Once upon a time the highlight of the working world, on the production lines and in the cubicles at least, was the five o'clock whistle. For most of Ilnesprol five o'clock came and went each day with no more significance than 4:07 or 8:21. Such is the wonder of post industrial society. Five in the morning or five in the afternoon, it's all the same. The multifunction autonomous fabricating machine goes on with its tasks. No lunch break, just a bit of lubing now and then, a belt replaced here, a roller replaced there and back to work. No vacations or holidays unless the central control computer runs out of tasks to assign. No quitting time, just pick up another one, rotate it, drill it, thread it, pass it on. No questions, just do it. What wouldn't the ancient captains of the great industrial age have given for workers like these? And thank God I wasn't one of the human workers they did have in those long gone and little missed days.
Five o'clock may have had less significance to the world in general now than then, but when it came I was ready. Not that it hadn't been a fascinating afternoon in its own way. The system had merits as an intellectual toy. Where else could one play a game of catch or keep away by oneself using old bits of furniture or machinery for a ball. But I was ready to depart. So ready that I nearly forgot to fill out the paperwork I'd been given to enroll myself as an official employee. I opened the envelope, flipped through the stack of papers, signing wherever it seemed appropriate, closed the file and said to myself, "Now what?" Ah, yes, she said to send it off through inter-office mail. I went over to the desk George had indicated, located a pre-addressed envelope, slipped the papers inside and indented it for the personnel department. Then I slipped in into the slot next to the desk to be whisked away to the office. I was, or shortly would be, a full fledged employee of Resource Optimization.
Opening the operations manual to a page I'd marked previously in my exploration, I keyed in the command to set the system on "Night, Unattended." I made a quick pass by the windows. The selector assemblies were busily picking and flipping. It looked good, all business-like, so I determined that my duty was done and I could depart.
This presented a bit of a problem at first. I'd come in a semi-private car, but had no means of flagging one. George had failed to mention if such vehicles were available to the lowly rank and file or what the alternatives were. I retraced my steps to the entrance, exited to the accompaniment of a heavy metallic clang as the door closed behind me, and glanced left and right. Fortuitously, a public transit stop was sited on a nearby corner. As luck would have it, I'd no sooner reached the stop than an autotram rolled into sight. I poked the flag button mounted below the route directory. The autotram slowed and stopped in front of me. I thumbed the veripad next to the door, entered, and was on my way home.
While not memorable, it was not an unpleasant journey. Not as fast as the shuttle car that morning, in its high speed tube, but as trams go it was adequate. The scenery was pleasant enough, once we'd left the pastel sameness of Ilnesprol. The tram had to negotiate the ridge separating Ilnesprol from Ilnestrom, a buffer that had been left intentionally in it's natural craggy, well-wooded state. Much of the freight traffic from Ilnesprol was directed through tunneled ways directly to the port district and transportation terminals, but the route the tram followed had been intended for human traffic more than goods carting, and had been laid out with an eye towards beauty as much as efficiency, mounting the ridge in a series of gradual, sweeping traverses that hardly affected the vehicle's speed while affording broad, changing views.
My fellow passengers were rather less interesting than the exterior scene. The tram was about half full. Of that number most were engrossed in reading literature of a sporting, economic or technical nature. The others mostly seemed asleep or lost in thought. No one displayed any inclination to engage in conversation. Without exception you could look at any one of them and say this is the grown up edition of that fellow in the third year of schooling whom you'd have voted most likely to spend his life designing, building or operating a machine. I suppose that after a few months of making the journey twice a day, it became nothing more than a fifteen minute blank spot punctuating one's day.
The autotram made a circuitous but relatively efficient loop through the residential areas of The City. I spotted a familiar intersection not far from my humble lodgings and signaled my desire to debark. I spent a moment studying the map posted at the stop to determine my routing for the morrow. This seemed to be the closest one I'd find, so I made a mental note of it's location and then started off for home. A slidewalk was conveniently close to the stop and with a few blocks of hoofing I was over my threshold in no time.
There was no mail and no messages were waiting on the discom, so I scanned the offerings for some suitably soft music and settled back for a nap. All in all it had been a pleasant enough day and if I didn't particularly look forward to many more days thus spent, at least the prospect of returning to work in the morning was not entirely disheartening.
About seven o'clockish my stomach notified me that I still had matters to attend to. I had edible odds and ends about the place, but I was in the mood to dabble in the restaurant scene. There was a decent enough spot a few blocks away which I frequently patronized, so, donning a fresh shirt, I set off to see what they might offering the way of dinner.
Belmonti's, as the place was known, had been a fixture in the neighborhood since long before my residency. The founder, and still the resident deity of the kitchen, was also the namesake, Aldous Belmonti. At near ninety years of age he ruled his pot-lined domain with a large wooden spoon, an ancient but still sharp cleaver and a memory that qualified him as a national repository of culinary information.
In his apprenticeship, an aged and respected chef had laid down one iron rule of restauranting. In this esteemed fellow's opinion, if a customer returned after a long absence and ordered the tournedos in sherry sauce, as he had on his last visit a decade or more before, he should exclaim on tasting them "That is precisely as I remember it!" Consistency was the thing. And the young Belmonti had devoted his life to that ideal. Other restauranteurs changed menus, names and decor with the fads. Today's menu will be rubbish tomorrow and the day after yet another style of cooking will be installed. Not that this is altogether bad. When in the mood for adventure, that's the sort of place you look for. If you're in the mood for security, the comfort of familiarity, you go to Belmonti's.
Appropriately, Belmonti had made a specialty of the ancient, traditional cuisines of the home planet. As a moderately priced, neighborhood establishment, the meat and poultry he served were of course the cultured variety. The sauerbraten Belmonti served was thousands of generations removed, via the bio-facs, from the four legged, grass cropping tissue donor that was it's sensate ancestor. But it was sauerbraten still, tender, piquant and aromatic. Belmonti used only the best of the cultured food products and through practice had worked their preparation into the highest of art. Many patrons would swear that the chicken marsala tasted more like chicken than the clucking, feathered beastie.
Not only the food but the furnishings exuded a comfortable familiarity. The less durable things, linens and the like, were of course replaced with predictable regularity. But the more substantial items, tables, chairs, had long histories, often much longer than the personal histories of the majority of the patrons. They had a luster, a patina perhaps, from years of handling. They had a finish that came from being steeped in the odors of food and coffee and wine.
I made my way to my familiar table, a small, two chair variety strategically placed in a corner, ideal for viewing the passing scene on the street. Druella was seeing to the customers that night, as she had been every Tuesday for who knew how long. The special of the evening was rouladen, as it was every third Tuesday for who knew how long. It was invariably done to perfection, so I ordered it, along with a glass of house red to keep me company while I waited.
When I was well into the rouladen, I happened to glance up on hearing the sound of the door open. There, just coming in, was Jeremy Giffen. He of the square jaw and solid shoulders and Uncle Grump's disdain. Probably the most interesting, most eclectic of my friends. And also the one who'd led me astray the most often. Jeremy was a planner, his head always abuzz with schemes. Sometimes they worked out, at least in part. More often, the pieces were left behind in a heap as he veered off in pursuit of another grand idea. When following Jeremy one had to be careful where one placed his foot. The wreckage left in his wake could sometimes be treacherous.
I knew he was up to something. I hadn't seen or heard from him, nor heard about him, for close on a month. Tonight he entered followed by someone I hadn't seen before. The fellow was beyond our age, though apparently not by more than five or ten years. But then with medical intervention the way it is who can really tell anymore. Of about average height, average build, and average hair loss, he was about as average as any man on the street. Two things did stand out about him though. His carriage had that distinctive air of confidence one sees in someone who has no problems with self esteem. His clothes were somehow suggestive of other places. Not that they were of bizarre or exotic pattern. Most men's attire has long been more or less standardized along pragmatic lines. He wore a fairly standard casual jacket of the sort favored by travelers, utilitarian but still stylish enough not to seem out of place in an urban setting. Shirt, trousers, low boots were of a similar practical pattern. But there were slight divergences from the local patterns, the cut of this and the detailing of that, which suggested they were foreign, of off-world origin. And they were also suggestive of a man who spent freely to buy the best.
For better or worse, Jeremy spotted me and made for my table, the stranger in tow.
"Dunce! Good to see you," he said, pulling up a chair and waving his companion to the empty one already in place. "Allow me to introduce my client, Thorley Verrill, of the planet Calthar. Been on a tour of our little home planet."
"Welcome," I said, adding a redundant "have a seat. On a tour, you say?"
"For the last six months," Thorley Verrill said, his voice betraying a slight accent. "I've spent the better part of it on your Soucon, doing some climbing. Most spectacular mountains you have there. Calthar is an old, old world, with old, old mountains. Worn down to mere pimples on the landscape by comparison with Soucon. My fellow mountaineering aficionados spoke highly of the Teebor District and its surrounding peaks, so there I went. And they were right. Nothing, nothing on Calthar compares with the peaks of the Grand Scarp. But now I've had enough of ice and rock to last me for a long while. The agency was kind enough to acquaint me with Mister Jeremy here, who has acted as guide and lecturer on a brief circuit through the northern continents."
Druella had brought menus, a carafe of red and glasses at Jeremy's signal. They both scanned the menus, Thorley periodically questioning Jeremy about items and occasionally remarking on the Caltharian equivalent when Jeremy described an entree. They ordered, Thorley being a judicious tourist and ordering the same as Jeremy.
"Isn't Calthar quite a ways to come from just to walk up a mountain?" I said, in all earnestness. The mere mention of Soucon lowered my comfort level several notches.
"Oh, it's a six months journey perhaps," he said, not quite understanding my question. "I am never really certain of the time differentials involved in the flights. No matter how I try to work it out, I am always a week beyond or a month behind the date I've calculated it should be when I return to Calthar. The mathematics are too complex for my poor mind."
"You go interplanet often?" I asked. This was obviously a man of means. Hopping to another planet was not the average person's budget holiday, not to mention the time involved. Even someone with the assets of Uncle Grump or Tantie Eldora thought twice before committing themselves to perhaps several years separation from their business interests.
"This is my sixth trip off my home world. Calthar is such a homogeneous society, you see one town and you've seen them all in essence. And the scenery, as I've already indicated, is not so inspiring. Truth to tell, most worlds are not much different. It seems people of a like mind want to settle together. And when peoples of a different mind settle together, such worlds' societies tend to more interesting than I want to see. The Teebor region is maybe more interesting than most, if for nothing else than that the mountains are so good and when one tires of the mountains the wine is so good and the food is so good. As indeed they are in the other places Jeremy has shown me too quickly. I would like to stay longer and see more, but I have commitments at home that cannot be put off forever. So tomorrow early it is off to the terminal and then into space again. But perhaps I'll come back again, who can know?"
He excused himself to go in search of the facilities. Jeremy sat back and sipped his wine with a self-satisfied expression.
"I take it you've been enjoying yourself?" I asked.
"The Giffen luck continues to hold," he said.
"You've hooked into a permanent position escorting wealthy tourists?"
"No, and that is actually fine with me. Too much of a good thing would spoil the fun. The odd job now and then is fine with me, especially if they're like this Mister Verrill. He has been a most fortuitous meeting. I was casting about for something to do, about to start digging into my capital to meet ordinary expenses, when an old associate from the agency handling the Verrill itinerary gives me a call. I've worked for them on occasion and it seems they were short handed on guides to take over once the mountain climbing phase was over and could I perhaps spare a few weeks. The remuneration was adequate if not something to base the family fortune on, but there have been other perks to make the trip worthwhile."
"He's been a congenial traveling companion, you say?"
"Most, and also most liberal with his purse strings. Doesn't believe in stinting himself anything, or his guide either. A very pleasant state of affairs when you consider that the agency expense account is perhaps a shade parsimonious.
"Went down to Keldaheim to pick him up. No itinerary. They just said to find out where he wants to go and get him there. He was just off the mountains, so I suggested he might want to try a warmer spot, like the Azul Coast. Spent a very pleasant week at Sybaris West, baking on the beach during the day and rehydrating at night."
"Hardly seems a strenuous enough way for a sporting type like him to spend a week."
"I believe it was quite strenuous enough, in its own way. Took him several days just to acclimatize."
"Couldn't take the heat after the mountains?"
"Something like that. I have the distinct impression that the residents of Calthar are somewhat more reserved and prone to inhibitions than the typical patron of Sybaris West. He coped well, though. Very adaptable to local customs is our Mr.Verrill. But after a week he longs for the heights again. So we did a circuitous progress around the headwaters of the Bradamante, through the Chitterly Hills and then cruised a bit of the way down The Longsea. Just came in this morning."
"You seem to have enjoyed the odyssey."
"For the last three weeks I've eaten well, drunk better, and been paid for the privilege of doing it. Can't think of many better arrangements than that. And on top of it I had a most interesting encounter at Sybaris West. One whom I expect to encounter again, since she was there on vacation from here."
Once again I had to muse on the nature of luck. For all his near disasters, Jeremy certainly had luck on his side the better part of the time. Once again things seem to have fallen in place for him almost as if he'd planned them. Thorley returned just as the dinner selections arrived and conversation died out but for appreciative comments on the cuisine. When finally the plates were cleared and the wine nearly gone Thorley perused the dessert menu. He put it down on the table and leaned back with the expression of a man set on resisting temptation.
"So, Jeremy, now it is perhaps time for this game you promised me?"
"I think we have just enough time to get over to my place. The others should be arriving shortly if they're not already there."
"And you, Mister Dunstan? Do you play..." he paused. Then he looked at Jeremy. "What is it called here, again?"
"We call it bong-chong."
"Yes, bong-chong. From the description he has given me it sounds very like a game we play on Calthar. So, for the climax of my visit Jeremy has assembled some players he assures me are the best in the city, if not on the continent. Would you care to join us?"
It sounded like fun, but it also sounded dangerous. Doubtlessly the stakes would be in negotiable instruments rather than matchsticks. Thorley Verrill did not seem like someone who would play for the thrill of it. On the other hand, Jeremy Giffen was no fool when it came to games of chance. He obviously thought the odds were favorable if he'd agreed to set up a game. So I agreed to join in. My luck seemed to be running reasonably high lately. We settled up the accounts, and then we were off to Jeremy's house, on the unfashionable edge of the docklands
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