The Garments of Caean

The footman paused at a circular nexus of five radiating corridors. The flat ceiling bore a golden starburst. From one of the corridors emerged two dark-garbed men, and Peder was disconcerted to find that one of them was Lieutenant Burdo, his visitor of the previous morning.

Burdo’s present companion waved a detector box down the length of Peder’s body, then frisked him expertly. ‘What is this?’ Peder protested.

‘You’re under arrest.’ Burdo’s face was closed, almost hurt.

‘But why?’

‘You might be able to fool us,’ Burdo told him, ‘but you can’t fool Vascha.’ He nudged Peder forward. The two policemen fell in behind him.

Peder was mystified. He followed the footman, who led them down a long corridor whose colours, seen in perspective, gave the impression of a box-shaped rainbow. As they walked by them the walls phased through purple, russet and gold, like a technicolor autumn, until finally the footman stopped at a door of carved wood.

Peder was pushed into a room breathing luxury. The walls, painted delicate peach, were lent an odd impression of texture by embossed murals of the same colour. All the furniture was antique. If Peder was any judge one or two pieces dated from before the settlement of Ziode itself.

Baryonid Varl Vascha stood before a huge open hearth in which timber logs blazed and threw out an enjoyable warmth. Peder was amazed. Never in his life had he seen an open fire inside a closed room before. Vascha wore a purple smoking jacket and was puffing at a curious smoking instrument of some ancient design. He nodded to the footman to leave; the security men arranged themselves by the door.

Vascha looked at Peder hard with eyes nearly as black as his greased-down hair, pulling thoughtfully on the smoking-pipe. His face was square and pockmarked, making him look like a hoodlum. Peder shivered inwardly. For a Ziodean, he had to admit that the Third Minister had remarkable presence.

‘Sir, why have I been arrested?’ he asked.

Vascha took the smoking instrument from his mouth and laid it on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. But he ignored Peder’s question. He looked past him to Lieutenant Burdo.

‘Do you know much about the Caeanics, Lieutenant? At first hand, I mean?’

‘No, sir,’ Burdo told him.

‘They are strange people,’ Vascha said slowly in a gruff, musing voice. ‘Not like us at all. It’s as if they don’t have souls. Take you or me, for instance. Our personality, our mien or whatever you like to call it, comes from our own inner qualities. Theirs comes from the clothes they wear, pure and simple. It’s a weird phenomenon. You don’t get to recognize it right away. Not for a long time, in fact. But when you do, you realize these people are no more human than a robot. It’s the same as if they were some alien kind of life-form.’

‘I guess there’s no accounting for foreigners, sir.’

The Minister gave a short barking laugh. ‘You’re right there, Lieutenant! No accounting for foreigners! But unfortunately that’s not all there is to it. The Caeanics plan to conquer on a wide scale, spreading their perverse way of life everywhere. They’ll come here and turn you into a clothes-robot.’ He nodded with self-assurance. ‘Caean poses a terrible threat to Ziode, in fact to the whole inhabited galaxy. “Caeanic Tzist lies curved above Ziode like a threatening maw” – that’s from an official government pamphlet, and I wrote it.’

He walked across to Peder and fingered the cloth of his suit. ‘Prossim, isn’t it? You must be highly placed.’

‘No, sir!’ Peder cried, shocked. ‘Crabsheep twill!’

The Minister went back to the fireplace, leaned against the mantelpiece and warmed his hands in the heat of the flames. He laughed softly. ‘You made a real mistake in coming to this ball tonight. It so happens I once spent two years as ambassador to Caean! We had diplomatic contact in those days. By the time the two years were up, I had learned to recognize what it was made Caeanics different from real people. Almost as soon as I saw you tonight I knew you were Caeanic.’

‘No sir, I am Ziodean! I was born here in Gridira!’

Vascha waved his hand.

And Peder’s further denials faded away. He was almost totally bemused by everything the Minister had said. He had never really looked on Caean as an aggressive force, and not having taken the feud between the two nations seriously, had never expected to find himself in this invidious situation.

‘Well, you’ve brought me a real birthday present after all,’ Vascha said with evident gratification. ‘Yourself: our first captured Caeanic agent, and a person of some importance if I’m any judge.’ He glanced up at the security men. ‘Bring him this way. ZZ want to take a look at him.’