Night Lamp (36 page)

Rute picked up the papers and read. His eyebrows rose in amazement. “You can’t be serious!”

“How could we be anything else? You own the
Pharsang
Glitterway?”

“Of course I own the
Pharsang
. Is there some question as to this? I had it built by the Rialco Spaceyards at Murtsey to top specifications.”

“The point is not at issue. As you have noted, we wish to buy the
Pharsang
.”

Rute rapped Maihac’s documents contemptuously with the back of his hand. “That is sheer bullypup, and you are wasting my time. Let us get on with our business.”

“The
Pharsang
is our business,” said Maihac. “How much have you offered Jaro for Merriehew?”

“As you well know, the figure is thirty thousand sols. It is a generous offer and not negotiable; take it or leave it.”

“We will take it, right enough, so long as the two offers are accepted in tandem.”

“Come now, sir! Do not talk in riddles! There are no specifics to your offer; it is all a mare’s nest.”

“Listen then! Here are the specifics. We offer thirty thousand sols for the
Pharsang
Glitterway as part of a single negotiation.”

Rute looked at Maihac in stupefaction. “You are mad! The
Pharsang
would fetch two hundred thousand sols or more any day of the week!”

“We are flexible,” said Maihac. “If you want two hundred thousand sols for the
Pharsang
, the price for Merriehew becomes the same. Specify any figure you like. We need only fill out the blanks on the documents, sign them and the transaction is complete—a matter of five minutes.”

Rute jumped to his feet, face pink with rage. “This is a swindle, bald and outright. You barely make the effort to dissemble! You cannot do this to me; I am a man of high comporture, and I will not allow it!”

“Be reasonable,” said Maihac. “You have already spent a great deal of money on your Lumilar Vistas project; I have heard as high as half a million sols. This is money thrown away unless you secure title to Merriehew.”

Gilfong Rute, who had leaned forward with arm raised as if to pound the table, stopped short, fist in mid-air. “Where did you hear this figure? It is highly confidential!”

“So far as we are concerned, it will remain confidential. Now then: back to business. If you fail to take up Jaro’s offer, he will convert the house into a rustic tavern which should do very well. He will subdivide the back acreage into low-cost residential units, along with an asylum for the criminally insane.”

Rute only laughed. “You cannot flim-flam me so easily! On the other hand, I admit that I am not able to use the
Pharsang
as I had planned; still, you must come up with an extra hundred thousand sols.”

“That is not possible,” said Maihac. “We must make an even exchange, with the
Pharsang
in full operative condition, fully sound and provisioned, with fresh energy cans and new codes in all the synthesizers.”

“This is extortion!” declared Gilfong Rute. “Do you think me a fat goose hanging on a tree, ready to be plucked?”

“Not at all. But we can’t forget your attempts to swindle Jaro when you considered him a nimp and a witling.”

“That is a mistake I will not repeat,” grumbled Rute. “Well then, my time is valuable. Let us sign the documents and have an end to it. The Glitterway is yours.”

Rute signed the documents with a graceless flourish, then stood back and spoke in hollow triumph: “I lost my spaceyacht, but with the money I will make from Lumilar Vistas, I can buy twenty more, should the mood come on me. You could have held me up for double what you demanded.”

“No matter,” said Jaro. “We are not avaricious.”

Aboard the magnificent
Pharsang
Glitterway, Maihac could barely restrain his enthusiasm. “This is large enough to move passengers or freight,” he told Jaro. “In short, you have a source of income about like that of a full professor.”

“The Faths might not approve of the use to which I have put Merriehew,” said Jaro. “In any case, I owe them all my gratitude.”

Skirl asked, “So now, what are your plans?”

“First, a voyage to Camberwell, where I’ll try to search out my six lost years. After that, I can’t even speculate. But first things first. That means recruiting a crew.”

“I volunteer,” said Maihac. “You’re the captain. Gaing should make an excellent chief engineer, if the prospective voyage suits him.”

“It suits me very well,” said Gaing. “I would be unhappy if you kept me off the ship. I have been grounded far too long.”

“Gaing will be chief engineer and strategist. I will sign on as cook, roustabout, navigator, general dog’s-body.”

“We are still lacking a chief officer,” said Jaro. “We’ll want someone of exceptional abilities: resourceful, clever, kindly, with the soul of a vagabond. We’ll want a person of high status—even a Clam Muffin if we could find one. We may or may not be able to recruit a qualified person.”

Skirl asked hesitantly, “When are you taking applications?”

“Immediately.”

“I wish to apply.”

Jaro reached out, ruffled Skirl’s short dark curls. She ducked away, smoothed her hair with both hands.

“You are hired,” said Jaro.

“And my salary?”

“Not very much—about what you earn as an effectuator. If we put the
Pharsang
into commercial transport, we will share the profit.”

“Gaing and I have had experience in this line of work,” said Maihac. “It was a pleasant life—until we lost our ship on Fader. The episode taught us a lesson, and we will not make the same mistake again. Am I right on this, Gaing?”

“Those are my own feelings.”

Jaro turned to Skirl. “Does this arrangement suit you?”

“I couldn’t be more pleased.”

Maihac and Gaing remained aboard the
Pharsang
; Jaro and Skirl returned to Merriehew. They dined on what remained in the larder and drank the last flagon of Hilyer’s prized Estresas Valley wine, then went to stand by the fire. Outside a gentle rain began to fall. They spoke in soft voices, pausing often to reflect upon the extraordinary events, which in the end had brought them together. They stood close to one another. Jaro’s arm was around Skirl’s waist, and presently she reached out her own arm to hold him similarly. The conversation dwindled; each became increasingly conscious of the other’s nearness. Jaro swung about, drew Skirl close and they kissed each other—again and again. Finally they paused to catch their breath. Jaro asked, “Do you remember the first time I kissed you?”

“Of course! It was after you nipped my ear.”

“I think I loved you even then. It was a mysterious emotion, which puzzled me.”

“And I must have loved you, too—although at the time I wasn’t thinking clearly of such things. Still, I always noticed how handsome and clean you looked, as if you had been scrubbed thoroughly.”

“What strange lives we are leading!”

“If we go off on the
Pharsang
, our lives will be stranger yet.”

Jaro took her hand. “Something strange and wonderful is about to happen in the other room. I’m anxious to find out what.”

Skirl held back. “Jaro, I feel very odd. I think that I’m frightened.” Jaro bent his head and kissed her. She clung to him. “It isn’t fright after all,” said Skirl. “It’s something I’ve never felt before; I think it’s excitement.”

Jaro took her hand again and they left the room. The firelight moved among the shadows and set glimmers of orange light moving among the shapes of Althea’s candelabra. The room was silent save for the sound of the rain against the windows.

The
Pharsang
approached the world Camberwell, descended upon the city Tanzig and landed at the spaceport. The four members of the crew sealed the ship, passed through the terminal and stepped out into the cool air of Tanzig. Before them an avenue led into the disheveled old town with its cocked roofs and twisted clapboard siding. In the distance, dominating the city like three colossi, half-obscured by haze, stood the triple monument to the ‘Delineator of Boons and Retributions’—one of the many sobriquets attached to the legendary magistrate.

Upon leaving the terminal, Jaro slowed his steps, aware of something stirring in his memory—a subconscious resonance, faint and fugitive, dying even as he tried to identify it. What could it be? The dank feel of the atmosphere? The hazy distances? The skyline of crooked roofs, angular and crotchety? The camphorous tang from the warped clapboards which sheathed all the structures of Tanzig? It was, for a fact, an odor hauntingly familiar.

Jaro noticed Skirl watching him. He liked to think of himself as stoic and impenetrable, but Skirl had become uncannily sensitive to the shift of his moods. Jaro sometimes felt that she knew more about him than he did himself. Skirl now asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“There was something. Your face changed even while I was watching you.”

Jaro showed a faint smile. “There is an old word: ‘frisson.’ I don’t know if I’m using the word correctly, but I think that’s what I was feeling.”

“Really? I’ve never heard of it before. What does it feel like?”

“Something like a quick cold shiver at the back of your neck.”

“Odd,” Skirl mused. “I felt nothing like that.”

“Of course not! Why should you?”

“Because sometimes I feel exactly what you are feeling. We probably have a telepathic link.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

The four rode an open-sided omnibus into the center of town, where an old woman gliding along the sidewalk on slip-boards directed them to the Bureau of Public Records. For two hours they searched musty files and handwritten directories, but discovered no mention of either Jamiel or her child.

They returned to the
Pharsang
. Gaing and Maihac unshipped the flitter; all climbed aboard. Taking to the air, the flitter flew off to the east, in the direction of Sronk. They passed across tracts of drab farmland, watermeadows grown over with thickets of tall cane, a village of small clapboard houses under crooked roofs. The Wyching Hills rose ahead: a tumble of tawny slopes, gullies, and smooth round ridges. Out to the horizon and beyond spread Wildenberry Steppe, with a few isolated farms occupying the strip between hills and steppe. A road led south to a small town: Sronk, according to the map.

The flitter crossed the hills, turned south, followed the road to Sronk and landed on a flat area to the side of the town square. The four passengers alighted and made a survey, discovering little of interest. In answer to Jaro’s question, a passerby pointed out the Municipal Clinic, which unlike other structures of Sronk was built, not of warped clapboard under double—and triple-tiled roofs, but of rock-melt blocks with a flat roof of gray sinter. Jaro studied the building with interest, but nothing surfaced in his memory. On his previous visit, he probably had been more dead than alive.

Doctor Fexel was still in residence, and immediately recalled dealing with Jaro’s battered body. “I remember thinking—idly, of course—that Jaro would make a splendid specimen for my anatomy classroom, since he demonstrated every trauma known to the textbooks.”

Skirl patted Jaro’s shoulder with a proprietary air. “He has survived rather nicely, don’t you think?”

Fexel agreed enthusiastically. “It is a tribute both to modern medicine and to the skill of Doctor Solek and myself. Now that I think of it. Doctor Myrrle Wanish probably did the most to keep you in one piece, since you were determined to destroy yourself with spasms of utter hysteria. They were truly unbelievable—absolute paroxysms of fright and rage! Have you ever discovered the reason for such racking conduct?”

“No,” said Jaro. “It remains a mystery.”

“Most extraordinary! Let me see if I can raise Doctor Wanish. He’ll be at his office in Tanzig, and I’m sure he’d like to speak with you. Fexel worked at his communicator. He spoke a few words, and Wanish’s bearded face appeared on the screen. Fexel introduced Jaro, and Wanish instantly became interested. I recall your case distinctly. It was necessary to modify your memory; you were recalling something extremely traumatic and the reaction was killing you.”

Jaro shuddered. “I’m almost afraid to learn what happened.”

“You still know nothing of your early life?”

“Not very much. In fact, that is why we are here.”

“Your memory shows no sign of seeping back?”

“Not really. At times I glimpse one or two images; they are always the same. Sometimes I seem to hear my mother’s voice, though I can’t understand the words.”

“It’s possible that the broken matrices are trying to reform. Don’t be surprised if a few recollections do come back.”

“Can you do anything to facilitate this?”

Wanish reflected a moment then said, “I’m afraid not. Here’s another point to consider. If your memory returned, you might not like what you discovered.”

“Even so, I’d like to know the facts.”

Doctor Wanish became brisk. “It has been a pleasure speaking with you. I wish you good luck in your ventures.”

“Thank you.”

The four returned to the flitter. Once aloft, they followed the road north, moving slowly at an altitude of two hundred feet, with Wildenberry Steppe to the right and the Wyching Hills to the left. Five miles along the road, Jaro became tense. This was where he had known fear and pain. The sensation became ever stronger, as if memory were clotting upon the broken matrices, making it vivid. Almost he could feel the heat of the sun on his bare skin, the gravel abrading his knees, the jubilant shouts of the shapes standing above him, their sticks beating down: thud! thud! thud!

Jaro pointed to a place on the road. “There. That is where it happened.”

Maihac landed the flitter; they alighted blinking and squinting against the brightness of the day. Sunlight beat down upon their heads. To the west hills showed the color of dead jointgrass.

Jaro walked a few paces along the road, then halted. “It was here that the Faths found me. I can feel it! The air seems to vibrate.”

“And how did you come to be here?”

Jaro pointed. “From over the hills. There was a river, a thicket of reeds, an old yellow house.” Jaro thought back across the years. “Through the window we could see a man standing against the twilight. His eyes seemed to glint with four-pointed stars. I became frightened. My mother was frightened. There was confusion; something happened; she told me something. I can almost remember.” Jaro squinted toward the hills. “She—I think that she must have put me into a boat.” He stopped short. “No, that’s not what happened. I went down to the boat by myself—alone. She was already dead. Still, I floated away in a boat. And the next thing I knew I was swimming through the dark. After that—nothing.”

Skirl touched Jaro’s arm. “Look.”

A few hundred feet down the road stood a trio of squat young peasants, eyes small and black in moony faces. They gave no signal of greeting, and stared with impersonal curiosity. Skirl said softly: “These might have been the persons who beat you.”

“They are about the right age,” said Jaro tonelessly.

“Aren’t you angry with them?”

“Very angry. But I don’t think I’ll do anything about it.”

Maihac strolled down the road and spoke to the men. They responded with exaggerated deference, more mocking than real. Maihac returned. “They say they don’t remember the episode. But they are lying—not out of fear, but for the sheer enjoyment of misleading an off-worlder. It’s common enough.”

“There’s nothing to be learned here,” said Jaro.

The flitter took to the air, and heading west once more crossed the Wyching Hills. A river flowing from the west reached the base of the hills, where it swung north to disappear at last into the haze. Five miles upstream a small town appeared near the river: Point Extase, according to the map, with a population of four thousand. Its structures, like those of Tanzig and Sronk, were built of warped clapboard, painted in any one of a hundred soft colors. Many of the houses were old and dilapidated; all had a rumpled look, and wore their roofs askew, like the hats of drunken old harridans.

The town was separated from the river by a strip of marshy wasteland, overgrown in part by dense stands of tall bamboo. The flitter slid around the outskirts of the town, with Jaro scanning the area below. “I don’t see anything familiar yet,” he told the others. “Let’s get closer to the river.”

The flitter swung away from the town and flew over the strip of wasteland beside the river. From the corner of his eye Jaro noticed an old yellow house. He pointed. “That is the place. I am sure of it!”

The flitter landed to the side of the house. The four stepped down to the ground. The house had long been abandoned; windows were broken; at the back of the porch a board had been nailed across the door. Old yellow paint flaked from the punkwood clapboard. At either side, weeds grew rank.

Jaro studied the house for a moment, then slowly approached. The others stood back, in unspoken accord that Jaro should explore the premises before others came on the scene and altered his perceptions.

Jaro, oblivious to everything but what was in his own mind, stepped upon the porch, tugged at the board which had been nailed across the doorway and pulled it loose. He pushed at the door; creaking and groaning, it swung open, revealing a long narrow hall. Jaro entered, then turned aside into the front room. How small everything seemed! Odd! He stood looking about the dusty spaces and despite all his resolves, could not avoid a wave of melancholy: impossible not to grieve for what had once been dear and now was gone.

Something else inhabited the room—something heavy, baleful, inert. Jaro’s pulse began to pound. He searched the shadows, but saw nothing to alarm him, and heard not so much as a whisper. He stood pondering, allowing one idea to lead into another. By degrees insight came to him. He could find nothing, because nothing was there. The pressure originated in his own brain, from vestigial memories scattered and left behind, after the therapy of Dr. Wanish. Jaro thought that if this were a hint of what lay latent in his mind, he would instantly stop brooding over the past.

The thought acted like a relief valve; the pressure, whatever its source, drained from the room. Jaro gave a wry, rather unnatural, chuckle; he was thinking wild thoughts, quite bereft of coherent logic. He began to mutter: “I am here, not by chance, nor by desire, nor by force. I am here because this is the way things must be. If I had not come by one route, 1 would have come by another. Now where did I get that idea? It is not altogether sensible. I am here—but why? Something is stirring.”

Jaro stood like a somnambulist. Present time had become amorphous. He looked down a tunnel of time. He saw the yellow house; the door was open. He heard a voice, which he knew to be the voice of his mother. She stood before him; he could feel her nearness but he could not see her face. She was speaking to him. “Jaro, time is short; I have put all my loving strength into making myself known to you! I will print these words into your brain, by what is called hypnotic suggestion. You will never forget what I say, but it will come clear only when you return here, to this dreadful place. For me the end of time has come! I have commanded you to take the black box and hide it in your secret den. When you come back, go to recover the box. Then obey the instructions you will find inside. I place this charge upon you because your father is dead. His name was Tawn Maihac; be faithful.”

Jaro heard his own voice, hoarse and faint as if coming from a great distance: “I will be faithful.” He paused to listen. There was only silence, heavy and thick. He felt himself drifting, though where he could not decide, since all directions were the same. His vision blurred; he could no longer see the yellow house with the open door. The tunnel of time became a wisp and was gone.

Someone was calling his name. Jaro began to breathe again; how long had he stood in a daze? He turned his head, to find Skirl standing beside him, tugging at his arm and looking anxiously up into his face.

“Jaro! Why are you so strange? Are you ill, or faint? I’ve been calling you! You would not answer!”

Jaro drew another deep breath. “I’m not sure what came over me. I thought I heard my mother’s voice.”

Skirl looked nervously around the room. “Come; let’s go outside. I don’t like this place.”

They returned into the open. Maihac asked: “What happened?”

Jaro tried to put his thoughts into order. “I don’t really know—except that I thought I heard my mother’s voice.”

Maihac looked at him with eyebrows raised. After a pause he said, “How do you know it was your mother? What I mean is, did the voice identify itself?”

“Yes,” said Jaro. “The voice identified itself. It mentioned hypnotic suggestion, so we need not look for a ghost.”

“So what was the message? I assume it was comprehensible.”

“I understood everything. She told me that you were dead, and that there was something I must do.”

“And what was that?”

Jaro stood thinking. After a moment he set off around the house, pausing every three or four steps to survey the surroundings. Suddenly he became assured, and ran to a tumble of stones, perhaps once a kennel or a small shed, now overgrown with red lichen and black puffwort. Jaro dropped to his knees and pulled stones to one side. Presently he opened a dark hole, which he enlarged by moving aside more stones. He reached into the hole and groped, but without success. He removed more stones, then, dropping flat, he crawled into the opening, twisted on his side, and felt along an overhead ledge. Triumph! He backed out of the hole, holding a flat black box.

Jaro pulled himself to his feet and looked around him, into the faces of his companions. “I’ve found it, where she told me to put it!”