The Light That Never Was

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  “That is something to think about,” Brance admitted. He was tempted to point out that the Zrilund trip counted as an ocean voyage and required certified craft that had to be custom built, while the trip to Virrab never took one out or sight of land in any direction. Jorno could use small boats that were readily available anywhere. Brance was tempted, but it wouldn’t have been wise for him to come through too strongly as Jorno’s apologist.

  “That’s just the beginning,” Alof said. “The person who concocted that poison had a considerable knowledge of chemistry. Did you know that there are two prize-winning chemists among Jorno’s meszs? Look here. There’s no doubt at all that Jorno is trying to ruin Zrilund. Normal competition didn’t do the job fast enough, and he’s using his meszs to speed things up. He has to pretend that someone is trying to ruin him at the same time so he won’t be suspected. Everything that happens to Zrilund happens to Virrab in exactly the same way, but you’ll notice that he cleverly sees that the things happening to Virrab do very little damage. What nasty prank do you suppose he and his meszs will aim at Zrilund next?”

  “None,” one of the artists said.

  Alof turned on him angrily.

  “There won’t be any more,” the artist said, morosely gazing out at the deserted oval. “They don’t need any more. Like you said, Zrilund is ruined.”

  It was late when Brance finally left the artists. Rearm Hylat was waiting up for him, and the two of them sat together in the darkened dining room.

  “Adde?” Hylat asked.

  “Thanks, no. Alof believes a conspiracy should be launched on adde. I floated down here.”

  “What happened?”

  “The usual rubbish. They talk endlessly about Jorno’s iniquities and they agree that something has got to be done. They don’t say what.”

  “Few artists are men of action,” Hylat observed. “Not that Alof is any kind of artist.”

  “But he is. He showed me a portrait tonight. Old woman he found over in Fish Town. He’s a fairly good artist. Maybe that’s his trouble. He keeps getting people together and stirring things up, and then instead of following through on it, he goes off to paint.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for someone else to suggest the action.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’s still cringing over what happened the last time. I’d like to speak up in Jorno’s behalf. His mesz chemists have just perfected a process that precipitates the poison. Things may be back to normal weeks sooner than anyone expected. They also worked out a safe method for converting the dead fish to fertilizer, and they cobbled up a vast machine to do the job. It was shipped yesterday. Today Jorno and a few of the meszs were in Nor Harbor looking at the damaged ferries. The meszs think they can build a bigger and better ferry in a third the expected time, and they won’t charge anything except for the materials.”

  “Wargen told you this?”

  “Yes. He also told me I wasn’t to mention any of it, because I’d destroy my effectiveness if the artists got the notion that I’ve ever nurtured a kindly thought about Jaward Jorno. They’d assume that I’d been bought.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “True. A plausible lie can be much more convincing than the truth. For example, under Alof’s manipulations that bit about the mesz chemists would be offered as proof that the meszs concocted the poison in the first place. Otherwise how’d they manage to come up with a treatment process so quickly? Jorno looks like the sort who’d buy people, so the person who defends him must have been bought. I’m not to say anything to anyone except you. You’re to pass the information to discerning townspeople at your discretion, remembering that you yourself are suspect because you’re the one who sponsored that ridiculous tourist association with Jorno.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with this world,” Hylat said sourly. “Everyone is suspect.”

  They sat for a time in silence, with Hylat sipping his adde and Brance trying to keep from dozing off. Brance was about to suggest to Hylat that they postpone the solution of Zrilund’s problems until the morrow when he heard a shout.

  Footsteps sounded on the worn stone paving, more shouts rang out, and Brance and Hylat sprang for the door. The oval was unlighted, but four widely separated disks gave a dim illumination to the street that encircled it. Only artists would be out that late in Zrilund Town, and three of them were standing uncertainly in the middle of the street.

  “Dunno,” one responded to Brance’s question. “Someone fussing about the fountain. Ran the instant we hove into view.”

  “Around the fountain?” Hylat exclaimed. He and Brance exchanged glances. “We’d better have a look. I’ll get a light.”

  Hylat brought a handlight and led the way as they advanced on the celebrated Zrilund fountain. Suddenly he swore and leaped forward, and Brance hauled on him and told him not to be an idiot.

  “Explosives!” Hylat gasped, trying to pull free.

  “Then let’s handle them so only one of us gets blown up!” Brance snapped. He sent Hylat scurrying for cutters and chased the artists back to a safe vantage point; and when Hylat returned, Brance cut the wires from a complicated timing device and carefully traced them to the four packs of explosive that had been buried around the fountain.

  By the time he finished Zrilund was awake. Artists and townspeople teamed up for an exhaustive search of Zrilund Town, and when that uncovered no trace of the culprits, everyone sat around in grim determination waiting for the dawn. At first light they began a carefully organized search of the countryside, but nothing was found except a few strange marks on one of the beaches—proof that a boat had grounded there and that someone whose feet did not make human footprints had come ashore.

  Neal Wargen said, “You couldn’t be more mistaken. Those footprints are proof positive that Jorno had nothing to do with this.”

  “Who other than meszs leave mesz footprints?” Brance demanded hotly.

  “Jaward Jorno is neither foolish nor careless. I don’t speak for his moral integrity because I know nothing about it, but I do know that if he’d been connected with this in any way you wouldn’t have found mesz footprints. Further, while I can make no guarantee for Jorno, I can for the meszs. Unlike we humans, they hurt no one, they damage nothing, they don’t even defend themselves when attacked.”

  “That isn’t the feeling around Zrilund this morning.”

  “What is the feeling?”

  “That Jorno’s gone too far this time. There wasn’t any proof about what he did to the sea and the boats, people were angry, and they could speculate, but they didn’t know. Now the fountain has been attacked, and that’s the heart of Zrilund, it’s irreplaceable, and a mesz left footprints. Now the people know, and they’re no longer angry. They’re enraged.”

  “There may be another attempt,” Wargen said. “I’ll ask Demron to station men there.”

  “They aren’t needed. Volunteers are putting up lights right now, and every square inch of Zrilund Town will be under observation tonight.”

  “Anything else happening?”

  “There was a mass meeting this morning. Townspeople and artists. Didn’t do much except ask for volunteers to work on the lights and perform guard duty. There’s an artists’ meeting this afternoon. I don’t know what for.”

  “Call me back when it’s over,” Wargen said.

  Brance thanked the fat com agent on his way out and went to the Swamp Hut for lunch. He regretted having to pass up Hylat’s food, but in order to find out what the artists were talking about he had to go where they were.

  Wes Alof joined him. “We’ve called off the meeting,” he said. “I’m talking with the artists individually. We’re all going to Rinoly.”

  Brance stared at him.

  “We’ve been studying the map,” Alof went on. “There aren’t any towns big enough to accommodate all of us, but I understand that every village has abandoned buildings that we could rent for virtually nothing. We’ll manage our own accommodations. I’ve already sent messages
, I’m sure some artists from the other colonies will want to join us. Inside of a week we should have a minimum three hundred artists in Rinoly.” He grinned. “Three hundred artists are a match for three thousand meszs any time.”

  “What’ll we do in Rinoly?” Brance demanded.

  “Paint. We’re all licensed artists, we can go to any public place and pursue our calling, the regulations say so. The important thing is to get everyone down there. Then we can study the place and make plans to put an end to the mesz menace. Living expenses will be less there than here. I’ve raised money to help artists who need it with their transportation and other expenses, and I expect a lot of them will. What about you?”

  “I can manage,” Brance said. “I’ll need time to make arrangements, though. I own a house, you know, and—”

  “Just let me know as soon as possible. There may be a few artists who’ll have to stay here for one reason or another, and that’s all right—we don’t want the people of Zrilund thinking we’re walking out on them in time of need. They ought to understand, though, that very few of us can earn money without tourists, and there’s no point in our sitting here while our paints dry up waiting for Jorno to blow all of us into the ocean.”

  Brance resignedly returned to the com center and placed a call to Wargen. He explained what had happened, and Wargen said, “The question is whether you’d accomplish more with the townspeople or with the artists. I think with the artists—I can ask Hylat to keep me informed about Zrilund Town. Did Alof give any hint at all of what he plans to do when he gets you to Rinoly?”

  “None. I’ll go if you want me to, but I’ll have to make a few arrangements. You see, I have a pet swamp slug, and—”

  Wargen was regarding him strangely. “Swamp slug?”

  “Yes. I’ve had it for years.”

  “A Zrilund swamp slug?”

  “That’s the only kind Zrilund has.”

  “You must introduce me sometime. What about it?”

  “I’ll have to arrange for someone to look after it.”

  “Work it out, then, and be sure to let me know where you’re going and when. Ask Hylat to call me.”

  Hylat was sitting at the back of his empty dining room, his mournful face radiating gloom and catastrophe. “I hear the artists are leaving,” he said. “That’ll finish Zrilund.”

  Brance seated himself and grinned at him. “For years I’ve been hearing the people of Zrilund complain about the artists, and for years I’ve been hearing the artists complain that no one person on this whole decaying island properly appreciates them. A temporary separation ought to be marvelously dissatisfying to all concerned. Both the artists and the townspeople will have to find someone else to complain about.”

  “But will they come back?” Hylat demanded.

  “They’ll come back. Even if for some strange reason Rinoly welcomes them, which it won’t, they’ll come back. Like me, a lot of those idiots love this place.”

  17

  The Zrilund artists vanished into rural Rinoly. For all the news Wargen had, that impoverished land could have blotted them up. He waited for a report from Brance—waited a week, two weeks, three weeks, first in irritation and then in anger and finally with acute alarm. Had Alof discovered that Brance was a spy?

  When he could wait no longer, he sent for Eritha Korak, “How’d you like to go to Virrab?” he asked her.

  “I couldn’t,” she said. “Even the lodge for visiting artists has a huge waiting list.”

  “I’m sending you there as a guest. Intelligence out of Jorno’s resort is extremely hard to come by—we get only bits and snatches picked up by eavesdropping on returning tourists. I need a comprehensive evaluation of what’s going on there. I also need to find out what the Zrilund artists are doing in Rinoly. I have a man with them, Arnen Brance. Know him?”

  Eritha shook her head. “He wasn’t at Zrilund when I was there.”

  “He was, but he wasn’t associating with artists. He went to Rinoly with the Zrilund group, and he hasn’t reported since. I’m worried something may have happened to him. Most of the artists are harmless fools, but the people trying to manipulate them aren’t.”

  “You want me to go to Virrab as a tourist, give Jorno’s resort a careful scanning, and check on the Zrilund artists?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Better send someone Jorno hasn’t met. Normally tourists enjoy basking in the warm glow of the proprietor’s personal hospitality. If one of them turned her back whenever he approached—”

  “I’ve thought of that. Listen. As far as I’m able to determine, business at Jorno’s resort is exceeding his expectations with a single exception. He built a couple of superluxury rotundas, and they haven’t had a single customer. The kind of people who could afford them already have their favorite resorts, usually places catering exclusively to millionaires, and they aren’t likely to visit a catch-all resort like Virrab unless it’s ecstatically recommended to them. Jorno can’t get an endorsement for his luxury accommodations until someone patronizes them, and without it no one will patronize them. So I suggested to Lilya Vaan that she have herself a vacation at Virrab and take you as her companion. She thought a few days of slumming it at Jorno’s resort might be mildly amusing. Then she happened to mention it to Mother, and now the countess insists on going with you.”

  “The countess—with Lilya and me?”

  “Yes. Jorno will be elated. Watch!”

  He placed a call to Jaward Jorno. “My mother, the countess,” he told him, “would like to visit your resort with two companions. Do you have suitable accommodations for the countess and her guests?”

  They could hear Jorno’s sudden intake of breath. “Of course. Highly suitable accommodations. Would they prefer the mainland or Virrab?”

  “The mainland. They’ve never visited Rinoly, so—after they’ve experienced all the charms of Virrab, of course—they’d like to travel about.”

  “I’m afraid they’ll find little of interest in Rinoly apart from my resort, but I’ll make every effort to enable them to see whatever they like. I’m sure that once they have visited Virrab they’ll find it endlessly fascinating.”

  “Would you place a limousine and chauffeur on call for them?”

  “Of course.”

  “There’s one more thing. They’ll dress as ordinary tourists, and they’d prefer to keep their identities confidential. Can you accommodate them in that?”

  “But certainly. You said the countess and two guests?”

  “The Countess Wargen, the Dame Lilya Vaan, whom I think you know, and Miss Eritha Korak, the World Manager’s granddaughter.”

  Jorno took another deep breath. “When shall I expect them?”

  “I’ll notify you as soon as the arrangements are completed.”

  Wargen broke the connection. “It must be galling to build magnificent accommodations for millionaire guests and have them unused. He’ll keep your identities secret as long as you’re there, but the moment you leave it’ll be known all over Donov and several other worlds that the Countess Wargen, the Dame Vaan, and a member of the World Manager’s immediate family vacationed at Virrab.”

  “Is Jorno a snob?”

  “That’s irrelevant. He’s a practical businessman, and socially prominent people are good for his business.”

  “I thought he was a brilliant man of galactic vision. Now it turns out he has the soul of a village usurer. The real mystery is why the countess didn’t cancel out when she heard I’d be along.”

  “She wants to know you better.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “It’s true,” Wargen said gravely. “She wants to be familiar with all of your defects.”

  “That’s more like it. And forever after, when you two are having a quiet conversation, she’ll drop in flattering remarks about me. ‘By the way, Pet, did you know that the little Korak minx mixes adde and wrranel milk for breakfast?’ ”

  Wargen regarded her with horr
or. “You do?”

  “Of course not. But once she’s taken a cozy excursion with me she’ll be in a position to know all sorts of things, whether they’re true or not. Just you wait—she’ll draw up a catalogue of my bad habits, and she’ll read it to you every evening at dinner.”

  “It won’t do a bit of good,” Wargen told her. “I already know all about them.”

  The rotunda was screened from the public park by a magnificent grove of trees, and even such a massive building as this one was rendered charming by its mesz architecture. Their suite, which occupied an entire floor and had its own staff of servants, represented the absolute ultimate in plush resort accommodations. They strolled through private gardens laid out in strange and fascinating patterns by the meszs, they swam at their private beach, and they enjoyed a seaside promenade on their private pier. Later they dined in their own dining room on fare as luxurious, varied, and delicious as anything Lilya had ever served at a rev.

  All three of them were relaxed and mellowed when Jorno’s steward arrived with an invitation to join him for a tour of his estate—even the countess had found nothing to complain about for as long as twenty minutes at a time. The two older women accepted at once. Eritha, who had been instructed to scan Jorno’s resort but not his private property, pleaded fatigue. Instead of receiving this excuse with the skepticism that it deserved, the countess seemed to find it flattering.

  As soon as the countess and Lilya had been ceremoniously escorted away by the steward, Eritha donned her tourist’s cloak and went for a stroll on the public promenade. Then she examined the park that the meszs had created—it hadn’t been completed on her previous visit. To her amazement she found a fountain spouting colored, phosphorescent water, and as darkness fell its spray became quite spectacular.