Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One

by Jack Vance

  From the U.P. wire:

  Cabinda, Belgian Congo, August 20 (UP): The first contingent of trogs landed last night under shelter of dark, and marched to temporary quarters, under the command of specially trained group captains.

  Liaison officers state that the trogs are overjoyed at the prospect of a permanent home, and show an eagerness to get to work. According to present plans, they will till collective farms, and continuously clear the jungle for additional settlers.

  On the other side of the ledger, it is rumored that the native tribesmen are showing unrest. Agitators, said to be Communist-inspired, are preying on the superstitious fears of a people themselves not far removed from savagery…

  Headline in the New York Times, August 22:

  CONGO WARRIORS RUN AMOK AT CAMP HOPE

  KILL 800 TROG SETTLERS IN SINGLE HOUR

  Military Law Established

  Belgian Governor Protests

  Says Congo Unsuitable

  From the U.P. Wire:

  Trieste, August 23 (UP): Three shiploads of trogs bound for Trogland in the Congo today marked a record number of embarkations. The total number of trogs to sail from European ports now stands at 24,965…

  Cabinda, August 23 (UP): The warlike Matemba Confederation is practically in a state of revolt against further trog immigration, while Resident-General Bernard Cassou professes grave pessimism over eventualities.

  Mont Blanc, August 24 (UP): Ten trogs today took up experimental residence in a ski-hut to see how well trogs can cope with the rigors of cold weather.

  Announcement of this experiment goes to confirm a rumor that Denmark has offered Greenland to the trogs if it is found that they are able to survive Arctic conditions.

  Cabinda, August 28 (UP): The Congo, home of witch-doctors, tribal dances, cannibalism and Tarzan, seethes with native unrest. Sullen anger smolders in the villages, riots are frequent and dozens of native workmen at Camp Hope have been killed or hospitalized.

  Needless to say, the trogs, whose advent precipitated the crisis, are segregated far apart from contact with the natives, to avoid a repetition of the bloodbath of August 22…

  Cabinda, August 29 (UP): Resident-General Bernard Cassou today refused to allow debarkation of trogs from four ships standing off Cabinda roadstead.

  Mont Blanc, September 2 (UP): The veil of secrecy at the experimental trog home was lifted a significant crack this morning, when the bodies of two trogs were taken down to Chamonix via the ski-lift…

  From The Trog Story, September 10, by Harlan B. Temple:

  “It is one a.m.; I’ve just come down from Camp No. 4. The trog columns have dwindled to a straggle of old, crippled, diseased. The stench is frightful…But why go on? Frankly, I’m heartsick. I wish I had never taken on this assignment. It’s doing something terrible to my soul; my hair is literally turning gray. I pause a moment, the noise of my typewriter stops, I listen to the vast murmur through the Kreuzertal; despondency, futility, despair come at me in a wave. Most of us here at Trog City, I think, feel the same.

  “There are now five or six million trogs in the camp; no one knows the exact count; no one even cares. The situation has passed that point. The flow has dwindled, one merciful dispensation—in fact, at Camp No. 4 you can hear the rumble of the lava rising into the trog caverns.

  “Morale is going from bad to worse here at Trog City. Every day a dozen of the unpaid volunteers throw up their hands, and go home. I can’t say as I blame them. Lord knows they’ve given the best they have, and no one backs them up. Everywhere in the world it’s the same story, with everyone pointing at someone else. It’s enough to make a man sick. In fact it has. I’m sick—desperately sick.

  “But you don’t read The Trog Story to hear me gripe. You want factual reporting. Very well, here it is. Big news today was that movement of trogs out of the camp to Trieste has been held up pending clarification of the Congo situation. Otherwise, everything’s the same here—hunger, smell, careless trogs dying of sunburn…”

  Headline in the New York Times, September 20:

  TROG QUOTA PROBLEM RETURNED TO

  STUDY GROUP FOR ADJUSTMENT

  From the U.P. Wire:

  Cabinda, September 25 (UP): Eight ships, loaded with 9,462 trog refugees, still wait at anchor, as native chieftains reiterated their opposition to trog immigration…

  Trog City, October 8 (UP): The trog migration is at its end. Yesterday for the first time no new trogs came up from below, leaving the estimated population of Trog City at six million.

  New York, October 13 (UP): Deadlock still grips the Trog Resettlement Committee, with the original positions, for the most part, unchanged. Densely populated countries claim they have no room and no jobs; the underdeveloped states insist that they have not enough money to feed their own mouths. The U.S., with both room and money, already has serious minority headaches and doesn’t want new ones…

  Chamonix, France, October 18 (UP): The Trog Experimental Station closed its doors yesterday, with one survivor of the original ten trogs riding the ski-lift back down the slopes of Mont Blanc.

  Dr. Sven Emeldson, director of the station, released the following statement: “Our work proves that the trogs, even if provided shelter adequate for a European, cannot stand the rigors of the North; they seem especially sensitive to pulmonary ailments…”

  New York, October 26 (UP): After weeks of acrimony, a revised set of trog immigration quotas was released for action by the U.N. Assembly. Typical figures are: USA 31%, USSR 16%, Canada 8%, Australia 8%, France 6%, Mexico 6%.

  New York, October 30 (UP): The USSR adamantly rejects the principle of U.N. checking of the trog resettlement areas inside the USSR…

  New York, October 31 (UP): Senator Bullrod of Mississippi today promised to talk till his “lungs came out at the elbows” before he would allow the Trog Resettlement Bill to come to a vote before the Senate. An informal check revealed insufficient strength to impose cloture…

  St. Arlberg, Austria, November 5 (UP): First snow of the season fell last night…

  Trog City, November 10 (UP): Last night, frost lay a sparkling sheath across the valley…

  Trog City, November 15 (UP): Trog sufferers from influenza have been isolated in a special section…

  Buenos Aires, November 23 (UP): Dictator Peron today flatly refused to meet the Argentine quota of relief supplies to Trog City until some definite commitment has been made by the U.N.…

  Trog City, December 2 (UP): Influenza following the snow and rain of the last week has made a new onslaught on the trogs; camp authorities are desperately trying to cope with the epidemic…

  Trog City, December 8 (UP): Two crematoriums, fired by fuel oil, are roaring full time in an effort to keep ahead of the mounting influenza casualties…

  From The Trog Story, December 13, by Harlan B. Temple:

  “This is it…”

  From the U.P. Wire:

  Los Angeles, December 14 (UP): The Christmas buying rush got under way early this year, in spite of unseasonably bad weather…

  Trog City, December 15 (UP): A desperate appeal for penicillin, sulfa, blankets, kerosene heaters, and trained personnel was sounded today by Camp Commandant Howard Kerkovits. He admitted that disease among the trogs was completely out of control, beyond all human power to cope with…

  From The Trog Story, December 23, by Harlan B. Temple:

  “I don’t know why I should be sitting here writing this, because—since there are no more trogs—there is no more trog story.”

  Afterword to “DP!”

  Neither Norma nor I wished to explore the continent of Europe on two wheels, so we sold our bicycles, boarded a train, and departed England. We bypassed France and rode directly into Austria and debarked at Innsbruck. At this point we were ready to settle down for a time and produce some profitable words. This would establish the program we would subsequently follow in many future excursions. We would find some romantic spot, rent a house or apartment, and there work some
times as long as two or three months turning out a novel or set of stories.

  At Innsbruck, taking local advice, we boarded a strange little trolley which reminded us of the Toonerville Trolley, and rode fifteen miles south into the Alps to a picturesque mountain village, Fulpmes. There was nothing much here except the Hotel Lutz, a shop or two, and a few houses built in the traditional Tyrolean style of bare evergreen boards, so that the village smelled of fresh pine and fir. We adopted en pension accommodations at the Lutz and were accorded a room on the second floor with a balcony. I remember this balcony well; it became my habit to sit in the sunlight on it while I wrote. One day a bee stung me.

  We remained at Fulpmes a month or so while I completed several novelettes and started Vandals of the Void, a boys’ book commissioned by Winston Publishing.

  —Jack Vance

  Shape-Up

  Jarvis came down Riverview Way from the direction of the terminal warehouse, where he had passed an uncomfortable night. At the corner of Sion Novack Way he plugged his next-to-last copper into the Pegasus Square Farm and Mining Bulletin dispenser; taking the pink tissue envelope, he picked his way through the muck of the street to the Original Blue Man Cafe. He chose a table with precision and nicety, his back to a corner, the length of the street in his line of sight.

  The waiter appeared, looked Jarvis up and down. Jarvis countered with a hard stare. “Hot anise, a viewer.”

  The waiter turned away. Jarvis relaxed, sat rubbing his sore hip and watching the occasional dark shape hurrying against the mist. The streets were still dim; only one of the Procrustean suns had risen: no match for the fogs of Idle River.

  The waiter returned with a dull metal pot and the viewer. Jarvis parted with his last coin, warmed his hands on the pot, notched in the film, and sipped the brew, giving his attention to the journal. Page after page flicked past: trifles of Earth news, cluster news, local news, topical discussions, practical mechanics. He found the classified advertisements, employment opportunities, skimmed down the listings. These were sparse enough: a well-digger wanted, glass puddlers, berry-pickers, creep-weed chasers. He bent forward; this was more to his interest:

  Shape-up: Four travellers of top efficiency. Large profits for able workers; definite goals in sight. Only men of resource and willingness need apply. At 10 meridian see Belisarius at the Old Solar Inn.

  Jarvis read the paragraph once more, translating the oblique phrases to more definite meanings. He looked at his watch: still three hours. He glanced at the street, at the waiter, sipped from the pot, and settled to a study of the Farm and Mining Journal.

  Two hours later the second sun, a blue-white ball, rose at the head of Riverview Way, flaring through the mist; now the population of the town began to appear. Jarvis took quiet leave of the cafe and set off down Riverview Way in the sun.

  Heat and the exercise loosened the throb in his hip; when he reached the river esplanade his walk was smooth. He turned to the right, past the Memorial Fountain, and there was the Old Solar Inn, looking across the water to the gray marble bluffs.

  Jarvis inspected it with care. It looked expensive but not elaborate, exuding dignity rather than elegance. He felt less skeptical; Bulletin notices occasionally promised more than they fulfilled; a man could not be too careful.

  He approached the inn. The entrance was a massive wooden door with a stained glass window, where laughing Old Sol shot a golden ray upon green and blue Earth. The door swung open; Jarvis entered, bent to the wicket.

  “Yes, sir?” asked the clerk.

  “Mr. Belisarius,” said Jarvis.

  The clerk inspected Jarvis with much the expression of the waiter at the cafe. With the faintest of shrugs, he said, “Suite B—down the lower hall.”

  Jarvis crossed the lobby. As he entered the hall he heard the outer door open; a huge blond man in green suede came into the inn, paused like Jarvis by the wicket. Jarvis continued along the hall. The door to Suite B was ajar; Jarvis pushed it open, entered.

  He stood in a large room panelled with dark green sea-tree, furnished simply—a tawny rug, chairs and couches around the walls, an elaborate chandelier decorated with glowing spangles—so elaborate, indeed, that Jarvis suspected a system of spy-cells. In itself this meant nothing; in fact, it might be construed as commendable caution.

  Five others were waiting: men of various ages, size, skin-color. Only one aspect did they have in common; a way of seeming to look to all sides at once. Jarvis took a seat, sat back; a moment later the big blond man in green suede entered. He looked around the room, glanced at the chandelier, took a seat. A stringy gray-haired man with corrugated brown skin and a sly reckless smile said, “Omar Gildig! What are you here for, Gildig?”

  The big blond man’s eyes became blank for an instant; then he said, “For motives much like your own, Tixon.”

  The old man jerked his head back, blinked. “You mistake me; my name is Pardee, Captain Pardee.”

  “As you say, Captain.”

  There was silence in the room; then Tixon, or Pardee, nervously crossed to where Gildig sat and spoke in low tones. Gildig nodded like a placid lion.

  Other men entered; each glanced around the room, at the chandelier, then took seats. Presently the room held twenty or more.

  Other conversations arose. Jarvis found himself next to a small sturdy man with a round moon-face, a bulbous little paunch, a hooked little nose and dark owlish eyes. He seemed disposed to speak, and Jarvis made such comments as seemed judicious. “A cold night, last, for those of us to see the red sun set.”

  Jarvis assented.

  “A lucky planet to win free from, this,” continued the round man. “I’ve been watching the Bulletin for three weeks now; if I don’t join Belisarius—why, by the juice of Jonah, I’ll take a workaway job on a packet.”

  Jarvis asked, “Who is this Belisarius?”

  The round man opened his eyes wide. “Belisarius? It’s well-known—he’s Belson!”

  “Belson?” Jarvis could not hold the surprised note out of his voice; the bruise on his hip began to jar and thud. “Belson?”

  The round man had turned away his head, but was staring over the bridge of his little beak-nose. “Belson is an effective traveller, much respected.”

  “So I understand,” said Jarvis.

  “Rumor comes that he has suffered reverses—notably one such, two months gone, on the swamps of Fenn.”

  “How goes the rumor?” asked Jarvis.

  “There is large talk, small fact,” the round man replied gracefully. “And have you ever speculated on the concentration of talent in so small a one room? There is yourself. And my own humble talents—there is Omar Gildig—brawn like a Beshauer bull, a brain of guile. Over there is young Hancock McManus, an effective worker, and there—he who styles himself Lachesis, a metaphor. And I’ll wager in all our aggregate pockets there’s not twenty Juillard crowns!”

  “Certainly not in mine,” admitted Jarvis.

  “This is our life,” said the round man. “We live at the full—each minute an entity to be squeezed of its maximum; our moneys, our crowns, our credits—they buy us great sweetness, but they are soon gone. Then Belisarius hints of brave goals, and we come, like moths to a flame!”

  “I wonder,” mused Jarvis.

  “What’s your wonder?”

  “Belisarius surely has trusted lieutenants…When he calls for travellers through the Farm Bulletin—there always is the chance of Authority participation.”

  “Perhaps they are unaware of the convention, the code.”

  “More likely not.”

  The round man shook his head, sighed. “A brave agent would come to the Old Solar Inn on this day!”

  “There are such men.”

  “But they will not come to the shape-ups—and do you know why not?”

  “Why not then?”

  “Suppose they do—suppose they trap six men—a dozen.”

  “A dozen less to cope with.”

  “But the ne
xt time a shape-up is called, the travellers will prove themselves by the Test Supreme.”

  “And this is?” inquired Jarvis easily, though he knew quite well.

  The round man explained with zest. “Each party kills in the presence of an umpire. The Authority will not risk the resumption of such tests; and so they allow the travellers to meet and foregather in peace.” The round man peered at Jarvis. “This can hardly be new information?”

  “I have heard talk,” said Jarvis.

  The round man said, “Caution is admirable when not carried to an excess.”

  Jarvis laughed, showing his long sharp teeth. “Why not use an excess of caution, when it costs nothing?”

  “Why not?” assented the round man, and said no more to Jarvis.

  A few moments later the inner door opened; an old man, slight, crotchety, in tight black trousers and vest, peered out. His eyes were mild, his face was long, waxy, melancholy; his voice was suitably grave. “Your attention, if you please.”

  “By Crokus,” muttered the round man, “Belson has hired undertakers to staff his conferences!”

  The old man in black spoke on. “I will summon you one at a time, in the order of your arrival. You will be given certain tests, you will submit to certain interrogations…Anyone who finds the prospect over-intimate may leave at this moment.”

  He waited. No one rose to depart, although scowls appeared, and Omar Gildig said, “Reasonable queries are resented by no one. If I find the interrogation too searching—then I shall protest.”

  The old man nodded, “Very well, as you wish. First then—you, Paul Pulliam.”

  A slim elegant man in wine-colored jacket and tight trousers rose to his feet, entered the inner room.

  “So that is Paul Pulliam,” breathed the round man. “I have wondered six years, ever since the Myknosis affair.”