Star Well

by Alexei Panshin

  Shops that purport to sell the curious and ancient ought of rights to be themselves curious and ancient, with dust and clutter arid secret treasure. This shop had no dust and only a little clutter, so that Villiers almost turned and went out again. Neat tables and cases and shelves, all well-lit, held little promise of the sort of discovery he had in mind.

  The approach of an elderly man from the rear of the store stayed his departure. The old man’s hair was thin, his posture was stooped, and there were liver spots on the backs of his hands.

  “May I help you, sir?” The voice was thin, but firm.

  “Mr. Eyre?” Villiers had the name from the sign discretely attached to the door.

  “No, sir. Mr. Spottiswoode, at your service. Mr. Eyre is on a purchasing excursion now, and wont be back for several months. Did you especially want to see him?” “No. In truth, I wondered if you had any books.”

  “Oh, books may be had just down the Promenade.” “I’m looking for a curious and ancient book.”

  “We do have a few. If you’ll just let me consult our records.” Mr. Spottiswoode slipped behind a counter and found an index number and pulled forth a small drawer.

  “The book is Companions of Vinland, by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I misunderstood. I thought you simply meant an ancient book. I didn’t know you meant a specific title. I never heard of this one. And that name.” Villiers spelled the name for the old man. Spottiswoode picked his way through his file, peering quite carefully at the cards. Then he stopped.

  “Why, good heavens. We once had a book by Otillie A. Liljencrantz here. Something called Randvar the Songsmith. But we sold it long ago. And, oh, my—for a substantial sum. Fourteen royals.”

  Villiers nodded. “I know that one. It’s relatively common.”

  “Common I”

  “Relatively.”

  “Do you insist on an ancient edition? I should think that you could have a facsimile made for a few thalers.” “Unfortunately, there are no facsimiles. There is no way to make a copy without an original, and in my experience there are no originals to be had. I’ve searched widely. It was published in the days when paper was still used in books, and you know the rapidness with which paper deteriorates. As nearly as I can tell, the book was never reproduced in more permanent form.” “How do you know that it exists at all?”

  “I discovered a reference to it in an ancient catalog in my school days. I don’t know that it exists now, but I do know that it once existed.”

  “Most interesting,” Mr. Spottiswoode said. “If I might make a suggestion, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Eyre makes frequent trips of purchase for this and his other shops. He is the proprietor of seven such shops as this on Yuten, Morian, and Trefflewood. If you would like to make us your agents and Mr. Eyre should happen to discover a copy of this book in the course of his travels, we would purchase it in your name.”

  “Or copy it if purchase was impossible,” said Villiers.

  “Or copy it. At a fee, of course.”

  “Of course.” Villiers produced a purse. “You will wish a deposit, I’m sure.”

  Mr. Spottiswoode accepted the deposit. They settled on a royal as a fee for searching that would cover the more than immediate future. He took the various particulars Villiers had to offer and then asked for an address.

  “Hmm. That is a problem. I travel, and the best address that I could give you has been somewhat uncertain of late.” He smiled quizzically.

  “Well, give me the best address, sir, and we’ll trust that it arrives.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to. Address it to Mr. Anthony Villiers, in the charge of the Duke of Tremont-Michaud on Charteris.”

  Mr. Spottiswoode raised his thin old eyebrows at that. That man’s reputation had apparently traveled even this distance. But he set the address down, and carefully copied the personal mail symbol that Villiers showed him.

  With his mind on books, Villiers continued down the Promenade to the shop that Mr. Spottiswoode had first indicated. There, after some judicious thought, he invested seven thalers thirty in a fascinating and profusely illustrated work entitled Comparative Biologies of Seven Sentient Races and made no comment on the high price of the reproduction.

  Instead of returning the way he had come, Villiers decided that corner cutting might prove to be quicker, as well as considerably more interesting. He didn’t properly reckon just how interesting it would prove to be.

  He continued to the end of the Promenade to the point where the walls drew together into a much narrower corridor. If he were to follow this hall for a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile, paralleling a hall he had followed any number of times on the third level above, he should find either a lift or perhaps a staircase that would bring him home again.

  As he walked, he thumbed the book, relishing the work. The book was solid and well-made, the layout attractive, the illustrations excellent three-dimensional likenesses. Although any number of supplements had been developed through the centuries, nothing had ever been invented to take the place of books. Taped records and films both required equipment to translate them into intelligible form. A book was portable and intelligible on the spot, and nothing could beat the smell of a freshly-made book, direct from the fac machine.

  He found the chapter for which he had bought the book, the fourth, the chapter on that strange race known as Trogs. As he walked, he read. It told him a number of things he hadn’t known before. Apparently different castes could be told apart by separate fur patterns. Scholars were a solid brown. Peasants were gray, often shading to olive on the head. Soldiers were black striped on a base of white. That didn’t quite fit with the knowledge of Trogs that he had and he lifted his head to think and to check his direction.

  As he looked up, he got the barest glimpse of a strangely appareled figure as it disappeared around a corner some distance ahead in the hall. It was dressed neither in clothes of fashion nor servant’s livery nor even ordinary day wear such as any common man might wear. What it most resembled was the clothing that might be worn for taking part in active field sport, a suit cut close to the body without frills, flaps, flounces, or furbelows. The color was solid black. Odd garb, admit it, for a place such as this that did not lay claim to as much as a gymnasium.

  Private gymnasium, perhaps? Did Shirabi work out in his basement to keep his figure trim? If it were a matter of figure trimming, Godwin might be a likelier candidate.

  On impulse, Villiers decided to follow. He snapped the book closed in his left hand and set out at a brisk pace for the cross-corridor into which the figure had disappeared. He reached it and turned. No one was in sight, but after the slightest of hesitations, he moved after.

  The corridor was narrow and not well-lit. Its ceiling and walls and floor were cut as smoothly as any in Star Well, but here no one had bothered to polish the rock after the cutting was done. This was some sort of minor connecting link between more major lanes. The next large corridor was not far distant and the man in black tights must have turned there.

  At the next corner, Villiers looked left, then right, and saw his man again. He was definitely familiar. He was young Norman Adams and what he was doing would definitely have to be described as sneaking. And lurking. And tippy-toeing.

  Adams paused at the door to a stair and started to look behind him. Villiers pulled his head back, and almost automatically looked behind himself to see if he were being observed. He saw nothing. After a second, he looked again and saw the stair door closing.

  Hot pursuit—after the game. When he got to the door, he opened it carefully and listened. Yes, sneaky footfalls down the stairs.

  When he was a small boy, Villiers had played this very same game in a dozen variations, and played it again at school. It was a damned shame that in grow-ing up you had to leave such pure, pristine pleasures in exchange for more serious pursuits. There is something elemental about trying to follow tippy-toeing figures
in black without being observed. So down the stairs Villiers went, doing his best to match step for step, stopping when Adams did, then starting again. It wasn’t easy, but it was fun.

  He passed several doors going down, but still the footsteps continued. Then he heard a door swing and abandoning caution he took the stairs in threes and fours.

  He reached the door he thought Adams had passed through and opened it. No one was visible and Villiers slipped through and eased it closed behind him.

  He was in a large corridor much like the one he had entered the stair from. He cast around for sign of Adams and found none. He ranged up the corridor, then down, and finally settled on the nearest side-passage. He almost found himself wishing he had a hunting gorf, or a pack of dogs, the bases of the mature man’s version of this game, but then discarded the thought as unworthy. Self-reliance was the thing. Sniffers and pointers took away the essential nature of the pursuit.

  So, book still in hand, Villiers poked around. After a time, however, it became clear that he had mislaid Adams. Perhaps he hadn’t, after all, passed through this particular door. Or perhaps he had hidden and doubled back through while Villiers was in another corridor. Or perhaps he knew his way well enough to have gone so surely to his destination that Villiers had simply gotten left behind. In any case, Adams wasn’t to be flushed again. The quarry had won free.

  It was then that Villiers discovered that not only had he lost Adams, but that he had also lost himself. In the twists and turns, in this maze that looked altogether too much the same, he had contrived to misplace the staircase.

  He felt not at all fazed by this. He was lost, but not totally lost. He could not find a specific point again, but he knew in general where he was in relation to where he wanted to be. He needed to find another staircase and follow it up to one of the public levels with which he was familiar and he would have no problem.

  He decided to continue in his present corridor, but that proved to be no proper solution. The corridor shortly debouched into a great hall. In the hall was standing a great red machine like a mechanical grasshopper, and Villiers recognized it for an automatic unloader. This must be one of the ports of Star Well.

  The hall came to an abrupt end beyond the grasshopper. Just outside, a ship would nestle in a web cradle. An extensor would reach to the ship and then doors in both ship and extensor would open. The grasshopper would move on rails to the mouth of the ship and then on rails back to the warehouses along the hall.

  In a parallel hall, another extensor would reach to the ship and passengers would debark. It was through such a mechanism that Villiers had entered Star Well. But not this port, he thought. His attention had been on other things and he didn’t remember the fine details of his entry, but though one port has much the look of another, he was certain of that much.

  It seemed to Villiers that he might find the parallel corridor and from there find his way home, but on second thought he decided to stick with the method that he was positive would bring him right. So he probed on in search of a stair.

  Some minutes later, he was striding along a corridor briskly when a voice halted him.

  “Mr. Villiers?” The voice was tentative.

  He turned. It was Hisan Bashir Shirabi himself, standing at an open door. Shirabi could never be mistaken for a gentleman no matter what his clothing. He hadn’t the poise, the bearing, the look, the accent, the manners, the totality that Godwin, for instance, was able to present. It was unlikely that Shirabi had ever made the attempt.

  He was moderately tall, and thin enough that he looked taller. He was dark and the edge of his hooked nose was sharp enough that one felt he might use it as an offensive weapon. His mustache was black and thick, but not at all ragged: it had the lush surface of a tight-piled carpet. His manner was furtive in a way that Adams, try as he might, could never match. Adams temporarily assumed his furtiveness; Shirabi’s was an ingrained part of his nature.

  His clothes were common, and in this case, more than common. They were one-wear disposables and were marred by a number of darkening spots and stains. Shirabi was wearing gloves. He stripped them off, threw them behind him, and closed the door.

  “May I help you, Mr. Villiers?” He could have been asking what Villiers was doing here, but he wouldn’t ask that directly. Not him.

  Villiers gestured politely. “Perhaps you might, Mr. Shirabi. I was seeking to take the stairs from the Promenade to the level of my quarters. I made the error of looking through this book as I walked, and quite frankly I haven’t the least idea where I am. I would be honored if you would guide me, sir.”

  “Oh, glad to, glad to,” said Shirabi. He pointed ahead and they set out. “You ought to be more careful. It’s possible to become seriously lost down here. Has it been long, sir?”

  There was a difference between a “sir” in his mouth and a “sir” in Villiers’.

  “By the clock, only a short time. Subjectively, somewhat longer. I shall have to take a lesson from this and do less reading in unfamiliar surroundings.”

  Shirabi looked at him. “You don’t seem shaken by the experience. I’ll say that.”

  “Mr. Shirabi, it is my misfortune to very seldom show my characteristically violent emotions publicly. I assure you I’ve been disturbed beyond belief.”

  Shirabi found this young man discomforting to deal with. Consistently formal, consistently polite, and all too correct about not showing his emotions. It was impossible to tell whether or not he meant anything he

  said. And sometimes it was impossible to tell what he meant by what he said.

  “By the way, sir,” Shirabi said. “Just how long is it that you’re planning to stay with us? Somehow that didn’t get noted down. We like to have that for our records. I mean, it wouldn’t do to let people run up their bills indefinitely, so to speak. Not that it’s any real worry where you’re concerned, sir.”

  “I should think not,” said Villiers, “considering that I reduced my bill by half last night.”

  “You did?”

  “In a game of raffles with Mr. Godwin. As it happens, though, I expect to leave on the ship for Luvashe tomorrow.”

  “Didn’t mean to press, sir. Just like to keep things regular.”

  Shirabi waved the way into a lift and they traveled upwards rapidly.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” said Shirabi. “You’re staying three levels above the Promenade. How did you manage to travel down?”

  Villiers laughed. “It’s plain to see that you are not a walking reader, sir.”

  “No,” said Shirabi. “I’m not.”

  3

  Of all the irrelevant qualities that men have chosen to cherish, immensity is perhaps the least worthy. The Nashuite Empire is easily the largest political entity of all the many misbegotten accidents under which men have lived.

  On the face of it, the Empire is ungovernable. Communication and travel are of equal speed; both are slow, and the Empire is vast. Common law and common language are strained by distance. How long either will survive is a question. Moulton’s classic, The Dynamic Equilibrium of Unstable Systems, which describes the happenstance by which such a precarious proposition manages to reel along and hold together by its reeling, is worth the attention of every serious student.

  And those bureaucratic boobs on Nashua actually spend the bulk of their time planning how the Empire may be extended! Every single one of them pictures himself as a spider sitting at the center of an immense web, every muscle movement having its effects at the ends of the universe. In actual fact, they tend to cancel each other out, though the idiotic little wars the Empire fights from time to time with the little confederacies, free planets, and shadows that line its borders may be laid at their door. Dumb, dumb, dumb. But they don’t know any better. How could they? They never even heard of Moulton, any of them.

  The farther one travels from Nashua, the more of a chimera the Empire becomes. There are planets where it has no place in waking thought—the word, like a ph
rase of song forgotten for twenty years, floats elusively at the edges of dreams and disappears altogether in the face of solid morning realities.

  In the Orion, bound for Star Well, two of the girls on their way to Miss McBurney’s Justly Famous Seminary were making secret plans in their cramped little cabin. The one in the lower bunk lay on her back looking upward. The one above was flopped on her elbows, thumbing a book.

  The one below was named Alice Tutuila. Young she was, and darkly pretty. Her parents had carefully explained to her the point in going to Miss McBurney’s. With schooling in being a lady, the cachet of an education on Nashua, her own attractions and her parents’ able help, she would make a good marriage and live happily ever after. She was not so very romantic a girl that she failed to see the desirability of living happily ever after. Therefore she was willing to endure Mrs. Bogue, discomfort, homesickness and the traveler’s disease with the thought that minor tribulation is always the lot of heroines.

  The girl in the upper bunk was of far less certain origin, though the documents submitted in her behalf had been sound enough to satisfy the eye of Miss McBurney, who was unfailing in the requirements she demanded of prospective pupils. These were a sound enough pedigree for the school to maintain its social standing, and money. If faced with sufficient quantities of the second requirement, she would compromise just a teensie little bit on the first—but this time she was fooled.

  But that was all right, because the girl in the upper bunk didn’t want to go to Miss McBurney’s Justly Famous Seminary and Finishing School on Nashua. She wanted all the good things that her parents wished her to postpone in favor of an education. She wanted to cheat, and con, and double-cross, and swindle, and defraud, and bamboozle, with just a bit of flimflamming on the side, after the manner of her fathers.