The World-Thinker and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  “It’s dark,” said Mary dubiously. “Glory is bad enough in the daytime.”

  Raymond shot his jaw forward, glanced up toward the Clock. “It is daytime. The Clock says it’s daytime. That’s Reality; we’ve got to cling to it! It’s our link with truth and sanity!”

  “Very well,” said Mary, “we’ll go.”

  Raymond kissed her cheek. “You’re very brave, dear. You’re a credit to the Colony.”

  Mary shook her head. “No, dear. I’m no better or braver than any of the others. We came out here to found homes and live the Truth. We knew there’d be hard work. So much depends on everybody; there’s no room for weakness.”

  Raymond kissed her again, although she laughingly protested and turned her head. “I still think you’re brave—and very sweet.”

  “Get the light,” said Mary. “Get several lights. One never knows how long these—these insufferable darknesses will last.”

  They set off up the road, walking because in the Colony private power vehicles were considered a social evil. Ahead, unseen in the darkness, rose the Grand Montagne, the preserve of the Flits. They could feel the harsh bulk of the crags, just as behind them they could feel the neat fields, the fences, the roads of the Colony. They crossed the canal, which led the meandering river into a mesh of irrigation ditches. Raymond shone his light into the concrete bed. They stood looking in a silence more eloquent than curses.

  “It’s dry! They’ve broken the banks again.”

  “Why?” asked Mary. “Why? They don’t use the river water!”

  Raymond shrugged. “I guess they just don’t like canals. Well,” he sighed, “all we can do is the best we know how.”

  The road wound back and forth up the slope. They passed the lichen-covered hulk of a star-ship which five hundred years ago had crashed on Glory. “It seems impossible,” said Mary. “The Flits were once men and women just like us.”

  “Not like us, dear,” Raymond corrected gently.

  Sister Mary shuddered. “The Flits and their goats! Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.”

  A few minutes later Raymond fell into a mudhole, a bed of slime, with enough water-seep to make it sucking and dangerous. Floundering, panting, with Mary’s desperate help, he regained solid ground, and stood shivering—angry, cold, wet.

  “That blasted thing wasn’t there yesterday!” He scraped slime from his face, his clothes. “It’s these miserable things that makes life so trying.”

  “We’ll get the better of it, dear.” And she said fiercely: “We’ll fight it, subdue it! Somehow we’ll bring order to Glory!”

  While they debated whether or not to proceed, Red Robundus belled up over the northwest horizon, and they were able to take stock of the situation. Brother Raymond’s khaki puttees and his white shirt of course were filthy. Sister Mary’s outfit was hardly cleaner.

  Raymond said dejectedly, “I ought to go back to the bungalow for a change.”

  “Raymond—do we have time?”

  “I’ll look like a fool going up to the Flits like this.”

  “They’ll never notice.”

  “How can they help?” snapped Raymond.

  “We haven’t time,” said Mary decisively. “The Inspector’s due any day, and the Flits are dying like flies. They’ll say it’s our fault—and that’s the end of Gospel Colony.” After a pause she said carefully, “Not that we wouldn’t help the Flits in any event.”

  “I still think I’d make a better impression in clean clothes,” said Raymond dubiously.

  “Pooh! A fig they care for clean clothes, the ridiculous way they scamper around.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  A small yellow-green sun appeared over the southwest horizon. “Here comes Urban…If it isn’t dark as pitch we get three or four suns at once!”

  “Sunlight makes the crops grow,” Mary told him sweetly.

  They climbed half an hour, then, stopping to catch their breath, turned to look across the valley to the colony they loved so well. Seventy-two thousand souls on a checkerboard green plain, rows of neat white houses, painted and scrubbed, with snowy curtains behind glistening glass; lawns and flower gardens full of tulips; vegetable gardens full of cabbages, kale and squash.

  Raymond looked up at the sky. “It’s going to rain.”

  Mary asked, “How do you know?”

  “Remember the drenching we had last time Urban and Robundus were both in the west?”

  Mary shook her head. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Something’s got to mean something. That’s the law of our universe—the basis for all our thinking!”

  A gust of wind howled down from the ridges, carrying great curls and feathers of dust. They swirled with complicated colors, films, shades, in the opposing lights of yellow-green Urban and Red Robundus.

  “There’s your rain,” shouted Mary over the roar of the wind. Raymond pressed on up the road. Presently the wind died.

  Mary said, “I believe in rain or anything else on Glory when I see it.”

  “We don’t have enough facts,” insisted Raymond. “There’s nothing magic in unpredictability.”

  “It’s just—unpredictable.” She looked back along the face of the Grand Montagne. “Thank God for the Clock—something that’s dependable.”

  The road wandered up the hill, through stands of horny spile, banks of gray scrub and purple thorn. Sometimes there was no road; then they had to cast ahead like surveyors; sometimes the road stopped at a bank or at a blank wall, continuing on a level ten feet above or below. These were minor inconveniences which they overcame as a matter of course. Only when Robundus drifted south and Urban ducked north did they become anxious.

  “It wouldn’t be conceivable that a sun should set at seven in the evening,” said Mary. “That would be too normal, too matter-of-fact.”

  At seven-fifteen both suns set. There would be ten minutes of magnificent sunset, another fifteen minutes of twilight, then night of indeterminate extent.

  They missed the sunset because of an earthquake. A tumble of stones came pelting across the road; they took refuge under a jut of granite while boulders clattered into the road and spun on down the mountainside.

  The shower of rocks passed, except for pebbles bouncing down as an afterthought. “Is that all?” Mary asked in a husky whisper.

  “Sounds like it.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  Raymond handed her the canteen; she drank.

  “How much further to Fleetville?”

  “Old Fleetville or New Town?”

  “I don’t care,” she said wearily. “Either one.”

  Raymond hesitated. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know the distance to either.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here all night.”

  “It’s day coming up,” said Raymond as the white dwarf Maude began to silver the sky to the northeast.

  “It’s night,” Mary declared in quiet desperation. “The Clock says it’s night; I don’t care if every sun in the galaxy is shining, including Home Sun. As long as the Clock says it’s night, it’s night!”

  “We can see the road anyway…New Town is just over this ridge; I recognize that big spile. It was here last time I came.”

  Of the two, Raymond was the more surprised to find New Town where he placed it. They trudged into the village. “Things are awful quiet.”

  There were three dozen huts, built of concrete and good clear glass, each with filtered water, a shower, wash-tub and toilet. To suit Flit prejudices the roofs were thatched with thorn, and there were no interior partitions. The huts were all empty.

  Mary looked into a hut. “Mmmph—horrid!” She puckered her nose at Raymond. “The smell!”

  The windows of the second hut were innocent of glass. Raymond’s face was grim and angry. “I packed that glass up here on my blistered back! And that’s how they thank us.”

  “I don’t care whether they thank us or not,” said Mary. “I’m worried abo
ut the Inspector. He’ll blame us for—” she gestured “—this filth. After all it’s supposed to be our responsibility.”

  Seething with indignation Raymond surveyed the village. He recalled the day New Town had been completed—a model village, thirty-six spotless huts, hardly inferior to the bungalows of the Colony. Arch-Deacon Burnette had voiced the blessing; the volunteer workers knelt to pray in the central compound. Fifty or sixty Flits had come down from the ridges to watch—a wide-eyed ragged bunch: the men all gristle and unkempt hair; the women sly, plump and disposed to promiscuity, or so the colonists believed.

  After the invocation Arch-Deacon Burnette had presented the chief of the tribe a large key of gilded plywood. “In your custody, Chief—the future and welfare of your people! Guard it—cherish it!”

  The chief stood almost seven feet tall; he was lean as a pike, his profile cut in and out, sharp and hard as a turtle’s. He wore greasy black rags and carried a long staff, upholstered with goat-hide. Alone in the tribe he spoke the language of the colonists, with a good accent that always came as a shock. “They are no concern of mine,” he said in a casual, hoarse voice. “They do as they like. That’s the best way.”

  Arch-Deacon Burnette had encountered this attitude before. A large-minded man, he felt no indignation, but rather sought to argue away what he considered an irrational attitude. “Don’t you want to be civilized? Don’t you want to worship God, to live clean, healthy lives?”

  “No.”

  The Arch-Deacon grinned. “Well, we’ll help anyway, as much as we can. We can teach you to read, to cipher; we can cure your disease. Of course you must keep clean and you must adopt regular habits—because that’s what civilization means.”

  The chief grunted. “You don’t even know how to herd goats.”

  “We are not missionaries,” Arch-Deacon Burnette continued, “but when you choose to learn the Truth, we’ll be ready to help you.”

  “Mmph-mmph—where do you profit by this?”

  The Arch-Deacon smiled. “We don’t. You are fellow-humans; we are bound to help you.”

  The chief turned, called to the tribe; they fled up the rocks pell-mell, climbing like desperate wraiths, hair waving, goat-skins flapping.

  “What’s this? What’s this?” cried the Arch-Deacon. “Come back here,” he called to the chief, who was on his way to join the tribe.

  The chief called down from a crag. “You are all crazy people.”

  “No, no,” exclaimed the Arch-Deacon, and it was a magnificent scene, stark as a stage-set: the white-haired Arch-Deacon calling up to the wild chief with his wild tribe behind him; a saint commanding satyrs, all in the shifting light of three suns.

  Somehow he coaxed the chief back down to New Town. Old Fleetville lay half a mile farther up, in a saddle funnelling all the winds and clouds of the Grand Montagne, until even the goats clung with difficulty to the rocks. It was cold, dank, dreary. The Arch-Deacon hammered home each of Old Fleetville’s drawbacks. The chief insisted he preferred it to New Town.

  Fifty pounds of salt made the difference, with the Arch-Deacon compromising his principles over the use of bribes. About sixty of the tribe moved into the new huts with an air of amused detachment, as if the Arch-Deacon had asked them to play a foolish game.

  The Arch-Deacon called another blessing upon the village; the colonists knelt; the Flits watched curiously from the doors and windows of their new homes. Another twenty or thirty bounded down from the crags with a herd of goats which they quartered in the little chapel. Arch-Deacon Burnette’s smile became fixed and painful, but to his credit he did nothing to interfere.

  After a while the colonists filed back down into the valley. They had done the best they could, but they were not sure exactly what it was they had done.

  Two months later New Town was deserted. Brother Raymond and Sister Mary Dunton walked through the village; and the huts showed dark windows and gaping doorways.

  “Where have they gone?” asked Mary in a hushed voice.

  “They’re all mad,” said Raymond. “Stark staring mad.” He went to the chapel, pushed his head through the door. His knuckles shone suddenly white where they gripped the door frame.

  “What’s the trouble?” Mary asked anxiously.

  Raymond held her back. “Corpses…There’s—ten, twelve, maybe fifteen bodies in there.”

  “Raymond!” They looked at each other. “How? Why?”

  Raymond shook his head. With one mind they turned, looked up the hill toward Old Fleetville.

  “I guess it’s up to us to find out.”

  “But this is—is such a nice place,” Mary burst out. “They’re—they’re beasts! They should love it here!” She turned away, looked out over the valley, so that Raymond wouldn’t see her tears. New Town had meant so much to her; with her own hands she had white-washed rocks and laid neat borders around each of the huts. The borders had been kicked askew, and her feelings were hurt. “Let the Flits live as they like, dirty, shiftless creatures. They’re irresponsible,” she told Raymond, “just completely irresponsible!”

  Raymond nodded. “Let’s go on up, Mary; we have our duty.”

  Mary wiped her eyes. “I suppose they’re God’s creatures, but I can’t see why they should be.” She glanced at Raymond. “And don’t tell me about God moving in a mysterious way.”

  “Okay,” said Raymond. They started to clamber up over the rocks, up toward Old Fleetville. The valley became smaller and smaller below. Maude swung up to the zenith and seemed to hang there.

  They paused for breath. Mary mopped her brow. “Am I crazy, or is Maude getting larger?”

  Raymond looked. “Maybe it is swelling a little.”

  “It’s either a nova or we’re falling into it!”

  “I suppose anything could happen in this system,” sighed Raymond. “If there’s any regularity in Glory’s orbit it’s defied analysis.”

  “We might very easily fall into one of the suns,” said Mary thoughtfully.

  Raymond shrugged. “The system’s been milling around for quite a few million years. That’s our best guarantee.”

  “Our only guarantee.” She clenched her fists. “If there were only some certainty somewhere—something you could look at and say, this is immutable, this is changeless, this is something you can count on. But there’s nothing! It’s enough to drive a person crazy!”

  Raymond put on a glassy smile. “Don’t, dear. The Colony’s got too much trouble like that already.”

  Mary sobered instantly. “Sorry…I’m sorry, Raymond. Truly.”

  “It’s got me worried,” said Raymond. “I was talking to Director Birch at the Rest Home yesterday.”

  “How many now?”

  “Almost three thousand. More coming in every day.” He sighed. “There’s something about Glory that grinds at a person’s nerves—no question about it.”

  Mary took a deep breath, pressed Raymond’s hand. “We’ll fight it, darling, and beat it! Things will fall into routine; we’ll straighten everything out.”

  Raymond bowed his head. “With the Lord’s help.”

  “There goes Maude,” said Mary. “We’d better get up to Old Fleetville while there’s still light.”

  A few minutes later they met a dozen goats, herded by as many scraggly children. Some wore rags; some wore goat-skin clothes; others ran around naked, and the wind blew on their washboard ribs.

  On the other side of the trail they met another herd of goats—perhaps a hundred, with one urchin in attendance.

  “That’s the Flit way,” said Raymond, “twelve kids herd twelve goats and one kid herds a hundred.”

  “They’re surely victims of some mental disease…Is insanity hereditary?”

  “That’s a moot point…I can smell Old Fleetville.”

  Maude left the sky at an angle which promised a long twilight. With aching legs Raymond and Mary plodded up into the village. Behind came the goats and the children, mingled without discrimination.

>   Mary said in a disgusted voice, “They leave New Town—pretty, clean New Town—to move up into this filth.”

  “Don’t step on that goat!” Raymond guided her past the gnawed carcass which lay on the trail. Mary bit her lip.

  They found the chief sitting on a rock, staring into the air. He greeted them with neither surprise nor pleasure. A group of children were building a pyre of brush and dry spile.

  “What’s going on?” asked Raymond with forced cheer. “A feast? A dance?”

  “Four men, two women. They go crazy, they die. We burn them.”

  Mary looked at the pyre. “I didn’t know you cremated your dead.”

  “This time we burn them.” He reached out, touched Mary’s glossy golden hair. “You be my wife for a while.”

  Mary stepped back, and said in a quivering voice, “No, thanks. I’m married to Raymond.”

  “All the time?”

  “All the time.”

  The chief shook his head. “You are crazy. Pretty soon you die.”

  Raymond said sternly, “Why did you break the canal? Ten times we’ve fixed it; ten times the Flits came down in the dark and pulled down the banks.”

  The chief deliberated. “The canal is crazy.”

  “It’s not crazy. It helps irrigate, helps the farmers.”

  “It goes too much the same.”

  “You mean, it’s straight?”

  “Straight? Straight? What word is that?”

  “In one line—in one direction.”

  The chief rocked back and forth. “Look—mountain. Straight?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Sun—straight?”

  “Look here—”

  “My leg.” The chief extended his left leg, knobby and covered with hair. “Straight?”

  “No,” sighed Raymond. “Your leg is not straight.”

  “Then why make canal straight? Crazy.” He sat back. The topic was disposed of. “Why do you come?”

  “Well,” said Raymond. “Too many Flits die. We want to help you.”

  “That’s all right. It’s not me, not you.”

  “We don’t want you to die. Why don’t you live in New Town?”