Araminta Station

by Jack Vance

  Scharde went to the registration counter. Behind sat four functionaries in crisp white uniforms. From the left ear of each dangled a black pearl on a silver chain, signifying a member of the Oomphaw’s personal staff: an Oomp. One of these came to serve him: a person of early middle age, grave and handsome. He asked: “Sir, how long will you be staying with us?”

  “Not long at all. I am Captain Scharde Clattuc of Bureau B at Araminta Station. Please inform Titus Pompo that I want a few words with him on an official matter, at his earliest convenience; in fact now, if possible.”

  The clerk glanced at his colleagues; the three, after quick curious glances to gauge Scharde’s seriousness, or, perhaps, sanity, returned to their work, disassociating themselves from so bizarre a problem. The clerk who had come forward spoke carefully: “Sir, I will see that your message is immediately disposed for the Oomphaw’s attention.”

  A nuance in the clerk’s phrasing caught Scharde’s attention. “What does that mean?”

  The clerk smilingly explained: “The message will be expedited to the Oomphaw’s offices. No doubt an appropriate member of the staff will deliver to you, probably today, an application form upon which you may freely explain your needs.”

  “You don’t quite understand,” said Scharde. “I don’t care for an application form; I want a few words with Titus Pompo, as soon as possible. Now would not be too soon.”

  The clerk’s smile became strained. “Sir, let me use an open vocabulary. You do not seem an impractical visionary, with eyes raised to the glory of the ineffable. Still you apparently expect me to run to the Oomphaw’s bedchamber, shake him awake and say ‘Up, sir, and out of bed quickly! A gentleman wants to talk with you.’ I must inform you that this is not feasible.”

  Scharde nodded. “You express yourself well. May I have a sheet of hotel stationery?”

  “Of course. Here you are, sir.”

  “What is your name?”

  The clerk raised his eyebrows in wary perplexity. “I am Euphorbius Leliantho Jantifer.”

  Scharde wrote on the paper for a moment, then said: “Please date and sign this document and ask your associates to sign as witnesses and participants.”

  The clerk, now concerned, read the document aloud in muttering tones: “I Euphorbius Leliantho Jantifer, affirm that on the morning of this date, I refused to notify Titus Pompo that Captain Scharde Clattuc of Bureau B, Araminta Station, had arrived to speak with him on urgent and official business. I admit that Captain Clattuc notified me that he could not wait upon formalities and must immediately return to Araminta Station, and that the penalties ensuing upon my act would include cessation of ferry service for an indefinite period, or until a fine of one thousand sols was paid over.” He looked up with a sagging jaw.

  “Just so,” said Scharde. “Sign the paper, then I will go. There will be a final ferry to pick up persons now at the hotel, then no more. Sign, if you please – though of course it is not necessary, since there are witnesses to your conduct.”

  The clerk pushed the document away and managed an ironic grin. “Come, come, sir. This document is ridiculous, as you well know.”

  “I am going out upon the terrace for breakfast,” said Scharde. “When I am finished I will return to Araminta Station, unless you bring me a definite response from Titus Pompo.”

  Euphorbius the clerk, now somewhat crestfallen, said: “Sir, you are truly most importunate. But I will see what can be done.”

  “Thank you.” Scharde went out on the terrace, selected a wicker table under a pale green parasol and made a breakfast upon the piquant foods of Yipton.

  Toward the end of his meal three members of Titus Pompo’s elite Oomps marched out upon the terrace and approached his table. The officer in charge of the detail halted in front of Scharde, performed a crisp bow. “Sir, you are summoned by Titus Pompo the Oomphaw to an audience, at this moment.”

  Scharde rose to his feet. “Lead the way.”

  The Oomps marched from the terrace, with Scharde coming a few paces behind: across the lobby and into a fastness of corridors, dogleg halls, creaking bamboo stairs; past ranked doors and apertures giving into unlit spaces, up creaking bamboo stairs and down, high under the roof, where chinks in the palm fronds showed glints of light, low to where he could hear the plash of lagoon water around bamboo posts, finally through a bamboo door into a room furnished with a pink rug patterned in dark red and blue, a couch upholstered in deep rose-pink, with a pair of small side tables, each supporting a shaded lamp casting a subdued glow about the room.

  Scharde advanced slowly into the room, looking right and left and not liking what he saw. He studied the couch a moment, then turned to examine the opposite wall, which was constructed of bamboo rods woven into a mesh, with interstices two inches square opening into dark space, or so it seemed.

  The Oomp captain indicated the couch. “Be seated; make no disturbance.”

  The Oomps departed; Scharde was left alone. He stood listening. No sound could be heard, save a far faint all-pervading noise. Scharde again examined the couch and the wall behind. He turned away and went to stand by the side wall. He was obviously under surveillance: possibly through the mesh. There seemed no reason, however, except for the joy of deceit for its own sake.

  Scharde leaned back against the wall and settled himself for the wait which his ruffling of sensibilities almost guaranteed, and which a show of impatience could only extend. He closed his eyes and pretended to doze.

  Minutes passed: ten, then fifteen, the irreducible minimum to be expected under the circumstances. At half an hour, Scharde yawned and stretched, and began to consider his options, which at the moment were confined to waiting with all the dignity he could muster.

  At about forty minutes, when “absentminded indifference, colored with contempt” began to verge into “purposeful insult,”3 there came a scrape of movement in the space at the other side of the mesh.

  A voice spoke: “Scharde Clattuc, what is your business with Titus Pompo?”

  Scharde’s diaphragm jerked and twitched, for reasons unclear, since the voice was unfamiliar. He asked: “Who is talking?”

  “You may accept these as the words of Titus Pompo. Why are you not using the couch which was provided for your convenience?”

  “That was a kind thought, but I don’t like the color.”

  “Really? It is my favorite.”

  “The couch also looks as if it might fold suddenly backward when one least expected it. I prefer not to risk pranks of this sort.”

  “You have an uneasy temperament!”

  “Still, I am visible . . . No doubt you have good reasons for not showing yourself.”

  There was silence for a moody few seconds, then “In response to your demands, an audience has been conceded to you; do not waste the occasion by belaboring the obvious.” The voice, of neutral timbre and measured intonation, seemed almost mechanical, and rasped, as if it had been modified by overloaded filters.

  “I will try to keep to the business at hand,” said Scharde. “This is a recent murder at Araminta Station. There was a witness, or a near-witness, named Zamian Lemew Gabriskies. He is now here at Yipton. I therefore request that you find this person and give him into my custody.”

  “Certainly, and without hesitation! But I must charge you a service fee of one thousand sols.”

  “You will be paid nothing for conduct required of you by the law, which you know as well as I do, perhaps better.”

  “I know your law, certainly, but on the Lutwen Islands we use my law.”

  “Not so. I agree that you exercise a personal rule here, but only by default, in the absence of established authority, which may be reasserted at any time. The situation is tolerated only as a temporary stopgap, and because, in general, proper social order seems to be maintained - give or take a few distasteful circumstances. In other words you are allowed to rule because it is expedient, not because you have the acknowledged right to do so. The moment you step out of l
ine and start flouting established law, this temporary accommodation comes to an end.”

  “Use whatever words you like,” said the voice. “The Lutwen Islands are in fact independent, like it or not. Let us all recognize reality, starting with the Conservator. His penalties are insufferably impertinent.”

  “I know nothing of penalties.”

  “You haven’t heard the news? The Conservator now allows us payment only in scrip. Tourists are no longer allowed to bring sols to Lutwen City: only scrip, which then must be spent at the Araminta commissary for approved goods.”

  Scharde chuckled. “Evidently weapons are not on the list.”

  “I assume as much. The tactic is inept. We acquire as much hard currency as we need.”

  “How is that accomplished?”

  “I see no need to advertise our resources.”

  Scharde shrugged. “As you like. I am not here to discuss politics with you. I only want Zamian.”

  “And you shall have him. My inquiries are complete, and I too regard him as a miscreant. He worked for private gain at detriment to my personal interests.”

  Scharde chuckled again. “In other words, he failed to cut you in for a share of the loot.”

  “Just so. He intended blackmail for his personal profit alone. He gave you to believe that one Xalanave was the blackmailer. In fact, Xalanave knew nothing, but nevertheless was killed.”

  “By whom?”

  “That is irrelevant, from my point of view. I pressed no inquiries in that direction.”

  The statement, so Scharde noted, was not altogether responsive.

  He said: “I still do not grasp your meaning. Do you or do you not, presume to know?”

  “I see no reason to speculate - other than to cite the possibility that Zamian himself might be, in this case, guilty.”

  “That’s not a reasonable theory,” said Scharde. “If Xalanave in fact knew nothing of the original crime, Zamian had not the slightest reason either to harm him or to leave Araminta Station. It seems clear that he fled out of fear. If we extend this idea further . . .” Scharde fell silent.

  “Continue,” said Titus Pompo softly, and even the electronic transvocalization failed to eliminate an overtone of mockery, or savage glee.

  “Like you, I don’t care to speculate,” said Scharde. “I am anxious only to hear what Zamian can tell me.”

  “Now it’s Zamian you want? Go out into the corridor, descend the stairs; in the chamber immediately to the right you will find Zamian and members of the Oomps, who will conduct you to your flyer.”

  “I will intrude upon your time no longer. Thank you for your courtesy.”

  From behind the mesh came only silence; Scharde could not determine whether or not someone still stood there, watching him from the dark.

  Beset by an emotion akin to claustrophobia, Scharde turned and marched on long strides from the room. He strode heavily down the corridor, descended the stairs. On his right hand he found a bamboo door, painted dull red, which he pushed open. An Oomp sitting on a bench by the wall rose to his feet. “You are here for Zamian?”

  Scharde looked around the room. “Where is he?”

  “Over here in the hole, for safekeeping. He was a kitchen helper? Don’t expect him to do his work like before; he’s been used a bit.” The Oomp went to where a rope hung from a windlass into a hole in the floor, and turned the windlass crank. Scharde looked into the hole. Ten feet below, the dim light revealed mounds and flats of black slime laced by rivulets of lagoon water. The rope stretched to the head of a naked man floundering in the slime. His arms had been taped behind his back; a strip of tape covered his mouth. He heaved and squirmed against the attack of what seemed to be a hybrid of rats and children, with mottled dark skin, pointed nonhuman faces. They gnawed all that remained of his legs and burrowed into his abdomen with furious avidity, and only reluctantly dropped away when the Oomp worked the windlass to lift Zamian from the slime, by the rope which had been glued into the hair of his scalp.

  Zamian’s head appeared above floor level, then his torso. “The yoots have been getting to him,” said the Oomp. “I don’t know what good he’ll be to you now.”

  “Probably none,” said Scharde.

  Zamian still lived. He saw Scharde with recognition, and made noises behind the tape. Scharde jumped forward, cut away the tape. “Zamian! Do you hear me?”

  The Oomp said: “He can’t talk, much less think; he’s been dosed with nyene so that he spilled all he knew to the Oomphaw.

  Now there’s nothing left. That’s the good and bad of the stuff. Still, he’s yours; take him away.”

  “Just a minute,” said Scharde. “Zamian! It’s Scharde! Speak to me!”

  Zamian made incomprehensible wet noises.

  “Zamian, answer! Who drove the truck? Who killed the girl?”

  Zamian’s face contorted. His mouth opened; his voice came clear. “When he came back I saw his fur. But no head.”

  “Who was it? Do you know his name?”

  The Oomp said, “Take him if you want him; I’ll hold him no longer.”

  “One moment,” said Scharde, and to Zamian: “Tell me his name!”

  The Oomp walked away from the windlass. The drum sang; the rope ran free; Zamian disappeared into the hole. Scharde uttered a sick groan, squeezed his eyes shut and held back from an attack on the Oomp.

  Scharde looked down into the hole. The yoots had rushed back; Zamian sat staring at them in confusion as they tore at his body.

  His world had become constricted; it seemed certain that he would have no more to say.

  Scharde turned away. In a flat voice he said: “I’ll go now to my flyer. I’m done here.”

  * * *

  Chapter II, Part 10

  Glawen, meanwhile, had risen at his usual hour, taken a solitary breakfast and spent the morning dealing with neglected tasks, and preparations for the resumption of classes after the Parilia recess.

  An hour before noon he received a telephone call. “Glawen Clattuc here.”

  A small clear voice responded. “Glawen, this is Miranda. I’ve discovered something very odd and I want to talk to you about it.”

  “Certainly; talk away. What’s it all about?”

  “Glawen! Not over the telephone!” Miranda’s voice faded momentarily.

  Glawen called out: “Are you still there?”

  “I was looking over my shoulder; I’m starting to be nervous about noises. Properly so, in this case, since the noise was Mother.”

  “Very well; we’ll talk. Shall I come to Veder House?”

  “No. I’ll meet you down in the Way, in about ten minutes.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Glawen arrived at the rendezvous a minute early, and watched as Miranda came running down the avenue from Veder House: a slim big-eyed little creature with a mop of brown curls, keenly aware of her own importance, at least within the realms of her private universe. Glawen, waiting in the shadow of the gateposts, thought that she seemed subdued and uneasy.

  Miranda arrived breathless at the bottom of the avenue. Glawen stepped forward. “I’m over here.”

  Miranda jerked around. “Oh - I didn’t see you at first. I was startled.”

  “Sorry,” said Glawen. “What’s the problem?”

  “Come along,” said Miranda. “I don’t want to talk here.”

  “Whatever you say. But at least tell me where we’re going.”

  “To Archives.”

  The two went up Wansey Way in the tree shadows, past the Arbor and along the riverside path to the venerable Old Agency.

  As they walked, Miranda began to talk, at first in disconnected ideas: “All the time, as if she’s sitting just out of sight . . . Sometimes I think I’ve gone just a bit crazy, or become old ten or twenty years too soon.”

  “That’s an original thought, certainly,” said Glawen. “As far as that goes, I suddenly feel old as the hills.”

  Preoccupied with her own thoughts, Mirand
a hardly heard him. “I don’t like the way I feel, so full of hate that I get sick in my throat . . . One night while I lay in bed I tried to imagine how it happened. Whoever did it must have watched Sessily during the Phantasmagoria, but before the end he went around to the back and hid in the truck.”

  Glawen asked in surprise: “How do you know about the truck? That’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “I heard Mother and Father talking when they thought I couldn’t hear. Anyway, I thought of the Archive cameras; they must have photographed him going around to the loading dock.”

  “That’s very sensible. Even the Bureau B staff thought of it. Captain Rune Offaw has been studying the photographs every day.”

  “I know. He’s taken spools away from me several times.”

  “Ah, I see! You’ve been down in the Archives, helping Bureau B study the photographs!”

  Miranda turned him a reproachful look. “Glawen, are you laughing at me? Before even seeing what I have to show you?”

  “Not really. And I admit that I’m curious.”

  Miranda acknowledged the response with a dignified nod as they entered the Old Agency.

  The two went down the wide hall, footsteps echoing from the marble floors and odd intricate walls of cast iron and greenstone medallions. Miranda said thoughtfully: “Perhaps I had better tell you what I was looking for.”

  “I think I know. Someone going around to the back of the Orpheum.”

  “Someone wearing fur. Like Latuun, or a Bold Lion, or one or two others.”

  “So you know about the fur too.”

  “Why shouldn’t I know?”

  “No reason, I suppose. Especially if you found something.”

  “I’ll show you!”

  Miranda tugged open the heavy door; the two entered the stately precincts of Bureau A. Miranda led the way to a counter, filled out a slip and dropped it into a slot; a moment later she was tendered a small black box.

  The two went into a viewing chamber. Miranda dimmed the light and started the projection. “The first time I did this I could hardly bear to look at Sessily. Now I just don’t think about it anymore. I guess I’ve become hard-hearted, or something of the sort.” There was a break in her voice. “I guess not altogether. Still, don’t worry. I won’t start crying or fling myself on the floor.”