by John Brunner
The Glaithe children had caught at a hover as it skimmed past, and were now hanging thirty feet above the ground by their right arms, laughing with each other and gesturing toward the ground. Vykor followed their gaze, and saw a trio of Cathrodynes—middle-aged, the two women in scarlet and the man in soiled white—who slept on their backs with their mouths open. Empty bottles ringed them; plates bearing the crusts and hulls of food were overset at their sides.
Even as Vykor grimaced at them—the masters relaxing— the ground opened up and cleared away the rubbish. The boy and girl overhead chuckled and turned their hover away. They would be as grave as Raige in another year or two; now, they were learning not to forget to laugh. The secret of the Glaithes’ achievements lay somewhere in the laughter which they managed to retain.
Vykor shook his head and began to walk across the Plains. In a little while he came to the Ocean, and plunged into it.
“You there!” said a person half woman, half fish, whose full, bare and very beautiful breasts glistened like mother-of- pearl. She leaned from a coral cavern-mouth; her hair was dyed orange to match the coral.
Vykor bubbled air from his mouth and breathed deeply. It was always terrifying for strangers to breathe the Ocean, but it was not water—it was a synthetic organic fluid containing a slightly higher proportion of free oxygen than the air of Majkosi and the same proportion as the ordinary air of Waystation. Vykor had been here before, a dozen times.
He said peaceably, hearing the sound buzz in his ears, “I am not rich enough to be a customer of yours.”
The half woman made a disgusted noise. She was a Lubarrian; the Glaithes rented the greater part of the concessions in the tourist circuit to members of the “free” populations from the subject worlds here. It was a good way of keeping them occupied and making use of them, to look at it cynically; to look at it more clearly, it gave many people a reason to go on living.
“Besides,” continued Vykor, “I am looking for someone. Do you know a stranger called Lang, who is out of eye-range?”
“I heard he was here,” said the half-woman, adjusting the set of her fish-tail. “I didn’t see him yet—and it’s beyond hope that he’d patronize my dull little concession.” She swung round and disappeared into the coral grotto behind her, adding, “And in any case, it usually takes people a day or two to pluck up courage to come into the Ocean after their arrival.”
There was sense in that. Vykor looked around through the Ocean for signs of a rise, and spotted a mound of glowing shells that seemed to pierce the surface. He scaled it, and found that he could raise his head into air if he balanced on top of the mound; it fell short of the surface by his height to his shoulders.
There were the Mountains yonder; probably the Caves were beyond them at the moment. It was hard to be sure where any part of the tourist circuit was in relation to any other part; the relationships changed, slowly, but significantly over the course of a day or two.
And in the other direction there was the City, which was invariably the best bet. At any one time, more than half the visitors and off-duty staff would be in the City if they were anywhere in the tourist circuit. But that would mean he must equip himself first.
He plunged back into the Ocean and walked determinedly through the viscous fluid it contained until he could walk on to shore not far from the City limits. There were more people here, sure enough: a party of Glaithe children, aged less than ten years old, being instructed how to breathe the Ocean— and most of them too frightened to try although they saw that it was safe; four off-duty members of the Pag staff, exercising nonchalantly under eyes they knew to be admiring, their naked red-brown bodies glistening with oil, their muscles making their skin ripple sleekly as they took turns to lift each other one-armed over their heads; a wealthy Cathrodyne family arguing over its next choice of sights—the youth in his teens wanting to go to the Caves, his mother wishing to visit the Plains and relax, her husband virtuously and patriotically trying to keep himself from staring at the naked Pags, and failing.
There were concessions in booths and on stalls all along here—some covered by tents, some open and merely offering wares of various kinds. Vykor stopped at a costume seller’s establishment and purchased a blue gown to conceal his clothes and a blue mask with fiery red eyes to conceal his face. He asked the costume seller in passing, as he presented his scrip to be punched, “Have you seen anything of this stranger from out of eye-range?”
“The one supposed to have come in yesterday?” The costume seller shook his head made fantastic with a vast crown of feathers and baubles. “No, I have not.”
Vykor thanked him and passed on. The edge of the City which faced the shore of the Ocean at the moment was mostly lined with cafes, dancing floors and acrobatic spectacles; there was a Lubarrian team performing that was so good he paused to watch it for a moment. Here too he asked for news of Lang. A head-shake. He passed on.
From behind him, there was a faint rumble. Across in the Mountains, the other side of the Ocean at the moment, there was a storm in progress. When he glanced, around he could see shafts of lightning like tiny white-hot needles breaking between the peaks.
He came eventually to a park near near the center of the City, without having had success in his search for Lang. Everyone knew he was here; everyone thought they would recognize him from descriptions, or from the pet animal he carried. But no one had seen him.
Rather wearily, Vykor dropped on to a bench under a huge bush bearing sweet-smelling pink and white flowers. He frowned behind his mask.
Then his thoughtful mood was interrupted. From the farside of the bush overhanging his bench, he could hear a familiar voice in conversation with one that was totally strange to him. But it was this second voice which made him start up and peer—very cautiously—through the bush’s thick foliage.
It was incredible. But it was a fact. Vykor felt as though a fast elevator had dropped the bottom out of his personal world. The patriot of patriots, the severe Cathrodyne nationalist, Capodistro Ferenc—sitting and conversing with a Pag.
IX
Shaken, Vykor withdrew. His head was whirling. It was indubitably Ferenc—though he looked very different dressed as he was now, in high gold lam6 boots, rust-colored pants and a shirt of red and green shot silk that changed color as he moved. He had had his hair dressed in another style, too. But it was certainly Ferenc.
The Pag to whom he was talking was a civilian, and had her hair instead of shaving her scalp as the military did. She was somewhat smaller than the average—about Ferenc’s own height—and wore a severe black blouse and the inevitable Pag tights. There were silver symbols on the lapels of her blouse that probably indicated her official status. Only one of her front teeth was filed.
Straining his ears, Vykor managed to catch scraps of the conversation.
“. . . see things differently from outside,” Ferenc was saying. "When one’s compelled to stand on one’s dignity all the time, it’s easy to accept attitudes which are officially authorized and not to see that they’re basically unsatisfactory.”
The Pag laughed. She had a rich contralto voice. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “it works on both sides. We won’t ever settle our disagreements by trying to out-shout each other; we’d do better to . .
A blast of music from a nearby dancing floor interrupted her words. Vykor waited, but this was a loud and energetic dance that was being played, and it would be some minutes at least before he could hear more.
He didn’t know whether to be furious at Ferenc for his double behavior, or pleased to discover that what he had taken for a typical dogmatic Cathrodyne officer was proving to be a comparatively tolerant human being.
He looked around him cautiously. He was fairly certain that even after seeing him daily during the twelve-day trip, Ferenc would fail to recognize him in his blue and red mask. Cathrodynes often did not trouble to distinguish between individual members of the subject races. He could go around the bush and sit down a
t another bench on the other side of the clear space from Ferenc and the Pag, and from there he would be able to see them clearly. But he would probably not be able to sit close enough to go on eavesdropping. They didn’t seem to be keeping their voices down deliberately, of course . . .
He decided to walk around once, at least, and then make up his mind whether to sit down where he could watch and call for a drink to account for his presence, or to return here. He took a path through the bushes that would bring him out the other side of the clearing where they sat; the bushes were taller than he was and were thick, of a dark green hue.
He was just turning along a branch of the path that led to the bench he was making for, when another familiar figure came briefly into view from the other path and walked uncertainly out into the clearing.
Ligmer, the archeologist, carrying a thick portfolio of papers and a transparent bag full of photographs.
He went hesitantly across the open space, and the Pag who had been talking with Ferenc rose to her feet, smiling. Her face was really quite finely carved for someone as naturally oversize and coarse as a Pag, and the single filed tooth in the middle of her smile struck a jarring note. Vykor, slipping into the bench-seat opposite, thought wistfully of Raige’s miniature beauty.
“I—I see you two know each other,” Ligmer said in a rather cautious tone. Ferenc scowled, with a sudden return of his habitual manner.
“We got to talking,” he said gruffly.
“We’ve been here only a short while,” the Pag supplemented. “I was expecting you earlier, Ligmer.”
“Yes. Well—uh—I’m sorry, but I was delayed. I couldn’t lay my hands on a document I wanted.” Ligmer’s astonishment made him stumble over his words. "No, don’t go,” he added to Ferenc. “Not unless . . .”
Ferenc swigged the last of his liquor and got to his feet. He wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand. “You have business together, I guess,” he said brusquely. “Don’t let me get in the way.”
He gave a stiff bow and walked away. Ligmer followed him with his eyes until he rounded a thick clump of bushes and vanished from sight. “Well, I’ll be confounded,” he said in puzzled tones. “I don’t understand it at all.”
“Understand what?” the Pag inquired, sitting down again and stretching out her long legs. “He seems quite a decent type for a military man—and one of yours, at that.”
“It isn’t that simple, Usri,” said Ligmer, recollecting himself and likewise sitting down. “I shipped out with that man, and he behaved like a real diehard, with all the orthodox cliches ready to pop up at the press of the right button. To find him actually talking with a Pag, and politely, is un- thinkable!”
Vykor could just catch the words, by straining his ears; he nodded automatically at the last sentence.
Usri’s face showed puzzlement as deep as Ligmer’s. “Then . . . then he probably has a reason for acting like this,” she said shrewdly. “You probably threw a wrench into the works of some deep-laid scheme or other by breaking up the conversation. Well, never mind—we have our own business to attend to.” She reached under the bench on which she sat and took out a file of documents as thick as Ligmer’s, selected some, spread them out on the table, and looked up expectantly.
And at that moment Vykor became aware that he was no longer alone on his bench. Sitting at the other end, looking perfectly self-possessed and relaxed, and stroking the black fur of his pet, was Lang.
“Good day to you," Lang said, with a humorous twitch of his mouth, as soon as he saw that Vykor had recognized him. “I think you’re the steward who looked after us during the trip from Cathrodyne, aren’t you?”
So the mask wasn’t working on him, at any rate. It was foolish to deny the truth; Vykor nodded and sat dumb.
“Allow me to buy you some refreshment, then,” Lang proposed. “You gave us very good service; your Cathrodyne shipping lines are among the best I have encountered.”
He signaled a waiter by pressing a bell on the arm of the bench before Vykor had a chance either to accept or refuse, and went on, “You were watching that peculiar little episode on the other side of the clearing, were you not?”
Vykor glanced over at Ligmer and Usri; the scholarly face and the face with the filed tooth marring its smile were bent together over a photograph, studying it with a magnifying glass. He nodded again.
“Strange, wouldn’t you have said?” Lang pursued. “I was under the impression that Officer Ferenc would have died rather than be seen talking in friendship with a Pag—particularly with a Pag who was an evil influence on this young ar- cheologist whose views he objected to.”
Vykor found his tongue at last. “Distinguished sir, it was not only you or I who found it peculiar. Ligmer also seemed .shaken.”
“And with reason, I think.” Lang saw that the waiter he had summoned was waiting for orders, and gestured inquiringly at Vykor.
“Distinguished sir, you owe me nothing,” Vykor protested. “I was doing my job and no more—”
“But no less, either. Many people do less.” Lang snapped his fingers. “Two fine wines, waiter.”
The waiter nodded and vanished, and at that moment Ligmer looked up from his study of the photograph. He recognized Lang and came hurrying across the clearing.
“Join us, won’t you?” he said. “I have been hoping to see you again, to answer those questions you said you might have—or to trv to, at least. And now is a good opportunity, because I can also introduce you to my Pag associate, Scholar Usri.”
“I had just invited our steward here to have a drink with me,” said Lang, rising and lifting his pet on to his shoulder. A resigned expression, here and gone like summer lightning, flickered over Ligmer’s face.
“He may come if he will,” he said. He gave Vykor a sharp glance, and Vykor meekly removed the mask from his face. It might have been politeness that prevented Ligmer from telling him off about mingling with his betters in disguise; it might have been the fact that they were in tourist territory and the usual rules officially were suspended—except that that never prevented a Cathrodyne from being officious when he felt inclined.
Somehow, Vykor had the distinct impression that it was the presence of Lang.
He followed Lang and Ligmer across the clearing at a discreet distance, and sat down on a stool at a suitable point neither too close to the table nor ostentatiously far from it. He remained silent, accepting his glass of wine from the waiter when it was brought, and listening with eyes and ears alert.
"Out of eye-range, eh?” Usri said, plainly impressed. “A rarity along the Arm, sir. Do you plan to pass beyond Waystation to the Pag worlds?”
Lang let his pet climb down his chest and nestle on his lap. “I may do,” he said. "Or may not.” And smiled. “It was Waystation that attracted me this far, I’m afraid— not the renown of your empire.”
“Huh!” Usri laughed shortly. “And quite right too. This place is a miracle, one of the marvels of the galaxy, and the more you get to know about it the more amazing it seems.”
“So our friend Ligmer was telling me aboard ship.” Lang glanced round at the Cathrodyne. “He was saying that its origin is buried in mystery, but that there were claims about ancient travelers from Pagr having built it. . .”
"This is probably eyewash,” said Ligmer bluntly. “Prejudice!” said Usri with sudden heat. “You cannot discount the relics on Pagr of an ancient space-flying culture—”
“Which no one except Pags is allowed to see,” Ligmer interrupted. “If they are there.”
“Oh, for . . . They’re there,” Usri snapped, and rummaged in her file of documents, producing a photograph for Ligmer’s inspection. “I haven’t shown you this yet. Brought it specially for you.”
Ligmer waved it down. "Photographs can be doctored,” he said. “Not that I’m intending to discredit you, Usri; it’s just that your official propaganda organs have issued so much nonsense in the past centuries that you can’t expect us to take something
so important on trust.”
“May I see?” said Lang, and in the same instant contrived to lift the picture out of Usri’s hand and spread it before him. Looking past him, Vykor could see only indistinct blurs.
“It’s a ship,” Lang said. “Fossilized: Am I right?” He turned to Usri, who gave a pleased nod.
“Not so much fossilized as embalmed,” she said. “It’s been there for at least ten thousand years. As we picture it, it had a faulty or experimental null-grav engine, and during ground testing or landing it over-stressed the planetary surface too close to a fault line. Result: a flow of magma, perhaps even a volcano, which buried it.”
“And how is this picture supposed to have been obtained?” said Ligmer. His voice was heavy with sarcasm at the beginning of the sentence; it didn’t quite last oilt.
“Well, the original elements of the hull are now present as high concentrations of trace elements in the solidified lava,” said Usri. “We made that out of a hundred or so shots— polishing the surface of the rock to a high reflectivity, and then beaming bright light off it at the correct angle. The natural inhomogeneities of the rock cause too much noise for the complete outline to show in a single shot; by averaging the noise over a hundred pictures, though, you begin to get the distinctive shapes. I have more, and a copy of the report published by the team that did the work. Aside from the usual propaganda, there’s some good stuff in it.”
She glanced at Lang. “How does it strike you?” she said chillengingly.
“I think,” said Lang quietly after a pause, “that you’re right to interpret the picture that way, but wrong in your further assumptions. A ship on Pagr, with Waystation out here, implies—to me at any rate—that someone came from here to there. And most likely, also to Glai, to Cathrodyne, to Alchmida, to Lubarria, and”—he gave a sidelong glance at Vykor—“to Majkosi.”