Ecce and Old Earth tcc-2

by Jack Vance

  Outrage and anger served no purpose; they were only a frustration. Fear was equally profitless, though fear was hard to control.

  Wayness became restless. There was too much to think about, and too many complexities. While she thought, she was static and vulnerable; she could protect herself only by activity.

  Wayness went to the telephone and called Fair Winds. Agnes appeared, then went to summon Pirie Tamm from the garden. "Ah Wayness!" He spoke guardedly. "I was on my way out; I have an errand at the bank in Tierens. Do you wish to call back in half an hour or so?”

  "If you can spare me a minute, I'll talk to you now." Wayness tried to sound easy and casual, but her voice seemed strained, even to her own ears.

  “I cart spare a minute or two. What is your news?”

  “It is both good and bad. I spoke with a certain Alcide Xantief yesterday. He knew nothing himself but in passing he mentioned a repository in Bangalore. I telephoned there this morning and they have the documents we are seeking, and they would seem to be quite accessible.”

  “Amazing!” said Pirie Tamm, blinking in perplexity.”

  "It is that and more, when I think of what I have gone through to get this information. I have written to you, to my father and to Glawen, so that the information will not be lost in case something happens to me.”

  “Why should anything happen to you?”

  "Last night I had a rather frightening experience. It might have been mistaken identity, or romance Adriatic style: I can't be sure. But in any case I escaped.”

  Pirie Tamm gave an exclamation of outrage. “That is damnable! I like this expedition of yours less and less! It's not right that you should be tackling a man's job!"

  “Right or wrong, the job must be done," said Wayness.

  “And there is no one to do it but me.”

  "Yes, Yes,” grumbled Pirie Tamm. “We've been over these arguments before.”

  “Be sure that I am taking all precautions, Uncle Pirie, and now I will let you go on your errand. If you are indeed stopping by the bank, please ask after a remittance I am expecting from home.”

  “I’ll do that, certainly. But what now for you?”

  “I'm off for Bangalore, by the best connection, or even the worst, so long as I get there fast.”

  "And when will I hear from you next?"

  "Soon; from Bangalore, most likely."

  “Goodbye then, and take care of yourself.''

  “Goodbye, Uncle Pirie."

  Half an hour later Wayness called the bank in Tierens from the public telephone in the hotel lobby. Pirie Tamm's face again appeared on the screen. “Now then! Perhaps we can talk more freely."

  “I hope so, since I distrust even the telephone in my room.” I am certain that I have been followed to Trieste." Wayness decided not to mention the murder of Xantief.

  "I gather then, that Bangalore will not be your next destination?”

  "You gather correctly, Uncle Pirie. If I can send someone off on a wild goose chase, so much the better.”

  “So what have you achieved in Trieste?”

  "I have descended another step on the ladder, and you will be surprised to learn whom I found there."

  "Oh? Who might this be?"

  “It is your tomb-robbing friend Adrian Moncurio.”

  “Ha!” said Pirie Tamm after a moment’s reflection. “I am surprised, to be sure, though maybe not as much as I might be!”

  "Do you have any inkling as to his present address?"

  "None whatever.”

  “What of mutual friends?"

  "We have none. Since I have not heard from him, I suspect that he is either off-world or dead."

  "In that case I must continue my inquiries. They may possibly take me off-world."

  “Off-world where?"

  "I don’t know yet.”

  “"Then where are you going from Trieste?"

  "I am afraid to tell you, for fear the information will somehow leak out. Even now I am using the hotel's public telephone, on the chance that the telephone in my room has been tapped.”

  "You are quite right! Trust nothing and no one!"

  Wayness sighed, thinking of Xantief, his clarity and honor. "Another matter, Uncle Pirie. I did not send you down to the bank for nothing. I am carrying about three hundred sols, but if I must go off-world, it won’t be enough. Can you spare me a thousand or so?”

  “Of course! Two thousand, if you like!”

  “It is twice as good as a thousand. I will accept with thanks, and return whatever is left as soon as possible.”

  "You need not concern yourself with money; if for nothing else, this is money spent for the Conservancy!"

  “That is my opinion too. Ask the officer which bank at Trieste is their correspondent, and send me two thousand sols which I will pick up at once."

  “You can't imagine how you worry me,” growled Pirie Tamm.

  Wayness cried: “Stop, Uncle Pirie! For the moment at least I am safe, since I have sent everyone off to

  Bangalore! They will be very irritable when they find it is just a prank, but by that time I will be far away.”

  “So when will I hear from you again?”

  “At the moment I can't even guess.”

  V.

  Wayness settled her account at the front desk, then returned to her room. The events at Trieste had been helpful in more ways than one. Wayness' concepts of evil had altered from the abstract to the real. She now knew with gristly certainty the quality of her opponents. They were persistent, cruel, smilingly callous. They would kill her if they caught her, and this would be a tragic event indeed from her point of view. It would mean the cessation of that quick and lively intelligence known as Wayness, with its special little graces and quirks and affectionate good nature and wry sense of humor. Tragedy indeed!

  Wayness debated changing into her disguise of the morning, and compromised, by shrouding herself in the pea jacket and pulling the cap down over her dark curls. She accoutered herself with the weapons Alvina had given her and felt greatly comforted.

  Wayness was now ready to leave. She went to the door, opened it a slit and looked along the hall. It was not at all unlikely for someone to be waiting, to overwhelm her as she opened the door and bear her back into the room, where she could be dealt with at leisure. Wayness grimaced at the idea.

  The hall was empty. Wayness departed the hotel by the stairs and the timber door which opened upon the shingle under the wharf.

  VI.

  For three days and three nights Wayness practiced every tactic of evasion, concealment and dissimulation that her imagination could contrive, including trap's against mobile spy cells and tattletags. She made quick sorties through crowds, doubling back on her tracks, over and over, watching to see whom she might be confusing. She boarded an omnibus and when it halted for an instant at a village traffic stop, she jumped out and was quickly out of town on a van transporting farm laborers. At Lisbon on the Atlantic coast she boarded the northbound slideway, only to debark at the first stop, then to return aboard, to sequester herself in the women’s restroom until the next stop, where again she debarked and slipped aboard a car traveling in the opposite direction, which she rode all the way to Tanjer. Here she changed her semblance, discarding her green travel cape and the blonde wig she had acquired, to join a group of young wanderers, all dressed alike in dungarees and gray pullovers. She spent a night in the Tanjer hostel. The next morning she booked passage on the trans-Atlantic skytrain and six hours later was discharged at the sprawling city Alonso Saavedra, on the Rio Tanagra. She was by this time certain that she had eluded pursuit; but she continued to set traps for spy cells, hide in secret places to watch for trackers and to change vehicles unpredictably. In due course she arrived by skycoach at the provincial capital Biriguassu, then flew south and west across the pampas to the mining town Nambucara. She spent the night at the Stella d'Oro Hotel, and dined on a steak of startling proportions, served with fried potatoes, avocado sauce, and a r
oast bird — possibly a small long-legged chicken to the side.

  Pombareales lay still far to the south, with catch-as-catch-can travel connections. In the morning Wayness somewhat dubiously climbed aboard an airbus of venerable vintage, which rose with a lurch and groan, then flew heavily south, wallowing to gusts of wind. The other passengers seemed to take the vehicle’s alarming peculiarities for granted, and showed concern only when one of the lurches caused them to spill their beer. A gentleman sitting beside Wayness described himself as a steady patron who long ago had abandoned fear. He explained that since the vehicle had been flying back and forth from north to south and north again for many years, there was no reason to suppose that on this day of all days it would collapse in mid-air and fail to do its duty. “In sheer point of fact,” he told Wayness, “the vehicle becomes safer each day it flies, and I can prove this point by mathematics, which of course is infallible. You speak with a good accent; may I assume that you are skilled in the use of logic?”

  Wayness modestly admitted that this was the case.

  “Then you will follow my reasoning without difficulty. Assume that the vehicle is new. Let us say that it flies safely for two days, then crashes on the third day. Its safety record is not good: one crash in three trips. If, however, the vehicle flies ten thousand days, as has this one, its safety record is at least one in ten thousand and one, which is very good! Furthermore, each succeeding day that passes without incident, the risk becomes smaller so that by an equal increment the passenger's sense of security should increase."

  The vehicle was struck by a particularly vicious gust of wind; it jerked and plunged and from somewhere came a wrenching tearing sound, which the gentleman ignored. ''We are probably safer here than if we were sitting at home in an easy chair, at the mercy of a rabid dog.”

  "I appreciate your explanation, which is very clear,” said Wayness. “I still feel a bit nervous, but now I do not know why.”

  “Late in the afternoon the airbus landed at the town Aquique, where Wayness disembarked, after which the airbus took off once again for Lago Angelina, to the southeast. Wayness discovered that she had missed the tri-weekly connection to Pombareales, still another hundred miles to the southwest, almost in the shadow of the Andes. She could either lay over two days at Aquique, or she could proceed by surface omnibus on the following day.

  Aquique's best hotel was the Universo, a tower of concrete and glass five stories high adjacent to the airport. Wayness was assigned an airy room on the top floor, overlooking all Aquique: several thousand concrete and glass blocks arranged on a rectilinear grid concentric about the central plaza. Beyond, the pampas spread away to the edge of vision.

  During the evening, Wayness felt lonely and homesick, and spent an hour writing letters to her father and mother, with an insert for Glawen, if he were still at Araminta Station. “I have given up expecting any word from you. Julian showed up at Fair Winds and did nothing to make himself popular; to the contrary. However, he mentioned that you had gone off somewhere to help your father, and as of now, I don’t know whether you are alive or dead. I hope alive, and I wish you were here with me now, as this enormous tract of wasteland is on the whole depressing. I find that I have only so much energy to devote to intrigues and plots, and then I start feeling miserable. Still, I will survive. I have an enormous amount to tell you. This is a strange countryside, and sometimes I forget that I am traveling Old Earth and believe myself off-world. In any case, I send you all my love, and I hope that we will be together soon.”

  In the morning Wayness boarded the omnibus, and was transported south and west across the pampas. She relaxed into the seat and covertly appraised her fellow passengers: a routine which by now had become almost reflexive. She saw nothing to arouse her suspicion; no one showed any interest in her, save a young man with a narrow forehead and a wide big-toothed smile, who wanted to sell her a religious tract.

  “No, thank you,” said Wayness. “I am not interested in your theories."

  “The young man produced a paper sack. “Would you care for some candy?”

  “No, thank you,” said Wayness. “If you plan to eat it yourself, please move to another seat, as the smell will make me sick, and I will vomit on your religious tract." The young man moved to a different seat and ate his candy in solitude.

  The bus moved across a desolation of low hills, outcrops of rotten rocks, tufts of bracken, willow and aspens in the dips and declivities, a few low cypress trees bedraggled by the wind. The environment was not without its own bleak beauty. Wayness thought that had she been required to paint the landscape, she could have done so with a very limited palette. There would be several tones of gray: dark for the shadows, grays tinted with umber, ocher and cobalt for rocks and outcrops; dun, olive drab and dusty tan; copper-green and splotches of black-green for the cypresses.

  As the bus proceeded, the mountains loomed higher into the sky, and a wind striking down from the west gave vitality and movement to the landscape.

  The sun, rather pale by reason of high haze, moved toward the zenith. In the distance appeared a clutter of low white structures: the town Pombareales.

  The bus drove into the town square and stopped in front of the rambling three-story Motel Monopole. Wayness thought that the town seemed much like Nambucara, on a somewhat smaller scale, with the same central plaza, the same surrounding grid of streets lined with white rectilinear structures. It was a town of no obvious attraction, thought Wayness, except that it might be the last place on Earth where agents of the Tanglet Association might come seeking a wrongdoer.

  Wayness carried her bag into the cavernous lobby of the Hotel Monopole. The clerk at the registration desk offered her a room overlooking the square, or a room not overlooking the square, or if she chose a corner suite both overlooking and not overlooking the square. ''We are not busy,” said the clerk. “The price is the same: two sols per day, which includes breakfast.”

  “I will try the suite,” said Wayness. “I have never before been allowed so much room.”

  "In this part of the world 'room' is a plentiful resource,” said the clerk. “You may have all you like at no great charge, with the wind and a panoramic view of the Andes included."

  Wayness found the suite adequate in all respects. The bathroom functioned properly; the bedroom contained a large bed, smelling faintly of antiseptic soap; the sitting room was furnished with a heavy oak table, a large blue rug, several massive chairs, a couch, a desk with a cabinet, and a telephone. Wayness resisted the temptation to call Fair Winds and went to sit in one of the chairs. She had made no plans; they seemed pointless in the absence of information. She must reconnoiter, and discover what there was to be known about Irena Portils.

  The time was half an hour before noon: too early for lunch. Wayness went down to the lobby and approached the desk clerk. Discretion and subtlety were now of prime importance; for all she knew he might be Irena Portils’ brother-in-law. She approached the object of her inquiry at an oblique angle. “A friend wants me to look up someone on Via Madera. Where would that be?"

  “Via Madera? There is no Via Madera in Pombareales.”

  “Hm. I should have made a note of the name. Could it be, Via Ladera? Or Baduro?”

  “There is the Calle Maduro, and the Avenida Onyx Formadero."

  “I think it was Calle Maduro: a house with two black granite balls marking the gateway."

  "I don't recall such a house, but Calle Maduro is yonder.” He pointed his pencil. "Go three blocks south along Calle Luneta, and you will come to the intersection with Calle Maduro. Here you must make a choice. If you turn left and walk several blocks you will come to the poultry cooperative. If you turn right, you will eventually arrive at the cemetery. Choose for yourself; I cannot advise you.”

  “Thank you.” Wayness turned toward the door. The clerk called her back. “The way is long and the wind blows dust; why not ride in style? There is Esteban's cab: the red vehicle parked directly outside the door. His charge
s will not be an outrage if you threaten to patronize his brother Ignaldo, who drives a green cab.”

  Wayness went out to the red cab. In the front seat sat a small man, all arms and legs, with weathered brown skin and a long droll face. At the sight of Wayness he cried out: "On the instant!” and flung open the door.

  Wayness asked: “Is this Ignaldo’s cab? I am told that his rates are fair — in fact, very fair.”

  "Utter nonsense!' said Esteban. “Your innocence has been abused. Sometimes he pretends to offer low rates, but he is a sly devil and cheats his passengers double in the end. Who should know better than I, who compete with him.”

  “For this reason you might well be biased in your judgment.”

  “Not so. Ignaldo knows no conscience. If your dying grandmother were rushing to reach the church before the priest went home, Ignaldo would take her on a long detour through the country and become lost, until either she had died, whereupon his rates for transporting corpses came into effect, or until, for the sake of her soul, the dying woman agreed to his larceny.”

  “In that case, I will give you a try, but first you must reveal your own rates.”

  Esteban threw his hands high in impatience. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Here and there. You may take me up Calle Maduro for a start.”

  “That of course is possible. Do you wish to look at the cemetery?”

  “No. I want to look at the houses.”

  “On Calle Maduro there is little to see, and my charges will be minimal. For one half hour the fare will be one sol.”

  “What! That is double Ignaldo's rate!”

  Esteban made a sound of disgust and gave in so readily that Wayness knew that her outcry had been justified. “Very well; I have nothing better to do. Climb in. The rate is one sol per hour."