Nopalgarth

by Jack Vance

  “Yes. I’ve changed.”

  They sat drinking coffee in silence. Margaret presently asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m not going back to my job,” said Burke. “I’m resigning today, if I’m not already fired… . Which reminds me—” He stopped short. He was about to say that he had a hundred kilograms of gold in the back of his car, worth roughly a hundred thousand dollars, and that he hoped no one had stolen it.

  “I wish I knew what was wrong,” said Margaret. Her voice was calm, but her fingers trembled and Burke knew she was near to tears. Her nopal watched placidly, with no show of feeling other than a slow pulsation of its spines. “Things aren’t as they were,” she said, “and I don’t know why. I’m confused.”

  Burke drew a deep breath. He gripped the arms of the chair, rose to his feet, crossed to where she sat. Their gazes met. “Do you want to know why I can’t tell you where I’ve been?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because,” he said slowly, “you wouldn’t believe me. You’d think I was a lunatic and have me committed—and I don’t want to spend any time in an asylum.”

  Margaret made no immediate response. She looked away, and Burke could read on her face the startling speculation that perhaps Burke indeed was crazy. Paradoxically, the thought gave her hope: Paul Burke crazy was no longer mysterious, tight-lipped, surly, hateful Paul Burke, and she looked back at him with renewed hope.

  “Are you feeling well?” she asked timidly.

  Burke took her hand. “I’m perfectly well and perfectly sane. I’ve got a new job. It’s tremendously important—and we can’t see each other any more.”

  She snatched her hand away. Pure detestation flashed from her eyes, mirroring the hate staring at him in the eye-globes of the nopal. “Very well,” she said in a thick voice. “I’m glad you feel this way—because I do too.”

  She turned and ran from the apartment.

  Burke drank his coffee thoughtfully, then went to the telephone. His first call brought him the information that Dr. Ralph Tarbert had already left for his Washington office.

  Burke poured himself another cup of coffee, and after half an hour called Tarbert’s office.

  The secretary took his name; ten seconds later Tarbert’s level voice sounded in the ear-piece. “Where in thunder have you been?”

  “It’s a long bitter story. Are you busy?”

  “Nothing overwhelming. Why?”

  Had Tarbert’s tone changed? Could his nopal smell out a Tauptu across fifteen miles of city? Burke could not be sure; he was becoming hyper-sensitive and no longer trusted his own judgment. “I’ve got to talk to you. I guarantee you’ll be interested.”

  “Good,” said Tarbert. “Are you coming down to the office?”

  “I’d prefer that you come here, for several very good reasons.” Principally, thought Burke, I don’t dare to leave the apartment.

  “Hmm,” said Tarbert carelessly. “This sounds mysterious, even sinister.”

  “It’s all of that.”

  The wire was silent. Presently Tarbert remarked in a cautious voice, “I assume that you’ve been ill? Or injured?”

  “Why do you assume that?”

  “Your voice sounds strange.”

  “Even over the phone, eh? Well, I am strange. Unique, in fact. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “I’m coming immediately.”

  Burke sat back in a mixture of relief and apprehension. Tarbert, like everyone else of Nopalgarth, might hate him so fervently as to refuse to help him. It was a delicate situation, one which required the most careful handling. How much to tell Tarbert? How much could Tarbert’s credulity ingest at a gulp? Burke had brooded hours over this particular question, but still had come to no decision.

  He sat quietly looking out the window. Men and women walked the sidewalks … Chitumih, oblivious to their complacent parasites. It seemed that, as they passed, all the nopal peered up at him —although this might be his imagination. He still had no certainty that the doorknob-size orbs functioned as eyes. He searched the sky: the filmy forms were everywhere, floating wistfully over the throngs, envious of their more fortunate fellows. Focusing his mental gaze, Burke saw ever greater numbers, many surrounding him, eyeing him hungrily. He looked through the air of the room: two, three; no four! He rose, went to the table where he had laid his case, opened it, took out a wisp of nopal-cloth. Forming it into a bag, he waited his opportunity, lunged. The nopal slipped away. Burke tried again, again the nopal darted aside. They were too quick for him; they moved like balls of quicksilver. And even if he caught one and crushed it, what then? One nopal subtracted from the billions infesting the planet: a process as futile as stepping on ants.

  The doorbell rang; Burke crossed the room cautiously opened the door. Ralph Tarbert stood in the hall, elegant in gray sharkskin, a white shirt, a black polka-dot tie. No casual observer could have guessed his occupation. Boulevardier, drama critic, avant-garde architect, successful gynecologist, yes; one high in the ranks of the world’s scientists, never. The nopal riding his head was not extraordinary, by no means as fine as Mrs. McReady’s. Evidently the mental quality of the man was not reflected in the style of his nopal. But the eye-orbs stared as balefully as any Burke had encountered.

  “Hello, Ralph,” said Burke with guarded cordiality. “Come in.”

  Tarbert entered warily. The nopal jerked its spines and shimmered in anger.

  “Coffee?” asked Burke.

  “No thanks.” Tarbert looked curiously around the room. “On second thought, yes. Black, as I’m sure you remember.”

  Burke filled a cup for Tarbert and refilled his own. “Sit down. This is going to take a bit of time.” Tarbert settled himself in a chair; Burke took a place on the couch.

  “First,” said Burke, “you’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve undergone some searing experience which has completely changed my personality.”

  “I notice a change,” Tarbert admitted.

  “For the worse, I should imagine?”

  “If you insist, yes,” Tarbert said politely. “I can’t quite identify the precise quality of the change.”

  “However, you now decide that you dislike me. You wonder why you became friendly with me in the first place.”

  Tarbert smiled thoughtfully. “How can you be so certain of all this?”

  “It’s part of the whole situation; a very important part. I mention it so that you can discount it in advance and perhaps ignore it.”

  “I see,” said Tarbert. “Go on.”

  “I’ll eventually explain everything to your complete satisfaction. But until I do you’ve got to summon all your professional objectivity, and put this peculiar new dislike for me to the side. We can stipulate that it exists—but I assure you it’s artificial in origin, something outside us both.”

  “Very well,” said Tarbert. “I’ll put a rein on my emotions. Continue. I’m listening—intently.”

  Burke hesitated, carefully choosing his words. “In the broadest outline my story is this: I’ve stumbled upon an entirely new field of knowledge, and I need your help in exploring it. I’m handicapped by this aura of hate I carry with me. Last night I was attacked in the street by strangers; I don’t dare show myself in public.”

  “This field of knowledge to which you refer,” Tarbert asked cautiously, “apparently it’s psychic in nature?”

  “To a certain degree. Although I’d prefer not to use that particular word; it carries too many metaphysical connotations. I haven’t any idea what kind of terminology applies. ‘Psionic’ is better.” Noting Tarbert’s carefully composed expression, he said, “I didn’t bring you here to discuss abstract ideas. This business is about as psychic as electricity. We can’t see it, but we can observe its effects. This dislike which you feel is one of the effects.”

  “I don’t feel it any longer,” mused Tarbert, “now that I’ve tried to pin it down. … I notice a physical sensation, something of a headache, a touch of
nausea.”

  “Don’t ignore it because it’s still there,” said Burke. “You’ve got to be on your guard.”

  “Very well,” said Tarbert, “I’m on my guard.”

  “The source of all this is a”— Burke groped for a word —“a force which I have temporarily escaped, and which now considers me a threat. This force works on your mind, hoping to dissuade you from helping me. I don’t know what pressures it will use, because I’m not sure how intelligent it is. It has enough awareness to know that I am a threat.”

  Tarbert nodded. “Yes. I feel that. I feel the impulse, oddly enough, to kill you.” He smiled. “On the emotional, not the rational level, I’m glad to say. I’m intrigued… . I never realized such things could be.”

  Burke laughed hollowly. “Wait till you hear the whole thing. You’ll be much more than intrigued.”

  “The source of this pressure, is it human?”

  “No.”

  Tarbert rose from his chair, took a more comfortable position on the couch beside Burke. His nopal fluttered and squirmed and glared. Tarbert glanced sidewise, raising his fine white eyebrows. “You moved away from me. Do you feel this same dislike toward me?”

  “No, not at all. Look on that table there; notice that folded piece of cloth.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here.”

  Tarbert squinted. “I seem to see something. I can’t be sure. Something indistinct and vague. It gives me the shudders, somehow—like fingernails on a blackboard.”

  “You should be reassured,” said Burke. “If you can feel the same quality of emotion toward a piece of cloth as you do toward me, then you must realize the emotion has no rational basis.”

  “I realize this,” said Tarbert. “Now that I’m aware of it I can keep it under control.” Something of his brittle urbanity had departed, laying bare the earnest personality he chose to camouflage. “Now there’s a peculiar snarling sound in my mind: ‘grr,’ ‘grr,’ ‘grr.’ Like gears clashing, or someone clearing his throat… . Odd. ‘Gher’ is more like it; a glottal ‘gher.’ Is that telepathic, by any chance? What is ‘gher’?”

  Burke shook his head. “I’ve no idea. I’ve heard the same thing.”

  Tarbert gazed off into space, then closed his eyes. “I see peculiar flitting images—odd things, rather repulsive. I can’t make them out… .” He opened his eyes, rubbed his forehead. “Strange … Do you perceive these—visions?”

  “No,” said Burke. “I merely see the real thing.”

  “Oh?” Tarbert stared. “You amaze me. Tell me more.”

  “I want to build a rather sizable piece of equipment. I need a private site, safe from intruders. A month ago I could have selected among a dozen laboratories; now I can’t get cooperation anywhere. In the first place, I’m terminated with ARPA. In the second place everyone on Earth now hates my guts.”

  “ ‘Everyone on Earth,’ ” Tarbert mused. “Does that imply that someone not on Earth does not hate you?”

  “To a certain extent. You’ll know as much as I do inside of a week or two, and then you’ll have a choice—just as I had—whether to proceed with the matter or not.”

  “Very well,” said Tarbert. “I can promote a workshop for you; in fact Electrodyne Engineering leaps to mind. They’re closed down, the whole plant is vacant. You probably know Clyde Jeffrey?”

  “Very well.”

  “I’ll speak to him; I’m sure he’ll let you use the place as long as you like.”

  “Good. Can you call him today?”

  “I’ll call him right now.”

  “There’s the phone.”

  Tarbert telephoned, and immediately secured informal permission for Burke to use the premises and equipment of the Electrodyne Engineering Company for as long as he wished.

  Burke wrote Tarbert a check. “What’s this for?” asked Tarbert.

  “That’s my bank-balance. I’ll need supplies and material. They’ll have to be paid for.”

  “Twenty-two hundred bucks won’t buy very much.”

  “Money is the least of my worries,” said Burke. “There’s a hundred kilograms of gold in the back of my car.”

  “Good Lord!” said Tarbert. “I’m impressed. What do you want to build at Electrodyne? A machine to make more gold?”

  “No. Something called a denopalizer.” Burke watched Tarbert’s nopal as he spoke. Did it comprehend his words? He could not be sure. The bank of spines wavered and shimmered, which might mean much or nothing.

  “What is a ‘denopalizer’?”

  “You’ll soon know.”

  “Very well,” said Tarbert. “I’ll wait, if I must.”

  VIII

  TWO DAYS LATER Mrs. McReady knocked at the door to Burke’s apartment—a knock delicate and ladylike, but nevertheless firm. Burke rose gloomily to his feet, opened the door.

  “Good morning, Mr. Burke.” Mrs. McReady spoke with frigid courtesy. Her grotesquely large nopal puffed out at him like a turkey gobbler. “I’m afraid I have unpleasant news for you. I find that I will be needing your apartment. I will appreciate your locating another residence as quickly as possible.”

  Burke nodded sadly. The request came as no surprise; in fact he had already furnished a corner of the Electrodyne Engineering workshop with a cot and a gasoline stove. “Very well, Mrs. McReady. I’ll be out in a day or so.”

  Mrs. McReady’s conscience plainly troubled her. If only he had made a scene, or acted disagreeably, she could have justified her action to herself. She opened her mouth to speak, then, uncertainly, said only, “Thank you, Mr. Burke.” Burke returned slowly into his living room.

  The episode followed the pattern he had come to expect. Mrs. McReady’s formality represented an antagonism no less intense than the physical attack of the four hoodlums. Ralph Tarbert, dedicated by profession and temperament to objectivity, admitted that he continually struggled against malice. Margaret Haven had telephoned in great trouble and anxiety. What was wrong? The loathing she suddenly felt for Burke she knew to be unnatural. Was Burke ill? Or had she herself become afflicted with paranoia? Burke found it hard to answer her, and wrestled with himself for wordless seconds. He could bring her nothing but grief, of one kind or another; this was certain. By every precept of decency he should force a clean break between them. In halting words he tried to put this policy into effect, but Margaret refused to listen. No, she declared, something external was responsible for their trouble; together they would defeat it.

  Burke, oppressed by his responsibility and by sheer loneliness, could argue no further. He told her that if she’d come to the Electrodyne Engineering plant—this particular call took place the day after Mrs. McReady had asked him to leave—he’d explain everything.

  Margaret, in a dubious voice, replied that she’d come immediately.

  A half hour later she tapped at the door to the outer office. Burke came out of the workshop, snapped back the bolt. She entered slowly, uncertainly, as if she were wading into a pool of cold water. Burke could see that she was frightened. Even her nopal appeared agitated, its bank of spines glittering with a red and green iridescence. She stood in the middle of the room, emotions chasing themselves back and forth across her wonderfully expressive face. Burke essayed a smile; from Margaret’s expression of alarm, it conveyed no message of cheer. “Come along,” he said in a false and brassy voice, “I’ll show you around.” In the workshop she noticed his cot and the table with the camp stove. “What’s all this? Are you living here?”

  “Yes,” said Burke. “Mrs. McReady became afflicted with the same distaste for me which you feel.”

  Margaret looked at him numbly, then turned away. She became stiff and tense. “What’s that thing?” she asked in a husky voice.

  “It’s a denopalizer,” said Burke.

  She cast him a frightened glance over her shoulder, while her nopal shimmered and flickered and squirmed. “What does it do?”

  “It denopalizes.”

  “It frighte
ns me,” said Margaret. “It looks like a rack, or a torture machine.”

  “Don’t be frightened,” said Burke. “It’s not a mechanism for evil, even though it seems to be.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Now, if ever, was the time to confide in her—but he could not bring himself to speak. Why load her mind with his troubles, even assuming that she would believe him? In fact, how could she believe him? The tale was simply too far-fetched. He had been whisked to another planet; the inhabitants had convinced him that the people of Earth were all haunted by a particularly vile mind-leech. He and he alone could see these things: even now the creature which rode her shoulders glared at him full of hate! He, Burke, had been charged with the mission of exterminating these parasites; if he failed, the inhabitants of the far-away world would invade and demolish Earth. It was obvious megalomania; Margaret’s certain duty would be to call an ambulance for him.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me?” asked Margaret.

  Burke stood looking foolishly at the denopalizer. “I wish I could think of a convincing lie—but I can’t. If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  Burke shook his head. “One thing you’ve got to believe: the hate you feel for me isn’t either your doing or mine. It’s a suggestion from something external to both of us— something that wants you to hate me.”

  “How can that be, Paul?” she cried in distress. “You’ve changed! I know you have! You’re so different from what you were!”

  “Yes,” Burke admitted. “I’ve changed. Not necessarily for the worse—although it may seem so to you.” He somberly inspected the denopalizing rack. “Unless I get busy I’ll be changing back to what I was before.”

  Margaret impulsively squeezed his arm. “I wish you would!” She snatched her hand away again, took a step back, stared at him. “I can’t understand myself, I can’t understand you… .” She turned, walked rapidly from the shop into the office.