The Best of Jack Vance (1976) SSC Read online

  The door slid open. Hammond the doorkeeper looked in briefly. Then the couturier entered, pushing his wheeled kit before him, a slender little blond man with rich topaz eyes. The door closed.

  Jean turned away from the window. The couturier—André was the name stenciled on the enamel of the box—spoke for more light, walked around her, darting glances up and down her body.

  “Yes,” he muttered, pressing his lips in and out. “Ah, yes…Now what does the lady have in mind?”

  “A dinner gown, I suppose.”

  He nodded. “Mr. Fotheringay mentioned formal evening wear.”

  So that was his name—Fotheringay.

  André snapped up a screen. “Observe, if you will, a few of my effects; perhaps there is something to please you.”

  Models appeared on the screen, stepping forward, smiling, turning away.

  Jean said, “Something like that.”

  André made a gesture of approval, snapped his fingers. “Mademoiselle has good taste. And now we shall see…if mademoiselle will let me help her…”

  He deftly unzipped her garments, laid them on the couch.

  “First—we refresh ourselves.” He selected a tool from his kit, and, holding her wrist between delicate thumb and forefinger, sprayed her arms with cool mist, then warm, perfumed air. Her skin tingled, fresh, invigorated.

  André tapped his chin. “Now, the foundation.”

  She stood, eyes half closed, while he bustled around her, striding off, making whispered comments, quick gestures with significance only to himself.

  He sprayed her with gray-green web, touched and pulled as the strands set. He adjusted knurled knobs at the ends of a flexible tube, pressed it around her waist, swept it away and it trailed shining black-green silk. He artfully twisted and wound his tube. He put the frame back in the kit, pulled, twisted, pinched, while the silk set.

  He sprayed her with wan white, quickly jumped forward, olded, shaped, pinched, pulled, bunched and the stuff fell in twisted bands from her shoulders and into a full rustling skirt.

  “Now—gauntlets.” He covered her arms and hands with warm black-green pulp which set into spangled velvet, adroitly cut with scissors to bare the back of her hand.

  “Slippers.” Black satin, webbed with emerald-green phosphorescence.

  “Now—the ornaments.” He hung a red bauble from her right ear, slipped a cabochon ruby on her right hand.

  “Scent—a trace. The Levailleur, indeed.” He flicked her with an odor suggestive of a Central Asia flower patch. “And mademoiselle is dressed. And may I say”—he bowed with a flourish—“most exquisitely beautiful.”

  He manipulated his cart, one side fell away. A mirror uncoiled upward.

  Jean inspected herself. Vivid naiad. When she acquired that million dollars—two million would be better—she’d put André on her permanent payroll.

  André was still muttering compliments. “—Elan supreme. She is magic. Most striking. Eyes will turn…”

  The door slid back. Fotheringay came into the room. André bowed low, clasped his hands.

  Fotheringay glanced at her. “You’re ready. Good. Come along.”

  Jean thought, We might as well get this straight right now. “Where?”

  He frowned slightly, stood aside while André pushed his cart out.

  Jean said, “I came here of my own free will. I walked into this room under my own power. Both times I knew where I was going. Now you say ‘Come along.’ First I want to know where. Then I’ll decide whether or not I’ll come.”

  “You don’t want a million dollars very badly.”

  “Two million. I want it badly enough to waste an afternoon investigating…But—if I don’t get it today, I’ll get it tomorrow. Or next week. Somehow I’ll get it; a long time ago I made my mind up. So?” She performed an airy curtsy.

  His pupils contracted. He said in an even voice, “Very well. Two million. I am now taking you to dinner on the roof, where I will give you your instructions.”

  II

  They drifted under the dome, in a greenish plastic bubble. Below them spread the commercial fantasy of an out-world landscape: gray sward; gnarled red and green trees casting dramatic black shadows; a pond of fluorescent green liquid; panels of exotic blossoms; beds of fungus.

  The bubble drifted easily, apparently at random, now high under the near-invisible dome, now low under the foliage. Successive courses appeared from the center of the table, along with chilled wine and frosted punch.

  It was wonderful and lavish, thought Jean. But why should Fotheringay spend his money on her? Perhaps he entertained romantic notions…She dallied with the idea, inspected him covertly…The idea lacked conviction. He seemed to be engaging in none of the usual gambits. He neither tried to fascinate her with his charm, nor swamp her with synthetic masculinity. Much as it irritated Jean to admit it, he appeared—indifferent.

  Jean compressed her lips. The idea was disconcerting. She essayed a slight smile, a side glance up under lowered lashes.

  “Save it,” said Fotheringay. “You’ll need it all when you get up to Abercrombie.”

  Jean returned to her dinner. After a minute she said calmly, “I was—curious.”

  “Now you know.”

  Jean thought to tease him, draw him out. “Know what?”

  “Whatever it was you were curious about.”

  “Pooh. Men are mostly alike. They all have the same button. Push it, they all jump in the same direction.”

  Fotheringay frowned, glanced at her under narrowed eyes. “Maybe you aren’t so precocious after all.”

  Jean became tense. In a curious indefinable way, the subject was very important, as if survival were linked with confidence in her own sophistication and flexibility. “What do you mean?”

  “You make the assumption most pretty girls make,” he said with a trace of scorn. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

  Jean frowned. There had been little abstract thinking in her background. “Well, I’ve never had it work out differently. Although I’m willing to admit there are exceptions…It’s a kind of game. I’ve never lost. If I’m kidding myself, it hasn’t made much difference so far.”

  Fotheringay relaxed. “You’ve been lucky.”

  Jean stretched out her arms, arched her body, smiled as if at a secret. “Call it luck.”

  “Luck won’t work with Earl Abercrombie.”

  “You’re the one who used the word luck. I think it’s, well—ability.”

  “You’ll have to use your brains too.” He hesitated, then said, “Actually, Earl likes—odd things.”

  Jean sat looking at him, frowning.

  He said coolly, “You’re making up your mind how best to ask the question, ‘What’s odd about me?’ “

  Jean snapped, “I don’t need you to tell me what’s odd about me. I know what it is myself.”

  Fotheringay made no comment.

  “I’m completely on my own,” said Jean. “There’s not a soul in all the human universe that I care two pins for. I do just exactly as I please.” She watched him carefully. He nodded indifferently. Jean quelled her exasperation, leaned back in her chair, studied him as if he were in a glass case…A strange young man. Did he ever smile? She thought of the Capellan Fibrates who by popular superstition were able to fix themselves along a man’s spinal column and control his intelligence. Fotheringay displayed a coldness strange enough to suggest such a possession…A Capellan could manipulate but one hand at a time. Fotheringay held a knife in one hand, a fork in the other and moved both hands together. So much for that.

  He said quietly, “I watched your hands too.”

  Jean threw back her head and laughed—a healthy adolescent laugh. Fotheringay watched her without discernible expression.

  She said, “Actually, you’d like to know about me, but you’re too stiff-necked to ask.”

  “You were born at Angel City on Codiron,” said Fotheringay. “Your mother abandoned you in a tavern, a gambler
named Joe Parlier took care of you until you were ten, when you killed him and three other men and stowed away on the Gray Line Packet Bucyrus. You were taken to the Waif’s Home at Paie on Bella’s Pride. You ran away and the superintendent was found dead…Shall I go on? There’s five more years of it.”

  Jean sipped her wine, nowise abashed. “You’ve worked fast…But you’ve misrepresented. You said, ‘There’s five years more of it, shall I go on?’ as if you were able to go on. You don’t know anything about the next five years.”

  Fotheringay’s face changed by not a flicker. He said as if she had not spoken, “Now listen carefully. This is what you’ll have to look out for.”

  “Go ahead. I’m all ears.” She leaned back in her chair. A clever technique, ignoring an unwelcome situation as if it never existed. Of course, to carry it off successfully, a certain temperament was required. A cold fish like Fotheringay managed very well.

  “Tonight a man named Webbard meets us here. He is chief steward at Abercrombie Station. I happen to be able to influence certain of his actions. He will take you up with him to Abercrombie and install you as a servant in the Abercrombie private chambers.”

  Jean wrinkled her nose. “Servant? Why can’t I go to Abercrombie as a paying guest?”

  “It wouldn’t be natural. A girl like you would go up to Capricorn or Verge. Earl Abercrombie is extremely suspicious. He’d be certain to fight shy of you. His mother, old Mrs. Clara, watches him pretty closely, and keeps drilling into his head the idea that all the Abercrombie girls are after his money. As a servant you will have opportunity to meet him in intimate circumstances. He rarely leaves his study; he’s absorbed in his collecting.”

  “My word,” murmured Jean. “What does he collect?”

  “Everything you can think of,” said Fotheringay, moving his lips upward in a quick grimace, almost a smile. “I understand from Webbard, however, that he is rather romantic, and has carried on a number of flirtations among the girls of the Station.”

  Jean screwed up her mouth in fastidious scorn. Fotheringay watched her impassively.

  “When do I—commence?”

  “Webbard goes up on the supply barge tomorrow. You’ll go with him.”

  A whisper of sound from the buzzer. Fotheringay touched the button. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Webbard for you, sir.”

  Fotheringay directed the bubble down to the landing stage.

  Webbard was waiting, the fattest man Jean had ever seen.

  The plaque on the door read, Richard Mycroft, Attorney-at-Law. Somewhere far back down the years, someone had said in Jean’s hearing that Richard Mycroft was a good attorney.

  The receptionist was a dark woman of about thirty-five, with a direct penetrating eye. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No,” said Jean. “I’m in rather a hurry.” The receptionist hesitated a moment, then bent over the communicator. “A young lady—Miss Jean Parlier—to see you. New business.”

  “Very well.”

  The receptionist nodded to the door. “You can go in,” she said shortly.

  She doesn’t like me, thought Jean. Because I’m what she was and what she wants to be again.

  Mycroft was a square man with a pleasant face. Jean constructed a wary defense against him. If you liked someone and he knew it, he felt obligated to advise and interfere. She wanted no advice, no interference. She wanted two million dollars.

  “Well, young lady,” said Mycroft. “What can I do for you?”

  He’s treating me like a child, thought Jean. Maybe I look like a child to him. She said, “It’s a matter of advice. I don’t know much about fees. I can afford to pay you a hundred dollars. When you advise me a hundred dollars’ worth, let me know and I’ll go away.”

  “A hundred dollars buys a lot of advice,” said Mycroft. “Advice is cheap.”

  “Not from a lawyer.”

  Mycroft became practical. “What are your troubles?”

  “It’s understood that this is all confidential?”

  “Certainly.” Mycroft’s smile froze into a polite grimace.

  “It’s nothing illegal—so far as I’m concerned—but I don’t want you passing out any quiet hints to—people that might be interested.”

  Mycroft straightened himself behind his desk. “A lawyer is expected to respect the confidence of his client.”

  “Okay…Well, it’s like this.” She told him of Fotheringay, of Abercrombie Station and Earl Abercrombie. She said that Earl Abercrombie was sick with an incurable disease. She made no mention of Fotheringay’s convictions on that subject. It was a matter she herself kept carefully brushing out of her mind. Fotheringay had hired her. He told her what to do, told her that Earl Abercrombie was sick. That was good enough for her. If she had asked too many questions, found that things were too nasty even for her stomach, Fotheringay would have found another girl less inquisitive…She skirted the exact nature of Earl’s disease. She didn’t actually know herself. She didn’t want to know.

  Mycroft listened attentively, saying nothing.

  “What I want to know is,” said Jean, “is the wife sure to inherit on Abercrombie? I don’t want to go to a lot of trouble for nothing. And after all Earl is under twenty-one; I thought that in the event of his death it was best to—well, make sure of everything first.”

  For a moment Mycroft made no move, but sat regarding her quietly. Then he tamped tobacco into a pipe.

  “Jean,” he said, “I’ll give you some advice. It’s free. No strings on it.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Jean. “I don’t want the kind of advice that’s free. I want the kind I have to pay for.”

  Mycroft grimaced. “You’re a remarkably wise child.”

  “I’ve had to be…Call me a child, if you wish.”

  “Just what will you do with a million dollars? Or two million, I understand it to be?”

  Jean stared. Surely the answer was obvious…or was it? When she tried to find an answer, nothing surfaced.

  “Well,” she said vaguely, “I’d like an airboat, some nice clothes, and maybe…” In her mind’s eye she suddenly saw herself surrounded by friends. Nice people, like Mr. Mycroft.

  “If I were a psychologist and not a lawyer,” said Mycroft, “I’d say you wanted your mother and father more than you wanted two million dollars.”

  Jean became very heated. “No, no! I don’t want them at all. They’re dead.” As far as she was concerned they were dead. They had died for her when they left her on Joe Parlier’s pool table in the old Aztec Tavern.

  Jean said indignantly, “Mr. Mycroft, I know you mean well, but tell me what I want to know.”

  “I’ll tell you,” said Mycroft, “because if I didn’t, someone else would. Abercrombie property, if I’m not mistaken, is regulated by its own civil code…Let’s see—” He twisted in his chair, pushed buttons on his desk.

  On the screen appeared the index to the Central Law Library. Mycroft made further selections, narrowing down selectively. A few seconds later he had the information. “Property control begins at sixteen. Widow inherits at minimum fifty percent; the entire estate unless specifically stated otherwise in the will.”

  “Good,” said Jean. She jumped to her feet. “That’s what I wanted to make sure of.”

  Mycroft asked, “When do you leave?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “I don’t need to tell you that the idea behind the scheme is—not moral.”

  “Mr. Mycroft, you’re a dear. But I don’t have any morals.”

  He tilted his head, shrugged, puffed on his pipe. “Are you sure?”

  “Well—yes.” Jean considered a moment. “I suppose so. Do you want me to go into details?”

  “No. I think what I meant to say was, are you sure you know what you want out of life?”

  “Certainly. Lots of money.”

  Mycroft grinned. “That’s really not a good answer. What will you buy with your money?”

  Jean felt irrational ange
r rising in her throat. “Oh—lots of things.” She rose to her feet. “Just what do I owe you, Mr. Mycroft?”

  “Oh—ten dollars. Give it to Ruth.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mycroft.” She stalked out of his office.