The Dogtown Tourist Agency by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online Page A

makes no difference, in any case. I have no secrets.” He took a gulp of wine. “Very well, I’ll tell you what happened to me. You can believe me or not; it’s all the same. My home is Thrope on the planet Cicely. My father owns an estate of one of the northern islands—Huldice, if you happento know Cicely. It’s a quiet place where nothing ever happens except the turn of the crops and the hussade championships, and even our hussade is stately and we denude no sheirls, more’s the pity…To be brief, I grew up to wanderlust, and when I left Dagglesby University I took a job with the Blue Arrow Line as supercargo. At Wolden Port, on Arbello, we picked up cargo for Maz—perhaps some of this very wine we drink now.”
    “Not this wine. This is Medlin-Esterhazy, from Saint Wilmin.”
    Dirby made an impatient gesture. “We discharged our cargo at the spaceport yonder and took aboard a new cargo of crated merchandise. The consignee was Istagam at Twisselbane on Tamar.”
    “Twisselbane? And there you met Casimir Wuldfache? Or Carmine Daruble?”
    “I met neither. We discharged cargo, and then I went across town to the Pleasure Gardens, where I met a beautiful girl with dark hair and a wonderful soft voice. Her name was Eljiano. She had just arrived in town from one of the backlands, or so she told me. I fell in love with her, and one thing led to another, and two days later I woke up with no money and no Eljiano. When I managed to get myself to the spaceport, my ship was gone and far away.
    “A man came up to me and asked if I wanted to earn some easy money. I asked, ‘How much and how easy?’ This was my second mistake. My first was at the Pleasure Gardens. The man said his name was Banghart and his game was smuggling. Well, I needed money, and I agreed to the proposition. We loaded an old barrel of a hulk with unmarked crates, and they might have been the same crates we had brought away from Maz, except that they were far heavier. But I knew that Istagam was somehow connected with the affair. Banghart told me nothing.
    “We took off on the hulk and presently stood off a planet surrounded by an orange nimbus. Banghart identified the planet as Dys, wherever that is. We discharged our cargo by moonlight, on an island in a swamp.”
    “Dys has no orange nimbus,” said Hetzel.
    Gidion Dirby paid him no heed. “Banghart approached the planet with great caution, and I believe he was waiting for a signal, because all of a sudden we dropped like a stone down to the night side. We landed on an island in a swamp and all night long discharged cargo by hand, under a beautiful big full moon, green as a gooseberry.”
    “Dys has no moon,” said Hetzel.
    Dirby nodded. “We were here on Maz. When the hold was empty, Banghart told me that I had to stay and guard the cargo, that I was to be sent out another job. I complained, but in a reasonable voice, because I had nothing to back up my arguments. I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Banghart, certainly, Mr. Banghart, I’ll really guard this shipment.’ The ship left. I was sure I was going to be killed, so I climbed a tree and hid in the branches.
    “I began to think. I watched the moon; it was big and round and green and I knew then that I was back on Maz. The crates must certainly contain weapons for the Gomaz. I could see that my chances were poor. If the Gomaz caught me, they’d kill me; if the Triarchy patrol caught me, they’d seal me into the top floor of the Exhibitory.
    “The moonlight was too green and dim to see by. I sat in the tree until daylight; then I climbed to the ground. The day was overcast and almost as dim as the night, but I noticed a path leading off across the swamp, with timbers laid across the worst spots.
    “Even now I hesitated. Banghart had told me to guard the cargo, and I was deathly afraid of him. I still am. Worse now. But I finally decided to try the path. I walked about two hours. I had a few minor adventures, but no real emergencies, and I finally