They were still discussing their problem as their tiny ship fell toward the Harnuit Spaceport...the one and only spaceport on the planet.
Yost relaxed and let the Ballatine cope with the antiquated, non-human-built landing grid. He watched his fingers flying over the complex board and reflected that, next to women, symbionts were the handiest kind of people to have around. Too bad the two were incompatible. A Ballatine supplied absolute total recall, an enormous encyclopedic knowledge, assorted manual skills, freedom from parasitic invasions, swift repair of injuries, and, most important to travelers, companionship. All at the cost of two or three thousand calories a day...and Ballatines weren’t fussy about the original form of those calories.
Yost had become close friends with every partner he’d ever had and now found himself warming to Kolitt in the same way. It was becoming more and more difficult for him to accept the idea of Kolitt’s approaching death. Though no further mention had been made of it, it was never far from Yost’s thoughts.
When their ship was safely grounded, Yost said silently, ::O.K., where to?::
::It’s your turn, I’m going to sleep::
From Kolitt’s heavy tone, Yost guessed that the landing had tired his partner so he locked the ship and went to do battle with the local customs authorities. Despite their reputation, spies spent as much time on dreary routine as scholars or anybody else.
Harnuit’s largest and capital city, Tobuin, sprawled in rural splendor, practically untouched by galactic civilization. The natives liked it that way, and they didn’t welcome tourists.
The terms of Harnuit’s Confluence Membership placed an absolute embargo on all Rotsuctronic devices. And practically all modern equipment depended on the ubiquitous Room Temperature Superconductor. What tourist could live even half a day on a strange planet without his personal translator, telepathic shield, and deodorizer? What scholar could operate without his computers and recorders? Unless he was a partner of a Ballatine.
The Harnuiti were spindly-legged, green-skinned humanoids with large, saucer eyes and tiny mouths equipped with double rows of needle-sharp teeth that their thin lips could scarcely cover. Yost knew that, despite appearances, they were not related to anything resembling a Terran frog. Their dental structure indicated a carnivorous ancestry, but they were omnivores. And, like most other humanoids of NCO worlds, they could interbreed with almost any other NCO world’s humanoid species...though the results weren’t always viable.
Unraveling the hows and whys of the strange, seemingly unnatural phenomenon of interbreeding had been Yost’s life work until he took up spying, and so a surge of new energy lifted his feet as he moved out of the spaceport area and into the city.
Every assignment started with the elements of tackling a new planet, learning its languages and cultures, and, finally, moving out among its people to see at first-hand. He always got a thrill out of that first foray into the strange, and it didn’t fail him now even though his objectives were different.
With his jump bag balanced on one bony shoulder, Yost bought a couple of the fist-sized, high-caloric Hardnuts from a street vendor who fished them out of glowing coals and presented them wrapped in fleshy, purple leaves while holding out one knobby, green hand for Yost’s wooden coins. Bowing his gratitude, Yost continued down the street, nimbly avoiding piles of dung.
The light held a strange, charcoal-smoke quality that lent colors a glare-free softness very like the first lowering of ominous, black storm clouds. It had a vaguely disturbing effect that hadn’t been apparent from the tapes Yost had studied. To allay his nervousness, Yost had to keep reminding himself it was the nearly perpetual half solar eclipse of this latitude that created the effect.
Vaulting the open sewer trough, he crossed the boulevard and entered a likely looking inn whose sign was a faded half circle under which was printed, in native script only, “The Inn of the Half Sun.”
The interior was dark and deserted. A lone native drowsed on a high stool in a corner beside a patch of much-bescribbled wall. The untailored length of dingy, gray cloth wound around his emaciated, obviously male frame emphasized his unhuman proportions. But the cloth’s relatively clean, new look made it obvious this was the proprietor, desk clerk, and bellboy.
Yost took up a stand at a respectful distance, swung his bag to the straw-strewn floor, and cleared his throat. The sound startled the frail old man and he managed to pry his eyes open. The sight of Yost startled him into a puckered gape that revealed the brown-stained, irregular teeth set loosely in shrunken gums.
The old man said, “Yes? You want something? In the middle of siesta? At high noon, you want something?”
Yost knew the natives slept through the grueling seventy-degree Fahrenheit heat. He said in the local dialect, “I apologize for disturbing you, but I need a room.”
The old man peered at the human silently, estimating his worth. He eyed the stuffed Fed bag, then turned to the wall to find a vacancy in his register. “Top floor, west end. Twenty zuit a day.”
Yost knew he’d been offered the worst room in the house for twice the price of the best. He had the money, but he dickered the old man down to five a day and breakfast nuts, never letting on that he preferred top-floor corner rooms.
When they’d concluded the deal, Yost hunted about the large empty room that served as a tavern, found the local excuse for a broom, shouldered his bag, and climbed the stairs with a nonchalance that left the old man gaping at the human’s enormous strength. That also was calculated. Now, they wouldn’t try to roll him.
He found his room, with the lockless door swinging gently in the breeze from the unglazed windows. As he’d expected, it was a long, rectangular room with two inches of reeking, soggy straw on the floor. He swept the straw out into a neat pile in the corridor, propped the broom beside it, and set up camp. It took him twenty minutes to arrange the tent, air mattress, cookstove, and security alarms to his satisfaction. Then he took his nuts to the window and surveyed the city, absorbing the sinister atmosphere created by the weird lighting.
Presently, his partner joined him. He made no overt sign, but Yost knew another being now shared his eyes. It was a comfortable, secure feeling. As he gnawed the warm, blue nutflesh and savored the smoky taste, Yost said, ::I call a strategy conference.::
::Convened,:: came the silent agreement.
Yost felt the wry smile that went with that. It raised his spirits a bit as he said, ::That caravansary over there::—he focused his eyes on the tallest structure in sight, a dun-colored adobe tower—::looks promising. Hire a native guide, some transport, and set out for Rogahm’s studio?::
::Why don’t we try the Art Gallery first? That’s where the tapestry disappeared from and they’re the ones that have been complaining loudest. We’re here to find out why, so why not ask? Could save a lot of trouble.::
::That’s what I like. A subtle Ballatine. Walk right into a public building and start asking questions that are bound to alert the entire Harnuit underground. The Curiosity Corps could use a couple more like you.:: He gave their agency one of his favorite nicknames in hopes of maintaining his good spirits.
Too late, the stony silence within alerted him to his mistake. Fission inevitably produced two Ballatines. He hadn’t meant to imply that Kolitt’s children would be unwelcome.
::I’m sorry, Kolitt. I just meant that we think too much like CC data collectors and not enough like spies for this mission.::
Kolitt came back, ::Misunderstanding nullified, Friend-of-two-parts.:: He used the Ballatine idiom for mutual apology. Yost knew it was a formula that erased the whole incident. But, it seemed far more powerful than necessary. And he’d never known a Ballatine to toss that phrase off lightly.
Kolitt continued, ::I don’t think the frontal approach is out of order. Asking questions is our profession, so why not ask some?::
::O.K. That’s what we’ll do, first thing after sundown.:: He fell silent, nibbling at the second nut and at his latest pet worry.
/>
Finally, Kolitt said, ::All right; what’s eating you?::
Yost started a flip reply, then swallowed and said seriously, ::Listen, Kolitt, we’ve chewed this assignment over a hundred times. We’ve discussed every aspect of it, except one.::
::Go on.::
::The first time you took control, you loused it up. That’s never happened to me before.::
::It’s never happened to me before either. I thought I explained.::
::No you didn’t, not really. It’s not that I don’t trust you...but if you run out of time, I’m in bad trouble...right?::
::You have a point, Friend-of-two-parts. But, you can count on at least twenty more weeks.::
::What caused that first fumble?::
Silence.
::All right. Here’s a worse one. Conjugation?::
The silence clicked off into abandonment.
::Kolitt?::
A few moments later, he replied, ::Here, Friend-of-two-parts.::
::I don’t want to embarrass you, Kolitt, but I feel I have a right to know. There practically isn’t a race in the whole Confluence that doesn’t have strong emotions on such functions. Humans are no exceptions.::
::Ray, I...was on the verge of accepting a...relationship when Proken called me for this assignment. I thought about it very hard, for a long time, and decided it would be best to wait. Do you understand now?::
::Not exactly. I’ve never had a post-conjugal partner, but I understand there is a difference.::
Kolitt was amused. ::Yes...indeed.::
::What caused that fumble?::
::I was thinking too hard about...someone else. That preoccupation is gone now, so there will be no further difficulty.::
::Except that you’re maybe a bit more nervous and sensitive than you used to be?::
The symbiont conceded, ::Maybe.::
::Aren’t you afraid?::
::Of what?::
::Dying.::
::No. Dissolution of personality at the proper time and in the proper way is not frightening.::
::It frightens me,:: Yost admitted. Since he’d probed so deeply into Kolitt’s privacy, at least he could share his own most private fears. He asked, ::Where does a ‘dissolved’ personality go? Is death the end? And if it is, does that mean that the whole, frantic churning of life is meaningless? Is there a God to receive our souls? Or does the concept of soul have any reality? Does life have any meaning? Does death have any significance? It won’t matter how long I live. Death will always frighten me.::
::I am sorry.::
Yost read true sympathy in that, but also the ever-present refusal of the Ballatine to discuss any aspect of theology. They wouldn’t even go so far as to assert that humans, or any other species, need not be frightened. The closest thing to a statement on theology that anyone had ever gotten out of a Ballatine was that friend-of-two-parts appellation. And that was never really explained or discussed either. Yost was not surprised when Kolitt retired for the rest of the afternoon, refusing to engage in any conversation.
As dusk fell and the town lit up with torches, hearth fires, and candles, Yost went in search of the local Art Gallery.
Harnuit’s art was not connected with the religions and the Harnuiti didn’t decorate everything in sight. They reserved their efforts for items called Tapestries displayed only in public art galleries.
Yost found the capital city’s Gallery down a narrow, dingy alley lined with tiny shops that overflowed onto the dung-paved ground. Across the end of the alley, two crude wooden doors opened in an unadorned wall spilling a soft, yellow radiance on the jumbled merchandise.
Entering the flickering shadows, Yost dropped a coin in the metal box chained to a post, and clasped his hands behind his back in the local gesture of concentrated reverence.
The Gallery was a single, large, low-ceilinged room divided into compartments by opaque draperies suspended from the insect-infested rafters. The first compartment opened directly before the door and Yost nodded appreciatively at the way the clean, black draperies focused the attention on the display piece hung across the end of the compartment.
The Tapestry was a rectangle, Yost estimated about six by seven feet, and it consisted of thousands of brightly colored, translucent beads strung on a transparent fiber and woven into a richly detailed, abstract design. By the dancing light that filtered through the Tapestry, Yost distinguished several complementary shapes among the tightly packed beads. At first, he thought he was on the wrong side of the hanging, but then he noticed that the light came from lanterns set in a very narrow space behind the Tapestry and backed by a shiny material.
Stepping back to admire the effect, Yost said silently, ::This looks like something you could appreciate, Kolitt?::
::I shall reserve judgment, Friend-of-two-parts. The form seems to have possibilities.::
Surprised, the human said, ::Are you an artist?::
::Not really. A connoisseur, perhaps.::
Yost sniffed. ::What’s that?::
::What?::
::I smell something. Spice? Incense?::
:There are no new olfactory signals of that description originating in your nasal passages.::
::No? Well. That must be what Proken meant when he said Harnuit’s art is quasi-olfactory.::
::I suggest we speak to the proprietor of this establishment.::
::Certainly. How do we find him?::
::Walk about. He’ll find us.::
Yost did as he was told, pausing occasionally to examine one or another piece. All of the designs seemed to be abstract and each had its own scent. The proprietor found him as he was enjoying spiced peaches and brandy.
The green skinned, white-robed figure emerged from the shadowy maze to stand half bathed in the eerie, flickering light. He seemed to be of a heavier build than the other natives. In a low-pitched, cultured voice he said, “Welcome. May I be of service?”
Yost sorted himself into the native language and answered, “Perhaps you can answer a few questions for me?”
“Of course. I know every piece in my Gallery.”
“There is one in particular I’ve heard about. The Newsnet Interstellar reviewer called it the ‘Vanillamint Tapestry.’ Do you know it?”
“Of course. However, you will not able to view it. It has been stolen.”
“No!”
“We have taken the matter to the Interstellar Authorities; however, we despair of ever getting it back.”
“Was it that significant? You have so many excellent ones here. What could make any single one that important?”
“Each one is unique. Until its theft, the ‘Vanillamint’ gave much joy to many of my clients.”
“Was it an item of great value?”
“How does one measure the value of the unique?”
“Perhaps the artist could be persuaded to sell me another one like the ‘Vanillamint’? Could you tell me where to find him?”
“Tapestries are not sold, sir. However, the creator of the ‘Vanillamint’ is a novice so I doubt if he has anything else as significant.”
“Then how do the artists make a living...if they don’t sell their work?”
“Their Hermit Colonies are supported from the public treasury.”
“Oh. Then the creator of the ‘Vanillamint’...what did you say his name was?”
“Rogahm.”
“He lives in a Hermit Colony?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And you are the sole agent displaying his work?”
“Yes.”
“What else of his is here?”
“Why nothing. I told you, he is a novice. The ‘Vanillamint’ is the first of his works worthy of display. That is one reason he is so anxious to get it back.”
“I thought you owned it?”
“Oh, no. How could it be possible for a work of art not to be owned by its creator? I’m merely his legal representative.”
“I see. I’m still curious about the creation of these Tapestri
es. Would it be possible for me to visit Rogahm’s studio?”
“I don’t think so. Even I go there very seldom. It was on my last visit that I discovered the ‘Vanillamint’ just being finished. He’s certainly not had time to do anything significant since...and I assure you his previous work is quite worthless.”
“If it’s that worthless, perhaps he could be persuaded to part with one or two examples. I should like to visit him.”
“It would be a difficult trek through perilous and unpleasant desert and, I assure you, quite fruitless.”
“I’ve already come a long way. And it’s my time, my discomfort, and my curiosity, sir. If you could give me some clue how to find him, I would be most...generously...grateful.” Yost allowed his hand to drift toward a pocket suggestively.
“Well, since you put it that way...I can do even more. I’ll arrange for a guide. My own personal servant, Groumain. He’s very reliable and a willing worker who can make your journey less unpleasant.”
“That kindness will be unnecessary. I’m sure I can find someone....”
“Oh, no trouble. In fact, I insist.”
“I couldn’t take your servant from you, even for a short time.” And, he thought, I could do without your spy.
“It’s no hardship. I have others. Truly, I insist.”
They dickered over the price for several minutes and finally agreed that Groumain would assemble transport and camping equipment and meet Yost at the Inn of the Half Sun in two days.
As they walked back to the inn through the teeming, dark streets, Kolitt said, ::I believe Groumain may be an error.::
::What! Subtlety at last? I know he is. But how could I have refused?::
::A good question, but utterly academic. We shall have to keep an eye on this Groumain.::
::You know, we shouldn’t get too melodramatic. Central Intelligence is out chasing thousands of clues on an important theft of a something-or-other which we aren’t cleared to know about...::
Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards and Other Stories Page 4