by Jack Vance
“The group turned their attention upon the man, who” blinked even more vehemently. “A spy? Not I! I seek only a cup of arrack.”
Blasdel sniffed the air in front of the captive’s face. “There is no odor: neither beer nor arrack nor spirits of life. Come! All must satisfy themselves as to this so that there will be no subsequent contradictions and vacillations.”
“What is your name?” demanded Vogel Womack, the Adelvine Intercessor. “Your float and your caste? Identify yourself!”
The captive took a deep breath, cast off his pretense of drunkenness. “I am Henry Bastaff. I am a dissident. I am here to find if you plan evil against us. That is my sole purpose.”
“A spy!” cried Barquan Blasdel in a voice of horror. “A self-confessed spy.”
The intercessors set up a chorus of indignant hoots. Blasdel said, “He is guilty of at least a double offense: first, the various illegalities entering into his dissidence; and second, his insolent attempt to conspire against us, the staunch, the faithful, the true! As Chief Exemplar, I am compelled to demand the extreme penalty.”
Vogel Womack tried to temper Barquan Blasdel’s wrath. “Let us delay our judgment,” he remarked uneasily. “Presently the man’s deed may not appear so grave.”
Barquan Blasdel ignored him. “This man is a vile dissident, an agent of turmoil and a spy. He must suffer an extreme penalty! To this declaration there will be allowed no appeal!”
Henry Bastaff was taken to Vrink Smathe’s dwelling, which stood nearby, and confined in the workroom, with four Exemplars surrounding him and never for an instant taking away their gaze.
Henry Bastaff surveyed the surroundings. To right and left were shelves; at the back a screen concealed the hole through the float.
Henry Bastaff spoke to the Exemplars. “I heard Blasdel’s program. Are you men interested in what is to happen?” None responded.
Henry Bastaff smiled wanly and looked toward the quarter of the room in which was the hole. “Blasdel intends to lead King Kragen to the new floats, so that King Kragen may express his pleasure against the dissidents, and may also destroy whatever dissident boats stand in the way.”
No one spoke.
“To this end,” said Henry Bastaff in a clear and distinct voice, “he has built floating sponge arbors to guarantee King Kragen an ample ration during the voyage, together with barges for more sponges, boats for the necessary advertisermen and a force of Exemplars to occupy New Home Float.”
The four men in uniform merely stared at him; After a few minutes Henry Bastaff repeated the information. He added: “I may never see the New Floats again, but hope I have helped us to freedom. Farewell to the men of the New Floats; I wish only that they could be warned of the evil which Barquan Blasdel plans to bring to them.”
“Silence!” spoke one of the Exemplars. “You have ranted enough.”
Chapter 17
On the following day an alteration was made in the method by which King Kragen was tendered his oblation. Previously, when King Kragen approached a lagoon with the intent of feasting, arbors overgrown with sponges were floated to the edge of the net, for King Kragen to pluck with his palps. Now the sponges were plucked by advertisermen, heaped upon a great tray and floated forth between a pair of coracles. When the tray was in place, Barquan Blasdel went to Vrink Smathe’s work-room, where he seemed not to see Henry Bastaff. He listened at the horn. King Kragen was close at hand; the scraping of his chitin armor sounded loud in the earpiece. Blasdel turned the crank which sent forth the summoning rattle. King Kragen’s scraping ceased, then began once more, increasing in intensity. King Kragen was approaching.
He appeared from the east, turret and massive torso riding above the surface, the great rectangular platform gliding through the ocean on easy strokes of his vanes.
The forward eyes noted the offering. He eased forward, inspected the tray, and with his forward palps began to scoop the sponges into his maw.
From the float folk watched in somber speculation. Barquan Blasdel came forth to stand on the edge of the pad, to bow and gesticulate ritual approval as King Kragen ate.
The tray was empty. King Kragen made no move to depart. Blasdel swung about, called to a Fervent Exemplar. “The sponges—how many were offered?”
“Seven bushels. King Kragen usually eats no more.”
“Today he seems to linger. Are others plucked?”
“Those for the market, another five bushels.”
“They had best be tendered King Kragen; it is not well to stint.”
While King Kragen floated motionless, the coracles I were pulled to the float. Another five bushels were poured upon the tray and the tray thrust back toward King Kragen. Again he ate, consuming all but a bushel or two. Then, replete, he submerged till only his turret remained above water. And there he remained, moving sluggishly a few feet forward, a few feet backward.
Nine days later Maible and Barway, haggard as much from horror as privation, reported to the folk of New Float.
“On the following day King Kragen had not yet moved. It was clear that the new method of feeding had impressed him favorably. So at noon the tray was again filled, with at least ten bushels of sponge, and again King Kragen devoured the lot.
“During this time Henry Bastaff was moved from Smathe’s workroom, and we could not learn of his new place of incarceration. This saddened us, for we had intended to attempt his rescue through the horn hole.
“On the third day Blasdel made an announcement which went across the hoodwink towers, to the effect that King Kragen had demanded the privilege of executing the dissident spy who had sinned so grievously against him. At noon the tray went out. At the very top if was a wide board supporting a single great sponge, and below the usual heap. King Kragen had not moved fifty yards for three days. He approached the tray, reached for the topmost sponge. It seemed fastened to the board. King Kragen jerked, and so decapitated Henry Bastaff, whose head had been stuffed into the sponge. It was a horrible sight, with the blood spouting upon the pile of sponges. King Kragen seemed to devour them with particular relish.
“With Henry Bastaff dead, we no longer had reason to delay—except for curiosity. King Kragen showed no signs of moving, of visiting other floats. It was clear that he found the new feeding system to his liking. On the fourth day his meal was furnished by Granolt Float and ferried to Apprise by coracle. On the fifth day the sponges were brought from Sankston. It appears that King Kragen is now a permanent guest at Apprise Float—which is the essential first part of Blasdel’s plan.”
There was a moment or two of silence; Phyral Berwick made a sound of revulsion. “It is a situation which we must alter.” He looked at Sklar Hast. “How far advanced are your preparations?”
Sklar Hast indicated Roger Kelso. “Ask the man who smelts our metal.”
“Our resources are multiplying,” said Kelso. “We have bled everyone on the float, twice or three times; this blood has yielded ten pounds of iron, which we have hammered and refined. It is now hard and tough beyond all belief—but still there is only ten pounds. The kragen and the sponge husks have given us much more copper: fifty or sixty pounds at a guess. Our electrical device has produced twenty-four flasks of acid of salt, which we maintain in bottles blown in our glass shop. This is now an establishment completely separated from the smelting.”
“Encouraging and interesting,” said Robin Magram, the Master Incendiary, a man not too imaginative, “but how will it avail against King Kragen?”
“We haven’t completed our experiments,” said Kelso. “I can’t give you a definite answer—yet. We need a live kragen, and they’ve been giving us a wide berth. Perhaps we’ll be forced to go hunting.”
“Meanwhile,” said Sklar Hast, “we can disrupt Blasdel’s timetable.”
A month later, in the dead of night, with only starlight to guide them, six black coracles approached Tranque Float. It showed a barren unfamiliar silhouette, denuded of all verdure save for the central spikes an
d their attendant fronds. At the eastern end of the float were low barracks and a flat area apparently used as an exercise ground; at the western end was a bleak construction area, where the skeletons of sponge arbors glimmered white in the starlight.
The net across the lagoon mouth was cut. The coracles drifted into the lagoon, where were ranked long arbor after arbor, each bulging with ripe sponges. The men made silent play with knives, cutting away the with floats and the anchor ropes; the arbors submerged, disappeared; the water of the lagoon rippled blank and vacant.
The coracles departed as stealthily as they had come. They circled the float. From the eastern side of Tranque, toward Thrasneck Float, extended six floating fingers, to which were moored twelve double hulled barges. Oil was poured into each hull, torches were flung; great flames thrust high into the sky, and angry cries came from the barracks. The black boats, with the men in black straining to the paddles, fled eastward across the ocean. For an hour the orange flames licked at the sky, then slowly dwindled and died.
Two months later, a scout coracle, after a cautious reconnaissance, returned to report that the docks had been repaired, that new barges were nearly complete, that new arbors were in place, and that the area was patrolled continuously by Exemplars armed with pikes and swords.
Chapter 18
The year, which subsequently became known as the Year of the Exemplars, came to an end. Shortly after the beginning of the new year, three swindlers, working the water to the east of Tranque Float, sighted a fleet approaching from the east. The two younger swindlers made a hurried motion to haul in their lines, but the elder halted them. “Our business is swindling, no more. Let the boats go by; they will not molest us.”
So the swindlers sat back and watched the flotilla pass. There were twelve galleys, rather high of freeboard, sheathed with a dull black membrane. Each carried a crew of thirty who sat low and rowed through holes in the hull, and thus were protected from missiles. They wore casques and corselets of the same black membrane that sheathed the hulls, and beside each was a bow, a dozen arrows with fire-bulb tips, a long lance with a tang of orange metal. The galleys accompanied a strange rectangular barge riding on three hulls. Platforms fore and aft supported a pair of bulky objects concealed by tarpaulins, with beside each a tub. In each of the three hulls were rows of squat glass vats, two hundred and ten in all, each of two quarts capacity, each two-thirds full of pale liquid. Like the galleys, the barge was propelled by oarsmen sitting low in the hulls and protected from hostile missiles by the screen of black membrane.
The Exemplars on Tranque Float observed the flotilla, hoodwink towers flickered an alarm: “The … dissidents … are … returning … in … force … They … come … in … strange … black … canoes … and … an … even … more … peculiar … black … barge … They … show … no … fear.”
Returning came instruction in a code unintelligible to those of the flotilla. They could now see the Tranque docks where the new barges floated and where already the laden arbors had been brought forth to be attached and towed astern. The docks swarmed with Exemplars, ready to defeat any attempt to destroy the barges a second time. But the flotilla sailed past, and the hoodwink towers flickered once again: “The … dissidents … proceed …west … They … are … passing … Tranque Float … It … is … difficult … to … conjecture … their … intent.” And back came coded instructions, evidently advising cautious observation, for the Exemplars boarded coracles and rowed on a course parallel to the flotilla, keeping a cautious two hundred yards between.
The flotilla continued up the line of floats: Thrasneck, Bickle, Green Lamp; at last Fay, Quatrefoil, and finally Apprise.
In the water before the lagoon lolled King Kragen—a bloated monstrous King Kragen, dwarfing the entire flotilla.
King Kragen became aware of the boats. He swung about, the monstrous vanes sucking whirlpools into the ocean. The eyes, with opalescent films shifting back and forth, fixed upon the black sheathing of galleys, armor, and barge, and he seemed to recognize the substance of kragen hide, for he emitted as snort of terrible displeasure. He jerked his vanes, and the ocean sucked and swirled.
The barge swung sidewise to King Kragen. The tarpaulins were jerked away from the platforms at either end to reveal massive crossbow-like mechanisms fashioned from laminated stalk and kragen chitin, with cables woven from strips of kragen-leather. Two teams of men turned a windlass hauling back the great cross-arms. Into the channels were placed iron harpoons smelted from human blood. In the holds other men lowered one thousand plates of iron and copper into the glass vats.
King Kragen sensed menace. Why else should men be so bold? He twitched his vanes, inched forward to within a hundred feet. Then he lunged. Vanes dug the water with an ear-shattering shriek King Kragen charged, mandibles snapping.
The men at the crossbows were pale as sea-foam; their fingers twitched. Sklar Hast turned to call: “Fire!” but his voice caught in his throat and what he intended for an incisive command came forth as a startled stammer. The command was nevertheless understood. The left crossbow thudded, snapped; the harpoon, trailing a black cable, sprang at King Kragen’s turret, buried itself. King Kragen hissed.
The right crossbow thudded, snapped; the second harpoon stabbed deep into the turret. Sklar Hast motioned to the men in the hold. “Connect!” The men joined copper to copper. In the hold two hundred and ten voltaic cells, each holding ten thin-leaved cathodes and ten thin-leaved anodes, connected first in series of seventy, and these series in parallel, poured a gush of electricity along the copper cables wrapped in varnished pad-skin leading to the harpoons. Into and through King Kragen’s turret poured the energy, and King Kragen went stiff. His vanes protruded at right angles to his body. Sklar Hast laughed an explosion of nervous relief. “King Kragen is amenable, no less than the smaller kragen.”
“I never doubted,” said Roger Kelso.
They dove into the water along with 20 others. They swam to King Kragen, clambered up the rigid subsurface platform; with mallets and copper chisels they attacked the lining between dome and turret wall. On Apprise Float a great throng had gathered. One man, running back and forth, was Barquan Blasdel. He leaped into one of the coracles and, screaming orders, led the Exemplars against the dissident flotilla. Fire-arrows cut arcs across. the sky; seven coracles burst into flames, and the Exemplars plunged into the water. The others swerved aside. Barquan Blasdel issued the most strenuous commands, but the Exemplars made no new sorties.
King Kragen floated stiff and still—eyes staring, palps protruding. His turret was thirty feet in circumference, but twenty-two men hacked with chisels, and now the lining was broken. Bars were inserted into the crack, all heaved. With a splitting sound the dome was dislodged. It slid over and in falling pulled away one of the harpoons. The circuit was broken; King Kragen once more owned his self-control.
For one galvanic instant he lay quiescent, trembling. Then he gave vent to an appalling scream, a sound which sent the folk on the float to their knees.
King Kragen hurled himself out of the water. The men who had hacked away his turret were flung far and wide; all except three who had managed to reach into the turret and cling to the knotted gray cords. One of these was Sklar Hast. While King Kragen lunged and thrashed, he slashed at the nerve nodes with his iron knife. Again King Kragen screamed, and thrust himself into the ocean. Water crashed down into the turret; two men were washed away. Sklar Hast, with arms and legs clenched among the strands, alone remained in place. The salt water on the exposed brain caused King Kragen great discomfort, and he sprang back out of the water, bent double; Sklar Hast hewed and hacked; the vanes, palps, and mandibles jerked, contracted, twisted, snapped in accordance. King Kragen’s vehemence lessened; he floated moaning with vanes dangling limp. Some of the men who had been flung away swam back; in a ceremony both dreadful and exalted King Kragen’s nerve nodes were torn out and cast into the sea.
King Kragen floated limp, a lifeless hulk.
The men plunged into the sea to wash themselves, swam back to the barge. The flotilla now eased toward Apprise Float. Sklar Hast stood on the forward platform. Barquan Blasdel cried to the folk: “To arms! Stakes, chisels, mallets, knives, bludgeons! Smite the miscreants!”
Sklar Hast called to the throng: “King Kragen is dead. What do you say to this?”
There was silence; then a faint cheer, and a louder cheer, and finally uproarious celebration.
Sklar Hast pointed a finger at Barquan Blasdel. “That man must die. He organized the Exemplars. He murdered Henry Bastaff. He has fed your food to the vile King Kragen. He would have continued doing so until King Kragen overgrew the entire float.”
Barquan Blasdel cried to his Exemplars: “Weapons at the ready! Any who attack—kill!”
Sklar Hast called to the Exemplars: “Throw down your weapons! You are finished. King Kragen is dead. You are Exemplars only to a dead sea-beast.” Barquan Blasdel looked quickly in all directions. His Exemplars, outnumbered by the men of the float, showed no disposition to fight. Barquan Blasdel laughed brassily and turned away. “Hold!” called Morse Swin, the Apprise Arbiter. “Barquan Blasdel, return! You must face the verdict of a convocation!”
“Never! Not I!” Barquan Blasdel tried to push through the throng, and this was a mistake, for it triggered the counter-impulse to halt him. When he was touched, he smote, and again he erred, for the blow brought a counter-blow and Barquan Blasdel was presently torn to pieces. The crowd now turned upon the Exemplars, and all those who were unable to escape to the coracles shared Barquan Blasdel’s fate. Those who lied in the coracles were intercepted by the black galleys, herded into a clot, where they surrendered themselves.
“Come ashore, men of the New Floats; deliver us the Exemplars, that they may be served like their fellows!” cried one from the float.
Another voice called, “Come greet your old friends, who long have been saddened at your absence!”