Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One Page 4

  Kelly self-consciously crossed the room. He cleared his throat. “Well—I made it. I’m back.”

  “So I see,” said Herli.

  Kelly fell silent. He glanced up through the window at the red sun. “What do you make of it?”

  “Not the least idea. We’re running the star-tapes on the off chance it’s been registered—a last-gasp kind of hope.”

  There was more silence. They had been talking before he had entered the room; Kelly sensed this from their posture.

  At last Mapes said with a forced casualness, “Seen the news?”

  “No,” said Kelly. “No, I haven’t.” There was more in Mapes’ voice, something more personal than the shift of the planet. After a moment’s hesitation he went to the visiphone, pushed the code for news.

  The screen lit, showed a view of the swamp. Kelly leaned forward. Buried up to their necks were a dozen boys and girls from the Bucktown High-school. Crawling eagerly over them were the small three-legged salt-crabs; others popped up out of the slime, or tunnelled under toward the squirming bodies.

  Kelly could not stand the screams. He reached forward—

  Herli said sharply, “Leave it on!”—harder than Kelly had ever heard him speak. “The announcement is due pretty soon.”

  The announcement came, in the rasping toneless pidgin of the Han priests.

  “Among the outsiders is a wicked thief. He has despoiled us of the Seven-year Eye. Let him come forward for his due. Until the thief has brought the Seven-year Eye in his own hand to the sacred temple of Han, every hour one of the outsiders will be buried in the crab-warren. If the thief hangs back, all will be so dealt with, and there will be an end to the Earth-things.”

  Mapes said in a tight voice, “Did you take their Seven-year Eye?”

  Kelly nodded numbly. “Yes.”

  Herli made a sharp sound in his throat, turned away.

  Kelly said miserably, “I don’t know what came over me. There it was—glowing like a little green moon…I took it.”

  Herli said gutturally, “Don’t just stand there.”

  Kelly reached out to the visiphone, pushed buttons. The screen changed, a Han priest stared forth into Kelly’s face.

  Kelly said, “I stole your jewel…Don’t kill any more people. I’ll bring it back to you.”

  The priest said, “Every hour until you arrive one of the Earth-things dies a wicked death.”

  Kelly leaned forward, slammed off the screen with a sudden furious sweep of his hand. He turned in anger.

  “Don’t stand there glaring at me! You, Herli, you told me I wouldn’t even make it into the temple! And if any of you guys had been where I was and saw that jewel like I saw it, you’d have taken it too.”

  Mapes growled under his breath. Herli’s shoulders seemed to sag; he looked away. “Maybe you’re right, Briar.”

  Kelly said, “Are we helpless? Why didn’t we fight when they took those twelve kids? There’s maybe a million Han, but there’s fifty thousand of us—and they have no weapons that I know of.”

  “They’ve seized the power station,” said Herli. “Without power we can’t distill water, we can’t radiate our hydroponics. We’re in a cleft stick.”

  Kelly turned away. “So long, fellows.”

  No one answered him. He walked down the stairs, across the parking strip to his air-car . He was conscious of their eyes looking down from the window.

  In, up, away. First to his cabin by the lake, under the shag-bark for the Seven-year Eye, then the arc over the planet, south to north. Then the gray fortress of North Settlement, and the dark temple in the center.

  Kelly dropped the air-car directly in front of the temple. No reason now for stealth.

  He climbed to the ground, looked about through the strange purple twilight which had come to the ramshackle city. A few Han moved past, and Kelly saw the flash of their faces.

  He walked slowly up the steps to the temple, paused indecisively in the doorway. There was no point in adding further provocation to his offenses. No doubt they planned to kill him; he might as well make it as easy as possible.

  “Hello,” he called into the dark interior, in a voice he tried to keep firm. “Any priests in there? I’ve brought back the jewel…”

  There was no response. Listening intently, he could hear a distant murmur. He took a few steps into the temple, peered up the nave. The muffled red and green illumination confused rather than aided his vision. He noticed a curious irregularity to the floor. He took a step forward—another—another—he stepped on something soft. There was the flash of white below him. The floor was covered by the black-robed priests, lying flat on their faces.

  The priest he had trod on made no sound. Kelly hesitated. Time was passing…He crammed all his doubts, fears, vacillations into a corner of his mind, strode forward, careless of where he stepped.

  Down the center of the nave he walked, holding the green jewel in his hand. Ahead he saw the sheen of the tall black mirror, and there on the black cushion was a second jewel identical to the one he carried. A Han priest stood like a ghost in a black robe; he watched Kelly approach without movement. Kelly laid the jewel on the cushion beside its twin.

  “There it is. I’ve brought it back. I’m sorry I took it. I—well, I acted on a wild impulse.”

  The priest picked up the jewel, held it under his chin as if feeling the warmth from the green fire.

  “Your impulse has cost fifteen Earth lives.”

  “Fifteen?” faltered Kelly. “There were but twelve—”

  “Two hours delay has sent two to the crab warren,” said the Han. “And yourself. Fifteen.”

  Kelly said with a shaky bravado, “You’re taking a lot on yourself—these murders—”

  “I am not acquainted with your idiom,” said the priest, “but it seems as if you convey a foolish note of menace. What can you few Earth-things do against Great God Han, who has just now taken our planet across the galaxy?”

  Kelly said stupidly, “Your god Han—moved the planet?”

  “Certainly. He has taken us far and forever distant from Earth to this mellow sun; such is his gratitude for our prayers and for the tribute of the Eye.”

  Kelly said with studied carelessness, “You have your jewel back; I don’t see why you’re so indignant—”

  The priest said, “Look here.” Kelly followed his gesture, saw a square black hole edged with a coping of polished stone. “This shaft is eighteen miles deep. Every priest of Han descends to the coomb once a week and carries back to the surface a basket of crystallized stellite. On rare occasions the matrix of the Eye is found, and then there is gratification in the city…Such a jewel did you steal.”

  Kelly took his eyes away from the shaft. Eighteen miles…“I naturally wasn’t aware of the—”

  “No matter; the deed is done. And now the planet has been moved, and Earth power is unable to prevent such punishments as we wish to visit upon you.”

  Kelly tried to keep his voice firm. “Punish? What do you mean?”

  Behind him he heard a rustling, the shuffle of movement. He looked over his shoulder. The black cloaks merged with the drapes of the temple, and the Han faces floated in mid-air.

  “You will be killed,” said the priest. Kelly stared into the white face. “If the manner of your going is of any interest to you—” The priest conveyed details which froze Kelly’s flesh, clabbered the moisture in his mouth. “Your death will thereby deter other Earth-things from like crimes.”

  Kelly protested in spite of himself. “You have your jewel; there it is…If you insist on killing me—kill me, but—”

  “Strange,” said the Han priest. “You Earth-things fear pain more than anything else you can conceive. This fear is your deadliest enemy. We Han now, we fear nothing—” he looked up at the tall black mirror, bowed slightly “—nothing but our Great God Han.”

  Kelly stared at the shimmering black surface. “What’s that mirror to do with your god Han?”

 
“That is no mirror; that is the portal to the place of the gods, and every seven years a priest goes through to convey the consecrated Eye to Han.”

  Kelly tried to plumb the dark depths of the mirror. “What lies beyond? What kind of land?”

  The priest made no answer.

  Kelly laughed in a shrill voice he did not recognize. He lurched forward, threw up his fist in a blow which carried every ounce of his strength and weight. He struck the priest at a point where a man’s jaw would be, felt a brittle crunch. The priest spun around, fell in the tangle of his cloak.

  Kelly turned on the priests in the nave, and they sighed in fury. Kelly was desperate, fearless now. He laughed again, reached down, scooped both jewels from the cushion. “Great God Han lives behind the mirror, and moves planets for jewels. I have two jewels; maybe Han will move a planet for me…”

  He jumped close to the black mirror. He put out his hand and felt a soft surface like a curtain of air. He paused in sudden trepidation. Beyond was the unknown…

  Pushing at him came the first rank of the Han priests. Here was the known.

  Kelly could not delay. Death was death. If he died passing through the black curtain, if he suffocated in airless space—it was clean fast death.

  He leaned forward, closed his eyes, held his breath, stepped through the curtain.

  Kelly had come a tremendous distance. It was a distance not to be reckoned in miles or hours, but in quantities like abstract, irrational ideas.

  He opened his eyes. They functioned; he could see. He was not dead…Or was he?…He took a step forward, sensed solidity under his feet. He looked down, saw a glassy black floor where small sparks burst, flickered, died. Constellations? Universes? Or merely—sparks?

  He took another step. It might have been a yard, a mile, a light-year; he moved with the floating ease of a man walking in a dream.

  He stood on the lip of an amphitheater, a bowl like a lunar crater. He took another step; he stood in the center of the bowl. He halted, fought to convince himself of his consciousness. Blood made a rushing sound as it flowed through his veins. He swayed, might have fallen if gravity had existed to pull him down. But there was no gravity. His feet clung to the surface by some mysterious adhesion beyond his experience. The blood-sound rose and fell in his ears. Blood meant life. He was alive.

  He looked in back of him, and in the blurring of his eyes could not distinguish what he saw. He turned, took a step forward—

  He was intruding. He felt the sudden irritated attention of gigantic personalities.

  He gazed about the glassy floor, and the faintest of watery gray lights seeping down from above collected in the concavity where he stood. Space was vast, interminable, without perspective.

  Kelly saw the beings he had disturbed—felt rather than saw them: a dozen giant shapes looming above.

  One of these shapes formed a thought, and a surge of meaning permeated space, impinged on Kelly’s mind, willy-nilly translating itself into words:

  “What is this thing? From whose world did it come?”

  “From mine.” This must be Han. Kelly looked from shape to shape, to determine which the god might be.

  “Remove it quickly—” and to Kelly’s mind came a jumble of impressions he had no words to express. “We must deal with the matter of…” Again a quick listing of ideas which refused to translate in Kelly’s mind. He felt Han’s attention focussing on him. He stood transfixed, waiting for the obliteration he knew to be imminent.

  But he held the jewels, and their green glow shone up through his fingers. He cried out, “Wait, I came here for a purpose; I want a planet put back where it belongs, and I have jewels to pay—”

  He felt the baleful pressure of Han’s will on his mind—increasing, increasing; he groaned in helpless anguish.

  “Wait,” came a calm thought, transcendently clear and serene.

  “I must destroy it,” Han protested. “It is the enemy of my jewel-senders.”

  “Wait,” came from yet another of the shades, and Kelly caught a nuance of antagonism to Han. “We must act judicially.”

  “Why are you here?” came the query of the Leader.

  Kelly said, “The Han priests are murdering people of my race, ever since the planet we live on was moved. It’s not right.”

  “Ah!” came a thought like an exclamation from the Antagonist. “Han’s jewel-senders do evil and unnatural deeds.”

  “A minor matter, a minor matter,” came the restless thought of still another shape. “Han must protect his jewel-senders.”

  And Kelly caught the implication that the jewel-sending was of cardinal importance; that the jewels were vital to the gods.

  The Antagonist chose to make an issue of the matter. “The condition of injustice which Han has effected must be abated.”

  The Leader meditated. And now came a sly thought to Kelly, which he sensed had been channelled to his mind alone. It came from the Antagonist. “Challenge Han to a…” The thought could only be translated as ‘duel’. “I will aid you. Relax your mind.” Kelly, grasping at any straw, loosened his mental fibers, and felt something like a damp shadow entering his brain, absorbing, recording…All in an instant. The contact vanished.

  Kelly felt the Leader’s mind wavering over in favor of Han. He said hurriedly, improvising as best he could: “Leader, in one of the legends of Earth, a man journeyed to the land of the giants. As they came to kill him, he challenged the foremost to a duel with his life at stake.” “Of three trials,” came a thought. “Of three trials,” added Kelly. “In the story, the man won and was permitted to return to his native land. After this fashion let me duel in three trials with Han.”

  The surge of thoughts thickened the air—rancorous contempt from Han, sly encouragement from the Antagonist, amusement from the Leader.

  “You invoke a barbaric principle,” said the Leader. “But by a simple yet rigorous logic, it is a just device, and shall be honored. You shall duel Han in three trials.”

  “Why waste time?” inquired Han. “I can powder him to less than the atoms of atoms.”

  “No,” said the Leader. “The trial may not be on a basis of sheer potential. You and this man are at odds over an issue which has no fundamental right or wrong. It is the welfare of his people opposed to the welfare of your jewel-senders. Since the issues are equal, there would be no justice in an unequal duel. The trial must be on a basis which will not unwontedly handicap either party.”

  “Let a problem be stated,” suggested the Antagonist. “He who first arrives at a solution wins the trial.”

  Han was scornfully silent. So the Leader formulated a problem—a terrific statement whose terms were dimensions and quasi-time and a dozen concepts which Kelly’s brain could in no wise grasp. But the Antagonist intervened.

  “That is hardly a fair problem, lying as it does entirely out of the man’s experience. Let me formulate a problem.” And he stated a situation which at first startled Kelly, and then brought him hope.

  The problem was one he had met a year previously at the station. A system to integrate twenty-five different communication bands into one channel was under consideration, and it was necessary to thrust a beam of protons past a bank of twenty-five mutually inter-acting magnets and hit a pin-point filter at the far end of the case. The solution was simple enough—a statement of the initial vector in terms of a coordinate equation and a voltage potential—yet the solution had occupied the station calculator for two months. Kelly knew this solution as he knew his own name.

  “Hurry!” came the Antagonist’s secret thought.

  Kelly blurted out the answer.

  There was a wave of astonishment through the group, and he felt their suspicious inspection.

  “You are quick indeed,” said the Leader, non-plussed.

  “Another problem,” called the Antagonist. Once more he brought a question from Kelly’s experience, this concerning the behavior of positrons in the secondary layer of a star in a cluster of six, all
at specified temperatures and masses. And this time Kelly’s mind worked faster. He immediately stated the answer. Still he anticipated Han by mere seconds.

  Han protested, “How could this small pink brain move faster than my cosmic consciousness?”

  “How is this?” asked the Leader. “How do you calculate so swiftly?”

  Kelly fumbled for ideas, finally strung together a lame statement: “I do not calculate. In my brain is a mass of cells whose molecules form themselves into models of the problems. They move in an instant, the problem is solved, and the solution comes to me.”

  Anxiously he waited, but the reply seemed to satisfy the group. These creatures—or gods, if such they were—were they so naïve? Only the Antagonist suggested complex motives. Han, Kelly sensed, was old, of great force, of a hard and inflexible nature. The Leader was venerable beyond thought, calm and untroubled as space itself.

  “What now?” came from the Antagonist. “Shall there be another problem? Or shall the man be declared the victor?”

  Kelly would have been well pleased to let well enough alone, but this evidently did not suit the purposes of the Antagonist; hence his quiet jeer.

  “No!” The thoughts of Han roared forth almost like sound. “Because of a ridiculous freak in this creature’s brain, must I admit him my superior? I can fling him through a thousand dimensions with a thought, snap him out of existence, out of memory—”

  “Perhaps because you are a god,” came the Antagonist’s taunt, “and of pure”—another confusing concept, a mixture of energy, divinity, force, intelligence. “The man is but a combination of atoms, and moves through the oxidation of carbon and hydrogen. Perhaps if you were as he, he might face you hand to hand and defeat you.”

  A curious tenseness stiffened the mental atmosphere. Han’s thoughts came sluggishly, tinged for the first time with doubt.

  “Let that be the third trial,” said the Leader composedly. Han gave a mental shrug. One of the towering shadows shrunk, condensed, swirled to a man-like shape, solidified further, at last stood facing Kelly, a thing like a man, glowing with a green phosphorescence like the heart of the Seven-year Eye.