New Celebrations

by Alexei Panshin

  Sir Henry’s major miracle was more fragile and could not stand exposure. He would not come out and he would not be restrained. So he backed away and wondered what noise he should make—whether he should growl, bark, or roar.

  “Give me your arm—that’s a good Trog! Mind, now!”

  Tentatively, Sir Henry said, “Rrrrf . . . Arf. Grr.” Then, loud and quite frightening: “Rowr! Rowr!” It was not what a genuine Trog would have said, particularly not an agrarian gentleman, but it took McBe aback.

  He began to circle in again. Sir Henry padded back. Sir Henry was saved by the advent of a troop of Xochitl Sodality members in the Red of Montague. “Look,” said one. “Just look.”

  And another said, “Take back the matched set of peels.”

  “But they grunt harmoniously.”

  “No matter. We have a new Wonder.”

  McBe sighed. He almost cried. And he was suddenly aware that his schedule was sadly awry and that he needed the use of a toilet again.

  Sir Henry the Trog felt Wonderful. He felt truly Marvelous. Sir Henry the Trog.

  “I am your Trog,” he said.

  9

  Holidays are no pleasure for anyone but children, and they are a pleasure for children only because they seem new. Holidays are no pleasure to those who schedule them. Holidays are for people who need to be formally reminded to have a good time and believe it is safer to warm up an old successful party than to chance the untried. And they sigh in relief when the ordeal is done.

  And we sigh at the stale fare we are served in the name of pleasure. And the children sigh, too, the fifth or sixth time the holiday comes round.

  Holidays purportedly give excuse for joy and celebration—but so does every day. Harvest, solstice, the birth of a baby. Any day offers excuse. Sir Henry Oliphaunt would tell you so. Sir Henry the Trog.

  The best parties in the world are unscheduled, unheralded, unrehearsed events. And the best of the best, of course, are the sort co-opted by holidaymakers.

  It is the fate of holidays when they grow old to be celebrated only by historians. And the historians are kept busy because every day has been someone’s holiday. Every day offers excuse for ecstasy. And the historians remain at their posts performing their ritual celebrations until they are called outside by song.

  * * *

  Lady Oliphaunt did not notice that the teeth of Ozu Xenakis were unattractively large, as Xenakis could not help but be aware. He wondered again whether he should have something done about them.

  “It’s no use your asking again,” he said. “Your Mr. Villiers said be would be back in time to watch the Wonders and Marvels judging and that’s all I know.”

  “But I’ve been waiting,” she said. She came near to crying to demonstrate her distress, but decided not to on the ground that good effects should be used conservatively.

  The Centre had more trade than earlier and Xenakis now had help. As Wonders and Marvels time approached, a few of the local curious with a taste for vulgar entertainment were beginning to stir. Those with money tended toward the Centre. And those without were beginning to think of finding places to watch underneath the peeltrees.

  Xenakis did not mind speaking on someone else’s subject—if business was not too pressing—but the subject of waiting was one he felt had had its hour. Lady Oliphaunt was paying for the use of his Private Rooms—in fact one room, not large, but with an excellent view of the green. This entitled her to his time and attention. Still he felt that men’s subjects were more concrete and less emotional, and hence altogether more worthy.

  “I’m sure he will be here soon, milady,” he said. “I’ll send him in directly as soon as he arrives.”

  He made to go, hoping she might not ring again. And if she did ring again, he hoped it might be to discuss a new topic. Something he could discover thoughts about. But she said hold.

  “As long as I’m waiting,” she said, “bring me a glass of hypon. And a dish of sugar-grass. Oh, and perhaps a few slices of ham. And maybe a piece of fruitcake. Do you have fruitcake?”

  Xenakis said, “Yes, indeed. Would you like our domestic sugar-grass or sugar-grass imported from Moro?”

  “Morovian sugar-grass,” she said. “Of course.”

  “Yes, milady,” he said. At the door he said, “The fruitcake is made with domestic fruit.”

  “That’s all right,” Lady Oliphaunt said.

  Xenakis punched her order and picked up a waiting plate of blue cheese toasted on muffins. The plate was heaped with muffins. The white of the cheese had melted away leaving the blue tubular veins standing in a destructed landscape. Xenakis thought it looked hideous and deadly, but it was what the Orthodoxou in I.S. uniform had ordered.

  Slyne was sufficiently upset to have set his sensory amplifier aside. He sat alone at a table equidistant from the windows and the door and the stimulations of the night. He was surprised and shocked by his collapse. It wasn’t at all like him. At least, it had never happened before. He would have tolerated it in no one else, and tolerated it in himself only because he had to. But he did not enjoy the discovery of new weakness.

  He found himself wondering about McBe and forced his thoughts away. He turned away from the sensory amplifier. Even to see it was a strain on his overburdened senses.

  He had come into the Centre to rest and calm his racing heart, but on the off-chance that part of his emotional state was due to hunger, he had ordered a simple favorite.

  Without his sensory amplifier Slyne was revealed as harmonious if not overtly attractive. His head, as the rest of him, was covered with close black velvet. His eyes were surrounded by pink wrinkles. You might not think him pretty, but you could think him a pretty good Orthodoxou.

  Slyne looked up only when his muffins-and-cheese were set before him. With his sensory amplifier in place he would have known much sooner. He ate every last muffin and found indeed they had a calming effect, but he still did not trust himself enough to don the amplifier. Instead he called Xenakis to the table.

  “Have you seen any other Imperial Service personnel tonight?”

  There! A solid subject. Something to talk and think about.

  Xenakis said, “There were a couple of pantographers in here earlier tonight, but they got themselves taken on as Wonders and they’re out playing.”

  “Pantographers? But I know them,” said Slyne. “They’re not Wonders.”

  “I thought not myself at first,” said Xenakis. “They wanted to join, but they didn’t seem like Wonders. I’ve seen a fair number of Marvels pass under my windows, you know. But, then, goodness, the way they showed how the stars influence us here on Delbalso was amazing. Did you know that Delbalso is a unique place?”

  As is every planet. But Delbalso was unique in its own particular fashion, and Xenakis did honestly find that Marvelous.

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they finished well,” said Xenakis.

  “Have you seen anyone in uniform?”

  “No one but you.”

  “Oh. By any chance, have you seen a Trog?”

  “I never have. Have you?”

  ”Oh, yes,” said Slyne. “There is a Trog on Delbalso now and I have every intention of checking his papers.”

  ”Well,” said Xenakis, “I would suggest that you stay right here. The Xochitl Sodality will be gathering shortly on the green, and if there is a Trog on Delbalso, he’s likely to be taken for a Marvel.”

  ”Do you think so?” asked Slyne. But upon consideration he found that even he thought so. Possibly. “They gather soon?”

  “Soon,” said Xenakis.

  ”In that case, I’ll have another plate of muffins,” said Slyne. “And melt the cheese until the veins stick out.”

  * * *

  The gathering of Xochitl Sodality was, in fact, to be soon. Xenakis had developed a fine sense for the rhythms of a Wonders and Marvels night in exactly the same manner as his uncanny knack for weather prediction based on the timbre of peelgrunt. It was a matt
er of experience.

  Each House had its own preliminary gathering and selected its one best choice from the collected possibilities. Badrian Beaufils, as the man responsible for Joralemon House’s Wonder, was named Official Locutor and he met with the Locutors from the other Houses. And it was only here and only at last that he was found by Ossian Chimmeroon.

  ”Ah, there, Friend Chimmeroon,” said Badrian Beaufils. “Sit down on the bench. Have you come to watch the Wonders and Marvels judging?”

  ”I came out originally to bring you your friend Torve the Trog—and what a marvelous Wonder he would have made! But he was taken away out of hand by a bunch from Pierrepont. They draw no lines when it comes to winning.”

  ”Oh, I’ve seen Torve,” said Beaufils. “It’s all right. We have a Marvel—now, let me tell you . . .”

  But he was interrupted and called to join the conference of Official Locutors.

  ”Sit down,” he said to Chimmeroon. “Sit down. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He left Ossian Chimmeroon sitting on his bench recovering his breath and his poise. And he was back in a minute.

  ”Ossian,” he said, “as long as you aren’t doing anything, would you run up to the Centre and find us some judges? And Ossian, pick some new faces. Let’s not have Ozu Xenakis as a judge again.”

  ”But he counts on it,” said Chimmeroon. “It’s the only reason he works on a Sodality night.”

  ”Have you noticed that he favors Pierrepont Green?”

  ”All right,” said Chimmeroon. “But only if I can give the Invocation.”

  * * *

  Lady Oliphaunt had eaten her imported sugar-grass and was half done with her domestic fruitcake when Villiers entered the Centre’s Private Rooms.

  “At last!” she said. “Tony, where have you been?”

  There was a certain sharpness in her voice, token no doubt of five years of being Lady Oliphaunt. She had never been patient, but before her marriage she had not been given to sharpness.

  ”My apologies, Amita. I’ve had conflicting demands on my attention or I should certainly have been here sooner.”

  “But I’ve been worried,” she said, taking a bite of fruitcake. Around the fruitcake she said, “I was beginning to think of all the terrible things that might have happened to you, and I was just frantic.”

  “Did Sir Henry accompany you to town, or is he yet at my uncle’s?”

  “Oh, let’s not talk about Sir Henry,” she said. “I’ve left him. He was dancing in the streets in that horrid costume and I turned the comer and he didn’t even notice because I peeked back and he didn’t even notice and I’ve left him. Tony, have some fruitcake?”

  She said it hopefully and Villiers was polite enough not to reject offers of hospitality, at least those consonant with principle.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He stood as Lady Oliphaunt cut him a piece and when he reached for it she could not help but notice that the tip of his left little finger was missing. She exclaimed in surprise, waving the knife and threatening to separate larger pieces of anatomy.

  “Oh!” she said. “Tony—you’ve hurt your finger.” She then failed delicately, at least by indication.

  “Yes,” he said, “but not recently.” He ate cake from his right hand and considered his left little finger as a unique object. It was more than Individuality and less than a Curiosity. It was an Object for Conversation.

  “It happened in my last encounter with Livermore. The tip of my finger was exacted as a sacrifice to a beast-god in the name of wisdom.”

  It was the sort of thing that Lady Oliphaunt could easily imagine happening on Livermore, for, after all, she had been married there. On the other hand, while her life had been free, it had never been kinky, and there were some unnatural practices of which she was not sure she could honestly approve.

  “Did you cooperate?” she asked.

  “Oh, no,” said Villiers. “It was all lightning happenstance.”

  He had been caught in a circle not of his own drawing and lost a little flesh, blood, fingernail, and bone in clashing gears. But a nipped fingertip for wisdom is not a bad bargain. The established price is an eye.

  “Oh,” Lady Oliphaunt said with some relief. “That’s fortunate. Tony, will you take me away from Delbalso?”

  “If you mean will I escort you, of course I would be pleased,” Villiers said. “It would be an honor, Lady Oliphaunt. But I feel I should warn you of a few things. Have you the money for your passage?”

  “Well . . .” she said.

  “As it happens,” he said, “I do not.”

  “But,” she said, “you’re using a title now.”

  ”Titles and money are independent variables. In fact, I seem to presume most upon my title when money is shortest.”

  “I do have some pin money,” she said. “I suppose I can pay for passage.”

  “Ah, but the warning. A friend would travel with us.”

  Amita Oliphaunt set down the last of her fruitcake in a convult of suspicion.

  “And who would your friend be?” she asked. “Do you have some petite amie with you?”

  Inquiry after friends was a characteristic of hers that Villiers remembered well. One of her principal complaints about her husband was that he had so few active friends of any sort. It was incongruous, too, in that she herself liked to keep her family and friends well separate.

  “Nothing like that,” said Villiers. “This is the vegetarian friend I mentioned to you earlier.”

  It seemed to her that she did remember him making vague mention of a vegetarian friend and she was somewhat mollified. She could imagine no threat in a vegetarian, even a female.

  But then Villiers added, “But this friend is a Trog.”

  ”A Trog.”

  “Yes, a Trog. I hesitated to tell you earlier for fear of upsetting you unnecessarily, but if you are to travel with us, you really ought to know. His name is Torve.”

  “Do you mean this or are you joking? You really don’t want to take me. Isn’t that it?”

  “Not at all,” said Villiers. “It will be my personal delight to escort you. I simply thought that I had best warn you of your company.”

  She looked at him, as unable to decide as ever what was going on in his mind. Villiers looked friendly, intelligent, composed and reserved and he was beyond her.

  “I’ll ask Harbourne Firnhaber to escort me,” she said.

  “If you like. I suspect, however, that it might cost you more than the price of your passage. Harbourne has neither money nor a title.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said and paused to reconsider.

  And it was while she was reconsidering that there was urgent approach in the hall and the door was thrown open. Lord Semichastny stood, framed in the doorway, but not filling it. Behind him was Ozu Xenakis with a plate of muffins covered with blue cheese, toasted.

  Xenakis said, “In there.”

  Lady Oliphaunt said, “How . . .”

  Villiers said, “Ah, Uncle . . .”

  Uncle said, “Where is your husband?”

  And he said, “Where is your costume, Lady Oliphaunt?”

  And he said, “Where is your costume, Nephew? You were to have one picked out.”

  And he said, “I found another letter.”

  * * *

  Joralemon House effectively ended Harbourne Firnhaber’s hunt for Lord Semichastny’s motley crowd. While he was waiting at Joralemon House the suspicion that Lord Semichastny’s recommendation, valuable as it might be, was not worth his present eternal achronic state of wretchedness, blitzed briefly in his mind, leaving behind a glowing question. After Joralemon House, his steps slowed and he began to engage in earnest converse with himself. After Joralemon House, be began to think of quitting.

  He stopped knocking on doors. He shouted on no streetcorners. And he decided at last not even to raise the subject of parties unless someone were to ask.

  From perfunctory, his efforts became nominal. He
simply walked the streets thinking vaguely of what he was supposed to be doing and feeling inadequate to do it. Then from nominal his efforts became nonexistent.

  He sat down on a public seat by the side of the road and said, flatly and definitely, “I quit.” And he found relief in the admission. His anxiety departed and he began to try to set his excuses in order:

  He had tried.

  He hadn’t been able to find anyone. He hadn’t known where to look.

  He had looked, but it was dark.

  Nobody had wanted to come. He had asked, but every single person he had met had turned him down.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  And after a time he had his case in hand and his anecdotes trimmed to fit. Only then did he check the time, and to his horror he saw that he had dawdled too long. It was fully, fully time for Lord Semichastny’s party.

  He thought of his alternatives, and decided at last to have a drink.

  * * *

  It was some time before Jules and Miriam Parini set out for Lord Semichastny’s country maison. Their best cherry-picking clothes had been packed for travel, and they would not have even considered going to Lord Semichastny’s party in anything else.

  Parini’s cherry-picking suit was his most stylish, the only suit he owned that could allow him to pass as something more than a rug salesman with social ambitions. It was the suit in which he had encountered the scrutiny of the interviewing alumna from Miss McBurney’s and passed inspection. He rated that as a heart-held triumph second only to the amount of tuition Miss McBurney allowed him to pay.

  And not only were the clothes stylish, but they had a sufficiency of pockets, a detail modern tailors are prone to overlook.

  Dressing Annie suitably in tight black took some time, too. There were on occasion little things for a little girl to do and Parini felt that it was not an auspicious time to find someone to watch her, so he dressed her in black and took her along.