8
There is a long-standing split among philosophers on the subject of names. Realists take them seriously, believing them to be things. Nominalists take them lightly, believing them to be means, believing them to be convenient labels. Every man in the world is either a Realist or a Nominalist. Give yourself a test: if someone called you a gigger or a fell-picker, and you knew it wasn’t true, would you hit him or smile? That’s how easy it is to tell.
Valuing names as they do, Realists are sparing with them. They are likely to be known only as Joe or Bill or Plato. And they don’t smile much.
Nominalists have more fun. They are known as Aristotle or Decimus et Ultimus Barziza, or as Edward John Barrington Douglas-Scott-Montagu, or perhaps by one name in childhood and several others in the course of life.
A firm Realist misses out on one of the most satisfying of all human activities—the assumption of secret identities. A man who has lived and never been someone else has never lived.
It is true that occasionally there can be embarrassment in secret identities, but only a Realist will take the whole thing seriously enough to hit you. So have your fun, and avoid Realists.
* * *
Either Ralph had turned right, or turning left had accelerated amazingly, because he was sitting by the short road up to Green Mountain, his back against a tree, elbows on knees, chin resting in the thumb-and-forefinger L of his interlaced hands. He looked unhappy. He didn’t stir when John and Fillmore came down the moonlit road.
“Run,” said John. “Run. Your uncle will get you if you don’t watch out.”
“Don’t,” said Fillmore. “You were quick enough to leave when you had the chance.”
“I started back,” John said.
“ ‘Started.’ ”
“Well, I didn’t run. I didn’t talk about all the things I was going to do—‘revolution,’ ‘change’—and then turn and run.”
“You did, too,” Fillmore said. “You made up the explosive factory, talked about just what you would do, and then when I took up your idea seriously, you ran.”
“That’s different!”
“Only because it’s you.”
Ralph slowly levered himself to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “My uncle is my weak spot. Give me time to work things out.”
John held out Ralph’s mandolin. “Here,” he said. “You forgot this.”
* * *
Pickles and Daisy—no, I’m sorry; they gave that up—Caspar and Daisy Smetana were waiting and worried. Only the uncertain is frightening, and though you may tell yourself that the facts will prove to be what the facts prove to be, nonetheless the uncertain is still the uncertain, and the uncertain is frightening.
They were waiting on the porch, Smetana in his rocker as though he had never left it, gray sweater over his shoulders, when Ralph and John and Fillmore came trudging up the hill.
Smetana stood up and put his hands on the railing. Behind him, his rocker continued to go whump, whub, whump, whub.
He said, “So now, where have you been?”
Daisy touched his sleeve. “Now, you weren’t going to ask them that.”
“I’m not asking hard. I’m asking soft.”
Ralph led the three up the steps to the veranda. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We had no way to let you know where we were.”
Daisy moved a dismissing hand. “It’s all right. Don’t pay any attention to him. We’re just glad you’re back sound.”
Ralph said, “A friend of ours, Mr. Villiers, is camped a couple of miles from here. We were there. That’s where Torve is staying.”
“I wondered about that,” Smetana said. “It is one thing to have friends appear out of nowhere on red tricycles, but such friends are . . . unusual. I thought, in a tree he’s staying, maybe, but a camp, this is better. More regular.”
Daisy put her hand to her forehead. “Oh, I forgot to ask. Are you hungry? I can have food ready in no time at all. It will be no trouble.”
“It’s not necessary,” Ralph said. “Thank you very much, but it’s not necessary. Mr. Villiers fed us.”
“Was it enough?” she asked.
“Yes,” John said. “But maybe a bit of dessert.”
“Oh,” she said, delightedly. “No trouble.” She hurried inside, turning at the door. “Just one minute, and there will be dessert for three.”
“Mr. Villiers is going to give us an article for our magazine,” Fillmore said. “It’s a good one, too. About Mrs. Waldo Wintergood.”
“Only if it meets our editorial requirements.”
“Well, yes. But it sounds good. And we’re going to have an article on Aristotle’s Poetics from Mr. . . .”
“Mr. Fritz.”
“Fred.”
“From Fred.”
Smetana said, “Aristotle. You are using an article on Aristotle?” He shook his head.
“Is something wrong with Aristotle?” John asked.
“Oh, no, no. Aristotle, he’s all right. But if you want an article, it should be on Rambam.”
“Who?”
“Moses ben Maimon. Maimonides.”
“Did he talk about art?”
“Rambam talks about everything, including Aristotle. He wrote Moreh Nevukhim, the Guide for the Perplexed. I’ll see what he says about art. I’ll write you an article.”
“It has to meet our editorial standards,” Fillmore said.
“I write—you see. Now, tell me about Mr. Villiers. Who is Mr. Villiers?”
“His name is Anthony Villiers,” Ralph said. “We don’t know a lot about him, actually. He’s not from around here. He’s an inch or two shorter than you are. He’s young. Long brown hair. I think he might be from a wealthy and important family. Not that he comes the lord. He’s reserved.”
“What do you think of Fred, Mr. Fritz?” Fillmore asked.
“Good family, but not as good as Villiers’. He’s too casual.”
Daisy returned to the porch then. “Dessert is ready. Come along, now.”
When the three were busy with their desserts, Smetana took Daisy aside.
He said, “These boys, they are putting out a magazine. I am writing an article on Rambam for them.”
“Oh, that’s nice. You haven’t written since we were on Babad.”
“But bad news too. This Mr. Villiers—he is Anthony Villiers.”
“The Anthony Villiers we knew on Livermore? Oh, I thought we would never meet any of those people again.”
“It’s the same. Shorter than me, young, brown hair, reserved.”
“Maybe it’s not the same.”
“Daisy, shorter than me, shorter than me. There are not so many who are shorter than me.”
“Do you think he will remember?”
“How could he forget so easily?” Smetana asked. “We just hope we don’t meet—and if we do, well, I am only embarrassed. Embarrassment I can live with.”
* * *
Villiers stopped outside the small tent, and listened with fixed expression to the sound of desperate crying. He wondered if this was the proper time for a powwow.
He had waited until Torve and Fred had retired before going on his quiet midnight walk. Eventually he had found this tent, pitched in the woods some distance from his own camp.
He wanted to talk now, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to interrupt the wounded sobbing within.
Finally, he called, “David! Gillian! It’s Mr. Villiers.”
The crying quieted abruptly with a gasp. But there was no further sound, as though silence might provide a place to hide.
“Gillian,” Villiers said again.
Only after a long minute did a face appear, framed by tent flaps.
Villiers said, “I’d like to talk to you, if I might.”
“You know?” asked the face.
“Yes, I know.”
She tried to smooth away tear tracks, bit at her knuckle and sniffed. Gillian or David, the inability to use words easily seemed a constant. She asked quest
ions where one word stood for four or forty.
She asked, “Did . . . ?”
Villiers said, “No, I didn’t tell Fred. I won’t either. But I would like to talk to you.”
“How . . . ?”
“It is a failure of my character that I am curious. I backtracked you here this morning. If you intend to continue being David, then you had better use the road as I just did. If you make too obvious a path, Fred might follow it.”
She was reassured sufficiently to come outside the tent, the tent being too small for two unless they were on greater terms of intimacy than she and Villiers, and kneeling in tent doorways being unsatisfactory for conversation as well as ultimately knee-wrinkling. Villiers was capable of projecting reassurance when he cared to.
Gillian sat cross-legged on the ground. She was still wearing her oversized coat, and she huddled and shivered. She wasn’t far from her tears, and she was still cold inside.
So, look at her—a gawk. The same gawk. Tall for a girl and thin. Black hair of medium length, eyes black as ever, a shade too much nose. If you think of her as a boy, the nose is in better proportion, but the boy is an odd one. If you think of her as a girl and she remains odd, it means simply that your tastes are limited. Rare is the word, not odd.
What else can be said of her? Three things we know. She has courage, determination, and an uncertain mind. The first two are valuable qualities, and if the third is not in itself, it is a thing that lends the first two value.
Imagine being young and frightened and uncertain. For reasons that seem good, even if you cannot state them clearly, even to yourself, you strike off into the unknown. You travel for weeks, committed to your uncertainty but unable to affect it. You may well cry.
Having invested that much, you might well cry again to discover that the man you have come in search of has a poor opinion of womankind. Finally, when Gillian, that is, you, had first begun playing the mouthbow she had twanged the metal string with her finger instead of a plectrum. She had learned, but at the cost of blisters on two fingers. If you feel lonely and unhappy and uncertain—and your fingers hurt besides—you might sob desperately.
She asked again, “Will you tell him?”
Some questions have to be answered again and again and again. The answer has to be known to be believed. Herring doesn’t believe in vinegar until it has steeped for a while.
“No,” said Villiers. “I won’t tell Fred. I hope you will though, and soon. You’ll either have to tell him, or go away and never see him again. And the more you show him of David, the longer and harder it will be to go back and begin all over again showing him Gillian.” Then he asked, “Did you leave because of what he was saying?”
She nodded sadly.
“You left too soon,” Villiers said. “He seemed overharsh in his judgment of women to me, too, until I thought. Most of his life has been confined, and more so than either yours and mine. You know what things are like there. You know the sort of women he’s met. The ones who find their importance in the importance of the men they sleep with. Dolls, puppets, mechanical monsters. He wants something better.”
“But what if he doesn’t like me?”
“He may not,” said Villiers. “But then I think he may. Don’t worry about it. Just be.
“Fred and I are friends of long standing.” Villiers smiled. “We could go without seeing each other for ten years, and we would still take up comfortably where we left off. I wish him well. But I will help you as long as it doesn’t hurt him. I have more faith in his father’s judgments than he has, and I think you may be what he has need of.
“Stop crying. Sleep well. And tell him as soon as you can.”
9
Learning, playing and loving, and combinations thereof, are a good way to spend a lifetime. Admittedly, a difficult regimen, but nonetheless not beyond attainment.
Start with playing.
* * *
When Admiral Beagle failed to catch the connection to Pewamo Central, Sir Thomas Edmund Fanshawe-IV was worried. When the Admiral missed the Excursion back to Shiawassee, Sir Thomas determined to take action. He was a firm believer in preventive measures. In his youth he had been prevented on a number of occasions, and he was grateful for it and wanted to do as much for others.
When he reached Shiawassee, he immediately took a flitter to the Tanner Trust Administration offices. He sent in his announcements through an assistant assistant assistant secretary, and in due course he was brought into the presence of Administrator Ajamian. The Administrator dismissed the Confidential Secretary who had brought Sir Thomas to him, and the young man withdrew.
“Your distinguished name has traveled ahead of you,” Ajamian said. He salaamed.
“Administrator Ajamian,” Sir Thomas said, inclining his head slightly.
Ajamian saw Sir Thomas seated, and then reseated himself. They sat quietly opposite each other.
They spoke of the weather and other pleasantries. They agreed that it was hot on Shiawassee. The Administrator said that it was the season. Sir Thomas volunteered that it had been cooler on Pewamo. Administrator Ajamian then confessed that there were times when he arranged visits to the other planets of the Trust to give himself a variety in weather.
“On necessary business, of course,” he said.
“Of course,” said Sir Thomas.
Ajamian interjected a minor jocularity into the conversation, a reference to Sir Thomas’ breviary collection. This was an in-joke. Ajamian was insufficiently central to know the source of humor in the joke, but he was privy to the fact that it was considered a joke and that Sir Thomas would accept it. He wanted to show Sir Thomas that he did know what was what. Sir Thomas accepted the joke. He smiled a mild smile.
They continued to speak of nothing. Ajamian assumed that this was how things were done, and he was not about to betray himself by gauche inquiries. He knew himself to be nervous, however.
Sir Thomas was not nervous. Neither was he officially aware of Ajamian’s tension. In actual fact, though he took some mild interest in Ajamian, as he would take an interest in any Trust Administrator, he was primarily involved in whiling away the time between now and the then at which his ship would depart for Duden.
This situation continued through lunch. Administrator Ajamian invited Sir Thomas to lunch. Sir Thomas accepted.
At lunch, Sir Thomas looked up and said, “I encountered one of your subordinates on Binkin Island on Pewamo.”
“Yes, Sir Thomas.”
“An Admiral Walter Beagle. An overly officious man.”
Ajamian nodded. “Yes, he can be. I’ve spoken to him about that. But did you say on Pewamo?”
“Yes.”
“That’s very strange. We have no administrative authority on Pewamo.”
“This is excellent Gallimaufry au Baboulis.”
“It’s nothing but slumgully, really,” Ajamian said. Tuesday fare, by his standards, good, but commonplace.
“It is as I have always suspected,” Sir Thomas said. “Food is best in its own home—and least appreciated there.”
The talk passed on to other things. Eventually Sir Thomas noted the time, explained his need to depart, thanked the Administrator for his hospitality, and requested transportation to the spaceport. Ajamian saw him into careful hands and then returned to his office.
Within his office, Ajamian thought. He looked at the past hours from all angles. Finally he rang for his Confidential Secretary.
“Geoffrey,” he said, “I want a message sent to Admiral Beagle, wherever he may be.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Try his home. Send a copy to Pewamo Central. And try Binkin Island on Pewamo. If all that fails, try his office. Inform him that he is no longer Arts Council Chairman.”
That is how things are done.
* * *
Sergei Gilfillian should have known better. Perhaps he did. Hitching a ride on the back of his baggage dray as he moved through the halls of Shiawassee Spaceport was Mr. Nilsson,
his immediate superior. Standard practice at times like that is to do your job precisely by the rule book.
However, Sergei recognized Elmo Kuukkinen walking the hall and stopped the dray. “Mr. Kuukkinen,” he said. Nilsson looked exasperated.
Kuukkinen said, “Oh, yes.”
“Did you find Lord Charteris?”
Kuukkinen said, “No, not yet. I thank you for your help in directing me, but Lord Charteris is a man given to change of plan. He never traveled to Mandracore.”
“Oh,” said Sergei. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s of slight importance,” Kuukkinen said. “I understand him now to be on Pewamo and expect I may find him there.”
“Well, I hope so,” Sergei said. He got the dray moving again.
Nilsson shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of you, Gilfillian,” he said. “First scribble, scribble, scribble, and now this. You’d better start paying stricter attention to business.”
Sergei didn’t bother to answer. He might have been stupid, but I don’t think he was. I think he simply ranked his own purposes more highly than he ranked the spaceport’s. Stick to it, kid.
* * *
Scatter iron filings on glass, rare and random. The eye may never find them. Men of strange purpose from the large world outside the Tanner Trust should have been as rare on Shiawassee, but as we have seen, not so. A magnet will align and concentrate filings, and a man like Villiers will do as much for other men.
Elmo Kuukkinen was hailed across the cavernous Great Hall of the spaceport. He turned to recognize Phil Finch, a friend of long standing, in company with Klavan Guillaume, whom he knew less well.
Finch said, “It’s the Black Marauder,” as he approached. His manner was light, now that his chase was done.
“Finch,” Kuukkinen said. “Good to see you. Mr. Guillaume.”
“Mr. Kuukkinen. Still chasing Villiers?”
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