Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One (26 page)

Belgian Governor Protests

Says Congo Unsuitable

From the U.P. Wire:

Trieste
, August 23 (UP): Three shiploads of trogs bound for Trogland in the Congo today
marked a record number of embarkations. The total number of trogs to sail from European ports now stands at 24,965…

Cabinda
, August 23 (UP): The warlike Matemba Confederation is practically in a state
of revolt against further trog immigration, while Resident-General
Bernard Cassou professes grave pessimism over eventualities.

Mont Blanc
, August 24 (UP): Ten trogs today took up experimental residence in a ski-hut to see how well trogs can cope with the rigors of cold weather.

Announcement of this experiment goes to confirm
a rumor that Denmark has offered Greenland to the trogs
if it is found that they are able to survive Arctic conditions.

Cabinda
, August 28 (UP): The Congo, home of witch-doctors, tribal dances, cannibalism and Tarzan, seethes with native unrest. Sullen anger smolders in the villages, riots are frequent and dozens of native workmen at Camp Hope have been killed or hospitalized.

Needless to say, the trogs, whose advent precipitated the crisis, are segregated far apart
from contact with the natives, to avoid a repetition of the bloodbath of August 22…

Cabinda
, August 29 (UP): Resident-General Bernard Cassou today refused to allow debarkation of trogs from four ships standing off Cabinda
roadstead.

Mont Blanc
, September 2 (UP): The veil of secrecy at the experimental trog home was lifted a significant crack this morning, when the bodies of two trogs were taken down to Chamonix via the ski-lift…

From
The Trog Story
, September 10, by Harlan B. Temple:

“It is one a.m.; I’ve just come down from Camp No. 4. The trog columns have dwindled to a straggle of old, crippled, diseased. The stench is frightful…But why go on? Frankly, I’m heartsick. I wish I had never taken on this assignment. It’s doing something terrible to my soul; my hair is literally turning gray. I pause a moment, the noise of my typewriter stops, I listen to the vast murmur through the Kreuzertal; despondency, futility, despair come at me in a wave. Most of us here at Trog City, I think, feel the same.

“There are now five or six million trogs in the camp; no one knows the exact count; no one even cares. The situation has passed that point. The flow has dwindled, one merciful dispensation—in fact, at Camp No. 4
you can hear the rumble of the lava rising into the trog caverns.

“Morale is going from bad to worse here at Trog City. Every day a dozen of the unpaid volunteers throw up their hands, and go home. I can’t say as I blame them. Lord knows they’ve given the best they have, and no one backs them up. Everywhere in the world it’s the same story, with everyone pointing at someone else. It’s enough to make a man sick. In fact it has. I’m sick—desperately sick.

“But you don’t read
The Trog Story
to hear me gripe. You want factual reporting. Very well, here it is. Big news today was that movement of trogs out of the camp to Trieste has been held up pending clarification of the Congo situation. Otherwise, everything’s the same here—hunger, smell, careless trogs dying of sunburn…”

Headline in the
New York Times
, September 20:

TROG QUOTA PROBLEM RETURNED TO

STUDY GROUP FOR ADJUSTMENT

From the U.P. Wire:

Cabinda
, September 25 (UP): Eight ships, loaded with 9,462 trog refugees, still wait at anchor, as native chieftains reiterated their opposition to trog immigration…

Trog City
, October 8 (UP): The trog migration is at its end. Yesterday for the first time no new trogs came up from below, leaving the estimated population of Trog City at six million.

New York
, October 13 (UP): Deadlock still grips the Trog Resettlement Committee, with the original positions, for the most part, unchanged. Densely populated countries claim they have no room and no jobs; the underdeveloped states insist that they have not enough money to feed their own mouths. The U.S., with both room and money, already has serious minority headaches and doesn’t want new ones…

Chamonix
, France, October 18 (UP): The Trog Experimental Station closed its doors yesterday, with one survivor of the original ten trogs riding the ski-lift back down the slopes of Mont Blanc.

Dr. Sven Emeldson, director of the station, released the following statement: “Our work proves that the trogs, even if provided shelter adequate for a European, cannot stand the rigors of the North; they seem especially sensitive to pulmonary ailments…”

New York
, October 26 (UP): After weeks of acrimony, a revised set of trog immigration quotas was released for action by the U.N. Assembly. Typical figures are: USA 31%, USSR 16%, Canada 8%, Australia 8%, France 6%, Mexico 6%.

New York
, October 30 (UP): The USSR adamantly rejects the principle of U.N. checking of the trog resettlement areas inside the USSR…

New York
, October 31
(UP): Senator Bullrod of Mississippi today promised to talk till his “lungs came out at the elbows”
before he would allow the Trog Resettlement Bill to come to a vote before the Senate. An informal check revealed insufficient strength to impose cloture
^…

St. Arlberg
, Austria, November 5 (UP): First snow of the season fell last night…

Trog City
, November 10 (UP): Last night, frost lay a sparkling sheath across the valley…

Trog City
, November 15 (UP): Trog sufferers from influenza have been isolated in a special section…

Buenos Aires
, November 23 (UP): Dictator Peron today flatly refused to meet the Argentine quota of relief supplies to Trog City until some definite commitment has been made by the U.N.…

Trog City
, December 2 (UP): Influenza
following the snow and rain of the last
week
has made a new onslaught on the trogs; camp authorities are desperately trying to cope with the epidemic…

Trog City
, December 8 (UP): Two crematoriums, fired by fuel oil, are roaring full time in an effort to keep ahead of the mounting influenza casualties…

From
The Trog Story
, December 13, by Harlan B. Temple:

“This is it…”

From the U.P. Wire:

Los Angeles
, December 14 (UP): The Christmas buying rush got under way early this year, in spite of unseasonably bad weather…

Trog City
, December 15 (UP): A desperate appeal for penicillin, sulfa, blankets, kerosene heaters, and trained personnel was sounded today by Camp Commandant Howard Kerkovits. He admitted that disease among the trogs was completely out of control, beyond all human power to cope with…

From
The Trog Story
, December 23, by Harlan B. Temple:

“I don’t know why I should be sitting here writing this, because—since there are no more trogs—there is no more trog story.”