The Light That Never Was (23 page)

The unspoiled beauty and fascinating diversity of the setting offered an endless variety of art subjects, and the light on the beaches of Garffi rivaled that of Zrilund. Many artists painted nothing but the massive chunks of rock that were scattered there. One monolith could inspire months of steady painting. The artist shifted his easel slowly, in a circle, and with each move the rock’s shape changed, its facets reflected light differently, its shadows altered, its hues varied, and its background shifted from the open sea to other curiously shaped monoliths to the village framed by looming mountains—and back again.

The artists tolerated Eritha good-naturedly, and they quickly settled on an unspoken working arrangement with her. Mornings she painted, and the artists patiently answered all of her questions and gave her as much help as she wanted. Afternoons she modeled for them.

Those artists interested in life studies had been bored to desperation with painting Garffi’s peasants. Eritha sent for the latest fashions in rev dresses, and she passed each afternoon posing as the artists requested, with the sea breezes whipping her frilly costumes. She stood on boulders, she waded in the surf, she lounged, she ran lightly along the beach, she stood pensive in the dusk, head lowered, in an attitude that was supposed to signify that the rev was over.

She was being immortalized—for some of these paintings were very good indeed and would certainly find their varied ways into important collections—on fifty different fabrics. During an occasional rest period she liked to wander from easel to easel and see how the different artists were portraying her. The strangest paintings were those by artists whose home worlds possessed raging, foaming seas. They liked to paint the monoliths with gigantic waves breaking over them, their sleek sides wet and glistening, all of which was a flagrant libel on Donov’s quiet ocean. Their paintings showed Eritha in heroically defiant poses, doggedly facing adversity while treacherous fingers of water snatched at her.

While she examined the paintings, she listened to the artists talk. As at Zrilund, they talked incessantly, and if Neal Wargen wanted to know what they talked about she could tell him with one word: art.

The first news of the Virrab and Zrilund tragedies was brought to Garffi by one of its rare visitors, an art critic on sabbatical named Mora Seerl, from the world of Kurnu. Eritha, whose work was not such as to inspire visiting critics to seek her out, did not meet the woman until late in the day, when several of the artists were escorting her through the sepulcher—the display and storage room that in art colonies possessed an importance second only to that of the dining hall.

She was a dark, good-looking, vivacious woman in tourist costume—considerably older than she tried to look, Eritha concluded matter-of-factly—and like most critics she exuded conversation about art. Midway through her tour she pounced upon a group of paintings that Eritha had modeled for.

“This,” she proclaimed, “dramatically typifies what is wrong with Donov’s art. It’s an art of things, and things have no feelings, no emotions. The emotion must come from the artist, and Donov’s artists simply are unable to imbue Donov’s outworn art subjects with emotion. The only thing that could save Donovian art is people, which is the sole art subject that has its own intrinsic feeling, but no Donovian artist has found any people worth painting except tourists, and he paints tourists only to mock them. These are the only paintings in this room that include a human figure, and look what the figure is—one of your fellow artists! Donovian art is dying.”

Eritha said sweetly, “In your studies at the Institute, have you happened onto any portraits of Anna Lango?”

“Anna Lango was a professional model,” Mora Seerl snapped. “Professional models aren’t ‘people’—they’re artists’ props.”

“And that,” a fellow artist murmured to Eritha, “puts you in your place.”

Eritha nodded. “There’s something to what she says, though. Why don’t we paint people?”

“Here at Garffi, everything is on too grand a scale. Look what an insignificant thing you are among all those enormous boulders. What could a person, or a whole group of persons, add to a painting of a mountain? When people are dwarfed to insignificance, isn’t it better to omit them? And if the artist tries to make them significant, then there’s no room for the mountain. We aren’t here to paint people, we’re here to paint Garffi’s special scenery—the mountains, the amazing seashore, and so on, just as the Virrab artists are there to paint Virrab’s special scenery. If we wanted to paint people we’d go somewhere else.”

“Where?” Eritha demanded.

“Anywhere people are.”

Eritha said nothing more. She knew only too well why she didn’t paint people—it was because
things
were so much easier to paint. Now, abruptly, she was tired of painting things, and since people were utterly beyond her it was time she went home.

She also was tired of conversation about art. There was stark tragedy at Virrab Island and at Zrilund, and in the sepulcher at Garffi, six artists and a critic were debating whether there was a place in Donovian art for the human figure.

Wes Alof’s little coterie of Zrilund artists was already assembled when Arnen Brance entered the room. Alof waved to him and pointed to a chair. “We’re talking about Jaward Jorno,” he said.

Brance filled a mug and drank deeply, the appropriate response of any artist offered a choice between drinking and talking about Jaward Jorno. He was experiencing an unfamiliar weight of responsibility. He no longer was a volunteer spy for Jorno, or even for the mysterious police officer Karlus Gair. He was a confidential agent of the World Manager’s First Secretary, appointed that very afternoon, and he’d noticed the difference the moment he accepted the position. Jorno and Gair made polite requests. Wargen issued orders.

“What about Jorno?” Brance asked.

“Reports say that the poison was spread around his islands and also that his boats were wrecked.”

“So?”

“The reports lied.”

Alof’s plump face carried its usual flush of anger. The other artists seemed in varying degrees overwhelmed by Zrilund’s catastrophe and disposed to listen at least as long as the adde lasted.

“Those were official reports issued by the Donovian government,” Brance objected. “This business is highly embarrassing to Donov, and if the government wanted to lie it could have avoided no end of unpleasantness by not mentioning Jorno’s resort at all.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Maybe you’d better explain that,” Brance said perplexedly.

“Virrab Island and the Rinoly mainland are Jorno’s private properly. Right? And he could have cleaned the place up and fixed his boats without any outsiders knowing what had happened. Right? Under the circumstances that would have been the smart thing to do. So why did he call in the police and make the matter public and scare away no one knows how many resort customers?”

“I give up. Why?”

“It was much more to his advantage to make it public. Otherwise he wouldn’t have done it.”

Brance said doubtfully, “I still don’t understand—”

“I’m explaining it. Have you seen any tourists on Zrilund today?”

“The ferries and the boat aren’t running yet.”

“It’ll take weeks to repair the boat. Government inspectors have just certified the ferries unrepairable. They’ll never run again. Even if both were ready tomorrow we wouldn’t have any tourists because tourists don’t enjoy looking at a poisoned sea filled with dead fish. The authorities aren’t even guessing about how long it’ll take to fix that. Zrilund is ruined. Just by comparison, did you know that Jorno’s resort didn’t close at all? By some incredible coincidence, the poison was dumped in the wrong place and most of it got carried out to sea. The poison dumpers didn’t know the Rinoly currents. They knew the Zrilund currents perfectly, and they’d have known the Rinoly currents if they’d thought to look at their steering chart, but they didn’t. Jorno’s boats were wrecked—he says—but by another incredible coincidence he was able to replace them tile following day. Zrilund is ruined. Jorno’s resort wasn’t even inconvenienced.”

“That is something to think about,” Brance admitted. He was tempted to point out that the Zrilund trip counted as an ocean voyage and required certified craft that had to be custom built, while the trip to Virrab never took one out or sight of land in any direction. Jorno could use small boats that were readily available anywhere. Brance was tempted, but it wouldn’t have been wise for him to come through too strongly as Jorno’s apologist.

“That’s just the beginning,” Alof said. “The person who concocted that poison had a considerable knowledge of chemistry. Did you know that there are two prize-winning chemists among Jorno’s meszs? Look here. There’s no doubt at all that Jorno is trying to ruin Zrilund. Normal competition didn’t do the job fast enough, and he’s using his meszs to speed things up. He has to pretend that someone is trying to ruin him at the same time so he won’t be suspected. Everything that happens to Zrilund happens to Virrab in exactly the same way, but you’ll notice that he cleverly sees that the things happening to Virrab do very little damage. What nasty prank do you suppose he and his meszs will aim at Zrilund next?”

“None,” one of the artists said.

Alof turned on him angrily.

“There won’t be any more,” the artist said, morosely gazing out at the deserted oval. “They don’t need any more. Like you said, Zrilund is ruined.”

It was late when Brance finally left the artists. Rearm Hylat was waiting up for him, and the two of them sat together in the darkened dining room.

“Adde?” Hylat asked.

“Thanks, no. Alof believes a conspiracy should be launched on adde. I floated down here.”

“What happened?”

“The usual rubbish. They talk endlessly about Jorno’s iniquities and they agree that something has got to be done. They don’t say what.”

“Few artists are men of action,” Hylat observed. “Not that Alof is any kind of artist.”

“But he is. He showed me a portrait tonight. Old woman he found over in Fish Town. He’s a fairly good artist. Maybe that’s his trouble. He keeps getting people together and stirring things up, and then instead of following through on it, he goes off to paint.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for someone else to suggest the action.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s still cringing over what happened the last time. I’d like to speak up in Jorno’s behalf. His mesz chemists have just perfected a process that precipitates the poison. Things may be back to normal weeks sooner than anyone expected. They also worked out a safe method for converting the dead fish to fertilizer, and they cobbled up a vast machine to do the job. It was shipped yesterday. Today Jorno and a few of the meszs were in Nor Harbor looking at the damaged ferries. The meszs think they can build a bigger and better ferry in a third the expected time, and they won’t charge anything except for the materials.”

“Wargen told you this?”

“Yes. He also told me I wasn’t to mention any of it, because I’d destroy my effectiveness if the artists got the notion that I’ve ever nurtured a kindly thought about Jaward Jorno. They’d assume that I’d been bought.”

“Nonsense!”

“True. A plausible lie can be much more convincing than the truth. For example, under Alof’s manipulations that bit about the mesz chemists would be offered as proof that the meszs concocted the poison in the first place. Otherwise how’d they manage to come up with a treatment process so quickly? Jorno looks like the sort who’d buy people, so the person who defends him must have been bought. I’m not to say anything to anyone except you. You’re to pass the information to discerning townspeople at your discretion, remembering that you yourself are suspect because you’re the one who sponsored that ridiculous tourist association with Jorno.”

“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with this world,” Hylat said sourly. “Everyone is suspect.”

They sat for a time in silence, with Hylat sipping his adde and Brance trying to keep from dozing off. Brance was about to suggest to Hylat that they postpone the solution of Zrilund’s problems until the morrow when he heard a shout.

Footsteps sounded on the worn stone paving, more shouts rang out, and Brance and Hylat sprang for the door. The oval was unlighted, but four widely separated disks gave a dim illumination to the street that encircled it. Only artists would be out that late in Zrilund Town, and three of them were standing uncertainly in the middle of the street.

“Dunno,” one responded to Brance’s question. “Someone fussing about the fountain. Ran the instant we hove into view.”

“Around the
fountain?
” Hylat exclaimed. He and Brance exchanged glances. “We’d better have a look. I’ll get a light.”

Hylat brought a handlight and led the way as they advanced on the celebrated Zrilund fountain. Suddenly he swore and leaped forward, and Brance hauled on him and told him not to be an idiot.

“Explosives!” Hylat gasped, trying to pull free.

“Then let’s handle them so only one of us gets blown up!” Brance snapped. He sent Hylat scurrying for cutters and chased the artists back to a safe vantage point; and when Hylat returned, Brance cut the wires from a complicated timing device and carefully traced them to the four packs of explosive that had been buried around the fountain.

By the time he finished Zrilund was awake. Artists and townspeople teamed up for an exhaustive search of Zrilund Town, and when that uncovered no trace of the culprits, everyone sat around in grim determination waiting for the dawn. At first light they began a carefully organized search of the countryside, but nothing was found except a few strange marks on one of the beaches—proof that a boat had grounded there and that someone whose feet did not make human footprints had come ashore.

Neal Wargen said, “You couldn’t be more mistaken. Those footprints are proof positive that Jorno had nothing to do with this.”

“Who other than meszs leave mesz footprints?” Brance demanded hotly.

“Jaward Jorno is neither foolish nor careless. I don’t speak for his moral integrity because I know nothing about it, but I do know that if he’d been connected with this in any way you wouldn’t have found mesz footprints. Further, while I can make no guarantee for Jorno, I can for the meszs. Unlike we humans, they hurt no one, they damage nothing, they don’t even defend themselves when attacked.”