Araminta Station

by Jack Vance

  Without further ado he tucked the galley carving knife, with a sharp six-inch blade, into his belt, took himself ashore in the dinghy and jogged up the beach, keeping close under the overhanging thickets of thornbush.

  As he progressed he kept a careful eye focused ahead of him, in case someone from aboard the catamaran also should be exploring the beach. But he saw no one, which relieved him of the need to choose between uncomfortable options.

  The masts of the catamaran became visible; a few hundred yards farther the dock and the vessel itself came into view. Glawen scrambled up the slope at the back of the beach, pushed through a gap in the thornbush and proceeded behind the fringe of thicket, which now provided him cover. Presently he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled carefully closer, to within fifty yards of the pavilion. Here he dropped flat and surveyed the scene through his binoculars.

  Four golden-skinned Yips moved back and forth between boat and pavilion. Already they had brought ashore cushions, rugs and wicker chairs, and now set up a long table. They wore only short white kirtles and seemed very young, although black hoods concealed their heads and faces.

  Sir other men, of mature years, sat in the wicker chairs. They wore loose pale gray robes and, like the Yips, black hoods which concealed their identities. They sat composed and silent: men of substance or even importance, to judge by their postures and the poise of their heads. They made no communication among themselves; each almost pointedly isolating himself from the others. Glawen was unable to divine their place of origin. None were Yips; none would seem to be Naturalists from Throy and, almost certainly, none derived from Araminta Station.

  The air tingled with imminence. The six gray-robed men sat stiff and still, their hoods creating an atmosphere of eerie unreality. Glawen no longer apprehended danger; the four Yips and six hooded men were preoccupied with their own affairs. Glawen watched fascinated, his mind sheering away from speculation.

  A bizarre new element augmented the situation. From the boat came a tall heavy-boned woman, broad of shoulder, massive of leg and arm, of a sort totally different from both Yips and hooded men. She wore a black mask rather than a hood, which concealed her nose and eyes, but left her heavy flat cheeks and anvil of a chin bare. The skin of these areas and along her bare arms showed oyster white in color, while a ruff of sandy hair thrust an inch above her broad scalp. The only indications of femininity were two flabby breasts and heavy hips encased in loose short trousers.

  The woman strode to the end of the dock, looked around the area. She spoke a few words to the Yips; two of them ran to the boat and returned with wooden crates which they placed on the table. Lifting the lids, they brought out flasks of wine and goblets, which they filled and tendered to the six seated men. The other two brought branches from the thornbush thicket and kindled a fire.

  The woman returned along the dock to the boat. She jumped aboard and disappeared into the cabin. A few moments later, a group of Yip girls emerged, followed by the woman. The girls moved uncertainly down the dock, looking dubiously right and left, and over their shoulders at the grim figure of the woman behind them. There were six, at the flower of their youth, with wide topaz eyes, delicate features and soft honey-colored hair, and now Glawen divined the source of the bones on the bottom of the lagoon, and he thought he could guess what was about to happen.

  The six hooded men sat watching silently and motionless. The six girls looked around the area, their expressions limpidly innocent, but with uneasiness starting to form. At a terse word from the woman, they sat down in the sand.

  The nature of the occasion was now clear to Glawen. As he watched, frozen in position, the events of the afternoon proceeded, with inexorable ease and finesse.

  Glawen at last could remain no longer. In the bleakest of moods and sickness of the spirit he retreated the way he had come and returned to the sloop, bringing with him the shore line which he had untied from the trunk of a thornbush.

  Syrene dropped into the west and Glawen sat pondering what he had seen, and calculated what best he should do. Had he a weapon the planning would have been easier.

  The sun sank; twilight settled over Thurben Island, and presently darkness. Glawen cranked aboard his anchor and on minimum power eased the sloop northward up the lagoon, guided by the white beach, pale in the starlight. Below darted a cloud of phosphorescent falorials, each like a length of heavy silver wire four inches long, casting a moving glow which illuminated the bottom.

  Ahead, along the shore, appeared the flicker of the bonfire. Glawen carefully lowered his anchor over the side, so that the chain made no sound. He studied the beach through his binoculars. There was still a degree of sluggish activity. Glawen waited an hour, then stepped down into his dinghy; with the impeller at a quarter-power and the wake the softest of gurgles, he moved at slow speed toward the dock, keeping well offshore. Below darted ten thousand falorials in a moving bubble of green-yellow glow.

  The bonfire had burned low. Glawen turned the dinghy shoreward toward the dock. Foot by foot he moved across the dark lagoon, and at last eased up to the catamaran. The hulls touched; holding to the catamaran’s gunwale, Glawen listened. No sound. He made the dinghy fast to a shroud, and in all stealth climbed aboard the catamaran. He stood poised. Still no sound. He went to the aft mooring line, cut it with his knife and threw it aside. Crouching, he stole along the deck to the bow and cut the forward mooring line, There were no spring lines; the catamaran floated free. Yeasty exhilaration rose in Glawen’s throat; he ran crouching back toward his dinghy.

  A thud, a scrape, a massive presence. On the offside hull loomed the woman, who through some sensitivity had discovered that all was not well. By starlight she saw Glawen and took note of the gap between catamaran and dock. Uttering a choked cry of rage, she sprang across the cabin roof and flung herself on Glawen, arms forward, fingers bent into hooks. Glawen tried to dodge back but was caught up among the shrouds, and the woman was on him. She emitted an inarticulate cry of triumph and seized him around the neck.

  Glawen sagged limp-legged, his face crammed into her belly, breathing the reek of her body. Wildly he thought: “This cannot be! This is not my fate!” He straightened his knees and drove his head into her jaw. She grunted; her arms slackened. Glawen struck out wildly, and clawed the domino down so that it covered her eyes. She groped and tore it away. Glawen thrust with his knife and buried the blade in her abdomen. She called out in horror and clutched at the handle. Glawen braced himself with one foot against the cabin roof, pushed with all his strength, to send the woman stumbling backward - against the gunwale and over, flat on her back into the water. Glawen, panting and gasping, looked down. The glow of the falorials illuminated her face; she had grown what appeared to be an instant beard of writhing silver wires. For an instant Glawen looked down into her eyes, which stared up through the water aghast at this terrible thing which was happening to her. Glawen saw her forehead; it was marked with a curious black symbol: a two-pronged fork with a short handle, the prongs turned inward toward each other.

  Falorial poison immobilized the woman; silver wires grew from every part of her body. Air belched from her lungs; she sank slowly to the bottom.

  Glawen looked toward the shore. The sounds, muffled by the whisper of the current through the pilings, had troubled no one.

  Glawen, still shaken and a trifle dazed lowered himself carefully into the dinghy. He tied a line to the stemhead of the catamaran and made the other end fast to the stern ring of the dinghy. Applying power to the impeller, he towed the catamaran south down the lagoon to where he had anchored the sloop.

  He transferred the towline to one of the after mooring cleats on the sloop, hoisted the dinghy aboard and set off to the south, towing the catamaran astern.

  Back at the pavilion someone at last had noticed the absence of the catamaran. Glawen heard far shouts of consternation, and smiled to himself.

  Attentive to the glimmer of surf on his right hand, where ocean swells broke over the
reef, Glawen steered slowly southward. Where the line of white foam ended, Glawen found the pass through the reef. He drifted out the channel and gained the freedom of the open sea: forever away from accursed Thurben Island.

  Glawen continued to tow the catamaran under power for two hours, then hoisted sail and let the wind blow the boats to the south.

  Remembering the smell of the woman when she had grappled him, Glawen removed all his clothes and scrubbed himself well.

  Donning fresh garments, he ate bread and cheese, and drank half a flask of wine. Now, feeling in a most curious mood, he went up on deck to sit for an hour in the cockpit.

  At last he stirred, reefed the sail, checked the towline, made all secure, went below to his bunk and presently fell asleep.

  In the morning, Glawen boarded the catamaran. He found nothing to indicate identities, either of the woman or the six masked men.

  Glawen transferred the catamaran’s complement of navigation instruments to the sloop; no doubt they had been stolen from Araminta Station originally.

  Glawen set the catamaran afire and returned to the sloop. He sailed into the southwest on a fresh breeze. Across the water flames rose high, swirling in and out of black smoke. As the distance increased, the flames slowly became invisible and disappeared, leaving only a slanting wisp of black smoke bending over the horizon.

  * * *

  Chapter VI, Part 3

  After a day and a night of sailing before variable winds, Glawen raised the coast of the mainland. An hour after Syrene had crossed the zenith he rode the ocean surge over the Wan River bar. An hour later he sat in the Bureau B offices reporting his adventures to the entire upper hierarchy: the so-called Zoo - Scharde Clattuc the gaunt gray wolf, Ysel Laverty the boar, Rune Offaw the slender relentless stoat, and, almost lost in his massive leather chair, the small bald orangutan, Bodwyn Wook.

  Glawen finished his recital. “I left them marooned and very unhappy: four Yips and six others, of origin unknown. They are probably registered at the hotel: at least that would be my guess.”

  “Absolutely amazing,” said Bodwyn Wook. “And needless to say, totally intolerable.” He looked toward the ceiling and spoke in his most didactic voice: “A number of questions come to mind. Who has organized these entertainments? It is not necessarily Titus Pompo, though obviously he cooperates. How long have they been going on? At least once or twice before, by the testimony of the bones. Who are these six hooded persons? What is their origin? How were they approached and by whom? Who is, or, better to say, who was the woman with the tattooed forehead? No doubt we will soon have answers to some of these questions, but I, for one, will not be satisfied until every layer of this dreadful scandal is unfolded. Finally, what is our optimum short-range response?” Bodwyn Wook leaned back. “Gentlemen, I await your opinions.”

  After a short pause Rune Offaw spoke. “It will shortly become obvious at Yipton that the catamaran is overdue. There is a good chance, so it seems to me, that Titus Pompo will wish to investigate. He might send another boat, or, just possibly, he might risk sending his other flyer, if in fact it exists. We should be prepared to take advantage of this possibility - which, admittedly, is not great.”

  “So then, what is your suggestion?”

  “I think that we should immediately send out a transport for the marooned men, and also set up an ambush with two or three well-armed flyers. If Titus Pompo sends out his hypothetical flyer, we will either force it down, destroy it or possibly escort it here to Araminta Station. If a boat appears, we can capture the Yips and sink their boat.”

  Bodwyn Wook looked around the group. “I can think of no better scheme. Unless there are objections, let us get to it, on the instant.”

  * * *

  Chapter VI, Part 4

  Scharde flew the large Agency tourist transporter to Thurben Island, with four Bureau B operatives in his company. Approaching the island, Scharde reduced speed and descended to an altitude of a thousand feet, then drifted north over the lagoon, at last to hover above the dock and pavilion. Two other flyers and a second transport loaded with three days’ supply of food and water had already landed upon the central peak from which they would monitor sea and sky by radar.

  Scharde’s own radar showed a blank sea and empty air. Using binoculars, he inspected the area below, and discovered the four Yips crouching disconsolately on the beach near the base of the dock. The other six men were not to be seen.

  Scharde dropped the transport to a landing close to the pavilion. With his three companions he jumped down to the sand. The Yips looked around apathetically. Scharde motioned to them.

  “Get into the transport.”

  They rose with an effort. One of them spoke in a husky whisper: “Give us water.”

  Scharde told his men: “Let them drink.”

  Down from the pavilion shambled the six men, haggard and wild-eyed. They had discarded their black hoods, revealing themselves to be middle-aged men of ordinary appearance, evidently from the upper reaches of society. They stumbled toward Scharde crying out for water in cracking voices.

  Scharde indicated the transport. “Go on board and you will be given water.”

  The six men clambered into the passenger compartment, where they were provided water. Scharde took the transport aloft and flew back toward Araminta Station.

  Fifteen minutes passed. The erstwhile castaways had drunk their fill, and were now cautiously assessing the situation. One called out to Scharde: “I say there pilot! Where are you taking us?”

  “To Araminta Station.”

  “Good. I may still be able to make my connections.”

  “I fear not,” said Scharde. “You are all under arrest, on very serious charges. You will be going nowhere.”

  “What! You cannot be serious! After the privations and agonies we have known?”

  “You have no lawful basis for such an act!” declared another. “I am a juridicalist of considerable eminence, and I assure you that you have no case at law. As for myself, I intend to demand a substantial refund, and possibly punitive damages.”

  “From whom? Araminta Station?”

  “From Ogmo Enterprises, who else? The facilities were not as represented.”

  Another of the group endorsed the remarks. “That is accurate and to the point. I am utterly indignant, and I refuse to be mulcted!”

  Scharde inquired: “You too are a juridicalist?”

  “I fear that I cannot claim that distinction, although I have several such in my employ. I control a number of financial institutions, including a large bank. I am not accustomed to slackness and poor treatment.”

  Another member of the group spoke passionately: “The hardships to which I have been subjected are inexcusable! My rights have been violated and the Araminta authorities must bear full responsibility!”

  “I fail to follow your reasoning,” said Scharde.

  “It is simple enough. I was inveigled by the proffer of a gracious reception and pleasant entertainment upon this world Cadwal; instead I have met only hardship, thirst, anxiety and discomfort. Someone must pay the penalty.”

  Scharde said with a laugh: “I suspect that the penalties to be paid will be paid by you.”

  Another cried out: “I am a Third Degree Acolyte at the Bogdar Kadesh; your imputations are outrageous. Our task is to promulgate the Right, not exemplify it in every trifling detail of our life. I strenuously reject your sly hints, and I must insist upon the respect due my cloth!”

  “Just so,” said Scharde.

  At Araminta Station the castaways, despite a tumult of protests, were locked in an old stone warehouse, then, one after the other, brought to Bodwyn Wook’s office for questioning. Present at the inquiry were Scharde, Egon Tamm the Conservator and Glawen.

  The four Yips were first to be questioned; one at a time they were brought into Bodwyn Wook’s office. Each told in effect the same story. All were Oomp cadets, specially selected to assist at the Thurben Island excursions. This last event ha
d been the third in a series which had started about a month previously. They knew the dead woman only as “Sibil.” She had participated in the second outing but not in the first. The four Yips disliked and feared Sibil: her demands were exacting and she tolerated none of the languid negligence which was their ordinary habit. Smartness and punctilio were Sibil’s incessant concern: so reported the Yips, and each had a wincing tale to tell of blows and buffets.

  The last Yip to be questioned was Saffin Dolderman Nivels: so he identified himself, and answered questions as if participating in a friendly and casual conversation. “I am truly happy to know that Sibil is dead,” said Saffin. “She unnerved everyone, and did not make for happy times at the outings.”

  “Not even the girls enjoyed themselves,” suggested Scharde.

  “Ah well, it was not expected that they should,” said Saffin. “Still, all in all, the excursions will go better with Sibil under the dock instead of on the beach. It will be instructive to look down at her bones.”

  Bodwyn Wook smiled thinly. “Saffin, you live in a strange and wonderful world.”

  Saffin nodded politely. “So it seems to me, as well. Of course, I know no other, which is a pity. I am the sort of man who dresses his fish not only with dragon-fire sauce but also sweet persimmon chutney.”

  Egon Tamm said: “The excursions occurred at two-week intervals. Was this the intended schedule for the future?”

  “I don’t know, sir. No one troubled to notify me.” Saffin looked from face to face, smiling a vague smile. He rose tentatively to his feet. “Now, sirs, if your questions are finished, I and my comrades will go our ways. It is nice to talk with you, but duty calls with an iron voice, and we must not shirk the summons.”