Ecce and Old Earth (30 page)

“Where Your Ladyship usually keeps them, or so I suppose.”

"No, I have lost them! They are out on the lawn, where any thief of the night can come upon them! Call Lenk, at once!"

Lenk was summoned and informed as to the missing keys. "I suspect that I dropped them out on the lawn,” said the Countess. “You must find them at once!"

“In the dark? With the rain driving down at a slant? Your Ladyship, that would be impractical.”

The Countess began to fulminate and pounded her cane into the floor. "It is I who determines what is practical at Mirky Porod! Never be deceived! I have taught this truth to others!”

Lenk turned his head sharply and held up his hand. Countess Ottilie cried out: “What do you hear?"

“I don’t know Your Ladyship. It might have been the cry of a ghost."

“A ghost! Marya, did you hear it?"

"I heard something but I think it was one of the dogs."

"Of course! There! This time I heard it too. It is Porter, suffering from his catarrh.”

Lenk bowed. “As you say, Your Ladyship.”

"And my keys?"

“We shall find them in the morning, when we can see." Lenk bowed again and withdrew. The Countess grumbled at length, but at last went to bed. Tonight she was unusually testy and Wayness changed and rearranged her down pillows a dozen times before the Countess finally tired of the game and fell asleep.

Wayness went to her room. She removed her white apron and her white cap, and changed into soft-soled slippers. Into her pocket she tucked pencil, paper and an electric torch.

At midnight she left her room. The house was quiet. Wayness delayed a diffident moment or two, then summoning all her courage, descended the stairs, where she stopped to listen again.

Silence.

Wayness passed through the library to the doors leading into the study. She worked the key; the door slid ajar with a faint, creak. Wayness studied the lock, making sure that she could not accidently lock herself into the study. In this caser there could be no difficulty. Wayness entered the study, closed and locked the door. She brought out her torch and took stock of her surroundings. A large desk, equipped with a communications screen and a telephone, occupied the center of the room. Beyond the windows the rain still fell, though not so heavily as before, with frequent splashes of blue lightning fracturing the sky. To the side a stanchion supported a large terrestrial globe. Shelves along the walls displayed books, curios, oddments, weapons. Wayness examined the books. None seemed to be ledgers in which Count Raul might have kept his accounts. She turned her attention to the desk. The communicator, it had not been used for many years, and might well be inoperative.

Wayness seated herself and touched a switch. To her delight and heartfelt relief, the screen brightened to display Count Raul’s personal emblem: a black double-headed eagle standing upon a pale blue globe, limned with circles of latitude and longitude.

Wayness set about her task of discovering where Count Raul kept the information she sought. The task might have been easier if the Count had been as methodical as he was meticulously all-inclusive.

Half an hour passed. Wayness chased down a dozen blind alleys and dead ends, before chancing upon the file containing the information she sought.

Count Raul had not bought any material from Gohoon Galleries. Furthermore, his collection of Naturalist Society documents had included only the items Wayness had discovered at the Funusti Museum. Here Wayness was disappointed. She had hoped, with a hope so secret that she had not even admitted it to herself, that she might find Charter and Grant in the study, perhaps in a cubbyhole of this very desk.

Not so. Count Raul had derived his material from a dealer named Xantief in the old city Trieste.

It was at this moment that Wayness heard the slightest of noises: a grating sound, of iron scraping on iron. She glanced up in time to see the handle of the door to the terrace move, after it had been tested by someone standing outside.

Wayness pretended not to notice. She altered the name ‘Xantief' to 'Chuffe' and 'Trieste' to 'Croy,' and conducted a search to make sure that there was no other mention of the name. Meanwhile, she watched the window. A great spasm of blue lightning shattered the sky. Wayness saw the silhouette of a man standing by the window. His hands were raised; he seemed to be busy with a tool.

Wayness rose to her feet without haste and went to the door which led into the library. From outside came an instant thud as if something had been dropped, and another extremely faint sound. Wayness knew that the man had hastened along the terrace, entered the library, and now had stationed himself beside the study door, to intercept her once she stepped out. Or perhaps he would push her back into the study and lock the door behind the two of them, and then who knows what might happen?

Nothing nice, thought Wayness, the skin prickling at the nape of her neck.

She was trapped. She could open the doors out to the terrace but the man would almost certainly catch her as she emerged.

At the study door came an ominous grinding sound, faint and muffled, as the man busted himself at the lock. Wayness looked wildly around the room. On the shelves were weapons: scimitars, kris, yataghans, poniards, kopfnockers, long-irons, spardoons, quangs and stilettos. Unfortunately, all were clamped tightly to the wall. Wayness' eye fell on the telephone.

Wayness picked up the telephone. She ran to the desk and pressed ‘9’.

After a moment Lenk's voice sounded in the speaker. It was a sleepy cross voice, but to Wayness it sounded sweet indeed. “Mr. Lenkl!” she called breathlessly. “It's Marya! I'm on the stairs! I hear noises in the library! Come at once before the Countess wakes up!"

“Ah! Yes. Yes, yes! Keep her quiet, by all means! The library, you say?”

“I think it’s a prowler; bring your gun!"

Wayness went to the door and listened. Silence from the library, as the burglar, or whoever he might be, had become wary.

Wayness heard sounds from the library: Lenk's voice. “What is going on here?”

Wayness eased the door open. Lenk, carrying a gun, had gone to the outside door and stood looking out across the terrace. Wayness slipped out of the study and closed the door. When Lenk looked around she was standing by the door into the hall. “The danger is over,” said Lenk. “The intruder escaped, despite my best efforts. He left a drill. Most unusual.”

Wayness said: “Perhaps we should not tell the Countess. She would only worry, to no avail, and make life miserable for us all.”

“True,” said Lenk in a troubled voice. “It would do no good to tell her. She would never let up on the subject of her keys, and how I had brought on the burglary by neglecting her orders."

“I will say nothing, then."

“Good girl I wonder what the rascal wanted."

“He won’t be back! Not after seeing you with your gun!”

But I hear Madame Lenk! You had best tell her what has happened while I am here to corroborate the tale.”

"No fear this time,” said Lenk with a sour grin. "She heard you calling on the telephone. I don’t see how you managed it without rousing the Countess.”

“I spoke softly, if you remember. And she was snoring to outdistance the thunder. There was no problem.”

“Yes, of course. Perhaps I should have called Baro. I'm sure he could give a good account of himself.”

“Perhaps so. Still, the fewer who know, the better.”

In the morning all proceeded according to routine. As soon as possible, Wayness rescued the key ring, restored the proper key to its place, then went out on the lawn. Ten minutes later she returned triumphantly with the keys.

Countess Ottilie was only moderately pleased. “It is what you should have done last night, to save nine hours of anxiety" I slept not a wink."

While Baro was occupied grooming the dogs Wayness departed Mirky Porod. She rode the omnibus into Tzem. From the telephone in The Iron Pig she called Mirky Porod. Lenk appeared on the screen and stared slack-jawed at Wayness' image. "Marya? What are you up to?”

"Mr. Lenk, it is a complicated matter and I am sorry to leave you so abruptly, but I received an urgent message which I can't ignore. I have called to say goodbye. Please make my explanations to the Countess.”

"But she will be shattered! She has come to depend on you, just like all the rest of us!”

"I am sorry, Mr. Lenk, but now I see the omnibus and I must go.”

CHAPTER VII

I.

Wayness rode the omnibus from Tzem to Draczeny, and apparently was not followed. At Draczeny she changed to a slideway car and was conveyed at great speed to the west.

Late in the afternoon the car halted at Pagnitz, a transfer station on the route which continued all the way across the continent to Ambeules. Wayness pretended to ignore the stop; then, at the last possible instant, jumped to the station platform. For a moment she stood watching to see if anyone else had altered his or her plans at the last minute, but no one had done so – specifically no plump little man in a dark suit with a black mustache like a smudge across his pallid face.

Wayness took looking at the Inn of the Three Rivers. From her room she telephoned Pirie Tamm at Fair Winds. Pirie Tamm spoke cordially: "Aha, Wayness It is good to hear your voice! Where are you calling from?”

“At the moment I am at Castaing, but I am leaving at once for Maudry and the Historical Library. I will call you as soon as possible.”

“Very well; I won’t keep you on the line. Until tomorrow. “Half an hour later Wayness placed a second call to Pirie Tamm at the bank in Yssinges.

The circumstances had made him testy. “I never thought I would see the day when I distrusted my own telephone! It’s a damned outrage!”

“I'm sorry, Uncle Pirie. I know that I am causing no end of trouble.”

Pirie Tamm held up his hand. ”Nonsense girl! You are doing nothing of the sort of the sort. It’s the uncertainty I find galling! I have had experts in to check out the entire system but they have found nothing. They also guarantee nothing. There are too many ways to tap into a system, so we must continue to take precautions, at least for the time. Now then, what have you been doing?”

As succinctly as possible Wayness told of her activities. "I am now on the way to Trieste where I hope to find Xantief, whoever he is."

Pirie Tamm gave a deprecatory grunt, the better to mask his feelings. “It seems, then, that you have climbed – or is it descended? – another rung on the ladder. Either way, should we consider this an achievement?”

"I hope so. The ladder is already longer than I might like."

“Hmf, yes indeed. Stand by a moment while I look into the directory. We'll pick up a line on this fellow.”

Wayness waited. A minute passed and another. Pirie Tamm’s face returned to the screen. " 'Alcide Xantief’: this is his nature. There is a business address, no more: Via Malthus 26,Trieste Old Port. He is listed as a dealer in ‘Arcana,’ which means whatever you want it to mean.”

Wayness made a note of the address. “I wish I could rid myself of the conviction that I was being followed.”

"Ha! Perhaps you are, for a fact, being followed and this is the basis of your conviction.”

Wayness gave a cheerless laugh. ”But I don’t see anyone. I just imagine things, like dark figures stepping back into the shadows when I turn to look. I wonder if I might not be neurotic."

“I hardly think so,“ said Pirie Tamm. “You have good reason to be nervous.”

"So I keep telling myself. But it is no great comfort. I would prefer to be neurotic, I think, with nothing to fear."

"Certain kinds of surveillance are hard to avoid,” said Pirie Tamm. “You probably know of tracer buttons and tags.” And he suggested several procedures of avoidance. ”Like the telephone experts, I guarantee nothing."

“I'll do what I can,” said Wayness. “Goodbye for now, Uncle Pirie.”

During the evening, Wayness bathed, washed her hair, scrubbed her shoes, handbag and suitcase in order to remove any radiant substance which might have been sprayed or smeared upon them. She laundered her cloak and outer garments and made sure that no spy cell or tracer button had been affixed to the hem of her cloak. In the morning she used all the ploys suggested by Pirie Tamm and others of her own contrivance to elude any possible follower or flying spy cell, and at last set off for Trieste by subterranean slideway.

At noon she arrived at the Trieste Central Depot, which served New Trieste, north of the Carso, one of the few remaining urban areas still dominated by the Technic Paradigms: a checkerboard of concrete and glass shapes, rectilinear and identical save for the numbers on the flat roofs. The ‘Technic Paradigms' had been applied to New Trieste, and thereafter rejected almost everywhere else on Earth in favor of construction less intellectual and less brutally efficient.

From the Central Depot, Wayness rode by subway ten miles south to the old Trieste station: a structure of black iron webbing and opal-green glass covering five acres of transit terminals, markets, cafes and a cheerful animation of porters, school children, wandering musicals, persons arriving and departing.

At a kiosk Wayness bought a map, which she took to a cafe by a pair of flower stalls. While she lunched on mussels in a bright red sauce redolent of garlic and rosemary she studied the map. On the front page the editor had included an instruction:

“If you would know the secrets of Old Trieste,
which are many, then you must come upon
them
reverentially and gradually, not like a fat man jumping into a swimming pool, but rather
as a
devout acolyte approaching the altar.”

—A. Bellors Foxtehude.

Wayness unfolded the map and after a puzzled glance or two decided that she was holding it upside down. She turned it about, but nothing was clarified; she had evidently been holding it correctly in the first place. Again she reversed the map, to what must be the proper orientation, with the Adriatic Sea on the right hand. For several minutes she studied the tangle of marks. According to the legend, they indicated streets, major and minor cartels, incidental waterways, alleys, bridges, special walkways, squares, plazas, promenades and major edifices. Each Item was identified by a printed super- or sub-script, and it seemed that the shortest streets had been assigned the longest names. Wayness looked from right to left in bewilderment and was about to return to the kiosk for a less challenging map when she noticed Via Malthus, on the western bank of the Canal Bartolo Seppi, in the Porto Vecchio district.