Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [395]
They leaned back against the rounded stones, muttering.
‘I’ve been all over the world. I’ve seen it all. I’ve been to Uskutoshk, I’ve visited the Great Wheel of Kharnabhar, I’ve seen old ruined cities and sold junk in the bazaars of Pannoval and Oldorando. I’ve spoken with kings and queens as fair as flowers. It’s all out there, waiting for the man who dares. Friends everywhere. Men and women. It’s wonderful. I’ve loved every minute of it.
‘It’s bigger than you can ever imagine, stuck here at Lordryardry. This last voyage, I met a man who came from another world. There’s more than just this world, Helliconia. There’s another circling around us, Avernus. And others beyond that, worlds to be visited. Earth, for instance.’
All the while he was speaking, the little clerk was laying out his effects on a table under one of the barren apricot trees and removing the key to the safe from an inner pocket. And the phagor was setting the safe down just where needed and flicking an ear as it did so. And the men were shuffling forward to the edge of the table and making their line more definite by moving closer to each other. And other men were coming up, directing suspicious looks at their boss, and joining the rear of the line. And the comfortable seriality of the world was being maintained under the purple clouds.
‘I tell you there are other worlds. Use your imagination.’ Muntras struck the table. ‘Don’t you feel the wanderlust occasionally? I did when I was a young ’un, I tell you. Inside my house even now I have a young man from one of these other worlds. He’s ill or he’d come out and speak to you. He can tell you miraculous things that happen lifetimes away.’
‘Does he drink Exaggerator?’
The voice came from within the ranks of the waiting men. It stopped Muntras in full burst. He paced up and down the line, red of face. Not an eye met his.
‘I’ll prove what I’m saying,’ Muntras shouted. ‘You’ll have to believe me then.’
He turned and stamped into the house. Only the clerk showed some impatience, drumming his little fingers on the plank table, staring about, pulling his sharp nose, and looking up at the heavy sky.
Muntras ran in to where Billy was, terribly distorted, without motion. He seized Billy’s petrified wrist, only to find that the watch had gone.
‘Billish,’ he said. He went over to the invalid, looked down at him, called his name more gently. He felt the cold skin, tested the twisted flesh.
‘Billish,’ he said again, but now it was merely a statement. He knew that Billish was dead – and he knew who had stolen the watch, that three-faced timepiece which King JandolAnganol had once held. There was only one person who would do such a thing.
‘You’ll never miss your timepiece now, Billy,’ Muntras said aloud.
He covered his face with a slab of hand and uttered something between a prayer and a curse.
For a moment more, the Ice Captain stood in the room, looking up at the ceiling with his mouth open. Then, recalling his duties, he walked over to the window and gave his clerk a sign to start paying out the men’s wages.
His wife entered the room with Immya, her shoulder bandaged.
‘Our Billish is dead,’ he said flatly.
‘Oh dear, and on assatassi day, too …’ Eivi said. ‘You can hardly expect me to be sorry.’
‘I’ll see his body is conveyed to the ice cellar, and we will bury him tomorrow, after the feast,’ Immya said, moving over to observe the contorted body. ‘He told me something before he died which could be a contribution to medical science.’
‘You’re a capable girl, you look after him,’ Muntras said. ‘As you say, we can bury him tomorrow. A proper funeral. Meanwhile, I’ll go and look to the nets. As a matter of fact, I feel miserable, as if anyone cares.’
Taking no heed of the jabbering women who were stringing up lines of net