The Sirens of Titan

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

  Boaz didn’t even know who was in command of the real commanders.

  He had never received an order—not from anyone who was superior to the real commanders. Boaz based his actions, as did all the real commanders, on what could be best described as conversational tidbits—tidbits circulated on the real-commander level.

  Whenever the real commanders got together late at night, the tidbits were passed around with the beer and the crackers and cheese.

  There would be a tidbit, for instance, about waste in the supply rooms, and another about the desirability of soldiers’ actually getting hurt and mad during ju-jitsu training, another about soldiers’ shabby tendency to skip loops in lacing up their puttees. Boaz himself would pass these on, without any idea as to their point of origin—and he would base his actions on them.

  The execution of Stony Stevenson by Unk had also been announced in this way. Suddenly, it had been the topic of conversation.

  Suddenly, the real commanders had placed Stony under arrest.

  Boaz now fingered the control box in his pocket, without actually touching a control. He took his place among the men he controlled, came to attention voluntarily, pressed a button, and relaxed as his squadmates relaxed.

  He wanted a drink of hard liquor very much. And he was entitled to liquor, too, whenever he wanted it. Unlimited supplies of all kinds of liquor were flown in from Earth regularly for the real commanders. And the officers could have all the liquor they wanted, too, though they couldn’t get the good stuff. What the officers drank was a lethal green liquor made locally out of fermented lichens.

  But Boaz never drank. One reason he didn’t drink was that he was afraid that alcohol would impair his efficiency as a soldier. Another reason he didn’t drink was that he was afraid that he would forget himself and offer an enlisted man a drink.

  The penalty for a real commander who offered an enlisted man an alcoholic beverage was death.

  “Yes, Lord,” said Boaz, adding his voice to the hubbub of the relaxing men.

  Ten minutes later, Sergeant Brackman declared a recreation period, during which everyone was supposed to go out and play German batball, the chief sport of the Army of Mars.

  Unk stole away.

  Unk stole away to barrack 12 to look for the letter under the blue rock—the letter that his red-headed victim had told him about.

  The barracks in the area were empty.

  The banner at the head of the mast before them was thin air.

  The empty barracks had been the home of a battalion of Martian Imperial Commandos. The Commandos had disappeared quietly in the dead of night a month before. They had taken off in their space ships, their faces blackened, their dog tags taped so as not to clink—their destination secret.

  The Martian Imperial Commandos were experts at killing sentries with loops of piano wire.

  Their secret destination was the Earthling moon. They were going to start the war there.

  Unk found a big blue stone outside the furnace room of barrack twelve. The stone was a turquoise. Turquoises are very common on Mars. The turquoise Unk found was a flagstone a foot across.

  Unk looked under it. He found an aluminum cylinder with a screw cap. Inside the cylinder was a very long letter written in pencil.

  Unk did not know who had written it. He was in poor shape for guessing, since he knew the names of only three people—Sergeant Brackman, Boaz, and Unk.

  Unk went into the furnace room and closed the door.

  He was excited, though he didn’t know why. He began to read by the light from the dusty window.

  Dear Unk:—the letter began.

  Dear Unk:—the letter began: They aren’t much, God knows—but here are the things I know for sure, and at the end you will find a list of questions you should do your best to find answers to. The questions are important. I have thought harder about them than I have about the answers I already have. That is the first thing I know for sure: (1.) If the questions don’t make sense, neither will the answers.

  All the things that the writer knew for sure were numbered, as though to emphasize the painful, step-by-step nature of the game of finding things out for sure. There were one hundred and fifty-eight things the writer knew for sure. There had once been one hundred and eighty-five, but seventeen had been crossed off.

  The second item was, (2.) I am a thing called alive.

  The third was, (3.) I am in a place called Mars.

  The fourth was, (4.) I am in a part of a thing called an army.

  The fifth was, (5.) The army plans to kill other things called alive in a place called Earth.

  Of the first eighty-one items, not one was crossed out. And, in the first eighty-one items, the writer progressed to subtler and subtler matters, and mistakes grew more numerous.

  Boaz was explained and dismissed by the writer very early in the game.

  (46.) Watch out for Boaz, Unk. He is not what he seems.

  (47.) Boaz has something in his right-hand pocket that hurts people in the head when they do something Boaz doesn’t like.

  (48.) Some other people have things that can hurt you in the head, too. You can’t tell by looking who has one, so be sweet to everybody.

  (71.) Unk, old friend—almost everything I know for sure has come from fighting the pain from my antenna, said the letter to Unk. Whenever I start to turn my head and look at something, and the pain comes, I keep turning my head anyway, because I know I am going to see something I’m not supposed to see. Whenever I ask a question, and the pain comes, I know I have asked a really good question. Then I break the question into little pieces, and I ask the pieces of the questions. Then I get answers to the pieces, and then I put the answers all together and get an answer to the big question.

  (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 onc
e 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 kno
wledge 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: