by Jack Vance
Ysel Laverty looked to his sergeant. “Do you have a strong charge in your gun? Because soon we must shoot Orreduc.”
“Charge is strong, sir.”
Ysel Laverty turned back to Orreduc. “What did Julian say to you?”
Orreduc was now sullen. “He said many things. I paid little heed.”
“Why did you decide to kill these four young people?”
“Why does the sun shine? Why does the wind blow? I admit nothing. On the Lutwen Islands live a hundred thousand folk. At Stroma are a few hundred; at Araminta a few hundred more. If every Lutwenese still on Deucas were able to kill four woskers, there would be none left.”
“Quite so. Lucidly and reasonably put.” Ysel Laverty smiled grimly. “We had hoped to terminate jobs like yours by attrition. You were trusted and might have remained here as long as you liked. It seems to have been a mistaken policy. Because of your act, every Yip on Deucas will be sent home, or perhaps off-world.”
“You may send me home or off-world also,” said Orreduc ingenuously. “The effect is the same.”
“Did Julian suggest the so-called accident?”
Orreduc smiled wistfully. “What if I tell you the exact truth?”
“You are going to die. Tell the truth and you’ll save your helpers.”
“Kill me, then. I hope that both uncertainty and itching piles annoy you the rest of your days.”
Ysel Laverty gestured to his sergeant. “Handcuff him; take him to the flyer and put him in the after compartment. Do the same for the others. Go carefully; they might be armed.”
* * *
Chapter V, Part 5
Immediately upon Glawen’s return to Araminta Station he took himself to the Bureau B offices and there conferred with Bodwyn Wook. He learned that Julian had been hospitalized with a crushed pelvis and two smashed legs. “He is lucky to be alive,” said Bodwyn Wook. “If he planned the event, he made a great botch of it.”
Glawen shook his head. “In spite of all, I can’t credit Julian with murderous tendencies. “
“This is my opinion. The situation is ambiguous, but we can take it no farther.”
“He probably talked a lot of extravagant nonsense, and perhaps some sedition as well, but there would be no hard proof.”
“That is what we hear from the assistant stablemen, though their testimony is too vague to be useful.”
“What has happened to them?”
“Orreduc has been shot. The underlings are on their way to Cape Journal, where they will break a road through the rocks to Crazy Katy Lake and the Mile-High Falls.”
“They got off easy.”
Bodwyn Wook folded his hands and looked toward the ceiling. “Their guilt is hard to measure. They knew what was going on but made no move to prevent it. By our doctrine, they are as guilty as Orreduc. Yips look at life differently. Even now they don’t understand why they are being punished; Orreduc gave the orders; they merely obeyed, so why this cruel fate?
“But I feel no great sorrow on their behalf. The rule is simple: ‘When you travel to far places, obey the laws of the land.’ The Yips neglected this rule and are now en route to Cape Journal.”
Returning to Clattuc House, Glawen called Wayness on the telephone. She seemed wan and despondent, and had little to say.
Halfway through the next morning Wayness telephoned Glawen. “Are you busy?”
“Not particularly.”
“I want to talk with you. Can I meet you somewhere?”
“Certainly. Shall I come to Riverview House?”
“If you like. I’ll wait for you out in front.”
Glawen drove the Clattuc power wagon south along the beach road. A gusty wind from the sea caused the roadside palms to dip and sway, and set the fronds to rasping. Surf roared up the beach, to retreat in hissing sheets of spume. At Riverview House, Glawen found Wayness waiting beside the road, her dark green cloak flapping in the wind.
Wayness jumped into the seat beside Glawen. He drove another mile south, then turned off the road and halted where they could look out over the jumbling sea. Glawen asked, somewhat tentatively: “How are your father and mother?”
“Well enough. Mother’s sister has come to visit.”
“What of your plans? Are you still set upon your visit to Earth?”
“That’s what I want to talk about.” She sat a moment looking out to sea. “I’ve said very little about what I hope to do.”
“You’ve said nothing.”
“Only to Milo, who was coming with me. Now he’s gone. It came to me that if, like Milo, I were to die suddenly, or be killed, or lose my mind, then no one would know what I know. At least, I don’t think anyone knows what I know. I hope not.”
“Why haven’t you told your father?”
Wayness smiled sadly. “He would be astonished and highly concerned. He would not allow me to go to Earth. He would insist that I was too young and inexperienced for so much responsibility.”
“Perhaps he would be right.”
“I don’t think so. But I must tell someone else, just in case something happens to me.”
“It sounds like dramatic information.”
“You can judge for yourself.”
“You’re planning to tell me?”
“Yes. But you must undertake to tell no one, unless somehow I am killed and you fear for your own life, or something similar.”
“I don’t like the sound of this, but I’ll do as you ask.”
“Thank you, Glawen. First, you must know that I am not absolutely certain of anything, and I may be off on a wild-goose chase. But I feel that I must learn the truth.”
“Very well. Proceed.”
“When I visited Earth before, I was just a schoolgirl. I stayed with my father’s cousin at a place called Tierens, which is not far from Shillawy. His name is Pirie Tamm; he lives in an enormous echoing old house with his wife and daughters, all older than I. Pirie Tamm is a complicated person, an amateur of a dozen arts and crafts and recondite skills. He is one of the few remaining Naturalists on Earth - or, for that matter, the whole Gaean Reach - by reason of his interest in evolutionary biology. He has dozens of interesting friends; Milo and I both enjoyed every minute of our stay.
“One day an old man named Kelvin Kilduc came to call. We were told that he was the secretary, and possibly the final secretary, of the Naturalist Society, now on the verge of becoming totally defunct, since the membership consisted only of Kelvin Kilduc, Pirie Tamm, a few antiquarians and two or three dilettantes. The Society had once been prosperous but no longer, owing to the peculations of a secretary named Frons Nisfit, who had held the office sixty years before. Nisfit plundered the accounts, sold all the assets and made off with the proceeds. Nisfit could not be traced and the Society was left with a trifling income from investments Nisfit had not been able to liquidate - about enough to pay for the official stationery and the annual registration fee. And of course the Society held title to Cadwal, through the original Grant in Perpetuity, which was integral with the original Charter.
“Kelvin Kilduc in due course became secretary - an honorary position, which gave him a unique status at dinner parties; he was a walking conversation piece. I don’t think he took his position seriously.
“I approached him in the most demure and polite manner imaginable and asked if I might look at the original Charter, since I myself was a Naturalist from Throy. He did not want to be bothered and made difficulties: the Charter was locked in a vault, deep under the Bank of Margravia in Shillawy. I did not persist, although I thought him rather stuffy and self-important.
“Poor Kelvin Kilduc died in his sleep two weeks later, and for lack of anyone else Pirie Tamm assumed the post of secretary to the nearly nonexistent Naturalist Society.”
“One moment,” said Glawen. “What of the folk on Throy?”
“There is a distinction. They are Naturalists, so called, but not necessarily members of the Society, unless they pay dues and fulfill membership requi
rements, and no one has done so for centuries. In any event, Pirie Tamm became secretary, and felt obliged to visit the bank in Shillawy in order to make an inventory of the Society’s possessions - a task which Kelvin Kilduc had neglected in all his tenure.
“To make a long story short, when we looked into the vault, we found a large number of old records, the few paltry bonds which were still yielding income, but no Charter and, worse, no Grant in Perpetuity.
“Pirie Tamm was baffled. Before he thought, he blurted out that this was most serious; the grant was transferable and required only a bill of sale and new registration for a transfer of ownership.
“In other words, whoever held the original Charter and the attached grant owned all Cadwal: Ecce, Deucas and Throy.
“Pirie decided that the Charter and grant had been among the curios sold by Frons Nisfit. I suggested that we check the records to find if a new registration had been entered. Pirie now realized that we had uncovered a most delicate situation, and he did not know what to do, except ignore the whole thing and hope for the best. He obviously regretted that I knew of the situation, and made me promise to say nothing to anyone - at least until he could somehow regularize the matter.
“I don’t know what he did - I suspect nothing, although he did learn that the grant had not been reregistered.
“There were a few clues which Pirie rather halfheartedly tried to run down, without any particular success. At the moment he wants only to let sleeping dogs lie, but he is old and ailing, and when he dies the new secretary will look for the Charter – if there is a new secretary.
“So there you have it - I planned to go to Earth with Milo, and try to find the Charter, before something dreadful happens. Now you know what I know, which is a relief, since if something happened to me, no one would know except Pirie Tamm, and he is a weak reed.”
“Now I know,” said Glawen. “What will you do when you return to Earth?”
“I’ll go back to stay with Pirie Tamm. Then I will join the Naturalist Society and become secretary. In that way, no new secretary will discover that the Charter is missing. Pirie might even cooperate and step down in my favor. I can’t imagine that anyone else wants the position.”
For a few moments Glawen pondered over what he had heard. “I don’t know what to tell you. There’s something nagging at my brain, but I can’t remember what it is. I wish I could come with you.”
Wayness said wistfully: “I wish you could too. But no matter. I’ll go to Earth and learn what I can, and perhaps there is some easy way out of the difficulty.”
“I hope it’s both easy and safe.”
“Why shouldn’t it be safe?”
“Someone else might be looking for the same thing.”
“I never thought of that.” Wayness considered. “Who would it be?”
“I don’t know. Nor do you. And so it might be dangerous.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“And now . . .” Glawen put his arms around her and kissed her, until finally she drew away. “I’d better be getting home. Mother and Father will be wondering what has become of me.”
“I’ll think over what you’ve said. There’s something at the back of my mind that I want to tell you, but it won’t come to the surface.”
“It will come when you least expect it.” She kissed his cheek. “Now, take me back to Riverview House, before any alarms are sounded.”
* * *
Chapter VI
* * *
Chapter VI, Part 1
Wayness had departed Araminta Station aboard the Perseian Lines’ packet Faerlith Winterflower, which would carry her down Mircea’s Wisp to Andromeda 6011 IV: a junction world where she would transfer to a Glistmar Explorer Route space cruiser for the remainder of her voyage to Earth.
Wayness’ departure left a dreary void in Glawen’s life. Overnight, existence became drab and dull. Why had he allowed her to go so fearfully far away, beyond the reach of human perception? He asked himself the question often, and the answer came always in company with a rueful smile: he had been given no voice in the matter. Wayness had made her own decision, on the basis of her own best judgment. This was a process which, in all justice, could not be faulted: so Glawen assured himself, though without full or fervent conviction.
In some respects, Wayness must be compared to a natural force: sometimes warm and beneficent (and in the last few weeks, breathtakingly affectionate), sometimes mysterious and baffling, but never susceptible to human control.
Glawen pondered this unique individual named Wayness Tamm. If through some extraordinary circumstance he became endowed with divine powers and assigned the pleasurable task of designing a new Wayness, he might well diminish the proportion of sheer single-minded obstinacy and intractable, volatile self-willed independence by a soupçon or two - not enough to disturb the flavor of the mix, but to make her just a bit more . . . Here Glawen hesitated, groping for the proper word. Malleable? Predictable? Subservient? Certainly none of these. It might be that whatever divine being had created the original Wayness had done his job with such consummate skill that no improvement was possible.
To occupy his energies, Glawen undertook several new courses of study, which upon completion would allow him to sit for the IPCC first Grade examination. A passing score, together with demonstrable competence at weaponry, practical technics, emergency control and hand-to-hand combat, would qualify him as IPCC Agent Ordinary, and would allow him IPCC status and authority across the entire Gaean Reach. Several others at Bureau B had achieved such status. Scharde had proceeded past the first grade to IPCC Agent Second Level, which enabled Bureau B to function as an IPCC affiliate.
Kirdy Wook announced that he also would undertake the IPCC regimen, but seemed in no hurry to attend the classes. He had apparently recovered from his ordeal at Yipton, except for a tendency toward vagueness and a set of abrupt or impatient mannerisms, which everyone expected would diminish with his full recovery. Kirdy still refused, or perhaps was unable, to discuss his experiences. Almost as soon as he left the hospital he resigned from the Bold Lions, and thereafter had nothing to do with any of the group.
For a period Glawen tried to engage Kirdy in conversation, hoping to ease him into a more positive frame of mind. The effort, so Glawen found, was like trying to pick up quicksilver. For the most part Kirdy listened in moody silence, smiling a strange glassy-eyed half-smile, in which Glawen thought to sense traces of both hostility and contempt. Kirdy volunteered no remarks of his own, so that, had Glawen not spoken again, the two would have sat in dead silence. To questions, Kirdy either responded not at all or at verbose length but without any reference to the question.
Kirdy had never been noted for his humor; now he seemed to find levity incomprehensible. Whenever Glawen spoke lightly or attempted a witticism, Kirdy turned him a glance so cold and brooding that the words caught in Glawen’s throat.
One day Glawen noticed Kirdy turn aside in order to avoid him, and thenceforth he desisted from his efforts.
Glawen discussed Kirdy and his conduct with Scharde. “Something almost funny is going on. Kirdy knows that if I pass the IPCC examination, I’ll jump a whole rank over him at the Bureau. Kirdy’s only recourse is also to take the examination. This means not only hard study but also the terrible risk of failure – which in Kirdy’s case is real, since he’s weak in mathematics and also all the practical demonstrations.”
“He’d certainly fail the psychometrics.”
“That is Kirdy’s dilemma. I can’t guess how he’ll deal with it – except to pray that I fail so shamefully that I quit Bureau B and go into oenology along with Arles.”
“Poor Kirdy. He’s been through a lot.”
“I agree: poor Kirdy. Which doesn’t make him any easier to work with.”
From Watertown on Andromeda 6011 IV came a letter from Wayness, written while she awaited connections with one of the Glistmar space cruisers. She wrote: “Already I’m homesick, and I miss you extremely. It’s
amazing how a person can learn to love and trust and depend upon another person so completely and hardly be aware of what’s going on until the other person isn’t there anymore. Now I know.” And she finished: “I will write again from Tierens, with the latest news on the situation. I hope that by some miracle it will be good news, but I am not too hopeful. In an odd kind of way I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into the problem, if only to take my mind off my troubles.”
The summer passed; Glawen’s twentieth birthday came and went: the last before his twenty-first: Suicide Day, as it was sometimes known. Glawen wavered between hope and despair. His Status Index was still 22, which could have been worse but also could have been better.
On the following Smollen Arles brought Drusilla co-Laverty as his guest to the Clattuc House Supper, to Spanchetta’s evident surprise and disapproval.
Arles pretended not to notice. Drusilla was in an ebullient mood, and ignored Spanchetta completely, which caused Spanchetta to glower even more notably.
During the meal Arles sat with magisterial dignity, speaking little except to Drusilla, and then only in a confidential undertone. He had dressed with care, in a black coat, russet trousers, a white shirt with a blue sash at his waist. Drusilla’s costume was less conservative, and even extreme. Her gown was a confection of striped black, pink and orange satin, cut low in front. A black turban with a tall black plume confined her pink-blond ringlets; black elf-points rose two inches above her ears. For sheer bravura the ensemble surpassed even Spanchetta’s purple and red costume, and Spanchetta’s expression, when she troubled to look toward Drusilla, conveyed total disgust.
Drusilla refused to be inhibited. She laughed loudly, gaily and often, sometimes for no apparent reason. She contributed her opinions to conversations everywhere around the table, chatting and chaffing, beguiling her new acquaintances with nods and smiles, pouts and winks.
Scharde, after watching covertly for a time, spoke to Glawen: “I admit to confusion. Isn’t she one of Namour’s special chums?”
