The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  Blaine rolled his eyes upwards. “It’s not peaceful and I don’t like it quiet.”

  Lucky laughed, slapped Magnus Ridolph across his skinny shoulder blades. Magnus Ridolph turned, gave Lucky a cold stare.

  “Don’t let him throw you, Joe,” said Lucky. “That’s just an act he puts on for the customers. He’s as shrewd as they come.”

  Joe eyed Magnus Ridolph like a housewife turning down a piece of meat at the butcher shop, then turned away and shook his head. He stiffened. A sudden grinding explosion of sound outside, a savage howling…

  Lucky and Joe exchanged glances and ran for the door. High in the sky, almost overhead, two tremendous shapes flapped and tore at each other with fangs like hay-hooks. Drifting down came a roaring and fierce yelling. Blaine reached out, took Magnus Ridolph’s elbow.

  “There’s thousands of ’em!” he yelled into Magnus Ridolph’s ear, “just waiting for somebody to set foot out on the beach. We got to get rid of them! Also the twenty-foot pincer-beetles that infest the ocean, and some half-ton gorillas that got a lot of human tendencies. Not to mention the flying snakes.”

  “They certainly seem a ferocious set of creatures,” said Magnus Ridolph mildly.

  The battle in the sky took a sudden lurch in their direction, and the three spectators jerked back involuntarily.

  “Shoo!” yelled Joe. “Get outa here!”

  A spatter of blood began to fall like rain. Talons ripped, yanked—brought a tooth-grinding screech. One of the forms toppled, started to fall with a tremendous slow majesty.

  Lucky gave a strangling cry. Joe yelled, “No, no, no—”

  End over end came the torn body, almost at their heads. It fell through the roof of the hotel, into the dining room. Glass sprayed a hundred feet in all directions. A convulsive flap of wings made further destruction. And now the victor swooped on vast leather pinions. It dropped hissing into the wreckage, began to tear at the flesh.

  Joe cried in wordless anguish. Lucky turned, ran to the desk, returned with a grenade rifle.

  “I’ll show that overgrown lizard something.” He sighted, pulled the trigger. Fragments of dragon and hotel spattered across the beach.

  There was a sudden heavy silence. Then Blaine said in a crushed voice: “This is it. We’re through.”

  Magnus Ridolph cleared his throat mildly. “Perhaps the situation is not as bad as you think.”

  “What’s the use? We made a mistake. Kolama is just too tough. We might as well face it, take our loss.”

  “Now Joe,” said Lucky, “brace up. Maybe it’s not so bad after all. Mr. Ridolph thinks we got a chance.”

  Joe snorted.

  “Couldn’t you post guards in copters, and kill any that came down?” suggested Magnus Ridolph.

  Blaine shook his head. “They fly high, drop down like hawks. I’ve watched ’em. We couldn’t keep ’em out. And one or two would be as bad for business as a hundred.”

  Lucky pulled at his lip. “What I want to know is how come we never had trouble while the place was going up.”

  Joe shook his head. “Beats me. Seems like when the Mollies were around, nothing ever bothered us. As soon as they took off our grief began.”

  Magnus Ridolph glanced inquiringly at Lucky. “Mollies? And what are they?”

  “That’s what Joe calls the natives,” Lucky told him. “They helped us out while we were building.”

  “Did the excavating,” said Joe.

  “Possibly you could keep natives here and there around the property,” suggested Magnus Ridolph.

  Blaine shook his head. “Nobody could stand the stink. It must be the stink that keeps the beasts away. God knows I don’t blame ’em.”

  Magnus Ridolph considered the theory. “Well, possibly, if the odor were extremely strong and pungent.”

  “It’s not anything else.”

  Magnus Ridolph stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Just what sort of creatures are these—‘Mollies’?”

  “Well,” said Joe, “think of a shrimp four feet tall, walking around on little stumpy legs. A sort of a fat gray shrimp with big stary eyes. That’s a Molly for you.”

  “Are they intelligent? Do you have any contact with them?”

  “Oh, I guess you’d call ’em intelligent. They live in big hives back in the jungle. Don’t do any harm, and they helped us out quite a bit. We paid ’em in pots, pans, knives.”

  “How did you communicate with them?”

  “They got a language of squeaks.” Joe pursed up his lips. “Squeak—squick, squick.” He cleared his throat. “That means ‘come here’.”

  “Hm,” said Magnus Ridolph. “And how do you say ‘go away’?”

  “Squick—keek, keek.”

  “Hm.”

  “Squeak, keek, keek, keek—that means ‘time to knock off for the day’. I learned that lingo pretty good.”

  “And you say the wild beasts never bothered them?”

  “Nope. Only twice did anything even come near. Once a gorilla, once a dragon.”

  “And then?”

  “They all stood still looking, as if asking themselves, now just what does this johnny think he’s doing? And the gorilla and the dragon both turned ’round and took off.” Joe shook his head. “Must have got a close whiff of them. Like skunk and sewage and half a dozen tannery vats. I had to wear a mask.”

  Woolrich said, “We’ve got movies of everything, if you think there’s anything to it.”

  Magnus Ridolph nodded gravely. “They might be useful. I’d like to see them.”

  “This way,” said Joe. He added glumly: “You can see them, but you can’t smell them.”

  “Just as well,” said Lucky.

  The first scene showed virgin territory—the beach, the blue ocean, the sharp cliff of the jungle. On the beach sat the small prospect ship, and beside it stood Joe, self-consciously waving at the camera.

  The second scene showed the Mollies excavating foundations. They worked in a crouched position with heads extended, and the sand exploded out of the trench ahead of them. They were rather more manlike than Joe had described them—gray whiskered creatures with soft segmented bodies. They had bulging pink blind-looking eyes, horny bowed legs, a concave area around their mouths.

  Magnus Ridolph leaned forward. “They have a peculiar method of digging.”

  “Yeah,” said Blaine. “It’s fast, though. They blow it out.”

  Magnus Ridolph moved in his seat. “Run that again, please.”

  With a tired sigh and a helpless glance at Lucky, Joe complied. Once again they watched the crouched natives, saw the sand broken loose, thrown up and out of the ditch as if by a strong jet of air.

  Magnus Ridolph sat back in his seat. “Interesting.”

  The scene changed. The concrete slab had been poured. A dozen natives were carrying a length of timber.

  “Hear ’em talking? Listen…” And Joe turned the volume control. They heard rising and falling eddies of shrill noise.

  “Squeak—squeeeek!” came a peremptory sound.

  “That’s me,” said Joe, “telling them to look up and pose for the pictures.”

  There was a general turning of the conical whiskered heads.

  “Keek, keek, keek,” said the speaker.

  “That’s ‘back to work’,” said Blaine. A few minutes later: “Here’s where the dragon goes after them…They saw it first. See? They’re excited…Then I saw it.” The view swept up in the sky, showed the bottle-shaped body circling down on wings that seemed to reach across the horizon. The picture jerked, quivered, blurred, and suddenly showed the scene from a crazy angle, the view obscured by blades of grass.

  “That’s where I—put the camera down,” said Joe. “Listen to those Mollies…” And the speaker shrilled with the sound. It rose in pitch, high up through the scale, died.

  “Now they’re just looking at him—and now the dragon catches a whiff and man! he says, none of that for me, I’d rather chew bark off of the big trees, and h
e’s away.”

  The view shifted from the odd angle, resumed its normal perspective. The dragon became a blurring dot in the sky.

  “The next scene is where the gorilla comes at ’em…There he is.” The watchers saw a tall anthropoid with sparse brown fur, red eyes the size of saucers, a row of gland-like sacs dangling under his chin. He dropped out of a tree, came lurching toward the natives, roaring vastly. Again came the shrill squealing, gradually rising and dying, and the silent stare. The gorilla turned, flung his hands in an almost comical gesture of disgust and hurried away.

  “Whatever it is,” observed Lucky, “it’s good.”

  Magnus Ridolph said reflectively, “Extremely disagreeable, those beasts.”

  “Humph,” snorted Joe. “You haven’t seen the sea-beetles yet.”

  Magnus Ridolph rose to his feet. “I think I’ve seen enough for tonight. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll try to get a little rest.”

  “Sure,” said Lucky abstractedly. “Wilbur will show you your room.”

  “Thank you.” Magnus Ridolph left the room.

  “Well,” said Blaine heavily, “there goes your great detective.”

  “Now Joe,” said Mayla, looping an arm around his neck, “don’t be mean. I think he’s sort of cute. So prim and tidy-like. And that little white beard, isn’t it a scream?”

  “Magnus Ridolph’s got brains,” said Lucky, without conviction.

  “He looks like an old faker to me,” said Joe. “Notice how he jumped when the gorilla dropped out of the tree? Cowardly old goat…”

  “Excuse me,” said Magnus Ridolph, “may I have that film? I’d like to study it under a viewer.”

  There was a pause.

  “Ah—help yourself,” said Woolrich.

  Magnus Ridolph removed the cartridge. “Thank you very much. Good night.”

  Joe watched the door close. Then he turned and blurted, “Lucky, I always thought you had sense. When you said you were bringing out an expert, I had faith in you. Look at him. Senile. A pussy-footer…”

  “Now Joe,” said Mayla, “don’t be hasty now. Remember you thought I was dumb once too; remember? You told me so yourself.”

  “Ah-h-h-h,” breathed Joe. “For two cents I’d—”

  “Ten million munits,” warned Lucky. “Lotsa scratch!”

  Blaine pulled himself up in his chair. “You know what I’m gonna do?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going out to that Molly hive. I’m going to find out what gives ’em that stink. Whatever it is, we can have it analyzed and maybe treated so that it won’t be so vile.”

  Mayla said, “Honey, do you think it’s safe?”

  Lucky said, “Do you really think that’s what does the trick?”

  “‘Think’?” scoffed Joe. “I know it.”

  Joe’s jungle suit was the best money could buy. The metallic fabric mirrored away the sun-glare. The plastic bubble surrounding his head was similarly silvered on top. The boots fitted his feet as comfortably as his own skin. By twisting a valve he could inflate vanes that would enable him to walk across swamp and ooze without sinking. A small pack on his back pumped cool clean air around him, supplied power for the sound pickup, the torch and power-knife at his belt. His pouch contained concentrated food for three days and an air mattress of material so tough and thin that when deflated it could be crumpled up inside his clenched fist. He carried a grenade rifle and a dozen extra clips of ammunition.

  Early in the morning he set off, before Magnus Ridolph had arisen. Lucky watched him go with unconcern. The Lord protects fools and drunkards, thought Lucky; Joe was doubly secure. Mayla was not so impassive, and finally Lucky had to hold her until Joe was out of sight. Her cries followed him as he trudged across the sand toward the beetling rampart of vegetation. He found a trail and plunged into the green gloom.

  As soon as the forest surrounded him, he halted to take stock. The flying snakes could knock him down and constrict, though the fabric of the suit would protect him from their teeth. He turned his eyes apprehensively into the air. Somehow the expedition seemed less urgent now than it had the previous evening. Magnus Ridolph—there was the man who should be investigating the natives. He was being paid for it! Joe chewed on his pink tongue. No, he couldn’t very well go back now. Lucky would never let him forget it.

  Once more he searched the fronds and foliage, golden-green where the light struck, dark rich green in the shadow. Moths flitted across the open spaces, in and out of the slanting beams of sunlight. Up, up, up—big green leaves, clots of red, yellow and black flowers, trailing chalk-blue vines. A snake could just about pick his time, thought Joe. A gorilla now, would make a noise crashing through the brush. Hm, Blaine thought, noise. He dialed up the power on his head phone until he could hear the hum of the insects. The crash of each of his footsteps was like a tree falling.

  He continued, more at ease. The thrum of the snake’s short wings should reach him long before the snake.

  The trail wound without apparent direction here and there around the giant boles and up and down slopes. Joe became confused almost at once. Twice he heard the throb of wings and once a far thrashing, but he progressed a mile before he was molested. It was a gorilla.

  Joe heard the snapping and the grunting as it climbed through the trees, then silence as it sighted him. There was a sliding sound, not too stealthy, as if the gorilla were confident. He glimpsed the mottled hide, aimed. He stopped in time. Golly! the amplifier!

  He turned it down. The sound would have beat a hole in his head. He aimed again, pulled the trigger. A section of the jungle became a globe of empty space, with seared, bruised boundaries.

  Joe turned the volume of the amplifier back up and continued. He walked three hours, killing five snakes with his torch and two more gorillas. At times he had to turn loose his power-knife, so thick was the tangle of shoots and vines. And after three hours the jungle looked no different from the jungle where he had set out.

  Thud, thud, thud, sounded in his ear. Blaine stood still, waited. The Molly appeared, halted, looked at him with blind-looking pink eyes. Blaine could see no expression or sign of surprise.

  “Skeek,” said Joe. “Hello.”

  “Keek, keek,” returned the native. It stepped around Blaine, continued down the path. Joe shrugged, moved on.

  A moment later he broke out into a clearing a hundred yards wide. In the center, a conical gray mound built of woven twigs and plastered with mud like a wasp’s nest, rose an amazing two hundred feet. It had been built around a living tree; from the apex the trunk extended and held an umbrella of foliage out into the sunlight.

  Joe Blaine halted. The five hundred Mollies ambling around the clearing paid him no heed. And Joe had no interest in their simple occupations other than the source of the stench. Cautiously he opened the gate in his head-dome. He reeled, slammed it shut, eyes swimming. An odor so ripe, so putrid, so violently strong, it seemed impossible that the air could remain clear.

  Where did it come from?

  Across the clearing he glimpsed a depression, a wallow, where several dozen Mollies lay, moving languidly. Blaine approached, watched. A dozen Mollies appeared from the shadows of the forest, bearing crude baskets. About half held pulpy black balls; others, gray-green slugs six inches long; others, pink cylinders that looked as if they were cut from watermelon hearts.

  The Mollies turned the baskets over into the wallow. Then they stood back, looked intently at the piles. And the black balls burst, the green slugs melted, the red cylinders spread out like oil. A moment later they were a mixture homogeneous with the rest of the wallow.

  So, thought Joe, here it is. Food and chemical warfare from the same trough. He went to the depression, inspected it. The occupants gave him no heed. He dipped a quantity of the thick green-black ooze into a jar, sealed it. This would be enough for a test. Fast work, he thought. Now back to the hotel.

  He looked across the clearing—stared. Through a gap in the trees gleamed
a patch of brilliant white and, beyond, a bright blue. Could it be…He crossed the clearing, looked through the gap. It was the beach, the ocean. A half-mile to his right the hotel rose. Joe beat his head-dome with furious fists. Three hours of plodding through the jungle!

  Blaine found Woolrich in the office. Lucky looked up in surprise.

  “Hello. Didn’t expect you back so soon.” He wrinkled his nose. “You don’t smell so good, Joe.”

  “I got it,” Blaine said. “Here it is, the real magoo. If that don’t keep them away, my name’s not Joe Blaine.”

  “Get it out of here,” said Lucky in a stifled voice. “I can smell it through the bottle.”

  “Must have got some on the outside,” said Blaine. And he told Lucky his adventures.

  Lucky’s thin face still looked skeptical. “And now?”

  “Now we test the stuff. One of us paints himself with it, wanders around the beach. The other stands guard with a grenade-rifle just in case. If the dragons come down, and shy off, we’ll know for sure.”

  Lucky tapped his fingers on the desk. “Sounds good. Well,” he said carelessly, “since you already got some of the stuff on you, you might as well be the decoy.”

  Joe stared unbelievingly. “Are you crazy, Lucky? I got to run the camera. You know that. It’s got to be you.”

  After a half-hour’s debate, they finally selected Magnus Ridolph to serve as the guinea pig.

  “He won’t like it,” said Woolrich doubtfully.

  “He’s got to like it. What are we paying him for? He hasn’t turned a hand so far. He ought to be glad we’ve solved the problem for him.”

  “He might not see it that way.”

  Joe opened a drawer in the desk, pulled out a metal can.

  “See this? It’s a somnol spray, to be used on drunks and roughnecks. We’ll give him a dose, and he won’t even know what’s happening. Where is he now?”

  “In the engine room. He’s been puttering around all morning, working on the lathe.”

  Blaine sneered. “Now, isn’t that the limit? He’s supposed to be the brains, the trouble-shooter, and he leaves it to us. Well, we’ll fix that. He’ll earn his money, whether he wants to or not.”