Ecce and Old Earth

CHAPTER VIII

At Fair Winds Agnes had gone off on holiday to Tidnor Strands. She would be gone two weeks; during this interval her niece Tassy, a bouncy energetic girl of eighteen, would take care of Pirie Tamm and see to his comfort.

Pirie Tamm agreed to the arrangement without enthusiasm. Tassy was comely, plump, with a round cheerful face, dimples, blonde curls, innocent blue eyes and boundless self-confidence. Before leaving, Agnes had assured Pirie Tamm that while Tassy was lively and exuberant, she was conscientious to a fault, and would do her best to please him.

And so it was. Tassy instantly diagnosed in Pirie Tamm the tragic case of a lonely old gentleman, brooding away the final hours of his life. She decided that she must bring at least a modicum of color and adventure to Pirie Tamm's daily routine. While he consumed his breakfast, Tassy stood to the side, ready with fresh marmalade, anxious to proffer hot toast, gently insisting that he eat his nice prunes, which he detested, and recommending neither salt nor pepper for reasons which had been made clear to her in a magazine article, but which now she could not quite recollect. She reported upon the weather and the scandals affecting her favorite celebrities, and described the plot of an enigmatic presentation she had recently enjoyed. She mentioned the latest dance craze, ‘Nervous Knee-caps,' which was performed to a loud shrill music of coughs, squeals and grunts. It was a fascinating exercise, said Tassy, involving hands, knees and pelvis; perhaps Sir Pirie would like to learn the step? Pirie Tamm said that while the prospect was intriguing, his doctor would surely object, and also, where in thunder was the salt and pepper? A man could not eat eggs without salt and pepper!”

"Oh yes you can, and you must, “said Tassy. "It is much healthier for you. That is the new wave of medical thinking!"

Pirie Tamm rolled his eyes to the celling and wondered if Agnes were enjoying herself at Tidnor Strands?

Late one afternoon, as Pirie Tamm sipped his sherry, Tassy notified him that he was wanted on the telephone. He scowled and muttered a curse. “This is not a civilized Hour to be making phone calls and disturbing people at their sherry! Who is it?"

"He gave no name and I forgot to ask. He's a rather handsome young man, though I should say a bit too severe and grim. However he seems basically decent and I decided to let him speak with you.”

Pirie them stared at her with sagging jaw. At last he said: “Your powers of divination are remarkable.”

Tassy nodded complacently. “It has always been one of my great gifts."

Pirie Tamm rose to his feet. “I had better speak to the fellow.”

The face looking from the screen was, as Tassy had declared, personable and somber. Various subtle signs suggested to Pirie Tamm that here was an off-worlder. “I am Pirie Tamm. I don t think I know you.”

“Wayness may have mentioned me. I am Glawen Clattuc.”

“Indeed, indeed!” exclaimed Pirie Tamm. “Where are you?"

"At the Shillaway spaceport. Is Wayness still with you at Fair Winds?"

“Not at the moment, I'm sorry to say. She set off for Bangalore, and I have not heard from her since. You are coming to Fair Winds, I hope?”

“Only if it is convenient for you to have me.” “Of course!” Pirie Tamm gave directions. "I'll expect you in about two hours.”

Glawen arrived at Fair Winds and was made welcome by Pirie Tamm. The two took dinner in the wood-paneled dining room. Pirie Tamm told Glawen what he knew of Wayness' adventures. "Her last call came from Trieste. She told me very little, because she feared that my telephone messages were being intercepted. I was skeptical but nevertheless I called in a team of experts. They found three spy cells and a telephone tap as well. We are convinced that the mechanisms were installed by Julian Bohost. You are acquainted with him?"

"All too well."

“As of now, the house is protected and we may talk freely — though, to be candid, I still feel a constraint.”

“You don t know what, if anything, Wayness has learned?”

“Unfortunately, no. Simonetta preceded us to Gohoon Galleries, and removed the records of sale. Wayness therefore was forced to work from a different perspective. She used the analogy of a ladder, with the Charter and the Grant on a middle rung. Simonetta, knowing who bought the material, was able to search up the ladder. At our end, we found items of Naturalist material, and traced it back down the ladder toward the original buyer.”

"It was wasted effort," said Glawen. “I know the first buyer. His name was Floyd Swaner, and he lived at Idola on the Big Prairie. Simonetta learned his identity, evidently as you have mentioned, at Gohoon Auctions and ever since she has concentrated on Floyd Swaner. She still seems to believe that Charter and Grant are somewhere on the Swaner premises, since she has burgled his property and tried to marry his grandson.”

Pirie Tamm gave a disconsolate grunt. "Where does Julian come into the picture? Is he in league with Simonetta?"

“I suspect that each is trying to use the other, and each keeps dismal plans for all eventualities at the back of this or her mind. I'm afraid that bitter times lie ahead."

“And what are your plans?"

“I'll be leaving directly for Idola, and if the Charter and Grant are not at hand, then I'll start climbing the ladder toward that middle rung."

Glawen flew across the ocean to Old Tran, now known as Division city, at the heart of the continent. A local service flew him two hundred miles west to Largo, on the Sippewissa River. He arrived at twilight and took lodging at an old inn on the banks of the river. He telephoned Pirie Tamm, but learned nothing new; Wayness had not called.

In the morning Glawen rented a flitter and flew north across the Big Prairie, to arrive an hour later at ldola: a small town which, like many other small towns of Earth, had survived in its present identity for thousands of years[7]. Glawen landed the flitter and took directions to the Chilke homestead. He was told: "Fly north till you come to Fosco creek, about five miles. Pretty soon Fosco Creek makes a grand loop: swinging first to the east then up and around to the west. Look down; you'll see a barn with a green roof and a house beside some big oak trees. That’s the Chilke place.”

Glawen took the flitter back into the air and flew through the bright morning, over broad fields yellow with ripening grain, and so came to Fosco Creek. He followed the line of willows and alders, and presently came upon the loop. Below he saw the oft-burgled barn and the house where Eustace Chilke had spent his childhood.

Glawen landed the flitter in the yard, and was greeted by a pair of nondescript dogs and the tow-headed children, who were playing in the dirt with toy trucks and fragments of oddly-shaped green stones.

Glawen Jumped to the ground. The oldest child said respectfully: "Good morning, sir."

“Good morning, “said Glawen. “Is your name Chilke?"

“I am Clarence Earl Chilke."

“Fancy that” said Glawen. "I know your Uncle Eustace."

“Really? Where is he now?”

"Far away, across the stars, at a place called Araminta Station. Well, I had better make myself known to the house. Who is home?"

“Nobody but Grandma now. Our mother and father have gone to Largo."

Glawen went to the front door of the house, where a woman of late middle age awaited him. She was strong and stocky, with a round good-humored face in which Glawen could see unmistakable signs of Eustace Chilke himself.

"My name is Glawen Clattuc," he said. "I have a letter from Eustace which introduces me.”

Ma Chilke read the letter aloud:

“ 'Dear Ma:

This will introduce my good friend Glawen Clattuc, who is a fine fellow, unlike most of my friends. We are still looking for some of Grandpa's stuff, which has never been found. He'll ask you some questions, or so I expect, and maybe he'll want to look in the barn, let him do anything he likes. I don't know when I'll be home again, but I'll tell you for sure that I am often homesick, especially when I am threatened by Simonetta Clattuc. If you see her, punch her in the nose, and tell her it was from me. Then run because she is a powerful woman. I'll be home one of these days. Don't let the dogs sleep on my bed. My best love to you and everyone else except Andrew, for reasons he knows best.

Your dutiful son,

Eustace’ ''

Ma Chilke blinked and wiped her eye on her sleeve. "I don't know why I get sentimental. The rascal hasn’t showed his face around here for a long time. ‘Dutiful son’ — there's a good joke.”

"Eustace is a wayward type, no denying that," said Glawen. “Still, at Araminta Station he is considered an important man."

"In that case, he had better stay on and count his blessings, since he's been run out of most places in disgrace. Of course, I'm just talking foolish. Eustace is at heart a good boy, if a mite restless. I guess he has told you about his Grandpa Swaner."

"So he has.”

“That was my father, and he was a rare bird! But sit yourself down, to be sure! Let me pour you some coffee. Can you eat?"

"Not just now, thank you." Glawen seated himself at the kitchen table. Ma Chilke poured coffee and set out a platter of cookies, then pulled up a chair of her own. "Daddy was a wonder what with his purple owls and stuffed animals and all the funny old bangles. We've never quite known what to make of him, nor Eustace either, if the truth be told. It seems, somehow, that all his nonsense skipped a generation and landed in poor Eustace. I don’t know whether I'm sorry or not; there was always so much windy talk of far places and distant worlds and great treasures in wonderful gems. Eustace loved it and couldn't get enough of it. Grandpa was a little cruel sometimes. He promised Eustace a fine space yacht for his twelfth birthday, and poor Eustace was so excited he could talk of nothing else. I warned him not to brag about his space yacht around the school yard, since no one would believe him; and they'd tell him he had a screw loose as well. I don’t, think Eustace cared much one way or the other. His grandpa had given him a big atlas of the Gaean Reach and Eustace studied it for hours on end, deciding where to fly his new space yacht, and how he was going to land on lonely desolate worlds where no one had ever set foot before and put up a sign reading “Eustace Chilke, been here and gone.”

"Grandpa Swaner never bought Eustace the space yacht but he did take him on a voyage somewhere, and that was enough in itself to put the wander-fever into the poor boy, and we've seen precious little of him all these many years." Ma Chilke sighed and slapped her hand down on the table. “So now you've come to rummage through Grandpa Swaner’s things like all the rest. I should charge admission!"

Glawen asked: "Have many others come here to look?”

“Yes indeed, and I ask them all: “What is it that you are looking for? If I knew I might give you a hint.” Although what I was saying to myself was, “if I knew, I'd go get it for myself.”

“No one ever told you?”

"No one. And I suppose that you won’t tell me either."

"I'll tell you if you won’t tell anyone else."

"I agree to that."

“It's the Cadwal Charter, which was lost. Whoever finds it controls the world Cadwal. There are good people looking for the Charter and bad people. Eustace and I are with the good people. I'm making it very simple, of course.”

"So that’s why I’ve had so much trouble with the barn. It's been burgled at least three times. About ten years ago a big heavy-set woman showed up. She was dressed to kill and she wore a big important-looking hat, so I took her for a celebrity, or a grandee of some kind. She said her name was Madame Zigonie, and that she wanted to buy the stuffed moose. I said that it was not my moose, but that the owner would no doubt let it go for a thousand sols.”

“She gave a snort and said that she, too, had lots of things she'd let go for a thousand sols.”

"I asked her to make an offer, but she wanted to study the moose first. I told her it was an ordinary moose, with horns and a long ugly face and that I didn’t have time to take her out to the barn just then. She became huff and we had words, and she stalked away. A week later the barn was burgled and when we went to look the moose had been vandalized, with all its cotton guts strung out: I sewed the creature back up.”

“What did they take?”

"Nothing so far as I could see. They had turned over boxes of papers. Truth to tell, I found it hard to believe that a woman like Madame Zigonie would work so hard to burgle a barn. I put it down to sheer spite."

“I don’t think spite was involved," said Glawen. "She was looking for the Charter. Floyd Swaner bought it at auction and disposed of it no one knows where or how. Which brings me to the question: who did he deal with?”

Ma Chilke gave her head a jerk of disdain. "I marvel now when I think of them! Touts, agents, collectors, nature-fakers and a few ordinary mental cases. I could spot one a mile away. They all walk as if their feet hurt, and before they go near something they want, they give you a glance to see if you are watching. Toward the end Grandpa dealt mainly with a man called Melvish Keebles. His address? I have no idea. Another gentleman came asking just a few days ago and I told him the same thing.”

"Who was this other gentleman?”

Ma Chilke frowned toward the ceiling. “Bolst? Bolster? I took no great notice. He was a talker fast and free, with a voice like oil. Boster? Something like that.”

“Julian Bohost?”

“That is the name. Is he a friend of yours?”

"No. What did you tell him?'

"About Keebles? I told him what I know, which is nothing, except that Keebles seemed to be an agent for a dealer in Division City.”

“Did he look in the barn?”

“I made him pay two sols for the privilege, then went out with him, which put his nose out of joint. He poked around here and there, and looked into Grandpa Swaner's account books, from forty years ago, but he soon lost interest and only glanced at the moose. He asked if there were any other papers or documents, that he might pay a good price if he found something to interest him. For instance, were there any papers Grandpa Swaner had hidden away? And he said in a lordly way: 'Why not bring these papers out, my good woman, and perhaps there will be another two sols in it for you.' “

“I told him there were no such papers, that whenever Grandpa Swaner came into some books or documents, he traded them away at once to Melvish Keebles. He wanted Keebles' address, of course. I told him that I had not even thought of Keebles for years, and what kind of a woman did he take me for, that I should know the private address of all these shady characters? He looked foolish and said he had not meant it that way. I told him in the future I would appreciate it if he kept a civil tongue in his head, and this seemed to puzzle him even more, and he apologized. So I told him I knew nothing whatever of Melvish Keebles, save that he was something of a rascal. Mr. Bohost thanked me and went away, and I began thinking of the old days and I remembered 'Shoup’. "

"Who is 'Shoup'?”

"I can't say for sure, but I expect that he was another of Grandpa's cronies, or perhaps some kind of a dealer over in Division City, because when Grandpa and Keebles talked together it was always 'Shoup-this' and 'Shoup-that’. "Ma Chilke sniffed and blinked. 'I don’t like to think back; it always makes me blue. When Grandpa was alive, there was always something going on. That purple vase is one of his things, and those green ornaments as well; in fact they came to him from Keebles, and Grandpa prized them highly, so that when the children got into the boxes and started playing games with them, I took them up and fixed them along the mantle, as you see. There are more in the barn, and more vases and such things, and of course the moose."

Glawen returned to Division City, and lodged himself at one of the airport hotels. During the evening he studied the city directory. Almost at once he found the notice:

SHOUP AND COMPAY

Art supplies of All Kinds

Import and Export

We also deal in curios and exotic artifacts.

Off-world services a specialty

5000 Whipsnade Park, Bolton

In the morning Glawen rode by public transit to Bolton, a semi-industrial suburb at the northern verge of the city, where he found 5000 Whipsnade Park without difficulty. The premises, a square squat structure of concrete foam five stories high, was occupied exclusively by Shoup and Company.

Glawen entered the structure and found himself in a large showroom encompassing the entire first floor. Shelves, tables, bins and racks displayed art supplies of every description, to be sold both at retell and wholesale, for delivery anywhere in the Gaean Reach. To the left was a cashier's office and a shipping counter.

Glawen approached a sales clerk, who wore what seemed to be the Shoup uniform. A patch under the breast pocket of his gray tunic read:

D. Mulsh

At your service

D. Mulsh, a stocky young man with a cherubic pink face, fair hair and an air of complacent good humor, was busy at a display of articles whose function Glawen could not guess. The objects resembled small handguns and were of decidedly menacing appearance, with a hand grip, a trigger, a metal snout and a reaction chamber. Glawen asked: "What sort of weapons are those? I thought Shoup sold art supplies.”

Mulsh smiled politely. “It is a fair question: why do we sell guns along with our art supplies? Some folk think they are used to kill amateur artists. Others suspect that artists use them to extort money from the public when all else fails.”

"'Which is the correct theory?”

“Neither. The guns allow anyone to execute beautiful panes of colored glass. The process is simple. Notice! I insert this green cartridge into the reaction chamber, and arrange a target of clear glass. When I pull the trigger I project a molten squirt which fuses permanently to the clear pane. The user can select cartridges of as many colors as he likes, to produce panes of the most intricate design glowing in absolutely rapturous colors. May I fit you out with a kit?”

“The idea is appealing,” said Glawen. “But at the moment I am looking for something else."

“If it can be had, we have it. That is the motto of Shoup and Company. Just a moment while I ship off this kit." Mulsh took a box to the counter. He told the clerk: “Label this off to Iovanes Faray at Anacutra, and ship." He turned to Glawen: “Now then, sir! What can I sell you? A gross or two of the glass-melt kits? A dozen artist’s models? A ten-ton block of Canova marble? Thirty-five ounces of moth dust? A bust of Leon Beiderbecke? All are on special for the day."

“At this particular moment I want something far less complicated.”

"Such as what?"

“A trifle of information. One of your customers is Melvish Keebles. I must ship him a parcel and I have lost his address. I'd like you to look it up for me, and here is a sol for your trouble."

Mulsh looked askance at Glawen and waved away the proffered money.

"Most odd! Just yesterday another man approached me with the same request. All I could tell him was that I knew nothing of this 'Keebles,' and that he must apply upstairs at Accounts' or 'Billing'. With the best will in the world, that is all I can tell you.”

Glawen frowned. “This man who came in yesterday: what was he like?"

“Oh, nothing extraordinary. He was a bit taller than you, about your age, I would say. Nice-looking chap, and well-spoken. Fancied himself a bit, if you ask me."

Glawen nodded. "Where did you say to go?"

“'Accounts' on the fifth floor, or you can ask Miss Shoup herself. She is the boss.”

“Surely she is not the founder of the business?”

“Indeed not! Six Shoups preceded her down the years, through she may well terminate the line, if current indications can be trusted. Mulsh looked over his shoulder, “I'll give you a tip. If you talk to Miss Shoup, don't smile at her or call her 'Flavia’ or try to be familiar; she'll snap your head off."

“I will heed your advice,” said Glawen. “By the way, the man who came in yesterday: did he get Keebles' address?"

“I don’t know. I was off duty when he left.”

Glawen rode the lift to the fifth floor, which like the first was a single large chamber. No attempt had been made to disguise the stark structural fabric of the building. The concrete ceiling beams were white-washed; a seamless sheath of resilient sponge covered the floor. The wall to the right was flanked by a counter overhung by signs: 'Billing', ‘Accounts,' 'Employment’ and others. Elsewhere a dozen desks were scattered here and there, seemingly at random. Everywhere men and women clad in the neat Shoup uniform worked earnestly and for the most part in silence. When conversation became necessary, hushed voices and brevity of expression were employed, so that the room seemed uncannily quiet.

Glawen squared his shoulders, put on his most businesslike manner, marched briskly across the room to stand by the counter under the sign ‘Accounts'. Almost at once he was approached by a young woman named T. Mirmar, according to the label on her tunic. She spoke in a half-whisper. “Yes, sir?”

Glawen brought out a card and wrote on it: ‘Melvish Keebles.' He put the card in front of T. Mirmar. Modulating his own voice he said: “I have some books to be shipped to this gentleman. Would you be kind enough to note down his exact mailing address?”

T. Mirmar looked at him and shook her head. “What is it about this 'Keebles' person? You're the second to ask since yesterday."

“Did you give the gentleman yesterday the address?”

“No. I sent him to Miss Shoup, who would want to deal with such a request. I don’t know what she did, but for information you had best apply to Miss Shoup as well."

Glawen sighed. “I was hoping to simplify my inquires. Would ten sols get me the address?”

“From me? What an idea! No, thank you.”

Glawen sighed again. “Well then: where is Miss Shoup?”

“Yonder." T. Mirmar indicated a desk at the far end of the room, occupied by a tall gangling woman somewhat past her first youth.

Glawen studied Miss Shoup for a moment. "She is not quite what I expected," he told T. Mirmar. “Am I mistaken, or is she angry about something?"

T. Mirmar glanced across the room. She said in a flat voice: "It would not be proper for me to comment, sir.”

Glawen continued his covert inspection of Miss Shoup. She was not at all well-favored, and Glawen could easily understand why the sixth generation of the Shoup family might be the end of the line. She wore the short-sleeved Shoup tunic, though it emphasized her narrow chest and thin white arms. The white dome of her forehead was topped by a few dismal ringlets of mouse-gray hair. Below were round gray eyes, a small thin nose, a small pallid mouth and a button of a chin. She sat bolt upright and her expression seemed stern, passionless, aloof. If she were not angry, thought Glawen, neither was she overflowing with zest and vivacity.

There was no help for it. Miss Shoup must be approached, and as expeditiously as possible. He turned back to T. Mirmar. “Should I just walk over to her desk?”

“Of course! How else could you get there?”

"I was concerned about formality."

“There is none at Shoup and Company; just good manners."

“I see. I will do the best I can.” He walked across the room. Miss Shoup did not raise her eyes until he halted in front of her desk. “Miss Flavia Shoup?”

"Yes?"

"My name is Glawen Clattuc. May I sit down?" He looked about for a char the nearest was at a desk forty feet away.

Miss Shoup appraised him for a moment, eyes as round and impersonal as those of a codfish. “Usually, when visitors find no chairs by my desk, they take the hint."

Glawen managed to contrive a strained smile. It was an odd remark, he thought, not at all in accord with Shoup and Company’s reputation for politeness. Perhaps Miss Shoup intended only a witticism. “The hint is taken! I will be as brief as possible. Still, if you prefer that I stand, I shall do so.”

Miss Shoup showed a thin smile. “As you like.”

Glawen fetched the chair, emplaced it beside the desk. He seated himself after performing a small punctilious bow which he thought might mollify Miss Shoup but she spoke more crisply than ever. “I do not enjoy mockery, no matter how subliminal the level at which it is expressed.”

“I am of this same opinion,” said Glawen. "Unfortunately, it is pervasive and I ignore it as if it did not exist."

Miss Shoup raised her near-colorless eyebrows a hundredth of an inch, but made no comment. Glawen recalled Mulsh's warning against any attempts at familiarity with Miss Shoup. The warning, he thought, was redundant. The silence grew strained. Glawen said politely: “I am an off-worlder, as perhaps you have already divined.”

"Of course.” The words were spoken without emphasis, but carried an overtone of distaste.

“I am a Naturalist from Araminta Station on Cadwal, which is a Conservancy, as you may know."

Miss Shoup said to him incuriously: “You are a long way from home."

"Yes. I am trying to recover some documents which were stolen from the Naturalist Society."

“You have come to the wrong place. We keep no such articles in stock.”

“I thought not,” said Glawen. “However, one of your customers may be able to help me. His name is Melvish Keebles, but I do not have his current address, which is why I have come to you."

Miss Shoup's mouth hitched in a thin smile. “We cannot issue such information without explicit instructions from the customer.”

“That is ordinary business practice,” said Glawen. “I had hoped that in these special circumstances you might be flexible. I assure you, incidentally, that I mean Melvish Keebles no harm; I only want to ask regarding the disposition of some documents which are of importance to the Conservancy.”

Miss Shoup leaned back in her chair. “I am totally flexible. I am Shoup and Company incarnate. My policy is company policy. I can change it ten times a day if I choose. I make a virtue of caprice. As for Keebles, whether or not you intended his disadvantage, you would say the same things; hence, your words carry no weight.”

"Yes; I fear that is true,” Glawen admitted. "You have put the matter logically."

“I know something of Keebles. He is a scapegrace. Many folk indeed would like to find him, including five ex-wives, none of whom he troubled to divorce or notify of the others. The entire membership of the Shoto Society would be pleased to lay hands on him. Of all my customers, Keebles would protest the loudest if I gave out his address."

Glawen began to wonder whether Miss Shoup might not, very quietly, be enjoying his frustration. He said somberly: "If facts would influence you — “

Miss Shoup leaned forward and clasped her hands in front of her. “I care nothing for facts."

Glawen pretended an ingenuous interest, while despising himself for the dissimulation: “If so, by what means are you influenced?"

“There are no certain methods. You might appeal to my altruism. I would laugh at you. Flattery? Try all you like; I will listen with interest. Omens and portents? I fear nothing. Threats? One word and I would order my clerks to beat you well. They would do so, and paint you in a variety of indelible colors. A bribe? I already have more money than I could spend in a thousand years. What else is there?"

“Ordinary human decency.”

“But I am extraordinary, or hadn't you noticed? It is not by my choice that I am human. As for 'decency,' the word was defined without my participation; I am not bound by it.”

Glawen reflected a moment. “I've been told that yesterday someone else asked you for Keebles' address. Did you give him the information?"

Miss Shoup became very still. Her fingers stiffened. Her neck muscles suddenly corded, and she spoke. "Yes. So I did."

Glawen stared at her. “What name did he use?”

Miss Shoup clenched her fingers into a small bony fist. “It was a false name. I checked his hotel. They knew nothing of him. He made a fool of me. It will never happen again."

"You don't know where to find him?'

"No." Miss Shoup's voice was calm and cold. "He sat where you are sitting and told me he was from off-world, that his father wanted to establish an artists’ supply house, and had sent him to Earth to study Shoup and Company's operations. He said that he had expected a dreary time of it, until he had met me; and now he saw that he had been wrong. He said that intelligence was the most fascinating trait a woman could have, and that we must have dinner together. I said, certainly, that would be delightful, and since he did not know the city, he should come to my house. This seemed to suit him very well. As he was leaving he said that his father wanted a certain Melvish Keebles to be his agent but did not know how to find him, and had I any suggestions. I said that by chance Keebles was one of my customers and that I could solve his problem on the spot, and I did so. He thanked me and went off. I went home and arranged a quiet dinner, with fine wine and good food. We would dine overlooking the lake, with candles on the table. I dressed in a black velvet gown I had never worn before and I made some special changes, then sat down to wait. I waited a long time, and in the end I lit the candles, started the music, drank the wine and dined alone.”

“That was an unpleasant experience."

“Only at first. Halfway through the second bottle of wine I was able to be amused. Today I am back in my own world, though I have developed a loathing for handsome young men which extends to you. I see you clearly. As a class you, are a crass and brutal pack of animals, stinking of rut, proud in the majesty of your genital organs. Some people have an insane aversion to spiders, others to snakes; I detest young men.”

Glawen rose to his feet. “Miss Shoup, I have a hundred things to say to you, but you would like none of them, so I will bid you good day."

Miss Shoup made no response.

Glawen departed the chamber. He rode the lift down to the showroom on the ground floor, and went to the table with the display of glass-melt guns. He was approached almost at once by D. Mulsh, who asked: “How went your interview?"

“Well enough,” said Glawen. “Miss Shoup is a remarkable woman.”

“So she is. I see that you are still interested in the glass-melt guns. Can I sell you a kit today?”

'Yes," said Glawen. “They seem to be very useful items.”

'You will enjoy it,” said Mulsh heartily. “It is amazingly versatile.”

“This particular kit I will present to a friend, and I'll have you ship it to him from here.”

"No problem whatever, though I must charge you shipping costs.”

“Quite all right.”

Mulsh took the parcel to the shipping counter. "You may give the girl particulars." He took Glawen’s money and went off to the Cashier. Glawen told the girl: “Label the parcel to Melvish Keebles. The address is in your files.”

The girl punched buttons; the label machine ejected a label, which the girl affixed to the parcel. Glawen said: “On second thought I will carry the parcel with me.”

“Just as you like, sir.”

Glawen left the premises of Shoup and Company. Once out on the sidewalk he examined the label. It read:

Melvish Keebles

Argonaut Art Supplies

Crippet Alley, Tanjaree, Nion

Pharisse VI ARGO NAVIS 14-AR-366

Glawen returned to his hotel at the Division City airport. From his room he called Fair Winds, but there still had been no word from Wayness.

“I can't imagine where she has taken herself!” Pirie Tamm fretted. “No news may be good news, but it also can be very bad news."

“I agree,” said Glawen. "What's worse, I can't take the time to go look for her; circumstances simply don’t allow it. I'm going off-world at once."

"As for me, there is nothing I can do but wait," gloomed Pirie Tamm.

“Somebody has to stay at home,” said Glawen. “When Wayness calls, tell her that I’ve gone off-world, up another rung of the ladder, and that I will be back as soon as possible."

At Tammeola Spaceport near Division City, the ticket agency's integrator sorted through routes, schedules, layovers and connections and computed for Glawen the most expeditious passage to the world Nion. The readout was valid only for a single hour's time-slot, after which circumstances might or might not change. There were also provisos in regard to transit between junction points. If the scheduled service were late, altered or canceled, then the carefully computed passage must be modified. In short, the element of luck still controlled circumstances. Glawen’s adversary had a day’s head start — which might mean much or nothing, and Glawen refused to speculate in regard to possibilities.

Glawen boarded the Madelle Azenour which would convey him to the junction at Star Home on Aspidiske IV at the head of the Argo Navis Sector. At Star Home he would travel by local feeder packet to Mersey on Anthony Pringle's World, where another local packet would take him outward, through the Jingles, into the most remote parts of the Reach and finally down to the city Tanjaree on Nion, by the yellow-white sun Pharisse.

Aboard the Madelle Azenour tlme went by smoothly and pleasantly, with nothing to do but eat, sleep, watch the stars slide past, and enjoy such recreation facilities as were available. Glawen studied his fellow passengers with care, since quite possibly his adversary might be aboard the same ship. In the end he decided that the young man who had deceived Miss Shoup so heartlessly had chosen either another route or another schedule."

In HANDBOOK TO THE INHABITED WORLDS Glawen learned that Nion had first been explored in the remote past, during the first great surge of men across space. The human tilde had slackened and then receded, notably from the far side of the Jingles, leaving Nion in near-isolation for thousands of years.

Nion, according to the HANDBOOK, was a medium-large planet (diameter: 13,000 miles; surface gravity: 1.03 Earth normal; sidereal day: 37.26 hours), attended by a numerous retinue of satellites. While the climate was generally mild, the topography was diverse and the habitable areas separated by deserts, steep-sided plateaus, tracts of weird wonderful forests and water-fields. “These latter were suspensions of pollen blown from forests and 'flower-fields' into areas originally lakes and seas, where the sedimented pollen became the substance known as 'pold.'

The fauna, principally insects, is of no great consequence. The HANDBOOK declared: "In order to understand the intricacies of life on Nion, one must understand pold. There are hundreds of types of pold, but basically they are either: dry derived from loess-like beds of pollen and spores transported by the wind, drifted and ultimately compacted; or the 'wet’, from deposits laid down in the ancient lakes and seas. The sub-varieties of pold derive from age, curing and blending, the action of morphotic agents, and thousands of secret processes. Pold is ubiquitous. The soil consists of pold. Beer is brewed from pold. Natural raw pold is often nutritious, but not always; some deposits are poisonous, narcotic, hallucinogenic, or vile-tasting. The Gangrils of the Lankster Cleeks are experts; they have built a complex society upon their manipulation of pold. Other peoples are not such connoisseurs, and eat pold like bread, or pudding, or as a substitute for meat. The flavor of pold depends, obviously, upon many factors. Often it is bland, or somewhat nutty, or even sour, like new cheese.”

“By reason of pold, everywhere available, hunger is unknown. Still, for a variety of reasons, the population remains scarce.”

“Visitors to Nion will find it hard to avoid the consumption of pold, whether dining at a fine restaurant or one less esteemed, for the simple reason that pold is plentiful and easy to prepare, and the tourist will complain in vain.”

“A warning may properly be inserted here. Due possibly to the plenitude of pold, the work ethic is little in evidence, and the tourist must be prepared for casual service at even the best hotels. ‘The easy way is the best way': this is the basic premise of Tanjaree society. Be prepared, and control your temper the folk of Tanjaree are actually agreeable, if a trifle vain and self-conscious. Social status is all important, but it is based upon subtleties and conditions which are quite incomprehensible to the visitor. To make a crude generalization, status derives from avoiding work and, with an ineffably cavalier flourish, inducing someone else to undertake the task. Hence, at an outdoor restaurant on the Mall, the patron will try to give his order to one of the three waiters on duty, all of whom will ostentatiously tum away, until the patron cries out for attention and perhaps starts to make a scene. To participate in an undignified altercation is to lose tremendous face. The nearest waiter reluctantly condescends to take the order, but service will be slow and the order will eventuality be served by a kitchen flunky while the waiter stands with hands clasped behind him, absorbing status at the expense of the exasperated patron, the other waiters and the debased kitchen flunky.”

“A second warning, even more urgent, may be in order: Tanjaree is the single cosmopolitan center of Nion. Other settlements are controlled by local conventions which the tourist will find strange, sometimes unpleasant and not infrequently dangerous. Should the tourist foolishly attempt to enforce his own theories upon the local population. On Nion human life — especially that of the off-worlder — is not considered sacrosanct. The tourist is warned not to go off on solitary expeditions into the outback without local advice and assistance. Many hundreds of tourists have suffered some very peculiar fates by ignoring this warning.”

“As a consequence of the environment, the early inhabitants had evolved without interaction or mutual coherence. In the process societies of considerable disparity were formed. The first inhabitants of Tanjaree had included a clique of biologists dedicated to the creation of a super-race through genetic manipulation."

“The descendants of these so-called 'Over-men’ survived in the Great Tangting Forest, where they had become freaks and monsters with savage intelligence and horrifying habits.”

The HANDBOOK continued: "At the present time, these beasts have become the focus of touristic interest, and are no longer in danger of extermination. A tube of clear glass conduits a road twenty miles long through the Tangting forest, along which caravans convey parties of tourists in safety, while the monstrous 'Over-men’ scream and slaver and lunge at the glass and perform obscene antics for the titillation of the tourists.”

“Elsewhere, the various folk of Nion continued to follow their ancient conventions, oblivious to the strange off-world people who came to marvel at them and to buy, purloin, seize or otherwise gain possession of their handiworks and sacred tokens. Certain of the peoples had become surly and even hostile toward strangers and remain so to the present day. Some are actively dangerous, notably the rock-workers of Eladre, who have carved their delicate and intricate city from the substance of a mountain. The shadow-men become murderers during certain lunar phases. The Gangrils not only subsist upon pold but transform it into mysterious new substances, with unpredictable psychic effects. For many centuries the Gangrils had maintained a subservient caste assembled from kidnapped off-worlders, tourists, and the like, which functioned to test the drugs derived from their 'pold.' This particular habit, among others, has gained them an unsavory reputation. Despite their seemingly benign manners, they are regarded with suspicion, and tourists are warned never to approach the Gangril settlements alone. There have been too many reports of naive off-worlders accepting what they thought to be hospitality from the blandly smiling Gangrils, only to discover that they had ingested an experimental drug, and that were being closely scrutinized for clues as to the drug's effect.”

“There are other folk, also considered quant, who lack all menace: most notably the clans of vagabond jesters who roam the world in gaudily decorated caravans, performing eccentric dances, farces and burlesques, feats of musical virtuosity, comic ballads, operettas, and whatever else enters their minds.”

The HANDBOOK offered a summation, to the effect that Nion was a world of unique touristic interest, though it lacked much in the way of creature comforts and the tourist must be prepared to make concessions, especially in connection with pold. Tanjaree, the entry port and tourist headquarters, was a small city of no great distinction, regulated by standard Gaean laws and conventions; elsewhere the folk were so strange and their conduct so incomprehensible that they might have been members of indigenous or alien races. Such was the information provided by the HANDBOOK.

In due course the Madelle Azenour landed at Star Home on Aspidiske IV This was his first and most important junction point and immediately his schedule, so meticulously crafted at Tammeola, failed him; by reason of a rerouted carrier but two days later he secured passage aboard a cargo ship to Mersey on Anthony Pringle's World at the edge of the Jingles. Here his connections were favorable, and he boarded the Argo Pilot, which took him through the Jingles, a region of bright and dim stars, gas balls, dark scoriated hulks, sullen spheroids of neutron metal, orphan planets and orphan moons, to the back of the sector and down to Tanjaree on Nion.

The Spaceport occupied a strip along the edge of a low plateau, with the city Tanjaree at its base surrounding a small lake.

Glawen underwent entry formalities, which included dosages of universal prophylactic, fungicide, anti-virals and buffers to absorb the first shock of the toxic local proteins. He was also subjected to an unusually careful search of his travel bag and his person, which resulted in the seizure of his handgun. “Weapons of this sort are not allowed on Nion, he was informed. There are too many situations which become volatile in the blinking of an eye, and the knives and kurkris of Nion are bad enough."

“All the more reason to allow me my gun for self-defense.”

The complaint went unheeded. Glawen was tendered a receipt. “You may reclaim the weapon upon your departure.”

Leaving the terminal building, Glawen stepped out into the glare of light from the sun Pharisse. The sky, a cloudless expanse of purple-blue, seemed tremendously wide, by reason of the far horizons. He went to the railing which guarded the brink of the plateau and looked down over Tanjaree. It was a city of modest size, separated by a circular lake. To the west was the old town or native quarter, a random scatter of low white domes and slender spires, almost dwarfed beneath a dozen or so prodigious dendrons growing among the structures. They stood, so Glawen estimated, over two hundred feet tall, on massive black boles which separated into a sprawl of heavy branches, bending at the tips to the weight of blue fruiting globes, about ten feet in diameter.

The new town, to the east of the lake, showed a street layout only marginally more rational than the unabashed chaos of the old town. An avenue skirted the lake. Where it passed in front of the large tourist hotels and other tourist services, it broadened and was known as ‘The Mall'. Narrow streets and alleys slanted away in all directions through the rather shabby districts away from the waterfront. The structures, large and small alike, were fabrications of lumpy plaster, apparently wadded into place by hand, with all dimensions and measurements being estimated by eye. There were no sharp corners, neither right angles nor verticality save in those instances which occurred by accident. The effect was one of organic growth and — initially, at least — not unpleasant. Most of the structures were two stories high, though the tourist hotels fronting on the lake were often of three or even four stories.

Glawen turned away from the view. A small structure nearby displayed a sign: TOURIST INFORMATION. Glawen went to the structure and entered. The premises were furnished with a long table, chairs, a rack of brochures. Behind the table sat a pair of young women, dressed, in sleeveless white frocks and sandals. They were appealing creatures, thought Glawen, strikingly similar, with delicate features in pale faces, chestnut curls and slight small-breasted bodies. Both wore ribbons in their hair: pink on the girl sitting to the left, blue on the one to the right. They took note of Glawen with similar expressions of polite inquiry. The girl with the blue ribbon asked: “How best can we serve you, sir?”

“First of all," said Glawen, “I need a hotel. Can you make me a recommendation and — if possible — book me a room?”

"Of course! That is our function!” The girls exchanged smiles, as if at a private joke. Pink Ribbon said: “There are twenty hotels in Tanjaree. Six are rated 'First Class'; five are 'Second Class’. The others are somewhat less convenient. There are also shelters where lodging is provided the penurious."

Blue Ribbon said: "Before we can accommodate you to your precise taste, we must learn your preferences. Which category do you prefer?”

“Naturally, I prefer the best," said Glawen. “The question becomes, can I afford it?"

Blue Ribbon handed him a sheet of paper. "Here are the hotels and their rates."

Glawen glanced down the list. “I see nothing to alarm me. Which is the best?"

Pink and Blue exchanged smiles. "That is a hard question to answer," said Blue. “Departing tourists have much more definite opinions upon which is the worst.”

“Hm," said Glawen. "Perhaps I should ask which hotel provokes the fewest angry complaints?”

Pink and Blue considered a moment, then took counsel with each other. “The Cansaspara, perhaps?" suggested Pink. '"The Cansaspara would be my guess,"' said Blue. "Unfortunately three ships have arrived during the last three days, and none have departed. The Cansaspara is booked solid."

“A pity,” sighed Pink. “I like the Cansaspara Arcade.”

“It is nice," agreed Blue.

Glawen looked from one girl to the other. Both were charming, he thought, though a bit languid and indirect in the conduct of their duties; He said: “I have some business I must transact as soon as possible, so book me anywhere you can.”

"The Superbo and the Haz Warrior are about equal in their amenities, “said Pink. “Do you have a preference?"

“Not really. The Superbo would seem a bit more relaxed than the Warrior.”

“You are a thoughtful man,” said Blue. “Evidently you know something of the Haz. Am I correct?”

“I'm afraid not. But for the moment — “

“The Haz are, almost extinct. A few remain, under the Croo Cleeks, but they no longer sail their desert-boats. In the old days they captured tourists and forced them to fight duels."

Blue gave a shudder. “It is all in the past: the midnight camps, the music, the wild dances, the weird Haz honor!"

“Very picturesque," said Glawen. “But it must have discouraged tourism."

Pink and Blue both laughed. “Not at all, the tourist need not fight. The warrior would mock him, and pull his nose, and offer to fight blindfold, or with his hands tied. If the tourist still demurred, he would be called a dog, a thief and a tourist. The women would spit on his feet and cut the bottom out of his trousers, but he would be allowed to return to Tanjaree alive, with much material for reminiscence."

"Interesting," said Glawen. "But now, between the Superbo and the Haz Warrlor — ”

“There is little difference,” said Blue. “At the Haz Warrior, they play Haz music and pretend to despise the tourist, but they offer no violence."

Glawen said: "I think I prefer the Superbo. Be so kind as to — “

“Both the Superbo and the Haz Warrior are fully booked, “said Pink. 'We will place you at the Novial."

“Anywhere, since I am in a bit of a hurry.”

“An instant only!” said Blue. “We are famous for the quickness of our fast speed!"

“The Novial it is then, though their pold is far from classic.”

“It's good enough for me,” said Glawen. “I am not yet a connoisseur. You may book me into the Novial."

"Just so,” said Blue. "If you need good pold, go to one of the kiosks. The Gangril formulations are best."

Pink thrust out her tongue. On the tip rested a small black pastille. She said: “At this very moment I am sucking on a wafer of tikki-tikki, which is a Gangril formulation. The flavor is sharp but subtle, and the formulation soothes me."

Blue stated: “Tikki-tikki often eases the aggravations of my work."

Glawen said decisively: "I must leave, before I become an aggravation."

"You are no aggravation!" declared Pink. “We like talking to you, and we have nothing better to do."

Blue said: "Here is a map of Tanjaree. “She made marks. “This is where we live. If you are bored, you may come to call, and taste our truest pold."

Pink suggested: "Or we could walk beside the lake and count the moons, and recite the proper poems."

Blue said: "Or we could visit the serai and watch the mad harlequins as they dance and play their concertinas."

"I am bewildered by so many choices," said Glawen. "However I must first see to my business, which is most urgent."

"If you like, I will give you a wafer of nging," said Pink. '"The effect is to minimize the importance of serious business. It allows one to live without tension or care.”

Glawen smilingly shook his head. “Thank you again.” He looked at the map. “The Novial is where?"

Blue made a mark. “First, we must book you your lodging, or all might could to naught."

“I will do so at once;” said Pink. “I had forgotten the gentleman's requirements.”

Glawen waited while Pink spoke into the telephone, then nodded to Glawen. "Your lodging is secure, but you must report to the Novial at once or it might be let to someone else. As you see, things go briskly here at Tanjaree."

“You have made that clear,” said Glawen. “Please mark Crippet Alley on the map, and also the Argonaut Art Supply Company.”

Blue made careful indications, which Pink verified and approved. Glawen again expressed his thanks and departed.

A long rickety escalator lowered him to the lakeside avenue. He looked up toward the sun Pharisee. To judge by the altitude, the time was perhaps an hour into the afternoon. The reckoning, however, might be misleading, since Nions sidereal day was something over thirty-seven hours long.

Glawen set off along the avenue and a few minutes later arrived at the Novial Hotel. He entered the lobby: a nondescript chamber neither spacious nor elegant. He approached the reception counter where sat a dapper young clerk, engaged in an animated telephone conversation, He was two or three years older than Glawen, with plump shoulders, full jowls, sleek black hair, limpid brown eyes under fine expressive black eyebrows. He wore dark green pantaloons, a yellow blouse decorated with two panels of intricate designs in black and red. On his head he wore a jaunty black toque, evidently the last cry in fashion. After a single swift glance toward Glawen from the corner of his eye, he turned away from the counter and continued to talk into the telephone. On the screen Glawen glimpsed the face of another young dandy, wearing a similar toque, also rakishly aslant.

A moment passed. Glawen waited, his patience slowly eroding. The clerk spoke on, with an occasional chuckle. Glawen became restive. He began to tap his fingers on the counter. Time was passing; every minute might be important! The clerk creased his eyebrows in annoyance, then looked over his shoulder and brought the conversation to an end. He swung about and asked: “Well, sir? What are your needs?”

Glawen composed his voice. “Lodging, naturally."

“Unfortunately, sir, the hotel is complete. You must go elsewhere.”

“What! The tourist office only just made my reservation!"

“Really?" The clerk shook his head. “Why am I not told of these things? They must have called elsewhere. Have you tried the Bon Felice?"

“Of course not. I was booked into the Novial; I came to the Novial. Does that sound at all unreasonable to you?”

“I am not the unreasonable one," said the clerk. "That word best describes the person who, when notified that no accommodation exists, continues to wheedle and argue. It is this conduct I define as unreasonable."

"Just so," said Glawen. “When the Tourist Information Office telephones down a booking, what is the procedure?"

“It is simple enough. The official on duty, which is to say, myself, carefully inscribes the name upon this board, and there is no scope for mistake.”

Glawen pointed to the board. "What is the name in that blue square to the side?”

The clerk rose wearily to his feet. “This square? It reads: ‘Glawen Clattuc.' So then?”

“I am Glawen Clattuc."

For a few seconds the clerk stood silent. Then he said: “You are lucky. That is our Grand Suite. In the future you should take pains to explain your arrangements more carefully; we cannot function in the absence of facts."

“Yes, of course,” said Glawen. “You are a marvel of efficiency. Now show me to the 'Grand Suite’.”

The clerk flashed Glawen a glare of astounded outrage. “My rank is high! I am office manager and deputy executive vice-president! I do not lead lodgers here and there about the hotel!”

”Who does so, in that case?"

“At the moment, no one. The porter has not yet arrived, and I have no idea as to how the housekeepers have arranged their schedules. You may either wait here until the proper employee reports for duty, or you may walk down yonder corridor to the end, and pass through the last door on the left. The lock code is ta-ta ta.”

Glawen went to the specified door tapped ta-ta-ta upon the lock panel. The door slid ajar Glawen stepped through the opening. He found himself in a room of no great size, with a table to the right and a bed along the left wall. The bathroom occupied an alcove. Glawen stood looking about the room in wonder. Had there been some sort of mistake? Could this truly be the 'Grand Suite’?

For the moment it must serve; other concerns pressed upon him. Journey's end was at hand, and Destiny was waiting somewhere along Crippet Alley. He tossed his travel bag upon the bed and left the room.

In the lobby the clerk watched his approach sidelong; then, raising his fine black eyebrows, ostentatiously turned away, so that when Glawen came to make the customary complaints, he could look about with an air of indifference which, by infuriating off-world patrons, served to enhance his self-esteem.

Glawen paid him no heed. Looking neither right nor left he crossed the lobby and departed the hotel. The clerk looked after him glumly, his self-esteem deflated to its original condition.

Out on the avenue, Glawen paused to take stock of his surroundings. Pharisse had moved no great distance across the sky; eight hours, perhaps, of daylight remained before what would be a long slow dusk. Low in the sky floated a number of pale wraiths: some of Nion’s numerous satellites, in phases, crescent to half-full. At the moment the air was still, and the lake reflected the low white domes and minarets of Old Tanjaree on the opposite shore.

Glawen set off on his fateful mission, trying to insulate his mind against both foreboding and hope-a task complicated by uneasy speculations regarding the man who had beguiled Miss Shoup: where was he now?

Glawen came to Crippet Alley and turned aside, passing instantly from the enclave of the off-worlders into an environment where the local population pursued its own quiet purposes. They seemed a sedate gentle folk, loving a languid pace perhaps influenced by the long thirty-seven hour day of Tanjaree. Like Pink and Blue, they were of no great stature, with chestnut hair, delicate features and gray eyes. The alley itself was irregular and crooked, sometimes narrow and overhung by the upper stories of houses along the way, at times expanding into a small irregular plaza, perhaps with a thick-trunked dendron at the center.

It gradually came upon Glawen that there was something strange about Crippet Alley: it was unnaturally quiet. There were no loud voices or music or clangor; only the slide of soft footsteps and a muted whisper from the stalls and shops.

Glawen arrived at the Argonaut Art Supply Company: a two-story structure, somewhat more imposing than others along the alley. A pair of windows to either side of the door displayed on the left a number of small mechanical toys; to the right, a sampling of the art supplies offered for sale within the shop, modeling tools; waxes, plasters and clays; equipment for the decoration of fabric, along with dyes and mordants; pigments, stains and solvents; kits of graduated andromorphs. The merchandise had a settled look, as if it had not been shifted for a long time.

Glawen entered the shop: a dim cluttered chamber with the high ceiling and walls stained dark brown. The room was very silent Glawen saw that he was alone save for a middle-aged woman with short blonde-gray hair who sat behind a counter reading a journal. Her complexion was fair; she wore a neat blue smock.

Glawen approached the counter; the woman looked up from her journal with an amiable, if incurious, expression. "Yes, sir?”

Glawen found that his mouth was dry. The moment had come and he was nervous. He found his voice: "Is Mr. Keebles at hand?”

The woman looked off across the room, frowning as if pondering the question. She decided upon a reply. "Mr. Keebles? He is not here."

Glawen’s heart sank. The woman added: "Not at the moment.” Glawen released his pent breath.

Having responded to the question, the woman returned to her Journal. Glawen spoke patiently: “When will he be back?"

The woman looked up again. “Before long, or so I should think.”

“In minutes? Hours? Days? Months?”

The woman showed a dutiful smile. “Really now! What a funny thing to say! Mr. Keebles has only just gone off to the bathroom!”

“Then we are thinking in terms of minutes," said Glawen. “Am I right?”

“Certainly not days, nor months,” said the woman primly. “Not even hours.”

“In that case, I will wait.”

The woman nodded and went back to her reading. Glawen turned and gave the room a more detailed inspection. At the back was a flight of rickety stairs and, to the side, a shipping counter, where his eye was caught by a glint of green. Approaching the counter, he saw a tray half a dozen green jade clasps, three inches in diameter much like those he had noticed In Ma Chilke’s sitting room, Though these were chipped and cracked, or otherwise damaged. Odd! thought Glawen. He looked toward the woman and spoke: "What are these jade pieces?"

The woman tilted her head to look. She reflected a moment. “Ah, yes! The jade buckles! They are 'tanglets,' from the Plain of Standing Stones, around the other side of the world.”

“Are they valuable?”

“Oh yes! But it is dangerous to collect them, unless one is an expert.”

“Is Mr. Keebles such an expert?”

The woman gave her head a smiling shake. “Not Mr. Keebles! He gets them from a friend but they are becoming scarce, which is a pity since they bring good prices.” She turned her head. “Here is Mr. Keebles.”

Down the stairs came a small man with a ruff of white hair. His chest and shoulders were lumpy; his head hunched forward on a short neck. Round pale blue eyes studied Glawen warily. "Well, sir, and what is it you are needing? “

"You are Melvish Keebles?”

The pale blue eyes appraised Glawen without friendliness. “If you are a salesman or an agent, you are wasting your time and, more importantly, mine.”

“I am neither salesman nor agent. My name is Glawen Clattuc. I would like a few words with you.”

“In what connection?”

“I can’t explain until I ask you a question or two.”

Keebles curled his thin lips. “I take this to mean that you want something but are not disposed to pay for it.”

Glawen smiled and shook his head. “I think that our transaction will bring you at least some small profit.”

Keebles gave a shuddering groan. “When will I get clients who think in something other than trifles?” He waved his hands toward Glawen. "Come; I will listen to you, for a few moments at least.” He turned away and led Glawen along a passage, into a room of irregular dimensions, as dim and fusty as the shop itself. A row of windows in openings canted and askew, no two alike, overlooked a dreary yard. “This is my office,” said Keebles. “We can talk here."

Glawen looked around the room. The furnishings were scant: a desk, four gaunt tall-backed chairs of bent cane, a red and black rug, a rank of cabinets, a side-table stacked with oddments. A shelf supported a dozen ceramic statues, each about sixteen inches high, representing monsters of the Tangting Forest. Glawen found them arresting, by reason both of superb workmanship and the impact of the subject matter, since they were the most hideous and disgusting objects of his experience.

Keebles seated himself at his desk. “Pretty things, are they not?"

Glawen turned away. “How can you bear to look at them?”

“I have no choice," said Keebles. “If can't sell them.”

“The tourists will take them off your hands,” said Glawen. “They will buy anything, the more horrifying the better.”

Keebles snorted. “A hundred thousand sols for the twelve?"

“That seems a high price."

“Not so. One of the Tangting monsters is a freak. He models his fellows in clay for recreation. I will take them to Earth and describe them as fascinating works which pose a hundred psychological puzzles and sell them to a museum.” He jerked his thumb toward a chair. “Sit down and explain your business. Please be brief, since I have an appointment by and by.”

Glawen seated himself. His father Scharde had once remarked that candor should not be avoided merely because it represented truth. In the case at hand, Keebles would believe nothing, so that truth served the same purpose as mendacity. Not the entire truth, of course. That would be a diet too rich for Keebles.

“I have just come out from Earth, to negotiate some business for a client. It’s nothing to do with you, I hasten to say, except that while I was looking down a list of general business agents, I noticed your name. There can't be too many Melvish Keebles in the profession, and to make a long story short, I decided to call on you."

Keebles listened with no great interest. “Go on.”

"You are the Melvish Keebles who at one with worked with Floyd Swaner?"

Keebles nodded. “Those were good days, and I doubt if I will see their like again.” He leaned back in his chair.

"Where did you learn of our connection?”

"From Swaner’s daughter. She still lives out on the Big Prairie.”

Keebles turned his eyes up toward the ceiling and seemed to reflect upon times past. “I remember her though her name escapes me."

“She is Mrs. Chilke. I'm not sure that I have ever heard her first name."

“ 'Chilke', so it was. And what took you out to the Big Prairie?”

“Simple enough. Like you, I am an agent of sorts, and one of my clients is the Naturalist Society. More accurately, I work in their interests as a labor of love; there certainly is very little profit involved. Are you a member?”

“Of the Naturalist Society?" Keebles shook his head. “I thought the Naturalists were defunct.”

“Not quite. But you support Society goals?"

Keebles showed a thin smile. “Everyone is against sin. So who disagrees with the Naturalists?"

“No one, until he sees a chance for profit."

Keebles laughed soundlessly, in soft little pants. '"That is the rock which tears the bottom out of the boat."

“In any case, the society is trying to revive itself. Quite some time ago — and I think you know of this — a Secretary named Nisfit sold off all the Society archives and kept the money. The Society is trying to recover as many of the missing documents as possible, and wherever I go, I keep my eye open. Hence, when I learned that you were located here, I thought I would make some inquiries."

Keebles said indifferently, "All this is long ago and far away."

“According to Mrs. Chilke, Floyd Swaner sold a parcel of these documents to you. Are they still in your possession?"

"After all these years? “Keebles again gave his soft panting laugh. “Not very likely."

Glawen felt a pang of discouragement; he had been hoping against hope that Keebles might still possess the Grant and the Charter. "You have none of them whatever?"

"Not a one. Books and documents are not my line of work."

“What happened to the documents?"

'"They left my hands long ago."

"Do you know where they are now?"

Keebles shook his head. “I know to whom I sold them. What happened next I can’t even guess."

“Is it possible the buyer still has them in his possession?"

“Anything is possible."

“Well then, to whom did you sell them?"

Keebles, leaning back, put his feet on the desk. “We are now moving into the quiet area, where words are golden. This is where we take off our shoes and go on tiptoe."

“I’ve played such games before," said Glawen. "Someone has always stolen my shoes."

Keebles ignored the remark. “I am not wealthy, and information is my stock in trade. If you want it you must pay for it.”

''Words are cheap, “said Glawen. “Is your information worth anything? In short, what do you know?”

"I know to whom I traded the Naturalist documents, and I know where to find him now. That's the information you want, isn’t it? So what is it worth to you? Quite a bit, I should imagine.”

Glawen shook his head. “You are not being realistic. The Naturalists can't afford a large outlay, and I can't pay out money on speculation. The man might have disposed of the material long ago."

“Life is unpredictable, Mr. Clattuc. To gain something you must risk something.”

“A sensible man considers the odds. In this case, they are not good. Your friend might have sold the material long ago to someone he can't remember or, if he still owns it, he might refuse to let it go, for any number of reasons. In short, your information might earn me a small commission. More likely it will bring me nothing more than a wild goose chase."

“Bah," muttered Keebles. "You worry too much." He removed his feet from the desk and sat up in the chair. "Let's get down to brass tacks. What will you pay for the information?"

“'What information?” demanded Glawen. “I can't offer anything until I know what I'm getting. Telephone your friend and ask if he still owns everything you sold him, or whether he sold off any segment of the material, and if so, what. I will pay you five sols to make the call, and wait for the answer."

Keebles gave a roar of indignation. "The time I waste haggling with you is worth twice as much!"

"'Perhaps so, if you could find someone willing to pay."

Glawen laid five sols on the desk. “Make the call, get the facts, and we'll go on from there. Do you want me to wait in the outer office?"

“I can't call now” grumbled Keebles. “It's the wrong time of day.” He glanced at the wall clock. “Also, I have another appointment. Come back this evening, at sunset or a bit later. It still may not be a convenient hour to call, but nothing is convenient on this cursed world, and I still can't fathom the thirty-seven hour days."

Glawen walked back along Crippet Alley, pondering his interview with Melvish Keebles. Everything considered, the affair had gone about as well as could have been hoped, even though Keebles had left him in a state of nerve-wracking suspense.

Nonetheless, he had made progress, of a sort. Keebles had agreed to telephone the other party to the transaction, tacitly acknowledging the presence of this person upon Nion. Glawen wondered whether the admission had been an indiscretion which Keebles had regretted. If so, it indicated a carelessness which surely was not characteristic of Keebles. If not, the significance could only be that Keebles considered the business trivial, with little prospect of profit for himself and this seemed the most likely explanation. As for the other party to the transaction, it could hardly be anyone other than Keebles' long-time associate, now collecting tanglets out on the Plain of Standing Stones — a dangerous business, according to the woman who seemed to serve as Keebles' clerk, though perhaps she might be another of the wives he married so casually.

Crippet Alley expanded into a square, than narrowed again. More folk were abroad than before: for the most part the slight delicate-featured natives of Tanjaree, with here and there a man or a woman from one of the outer districts, of markedly different physiognomy and costume, in Tanjaree that they might visit the markets. No one paid Glawen the slightest heed; he might have been invisible for all the attention he aroused.

The long afternoon lay ahead. Glawen returned to the Novial Hotel. In the lobby the clerk leaned forward upon the counter. “The dining room is now prepared for the mid-afternoon service. Shall I announce that you will shortly be on hand to take your pold?”

Glawen stopped short. Mid-afternoon service? How many meals were consumed during the course of a thirty-seven hour day? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, mid-morning and mid-afternoon services, at the very least. What happened during the long hungry nineteen-hour nights?[8] Glawen temporarily put the question from his mind. At the moment, he was hungry. “I doubt if I am ready for pold," he told the clerk. “Is standard cuisine available?”

“Naturally! A certain class of tourist will take nothing else, which is a pity, since pold gratifies, sustains and lubricates. It is wholesome and cannot be defeated. Still, you may eat as you like."

"In that case I will take the risk.”

In the restaurant Glawen was handed the Tourist's Menu, from which he made a selection. As an unsolicited side dish, he was served a slab of pale cream-yellow pold which, when he tasted it, yielded a bland nutty flavor. He found no incentive to linger in the dining room and as soon as possible went out upon the avenue. The time was still early afternoon. Pharisse seemed welded to a spot on the sky. To east and west the pale daylight moons eased unobtrusively along their tracks. Across the lake the domes and spires of Old Town shimmered its reflection on the surface of the water.

Glawen went to sit on a bench. The Plain of Standing Stones, according to Keebles' clerk, was halfway around the world. Noon at Tanjaree was midnight on the Plain of Standing Stones, and dusk, correspondingly, would be early morning, so that it became clear why Keebles felt impelled to delay his telephone call.

Glawen brought out the packet of information folders he had received at the tourist information office, from which he took a map of Nion in Mercator projection, printed is a variety of colors. Vertical lines created thirty-seven segments, corresponding to the thirty-seven hours and fifteen minutes of the sidereal day. The origin — 0 o’clock, or midnight — passed through Tanjaree.

Nions surface area was roughly four times that of Earth: a disparity magnified by the absence of oceans and large seas. Colors indicated physiographic detail: gray for dry sea bottom, olive green for water fields, blue for open water, pink for vast steppes. Clots of population surrounded the three principal cities: Tanjaree; Sirmegosto, six thousand miles south and east; Tyl Toc, four thousand miles due west. Additionally, there were several dozen isolated towns scattered across the planet, including many tourist destinations: Hooktown, near the Tangting Forest; Moonway on the Plain of Standing Stones; Whipple’s Camp, under the Scintic Crag; also a spatter of even smaller villages. Black lines connecting the populated areas were identified as ‘nomad routes’.

Glawen found the Plain of standing Stones in the segment marked '18’, halfway around the world. Here was the town Moonway, the William Schulz Buttes to the north and the Gerhart Pastels to the south.

Glawen studied the map for a few moments, then folded it and replaced it in his pocket. He rose from the bench and walked along the avenue to a bookseller’s shop near the Cansaspara Hotel. He bought a tourist's guide, entitled:

NION: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO!

Also, where not to go and what not to do, if you value your life and sanity. (Yes: Sanity. See section on Gangril pold).

Nearby was an outdoor cafe. Glawen found a table somewhat to the side and seated himself. The other patrons were for the most part off-worlders: tourists chattering and remarking upon the contradictions of Tanjaree, in their estimation a place forlorn and shabby, but truly exotic and of course incomprehensible. Some recounted their experiences with pold; others excitedly spoke of that excursion to the Tangting Forest and its mind numbing inhabitants. In the sky Pharisse seemed to hang steady and still among its retinue of moons.

Glawen started to read is the tourist guide, but was interrupted by the arrival of a waiter wearing a maroon uniform with a flowing black cravat. “Your order, sir?”

Glawen looked up from his book. “What is available?”

"We offer a full range of potations, sir. They are listed here, on the menu.” He indicated a card and started to turn away.

“Wait!” cried Glawen. “What is a ‘Tympanese Tonic’?"

“It is a local beverage, sir, with mildly stimulating effects."

“It is derived from pold?"

“Yes, sir."

“What is ‘Meteor Fuel’?"

“It is another mild stimulant, sir, and is sometimes taken before foot races.”

"Also, derived from — "

“A different sort of pold, sir."

“The lady yonder what is she drinking?”

“That is our 'Corpse Reviver’. It is a secret recipe of the Gangrils and is popular among tourists with modernistic views.”

“I see. What about these "Teas imported from Earth”? Are they also pold?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir."

“You may bring me a pot of green tea, if you please."

Glawen returned to the guidebook and found a section entitled: ‘The Plain of Standing Stones’. He read:

One cannot think of the Standing Stones without reference to the Shadowmen, who to this day lurk is the neighborhood. They are aptly named, if only because they are little more than shadows of their remarkable progenitors, each of whom strove incessantly for honor and devoted his life to the performance of mighty deeds. The Shadowmen of today are somber, taciturn, intensely superstitious, and so introverted as to be impenetrable. Etiquette guides each phase of his life, so that he seems overwhelmed by its minutiae, and his conduct is predictable. The casual visitor to Moonway, who chances to come upon one of the Shadowmen during the course of his excursion, will see a person stolid as a rock, and quite imperturbable. But let the visitor make no mistake: this aloof gentleman will cut his throat without a qualm if he finds the tourist tampering with his sacred objects. Still, do not be deterred from a visit to the Standing Stones; they are remarkable, and you will be safe so long as you conform to the regulations.

The Shadowmen of today must be viewed is the perspective of their history. It is a melancholy record: the textbook case of isolated Gaean settlers who, over the centuries, have developed a unique society with intricate conventions. These conventions become ever more elaborate and generate ever greater intricacy until eventually they control, dominate and finally strangle the society, which thereupon becomes moribund. The process always bewilders the casual observer who contrasts the Golden Age of the society with its contemporary squalor. Most often the process is associated with a powerful religion and an insensate priesthood; in the case of the Shadowmen, the compulsive force was the glory to be won by excellence at the great game.

Two thousand years ago the society reached its zenith. The population was divided into four septs: North, East, South and West. Four or five thousand stones had been erected by champions to mark their graves. Which came first: the Games or the Stones is a matter of conjecture and is in any case irrelevant. The Games began as demonstrations of agility and speed, in which young men raced a dangerous course across the tops of the stones. Presently the races began to include contact — shoving, tripping, wrestling — as valid ploys in the winning of races. Next, came the Iron Races, which were not so much races across the tops of the stones as complicated strategies involving leaps, runs, swordplay. Skill in the use of weapons became as important as agility. The Games had always engendered passions: the four septs now found themselves involved in blood feuds and vendettas, which consumed much of their energies.

But not all. The rules of combat were complicated. Upon arriving at the age of fourteen the young man allowed his hair to grow long and carved a hair-buckle for himself from a nodule of fine Jade. These buckles — 'tanglets', as they were known — became more than ornaments; they were repositories of the owner's mana, and represented his manhood; they were his dearest possession. As soon as he had carved his first tanglet and had submitted it for the approval of the elders, the young man was ready for the games.

First, he must await a proper concatenation of the moons: this was all-important. The moons, their phases, cycles and positions controlled the lives of the Shadowmen. When the moons finally came to a favorable conjunction, the young man climbed upon the stones. If he were of a cautious disposition, he made his first trials against other first-tanglet youths. Usually, at worst, he would be thrown down or jump without mortal damage, though he was required to give up his tanglet to the victor, at an important ceremony and with a maximum of ceremonial pomp, at which the victor was exalted and the loser shamed. The loser, seething with bitter humiliation, must carve a new and menacing tanglet for himself.

In due course, he might become quick and skillful, and start winning tanglets, all of which he wore on the rope of hair which dangled down the back of his head. If he were conquered, or cast down, or killed, he surrendered all his tanglets and his hair rope. If, however, he were a victor and a champion, at the age of twenty he was entitled to associate with ten fellows. Together they cut ten stones from the quartzite cliffs a hundred miles to the south. These stones would then be transported across the plain, inscribed and erected. The youth by this ritual became a man, and sooner or later would be buried at the foot of his stone, along with his tanglets.

Such were the Games: first, foot races across the stones; in the end passionate challenges, killings and revenges which at last exhausted the virility of the Shadowmen and reduced their numbers to a paltry few hundred.

The Shadowmen of today wear no tanglets; however, they carve imitations which they sell to tourists, and which they insist have been dug from a secret grave known only to themselves; be warned! These articles are fraudulent an authentic tanglet is extremely valuable which fact has tempted predatory entrepreneurs from elsewhere. Usually — one might say, always — these persons are found dead among the stones with their throats cut.

At the western verge of the Standing Stones is the settlement Moonway, so-named by reason of the superstitions which still control the lives of the Shadowmen. Moonway is not so much a city as it is a combination of trading post, tourist center and village. The three hotels — the Moonway, the Jade Tanglet, the Banshee Moon — are about equivalent. The Moonways’ said to exercise greater caution against sand-fleas than the others; all may be negligent. Bring insecticide and spray your bed before retiring. Otherwise you may be roundly bitten.

NOTE: The Shadowmen are apparently mild and patient. This is only partly true, as you will learn if you molest, touch, ridicule or sometimes so much as notice a bald woman. Your throat will be cut at once; the woman has dedicated her hair to a moon-sequence for a purpose important to her. Never smile at a Shadowman; he will return your smile, and with a quick motion of his arm you will find yourself smiling from two mouths, though not with double the amusement. Further, no one will protect you or punish the Shadowman, since you will have been amply warned against improprieties, as you just have been.

A good thing to keep in mind, reflected Glawen. He relaxed in his chair and sat watching those who passed by along the avenue: off-worlders from the nearby hotels; slender chestnut-haired denizens of Tanjaree; Gangrils, sleepy-eyed, also slight of physique and with hair often of a coppery-russet, rather than chestnut, the men wearing loose long-length black breeches and colored shirts, the women in white breeches of exaggerated amplitude, black blouses and odd little green hats.

Glawen suddenly realized he had not been served his tea. The waiter who had taken his order stood nearby, looking idly off across the lake. Glawen wondered whether it was worth the effort to make an angry representation, from which, so he realized, the waiter would turn with an air of ineffable scorn and fatigue. And Glawen would seem, in the end, a red-faced expostulating boor. He considered the options open to him, and the easiest was to decide that he had not wanted tea in the first place. He adopted this course of action with a sigh of resignation, only to find that at the very same moment his tea had been served by a kitchen boy. “Walt.” said Glawen. He lifted the lid of the pot and sniffed at the contents. Tea or pold? It smelled like tea, of one variety or another. “Very well,” Glawen told the boy. "This seems to be tea.”

“So it does,” said the boy.

Glawen looked at him sharply, but decided that the remark had been made innocently. “Very well,” said Glawen austerely. “You may go." In the end, so he told himself, it was impossible to defeat the kitchen; they served as they saw fit and the customer must consume whatever he found on his plate, regardless of his own suspicions or better judgment.

His attention was taken by the corning of a ramshackle vehicle along the avenue: a great box, painted in garish designs, forty feet long and fourteen feet high. It rode on six tall wheels, all affixed independently to the chassis, so that they tilted, wobbled and canted as the vehicle lurched along the avenue. It was guided by a fat round-faced man with a bushy black mustache and a wide-brimmed black hat, who sat on a bench on top of the vehicle from where he manipulated the controls. Behind him a low fence enclosed the top surface; within this area a half dozen urchins of indeterminate sex, wearing ragged gowns which sometimes exposed their bottoms, sometimes not. Other folk leaned through the windows, waving and saluting the onlookers. The fat man with the black mustache heaved at his controls; the vehicle careened to a halt; a side panel dropped aside and folded open to become a stage twelve feet wide running the length of the vehicle. Out upon the stage came a small man with a droll face, nose splayed, eyes drooping and melancholy, mouth sagging into dewlaps: the face of an unhappy pug dog. He wore a blue garment bedizened by a hundred tags and tassels, with a low narrow-brimmed hat. He came forward to the front of the stage, seated himself into empty air, but just in time a hand reached from within and thrust a stool under the descending fundament. He grimaced and leered at the folk watching from the cafe, reached an arm into the air apparently without purpose, but another arm from within placed a stringed instrument into his grasp. The clown struck a set of chords, plucked a fragment of a tune in an upper register, then sang a plaintive ballad which told the tribulations of a vagabonds life. As he played a coda, a pair of fat women rushed out on the stage, to jig and jump and tumble while the clown played a quick-step. He was joined at the other side of the stage by a younger man with a concertina the women redoubled their exertions, their great breasts bouncing, arms flailing. They kicked so high that they seemed to fall over backwards but instead turned amazing back somersaults which showed flashes of fat haunch and rocked the stage when they alighted. Finally they seized the sad-faced clown and hurled him out over the onlookers who screamed and ducked, but he had been attached by a wire to a long pole which took him, never missing a beat on his instrument, orbiting out and around in a great swing and safely back to the stage.

The fat ladles were replaced by three girls in full black skirts and golden-brown blouses who were joined by a burly youth masked and costumed as a demon of demented lust. He chased the girls about the stage in a frenzy of acrobatic exercises during which he attempted to disrobe the girls, and bear them to the ground. As the cavorting’s came to a climax, with two of the girls bare breasted and the demon tugging at their skirt of the third, Glawen felt the most minuscule stir. He looked quickly around and reached to seize the wrist of a girl eight or nine years old. Her hand was already in his pocket; her face was only a foot away from his own. He stared into her slate-gray eyes, and squeezed at her wrist. She released what she had fixed upon. Glawen saw that she was preparing to spit into his face. He released his grip and she walked away without haste, turning a single scornful glance over her shoulder.

On the stage a juggler was busy with a dozen rings. He was followed by an aged woman who blew on a heavy bass horn and played a plectrum with her bare feet, chording with one set of toes, striking with the other. She was presently joined by a raunchy clown as old as herself who played two bagpipes and a nose-flute simultaneously to produce music of three parts. The finale consisted of ten adults forming an orchestra while six small children danced jigs and circlets and rounds and finally ran out among the audience holding trays for offerings. The girl who approached Glawen was the same who had tried to pick his pocket. Without comment he dropped some coins into the tray; without comment she moved on. A moment later the vehicle rumbled away to play before another café at the far side of the Cansaspara Hotel.

Glawen looked up toward Pharisse, which had edged somewhat down the sky. He returned to the guidebook and read about the vagabond entertainers who roamed Nion in their lumbering vehicles. There were, so it was estimated, perhaps two hundred such vehicles, each with its own traditions and special repertory.

“They are almost like wild creatures, so strong are their nomadic instincts!”' declared the guidebook. “Nothing could persuade them to limit their freedom. Their status is low; other folk consider them mad and treat them with tolerant contempt, quite ignoring the fact that some of the performances display efforts of great creativity, not to mention a high degree of technical virtuosity.”

“For all the zest and vivacity of their performances, the vagabond life is far from a romantic idyll. After a long journey they arrive at a destination jubilant mood. Before long they become restless and fretful and once more strike out across the wilderness to a new destination. They are not a frivolous people but, rather, as if obeying the universal tradition, would seem to be ordinary melancholy. As children they learn to perform as soon as they can talk. Their adult lives are marred by petty jealousies and the pressure to excel; their old age is anything but tranquil. As soon as the old man or woman fails at his performance, or plays sour notes at his music, he loses the respect of his fellows and is graven only grudging and perfunctory recognition. Now, when he or she performs the audiences will still marvel at their amazing energy and abnormal agility as they drive themselves to amazing new levels of performance, until they totter and fall, or play an embarrassing luxuriance of sour notes. Then it is over and they become apathetic. During the next journey the vehicle stops briefly in the middle of the night, with the moons spilling across the dark sky. The oldster is thrust from the vehicle and given a bottle of wine. The vehicle departs, and the old buffoon is left alone. He will sit upon the ground; perhaps he will watch the moons slide past for a time, or perhaps he will sing the song he has prepared just for this occasion; then he drinks the bottle of wine and stretches out to sleep a sleep from which he will never awake, for the wine is drugged with a soft Gangril poison.”

Glawen pushed the book aside; he had learned as much as, or more than, he cared to know. He leaned back in the chair, glanced up at Pharisse and wondered whether he should order an item of pastry from the cart now being wheeled among the tables. To the other side of the cafe a young man, tall and of good physique, rose from the table at which he had been sitting, his back half-turned toward Glawen who watched him depart with no more than idle attention. By the time Glawen s interest was aroused the young man was walking away. Glawen still managed to see that he wore dark green trousers cut to a close fit, a cobalt blue cape, and a small loose-crowned brimless hat.

The figure disappeared up the avenue, his gait easy, confident, almost a swagger. Glawen tried to recall what he had glimpsed, and thought to recapture the image of a well-shaped head with a neat cap of thick dark hair a clear skin and classically regular features. Despite the lack of distortion or deviation, Glawen was half-convinced that he had seen the man before.

Glawen settled back into his chair. He consulted his watch; there was time for a nap before his rendezvous with Keebles. He rose, departed the cafe, and returned to the Novial Hotel.

A different clerk was on duty: an older man with sparse gingery hair and a prim beard. Glawen asked that he be called without fall at twenty-seven o'clock since he had an important engagement. The clerk gave a curt nod, made a note, then resumed his study of a fashion journal. Glawen went to his room, removed his outer garments, threw himself down upon the bed and soon fell asleep.

Tine passed. Glawen’s slumber was disturbed by a tingle of pain at the side of his hip. He turned on the light, and found that he had been stung by a black insect.

Outside the window the sky was dim with dusk. The time was twenty-eight o'clock. He jumped up, destroyed such insects as were conveniently to hand, splashed water into his face, dressed and left the room. As he strode through the lobby the clerk jumped to his feet and leaned forward over the counter. He caned out in aggrieved voice: ”Mr. Clattuc I was about to call you, but it seems that you have taken matters into your own hands.”

“Not quite,” said Glawen. “I was awakened by an insect. The room is infested. I will be out for a few hours; please make sure that the room is fumigated in my absence.”

The clerk resumed his seat. “The janitor evidently forgot to use insecticide when he cleaned your room. I will make sure that your complaint is received in the proper quarters.”

“That is not enough. You must deal with these insects now.”

The clerk said stiffly: “Unfortunately, the janitor has gone off duty. I can only assure you that the matter will be resolved to your complete satisfaction tomorrow.”

Glawen spoke in a careful voice: “When I return from my business, I shall look about the room. If I find any insects, I shall capture them and bring them here, and you will not enjoy what use I make of hem.”

“That is intemperate language, Mr. Clattuc.”

“I was not awakened by a temperate insect. Heed my warning!"

Glawen left the hotel. Pharisse had dropped from the sky and twilight had come to Tanjaree, working a wonderful transformation. Across the lake, Old Town, illuminated by the glow of soft white lights, seemed only half-real: a city of fairy-tale palaces. A dozen moons drifted across the sky, showing subtle variations of color: creamy-grey through white and silver-white, the palest of pinks and equally soft violet, each moon reflecting its image in the lake. Nion, according to the guidebook, was often known as ‘The World of the Nineteen Moons’. Each of the moons was named and every inhabitant of the planet knew these names as well as he knew his own.

Glawen turned into Crippet Alley, and was surprised to find that, by virtue of its illumination, the street now seemed charming and gay. Apparently every householder had been required to hang out a light globe to his own taste, resulting in a welter of colored globes set as if in celebration of a festival. Glawen knew that aesthetic impulse had been far from anyone’s mind: the lights were as they were because it was easier than a more uniform arrangement.

Many folk were still abroad, though not the previous crowds. Some were natives; others were tourists strolling at their leisure, pausing to look into the shop windows, or patronizing the little café. Glawen, an hour late for his appointment with Keebles, pressed along the street as rapidly as possible. He stopped short. A man wearing a blue cape had passed him by; Glawen glimpsed a pale preoccupied face, features set in a mask. Glawen turned and looked back, but the dark blue cloak was lost in the welter of lights and moving shapes. Glawen continued along Crippet Alley and presently arrived at the Argonaut Art Import and Export Company. There were lights on within the shop; as before, the door was unlocked, even though the posted closing hour was twenty-seven o'clock and the clerk was no longer on duty behind the counter.

Glawen entered, closed the door behind him. He stood a moment looking around the cluttered interior. Everything was as he had left it earlier in the day. He heard nothing and there was no sign of Keebles.

Glawen went to the passage leading back to Keebles' office. He halted, listened: no sound. He called out: “Mr. Keebles! I'm here — Glawen Clattuc!”

The silence seemed more profound than ever.

Glawen grimaced. He looked behind him, up the stairs, then ventured forward along the passage. Once agent he called: “Mr. Keebles?”

As before: no response. Glawen peered into the back office. A corpse lay on the floor. It was Keebles. His arms and ankles had been bound; blood oozed from his mouth. His eyes were open and bulged enormously in horror. His trousers had been cut open and it was clear that Keebles had been tortured.

Glawen bent and touched Keebles' neck with his knuckles. Still warm Keebles had been dead only a short time. If the clerk had not forgotten to call Glawen, Keebles might still be alive.

Glawen stared unhappily down at the corpse, and the mouth which now would never reveal the information he had come so far to learn.

Why had Keebles been killed? There were no overt signs of pillage. The desk drawers were closed, as was the cabinet. In a nook at the far end of the room, a door opened on a makeshift, porch and the yard beyond. The door was bolted from the inside; the murderer had not used it in his operation.

Glawen returned his attention to the desk. He searched in vain for a notebook or an address file or something similar which might identify Keebles' associate. Careful to leave no fingerprints, Glawen searched the desk drawers. He came upon nothing of interest. He looked into the cabinet, where he discovered a small safe, the doors of which swung open. The contents, again, were of no immediate interest.

Glawen stood thinking. Keebles had intended to make a telephone call. On the desk was the telephone screen and the keyboard. Using a pencil Glawen punched the 'Options' button, and then the code for ‘Listing of Recent Calls’.

The most recent call had been made to the Moonway Hotel, at Moonway. The others were local calls, made earlier in the day, and impossible to identify.

From the front of the premises came a soft sound: a rattling at the door which evidently had locked itself after Glawen had closed it.

Glawen peered cautiously down the passage. Against the lights of the street he saw a pair of constables who were trying to open the door in silence.

For a second Glawen stood transfixed. Then, on long swift strides he ran to the back door. He slid back the bolt, opened the door and stepped out upon the porch. He closed the door and stood listening, then he went to stand in the shadow of a shed. A moment later a pair of constables rushed around the structure, gave the yard a perfunctory scrutiny, then entered Keebles' office by the back door.

In an instant Glawen was over the back fence. By the light of a dozen moons he picked his way through rubbish and rubble, and pits fitted with puddles of foul-smelling water.

The waste area gave upon a small back alley, with small lumpy structures to either side. Thirty yards ahead a tavern spilled colored light into the street. From within came the mutter of guttural voices, a strange whining music, and occasionally the high-pitched whinny of drunken female laughter. Glawen walked briskly past and in due course, after several false turnings, came out on the lakeside avenue.

As he walked he pondered. The coming of the constables so hard upon his own arrival did not seem to be coincidence. They had been notified by someone who knew that Keebles was dead. Glawen worked out a sequence of events which he found reasonable, if a number of assumptions were accepted. Assume that the young man in the blue cape were the same handsome young man who betrayed Miss Flavia Shoup; assume that he had arrived at Tanjaree almost at the same time as Glawen. Assume that he had taken note of Glawen and perhaps recognized him. Assume that he had approached Keebles and had received the same response given to Glawen. With these assumptions in place, then the sequence of events became clear. Arriving at the Argonaut Art Import and Export Company, the man had compelled Keebles to yield his information, then had killed him if only to deny Glawen the same information. Upon leaving the office, the murder had observed Glawen in Crippet Alley and had thereupon notified the constables of the horrid crime and the murderer's presence upon the scene.

Even if the sequence were faulty in part, Glawen was impelled to travel to Moonway at best speed.

Glawen returned to the Novial Hotel. The clerk gave him a distant nod, but clearly was not in a cordial mood. Repairing to his room, Glawen found that someone had strung up a mesh hammock, to be used should the insects become troublesome.

Glawen changed his clothes and returned to the lobby. The clerk had judiciously absented himself until his guest had settled down for the night. Glawen went to the public telephone. The Halcyon Travel Agency in the Cansaspara Hotel was still open, so he discovered, and would remain so until thirty-two o'clock.