by Jack Vance
“I am sorry to disillusion you, Mr. Culpepper. That case is mislabeled.”
Ostrander jumped to his feet, left the wardroom. There was the sound of moving crates. A moment of silence. Then he returned. He glared at Henry Belt. “Whiskey. Bottles of whiskey.”
Henry Belt nodded. “I told you as much.”
“But now we have no radio,” said Lynch in an ugly voice.
“We never have had a radio, Mr. Lynch. You were warned that you would have to depend on your own resources to bring us home. You have failed, and in the process doomed me as well as yourself. Incidentally, I must mark you all down ten demerits for a faulty cargo check.”
“Demerits,” said Ostrander in a bleak voice.
“Now, Mr. Culpepper,” said Henry Belt. “What is your next proposal?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Verona spoke in a placatory voice. “What would you do, sir, if you were in our position?”
Henry Belt shook his head. “I am an imaginative man, Mr. Verona, but there are certain leaps of the mind which are beyond my powers.” He returned to his compartment.
Von Gluck looked curiously at Culpepper. “It is a fact. You’re not at all concerned.”
“Oh, I’m concerned. But I believe that Mr. Belt wants to get home too. He’s too good a space-man not to know exactly what he’s doing.”
The door from Henry Belt’s compartment slid back. Henry Belt stood in the opening. “Mr. Culpepper, I chanced to overhear your remark, and I now note down ten demerits against you. This attitude expresses a complacence as dangerous as Mr. Sutton’s utter funk. You rely on my capabilities; Mr. Sutton is afraid to rely on his own. This is not the first time I have cautioned you against this easy vice.”
“Very sorry, sir.”
Henry Belt looked about the room. “Pay no heed to Mr. Culpepper. He is wrong. Even if I could repair this disaster, I would not raise a hand. For I expect to die in space.”
VII
The sail was canted vectorless, edgewise to the sun. Jupiter was a smudge astern. There were five cadets in the wardroom. Culpepper, Verona, and von Gluck sat talking in low voices. Ostrander and Lynch lay crouched, arms to knees, faces to the wall. Sutton had gone two days before. Quietly donning his space-suit, he had stepped into the exit chamber and thrust himself headlong into space. A propulsion unit gave him added speed, and before any of the cadets could intervene he was gone.
He had left a short note: “I fear the void because of the terrible attraction of its glory. I briefly felt the exaltation when we went out on sail inspection, and I fought it back. Now, since we must die, I will die this way, by embracing this black radiance, by giving myself wholly. Do not be sorry for me. I will die mad, but the madness will be ecstasy.”
Henry Belt, when shown the note, merely shrugged. “Mr. Sutton was perhaps too imaginative and emotional to make a sound space-man. He could not have been relied upon in any emergency.” And his sardonic glance seemed to include the rest of them.
Shortly thereafter Lynch and Ostrander succumbed to inanition, a kind of despondent helplessness: manic-depression in its most stupefying phase. Culpepper the suave, Verona the pragmatic and von Gluck the sensitive remained.
They spoke quietly to themselves, out of earshot of Henry Belt’s room. “I still believe,” said Culpepper, “that somehow there is a means to get ourselves out of this mess, and that Henry Belt knows it.”
Verona said, “I wish I could think so…We’ve been over it a hundred times. If we set sail for Saturn or Neptune or Uranus, the outward vector of thrust plus the outward vector of our momentum will take us far beyond Pluto before we’re anywhere near. The plasma jets could stop us if we had enough energy, but the shield can’t supply it and we don’t have another power source…”
Von Gluck hit his fist into his hand. “Gentlemen,” he said in a soft delighted voice.
Culpepper and Verona stared at him, absorbing warmth from the light in his face.
“Gentlemen,” said von Gluck, “I believe we have sufficient energy at hand. We will use the sail. Remember? It is bellied. It can function as a mirror. It spreads five square miles of surface. Sunlight out here is thin—but so long as we collect enough of it—”
“I understand!” said Culpepper. “We back off the hull till the reactor is at the focus of the sail and turn on the jets!”
Verona said dubiously, “We’ll still be receiving radiation pressure. And what’s worse, the jets will impinge back on the sail. Effect—cancellation. We’ll be nowhere.”
“If we cut the center out of the sail—just enough to allow the plasma through—we’d beat that objection. And as for the radiation pressure—we’ll surely do better with the plasma drive.”
“What do we use to make plasma? We don’t have the stock.”
“Anything that can be ionized. The radio, the computer, your shoes, my shirt, Culpepper’s camera, Henry Belt’s whiskey…”
VIII
The angel-wagon came up to meet Sail 25, in orbit beside Sail 40, which was just making ready to take out a new crew.
Henry Belt said, “Gentlemen, I beg that you leave no trash, rubbish, old clothing aboard. There is nothing more troublesome than coming aboard an untidy ship. While we wait for the lighter to discharge, I suggest that you give the ship a final thorough policing.”
The cargo carrier drifted near, eased into position. Three men sprang across space to Sail 40, a few hundred yards behind 25, tossed lines back to the carrier, pulled bales of cargo and equipment across the gap.
The five cadets and Henry Belt, clad in space-suits, stepped out into the sunlight. Earth spread below, green and blue, white and brown, the contours so precious and dear to bring tears to the eyes. The cadets transferring cargo to Sail 40 gazed at them curiously as they worked. At last they were finished, and the six men of Sail 25 boarded the carrier.
“Back safe and sound, eh, Henry?” said the pilot. “Well, I’m always surprised.”
Henry Belt made no answer. The cadets stowed their cargo, and standing by the port, took a final look at Sail 25. The carrier retro-jetted; the two sails seemed to rise above them.
The lighter nosed in and out of the atmosphere, braking, extended its wings, glided to an easy landing on the Mojave Desert.
The cadets, their legs suddenly loose and weak to the unaccustomed gravity, limped after Henry Belt to the carry-all, seated themselves and were conveyed to the administration complex. They alighted from the carry-all, and now Henry Belt motioned the five to the side.
“Here, gentlemen, is where I leave you. I go my way, you go yours. Tonight I will check my red book, and after various adjustments I will prepare my official report. But I believe I can present you an unofficial resumé of my impressions.
“First of all, this is neither my best nor my worst class. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Ostrander, I feel that you are ill-suited either for command or for any situation which might inflict prolonged emotional pressure upon you. I cannot recommend you for space-duty.
“Mr. von Gluck, Mr. Culpepper and Mr. Verona, all of you meet my minimum requirements for a recommendation, although I shall write the words ‘Especially Recommended’ only beside the names ‘Clyde von Gluck’ and ‘Marcus Verona’. You brought the sail back to Earth by essentially faultless navigation. It means that if I am to fulfill my destiny I must make at least one more voyage into space.
“So now our association ends. I trust you have profited by it.” Henry Belt nodded briefly to each of the five and limped off around the building.
The cadets looked after him. Culpepper reached in his pocket and brought forth a pair of small metal objects which he displayed in his palm. “Recognize these?”
“Hmf,” said Lynch in a flat voice. “Bearings for the computer disks. The original ones.”
“I found them in the little spare-parts tray. They weren’t there before.”
Von Gluck nodded. “The machinery always seemed to fail immediately after sail check, as I reca
ll.”
Lynch drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. He turned, strode away. Ostrander followed him. Culpepper shrugged. To Verona he gave one of the bearings, to von Gluck the other. “For souvenirs—or medals. You fellows deserve them.”
“Thanks, Ed,” said von Gluck.
“Thanks,” muttered Verona. “I’ll make a stick-pin of this thing.”
The three, not able to look at each other, glanced up into the sky where the first stars of twilight were appearing, then continued on into the building where family and friends and sweethearts awaited them.
Afterword to “Sail 25”
Several years ago, Cele Goldsmith edited Amazing Stories. One evening at the home of Poul Anderson she produced a set of cover illustrations which she had bought by the dozen for reasons of economy, and asked those present to formulate stories based upon them. Poul rather gingerly accepted a cover whose subject I forget. Frank Herbert was assigned the representation of a human head, with a cutaway revealing an inferno of hellfire, scurrying half-human creatures, and the paraphernalia of a nuclear power plant. I was rather more fortunate and received a picture purporting to display a fleet of spaceships driven by sun-sails. Theoretically the idea is sound, and space scientists have long included this concept among their speculations for future planetary voyages. Astrogation, of course, becomes immensely complex, but by carefully canting the sail and using planetary and/or solar gravities, any region of the solar system may be visited—not always by the most direct route, but neither did the clipper ships sail great-circle routes.
The disadvantages are the complication of the gear and the tremendous expanse of sail—to be measured in square miles—necessary to accelerate any mass of ship to any appreciable velocity within a reasonable time-span.
Which brings me back to my cover picture. The artist, no doubt for purposes of artistry, had depicted the ships with sails about the size of spinnakers for a twelve-meter, which at Earth radius from the sun would possibly produce as much as one fly-power of thrust. Additionally the sails were painted in gaudy colors, in defiance of the conventional wisdom which specifies that sun-sails shall be flimsy membranes of plastic, coated with a film of reflective metal a few molecules thick. Still, no matter how illogical the illustration, I felt that I must justify each detail by one means or another. After considerable toil I succeeded, with enormous gratitude that I had not been selected to write about the cutaway head which had been the lot of Frank Herbert.
—Jack Vance 1976
The Gift of Gab
Middle afternoon had come to the Shallows; the wind had died; the sea was listless and spread with silken gloss. In the south a black broom of rain hung under the clouds; elsewhere the air was thick with pink murk. Thick crusts of seaweed floated over the Shallows; one of these supported the Bio-Minerals raft, a metal rectangle two hundred feet long, a hundred feet wide.
At four o’clock an air horn high on the mast announced the change of shift. Sam Fletcher, assistant superintendent, came out of the mess hall, crossed the deck to the office, slid back the door, looked in. Where Carl Raight usually sat, filling out his production report, the chair was empty. Fletcher looked over his shoulder, down the deck toward the processing house, but Raight was nowhere in sight. Strange. Fletcher crossed the office, checked the day’s tonnage:
Rhodium trichloride..................4.01
Tantalum sulfide.......................0.87
Tripyridyl rhenichloride............0.43
The gross tonnage, by Fletcher’s calculations, came to 5.31—an average shift. He still led Raight in the Pinch-bottle Sweepstakes. Tomorrow was the end of the month; Fletcher could hardly fail to make off with Raight’s Haig & Haig. Anticipating Raight’s protests and complaints, Fletcher smiled and whistled through his teeth. He felt cheerful and confident. Another month would bring to an end his six-months contract; then it was back to Starholme with six months’ pay to his credit.
Where in thunder was Raight? Fletcher looked out the window. In his range of vision was the helicopter—guyed to the deck against the Sabrian line-squalls—the mast, the black hump of the generator, the water tank, and at the far end of the raft, the pulverizers, the leaching vats, the Tswett columns, and the storage bins.
A dark shape filled the door. Fletcher turned, but it was Agostino, the day-shift operator, who had just now been relieved by Blue Murphy, Fletcher’s operator.
“Where’s Raight?” asked Fletcher.
Agostino looked around the office. “I thought he was in here.”
“I thought he was over in the works.”
“No, I just came from there.”
Fletcher crossed the room, looked into the washroom. “Wrong again.”
Agostino turned away. “I’m going up for a shower.” He looked back from the door. “We’re low on barnacles.”
“I’ll send out the barge.” Fletcher followed Agostino out on deck, headed for the processing house.
He passed the dock where the barges were tied up, entered the pulverizing room. The No. 1 Rotary was grinding barnacles for tantalum; the No. 2 was pulverizing rhenium-rich sea-slugs. The ball mill waited for a load of coral, orange-pink with nodules of rhodium salts.
Blue Murphy, who had a red face and a meager fringe of red hair, was making a routine check of bearings, shafts, chains, journals, valves and gauges. Fletcher called in his ear to be heard over the noise of the crushers, “Has Raight come through?”
Murphy shook his head.
Fletcher went on, into the leaching chamber where the first separation of salts from pulp was effected, through the forest of Tswett tubes, and once more out upon the deck. No Raight. He must have gone on ahead to the office.
But the office was empty.
Fletcher continued around to the mess hall. Agostino was busy with a bowl of chili. Dave Jones, the hatchet-faced steward, stood in the doorway to the galley.
“Raight been here?” asked Fletcher.
Jones, who never used two words when one would do, gave his head a morose shake. Agostino looked around. “Did you check the barnacle barge? He might have gone out to the shelves.”
Fletcher looked puzzled. “What’s wrong with Mahlberg?”
“He’s putting new teeth on the drag-line bucket.”
Fletcher tried to recall the line-up of barges along the dock. If Mahlberg, the barge-tender, had been busy with repairs, Raight might well have gone out himself. Fletcher drew himself a cup of coffee. “That’s where he must be.” He sat down. “It’s not like Raight to put in free overtime.”
Mahlberg came into the mess hall. “Where’s Carl? I want to order some more teeth for the bucket.”
“He’s gone fishing,” said Agostino.
Mahlberg laughed at the joke. “Catch himself a nice wire eel maybe. Or a dekabrach.”
Dave Jones grunted. “He’ll cook it himself.”
“Seems like a dekabrach should make good eatin’,” said Mahlberg, “close as they are to a seal.”
“Who likes seal?” growled Jones.
“I’d say they’re more like mermaids,” Agostino remarked, “with ten-armed starfish for heads.”
Fletcher put down his cup. “I wonder what time Raight left?”
Mahlberg shrugged; Agostino looked blank.
“It’s only an hour out to the shelves. He ought to be back by now.”
“He might have had a breakdown,” said Mahlberg. “Although the barge has been running good.”
Fletcher rose to his feet. “I’ll give him a call.” He left the mess hall, returned to the office, where he dialled T3 on the intercom screen—the signal for the barnacle barge.
The screen remained blank.
Fletcher waited. The neon bulb pulsed off and on, indicating the call of the alarm on the barge.
No reply.
Fletcher felt a vague disturbance. He left the office, went to the mast, rode up the man-lift to the cupola. From here he could overlook the half-acre of raft, the five-acre crust of seawe
ed and a great circle of ocean.
In the far northeast distance, up near the edge of the Shallows, the new Pelagic Recoveries raft showed as a small dark spot, almost smeared from sight by the haze. To the south, where the Equatorial Current raced through a gap in the Shallows, the barnacle shelves were strung out in a long loose line. To the north, where the Macpherson Ridge, rising from the Deeps, came within thirty feet of breaking the surface, aluminum piles supported the sea-slug traps. Here and there floated masses of seaweed, sometimes anchored to the bottom, sometimes maintained in place by action of the currents.
Fletcher turned his binoculars along the line of barnacle shelves, spotted the barge immediately. He steadied his arms, screwed up the magnification, focused on the control cabin. He saw no one, although he could not hold the binoculars steady enough to make sure.
Fletcher scrutinized the rest of the barge.
Where was Carl Raight? Possibly in the control cabin, out of sight.
Fletcher descended to the deck, went around to the processing house, looked in. “Hey, Blue!”
Murphy appeared, wiping his big red hands on a rag.
“I’m taking the launch out to the shelves,” said Fletcher. “The barge is out there, but Raight doesn’t answer the screen.”
Murphy shook his big bald head in puzzlement. He accompanied Fletcher to the dock, where the launch floated at moorings. Fletcher heaved at the painter, swung in the stern of the launch, jumped down on the deck.
Murphy called down to him, “Want me to come along? I’ll get Hans to watch the works.” Hans Heinz was the engineer—mechanic.
Fletcher hesitated. “I don’t think so. If anything’s happened to Raight—well, I can manage. Just keep an eye on the screen. I might call back in.”
He stepped into the cockpit, seated himself, closed the dome over his head, started the pump.
The launch rolled and bounced, picked up speed, shoved its blunt nose under the surface, submerged till only the dome was clear.
