The Best of Jack Vance (1976) SSC Read online

  THE BEST OF

  JACK VANCE

  A KANGAROO BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY POCKET BOOKS NEW YORK

  Distributed in Canada by PaperJacks Ltd., a Libensee of the trademarks of Simon & Schuster, a division of Gulf+Western Corporation.

  An Alien World. . .

  Earth dwindled behind, a plump pearl rolling on black velvet among a myriad of glittering diamonds, the sun an aching pit not to be tolerated, an exalted magnificence of another order entirely....

  Light years, from home, five young space cadets realize that their aging and ruthless commander plans to make this—their maiden voyage—their last.

  With a macabre mission to accomplish, an abandoned girl searches for fortune in the wealthiest corner of the galaxy, where enormous men and women float delicately through a life of ease.

  The newly arrived consular representative faces his first assignment: to arrest and subdue a deadly assassin. It is an impossible task on an alien planet where every face is masked and nobody ever tells the truth.

  Accidentally locking yourself out can be tragic when you live in a futuristic society where a machine can open up an infinite number of worlds and each family has its own private planet.

  Books by Jack Vance

  The Best of Jack Vance

  The Dying Earth

  The Eyes of the Overworld

  Published by

  POCKET BOOKS

  Another Original publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020 In Canada distributed by PapcrJacks Ltd.,

  330 Steelcase Road, Markham, Ontario

  Copyright © 1976 by Jack Vance All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-83070-8

  First Pocket Books printing May, 1976

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Trademarks registered in the United States and other countries.

  Printed In Canada

  Contents

  Preface to the Collection Capturing Vance

  SAIL 25

  ULLWARD’S RETREAT

  THE LAST CASTLE

  ABERCROMBIE STATION

  THE MOON MOTH

  RUMFUDDLE

  Preface to the Collection

  Quite candidly, I don’t like to discuss, let alone analyze, my own stories. Still, I have been asked to prepare a preface to the following collection, and no subject other than the stories themselves seems appropriate.

  These are all stories I like, naturally enough. They date across approximately fifteen years. I have a special affection for “Ullward’s Retreat” and “Sail 25.” Otherwise there is little I can say that the stories can’t say better for themselves.

  Instead, I’ll make a remark or two about my personal approach to the business of writing. In the first place, I am firmly convinced that the writer who publicizes himself distracts his readers from what should be his single concern: his work. For this reason, after a few early vacillations, I refuse to disseminate photographs, self-analysis, biographical data, critiques and confessions: not from innate reserve, but to focus attention where I think it belongs.

  I am aware of using no inflexible or predetermined style. Each story generates its own style, so to speak. In theory, I feel that the only good style is the style which no one notices, but I suppose that in practice this may not be altogether or at all times possible. In actuality the subject of style is much too large to be covered in a sentence or two and no doubt every writer has his own ideas on the subject.

  Without further generalities, I commend the reader’s attention to the stories themselves.

  J. V.

  Capturing Vance

  I have this theory that the titles of first published stories are symbolic. They seem to intimate the direction of a career. Certainly it is appropriate that Robert Heinlein, who with John W. Campbell turned this field around in the forties, first appeared in 1939 with “Life-Line” and that Tom Sherred’s almost singlehanded attempt to forge new directions in 1948 was called “E for Effort.” Then my own first published science-fiction story was called, “We’re Coming Through the Windows,” amply predicting an eight-year output of some three million words, and Silverberg’s in a 1956 Astounding was titled, with equal appropriateness, “To Be Continued” (and howl). There may be something profound here. Jack Vance’s first piece in a 1947 issue of Astounding was “I’ll Build Your Dream Castle” * and sandwiched among Simak, Tenn, Asimov, other large figures of that time, it attracted little notice.

  * Whoops! Reginald's Contemporary Science-Fiction Authors says that Vance's first story in 1945 was '"The World-Thinker.” Same difference, say I.

  But by the early fifties Jack Vance’s dream castles were becoming noticeable to a great many. Ten years later he had emerged, notably with “The Last Castle” and The Dragon Masters as the logical successor to James Schmitz, the greatest portrayer of total alienness in science-fiction. By this time, 1976, any fool knows that Jack Vance is one of the ten most important writers in the history of the field.

  He has accumulated that importance quietly and wholly on the basis of his work. To the best of my knowledge he has never entered the social life of science-fiction, preferring to live iconoclastically and well in the far West where he has let his work and only his work make a contribution. I cannot recall any other writer in science-fiction who has managed to make a similar reputation without self-promotion and social involvement in the field’s interstices, which makes' even more of a statement as to the value of his fiction.

  Vance is remarkable. His landscapes are wholly imagined, his grasp of the fact that future or other worlds will not be merely extensions of our own but entirely alien has never been exceeded in this field. There are two equally legitimate ways of regarding science-fiction. If you look at the genre as necessarily being one kind of thing close-up, then Robert Silverberg is probably the best the field has ever had; but if you look at it in another, equally viable, equally defensible, way, then only James Schmitz can touch Vance. He is simply one of the best there ever has been at grasping that the material of science-fiction will feel differently to those who live through it, and has brought that difference alive.

  He is also one of only two writers, the other is the brilliant short-story writer Avram Davidson, to have won both science-fiction’s Hugo Award and the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America, the latter for best first novel back in the mid-sixties. Most science-fiction readers are unaware of the fact that under his real name, John Holbrook Vance, Jack Vance has had an impressive parallel career as mystery novelist. The man is a professional who works to the limits he perceives. As a science-fiction writer, the dimensions of his accomplishment grow in retrospection yearly; Jack Vance is eventually going to be perceived as one of the foundation blocks of the field. He has already influenced two generations of writers: those like Larry Niven and Terry Carr who came up in the sixties doing alien landscapes with rigor and integrity, and younger writers like Gardner Dozois who, thanks to Vance, are now able to take the alienness for granted and work with it comfortably for an audience that has been educated to understand it.

  Jack Vance built his dream castle for all of us. Elegantly furnished with loops and spires and rooms yet undiscovered it will not, I suspect (in contradiction to the first line of his novella), be overwhelmed. Ever.

  Barry N. Malzberg

  9 August 1975: New Jersey

  Several years ago Cele Goldsmith edited Amazing Stories. One evening at the home of Poul An
derson she produced a set of cover illustrations which she had bought by the dozen for reasons of economy, and asked those present to formulate stories based upon them. Poul rather gingerly accepted a cover whose subject I forget. Frank Herbert was assigned the representation of a human head, with a cutaway revealing an inferno of hellflre, scurrying half-human creatures, and the paraphernalia of a nuclear power plant. I was rather more fortunate and received a picture purporting to display a fleet of spaceships driven by sun-sails. Theoretically the idea is sound, and space scientists have long included this concept among their speculations for future planetary voyages. Astrogation of course becomes immensely complex, but by carefully canting the sail and using planetary and/or solar gravities, any region of the solar system may be visited— not always by the most direct route, but neither did the clipper ships sail great-circle routes.

  The disadvantages are the complication of the gear and the tremendous expanse of sail— to be measured in square miles—necessary to accelerate any meaningful mass of ship to any appreciable velocity within a reasonable time-span.

  Which brings me back to my cover picture. The artist, no doubt for purposes of artistry, had depicted the ships with sails about the size of spinnakers for a twelve-meter, which at Earth radius from the sun would possibly produce as much as one fly-power of thrust. Additionally the sails were painted in gaudy colors, in defiance of the conventional wisdom which specifies that sun-sails shall be flimsy membranes of plastic, coated with a film of reflective metal a few molecules thick. Still, no matter how illogical the illustration, I felt that I must justify each detail by one means or another. After considerable toil I succeeded, with enormous gratitude that I had not been selected to write about the cutaway head which had been the lot of Frank Herbert.

  SAIL 25

  1

  Henry Belt came limping into the conference room, mounted the dais, settled himself at the desk. He looked once around the room: a swift bright glance which, focusing nowhere, treated the eight young men who faced him to an almost insulting disinterest. He reached in his pocket, brought forth a pencil and-a flat red book, which he placed on the desk. The eight young men watched in alsolute silence. They were much alike: healthy, clean, smart, their expressions identically alert and wary. Each had heard legends of Henry Belt, each had formed his private plans and private determinations.

  Henry Belt seemed a man of a different species. His face was broad, flat, roped with cartilage and muscle, with skin the color and texture of bacon rind. Coarse white grizzle covered his scalp, his eyes were crafty slits, his nose a misshapen lump. His shoulders were massive, his legs short and gnarled.

  “First of all,” said Henry Belt, with a gap-toothed grin, “I’ll make it clear that I don’t expect you to like me. If you do I’ll be surprised and displeased. It will mean that I haven’t pushed you hard enough.”

  He leaned back in his chair, surveyed the silent group. “You’ve heard stories about me. Why haven’t they kicked me out of the service? Incorrigible, arrogant, dangerous Henry Belt. Drunken Henry Belt. (This last, of course, is slander. Henry Belt has never been drunk in his life.) Why do they tolerate me? For one simple reason: out of necessity. No one wants to take on this kind of job. Only a man like

  Henry Belt can stand up to it: year after year in space, with nothing to look at but a half-dozen round-faced young scrubs. He takes them out, he brings them back. Not all of them, and not all of those who come back are spacemen today. But they’ll all cross the street when they see him coming. Henry Belt? you say. They’ll turn pale or go red. None of them will smile. Some of them are high placed now. They could kick me loose if they chose. Ask them why they don’t. Henry Belt is a terror, they’ll tell you. He’s wicked, he’s a tyrant. Cruel as an ax,' fickle as a woman. But a voyage with Henry Belt blows the foam off the beer. He’s ruined many a man, he’s killed a few, but those that come out of it are proud to say, I trained with Henry Belt!

  ‘‘Another thing you may hear: Henry Belt has luck. But don’t pay any heed. Luck runs out. You’ll be my thirteenth class, and that’s unlucky. I’ve taken out seventy-two young sprats, no different from yourselves; I’ve come back twelve times: which is partly Henry Belt and partly luck. The voyages average about two years long: how can a man stand it? There’s only one who could: Henry Belt. I’ve got more space-time than any man alive, and now I’ll tell you a secret: this is my last time out. I’m starting to wake up at night to strange visions. After this class I’ll quit. I hope you lads aren’t superstitious. A white-eyed woman told me that I’d die in space. She told me other things and they’ve all come true. We’ll get to know each other well. And you’ll be wondering on what basis I make my recommendations. Am I objective and fair? Do I put aside personal animosity? Naturally there won’t be any friendship. Well, here’s my system. I keep a red book. Here it is. I’ll put your names down right now. You, sir?”

  “I’m Cadet Lewis Lynch, sir.”

  “You?"

  “Edward Culpepper, sir.”

  “Marcus Verona, sir.”

  “Vidal Weske, sir.”

  “Marvin McGrath, sir.”

  “Barry Ostrander, sir.”

  “Clyde von Gluck, sir.”

  “Joseph Sutton, sir.”

  Henry Belt wrote the names in the red book. “This is the system. When you do something to annoy me, I mark you down demerits, At the end of the voyage I total these demerits, add a few here and there for luck, and am so guided. I’m sure nothing could be clearer than this. What annoys me? Ah, that’s a question which is hard to answer. If you talk too much: demerits. If you’re surly and taciturn: demerits. If you slouch and laze and dog the dirty work: demerits. If you’re overzealous and forever scuttling about: demerits. Obsequiousness: demerits. Truculence: demerits. If you sing and whistle: demerits. If you’re a stolid bloody bore: demerits. You can see that the line is hard to draw. Here’s a hint which can save you many marks. I don’t like gossip, especially when it concerns myself. I’m a sensitive man, and I open my red book fast when I think I’m being insulted.” Henry Belt once more leaned back in his chair. “Any questions?”

  No one spoke.

  Henry Belt nodded. “Wise. Best not to flaunt your ignorance so early in the game. In response to the thought passing through each of your skulls, I do not think of myself as God. But you may do so, if you choose. And this”—he held up the red book—“you may regard as the Syncretic Compendium. Very well. Any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Culpepper.

  “Speak, sir.”

  “Any objection to alcoholic beverages aboard ship, sir?”

  “For the cadets, yes indeed. I concede that the water must be carried in any event, that the organic compounds present may be reconstituted, but unluckily the bottles weigh far too much.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Henry Belt rose to his feet. “One last word. Have I mentioned that I run a tight ship? When I say jump, I expect every one of you to jump. This is dangerous work, of course. I don’t guarantee your safety. Far from it, especially since we are assigned to old Twenty-Five, which should have been broken up long ago. There are eight of you present. Only six cadets will make the voyage. Before the week is over I will make the appropriate notifications. Any more questions? . . . Very well, then. Cheerio." Limping on his thin legs as if his feet hurt, Henry Belt departed into the back passage.

  For a moment or two there was silence. Then von Gluck said in a soft voice, “My gracious.”

  “He’s a tyrannical lunatic,” grumbled Weske. “I’ve never heard anything like itl Megalomanial”

  “Easy,” said Culpepper. “Remember, no gossiping.”

  “Bah!” muttered McGrath. “This is a free country. I’ll damn well say what I like.”

  Weske rose to his feet. “A wonder somebody hasn’t killed him.”

  “I wouldn’t want to try it,” said Culpepper. “He looks tough.” He made a gesture, stood up, brow furrowed in thought. Then he
went to look along the passageway into which Henry Belt had made his departure. There, pressed to the wall, stood Henry Belt. “Yes, sir,” said Culpepper suavely. “I forgot to inquire when you wanted us to convene again.” Henry Belt returned to the rostrum. “Now is as good a time as any.” He took his seat, opened his red 'book. “You, Mr. von Gluck, made the remark ‘My gracious’ in an offensive tone of voice. One demerit. You, Mr. Weske, employed the terms ‘tyrannical lunatic’ and ‘megalomania,’ in reference to myself. Three demerits. Mr. McGrath, you observed that freedom of speech is the official doctrine of this country. It is a theory which presently we have no time to explore, but I believe that the statement in its present context carries an overtone of insubordination. One demerit. Mr. Culpepper, your imperturbable complacence irritates me. I prefer that you display more uncertainty, or even uneasiness.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “However, you took occasion to remind your colleagues of my rule, and so I will not mark you down.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Henry Belt leaned back in the chair, stared at the ceiling. “Listen closely, as I do not care to repeat myself. Take notes if you wish. Topic: Solar Sails, Theory and Practice Thereof. Material with which you should already be familiar, but which I will repeat in order to avoid ambiguity.