Template: A Novel of the Archonate

by Matthew Hughes

“The Hour of Contemplating Essences having passed,” Umlat said, “my lord and his companions will be resting from their exertions, if you would care to do the same.”

  “I have undertaken no exertions,” Conn said. “What else might I do?”

  The servant looked apprehensive. “There are no restrictions on your activities,” he said, “but my lord prefers a quiet ship when he is resting.”

  “Is there a library?” Conn said.

  Umlat indicated a desk against one wall. He opened it to reveal an integrator console. “Do you require assistance?”

  “I think I should acquire some information on the aristocracy before I encounter them.”

  Umlat touched a few controls and information appeared on the integrator’s display. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “No.”

  “I will be outside if you should need anything.”

  As Conn seated himself at the console he felt a slight vibration; the Martichor was lifting off. His experience of space flight was limited, but the unobtrusive way that Lord Vullamir’s craft rejected the planet’s gravity argued for a well run ship and an experienced crew.

  He turned his attention back to the integrator and for the next hour immersed himself in a consideration of Old Earth’s topmost social segment. His investigations touched upon history, philosophy, theories of social organization and political relationships, genealogy and inheritance customs. He also took side trips into fashion, architecture, furniture design and symbolic languages, but at the end of the hour he was left with the realization that he had ventured no more than toe-deep into an ocean of subtleties. Understanding the ways and purposes of aristocrats would be the work of a lifetime, and he could think of better goals on which to expend the effort. He would rely on advice from Vullamir’s servants.

  He folded the integrator back into the desk and poured himself a restorative glass from a carafe of improved water. The substances dissolved in the liquid clarified his mind while rebalancing his metabolism. He drank another glass then stretched himself upon the bed. It attempted to ease him into sleep but he notified it that he intended instead to think. It rearranged itself then generated a purr of white noise that obliterated all other sounds that might distract him.

  He clasped his hands behind his neck and crossed his ankles, staring up at the ceiling and allowing his inner eye to present him with images. He replayed many of the incidents in which he had been involved since the moment he had gone to seek out Hallis Tharp: the old man’s broken body, Jenore’s face as she understood who he was, Daitoo’s grim concentration as he had brought his weapon up, Hilfdan Klepht’s skeptical speculating mien, Willifree’s appetite for the Divorgian woman, the Hauserian Farbuck’s revulsion against innocent transactions. There was more: the clerk at Flagit Holdings and the Registrar of off-world properties, Odell and the scroot team, Eblon Mordene and Alwan Foulaine.

  It was a wide array of emotions, some of which he understood, most of which he did not share. It appeared that the world outside his head was full of deeply held sentiments and raging storms of passion. Men and women suffered and made each other suffer for the most trivial of causes, striving violently and even desperately for gains that were to Conn Labro no gain at all, or to avoid losses that had no practical value.

  From recent experience, it was reasonable to believe that most of the human species were as mad as Stigs. But then, he reflected, the different madnesses were so widely shared. Could it be insanity to believe what every other person around one believed? Did distraction vary according to location and circumstance, so that Conn Labro was quite sane on Thrais yet became a muddlewit the moment he set down on the plains of Hauser or ran his boat up onto a Shorraffi beach?

  Jenore Mordene had clearly been out of her element on Thrais. When she had expected to be helped just because Hallis Tharp had requested it, Hilfdan Klepht had been just as puzzled as Conn, or as any Thraisian would have been. So Jenore had been operating on false premises, no less than if she had seen specters that were invisible to all but her.

  Yet when she had returned to Graysands she had become just another Shorraffi, perfectly fitted to her surroundings. Then it was Conn who was the misfit. It was he who, when he spoke his mind, left others scratching their heads and puzzling their brows.

  So, life on Thrais was right for him, though he had no urge to go back there and spend his years gaming and dueling. Yet that life was right only because it was the one he knew. With effort, he might become a Hauserian, offering his shoulder to the blunt point of the hassenge and counting each pang of its slow passage through him as a coin that bought satisfaction. Or a Shorraffi, chaffering for this or that without acknowledging that any transaction was taking place.

  He questioned himself and found that he did not wish to return to the world of his upbringing, nor to the sporting houses – even if he came to own one. Shorraff, though strange, was not unpleasant. Then he thought of Shorraff with Jenore Mordene added, thought of the way her parents were with each other, and he had to admit that the vision called to him.

  Still, somewhere beyond The Spray was the world he had been taken from in infancy. Perhaps it was a place to which he was perfectly suited, where he could open his mouth and speak his mind and see every head nod in agreement – or if not agreement, at least understanding.

  In the course of his review it occurred to him that these past few moments, spent lying on his back in Lord Vullamir’s spaceship, were the first occasion in quite some time when he was not closely engaged with some other person or persons, usually in an unstructured conflict. He had had little time for reflection. It was as if the death of Ovam Horder had tipped Conn Labro off a high platform where he had always known solid footing. Ever since, he had been in free fall, colliding with other persons who all seemed to be well grounded where they were, having to deal with them by tactics improvised to suit the occasion.

  But it had been all tactics, with no strategy. First it had been about survival, finding out who had wanted to kill him and why. Then it had become about unraveling a mystery involving his origins. From there, as his perspective widened, it had become a matter of finding where he belonged.

  Now, as he thought about where he had come from and to, he saw that the motif he had identified in his recent life – that is was all tactics, no strategy – had governed his existence since well before the death of Horder. It was the basic structure of his whole life. He had never had a goal that was not essentially confined to the short or middle term. He had accepted the circumstances of his place and role at Horder’s without question. His life had been centered on matters of who and where and when, of how and with what; he had never touched upon the most fundamental question of all: why?

  Now he found that he had come upon one of those questions that, once asked, could not be ignored. He was astonished that it had never occurred to him before. He had never gone into a bout without preparing a strategy, never entered a struggle expecting to improvise from a grab bag of tactics. To do so was to guarantee eventual defeat. The combatant who had a clear strategic goal was always a step ahead of an opponent whose only recourse was to react and survive.

  It was a chilling realization. Conn Labro’s life, that had seemed so well ordered, executed with such seeming brilliance, was nothing more than a pastiche of techniques and acquired skills. In his infancy, he had been pointed in a certain direction. Since then he had plodded forward, head down, climbing over each obstacle as it presented itself. He had never looked up, to see where his steps would ultimately take him. He had never questioned the route or the destination, never even asked if there was a destination, let alone whether he wanted to reach it.

  And who had set him on this course? Who had placed him on the track and pushed him forward?

  Hallis Tharp.

  And why? He wished now that the universe still contained a Hallis Tharp so that Conn could put that question to him. Still, it did contain the place where he had been brought from, a world named Forlor
that waited for him at a set of coordinates far out past the Back of Beyond.

  He reflected on the irony of his situation. For a few moments, he had had the beginnings of a strategy for his life: the companionship of Jenore, a place for them in a big household, some kind of useful work for him to do, perhaps even a spot on a birl team and a chance to win renown. A life marked by friendships, children and the adventure of aging. But here he was, flying away from all of that, toward an unknown world that probably offered him no more than an answer to the mystery of his past, when what he truly needed, as Jenore had said, was a reason to get up in the morning.

  No, he doubted that he would find what he needed on Forlor Yet, though he did not know how it would happen, he was confident that he was traveling toward a point where his life would somehow come into focus. Like a visual puzzle that cannot be solved until it is viewed from just the right vantage, when he came to the world of his origin he felt that the true shape of his existence would be revealed.

  What are you, where do you come from, where do you go? On Forlor he would find answers to all three of Hallis Tharp’s questions. But he suspected he already knew where he belonged: with a woman who waited for him on the New Shore.

  Conn’s musings were interrupted by a tapping on the cabin door and the entry of Po, the undervalet. This was a short and portly man with lacquered hair, close-set eyes and a soft mouth. He moved with bustling speed into the room, bringing with him a tall portmanteau which he opened to reveal several sets of garments, each with matching footwear and accouterments.

  “You will be expected for dinner,” he said. “I have brought suitable attire. Would you care to choose?”

  Conn rose from the bed. “Perhaps you should make suggestions,” he said.

  Po tugged his lower lip, then thrust a hand into the trunk and brought out a short-sleeved, floor-length gown, deep red with a luxurious pile that shimmered its surface. He laid it upon the bed then placed atop it a shirt of some lightweight fabric, white figured in pale blue rectangles, and a pair of breeches of the same scarlet as the gown. He completed the ensemble with hose that were equipped with thickened soles to make slippers.

  The man then helped Conn into the garments, the first time for as long as Conn could remember that anyone had assisted him in such a private undertaking. But it soon became clear that the breeches closed by a complicated system of strings and tapes, with the shirt connected to the breeches by yet more dangling appendages. The hose had to be embellished by bows at the knee, the tying of which Po asserted was an abstruse art, even though no one would see them: they would be under the gown when Conn was standing and under the table when he was seated.

  With Conn standing, the servant circled him, giving gentle tugs and twists to the clothing. The intelligence imbued into its fibers responded by fitting the garments more perfectly to his shape. Then Po stepped back and surveyed the result.

  “Forgive me if the question seems impertinent,” he said, “but on your own world, what is your rank?”

  “On Thrais,” Conn said, “my wealth would place me in the upper two percentiles. My accomplishments as a competitor would add a strong aura of distinction. I was considered superb in several difficult arts.”

  The undervalet digested the information then his plump hands rapidly sought through a selection of drawers and compartments to produce a chain of thick links, a heavy bracelet of worked metal, three ornate rings and a demilune of wire filigree, spotted with blue and green gems, meant to be hung about the neck from a finger-thick cable of plaited gold cable.

  Conn resisted. “I do not wear jewelry,” he said.

  “These are not idle decorations,” Po said, “but precise indicators of social rank. If you do not wear them, my lord and his companions will have difficulty perceiving you. To be blunt, you will tend to slip from their notice unless they make an effort to keep you in view. They are unaccustomed to make such an effort.”

  “I do not understand,” Conn said.

  The servant pinched his lower lip together again. He appeared to be gathering his thoughts, then he said, “Among the aristocracy, there are degrees and gradations. Much depends on the age of the lineage.”

  Conn indicated the integrator console. “I saw something about that in my reading.”

  “There are seven tiers of nobility. My lord Vullamir and his circle are members of the Original caste. They trace their ancestry back to the dawn-time of the Young Earth.”

  “That seems unlikely,” Conn said. “Before it was Old Earth, this planet was largely depopulated for eons. Its only inhabitants were the brutish and the eccentric.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Po. “And if I may advise, that is not a good supposition to put before my lord. But to return to our discussion, Originals have achieved an exquisite refinement of perception. They are scarcely aware of their surroundings, almost completely unaware of persons. Rather, they recognize place and station, largely through symbolic indicators.”

  “That seems a self-imposed handicap,” Conn said.

  “Not at all,” said Po. “With myriads of servants attending to their every want and need, our masters’ environment is always entirely congenial. Among ourselves we who provide that environment refer to it as ‘The Cushion.’ The Cushion allows the Originals to focus their attention on matters that truly concern them: rank, privilege, precedence, and the constant process by which those standards are subject to tiny but crucial adjustments.”

  “What process? What prompts these ‘adjustments?’“

  “Achievements and advances in their pastimes and diversions.”

  “And what might those be?”

  At Conn’s question a distance suddenly grew between him and the undervalet. He examined the man’s eyes and saw a reluctance to carry the discussion further, tinged with a faint undercurrent of fear.

  “Those are matters that do not concern us,” Po said.

  “They may concern me,” Conn said. “I am engaged in a significant transaction with Lord Vullamir. Yet his motives are opaque to me. Where I come from, a place that offered me no cushions, I learned to take good account of other peoples’ agendas.”

  The servant set his lips in a small, prim line and indicated that he did not wish to say any more. Conn resolved to press him. “Did Umlat mention the peculiar status I will assume once we touch down on Forlor?” he said.

  Po nodded a very small nod.

  “Would you be much missed in Lord Vullamir’s household? Would anyone throw himself between you and some fanged and clawed appetite?”

  Po’s smooth head trembled. Conn took the movement for a negative. “Well, then,” he said.

  The servant’s voice dropped to a whisper and he leaned closer. “We are not supposed to know about these things, and indeed we know little enough. We open doors to admit certain ‘visitors.’ We do not see what goes on once we close the doors, nor do we wish to. We clean the premises afterwards. We are instructed to compensate the visitors with items of value. Sometimes the visitors need assistance before they can depart. But no one speaks of it.”

  “Your masters engage in illicit activities and you are their accomplices,” Conn suggested.

  “The encounters are voluntary. How can they be illicit?”

  “Hmm,” said Conn. On Thrais, the logic of the man’s view would have carried the argument. Yet he wondered how Jenore Mordene or Ren Farbuck might answer.

  “How does rank change as a result of these ‘pastimes and diversions?’“ he asked.

  “Those who have encompassed more esoteric experiences and sensations are accorded higher stature. There are agreed upon gradations.”

  A connection closed in Conn’s brain. To confirm it, he asked, “Is Yellow Cynosure one of those gradations? Or Blue Green Exemplar?”

  A mingling of relief and puzzlement showed in Po’s face. “Ah,” he said. “You are acquainted with the Immersion?”

  Conn made a noncommittal motion. “Tangentially,” he said.

  “If
I may ask, is the transaction that you and my lord are engaged in related to his rank therein?”

  Conn’s initial response would have been to say no. But it was clear from his reading of Po’s face that such an answer would not admit him further into the servant’s confidence. He adopted a careful tone. “I do not say yes, but I also do not say no.”

  Po looked thoughtful. He laced the digits of his plump hands together, all but the index fingers. These he steepled together then touched them briefly to his nose and lips. Conn was sure he was seeing a signal of some kind, perhaps a gesture by which members of a clandestine organization revealed themselves to each other.

  He mimicked the gesture and saw sly calculation appear behind Po’s gaze. “Ah,” he said again. “Allow me to guess: your own rank is Sky Blue Epitome.”

  Conn said nothing, his face immobile.

  “Crimson Acme?”

  Conn again said nothing but allowed one eyebrow a moment’s dip.

  “Say no more,” said Po.

  A soft chime sounded from somewhere. “Dinner is imminent,” Po said. “I will summon Umlat to conduct you.”

  “Wait,” said Conn. “Will the others be wearing life masks?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then should I not wear one also?”

  Po made a dismissive gesture. “No one will expect you to do so.”

  “I do not wish to seem outlandish.”

  “But you do not own one, surely?”

  Conn looked down at his attire. “Nor do I own these garments.”

  Now the undervalet seemed at a loss how to respond. Finally, he said, “If you wish to borrow a mask, I suppose there must be a number of them in my lord’s quarters. I could ask the junior keeper of the wardrobe to inquire of the senior keeper if one could be made available. Perhaps some misremembered third cousin, but...”

  Conn was beginning to think he had traveled one step too far into unmapped territory, but he did not want to show indecisiveness in front of this man. He smiled and said, “At least let us see how it fits,” he said.