by Roger Elwood
13. For example, Flandry is for a while this sort of slave in A Circus of Hells, as are the crew of the Franklin in After Doomsday, and the elf women in The Broken Sword.
14. Applying a New Theory of Human Relations to the Comparative Study of Racism, (Denver: University of Denver Race and Nations Monograph Series 1:1, 1969-70), 6.
15. The 1966 novel The Ancient Gods (World Without Stars) includes a somewhat similar identification. Anderson’s 1966 novelette “Goat Song” did not see publication until the February 1972 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which appeared while the original draft of this essay was in preparation. “Goat Song” provides corroboration for a number of ideas put forward in this paper; in particular, it presents a striking identification of the two types of “enthrallment.” In the novelette, SUM, the non-self-aware computer, nothing more than a crystallization of the intentions of its builders, is rapidly taking on the attributes of personalistic Godhood. Note that sum is Latin for “I Am,” the name which God reveals to Moses (Exodus 3:14).
16. This quotation does not contradict the earlier contention that the aborigines do not understand freedom. It is exactly to the point that the aborigines equate this dependent freedom-from-material-want with “real” liberty.
17. This viewpoint also emerges strongly in other of Anderson’s works. The hero of “Goat Song,” after urging his followers to forsake SUM, tells them, “ ‘Seek out mystery; what else is the whole cosmos but mystery? Live bravely, die and be done, and you will be more than any machine. You may perhaps be God’ ” (p. 32). Similarly, in The Ancient Gods, Hugh Valland, who leads the opposition to the self-deified extraterrestrial Ai Chun, himself maintains, in cheerful disregard of his culture’s permissive mores, a celibate devotion to a girl who died years before. Many Anderson heroes also adhere to one formal religion or another.
18. In The Broken Sword, Anderson presents a similar contrast between elven and human society. The elf-raised Scafloc reflects on the reaction of Freda to her family’s murder: “The elves had not taught him about mourning such as this” (p. 68; [rev. ed., New York: Ballantine, 1971]).
Later in the book he tells her, “‘Elves know defeat only sometimes, fear seldom, and love never. But since meeting you, dear, I have found all three in myself.’ ”
Freda’s reply is also significant: “‘And somewhat of elf has entered my blood. I fear that less and less do I think of what is right and holy, more and more of what is useful and pleasant. My sins grow heavy—’” (p. 117).
Finally even Imric, lord of all elves in Britain, concedes, “‘Happier are all men than the dwellers in Faerie—or the gods for that matter… . Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself’ ” (p. 206).
The elven society of The Broken Sword, however, is much more complex than that of the Outlings in “The Queen of Air and Darkness.” To explain the former in terms of Halpern’s theory we would need to give important consideration to additional relationships such as “Subjection,” “Direct Bargaining,” and “Buffering.”
19. William S. Baring-Gould, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1962), 13.
20. One amusing “perversion” of the tradition is Robert A. Heinlein’s Glory Road, which in outline is nothing but a typical fairy story: hero is enticed into Fairyland by beautiful woman who turns out to be Fairy Queen and whom he marries; hero performs feats of daring in Faerie, but gradually grows homesick, forsakes Queen and returns to “real world,” after which he pines for Faerie.
Compare Heinlein’s work especially to Yeats’s The Wanderings of Oisin.
21. J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories/’ Tree and Leaf, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 14.
22. Examples: The Irish “Cuchulain’s Sickbed,” “Tamlane” and its variants in the first volume of Child. In the Danish “The Elven Shaft” (cited above), and in Anderson’s “Arvid Song” within the novelette itself, the hero, after rejecting Faerie in favor of an earthly sweetheart, pines for his lost opportunity. Nonetheless, even here the possibility of escape is affirmed.
23. Note also the role of the Holmesian archetype here. Consider Holmes’s exposure of the “supernatural” Hound of the Baskervilles, or of the Cornish Horror in “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot.” In fact, it may well be that the climax of the novelette is somewhat weakened by the obvious stacking of the archetypal cards against the Queen. By the time of Sherrinford’s invasion of the Queen’s court, no one can have the slightest doubt as to who will be the winner, and why. In the novelette’s “future history,” a philosophy similar to that of the Queen has actually triumphed on Earth; one suspects that the powers of Darkness should really have made a better fight of it on Roland.
24. The “Arvid Song” is based primarily on the rich medieval Danish ballad tradition. As was mentioned above, the plot of Anderson’s poem closely parallels that of “The Elven Shaft.” Anderson’s meter and rhyme scheme, while not uncommon among Danish ballads [Johannes C. H. R. Steenstrup, The Medieval Popular Ballad, trans. Edward Godfrey Cox, (New York: Ginn and Company, 1914), 131-133], are also found in A. E. Housman’s above-mentioned poem on the Queen of Air and Darkness (III in Last Poems’).
25. Personal communication.
26. Compare these names, mostly English compounds, with the ones introduced later in the novelette, many of which have foreign roots, e.g., Greek: monocerus (one-hom), bathyrhiza (deeproot), glycephyllon (sweetleaf), chalcanthermum (copper-flower); and Spanish: pumablanca (white-feather), yerba (grass, herb).
27. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the Kogan telepathy study cited above was sufficiently obscure that I myself ran across it entirely by accident when the original draft of this paper was almost complete. But in the novelette, the electromagnetic explanation is given as established fact, not as one of several competing theories; hence it should be more widely diffused and better known.
Epilogue
I
His name was a set of radio pulses. Converted into equivalent sound waves, it would have been an ugly squawk; so because he, like any consciousness, was the center of his own coordinate system, let him be called Zero.
He was out hunting that day. Energy reserves were low in the cave. That other who may be called One—being the most important dweller in Zeros universe—had not complained. But there was no need to. He also felt a dwindling potential. Accumulators grew abundantly in their neighborhood, but an undue amount of such cells must be processed to recharge One while she was creating. Motiles had more concentrated energy. And, of course, they were more highly organized. Entire parts could be taken from the body of a motile, needing little or no reshaping for One to use. Zero himself, though the demands on his functioning were much less, wanted a more easily assimilated charge than the accumulators provided.
In short, they both needed a change of diet.
Game did not come near the cave any more. The past hundred years had taught that it was unsafe. Eventually, Zero knew, he would have to move. But the thought of helping One through mile upon mile, steep, overgrown and dangerous, made him delay. Surely he could still find large motiles within a few days’ radius of his present home. With One’s help he fastened a carrier rack on his shoulders, took weapons in hand, and set forth.
That was near sunset. The sky was still light when he came on spoor: broken earth-crystals not yet healed, slabs cut from several boles, a trace of lubricant. Tuning his receptors to the highest sensitivity, he checked all the bands commonly made noisy by motiles. He caught a low-amplitude conversation between two persons a hundred miles distant, borne this far by some freak of atmospherics; closer by he sensed the impulses of small scuttering things, not worth chasing; a flier jetted overhead and filled his perception briefly with static. But no vibration of the big one. It must have passed this way days ago and now be out of receptor shot.
Well, he could follow the trail, and catch up with the clumsy sawyer
in time. It was undoubtedly a sawyer—he knew these signs—and therefore worth a protracted hunt. He ran a quick check on himself. Every part seemed in good order. He set into motion, a long stride which must eventually overhaul anything on treads.
Twilight ended. A nearly full moon rose over the hills like a tiny cold lens. Night vapors glowed in masses and streamers against a purple black sky where stars glittered in the optical spectrum and hummed and sang in the radio range. The forest sheened with alloy, flashed with icy speckles of silicate. A wind blew through the radiation absorber plates overhead, setting them to ringing against each other; a burrower whirred, a grubber crunched through lacy crystals, a river brawled chill and loud down a ravine toward the valley below.
As he proceeded, weaving among trunks and girders and jointed rods with the ease of long practice, Zero paid most attention to his radio receptors. There was something strange in the upper communication frequencies tonight, an occasional brief note … set of notes, voice, drone, like nothing he had heard before or heard tell of … but the world was a mystery. No one had been past the ocean to the west or the mountains to the east. Finally Zero stopped listening and concentrated on tracking his prey. That was difficult, with his optical sensors largely nullified by the darkness, and he moved slowly. Once he tapped lubricant from a cylinder
growth and once he thinned his acids with a drink of water. Several times he felt polarization in his energy cells and stopped for a while to let it clear away: he rested.
§
Dawn paled the sky over distant snowpeaks, and gradually turned red. Vapors rolled up the slopes from the valley, tasting of damp and sulfide. Zero could see the trail again, and began to move eagerly.
Then the strangeness returned—louder.
Zero slid to a crouch. His lattice swiveled upward. Yes, the pulses did come from above. They continued to strengthen. Soon he could identify them as akin to the radio noise associated with the functioning of a motile. But they did not sense like any type he knew. And there was something else, a harsh flickering overtone, as if he also caught leakage from the edge of a modulated shortwave beam—
The sound struck him.
At first it was the thinnest of whistles, high and cold above the dawn clouds. But within seconds it grew to a roar that shook the earth, reverberated from the mountains, and belled absorber plates until the whole forest rang. Zero’s head became an echo chamber; the racket seemed to slam his brain from side to side. He turned dazzled, horrified sensors heavenward. And he saw the thing descending.
For a moment, crazily, he thought it was a flier. It had the long spindle-shaped body and the air fins. But no flier had ever come down on a tail of multicolored flame. No flier blocked off such a monstrous portion of sky. When the thing must be two miles away!
He felt the destruction as it landed, shattered frames, melted earth-crystals, a little burrower crushed in its den, like a wave of anguish through the forest. He hurled himself flat on the ground and hung on to sanity with all four hands. The silence which followed, when the monster had settled in place, was like a final thunderclap.
Slowly Zero raised his head. His perceptions cleared. An arc of sun peered over the sierra. It was somehow outrageous that the sun should rise as if nothing had happened. The forest remained still, hardly so much as a radio hum to be sensed. The last echoes flew fading between the hills.
A measure of resolution: this was no time to be careful of his own existence. Zero poured full current into his transmitter. “Alarm, alarm! All persons receiving, prepare to relay. Alarm!"
Forty miles thence, the person who may as well be called Two answered, increasing output intensity the whole time: “Is that you, Zero? I noticed something peculiar in the direction of your establishment. What is the matter?”
Zero did not reply at once. Others were coming in, a surge of voices in his head, from mountaintops and hills and lowlands, huts and tents and caves, hunters, miners, growers, sea-rakers, quarriers, toolmakers, suddenly became a unity. But he was flashing at his own home: “Stay inside, One. Conserve energy. I am unharmed, I will be cautious, keep hidden and stand by for my return.”
“Silence!” called a stridency which all recognized as coming from Hundred. He was the oldest of them, he had probably gone through a total of half a dozen bodies. Irreversible polarization had slowed his thinking a little, taken the edge off, but the wisdom of his age remained and he presided over their councils. “Zero, report what you have observed.”
The hunter hesitated. “That is not easy. I am at—” He described the location. (“Ah, yes,” murmured Fifty-six, “near the large galena lick.”) “The thing somewhat resembles a flier, but enormous, a hundred feet long or more. It came down about two miles north of here on an incandescent jet and is now quiet. I thought I overheard a beamed signal. If so, the cry was like nothing any motile ever made.”
“In these parts,” Hundred added shrewdly. “But the thing must have come from far away. Does it look dangerous?”
“Its jet is destructive,” Zero said, “but nothing that size, with such relatively narrow fins, could glide about. Which makes me doubt it is a predator.”
“Lure accumulators,” said Eight.
“Eh? What about them?” asked Hundred.
‘Well, if lure accumulators can emit signals powerful enough to take control of any small motile which comes near and make it enter their grinders, perhaps this thing has a similar ability. Then, judging from its size, its lure must have tremendous range and close up could overpower large motiles. Including even persons?”
Something like a shiver moved along the communication band.
“It is probably just a grazer,” said Three. “If so—” His overt signal trailed off, but the thought continued in all their partly linked minds: A motile that high! Megawatt-hours in its energy cells. Hundreds or thousands of usable part. Tons of metal. Hundred, did your great-grandcreator recall any such game, fabulous millennia ago?
No.
If it is dangerous, it must be destroyed or driven off. If not, it must be divided among us. In either case: attacked!
Hundred rapped the decision forth. “All male persons take weapons and proceed to rendezvous at Broken Glade above the Coppertaste River. Zero, stalk as close as seems feasible, observe what you can, but keep silence unless something quite unforeseeable occurs. When we are gathered, you can describe details on which we may base a specific plan. Hasten!”
The voices toned away in Zero’s receptor circuits. He was alone again.
§
The sun cleared the peaks and slanted long rays between the forest frames. Accumulators turned the black faces of their absorber plates toward it and drank thirstily of radiation. The mists dissipated, leaving boles and girders ashine with moisture. A breeze tinkled the silicate growths underfoot. For a moment Zero was astonishingly conscious of beauty. The wish that One could be here beside him, and the thought that soon he might be fused metal under the monster’s breath, sharpened the morning’s brightness.
Purpose congealed in him. Further down was a turmoil of frank greed. In all the decades since his activation there had been no such feast as this quarry should provide. Swiftly, he prepared himself. First he considered his ordinary weapons. The wire noose would never hold the monster, nor did he think the iron hammer would smash delicate moving parts— it did not seem to have any—or the steel bolts from his crossbow pierce a thin plate to short out a crucial circuit. But the clawed, spear-headed pry bar might be of use. He kept it in one hand while two others unfastened the fourth and laid it with his extra armament in the carrier rack. Thereupon they deftly hooked his cutting torch in its place. No one used this artificial device except for necessary work or to finish off a big motile whose cells could replace the tremendous energy expended by the flame or in cases of dire need. But if the monster attacked him, that would surely constitute dire need. His only immediate intention was to spy on it.
Rising, he stalked among shadows and sun refl
ections, his camouflage-painted body nearly invisible. Such motiles as sensed him fled or grew very still. Not even the great slasher was as feared a predator as a hunting person. So it had been since that ancient day when some forgotten savage genius made the first crude spark gap and electricity was tamed.
Zero was about halfway to his goal, moving slower and more carefully with each step, when he perceived the newcomers.
He stopped dead. Wind clanked the branches above him, drowning out any other sound. But his electronic sensors told him of … two … three moving shapes, headed from the monster. And their emission was as alien as its own.
In a different way, Zero stood for a long time straining to sense and to understand what he sensed. The energy output of the three was small, hardly detectable even this close; a burrower or skitterer used more power to move itself. The output felt peculiar, too, not really like a motile’s: too simple, as if a mere one or two circuits oscillated. Flat, cold, activityless. But the signal output, on the other hand—it must be signal, that radio chatter—why, that was a shout. The things made such an uproar that receptors tuned at minimum could pick them up five miles away. As if they did not know about game, predators, enemies.
Or as if they did not care.
A while more Zero paused. The eeriness of this advent sent a tingle through him. It might be said he was gathering courage. In the end he gripped his pry bar more tightly and struck off after the three.
They were soon plain to his optical and radar senses among the tall growths. He went stock-still behind a frame and watched. Amazement shocked his very mind into silence. He had assumed, from their energy level, that the things were small. But they stood more than half as big as he did! And yet each of them had only one motor, operating at a level barely sufficient to move a person’s arm. That could not be their power source. But what was?