Read Online The Blue World by Jack Vance - Free Book Online Page B

destroyed Tranque Float; now he urges his frantic lunacy upon
everyone else.”
    “Let him
urge,” declared Phyral Berwick. “You are under no
obligation to comply.”
    Sklar Hast said,
“The intercessors naturally resist these ideas; they are bound
closely to King Kragen and claim to have some means of communicating
with him. Possibly this is so. Why else should King Kragen arrive so
opportunely at Tranque Float? Now here is a very cogent point: if we
can agree to liberate ourselves from King Kragen, we must prevent the
intercessors from making known our plans to him—otherwise we
shall suffer more than necessary. Most of you know in your hearts
that I speak truth. King Kragen is a crafty beast with an insatiable
appetite, and we are his slaves. You know this
    truth, but you fear
to acknowledge it. Those who spoke before me have mentioned our
forefathers: the men who captured a ship from the tyrants who sought
to immure them on a penal planet. What would-our forefathers have
done? Would they have submitted to this gluttonous ogre? Of course
not.
    “How can we
kill King Kragen? The plans must wait upon agreement, upon the
concerted will to act, and in any event must not be told before the
intercessors. If there are any here who believe as I do, now is the
time for them to make themselves heard.”
    He stepped down
from the rostrum. Across the float was silence. Men’s faces were
frozen. Sklar Hast looked to right and to left. No one met his eye.
    The portly Semm Voiderveg mounted the
rostrum. “You have listened to the murderer. He knows no shame.
On Tranque Float we condemned him to death for his malevolent acts.
According to custom he demanded the right to speak before a
convocation; now he has done so. Has he confessed his great crime?
Has he wept for the evil he has visited upon Tranque Float? No! He
gibbers his plans for further enormities; he outrages decency by
mentioning our ancestors in the same breath with his foul proposals!
Let the convocation endorse the verdict of Tranque Float; let all
those who respect King Kragen and benefit from his ceaseless
vigilance raise now their hands in the clenched fist of death!”
    “Death!”
roared the intercessors and raised their fists. But elsewhere through
the crowd there was hesitation and uneasiness. Eyes shifted backward
and forward; there were furtive glances, out to sea.
    Semm Voiderveg
looked back and forth across the crowd in disappointment. “I
well understand your reluctance to visit violence upon a fellowman,
but in this case any squeamishness whatever is misplaced.” He
pointed a long, pale finger at Sklar Hast. “Do you understand
the pure, concentrated villainy embodied in this man? I will
expatiate. Just prior to the offense for which he is on trial, he
committed another, against his benefactor and superior, Master
Hoodwink Zander Rohan. But this furtive act, this attempt to cheat
the Master Hoodwink in a winking contest and thus dislodge the noble
Rohan from his office, was detected by Tranque Arbiter Ixon Myrex and
myself, and so failed to succeed.”
    Sklar Hast roared:
“What? Is there no protection from slander here? Must I submit
to venom of this sort?”
    Phyral Berwick told
him, “Your recourse is simple. You may let the man speak, then
if you can prove slander, the slanderer must face an appropriate
penalty.”
    Semm Voiderveg
spoke with great earnestness. “Mind you, a harsh truth is not
slander. Personal malice must be proved as a motive. And there is no
reason why I should feel malice. To continue—“
    But Sklar Hast
appealed to Phyral Berwick. “Before he continues, I feel that
the matter of slander should be clarified. I wish to prove that this
man accuses me from spite.”
    “Can you do
so?”
    “Yes.”
    “Very well.”
Phyral Berwick motioned to Semm Voiderveg. “You must delay the
balance of your remarks until the matter of slander is settled.”
    “You need only
request information of Arbiter Myrex,” protested Semm