Araminta Station (18 page)

“Exactly so!” declared Bodwyn Wook. “That is my own reconstruction of events. Zamian at this time has committed himself to the pose of helping us and so lacks leverage. Or the ‘person’ decides to go it alone and freeze Zamian out. By means of this letter, Zamian ensures that he will get his share of any proceeds either from us or by way of blackmail. He does not reckon that we too can go it alone and pay nothing to anyone.” Bodwyn Wook reached in a drawer and brought out a folder. “These are statements from the kitchen help. Four Yips were on duty: Zamian and three others. Two of these were at all times occupied in food service and can be dismissed. Zamian and Xalanave had more general duties which took them into the pantry. I therefore nominate Xalanave as the ‘certain person’ and propose to put him through the wringer as soon as possible: let us say, tomorrow morning. Kirdy, you and Glawen pick him up and bring him here.”

“At what time?”

“An hour or two into the morning.”

“What of Zamian?”

“We’ll take them separately. With any luck Xalanave will crack open the case for us.”

For a moment the four sat thinking their separate thoughts, then Scharde said: “You may be overoptimistic. Remember the truck on its return was parked down at the other end of the dock. Xalanave would not have had a good view from the pantry.”

“In that case, why would he not stroll down the dock until he could see as much as he liked? It is what I would do.”

“Also, don’t forget that the driver almost certainly wore costume.”

“True again, and we know something about this costume. That shall be the second string to our bow. In any event we’ll have the truth out of Xalanave tomorrow. Now, what about the fuzz or hair or whatever it is?”

“It seems to come from a shaggy brown fabric: a coarse rug or imitation fur.”

Bodwyn Wook gazed up toward the ceiling. “As I recall, Latuun’s goat legs were covered with the stuff. Six Bold Lions, the bravos of Araminta Station, wore fur as they swaggered, staggered, pounced, lurched, romped, rambled and swilled wine.”

Kirdy made an instant declaration: “Please exclude me; I drank very little!”

Bodwyn Wook paid no heed. “I saw a Kazakh robber with fur pants, a mang, and also a Tantic giant with a fur vest.”

“The giant was a frame on Dalremy Diffin’s shoulders. In that costume he could not conveniently have used the truck,” said Scharde.

Bodwyn Wook ignored the remark. “No doubt there were others, but no need to explore these avenues until we make our inquiries of Xalanave. Junior Sergeant Kirdy and Cadet Glawen: here are your orders. Tomorrow morning go to the compound and make a proper and official approach to Xalanave and bring him here, at, let us say, two hours before noon; that should be convenient for all.” Bodwyn Wook rose to his feet. “This has been a tiring day and I am off to bed.”

Chapter II, Part 8

Glawen was only just finishing his breakfast when Kirdy arrived. “I’ll be right with you,” said Glawen. “I did not expect you quite so early. Will you take a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you,” said Kirdy, and added in a voice of bored disapproval: “I knew you would not be ready; that’s why I came ten minutes early.”

Glawen raised his eyebrows in wonder. “But I’ll be ready in less than ten minutes. In fact, I’m ready now, as soon as I slip on my jacket.”

Kirdy looked him up and down. “You’re not going like that? Where is your uniform?”

“To go down to the compound? Do we need uniforms for that?”

“It’s official business. We represent the Bureau.” Kirdy himself was meticulously turned out in correct Bureau B sergeant’s uniform. Glawen glanced at Scharde, who looked out the window.

“Oh, very well,” said Glawen. “I suppose you are right. Just a moment. I’ll still be ready on time.”

Correctly attired, the two marched to the compound. Kirdy inquired at the entry office for Xalanave, and the attendant telephoned Xalanave’s chambers.

No one responded. Investigation revealed that Xalanave was neither in his chambers nor anywhere in the compound.

The attendant suggested: “He may be working double-shift the hotel; he’ll do that once or twice a week.”

A call to the Hotel Araminta kitchen revealed that Xalanave was not on the premises. “He worked the evening shift last night until midnight,” stated the kitchen manager. “I don’t expect him back until this afternoon.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Kirdy. “You have been very helpful.”

“Wait!” said Glawen. “Ask if Xalanave received any calls during the evening, or if anything unusual happened.”

Kirdy glanced at Glawen with a frown, then turned and spoke into the telephone; response came in the uncertain negative. Kirdy thereupon telephoned Bodwyn Wook, and explained the situation.

“Find Namour,” said Bodwyn Wook. “Explain the circumstances to him, and ask him to find Xalanave. If he has any questions he can call me.”

Namour’s inquiries yielded no more information of significance. Xalanave had departed the Hotel Araminta kitchen at midnight and had not been seen since, by anyone who cared to admit to the meeting.

When Kirdy and Glawen, upon instructions from Bodwyn Wook, went to seek out Zamian, they were thwarted once again. Zamian, like Xalanave, was nowhere to be found within the precincts of Araminta Station, but for a different reason. Zamian had departed aboard the morning ferry to Yipton. A scrutiny of the passenger manifest indicated that the same was not true in the case of Xalanave, and there was a consensus at Bureau B that Xalanave had been attacked in the shadows at the back of the hotel, carried down to the hotel dock and dropped into the sea.

Chapter II, Part 9

The day passed and the night which came after. Early in the morning, before dawn had lightened the sky, Scharde slipped from Clattuc House and set off down Wansey Way in the direction of the ocean.

The air was cool and still. No sound could be heard but the soft crisp scrape of Scharde’s footsteps on the crushed-stone way. A high haze frosted the sky; Lorca and Sing, halfway down the west, swam in a pool of rose-pink luminosity; as Scharde passed under the riverbank poplars, he traversed spatters of wan rose light and, black shade.

At the shore road, Scharde turned left and a few moments later came to the airfield. A drooping-eyed Chilke awaited him in the office.

Chilke’s greeting was subdued. “This is not my time of day. All this wet dew and early birdcalls just irritate me. As I see it the only good thing about morning is breakfast.”

“At least you’re happy and cheerful.”

“Am I? I guess it’s because the worst is over. I’ll be back in bed before you’re twenty feet off the ground.”

The two went out to the flyer, which stood ready beside the hangar. Chilke watched as Scharde performed the routine pre-flight check.

“All in order,” said Scharde. “Even the gun is loaded.”

Chilke gave a sour chuckle. “You might find a sick fuel cell, or broken landing gear, or fused radio crystals, but there’ll be a charge in the gun. That I guarantee. May I ask where you’ll be going, as I am required to ask by regulation? And why so much stealth - which I am not required to ask?”

“Certainly you may ask. I’ll even answer. I’m off for a day’s fun at Yipton. If anyone else asks, I’m out on patrol.”

“And why should anyone ask?”

“If I knew, I might not need to go. But I’m bound for the Lutwen Islands, and I’ll be back before tonight if all goes well, as naturally it won’t since nothing goes well at Yipton.”

“Good luck to you, and my best to the Oomphaw.”

Scharde took the flyer aloft and flew out over the ocean and away into the northeast, where dawn colors were now beginning to show. Behind him Lorca and Sing cast a pink trail along the water, which presently became indistinct in the reflections of dawn.

Syrene appeared: a blue-white spark on the horizon, then a sliver, then a segment; in the west Lorca and Sing faded from view in the morning light.

Ahead a great float of dun-colored stuff lay flat upon the water: the Lutwen Atoll, a rim of narrow islands surrounding a shallow lagoon, now totally crusted over by the structures of Yipton.

Details began to emerge from the haze: a veining of gunmetal waterways suddenly flashing silver when the sunlight struck at the proper angle.

Below, fishing boats had appeared on the face of the ocean: frail craft of tied bamboo bundles, propelled by sails of felted fiber.

The details of Yipton came into focus. Rickety structures two, three or four stories high supported a set of vast roofs, each of a thousand segments, each segment and slant a different shade of pallid brown-ash brown, dun, grayed umber, mud color. In nooks, crannies, corners grew clumps and tufts of bamboo, with coconut palms leaning seaward from laboriously formed little plots around the periphery of the islands.

Canals webbed Yipton without perceptible pattern, sometimes flowing in the open, sometimes disappearing into tunnels under the structure. Boats moved sluggishly along the canals, like corpuscles in an artery. Other boats lay at permanent mooring alongside the banks of the canals; from their minuscule braziers rose wisps of smoke, finally curling and folding, to disappear into the still morning air.

At the southern verge of Yipton stood the bizarre, fascinating and erratic shape of the famous Arkady Inn: a structure of five levels, a hundred swaying balconies, and a roof garden where the tourists dined to the light of colored lanterns, while Yip boys and girls performed acrobatic entertainments sometimes naive, always incomprehensible, to a thin music of flutes and soft bells, which, if beyond the appreciation of the tourists, at least created a soft and pleasant sound.

Beside the hotel a pier projected into the ocean, where the ferry to Araminta Station docked; beyond lay a minimal airstrip, with a surface of marl compounded from shells, fresh coral pulverized with mussellike bivalves which yielded a tough adhesive. Scharde approached the landing strip from the sea, taking care not to fly above Yipton proper, so to avoid as long as possible the “Big Chife”: next to Pussycat Palace the most notorious of all the strange and wonderful aspects of Yipton. Everywhere across the Gaean Reach, when knowledgeable talk turned to the subject of bad smells and intolerable stinks, someone would insist that the Big Chife of Yipton must be numbered high among the contenders.

A recipe for the Big Chife had been proposed in a semifacetious paper written on the subject by a savant in residence at Vagabond House:

The Big Chife

a tentative recipe

Ingredient...............Parts per 100

Human exudations......................25

Smoke and charred bones.........8

Fish, fresh.....................................1

Fish, rotting..................................8

Decaying coral (very bad)........20

Canal stink...................................15

Dry fronds, mats, bamboo........9

Complex cacodyls.......................13

Unguessable (bad).......................2

Tourists were never notified in advance of the Big Chife, since their shock and confusion afforded a never-failing source of pleasure for the initiated. In any event, noses quickly became desensitized and the Big Chife lost its authority.

Scharde landed the flyer and stepped out upon the marl. With only a momentary wince for the Big Chife, he locked and sealed the flyer, though at Yipton pilferage was a relatively mild annoyance, through the orders of the Oomphaw, Titus Pompo.

Scharde climbed a flight of broad steps to the hotel verandah. A pair of houseboys, wearing short white aprons slit at the sides, embroidered vests, white gloves and small cylindrical white caps, came to take his luggage; discovering that he carried none, they stopped short in puzzlement, then quickly performed bows of welcome and retreated, twittering in amusement for the ridiculous outlander without luggage and their own mistake.

Scharde crossed the terrace and entered the broad airy lobby, which had been renovated since his last visit ten years previously. The bamboo walls were painted white; new rugs patterned in green and blue covered the floor; the furniture, of soft white wicker, was upholstered in pale sea green. Scharde was favorably impressed; he remembered dark varnished bamboo and spartan furniture, neither clean nor comfortable.

At this early hour only a few of the hotel guests had come down from their chambers. A dozen sat at breakfast on the terrace; another group stood in the center of the lobby discussing their plans for the day, which included a trip by gondola through the canals.

Scharde went to the registration counter. Behind sat four functionaries in crisp white uniforms. From the left ear of each dangled a black pearl on a silver chain, signifying a member of the Oomphaw’s personal staff: an Oomp. One of these came to serve him: a person of early middle age, grave and handsome. He asked: “Sir, how long will you be staying with us?”

“Not long at all. I am Captain Scharde Clattuc of Bureau B at Araminta Station. Please inform Titus Pompo that I want a few words with him on an official matter, at his earliest convenience; in fact now, if possible.”

The clerk glanced at his colleagues; the three, after quick curious glances to gauge Scharde’s seriousness, or, perhaps, sanity, returned to their work, disassociating themselves from so bizarre a problem. The clerk who had come forward spoke carefully: “Sir, I will see that your message is immediately disposed for the Oomphaw’s attention.”

A nuance in the clerk’s phrasing caught Scharde’s attention. “What does that mean?”

The clerk smilingly explained: “The message will be expedited to the Oomphaw’s offices. No doubt an appropriate member of the staff will deliver to you, probably today, an application form upon which you may freely explain your needs.”

“You don’t quite understand,” said Scharde. “I don’t care for an application form; I want a few words with Titus Pompo, as soon as possible. Now would not be too soon.”

The clerk’s smile became strained. “Sir, let me use an open vocabulary. You do not seem an impractical visionary, with eyes raised to the glory of the ineffable. Still you apparently expect me to run to the Oomphaw’s bedchamber, shake him awake and say ‘Up, sir, and out of bed quickly! A gentleman wants to talk with you.’ I must inform you that this is not feasible.”