Monsters in Orbit

by Jack Vance

  The lobby was empty except for the clerk and a man who stood talking with apparent urgency. Jean stopped short in the doorway. The man was lean and bird-like, wore his clothes with something of the same elegance that the hotel wore its mosaic rugs and Earth palms. Cholwell.

  Jean calculated. It was evident that he had come out on a faster ship than hers, possibly the mail express. While she hesitated, Cholwell turned, looked at her, looked once again. His mouth snapped shut, his eyebrows met in a stiff angry bar. He took three strides forward and Jean ducked back, thinking he meant to strike her.

  Cholwell said in a furious voice, “I’ve been looking all over town for you!”

  Jean’s curiosity was greater than her alarm and anger. “Well-here I am. What of it?”

  Cholwell looked past her, out into the street, breathing hard controlled breaths. “You came alone?”

  Jean said with narrowed eyes, “What business is it of yours?”

  Cholwell blinked and his mouth set in an ugly spiteful line.

  “When I get you back at the compound I’ll show you what business it is of mine!”

  Jean said icily, “Just what in the world are you talking about?”

  “What’s your name?” Cholwell cried furiously. “Let me see your—” he snatched her arm, turned over her hand, looked at the underside of her wrist.

  He stared in unbelief, looked into her face, stared back at her wrist.

  Jean pulled away. “Are you crazy? Life among the chickens seems to have rattled you!”

  “Chickens?” He frowned. “Chickens?” His face went void of expression. Oh…Of course. How stupid. You’re Miss Jean Parlier, and you’re visiting Angel City…I didn’t expect you for another week—the next packet,”

  “Who did you think I was?” she asked resentfully.

  Cholwell cleared his throat. Anger had given way to solicitous courtesy with startling swiftness. “It’s a combination of poor vision and poor lighting. I have a niece close to your age and for a moment—” he paused delicately.

  Jean glanced at her wrist. “How is it that you’re not acquainted with her name?”

  Cholwell said easily, “It’s a little joke we have between us.” He laughed self-consciously. “One of those foolish family poke, you know.”

  “I wonder if it was your niece that got me slung out of old Polton’s place.”

  Cholwell became rigid. “What did Polton say?”

  “He insisted that he was running a hotel, not a madhouse. He said he wouldn’t put up with any more of my hijinks.’

  Cholwell’s fingers fluttered up and down his coat. “Old Pol-ton, I’m afraid, is more than a little contentious.” A new expression came to his face, eager gallantry. “Now that you’re here on Codiron, I can’t wait to show you my establishment. You and—my niece will surely become fast friends.”

  “I’m not so sure. We’re too much alike, if old Polton is hitting at all close to the truth.”

  Cholwell made a sound of protestation in his throat.

  Jean asked, “Just what is your niece’s name, Mr. Cholwell?”

  Cholwell hesitated. “It’s Martha. And I’m sure Polton was exaggerating. Martha is quiet and gentle.” He nodded emphatically. “I can depend on Martha.”

  Jean shrugged. And now Cholwell appeared to be lost in thought. He moved his elbows restlessly in and out from his body, nodded his head. At last he appeared to reach a decision. “I must be on my way, Miss Parlier. But I’ll look you up on my next visit into Angel City.” He bowed, departed.

  Jean turned to the clerk. “I want a room…Does Mr. Cholwell come to town very often?”

  “No-o-o,” said the clerk hesitantly. “Not as often as he might.”

  “And his niece?”

  “We see even less of her. In fact,” the clerk coughed, “you might say we seldom see her.”

  Jean looked at him sharply. “Have you ever seen her?”

  The clerk coughed again. “Well—actually no…Myself, I think Mr. Cholwell would be wiser to move into town, perhaps take a nice suite here at the hotel.”

  “Why so?”

  “Well—Cornwall Valley is very wild, up under the Balmoral Mountains, very wild and primitive, now that they’ve abandoned the old Rehabilitation Home. No one near him for miles, in case of emergency…”

  “Odd place for a chicken ranch,” suggested Jean.

  The clerk shrugged, as if to emphasize that it was not his place to gossip about patrons of the hotel. “Did you wish to register?”

  V

  Jean changed from her gray travel gabardines into quiet dark blue and wandered along Main Street. There was a new spirit in the air, but under a few cosmetic applications of glass and stainless metal, Angel City was almost as she remembered it. Faces passed that she seemed to recognize from the old days, and one or two of these faces regarded her curiously—inconclusive in itself; she was accustomed to the feel of eyes.

  At the old city courthouse and jail, a building of solid blue-painted stone-foam from the early days, she turned to the right down Paradise Alley. A small constriction formed in her throat; this was the scene of her ragged and miserable youth…

  “Pish,” said Jean. “Enough of this sentimentality. Although I suppose it’s for a sentimental reason that I’m here in the first place. Why bother with a father and mother otherwise?” She considered herself in the light of a sentimentalist, with detached amusement, then returned to the eventual discovery of her parents. “It’s likely I’ll stir up trouble. If they’re poor they’ll expect me to support them…” She smiled, and her little teeth gleamed. “They’ll expect quite a while.” It occurred to her that perhaps malice was at the bottom of her mission: she pictured herself confronting a sullen man and woman, and flaunting her prosperity. “You dropped two million dollars when you dropped me on Joe Parlier’s pool table.”

  But more likely than not, her parents, together or on then-separate ways, had vanished off among the illimitable dark vistas of the human universe; then it became a problem of following a seventeen-year-old trail among the stars and planets…Joe Parlier might have told her of her parentage; more than once he had hinted of his knowledge. But Joe Parlier was dead, seven years dead, and Jean felt no slightest pang of regret. Sober he had been surly and heavy-handed; drunk, he was lascivious, wild and dangerous.

  When she was nine he had started to handle her; soon she learned to hide under the saloon whenever she saw him drink. Once he had tried to follow her, crawling on his stomach. With an old chair leg she beat at his sweating face, jabbed at his eyes, until mad with rage he backed out to find his gun. She had scurried to another hiding place, and returned to her garret because there was no other place for her to go.

  Next morning he had slouched up to her, his face still scratched and bruised. She had a knife and stood her ground, pale, set, desperate. But he kept his distance, railing, taunting. “Sure you’re a little devil and sure I’m the only pa you got—but I know more’n I let on. And anytime there comes a showdown I know where to go. I can bring it home too, and then it’ll go hard on someone.”

  But she had killed Joe Parlier with his own gun, Joe and three of his drunken cronies, before he had ever told what he knew.

  Down Paradise Alley she walked, and there it was ahead of her, Joe Parlier’s saloon, the old Aztec Tavern, and changed by not a line or a board. The paint was duller and the swinging doors more battered, but even out in the street the smell of tobacco, beer, wine and spirits brought back hard and clear the first ten years of her life. She raised her eyes, up to the window under the gable—her private little outlook, down into the street and across to Dion Mulroney’s second-hand store.

  Joe Parlier was dead, but he had spoken of proof and tapped his old brown wallet with heavy significance. Perhaps his effects had not been destroyed, and here would be her first goal.

  She slipped demurely into the saloon.

  There were a few minor changes, but in general the tavern was as she remembered it
. The bar ran down the room to the left; behind were six large color transparencies set into the wall like stained glass windows. Each depicted a nude woman in an artistic pose against a background intended to represent outworld scenery. A crudely painted legend above read, “Beauty Among the Planets.”

  Tables occupied the right side of the room; above on a shelf were dusty photographs of space-ships and models of the four Gray Line packets serving Codiron, the Bucyrus, the Orestes, the Prometheus and the Icarus. At the back were the two dilapidated pool tables, a line of mechanical game machines, a vendor of dry stimulants and narcotics, and a juke-box.

  Jean anxiously scanned the faces along the bar, but recognized none of the old-time habitués. She slid up on a seat near the door.

  The bartender wiped his hands on his towel, elevated his jaw, strode toward her. He was a striking young man with dark brown skin and crisp wheat-blond hair. He evidently thought well of his aquiline profile and emphasized his muscular torso by the tight fit of his shirt. Vain, silly, single-minded, thought Jean; no doubt fancied himself as a lady-killer with his magnificent dark skin and bright hair.

  He swaggered to a stop before her, looked her over with heavy-lidded eyes. Along the bar, faces turned, the hum of conversation halted.

  The young bartender said, “What’ll it be?”

  “Just plain lemon fizz.”

  He leaned confidentially closer. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Better take orange.”

  “Why?” Jean asked breathlessly.

  “We don’t have no lemon.” And he slapped the towel into his hand.

  “Okay.” Jean nodded. “Orange.”

  Ten minutes later he had made a date. His name was Gem Morales, he lived at Hot-shot Carlson’s, and he worked day shift at the Aztec.

  Jean said that she had lost her way; she had been trying to find her uncle, but somehow had missed him.

  Oh, said Gem Morales, who had been wondering.

  Jean rose to leave, and put a dime on the counter. Gem flipped it into the cash drawer. “Eight o’clock, don’t forget.”

  Jean forced a bright smile. Normally she liked handsome young men. She admired hard young bodies, the feel of muscular hands, breezy masculine egos. But Gem Morales jarred her. He was cocksure, flip and brassy, without the redeeming qualities of intelligence and humor.

  VI

  He arrived to keep bis date a studious twenty minutes late, and swaggered across the lobby to where she sat reading a magazine. He wore an extreme suit of fawn plion, with copper piping; Jean was in modest dark blue and white.

  He took her to a smart little air-boat four or five years old, and she saw with a twinge of wry amusement that it was a Marshall Moon-chaser of the model she herself coveted. Dam it, back on Earth, -first thing she’d do would be to buy herself a shiny new air-boat.

  “Jump in, honey. We fly high, fly low, we got half a planet to cover, and there’s only fourteen hours to Codiron night.”

  The boat growled up with a lunge that pressed Jean back into the foam, then levelled off and flew through the iron-colored night. Directly above hung Codiron’s lone satellite, small bright Sadiron. Below were the black buttes, the desolate mountains, the tundras wadded over with olive-drab bear-fungus. Once they skimmed over a dreary little settlement, marked by a line of yellow fights; a few minutes later a faint glow in the south indicated the location of Delta, Codiron’s largest city.

  “Gem,” said Jean, “is your home here in Angel City?”

  He snorted with indignation. “Me? Here? Gad! I should say not. I’m from Brackstell on Alnitak Five.”

  “How come you’re out here then?”

  He jerked his shoulders flippantly. “Got into a little trouble. Guy figured I wasn’t as tough as I said I was. He was wrong, I was right.”

  He slipped his arm around her. She said, “Gem, I need help.”

  “Sure, anything you say. But later. Let’s talk about us.”

  “No, Gem, I’m serious.”

  He made a cautious inquiry. “How do you mean, help? What can I do?”

  She wove him a tale with overtones of the illicit strong enough to arouse his interest. She had discovered, so she said, that the old owner of the Aztec, Joe Parlier, had owned bonds which he considered valueless. Actually they were worth a great deal, and were supposed to be somewhere among his effects. She wanted an opportunity to look for them.

  Gem’s pleasure was disturbed by the thought that Jean’s presence was not the direct result of his appearance and personality. Half-sullenly he jerked the Moon-chaser down toward a high mountain-top spangled with blue, green and red lights.

  “Skylark Haven,” he said. “Pretty nice place—for Codiron, that is. The live ones come here from all over the planet.”

  Skylark Haven indeed appeared gay and popular. A hexagonal pylon reared fifty feet into the air, shimmering with waves of color, a representation of the sound crystals by which Codiron was known. The shifting colors reflected garishly from the hulls, domes and canopies of air-boats parked beside the building.

  Gem seized Jean’s arm, strode across the outside terrace, holding his aquiline profile pridefully out-thrust. Jean trotted along beside, half-amused, half-exasperated.

  They entered the building through an arch in a great wall of bear-furs, smelling pleasantly pungent. A man in black ushered them into a little circular booth with a flourish. As they seated themselves the booth moved slowly off, circling and twisting with silken smoothness on a long eccentric circuit of the room.

  A waitress in translucent black slid up on power-skates. “Old-fashioned,” said Gem. “Lemon fizz,” said Jean.

  Gem raised his eyebrows. “Gad! Take a drink! That’s what you’re here for!”

  “I don’t like to drink.”

  “Pah!” said Gem scornfully.

  Jean shrugged. Plainly Gem considered her something of a blue-stocking…If she liked him better, it would have been fun letting him discover otherwise. But he was not only arrogant, he was callow to boot.

  An attendant came offering power-skates for rent. Gem looked at Jean challengingly. She shook her head. “I’m too clumsy. I fall all over myself.”

  “It’s easy,” said Gem. “Look at those two—” he pointed to a couple dancing with easy effortless sweeps and circles. “You’ll catch on. It’s easy. Just turn your toe where you want to go, press a little and you’re there. The harder you press, the faster you move. To stop, you press on your heel.”

  Jean shook her head. “I’d rather just sit here and talk.”

  “About those bonds?”

  She nodded. “If you help me, I’ll cut you in for a third.” He pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes. Jean realized that he was considering the feasibility of three thirds rather than one.

  “Joe Parlier loaded up on lots of junk,” said Jean carelessly. “Some of the bonds were stolen, and whoever presented them would have a lot of explaining to do. I’ know which are valuable and safe.”

  “Mmmph.” Gem drank his Old-fashioned.

  Jean said, “I don’t know who owns the Aztec now; for all I know all Joe’s things might have been burnt up.”

  “I can set you right there,” said Gem thoughtfully. “The attic’s full of old junk, and Godfrey says it’s all left over Parlier. He’s been going to clean it out but never gets around to it.”

  Jean drank her lemon fizz to hide her excitement. “What time does the place open?”

  “Ten o’clock. I open up. I’m the day man.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Jean, “I’ll be there at nine.”

  “Well be there together,” said Gem. He leaned forward, took her hands meaningfully. “You’re too pretty to be let out of my sight for—”

  There was a skirl and scrape of skates. A harsh voice cried, “You get your hands off my girl!” And a tough round face glared into the booth. Jean noticed a mop of black curls, a wide stock frame.

  Gem stared an instant, overcome by surprise and rage. He jumped to his feet,
“Don’t you tell me what to do, you—”

  The black-haired youth had turned to Jean with a bitter expression. “As far as I’m concerned, Jade, you can go to hell.”

  He turned, stalked off.

  Gem sat still as a statue. Jean saw a curious change come over his features. He had forgotten her completely, he was looking after the black-haired youth. His mouth broke into a humorless grin, but his eyelids, rather than drooping, lifted up, and his eyes took on a vitreous glaze. Slowly he rose to his feet.

  Jean said in a matter-of-fact voice, “Don’t be a child. Sit down and behave yourself.”

  He paid her no heed. Jean drew back a little. Gem was dangerous. “Sit down,” she said sharply.

  Gem’s grin became a grimace. He vaulted the railing of the booth, quietly, stealthily, went after the black-haired youth.

  Jean sat impatiently, tipping her glass back and forth across the table. Let them fight…Young bulls, young boars…She hoped the black-haired boy would wipe up the ground with Gem. Of course he had originally started the trouble. What did he mean, calling her Jade? She’d never seen him before. Could the ubiquitous Martha Cholwell be blamed? She seemed to precede Jean everywhere. Jean glanced around the floor with new interest.

  Fifteen minutes passed before Gem returned to the table. The madness had left his face. He was bruised, tom and dirty, but clearly he had been the victor. Jean saw it in his swagger, in the tilt of his handsome dark brown head…Foolish young animal, thought Jean, without emotion.

  He swung his legs back into the booth, rather stiffly, Jean noted. “Fixed that guy for a while,” he said in a pleasant voice. Jean’s vocabulary was not particularly extensive, and the word “catharsis” was not familiar to her. She thought to herself, “He’s taken out his meanness on that black-haired boy and he feels better. He’ll probably be halfway decent for a while.”

  And indeed Gem was quiet and almost self-effacing the remainder of the evening. At midnight he suggested leaving.