Jack Vance - Gaean Reach 01 (8 page)

Elvo Glissam had arrived at the same conclusion. His face became pinched and gray; a husky sound forced its way up his throat.

Gerd Jemasze looked through the binoculars again. “They’re riding criptids.”

Schaine released her pent breath. “They’re Aos!”

Gerd Jemasze nodded. “I can make out their headdress. White plumes. They’re Ao.”

Schaine’s breath came in a rasping guttural sob. Elvo Glissam asked in a soft strained voice: “Are they hostile?”

“No,” said Kelse shortly.

The riders approached, raising a trail of dust behind them. Gerd Jemasze studied the sky through his binoculars. “There he goes!” He pointed to a minute mark among the clouds, which drifted slowly west, then picked up speed and presently disappeared.

The Aos rode in a ritual circle around the group, the soft-footed criptids
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running easily and low to the ground. They halted; an old man, somewhat shorter and more sturdy than the ordinary Uldra, dismounted and came forward. Schaine took his hand. “Kurgech! I’ve come home to Morningswake.”

Kurgech touched the top of her head, a gesture half caress, half formal salute. “It gives us pleasure to see you home, Mistress.”

Kelse said: “Uther Madduc is dead. He was shot down over the Dramalfo by a sky-shark.”

Kurgech’s gray face—he wore no azure oil—showed no twitch of emotion, and Schaine surmised that the information had already reached his mind. She asked: “Do you know who killed my father?”

“The knowledge has not come to me.”

Kelse, hobbling forward, said hoarsely: “Search for the knowledge, Kurgech. When it comes—tell me.”

Kurgech gave a curt nod which might have meant anything, then turned and signaled to four of the tribesmen, who dismounted and brought their mounts forward. Gerd Jemasze half-lifted Kelse into the saddle. Schaine told Elvo Glissam: “Just sit quietly and hang on; it doesn’t need guidance.”

She herself mounted, as did Gerd Jemasze, and the four Aos mounted double. The party rode north toward Morningswake.

Two hours later, past the Skaw and across the South Savanna, Schaine saw her home. She blinked back tears, unable to restrain her pent-up emotion any longer. She looked at Kelse, who rode beside her. His face was strained with pain and as gray as Kurgech’s; his eyes also glinted with tears. Gerd Jemasze’s dark face was unreadable; who could fathom this man? Elvo Glissam, far too polite to betray any excess of relief, rode in grave silence. Schaine watched him covertly. For all his lack of wilderness craft, he had by no means disgraced himself. Kelse clearly liked him and even Gerd Jemasze treated him with civility. When he left Uaia and returned to Olanje, he would have memories to last him a lifetime.

And there ahead: Morningswake, serene among tall frail green-gums and lordly transtellar oaks, with the brimming Chip-chap flowing to the side: the landscape of a dear reverie; a place forever precious; and tears once more flooded Schaine’s eyes.

A
cross two hundred years Morningswake had been built and rebuilt, extended, remodeled, subjected to a dozen modifications and improvements as each land-baron in turn attempted to impinge some trace of his identity upon the hereditary manse. Morningswake therefore lacked a definable style and showed a different aspect from each perspective. The roof of the central structure stood tall and steep, with a dozen high-pitched dormers, a curious little observation deck overlooking Wild Crake Pond, and along the high central ridge a line of black iron ghost-chasers in the shape of trefoils. From either flank extended a rambling two-story wing with verandahs at each level; the double colonnades were overgrown with arabella vine. The framing timbers were gadroon from Fairy Forest; the exterior clapboards were green-gum, equally durable; the interior stairs, balusters, floors, moldings and wainscotings were ironwood, pearl sachuli, verbane, Szintarre teak. The chandeliers, furniture and rugs had been imported, not from Olanje (the products of which were considered cheap and unsubstantial), but from one of the far Old Worlds.

The central structure enclosed the Great Hall which was the heart of Morningswake, where the family celebrated important occasions, entertained guests and took its evening meal in an atmosphere which Schaine remembered as portentously formal. Everyone dressed for dinner; the table was laid with fine porcelain, silver and crystal; the conversation was confined to dignified subjects and lapses of decorum were not tolerated. As a child Schaine had found these dinners tedious and she could never understand why Muffin was not allowed to dine in the Great Hall where his fancies and drolleries would certainly have enlivened matters. But Muffin was excluded; he dined alone in the kitchen.

When Schaine was eleven her mother drowned in a boating accident on Shadow Lake. Dinners in the Great Hall became subdued rather than merely decorous, and Uther Madduc inexplicably—to Schaine—turned gruff and unreasonable; frequently she had been aroused to anger and even rebellion. Not that she did not love her father; Schaine was too warm not to love everything connected with her life; still Schaine had decided that her father must be taught a lesson on how to get along with people and how not to be so arrogant with the Uldras, specifically poor Muffin.

Uther Madduc at this time had been a man of remarkable appearance, straight and tall, with thick gray hair worn in a style of elegant simplicity, clear gray eyes, features of classical regularity. He had been neither easy nor gregarious. Schaine remembered him as a man of brooding imagination and sudden impulses, simultaneously calm and restless, lacking all talent or taste for frivolity. His rare angers were cold and controlled, and diminished without perceptible aftermath; neither Schaine nor Kelse had ever incurred punishment at his hands except possibly on that last climactic night—if being sent to an expensive boarding school on Tanquil could be reckoned as punishment. Really, thought Schaine, I was an arrogant feckless self-important little wretch…And yet, and yet…

Kelse and Gerd Jemasze had flown south in the Morningswake cargo carrier to salvage the Apex and the Sturdevant. With them flew two of Gerd Jemasze’s cousins and a pair of Ao ranch-hands. An automatic cannon had been mounted on the cargo deck, to fend off sky-shark attacks. Elvo Glissam had not been invited to join the party, and he had not volunteered his services; instead he and Schaine enjoyed a leisurely breakfast under the green-gums. Elvo Glissam told Schaine: “By no means feel that you must entertain me; I know you have a hundred things on your mind.”

Schaine grinned. “I’m not worried about entertaining you. I’ve already shown you a wild erjin, as I said I’d do—and whatever the hundred affairs on my mind, I don’t intend to consider them for several days, if ever. In fact, I may very well decide to do nothing at all for the next month or two.”

“When I think back now,” said Elvo Glissam, “I can’t believe it all happened. And yet it did.”

“It’s certainly one way of getting acquainted,” said Schaine. “On a five-day march, a certain intimacy is almost unavoidable.”

“Yes. At least with you, and with Kelse. Gerd Jemasze—I don’t know. He puzzles me.”

“Me no less, and I’ve known him all my life.”

“I’d swear that he enjoys killing Uldras,” said Elvo Glissam. “It seems churlish to cavil at his motives. He brought us home alive—as you predicted.”

“He’s not bloodthirsty,” said Schaine. “He just doesn’t consider the Hunge human beings, especially when they’re attacking us.”

“He amazes me,” said Elvo Glissam thoughtfully. “Killing just isn’t one of my skills.”

“You did yourself credit,” said Schaine. “Kelse and Gerd both respect you, and I do too, so don’t go agonizing over imaginary deficiencies.”

“Oh, I’m not agonizing. Still, I can’t believe I did anything noteworthy.”

“You made no complaints. You did your share and usually more of whatever work was needful; you were always cheerful. I think that’s all very commendable.”

Elvo Glissam made a careless gesture. “Inconsequentialities. I’m back in an environment I prefer, and whatever good qualities I possess will go back into hiding.”

Schaine looked off across the South Savanna. “Do you really like it here at Morningswake?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you’re not bored?”

“Not with you here.” Elvo Glissam’s glance was unmistakably ardent.

Schaine smiled absently off across the distance. “It’s been very quiet at Morningswake since my mother died. Before, there were parties every week. We always had guests, from other domains, from Olanje, or even off-planet. Several times a year the Aos would organize a karoo. Often we’d go up to Twin Lake Lodge, or Snowflower Lodge in the Suaniset Crags. There was always excitement and fun—before my mother died. You mustn’t think we live like hermits.”

“And then?”

“Father became—well, ‘recluse’ is too strong a word. Then I went off to Tanquil, and for the last five years Morningswake has been very quiet. Kelse says Father’s closest friend has been Kurgech!”

“And now?”

“I’d like Morningswake to be a happy place again.”

“Yes. That would be pleasant. Except…” Elvo Glissam paused.

“Except what?”

“I suspect that the days of the great domains are numbered.”

Schaine grimaced. “What a dismal thought.”

Kelse and Gerd Jemasze returned to Morningswake towing the hulks of the Apex and the Sturdevant on float pods. A coffin of white glass contained the body of Uther Madduc, and Kelse carried a notebook which he had found in a locker.

Two days later a funeral took place, and Uther Madduc was buried in the family graveyard, across the Chip-chap River in the park beside the Fairy Forest. Two hundred family friends, relatives and folk from neighboring domains came to pay their last respects to Uther Madduc.

Elvo Glissam watched in fascination, marveling at the conduct of these folk so different from himself. The men, he thought, were a matter-of-fact lot, while the women lacked a certain quality he could not quite define. Frivolity? Mischief? Artfulness? Even Schaine seemed rather more direct than he might have preferred, leaving small scope for teasing or flirtation or any of the subtle games which made urban society so amusing. Worse? Better? Adaptation to the environment? Elvo Glissam only knew for certain that he found Schaine as beautiful as some magnificent natural process, like a sunrise, or a surge of breaking surf, or stars in the midnight sky.

He met dozens of folk: cousins, aunts, uncles, with their sons and daughters, and fathers and mothers, and cousins, aunts and uncles, none of whom he remembered. He saw no evidence of grief, nor even fury against the assassin; the prevailing mood seemed, rather, a grim smoulder which in Elvo Glissam’s opinion boded ill for any accommodation with the Redemptionists.

He listened to a conversation between Kelse Madduc and Lilo Stenbaren of Doradus Domain. Kelse was speaking: “—not a random act. There was planning involved, and precise calculation. First Uther Madduc and then ourselves.”

“What of the ‘wonderful joke’ of the letter? Is there some connection?”

“Impossible to say. We’ve taken the auto-pilot from the Sturdevant and we’ll trace my father’s route, and perhaps join him in his ‘wonderful joke’ yet.”

Kelse brought Elvo Glissam forward and performed an introduction. “I’m sorry to say that Elvo Glissam, without shame, admits himself a Redemptionist.”

Dm. Stenbaren laughed. “Forty years ago I remember a ‘Society for Uaian Justice’, ten years later a ‘League Against the Land-looters’, and sometime afterward a group which simply called itself ‘Apotheosis’. And now of course the Redemptionists.”

“All of which reflect a deep and lasting concern,” remarked Elvo Glissam. “‘Decency’, ‘security against pillage’, ‘justice’, ‘restoration of sequestered property’ are timeless concepts.”

“Concepts don’t bother us,” said Dm. Stenbaren. “So far as I am concerned, you may continue to harbor them.”

On the morning after the funeral a sparkling blue Hermes sky-boat, with silver flare-bars and a jaunty four-foot probe, swooped out of the sky and, ignoring the landing area to the side, came down on the promenade directly before Morningswake Manor.

Schaine, looking forth from the library, noticed the sky-boat on the neatly dressed gravel and reflected that Kelse would be irritated, especially since the occupant was Jorjol, who should have known better.

Jorjol jumped to the ground and stood a moment surveying Morningswake with the air of a person contemplating purchase. He wore a pale leather split-skirt, hide sandals, a rock-crystal sphere on his right big toe, the ‘revelry-bonnet’ of a Garganche bravo: an intricate contrivance of silver rods on which Jorjol’s white-bleached hair was tied and twined and tasseled. Fresh azure oil had been applied to his face; his skin shone as blue as the enamel of his Hermes.

Schaine shook her head in amused vexation for Jorjol’s bravado. She went out on the front piazza to meet him. He came forward, took her hands, bent forward and kissed her forehead. “I learned of your father’s death, and felt that I must come to express my sentiments.”

“Thank you, Jorjol. But yesterday was the funeral.”

“Pshaw. I would have found you occupied with dozens of the dullest people imaginable. I wished to express myself to you.”

Schaine laughed tolerantly. “Very well, express yourself.”

Jorjol cocked his head and inspected Schaine sharply. “In reference to your father, condolence is of course in order. He was a strong man, and a man to be respected—even though, as you know, I stand opposite to his views.”

Schaine nodded. “Do you know, he died before I had a chance to speak to him. I came home hoping to find him a softer easier man.”

“Softer? Easier? More reasonable? More just? Hah!” Jorjol threw his fine head back as if in defiance. “I think not. I doubt if Kelse intends to alter by so much as a whit. Where is Kelse?”

“He’s in the office, going over accounts.”

Jorjol looked up and down the quaint old façade of Morningswake. “The house is as pleasant and inviting as ever. I wonder if you know how lucky you are.”