The Moon Moth and Other Stories by Jack Vance

difficult, and we are the last of all men.”
    “No, no,” spoke Reak, “not the last. We saw others on the green mound.”
    “That was long ago,” said Gisa. “Now they are surely dead.”
    “Perhaps they have found a source of food,” suggested Reak.
    Finn rose to his feet, looked across the plain. “Who knows? Perhaps there is a more pleasant land beyond the horizon.”
    “There is nothing anywhere but waste and evil creatures,” snapped Gisa.
    “What could be worse than here?” Finn argued calmly.
    No one could find grounds for disagreement.
    “Here is what I propose,” said Finn. “Notice this tall peak. Notice the layers of hard air. They bump into the peak, they bounce off, they float in and out and disappear past the edge of sight. Let us all climb this peak, and when a sufficiently large bank of air passes, we will throw ourselves on top, and allow it to carry us to the beautiful regions which may exist just out of sight.”
    There was argument. The old man Tagart protested his feebleness; the women derided the possibility of the bountiful regions Finn envisioned, but presently, grumbling and arguing, they began to clamber up the pinnacle.
    It took a long time; the obsidian was soft as jelly and Tagart several times professed himself at the limit of his endurance. But still they climbed, and at last reached the pinnacle. There was barely room to stand. They could see in all directions, far out over the landscape, till vision was lost in the watery gray.
    The women bickered and pointed in various directions, but there was small sign of happier territory. In one direction blue-green hills shivered like bladders full of oil. In another direction lay a streak of black—a gorge or a lake of clay. In another direction were blue-green hills—the same they had seen in the first direction; somehow there had been a shift. Below was the plain, gleaming like an iridescent beetle, here and there pocked with black velvet spots, overgrown with questionable vegetation.
    They saw Organisms, a dozen shapes loitering by ponds, munching vegetable pods or small rocks or insects. There came Alpha. He moved slowly, still awed by his vision, ignoring the other Organisms. Their play went on, but presently they stood quiet, sharing the oppression.
    On the obsidian peak, Finn caught hold of a passing filament of air, drew it in. “Now—all on, and we sail away to the Land of Plenty.”
    “No,” protested Gisa, “there is no room, and who knows if it will fly in the right direction?”
    “Where is the right direction?” asked Finn. “Does anyone know?”
    No one knew, but the women still refused to climb aboard the filament. Finn turned to Tagart. “Here, old one, show these women how it is; climb on!”
    “No, no,” he cried. “I fear the air; this is not for me.”
    “Climb on, old man, then we follow.”
    Wheezing and fearful, clenching his hands deep into the spongy mass, Tagart pulled himself out onto the air, spindly shanks hanging over into nothing. “Now,” spoke Finn, “who next?”
    The women still refused. “You go then, yourself,” cried Gisa.
    “And leave you, my last guarantee against hunger? Aboard now!”
    “No, the air is too small; let the old one go and we will follow on a larger.”
    “Very well.” Finn released his grip. The air floated off over the plain, Tagart straddling and clutching for dear life.
    They watched him curiously. “Observe,” said Finn, “how fast and easily moves the air. Above the Organisms, over all the slime and uncertainty.”
    But the air itself was uncertain, and the old man’s raft dissolved. Clutching at the departing wisps, Tagart sought to hold his cushion together. It fled from under him, and he fell.
    On the peak the three watched the spindly shape flap and twist on its way to earth far below.
    “Now,” Reak exclaimed in vexation, “we even have no more meat.”
    “None,” said Gisa, “except the visionary Finn himself.”
    They surveyed Finn.