The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  Flerdistar continued, “The Spsom you will see little enough of. Shchifr is Captain. He wears an iron medallion on a chain around his neck. Mrikhn is Astrogator. That one is small and dark. Vdhitz, who was by the port as we entered, is First Officer—Technician. Zdrist is Second Officer—Overseer. There are two natives of the world the Spsom call ‘Vfzyekhr.’ They are in the ducting and I know not if they have names, or what the custom of their world is.

  “Your term begins now and will continue until such time as we are successfully off the planet to which we are going. Some of you will doubtless wish to continue your employment and provision will be made then. The rest will become passengers and must pay, just as we. You can elect to return to Tancred, or first port of call otherwise, which I do not know now. Until we land, your duties will be simple: rationing and housekeeping. There is concentrated foodstuff and facilities for preparation in your compartment, which is to the left. We occupy the cabins to the left. Audiart Jendure, whom we have appointed head Daorman until planetfall, has our schedule. Otherwise, you are free to do as you feel inclined, in the time remaining. Do you have questions?”

  The girl, Ingraine, said softly, “We are to go to a world called ‘Monsalvat’; how long will we be on the ship?”

  Flerdistar answered, “It is a long voyage, but we go straight, with no stops. The Spsom tell me six weeks, perhaps eight, depending on currents. Yes, it is long, this way. Spend your time well. The Ffstretsha is a small ship and there is little room for us to impose upon the other. Now let me tell you a thing about Spsom and their ships. It will be true on this one, and on any other you may ever ride: outside this cabin, you may go anywhere freely where you see an open door, or open passageway. You may not pass a closed door. Custom varies as you must know. Do not pass through a closed door. Do not knock on it for entry. If you must pass, you must wait. This is the only prohibition I lay on you.”

  Halander asked, “Is there anywhere we can see out?”

  “Only from the cockpit and the wardroom. You will see very little of either, if anything. What would you expect to see? It is only space. The Spsom instruments transmit a coherent image, but the view is not different at night. For the most part, the Spsom areas will stay closed-door. Remember what I said. There are serious consequences to you first if you disregard this. Is that all? Good. I believe Miss Jendure has the schedule. After the supper hour there will be tonight a short honorary visitation with Captain Shchifr. The Elder Rescharten and I will attend. Schasny, you stand by for service there if required.”

  The Ler girl turned and quickly left the room, followed by the rest. Clellendol was last. He arose from his seat with measured, careful movement, taking a look about the whole room, noting each of the four remaining, making some unknown assessment of each of them. They each felt slightly uncomfortable under that reading glance; a scion of the Ninth House of Thieves55, indeed. And then he, too, slipped into the quarters Flerdistar had indicated were the cabins of the Lerfolk.

  It could have been an uncomfortable moment for them, when they were left alone, but Audiart did not permit them time to think about possibilities; she immediately began explaining what they had to do, in a quiet, sure voice. Her manner was carefully respectful, distant. Meure kept sneaking glances at the other girl, the slender one, Ingraine, and as he noticed also, so did Halander, but at the same time he appreciated Audiart’s taking charge, and risked more than another look at her.

  Then she took them into their own quarters, of which there was little enough to see; a narrow corridor, an odd sleeping room of six enclosed bunks, three on one side, three on the other, stacked atop one another. There was a tiny, but complete, even luxurious bathroom at the end, and the kitchen and locker were next to the door into the common room.

  Audiart indicated the bunks. “I suppose we can pick as we will. I claim no authority, but there appears to be room for all. The two extra we can use for storage. We all have little enough.”

  Meure looked closer at the stacked bunks. There seemed to be enough room within for a person to sit up without bumping his head. Access was gained by a narrow ladder, and a sliding opening presumably at the head of the bunk.

  Halander ventured, “Are we to follow the custom of the Spsom in the matter of open doors here as well?”

  Audiart started to say something, stopped, began again. “The practice seems understandable enough,” she said, carefully neutral, and not at all warmly. For the time being, there was no open invitation here offered to Dreve.

  She indicated a small locker. “Liy Flerdistar has provided us with a generous stock of clothing. I fear it is after the Ler fashion, but there is quite a bit of it on the shelves therein. Take what you desire—it is all plain and discreet and should fit us all reasonably well. Go ahead and use it; it comes with the job. Now—we should get things ready for the supper hour. Them first, and then us. Come along now, we can settle dividing up the clothes and selecting the bunks afterward. Schasny, you may have to pick a bunk, at least. I don’t know how long you’ll be up in the wardroom.”

  Meure said, “I’ll take top right.”

  The rest agreed. Then they set to the work of getting everything in order. In the small space, everything seemed to fall into place quite smoothly. The supplies were all where they were supposed to be, the equipment was in working order. In fact, they were well into the work, and starting to work efficiently together, before Meure thought to ask something that had just popped into his head.

  He was standing by the door, getting ready to take the bowls into the common room, when he turned to Audiart, who was then making some adjustment to the cooker. There was only a small lamp over the counter, so the entryway was quite dim. He looked at her, the light outlining her short, straight hair. He said, “When do we leave, Audiart?”

  She made the adjustment, turned away, to the counter. She answered, “Didn’t you know? We left when you came aboard. We’ve been in space for several hours, I should guess. We’re well away from Tancred by now.”

  After supper, Meure left for the wardroom. Audiart had told him what to do there, and how to get to it. It was simple; a short way along the main corridor, up a ladder, down another short corridor, and up a short stair. The door was open.

  It was a common room similar to the one below, only somewhat smaller, and different. The walls were interrupted by screens giving views into space. Between the screens were shelves of drinking bowls with elaborate handles, ornamented plaques, framed mottoes or certificates written in the Spsom ideograms. There was room for four or six, and that was all.

  Meure recognized the Spsom Captain from the description Flerdistar had given: the medallion. The Astrogator was not present. Presumably he was flying the ship. Vdhitz was the other Spsom. Meure entered without knocking, as he had been told, and stood by the doorway, his hands behind his back.

  They were talking, Rescharten Tlanh and the Spsom Captain, Shchifr, with Flerdistar and Vdhitz translating by joint effort. Sometimes they would discuss a point at some length before rendering the offered statement, going either way.

  Meure did not understand much of the discussion, and the Spsom end was incomprehensible, so he did not listen very closely. They seemed to care not at all what he overheard or didn’t. So he took the opportunity to look at the screens showing the view outside the ship. The stars moved. First, the fields of stars shown in the viewscreens drifted slowly past, the obvious effect of their motion through space. They also moved slightly along the other axes, as if the ship itself were changing its orientation in space. It was a motion not unlike that of the sea upon a boat, save that it was slower, a different rhythm. Meure watched one screen in particular, until something intruded on his field of vision from another. He looked. There, to all appearance off on the rear quarter of the ship, was another ship visible in the screen, flying formation with the Ffstretsha across the oceans of space: he recognized it. The accompanying ship was the Thlecsne Ishcht.

  2

  “Imagine, the
n, how I gloried in the flow of the silken waters about the ship, in the fantastically immaterial outlines of the hills, in the gloom of the frondage of the forests, in the curves of the cobra coast, in the sinister stories of wreak and piracy which haunt that desolate abyss through which we were steaming, where for nine months of the year one can scarce distinguish between sky and sea, so dark and damp is the air, so subtly steaming the swell; while beyond, as in a hashish dream, arose the highlands, provinces all but unknown even to the civilized inhabitants themselves. There, primrose to purple, was the promise of undreamed-of tribes of men, strangely tattooed and dressed, with awful customs and mysterious rites, beyond imagination and yet brutally actual, folk with sublimity carven of simplicity and depravity woven of the most complex madness.”

  —A.C.

  THE REMAINDER OF what passed for conversation between Rescharten Tlanh the Elder and Shchifr the Spsom Captain passed by Meure unheard and the proceedings unseen. He kept watch, as unobtrusively as possible, on that rear quarter viewscreen, watching as the erratic motion of the Ffstretsha would, from time to time, bring the ominous outlines of the Thlecsne into view. The privateer neither advanced nor dropped back, but maintained its position carefully. The Spsom Captain, Vdhitz, Rescharten, Flerdistar, all must be aware of it. They could not but see it, just as he; yet they were totally unconcerned, therefore they knew it to be an expected condition. Meure then wondered indeed about their destination, that they should be accompanied by an armed warship in order to go there.

  Shortly after, he sensed that the momentum of the meeting had been lost and that affairs had been completed. The two Ler arose from their places and bid the Spsom goodbye, for the moment, and left. After a moment’s hesitation, Meure followed them.

  The girl seemed preoccupied with something, perhaps fatigued; Meure did not think it best to ask her overmuch now. And Rescharten? He thought even less of asking the Elder. They returned to their quarters, through the ladders and corridors, in silence. At the common room, they found the other Ler adolescent up, studiously reading from the leaves of a reproduced text. Rescharten ignored the boy and passed directly into his own area, closing the door. Flerdistar paused for a moment, as if she had intended to say something, but Clellendol ignored her presence entirely, and after a moment, she, too, passed through the doorway into the Ler living quarters, not without a glance back, an unfathomable expression on her face.

  Meure now felt the events of the day pressing time upon him. He was tired. He also saw no reason to remain, and reached for the handle of his own compartment door.

  On a second thought, he turned and said, “You know that we are accompanied.”

  Clellendol looked from the book and turned a disturbing, direct glance onto Meure. “The Thlecsne? Yes, I know.” The boy pushed his chair back and stood slowly, laying the sheaf of reproduced pages on the table.

  Meure asked, “Why should a privateer fly formation with a small chartered liner?”

  The boy smiled, not unfriendly. “A privateer? Yes, so it was told. Actually, it’s something rather more than that; Thlecsne Ishcht is a commissioned warship of the Spsom Federal Naval Force, and a very special class at that. It has, so they tell me, the general plan and size of a frigate-class vessel, but more the armament of a cruiser.”

  Meure felt a sudden spasm of awe. That these people were wealthy enough to charter an entire Spsom ship, and a battleship as well . . . He said, “Your party hired both ships?”

  Clellendol shook his head. “Hired them both? No. Not even Flerdistar could arrange that. The Thlecsne is the request of Shchifr . . . No. Say no more. There is more to this than a night’s talk will cover. I dare say the Spsom first Officer may already have warned one of you. Aha, it was you. Well, there’s no cure for it, Schasny. Let it soak in—we’ve the time for it, and I want no panics.”

  Clellendol indicated the sheaf on the table. “Here. This will tell some truths about where we are going. You will need to know something. And stay away from the Liy Flerdistar. Ask her nothing.”

  Meure ventured, “She is yours?”

  Clellendol yawned, stretched like a cat. “Quite to the contrary . . . I mean in quite another sense.”

  “Why me, of the four of us?”

  “You seem to have your head screwed on right, that’s all.” The adolescent Ler spoke with a certain impatience, as if Meure were deliberately avoiding what he had been trying to suggest all along. He added, “I have made contact with a certain Spsom, who shares my apprehensions. I see from your expression that he has also approached you. Read what I have left you and, in your leisure time, speak with Vdhitz, however difficult it is to listen to Spsom speech. Become aware. There is need for it.”

  Clellendol turned and went to the door of his quarters. He glanced at the papers, once, to be sure Meure did not miss his intent, but he did not wait to see if Meure picked them up. Meure had not missed the pointed invitation, although he seemed sure that he was not overtly being asked to join a conspiracy as such. He gathered the papers and took them with him.

  Inside, all were asleep already, or so it seemed. There was only a weak glow of a night-light by the cooker. He looked at the bunks. All were dark, the sliding doors closed. All was quiet. He felt a small moment of relief. It seemed that Halander had not yet succeeded. Meure looked again. All the sliding panels were closed, save the one he had picked. He had no idea whatsoever what lay behind them, nor the number of occupants therein.

  Meure climbed the narrow ladder to his bunk, leaned over into the opening, climbed within. Inside, it was surprisingly roomy and comfortable, furnished in considerable detail and evident quality. Immediately inside the sliding panel door, there was an upholstered shelf; the bed proper lay at a slightly lower level. Along the walls were cabinets and shelves. The light came from a ceiling panel, but there were other lamps as well, cleverly recessed into the walls. Looking about, he found a panel of switches that controlled the lights; he also noted that there was another panel on the wall, with odd receptacles, for which there were no instruments in evidence. Spsom entertainment devices? Communication system plug-ins? He did not know. The switches did not feel right to his hands, and from that he knew it to be a standard Spsom compartment; but other than the odd feel and action of the switches, there was no alien feel to the compartment whatsoever. He felt perfectly at ease, completely at home.

  After some experimentation, he found the switch that controlled the ceiling panel, and when he had found what was ostensibly a reading lamp, he turned the ceiling panel off. Inside the shelves, he found blankets, but no pillows. He then undressed, wrapped himself up in the blanket, and rolled another up for a pillow. And remembered a sheaf of papers. He was tired, and hesitated for a moment, wondering if he shouldn’t just go to sleep and forget about the article Clellendol had given him. He yawned, sighed, and picked the sheaf up resignedly. He thought he would look it over before he turned the light out.

  The first section was a dry text about the known features of the system of which the world Monsalvat was a part. Meure read through it quickly; it appeared there was nothing notable about the system at all. Nothing? He read through the section again. Nothing of particular interest. There were six planets, one habitable, one other technically habitable but not exploited. Monsalvat was the Third from its primary. The other world was called Catharge, the second planet, and was hot and dry and rocky. There was no gas giant in the system, a fact that struck Meure as a little out of the ordinary, and the primary was a close double of K6 stars, again, rather odd, but nothing to cause alarm. The system was both exceptionally stable and apparently very old, judging by the metals percentage in the spectra of the two suns, which were as close to being identical as would seem possible.

  There was no evidence of intelligent life forms in the past of Monsalvat. There was native life, sure enough, but the Human discoverers of the system had found no trace, no artifacts, no ruins. It was a fact that had given them much pause, and Monsalvat was set aside for furt
her study. And before final conclusions could be drawn, there had arisen an unexpected need for a whole world, off by itself, and the planet had been colonized in an odd and rushed manner.

  There was a break in the text. Then the description started again, rather more now in earnest and less in the abstract.

  “. . . (It read) . . . Monsalvat, a rather watery world, has four land masses of near-continental extent: Kepture, Cantou, Glordune and Chengurune. The last is the largest, and Cantou is the smallest. The total land area, including known offshore islands, represents nineteen percent of the planetary surface. This land mass has, to all evidence, been insufficient to close both poles off simultaneously to free circulation, so Monsalvat lacks evidence of planetary or even hemispheric glaciation, even though all continents, save Cantou, show evidence of light glaciation in their geologic layer systems, but therein was found no synchrony.

  “The climate, therefore, is rather even for the degree of axial tilt to the plane of the ecliptic (twenty-eight degrees), this being due to the moderating effect of the large amounts of water in both liquid and gaseous form. . . .

  “. . . If the climate could be said to be even, the weather is a different matter altogether; Monsalvat has a day of twenty-two standard hours and a small satellite that exercises little tidal influence; therefore the weather is strongly variable, if one may speak conservatively. In the equatorial and sub-polar regions, it is violent, characterized by high winds on the surface and rapid change. In the South Polar part of the world-ocean, with no land masses or major undersea rises, waves and individual storms can sweep completely around the planet. In temperate regions, storms are much less frequent, but change is more manifest. In a deep atmosphere, with a high content of water vapor, there is considerable activity of cloud formations as a result. Curious though it may be, Monsalvat is not a rainy world. Little precipitation falls, considering the water vapor content. This has been attributed to the general freedom from atmospheric dust which is characteristic of the planet. Consequently, from the surface the sky, when clear, assumes a deep blue-violet color. Clouds can range from white and gray, with a yellowish tinge, to orange, depending upon the angle of light from the double primary.