Araminta Station (71 page)

“I have nothing to say. Your opinions are fixed.”

“It is true,” said Plock. “I have formed my judgment.” He addressed the entire group. “This place is a pest house, and must be vacated now. Gather your personal belongings and return here at once. You will be taken to Fexelburg and a disposition made of your individual cases. These instructions, incidentally, do not apply to Funo, Mutis, nor the Ordene Zaa. You three may now come with me around the road to the garbage pit. You will need no personal belongings.”

Mutis looked uncertainly toward Zaa, his face sagging. Funo stood stolidly, thinking her private thoughts. Zaa said sharply: “That is absolutely absurd. I have never heard such nonsense!”

“Lilo perhaps thought the same, when you ordered her to her death,” said Plock. “These ideas always seem implausible when they apply to yourself. But it makes no great difference.”

“I wish to make a telephone call.”

“To the Fexelburg police? You may not do so. I prefer to take them by surprise.”

“Then I must write some letters.”

“To whom?”

“To the Ordene Klea at Strock and other Ordenes.”

Glawen kept his voice casual. “Such as who?”

Zaa said curtly: “I will not write, after all.”

“Would one of your Ordenes be Madame Zigonie, who lives at a country place on the world Rosalia?”

“We are wandering far afield. I will tell you no more. Do your filthy work and be done with it.”

Plock said: “That is a practical suggestion, and we shall not wait upon ceremony.” He fired his gun three times, with precision.

“The work is done,” said Plock, for a moment looking down at the three bodies.

How quick it went! thought Glawen. Funo no longer thought private thoughts; Mutis felt no more indecision and Zaa’s knowledge was irretrievably gone.

Plock turned to the awed Danton: “Take these bodies to the garbage pit. Use a barrow or a cart, or make up a trestle: as you choose. Pick out two or three sturdy fellows to help you. When you are finished, join the others down the hill.”

Danton started to obey Plock’s order, but Glawen halted him. “The stairs between the second and third floors: why are they dangerous?”

Danton glanced toward the corpses, as if to assure himself that none could hear him. “When a stranger was brought to the third floor, and held against his will - which happened more often than you might think - Mutis strung a trip wire across the steps near the top of the flight, and this wire was charged with electricity. If someone tried to use the steps, he would end up in a huddle of broken bones at the bottom. Mutis and Funo would then carry him, alive or dead, to the garbage pit and throw him away.”

“And no one protested?”

Danton smiled. “When one studies the Syntoraxis with great concentration, he seldom notices anything.”

Glawen turned away.

Plock said to Danton: “You may now dispose of the corpses.”

Chapter VIII, Part 7

The vacant seminary seemed to echo with a thousand whispers just below the threshold of perception. Glawen and Plock, with Kylte and Narduke, stood in the first-floor conference room. Plock spoke in an unwontedly thoughtful voice: “Since I am not a superstitious man, the twittering of so many ghosts disturbs me.”

“Neither Zab Zonk nor his ghost troubled me,” said Glawen. “For a fact, I might have welcomed the company.”

“In any case, we must risk the upper floors. There might be some Monomantics so engrossed in their studies that they failed to hear the commands.”

“You three go. I want no more of the upper floors. When you look into the kitchen, turn off the fires, otherwise the soup will burn even worse than usual.”

Plock and his two associates climbed the stairs. Glawen meanwhile explored the first floor. He found Zaa’s private apartments and her office: a large room with plastered bone-white walls, furnished with lamps of a peculiar contorted design, a heavy black and green rug and furniture upholstered in dark red plush. A peculiar room, thought Glawen, reflecting the tensions which obviously had pulled Zaa in a dozen different directions. Shelves held a variety of books, all of a secular nature. Glawen searched the desk but found no records, addresses, files of correspondence or any other material of interest to him. Yet it seemed that Zaa had been anxious to destroy certain items of information. What and where? Or had they misjudged her intentions? In a drawer of the desk Glawen found a strongbox, unlocked, containing a large sum of money. He took the box from the drawer and below found a photograph of a dozen women, standing in what appeared to be a garden. The environment would seem to be not that of Tassadero. One of the women was Zaa of ten or even fifteen years ago. Another of the group was Sibil. The others were not known to Glawen. They must include Klea, now at Strock, and possibly Madame Zigonie of Rosalia. The individuals were not identified either by code or legend or handwritten designation. Glawen tucked the photograph into his inner pocket; it was not information which would interest the IPCC to any large extent.

Glawen turned his attention to Zaa’s private apartments and, holding his revulsion under tight rein, he continued his search for documents: letters, address books, journals, photographs. As before, he found nothing of consequence: no reference to Madame Zigonie of the world Rosalia, nor any other name he recognized.

Plock and the others came down from the upper floors. Glawen took them to Zonk’s Tomb, where the lamp still cast a yellow glow around the chamber.

Glawen opened the door but could not bring himself to enter the chamber more than a step or two. “There it is,” he said. “Just as I left it platform, stream, tunnel and all.”

Plock surveyed the extent of the tomb. “I see no treasure.”

“I found none, and with nothing better to do I looked quite carefully. I found no trapdoors, no loose stones, no sliding panels and no treasure.”

“It’s none of our affair, in any case,” said Plock. “I have now seen Zonk’s Tomb and I am ready to leave, at any time.”

“I’ve seen all I care to see,” said Narduke.

“I have lost nothing here,” said Kylte.

“I also have seen enough,” said Glawen. “I am willing to leave.”

Glawen took the group to Zaa’s office and poured the contents of the strongbox out on the desk. Plock counted the money. “I make it roughly nine thousand sols, give or take a dinket or two.”

He reflected a moment. “In my opinion,” he told Glawen, “the Monomantics owe you a large debt of damages, which is hard to evaluate. Let us place an arbitrary value of a thousand sols a month on your time, with another thousand sols for mental anguish. In one minute we arrive at a disposition which could require months of the court’s time, and who knows what might happen to these funds in the interim? It is better to collect now when the money is at hand. Here is the award: punitive damages in the amount of three thousand sols against the Monomantic seminary.”

Glawen tucked the money into his pocket. “It is a better end to the affair than I expected. I can put the money to good use.”

The four men left the seminary and descended the hill to the village.

Chapter IX

Chapter IX, Part 1

Toward the middle of a gloomy winter afternoon, the spaceship
Solares Oro
broke through the overcast above Araminta Station and settled to a landing close beside the space terminal.

Among the debarking passengers was Glawen Clattuc. Immediately after passing through the formalities of entry, he found a telephone and called Clattuc House. Today was that day of the week known as Smollen; the Clattucs would be preparing to assemble for the weekly House Supper. However, instead of his father, the synthetic voice of the Clattuc switchboard responded to Glawen. “Sir, to whom do you wish to speak?”

Odd, thought Glawen; he had directed the call to the chambers shared by himself and his father. “To Scharde Clattuc.”

“He is not now on the premises. Will there be a message?”

“No message.”

Glawen called Wook House. He was told by the majordomo that Bodwyn Wook had descended to the House Supper, and could be disturbed only in the event of the most urgent emergency.

“Please give him this message immediately. Tell him that Glawen Clattuc will come to Wook House very shortly, in fact as soon as I stop by Clattuc House and have a few words with my father.”

“I will give him your message, sir.”

Glawen went out to the cab rank in front of the terminal and approached the first in the line of waiting taxis. The driver showed no interest in his luggage, but watched with benign approval as Glawen loaded it into the bin at the back of the taxi. He was of a sort unfamiliar to Glawen: a swarthy young man with pretensions to fashion, sharp-featured, with clever eyes and an unruly bush of dark hair - evidently part of the new labor force which had been imported to replace the Yips.

Glawen seated himself in the passenger’s compartment. The driver, putting aside the journal he had been reading, looked over his shoulder with a cordial smile. “Where will it be, sir? You just name the place; we’ll get you there, in grand and glorious style: have no fear on that score! My name is Maxen.”

“Take me to Clattuc House,” said Glawen. In the old days the Yip driver, if not quite so affable, would have been on hand to load his luggage.

“Right, sir! We’re off to Clattuc House!”

Watching the familiar landmarks pass by, Glawen felt as if he had been away from home years beyond number. Everything was the same; everything was different, as if he were seeing with a fresh vision.

Maxen the driver looked over his shoulder. “Your first time here, sir? From your clothes I’d put you as a Soum, or maybe from Aspergill down the Wisp. Well, I’ll give you a hint. This is a remarkable place. I might even call it unique.”

“Yes, perhaps so.”

“Personally, I find folk a bit strange. The population is seriously inbred, that goes without saying, which seems to make for considerable, shall we say, eccentricity? That’s the general feeling.”

“I am a Clattuc of Clattuc House,” said Glawen. “I’ve been away for a period.”

“Oh-ah!” Maxen made a rueful face. Then he shrugged and chuckled. “Just so. You won’t find many changes. Nothing ever changes here; nothing ever happens, I’d like to see them put in a jolly fine dance hall, and a row of casinos along the beach. Also, why not some fried-fish shacks along Beach Road? They would not go amiss. The place needs a bit of progress.”

“It may well be.”

“You’re a Clattuc, you say? Which one of the tribe are you?”

“I am Glawen Clattuc.”

“Glad to know you! Next time I’ll recognize you from the start. Here we are at Clattuc House: too grand for the likes of me, I fear.”

Glawen alighted, removed his luggage from the bin while Maxen sat drumming his fingers on the wheel. Glawen paid the standard fee, which Maxen accepted with raised eyebrows. “And the gratuity?”

Glawen slowly turned to stare into the driver’s compartment.

“Did you help me load my luggage?”

“No, but -”

“Did you help me unload it?”

“By the same token -”

“Did you not tell me that I was inbred and eccentric, and probably weak-minded?”

“That was a joke.”

“Now can you guess the location of your gratuity?”

“Yes. Nowhere.”

“Quite right.”

“Hoity-toity!” murmured Maxen, and drove quickly away, elbows stylishly high.

Glawen entered Clattuc House and went directly up to his old chambers, at the eastern end of the second-floor gallery. He opened the door, took a step forward and stopped short.

Everything had changed. The solid old furniture had been replaced by flimsy angular constructions of metal and glass. The walls were hung with strange decorations pulsing with strident colors and astonishing subject matter. The rugs had been replaced with a garish yellow carpet; even the air smelled differently. Glawen stepped slowly forward, looking in wonder from right to left. Had his father gone mad? He entered the parlor, and here he discovered a buxom young woman standing before a tall mirror, apparently making final adjustments to her coiffure before going down to the House Supper. Looking at the reflection, Glawen recognized Drusilla, spouse to Arles and still-active member of Floreste’s Mummers.

Drusilla took note of Glawen’s reflection and looked around in mild curiosity, as if the image of a strange man in her mirror was neither a novelty nor cause for any great distress. After a moment of puzzled peering, she recognized her visitor. “Isn’t it Glawen? What are you doing here?”

“I was about to ask the same question of you.”

“I don’t see why,” said Drusilla with an arch pout.

Glawen explained patiently: “Because these are my apartments, where I live with my father. Now I find a beastly yellow carpet on the floor, a bad smell and you. I can’t imagine the explanation.”

Drusilla laughed: a rich contralto gurgle. “It’s quite simple. The rug is the color known as Dizzy-flower; the smell is no doubt Gorton. I am my own unique and delightful self. I take it you have not heard the news?”

A clammy sensation gathered along Glawen’s back. “I just got off the ship.”

“All is explained.” Drusilla put on a solemn face. “Scharde went out on a patrol mission. This was months ago. He never came back and it is certain that he is dead. I’m sure this is a great shock for you. Are you well?”

“Yes. I am well.”

“Anyway, the chambers were empty and we moved in! Now, will you please excuse me? Rest as long as you like, but I must go down to supper or face a stern dressing-down.”

“I’m leaving too,” said Glawen.

“Already I’m a bit late,” Drusilla explained. “I will thereby annoy Arles, which is the inexcusable crime around here.”

Glawen followed Drusilla downstairs to the foyer, where he halted, leaning against the balustrade. It was not possible that his father, his dear father, was dead, lying somewhere with limbs askew, eyes staring blankly at the sky, seeing nothing! Glawen’s own legs became loose; he dropped upon a bench. In all his recent thinking, he had considered nothing so farfetched as this. Even in regard to the chambers, all logic and order seemed to be discarded; Arles and Drusilla had no right occupying them under any circumstances! The chambers of course were a trivial matter, if his father was truly dead. He became aware of an approaching presence, and looked up to find Spanchetta bearing down on him. She halted and stood with one hand on her hip, the other playing with the tassel of her purple sash. As always, she had bedecked herself in striking garments, and this evening she had enhanced the effect of her costume with three white plumes waving high above her magnificent mound of curls. “Drusilla mentioned that you were here,” said Spanchetta. “It seems that she told you the news.”