Jack Vance - The Dragon Masters

“I dispute this assertion,” said Carcolo hotly. “Who—”

Joaz held up his hand warily. “Silence, Carcolo! You are alive now only because I am sick of blood and violence. Do not test my patience!”

Carcolo turned away, twitching his scabbard tassel with restrained fury. He looked up the valley, turned back to Joaz. “Here come the sacerdotes, who in fact demolished the ship. I remind you of my proposal, by which we might have prevented this destruction and slaughter.”

Joaz smiled. “You made your proposal only two days ago. Further, the sacerdotes possess no weapons.”

Carcolo stared as if Joaz had taken leave of his wits. “How, then, did they destroy the ship?”

Joaz shrugged. “I can only make conjectures.”

Carcolo asked sarcastically, “And what direction do these conjectures lead?”

“I wonder if they had constructed the frame of a spaceship. I wonder if they turned the propulsion beam against the Basic ship.”

Carcolo pursed his month dubiously. “Why should the sacerdotes build themselves a spaceship?”

“The Demie approaches. Why do you not put your question to him?”

“I will do so,” said Carcolo with dignity.

But the Demie, followed by four younger sacerdotes and walking with the air of a man in a dream, passed without speaking.

Joaz rose to his knees, watched after him. The Demie apparently planned to mount the ramp and enter the ship. Joaz jumped to his feet, followed, barred the way to the ramp. Politely he asked, “What do you seek, Demie?”

“I seek to board the ship.”

“To what end? I ask, of course, from sheer curiosity.”

The Demie inspected him a moment without reply. His face was haggard and tight; his eyes gleamed like frost-stars. Finally he replied, in a voice hoarse with emotion. “I wish to determine if the ship can be repaired.”

Joaz considered a moment, then spoke in a gentle rational voice. “The information can be of little interest to you. Would the sacerdotes place themselves so completely under my command?”

“We obey no one.”

“In that case, I can hardly take you with me when I leave.”

The Demie swung around, and for a moment seemed as if he would walk away. His eyes fell on the shattered opening at the end of the vale, and he turned back. He spoke, not in the measured voice of a sacerdote, but in a burst of grief and fury. “This is your doing, you preen yourself, you count yourself resourceful and clever; you forced us to act, and thereby violate ourselves and our dedication!”

Joaz nodded, with a faint grim smile. “I knew the opening must lie behind the Jambles; I wondered if you might be building a spaceship; I hoped that you might protect yourselves against the Basics, and so serve my purposes. I admit your charges. I used you and your construction as a weapon, to save myself and my people. Did I do wrong?”

“Right or wrong—who can weigh? You wasted our effort across more than eight hundred Aerlith years. You destroyed more than you can ever replace.”

“I destroyed nothing, Demie. The Basics destroyed your ship. If you had cooperated with us in the defense of Banbeck Vale this disaster would have never occurred. You chose neutrality, you thought yourselves immune from our grief and pain. As you see, such is not the case.”

“And meanwhile our labor of eight hundred and twelve years goes for naught.”

Joaz asked with feigned innocence, “Why did you need a spaceship? Where do you plan to travel?”

The Demie’s eyes burst with flames as intense as those of Skene. “When the race of men is gone, then we go abroad. We move across the galaxy, we repopulate the terrible old worlds, and the new Universal history starts from that day, with the past wiped clean as if it never existed. If the grephs destroy you, what is it to us? We await only the death of the last man in the universe.”

“Do you not consider yourselves men?”

“We are as you know us—above-men.”

At Joaz’s shoulder someone laughed coarsely. Joaz turned his head to see Ervis Carcolo. “ ‘Above-men’?” mocked Carcolo. “Poor naked waifs of the caves. What can you display to prove your superiority?”

The Demie’s mouth drooped, the lines of his face deepened. “We have our tands. We have our knowledge. We have our strength.”

Carcolo turned away with another coarse laugh. Joaz said in a subdued voice, “I feel more pity for you than you ever felt for us.”

Carcolo returned. “And where did you learn to build a spaceship? From your own efforts? Or from the work of men before you, men of the old times?”

“We are the ultimate men,” said the Demie. “We know all that men have ever thought, spoken or devised. We are the last and the first, and when the under-folk are gone, we shall renew the cosmos as innocent and fresh as rain.”

“But men have never gone and will never go,” said Joaz. “A setback yes, but is not the universe wide? Somewhere are the worlds of men. With the help of the Basics and their Mechanics, I will repair the ship and go forth to find these worlds.”

“You will seek in vain,” said the Demie.

“These worlds do not exist?”

“The Human Empire is dissolved; men exist only in feeble groups.”

“What of Eden, old Eden?”

“A myth, no more.”

“My marble globe, what of that?”

“A toy, an imaginative fabrication.”

“How can you be sure?” asked Joaz, troubled in spite of himself.

“Have I not said that we know all of history? We can look into our tands and see deep into the past, until the recollections are dim and misty, and never do we remember planet Eden.”

Joaz shook his head stubbornly. “There must be an original world from which men came. Call it Earth or Tempe or Eden—somewhere it exists.”

The Demie started to speak, then in a rare show of irresolution held his tongue. Joaz said, “Perhaps you are right, perhaps we are the last men. But I shall go forth to look.”

“I shall come with you,” said Ervis Carcolo.

“You will be fortunate to find yourself alive tomorrow,” said Joaz.

Carcolo drew himself up. “Do not dismiss my claim to the ship so carelessly.”

Joaz struggled for words, but could find none. What to do with the unruly Carcolo? He could not find in himself enough harshness to do what he knew should be done. He temporized, turned his back on Carcolo. “Now you know my plans,” he told the Demie. “If you do not interfere with me, I shall not interfere with you.”

The Demie moved slowly back. “Go then. We are a passive race; we despise ourselves for our activity of today. Perhaps it was our greatest mistake. But go, seek your forgotten world. You will only perish somewhere among the stars. We will wait, as already we have waited.” He turned and walked away, followed by the four younger sacerdotes, who had all the time stood gravely to the side.

Joaz called after him. “And if the Basics come again? Will you fight with us? Or against us?”

The Demie made no response, but walked to the north, the long white hair swinging down his thin shoulder blades.

Joaz watched him a moment, gazed up and down the ruined valley, shook his head in wonder and puzzlement, turned back to study the great black ship.

Skene touched the western cliffs; there was an instant dimming of light, a sudden chill. Carcolo approached him. “Tonight I shall hold my folk here in Banbeck Vale, and send them home on the morrow. Meanwhile, I suggest that you board the ship with me and make a preliminary survey.”

Joaz took a deep breath. Why could it not come easier for him? Carcolo had twice sought his life, and, had positions been reversed, would have shown him no mercy. He forced himself to act. His duty to himself, to his people, to his ultimate goal was clear.