Night Lamp (22 page)

“You are correct, in every respect,” said the man solemnly. “I would endorse your remarks even were I not your husband.”

Laurz Mur stepped to the podium. “There will be a few moments delay while Professor Soukhail removes her exhibits.”

For a period Hilyer and Althea sat in silence. Then Althea whispered to Hilyer: “When she spoke of thought-transference and such things, I could not help but think of Jaro and his early troubles—which I hope are at an end.”

Hilyer considered the matter. “She takes the subject rather far afield. The ‘Tantrickers’ seem almost abnormal in their attributes, and the ‘White magicians’ are remarkable, to say the least. But I don’t connect any of this with Jaro.”

Althea said dubiously, “Jaro’s experiences have certainly been unusual. There might be connections which we haven’t noticed.”

“Nonsense!” said Hilyer gruffly. “Jaro has never communed with these streams of trans-temporal rays, nor does he do the seven Devoirs of Daily Duty.”

Althea was not totally convinced. “Jaro is certainly a special case. He knows it as well as we do, and it must gnaw at his mind. No wonder he wants to learn about his origins.”

“And so he shall, in due course, but his education comes first, and I am afraid that he is not cooperating to the fullest.”

“However so?” cried Althea. “I feel that he has really been quite amiable.”

“Amiable, perhaps; cooperative, partly. For instance, he is dropping courses in ‘Non-semantic Poetry’ and ‘Symbology of Color’ in order to find more time for his work at the spaceport.”

Althea thought to change the subject. “Look yonder, just past the man in the blue cape. It’s Dean Hutsenreiter in a most unsuitable hat!”

Hilyer turned to look. He exclaimed: “Never bother the hat! Who is the unsuitable woman?”

Althea studied Dean Hutsenreiter’s escort, who stood a foot taller than Hutsenreiter himself. Her legs and arms were long and limber; her buttocks were sleek; her bosom was splendid, and her face was a mask of marmoreal disdain for the stares which were focused upon her. She wore a striking skin-tight gown of purple and green, along with a tall conical cloth-of-gold turban. “Could that be his wife, the Princess of the Dawn, from Marmone?”

“I don’t think so,” said Althea, “but I can’t be sure. Whoever she is, how can he afford her? I thought he was in deep financial trouble.”

“It’s a mystery to me. At any rate, I don’t think she’s a Clam Muffin.”

Laurz Mur appeared on the platform once again. “Time presses and we are running just an iota late. Without further ado I will introduce our next speaker: a scholar of impeccable credentials, the Honorable Kyril Hape.”

Up to the podium stepped a tall man with a beak of a nose, fierce black eyes, a shock of white hair. Laurz Mur spoke further, describing Hape as a man whom he himself had revered almost since childhood; he was a linguist preeminent in the field, originally from Old Earth, now resident at the site of certain intriguing ruins, whose location he was not yet ready to reveal.

Mur relinquished the podium to Hape who described his efforts to translate the inscriptions on a set of eighty-five iridium alloy sheets, discovered in a shallow cave near his camp. His recital was essentially a tale of incessant efforts to wring meaning from the incomprehensible markings. He told of the various artifices, techniques and tests he had used over the years—all to the same effect. As he finished, he glanced toward Laurz Mur. “I suppose that by local standards I have earned for myself a very lowly and rather sordid tamsour.” He spoke with a grim smile. “I am sure that I am using the word incorrectly, but no matter. I have devoted many years to these inscriptions, and I have nothing whatever to show for my work: not even a pension from my university. They discharged me from their faculty over ten years ago. Still, I will scratch by, one way or another. It may even surprise you to learn that I have several new approaches I am desperately anxious to apply to the cursed inscriptions, and I can hardly wait to return to my office. I do not truly know whether I have been cheated by the cosmos or not.

“I might point out that, over yonder, as smug as ever and no doubt as erroneous as ever in his theories, sits Clois Hutsenreiter. I worked with him once and even the laborers called him ‘Careless Clois,’ and every night they would take away his money at some gambling game. Since then he has mended his fortunes, and has become Dean at an institute of higher learning. How did ‘Careless Clois’ achieve this office? By assiduous proctosculation, so I am told. Also, he married a deluded heiress without informing her of a previous—”

Dean Hutsenreiter jumped to his feet and called: “Where is the monitor of ceremonies? How long will he tolerate this insane rhodomontade? We hear the warblings of a madman; can we find no surcease? Monitor, do your duty, if you please! Exclude this demon of verbal turpitude!”

Laurz Mur stepped forward and with great sangfroid urged Kyril Hape to step down from the podium, or at least modify the tenor of his address. Hape protested that he wished to recount several other anecdotes of possible interest to the audience. He cried out: “This afternoon you will hear ‘Careless Clois’ as he attempts to refute my remarks. Be warned! You will hear sophistry and innuendo!”

Laurz Mur gave a meaningful signal.

Kyril Hake said, “I see that time is of the essence and I must terminate my remarks. I can only suggest that you hold tight to your purses when Clois is near, and lend him no money. Alas! My lifetime has come and gone! Unless in my last golden years I decipher the plaques, my career will lack distinction. I will mention in passing that I suspect Clois Hutsenreiter of fabricating these selfsame plaques and hiding them where he knew I would find them. Is he innocent or guilty of this crime? Look at his face now; you will see that he is smiling very broadly. It is not the limpid smile of innocence.

“That, ladies and gentlemen, concludes my remarks.”

Kyril Hake bowed to Laurz Mur and stepped down from the platform, to the accompaniment of applause from the audience.

Hilyer muttered to Althea: “A most unconventional address!”

Althea nodded. “Unconventional or not. Dean Hutsenreiter showed little enthusiasm.”

Laurz Mur spoke. “Next you will hear the remarks of Professor Hilyer Fath, from Thanet Institute, at Thanet on Gallingale. His topic, so I understand, is ‘Aspects of Aesthetic Symbology.’ ”

Hilyer marched to the speaker’s platform. Ordinarily, he was comfortable with such occasions; today. Dean Hutsenreiter sat in the audience. Hilyer squared his shoulders. There was no help for it. To avoid being distracted from the substance of his remarks; Hilyer must keep his eyes averted from the Dean whose eyes glowered from beneath the brim of his eccentric scarlet hat.

“My subject is vast,” said Hilyer. “However, it is coherent and universally consistent. I for one would reject the constraints Sir Wilfred Voskovy would impose in the name of manageability. After all, where is the harm in superabundance? If you are invited to a banquet, you denounce not too much fine food, but its absence. Let us continue to celebrate the delectable crime of gluttony, with no thought for the hollow-eyed vegetarian who glares at us so enviously. Is it not plain then? Sir Wilfred must search for a new credo. ‘Abundance,’ ‘Plethora,’ ‘Diversity’—these are the sign-posts pointing the way to a fine ‘tamsour,’ to use, or perhaps misuse, one of the peculiar local concepts. So much having been said, I take up my principal theme.

“Time is short and my scope is limitless; I will tell you only a few descriptive anecdotes. They will be both brief and to the point, since my subject, to be well and truly comprehended, requires an emotive perception of the symbols under consideration. I emphasize that every separate symbology requires an enormous and extremely subtle study. I am sadly amused by persons who pretend to chic or avant-garde status by feigning enjoyment of the music of a culture different from their own. By so doing they instantly brand themselves as poseurs.

“Still, it is possible to perceive the symbols without understanding their emotive force. There is, in fact, an intellectual satisfaction in simply recognizing the patterns. Often, I even think that I enjoy the music, though surely it is for the wrong reasons. Musical symbology must be imbibed with the mother’s milk and the mother’s voice and the sounds of the native homestead.

“My field is therefore doubly complex, since any study of a music must entail analysis of the society from which the symbology has sprung. The analyst will find fascinating correspondences which link the musical symbology with other aspects of the matrix. For instance—” Hilyer mentioned several societies, described their somatypes and typical costumes and played representative segments of each society’s music. “You must listen closely. For each society I play first festive music, then music of circumstance, then funeral music. You will note interesting differences and interesting correspondences.”

So went Hilyer’s presentation. He finished with the statement: “Aesthetic symbology, naturally, is not confined to music, though it is perhaps most accessible for study. Other systems are more complex and more ambiguous. The concepts may also be contradictory. I warn my students that if they hope to impose absolutes upon aesthetic symbology, he or she had better turn to a more malleable study.”

Hilyer returned to his seat. Althea assured him that his remarks had nicely engaged the interest of the audience, and that even Dean Hutsenreiter had muttered what appeared to be grudging praise to his companion. “And now, if you are of a mind, I think I’d just as soon adjourn for a time.”

“ ‘Adjourn’? You mean, ‘leave the hall’?” Hilyer was surprised. “Whatever for? The session still has an hour to run.”

Althea grimaced. “So it does, but I have already heard too much of urgencies and moods and transferences. Perhaps I too am a borderline ‘sensitive,’ or whatever such folk are called.”

Hilyer looked dubiously to right and left. “You go if you like. I’d feel conspicuous if I went now.”

Althea subsided into her seat. “I’ll wait. But let’s leave as soon as possible.”

Hilyer agreed and Althea reluctantly composed herself.

Laurz Mur introduced Dame Julia Neep, who discussed a topic which she called “Sick Societies.” Before embarking upon her topic she also took time to refute Sir Wilfred for his proposals. “Like Hilyer Fath, I deplore this sort of dreary pessimism. If we took Sir Wilfred seriously, we would terminate the conclave at this very instant and all go home, resign our places of honor and spend the rest of our lives in vegetarianism and apathy. I, for one, refuse to do so. Now then, some of you may be thinking that my topic ‘Sick Societies’ is no less grim and portentous than that of Sir Wilfred’s topic. Already my presentation has been called: ‘Dame Neep’s Brief Introduction to Eschatology.’ This, of course, is a canard. For every ‘sick society,’ dozens are healthy, where anything and everything may and probably does happen. Still, this is no reason for us to throw our hands in the air, cry havoc, and pull the coverlets over our heads.” She frowned down at the florid man in the first row, who had jumped to his feet. “Well, sir?”

“You are addressing a literate audience. If your scholarship is as muddled as your metaphors, we are in for a painful morning.” He bowed curtly and resumed his seat.

Dame Neep examined him for a moment, then said, “My topic is ‘Sick Societies’ and you will serve very nicely as a case study. Do you care to step up on the podium and submit to my examination?”

“Certainly not!” said the man stiffly. “Not unless first you step down here and submit to my own examination.”

Dame Neep proceeded with her topic, describing the characteristics of a sick society: its symptoms, maturity, decline and ultimate decay. “The superficial indications are by no means consistent. For instance, a static society need not be sick, if it is challenged by its environment. A society with disparities in privileges or wealth may be healthy if upward mobility is possible. The same society is sick if there is no such mobility, while rewards and perquisites are given to drones and parasites. Isolated societies may well become strange and queer, but not necessarily sick; their risk is great, however, since they receive no corrective criticism; they are not aware of what might be a morbid degeneracy. Isolated societies are almost inevitably doomed to decay. Sacerdotal, religious or priest-dominated societies are like organisms with a cancer.”

Dame Neep briefly developed her concepts, took some questions from the audience, then left the podium.

Laurz Mur stepped forward, now wearing a conical hat of black velvet which accentuated the elegant pallor of his face.

“I wish to thank Dame Neep for her cogent remarks. I see that the time is verging toward that hour which we had stipulated for recess. We shall try to meet this schedule.” A prim little smile appeared upon his face. “On Ushant we cite the dictum: ‘All events must obey their imperatives.’ So then—while the time is brief, only about six minutes, it will suffice for my own short presentation, which I was too modest to include upon the official calendar.

“The truth is, that in my own personal style, I too am a sociologist of a stature, so I believe, equivalent to your own. I make this assertion without embarrassment. ‘Ah!’ you cry out in wonder, and you whisper back and forth: ‘In which field does Sir Laurz so quietly excel?’ ” Laurz Mur gave his head a sad shake. “It is a complex story, too detailed for the time available to us. Suffice it to say that my papers, embodying truly novel concepts, have never been published, and the propositions which should have gained universal currency, have gone unheard, wasted, like so much trash. I have toiled like the fabulous Heracles against this shame; I have submitted my papers to every organ of intellectual broadcast I could discover. Unanimously they refused to cope with the novelty of my ideas. That is the gist of the story, and though saddened, I will not complain. Instead, I have organized this conclave, where I can take a moment or so to express my views.

“This gathering includes the top skim of social anthropologists and savants of related sciences from across the Gaean Reach. Indeed, there is not one of you who has not published on Old Earth, and this of course is the touchstone of achievement. I congratulate you all, and, so saying, I request a brief period of your attention—now only three minutes until recess—to a truncated exposition of my views. And why should you not? You are here by my invitation and through the intricacy of my arrangements. When foundation funding was inadequate, I made up the shortfall from my private purse. So, as you see, I have committed a great deal of myself to the success of this conclave.