The Garments of Caean

The great master, so he heard, had died but recently. He had never been profligate in his creations, and he believed that since his death all items that had come from his hand were known, numbered and named, and viewed in the same light that great paintings had once been. But Peder’s good fortune was even more extraordinary; the use of the fabulous new cloth, Prossim, had but lately been perfected. Peder had been told, by a sartorial who claimed to have visited a planet within communicable distance of Caean, that Frachonard had completed five known suits in the new material.

‘Peder!’ Mast’s voice said fretfully. ‘What’s keeping you?’

Steeling himself, Peder took the suit off its hook. ‘Just finishing this batch,’ he said.

He stepped carefully out to the lighter and stowed the suit aboard, closing the hatch to the hold. He was about to return to the cargo ship when his speaker gave him a warning squawk and the sound generator warmed up ominously.

Turning, he saw that the shouter was easing itself down the slopes of the gorge.

‘Hold it,’ he said, ‘I think I’ve got trouble.’

The shouter seemed to have spotted him. Its long tail threshed the air for balance; its square sound-chute was aimed at the Caeanic ship, and suddenly Peder knew by the howl of his speaker that the chute was in operation. Frantically he reached for the hand-grip that operated the energy rifle. On the suit, baffle-tubes were fracturing and breaking off; something slow and rolling seemed to be grinding up his insides.

The energy rifle sent out a barely visible pale blue flame, like a wavering gas jet except that it went in a dead straight column to its target. It hit the shouter just below the snout. The beast squirmed to one side, injured but by no means dead, slithered farther down the slope and endeavoured once again to aim its beam of infra-sound towards Peder and the lighter. Peder fired again, taking more care over his aim this time. The energy column demolished the shouter’s chute, bored through its dermis and apparently struck a vital organ, for it rolled on to its side and wallowed in agony.

Peder was praying that the lighter was still capable of taking off. He stepped towards it, and as he did so everything inside him seemed to vibrate. He recognized that he had taken a good dose of infra-sound.

But he ignored all discomfort and forced himself into the cockpit of the lighter. ‘Take me up,’ he gasped to Mast. ‘I’m hurt.’

‘Right,’ said Mast, and the lighter rose. It creaked rather too much, but anyway it flew and did not appear to have any serious structural damage.

Fifteen minutes later he was back in the Costa and out of the crippled baffle suit. On the return journey, while standing still, he had felt all right, but as soon as he moved he got the same sensation of vibrations being let off inside him, and it was the same when he spoke. Castor, who had once flunked medical school, muttered something about ‘Not much; maybe a little minor haemorrhaging’, and, laying Peder down on Mast’s couch, gave him some injections and massage. After half an hour or so he felt better.

‘How much of the cargo did we get?’ Mast asked him.

‘About half, I’d say.’

Mast pursed his lips. ‘There’s still room in the hold …’

‘I’m not going down there again,’ Peder said quickly. ‘Anyway the suit’s damaged. If you want more get it yourself.’

Mast dropped the subject. They all went down to the hold to look over their merchandise, and for some time enjoyed themselves in picking items of finery for their personal use. Grawn and Castor bedecked themselves with gross indulgence. Mast, however, examined the clothes carefully but appeared to be uninterested in appropriating any for himself, choosing only a cravat of spider-silk, some handkerchiefs, and a small but jaunty titfer. Peder was surprised at this restraint, in view of Mast’s usual attention to his personal appearance. He himself sorted desultorily through the garments, put aside a quilted Prossim tabard with vandyked sleeves and collar, a pair of soft slippers of lavender suede with silver inlay, and a set of thigh-hose in chiaroscuroed textural. Hesitantly, trying to appear casual, he looked out the Frachonard suit.

‘One thing I must commandeer is this suit,’ he said.

Mast looked at it askance. ‘These people of Caean are pretty peculiar in their life-styles, so I’ve heard,’ he said noncommittally. ‘Don’t let the clothes master the man, the way they do.’

Peder scarcely heard the remark in his joy at being the possessor – and soon, he promised himself, the wearer – of a genuine Caeanic Frachonard suit.

Wearing their new clothes, the four repaired to the cockpit where Mast proposed to initiate their return to Harlos. But before he could do so a warning gong sounded. Bending over the slanting control board, Mast studied a display screen with puzzlement.

‘There’s a ship heading our way,’ he announced finally. ‘A Caeanic ship.’

‘Coincidence?’ suggested Castor. ‘We are close to one of their trade routes.’