by Jack Vance
He hesitated. “The risk is great. Blasdel knows we spy on him. The Exemplars will be very much on the alert … I suspect that the best information will be gained from under the pad, under the intercessor’s hut.
If Barway and Maible will return, I will accompany them.”
Phyral Berwick clapped him on the shoulder. “You have the admiration and gratitude of us all! Because now our very lives depend upon information!”
Four days later Roger Kelso took Sklar Hast to Outcry Float, where he pointed out another contrivance whose function or purpose Sklar Hast could not fathom. “You will now see electricity produced,” said Roger Kelso.
“What? In that device?” Sklar Hast inspected the clumsy apparatus. A tube of hollow stalk five inches in diameter, supported by a scaffold, rose twenty feet into the air. The base was held atone end of a long box containing what appeared to be wet ashes. The far end of the box was closed by a slab of compressed carbon, into which were threaded copper wires. At the opposite end, between the tube and the wet ashes, was another slab of compressed carbon.
“This is admittedly a crude device, unwieldy to operate and of no great efficiency,” said Kelso. “It does, however, meet our peculiar requirements: which is to say, it produces electricity without metal, through the agency of water pressure. Brunet describes it in his Memorium. He calls it the ‘Rous machine’ and the process cataphoresis. The tube is filled with water, which is thereby forced through the mud, which here is a mixture of ashes and sea-slime. The water carries an electric charge which it communicates to the porous carbon as it seeps through. By this means a small but steady and quite dependable source of electricity is at hand. As you have guessed, I have already tested the device so I can speak with confidence.”
He turned, signaled his helpers. Two clamped shut the box of mud, others mounted the scaffold, carrying buckets of water which they poured into the tube. Kelso connected the wires to a coil of several dozen revolutions.
He brought forward a dish. On a cork rested a small rod of iron.
“I have already ‘magnetized’ this iron,”” said Kelso. “Note how it points to the north? It is called a ‘compass’ and can be used as a navigational device. Now—I bring it near the end of the coil. See it jerk! Electricity is flowing in the wire!”
Sklar Hast was much impressed. Kelso spoke on, “The process is still in a crude state. I hope eventually to build pumps propelled by the wind to raise the water, or even a generator propelled by the wind, when we have much more metal than we have now. But even this Rous machine implies a dramatic possibility. With electricity we can disassociate sea-water to produce the acid of salt, and a caustic of countering properties as well. The acid can then be used to produce more highly concentrated streams of electricity—if we are able to secure more metal. So I ask myself, where do the savages procure their copper? Do they slaughter young kragen? I am so curious that I must know, and I plan to visit the Savage Floats to learn their secret.”
“No,” said Sklar Hast. “When they killed you, who would build another Rous machine? No, Roger Kelso. What was MacArthur’s Dictum: ‘No man is indispensable’? It is incorrect. You are too important to risk. Send your helpers, but do not venture yourself into danger. The times are too troubled for you to indulge yourself in the luxury of dying.”
Kelso gave a grudging acquiescence. “It you really believe this.”
Sklar Hast returned to New Home Float, where he sought out Meril Rohan. He enticed her aboard a small coracle and rowed east along the line of floats. Upon a pad floating somewhat to the south of the line, they halted and went ashore and sat under a thicket of wild sugar-stem. “Here,” said Meril, “is where we can build our home, and this is where we shall have our children.”
Sklar Hast sighed. “It is so peaceful, so calm, so beautiful … Think how things must be on the Home Floats, where that madman rules!”
“If only all could be peaceful … Perhaps chaos is in our nature, in the nature of man!”
“It would seem,” said Sklar Hast, chewing on a stalk of sugar-stem, “that we of the floats should by all rationality be less prone to these qualities. The Firsts fled the Outer Worlds because they were subjected to oppression; hence it would seem that their mildness and placidity, after twelve generations, would be augmented in us.”
Meril gave a mischievous laugh. “Let me tell you my theory regarding the Firsts.” She did, and Sklar Hast was first amused, then incredulous, finally indignant.
“What a thing to say! These are the Firsts! Our ancestors! You are an iconoclast in all truth! Is this what you teach the children? In any event, it is all so ridiculous!”
“I don’t think so. So many things are explained. So many curious passages become clear, so many ambiguous musings and what would seem irrational regrets are clarified.”
“I refuse to believe this! Why—it’s … ” Words deserted him. Then he said, “I look at you, and I watch your face, and I think you are a product of the Firsts, and I know what you say is impossible.”
Meril Rohan laughed in great merriment. “But I think, if it’s so, then perhaps the Outer Worlds would not be such dreadful places as we have previously believed.
Sklar Hast shrugged. “We’ll never be sure—because we can never leave this world.”
“Do you know what someday we’ll do? Not you or I, but perhaps our children or their children. They’ll find the Ship of Space, they’ll dive or send down grapples, and raise it to the surface. Then they’ll study it very carefully. Perhaps there’ll be much to learn, perhaps not … But just think! Suppose they could contrive a way to fly space once more, or at the very least to send some sort of message!”
“Anything is possible,” said Sklar Hast. “If your violently unorthodox theory is correct, if the Firsts were as you seem to believe, then this might be a desirable goal.”
He sighed once more. “You and I will never see it; we’ll never know the truth of your theories—which perhaps is just as well.”
A coracle manned by Carl Snyder and Roble Baxter, two of Roger Kelso’s helpers, sailed west to the Savage Floats. Nine days later they returned, gaunt, sunburned but triumphant. Carl Snyder reported to the counsel of elders: “We waited offshore until dark. The savages sat around a fire, and using a telescope, we could see them clearly. They are a wretched folk: dirty, naked, ugly. When they were asleep, we approached and found a spot where we could hide the coracle and ourselves. Three days we watched the savages. There are only twenty or so. They do little more than eat, sleep, copulate, and smelt copper. First they heat the husks of the sponges to a char. This char they pulverize and put into a pot to which a bellows is attached. As they work the bellows, the charcoal glows in many colors, and finally dissipates, and the copper remains.”
“And to think that for twelve generations we have thrown sponge husks into the sea!” cried Kelso in anguish.
“It would seem,” reflected Sklar Hast, “that the kragen derive the copper of their blood from sponges. Where, then, is the source of iron in our own blood? It must be a found in some article of our own diet. If the source was found, we would not need to drain ourselves pale to obtain pellets.”
“We test every substance we can lay our hands on,” said Kelso. “We have created a white powder and a yellow powder, but no metal. Naturally we continue with our tests.”
Several days later Kelso once more invited Sklar Hast to Outcry Float. Under four long open-sided sheds 50 men and women worked at retorts fashioned from ash cemented with sea-ooze. Bellows puffed, charcoal glowed, fumes billowed up and drifted away through the foliage.
Kelso showed Sklar Hast a container of copper pellets. Sklar Hast reverently trickled the cold, clinking shapes through his fingers. “Metal! All from kragen blood?”
“From kragen blood and organs, and from the husks sponges. And here, here is our iron!” He showed Sklar a container holding a much smaller quantity of iron—a handful. “This represents a hundred bleedings. But we have found ir
on elsewhere: in glands of the gray-fish, in the leaves of bindlebane, in purple-weed pith. Small quantities, true, but before we had none.”
Sklar Hast hefted the iron. “In my imagination I see a great engine constructed of iron. It floats on the water, and moves faster than any coracle. King Kragen sees it. He is awed, he is taken aback, but in his arrogance he attacks. The engine thrusts forth an iron knife; iron hooks grip King Kragen, and the iron knife hacks him in two.”
Once again Sklar Hast let the pellets of iron sift through his fingers. He shook his head ruefully. “We might bleed every man, woman, and child dry a hundred times, a thousand times, and still lack iron to build such a kragen-killing engine.”
“Unfortunately true,” said Roger Kelso. “The engine you suggest is out of our reach. Still, using our wits, perhaps we can contrive something almost as deadly.”
“We had better make haste. Because Barquan Blasdel and his Exemplars think only of bringing some terrible fate to us.”
Whatever the fate Barquan Blasdel planned for the folk of New Home Float, he kept his own counsel. Perhaps he had not yet perfected the plan; perhaps he wished to consolidate the authority of the Exemplars; perhaps he suspected that spies gauged his every move. In this latter conjecture he was accurate. Henry Bastaff, in the role of an itinerant spice-grinder, frequented Apprise Inn with ears angled toward the Exemplars who primarily relaxed from their duties here.
He learned little. The Exemplars spoke in large voices of portentous events, but it was clear that they knew nothing.
Occasionally Barquan Blasdel himself would appear wearing garments of new and elaborate style. Over a tight black overall he wore a jacket, or surplice, of broidered purple strips looped around shoulders, waist, and thighs. From his shoulders extended a pair of extravagantly wide epaulettes, from which hung a black cloak, which flapped and billowed as he walked. His headdress was even more impressive: an elaborate bonnet of pad-skin cusps and prongs, varnished and painted black and purple—a symbolic representation of King Kragen’s countenance.
Barquan Blasdel’s dark, gaunt face was sober and harsh these days, though his voice, when be spoke, was as easy and relaxed as ever, and generally he managed a slight smile, together with an earnest forward inclination of the head, which gave the person to whom he spoke a sense of participation in affairs of profound importance.
Barway and Maible had taken elaborate precautions against the vigilance of the Exemplars. Their coracle was submerged and tucked under the edge of the float; working from underwater, they had cut rectangular niches up into the pulp of the float, with a bench above water-level and ventilation holes up through the top surface into the shadow of a hessian bush. In these niches they lay during daylight hours, making occasional underwater visits to the hole in Vrink Smathe’s workroom. By night they came forth to eat the food brought by Henry Bastaff.
Like Henry Bastaff, they had learned nothing, Barquan Blasdel and the Exemplars seemed to be marking time. King Kragen made his usual leisurely circuit of the floats. Twice Henry Bastaff saw him and on each occasion marveled at his size and might. On the evening after the second occasion, sitting at his usual place to the back of Apprise Inn, he heard a brief snatch of conversation which he considered significant Later in the evening he reported to Barway and Maible.
“This may mean something or nothing; it is hard to judge. I personally feel that something is afoot. In any event these are the circumstances. A pair of blackguards had come in from Sumber, and a Felon Elder asked regarding Thrasneck and Bickle. The blackguards replied that all the previous month they had worked at Thrasneck Lagoon, building sponge-arbors in profusion: enough to serve not only Thrasneck but Tranque, Bickle, Sumber, Adelvine, and Green Lamp as well: These arbors were of a new design, heavier and more durable, and buoyed by bundles of withe rather than bladders. The Felon Elder then spoke of sponge barges his guild brothers were building on Tranque: a project supposedly secret, but why maintain secrecy about a set of sponge barges? It wasn’t as if they were attack boats for the Exemplars. Here a group of Exemplars came into the inn and the conversation halted.”
“Sponge arbors and barges,” mused Maible. “Nothing immediately sinister here.”
“Not unless the intent is to provision a new expeditionary force.”
“Something is in the wind,” said Henry Bastaff. ‘The intercessors both new and old are arriving at Apprise, and there’s talk of a conclave, You two keep your ears on Smathe’s workroom, and I’ll try to catch a word or two of what’s happening.”
Mid-morning of` the following day Henry Bastaff walked by the hessian bush under which lay Barway and Maible. Squatting, pretending to tie the thongs of sandals, he muttered: “Bastaff here. Today is the conclave, highly important, beside the hoodwink tower. I’m going to try to hide behind a stack of hood-facings. I may or may not be successful. One of you swim to where the tower posts go through the float. There’s a gap of a few inches where you can breathe and possibly hear—especially if you chisel away some of the pulp.”
From under the fronds of the hessian bush came muffled voice. “Best that you keep your distance; they’ll be on the alert for spies. We’ll try to hear the proceedings from below.”
“I’ll do whatever looks safe,” said Henry Bastaff. “I’m going. There’s an Exemplar watching me.”
In their niche below the pad, Maible and Barway heard his retreating footsteps and, a moment later, another leisurely tread, as someone, presumably the Exemplar, strolled by.
The footsteps moved away; Barway and Maible relaxed.
After consultation, Barway slipped from the shelf into the water, and after taking his bearings, swam to where the poles of the hoodwink tower passed through the float.
Here, as Bastaff had stated, were gaps at which, after a certain amount of cutting and chiseling, Barway could either put his mouth and nose or his ear, but not both at once.
Henry Bastaff went about his business of spice-grinding, and after an hour or so walked past the hoodwink tower. The pile of hood-facings was as before. Henry Bastaff looked in all directions. No one appeared to be observing him. He squatted, shifted the facings this way and that and contrived an opening into which he inserted himself.
Time passed. The longer Henry Bastaff sat the more uneasy he became. The pile of facings suddenly seemed overprovident. The area had been too conveniently deserted. Could it be that the facings had been arranged to serve as a spy-trap? Hurriedly Bastaff wriggled back out, and after a quick look around, took himself off.
A half hour later intercessors began to gather on the scene. Six Exemplar Selects came to stand guard, and to prevent unauthorized persons from pressing too close.
At last Barquan Blasdel appeared, walking slowly, his black cloak drifting and billowing behind. .Three Exemplars of the Fervent category marched at his back. He passed near the stack of facings and turned them a quick glance. They had been disarranged, slightly moved. Barquan Blasdel’s lips tightened in a small, secret smile. He turned, spoke to the Fervent Exemplars, who took up positions beside the pile of facings.
Barquan Blasdel faced the assembled intercessors. He raised his hands for silence. “Today begins anew, phase of our preparations,” he said. “We expect to achieve two purposes: to systematize our relations with King Kragen, and to establish a necessary precondition to our great project. Before I go into details, I wish to make some comments in regard to espionage. No creature is as vile as a spy, especially a spy from the dissident floats. If apprehended, he can expect but small mercy at our hands. So now I inquire: have all present been vigilant in this regard?”
The assembled intercessors nodded their heads and gave witness that, indeed, they had exercised meticulous caution.
“Good!” declared Barquan Blasdel heartily. “Still, the dissident spies are clever and viciously militant. They know no more fear than a spurgeon, and even less guilt for their misdeeds. But we are more clever than these spies. We know how to smell them out! In fact, the ra
nk odor of an unmitigated spy issues from behind that stack of hood-facings. Fervents! Take the necessary measures!”
The Exemplar Fervents tore into the stack of hood-facings. Barquan Blasdel came to watch. The Fervents found nothing. They looked at Barquan Blasdel, who pulled at his lip in annoyance. “Well, well,” said Blasdel. “A vigilance too extreme is preferable to carelessness.
Below, where the pole passed through the float, Barway, by dint of taking a deep breath and holding his ear to the crevice, had heard the last remark. But Barquan Blasdel returned to his previous place, and words became muffled and incomprehensible.
Barquan Blasdel spoke for several minutes. All listened attentively, including the six Exemplars Barquan Blasdel had put on guard, to such an extent that presently stood at the last row of the intercessors. Barquan Blasdel finally noticed and waved them back. One of these more punctilious than the others, retreated past the edge of the hoodwink supply shed, where a man stood listening. “Ho!” called the Exemplar. “What do you here?”
The man so detected gave a wave of all-indulgent tolerance and staggered drunkenly away.
“Halt!” cried the Exemplar. “Return and declare yourself!” He jumped forward and dragged the man into the open area. All examined him with attention. His skin was dark, his face was bland and bare of hair; he wore the nondescript snuff-colored smock of a Peculator or Malpractor.
Barquan Blasdel marched forward. “Who are you? Why do you lurk in these forbidden precincts?”
The man staggered again and made a foolish gesture. “Is this the tavern? Pour out the arrack, pour for all! I am a stranger on Apprise—I would know the quality of your food and drink.”
Vrink Smathe snorted. “The fool is a spice-grinder and
drunk. I have seen him often. Direct him to the inn.”
“No!” roared Blasdel, jerking forward in excitement. “This is a dissident, this is a spy! I know him well! He has shaved his head and his face, but never can he defeat my acuity! He is here to learn our secrets!”