Araminta Station

by Jack Vance

  “My dear, I am grateful too. But let me ask this: when Arles began to act in a suspicious manner, why not simply use the telephone and let me deal with the matter?”

  Glawen gave a rueful laugh. “Sir, if I were to answer your question, you might think me rude. You must try to divine the answer for yourself.”

  “It seems to me that you are being unnecessarily cryptic,” said Egon Tamm. “Cora, do you understand his allusions?”

  “Not in the slightest. Your suggestion seemed most sound.”

  Wayness laughed. “But not from Glawen’s point of view. You want to know why?”

  “Of course!” said Cora Tamm. “Why else should the question be asked?”

  “Then I’ll tell you. Glawen foresaw a conversation like this. Suppose Mother had answered the telephone. Glawen tries to find words to tell you that he thinks someone might be inclined to attack me. You say: ‘What’s all this nonsense again? Aren’t you being just a bit excitable?’

  “And Glawen says: ‘I don’t think so, madame. This is my belief.’

  “So, after much cool skepticism and putting Glawen properly in his place, I am warned not to swim, and Father goes out to look up and down the beach. He carries his light, flashes it back and forth; Arles sees him and goes home. Father finds nothing, and comes in disgruntled. He blames Glawen for his preposterous false alarms, and thereafter whenever Glawen’s name is mentioned, someone says: ‘Oh, yes, that hysterical young man from Clattuc House.’ There is the answer to your question, and no doubt better that I should tell you than Glawen.”

  Egon Tamm looked sternly at Glawen. “Is she correct in all this?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  Egon Tamm laughed, and his face became suddenly warm. “In that case, it seems that we must mend our ways. I see now that you have handled yourself quite properly, and I truly am grateful to you.”

  “Say no more, sir. And now I will be going home. One last matter: I hope that my name won’t figure in the case, if only to make matters easier for me at Clattuc House.”

  “Your name will not be mentioned.”

  Wayness took Glawen to the door. She put her arms around him and hugged him. “I won’t even try to thank you.”

  “Of course not! Think how badly I would feel if something happened to you!”

  “I’d feel even worse.” On an impulse she turned up her face and kissed Glawen’s mouth.

  Glawen asked: “Is that just from gratitude?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Let’s do it again, and you tell me which part is which.”

  “Mother is coming. She wants to know too. Goodnight, Glawen.”

  * * *

  Chapter III, Part 9

  The time was an hour short of midnight. Arles arrived home to find Spanchetta waiting up for him. Arles, his attention fragmented, had not yet decided upon what should be his version of the night’s events and so was forced to improvise a tale with Spanchetta’s unwinking stare fixed upon his face.

  Spanchetta made no secret of her skepticism. “Please, Arles, it is insulting to be lied to; it is even more insulting to be taken for a half-wit. I find your story bewildering. As I understand it, you had an appointment to meet a girl along the beach, where you intended to help her with her schoolwork. Who was the girl, incidentally? Not that awful Drusilla?”

  “She’s not awful and she doesn’t go to school,” muttered Arles. “She’s out doing promotional work for the Mummers.”

  “Well, then: who was it?”

  Arles had been told that the most proficient liars used as much truth as possible. “If you must know, it was Wayness Tamm, from Riverview House. She’s just a bit of a trollop, if the truth be known - very selectively, of course.”

  “Hmf,” said Spanchetta. “So selectively that she beat you and gave you that awful black eye when you made advances?”

  “Of course not! When I went out on the beach, I found that a couple of drunken tourists had accosted her and were giving her trouble. I piled into them and set them right, but in the process I took a blow or two myself. I think I’ll stay home from school until the black eye is better and my face is less swollen.”

  “Absolutely not!” declared Spanchetta. “You can’t afford to miss any more school.”

  “I look a fright! What shall I say when people ask questions?”

  Spanchetta shrugged. “Apparently you intend to tell no one the truth. Just say that you fell out of bed. Or that you were playing whack-doodle with your grandmother.”

  So in the morning Arles willy-nilly went slouching off to the lyceum, where, as he had feared, his appearance aroused attention. When asked questions, he followed Spanchetta’s advice and said: “I fell out of bed.”

  Wayness and Milo came to school as usual, but paid no attention to Arles. After the social anthropology class, Arles waited for Wayness in the hall. She walked wordlessly past, but he called out to her. “Wayness, I want to say something to you.”

  “As you like, but make it short.”

  “You didn’t take me seriously last night, did you?”

  Wayness clamped her lips and turned her face away. She said softly: “If I were you I’d be ashamed even to bring the matter up.”

  “I am, in a way. It seems that I became overexcited, so to speak.” Arles attempted a lame grin. “You know how it is.”

  “I think that you intended to kill me.”

  “Nonsense!” scoffed Arles. “What a fantastic idea!”

  “So it is,” said Wayness with a shudder. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  “One question! Last night somebody hit me. Who was it?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Hah! Need you ask? It was a cowardly thing to do! Look at me, with this ridiculous black eye!”

  “You can express your indignation to my father. You’ll be seeing him shortly.”

  “I don’t want to see your father,” growled Arles. “So far as I’m concerned, the matter is closed.”

  Wayness merely shrugged and turned away.

  Two days later, during the noon recess, Arles emerged from the cafeteria to be met by four Naturalists in military uniform. Arles, turning pale, looked from one to the other. “What do you want?”

  “You are Arles Clattuc?”

  “What of it?”

  “Come with us.”

  Arles hung back. “Just a moment. Where? And why?”

  “You are going to Riverview House, where you will be dealt with according to law.”

  Arles took a step back and tried to bluster. “This is Araminta Station! Your law is no good around here.”

  “Society law controls all of Cadwal. Come.”

  Protesting and struggling, Arles was placed into a power wagon and conveyed to Riverview House. Spanchetta, when apprised of the event, first called Housemaster Fratano, then Bodwyn Wook, only to learn that both had been called to Riverview House.

  The two Araminta dignitaries returned during the middle afternoon. Both spoke with Spanchetta and assured her that Arles could consider himself lucky; he had been stopped short of capital crime.

  During the late afternoon Arles was returned to Araminta Station and released into the Quadrangle. He looked pale and crestfallen, and smelled of antiseptic ointments. As chance would have it, a group of Bold Lions came past as Arles was thrust from the power wagon.

  Cloyd Diffin called out: “So where have you been, and what did they do to you?”

  Kiper said critically: “My word, what a state of bedragglement!”

  Shugart bleated: “And all for waxing a pair of drunken tourists? Hard lines, I call it.”

  “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” muttered Arles. “I don’t want to talk about it now . . . It was all bluff, anyway, I’m sure of it. They’d never dare do such a thing to me.”

  Uther Offaw asked “You’re rambling dreadfully, you know. Try to be lucid and tell us what happened.”

  “Nothing: just a misunderstanding. It’s bound
to be a bluff.”

  “You smell of hospital,” said Kirdy Wook. “Were doctors there? These drunken tourists that you chastised: were they doctors, by any chance?”

  “I’ve got to go home now,” said Arles. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  * * *

  Chapter IV

  * * *

  Chapter IV, Part 1

  In response to a summons from Bodwyn Wook, Glawen presented himself to the Bureau B outer office and was directed to a door at the end of a short corridor. An elderly clerk admitted him to an anteroom and after a question or two allowed him entry into Bodwyn Wook’s private office: a tall chamber of irregular dimension, with chest-high wainscoting of green baize rectangles surrounded by dark moldings, and dark paneling to the ceiling. High on the wall at the end of the room a group of stuffed animal heads glared down from the shadows; another wall was decorated with dozens of old photographs.

  Bodwyn Wook turned away from the window and went to his chair. He indicated another chair for Glawen, then, leaning back, clasped his hands over his bald pate and inspected Glawen through half-closed yellow eyes. “Well, then, Sergeant Clattuc! What are you prepared to tell me?”

  An odd question, thought Glawen, and one perhaps calling for a meticulously careful reply. He said: “I have prepared no statement whatever, sir.”

  “Really? I thought that you had been consorting with the Bold Lions.”

  “True. I have observed them carefully and listened to their conversations. There is always wild talk which no one takes seriously; in fact, I have learned nothing of any consequence.”

  “No scurrilous gossip? No defamatory anecdotes? My tastes are catholic.”

  “Nothing which would justify a report, sir.”

  “I inquire not just from frivolity,” said Bodwyn Wook. “I am hoping always to intercept one unguarded sentence, or a phrase, or even a word which might unlock some startling mystery. I don’t know this word or sentence, but I will recognize it when I hear it, and it is this word or sentence for which you must be on the alert.”

  “I will keep my ears open, sir.”

  “Good. In connection with Arles: exactly what took place the other night?”

  Glawen looked up in surprise. “Did not the Conservator discuss the matter with you?”

  Bodwyn Wook darted a yellow stare across the desk, but Glawen had already perceived his transgression and had pulled his head down between his shoulders: enough, apparently, to amuse Bodwyn Wook, who gave a civil answer to the question. “He provided a perfunctory account of what took place. Since his daughter was involved, I did not press for details. What, then, are the full circumstances?”

  “It started in a class at the lyceum,” said Glawen. “Arles heard Wayness say that sometimes she went out alone at night, to walk along the beach, or even swim. The idea interested Arles. That same night he donned a cloak and mask and skulked along Beach Road to Riverview House. He came upon Wayness swimming in the lagoon and attacked her. It seems to be something he likes to do. In any event, someone who wants to remain nameless followed him to Riverview House, and stopped him before he did anything worse than scare Wayness out of her wits.”

  “And how did this nameless person accomplish such a feat?”

  “He hit Arles over the head with a club.”

  “Ha-hah! So Arles still wonders who interfered with his gallantry?”

  “He probably suspects Milo, which suits me very well.”

  Bodwyn Wook nodded. “Apparently, and this is the opinion of the Conservator, he did not go out intending to kill the girl. He disguised himself; he carried a bag to put over her head, and even a bag of knockout gas. These items saved his life, according to the Conservator.”

  “Perhaps so. But once she recognized him, I suspect that, after apologizing with great courtesy, he would have killed her. If you recall, Sessily Veder is dead.”

  “Not so fast! In this case Arles is demonstrably guilty. In the case of Sessily Veder, he is only a prime suspect.”

  “More so than ever, it seems to me.”

  “I would not argue with you there.”

  Glawen asked: “And what now with Arles? Is there an official Bureau position?”

  “The case is closed,” said Bodwyn Wook. “He has been definitively punished, according to the Conservator, and anything more would be in the nature of double jeopardy.”

  “Can’t we even expel him from Clattuc House?”

  “On what charge? And who will bring it? And, most cogently, who will deal with Spanchetta?”

  “In the meantime, he swaggers around as if nothing had happened,” said Glawen in disgust. “I can’t bear to look at him.”

  “You must control your emotions. It is good training for you. When will the Bold Lions make their excursion to Yipton?”

  “During the half-term holidays. But I’m not going.”

  Bodwyn Wook waved his finger. “There you are wrong! That is the main reason you have become a Bold Lion.” He reached into a drawer and withdrew a folded sheet of paper, which he opened out and placed on his desk. “This is a chart of Yipton, in as much detail as we are able to achieve. Here is the dock, and here is the Arkady Inn. These blue marks are canals. They open into the ocean, as you will notice, at the passes between the rim islands. The pink-shaded area is the Caglioro, or the Pot. All these passages and canals have names, but each Yip, for whatever reason, tells us something different.

  “Now then” - Bodwyn Wook tapped another section of the chart - “here is Pussycat Palace. Notice this gray area beside the dock. It’s also just behind the hotel, which must be sheer chance. The Yips are evasive about this area, and we want to know what goes on here. As a Bold Lion you’re expected to be undisciplined and erratic, and you’ll have more latitude than the ordinary visitor: possibly just enough for you to learn something. It won’t be easy; in fact, it may well be dangerous, but it’s a job which needs to be done. What about it?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I expect no more. Naturally you will say nothing to anyone in regard to this mission, except your father, Scharde.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  * * *

  Chapter IV, Part 2

  The school term proceeded. Arles attended classes in surly silence and once again managed to jerk himself back from the brink of dismissal.

  Wayness and Milo followed their own routines, indifferent to the presence of Arles. For a time Wayness was attended by whispers and covert glances, stimulated by Arles’ wild explanations of his black eye, but the scandal collapsed of its own improbability.

  Toward Glawen Wayness continued to use elusive tactics, or so it seemed. Try as he might, he could arrive at no explanation for her distant behavior. One day, when Milo had not come to school, Glawen walked Wayness home. For a space she held him at arm’s length with flippant remarks and comments on schoolwork, but at last Glawen became impatient. Taking her hand, he swung her smartly around, so that she stood facing him. She cried out, half laughing: “Glawen! I had to jump and skip to keep from turning a somersault! Is that what you had in mind?”

  “I want to know why you are acting so oddly.”

  Wayness put on an airy attitude. “Please, Glawen, don’t be cross. It’s not easy being me nowadays.”

  “One would never guess. You make it seem so effortless.”

  Wayness smiled. “I don’t lack for help. Mother is training me for a life of dignity and decorum. You want me to be a full-fledged Clattuc, ready for anything, fearless of scandal or disgrace.”

  “Yes; it gives one a fine feeling of freedom!”

  “But there is someone else with even more influence over me. This person urges me in quite a different direction, with advice that I can’t ignore.”

  “Oh? Who is this wise individual?”

  “Me.”

  Glawen presently asked: “And what advice do you hear from yourself?”

  Wayness turned away; the two walked south along the beach road. “It co
ncerns something which I’ve never mentioned before, and I’d prefer not to talk about it now.”

  “Why not? Is it a secret, or a mystery?”

  “It’s something I learned when Milo and I were last on Earth, and it’s become an obsession with me. I intend to go back to Earth as soon as I’ve finished school. With Milo, if he’ll come.”

  The light from Syrene suddenly seemed less bright and cheerful. Glawen asked: “Do you intend to enlighten me ever?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it, one way or the other.”

  “And this is why you want to break off our relationship.”

  Wayness burst out laughing. “That’s very poor logic! I said nothing of the sort! Anyway it’s not the reason. In fact, there isn’t any reason except that I know myself and I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  Wayness gave an oblique answer. “At Stroma our love affairs are very demure. Just to sit in a corner with someone, drinking tea and eating cookies, is considered high adventure.”

  Glawen made a glum sound. “We haven’t even reached that stage yet.”

  “Don’t be in a hurry; it drags on forever and it’s tiresome, especially if Mother hangs around.”

  “What’s the next stage?”

  “That’s the one of which I’m afraid. I don’t want to start something which takes my mind off more important things.”

  “I take it you mean your trip to Earth?”

  Wayness nodded. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought the subject up, except that I’d have to tell you sooner or later and it’s only fair to tell you sooner, so that you can avoid me, if you’re of a mind to do so.”

  “And this is why you’ve been hiding from me?”

  Wayness again gave an oblique answer. “I’ve decided not to hide from you anymore.”

  “That’s good news.”

  They arrived at the path which led through the trees to Riverview House. Wayness hesitated, moved first in one direction then another, until Glawen caught her and kissed her: once, then twice. “The answer then is Yes?”