The Blue World

by Jack Vance

  Wall Bunce, an old Larcener crippled by a fall from the Tranque tower yardarms, held up an emphatic finger, “Never forget Cardinal’s Dictum from the Analects: ‘Whoever is willing to give will never lack someone to take!’”

  Into the inn came Semm Voiderveg and Zander Rohan. They seated themselves beside Ixon Myrex: the three most influential men of the float. After giving Voiderveg and Rohan greeting, Ixon Myrex returned to Wall Bunce: “Don’t go quoting the Analects to me, because I can quote in return: ‘The most flagrant fool is the man who doesn’t know when he’s well off!’”

  “I give you, ‘If you start a fight with your hands in your pockets, you’ll have warm hands but a bloody nose!’ “`called Wall Bunce.

  Ixon Myrex thrust out his chin. “I don’t intend to quote Dicta at you all evening, Wall Bunce.”

  “It’s a poor way to win an argument,” Irvin Belrod remarked.

  “I am by no manner of means conducting an argument,” stated Ixon Myrex ponderously. “The subject is too basic; it affects the welfare of Tranque and of all the floats. There certainly cannot be two sides to a matter as fundamental as this!”

  “Here, now,” protested a young scrivener. “You beg the question! All of us favor continued prosperity and welfare. We’re at odds because we define ‘welfare’ differently.”

  Ixon Myrex looked down the bridge of his nose. “The welfare of Tranque Float is not so abstruse a matter,” he said. “We require merely an amplitude of food and a respect for institutions established by wise men of the past.”

  Semm Voiderveg, looking on into mid-air, spoke in measured minatory voice. “Tonight an exceedingly rash act was performed, by a man who should know better. I simply cannot understand a mentality which so arrogantly preempts to itself a decision concerning the welfare of the whole float.”

  Sklar Hast at last was stung. He gave a sarcastic chuckle. “I understand your mentality well enough. If it weren’t for King Kragen, you’d have to work like everyone else. You’ve achieved a sinecure, and you don’t want a detail changed, no matter how much hardship and degradation are involved.”

  “Hardship? There is plenty for all! And degradation? Do you dare use the word in connection with myself or Arbiter Myrex or Master Hoodwink Rohan? I assure you that these men are by no means degraded. and I believe that they resent the imputation as keenly as I do myself!”

  Sklar Hast grinned. “There’s a dictum to cover all that: ‘If the shoe fits, wear it.”

  Zander Rohan burst out, “This caps all! Sklar Hast, you disgrace your caste and your calling! I have no means of altering the circumstances of your birth, but thankfully, I am Guild-Master. I assure you that your career as a hoodwink is at an end!”

  “Bah,” sneered Sklar Hast. “On what grounds?”

  “Turpitude of the character!” roared Zander Rohan. “‘This is a passage of the bylaws, as well you know!”

  Sklar Hast gave Zander Rohan a long, slow inspection, as before. He sighed and made his decision. “There’s also a passage to the effect that a man shall be Guild-Master only so long as he maintains a paramount proficiency. I challenge not only your right to pass judgment but your rank as Guild-Master as well.”

  Silence held the inn. Zander Rohan spoke in a choked voice. “You think you can outwink me?”

  “At any hour of the day or night.”

  “Why have you not made this vaunted ability manifest before?”

  “If you want to know the truth, I did not wish to humiliate you.”

  Zander Rohan slammed his list upon the table. “Very well. We shall see who is to be humiliated. Come: to the tower!”

  Sklar Hast raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You are in haste?”

  “You said, ‘Any hour of the day or night.’”

  “As you wish. Who will judge?”

  “Arbiter Myrex, of course. Who else?”

  “Arbiter Myrex will serve well enough, provided we have others to keep time and note errors.”

  “I appoint Semm Voiderveg; he reads with great facility.”

  Sklar Hast pointed to others in the room, persons he knew to be keen of eye and deft at reading winks. “Rubal Gallager—Freeheart Noe—Herlinger Showalter. I appoint these to read winks and note errors.”

  Zander Rohan made no objection; all in the inn arose and crossed to the tower. The space under the tower was enclosed by a wall of withe and varnished pad-skin. On the first level was a shed given over to practice mechanisms; on the second were stores: spare hoods, oil for the lamps, connection cords, and records; the third and fourth levels housed apprentices, assistant hoodwinks on duty, and maintenance larceners.

  Into the first level trooped Zander Rohan and Sklar Hast, followed by those whom they had appointed judges, and ten or twelve others—as many as the shed could contain. Lamps were turned up, benches pushed back, window shutters raised for ventilation.

  Zander Rohan went to the newest of the two practice machines, ran his fingers over the keys, kicked the release. He frowned, thrust out his lip, went to the older of the machines, which was looser and easier but with considerably more backlash. The tighter machine required more effort but allowed more speed. He signaled to the apprentices, who stood looking down from the second level. “Oil. Lubricate the connections. Is this how you maintain the equipment?”

  The apprentices hastened to obey.

  Sklar Hast ran his fingers over the keys of both machines and decided to use the newer, if the choice was his. Zander Rohan went to the end of the room where he conferred in quiet tones with Ixon Myrex and Semm Voiderveg. All three turned, glanced at Sklar Hast, who stood waiting impassively. Antagonism hung heavy in the room.

  Ixon Myrex and Semm Voiderveg came toward Sklar Hast. “Do you have any conditions or exceptions to make?”

  “Tell me what you propose,” said Sklar Hast. “Then I’ll tell you my conditions or exceptions.”

  “We propose nothing unusual—in fact, a test similar to those at the Aumerge Tournament during the Year of Waldemar’s Dive.”

  Sklar Hast gave a curt nod, “Four selections from the Analects?”

  “Precisely.”

  “What selections?”

  “Apprentice exercises might be most convenient, but I don’t think Master Rohan is particular in this case.”

  “Nor I. Apprentice exercises will be well enough.”

  “I propose we use tournament weighing: the best score is multiplied by fifty, the next by thirty, the next by twenty, the worst by ten. This ensures that your best effort will receive the greatest weight.”

  Sklar Hast reflected. The system of weighting tended to favor the efforts of the nervous or erratic operator, while the steadier and more consistent operator was handicapped. Still, under the present circumstances, it made small difference: neither he nor Zander Rohan were typically given to effulgent bursts of speed. “I agree. What of miswinks?”

  “Each error or miswink to add three seconds to the score.”

  Sklar Hast acquiesced. There was further discussion of a technical nature, as to what constituted an error, how the errors should be noted and reckoned in regard to the operation of the clock.

  Finally all possible contingencies had been discussed.

  The texts were selected: Exercises 61, 62, 63, 64, all excerpts from the Analects, which in turn had been derived from the sixty-one volumes of Memoria. Before assenting to the exercises, Zander Rohan donned the spectacles which he recently had taken to using—two lenses of clear gum, melted, cast and held in frames of laminated withe—and carefully read the exercises. Sklar Hast followed suit, though through his work with the apprentices he was intimately acquainted with them. The contestants might use either machine, and both elected to use the new machine. Each man would wink an exercise in turn, and Zander Rohan signified that he wished Sklar Hast to wink first.

  Sklar Hast went to the machine, arranged Exercise 61 in front of him, stretched his brown fingers, tested the action of keys and kick-rods. Across the room
sat the judges, while Arbiter Myrex controlled the clock. At this moment the door slid back, and into the shed came Meril Rohan.

  Zander Rohan made a peremptory motion, which she ignored. Intercessor Voiderveg frowned and held up an admonitory finger, which she heeded even less. Sklar Hast looked once in her direction, meeting her bright gaze, and could not decide on its emotional content: Scorn? Detestation? Amusement? It made no great difference.

  “Ready!” called Ixon Myrex. Sklar Hast bent slightly forward, strong hands and tense fingers poised. “Set! Wink!”

  Sklar Hast’s hands struck down at the keys; his foot kicked the release. The first configuration, the second, the third. Sklar Hast winked deliberately, gradually loosening, letting his natural muscular rhythm augment his speed.

  “—even were we able to communicate with the Home Worlds, I wonder if we would now choose to do so. Ignoring the inevitable prosecution which would ensue owing to our unique background—as I say, not even considering this—we have gained here something which none of us have ever known before: a sense of achievement on a level other than what I will call ‘social manipulation’. We are, by and large, happy on the floats. There is naturally much homesickness, nostalgia, vain regrets—how could this be avoided? Would they be less poignant on New Ossining? This is a question all of us have argued at length, to no decision. The facts are that we all seem to be facing the realities of our new life with a fortitude and equanimity of which we probably did not suspect ourselves capable.”

  “End!” called Sklar Hast. Ixon Myrex checked the clock. “One hundred forty-six seconds.”

  Sklar Hast moved back from the machine. A good time, though not dazzling, and by no means his best speed. “Mistakes?” he inquired.

  “No mistakes,” stated Rubal Gallager.

  Norm time was one hundred fifty-two seconds, which gave him a percentum part score of 6/162, or 3.95 minus.

  Zander Rohan poised himself before the machine and at the signal winked forth the message in his usual somewhat brittle style. Sklar Hast listened carefully, and it seemed as if the Master Hoodwink were winking somewhat more deliberately than usual.

  Zander Rohan’s time was one hundred forty-five seconds; he made no mistakes, and his score was 4.21 minus. He stepped to the side with the trace of a smile.

  Sklar Hast glanced from the corner of his eye to Meril Rohan, for no other reason than idle curiosity—or so he told himself. Her face revealed nothing.

  He set Exercise 62 before him. Ixon Myrex gave the signal; Sklar Hast’s hands struck out the first wink. Now he was easy and loose, and his lingers worked like pistons.

  Exercise 62, like 61, was an excerpt from the Memorium of Eleanor Morse:

  “A hundred times we have discussed what to my mind is perhaps the most astonishing aspect of our new community on the float: the sense of trust, of interaction, of mutual responsibility. Who could have imagined from a group of such diverse backgrounds, with such initial handicaps (whether innate or acquired I will not presume to speculate), there might arise so placid, so ordered, and so cheerful a society. Our elected leader, like myself, is an embezzler. Some of our most tireless and self-sacrificing workers were previously peculators, hooligans, goons: One could never match the individuals with their past lives. The situation, of course, is not unanimous, but to an amazing extent old habits and attitudes have been superseded by a positive sense of participation in the life of something larger than self. To most of us it is as if we had regained a lost youth or, indeed a youth we never had known.”

  “End!” called Sklar Hast.

  Ixon Myrex stopped the clock. “Time: one hundred eighty-two seconds. Norm: two hundred seconds. Mistakes? None.”

  Sklar Hast’s score was a solid 9 minus. Zander Rohan winked a blazing-fast but nervous and staccato one hundred seventy-nine seconds, but made at least two mistakes. Rubal Gallager and Herlinger Showalter claimed to have detected enough of a waver in one of the corner hoods to qualify as a third error, but Freeheart Noe had not noticed, and both Semm Voiderveg and Ixon Myrex insisted that the configuration had been clearly winked. Nevertheless, with a penalty of six seconds, his time became a hundred eighty-five with a score of 15/200 or 7.5 per cent minus.

  Sklar Hast-approached the third exercise thoughtfully. If he could make a high score on this third exercise, Zander Rohan, already tense, might well press and blow the exercise completely.

  He poised himself. “Wink!” cried Ixon Myrex. And again Sklar Hast’s fingers struck the tabs. The exercise was from the Memorium of Wilson Snyder, a man of unstated caste:

  “Almost two years have elapsed, and there is no question but what we are an ingenious group. Alertness, ingenuity, skill at improvisation: these are our characteristics. Or, as our detractors would put it, a low simian cunning. Well, so be it. Another trait luckily common to all of us (more or less) is a well-developed sense of resignation, or perhaps fatalism is the word, toward circumstances beyond our control. Hence we are a far happier group than might be a corresponding number of, say, musicians or scientists or even law-enforcement officers. Not that these professions go unrepresented among our little, band. Jora Alvan—an accomplished flautist. James Brunet—professor of physical science at Southwestern University. Howard Gallagher—a high-ranking police official. And myself—but no! I adhere to my resolution, and I’ll say nothing of my past life. Modesty? I wish I could claim as much!”

  “End!” Sklar Hast drew a deep breath and stepped back from the machine. He did not look toward Zander Rohan; it would have been an act of malignant gloating to have done so. For he had driven the machine as fast as its mechanism permitted. No man alive could have winked faster, with a more powerful driving rhythm. Ixon Myrex examined the clock. “Time: one hundred seventy-two seconds,” he said reluctantly. “Norm … This seems incorrect. Two hundred eight?”

  “Two hundred eight is correct,” said Rubal Gallager dryly. “There were no mistakes.”

  Ixon Myrex and Semm Voiderveg chewed their lips glumly. Freeheart Noe calculated the score: 36/208, or a remarkable 17.3 minus!

  Zander Rohan stepped forward bravely enough and poised himself before the machine. “Wink!” cried Ixon Myrex in a voice that cracked from tension. And Zander Rohan’s once precise fingers stiffened with his own fears and tension, and his careful rhythm faltered. All in the room stood stiff and embarrassed.

  Finally he called: “End!”

  Ixon Myrex read the clock. “Two hundred and one seconds.”

  “There were two mistakes,” said Semm Voiderveg.

  Rubal Gallager started to speak, then held his tongue.

  He had noted at least five instances which an exacting observer—such as Zander Rohan himself—might have characterized as error. But the contest was clearly one-sided. Two hundred and one seconds, plus six penalty seconds gave Zander Rohan a score of 1/208 or 0.48 minus.

  The fourth exercise was from the Memorium of Hedwig Swin, who, like Wilson Snyder, maintained reserve in regard to her caste.

  Ixon Myrex set the clock with unwilling lingers, called out the starting signal. Sklar Hast winked easily, without effort, and the configurations spilled forth in a swift flow:

  “A soft, beautiful world! A world of matchless climate, indescribable beauty, a world of water and sky, with, to the best of my knowledge, not one square inch of solid ground. Along the equator where the sea-plants grow, the ocean must be comparatively shallow, though no one has plumbed the bottom. Quite certainly this world will never be scarred and soiled by an industrial civilization, which, of course, is all very well Still, speaking for myself, I would have welcomed a jut of land or two: a good honest mountain, with rocks and trees with roots gripping the soil, a stretch of beach, a few meadows, fields, and orchards. But beggars can’t be choosers, and compared with our original destination this world is heaven.”

  “End!”

  Ixon Myrex spoke tersely. “Time: one hundred forty-one. Norm: one hundred sixty.”

  All was lost f
or Zander Rohan. To win he would have to wink for a score of twenty-five or thirty, or perhaps even higher. He knew he could not achieve this score and winked without hope and without tension and achieved his highest score of the test: a strong 12.05 minus. Nonetheless he had lost, and now, by the guild custom., he must resign his post and give way to Sklar Hast. He could not bring himself to speak the words.

  Meril turned on her heel, departed the building.

  Zander Rohan finally turned to Sklar Hast. He had started to croak a formal admission of defeat when Semm Voiderveg stepped quickly forward, took Zander Rohan’s arm, pulled him aside.

  He spoke in urgent tones while Sklar Hast looked on with a sardonic grin. Iron Myrex joined the conversation and pulled his chin doubtfully. Zander Rohan stood less erect than usual, his fine bush of white hair limp and his beard twisted askew. From time to time he shook his head in forlorn but unemphatic objection to Semm Voiderveg’s urgings.

  But Semm Voiderveg had his way and turned toward Sklar Hast. “A serious defect in the test has come to light. I fear it cannot be validated.” ‘

  “Indeed?” asked Sklar Hast. “And how is this?”

  “It appears that you work daily with these exercises, during your instruction of the apprentices. In short, you have practiced these exercises intensively, and the contest thereby is not a fair one.”

  “You selected the exercises yourself.”

  “Possibly true. It was nevertheless` your duty to inform us of your familiarity with the matter.”

  “In sheer point of fact,” said Sklar Hast, “I am not familiar with the exercises and had not winked them since I was an apprentice myself.”

  Semm Voiderveg shook his head. “I find this impossible to believe. I, for one, refuse to validate the results of this so-called contest, and I believe that Arbiter Myrex feels much the same disgust and indignation as I do myself.”