The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  During the bouts both men wore magnetic slippers and twelve-ounce gloves, the exercise lasting until Captain Plum was winded or Smith too dazed to afford further entertainment.

  As time went on, Smith became increasingly familiar with Plum’s style of combat: a full-chested prancing forward, arms thrashing. Perforce Smith learned the elemental tricks of defense, but in a sense this proficiency defeated its own purpose. The more adroitly he fended off the punches, the more cleverly he rolled and ducked with the blows, so did Captain Plum’s violence wax, and Smith saw clearly that the end would lie at one of two extremes: either he would achieve an impregnable defense or else Captain Plum would kill him with a single terrible blow.

  To avoid such an impasse, Smith tentatively went on the offensive, jabbing at Plum after his tremendous swings had thrown him off balance. The ruse was successful to such an extent that when Captain Plum found himself unable to land effective blows, with Smith darting in at will to pummel his nose and eyes, he insisted on the exercise at ever-longer intervals. At the same time his aversion to Smith reached the point of obsession.

  The last few bouts were terrible episodes, in which Captain Plum, red-eyed and roaring, charged like a bull, lashing out in wide roundhouse sweeps, any one of which would have broken Smith’s bones. Half-measures were worse than none, Smith now realized; he must either become a supine wad of flesh for Plum to pound at his pleasure, or he must hurt Plum badly enough to discourage him—again a dangerous undertaking.

  The final bout lasted for half an hour. Both Smith and Plum reeked with blood and sweat. Plum’s nostrils flared like a boar’s, his great chin hung lax and limp. Smith, seizing an opportunity, struck as hard as he could, on a downward slant at the loose-hanging jaw. He felt a snap, a crush, and Plum staggered back clasping his face. Smith stood panting, half expecting Plum to go for his gun.

  Plum rushed from the cargo hold, while Smith, full of foreboding, made his way to the cubby-hole which was his quarters.

  Captain Plum appeared at the mess table, his jaw taped, his lips suffused with violet. He brushed Smith with his eyes, nodded with grim menace.

  Later Smith was in the chart room, calculating fuel consumption against distance traveled. Plum lurched close up against him. Smith turned his head, looking close into the hairy face.

  “You’re a mean son of a gun, ain’t you?” said Plum.

  Smith saw that Plum was toying with an eight-inch blade. Smith said in a low voice, “Anybody’s mean when he’s driven to it.”

  “You talking about me, young fellow?”

  “Take it any way you want.”

  “You’re walking on thin ice.”

  Smith shrugged. “I don’t see how I’ve anything to gain by being polite. I don’t expect much out of this trip.”

  The speech seemed to appease Plum; he slowly put his knife up. “You asked for it when you started that schoolboy Star Control stuff.”

  “I don’t see it that way. Somebody’s got to be at the top. In this case it’s Star Control. You’d be better off if you’d turn back and make an honest report on this planet, whatever it is.”

  “And lose all that money? What do I care for Star Control? What have they done for me?”

  Smith leaned back against his workbench, with a curious sense of speaking in an incomprehensible language. “Don’t you care for your fellow-men?”

  Plum vented a gruff bark of a laugh. “Humanity never bust itself open working for me. And even supposing I did, what difference does it make what goes on out here eighty miles past nowhere? Just a bunch of fuzzy yellow things.”

  “Do you really want to know what difference it makes?”

  “Go ahead, spill it.”

  Smith gathered his thoughts. “Well, in the first place, human knowledge is only a small fraction of what can be learned about the universe; we’ve concentrated on the subjects which fit our kind of minds. If we find another civilized race, we’d meet an entirely different complex of sciences.”

  Plum used a coarse expression. “We know too much as it is; if we knew any more we’d be clogging our brains. Anyhow, there’s nothing out here on Rho that we don’t know already.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. But if there’s a civilized race, men with the proper knowledge ought to be the first to make contact.”

  “Then where’d my cut be? I’ve gone through lots to get where I am. I’ve taken it on and I’ve given it back, just to get a crack at a chance like this. Those jewels are novelties, worth plenty on Earth. I can get out to Rho, I can clip the fuzz-balls loose of the jewels, I can get back to Earth—and my fortune’s made. If the scientists found Rho, they wouldn’t tell me, would they? Why should I spill my guts to them? You got things twisted all screw-wise, young fellow.”

  “If these things are intelligent, perhaps they’re on their guard now. You’ll find it dangerous taking any more of the jewels.”

  Captain Plum threw back his head, then winced at the wrench to his jaw. “Not a chance. We’re safe on Rho as we are in our own bunks. And why? It’s easy. These fuzz-balls is blind, deaf and dumb. They walk around holding up jewels like they was offering ’em to us on velvet pillows. A clip of the knife, fuzz-ball flips over, the jewel comes rolling home. And that’s the way it goes.”

  Leaving Smith chewing his lip nervously, Captain Plum slapped the chart table with the flat of his knife and turned away.

  The Dog coasted up at the big orange sun, with the small yellow sun hanging beyond, no more than a cusp visible. Nearby were the planets, yellow motes—one, two, three, four.

  Through the port Smith watched the fourth planet, a world smaller than Earth, with an oily yellow atmosphere, and which possessed an arid surface.

  From the bridge came the voices of Plum and Jack Fetch, disputing where best to set the ship down. Fetch was inclined to caution. “Put yourself in their shoes, make as if it’s Earth.”

  “Cripes, man, this ain’t Earth. This is Rho Ophiuchus.”

  “Sure, but think of it like this: a few months ago there’s an epidemic of heists; if they’ve got the brains of a turtle, they’ll take precautions. Suppose we set down beside one of the big castles. Suppose they come along, discover the ship. Then the jig is up.”

  Plum spat disgustedly. “Hell, them fuzz-balls live in a dream world. They come along, feel the ship, they think it’s a new kind of rock. They don’t even know they’ve got a sun or that there’s other stars; like that lightheaded supercargo says, they got a way of looking at things that’s different from ours.”

  “That’s right. And maybe they’ll know we’re back by some different kind of sense, and then there’ll be hell to pay. Why take the risk? Set down out in that little desert; then we can work up to the castles in the boat.”

  “Too complicated,” growled Plum. “There’d be men getting lost and the boat breaking down.”

  Compromise was reached: the ship would be landed in desolate country as near as possible to the castles, close enough to allow its use as a base of operations.

  The greasy yellow atmosphere swirled up around the ship. Jack Fetch sat at the controls while Plum stood spraddle-legged at the telescopic viewer. “Slow,” he called to Fetch. “We’re getting low. Take her north a bit, I see a whole settlement of big castles. Now straight down; we’ll land in that little arm of desert.”

  Smith, standing at the chart-room port, glimpsed a series of large yellow cubical structures. From a liquid gleam at their centers it seemed as if they might be tanks.

  A low ridge cut off the view; the ship grounded. Almost immediately he heard the exit port jar open, and Captain Plum, in a heavy space-suit, crossed the foreground, walking out of his vision.

  Knees shaking under unaccustomed gravity, Smith joined Fetch on the bridge. Fetch threw him a swift side-look and turned away.

  Smith asked, “What’s Plum gone out for?”

  “See how the land lies. If it’s not safe we’ll take off.”

  Smith peered up into the smoky yellow
sky. “What’s the atmosphere?”

  “Hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, SO3, oxygen, halogen acids, inert odds and ends.”

  “My word,” murmured Smith. “Rather unpleasant stuff to breathe.”

  Jack Fetch nodded. “Last trip the atmosphere ate holes in our space-suits; that’s why we left so soon. This time we’ve got specials.”

  “What were those square tanks?”

  “The fuzz-balls live in them.”

  Plum’s lumbering form came into view over the brow of the hill.

  “Look,” said Jack Fetch, “there’s a fuzz-ball. Plum doesn’t see him yet.”

  Following Fetch’s finger, Smith saw a mustard-colored creature on the hillside. It was four feet high, two feet thick—a hybrid of barrel cactus and sea urchin, with flexible feelers projecting from all sides, ceaselessly squirming, reaching, feeling. A glint of green came from the tip of its body.

  “Blind, deaf, dumb.” Fetch grinned like a fox. “And there goes Plum. Looks like he wants to start work at once. Never saw a man so keen after the loot.”

  Plum had paused in his stride; now he turned, moved cautiously toward the yellow-brown creature.

  Smith leaned forward like a man at a drama. “Blind, deaf, dumb,” he heard Fetch say again. Plum sprang forward, the blade of a knife flashed in the murky air. “Like taking candy from a baby.” Plum held up the glint of green in a gesture of triumph, and the fuzz-ball was a toppled mass of brittle matter.

  “Murderous brute!” said Smith under his breath. He felt Fetch’s sardonic scrutiny and froze into himself.

  Plum stood in the locker. Smith heard the hiss of the rinses: first a sodium carbonate solution, then water. The inner door opened; Plum stamped up to the bridge.

  “Couldn’t be better,” he announced, with vast gusto. “Six big castles over the hill. We’ll clean up fast and get out.”

  Smith muttered under his breath; Plum turned, looked him over. Fetch said maliciously, “Smith isn’t convinced we’re doing the right thing.”

  “Eh?” Plum stared at Smith blankly. “More of your damn belly-aching?”

  “Murder is murder,” muttered Smith.

  Plum scrutinized him with eyes like black beads. “I’m planning another this minute.”

  Smith raised his voice recklessly. “You’ll have all of us killed.”

  Plum twitched, took a step forward. “You damn croaker—”

  “Just a minute, Cap,” said Jack Fetch. “Let’s hear what he’s talking about.”

  “Put yourself in the place of these creatures,” said Smith rapidly. “They can’t see or hear; they have no idea what’s destroying them. Picture a similar situation on Earth—something invisible killing men and women.” He paused, then asked vehemently, “Would we sit back and do nothing about it? Wouldn’t we strain every ounce of brain-power toward destroying the murderers?”

  Plum’s face was wooden. He twirled his nose-mustache.

  “You don’t know the mental capacity of these creatures,” Smith continued. “It might be high. Because you can kill them so easily means nothing. If an invisible monster dropped down on Earth, we’d be as helpless as these things here seem to be. But for just a short time. Then we’d start devising traps. And pretty soon we’d catch one or two of our visitors and deal pretty roughly with them.”

  Plum laughed rudely. “You’ve talked yourself into a job, young fellow. Get into a suit.”

  Smith stood stiffly. “What for?”

  “Never mind what for!” Plum snatched a weapon from his belt. “Get into that suit, or you’ve had the last breath of your life!”

  Smith went slowly to the locker.

  Plum said, “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong. If you’re wrong—well, we’ll figure out something else to do with you. If you’re right—then, by Heaven!” and he cackled a throaty laugh “—you’ll be doing us a good turn.”

  “Oh,” said Smith. “I’m to be the stalking horse.”

  “You’re the decoy. You’re the lad that moves in front.”

  Smith went to the locker and donned a space-suit. On sudden thought he felt at the belt where hung a holster for a gun. It was empty.

  Fetch was slipping into his own suit, lithe as an eel. Bones the steward and the men from the engine room were likewise dressing themselves. The quartermaster took up his perch at the gangway.

  Plum motioned. “Outside.”

  Smith went to the double chamber with Fetch. A moment later they stood on the surface of Rho—a brown-yellow hardpan, sprinkled here and there with bits of black gravel and little yellow chips, like cheese parings. Condensations in the atmosphere swirled like dust devils.

  This was Smith’s first contact with alien soil. For a moment he stood looking around the horizon; the strangeness of the world weighing upon him almost as a force. Yellow, yellow, yellow—all tones, from cream to oil-black. Right, left, up, down—no other color occurred in his range of vision except the varicolored space-suits.

  Plum’s voice rasped through the earphones. “Up the hill—spread out. Every one of the fuzz-balls you see, carve him. We can’t have any spreading of the news.”

  Spreading the news? thought Smith. How could these creatures, blind and deaf as they were, communicate? Although it was inconceivable, this must be a civilization—no matter how crude—without communication. He twisted the dial of the space-suit radio. Silence up the band. Up—higher, higher, almost to the limit of the set’s sensitivity. Then a harsh crackle, a sputtering of a million dots and dashes.

  He listened an instant, turned the knob further. The sputtering fluctuated, then cut off abruptly. Smith twisted the dial back to Captain Plum and just in time.

  “—Bones next, and where’s that supercargo? Smith, you come along the outside right; if you want to wander off and lose yourself, that’s your own damned lookout.”

  Smith thought dourly, it might be just as well; there was nothing in his future but the ultimate dose of aratin, or a bullet.

  The line of men moved forward, up the slope. Smith looked tentatively back toward the ship. If it were deserted, if he could get inside, lock the port, he would have Plum at his mercy. But the outer door was clamped, and through the bull’s-eye he caught the white flash of the quartermaster’s face.

  Smith sighed and trudged up the slope. He heard Plum’s harsh cry of satisfaction. “Two by God—two at once. Keep your eyes open, men. The sooner we make up a cargo and get off, the better.”

  Smith twisted the dial up to the band he had discovered. Clicking sounded loud and sharp, so loud that he came to a surprised halt.

  He now stood among a tumble of sharp brown boulders a hundred feet from Bones and slightly to the rear; it was unlikely, he thought, that any of the others were watching him. He scanned the ground in his immediate vicinity. There was nothing. He climbed the slope; the noise grew louder. He veered left toward Bones. The noise lessened. He turned off to the right.

  Behind a jagged black and yellow pinnacle he found the fuzz-ball—an aimless thing, groping a slow way up the hillside. In the very apex of its torso the green jewel winked and blinked like an electronic eye.

  Smith bent close, fascinated. He noted that as the spangle of light formed in the green jewel, so did the radio sputter and sound. Each spangle was different from the one previous; Smith suspected that if the radio wave-pattern were made visible on an oscilloscope, there would be concordance with the pattern of the spangle.

  The fuzz-ball seemed harmless enough; Smith decided to experiment. With his transceiver tuned to the fuzz-ball’s frequency, he clicked his tongue into the microphone. “Ch’k, ch’k, ch’k.”

  The fuzz-ball made a series of odd sidewise jerks and came to a halt, as if puzzled. The feelers waved querulously. Smith said, “Take it easy, fellow.” The fuzz-ball teetered dangerously to the side; the feelers performed a disorganized throbbing. From the speaker came an angry clicking. The fuzz-ball stood stock-still. Smith watched in amazement.

  He s
aid again, “Take it easy, fellow.”

  The fuzz-ball behaved exactly as before, tottering awkwardly to the side. Smith watched narrowly. The feelers seemingly had clenched in the precise pattern as before.

  Once more he said, “Take it easy, fellow,” in identical tones.

  Once more the fuzz-ball reacted, in identical fashion.

  Smith counted. “One, two, three, four, five.”

  The fuzz-ball twisted to the left, writhed certain of its feelers.

  Smith counted again. “One, two, three, four, five.”

  The fuzz-ball twisted to the left, writhed the same feelers in the same way.

  “This is odd,” muttered Smith to himself. “The thing seems geared to radio stimuli, as if—”

  He stared at the ground. A heavy black shadow showed, motionless.

  He whirled. Silhouetted on the yellow sky was Captain Plum.

  Plum’s face was set in pale rage. He was speaking. Smith hurriedly turned the dial back to intercommunication.

  “—lucky I came over to look. You was talking to the thing, you was ratting on us. Well, it’s the last time.” His hand went to his belt, came up clamped around his gun.

  Smith feverishly dodged behind the black and yellow pinnacle. A bolt left a flickering, smoky trail in the atmosphere.

  No use playing peek-a-boo, thought Smith desperately. He was a goner anyway. He clambered up the pinnacle in a frenzy, over a bit of a saddle, looked down at the back of Captain Plum’s neck, advancing around the rock.

  Bones’ voice rang in his ear. “Look out, Cap’n; he’s over your head.”

  Plum looked up. Smith jumped into his face.

  Plum stumbled, sprawled. Smith fell staggering to the ground, jerked himself to his feet. Plum was hauling himself erect. Smith ground his foot on Plum’s wrist. The fingers opened, the gun lay loose. Smith grabbed. In his ear sounded voices, anxious questions. “You okay, Cap?”