Big Planet

11 Every Man a Millionaire!

For several minutes little enough of Kirstendale could be seen: splashes of white through the trees, a pair of stone causeways. The trolleys sailed across a pasture of red-green grass, the trees parted, and there was the city, rising from a grassy plain with blue mountains in the background.

It was the largest and most elaborate settlement the Earthmen had seen on Big Planet, but it was never a city which might have existed on Earth. It reminded Glystra of the cloud-borne castles in fairy-story illustrations.

The line took a sudden turn and they came upon a scene of gay activity, carnival color.

A game was in progress. On the field were fifty men and women in garments of remarkable complexity and elegance: silks, satins, velvets, coarse tasselled weaves— tucked, flared, gored, bedecked, be-ribboned, covered with tinsel and lace. The field was laid off into squares by lines of colored grasses, cropped and tended with the nicest precision, and each player occupied a single square. Sheets of silk hung at each side from a row of moored balloons. Each sheet glowed a different color: peach-tan, orange-russet, blue, sea-green, rippling, shining in the breeze. A myriad of small colored balls were in use, balls which half-floated, almost as light as air. The players caught balls in a manner which seemed to depend on the color of the ball, the color of the player’s head-ribbon and the square where the player stood. Balls filled the air, little sunlit jewels, and sometimes a player would catch three balls at once and toss them away with great dexterity. When a ball landed in one of the silken curtains, a score was counted to the great jubilation of certain players and spectators who cried, “Ohe, ohe, ohe!”

Several hundred men and women watched the game from the sidelines. They were dressed in the same extravagant fashion, and in addition wore headgear of fantastic complexity, confections most ingeniously designed and assembled. One young man displayed a shell like an overturned boat, striped in bright green and scarlet. Balls of fluorescent blue clung here and there to the fabric, and tapes of golden taupe fluttered below. A great puff of bright purple veil rose from the top, and imbedded in this veil were globes of red, green, blue, yellow, shining like Christmas tree ornaments… A young woman—very beautiful, Glystra thought, supple as a kitten, with sleek yellow hair and long yellow eyes—wore first a cloche-helmet of soft leather from which rose a tall antenna, and this antenna radiated prongs tipped with spangles of live fire—vermilion, scintillant green, molten gold… Another—another—another: baroque, unique, incredible.

The monoline circled the field. The players and spectators glanced up casually, returned to their game with interest for nothing but the multiple flight of the colored balls.

Glystra noticed an attendant rolling a cart arrayed with pink and white pastries. “Pianza—look what he’s wearing…”

Pianza snorted in surprise and amusement. “It’s a tuxedo. Dinner jacket. Black tie. Stripe down the trousers, patent leather shoes. Wonderful.”

Out on the field a ball fell into the billowing russet-gold curtain, rolled softly to the ground. There was joyous applause from the spectators.

Glystra slacked his sails, his trolley coasted quietly along the line. The freight-flat behind, with Pianza and Bishop, overtook him. Glystra spoke over his shoulder, “Bishop, what does the Almanac say about Kirstendale? Anything interesting?”

Bishop came up to stand at the forward end of the flat, under the lead wheel. He looked in frowning reflection toward the looping walls. “Seems as if there’s a mystery of sorts—‘the Kirstendale Paradox,’ that’s what they called it. It starts to come back to me. A syndicate of millionaires established the town to beat System taxes. A whole colony came out with their servants—twenty or thirty families. Apparently—well,” he waved his hand. “There’s the result.”

The monoline veered once more, the breeze fell astern. Sails spread out like butterfly wings, the caravan plunged through an arch into the city, coasted up to a landing.

Three quiet men in dark livery came foward, wordlessly removed the packs from the trolley, put them into carts with high spoked wheels. Glystra started to remonstrate, but catching Clodleberg’s eye, desisted. “What’s happening?”

“They assume that you are wealthy,” said Clodleberg, “from the trolleys and the women.”

“Humph,” grunted Glystra. “Am I supposed to tip them?”

“Do what?”

“Give them money.”

Clodleberg blinked, still perplexed.

“Money. Metal.”

“Ah, metal!” Clodleberg twisted his natty mustache. “That is as you wish.”

The head porter approached, a tall solemn-faced man with carefully shaved cheeks, long sideburns terminating in a little puff of whiskers: a man comporting himself with immense dignity.

Glystra handed him three small iron washers. “For you and your men.”

“Thank you, sir… And where will you have your luggage sent?”

Glystra shrugged. “What are the choices?”

“Well, there’s the Grand Savoyard and the Metropole And the Ritz-Carlton—all excellent, all equally expensive.”

“How expensive?”

The head porter blinked, raised his black eyebrows the faintest trifle. “Perhaps an ounce a week… The Traveller’s Inn and the Fairmont are likewise expensive, but something quieter”

“What is a good inn of moderate rates?”

The head porter clicked his heels. “I recommend the Hunt Club. This way, sir, to the carriage.”

He led them to a landau mounted on four elliptical springs of laminated golden wood. There were no zipan-gotes hitched to the front, in fact the carriage appeared innocent of motive power.

The head porter swung open the door with a flourish. Cloyville, in the lead, hesitated, looked quizzically back over his shoulder. “A joke? After we get in, do you walk away and leave us sitting here?”

“No indeed, sir, by no means.”

Cloyville gingerly climbed up the two steps, lowered himself into the soft seat. The rest of the party followed.

The head porter closed the door with exquisite finesse, signalled. Four men in tight black uniforms stepped forward; each clipped a strap to the front of the carriage, tossed it over his shoulder, and the carriage was underway. Wooden planking rumbled below the wheels, the hangar-like buildings were behind, they drove over granite flags through the heart of the city.

Kirstendale had been laid out with an eye to striking vistas. It was a city clean as new paper, bright with polished stone and glass, gay with flowers. Towers rose everywhere, each circled by a staircase which spiralled up to meet the onion-shaped bulb of the dwelling.

They approached a cylindrical building in the middle of the city, large as a gas-storage tank. A lush growth of blue-green vine with maroon trumpet-flowers, rows of large windows gave a sense of lightness and elegance to an otherwise heavy building.

The carriage passed under a marquee roofed with stained glass, and the Big Planet sunlight, passing through, puddled the flags with gorgeous color. A sign on the marquee read, “Hotel Metropole.”

“Hm,” said Cloyville. “Looks like a nice place… After the—well, inconvenience of the journey, I could stand a week or two in the lap of luxury.”

But the carriage continued around the building, presently passed another marquee. This was draped in rich saffron satin, fringed with royal red tassels. A sign read “Grand Savoyard.”

Next they passed a portico of somewhat classical dignity: columns, Ionic capitals and entablature. Chiselled letters read “Ritz-Carlton,” and again Cloyville looked wistfully over his shoulder as the carriage swept by. “We’ll probably end up on a flop-house on the skid-road.”

They passed a vaguely Oriental entrance: carved dark wood, a slab of the same wood supporting tall green urns. The sign read, “The Traveller’s Inn.”

The carriage continued another hundred feet and stopped under an awning of green, red and white striped canvas. A bold black and white sign announced “The Hunt Club.”

A doorman stepped forward, helped them to the pavement, then ran ahead, opened the door.

The party of travellers passed through a short corridor pasted with green baize, decorated with black and white landscapes, entered a large central lobby.

Directly opposite, across the lobby, a corridor led outside. Through the door shone the many-colored radiance of stained-glass in the sunlight.

Glystra looked around the walls. At intervals other corridors led off like spokes from a hub, all evidently leading to the outside.

Glystra stopped short. Grinning he turned to Pianza. “The Metropole, the Grand Savoyard, the Ritz-Carlton, the Traveller’s Inn, the Hunt Club—they’re all the same.”

Clodleberg made an urgent motion. “Quiet. This is very real to the Kirsters. You will offend them.”

“But—”

Clodleberg said hurriedly, “I should have informed you; the entrance you chose places you on the social scale. The accommodations are identical, but it is considered smarter and more fashionable to enter through the Metropole.”

Glystra nodded. “I understand completely. We’ll be careful.”

The doorman led them across the lobby to a circular desk with a polished wood counter. Rods wound with spirals of colored cloth rising from the edge of the counter supported a parasol-shaped top. A central pier continued up three feet, then extended in a ten foot pole of pitted black wood. Around the pole, veering in and out, flew ten thousand fireflies—swooping, circling, settling on the pitted wood of the pole, flying out again in a swift current, ten, twenty, fifty feet from the pole.

The doorman took them to that section of the desk marked off by the Hunt Club colors. Glystra turned around, counted heads, like the father of a troublesome family. Cloyville, ruddy and flushed, was talking to a tired Pianza; Corbus and Bishop stood with Wailie and Motta, the girls excited, vastly impressed; Nancy stood pale and rather tense by his right elbow, Clodleberg at his left. Nine in all.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the desk clerk. “Are you Mr Claude Glystra, of Earth?”

Glystra swung around in surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“Sir Walden Marchion extends his compliments, and begs that you and your party honor him by residing at his villa the period of your stay. He has sent his carriage for your use, if you will so favor him.”

Glystra turned to Clodleberg, spoke in a cold voice. “How did this Sir Walden Marchion know of our arrival?”

Clodleberg flushed, preened his mustaches furiously.

“Who’s been talking?”

Clodleberg said with immense dignity, “The head porter at the landing inquired your identity… I saw no reason to conceal it. You had issued no orders to that effect.”

Glystra turned away. If any harm was to result from the indiscretion, the harm was by now done; no benefit would come of dressing down Clodleberg, for whom, in general, he felt a high regard. “News certainly travels fast in Kirstendale… What is your opinion in regard to the invitation?”

Clodleberg turned to the desk clerk. “Exactly who is Sir Walden Marchion?”

“One of the wealthiest and most influential men in Kirstendale. A very distinguished gentleman.”

Clodleberg fondled his mustache. “Unusual, but gratifying…” He surveyed Glystra with a new appraisal. “I see no reason to decline.”

Glystra said to the desk clerk, “We’ll accept the invitation.”

The desk clerk nodded. “I’m sure that you’ll find your visit pleasant. Sir Walden has served meat at his table on several occasions… The carriage is awaiting. Ah, Man-ville, if you will…” He signalled to the clerk at the Grand Savoyard sector of the desk. This clerk nodded to a young man in a rich black livery with yellow piping down the sides, who clicked his heels, bowed, stalked out the Grand Savoyard entrance and a moment later reappeared in the Hunt Club corridor. He strode up to Glystra, clicked his heels, bowed.

“Sir Walden’s carriage, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Careful not to commit the faux pas of leaving by the Travellers Inn entrance, the party returned outside, climbed into a long low brougham. The doorman closed the door, the carriage driver said, “Your luggage will be conveyed to Sir Walden’s.”

“Such courtesy,” murmured Pianza. “Such unbelievable punctilio!”

Cloyville sank back in the deep cushioned seats with a sigh. “I’m afraid that I like it. Guess I’m soft, or possibly an anachronism. I’ll have to admit that all this feudalism finds a customer in me.”

“I wonder,” said Glystra, watching out the window, “what the desk clerk meant when he said that Sir Walden often served meat.”

Clodleberg blew out his cheeks. “Easily explained. By a peculiar freak the Galatudanian Valley supports no animal life other than the zipangotes, whose flesh is so rank as to be inedible. A parasitic insect deadly to creatures with fur, scales or floss is responsible. The zipangote, with his naked hide, is not troubled. The Kirsters therefore subsist on vegetable food, fruits, yeast, fungus, an occasional water-creature, certain varieties of insect, and on rare occasions, meat, imported from Coelanvilli.”

The carriage, drawn by five runners in Sir Walden’s black livery, trundled across the pavement. They passed a row of shops. The first displayed delicate creations of gauze and puff, the second sold flagons carved of green chert and mottled blue soapstone. The next booth offered pom-poms of twirled green and rose satin, the next was a jewellery, with trays full of glinting lights, next a display of glassware—goblets exceedingly tall and slender, with tiny cups and long fine stems, and the window glittered and glistened in vertical lines and diamond-colored striations.

“I’m rather interested in the economy,” said Cloyville. “Somewhere these goods are fabricated. Where? By whom? Slaves? It takes lots of production to support this kind of a set-up. Expensive leisure classes—like that.” He pointed to a plaza where men and women in extravagant clothes sat listening to seven young girls playing flutes and singing in clear sweet voices.

Glystra scratched his head. “I don’t see how they do it. They certainly can’t be supplied from Earth”

“Evidently this is their secret,” said Pianza. “The Kirstendale Paradox.”

Cloyville said with an air of finality, “Whatever it is, it seems to suit everybody; everybody seems happy.”

“Everybody in sight,” said Corbus.

Wailie and Motta had been chattering—bright-eyed, excited. Glystra watched them a moment, wondering what was going on in their brains… They had filled out, their cheeks were no longer hollow, their hair was glossy and well-tended, they were pretty girls. Corbus and Bishop were modestly proud of them. Corbus patted Motta’s head. “See anything you’d like?”

“Oh, yes! Jewels and metal and lovely cloth, and ribbons and spangles and those lovely sandals…”

Corbus winked at Bishop. “Clothes, clothes, clothes.”

“Le plus de la différence, le plus de la même chose” said Bishop.

The carriage turned among the towers—graceful spires swooping up to the onion-shaped dwellings.

The carriage halted by a pale green column; a servant swung wide the door. “The castle of Sir Walden Marchion…”