New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers (5 page)
Read New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers Online
Authors: Alexei Panshin
Instead, he said, “Excuse me, young lady, but I could not help overhearing. Is there any way I may be of service to you?”
“Oh, sir,” she said, “no one can help me now. I am beyond all help.” She languished delicately and with so much grace that any objective observer must needs approve, applaud and appreciate.
“Well, perhaps not beyond all help,” Villiers said. “Have you eaten dinner yet?”
“Oh, no,” she said and dabbed at her eyes. “I do not feel up to partaking of food. I am far too upset.”
“Ah, well,” said Villiers. “I had thought you might join me for dinner here in the Grand Hall. Quiet, good food, pleasant surroundings, and a sympathetic ear—in sum they might improve the look of the world no end.”
She looked shyly up at him through beautiful lashes that might have been her own, and probably were not, but that in any case suited her admirably. “Perhaps they might,” she said. “I think I might take a light dinner after all.”
Villiers escorted her within. When they were taken to their table, he saw her seated on the outside. It is difficult to say it, but the time has come to admit of a deficiency in Villiers. Taken separately, the shade of her hair, the shade of her lips, her choice of dress color, and the surroundings were all unexceptionable. In concert, they made a constant series of minor and major discords that bruised his ear. The only word for a man like that is inconstant. Though he still found her extremely beautiful, his deliberate seating of her on the outside rather than against an immediate background indicates that his devotion was less than total. One cannot like that.
His presence must have been a calming influence, however. When the meal was brought, ordered while she was still occupied in rounding off her bout of tears with neatness, she found her appetite returned and fell to heartily. In sum, she ate rather more than Villiers did. It is possible that she was blessed with a metabolism that required vast amounts of fuel and easily burned all that she provided. There are such systems, and we who eat two light meals in a day and watch every bit of it turn to unsightly fat can only envy her.
Her story, presented between and during mouthfuls, was enough to shake the steadiest heart. At times, it so affected her that against her inclinations she was brought to tears again, a helpless slave of the poignancy of her own sad experience.
Her name was Maybelle Lafferty, and she was an heiress. That was the crux: being beautiful, innocent, and an heiress. It had made her the target of fortune-hunters since she was little more than the veriest child.
Her father was Ragnar Jacob Horatio Lafferty, primary manufacturer of fardels in the Empire, and the wealthiest of the wealthy on Livermore. She was the child of his old age.
“Daddy—dear, sweet, kind, lovable Daddy. He protected me and I never knew it. A man would come to call and I would receive him and find him altogether wonderful. Daddy would run him off and I thought Daddy didn’t really love me, that he just wanted to make me unhappy, that he never wanted me to be married. I didn’t understand.” (This was one of the points where tears presented themselves and required coaxing to go away again.)
Resenting her father’s interference, she saw in him an enemy to be thwarted. Then Henry Maurice had been introduced to her at a social evening at the home of a dear schoolmate. He was a mature man, a gentleman, a man of culture and taste unlike anyone she had ever known. Fearing her father’s displeasure, they had met each other secretly, caught in the overwhelming swell of their mutual passion. Her father, discovering the meetings, had forbidden her ever again to see her Henry. At that point, Henry had proposed that they elope. She had packed her bags with the aid of her maid and set out with Henry into the unknown.
“Is he the gentleman with whom you breakfasted this morning?”
“Yes, that’s him. Doesn’t he look evil and repulsive?”
Villiers reserved comment.
Henry Maurice, it seemed, had presumed upon her innocence, and only now had she learned the truth. He was every bit as bad as her father had said. He was using her, coldly and calculatedly, as a steppingstone to her father’s fortune.
She elaborately produced a delicately pink handkerchief and blew her nose. It seemed to be a method of forestalling tears.
Plaintively, she said, “But Henry doesn’t know Daddy. Daddy will never give him a minim, no matter what. Daddy loves me and he would pay to have me back, but Henry will never persuade Daddy to give
him
anything.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Oh, but it’s much worse. Henry is a cruel, brutal man. When he discovers his evil plotting is of no use, what will become of me? I’m afraid that Henry will abandon me, friendless and without a penny, in some gutter a hundred light-years from home and anyone I know. From my daddy. Or worse. If only I had someone to depend upon.”
Villiers opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say a word, the girl gave a startled “Oh.” At the corner of their table was the man who had enjoyed Miss Lafferty’s breakfast company. He was dark and saturnine, at close range much more like the monster she claimed him to be than the god who had first laid claim to her affections. But then, not really so much like a monster, either. Dark, pudgy, glum, conservative, and angry.
“Servant, sir,” he said shortly to Villiers and immediately ignored him in favor of the girl.
Villiers half-rose. “Equally yours,” he said.
“Miss Lafferty, I desire a word with you in private,” Henry Maurice said, and seized her firmly by the wrist.
“Oh, no, Henry.”
“If you could postpone the conversation for a few moments, we could finish our sweet,” Villiers said. “It would be a shame to leave half of it untouched.”
Henry Maurice shot the least of looks at him, and then said, “Come. Come now. I insist. Excuse us, please.” The beautiful Miss Lafferty’s resistance failed her and she left her chair murmuring, “Yes, Henry,” her eyes downcast. But behind Henry’s back she lifted her lashes and gave Villiers a penetrating glance that set a capstone in place.
“Servant,” said Henry Maurice, and the two took their leave. He still held her by the wrist. They went then from the room, she hanging back the least bit, but not so obviously as to create open scandal or provide cause for talk. It was apparent that the young lady was well-schooled.
Villiers looked after them until their egression was complete and then turned his full attention back to his dessert.
* * *
The door to Villiers’ room slid silently open in its usual well-bred fashion. The doors to less expensive rooms were altogether a coarser lot, not nearly so prettily behaved or confidently quiet. This was not altogether the accident of chance it might appear to be, nor yet the acknowledgment of that generally recognized more sensitive hearing for which the rich are noted. It was, in fact, token of the larger number of people who had need to enter here without being observed.
Derek Godwin stepped confidently into the empty quarters. His confidence first was due to the black glasses that enabled him to see in the dark. He was not likely to accidentally bark his shins. His confidence was also due to his firm knowledge of his own abilities. He would be able to locate anything hidden, open anything closed, and replace anything taken without leaving a trace of himself. His confidence, finally, was due to the advance signals he would receive if Villiers were to approach. Another man would have been whistling, but this Godwin did not do, since it did not fit the image he had of himself.
Neither his first name nor his last name were his own. Or, rather, they were his own, but by adoption.
Taken together, they epitomized to him all that he most wanted to be. There were times when he would go through a day bemused by the two words. Sounded in a multitude of accents, hummed in a myriad voices, they played merry maytag through the meadows of his mind. He was glad that he
was
Derek Godwin.
Oh, the ways we pick to misguide ourselves! Instead of knowing the gentry for the implacable enemies they were and applying his considerable abilities to their overthrow, he did his best to become one of them and rejoiced in his ability to pass in their company. Even the desire of a puppy for the name of his tailor secretly pleased him. Such self-confusions are the chief reason that our world is not a far more golden place than it presently is.
So he set to work in Villiers’ rooms, applying skills practiced by men since the first rabbit-skin valise. It is, after all, in the nature of openable objects that they be opened. It would violate the essence of their beings if they were not.
Wholeness
(remember wholeness?), in the fullness of time producing valises, satchels, and pokes, must also inevitably produce Godwins to open them on the sly. Everything is implicit in anything: a cell implies a body, a grain of sand implies sand castles and picnic lunches, and a satchel implies Godwin, practicing his industry.
* * *
Villiers received a note. He left the theater where he had spent two hours watching mediocre provincial entertainment. He himself had been watched by two different men representing separate interests. One had been bored by the show and watched him well. The other, simpler soul, had enjoyed himself and forgotten for entire minutes at a time to observe Villiers. It didn’t matter, however. He was still in plain view at the end of the performance.
A boy in Star Well livery came hurrying up to him as he stood outside, and handed him a note.
“For you, sir.”
He accepted the coin that Villiers gave him and went off, where he was immediately intercepted by the second of the two men. When informed what the note contained, the man said, “Well, what do you know,” and let the boy continue about his business.
The note said this:
You must see now the depth of my despair. Oh, please say you will aid me in this, my time of trouble. Come secretly to my room and do not let Henry see you. He is already jealous. From one who reckons you her only friend: Maybelle Lafferty (Miss)
.
* * *
Hisan Bashir Shirabi entered his hobby room. In company with him was his most recent mistress, one of the contract laborers from Herrendam. By most standards, she was not attractive, though Shirabi professed to find her so.
His name was not his own, either, but neither yet so far from what it once had been that the relationship would not be apparent. Euphony and ambition were not his reasons for change. A temporary misunderstanding had led him to take the step in the days of his youth, and though the need had long passed, he yet retained his more recent name lest people be confused by further change.
By many standards, he was a deeply inadequate man. He chose unattractive women because he did not dare aspire to their more beautiful sisters. A simple lack of self-confidence.
He was totally incapable under most circumstances of asserting himself in the face of the well-born, a legacy of his upbringing that he was well aware of, fiercely resented, and was powerless to amend. Exceptions to this had occurred twice under conditions both bizarre and deeply humiliating to certain well-bred personages. Shirabi cherished the memories, though with certain reservations.
If Godwin was unhappy being less than equal to such a boorish, left-handed man, Shirabi was equally unhappy in the face of Godwin’s pretensions. If Godwin were to make of himself what he wished to, then Shirabi could no longer effectively be his superior. The result was a continuing struggle.
This was not an accident. Though by many standards Shirabi was inadequate, nonetheless he was more than able and more than a little ruthless in dealing with people and things on his own level.
It was with all deliberate consideration that Zvegintsov had assigned Shirabi to head operations in the same place where Godwin had previously been stationed.
“Tension is the secret,” Zvegintsov used to say. “Put two able and incompatible men together and you can be sure you will see every penny that is rightfully yours.”
The system does have its merits, but the two men must be chosen carefully. If the incompatibility is too great, unpleasant things occur. The two set their primary attention to fighting between themselves instead of watching for the Navy and making illegal gravy, like sensible men.
Shirabi had brought the girl here to his hobby room for a reason of the greatest sensitivity. He was totally unable to make love anywhere else. Consequently, placed discretely in the midst of his tanks and flowering friends, he had a bed. It was a nice bed.
The girl entered the room first. She gasped and said, “What happened here?”
Shirabi pushed past her and then stopped. His eyes widened. Abruptly, he seized the front of his purple robe (the decor of the Grand Hall had been his choice) and tore it savagely. This was not an expression of sexual passion overwhelming him in these safe and familiar surroundings. It was an outlet for sudden stress and sorrow. He rent his garments, he slammed one fist in another, his eyes filled with tears.
“But what happened?” the girl asked.
He turned, seized her by the arm and thrust her from the room. She protested crudely at this unwarranted treatment, but he was not listening. He closed the door behind her. In his mind, she had permanently been dismissed from his favor. Anyone who reacted so abominably in the face of crisis was clearly unworthy.
Through imperfect vision he looked at the empty tanks, at the greenery strewn about the floor, at the purple flower that had been laid with care on a pillow that was no longer nestled in the heart of a leafy glade. Coldly executed murder must be answered in its own terms, and as he sobbed, resolution formed in his heart.
* * *
The door of Maybelle Lafferty’s room was flung wide and Henry Maurice entered with a look on his face that bespoke anger and frustration. Startled, Maybelle sat upright in bed and clutched at the bedclothes.
“All right,” said Maurice. “Where is he?”
4
Y
OU CAN CALL THE EMPIRE A FICTION IF YOU LIKE.
In many places, it merely has power enough to collect sufficient taxes to finance its own self-belief.
The Navy is the chief executive instrument of the Empire. The Navy fights wars, suppresses insurrections, patrols shipping lanes, enforces law, and investigates the unusual, as well as providing an added touch of color at celebrations of the Emperor’s birthday.
On the planet of Nashua, a Naval officer is a self-conscious member of an incredible power structure. He may be a drone, a time-server. He may be both ignorant and arrogant. He may be ready to pick a quarrel. He may be conscious of his prerogatives and care nothing for his duty.
However, the farther that you travel from Nashua, the more responsible an officer is likely to be. The power of the Navy, while great, is more often a threat than an actuality. It has to be used with restraint, with an intelligent care that looks to results, that aims for stability, that knows the real world to be something other than the fantasies of men who have spent forty years in an office on Nashua. An officer may still be arrogant and unpleasant, but his company is mainly that of his fellows and they will see to it that he walks a careful line in public.
And if you are looking for a substantial friend, a man to rely upon in all sorts of weather, a man who incorporates all the traditional virtues of the ancients: who is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent—in short, a total swell fellow—take up with a Navy man on detached duty. The farther out you are, the better a friend you will have.
* * *
The Bolaire Line ship
Orion
, bound for Luvashe, was scheduled to arrive at Star Well within the hour. Departing travelers would not be allowed to take possession of their new and narrow quarters until shortly before the ship was to leave, but still guests at Star Well assembled in number in the waiting room at Landing Port Two. The reasons were varied: some were meeting arrivals, some were interested in the news the ship would bring from Morian and its octant of the Empire, and still others enjoyed the displays of landing that could be seen on screens in the waiting room.
Villiers, who had reason to meet the ship, as well as to leave on it, started with time to spare. It was well that he did, because he took note of his surroundings as he came near the waiting room and found them unfamiliar. It was not the unfamiliarity in itself that gave him pause—he managed to find his way well enough—but that this was not the port through which he had come on landing, nor yet the port he had chanced upon in the course of his adventure the morning previous. He stopped, intrigued by a daisychain of thought. He consulted the time and then retraced his steps. Some minutes later, he arrived on the Promenade. He went to the shop at which he had bought his book comparing the various sentient races. The woman he had previously dealt with was there and she recognized him.
“Oh, hello, sir,” she said. “And what is it today?”
“Have you any guides to Star Well?”
She reached beneath the counter and produced a map. These were on display throughout most of Star Well, and showed the newcomer how to find his way about. They were extremely limited and only showed the most public of public places.
“No, thank you,” said Villiers. “I had in mind something with facts, figures, and history.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s a matter of consulting our friend here. If we do, he’ll know.” She patted the book machine fondly.
She consulted an index and then tapped out a code order to the machine. It whirred very briefly, and then beeped in empty tones.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We just don’t seem to have anything.”
Villiers said, “I cannot swear to it, but I seem to remember that Wu and Fabricant had an entry on Star Well.”
“Oh, we don’t carry Wu and Fabricant. I know that. They said we were extremely dull.”
“How nearsighted of them,” said Villiers.
He was still being watched, by the way. Within moments after he left, the woman received a call of inquiry.
When Villiers arrived in the waiting room, among the other persons present was Norman Adams. Adams very clearly saw him enter, and just as clearly pretended not to notice. He turned his back and lacking anything else under which to hide himself, he covered himself in thought. He looked up only after Villiers had been standing in front of him for a full minute and seemed prepared to stand there forever.
“Mr. Adams.”
“Mr. Villiers.”
Villiers seated himself next to Adams and stretched his legs out comfortably.
“A fine day to meet a ship, is it not?”
“Oh, to be sure.”
“Fine weather.”
“I suppose.”
“Mr. Adams, I flatter myself—may I flatter myself?—that I have some knowledge of the standard passes of social dealing. When you wish to insult a man—the Cut Direct. When you wish to snub a man—the Cut Indirect. The Studied Insult, the Pertinent Reflection—to be overheard, of course—even the smiles available for twelve separate effects. It seems to me that they taught me that. I must admit, however, that yesterday and today you have shown me a mode I never realized existed before.”
“Sir!”
“Yes?” said Villiers, but Adams was unable to continue, being caught up in a conflict of speech, so Villiers proceeded: “I thought perhaps you might be so good as to help me expand my repertoire. How do you call this thing that you do?”
“This is intolerable!” Adams burst out.
“I agree.”
Adams mustered himself. “If you will name a place of meeting . . .”
“A duel?” Villiers laughed freely. “You mistake me, and I trust that I mistake you. I have no desire to do you harm—perhaps I have a more bloodthirsty manner of speech than I realize. I shall have to amend that.
“I meant to say merely that until yesterday we had been on good terms, and since then apparently not. I try to add my enemies by design rather than accident. Were we not on good terms?”
“I thought so,” Adams said reluctantly.
“Well?”
Adams sat silent under the question. Finally, nervously, he asked, “Did you follow me here today?”
“No. I’m meeting someone.”
“Did you follow me yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Well, why did you follow me?” The question was a passionate one.
“It was curiosity,” Villiers said. “Why do you object so strongly to being followed?”
Adams’ reaction was most amazing. He said nothing for a long moment, slowly turning red, particularly about the ears. It was as though he had expected anything from Villiers except a calm admission and an equally calm question. He never answered it. Instead, he rose and hastily left the room. And he did not return.
* * *
The quarters of Miss Maybelle Lafferty were good, though hardly approaching the scale of Villiers’. Still, they were extensive enough to provide more than one ready hiding place. An agile man such as Villiers might have found as many as six.
The sound of a hand at the door caught them unready. Expectation had withered and left them in such a state that they merely waited. Waiting had become their focus and they were not prepared for expectation fulfilled. Consequently they were flustered.
“Hide,” hissed Maybelle. She cleared her throat and said, “Just a moment, please.”
Henry Maurice, not nearly so agile as Villiers, and possibly lacking Villiers’ self-possession, took advantage of the nearest hiding place. He went to his knees and rolled under the bed, thereby doing irreparable damage to the delicate shaping of his costume. Genteel dress was designed, if anything, to show that its wearer was not required to do gross, uncultivated things such as rolling under beds. Maurice took no time to think of the tactical disadvantages in emerging from underneath a bed to display his outrage. Doing his best to recapture the proper spirit for the occasion, he honed his lines and whetted his temper. By the time Maybelle reached the door, he was barely containing himself.
“Yes?” she said, opening it.
It was one of the uniformed, red-cheeked girls. “Oh, I’m sorry. I meant to clean. I can come later.”
“That will be fine.”
“By the way, I thought I heard something fall.”
“It was nothing,” Maybelle said, and smiled. She closed the door and sat primly as Henry extricated himself.
“Let’s face it. He just isn’t going to come. Maybe he didn’t get the message,” she said.
Henry wasn’t about to waste that lovely anger. “He did get the message. I saw him open it. I saw him read it. It must be your fault! How did you botch it?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like girls. Maybe you should have sent him the note.”
“That’s funny, but it’s not constructive. He liked you well enough. He was looking you over at breakfast. He invited you to dinner. He was perfect: rich, well-mannered, young enough to be fooled, mild enough not to be interested in a duel. Just the sort who would pay. Just the sort who wouldn’t enjoy scandal. Now what did you do wrong?”
“Henry, I swear I did just as you said. I told him the story. I told it the way we practiced. He just didn’t come.”
Henry sighed and sat down on the bed. “No, he didn’t. You’re right about that. Goodness knows, you can’t act, but I thought we’d catch that pigeon, at least.”
“Henry,”
she said.
“Oh, sorry. I know you did your best.”
“There’s always the boy. The big clumsy one.”
“Adams? I misdoubt he has much money to spare.”
“He must have some. He gambles. And I
know
I could fool him. Oh, say I can!”
Henry looked down at his askew clothing. “Well, if we’re ever to pay our bills here and leave, we have to catch some coney. Sooner or later, God willing, there’ll be somebody you can fool.”
* * *
Within the landed
Orion
, the passengers assembled outside a closed bulkhead. Torve the Trog and Augustus Srb were at the head of the line. Mrs. Bogue and her five charges were in the middle of the line.
Alice Tutuila, who was not finding space travel as romantic as she had anticipated, craned to see
something
. She was more than a little tired of corridors, bulkheads, and tiny rooms. Since she had been traveling, she had yet to see stars, ships moving against the universal night, pirates, gallant gentlemen of title who managed rescues without soil, stain, or tying their hair in place, or any of the other staples of space she had reason to expect. And Mrs. Bogue, like a dog who knows the mind of a sheep, had kept her neatly herded away from the veriest hint of any of these delightful things.
Ships? “No gawking, girls.” Gentlemen? “Come along. We haven’t any time to spare.” Even fat priests and odd foreign creatures: “That
isn’t
the sort of thing young ladies are interested in.”
It was romantic of her to wish for pirates. There have been times when such a wish would have been not only romantic, but beyond the bounds of possibility. But there are seasons of the year, and seasons . . . Which is to say that pirates would not have been completely out of the question. In 1460, the year previous, a group of disgruntled womanless miners, tired of their own company, had stopped a load of Holy Prostitutes on their way to the Temples of Gosh on Braunfels. After subsequent negotiation, the situation was regularized by the establishment of a local Temple of Gosh—and, in fact, this was the beginning of the rapid expansion of that formerly limited religion as the Priests of Gosh realized their strength of appeal—but the original action was clearly piracy.
And all that Alice could see now by straining was the line of people in front of her and a closed metal door painted a sickly yellow-cream. It was a far cry from pirates.
“Behave yourself, Alice,” Mrs. Bogue said sharply, and accompanied the command with an equally sharp swat.
Then the door swung open. The line moved forward. On the other side of the door was a square corridor temporarily bonded to the
Orion
. They passed quickly through that and found themselves in a large, well-lit chamber. Seated here, behind a counter, was the Empire’s representative in Star Well.
Empire’s Representative was an old man named Phibbs. His face was smooth except for saggy pouches under each eye, but his hair was white at the roots. He lacked energy, ambition, and intelligence, and he didn’t know his rule book very well. What he did know, or thought he knew, however, he applied with gleeful zeal. He knew nothing of exception or tolerance and if he had, it would have made no difference—he found too much pleasure in the trouble he could cause people by the even-handed application of rules he had no part in formulating and hence could not be held responsible for.
Alice’s friend Louisa, standing next to her, gave her a surreptitious poke. “Be careful now,” she whispered. “If you get Mrs. Bogue mad, we’ll never see anything here.”
Alice nodded. Ahead she could see the fat priest and the Trog talking to the old man in uniform behind the counter. Beyond them was a waiting room where a number of people were standing. Their own line progressed not at all, the priest and the Trog continuing to talk to the old man. Then, at last, the priest was waved through and the Trog stepped back out of the line and just stood there waiting.
They moved forward, then. When they reached the counter, Mrs. Bogue placed the six sets of papers in front of Phibbs and spread them out.
“There you are,” she said. She did not enjoy suffering nonsense and prided herself on always having her affairs under proper control, even down to something like having papers ready for inspection.
She pointed at the papers and tapped the girls on the head, one by one. “Jane, Fiona, Alice, Louisa, and Orithyia.”
Phibbs was not feeling cooperative, however. The grim old lady was far too ready to direct his job for his liking. So he took his time over the papers, looking at them one at a time, looking up at the girls they supposedly matched, and then back down again. One set, in actual fact, was a forgery, but he would never have been able to determine which—it had passed the inspection of sharper, abler men, and would again. But he took his simple, even time about looking them over.
