The Narrow Land

by Jack Vance

  Clay's gaze went to the black bound books at the end of the room, and his voice lowered a trifle.

  "The Encyclopedia of Human Achievement. The original edition was in ten little plastrol volumes, none of them larger than your hand-but in them was such a treasury of human glory that never could we forget our ancestry, or rest in our efforts to achieve somewhere near the level of the great masters. All the works of the human race we set as our standards-music, art, literature-all. were described in the Encyclopedia."

  "Described, you say," mused Welstead.

  "There were no illustrations?" asked Betty.

  "No," said Clay, "there was small compass for pictures in the original edition. However"-he went to the case, selected a volume at random-"the words left little to the imagination. For example, on the music of Bach-'When Bach arrived on the scene the toccata was tentative, indecisive-a recreation, a tour de force, where the musician might display his virtuosity.

  "In Bach the toccata becomes a medium of the noblest plasticity. The theme he suggests by casual fingering of the keyboard, unrelated runs. Then comes a glorious burst into harmony-the original runs glow like prisms, assume stature, gradually topple together into a miraculous pyramid of sound.*

  "And on Beethoven-'A God among men. His music is the voice of the world, the pageant of all imagined splendor. The sounds he invokes are natural forces of the same order as sunsets, storms at sea, the view from mountain crags.'

  "And on Leon Bismarck Beiderbecke-'His trumpet pours out such a torrent of ecstasy, such triumph, such overriding joys that the heart of man freezes in anguish at not being wholly part of it.'" Clay closed the book, replaced it. "Such is our heritage. We have tried to keep alive, however poorly, the stream of our original culture."

  "I would say that you have succeeded," Welstead remarked dryly.

  Betty sighed, a long slow suspiration.

  Clay shook his head. "You can't judge until you've seen more of Haven. We're comfortable enough though our manner of living must seem unimpressive in comparison with the great cities, the magnificent palaces of Earth."

  "No, not at all," said Betty but Clay made a polite gesture.

  "Don't feel obliged to flatter us. As I've said, we're aware of our deficiencies. Our music for instance-it is pleasant, sometimes exciting, sometimes profound, but never does it reach the heights of poignancy that the Encyclopedia describes.

  "Our art is technically good but we despair of emulating Seurat, who 'out-lumens light,' or Braque, 'the patterns of the mind in patterns of color on the patterns of life, or Cezanne-'the planes which under the guise of natural objects march, merge, meet in accord with remorseless logic, which wheel around and impel the mind to admit the absolute justice of the composition.'"

  Betty glanced at her husband, apprehensive lest he speak what she knew must be on his mind. To her relief he kept silent, squinting thoughtfully at Clay. For her part Betty resolved to maintain a noncommittal attitude.

  "No," Clay said heavily, "we do the best we can, and in some fields we've naturally achieved more than in others. To begin with we had the benefit of all human experience in our memories. The paths were charted out for us-we knew the mistakes to avoid. We've never had wars or compulsion. We've never permitted unreined authority. Still we've tried to reward those who are willing to accept responsibility.

  "Our criminals-very few now-are treated for mental disorder on the first and second offense, sterilized on the third, executed on the fourth-our basic law being cooperation and contribution to the society, though there is infinite latitude in how this contribution shall be made. We do not make society a juggernaut. A man may live as integrally or as singularly as he wishes so long as he complies with the basic law."

  Clay paused, looking from Welstead to Betty. "Now do you understand our way of living?"

  "More or less," said Welstead. "In the outline at least. You seem to have made a great deal of progress technically."

  Clay considered. "From one aspect, yes. From another no. We had the lifeboat tools, we had the technical skills and most important we knew what we were trying to do. Our main goal naturally has been the conquest of space. We've gone up in rockets but they can take us nowhere save around the sun and back. Our scientists are close on the secret of the space-drive but certain practical difficulties are holding them up."

  Welstead laughed. "Space-drive can never be discovered by rational effort. That's a philosophical question which has been threshed back and forth for hundreds of years. Reason-the abstract idea-is a function of ordinary time and space. The space-drive has no qualities in common with these ideas and for this reason human thought can never consciously solve the problem of the overdrive. Experiment, trial and error can do it. Thinking about it is useless."

  "Hm," said Clay. "That's a new concept. But now your presence makes it beside the point, for you will be the link back to our homeland."

  Betty could see words trembling on her husband's tongue. She clenched her hands, willed-willed-willed. Perhaps the effort had some effect because Welstead merely said, "We'll do anything we can to help."

  All of Mytilene they visited and nearby Tiryns, Dicte and Ilium. They saw industrial centers, atomic power generators, farms, schools. They attended a session of the Council of Guides, both making brief speeches, and they spoke to the people of Haven by television. Every news organ on the planet carried their words.

  They heard music from a green hillside, the orchestra playing from under tremendous smoke black trees. They saw the art of Haven in public galleries, in homes and in common use. They read some of the literature, studied the range of the planet's science, which was roughly equivalent to that of Earth. And they marveled continually how so few people in so little time could accomplish so much.

  They visited the laboratories, where three hundred scientists and engineers strove to force magnetic, gravitic and vor-tigial fields into the fusion that made star-to-star flight possible. And the scientists watched in breathless tension as Welstead inspected the apparatus.

  He saw at a single glance the source of their difficulty. He had read of the same experiments on Earth three hundred years ago and of the fantastic accident that had led Roman-Forteski and Gladheim to enclose the generatrix in a dodecahedron of quartz. Only by such a freak-or by his information-would these scientists of Haven solve the mystery of space-drive.

  And Welstead walked thoughtfully from the laboratory, with the disappointed glances of the technicians following him out. And Betty had glanced after him in wonder, and the rest of the day there had been a strain between them.

  That night as they lay in the darkness, rigid, wakeful, each could feel the pressure of the other's thoughts. Betty finally broke the silence, in a voice so blunt that there was no mistaking her feeling.

  "Ralph!"

  "What?"

  "Why did you act as you did in the laboratory?"

  "Careful," muttered Welstead. "Maybe the room is wired for sound."

  Betty laughed scornfully. "This isn't Earth. These people are trusting, honest.,."

  It was Welstead's turn to laugh-a short cheerless laugh. "And that's the reason I'm ignorant when it comes to space-drive."

  Betty stiffened. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that these people are too damn good to ruin."

  Betty relaxed, sighed, spoke slowly, as if she knew she was in for a long pull. "How-'ruin'?"

  Welstead snorted. "It's perfectly plain. You've been to their homes, you've read their poetry, listened to their music...."x

  "Of course. These people live every second of their lives with-well, call it exaltation. A devotion to creation like nothing I've ever seen before."

  Welstead said somberly, "They're living in the grandest illusion ever imagined and they're riding for an awful fall. They're like a man on a glorious wine drunk."

  Betty stared through the dark. "Are you crazy?"

  "They're living in exaltation now," said Welstead, "but what a bump when the bubble breaks
!"

  "But why should it break?" cried Betty. "Why can't-"

  "Betty," said Welstead with a cold sardonic voice, "have you ever seen a public park on Earth after a holiday?"

  Betty said hotly, "Yes-it's dreadful. Because the people of Earth have no feeling of community."

  "Right," said Welstead. "And these people have. They're knit very tightly by a compulsion that made them achieve in two hundred-odd years what took seven thousand on Earth. They're all facing in the same direction, geared to the same drive. Once that drive is gone how do you expect they'll hold on to their standards?"

  Betty was silent

  "Human beings," said Welstead dreamily, "are at their best when the going's toughest. They're either at their best or else they're nothing. The going's been tough here-these people have come through. Give them a cheap living, tourist money-then what?

  "But that's not all. In fact it's only half the story. These people here," he stated with emphasis, "are living in a dream. They're the victims of the Ten Books. They take every word literally and they've worked their hearts out trying to come somewhere near what they expect the standards to be.

  "Their own stuff doesn't do half the things to them that the Ten Books says good art ought to do. Whoever wrote those Ten Books must have been a copywriter for an advertising agency." Welstead laughed. "Shakespeare wrote good plays-sure, I concede it. But I've never seen 'fires flickering along the words, gusty winds rushing through the pages."

  "Sibelius I suppose was a great composer-I'm no expert on these things-but whoever listened and became 'part of Finland's ice, moss-smelling earth, hoarse-breathing forest,' the way the Ten Books said everyone did?"

  Betty said, "He was merely trying to express vividly the essence of the artists and musicians."

  "Nothing wrong in that," said Welstead. "On Earth we're conditioned to call everything in print a lie. At least we allow for several hundred percent overstatement. These people out here aren't immunized. They've taken every word at its face value. The Ten Books is their Bible. They're trying to equal accomplishments which never existed."

  Betty raised herself up on an elbow, said in a voice of hushed triumph, "And they've succeeded! Ralph, they've succeeded! They've met the challenge, they've equaled or beaten anything Earth has ever produced! Ralph, I'm proud to belong to the same race."

  "Same species," Welstead corrected dryly. "These people are a mixed race. They're all races."

  "What's the difference?" Betty snapped. "You're just quibbling. You know what I mean well enough."

  "We're on a sidetrack," said Welstead wearily. 'The question is not the people of Haven and their accomplishments. Of course they're wonderful-now. But how do you think contact with Earth will affect them?

  "Do you think they'll continue producing when the challenge is gone? When they find the Earth is a rookery-nagging, quarreling-full of mediocre hacks and cheap mischief? Where the artists draw nothing but nude women and the musicians make their living reeling out sound, sound, sound-any kind of sound-for television sound-track. Where are all their dreams then?

  "Talk about disappointment, staleness! Mark my words, half the population would be suicides and the other half would turn to prostitution and cheating the tourists. It's a tough proposition. I say, leave them with their dreams. Let them think we're the worst sort of villains. I say, get off the planet, get back where we belong."

  Betty said in a troubled voice, "Sooner or later somebody else will find them."

  "Maybe-maybe not We'll report the region barren- which it is except for Haven."

  Betty said in a small voice, "Ralph, I couldn't do it I couldn't violate their trust."

  "Not even to keep them trusting?"

  Betty said wildly, "Don't you think there'd be an equal deflation if we sneaked away and left them? We're the climax to their entire two hundred and seventy-one years. Think of the listlessness after we left!"

  "They're working on their space-drive," said Welstead. "Chances are a million to one against their stumbling on it They don't know that. They've got a flicker of a field and they think all they have to do is adjust the power feed, get better insulation. They don't have the Mardi Gras lamp that Gladheim snatched up when the lead tank melted."

  "Ralph," said Betty, "your words are all very logical. Your arguments stay together-but they're not satisfying emotionally. I don't have the feeling of tightness."

  "Pish," said Welstead. "Let's not go spiritual."

  "And," said Betty softly, "let's not try to play God either."

  There was a long silence.

  "Ralph?" said Betty.

  "What?"

  "Isn't there some way ..."

  "Some way to do what?"

  "Why should it be our responsibility?"

  "I don't know whose else it is. We're the instruments-"

  "But it's their lives."

  "Betty," said Welstead wearily, "here's one time we can't pass the buck. We're the people who in the last resort say yes or no. We're the only people that see on both sides of the fence. It's an awful decision to make-but 1 say no."

  There was no more talking and after an unmeasured period they fell asleep.

  Three nights later Welstead stopped Betty as she began to undress for bed. She gave him a dark wide-eyed stare.

  "Throw whatever you're taking into a bag. We're leaving."

  Betty's body was rigid and tense, slowly relaxing as she took a step toward him. "Ralph .. ."

  "What?" And she could find no softness, no indecision in his topaz eyes.

  "Ralph-it's dangerous for us to go. If they caught us, they'd execute us-for utter depravity." And she said in a murmur, looking away, "I suppose they'd be justified too."

  "It's a chance we'll have to take. Just what we said the day we decided to land. We've got to die sometime. Get your gear and let's take off."

  "We should leave a note, Ralph. Something ..."

  He pointed to an envelope. "There it is. Thanking them for their hospitality. I told them we were criminals and couldn't risk returning to Earth. It's thin but it's the best I could do,"

  A hint of fire returned to Betty's voice. "Don't worry, they'll believe it."

  Sullenly she tucked a few trinkets into a pouch. "It's a long way to the ship you know," she warned him.

  "We'll take Clay's car. I've watched him and I know how to drive it"

  She jerked in a small bitter spasm of laughter. "We're even car thieves."

  "Got to be," said Welstead stonily. He went to the door, listened. The utter silence of honest sleep held the rest of the house. He returned to where Betty stood waiting, watching him coldly with an air of dissociation.

  "This way," said Welstead. "Out through the terrace."

  They passed out into the moonless night of Haven and the only sound was the glassy tinkle of the little stream that ran in its natural bed through the terrace.

  Welstead took Betty's hand. "Easy now, don't walk into that bamboo." He clutched and they froze to a halt. Through a window had come a sound-a gasp-and then the relieved mutter a person makes on waking from a bad dream.

  Slowly, like glass melting under heat, the two came to life, stole across the terrace, out upon the turf beside the house. They circled the vegetable garden and the loom of the car bulked before them.

  "Get in," whispered Welstead. 'I'll push till we're down around the bend."

  Betty climbed into the seat and her foot scraped against the metal. Welstead stiffened, listened, pierced the darkness like an eagle. Quiet from the house, the quiet of relaxation, of trust. ... He pushed at the car and it floated easily across the ground, resisting his hand only through inertia.

  It jerked to a sudden halt. And Welstead froze in his tracks again. A burglar alarm of some sort. No, there were no thieves on Haven-except two recently-landed people from Earth. A trap?

  "The anchor," whispered Betty.

  Of course-Welstead almost groaned with relief. Every car had an anchor to prevent the wind from blowin
g it away. He found it, hooked it into place on the car's frame and now the car floated without hindrance down the leafy tunnel that was Clay's driveway. Around a bend he ran to the door, jumped in, pressed his foot on the power pedal, and the car slid away with the easy grace of a canoe. Out on the main road he switched on the lights and they rushed off through the night.

  "And we still use wheels on Earth," said Welstead. "If we only had a tenth of the guts these people have-"

  Cars passed them from the other direction. The lights glowed briefly into their faces and they cringed low behind the windscreen.

  They came to the park where their ship lay. "If anyone stops us," Welstead said in Betty's ear, "we've just driven down to get some personal effects. After all we're not prisoners."

  But he circled the ship warily before stopping beside it and then he waited a few seconds, straining his eyes through the darkness. But there was no sound, no light, no sign of any guard or human presence.

  Welstead jumped from the car. "Fast now. Run over, climb inside. I'll be right behind you."

  They dashed through the dark, up the rungs welded to the hull, and the cold steel felt like a caress to Welstead's hot hands. Into the cabin; he thudded the port shut, slammed home the dogs.

  Welstead vaulted to the controls, powered the reactors. Dangerous business-but once clear of the atmosphere they could take time to let them warm properly. The ship rose; the darkness and lights of Mytilene fell below. Welstead sighed, suddenly tired, but warm and relaxed.

  Up, up-and the planet became a ball, and Eridanus two thousand nine hundred and thirty-two peered around the edge and suddenly, without any noticeable sense of boundary passed, they were out in space.

  Welstead sighed. "Lord, what a relief! I never knew how good empty space could look."

  "It looks beautiful to me also," said Alexander Clay. "I've never seen it before."

  Welstead whirled, jumped to his feet.

  Clay came forward from the reaction chamber, watching with a peculiar expression Welstead took to be deadly fury. Betty stood by the bulkhead, looking from one to the other, her face blank as a mirror.