He chuckled at his private little joke.
The d’Alemberts took a quick stock of their “wealth,” and computed that they had nine
hundred slugs between them. They
had no idea what prices were like in the village, but thirty slugs did not seem an
outrageous fee for “cab fare.” Carefully they parceled out the indicated coins and paid
Zolotin what he demanded. Only then did the man let them climb in the back of his sleigh
and, with a crack of his small whip, he drove his animal forward.
“What kind of an animal is that?” Vonnie asked, hoping to start a conversation.
“It’s called a yagi.”
The yagi was plodding at a pace somewhat faster than Yvonne could have crawled.
“Doesn’t it move any faster than this?”
“Maybe if there was a fire behind it or a female yagi in front. Why`? You in some kind of
a hurry””
Yvonne blushed. She was used to fast-paced environments; Gastonia was obviously a
place where people conserved as much of their energy as possible just to keep warm.
What reason could there be for hurrying around’? No one was really going anywhere.
Seeing his wife’s embarrassment, Jules stepped into the conversational gap. “I imagine
there must be some kind of rules for living here.”
“Sure,” Zolotin said. “You do what the mayor tells you and you don’t make no trouble.
Most of all, you never ask anybody what their life was like before they came here. If you
do those things, you’ll probably live a while.”
“Who is the mayor?” Jules asked. “One of the Governor’s men?”
Zolotin gave a derisive snort. “The Governor don’t have much to do with us, or us with
him. Right now the mayor is a man named Kwame Tshombase. The farther you stay
from him, the longer you’ll live.”
Perhaps that formula explained Zolotin’s longevity in a world of cutthroat politics, which
was the state of things on Gastonia if Jules read his remarks correctly. The d’Alemberts
were not here to play things safe, however; if this Tshombase were in any position of
power, he would probably be involved in the conspiracy they’d come to investigate. They
would be tangling with the man sooner or later-but first it was wisest to learn the ground
rules of this new world they were forced to inhabit.
“Where do we find a place to stay?” Vonnie asked. “The guards didn’t tell us much at all.”
“I’ll take you to the Central Registry,” Zolotin said. “They’ll assign you quarters and a job.
You both together?”
“We’re married, yes.”
Zolotin gave Vonnie a knowing leer. “A young, good-looking woman can earn big money
fast. Sex ratio here’s better than three-to-two male.”
“I’m not that desperate, thank you!” Vonnie exclaimed. The driver shrugged. “Suit
yourself. But your value is higher now than it will be later. Hard work on Gastonia lowers
your desirability and your price. In a couple of months, maybe nobody’ll want you.”
Yvonne spent the remainder of the ride in angry silence, leaving the rest of the
interrogation to her husband. Zolotin was an infuriatingly taciturn man, seldom
volunteering any information; Jules practically had to use a crowbar to pry loose any
useful data. The yagi’s slow pace, though, gave him plenty of time to ask questions and
build up a picture of the society in which they would be living.
There were more than twenty thousand people living in “the village,” as the local
settlement was called. Most people worked at menial jobs-hunting wild animals, growing
crops, working at crafts, tanning hides and constructing buildings being the chief
occupations. The village was ruled by a mayor and his lieutenants, who achieved their
positions of power by sheer brute force. The job of mayor was subject to change without
notice. This was, after all, a planet populated by ambitious, scheming, violent people;
little wonder the political situation was so volatile.
After a ride of almost an hour over a “road” that was merely an accumulation of tracks in
the snow, the sleigh topped a hill and the d’Alemberts had their first glimpse of the
village. It was much larger than they had expected. The Empire provided the inhabitants
with some prefabricated dwellings, a basic minimum for survival, but the people
themselves had enlarged on that by using native trees as timber and adding
constructions of their own. Houses were laid out in irregular streets that wound narrowly
up and around a group of low hills. Larger buildings, Zolotin told them, were bars,
barracks, storehouses, and homes of the more affluent citizens-that is, the mayor and his
gang.
Zolotin dropped them off in front of the Central Registry, where they would be required to
check in and arrange for their future jobs and housing. The driver then rode off without a
word of farewell, and they made no effort to thank him-he, had made no move of
friendship or courtesy, and they felt required to give none in return. He had taught them
the first lesson of Gastonia: don’t get involved with other people.
The d’Alemberts entered the Registry, and found the indoors scarcely warmer than the
frigid climate outside. They were greeted by a sour-faced bearded man behind the
counter who regarded them as an intrusion on his privacy. After taking their names, he
informed them brusquely that they could have a but of their own for four hundred slugs a
month or they could live in the barracks for a hundred slugs apiece. Since they needed
some privacy to talk out their ideas together, they opted for the hut.
“Cash in advance,” the clerk said. Jules counted out four hundred slugs from their
assembled change and handed it across the counter. “Not enough,” the clerk said,
looking at it with slight disdain.
“What do you mean?” Jules counted it again, aloud. “There’s one hundred, two hundred,
two-fifty, three, three-fifty, four hundred.”
For the first time, the clerk smiled. “Zolotin taught you that, didn’t he?”
Jules was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Yes, why?”
“He does that to all the warmies,” the clerk said, working hard now to suppress his
laughter. “He taught you wrong probably took about 150 slugs from you, if I know him.”
The clerk showed them the right way to figure the change, and he was right-Zolotin had
taken 150 slugs apiece. Figured the new way, each of them had started with only
350-and now they had only enough money to pay their first month’s rent in advance.
Zolotin had also taught them the second lesson of Gastonia: never trust anybody.
“What’ll we do about food until we get our first pay?” Vonnie asked.
“You can apply for a loan,” the clerk said, slipping back to his previous sour expression
now that the joke was over. “Interest rate is twenty percent, compounded daily.”
“I see,” Jules said, and he did. They were rapidly learning the third lesson of Gastonia:
money is everything. “We’ll both need jobs, though, before we could pay back the loan.
What have you got available?”
The clerk looked Jules up and down. “Have you ever done much hunting?”
Jules remembered his last hunting trip. It was on Ansegria, as part of Princess Edna’s
Progress-quite a different situation from the present one. “Yes,” he said. “I’m pretty
good.”
The clerk sneered. “With a spear?”
Jules refused to be daunted. “I’ve never tried it that way, but I’ll bet I’d still be smooth.”
“Let’s try you and see.” The clerk led Jules out back to a yard where the outline of a
small quadrupedal animal had been crudely chalked on a wall. The two men stood twenty
meters away and the clerk handed Jules a long spear. The shaft was of a lightweight
wood, the point of chipped stone held onto the haft by leather thongs. Jules suddenly
realized how primitive the conditions on Gastonia were.
He hefted the weapon for a few seconds, allowing himself to become accustomed-to its
weight and balance, then suddenly hurled it-with the strength of a DesPlainian and the
accuracy of a skilled aerialist-directly toward the target. The stone tip, dulled from
repeated usage, did not stick in the target-but it did hit close to dead center before
bouncing off. Jules looked at the clerk. “Khorosho, how’s that?”
If the man was impressed by the newcomer’s ability, he managed not to show it. “Head
shots are best,” was all he said. “Gut shots can spoil the meat.”
“Sorry. Let me try again.” Jules’s second attempt did hit the target’s head, though was
not as well-placed as he would have liked. He knew his cousin Jean, the Circus’s knife
thrower, would have been able to split the creature’s eye five times out of five.
His performance, though, was good enough to convince the clerk that he could handle a
hunter’s job, and the man assigned him to the lowest-grade hunting position with a team
scheduled to go out on a two-day hunt the next morning. Apparently good hunters were