by Jack Vance
Finally the yardarm was hoisted to the top of the tower and secured in place, and again no precaution seemed too great; first it was seated in a socket, then glued, lashed, and pegged.
Once more Ixon Myrex was baffled. “The tower stands askew!”
“How so?” asked Rollo Barnack mildly.
“Notice how it fronts—not directly upon the Thrasneck Tower as it should, but considerably to the side. The folk on Thrasneck will read all our winks with a squint, sidelong.”
Rollo Barnack nodded judiciously. “We are not unaware of this condition. It was planned in this manner, for the following reasons. First, it is rumored that the Thrasneck folk are planning a new tower, to be constructed somewhere along the line in which we now face. Second, the configuration of the underwater stems has made it difficult to fix the posts at any other angle than as you see, and we believe that in time there be a gradual turning and twisting, which will bring the tower more directly to bear upon the current Thrasneck tower.”
Intercessor Semm Voiderveg, who had regained something of his former poise, joined Ixon Myrex’s criticisms.
“This seems the least graceful and efficient tower I have ever seen! Notice that long, heavy, pointed yard-arm, and that narrow, elongated cabin below; Has anyone ever seen the like before?”
Rollo Barnack repeated his former remark. “It looks more than efficient to me. If it fulfills its purpose, we will be more than happy.”
Ixon Myrex shook his head sadly. “The folk of other floats believe us eccentric and perverse as it is; with new tower staring blankly to sea, they will consider us lunatics.”
“Correctly, perhaps,” said Sklar Hast with a grin. “Why don’t you and Voiderveg depart?”
“Let us not talk about matters of the past!” muttered Ixon Myrex. “It all seems a bad dream, as if it never happened.”
“Unfortunately it did,” said Sklar Hast, “and King Kragen still swims the sea. If only he would die of natural causes, or choke on a surfeit of sponges, or drown!”
Semm Voiderveg studied him levelly. “You are a man without reverence, without fidelity.”
Ixon Myrex and Semm Voiderveg presently departed.
Sklar Hast watched them go. “What a situation!” he complained to Roger Kelso. “We cannot act like honorable men; we cannot declare ourselves—instead we must skulk about in this half-brazen, half-furtive pretense.”
“It is pointless to worry about the matter,” said Kelso. “The choice long since was made; we are now ready to act.”
“And if we fail?”
Roger Kelso shrugged. “I put our chances of success as one in three. All must go with such exactness, such precision of timing as to make optimism out of the question.”
Sklar Hast said, “We must warn the folk of the float. This is the very least we can do.”
Rollo Barnack and Roger Kelso argued but without success. Sklar Hast finally had his way, and in the early part of the evening he called a meeting of all the folk of the float.
He spoke briefly and to the point. “Tranque Float is once more whole. Life seems to be placid and even. It is only fair to announce that this is illusory. Many of us are not reconciled to the overlordship of King Kragen, and we propose to end it. We may be unsuccessful; there may be a new and even more disastrous set of circumstances in the future. So all are warned, and are welcome to leave Tranque for other more orthodox floats.”
Ixon Myrex jumped to his feet. “Sklar Hast—you may not involve the rest of us in your scheme! It is not right! This is my judgment as Arbiter.”
Sklar Hast made no response.
Semm Voiderveg spoke. “Naturally I endorse the arbiter’s views! And may I ask how you propose to implement your preposterous schemes?”
“We are evolving a strain of poisonous sponges,” Roger Kelso told him. “When King Kragen eats, he will become waterlogged and sink.”
Sklar Hast turned away, walked to the edge of the float to look off across the water. Behind him was further wrangling; then by twos and threes and fours, the folk went off to their various huts.
Meril Rohan came to join Sklar Hast and for a moment both looked off across the twilight. Meril Rohan said, “This is a difficult time we live in, without clear-cut rights and wrongs, and it is hard to know how to act.”
“An era has come to an end,” said Sklar Hast. “A Golden Age, an Age of Innocence—it is ended. Violence, hate, turbulence have come to the floats. The world will never be the same again.”
“A new and better world may come of it all.”
Sklar Hast shook his head. “I doubt it. If King Kragen foundered and sank at this moment, there would still be changes. It seems as if suddenly the time were ripe for change. We must go forward—or go back.”
Meril Rohan was silent. Then she pointed toward Thrasneck. “Watch the winks.”
“…King…Kragen…seen…to…the…north…of…Quincunx…proceeding…in…an…easterly…direction…”
“The time is not yet,” said Sklar Hast. “We are not quite ready.”
The next day King Kragen was seen to the north of Tranque Float, drifting idly without apparent purpose. For an hour he floated placidly, eye-tubes fixed on Tranque, then veered close as if. in curiosity, and gave Tranque a brief inspection. Semm Voiderveg, arrayed in his ceremonial robes, came forth to stand at the edge of the float, where he performed his ritual postures and beckonings. King Kragen watched a moment or two, then, reacting to some unknowable emotion, gave a quick jerk and with a surge of his vanes swung about and swam to the west, mandibles scissoring, palps pushing in and out.
Semm Voiderveg made a final genuflection, and watched King Kragen’s departure.
Nearby stood Sklar Hast, and as Semm Voiderveg turned to go back to his hut, his gaze met that of Sklar Hast. For a brief moment the two men studied each other, with a hostility in which there existed no understanding.
Sklar Hast felt an emotion far different from the simple contempt he felt for Ixon Myrex. It was as if Semm Voiderveg were himself part kragen, as if in his veins flowed a thick indigo ooze instead of red human blood.
A week later King Kragen feasted on Bickle sponges, and the next day did likewise at Thrasneck. On the day following, a hundred yards from the entrance to Tranque lagoon, he slowly surfaced and once more gave Tranque Float a deliberate, almost suspicious scrutiny. As Semm Voiderveg ran forth in his ceremonial robes, Sklar Hast mounted the ladder to the hoodwink house, but King Kragen slowly submerged. The water swirled over his domed black turret; the sea lay calm and blue as before.
Sklar Hast came down from the tower to meet Semm Voiderveg returning to his hut. “King Kragen is vigilant! He knows Tranque Float for the haunt of evil that it is! Beware!” And Semm Voiderveg strode off in a flutter of black.
Sklar Hast looked after him, wondering if Semm Voiderveg were perhaps mad. Returning to the open-sided shed, where with a number of apprentices and assistant hoodwinks he was constructing a pair of what he referred to as “practice mechanisms,” he discussed the possibility with Ben Kell, the Assistant Master Hoodwink, who had no opinion.
“In Voiderveg’s opinion you are mad,” said Kelso. “These are difficult matters to define. In the context of a year ago, Voiderveg is saner than sane. With conditions as they are now, the question of who is most sane wavers on an edge.”
Sklar Hast grinned sourly. He had lost weight; his cheeks had become a trifle concave, and there was a sprinkle of gray in the hair at his temples. “Let’s take these things outside and give Myrex something new to worry over.”
The mechanisms were carried out and set on the float halfway between the tower and the lagoon, one to the right, one to the left. In the lagoon, broad on the tower, hung a large arbor already ripe with sponges. Twenty feet beyond, apparently by sheer chance, floated a chip of of wood. The chip, the two practice mechanisms, and the tower formed a rough square seventy feet on a side.
Stakes were driven into the substance of the float; the mechanisms we
re anchored firmly. Upon each was a sighting device, similar to a navigator’s pelorus, which Sklar Hast adjusted to bear on the floating chip.
He had prophesied correctly. Almost immediately the Arbiter appeared with his now familiar doubts and criticisms. He began in a tone of weary patience, “What are these objects?”
“These are practice machines for the apprentices. We will leave them here until suitable accommodation is arranged under the tower.”
“Seemingly you would equip the tower with frames, hoods, and lamps before constructing practice machines.”
“Normally we would do so. But we are testing a new type of linkage, and it would not be well to allow the apprentices to scamp their practice.”
“In the meantime we can send no messages. We are isolated.”
Sklar Hast pointed to the Thrasneck tower. “We can read all that transpires elsewhere. Nothing of consequence occurs here.”
“Nevertheless, we should put our system into working order as rapidly as possible.” And he gave the tower a black look. “Awkward, top-heavy, and askew as it is.”
“If it achieves its purpose,” said Sklar Hast, it will be the most beautiful object the world has yet seen.”
Arbiter Myrex gave him a sharp glance. “What is the meaning of that remark?”
Sklar Hast saw that he had gone too far. Ixon was a slow and rigid man, but not stupid. “Sheer exuberance, sheer hyperbole.”
Ixon Myrex grunted. “The structure is a disgrace. Already we are the laughingstock of the whole line. When the folk speak of Quatrefoil and Sankston for extravagance and eccentricity, now they will add Tranque. I would not be sorry to see it destroyed and another erected in its place.”
“This one will serve,” said Sklar Hast carelessly.
Further days passed. King Kragen dined at Green Lamp, at Fleurnoy, and at Adelvine three days running, then swam far west to Granolt. For two days he was seen no more, then appeared far out on the horizon to the south Aumerge, coasting east. The following day he dined once more at Adelvine, to the near depletion of the Adelvine lagoon, and the following day at Sumber, the third float north from Tranque, with only Thrasneck and Bickle between. On Tranque Float a mood of uneasiness and foreboding manifested itself. People spoke in hushed voices and looked constantly sidelong toward the sea. By some sort of psychic osmosis all knew that a great project was afoot, even though the nature of the project was unknown—to all but about thirty or so of the most secretive men of the float.
Two days after King Kragen dined at Sumber, he appeared in the ocean to the north of Tranque and lay floating for half an hour, twitching his great vanes. At this, certain of the more timorous departed Tranque conveying themselves, their women and children to Thrasneck.
Semm Voiderveg stormed up to Sklar Hast. “What is going on? What do you plan?”
“More to the point,” said Sklar Hast, “what do you plan?”
“What do I plan?” bellowed the portly Intercessor. “What else do I plan but rectitude? It is you and your accomplices who threaten the fabric of our existence!”
“Calm yourself, Voiderveg,” said Wall Bunce with an insensitive grin. “Yonder floats the kragen to which you pledged yourself. If you appear at a disadvantage you forfeit his respect.”
Rudolf Snyder gage a cry of warning. “He moves! He swims forward!”
Voiderveg made a wild gesture. “I must go to welcome him. Sklar Hast, I warn you, I implore you, do nothing contrary to the Covenant!”
Sklar Hast made no reply. With a final desperate glare of admonition, the Intercessor marched to the edge of the float and began his ritual gesticulations.
King Kragen moved slowly forward, by small twitches and flicks of the vanes. The eye-tubes studied the float carefully, as if something of the tension and emotion of those on the float had reached him.
King Kragen approached the mouth of the lagoon. Semm Voiderveg signaled his assistants, who drew back the net to allow King Kragen access into the lagoon.
The great black bulk approached. Sklar Hast became conscious of the close attention of Ixon Myrex and several others. It was clear that counsel had been taken and plans made to forestall any action on his part. Sklar Hast had expected something of the sort and was not perturbed. He went to a bench and seated himself, as if contemptuously disassociating himself from the entire affair. Looking around, he saw that others of orthodox persuasion similarly stood near Roger Kelso and Rubal Gallager, apparently ready to employ forcible restraint, if the necessity arose. Elsewhere about the float, others of the conspiracy were casually going to their places. To Sklar Hast it seemed that the program was blatantly obvious, and he wondered that neither Semm Voiderveg, Ixon Myrex, nor any of those who supported them had perceived it.
_ There was one who had: Gian Recargo, Elder of the Bezzlers. He came now to the bench and seated himself beside Sklar Hast. “This is a precarious hour.” He glanced up toward the hoodwink tower. “I hope, for all our sakes that all goes well.”
Sklar Hast nodded grimly. “So do I.”
Time moved with nerve-racking slowness. The sun shone almost perpendicularly upon the ultramarine water. The foliage—black, orange, green, purple, tawny yellow—swayed in the faintest of warm breezes. Into
the lagoon swam King Kragen. Semm Voiderveg ran to the edge of the float and performed his gestures of reverence and invitation.
Sklar Hast frowned, rubbed his chin. Gian Recargo glanced at him sidewise. “What of Semm Voiderveg?” he asked in the driest of voices.
“I had not considered him,” muttered Sklar Hast. “A flaw in my thinking. I will do my best for him.” He rose to his feet, joined Rollo Barnack who lounged beside one of the practice mechanisms. At the other one stood Ben Kell, the Assistant Master Hoodwink, both in a position where they could sight across their peloruses. “The Intercessor stands in the way,” Sklar Hast muttered. “Pay him no heed. I will try to save him.”
“It will be dangerous for you as well.”
Sklar Hast nodded. “Unfortunately this is so. All of us are running grave risks. Heed neither Semm Voiderveg nor myself. Proceed as if neither of us were imperiled. We will both escape.”
Rollo Barnack nodded. “As you wish.” And he looked across the pelorus, to see a twitching tip of King Kragen’s forward vane.
King Kragen floated quietly ten or twenty seconds, studying Semm Voiderveg. Once again he eased forward, thrust forth his palps, and gave himself a last thrust which pushed him close to the arbor.
King Kragen began to feed.
Rollo Barnack, looking along the points of his pelorus, found the turret slightly to the right of his, line of sight. He waited. King Kragen floated a trifle to the left. Rollo Barnack gave a prearranged signal, raising his hand, running his fingers through his hair. Ben Kell, at the other pelorus, was already doing likewise.
At the back of the tower Poe Belrod and Wall Bunce already had cut the bindings that lashed the two rear legs to the stubs rising from the base platform. Rudolf Snyder and Garth Gasselton loosed the rear guy-lines. At one of the fore guy-lines—those leading toward the lagoon—five men pulled as casually and nonchalantly as possible.
The great tower, tall, heavy, narrow-based, pivoted over on the two legs yet bound. The great pointed yard-arm began to sweep out a great arc that would terminate upon King Kragen’s turret.
Directly in the path of the falling tower stood Semm Voiderveg, intent at his rituals. Sklar Hast strode forward to thrust the Intercessor out of the way. Others realized that the tower was falling. There came sudden startled screams. Semm Voiderveg looked over his shoulder to see the toppling structure and likewise sensed Sklar Hast lunging at him. He gave a strangled croak, and, trying to run, stumbled with flapping arms. Both men
rolled clear. The astounded King Kragen gave a twitch of the vanes. Down like an enormous pickax came the tower, and the pointed yardarm missed the turret dead center, only by the amount of King Kragen’s twitch of alarm. Down upon the black barrel came the p
oint, glancing away and burying itself in the black rectangular pad below.
From Rollo Barnack and Roger Kelso came groans of disappointment; others screamed in horror and fright. King Kragen himself emitted a fierce, whistling hiss and thrashed out with all four vanes. The yardarm snapped from the tower; King Kragen surged struggling back into the lagoon. With two of the palps it seized the stump still protruding from its flesh, snatched it forth and brandished it high in the air. Semm Voiderveg, struggling to his feet, called out in a shrill, sobbing voice, “Mercy, King Kragen, a terrible mistake! Mercy, have mercy!”
King Kragen surged close and brought the length of timber vindictively down on Semm Voiderveg, crushing him to the pad. Again he struck, then roaring and hissing hurled the object at Sklar Hast. Then, backing up and accelerating forward, he charged the float.
“Run,” cried Rollo Barnack hoarsely. “Run for your lives!”
King Kragen was not content with the devastation of Tranque. He likewise wrought havoc upon Thrasneck and Bickle; then, fatigued or perhaps in pain, the propelled himself to sea and disappeared.
Chapter 8
A Grand Convocation was called on Apprise Float. Barquan Blasdel, the Apprise Intercessor, was the first to speak. His remarks were predictably bitter, his manner grim. He eulogized Semm Voiderveg at length; he lamented the dead of Tranque, Thrasneck, and Bickle; he described the havoc and disaster; he speculated pessimistically regarding the status of the broken Covenant. “His comprehensible fury is not yet assuaged, but do the guilty suffer? No. This morning King Kragen attacked and demolished the coracles of four Vidmar swindlers. Who can blame him? To come in good faith, under the terms of the Covenant, to receive his just due, encouraged and welcomed by the Intercessor—and then to experience this murderous attack! King Kragen has demonstrated restraint in not destroying every float of the chain!
“Needless to say, the wretched conspirators who hatched this plot must be punished. The last convocation ended in riot and bloodshed. We must be more controlled, more sagacious on this occasion, but we must definitely act. The conspirators must die.”