Night Lamp (29 page)

“Perhaps so,” said Maihac. “But I have another, which you might like to hear.”

“Of course!”

“If you moved the spaceport to Romarth, you defeat all your problems at once.”

Bariano nodded. “This scheme, like the first, is marked by its noble simplicity. Still, it has already occurred to us and has long been rejected, for a fundamental reason.”

“What is the reason?”

“In three words: we want to insulate Romarth from the Gaean Reach. Our ancestors traveled as far as they could, out of the galaxy, across the void to the star Night Lamp. Isolation was the guiding principle then, at the dawn of our history, as it is now in the sad glory of our sunset.”

Maihac ruminated for a time, then asked, “Is the mood at Romarth so generally melancholy?”

Bariano chuckled sourly. “Do I seem so dreary? Remember that I have just completed a term of punitive meditation at Flad, and I have become dour. But I am not the typical Roum cavalier,
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who fends aside unpleasant ideas as if they were symptoms of leprosy. He builds his world and his perceptions in the context of his rashudo. He fixes all his attention upon the instant, which of course is sensible. There is no need for panic; imminence does not hang in the air, and the tragic grandeur of Romarth exalts the spirit. Still, the facts are dismal. The population is declining; half of the wonderful palaces are empty, home to the horrid creatures we call ‘white houseghouls.’ In two hundred years—perhaps more, perhaps less—all of the palaces will be empty and the Roum will be gone, except for a belated straggler wandering the lonely avenues, and the only sounds will be the padding of the houseghouls as they prowl the moonlit halls of old Romarth.”

“It is a cheerless prospect.”

“True, but we dismiss such thoughts with cool bravado and focus upon the arts of living. We are anxious to wring the last drop of sentience from every instant of life. Do not think us hedonists or sybarites, even though toil and drudgery are absent from our lives. We devote ourselves to the joys of grace, beauty, and creativity, all of which are controlled by strict conventions, along with much else. My disposition has always been restless and skeptical, and these traits have not served me well. At a symposium, I declared that modern efforts to create beauty were trivial and repetitive; I stated that everything significant had been done a hundred times over. My opinions were held to be pernicious. I was sent to Flad that I might revise my thinking.”

“And you made the adjustment?”

“Naturally. In the future I will keep my opinions to myself. The fabric of life at Romarth is delicate. Even my petty perturbations strain the social accord. If the spaceport were situated at Romarth, we would be exposed to a never-ending flux of novelty and contradiction; perhaps cruise ships would come and go, bringing hundreds of tourists to stroll our promenades, convert our old palaces into hotels, to sit at cafés around the beautiful Gamboye Plaza and Lallakillany Circus. The spaceport remains at Flad. We are spared the miseries of social infection.”

“You might be losing more than you gain,” said Maihac. “The Reach is diverse. Have you thought to go out from Fader and explore other worlds?”

Bariano found the idea amusing. “We all must deal with reckless impulses from time to time. Wanderlust is a basic urge. Still, there are practical reasons why we seldom travel. We are a fastidious folk. Proper food and lodging are priced beyond our means to pay. We are not interested in picturesque squalor. We cannot abide dirt or tainted food or foul accommodations. We don’t care to ride public transport among crowds of ill-smelling natives. Since suitable facilities command excessive prices, we prefer to remain at home.”

“I must disabuse you,” said Maihac. “Your fears are exaggerated. I agree that when you travel, you must take the bad with the good; everyone knows this. But the good, or at least the decent, is far more common and not hard to find. You need only take local advice.”

Bariano said somberly, “So it may be, but these practical problems are simply too large to be solved. We can count on very little off-world income, since our exports barely pay for our imports. The surplus in Gaean sols is limited. Even if we wanted to travel off-world, we lack the sols to take us past Loorie.”

Maihac reflected. “Lorquin Agency negotiates both imports and exports?”

“True. There is usually a profit, which is deposited to our individual accounts at the Natural Bank at Loorie, where the accounts earn interest. Even so, they never amount to much; certainly not enough to take us away on a grand tour of the Gaean Reach.”

“In spite of all this, does anyone ever take the risk and go traveling?”

“Seldom. I have known two gentlemen who chose to wander. They traveled to Loorie, withdrew their funds from the Natural Bank; they took passage to unknown worlds of the Reach, and never returned. There were no messages. It was as if they were lost in an ocean of ten trillion faceless souls. No one wishes to share their fate.”

An hour later Maihac noted another group of Loklor, standing on the round swell of a sand dune, silhouetted against the sky. They watched stolidly as the train passed, apparently indifferent to the prospect of Nacnoc.

Bariano could not account for their seeming lassitude, except to remark that all Loklor were unpredictable. “These are Golks—probably as wicked and weird as the Strenke.”

Maihac asked, “How can you distinguish one Loklor from another?”

“In the case of the Golks, it’s simple enough. The Golk women weave a cloth from eel-grass. If you will notice, these bucks wear skirts of the stuff, rather than leather aprons.”

Maihac saw that, for a fact, the massive haunches were wrapped in clay-colored kirtles, leaving the saffron russet chest bare. He watched until the Golks could no longer be seen, then turned back to Bariano. “Are they intelligent?”

“After a fashion. At times they seem quite cunning, and I must say that they have a ghastly sense of humor.”

“Are they to be considered human?”

“To answer that question I would need to describe their origin. It’s a complicated story, but I’ll be brief”

“Speak on!” said Maihac. “I’ve nothing better to do.”

“Very well. We go back about five thousand years. The first settlers included a group of idealistic biologists, who tried to create strains of specialized workers. Their best success was the Seishanee. Their most awful failure turned out to be the Loklor. That is the story in its most abbreviated form. In short, the Loklor are not so much a human variation as a human deviation. They approximate humanity much as a nightmare approximates a birthday party.”

Shortly after noon the train approached a tall dark forest, which Bariano identified as the Blandy Deep, marking the limits of the Tangtsang Steppe. An hour later the train halted beside the Skein River, near a dock at which a massive barge lay at moorings. The barge was constructed of a dense glossy black wood, to standards of craftsmanship Maihac thought remarkably rich and exact. From a bluff bow the hull swelled to an almost voluptuous mid-section, then faired with the grace of a resolving chord to the hill transom, which was broken by six mullioned windows. The forepeak, deckhouse and sterncastle, in the same manner, were conceived and crafted to standards of baroque elegance; at bow and stern, stanchions supported heavy lanterns formed of black iron and colored glass.

Passengers boarded the vessel and were taken to cabins in the deckhouse. Lines were cast off; the barge drifted away downstream. After a quarter mile, the Skein veered to enter the Blandy Deep, and henceforth the barge moved through the somber shadows of the forest.

Days and nights passed. The river ran smooth and easy, curving this way and that, under the spread of high foliage.

Silence was absolute, save for the purl of water under the hull. At night a pair of large moons cast a serene light through the foliage in a manner which Maihac found almost dreamlike in its effect. He said as much to Bariano, who responded with a condescending shrug. “I am surprised to find you so enthusiastic. It is, after all, a mere trick of nature.”

Maihac looked at Bariano quizzically. “I am puzzled to find you so insensitive.”

Bariano was never pleased when Maihac’s opinions differed from his own. “To the contrary! It is you who lack aesthetic discrimination! But why should I be surprised? As an off-worlder you cannot be expected to share the Roum delicacy of perception.”

“I am confused, certainly,” said Maihac. “The leaps and bounds of your thinking have left me far behind, like a spotted hound chasing a coach through the dust.”

Bariano smiled a cool smile. “If I am to correct you, I must speak without euphemism, but do not take offense!”

“Speak freely,” said Maihac. “You might tell me something I don’t know.”

“Very well. It is simply that your aesthetic judgments are amorphous. It is naive to detect beauty where none has been specifically intended. The subject is large. Often you will notice an agreeable aspect of nature, effected by random or mathematical processes. It may be serene and congenial, but it is the work of chance and lacks the human afflatus. There is no pulse of positive creativity to infuse it with true beauty.”

Maihac was taken aback by the uncompromising sweep of Bariano’s analysis. He said cautiously, “You make very narrow distinctions.”

“Of course! That is the nature of clear thinking.”

Maihac pointed ahead to where the moonlight, filtering through the foliage, cast a filigree of silver light and black shade upon the dark water. “Don’t you find that a pretty effect? Deserving, at least, of notice?”

“The scene is not without charm, but your mental processes are untidy. Surely you will notice that the scene lacks conceptual integrity. It is chaos; it is abstraction; it is nothing!”

“Still, it evokes a mood. Isn’t this the function of beauty?”

Maihac pointed ahead to where the moonlight, filtering through the foliage, cast a filigree of silver light and black shade upon the dark water. “Don’t you find that a pretty effect? Deserving, at least, of notice?”

“The scene is not without charm, but your mental processes are untidy. Surely you will notice that the scene lacks conceptual integrity. It is chaos; it is abstraction; it is nothing!”

“Still, it evokes a mood. Isn’t this the function of beauty?”

“Just so,” said Bariano with equanimity. “But let me cite you a parable, or, if you prefer, a paradox. Assume that you are lying in bed asleep. Your dreaming brings you into the company of an alluring woman who starts to make exciting suggestions. At this moment a large dirty pet animal clambers upon the bed, and sprawls its hairy bulk beside you with its tail draped over your forehead. You move restlessly in your sleep and in so doing press your face against one of its organs. In your dream it seems that the beautiful woman is kissing you with warm moist lips, causing a delightful sensation. You are thrilled and exalted! Then you wake up and discover the truth of the contact, and you are displeased. Now then: consider carefully! Should you enjoy the rapture of the dream? Or, after beating the animal, should you huddle cheerlessly in the dark brooding upon the event? Arguments can be developed in either direction. If you wish, I will apply some of these arguments to our previous discussion.”

“No, thank you,” said Maihac. “You have said enough. In the future, whenever I seem to be enjoying anything in my sleep, I will make sure of its reality.”

“A wise precaution,” murmured Bariano.

Maihac said no more, aware that he would only reinforce Bariano’s theories in regard to denizens of the Gaean Reach.

Toward the middle of the third day, docks and rustic cottages began to appear along the riverside, then an occasional mansion surrounded by old gardens. Some of the structures were almost palatial; some were old, some were very old and some were in a state of decay. From time to time Maihac glimpsed folk in the gardens. They moved with easy languor, as if enjoying the quiet of the forest.

Bariano commented, “This is not the season for rustification, although many houses are occupied all year round. When there are children in the family, this is often the case. See there: children are playing on the lawn.”

Maihac saw a pair of children running barefoot across the grass, dark hair flying. They wore knee-length smocks, one pale blue, the other gray-green. Maihac thought they seemed active and happy. Bariano said, “Out here they are safe, since houseghouls avoid the lonely forests.” A pair of gardeners worked with shears to clip a hedge. They were of no great stature, slight of physique, but deft and quick with the gardening implements. They were sallow tan; dust-colored hair hung in a fringe around regular, if rather bland, features. “Who might they be?” asked Maihac.

“They are Seishanee. They do the work which needs to be done, if the Roum are to maintain their way of life. They are indispensable to us. They cut the trees and saw the planks; they grow the grain and bake the bread; they repair the drains and mend the roofs. They are clean, docile and industrious. But they will not fight, and are useless against the Loklor or the night-folk, so the Roum cavaliers must unsheathe their swords and strike down the savages. Some say that it is too late. Every year the houseghouls occupy another of the old palaces.”

“Evidently you can’t find an effective way to deal with these things.”

“Correct,” said Bariano. “They infest the crypts beneath the palaces, and apparently they have dug a mesh of connecting tunnels. They are always at the back of our minds, and no one likes to walk alone by night.”

On the next morning the barge entered Romarth. The Skein curved past an ugly heavy-walled structure of brown brick, then slanted off to the northeast where the Blandy Deep trailed away to become, first, a savannah, then the Tangtsang Steppe.

The barge docked against the esplanade and the passengers alighted. Bariano pointed. “Yonder is the Colloquary, where the councils sit.” He hesitated, then said, “I will take you to where you should place your petition. You will get a hearing easily enough, but do not expect a quick disposition of your case, since you will be jostling many fixed opinions.”