New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers (11 page)
Read New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers Online
Authors: Alexei Panshin
They both reached into the box at the same time and their hands brushed. They immediately withdrew their hands. There was the briefest of pauses, what might be called a questioning silence.
Then Chapeldaine said, “After you, Padre.”
Srb dipped into the box and took knife the first. He stepped back and Chapeldaine took Shirabi’s second choice. It was done that neatly, and all that you saw was two men selecting knives. That was all they themselves saw. But they were explicitly given the knives they took. When and how did it happen? It can’t be explained; that would spoil one of the last bits of magic in the world. It happened, and it is very simple if you know what to do.
Shirabi turned then, closing the box, and set it in its place in the bottom of the weapons rack. With his back to the seconds, he looked over the racks of weapons.
“Tinglers were the other weapon?” he asked. He knew quite well that they were, of course.
“Yes,” Chapeldaine said.
Shirabi turned with tinglers in his hand. This was the important moment, the important test of his skill. One of the tinglers he held was a genuine weapon. The other, just as black, just as deadly looking, was only a practice wand. The worst it could deliver was an electric jolt. He had to put the first of these in the hands of Srb and the second in the hands of Chapeldaine at that moment in the proceedings when they both decided that the weapons they were holding were those they wished to keep.
He did it. He put them in their hands and took them away again. This demonstrated his impartial right to do such things. He switched them on and off. He moved them around. Each man got a touch apiece at both weapons, and then the tinglers were in their hands and they were on their way back to their principals.
Ask either Srb or Chapeldaine. Both would have declared themselves satisfied that they had examined both weapons in detail and made perfect free choice of the tinglers they held. Now Srb was whatever Srb was, and Chapeldaine was no fool. It is indeed unhappy that someone as able as Shirabi could be was also so limited in his ability to meet people. He was
good
.
Shirabi moved back and seated himself on the bench edge of the weapons rack. Bledsoe, the sober, saturnine man he had agreed to let run things, stepped forward and called for Godwin and Villiers.
Shirabi followed the course of the duel with heartfelt interest. The movement down the length of the hall found him wondering if he had made a mistake in what he had done. If Godwin was so good that Villiers was immediately overwhelmed, and Godwin attempted a finishing stroke and found he had none, then matters would become embarrassing.
But there had been the entry for Anthony Villiers deep in the volume of Martin and Morrison that he had taken from Godwin’s quarters, so deeply buried that it could have been easily overlooked. The description, as much as there was, could be this Anthony Villiers. But was it the same at this distance? And if it was, all it proved was that the man
might
have the training to deal with Godwin. And on that slim a chance, he had acted.
He didn’t want Godwin to live. He couldn’t work with him, he couldn’t work over him. Godwin was an offense in his eye. Godwin had ruined what he loved most and then acted as though nothing had happened. He wanted Godwin dead.
Shirabi smiled when the fight returned from the end of the hall. Ha!
He gasped and feared when Villiers’ hand was nicked. The knife dropped and that was as should be, but would anyone notice the difference? Could Godwin win? He did have a knife to kill with.
Back Villiers went toward the end of the hall. It seemed that he would be trapped there, and unable to retreat, would be systematically stripped to pieces. The crowd hushed, watching, waiting for the right moment to fill the hall with a roar of heat. If only Villiers knew that he had nothing to fear from Godwin’s tingler, could allow himself to receive a blow for the chance to deal one!
And then the crowd did roar. Villiers came in and past Godwin and Godwin was dropping both tingler and knife, was going to his knees. The stroke itself was hidden from Shirabi and most of the onlookers, but there was no doubt. Godwin was finished. The duel was ended.
But then suddenly Levi Gonigle charged over the rail and down on the floor. He gave an inarticulate, bull-throated call. He seized Villiers from behind and crudely tried to break his neck. Villiers desperately tried to switch his tingler back on so he could remove the horrifying black presence that was bending and breaking him.
Shirabi had been moving toward the duelists. With Levi’s arrival, he broke into a run. He couldn’t allow Villiers to be killed here. If he was the entry in Martin and Morrison, he wasn’t an investigator and Star Well was in excellent shape. If Levi killed him, all that would be ruined.
He swept the tingler from the hands that were still struggling to turn it on. He put his hands on Levi’s shoulder and pulled with all his weight. It was not an attempt to dissuade Levi. He was not that strong. It was a bid for attention.
He yelled to Levi as he was shaken loose and fell in a purple heap. He rose from the floor and pounded Levi in the ribs, yelling all the while.
“Let him go! This is Shirabi. Let him go, Levi!”
Eventually the noise and swatting penetrated Levi’s consciousness. He let Villiers fall to the floor. Villiers crawled away, gasping for breath, and was helped to his feet by Srb.
Levi said, “But he hurt Mr. Godwin.”
“I know,” said Shirabi. “But it was a fair fight.”
Levi slowly shook his head, his eyes filling with tears. “Mr. Shirabi, don’t you
care
?”
“Of course I care,” Shirabi said. “I’ll find a way to settle things. Now, Levi, this isn’t good for you to see. Go along you know where and I’ll have something important for you to do later.”
Reluctantly, Levi departed. A few in the crowd had spoken, but most were uninvolved with the remnants of their entertainment now that it was over, and the galleries were being emptied. Villiers was coughing, sitting by the wall, but seemed to be recovering himself. Now what was it that Shirabi had to do? Oh, yes, the weapons.
Bledsoe had Villiers’ tingler in his hand and was idly looking at it. Shirabi had to get it back, needed them both. He began collecting weapons, starting with Godwin’s knife. At the least sign from Bledsoe, he meant to be a walking weapons rack and have it from his hand.
There was a yap behind him and he turned to see that yattering fool, Ellis Phibbs. He barely knew enough to stagger out when the ships arrived and that was fine with Shirabi. But he also wanted to put his finger in every other public pie. He, like most, wanted to be wanted, and affairs like this gave him the opportunity regardless of the feelings of anyone else present.
“I heard there was a duel. I want to know about this. I have my duty to do. If the Navy wants to know about this one, somebody has to be able to tell them.”
Then, abruptly, he caught sight of Srb, and just as abruptly he broke off. Shirabi saw that in a shocked moment. Others were busy, though Bledsoe did look up at Phibbs’ arrival. Chapeldaine and the doctor were trying to prop Godwin up. Most of the crowd had already left or were jockeying for the doors. Villiers’ attention was distracted. But Shirabi saw.
Phibbs said in a lowered voice to Srb, “If you’re here, Mr. Srb, I suppose I’m not needed.”
Srb said, in even tones, “I’m one of the seconds in the affair. If you have a duty to do, you had better do it.”
Phibbs turned with the sense of the occasion just beginning to break in his mind. It was three stages of “Oh?, Oh,
Oh
.” Then, officiousness recovered, but transparently, he said, “Who was in charge here?”
Bledsoe was caught, but not by the meaning of things as Shirabi was. He was caught by the grating quality of Phibbs’ manner.
“Yes?” he said, and Shirabi snagged the tingler from his hands. “I was dueling master.”
The two began to talk. Shirabi quietly picked the weapons off the floor, the calm regular order of a day, and took them over to the racks. When he turned away again, there were two tinglers lying on the bench in front, one of them Villiers’, the other an exchange. Two tinglers, in perfect condition to destroy. He walked from there over to Godwin, an imminent fear within him.
The doctor said, “I can’t do anything for him. The best you can do is freeze him within the first minute of death. He can probably be brought back with proper facilities.”
Shirabi nodded and bent close to Godwin. Godwin recognized him.
With effort, he said, “Wrong man.”
Shirabi shot a look at Srb. “Yes. The wrong man.”
Godwin suddenly had a desperate look on his face. His heels kicked with the effort he made to speak. At last, he said, as though it had great significance, “I’m a little teapot.” And he died relieved.
“What was that?” the doctor asked.
“It’s a mystery to me,” Shirabi said. “Very strange.” Then he turned and waved. The cold cart was rolled onto the floor by two men in white and wheeled rapidly toward them.
“The last time we didn’t have a cold cart,” Shirabi said, “and the Navy investigated.”
The cart was opened with professional skill. There was a fluttering, a snowy flapping, and Godwin was totally covered. Then the two men bent, raised Godwin with tender care, and placed him within the cold haven of the cart. They closed the gates behind him, and bore him to his rest.
10
T
HERE IS A GOOD OLD EXPRESSION DOWN HOME
—
to cut and run
. I was once told where it came from, but I don’t remember now. I do know that it makes sense to a man with a knife. It makes sense to a wallet-and-purse man. It makes sense to a cardplayer after a bad evening, and it makes sense to a sailor caught by an enemy forty-gunner with his anchor down. To all, it means prudence. Shirabi, being a sensible man, proposed to cut and run.
He sat in the secret basements of Star Well on a white cold cart. There was a large brown book open on his knees. He was thinking.
All around him were rows of white cold boxes identical to the cart he was sitting on but without the wheels. All were awaiting the arrival of the black freighter.
Star Well was the hub of the thumb-running traffic in the Rift. It was extremely profitable, both in money and in leverage. Politics were affected, and stock gaming, as well as the obvious market for arms, livers, and hair pieces.
But Star Well was only the center of traffic for this comparative moment. The owners knew that eventually it would be discovered and Star Well would have to be run straight for a time.
Shirabi had his orders for the first sign of trouble, his private orders. Cut and run.
After Godwin’s jealousy of Villiers had become apparent, after Martin and Morrison had served him another explanation for Villiers, Shirabi had not thought it likely that Villiers was anything like a secret investigator. That had left him free to use Villiers.
But just when the game was closing, up had popped Ellis D. Phibbs and a priest of Mithra who apparently was no priest of Mithra. If Shirabi was a rabbit, his employers had no objection to it, in fact were just as happy for it. Shirabi was a rabbit and he felt that this was the time to run.
Now he was waiting for the ship to arrive. He had every intention of putting the load of thumbs aboard and riding away, never to return to Star Well.
He was also waiting for his helpers to arrive, and he had Levi Gonigle out watching the halls to keep him out of trouble. He hopped down from the cart and closed the book in his hands. It was Martin and Morrison’s
Index
.
He had cleaned his office, taking everything he wanted with him, everything he hadn’t wanted to leave behind. He had brought Godwin’s book with him for one last look. Now he didn’t know what to do with it. He looked around. It wouldn’t go with his own gear—he didn’t want it anymore. He couldn’t lay it on top of a cold box—shortly they would be carried out through an extendable corridor and into racks aboard the freighter. After a moment’s thought and hesitant gazing about, he opened the cold cart on which he had been sitting and looked down at the still features of Derek Godwin.
“You always wanted to be a gentleman,” Shirabi said, and laid it within Godwin’s folded arms. The field shocked Shirabi’s hands. It felt the way mint tastes.
It had seemed a shame to let Godwin go to waste. Shirabi certainly did not want him sent to advanced medical facilities and revived. Neither did he want him simply to spoil. It had seemed reasonable to have him wheeled below to join the bodies in transit. Shirabi closed the cart again. “I never thought you were all that good.”
He did a drum beat with the flat of his hands on the top of the cold cart and waltzed around it, but his elation had no conviction behind it. The whole unpleasant appearance of Srb had taken the punch out of his evening,
You couldn’t miss it in Srb once you knew. He had
investigator
tattooed over his eyebrows. As other professions radiated promises of money and sex and dangerous adventure, he promised rehabilitation and other unpleasantries.
Shirabi was caught by the opening of the warehouse door. He turned at the noise to see Levi Gonigle. He was holding a girl under each arm.
“I caught them, Mr. Shirabi. I caught them,” he said. “Can I have fun with them?”
* * *
Villiers had been accompanied to his quarters after the duel by Bledsoe, the sober dueling master. Srb had pleaded pressing affairs, Villiers had thanked him for the services he had rendered, and they had parted.
Villiers was ready to return to his quarters after the doctor had had a look at his hand. His clothes, partly because he had laid some aside in order to fight, partly because of the exertions he had been forced to, were in disarray. To be fit again for public company, he would certainly have to repair his appearance. More important, he was still feeling the sudden force of the attack which Levi Gonigle had launched upon him.
Bledsoe said something, in his reserved and somber way, about his appreciation of Villiers’ form, “now that he was free to speak,” and volunteered his company to Villiers, who felt in need, indeed, and did not hesitate to say so.
Bledsoe said gravely, “You came to my attention earlier in the evening, however, sir.”
Villiers, coat and drapeau over his arm, a bit shaky on his pins, but still presenting a tolerable presence, said, “Did I?”
“Yes. You did not see me, of course, but I sat at the next table while you were dining. I was frankly caught by the obvious friendliness between you and the young girl you were eating with.”
That sentence might be taken in several ways depending on tone and time and the person speaking. Bledsoe’s age, and sex, and dress, and manner ruled out a number of possibilities, and his tone ruled out several more, but even so, Villiers was not sure exactly what he meant or meant to imply.
Villiers looked casually at Bledsoe and said, “We are friendly,” in a neutral voice.
“I’m not sure you understand me,” Bledsoe said. “I was caught by the
friendliness
. It is a pleasure to see the few people in the world who can be that comfortable with each other.”
Villiers nodded, listened, and occasionally said a word or two until they reached his suite. There he thanked Bledsoe for his attention, made his excuses, and went within. It would have been in order to invite Bledsoe inside for a few social moments, but in truth he did not rate Bledsoe’s company that highly and he had no genuine interest in any company until he felt a bit more himself. Bledsoe either understood or was willing to have it seem that he did, and went his way at a carefully chosen pace.
Torve the Trog was sitting on the floor reading and making his noises. His skin was one size too large for his frame. You didn’t notice that particularly when he was upright, but when he sat or lay it tended to fall into occasional rumpled folds. These might appear anywhere, but most often around his stuffed tummy.
Villiers said, “Has anything transpired within the period I have been absent? Within the time that you have been present, of course.”
Torve looked at him and said, “You are wheezy—I mean, weavy—in the head. Or do I mean wheezy? And transpired means that someone has died.”
Villiers sat down abruptly. “Somebody has died. I was in the damnedest duel that you ever saw. Fifteen minutes or so after you left, that fool Godwin stepped up and called me out. I’m not sure why. He may have thought me overclose, but I didn’t think I was stepping that hard.”
“Why! Why! Is no matter why,” said Torve. “Thing happened, is all. What is important is
what
happened.”
Villiers slowly told the whole story, and Torve nodded throughout.
When he was done, Torve said, “As I said—what is important is
what
happened. Couldn’t be better, I’m sure.”
“You’re sure?”
“Certainly. And how is your hand?”
“Better than it ought to be. I don’t think the nerves were killed. It’s very odd.” He stood up. “I think I’d better let Louisa know that I’m all right. She might be worrying, since she was dragged off.”
He went to the service and tried to place the call. The call was refused, of course, on the orders of Mrs. Bogue. “Oh, well,” he said. He stretched and winced. “I’d better put myself back in order again.”
“Is good idea” said Torve. “The imperative of time is that you go to the basement tonight. You should be feeling good to be up late.”
Villiers shook his head. “I’m not going to the basements tonight. At worst, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow, I’ll think what to do with the leverage we have. I had an idea while I was dueling, but then I dropped my knife and lost the idea and haven’t tracked it down again.”
Torve said, “Always you know ‘why,’ whatever ‘why’ is. I know the imperative of time.” He scratched his belly slowly and significantly. “In here I know. You go to the basement tonight. That is your line of occurrence.”
Try to argue with that.
* * *
Srb was a red flower in front of the service, a scarlet blossom in a heavy chair.
“No answer?” he said.
“I am sorry, sir, but Mr. Adams does not answer.”
Srb thanked him and switched off. He lit his pipe and tried to think of an appropriate metaphor.
* * *
Villiers, rejuvenated—the rejuvenation facilities in royal-a-day rooms being excellent—appeared half-dressed in the door.
“Could you straighten the hang?”
Torve reached a hand up from the floor and bemusedly straightened the hang.
“Did I hear somebody out here a minute or two ago?” Villiers asked.
“Was nothing,” Torve said. “Was mistake.” Was in fact the girls on their way to the basements.
There was a ring at the door. Villiers raised his eyebrows and started for the door. He stopped just short to make his adjustments. The bell rang insistently again as he reached for the plate that would open the door.
Mrs. Bogue looked up as the door slid back. She was a woman who obviously liked to keep herself in order. Hair and clothes were uniform surfaces. Her hair was gray and she had done nothing to change that.
Firmly, she said, “Stand back, Mr. Villiers.” Villiers stepped back a pace and ushered her within. “All right,” she said, looking around the room. “Produce them, please.”
“I beg your pardon,” Villiers said, turning away from the door.
“Produce them, please.”
“
Thurb
,” said Torve, and Mrs. Bogue’s startled head swiveled about.
“What is he doing here?” she demanded. “Mr. Villiers, it seems that I judged you very, very mistakenly. Sick associations with filthy animals! I may have failed now and then in my duties, but I want it said to my credit that all the time we were penned together in that miserable little ship I kept my girls from having anything to do with
that
.”
She pointed a forefinger at Torve.
“
We
, I may be plain to say, are not Mithraists. Oh, I hope you aren’t a Mithraist, too.”
“No, madam, that is not one of my failings.”
“Well, I want my girls produced, and I want them now. I would have them stay here no longer than is absolutely necessary.”
“Which girls?” Villiers asked quietly.
Torve continued to read, throbbing from time to time. He took no real notice of Mrs. Bogue and her artistic displeasures, and showed no interest in the conversation.
“Louisa and Alice, of course. They know no one else. They are not anywhere else. Therefore, they are here”
“They are not here,” Villiers said. “Please, will you tell me when you saw them last?”
“I may be the person who saw them most recently,” a voice said.
All those who have involved themselves in amateur detective work will be quick to tell you of their reliance on open doors, conveniently overheard conversations and passing strangers with vital information for the solution of their problems. In this case, Bledsoe, the dueling master, was standing in the doorway.
Villiers raised his eyebrows. He was a master of the eyebrow. “Where did you see them?”
“They were entering a stairwell. Bound for the basements, I would say.”
“What does that mean?” Mrs. Bogue asked.
Villiers said, “You overheard quite a bit at dinner, didn’t you?”
“Curiosity is one of my failings, though Mithraism may not be. In a word, yes, though I think this was a topic of conversation in the casino, not at dinner.”
“You’re right. It was,” Villiers said.
“Can you handle things yourself, or shall you need help?” Bledsoe asked.
“Are you offering your services?”
“Goodness, no,” said Bledsoe. “I’m no man of action. I was just curious.”
* * *
The girls were placed on their feet in front of Shirabi. The taller one had a distinctly unhappy look, and she was shivering.
Shirabi looked at her and said, “I feel cold myself.”
The other girl, the brown-looking one, said firmly, “We were lost.”
Shirabi shook his head. “I don’t believe you. I accept your presence as an added burden, but I don’t believe that you were lost. Who are you involved with? Srb? Villiers?”
“Nobody!” said the tall one.
“Don’t try to tell me stories,” Shirabi said. “I’ll let Levi have his fun with you.”
Levi brightened.
“Levi, go out and guard the halls again,” Shirabi said. “Go on.”
Reluctantly, Levi allowed himself to be put outside like a puppy put in the cellar. The same stiffening of the legs. The same reproach in a simple face. The same backward glances.
Shirabi followed him to the door. When he turned, the little hen said, “We were trying to find out what happened to Mr. Villiers.”
“Down here?”
“Please, sir,” said Alice. “It’s the truth.”
As said before, there were few occasions when Hisan Bashir Shirabi had been able to be totally rotten to people of higher station. When belligerence had been called for, he had been obsequious. When firmness had been called for, firmness had not been within him. When the necessary demands of the situation had been made, for blood, and agony, and total terror, he had been powerless to produce them. Except twice under humiliating circumstances. The shame was that they had been as humiliating for Shirabi as they had been for his subjects.
That was a terrible burden under which to live. Shirabi’s worries about his impotence had crippled him almost as badly as his central affliction itself. He had not been the man for Zvegintsov that his natural abilities and instincts should have made him.
He had been shunted from one minor post to another, and now was here where his failing was of small moment, where it did not matter if a manager could cut the mustard or not. And now he was ready to leave, his little era ended. The best he could expect was another station that was no more important than this and possibly would be less.
