by Jack Vance
Angker stared. “Farrero? He has no license to build! The minute he drives a stake into the ground, he’s liable for prosecution.”
Westgeller nodded. “So he informed me. Thank you, however, for your advice. Good day.” The screen blurred, sank through the pink after-image to blank ground-glass.
Angker blurted the news through to Marlais.
“There’s nothing we can do until Farrero tries to fulfill the contract,” said Marlais. “When and if he makes an illegal move, then we’ll file charges.”
“He’s got something up his sleeve. Farrero’s only part crazy.”
“Nobody who gets a contract for a million is crazy,” said the soft voice. “All we can do is wait. You might put an investigator on him.”
“I’ve already done so.”
Two hours later, Angker’s telescreen buzzer sounded.
“Yes?” snarled Angker.
“A Mr. Lescovic, sir.”
“Put him on.”
The face of the investigator appeared.
“Well?”
“Farrero’s slipped us.”
“How did this happen?”
“He walked through the Transport Union, and into a public lavatory. I waited across the lobby, watching the detector. He showed very positive. When he didn’t move after ten minutes, I got suspicious and went to look. His clothes were hung on a hook, with the radiator attached. Farrero gave us the clean slip.”
“Find him!”
“There are four operatives on the case now, sir.”
“Call me as soon as you get anything.”
Six months later Angker’s call-button sounded. Angker hardly looked up from a model of a Caribbean island. “Yes?”
“Mr. Lescovic calling.”
“Put him through.”
The detective’s face appeared on the screen. “Farrero’s back in town.”
“When did he get back?”
“Well, evidently during the week.”
“Did you find out where he’s been?”
“No word on that.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“He’s calling on Franklin Kerry, of Kerry Armatures. He’s been there now about two hours.”
“Kerry! He’s one of our clients! At least he’s looking over our bid…Anything more on Farrero?”
“He’s got plenty of money—registered at the Gloriana.”
Angker said, “Hold on a minute.” He flipped a switch, reported to Marlais.
Marlais was noncommittal. “We’ve nothing to go on. We’ll have to wait, see what happens.”
Angker brought back Lescovic’s face. “Watch him. Report everything he does. Find out what he wants with Kerry.”
“Yes, sir.” The screen faded.
Angker slammed into Marlais’ office. “Well, he’s done it again.”
Marlais had been sitting in half-darkness, gazing out across the many-tiered city. He slowly turned his head.
“I presume you mean Farrero.”
Angker stomped back and forth. “Glochmeinder this time. Last month it was Crane. Before that, Haggarty. He doesn’t go near the small ones, but just let us get wind of a big account—”
“What did Glochmeinder say?”
“Just what Kerry and Crane and Haggarty and Desplains and Churchward and Klenko and Westgeller said. He’s given his contract to Farrero, and that’s all he’ll say.”
Marlais rose to his feet, rubbed his chin. “There’s a leak in the office. Somewhere.”
The muscles roped around Angker’s mouth. “I’ve been trying to find it.” He slowly clenched and unclenched his hands.
Marlais turned back to the window. “No word from the detective?”
“I gave you his last report. Farrero’s been ordering all over the world—construction materials and landscaping supplies. There’s not a job going anywhere that isn’t legitimate and licensed.”
“Clever,” mused Marlais, toying with the massive blue spinel he used for a paper-weight.
“He made a threat and he made it good,” gloomed Angker. “He’s cost us millions.”
Marlais smiled wanly. “Just so.”
For a moment there was silence. Angker paced the floor heavily. Marlais stared through the window.
“Well,” said Marlais, “something must be done.”
Farrero found himself an office, a two-room suite in the Sky-rider Tower, facing west across Amargosa Park, with the Pylon of All Nations thrusting high in the distance. He also found himself a receptionist: Miss Flora Gustafsson, who claimed Scandinavian ancestry, and for evidence displayed birch-blonde hair, eyes blue as Geiranger Fjord. She was hardly bigger than a kitten, but everything about her matched, and she was efficient with detectives.
The teleview buzzed. Flora reached over, screened the caller. “Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Westgeller.” Indeed, Mr. Westgeller’s round and ruddy features occupied the screen. “I’ll put you through to Mr. Farrero.”
“Thank you,” said Westgeller. Flora looked sharply at the image, buzzed Farrero.
“Hello, Mr. Westgeller,” said Farrero. “What can I do for you?”
“Farrero, an old friend of mine, John Etcheverry, wants to build, and I’m sending him around to see you.”
“Ah, fine, Mr. Westgeller. I’ll try to accommodate him, though we’re pretty busy.”
“Good day, Farrero,” and Westgeller abruptly left the screen. Farrero sat stroking his chin, smiling faintly. Then he went into the outer room, kissed Flora.
John Etcheverry was about sixty, tall, thin, pale as raw dough. He had a large egg-shaped head, sparse white hair that wandered across his scalp in damp unruly tendrils. His eyes, set in dark concavities, never seemed to blink. He had large ears, with long pale lobes and a long pale nose that twitched when he spoke.
“Have a seat,” said Farrero. “I understand you’re planning to build.”
“That’s right. May I smoke?”
“Definitely not.”
Etcheverry gave Farrero a startled glance, shrugged in not the best of grace.
“What do you have in mind? I might as well warn you that my prices are high. I deliver, but it costs a lot of money.”
Etcheverry made a brief gesture with his fingers. “I want a country place, with absolute seclusion and quiet. I’m prepared to pay for it.”
Farrero tapped the desk with a pencil once or twice, laid it down, sat back, quietly watched Etcheverry.
Etcheverry went on. “Westgeller tells me you’ve satisfied him very well. In fact, that’s all he’ll say.”
Farrero nodded. “It’s in the contract. I needed time to protect myself, especially from my ex-employers Marlais and Angker: a pair of scoundrels.”
“Oh? I’ve heard that they were most reputable.”
“To the contrary. Angker is a surly stupid lummox, with the morals of a hyena. Marlais is atrociously ugly, and is ashamed to show himself. Neither trusts the other; they quarrel like lunatics. Their company is on the teetering verge of bankruptcy. They do shoddy work, disregard warranties and pad their bills.”
“Hm,” said Etcheverry. “That is a far-reaching denunciation.”
“It’s only the tip of the iceberg.” Farrero adjusted his hearing-aid. “Speak up, Mr. Etcheverry, if you please. You speak softly and I find it hard to hear you.”
“Well, back to why I’m here. I’d like to see an example of your work. Is your secrecy so total that—”
Farrero interrupted. “The time for secrecy is about over. At the moment I’m only trying to protect myself from new houses. Class III builders won’t see much new business for a long time, until I sell eleven hundred and thirty-two more estates.”
“Curious! How do you arrive at that number?”
“No matter, not just now. Assuming that I’m right you can appreciate my need for secrecy. Marlais and Angker are the worst. They went so far as to hire detectives. They are capable of any underhanded trick. In fact—Flora! Get me Westgeller at his office.”
Etcheverry pulled reflectively at his nose.
A moment passed. Flora’s face appeared on the screen. “Mr. Westgeller hasn’t been in his office today.”
Farrero turned back to Etcheverry. “It’s a habit left over from the early stages of the game. Endless caution, endless foresight. It was necessary then. Now I can relax.”
Etcheverry delicately inspected the tips of his shoes. “Before we continue, may I see your contractor’s license?”
“I don’t have any.”
“Then you build illegally?”
“Naturally not.”
Etcheverry pursed his lips. “You’ll have to explain.”
Farrero stared thoughtfully out the window. “Why not? How much time can you spare?”
“You mean—?”
“Right now.”
“Well…There are no important demands on my time.”
“If you can give me the rest of the day, I’ll do better than explain—I’ll demonstrate.”
“Fine.” Etcheverry rose to his feet. “I’ll admit that you’ve aroused my curiosity.”
Farrero called a cab. “County Field,” he told the driver.
At County Field, Farrero took Etcheverry to a small space-boat. “Jump in.” He followed the stooped figure into the cabin.
Etcheverry adjusted himself gingerly to the cushions. “If you haven’t a license to build, I hope at least you have a license to fly.”
“I have. Check it if you care to. It’s under the aerator.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
They rode up off the seared field: a hundred, two hundred miles, and earth blurred below. A thousand, five thousand, ten thousand miles—twenty, thirty thousand miles, and Farrero kept a close watch on his radar screen. “Should be about here now.” A pip showed yellow-green. “There it is.” He swerved the boat, jetted off in the new direction. After a minute: “You can see it below, off to the left.”
Etcheverry, craning his gaunt neck, saw a small irregular asteroid, perhaps a mile in diameter. Farrero edged down the boat, lowered with hardly a jolt on a patch of white sand.
Etcheverry grabbed Farrero’s arm. “Are you crazy? Don’t open that port! That’s space out there!”
Farrero shook his head. “It’s air, at fifteen pounds pressure, twenty percent oxygen. Look at the barometer.”
Etcheverry looked, watched numbly as Farrero flung open the port and jumped out of the boat. Etcheverry followed. “But…There’s gravity here.”
Farrero climbed to the top of a little hillock, waved an arm to Etcheverry. “Come on up.”
Etcheverry stalked slowly up the slope.
“This is Westgeller’s estate,” said Farrero. “His private world. Look, there’s his house.”
Westgeller’s house sat on a wide flat field covered with emerald-green turf. A lake glistened in the sunlight; a white crane stood fishing among the rushes. Trees lined the plain, and Etcheverry heard birds singing across the distance.
The house was a long single-story structure, built of timber planks. There were many windows, and below each a window-box overflowing with geraniums. Beach umbrellas stood like other, larger, flowers beside a swimming pool.
Farrero squinted across the field. “Westgeller is at home. I see his space-boat. Like to call on him? Might like to talk things over with your old friend, eh, Mr. Etcheverry?”
Etcheverry gave him a sharp side-glance, then said slowly: “Perhaps it would be just as well if—”
Farrero laughed. “Save your excuses. They are no good. You probably don’t know I read lips. I was stone deaf the first ten years of my life. When you flashed Westgeller’s picture on my screen, his voice saying, ‘I’m sending over my dear old friend Etcheverry,’ and his lips saying, ‘I’ve decided to have you stop work on my job, Mr. Angker,’ I smelled a rat—a very large rat by the name of Marlais.”
The thin man gave Farrero a quick side-glance. Realizing his lack of options, he said, “Yes, I’m Marlais. Impressive operation you’ve got.”
“I’m making money,” said Farrero.
Marlais looked around the toy world. “You’re spending it too.” He stamped his foot on the ground. “You’ve got me beat. How do you lick gravity? Why doesn’t the air all blow away? Seems as if I’m—oh, about normal weight.”
“You’re a little lighter. Gravity here is three per cent less than on Earth.”
“But,” and Marlais looked from horizon to close horizon, calculated. “A half-mile in diameter to eight thousand for Earth, and the gravity is the same. Why?”
“For one thing,” said Farrero, “you’re closer to the center of gravity—by almost four thousand miles.”
Marlais reached down, plucked a blade of grass, inspected it curiously.
“All new,” said Farrero. “The trees were brought here at no slight effort by Lindvist—he’s a Danish ecologist—and me. He figures out how many bees I need to fertilize the flowers, how many earthworms, how many trees to oxygenate the air.”
Marlais nodded his head. “A most appealing concept.”
“There won’t be a millionaire living on Earth in another twenty years,” said Farrero. “I’ll have sold them all private planets. Some will want big places. I can furnish them.”
“Incidentally, where did you get this one?”
“Out in space a ways.”
Marlais nodded sagely. “That’s probably where Marlais and Angker will go to find theirs.”
Farrero turned his head slowly. Marlais met his gaze blandly.
“So—you think you’ll cut in?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“You think,” Farrero went on meditatively, “that you’ll cash in on my idea. You’ve got all the equipment, all the technicians necessary for a quick skim at the cream. Maybe you’ll even get some law barring non-licensees from the game.”
“I’d be a fool if I didn’t.”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no. Like to see another of my jobs? This is Westgeller’s. I’ll show you Desplains’.”
They re-entered the space-boat. Farrero clamped the port, pulsed power through the jets. Westgeller’s world fell away beneath them.
They reached Desplains’ world half an hour later. “Eventually,” said Farrero, “space around Earth will be peppered thick with these little estates. There’ll be laws regulating their orbits, minimum distances set for their spacing.” He touched the controls; the space-boat drifted across Desplains’ sky and settled on a rocky outcrop.
Marlais unsealed the port, angled his skinny legs to the ground. “Phew,” he grunted, “Desplains must intend to raise orchids—positively dank.”
Farrero grinned, loosened his jacket. “He hasn’t moved in yet. We’re having a little trouble with the atmosphere. He wants clouds, and we’re experimenting with the humidity.” He looked up. “It’s easy to get a muggy high overcast—but Desplains wants big fluffs of cumulus. Well, we’ll try. Personally I don’t think there’s enough total volume of air.”
Marlais looked into the sky too, where Earth hung as a huge bright crescent. He licked his pale old lips.
Farrero laughed. “Makes a man feel naked, doesn’t it?” He looked across the little world to the queerly close horizon—barely a stone’s throw off, so it seemed—then back to the sweep of sky, with the crescent of Earth dominating a new moon behind. “Out here,” he said, “beauty—grandeur, whatever you choose to call it—comes a lot at a time.”
Marlais gingerly perched himself on a slab of rock. “Exotic place, certainly.”
“Desplains is an exotic man,” said Farrero. “But he’s got the money, and I don’t care if he wants the rocks upholstered with rabbit fur.” He hopped up beside Marlais, and indicated a clump of trees. “That’s his bayou. Flora from Africa and the Matto Grosso. Fauna from here and there, including a very rare Tasmanian ibis. It’s pretty, and certainly wild enough—connecting ponds, with overhanging trees. The moss hasn’t got a good start yet, and there isn’t quite the auth
entic smell, but give it time. Behind there’s a jungle—well, call it a swamp—cut with a lot of waterways. When the flowers all start blooming, it’ll be quite pleasant.”
“Individual worlds to suit any conceivable whim,” murmured Marlais.
“That’s it exactly,” said Farrero. “We’ve got our largest world—about ten miles in diameter—sold to a Canadian yachtsman.”
“Fred Ableman,” said Marlais dryly. “He canceled his contract with us about two months ago.”
“I wanted to reserve it for a League of Hope headquarters, but they wouldn’t pay the price. People of this sort are always the most careful with their money.”
“When you worked for Marlais and Angker, I recall that you advocated a different philosophy.”
“That’s true. Circumstances have changed, and have dictated a different philosophy. It’s easiest to be generous with someone else’s money. It’s one of the great luxuries of the public administrator; his generosity with public money knows no bounds. In any event, Fred Ableman wants his world all ocean, with plenty of wind to sail his boats. He wants islands here and there, with beaches, coral banks, pretty fish.”
“Coconut palms too, I expect.”
“Right—but no sharks. We won’t have it completed for another year and a half. It’s heavy and unwieldy—difficult to bring out and get established in an orbit. And we need a great deal of water.”
“Where do you get the water? You can’t bring it out from Earth.”
Farrero shook his head. “We mine the Hipparchus ice floe. Every time the moon comes in apposition we shoot across a few big chunks. Slow but sure. It costs a lot, but Ableman makes too much money for his own good. Anyway, how could he spend the money to better purpose?”
Marlais pursed his lips. “I expect you get some strange specifications.”
“There’s a man named Klenko, who made his money in fashion design. He’s responsible for those whirling things women were wearing a year or two ago on their heads. Strange man, strange world. The air is full of thirty-foot glass bubbles, floating loose. Glass bubbles everywhere—topaz, blue, red, violet, green—high and low. It’s a hazard trying to land a space-boat. He’s got a fluorescent forest—activators in the sap. When he turns ultraviolet on it, the leaves glow—silver, pale-green, orange. We built him a big pavilion overhanging a lake. Luminous fish in the lake.”
