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

by Jack Vance

  Luke looked hard at Lavester Limon, well aware that the twinkle in the golden-brown eyes was malicious glee. He said, “I’d like a copy of that directive, so he’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  Limon sobered instantly. Luke could read his mind: Will Ripp hold it against me if I send up this crackpot? It’s worth the chance. “Sure,” said Limon. “Pick it up from the girl.”

  Luke ascended to Sublevel 3 and walked through the pleasant tri-level arcade below Bramblebury Park. He passed the tall glass-walled fish tank open to the sky and illuminated by sunlight, boarded the local man-belt, and after a ride of two or three minutes alighted in front of the District 8892 Agency of Sanitary Works.

  The Sewage Disposal Section occupied a rather pretentious suite off a small courtyard garden. Luke walked along a passage tiled with blue, gray and green mosaic, entered a white room furnished in pale gray and pink. A long mural of cleverly twisted gold, black and white tubing decorated one wall; another was swathed in heavy green leaves growing from a chest-high planter. At a desk sat the receptionist, a plump pouty blonde girl with a simulated bone through her nose and a shark’s-tooth necklace dangling around her neck. She wore her hair tied up over her head like a sheaf of wheat, and an amusing black and brown primitive symbol decorated her forehead.

  Luke explained that he wished a few words with Mr. Judiath Ripp, Director of the Section.

  Perhaps from uneasiness, Luke spoke brusquely. The girl blinked in surprise, examined him curiously. After a moment’s hesitation the girl shook her head doubtfully. “Won’t someone else do? Mr. Ripp’s day is tightly scheduled. What did you want to see him about?”

  Luke, attempting a persuasive smile, achieved a leer of sinister significance. The girl was frankly startled.

  “Perhaps you’ll tell Mr. Ripp I’m here,” said Luke. “One of his policy directives…well, there have been irregularities, or rather a misapplication—”

  “Irregularities?” The girl seemed to hear only the single word. She gazed at Luke with new eyes, observing the crisp new black and blue garments with their quasi-military cut. Some sort of inspector? “I’ll call Mr. Ripp,” she said nervously. “Your name, sir, and status?”

  “Luke Grogatch. My status—” Luke smiled once more, and the girl averted her eyes. “It’s not important.”

  “I’ll call Mr. Ripp, sir. One moment, if you please.” She swung around, murmured anxiously into her screen, looked at Luke and spoke again. A thin voice rasped a reply. The girl swung back around, nodded at Luke. “Mr. Ripp can spare a few minutes. The first door, please.”

  Luke walked with stiff shoulders into a tall wood-paneled room, one wall of which displayed green-glowing tanks of darting red and yellow fish. At the desk sat Judiath Ripp, a tall heavy man, himself resembling a large fish. His head was narrow, pale as mackerel, and rested backward-tilting on his shoulders. He had no perceptible chin; the neck ran up to his carplike mouth. Pale eyes stared at Luke over small round nostrils; a low brush of hair thrust up from the rear of his head like dry grass over a sand dune. Luke remembered Lavester Limon’s verbal depiction of Ripp: “choleric”. Hardly appropriate. Had Limon a grudge against Ripp? Was he using Luke as an instrument of mischievous revenge? Luke suspected as much; he felt uncomfortable and awkward.

  Judiath Ripp surveyed him with cold unblinking eyes. “What can I do for you, Mr. Grogatch? My secretary tells me you are an investigator of some sort.”

  Luke considered the situation, his narrow black eyes fixed on Ripp’s face. He told the exact truth. “For several weeks I have been working in the capacity of a Class D Flunky on a tunnel gang.”

  “What the devil do you investigate on a tunnel gang?” Ripp asked in chilly amusement.

  Luke made a slight gesture, signifying much or nothing, as one might choose to take it. “Last night the foreman of this gang received a policy directive issued by Lavester Limon of the Office of Procurement. For sheer imbecility this policy caps any of my experience.”

  “If it’s Limon’s doing, I can well believe it,” said Ripp between his teeth.

  “I sought him out in his office. He refused to accept responsibility and referred me to you.”

  Ripp sat a trifle straighter in his chair. “What policy is this?”

  Luke passed the two directives across the desk. Ripp read slowly, then reluctantly returned the directives. “I fail to see exactly—” He paused. “I should say, these directives merely reflect instructions received by me which I have implemented. Where is the difficulty?”

  “Let me cite my personal experience,” said Luke. “This morning—as I say, in my temporary capacity as a flunky—I carried a shovel from tunnel head to warehouse and checked it. The operation required an hour and a half. If I were working steadily on a job of this sort, I’d be quite demoralized.”

  Ripp appeared untroubled. “I can only refer you to my superiors.” He spoke aside into his desk phone. “Please transmit File OR9, Item 123.” He turned back to Luke. “I can’t take responsibility, either for the directive or for revoking it. May I ask what sort of investigation takes you down into the tunnels? And to whom you report?”

  At a loss for words at once evasive and convincing, Luke conveyed an attitude of contemptuous silence.

  Judiath Ripp contracted the skin around his blank round eyes in a frown. “As I consider this matter I become increasingly puzzled. Why is this subject a matter for investigation? Just who—”

  From a slot appeared the directive Ripp had requested. He glanced at it, tossed it to Luke. “You’ll see that this relieves me totally of responsibility,” he said curtly.

  The directive was the standard form:

  PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, PUBLIC UTILITIES DIVISION

  Office of

  The Commissioner of Public Utilities

  Policy Directive:

  449 Series UA-14-G2

  Order Code:

  GZP—AAR—REF

  Reference:

  TQ9—1422

  Date Code:

  BP—EQ—LLT

  Authorized:

  PU-PUD-Org.

  Checked:

  G. Evan

  Counterchecked:

  Hernon Klanech

  From:

  Parris deVicker, Commissioner of Public Utilities

  Through:

  All District Agencies of Sanitary Works

  To:

  All Department Heads

  Attention:

  Subject:

  The urgent need for sharp and immediate economies in the use of equipment and consumption of supplies.

  Instant of Application:

  Immediate

  Duration of Relevance:

  Permanent

  Substance:

  All department heads are instructed to initiate, effect and enforce rigid economies in the employment of supplies and equipment, especially those items comprised of or manufactured from alloy metals or requiring the functional consumption of same, in those areas in which official authority is exercised. A decrement of 2% will be considered minimal. Status augmentation will in some measure be affected by economies achieved.

  Suggestion:

  Greater care by individual users of tools, including warehouse storage at night.

  Directive reviewed and transmitted:

  Lee Jon Smith, District Agent of Sanitary Works 8892

  Luke rose to his feet, concerned now only to depart from the office as quickly as possible. He indicated the directive. “This is a copy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll take it, if I may.” He included it with the previous two.

  Judiath Ripp watched with a faint but definite suspicion. “I fail to understand whom you represent.”

  “Sometimes the less one knows the better,” said Luke.

  The suspicion faded from Judiath Ripp’s piscine face. Only a person secure in his status could afford to use language of this sort to a member of the low High Echelon. He nodded slightly. “Is that all you
require?”

  “No,” said Luke, “but it’s all I can get here.”

  He turned toward the door, feeling the rake of Ripp’s eyes on his back.

  Ripp’s voice cut at him suddenly and sharply. “Just a moment.”

  Luke slowly turned.

  “Who are you? Let me see your credentials.”

  Luke laughed coarsely. “I don’t have any.”

  Judiath Ripp rose to his feet, stood towering with knuckles pressed on the desk. Suddenly Luke saw that, after all, Judiath Ripp was choleric. His face, mackerel-pale, became suffused with salmon-pink. “Identify yourself,” he said throatily, “before I call the watchman.”

  “Certainly,” said Luke. “I have nothing to hide. I am Luke Grogatch. I work as Class D Flunky on Tunnel Gang No. 3 out of the Bureau of Sewer Construction and Maintenance.”

  “What are you doing here, misrepresenting yourself, wasting my time?”

  “Where did I misrepresent myself?” demanded Luke in a contentious voice. “I came here to find out why I had to carry my shovel to the warehouse this morning. It cost me an hour and a half. It doesn’t make sense. You’ve been ordered to economize two percent, so I spend three hours a day carrying a shovel back and forth.”

  Judiath Ripp stared at Luke for ten seconds, then abruptly sat down. “You’re a Class D Flunky?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmm. You’ve been to the Office of Procurement. The manager sent you here?”

  “No. He gave me a copy of his directive, just as you did.”

  The salmon-pink flush had died from Ripp’s flat cheeks. The carplike mouth twitched in infinitesimal amusement. “No harm in that, certainly. What do you hope to achieve?”

  “I don’t want to carry that blasted shovel back and forth. I’d like you to issue orders to that effect.”

  Judiath Ripp spread his pale mouth in a cold drooping smile. “Bring me a policy directive to that effect from Parris deVicker and I’ll be glad to oblige you. Now—”

  “Will you make an appointment for me?”

  “An appointment?” Ripp was puzzled. “With whom?”

  “With the Commissioner of Public Utilities.”

  “Pffah.” Ripp waved his hand in cold dismissal. “Get out.”

  Luke stood in the blue-mosaic entry seething with hate for Ripp, Limon, Miskitman and every intervening functionary. If he were only Chairman of the Board for a brief two hours—went the oft-repeated daydream—how they’d quick-step! In his mind’s eye he saw Judiath Ripp shoveling wads of ‘wet waste’ with a leaden shovel while a rotary driller, twice as noisy and twice as violent, blew back gales of hot dust and rock chips across his neck. Lavester Limon would be forced to change the smoking teeth of the drill with a small and rusty monkey wrench, while Fedor Miskitman, before and after the shift, carried shovel, monkey wrench and all the worn teeth to and from the warehouse.

  Luke stood moping in the passage for five minutes, then escalated to the surface, which at this point, by virtue of Bramblebury Park, could clearly be distinguishable as the surface and not just another level among co-equal levels. He walked slowly along the gravel paths, ignoring the open sky for the immediacy of his problems. He faced a dead end. There was no further scope of action. Judiath Ripp mockingly had suggested that he consult the Commissioner of Public Utilities. Even if by some improbable circumstance he secured an appointment with the Commissioner, what good would ensue? Why should the Commissioner revoke a policy directive of such evident importance? Unless he could be persuaded—by some instrumentality Luke was unable to define or even imagine—to issue a special directive exempting Luke from the provision of the policy…

  Luke chuckled hollowly, a noise which alarmed the pigeons strutting along the walk. Now what? Back to the dormitory. His dormitory privileges included twelve hours use of his cot per day, and he was not extracting full value from his expense account unless he made use of it. But Luke had no desire for sleep. As he glanced up at the perspective of the towers surrounding the park he felt a melancholy exhilaration. The sky, the wonderful clear open sky, blue and brilliant! Luke shivered, for the sun here was hidden by the Morgenthau Moonspike, and the air was brisk.

  Luke crossed the park, thinking to sit where a band of hazy sunlight slashed down between the towers. The benches were crowded with blinking old men and women, but Luke presently found a seat. He sat looking up into the sky, enjoying the mild natural sun-warmth. How seldom did he see the sun! In his youth he had frequently set forth on long cross-city hikes, rambling high along the skyways, with space to right and left, the clouds near enough for intimate inspection, the sunlight sparkling and stinging his skin. Gradually the hikes had spread apart, coming at ever longer intervals, and now he could hardly remember when last he’d tramped the wind-lanes. What dreams he had had in those early days, what exuberant visions! Obstacles seemed trivial; he had seen himself clawing up the list, winning a good expense account, the choicest of perquisites, unnumbered Special Coupons! He had planned a private air-car, unrestricted nutrition, an apartment far above the surface, high and remote…Dreams. Luke had been victimized by his tongue, his quick temper, his obstinacy. At heart, he was no Nonconformist—no, cried Luke, never! Luke had been born of tycoon stock, and through influence, a word here, a hint there, had been launched into the Organization on a high status. But circumstances and Luke’s chronic truculence had driven him into opposition with established ways, and down the Status List he had gone: through professional scholarships, technical trainee appointments, craft apprenticeships, all the varieties of semiskills and machine operation. Now he was Luke Grogatch, flunky, unskilled, Class D, facing the final declassification. But still too vain to carry a shovel. No: Luke corrected himself. His vanity was not at stake. Vanity he had discarded long ago, along with his youthful dreams. All he had left was pride, his right to use the word “I” in connection with himself. If he submitted to Policy Directive 6511 he relinquished this right; he combined with the masses of the Organization as a spatter of foam falls back and is absorbed into the ocean…Luke jerked nervously to his feet. He wasted time sitting here. Judiath Ripp, with conger-like malice, had suggested a directive from the Commissioner of Public Utilities. Very well, Luke would obtain that directive and fling it down under Ripp’s pale round nostrils.

  How?

  Luke rubbed his chin dubiously. He walked to a communication booth, checked the directory. As he had surmised, the Commission of Public Utilities was housed in the Organization Central Tower, in Silverado, District 3666, ninety miles to the north.

  Luke stood in the watery sunlight, hoping for inspiration. The aged idlers, huddling on the benches like winterbound sparrows, watched him incuriously. Once again Luke was obscurely pleased with his purchase of new clothes. A fine figure he cut, he assured himself.

  How? wondered Luke. How to gain an appointment with the Commissioner? How to persuade him to change his views?

  No inkling of a solution presented itself.

  He looked at his watch: still only middle morning. Ample time to visit Organization Central and return in time to report for duty…Luke grimaced wanly. Was his resolution so feeble, then? Was he, after all, to slink back into the tunnel tonight carrying the hated shovel? Luke shook his head slowly. He did not know.

  At the Bramblebury Interchange Luke boarded an express highline northbound for Silverado Station. With a hiss and a whine, the shining metal worm darted forward, sliding up to Level 13, flashing north at great speed, in and out of the sunlight, through tunnels, across inter-tower chasms, with far below the nervous seethe of the City. Four times the express sighed to a halt: at IBM University, at Braemar, at Great Northern Junction, and finally, thirty minutes out of Bramblebury, at Silverado Central. Luke disembarked; the express slid away through the towers, lithe as an eel through waterweed.

  Luke entered the tenth-level foyer of the Central Tower, a vast cave of marble and bronze. Throngs of men and women thrust past him: grim striding tycoons, s
tamped with the look of destiny, High Echelon personnel, their assistants, the assistants to their assistants, functionaries on down the list, all dutifully wearing high-status garments, the lesser folk hoping to be mistaken for their superiors. All hurried, tense-faced and abrupt, partly from habit, partly because only a person of low status had no need to hurry. Luke thrust and elbowed with the best of them, and made his way to the central kiosk where he consulted a directory.

  Parris deVicker, Commissioner of Public Utilities, had his office on Level 59. Luke passed him by and located the Secretary of Public Affairs, Mr. Sewell Sepp, on Level 81. No more underlings, thought Luke. This time I’m going to the top. If anyone can resolve this matter, it’s Sewell Sepp.

  He put himself aboard the lift and emerged into the lobby of the Department of Public Affairs—a splendid place, glittering with disciplined color and ornament after that mock-antique décor known as Second Institutional. The walls were of polished milk glass inset with medallions of shifting kaleidoscopic flashes. The floor was diapered in blue and white sparkle-stone. A dozen bronze statues dominated the room, massive figures symbolizing the basic public services: communication, transport, education, water, energy and sanitation. Luke skirted the pedestals, crossed to the reception counter, where ten young women in handsome brown and black uniforms stood with military precision, each to her six feet of counter top. Luke selected one of these girls, who curved her lips in an automatic empty smile. “Yes sir?”

  “I want to see Mr. Sepp,” said Luke brazenly.