The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  Jean, Don and Hugh discussed the situation the night Art’s ashes were buried. There were nine parcels of property: the house, the four hundred acres of desert, and seven orange groves of various acreage.

  Hugh had prepared a memorandum of the value of the various parcels, and was ready with a proposal. “I suggest that you keep the house, since my work takes me far afield, and I have no need of it. To compensate, I will take the Elsinore Avenue grove, which is roughly the same value. These other groves we can divide like this.” He explained his plan. “The four hundred acres is worthless and I propose that we sell it and divide the proceeds.”

  Don said, “It’s only fair to tell you, that we have reason to think there is oil on the property.”

  Hugh frowned. “What sort of reason?”

  “A reason you may or may not take seriously. On the night Art died we stopped by the house of a friend, who is also a medium. While we were there, a voice, purportedly Art, spoke to us. The voice told us that there was oil on the four hundred acres, to proceed with the drilling.”

  Hugh chuckled hollowly. “And you are superstitious enough to give credence to this ‘voice’?”

  “Superstition is belief in something non-existent,” said Don. “This voice existed. I heard it. It sounded like Art. Jean and I are willing to take the chance it was Art.”

  Hugh shook his great head slowly. “I can’t agree with you.”

  “In any event,” said Don, “I suggest that we sell one of the groves and use the money to continue drilling. It’s a gamble, yes—but most of the hole is already there.”

  Hugh shook his head once more. “I have much better uses for money than pouring it into a hole.”

  “Very well,” said Don. “You take the Frazer Boulevard Valencias, we’ll take the four hundred acres, and we’ll split the other parcels according to your system.”

  Hugh considered his list. “Very well. I agree. I hope that I may be allowed to reside in the house during my stay in Orange City?”

  “Of course,” said Jean. “If you’ll please take those posters and placards off the wall.”

  Hugh rose to his full seven feet. “As you wish,” he said coldly. “It is your house.”

  The division of the property was accordingly made. Don and Jean sold thirty-three acres of oranges, called the drill-crew back to work.

  “Good money after bad?” inquired the foreman with genial good humor. “Take my advice, Mr. Berwick, don’t waste your money. This just ain’t the right formation. We’ve passed the Granville Blue shales—that’s where the Rodman Dome came in—and according to the geology you’ll be hitting granite in another five hundred feet.”

  “We want to see that granite,” said Jean. “Drill on, Chet, and be ready to cap it when it comes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Three days later gas began blowing up the hole, and on the fourth day Marsile No. 1 came in.

  Chet said sheepishly, “I gave you good advice. You shoulda took it. But if you had, you wouldn’t be millionaires like you’re gonna be.”

  VI

  At ten o’clock in the morning Hugh came into the living room, wearing a cream-colored suit, long pointed yellow shoes. Jean looked up from the arm-chair where she had been sitting, lost in thought. Hugh put his Panama hat gently on a chair, slapped his leg with a newspaper.

  “Well, sister,” he said jocularly, “oil on the property, after all. Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “You weren’t here when the news came.”

  “No. I was working with the Reverend Spedelius. It’s wonderful, wonderful! God’s gift to us. And we’ll put it to God’s work.”

  Jean sat up in the chair, a faint cool smile on her face. “What sort of fantasy is this, Hugh?”

  “Fantasy?” He held up the newspaper. “Surely this is true?”

  “We struck oil on the four hundred acres, yes.”

  “Then we’re rich.”

  “It was the four hundred acres you didn’t want, Hugh.”

  Hugh laughed hollowly. “What’s the difference? Perhaps I spoke unthinkingly—but I’m sure that our father intended us to share. That was the tone of his last will and testament…” he looked around the room, picked up a book. “‘A Compendium of Supernormal Phenomena’, by Ralph Birchmill.” He dropped it as if it were hot, glanced at Jean. “I don’t see the Holy Bible in the room,” he said, heavily jocose. He settled his great gaunt frame on the couch, knees almost as high as his chest. Don came in, sat down near Jean.

  “Our father always insisted on an equal sharing of the good things,” said Hugh. “I assume that we will continue to do so.”

  “Not in this case,” said Jean. “You’re a moderately well-off man right now, with your orange groves.”

  Hugh’s hand slowly clenched on the newspaper. But his voice was gentle and low. “True, sister. But I have a need for money beyond mere material needs. I’m pledged to the furtherance of God’s will, to spiritual enlightenment of the people, to the Christian Crusade.”

  “I’m sorry, Hugh. We’ve decided to put the money to other uses.”

  Hugh held out his hands ingenuously. “What use could be more important than spreading the Gospel?”

  “It depends on your point of view. We plan to endow a research foundation.”

  “You mean this black magic, devil worship, occultism stunt?”

  Jean said impatiently, “You know very well that we neither practice nor believe in black magic or devil worship.”

  Hugh glanced meaningfully at the book on Don’s desk. He rose restlessly to his feet, paced back and forth across the room. “Exactly what kind of research do you intend, then?”

  “I’ll be glad to explain,” said Don politely. “We want to bridge a very large gap in human knowledge. We want to attack what is commonly known as the supernatural with laboratory techniques. We want to make a large scale investigation of spiritualistic phenomena, with an eye to proving or disproving the existence of spirits, and perhaps the whole concept of the hereafter you see.”

  Hugh stood back with an exaggerated gesture of alarm that nearly bumped his head on the door lintel. “Proof of the hereafter? Isn’t that rather beside the point? And presumptuous? Don’t you read your Bible?”

  “I don’t care to argue theology with you,” said Don. “You asked me a question; I answered you.”

  Hugh nodded. “Very well. I’ll ask another question.” He strode across the room, looked down at Jean. “This money, which you have acknowledged to be partly mine—do you intend to give it to me?”

  “I haven’t acknowledged it as partly yours and I don’t intend to give you any.”

  Hugh nodded again. “Do you have the effrontery to suggest that this hocus-pocus is more important than the Christian Crusade?”

  Jean, leaning back in the chair, looked up at him coldly. “Last night we went to your revival meeting. We listened to you. Do you know why?”

  “Of course I don’t know why. Unless—”

  “No. We weren’t planning to throw ourselves before the altar. We suspected that this matter would come up, we wanted to hear you, with our own ears. We heard you.”

  Hugh looked from Jean to Don, back to Jean. “Well?”

  “I’ll speak with complete frankness,” said Jean.

  “Of course,” said Hugh stiffly.

  “There’s no point beating around the bush, or using ambiguous terms because they’re more polite. So—to be brutally blunt—I think you’re a fascist. You call yourself a preacher; you preach hate. You cloak your hatred in sanctimony, you bring out the worst in humanity. You asked people to come up and grovel, abase themselves for their sins—imaginary or otherwise. If there is a Creator, I’m sure you don’t speak for him.”

  Hugh said ponderously, “That is not the truth. I preach the Lord’s word.”

  “Whatever you call it, you sickened me. I won’t let you go hungry, but I’ll never give a cent to your Christian Crusade.”

  “Very well,” s
aid Hugh. “But what about the wishes of our father? He instructed us to divide the estate fairly between us.” He held up his great hand. “I know what you’re going to say. But surely you had secret information. You did not deal fairly with me.”

  “I gave you every bit of information we had,” Jean said indignantly.

  “You couldn’t expect me to believe that story—about the medium,” bleated Hugh.

  “We took our chances. You refused to take yours. As far as I’m concerned the subject is closed.”

  Hugh danced back, stood with his fist in the air. “Very well! I warn you that I intend to fight you and your blasphemous program in every possible way. The money came from the minerals God put into the earth; you should not use it to derogate the Word of God!”

  “Why not let God do his own worrying?” Jean wearily asked. “He can stop it anytime he wants with a thunderbolt.”

  “I am moving out of this sacrilegious place,” cried Hugh. “I don’t want your money. It stinks of the Devil!” He backed away. His voice boomed and rasped. “You will know punishment, you will know death and the awful agony of the hereafter!”

  “Please go, Hugh.”

  Hugh departed. “He’s a madman,” said Jean. “Or—is he?”

  Don was pulling Hugh’s placards off the wall. “Filthy things…I don’t know.”

  Jean put her arms around him. “Don—I’m afraid of Hugh.”

  “Afraid? Physically afraid?”

  “Yes…He doesn’t care what he does.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Don lightly. “I think he rather enjoys these dramatic scenes…But—I hope we don’t see too much of Hugh. He’s very wearing.”

  VII

  At five o’clock in the evening the telephone rang. Jean answered, turned to Don. “It’s a reporter from the Los Angeles Times.”

  “Let’s talk to them. Publicity can’t hurt us, and might do us some good.”

  Jean turned back to the phone, and twenty minutes later the reporter appeared at the front door. She gave her name as Vivian Hallsey—a young woman of twenty-five, not quite plump, with a round freckled face, alert eyes, a button nose and dark red hair, tightly curled. She stood in the doorway, looked from Don to Jean, smiled. “You certainly don’t look as I expected you to look.”

  “What did you expect?” asked Don.

  Vivian Hallsey shook her head. “Anything other than normality.”

  Jean laughed. “Why shouldn’t we look normal?”

  “I’m prejudiced,” said Vivian Hallsey. “I understand that you were led to drill this oil well by communication with the spirit world. I’ve always thought that only neurotic old women patronized mediums and fortune tellers.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Don. “Will you sit down?”

  “Thanks. How did you find where to drill for oil? If it’s through a spirit, which spirit? Because I’d like an oil well myself.”

  Don explained the circumstances which led to the tapping of Marsile Dome.

  Vivian Hallsey looked around the room and shivered. “It makes me feel strange.”

  “What makes you feel strange?”

  “The idea of spirits—everywhere. The spirits of the dead. Watching you. We’re never alone. It’s as if we all lived in glass cages…It’s embarrassing!”

  “Not so fast,” said Don. “We still can’t be sure.”

  “Sure of what?”

  “That spirits exist. It’s a pat answer.”

  “‘Pat answer’!” She looked at him incredulously. “You tell me this? You’re the one who just brought in an oil well, with the help of spirits.”

  “I know,” said Don. “That’s the supposition. But it’s possible there are other explanations.”

  Vivian Hallsey clutched her head in exasperation. “Exactly what do you think?”

  “I don’t know. We’re going to spend the next few years finding out. Maybe the rest of our lives.”

  “I never believed in life after death before. You convince me, and then the next minute you try to un-convince me.”

  Don laughed. “Sorry. But it just might not have been life after death.”

  “I don’t see how you can say that!”

  “Ivalee Trembath might be highly telepathic. Without conscious effort on her part she might have been reading our minds—telling us things we wanted to believe.”

  Vivian Hallsey was silent a moment. “It all seems so fantastic…Isn’t it more likely the other way?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to know. If there is another world—it exists. That’s just logic. If this other world exists, it exists somewhere! That’s important. ‘The Land of Nod’ for instance—a figure of speech, meaning sleep. It exists—nowhere. Perhaps the after-life is also a figurative expression—something like the ‘Land of Nod’. But if it does exist, I want to learn the truth. I have a right to know. Humanity has a right to know.”

  Vivian Hallsey looked doubtful. “Human beings derive a great deal of comfort from the hope of an after-life. Isn’t it cruel to take that hope away from them?”

  “Possibly,” said Don. “New knowledge always comes as an uncomfortable shock to many people. And of course it’s perfectly possible we might prove the reality of an after-life.”

  “You use the word ‘proof”,” said Vivian Hallsey. “Just how do you go about getting this proof?”

  “The same way scientists try to get proof for any other matter in doubt.”

  “But how do you start?”

  “First with a little deep thought. The problem is how to get evidence—scientific evidence—and parapsychology is a hard field to get definite evidence in.”

  “Why is that?”

  “First, because the subject matter is so far out of reach. Second, good mediums are awfully scarce. Ivalee Trembath is one in a million. There probably aren’t twenty people in the United States as efficient as she is. Incidentally, please don’t use her name, as she isn’t a professional medium—just a gifted woman who is interested in the subject. Third, there are thousands of convincing charlatans, and even more thousands of unconvincing ones. Fourth, good mediums are sensitive. Some of them are jealous of their gifts and don’t want anyone investigating. Others resent laboratory checks. They think it’s a reflection on their integrity.”

  “But surely there are mediums who’ll cooperate.”

  “Oh, yes. With money anything is possible. There’ll be lots of hard work involved, lots of sweat! If we got about a dozen mediums and held twelve simultaneous seances…” He paused.

  “What would that prove?”

  “I don’t know. The results might suggest something. We’ve got to start somewhere.”

  “Would these simultaneous seances prove or disprove the after-life?”

  “So far as I know,” said Don, “nothing a medium does or says has completely ruled out the possibility of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, retrocognition, telekinesis. These of course are hypernormal—but they don’t prove survival after death.”

  “How about ghosts—and things like that?”

  “Ghosts,” said Don. He looked at Jean. They both laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?” Vivian Hallsey asked.

  “Ghosts are how Jean and I became interested in parapsychology. It happened a long time ago…I wonder if the old Freelock place is still haunted…”

  “What happened?” asked Vivian Hallsey. “Darn it, you’re getting me interested. If I’m not careful—but never mind me. What happened at the Freelock house?”

  Don told her.

  “Do you think this ghost and the spirit which told you to drill for oil are the same sort of thing?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose they have certain qualities in common—assuming that the spirits aren’t merely telepathic transferences. Even then there might be a connection. It’s another thing we’ll be checking. So far I haven’t gone into it deeply. Various regions of the world have their unique type of ghosts. Very odd, when you consider it. You’d think
a ghost in Siberia would be the same as a ghost in Haiti.”

  “Unless, of course, they’re all hallucinations.”

  Don nodded. “With that proviso, of course. The degree of evidence for English ghosts, for instance, is stronger than the evidence for Irish fairies. The were-wolf is confined to the Carpathians and Urals. Although there are were-tigers in India, Malaya and Siam, and were-leopards in Africa. Kobolds and trolls live in Scandinavia, duppies and zombies in the West Indies. The Onas of Tierra del Fuego knew a terrible thing called a ‘tsanke’. Assuming that these supernatural creatures exist, or at least are seen—isn’t this localization suggestive?”

  “Of what?”

  “You think about it.”

  Vivian Hallsey laughed. “Are you trying to make a new convert?”

  “Why not?”

  “All right. You’ve got one. But now I’ve got to write a story on all this. One more question: what will you call this research foundation?”

  “There’s only one name possible,” Don told her. “The Marsile Foundation for Parapsychological Research.”

  VIII

  Eight more wells were sent down to tap Marsile Dome, and owners of adjacent property who had given up options and mineral rights gnashed their teeth in frustration. Representatives of six major oil companies approached Don and Jean Berwick with propositions of varying attraction. After six weeks of study and legal consultation, Don and Jean sold out to Seahawk Oil on a cash-royalty-stock transfer arrangement, and at last were able to devote their time to the Marsile Foundation for Parapsychological Research.

  But there were still other delays. The mechanics of organizing the Foundation were more complicated than Don and Jean had anticipated. To qualify for tax-exemption benefits the Foundation was incorporated as a non-profit research institution, capitalized at a million dollars. “At last,” sighed Jean. “We can get started. But how? We still haven’t decided on a thing. Not even on where to establish ourselves.”

  “No,” said Don, thoughtfully. “An institution with such an imposing name deserves an equally imposing headquarters—something concrete and glass, spread out over an acre—but how we’d use it at the present time—I haven’t the slightest idea…We’d better try to organize a staff, work out a systematic program, and then we’ll know better what kind of facilities we’ll need.” He picked up a letter from the table. “We should get some help here. This is from the American Society for Psychic Research. They’re interested in coordinating programs. One of their associates is coming out to see us.”