The Narrow Land

by Jack Vance

  "Yes, sir."

  The short man hauled a chair forward. "Now, Mr. Ebery, I'm sorry to say that I consider you've put the business in an ambiguous position."

  "What do you mean?" asked Mario frostily, as if he were Ebery himself. The short man snorted. "What do I mean? I mean that the contracts you sold to Atlas Airboat were the biggest moneymakers Ebery Air-car had. As you know very well. We took a terrible drubbing in that deal." The short man jumped to his feet, walked up and down. "Frankly, Mr. Ebery, I don't understand it."

  "Just a minute," said Mario. "Let me look at the mail." Killing time, he thumbed through the mail until the assistant office manager returned with a file of cards.

  "Thank you," said Mario. "That's all for now."

  He flicked through them, glancing at the pictures. This short man had authority, he should be somewhere near the top. Here he was-Louis Correaos, Executive Adviser. Information as to salary, family, age, background-more than he could digest at the moment. He put the file to one side. Louis Correaos was still pacing up and down, fuming.

  Correaos paused, darted Mario a venemous stare. "Ill-advised? I think you're crazy!" He shrugged. "I tell you this because my job means nothing to me. The company can't stand the beating you've given it. Not the way you want it run, at any rate. You insist on marketing a flying tea-wagon, festooned with ornaments; then you sell the only profitable contracts, the only features to the ship that make it at all airworthy."

  Mario reflected a minute. Then he said, "I had my reasons."

  Correaos, halting in his pacing, stared again.

  Mario said, "Can you conjecture how I plan to profit from these circumstances?"

  Correaos's eyes were like poker chips; his mouth contracted, tightened, pursed to an O. He was thinking. After a moment he said, "You sold our steel plant to Jones and Cahill, our patent on the ride stabilizer to Bluecraft." He gazed narrowly askance at Mario. "It sounds like you're doing what you swore you'd never do. Bring out a new model that would fly."

  "How do you like the idea?" asked Mario, looking wise.

  Louis Correaos stammered, "Why, Mr. Ebery, this is-fantastic! You asking me what I think! I'm your yes-man. That's what you're paying me for. I know it, you know it, everybody knows it."

  "You haven't been yessing me today," said Ebery. "You told me I was crazy."

  "Well," stammered Correaos, "I didn't see your idea. It's what I'd like to have done long ago. Put in a new transformer, pull off all that ormolu, use plancheen instead of steel, simplify, simplify-"

  "Louis," said Mario, "make the announcement. Start the works rolling. You're in charge. I'll back up anything you want done."

  Louis Correaos's face was a drained mask.

  "Make your salary anything you want," said Mario. "I've got some new projects I'm going to be busy on. I want you to run the business. You're the boss. Can you handle it?"

  "Yes. I can."

  "Do it your own way. Bring out a new model that'll beat everything in the field. I'll check on the final set-up, but until then, you're the boss. Right now-clean up all this detail." He pointed to the file of correspondence. "Take it to your office."

  Correaos impulsively rushed up, shook Mario's hand. 'I'll do the best I can." He left the room.

  Mario said into the communicator, "Get me the African Federal Bank... . "Hello-" to the girl's face on the screen. "-this is Ralston Ebery. Please check on my personal balance."

  After a moment she said, "It's down to twelve hundred dollars, Mr. Ebery. Your last withdrawal almost wiped out your balance."

  "Thank you," said Mario. He settled the thick body of Ralston Ebery into the chair, and became aware of a great cavernous growling in his abdomen. Ralston Ebery was hungry.

  Mario grinned a ghastly sour grin. He called food service. "Send up a chopped olive sandwich, celery, a glass of skim milk."

  CHAPTER V

  An Understanding

  During the afternoon he became aware of an ordeal he could no longer ignore: acquainting himself with Ralston Ebery's family, his home life. It could not be a happy one. No happy husband and father would leave his wife and children at the mercy of a stranger. It was the act of hate, rather than love.

  A group photograph stood on the desk-a picture inconspicuously placed, as if it were there on sufferance. This was his family. Florence Ebery was a frail woman, filmy, timid, over-dressed, and her face peering out from under a preposterous hat, wore the patient perplexed expression of a family pet dressed in doll clothes-somehow pathetic.

  Luther and Ralston Jr. were stocky young men with set mulish faces, Clydia a full-cheeked creature with a petulant mouth.

  At three o'clock Mario finally summoned up his courage, called Ebery's home on the screen, had Florence Ebery put on. She said in a thin distant voice, "Yes, Ralston."

  "I'll be home this evening, dear." Mario added the last word with conscious effort.

  She wrinkled her nose, pursed her lips and her eyes shone as if she were about to cry. "You don't even tell me where you've been."

  Mario said, "Florence-frankly. Would you say I've been a good husband?"

  She blinked defiantly at him. "I've no complaints. I've never complained." The pitch of her voice hinted that this perhaps was not literally true. Probably had reason, thought Mario.

  "No, I want the truth, Florence."

  "You've given me all the money I wanted. You've humiliated me a thousand tunes-snubbed me, made me a laughing stock for the children."

  Mario said, "Well, I'm sorry, Florence." He could not vow affection. He felt sorry for Florence-Ebery's wife-but she was Ralston Ebery's wife, not his own. One of Ralston Ebery's victims. "See you this evening," he said lamely, and switched off.

  He sat back. Think, think, think. There must be a way out or was this to be his life, his end, in this corpulent unhealthy body? Mario laughed suddenly. If ten million dollars bought Ralston Ebery a new body-presumably his own-then ten million more of Ralston Ebery's dollars might buy the body back. For money spoke a clear loud language to Mervyn Alien. Humiliating, a nauseous obsequious act, a kissing of the foot which kicked you, a submission, an acquiescence-but it was either this or wear the form of Ralston Ebery.

  Mario stood up, walked to the window, stepped out on the landing plat, signaled down an aircab.

  Ten minutes later he stood at 5600 Exmoor Avenue in Meadowlands, the Chateau d'lf. A gardener clipping the hedges eyed him with distrust. He strode up the driveway, pressed the button.

  There was, as before, a short wait, the unseen scrutiny of spy cells. The sun shone warm on his back, to his ears came the shirrrrr of the gardener's clippers.

  The door opened.

  "Please come in," said the soft commercial voice.

  Down the hall, into the green and brown reception room with the painting of the three stark nudes before the olden forest.

  The girl of fabulous beauty entered; Mario gazed again into the wide clear eyes which led to some strange brain. Whose brain? Mario wondered. Of man or woman?

  No longer did Mario feel the urge to excite her, arouse her. She was unnatural, a thing.

  "What do you wish?"

  "I'd like to see Mr. Alien."

  "On what business?"

  "Ah, you know me?"

  "On what business?"

  "You're a money-making concern, are you not?"

  "Yes."

  "My business means money."

  "Please be seated." She turned; Mario watched the slim body in retreat. She walked lightly, gracefully, in low elastic slippers. He became aware of Ebery's body. The old goat's glands were active enough. Mario fought down the wincing nausea.

  The girl returned. "Follow me, please."

  Mervyn Alien received him with affability, though not going so far as to shake hands.

  "Hello, Mr. Mario. I rather expected you. Sit down. How's everything going? Enjoying yourself?"

  "Not particularly. I'll agree that you've provided me with a very stimulating adventure. An
d indeed-now that I think back-nowhere have you made false representations."

  Alien smiled a cool brief smile. And Mario wondered whose brain this beautiful body surrounded.

  "Your attitude is unusually philosophical," said Alien. "Most of our customers do not realize that we give them exactly what they pay for. The essence of adventure is surprise, danger, and an outcome dependent upon one's own efforts."

  "No question," remarked Mario, "that is precisely what you offer. But don't mistake me. If I pretended friendship, I would not be sincere. In spite of any rational processes, I feel a strong resentment. I would kill you without sorrow-even though, as you will point out, I brought the whole matter on myself."

  "Exactly."

  "Aside from my own feelings, we have a certain community of interests, which I wish to exploit. You want money, I want my own body. I came to inquire by what circumstances our desires could both be satisfied."

  Alien's face was joyous, he laughed delightedly. "Mario, you amuse me. I've heard many propositions, but none quite so formal, so elegant. Yes, I want money. You want the body you have become accustomed to. I'm sorry to say that your old body is now the property of someone else, and I doubt if he'd be persuaded to surrender it. But - I can sell you another body, healthy, handsome, young, for our usual fee. Ten million dollars. For thirty million I'll give you the widest possible choice - a body like mine, for instance. The Empyrean Tower is an exceedingly expensive project."

  Mario said, "Out of curiosity, how is this transfer accomplished? I don't notice any scar or any sign of brain graft. Which in any event is probably impossible."

  Mervyn Alien nodded. "It would be tedious, splicing several million sets of nerves. Are you acquainted with the physiology of the brain?"

  "No," said Mario. "It's complicated, that's about all I know of it-or have cared to know."

  Alien leaned back, relaxed, spoke rapidly, as if by rote. "The brain is divided into three parts, the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum-these two control involuntary motions and reflexes-and the cerebrum, the seat of memory, intelligence, personality. Thinking is done in the brain the same way thinking is done in mechanical brains, by the selection of a route through relays or neurons.

  "In a blank brain, the relative ease of any circuit is the same, and the electric potential of each and every cell is the same.

  "The process is divided into a series of steps-discovered, I may add, accidentally during a program of research in a completely different field. First, the patient's scalp is imbedded in a cellule of what the original research team called golasma, an organic crystal with a large number of peripheral fibers. Between the golasma cellule and the brain are a number of layers-hair, dermal tissue, bone, three separate membranes, as well as a mesh of blood vessels, very complicated. The neural cells however are unique in their high electric potential, and for practical purposes the intervening cells do not intrude.

  "Next, by a complicated scanning process, we duplicate the synapses of the brain in the golasma, relating it by a pattern of sensory stimuli to a frame that will be common to all men.

  "Third, the golasma cellules are changed, the process is reversed, A's brain is equipped with B's synapses, B with A's. The total process requires only a few minutes. Non-surgical, painless, harmless. A receives B's personality and memories, B takes on A's."

  Slowly. Mario rubbed his fat chin. "You mean, I-I-am not Roland Mario at all? That thinking Roland Mario's thoughts is an illusion? And not a cell in this body is Roland Mario?"

  "Not the faintest breath. You're all-let me see. Your name is Ralston Ebery, I believe. Every last corpuscle of you is Ralston Ebery. You are Ralston Ebery, equipped with Roland Mario's memories."

  "But, my glandular make-up? Won't it modify Roland Mario's personality? After all, a man's actions are not due to his brain alone, but to a synthesis of effects."

  "Very true," said Alien. "The effect is progressive. You will gradually change, become like the Ralston Ebery before the change. And the same with Roland Mario's body. The total change will be determined by the environment against heredity ratio in your characters."

  Mario smiled. "I want to get out of this body soon. What I see of Ebery I don't like."

  "Bring in ten million dollars," said Mervyn Alien. "The Chateau d'lf exists for one purpose-to make money."

  Mario inspected Alien carefully, noted the hard clear flesh, the beautiful shape of the face, skull, expression.

  "What do you need all that money for? Why build an Empyrean Tower in the first place?"

  "I do it for fun. It amuses me. I am bored. I have explored many bodies, many existences. This body is my fourteenth. I've wielded power. I do not care for the sensation. The pressure annoys me. Nor am I at all psychotic. I am not even ruthless. In my business, what one man loses, another man gains. The balance is even."

  "But it's robbery!" protested Mario bitterly. "Stealing the years off one man's life to add to another's."

  Alien shrugged. "The bodies are living the same cumulative length of time. The total effect is the same. There's no change but the shifting of memory. In any event, perhaps I am, in the jargon of metaphysics, a solipsist. So far as I can see-through my eyes, through my brain-I am the only true individual, the sole conscious intellect." His eye shadowed. "How else can it be that I-I-have been chosen from among so many to lead this charmed life of mine?"

  "Pah!" sneered Mario.

  "Every man amuses himself as best he knows how. My current interest is building the Empyrean Tower." His voice took on a deep, exalted ring. "It shall rise three miles into the air! There is a banquet hall with a floor of alternate silver and copper strips, a quarter mile wide, a quarter mile high, ringed with eight glass balconies. There will be garden terraces like nothing else on earth, with fountains, waterfalls, running brooks. One floor will be a fairyland out of the ancient days, peopled with beautiful nymphs.

  "Others will display Earth at stages in its history. There will be museums, conservatories of various musical styles, studios, workshops, laboratories for every known type of research, sections given to retail shops. There will be beautiful chambers and balconies designed for nothing except to be wandered through, sections devoted to the-let us say, worship of Astarte. There will be halls full of toys, a hundred restaurants staffed by gourmets, a thousand taverns serving liquid dreams; halls for seeing, hearing, resting."

  Said Mario, "And after you tire of the Empyrean Tower?"

  Mervyn Alien flung himself back in the seat "Ah, Mario, you touch me on a sore point. Doubtless something will suggest itself. If only we could break away from Earth, could fly past the barren rocks of the planets, to other stars, other life. There would be no need for any Chateau d'lf."

  Mario rubbed his fat jowl, eyed Alien quizzically. "Did you invent this process yourself?"

  "I and four others who comprised a research team. They are all dead. I alone know the technique."

  "And your secretary? Is she one of your changelings?" "No," said Mervyn Alien. "Thane is what she is. She lives by hate. You think I am her lover? No," and he smiled faintly. "Not in any way. Her will is for destruction, death. A bright thing only on the surface. Inwardly she is as dark and violent, as a drop of hot oil."

  Mario had absorbed too many facts, too much information. He was past speculating. "Well, I won't take any more of your time. I wanted to find out where I stand."

  "Now you know. I need money. This is the easiest way to get it in large quantities that I know of. But I also have my big premium offer-bank night, bingo, whatever you wish to call it."

  "What's that?"

  "I need customers. The more customers, the more money. Naturally my publicity cannot be too exact. So I offer a free shift, a free body if you bring in six new customers."

  Mario narrowed his eyes. "So-Sutlow gets credit for Zaer and me?"

  Alien looked blank. "Who's Sutlow?"

  "You don't know Sutlow?"

  "Never heard of him."

  "How about D
itmar?"

  "Ah, he's successful, is Ditmar. Ten thousand bought him a body with advanced cirrhosis. Two more customers and he escapes. But perhaps I talk too much. I can give you no more time, Mario. Good night"

  On his way out, Mario stopped in the reception room, looked down into the face of Thane. She stared back, & face like stone, eyes like star sapphires. Mario suddenly felt exalted, mystic, as if he walked on live thought, knew the power of insight

  "You're beautiful but you're cold as the sea-bed."

  "This door will take you out, sir."

  "Your beauty is so new and so fragile a thing-a surface only a millimeter thick. Two strokes of a knife would make you a horrible sight, one from which people would look aside as you pass."

  She opened bar mouth, closed it, rose to her feet, said, "This way out, sir."

  Mario reached, caught sight of Ralston Ebery's fat flaccid fingers, grimaced, pulled back his hands. "I could not touch you-with these hands."

  "Nor with any others," she said from the cool distance of her existence.

  He passed her to the door. "If you see the most beautiful creature that could possibly exist, if she has a soul like rock crystal, if she challenges you to take her, break her, and you are lost in a fat hideous porridge of a body-"

  Her expression shifted a trifle, in which direction he could not tell. "This is the Chateau d'lf," she said. "And you are a fat hideous porridge."

  He wordlessly departed. She slid the door shut. Mario shrugged, but Ralston Ebery's face burnt in a hot glow of humiliation. There was no love, no thought of love. Nothing more than the challenge, much like the dare of a mountain to the climbers who scale its height, plunder the secrets of its slopes, master the crest. Thane, cold as the far side of the moon!

  Get away, said Mario's brain sharply, break clear of the obsession. Fluff, female bodies, forget them. Is not the tangle of enough complexity?

  CHAPTER VI

  Leverage