“She will have to wear white with red dots,” the arbiger said.
“What does that pattern signify?” Hespira asked.
But the woman had been writing the second chit as she spoke, and now she handed it over and ran through the rest of the formalities in a perfunctory manner. We were advised to avoid strenuous exercise until we had purchased an oxygen supplement—sold at the spaceport commissariat and at hotels and restaurants—the air being thin at Razham’s altitude.
Indeed, by the time we had made the short trek to the port’s hub, Hespira at my elbow and my assistant again draped about my neck, I was finding myself hard put to maintain a brisk walking pace. My companion, too, complained of a shortness of breath and the onset of a headache.
“Well,” I said, “at least we have eliminated Razham as your place of origin.” The locals we saw working around the spaceport were clearly adapted to the atmospheric conditions, all having broad chests and many sporting huge nostrils. Of the latter, they seemed consciously proud, elevating their heads to point them at rankless strangers. Or perhaps they were merely regarding us with scorn.
At the hub, a multistoried tower of the blue-gray slate that dominated the landscape, we purchased packets of the supplement and I wasted no time in swallowing one of the pea-sized, rough-textured pills. Within moments, its time-released oxygen began to enter my bloodstream and I ceased to feel as if I was in the last leg of a two-hour foot race. The peakedness also left Hespira’s face and when I suggested that we find accommodation and begin our search, she summoned a brave smile.
I exchanged some jewels for a purse of local currency—coins of bright metal called sequints—then addressed the question of accommodation. From a rack of illustrated pamphlets at the spaceport, I chose a comfortable-looking hotel near the city’s administrative nexus. A hired ground car took us there and I was glad to see that the image in the brochure matched the reality: the structure, unlike most in many-spired Razham, was built low to the ground, and with gently sloping ramps instead of the steep staircases that the Razhamans preferred, often placing them where any reasonable civilization would have thought it more useful to put in a switchback road.
The car’s driver was a man midway between youth and age, solidly built, and with a look of quick intelligence about him. I gave him three golden sequints, which was surely more than was required, judging from the slight dilation of his pupils and his involuntary cessation of breath when I placed them in his hand. As his fingers closed over the shining coins, he said, “Please take note of my name and cipher, visitors, and feel free to call upon me at any time. I know all the best bowl-and-cuppage parlors and can carry you safe and unmolested through the more liberal parts of the city, if such is your taste.”
I had my assistant note his particulars—his name was Carthew Chumblot—and told him we might soon call upon his services in finding attire suitable to our putative ranks.
“You have chits?” he said.
I showed them to him. At mine he made a face that questioned the arbiger’s judgment. At Hespira’s his eyes widened. He looked from her to the card twice then blew out his cheeks and said, “An insult! The tyranny of a minor functionary allowed to lord it over strangers trapped helpless within her narrow sphere!”
“What does it signify?” Hespira said.
Outrage, real or feigned, perhaps a blend of both, robbed him of speech for a moment, then he said, “That you should be led about in a harness, your head cushioned against the risk of stumbles, and all sharp implements kept from reach.”
“She would experience lengthy pause, then?” I said.
“The mistress’s life would be one continuous pause,” he said. “Intolerable!”
“What is to be done about it?”
Chumblot’s eyes flicked from side to side as he made his dispositions. “There is more than one entrance to Bezarab,” he quoted. In my inner ear, my assistant began to explain the reference, but I signaled it not to bother, as the driver was still speaking. “I will take you to a clothier I know, a woman of subtlety and imagination. We will erase this insult!” He struck Hespira’s chit with the backs of his fingers, and I recognized a gesture of contemptuous dismissal.
“Very good,” I said. “Though first we must register here.”
“I will wait,” he said, adding another gesture, this one conveying a message that magnanimous impulses were fundamental to Chumblot’s nature. He returned to his vehicle. Hespira and I went up the ramp into the hotel. I had overpaid him on purpose, of course, having often found it useful to engage knowledgeable local help in unfamiliar surroundings; experience had taught me that registered transporters like this fellow were usually dependable. Even so, I checked with my integrator for its analysis of his details.
“He values sequints, but far more he craves respect and to have his contributions appreciated,” was its reply. “Also, I detected no flushes of blood or motions of other bodily fluids that betokened unnatural appetites.”
It was always a good question to ask. In some parts of some worlds, the newcome stranger is a walking invitation to let slip the basest denizens of disordered psyches. Indeed, there were places in Olkney where the unwary visitor might all too easily find himself unwittingly cast as an essential player in some madman’s private drama. The insane had a tendency to cloak others in the strange garments they found hanging in the backs of their own mental wardrobes. So, for that matter, did the rest of us, but the consequences of error were usually less drastic.
I had not researched the matter, but it seemed to me that there had lately been more reports than usual of such upsetting incidents back in Olkney. I wondered if the impending great change might have something to do with it. If so, the most probable inference to be drawn was that the turnover might be to bring to the top of the new order those persons who had scrounged along the bottom of the old. Fumblewits, deludants, and outright barkers whose infirmities had long kept them in poverty and want might suddenly find themselves transformed into dominees and wonder workers. The thought buttressed my growing inclination not to seek to survive the cataclysm.
But for the moment, I had work to do and a good cause to serve. I smiled at Hespira and offered her my arm, and together we ascended the broad ramp that led into the Espantia Inn. A functionary in a many-buttoned tunic of red and gold activated the twin doors of metalized glass, and I rewarded him with another of the sequints; properly motivated hotel staff could also be useful. We crossed a wide common space, deeply carpeted and well lit by tall windows on two sides, the light sent in several directions by sheets of polished metal hung on cables from the high ceiling. Beyond the sea of geometrically patterned carpet stood a waist-high barrier of polished wood, behind which waited a man with carefully groomed hair. As we hove into view, his eyebrows raised themselves in expectation.
This far down The Spray, even those who dealt with travelers from distant origins could not be guaranteed to know much more about Old Earth than the planet’s name and some general descriptor: “unfashionable,” perhaps, or “fusty-rusty,” as I had once heard my world dismissed by a hereditary grandee of the foundational domain Belserene. So when the clerk inquired as to our home world, I was constructively vague—“A little place well up The Spray,” I said, then directed his attention to Hespira. “My companion, however, has roots in this sector.” I then feigned a sudden inspiration and said, “Let us see if you can tell where she is from by her mode of speech.”
I asked the young woman to say a few words—the words we had rehearsed earlier on the Gallivant—and she said, “My dear, let us not take up this man’s time with a lot of flippadiday.”
I urged her to indulge me, but at this point the clerk interrupted to declare that he need hear no more. “Shannery,” he said, “and somewhere north of Cauldoon. We get occasional visitors from those parts. The accent is unmistakable.”
Hespira smiled and executed a gesture of appreciation as if for a difficult trick well performed. “Of course,” I sa
id, “she has been away a while. Is there anywhere in Razham where we could catch up on the latest from Shannery?”
“There is never much doing on Shannery,” the clerk said, with a laugh that only partly disguised a mild contempt, “but our integrator captures the main information services.”
I pronounced this excellent news and booked us into a pair of connecting rooms overlooking the hotel’s inner courtyard. A few minutes later, Hespira and I were cloistered in my half of the accommodation, seated together on a quilted divan, and I was instructing my assistant to review the available editions of the news feeds from Shannery. “Work backward from recent times, looking for unexplained disappearances.”
I was hopeful, but the search turned up nothing useful. In all of Shannery over the past several months, a total of ninety-three persons had unexpectedly gone absent. Some had turned up alive, though in varying degrees of health, after a few days or weeks; it was discovered that they had taken unannounced holidays or fled difficult relationships, or had got lost in forests or while trekking the furzelands, where the sky could be overcast for days and the flat terrain offered no landmarks.
Only six of the ninety-three were unaccounted for, four of them the subjects of open files among local constabularies whose inquisitors were questioning associates or relations as to means, motives, and opportunities for foul play. The other two were recent disappearances, who were being searched for and might turn up at any moment. But none of the six’s descriptions even remotely coincided with Hespira’s.
“A dead end?” she said, the hope that had sprung up in her with the clerk’s pinpointing of her accent now fading.
“Not at all,” I said. “It means only that we have eliminated the most obvious possibility. On to the next inning.”
“Is my life but a game to you?” she said.
By habit, a glib remark sprang to my lips, but I shut them tight before it could gain utterance. In truth, I had often approached my work as if it were sport, although I went at it with the dedication of a professional in a premier league. I bore the occasional setback with a rueful smile and exulted at my frequent triumphs with the justified pride of a confirmed champion. From the clients, however, I maintained a stark distance: where they were emotional, I was cool; where they fretted and girned, I showed a mask of control.
Of course, it was easier for me. All that was in play for me was another fee, another notch on the heavily scored tally stick of my reputation, and my own inner insistence that I meet the standard of excellence that I invariably set for myself. To keep a distance was also a necessity of my craft; those who sought my help often came to me storm-driven through the direst, rocky narrows of a life’s voyage, in which I might be their last hope of navigating a safe passage. If I let them, I had always told myself, they would clutch me to them as a panicking drowner clings to his would-be rescuer, dragging both beneath the waves. Better that they should stay down while I bobbed up to the surface, fresh and ready for the next drowner.
I put my arm around Hespira’s shoulders. Looking down into her drawn face, seeing how the lower of her too-wide lips trembled, I felt a sudden and surprising rush of strong emotion: sympathy, a desire to protect; but though I was conscious of the warm scent that rose from her, I felt no stir of desire.
“No,” I said, withdrawing my arm and moving to put some air between us, “it is not a game. I spoke lightly so that you would not be cast down by a minor setback.” Then, partly to distract her, partly to move us forward, I said to my assistant, “Can you confirm the clerk’s estimate of her probable place of origin?”
Its voice spoke from the air. “I now can, with reasonable confidence. Since we passed through the last whimsy and came in range of Ikkibal, I have been sampling emissions and open-wave communications. The accents of those speakers identified as from Shannery generally resemble our client’s; the township of Cauldoon, on the largest continent, marks a linguistic watershed between two dialects. The voices that I can identify as originating from north of that region very closely match the way she forms her phonemes. If I can sample a few hundred more, particularly the voices of young females, I expect to make a conclusive determination.”
“Well,” I said, “there it is. We seem to know where you come from. We will go there and see what more we can learn.” I saw her brighten at the news and went on: “But first, let us enjoy a day away from the confinement of ship life. I am eager to see the views of the Plunge from Candyk’s Spire; the brochure makes extravagant claims. And I understand the Razhaman cuisine is sumptuous.”
She cast her gaze down toward her clasped hands; at least she wasn’t wringing them. “I am sorry that I snapped at you,” she said. “You are doing so much for me, and with perhaps no hope of recompense.”
“ ‘Snapped’?” I said. “Hardly. And who knows? Perhaps you are a princess and heir to a fortune fit to buckle a baron’s knees.”
“I think not,” she said. “My hands are rough and there are cords of muscle in my forearms. I must have earned my living through toil.”
“Perhaps. Or we may find that the grand belles of Shannery are furious swordsters or quoit tossers. It may be that some squad of champion spearslingers may be missing their deadliest caster, and the great tournament fast approaching; they will welcome you back with glad cries and hearty claps on the back.”
That made her smile, and as I stood and delivered an approximation of a javelin thrower going for distance, I heard Hespira laugh for the first time. I would not have wanted it to be the last.
“You should exhibit that imagination,” she said. “It could win prizes.”
“Imagine the best or the worst,” I quoted, “it costs the same.”
She stood. “Very well, let us visit Chumblot’s clothier friend. After, we will peer into the Plunge, then on to dinner.”
I gave her my arm and we went down to the lobby; I saw no need to bear the weight of my assistant, and left it to continue its researches. Chumblot was waiting with his conveyance at the foot of the Espantia’s front ramp. “We wish to visit Candyk’s Spire,” I said, “and while we’re seeing what there is to see you can think of a good place for dinner.”
His eyes flashed with honest greed and soon we were rolling toward the towering pinnacle of the Spire, which stood as high above the plateau as the plateau stood above the lowlands. The ground car was not large within, and Hespira’s shoulder rested warm against mine. I took a deep breath and realized that I was oddly—most oddly, if I thought about it—content in her company.
But I did not think about it; instead, I cleared my mind and allowed myself to enjoy the moment. Could I go back to that afternoon, I would do exactly the same, for there were to be few such intervals of happy contentment in the days to come.
Chapter Four
Chumblot’s friend had a vendery in a commercial precinct on the way to the Spire. As we drove toward it through the steepness of the city’s streets, I noticed a host of other emporia dealing in clothing and accessories, far more than I would have seen in Olkney. Questioned, our driver revealed that, though fashion had as good a grip on the Razhaman soul as it had in most sophisticated societies, the cut and color of attire in this place served a more far-reaching service: they were crucial to the inhabitants’ constant preoccupation with social rank.
“Some of us,” Chumblot said, “who have had exposure to other ways and customs, have surmounted the worst parochial prejudices. To us, it matters not whether you are avauntseur or superlant, cedeposit or standforth, eighth degree or novice. We see the essence, the one within.”
“But such liberality is rare.”
“Sadly. Are you familiar with Wallader’s theory that every society is fundamentally organized around one or another of the cardinal sins?”
“I believe not,” I said.
“He argues that the true seed of every culture, whatever the ideals to which it gives lip service, always turns out to be one of the seven mortal iniquities identified by the ancients: pride,
greed, and anger are the most common; lust, gluttony, and envy less so; those based on sloth usually do not last.”
“And Razham’s founding sin is pride?”
“With a supporting bid from lust,” Chumblot said, “though that is often expressed in an overreaching romanticism. We live constrained lives, yet crave grand adventure. At the highest levels, young men practice the Ennoblanz.”
The term was unfamiliar to me. The driver explained that it was a rigorous code of conduct under which unespoused superlants and elegantiasts would devote years of their adolescence and early manhood to the courting of cool-blooded ladies. The code featured strenuous sacrifices and ascetic vigils, for which the young men would be lucky to receive so much as a kiss-my-hand.
I felt Hespira shudder beside me. “Are you cold?” I said.
“Just a sudden chill,” she said. “It has passed now.”
The clothier was attentive and used to dealing with offworlders; I assumed she had some longstanding arrangement with our driver by which they both shared in the custom he delivered to her premises. She regarded my chit then chose for me: easy-fitting trousers and a short tunic of pale blue cotton; a sleeveless vest and matching half-boots, both of ocher-dyed suede; and a cloche hat of polished leather ornamented with a bold panache of copper chased with silver.
“This will admit you to all but the most determinate premises, and with only moderate pause,” she said. When I gave her a querying look, she expanded. “In places that are open to you, good manners decree an interval before you may enter and another interval before you are attended to. The length of pause varies with rank.”
“And those places that are not open?”
“Some establishments cater only to the highest tiers. You would find it difficult to gain admittance. If you insisted on entering, your presence would go unacknowledged. If you remained obdurate, loitering expectantly, someone might spill hot liquid on you, or drop a heavy object on your toes.”
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