The Complete Short Stories- The 1950s - Volume One

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The Complete Short Stories- The 1950s - Volume One Page 43

by Aldiss, Brian


  It seemed as if the vast ledgers of Earth would absorb for ever the flow of information.

  The spaceships, which had never called more than twice in a decade, began to make monthly visits to All Saints. They brought with them, besides paper, wealth; they took back with them, besides paper, rumour of a growing city. All Saints was taking on a faint tinge of sophistication: there were less adverts for makes of guns and more for breath appeal.

  Tourists returning to Earth soon revealed the disillusioning truth about the poverty of the local fauna, and said something about the climate of Acrostic. But the flow of visitors, rather than dwindling, redoubled. This is strange merely if we know nothing of human nature; no tourist ever admits to having been taken in, and so – while admitting the monkeys and the weather – they made great play with the scenery and local customs. Very soon it was not fashionable to admit you had never visited that little paradise in Smith’s Burst.

  Meanwhile, New York continued to absorb Alastair’s reports.

  But suddently the flow of statistics homewards stopped. The outward flow of questions immediately doubled. What had happened to the Acrostic Administration? Had rebellion broken out? Had there been a plague? And if so, what percentages of the following age groups (male and female) had perished?

  The Acrostic Administration lay back comfortably in his wicker chair and enjoyed a rest. It was his first day of scutterbucking since he had arrived, many moons ago. I neglected to tell you, my Nathaniel, that Acrostic I had a moon, a useless little thing called Rose which only shone in the day-time. Alastair was reading something which gave him more pleasure than anything he had read since his arrival. It was written by one of All Saints’ first tourists, who had been fleeced of every cent he possessed on his first day down, flung in gaol for debt until his return ship had left, and was now a respected member of the community. He had just sent Alastair a poem, ‘Daylight, Rose Bright’. It was not a brilliant poem, but it was the first one ever written on Acrostic I. They were going up in the universe.

  After a suitably long interval had elapsed, and Earthly agitation had reached maximum, Alastair sent World Government a brief note. His entire administration had collapsed from overwork: they must send him an XIVIC Master Computer. Upon receipt of a guarantee that one would be installed in full working order as soon as possible, he would do his best to resume routine.

  The guarantee duly arrived. Now he had them!

  Even on the surface, his was a great victory. Think for yourself, Nathaniel, if possible. These Fourteen-One-Hundreds, as the computers were called, were gigantic machines even by our standards. They were so complex and important that it was possible to use them as instruments of colonial policy: for they remained always possessions of Earth, serviced by Earthmen, so that once a colony world grew big enough to require one (i.e. also big enough to be a potential threat) it would have installed upon it a small, autonomous unit of Earth. Never before had a Fourteen-One-Hundred been installed on a planet with less than a billion voters, yet here was Acrostic I with no more than fifty thousand population all told. Additional relish was added to Alastair’s jubilation by the facsimile signature at the bottom of the guarantee: Ultimate Lady Vera Manchester IXA. He predicted a fall right down the matriarchy for that lady very soon.

  A pair of government ships came and stood nose upwards outside All Saints. Machinery and men were disgorged. Night and day, storm and fine, the work of erecting the Master Computer went on. When the ships were emptied they hurried off home to fetch the next instalment of Fourteen-One-Hundred parts. Money began to flow freely in the town, as it will anywhere with government capital in the vicinity. For the first time, the colonist farmers were almost content with the prices their produce fetched. Alastair, a kindly fellow at heart, was happy to see his self-salvation scheme also benefiting others.

  Earth was well and irredeemably committed on the project before the sad news filtered back to them. Fourteen-One-Hundreds would never work: there was no hydro-electric power on Acrostic I!

  To the indignant messages that asked why Alastair’s Administration had not informed World Government of this, he made the truthful answer that (a) they had not asked him, and (b) the situation could have been deduced from given information. Such small electric plants as there in All Saints were powered by wooden windmills; an uncertain business, of course – but what was one to do on a planet like Acrostic I, without metal?

  A host of brooding experts was unleashed by the next spaceship; they brooded because they had been ordered to discover what one was to do for power on a planet like Acrostic I, or else …

  They soon found that, as Alastair had long been aware, the elements ruled the planet. Sun, wind, frost and rain had eroded and erased any mountains that Acrostic might once have possessed, leaving only a sandy surfaced billiard ball of a world. Such few streams as there were ran lazily and shallowly. The fringes of the sea offered hundreds of miles of stagnant swamp land. There could be no hydro-electric power.

  The brooding experts divided into two camps. One indented to Earth for mining and drilling equipment, and then disappeared into the wilds to survey for coal or oil; the other submitted to Earth a plan for a submarine plant to draw power from the tides, and then disappeared into the taverns and stews of All Saints. In being strictly accurate, I should add that there was a small third faction, who washed their hands of the whole affair and returned home in disgust.

  It happened that the ship which arrived to take them back brought a letter from the Virgin Rosalynd. I hope you have not forgotten the Virgin Rosalynd, Nathaniel, for Alastair had not forgotten her; she had proved to be a model of devotion our modern women might well copy.

  Her personal news was that she was well, still in love with her clever, clever governor and had just been appointed a Pen-Ultimate Lady. Her general news was that Acrostic was well in the public eye: its miniature monkeys were now Earth’s favourite pets, it formed the subject of a popular song: ‘If I Was As Powerless As Little Acrostic’ (‘I’d still toss Dick, Tom and Harry aside to make you my bride’), and was also the subject of a Public Inquiry.

  It was the Public Inquiry rather than the popular song or the monkeys which set the seal on Alastair’s success. The population doubled almost overnight as Independent Body after Independent Body moved in to Look Into Things. They were followed by press reporters, TV and film men and other such adjuncts of the comfortable life which had not previously been seen on Acrostic. A more frivolous element, who found it fun to live in such a place, also appeared. They were followed by exploiters and confidence men, the ‘You live Illness-free on a Metal-free world’ type. Then came the legislators. Then the entertainers.

  It was quite a crowd!

  Two years passed before the Public Inquiry published its results. Before they appeared, World Government – in a bid for popularity – decided that the nice thing to do was to plunge into the matter bald-headed and give Acrostic I an atomic plant. The machinery started rolling again. So Fourteen-One-Hundred was finally put to work, by which time there was plenty for it to work on. Acrostic was a thoroughly going concern, thanks to Alastair’s supercitations.

  But that came later. First came the Report. It convicted World Government of squandering so many million pound-squareds of public monies without properly and conscientiously entering into due investigation of the existing circumstances and of, moreover, as hereinafter and heretofore stated within the meaning of so on and so on. It meant, in brief, that Someone had Blundered.

  Alastair took his triumph modestly; he had grown up since arriving at All Saints. Indeed, it was almost in him to feel regret when he learned that the Ultimate Lady Vera had been summarily deposed, for she was the Someone who had Blundered. And when the long-waited invitation to return to Sconn Territory actually arrived, he debated endlessly about accepting it. He wrote to the Pen-Ultimate Lady Rosalynd: would she join him on Acrostic?

  She replied that as she had just been elected Ultimate Lady herself, she was una
ble to leave Earth: would he not join her there?

  So – he did. A man of more character would have stayed with his success, one feels. People are very odd, Nathaniel, present company not entirely excepted.

  Judas Danced

  It was not a fair trial.

  You understand I was not inclined to listen properly, but it was not a fair trial. It had a mistrustful and furtive haste about it. Judge, counsel and jury all took care to be as brief and explicit as possible. I said nothing, but I knew why: everyone wanted to get back to the dances.

  So it was not very long before the judge stood up and pronounced sentence:

  ‘Alexander Abel Crowe, this court finds you guilty of murdering Parowen Scryban for the second time.’

  I could have laughed out loud. I nearly did.

  He went on: ‘You are therefore condemned to suffer death by strangulation for the second time, which sentence will be carried out within the next week.’

  Round the court ran a murmur of excitement.

  In a way, even I felt satisfied. It had been an unusual case: few are the people who care to risk facing death a second time; the first time you die makes the prospect worse, not better. For just a minute, the court was still, then it cleared with almost indecent haste. In a little while, only I was left there.

  I, Alex Abel Crowe – or approximately he – came carefully down out of the prisoner’s box and limped the length of the dusty room to the door. As I went, I looked at my hands. They weren’t trembling.

  Nobody bothered to keep a check on me. They knew they could pick me up whenever they were ready to execute sentence. I was unmistakable, and I had nowhere to go. I was the man with the club foot who could not dance; nobody could mistake me for anyone else. Only I could do that.

  Outside in the dark sunlight, that wonderful woman stood waiting for me with her husband, waiting on the court steps. The sight of her began to bring back life and hurt to my veins. I raised my hand to her as my custom was.

  ‘We’ve come to take you home, Alex,’ Husband said, stepping towards me.

  ‘I haven’t got a home,’ I said, addressing her.

  ‘I meant our home,’ he informed me.

  ‘Elucidation accepted,’ I said. ‘Take me away, take me away, take me away, Charlemagne. And let me sleep.’

  ‘You need a sleep after all you have been through,’ he said. Why, he sounded nearly sympathetic.

  Sometimes I called him Charlemagne, sometimes just Charley. Or Cheeps, or Jags, or Jaggers, or anything, as the mood took me. He seemed to forgive me. Perhaps he even liked it – I don’t know. Personal magnetism takes you a long way; it has taken me so far I don’t even have to remember names.

  They stopped a passing taxi and we all climbed in. It was a tumbril, they tell me. You know, French? Circa seventeen-eighty something. Husband sat one side, Wife the other, each holding one of my arms, as if they thought I should get violent. I let them do it, although the idea amused me.

  ‘Hallo, friends!’ I said ironically. Sometimes I called them ‘parents’, or ‘disciples’, or sometimes ‘patients’. Anything.

  The wonderful woman was crying slightly.

  ‘Look at her!’ I said to Husband. ‘She’s lovely when she cries, that I swear. I could have married her, you know, if I had not been dedicated. Tell him, you wonderful creature, tell him how I turned you down!’

  Through her sobbing, she said, ‘Alex said he had more important things to do than sex.’

  ‘So you’ve got to thank me for Perdita!’ I told him. ‘It was a big sacrifice, but I’m happy to see you happy.’ Often now I called her Perdita. It seemed to fit her. He laughed at what I had said, and then we were all laughing. Yes, it was good to be alive; I knew I made them feel good to be alive. They were loyal. I had to give them something – I had no gold and silver.

  The tumbril stopped outside Charley’s place – the husband’s residence, I’d better say. Oh, the things I’ve called that place! Someone should have recorded them all. It was one of those inverted beehive houses: just room for a door and an elevator on the ground floor, but the fifth floor could hold a ballroom. Topply, topply. Up we went to the fifth. There was no sixth floor; had there been, I should have gone up there, the way I felt. I asked for it anyhow, just to see the wonderful woman brighten up. She liked me to joke, even when I wasn’t in a joking mood. I could tell she still loved me so much it hurt her.

  ‘Now for a miracle, ye pampered jades,’ I said, stepping forth, clumping into the living room.

  I seized an empty vase from a low shelf and spat into it. Ah, the old cunning was still there! It filled at once with wine, sweet and bloody-looking. I sipped and found it good.

  ‘Go on and taste it, Perdy!’ I told her.

  Wonderful w. turned her head sadly away. She would not touch that vase. I could have eaten every single strand of hair on her head, but she seemed unable to see the wine. I really believe she could not see that wine.

  ‘Please don’t go through all that again, Alex,’ she implored me wearily. Little faith, you see – the old, old story. (Remind me to tell you a new one I heard the other day.) I put my behind on one chair and my bad foot on another and sulked.

  They came and stood by me … not too close.

  ‘Come nearer,’ I coaxed, looking up under my eyebrows and pretending to growl at them. ‘I won’t hurt you. I only murder Parowen Scryban, remember?’

  ‘We’ve got to talk to you about that,’ Husband said desperately. I thought he looked as if he had aged.

  ‘I think you look as if you have aged, Perdita,’ I said. Often I called him Perdita, too; why, man, they sometimes looked so worried you couldn’t tell them apart.

  ‘I cannot live forever, Alex,’ he replied. ‘Now try and concentrate about this killing, will you?’

  I waved a hand and tried to belch. At times I can belch like a sinking ship.

  ‘We do all we can to help you, Alex,’ he said. I heard him although my eyes were shut; can you do that? ‘But we can only keep you out of trouble if you co-operate. It’s the dancing that does it; nothing else betrays you like dancing. You’ve got to promise you’ll stay away from it. In fact, we want you to promise that you’ll let us restrain you. To keep you away from the dancing. Something about that dancing …’

  He was going on and on, and I could still hear him. But other things were happening. That word ‘dancing’ got in the way of all his other words. It started a sort of flutter under my eyelids. I crept my hand out and took the wonderful woman’s hand, so soft and lovely, and listened to that word ‘dancing’ dancing. It brought its own rhythm, bouncing about like an eyeball inside my head. The rhythm grew louder. He was shouting.

  I sat up suddenly, opening my eyes.

  W. woman was on the floor, very pale.

  ‘You squeezed too hard, boy,’ she whispered.

  I could see that her little hand was the only red thing she had.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I really wonder you two don’t throw me out for good!’ I couldn’t help it, I just started laughing. I like laughing. I can laugh even when nothing’s funny. Even when I saw their faces, I still kept laughing like mad.

  ‘Stop it!’ Husband said. For a moment he looked as if he would have hit me. But I was laughing so much I did not recognise him. It must have done them good to see me enjoying myself; they both needed a fillip, I could tell.

  ‘If you stop laughing, I’ll take you down to the club,’ he said, greasily bribing.

  I stopped. I always know when to stop. With all humility, that is a great natural gift.

  ‘The club’s the place for me,’ I said. ‘I’ve already got a club foot – I’m halfway there!’

  I stood up.

  ‘Lead on, my loyal supporters, my liege lords,’ I ordered.

  ‘You and I will go alone, Alex,’ Husband said. ‘The wonderful woman will stay here. She really ought to go to bed.’

  ‘What’s in it for her?’ I joked. Then I followed him to the e
levator. He knows I don’t like staying in any one place for long.

  When I got to the club, I knew, I would want to be somewhere else. That’s the worst of having a mission: it makes you terribly restless. Sometimes I am so restless I could die. Ordinary people just don’t know what the word means. I could have married her if I had been ordinary. They call it destiny.

  But the club was good.

  We walked there. I limped there. I made sure I limped badly.

  The club had a timescreen. That, I must admit, was my only interest in the club. I don’t care for women. Or men. Not living women or men. I only enjoy them when they are back in time.

  This night – I nearly said ‘this particular night’, but there was nothing particularly particular about it – the timescreen had only been tuned roughly three centuries back into the past. At least, I guessed it was twenty-first century stuff by the women’s dresses and a shot of a power station. A large crowd of people were looking in as Perdita Caesar and I entered, so I started to pretend he had never seen one of the wall screens before.

  ‘The tele-eyes which are projected back over history consume a fabulous amount of power every second,’ I told him loudly in a voice which suggested I had swallowed a poker. ‘It makes them very expensive. It means private citizens cannot afford screens and tele-eyes, just as once they could not afford their own private cinemas. This club is fortunately very rich. Its members sleep in gold leaf at nights.’

  Several people were glancing round at me already. Caesar was shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

  ‘The tele-eyes cannot get a picture further than twenty-seven centuries back,’ I told him, ‘owing to the limitations of science. Science, as you know, is a system for taking away with one hand while giving with the other.’

 

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