The Moon Moth and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  Toby and Rex occupied a pair of cubicles forward, Thissell had the after-cabins to himself. From time to time he toyed with the idea of a third slave, possibly a young female, to contribute an element of charm and gaiety to the menage, but Kershaul advised against the step, fearing that the intensity of Thissell’s concentration might somehow be diminished. Thissell acquiesced and devoted himself to the study of the six instruments.

  The days passed quickly. Thissell never became bored with the pageantry of dawn and sunset; the white clouds and blue sea of noon; the night sky blazing with the twenty-nine stars of Cluster SI 1-715. The weekly trip to Fan broke the tedium, Toby and Rex foraged for food; Thissell visited the luxurious houseboat of Mathew Kershaul for instruction and advice. Then, three months after Thissell’s arrival, came the message completely disorganizing the routine: Haxo Angmark, assassin, agent provocateur, ruthless and crafty criminal, had come to Sirene. ‘Effect detention and incarceration of this man!’ read the orders. ‘Attention! Haxo Angmark is superlatively dangerous. Kill without hesitation!’

  *******

  Thissell was not in the best of condition. He trotted fifty yards until his breath came in gasps, then walked: through low hills crowned with white bamboo and black tree-ferns; across meadows yellow with grass-nuts, through orchards and wild vineyards. Twenty minutes passed, twenty-five minutes passed, twenty-five minutes; with a heavy sensation in his stomach Thissell knew that he was too late. Haxo Angmark had landed, and might be traversing this very road toward Fan. But along the way Thissell met only four persons: a boy-child in a mock-fierce Alk Islander mask; two young women wearing the Red Bird and the Green Bird; a man masked as a Forest Goblin. Coming upon the man, Thissell stopped short. Could this be Angmark?

  Thissell essayed a stratagem. He went boldly to the man, stared into the hideous mask. “Angmark,” he called in the language of the Home Planets, “you are under arrest!”

  The Forest Goblin stared uncomprehendingly, then started forward along the track.

  Thissell put himself in the way. He reached for his ganga, then recalling the hostler’s reaction, instead struck a chord on the zachinko. “You travel the road from the space-port,” he sang. “What have you seen there?”

  The Forest Goblin grasped his hand-bugle, an instrument used to deride opponents on the field of battle, to summon animals, or occasionally to evince a rough and ready truculence. “Where I travel and what I see are the concern solely of myself. Stand back or I walk upon your face.” He marched forward, and had not Thissell leapt aside the Forest Goblin might well have made good his threat.

  Thissell stood gazing after the retreating back. Angmark? Not likely, with so sure a touch on the hand-bugle. Thissell hesitated, then turned and continued on his way.

  Arriving at the space-port, he went directly to the office. The heavy door stood ajar; as Thissell approached, a man appeared in the doorway. He wore a mask of dull green scales, mica plates, blue-lacquered wood and black quills—the Tarn Bird.

  “Ser Rolver,” Thissell called out anxiously, “who came down from the Carina Cruzeiro?”

  Rolver studied Thissell a long moment. “Why do you ask?”

  “Why do I ask?” demanded Thissell. “You must have seen the space-gram I received from Castel Cromartin!”

  “Oh yes,” said Rolver. “Of course. Naturally.”

  “It was delivered only half an hour ago,” said Thissell bitterly. “I rushed out as fast as I could. Where is Angmark?”

  “In Fan, I assume,” said Rolver.

  Thissell cursed softly. “Why didn’t you delay him?”

  Rolver shrugged. “I had neither authority, inclination nor the capability to stop him.”

  Thissell fought back his annoyance. In a voice of studied calm he said, “On the way I passed a man in rather a ghastly mask—saucer eyes, red wattles.”

  “A Forest Goblin,” said Rolver. “Angmark brought the mask with him.”

  “But he played the hand-bugle,” Thissell protested. “How could Angmark—”

  “He’s well-acquainted with Sirene; he spent five years here in Fan.”

  Thissell grunted in annoyance. “Cromartin made no mention of this.”

  “It’s common knowledge,” said Rolver with a shrug. “He was Commercial Representative before Welibus took over.”

  “Were he and Welibus acquainted?”

  Rolver laughed shortly. “Naturally. But don’t suspect poor Welibus of anything more venal than juggling his accounts; I assure you he’s no consort of assassins.”

  “Speaking of assassins,” said Thissell, “do you have a weapon I might borrow?”

  Rolver inspected him in wonder. “You came out here to take Angmark bare-handed?”

  “I had no choice,” said Thissell. “When Cromartin gives orders he expects results. In any event you were here with your slaves.”

  “Don’t count on me for help,” Rolver said testily. “I wear the Tarn Bird and make no pretensions of valor. But I can lend you a power pistol. I haven’t used it recently; I won’t guarantee its charge.”

  Rolver went into the office and a moment later returned with the gun. “What will you do now?”

  Thissell shook his head wearily. “I’ll try to find Angmark in Fan. Or might he head for Zundar?”

  Rolver considered. “Angmark might be able to survive in Zundar. But he’d want to brush up on his musicianship. I imagine he’ll stay in Fan a few days.”

  “But how can I find him? Where should I look?”

  “That I can’t say,” replied Rolver. “You might be safer not finding him. Angmark is a dangerous man.”

  Thissell returned to Fan the way he had come.

  Where the path swung down from the hills into the esplanade a thick-walled pisé-de-terre building had been constructed. The door was carved from a solid black plank; the windows were guarded by enfoliated bands of iron. This was the office of Cornely Welibus, Commercial Factor, Importer and Exporter. Thissell found Welibus sitting at his ease on the tiled verandah, wearing a modest adaptation of the Waldemar mask. He seemed lost in thought and might or might not have recognized Thissell’s Moon Moth; in any event he gave no signal of greeting.

  Thissell approached the porch. “Good morning, Ser Welibus.”

  Welibus nodded abstractedly and said in a flat voice, plucking at his krodatch, “Good morning.”

  Thissell was rather taken aback. This was hardly the instrument to use toward a friend and fellow out-worlder, even if he did wear the Moon Moth.

  Thissell said coldly, “May I ask how long you have been sitting here?”

  Welibus considered half a minute, and now when he spoke he accompanied himself on the more cordial crebarin. But the recollection of the krodatch chord still rankled in Thissell’s mind.

  “I’ve been here fifteen or twenty minutes. Why do you ask?”

  “I wonder if you noticed a Forest Goblin pass?”

  Welibus nodded. “He went on down the esplanade—turned into that first mask shop, I believe.”

  Thissell hissed between his teeth. This would naturally be Angmark’s first move. “I’ll never find him once he changes masks,” he muttered.

  “Who is this Forest Goblin?” asked Welibus, with no more than casual interest.

  Thissell could see no reason to conceal the name. “A notorious criminal: Haxo Angmark.”

  “Haxo Angmark!” croaked Welibus, leaning back in his chair. “You’re sure he’s here?”

  “Reasonably sure.”

  Welibus rubbed his shaking hands together. “This is bad news—bad news indeed! He’s an unscrupulous scoundrel.”

  “You knew him well?”

  “As well as anyone.” Welibus was now accompanying himself with the kiv. “He held the post I now occupy. I came out as an inspector and found that he was embezzling some four thousand UMIs a month. I’m sure he feels no great gratitude toward me.” Welibus glanced nervously up the esplanade. “I hope you catch him.”

  “I’
m doing my best. He went into the mask shop, you say?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  Thissell turned away. As he went down the path he heard the black plank door thud shut behind him.

  He walked down the esplanade to the mask-maker’s shop, paused outside as if admiring the display: a hundred miniature masks, carved from rare woods and minerals, dressed with emerald flakes, spider-web silk, wasp wings, petrified fish scales and the like. The shop was empty except for the mask-maker, a gnarled knotty man in a yellow robe, wearing a deceptively simple Universal Expert mask, fabricated from over two thousand bits of articulated wood.

  Thissell considered what he would say, how he would accompany himself, then entered. The mask-maker, noting the Moon Moth and Thissell’s diffident manner, continued with his work.

  Thissell, selecting the easiest of his instruments, stroked his strapan—possibly not the most felicitous choice, for it conveyed a certain degree of condescension. Thissell tried to counteract this flavor by singing in warm, almost effusive, tones, shaking the strapan whimsically when he struck a wrong note: “A stranger is an interesting person to deal with; his habits are unfamiliar, he excites curiosity. Not twenty minutes ago a stranger entered this fascinating shop, to exchange his drab Forest Goblin for one of the remarkable and adventurous creations assembled on the premises.”

  The mask-maker turned Thissell a side glance, and without words he played a progression of chords on an instrument Thissell had never seen before: a flexible sac gripped in the palm with three short tubes leading between the fingers. When the tubes were squeezed almost shut and air forced through the slit, an oboe-like tone ensued. To Thissell’s developing ear the instrument seemed difficult, the mask-maker expert, and the music conveyed a profound sense of disinterest.

  Thissell tried again, laboriously manipulating the strapan. He sang, “To an out-worlder on a foreign planet, the voice of one from his home is like water to a wilting plant. A person who could unite two such persons might find satisfaction in such an act of mercy.”

  The mask-maker casually fingered his own strapan, and drew forth a set of rippling scales, his fingers moving faster than the eyes could follow. He sang in the formal style: “An artist values his moments of concentration; he does not care to spend time exchanging banalities with persons of at best average prestige.” Thissell attempted to insert a counter melody, but the mask-maker struck a new set of complex chords whose portent evaded Thissell’s understanding, and continued: “Into the shop comes a person who evidently has picked up for the first time an instrument of unparalleled complication, for the execution of his music is open to criticism. He sings of home-sickness and longing for the sight of others like himself. He dissembles his enormous strakh behind a Moon Moth, for he plays the strapan to a Master Craftsman, and sings in a voice of contemptuous raillery. The refined and creative artist ignores the provocation. He plays a polite instrument, remains noncommittal, and trusts that the stranger will tire of his sport and depart.”

  Thissell took up his kiv. “The noble mask-maker completely misunderstands me—”

  He was interrupted by staccato rasping of the mask-maker’s strapan. “The stranger now sees fit to ridicule the artist’s comprehension.”

  Thissell scratched furiously at his strapan: “To protect myself from the heat, I wander into a small and unpretentious mask-shop. The artisan, though still distracted by the novelty of his tools, gives promise of development. He works zealously to perfect his skill, so much so that he refuses to converse with strangers, no matter what their need.”

  The mask-maker carefully laid down his carving tool. He rose to his feet, went behind a screen, and shortly returned wearing a mask of gold and iron, with simulated flames licking up from the scalp. In one hand he carried a skaranyi, in the other a scimitar. He struck off a brilliant series of wild tones, and sang: “Even the most accomplished artist can augment his strakh by killing sea-monsters, Night-men and importunate idlers. Such an occasion is at hand. The artist delays his attack exactly ten seconds, because the offender wears a Moon Moth.” He twirled his scimitar, spun it in the air.

  Thissell desperately pounded the strapan. “Did a Forest Goblin enter the shop? Did he depart with a new mask?”

  “Five seconds have elapsed,” sang the mask-maker in steady ominous rhythm.

  Thissell departed in frustrated rage. He crossed the square, stood looking up and down the esplanade. Hundreds of men and women sauntered along the docks, or stood on the decks of their houseboats, each wearing a mask chosen to express his mood, prestige and special attributes, and everywhere sounded the twitter of musical instruments.

  Thissell stood at a loss. The Forest Goblin had disappeared. Haxo Angmark walked at liberty in Fan, and Thissell had failed the urgent instructions of Castel Cromartin.

  Behind him sounded the casual notes of a kiv. “Ser Moon Moth Thissell, you stand engrossed in thought.”

  Thissell turned, to find beside him a Cave Owl, in a somber cloak of black and gray. Thissell recognized the mask, which symbolized erudition and patient exploration of abstract ideas; Mathew Kershaul had worn it on the occasion of their meeting a week before.

  “Good morning, Ser Kershaul,” muttered Thissell.

  “And how are the studies coming? Have you mastered the C-Sharp Plus scale on the gomapard? As I recall, you were finding those inverse intervals puzzling.”

  “I’ve worked on them,” said Thissell in a gloomy voice. “However, since I’ll probably be recalled to Polypolis, it may be all time wasted.”

  “Eh? What’s this?”

  Thissell explained the situation in regard to Haxo Angmark. Kershaul nodded gravely. “I recall Angmark. Not a gracious personality, but an excellent musician, with quick fingers and a real talent for new instruments.” Thoughtfully he twisted the goatee of his Cave Owl mask. “What are your plans?”

  “They’re non-existent,” said Thissell, playing a doleful phrase on the kiv. “I haven’t any idea what masks he’ll be wearing, and if I don’t know what he looks like, how can I find him?”

  Kershaul tugged at his goatee. “In the old days he favored the Exo Cambian Cycle, and I believe he used an entire set of Nether Denizens. Now of course his tastes may have changed.”

  “Exactly,” Thissell complained. “He might be twenty feet away and I’d never know it.” He glanced bitterly across the esplanade toward the mask-maker’s shop. “No one will tell me anything. I doubt if they care that a murderer is walking their docks.”

  “Quite correct,” Kershaul agreed. “Sirenese standards are different from ours.”

  “They have no sense of responsibility,” declared Thissell. “I doubt if they’d throw a rope to a drowning man.”

  “It’s true that they dislike interference,” Kershaul agreed. “They emphasize individual responsibility and self-sufficiency.”

  “Interesting,” said Thissell, “but I’m still in the dark about Angmark.”

  Kershaul surveyed him gravely. “And should you locate Angmark, what will you do then?”

  “I’ll carry out the orders of my superior,” said Thissell doggedly.

  “Angmark is a dangerous man,” mused Kershaul. “He’s got a number of advantages over you.”

  “I can’t take that into account. It’s my duty to send him back to Polypolis. He’s probably safe, since I haven’t the remotest idea how to find him.”

  Kershaul reflected. “An out-worlder can’t hide behind a mask, not from the Sirenese at least. There are four of us here at Fan—Rolver, Welibus, you and me. If another out-worlder tries to set up housekeeping the news will get around in short order.”

  “What if he heads for Zundar?”

  Kershaul shrugged. “I doubt if he’d dare. On the other hand—” Kershaul paused, then noting Thissell’s sudden inattention, turned to follow Thissell’s gaze.

  A man in a Forest Goblin mask came swaggering toward them along the esplanade. Kershaul laid a restraining hand on Thissell’s arm,
but Thissell stepped out into the path of the Forest Goblin, his borrowed gun ready. “Haxo Angmark,” he cried, “don’t make a move, or I’ll kill you. You’re under arrest.”

  “Are you sure this is Angmark?” asked Kershaul in a worried voice.

  “I’ll find out,” said Thissell. “Angmark, turn around, hold up your hands.”

  The Forest Goblin stood rigid with surprise and puzzlement. He reached to his zachinko, played an interrogatory arpeggio, and sang, “Why do you molest me, Moon Moth?”

  Kershaul stepped forward and played a placatory phrase on his slobo. “I fear that a case of confused identity exists, Ser Forest Goblin. Ser Moon Moth seeks an out-worlder in a Forest Goblin mask.”

  The Forest Goblin’s music became irritated, and he suddenly switched to his stimic. “He asserts that I am an out-worlder? Let him prove his case, or he has my retaliation to face.”

  Kershaul glanced in embarrassment around the crowd which had gathered and once more struck up an ingratiating melody. “I am positive that Ser Moon Moth—”

  The Forest Goblin interrupted with a fanfare of skaranyi tones. “Let him demonstrate his case or prepare for the flow of blood.”

  Thissell said, “Very well, I’ll prove my case.” He stepped forward, grasped the Forest Goblin’s mask. “Let’s see your face, that’ll demonstrate your identity!”

  The Forest Goblin sprang back in amazement. The crowd gasped, then set up an ominous strumming and toning of various instruments.

  The Forest Goblin reached to the nape of his neck, jerked the cord to his duel-gong, and with his other hand snatched forth his scimitar.

  Kershaul stepped forward, playing the slobo with great agitation. Thissell, now abashed, moved aside, conscious of the ugly sound of the crowd.

  Kershaul sang explanations and apologies; the Forest Goblin answered; Kershaul spoke over his shoulder to Thissell: “Run for it, or you’ll be killed! Hurry!”