throwing off a moment of dizziness. “I thought you were strange,” she said, “like most of the people I met on Thrais, except for Hallis. Now I suspect you are even stranger than the rest of them.”

  “On the contrary,” Conn said. “It is you who is strange. I have never felt other than at ease, whereas you often seem nonplused.”

  Her lips formed an ironic moue. “But you’re not on Thrais anymore.”

  She did not amplify her statement and Conn took it for just another one of her idiosyncratic observations. Then she returned to the original subject and again proposed an exploration of the Dan, adding, “In case there are any lurking perils that we ought to know about.”

  The likelihood seemed farfetched to Conn but he acceded to her proposal. Though he anticipated no “lurking perils,” it could not hurt to scout the environment in which he would pass the next few days.

  The circuit of the ship took less than half a hour. They found three eating places, ranging in style from casual through informal to full-fig etiquette. There were also three drinking lounges with similar variations in the conduct expected of the customers. There was an exercise area, a reading room and an ashram for spiritual exercises. Finally, there was the casino.

  Conn quickly inspected and dismissed the gaming machines: they were the kind common in Thraisian sporting houses that catered to a broad clientele, their outcomes decided more by chance than skill. At a long table in the center of the room, players threw multisided dice and bet for and against specific combinations of pips coming up on this or that roll. Conn watched a few passes and determined that the dice were not adulterated, but the game was ruled so that the house eventually won.

  In a corner half-concealed behind a curtain six passengers were seated around an octagonal table playing thrash, a game that used a deck of seventy-two numbered cards in six suits, with eight minor- and four major-arcana cards whose values mutated depending on what else was in the holders’ hands. The game could challenge on several levels, depending on the contestants’ skills. Judging by the unequal piles of tokens before the various players and the litter of discarded drink containers, the game had been going on for some time while the Dan had remained on Thrais to take on cargo.

  Conn watched the play for a number of hands, judging the capabilities of the six persons at the table. It was a mixed group: a pair of stolid Argyllians, commerciants by their modest attire and accouterments, who bet conservatively and contented themselves with taking small pots or portions of larger ones; a large and meaty Hauserian pastoralist whose loud voice and expansive gestures as he called plays and slapped down cards declared that he hailed from the wide plains of that big planet’s southern continent; a Stig whose segmented thorax identified it as male dominant with female recessant characteristics though currently in the neuter phase; a lean man of mature years suited in metallic gold with violet ruffles whose extravagant coiffure and embedded facial jewels bespoke an aristocratic origin on Old Earth; and a young Divorgian with cropped hair and sober garments who wore the badge conferred upon graduates of the Bodoglio Seminary. Behind the young man sat a fresh-faced woman of about the same age, wearing a simple frock and a placid expression.

  The players followed disparate strategies, Conn saw. The Argyllians, seeking no lavish reward, avoided excessive risk. The Hauserian, flushed of face and bright of eye, took egregious chances in pursuit of splendid gains, which occasionally came his way.

  The Stig sought its own ends; no one knew why the species frequented human gaming establishments, being apparently oblivious to wins or losses. It was surmised that they enjoyed some aura that the players gave off either telepathically or pheromonically. It did no good to question a Stig on such matters: the first query would cause the ultraterrene to about-face and raise its tail, exposing the glands beneath; a second query would clear the room and require the questioner to undergo a lengthy exposure to harsh chemicals accompanied by prolonged scrubbing.

  The Old Earth lord was playing a multileveled strategy, lying back when the Argyllians were on the march and feeding the Hauserian when it was profitable to lead him on. But the aristocrat’s energies became most tightly focused, Conn saw, whenever the young seminarian pressed his luck.

  “Will you take part?” Jenore asked quietly when they had watched a few hands.

  “No,” said Conn.

  “Do you fear to lose while playing on your own coin?” she asked. “You have ample funds now.”

  “I would not lose,” he said. “And, as you say, I have all I require and so I do not need the trifles I would win.”

  “The Hauserian bets heavily.”

  “True, but the gains are small in comparison to what I already have.”

  He saw that she was regarding him with a quizzical expression. “What?” he said.

  “I am trying to understand you,” she said.

  “Why? We are not likely to compete against each other.”

  “Have you never heard it said that one’s fellow creature is the only proper subject for study?”

  “No,” he said. “And I doubt it is true.”

  “You don’t think people should study each other?”

  “They should if they wish. But I think there are equally rewarding subjects.”

  She tapped her small chin with one calloused finger. “What have you studied?” she asked.

  He rolled off a list: strategy, tactics, human and machine response modes, the strengths and weaknesses of a wide range of weapons, used individually or in combinations.

  She interrupted him. “These are all related to your former occupation,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “But you are no longer an indentured house player in a gaming emporium. Instead, you are free and moderately wealthy. You can spend your life doing virtually whatever you wish.”

  “Once I am sure that no one is seeking to take my life from me.”

  She conceded his qualifier but said, “Once you have that assurance, what will you do with your life? What captures your interest? What, besides a full bladder, will motivate you to rise in the morning?”

  “We have already had this conversation,” he said. “What are you trying to accomplish?”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Why?”

  “If for no other reason, because it is what Hallis would have done.”

  Her answer puzzled him. She was not Hallis, and in any case Hallis Tharp’s motivations remained opaque to him. He turned his attention back to the game of thrash and saw the aristocrat perform a subtle maneuver with the
deck of cards. To change the subject, he said quietly to Jenore, “The dealer is cheating.”

  Her expression showed unexpected emotion, as if she were herself the victim of the Old Earther’s malfeasance. “Why do you react so?” Conn said. “You have no stake in the game.”

  “Have you no moral objection to cheating?”

  “I do not understand the question. Cheating is pointless. It renders the outcome of a contest null and void.”

  “If it is discovered,” she said. “Around this table, it may enrich the cheater more than his luck or playing skills warrant.”

  It was an obvious point and yet it had not occurred to Conn. On Thrais, cheating was extraordinarily rare. He had to cast his memory back to his young years to recall an incidence. At Able Majko’s sporting house, The Fast Pig, a combatant in the melee had been caught using illegally modified equipment in an attempt to advance to the more lucrative rounds that featured combat by pairs. Most of the population of Bay City had come out to watch the felon make amends – not the whole process, of course, but some portion of the seventy-four intervals between the First Apprehension of forthcoming pain and the Micturation upon the Remnants.

  The young malefactor did not achieve the full seventy-four. Technically he failed to discharge his obligation to Able Majko by ending the process at step forty-nine, the Revelation of the Tree. When further resuscitation proved impossible – he had already expired four times during the proceedings – the crowds dispersed. It was generally agreed that the penitent had displayed satisfactory energy during the middle passage.

  Conn paid closer attention to what was happening around the table. He watched several hands, counseling Jenore to restrain herself while he analyzed the aristocrat’s actions. After a while he drew her away and said, “It is odd. In a game like thrash, played for table stakes among strangers, I would expect a cheat to be motivated by gain. Yet his shuffle-and-shift is never aimed at the Hauserian, who wagers extravagantly and does not grumble at losing. More curious still, the sole target of the lord’s trickery is the young Divorgian, yet he has brought the most meager purse to the table.”