Read Online Araminta Station by Jack Vance - Free Book Online Page A

coordinator: a man tall and handsome with a head of glistening white hair. Namour, a Clattuc collateral, had fared far and wide across the Reach; he had known good times and bad; he had engaged in a hundred exploits and adventures, most of which he refused to discuss. He claimed to have seen everything worth seeing and to have done everything worth doing: a cool flat statement which no one had ever challenged. His experiences had left him with a patina of urbane good manners and an understated elegance, which Arles thought to use as a model for his own conduct.
    The six youths joined Namour, who acknowledged their presence with an austere nod. Arles asked: “How many in today’s load?”
    “According to the roster, one hundred and forty.”
    “Hmmf! That’s quite a parcel. Are they all grape workers?”
    “I expect we’ll use some of them at Parilia.”
    Arles inspected the Yips lined up along the ship’s rail: young men and women dressed alike in knee-length white kirtles. They waited quietly, with mild expressions: by and large a well-favored folk. The. young men were of uniformly good physique, if somewhat slender, with bronze skins, ringlets of dusty-blond hair, golden-hazel eyes set faunlike, widely apart. The faces of the girls were softer and rounder, and their hair showed generally a darker copper-gold color. Their arms and legs were slim and graceful: no question but what the Yip girls were beautiful. Some folk were especially intrigued by what they considered a hint of an alien, or nonhuman, quality, which just as many others failed to perceive.
    The gates opened; the Yips filed past a desk, announced their names in soft slurred voices and received their work permits. Namour and the six youths stood to the side, watching the process.
    “Alike as peas in a pod,” Kiper reported to Glawen. “That’s how they look to me.”
    “It might be that we look exactly alike to them.”
    “I hope not,” said Kiper. “I wouldn’t want even a Yip to think that I looked like Uther or Arles.”
    Uther laughed, but Arles turned a haughty glance over his shoulder. “I heard that, Kiper. Such remarks are not well advised.”
    “Kiper is very ugly,” said Uther. “I endorse his remark.”
    “Well, yes,” said Arles. “On those grounds I do too.”
    Uther asked: “Have you noticed the odor, when the breeze blows this way? It’s the typical Yip reek, that you notice when you go out on the Concourse at Yipton.” He referred to a faint soft scent, like waterweeds, with a hint of spice and indefinable human exudation.
    “Some say it’s a result of their diet,” Namour told the group. “Personally, I suspect that a Yip smells like a Yip, and that is that.”
    “I’m not bothered,” said Arles, “Oh, my sacred Clattuc elbow! Look yonder at those three lovely creatures! I’ll smell them from morning till night, and ask for more! Namour, you may assign them to me, here and now!”
    Namour turned him a cool glance. “Certainly, if you’re willing to pay.”
    “How much?”
    “They come high, especially those with the black earrings. That means they’re associated with a man. In loose terms: married.”
    “What of the others? Are they virgins?”
    “How should I know? They still come high.”
    “What a pity!” moaned Arles. “Can’t I have just one of them free?”
    “You’d have a knife in the ribs just as quickly. The men are not meek; don’t let those placid faces fool you. They don’t like us in the first place, and even less when we start fooling with their girls - unless we pay. They’ll do anything for money, but never try to cheat them. A few years ago a tourist forced himself on a Yip girl while she picked grapes. Like a fool he refused to pay. Two Yips held him while a third pushed a grape stake down his throat - all the way. A nasty business.”
    “What happened to the Yips?”
    “Nothing. If you play, pay. Better yet, leave the Yip girls alone.”
    Uther Offaw glanced skeptically