Jack Vance - Big Planet

Clodleberg picked himself up from the ground, stalked across the marsh, stabbed them with their own spears.

The swamp was quiet. Nothing could be heard but a rustle of the breeze in the reeds, the warm hum of insects. Glystra looked at the power-bank of his ion-shine, shook his head. “Done for.” He started to toss it to the ground, then remembered the value of metal and tucked it under the seat.

Clodleberg returned to his trolley, still muttering and bristling. “The plague-taken reed-demons, they cut the line!” Evidently, in Clodleberg’s register of evils, this was the most depraved crime of all.

“What race are these people?” asked Bishop, who had clambered down one of the line standards to inspect the bodies.

Clodleberg shrugged, and said in a disinterested tone, “They call themselves the Stanezi… They’re a great nuisance to travellers, since they gain nothing from the monoline by way of trade.”

Bishop nudged one of the scrawny forms over on its back, peered into the open mouth. “Filed teeth. Hamitic physiognomy… A Shilluk tribe emigrated to Big Planet from the Sudan about four hundred years ago—an irredentist group who chose exile rather than submission to World Government. Very possibly here are their descendants.” He looked across the reeds, the dunes, the hot sheen of Lake Pellitante. “The terrain is much like the one they left.”

“From the swamps of the Nile to the swamps of Lake Pellitante,” apostrophized Pianza.

From the tool-box in his trolley Clodleberg brought a block-and-tackle, and under his direction the broken parts of the monoline were heaved together. Sitting on top one of the standards Clodleberg was able to sink barbed splints into both ends and secure the splice with three whippings of fine cord. Then the tackle was released and the monoline was once more whole.

Clodleberg’s trolley was hoisted back up into position; he set his sails and the caravan was once more under way.

As they rounded the elbow of the lagoon Glystra looked back and saw crouching forms steal from the swamp toward the yellow and black-striped bodies… What a tragedy, thought Glystra. In ten seconds the flower of the tribe wiped out. There would be wailing tonight in the Stanezi village, grovelling in the ashes to the fetishes which had failed them, flagellations, penances…

The monoline took a long gradual slant up into a line of trees bordering Lake Pellitante, and the sudden shade was like darkness. The wind was light, blowing in vagrant puffs, and the trolleys ghosted hardly faster than a man could walk. The lake lay nearly mirror-calm, with a peculiar yellow-gray glisten on the surface, like a film of spider-web. The opposite shore was lost in the haze; far out three or four boats were visible, manned, according to Clodleberg, by fishermen of a tribe who held the land in superstitious dread, and never in the course of their lives set foot ashore.

An hour later they passed a village of house-boats—a triple row of barges floating a hundred yards offshore. The central row was covered with vegetation, apparently a community kitchen garden. There was an air of warmth and contentment to the village, lazy days in the sunlight…

Late afternoon found the party still drifting through the trees of the lake-shore, and at dusk a party of traders appeared, riding the monoline from the opposite direction.

Clodleberg halted his trolley, the lead man in the opposite caravan trundled cautiously closer, and the two exchanged greetings.

The traders were men of Miramar, in Coelanvilli, to the south of Kirstendale, returning from Myrtlesee Fountain. They were bright-eyed wiry men in white linen suits, wearing red kerchiefs around their heads, which detail of dress invested them with a peculiarly piratical air. Clodleberg, however, appeared to be at his ease and Glystra gradually relaxed.

The trade caravan consisted of fourteen freight trolleys loaded with crystallized sugar. By an established rule, the Earthmen, with only four trolleys, were obligated to drop to the ground and allow the traders free-way.

Evening had seeped lavender-gray across the lake, and Glystra decided to camp for the night. The leader of the traders likewise decided to make night camp.

“These are sad times,” he told Glystra. “Every hand is turned against the trader, and it is wise to band together as many honest arms as possible.”

Glystra mentioned the Stanezi ambush by the lagoon of yellow reeds, and the trader laughed rather weakly.

“The reed men are cowards; they are hardly resourceful or persistent, and run at any loud sounds. It is different on the Palari Desert, where two days ago we escaped the Rebbirs only because a squall of wind drove us at great speed out of danger.” He prodded the earth with a stick, looked uneasily to the east. “They are keen as the Blackhelm panthers, as single-minded as fate. It would surprise me not at all to find that a party has followed us down the monoline. For this reason we have kept our sleep short and our sentries double.”

It was still too early for sleep. The traders sat by the fire, busy with a game involving a rotating cage full of colored insects. Nancy sat cross-legged, her dark-fringed eyes wide, the pupils big and black. Pianza sat on a log, paring his fingernails; Bishop was frowning over a small notebook. Corbus leaned back against a tree, his spare body relaxed, his eyes alert, watchful. Clodleberg greased the bearings of the trolleys, humming through his teeth.

Glystra walked down to the shore, to watch evening settle over the lake. Immense quiet enveloped the world, and the faint sounds from the camp only pointed up the stillness. The west was orange, green and gray; the east was washed in tenderest mauve. The wind had died completely. The lake lay flat, with a surface rich as milk.

Glystra picked up a pebble, turned it over in his fingers. “Round pebble, quartz—piece of Big Planet, washed by Big Planet water, the water of Lake Pellitante, polished by the sands of the Big Planet shore…” He weighed it in his palm, half-minded to preserve it. All his life it would have the power to recreate for him this particular moment, when peace and solitude and strangeness surrounded him, with Big Planet night about to fall.

Nancy drifted down from among the trees, her hair a niist of pale gold. Thinking of the nights at Kirstendale Glystra felt a pang, a pressure in his throat.

She came close beside him. “Why did you come out here?”

“Just wandering… Thinking…”

“Are you sorry you left Kirstendale?”

He was surprised at the tone of wistful reproach. “No, of course not.”

“You have been avoiding me,” she said simply, looking at him with wide eyes.

Glystra had the uncomfortable feeling he was about to be put on the defensive. “No, not at all.”

“Perhaps you found the Kirstendale woman more desirable than me?” Again the tone of sad accusation.

Glystra laughed. “I hardly spoke to her… How did you find the Kirstendale man?”

She came close to him. “How could I think of anyone other than you? My mind was full of jealousy…”

The weight lifted from Glystra’s mind, the pressure eased from his throat… High from the sky came the deep note of a bell, a sonorous vibrating chime. Glystra looked up in astonishment. “What on earth is that?”

“Some kind of night-creature, I suppose.”

The note throbbed once more across the lake, and Glystra thought to see a dark shadow sweeping quietly past.

He settled upon a log, pulled her down beside him. “After Myrtlesee there’s no more monoline.”

“No.”

“I’ve been considering going back to Kirstendale—”

He felt her stiffen, turn her head.