Night Lamp (50 page)

“What!” cried Jaro. “Am I to become a married man and a Clam Muffin at one fell swoop?”

“It may not be as bad as you think,” said Skirl. “Also, it is what I want.”

“Oh well, why not?” said Jaro.

“We shall be married tomorrow, in the Clam Muffin sanctuary,” Skirl told him. “It will be a very important occasion.”

At the wedding Jaro wore a formal dark suit in which he felt self-conscious. Skirl was dressed in a white frock and a tiara of white flowers. In Jaro’s opinion she looked totally beautiful, and he thought that it was a great privilege to be married to her. He recalled Langolen School, where he had first noticed Skirlet Hutsenreiter. Smiling to himself he remembered the mannerisms which among her peers had caused such stifled outrage, jealousy and awe, but which now, in retrospect, seemed only quaint and charming. Imaginative, intelligent, daring little Skirlet Hutsenreiter! He had admired her from a distance, and now he was married to her! These were the marvels which sometimes accompanied the act of being alive. Jaro wondered if ‘yaha,’ in one phase or another, were involved. He would give the matter thought when he had more time.

Skirl had also been looking back over the years. “It seems so long ago,” she mused.

Jaro smiled in wistful recollection. “The world was very different then. I like it better now.”

Skirl squeezed his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. “Think of it! We’ve visited Old Romarth and we own the
Pharsang!
And so much is still ahead of us!”

The two celebrated their new status with Gaing and Maihac at the Blue Moon Inn. Before dinner, they sat in the lounge, drinking one of the soft yellow wines produced in the rolling hills to the east of Thanet.

Skirl made an announcement: “This is truly an important day for us, but for Jaro most of all, since he is now a Clam Muffin, and a person of great prestige! He deserves the honor, and I am proud of him!”

Jaro said modestly: “I don’t want to exaggerate the honor. If you look at the fine print on the certificate, you will see where it reads: ‘Associate Member, Provisional.’ ”

“That is a minor detail,” said Skirl. “A Clam Muffin is a Clam Muffin, anywhere in the universe!”

“It is better than being a nimp,” said Jaro. “Hilyer and Althea would also be proud of me, or so I suppose.”

“I’m certain of it,” said Skirl. “I’m not so sure about my own father.”

“I’m somewhat proud of him myself,” said Maihac.

Gaing, not normally demonstrative, reached over and shook Jaro’s hand. “In my innocent way, even I am proud of him. In fact, I’m proud to be part of this rather distinguished group.”

Maihac called for another bottle of wine. “Before we become even more proud, we should decide what to do next. We control Night Lamp—379 a large sum of money, and we are carrying a cargo of valuable books, from which we should realize another large sum.”

Jaro asked, “Where do you propose we sell the books?”

“The most active markets are the auction houses of Old Earth. That is where we will find the best prices, especially if we can surround the books in an atmosphere of romance and mystery.”

“That seems reasonable,” said Jaro. “But first we should settle our current accounts. The money we took from the bank at Ocknow represents repayment for the Distilcord; that should be divided between you and Gaing. The money from the sale of the books we can divide four ways; then everyone should be relatively wealthy. In fact, I still have my income from the Faths.”

Gaing said, “At the moment I don’t want the responsibility of so much money. Better that we put it into a safe account where it will earn interest, and which is open to all of us. This system has a great advantage. If one of us is killed, the survivors will find no difficulty in the transfer of his share.”

“A grisly thought, but practical,” said Maihac. “I agree.”

“I’ll also agree,” said Jaro, “because I’m sure that there will always be enough money in the fund for all of us.”

“I’ll agree, on the same basis,” said Skirl. “Also, because I’d be foolish not to. Though I hope that no one dies.”

“Good,” said Maihac. “Tomorrow we’ll establish the fund at the bank. After that, so far as I know, there is nothing to keep us on Gallingale, so we’ll be off to pursue our careers as traders and vagabonds.”

“The
Pharsang
is ready,” said Gaing. “I’ve checked out the systems and re-stocked the lockers. As soon as everyone is aboard, we’ll be prepared to take off.”

Skirl started to speak, but changed her mind and sat back to drink wine and listen while her companions spoke of unknown and barely known regions of the Reach. Skirl’s mind wandered. Ahead of her lay an eventful life, crowded with adventure, color, the pageantry of strange customs. In the far saloons and markets she would find wines of novel flavor, strange spices, food she might not care to eat. She would hear music she had never expected nor even imagined: music sometimes haunting and soft; sometimes wild, fervent, compelling. There might be hardships or annoyances, such as the conduct of an obstreperous passenger; or the bite of an exotic insect; there might even be danger, if only the risks of a brawl in some remote saloon.

Jaro was watching her. “You are pensive. What are you thinking about.”

“Different things.”

“Such as?”

“All sorts of odd notions. I remember that at one time I thought I might become an effectuator, and earn a great deal of money solving crimes which had baffled everyone else.”

“You still can do so—if we come upon any crimes you care to solve.”

Skirl, smiling wanly, shook her head. “I might function as an effectuator on Gallingale, where I understand how people think, but on other worlds people behave in strange ways. After Garlet, I want no more abnormal psychology. Furthermore, I am now married and quite wealthy, so that I no longer need to earn my own living.”

“That is always a pleasant thought,” said Maihac.

Skirl went on. “Still, I don’t want to be a vagabond forever—at least, not a total vagabond. Someday I want to buy a house in the country, perhaps on Gallingale, or perhaps on Old Earth, where we can raise our family, and where Gaing and Tawn can live when they are of a mind to do so. It will be a home base for all of us, so that whenever the mood comes over us, we can go off in the
Pharsang
, along with our children, and visit places we have never visited before. In this way, we’ll only be semi-vagabonds and a good example for our children. Think of it, Jaro!”

“It sounds very nice to me. And now, shall we order another bottle of wine, or perhaps it is time to think about dinner.”

[1]
   From “fringe,” such as the “fringes of society.” “Fringer”: a human sub-class impossible to define exactly. “Misanthropic vagabonds” has been proposed as an acceptable approximation.

[2]
   Early chronicles declared that the three statues represented the same individual, the fabled justiciary and law-giver David Alexander, depicted in three typical poses: summons to judgment, quelling of the rabble, and imposition of equity. In this latter pose he carried a short-handled axe with a broad lunate blade, possibly no more than an object of ceremonial import.

[3]
   See footnote on page 25.

[4]
   Literally, “defiance of the constellation-heroes,” and by transference, the IPCC.

[5]
   Schmeltzer: one who attempts to ingratiate himself, or mingle, with individuals of a social class superior to his own.

[6]
   On Gallingale, the attainment of status was an exciting and often desperate quest. Those who refused to participate in the striving were “nimps,” and in general commanded no respect, even though many had won reputations for themselves in their own fields.

A person’s status was determined by the prestige of his club and by his ‘comporture’: that dynamic surge which generated upward thrust, and was similar to the concept of “mana.”

[7]
   Unspiek, Baron Bodissey, a philosopher of Old Earth and elsewhere and creator of a philosophical encyclopedia of twelve volumes, entitled
LIFE
, was especially scathing in regard to what he called “hyper-didacticism,” meaning the employment of abstractions a half-dozen stages removed from reality to justify some pseudo-profound intellectualism. Toward the end of his life he was excommunicated from the human race by the Assembly of Egalitarians. Baron Bodissey’s comment was succinct: “The point is moot.” To this day the most erudite thinkers of the Gaean reach ponder the significance of the remark.

[8]
   Those familiar with the works of Baron Bodissey may remember his tale of the guest at a dinner party who, anxious to impress the company, asserted that he had only just arrived from an extraordinary world where the sun rose in the west and set in the east.

[9]
   Sol: monetary unit, about equal to $8 in contemporary terms.

[10]
   Gihilites: a sect of mystics based in the Uirbach Region at the far side of the continent. The Perpatuaries were roving missionaries who purportedly stole children and conveyed them back to Uirbach for unpleasant purposes.

[11]
   Inexact rendering of the word “tchabade”: a hurting complex emotion, encompassing all the following: drained of mana; emasculated; forced to submit, as if to perverted sexual acts; demoralized; rendered negligible; defeated and left behind; stripped of all comporture. In short, a vicious, debilitating emotion.

[12]
   Wilbur Wailey, after a stint as locator, began to conduct enterprises of a questionable sort. His supreme achievement, by his own assessment, was his “Empire of Song and Glory.” On a world so far Beyond and so lost among the galactic wisps and star-streams that five thousand years later, it still had not been rediscovered.

To this world, which Wailey named Safronilla, he brought bevy after bevy of handsome young women, whom he recruited by a variety of tactics. To some he paid generous bonuses; others he kidnapped, from convents, colleges, holiday camps, beauty pageants, spiritual improvement groups, and the like. On one occasion he captured an all girl fife, bugle and drum corps, along with their instruments. A few months later he induced six hundred and fifteen prime Type-A virgins of the Pellucids aboard one of his ships, on the pretext of viewing his collection of tropical fish. Once all were aboard, and were looking here and there for the fish, the doors closed, and the ship flew off. On Safronilla the Pellucids disembarked but their indignation went for naught. One by one, methodically, assiduously Wilbur Wailey got each of them with child—not once, but several times. Fifteen years later he made the rounds again, this time inseminating his daughters with neither prejudice nor favoritism; as he did his granddaughters in the sunset of his fife.

When anthropologists gather for a gossip or an excursion into shop talk in the lounges of their clubs, sometimes late in the evening after several tots of Pusser’s Regulation or Old Tanglefoot have been consumed, someone may make a reference to Wilbur Wailey and his career. After a few moments someone else will say: “They don’t make men like Wilbur Wailey nowadays!” And for a time the group is quiet, while everyone thinks his or her own thoughts, and wonders how it goes now on far Safronilla.

[13]
   If an observer imagines himself standing at the equator of a planet, facing the direction of rotation, north is to his left and south to his right. The polarity of the north and south poles, in terms of magnetic flux, may or may not correspond to the rule cited above, which essentially establishes that the planet’s sun shall rise in the east and set in the west.

[14]
   cavalier: an inexact translation, still more accurate in its overtones than “young nobleman,” “knight,” “bravo,” or any other such expression.