Big Planet

13 The Secret

Through the afternoon the travellers revelled in perfume, and at last, half-intoxicated from gorgeous odors, they returned to Sir Walden’s castle.

Inquiry revealed that Cloyville had not yet returned.

Glystra bathed with a troubled mind. Awaiting him with a towel was the same smiling girl who had served him yesterday. Today she wore, in addition to her short black skirt, a string of red coral beads around her neck.

Sighing, half in frustration, Glystra allowed himself to be arrayed in fresh clothes.

Sir Walden was more attentive and gracious than ever this evening; repeatedly he toasted his guests and planet Earth in wines first green, then orange, then red, and Glystra’s head was light before the first series of courses was served.

Course after course: hot pickled fruit, slabs of nutty yeast spread with sweet syrups, salads, croquettes garnished with crisp water-weed—and presently a great tureen was wheeled in, a pottery bowl glazed in stripes of brown, black and green.

Sir Walden himself served the meat—slices of pale roast swimming in rich brown gravy.

Glystra found himself replete, without further appetite, and merely toyed with his portion. Sir Walden and his lady ate with silent concentration, for a moment quiet.

Glystra asked suddenly, “What kind of animal furnishes the meat?”

Sir Walden looked up, wiped his lips with a napkin. “A rather large beast, seldom seen in these parts. It seems to have wandered down from the north woods; by rare luck we procured it; its meat is superlatively delicious.”

“Indeed,” said Glystra. Looking about he noticed Pianza and Bishop had likewise left their plates untouched. Corbus and Clodleberg still had appetite, and ate the meat with relish, as did Nancy and the gypsy girls.

At the final course—a rich cheese-like substance— Glystra said suddenly, “I think Sir Walden, that tomorrow we will take our leave of Kirstendale.”

Sir Walden paused in his eating. “What? So soon?”

“We have far to go, and the monoline takes us but a short distance along the way.”

“But—your friend Cloyville?”

“If he is found—” he paused. “If he returns, he possibly may be able to overtake us. I feel that we had better go before—ah, any of us wander away.”

“You’re spoiling us for the tough life we have ahead,” said Pianza. “Another week here and I couldn’t bring myself to leave.”

Sir Walden politely expressed his regret. “I invited you as curiosities of the moment; now I look upon you as my friends.”

A coach came to convey the party to Sir Clarence Attlewee’s soiree. Sir Walden stood back.

“But do you not come with us?” asked Glystra.

“No,” said Sir Walden. “I will be occupied this evening.”

Glystra slowly took his seat in the carriage. Automatically he felt to his side—but he had left his weapon in his room. He whispered to Corbus, “Tonight—don’t drink too much. I think that we had better keep our heads clear… For what—I don’t know.”

“Right.”

The carriage stopped by a column painted blue-white, and the party was conducted up a spiral staircase much like Sir Walden Marchion’s.

Sir Clarence, a man with a heavy chin and snapping eyes, greeted his guests at the head of the stairs. Glystra stared at him. Somewhere, somehow, Sir Clarence’s face was familiar to him. He stammered, “Haven’t we met, Sir Clarence? This afternoon at the pressing?”

“I think not,” said Sir Clarence. “I was otherwise occupied today.”

“I feel I’ve spoken to you before. Your voice is familiar-”

Sir Clarence shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” He conducted them into his home. “Allow me to present my wife-” He did so. “And Valery, my daughter…” Glystra’s mouth fell open.

Here was the girl who, nearly naked, waited to serve him when he left his bath.

He leaned forward. Or was she? She regarded him with impersonal interest, frowning slightly as if puzzled by his interest. Glystra mumbled, “Charmed to make your aquaintance,” and she moved away.

Watching the swing of her body in its complicated wrappings of silk and toile and net, Glystra was certain that she was the same girl.

Bishop nudged him. “There’s something rather peculiar—”

“What?”

“Our host Sir Clarence—I’ve seen him before.”

“So have I.”

“Where? Do you remember?”

“At the Hunt Club?”

Bishop snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”

“Who is he?”

“Sir Clarence is—or was—the doorman at the Hunt Club.”

Glystra stared, first at Bishop, then at Sir Clarence, who now was speaking with Nancy.

Bishop was right.

Behind him he heard a booming laugh, a great roar of merriment. “Haw, haw, haw! Look at that!”

It was Corbus’ laugh, and Corbus laughed only rarely.

Glystra whirled. He looked face to face with Cloyville.

Cloyville wore a black livery, with tiny gold epaulettes. He pushed a cart laden with canapes.

Glystra broke into laughter, as did Bishop and Pianza. Cloyville blushed, a tide of red rising up his bull neck, over his cheeks. He darted an appealing glance toward Sir Clarence, who watched him impassively.

“Well, Cloyville,” said Glystra, “suppose you let us in on it… Picking up a little spare change during your stay?”

“Care for hors d’oeuvres, sir?” asked Cloyville tonelessly.

“No, damn it. No hors d’oeuvres. Just an explanation.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Cloyville and rolled his cart away.

Glystra turned to Sir Clarence. “What’s going on? What’s the joke?”

Sir Clarence wore a puzzled look. “The man is new to my employ. He came to me well recommended—”

Glystra wheeled, strode after Cloyville, who seemed intent on rolling his cart out of the room.

“Cloyville!” barked Glystra. “We’re going to thrash this thing out right here.”

“Quiet!” hissed Cloyville. “It’s not polite to create such a disturbance.”

“Thank God I’m not an aristocrat then.”

“But I am—and you’re hurting my prestige!”

Glystra blinked. “You? An aristocrat? You’re just a flunky pushing around a tray of sandwiches.”

“Everybody’s the same way,” said Cloyville dispiritedly. “Everybody works. Everybody is everybody else’s servant. How do you suppose they keep up the front?”

Glystra sat down. “But—”

Cloyville said savagely, “I decided I liked it here. I want to stay. I’ve had enough of tramping across forty thousand miles of jungle, getting killed. I asked Sir Walden if I could stay. He said yes, but he told me I’d have to work like everybody else, and work hard. There’s not a more industrious people in space than the Kirsters. They know what they want, they work for it. For every hour of swanking around as an aristocrat they put in two working—in the shops, the factories, in the homes. Usually all three. Instead of living one life, they live two or three. They love it, thrive on it. I like it too. I’ve decided I’m built the same way. Call me a snob,” he shouted, voice rising angrily. “I admit it. But while you and the others are rotting your bones out in the muck I’ll be living here like a king!”

“That’s all right, Cloyville,” said Glystra mildly. “Or perhaps I should say, Sir Cloyville. Why couldn’t you tell me of your plans?”

Cloyville turned away. “I thought you’d try to argue with me. Or talk about duty, rot like that—”

“Not at all,” said Glystra. “You’re a free agent.” He turned away. “I wish you luck. I hope you’ll like it here. If we ever get to the Enclave I’ll send a plane back to pick you up” He returned to the main hall.

Early the next morning a carriage called at the castle of Sir Walden Marchion. Scrutinizing the men who pulled the carriage, Glystra recognized one of Sir Clarence’s sons.

Wailie and Motta were missing. Glystra asked Bishop, “Where’s your girl friend?”

Bishop shook his head. “She had breakfast with me.”

“Did she know we were leaving?”

“Well—yes.”

Glystra turned to Corbus. “How about Motta?”

Corbus looked at Bishop. “Let’s face it.” He grinned. “We’re just not the men these Kirsters are…”

Glystra could not prevent himself from glancing swiftly toward Nancy. There she was, pale, rather taut—but there she was. He smiled at her, uncertainly. There was still distance between them.

He turned back to Corbus and Bishop. “Do you want to look for them?”

Corbus shook his head. “They’re better off here.”

“Let’s go,” said Bishop.

At the monoline station, the head porter reached into the carriage, unloaded the packs, to a cart, wheeled them to the trolleys.

Glystra winked at his fellows. The porter was Sir Walden Marchion.

With a straight face Glystra tipped him once again, three small iron washers.

Sir Walden bowed low. “Thank you very much, sir.”

Kirstendale dwindled in the west. As before Clodleberg rode in the lead, with Glystra following. Then came the first freight carrier with Corbus and Nancy, then the second with Bishop and Pianza. Cloyville’s trolley had been left behind at Kirstendale.

The party was dwindling. Glystra thought back across the last few weeks. A desperate bloody time. Ketch, Darrot, Vallusser—killed. Cloyville had abandoned the trek. Abbigens, Morwatz, the fifty Beaujolain soldiers— all killed. Heinzelman, the Politburos, the Magickers in the griamobot—killed. A trail of death speading behind like a wake… Who would be next?

The thought hung in his mind like a cloud, while they sailed along the bank of a quiet river—the East Fork of the Thelma. The countryside was clumped with Earth-type oaks, cypress, elm and hemlock, imported with the first settlers and now well-adapted; Big Planet flora: bell-briar, mutus weed, handkerchief trees, with flowers like strips of rag, bronzenbush, wire-aspen, a hundred nameless varieties of low jointed furze. Truck-farms and paddies occupied the river meadows; the caravan passed neat rows of thistle and legumes, tended by a moon-faced thick-necked people who paid them no heed whatever.

The river presently bore to the north. The monoline continued east, and the country changed. The green meadows and forest became a dark blur to the left and behind; ahead was dry savannah and a range of blue hills in the far Big Planet distance. Clodleberg pointed. “The Eyrie.”

At noon on the third day Clodleberg pointed ahead once more. “We’re coming to Lake Pellitante.” Glystra saw the sheen of water, a limpidity in the sky that told of reflection from a large sheet of calm warm water.

The ground became marshy, and presently the mono-line swung to the south. For half an hour they crossed dunes sparsely overgrown with dry yellow grass, and the glare off the white sands combined with the normal brilliance of the sunlight made ordinary vision painful.

A high dune passed below, the dry grass licking up at the trolleys like spume at the crest of a wave, and they coasted down toward a lagoon choked with brilliant yellow reeds.

Clodleberg, riding fifty yards ahead, suddenly dropped from sight. The yellow reeds boiled with life; naked men, thin and tall as giraffes, painted in vertical yellow and black stripes, sprang forth. They were immensely tall— eight feet or more—and they came in great bounds. A sharp cry like a bugle-call sounded; the men stopped short, stiffened back to heave spears… Violet light fanned out, crackling with white sparks. The tall men fell like rags. Three had not been killed, but lay thrashing their long arms and legs like upturned insects.

Clodleberg picked himself up from the ground, stalked across the marsh, stabbed them with their own spears.

The swamp was quiet. Nothing could be heard but a rustle of the breeze in the reeds, the warm hum of insects. Glystra looked at the power-bank of his ion-shine, shook his head. “Done for.” He started to toss it to the ground, then remembered the value of metal and tucked it under the seat.

Clodleberg returned to his trolley, still muttering and bristling. “The plague-taken reed-demons, they cut the line!” Evidently, in Clodleberg’s register of evils, this was the most depraved crime of all.

“What race are these people?” asked Bishop, who had clambered down one of the line standards to inspect the bodies.

Clodleberg shrugged, and said in a disinterested tone, “They call themselves the Stanezi… They’re a great nuisance to travellers, since they gain nothing from the monoline by way of trade.”

Bishop nudged one of the scrawny forms over on its back, peered into the open mouth. “Filed teeth. Hamitic physiognomy… A Shilluk tribe emigrated to Big Planet from the Sudan about four hundred years ago—an irredentist group who chose exile rather than submission to World Government. Very possibly here are their descendants.” He looked across the reeds, the dunes, the hot sheen of Lake Pellitante. “The terrain is much like the one they left.”

“From the swamps of the Nile to the swamps of Lake Pellitante,” apostrophized Pianza.

From the tool-box in his trolley Clodleberg brought a block-and-tackle, and under his direction the broken parts of the monoline were heaved together. Sitting on top one of the standards Clodleberg was able to sink barbed splints into both ends and secure the splice with three whippings of fine cord. Then the tackle was released and the monoline was once more whole.

Clodleberg’s trolley was hoisted back up into position; he set his sails and the caravan was once more under way.

As they rounded the elbow of the lagoon Glystra looked back and saw crouching forms steal from the swamp toward the yellow and black-striped bodies… What a tragedy, thought Glystra. In ten seconds the flower of the tribe wiped out. There would be wailing tonight in the Stanezi village, grovelling in the ashes to the fetishes which had failed them, flagellations, penances…

The monoline took a long gradual slant up into a line of trees bordering Lake Pellitante, and the sudden shade was like darkness. The wind was light, blowing in vagrant puffs, and the trolleys ghosted hardly faster than a man could walk. The lake lay nearly mirror-calm, with a peculiar yellow-gray glisten on the surface, like a film of spider-web. The opposite shore was lost in the haze; far out three or four boats were visible, manned, according to Clodleberg, by fishermen of a tribe who held the land in superstitious dread, and never in the course of their lives set foot ashore.

An hour later they passed a village of house-boats—a triple row of barges floating a hundred yards offshore. The central row was covered with vegetation, apparently a community kitchen garden. There was an air of warmth and contentment to the village, lazy days in the sunlight…

Late afternoon found the party still drifting through the trees of the lake-shore, and at dusk a party of traders appeared, riding the monoline from the opposite direction.

Clodleberg halted his trolley, the lead man in the opposite caravan trundled cautiously closer, and the two exchanged greetings.

The traders were men of Miramar, in Coelanvilli, to the south of Kirstendale, returning from Myrtlesee Fountain. They were bright-eyed wiry men in white linen suits, wearing red kerchiefs around their heads, which detail of dress invested them with a peculiarly piratical air. Clodleberg, however, appeared to be at his ease and Glystra gradually relaxed.

The trade caravan consisted of fourteen freight trolleys loaded with crystallized sugar. By an established rule, the Earthmen, with only four trolleys, were obligated to drop to the ground and allow the traders free-way.

Evening had seeped lavender-gray across the lake, and Glystra decided to camp for the night. The leader of the traders likewise decided to make night camp.

“These are sad times,” he told Glystra. “Every hand is turned against the trader, and it is wise to band together as many honest arms as possible.”

Glystra mentioned the Stanezi ambush by the lagoon of yellow reeds, and the trader laughed rather weakly.

“The reed men are cowards; they are hardly resourceful or persistent, and run at any loud sounds. It is different on the Palari Desert, where two days ago we escaped the Rebbirs only because a squall of wind drove us at great speed out of danger.” He prodded the earth with a stick, looked uneasily to the east. “They are keen as the Blackhelm panthers, as single-minded as fate. It would surprise me not at all to find that a party has followed us down the monoline. For this reason we have kept our sleep short and our sentries double.”