Trullion: Alastor 2262

by Jack Vance

  Glinnes had listened in horrified fascination. “It’s a fearful punishment, even for a starmenter.”

  “Indeed, that’s what it is,” said Jut. “Can you guess the reason?”

  Glinnes swallowed hard and could not choose between several theories. Jut asked, “Would you now want to be a starmenter and risk such an end?”

  “Never,” Glinnes declared, from the depths of his soul.

  Jut turned to the brooding Glay. “And you?”

  “I never planned to rob and kill in the first place.”

  Jut gave a hoarse chuckle. “One of the two, at least, has been dissuaded from crime.”

  Glinnes said, “I wouldn’t like to hear music played to pain.”

  “And why not?” Shira demanded. “At hussade, when the sheirl is smirched, the music is sweet and wild. Music gives savor to the event, like salt with food.”

  Glay offered a comment: “Akadie claims that everybody needs catharsis, if it’s only a nightmare.”

  “It may be so,” said Jut. “I myself need no nightmares; I’ve got one before my eyes every moment.” Jut referred, as all knew, to the taking of Sharue. Since that time, his nocturnal hunts for merling had become almost an obsession.

  “Well, if you two twits aren’t to be starmenters, what will you be?” asked Shira. “Assuming you don’t care to stay in the household.”

  “I’m for hussade,” said Glinnes. “I don’t care to fish, nor to scrape cauch. “He recalled the brave beige, scarlet and black ship that had struck down the starmenters. “Or perhaps I’ll join the Whelm and lead a life of adventure.”

  “I know nothing of the Whelm,” said Jut ponderously, “but if it’s hussade I can give you one or two useful hints. Run five miles every day to develop your stamina. Jump the practice pits until you can make sure landings blindfolded. Forbear with the girls, or there’ll be no virgins left in the prefecture to be your sheirl.”

  “It’s a chance I am willing to take,” said Glinnes.

  Jut squinted through his black eyebrows at Glay. “And what of you? Will you stay in the household?”

  Glay gave a shrug. “If I could, I’d travel space and see the cluster.”

  Jut raised his bushy eyebrows. “How will you travel, lacking money?”

  “There are methods, according to Akadie. He visited twenty-two worlds, working from port to port.”

  “Hmmf. That may be. But never use Akadie for your model. He has derived nothing from his travels but useless erudition.”

  Glay thought a moment. “If this is true,” he said, “as it must be, since you so assert, then Akadie learned his sympathy and breadth of intellect here on Trullion which is all the more to his credit.”

  Jut, who never resented honest defeat, clapped Glay on the back. “In you he has a loyal friend.”

  “I am grateful to Akadie,” said Glay. “He has explained many things to me.”

  Shira, who teemed with lewd ideas, gave Glay a sly nudge. “Follow Glinnes on his rounds, and you’ll never need Akadie’s explanations.”

  “I’m not talking about that sort of thing.”

  “Then what sort of thing are you talking about?”

  “I don’t care to explain. You’d only jeer at me, which is tiresome.”

  “No jeering!” declared Shira. “We’ll give you a fair hearing! Say on.”

  “Very well. I don’t really care whether you jeer or not. I’ve long felt a lack, or an emptiness. I want a weight to thrust my shoulder against; I want a challenge I can defy and conquer.”

  “Brave words,” said Shira dubiously. “But—”

  “But why should I so trouble myself? Because I have but one life, one existence. I want to make my mark, somewhere, somehow. When I think of it I grow almost frantic! My foe is the universe; it defies me to perform remarkable deeds so that ever after folk will remember me! Why should not the name ‘Glay Hulden’ ring as far and clear as ‘Paro’ and ‘Slabar Velche’?8 I will make it so; it is the least I owe myself!”

  Jut said in a gloomy voice, “You had best become either a great hussade player or a great starmenter.”

  “I overspoke myself,” said Glay. “In truth I want neither fame nor notoriety; I do not care whether I astonish a single person. I want only the chance to do my best.”

  There was silence on the verandah. From the reeds came the croak of nocturnal insects, and water lapped softly against the dock; a merling perhaps had risen to the surface, to listen for interesting sounds.

  Jut said in a heavy voice, “The ambition does you no discredit. Still I wonder how it would be if everyone strove with such urgency. Where would peace abide?”

  “It is a difficult problem,” said Glinnes. “Indeed, I had never considered it before. Glay, you amaze me You are unique!”

  Glay gave a deprecatory grunt. “I’m not so sure of this. There must be many, many folk desperate to fulfill themselves.”

  “Perhaps this is why people become starmenters,” suggested Glinnes. “They are bored at home, at hussade they’re inept, the girls turn away from them—so off they go in their black hulls, for sheer revenge!”

  “The theory is as good as any,” agreed Jut Hidden. “But revenge cuts both ways, as thirty-three folk discovered today.”

  “There is something here I can’t understand,” said Glinnes. “The Connatic knows of their crimes. Why does he not deploy the Whelm and root them out once and for all?”

  Shira laughed indulgently. “Do you think the Whelm sits idle? The ships are constantly on the prowl. But for every living world you’ll find a hundred dead ones, not to mention moons, asteroids, hulks and starments. The hiding places are beyond enumeration. The Whelm can only do its best.”

  Glinnes turned to Glay. “There you are: join the Whelm and see the cluster. Get paid while you travel!”

  “It’s a thought,” said Glay.

  Chapter 3

  In the end it was Glinnes who went to Port Maheul and there enlisted in the Whelm. He was seventeen at the time. Glay neither enlisted in the Whelm, played hussade, nor became a starmenter. Shortly after Glinnes joined the Whelm, Glay also left home. He wandered the length and breadth of Meriank, from time to time working to gain a few ozols. as often living off of the land. On several occasions he attempted the ruses Akadie had recommended in order to travel to other worlds, but for one reason or another his efforts met no success, and he never accumulated sufficient funds to buy himself passage.

  For a period he traveled with a band of Trevanyi9, finding their exactness and intensity an amusing contrast to the imprecision of the average Trill.

  After eight years of wandering he returned to Rabendary Island, where everything went about as before, although Shira last had given up hussade. Jut still waged his nocturnal war against the merlings; Marucha still hoped to win social acceptance among the local gentry, who had absolutely no intention of allowing her to succeed. Jut, at the behest of Marucha, now called himself Squire Hulden of Rabendary, but refused to move into Ambal Manse, which, despite its noble proportions, grand chambers and polished wainscoting, lacked a broad verandah overlooking the water.

  The family regularly received news from Glinnes, who had done well in the Whelm. At bootcamp he had earned a recommendation to officer training school, after which he had been assigned to the Tactical Corps of the 191st Squadron and placed in command of Landing Craft No. 191-539 and its twenty-man complement.

  Glinnes could now look forward to a rewarding career, with excellent retirement benefits. Still, he was not entirely happy. He had envisioned a life more romantically adventurous; he had seen himself prowling the cluster in a patrol boat, searching out starmenter nests, then putting into remote and picturesque settlements for a few days’ shore-leave—a life far more dashing and haphazard than the perfectly organized routine in which he found himself. To relieve the monotony he played hussade; his team always placed high in fleet competition, and won two championships.

  Glinnes at last requested transfer t
o a patrol craft, but his request was denied. He went before the squadron commander, who listened to Glinnes’ protests and complaints with an attitude of easy unconcern. “The transfer was denied for a very good reason.”

  “What reason?” demanded Glinnes. “Certainly I am not considered indispensable to the survival of the squadron?”

  “Not altogether. Still, we don’t want to disrupt a smoothly functioning organization.” He adjusted some papers on his desk, then leaned back in his chair. “In confidence, there’s a rumor to the effect that we’re going into action.”

  “Indeed? Against whom?”

  “As to this, I can only guess. Have you ever heard of the Tamarchô?”

  “Yes indeed. I read about them in a journal: a cult of fanatic warriors on a world whose name now escapes me. Apparently they destroy for the love of destruction, or something of the sort.”

  “Well then, you know as much as I,” said the commander, “except that the world is Rhamnotis and the Tamarchô have laid waste an entire district I would guess that we are going down on Rhamnotis.”

  “It’s an explanation, at least,” said Glinnes. “What about Rhamnotis? A gloomy desert of a place?”

  “On the contrary.” The commander swung about, fingered buttons; a screen burst into colors and a voice spoke: “Alastor 965, Rhamnotis. The physical characteristics are—” The annunciator read off a set of indices denoting mass, dimension, gravity, atmosphere, and climate, while the screen displayed a Mercator projection of the surface. The commander touched buttons to bypass historical and anthropological information, and brought in what was known as “informal briefing”: “Rhamnotis is a world where every particular, every aspect, every institution, conduces to the health and pleasure of its inhabitants. The original settlers, arriving from the world Triskelion, resolved never to tolerate the ugliness which they had left behind them, and they pledged a covenant to this effect, which covenant is now the prime document of Rhamnotis, and the subject of great reverence.

  “Today the usual detritus of civilization—discord, filth, waste, structural clutter—have been almost expelled from the consciousness of the population. Rhamnotis is now a world characterized by excellent management. Optimums have become the norms. Social evils are unknown; poverty is no more than a curious word. The work-week is ten hours, in which every member of the population participates; he then to the carnivals and fantasies, which attract tourists from far worlds. The cuisine is considered equal to the best of the cluster. Beaches, forests, lakes and mountains provide unsurpassed scope for outdoor recreation. Hussade is a spectator sport, although local teams have never placed high in Cluster rankings.”

  The commander touched another button; the annunciator said: “In recent years the cult known as Tamarchô has attracted attention. The principles of Tamarchô are unclear, and seem to vary from individual to individual. In general, the Tamarchists engage in wanton violence, destruction and defilement. They have burned thousands of acres of primeval forests; they pollute lakes, reservoirs and fountains with corpses, filth and crude oil; they are known to have poisoned waterholes in game preserves, and they set poison bait for birds and domestic animals. They fling excrement bombs into the perfumed carnival crowds and urinate from high towers upon the throngs below. They worship ugliness and in fact call themselves the Ugly People.”

  The commander tapped a button to dull the screen. “So there you have it. The Tamarchô have seized a tract of land and won’t disperse; apparently the Rhamnotes have called in the Whelm. Still, it’s all speculation; we might be going down to Breakneck Island to disperse the prostitutes. Who knows?”

  Standard strategy of the Whelm, validated across ten thousand campaigns, was to mass a tremendous force so extravagantly overpowering as to intimidate the enemy and impose upon him the certain conviction of defeat. In most cases the insurgence would evaporate and there would be no fighting whatever. To subdue Mad King Zag on Gray World, Alastor 1740, the Whelm poised a thousand Tyrant dreadnoughts over the Black capitol, almost blocking out the daylight. Squadrons of Vavarangi and Stingers drifted in concentric evolutions under the Tyrants, and at still lower levels combat-boats darted back and forth like wasps. On the fifth day twenty million heavy troops dropped down to confront King Zag’s stupefied militia, who long before had given up all thought of resistance.

  The same tactics were expected to prevail against the Tamarchists. Four fleets of Tyrants and Maulers converged from four directions to hover above the Silver Mountains, where the Ugly People had taken refuge. Intelligence from the surface reported no perceptible reaction from the Tamarchista.

  The Tyrants descended lower, and all during the night netted the sky with ominous beams of crackling blue light In the morning the Tamrachists had broken all their camps and were nowhere to be seen. Surface intelligence reported that they had taken cover in the forests.

  Monitors flew to the area, and their voice-horns ordered the Ugly Folk to form orderly files and march down to a nearby resort town. The only response was a spatter of sniper fire.

  With menacing deliberation the Tyrants began to descend. The Monitors issued a final ultimatum: surrender or face attack. The Tamarchists failed to respond.

  Sixteen Armadillo sky-forts dropped upon a high meadow, intending to secure the area for a troop-landing. They encountered not only the fire of small arms, but spasms of energy from a set of antique blue radiants. Rather than destroy an unknown number of maniacs, the Armadillos returned into the sky.

  The Operation Commander, outraged and perplexed, decided to ring the Silver Mountain with troops, hoping to starve the Ugly Folk into submission.

  Twenty-two hundred landing craft, among them No. 191-539, commanded by Glinnes Hulden, descended to the surface and sealed the Tamarchists into their mountain lair. Where expedient, the troops cautiously moved up the valleys, after sending Stinger combat-boats ahead to flush out snipers. Casualties occurred, and since the Tamarchô represented neither threat nor emergency, the Commander withdrew his troops from zones of Tamarchist fire.

  For a month the siege persisted. Intelligence reported that the Tamarchists lacked provisions, that they were eating bark, insects, leaves, whatever came to hand.

  The Commander once again sent Monitors over the area, demanding an orderly surrender. For answer the Tamarchists launched a series of break-out attempts, but were repulsed with considerable harm to themselves.

  The Commander once more sent over his Monitors, threatening the use of pain-gas unless surrender was affected within six hours. The deadline came and went; Vavarangi descended to bombard shelter areas with cannisters of pain-gas. Choking, rolling on the ground, writhing and jerking, the Tamarchists broke into the open. The Commander ordered down a “living rain” of a hundred thousand troops, and after captives, numbered less than two thousand persons of both sexes. Glinnes was astounded to discover that some were little more than children, and very few older than himself. They lacked ammunition, energy, food and medical supplies. They grimaced and snarled at the Whelm troops “Ugly Folk” they were indeed.

  Glinnes’ astonishment increased. What had prompted these young people to battle so fanatically for a cause obviously lost? What, indeed, had impelled them to become Ugly Folk? Why had they defiled and defouled, destroyed and corrupted? Glinnes attempted to question one of the prisoners who pretended not to understand his dialect. Shortly thereafter Glinnes was ordered back aloft with his ship.

  Glinnes returned to base. Picking up his mail, he found a letter from Shira containing tragic news. Jut Hulden had gone out to hunt merling once too often; they had laid a cunning trap for him. Before Shira could come to his aid, Jut had been dragged into Farwan Water.

  The news affected Glinnes with a rather irrational astonishment. He found it hard to imagine change in the timeless fens, especially change so profound.

  Shira was now Squire of Rabendary. Glinnes wondered what other changes might be in store. Probably none—Shira had no taste for innovation. He w
ould bring in a wife and breed a family; so much at least could be expected—if not sooner, then later. Glinnes speculated as to who might marry bulky balding Shira with the red cheeks and lumpy nose. Even as a hussade player, Shira had found difficulty enticing girls into the shadows, for while Shira considered himself bluff, friendly and affable, others thought him coarse, lewd and boisterous.

  Glinnes began to muse about his boyhood. He recalled the hazy mornings, the festive evenings, the starwatcbings. He recalled his good friends and their quaint habits; he remembered the look of Rabendary Forest-the menas looming over russet pomanders silver-green birches, dark-green pricklenuts. He thought of the shimmer that hung above the water and softened the outline of far shores; he thought of the ramshackle old family home, and discovered himself to be profoundly homesick.

  Two months later, at the end of ten years service, he resigned his commission and returned to Trullion.

  Chapter 4

  Glinnes had sent a letter announcing his arrival, but when he debarked at Port Maheul in Staveny Prefecture, none of his family was on hand to greet him, which he thought strange.

  He loaded his baggage onto the ferry and took a seat on the top deck, to watch the scenery go by. How easy and gay were the country folk in their parays of dull scarlet, blue, ocher! Glinnes’ semi-military garments—black jacket, beige breeches tucked into black ankleboots—felt stiff and constricted. He’d probably never wear them again!

  The boat presently slid into the dock at Welgen. A delectable odor wafted past Glinnes nose, which he traced to a nearby fried-fish booth. Glinnes went ashore and bought a packet of steamed reed-pods and a length of barbecued eel. He looked about for Shira or Glay or Marucha, though he hardly expected to find them here. A group of off-worlders attracted his attention: three young men, wearing what seemed to be a uniform—neat gray one-piece garments belted at the waist, highly polished tight black shoes—and three young women, in rather austere gowns of durable white duck. Both men and women wore their hair cropped short, in not-unbecoming style, and wore small medallions on their left shoulders. They passed close to Glinnes and he realized that they were not off-worlders after all, but Trills… Students at a doctrinaire academy? Members of a religious order? Either case was possible, for they carried books, calculators, and seemed to be engaged in earnest discussion. Glinnes gave the girls a second appraisal. There was, he thought, something unappealing about them, which at first he could not define. The ordinary Trill girl dressed herself in almost anything at hand, without over-anxiety that it might be rumpled or threadbare or soiled, and then made herself gay with flowers These girls looked not only clean, but fastidious as well. Too clean, too fastidious… Glinnes shrugged and returned to the ferry.