The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  When the cargo had been stowed, the cadets gathered in the wardroom. Henry Belt appeared from the master’s cubicle. He wore a black T shirt which was ridged and lumped to the configuration of his chest, black shorts from which his thin legs extended, and sandals with magnetic filaments in the soles.

  “Gentlemen,” said Henry Belt in a soft voice. “At last we are alone. How do you like the surroundings? Eh, Mr. Culpepper?”

  “The hull is commodious, sir. The view is superb.”

  Henry Belt nodded. “Mr. Lynch? Your impressions?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t sorted them out yet, sir.”

  “I see. You, Mr. Sutton?”

  “Space is larger than I imagined it, sir.”

  “True. Space is unimaginable. A good space-man must either be larger than space, or he must ignore it. Both difficult. Well, gentlemen, I will make a few comments, then I will retire and enjoy the voyage. Since this is my last time out, I intend to do nothing whatever. The operation of the ship will be completely in your hands. I will merely appear from time to time to beam benevolently about or alas! to make marks in my red book. Nominally I shall be in command, but you six will enjoy complete control over the ship. If you return us safely to Earth I will make an approving entry in my red book. If you wreck us or fling us into the sun, you will be more unhappy than I, since it is my destiny to die in space. Mr. von Gluck, do I perceive a smirk on your face?”

  “No, sir, it is a thoughtful half-smile.”

  “What is humorous in the concept of my demise, may I ask?”

  “It will be a great tragedy, sir. I merely was reflecting upon the contemporary persistence of, well, not exactly superstition, but, let us say, the conviction of a subjective cosmos.”

  Henry Belt made a notation in the red book. “Whatever is meant by this barbaric jargon I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. von Gluck. It is clear that you fancy yourself a philosopher and dialectician. I will not fault this, so long as your remarks conceal no overtones of malice and insolence, to which I am extremely sensitive. Now as to the persistence of superstition, only an impoverished mind considers itself the repository of absolute knowledge. Hamlet spoke on this subject to Horatio, as I recall, in the well-known work by William Shakespeare. I myself have seen strange and terrifying sights. Were they hallucinations? Were they the manipulation of the cosmos by my mind or the mind of someone—or something—other than myself? I do not know. I therefore counsel a flexible attitude toward matters where the truth is still unknown. For this reason: the impact of an inexplicable experience may well destroy a mind which is too brittle. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  “Very good. To return, then. We shall set a system of watches whereby each man works in turn with each of the other five. I thereby hope to discourage the formation of special friendships, or cliques. Such arrangements irritate me, and I shall mark accordingly.

  “You have inspected the ship. The hull is a sandwich of lithium–beryllium, insulating foam, fiber and an interior skin. Very light, held rigid by air pressure rather than by any innate strength of the material. We can therefore afford enough space to stretch our legs and provide all of us with privacy.

  “The master’s cubicle is to the left; under no circumstances is anyone permitted in my quarters. If you wish to speak to me, knock on my door. If I appear, good. If I do not appear, go away. To the right are six cubicles which you may now distribute among yourselves by lot. Each of you has the right to demand the same privacy I do myself. Keep your personal belongings in your cubicles. I have been known to cast into space articles which I persistently find strewn about the wardroom.

  “Your schedule will be two hours study, four hours on watch, six hours off. I will require no specific rate of study progress, but I recommend that you make good use of your time.

  “Our destination is Mars. We will presently construct a new sail, then while orbital velocity builds up, you will carefully test and check all equipment aboard. Each of you will compute sail cant and course and work out among yourselves any discrepancies which may appear. I shall take no hand in navigation. I prefer that you involve me in no disaster. If any such occur I shall severely mark down the persons responsible.

  “Singing, whistling, humming, are forbidden, as are sniffing, nose-picking, smacking the lips, and cracking knuckles. I disapprove of fear and hysteria, and mark accordingly. No one dies more than once; we are well aware of the risks of this, our chosen occupation. There will be no practical jokes. You may fight, so long as you do not disturb me or break any instruments; however I counsel against it, as it leads to resentment, and I have known cadets to kill each other. I suggest coolness and detachment in your personal relations. Use of the micro-film projector is of course at your own option. You may not use the radio either to dispatch or receive messages. In fact I have put the radio out of commission, as is my practice. I do this to emphasize the fact that, sink or swim, we must make do with our own resources. Are there any questions?…Very good. You will find that if you all behave with scrupulous correctness and accuracy, we shall in due course return safe and sound, with a minimum of demerits and no casualties. I am bound to say, however, that in twelve previous voyages this has failed to occur.”

  “Perhaps this will be the time, sir,” offered Culpepper suavely.

  “We shall see. Now you may select your cubicles, stow your gear, generally make the place shipshape. The carrier will bring up the new sail tomorrow, and you will go to work.”

  III

  The carrier discharged a great bundle of three-inch tubing: paper-thin lithium hardened with beryllium, reinforced with filaments of mono-crystalline iron—a total length of eight miles. The cadets fitted the tubes end to end, cementing the joints. When the tube extended a quarter-mile it was bent bow-shaped by a cord stretched between two ends, and further sections added. As the process continued the free end curved far out and around, and presently began to veer back in toward the hull. When the last tube was in place the loose end was hauled down, socketed home, to form a great hoop two miles and a half in diameter.

  Henry Belt came out occasionally in his space-suit to look on, and occasionally spoke a few words of sardonic comment, to which the cadets paid little heed. Their mood had changed; this was exhilaration, to be weightlessly afloat above the bright cloud-marked globe, with continent and ocean wheeling massively below. Anything seemed possible, even the training voyage with Henry Belt! When he came out to inspect their work, they grinned at each other with indulgent amusement. Henry Belt suddenly seemed a rather pitiful creature, a poor vagabond suited only for drunken bluster. Fortunate indeed that they were less naïve than Henry Belt’s previous classes! They had taken Belt seriously; he had cowed them, reduced them to nervous pulp. Not this crew, not by a long shot! They saw through Henry Belt! Just keep your nose clean, do your work, keep cheerful. The training voyage won’t last but a few months, and then real life begins. Gut it out, ignore Henry Belt as much as possible.

  Already the group had made a composite assessment of its members, arriving at a set of convenient labels. Culpepper: smooth, suave, easy-going. Lynch: excitable, argumentative, hottempered. Von Gluck: the artistic temperament, delicate with his hands and sensibilities. Ostrander: prissy, finicky, over-tidy. Sutton: moody, suspicious, competitive. Verona: the plugger, rough at the edges, but persistent and reliable.

  Around the hull swung the gleaming hoop, and now the carrier brought up the sail, a great roll of darkly shining stuff. When unfolded and unrolled, and unfolded many times more, it became a tough gleaming film, flimsy as gold leaf. Unfolded to its fullest extent it was a shimmering disk, already rippling and bulging to the light of the sun. The cadets fitted the film to the hoop, stretched it taut as a drum-head, cemented it in place. Now the sail must carefully be held edge on to the sun, or it would quickly move away, under a thrust of about a hundred pounds.

  From the rim braided-iron threads were led to a ring at the back of the parabolic
reflector, dwarfing this as the reflector dwarfed the hull, and now the sail was ready to move.

  The carrier brought up a final cargo: water, food, spare parts, a new magazine for the microfilm viewer, mail. Then Henry Belt said, “Make sail.”

  This was the process of turning the sail to catch the sunlight while the hull moved around Earth away from the sun, canting it parallel to the sun-rays when the ship moved on the sunward leg of its orbit: in short, building up an orbital velocity which in due course would stretch loose the bonds of terrestrial gravity and send Sail 25 kiting out toward Mars.

  During this period the cadets checked every item of equipment aboard the vessel. They grimaced with disgust and dismay at some of the instruments: 25 was an old ship, with antiquated gear. Henry Belt seemed to enjoy their grumbling. “This is a training voyage, not a pleasure cruise. If you wanted your noses wiped, you should have taken a post on the ground. I warn you, gentlemen, I have no sympathy for fault-finders. If you wish a model by which to form your own conduct, observe me. I accept every vicissitude placidly. You will never hear me curse or flap my arms in astonishment at the turns of fortune.”

  The moody introspective Sutton, usually the most diffident and laconic of individuals, ventured an ill-advised witticism. “If we modeled ourselves after you, sir, there’d be no room to move for the whiskey.”

  Out came the red book. “Extraordinary impudence, Mr. Sutton. How can you yield so easily to malice? You must control the razor edge of your wit; you will make yourself unpopular aboard this ship.”

  Sutton flushed pink; his eyes glistened, he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it firmly. Henry Belt, waiting politely expectant, turned away. “You gentlemen will perceive that I rigorously obey my own rules of conduct. I am regular as a clock. There is no better, more genial shipmate than Henry Belt. There is not a fairer man alive. Mr. Culpepper, you have a remark to make?”

  “Nothing of consequence, sir. I am merely grateful not to be making a voyage with a man less regular, less genial, and less fair than yourself.”

  Henry Belt considered. “I suppose I can take no exception to the remark. There is indeed a hint of tartness and glancing obloquy—but, well, I will grant you the benefit of the doubt, and accept your statement at its face value.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But I must warn you, Mr. Culpepper, that there is a certain ease to your behavior that gives me cause for distress. I counsel you to a greater show of earnest sincerity, which will minimize the risk of misunderstanding. A man less indulgent than myself might well have read impertinence into your remark and charged you one demerit.”

  “I understand, sir, and shall cultivate the qualities you mention.”

  Henry Belt found nothing more to say. He went to the port, glared out at the sail. He swung around instantly. “Who is on watch?”

  “Sutton and Ostrander, sir.”

  “Gentlemen, have you noticed the sail? It has swung about and is canting to show its back to the sun. In another ten minutes we shall be tangled in a hundred miles of guy-wires.”

  Sutton and Ostrander sprang to repair the situation. Henry Belt shook his head disparagingly. “This is precisely what is meant by the words ‘negligence’ and ‘inattentiveness’. You two have committed a serious error. This is poor spacemanship. The sail must always be in such a position as to hold the wires taut.”

  “There seems to be something wrong with the sensor, sir,” Sutton blurted. “It should notify us when the sail swings behind us.”

  “I fear I must charge you an additional demerit for making excuses, Mr. Sutton. It is your duty to assure yourself that all the warning devices are functioning properly, at all times. Machinery must never be used as a substitute for vigilance.”

  Ostrander looked up from the control console. “Someone has turned off the switch, sir. I do not offer this as an excuse, but as an explanation.”

  “The line of distinction is often hard to define, Mr. Ostrander. Please bear in mind my remarks on the subject of vigilance.”

  “Yes, sir, but—who turned off the switch?”

  “Both you and Mr. Sutton are theoretically hard at work watching for any such accident or occurrence. Did you not observe it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I might almost accuse you of further inattention and neglect, in this case.”

  Ostrander gave Henry Belt a long dubious side-glance. “The only person I recall going near the console is yourself, sir. I’m sure you wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  Henry Belt shook his head sadly. “In space you must never rely on anyone for rational conduct. A few moments ago Mr. Sutton unfairly imputed to me an unusual thirst for whiskey. Suppose this were the case? Suppose, as an example of pure irony, that I had indeed been drinking whiskey, that I was in fact drunk?”

  “I will agree, sir, that anything is possible.”

  Henry Belt shook his head again. “That is the type of remark, Mr. Ostrander, that I have come to associate with Mr. Culpepper. A better response would have been, ‘In the future, I will try to be ready for any conceivable contingency.’ Mr. Sutton, did you make a hissing sound between your teeth?”

  “I was breathing, sir.”

  “Please breathe with less vehemence. A more suspicious man than myself might mark you for sulking and harboring black thoughts.”

  “Sorry, sir, I will breathe to myself.”

  “Very well, Mr. Sutton.” Henry Belt turned away and wandered back and forth about the wardroom, scrutinizing cases, frowning at smudges on polished metal. Ostrander muttered something to Sutton, and both watched Henry Belt closely as he moved here and there. Presently Henry Belt lurched toward them. “You show great interest in my movements, gentlemen.”

  “We were on the watch for another unlikely contingency, sir.”

  “Very good, Mr. Ostrander. Stick with it. In space nothing is impossible. I’ll vouch for this personally.”

  IV

  Henry Belt sent all hands out to remove the paint from the surface of the parabolic reflector. When this had been accomplished, incident sunlight was now focused upon an expanse of photo-electric cells. The power so generated was used to operate plasma jets, expelling ions collected by the vast expanse of sail, further accelerating the ship, thrusting it ever out into an orbit of escape. And finally one day, at an exact instant dictated by the computer, the ship departed from Earth and floated tangentially out into space, off at an angle for the orbit of Mars. At an acceleration of g/100 velocity built up rapidly. Earth dwindled behind; the ship was isolated in space. The cadets’ exhilaration vanished, to be replaced by an almost funereal solemnity. The vision of Earth dwindling and retreating is an awesome symbol, equivalent to eternal loss, to the act of dying itself. The more impressionable cadets—Sutton, von Gluck, Ostrander—could not look astern without finding their eyes swimming with tears. Even the suave Culpepper was awed by the magnificence of the spectacle, the sun an aching pit not to be tolerated, Earth a plump pearl rolling on black velvet among a myriad glittering diamonds. And away from Earth, away from the sun, opened an exalted magnificence of another order entirely. For the first time the cadets became dimly aware that Henry Belt had spoken truly of strange visions. Here was death, here was peace, solitude, star-blazing beauty which promised not oblivion in death, but eternity…Streams and spatters of stars…The familiar constellations, the stars with their prideful names presenting themselves like heroes: Achernar, Fomalhaut, Sadal Suud, Canopus…

  Sutton could not bear to look into the sky. “It’s not that I feel fear,” he told von Gluck, “or yes, perhaps it is fear. It sucks at me, draws me out there…I suppose in due course I’ll become accustomed to it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said von Gluck. “I wouldn’t be surprised if space could become a psychological addiction, a need—so that whenever you walked on Earth you felt hot and breathless.”

  Life settled into a routine. Henry Belt no longer seemed a man, but a capricious aspect of nature, l
ike storm or lightning; and like some natural cataclysm, Henry Belt showed no favoritism, nor forgave one jot or tittle of offense. Apart from the private cubicles no place on the ship escaped his attention. Always he reeked of whiskey, and it became a matter of covert speculation as to exactly how much whiskey he had brought aboard. But no matter how he reeked or how he swayed on his feet, his eyes remained clever and steady, and he spoke without slurring in his paradoxically clear sweet voice.

  One day he seemed slightly drunker than usual, and ordered all hands into space-suits and out to inspect the sail for meteoric puncture. The order seemed sufficiently odd that the cadets stared at him in disbelief. “Gentlemen, you hesitate, you fail to exert yourselves, you luxuriate in sloth. Do you fancy yourselves at the Riviera? Into the space-suits, on the double, and a demerit to the last man dressed!”

  The last man proved to be Culpepper. “Well, sir?” demanded Henry Belt. “You have earned yourself a mark. Is it below your dignity to compete?”

  Culpepper considered. “Well, sir, that might be the case. Somebody had to get the demerit, and I figured it might as well be me.”

  “I deplore your attitude, Mr. Culpepper. I interpret it as an act of deliberate defiance.”

  “Sorry, sir. I don’t mean it that way.”

  “You feel then that I am mistaken?” Henry Belt studied Culpepper carefully.

  “Yes, sir,” said Culpepper with engaging simplicity. “You are absolutely wrong. My attitude is not one of defiance. I think I would call it fatalism. I look at it this way. If it turns out that I accumulate so many demerits that you hold back my commission, then perhaps I wasn’t cut out for the job in the first place.”

  For a moment Henry Belt had nothing to say. Then he grinned wolfishly. “We shall see, Mr. Culpepper. I assure you that at the present moment I am far from being confident of your abilities. Now, everybody into space. Check hoop, sail, reflector, struts and sensor. You will be adrift for two hours. When you return I want a comprehensive report. Mr. Lynch, I believe you are in charge of this watch. You will present the report.”