The Light That Never Was

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  The spiraling wind of hatred had dissipated, and the rioting had almost run its course. Massive cleanups were in progress on most of the worlds, and both governments and individuals were interring their guilt with the bodies of their victims. Wargen’s official requests for information were ignored, which worried him. M’Don had done his best, but too often his reports were based upon rumor and hearsay.

  A messenger arrived with a memo from Demron. The Superintendent of Police was perplexed about a series of petty thefts in a northern precinct. Wargen reluctantly pushed his files aside and went to see him.

  “What’s being stolen?” he asked.

  “Nothing of special value. He picks up whatever he gets his hands on, but no one has lost anything worth more than half a don. The puzzling thing is that in every instance someone saw him making his escape.”

  “He sounds like a notably inept thief.”

  “Then why haven’t we caught him?”

  “Description?”

  “He’s an artist.”

  Wargen whistled softly. “Ah! What does the Artists’ Council have to say about this?”

  “It’s alarmed. We’ve processed data on every registered artist on Donov, and on all of the thefts, and the computer says the thief couldn’t be a known artist.”

  “Of course not. I can’t remember the last time Donov had a police problem with artists, but if it does happen I’m positive the artist won’t be so naive as to attract attention to himself by wearing his work clothing. For a non-artist, an artist’s costume would be a rather good disguise. The fact that he let himself be seen merely means that he wanted it thought that he’s an artist.”

  “A non-artist disguised as an artist could be anyone,” Demron grumbled.

  “True. You’re likely to have a long investigation on your hands.”

  “Since he’s got all of us bamboozled, why doesn’t he steal something of value?”

  “Ask him that when you catch him,” Wargen said with a grin.

  When he returned to his office, a bright young agent named Karlus Gair was waiting for him.

  “I called you in to give you a vacation,” Wargen said. “Go down to the Rinoly Peninsula and relax for a week. It’s really a splendid place.”

  “To do what?” Gair demanded. “There’s nothing there.”

  “That’s the advantage. You’ll be the only tourist in the entire precinct.”

  “Sure. What’s so important in the wilds of Rinoly?”

  “Three thousand animaloids. Those refugees from Mestil have literally vanished from human ken, and no one I’ve talked with from that area knows anything about them. We have no contacts there—we’ve never needed any. I think we’d better find out what Jorno is doing with his animaloids.”

  Gair went to Rinoly for a week and returned three days later. The natives wouldn’t talk with strangers—he hadn’t even been able to rent a bed—and as for Jorno’s estate, it was formidably fenced and the gates were guarded. He thought that an approach from the sea might be possible, and he wanted to know if he should try it.

  Wargen told him not to bother, and the following week he went to Rinoly himself.

  It was a humped and rocky land and one of the most impoverished agricultural regions on Donov. Wrranel carts were still the chief mode of transportation. The unimproved roads were deplorable in good weather and impassable during the spring and fall rains.

  Rinoly’s young people left for the cities and the resort arc as as soon as they came of age, and many of the elderly farmers who stubbornly clung to their holdings were surviving on handouts from their children who worked in the service trade. Abandoned farms were a blight on an already blighted land, for few of the young people cared to inherit the laborious poverty of their parents.

  The closest community to Jorno’s estate was Ruil, a grubby little crossroads village, and Wargen could not find a decent house there in which to rent a room. He had exercised his influence with a horticultural firm and brought with him a bag of seed samples, and that was sufficient credential to make him welcome in the home of a neighboring farmer. He spent several days in calling on farmers in the area to offer free seeds in return for a report on comparative yields. His generosity with the samples loosened tongues, and Wargen quickly learned that Jaward Jorno was the one authentic hero these surly farmers had.

  “Just sold him five load of stone,” one would say. Or, “My boy works on his dock. Good pay.” Or, “He started the tarff co-op. More’n the government ever did for us.” The few merchants in the area were even more voluble in their praise. Jorno was, without exception, everyone’s best customer.

  But though Wargen listened carefully everywhere he went, he heard no mention of the animaloids. None of the farmers had seen them—most did not know that they existed—and the occasional person he encountered who worked for Jorno was invariably closemouthed and deserving of any confidence Jorno placed in him.

  Wargen returned to the precinct capital and arranged for a tourist flight along the coast. Passing over Jorno’s estate, he saw a newly cut road leading to the shore, where a pier and a large warehouse had been built. The string of islands followed the curving coast line, the most distant no more than a mile offshore, and on the largest of them a village had been laid out. The island had its own pier and waterside warehouse, and he was able to identify the ship docked there. Back in the precinct capital, he checked the ship’s registry and left the same day for Port Ornal.

  But at Port Ornal he could only learn that Jorno had bought supplies in shipload quantities and saved money taking delivery by water. Reluctantly he decided to return home and try again when he’d thought of an approach that promised better results.

  At the Port Ornal Space Terminal he spent an hour eavesdropping on departing tourists. The sturdy Donovians tended to be scrupulously honest, but a thriving tourist world attracted operators dedicated to instant profits, and if not promptly detected and put out of business, these were a threat to Donov’s reputation.

  Wargen and his men regularly made the rounds of the resorts and scanned the terminals to learn what tourists were complaining about. It not infrequently happened that a departing visitor who had been grumbling about a strangely multiplying hostel bill, or a guided tour that skipped half the advertised attractions, or a lavish restaurant with expensive but inedible food, was approached by a friendly young man who invited him to furnish details and sign a complaint; and after his return home the tourist would be utterly astonished to receive a refund.

  Wargen circled the terminal with apparent aimlessness until he chanced to hear the name, “Harnasharn.” The two elderly men who were conversing belonged to that rarest type of tourist, the vacationing art connoisseur, who came to study Donov’s permanent collections and also to gamble—there was no better investment in the galaxy than a painting by a young artist who would become great. The problem was to select the right young artist—as the Donovian saying went, to find the one gray hair on a white wrranel.

  “I didn’t get up to the Metro,” one of the men said.

  “You should have. Those eight anonymous paintings in Harnasharn’s permanent exhibit are worth the trip.”

  “Anonymous? That’s an oddity.”

  “So are the paintings. Strangest things I’ve ever seen, but for that kind of thing they’re simply magnificent. I might have bought one if they’d been priced reasonably, but they weren’t for sale.”

  “That’s odd, too.”

  “Harnasharn was accepting registered bids, but you know how that goes. He expects the price to keep going up, and he’ll hang onto them for years. Anyway—just to show you how odd they are—a tourist told me with a perfectly straight face that they’d been painted by a Zrilund swamp slug.”

  Their laughter chased Wargen all the way to the exit.

  At Port Metro he commandeered one of Demron’s patrol vehicles, and they careered through Donov Metro on the emergency altitude. When they reached the Harnasharn Galleries, Wargen leaped out
and stared at the building in foolish uncertainty. He did not know what he expected to find—radicals haranguing an enraged populace, perhaps, or anti-animaloid fanaticists pulverizing the pavement to manufacture missiles, or a mob threatening to storm the place.

  Confronted by the establishment’s usual quiet and dignified mien and the sedateness of the few viewers who leisurely paced their ways through the exhibits, Wargen had embarrassed second thoughts.

  But he dismissed the driver and went to see Harnasharn.

  “I’ve just come from Port Ornal,” he told him. “A couple of tourists departing the space terminal were discussing your permanent exhibit, and one of them said that a tourist had told him the eight anonymous paintings you’re displaying are the work of a Zrilund swamp slug.”

  Harnasharn turned on him aghast.

  “What sort of animaloid did paint them?” Wargen asked.

  “A Zrilund swamp slug.”

  “I see. Blabby sort of creature that couldn’t resist bragging to its friends?”

  “Mr. Wargen. This is extremely serious. There should be only three people on Donov who know that—my assistant, myself, and the slug’s owner. I’m pledged on my word of honor not to divulge the origin of those paintings to anyone, and I have not and will not except to yourself and the World Manager and that only because your positions entitle the two of you to share a confidence of this order. I know my assistant has not told anyone. Having observed how concerned the slug’s owner was to preserve his secret, I feel certain that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Otherwise, why the fuss about extracting pledges from us and having them written into contracts? You say a tourist said that?”

  “Actually it was a visiting art connoisseur who said he’d heard it from a tourist. Neither he nor the person he was talking with believed it. What the tourist thought about it I couldn’t say.”

  “Had they been to Zrilund?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m wondering if others may have known about the slug—friends or neighbors of the owner, for example. I’ll have to investigate this for my own protection. I don’t want a situation where the owner starts a rumor and then attempts to cancel his contract by blaming me for it.”

  “It seems to be a singularly unsuccessful rumor,” Wargen observed. “Our only source is a man who was leaving Donov and anyway didn’t believe it. We may be making a fuss about nothing.”

  “I’ll investigate just the same,” Harnasharn said. “I’m very glad you told me about this.”

  Wargen returned to his office and longingly contemplated his riot files: Cuque, Sornor, Mestil, Bbrona, Proplif, K-Dwlla, Pfordaan…

  Also on his desk was a red memo, the form used by Wargen and Demron for confidential reports to each other. This one reported more than one hundred thefts by persons in artist clothing in four adjoining precincts. Demron was becoming desperate.

  Disgustedly Wargen turned the memo over and wrote on the back, “I’ll find your thieves if you’ll find me a Zrilund swamp slug.”

  9

  Eritha Korak arrived in Zrilund Town with a ferryboat load of tourists and checked in at the Zrilund Town Hostel. “Just call me Ritha,” she said brightly, as Rearm Hylat, the hostel’s tall, gaunt proprietor, squinted uncertainly at her signature. “I’ll pay in advance.”

  The granddaughter of Donov’s World Manager possessed a legion of friends, and an encounter with one of them while using an alias could have been embarrassing. She had decided to use her own name but not to flaunt it.

  Hylat accepted a week’s rent with alacrity, and Eritha did not comment when he wrote, “Erita Karol,” on her receipt. She took possession of her room, deposited her personal effects and bundle of artist’s equipment, and went to have a leisurely look at Zrilund Town.

  A lavishly printed guidebook contained stunning reproductions of Zrilund masterpieces and very little information about the island’s history. The fact was that outsiders didn’t know and natives didn’t care. Fishermen and farmers had inhabited the island for as long us anyone remembered. The fishermen operated smoking and drying sheds on a small bay where there was an excellent harbor and a sloping sandy shore upon which they could beach their ships. They built their homes on the tall cliffs, in a village satisfactorily remote from the offensive sights and smells of fish processing. The village quickly became a small commercial center for the fishermen and for Zrilund’s farmers. Shops lined the oval, and as the fisheries thrived and drainage claimed more land for agriculture, the village grew into a town and the tidy, narrow streets of sturdy stone buildings lengthened.

  Then came the deluge of artists, and when this was followed by the deluge of tourists, the fishermen moved away in disgust. They established Fish Town, a new village on the north shore, and they updated their processing to modem methods involving refrigeration and radiation and delivered their catches directly to mainland markets and processors. Their old stone houses were bought by people interested in exploiting the tourist trade, and for a time virtually every building in Zrilund Town had some commercial use, if only in the form of a front room that served as a souvenir shop.

  Those were the great days of Zrilund, when enormous throngs of tourists filled the town, sunned themselves on the pier or on the cliffs, climbed down to the beaches to swim, took long walks along the shore, occupied every room in the hostels and all available space in private households, and bought paintings by the hundred, many of which later became museum masterpieces.

  Those great days were now mocking memories. Buildings on the side streets were vacant and could be, as the Zrilund saying went, rented for an excuse or bought for an alibi. The town died ten times daily—when the ferries took away their loads of tourists—and overnight guests were a rarity. Hostels in Nor Harbor, on the mainland, were more modem, more convenient, and close to an expanding group of non-art tourist attractions.

  As the island’s prosperity diminished, so did its civic harmony and pride. The townspeople bickered among themselves and squabbled with the artists. A proposal to require a license of artists selling paintings directly to the tourists had recently failed only because the artists threatened to move en masse to Nor Harbor.

  Eritha had garnered this background before leaving Donov Metro, but she detected no signs of disharmony in her first view of the splendid old town. She covered it from one end to the other and climbed the highest of the gleaming chalk cliffs to watch the departure of the ferry. When she returned to the center of the town, she found the oval deserted.

  Easels stood in place, palettes and sprayers were racked ready for use, but at first glance the artists seemed to have vanished along with the tourists. At second glance Eritha accounted for six of them, all relaxing over mugs of adde in the Philpp House. The Chalk Cliffs had another ten and the Swamp Hut, obviously an artists’ hangout, more than she could count. Each eating or drinking place had its scattering of custom, even the dining room of the Zrilund Town Hostel, though its prices and gourmet dishes were aimed at the better class of tourist.

  Tired and hot from her long walk, she sat down on the far side of the hostel’s dining room, ordered a mug of adde for herself, and sipped it while eavesdropping on the artists. Suddenly a shout rang out, and the artists drained their mugs and rushed for the door. Eritha stepped to the window and saw artists erupting from doors all around the oval, and when the first ferry passengers arrived they were at work again.

  She asked Rearm Hylat, “Why do the artists stop work when the tourists leave?”

  “Because they aren’t artists,” he answered sourly. When he saw that she was genuinely interested, he sat down to talk with her. “Many tourists who buy paintings seem to do so because they actually see the artists painting them. So the artists try to get a number of paintings almost finished, and then when they have a prospective customer they can finish one while he watches. I said ‘paintings,’ but I should have said ‘souvenirs.’ No real artist would work that way.”

  “I see. But there are some real artists
here, aren’t there?”

  Hylat shook his head.

  “I came here to study art. If there aren’t any artists—”

  “There are some very competent painters here,” Hylat said slowly. “There are some excellent craftsmen. They ought to be, they don’t do anything but paint. Being an artist is something else. It’s kind of like a state of mind. The moment an artist stops trying to do his best work in every painting, the moment he takes a shortcut because the painting is only going to be sold to a tourist who doesn’t know any better, he stops being an artist. The moment he tries to please his customers instead of himself, he starts being a fraud. There are a lot of non-artist frauds here. Some of them earn a pretty good living and own property and have bank accounts. Maybe all of them could be competent artists if they wanted to, but they find it easier to paint souvenirs. There is one serious artist here, name of Todd W’iil, but he doesn’t paint anything. Besides, he’s crazy.”

  That night Eritha went to the Swamp Hut for dinner, hoping to scrape up a few artist acquaintances. While she ate she listened to the conversation about her.

  “… it’s the reds and yellows that attract attention. I sold two today, and they didn’t argue about the price, either.”

  “… offered me a contract. The other dealer said there was no way I could guarantee quality, and I told him my reputation as an artist was more a guarantee of quality than his reputation as a dealer was a guarantee of sales, so even though he was paying me two dons more…”

  “It’s a mistake to dicker. Set your price, I say, and if one tourist won’t pay it…”

  “The tourist who’s just wandering around, he isn’t expecting to buy a painting, and what decides him is first that it attracts his attention, and second that he likes it, and third that it’s cheap. As for me…”

  That night Eritha wrote to Wargen. “You wanted to know what the Zrilund artists are talking about. They talk all the time, and it’s always about the same thing: money.”