And Having Writ . . .

by Donald R. Bensen

  I fingered the Inquiry/information mode controls and gestured, first at the passing panorama, then at the Communicator, while looking meaningfully at the native. He appeared to understand something of its function, for he leaned toward the mechanism and spoke, more loudly and slowly, I noticed, than had been his habit.

  I then pressed the replay stud, and his words were repeated; he nodded as though to show he understood. Either sound reproduction was known in this culture or he was willing to assume that visitors from another world would be likely to have some such device. This was a relief to me, as the responses of the ship's crew and the crowd in the street had left me uncertain about whether this particular bit of technology might not be looked on here as witchcraft, a notion that Ari's earlier comments had made appear all too plausible.

  "Are you explaining things to him, Raf?" Dark asked. "Any prospects that we can get help in refitting Wanderer?"

  "It'll be a while before I can do that, I'm afraid. First we have to store an immense amount of language information, then let the computer sort it out and—"

  "But you fellows are supposed to be able to start chattering the local lingo as soon as you run up against the natives. That's your job, isn't it?"

  "If," I said with some asperity, "things go properly and we have a decent period of surveillance, as laid down in regulations, there is no problem. With enough to go on, the Communicator can build up a decent vocabulary by encounter time and achieve perfect fluency as soon as we've been able to do some directed work with the indigenes. I'm not blaming anybody, you understand, Dark, but if we're dumped in the middle of an alien culture by what I'm sure was unavoidable mechanical failure, you can't expect the same results as if it had all gone as it was supposed to."

  I was really rather irritated, not so much by Dark's criticism as by the fact that our exchange was taking up time that I would rather have used in gathering information from our native host.

  "I don't know if you can find out about it now," Valmis observed, "but it would be worthwhile looking into what's happened to this city lately. The Pattern is all off: there are bare spaces and new buildings right alongside old ones in a way that doesn't make sense. When you can, you might try to find out it they've had a war here recently, or some other kind of disaster."

  I didn't appreciate Valmis's attempt to load more work on me at a time when it was impossible to do as he asked, but I did feel somewhat cheered that he was emerging from his gloom enough to take a practical interest in his work. A capable Integrator can be tremendously useful in Exploration, in spite of the mystical bent of most of them, in spotting anomalies the other specialists might overlook. I'll look into it when I can," I said, "though once I've got the language stored and interpreted, any of you will be able to put your own questions."

  Our vehicle stopped at that moment in front of an imposing building of several stories, and our native guide hustled us inside and up a flight of stairs, pausing in the large room at the entrance to secure the services of another, smaller native, one of a throng standing about, who trotted ahead and opened a door for us. The room into which we were ushered was luxuriously furnished and was evidently a living apartment.

  "Ten to one this is a sort of inn he's putting us up at," Dark said, looking around with satisfaction. "Seems as though our little friend is prepared to do handsomely by us. Now all you've got to do, Raf, is get to work with your machine and educate him enough to understand us."

  I sighed; would it ever be possible to make an Explorer pilot understand the nature of a Recorder's work? "It's the other way around," I said patiently. "The Communicator makes it possible for us to learn their language. What you suggest wouldn't be reasonable; they're at an earlier stage in cultural development and wouldn't have the ability to frame enough concepts in our language to make it useful. The fact that we're the ones making the first contact shows the difference readily enough."

  In the course of the ensuing planetary days, the native who had taken us in charge saw that our wants in the way of food were attended to, though it was made clear that we were not allowed to leave our quarters. He brought to view us a number of his fellows, whom I at length divined to be scientists of varying sorts. To these I conveyed what I had to our host concerning our origin on a planet other than theirs, though I was dismayed when they set about poking, prodding, probing and scraping me in an evident effort to determine what physical characteristics might verify our difference from their race. This they also did to the others, which at least relieved my companions' boredom.

  After some time, it was clear that they were satisfied on this point, and they departed. Some of their conversation had been added to my Communicator's memory banks, though not enough to advance my understanding of the local language to any useful extent, at least not to the point of being able to use it. I could pretty well understand some of what was said to me, however, and thus could relay it to my companions.

  On the fifth day I was able to give them some news that brightened their moods, which were somewhat dampened by our enforced seclusion: another native was to join us and prepare us for wider contact with the people of this world.

  "Now we're getting somewhere!" Dark exclaimed. "What are they giving us? One of their technicians? Maybe we can start finding out what sort of help they can give us with Wanderer."

  "I should think that whatever the local analogue is for a Metahistorian would be more fruitful," Ari observed.

  "Well . . ." I said. "It isn't either of those."

  "Another scientist? What sort?" Ari asked.

  "Not a scientist, either. It's a . . . a composer of fictions."

  They looked at me in amazement for a moment. "I don't suppose," Dark asked heavily, "that your Communicator gadget might have got a crossed circuit in it someplace?"

  "The sealed unit is completely—"

  "Ah, never mind. It's of a piece with the rest of this idiotic place—I can't make out what any of it means, and this is no odder than the rest of what we've gone through. D'you suppose this planet's a dumping ground for the feeble-minded from some other worlds? That would explain—"

  A chuckle from Valmis interrupted him. "It may be that these folk have an intuitive sense of Patterns, that they know, don't you see, that we're fictions now and so are they . . ."

  "Stow that!" Dark said hotly. "Or we'll see if a fictional fist can raise a bruise on your fictional hide!"

  Valmis looked at him calmly. "I expect you're right, Dark. Whether this universe was here before I used the Displacer or not, it's what we're in, after all. What's done is done. But I wonder," he added after a pause, "if all this is real now . . . is anything more real than that? Are all the Probabilities no more than the sum of our agreements to Perceive them?"

  I never knew an Integrator who could say something simply, without raising unanswerable and irrelevant questions. It is probably unkind to think that this is how they maintain the idea that they're necessary.

  5

  Bizarre though the notion was as our friend explained it, I was able to see the sense in this plan of having a romancer deal with us. It seemed that he had actually composed fictions which had brought the theme of flight through space to public attention and that these had gained wide popularity. Therefore, when the news of our existence was made known to the public, it would be helpful to have the authority of this person employed to this end, as the generality of people were unclear as to the distinction between fact and fiction in any case.

  Though still badly hampered by not being able to make myself understood, and beginning to be apprehensive on this account, as the Communicator should by now have been able to instill in me a perfectly adequate fluency in this tongue, I was able to gather from our native much information to clear up some matters that had puzzled us.

  It appeared that he was an employee of an information-gathering organization, or, more accurately, once more so occupied. At the time we met him, he had been confined by the authorities for offenses committed while celebra
ting his dismissal from his position, but, upon noting in his cell the uncanniness of our nature, he had communicated with his former chief and arranged his and our release.

  It was his chief's anticipation that his organization would benefit greatly from controlling the dissemination of information concerning us, and to this end he had agreed to undertake the expenses of our maintenance and the verification of our nature, as well as to rehire our friend and put him in charge of the operation. I noted that our agreement to this arrangement had not been sought, but could not see that we had any choice. At least something was happening, which appeared to be all that we could expect at this point.

  We had to wait a few more days for the romancer to join us, as he had been summoned, at considerable cost, from another region of the planet. When he arrived, he proved to be a physically unimpressive specimen, but ebullient and inquiring of manner and most frustrated by my inability to provide him with any detailed information. Fortunately, the operation of the Communicator, even though it was not completely fulfilling its purpose, fascinated and diverted him.

  Now that our party was completed to our guide's employer's satisfaction, events moved quickly, and we and our possessions were soon conveyed to a string of narrow wagons which removed us from the seaport at a great rate of speed.

  "Evidently the fellow our friend works for carries a lot of weight," I told my companions. "He's set it up for us to meet with the native political chief."

  "Of the planet? That is good news," said Ari.

  "Not quite. They do that by sections here, I gather—one chief here, one there, dozens of them for the planet. The romancer himself is from another of these sections."

  "Another Level Four characteristic, is it?" Dark said with some asperity. "If this chief fellow ran the whole world, it'd do some good to speak to him about helping us, but if he's only in charge of one potty little patch of land inhabited by savages, what's the point?"

  Dark's estimate of the size of the native ruler's realm was undergenerous. It took us six local days to cross it, the chiefs steading being on the other side of it from where we had come ashore; and at that we made a fair rate of speed for land transportation. I did not bother myself with the details of our conveyance, but they delighted Ari, who claimed that the whole method could clearly be seen to derive from an earlier age, Levels Three and Two most probably, in which the motive power had been draft animals.

  "You must perfect yourself in this language, Raf," he said to me on the second day, "and pass it on to us. I can't wait to start finding out all about this place. It looks perfectly fascinating, a textbook example of cultural progression, with fossil remnants of the past embedded in it according to the best principles of Meta-history. Just look at that!"

  He pointed to the landscape which rolled by us, and I could see a cluster of huts made of some sort of fabric huddled in the desolate landscape. "Just at the border between Levels One and Two, I'd say, and here we are passing them in a high-grade Level Four device. Theory predicts that, but I don't know when I've seen it so, clearly embodied."

  Valmis spoke up, something he did rarely. "Raf, once you do have the language, I've been wondering, what are we to tell them about ourselves?"

  "How do you mean?" Dark said.

  "Well, if we're set on interfering with them so as to get their science and all that in the shape we want, I wonder how they're going to like being told that? Not very much, I'd say."

  This was a thought that had not struck me, or any of the others, it developed. It soon became apparent that it would not be much good explaining to the natives that we were Explorers, either, since without Wanderer we should not be able to do any worthwhile Exploring or Survey work, and so would have no visible function; from the little we had seen of this planet, it did not look like a place very hospitable to those considered of no use.

  It was Dark who hit on the idea that we ought to present ourselves as an embassy from the Galactic Empire.

  "But there isn't a Galactic Empire," Ari said. "It wouldn't work—the galaxy's too big. Only the smallest solar systems have empires, and they're pretty rickety."

  "The natives aren't to know that, though, are they?" Dark said. "The thing to do is give them an impressive story, the more puffed up the better, to make sure they'll treat us right."

  We agreed on this, and I began polishing the details of the imposture against the day when the Communicator might function well enough to allow me to use it.

  This had not happened by the time we were making our approach to the meeting with the native chief. We were proceeding in open wagons toward his headquarters, having left the conveyance which had been our home for six days, and I was once more trying to persuade the Communicator to give me instantaneous access to the native vocabulary stored within it that it was meant to provide, Dark watched me for a moment and asked, "What seems to be wrong with it, anyhow?"

  "I don't know. It just doesn't seem to be doing what it ought to."

  "Well, have you . . . here, let me have a look." After he had examined its interior for a moment, he looked up at me. "How well," he said in a gentle tone, "do you expect a piece of machinery to work if one of its two power leads is loose?"

  "Ah . . . not very?"

  "Just so. Now, give it a try."

  I adjusted the control and placed the earpiece in position, then pressed the activating stud.

  I experienced with a joyous excitement the familiar avalanche of sensations, in itself not at all pleasant, but overwhelmingly welcome under the circumstances, of an entire alien language being impressed upon my mind. In a moment it was all there: I could place names to all I saw, converse with anyone, and in general feel like a civilized being again.

  "Thank you, Dark," I said in our own tongue. "It's worked, finally. That was a bit of luck. I'll adjust it to see to you fellows when we've done talking to this chief, for I see we're almost to what must be his place."

  This was an ornate edifice of wood in a fenced-off open space in the midst of the town through which we had been driven. We were ushered into it, and into a room where an imposing native stood ready to greet us.

  He was an impressive figure, well fleshed and exuding an air of fitness—belied, I was surprised to see, by a pair of lenses perched on his nose; it was certainly odd, even for a Level Four culture, for a ruler to be chosen who required artificial aids for his sight! Even if medical correction of such a condition were expensive, it seemed to me that so powerful a chief as this man was supposed to be ought to have had it as a matter of right.

  However, he did not seem to be daunted by his infirmity, and he bared his teeth in what I had come to understand as a sign of welcome, the gesture somewhat obscured by a substantial growth of hair beneath the nose, a local fashion I still found somewhat unnerving.

  I gave a prideful glance at my companions, both Explorers and natives—what a surprise it would be for them to hear me flawlessly deliver a greeting in the native tongue, rather than leaving it all to our guide!

  "We, the representatives of the Galactic Empire, thank you for your graciousness in receiving us," I said. "And, in turn, we ourselves bring you greetings from beyond the stars, President Roosevelt."

  6

  The effect of my statement, handsomely phrased though it was, was electric. My companions, except for Dark, the only one aware that the Communicator had finally done its job, looked startled to hear me use the native tongue; the two natives who had accompanied us jumped as if bitten. Only the President seemed composed, and said, "Nice of you to say so."

  "What's all this about a Galatic Empire? And, say, how do you come to talk English all of a sudden?" our native mentor asked. "Are you trying to pull a fast one?"

  "No, Mr. Oxford," I said—I was pleased at last to be able to use his name, Ted Oxford—"it's just that my Communicator is working at last, and I acquired a full command of your language just as we were approaching the White House."

  "Well, you might have let me and Wells know," Oxford gr
umbled. "Lord, that was a worse shock than waking up in the clink and seeing you fellows for the first time. Sorry, Mr. President—I didn't mean to spring any surprises on you like that."

  "Willie Hearst didn't say anything about a Galactic Empire when he called me from California," the President said. "Just that these were definitely people from another planet, and I ought to see them before he broke the news. Looks as though he's got a bigger story than he bargained on. Are you sure this isn't one of your yarns, Wells? I read that story about the Martians, and it was bully stuff, but I don't care for being fed fairy tales in my own office."

  I reassured myself with the knowledge that, though he had stated the situation with essential accuracy, the President had no way of actually knowing this, and I launched into a presentation of the wonders of the Empire, its benevolence and advanced civilization. I contrived to make it seem as though it were Imperial policy, when a new planet was come across, to drop an embassy on it, which would then inspect it with a view to establishing favorable relations. Our own had suffered a misfortune in landing, I explained, leading to the loss of our ship, but we were untroubled by that, as, within a period of time I did not specify, our masters would inquire after us and ascertain our opinion of Earth. The Empire, I made a point of explaining, considered hospitality to strangers one of the marks of a world worth dealing generously with.

  When I had done, the President whistled. "This is going to raise an almighty fuss, no mistake," he said. "Half the people in the country won't believe it or will hope it isn't so. Good Lord, Bryan'll go out of his mind—he'll probably spend the campaign preaching against you, saying you're devils or something, as there's nothing about you in the Bible. What a mess it'll be!"