Black Brillion

by Matthew Hughes

  The time scale in which these amalgams of materials lay undiscovered eventually progressed from the human to the geologic. That which had been given a shallow burial by primitive humans’ earth-moving equipment was more comprehensively entombed by Earth’s slow processes of sedimentation and tectonic drift. Heat and pressure, capable over time of transforming coal into diamond, went to work on the rich variety of substances that paleohumans had promiscuously higgled and piggled together. The result was brillion, in its various forms.

  There was blue brillion, so hard as to be almost indestructible, yet capable of being pressure-split along tiny internal faults into faceted jewels as large as a man’s head. Besides beauty, the substance had interesting vibrationary properties that were of central importance to a class of interdimensional technologies developed several millennia back and abandoned only when the same results were found to be achievable by persons properly trained in advanced mentalisms.

  Then there was red brillion, which exhibited the properties of a refined metal and sparked a recurring vogue among designers of fashionable ornaments. As well, it could be chemically induced to imbue itself into other substances, transforming them into compounds whose existence had heretofore remained only a theoretical possibility. Some of the newly created materials created interesting effects on the boundary between space and time, opening ingenious new areas for investigation by bold apparaticists, a few of whom ventured into transient gaps in reality and were never seen again.

  There was also white brillion, which was largely useless except that its odor entirely repelled biting insects, though even that single attribute was only partly useful to sojourners in bug-infested wildernesses, since the reek of the stuff also attracted certain carnivores.

  There were several other species and combinations of brillion, some good for this, some for that, some for very little at all. Some forms were rare, some commonplace. Rarest of all was black brillion, a substance so scarce and precious, the documentary said, that those who came upon it always kept the discovery to themselves, leading many to believe the stuff was mythical. Its properties, therefore, were not widely understood, the program maintained, but popular legend had it that black brillion could do virtually anything its possessor wanted done.

  Baro was skeptical of the information about black brillion, but he absorbed all of the data without reflection. If he ever needed to use any of it, his all-capacious memory would regurgitate it for him. The foreground of his mind put up an image of Raina Haj as she had glanced at him at the foot of the gangplank. He found himself replaying that brief glint of sentiment in her violet eyes, which as he examined his memory he noticed were slightly slanted, the irises minutely flecked with highlights of turquoise.

  His introspection was broken by the cabin door sliding open to admit Luff Imbry, bearing an armload of bags and packages that he flung upon one of the bunks. “I have purchased you a …” he began but stopped and turned his attention to the information display.

  Baro took himself away from his mnemonic study of Raina Haj and reached to turn off the entertainment console, which had continued to inform the room about brillion. But Imbry stayed Baro’s hand and stood listening. After a few more phrases from the documentary, the older man nodded his head in confirmation and said, “That is the voice of Horslan Gebbling.”

  Baro grunted in his throat, “It is everything anyone could ever have wanted to know about brillion.” Then he had to repeat himself after his partner reinserted his earpiece.

  “Everything and more,” Imbry said.

  “How so?”

  “It tells us that brillion pertains to Gebbling’s plans for this excursion. Though I am not a guessing man, I would speculate that since he offers a mysterious cure for the lassitude, black brillion will figure prominently in the purported treatment.”

  Baro indicated agreement, but inwardly he was annoyed with himself. He had sat like a bumpkin at a raree show examining the mental image of a pair of eyes and a shock of dark curls when he should have been behaving like a scroot. He had let the content of the documentary wash over him without asking what should have been the obvious question: why was it being offered to the heterogeneous group that Horslan Gebbling had lured onto the Orgulon?

  More irritating to Baro was that Luff Imbry had asked and answered the question before Baro Harkless. Of course, Imbry had the advantage of recognizing Gebbling’s voice, but that was the thinnest of balms to Baro’s aggravated self-regard: Imbry was merely a conscripted amateur; Baro was the trained scroot, and should have been the first to grasp the import of what he was seeing and hearing. Instead, he had been thinking of Raina Haj.

  I will pay more attention, and think more about what I find, he promised himself. Still, he reasoned, if she is a confederate of Gebbling’s, then I am justified in taking an interest.

  Imbry, meanwhile, was focusing on the images and sounds coming from the information apparatus. Baro suppressed his irritation and gave close attention to Gebbling’s voice as he narrated how brillion was mined by specialized equipment working deep underground but remotely controlled from the surface by human hands and senses. The subterranean operations had proceeded for millennia and much blue, red, and white brillion had been brought up. Black brillion, too, was allegedly located, but there were no records to quote or display.

  “That’s it,” Imbry said. “He’ll claim to have found black brillion. It’s the old philosopher’s stone gambit.”

  “What on earth is a philosopher’s stone?” Baro said.

  Imbry shrugged. “It is a phrase from the dawn time. Perhaps the ancients believed that when contaminants crystallized in the excretory organs of wise men, the nodes also absorbed some echo of their psychic force. I do know that they cut them out and wore them as jewelry.”

  “Barbaric!”

  “One age’s barbarism is another’s civilized behavior,” the older man said. “For certain, most of our remote ancestors, if they could be brought forward to meet their descendants, would be horrified to discover that their eventual progeny were disreputable people who had no morals and knew no decent standards.”

  “Sophistry,” said Baro. “Morals advance. Right is right, no matter the age.”

  “Not so,” said Imbry. “Consider the folk of some rough and ready time when men were expected to defend their honor, whenever it was evenly slightly traduced, and by direct and forthright action.”

  “You mean, if trivially offended, one would draw out a length of edged metal and impale the offender.”

  “Exactly, although the act would be constrained within a web of formal rules and procedures, without which the skewering would be quite dishonorable.” Imbry placed his fingertips together and touched them to his lips, then pulled them away and said, “Now imagine a time six or seven generations further on, when laws and police forces have been developed to intervene in interpersonal disputes. Now, when slighted, one is expected to have recourse to the courts, bring an action, sue for damages.”

  “It is a more civilized approach,” said Baro.

  “Oh, undoubtedly,” said Imbry, “and the sword-wielding bucko who was the plaintiff’s great-great-great-grandsire looks to be a bloodthirsty throat-ripper by comparison. But we’re seeing it from the great-whatever-grandson’s point of view. If you could bring forward the duelist to meet the suitist, the old man would think his descendant a pusillanimous poltroon, with no more backbone than a garden worm.”

  “But the younger would have the right of it,” Baro said. “It is better to empty a man’s wallet than to expose his innards to the air.”

  “Is it?” said Imbry. “After all, wallets come in different sizes. One man’s crushing fine is another’s pocket change. Financial penalties allow the rich, especially the very rich, to inflict whatever harm they care to, pay a pinprick penalty, and go on to commit more outrages.”

  “In the days of dueling,” countered Baro, “the wealthy man could hire the best instructors and take the time to practice.”r />
  “True,” said Imbry, “but there was always the chance that a foot might slip or that the opponent, though poor, might be gifted.”

  “I think we digress,” Baro said.

  “Yes, we do,” said his partner and returned his attention to the documentary.

  The display showed a map of the Swept, with points apparently selected at random. Legends appeared on the screen, and the locations were identified as brillion mines past and present. One was marked with an interrogative sign.

  “He’s claiming to have located a new brillion deposit,” Baro said, wanting to be the first to a conclusion for once.

  “Yes,” said Imbry. “Near the Monument at Victor.”

  “Then I’ll wager that the words ‘black brillion’ will be heard on this vessel sometime in the next few days.”

  “I would not bet against it.”

  Baro had read the Bureau manual on confidence tricksters. “The fraudster never goes directly to the takeoff,” he quoted. “He builds to it through small steps that lull the victim’s suspicion while simultaneously raising his expectations.”

  “Well said,” said Imbry. “So the landship will not go directly to Victor. There must be time for expectations to rise.”

  “There may also be fake victims aboard,” Baro said.

  “Indeed.”

  The documentary had again come to an end and began once more to repeat itself. Baro turned it off and examined the purchases his partner had made. There were two new but utilitarian garments for the younger man, along with several luxuriant outfits for Imbry. Imbry also now possessed a pair of calf-length boots of some rare leather and a complicated hat whose wide brim was folded to several precise angles.

  The whole must have cost a great deal and Baro was sure it would be charged to the Bureau. He wanted to make a remark, but he was as aware as Imbry that their conversations tended to repeat themselves without coming to any useful conclusion. He said nothing and changed into a new one-piece suit of tan and umber. There was no new cravat so he wore the one Imbry had given him.

  As he pulled the shoes back on, the cabin gave a gentle lurch and there was a loud creaking from above their heads. “We are under way,” said Imbry.

  The Orgulon was wind-powered, drawing energy from the vast sea of air that constantly flowed across Swept. The wind was captured by cylindrical vanes that rose like columns from either end of the ship, four on the raised afterdeck and two on the forecastle. The rotation of the wind wands provided motive power to the vessel while simultaneously generating power for its internal systems. The masts’ placement left the landship’s center deck open for the use of passengers.

  Baro estimated that all of these had come up to see the vessel ease away from the dock and strike out toward the darkening east. He cast an agent’s eye over the throng, mentally sorting them as to social rank and wealth. “I still cannot see them as anything but a mixed lot,” he confided to Luff Imbry. “Your experience is broader. What do you say?”

  Imbry looked the crowd over. “If I did not know that they had all been chosen by Gebbling, I would take them for a group assembled at random.”

  “You do not see his strategy?”

  “I do not. However, the matter may be moot. We can just wait for the ringmaster to put in his appearance, scoop him up, and interrogate him at leisure.”

  Baro signaled a strong negative. “No, we cannot. We must have evidence of a crime.”

  “Gebbling’s involvement is evidence enough.”

  “It is not. The Bureau judges deeds, not men.”

  “Oh,” said Imbry, “so you judge me only by what I do? I had thought to detect an underlying prejudice.”

  Baro did not want to argue. “Let us stick to the case at hand. So far, all we see is a group of lassitude victims and those who care for them being invited on a cruise.”

  “I’m sure we could arrange something,” Imbry said. “An overheard conversation in which Gebbling vows to bilk them all and singly. Perhaps a document laying out the whole scheme.”

  Baro was horrified. “You are proposing perjury and forgery. I should arrest you forthwith.”

  “I am proposing pragmatic solutions, and please believe me when I say that I am not the first scroot to do so.”

  “I believe nothing of the kind,” said Baro. “The Bureau stands far above such perfidy.”

  Imbry regarded him quizzically for a moment, then exercised his features in a manner that told Baro he was being silently mocked. Baro would have further defended the Bureau’s honor but there was no opportunity: the fat man had removed his earpiece and turned to look out across the prairie.

  Baro did the same and saw immense clouds sailing like ghostly ships on the horizon, their bottoms flat as the Swept, their middle and upper reaches piling billow atop billow, their shapes slowly evolving under the sculpting of the constant wind. The young man felt there was a message in the vista could he but grasp it.

  His reverie was broken when an officer appeared on deck, a solidly built man with a seamed face and an air of authority. “I am First Officer Mirov Kosmir,” he said. “Our dining room is now open and we will presently serve dinner. Afterward, there will be an orientation. If you would all please go below.”

  “So,” said Imbry, replacing the earpiece. “Soon we will see. I don’t doubt that Gebbling will deliver the pitch.”

  “I would expect as much,” said Baro.

  “Then let’s nab him.”

  “Evidence first. I don’t mean to deliver him if we cannot keep him.”

  Imbry made a rude noise but gestured an agreement, although to Baro his acquiescence seemed very much the kind used to humor an unreasonable child.

  The Orgulon’s dining room extended from one side of the landship to the other, just below the promenade deck. Large circular windows in the outer walls gave a view of the darkened prairie and, above it, the glittering swarm of stars and near-space orbitals. The passengers found that each had been assigned a seat at one of the round tables draped in heavy white cloth. Baro found his and Imbry’s, and also found First Officer Kosmir already seated at their table.

  They were soon joined by a man of middle years, with a florid face that tended toward jowliness. His dark hair was arranged in an extravagant coiffure that involved gold and silver wire and small objects carved from polished wood. He made an expansive gesture of greeting. Almost unnoticed behind him was a slim young woman whose delicate features showed the rigor of the lassitude. The man solicitously drew out a chair for his companion and waited until she had stiffly managed to seat herself before taking his own seat.

  The florid man introduced himself as Tabriz Monlaurion and identified his companion as Flix. Here was the first victim of the lassitude Baro had seen and he studied her. She seemed to be in the second stage of the condition: the facial paralysis was fully established and she showed a woodenness in the movement of her limbs and hands. But her eyes flashed hard and dark in the mask of her face, and Baro sensed that she resented his inspection.

  He looked up as the two remaining seats at their table were claimed by a man and a woman with shaven heads, dressed alike in the understated trousers and tunics worn by devotees of the Lho-tso school of enlightenment. The woman spoke for both of them, the man being clearly under the lassitude. She was Ule Gazz and the man was her spouse, Olleg Ebersol.

  “Forgive my curiosity,” said Imbry after he had introduced himself and Baro by their assumed names, “but I see that you are both practitioners of the Lho-tso system.”

  Ule Gazz forestalled the inevitable question. “You want to ask if our ability to channel and focus the life force into targeted zones of the body is of any effect in combating the lassitude,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Imbry.

  “No,” she replied, vertical lines forming in her upper lip as she pronounced the syllable. “Else we would not be here.”

  First Officer Kosmir raised his hand and signaled to a steward who was hovering in a half-opened door
way from which the sounds and odors of dinner preparations emerged. The attendant raised his hand in acknowledgment, stepped back through the doorway, then emerged seconds later at the head of a file of similarly attired crew members bearing trays and salvers, which they proceeded to distribute among the tables.

  Imbry rubbed his palms together in happy anticipation. Kosmir noticed the gesture and said, “Have you tasted the truffles of the Swept before?”

  “No,” the fat man said. “I have heard of them, but have never seen them on a menu.”

  “They do not travel well,” Kosmir said, “but taken fresh they are exquisite. The charterer has apparently ordered that they be the mainstay of the cuisine served on this cruise.”

  “Why?”

  “I do not know. I do know that we can expect remarkable meals. Our galley boasts two fine chefs who delight in competing against each other.”

  A steward laid before Imbry a bowl that contained a jellied salad in which morsels of something dark were suspended. He tasted the dish and said, “An unusual savor. No, indeed, a unique taste.” He rapidly emptied the bowl.

  Baro’s own plate now arrived and a quick glance told him that there were two distinct menus: the healthy passengers received what Imbry had been served; the lassitude victims were offered a gruel that Baro tasted, finding it musty. He suspected it was a compote of truffles of the Swept.

  After the first course came an entrée—large slices of truffles in a bechamel sauce over wild rice with bitter greens for contrast. There was a flavored gruel for Baro and the afflicted.