Jack Vance - Ecce and Old Earth

“Of the Naturalist Society?" Keebles shook his head. “I thought the Naturalists were defunct.”

“Not quite. But you support Society goals?"

Keebles showed a thin smile. “Everyone is against sin. So who disagrees with the Naturalists?"

“No one, until he sees a chance for profit."

Keebles laughed soundlessly, in soft little pants. '"That is the rock which tears the bottom out of the boat."

“In any case, the society is trying to revive itself. Quite some time ago — and I think you know of this — a Secretary named Nisfit sold off all the Society archives and kept the money. The Society is trying to recover as many of the missing documents as possible, and wherever I go, I keep my eye open. Hence, when I learned that you were located here, I thought I would make some inquiries."

Keebles said indifferently, "All this is long ago and far away."

“According to Mrs. Chilke, Floyd Swaner sold a parcel of these documents to you. Are they still in your possession?"

"After all these years? “Keebles again gave his soft panting laugh. “Not very likely."

Glawen felt a pang of discouragement; he had been hoping against hope that Keebles might still possess the Grant and the Charter. "You have none of them whatever?"

"Not a one. Books and documents are not my line of work."

“What happened to the documents?"

'"They left my hands long ago."

"Do you know where they are now?"

Keebles shook his head. “I know to whom I sold them. What happened next I can’t even guess."

“Is it possible the buyer still has them in his possession?"

“Anything is possible."

“Well then, to whom did you sell them?"

Keebles, leaning back, put his feet on the desk. “We are now moving into the quiet area, where words are golden. This is where we take off our shoes and go on tiptoe."

“I’ve played such games before," said Glawen. "Someone has always stolen my shoes."

Keebles ignored the remark. “I am not wealthy, and information is my stock in trade. If you want it you must pay for it.”

''Words are cheap, “said Glawen. “Is your information worth anything? In short, what do you know?”

"I know to whom I traded the Naturalist documents, and I know where to find him now. That's the information you want, isn’t it? So what is it worth to you? Quite a bit, I should imagine.”

Glawen shook his head. “You are not being realistic. The Naturalists can't afford a large outlay, and I can't pay out money on speculation. The man might have disposed of the material long ago."

“Life is unpredictable, Mr. Clattuc. To gain something you must risk something.”

“A sensible man considers the odds. In this case, they are not good. Your friend might have sold the material long ago to someone he can't remember or, if he still owns it, he might refuse to let it go, for any number of reasons. In short, your information might earn me a small commission. More likely it will bring me nothing more than a wild goose chase."

“Bah," muttered Keebles. "You worry too much." He removed his feet from the desk and sat up in the chair. "Let's get down to brass tacks. What will you pay for the information?"

“'What information?” demanded Glawen. “I can't offer anything until I know what I'm getting. Telephone your friend and ask if he still owns everything you sold him, or whether he sold off any segment of the material, and if so, what. I will pay you five sols to make the call, and wait for the answer."

Keebles gave a roar of indignation. "The time I waste haggling with you is worth twice as much!"

"'Perhaps so, if you could find someone willing to pay."

Glawen laid five sols on the desk. “Make the call, get the facts, and we'll go on from there. Do you want me to wait in the outer office?"

“I can't call now” grumbled Keebles. “It's the wrong time of day.” He glanced at the wall clock. “Also, I have another appointment. Come back this evening, at sunset or a bit later. It still may not be a convenient hour to call, but nothing is convenient on this cursed world, and I still can't fathom the thirty-seven hour days."

Glawen walked back along Crippet Alley, pondering his interview with Melvish Keebles. Everything considered, the affair had gone about as well as could have been hoped, even though Keebles had left him in a state of nerve-wracking suspense.

Nonetheless, he had made progress, of a sort. Keebles had agreed to telephone the other party to the transaction, tacitly acknowledging the presence of this person upon Nion. Glawen wondered whether the admission had been an indiscretion which Keebles had regretted. If so, it indicated a carelessness which surely was not characteristic of Keebles. If not, the significance could only be that Keebles considered the business trivial, with little prospect of profit for himself and this seemed the most likely explanation. As for the other party to the transaction, it could hardly be anyone other than Keebles' long-time associate, now collecting tanglets out on the Plain of Standing Stones — a dangerous business, according to the woman who seemed to serve as Keebles' clerk, though perhaps she might be another of the wives he married so casually.

Crippet Alley expanded into a square, than narrowed again. More folk were abroad than before: for the most part the slight delicate-featured natives of Tanjaree, with here and there a man or a woman from one of the outer districts, of markedly different physiognomy and costume, in Tanjaree that they might visit the markets. No one paid Glawen the slightest heed; he might have been invisible for all the attention he aroused.

The long afternoon lay ahead. Glawen returned to the Novial Hotel. In the lobby the clerk leaned forward upon the counter. “The dining room is now prepared for the mid-afternoon service. Shall I announce that you will shortly be on hand to take your pold?”

Glawen stopped short. Mid-afternoon service? How many meals were consumed during the course of a thirty-seven hour day? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, mid-morning and mid-afternoon services, at the very least. What happened during the long hungry nineteen-hour nights? [8] Note: Among certain of Nion’s societies, including that centered upon Tanjaree, nocturnal meals, their content and degree of elaboration, were based upon phases and states of the moons. A person who ate the wrong sort of pold while, let us say, the moon Zosmei was on high would have committed a vulgar and laughable solecisms, so that forever after he would be known as a bumpkin. Glawen temporarily put the question from his mind. At the moment, he was hungry. “I doubt if I am ready for pold," he told the clerk. “Is standard cuisine available?”

“Naturally! A certain class of tourist will take nothing else, which is a pity, since pold gratifies, sustains and lubricates. It is wholesome and cannot be defeated. Still, you may eat as you like."

"In that case I will take the risk.”

In the restaurant Glawen was handed the Tourist's Menu, from which he made a selection. As an unsolicited side dish, he was served a slab of pale cream-yellow pold which, when he tasted it, yielded a bland nutty flavor. He found no incentive to linger in the dining room and as soon as possible went out upon the avenue. The time was still early afternoon. Pharisse seemed welded to a spot on the sky. To east and west the pale daylight moons eased unobtrusively along their tracks. Across the lake the domes and spires of Old Town shimmered its reflection on the surface of the water.

Glawen went to sit on a bench. The Plain of Standing Stones, according to Keebles' clerk, was halfway around the world. Noon at Tanjaree was midnight on the Plain of Standing Stones, and dusk, correspondingly, would be early morning, so that it became clear why Keebles felt impelled to delay his telephone call.