The Narrow Land

by Jack Vance

  Welstead came slowly down from the controls. "Well- you've caught us in the act. I suppose you think we're treating you pretty rough. Maybe we are. But my conscience is clear. And we're not going back. Looks like you asked for a ride, and you're going to get one. If necessary-" He paused meaningfully.

  Then, "How'd you get aboard?" and after an instant of narrow-eyed speculation, "And why? Why tonight?"

  Clay shook his head slowly. "Ralph-you don't give us any credit for ordinary intelligence, let alone ordinary courage."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I understand your motives-and I admire you for them. Although I think you've been bull-headed putting them into action without discussing it with the people most directly concerned."

  Welstead lowered his head, stared with hard eyes. "It's basically my responsibility. I don't like it but I'm not afraid of it."

  "It does you credit," said Clay mildly. "On Haven we're used to sharing responsibility. Not diluting it, you understand, but putting a dozen-a hundred-a thousand minds on a problem that might be too much for one. You don't appreciate us, Ralph. You think we're soft, spiritless."

  "No," said Welstead. "Not exactly-"

  "Our civilization is built on adaptability, on growth, on flexibility," continued Clay. "We-"

  "You don't understand just what you'd have to adapt to," said Welstead harshly. "It's nothing nice. It's graft, scheming sharp-shooters, tourists by the million, who'll leave your planet the way a platoon of invading soldiers leaves the first pretty girl they find."

  "There'll be problems," said Clay. His voice took on power. "But that's what we want, Ralph-problems. We're hungry for them, for the problems of ordinary human existence. We want to get back into the stream of life. And if it means grunting and sweating we want it We're flesh and blood, just like you are.

  "We don't want Nirvana-we want to test our strength. We want to fight along with the rest of decent humanity. Don't you fight what you think is unjust?"

  Welstead slowly shook his head. "Not any more. It's too big for me. I tried when I was young, then I gave up. Maybe that's why Betty and I roam around the outer edges."

  "No," said Betty. "That's not it at all, Ralph, and you know it. You explore because you like exploring. You like the rough and tumble of human contact just as much as anyone else."

  "Rough and rumble," said Clay, savoring the words. "That's what we need on Haven. They had it in the old days. They gave themselves to it, beating the new world into submission. It's ours now. Another hundred years of nowhere to go and we'd be drugged, lethargic, decadent"

  Welstead was silent

  "The thing to remember, Ralph," said Clay, "is that we're part of humanity. If there's good going, fine. But if there are problems we want to help lick them. You said you'd given up because it was too big for you. Do you think it would be too big for a whole planet? Three hundred million hard honest brains?"

  Welstead stared, his imagination kindled. "I don't see how-"

  Clay smiled. "I don't either. It's a problem for three hundred million minds. Thinking about it that way it doesn't seem so big. If it takes three hundred brains three days to figure out a dodecahedron of quartz-" Welstead jerked, looked accusingly at his wife. "Betty!" She shook her head. "I told Clay about our conversation, our argument. We discussed it all around. I told him everything-and I told him I'd give a signal whenever we started to leave. But I never mentioned spacedrive. If they discovered it they did it by themselves."

  Welstead turned slowly back to Clay. "Discovered it? But-that's impossible."

  Clay said, "Nothing's impossible. You yourself gave me the hint when you told me human reason was useless because the space-drive worked out of a different environment So we concentrated not on the drive itself but on the environment. The first results came at us in terms of twelve directions- hence the dodecahedron. just a hunch, an experiment and it worked."

  Welstead sighed. "I'm licked. I give in. Clay, the headache is yours. You've made it yours. What do you want to do? Go back to Haven?"

  Clay smiled, almost with affection. "We're this far. I'd like to see Earth. For a month, incognito. Then we'll come back to Haven and make a report to the world. And then there's three hundred million of us, waiting for the bell in round one."

  Roll of the Dice

  The advertisement appeared on a telescreen commercial, and a few days later at the side of the news-fax. The copy was green on a black background, a modest rectangle among the oranges, reds, yellows. The punch was carried in the message:

  Jaded? Bored?

  Want ADVENTURE?

  Try the Chateau d'lf.

  The Oxonian Terrace was a pleasant area of quiet in the heart of the city-a red-flagged rectangle dotted with beach umbrellas, tables, lazy people. A bank of magnolia trees screened off the street and filtered out most of the street noise; the leakage, a soft sound like surf, underlay the conversation and the irregular thud-thud-thud from the Oxonian handball courts.

  Roland Mario sat in complete relaxation, half-slumped, head back, feet propped on the spun-air and glass table-in the same posture as his four companions. Watching them under half-closed lids, Mario pondered the ancient mystery of human personality. How could men be identical and yet each completely unique?

  To his left sat Breaugh, a calculator repairman. He had a long bony nose, round eyes, heavy black eyebrows, a man deft with his fingers, methodical and patient. He had a Welsh name, and he looked the pure ancient Welsh type, the small dark men that had preceded Caesar, preceded the Celts.

  Next to him sat Janniver. North Europe, Africa, the Orient, had combined to shape his brain and body. An accountant by trade, he was a tall spare man with short yellow hair. He had a long face with features that first had been carved, then kneaded back, blunted. He was cautious, thoughtful, a tough opponent on the handball court.

  Zaer was the quick one, the youngest of the group. Fair-skinned with red cheeks, dark curly hair, eyes gay as valentines, he talked the most, laughed the most, occasionally lost his temper.

  Beside him sat Ditmar, a sardonic man with keen narrow eyes, a high forehead, and a dark bronze skin from Polynesia, the Sudan, or India, or South America. He played no handball, consumed fewer highballs than the others, because of a liver disorder. He occupied a well-paying executive position with one of the television networks.

  And Mario himself, how did they see him? He considered. Probably a different picture in each of their minds, although there were few pretensions or striking features to his exterior. He had nondescript pleasant features, hair and eyes without distinction, skin the average golden-brown. Medium height, medium weight, quiet-spoken, quietly dressed. He knew he was well-liked, so far as the word had meaning among the five; they had been thrown together not so much by congeniality as by the handball court and a common bachelorhood.

  Mario became aware of the silence. He finished his highball. "Anyone go another round?" Breaugh made a gesture of assent. "I've got enough," said Janniver.

  Zaer tilted the glass down his throat, set it down with a thud. "At the age of four I promised my father never to turn down a drink."

  Ditmar hesitated, then said, "Might as well spend my money on liquor as anything else."

  "That's all money is good for," said Breaugh. 'To buy a little fun into your life."

  "A lot of money buys a lot of fun," said Ditmar morosely. 'Try and get the money."

  Zaer gestured, a wide, fanciful sweep of the arm. "Be an artist, an inventor, create something, build something. There's no future working for wages."

  "Look at this new crop of schoolboy wonders," said Breaugh sourly. "Where in the name of get-out do they come from? Spontaneous generation by the action of sunlight on slime? ... All of a sudden, nothing but unsung geniuses, everywhere you look. De Satz, Coley-atomicians. Honn, Versovitch, Lekky, Brule, Richards-administrators. Gandelip, New, Cardosa-financiers. Dozens of them, none over twenty-three, twenty-four. All of 'Ern come up like meteors."

/>   "Don't forget Pete Zaer," said Zaer. "He's another one, but he hasn't meteored yet. Give him another year."

  "Well," muttered Ditmar, "maybe it's a good thing. Somebody's got to do our thinking for us. We're fed, we're clothed, we're educated, we work at soft jobs, and good liquor's cheap. That's all life means for ninety-nine out of a hundred."

  "If they'd only take the hangover out of the liquor," sighed Zaer.

  "Liquor's a release from living," said Janniver somberly. "Drunkenness is about the only adventure left Drunkenness and death."

  "Yes," said Breaugh. "You can always show contempt for life by dying."

  Zaer laughed. "Whiskey or cyanide. Make mine whisky."

  Fresh highballs appeared. They shook dice for the tag. Mario lost, signed the check.

  After a moment Breaugh said, "It's true though. Drunkenness and death. The unpredictables. The only two places left to go-unless you can afford twenty million dollars for a planetary rocket And even then there's only dead rock after you get there."

  Ditmar said, "You overlooked a third possibility."

  "What's that?"

  "The Chateau d'lf."

  All sat quiet; then all five shifted in their chairs, settling back or straightening themselves.

  "Just what is the Chateau d'lf?" asked Mario.

  "Where is it?" asked Zaer. "The advertisement said Try the Chateau d'lf,' but it said nothing about how or where."

  Janniver grunted. "Probably a new nightclub."

  Mario shook his head doubtfully. "The advertisement gave a different impression."

  "It's not a night club," said Ditmar. All eyes swung to him. "No, I don't know what it is. I know where it is, but only because there's been rumors a couple months now."

  "What kind of rumors?"

  "Oh-nothing definite. Just hints. To the effect that if you want adventure, if you've got money to pay for it, if you're willing to take a chance, if you have no responsibilities you can't abandon-"

  "If-if-if," said Breaugh with a grin. "The Chateau d'lf."

  Ditmar nodded. "That's it exactly."

  "Is it dangerous?" asked Zaer. "If all they do is string a tight-wire across a snake-pit, turn a tiger loose at you, and you can either walk tight-rope or fight tiger, I'd rather sit here and drink high-balls and figure how to beat Janniver in the tournament"

  Ditmar shrugged. "I don't know."

  Breaugh frowned. "It could be a dope-den, a new kind of bordello."

  "There no such thing," said Zaer. "It's a haunted house with real ghosts."

  "If we're going to include fantasy," said Ditmar, "a time machine."

  "If," said Breaugh.

  There was a short ruminative silence.

  "It's rather peculiar," said Mario, "Ditmar says there've been rumors a couple months now. And last week an advertisement."

  "What's peculiar about it?" asked Janniver. "That's the sequence in almost any new enterprise."

  Breaugh said quickly, "That's the key word-'enterprise.' The Chateau d'lf is not a natural phenomenon; it's a man-created object, idea, process-whatever it is. The motive behind it is a human motive-probably money."

  "What else?" asked Zaer whimsically. Breaugh raised his black eyebrows high.

  "Oh, you never know. Now, it can't be a criminal enterprise, otherwise the ACP would be swarming all over it"

  Ditmar leaned back, swung Breaugh a half-mocking look. "The Agency of Crime Prevention can't move unless there's an offense, unless someone signs a complaint. If there's no overt offense, no complaint the law can't move."

  Breaugh made an impatient gesture. "Very true. But that's a side issue to the idea I was trying to develop." Ditmar grinned. "Sorry. Go on."

  "What are the motives which prompt men to new enterprises? First, money, which in a sense comprises, includes, all of the other motives too. But for the sake of clarity, call this first, the desire for money, an end in itself. Second, there's the will for power. Subdivide that last into, say, the crusading instinct and call it a desire for unlimited sexual opportunity. Power over women. Then third, curiosity, the desire to know. Fourth, the enterprise for its own sake, as a diversion. Like a millionaire's race horses. Fifth, philanthropy. Any more?"

  "Covers it," said Zaer.

  "Possibly the urge for security, such as the Egyptian pyramids," suggested Janniver.

  "I think that's the fundamental motive behind the first category, the lust for money."

  "Artistic spirit, creativeness."

  "Oh, far-fetched, I should say."

  "Exhibitionism," Ditmar put forward.

  "Equally far-fetched."

  "I disagree. A theatrical performance is based solely and exclusively, from the standpoint of the actors, upon their mania for exhibitionism."

  Breaugh shrugged. "You're probably right"

  "Religious movements, missions."

  "Lump that under the will to administer power."

  "It sticks out at the edges."

  "Not far. ... That all? Good. What does it give us? Anything suggestive?"

  "The Chateau d'lf!" mused Janniver. "It still sounds like an unnecessarily florid money-making scheme."

  "It's not philanthropy-at least superficially," said Mario. "But probably we could fabricate situations that would cover any of your cases."

  Ditmar made an impatient gesture. 'Talk's useless. What good is it? Not any of us know for sure. Suppose it's a plot to blow up the city?"

  Breaugh said coolly, "I appoint you a committee of one, Ditmar, to investigate and report."

  Ditmar laughed sourly. "I'd be glad to. But I've got a better idea. Let's roll the dice. Low man applies to the Chateau d'lf - financed by the remaining four."

  Breaugh nodded. "Suits me. I'll roll with you."

  Ditmar looked around the table.

  "What's it cost?" asked Zaer.

  Ditmar shook his head. "I've no idea. Probably comes high."

  Zaer frowned, moved uneasily in his seat "Set a limit of two thousand dollars per capita."

  "Good, so far as I'm concerned. Janniver?"

  The tall man with the short yellow hair hesitated. "Yes, I'll roll. I've nothing to lose."

  "Mario?"

  "Suits me."

  Ditmar took up the dice box, cupped it with his hand, rattled the dice. "The rules are for poker dice. One throw, ace high. In other words, a pair of aces beats a pair of sixes. Straight comes between three of a kind and a full house. That suit everybody?... Who wants to roll first?"

  "Go ahead, shoot," said Mario mildly. Ditmar shook, shook, shook, turned the dice out. Five bodies leaned forward, five pair of eyes followed the whirling cubes. They clattered down the table, clanged against a highball glass, came to rest

  "Looks like three fives," said Ditmar. "Well, that's medium good."

  Mario, sitting on his left, picked up the box, tossed the dice in, shook, threw. He granted. A two, a three, a four, a five, a four. "Pair of fours. Ouch."

  Breaugh threw silently. "Three aces."

  Janniver threw. 'Two pair. Deuces and threes."

  Zaer, a little pale, picked up the dice. He flashed a glance at Mario. "Pair of fours to beat." He shook the dice, shook-then threw with a sudden flourish. Clang, clatter among the glasses. Five pairs of eyes looked. Ace, deuce, three, six, deuce.

  "Pair of deuces."

  Zaer threw himself back with a tight grin. "Well, I'm game. I'll go. It's suppose to be an adventure. Of course they don't say whether you come out alive or not."

  "You should be delighted," said Breaugh, stuffing tobacco in his pipe. "After all it's our money that's buying you this mysterious thrill."

  Zaer made a helpless gesture with both hands. "Where do I go? What do I do?" He looked at Ditmar. "Where do I get this treatment?"

  "I don't know," said Ditmar. "I'll ask at the studio. Somebody knows somebody who's been there. Tomorrow about this time Til have the details, as much as I can pick up, at any rate."

  Now came a moment of silence - a silence co
mbined of several peculiar qualities. Each of the five contributed a component, but which the wariness, which the fear, which the quiet satisfaction, it was impossible to say.

  Breaugh set down his glass. "Well, Zaer, what do you think? Ready for the tight-rope or the tiger?"

  "Better take a pair of brass knuckles or a ring-Sash," said Ditmar with a grin.

  Zaer glanced around the circle of eyes, laughed ruefully. "The interest you take in me is flattering."

  "We want a full report. We want you to come out alive."

  Zaer said, "I want to come out alive too. Who's going to stake me to the smelling salts and adrenalin, in case the adventure gets really adventurous?"

  "Oh, you look fit enough," said Breaugh. He rose to his feet. "I've got to feed my cats. There's the adventure in my life-taking care of seven cats. Quite a futile existence. The cats love it." He gave a sardonic snort "We're living a life men have dreamed of living ever since they first dreamed. Food, leisure, freedom. We don't know when we're well off."

  CHAPTER II

  Changed Man

  Zaer was scared. He held his arms tight against his body, and his grin, while wide and ready as ever, was a half-nervous grimace, twisted off to the side. He made no bones about his apprehension, and sat in his chair on the terrace like a prizefighter waiting for the gong.

  Janniver watched him solemnly, drinking beer. "Maybe the idea of the Chateau d'lf is adventure enough."

  " 'What is adventure?' asked jesting Zaer, and did not stay for the answer," said Breaugh, eyes twinkling. He loaded his pipe.

  "Adventure is just another name for having the daylights scared out of you and living to tell about it," said Zaer wretchedly.

  Mario laughed. "If you never show up again, well know it wasn't a true adventure."

  Breaugh craned his neck around. "Where's Ditmar? He's the man with all the information."

  "Here he comes," said Zaer. "I feel like a prisoner."

  "Oh, the devil!" said Breaugh. "You don't need to go through with it if you don't want to. After all, it's just a lark. No matter of life or death."

  Zaer shook his head. "No, I'll! try her on."