Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One (40 page)

The chief grunted. “You don’t even know how to herd goats.”

“We are not missionaries,” Arch-Deacon Burnette continued, “but when you choose to learn the Truth, we’ll be ready to help you.”

“Mmph-mmph—where do you profit by this?”

The Arch-Deacon smiled. “We don’t. You are fellow-humans; we are bound to help you.”

The chief turned, called to the tribe; they fled up the rocks pell-mell, climbing like desperate wraiths, hair waving, goat-skins flapping.

“What’s this? What’s this?” cried the Arch-Deacon. “Come back here,” he called to the chief, who was on his way to join the tribe.

The chief called down from a crag. “You are all crazy people.”

“No, no,” exclaimed the Arch-Deacon, and it was a magnificent scene, stark as a stage-set: the white-haired Arch-Deacon calling up to the wild chief with his wild tribe behind him; a saint commanding satyrs, all in the shifting light of three suns.

Somehow he coaxed the chief back down to New Town. Old Fleetville lay half a mile farther up, in a saddle funnelling all the winds and clouds of the Grand Montagne, until even the goats clung with difficulty to the rocks. It was cold, dank, dreary. The Arch-Deacon hammered home each of Old Fleetville’s drawbacks. The chief insisted he preferred it to New Town.

Fifty pounds of salt made the difference, with the Arch-Deacon compromising his principles over the use of bribes. About sixty of the tribe moved into the new huts with an air of amused detachment, as if the Arch-Deacon had asked them to play a foolish game.

The Arch-Deacon called another blessing upon the village; the colonists knelt; the Flits watched curiously from the doors and windows of their new homes. Another twenty or thirty bounded down from the crags with a herd of goats which they quartered in the little chapel. Arch-Deacon Burnette’s smile became fixed and painful, but to his credit he did nothing to interfere.

After a while the colonists filed back down into the valley. They had done the best they could, but they were not sure exactly what it was they had done.

Two months later New Town was deserted. Brother Raymond and Sister Mary Dunton walked through the village; and the huts showed dark windows and gaping doorways.

“Where have they gone?” asked Mary in a hushed voice.

“They’re all mad,” said Raymond. “Stark staring mad.” He went to the chapel, pushed his head through the door. His knuckles shone suddenly white where they gripped the door frame.

“What’s the trouble?” Mary asked anxiously.

Raymond held her back. “Corpses…There’s—ten, twelve, maybe fifteen bodies in there.”

“Raymond!” They looked at each other. “How? Why?”

Raymond shook his head. With one mind they turned, looked up the hill toward Old Fleetville.

“I guess it’s up to us to find out.”

“But this is—is such a nice place,” Mary burst out. “They’re—they’re
beasts!
They should
love
it here!” She turned away, looked out over the valley, so that Raymond wouldn’t see her tears. New Town had meant so much to her; with her own hands she had white-washed rocks and laid neat borders around each of the huts. The borders had been kicked askew, and her feelings were hurt. “Let the Flits live as they like, dirty, shiftless creatures. They’re irresponsible,” she told Raymond, “just completely
irresponsible!
”

Raymond nodded. “Let’s go on up, Mary; we have our duty.”

Mary wiped her eyes. “I suppose they’re God’s creatures, but I can’t see why they should be.” She glanced at Raymond. “And don’t tell me about God moving in a mysterious way.”

“Okay,” said Raymond. They started to clamber up over the rocks, up toward Old Fleetville. The valley became smaller and smaller below. Maude swung up to the zenith and seemed to hang there.

They paused for breath. Mary mopped her brow. “Am I crazy, or is Maude getting larger?”

Raymond looked. “Maybe it is swelling a little.”

“It’s either a nova or we’re falling into it!”

“I suppose anything could happen in this system,” sighed Raymond. “If there’s any regularity in Glory’s orbit it’s defied analysis.”

“We might very easily fall into one of the suns,” said Mary thoughtfully.

Raymond shrugged. “The system’s been milling around for quite a few million years. That’s our best guarantee.”

“Our only guarantee.” She clenched her fists. “If there were only some certainty somewhere—something you could look at and say, this is immutable, this is changeless, this is something you can count on. But there’s nothing! It’s enough to drive a person crazy!”

Raymond put on a glassy smile. “Don’t, dear. The Colony’s got too much trouble like that already.”

Mary sobered instantly. “Sorry…I’m sorry, Raymond. Truly.”

“It’s got me worried,” said Raymond. “I was talking to Director Birch at the Rest Home yesterday.”

“How many now?”

“Almost three thousand. More coming in every day.” He sighed. “There’s something about Glory that grinds at a person’s nerves—no question about it.”

Mary took a deep breath, pressed Raymond’s hand. “We’ll fight it, darling, and beat it! Things will fall into routine; we’ll straighten everything out.”

Raymond bowed his head. “With the Lord’s help.”

“There goes Maude,” said Mary. “We’d better get up to Old Fleetville while there’s still light.”

A few minutes later they met a dozen goats, herded by as many scraggly children. Some wore rags; some wore goat-skin clothes; others ran around naked, and the wind blew on their washboard ribs.

On the other side of the trail they met another herd of goats—perhaps a hundred, with one urchin in attendance.

“That’s the Flit way,” said Raymond, “twelve kids herd twelve goats and one kid herds a hundred.”

“They’re surely victims of some mental disease…Is insanity hereditary?”

“That’s a moot point…I can smell Old Fleetville.”

Maude left the sky at an angle which promised a long twilight. With aching legs Raymond and Mary plodded up into the village. Behind came the goats and the children, mingled without discrimination.

Mary said in a disgusted voice, “They leave New Town—pretty, clean New Town—to move up into this filth.”

“Don’t step on that goat!” Raymond guided her past the gnawed carcass which lay on the trail. Mary bit her lip.

They found the chief sitting on a rock, staring into the air. He greeted them with neither surprise nor pleasure. A group of children were building a pyre of brush and dry spile.

“What’s going on?” asked Raymond with forced cheer. “A feast? A dance?”

“Four men, two women. They go crazy, they die. We burn them.”

Mary looked at the pyre. “I didn’t know you cremated your dead.”

“This time we burn them.” He reached out, touched Mary’s glossy golden hair. “You be my wife for a while.”

Mary stepped back, and said in a quivering voice, “No, thanks. I’m married to Raymond.”

“All the time?”

“All the time.”

The chief shook his head. “You are crazy. Pretty soon you die.”

Raymond said sternly, “Why did you break the canal? Ten times we’ve fixed it; ten times the Flits came down in the dark and pulled down the banks.”

The chief deliberated. “The canal is crazy.”

“It’s not crazy. It helps irrigate, helps the farmers.”

“It goes too much the same.”

“You mean, it’s straight?”

“Straight? Straight? What word is that?”

“In
one
line—in one direction.”

The chief rocked back and forth. “Look—mountain. Straight?”

“No, of course not.”

“Sun—straight?”

“Look here—”

“My leg.” The chief extended his left leg, knobby and covered with hair. “Straight?”

“No,” sighed Raymond. “Your leg is not straight.”

“Then why make canal straight? Crazy.” He sat back. The topic was disposed of. “Why do you come?”

“Well,” said Raymond. “Too many Flits die. We want to help you.”

“That’s all right. It’s not me, not you.”

“We don’t want you to die. Why don’t you live in New Town?”

“Flits get crazy, jump off the rocks.” He rose to his feet. “Come along, there’s food.”

Mastering their repugnance, Raymond and Mary nibbled on bits of grilled goat. Without ceremony, four bodies were tossed into the fire. Some of the Flits began to dance.

Mary nudged Raymond. “You can understand a culture by the pattern of its dances. Watch.”

Raymond watched. “I don’t see any pattern. Some take a couple hops, sit down; others run in circles; some just flap their arms.”

Mary whispered, “They’re all crazy. Crazy as sandpipers.”

Raymond nodded. “I believe you.”

Rain began to fall. Red Robundus burnt the eastern sky but never troubled to come up. The rain became hail. Mary and Raymond went into a hut. Several men and women joined them, and with nothing better to do, noisily began loveplay.

Mary whispered in agony. “They’re going to do it right in front of us! They don’t have any shame!”

Raymond said grimly, “I’m not going out in that rain. They can do anything they want.”

Mary cuffed one of the men who sought to remove her shirt; he jumped back. “Just like dogs!” she gasped.

“No repressions there,” said Raymond apathetically. “Repressions mean psychoses.”

“Then I’m psychotic,” sniffed Mary, “because I have repressions!”

“I have too.”

The hail stopped; the wind blew the clouds through the notch; the sky was clear. Raymond and Mary left the hut with relief.

The pyre was drenched; four charred bodies lay in the ashes; no one heeded them.

Raymond said thoughtfully, “It’s on the tip of my tongue—the verge of my mind…”

“What?”

“The solution to this whole Flit mess.”

“Well?”

“It’s something like this: The Flits are crazy, irrational, irresponsible.”

“Agreed.”

“The Inspector’s coming. We’ve got to demonstrate that the Colony poses no threat to the aborigines—the Flits, in this case.”

“We can’t force the Flits to improve their living standards.”

“No. But if we could make them sane; if we could even make a start against their mass psychosis…”

Mary looked rather numb. “It sounds like a terrible job.”

Raymond shook his head. “Use rigorous thinking, dear. It’s a real problem: a group of aborigines too psychotic to keep themselves alive. But we’ve
got
to keep them alive. The solution: remove the psychoses.”

“You make it sound sensible, but how in heaven’s name shall we begin?”

The chief came spindle-legged down from the rocks, chewing at a bit of goat-intestine. “We’ve got to begin with the chief,” said Raymond.

“That’s like belling the cat.”

“Salt,” said Raymond. “He’d skin his grandmother for salt.”

Raymond approached the chief, who seemed surprised to find him still in the village. Mary watched from the background.

Raymond argued; the chief looked first shocked, then sullen. Raymond expounded, expostulated. He made his telling point: salt—as much as the chief could carry back up the hill. The chief stared down at Raymond from his seven feet, threw up his hands, walked away, sat down on a rock, chewed at the length of gut.

Raymond rejoined Mary. “He’s coming.”

Director Birch used his heartiest manner toward the chief. “We’re honored! It’s not often we have visitors so distinguished. We’ll have you right in no time!”

The chief had been scratching aimless curves in the ground with his staff. He asked Raymond mildly, “When do I get the salt?”

“Pretty soon now. First you’ve got to go with Director Birch.”

“Come along,” said Director Birch. “We’ll have a nice ride.”

The chief turned and strode off toward the Grand Montagne. “No, no!” cried Raymond. “Come back here!” The chief lengthened his stride.

Raymond ran forward, tackled the knobby knees. The chief fell like a loose sack of garden tools. Director Birch administered a shot of sedative, and presently the shambling, dull-eyed chief was secure inside the ambulance.

Brother Raymond and Sister Mary watched the ambulance trundle down the road. Thick dust roiled up, hung in the green sunlight. The shadows seemed tinged with bluish-purple.

Mary said in a trembling voice, “I do so hope we’re doing the right thing…The poor chief looked so—
pathetic
. Like one of his own goats trussed up for slaughter.”

Raymond said, “We can only do what we think best, dear.”

“But
is
it the best?”

The ambulance had disappeared; the dust had settled. Over the Grand Montagne lightning flickered from a black-and-green thunderhead. Faro shone like a cat’s-eye at the zenith. The Clock—the staunch Clock, the good, sane Clock—said twelve noon.

“The best,” said Mary thoughtfully. “A relative word…”

Raymond said, “If we clear up the Flit psychoses—if we can teach them clean, orderly lives—surely it’s for the best.” And he added after a moment, “Certainly it’s best for the Colony.”

Mary sighed. “I suppose so. But the chief looked so stricken.”

“We’ll go see him tomorrow,” said Raymond. “Right now, sleep!”