‘Perhaps the minor regulations will be controlled by authority,’ he said quietly. Given good assumptions, he should discover who she was in a few days.
Thwarn stretched his wings for flight, ruffling ribbons on the rice-entrenched carcasses. Then he launched himself through the open window. His girl followed, out into the currents of dawn.
The two vulturine figures headed for the mountains of their hexagrams.
* * * *
III. The Great Chain of Being What?
Three distinct things happened, but in no sequence; time was squeezed from them, leaving them flat. They happened apart, but were instantaneous within the honeycombed frozen expanse of Wartlinger’s mind.
The first thing was: he was opening the door, saying to himself as he did so, ‘I will always be alien here, never able to take for granted the way doors open in this distant place, for this one betraying detail alone grinds at me continually.’
The detail was a small one. The lock and handle of the door were on the same side of the door as the hinges. The lock simply rendered the hinges inoperative; the handle, when twisted, activated springs which forced the door open, so that no muscular exertion was required by whoever or whatever passed through there. All perfectly simple. And normal. Normal here.
The second thing was: he was through the door and looking beyond, saying to himself, ‘However strange these people seem, there is a place for me among them. My Options are to get along with them or not.’
There were many people. They stood on the wild shore, endlessly active, working in groups or pairs. Many could be seen far out in the shallow estuarine waters, still working. Some were alone, practising poses or executing sarabands with arms above their heads. Most of them were engaged in unpacking huge boxes from which, amid much straw and other waste, they withdrew smaller boxes. Most of the available space was taken up by boxes, giving it the appearance of a vast disorderly camp-site. Some of the boxes lay in the water, sinking by degrees.
Among the litter were notices, no calculating in public. it is inaccessible to warp on the glass, penury : no spots, questions being enacted: do not distribute. police do not bend. this side out.
Wartlinger was among the people. Most of them had arms and legs. Some of these limbs were in good supply, though often they were rudely fashioned from whatever material was easily available. Their bodies also appeared to be constructed of cannibalised spare parts. Their heads were generally shaped like lemons, the surfaces made from some plain material like calico. On the calico was painted or printed their expression. Most of the expressions were blank; others were smiles or frowns or moues of astonishment, determination or ferocity, crudely indicated.
The movements and gestures of the people appeared uncertain and hasty, though there was no sign that they were aware of any impediment. Most of them seemed positively to enjoy the proximity of their own kind.
Wartlinger observed that some of the boxes they were unpacking contained fresh people, who leaped to life as soon as they were uncovered. The boxes were arriving over the water, presumably washed in by a slight tide. The water had a hard unhealthy look to it, as if made of countless myriads of microscopic plastic balls.
The third thing was: the closure of the door in some fashion brought darkness everywhere. To Wartlinger this darkness seemed, like the water, artificial in a way not easily definable, as if it too were made from endless minute black balls. It felt gritty against his pupils. As he closed his eyes, he noticed that the beach was empty. All the people had gone. Only the old boxes remained, discarded on the shore or sinking in the sea.
These three distinct things happened not in any sequence but instantaneously, as if all in one picture. It was perfectly possible to say that the gritty darkness had fallen even before he opened the door, perfectly possible to say that boxes rose from the sea bed, perfectly possible to say that none of the busy people stirred from where they stood. Time was squeezed from the happenings. They occurred apart, but were coincidental within the expanse of Wartlinger’s mind.
He removed the brain cell slide from his head and switched off the projector. As he sat thinking about where he had been, he glanced at the title of the slide. It was called existence.
He took up the next slide. It was called hereafter. He switched on the projector and inserted the slide in his head...
<
* * * *
WISE CHILD
John Rackham
The twenty-five years between seventeen and forty-two, we are told, pass at an accelerating rate, so that from a staid and normal one second per second as one enters this period life seems to whirl along at many times that speed as one is ejected out the other end. Some people call the unhappy results of this phenomenon the generation gap. The happy results are known as experience. But how to convey that experience and hurdle the gap if you were faced with problems over and above those of the ordinary human being?
* * * *
Alan Lomax stood by the window to watch his wife Milly reach the garden gate and pull it open. The slight breeze touched hair that was still golden, disturbed her fashionably brief skirt against legs that were still very much worth looking at. She was still, he mused, a nicely attractive person in a thoroughly reliable, negative kind of way. She passed through, clicked the gate shut, and paused just a moment to wave before going off to the village. Lomax was quite genuinely fond of her, but as soon as he had made the looked-for gesture at the window and turned away, he dismissed her entirely from his thoughts. There were documents on his desk, and his son Michael watching, and wondering.
‘I didn’t think my ‘A’-levels would be all that interesting to you, Dad,’ he said now. ‘Or was there something else you wanted to see me about?’
‘There was something else, yes, but of course I’m pleased that you’ve done so well, Michael. I may not have shown very much interest in your work at school, but that was simply because I didn’t want you to feel that you were under any pressure, that I was expecting anything great from you. I was, for all that. Every father does expect his son to do well. In that respect I’m quite human.’ Lomax spoke quietly and with precision, as if delicately weighing each word before letting it escape. His slight smile, the keen steadiness of his observation as his son now looked just a little bit guilty, all these were part of his habitual appearance and behaviour, a ‘part’ that he had been playing for many years. Michael was obviously stuck for something to say. Lomax came to his rescue smoothly. . ‘These examination results,’ he took up the papers briefly, let them fall again, ‘are only the beginning, of course. You’ll want to go on, to University, to degrees ... and then what ? Any particular aims or ambitions?’
At seventeen, Michael Lomax was lean, almost frail, with the pale skin and jet black hair commonly regarded as Semitic. Already he had acquired some of the older man’s habit of guarding his thoughts, but the gleam of enthusiasm in his eye was quite visible as he said, ‘It might be a bit of a surprise for you, but yes, I know what I want to do. Anthropology. You know? Social science? What makes people tick?’
‘It doesn’t surprise me in the least. That is the ‘something else’ I wanted to have this talk with you about. To explain to you why it is out of the question.’ Lomax made that careful smile again, put up a palm to stop the immediate protest, went around his desk and to his son, then gestured to the comfortable Chesterfield in the corner. ‘Come and sit. We have a lot to talk about.’
Michael sat unwillingly, looking sullen. Lomax turned words over in his mind, seeking the best approach. Perhaps a question would serve. ‘Tell me,’ he invited, ‘just how much you actually know about me, and the kind of work I do. Briefly, that is.’
‘About you ? You’re my father. You’re a lawyer ... at least, you give people technical advice on legal matters. A consultant. And you write books, fiction, under a pseudonym. I suppose they are good. They sell, anyway. I find them dull, thick with moralisings and preachings!’
‘They aren’t aimed
at you or your generation. Not yet. But anyway, you’d expect, wouldn’t you, that of all people I should have little difficulty in getting an idea across to anyone?’ Michael hunched his shoulders in unwilling agreement, looking somewhat puzzled now. ‘And yet,’ Lomax went on, ‘I have something to tell you that is so strange, will be so unexpected to you, that I have difficulty knowing how and where to begin, how to present it to you so that you won’t think I’m joking. ‘So,’ he watched the boy’s expression critically for the right length of time to hold it back, ‘I’ll just give it to you point-blank. It is just this. You are not human!’
Michael went blank for a moment, then came a smile that anticipated some pay-off. But then after several seconds of waiting the smile grew strained.
‘You’re serious? It’s not a joke, some kind of catch question?’ Lomax didn’t bother to answer, but waited. ‘It’s ridiculous! Of course I’m human! You’re not trying to make something out of ... whatever you may have heard me say at some time or other...?’ Lomax let him go on, waited patiently. ‘What do you mean, not human? I eat and sleep, I breathe ... prick me and I bleed, as Shylock said. If I’m not human then what?’
‘Ah!’ Lomax nodded and sat back, clasping his hands in his lap. ‘What is the term for an entity that resembles a human in every superficial way?’
‘I dunno!’ Michael scowled at it. ‘Unless you mean humanoid?’
‘And humanoid means...?’
‘Well ... anything that looks like a human, but not human in origin. Is that what you mean? It can’t be. I’ve lived here in this house all my life! I was born here! Unless ...’ and the sudden inspiration made his expression fall open in astonishment, ‘... you mean ... you ? You’re not human?’
‘That’s it!’
Michael got up, crossed the room to the window and stood, looking out. He stood very still. ‘Not a joke,’ he mumbled, ‘so either you’re raving mad ... or it’s some kind of test. I dunno what you’re hoping to prove. My intelligence, is it ? The exam results ought to do that. So what am I supposed to say? You’re not a robot, that’s obvious. Nor yet an android. Biochemistry hasn’t got that far yet. So what’s left? The supernatural?’ He swung round in sudden consternation. ‘It’s not that, is it?’
Lomax chuckled easily. ‘Not that. I am neither djinn, goblin nor demon. Nor vampire, werewolf or any of the other things.’
‘Then there’s only one thing left, so far as I can see.’ The youth came back to the seat and perched, his expression now a kind of disgust. ‘You’re not going to try to tell me you’re from the stars, or something?’
‘And why not?’
‘Oh no!’ Michael groaned, looking away. To Lomax’s keen eye he was visibly struggling not to be rude and abusive. This was a forthright generation, he reflected, and riddled with disillusion too. He tried to remember himself at seventeen, when he had received the same shattering news from his father .. but that was a long time ago, and Michael was still struggling. ‘What am I supposed to believe, that you’re a Martian, or a Venusian, or something?’
‘Now you’re being impertinent, and silly!’
‘What d’you expect?’ Michael was shrill in his rejection. ‘All that stuff about space-travel, flying saucers ... nobody with any sense takes that seriously any more! Not now!’
‘And now,’ Lomax stood, growing slightly impatient, ‘now you’re being obstinate. And rather stupid. Shall I put it more clearly? You are saying, in flat contradiction to many of Earth’s acknowledged experts and philosophers, that this is the only inhabited planet... the only planetary system in the whole universe that has given birth to advanced intelligence.’
‘I never said that!’
‘Didn’t you ? It sounded remarkably like it to me. Wasn’t there a notorious Astronomer Royal who said something along the same lines ? Space-travel is utter bilge ... I believe?’
Michael went red. ‘That’s not the same thing at all. He was talking about travelling as far as the Moon, and anybody with any sense knew that it could be done, long before anyone did it. And anyone with any sense has to admit that there must be other intelligences somewhere...’
‘But... ?’ Lomax supplied the word that was in his tone.
‘But it just isn’t on. The travel, I mean. The distances!’
‘You’re inconsistent.’ Lomax sat again, settled back, adopted his familiar pose of calm rationality. ‘If you are prepared to assume there are other intelligent entities in the universe, you must also assume that their development levels vary. If you can put aside the conceit that Earth is the only intelligent planet, you must also put aside the idea that the human level is the ultimate so far. Don’t you agree?’
Lomax watched the boy keenly, seeing the struggle, the indecision. At precisely the right moment he spoke again. ‘Does it matter about the technical details? Suppose you assume that what I am saying is true, that I am alien, from another world, and proceed from there. Or, to get at least one detail precise, not me personally. My grandfather. However else you may be wrong about the travel between one star and another, you are correct in that it is difficult. Expensive in time and effort. So we are few, and rare.’
‘All right.’ Michael hunched his shoulders resignedly. ‘If you like. But what’s it all for, then? Why are you here and what are you supposed to be doing? When do you take over?’
‘It’s nothing like that!’ Lomax snapped, then caught at his impatience carefully. ‘This is not fiction, with spies and fifth columns and all the high adventure trimmings. Not at all. Nothing spectacular. For instance there is very little biological difference between ourselves and humans. And this should hardly surprise you. Chemistry is chemistry, all over the universe. Similar problems evolve similar answers. There were several proto-human types on Earth at one period, but only one of those had all the necessary survival points. The same thing happened on several other planets with Earth-type characteristics, and will eventually happen on all of them. Of course you’re familiar with the basic tenets of Darwinism, and the effects of pressure on survival?’
‘Who isn’t ? But I didn’t know you were well up on that stuff!’
‘Which merely helps to make my point, that you know very little about me in fact, and that I am successful in passing as an ordinary human.’ Michael was starting now to lose his total rejection attitude, becoming interested in spite of himself. Lomax smiled inwardly. ‘Darwin was quite wrong in one area. Physical fitness to survive may indeed be selected out by the pressure of danger and enemies on all sides. But perpetually running for your life is hardly the best environment for developing the mental and spiritual qualities of life. On other worlds, not nearly as inherently violent as this, the humanoid pattern is considerably ahead of Earth in its wisdom. That is quite a long story, and I won’t go over it all here and now.’ He rose and crossed to his bookshelf, took down a pair of gold-embossed volumes and brought them to Michael.
‘Trevelyan’s History of England?’
‘Dummy covers. These two volumes contain a full account of the many expeditions made to Earth by our people, dating as far back as five thousand bc. The script is easily learned, and there is a full glossary. Study them carefully, at your leisure. But these books are not to leave this room, on any account. Remember that.’ Michael’s eyes were wide now as he watched the books being laid aside.
‘You still haven’t told me what it’s all about, what it’s for?’
‘In a sense we are missionaries. Our exploratory visits to Earth, even in the very early days, showed a pattern that has been amply confirmed since. Man is explosively progressive, but with a crippling bias. All the emphasis is on physical effort, physical power, physical science. I am not condemning,’ he added hastily, ‘at all. I merely point out that Man is very like a giant in his potential for progress, but like a child in his mental growth. And that is a fatal, one might say lethal, combination.’
‘Hang on a bit! Now you’re being inconsistent!’ Michael thrust his head forward in sudd
en objection. ‘We’re still here, aren’t we? In a bit of a mess, God knows, but we still survive. Clever people have been prophesying doom and disaster for centuries ... but we are still here. What d’you mean, lethal?’
‘Take the human stance by all means, for the purpose of debate, Michael, but please do not identify with them. And let me answer your question with another. Why is it that humanity can talk of ethics, of fair play, of sympathy, empathy, logic and reason, even common-sense ... can talk of these things with a great deal of passion, but has the greatest difficulty in putting them into any kind of practice? And where do you suppose these ideas came from? And why is it that they have to be taught, always ? Man has never needed teaching how to be violent, warlike, destructive, that is inherent. The peaceful, non-violent and rational approach to living has always been some “teaching” or other. Consult your history, or the case-books of the social science you’re interested in.’
‘You mean ... you aliens ... have been...?’ Michael backed away from the idea that so obviously filled his mind. ‘Christ? Buddha? Confucius? People like that ... were aliens?’
New Writings in SF 22 - [Anthology] Page 7