Free Jack Vance - Gaean Reach 01 by Gray Prince Page B

will go back into hiding.”
    Schaine looked off across the South Savanna. “Do you really like it here at Morningswake?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “And you’re not bored?”
    “Not with you here.” Elvo Glissam’s glance was unmistakably ardent.
    Schaine smiled absently off across the distance. “It’s been very quiet at Morningswake since my mother died. Before, there were parties every week. We always had guests, from other domains, from Olanje, or even off-planet. Several times a year the Aos would organize a karoo. Often we’d go up to Twin Lake Lodge, or Snowflower Lodge in the Suaniset Crags. There was always excitement and fun—before my mother died. You mustn’t think we live like hermits.”
    “And then?”
    “Father became—well, ‘recluse’ is too strong a word. Then I went off to Tanquil, and for the last five years Morningswake has been very quiet. Kelse says Father’s closest friend has been Kurgech!”
    “And now?”
    “I’d like Morningswake to be a happy place again.”
    “Yes. That would be pleasant. Except…” Elvo Glissam paused.
    “Except what?”
    “I suspect that the days of the great domains are numbered.”
    Schaine grimaced. “What a dismal thought.”
     
    Kelse and Gerd Jemasze returned to Morningswake towing the hulks of the Apex and the Sturdevant on float pods. A coffin of white glass contained the body of Uther Madduc, and Kelse carried a notebook which he had found in a locker.
    Two days later a funeral took place, and Uther Madduc was buried in the family graveyard, across the Chip-chap River in the park beside the Fairy Forest. Two hundred family friends, relatives and folk from neighboring domains came to pay their last respects to Uther Madduc.
    Elvo Glissam watched in fascination, marveling at the conduct of these folk so different from himself. The men, he thought, were a matter-of-fact lot, while the women lacked a certain quality he could not quite define. Frivolity? Mischief? Artfulness? Even Schaine seemed rather more direct than he might have preferred, leaving small scope for teasing or flirtation or any of the subtle games which made urban society so amusing. Worse? Better? Adaptation to the environment? Elvo Glissam only knew for certain that he found Schaine as beautiful as some magnificent natural process, like a sunrise, or a surge of breaking surf, or stars in the midnight sky.
    He met dozens of folk: cousins, aunts, uncles, with their sons and daughters, and fathers and mothers, and cousins, aunts and uncles, none of whom he remembered. He saw no evidence of grief, nor even fury against the assassin; the prevailing mood seemed, rather, a grim smoulder which in Elvo Glissam’s opinion boded ill for any accommodation with the Redemptionists.
    He listened to a conversation between Kelse Madduc and Lilo Stenbaren of Doradus Domain. Kelse was speaking: “—not a random act. There was planning involved, and precise calculation. First Uther Madduc and then ourselves.”
    “What of the ‘wonderful joke’ of the letter? Is there some connection?”
    “Impossible to say. We’ve taken the auto-pilot from the Sturdevant and we’ll trace my father’s route, and perhaps join him in his ‘wonderful joke’ yet.”
    Kelse brought Elvo Glissam forward and performed an introduction. “I’m sorry to say that Elvo Glissam, without shame, admits himself a Redemptionist.”
    Dm. Stenbaren laughed. “Forty years ago I remember a ‘Society for Uaian Justice’, ten years later a ‘League Against the Land-looters’, and sometime afterward a group which simply called itself ‘Apotheosis’. And now of course the Redemptionists.”
    “All of which reflect a deep and lasting concern,” remarked Elvo Glissam. “‘Decency’, ‘security against pillage’, ‘justice’, ‘restoration of sequestered property’ are timeless concepts.”
    “Concepts don’t bother us,” said Dm. Stenbaren. “So far as I am concerned, you may continue to harbor