by Jack Vance
kragen which I found destroying my arbors; by some means King Kragen learned of this attempt and reacted with insane malice.”
“Hist! Hist!” cried the intercessors from below. “Shame! Outrage!”
“Why does King Kragen resent my effort? After all, he kills any lesser kragen he discovers in the vicinity. It is simple and self-evident. King Kragen does not want men to think about killing kragen for fear they will attempt to kill him. I propose that this is what we do. Let us put aside this ignoble servility, this groveling to a sea-beast, let us turn our best efforts to the destruction of King Kragen.
“Irresponsible maniac!” “Fool!” “Vile-minded ingrate!” called the intercessors.
Sklar Hast waited, but the invective increased in volume. Finally Phyral Berwick, the Apprise Arbiter,
mounted the rostrum and held up his hands. “Quiet! Let Sklar Hast speak! He stands on the rostrum; it is his privilege to say what he wishes.”
“Must we listen to garbage and filth?” called Semm Voiderveg. “This man has destroyed Tranque Float; now he urges his frantic lunacy upon everyone else.”
“Let him urge,” declared Phyral Berwick. “You are under no obligation to comply.”
Sklar Hast said, “The intercessors naturally resist these ideas; they are bound closely to King Kragen and claim to have some means of communicating with him. Possibly this is so. Why else should King Kragen arrive so opportunely at Tranque Float? Now here is a very cogent point: if we can agree to liberate ourselves from King Kragen, we must prevent the intercessors from making known our plans to him—otherwise we shall suffer more than necessary. Most of you know in your hearts that I speak truth. King Kragen is a crafty beast with an insatiable appetite, and we are his slaves. You know this
truth, but you fear to acknowledge it. Those who spoke before me have mentioned our forefathers: the men who captured a ship from the tyrants who sought to immure them on a penal planet. What would-our forefathers have done? Would they have submitted to this gluttonous ogre? Of course not.
“How can we kill King Kragen? The plans must wait upon agreement, upon the concerted will to act, and in any event must not be told before the intercessors. If there are any here who believe as I do, now is the time for them to make themselves heard.”
He stepped down from the rostrum. Across the float was silence. Men’s faces were frozen. Sklar Hast looked to right and to left. No one met his eye.
The portly Semm Voiderveg mounted the rostrum. “You have listened to the murderer. He knows no shame. On Tranque Float we condemned him to death for his malevolent acts. According to custom he demanded the right to speak before a convocation; now he has done so. Has he confessed his great crime? Has he wept for the evil he has visited upon Tranque Float? No! He gibbers his plans for further enormities; he outrages decency by mentioning our ancestors in the same breath with his foul proposals! Let the convocation endorse the verdict of Tranque Float; let all those who respect King Kragen and benefit from his ceaseless vigilance raise now their hands in the clenched fist of death!”
“Death!” roared the intercessors and raised their fists. But elsewhere through the crowd there was hesitation and uneasiness. Eyes shifted backward and forward; there were furtive glances, out to sea.
Semm Voiderveg looked back and forth across the crowd in disappointment. “I well understand your reluctance to visit violence upon a fellowman, but in this case any squeamishness whatever is misplaced.” He pointed a long, pale finger at Sklar Hast. “Do you understand the pure, concentrated villainy embodied in this man? I will expatiate. Just prior to the offense for which he is on trial, he committed another, against his benefactor and superior, Master Hoodwink Zander Rohan. But this furtive act, this attempt to cheat the Master Hoodwink in a winking contest and thus dislodge the noble Rohan from his office, was detected by Tranque Arbiter Ixon Myrex and myself, and so failed to succeed.”
Sklar Hast roared: “What? Is there no protection from slander here? Must I submit to venom of this sort?”
Phyral Berwick told him, “Your recourse is simple. You may let the man speak, then if you can prove slander, the slanderer must face an appropriate penalty.”
Semm Voiderveg spoke with great earnestness. “Mind you, a harsh truth is not slander. Personal malice must be proved as a motive. And there is no reason why I should feel malice. To continue—“
But Sklar Hast appealed to Phyral Berwick. “Before he continues, I feel that the matter of slander should be clarified. I wish to prove that this man accuses me from spite.”
“Can you do so?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” Phyral Berwick motioned to Semm Voiderveg. “You must delay the balance of your remarks until the matter of slander is settled.”
“You need only request information of Arbiter Myrex,” protested Semm Voiderveg. “He will assure you that the facts are as I have stated.”
Phyral Berwick nodded to Sklar Hast. “Proceed: prove slander, if you can.”
Sklar Hast pointed to Second Assistant Hoodwink Vick Caverbee. “Please stand forth.”
Caverbee, a small sandy-haired man with a wry face, his nose slanted in one direction, mouth in another, stepped somewhat reluctantly forward. Sklar Hast said, “Voiderveg claims that I outwinked Master Hoodwink Rohan by means of diligent practice of the test exercises. Is this true?”
“No. It’s not true. It can’t possibly be true. The apprentices have been training on Exercises one through fifty. When Arbiter Myrex asked for exercises to be used for the contest, I brought the advanced exercises from the locker. He, and Intercessor Voiderveg made the selection themselves.”
Sklar Hast pointed to Arbiter Myrex. “True or false?”
Arbiter Myrex drew a deep breath. “True, in a technical sense. Still, you had an opportunity to practice the exercises.”
` “So did Master Hoodwink Rohan,” said Sklar Hast with a grim smile. “Needless to say, I did nothing of the sort.”
“So much is clear,” said Phyral Berwick curtly. “But as for slander—“
Sklar Hast nodded toward Caverbee. “He has the answer for that also.”
Caverbee spoke even more reluctantly than before. “Intercessor Voiderveg wished to espouse the Master Hoodwink’s daughter. He spoke of the matter first to the Master Hoodwink, then to Meril Rohan. I could not help but overhear the matter. She gave him a flat refusal. The Intercessor asked the reason, and Meril Rohan said that she planned to espouse the Assistant Hoodwink Sklar Hast, it ever he approached her as if she were something other than a kick-release on a wink machine. Intercessor Voiderveg seemed very much annoyed.”
“Bah!” called Voiderveg, his face flaming pink. “What of slander now?”
Sklar Hast looked through the crowd. His eyes met those of Meril Rohan,. She did not wait to be requested to speak. She rose to her feet. “I am,Meril Rohan. The evidence of the Second Assistant Hoodwink is by and large accurate. At that time I planned to espouse Sklar Hast.”
Sklar Hast turned back to Phyral Berwick. “There is the evidence.”
“You have made a reasonable case. I adjudicate that Intercessor Semm Voiderveg is guilty of slander. What penalty do you demand?”
“None. It is a trivial matter. I merely want the issues judged on the merits, without the extraneous factors brought forward by Intercessor Voiderveg.”
Phyral Berwick turned to Voiderveg. “You may continue speaking, but you must refrain from further slander.”
“I will say no more,” said Voiderveg in a thick voice. “Eventually I will be vindicated.” He stepped down from the rostrum, marched over to sit beside Arbiter Myrex, who somewhat pointedly ignored him.
A tall dark-haired man wearing a richly detailed gown of white, scarlet, and black, asked for the rostrum. This was Barquan Blasdel, Apprise Intercessor. He had a sobriety, an ease, a dignity of manner that lent him vastly more conviction than that exercised by the somewhat over-fervid Semm Voiderveg.
“As the
accused admits; the matter of slander is remote to the case, and I suggest that we dismiss it utterly whom our minds. Aside from this particular uncertainty none other exists. The issues are stark—almost embarrassingly clear. The Covenant requires that King Kragen be accorded the justice of the sea. Sklar Hast wantonly, deliberately, and knowingly violated the Covenant and brought about the death of forty-three men and women. There can be no argument.” Barquan Blasdel shrugged in a deprecatory manner. “Much as I dislike to ask the death penalty, I must. So fists high then! Death to Sklar Hast!”
“Death!” roared the intercessors once again, holding high their fists, turning around and gesturing to others in the throng to join them. Barquan Blasdel’s temperate exposition swayed more folk than Voiderveg’s accusations,. but still there was a sense of hesitation, of uncertainty, as if all suspected that
there was yet more to be said.
Barquan Blasdel leaned quizzically forward over the rostrum. “What? You are reluctant in so clear a case? I cannot prove more than I have.”
Phyral Berwick, the Apprise Arbiter, rose to his feet. “I remind Barquan Blasdel that he has now called twice for the death of Sklar Hast. If he calls once more and fails to achieve an affirmative vote, Sklar Hast is vindicated.”
Barquan Blasdel smiled out over the crowd. He turned a swift, almost furtive look of appraisal toward Sklar Hast and without further statement descended to the float. The rostrum was empty. No one sought to speak. Finally Phyral Berwick himself mounted the steps: a stocky, square-faced man with gray hair, ice-blue eyes, a short gray beard. He spoke slowly. “Sklar Hast calls for the death of King Kragen. Semm Voiderveg and Barquan Blasdel call for the death of Sklar Hast. I will tell you my feelings. I have great fear in the first case and great disinclination in the second. I have no clear sense of what I should do. Sklar Hast, rightly or wrongly, has forced us to a decision. We should consider with care and make no instant judgements.”
Barquan Blasdel jumped to his feet. “Respectfully I must urge that we hold to the issue under consideration, and this is the degree of Sklar Hast’s guilt in connection with the Tranque Float tragedy.”
Phyral Berwick gave a curt nod, “We will recess for an hour.”
Chapter 5
Sklar Hast pushed through the crowd to where he had seen Meril Rohan, but when he reached the spot, she had moved away. As he stood searching for her, men and women of various floats, castes, guilds, and generations pressed forward to stare at him, to speak to him, tentatively, curiously. A few, motivated by a psychic morbidity, reached out to touch him; a few reviled him in hoarse, choked voices. A tall red-haired man, of the Peculator caste by his artfully dyed emblem of five colors, thrust forward an excited face. “You speak of killing King Kragen—how may this be done?”
Sklar Hast said in a careful voice, “I don’t know. But I hope to learn.”
“And if King Kragen becomes infuriated by your hostility and ravages each of the floats in tum?”
“There might be temporary suffering, but our children and their children would benefit.”
Another spoke: a short clench-jawed woman. “If it means my toil and my suffering and my death, I would as soon that these misfortunes be shared by those who would benefit.”
“All this is a personal matter, of course,” said Sklar Hast politely. He attempted to sidle away, but was halted by another woman, this one wearing the blue and white sash of Hooligan Preceptress, who shook her finger under the first woman’s nose. “What of the Two Hundred who fled the tyrants? Do you think they worried about risk? No! They sacrificed all, to avoid slavery, and we have benefited. Are we immune then from danger and sacrifice?”
“No!” shouted the first woman. “But we need not urge it upon ourselves!”
An intercessor from one of the outer floats stepped forward. “King Kragen is our benefactor! What is this foolish talk of risk and slavery and sacrifice? Instead we should speak of gratitude and praise and worship.”
The red-haired Peculator, leaning in front of Sklar Hast, waved his arms impatiently at the intercessor: “Why don’t the intercessors and all of like mind take King Kragen and voyage to a far float and serve him as they please, but leave the remainder of us in peace?”
“King Kragen serves us all,” declared the intercessor with great dignity. “We would be performing,an ignoble act to deprive everyone else of his beneficent guardian-ship.”
The Hooligan Preceptress had a countering remark, but Sklar Hast managed to step aside, and now he saw Meril Rohan at a nearby booth, where she sipped tea from a mug. He edged through the crowd and joined her. She acknowledged his presence with the coolest of nods.
“Come,” said Sklar Hast, taking her arm. “Let us move to the side, where the folk do not crush in on us. I have much to say to you.”
“I don’t care to talk with you. A display of childish petulance perhaps, but this is the situation.”
“And it is precisely what I wish to discuss with you,” declared Sklar Hast.
Meril Rohan smiled faintly. “Better that you be contriving arguments to save your neck. The convocation may well decide that your life has continued as long as is desirable.”
Sklar Hast winced. “And how will you vote?”
“I am bored with the entire proceedings. I will probably return to Quatrefoil.”
Perceiving the situation to be awkward, Sklar Hast departed with as good grace as he could muster.
He went to join Rubal Gallager, who sat under the Apprise Inn pergola. “The float is in ruins, you have made enemies—still your life is no longer in danger,“‘said Rubal Gallager.” At least this is my opinion.”
Sklar Hast gave a sour grunt. “Sometimes I wonder if the effort is worthwhile. Still, there is much to do. If nothing else, the hoodwink tower must be rebuilt. And I have my office to consider.”
Rubal Gallager gave a ripe chuckle. “With Semm Voiderveg as Intercessor and Ixon Myrex as Arbiter, your tenure will hardly be one of sheer harmony.” ’
“The least of my worries,” said Sklar Hast. “Assuming, of course, that I leave the convocation alive.”
“I think you may count upon this,” said Rubal Gallager with a somewhat grim overtone to his voice. “There are many who wish you dead, doubtless—but there are many who do not.”
Sklar Hast considered a moment and gave his head a dubious shake. “I hardly know what to say. For twelve generations the folk of the floats have lived in harmony, and we think it savage if a man so much as threatens another man with his fist … Would I want to be the node of contention? Would I want the name Sklar Hast to be echoed down the generations as the man who brought strife to the floats?”
Rubal Gallager regarded him in quizzical amusement. “I have never known you previously to wax philosophical.”
“It is not an occupation I enjoy,” said Sklar Hast, “though it seems as if more and more it is to be forced upon me.” He looked across the float to the refreshment booth where Meril Rohan sat speaking across a bench with one who was a stranger to Sklar Hast: a thin young man with an intense, abrupt, angled face and a habit of nervous gesticulation. He wore neither caste nor guild emblems, but from the green piping at the throat of his smock Sklar Hast deduced him to be from Sankston Float.
His thoughts were interrupted by the return of Phyral Berwick to the rostrum.
“We will now resume our considerations. I hope that all who speak eschew excitement and emotion. This is a deliberative assembly of reasonable and calm beings, not a mob of fanatics to be incited, and I wish all to remember this. If angry men shout at each other, the purpose of the convocation is defeated, and I will again call a recess. So now, who wishes to speak?”
From the audience a man called: “Question!”
Phyral Berwick pointed his finger. “Step forward, state your name, caste, craft, and propound your question.”
It was the thin-faced young man with the intense expression whom Sklar Hast had observed speaking with Meril Rohan. He said,
“My name is Roger Kelso. My lineage is Larcener, although I have departed from caste custom and my craft now is scrivener. My question has this background: Sklar Hast is accused of responsibility for the Tranque Float disaster, and it is the duty of the convocation to measure this responsibility. To do this we first must measure the proximate cause of tragedy. This is an essential element of traditional jurisprudence, and if any think otherwise, I will quote the Memorium of
Lester McManus, where he describes the theoretical elements of Home World law. This is a passage not included in the Analects and is not widely known. Suffice it to say, the man who establishes a precursory condition for a crime is not necessarily guilty; he must actually, immediately, and decisively cause the event.”
Barquan Blasdel, in his easy, almost patronizing voice, interrupted: “But this is precisely Sklar Hast’s act; he disobeyed King Kragen’s statute, and this precipitated his terrible justice.”
Roger Kelso listened with a patience obviously foreign to his nature; he fidgeted, and his dark eyes glittered. He said, “If the worthy Intercessor allows, I will continue.”
Barquan Blasdel nodded politely and sat down. “When Sklar Hast spoke, he put forth a conjecture which absolutely must be resolved: namely, did Semm Voiderveg, the Tranque Intercessor, call King Kragen to Tranque Float? This is a subtle question. Much depends upon not only if Semm Voiderveg issued the call, but when. If he did so when the rogue kragen was first discovered, well and good. If he called after Sklar Hast made his attempt to kill the kragen, then Semm Voiderveg becomes more guilty of the Tranque disaster than Sklar Hast, because he certainly must have foreseen the consequences. What is the true state of affairs? Do the intercessors secretly communicate with King Kragen? And my specific question: did Semm Voiderveg call Kragen to Tranque Float in order that Sklar Hast and his helpers be punished?”
“Bah!” called Barquan Blasdel. “This is a diversion, a dialectic trick!”
Phyral Berwick deliberated a moment. “The question seems definite enough. I personally cannot supply an answer, but I think that it deserves one, if only to clarify matters. Semm Voiderveg: what do you say?”