The Dogtown Tourist Agency

by Vance, Jack

  Sir Estevan gave a stony shrug. “I don’t care to participate in any such demonstration. The Liss and the Olefract are the aggrieved parties. Perform your demonstrations before them.”

  “In that case,” cried Dirby, “why did you send Baw to arrest me?”

  “Captain Baw undertook the arrest on his own initiative.”

  “As I see the situation,” said Hetzel, “the Liss and the Olefract Triarchs were killed because they were about to hear a complaint against Istagam, which they would have been only too glad to act upon. Given the circumstances of Gidion Dirby’s detention and your unwillingness to investigate this matter, I believe that Gidion Dirby has grounds for legal action. Unless you cooperate now, it will appear that you are attempting to cover up for Istagam, presumably because you are profiting from the operation.”

  “Totally false,” said Sir Estevan. “As I may have remarked to you, Istagam is an altruistic enterprise organized by Vv. Byrrhis. The Gomaz work productively instead of killing each other; they learn the rudiments of civilized knowledge in return. Istagam profits have built the magnificent tourist-agency inns. Neither I nor Vv. Byrrhis have cause for shame.”

  Dirby said brassily, “Don’t be too sure of that. Who turned the chamber pot over my head? Do you think I’ve forgotten? Not much! Give me the opportunity, and I’ll do the same for you.”

  Sir Estevan gave a snort of chilly humor. “I suggest that you keep a civil tongue in your head. You’re now in the jurisdiction of the Triarchy; I can easily turn you over to the Liss and the Olefract, and you can vent your impudence upon them.”

  “You would certainly be exceeding your authority,” said Hetzel. “Either you, as the Gaean Triarch, are aggrieved, or you are not aggrieved. You can’t have it both ways. If you are not aggrieved, you have no right to inconvenience Vv. Dirby.”

  “If nothing else,” said Sir Estevan, “the Gaeans have suffered embarrassment and ruinous loss of face. At the minimum, I am justified in believing that Dirby attempted murder upon me.”

  “This is sheer speculation.”

  “Captain Baw was witness to the circumstance.”

  “Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Captain Baw shot the Triarchs himself. He would then be certain to blame the crime upon Gidion Dirby; do you agree?”

  “Ridiculous,” said Sir Estevan. “Why should Baw kill the Triarchs?”

  “The same question applies to Dirby. Why should he kill the Triarchs?”

  “I couldn’t say. Perhaps he is deranged.”

  “So you want to arrest a crazy man and turn him over to the Liss and the Olefract?”

  Sir Estevan showed signs of boredom. “Criminality is a kind of insanity; criminals are punished under Gaean law; hence, under Gaean law, insane persons suffer punishment. How crazy is Dirby? I have no idea. He looks sane enough now.”

  “So does Captain Baw. So do you. No doubt the Ubaikh appears sane.”

  “Exactly what are you suggesting?” demanded Sir Estevan.

  “I suggest that you look before you leap. Have you spoken to Vv. Dirby; have you heard his account?”

  “No; it is really irrelevant. The facts are as they are.”

  “Vv. Dirby,” said Hetzel, “be good enough to repeat to Sir Estevan what you told me.”

  Dirby gave his head a mulish shake. “Let him put me under arrest; I’ll tell my tale in court, and let him squirm.”

  “If you don’t tell him,” said Hetzel, “I will.”

  “Do as you like; it’s the same to me.”

  Hetzel said, “As accurately as I can recall, these are the circumstances.” He presented a brief outline of Dirby’s experiences. “It is clear that Vv. Dirby is a victim rather than a criminal. The question becomes: who in actual fact is the assassin? We can resolve the mystery in ten minutes, and it seems important to do so.”

  “Important to whom?” inquired Sir Estevan in a cool voice. “As I say, the grievance is not mine.”

  “The grievance is mine!” snarled Dirby. “For all I know, you’re the murderer yourself. I’ll get the Gaean marshal in and turn all the facts over to him!”

  Sir Estevan threw up his arms in a fatalistic gesture. “Very well, let’s make an end to it.” He stepped into the lobby and signaled Captain Baw, who stood in glowering colloquy with Vvs. Felius. All marched into the Chamber of Triarchs. Sir Estevan went to the chair of the Gaean Triarch. “Captain Baw, please dispose these people as before.”

  “Very well. The Ubaikh stood here. Over here…come stand here, there’s a good lad! I’d just come in through the side door with Dirby. He was about here, and I’d started across the room. I was about here when I heard the sound of shots.” He addressed Sir Estevan. “Would this accord with your recollection, sir?”

  “Yes.” Sir Estevan seemed limp and dispirited. “Close enough.”

  “Close enough,” said Dirby.

  Hetzel spoke to the Ubaikh through the translator. “This is approximately the state of affairs when the shots were fired. Do you agree?”

  The printout read: “I agree.”

  “Very well, then—who fired the shots?”

  Hetzel read the printout. “He says he doesn’t know.”

  “‘He doesn’t know’! I thought you said that he would testify!”

  Hetzel spoke to the Ubaikh. “Explain your remark, if you will. You heard the shots; you saw where they came from—but you can’t specify the individual who fired them?”

  “The shots came from here.” The Ubaikh indicated the door leading into Sir Estevan’s private office. “The door opened; the shots were fired; the door was shut. I have told you what I know, and I will now return to the Ubaikh domain.” He stalked from the chamber.

  Dirby uttered a shout of vindictive glee. He took a step toward Captain Baw, but Hetzel interposed himself. “You are now exculpated,” said Hetzel. “You are free to come and go. Why not return to Thrope and rest for a period? You have had a harrowing experience.”

  Dirby grinned. “Quite correct, and no doubt I’ll do just that.” He darted a final glance toward Sir Estevan, then turned on his heel and left the chamber.

  “And now—from sheer curiosity—who was in your office?”

  “When I left, the office was empty.”

  “In that case, Zaressa Lurling would seem to be the guilty individual.”

  “Impossible! Can you imagine her aiming and firing a gun?”

  Hetzel shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. You had no inkling of this?”

  Sir Estevan made no response. He looked toward his office. “I suppose now we must pursue the matter to its bitter limit.” He went to the door, thrust it aside. Zaressa Lurling was nowhere to be seen. Vvs. Felius sat at the reception desk. “Zaressa became ill,” said Vvs. Felius. “She asked me to take her place and went home.”

  Sir Estevan stood stiff and rigid. Hetzel asked, “Vvs. Felius, do you recall the events just prior to the assassination?”

  “I certainly do.”

  “Did Vv. Byrrhis, or anyone else, go into Sir Estevan’s office?”

  “Absolutely not. No one came but yourself and that Dirby fellow.”

  “Thank you. I don’t think you need remain any longer.”

  Vvs. Felius gave Hetzel a glare and looked at Sir Estevan. “Do you need me, Sir Estevan?”

  “No, thank you, Vvs. Felius. You may go.”

  Vvs. Felius haughtily left the room. Sir Estevan sat heavily down in a chair.

  “So, then…Zaressa either fired the shots, or else she admitted the assassin through your private entrance. As to her motives we can only speculate. In any event, she shares the guilt of the murderer, either Wuldfache or Byrrhis. His identity is irrelevant; both are dead. I suspect Wuldfache, and I assume that Zaressa was enamored of him.”

  “Yes,” groaned Sir Estevan. “No doubt…I admit that I suspected her guilt…and I did not care to learn the truth.”

  “You apparently take a more than casual interest in Zaressa Lurling.”r />
  “This is nothing which concerns you.”

  “As you say, the matter is irrelevant. Byrrhis was the architect of the affair. He understood the enormous profits latent in Istagam, even over a relatively short period. He also knew that opposition was sure to materialize from you, from the Liss and Olefract Triarchs, or from all three. He prepared to neutralize the opposition, and brought Dirby to Maz. In order for Dirby to appear a convincing assassin, he must be supplied with motivation, hence his processing, which Byrrhis no doubt found amusing. He was aided by Casimir Wuldfache, whose adventures are a saga in themselves.

  “At the old Kanitze castle, Dirby was conditioned, and his mind loaded with a whole catalog of insane events. But Dirby himself was not insane and could emphatically affirm the reality of these events. The more he asserted, the more insane he would seem; any alienist would declare him hyperparanoid. Even better, his ravings would be corroborated by mind search, which, after all, gauges only subjective authenticity.

  “So, then: Byrrhis has contrived a subtle, complex but flexible plan. If and when complaints are made in regard to Istagam, the Liss and Olefract Triarchs will be killed, and Istagam is given another year, perhaps longer; and Sir Estevan becomes a person who by a hair’s breadth has escaped assassination at the hands of a paranoid wanderer.

  “But what of Sir Estevan? He must also be induced to ignore the activities of Istagam. Sir Estevan is a proud and obstinate man. How can he be so persuaded? He must be subjected to blackmail. Conditions have now been created whereby Sir Estevan can convincingly appear to be nefarious, base, and foolish. If he jibs or balks, Byrrhis, safely in Dogtown or off-planet, makes public the circumstances surrounding the assassinations and claims Sir Estevan to be his collaborator. Dirby’s hallucinations are certified as reality. You, Sir Estevan, have performed these absurd tricks, you have turned the chamber pot over Dirby’s head, and you become a figure of contempt and ridicule across the Gaean Reach; your dignity and reputation are lost forever. Hence, you are in no position to thwart Vv. Byrrhis’ schemes.”

  For a moment Sir Estevan’s face remained still—a mask, classically handsome, the golden hair curling down upon his ears, the chin strong and set. What transpired behind the mask, Hetzel could only guess. Sir Estevan might be possessed of a honed and intricate intelligence, or he might be blank and dull.

  “Remarkable,” said Sir Estevan coldly. “But I am not so concerned with public ‘contempt and ridicule’ as you suppose. Secondly, the Kzyk have lost their zest for knowledge. They are not interested in orthography and double-entry bookkeeping; they want guns and pulsors and machinery to level their enemies’ castles, which Byrrhis, for all his cleverness, dared not supply.”

  “Byrrhis was ready to supply a commodity equally valuable,” said Hetzel. “Virility hormone—chir. He brought down a cargo of chemical, which now is stored in Kanitze castle, unless I am much mistaken. The Kzyk would work without cessation for this material; chir is the stuff they value most. Indeed, Byrrhis imported such a remarkable quantity of the material, I suspect that he planned to establish a whole chain of Istagams across the various continents. A year or two of such enterprise, and Vv. Byrrhis could retire a very wealthy man indeed.”

  Sir Estevan turned away. “I don’t care to hear any more.”

  “From sheer curiosity—what will you do with Zaressa Lurling?”

  “I will ask her to leave Maz on the next ship and never return. The crime was not committed against a Gaean, and I can do no more, even if I wanted to do so.”

  Chapter XIV

  Hetzel returned across the glimmering gray plaza to the Beyranion Hotel. He had achieved his goals; he had earned an adequate fee, but the circumstances provided him no great satisfaction. For the hundredth time he wondered about the quality of his profession. Were greed, hate, lust, and cruelty to disappear, there would be little work for effectuators…Maz was by no means a cheerful world. He would be relieved to see it dwindle astern.

  In the Beyranion dining room he took an early lunch, then went to his rooms and telephoned the spaceport. The Xanthine, a packet of the Argo Navis Line, departed Axistil on the morrow; Hetzel made reservations for passage.

  He poured himself a goblet of Baltranck cordial, added a splash of soda. Dirby, so he noted, had made valiant inroads upon the flask during his sojourn. Well, why not? A surly fellow, Gidion Dirby, who had learned neither wisdom nor tolerance nor generosity from his vicissitudes: the usual order of things. Tragedy was not necessarily ennobling; travail weakened the soul more often than it gave strength. On the whole, Dirby might be considered an average human being. Hetzel decided that he bore Dirby no ill will. Casimir Wuldfache/Byrrhis? Hetzel felt emotion neither one way nor the other. His mood, he thought, was extraordinarily flat. Since the confrontation at the Triskelion he had done nothing but brood. The explanation, of course, was obvious: fatigue and numbness after the events at Black Cliff Inn, in the Shimkish Mountains, on the Steppe of Long Bones. As he sat sipping the cordial, the circumstances seemed fragile and unreal, dreams.

  A chime at the door announced a visitor. Hetzel slid to the sideboard, took up his weapon, and looked around at the windows. Visits in the aftermath of cases often presaged dire happenings. He went sidling and wary to the door, touched the viewplate, to reveal the face of Sir Estevan Tristo.

  Hetzel slid the door aside. Sir Estevan came slowly into the room. He presented, thought Hetzel, a most untypical and dispirited appearance. His skin showed the color of putty; his yellow hair seemed wilted. Without waiting for an invitation, Sir Estevan lowered himself into a chair. Hetzel poured a second goblet of Baltranck and soda and handed it to Sir Estevan.

  “Thank you.” Sir Estevan swirled the liquid around the glass and stared down into the cusps of reflected light. He looked up at Hetzel. “You wonder why I am here.”

  “Not at all. You want to talk to me.”

  Sir Estevan showed a wan smile and tasted the cordial. “Quite true. As you divined, I took an extraordinary interest in Zaressa, and now I find myself in a rather maudlin state. Life now seems very grim, very grim indeed.”

  “I can appreciate this,” said Hetzel. “Zaressa was a most charming creature.”

  Sir Estevan set the goblet upon the table. “Byrrhis encountered her at Twisselbane on Tamar, apparently under rather sordid circumstances. He sent her out here and recommended that I give her a job. I became enamored; I transferred Vvs. Felius to the reception desk and installed Zaressa as my secretary, and she quickly made herself indispensable. Meanwhile, of course, she was plotting with the unspeakable Byrrhis.” Sir Estevan picked up the goblet and drank. “But now, poor thing, I forgive her everything; she is paying very dearly for her offense.”

  “Indeed? I thought you had merely instructed her to leave Maz.”

  “So I did; this was her intention. I mentioned to you that Liss and Olefract both are able to eavesdrop on my offices. They knew as soon as we that Zaressa was involved in the assassinations. Zaressa went to her rooms to pack. She was accosted by two men, taken to a vehicle, and delivered to the Liss. Her roommate communicated with me; I made an urgent protest, but to no avail. They sent her away in a Liss ship. She’ll never see another human being in whatever span of life remains to her.”

  Hetzel made a small grimace. Both men sat quiet, watching colors shift and change in their goblets.

  Sir Estevan had departed. Hetzel sat for a period in silent reflection. Then he telephoned the Roseland Residence. Janika was not in her rooms. Hetzel wondered as to where she might be.

  Five minutes later she rang the chime at his door. Hetzel let her in. Her eyes were red, her face was swollen with tears. “Have you heard what happened to Zaressa?”

  Hetzel put his arm around her shoulder and stroked her hair. “Sir Estevan told me.”

  “I want to leave Maz; I never want to come back.”

  “There’s a packet leaving tomorrow. I reserved passage for you.”

  “Thank you. Where doe
s it take us?”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know. Anywhere.”

  “That can easily be arranged.” Hetzel lifted the flask which once had contained Baltranck and which now was dry. “Do you care for an aperitif? We can sit out in the garden and have the waiter bring us something refreshing.”

  “That sounds pleasant. Let me go wash my face. I’m sure I look ridiculous. But when I think of Zaressa, I go to pieces.”

  They sat at a table where they could watch the glittering flakelet of a sun drift down the sky. Across the plaza the Triskelion loomed through the murk. “This is a terrible world,” said Janika. “I’ll never forget it; I’ll never be gay and careless again. Do you know, it might as easily have been me as Zaressa; I might easily have done just what she did. How would she know that Casimir Wuldfache planned to shoot the Triarchs?”

  “So…Vv. Byrrhis wasn’t guilty after all.”

  Janika gave a scornful laugh. “He’d never have taken the risk. And Zaressa would never have opened the door for him. For Casimir Wuldfache she’d do anything. Even in Twisselbane she yearned for him. He preferred me; I couldn’t tolerate him, and so both Casimir and Zaressa hated me.”

  “Casimir Wuldfache, oddly enough, is responsible for my being here now.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “At first I thought it a coincidence, but now—”

  Footsteps sounded; Gidion Dirby sauntered up the path. He gave an astounded gasp and stopped short, staring at Janika with eyes bulging from his face. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter XV

  As before, Sir Ivon Hacaway received Hetzel on the terrace of Harth Manor. Hetzel had already presented a brief report by telephone, and Sir Ivon’s manner was far more affable than on the previous occasion.