The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  Night had fallen in Challa and the village was quiet. A few fires still smouldered and cast red flickers along the network of stilts supporting the huts. A pair of shadows moved along the leaf-carpeted lane. The bulkiest of these stepped to the side, silently swung open a door.

  Crackle! Snap! “Ouch!” brayed Mellish. “Hoo!” His lunges and thrashing broke the circuit. The current died and Mellish stood gasping hoarsely.

  “Yes?” came a mild voice. “What is it?”

  Mellish took a quick step forward, turned his hand-lamp on the blinking Magnus Ridolph. “Be so good as to turn the light elsewhere,” protested the latter. “After all, I am King of Thieves, and entitled to some small courtesy.”

  “Sure,” said Mellish, with sardonic emphasis. “Certainly, Your Majesty. Tomko—fix the light.” Tomko set the light on the table, diffused the beam so as to illuminate the entire room.

  “This is a late hour for a visit,” observed Magnus Ridolph. He reached under his pillow.

  “No you don’t,” barked Mellish, producing a nuclear pistol. “You move and I’ll plug you.”

  Magnus Ridolph shrugged. “What do you wish?”

  Mellish settled himself comfortably in a chair. “First I want that check and the contract. Second I want the location of that lode. Third I want that crown. Seems like the only way to get what you want around here is to be king. So I intend to be it.” He jerked his head. “Tomko!”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Take this gun. Shoot him if he moves.” Tomko gingerly took the gun.

  Mellish leaned back, lit a cigar. “Just how did you get to be king, Ridolph? What’s all this talk about ghosts?”

  “I’d prefer to keep that information to myself.”

  “You talk!” said Mellish grimly. “I’d just as soon shoot you as not.”

  Magnus Ridolph eyed Tomko steadying the nuclear gun with both hands. “As you wish. Are you familiar with the planet Archaemandryx?”

  “I’ve heard of it—somewhere in Argo.”

  “I have never visited Archaemandryx myself,” said Magnus Ridolph. “However, a friend describes it as peculiar in many respects. It is a world of metals—mountain ranges of metallic silicon—”

  “Cut the guff,” snapped Mellish. “Get on with it!”

  Magnus Ridolph sighed reproachfully. “Among the types of life native to this planet are the near-gaseous creatures which you call ghosts. They live in colonies, each centered on a nucleus. The nucleus serves as the energizer for the colony. The ghosts bring it fuel, it broadcasts energy on a convenient wavelength. The fuel is uranium and any uranium compound is eagerly conveyed to the nucleus.

  “My friend thought to see commercial possibilities in this property—namely the looting of the Starport Bank. He accordingly brought a colony to New Acquitain, where he daubed a number of hundred-munit notes with an aromatic uranium compound, deposited them at the bank. Then he opened the box and merely waited till the ghosts returned with millions in uranium-permeated banknotes.

  “I chanced to be nearby when he was apprehended—in fact—” and Magnus Ridolph smoothed the front of his blue and white nightshirt “—I played a small part in the event. However, when the authorities thought to ask how he had perpetrated the theft, the entire colony had disappeared.”

  Mellish nodded appreciatively. “I see. You just got the king to daub everything he owned with uranium and then let the things loose.”

  “Correct.”

  Mellish blew out a plume of smoke. “Now I want directions to get to the lode.”

  Magnus Ridolph shook his head. “That information will be given to you only when I have deposited your check.”

  Mellish grinned wolfishly. “You’ll tell me alive—or I’ll find out from Kanditter tomorrow with you dead. You have ten seconds to make up your mind.”

  Magnus Ridolph raised his eyebrows. “Murder?” He glanced at Tomko, who stood with beaded forehead holding the nuclear pistol.

  “Call it that,” said Mellish. “Eight—nine—ten! Are you going to talk?”

  “I can hardly see my way clear to—”

  Mellish looked at Tomko. “Shoot him.”

  Tomko’s teeth chattered, his hand shook like a twig in a strong wind.

  “Shoot him!” barked Mellish.

  Tomko squeezed shut his eyes, pulled the trigger. Click!

  “Perhaps I should have mentioned,” said Magnus Ridolph, “that among the first of the loot my ghosts brought me was the ammunition of your pistol which as you know is uranium.” He produced his own heat-gun. “Now good night, gentlemen. It is late and tomorrow will be more convenient for levying the fifty-thousand munit fine your offenses call for.”

  “What offenses?” blustered Mellish. “You can’t prove a thing.”

  “Disturbing the rest of the King of Thieves is a serious crime,” Magnus Ridolph assured him. “However, if you wish to escape, the trail overland back to Gollabolla begins at the end of this lane. You would not be pursued.”

  “You’re crazy. Why, we’d die in the jungle.”

  “Suit yourself,” was Magnus Ridolph’s equable reply. “In any event, good night.”

  The Sub-Standard Sardines

  Banish Evil from the world? Nonsense! Encourage it, foster it, sponsor it. The world owes Evil a debt beyond imagination. Think! Without greed ambition falters. Without vanity art becomes idle musing. Without cruelty benevolence lapses to passivity. Superstition has shamed man into self-reliance and, without stupidity, where would be the savor of superior understanding?

  —Magnus Ridolph

  Magnus Ridolph lay on a deck-chair, a green and orange umbrella bearing the brunt of the African sunlight. The table beside him supported a smouldering cigar, Shemmlers News Discussions turned face downward, a glass containing ice and a squeezed half-lime. In short, a picture of relaxation, idyllic peace…The transgraph clanged from within.

  After a restless interval Magnus Ridolph arose, entered the apartment, took the message from the rack. It read:

  Dear Magnus,

  My chef’s report on tomorrow’s dinner—broiled grouse with truffles and compote of Marchisand cherries, Queen Persis salad, Sirius Fifth artichokes. A subsidiary report of my own—wines from three planets, including an incredible Fragence claret, a final course of canned sardines.

  If you are free, I’d like your verdict on the menu—especially the sardines, which are unusual.

  Joel Karamor.

  Magnus Ridolph returned to the deck-chair, re-read the invitation, folded it, laid it on the table beside him. He rubbed his short white beard, then, leaning back in his deck-chair, half-closed his eyes, apparently intent on a small sailboat, white as the walls of Marrakech, plying the dark blue face of Lake Sahara.

  He rose abruptly, crossed into his study, seated himself at his Mnemiphot, keyed the combination for Sardines.

  For several minutes information played across the screen. Very little seemed significant and he found no notes of his own on the topic. The sardinia pilchardus, according to the Mnemiphot, belonged to the herring family, swam in large shoals and fed on minute pelagic animals. There were further details of scale pattern, breeding habits, natural enemies, discussion of variant species.

  Magnus Ridolph wrote an acceptance to the invitation, ticked off Joel Karamor’s address code, dropped the message into the transgraph slot.

  Karamor was a large healthy man with a big nose, a big chin, a brush of brindle-gray hair. He was an honest man and conducted his life on a basis of candor, simplicity and good-will. Magnus Ridolph, accustomed to extremes of deception and self-interest, found him a refreshing variant.

  The dinner was served in a high room paneled in Congo hardwoods, decorated with primitive masks hung high in the shadows. One glass wall opened up on a magnificent expanse of clear blue twilight and, twenty miles south, the loom of the Tibesti foothills.

  The two sat at a table of burnished lignum vitae, between them a centerpiece of carved malachite which M
agnus Ridolph recognized for a Three-Generation Work from the Golwana Coast of the planet Mugh—a product of father, son and son’s son, toiled over a hundred years to the minute. *

  The dinner surpassed Karamor’s usual standard. The grouse was cooked to a turn, the salad beyond exception. The wines were smooth and brilliant, rich but not cloying. Dessert was a fruit ice, followed by coarse crackers and cheese.

  “Now,” said Karamor, watching Magnus Ridolph slyly, “for our sardines and coffee.”

  Magnus Ridolph obliged with the wry face he knew to be expected of him. “The coffee, at least, I shall enjoy. The sardines will have to be of spectacular quality to tempt me.”

  Karamor nodded significantly. “They’re unusual.” He arose, slid back the panel of a wall-cabinet, returned to the table with a flat can, embossed in red, blue and yellow.

  “It’s yours,” and Karamor, seating himself, watched his guest expectantly.

  The label read: Premier Quality. Select Sardines in oil. Packed by Chandaria Canneries, Chandaria.

  Magnus Ridolph’s fine white eyebrows rose. “Imported from Chandaria? A long way to bring fish.”

  “The sardines are top-grade,” said Karamor. “Better than anything on earth—delicacies of prime quality and they bring a premium price.”

  “I still should not, at first thought, imagine it profitable,” was Magnus Ridolph’s doubtful comment.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” declared Karamor. “Of course you must understand the cannery expenses are very low, and compensate for the shipping costs. And then space-freight is not especially expensive. Actually we’re doing very well.”

  Magnus Ridolph looked up from the can. “We?”

  “George Donnels, my partner in the canning business, and myself. I financed the proposition, and I look after the sales. He runs the cannery and fishing operations.”

  “I see,” said Magnus Ridolph vaguely.

  “A few months ago,” continued Karamor, frowning, “he offered to buy me out. I told him I’d consider it. And then—” Karamor gestured toward the can. “Open it.”

  Magnus Ridolph bent over the can, raising a tab, pressing the lid-release button…Bang! The lid flew high in the air, the contents of the can sprayed in all directions.

  Magnus Ridolph sat back, raising eyebrows mutely at Karamor. He felt his beard, combing out the fragments of fish which had become entangled in the hairs.

  “Spectacular indeed,” said Magnus Ridolph. “I agree. What were the other tests you wished me to make?”

  Karamor rose to his feet, circled the table. “Believe me, Magnus, that surprised me as much as it did you. I expected nothing like that…”

  “What did you expect?” inquired Magnus Ridolph dryly. “A flight of birds?”

  “No, no, please believe me, Magnus. You must know I wouldn’t indulge in a stupid joke of that sort!”

  Magnus Ridolph wiped his face with a napkin. “What is the explanation for the—” he licked his lips “—the occurrence?”

  Karamor returned to his seat. “I don’t know. I’m worried. I want to find out. I’ve opened a dozen cans of sardines in the last week. About half were in good condition. The rest—all tampered with, one way or another.

  “In one can the fish were threaded with fine wires. In another the flesh tasted of petroleum. Another gave off a vile odor. I can’t understand it. Someone or something wants to ruin Chandaria Cannery’s reputation.”

  “How widespread is this tampering?”

  “Only the last shipment, so far as I know. We’ve had nothing but compliments on the product up to now.”

  “Whom do you suspect?”

  Karamor spread out his big hands. “I don’t know. Donnels couldn’t benefit, that’s certain—unless he figured he could scare me into selling and I think he knows me better than that. I thought you might investigate—act for me.”

  Magnus Ridolph considered a moment. “Well—at the moment, so it happens, I’m free.”

  Karamor relaxed, smiled. “The import seals were all intact,” he told his guest.

  “And they are applied at the cannery?”

  “Right.”

  “Then,” said Magnus Ridolph, “it is evident that the mischief occurs on Chandaria.”

  Magnus Ridolph rode the passenger packet to City of the Thousand Red Candles, on Rhodope, Fomalhaut’s fourth planet, where he took a room at the Ernst Delabri Inn.

  He enjoyed a quiet dinner in the outdoor dining room, then hired a barge and let the boatman paddle him along the canals till long after dark.

  Next morning Magnus Ridolph assumed a new character. Ignoring his white and blue tunic, he buttoned himself into a worn brown work-suit, pulled a gray cloth cap over his ruff of white hair. Then, crossing the King’s Canal and the Panalaza, he threaded the dingy street of the Old Town to the Central Employment Pool.

  Here he found little activity. A few men, a few nervous tom-tickers, a knot of Capellan anthropoids, one Yellowbird, a few native Rhodopians listlessly watched the call-screen. Prominent on the wall was a sign reading:

  CANNERY WORKERS!

  WANTED ON CHANDARIA!

  —a notice which excited little attention.

  Magnus Ridolph strolled to the assignment window. The velvet-skinned Rhodopian clerk bobbed his head courteously, lisped, “Yes, sir?”

  “I’d like to try the cannery on Chandaria,” said Magnus Ridolph.

  The Rhodopian flicked him a seal-brown glance. “In what capacity?”

  “What positions are open?”

  The Rhodopian glanced at a list. “Electrician—three hundred munits; integrator-feed mechanic—three hundred twenty munits; welder—two hundred ninety munits; laborer—two hundred munits.”

  “Hm,” said Magnus Ridolph. “No clerical work?”

  “At the present, no.”

  “I’ll try the electrician job.”

  “Yes sir,” said the Rhodopian. “May I see your Union Journeyman Certificate?”

  “My word,” said Magnus Ridolph. “I neglected to pack it.”

  The Rhodopian showed blunt pink teeth. “I can send you out as a laborer. The steward will sign you up on the job.”

  “Very well,” sighed Magnus Ridolph.

  A cargo freighter conveyed the cannery recruits to Chandaria—a thick wobbly shell permeated through and through with the reek of hot oil, sweat and ammonia. Magnus Ridolph and a dozen others were quartered in an empty hold. They ate in the crew’s mess and were allowed two quarts of water a day for washing. Smoking was forbidden.

  Little need be said of the voyage. Magnus Ridolph for years afterward labored to expunge the memory from his brain. When at last the passengers filed, blinking, out on Chandaria, Magnus Ridolph looked his part. His beard was unkempt and dirty, his hair hung around his ears and he blended completely with his fellows.

  His first impression of the planet was dismal watery distance, drifting patches of fog, wan maroon illumination. Chandaria was the ancient planet of an ancient red sun and the land lay on a level with the ocean—prone, a gloomy peneplain haunted with slow-shifting mists.

  In spite of its age Chandaria supported no native life more advanced than reeds and a few fern trees. Protozoa swarmed the seas and, with no natural enemies, the twenty thousand sardines originally loosed into the waters throve remarkably well.

  As the passengers alighted from the hold of the freighter a young man with a long horse-like yellow face, very broad shoulders, very narrow hips, stepped forward.

  “This way, men,” he said. “Bring your luggage.”

  The newcomers obediently trooped at his heels, across ground that quaked underfoot. The path led into fog and, for a quarter-mile, the only features of the landscape were a few rotten trees thrusting forlorn branches through the mist, a few pools of stagnant water.

  The mist presently thinned, revealing a huddle of long buildings and, beyond, an expanse of reeds and the glint of water.

  “This is the bunkhouse for those of
you who sleep,” and the young man jerked his finger at the men and the anthropoids. “You go in and sign with the house-captain. You, Yellowbird, you, Portmar, and you, Rhodope, this way.”

  Magnus Ridolph ruefully shook his head as he mounted the soggy steps into the bunkhouse. This was probably the low point in his career. Two hundred munits a month, grubbing among the intimate parts of fish. He made a wry grimace, entered the bunkhouse.

  He found an empty cubicle, threw his duffel-bag on the cot, strolled into the recreation room, which smelled of fish. Unpainted plyboard covered the walls, which were spanned by bare aluminum rafters. A cheap telescreen at the end of the room displayed a buxom young woman, singing and contorting her body with approximately equal vehemence.

  Magnus Ridolph sighed once more, inquired for the house-captain.

  He was assigned to the No. 4 Eviscerator. His duties were simple. At intervals of about three minutes he pulled a lever which raised a gate. From a pond outside came a rush of water, and thousands of sardines swam serenely into the machine, where fingers, slots and air jets sorted them for size, guided them against flashing knives, finally flung them through a spray and out on a series of belts, where, still flapping feebly, they were tucked into cans by a line of packers.

  These packers were mostly Banshoos from nearby Thaddeus XII—bulbous gray torsos with twenty three-fingered tentacles, an eye and a sub-brain at the tip of each tentacle.

  From the packers the cans were fitted with lids, conducted through a bank of electronic cookers and finally stacked into crates, sealed and ready for export.

  Magnus Ridolph considered the process with a thoughtful eye. An efficient and well-organized sequence of operations, he decided. The Banshoo packers were the only non-mechanical stage in the process and, watching the swift play of tentacles over the belt, Magnus Ridolph thought that no machine could work as quickly and flexibly.

  Somewhere along this line, he reflected, the sardines had been, and possibly were being, adulterated. Where? At the moment no answer presented itself.