Araminta Station

by Jack Vance

  6. Days of the Week

  A final note concerning days of the week. On Cadwal, and generally around the Gaean Reach, the traditional seven-day week remained the norm. Using a nomenclature based on the so-called Metallic Schedule avoids the ear-grinding incongruity of contemporary equivalents (i.e., “Monday,” “Tuesday,” et cetera).

  Linguistic note: Originally, each term was preceded by the denominator Ain (literally: “this day of”), so that the first workday of the week was “Ain-Ort,” or “this day of iron.” As the root language became archaic and was superseded, the Ain was lost and the days were designated simply by the metal names alone.

  The days of the week: (Ain) -

  Ort – iron

  Tzein – zinc

  Ing – lead

  Glimmet – tin

  Verd – copper

  Milden – silver

  Smollen – gold

  * * *

  Chapter I, Part 1

  Glawen Clattuc’s sixteenth birthday was the occasion for a modest celebration which would culminate in Housemaster Fratano’s formal salute and his announcement of Glawen’s SI, or Status Index - a number which in large measure would determine the direction of Glawen’s future.

  For the sake of both convenience and economy, the celebration would be superimposed upon the weekly “House Supper,” which all in-House Clattucs must attend, with neither age nor indisposition serving as an excuse for truancy.

  The morning of the celebration went quietly. Glawen’s father, Scharde, gave him a pair of silver and turquoise epaulettes, as worn by gentlemen at the most exclusive resorts of the Gaean Reach, if the fashion journals were to be believed.

  Scharde and Glawen took breakfast in their chambers, as usual. They lived alone; Glawen’s mother, Marya, had died in an accident three years after his birth. Glawen dimly remembered a loving presence, and sensed latent mystery, though Scharde would never discuss the subject.

  The bare facts were simple. Scharde had met Marya when she visited Araminta Station with her parents. Scharde escorted the group around the circuit of wilderness lodges and later visited Marya at Sarsenopolis on Alphecca Nine. Here the two had married, and shortly after returned to Araminta station.

  The off-world marriage took Clattuc House by surprise, and provoked an unexpected furor, instigated by a certain Spanchetta, grandniece to Housemaster Fratano. Spanchetta was already married to the mild and uncomplaining Millis and had produced a son, Arles; nevertheless, she had long, shamelessly and vainly, marked Scharde for her own.

  Spanchetta at this time was a flashing-eyed young woman, buxom and large, with a tempestuous spirit and a great roiling mass of dark curls which usually lay in a cylindrical heap on top of her head. To justify her fury, Spanchetta seized upon the problems of her sister Simonetta: “Smonny.”

  Like Spanchetta, Smonny was large and burly, with a round face, rounded shoulders and large moist features. Where Spanchetta was dark-haired and dark-eyed, Smonny showed taffy-colored hair and golden-hazel eyes. Often she was jocularly assured that with yellow skin she might have passed for a Yip, which never failed to annoy her.3

  To gain her ends Smonny was purposeful but lazy. Where Spanchetta preferred to bluster and domineer, Smonny used a wheedling or peevish persistence which rasped away at her adversary’s patience, and eventually reduced it to shreds. Through indolence she failed her courses at the lyceum, and was denied Agency status. Spanchetta at once placed the blame upon Scharde, for introducing Marya into the house, thereby “rolling” Smonny out.

  “That is absurd and illogical,” she was told, by no less than Fratano the Housemaster.

  “Not at all!” declared Spanchetta, eyes glittering and bosom heaving. She took a step forward and Fratano drew back a step. “The worry absolutely destroyed Smonny’s concentration! She made herself sick!”

  “Still, that’s not Scharde’s fault. You did the same thing when you married Millis. He’s out-House too, a Laverty collateral, as I recall.”

  Spanchetta could only grumble. “That’s different. Millis is our own sort, not just some little interloper from God-help-us!”

  Fratano turned away. “I can’t waste any more of my time with such nonsense.”

  Spanchetta gave an acrid chuckle. “It’s not your sister who is being victimized; it’s mine! Why should you care? Your position is secure! As for wasting your time, you are anxious only to get to your afternoon nap. But there will be no nap for you today. Smonny is coming to talk with you.”

  Fratano, not the most obdurate of men, heaved a deep sigh. “I can’t talk to Smonny right now. I’ll make a special exception. She can have a month for study and another examination; I can’t do any better. If she fails, she is out!”

  The concession pleased Smonny not at all. She set up a howl of complaint: “How can I cover five years of material in a month?”

  “You must do your best,” snapped Spanchetta. “I suspect that the examination will only be a formality; Fratano hinted as much. Still, you can’t get by with nothing! So, you must start studying immediately.”

  Smonny made only a perfunctory attempt to encompass the material she had so long ignored. To her consternation, the examination was of the usual sort, and not just a pretext for granting her a passing grade. Her score was even worse than before, and now there was no help for it: Smonny was out.

  Her eviction from Clattuc House was a long and contentious process, which climaxed at the House supper, when Smonny delivered her farewell remarks, which escalated from sarcastic jibes, through a revelation of disgraceful secrets, into a shrieking hysterical fit.

  Fratano at last ordered the footmen to remove her by force; Smonny jumped up on the table and ran back and forth, followed by four bemused footmen, who finally seized her and dragged her away.

  Smonny took herself off-world to Soum, where she worked briefly in a pilchard cannery; then, according to Spanchetta, joined an ascetic religious group, and subsequently vanished no one knows where.

  In due course Marya gave birth to Glawen. Three years later, Marya drowned in the lagoon, while two Yips stood on the shore at no great distance. When asked why they had not gone to her rescue one said: “We were not watching.” The other said: “It was none of our affair.” Both, puzzled and uncomprehending, were immediately sent back to Yipton.

  Scharde never spoke of the event and Glawen never asked questions. Scharde showed no inclination to remarry, even though the ladies considered him eminently personable. He was quiet and soft-spoken, of medium stature, spare and strong, with coarse short prematurely gray hair and narrow sky-blue eyes gleaming from a bony weathered face.

  On the morning of Glawen’s birthday, the two had barely finished breakfast before Scharde was called away to Bureau B on special business. Glawen, with nothing better to do, lingered at the table, while the two Yip footmen who had served the breakfast now cleared away the dishes and set the room to rights. Glawen watched them, wondering what went on behind the half-smiling faces. The quick sidelong glances: what did they signify? Mockery and contempt? Simple placid curiosity? Or nothing whatever? Glawen could not decide, and Yip behavior gave no clue. It would be interesting, thought Glawen, to understand the quick sibilant Yip idiom.

  Glawen finally rose from the table. He departed Clattuc House and wandered down to the lagoon: a series of brimming ponds fed by the River Wan, with trees along the shore both native and imported: black bamboo, weeping willow, poplar; purple-green verges.4 The morning was fresh and sunny; autumn was in the air; in a few weeks Glawen would be entering the lyceum.

  Glawen came to the Clattuc boathouse: a rectangular structure with an arched roof of green and blue glass supported on pillars of black iron, built to outdo in elegance the other five boathouses.

  The Clattucs of this particular time, save perhaps for Scharde and Glawen, were not keen yachtsmen. The boathouse sheltered only a pair of punts, a beamy little sloop twenty-five feet long and a fifty-foot ketch for more extended blue-water cruisin
g.5

  The boathouse was one of Glawen’s favorite resorts, where he could almost always find solitude, which today he wanted above all else so that he might compose himself for the ordeal of the House Supper and his birthday celebration.

  Such affairs were little more than formalities, so Scharde had assured him. Glawen would not be required to deliver a speech or embarrass himself in any other manner. “You are merely going dine with your kin. For the most part they are a tiresome group, as you are well aware. After a moment or two they will ignore you, and become busy with their gossip and little intrigues. At the end Fratano will declare you a provisional, and announce your SI, which I should guess to be a fairly safe 24, or at worst a 25, which is still not too bad, considering the creaking joints and gray hairs around the table.”

  “And that is all?”

  “More or less. If someone troubles to talk to you, answer politely, but otherwise you can dine in silence and no one will be the wiser.”

  Glawen sat on a bench where he could look across the lagoon and watch the play of sunlight and shadow on the water. He told himself, “Perhaps it will not go so badly, after all. Still, I’d be relieved if my SI turned out to be a point or two lower than what I fear it will be.”

  The scrape of footsteps. broke into his thoughts. A bulky shape appeared at the end of the dock. Glawen sighed. It was the person he least wanted to see: Arles, two year older than himself, taller by a head and heavier by fifty pounds. His face was large and flat, with a snub nose and a ripe heavy mouth. A smart cap with a stylish slantwise visor today confined his black curls.

  At the age of eighteen and an SI of 16, by reason of his direct lineage through Spanchetta and Valart, her father, to Past Master Damian, who was father to the current Master, Fratano,6 only serious malfeasance or failure at the lyceum could cause Arles difficulties.

  Coming into the cool dimness from the sunlight, Arles stood blinking. Glawen quickly picked up an abrasive block and, jumping aboard the sloop, busied himself at the taffrail. He crouched low; perhaps Arles would not see him.

  Arles strolled slowly along the dock, hands in pockets, peering right and left. At last he took note of Glawen. He stopped and stared, puzzled by Glawen’s activity. He sauntered close. “What are you up to?”

  Glawen said evenly: “I am sanding the boat, to prepare it for varnish.”

  “That’s what I thought you were doing,” said Arles coldly. “After all, my eyes are in very good condition.”

  “Don’t just stand there; get busy. You’ll find another sanding block in the locker.”

  Arles gave a snort of derisive laughter. “Are you serious? That’s work for the Yips!”

  “Why haven’t they done it, then?”

  Arles shrugged. “Complain to Namour; he’ll put them right. But don’t involve me; I have better things to do.”

  Glawen continued to work, with a sober concentration that at last caused Arles exasperation.

  “Sometimes, Glawen, I find you absolutely unpredictable. Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  Glawen paused and gazed dreamily out over the water. “I can’t think of anything. Of course, if I’d forgotten it, that’s what one would expect.”

  “Bah! More of your larky talk! Today is your birthday! You should be up in your chambers, making preparations - that is, if you want to cut any kind of a figure. Do you have white shoes? If not, you should get some in double-quick time! I tell you this out of kindness; no more.”

  Glawen darted a side glance at Arles, then continued his work. “lf I came to supper barefoot, no one would notice.”

  “Hah! That’s where you’re wrong! Never underestimate fine shoes! It’s the first thing the girls look for!”

  “Hm . . . That’s something I didn’t know.”

  “You’ll find that I’m right. Girls are clever little creatures; they can size up a fellow in no time at all! If your nose is dripping or your fly is open or if your shoes aren’t truly sporting, they’ll tell each other: ‘Don’t give that turnip-head the time of day!’”

  “Those are valuable tips,” said Glawen. “I’ll keep them in mind!”

  Arles frowned. One could never be sure how to take Glawen’s remarks; often they verged upon the caustic. At the moment Glawen seemed sober and respectful, which was as it should be. Reassured, Arles continued, even more grandly than before. “Perhaps I shouldn’t mention this, but I have taken the trouble to work out a manual of foolproof methods for getting along with the girls, if you know what I mean.” Arles gave Glawen a lewd wink. “It’s based on female psychology and it operates like magic, every time!”

  “Amazing! How does it work?”

  “The details are secret. In practice, one needs only to identify signals which instinct enforces on the little darlings, and then make the response recommended in my manual, and so forth.”

  “Is this manual generally available?”

  “Emphatically not! It’s top-secret, for the use of Bold Lions only.” The Bold Lions included six of the most raffish young scapegraces of Araminta station. “If the girls got hold of a copy, they’d know exactly what was going on.”

  “They already know what’s going on; they don’t need your book.”

  Arles blew out his cheeks. “That is often true, in which case the manual recommends strategies of surprise.”

  Glawen rose to his feet. “I guess I’ll have to work out my own methods – although I doubt if I’ll need them at the House Supper. In the first place, there won’t be any girls on hand.”

  “You’re joking! What of Fram and Pally?”

  “They are too old for me.”

  “But not for me! I take them as I find them, young or old! You should get involved with the Mummers! There are some real sizzlers in the troupe this year: Sessily Veder, for one.”

  “I don’t have any talents along those lines.”

  “There’s nothing to it! Master Floreste uses you to your best advantage; Kirdy Wook has no trace of talent; in fact, he’s a bit of a lummox. Goody-goody, so to speak. In Evolution of the Gods he and I are primordial beasts. In First-Fire I am a being of clay and water, and I get struck by lightning. I change costumes and once again Kirdy and I are hairy beasts groaning for enlightenment. But the flame is stolen by Ling Diffin, who plays Prometheus. Sessily Veder is ‘Bird of Inspiration,’ and she inspired me to write my manual. Even that stick Kirdy drools to see her.”

  Glawen turned back to the taffrail. Sessily Veder, whom he knew only from a distance, was a girl of charm and vitality. “Have you tried the manual on Sessily?”

  “She hasn’t given me the opportunity. That’s the one flaw of my system.”

  “A pity . . . Well, I must get on with the sanding.”

  Arles settled himself upon a bench to watch. After a moment he head: “I suppose that you find this a good way to relax your nerves.”

  “Why should I be nervous? I’ve got to eat somewhere.”

  Arles grinned. “You don’t improve matters lurking and glooming down here at the boathouse. Your SI is already calculated and there is nothing you can do about it.”

  Glawen only laughed. “If there were, I’d be doing it.”

  Arles’ grin faded. Was there nothing sharp enough to puncture Glawen’s self-possession? Even his mother, Spanchetta, had termed Glawen the most detestable child of her experience.

  Arles spoke in an important voice: “Perhaps you’re wise! Enjoy your peace of mind while you can, because after today, you’ll be a provisional, with the five-year worries on your neck.”

  Glawen gave Arles one of the sardonic side glances which Arles found so annoying. “And these worries trouble you?”

  “Not me! I’m a 16. I can afford to relax.”

  “So did your Aunt Smonny. How are your grades at the lyceum?”

  Arles scowled. “Let’s just leave me out of the conversation, shall we? Anytime my grades need attention, I can easily take care of them.”

  “If you say so.”

/>   “I say very much so. As for the matter under discussion - and I don’t mean my grades - I know a great deal more than you might expect.” Arles gazed up toward the blue and green glass dome. “In fact - I shouldn’t tell you this - I’ve been privately notified of your SI. I’m sorry to say that it is not encouraging. I tell you only so that you won’t be taken by surprise at the supper.”

  Glawen turned Arles another quick side glance. “No one knows my SI but Fratano, and he would not tell you.”

  Arles gave a knowing laugh. “Mark my words! Your number is close to the 30s. I won’t tell you exactly, but shall we hint at somewhere between 29 and 31?”

  At last Glawen’s composure was breached. “I don’t believe it!”

  He jumped to the dock. “Where did you hear such nonsense? From your mother?”

  Arles suddenly sensed that he had spoken far too loosely. He tried to bluster. “Are you suggesting that my mother talks nonsense?”

  “Neither you nor your mother are supposed to know anything about my SI.”

  “Why should we not? We can count and the lineage is a matter of record - or, more accurately, is not a matter of record.”

  An odd remark, thought Glawen. “What do you mean by that?”

  Arles saw that once again he had spoken indiscreetly. “Nothing much. Nothing, really, at all.”

  “You seem oddly full of information.”

  “The Bold Lions know everything that’s worth knowing. I’m familiar with scandals you can’t even imagine! For instance, what old lady tried to pull Vogel Laverty into bed last week, almost by sheer force?”

  “l have no idea. How far did he let himself get pulled?”

  “Not at all! He’s not even my age! Another situation: I could point out right now someone who will shortly have a baby and the father is very much in doubt.”

  Glawen turned away. “I had nothing to do with it, if that is what you came to find out.”

  Arles gave a hoot of laughter. “That is a fine joke! Quite the wittiest remark you have made today.” He rose to his feet. “Time is getting on. Instead of varnishing the boat, you should be up in your chambers, cleaning your fingernails and rehearsing your deportment.”