by Jack Vance
Rohan drew back, lips parted in an unpleasant grin.
“Why should I give her to an assistant hoodwink when she can have the Intercessor? Especially a man who thinks he’s too good for her, to begin with!”
Sklar Hast held back his anger. “I am a Hoodwink, as is she. Do you want her attached to a Hooligan?”
“What difference does it make? He is Intercessor!”
“I’ll tell you what difference it makes,” said Sklar Hast. “He can’t do anything except caper for the benefit of a fish. I am Assistant Master Hoodwink, not just an assistant hoodwink. You know my quality.”
Zander Rohan compressed his lips, gave his head a pair of short sharp jerks. “I know your quality—and it’s not all it should be. If you expect to master your craft, you had best strike the keys with more accuracy and use fewer paraphrases. When you meet a word you can’t wink, let me know and I will instruct you.”
Sklar Hast clamped his throat upon the words that struggled to come forth. For all his bluntness, he had no lack of self-control when circumstances warranted, as they did now. Staring eye to eye with Zander Rohan, he weighed the situation. Should he choose, he might require Zander Rohan to defend his rank, and it almost seemed that Rohan were daring him to challenge: for the life of him Sklar Hast could not understand why—except on the basis of sheer personal antipathy. Such contests, once numerous, now were rare, inasmuch as consideration of dignity made resignation of status incumbent upon the loser. Sklar Hast had no real wish to drive Zander Rohan from his position, and he did not care to be driven forth himself … He turned his back and walked away from the Master Hoodwink, ignoring the contemptuous snort that came after him.
At the foot of the tower he stood staring bleakly and unseeingly through the foliage. A few yards away was Zander Rohan’s ample three-dome cottage, where, under a pergola draped with sweet-tassel, Meril Rohan sat weaving white cloth at the loom—the spare-time occupation of every female from childhood to old age. Sklar Hast went to stand by the low fence of woven withe which separated Rohan’s plot from the public way. Meril acknowledged his presence with a faint smile and continued with her weaving.
Sklar Hast spoke with measured dignity. “I have been talking with your father. I protested the idea of your espousal to Voiderveg. I told him I would marry you myself.” And he turned to look out across the lagoon. “Without testing.”
“Indeed. And what did he say?”
“He said no.”
Meril, making no comment, continued with her weaving.
“The situation as it stands is ridiculous,” said Sklar Hast. “Typical of this outlying and backward float. You would be laughed out of countenance on Apprise or even Sumber.”
“If you are unhappy here, why do you not go elsewhere?” asked Meril in a voice of gentle malice.
“I would if I could—I’d leave these insipid floats in their entirety! I’d fly to the far worlds! If I thought they weren’t all madhouses.”
“Read the Memoria and find out.”
“Hmm. After twelve generations all may be changed. The Memoria are a pedant’s preserve. Why rake around among the ashes of the past? The scriveners are of no more utility than the intercessors. On second thought, you and Semm Voiderveg will make a good pair. While he invokes blessings upon King Kragen, you can compile a startling new set of Analects.”
Meril halted her weaving, frowned down at her hands. “Do you know, I think I will do exactly this?” She rose to her feet, came over to the fence. “Thank you, Sklar Hast!”
Sklar Hast inspected her with suspicion. “Are you serious?”
“Certainly. Have you ever known me otherwise?”
“I’ve never been sure … How will a new set of Analects be useful? What’s wrong with the old ones?”
“When sixty-one books are condensed into three, a great deal of information is left out.”
“Vagueness, ambiguity, introspection: is any of it profitable?”
Meril Rohan pursed her lips. “The inconsistencies are interesting. In spite of the persecutions the Firsts suffered, all express regret at leaving the Home Worlds.”
“There must have been other sane folk among the madmen,” said Sklar Hast reflectively. “But what of that? Twelve generations are gone; all may be changed. We ourselves have changed, and not for the better. All we care about is comfort and ease. Appease, assuage, compromise. Do you think the Firsts would have capered and danced to an ocean-beast as is the habit of your prospective spouse?”
Meril glanced over Sklar Hast’s shoulder; Sklar Hast turned to see Semm Voiderveg the Intercessor, standing by with arms clasped behind his back, head thrust forward: a man of maturity, portly, but by no means ill-favored, with regular features in a somewhat round face. His skin was clear and fresh, his eyes a dark magnetic brown.
“These are impertinent remarks to make of the Intercessor!” said Semm Voiderveg reproachfully. “No matter what you think of him as an individual, the office deserves respect!”
“What office? What do you do?”
“I intercede for the folk of Tranque Float; I secure for us all the benevolence of King Kragen.”
Sklar Hast gave an offensive laugh. “I wonder always if you actually believe your own theories.”
“‘Theory’ is an incorrect word,” stated Semm Voiderveg. “‘Science’ or ‘doxology’ is preferable.” He went on in a cold voice. “The facts are incontrovertible. King Kragen rules the ocean, he lends us protection; in return we gladly tender him a portion of our bounty. These are the terms of the Covenant.”
The discussion was attracting attention among others of the float; already a dozen folk had halted to listen. “In all certainty we have become soft and fearful,” said Sklar Hast. “The Firsts would turn away in disgust. Instead of protecting ourselves, we bribe a beast to do the job.”
“Enough!” barked Semm Voiderveg in a sudden cold fury. He turned to Meril, pointed toward the cottage. “Within—that you need not hear the wild talk of this man! An Assistant Master Hoodwink! Astonishing that he has risen so high in the guild!”
With a rather vague smile Meril turned and went into the cottage. Her submission not only irked Sklar Hast; it astounded him.
With a final indignant glance of admonition Semm Voiderveg followed her within.
Sklar Hast turned away toward the lagoon and his own pad. One of the men who had halted called out. “A moment, Sklar Hast! You seriously believe that we could protect our own if. King Kragen decided to depart?”
“Certainly,” snapped Sklar Hast. “We could at least make the effort! The intercessors want no changes—why should they?”
“You’re a troublemaker, Sklar Hast!” called a shrill female voice from the back of the group. “I’ve known you since you were an infant; you never were less than perverse!”
Sklar Hast pushed through the group, walked through the gathering dusk to the lagoon, ferried himself by coracle to his pad. He entered the hut, poured himself a cup of wine, and went out to sit on the bench. The halcyon sky and the calm water soothed him, and he was able to summon a grin of amusement for his own vehemence—until he went to look at the arbors plucked bare by King Kragen, whereupon his ill-humor returned.
He watched winks for a few moments, more conscious than ever of Zander Rohan’s brittle mannerisms. As he turned away, he noticed a dark swirl in the water at the edge of the net: a black bulk surrounded by glistening cusps and festoons of starlit water. He went to the edge of his float and strained his eyes through the darkness. No question about it: a lesser kragen was probing the net which enclosed Tranque Lagoon!
Chapter 2
Sklar Hast ran across the pad, jumped into his coracle, thrust himself to the central float. He delayed only long enough to tie the coracle to a stake formed of a human femur, then ran at top speed to the hoodwink tower. A mile to the west flickered the Thrasneck lamps, the configurations coming in the unmistakable style of Durdan Farr, the Thrasneck Master Hoodwink: “… thirteen … bus
hels … of … salt … lost … when … a … barge … took … water … between … Sumber … and … Adelvine …”
Sklar Hast climbed the ladder, burst into the cupola. Zander Rohan swung about in a surprise that became truculence when he saw Sklar Hast. The pale pink of his face deepened to rose; his lips thrust out; his white hair puffed and glistened as if angry in its own right. It occurred fleetingly to Sklar Hast that Zander Rohan had been in communication with Semm Voiderveg, the subject under discussion doubtless being himself. But now he pointed to the lagoon. “A rogue, breaking the nets. I just saw him. Call King Kragen!”
Zander Rohan instantly forgot his resentment, dashed the cut-in signal. His fingers jammed down rods; he kicked the release. “Call … King … Kragen!” he signaled. “Rogue …in … Tranque … Lagoon!”
On Thrasneck Float Durdan Farr relayed the message to the tower on Bickle Float, and so along the line of floats to Sciona at the far west, which thereupon returned the signal: “King … Kragen … is … nowhere … at … hand.” Back down the line of towers flickered the message, returning to Tranque Float in something short of twelve minutes.
Sklar Hast had not awaited the return message. Descending the ladder, he ran back to the lagoon. The kragen had cut open a section of the net and now hung in the gap, plucking sponges from a nearby arbor. Sklar Hast pushed through the crowd which stood watching in awe. “Ha! Ho!” cried Sklar Hast, flapping his arms. “Leave us, you dismal black beast!”
The kragen ignored him and with insulting assurance continued to pluck sponges and convey them to its maw. Sklar Hast picked up a heavy knurled joint from a sea-plant stem, hurled it at the turret, striking the forward eye-tube. The kragen recoiled, worked its vanes angrily. The folk on the float muttered uneasily; though a few laughed in great gratification. “There’s the way to deal with kragen!” exulted Irvin Belrod, a wizened old Advertiserman. “Strike another blow!”
Sklar Hast picked up a second joint, but someone grabbed his arm—Semm Voiderveg, who spoke in a sharp voice. “What ill-conceived acts are you committing?”
Sklar Hast jerked free. “Watch and you’ll see.” He turned toward the kragen, but Voiderveg stepped in his way. “This is arrogance! Have you forgotten the Covenant? King Kragen has been notified; let him deal with the nuisance. This is his prerogative!”
“While the beast destroys our net? Look!” Sklar Hast pointed across the water to Thrasneck Tower, where the return message now flickered: “King … Kragen … is … nowhere … to … be … seen.”
Semm Voiderveg gave a stiff nod. “I will issue a notice to all intercessors and King Kragen will be summoned.”
“Summoned how? By calling into the night with lamps held aloft?”
“Concern yourself with hoodwinking,” said Semm Voiderveg in the coldest of voices. “The intercessors will deal with King Kragen.”
Sklar Hast turned, hurled the second joint, which struck the beast in the maw. It emitted a hiss of annoyance, thrashed with vanes, and breaking wide the net, surged into the lagoon. Here it floated, rumbling and hissing, a beast perhaps fifteen feet in length.
“Observe what you have accomplished!” cried Semm Voiderveg in a ringing voice. “Are you satisfied? The net is now broken and no mistake.”
All turned to watch the kragen, which swung its vanes and surged through the water, a caricature of a man performing the breast-stroke. Starlight danced and darted along the disturbed water, outlining the gliding black bulk. Sklar Hast cried out in fury: the brute was headed for his arbors, so recently devastated by the appetite of King Kragen! He ran to his coracle, thrust himself to his pad. Already the kragen had extended its palps and was feeling for sponges. Sklar Hast sought for an implement which might serve as a weapon; there was nothing to hand: a few articles fashioned from human bones and fish cartilage, a wooden bucket, a mat of woven fiber. Leaning against the hut was a float-hook, a stalk ten feet long, carefully straightened, scraped, and seasoned, to which a hook-shaped human rib had been lashed. He took it up and now from the central pad came Semm Voiderveg’s cry of remonstrance. “Sklar Hast! What do you do?”
Sklar Hast paid no heed. He ran to the edge of the pad, jabbed the float-hook at the kragen’s turret. It scraped futilely along the resilient cartilage. The kragen swung up a palp, knocked the pole aside. Sklar Hast jabbed the pole with all his strength at what he considered the kragen’s most vulnerable area: a soft pad of receptor-endings directly above the maw. Behind, he heard Semm Voiderveg’s outraged protest: “This is not to be done! Desist! Desist!”
The kragen quivered at the blow, twisted its massive turret to gaze at Sklar Hast. It swung up its fore-vane, slashing at Sklar Hast, who leaped back with inches to spare. From the central pad Semm Voiderveg bawled, “By no means molest the kragen; it is a matter for the King! We must respect the King’s authority!”
Sklar Hast stood back in fury as the kragen resumed its feeding. As if to punish Sklar Hast for his assault, it . passed close beside the arbors, worked its vanes, and the arbors—sea-plant stalk lashed with fiber—collapsed.
Sklar Hast groaned. “No more than you deserve,” called out Semm Voiderveg with odious complacence. “You interfered with the duties of King Kragen—now your arbors are destroyed. This is justice.”
“Justice? Bah!” bellowed Sklar Hast. “Where is King Kragen? We feed the gluttonous beast; why isn’t he at hand when we need him?”
“Come, come,” admonished Semm Voiderveg. “This is hardly the tone in which to speak of King Kragen!”
Sklar Hast groped through the shadows, retrieved the float-hook, to find that the bone had broken, leaving a sharp point. With all his power, Sklar Hast thrust this at the kragen’s eye. The point slid off the hemispherical lens, plunged into the surrounding tissue. The kragen humped almost double, thrust itself clear of the water, fell with a great splash and, sounding, sank from sight. Waves crossed the lagoon, reflected from the surrounding floats, subsided. The lagoon was quiet.
Sklar Hast went to his coracle, pushed himself to the mainland, joined the group which stood peering down into the water.
“Is it dead?” inquired one Morgan Resly, a Swindler of good reputation.
“No such luck,” growled Sklar Hast. “Next time—“
“Next time—what?” demanded Semm Voiderveg.
“Next time, I’ll kill it”
“And what of King Kragen, who reserves such affairs to himself?”
“King Kragen doesn’t care a fig one way or the other,” said Sklar Hast. “Except for one matter: if we took to the habit of killing kragen, we might begin to look him over with something of the sort in mind.”
Semm Voiderveg made a guttural sound, threw up his hands, turned, walked rapidly away.
Poe Belrod, nominal Elder of the Belrod clan even though Irvin surpassed him in actual age, asked Sklar Hast, “Can you really kill a kragen?”
“I don’t know,” said Sklar Hast. “I haven’t given the notion any thought—so far.”
“They’re a tough beast.” Poe Belrod shook his big, crafty head in doubt. “And then we’d have the wrath of King Kragen to fear.”
“It’s a matter to think about,” said Sklar Hast.
Timmons Valby, an Extorter, spoke. “How is King Kragen to know? He can’t be everywhere at once.”
“He knows, he knows all!” stated a nervous old Incendiary. “All goes well along the floats; we must not cause grief and woe from pride; remember Kilborn’s Dictum from the Analects: ‘Pride goeth before a fall?”
“Yes, indeed, but recall Baxter’s Dictum: “There shall no evil happen to the just, but the wicked shall be filled with mischief?”
The group stood silent a moment, looking over the la-goon, but the kragen did not reappear.
“He’s broken through the bottom and departed,” said Morgan Resly, the Swindler.
The group gradually dispersed, some going to their huts, others to Tranque Inn—a long structure furnished with tables, benches, and a
counter where wines, syrups, spice-cake, and pepperfish were to be laid. Sklar Hast joined this latter group, but sat morosely to the side while every aspect of the evening’s events was discussed. Everyone was vehement in his detestation of the rogue kragen but some questioned the method used by Sklar Hast. Jonas Serbano, a Bezzler, felt that Sklar Hast had acted somewhat too precipitously. “In matters of this sort, where King Kragen is concerned, all must consult. The wisdom of many is preferable to the headlong rashness of one, no matter how great the provocation.”
Eyes went to Sklar Hast, but he made no response, and it remained for one of the younger Belrods to remark, “That’s all very well, but by the time everyone argues and debates, the sponges are eaten and gone.”
“Better lose an arbor of sponges than risk the displeasure of King Kragen!” replied Jonas Serbano tartly. “The sea and all that transpires therein is his realm; we trespass at our peril!”
Young Garth Gasselton, an Extorter by caste though a pad-stripper by trade, spoke with the idealistic fervor of youth. “If conditions were as they should be, we would be masters of all: float, lagoon, and sea alike! The sponges would then be our own; we would need bow our heads to no one!”
At a table across the room sat Ixon Myrex, the Tranque Arbiter, a Bezzler of great physical presence and moral conviction. To this moment he had taken no part in the conversation, sitting with his massive head averted, thus signifying a desire for privacy. Now he slowly turned and fixed a somewhat baleful stare upon young Garth Gasselton. “You speak without reflection. Are we then so omnipotent that we can simply wave our hands across the sea and command all to our sway? You must recognize that comfort and plenty are neither natural endowments nor our rightful due, but benefits of the most tentative nature imaginable. In short, we exist by the indulgence of King Kragen, and never must we lose sight of the fact!”
Young Gasselton blinked down at his cup of syrup, but old Irvin Belrod was not so easily abashed. “I’ll tell you one thing that you’re forgetting, Arbiter Myrex. King Kragen is as he is because we made him so. At the beginning he was a normal kragen, maybe a bit bigger and smarter than the others. He’s what he is today because somebody made the mistake of truckling to him. Now the mistake has been made, and I’ll grant you that King Kragen is wise and clever and occasionally serves us by scaring away the rogues—but where will it end?”