Jack Vance - The Houses of Iszm

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The Houses of Iszm by Jack

Vance

IT WAS assumed as a matter of course that visitors came to Iszm with

a single purpose: to steal a female house. Cosmographers, students,

babes-in-arms, notorious scoundrels: the Iszic cynically applied the same

formula to all—microscopic inspection of mind and body and detailed

surveillance.

Only the fact that they turned up so many house-thieves justified the

procedure.

From a distance, it seemed simple enough to steal a house. A seed no

larger than a grain of barley could be sewn into a strap; a seedling could

be woven into the pattern of a shawl; a young shoot could be taped to a

rocket-missile and launched into space. There were a thousand fool-proof

ways to steal an Iszic house; all had been tried, and the unsuccessful

thieves had been conducted to the Mad House, their Iszic escorts

courteous to the last. As realists, the Iszic knew that some day—a year, a

hundred years, a thousand years—the monopoly would be broken. As

fanatically secretive controllers of the monopoly they intended to postpone

this day as long as possible.

Aile Fair was a tall, gaunt man in his thirties, with a droll, corded face,

big hands and feet. His skin, eyes and hair were a dust-colored

monochrome. More important to the Iszic, he was a botanist, hence an

automatic object of the utmost suspicion.

Arriving at Jhespiano atoll aboard the Red Ball Packet Eubert Honore,

he encountered suspicion remarkable even in Iszm. Two of the Szecr, the

elite police, met him at the exit hatch, escorted him down the gangway

like a prisoner, and ushered him into a peculiar one-way passage. Flexible

spines grew from the walls in the direction of passage. A man could enter

the hall, but could not change his mind and return. The end of the passage

was closed by a sheet of clear glass and at this point Farr could move

neither forward nor back.

An Iszic wearing bands of wine-red and gray stepped forward and

examined him through the glass. Farr felt like a specimen in a case. The

Iszic grudgingly slid the panel back and led Farr into a small private room.

With the Szecr standing at his back, Farr turned over his debarkation slip,

his health certificate, his bond of good character, his formal entry

application. The clerk dropped the debarkation slip into a macerator,

inspected and returned the certificate and bond, and then settled himself

to a study of the application.

The Iszic eye, split into major and minor segments, is capable of double

focus. The clerk read with the lower fraction of his eyes, appraising Farr

with the top section.

" 'Occupation…' " he turned both segments of his eyes on Farr, then

flicking the bottom one back, read on in a cool monotone. " '… research

associate. Place of business—University of Los Angeles, Department of

Botany.' " He lay the application form to one side. "May I inquire your

motives for visiting Iszm?"

Fair's patience was wearing thin. He pointed to the application. "I've

written it all down."

The clerk read without taking his eyes from Farr, who watched in

fascination, marveling at the feat.

" 'I am on sabbatical leave,' " read the clerk. " 'I am visiting a number of

worlds where plants contribute effectively to the welfare of man.' " The

clerk focused both eye fractions on Farr. "Why do you trouble yourself to

this extent? Surely the information is conveniently available on Earth?"

"I am interested in first-hand observations."

"To what purpose?"

Farr shrugged. "Professional curiosity."

"I expect that you are acquainted with our laws."

"How could I avoid it?" said Farr in irritation. "I've been briefed ever

since the ship left Starholme."

"You understand that you will be allowed no special privileges—no

exhaustive or analytical study… You understand?"

"Of course."

"Our regulations are stringent—I must emphasize this. Many visitors

forget, and involve themselves with severe penalties."

"By now," said Farr, "I know your laws better than I know my own."

"It is illegal to lift, detach, cut, accept, secrete or remove any vegetable

matter, vegetable fragment, seed, seedling, sapling or tree, no matter

where you find it."

"I intend nothing illegal."

"Most of our visitors say the same," responded the clerk. "Kindly step

into the next chamber, remove all your clothes and personal effects. These

will be returned to you at your departure."

Fair looked at him blankly. "My money—my camera —my—"

"You will be issued Iszic equivalents."

Farr wordlessly entered a white enameled chamber where he

undressed. An attendant packed his clothes in a glass box, then pointed

out that Farr had neglected to remove his ring.

"I suppose if I had false teeth you'd want them too," growled Farr.

The Iszic quickly scanned the form. "You assert quite definitely that

your teeth are integral to your body, natural and without modification."

The upper segments regarded Farr accusingly. "Is this an inaccuracy?"

"Of course not," protested Farr. "They are natural. I merely put forward

as a hypothesis… a joke."

The Iszic muttered into a mesh and Farr was taken into a side room

where his teeth were given an exacting inspection. "I'll learn not to make

jokes," Farr told himself. "These people have no sense of humor."

Eventually the medics, shaking their heads glumly, returned Farr to the

outer chamber, where he was met by an Iszic in a tight white and gray

uniform, carrying a hypodermic.

Farr drew back. "What's this!"

"A harmless radiant."

"I don't need any."

"It is necessary," said the medic, "for your own protection. Most visitors

hire boats and sail out upon the Pheadh. Occasionally there are storms,

the boats are blown off course. This radiant will define your position on

the master panel."

"I don't want to be protected," said Farr. "I don't want to be a light on a

panel."

"Then you must leave Iszm."

Farr submitted, cursing the medic for the length of the needle and the

quantity of radiant.

"Now—into the next room for your tri-type, if you please."

Farr shrugged and walked into the next room.

"On the gray disk, Farr Sainh—palms forward, eyes wide."

He stood rigid as feeler-planes brushed down his body. In a glass dome

a three-dimensional simulacrum of himself six inches high took form. Farr

inspected it sourly.

"Thank you," said the operative. "Clothes and whatever personal effects

you may need will be issued in the next room."

Farr dressed in visitor's uniform: white soft trousers, a gray and green

striped smock, a loose dark-green velvet beret that fell low over his ear.

"Now may I go?"

The attendant looked into a slot beside him. Farr could see a flicker of

bright characters. "You are Farr Sainh the research botanist." It was as if

he had said, "You are Farr, the admitted criminal."

"I'm Farr."

"There are several formalities awaiting you."

The formalities required three hours. Farr was once more given to the

Szecr, who examined him carefully.

He was finally allowed his freedom. A young man in the yellow and

green stripes of the Szecr escorted him to a gondola floating in the lagoon,

a long slender craft grown from a single pod. Farr gingerly took a seat and

was sculled across to the city of Jhespiano.

It was his first experience in an Iszic city, and it was far richer than his

mental picture. The houses grew at irregular intervals along the avenues

and canals—heavy gnarled trunks, supporting first the lower pods, then

masses of broad leaves, half-submerging the upper pod-banks. Something

stirred in Farr's memory—an association… Yeasts or mycetozoa under the

microscope. Lamproderma violaceum? Dictydium cancellatum? There

was the same proliferation of branches. The pods might have been

magnified sporangia. There was the same arched well-engineered

symmetry, the peculiar complex colors: dark blue overlaid with glistening

gray down, burnt orange with a scarlet luster, scarlet with a purple

over-glow, sooty green, white highlighted with pink, subtle browns and

near-blacks. The avenues below drifted with the Iszic population, a quiet

pale people, secure in the stratifications of their guilds and castes.

The gondola glided to the landing. A Szecr in a yellow beret with green

tassels was waiting—apparently a man of importance. There was no

formal introduction; the Szecr discussed Farr quietly between themselves.

Farr saw no reason to wait, and started up the avenue toward one of

the new cosmopolitan hotels. The Szecr made no attempt to stop him;

Farr was now on his own, subject only to surveillance.

He relaxed and loafed around the city for almost a week. There were

few other off-world visitors; the Iszic authorities discouraged tourism to

the maximum degree allowed them by the Treaty of Access. Farr tried to

arrange an interview with the Chairman of the Export Council, but an

under-clerk turned him away politely but brusquely, upon learning that

Farr wished to discuss the export of low-quality houses. Farr had expected

no better. He explored the canals and the lagoon in gondolas, and he

strolled the avenues. At least three of the Szecr gave him their time,

quietly following along the avenues and lounging in nearby pods on the

public terraces.

On one occasion he walked around the lagoon to the far side of the

island, a rocky sandy area exposed to the wind and the full force of the

sun. Here the humbler castes lived in modest three-pod houses, growing in

rows with strips of hot sand between the dwellings. These houses were

neutral in color, a brownish gray-green with a central tuft of large leaves

casting black shade over the pods. Such houses were not available for

export and Farr, a man with a highly developed social conscience, became

indignant. A shame these houses could not be made available to the

under-housed billions of Earth! A whole district of such habitations could

be provided for next to nothing: the mere cost of seed! Farr walked up to

one of the houses, peered into a low-hanging pod. Instantly a branch

dropped down, and had Farr not jumped back he might have been

injured. As it was, the heavy terminal frond slapped across his scalp. One

of the Szecr, standing twenty yards distant, sauntered forward. "You are

not advised to molest the trees."

"I wasn't molesting anything or anyone."

The Szecr shrugged. "The tree thought otherwise. It is trained to be

suspicious of strangers. Among the lower castes…" the Szecr spat

contemptuously, "feuds and quarrels go on, and the trees become uneasy

at the presence of a stranger."

Farr turned to examine the tree with new interest. "Do you mean that

the trees have a conscious mind?"

The Szecr's answer was no more than an indifferent shrug.

Farr asked, "Why aren't these trees exported? There would be an

enormous market; many people need houses who can afford nothing

better than these."

"You have answered yourself," responded the Szecr. "Who is the dealer

on Earth?"

"K. Penche."

"He is a wealthy man?"

"Exceedingly wealthy."

"Would he be equally wealthy selling hovels such as these?"

"Conceivably."

The Szecr turned away. "In any case, we would not profit. These houses

are no less difficult to root, nurture, pack and ship than the Class AA

houses we choose to deal in… I advise you not to investigate another

strange house so closely. You might well suffer serious injury. The houses

are not so tolerant of intruders as their inhabitants."

Farr continued around the island, past orchards bearing fruit and low

coarse shrubs like Earth century plants, from the center of which sprouted

a cluster of ebony rods as much as an inch in diameter and ten feet tall:

smooth, glossy, geometrically straight. When Farr went to investigate the

Szecr interfered.

"These are not house trees," Farr protested. "In any event, I plan no

damage. I am a botanist and interested in strange plants."

"No matter," said the Szecr lieutenant. "Neither the plants nor the craft

which has developed them are your property, and hence should be of

complete disinterest to you."

"The Iszics seem to have small understanding of intellectual curiosity,"

observed Farr.

"To compensate, we have a large understanding of rapacity, larceny,

brain-picking and exploitation."

Farr had no answer and, grinning wryly, continued around the beach

and so back to the rich-colored fronds, pods and trunks of the town.

One phase of the surveillance puzzled Farr. He approached the

lieutenant and indicated an operative a few yards away. "Why does he

mimic me? I sit down, he sits down. I drink, he drinks. I scratch my nose,

he scratches his nose."

"A special technique," explained the Szecr. "We divine the pattern of

your thinking."

"It won't work," said Farr.

The lieutenant bowed. "Farr Sainh may be quite correct."

Farr smiled indulgently. "Do you seriously think you can predict my

plans?"

"We can only do our best."

"This afternoon I plan to rent a sea-going boat. Were you aware of

that?"

The lieutenant produced a paper. "I have the charter ready for you. It is

the Lhaiz, and I have arranged a crew."

THE Lhaiz was a two-masted barque the shape of a Dutch wooden shoe,

with purple sails and a commodious cabin. It had been grown on a special

boat-tree, one piece even to the main-mast, which originally had been the

stem of the pod. The foremast, sprit, booms and rigging were fabricated

parts, a situation as irking to the Iszic mind as mechanical motion to an

Earth electronics engineer. The crew of the Lhaiz sailed west. Atolls rose

over the horizon, then sank astern. Some were deserted little gardens;

others were given to the breeding, seeding, budding, grafting, sorting,

packing and shipping of houses.

As a botanist, Farr was most strongly interested in the plantations, but

here the surveillance intensified, becoming a review of his every motion.

At Tjiere atoll irritation and perversity led Farr to evade his guards.

The Lhaiz sailed up to the pier and two of the crew passed lines ashore

while the others furled sail and cradled booms. Aile Farr jumped easily

from the after-deck down to the pier and set off toward the shore. A

mutter of complaints came from behind; these gave Farr malicious

amusement.

He looked ahead to the island. The beach spread wide to either side,

pounded by surf, and the slopes of the basalt ridge were swathed in green,

blue and black vegetation—a scene of great peace and beauty. Farr

controlled the urge to jump down on the beach to disappear under the

leaves. The Szecr were polite, but very quick on the trigger.

A tall strong man appeared upon the dock ahead. Blue bands circled his

body and limbs at six inch intervals, the pallid Iszic skin showing between

the rings. Farr slackened his pace. Freedom was at an end.

The Iszic lifted a single-lensed lorgnette on an ebony rod, the viewer

habitually carried by high-caste Iszic, an accessory almost as personal as

one of their organs. Farr had been viewed many times; it never failed to

irritate him. Like any other visitor to Iszm, like the Iszic themselves, he

had no choice, no recourse, no defense. The radiant injected into his

shoulder had labeled him. He was now categorized and defined for anyone

who cared to look.

"Your pleasure, Farr Sainh?" The Iszic used the dialect which children

spoke before they learned the language of their caste.

Farr resignedly made the formal reply. "I await your will."

"The dock-master was sent to extend proper courtesy. You perhaps

became impatient?"

"My arrival is a small matter, please don't trouble yourself."

The Iszic flourished his viewer. "A privilege to greet a fellow-scientist."

Farr said sourly, "That thing even tells you my occupation?"

The Iszic viewed Fair's right shoulder. "I see you have no criminal

record; your intelligence index is 23; your persistence level is Class 4…

There is other information."

"Who am I privileged to address?" asked Farr.

"I call myself Zhde Patasz. I am fortunate enough to cultivate on Tjiere

atoll."

Farr reappraised the blue-striped man. "A planter?"

Zhde Patasz twirled his viewer. "We will have much to discuss… I hope

you will be my guest."

The dock-master came puffing up. Zhde Patasz flourished his viewer

and drifted away.

"Farr Sainh," said the dock-master, "your modesty leads you to evade

your entitled escort. It saddens us deeply."

"You exaggerate."

"Hardly possible. This way, Sainh."

He marched down the concrete incline into a wide trench, with Farr

sauntering behind so leisurely that the dock-master was forced to halt and

wait at hundred-foot intervals. The trench led under the basalt ridge, then

became a subterranean passage. Four times the dock-master slid aside

plate-glass panels, four times the doors swung shut behind. Farr realized

that search-screens, probes, detectors, analyzers were feeling him, testing

his radiations, his mass and metallic content. He strolled along

indifferently. They would find nothing. All his clothing and personal effects

had been impounded; he was still wearing the visitor's uniform, trousers

of white floss, a jacket striped gray and green, and the loose dark green

velvet beret.

The dock-master rapped at a door of corrugated metal. It parted in the

middle into two interlocking halves, like a medieval portcullis. The

passage opened into a bright room. Behind a counter sat a Szecr in the

usual yellow and green stripes.

"If the Sainh pleases—his tri-type for our records."

Farr patiently stood on the disk of gray metal.

"Palms forward, eyes wide."

Farr stood quietly. Feeler-planes brushed down his body.

"Thank you, Sainh." Farr stepped up to the counter. "That's a different

type than the one at Jhespiano. Let's see it."

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Jack Vance - The Houses of Iszm

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