The Best of Jack Vance (1976) SSC

by Jack Vance

  It was Lynch who made the discovery. He signaled it with an odd growl of sheer dismay, which brought a resonant questioning sound from Sutton. “My God, my God,” muttered Lynch.

  Verona was at his side. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Look. This gear. When we replaced the disks we de-phased the whole apparatus one notch. This white dot and this other white dot should synchronize. They’re one sprocket apart. All the results would check and be consistent because they’d all be off by the same factor.”

  Verona sprang into action. Off came the housing, off came various components. Gently he lifted the gear, set it back into correct alignment. The other cadets leaned over him as he worked, except Culpepper, who was chief of the watch.

  Henry Belt appeared. “You gentlemen are certainly diligent in your navigation,” he said presently. “Perfectionists almost.”

  “We do our best," grated Lynch between set teeth. “It’s a damn shame sending us out with a machine like this.”

  The red book appeared. “Mr. Lynch, I mark you down not for your private sentiments, which are of course yours to entertain, but for voicing them and thereby contributing to an unhealthy atmosphere of despairing and hysterical pessimism.”

  A tide of red crept from Lynch’s neck. He bent over the computer, made no comment. But Sutton suddenly cried out, “What else do you expect from us? We came out here to learn, not to suffer, or to fly on forever!” He gave a ghastly laugh. Henry Belt listened patiently. “Think of it!” cried Sutton. “The seven of us. In this capsule, forever!”

  “I am afraid that I must charge yop two demerits for your outburst, Mr. Sutton. A good spaceman maintains his dignity at all costs.”

  Lynch looked up from the computer. “Well, now we’ve got a corrected reading. Do you know what it says?”

  Henry Belt turned him a look of polite inquiry.

  “We’re going to miss,” said Lynch. “We’re going to pass by just as we passed Mars. Jupiter is pulling us around and sending us out toward Gemini.”

  The silence was thick in the room. Henry Belt turned to look at Culpepper, who was standing by the porthole, photographing Jupiter with his personal camera.

  “Mr. Culpepper?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You seem unconcerned by the prospect which Mr. Sutton has set forth.”

  “I hope it’s not imminent.”

  “How do you propose to avoid it?”

  “I imagine that we will radio for help, sir.”

  “You forget that I have destroyed the radio.”

  “I remember noting a crate marked ‘Radio Parts’ stored in the starboard jet-pod.”

  “I am sorry to disillusion you, Mr, Culpepper. That case is mislabeled.”

  Ostrander jumped to his feet, left the wardroom. There was the sound of moving crates. A moment of silence. Then he returned. He glared at Henry Belt. “Whiskey, bottles of whiskey.”

  Henry Belt nodded. “I told you as much.”

  “But now we have no radio,” said Lynch in an ugly voice. “We never have had a radio, Mr. Lynch. You were warned that you would have to depend on your own resources to bring us home. You have failed, and in the process doomed me as well as yourself. Incidentally, I must mark you all down ten demerits for a faulty cargo check.”

  “Demerits,” said Ostrander in a bleak voice.

  “Now, Mr. Culpepper,” said Henry Belt. “What is your next proposal?”

  “I don’t know, sir:”

  Verona spoke in a placatory voice. “What would you do, sir, if you were in our position?”

  Henry Belt shook his head. “I am an imaginative man, Mr. Verona, but there are certain leaps of the mind which are beyond my powers.” He returned to his compartment.

  Von Gluck looked curiously at Culpepper. “It is a fact. You’re not at all concerned.”

  “Oh, T’m concerned. But I believe that Mr. Belt wants to get home too. He’s too good a spaceman not to know exactly what he’s doing.”

  The door from Henry Belt’s compartment slid back. Henry Belt stood in the opening. “Mr. Culpepper, 1 chanced to overhear your remark, and I now note down ten demerits against you. This attitude expresses a complacence as dangerous as Mr. Sutton’s utter funk.” He looked about the room. “Pay no heed to Mr. Culpepper. He is wrong. Even if 1 could repair this disaster, I would not raise a hand. For I expect to die in space.”

  7

  The sail was canted vectorless, edgewise to the sun. Jupiter was a smudge astern. There were five cadets in the wardroom. Culpepper, Verona, and von Gluck sat talking in low voices. Ostrander and Lynch lay crouched, arms to knees, faces to the wall. Sutton had gone two days before. Quietly donning his spacesuit he had stepped into the exit chamber and thrust himself headlong into space. A propulsion unit gave him added speed, and before any of the cadets could intervene he was gone.

  Shortly thereafter Lynch and Ostrander succumbed to inanition, a kind of despondent helplessness: manic-depression in its most stupefying phase. Culpepper the suave, Verona the pragmatic and von Gluck the sensitive remained.

  They spoke quietly to themselves, out of earshot of Henry Belt’s room. “I still believe,” said Culpepper, “that somehow there is a means to get ourselves out of this mess, and that Henry Belt knows it.”

  Verona said, “I wish I could think so. . . . We’ve been over it a hundred times. If we set sail for Saturn or Neptune or Uranus, the outward vector of thrust plus the outward vector of our momentum will take us far beyond Pluto before we’re anywhere near a trajectory of control. The plasma jets could stop us if we had enough energy, but the shield can’t supply it and we don’t have another power source. . . .”

  Von Gluck hit his fist into his hand. “Gentlemen,” he said in a soft, delighted voice. “I believe we have sufficient energy at hand. We will use the sail. Remember? It is bellied. Tt can function as a mirror. It spreads five square miles of surface. Sunlight out here is thin—but so long as we collect enough of it—”

  “I understand!” said Culpepper. “We back off the hull till the reactor is at the focus of the sail and turn on the jets!” Verona said dubiously, “We’ll still be receiving radiation pressure. And what’s worse, the jets will impinge back on the sail. Effect—cancellation. We’ll be nowhere.”

  “If we cut the center out of the sail—just enough to allow the plasma through—we’d beat that objection. As for the radiation pressure—we’ll surely do better with the plasma drive.”

  “What do we use to make plasma? We don’t have the stock.”

  "Anything that can be ionized. The radio, the computer, your shoes, my shirt, Culpepper’s camera, Henry Belt’s whiskey. . .

  8

  The angel-wagon came up to meet Sail 25, in orbit beside Sail 40, which was just making ready to take out a new crew.

  The cargo carrier drifted near, eased into position. Three men sprang across space to Sail 40, a few hundred yards behind 25, tossed lines back to the carrier, pulled bales of cargo and equipment across the gap.

  The five cadets and Henry Belt, clad in spacesuits, stepped out into the sunlight. Earth spread below, green and blue, white and brown, the contours so precious and dear to bring tears to the eyes. The cadets transferring cargo to Sail 40 gazed at them curiously as they worked. At last they were finished, and the six men of Sail 25 boarded the carrier.

  “Back safe and sound, eh Henry?” said the pilot. “Well, I’m always surprised.”

  Henry Belt made no answer. The cadets stowed their cargo, and standing by the port, took a final look at Sail 25. The carrier retro-jetted; the two sails seemed to rise above them.

  The lighter nosed in and out of the atmosphere, braked, extended its wings, glided to an easy landing on the Mojave Desert.

  The cadets, their legs suddenly loose and weak to the unaccustomed gravity, limped after Henry Belt to the carry-all, seated themselves and were conveyed to the administration

  complex. They alighted from the carry-all, and now Henry Belt
motioned the five to the side.

  “Here, gentlemen, is where I leave you. Tonight I will check my red book and prepare my official report. But I believe I can present you an unofficial resume of my impressions. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Ostrander, I feel that you are ill suited either for command or for any situation which might inflict prolonged emotional pressure upon you. 1 cannot recommend you for space-duty.

  “Mr. von Gluck, Mr. Culpepper and Mr. Verona, all of you meet my minimum requirements for a recommendation, although 1 shall write the words ‘Especially Recommended’ only beside the names Clyde von Gluck and Marcus Verona. You brought the sail back to Earth by essentially faultless navigation.

  “So now our association ends. I trust you have profited by it.” Henry Belt nodded briefly to each of the five and limped off around the building.

  The cadets looked after him. Culpepper reached in his pocket and brought forth a pair of small metal objects which he displayed in his palm. “Recognize these?”

  “Hmf,” said Lynch in a flat voice. “Bearings for the computer disks. The original ones.”

  “I found them in the little spare parts tray. They weren’t there before.”

  to

  Von Gluck nodded. "The machinery always seemed to fail immediately after sail check, as I recall.”

  Lynch drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. He turned, strode away. Ostrander followed him. Culpepper shrugged. To Verona he gave one of the bearings, to von Gluck the other. “For souvenirs—or medals. You fellows deserve them.”

  “Thanks, Ed,” said von Gluck.

  “Thanks,” muttered Verona. “I’ll make a stickpin of this thing.”

  The three, not able to look at each other, glanced up into the sky where the first stars of twilight were appearing, then continued on into the building where family and friends and sweethearts awaited them.

  This story is one of my favorites. Having said so much, I suppose that I am obliged to respond to the question: why?

  To extol one’s own work is sheer recklessness; on the other hand unabashed candor is refreshing and perhaps a virtue; therefore I will venture one or two comments in regard to “Ullward’s Retreat.”

  I consider the story well constructed from a technical standpoint, and I feel that in spite of its overt frivolity, the story makes a number of profound statements upon the human condition. There are no villains in this piece, and no heroes; we are confronted only with human captiousness and human vanity.

  ULLWARD’S RETREAT

  Bruham Ullward had invited three friends to lunch at his ranch: Ted and Ravelin Seehoe, and their adolescent daughter, Iugenae. After an eye-bulging feast, Ullward offered around a tray of the digestive pastilles which had won him his wealth.

  “A wonderful meal,” said Ted Seehoe reverently. “Too much, really. I’ll need one of these. The algae was absolutely marvelous.”

  Ullward made a smiling, easy gesture. “It’s the genuine stuff.” Ravelin Seehoe, a fresh-faced, rather positive young woman of eighty or ninety, reached for a pastille. “A shame there’s not more of it. The synthetic we get is hardly recognizable as algae.”

  “It’s a problem,” Ullward admitted. “I clubbed up with some friends; we bought a little mat in the Ross Sea and grow all of our own.”

  “Think of that,” exclaimed Ravelin. “Isn’t it frightfully expensive?” Ullward pursed his lips whimsically. “The good things in life come high. Luckily, I’m able to afford a bit extra.”

  “What I keep telling Ted—” began Ravelin, then stopped as Ted turned her a keen warning glance.

  Ullward bridged the rift. “Money isn’t everything. I have a flat of algae, my ranch; you have your daughter—and I’m sure you wouldn’t trade.”

  Ted patted Iugenae’s hand. “When do you have your own child, Lamster Ullward?” (Lamster: Contraction of Landmaster—the polite form of address in current use.) “Still some time yet. I’m thirty-seven billion down the list.”

  “A pity,” said Ravelin Seehoe brightly, “when you could give a child so many advantages.”

  “Some day, some day, before I’m too old.”

  “A shame,” said Ravelin, “but it has to be. Another fifty billion people and we’d have no privacy whatever!” She looked admiringly around the room, which was used for the sole purpose of preparing food and dining.

  Ullward put his hands on the arms of the chair, hitched forward a little. “Perhaps you’d like to look around the ranch?” He spoke in a casual voice, glancing from one to the other.

  Iugenae clapped her hands; Revelin beamed. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble!”

  “Oh, we’d love to, Lamster Ullward!” cried Iugenae.

  “I’ve always wanted to see your ranch,” said Ted. “I’ve heard so much about it.”

  “It’s an opportunity for Iugenae I wouldn’t want her to miss,” said Ravelin. She shook her finger at Iugenae. “Remember, Miss Puss, notice everything very carefully—and don’t touch!”

  “May I take pictures, Mother?”

  “You’ll have to ask Lamster Ullward.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Ullward. “Why in the world not?” He rose to his feet—a man of more than middle stature, more than middle pudginess, with straight sandy hair, round blue eyes, a prominent beak of a nose. Almost three hundred years old, he guarded his health with great zeal, and looked little more than two hundred.

  He stepped to the door, checked the time, touched a dial on the wall. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, we’re quite ready,” said Ravelin.

  Ullward snapped back the wall, to reveal a view over a sylvan glade. A fine oak tree shaded a pond growing with rushes. A path led through a field toward a wooden valley a mile in the distance.

  “Magnificent,” said Ted. “Simply magnificent!”

  They stepped outdoors into the sunlight. Iugenae flung her arms out, twirled, danced in a circle. “Look! I’m all alone. I’m out here all by myself!”

  “Iugenae!” called Ravelin sharply. “Be careful! Stay on the path! That’s real grass and you mustn’t damage it.”

  Iugenae ran ahead to the pond. “Mother!” she called back. “Look at these funny little jumpy things! And look at the flowers!”

  “The animals are frogs,” said Ullward. “They have a very interesting life history. You see the little fishlike things in the water?”

  “Aren’t they funny! Mother, do come here!”

  “Those are called tadpoles and they will presently become frogs, indistinguishable from the ones you see.”

  Ravelin and Ted advanced with more dignity, but were as interested as Iugenae in the frogs.

  “Smell the fresh air,” Ted told Ravelin. “You’d think you were back in the early times.”

  “It’s absolutely exquisite,” said Ravelin. She looked around her. “One has the feeling of being able to wander on and on and on.”

  “Come around over here,” called Ullward from beyond the pool. “This is the rock garden.”

  In awe, the guests stared at the ledge of rock, stained with red and yellow lichen, tufted with green moss. Ferns grew from a crevice; there were several fragile clusters of white flowers.

  “Smell the flowers, if you wish,” Ullward told Iugenae. “But please don’t touch them; they stain rather easily.”

  Iugenae sniffed. “Mmmm!”

  “Are they real?” asked Ted.

  “The moss, yes. That clump of ferns and these little succulents are real. The flowers were designed for me by a horticulturist and are exact replicas of certain ancient species. We’ve actually improved on the odor.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” said Ted.

  “Now come this way—no, don’t look back; I want you to get the total effect…” An expression of vexation crossed his face.

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Ted.

  “It’s a damned nuisance,” said Ullward. “Hear that sound?”

  Ted became aware of a faint rolling rumble, deep and almost unheard. “Yes.
Sounds like some sort of factory.”

  “It is. On the floor below. A rug-works. One of the looms creates this terrible row. I’ve complained, but they pay no attention…Oh, well, ignore it. Now stand over here—and look around!”

  His friends gasped in rapture. The view from this angle was of a rustic bungalow in an Alpine valley, the door being the opening into Ullward’s dining room.

  “What an illusion of distance!” exclaimed Ravelin. “A person would almost think he was alone.”

  “A beautiful piece of work,” said Ted. “I’d swear I was looking into ten miles—at least five miles—of distance.”

  “I’ve got a lot of space here,” said Ullward proudly. “Almost three-quarters of an acre. Would you like to see it by moonlight?”

  “Oh, could we?”

  Ullward went to a concealed switch-panel; the sun seemed to race across the sky. A fervent glow of sunset lit the valley; the sky burned peacock blue, gold, green, then came twilight—and the rising full moon came up behind the hill.

  “This is absolutely marvelous,” said Ravelin softly. “How can you bring yourself to leave it?”

  “It’s hard,” admitted Ullward. “But I’ve got to look after business too. More money, more space.”

  He turned a knob; the moon floated across the sky, sank. Stars appeared, forming the age-old patterns. Ullward pointed out the constellations and the first-magnitude stars by name, using a penciltorch for a pointer. Then the sky flushed with lavender and lemon yellow and the sun appeared once more. Unseen ducts sent a current of cool air through the glade.

  “Right now I’m negotiating for an area behind this wall here.” He tapped at the depicted mountainside, an illusion given reality and three-dimensionality by laminations inside the pane. “It’s quite a large area—over a hundred square feet. The owner wants a fortune, naturally.”

  “I’m surprised he wants to sell,” said Ted. “A hundred square feet means real privacy.”