Barrington Bayley - The Garments of Caean

In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

Welcome to the SF Gateway.

‘I tell you I don’t like it,’ Peder Forbarth said nervously.

‘Dammit, none of us can be expected to like it,’ replied Mast. ‘It’s a matter of guts .’

Realto Mast lounged full-length on an elegant couch which was sumptuously cushioned and quilted and burnished in gold and lavender resins. It was without doubt the most prepossessing of several items of arts nouveaux furnishing the main cabin of the star yacht Costa . Mast had, indeed, taken particular care over the outfitting of the cabin, since he liked at all times to live in style.

Sighing, he poured himself another measure of purple liqueur from a swan-necked decanter. ‘Now please stop moaning, Peder, and try to show a little spirit. You accepted this assignment, after all.’

‘Accepted!’ wailed Peder. ‘I’m wishing I hadn’t!’

‘Considering the price I paid for your services,’ murmured Mast, sipping his liqueur reflectively, ‘it’s disappointing to find you so eager to chicken out.’

Peder stopped his pacing of the cabin and sank down on a chair, the picture of a man defeated and frightened. The two other occupiers of the cabin, Mast’s sidekicks Castor and Grawn, chuckled mockingly in the background.

Mast had him there, of course. He had fallen in with Mast’s scheme lock, stock and barrel, hypnotized by the man’s charisma and no less by his glowing descriptions – descriptions which a full-blooded, professional sartorial could hardly ignore. To begin with he had hesitated, it was true, because of the dangers and risks involved, but those misgivings had vanished when Mast had offered, as an advance on Peder’s share, to pay off the debts that were about to ruin him.

Only now, thinking about it in retrospect, did Peder Forbarth reach the suspicion – rather, the certainty – that Mast had had a hand in calling in those debts. His creditors were not normally that pressing.

And only now, after locking up his shop The Sartorial Elegantor and journeying to within striking distance of the planet Kyre, did the full extent of his funk hit Peder. For one thing, Mast’s image of faultless ability and impeccable planning was beginning to wear thin at the edges. He had noticed how the self-styled entrepreneur’s (more accurately, racketeer’s) carefully cultivated nonchalance hid an occasional ineptness, and a definite tendency for things to go slightly wrong on him. Peder was afraid that Mast would somehow mishandle the affair, that they would be caught trying to dispose of their illegal cargo or even worse.

The chief fear that loomed in Peder’s mind, however, was of what lay in wait for him below. He no longer believed that Mast really appreciated what infra-sound could do . He was a calculating chancer, always ready to minimize the risks involved.

Suddenly Mast spilled a drop of liqueur on his green velvet waistcoat. ‘Damn!’ he mumbled, attempting to brush off the drop. He rose and swept out in search of stain remover.

A grin spread over Grawn’s broad, ugly face. ‘Don’t bug Mast so much,’ he told Peder good-humouredly. ‘You’re ruining the tone of the operation, for Chrissake.’

‘Yeah, you’ve got too little faith in Mast,’ Castor added. He was thin and below medium height, with square shoulders and a slight stoop. He had once suffered damage to his eyes, and the retinal function had been partially replaced by light-sensitive contact lenses which gave them an odd, metallic glitter. Castor exuded seediness: already the new suit Peder had given him – he had given them all new clothes as a gesture of good faith – looked grubby and crumpled.

‘We’ve been with him a long time, and we’ve done all right,’ Castor continued. ‘He works everything out before he starts, and having sunk half a million in this caper he’s not likely to go at it half-cocked.’

‘Though he likes to take the odd gamble,’ put in Grawn, his grin widening yet further.

‘Like the gamble he took with your eyes,’ snapped Peder to Castor, instantly regretting the words. Castor’s accident, he had gathered, had been due to a mistake of Mast’s.

Mast returned to the cabin, the stain only half eradicated and still spoiling the soft sheen of the velvet. ‘I’ve just taken a look in the cockpit,’ he said. ‘We’ve arrived; the yacht’s going into orbit now. Are you ready, Peder?’

‘Y-yes. I suppose so.’ Peder’s stomach tightened up into a knot and he began to tremble slightly.

‘Good.’ Mast looked eager. ‘No point in wasting time. Let’s get down to work!’

He led the way to the hold below the cabin. The space here was quite large; everything extraneous had been cleared out of the yacht for the sake of speed and to gain maximum room for their expected cargo. At the loading end stood a small planetary lighter for descending to and returning from Kyre: Mast had no intention of risking the Costa herself.

Near the lighter, in pride of place, hung the baffle suit, a bulky object covered all over with clustered, variously sized tubes resembling organ pipes. Peder felt somewhat like a condemned criminal entering the death chamber as they approached it. There were three layers of baffle-tubes so that the suit, though vaguely manlike, was so gross and grotesque that it looked more like something designed to trap and encase a man than to protect him.

Castor operated a winch, lowering the suit jerkily to the floor. Then he unlocked its front, swinging it open like an iron maiden, and with a sardonic smile made a gesture of invitation for Peder to step into the cavity thus revealed.

Peder swallowed. By now the Costa would be in orbit, the auto pilot swinging her along those co-ordinates which Mast had obtained; mysteriously, but nevertheless somehow obtained (by means of a lucky break, as he would have put it) and which had made the whole mission possible. This was it. Peder felt that unfriendly forces, invisible hands, were impelling him forward against his will.