The Light That Never Was

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  “Whatever they like,” Jorno said. “That’s an aspect of mesz character that infuriated their human masters on Mestil. A mesz does what he wants to do when he wants to do it. In the crisis of becoming established on a strange world the entire community is working furiously, but later they’ll revert to doing precisely as they please, The mathematicians will follow their mathematical research, the philosophers will devote themselves to meditation, the pods will poetize. Some of the meszs were much taken with painting, which is a new art to them, so we may have a few mesz artists. And so on.”

  “Just in case none of them feel like farming, I hope you’re prepared to continue feeding them.”

  “I will if it’s necessary,” Jorno said. “But it won’t be. Things always work out with a mesz community. Even a great mathematician feels the need of some physical labor for his health’s sake, and he goes to the fields in the evening if there are tasks to be done there. If he doesn’t feel the need, others will. Essentials are always taken care of. It’s a charming society. It’s even worth one’s study.”

  “I gather,” Wargen said politely, “that it’s been worth yours.”

  His one misgiving remained. There could he no doubt that Jorno had planned his project astutely and well, hut Wargen had little faith in things working out merely because the meszs were creatures of sterling character. When they reverted to doing as they pleased, Jorno might find that ten random shiploads of refugees could contain some appalling duplications. What if they were all mathematicians, willing to perform a few evening tasks when they felt like it? Wargen hoped that Jorno’s finances were as sound as appearances indicated. As he’d recently observed, three thousand mouths required a lot of feeding.

  It was dusk when they returned to the mainland. As they stepped off the pier, a waiting shadow uncoiled, a husky, whispering voice pleaded, “Mr. Jorno, I beg of you, at least hear what I have to say.” It was Franff, his fur lustrous and beautiful even in the dim glow of the pier lights. At his side stood a bent human figure, an aged woman: Anna Lango.

  “The island of Virrab is ideal for my people,” Franff pleaded. “Can you not extend your mercy to them, also?”

  “You picked a bad time to come here, Franff,” Jorno said, a note of amusement in his voice. “This is Neal Wargen, the World Manager’s First Secretary. His job is to prevent such an unauthorized invasion of Donov.”

  “I know of Count Wargen,” Franff whispered. “And while he is pledged to enforce his world’s laws, I cannot think that he would create obstacles where none exist when it is a question of alleviating the misery of his fellow creatures. I beg of you—bring some of us here, let us have Virrab Island. We will trouble you no further, and my species will survive.”

  Jorno spoke an order to one of the men on the boat. “Go with him, Franff. He’ll take you up to the house, and the two of you can make yourselves comfortable there. Mr. Wargen has to make a connection to the Metro. After I’ve delivered him I’ll talk with you.”

  Franff and Anna followed the worker into the gathering darkness. Jorno heaved a sigh. “I’m Franff’s attorney of record, did you know that? When I first met him, he and his artist friends were in a jam and couldn’t find a legal advisor, so I helped them out. My own attorney, Medil Favic, is representing Franff in his extradition hearings. Whatever we do, we can’t begin to grasp the full dimensions of this tragedy. Three thousand refugees are so few, and Mestil is one world of many. I suppose the nonors could survive on Virrab. It’s a rugged place, but they’re grazing creatures and they’d certainly be able to graze there the year around. It’s a temptation, but there’s a limit to what one man can do. I’d rather have a limited success with the meszs than a vast, poorly planned failure with every deserving type of animaloid available.”

  “I take it that you haven’t heard of the new regulations.”

  “New regulations?” Jorno said quickly. “Don’t tell me Donov is putting restrictions on artists!”

  “Hardly. The new regulations are to make certain that artists applying for permits are in fact artists. We leave the certification to the Artists’ Council, and since the artists are appreciative of their freedom here, they aren’t likely to abuse our confidence by approving permits for refugees masquerading as artists.”

  “I see. Then the new regulations will have no effect on those artists already in residence.”

  “None at all. It does mean that there’ll be no more animaloids entering on artist permits unless the Artists’ Council is willing to certify them as bona fide artists. I’d suggest, though, that you see that your meszs renew their permits properly. We’d all be embarrassed if we had to expel them.”

  “I’ll see that it’s taken care of at the proper time,” Jorno promised. “Thank you.”

  The next morning Wargen found himself reading the police report on Franff’s sudden journey to Rinoly. Since Jorno was Franff’s attorney of record, it seemed odd that Franff had to travel halfway across a continent for answers to a few questions. Had Jorno been avoiding him?

  “On the other hand,” Wargen mused, “if an animaloid were begging for my help, I’m afraid I’d start avoiding him, too. What, really, can one do?”

  Sifting through his mail rapidly, he picked out another red memo from Demron, read it, and swore. More than fifty thefts had been reported in a single precinct of the southern continent.

  11

  As Neal Wargen moved about both continents on official business, he began to see harbingers of the changing year: The peregrinating artists were moving south—toward the warmer regions of the northern continent and toward the cooler regions of the southern. Such wanderers could be found anywhere on Donov in season, and their movements heralded an approaching winter or summer.

  Many went on foot, with bulky packs or rolls of possessions on their backs and the inevitable artists’ bundles under their arms. The more affluent traveled by wrranel and cart, with the cart modified to serve as living quarters. All of them drifted about leisurely in search of interesting scenes to paint, of picturesque old buildings, of quaint, isolated villages. Some of their treks lasted for years and covered an entire continent. Occasionally one would even emulate the great naturalist painter Ebbel Throy and dedicate a brief northern summer to travel by boat among the polar islands, climbing ice cliffs to paint the snowbirds and frost lizards in their natural habitat. Most artists were less venturesome; as one of them once remarked to Wargen, there was hardship enough just in wandering about rural Donov.

  Their dress varied from full artist regalia to ordinary work clothing, but all wore the artist’s turban. No one knew why this colorful headpiece had become the profession’s official insignia, but the fad began on Donov and spread so quickly that from the tall grasses of Dworn, at one end of the galaxy, to the clotted vines of Nimfra, at the other, these bobbing, colorful folds of cloth meant artist at work.

  Wargen contemplated these wandering artists and worried. This year he fancied that there were fewer of them, and he wondered if they would be the first casualties of the distrust maliciously sowed by the masquerading thieves. Demron had caught and deported more than a dozen, and the thefts continued and threatened to destroy something priceless.

  Unlike almost any other world similarly situated, Donov had fostered no folk tales of fowls, fruit, and vegetables vanishing in the wake of a passing artist. The fact was that no rural Donovian would withhold food from anyone asking for it, and the artists were neither thieves nor beggars. They offered a fair exchange for what they ate, and the marks of their passing were not thefts, but paintings.

  A meal bought a carefully executed drawing of a farmer’s homestead. Sometimes an artist would do an elaborate painting for no payment other than food and lodging while he worked. The most remote and isolated Donovian farmhouse had original paintings and drawings on display, and some of these were genuine treasures. An art dealer, acting on a none too credible rumor, called at a shabby farm near Vaszlin and found early works by Ghord, Morvert, and Va
sque, all executed on long-forgotten walking tours and all worth substantial sums at any art auction.

  This brought a plague of art dealers to rural Donov, but those who thought to swindle ignorant peasants were foredoomed to failure. The thrifty Donovians were not selling their paintings. To them, an object with a demonstrated cash value was worth keeping!

  And the unknown, solitary, impoverished artists wandered, turned south or north as the seasons changed, tarried briefly at an art colony, took to the road again, working, working, and now and then offered paintings to one of Donov’s serious art dealers. They received in return, along with the inevitable rejections, a few words of encouragement and sometimes even small sums of money fictitiously labeled advances on future work—for all of Donov’s art dealers were aware, along with Gerald Gwyll, that there could be no great art without the striving of a great many artists to become great.

  Winter arrived at Donov Metro in an unseasonable burst of rain. In the midst of it Lilya Vaan announced a huge garden rev and everyone went, because if the guests got soaked none of Lilya’s friends wanted to miss her embarrassment. But Lilya had converted her endless, cascading rev rooms into a vast indoor garden; the laughter was on the guests, and a splendid time was had by all.

  To Neal Wargen the winter was a dismal period of accumulating theft reports, and his rare success was as frustrating as his failures. The captured thieves said nothing at all, and the arbiter fined and deported them.

  Spring rains arrived on schedule, and in the midst of them an unexpected splash of sunshine struck Wargen’s office in the form of a dripping Eritha Korak. She breathlessly removed wrappings and held up a painting. “Look!”

  Wargen regarded it critically. “What do you want—an expert opinion?”

  “Certainly not, silly. Just your opinion.”

  Wargen stared at it, stared down from the top of a steep cliff into one of nature’s most savage moods. The bristling outcrops of jagged rock were profane parodies of familiar shapes, and far below the sea rushed through a narrow opening into a circular basin where it formed a churning caldron of frothing water and violent whirlpools.

  “It’s gloomy, but in an exaggerated sort of way it’s rather good,” Wargen pronounced.

  “Is that the best you can do? ‘Rather good?’ The crinking thing is a masterpiece. I’ve just come from Harnasharn’s. Old Lester flipped when he saw it.”

  Wargen scrambled to his feet, overturning his chair. He said incredulously, “Do you mean to tell me that you painted—”

  “Posh, no! I had a friend buy it for me, and it cost every bit of an entire quarter’s allowance. I don’t think Grandpapa will mind, since Harnasharn just offered me twice what I paid.”

  “I never suspected that you were making an art dealer of yourself. Let Harnasharn have it. Then you can buy two paintings, and then four, and then—”

  “Posh! I didn’t even know it was worth anything. I just bought it because I liked it, and I want to keep it.”

  “If I were you I wouldn’t tell my grandfather that. I’d tell him I’d made an astute business investment that’s already appreciated a hundred per cent. If he suspects you bought it on a whim, you may find yourself eating whim for the next quarter. Why’d you waste time and money coming to Donov Metro? You’re supposed to be spying on artists.”

  “My time,” Eritha said. “Your money. I’m turning in an expense voucher. I came because I have something to report.”

  Wargen seated himself. “Report, then.”

  Eritha patted the painting. “I’ve been reporting ever since I walked in. You’d never guess whom my friend bought this from, so I won’t ask you to. It was Jaward Jorno.”

  “Are you suggesting that Jorno is broke and has to sell—”

  “For an impoverished millionaire he certainly does things in style. No, Mr. Jorno shows no overt signs of being broke. The contrary—he’s expanding his business interests. That’s how he happens to be selling paintings.”

  “Sit down. Start at the beginning.”

  “Right,” Eritha said, perching on the edge of a chair. “The beginning was when Jorno invited fifty artists to be his overnight guests. Fifty established artists, that was his word, and the Artists’ Council helped him select them. He paid all of their expenses.”

  Wargen grinned at her. “The Artists’ Council didn’t help him select you.”

  “I wasn’t selected. A friend of mine was, and she got sick, and I went on her invitation. Since Jorno met me once—at Ronony Gynth’s rev, remember?—I had to disguise myself and perform all kinds of contortions to keep out of his way. I don’t think he noticed me.”

  “Then you were fortunate. A person who performs all kinds of contortions is highly conspicuous.”

  “He had other things on his mind. He owns this island—”

  “I’ve been there. Mestil Island.”

  “Not that one. Another one—Virrab Island.”

  “Jorno mentioned it to me. It’s the island Franff wanted for his people.”

  “It has the most magnificently wild scenery.” Eritha patted the painting again. “There are hundreds of views as good as this one or better, so Jorno has this notion of establishing an art colony there. He’s trying to arrange things so the artists can live and work without disturbing the natural beauty of the island, and so the tourists can visit the scenes the artists are going to make famous without disturbing either nature or the artists.”

  “Poor Franff!” Wargen said softly. “Think how much more beautiful that scene would be with a nonor standing by the pool.”

  “Anyway, the artists’ village is in a valley in the center of the island, and it’s lovely. Each artist will have nice living quarters with an upstairs studio. The tourists’ village is on the shore, and the roads and walks and lookouts are arranged perfectly. The whole scheme is absolutely magnificent.”

  “What does Jorno get out of it—or is this another of his Good Works?”

  “As far as the artists are concerned, it’s a Good Work. Accommodations are free, the food is at cost, and no souvenir painters need apply—the artists themselves will decide who is allowed to live and work there. Jorno is gambling that he can make the island as popular as Zrilund, and if he does that he’ll own the boat service and accommodations both on the island and on the mainland—he’s built another tourists’ village there. Also, he’ll control the sales of souvenirs and paintings, which is how he happened to be selling this one.”

  “What do the artists think of that?”

  “They like the idea. An artists’ committee decides what will be sold and sets the price. No artist has to offer anything, and if an artist doesn’t like the price the committee puts on his painting, he can recall it and offer it elsewhere. Jorno’s shops will display and sell the paintings for a small service charge. Each painting will have a certified, appraised value. The tourists can buy with confidence, and the artists will receive a fair price. The most important thing is that the serious artists won’t be competing with the painters of cheap souvenirs, which is partly what ruined Zrilund. Everyone is enthused.”

  “It proves that Jorno is a first-class promoter, but I never doubted that,” Wargen said. “A new resort will be a splendid thing for the economy of that area, but it’s nothing you couldn’t have put in your next report. Why the trip back here to tell me about it?”

  She held up the painting. “Guess who the artist is.”

  “Should I be able to?”

  “Not too long ago you and Grandpapa were wound up about some paintings allegedly done by a Zrilund swamp slug. Remember?”

  “Vividly. Don’t tell me Virrab Island has swamp slugs.”

  “Nope. At least, I didn’t hear of any, and it doesn’t have a swamp. But it does have animaloid artists.”

  “Jorno’s meszs!” Wargen exclaimed.

  “Three of them are temporarily in residence in the new artists’ village, and their paintings are good!”

  Wargen said slowly, “Take
three thousand highly intelligent creatures, all of whom have strong individual talents, and teach them to paint, and some are likely to be very good at it. I should have expected this. Anyway, Jorno mentioned that some of the meszs were enthused about painting.”

  “I thought you’d like to know right away, since you were so wound up about that swamp slug. Now you can get wound up about the meszs. Come along and help me talk Grandpapa out of another quarter’s allowance.”

  Wargen shook his head. “I have to clear my desk, because I have to be ready to leave as soon as you finish your talk.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Rinoly. When I was there last fall the Virrab resort was mentioned as a possible project for the remote future. I want to know how it got completed so suddenly, and I want to see it for myself.”

  Jorno was not at home, but an assistant had instructions as to what to do with government officials, especially one named Wargen. He was received cordially and asked what he wanted to see, and when he answered, “Everything,” the young man neither winced nor looked surprised. He proceeded to show Wargen everything.

  The mesz village was still unfinished, but the strange houses floated in a sea of early-blooming flowers. Clusters of young trees heralded another generation’s stately groves. It was already beautiful, and it would become more so.

  There were few meszs about. Wargen strolled up the slope to the end of the gleaming white avenue, much farther into the island than he had gone before, and he was startled to see looming in the distance a long, white, moundlike building. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The factory.”

  Wargen turned quickly. “Mr. Jorno assured me that the meszs would not compete with native labor.”

  “That’s correct. This is a textile factory. As you know, Donov has no textile industry. Some years ago Mr. Jorno chanced to find a fiber plant that was excellently suited to this land and climate—it’s very poor agricultural land, you know, but this one plant thrives here.”