Maske: Thaery

by Jack Vance

  “Where are the difficulties? They exist only in your mind! They can be defeated!”

  Sune shook her head, her expression melancholy and wistful. Jubal circled the table and sat close beside her. “Look at me.”

  Sune obeyed, long lashes shrouding her eyes. Jubal implored in a low earnest voice: “Say that you have at least a quiver of sympathy for me!”

  Sune turned away. “You must not make such demands! Have you no feeling for my position?”

  “My feelings are for you! I am entranced; I burn with longing!” He put his arm around her shoulders and bent to kiss her. She drew away, then mischievously looked back. Jubal kissed her, which she allowed, but when he attempted a more fervent embrace she withdrew to the end of the bench. “Jubal Droad, you would gladly take us into regions from which we could not return.”

  “Why should we wish to return?”

  “Consider the facts! I am Sune of the Mircea ilk and the ancient Setrevant caste. Here at Wysrod your status is unknown. You are employed as a secret agent, a most precarious life. Even now you leave on a far and dangerous mission. I may never see you again!”

  Jubal grunted. “I suppose Mieltrude delineated every detail of my mission?”

  “Of course. We are confidantes.”

  “And you told her that you are seeing me?”

  Sune shook her head. “She would never understand. I fear that Mieltrude is a creature of rigid concepts.”

  “Does she still feel for Ramus Ymph?”

  “I doubt if she ever considers him. He has gone to his manse in the Athander Fens. No one has seen him for weeks.”

  “He is like a voulp in a cave; he sits in his chair, grinding his teeth and planning new abominations.”

  Sune laughed merrily. “Poor Ramus; you should not abuse him so! At heart he is a zestful boy, surging with romantic dreams.”

  “He is a zestful boy, overflowing with depraved impulses and infantile cruelties. He and Mieltrude make a fine pair. I can hear them now as they plot in the Parloury.” Jubal spoke in an affected falsetto: “‘Oh, Ramus, I am desolated by your defeat! The Glint nobleman disclosed certain truths about you!’” Then, in a gruff grumbling voice: “‘The irresponsible villain! I will punish him!’

  “‘Oh, do, Ramus! I dislike his hairstyle! And he cast a lascivious glance at Sune rather than at me. He deserves a good bath in herndyche and twenty broken bones. That will teach him not to offend favored darlings of society like ourselves.’

  “‘My dear, your fancies are charming! I can propose an elaboration which will amuse you. First we will startle his nerves with hyperas, and he will feel each pang a hundred-fold.’

  “‘Oh, Ramus, what a delightful idea. Allow me to sign the warrant!’”

  Jubal, grinning, looked at Sune. “And that is how matters went. Am I right?”

  “Not exactly,” said Sune. Jubal could not decide whether she were vexed or amused.

  “But close enough?”

  Sune shrugged. “The episode is finished and closed.”

  “You underestimate the length of a Glint’s memory.”

  Sune looked at him in perplexity. “You are as mutable as a flitterfly. One instant you declare your fervor in regard to me, the next you tremble with rage at poor Ramus. It is not really flattering.”

  “My apologies! I think only of you.”

  “Still you are anxious to venture far across the Great Hole on a glorious adventure with no thought for those at home.”

  Mieltrude was remarkably indiscreet, reflected Jubal. “I suppose you know precisely my destination?”

  Sune nodded sagely. “I am told that the Eisel are an intemperate people, and that the girls lack all decorum. Do you wonder now at my caution? You will befriend some brassy creature with huge breasts and flaunting buttocks. I will be far from your mind while the creature instructs you in a dozen vulgar exercises.”

  “Believe me,” cried Jubal. “No such intention has entered my head! I am captivated by one person only!

  Need I mention the person’s name?”

  “Please do not trouble. I suppose your mission is secret, even from me, but at least I am entitled to know if you will be in danger.”

  “No, or at least I hope not. I am to gather information only.”

  “What concerns us on Eiselbar? It lies far across the Great Hole!”

  “Well—I am to investigate the activities of certain persons, who may be working to our harm.”

  “I find this hard to believe. Who would threaten us from Eiselbar, so far away?”

  Jubal frowned up toward the sky. “I am not supposed to discuss the matter. Still, since you seem to know most of the facts—” he hesitated.

  “I am not interested,” said Sune. She slid back along the bench, and tilted her face up toward Jubal. “You are not obliged to tell me your secrets.”

  Jubal slowly bent his head. Sune did not draw back, but after a moment broke away from the embrace.

  She looked across the garden and uttered a startled exclamation. Jubal, following her gaze, saw a party of six folk settling themselves at a table.

  “They must not see me!” breathed Sune. “My cape, oh where is my cape?”

  Jubal handed her the garment; she threw the hood up over her head. “While they are ordering refreshments we must go,” said Sune. “It is the Noble Teviat and the Lady Nanou and the voluble Lady Dimmis; they must not see me here with you… Now! We will go. Quickly; walk between me and that group.”

  They reached the road without exciting recognition. Jubal rather sullenly escorted Sune to the hack. “Is your incognito really all that important? It discredits no one to be seen with me.”

  “Yes, I know.” Sune’s voice was tired. “You are Jubal Droad and a Glint nobleman. The Lady Dimmis however might not make the connection. We must be careful.”

  Jubal said nothing. They rode back toward Wysrod with silence heavy between them.

  Sune at last tried to mend matters. She reached across the seat and took Jubal’s hand. “Please don’t be annoyed. I simply can’t afford to have the world come tumbling around my head.”

  Jubal heaved a sigh. “No more can I… I must think matters over, very carefully.”

  Sune tossed her head. “If you are having second thoughts, your remarks clearly were not sincere in the first place.”

  “That does not follow,” said Jubal. “But otherwise I agree with you.”

  “Which ‘otherwise’ is this?”

  “Since I am on the verge of departure, I should not pay my addresses to you.”

  “You are absolutely incomprehensible! First you blow hot, then cold!”

  The hack turned into Trembletree Avenue and halted near the tall old mansion of the Mirceas. Jubal jumped out and assisted Sune to the ground. Without words she pulled the cape about her and walked quickly off along the avenue. Jubal stood beside the hack watching the slender form retreat. She turned through the portal; Jubal saw the pale gleam of her face as she looked back; then she was gone.

  Chapter 10

  The Peripheral Line packet Hizbah floated in space half a million miles from Eiselbar, awaiting clearance from the Kyash space-port. Jubal Droad walked the promenade, self-conscious in his Eisel garments: flared white trousers with black fidget-ribbons, a yellow jacket tight at the shoulders and belled at the hips, scarlet slippers and a bright green katch23. Overhead hung the yellow giant Bhutra. Photo-selective glass blackened Bhutra’s disk and tempered the glare of the corona; plain to see were gigantic prominences: swirling tongues of yellow flame licking out from the surface.

  The Hizbah, receiving clearance, shifted toward Kyash and presently landed.

  The atmosphere had long been adjusted; the passengers filed from the ship, through medical inspection, past the visitor’s register, out into the great lobby.

  Jubal halted to take stock of his surroundings. The sense of other-worldliness was strong. By the color of the light, by the taste of the air, by a dozen subconscious sensation
s he knew that he walked the surface of a strange planet.

  He stood under a flat conic dome, formed from alternate segments of green and orange glass24: the lobby vibrated to an energetic light. Men and women of many races transacted business at the counters, arrived, departed, met friends, family or commercial associates, conversed in small groups, or simply sat waiting.

  They used a great variety of novel postures and attitudes which Jubal found fascinating. The air pulsed with sound: voices shrill and guttural; the shuffle of feet and the rustle of garments; the thump, whine and drone of a thousand superimposed musics from the shoulder sets of every Eisel present.

  Ornate red and yellow characters over a portal formed a sign: TOURIST RECEPTION CENTER. Jubal crossed the lobby, passed through the portal and entered a large chamber under a second dome of green and orange glass. Around the periphery a ring of counters displayed decorative goods, garments and souvenirs. From a circular desk at the center a dozen clerks dispensed information.

  As Jubal approached the counter a young woman stepped smartly forward to proffer her services. To an amazing degree she resembled that version of Eisel womanhood which Sune Mircea had defined: a tall, large-bosomed creature with great masses of brassy curls pinned with ornaments of carved bloodstone.

  Her vermilion sateen blouse was trimmed with pink floss; pale yellow pantaloons fitted tight to bursting around her hips. Her ‘personal music’25 warbled and skirled: a gay feckless melody underlaid by a rasping obligato. She smiled with effusive cordiality, displaying large white teeth. “How may I oblige you, Husler?”26

  “Perhaps you would recommend me to a comfortable hotel.”

  “We may not suggest specific hotels. However—” she produced a pamphlet “—here is a graded list of accommodations, and you may take it for granted that those marked with five golden smiles are of superb quality.”

  Jubal glanced down the list. “I am seeking a friend who arrived a week or two ago; how might I find him?”

  “As to that, Husler, I can’t help you. We entertain thousands of visitors and we are at pains not to trouble them in any way, so we can’t possibly follow their affairs in detail. Wouldn’t that be a great imposition, after all? At Kyash everyone pursues the style he fancies most, without stricture or tish-tush.”

  “All very well,” said Jubal, “but I still would like to find my friend.”

  “Why not inquire of mutual acquaintances, or go to his usual resorts? Sooner or later you will meet him; Kyash is a happy, friendly city. Should you require a congenial escort—” she gave Jubal another pamphlet “—here are photographs of persons available for duty, at a fee of ten SVU per diem.”

  “Thank you.” Jubal turned to leave.

  “One moment, Husler! Another most important matter. I take pleasure in presenting you with this musical adjunct. I fix it to your shoulder. This is the selector, which affords you a carefully planned assortment of themes, including Stately Mien, Joviality, Pensive Dreams, Skylark Song, Receptiveness to Novel Ideas, Proud Assertion, Caprice and Original Whimsy, Quest for Love, Verve and Vivacity, Condolences, The Glory of Beauty, and others. This toggle adjusts for ‘Morning’, ‘Afternoon’, ‘Evening’, ‘Night’; this for ‘Solitude’, ‘Boon Companions’, ‘Erotic Proximities’, and ‘Crowds’. If you are interested in theoretical musicology, you may read this little pamphlet.”27 While the clerk spoke, her chotz, or ‘personal music’, altered to a tinkling set of chords, spaced at precisely logical intervals, to emphasize the immediacy of her remarks.

  Jubal glanced at the musicological pamphlet, then studied the hotel list. “The preferred hotel—this with the seven smiles—appears to be the Gandolfo.”

  “True. It is absolutely luxurious.”

  “And expensive.”

  “Inevitably the qualities are associated.”

  “I will at least seek my friend there.”

  “He would seem to be a person of discriminating taste.” She touched a button. “A conveyance is at hand, Husler; if you will be so good as to walk to the door.”

  Under a portico waited a small vehicle, marked by a blazing gold and scarlet sunburst, the emblem of the Hotel Gandolfo. A doorman assisted Jubal within. “What of my baggage?”

  “You will find it already at the hotel, Husler Tibit.”

  The conveyance slid smoothly away, with Jubal somewhat bewildered. If all were so relaxed and unregimented, how had the doorman known his name?

  The vehicle drifted along the Avenue of Amplitudes, a dome of photo-selective glass protecting Jubal from the sun-blaze. Umbrella palms, gigantic ruffleworts, pale blue zagazigs, white shag-trees growing beside the road cast a shade which, by optical reaction against yellow Bhutra-glare, seemed almost dark blue. The conveyance turned into the grounds of the Hotel Gandolfo: a structure of five domes and five shdavis28, each blazoned with the gold and scarlet Gandolfo emblem.

  The conveyance halted under one of the domes. A doorman, hastening forward, assisted Jubal to alight.

  With a polite smile he switched on Jubal’s music-box, deftly twitched knobs and toggles; Stately Mien, ‘Afternoon’, ‘Solitude’ permeated Jubal’s surroundings.

  “Thank you,” said Jubal.

  “My pleasure, Husler Tibit! Will you step this way?” He ushered Jubal along a raised glass walkway. On the dry sand below, four of the famous Eisel slimes rippled and scuttled: gaudy creatures of mottled black and yellow.

  Jubal paused to watch. “Are these slimes dangerous?”

  “Dangerous, Husler? Well, indeed now, they’ll give you somewhat of a sting.”

  “Just a sting? I heard they were deadly poisonous.”

  “Scare stories, Husler. Tourists should keep to the walkways, unless they’re wearing sand-boots, then there’s never a problem.”

  “And what if I walked on the sand without boots?”

  “Well, some of the slimes admittedly have a bad reputation. But why worry? Merely stay on the walks!”

  “Suppose I fell, and one of the bad slimes stung me, what then?”

  “No doubt you’d be a bit uncomfortable. Still, it’s not my place to prognosticate, being no medical man, nor a mortician.”

  “In other words, I’d die?”

  “Well, perhaps. That’s the morbid rumor; however, we never let it interfere with the pleasure of our guests, who are hardly the sort to attempt some giddy trick, like walking narrow ways while intoxicated.”

  Jubal entered the reception hall, where he was greeted and congratulated upon his choice of accommodation. “What will you require, sir? The grand suite? An ordinary suite? Possibly a simple bedchamber with attached bath and garden?”

  Recalling the recommendations of Nai the Hever, Jubal requested the simple chamber. Carelessly shifting the pamphlets supplied him by the Tourist Center from hand to hand, he dropped a photograph upon the counter. “It’s my friend, Husler Aldo,” he told the clerk. “He’s staying here I believe? Or has he departed?”

  “Husler Aldo is not among our guests, Husler Tibit.”

  “‘Aldo’ of course is his personal name,” Jubal hastened to say. “He probably uses his clan name here. A most handsome man, don’t you agree?”

  “Naturally!” The clerk’s chotz lilted in a fulsome arpeggio. “But I don’t recognize the gentleman. Perhaps he selected another hotel.”

  “To his misfortune.”

  “Quite so.”

  Jubal rode a lift to his chamber in the north shdavi, where he instantly switched off the music-box. He bathed; then, after consulting the menu which appeared on the wall-screen with illustrative photographs, he selected a meal, the price of which, converted into toldecks, represented half of his week’s salary at Wysrod.

  The meal was served on his garden balcony, under a screen of gray metaphotic glass through which Bhutra appeared as concentric rings of carmine red, pale green, yellow-white, bitter copper-blue. Foliage of black lace framed his view across the city: elevated streets, shdavis standing two hundred feet high, a
nd in the distance the snow-capped Ririjin Mountains shimmering like a mirage.

  Jubal dined luxuriously and without guilt: appetizers with a goblet of chilled cloudy-pale wine, tart and tingling on the tongue; a salad of delicate herbs; twists of fragrant paste and slivered pepper-crusted meat; a skewer of small broiled fowl, hot and sputtering on a slab of grain-cake, with a garnish of sour melon balls; a parfait of five fruit-flavored frosts. Jubal had never before dined so delectably, and the comforts of his lodging would have pleased the most exacting sybarite of Wysrod. Sune’s concern in regard to the danger of his mission at the moment seemed farfetched. Well then: what of Ramus Ymph? No facile method of locating him suggested itself. He could hardly go from hotel to hotel displaying the photograph; at the hotel where Ramus Ymph actually resided the clerk would notify Ramus Ymph that a ‘friend’ wished to see him and the fat would be in the fire. Very well, some induction then. Ramus Ymph had evidently come, not as a tourist, but with a definite purpose in mind. He would not necessarily be found at the tourist resorts, but more likely in company with persons of importance. At Kyash such persons were the wealthy enterprisers.

  Or perhaps Eiselbar was no more than a convenient rendezvous, where Ramus Ymph could transact business with persons from any of the far worlds. If such were the case a hotel would be the logical place to look for him.

  The most obvious source of information was the Tourist Reception Center. Although the clerk had discouraged his inquiries, no doubt they controlled agencies to discover whatever information might interest them… Jubal looked over brochures and pamphlets celebrating places of touristic interest. He read of the Ririjin Lodge, perched on a twenty-thousand-foot crag, with a view over hundreds of miles of snow, ice, wind-whipped clouds, knife-edge ridges. From Ririjin Lodge a monumental toboggan slide descended by a route twenty miles long to the Openlands Resort at the base of the Ririjin Scarp. The track followed first a trestle to the Mountain God Glacier, down the glacier to the Slew, where the snow became undependable and a trestle with an artificial surface had been constructed; down the chasm of the Ushdikar River and by a series of exciting switchbacks and traverses down the face of Protubular Scarp.