The Sirens of Titan

by Kurt Vonnegut

  (72.) The more pain I train myself to stand, the more I learn. You are afraid of the pain now, Unk, but you won't learn anything if you don't invite the pain. And the more you learn, the gladder you will be to stand the pain.

  There in the furnace room of the empty barrack, Unk laid the letter aside for a moment. He felt like crying, for the heroic writer's faith in Unk was misplaced. Unk knew he couldn't stand a fraction of the pain the writer had stood--couldn't possibly love knowledge that much.

  Even the little sample twinge they had given him in the hospital had been excruciating. He gulped air now, like a fish dying on a riverbank, remembering the big pain Boaz had slammed him with in the barrack. He would rather die than risk another pain like that.

  His eyes watered.

  If he had tried to speak, he would have sobbed.

  Poor Unk didn't want any trouble from anybody ever again. Whatever information he gained from the letter--information gained by another man's heroism-he would use to avoid any more pain.

  Unk wondered if there were people who could stand more pain than others. He supposed this was the case. He supposed tearfully that he was especially sensitive in this regard. Without wishing the writer any harm, Unk wished the writer could feel, just once, the pains as Unk felt them.

  Then maybe the writer would address his letters to someone else.

  Unk had no way of judging the quality of the information contained in the letter. He accepted it all hungrily, uncritically. And, in accepting it, Unk gained an understanding of life that was identical with the writer's understanding of life. Unk wolfed down a philosophy.

  And mixed in with the philosophy were gossip, history, astronomy, biology, theology, geography, psychology, medicine--and even a short story.

  Some random examples:

  Gossip: (22.) General Borders is drunk all the time. He is so drunk he can't even tie his shoelaces so they will stay tied. Officers are as mixed up and unhappy as anybody. You used to be one, Unk, with a battalion all your own.

  History: (26.) Everybody on Mars came from Earth. They thought they would be better off on Mars. Nobody can remember what was so bad about Earth.

  Astronomy: (11.) Everything in the whole sky revolves around Mars once a day.

  Biology: (58.) New people come out of women when men and women sleep together. New people hardly ever come out of women on Mars because the men and the women sleep in different places.

  Theology: (15.) Somebody made everything for some reason.

  Geography: (16.) Mars is round. The only city on it is called Phoebe. Nobody knows why it is called Phoebe.

  Psychology: (103.) Unk, the big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.

  Medicine: (73.) When they clean out a man's memory on this place called Mars, they don't really clean it completely. They just clean out the middle of it, sort of. They always leave a lot of stuff in the corners. There is a story around about how they tried cleaning out a few memories completely. The poor people who had that done to them couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't do anything. The only thing anybody could think of to do with them was to housebreak them, teach them a basic vocabulary of a thousand words, and give them jobs in military or industrial public relations.

  The short story: (89.) Unk, your best friend is Stony Stevenson. Stony is a big, happy, strong man, and he drinks a quart of whisky a day. Stony doesn't have an antenna in his head, and he can remember everything that ever happened to him. He pretends to be an intelligence scout, but he is one of the real commanders. He radio-controls a company of assault infantrymen who are going to attack a place on Earth called England. Stony is from England. Stony likes the Army of Mars because there is so much to laugh about. Stony laughs all the time. He heard what an eightball you were, Unk, so he came over to your barrack to have a look at you. He pretended he was a friend of yours, so he could hear you talk. After a while, you got to trust him, Unk, and you told him some of your secret theories about what life on Mars was all about. Stony tried to laugh, but then he realized that you had turned up some things that he didn't know anything about. He couldn't get over it, because he was supposed to know everything, and you weren't supposed to know anything. And then you told Stony a lot of the big questions you wanted answered, and Stony knew the answers to only about half of them. And Stony went back to his barrack, and the questions he didn't know the answers to kept going around and around in his head. He couldn't sleep that night, even though he drank and drank and drank. He was catching on that somebody was using him, and he didn't have any idea who it was. He didn't even know why there had to be an Army of Mars in the first place. He didn't even know why Mars was going to attack Earth. And the more he remembered about Earth, the more he realized that the Army of Mars didn't have the chance of a snowball in hell. The big attack on Earth would be suicide for sure. Stony wondered who he could talk to about this, and there just wasn't anybody but you, Unk. So Stony staggered out of bed about an hour before sunrise, and he sneaked in your barrack, Unk, and he woke you up. He told you everything about Mars he knew. And he said that from now on he would tell you every bloody thing he found out, and you were supposed to tell him every bloody thing you found out. And every so often you two would get off somewhere and try to fit things together. And he gave you a bottle of whisky. And you both drank from it, and Stony said you were his best bloody friend. He said you were the only bloody friend he had ever had on Mars, even though he laughed all the time, and he cried, and almost woke up people around your bunk. He told you to watch out for Boaz, and then he went back to his barrack and slept like a baby.

  The letter, from the point of the short story on, was proof of the effectiveness of the secret observation team of Stony Stevenson and Unk. From that point on, the things known for sure in the letter were almost all introduced by phrases like: Stony says--and You found out--and Stony told you--and You told Stony--and You and Stony got roaring drunk out on the rifle range one night, and you two crazy bums decided--

  The most important thing that the two crazy bums decided was that the man who was in actual command of everything on Mars was a big, genial, smiling, yodeling man who always had a big dog with him This man and his dog, according to the letter to Unk, appeared at secret meetings of the real commanders of the Army of Mars about once every hundred days.

  The letter said nothing about it, because the writer knew nothing about it, but this man and his dog were Winston Niles Rumfoord and Kazak, the hound of space. And their appearances on Mars were not irregular. Being chrono-synclastic infundibulated, Rumfoord and Kazak appeared as predictably as Halley's Comet. They appeared on Mars once every one hundred and eleven days.

  As the letter to Unk said, (155.) According to Stony, this big guy and his dog show up at the meetings, and just snow everybody under. He is a big charm boy, and by the time a meeting is over everybody is trying to think just exactly the way he thinks. Every idea anybody has comes from him. He just smiles and smiles and yodels and yodels in that fancy voice of his, and fills everybody up with new ideas. And then all the people at the meeting pass around the ideas as though they had thought them up themselves. He is crazy about the game of German batball. Nobody knows what his name is. He just laughs, if anybody asks him. He usually wears the uniform of the Parachute Ski Marines, but the real commanders of the Parachute Ski Marines swear they've never seen him anywhere but at the secret meetings.

  (156.) Unk, old pal, said the letter to Unk, every time you and Stony find out something new, add it on to this letter. Keep this letter well hidden. And every time you change its hiding place, be sure to tell Stony where you put it. That way, even if you go to the hospital to have your memory cleaned out, Stony can tell you where to go to have your memory filled up again.

  (157.) Unk--you know why you keep on going? You keep on going because you have a mate and a child. Almost nobody on Mars has either one. Your mate's name is Bee. She is an instructress at the Schliemann Breathing
School in Phoebe. Your son's name is Chrono. He lives in the grade school in Phoebe. According to Stony Stevenson, Chrono is the best German batball player in the school. Like everybody else on Mars, Bee and Chrono have learned to get along all alone. They don't miss you. They never think of you. But you have to prove to them that they need you in the biggest way possible.

  (158.) Unk, you crazy son-of-a-bitch, I love you. I think you are the cat's pajamas. When you get this little family of yours together, swipe a space ship and go flying away to somewhere peaceful and beautiful, some place where you don't have to take goofballs all the time to stay alive. Take Stony with you. And when you get settled down, all of you spend a lot of time trying to figure out why whoever made everything went and made it.

  All that remained for Unk to read of the letter was the signature.

  The signature was on a separate page.

  Before turning to the signature, Unk tried to imagine the character and appearance of the writer. The writer was fearless. The writer was such a lover of truth that he would expose himself to any amount of pain in order to add to his store of truth. He was superior to Unk and Stony. He watched and recorded their subversive activities with love, amusement, and detachment.

  Unk imagined the writer as being a marvelous old man with a white beard and the build of a blacksmith.

  Unk turned the page and read the signature.

  I remain faithfully yours--was the sentiment expressed above the signature.

  The signature itself filled almost the whole page. It was three block letters, six inches high and two inches wide. The letters were executed clumsily, with a smeary black kindergarten exuberance.

  This was the signature:

  The signature was Unk's.

  Unk was the hero who had written the letter.

  Unk had written the letter to himself before having his memory cleaned out. It was literature in its finest sense, since it made Unk courageous, watchful, and secretly free. It made him his own hero in very trying times.

  Unk did not know that the man he had murdered at the stake was his best friend, was Stony Stevenson. Had he known that, he might have killed himself. But Fate spared him that awful knowledge for many years.

  When Unk got back to his barrack, jungle knives and bayonets were being honed with harsh scree-scraws. Everyone was sharpening a blade.

  And everywhere were sheepish smiles of a peculiar sort. The smiles spoke of sheep who, under proper conditions, could commit murder gladly.

  Orders had just been received that the regiment was to proceed with all possible haste to its space ships.

  The war with Earth had begun.

  Advance units of the Martian Imperial Commandos had already obliterated Earthling installations on the Earthling moon. The Commando rocket batteries, firing from the moon, were now giving every major city a taste of hell.

  And, as dinner music for those tasting hell, Martian radios were beaming this message to Earth in a maddening sing-song:

  Brown man, white man, yellow man--surrender or die. Brown man, white man, yellow man--surrender or die.

  chapter six

  A DESERTER IN TIME OF WAR

  "I am at a loss to understand why German batball is not an event, possibly a key event, in the Olympic Games."

  --WINSTON NILES RUMFOORD

  It was a six-mile march from the army camp to the plain where the invasion fleet lay. And the route of the march cut across the northwest corner of Phoebe, the only city on Mars.

  The population of Phoebe at its height, according to Winston Niles Rumfoord's Pocket History of Mars, was eighty-seven thousand. Every soul and every structure in Phoebe was directly related to the war effort. The mass of Phoebe's workers were controlled just as the soldiers were controlled, by antennas under their skulls.

  Unk's company was now marching through the northwest corner of Phoebe, on its way in the midst of its regiment to the fleet. It was thought unnecessary now to keep the soldiers moving and in ranks by means of twinges from their antennas. War fever had them now.

  They chanted as they marched, and set their iron-heeled boots down hard on the iron street. Their chant was bloody:

  Terror, grief, and desolation--

  Hut, tup, thrup, fo!--

  Come to every Earthling nation!

  Hut, tup, thrup, fo!--

  Earth eat fire! Earth wear chains!

  Hut, tup, thrup, fo!

  Break Earth's spirit, spill Earth's brains!

  Hut, tup, thrup, fo!

  Scream! Tup, thrup, fo!

  Bleed! Tup, thrup, fo!

  Die! Tup, thrup, fo!

  Doooooooooommmmmmmmmm.

  The factories of Phoebe were still going full blast. No one was idling in the streets to watch the chanting heroes pass. Windows winked as dazzling torches inside went off and on. A doorway vomited spattering, smoking yellow light as metal was poured. The screams of grinding wheels cut through the soldiers' chant.

  Three flying saucers, blue scout ships, skimmed low over the city, making sweet cooing sounds like singing tops. "Toodleoo," they seemed to sing, and they skimmed away in a flat course while the surface of Mars curved away beneath them. In two shakes of a lamb's tail, they were twinkling in space eternal.

  "Terror, grief and desolation--" chanted the troops.

  But one soldier was moving his lips without making a sound. The soldier was Unk.

  Unk was in the first file of the next to the last rank of his company.

  Boaz was right behind him, his eyes making the back of Unk's neck itch. Boaz and Unk, moreover, were made Siamese twins by the long tube of a six-inch siege mortar which they were carrying between them.

  "Bleed! Tup, thrup, fo!" chanted the troops. "Die! Tup, thrup, fo! Doooooooooommmmmmmmmm."

  "Unk, old buddy--" said Boaz.

  "Yes, old buddy?" said Unk absently. He was holding, amid the confusion of his soldier's harness, a live hand grenade. The pin had been pulled. To make it go off in three seconds, Unk had only to let go of it.

  "I done fixed us up with a good assignment, old buddy," said Boaz. "Old Boaz--he takes care of his buddy, don't he, buddy?"

  "That's right, buddy," said Unk.

  Boaz had arranged things so that he and Unk would be on board the company mother ship for the invasion. The company mother ship, though it would, through a logistical fluke, be carrying the tube of the siege mortar, was essentially a noncombat ship. It was meant to carry only two men, the rest of the space being taken up by candy, sporting goods, recorded music, canned hamburgers, board games, goofballs, soft drinks, Bibles, note paper, barber kits, ironing boards, and other morale-builders.

  "That's a lucky start, ain't it, old buddy--getting on the mother ship?"

  "Lucky us, old buddy," said Unk. He had just chucked the grenade into a sewer as he passed.

  There was a spout and roar from the throat of the sewer.

  The soldiers hurled themselves to the street.

  Boaz, as the real commander of the company, was the first to raise his head. He saw the smoke coming from the sewer, supposed that it was sewer gas that had exploded.

  Boaz slipped his hand into his pocket, pressed a button, fed to his company the signal that would make them stand up again.

  As they stood, Boaz stood, too. "God damn, buddy," he said, "I guess we done had a baptism of fire."

  He picked up his end of the siege mortar's tube.

  There was nobody to pick up the other end.

  Unk had gone in search of his wife and son and his best friend.

  Unk had gone over the hill on flat, flat, flat, flat Mars.

  The son that Unk was looking for was named Chrono.

  Chrono was, by Earthling reckoning, eight years old.

  He was named after the month in which he had been born. The Martian year was divided into twenty-one months, twelve with thirty days, and nine with thirty-one. These months were named January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, Dece
mber, Winston, Niles, Rumfoord, Kazak, Newport, Chrono, Synclastic, Infundibulum, and Salo.

  Mnemonically:

  Thirty days have Salo, Niles, June, and September,

  Winston, Chrono, Kazak, and November,

  April, Rumfoord, Newport, and Infundibulum.

  All the rest, baby mine, have thirty-one.

  The month of Salo was named after a creature Winston Niles Rumfoord knew on Titan. Titan, of course, is an extremely pleasant moon of Saturn.

  Salo, Rumfoord's crony on Titan, was a messenger from another galaxy who was forced down on Titan by the failure of a part in his space ship's power plant. He was waiting for a replacement part.

  He had been waiting patiently for two hundred thousand years.

  His ship was powered, and the Martian war effort was powered, by a phenomenon known as UWTB, or the Universal Will to Become. UWTB is what makes universes out of nothingness--that makes nothingness insist on becoming somethingness.

  Many Earthlings are glad that Earth does not have UWTB.

  As the popular doggerel has it:

  Willy found some Universal Will to Become,

  Mixed it with his bubble gum.

  Cosmic piddling seldom pays:

  Poor Willy's six new Milky Ways.

  Unk's son Chrono was, at eight years old, a wonderful player of a game called German batball. German batball was all that he cared about. German batball was the major sport on Mars--in the grammar school, in the Army, and in the factory workers' recreation areas.

  Since there were only fifty-two children on Mars, Mars got along with just one grammar school, right in the middle of Phoebe. None of the fifty-two children there had been conceived on Mars. All had been conceived either on Earth or, as in Chrono's case, on a space ship bringing new recruits to Mars.

  The children in the school studied very little, since the society of Mars had no particular use for them They spent most of their time playing German batball.