Emphyrio

by Jack Vance

  “Then why do we use so little water and power, and why do we walk so much? Is not the money paid regardless?”

  Amiante’s face took on a mulish cast, always the case when he spoke of vouchers paid to the lords. “Meters are everywhere. Meters measure everything except the air you breathe. Even the sewage is metered. The Welfare Agency then withholds from each recipient, on a pro-rated basis of use, enough to pay the lords, together with enough to pay themselves and all other functionaries. Little enough is left for the recipients.”

  Ghyl nodded dubiously. “How did the lords first come into possession of the utilities?”

  “It happened perhaps fifteen hundred years ago. There were wars—with Bauredel, with the Mang Islands, with Lankenburg. Before were the Star Wars and before this the Dreadful War, and before this: wars without number. The last war, with Emperor Riskanie and the White-Eyed Men, resulted in the destruction of the city. Ambroy was devastated; the towers were destroyed; the folk lived like savages. The lords arrived in space-ships and set all in order. They generated power, started the water, built transit tubes, reopened the sewers, organized imports and exports. For this they asked and were conceded one percent. When they rebuilt the space-port they were conceded an additional eighteen hundredths percent, and so it has remained.”

  “And when did we learn that duping was illegal and wrong?”

  Amiante pursed his delicate mouth. “The strictures were first applied about a thousand years ago, when our crafts began earning a reputation.”

  “And all during past history men have duped?” asked Ghyl in a voice of awe.

  “As much as they saw fit.” Amiante rose to his feet and went down to the workroom to carve on his screen. Ghyl took his dishes to the sink and as he washed he contemplated the bizarre old times when men worked without reference to welfare regulation. When all was tidy, he also went down to his bench and for a period worked on his own screen. Then he went to watch Amiante, who burnished surfaces already glistening, cleared burrs from grooves smooth beyond cavil. Ghyl tried to resume the conversation, but Amiante had no more to say. Ghyl presently bade him goodnight and climbed up to the third floor. He went to the window, looked out across Undle Square, thinking of the men who had passed along these ancient streets, marching to triumphs and defeats now forgotten. Above hung Damar, mottled blue, pink and yellow, casting a nacreous sheen on all the old buildings.

  Into the street directly below shone light from the workroom. Amiante worked late—an unusual occurrence, Amiante preferring to use the light of day in order to deprive the lords. Other houses around the square, following a similar philosophy, were dark.

  As Ghyl was about to turn away, the light from the workroom flickered and became obscured. Ghyl looked down in puzzlement. He did not consider his father a secretive man: merely a person vague and given to fits of brooding. Why, therefore, would Amiante pull the blinds? Would there be a connection between the uncharacteristic secrecy and the parcels Amiante had brought home that afternoon?

  Ghyl went to sit on his couch. Welfare regulations put no explicit ban upon private or secret activity, so long as there was no violation of social policy, which meant, in effect, prior clearance with a welfare official.

  Ghyl sat stiffly, hands by his side clutching the coverlets. He did not want to intrude or discover something to embarrass both himself and his father. But still…Ghyl reluctantly rose to his feet. He walked quietly downstairs, trying simultaneously to avoid furtiveness and noise; to go down unnoticed but without the uncomfortable feeling of being a sneak.

  The cooking and living quarters smelled warm of porridge, with also a sharp tang of seaweed. Ghyl went across to the square of yellow light barred by balusters which marked the staircase…The light went off. Ghyl froze in his tracks. Was Amiante preparing to come upstairs?…But there were no footsteps. Amiante remained in the dark workroom.

  But not quite dark. There came a sudden flash of blue-white light, which persisted a second or so. Then, a moment later, came a dim flickering glow. Frightened now, Ghyl stole to the staircase, looked down through the balusters and into the workroom.

  For several moments he stared in puzzlement, pulse thudding so loudly he wondered that Amiante did not hear. But Amiante was absorbed in his work. He adjusted a mechanism which apparently had been contrived for the occasion: a box of rough fibre two feet long, a foot high and a foot wide, with a tube protruding from one end. Now Amiante went to a basin, peered down at something in the liquid: an object which glimmered pale. He shook his head, clicked his tongue in patent dissatisfaction. He extinguished the lights, all save a candle, and uncovering a second basin dipped a sheet of stiff white paper into what appeared to be a viscous syrup. He tilted the paper this way and that, drained it carefully, then set it on a rack in front of the box. He pressed a switch; from the tube came an intense beam of blue-white light. On the sheet of wet paper appeared a bright image.

  The light vanished; Amiante swiftly took the sheet, laid it flat on the bench, covered it with a soft black powder, rubbed it carefully with a roller. Then lifting the paper he shook off the excess powder, dropped it into the basin. Then he turned on the lights, bent anxiously to examine the sheet. After a moment he nodded in satisfaction. He removed the first sheet, crumpled it, threw it aside. Then he returned to the table, repeated the entire process.

  Ghyl watched fascinated. Clear, all too clear. His father was violating the most basic of all welfare regulations.

  He was duplicating.

  Ghyl examined Amiante with terrified eyes, as if here were a stranger of unknown qualities. His conscientious father, the expert wood-carver, duping! The fact, while undeniable, was incredible! Ghyl wondered if he were awake or dreaming; the scene indeed had something of the grotesque quality of a dream.

  Amiante meanwhile had inserted a new item into his projection box and focused the image carefully on a blank sheet of paper. Ghyl recognized one of the fragments from Amiante’s collection of ancient writings.

  Amiante worked now with more assurance. He made two copies; and so he continued, duplicating the old papers in his portfolio.

  Presently Ghyl stole upstairs to his room, carefully restraining himself from speculation. The hour was too late. He did not want to think. But one dreadful apprehension remained: the light leaking through the shutters into the square. Suppose someone had observed the flickering, the peculiar fluctuations, and wondered as to the cause. Ghyl looked down from his window, and the light, going on, going off, then the blue flash, seemed inordinately suspicious. How could Amiante be so careless, so sublimely absent-minded, as not to wonder or worry about such matters?

  To Ghyl’s relief Amiante tired of his illicit occupation. Ghyl could hear him moving here and there around the workroom, stowing away his equipment.

  Amiante came slowly up the stairs. Ghyl feigned slumber. Amiante went to bed. Ghyl lay awake, and it seemed to him that Amiante likewise lay awake, thinking his strange thoughts…Ghyl finally drowsed off.

  In the morning Amiante was his usual self. As Ghyl ate his breakfast of porridge and fish-flakes, he pondered: Amiante had duped eight, or even ten, items of his collection on the previous evening. It seemed not unlikely that he would dupe the rest. He must be made aware that the lights were visible. In as artless a voice as he could manage Ghyl asked, “Were you fixing our lights last night?”

  Amiante looked at Ghyl with eyebrows first raised in puzzlement, then drooping almost comically in embarrassment. Amiante was perhaps the least expert dissembler alive. “Er—why do you ask that?”

  “I happened to look out the window and I saw the lights going on and off. You had pulled the blinds but the light leaked past into the street. I suppose you were repairing the lamp?”

  Amiante rubbed his face. “Something of the sort… Something of the sort indeed. Now then—do you go to the Temple today?”

  Ghyl had forgotten. “Yes. Although I don’t know the exercises.”

  “Well—do your best. Som
e folk have the knack, others don’t.”

  Ghyl spent a miserable morning at the Temple, hopping awkwardly through simple patterns, while children years younger than himself, but far more devout, sprang about the Elemental Pattern with agility and finesse, winning commendation from the Guide Leaper. To make matters worse, the Third Assistant Saltator visited the hall and saw Ghyl’s hops and sprawling jumps with astonishment; to such an extent that presently he threw his hands into the air and strode from the hall in disgust.

  When Ghyl returned home he found that Amiante had started a new screen. Instead of the usual arzack, he had brought forth a panel of costly ing as high as his eyes, wider than his outstretched arms. All afternoon he worked transferring his cartoon to the panel. It was a striking design, but Ghyl could not help but feel a glum amusement at Amiante’s inconsistency: that he could counsel Ghyl to gayety, and then himself embark upon a work pervaded with melancholy. The cartoon indicated a lattice festooned with foliage, from which peered a hundred small grave faces, each different, yet somehow alike in the disturbing intensity of their gazes. Across the top were two words: REMEMBER ME, in a loose and graceful calligraphy.

  Amiante left off work on his new panel late in the afternoon. He yawned, stretched, rose to his feet, went to the door, looked out across the square, now busy with folk returning to their homes from work about the city: stevedores, boat-builders, mechanics; workers in wood, metal and stone; merchants and servicers; scriveners and clerks; food processors, slaughterers, fishermen; statisticians and welfare workers; house-girls, nurses, doctors and dentists—these latter all female.

  As if struck by a sudden thought, Amiante examined the blinds. He stood rubbing his chin, then turned a brief glance back to Ghyl, who pretended not to notice.

  Amiante went to the closet, brought forth a flask, poured two glasses of mild reed-blossom wine, put one by Ghyl’s elbow, sipped the other. Ghyl, glancing up, found it hard to reconcile this man, a trifle portly, calm of face, somewhat pale, somewhat inward-turned but wholly gentle, with the intent figure which had worked at irregulation the preceding night. If only it were a dream, a nightmare! The welfare agents, helpful and long-suffering, could become relentless when regulations were flouted. One day Ghyl had seen a wife-murderer being dragged away for rehabilitation, and the idea of Amiante being treated so caused him such terror that his stomach churned over.

  Amiante was discussing Ghyl’s screen: “—trifle more relief, here in this bark detail. The general idea is vitality, young folk romping in the country; why diminish the theme by over-delicacy?”

  “Yes,” muttered Ghyl. “I’ll carve somewhat deeper.”

  “I think I’d like less detail in the grass; it seems to rob the leaves…But this is your interpretation, and you must do as you think best.”

  Ghyl nodded numbly. He put down his chisel and drank the wine; he could carve no more today. Usually he was the one to initiate conversation, to talk while Amiante listened; but now the roles were reversed. Amiante was now considering their evening meal. “Last night we used seaweed; I thought it somewhat stale. What do you say to a salad of plinchets with perhaps a few nuts and a bit of cheese? Or would you prefer bread and cold meat? It shouldn’t be too dear.”

  Ghyl said he’d as soon eat bread and meat, and Amiante sent him off to the shopkeeper. Looking over his shoulder Ghyl saw with dismay that Amiante was inspecting the blinds, swinging them to and fro, open and shut.

  That night Amiante once more worked his duplicating machine, but he carefully muffled the blinds. Light no longer flickered out upon the square, to excite the wonder of some passing night agent.

  Ghyl went miserably to bed, thankful only that Amiante—since he seemed determined upon irregulation—at least was taking precautions against being caught in the act.

  Chapter VI

  In spite of Amiante’s precautions, his misconduct was discovered—not by Helfred Cobol who, knowing something of Amiante’s disposition, might have contented himself with unofficial outrage and a close watch upon Amiante thereafter, but unluckily by Ells Wolleg, the Guild Delegate, a fussy little man with a dyspeptic yellow owl’s-face. In making a routine check of Amiante’s tools and work conditions, he lifted a scrap of wood and there, where Amiante had carelessly laid them, were three faulty copies of an old chart. Wolleg bent forward frowning, his first emotion simple irritation that Amiante should untidily mingle charts with guild-sponsored work; then, as the fact of duplication became manifest, he emitted a comical fluting yell. Amiante, straightening tools and cleaning away scrap at the opposite end of the table, looked around with eye-brows twisted in sad dismay. Ghyl sat rigid.

  Wolleg turned upon Amiante, eyes glittering from behind spectacles. “Be so good as to Spay-line the Welfare Agency, at once.”

  Amiante shook his head. “I have no Spay connection.”

  Wolleg snapped his fingers toward Ghyl. “Run, boy, as fast as you can. Summon here the welfare agents.”

  Ghyl half-rose from his bench, then settled back. “No.”

  Ells Wolleg wasted no time arguing. He went to the door, looked around the square, marched to a public Spay terminal.

  As soon as Wolleg had departed the shop, Ghyl jumped to his feet. “Quick, let’s hide the other things!”

  Amiante stood torpidly, unable to act.

  “Quick!” hissed Ghyl. “He’ll be back at once!”

  “Where can I put them?” mumbled Amiante. “They’ll search everywhere.”

  Ghyl ran to the cabinet, pulled down Amiante’s equipment. Into the box he piled rubbish and scrap. The lens tube he filled with brads and clips and stood it among other such containers. The bulb which furnished the blue flash and the power block were more of a problem, which Ghyl solved by running with them to the back door and throwing them over the fence into a waste area.

  Amiante watched for a moment with a dull brooding gaze, then, struck by a thought, he ran upstairs. He returned seconds before Wolleg re-entered the shop.

  Wolleg spoke in stiff measured tones: “My concerns, strictly speaking, are only with guild by-laws and work standards. Nevertheless I am a public official and I have done my duty. I may add that I am shamed to find duplicated stuffs, undoubtedly of irregulationary origin, in the custody of a wood-carver.”

  “Yes,” mumbled Amiante. “It must come as a great blow.”

  Wolleg turned his attention to the duplicated papers, and gave a grunt of disgust. “How did these articles reach your hands?”

  Amiante smiled wanly. “As you guessed, from an irregulationary source.”

  Ghyl exhaled a small sigh. At least Amiante did not intend to blurt forth everything in a spasm of contemptuous candor.

  Three welfare agents arrived: Helfred Cobol and a pair of supervisors with keen and darting eyes. Wolleg explained the circumstances, displayed the duplicated papers. Helfred Cobol looked at Amiante with a sardonic shake of the head and a curl of the lips. The two other welfare agents made a brief search of the shop but found nothing more; it was clear that their suspicions did not range so far as the theory that Amiante himself had been duplicating.

  Presently the two supervisors departed with Amiante, in spite of Ghyl’s protests.

  Helfred Cobol drew him aside. “Mind your manners, boy. Your father must go to the office and respond to a questionnaire. If his charge is light—and I believe this to be the case—he will escape rehabilitation.”

  Ghyl had heard previous references to one’s charge being high or low, but had assumed the phrase to be a colloquialism or a figure of speech. Now he was not so sure. There were menacing overtones to the words. He felt too depressed to put any questions to Helfred Cobol, and went to sit at his bench.

  Helfred Cobol walked here and there around the room, picking up a tool, fingering a bit of wood, looking occasionally toward Ghyl, as if there were something he wished to say but found himself unable to verbalize. Finally he muttered something unintelligible and went to stand in the doorway, looking out upon the
square.

  Ghyl wondered what he was waiting for. Amiante’s return? This hope was dashed by the arrival of a tall gray-haired female agent, whose function apparently was to assume authority over the premises. Helfred Cobol gave her a curt nod and departed without further words.

  The woman spoke to Ghyl in a terse clear voice: “I am Matron Hantillebeck. Since you are a minor, I have been assigned to maintain the household until such time as a responsible adult returns. In short, you are in my charge. You need not necessarily vary from your normal routine; you may work, or practise devotionals, whichever is customary for you at this time.”

  Ghyl silently bent over his screen. Matron Hantillebeck locked the door, made an inspection of the house, turning on lights everywhere, sniffing at Amiante’s less-than-meticulous housekeeping. She came back to the workshop, leaving lights ablaze everywhere in the house, even though afternoon light still entered the windows.

  Ghyl essayed a timid protest. “If you don’t mind, I’ll turn out the lights. My father does not care to nourish the lords any more than necessary.”

  The remark irritated Matron Hantillebeck. “I do mind. The house is dark and disgustingly dirty. I wish to see where I am putting my feet. I do not care to step in something nasty.”

  Ghyl considered a moment, then offered tentatively: “There’s nothing nasty about, really. I know my father would be furious—and if I may turn off the lights, I’ll run ahead of you and turn them back on whenever you care to walk.”

  Matron Hantillebeck jerked about and fixed Ghyl with so ferocious a glare that Ghyl moved back a step. “Let the lights stay on! What care I for the penury of your father? The next thing to a Chaoticist, or so I reckon! Does he want to throttle Fortinone? Must we eat mud on his account?”

  “I don’t understand,” Ghyl faltered. “My father is a good man. He would hurt no one.”

  “Bah.” The matron swung away, made herself comfortable on a couch and began to crochet silk web. Ghyl slowly went to his screen. The matron took a rope of candied seaweed from her reticule, then a flask of soursnap beer and a slab of curdcake. Ghyl went up to the living quarters and thought no more of Matron Hantillebeck. He ate a plate of broad-beans, then in defiance of the matron, extinguished the lights throughout the upper stories and went to his couch. He had no knowledge of how the matron passed the night, for in the morning when he went below-stairs, she was gone.