The Blue World (3 page)

“Bah,”
sneered Sklar Hast. “On what grounds?”

“Turpitude of
the character!” roared Zander Rohan. “‘This is a passage of
the bylaws, as well you know!”

Sklar Hast gave
Zander Rohan a long, slow inspection, as before. He sighed and made
his decision. “There’s also a passage to the effect that a man
shall be Guild-Master only so long as he maintains a paramount
proficiency. I challenge not only your right to pass judgment but
your rank as Guild-Master as well.”

Silence held the
inn. Zander Rohan spoke in a choked voice. “You think you can
outwink me?”

“At any hour
of the day or night.”

“Why have you
not made this vaunted ability manifest before?”

“If you want
to know the truth, I did not wish to humiliate you.”

Zander Rohan
slammed his list upon the table. “Very well. We shall see who is
to be humiliated. Come: to the tower!”

Sklar Hast raised
his eyebrows in surprise. “You are in haste?”

“You said,
‘Any hour of the day or night.’”

“As you wish.
Who will judge?”

“Arbiter
Myrex, of course. Who else?”

“Arbiter Myrex
will serve well enough, provided we have others to keep time and note
errors.”

“I appoint
Semm Voiderveg; he reads with great facility.”

Sklar Hast pointed
to others in the room, persons he knew to be keen of eye and deft at
reading winks. “Rubal Gallager—Freeheart Noe—Herlinger Showalter. I appoint these to read winks and note errors.”

Zander Rohan made
no objection; all in the inn arose and crossed to the tower. The
space under the tower was enclosed by a wall of withe and varnished
pad-skin. On the first level was a shed given over to practice
mechanisms; on the second were stores: spare hoods, oil for the
lamps, connection cords, and records; the third and fourth levels
housed apprentices, assistant hoodwinks on duty, and maintenance
larceners.

Into the first
level trooped Zander Rohan and Sklar Hast, followed by those whom
they had appointed judges, and ten or twelve others—as many
as the shed could contain. Lamps were turned up, benches pushed back,
window shutters raised for ventilation.

Zander Rohan went
to the newest of the two practice machines, ran his fingers over the
keys, kicked the release. He frowned, thrust out his lip, went to the
older of the machines, which was looser and easier but with
considerably more backlash. The tighter machine required more effort
but allowed more speed. He signaled to the apprentices, who stood
looking down from the second level. “Oil. Lubricate the
connections. Is this how you maintain the equipment?”

The apprentices
hastened to obey.

Sklar Hast ran his
fingers over the keys of both machines and decided to use the newer,
if the choice was his. Zander Rohan went to the end of the room where
he conferred in quiet tones with Ixon Myrex and Semm Voiderveg. All
three turned, glanced at Sklar Hast, who stood waiting impassively.
Antagonism hung heavy in the room.

Ixon Myrex and Semm
Voiderveg came toward Sklar Hast. “Do you have any conditions or
exceptions to make?”

“Tell me what
you propose,” said Sklar Hast. “Then I’ll tell you my
conditions or exceptions.”

“We propose
nothing unusual—in fact, a test similar to those at the
Aumerge Tournament during the Year of Waldemar’s Dive.”

Sklar Hast gave a
curt nod, “Four selections from the Analects?”

“Precisely.”

“What
selections?”

“Apprentice
exercises might be most convenient, but I don’t think Master Rohan is
particular in this case.”

“Nor I.
Apprentice exercises will be well enough.”

“I propose we
use tournament weighing: the best score is multiplied by fifty, the
next by thirty, the next by twenty, the worst by ten. This ensures
that your best effort will receive the greatest weight.”

Sklar Hast
reflected. The system of weighting tended to favor the efforts of the
nervous or erratic operator, while the steadier and more consistent
operator was handicapped. Still, under the present circumstances, it
made small difference: neither he nor Zander Rohan were typically
given to effulgent bursts of speed. “I agree. What of miswinks?”

“Each error or
miswink to add three seconds to the score.”

Sklar Hast
acquiesced. There was further discussion of a technical nature, as to
what constituted an error, how the errors should be noted and
reckoned in regard to the operation of the clock.

Finally all
possible contingencies had been discussed.

The texts were
selected: Exercises 61, 62, 63, 64, all excerpts from the Analects,
which in turn had been derived from the sixty-one volumes of Memoria.
Before assenting to the exercises, Zander Rohan donned the spectacles
which he recently had taken to using—two lenses of clear gum,
melted, cast and held in frames of laminated withe—and
carefully read the exercises. Sklar Hast followed suit, though
through his work with the apprentices he was intimately acquainted
with them. The contestants might use either machine, and both elected
to use the new machine. Each man would wink an exercise in turn, and
Zander Rohan signified that he wished Sklar Hast to wink first.

Sklar Hast went to
the machine, arranged Exercise 61 in front of him, stretched his
brown fingers, tested the action of keys and kick-rods. Across the
room sat the judges, while Arbiter Myrex controlled the clock. At
this moment the door slid back, and into the shed came Meril Rohan.

Zander Rohan made a
peremptory motion, which she ignored. Intercessor Voiderveg frowned
and held up an admonitory finger, which she heeded even less. Sklar
Hast looked once in her direction, meeting her bright gaze, and could
not decide on its emotional content: Scorn? Detestation? Amusement?
It made no great difference.

“Ready!”
called Ixon Myrex. Sklar Hast bent slightly forward, strong hands and
tense fingers poised. “Set! Wink!”

Sklar Hast’s hands
struck down at the keys; his foot kicked the release. The first
configuration, the second, the third. Sklar Hast winked deliberately,
gradually loosening, letting his natural muscular rhythm augment his
speed.

“
—even were we able to communicate with the Home Worlds, I wonder if we
would now choose to do so. Ignoring the inevitable prosecution which
would ensue owing to our unique background—as I say, not even
considering this—we have gained here something which none of
us have ever known before: a sense of achievement on a level other
than what I will call ‘social manipulation’. We are, by and
large, happy on the floats. There is naturally much homesickness,
nostalgia, vain regrets—how could this be avoided? Would they
be less poignant on New Ossining? This is a question all of us have
argued at length, to no decision. The facts are that we all seem to
be facing the realities of our new life with a fortitude and
equanimity of which we probably did not suspect ourselves capable.”

“End!”
called Sklar Hast. Ixon Myrex checked the clock. “One hundred
forty-six seconds.”

Sklar Hast moved
back from the machine. A good time, though not dazzling, and by no
means his best speed. “Mistakes?” he inquired.

“No mistakes,”
stated Rubal Gallager.

Norm time was one
hundred fifty-two seconds, which gave him a percentum part score of
6/162, or 3.95 minus.

Zander Rohan poised
himself before the machine and at the signal winked forth the message
in his usual somewhat brittle style. Sklar Hast listened carefully,
and it seemed as if the Master Hoodwink were winking somewhat more
deliberately than usual.

Zander Rohan’s time
was one hundred forty-five seconds; he made no mistakes, and his
score was 4.21 minus. He stepped to the side with the trace of a
smile.

Sklar Hast glanced
from the corner of his eye to Meril Rohan, for no other reason than
idle curiosity—or so he told himself. Her face revealed
nothing.

He set Exercise 62
before him. Ixon Myrex gave the signal; Sklar Hast’s hands struck out
the first wink. Now he was easy and loose, and his lingers worked
like pistons.

Exercise 62, like
61, was an excerpt from the Memorium of Eleanor Morse:

“A hundred
times we have discussed what to my mind is perhaps the most
astonishing aspect of our new community on the float: the sense of
trust, of interaction, of mutual responsibility. Who could have
imagined from a group of such diverse backgrounds, with such initial
handicaps (whether innate or acquired I will not presume to
speculate), there might arise so placid, so ordered, and so cheerful
a society. Our elected leader, like myself, is an embezzler. Some of
our most tireless and self-sacrificing workers were previously
peculators, hooligans, goons: One could never match the individuals
with their past lives. The situation, of course, is not unanimous,
but to an amazing extent old habits and attitudes have been
superseded by a positive sense of participation in the life of
something larger than self. To most of us it is as if we had regained
a lost youth or, indeed a youth we never had known.”

“End!”
called Sklar Hast.

Ixon Myrex stopped
the clock. “Time: one hundred eighty-two seconds. Norm: two
hundred seconds. Mistakes? None.”

Sklar Hast’s score
was a solid 9 minus. Zander Rohan winked a blazing-fast but nervous
and staccato one hundred seventy-nine seconds, but made at least two
mistakes. Rubal Gallager and Herlinger Showalter claimed to have
detected enough of a waver in one of the corner hoods to qualify as a
third error, but Freeheart Noe had not noticed, and both Semm
Voiderveg and Ixon Myrex insisted that the configuration had been
clearly winked. Nevertheless, with a penalty of six seconds, his time
became a hundred eighty-five with a score of 15/200 or 7.5 per cent
minus.

Sklar
Hast-approached the third exercise thoughtfully. If he could make a
high score on this third exercise, Zander Rohan, already tense, might
well press and blow the exercise completely.

He poised himself.
“Wink!” cried Ixon Myrex. And again Sklar Hast’s fingers
struck the tabs. The exercise was from the Memorium of Wilson Snyder,
a man of unstated caste:

“Almost two
years have elapsed, and there is no question but what we are an
ingenious group. Alertness, ingenuity, skill at improvisation: these
are our characteristics. Or, as our detractors would put it, a low
simian cunning. Well, so be it. Another trait luckily common to all
of us (more or less) is a well-developed sense of resignation, or
perhaps fatalism is the word, toward circumstances beyond our
control. Hence we are a far happier group than might be a
corresponding number of, say, musicians or scientists or even
law-enforcement officers. Not that these professions go unrepresented
among our little, band. Jora Alvan—an accomplished flautist.
James Brunet—professor of physical science at Southwestern
University. Howard Gallagher—a high-ranking police official.
And myself—but no! I adhere to my resolution, and I’ll say
nothing of my past life. Modesty? I wish I could claim as much!”

“End!”
Sklar Hast drew a deep breath and stepped back from the machine. He
did not look toward Zander Rohan; it would have been an act of
malignant gloating to have done so. For he had driven the machine as
fast as its mechanism permitted. No man alive could have winked
faster, with a more powerful driving rhythm. Ixon Myrex examined the
clock. “Time: one hundred seventy-two seconds,” he said
reluctantly. “Norm … This seems incorrect. Two hundred
eight?”

“Two hundred
eight is correct,” said Rubal Gallager dryly. “There were
no mistakes.”

Ixon Myrex and Semm
Voiderveg chewed their lips glumly. Freeheart Noe calculated the
score: 36/208, or a remarkable 17.3 minus!

Zander Rohan
stepped forward bravely enough and poised himself before the machine.
“Wink!” cried Ixon Myrex in a voice that cracked from
tension. And Zander Rohan’s once precise fingers stiffened with his
own fears and tension, and his careful rhythm faltered. All in the
room stood stiff and embarrassed.

Finally he called:
“End!”

Ixon Myrex read the
clock. “Two hundred and one seconds.”

“There were
two mistakes,” said Semm Voiderveg.

Rubal Gallager
started to speak, then held his tongue.

He had noted at
least five instances which an exacting observer—such as
Zander Rohan himself—might have characterized as error. But
the contest was clearly one-sided. Two hundred and one seconds, plus
six penalty seconds gave Zander Rohan a score of 1/208 or 0.48 minus.

The fourth exercise
was from the Memorium of Hedwig Swin, who, like Wilson Snyder,
maintained reserve in regard to her caste.

Ixon Myrex set the
clock with unwilling lingers, called out the starting signal. Sklar
Hast winked easily, without effort, and the configurations spilled
forth in a swift flow:

“A soft,
beautiful world! A world of matchless climate, indescribable beauty,
a world of water and sky, with, to the best of my knowledge, not one
square inch of solid ground. Along the equator where the sea-plants
grow, the ocean must be comparatively shallow, though no one has
plumbed the bottom. Quite certainly this world will never be scarred
and soiled by an industrial civilization, which, of course, is all
very well Still, speaking for myself, I would have welcomed a jut of
land or two: a good honest mountain, with rocks and trees with roots
gripping the soil, a stretch of beach, a few meadows, fields, and
orchards. But beggars can’t be choosers, and compared with our
original destination this world is heaven.”

“End!”

Ixon Myrex spoke
tersely. “Time: one hundred forty-one. Norm: one hundred sixty.”

All was lost for
Zander Rohan. To win he would have to wink for a score of twenty-five
or thirty, or perhaps even higher. He knew he could not achieve this
score and winked without hope and without tension and achieved his
highest score of the test: a strong 12.05 minus. Nonetheless he had
lost, and now, by the guild custom., he must resign his post and give
way to Sklar Hast. He could not bring himself to speak the words.