Tolly Mune scowled. “That’s damned unlikely, and you should know it. And even if the zero faction won, the question arises as to what the hell we could do.” She leaned forward. “Would we have the right to enforce population control? I wonder. Never mind about that, though. My point is that you don’t have any damned monopoly on truth. Any zero could have given your damned speech. Hell, half the damned technocrats know what the ledger looks like. Creg’s no fool. Neither was poor Josen. What allowed you to do that was power, Tuf. The power of the Ark. The help you can give us, or withhold, as you choose.”
“Indeed,” said Tuf. He blinked. “I cannot take issue with you. The sad truth of history has always been that the unreasoning masses follow the powerful, and not the wise.”
“And which are you, Tuf?”
“I am but a humble—”
“Yes, yes,” she snapped, “I know, a goddamned humble ecological engineer. A humble ecological engineer who has taken it on himself to play prophet. A humble ecological engineer who has visited S’uthlam exactly twice in his life, for a total of maybe a hundred days, and yet feels competent to topple our government, discredit our religion, and lecture forty-odd billion strangers about how many puling children they ought to have. My people may be stupid, they may be shortsighted, and they may be blind, but they are still my people, Tuf. I don’t think I entirely approve of you arriving here and trying to remake us according to your own enlightened values.”
“I deny this charge, madam. Whatever my personal standards might be, I do not seek to impose them upon S’uthlam. I merely took it upon myself to elucidate certain truths, and to make your population aware of certain cold, hard equations, the sum of which is assuredly disaster, and cannot be changed by beliefs, prayers, or melodramatic romances on your vidnets.”
“You’re being paid—” Tolly Mune started.
“Insufficiently,” Tuf interrupted.
She smiled despite herself. “You’re being paid for ecological engineering, Tuf, not for religious or political instruction, thank you.”
“You are most welcome, Portmaster Mune.” He made a steeple of his hands. “Ecology,” he said. “Consider the word, if you will. Meditate upon its meaning. An ecosystem might be likened to a great biological machine, perhaps. If this analogy is pursued, humanity must be seen as part of the machine. No doubt an important part—an engine, a key circuit—but in no case apart from the mechanism, as is often fallaciously assumed. Ergo, when one such as myself re-engineers an ecology, he must by necessity refit as well the humans who inhabit it.”
“Now you’re giving me a chill, Tuf. You’ve been alone in this ship for too long.”
“This is an opinion I do not share,” said Tuf.
“People aren’t old pulse-rings, or blast-tubes to be recalibrated, you know.”
“People are more complex and recalcitrant than any simple mechanical, electronic, or biochemical component,” Tuf agreed.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“The S’uthlamese are especially difficult,” Tuf said.
Tolly Mune shook her head. “Remember what I said, Tuf. Power corrupts.”
“Indeed,” he said. In this context, she hadn’t a clue as to what it meant.
Haviland Tuf rose from his seat. “My stay here shortly will be at an end,” he said. “At this very instant, the Ark’s chronowarp is accelerating the growth of the organisms in my cloning tanks. The Basilisk and Manticore are being prepared to effect delivery, on the assumption that Cregor Blaxon or his successor will ultimately decide to accept my recommendations. I would estimate that within ten days S’uthlam will have its meatbeasts, jersee-pods, ororos, etcetera. At that point I shall take my leave, Portmaster Mune.”
“Abandoned by my star-bound lover once again,” Tolly Mune said crossly. “Maybe I can make something out of that.”
Tuf looked at Dax. “Levity,” he said, “flavored with bitterness.” He looked up again, and blinked. “I believe I have rendered great service to S’uthlam,” he said. “I regret any personal distress that my methods have caused you. Such was not my intent. Permit me to make some small redress.”
She cocked her head and looked at him hard. “How are you going to do that, Tuf?”
“A trifling gift,” said Tuf. “Aboard the Ark, I could not help but notice the affection with which you treated the kittens. Nor did it go entirely unreciprocated. I would like to give you two of my cats, as a token of my esteem.”
Tolly Mune snorted. “Hoping that stark terror will keep the security men away when they come to arrest me? No, Tuf. I appreciate the offer and I’m tempted, really, but vermin are illegal in the web, remember? I couldn’t keep them.”
“As Portmaster of S’uthlam, you have the authority to change the applicable regulations.”
“Oh, right, and wouldn’t that look great? Anti-life and corrupt, too. I’d be real puling popular.”
“Sarcasm,” Tuf informed Dax.
“And what happens when they replace me as Portmaster?” she said.
“I have every faith in your ability to survive this political tempest, even as you weathered the last,” said Tuf.
Tolly Mune laughed raucously. “Good for you, but no, really, it just won’t work.”
Haviland Tuf was silent, his face blank of all expression. Finally he raised a finger. “I have devised a solution,” he said. “In addition to two of my kittens, I will give you a starship. As you know, I have a surfeit of them. You may keep the kittens there, aboard ship, technically outside the jurisdiction of the Port of S’uthlam. I will even leave you with sufficient food for five years, so that it cannot be said that you are giving so-called vermin calories needed by hungry human beings. To further bolster your flagging public image, you may tell the newsfeeds that these two felines are hostages against my promised return to S’uthlam five years hence.”
Tolly Mune let a crooked smile creep across her homely features. “That might work, damn it. You’re making this hard to resist. A starship, too, you say?”
“Indeed.”
She grinned. “You’re too convincing. All right. Which two cats, now?”
“Doubt,” said Haviland Tuf, “and Ingratitude.”
“There’s a pointed comment in that, I’m sure,” Tolly Mune said. “I won’t pursue it. And five years’ worth of food?”
“Sufficient until the day, five years hence, when I return again to repay the remainder of my note.”
Tolly Mune looked at him—the long, still, white face, the pale hands folded neatly atop his bulging stomach, the duck-billed cap resting on his bald head, the small black cat in his lap. She looked at him long and hard and then, for no particular reason she could name, her hand trembled just a little, and beer spilled from her open glass onto her sleeve. She felt the cold wetness soak into her shirt and trickle down her wrist. “Oh, joy,” she said. “Tuf and Tuf again. I can hardly wait.”
5: A BEAST FOR NORN
Haviland Tuf was drinking alone in the darkest corner of an alehouse on Tamber when the thin man found him. His elbows rested on the table and the top of his bald head almost brushed the low wooden beam above. Four empty mugs sat before him, their insides streaked by rings of foam, while a fifth, half-full, was cradled in his huge white hands.
If Tuf was aware of the curious glances the other patrons gave him from time to time, he showed no sign of it; he quaffed his ale methodically, his face without expression. He made a singular solitary figure drinking alone in his booth.
He was not quite alone though; Dax lay asleep on the table before him, a ball of dark fur. Occasionally, Tuf would set down his mug of ale and idly stroke his quiet companion. Dax would not stir from his comfortable position among the empty mugs. The cat was fully as large, compared to other cats, as Haviland Tuf was compared to other men.
When the thin man came walking up to Tuf’s booth, Tuf said nothing at all. He merely looked up, blinked, and waited for the other to begin.
“You are Haviland Tu
f, the animal-seller,” the thin man said. He was indeed painfully thin. His garments, all black leather and grey fur, hung loose on him, bagging here and there. Yet he was plainly a man of some means, since he wore a slim brass coronet around his brow, under a mop of black hair, and his fingers were adorned with a plenitude of rings.
Tuf scratched Dax behind one black ear. “It is not enough that our solitude must be intruded upon,” he said to the cat, his voice a deep bass with only a hint of inflection. “It is insufficient that our grief be violated. We must also bear calumnies and insults, it seems.” He looked up at the thin man. “Sir,” he said. “I am indeed Haviland Tuf, and perhaps it might be said that I do in some sense trade in animals. Yet perhaps I do not consider myself an animal-seller. Perhaps I consider myself an ecological engineer.”
The thin man waved his hand in an irritated gesture, and slid uninvited into the booth opposite Tuf. “I understand that you own an ancient EEC seedship. That does not make you an ecological engineer, Tuf. They are all dead, and have been for centuries. But if you would prefer to be called an ecological engineer, then well and good. I require your services. I want to buy a monster from you, a great fierce beast.”
“Ah,” said Tuf, speaking to the cat again. “He wishes to buy a monster, this stranger who seats himself at my table uninvited.” Tuf blinked. “I regret to inform you that your quest has been in vain. Monsters are entirely mythological, sir, like spirits, werebeasts, and competent bureaucrats. Moreover, I am not at this moment engaged in the selling of animals, nor in any other aspect of my profession. I am at this moment consuming this excellent Tamberkin ale, and mourning.”
“Mourning?” the thin man said. “Mourning what?” He seemed most unwilling to take his leave.
“A cat,” said Haviland Tuf. “Her name was Havoc, and she had been my companion for long years, sir. She has recently died, on a world called Alyssar that I had the misfortune to call upon, at the hands of a remarkably unpleasant barbarian princeling.” He looked at the thin man’s brass coronet. “You are not by chance a barbarian princeling yourself, sir?”
“Of course not.”
“That is your good fortune,” said Tuf.
“Well, pity about your cat, Tuf. I know your feeling, yesyes, I’ve been through it a thousand times myself.”
“A thousand times,” Tuf repeated flatly. “You might consider a strenuous effort to take better care of your pets.”
The thin man shrugged. “Animals do die, you know. Can’t be helped. Fang and claw and all that, yesyes, that’s their destiny. I’ve had to grow accustomed to watching my best get slaughtered right in front of my eyes. But that’s what I’ve come to talk to you about, Tuf.”
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf.
“My name is Herold Norn. I am the Senior Beast-Master of my House, one of the Twelve Great Houses of Lyronica.”
“Lyronica,” Tuf stated. “The name is not entirely unfamiliar to me. A small, sparsely settled planet, I seem to recall, of a somewhat savage bent. Perhaps this explains your transgressions of civilized manners.”
“Savage?” Norn said. “That’s Tamberkin rubbish, Tuf. Damned farmers. Lyronica is the jewel of this sector. You’ve heard of our gaming pits, haven’t you?”
Haviland Tuf scratched Dax behind the ear once more, a peculiar rhythmic scratch, and the tomcat slowly uncurled, yawning, and glanced up at the thin man with large, bright, golden eyes. He purred softly.
“Some small nuggets of information have fallen in my ears during my voyagings,” Tuf said. “Perhaps you would care to elaborate, Herold Norn, so Dax and I might consider your proposition.”
Herold Norn rubbed thin hands together, nodding. “Dax?” he said. “Of course. A handsome animal, although personally I have never been fond of beasts who cannot fight. Real beauty lies in killing-strength, I always say.”
“An idiosyncratic attitude,” Tuf commented.
“No, no,” said Norn, “not at all. I hope that your work here has not infected you with Tamberkin squeamishness.”
Tuf drained his mug in silence, then signaled for two more. The barkeep brought them promptly.
“Thank you,” Norn said, when the mug was set golden and foaming in front of him.
“Proceed, sir.”
“Yes. Well, the Twelve Great Houses of Lyronica compete in the gaming pits. It began—oh, centuries ago. Before that, the houses warred. This way is much better. Family honor is upheld, fortunes are made, and no one is injured. You see, each house controls great tracts, scattered widely over the planet, and since the land is very thinly settled, animal life teems. The Lords of the Great Houses, many years ago during a time of peace, started to have animal fights. It was a pleasant diversion, rooted deep in history. You are aware, maybe, of the ancient custom of cock-fighting and the Old Earth folk called Romans who would set all manner of strange beasts against each other in their great arena?”
Norn paused and drank some ale, waiting for an answer, but Tuf merely stroked Dax and said nothing.
“No matter,” the thin Lyronican finally said, wiping foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. “That was the beginning of the sport, you see. Each house has its own particular land, its own particular animals. The House of Varcour, for example, sprawls in the hot, swampy south, and they are fond of sending huge lizard-lions to the gaming pits. Feridian, a mountainous realm, has bred and championed its fortunes with a species of rock-ape which we call, naturally, feridians. My own house, Norn, stands on the grassy plains of the large northern continent. We have sent a hundred different beasts into combat in the pits, but we are most famed for our ironfangs.”
“Ironfangs,” Tuf said. “The name is evocative.”
Norn gave a sly smile. “Yes,” he said proudly. “As Senior Beast-Master, I have trained thousands. Oh, but they are lovely animals! Tall as you are, with fur of the most marvelous blue-black color, fierce and relentless.”
“Might I assume your ironfangs to be of canine descent?”
“But such canines,” Norn said.
“Yet you require from me a monster.”
Norn drank more of his ale. “True, true. Folks from a dozen near worlds voyage to Lyronica, to watch the beasts fight in the gaming pits and gamble on the outcome. Particularly they flock to the Bronze Arena that has stood for six hundred years in the City of All Houses. That’s where the greatest fights are fought. The wealth of our Houses and our world has come to depend on this. Without it, rich Lyronica would be as poor as the farmers of Tamber.”
“Yes,” said Tuf.
“But you understand, this wealth, it goes to the houses according to their honor, according to their victories. The House of Arneth has grown greatest and most powerful because of the many deadly beasts in their varied lands; the others rank according to their scores in the Bronze Arena.”
Tuf blinked. “The House of Norn ranks last and least among the Twelve Great Houses of Lyronica,” he said, and Dax purred more loudly.
“You know?”
“Sir. It was obvious. Yet an objection occurs to me. Under the rules of your Bronze Arena, might it not be considered unethical to purchase and introduce a species not native to your own fabled world?”
“There are precedents. Some seventy-odd years ago, a gambler came from Old Earth itself, with a creature called a timber wolf that he had trained. The House of Colin backed him, in a fit of madness. His poor beast was matched against a Norn ironfang, and proved far from equal to its task. There are other cases as well.
“In recent years, unfortunately, our ironfangs have not bred well. The wild species has all but died out on the plains, and the few who remain become swift and elusive, difficult for our housemen to capture. In the breeding kennels, the strain seems to have softened, despite my efforts and those of the Beast-Masters before me. Norn has won few victories of late, and I will not remain Senior for long unless something is done. We grow poor. When I heard that your Ark had come to Tamber, then, I determined to seek you out. I
will begin a new era of glory for Norn, with your help.”
Haviland Tuf sat very still. “I comprehend the dilemma you face. Yet I must inform you that I am not commonly in the habit of selling monsters. The Ark is an ancient seedship, designed by the Earth Imperials thousands of years ago, to decimate the Hrangans through biowar. I can unleash a veritable cornucopia of disease and pestilence, and in my cell library is stored cloning material for untold numbers of species from more than a thousand worlds, but true monsters of the sort that I have inferred you require are in somewhat shorter supply.”
Herold Norn looked crestfallen. “You have nothing, then?”
“These are not my words,” said Haviland Tuf. “The men and women of the vanished Ecological Engineering Corps did in truth make use, from time to time, of species that the uninformed or superstitious might label monstrous, for reasons as much psychological as ecological. Thus I do indeed have a few such animals in stock—a trifling number, a few thousand perhaps, certainly no more than ten thousand. To quote a more accurate figure, I must need consult my computers.”
“A few thousand monsters!” Norn was excited again. “That is more than enough selection! Surely, among all those, we can find a beast for Norn!”
“Perhaps,” Tuf said. “Or perhaps not. Both possibilities exist.” He considered Norn, his long face cool and dispassionate. “This matter of Lyronica does pique my interest in a trifling way, and as I am at the moment without professional engagement, having given the Tamberkin a bird to check their rootworm infestation, I am moved to investigate your world and plight more closely. Return to Norn, sir. I will take the Ark to Lyronica and see your gaming pits, and we will decide what is to be done with them.”
Norn smiled. “Excellent,” he said. “Then I will buy this round of ale.”
Dax purred as loud as a descending shuttle.
The Bronze Arena stood square in the center of the City of All Houses, at the point where sectors dominated by the Twelve Great Houses met like slices in a vast pie. Each enclave of the rambling stone city was walled off, each flew a flag with its distinctive colors, each had its own ambience and style, but all met in the Bronze Arena.