Jack Vance: The Houses of Iszm

The voice spoke on. Simulacra of the Anderviews and Paul Bengston appeared.

Farr clicked off the screen and pushed the table back into the wall. Rising to his feet, he went to look out over the city. It was urgent. He must see Penche.

From the Size 2 cupboard he selected underwear, a suit of pale blue fiber, fresh sandals. As he dressed he planned out his day. First, of course, Penche… Farr frowned and paused in the buckling of his sandals. What should he tell Penche? Come to think of it, why would Penche worry about his troubles? What could Penche do? His monopoly stemmed from the Iszic; he would hardly risk antagonizing them.

Farr took a deep breath and shrugged aside these annoying speculations. It was illogical, but quite definitely the right place to go. He was sure of this; he felt it in his bones.

He finished dressing, went to the stereoscreen, and dialed the office of K. Penche. Penche’s symbol appeared—a conventionalized Iszic house, with vertical bars of heavy type, reading K. Penche—Houses . Farr had not touched the scanning button, and his own image did not cross to Penche’s office, an act of instinctive caution.

A female voice said, “K. Penche Enterprises.”

“This is—” Farr hesitated and withheld his name. “Connect me to Mr. Penche.”

“Who is speaking?”

“My name is confidential.”

“What is your business, please?”

“Confidential.”

“I’ll connect you to Mr. Penche’s secretary.”

The secretary’s image appeared—a young woman of languid charm. Farr repeated his request. The secretary looked at the screen. “Send over your image, please.”

“No,” said Farr. “Connect me with Mr. Penche—I’ll talk directly to him.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” said the secretary. “Quite contrary to our office procedure.”

“Tell Mr. Penche that I have just arrived from Iszm on the Andrei Sitnic .”

The secretary turned and spoke into a mesh. After a second her face melted and the screen filled with the face of K. Penche. It was a massive, powerful face, like a piece of heavy machinery. The eyes burned from deep rectangular sockets, bars of muscles clamped his mouth. The eyebrows rose in a sardonic arch; the expression was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

“Who’s speaking?” asked K. Penche.

Words rose up through Farr’s brain like bubbles from the bottom of a dark vat. They were words he had never intended to say. “I’ve come from Iszm; I’ve got it.” Farr heard himself in amazement. The words came again. “I’ve come from Iszm…” He clamped his teeth and refused to vocalize. The syllables bounced back from the barrier.

“Who is this? Where are you?”

Farr reached over, turned off the screen, and sank weakly back into his chair. What was going on? He had nothing for Penche. “Nothing” meant a female house, naturally. Farr might be naive but not to that degree. He had no house, seed, seedling or sapling.

Why did he want to see Penche? Pent-up common sense broke through to the top of his mind. Penche couldn’t help him… A voice from another part of his brain said, Penche knows the ropes, he’ll give you good advice… Well, yes, thought Farr weakly. This might be true enough.

Farr relaxed. Yes, of course—that was his motive.

But, on the other hand, Penche was a businessman dependent on the Iszic. If Farr were to go to anyone it should be to the police, to the Special Squad.

He sat back rubbing his chin. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to see the man, maybe get it off his chest.

Farr jumped to his feet in disgust. It was unreasonable. Why should he see Penche? Give him just one good reason… There was no reason whatever. He came to a definite decision: he would have nothing to do with Penche.

He left the room, descended to the main lobby of the Imperador, and crossed to the desk to cash a bank coupon. The coupon was screened to the bank; there would be a wait of a few seconds. Farr tapped his fingers on the counter impatiently. Beside him a burly frog-faced man argued with the clerk. He wanted to deliver a message to a guest, but the clerk was skeptical. The burly man began to bite off his words in anger; the clerk stood behind his glass bulwark, prim, fastidious, shaking his head. Serene in the strength given him by rules and regulations, he took pleasure in thwarting the large man.

“If you don’t know his name, how do you knew he’s at the Imperador?”

“I know he’s here,” said the man. “It’s important that he get this message.”

“It sounds very odd,” mused the clerk. “You don’t know what he looks like, you don’t know his name… You might easily deliver your message to the wrong party.”

“That’s my look-out!”

The clerk smilingly shook his head. “Apparently all you know is that he arrived at five this morning. We have several guests who came in at that time.”

Farr was counting his money; the conversation impinged on his consciousness. He loitered, adjusting the bills in his wallet.

“This man came in from space. He was just off the Andrei Simic . Now do you know who I mean?”

Farr moved away quietly. He knew quite clearly what had happened. Penche had been expecting the call; it was important to him. He had traced the connection to the Imperador, and had sent a man over to contact him. In a far corner of the room he watched the large man lurch away from the desk in rage. Farr knew he would try elsewhere. One of the bell-boys or a steward would get him his information for a fee.

Farr started out the door and turned to look back. A nondescript middle-aged woman was walking toward him. He happened to meet her eyes, she looked aside, faltered the smallest trifle in her step. Farr had already been keyed to suspicion, or he might not have noticed. The woman walked quickly past him, stepped on the exit-band, and was carried through the Imperador orchid garden and out upon Sunset Boulevard.

Farr followed, watching her melt into the crowds. He crossed to a traffic umbrella and took the left to the helicab deck. A cab stood empty beside the shelter. Farr jumped in and picked a destination at random. “Laguna Beach.”

The cab rose into the southbound level. Farr watched from the rear port. A cab bobbed up a hundred yards astern, followed.

Farr called to the driver, “Turn off to Riverside.” The cab behind turned.

Farr told his driver, “Put me down right here.”

“South Gate?” asked the driver, as if Farr were not in his right mind.

“South Gate.” Not too far from Penche’s office and display yard on Signal Hill, thought Farr. Coincidence.

The cab dropped him to the surface. Farr watched the pursuing cab descend. He felt no great concern. Evading a pursuer was a matter of utmost simplicity, a technique known to every child who watched the stereos.

Farr followed the white arrow to the underground shaft and stepped in. The disk caught him and bumped to a gentle halt. Farr called over a car and jumped in. The underground was almost made to order for shaking off a shadow. He dialed a destination, then tried to relax into the seat.

The car accelerated, hummed, decelerated, halted. The door snapped open. Farr jumped out and rode the lift to the surface. He froze in his tracks. What was he doing here? This was Signal Hill—once spiked with oil derricks—now lost under billows of exotic greenery: ten million trees, bushes, shrubs, merging around mansions and palaces. There were pools and waterfalls and carefully informal banks of flowers: scarlet hibiscus, blazing yellow banneret, sapphire gardenia. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were as nothing. Bel-Air was frowzy in contrast and Topanga: was for the parvenus.

K. Penche owned twenty acres on the summit of Signal Hill. He had cleared off his land, ignoring protests and court orders, winning lawsuits. Signal Hill now was crowned by Iszic tree houses: sixteen varieties in four basic types—the only models Penche was allowed to sell.