Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One (3 page)

They climbed up from the beach on a sloping shoulder of rock. Rogge guided them toward the edge of the forest, fifty feet distant.

“I’ll show you something,” Rogge said. “Fruit like you’ve never seen before in your life.” He stopped at a shiny black trunk, plucked one of the red globes that hung within easy reach. “Try one of these.” And Rogge bit into one of the soft skins himself.

Magnus Ridolph and the captain gravely followed suit.

“They are indeed very good,” said the old man.

“They don’t grow at B,” said Rogge bitterly. “Just along this stretch here. Diggings B is the hard-luck spot of the entire project. The leopards and apes killed men at B until we put up a charged steel fence. Here at A there’s some underbrush that keeps them out. Full of thorns.”

A sound in the foliage attracted his attention. He craned his neck. “Look! There’s one right now—an ape!” And Magnus Ridolph and the captain, looking where he pointed, glimpsed a monstrous black barrel, a hideous face with red eyes and a fanged mouth. The brute observed them, hissed softly, took a challenging step forward. Magnus Ridolph and the captain jerked back. Rogge laughed.

“You’re safe. Watch him.”

The ape lunged nearer, then suddenly halted, with a roar. He struck out a great arm at the air, roared again. He charged forward, stopped short, howling, retreated.

Rogge threw the core of the fruit at him. “If this were at B, he’d have killed the three of us.” He peered through the foliage. “Gah! Get away from here, you ugly devil!” And Rogge ducked in alarm as a length of stick hurtled past his head.

“The creature apparently has a comparatively high order of intelligence,” suggested Magnus Ridolph.

“Mmph,” snapped Rogge. “Well—perhaps so. We killed one at Diggings B, and two others dug a grave for him under a tree, buried him while we were watching.”

Magnus Ridolph looked soberly into the forest. “I can tell you how to stop these murders.”

Rogge jerked his head around. “How?”

“Survey off an area of land, in such a way that both diggings, A and B, are a mile inside the perimeter. Around the boundary erect a charged steel fence, and clear the land inside of all vegetation.”

Rogge stared. “But how—” His belt radio buzzed. He flipped the switch.

“Superintendent Rogge!” came a voice.

“Yes!” barked Rogge.

“Foundry-foreman Jelson’s got it!”

Rogge turned to Captain Julic and Magnus Ridolph. “Come along. I’ll show you.”

Ten minutes later they stood staring down at the naked body of Foreman Jelson. He had been taking a shower and his body still glistened with the wet. A red and blue bruise ringed his neck, his eyes popped, and his tongue lolled from the side of his mouth.

“We was right here, sittin’ in the dressin’ room,” babbled a red-headed mechanic. “We didn’t see a thing. Jelson went in to shower. The next thing, we heard him flop—and there he was!”

Rogge turned to Magnus Ridolph. “You see? That’s what’s been going on. Do you still think that building a fence will stop the murders?”

Ridolph
mused, a hand at his white beard. “Tonight,
if I am not mistaken, there will be a murder attempted at Diggings A.”

Rogge’s mouth opened slackly, then snapped shut. From behind came the sobbing breath of the red-headed mechanic.

“Diggings A? How? Why do you say that?”

“No one will be killed, I hope,” said Magnus Ridolph. “Indeed, if I’m wrong my theory has been founded on a non-comprehensive survey of the possibilities, and there may be no attempt upon my life.”
He stared thoughtfully at the corpse. “Perhaps I overestimate
the understanding and ability of the murderer.”

Rogge turned away. “Call the medics,” he snapped to the mechanic.

They rode back to Diggings A in a jeep, and Rogge took Captain Julic and Magnus Ridolph to his apartment for the evening meal.

“I could easily clear the land,” he told Ridolph, “but I can’t understand what you have in mind.”

Magnus Ridolph smiled slowly. “I have an alternate proposal.”

“And what’s that?”

“Armor the necks of your personnel in steel bands.”

Rogge snorted. “Then the murderer would go to smashing skulls or poisoning.”

“Bashing heads, no—poisoning, possibly,” said Magnus Ridolph. He reached for an enormous purple grape. “For instance, it would be an easy matter to poison the fruit.”

“But why—
why!
” cried Rogge. “I’ve pounded my brain night after night, and all I can get is ‘homicidal maniac’.”

Magnus Ridolph shook his head, smiled. “I think not. I believe that these killings have a clear, very simple purpose behind them. So simple perhaps that you overlook it.”

Rogge grunted, glared at the benign countenance. “Suppose you
are
murdered tonight—then what?”

“Then you’ll know that my recommendation was founded on a correct analysis of the problem, and you’ll do as I suggested.”

Rogge grunted again, and for a moment there was silence.

“How long a job do you have here, Superintendent?” Magnus Ridolph asked mildly.

Rogge stared sourly out the window past the gray, black, white foliage, out to where a knife-edge horizon divided the bright white sea from the dark-blue
sky. “About five years if I can keep men working. Another week of these killings, they’ll break their contract.”

Captain Julic chuckled. Rogge turned snapping black eyes on him.

“Already,” said Captain Julic, “I’ve refused twenty men passage back to Starport.”

“Contract-jumpers, eh?” snorted Rogge. “Just point them out to me, and I’ll make them toe the mark!”

Captain Julic laughed, shook his head.

At last Magnus Ridolph rose to his feet. “If you’ll show me to my quarters, I think I’ll take a little rest.”

Rogge pushed a button to summon the steward, quizzically eying the white-bearded
sage. “You still think your life is in danger?”

“Not if I’m careful,” said Magnus Ridolph coolly.

“So far there’s been no killings at Diggings A.”

“For an excellent reason—if my hypothesis is correct. A very manifest reason, if I may say so.”

Rogge leaned back in his chair, curled his lip. “So far it has not been manifest to me, and I have been intimately concerned with the matter since we broke ground at
Diggings B.”

“Perhaps,” said Magnus Ridolph, “you are too close to the problem. You must remember that this is not Planet Earth, and conditions—the psychological, the biological, and,” he turned a vastly impassive stare at Rogge, “the essentially logical circumstances—are different from what you have been accustomed to.”

He left the room. Rogge arose, paced up and down, kneading the palm of one hand with the fist of the other.

“What a pompous old goat!” he said between clenched teeth. He darted a burning glance at Captain Julic, who sat quietly smiling across a glass of liqueur. “Have you ever seen anything like it? Here I’ve been on the job seven months now, fighting this problem night and day—and he arrives, and in one hour delivers his opinion. Have you ever heard the like? Why, I believe I’ll beam Starport this very minute! I asked for an Intelligence operative, not a tourist!” He started for the door.

Captain Julic arose from his seat. “I advise you, Superintendent—” But Rogge was gone. Captain Julic followed the tall wide-pacing figure to the Comm-unications room. He knocked at the door, and as his signal was disregarded, quietly entered.

He found Rogge barking at the screen, where the space-blurred image of the chief of the Terrestrial Intelligence Corps
showed.

“—and he’s gone off to bed now,” Rogge was bellowing. “And all he tells me is to build a fence!”

There was a short pause, while the message raced at near-instantaneous speed to Starport and back. Rogge stood like a great snapping-turtle temporarily without its shell, frozen, glaring at the image. The loudspeaker buzzed, crackled.

“Superintendent Rogge,” came the words of the Corps chief, “I earnestly advise you to follow the advice of Magnus Ridolph. In my opinion you are fortunate to have him at hand to help you.”

The image faded. Rogge turned slowly, looked unseeingly past Julic.

Julic approached, tapped the rigid arm. “If you’d asked me, I could have told you the same.”

Rogge wheeled. “What about this Magnus Ridolph? Who is he?”

Captain Julic made an easy gesture. “Magnus Ridolph is an eminent mathematician.”

“What’s that got to do with the T.C.I.?” demanded Rogge bitterly. “Or the present case? He won’t stop the killings with a slide-rule.”

Captain Julic smiled. “I think he carries a slide-rule in his brain.”

Rogge turned, stalked slowly from the Communications room. “How is it that the Corps commander sent him—a mathematician?”

Julic shrugged. “I imagine that he’s an unofficial consultant, something of the sort.”

Rogge jerked his long white fingers. “Suppose he’s right? Suppose he’s killed tonight?”

A steward approached, whispered in his ear. Rogge straightened up, clamped his thin lips together. “Sure. Get him anything he wants.”

He and Captain Julic returned to the apartment.

After
leaving Rogge, Magnus Ridolph had gone to his room, locked the door, and made a thoughtful survey of his surroundings. One wall was glass, framed on either side by the sharp gray and black foliage of two tall trees. Visible beyond was the curve of a hill down to the beach, the luminescence of the pallid ocean.

Darkness was falling, the sky deepened to a starless black, and the ocean, by contrast, shone softly bright as lamp-lit
parchment.

Magnus Ridolph turned, inspected the remainder
of the room. Empty, beyond all question. To the right was his couch, ahead the tiles of the bathroom glistened through an open door.

Ridolph closed the bathroom door, polarized
the glass panels behind him, and pressed the call button for the steward.

“Bring me, quickly, please, a small power-pack, about twenty feet of glochrome wire, and three rolls of heavy insul.”

The steward stared, then said, “Yes, sir,” turned and closed the door.

Magnus Ridolph waited with his back to the door, looking ruminatively at the walls.

The steward presently returned. Magnus Ridolph removed his tunic, then on sudden thought, closely inspected the walls.

He donned his tunic once more, rang for the steward.

“Is there anywhere in the building a room with metal walls and a metal door?”

The steward blinked. “The refrigerator room, sir.”

Magnus Ridolph nodded. “Take me there.”

A short while later he returned to his room, walking stiffly, for his arms and legs were now wrapped with insul tape. He depolarized the glass wall, and in the wan light from the ocean, selected a chair, lowered himself into it, waited.

An hour passed, and Magnus Ridolph’s eyelids grew heavy. He slept.

He awoke with a slight start, a sense of dissatisfaction. Were his deductions at fault? Why had not—

He stiffened, strained his ears, twisted slowly in his seat, glanced toward the bathroom. Nothing was visible. He relaxed in his chair.

Cable-like thongs snapped home—around his ankles, his chest, his throat, constricting with terrible angry strength.

Magnus Ridolph reacted instantly, fighting with primitive fright. Then the discipline of his brain took control. His big toe pressed a switch inside his shoe. Instantly up and down his arms and legs glochrome wires under his tunic burnt blue-hot, cutting the cloth like a razor, lighting the walls in the brilliance of their heat.

The bands around his arms and legs severed, Magnus Ridolph snatched a knife from his belt, slashed at the band around his neck. With the strength ebbing from his body, he hacked and hewed until he felt a pulsing along the knife, a doubt, a reluctance.

The knife cut through, and the garrote relaxed. Magnus Ridolph gave a great gasp. Tottering, he leaned his back against the wall, staring at the reality of the murdering agency, plain before his eyes.

He rang for the steward.

“Fetch Rogge at once.”

Rogge, gaunt and ungraceful, came on the lope.

“Yes, what is it?”

Magnus Ridolph pointed. “Look.”

Rogge stared, then reached to the floor, lifted a length of the severed thong.

“I don’t understand,” he said in a husky voice.

“It is very clear,” said Magnus Ridolph. “In fact, it is a logical necessity. You yourself would have arrived at the solution if you had manipulated your thoughts with any degree of order.”

Rogge stared at him, anger smouldering in his eyes. “I would be obliged,” he said stiffly, “if you would explain what you know of this business.”

“With pleasure,” said Magnus Ridolph. “In the first place, it was clear that the killings were calculated to obstruct development of Diggings B. It was not the work of a homicidal maniac for you had changed the entire personnel, and still the killings continued. I asked myself, who profited from the abandonment of Diggings B? Clearly the agency cared nothing about Diggings A, for the work progressed smoothly. Then what was the distinction between the diggings?

“At first glance, there seemed little. Both were volcanic necks, barren juts of rock, and approximately equal. About the only difference was in your projected disposition of the waste. The rubble from Diggings A was to fill in the bay, that from Diggings B was to fill a wooded canyon. Now,” and Magnus Ridolph surveyed the glowering Rogge, “do the facts presented in this light clarify the problem?”

Rogge chewed at his lips.

“I asked myself,” Magnus Ridolph continued softly, “who or what suffers at Diggings B who does not suffer, or profits, at Diggings A? And the answer to my question came instantly—the trees.”

“
Trees!
”
barked Rogge.

Magnus Ridolph nodded. “I examined the situation in that light. At Diggings A the trees provided fruit and also erected for you a barrier against the beasts. There was neither fruit nor protection at Diggings B. The trees encouraged Diggings A because removing the volcanic neck and filling the bay would provide at once an added area for the growth and also removal of an obstacle to sunlight. The trees approved.”