Glystra noticed an attendant rolling a cart arrayed with pink and white pastries. “Pianza—look what he’s wearing…”
Pianza snorted in surprise and amusement. “It’s a tuxedo. Dinner jacket. Black tie. Stripe down the trousers, patent leather shoes. Wonderful.”
Out on the field a ball fell into the billowing russet-gold curtain, rolled softly to the ground. There was joyous applause from the spectators.
Glystra slacked his sails, his trolley coasted quietly along the line. The freight-flat behind, with Pianza and Bishop, overtook him. Glystra spoke over his shoulder, “Bishop, what does the Almanac say about Kirstendale? Anything interesting?”
Bishop came up to stand at the forward end of the flat, under the lead wheel. He looked in frowning reflection toward the looping walls. “Seems as if there’s a mystery of sorts—‘the Kirstendale Paradox,’ that’s what they called it. It starts to come back to me. A syndicate of millionaires established the town to beat System taxes. A whole colony came out with their servants—twenty or thirty families. Apparently—well,” he waved his hand. “There’s the result.”
The monoline veered once more, the breeze fell astern. Sails spread out like butterfly wings, the caravan plunged through an arch into the city, coasted up to a landing.
Three quiet men in dark livery came foward, wordlessly removed the packs from the trolley, put them into carts with high spoked wheels. Glystra started to remonstrate, but catching Clodleberg’s eye, desisted. “What’s happening?”
“They assume that you are wealthy,” said Clodleberg, “from the trolleys and the women.”
“Humph,” grunted Glystra. “Am I supposed to tip them?”
“Do what?”
“Give them money.”
Clodleberg blinked, still perplexed.
“Money. Metal.”
“Ah, metal!” Clodleberg twisted his natty mustache. “That is as you wish.”
The head porter approached, a tall solemn-faced man with carefully shaved cheeks, long sideburns terminating in a little puff of whiskers: a man comporting himself with immense dignity.
Glystra handed him three small iron washers. “For you and your men.”
“Thank you, sir… And where will you have your luggage sent?”
Glystra shrugged. “What are the choices?”
“Well, there’s the Grand Savoyard and the Metropole And the Ritz-Carlton—all excellent, all equally expensive.”
“How expensive?”
The head porter blinked, raised his black eyebrows the faintest trifle. “Perhaps an ounce a week… The Traveller’s Inn and the Fairmont are likewise expensive, but something quieter”
“What is a good inn of moderate rates?”
The head porter clicked his heels. “I recommend the Hunt Club. This way, sir, to the carriage.”
He led them to a landau mounted on four elliptical springs of laminated golden wood. There were no zipan-gotes hitched to the front, in fact the carriage appeared innocent of motive power.
The head porter swung open the door with a flourish. Cloyville, in the lead, hesitated, looked quizzically back over his shoulder. “A joke? After we get in, do you walk away and leave us sitting here?”
“No indeed, sir, by no means.”
Cloyville gingerly climbed up the two steps, lowered himself into the soft seat. The rest of the party followed.
The head porter closed the door with exquisite finesse, signalled. Four men in tight black uniforms stepped forward; each clipped a strap to the front of the carriage, tossed it over his shoulder, and the carriage was underway. Wooden planking rumbled below the wheels, the hangar-like buildings were behind, they drove over granite flags through the heart of the city.
Kirstendale had been laid out with an eye to striking vistas. It was a city clean as new paper, bright with polished stone and glass, gay with flowers. Towers rose everywhere, each circled by a staircase which spiralled up to meet the onion-shaped bulb of the dwelling.
They approached a cylindrical building in the middle of the city, large as a gas-storage tank. A lush growth of blue-green vine with maroon trumpet-flowers, rows of large windows gave a sense of lightness and elegance to an otherwise heavy building.
The carriage passed under a marquee roofed with stained glass, and the Big Planet sunlight, passing through, puddled the flags with gorgeous color. A sign on the marquee read, “Hotel Metropole.”
“Hm,” said Cloyville. “Looks like a nice place… After the—well, inconvenience of the journey, I could stand a week or two in the lap of luxury.”
But the carriage continued around the building, presently passed another marquee. This was draped in rich saffron satin, fringed with royal red tassels. A sign read “Grand Savoyard.”
Next they passed a portico of somewhat classical dignity: columns, Ionic capitals and entablature. Chiselled letters read “Ritz-Carlton,” and again Cloyville looked wistfully over his shoulder as the carriage swept by. “We’ll probably end up on a flop-house on the skid-road.”
They passed a vaguely Oriental entrance: carved dark wood, a slab of the same wood supporting tall green urns. The sign read, “The Traveller’s Inn.”
The carriage continued another hundred feet and stopped under an awning of green, red and white striped canvas. A bold black and white sign announced “The Hunt Club.”
A doorman stepped forward, helped them to the pavement, then ran ahead, opened the door.
The party of travellers passed through a short corridor pasted with green baize, decorated with black and white landscapes, entered a large central lobby.
Directly opposite, across the lobby, a corridor led outside. Through the door shone the many-colored radiance of stained-glass in the sunlight.
Glystra looked around the walls. At intervals other corridors led off like spokes from a hub, all evidently leading to the outside.
Glystra stopped short. Grinning he turned to Pianza. “The Metropole, the Grand Savoyard, the Ritz-Carlton, the Traveller’s Inn, the Hunt Club—they’re all the same.”
Clodleberg made an urgent motion. “Quiet. This is very real to the Kirsters. You will offend them.”
“But—”
Clodleberg said hurriedly, “I should have informed you; the entrance you chose places you on the social scale. The accommodations are identical, but it is considered smarter and more fashionable to enter through the Metropole.”
Glystra nodded. “I understand completely. We’ll be careful.”
The doorman led them across the lobby to a circular desk with a polished wood counter. Rods wound with spirals of colored cloth rising from the edge of the counter supported a parasol-shaped top. A central pier continued up three feet, then extended in a ten foot pole of pitted black wood. Around the pole, veering in and out, flew ten thousand fireflies—swooping, circling, settling on the pitted wood of the pole, flying out again in a swift current, ten, twenty, fifty feet from the pole.
The doorman took them to that section of the desk marked off by the Hunt Club colors. Glystra turned around, counted heads, like the father of a troublesome family. Cloyville, ruddy and flushed, was talking to a tired Pianza; Corbus and Bishop stood with Wailie and Motta, the girls excited, vastly impressed; Nancy stood pale and rather tense by his right elbow, Clodleberg at his left. Nine in all.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the desk clerk. “Are you Mr Claude Glystra, of Earth?”
Glystra swung around in surprise. “Why do you ask?”
“Sir Walden Marchion extends his compliments, and begs that you and your party honor him by residing at his villa the period of your stay. He has sent his carriage for your use, if you will so favor him.”
Glystra turned to Clodleberg, spoke in a cold voice. “How did this Sir Walden Marchion know of our arrival?”
Clodleberg flushed, preened his mustaches furiously.