The Light That Never Was (3 page)

Brance laughed sardonically. “Will you exhibit them anonymously, or are you planning a reception to introduce my slug to the critics?”

“What do you suggest?” Harnasharn asked. “The slug belongs to you, so legally the paintings must be your property. The contract would have to be drawn in your name and you’d have to sign it. For all of its obvious talent, the slug’s signature, even if it could produce one, would have very little legal standing.”

“Brance could sign the paintings,” Gwyll suggested.

“No.” Harnasharn shook his head emphatically. “A painting signed by a person who did not paint it is a fraud, regardless of the circumstances. I’m willing to exhibit a slug’s paintings if I think they’re good enough, but not if they’re signed by anyone but the artist. I won’t knowingly admit a fraud to Harnasharn Galleries.”

“I wouldn’t even try to sign them,” Brance said. “The texture is so peculiar that the mere touch of a brush or spray botches it. I’ve tried to finish some of its aborted efforts, and you couldn’t imagine the mess I made of them.”

“Very well. Then we’ll have to exhibit anonymously. I’ll make you an outright offer for the eight paintings; or I’ll contract to exhibit them and handle their sale at auction at our usual commission with the option to buy any or all at the highest bid price less commission; or—and I recommend this—I’ll give them a special showing and then place them in our permanent exhibit on a deferred-sale basis and hold them until bids reach the figures we agree upon. I’d guess that in five years they’ll be worth several times what you could get for them now. And of course I’ll advance you a reasonable amount. What do you say?”

“It sounds like a very fair offer,” Brance admitted.

“Have you ever heard of Harnasharn Galleries making an unfair offer?”

“No. But the problem, you see, is that I don’t know if I want to sell. This is the only great art that I’m ever likely to own. I’m selfish enough to want it for myself. Anyway, why expose such beautiful things to the vulgar gaze of the crassly stupid?”

Harnasharn seemed amused. “You aren’t the first artist who’s delivered that particular lecture to me.”

“Then you should have your answer ready.”

“I do. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever,’ as the old proverb says. You’re selfish enough to want the paintings for yourself. I’m generous enough to want to share them. I simply point out that beauty, shared, doesn’t diminish or depreciate. You can share it and still keep it for yourself. Let me exhibit the paintings on a deferred-sale basis, giving you the option of recall and making any sale subject to your approval. It’s as simple as that. While we’re waiting for an offer you’re willing to accept, you can share this beauty by way of our permanent exhibit and in reproductions and filmstrips.”

“If you put it that way—”

“I do. If you have something to write on I’ll make out a contract. It wouldn’t be prudent to try to name or describe the artist, so I’ll simply refer to paintings of a certain style, and we can include any future output under the same description. I assume that there will be more. How long do these things live?”

“According to local tradition this one is still a baby, and I’ve had it for six years. The first settlers found huge slugs here, but they were so repulsive that they were killed the moment anyone saw one.”

“Where can I write?”

“There’s a table of sorts in the house?”

They turned away, and Gwyll took a final, shuddering look at the dim form of the slug as they moved off: slimy body hunched over the fabric, the multitude of filaments tirelessly weaving, weaving, extracting from the darkness the dazzling essence of pure light.

They were two old men with years enough between them to know that failing eyesight sometimes enables one to see more clearly, and their friendship had stood firmly since the days when the Government Common was a wrranel pasture. Below them the gardens were vibrant with color, and across the common a few artists had gathered to paint the odd, purplish effect of the long shadow that Donov University’s tower cast on the massive, creamy marble of the Cirque, the World Management Building. To their left stood the delicate, fluted facade of the Donovian Institute of Art; to their right, the graceful silhouette of the World Library.

It was a scene worth painting, and because the artist Garnow had once done so, from this very balcony, it was also famous. World Manager Ian Korak knew it so perfectly in all of its detail that he still enjoyed it despite his near blindness. On this day, however, his clouded eyes were deeply troubled and his thoughts were not of the view.

He said meditatively, “My friend, we have to face the fact that diplomatic posts on Donov are either a haven for the weary or a sinecure for the incompetent. Ambassadors come and go without even bothering to present their credentials. The so-called permanent embassy staffs have such a turnover of personnel that there isn’t one individual among them whom I’ve known long enough and well enough to call a friend and with whom I can have the kind of confidential discussion one needs to have on sensitive subjects. One of the worlds where the situation is most critical is Mestil, and the new Mestillian ambassador only arrived yesterday. That’s one problem. The other is that these diplomats haven’t been home for years and know only what their governments choose to tell them. Even if they were fully cooperative, it’s doubtful that I could learn much.”

Master Trader Har M’Don ruffled his massive stack of white hair and asked querulously, “Then why try?”

“Because I’m worried. Because it seems as though a disease has infected this sector of the galaxy, and a disease as virulent as this one may be contagious. Neal Wargen has organized all the available information, and he thinks the riots have a pattern.”

M’Don smiled. “Don’t most social phenomena have patterns?”

“Is hatred a social phenomenon?”

“Hatred is beyond my comprehension. I don’t hate anyone or anything.”

“At our ages, my friend, any kind of emotion is a luxury. I’m wondering if the emotion of hatred, at least, isn’t a luxury the human race can no longer afford. Humanity is extremely old, and it should have outgrown such emotions as you and I have outgrown them, but it hasn’t. There are animaloids whose capacities in many ways exceed or at least splendidly complement ours, and we should have accepted them as partners in the scheme of things before they asked. The day may come when humanity needs every partner it can find. But we didn’t accept them, and they did ask, and then they demanded, and still humanity is attempting to ignore them—except in this sector, where they’re being exterminated.”

M’Don said doubtfully, “You’re exaggerating, aren’t you? Any decent—thinking person would have to concede that the animaloids are treated shamefully, but—equality? Could an animaloid with hoofs operate a computer?”

“Of course—if a computer were designed to be operated by an intelligent animal with hoofs. We design them exclusively for the digital or vocal capabilities of humans, and then we call the animaloids inferior because they’re physically incapable of using them. Worse, all too often what we unjustly consider inferior, we hate. Before any species indulges in such a wasteful luxury, it ought to ask itself what might happen if the hatred were returned.”

“There’s more than one way of looking at that,” M’Don objected. “Remember the Aamull massacre? And that business on Xeniol—come to think of it, they called that a partnership, but very few of the human partners survived.”

Korak nodded. “Which is only to say that some animaloids are as vicious as some humans, and on both Aamull and Xeniol the animaloids received justice. Why can’t those who aren’t vicious receive justice?” He pushed himself to his feet and stepped to the edge of the balcony. “I worry about this. We humans have developed so many divergent types of our own, as we spread across the galaxy, that we should have been more tolerant of other species. But we found, among other things, beings that looked amazingly human and had a minimal intellectual capacity, and creatures with intellects at least equal to ours that were obviously, sometimes disgustingly, animal in appearance. To our eternal shame we’ve accorded the brainless humanoids more respect than the intelligent animaloids. Fifty years ago animaloids on Mestil petitioned to have the franchise based upon intelligence rather than appearance. They’re still petitioning, or they were until the Mestillians answered the petitions with mass murder. Other places, other requests, and they ask so little: The right to use public facilities on an equal basis with humans. Denied. The right to laws based on their own customs and capabilities. Denied. The right to share in the making of the laws that govern them, to share in the determination of the taxes they pay and how the money should be spent. All denied. The most serious thing of all is that our language—all human languages—lack a word. How would you describe a close friendship between a human and an animaloid?”

“What’s wrong with
friendship?
” M’Don asked.

“What’s wrong with
brotherhood?
” Korak demanded.

“Nothing, I suppose. Except—”

“Except. Except that the concept of an animaloid being brother to a human grates. It doesn’t fit. Yet there are such relationships, many such, and no known human language has a word for them. I had the matter investigated. We need a word to describe ‘more than friendship’ between human and animaloid.” He slumped back into his chair. “Wargen thinks there’s a pattern to the riots. You have offices on a number of the riot worlds. Have they supplied you with reports?”

“Of course. It never occurred to me to examine them for a pattern, though. Events differed so drastically from world to world—on some there was a long series of disturbances that eventually culminated in rioting, and on others there wasn’t a hint of trouble in advance. Do you want those reports?”

“Yes, and I’d like every scrap of additional information that you can obtain. If there is a pattern, knowing what it is might prevent a tragedy here. Or elsewhere.”

“How could it possibly affect Donov? We have no animaloids.”

“Madness takes strange turnings. It’s already affected more than animaloids. Did you hear about the Galactic Zoological Gardens?”

“Yes. Very well. You shall have the reports.”

“Thank you.”

M’Don got to his feet. “I’ve never had an animaloid friend. Probably few Donovians have, since there are no animaloids here. In my case, though, I’ve traveled so extensively that I must have had many opportunities, and I can’t recall even speaking with one.”

“Did you ever want to speak with one?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t think I’m prejudiced on this subject, it’s just that until this moment I’ve never even thought about if. If I had, I might have made the effort. I’m sure it would be an interesting experience. Animaloids must have a unique view of the universe.”

Korak smiled. “Everyone I’ve talked with who has had the good fortune to know an animaloid well insists that such a friendship adds an entirely new dimension to one’s awareness of one’s self.”

“Then it’s unfortunate that we have none on Donov. I’ll send those reports as soon as I can assemble them.” He turned away, turned back again. “I think maybe you’re right. We need a word.”

In the mountains of Donov’s southern continent, the picturesque town of Verna Plai lay—some said floated—in a valley celebrated for its mineral springs. It was Donov’s most famous health resort, and it also possessed an art colony of note. The rugged, scenic mountains that surrounded the town, with their geysers and steaming springs, provided spectacular subjects for painting.

Art colonies came into being on Donov wherever there was anything that more than one artist wanted to paint. The Verna Plai colony was unique in that tourists had discovered the town long before the artists did, and Verna Plai tourists still tended to have an overwhelming interest in their own bodily functions and an abysmal lack of interest in art.

Most artists were wanderers, but every colony developed its small group of perms, of artists who remained there, often in dire poverty, because they loved the place. At Verna Plai one of them was Gof Milfro.

He painted faithfully for as many hours each day as he could hold his sprayers level, and once each week he took an armful of paintings down to the Plai. There he made the rounds of those merchants who condescended to display paintings, cheerfully verifying his assumption that none of his had been sold. Then he wandered about the hostels looking for an unwary tourist whose digestive processes had been loosened sufficiently to unblock a petrified aesthetic sense. Having failed in that, he occupied himself on the steep climb back to the artists’ colony with a searching review of his acquaintances to determine which one might be the best subject for the small loan he needed in order to exist for another week. Since he had never been known to repay one, artist creditors were as difficult to find as tourist customers. Somehow he survived and continued to work tirelessly—ragged, hungry, uncomfortable, but for all that indomitably cheerful and irrepressibly optimistic. He was an artist.

The day he received his windfall from Gerald Gwyll, Milfro laid in a few needed art supplies, paid off a fraction of his arrears in rent, and then made the rounds of his fellow artists. Starting with a neighbor, Jharge Roln, he poked his head through the open door, said, “I just dropped in to pay you the five dons I owe you,” and tossed him a coin.

Roln caught it and stared at him blankly. “You don’t owe me five dons.”

“Haven’t I ever borrowed five dons from you?”

Roln shook his head.

“Well. Someone must owe you five dons. Consider it repaid. I’ve borrowed from so many I can’t remember them all, so I’m paying back five dons to everyone I meet as long as the money lasts.”

When Milfro was contentedly broke again he made his way upstreet to a cavernous bistro called The Closed Door because at one time in its ramshackle history it had none. It was a favorite gathering place for artists, who had their own private annex, and there Milfro occupied the chair of honor.

He had earned that distinction several years before, when the caterer had incautiously permitted him to do a painting in payment of a long-overdue adde bill. He astutely performed the painting during the caterer’s absence, and he painted the thing on the wall so that it could not be rejected. He portrayed himself, in the armored costume of a warrior of another world and time, mounted on a stampeding wrranel and pursuing a terrified tourist with a paint sprayer. What the caterer thought of this was never recorded. The other artists delightedly took turns in adding themselves, variously costumed but always on wrranels and armed with artistic impedimenta; or in contributing to the crowd of panicky tourists prize specimens that had aroused their ire during their visits to the Plai. The painting expanded in both directions and became a vast, panoramic mural.