by Vernor Vinge
I hadn’t seen any stories with this theme, but knowing science fiction I guessed that such had already been written. I needed something more. Many human personalities are piled deep with interacting layers of shame and loneliness and hatred. My fictional race would have even more inner turmoil. How to do it? A short lifespan would certainly intensify such problems, but I wanted something that would give individuals real reason to feel guilt. I remembered the extraordinary life cycle of the hugl (a nonsentient pest) in Silverberg and Garrett’s Shrouded Planet. Maybe I could jazz that up, and apply it to an intelligent race. Thus was born…
ORIGINAL SIN
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First twilight glowed diffusely from the fog. On the landscaped terraces that fell away from the hilltop, long rows of tiny crosses slowly materialized. Low trees dripped almost silently upon the sodden grass.
The officer in charge was young. This was his first assignment. And it was an assignment more important than most. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. There must be something to do with his time—something to check, something to worry over; the machine guns. Yes. He could check those again. He moved rapidly up the narrow, concrete walk to where his gun crews manned their weapons. But the magazine feeds were all set, the muzzle chokes screwed down. Everything was just as proper as the last time he had checked, ten minutes earlier. The crews watched him silently, but resumed their whispered conversations as he walked away.
Nothing to do. Nothing to do. The officer stopped for a moment and stood trembling in the cool dampness. Christ, he was hungry.
Behind the troops, and even farther from the field of crosses, the morning twilight defined the silhouettes of the doctors and priests attendant. Their voices couldn’t carry through the soggy air, but he could see their movements were jerky, aimless. They had time on their hands, and that is always the greatest burden.
The officer tapped his heavy boot on the concrete walk in a rapid tattoo of frustration. It was so quiet here.
The mists hid the city that spread across the lowlands. If he listened carefully he could hear auto traffic below. Occasionally, a ship in the river would sound its whistle, or a string of railway freight cars would faintly crash and rattle as it moved along the wharves. Except for these links with the everyday world, he might as well be at the end of time here on the hilltop with its grasses, its trees. Even the air seemed different here—it didn’t burn into his eyes, and there was only a hint of creosote and kerosene in its smell.
It was brighter now. The ground became green, the fog a cherry brown. With a sigh of anguished relief, the officer glanced at his watch. It was time to inspect the cross-covered hillside. He nearly ran out onto the grass.
Low hedges curved back and forth between the white crosses to form an intricate topiary maze. He must check that pattern one last time. It was a dangerous job, but hardly a difficult one. There were less than a thousand critical points and he had memorized the scheme the evening before. Every so often he broke stride to cock a deadfall, or arm a claymore mine. Many of the crosses rose from freshly turned earth, and he gave these an especially wide berth. The air was even cleaner here above the grass than it had been back by the machine-guns, and the deep wet sod sucked at his feet. He gulped back saliva and tried to concentrate on his job. So hungry. Why must he be tempted so?
Time seemed to move faster, and the ground brightened steadily beneath his running feet. Twenty minutes passed. He was almost done. The ground was visible for nearly fifty meters through the brownish mists. The city sounds were louder, more numerous. He must hurry. The officer ran along the last row of crosses, back toward friendly lines—the cool sooty concrete, the machine-guns, the trappings of civilization. Then his boots were clicking on the walkway, and he paused for three seconds to catch his breath.
He looked at the cemetery. All was still peaceful. The preliminaries were completed. He turned to run to his gun crews.
Five more minutes. Five more minutes, and the sun would rise behind the fog bank to the east. Its light would seep down through the mists, and warm the grass on the hillside. Five more minutes and children would be born.
WHAT A GLORIOUS DUMP! They had me hidden in one of the better parts of town, on a slight rise about three kilometers east of the brackish river that split the downtown area in two. I stood at the tiny window of my “lab” and looked out across the city. The westering sun was a smudged reddish disk shining through the multiple layers of crap that city traffic pumped into the air. I could actually see bits of ash sift down from the high spaces above.
It was the rush hour. The seven-lane freeways that netted the city were a study in still life, with idling cars backed up thousands of meters at the interchanges. I could imagine the shark-faced drivers shaking their clawed fists at each other, frothing murderous threats. Even here on the rise, it was so hot and humid that the soot stuck to my sweating skin. Down in the city basin it must have been infernal.
Further across town was a cluster of skyscrapers, seventy and eighty stories high. Every fifteen seconds a five-prop airplane would cruise in from the east, make a one-eighty just above the rooftops, and attempt a landing at the airport between the skyscrapers and the river.
And beyond the river, misty in the depths of the smog, was the high ridgeline that blocked the ocean from view. The grayish-green expanse of the metropolitan cemetery ran across the whole northern end of the ridge.
Sounds like something out of a historical novel, doesn’t it? I mean, I hadn’t seen an aircraft in nearly seventy years. And as for cemeteries…This side of the millennium, such things just didn’t exist—or so I had thought. But it was all here on Shima, and less than ten parsecs from mother Earth. It’s not surprising if you don’t recognize the name. Earthgov lists the planet’s star +56°2966. You can tell the Empire is trying to hide something when the only designation they have for a nearby K-star is a centuries-old catalog number. If you’re old enough, though, you remember the name. Two centuries back, “Shima” was a household word. Not counting Earth, Shima was the second planet where man discovered intelligent life.
A lot has happened in two hundred years: the Not-Wars, the secession of the Free Human Worlds from Earthgov. Somewhere along the line, Earth casually rammed Shima under the rug. Why? Well, if nothing else, Earthgov is cautious (read: chicken). When humans first landed (remember spaceships?) on Shima, the native culture was paleolithic. Two centuries later, their technology resembled Earth’s in the late Twentieth Century. Of course, that was no great shakes, but remember it took us thousands of years to get from stone ax to steam engine. It’s really hard to imagine how the Shimans did it.
You can bet Earthgov didn’t give ’em any help. Earth has always been scared witless by competition, while at the same time they don’t have the stomach for genocide. So they pretend competition doesn’t exist. The Free Worlds aren’t like that. Over the last one hundred and fifty years, dozens of companies have tried to land entrepreneurs on the planet. The Earth Police managed to rub out every one of them.
Except for me (so far). But then, the people who hired me had had a lucky break. Earthgov occasionally imports Shimans to work as trouble-shooters. (The Empire would import a lot more—Shimans are incredibly quick at solving problems that don’t require background work—except that Earthpol can’t risk letting the aliens return with what they learn.) Somehow one such contacted the spy system that Samuelson Enterprises maintains throughout the Empire. Samuelson got in touch with me.
Together, S.E. and the Shimans bribed an Earthman to look the other way when I made my appearance on Shima. Yes, some Earthcops do have a price—in this case it was the annual gross product of an entire continent. But the bribe was worth it. I stood to gain one hundred times as much, and Samuelson Enterprises had—in a sense—been offered one of the biggest prizes of all time by the Shimans. But that, as they say, is another story. Right now I had to come across with what the Shimans wanted, or we’d all have empty pockets—or wo
rse.
You see, the Shimans wanted immortality. S.E. had impaled many a hick world on that particular gaff, but never like this. The creatures were really desperate: no Shiman had ever lived longer than twenty-five Earth months.
I leaned out to look at the patterns of soot on the window sill, trying at the same time to ignore the laboratory behind me. It was filled with equipment the Shimans thought I might need: microtomes, ultracentrifuges, electron microscopes—a real antique shop. The screwy thing was that I did need some of those gadgets. For instance, if I had used my ’mam’ri at the prime integers, Earthpol would be there before I could count to three. I’d been on Shima four weeks, and considering the working conditions, I thought progress had been pretty good. But the Shimans were getting suspicious and very, very impatient. Samuelson had negotiated with them through third parties on Earth, and so hadn’t been able to teach me the Shiman language. Sometime you try explaining biological chemistry with sign language and grunts. And these damn fidget brains seemed to think that a project was overdue if it hadn’t been finished last week. I mean, the ol’ Protestant Ethic stood like a naked invitation to hedonism next to what these underweight kangaroos practiced.
THREE DAYS EARLIER, they had posted armed guards inside my lab. As I stood glooming at the windowsill I could hear my three pals shuffling endlessly about the room, stopping every so often to poke into the equipment. Nothing short of physical violence could make them stay in one spot.
Sometimes I would look up from my bench to see one of them staring back at me. His gaze was not unfriendly—I’ve often looked at a steak just that way. When he saw me looking back, the Shiman would abruptly turn away, unsuccessfully trying to swallow slaver back from the multiple rows of inward curving teeth that covered his mouth. (Actually the creatures were omnivorous. In fact, they’d killed off virtually all animal life on the planet, and most of their vast population subsisted on cereal crops grown—in insufficient quantities—on well-defended collective farms.)
I could feel them staring at me right now. I had half a mind to turn around and show them a thing or three—Earthpol and its detection devices be damned.
This line of thought was interrupted as a sports car breezed up from the sentry gate three hundred meters away. I was housed in some sort of biological science complex. The place looked like a run-down Carnegie Library (if you remember what a library is), and was surrounded by hectares of blackened concrete. Beyond this were tank traps and a three-meter high barricade. Till now the only vehicles I had seen inside the compound were tracked military jobs.
The blue and orange sports car burned rubber as the driver skidded to a stop against the curb beneath my window. The driver bounded out of his seat, and double-timed up the walk. Typical. Shimans never slow down.
The passenger door opened, and a second figure appeared. Normal Shiman dress consists of a heavy jacket and a kilt which conceals their broad haunches and part of their huge feet. But this second fellow was wrapped from head to foot in black, a costume I had seen only once or twice before—some kind of penance outfit. And when he moved it wasn’t with short rapid hops, but with longer slower strides, almost as if…
I turned back to my equipment. At most I had only seconds, not really enough time to set the devious traps I had prepared. The two were inside the building now. I could hear the rapid thumpthumpthump as the driver bounced up the stairs, and the softer sound of someone moving unseemly slow. But not slow enough. Through the door came the whistly buzz of Shiman talk. Perhaps those guards would do their job, and I would have a few extra seconds. No luck. The door opened. Driver and passenger stepped into my lab. With nearly Shiman haste, the veiled passenger whipped off the headpiece and dropped it to the floor. As expected, the face behind the veil was human. It was also female. The girl looked about the room expressionlessly. A sheen of sweat glistened on her skin. She brushed straight blond hair out of her face and turned to me.
“I wish to speak to Professor Doctor Hjalmar Kekkonen,” she said. It was hard to believe that such a flat delivery could come from that sensuous mouth.
“That’s one I’ll grant,” I said, wondering if she was going to read me my rights.
She didn’t answer at once, and I could see the throb at her temple as she clenched her jaws. Her eyes, I noticed, were like her voice: pretty, but somehow dead and implacable. She pulled open her heavy black gown. Underneath she wore a frilly thing which wouldn’t have been out of place in Tokyo—or with the Earth Police.
She stood at her full height and her gray eyes were level with mine. “It is hard for me to believe. Hjalmar Kekkonen holds the Chair of Biology at New London University. Hjalmar Kekkonen was the first commander of the Draeling Mercenary Division. Could anyone so brilliant act so stupidly?” Her flat sarcasm became honest anger. “I did my part, sir! Your appearance on Shima was undetected. But since you arrived you’ve been so ‘noisy’ that nothing could disguise your presence from my superiors in Earthpol.”
Ah, so this was the cop Samuelson had bought. I should have guessed. She seemed typical of the egotistical squirts Earthpol uses. “Listen, Miss Whoever-you-are, I was thoroughly briefed. I’ve worn native textiles, I’ve eaten the stuff they call food here, I’ve even washed in gunk that makes me smell like a local. Look at this place—I don’t have a single scrap of comfort.”
“Well then, what is that?” She pointed at the coruscating pile of my ’mam’ri.
“You know damn well what it is. I told you I’ve been briefed. I’ve only used it on a Hammel base. Without that much analysis, the job would take years.”
“Professor Kekkonen, you have been briefed by fools. We in the Earth Police can detect such activity easily—even from the other side of Shima.” She began refastening the black robe. “Come with us now.” You can always spot Earthgov types; the imperative is their favorite mode.
I sat down, propped my heels on the edge of the lab bench. “Why?” I asked mildly. Earthgov people irritate easy, too. Her face turned even paler as I spoke.
“It may be that Miss Tsumo hasn’t made things clear, sir.” I did a double take. It was the cop’s native driver speaking English. The gook’s accent was perfect, though he spoke half again as fast as a human would. It was as if some malevolent Disney had put the voice of Donald Duck in the mouth of a shark.
“Professor, you are here working for a group of the greatest Shiman governments. Twenty minutes ago, Miss Tsumo’s managers made discovery of this fact. At any minute the Earth Police will order our governments to give you up. Our people all want to help you, but they have knowledge of the power of Earth. They will attempt to do what they are ordered. For the next five minutes, I have authority to take you from here—but—after that it will probably be too late.”
The gook made a hell of a lot more sense than the Tsumo character. The sooner we holed up someplace new, the better. I swung my feet off the bench and grabbed the heavy black robe Tsumo held out to me. She kept silent, her face expressionless. I’ve met Earthcops before. In their own way, some of them are imaginative—even likeable. But this creature had all the personality of a five-day-old corpse.
The native driver turned to my guards and began whistling. They called in some ranking officer who inspected a sheaf of papers the driver had with him. I had just finished with the robe and veil combination when the commanding officer waved us all toward the door. We piled down the stairs and through the exit. Outside, there was no activity beyond the usual sentries that patrolled the perimeter.
As the driver entered the blue and orange car, I crawled onto the narrow bench behind the front seat. The car sank under my weight. I mass nearly one hundred kilos and that’s a lot more than the average Shiman. The driver turned the ignition, and the kerosene-eating engine turned over a couple of times, died. Tsumo got into the front seat and shut the door.
Still no alarms.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and looked out the grimy window. Shima’s sun had set behind the smog bank but he
re and there across the city lingered small patches of gold where the sun’s rays fell directly on the ground. Something was moving through the sky from the south. A native aircraft? But Shiman fliers all had wings. The cigar-shaped flier moved rapidly toward the city. Its surface was studded with turrets—vaguely reminiscent of the gun blisters on a Mitchell bomber. God, this place brought back memories. The vehicle crossed a patch of sunlit ground. Its shadow was at least two thousand meters long.
I tapped Tsumo on the shoulder and pointed at the object that now hovered over the estuary beyond the city.
She glanced briefly into the sky, then turned to the native. “Sirbat,” she said. “Hurry. Earthpol is already here.” Sirbat—if that was the native’s name—twisted the starter again and again. Finally the engine kicked over and stayed lit. Somehow all those whirling pieces of metal meshed and we were rolling toward the main gate. Sirbat leaned forward and punched a button on the dash. It was the car radio. The voice from the speaker was more resonant, more deliberate than is usual with Shimans.
Sirbat said, “The voice says, ‘See the power of Earth over your city,’” The speaker paused as if to give everyone time to look up and see the airborne scrap heap over the estuary. Tsumo twisted about to face me. “That’s the Earthpol ‘flagship.’ We tried to imagine what the Shimans would view as the warcraft of an advanced technology, and that’s what we came up with. In a way, it’s impressive.”
I grunted. “Only a demented two-year-old could be impressed.” Sirbat hissed, his lips curling back from his fangs. He had no chance to speak though, because we were rapidly coming up on the main gate. Sirbat slammed on the brakes. I was leaning against the front dash when we finally screeched to a stop beside the armored vehicle which guarded the gateway’s steel doors.
Sirbat waved his papers out the window, and screamed impatiently. The turret man on the tank had aimed his machine gun at us, but I noticed he was looking back over his shoulder at the Earthpol flagship. The gunner’s lips were peeled back in anger—or fear. Perhaps the floating mountain was somehow awesome to the Shiman psyche. I tried briefly to remember how I had felt about aircraft, back before the turn of the millennium.