The Last Castle

by Jack Holbrook Vance

  The hetman hesitated, made a spitting sound between his teeth, drew back. He looked down at his blade, turned it over, sheathed it with a grunt. “Where do you take me?”

  Xanten halted the wagon. “No farther. I merely wished to leave your camp with dignity, without dodging and ducking a hail of arrows. You may alight. I take it you still refuse to bring your men into the service of Castle Hagedorn?”

  The hetman once more made the spitting sound between his teeth. “When the Meks have destroyed the castles, we shall destroy the Meks. Then Earth will be cleared of star-things for all time!”

  “You are a gang of intractable savages. Very well, alight, return to your encampment. Reflect well before you again show disrespect to a Castle Hagedorn clan chief.”

  “Bah,” muttered the hetman. Leaping down from the wagon, he stalked back down the track toward his camp. He did not look back.

  VI

  About noon Xanten came to Far Valley, at the edge of the Hagedorn lands.

  Nearby was a village of Expiationists: malcontents and neurasthenics in the opinion of castle gentlefolk, and a curious group by any standards. A few had held enviable rank; certain others were savants of recognized erudition; but others yet were persons of neither dignity nor reputation, subscribing to the most bizarre and extreme of philosophies. All now performed toil, no different from that relegated to the Peasants, and all seemed to take a perverse satisfaction in what by castle standards was filth, poverty and degradation.

  As might be expected, their creed was by no means homogenous. Some might better have been described as ‘nonconformists’, and others still, a minority, argued for a dynamic program.

  Between castle and village was little intercourse. Occasionally the Expiationists bartered fruit or polished wood for tools, nails, medicaments; or the gentlefolk might make up a party to watch the Expiationists at their dancing and singing. Xanten had visited the village on many such occasions and had been attracted by the artless charm and informality of the folk at their play. Now, passing near the village, Xanten turned aside and followed a lane which wound between tall blackberry hedges and out upon a little common, where goats and cattle grazed. Xanten halted the wagon in the shade, saw that the syrup sac was full. He looked back at his captive. “What of you? If you need syrup, pour yourself full. But no, you have no sac. What then do you feed upon? Mud? Unsavory fare. I fear none here is rank enough for your taste. Ingest syrup or munch grass, as you will; only do not stray overfar from the wagon, for I watch with an intent eye.”

  The Mek, sitting hunched in a corner, gave no signal that it comprehended. Nor did it move to take advantage of Xanten’s offer.

  Xanten went to a watering trough. Holding his hands under the trickle which issued from a lead pipe, he rinsed his face, then drank a swallow or two from his cupped hand.

  Turning, he found that a dozen folk of the village had approached. One he knew well, a man who might have become Godalming, or even Aure, had he not become infected with expiationism.

  Xanten performed a polite salute. “A. G. Philidor. It is I, Xanten.”

  “Xanten, of course. But here I am A. G. Philidor no longer; merely Philidor.”

  Xanten bowed, “My apologies. I have neglected the full rigor of your informality.”

  “Spare me your wit,” said Philidor. “Why do you bring us a shorn Mek? For adoption, perhaps?” This last alluded to the gentlefolk practice of bringing over-tally babies to the village.

  “Now who flaunts his wit? But you have not heard the news?”

  “News arrives here last of all. The Nomads are better informed.”

  “Prepare yourself for surprise. The Meks have revolted against the castles. Halcyon and Delora are demolished, and all killed; perhaps others by this time.”

  Philidor shook his head. “I am not surprised.”

  “Well, then, are you not concerned?”

  Philidor considered. “To this extent. Our own plans, never very feasible, become more far-fetched than ever.”

  “It appears to me,” said Xanten, “that you face grave and immediate danger. The Meks surely intend to wipe. out every vestige of humanity. You will not escape.”

  Philidor shrugged. “Conceivably the danger exists … We will take counsel and decide what to do.”

  “I can put forward a proposal which you may find attractive,” said Xanten. “Our first concern, of course, is to sup-press the revolt. There are at least a dozen Expiationist communities, with an aggregate population of two or three thousand—perhaps more. I propose that we recruit and train a corps of highly disciplined troops, supplied from the Castle Hagedorn armory, led by Hagedorn’s most expert military theoreticians.”

  Philidor stared at him incredulously. “You expect us, the Expiationists, to become your soldiers?”

  “Why not?” asked Xanten ingenuously. “Your life is at stake no less than ours.”

  “No one dies more than once.”

  Xanten in his turn evinced shock. “What? Can this be a former gentleman of Hagedorn speaking? Is this the face a man of pride and courage turns to danger? Is this the lesson of history? Of course not! I need not instruct you in this; you are as knowledgeable as 1.”

  Philidor nodded. “I know that the history of man is not his technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite: a mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man’s accommodation with his conscience. This is the true history of the race.”

  Xanten made an airy gesture. “A. G. Philidor, you over-simplify grievously. Do you consider me obtuse? There are many kmds of history. They interact. You emphasize morality. But the ultimate basis of morality is survival. What promotes survival is good, what induces mortefaction is bad.”

  “Well spoken!” declared Philidor. “But let me propound a parable. May a nation of a million beings destroy a creature who otherwise will infect all with a fatal disease? Yes, you will say. Once more. Ten starving beasts hunt you, that they may eat. Will you kill them to save your life? Yes, you will say again, though here you destroy more than you save. Once more: a man inhabits a hut in a lonely valley. A hundred spaceships descend from the sky, and attempt to destroy him. May he destroy these ships in self-defense, even though he is one and they are a hundred thousand? Perhaps you say yes. What then if a whole world, a whole race of beings, pits itself against this single man? May he kill all? What if the attackers are as human as himself? What if he were the creature of the first instance, who otherwise will infect a world with disease? You see, there is no area where a simple touchstone avails. We have searched and found none. Hence, at the risk of sinning against Survival, we—I, at least; I can only speak for myself—have chosen a morality that at least allows me calm. I kill—nothing. I destroy nothing.”

  “Bah,” said Xanten contemptuously. “If a Mek platoon entered this valley and began to kill your children, you would not defend them?”

  Philidor compressed his lips, turned away. Another man spoke. “Philidor has defined morality. But who is absolutely moral? Philidoror I, or youmight in such a case desert his morality.”

  Philidor said, “Look about you. Is anyone here you recognize?”

  Xanten scanned the group. Nearby stood a girl of extraordinary beauty. She wore a white smock and in the dark hair curling to her shoulders she wore a red flower. Xanten nodded. “I see the maiden 0. Z. Garr wished to introduce into his menage at the castle.”

  “Exactly,” said Philidor. “Do you recall the circumstances?”

  “Very well indeed,” said Xanten. “There was vigorous objection from the Council of Notables—if. for no other reason than the threat to our laws of population control. 0. Z. Garr attempted to sidestep the law in this fashion. ‘I keep Phanes,’ he said. ‘At times I maintain as many as six, or even eight, and no one utters a word of protest. I will call this girl a Phane and keep her among the rest.’ I and others protested. There was almost a duel on this matter. 0. Z. Garr was forced to relinquish the girl. She was given into my cu
stody and I conveyed her to Far Valley.”

  Philidor nodded. “All this is correct. Well—we attempted to dissuade Garr. He refused to be dissuaded, and threatened us with his hunting force of perhaps thirty Meks. We stood aside. Are we moral? Are we strong or weak?”

  “Sometimes it is better,” said Xanten, “to ignore morality. Even though 0. Z. Garr is a gentleman and you are but Expiationists . . . Likewise in the case of the Meks. They are destroying the castles, and all the men of earth. If morality means supine acceptance, then morality must be abandoned!”

  Philidor gave a sour chuckle. “What a remarkable situation! The Meks are here, likewise Peasants and Birds and Phanes, all altered, transported and enslaved for human pleasure. Indeed, it is this fact that occasions our guilt, for which we must expiate. And now you want us to compound this guilt!”

  “It is a mistake to brood overmuch about the past,” said Xanten. “Still, if you wish to preserve your option to brood, I suggest that you fight Meks now, or at the very least take refuge in the castle.”

  “Not I,” said Philidor. “Perhaps others may choose to do so.”

  “You will wait to be killed?”

  “No. I and no doubt others will take refuge in the remote mountains.”

  Xanten clambered back aboard the power-wagon. “If you change your mind, come to Castle Hagedorn.”

  He departed.

  The road continued along the valley, wound up a hillside, crossed a ridge. Far ahead, silhouetted against the sky, stood Castle Hagedorn.

  VII

  Xanten reported to the council.

  “The spaceships cannot be used. The Meks have rendered them inoperative. Any plan to solicit assistance from the Home Worlds is pointless.”

  “This is sorry news,” said Hagedorn with a grimace. “Well then—so much for that.”

  Xanten continued. “Returning by power-wagon I encountered a tribe of Nomads. I summoned the hetman and explained to him the advantages of serving Castle Hagedorn. The Nomads, I fear, lack both grace and docility. The hetman gave so surly a response that I departed in disgust.

  “At Far Valley I visited the Expiationist village, and made a similar proposal, but with no great success. They are as idealistic as the Nomads are churlish. Both are of a fugitive tendency. The Expiationists spoke of taking refuge in the mountains. The Nomads presumably will retreat into the steppes.”

  Beaudry snorted. “How will flight help them? Perhaps they gain a few years—but eventually the Meks will find every last one of them; such is their methodicity.”

  “In the meantime,” 0. Z. Garr declared peevishly, “we might have organized them into an efficient combat corps, to the benefit of all. Well, then, let them perish! We are secure.”

  “Secure yes,” said Hagedorn gloomily. “But what when the power fails? When the lifts break down? When air circulation cuts off so that we either stifle or freeze? What then?”

  0. Z. Garr gave his head a grim shake. “We must steel ourselves to undignified expedients, with as good a grace as possible. But the machinery of the castle is sound, and I expect small deterioration or failure for conceivably five or ten years. By that time anything may occur.”

  Claghorn, who had been leaning indolently back in his seat, spoke at last: “Essentially this is a passive program. Like the defection of the Nomads and Expiationists, it looks very little beyond the immediate moment.”

  0. Z. Garr spoke in a voice carefully polite. “Claghorn is well aware that I yield to none in courteous candor, as well as optimism and directness: in short, the reverse of passivity. But I refuse to dignify a stupid little inconvenience by extending it serious attention. How can he label this procedure ‘passivity’? Does the worthy and honorable head of the Claghorns have a proposal which more effectively maintains our status, our standards, our self-respect?”

  Claghorn nodded slowly, with a faint half-smile which 0. Z. Garr found odiously complacent. “There is a simple and effective method by which the Meks might be defeated.”

  “Well then!” cried Hagedorn. “Why hesitate? Let us hear it!”

  Claghorn looked around the red velvet-covered table, considered the faces of all: the dispassionate Xanten; Beaudry, with his burly, rigid, face muscles clenched in an habitual expression unpleasantly like a sneer; old Isseth, handsome, erect and vital as the most dashing cadet; Hagedorn, troubled, glum, his inward perplexity all too evident; the elegant Garr; Overwhele, thinking savagely of the inconveniences of the future; Aure, toying with his ivory tablet, either bored, morose or defeated; the others displaying various aspects of doubt, foreboding, hauteur, dark resentment, impatience; and in the case of Floy, a quiet smile—or as Isseth later characterized it, an imbecilic smirk—intended to convey his total disassociation from the entire irksome matter.

  Claghorn took stock of the faces, and shook his head. “I will not at the moment broach this plan, as I fear it is unworkable. But I must point out that under no circumstances can Castle Hagedorn be as before, even should we survive the Mek attack.”

  “Bah!” exclaimed Beaudry. “We lose dignity, we become ridiculous, by even so much as discussing the beasts.”

  Xanten stirred himself. “A distasteful subject, but remember! Halcyon is destroyed, and Delora and who knows what others? Let us not thrust our heads in the sand! The Meks will not waft away merely because we ignore them.”

  “In any event,” said 0. Z. Garr, “Janeil is secure and we are secure. The other folk, unless they are already slaughtered, might do well to visit us during the inconvenience, if they can justify the humiliation of flight to themselves. I myself believe that the Meks will soon come to heel, anxious to return to their posts.”

  Hagedorn shook his head gloomily. “I find this hard to believe. Very well then, we shall adjourn.”

  The radio communications system was the first of the castle’s vast array of electrical and mechanical devices to break down.

  The failure occurred so soon and so decisively that certain of the theoreticians, notably 1. K. Harde and Uegus, postulated sabotage by the departing Meks. Others remarked that the system had never been absolutely dependable, that the Meks themselves had been forced to tinker continuously with the circuits, that the failure was simply a result of bad engineering. Harde and Uegus inspected the unwieldy apparatus, but the cause of failure was not obvious. After a half-hour of consultation they agreed that any attempt to restore the system would necessitate complete re-design and re-engineering, with consequent construction of testing and calibration devices, and the fabrication of a complete new family of components. “This is manifestly impossible,” stated Uegus in his report to the council. “Even the simplest useful system would require several technician-years. There is not even one single technician to hand. We must therefore await the availability of trained and willing labor.”

  “In retrospect,” stated Isseth, the oldest of the clan chiefs, “it is clear that in many ways we have been less than provident. No matter that the men of the Home Worlds are vulgarians! Men of shrewder calculation than our own would have maintained interworld connection.”

  “Lack of ‘shrewdness’ and ‘providence’ were not the deterring factors,” stated Claghorn. “Communication was discouraged simply because the early lords were unwilling that Earth should be overrun with Home-World parvenus. It is as simple as that.”

  Isseth grunted, and started to make a rejoinder, but Hagedorn said hastily, “Unluckily, as Xanten tells us, the spaceships have been rendered useless. While certain of our number have a profound knowledge of the theoretical considerations, again who is there to perform the toil? Even were the hangars and spaceships themselves under our control.”

  0. Z. Garr declared, “Give me six platoons of Peasants and six power-wagons equipped with high-energy cannon, and I’ll regain the hangars. No difficulties there!”

  Beaudry said, “Well, here’s a start, at least. I’ll assist in the training of the Peasants, and though I know nothing of cannon operation, rely on me
for any advice I can give.”

  Hagedorn looked around the group, frowned, pulled at his chin. “There are difficulties to this program. First, we have at hand only the single power-wagon in which Xanten returned from his reconnaissance. Then what of our energy cannons? Has anyone inspected them? The Meks were entrusted with maintenance, but it is possible, even likely, that they wrought mischief here as well. 0. Z. Garr, you are reckoned an expert military theoretician. What can you tell us in this regard?”

  “I have made no inspection to date,” stated 0. Z. Garr. “Today the ‘Display of Antique Tabards’ will occupy us all until the ‘Hour of Sundown Appraisal’.”* He looked at his watch. “Perhaps now is as good a time as any to adjourn, until I am able to provide detailed information in regard to the cannons.”

  * * *

  *’Display of Antique Tabards’; ‘Hour of Sundown Appraisal’: the literal sense of the first term was yet relevant; that of the second had become lost and the phrase was a mere formalism, connoting that hour of late afternoon when visits were exchanged, wines, liqueurs and essences tasted: in short, a time of relaxation and small talk before the more formal convivialities of dining,.

  * * *

  Hagedorn nodded his heavy head. “The time indeed grows late. Your Phanes appear today?”

  “Only two,” replied 0. Z. Garr. “The Lazule and the Eleventh Mystery. I can find nothing suitable for the Gossamer Delights nor my little Blue Fay, and the Gloriana still requires tutelage. Today B. Z. Maxelwane’s Variflors should repay the most attention.”

  “Yes,” said Hagedorn, “I have heard other remarks to this effect. Very well then, until tommorow. Eh, Claghorn, you have something to say?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Claghorn mildly. “We have all too little time at our disposal. Best that we make the most of it. I seriously doubt the efficacy of Peasant troops; they are like rabbits against wolves. What we need, rather than rabbits, are panthers.”