The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories (29 page)

The corners of the chief’s mouth drew back. Thomm interposed a question before he spat out an angry reply. “Tell me, where are your kilns?”

The chief turned him a cool glance. “Our firing is done by the Great Monthly Burn. We stack our ware in the caves, and then, on the twenty-second day, the scorch rises from below. One entire day the heat roars up white and glowing, and two weeks later the caves have cooled for us to go after our ware.”

“That sounds interesting,” said Covill. “I’d like to look around your works. Where’s your pottery, down there in that shed?”

The chief moved not a muscle. “No man may look inside that shed,” he said slowly, “unless he is a Potter—and then only after he has proved his mastery of the clay.”

“How does he go about that?” Covill asked lightly.

“At the age of fourteen he goes forth from his home with a hammer, a mortar, a pound of bone lime. He must mine clay, lead, sand, spar. He must find iron for brown, malachite for green, cobalt earth for blue, and he must grind a glaze in his mortar, shape and decorate a tile, and set it in the Mouth of the Great Burn. If the tile is successful, the body whole, the glaze good, then he is permitted to enter the long pottery and know the secrets of the craft.”

Covill pulled the pipe from his mouth, asked quizzically, “And if the tile’s no good?”

“We need no poor Potters,” said the chief. “We always need bone-lime.”

Thomm had been glancing along the shards of colored pottery. “Why don’t you use yellow glaze?”

The chief flung out his arms. “Yellow glaze? It is unknown, a secret no Potter has penetrated. Iron gives a dingy tan, silver a gray-yellow, and antimony burns out in the heat of the Great Burn. The pure rich yellow, the color of the sun…ah, that is a dream.”

Covill was uninterested. “Well, we’ll be flying back, since you don’t care to show us around. Remember, if there’s any technical help you want, I can get it for you. I might even find how to make you your precious yellow—”

“Impossible,” said the chief. “Have not we, the Potters of the Universe, sought for thousands of years?”

“…But there must be no more taking of lives. If necessary, I’ll put a stop to the potting altogether.”

The chief’s eyes blazed. “Your words are not friendly!”

“If you don’t think I can do it, you’re mistaken,” said Covill. “I’ll drop a bomb down the throat of your volcano and cave in the entire mountain. The System protects every man-jack everywhere, and that means the Mi-Tuun from a tribe of Potters who wants their bones.”

Thomm plucked him nervously by the sleeve. “Get back in the copter,” he whispered. “They’re getting ugly. In another minute they’ll jump us.”

Covill turned his back on the lowering chief, deliberately climbed into the copter. Thomm followed more warily. In his eyes the chief was teetering on the verge of attack, and Thomm had no inclination for fighting.

He flung in the clutch; the blades chewed at the air; the copter rose, leaving a knot of gray-burnoosed Potters silent below.

Covill settled back with an air of satisfaction. “There’s only one way to handle people like that, and that is, get the upper hand on ’em; that’s the only way they’ll respect you. You act just a little uncertain, they sense it, sure as fate, and then you’re a goner.”

Thomm said nothing. Covill’s methods might produce immediate results, but in the long run they seemed short-sighted, intolerant, unsympathetic. In Covill’s place he would have stressed the Bureau’s ability to provide substitutes for the bone-lime, and possibly assist with any technical difficulties—though indeed, they seemed to be masters of their craft, completely sure of their ability. Yellow glaze, of course, still was lacking them. That evening he inserted a strip from the Bureau library into his portable viewer. The subject was pottery, and Thomm absorbed as much of the lore as he was able.

Covill’s pet project—a small atomic power plant to electrify Penolpan—kept him busy the next few days, even though he worked reluctantly. Penolpan, with its canals softly lit by yellow lanterns, the gardens glowing to candles and rich with the fragrance of night-blossoms, was a city from fairyland; electricity, motors, fluorescents, water pumps would surely dim the charm—Covill, however, was insistent that the world would benefit by a gradual integration into the tremendous industrial complex of the System.

Twice Thomm passed by the pottery bazaar and twice he turned in, both to marvel at the glistening ware and to speak with the girl who tended the shelves. She had a fascinating beauty, grace and charm, breathed into her soul by a lifetime in Penolpan; she was interested in everything Thomm had to tell her of the outside universe, and Thomm, young, softhearted and lonely, looked forward to his visits with increasing anticipation.

For a period Covill kept him furiously busy. Reports were due at the home office, and Covill assigned the task to Thomm, while he either dozed in his wicker chair or rode the canals of Penolpan in his special red and black boat.

At last, late one afternoon, Thomm threw aside his journals and set off down the street, under the shade of great kaotang trees. He crossed through the central market, where the shopkeepers were busy with late trade, turned down a path beside a turf-banked canal and presently came to the pottery bazaar.

But he looked in vain for the girl. A thin man in a black jacket stood quietly to the side, waiting his pleasure. At last Thomm turned to him. “Where’s Su-then?”

The man hesitated, Thomm grew impatient.

“Well, where is she? Sick? Has she given up working here?”

“She has gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Gone to her ancestors.”

Thomm’s skin froze to stiffness. “
What?
”

The clerk lowered his head.

“Is she dead?”

“Yes, she is dead.”

“But—how? She was healthy a day or so ago.”

The man of the Mi-Tuun hesitated once more. “There are many ways of dying, Earthman.”

Thomm became angry. “Tell me now—what happened to her?”

Rather startled by Thomm’s vehemence the man blurted, “The Potters have called her to the hills; she is gone, but soon she will live forever, her spirit wrapped in glorious glass—”

“Let me get this straight,” said Thomm. “The Potters took her—alive?”

“Yes—alive.”

“And any others?”

“Three others.”

“All alive?”

“All alive.”

Thomm ran back to the Bureau. Covill, by chance, was in the front office, checking Thomm’s work. Thomm blurted, “The Potters have been raiding again—they took four Mi-Tuun in the last day or so.”

Covill thrust his chin forward, cursed fluently. Thomm understood that his anger was not so much for the act itself, but for the fact that the Potters had defied him, disobeyed his orders. Covill personally had been insulted; now there would be action.

“Get the copter out,” said Covill shortly. “Bring it around in front.”

When Thomm set the copter down Covill was waiting with one of the three atom bombs in the Bureau armory—a long cylinder attached to a parachute. Covill snapped it in place on the copter, then stood back. “Take this over that blasted volcano,” he said harshly. “Drop it down the crater. I’ll teach those murdering devils a lesson they won’t forget. Next time it’ll be on their village.”

Thomm, aware of Covill’s dislike of flying, was not surprised by the assignment. Without further words he took off, rose above Penolpan, flew out toward the Kukmank Range.

His anger cooled. The Potters, caught in the rut of their customs, were unaware of evil. Covill’s orders seemed ill-advised—headstrong, vindictive, over-hasty. Suppose the Mi-Tuun were yet alive? Would it not be better to negotiate for their release? Instead of hovering over the volcano, he dropped his copter into the gray village, and assuring himself of his gamma-gun, he jumped out onto the dismal stony square.

This time he had only a moment to wait. The chief came striding up from the village, burnoose flapping back from powerful limbs, a grim smile on his face.

“So—it is the insolent lordling again. Good—we are in need of bone-lime, and yours will suit us admirably. Prepare your soul for the Great Burn, and your next life will be the eternal glory of a perfect glaze.”

Thomm felt fear, but he also felt a kind of desperate recklessness. He touched his gun. “I’ll kill a lot of Potters, and you’ll be the first,” he said in a voice that sounded strange to him. “I’ve come for the four Mi-Tuun that you took from Penolpan. These raids have got to stop. You don’t seem to understand that we can punish you.”

The chief put his hands behind his back, apparently unimpressed. “You may fly like the birds, but birds can do no more than defile those below.”

Thomm pulled out his gamma-gun, pointed to a boulder a quarter-mile away. “Watch that rock.” And he blasted the granite to gravel with an explosive pellet.

The chief drew back, eyebrows raised. “In truth, you wield more sting than I believed. But—” he gestured to the ring of burnoosed Potters around Thomm “—we can kill you before you can do much damage. We Potters do not fear death, which is merely eternal meditation from the glass.”

“Listen to me,” said Thomm earnestly. “I came not to threaten, but to bargain. My superior, Covill, gave me orders to destroy the mountain, blast away your caves—and I can do it as easily as I blasted that rock.”

A mutter arose from the Potters.

“If I’m harmed, be sure that you’ll suffer. But, as I say, I’ve come down here, against my superior’s orders, to make a bargain with you.”

“What sort of bargain can interest us?” said the Chief Potter disdainfully. “We care for nothing but our craft.” He gave a sign and, before Thomm could twitch, two burly Potters had gripped him, wrested the gun from his hand.

“I can give you the secret of the true yellow glaze,” shouted Thomm desperately. “The royal fluorescent yellow that will stand the fire of your kiln!”

“Empty words,” said the chief. Mockingly he asked: “And what do you want for your secret?”

“The return of the four Mi-Tuun you’ve just stolen from Penolpan, and your word never to raid again.”

The chief listened intently, pondered a moment. “How then would we formulate our glaze?” He spoke with a patient air, like a man explaining a practical truth to a child. “Bone-lime is one of our most necessary fluxes.”

“As Covill told you, we can give you unlimited quantities of lime, with any properties you ask for. On Earth we have made pottery for thousands of years and we know a great deal of such things.”

The Chief Potter tossed his head. “That is evidently untrue. Look—” he kicked Thomm’s gamma-gun “—the substance of this is dull opaque metal. A people knowing clay and transparent glass would never use material of that sort.”

“Perhaps it would be wise to let me demonstrate,” suggested Thomm. “If I show you the yellow glaze, then will you bargain with me?”

The Chief Potter scrutinized Thomm almost a full minute. Grudgingly: “What sort of yellow can you make?”

Thomm said wryly: “I’m not a potter, and I can’t predict exactly—but the formula I have in mind can produce any shade from light luminous yellow to vivid orange.”

The chief made a signal. “Release him. We will make him eat his words.”

Thomm stretched his muscles, cramped under the grip of the Potters. He reached to the ground, picked up his gamma-gun, holstered it, under the sardonic eyes of the Chief Potter.

“Our bargain is this,” said Thomm, “I show you how to make yellow glaze, and guarantee you a plentiful supply of lime. You will release the Mi-Tuun to me and undertake never to raid Penolpan for live men and women.”

“The bargain is conditional on the yellow glaze,” said the Chief Potter. “We ourselves can produce dingy yellows as often as we wish. If your yellow comes clear and true from the fire, I agree to your bargain. If not, we potters hold you a charlatan and your spirit will be lodged forever in the basest sort of utensil.”

Thomm went to the copter, unsnapped the atom bomb from the frame, discarded the parachute. Shouldering the long cylinder, he said: “Take me to your pottery. I’ll see what I can do.”

Without a word the Chief Potter took him down the slope to the long shed, and they entered through an arched stone doorway. To the right stood bins of clay, a row of wheels, twenty or thirty lined against one wall, and in the center a rack crowded with drying ware. To the left stood vats, further shelves and tables. From a doorway came a harsh grinding sound, evidently a mill of some sort. The Chief Potter led Thomm to the left, past the glazing tables and to the end of the shed. Here were shelves lined with various crocks, tubs and sacks, these marked in symbols strange to Thomm. And through a doorway nearby, apparently unguarded, Thomm glimpsed the Mi-Tuun, seated despondently, passively, on benches. The girl Su-then looked up, saw him, and her mouth fell open. She jumped to her feet, hesitated in the doorway, deterred by the stern form of the Chief Potter.

Thomm said to her: “You’re a free woman—with a little luck.” Then turning to the Chief Potter: “What kind of acid do you have?”

The chief pointed to a row of stoneware flagons. “The acid of salt, the acid of vinegar, the acid of fluor spar, the acid of saltpeter, the acid of sulphur.”