The Merchant traveled in style. For him the conquest of Earth might never have happened, nor even all the long centuries of Third Cycle decline. His self-primed landcar was four times the length of a man and wide enough to house five people in comfort; and it shielded its riders against the outer world as effectively as a womb. There was no direct vision, only a series of screens revealing upon command what lay outside. The temperature never varied from a chosen norm. Spigots supplied liqueurs and stronger things; food tablets were available; pressure couches insulated travelers against the irregularities of the road. For illumination, there was slavelight keyed to the Merchant’s whims. Beside the main couch sat a thinking cap, but I never learned whether the Merchant carried a pickled brain for his private use in the depths of the landcar, or enjoyed some sort of remote contact with the memory tanks of the cities through which he passed.
He was a man of pomp and bulk, clearly a savorer of his own flesh. Deep olive of skin, with a thick pompadour of well-oiled black hair and somber, scrutinizing eyes, he rejoiced in his solidity and in his control of an uncertain environment. He dealt, we learned, in foodstuffs of other worlds; he bartered our poor manufactures for the delicacies of the starborn ones. Now he was en route to Marsay to examine a cargo of hallucinatory insects newly come in from one of the Belt planets.
“You like the car?” he asked, seeing our awe. Olmayne, no stranger to ease herself, was peering at the dense inner mantle of diamonded brocade in obvious amazement. “It was owned by the Comt of Perris,” he went on. “Yes, I mean it, the Comt himself. They turned his palace into a museum, you know.”
“I know,” Olmayne said softly.
“This was his chariot. It was supposed to be part of the museum, but I bought it off a crooked invader. You didn’t know they had crooked ones too, eh?” The Merchant’s robust laughter caused the sensitive mantle on the walls of the car to recoil in disdain. “This one was the Procurator’s boy friend. Yes, they’ve got those, too. He was looking for a certain fancy root that grows on a planet of the Fishes, something to give his virility a little boost, you know, and he learned that I controlled the whole supply here, and so we were able to work out a little deal. Of course, I had to have the car adapted, a little. The Comt kept four neuters up front and powered the engine right off their metabolisms, you understand, running the thing on thermal differentials. Well, that’s a fine way to power a car, if you’re a Comt, but it uses up a lot of neuters through the year, and I felt I’d be overreaching my status if I tried anything like that. It might get me into trouble with the invaders, too. So I had the drive compartment stripped down and replaced with a standard heavy-duty roller-wagon engine—a really subtle job—and there you are. You’re lucky to be in here. It’s only that you’re Pilgrims. Ordinarily I don’t let folks come inside, on account of them feeling envy, and envious folks are dangerous to a man who’s made something out of his life. Yet the Will brought you two to me. Heading for Jorslem, eh?”
“Yes,” Olmayne said.
“Me too, but not yet! Not just yet, thank you!” He patted his middle. “I’ll be there, you can bet on it, when I feel ready for renewal, but that’s a good way off, the Will willing! You two been Pilgriming long?”
“No,” Olmayne said.
“A lot of folks went Pilgrim after the conquest, I guess. Well, I won’t blame ’em. We each adapt in our own ways to changing times. Say, you carrying those little stones the Pilgrims carry?”
“Yes,” Olmayne said.
“Mind if I see one? Always been fascinated by the things. There was this trader from one of the Darkstar worlds—little skinny bastard with skin like oozing tar—he offered me ten quintals of the things. Said they were genuine, gave you the real communion, just like the Pilgrims had. I told him no, I wasn’t going to fool with the Will. Some things you don’t do, even for profit. But afterward I wished I’d kept one as a souvenir. I never even touched one.” He stretched a hand toward Olmayne. “Can I see?”
“We may not let others handle the starstone,” I said.
“I wouldn’t tell anybody you let me!”
“It is forbidden.”
“Look, it’s private in here, the most private place on Earth, and—”
“Please. What you ask is impossible.”
His face darkened, and I thought for a moment he would halt the car and order us out, which would have caused me no grief. My hand slipped into my pouch to finger the frigid starstone sphere that I had been given at the outset of my Pilgrimage. The touch of my fingertips brought faint resonances of the communion-trance to me, and I shivered in pleasure. He must not have it, I swore. But the crisis passed without incident. The Merchant, having tested us and found resistance, did not choose to press the matter.
We sped onward toward Marsay.
He was not a likable man, but he had a certain gross charm, and we were rarely offended by his words. Olmayne, who after all was a fastidious woman and had lived most of her years in the glossy seclusion of the Hall of Rememberers, found him harder to take than I; my intolerances have been well blunted by a lifetime of wandering. But even Olmayne seemed to find him amusing when he boasted of his wealth and influence, when he told of the women who waited for him on many worlds, when he catalogued his homes and his trophies and the guildmasters who sought his counsel, when he bragged of his friendships with former Masters and Dominators. He talked almost wholly of himself and rarely of us, for which we were thankful; once he asked how it was that a male Pilgrim and a female Pilgrim were traveling together, implying that we must be lovers; we admitted that the arrangement was slightly irregular and went on to another theme, and I think he remained persuaded of our unchastity. His bawdy guesses mattered not at all to me nor, I believe, to Olmayne. We had more serious guilts as our burdens.
Our Merchant’s life seemed enviably undisrupted by the fall of our planet: he was as rich as ever, as comfortable, as free to move about. But even he felt occasionally irked by the presence of the invaders, as we found out by night not far from Marsay, when we were stopped at a checkpoint on the road.
Spy-eye scanners saw us coming, gave a signal to the spinnerets, and a golden spiderweb spurted into being from one shoulder of the highway to the other. The land-car’s sensors detected it and instantly signaled us to a halt. The screens showed a dozen pale human figures clustered outside.
“Bandits?” Olmayne asked.
“Worse,” said the Merchant. “Traitors.” He scowled and turned to his communicator horn. “What is it?” he demanded.
“Get out for inspection.”
“By whose writ?”
“The Procurator of Marsay,” came the reply.
It was an ugly thing to behold: human beings acting as road-agents for the invaders. But it was inevitable that we should have begun to drift into their civil service, since work was scarce, especially for those who had been in the defensive guilds. The Merchant began the complicated process of unsealing his car. He was stormy-faced with rage, but he was stymied, unable to pass the checkpoint’s web. “I go armed,” he whispered to us. “Wait inside and fear nothing.”
He got out and engaged in a lengthy discussion, of which we could hear nothing, with the highway guards. At length some impasse must have forced recourse to higher authority, for three invaders abruptly appeared, waved their hired collaborators away, and surrounded the Merchant. His demeanor changed; his face grew oily and sly, his hands moved rapidly in eloquent gestures, his eyes glistened. He led the three interrogators to the car, opened it, and showed them his two passengers, ourselves. The invaders appeared puzzled by the sight of Pilgrims amid such opulence, but they did not ask us to step out. After some further conversation the Merchant rejoined us and sealed the car; the web was dissolved; we sped onward toward Marsay.