Jack Vance: Big Planet

Cloyville groaned again. Glystra heard a sound from Nancy, and looked down, saw her mouth quivering in efforts to restrain a giggle. He rose to his feet, and Pianza watched him doubtfully. “How do you feel, Claude?”

“I’m weak. But tomorrow I’ll be as good as new. Nothing wrong with me a little exercise won’t cure. One thing we can be thankful for—”

“What’s that?” asked Cloyville.

Glystra motioned to his feet. “Good boots. Water-proof, wear-proof. We’ll need them.”

Cloyville ruefully inspected his big torso. “I suppose the paunch will work off.”

Glystra glanced around the circle. “Any other ideas? You, Vallusser?”

Vallusser shook his head. “I’ll stay with the crowd.”

“Good. Now here’s the program. We’ve got to make up packs. We want all the metal we can conveniently carry; it’s precious on Big Planet. Each of us ought to be able to manage fifteen pounds. Tools and knives would be best, but I suppose we’ll have to take what we can salvage… Then we’ll want clothes, a change apiece. Ship’s chart of Big Planet, if available. A compass. Everyone had better find himself a good knife, a blanket, and most important— handweapons. Has anyone checked the ship?”

Corbus put his hand in his blouse, displayed the black barrel of an ion-discharge pistol. “This belonged to the Captain. I helped myself.”

“I’ve got my two,” said Cloyville.

“There should be one in my cabin aboard ship,” said Pianza. “There was no way in yesterday, but maybe I can squeeze in somehow.”

“There’s another in mine,” said Glystra. He put his hands on the arm of the chair, rose to his feet. “We’d better get started.”

“You’d better rest,” said Darrot gruffly. “You’ll need all your strength. I’ll see that your pack is made up.”

Glystra relaxed without embarrassment. “Thanks. Maybe we’ll make better time.”

The seven men filed uphill, into the forest of silky blue-green trees. Glystra watched them from the doorway.

Nancy rose to her feet. “Best now that you should sleep.”

He went inside, lowered himself to the cot, put his hands under his head, lay staring at the beams.

Nancy stood looking down at him. “Claude Glystra.”

“What?”

“May I come with you?”

He turned his head, stared up in astonishment. “Come where?”

“Wherever you’re going.”

“Around the planet? Forty thousand miles?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head decisively. “You’d be killed with the rest of us. This is a thousand to one chance.”

“I don’t care… I die only once. And I’d like to see Earth. I’ve wandered far and I know many things…” She hesitated.

Glystra put the spur to his brain. It was tired and failed to react. Something was out of place. Would a girl choose such a precarious life from pure wanderlust? Of course, Big Planet was not Earth; human psychology was unpredictable. And yet—he searched her face, was it a personal matter? Infatuation? She colored.

“You blush easily,” Glystra observed.

“I’m strong,” said Nancy. “I can do as much work as either Ketch or Bishop.”

“A pretty girl can cause a lot of trouble.”

She shrugged. “There are women everywhere on Big Planet. No one need be alone.”

Glystra sank back on the couch, shaking his head. “You can’t come with us, Nancy.”

She bent over; he felt her breath on his face, warm, moist. “Tell them I’m a guide. Can’t I come as far as the forest?”

“Very well. As far as the forest.”

She ran outside, into the golden radiance of the day.

Glystra watched her run up the flowered slope. “There goes trouble.” He turned his face to the wall.

He slept an hour, two hours, soaking the rest into his bones. When he awoke, afternoon sunlight was slanting in through the doorway, a flood of richest saffron. Up the slope, the village merry-making was in full swing. Lines of girls and young men, in parti-colored motley like Nancy’s, capered back and forth in a dance of light-hearted buffoonery. To his ears came a shrill jig played on fiddles, concertinas, guitars, rhapsodiums. Back, forth, across his vision ran the dancers, bounding in a kind of prancing goose-step.

Pianza and Darrot looked in through the doorway. “Awake, Claude?” asked Pianza.

Glystra swung his feet over the edge of the cot, sat up. “Good as new.” He stood up, stretched, patted the back of his head, the soreness had nearly disappeared. “Everything ready?”

Pianza nodded, “Ready to go. We found your ion-shine, also a heat-gun belonging to the mate.” He looked at Glystra half-sidewise, an expression of mild calculation on his face. “I understand Nancy has been included in the expedition.”

“No,” said Glystra, with some irritation. “I told her she might come as far as the forest, that’s only two or three hours away.”

Pianza looked doubtful. “She’s made herself up a pack. Says she’s going with us.”

Darrot gave his head a terse shake. “I don’t like it, Claude.” He had a rough baritone voice. It sounded harsh and grating now. “This march is no place for a girl. Bound to be friction, inconvenience.”

Darrot’s cast of mind was peculiarly grim, thought Glystra. In a conciliatory voice he said, “I’m in full agreement with you. I refused her point blank.”

“But she’s all packed,” said Pianza.

Glystra said tartly, “Well, if she insists on going, if she follows a hundred yards to the rear, I don’t see how we can stop her short of physical constraint.”

Pianza blinked. “Well, naturally” His voice trailed off.

Darrot was unconvinced. His square face wore a look of mulish displeasure. “She’s travelled widely, she’s been to Grosgarth. Suppose she’s one of the Bajarnum’s secret agents? I understand they’re everywhere, even on the other side of the planet, even on Earth.”

“It’s possible,” admitted Glystra. “Anything’s possible. For all I know, you work for the Bajarnum yourself. Someone does.”

Darrot snorted, turned away.

“Don’t worry,” said Glystra, slapping him on the shoulder. “When we get to the forest, we’ll send her back.” He went to the door, stepped outside. Much of his strength had returned, although his legs felt limp and lax.

Pianza said, “Bishop salvaged the ship’s first aid kit, and all his food pills and vitamins. They may be useful; our food won’t always be the best.”

“Good.”

“Cloyville found his camping equipment and we’re taking along the stove and the water-maker.”

“Any spare power units for the ion-shines?”

“No.”

Glystra chewed his lip. “That’s bad… Find the nun’s body?”

Pianza shook his head. “Her cabin is on the bottom.”

“Too bad,” said Glystra, although he felt little real remorse. The woman had hardly existed as a human being: he had been conscious of a thin white face, a black robe, a black head-dress, an air of intensity, and all was now gone.

Down from the village came the Earthmen, and around them circled the dancers, gay, exalted, aware only of their own motion and color. Ketch, Corbus, Vallusser, Cloyville, Bishop—and Nancy. She stood a little apart, watching the dancing with an air of serene detachment, as if she had renounced whatever ties bound her to Jubilith.

An elder of the village came down the slope, a thin brown man in a heavy loose smock of horizontal brown, gray and white stripes. The rhythm was still in his ears; he jigged to the music following him down the hill.

He spoke to Cloyville, remonstrated; Cloyville pointed to Glystra. The old man jigged to where Glystra stood waiting. He sang out, “Surely you won’t leave us now? The day is at its close; night drifts over the massif and our merriment is not yet upon us.”