Jack Vance - Gaean Reach 01 (20 page)

“Schaine, dear Schaine—will you come with me?”

“No, Jorjol, of course not! It’s really absurd to think I might. I’m not an Uldra; I’d be miserable out there on the Retent.”

Jorjol gave a poignant throbbing call, a cry from the heart. “You’re like all the other Outkers.”

“I hope not. I’m really just myself.”

Jorjol drew himself stiffly erect. “I implore you, by your brother’s life which I gave to him! This is a blood debt and cannot be denied!”

Gerd Jemasze made an odd sound: a choking gasping stammer as words rose too thickly in his throat to be enunciated. He finally spoke. “Shall I tell the truth?”

Jorjol blinked and cocked his head sidewise. “What truth?”

“You’d best apologize to Lady Schaine and assure her that no obligation exists and then go your way.”

Jorjol spoke in a stony voice: “The debt exists, and I demand that she give me my due.”

“The debt does not exist and never existed. When the erjin attacked Kelse, you climbed a rock and watched while the creature tore Kelse to pieces. When you saw Schaine come running, you carefully shot the beast from the top of the rock, then jumped down and pretended to be in the middle of the fight, and you even rubbed Kelse’s blood on yourself. You did not try to save Kelse. You allowed him to be mutilated!”

Jorjol whispered: “You lie! You were not there.”

Jemasze’s voice was cold as fate. “Kurgech was there. He saw the whole thing.”

Jorjol gave a sudden cry of despair: an oddly sweet contralto sound. He ran to the corner of the verandah, swung over the balustrade and was gone.

Schaine turned to Gerd Jemasze and spoke in a voice of horror. “Is this true?”

“It’s true.”

“It can’t be true,” muttered Schaine, looking back down the years. “It’s too awful to be true.” It seemed as natural as the wind and the movement of the stars across the sky to find herself sobbing against Gerd Jemasze’s chest, his arms around her.

“It’s true,” said Kelse. He came slowly out on the verandah. “I heard what you told him. I’ve suspected it for five years. All his life he’s hated us. Someday I’ll kill him.”

T
o Morningswake in a black-and-silver Ellux saloon came a delegation from the Mull: Erris Sammatzen and six others. On hand to greet them was the Directive Committee of the Uaian Order: nine land-barons selected and given legitimacy by a hasty telephonic referendum across the Treaty Lands.

Dm. Joris made a rather dry and formal welcoming statement, his purpose being to establish at the outset an official tone to the meeting. In keeping with this concern, the land-barons wore formal dress and each wore his heraldic cap. In contrast, the members of the Mull were almost ostentatiously casual. “The Order of Uaia welcomes you to Morningswake,” said Dm. Joris. “We earnestly desire that this conference will reduce the misunderstandings which trouble our two polities. We hope that you will approach the discussions constructively and realistically, and for our part we intend that our relations with Szintarre shall continue to be friendly and intimate.”

Sammatzen laughed. “Dm. Joris, thank you for your welcome. As you’re well aware, I can’t accept, or even take seriously, your other remarks. We have come here to acquaint ourselves with local conditions, so that we can administrate the area in the best interests of the majority of its inhabitants; and hopefully to the ultimate satisfaction, or at least acceptance, of everyone.”

“Our differences may or may not be irreconcilable,” said Dm. Joris without emotion. “If you please, Dm. Madduc has provided refreshment for us; and then, when you are of a mind, we can resume our discussions in the Great Hall.”

For half an hour the groups engaged in cautious pleasantries on the west lawn, then repaired to the Great Hall. The formal attire of the Directive Committee accorded with the nobility of the room, the grandeur of its proportions, the richness of the old wood. Kelse seated the Mull on one side of the table, the Directive Committee on the other.

Erris Sammatzen briskly assumed control of the meeting. “I won’t pretend that our purpose here is anything other than what it is. The Mull is the single administrative body of Koryphon. We directly represent the population of Szintarre; we provide a forum for the inhabitants of Uaia. Over the Uldra we exercise a benevolent protectorate. The domains of the land-barons are included under our control, by protocols both formal and informal; they also have rights of petition and protest.

“As you know we have felt obliged to issue an edict, the articles of which are now familiar to you.” Erris Sammatzen spoke now in a slow and meaningful voice. “We cannot and will not tolerate the recalcitrance of a few hundred stubborn men and women who wish to retain aristocratic perquisites to which they are not entitled. A more natural and equitable system is long overdue, and I remind you that the absolute authority of the land-barons across vast domains, achieved through violence and compulsion, is now terminated. Title is reinvested in those tribes which have traditional and legitimate ownership of the land. We intend to inflict hardship on no one, and will assist in the orderly transfer of authority.”

Dm. Joris replied, again without heat: “We reject your edict. It obviously derives from altruism and in this sense does you credit, but it makes a number of doctrinaire assumptions. I point out that the option of self-determination is the inherent right of any community, no matter how small, provided that it conforms to the basic charter of the Gaean Reach. We adhere to these principles, and we claim this right. I now wish to anticipate your claim that the rights of the domain tribes are curtailed. To the contrary. The factors which contribute to what they consider an optimum life have never been more favorable. Our dams and flood-control projects guarantee them year-round water for themselves and their herds. When they need money to buy imported articles, they are able to take temporary or permanent employment, as they wish. Their freedom of movement is absolute, except upon the few acres immediately contiguous to the domain halls, so that in effect, there is dual occupancy of the land, to our mutual satisfaction and benefit. We exploit no one; we exert authority only in a protective sense. We provide medical assistance; we occasionally exert police powers, though not often, inasmuch as the tribes usually administer their own justice. We feel that you of the Mull have been stampeded into reckless decisions by the zealous and articulate group known as the Redemptionists, who deal in abstractions and not in facts.

“I ask: what is accomplished by your edict? Nothing. What would the Uldras have which they do not have now? Nothing. They would lose, and we would lose. Your edicts only bring mischief to all of us—assuming that we agreed to them, which we do not.”

Dm. Joris was answered by Adelys Lam, a thin nervous woman with a bony face and restless eyes. She spoke in an urgent voice and punctuated her words with jabbing motions of her forefinger.

“I intend to speak of law and its innate nature. Dm. Joris, you have used the words ‘doctrinaire’ and ‘abstraction’ in a pejorative sense, and I must point out that all law, all ethical systems, all morality, are based upon doctrines and abstract principles by which we test specific cases. If we adopt a pragmatic attitude, we are lost and civilization is lost; morality becomes a matter of expedience or brute force. The edicts of the Mull therefore rest not so much upon exigencies of the moment as upon fundamental theorems. One of these is that title to pre-empted, stolen or sequestered property never becomes valid, whether the lapse of time be two minutes or two hundred years. The flaw in title remains, and reparation, no matter how dilatory, must be made. Again, you scorn the Redemptionists; as for me, I rejoice that the Redemptionists are sufficiently idealistic and sufficiently motivated that they have urged this sometimes sluggish Mull to decisive action.”

Gerd Jemasze responded in a cold voice. “Your ideas might carry more weight were you not hypocrites and persons with an infinite capacity for—”

“‘Hypocrites’?” flared Adelys Lam. “Dm. Jemasze, I am astounded by your use of the word!”

Erris Sammatzen said reproachfully: “I had hoped our discussions might proceed without fulmination, threats or invective. I am sorry to see that Dm. Jemasze has become intemperate.”

“Let him call us names,” Adelys Lam cried angrily. “Our consciences are clear, which is more than he can say for his own.”

Jemasze listened imperturbably. “My remarks were not invective,” he said. “I refer to demonstrable fact. You legislate against our imaginary crimes, and meanwhile you tolerate in Szintarre and across the Retent an offense proscribed everywhere in the Gaean Reach: slavery. In fact, I suspect that at least several of you are slave-keepers.”

Sammatzen pursed his lips. “You refer to the erjins, no doubt. The facts of the matter are unclear.”

Adelys Lam declared: “The erjins are not intelligent beings, by the legal definition of the term or by any other. They are clever animals, no more.”

“We can demonstrate the opposite, beyond any argument,” said Gerd Jemasze. “Before you reproach us for abstract transgressions, you should abate your own very real offenses.”

Erris Sammatzen said uncomfortably: “You make a cogent point; I can’t argue with you. However, I doubt that you can make so positive a demonstration.”

Adelys Lam protested. “Surely we are being diverted from our principal task?”

“Our schedule is flexible,” said Sammatzen. “I’m willing to clarify this other matter.”

Another Mull member, the crusty Thaddios Tarr, said: “We can’t avoid doing so and retain our credibility as an impartial administrative body.”

Gerd Jemasze rose to his feet. “I think we’ll be able to surprise you.”

Erris Sammatzen cautiously asked: “How?”

“Uther Madduc called it his ‘wonderful joke’. But I doubt if you’ll laugh.”

Schaine, listening from the side of the Great Hall, said to Elvo Glissam: “I don’t understand why anyone should laugh. Do you understand this ‘wonderful joke’?”

Elvo shook his head. “It escapes me completely.”

The members of the Mull boarded the black-and-silver Ellux saloon. Gerd Jemasze went to the controls and took the craft aloft. Behind came a convoy of ten well-armed sky-cars. Gerd Jemasze set a course to the northwest, across the most beautiful region of Morningswake: a land of magnificent vistas and far perspectives.

The scarp which delineated the Palga loomed in the distance; the Volwodes rose into the sky; the land became bleak and broken. At the bottom of a wide valley flowed a glistening river: the Mellorus. Jemasze altered course and descended into the valley, to fly only a hundred yards above the river.

The valley walls grew steep and high and obscured part of the sky; a few moments later they passed over cultivated plots and irrigated orchards which Jemasze recognized. He slowed the Ellux until it barely drifted up the gorge, then turned to the members of the Mull. “What I’m about to show you has been seen by very few men indeed. Most of these have been Wind-runners—because we’re close on the station where erjins are bred, trained and marshalled for export. There is definitely an element of danger in this demonstration, but when I am done you will agree that I am justified in bringing you here. In any case our assembled firepower provides protection, and the hull of this Ellux should be tough enough to turn back bullets from the Palga long-rifles.”

“I hope,” said Julias Metheyr, “that you intend to show us something more than erjins marching in formation or learning to put on their trousers.”

Adelys Lam said crossly: “I personally don’t care to be killed or even wounded for your personal gratification.”

Gerd Jemasze made no response. He set the Ellux saloon down in front of the rose-quartz and gold shrine. He activated doors and descensor; the Mull trooped out upon the pink marble floor.

“What is it?” asked Julias Metheyr in awe.

“It appears to be a temple or historical monument constructed long before the first men arrived on Koryphon. The detail chronicles an erjin civilization.”

“‘Civilization’?” asked Adelys Lam.

“You can decide for yourself. Erjins are depicted riding in what appear to be spaceships. You’ll see them fighting morphotes, who also use weapons and other adjuncts of a technical society; so the morphotes also have contrived a civilization in their time. Finally, the erjins record a war with men.”

Erris Sammatzen strode forward to examine the seven-tiered fane; the others followed, muttering in amazement as they studied the intricate carving. One by one the escort sky-craft dropped down into the gorge and landed, and the occupants came forth to marvel at the shrine in company with the others.

Erris Sammatzen approached Jemasze. “And this is Uther Madduc’s ‘wonderful joke’?”

“So I believe.”

“But what’s funny?”

“The magnificent ability of the human race to delude itself.”

“That’s bathos, not humor,” said Sammatzen shortly. “The joke, at least, is a hoax.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Jemasze.

Sammatzen ignored him. “The Wind-runner training station is nearby?”

“About half a mile up the gorge.”

“Is there any reason why we should not go there now, and put a stop to the traffic?”

Jemasze shrugged. “I couldn’t guarantee your safety. But I believe that we mount enough firepower to protect ourselves if the need arose.”

“What do you know concerning this operation?”

“No more than you. I saw it for the first time a week or so ago.”

Sammatzen rubbed his chin. “It occurs to me that the tribes of the Retent will resent the loss of their mounts. What is your opinion on this?”

Jemasze grinned. “They can buy criptids from the domains.”

Erris Sammatzen went to confer with the other members of the Mull; they argued ten minutes, then Sammatzen approached Jemasze. “We want to examine the training station if it can be accomplished safely.”

“We’ll do our best.”

The compound and the long buildings were as Jemasze remembered them, and even more somnolent than before. A pair of Wind-runners squatted beside one of the walls. At the sight of the descending sky-craft, they slowly rose to their feet and stood in postures of uncertainty, debating whether or not to take to their heels.