“What’s wrong with friendship?” M’Don asked.
“What’s wrong with brotherhood?” Korak demanded.
“Nothing, I suppose. Except—”
“Except. Except that the concept of an animaloid being brother to a human grates. It doesn’t fit. Yet there are such relationships, many such, and no known human language has a word for them. I had the matter investigated. We need a word to describe ‘more than friendship’ between human and animaloid.” He slumped back into his chair. “Wargen thinks there’s a pattern to the riots. You have offices on a number of the riot worlds. Have they supplied you with reports?”
“Of course. It never occurred to me to examine them for a pattern, though. Events differed so drastically from world to world—on some there was a long series of disturbances that eventually culminated in rioting, and on others there wasn’t a hint of trouble in advance. Do you want those reports?”
“Yes, and I’d like every scrap of additional information that you can obtain. If there is a pattern, knowing what it is might prevent a tragedy here. Or elsewhere.”
“How could it possibly affect Donov? We have no animaloids.”
“Madness takes strange turnings. It’s already affected more than animaloids. Did you hear about the Galactic Zoological Gardens?”
“Yes. Very well. You shall have the reports.”
“Thank you.”
M’Don got to his feet. “I’ve never had an animaloid friend. Probably few Donovians have, since there are no animaloids here. In my case, though, I’ve traveled so extensively that I must have had many opportunities, and I can’t recall even speaking with one.”
“Did you ever want to speak with one?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t think I’m prejudiced on this subject, it’s just that until this moment I’ve never even thought about if. If I had, I might have made the effort. I’m sure it would be an interesting experience. Animaloids must have a unique view of the universe.”
Korak smiled. “Everyone I’ve talked with who has had the good fortune to know an animaloid well insists that such a friendship adds an entirely new dimension to one’s awareness of one’s self.”
“Then it’s unfortunate that we have none on Donov. I’ll send those reports as soon as I can assemble them.” He turned away, turned back again. “I think maybe you’re right. We need a word.”
In the mountains of Donov’s southern continent, the picturesque town of Verna Plai lay—some said floated—in a valley celebrated for its mineral springs. It was Donov’s most famous health resort, and it also possessed an art colony of note. The rugged, scenic mountains that surrounded the town, with their geysers and steaming springs, provided spectacular subjects for painting.
Art colonies came into being on Donov wherever there was anything that more than one artist wanted to paint. The Verna Plai colony was unique in that tourists had discovered the town long before the artists did, and Verna Plai tourists still tended to have an overwhelming interest in their own bodily functions and an abysmal lack of interest in art.
Most artists were wanderers, but every colony developed its small group of perms, of artists who remained there, often in dire poverty, because they loved the place. At Verna Plai one of them was Gof Milfro.
He painted faithfully for as many hours each day as he could hold his sprayers level, and once each week he took an armful of paintings down to the Plai. There he made the rounds of those merchants who condescended to display paintings, cheerfully verifying his assumption that none of his had been sold. Then he wandered about the hostels looking for an unwary tourist whose digestive processes had been loosened sufficiently to unblock a petrified aesthetic sense. Having failed in that, he occupied himself on the steep climb back to the artists’ colony with a searching review of his acquaintances to determine which one might be the best subject for the small loan he needed in order to exist for another week. Since he had never been known to repay one, artist creditors were as difficult to find as tourist customers. Somehow he survived and continued to work tirelessly—ragged, hungry, uncomfortable, but for all that indomitably cheerful and irrepressibly optimistic. He was an artist.
The day he received his windfall from Gerald Gwyll, Milfro laid in a few needed art supplies, paid off a fraction of his arrears in rent, and then made the rounds of his fellow artists. Starting with a neighbor, Jharge Roln, he poked his head through the open door, said, “I just dropped in to pay you the five dons I owe you,” and tossed him a coin.
Roln caught it and stared at him blankly. “You don’t owe me five dons.”
“Haven’t I ever borrowed five dons from you?”
Roln shook his head.
“Well. Someone must owe you five dons. Consider it repaid. I’ve borrowed from so many I can’t remember them all, so I’m paying back five dons to everyone I meet as long as the money lasts.”
When Milfro was contentedly broke again he made his way upstreet to a cavernous bistro called The Closed Door because at one time in its ramshackle history it had none. It was a favorite gathering place for artists, who had their own private annex, and there Milfro occupied the chair of honor.
He had earned that distinction several years before, when the caterer had incautiously permitted him to do a painting in payment of a long-overdue adde bill. He astutely performed the painting during the caterer’s absence, and he painted the thing on the wall so that it could not be rejected. He portrayed himself, in the armored costume of a warrior of another world and time, mounted on a stampeding wrranel and pursuing a terrified tourist with a paint sprayer. What the caterer thought of this was never recorded. The other artists delightedly took turns in adding themselves, variously costumed but always on wrranels and armed with artistic impedimenta; or in contributing to the crowd of panicky tourists prize specimens that had aroused their ire during their visits to the Plai. The painting expanded in both directions and became a vast, panoramic mural.
The mural’s fame grew. Tourists began to trudge up the hill for a look at it. They found the walk as healthful and stimulating as the mineral baths, and they came again—and again. The caterer’s business expanded almost beyond his credibility. He did not overlook the source of his prosperity, however; when the enormous main room became so crowded with tourists that there was no place for the artists, he added the annex, reserved it for artists only, and served food and adde at cost—which inspired the artists to continue and expand the mural. At both ends of the room it turned corners, turned again, and met in the center of the opposite wall where a crowd of angry tourists was shown pursuing wrranel-mounted, terrified artists.
A firm dealing in art reproductions heard of the mural and sent a representative, A contract was negotiated, and soon the caterer began receiving royalty warrants. Whenever one arrived, he chalked up the amount in the artists’ annex and served free food and adde until it was exhausted. His competitors did not complain; the number of tourists taking daily walks up to the artists’ colony had enhanced everyone’s profits.
As for the man who started it all, Gof Milfro had his seat of honor and, like the others, free food and adde whenever there was a royalty warrant. Otherwise he borrowed and begged and had an unexpectedly rare windfall when a tourist paid him a pittance for a painting that had required a month’s work. Somehow he survived and continued to work tirelessly—ragged,hungry, uncomfortable, but for all that indomitably cheerful and irrepressibly optimistic. He was an artist.
On this day, despite his pleasure in distributing the Harnasharn largess, he was a worried artist. As he took his seat of honor at the end of the long table, he asked, “Is there any news from Sornor?” He got no answer, so he raised his voice and asked again. Other than a momentary lapse in the conversation, the only response came from a young artist who called, “What’s with Sornor?”
“I’m worried about Franff,” Milfro said.
“Who’s Franff?”
“More of an artist than you’ll ever be.”
> “Oh—that animal.”
“Animaloid!” Milfro snapped. “Which by definition is what you probably think you are, an intelligent animal.”
He was prepared to enlarge upon that, but an altercation at the door caught his attention. A woman in tourist costume was attempting to enter, and a waiter firmly blocked her way. “Artists only, ma’am.”
“I only wanted to speak with Mr. Milfro,” she said.
Milfro got to his feet. “Yes? Oh, it’s you.”
The waiter moved aside, and she stepped into the annex, a tall, dark woman of flashing eyes, appealing smile, and indeterminate age. She looked about curiously and exclaimed, “No murals? It’s very generous of you artists to beautify the building for others before you do it for yourselves.”
“Just because we’re artists doesn’t mean we like art,” Milfro growled. “Did you get to see it?”
“Yes. For two uninterrupted hours! I’m on my way back to Donov Metro, and I wanted to thank you before I leave.”
Milfro removed his turban, bowed slightly, and said, “You’re entirely welcome—I don’t remember your name.”
“Mora Seerl.” She spoke to the other artists. “I’m a visiting critic from Adjus. This is my sabbatical year, and I’m studying at the Institute and visiting as many of the art colonies as possible. I wanted to do a detailed study of your mural, but every time I came here the place was so crowded I couldn’t get near it. Finally I told Mr. Milfro about the trouble I was having, and he spoke to the caterer, and the caterer let me come in after closing.”
“Best caterer in the universe,” Milfro murmured. “What’d you think of the mural?”
“It’s charming! I haven’t seen so many portraits in one place since I arrived on Donov. I had the impression that Donovian artists don’t know how to paint portraits. Several of your tourists are priceless, and of course the whole concept is absolutely ingenious. Unfortunately, all of that wall space, and all of that paint, and the tremendous amount of effort and skill involved in applying it, are aimed at showing pictorially the two types that among all the people of Donov are the most utterly lacking in pictorial qualities—artists and tourists.”
She thanked Milfro again, delivered a smile of farewell that embraced everyone in the room, and rushed away. Milfro resumed his chair. “An artist can’t even have a joke,” he announced disgustedly, “without some stupid critic trying to take it seriously.”
Jharge Roln had come in and seated himself at the far end of the table. He called to Milfro, “About Franff—”
“What about him?”
“Know an artist named Om Evar?”
Milfro nodded.
“I hear he has some kind of a connection with one of the riot worlds. don’t know which one, but it might be Sornor.”
“Thanks,” Milfro said. “I’ll go see him now.”
The ramshackle dwelling where Evar lived was the spiritual sibling or every other ramshackle dwelling in the colony. Milfro clumped up three flights of creaking stairs to the attic, where Evar enjoyed the unusual luxury of private quarters and even had a weatherproof skylight improvised out of a hole in the roof.
The door was ajar. Evar sat morosely in front of an easel, tears streaking his face. Milfro stepped into the room and stared at the painting on the easel.
“What’s that?”
“A fvronut,” Evar blubbered.
“Of course it is. What’s a fvronut?”
“Animaloid on Stovii.”
“Oh.” Milfro regarded the painting with interest. “Really, that’s nicely done. That’s quite the best thing you’ve ever done. You might he very good at portraits. I doubt that there’s a market for this one, though—not many tourists would want a painting of a hideous, earless, long-snouted, toothless, leather-skinned—”
“It’s not hideous!” Evar shouted hotly.
“It’s not? Excuse me, of course it’s not. Beauty in the eye of the beholder, ugliness likewise. It really is the best thing you’re done.”
“It’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever known,” Evar said, blubbering again. “It’s more than my equal, or yours, and it saved my life. If it’s ugly in the painting that’s my fault. I wasn’t—” He sniffed. “I wasn’t equal to the subject. Now it’s dead. The riots. I just heard.”
“But it isn’t,” Milfro said. “You have the painting, you have your memories—”
“No. It’s dead.”
“Look. I have an animaloid friend on Sornor. Franff. The best friend any young artist ever had and a great artist himself. The situation on Stovii couldn’t be worse than that on Sornor. I’m afraid Franff has been killed, but he’s not dead. He’ll live as long as he’s remembered, and no one who knew him will ever forget him.”
Evar sniffed again. “If you don’t mind—”
“Sure thing,” Milfro said. “Sorry to have bothered you. I’ll close the door.”
He did, and then he opened it. “Say—if that fvronut was better than either of us, and beautiful besides, and saved your life—why do you keep calling it ‘it?’ ”
He closed the door again, very gently, leaving Evar staring after him.
A sheaf of riot reports arrived from M’Don, and Neal Wargen, the World Manager’s First Secretary, had planned on devoting a full day to them. Instead he found himself sourly contemplating a call for help from a precinct police commander. A smuggler was leaving a glittering trail of illegal jewelry across an inland province of the southern continent.
Wargen controlled his temper and asked for a data report on persons—missing and surplus. On his way to the port he read the tabulated facts concerning everyone on the world of Donov known to be where he wasn’t expected or known not to be where he was expected, and the sad tale of a tourist missing from a chartered tour group caught his attention. On a world specializing in tourists and vacationers, a lost tourist represented an affront to the national honor, but a smuggler eager to put distance between himself and customs officials might not be aware of that.
Wargen caught the next rocket to Port Ornal, the southern continent’s spaceport, where he picked up the file on the missing tourist. From there he flew to the precinct capital, and a few inquiries in the role of an importer looking for outlets for hand-fashioned trinkets quickly satisfied him that the smuggler was still in the hinterland. He followed his trail posing as a tourist shopping for distinctive presents for his aging mother on the world of Lycol.
Outsiders frequently erred in assuming that fortunes could be reaped in smuggled jewelry on a mineral-poor world where jewelry was inordinately expensive. The frugal Donovians mostly regarded such trinkets as something to be sold to tourists. They rarely purchased any, and those who did, and who wore the jewelry, were talked about. The missing tourist’s trail was as easy to follow as a wrranel stampede.
By midafternoon Wargen had caught up with the culprit, a shabby little peddler who had somehow maneuvered false-bottom luggage through customs. Wargen dispatched an anonymous tip to the local police, waited unobtrusively until he saw the peddler arrested and his satchel confiscated as evidence, and hurried back to Port Ornal. He returned to Donov Metro on the late afternoon rocket, stopped at his office to dictate a report, and finally reached home two hours late.
The Wargen mansion stood at the head of a small valley, and Wargen daily blessed his grandfather for having had the foresight to buy the surrounding steep hills; otherwise, their stark majesty long since would have been smeared with some alien world’s cockeyed architecture. The huge castellated building was one of the worst examples of alien excesses on Donov, but the view from within was superb. The valley mouth opened like a vast window on a breathtaking panorama of Donov Metro.
On this evening his enjoyment of the prospect was brief. His mother greeted him coolly and asked, “How could you! On Ronony’s rev night!”
Wargen groaned. “End of the month reports, you know. I wasn’t paying any attention to the time.”
“I don’t believe it.
I don’t believe you can sit all day in that stuffy little office and not pay attention to the time. Go and get dressed.”
Wargen groaned again. “Long trousers and sleeves, I suppose. It’s enough to make a man go asteroid hunting.”
“You know you’ll enjoy it when you get there. And by the way, if that little Korak minx is there—”
“Charming child, isn’t she? What about her?”
“Nothing, Pet. Hurry and get dressed.”
Wargen grumblingly permitted himself to be rushed into rev dress and swept off to Ronony Gynth’s, and he continued to grumble until the moment Ronony’s steward stepped forward to greet them. In actual fact he was more eager to attend than his mother was, but it would not have done at all to have her suspect that.
All of Donov had heard of Ronony Gynth, the mystery woman. Few had ever seen her, and fewer still were aware that she headed the world’s largest and most active group of spies. Wargen was an ardent admirer of her work while at the same time taking great pains to ensure that she knew nothing of his, had no inkling at all that the charming World Manager’s First Secretary was much more than he seemed—was in fact the head of Donov’s Secret Police.
The Light That Never Was Page 3