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  JACK VANCE

  THE GRAY PRINCE

  Jack Vance was born in 1916 and studied mining engineering, physics and journalism at the University of California. During World War II he served in the merchant navy and was torpedoed twice. He started contributing stories to the pulp magazines in the mid-1940s; his first book,The Dying Earth, was published in 1950. Among his best-known books areTo Live Forever,The Dragon Masters—for which he won his first Hugo—The Blue World,Emphyrio,The Anome, and theLyonessesequence.

  THE JACK VANCE COLLECTION

  The Dragon Masters

  Maske: Thaery

  The Gray Prince

  ABOUT THE MAKING OF THIS BOOK

  ibooks, inc. wishes to express its gratitude to the VIE Project, for the assistance they provided in the making of this book.

  The VIE Project is a virtual gathering of enthusiasts from all over the world, working together via Internet, and dedicated to the creation of a complete and correct Vance edition in 44 volumes; a permanent, physical archive of Vance’s work, doubled by digital texts. Texts are restored to their pristine condition, reviewed and corrected under the aegis of the author, his wife Norma and his son John. The text that they supplied for the present edition is therefore the definitive, authorized version.

  For more information about this unique, original group of people, the Reader can visit the VIE website at:www.vanceintegral.com .

  THE GRAY PRINCE

  JACK VANCE

  ibooks

  new york

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  A Publication of ibooks, inc.

  Copyright © 1974 by Jack Vance;

  renewed 1990 by Jack Vance

  An ibooks, inc. Book

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  Prologue

  The space age is thirty thousand years old. Men have moved from star to star in search of wealth and glory; the Gaean Reach encompasses a perceptible fraction of the galaxy. Trade routes thread space like capillaries in living tissue; thousands of worlds have been colonized, each different from every other, each working its specific change upon those men who live there. Never has the human race been less homogenous.

  The outward surge has been anything but regular or even. Men have come and gone in waves and fluctuations, responding to wars, to religious impetus, to compulsions totally mysterious.

  The world Koryphon is typical only in the diversity of its inhabitants. On the continent Uaia, the Uldras inhabit that wide band along the southern littoral known as the Alouan, while to the north the Wind-runners sail their two-and three-masted wagons across the Palga plateau. Both are restless nomadic peoples; in almost every other respect they differ. South across the Persimmon Sea the equatorial continent Szintarre is inhabited by a cosmopolitan population of Outkers,*distinguished from both Uldras and Wind-runners by several orders of sociological magnitude.

  Considered indigenous to Koryphon are a pair of quasi-intelligent races: the erjins and the morphotes. The Wind-runners domesticate and offer for sale erjins of a particularly massive and docile variety, or perhaps they breed and train ordinary erjins to such characteristics. The Wind-runners are secretive in this regard, inasmuch as the trade provides them wheels, bearings and rigging for their wind-wagons. Certain Uldras of the Alouan capture, mount and ride wild erjins, controlling their ferocity with electric curbs. Both domesticated and wild erjins have telepathic capacity by which they communicate with each other and with a few Wind-runner adepts. Unrelated to the erjins are the morphotes, a malicious, perverse and unpredictable race, esteemed only for their weird beauty. At Olanje on Szintarre the Outkers have gone so far as to form morphote-viewing clubs, a recreation all the more titillating for the macabre habits of the morphotes.

  Two hundred years ago a group of off-planet freebooters dropped down upon Uaia, surprised and captured a conclave of Uldra chieftains and compelled cession of title to certain tribal lands: the notorious Submission Treaties. In such a fashion each member of the company acquired a vast tract ranging from twenty thousand to sixty thousand square miles. In due course these tracts became the great ‘domains’ of the Alouan, upon which the ‘land-barons’ and their descendants lived large and expansive lives in mansions built on a scale to match the holdings.

  The tribes signatory to the Submission Treaties found their lives affected to no great extent: if anything, improved. The new dams, ponds and canals provided dependable sources of water; intertribal warfare was proscribed and the domain clinics provided at least a modicum of medical care. A few Uldras attended domain schools and trained to become clerks, storekeepers and domestic servants; others took jobs as ranch-hands.

  In spite of such improvement, many Uldras resented the simple fact of inferior status. On a subconscious and unacknowledged level but perhaps a source of equal exacerbation was the land-barons’ disinclination for the Uldra females. A certain amount of rape or seduction, while resented, might have been accepted as a sordid but inevitable adjunct to the conquest. In point of fact, while the Uldra men, with their tall nervous physiques, gray skins dyed ultramarine blue and aquiline features, were in general personable, the same could not be said for the women. The girls, squat and fat, with their scalps shaved bald against the onslaught of vermin, lacked charm. As they matured, they retained their heavy hips and short legs, but elongated their torsos, arms and faces. The typically long Uldra nose became a drooping icicle; the gray skins became muddy; the hair, verminous or not, was allowed to grow into a heavy orange nimbus. Toward these Uldra girls and women the Outker land-barons*maintained a scrupulously correct indifference, which eventually, by a paradoxical reverse effect, came to be regarded by the Uldras as a humiliation and an insult.

  South across the Persimmon Sea lay the long narrow island Szintarre and its pleasant capital Olanje, a fashionable resort for out-worlders. These folk, sophisticated, urbane, articulate, had little in common with the land-barons whom they regarded as pompous martinets, without style, grace or humor.

  At Olanje in an eccentric old edifice known as Holrude House sat Koryphon’s single organ of government: the Mull, a council of thirteen notables. The Mull’s charter asserted control across Szintarre and Uaia alike, but in practice it avoided any interest in Uaian affairs. The land-barons considered the Mull an organ for the production of inconsequential sophistry; the Treaty Uldras were apathetic; the Retent Uldras rejected even the theory of centralized authority; the Wind-runners were ignorant of the Mull’s very existence.

  The cosmopolitan population of Olanje generated for itself an almost hyperactive intellectualism. Social activity was incessant; committees and societies existed to accommodate almost any special interest: a yacht club; several artists’ associations; the Morphote-Watchers; the Szintarre Hussade Association; the Library of Gaean Musical Archives; an association to sponsor the annual fête: Parilia; a college of the dramatic arts; Dionys: that organization dedicated to hyperaesthesia. Other groups were philanthropic or altruistic, such as the Ecological Foundation, which enjoined the importation of alien flora and fauna, no matter how economically useful or aesthetically gratifying. The Redemptionist Alliance crusaded against the Submission Treaties; they advocated dissolution of the Uaian domains and return of the lands to the Treaty tribes. The Society for the Emancipation of the Erjin, or SEE
, asserted that erjins were intelligent beings and might not legally be enslaved. The SEE was possibly the most controversial organization of Olanje, inasmuch as an increasing number of erjins were being imported from the Palga for domestic service, farm labor, garbage pick-up and the like. Other less disputatious groups sponsored education and employment for Uldras immigrant to Szintarre from Uaia. These Uldras, derived in about equal proportion from Retent and Treaty tribes, tended to excoriate the land-barons. Often their grievances were real; often they complained from sheer petulance. The Redemptionists sometimes brought Uldra immigrants before the Mull, the better to prod that often discursive, airy, didactic and capricious group into action. With practiced skill the Mull fended off such importunities or appointed a study commission, which invariably reported the Treaty lands to be havens of peace compared to the Retent, where the independent tribes conducted feuds, raids, assassinations, retaliations, outrages, massacres, atrocities and ambushes. The Redemptionists declared such considerations to be irrelevant. The Treaty tribes, so they pointed out, had been deprived of their ancestral lands through violence and deceit. The perpetuation of such a condition was intolerable, nor could the passage of two hundred years legitimize an originally wrongful situation. Most residents of Szintarre tended generally to endorse the Redemptionist doctrine.

  Chapter 1

  In the foyer at the Olanje space port Schaine Madduc and her brother Kelse examined each other with affectionate curiosity. Schaine had expected changes in Kelse; changes there were indeed—five years’ worth and more. She had left him a bedridden cripple, pallid and desperate; he now seemed strong and well, if a trifle gaunt. His artificial leg carried him with only the suggestion of a limp; he worked his left arm as capably as he did his right, although he disdained simulated flesh and kept the metal hand encased in a black glove. He had grown taller: this she had expected, but not the change in his face which had lengthened and hardened and taken on an acerb refinement. His cheekbones had become prominent; his jaw was a jut; his eyes were narrow, and he had acquired a habit of glancing sidewise in a wary or suspicious or challenging squint: a signal, thought Schaine, of the true changes in Kelse: the alteration from a trusting generous boy to this austere man who looked ten years older than his age.

  Kelse had been reflecting along similar lines. “You’re different,” he said. “Somehow I was expecting the merry, frivolous, silly old Schaine.”

  “Both of us are different.”

  Kelse glanced contemptuously down at his arm and leg. “Quite a bit different. You never saw these before.”

  “Are they easy to use?”

  Kelse shrugged. “The left hand is stronger than the right. I can crack nuts in my fingers and do all sorts of interesting jobs. Otherwise I’m much the same.”

  Schaine could not restrain the question: “Have I changed so very much?”

  Kelse looked at her dubiously. “Well, you’re five years older. You’re not quite so skinny. Your clothes are very nice; you look quite smart. You always were pretty, even as a ragtag tomboy.”

  “‘Ragtag tomboy’ indeed!” Schaine’s voice was soft with melancholy. As they walked across the depot memories and images flooded her mind. The girl they spoke about was distant by not five but by five hundred years; she had inhabited a different world, where evil and woe were unknown. The verities were simple and obvious to all. Morningswake Manor was no more and no less than the center of the universe; each of those who lived there had a predestined role to fulfill. Uther Madduc was the font of authority. His decisions, sometimes benign, sometimes mysterious, sometimes awful, were as definite as the motion of the sun. Concentric to Uther Madduc had been herself and Kelse; in an orbit less stable, sometimes near, sometimes far, was Muffin. In general the roles were uncomplicated, except again in the case of Muffin whose status was often ambiguous. Schaine had been the ‘ragtag tomboy’, nonetheless charming and pretty—so much went without saying—just as Kelse had always been proud and handsome and Muffin always dashing and brave and gay. Such attributes were implicit in the very fabric of existence, just as the sun Methuen was unalterably pink and the sky immutably ultramarine. Looking back across the years she saw herself against a backdrop of Morningswake: a girl of medium height, neither tall nor short, engagingly lanky but durable, as if she were good at swimming and running and climbing, which of course she had been and still was. Her skin shone tawny-gold from the sunlight; her dark hair was a loose curly tangle. She was the girl with the sweet wide mouth and the alert marveling expression, as if each successive instant brought some new wonder. She had loved with innocence and hated without calculation; she had been mercurial, gentle with small creatures, quick with gleeful gibes… Now she was five years older and five years wiser, or so she hoped.

  Kelse and Schaine walked out into the soft Szintarre morning. The air smelled as Schaine remembered: fragrant with the essence of leaves and flowers. Down from the dark green juba trees hung strands of scarlet blossoms; sunlight seeped through the foliage to spatter patterns of pink and black on Kharanotis Avenue.

  “We’re staying at the Seascape,” Kelse told her. “There’s a party at Aunt Val’s this afternoon, ostensibly to welcome you home. We could have stayed at Mirasol, of course, but…” His voice trailed off. Schaine recalled that Kelse had never been overfond of their Aunt Val. He asked: “Shall I call a cab?”

  “Let’s walk. Everything looks so beautiful. I’ve been cooped up aboard theNiamaticfor a week.” She drew a deep breath. “It’s wonderful to be back. I feel like I’m home already.”

  Kelse gave a sour grunt. “Why did you wait so long?”

  “Oh—various reasons.” Schaine made a flippant gesture. “Obstinacy. Willfulness. Father.”

  “You’re still obstinate and willful—so I presume. Father is still Father. If you think he’s changed, you’re in for a shock.”

  “I’m under no illusions. Someone has to give in, and I can do it as easily as anyone. Tell me about Father. What has he been doing?”

  Kelse considered before answering: a trait Schaine could not recall from five years ago. Kelse’s youth had passed all too swiftly, she thought. “Father is by and large the same. Since you’ve been gone there’s been a lot of new pressure, and—well, you’ve heard of the Redemptionist Alliance.”

  “I suppose so. I don’t remember much about it.”

  “It’s a society based here in Olanje. They want us to tear up the Submission Treaties and leave Uaia. Nothing new, of course; but now it’s a fashionable cause, and in the ‘Gray Prince’, as he calls himself, they have a fashionable figurehead.”

  “‘Gray Prince’? Who is he?”

  Kelse’s mouth twitched in a crooked grin. “Well—he’s a young Uldra, a Garganche, with some education; he’s voluble, quaint and vivacious—in fact, he’s the darling of all Olanje. No doubt he’ll be at Aunt Val’s party this evening.”

  They passed an expanse of blue-green sward, extending from the avenue up the slope to a tall mansion with five gables, towers to right and left, a façade of mustard-yellow tiles relieved by slabs of glossy black skeel: a structure conceived in eclectic caprice, yet impressive by virtue of sheer size and a certain careless magnificence. This was Holrude House, seat of the Mull. Kelse gave his head a gloomy shake. “The Redemptionists are up there now, trying to indoctrinate the Mull…I speak figuratively of course. I don’t know that they’re in Holrude at this specific instant. Father is pessimistic; he thinks the Mull will eventually issue an edict against us. I got a letter from him this morning.” He reached into his pocket. “No, I left it at the hotel. He’s planning to meet us at Galigong.”

  Schaine asked in perplexity: “Why Galigong? He could as easily meet us here.”

  “He won’t come to Olanje. I don’t think he wants to see Aunt Valtrina; she might make him come to a party. That’s what she did last year.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt him. Aunt Val’s parties were always fun. At least I liked them.”

  “Gerd
Jemasze is coming with us; in fact we flew here in his Apex, and he’ll take us across to Galigong.”

  Schaine made a sour face; she had never liked Gerd Jemasze, whom she considered surly.

  A pair of columns marked the entrance to the Seascape. Schaine and Kelse rode a slideway down the vestibule. Kelse arranged for the transfer of Schaine’s luggage from the space port, then they sauntered out upon the terrace close beside the Persimmon Sea and refreshed themselves with goblets of pale green cloudberry juice, glinting with ice crystals. Schaine said: “Tell me what’s been happening at Morningswake.”

  “Ordinary routine for the most part. We stocked Fairy Lake with a new mix of fish. I went prospecting south of the Burrens and found an ancient kachemba.*”

  “Did you go in?”

  Kelse shook his head. “Those places give me cold chills. I told Kurgech about it; he said it was probably Jirwantian.”

  “Jirwantian?”

  “They occupied South Morningswake for five hundred years, before the Hunge annihilated them. Then the Aos drove out the Hunge.”

  “How are all the Aos? Is Zamina still matriarch?”

  “Yes, she’s still alive. Last week they shifted camp into Dead Rat Gulch. Kurgech dropped by the manor and I told him you were coming home. He said you’d get in less trouble on Tanquil.”

  “Wretched old creature! What did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t believe he meant anything. He was merely ‘tasting the future’.”

  Schaine sipped the fruit juice and looked out over the sea. “Kurgech is a mountebank. He can’t foresee or draw fates or cold-eye or transmit thoughts any better than I can.”

  “Not true. Kurgech has some amazing skills…Ao or not, he’s Father’s closest friend.”

  Schaine snorted. “Father is too much of a tyrant to be good friends with anyone—most especially an Ao.”