The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online

dreams into blackness? To go on and on and on—and then on some more.
    The ports showed dead black outside, without spark or flash. They were still accelerating. What was it now? 8,000, 10,000 l.y.p.s.?
    Jay turned his back to the cabin, wrote in his journal. He wrote copiously—pages of introspection, fragments of quick-scribbled poetry, which he often returned to, copied, revised. He kept statistical charts: the detailed study of Chiram’s pacing, his average number of steps per square foot of deck, the pattern behind Julius’ menus. He carefully noted his dreams and spent hours trying to trace their genesis from his past. He wrote careful and elaborate excoriations of Chiram—“for the record” he told himself—and equally cogent self-justifications. He made interminable lists—places he had visited, girl-friends, books, colors, songs. He sketched Chiram, Julius, Bob Galt time and time again.
    Hours, days, weeks. Conversation dwindled, died. Julius and Bob played chess, and when Bob was at his watch duties Julius played solitaire—unhurriedly, carefully, glancing at each card as if it might be a surprise.
    Chess—pacing—food—sleep—the trips to the latrine, with Julius marching placidly at his back. And occasionally Jay considered an attempt to overpower Julius, kill all on the ship. But Julius was stocky and tough. And what good would result in any event?
    Darkness outside the port…Were they actually moving? Or was motion a peculiarity of the home space, where there were objects to measure it? Was infinity merely a soft dark trap where no effort could produce meaningful progress? Eternal darkness outside the port. Suppose one were on foot, walking out there…
    Jay put down his journal, stared. His eyes bulged. A sound scraped up his throat. Chiram paused in his pacing, turned his head. Jay pointed a long trembling arm toward the port.
    “It was a face! I saw it looking in the port!”
    Chiram turned startled eyes to the vision panel. Galt, asleep, grumbled, grunted. Julius, playing solitaire, shuffled the cards with imperturbable movements of smooth yellow arms. Chiram looked skeptically back at Jay.
    Jay cried, “I saw it plain as day, I tell you! I’m not crazy! It was a whitish figure, and it came flitting up and then the face looked in through the port…”
    Julius stopped shuffling, Galt was leaning out of his bunk. Chiram strode across the floor, peered out briefly. He turned back to Jay, said in a brusque voice, “You’ve had a bad dream.”
    Jay laid his head on his arm, blinked at tears. So far, far from home…Ghosts peering in from space…Was this where souls came when they died? Out here to wander the void, so completely forlorn and lonesome…
    “I saw it,” he said. “I saw it, I tell you. I saw it.”
    “Relax, kid, relax,” said Julius. “You’ll give us all the willies.”
    Jay lay on his side, staring at the port. He gave a great gasp. “I saw it again! It’s a face, I tell you!” He rose up from his bunk, his lank black hair, very long now, dangling past his forehead. His mouth wobbled, glistened wetly.
    Chiram went to the medicine chest, loaded a hypospray. He motioned; Galt and Julius held Jay’s arms and legs; Chiram pressed the trigger, and the opiate seeped through Jay’s pale skin, into his blood, into his brain…
    When he awoke, Galt and Julius were playing chess, and Chiram was asleep. He looked fearfully to the port. Darkness. Blackness. Lightlessness.
    He sighed, moaned. Julius flashed him a glance, returned to the chess-board. Jay sighed, reached for his journal.
    Weeks, months. Fantastic speed toward—what? One day Jay called Chiram from his pacing.
    “Well?” asked Chiram crisply.
    “If you’ll let me loose,” muttered Jay, “I’d like to take up my duties again.”
    Chiram said in a carefully passionless voice, “I’m sorry that you’ve had to be confined. It was necessary, not for punishment, but for the safety of the expedition. Because