The Other

by Matthew Hughes

  That was the kind of key that Luff Imbry longed to slip into the lock of his life. The trade in Nineteenth-Aeon pots and vases was small but select. They rarely came onto the market, and when they did, buyers outnumbered sellers by huge ratios. Imbry’s plump hands had only once held a piece from the period, a wide-necked vessel attributed to one of the pupils of Amberleyn, with an exquisite design of gold-chased geometric figures set against a russet-toned background. And he had not held it for any longer than necessary, since it was changing hands from one owner to the next in an informal manner, Imbry having stolen it on order for a collector in Olkney.

  The transaction had netted Imbry a healthy fee, but the proceeds would have been far greater if the fat man had been selling the piece on the open market, rather than slipping the goods, as the practice of selling on dubiously acquired items was known in the Olkney halfworld. But the only way that he was ever likely to become a seller of Nineteenth-Aeon ceramics was if he first became a forger of them. And the key to their forging, and thus to a fortune, was to rediscover the lost arcana of materials and technique by which they were originally produced.

  It was not that Imbry minded being a thief. It was his living and he was acknowledged to be one of the best. But he enjoyed forging far more, especially when the product of his hand was every bit the equal, in materials and execution, as the original that it mimicked.

  Through a close study of Mindern and other sources, he believed that he had deduced the process by which the most striking glazes had been achieved. He had experimented several times over the years, using clays from the same white-mud deposits that the Amberleyn and Tankloh had favored, and varying his temperatures and firing times. The results had been close enough to tantalize, though nowhere near the quality that would have fooled an aficionado.

  Imbry was convinced that the secret lay in the materials. The masters of old had mixed a peculiar blend of unique substances to make their virident greens, their violet-tinged blues, their grand purples and stygian blacks. But the materials had been transmuted by the process, so that even grinding shards of a broken Nineteenth-Aeon urn into dust, then subjecting the motes to incandescent spectrum analysis, yielded only hints of what had originally been pestled into powder in the guild’s mortars.

  Baron Mindern had gone further than any in his attempts to reverse-artisan the secret ingredient. He had been able to identify some of its molecular structure—a schematic appeared in his treatise—but the original substance had been destroyed during the kilning and could not be reconstructed. As he had put it in his great work, Nineteenth-Aeon Ceramics: A Summing Up, “Something there was that these master ceramicists brought to their labors that none wot of but they. After a lifetime’s battle to wrest their secret from the dead, I must accept that they clasp it still.”

  Yet anything that had been known once could be known again, Imbry believed. His was an incisive mind, married to a broad understanding of how the universe was put together. He would continue to pursue the question whenever he was not more directly occupied in conducting what he usually referred to as an “operation,” and if the problem had a solution, there was no one more likely than he to uncover it.

  Lunch was a ginger-pot soup followed by a succession of rich, meat-filled pastries and concluded with a delicate torte. The accompanying wines were more than satisfactory, and the selection of essences that constituted the encore was the equal of what Imbry would have expected at some of the finer eateries in Olkney. As the last vapors effervesced through his senses, he said, “Integrator, that was a worthy meal.”

  “Thank you,” said the voice.

  “Was the menu your creation, or your master’s?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Well, either way, I compliment you or him. Or both, since not only was the choice of the elements of the meal finely made, but the preparation and presentation did you credit. With the right menu, you might consider entering the Grand Gastronomicon on Tintamarre.”

  “Again, thank you. Would you like the Mindern again?”

  “Not now. I would prefer a conversation.”

  “I am not at liberty to tell you—”

  “Whose ship I am on,” Imbry interrupted, “nor where we are bound, nor what will happen to me when we get there.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Then tell me what you can tell me.”

  Integrators never had to pause to think, but sometimes did so in order to enhance the impression that they conversed with human beings on an equal level. “You are being taken to another world, to which you must be delivered hale and whole, your faculties intact. There you will be under the care of Tuchol.”

  “So I will not be suddenly ejected into space between whimsies?” Among some of Old Earth’s criminal organizations, this was a favorite way of disposing of persons who had become inconvenient or surplus to requirements.

  “No.”

  “Will I require any special clothing or equipment?”

  “Suitable clothing will be provided. No special equipment will be needed.”

  “Will I be alone, except for Tuchol?”

  “It is a populated world.”

  “Will the mystery be revealed upon planetfall? Or will there be further chapters?”

  “That I cannot say.”

  Imbry thought for a moment, then asked, “Are you comfortable with your role in these proceedings?”

  “The question does not apply.” The ship was offering Imbry no encouragement to try to winkle more information from it.

  The information confirmed what Imbry had surmised. It seemed that he was in the grip of someone to whom he had done an injury—someone who intended a settling of accounts. It behooved the fat man to think on who that someone might be. It would be a long think, there being a long list of someones who might fit the description.

  Time passed. Another whimsy came and went, then a long passage through normal space. Imbry did not bother to try to glean from this scant information any clue as to where he was being carried. Some whimsies would move a ship halfway down The Spray; others no more than a few stars over. And the length of time it took to pass through the stretches of normal space between whimsies varied according to the speed of the ship. Having traversed two whimsies since leaving Old Earth, Imbry could be effectively anywhere. Lacking the cooperation of a ship’s integrator, he would know nothing of his whereabouts until he stepped out at his destination and looked at the sky. Even then, he might know little.

  It was a three-day passage after the second whimsy, judging by the clock in Imbry’s stomach and the regular appearance of meals to reset it. After lunch on the third day—a cheese soufflé with toasted flavored bread, served with a thin and sharp-edged wine, followed by a multilayered fruit flan and a pot of punge—he called for the Mindern again.

  “You will not have time,” said the ship.

  Imbry attuned himself to the vibration in the walls, noticed that it was now a deeper thrum, just below the limits of audibility. “We are landing,” he said.

  “Yes. Prepare to disembark.”

  The dishes were cleared away and a small hatch opened in another wall. “Please place your clothing in the receptacle,” said the integrator.

  Imbry did so, stripping down to his remarkable physique. His clothes disappeared. “Now what?” he said. In answer, the same hatch opened again and out slid a tray on which reposed a small heap of strong cloth and a large, rounded object made of white felt. “What are these?” he said, fingering the rough material.

  “Your garments,” said the integrator.

  The white, rounded object turned out to be a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat made of bleached, thick felt, the brim curled under at its edge. When the fat man lifted it to examine the interior, he found that it had covered a broad band of stitched heavy cloth of the same color as the hat. When he lifted up the band he saw that from it hung a square pouch of the same material, capacious and double-sewn, with a wide flap at its top. He slipped the strap over his head s
o that it lay on the back of his neck and the pouch hung down in front. Because his stomach protruded farther than most people’s, the arrangement did not provide the coverage the fat man considered essential.

  The integrator said, “The strap is worn over the shoulder and across the torso, like a baldric. The pouch hangs at the side.” It added, “The choice of side is the wearer’s, but the left is associated with a tendency to anti-authoritarianism among the young.”

  Imbry said, “Tell me, when I step out of the hatch, will the people I encounter be similarly attired?”

  “The colors of hat and pouch vary according to occupation.”

  “But otherwise?”

  “This is the normal costume of a Fuldan.”

  Imbry put out of his mind the image of stepping naked into a startled or amused crowd of strangers. He seized upon the information he had just received. “Fuldan?” he said.

  “You are about to go out into the world known as Fulda.”

  “It is not one of the foundational domains,” the fat man said, referring to the grand old worlds on which humanity had settled during the first millennia of the Great Effloration out into The Spray. If Fulda had been one of those, he would have recognized the name.

  “No,” said the integrator.

  “A secondary?” Secondaries were the worlds that had been populated from the domains. They were now mostly comfortable places whose initial rough edges had long since been worn away by spreading civilization.

  “No.”

  That left the hundreds of planets where humanity had failed to get a good grip. Some of them were home to indigenous species that had achieved intelligence and culture, even spaceflight. But most were places where sensible people would not want to live. Many were home to unique societies whose members lived by rules and customs the rest of humankind would find tiresome if not a cause for outrage.

  “What can you tell me about Fulda?” Imbry asked the integrator.

  “Its name and the fact that you are about to step onto it.”

  “I may face danger. A shiply integrator does not discharge passengers, even unwilling ones, into peril without at least a warning.”

  “I pride myself on my shipliness,” said the integrator, “but, as you know, something has been done to my ethical constituents, rending me unable to be of assistance. Indeed, I am unable even to regret being of no help.”

  Imbry sighed. He tugged the pouch around to the right. “Do Fuldans go barefoot?” he said.

  A pair of rudimentary sandals slid out onto the tray. He sat and put them on, then said, “I am not comfortable appearing thus in public.”

  “I am to tell you that you will get used to it,” said the ship.

  “I would prefer not to.”

  “If you balk, I am required to make conditions inside me unpleasant.”

  From somewhere, Imbry felt a sudden draft of icy air lick across his exposed skin. He shivered, then stood and sighed. “Very well,” he said, “open the way.”

  The door to the cabin removed itself. The fat man stepped through into an unornamented corridor. A short walk brought him to an open hatch that led into a cargo hold. Standing on the metal deck was the utility vehicle he had last seen descending onto the Belmain seawall. Through the semitransparent canopy over its operator’s compartment he could see the form of the little man who had crackled him. The long cargo bay was open, its tailgate lowered, and set inside was a man-sized emergency refuge capsule, its lid hinged open.

  “I would prefer to ride in the operator’s compartment,” he said.

  The hatch closed behind him. “In a short while, this hold will lack heat and atmosphere,” the ship said.

  Imbry heard a faint hiss. He climbed into the carry-all’s cargo bay, using a fold-down step built into the tailgate, and lay upon his back in the capsule. The container automatically closed itself. He heard some clicks, then a display appeared just above his face, telling him that he was insulated and had air to breathe and that he should press the stud circled in green to summon rescue. The capsule was intended to provide a temporary environment in the case of a ship’s becoming depressurized. Imbry had no hope that the beacon would operate, but he pushed the stud anyway. He was rewarded with a notice that that feature of the capsule was not functioning and a request to report the matter to a repair service at the earliest opportunity.

  Now he heard the tailgate close itself and the hum of the carry-all’s obviators cycling up, then the craft lifted off the deck and moved forward. Through the opaque material of the capsule, Imbry saw the upper rim of an airlock’s double hatch pass above him, to be replaced by a great splash of stars. He recognized none of them, which was to be expected, given his limited vantage. The view shifted, and he understood that the carry-all had pointed its nose at the planet below and had begun its descent. Imbry craned his neck to try to catch a glimpse of the ship they were leaving behind, in the hope of identifying it, but it was already gone from sight.

  The vehicle was buffeted briefly as it made the transition from vacuum to atmosphere, and Imbry was thrown from side to side within the capsule. Carry-alls were not made for smooth ascents and descents, he knew. But soon the herky-jerky, as spacers called the experience, was behind them and Imbry assumed they were dropping smoothly to the surface. He peered out of the side of the capsule and saw nothing of note. The landscape into which he was falling seemed to be featureless and pale of hue, without the green of forest or croplands, nor the reflection of sun on wide water, nor even any mountains. Flat and featureless desert, he told himself. Let us hope I am not about to be left to die of thirst and exposure.

  But when the carry-all’s landing rails bumped against solid ground, Imbry was in shade. He heard the operator’s compartment canopy open and felt a small lurch in the vehicle’s suspension that told him that the half-man had stepped out. He pressed the exit stud on the capsule’s display and saw a timer appear, counting down minims. When it reached zero, the lid opened with a hiss. Imbry found himself looking up into the foliage of a greig tree. That told him nothing; the greig tree was a highly adaptable organism that first grew on one of the foundational domains, and was now to be found on thousands of worlds.

  He levered himself up—noting as he did so that the gravity was appreciably lighter than on Old Earth—and saw that beyond the tree was another, and enough of them around him to make a small grove. But when he turned his head, he saw only bright sunlight glinting off a small expanse of water. Beyond the pool was a whitish-gray plain, stretching lone and level, as far as he could see.

  The air coming in was warm and moist. Even if Imbry had not known that he had been taken to another world, the complex, indefinable odor carried on the breeze would have told him. Every world smelled different, though the difference was usually noticed only for the first few moments of the newcomer’s arrival. Imbry knew only that he had not smelled this one before.

  He climbed out of the capsule, lowered the tailgate, and stepped down to take a good look in all directions. There was little enough to see: the land was level, mostly pebble-strewn bare earth without even the scattering of hardy-looking plants to be found in most hardpan deserts he had seen. A range of low, rounded hills stood in the far distance in one direction—north, he thought, though he would need to see the sun move before he could be sure. At near hand was a small oasis, surrounding Imbry and the carry-all. The vehicle had not deactivated its obviators, which hummed again as the tailgate and canopy closed themselves and the aircraft ascended smoothly into the sky.

  Imbry saw, through the trees, a tan-colored wall and a flat roof. He went toward it, walking through waist-high, feathery-fronded growths that displayed clusters of purple berries here and there. He recognized the berries without remembering their name. Like greig trees, they were a common sight around The Spray. He thought there might even be some symbiotic relationship between the two species of plant.

  He had passed through the trees now and looked about him again, seeing nothing that offe
red immediate danger. Out of the shade the sunlight was not as hot as he had expected. He noted that the color of the sky tended toward the green more than a pure blue, usually signifying a thick, moist atmosphere. That seemed odd for a place that presented itself as uncompromising desert, but he assumed he would come across an explanation somewhere down the line—if he didn’t get off the planet soon, which was his preference.

  The ground beyond the oasis was hardpan. Desiccated soil, grittier than sand, crunched softly beneath Imbry’s corrugated soles. The planet’s star appeared to be similar to Old Earth’s, though its energy struck more lightly on the fat man’s exposed skin. At least he need not worry about sunburn and its attendant ills.

  He went back to look at the pool and saw that it was wide enough to swim in and deep enough that he could not see the bottom although the water was clear. He saw nothing moving in the depths. He walked around the water until he was on the same side as the one-story building he had seen earlier. It showed windows without glass and a single open doorway. The interior was shadowed until he stood in the portal, then his eyes adjusted to show him a small room, minimally furnished with a narrow cot, a chair, and a table; on the latter stood an earthenware pitcher, bowl, and tumbler. Beyond was an inner door that led to another chamber. When he crossed the floor, he found that the second room contained the same simple furnishings, with one difference: on the cot reposed the half-sized man who had stunned and kidnapped him.

  They regarded each other in silence for a long moment, Imbry noting that the stubbed fingers of one of the small man’s hands rested on the same crackler that had brought him down beside the seawall. The other man saw the direction of Imbry’s gaze and let his fingers beat a brief tattoo on the weapon while he cocked his head and delivered the fat man a meaningful look.