Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One (9 page)

“And that pyramid…”

“Now that’s a strange thing. They were good psychologists, these Dicantrops, as good as you could expect an off-world race to be. If you’ll read a report of the first landing, you’ll find no mention of the pyramid. Why? Because it wasn’t here. Landry thought it looked new. He was right. It
was
new. It was a fraud, a decoy—just strange enough to distract our attention.

“As long as that pyramid sat out there, with me focusing all my mental energy on it, they were safe—and how they must have laughed. As soon as Landry broke in and discovered the fraud, then it was all over…

“That might have been their miscalculation,” mused Root. “Assume that they knew nothing of crime, of anti-social action. If everybody did what he was told to do their privacy was safe forever.” Root laughed. “Maybe they didn’t know human beings so well after all.”

The captain refilled the glasses and they drank in silence. “Wonder where they came from,” he said at last.

Root shrugged. “I suppose we’ll never know. Some other hot dry planet, that’s sure. Maybe they were refugees or some peculiar religious sect or maybe they were a colony.”

“Hard to say,” agreed the captain sagely. “Different race, different psychology. That’s what we run into all the time.”

“Thank God they weren’t vindictive,” said Root, half to himself. “No doubt they could have killed us any one of a dozen ways after I’d sent out that emergency call and they had to leave.”

“It all ties in,” admitted the captain.

Root sipped the brandy, nodded. “Once that ULR signal went out, their isolation was done for. No matter whether we were dead or not, there’d be Earthmen swarming around the station, pushing into their tunnels—and right there went their secret.”

And he and the captain silently inspected the hole across the pond where the tremendous space-ship had lain buried under the spine-scrub and rusty black creeper.

“And once that space-ship was laid bare,” Root continued, “there’d be a hullabaloo from here to Fomalhaut. A tremendous mass like that? We’d have to know everything—their space-drive, their history, everything about them. If what they wanted was privacy that would be a thing of the past. If they were a colony from another star they had to protect their secrets the same way we protect ours.”

Barbara was standing by the ruins of the station, poking at the tangle with a stick. She turned and Root saw that she held his pipe. It was charred and battered but still recognizable. She slowly handed it to him. “Well?” said Root.

She answered in a quiet withdrawn voice: “Now that I’m leaving I think I’ll miss Dicantropus.” She turned to him, “Jim…”

“What?”

“I’d stay on another year if you’d like.”

“No,” said Root. “I don’t like it here myself.”

She said, still in the low tone: “Then—you don’t forgive me for being foolish…”

Root raised his eyebrows. “Certainly I do. I never blamed you in the first place. You’re human. Indisputably human.”

“Then—why are you acting—like Moses?”

Root shrugged.

“Whether you believe me or not,” she said with an averted gaze, “I never—”

He interrupted with a gesture. “What does it matter? Suppose you did—you had plenty of reason to. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

“You would—in your heart.”

Root said nothing.

“I wanted to hurt you. I was slowly going crazy—and you didn’t seem to care one way or another. Told—him I wasn’t—your property.”

Root smiled his sad smile. “I’m human too.”

He made a casual gesture toward the hole where the Dicantrop spaceship had lain. “If you still want diamonds go down that hole with a bucket. There’s diamonds big as grapefruit. It’s an old volcanic neck, it’s the grand-daddy of all diamond mines. I’ve got a claim staked out around it; we’ll be using diamonds for billiard balls as soon as we get some machinery out here.”

They turned slowly back to the
Method
.

“Three’s quite a crowd on Dicantropus,” said Root thoughtfully. “On Earth, where there’s three billion, we can have a little privacy.”

Afterword to “The Masquerade of Dicantropus”

As a rule, seamen enjoy a great deal of spare time. I used this spare time to write, and much of what I wrote was subsequently published in one form or another…I did much of my writing in a deck chair where I could look off across the ocean. On a calm day in the tropics, the view across the ocean trivializes any attempts to describe it in words. There are endless miles of blue water, transparent at the swells, gently heaving all the way out to the horizon, where maybe a few cumulus clouds are mounting…I sold a set of fantasy stories to Hillman Publications, who issued the collection using the title
The Dying Earth
. I also wrote a mystery story, which was published as
The Flesh Mask
, and a frothy bit of foolishness to which the publisher attached a wildly misleading and inappropriate title,
Isle of Peril
.

—Jack Vance

Abercrombie Station

I

The doorkeeper was a big hard-looking man with an unwholesome horse-face, a skin like corroded zinc. Two girls spoke to him, asking arch questions.

Jean saw him grunt noncommittally. “Just stick around; I can’t give out no dope.”

He motioned to the girl sitting beside Jean, a blonde girl, very smartly turned out. She rose to her feet; the doorkeeper slid back the door. The blonde girl walked swiftly through into the inner room; the door closed behind her. She moved tentatively forward, stopped short. A man sat quietly on an old-fashioned leather couch, watching through half-closed eyes.

Nothing frightening here, was her initial impression. He was young—twenty-four or twenty-five. Mediocre, she thought, neither tall nor short, stocky nor lean. His hair was nondescript, his features without distinction, his clothes unobtrusive and neutral.

He shifted his position, opened his eyes a flicker. The blonde girl felt a quick pang. Perhaps she had been mistaken.

“How old are you?”

“I’m—twenty.”

“Take off your clothes.”

She stared, hands tight and white-knuckled on her purse. Intuition came suddenly; she drew a quick shallow breath.
Obey him once, give in once, he’ll be your master as long as you live
.

“No…NO, I won’t.”

She turned quickly, reached for the door-slide. He said unemotionally, “You’re too old anyway.”

The door jerked aside; she walked quickly through the outer room, looking neither right nor left.

A hand touched her arm. She stopped, looked down into a face that was jet, pale rose, ivory. A young face with an expression of vitality and intelligence: black eyes, short black hair, a beautiful clear skin, mouth without make-up.

Jean asked, “What goes on? What kind of job is it?”

The blonde girl said in a tight voice, “I don’t know. I didn’t stay to find out. It’s nothing nice.” She turned, went through the outer door.

Jean sank back into the chair, pursed her lips speculatively. A minute passed. Another girl, nostrils flared wide, came from the inner room, crossed to the door, looking neither right nor left.

Jean smiled faintly. She had a wide mouth, expansive and flexible. Her teeth were small, white, very sharp.

The doorkeeper motioned to her. She jumped to her feet, entered the inner room.

The quiet man was smoking. A silvery plume rose past his face, melted into the air over his head. Jean thought,
there’s something strange in his complete immobility. He’s too tight, too compressed.

She put her hands behind her back and waited, watching carefully.

“How old are you?”

This was a question she usually found wise to evade. She tilted her head sidewise, smiling, a mannerism which gave her a wild and reckless look. “How old do you think I am?”

“Sixteen or seventeen.”

“That’s close enough.”

He nodded. “Close enough. What’s your name?”

“Jean Parlier.”

“Who do you live with?”

“No one. I live alone.”

“Father? Mother?”

“Dead.”

“Grandparents? Guardian?”

“I’m alone.”

He nodded. “Any trouble with the law on that account?”

She considered him warily. “No.”

He moved his head enough to send a kink running up the feather of smoke. “Take off your clothes.”

“Why?”

“It’s a quick way to check your qualifications.”

“Well—yes. In a way I guess it is…Physical or moral?”

He made no reply, sat looking at her impassively, the gray skein of smoke rising past his face.

She shrugged, put her hands to her sides, to her neck, to her waist, to her back, to her legs, and stood without clothes.

He put the cigarette to his mouth, puffed, sat up, stubbed it out, rose to his feet, walked slowly forward.

He’s trying to scare me, she thought, and smiled quietly to herself. He could try.

He stopped two feet away, stood looking down into her eyes. “You really want a million dollars?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“You took the advertisement in the literal sense of the words?”

“Is there any other way?”

“You might have construed the language as—metaphor, hyperbole.”

She grinned, showing her sharp white teeth. “I don’t know what those words mean. Anyway I’m here. If the advertisement was only intended for you to look at me naked, I’ll leave.”

His expression did not change. Peculiar, thought Jean, how his body moved, his head turned, but his eyes always seemed fixed. He said as if he had not heard her, “Not too many girls have applied.”

“That doesn’t concern me. I want a million dollars. What is it? Blackmail? Impersonation?”

He passed over her question. “What would you do with a million if you had it?”

“I don’t know…I’ll worry about that when I get it. Have you checked my qualifications? I’m cold.”

He turned quickly, strode to the couch, seated himself. She slipped into her clothes, came over to the couch, took a tentative seat facing him.

He said dryly, “You fill the qualifications almost too well!”

“How so?”

“It’s unimportant.”

Jean tilted her head, laughed. She looked like a healthy, very pretty high-school girl who might be the better for more sunshine. “Tell me what I’m to do to earn a million dollars.”

“You’re to marry a wealthy young man, who suffers from—let us call it, an incurable disease. When he dies, his property will be yours. You will sell his property to me for a million dollars.”

“Evidently he’s worth more than a million dollars.”

He was conscious of the questions she did not ask. “There’s somewhere near a billion involved.”

“What kind of disease does he have? I might catch it myself.”

“I’ll take care of the disease end. You won’t catch it if you keep your nose clean.”

“Oh—oh, I see—tell me more about him. Is he handsome? Big? Strong? I might feel sorry if he died.”

“He’s eighteen years old. His main interest is collecting.” Sardonically: “He likes zoology too. He’s an eminent zoologist. His name is Earl Abercrombie. He owns—” he gestured up “—Abercrombie Station.”

Jean stared, then laughed feebly. “That’s a hard way to
make a million dollars…Earl Abercrombie…”

“Squeamish?”

“Not when I’m awake. But I do have nightmares.”

“Make up your mind.”

She looked modestly to where she had folded her hands in her lap. “A million isn’t a very large cut out of a billion.”

He surveyed her with something like approval. “No. It isn’t.”

She rose to her feet, slim as a dancer. “All you do is sign a check. I have to marry him, get in bed with him.”

“They don’t use beds on Abercrombie Station.”

“Since he lives on Abercrombie, he might not be interested in me.”

“Earl is different,” said the quiet man. “Earl likes gravity girls.”

“You must realize that once he dies, you’d be forced to accept whatever I chose to give you. Or the property might be put in charge of a trustee.”

“Not necessarily. The Abercrombie Civil Regulation allows property to be controlled by anyone sixteen or over. Earl is eighteen. He exercises complete control over the station, subject to a few unimportant restrictions. I’ll take care of that end.” He went to the door, slid it open. “Hammond.”

The man with the long face came wordlessly to the door.

“I’ve got her. Send the others home.”

He closed the door, turned to Jean. “I want you to have dinner with me.”

“I’m not dressed for dinner.”

He left the room. The door closed. Jean stretched, threw back her head, opened her mouth in a soundless exultant laugh. She raised her arms over her head, took a step forward, turned a supple cart-wheel across the rug, bounced to her feet beside the window.

She knelt, rested her head on her hands, looked across Metropolis. Dusk had come. The great gray-golden sky filled three-quarters of her vision. A thousand feet below was the wan gray, lavender and black crumble of surface buildings, the pallid roadways streaming with golden motes. To the right, aircraft slid silently along force-guides to the mountain suburbs—tired normal people bound to pleasant normal homes. What would they think if they knew that she, Jean Parlier, was watching? For instance, the man who drove that shiny Skyfarer with the pale green chevrets…She built a picture of him: pudgy, forehead creased with lines of worry. He’d be hurrying home to his wife, who would listen tolerantly while he boasted or grumbled. Cattle-women, cow-women, thought Jean without rancor. What man could subdue her? Where was the man who was wild and hard and bright enough?…Remembering her new job, she grimaced. Mrs. Earl Abercrombie. She looked up into the sky. The stars were not yet out and the lights of Abercrombie Station could not be seen.