The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  He switched on the tape-recorders, leaned back in his chair, and prepared for a wait.

  From Room 4, Grandma Hogart’s room, came the sound of the Lord’s Prayer; in Room 7 someone was humming a hymn; from other speakers came snatches of uneasy conversation, jokes, complaints.

  Don waited. Jean came into the room, sat beside him.

  “There won’t be anything for five or ten minutes,” Don told Vivian and Kelso. “They have to get in the mood to begin with.”

  “Any chance of materializations, ectoplasm, things like that?” asked Kelso. “I’ve got a Canon F1 loaded with Tri-X that’ll take stop-action of black cats fighting in a dark cellar.”

  Don shrugged. “Never can tell. Have it ready, if you like. None of these mediums, so far as I know, have ever materialized anything. An honest materialization is rare.”

  “Can a spirit materialize without the help of a medium?”

  “If you wait long enough,” Vivian told Kelso, “you’ll have all the answers on your own.”

  Kelso laughed grimly, “But I won’t be able to sell the pictures. I might not even be able to have them developed…What about it, Don? Do these spirits ever materialize on their own?”

  Don grinned. “I’ve never been a spirit; I couldn’t tell you…So far as I’m aware—no.”

  “But ghosts—they seem to come and go as they please. And poltergeists.”

  “Ah,” said Don. “A different matter. I’m referring to the class of spirits which communicate through mediums. Ghosts and poltergeists are two other classes. Three distinct classes in all—at least three classes.”

  Kelso looked puzzled. “Isn’t that rather confusing? How do you know there are three classes?”

  “They behave differently. The spirits—I’ll use the word to describe influences operating through mediums—the spirits act and think more or less as we’d expect the spirit of a human being to act. Ghosts seem to be mindless affairs, imprints of a great emotional disturbance on the parapsychological matrix, which reveal themselves under certain conditions—what these conditions are, no one knows. Poltergeists—‘noisy ghosts’ to translate—are invisible and mischievous. They occur principally in houses where adolescent children live—and it’s possible that they’re no more than an unconscious telekinetic process of the adolescent mind. That’s just a theory—no more. Poltergeists don’t seem to fit anywhere else into the picture.”

  “Listen,” said Jean. A voice came from Room 3: the clear voice of Ivalee Trembath’s Molly Toogood.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” said the voice of the Room 3 observer, a divinity student named Tom Ward. “How are you tonight?”

  “Very well. I don’t think I know you.”

  “No, we’ve never met.”

  Jean signaled to Don; young Myron Hogart’s wire, the line from Room 8 was coming alive; his control was rapping on the table. Almost at the same time a whistle came from Grandma Hogart in Room 4.

  “Hello, sassy,” said Grandma Hogart. “You’re looking pert tonight—all cute in your little pink dress.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the piping voice of a little girl. “I’m all fixed up because I’m glad to see you.”

  “This nice young man is Dr. Cogswell,” said Grandma Hogart.

  “How-de-do,” said the control. “My name’s Pearl; I’m a little colored girl; I was born in Memphis, Tennessee.”

  The other speakers all began to sound; there was suddenly too much to listen to.

  Jean said, in a hushed voice of astonishment, “They’ve all made contact—every one of them!”

  Two or three minutes passed. Chatter, gossip, greetings, small-talk came from the intercom speakers.

  Don spoke into the subsidiary mikes, those which took his voice to the operator’s ear-buttons. “Now—first question.”

  They listened to Room 3, as Tom Ward, the divinity student, put the first of the rehearsed questions to Molly.

  “What does it look like where you are now?”

  The various responses came in over the speakers and were recorded on the tapes.

  “Second question,” said Don.

  In every room except No. 3 the question was asked. “Do you know Molly Toogood? Can you see her now?”

  The answers came in slowly, dubiously, and were duly recorded.

  As a second part of the same question, in all the rooms except No. 2, the observer asked, “Do you know Sir Gervase Desmond?”

  This was Alec Dillon’s control; while the responses came in from seven rooms, Sir Gervase, a Regency Buck, criticized Alec in a nasal supercilious drawl. Alec, not completely in trance, defended himself, and they quarrelled until the amused observer intervened.

  Listening to the quarrel, Don thought that the two voices of Alec and Sir Gervase mingled and spoke together; the tape-recorder would corroborate his impressions. An interesting situation: two voices coming simultaneously from the same throat, the same larynx! Of course the diaphragm of any loudspeaker performed the same feat with no difficulty. But the vocal chords, the glottal passages, tongue, teeth and lips constituted a sound-producing mechanism rather more complicated than a diaphragm…Don shelved the line of thought; it had become too involved, and there was too much happening. He must guard against a marveling frame of mind, he told himself. Everything that he was seeing and hearing, everything in this universe and every other, had some kind of logic—some system of laws, some cycle of cause and effect. It might be far removed from classical physics and ordinary human experience—but the laws must be there, available for human brains to codify.

  In the eight rooms the talk was becoming desultory.

  “Third question,” said Don.

  In each of the eight rooms the observer asked: “What does our world look like to you?” And after the answers were recorded, “What does your medium look like?” For the words ‘your medium’ the observer substituted the name of the medium.

  Then the fourth question: “Is ex-President Franklin D. Roosevelt present? Can you contact him at the present moment? What does he think of the present administration?”

  The fifth question: “Is Adolf Hitler present? Is he happy or unhappy? Is he being punished for his crimes on Earth?”

  The sixth question: “Have you ever seen Jesus Christ? Mohammed? Buddha? Mahatma Gandhi? Have you ever seen Joseph Stalin?”

  Then the seventh question: “In the year 3244 B.C. an Egyptian scribe by the name of Mahnekhe died in Thebes. Is it possible to communicate with him? Is he present now?”

  The eighth question: “Do you think of yourself as a soul? A disembodied spirit? A person?”

  The ninth question: “How do you know when your medium is ready to make contact? Why do you respond?”

  The tenth question: “Is there anything on Earth that you feel the need of? Can some living person bring it to you?”

  The eleventh question: “Do you eat, sleep? What kind of food do you eat? In what kind of shelter do you sleep?”

  Twelfth question: “Do you have a day and a night? Is it night or day now?”

  Thirteenth question: “Does this type of questioning bother you? Are you willing to help us learn more about the after-life?”

  X

  At 7:25 Exercise One began, with all eight mediums in touch with their controls. The questions were not necessarily asked or answered with consistent precision or timing. In many cases, the control chattered inconsequentialities, mumbled, refused to speak, or was otherwise uncooperative; there was no means by which the operator could enforce order. At Question 10 Sir Gervase Desmond, in a huff, left Alec Dillon, who fell into a deep sleep. At Question 11 Grandma Hogart’s vitality waned, and her voice faded; little Pearl respectfully said farewell. After Question 10 only Ivalee Trembath, young Myron Hogart, Mrs. Kerr (a placid fat woman), and Mr. Bose (a thin Negro mail-carrier), still maintained contact with the other world. These four showed no signs of fatigue until after Question 13 and the end of Exercise One. The time was 9:45.

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sp; Grandma Hogart, Alec Dillon were asleep, to be joined at once by Mrs. Kerr; most of the others were relaxing with tea, coffee, beer or highballs.

  Don and Dr. Cogswell stepped into each room, thanked the participants; Jean paid Mrs. Kerr, Grandma Hogart and Mrs. Vascelles their professional fees. Only Myron Hogart seemed interested in the results of the exercise; to the others it had been merely another seance.

  By eleven o’clock the house was clear. Don, Jean, Vivian Hallsey, Kelso, Dr. Cogswell and Godfrey Head, a professor of mathematics at UCLA, gathered in the library. The mood was convivial; the mass seance had come off with a success beyond the hopes of anyone.

  “Don!” cried Dr. Cogswell. “We’ve got to play back those tapes and do some computing.”

  “If you like,” said Don. “We can work up Question One tonight.”

  The tape recorders were arranged in a row; the response to Question 1 was played back for each room in turn, and a list made of significant elements.

  Question 1: What does it look like where you are now?

  1. Kochamba: “White plains”—“golden ramparts, the host of the Lord”—“shining in the pearly light of our Lord”—“the golden towers, the lawns and flower gardens like the most wonderful park in the world, with statues of the angels, and everywhere the great glory of Kingdom Come.”—“Off in the distance there’s the lower-class places, but you can’t see ’em so good, and not too far away there’s Hell.”—“No, Hell ain’t down below—at least not too far down.”

  2. Sir Gervase Desmond: “Why naturally, it’s the finest of places; would I be here otherwise? Everyone wears elegant clothes; the gentlemen and their ladies, I mean. It’s like a great race meeting. No horses, of course, and nobody runs a book, more’s the pity. But lovely, lovely, and all melting away into gold, and all the silver and pearly water; jewels for the taking, by Jove! Far too good for you, Dillon.”

  3. Molly Toogood: “Seems like it’s all they’re interested in nowadays. I told ’em once, but I’ll tell ’em again: it’s like your Earth, only much prettier. Of course we can see the old land anytime we want to look.”

  4. Pearl: “Now, Grandma, I don’t know as I can describe something like this, because it’s too superior and wonderful for words. But we’re all up here, all waiting for you; all the great men and women, all doing what they like to do. It’s really pretty, all gold and green and off in the distance there’s the great Light of God, and his wonderful city.”

  5. Marie Kozard: (no reply)

  6. Lula: “Lovely, dear—I know you’d enjoy it. There’s all the people, all walking around in balls of light, and the greater the man or woman, the brighter the light. And the gorgeous palaces, and sunrises and sunsets, like great peacock tails everywhere around the sky.” (In response to question: what costume do the great men wear?) “Just the clothes they always wore. There’s Napoleon in his cocked hat and white breeches, and there’s George Washington—he’s got powdered hair; he looks just like the pictures.”

  7. Dr. Gordon Hazelwood: (no comprehensible reply)

  8. Lew Wetzel: “It’s hard to say, because it’s hazy-like. Everywhere you look, all the palaces and big buildings—they melt off into the haze. When I first came here it was different—there wasn’t any of those big skyscrapers; it was more Frenchy-like. Now there’s all these big steel and glass things and streamline things.”

  The first question was tabulated; the time was two o’clock. Don sighed, opened a can of beer. “Let’s see. What do we have?”

  Godfrey Head looked down the list. “The consensus seems to be that the after-world is a bright, beautiful land full of palaces and golden castles, with people walking around in fancy clothes.”

  “There’s quite some talk of haze,” said Dr. Cogswell. “Horizons melting away—and here: Lula says the skies are like peacock tails.”

  “Why can’t spirits take photographs?” asked Kelso, in deep pain. “Think of it: big picture-essay on the after-life. Think we’d sell that issue?”

  “Another thing about Lula,” said Don. “Notice how the people ‘walk around in balls of light’, but the great men are the brightest.”

  “Great men seem very much in evidence,” mused Jean. “Still, it’s really rather queer the different ways they see the after-life. There they are, all together in the same place—at least, so we assume—and each gives us a description similar, but just a trifle different, from the others.”

  “Well,” said Godfrey Head, “we don’t want to take everything literally; we’ve got to make allowances, to consider the subconscious coloring of the medium, reconcile the various points of view, take the lowest common denominator, so to speak.”

  Don drummed his fingers on his beer-can. “I’m not sure that I agree—completely. I don’t think it’s good practice to select only the consistent statements. If we ignore whatever seems unreasonable, we’re not learning anything, we’re merely building our own picture of the hereafter—not the one which these controls have given us.”

  “What about Wetzel’s ‘skyscrapers’—‘streamlined shapes’? Incidentally, who was Lew Wetzel? The name’s familiar.”

  “A character in a novel. ‘The Deerslayer’, by James Fenimore Cooper, I believe.”

  Head leaned back in his seat. “Now this really demands consideration. How can a character in a novel have a spirit?…It hardly seems credible!” He looked at Dr. Cogswell. “Are you convinced of the lad’s responsibility?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Perhaps under the strain—the feeling of competition…”

  “No,” said Dr. Cogswell. “I’ve heard Wetzel talk half a dozen times.”

  “He’s really the character from the novel?”

  “That’s right. I asked him about it. He says whatever or whoever he is he’s there, and he can’t account for himself any other way.”

  “Of course,” said Jean, “his character might have been taken from life.”

  “Yes, that’s possible. In fact, highly probable.”

  “But what about these chromium skyscrapers?” cried Head. “Certainly we’ve got to exercise some selection!”

  “We’ve got to be very careful,” Don insisted. “We simply can’t throw out items because they’re inconsistent, or don’t agree with a priori theories.”

  “But these people can’t all be right!” protested Head. “We’ve got to decide on a reasonable consensus—that’s our function, after all!”

  “They might be speaking from different parts of this after-world. To me Wetzel’s comment about the skyscrapers is highly significant. It might mean that the after-world changes as our own world changes.”

  “Or reflects this one,” said Jean.

  “Or that the after-world and the control is nothing but the medium’s subconscious fabrication,” grumbled Head.

  Don nodded. “That’s certainly our big headache. The next question was designed to shed a little light.”

  Jean read the question: “‘Do you know Molly Toogood? Do you know Sir Gervase Desmond?’”

  “We’d still face uncertainties,” Don observed, “even if the answers were all ‘yes’, even if Molly and Sir Gervase were described with great consistency—because we might hypothesize telepathic communication between the mediums.”

  “Certainly not an unreasonable explanation,” said Godfrey Head.

  “As I recall,” said Don, “the question gave us very little information; no one seems definitely to know anyone else.” He looked at his watch. “It’s late…Shall we call it a night?”

  Head and Cogswell agreed. They rose to their feet. “Incidentally,” said Head, “have any of you been over to hear the Fighting Preacher at the Orange City Auditorium?”

  “Not I,” said Cogswell. “What about him?”

  “Dill, from our Political Science department, took me to hear him. Dill is alarmed. He says this Hugh Bronny is an alarming phenomenon, a nascent Hitler. He’s got a force, a gift of gab, no question about it. But I only mention him becau
se he’s attacking ‘devil-inspired scientists who’re fooling around with God’s business!’ He says that they’re trying to produce life in test-tubes and also trying to sneak sinners into Heaven. He says places like the Parapsychological Foundation ought to be stopped—by force, if necessary. He really means business.”

  Jean sat rather limp. “He mentioned us—by name?”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, he singled out the Parapsychological Foundation.”

  “Anything to constitute slander?” asked Don lightly.

  “He called you a Godless scientist, in league with the Devil. If you can show that he acted in malice and that your reputation is injured—you can sue.”

  “First,” said Don ruefully, “I’d probably have to prove I wasn’t in league with the Devil.”

  “Maybe we can take our stable of mediums to court,” suggested Dr. Cogswell, “and materialize the Devil for a witness.”

  “There’d be difficulties swearing him in,” Don remarked.

  “That does it,” said Head. “Good night all.”

  Kelso, Vivian Hallsey, and Dr. Cogswell took their leave immediately after.

  Don turned to Jean, took her hands. “Tired?”

  “Yes. But not so tired that—” she stopped short, staring across his shoulder. Don turned. “What’s the trouble?”

  “There’s someone outside—at the window.”

  Don ran to the door, opened it, went out on the porch. Jean came out behind him.

  Don asked, “Did you see his face?”

  “Yes…I thought it was—” she could not speak the name.

  “Hugh?”

  She pressed against his arm. “I’m afraid of him, Donald…”

  Don raised his voice a little. “Hugh! Why don’t you come out, Hugh? Wherever you’re hiding…”

  A tall shape materialized. Hugh stepped out onto the gravel path. The street-light shone yellow in his great angular face; shadows filled his eye-sockets and the pockets under his cheekbones.