Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One (37 page)

Aboard another tanker…the
Verendrye
, I obtained some luminous tape and, for no particular reason, created a star chart on the overhead of our forecastle, with the major constellations, the first and second magnitude stars picked out accurately. The captain, learning of this enterprise, came down to the forecastle, lay down on his back, looked up and marveled at this unprecedented creation. At the end of the voyage, he gave me a glossy photograph of the ship signed with his name and best regards. I still have this photograph and am naturally very proud of it.

Background for “First Star” was assimilated during my association with Palomar astronomer Robert Richardson (“Philip Latham”), during the time we both wrote
Captain Video
scripts for television. There are dark and sinister aspects to the astronomer’s life of which the public is unaware; this story, so I am told, prompts astronomers to nod in grim corroboration and look over their shoulders.

—Jack Vance

When the Five Moons Rise

Seguilo could not have gone far; there was no place for him to go. Once Perrin had searched the lighthouse and the lonesome acre of rock, there were no other possibilities—only the sky and the ocean.

Seguilo was neither inside the lighthouse nor was he outside.

Perrin went out into the night, squinted up against the five moons. Seguilo was not to be seen on top of the lighthouse.

Seguilo had disappeared.

Perrin looked indecisively over the flowing brine of Maurnilam Var. Had Seguilo slipped on the damp rock and fallen into the sea, he certainly would have called out…The five moons blinked, dazzled, glinted along the surface; Seguilo might even now be floating unseen a hundred yards distant.

Perrin shouted across the dark water: “Seguilo!”

He turned, once more looked up the face of the lighthouse. Around the horizon whirled the twin shafts of red and white light, guiding the barges crossing from South Continent to Spacetown, warning them off Isel Rock.

Perrin walked quickly toward the lighthouse; Seguilo was no doubt asleep in his bunk or in the bathroom.

Perrin went to the top chamber, circled the lumenifer, climbed down the stairs. “Seguilo!”

No answer. The lighthouse returned a metallic vibrating echo.

Seguilo was not in his room, in the bathroom, in the commissary, or in the storeroom. Where else could a man go?

Perrin looked out the door. The five moons cast confusing shadows. He saw a gray blot—
^“
Seguilo!” He ran outside. “Where have you been?”

Seguilo straightened to his full height, a thin man with a wise doleful face. He turned his head; the wind blew his words past Perrin’s ears.

Sudden enlightenment came to Perrin. “You must have been under the generator!” The only place he could have been.

Seguilo had come closer. “Yes…I was under the generator.” He paused uncertainly by the door, stood looking up at the moons, which this evening had risen all bunched together. Puzzlement creased Perrin’s forehead. Why should Seguilo crawl under the generator? “Are you—well?”

“Yes. Perfectly well.”

Perrin stepped closer and in the light of the five moons, Ista, Bista, Liad, Miad and Poidel, scrutinized Seguilo sharply. His eyes were dull and noncommittal; he seemed to carry himself stiffly. “Have you hurt yourself? Come over to the steps and sit down.”

“Very well.” Seguilo ambled across the rock, sat down on the steps.

“You’re certain you’re all right?”

“Certain.”

After a moment Perrin said, “Just before you—went under the generator, you were about to tell me something you said was important.”

Seguilo nodded slowly. “That’s true.”

“What was it?”

Seguilo stared dumbly up into the sky. There was nothing to be heard but the wash of the sea, hissing and rushing where the rock shelved under.

“Well?” asked Perrin finally. Seguilo hesitated.

“You said that when five moons rose together in the sky, it was not wise to believe anything.”

“Ah,” nodded Seguilo, “so I did.”

“What did you mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why is not believing anything important?”

“I don’t know.”

Perrin rose abruptly to his feet. Seguilo normally was crisp, dryly emphatic. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Right as rain.”

That was more like Seguilo. “Maybe a drink of whiskey would fix you up.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

Perrin knew where Seguilo kept his private store. “You sit here, I’ll get you a shot.”

“Yes, I’ll sit here.”

Perrin hurried inside the lighthouse, clambered the two flights of stairs to the commissary. Seguilo might remain seated or he might not; something in his posture, in the rapt gaze out to sea, suggested that he might not. Perrin found the bottle and a glass, ran back down the steps. Somehow he knew that Seguilo would be gone.

Seguilo was gone. He was not on the steps, nowhere on the windy acre of Isel Rock. It was impossible that he had passed Perrin on the stairs. He might have slipped into the engine room and crawled under the generator once more.

Perrin flung open the door, switched on the lights, stooped, peered under the housing. Nothing.

A greasy film of dust, uniform, unmarred, indicated that no one had ever been there.

Where was Seguilo?

Perrin went up to the top-most part of the lighthouse, carefully searched every nook and cranny down to the outside entrance. No Seguilo.

Perrin walked out on the rock. Bare and empty; no Seguilo.

Seguilo was gone. The dark water of Maurnilam Var sighed and flowed across the shelf.

Perrin opened his mouth to shout across the moon-dazzled swells, but somehow it did not seem right to shout. He went back to the lighthouse, seated himself before the radio transceiver.

Uncertainly he touched the dials; the instrument had been Seguilo’s responsibility. Seguilo had built it himself, from parts salvaged from a pair of old instruments.

Perrin tentatively flipped a switch. The screen sputtered into light, the speaker hummed and buzzed. Perrin made hasty adjustments. The screen streaked with darts of blue light, a spatter of quick, red blots. Fuzzy, dim, a face looked forth from the screen. Perrin recognized a junior clerk in the Commission office at Spacetown. He spoke urgently. “This is Harold Perrin, at Isel Rock Lighthouse; send out a relief ship.”

The face in the screen looked at him as through thick pebble-glass. A faint voice, overlaid by sputtering and crackling, said, “Adjust your tuning…I can’t hear you…”

Perrin raised his voice. “Can you hear me now?”

The face in the screen wavered and faded.

Perrin yelled, “This is Isel Rock Lighthouse! Send out a relief ship! Do you hear? There’s been an accident!”

“…signals not coming in. Make out a report, send…” the voice sputtered away.

Cursing furiously under his breath, Perrin twisted knobs, flipped switches. He pounded the set with his fist. The screen flashed bright orange, went dead.

Perrin ran behind, worked an anguished five minutes, to no avail. No light, no sound.

Perrin slowly rose to his feet. Through the window he glimpsed the five moons racing for the west. “When the five moons rise together,” Seguilo had said, “it’s not wise to believe anything.” Seguilo was gone. He had been gone once before and come back; maybe he would come back again. Perrin grimaced, shuddered. It would be best now if Seguilo stayed away. He ran down to the outer door, barred and bolted it. Hard on Seguilo, if he came wandering back…Perrin leaned a moment with his back to the door, listening. Then he went to the generator room, looked under the generator. Nothing. He shut the door, climbed the steps.

Nothing in the commissary, the storeroom, the bathroom, the bedrooms. No one in the light-room. No one on the roof.

No one in the lighthouse but Perrin.

He returned to the commissary, brewed a pot of coffee, sat half an hour listening to the sigh of water across the shelf, then went to his bunk.

Passing Seguilo’s room he looked in. The bunk was empty.

When at last he rose in the morning, his mouth was dry, his muscles like bundles of withes, his eyes hot from long staring up at the ceiling. He rinsed his face with cold water and, going to the window, searched the horizon. A curtain of dingy overcast hung halfway up the east; blue-green Magda shone through like an ancient coin covered with verdigris. Over the water oily skeins of blue-green light formed and joined and broke and melted…Out along the south horizon Perrin spied a pair of black barges riding the Trade Current to Spacetown. After a few moments they disappeared into the overcast.

Perrin threw the master switch; above him came the fluttering hum of the lumenifer slowing and dimming.

He descended the stairs, with stiff fingers unbolted the door, flung it wide. The wind blew past his ears, smelling of Maurnilam Var. The tide was low; Isel Rock rose out of the water like a saddle. He walked gingerly to the water’s edge. Blue-green Magda broke clear of the overcast; the light struck under the water. Leaning precariously over the shelf, Perrin looked down, past shadows and ledges and grottos, down into the gloom…Movement of some kind; Perrin strained to see. His foot slipped, he almost fell.

Perrin returned to the lighthouse, worked a disconsolate three hours at the transceiver, finally deciding that some vital component had been destroyed.

He opened a lunch unit, pulled a chair to the window, sat gazing across the ocean. Eleven weeks to the relief ship. Isel Rock had been lonely enough with Seguilo.

Blue-green Magda sank in the west. A sulfur overcast drifted up to meet it. Sunset brought a few minutes of sad glory to the sky: jade-colored stain with violet streakings. Perrin started the twin shafts of red and white on their nocturnal sweep, went to stand by the window.

The tide was rising, the water surged over the shelf with a heavy sound. Up from the west floated a moon: Ista, Bista, Liad, Miad, or Poidel? A native would know at a glance. Up they came, one after the other, five balls blue as old ice.

“It’s not wise to believe…” What had Seguilo meant? Perrin tried to think back. Seguilo had said, “It’s not often, very rare, in fact, that the five moons bunch up—but when they do, then there’re high tides.” He had hesitated, glancing out at the shelf. “When the five moons rise together,” said Seguilo, “it’s not wise to believe anything.”

Perrin had gazed at him with forehead creased in puzzlement. Seguilo was an old hand, who knew the fables and lore, which he brought forth from time to time. Perrin had never known quite what to expect from Seguilo; he had the trait indispensable to a lighthouse-tender—taciturnity. The transceiver had been his hobby; in Perrin’s ignorant hands, the instrument had destroyed itself. What the lighthouse needed, thought Perrin, was one of the new transceivers with self-contained power unit, master control, the new organic screen, soft and elastic, like a great eye…A sudden rain squall blanketed half the sky; the five moons hurtled toward the cloud bank. The tide surged high over the shelf, almost over a gray mass. Perrin eyed it with interest; what could it be?…About the size of a transceiver, about the same shape. Of course, it could not possibly
be
a transceiver; yet, what a wonderful thing if it were…He squinted, strained his eyes. There, surely, that was the milk-colored screen; those black spots were dials. He sprang to his feet, ran down the stairs, out the door, across the rock…It was irrational; why should a transceiver appear just when he wanted it, as if in answer to his prayer? Of course it might be part of a cargo lost overboard…

Sure enough, the mechanism was bolted to a raft of Manasco logs, and evidently had floated up on the shelf on the high tide.

Perrin, unable to credit his good fortune, crouched beside the gray case. Brand new, with red seals across the master switch.

It was too heavy to carry. Perrin tore off the seals, threw on the power: here was a set he understood. The screen glowed bright.

Perrin dialed to the Commission band. The interior of an office appeared and facing out was, not the officious subordinate, but Superintendent Raymond Flint himself. Nothing could be better.

“Superintendent,” cried out Perrin, “this is Isel Rock Lighthouse, Harold Perrin speaking.”

“Oh, yes,” said Superintendent Flint. “How are you, Perrin? What’s the trouble?”

“My partner, Andy Seguilo, disappeared—vanished into nowhere; I’m alone out here.”

Superintendent Flint looked shocked. “Disappeared? What happened? Did he fall into the ocean?”

“I don’t know. He just disappeared. It happened last night—”

“You should have called in before,” said Flint reprovingly. “I would have sent out a rescue copter to search for him.”

“I tried to call,” Perrin explained, “but I couldn’t get the regular transceiver to work. It burnt up on me…I thought I was marooned here.”

Superintendent Flint raised his eyebrows in mild curiosity. “Just what are you using now?”

Perrin stammered, “It’s a brand new instrument…floated up out of the sea. Probably was lost from a barge.”

Flint nodded. “Those bargemen are a careless lot—don’t seem to understand what good equipment costs…Well, you sit tight. I’ll order a plane out in the morning with a relief crew. You’ll be assigned to duty along the Floral Coast. How does that suit you?”

“Very well, sir,” said Perrin. “Very well indeed. I can’t think of anything I’d like better…Isel Rock is beginning to get on my nerves.”

“When the five moons rise, it’s not wise to believe anything,” said Superintendent Flint in a sepulchral voice.

The screen went dead.

Perrin lifted his hand, slowly turned off the power. A drop of rain fell on his face. He glanced skyward. The squall was almost on him. He tugged at the transceiver, although well aware that it was too heavy to move. In the storeroom was a tarpaulin that would protect the transceiver until morning. The relief crew could help him move it inside.

He ran back to the lighthouse, found the tarpaulin, hurried back outside. Where was the transceiver?…Ah—there. He ran through the pelting drops, wrapped the tarpaulin around the box, lashed it into place, ran back to the lighthouse. He barred the door, and whistling, opened a canned dinner unit.