Maske: Thaery (5 page)

The Wysrod hacks were famous across Thaery. The gaunt silhouettes, the tall coffin-like compartments on disproportionately short and squat undercarriages, were ubiquitous: lurching and swaying around corners, swarming the boulevards like grotesque insects, flitting through the night unseen except for dangerously dim side-lamps. In such a hack Jubal and Eyvant Dasduke proceeded to the airport. They rode in silence, by Dasduke’s preference. Jubal could not help but envy his lofty assurance, as if all his opinions were naturally and inherently right; as if nothing conceivable could provoke him to an incorrect reaction.

At a convenient way-place in his musings, Eyvant Dasduke turned Jubal a side-glance. “What’s to be your grade?”

“I am Junior Assistant Inspector.”

Eyvant gave his head a sour and wondering shake. “We’re top-heavy now. I can’t imagine how you got aboard.” And he added thoughtfully, “We dance to nervous music around D3.”

Jubal ventured a polite question: “What are to be my duties?”

“I’ll have to look over the work-sheets.” Eyvant’s tone became brisk and brassy. “Our principal job is inspection of the inns—checking cleanliness, cuisine, courtesy. You’ll take an orientation course, then go out and train in the field. Promotions come slow, I warn you.”

Jubal heaved a sad sigh. This was not the career he had in mind. Better than nothing? Perhaps.

Eyvant asked idly: “What is this parcel we are about to secure?”

Jubal’s hesitation was imperceptibly brief. Nai the Hever had not specifically enjoined silence, but by the very nature of things discretion was surely in order.

On the other hand, he was not anxious to antagonize his immediate superior. “I think it contains fabric—perhaps a garment.” So much Eyvant Dasduke would notice for himself.

“A garment? Whose garment?”

“This, I believe, is what Nai the Hever wishes to determine. You yourself are a Full Inspector?”

“Yes, quite.” And he grudgingly went on to say: “It is not a prestigious occupation, but Dasdukes have no great influence in Wysrod. We are Drune Tree folk.”

“How do Departments D1 and D2 occupy themselves?”

“D1 maintains industrial safety. D2 controls price and quality standards. D4 regulates weights and measures. D5 makes property evaluations. D6 of course is the Thariot Internal Police Force. D3 is the most inglorious of the lot.”

“Why then did you select D3 for your career?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

Jubal gave a starkly honest response. “It was the best I could get.”

Eyvant looked out the window of the hack. In an even voice he said: “The work has certain compensations. As an inspector you will travel everywhere across Thaery and meet a multitude of people.”

“And my salary?”

“You will start at seventeen toldecks a week, with travel expenses in the field.”

“Seventeen toldecks! That is not a large sum!”

“Our budget is low; we meet it by paying poor salaries to the juniors.”

Jubal sat limply back in the seat. Nai the Hever had used the word ‘sufficient’ rather than ‘generous’; at Wysrod an ear for such distinctions was clearly indispensable. “How much do I earn as a Full Assistant Inspector?”

“Your rate is then twenty-nine toldecks.”

“Then, finally, when I achieve Inspectorship?”

“You might earn forty or fifty toldecks a week. Much depends upon the man.”

They arrived at the Point Sul depot. Jubal secured the parcel and placed it in the custody of Eyvant Dasduke; the two returned down-hill and out upon the Marine Parade. At the Sea-Wrack Inn Jubal chose to alight. Eyvant Dasduke gave him instructions: “Report to Chamber 95 tomorrow morning at the first hour. A Sub-Inspector will supervise your training.”

The hack rattled down the Marine Parade. Jubal went to the balustrade and looked out over Duskerl Bay, where the locks were admitting a beautiful purple-hulled felucca
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of two orange kites… Seventeen toldecks a week. Instruction in the lore of bathroom drains and soiled linen. Junior Assistant Inspector Jubal Droad, alert and keen to pay his respects to Lady Mieltrude of Hever…

Eyvant Dasduke entered the office of Nai the Hever by a disguised door. Nai the Hever unsealed the parcel and spread the contents across a table.

There were four articles. First: a brick-red jacket cut to an odd loose-shouldered, pinch-waisted pattern.

Second: trousers, vertically striped yellow and silver, loose about the hips and knees. Third: shoes of glossy dark green leather with rakish ankle-flaps, a long pointed toe, a sole of twin resilient disks under the heel and ball of the foot. Fourth: a hat of dark red velvet, cocked and creased into a complicated shape, with a rosette of yellow ribbons at the side.

“Do you recognize these?” asked Nai the Hever.

“I have seen similar in the files. I recall no exact correspondence.”

“Ramus Ymph wore them down from off-world.”

“How do you know this?”

“From the Glint. It would appear quite definite.”

Eyvant surveyed the garments with distaste. “Surely not Skay?”

Nai the Hever smiled thinly. “I can’t imagine Ramus Ymph as a Binadary. No. He’s been farther than Skay.”

“Odd.”

“Very odd. The usual motives seem not to fit. Well, it’s all one. Let him lead; we will follow.”

“As you say.”

Nai the Hever indicated the clothes. “The technicians may be able to learn something. We are sadly provincial here in Thaery, probably to our great advantage. By the same token we are ignorant of the universe. Perhaps the time has come to repair the deficiency.”

“We’ll need considerably more funding than we have at present.”

“True. Money is tight. How would I explain such a need to Myrus? I must give the matter thought. How do you find your new inspector?”

“The Glint? He seems reasonably intelligent, and quite discreet. But I doubt if you’ll find your ‘passionless precision’ here.” Eyvant alluded to one of Nai the Hever’s more vivid pronouncements: “Department D3 is my tool; I require that the human components function with passionless precision!”

Nai the Hever said, “Handle him carefully. He will be employed where emotional motivation is a positive factor.”

Jubal Droad loitered along the Marine Parade. The time was early evening; the sky showed a plum-violet afterglow. Low in the west Skay was an enormous thin silver hook. Others strolled the Marine Parade: dark shapes, musing upon their private affairs.

Jubal leaned on the balustrade and looked off across Duskerl Bay. Seventeen toldecks a week: an inspector of fleas and complaint books. The advantages were real but modest: an easy life roaming the counties of Thaery, good food and good wine, compliments from the innkeepers—but he must bid his dreams goodby… The same held true if he became a National. Suppose he emigrated off-world? Jubal studied the sky with brooding fascination. Little was visible except a wavering panel of the Zangwill Reef, hanging slantwise behind Skay.

Jubal straightened up from the balustrade. “Already I feel an old man.” He slouched along the Marine Parade to the Sea-Wrack Inn and stepped into the tavern. He seated himself on a bench to the side and presently was served a goblet of soft fruit wine. At seventeen toldecks a week, he must satisfy himself with less than the best. Conditional, of course, upon his accepting the post offered by that prince of generosity, Nai the Hever. With a somber eye Jubal inspected the other patrons of the tavern and speculated as to their occupations. The two middle-aged men, both short with soft little bodies, were tradesmen, or clerks of advanced skill. They chatted and giggled and prodded each other’s arm like schoolgirls. One of these men, meeting Jubal’s mordant gaze, stopped short as if startled. He muttered to his friend; both turned surreptitious glances toward Jubal. Hunching in their seats, they continued their conversation in a manner more subdued. Jubal turned away. Nearby stood a man of different quality, a tall dark-visaged man wearing tight black trousers and a tall black dath. His face, pale, gaunt, and melancholy, seemed somehow haunted, or obsessed by secret thoughts. His shoulders and arms were knotted with muscle; his legs, under tight cloth, showed hard knobs and cords. A manual laborer, hazarded Jubal, or more likely an artisan: a man skilled with hands and strength, who had known recent tragedy. At a nearby table a man in a faded gray blouse supped upon a platter of goulash, bread and leeks.

A National, thought Jubal, and no doubt a hard lot. His hair, a dun harsh stubble, showed thin spots, as if the growth had been impeded by blows or scrapes; his nose splayed to the side. The man’s movements, however, were slow and easy, and his eyes showed no more than a placid interest in the surroundings.

Jubal waited until the man had wiped his platter with the bread, then took his own flask and goblet to the table. “May I intrude upon your company?”

“As long as you like.”

“I assume you to be a National.”

“This observation, which surely you do not intend offensively—”

“By no means.”

“—is correct. I am master of the
Clanche
, whose mast swings yonder; my name is Shrack.”

“I am Jubal Droad, a gentleman of Glentlin. I would like to ask your advice.”

Shrack made an expansive gesture. “A National’s advice is generally reckoned no more and no less profound than the cry of the kakaru-bird. Nonetheless, ask away.”

Jubal signaled to the waitress for wine. “My dilemma is this. I am a Glint of irreproachable caste; however this serves no purpose at Wysrod. I have been offered the post of sewer inspector at a salary of seventeen toldecks a week. Needless to say, my ambitions reach beyond a career of this sort.”

Shrack accepted a goblet of wine from the waitress. “Seventeen toldecks would seem an inadequate stipend for a gallant gentleman. I, a mere sea-farer, average almost half this amount.”

“I see three choices for myself,” said Jubal. “I can become a National; I can emigrate; or I can submit to expediency and become an inspector.”

The sea-farer drank from the goblet. Leaning back, he turned his mild gaze up to the ceiling. “Each of these courses, it is safe to say, entails a characteristic set of consequences which a stranger to the situation can only imagine. His projections will be inaccurate; how can anyone create real worlds from will-o’-the-wisps? Experience is the only source of wisdom: by which I mean, the competent conduct of life. In short, I can advise you only in regard to sea-faring. To complete your survey you should confer with an inspector and then an emigrant.”

“By coincidence I know one of each,” said Jubal, “but I can rely on neither for information, especially the emigrant. Will you drink more wine?”

“With pleasure! But allow me to arrange this phase of our discussion.” Shrack the sea-farer acquainted the waitress with his needs, then resumed his easy posture. “Like yourself, I was at one time forced to make a hard choice. By and large, I have not regretted it. I have seen strange sights; I have known startling experiences of which no city-dweller could be aware, no matter how agile his intellect.

The
Clanche
is my home. I love each splinter of her fabric, but I agree that a boat is different from a parcel of land, with a cottage, a stream, a meadow and an orchard of fruit. Better? Or worse? I have known both and I cannot decide.”

“Please continue,” said Jubal. “Your remarks bear directly on my problem.”

“I have taken the
Clanche
fourteen times around the Long Ocean. I have visited the Happy Isles, the Morks, and the Apparitions. I have bartered honey for musk with Wolvishmen of Dohobay. I have sailed up the Swal River of far Djanad to the town Rountze; on the Rountze mud-flats, during the dark of Skay
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, nineteen Binadaries attacked me with sharp staves. I have traded at Weary on Bazan; at Thopold on the Sea of Storms; at Erdstone Pool on Wellas. In exchange for a good adze, a half-witted Wael dryad took me to a talking tree, and was subsequently planted—”

“Planted?”

“That is the Wael punishment. I consider them the strangest folk of Maske, perhaps of the whole Gaean Reach; they are said to derive from a union between the Vile Fourteenth and a band of rogue Djans.”

“I have heard a similar theory, but I am not convinced.”

Shrack nodded. “The coupling of Gaean with Djan produces no issue, as we all can attest. Still special potions might have been used; who knows the truth? I hope to visit Erdstone Pool soon, if only to drink rum punch at Tanglefoot Tavern.”

“Might you need an inexperienced assistant?”

“You have applied to the wrong ship,” said Shrack. “I am as land-bound as you; I cannot sail till I clear myself of certain writs. Rather than shipping as a deck-hand, which pays nothing but hard work, save your seventeen toldecks until you own a boat of your own.”

“What would be the price for a decent vessel?”

“Five thousand toldecks, or more.”

“At seventeen toldecks a week? This is a long-range goal.”

“Somehow you must augment your income.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Not at all. The secret is to seize upon the opportunity and wring it dry.”

“No such opportunity has ever been offered to me.”

“That is the common complaint.” Shrack rose to his feet. “I must return to my vessel. Certain rogues noticing the dark portholes might think to recognize one of these precise opportunities of which we spoke.

Goodnight and good luck.”

“Goodnight to you.”

Shrack departed the tavern. Jubal sat brooding. The two fat businessmen were dining upon an enormous poached buttle-fish. The man with the knotted muscles and gaunt visage conversed with a burly man wearing a maroon quat.
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Other folk had entered the tavern: a party of three young bravos in pretentious garments; a pair of old ladies who now sat blowing into pewter mugs of hot spiced beer.

Jubal saw nothing to interest him. He paid his score and left the tavern.

For a moment he stood on the verandah. Waves lapped quietly along the beach. Skay had set; deep darkness had come to the sky; a single filament of Zangwill Reef yet showed above the Cham.