Anarchaos

VIII

We sat on facing divans near the long window, talking. Jenna Guild had brought me a drink at Colonel Whistler’s request, and now was seated, composed and beautiful, on a low hassock a little away from us, ready to be called upon again.

The Colonel directed the conversation into meaningless channels. He asked me about my trip, and then briefly discussed his experiences with space travel. When I grew restive, he asked me about Earth, putting specific questions about specific cities, most of which I had never seen, and detailing for me his feelings of homesickness. He had been on Anarchaos, he said, seven years and had never ceased to hate it.

This talk, under other circumstances, might have been pleasant, but now it merely agitated my impatience. Still, I thought it best to let the Colonel have his head, at least until I got to know him better. As yet I wasn’t even sure whether to consider him an enemy or a friend.

His manner and appearance I found not encouraging. There was a bony frailty to this man, an apparent weakness, everywhere but in his eyes, which, while his mouth produced pleasant banalities, studied me in cold calculation. Those eyes belied the brittleness of his body and the cordiality of his words. I felt emanating from him a great aura of coldness, of watchfulness, of secrecy and of caution.

He must have sensed my impatience, for at last he ended his monotonous pleasantries, studied me in silence a moment, and then said, “Frankly, Mr. Malone, I am surprised to see you here. You were informed of your brother’s death before you left Earth, were you not?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Jenna tells me” — he smiled briefly at her and she smiled in acknowledgement — “your brother had arranged for you to be taken on by the company.”

“That’s right.”

He smiled, and made a slight shrugging gesture. “Such details,” he said, “are handled by the Department involved. I was not aware of your having been employed, or even of your existence, until just now. Your arrival is something of a surprise.” He glanced at Jenna Guild again, and back at me, saying, “I’m told it was assumed you wouldn’t be coming, under the circumstances. If you’d sent us notification, we would have arranged to have you picked up at Ni. Travel here is somewhat dangerous for a man alone.”

“I was careful,” I said.

“Yes, of course. Caution is always best.” He offered me a blank, meaningless smile, sipped at his drink, and said, “But the point is, you are here. Jenna tells me you would have acted as your brother’s field assistant, and that you appear to have no formal specialized education, that you went no further than junior college.”

“That’s right.”

“Then I fear we have a rather embarrassing problem, Mr. Malone,” he said. “I have no job for you. With your brother—”

“I’m not here for a job,” I said.

“Oh?”

“I’m here to find out about my brother.”

“Your brother?” He looked again at Jenna Guild, as though expecting her to step forward with an explanation, then said to me, “Your brother’s dead. Gar Malone is dead.”

“That’s what I want to find out about,” I said. “How he died and why. And by whose hand.”

“On Anarchaos? My dear man, such questions are irrelevancies here. There are no answers.”

“Still I mean to look for them.”

“Why? What possible good can it do? You can’t bring your brother back to life.”

“I don’t mean to try.”

“What, then?”

“I want to know.”

“For its own sake?”

“For my sake. Once I know what happened to Gar I’ll know what to do about me.”

He sat back, frowning, perplexed, even his eyes showing uncertainty. “I hardly know what to make of you,” he said. “Or what to do with you.”

“You could help me, if you would.”

“How?”

“Tell me what is already known about Gar’s death. Where he died, how he was killed, any other circumstances that are known. And where I might find his grave.”

“Someone in the Department might know that,” he said, ruminating, and asked Jenna Guild, “Which Department would that be? Development?”

“Special Projects, I think,” she said.

He turned back to me. “You can talk to someone there in the morning, if you like. After that, we’ll have to decide what’s to be done about you.”

“In the morning? Why not now?”

He seemed surprised. “Don’t you know what time it is?”

I looked out the window, but then realized the fact of daylight meant nothing here. Hell stood always at two o’clock in the sky over Ulik. But I, used to the regularity of Sol around the Earth, had been assuming that daylight meant daytime as well. I said, “No, I don’t. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“It’s well after midnight,” he said. “You have no watch?”

“No. I… haven’t needed one.”

“Jenna, get Mr. Malone a watch.” Turning back to me he said, “A watch is indispensable here. So far as Anarchaos is concerned time does not exist.”

“I’m sorry I came so late,” I said, and got to my feet, leaving my untouched drink on the low table beside the divan.

“Perfectly all right,” he assured me. He smiled, and remained seated. “Jenna and I were still up,” he said. “Weren’t we, Jenna?”

Jenna agreed silently, smiling, nodding at the Colonel. Was I wrong, or was there something strange in that smile she gave him, something secret that glittered there like fury or hate? I couldn’t be sure.

The Colonel said, “Jenna will show you your room, and make arrangements for you to see the right people in the morning. Just place yourself in her hands.”

“I will. Thank you for your time.”

“Not at all. My only pleasure is speaking with new arrivals from home, even on such unhappy business.”

All the way across the room my back itched, between the shoulderblades, where I could feel his eyes.