Araminta Station by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online

and they must make the decisions.”
    “Then they should do so, or so it seems to me.”
    “Ah, but it’s not so simple. Nothing ever is. At Stroma the Society is split down the middle. One faction supports the Charter, while the opposition rejects any actions which might lead to bloodshed. The present Conservator identifies with the second group: the Party of Fairness and Peace, they call themselves. But he is retiring and a new Conservator is moving into Riverview House.”
    “And what party is he?”
    “I don’t know,” said Scharde. “He’ll be here for Parilia, and then we’ll know more about him.”
    Parilia, a three-day festival in praise of the wines of Araminta, was celebrated each autumn and considered the high point of the year.
    Glawen said: “It would seem that the Yips would want to be resettled, rather than living in what amounts to a warren at Yipton.”
    “Naturally! But they want to settle Marmion Province.”
    Glawen made a disconsolate sound. “Everyone at Stroma must know that if the Yips were allowed into the Marmion littoral, they’d swarm over all of Deucas.”
    “Tell that to the Fairness and Peace people at Stroma, not me. I already believe you.”
     
     
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    Chapter I, Part 4
     
    The long summer came to an end. Master Floreste’s troupe of Mummers returned from a successful off-world tour, the profits of which would help fulfill Floreste’s great dream: a magnificent new Orpheum for the glorification of the performing arts. Glawen celebrated his sixteenth birthday and immediately started flight training under the supervision of the airport manager: one Eustace Chilke, a native of Old Earth.
    The lessons, the flyers and Eustace Chilke himself, with his tales of odd folk in remote places, for a time dominated Glawen’s life. Chilke, while barely past the first flush of youth, was already the veteran of a hundred picaresque adventures. He had traveled the Gaean Reach far and wide, at every level of the economic ladder: all of which had yielded him a working philosophy which he often shared with Glawen. “Poverty is acceptable because then there is no way but up. Rich people worry about losing their wealth, but I like this worry far more than the worry of scratching the wealth together in the first place. Also, people are nicer to you when they think you are rich - although they’ll often hit you over the head to find out where you hide your money.”
    Chilke’s appearance, while not at all remarkable, combined an unobtrusive flamboyance with a droll corded face. His features were weather-beaten and somewhat irregular, under a coarse and tattered crop of short dust-colored hair. He stood at average stature, with a short neck and heavy shoulders which caused him to hunch slightly forward.
    Chilke described himself as a farm boy from the Big Prairie. He spoke so feelingly of his old home, the neat little prairie towns and the wide windy landscapes that Glawen inquired if he ever planned to return.
    “Indeed I do,” said Chilke. “But only after I’ve amassed a fortune. When I left they called me a vagabond and threw rocks after the car. I want to return in style, with a band playing and girls dancing ahead of me throwing rose petals in the street.” Chilke thought back over the years. “All taken with all, I suspect that the consensus was correct. Not that I was mean and vicious; I just took after Grandpa Swaner, on my mother’s side. The Chilkes never thought highly of the Swaners, who were felt to be Society folk from the city and hence worthless. Grandpa Swaner was also considered a vagabond. He liked to deal in junk: purple bric-a-brac, stuffed animals, old books and documents, petrified dinosaur droppings. He had a collection of glass eyes of which he was very proud. The Chilkes laughed and jeered, sometimes behind his back, sometimes not. He wasn’t troubled in the least, especially after he sold the glass eyes to a fervent collector for a princely sum. The Chilkes