Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One Read Free

ocean beyond.
    Rogge sat within, chair turned to the window, drumming his fingers in quick irregular tempo. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and strode across the room. He was tall and thin, and his black eyes sparkled in a face parched and bony, while his chin dished out below his mouth like a shovel-blade.
    He punched a button at the telescreen, waited, leaning slightly forward, his finger still holding down the button. There was no response. The screen hummed quietly, but remained ash-gray, dead.
    Rogge clenched his fists. “What a demoralized outfit! Won’t even answer the screen.”
    As he turned his back, the screen came alive. Rogge swung around, clasped his hands behind his back. “Well?”
    “Sorry, Mr. Rogge, but they’ve just found another,” panted the cadet engineer.
    Rogge stiffened. “Where, this time?”
    “In the shower room. He’d just been cleaning up.”
    Rogge flung his arms out from his sides. “How many times have I told them not to shower alone? By Deneb, I can’t be everywhere! Haven’t they brains enough—” A knock at the door interrupted him. A time-keeper pushed his head in.
    “The mail ship’s in sight, Mr. Rogge.”
    Rogge took a step toward the door, looked back over his shoulder.
    “You attend to that, Kelly. I’m holding you responsible!”
    The cadet blinked. “I can’t help it if—” he began querulously, but he was speaking to the retreating back of his superior, and then the empty office. He muttered, dialed off.
    Rogge strode out on the beach. He was early, for the ship was still a black spot in the purple-blue sky. When it finally settled, fuming and hissing, on the glinting gray sand, Rogge hardly waited for the steam to billow away before stepping forward to the port.
    There was a few minutes’ delay while the crew released themselves from their shock-belts. Rogge shuffled his feet, fidgeting like a nervous race-horse. Metallic sounds came from within. The dogs twisted, the port opened with a sigh, and Rogge moved irritably back from the smell of hot oil, men, carbolic acid, paint.
    A round, red face looked out the port.
    “Hello, doc,” called Rogge. “All cleared for landing?”
    “Germ-free,” said the red face. “Safe as Sunday school.”
    “Well, open ’er up!”
    The flushed medico eyed Rogge with a detached bird-like curiosity. “You in a hurry?”
    Rogge tilted his head, stared at the doctor, eye to eye. The red face disappeared, the port opened wider, a short plump man in blue shorts swung out on the stage, descended the ladder. He flipped a hand to Rogge.
    “Hello, Julic,” said Rogge, peering up past him to the open port. “Any passengers?”
    “Thirteen replacements for you. Cat-skinners, a couple plumbers—space-sick all the way.”
    Rogge snorted, jerked his head. “Thirteen? Do you know I’ve lost thirty-three men this last month? Didn’t you pick up a T.C.I. man in Starport?”
    The captain looked at him sidewise. “Yes, he’s aboard. Looks like you’re anxious.”
    “Anxious!” Rogge grinned wickedly, humorlessly. “You’d be anxious yourself with two, three men strangled every day.”
    Captain Julic narrowed his eyes. “It’s true, is it?” He looked up to the two tall cliffs that marked Diggings A and B, the raw clutter of barracks and machine-shops below. “We heard rumors in Starport, but I didn’t—” His voice dwindled away. Then: “Any idea at all who’s doing it?”
    “Not one in the world. It’s a homicidal maniac, no doubt as to that, but every time I think I’ve got him spotted, there’s another killing. The whole camp’s demoralized. I can’t get an honest day’s work out of any man on the place. I’m a month behind schedule. I radioed the T.C.I. two weeks ago.”
    Captain Julic nodded toward the port. “There he is.”
    Rogge took a half-step forward, halted, blinked. The man descending the ladder was of medium height, medium weight, and something past middle-age. He had white hair, a small