Araminta Station (49 page)

“Not even the girls enjoyed themselves,” suggested Scharde.

“Ah well, it was not expected that they should,” said Saffin. “Still, all in all, the excursions will go better with Sibil under the dock instead of on the beach. It will be instructive to look down at her bones.”

Bodwyn Wook smiled thinly. “Saffin, you live in a strange and wonderful world.”

Saffin nodded politely. “So it seems to me, as well. Of course, I know no other, which is a pity. I am the sort of man who dresses his fish not only with dragon-fire sauce but also sweet persimmon chutney.”

Egon Tamm said: “The excursions occurred at two-week intervals. Was this the intended schedule for the future?”

“I don’t know, sir. No one troubled to notify me.” Saffin looked from face to face, smiling a vague smile. He rose tentatively to his feet. “Now, sirs, if your questions are finished, I and my comrades will go our ways. It is nice to talk with you, but duty calls with an iron voice, and we must not shirk the summons.”

Bodwyn Wook chuckled. “Porlock the sociologist claimed that the Yips lacked all sense of humor. He should have heard your mordant jokes. You are a murderer and worse. You will be going nowhere except back to jail.”

Saffin’s face sagged in dejection. “Sir, I feared that you would take that line! But you have made a misjudgment! Such tasks as you mention are not to our liking, but what of that? For a good cadet, obedience rules the day!”

Bodwyn Wook nodded sagely. “You had no choice but to commit these ghastly crimes?”

“None whatever! I will vouch for it!”

Scharde suggested: “You might have resigned from the Oomps.”

Saffin shook his head. “That would not have been a good plan.”

“Not so,” said Bodwyn Wook. “You will find that it would have been a very good plan indeed: in fact, the wisest plan of your entire lifetime.”

Saffin spoke glumly: “In all justice, you should consider our need. When the rich woskers come with gleaming teeth, must we spurn their money?”

Bodwyn Wook ignored the question. “Did the rich woskers give their money to Sibil?”

“Never to Sibil, never to me! Not so much as a dinket for a job well-done!”

“Did Sibil talk with the woskers? Perhaps they asked about her tattoo? Or might she have mentioned something to you?”

Saffin disdainfully flicked out his fingers. “To me Sibil spoke only commands which I must obey on the run. The second group were her friends and she talked with them, but only in regard to their conduct.”

“How so?”

“They were peculiar people, in many ways, and would not touch the girls, but Sibil made threats and insisted that they fornicate, and they did their best to obey, for fear that she would carry out her threat.”

“And what was the threat?”

“She said that they must fornicate either with the girls or with Sibil herself; they could choose at will. All made haste to use the girls.”

“No doubt the wiser alternative,” said Bodwyn Wook. “I might well have made the same choice. How else were these folk peculiar?”

Saffin could impart only vague impressions. “They were quite odd, but it was all the same to Sibil, and now that I think of it, there was talk of another excursion: a party of four female ladies and four men. I wondered what activities Sibil had in mind.”

“Perhaps she meant to employ your own expert services.”

Saffin blinked. “That is not considered my line of work.”

“We shall never know, and speculation lacks all utility. What more can you tell us?”

“Nothing whatever! Surely you are now convinced of my innocence. Am I free to go?”

Bodwyn Wook gave an incredulous snort. “Do you not understand the awful deeds you have done? Do you feel no guilt? No shame?”

Saffin said earnestly: “Sir, you are old and wise, but you cannot apprehend every small and delicate phase of the cosmos!”

“Agreed! What, then?”

“Perhaps there is some trifling detail known to me but quite outside your range of expertise.”

“Once more, agreed! Certain niceties of your work with the girls surpass anything I might have hoped to achieve.”

“All this being the case, would you think me disrespectful if I explained the rules by which you and I and all of us must control our conduct, if we wish to facilitate our lives?”

“Speak!” declared Bodwyn Wook. ‘“I am always willing to learn.”

“‘Now’ is ‘now’! That is the liberating slogan! You must repeat it to yourself! ‘Past’ and ‘bygone times’ - these are vapid mental constructions, nothing else. What has happened is gone! ‘It is vanished! It has become the abstraction of nothing! The so-called ‘events of the past’ might as well never have been, and it is the best part of expedience, and easier for all of us, to regard them in this light! Believe me, sir, not just this once but a thousand times over! Never succumb to bad habits! Brooding upon memories, wistful longing for some imaginary heyday: these are sure signs of ingressive senility. The proper way is to take life as it devolves; one must never grope to support himself on the smoke-wisps of what has already happened. ‘Now’ is ‘now’! All else is footling and useless. In practical terms, ‘now’ is when I wish to leave this dreary chamber, which smells of generation after generation of wosker, and once again rejoice in the open air and sunlight.”

“And so you shall,” declared Bodwyn Wook. “I have been profoundly moved by your eloquence! You have earned yourself a stay of execution, if my colleagues will only agree!” He turned to the others. “Saffin has uttered some home truths! I now recommend that, rather than hanging these villains from a tree, or locking them forever in a dark dungeon, we allow them a kindly and useful future. First, they shall go out to Thurben Island, and while they enjoy the sunlight and open space they shall destroy the dock and pavilion, and restore conditions to the wild state. Then it shall be on to Cape Journal, where the vast open space and the wild winds will satisfy even Saffin’s untamed spirit! The pleasure of devoting his life to useful toil is an added bonus - icing on the cake, so to speak.”

“I, too, was affected by Saffin’s philosophy,” said Egon Tamm. “Your program is optimum, as Saffin will surely agree.”

“Quite so,” said Bodwyn Wook. “Saffin, you are a lucky man. Still, for the moment, you must return to the jail.”

Saffin was led away protesting. Bodwyn Wook sat back in his chair. “It is difficult to sentence someone with so limpid a gaze and a smile so artless . . . Ah well, Saffin himself would be the first to decry sentimentality. What have we learned?”

“There have been some interesting bits and pieces,” said Scharde. “Of course, they raise more questions than they answer.”

“I am puzzled by Sibil,” said Egon Tamm. “If I were conducting such excursions, I would employ a hostess who was charming and gracious - certainly not Sibil.”

“It is a puzzle,” said Bodwyn Wook. “But we must proceed. Scharde, I believe that you have had a few words with our principals?”

“I can supply some small information. They are all middle-aged persons of genteel background. All describe themselves as persons of importance. Each is outraged by his confinement and several have uttered threats. All are aggrieved and believe themselves victims of a swindle.”

Bodwyn Wook heaved a sigh. “I suppose we must listen to their complaints. Perhaps we will glean a morsel or two of information.”

The six participants at the Thurben Island excursion, one after the other, were brought into the chamber and subjected to interrogation. Like the Yips, all told the same story.  They had learned of the excursion by way of brochures, issued by Ogmo Enterprises, which they had obtained at their travel agencies. Each described his interest as no more than casual curiosity, although each had paid the travel agent a thousand sols along with fares for passage to Araminta Station. None had met anyone connected with Ogmo Enterprises until their arrival at Yipton. At this point Sibil took them in hand. All reaffirmed their status, as persons of wealth and social position; none considered themselves sexual deviates or anything other than ordinary folk out for “a bit of a lark” or ‘just to candy a few apples.” Another became indignant: “Me? A sexual pervert? You must be insane!”

Each of the six attempted to conceal his identity by means of a false name, in order that scandal or ugly rumor might be avoided. “It would not be useful to raise a great foofaraw; that is the long and short of it!” stated one, who described himself as a rancher. “My spouse would be greatly exercised.”

“She need not know,” said Bodwyn Wook. “Unless you want her present at your execution. It makes no difference to us whether we hang you under your right name or not.”

“Eh? What are you saying? You cannot be serious!”

“I am not a frivolous man. Do I appear to be laughing?”

“No.”

“That will be all for now, sir.”

The rancher departed on hesitant feet, looking over his shoulder for some sort of reassuring signal, which was not forthcoming.

Another of the group, a self-styled “financier and banker” who gave his name as Alvary Irling, complained even more bitterly, and threatened legal action if his demands were not met. Bodwyn Wook asked: “How can you institute such charges if you are dead?”

“Dead? How should I be dead?”

“Execution for murder is acknowledged to be a cause of death, except in freak cases.”

“That is nonsense!” declared Alvary Irling in a contemptuous voice.

“Nonsense, is it?” roared Bodwyn Wook. “Do you see yonder shardash tree? Perhaps before the day is out you will be dangling from that overhanging limb, where we can enjoy the spectacle!”

Alvary Irling said coldly: “I wish to consult my attorney.”

“Your request is denied! He could only complicate a simple process, unless we hanged him as well, for conspiring to impede justice.”

“If this is humor, I find it grotesque. I am an important man of many affairs, and this detention is causing me great inconvenience.”

Still fulminating, Alvary Irling was taken back to the makeshift jail.

Bodwyn Wook gave his head a shake of vexation. “I see no reason to waste any more time on this disgusting affair. The Conservator, of course, has the final word in matters of this sort.”

“There can only be one judgment,” said Egon Tamm. “First, execution of these six, then identification of the organizers and similar treatment for them, no matter where they are to be found.”

“You will hear no disagreement from me,” said Bodwyn Wook. He took notice of Scharde. “Am I wrong, or do you have other ideas?”

“Allow me to link together a few facts,” said Scharde. “First: we know that sooner or later the Yips will try to swarm ashore into Marmion Province; if they succeed, it’s all over for the Conservancy. At the moment we might or might not be able to turn them back; certainly our equipment is inadequate, and we can’t get what we need because we lack money. Think a moment. We have in custody six wealthy criminals. If we  kill them we have six carcasses. If each of them pays over a large indemnity - say, a million sols each - we have six million sols; enough to buy us two armed flyers and a permanent gun station over the Marmion Straits.”

Bodwyn Wook spoke in a sour voice: “It is neither neat nor nice nor appealing.”

“But very practical,” said Egon Tamm. “Further, I do not need to consult those damnable Peefers. You won’t get six million sols any other way - at least, not from Throy.”

“Very well; it is so decided,” said Bodwyn Wook. “I suggest that we add a thousand-sol surcharge, to finance our investigation of Ogmo Enterprises.” He spoke into the mesh. “Bring in the six prisoners, all together.”

The six Soumjians, still wearing the gray robes which had been their costume at Thurben Island, filed sullenly into the chamber, and were ranged in a line against the wall. Impelled by a mischievous caprice, Bodwyn Wook summoned his bailiff. “There they stand: six rascals in a row. Make a good photograph for the record, and note the names carefully.” He addressed the prisoners. “Make sure that you announce your correct name to the bailiff; if you try to deceive us, we shall promptly discover the truth and it will be the worse for you.”

“Come now!” rasped the man who called himself Alvary Irling. “What difference does it make what name we use?”

Bodwyn Wook ignored the question. “Your crimes are horrid. You might properly display some measure of shame, but remorse is clearly too much to expect. Therefore I read you no homilies; you would only find them dull. You will be more interested to learn that we have passed judgment and decided upon your penalty. Stop! No remarks! You must listen to me! Each of you deserves the instant extinction visited upon a noxious insect. I for one would take pleasure in watching you dance all together from the shardash tree, perhaps to the music of a string quartet, and it may come to that yet.

“Now, then: despite the revulsion caused by your mere presence in this room, we find that we need money more than carcasses. Not to mince matters, you may evade death by paying a fine of a million plus a thousand sols each.”

For a moment the six stood in silence, as their perspectives shifted and they felt the full impact of this new calamity. One after the other began first to murmur, then to give full voice to his distress. “A million sols? You might as well ask for the moons of Geidion!” “To pay over a million sols would ruin me!” And: “If I sold everything I could barely realize a million sols!”

Finally Bodwyn Wook lost his patience. “Very well. Those who choose to pay, go to yonder side of the room. Scharde, perhaps you will be kind enough to hang the others.”

One of the men shouted in terror: “I would pay, but I could not realize such a sum on short notice!” “Nor I!’; cried another, “A million sols is not what we casually carry about in our pockets! Can you not reduce the figure to, let us say, ten thousand, or even nine thousand, sols?”

“Aha!” said Bodwyn Wook. “Do you think to haggle? You shall pay the sum demanded and not a dinket less.”

Scharde spoke quietly to his colleagues: “I notice that Alvary Irling, who is the banker, stands aloof and silent. Presumably he will pay the fine. It occurs to me that he might well extend loans to each of his companions and pay over to us the full sum of six million and six thousand sols. Upon his return to Soumjiana, he could deal in an ordinary manner with the debts.”