by Jack Vance
No. Allow no words to district you; permit no suggestion; bend down
Dominion’s own resolution. His vocal chords were like rust wire, his voice was a croak.
“My certainty is stronger than yours because”—as he said the words the knife halted its sinister motion toward his throat—“time has no effect upon telekinesis! Because I’ve got the will of all humanity behind me, and you’ve got only yourself!”
The knife trembled, twisted, as if it were a live thing, tortured by indecision.
“I’m stronger than you are, because.. .I’ve got to be!” He sank the words into Dominion’s mind.
Dominion said quickly, “Your neck hurts, your mind hurts, you cannot see.”
Shorn’s neck hurt indeed, his head ached, sweat stung his eyes, and the knife made a sudden lurch toward him. this can’t go on, thought Shorn. I don t need tricks, Dominion; you need them only because your confidence is going and you’re desperate.” He took a deep breath, reached out, seized the knife, plunged it into Dominion’s breast.
Shorn stood looking down at the body. “I won—and by a trick. He was so obsessed by the need for defeating me mentally that he forgot the knife had a handle.”
Panting, he looked out over the stadium. Events had come to a halt. The spectators restively waited for word from the program director.
Shorn picked up the microphone.
“Men and women of the future...” as he spoke he watched the little huddle of 265. He saw Laurie stir, look up; he saw Circumbright turn, clap Thursby’s knee. He felt the wave of thankfulness, of hero-worship, almost insane in its fervor that welled up from their minds. At that moment he could have commanded any of them to their death.
An intoxicated elation came to him; he fought to control his voice. “This is an event improvised to thank Lemand De Troller, our program director, for his work in arranging the events. All of us will join our telekinetic powers together; we will act as one mind. I will guide this little white ball”—he lifted a small ball used in the obstacle race—“through the words ‘thank you, Lemand De Troller.’ You, with your united wills, will follow with the large bumpball.” He rolled it out into the center of the stadium. “With more preparation we would have achieved something more elaborate, but I know Lemand will be just as pleased if he feels all of us are concentrating on the big ball, putting our hearts into the thanks. So—now. Follow the little white ball.”
Slowly he guided the white ball along imaginary block letters in the air; faithfully, the big bumpball followed.
It was finished.
Shorn looked anxiously toward Circumbright. No signal.
Once again.
“Now—there is one other whom we owe a vote of thanks: Adlari Dominion, the capable liaison officer. This time we will spell out, Thank you and good luck, Adlari Dominion.’ ’’
The white ball moved. The big ball followed. Four thousand minds impelled, 265 minds sough to merge into the pattern: each a new Prometheus trying to steal a secret more precious than fire from a race more potent than the Titans.
Shorn finished the last N, glanced toward Circumbright. Still no signal. Anxiety beset him; was this the right indoctrination technique? Suppose it was effective only under special conditions, suppose he had been operating on a misapprehension the entire time?
“Well,” said Shorn doggedly, “once again.” But the spectators would be growing restless. Who to thank this time?
The ball was moving on its own volition. Shorn, fascinated, followed its path. It was spelling a word.
W-I-L-L—then a space—S-H-O-R-N—another space—T-H-A- N-K-S.
Shorn sank back into the elastic seat, his eyes brimming with tears of release and thankfulness. “Someone is thanking Will Shorn,” he said into the microphone. “It’s time for them to leave.” He paused. And 265 new telekinetics lifted themselves from the stadium, flew west toward Tran, disappeared into the afternoon.
Shorn returned to the microphone. “There’re a few more words I want to say; please be patient a moment or two longer.
“You have just been witnesses—unwitting witnesses-—to an event as important as Jofffey’s original congress. The future will consider the sixty- year interval only a transition, humanity’s final separation from the beast.
“We have completely subdued the material world; we know the law governing all the phenomena that our senses can detect. Now we turn ourselves into a new direction; humanity enters a new stage, and wonderful things lie before us.” He noticed a ripple of uneasiness running along the ranks of the Teleks. “This new world is on us, we can’t evade it. For six years the Teleks have rejoiced in a state of special privilege, and this is the last shackle humanity throws off: the idea that one man may dominate or control another man.”
He paused; the uneasiness was ever more marked.
“There are trying times to come—a period of severe readjustment. At the moment you are not quite certain to what I am referring, and that is just as well. Thank you for your attention and good-bye. I hope you enjoyed the program as much as I did.”
He rose to his feet, stepped over Dominion’s body, slid back the door, stepped out of the cupola.
Teleks leaving the stadium rose up past him like May flies, some turning him curious glances as they flew. Shorn, smiling, watched them
flit past, toward their glittering pavilions, their cloud-castles, their sea- bubbles. The last one was gone; he waved an arm after them as if in valediction.
Then he himself rose, plunged westward toward the towers of Tran, where 265 men and women were already starting to spread telekinesis through all of mankind.
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?” ( hamster: Contraction of bandmaster—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 touchl ”
“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 1 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.”
“There’s been a death in the family,” explained Ullward. “The owner’s four-great-grandfather passed on and the space is temporarily surplus.”
Ted nodded. “I hope you’re able to get it.”
“I hope so too. I’ve got rather flamboyant ambitions—eventually I hope to own the entire quarterblock—but it takes time. People don’t like to sell their space and everyone is anxious to buy.”
“Not we,” said Ravelin cheerfully. “We have our little home. We’re snug and cozy and we’re putting money aside for investment.”
“Wise,” agreed Ullward. “A great many people are space-poor. Then when a chance to make real money comes up, they’re undercapitalized. Until I scored with the digestive pastilles, I lived in a single rented locker. I was cramped—but I don’t regret it today.”
They returned through the glade toward Ullward’s house, stopping at the oak tree. “This is my special pride,” said Ullward. “A genuine oak tree!”
“Genuine?” asked Ted in astonishment. “I assumed it was simulation.”
“So many people do,” said Ullward. “No, it’s genuine.”
“Take a picture of the tree, Iugenae, please. But don’t touch it. You might damage the bark.”
“Perfectly all right to touch the bark,” assured Ullward.
He looked up into the branches, then scanned the ground. He stooped, picked up a fallen leaf. “This grew on the tree,” he said. “Now, Iugenae, I want you to come with me.” He went to the rock garden, pulled a simulated rock aside, to reveal a cabinet with washbasin. “Watch carefully.” He showed her the leaf. “Notice? It’s dry and brittle and brown.”
Jack Vance
163
“Yes, Lamster Ullward.” Iugenae craned her neck.
“First I dip it in this solution.” He took a beaker full of dark liquid from a shelf. “So. That restores the green color. We wash off the excess, then dry it. Now we rub this next fluid carefully into the surface. Notice, it’s flexible and strong now. One more solution—a plastic coating—and there we are, a true oak leaf, perfectly genuine. It’s yours.”
“Oh, Lamster Ullward! Thank you ever so much!” She ran off to show her father and mother, who were standing by the pool, luxuriating in the feeling of space, watching the frogs. “See what Lamster Ullward gave me!”
“You be very careful with it,” said Ravelin. “When we get home, we’ll find a nice little frame and you can hang it in your locker.”
The simulated sun hung in the western sky. Ullward led the group to a sundial. “An antique, countless years old. Pure marble, carved by hand. It works too—entirely functional. Notice. Three-fifteen by the shadow on the dial...” He peered at his beltwatch, squinted at the sun. “Excuse me one moment.” He ran to the control board, made an adjustment. T
he sun lurched ten degrees across the sky. Ullward returned, checked the sundial. “That’s better. Notice. Three-fifty by the sundial, three-fifty by my watch. Isn’t that something now?”
“It’s wonderful,” said Ravelin earnestly.
“It’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen,” chirped Iugenae. Ravelin looked around the ranch, sighed wistfully. “We hate to leave, but I think we must be returning home.”
“It’s been a wonderful day, Lamster Ullward,” said Ted. “A wonderful lunch, and we enjoyed seeing your ranch.”
“You’ll have to come out again,” invited Ullward. “I always enjoy company.”
He led them into the dining room, through the living room-bedroom to the door. The Seehoe family took a last look across the spacious interior, pulled on their mantles, stepped into their run-shoes, made their farewells. Ullward slid back the door. The Seehoes looked out, waited till a gap appeared in the traffic. They waved good-bye, pulled the hoods over their heads, stepped out into the corridor.
The run-shoes spun them toward their home, selecting the appropriate turnings, sliding automatically into the correct lift and drop-pits. Deflection fields twisted them through the throngs. Like the Seehoes, everyone wore mantle and hood of filmy reflective stuff to safeguard privacy. The illusion-pane along the ceiling of the corridor presented a view of towers dwindling up into a cheerful blue sky, as if the pedestrian were moving along one of the windy upper passages.
The Seehoes approached their home. Two hundred yards away, they angled over to the wall. If the flow of traffic carried them past, they would be forced to circle the block and make another attempt to enter. Their
door slid open as they spun near; they ducked into the opening, swinging around on a metal grab-bar.
They removed their mantles and run-shoes, sliding skillfully past each other. Iugenae pivoted into the bathroom and there was room for both Ted and Ravelin to sit down. The house was rather small for the three of them; they could well have used another twelve square feet, but rather than pay exorbitant rent, they preferred to save the money with an eye toward Iugenae’s future.
