Throy by Jack Vance Page A

official investigation,” said Glawen.
    “I still want none of it. If you molest me, I will report you to the authorities. I am protected by Basic Gaean law which supersedes Bureau B pettifoggery!”
    “We can make a case by Gaean law, by Charter law and by ordinary Station statute. We need only demonstrate that you have been engaged in illegal acts.”
    “That will be hard for you to demonstrate, since I have performed nothing of the sort!”
    “If Sir Denzel financed or abetted LPF misdeeds, he is guilty of sedition, criminal conspiracy, and who knows what else - no matter how idealistic his motives. As his accomplice, you yourself are in a most precarious position and may well encounter criminal charges - especially since you withheld important information from Bodwyn Wook, who is vengeful beyond belief in such matters. Do you believe me?”
    “I believe what you say about Bodwyn Wook. He is a wizened old termagant.”
    “When we arrive at Soumjiana, if you still doubt my statements, we shall go to the IPCC office, where they will advise you and perhaps make inquiries of their own. I remind you that IPCC justice, though fair, is brisk and impersonal.”
    Kathcar spoke in a subdued voice: “That will not be necessary. Sir Denzel and I perhaps have been overly influenced by altruistic arguments. Now I see that our trust was abused.”
    “What of the information you tried to sell us at Stroma?”
    Kathcar made a gesture to indicate that the matter was of no significance. “The event is past; circumstances have changed.”
    “Why not explain the matter in full, and let us adjudge the situation?”
    Kathcar shook his head. “The matter must rest here, while I consider my position.”
    “As you like.”
     
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    Chapter 3, Part II
     
    Halfway along Mircea’s Wisp, the yellow star Mazda tended a family of four planets: three hulks of rock and ice tumbling along outer orbits and the single inner planet Soum, the financial and commercial node of Mircea’s Wisp.
    Like its mother-sun Mazda, Soum had entered the senescent phase of its existence. Soum’s physiography lacked drama. Tectonic activity was not even a memory; the weather was placid and predictable. A world ocean surrounded four near-identical continents, each a gently rolling peneplain, spattered with innumerable lakes and ponds, beside which the Soumi maintained their rustic vacation chalets. The countryside, diligently tended by the Soumi gentlemen farmers, produced enormous quantities of delectable products, which were consumed with reverent gusto by the entire Soumi population.
    Many adjectives had been used across the years to describe the Soumi: bland, industrious, boring, bumptious, shrewd, generous, thrifty, priggish, paternalistic, maternalistic, infantilistic, each term an inkling or a quarter-truth, usually contradicted by another in the sequence. A clear consensus, however, declared the Soumi to be quintessentially middle class; decorous, prone to small vanities and submissive to the conventions of society. Everyone endorsed the ‘Ameliorations,’ as specified in the ‘Gnosis.’
    The Mircea Wanderling approached Soum from space and settled upon the Soumjiana spaceport. Glawen and Chilke, standing on the lower observation deck, were afforded a view across the landscape. To west and north, spread the far-flung textures of the city: tawny yellow, mustard ocher or amber in the honey-pale light of Mazda, each segment guarding a dense black shadow at its back.
    The ship landed; the passengers disembarked into the transit terminal. Glawen and Chilke looked everywhere for Kathcar, and at last noticed an inordinately tall Mascarene Evangel, hunched into a tortured posture, almost as if deformed, hobbling from the ship. A black bonnet and lank black hair concealed the face, save for beraddled cheeks, a rapacious nose flanked by bright black eyes. Voluminous black robes swathed the zealot’s body, revealing only two large white hands and a pair of