by Jack Vance
“I say nothing.”
“Come,” said Phyral Berwick reasonably. “Your craft is Intercessor; your responsibility lies to the men whom you represent and for whom you intercede; certainly not to King Kragen, no matter how fervent your respect. Evasion, secrecy, or stubborn silence can only arouse our distrust and lead away from justice. Surely you recognize this much.”
“It is to be understood,” said Semm Voiderveg tartly, “that even if I did summon King Kragen—and it would violate guild policy to make a definite statement in this regard—my motives were of the highest order.”
“Well, then, did you do so?”
Semm Voiderveg looked toward Barquan Blasdel for support, and the Apprise Intercessor once more rose to his feet. “Arbiter Berwick, I must insist that we are pursuing a blind alley, far from our basic purpose.”
“What then is our basic purpose?” asked Phyral Berwick.
Barquan Blasdel held out his arms in a gesture of surprise. “Is there any doubt? By Sklar Hast’s own admission he has violated King Kragen’s laws and the orthodox custom of the floats. It only remains to us—this and no more—to establish a commensurate punishment.”
Phyral Berwick started to speak, but yielded to Roger Kelso, who had leaped quickly to his feet. “I must point out an elemental confusion in the worthy Intercessor’s thinking. King Kragen’s laws are not human laws, and is unorthodoxy a crime? It so, then many more beside Sklar Hast are guilty.”
Barquan Blasdel remained unruffled. “The confusion lies in another quarter. The laws I refer to stem from the Covenant between ourselves and King Kragen: he protects us from the terrors of the sea; in return he insists that we acknowledge his sovereignty of the sea. And as for orthodoxy, this is no more and no less than respect for the opinions of the arbiters and intercessors of all the floats, who are trained to judiciousness, foresight, and decorum. So now we must weigh the exact degree of Sklar Hast’s transgressions.”
“Precisely,” said Roger Kelso. “And to do this, we need to know whether Semm Voiderveg summoned King Kragen to Tranque Float.”
Barquan Blasdel’s voice at last took on a harsh edge. “We must not question the acts of any man when he performs in the role of intercessor! Nor is it permitted to probe the guild secrets of the intercessors!”
Phyral Berwick signaled Barquan Blasdel to silence. “In a situation like this, when fundamental questions are under consideration, guild secrecy becomes of secondary importance. Not only I but all the other folk of the floats wish to know the truth, with a minimum of obscurantism. Secrecy of any sort may not be allowed: this is my ruling. So then, Semm Voiderveg, you were asked: did you summon King Kragen to Tranque Float on the night in question?”
The very air seemed to congeal; every eye turned on Semm Voiderveg. He cleared his throat, raised his eyes to the sky. But he showed no embarrassment in his reply. “The question seems nothing less than ingenuous. How could I function as intercessor without some means of conveying to King Kragen both the extent of our trust and fidelity, likewise the news of emergency when such existed? When the rogue appeared, it was no less than my duty to summon King Kragen. I did so. The means are irrelevant.”
Barquan Blasdel nodded in profound approval, almost relief. Phyral Berwick drummed his fingers, on the rostrum. Several times he opened his mouth to speak, and each time closed it. Finally he asked, rather lamely, “Are these the only occasions upon which you summon King Kragen?”
Semm Voiderveg made a show of indignation. “Why do you question me? I am Intercessor; the criminal is Sklar Hast!”
“Easy, then; the questions illuminate the extent of the alleged crime. For instance, let me ask this: do you ever summon King Kragen to feed from your lagoon in order to visit a punishment or a warning upon the folk of your float?”
Semm Voiderveg blinked. “The wisdom of King Kragen is inordinate. He can detect delinquencies; he makes his presence known—“
“Specifically, then, you summoned King Kragen to Tranque Float when Sklar Hast sought to kill the rogue?”
“My acts are not in the balance. I see no reason to answer the question.”
Barquan Blasdel rose majestically to his feet.“I was about to remark as much.”
“And I!” “And I!” Came from various other intercessors.
Phyral Berwick spoke to the crowd in a troubled voice. “There seems no practical way to determine exactly when Semm Voiderveg called King Kragen. If he did so after Sklar Hast had begun his attack upon the rogue, then in my opinion Semm Voiderveg, the Intercessor, is more immediately responsible for the Tranque disaster than Sklar Hast, and it becomes a travesty to visit any sort of penalty upon Sklar Hast. Unfortunately there seems no way of settling this question.”
Poe Belrod, the Advertiserman Elder, rose to his feet and stood looking sidelong toward Semm Voiderveg. “I can shed some light on the situation. I was a witness to all that occurred. When the rogue appeared in the lagoon, Semm Voiderveg went to watch with the others. He did not go apart until after Sklar Hast began to the beast. I am sure others will be witness to this; Semm Voiderveg made no attempt to conceal his presence.”
Several others who had been at the scene corroborated the testimony of Poe Belrod.
The Apprise Intercessor, Barquan Blasdel, again gained the rostrum. “Arbiter Berwick, I beg that you sedulously keep to the paramount issue. The facts are these: Sklar Hast and his gang committed an act knowingly proscribed both by Tranque Arbiter Ixon Myrex and by Tranque Intercessor Semm Voiderveg. The consequences stemmed from this act; Sklar Hast is inevitably guilty.”
“Barquan Blasdel,” said Phyral Berwick, “you are Apprise Intercessor. Have you ever summoned King Kragen to Apprise Float?”
“As Semm Voiderveg and I have incessantly pointed out, Sklar Hast is the criminal at the bar, not the conscientious intercessors of the various floats. By no means may Sklar Hast be allowed to evade his punishment. King Kragen is not lightly to be defied! Even though the convocation will not raise their collective list to smite Sklar Hast, I say that he must die. It is a matter this serious.”
Phyral Berwick fixed his pale blue eyes upon Barquan Blasdel. “If the convocation gives Sklar Hast his life, he will not die unless I die before him.”
“Nor I!” called Poe Belrod. “Nor I!” This was from Roger Kelso. And now all those men of Tranque Float who had joined Sklar Hast in the killing of the rogue kragen came toward the rostrum, shouting their intention of joining Sklar Hast either in life or death, and with them came others, from various floats.
Barquan Blasdel scrambled up onto the rostrum, held his arms wide, and finally was able to make himself heard. “Before others declare themselves—look out to sea! King Kragen watches, attentive to learn who is loyal and who is faithless!”
The crowd swung about as it one individual. A hundred yards off the float the water swirled lazily around King Kragen’s great turret. The crystal eyes pointed like telescopes toward Apprise Float. Presently the turret sank beneath the surface. The blue water roiled, then flowed smooth and featureless.
Sklar Hast stepped forward, started to mount to the rostrum. Barquan Blasdel the Intercessor halted him. “The rostrum must not become a shouting place. Stay till you are summoned!”
But Sklar Hast pushed him aside, went to face the crowd. He pointed toward the smooth ocean. “There you have seen the vile beast, our enemy! Why should we deceive ourselves? Intercessors, arbiters, all of us—let us forget our differences, let us join our crafts and our resources! If we do so, we can evolve a method to kill King Kragen! We are men; why should we abase ourselves before anything whatever?”
Barquan Blasdel threw back his head, aghast. He took a step toward Sklar Hast, as if to seize him, then turned to the audience; “You have heard this madman—twice you have heard him! And also you have observed the vigilance of King Kragen whose force is known to all! Choose therefore—obey either the exhortations of a twitching lunatic or be guided by our ancient trust in the benevole
nce of mighty King Kragen. There must be a definite resolution to this matter. We can have no half measures! Sklar Hast must die! So now hold high your fists each and all! Silence the frantic screamings of Sklar Hast! King Kragen is near at hand! Death to Sklar Hast!”
He thrust his Est high into the air. The intercessors followed suit. “Death to Sklar Hast!”
Hesitantly, indecisively, other fists raised, then others and others. Some changed their minds and drew down their fists or thrust them high; some raised their fists only to have others pull them down. Altercations sprang up across the float; the hoarse sound of contention began to make itself heard.
Barquan Blasdel leaned forward in sudden concern, calling for calm. Sklar Hast likewise started to speak, but he desisted—because suddenly words were of no avail. In a bewildering, almost magical shift the placid convocation had become a melée. Men and women tore savagely at each other, screaming, cursing, raging, squealing, emotion accumulated from childhood, stored and constrained, now exploded; identical fear and hate prompted opposite reactions.
Luckily few weapons were available: clubs of stalk, a bone ax or two, a half dozen stakes, as many knives. Across the float the tide of battle surged, out into the water. Staid Jacklegs and responsible Malpractors sought to drown each other; Advertisermen ignored their low estate and belabored Bezzlers; orthodox Incendiaries kicked, clawed, tore, and bit as furiously as any varnish-besotted Smuggler. While the struggle was at its most intense, King Kragen once more surfaced, this time a quarter-mile to the north, whence he turned his vast, incurious gaze upon the float.
The fighting slowed and dwindled, partly from sheer exhaustion, partly from the efforts of the most responsible, and the combatants were thrust apart. In the lagoon floated half a dozen corpses; on the float lay as many more. Now for the first time it could be seen that those who stood by Sklar Hast were considerably outnumbered, by almost two to one, and also that this group included for the most part the most vigorous and able of the craftsmen, though few of the Masters.
Barquan Blasdel, still on the rostrum, cried out, “A sorry,day indeed, a sorry day! Sklar Hast, see the anguish you have brought to the floats!”
Sklar Hast looked at him, panting and haggard with grief. Blood coursed down his face from the slash of a knife; the garments were ripped from his chest. Ignoring Blasdel, he mounted the rostrum and addressed the two groups. “I agree with Barquan Blasdel: this is a sorry day—but let there be no mistake: Men must rule the ocean beast or be ruled! I now return to Tranque Float, where the great damage must be repaired. As Blasdel the Intercessor has said, there is no turning back now. So be it. Let those who want free lives come to Tranque, where we will take counsel on what to do next.”
“Barquan Blasdel made a hoarse, peculiarly ugly sound: an ejaculation of bitter amusement rendered glottal and guttural by hate. His ease and facility of manner had deserted him; he crouched tensely over the railing of the rostrum. “Go then to ruined Tranque! All you faithless, you irreverent ones—get hence and good riddance! Let Tranque be your home, and let Tranque become a name accused, an evil odor, a vile disease! Only do not scream to King Kragen for aid when the rogues, unchided by the great King, devour your sponges, tear your nets, crush your coracles!”
“The many cannot be as rapacious as the one,” said Sklar Hast. “Nevertheless, do not be persuaded by the ranting of the Intercessor. Tranque Float is ruined and will support but few folk until the nets are repaired and new arbors seeded. For the present, a migration such as Blasdel suggests is impractical.”
From the red-haired Peculator came a call: “Let the intercessors take King Kragen and migrate to some far line of floats; then all of us will he suited!”
Blasdel, making no response, jumped down from the rostrum and marched across the float to his private pad.
Chapter 6
In spite of the strife, or perhaps because it did not seem real, and in spite of the devastation, almost all of the Tranque folk elected to return to their home float. A few, appalled by the circumstances, took up temporary habitation elsewhere, perhaps at the hut of a caste cousin or guild-fellow, but most decided for better or worse to return to Tranque. So they did, silently rowing their coracles, nursing such aches, bruises, or wounds as they had incurred, looking neither left nor right for fear of staring across the water into the face of friend or neighbor whom they had only just desisted from belaboring.
It was a melancholy voyage through the gray-violet evening, down along the line of floats, each with its characteristic silhouette, each with its peculiar ambience or quirk of personality, so that a turn of phrase might be noted as typically Aumerge or a bit of carved wood identified immediately and unmistakably as the work of a Leumar Niggler. And now Tranque, of all the floats, was devastated, Tranque alone. It was enough to make tears of grief and bitterness well from the eyes of the Tranque folk. For them all was changed; the old life would never return. The resentments and bitterness might numb and soar over, but the friendships would never again be easy, the trusts whole. Still, Tranque was home. There was no other place to go.
There was small comfort to be found on Tranque. A third of the huts were in ruins. The granary and all the precious flour had been wasted; the proud tower lay in a tangle of splinters and wreckage. Directly across the float, in a great avenue of destruction, could be traced the course of King Kragen.
On the morning after the convocation the folk stood about in groups, working in a desultory fashion, glancing sidewise in surly silence toward persons whom they had known all their lives. Somewhat to Sklar Hast’s surprise Semm Voiderveg had returned to the float, though his own cottage had been crushed by King Kragen and now was only a tangle of crushed withe and tattered pad-skin. Semm Voiderveg went to look disconsolately at the mess, poking and prodding here and there, extracting
an implement, a pot, a bucket, an article of clothing, a volume of Analects sodden from water which had gushed up from a broken place in the float. Feeling Sklar Hast’s gaze upon him, he gave an angry shrug and marched away to the undamaged cottage of Arbiter Myrex, with whom he was lodged.
Sklar Hast continued toward his own destination: the hut of the former Master Hoodwink, which also had suffered destruction, though perhaps in lesser degree. Meril Rohan was hard at work, cutting up the rubbish, stacking usable withe and such varnished pad-skin as might feasibly be reused. Sklar Hast silently began to help her, and she made no objection.
At last, protected by a toppled cupboard, she found what she sought: sixty-one folios bound in supple gray-fish leather. Sklar Hast carried the volumes to a bench, covered them with a sheet of pad-skin against the possibility of a sudden shower. Meril turned back to the ruined hut, but Sklar Hast took her hand and led her to the bench. She seated herself without, argument, and Sklar Hast sat beside her. “I have been anxious to talk to you.”
“I expected as much.”
Sklar Hast found her composure baffling. What did it signify? Love? Hate? Indifference? Frigidity?
She went on to enlighten him. “I’ve always had contradicting impulses in regard to you. I admire your energy. Your decisiveness—some call it ruthlessness—makes me uneasy. Your motives are transparent and do you no discredit, although your recklessness and heedlessness do.”
Sklar Hast was moved to protest. “I am neither one nor the other! In emergencies one must act without vacillation. Indecisiveness and failure are the same.”
Meril nodded toward the ruins. “What do you call this?”
“Not failure. It is a setback, a misfortune, a tragedy—but how could it have been avoided? Assuming, of course, that we intended to free ourselves from King Kragen.”
Meril Rohan shrugged. “I don’t know the answer. But the decisions which you took alone should have been taken jointly by everyone.”
“No,” said Sklar Hast stubbornly. “How far would we get, how fast would we be able to react, if at every need for action we were forced to counsel? Think of the outcries and the delay from
Myrex and Voiderveg and even your father! Nothing would be accomplished; we would be mired!”
Meril Rohan made restless movements with her hands. Finally she said, “Very well. This is clear. Also it echoes the Memorium of Lester McManus. I forget his exact phrasing, but he remarks that since we are men, and since most of us prefer to be good, we are constantly looking for absolutes. We want no taint on any of our actions, and we can’t reconcile ourselves to actions which are in any aspect immoral.”
“Unfortunately,” said Sklar Hast, “there are very few absolutely moral deeds, except possibly pure passivity—and I am uncertain as to this. It may be there is no completely moral act. The more decisive and energetic any act is, the more uncertain will become the chances of its being absolutely moral.”
Meril Rohan was amused. “This sounds like a certain principle of uncertainty James Brunet, the scientist, mentions in his Memorium, but which seems quite incomprehensible to me … You may be right—from your point of view. Certainly not from Semm Voiderveg’s.”
“Nor King Kragen’s.”
Meril nodded, a faint smile on her lips, and looking at her, Sklar Hast wondered why he ever had thought to test other girls of the float when surely this was the one he wanted. He studied her a moment, trying to decide wherein lay her charm. Her figure was by no means voluptuous, though it was unmistakably feminine. He had seen prettier faces, though Meril’s face, with, its subtle irregularities and unexpected delicacies of modeling and quick, almost imperceptible quirks and flexibilities, was fascination itself.
Now she was pensive and sat looking east across the water, where the whole line of floats extended, one behind the other, curving to the north just sufficiently to allow all to be seen: Thrasneck, Bickle, Sumber, Adelvine, Green Lamp, Fleurnoy, Aumerge, Quincunx, Fay, all these last merging into the horizon haze, all the others no more than lavender-gray smudges on the dark blue ocean. Above all towered a great billowing white cloud. Sklar Hast sensed something of her thoughts and drew a deep breath. “Yes …It’s a beautiful world. If only there were no King Kragen.”
