Araminta Station (66 page)

“What services does Zaa expect of me?”

Lilo gave a nervous flutter of the hand. “I would not care to venture an opinion.”

“Who telephoned to tell her I was coming?”

“I don’t know. Now, in regard to the books, I will leave them at your disposal. Since they are valuable, I have been instructed to secure a receipt.” Lilo rose to her feet and extended a sheet of paper. “You must affix your symbol and your name to this.”

Glawen waved aside the receipt. “Take the books away. I don’t want them.”

“But they are indispensable for your studies.”

“This travesty must come to an end, the sooner the better. I am Captain Glawen Clattuc, a police officer. I am conducting an investigation. When I complete my inquiries I intend to leave.”

Lilo stood frowning down at the receipt. “Still, you must sign this paper; these are Zaa’s instructions.”

“Read what is written on the receipt.”

In an uncertain voice Lilo read the document. “‘I, Glawen, acknowledge receipt of six books, here listed by title” - Lilo read the titles - “‘which I will use carefully and diligently as my studies dictate. I will pay the usual royalty to the Monomantic Institute for this usage, and also a reasonable charge for sustenance, accommodation and other sundries.’”

“Give me the pen,” said Glawen. At the bottom of the page he wrote: “I, Glawen Clattuc of Clattuc House, Araminta Station, Cadwal, Captain of Police and affiliate of the IPCC, will pay nothing whatever. I am here in my capacity as a police officer, and will depart as soon as convenient. Any claims for reimbursement of any kind must be made to the IPCC office at Fexelburg.”

Glawen returned the paper to Lilo. “Take the books. I do not intend to use them.”

Lilo took the books and went to the door. Glawen jumped up and stood in the doorway. “Never mind the lock. Since I am not studying, I will take my chances with distraction.”

Lilo went slowly out into the hall, where she paused and looked back with a troubled expression. She said at last: “It’s better that I lock the door.”

“I don’t like it. It makes me feel a prisoner.”

“It is for your convenience, and safety.”

“I will take the chance.”

Lilo turned and went off down the hall. Glawen watched as she disappeared down the purportedly dangerous staircase. For an instant he was prompted to follow, but decided against precipitating a confrontation. Let Plock from the IPCC deal with these extraordinary folk.

On the other hand, no harm could come of taking precautions. He looked up and down the hall, and saw no one. He ran to the wardroom where Mutis had cut his hair. From a shelf he took six clean bed sheets and returned to the door. Once again he looked out into the hall. It was still empty. He returned to his chamber as quickly as he had come. Standing on the chair, he lay the sheets on top of the tall wardrobe where they could not be seen. After a moment’s thought he also concealed the bundle he had made of his clothes.

Half an hour passed. Mutis opened the door and looked into the room. “Come with me.”

Glawen spoke in a cold voice: “Have you no manners? Knock at the door before you enter!”

Mutis gave him a dull uncomprehending stare and signaled with a sweep of his heavy hand. “Come.”

“Come where?”

Mutis scowled and stepped forward. “Need I make myself any more clear? The word was ‘Come’!”

Glawen slowly rose to his feet. Mutis seemed to be in an ugly mood. “Hurry!” growled Mutis. “Do not keep me waiting. So far you have come off easily.”

Glawen sauntered from the chamber. Mutis pressed close behind him. “Have I not said: ‘Hurry’?” He drove his fist into the small of Glawen’s back; Glawen jerked his left elbow into Mutis’ neck; he turned to see the flat small-featured face contorting so that the mouth was a small pink circle. Mutis lurched forward; Glawen tried to strike out and jump back, but too late; Mutis overpowered him and bore him to the floor. Glawen rolled and kicked, to catch Mutis in the ear. He jumped to his feet and stood panting, but now the hall was full of confusion and hooded figures in flapping gray gowns. Anonymous hands seized Glawen and pulled the hood down over his eyes so that he could not see. He heard Mutis speaking in a furious babble, and a shuffling rustle, as if Mutis were trying to push toward him.

Glawen was half led, half pushed down two flights of stairs: Here there was further confusion: exclamations and questions. Mutis at last gave sullen instructions: “To the old place; those were the orders.”

Glawen heard murmurs of doubt and soft comments which he could not comprehend. He tried to throw off the hands which gripped him so that he could raise the hood, but without success.

Mutis spoke: “I will now take him in charge. He is docile; I need no more help.”

“He is quick and strong,” said a voice hard by Glawen’s ear. “We will come too, and prevent violence.”

“Ah, bah!” grunted Mutis.

Glawen was taken along a corridor which smelled of wet stone, ammonia and an aromatic odor as of fungus crushed underfoot. He heard a creak and a scrape, and he was thrust forward.

Hands released their grip; he was free. Once more he heard the creak and scrape, and the thud of a closing door, then silence.

Glawen pulled the hood from his face. He could see nothing. He stood in absolute darkness.

After a moment Glawen moved back toward the door and found the wall. Echoes, or perhaps another subtle perception, informed him that he stood to the side of a large room: a subterranean place, to judge by the odor of wet rock. The only sound was a soft tinkle of running water.

Glawen stood motionless for five minutes, trying to gather into coherent form what remained of his composure. “I seem to have made a number of mistakes,” said Glawen to himself. “Conditions are truly going from bad to worse.”

He felt the wall behind him, encountering natural stone: uneven, damp and smelling of mold. It would seem that he stood at the very core of Pogan’s Point.

Glawen started a cautious exploration, testing the floor as he went, half expecting to some upon the tip of a chasm: a trick which might well be expected from the Monomantics, so that when Plock came to look for him, the Ordene Zaa in tones of injured innocence could say: “The crazy Captain Clattuc? We could not restrain him! He chose to enter a cave and fell into a chasm! We had nothing to do with it!”

But Glawen found no chasm. The floor seemed level. Glawen groped ten paces to the left of the door, then returned and tested ten paces to the right. The apparent curvature of the wall - assuming that the chamber was circular - would indicate a diameter of about sixty feet. The circumference would then be, roughly, about two hundred feet. Glawen went back to the door and prepared to wait. Sooner or later, someone must come to see to his needs. Or perhaps no one would come - ever. Glawen wondered if this might have been the fate of the missing tourists, who had sought too zealously for Zonk’s Tomb. It was not a cheerful notion. He had kicked Mutis in the ear, but he could not die happy on that account alone.

Half an hour passed. Glawen became uncomfortable leaning against the wall and seated himself on the floor. His eyes grew heavy and despite the cold hard stone he began to doze.

Glawen awoke. Time had gone by: several hours at least. He felt cold and cramped and miserable. His mouth was unpleasantly dry. He listened. No sound but the plash of running water, coming generally from the right. He heaved himself to his feet and felt for the door. A sudden idea entered his mind; perhaps it had never been locked! What a fine sardonic joke to play on the foreign policeman: to put him in a dungeon and leave him to starve - behind a door which had never been locked!

Glawen tested the door. It felt dismally solid. He groped along the panel and around the frame, but found neither latch nor hinge nor draw chain. Glawen drew back and gave the door a great buffet with his shoulder. The door failed to move. Glawen uttered a despondent grunt.

An hour passed, or perhaps two; Glawen found himself unable to judge. In any case the wait had become most tedious, and he could hope for little better the rest of the long night; almost certainly he would be confined until morning, while everyone else enjoyed the comfort of their warm beds.

Glawen heaved a sad sigh, and took command of himself. Fury at this point was a futile exercise.

His mouth was thick with thirst. Keeping always in contact with the wall, he crawled on hands and knees to the right, and after about twenty yards came upon a rill of cold water. He cupped up a handful and tasted. The water was harsh with minerals and barely potable. Glawen drank a few mouthfuls, enough to assuage his thirst, and rising to his feet groped around the wall and back to the door.

An unknown period of time passed. Glawen sat by the door, his mind numb.

From high up on the wall came a sound. Glawen lifted his head. The sound was repeated; he identified it as the squeak of a door moving on dry hinges. The sound was joined to a crack of light which revealed the outlines of a balcony, twenty feet above the floor.

A figure shrouded in white came out on the balcony, carrying a lamp. Glawen sat motionless; the play of light and shadow confused his perceptions; he felt only a passive interest as to who or what had come to overlook the chamber.

The person in white fixed the lamp into a socket, then with a swift motion threw back the hood of the gown. In the yellow lamplight Glawen saw a thin face with large dark eyes, a thatch of tawny copper hair and fine, clearly defined features. The hair clasped the face like a copper casque, almost covering the ears, clinging to the forehead and swirling up in curls at the nape of the neck. With dull surprise Glawen saw this person to be the Ordene Zaa. Her gown was of a softer fabric than that which she had worn before and fitted her with rather more grace.

Zaa looked down at Glawen, her expression inscrutable. She spoke in a light, almost airy, voice: “With great skill you have contrived an uncomfortable plight for yourself.”

Glawen responded in measured tones: “My conduct has been quite correct. You have wrongfully placed me into this plight, for reasons quite beyond my understanding.”

Zaa shook her head. “In terms of local realities, my conduct is correct. Yours is based upon naive theorizing; already it has been proved useless.”

“I do not care to argue,” said Glawen. “It would seem as if I were complaining.”

Zaa looked down with amusement. “You seem to have an unusually serene disposition.”

Glawen perceived that Zaa was playing with him as a cat with a mouse, and made no comment.

Zaa prompted him: “Is it by reason of stoicism? Or a resolute philosophy of elaborate parts?”

“I couldn’t say; I am not much for introspection. Perhaps I have simply gone numb.”

“A pity. If Mutis has a fault, it must be that he does not forgive lightly, and I believe that his head still rings from the force of your kick. But we cannot dwell upon past wrongs; we must look to the future. What do you say to that?”

“I say, give me my information and I will be away from this dismal place without a moment’s delay, and never so much as look over my shoulder. This is your most sensible option.”

Zaa smiled. “Only from your point of view.”

“From yours as well. If you harass a police officer you make trouble for yourself.”

“You forget that this is Lutwiler Country. Your authority is meaningless.”

“The IPCC does not concede this point of view.”

“Do not let this theory influence your conduct,” said Zaa. “I am in control of the seminary: such is the nature of local Truth. You must accede to my program, not I to yours. If this is unclear, then plainly you are in need of cerebral therapeutics.”

“Your statement is clear. I need no therapy.”

“I am not altogether convinced, after hearing statements from Mutis and Lilo. In the one case you made erotic suggestions -”

“What? I did no such thing!”

“- in the other you were brutally offensive and inflicted pain upon Mutis, whose ear still smarts and throbs.”

“These accusations are absurd!”

Zaa shrugged. “The gist of the matter is definite enough. Mutis describes you as intractable. Lilo is troubled by your tactics, and wonders where she has gone wrong.”

Glawen managed a laugh. “I will tell you the facts. Mutis struck me in the back before I struck him. He provoked me to a fight - probably by your orders. As for Lilo, perhaps I was a trifle gallant, out of sheer boredom, just to add a bit of sparkle to her life. My conduct was certainly not lewd. The sexual obsessions are in her head, not mine.”

Zaa gave another indifferent shrug. “It may well be, and why not? You are strong and confident; an impressionable young woman might find you appealing.” Zaa looked around the chamber. “These accommodations are not luxurious, but they are inexpensive: in fact, free. Since you insist upon paying nothing for your lodging, this cave must suffice.”

“You would use an agreement to pay as proof that I stayed here of my own accord. That is not the case. I am here as a prisoner.”

“Have you forgotten our contract?”

“Contract?” Glawen looked blank. “The terms were so vague as to be meaningless. Neither this so-called contract nor any other contract has force between a captive and his captor.”

Zaa laughed - a light tinkle, as of glass wind chimes moved by a breeze. “In Lutwiler Country such contracts have peculiar and particular force, especially in regard to the duties of the captive.”

Glawen had no comment. Zaa went on. “Do you recall our agreement?”

“You offered all your information in return for certain services not specified: a bargain to which I could not agree. You then tried to teach me Monomantic Syntoraxis as your end of the contract. It is a fine joke, but do you wonder that I no longer take you or your contract seriously?”

“That is a mistake. The contract must be taken seriously.”

“In that case, this is my suggestion,” said Glawen. “Let me out of this hole, give me the information I need, then explain what you want of me. If it is something I can do, and is not criminal, immoral, harmful, hurtful or even disgraceful, and won’t take too long or cost too much, I will do it.”