The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  “Daddy—you never told me this!”

  “I didn’t intend to. Not just yet. Anyway I went down for the water, I hit her on the nose at two hundred feet. I pump just about twenty gallons a minute. As for the oil, I’ve had three geologists to check the ground. They all say the same. Nothing. Wrong formation, wrong lay of the land, the wind even blows the wrong way. I don’t know. I can’t get it out of my mind. It’ll cost twenty or thirty thousand—maybe more—to run a test-hole…I could swing it, but I’d have to go into debt. I don’t like to do that.”

  Jean and Don were silent. They passed through the main part of Orange City, crossed the Los Angeles freeway, and returned to Art Marsile’s house, under the four big pepper trees.

  “Come on in,” Art told Don. “Jean can make us some hot chocolate. It’s too late for coffee. We’d never get to sleep.”

  Hugh was sitting in the living room, reading. His feet, in black socks, were long and limp as dead salmon. “Where you all been?”

  “We saw the ghost, Hugh!” Jean called out triumphantly.

  Hugh laughed uproariously.

  “It’s true!” cried Jean.

  “Of all the silly tripe!”

  “Don’t believe me then.” Jean went haughtily into the kitchen to make hot chocolate.

  Hugh, still grinning, looked at Art. “What’re they trying to cook up?”

  “They sure saw something, Hugh.”

  Hugh sat up straight in astonishment. “You don’t believe in ghosts?”

  Art said evenly, “I have an open mind. They saw something, that’s for sure. Ghosts, spooks—what difference does it make what you call ’em? Nobody knows anything about the subject. The field’s wide open.”

  Don said, “I wonder if there’s anyplace you could go to learn about these things?”

  “Certainly at none of the universities. None that I ever heard of, anyway. After all, what could they teach? Ghost-hunting? Mind-reading? There’s not even a name for the subject.”

  Hugh laughed derisively. “Who’d want to take such ridiculous courses?”

  “I would,” said Don. “I never thought about it before, but it’s like Mr. Marsile says; nobody knows anything about these things—and they’re all around us. Suppose the government spent a hundred million dollars in research, like they did on the atom bomb? Who knows what they’d turn up?”

  “It’s not a proper field for investigation,” said Hugh after a minute. “It conflicts with what the Scriptures tell us.”

  “It wasn’t considered proper to teach evolution either,” said Art. “I see now where the ministers are swingin’ around to sayin’ it’s right after all.”

  “Not the real four-square preachers!” cried Hugh indignantly. “Nobody’ll ever convince me I was descended from a monkey. And nobody’ll ever convince me there’s ghosts because the Bible is against it.”

  Jean brought in the chocolate. “I wish for once, Hugh, that every time we’re trying to talk you wouldn’t bring the Bible into it. I know what I saw tonight, whether it’s in the Bible or whether it isn’t.”

  “Well, all this to the side,” said Art, “it’s an interesting subject. Everybody’s interested in it. But everybody’s afraid to look into it scientifically.”

  “I wouldn’t be,” said Don. “I’d really like to.”

  Art shook his head. “You’d find the going mighty tough, Don. You’d need money, and nobody’d give you money. People would laugh at you. You’d be starting cold, from scratch; you’d even have to invent your tools. You’ve got such a big field you couldn’t cover it all, and you wouldn’t hardly know where to start. Does dowsing for water have any connection to ghosts? How does this telepathy business work? Can anybody read the future? If so, does that make time the same kind of stuff as telepathy? Is telepathy the same stuff as ghosts? Are ghosts alive? Can they think? Are they spirits or just imprints, like footsteps? If they’re alive where do they live? What’s it like where they live? If they give off light, where do they draw the power? There’s thousands of questions.”

  Don sat silently, chocolate forgotten.

  Hugh said huskily, “Those are things we were never meant to know.”

  “I can’t believe that, Hugh,” said Art. “Anything our mind is able to understand we got a right to know.” He put down his cup. “Well, I’m gonna turn in. Don’t you kids set up till all hours. Good night.” He left the room.

  “Golly,” said Don, in an awed voice. “When you think of it, it almost takes your breath away—this tremendous knowledge that nobody knows.”

  Jean said, “There must be somebody studying it. After all, we’re not the only people in the world with ideas.”

  “Seems to me I’ve read of a group in England,” said Don grudgingly. “A society for psychic research. Tomorrow let’s go to the library and find out.”

  “Okay. We’ll start the Orange City Society for Psychic Research.”

  Hugh said coldly, “You ought to know better than talk like that. It’s impious.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” said Jean crossly. “Why on earth is it impious to talk?”

  “Because there’s one authority on right and wrong—the Bible. If you sin and go to Hell, you suffer the torments of the damned. If you live a Christian life, you go to Heaven. That’s the Gospel. There’s nothing about spirits, or ghosts, or any of that other stuff.”

  “The Bible isn’t necessarily right,” said Don.

  Hugh was astounded. “Of course it’s right! Every word of it is right!”

  Don shrugged. “Anyway, I’m going to check on this psychic research business. I’m going to be a scientist. I’m going to find out what ghosts are, what they’re made of, what makes them tick. Nothing happens without a reason; that’s common sense. I’m going to find out that reason.”

  “I am too,” said Jean. “I’m just as interested as you are.”

  “It’s evil knowledge,” intoned Hugh. “You’ll go to Hell. You’ll live in eternal torment.”

  “How come you’re such an authority on Hell and torment?” Don asked.

  “I made my choice tonight,” said Hugh. “I gave myself to Christ. I promised to preach the Holy Gospel, to fight the Devil and all his works.”

  Don rose to his feet. “Well, that answered my question…Good night, Jean.”

  Jean went with him out to the car; when she came back Hugh was waiting for her. “Good night, Hugh,” she said, and slipped past him. “Just a minute,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “I want to warn you about what you’re doing. It’s evil.” His voice took on volume. “There’s enough wickedness in the world without inventing more. Don Berwick is going to Hell. You don’t want to join him there, do you?”

  “I don’t believe in Hell,” said Jean sweetly.

  “It’s in the Bible, it’s the Holy Word. They that sin shall suffer fire and pain without end, the furnaces shall open for them, they’ll be doomed forever. That’s the Christian gospel.”

  “It’s no such thing,” said Jean. “I know this much: Christ was kind and gentle. He tried to get people to be decent to each other. All this talk about fire and torment is a lot of nonsense. And I’m going to bed.”

  III

  The school year came to an end; both Don and Hugh were graduated. The Korean War had started; both Don and Hugh received greetings from the President. Hugh won a medical exemption by reason of his pitifully flat feet and his extreme height—he now stood almost seven feet tall. Don was drafted and assigned to a paratroop battalion. Ten months passed, and Don’s mother received news that Don had disappeared in action and must be presumed dead.

  The years passed. Art Marsile prospered, but his mode of life varied little. Hugh studied at the Athbill School of Divinity at Lawrence, Kansas; Jean enrolled at UCLA.

  Three years after Don’s disappearance, Don’s mother received an official letter from the Army Department in Washington, notifying her that Sergeant Donald Berwick was not dead, as had been pr
esumed, and shortly would be arriving home.

  Two weeks later Don Berwick returned to Orange City. He was reticent about his war experience, but it became known that he had been an undeclared prisoner-of-war, that he had escaped from a Manchurian labor camp and had made his way to Japan. He looked considerably older than his twenty-three years; he walked with a faint hitch in his stride, and his face was much more firmly modeled than anyone in Orange City had remembered it: the forehead low and wide, the nose straight and blunt, the cheekbones and jaw pronounced, the cheeks hollow.

  On his second day in Orange City he went to see Art Marsile, whom he found a trifle thinner, a trifle more leathery. Art brought out beer from the refrigerator, told him what news there was to be told: that Jean was making good grades; that Hugh had become an evangelist, and had changed his name, now calling himself Hugh Bronny—which had been his mother’s maiden-name. “And what do you plan to do, Don?”

  Don settled himself back into the couch. “You remember the night we went up to the Freelock house, Art?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ve never forgotten that night. Afterwards I did a lot of reading—all the books I could find on the subject. In Manchuria I had time to do a lot of thinking. I did it. I still want to be a scientist, Art—a new kind of scientist. I’m going to the University. I’m going to learn as much mathematics, psychology, biology and physics as possible. I’m going to read a lot more. Then I’m going to apply scientific techniques to the so-called supernatural.”

  Art nodded. “I’m glad to hear that, Don. I’m going to ask you a personal question. How are you fixed for money?”

  “Pretty good, Art. I got an awful whack of cumulative back pay. I’ll go to school on the GI Bill.”

  “Good enough. If you run short, I’ve got lots of money. Whatever you need, it’s yours.”

  “Thanks, Art. I’ll sure call on you if I need help. But I think I’ll make out pretty well.” He rose to his feet and shuffled uneasily.

  Art said gruffly, “Why don’t you stay to dinner? I telephoned Jean you were here; she’s due home in a few minutes.”

  Don sat down, a queer hard pounding under his ribs. Outside a car door slammed. Feet came running up the walk, the front door opened. “Don!”

  “Seems like absence makes the heart grow fonder,” observed Art Marsile grinning.

  “Father, don’t you look while I’m kissing Don!”

  “Okay. Just let me know when you’re done.”

  Don applied for admission at Caltech, and was accepted. A year later he and Jean were married.

  There was news from Hugh meanwhile. He had established himself in Kansas, and held weekly revival meetings in various parts of Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Occasionally he sent home hand-bills: “Monster Rally. Fighting Hugh Bronny, Leader of the Christian Crusade.”

  On Easter of the year Don was to take his BS degree, Art drove out to Don and Jean’s apartment in Westwood. “I’m gonna make the jump,” he announced as he came through the door. “In fact, I already made it.”

  “What jump, Father?”

  “Remember my telling you about the dowser, how he told me there was oil?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m going to do some wild-catting. I had a good year, I can blow whatever it’s gonna take. If I hit it, fine. If I don’t, it’s out of my system.”

  Don laughed. “Either way, it’ll be interesting.”

  “That’s how I figure,” said Art. “The geologists say no, the dowser says yes. We’ll see who’s right.”

  “How long before you know for sure?”

  Art shook his head. “They start down next month. They drill till they hit oil—or until I run out of money. Whichever comes first.”

  “Here’s hoping,” said Don. “If hope will do you any good.”

  “We’ll all hope. We’ll drink a toast,” said Jean. “If Hugh were here we’d ask him to pray.”

  “Hugh will be here,” said Art. “That’s another thing.”

  Jean made a face. “I thought he was established in Kansas.”

  “Well, he’s coming west,” said Art in the level voice he always used in connection with Hugh. “He seems to be a pretty big man in his field now. They’ve got him booked for meetings all over Southern California. He’s going to make his headquarters in Orange City.”

  “Father! Surely he’s not going to move in with you!”

  “It’s his privilege, if he wants to, Jean. It’s his home.”

  “I suppose so. But I thought that later, after Don got his degree, we’d move back to Orange City.”

  Art grinned. “When Don gets his degree, you two are going to the Hawaiian Islands. It’s a present from me. By the time you come back—then we’ll see. Things may be cleared up. Maybe Hugh’s got other plans in mind.”

  But Hugh had no other plans in mind. He arrived in Orange City the next week, tall, gaunt and solemn, wearing a pale blue suit, a Panama hat on his craggy forehead. Art received him with decent cordiality, and Hugh took up residence in his old home.

  The drilling on Marsile No. 1 began. Don finished his undergraduate studies and received his BS; he and Jean flew to Honolulu for the month’s vacation which had been Art’s present to them.

  During their absence they received two short letters from Art: the drilling was proceeding slowly and expensively. Nothing at five hundred feet; in the second letter, nothing at twelve hundred feet, with the drills scratching slowly through hard metamorphic rock. He made a dry comment that Hugh disapproved of the venture, on the basis that money being wasted on the drilling could be put to better use: namely, the Christian Crusade, an evangelistic movement which Hugh had founded.

  The month passed; Don and Jean returned to Orange City. Art met them at the airport. His face was dour and drawn: Marsile No. 1 was still dry. “We’re down to eighteen hundred,” said Art glumly. “The rock gets harder and meaner every foot. And I’m running low of money.”

  Jean hugged him. “That’s nothing to fret about. It was just a gamble—just a game.”

  “Damn expensive game. And I like to win my games you know.”

  They drove to the old house under the pepper trees, walked up the iris-bordered gravel path, entered the house.

  “Good heavens!” cried Jean in wonder. “What’s all this?”

  “Some of Hugh’s publicity,” said Art drily.

  Wordlessly Jean and Don examined the placards thumb-tacked to the wall. Most conspicuous was a large photograph of Hugh Bronny speaking into a microphone, fist poised in grim exultation. Four placards bore a picture of Hugh with scarehead printing: “March in the Christian Crusade with Hugh Bronny!” “Hugh Bronny, the Devil’s enemy!” “Sweep America clean with Fighting Hugh Bronny!” A cartoon showed Hugh Bronny depicted as a muscular giant. He carried a broom labelled “The Fighting Gospel”, with which he dispersed a rabble of half-human vermin. Some wore horns and bat-wings; others were characterized by bald heads, large hooked noses, heavy-lidded eyes; others were marked with the communist hammer-and-sickle. “Clean out the atheists, the communists, the deniers of Christ!” “Keep America pure!” cried another card. “Hear Fighting Hugh Bronny at the old-fashioned fundamental go-for-broke revival! Bring the children. Free soda pop.”

  Jean finally turned back to Art; she opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  “I know,” said Art. “It’s kinda crude. But—well, it’s Hugh’s business. This is his home, he’s got a right to hang up what he wants.”

  “But you live here too, Father!”

  Art nodded. “I can stand it. I don’t like the things, but what’s the good of making Hugh take them down? That don’t change Hugh, and it only makes things tough.”

  “Sometimes I think you carry tolerance too far, Dad.”

  “Now I don’t know about that. Here comes Hugh now. I guess he’s been asleep.”

  A door closed, slow steps sounded along the hall.

  “He’s changed quite a bit,” said Ar
t in an undertone.

  Hugh came into the room. He wore an unpressed black suit, a blue shirt, a long gray necktie, long-toed black shoes. He seemed enormously tall, almost seven feet; his head seemed larger and craggier than ever; his eyes flamed blue from cavernous sockets. He had gained force since Don had seen him last—force and poise and intensity, and absolute assurance.

  Hugh did not offer to shake hands. “Hello, Jean. Hello, Don. You both look well.”

  “We should,” said Jean with a nervous laugh, “we’ve done nothing but lie in the sun and sleep for a month.”

  Hugh nodded somberly, as if frivolity and self-indulgence were all very nice, but that personally he could not afford the time.

  “I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk about this oil well business. Do you know how much money has gone into it?”

  “No,” said Jean. “I don’t care.”

  “But there’s no oil out there on the desert. That money could be put to a worthy Christian use. I could do wonderful things with it.”

  “No, you couldn’t,” said Art. “I told you once before, Hugh, I’m not putting any money into your Christian Crusade, whatever you say.”

  “Just what is a Christian Crusade?” asked Jean.

  Hugh bent his head forward, swung his arms. “The Christian Crusade is a great and growing cause. The Christian Crusade aims to bring the power of the Bible against the evils of this earthly sphere. The Christian Crusade aims to make the United States of America a real Christian God-fearing community; we believe in America for the Americans, Russia for the communists, Africa for the Negroes, Israel for the Jews and Hell for the atheists.”

  “I don’t plan to finance it,” said Art with a feeble grin.

  Jean turned to Don, made a small helpless gesture. Don shrugged.

  Hugh looked from one to the other. “I hear you’ve just graduated from college,” he said to Don.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And now you’re a scientist?”

  “Not quite. I’ve acquired some of the necessary background.”