Phule 06 - Phule's Errand by Asprin Robert

Author:Asprin, Robert [Asprin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-15T00:43:25+00:00

Chapter 11

Journal #822-

A visit to Hix’s World appears, at first glance, to be a step into the deepest past. Yet nowhere else are you likely to find a society so completely dependent on an intimately interconnected, highly technological, spacegoing galactic community-and oblivious to that very dependence. Hix’s World appears to have been founded on the premise that one can eat one’s cake and still have it to admire.

That, at least, is the only way I can interpret the notion of a bucolic existence that somehow manages to avoid such bucolic inconveniences as labor, famine, pestilence, and general misery.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Hix’s World is the belief of many of its citizens that their way of life embodies the deepest spiritual values of modern civilization. From the point of view of a thoroughgoing pragmatist such as myself , such a belief appears as paradoxical as the inhabitants’ belief that they have freed themselves from dependence on the technological infrastructure of the Alliance as a whole.

As far as I can tell, this belief is an utter delusion.

The customs inspectors at Hix’s World gave Phule’s luggage an unusually thorough going-over. Having spent part of the voyage reading up on the planet’s culture and customs, he was neither surprised nor unprepared. After replacing a couple of toiletry items with “Hix’s-safe” equivalents at the shipboard store, he received the inspectors’ thumbs-up and went on his way after only forty minutes. His immediate destination was a boardinghouse that catered to off-world clients, a likely place for Beeker and Nightingale to be staying-and a good place to stay,himself .

He arrived at La Retraite Rustique to find the sitting room full of tourists dressed in casual but expensive outfits, waiting to be called for the evening meal. The well-dressed young woman behind the desk shot an exasperated look in his direction, wrinkling her nose at his Legion jumpsuit. “May I assist you?” she asked, in a tone of voice that made it clear she hoped she couldn’t.

“Quite likely,” said Phule, setting down his bag. “First of all, I’m interested in a room.”

“Impossible,” said the woman, throwing up her hands. “We have been fully booked since the beginning of Waarmth.” Hix’s World had adopted its own eccentric calendar, featuring supposedly natural names for the time units equivalent to months.

“Ah, good for you,” said Phule, smiling broadly. “I’m glad to know that such a fine establishment is so popular- but I’m sure you can find an open room for one of the old regulars.” Phule himself had never been there, but his mother had taken vacations on Hix’s World several times while he was growing up-which was how he knew of the place.

“Regular or irregular, it is simply impossible,” said the woman, with an air of finality. “There’s not even a closet to be had. The entire district is full for the Floribunda Fete.”

Phule kept a broad smile on his face as his hand went into his pocket and returned with a small rectangular object which he placed on the counter just in front of the woman.

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