The Kyben Stories

by Harlan Ellison

  He found the subjects leaping to the front of his mind, tumbling from his lips. He had been second in his class of twelve hundred, and it had all stuck.

  Furth cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Let’s take that history. Capsule it for me.”

  Furth was a big man, eyes oddly set far back in hollows above deep yellow cheeks, hair white about the temples, a lean and electric man, the type who radiates energy even when asleep. Themus suspected this was his superior’s way of testing him. He recited:

  “The Corps is dedicated to gathering data. It will Watch and detect, assimilate and file. Nothing will escape the gaze of the Watcher. As the eagle soars, so the eye of the Watcher will fly to all things.”

  “God, no, man, I mean the History! The History.“ The elder Watcher precision-tapped his fingers one after another in irritation. “What is the story of the Kyben. Of Kyba itself. Of your job here. What is our relation to these?”

  He waved his hand, taking in the bar, the people in the streets, the entire planet and its twin suns blazing yellow in the afternoon sky.

  Themus licked his thin lips, “The Kyben rule the Galaxy—is that what you want?” He breathed easier as the older man nodded. He continued, by rote: “The Kyben rule the Galaxy. They are the organizers. All other races realize the superior reasoning and administrative powers of the Kyben, and thus allow the Kyben to rule the Galaxy.”

  He stopped, biting his lower lip, “With your permission, Superior, can I do this some other way? Back at Academy-Central memorization was required, even on Penares it seemed apropos, but somehow—here—it sounds foolish to me. No disrespect intended, you understand. I’d just like to ramble it off quickly. I gather all you want are the basics.”

  The older man nodded his head for Themus to continue in any fashion he chose.

  “We are a power, and all the others are too scared of us to try usurping because we run it all better than any ten of them could, and the only trouble is with the Earthmen and the Mawson Confederation, with whom we are negotiating right now. The only thing we have against us is this planet of black sheep relatives. They happen to be our people. but we left them some eleven hundred years ago because they were a pain in the neck and the Kyben realized they had a universe to conquer, and we wish we could get lid of them, because they’re all quite mad, and if anyone finds out about them, we’ll lose prestige, and besides they’re a nuisance.”

  He found himself out of breath after the long string of phrases, and he stopped for a second. “There isn’t a sane person on this planet, which isn’t strange because all the 4-Fs were left when our ancestors took to space. In the eleven hundred years we’ve been running the Galaxy, these Crackpots have created a culture of imbecility for themselves. The Watcher garrison is maintained, to make sure the lunatics don’t escape and damage our position with the other worlds around us.

  “If you have a black sheep relative, you either put him away under surveillance so he can’t bother you, or you have him exterminated. Since we aren’t barbarians like the Earthmen, we keep the madmen here, and watch them full time.”

  He stopped, realizing he had covered the subject quite well, and because he saw the sour expression on Furth’s face.

  “That’s what they taught you at Academy-Central?” asked the senior Watcher.

  “That’s about it, except that Watcher units are all over the Galaxy, from Penares to Kyba, from the home planet to our furthest holding, doing a job for which they were trained and which no other order could do. Performing an invaluable service to all Kyben, from Kyben-Central outward to the edges of our exploration.”

  “Then don’t you ever forget it, hear?” snapped Furth, leaning quickly across to the younger man. “Don’t you ever let it slip out of your mind. If anything happens while you’re awake and on the scene, and you miss it, no matter how insignificant, you’ll wind up in the Mines.” As if to illustrate his point, he clicked the dicto-box to “on” and spoke briefly into it, keeping his eyes on a girl neatly pouring the contents of a row of glasses on the bar’s floor and eating the glasses, all but the stems, which she left lying in an orderly pile.

  He concluded, and leaned back toward Themus, pointing a stubby finger. “You’ve got a soft job here, boy. Ten years as a Watcher and you can retire. Back to a nice cozy apartment in a Project at Kyben-Central or any other planet you choose, with anyone you choose, doing anything you choose—within the bounds of the Covenant, of course. You’re lucky you made it into the Corps. Many a mother’s son would give his mother to be where you are.”

  He lifted the helix-glass to his lips and drained it.

  Themus sat, scratched his nose, and watched the purple liquid disappear.

  It was his first day on Kyba, his Superior had straightened him out, he knew his place, he knew his job. Everything was clean and top-notch.

  Somehow he was miserable.

  Themus looked at himself. At himself as he knew he was, not as he thought he was. This was a time for realities, not for wishful thinking.

  He was twenty-three, average height, blue hair, blue eyes, light complexion—just a bit lighter than the average gold-color of his people-superior intelligence, and with the rigid, logical mind of his kind. He was an accepted Underclass member of the Watcher Corps with a year of intern work at Penares-Base and an immediate promotion to Kyba, which was acknowledged the soft spot before retirement. For a man as new to the Corps as Themus’ five yearsmade him, this was a remarkable thing, and explainable only by his quick and brilliant dictographic background.

  He was a free man, a quick mart with a dicto-box, a good-looking man, and unfortunately, an unhappy man.

  He was confused by it all.

  His summation of himself was suddenly shattered by the rest of his squad’s entrance into the common-room, voices pitched on a dozen different levels.

  They came through the sliding doors, jostling and joking with one another, all tall and straight, all handsome and intelligent.

  “You should have seen the one I got yesterday,” said one man, zipping up his chest-armor. “He was sitting in the Dog’s-Skull—you know, that little place on the corner of Bremen and Gabrett —with a bowl of noodle soup in front ofhim, tying the things together. “ The rest of the speaker’s small group laughed uproariously. “When I asked him what he was doing, he said, ‘I’m a noodle-knitter, stupid.’ He called me stupid! A noodle-knitter!” He elbowed the Underclassman next to him in the ribs and they both roared with laughter.

  Across the room, strapping his dicto-box to his chest one of the elder Underclassmen was studiously holding court.

  “The worst ones are the psychos, gentlemen. I assure you, from six years service here, that they take every prize ever invented. They are destructive, confusing, and elaborate to record. I recall one who was stacking juba-fruits in a huge pyramid in front of the library on Hemmorth Court. I watched him for seven hours, then suddenly he leaped up,bellowing, kicking the whole thing over, threw himself through a shop-front, attacked a woman shopping in the store, and finally came to rest exhausted in the gutter. It was a twenty-eight minute record, and I assure you it stretched my ability to quick-dictate. If he had...”

  Themus lost the train of the fellow’s description. The talks were going on all over the common-room as the squad prepared to go out. His was one of three hundred such squads, all over the city, shifted every four hours of the thirty-two hour day so there was no section of the city left untended. Few, if any, things escaped the notice of the Watcher Corps.

  He pulled on his soft-soled jump-boots, buckled his dicto-box about him, and moved into the briefing room for instructions.

  The rows of seats were fast filling up, and Themus hurried down the aisle.

  Furth, dressed in an off-duty suit of plastic body armor with elaborate scrollwork embossed on it, and the traditional black great-cape, was seated with legs neatly crossed at the front of the room, on a slightly raised podium.

  Themus took a seat next to the Watche
r named Elix, one who had been chortling over an escapade with a pretty female Crackpot. Themus found himself looking at the other as though he were a mirror image. Odd how so many of us look alike, he thought. Then he caught himself. It was a ridiculous thought, and an incorrect one, of course. It was not that they looked alike, it was merely that the Kyben had found for themselves a central line, a median, to which they conformed. It was so much more logical and rewarding that way. If your brother looks and act as you do, you can predict him. If you can predict him, efficiency will follow.

  Only these Crackpots defied prediction. Madmen!

  “There are two current items on our orders of business today, gentlemen,” Furth announced, rising.

  Note pads and styli appeared as though by magic, but Furth shook his head and indicated they were not needed.

  “No, these aren’t memoranda, gentlemen. The first is a problem of discipline. The second is an alert.” There was a restless murmur in the room, and Themus glanced around to see uneasiness on many faces. What could it be?

  “The problem of discipline is simply—” he pointed at Elix seated beside Themus, “—such of your Underclassmen as Watcher Elix.”

  Elix rose to attention.

  “Pack your gear, Watcher Elix, you leave for Kyben-Central this afternoon."

  Themus noted with fascination that the Watcher’s face turned a shade paler.

  “M—may I ask why, Superior Furth?” Elix gasped out, maintaining Corps protocol even through his panic.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” replied Furth in a casual, matter-of-fact manner. “You were on the scene of an orgy in the Hagars Building yesterday during second-shift, were you not?”

  Elix swallowed with difficulty and nodded yes, then catching himself he said, “Yes, Superior Forth.”

  “How much of that orgy did you record?”

  “As much as I could before it broke up, sir.”

  “What you mean is, as much as you could before you found that fondling a young woman named Guzbee was more interesting than your on-duty job. Correct?”

  “She—she just talked to me for a short time, Superior; I recorded the entire affair. It was—”

  “Out!” Furth pointed toward the door to the common-room. Elix slumped visibly, turned out of the row, walked up the aisle, and out of the briefing-room.

  “And let that be an indication, gentlemen, that we will tolerate no activities with these people, be they Kyben or not. We are here to watch, and there are enough female-Watchers and Central personnel so that any desires that may be aroused in you may be quenched without recourse to our wards. Is that quite clear, gentlemen?”

  He did not wait for an answer. They knew it was clear, and he knew it was clear. The message had been transmitted in the most readily understood manner.

  “Now to the other business at hand,” continued Furth. “We are currently looking for a man named Boolbak, who, we are told, pinches steel. I have no explanation of this description, gentlemen, merely that he ‘pinches steel.’

  “I can tell you that he has a big, bushy white beard, what they call twinkling eyes, a puffy-cheeked face and a scar across his forehead from temple to temple. He weighs something between 190 and 200 pounds, fat and short, and always dresses in a red jacket and knickers with white fur on them.

  “If you see this man, you are to follow him, dictograph him completely—completely, do you understand?—and not lose sight of him unless you are relieved by at least ten other Watchers. Is that clear?”

  Again he did not wait for an answer, but snapped his fingers casually, indicating the daily briefing was over.

  Themus rose with the other thirty-eight Watchers and began to leave the room. There was a uniform look on all their faces; they all had the picture of Elix behind their eyes. Themus began to edge out of his row. He started when Furth called to him.

  “Oh, Watcher Themus, I’d like a word with you.”

  Furth was a strange man, in many ways. He did not fit Themus’ picture of a Superior, from previous experience with them, and, still bewildered by the abrupt fate assigned Elix, he found himself looking on his Superior with a mixture of awe, incredulousness, hatred and fear.

  “I hope the—uh—little lesson you saw today will not upset you. It was a harsh measure, to be sure, but it was the only way to get the point across.”

  Themus knew precisely what the Superior Watcher meant, for he had been taught from youth that this was the way matters should be handled. He also knew what he felt, but he was Kyben, and Kyben know their place.

  Furth looked at him for a long moment, then pulled the black sheen that was his cloak closer about him. “I have you slated for big things here, Themus. We will have a post open for a new Junior Watcher in another six to eight months, and your record indicates you’re a strong possibility.”

  Themus was shocked at the familiarity in both conversation protocol and exposition of Corps business, but he kept the astonishment from showing on his face.

  “So I want you to keep an eye open here in Valasah,” continued Furth. “There are a number of—well—irregularities we want to put a stop to.”

  “What sort of irregularities, Superior?” The Superior’s familiarities had caused a corresponding ease to settle over the Underclassman.

  “For one, this fraternization—oh, strictly on an ‘occupying troops’ level, to be sure, but still a deviation from the norm—and another is that we’ve had a number of men leave the Corps.”

  “You mean sent home or—like Watcher Elix?”

  The Superior squirmed visibly. “Well, no, not exactly. What I mean is, they’ve—you might say disappeared.”

  Themus’ eyes opened wider in surprise. “Disappeared? That indicates free choice.”

  The roles of Superior and Underclassman seemed for the moment to have been transposed, as Furth tried to explain to the new Watcher. “They’ve just gone. That’s all. We can’t find any trace of them. We suspect the Crackpots have been up to tricks more annoying than usual.”

  He suddenly stopped, realizing he had lowered himself by explaining to a lesser, and drew himself erect.

  “But then, there’s always been a certain percentage of loss here. Unusual, but not too unusual. This is a mad world, don’t forget.”

  Themus nodded.

  “But then, to compensate, there are a certain number of Crackpots who want to leave their insane people,also. We take off a good three hundred every year; people with the proper Kyben mind, the kind who can snap into a problem and solve it in no time. Good, logical thinkers. The administrative type. You know.”

  “I see, sir,” said Themus, not at all understanding.

  He was becoming more and more lost in trying to fathom his Superior.

  The elder Watcher seemed to sense a change in the underclassman’s attitude, for once again he became brusque, realizing he had overstepped himself.

  “Well, accurate snooping, to you. Good rounds!”

  Themus snapped a brisk salute at the Superior and left quickly.

  His beat that day was the Seventh Sector, a twelve-block coverage with five fellow Watchers, their rounds overlapping. It was a route from the docks to the minaret-village. From the stock-pens near the Golwal Institute to the pueblo-city.

  Valasah, like all cities on Kyba, was a wild melange of disorder. Airy, fragile towers of transparent plastic rose spiraling next to squat quonset-buildings. Teepees hunkered down next to buildings, of multi-dimensional eccentricity, whose arms twisted in on themselves till the eye lost the track of their form.

  Streets twisted and suddenly opened onto others. Many stopped dead as though their builders had tired of the effort of continuing. Large empty lots stood next to stores in which customers fought to get at the merchandise.

  The people strutted, capered, hobbled, marched and walked backward on both hands and feet through the streets, in the stores, across the tops of a hundred different styles of transportation.

  Themus snapped his dicto-box on and sp
oke, “Record,” into it. Then he walked slowly down one street, up the next, into an office building, through doors, past knots of people, dictating anything and everything. Occasionally he would see a fellow Watcher and they would exchange salutes, eyes never leaving their wards.

  The Crackpots seemed oblivious to his presence. No conversation would slow or halt at his approach, no one would move from his path, all seemed to accept him somehow.

  This bothered Themus.

  Why aren’t they angry at our eavesdropping? he wondered. Why do they tolerate us so? Is it fear of the Kyben might? But they are Kyben, too. They call us Stuffed-Shirts, but they are still Kyben. Or were once. What happened to the Kyben night that was born into each of them?

  His thoughts were cut off by sight of an old woman, skin almost yellow-white from age, rapidly wielding a three-pronged pickaxe at the cement of a gutter. He stopped, began dictating, and watched as she broke through the street, pulling out huge gouts of cement-work and dirt from underneath. In a moment she was down on hands and knees, feverishly digging with her gnarled old hands at the dirt.

  After thirty-nine minutes, her hands were raw and bleeding, the hole was quite four feet deep, and she kneeled in it, dirt arcing away into the air.

  The fifty-minute mark brought her to a halt. She climbed laboriously out of the six-foot hole, grabbed the pickaxe and leaped back in. Themus moved nearer the edge. She was hacking away madly at a sewer pipe some three feet thick.

  In a few moments she had driven a gaping hole in the side of the pipe. She reached into her bodice and brought out a piece of what looked like dirty oilcloth, strung with wires.

  Themus was astounded to see both clear water and garbage running out of the pipe. Both were running together. No, they looked as though they were running together, but the flow of clean water came spurting out in one direction, while the muck and garbage sprayed forth from the opposite direction. They were running in opposite directions in the same pipe!