The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories
Page 63
They spoke quietly to themselves, out of earshot of Henry Belt’s room. “I still believe,” said Culpepper, “that somehow there is a means to get ourselves out of this mess, and that Henry Belt knows it.”
Verona said, “I wish I could think so…We’ve been over it a hundred times. If we set sail for Saturn or Neptune or Uranus, the outward vector of thrust plus the outward vector of our momentum will take us far beyond Pluto before we’re anywhere near. The plasma jets could stop us if we had enough energy, but the shield can’t supply it and we don’t have another power source…”
Von Gluck hit his fist into his hand. “Gentlemen,” he said in a soft delighted voice.
Culpepper and Verona stared at him, absorbing warmth from the light in his face.
“Gentlemen,” said von Gluck, “I believe we have sufficient energy at hand. We will use the sail. Remember? It is bellied. It can function as a mirror. It spreads five square miles of surface. Sunlight out here is thin—but so long as we collect enough of it—”
“I understand!” said Culpepper. “We back off the hull till the reactor is at the focus of the sail and turn on the jets!”
Verona said dubiously, “We’ll still be receiving radiation pressure. And what’s worse, the jets will impinge back on the sail. Effect—cancellation. We’ll be nowhere.”
“If we cut the center out of the sail—just enough to allow the plasma through—we’d beat that objection. And as for the radiation pressure—we’ll surely do better with the plasma drive.”
“What do we use to make plasma? We don’t have the stock.”
“Anything that can be ionized. The radio, the computer, your shoes, my shirt, Culpepper’s camera, Henry Belt’s whiskey…”
VIII
The angel-wagon came up to meet Sail 25, in orbit beside Sail 40, which was just making ready to take out a new crew.
Henry Belt said, “Gentlemen, I beg that you leave no trash, rubbish, old clothing aboard. There is nothing more troublesome than coming aboard an untidy ship. While we wait for the lighter to discharge, I suggest that you give the ship a final thorough policing.”
The cargo carrier drifted near, eased into position. Three men sprang across space to Sail 40, a few hundred yards behind 25, tossed lines back to the carrier, pulled bales of cargo and equipment across the gap.
The five cadets and Henry Belt, clad in space-suits, stepped out into the sunlight. Earth spread below, green and blue, white and brown, the contours so precious and dear to bring tears to the eyes. The cadets transferring cargo to Sail 40 gazed at them curiously as they worked. At last they were finished, and the six men of Sail 25 boarded the carrier.
“Back safe and sound, eh, Henry?” said the pilot. “Well, I’m always surprised.”
Henry Belt made no answer. The cadets stowed their cargo, and standing by the port, took a final look at Sail 25. The carrier retro-jetted; the two sails seemed to rise above them.
The lighter nosed in and out of the atmosphere, braking, extended its wings, glided to an easy landing on the Mojave Desert.
The cadets, their legs suddenly loose and weak to the unaccustomed gravity, limped after Henry Belt to the carry-all, seated themselves and were conveyed to the administration complex. They alighted from the carry-all, and now Henry Belt motioned the five to the side.
“Here, gentlemen, is where I leave you. I go my way, you go yours. Tonight I will check my red book, and after various adjustments I will prepare my official report. But I believe I can present you an unofficial resumé of my impressions.
“First of all, this is neither my best nor my worst class. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Ostrander, I feel that you are ill-suited either for command or for any situation which might inflict prolonged emotional pressure upon you. I cannot recommend you for space-duty.
“Mr. von Gluck, Mr. Culpepper and Mr. Verona, all of you meet my minimum requirements for a recommendation, although I shall write the words ‘Especially Recommended’ only beside the names ‘Clyde von Gluck’ and ‘Marcus Verona’. You brought the sail back to Earth by essentially faultless navigation. It means that if I am to fulfill my destiny I must make at least one more voyage into space.
“So now our association ends. I trust you have profited by it.” Henry Belt nodded briefly to each of the five and limped off around the building.
The cadets looked after him. Culpepper reached in his pocket and brought forth a pair of small metal objects which he displayed in his palm. “Recognize these?”
“Hmf,” said Lynch in a flat voice. “Bearings for the computer disks. The original ones.”
“I found them in the little spare-parts tray. They weren’t there before.”
Von Gluck nodded. “The machinery always seemed to fail immediately after sail check, as I recall.”
Lynch drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. He turned, strode away. Ostrander followed him. Culpepper shrugged. To Verona he gave one of the bearings, to von Gluck the other. “For souvenirs—or medals. You fellows deserve them.”
“Thanks, Ed,” said von Gluck.
“Thanks,” muttered Verona. “I’ll make a stick-pin of this thing.”
The three, not able to look at each other, glanced up into the sky where the first stars of twilight were appearing, then continued on into the building where family and friends and sweethearts awaited them.
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Also By Jack Vance
The Dying Earth
1. The Dying Earth (1950) (aka Mazirian the Magician)
2. Cugel the Clever (1966) (aka The Eyes of the Overworld)
3. Cugel’s Saga (1966) (aka Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight)
4. Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)
Big Planet
1. Big Planet (1952)
2. The Magnificent Showboats (1975) (aka The Magnificent Showboats of the Lower Vissel River, Lune XXII South, Big Planet) (aka Showboat World))
Demon Princes
1. The Star King (1964)
2. The Killing Machine (1964)
3. The Palace of Love (1967)
4. The Face (1979)
5. The Book of Dreams (1981 )
Planet of Adventure
1. The Chasch (19648 (City of the Chasch)
2. The Wannek (1969) (Servants of the Wankh)
3. The Dirdir (1969)
4. The Pnume (1970)
Durdane
1. The Anome (1973)
2. The Brave Free Men (1973)
3. The Asutra (1974)
Alastor Cluster
1. Trullion: Alastor 2262 (1973)
2. Marune: Alastor 933 (1975)
3. Wyst: Alastor 1716 (1978)
Lyonesse
1. Suldrun’s Garden (1983) (aka Lyonesse)
2. The Green Pearl (1985)
3. Madouc (1990)
Cadwal Chronicles
1. Araminta Station (1988)
2. Ecce and Old Earth (1991)
3. Throy (1992)
Gaean Reach
1. The Domains of Koryphon (1974) (aka The Gray Prince)
2. Maske: Thaery (1976)
Other Novels
Vandals of the Void (1953)
The Rapparee (The Five Gold Bands/The Space Pirate) (1953)
Clarges (To Live Forever) (1956)
The Languages of Pao (1958)
Gold and Iron (Slaves of the Klau/Planet of the Damned) (1958)
Space Opera (1965)
The Blue World (1966)
Emphyrio (1969)
The Dogtown Tourist Agency (aka Galactic Effectuator) (1980)
Collections
The World-Thinker and Other Stories
The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories (aka Gadget Stories)
Son of the Tree and Other Stories
Golden Girl and Other Stories
The Houses of Iszm and Other Stories
The Dragon Masters and Other
The Moon Moth and Other Stories
Autobiography
This is Me, Jack Vance (2009)
Jack Vance (1916 – )
Jack Vance was born in 1916 and studied mining, engineering and journalism at the University of California. During the Second World War he served in the merchant navy and was torpedoed twice. He started contributing stories to the pulp magazines in the mid 1940s and published his first book, The Dying Earth, in 1950. Among his many books are The Dragon Masters, for which he won his first Hugo Award, Big Planet, The Anome, and the Lyonesse sequence. He has won the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, amongst others, and in 1997 was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Jack Vance 2005
All rights reserved.
The right of Jack Vance to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10988 9
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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*The catalogue of Pomukka-Dhen, last of the Golwana emperors, listed seven thousand Century pieces, 136 Millennium pieces, and fourteen Ten-Thousand-Year pieces. A rumor had reached Magnus Ridolph of a Hundred-Thousand-Year work nearing completion in the Backlands, a gigantic carved tourmaline.