The Lost Master - The Collected Works

by Stanley G. Weinbaum

  The following day had found him a little irked by the daily routine of the voyage. He emerged on deck to find that the wispy clouds of the preceding evening had massed themselves into billowy white sky-islands that checkered the deep blue of the heavens. The sun shone intermittently between them as they scudded eastward toward America, already nearly two thousand miles astern. The wind had freshened out of the southwest, and the ocean of the peaceful name seemed bent on disproving its cognomen.

  Mark managed a glimpse of the book in his neighbor's hand. It looked like—it was indeed!—the General Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein! Mark sighed, and gave up all hopes of any conversation in that quarter. He stared out at the heaving expanse of threatening green water, and noted that the ship had developed a perceptible pitch.

  "In for a little heavy weather" he thought, with a tinge of hopefulness. Mark was a good sailor, and the prospect of an unsteady deck bothered him not at all. He looked forward to it with some anticipation; at the least, a storm might relieve the monotony of shipboard routine.

  Ten more minutes of silence, and he was lonely enough even to tackle the Professor.

  "Professor MacQuane," he ventured, "is it possible to explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity to an interested layman? One reads so much about it nowadays, you know; I'd like to get the gist of it if possible—just the general idea in a nutshell."

  The Professor turned a pair of bespectacled and chilly eyes on Mark. In deep lecture-hall tones, emphasizing each syllable with wagging finger and beard, he enunciated slowly:

  "Said a mathematician named Black,

  'Oh, Einstein! Alas and alack!

  If I go out tonight

  And move faster than light,

  I'll bump into myself coming back !'

  " The finger and beard ceased wagging, and the Professor returned serenely to his perusal of the volume.

  "Wow!" thought Mark, recovering from his astonishment. "That chair must be hexed! First a talkative lady who thinks in exclamation points, and then a silent gentleman who thinks in limericks!"

  He rose and went below. Under the door of his stateroom was a radiogram folded neatly into a yellow envelope. He tore it open, and smiled as he read it. From his mother—a good scout! Of course—John would just have arrived in Spring Brook from his fruitless journey to the coast, with the news of Mark's determination. It was nice of his mother to take the decision gracefully, and wire her love and faith in him.

  At that moment Spring Brook didn't seem so objectionable. Dull, perhaps, and infernally quiet and bide-bound, but so, apparently, was even a great liner in mid-Pacific. Perhaps the whole world had settled into a nit of drab routine; perhaps the world had spent all its adventurous energy in the War. For the first time Mark felt some qualms as to the wisdom of his decision. He sat down in his stateroom and composed an affectionate message to his mother.

  No, he decided, as he carried the slip of paper to the radio-room, there must be romance left somewhere on the expansive face of the world. Out over the horizon were strange volcanic islands, and palm-covered coral atolls, and beyond these the eternal mystery of Asia, the oriental world. He was a fool, he told himself, to give way to home-sickness on the third day away from San Francisco! Nevertheless, he sent the message. Leaving the radio-room, he bethought himself of the elusive black-haired lady of the steerage. Immediately his nostalgia vanished; the uncertain weather, which doubtless affects human beings, in spite of themselves, just as it does dogs and birds and domestic creatures, ceased suddenly to weigh upon him, as if the sun had emerged startlingly into a cloudless sky.

  "Vanya!" he murmured to himself. "Vanya something-or-other. Pretty name—Vanya."

  He was unconsciously directing his steps down the companionway toward the steerage. Without really intending it, he suddenly found himself well on his way below.

  "Might as well drop in on her." he told himself. "She looks as if she had some kind of story about her. I'll never find it out unless I talk to her."

  He moved toward the large room given over to steerage passengers. "Wonder if she understands English," he speculated. "Perhaps we can get by in French."

  At the entrance he wrinkled his nose at the close smell of humanity. "Unwashed humanity, at that," he thought. "Enough to make one seasick!"

  Indeed, the pitching of the ship was beginning to be noticeable here below. Mark didn't doubt that dinner would find more than one resident of the upper decks absent.

  He glanced around. Fewer people visible than yesterday; beyond question, some of the groups were already indisposed.

  There she was. Again seated on a wall bench, but in the far corner this time. Her unhappy face seemed pale in the glow of the electric lights. She was simply sitting impassively, leaning back into the corner of the wall.

  Mark was at a loss as to how to approach her. However, lack of self-assurance was not one of his distinguishing characteristics. He moved across the floor toward her, while a hum of conversation in outlandish tongues rose about him. He paused before her.

  "Miss—," he began. What the devil was her last name? "Miss—Miss Vanya, I hope you'll pardon me. I wanted to talk to you."

  The girl shifted her dusky eyes to his face. She stared at him with unaltered expression, and without a word.

  "Perhaps—," Mark floundered. "I mean—perhaps you don't speak English?"

  "Perfectly," said the other in a low tone, and relapsed into her frigid silence.

  "It's just that you seemed lonesome down here," continued Mark, "and I was feeling a little lonely myself. So I thought—." He paused. The girl made no effort to ease his way; she sat staring at him with no slightest hint of friendliness in her features.

  "Well, you needn't take it as an insult!" snapped Mark suddenly. "I meant it as a compliment. I merely wanted to ask if there were anything I could do for you!"

  "Yes," replied the girl cooly. "Yes, there is. You can leave. That will be a great service to me, I assure you. I couldn't impose on you to any greater extent."

  She leaned back into her corner and closed her eyes. Mark was struck again by her pallor. He stood for a moment irresolute, then turned and walked disgustedly across the floor and out of the doorway.

  "I've had fine luck picking friends on this boat!" he grinned ruefully to himself.

  At the foot of the companionway, he glanced back through the door at Vanya. She still sat with closed eyes, swaying in her corner to the now vigorous pitching of the liner. "I think the lady's a trifle seasick," Mark grinned to himself. "Perhaps her normal disposition is somewhat less sour."

  CHAPTER IV

  By late afternoon the waves were racing down on the ship like gray-green mountains, and the decks were practically deserted. Mark sat at his table alone for dinner; he noted with vicious satisfaction that neither the lyrical Professor nor the talkative blonde miss and her mother appeared. He ate a heartier meal for their absence.

  "Wonder how Vanya's holding up," he thought. "I don't envy her cooped up in that stuffy hold."

  After dinner he descended to the steerage, merely, he told himself, to satisfy his curiosity. A bare handful of Chinese chattered in their curious language, seated along the wall. Vanya was nowhere to be seen.

  He noticed a China woman with a young baby, the same one who had sat next to Vanya on his first visit to the steerage.

  "Where is the white lady ?" he asked.

  No answer. The stolid face stared at him unwinkingly. Mark grinned, and drew a sliver half-dollar from his pocket.

  "Where is the white lady?" he repeated.

  A bony hand reached for the coin.

  "No feel good. Inside," replied the woman, gesturing toward the cell-like row of rooms whose doors banked the inner wall of the steerage.

  "Well! That's a satisfaction!" grinned Mark to himself, as he returned to his own stateroom. "My three shipboard acquaintances, a hundred per cent under the weather."

  Nevertheless, the memory of Vanya's pallid, rebellious features was a
nything but a satisfaction to him. In spite of himself, he felt sorry for her. He rang for the steward.

  "After the way she acted, too!" he chided himself.

  "What's the thing to do for mal de mer, Steward?" he asked as that official responded to his ring.

  The steward looked at Mark sprawled easily in his chair, puffing a cigarette.

  "Why, sir, generally we serve black coffee or orange juice. But, sir, if I may say so, you don't look—"

  "Not for me," said Mark, smiling. "Take some down to Miss Vanya—" What was her name?—"Miss Vanya Prokovna in the steerage, with my compliments."

  The steward's face remained impassive. It was no less impassive when he returned ten minutes later with a tray holding a pot of coffee and a beaker of orange juice.

  "I beg your pardon, sir, but the lady returns the order without her compliments."

  Mark surveyed the tray after the steward's departure.

  "That's the last straw!" he muttered. "To the Devil with her!"

  HONOLULU

  By mid-morning Oahu was visible as a gray point on the horizon, and the once world-famous leper island of Molokai appeared beside it. Right between the two steamed the Orient, rounding Oahu toward the Honolulu side of the island.

  Landing day! Mark watched the great ocean heaving in long swells, last reminder of yesterday's blow; but the sickening rolling and pitching of the ship had diminished to a degree endurable by most of the passengers.

  The port rail was lined with passengers staring at Molokai, at the little white cottages of the unfortunates who made up, save for a few nurses and doctors, the island's entire population.

  Mark gazed with the rest, feeling a distinct pity for the afflicted ones bound to so narrow a life. Spring Brook had seemed unbearable to him; what must be the lot of those forced to spend their entire lives in the confines of a tiny Pacific island?

  By an hour after mid-day, the great liner was entering Honolulu's harbor. The decks were thronged; the Hawaiian metropolis was the destination of many of Mark's fellow passengers, and practically all of the rest were going ashore. Mark himself was leaving the vessel there; from that point, he had decided, the infinitely varied world of the South Seas lay before him, or at will, the equally polyglot world of Asia and the Far East.

  Mark went down to his room to finish his last minute packing. He was traveling light, and found comparatively little to do. However, when he returned to the deck, the Orient had already docked, and the majority of those who were going ashore had departed.

  Mark gazed at Honolulu, outpost of America. He saw a thoroughly modern city; trucks rumbled along the water-front, street cars clanged in the distance, and bales of sisal and hides, bags of coffee and sugar, cases of pineapples, lay piled in orderly rows along the docks. For all outward appearance, save for the exotic odors, and the curious trees that lined the more distant thoroughfares, he might never have left San Francisco. True, the dock laborers were mostly Chinese, but even that would be scarcely a novelty on the West Coast of the United States.

  He tipped the ship employees still lined before the gang plank to bid farewell to their late passengers, and descended to the dock. A brisk Chinese youth appropriated his hand luggage, and he moved down the wooden way.

  Halfway along a Chinese woman was talking to a man of the same race; Mark noticed a baby in her arms, and recognized his acquaintance of the steerage.

  "Hello!" he said. "I thought you were bound for Canton."

  The image of Vanya, whom he had deliberately put out of his mind, rose again at the sight of the woman.

  "I got cousin here," she grinned. "I go see. Boat wait here one day." Mark paused beside her.

  "What happened to the white lady?" he asked.

  "She get off boat."

  "I know," said Mark, wondering why he bothered to ask about Vanya at all.

  The Chinese woman leaned toward him.

  "She dance," she said in confidential tones.

  "Dance? What do you mean?"

  "She dance for money."

  "Oh," said Mark. "You mean she's a professional dancer."

  He frowned. Somehow the information didn't please him; girls who dance for money in the Polynesian islands are, as a general rule, hardly models of propriety.

  "How do you know?' " he queried.

  "I ask. She tell."

  "Where does she dance?"

  "No tell."

  "In Honolulu?"

  "She no tell."

  "Well," said Mark, "I don't suppose it makes much difference anyway. It's none of my business. But thanks."

  He turned away when the woman halted him with a plaintive cry. "Worth money?"

  "What's worth money?" asked Mark impatiently.

  "I tell—worth money?"

  "Oh!" A light dawned on him. "No, it's not worth a red cent to me, you heathen, but here's for your interest, anyway!"

  He fished another half-dollar from his pocket, and tossed it to the woman with a partly-amused, partly-exasperated chuckle. Then he moved on toward the city, with his brisk little attendant trotting behind.

  "I'll find out what sort of transportation one can get to the remoter spots in the South Seas," he ruminated. "After all, you can't judge by Hawaii; in the first place it's north of the equator, and therefore not really a chain of South Sea islands at all. And in the second place, it's an American territory, and Honolulu's an American city. That isn't what I'm looking for on this trip."

  He registered at his hotel, after a ride in a perfectly conventional taxicab, and wandered out to look the town over. Somehow, he wasn't pleased; the city was a bustling, business-like place, American goods were in every shop window, and the few natives he passed were attired in civilized clothing.

  Remarkably few natives, thought Mark; he recalled having heard or read that civilization, with its vices and diseases, was gradually killing them off.

  "I suppose in a few years there will be nothing but Chinese, Japs, and Americans in the islands," he reflected, "and another outpost of romance will have vanished."

  The reflection dampened his spirits somewhat. He passed the canopy of a typical American movie theatre, with its flaring one-sheet posters and rococco decorations.

  "Might as well drop in there for adventure," he muttered to himself. "Seems to be the only place left in the world where they dish out romance."

  He noticed a black-suited man ahead of him, conspicuous in that community of light-clothed citizens. A flicker of recognition—his deck-chair neighbor, Professor MacQuane. Mark was glad of any companionship; he quickened his steps, and approached the Professor.

  "Good afternoon," he greeted the other.

  The Professor seemed in an amiable mood. He responded pleasantly enough to Mark's greeting.

  "I'm glad to see that you're about again today," said Mark, a trifle maliciously. "Seasickness is certainly the most miserable affliction in the world."

  "Seasickness!" snorted his companion. "I was a trifle indisposed yesterday, it's true. That was merely my nervous indigestion!"

  "There was quite an epidemic of it," said Mark cynically. "You should take better care of yourself."

  Just before them appeared another familiar figure—the mustached young Englishman who had relieved Mark of his discussion of Great Circles. What was his name? Higgins—that was it.

  "Hi!" he greeted the two. "Sailor's holiday and all that!"

  He fell into step beside them.

  "I say!" he continued. "Several of us off the ship are going to do the town tonight—all the cabarets and—you know, what you chaps call night clubs. Sailor's night in port."

  He turned to face Mark and the Professor. "Will you two chaps join in?"

  "Thank you," said MacQuane stiffly. "Not I! And, if you'll pardon me, I must leave you here."

  He turned in at the Administration building.

  "Queer bloke," said Higgins, staring after him. "How about you?"

  "I don't know," said Mark. "I might at that." He faced Higgin
s. "Say, is that blonde lady going along?"

  "D'you mean the voluble damsel? No; just some chaps from the ship. You've met all of them in the smoking room. Purely stag affair."

  CHAPTER V

  Suddenly a thought entered Mark's mind. Night clubs and cabarets! That meant entertainers, of course, and more than likely it meant dancers. Well, Vanya was in Honolulu, and Vanya was a dancer. Wasn't it reasonable to suppose that she might be appearing at one of the places they might visit?

  Mark admitted to himself that he'd like to see her dance. Not, of course, for any personal reason, but simply because—well, because she was beautiful.

  "Beautiful in face and figure, at least," he thought. "I wonder if her legs are pretty."

  He couldn't recall having noticed, or having had an opportunity to notice.

  "I'll be with you," he told Higgins, who was chattering inconsequentially on. "We'll cover the old town from end to end.

  They arranged a meeting place, and Mark walked briskly back to his hotel. He felt, for some obscure reason, thoroughly elated; he assured himself that the troubled dusky-haired girl he had seen for the first time four days ago had nothing whatsoever to do with the case . . . nothing whatever!

  ON PURSUIT OF PLEASURE

  Mark was not entirely enjoying himself. He had finally begun to feel a little dizzy from the combined effects of Prohibition liquor—even in Hawaii!—and too many hours of listening to the plunk of ukuleles and the slurring thrum of steel guitars. He had lost count of the places they had visited—he and Higgins and their coterie of fellow passengers—was it six or seven times they had emerged from a warm room into a warm night?

  It didn't matter, of course; not in the least. Nor did it matter that none of the singers, dancers, and entertainers had been a black-haired girl with mournful eyes. What did matter was that he had listened to the strains of "Aloha Oe" an uncountable number of times, and that the present purveyors of entertainment — three walnut-stained, perspiring youths equipped with two ukuleles and the inevitable guitar, and dressed in the Hawaiian costume popularized by the American stage—were breaking into the entirely too familiar strains.