When the People Fell

by Cordwainer Smith

  Nobody liked them. Nobody disliked them enough to wish a disastrous war.

  Actual trade was minimal. They bought large quantities of foodstuffs, paying in rare metals. But their economy on their own planet produced very little which the world itself wanted. The cities of mankind had long since developed to a point of comfort and corruption where a relatively monocultural being, such as the citizens of Gustible's planet, could not make much impression. The word "Apician" came to have unpleasant connotations of bad manners, greediness, and prompt payment. Prompt payment was considered rude in a credit society, but after all it was better than not being paid at all.

  The tragedy of the relationship of the two groups came from the unfortunate picnic of the lady Ch'ao, who prided herself on having ancient Chinesian blood. She decided that it would be possible to satiate Schmeckst and the other Apicians to a point at which they would be able to listen to reason. She arranged a feast which, for quality and quantity, had not been seen since previous historic times, long before the many interruptions of war, collapse, and rebuilding of culture. She searched the museums of the world for recipes.

  The dinner was set forth on the telescreens of the entire world. It was held in a pavilion built in the old Chinesian style. A soaring dream of dry bamboo and paper walls, the festival building had a thatched roof in the true ancient fashion. Paper lanterns with real candles illuminated the scene. The fifty selected Apician guests gleamed like ancient idols. Their feathers shone in the light and they clicked their paddlelike thumbs readily as they spoke, telepathically and fluently, in any Earth language which they happened to pick out of the heads of their hearers.

  The tragedy was fire. Fire struck the pavilion, wrecked the dinner. The lady Ch'ao was rescued by Calvin Dredd. The Apicians fled. All of them escaped, all but one. Schmeckst himself. Schmeckst suffocated.

  He let out a telepathic scream which was echoed in the living voices of all the human beings, other Apicians, and animals within reach, so that the television viewers of the world caught a sudden cacophony of birds shrilling, dogs barking, cats yowling, otters screeching, and one lone panda letting out a singularly high grunt. Then Schmeckst perished. The pity of it . . .

  The Earth leaders stood about, wondering how to solve the tragedy. On the other side of the world, the Lords of the Instrumentality watched the scene. What they saw was amazing and horrible. Calvin Dredd, cold, disciplined agent that he was, approached the ruins of the pavilion. His face was twisted in an expression which they had difficulty in understanding. It was only after he licked his lips for the fourth time and they saw a ribbon of drool running down his chin that they realized he had gone mad with appetite. The lady Ch'ao followed close behind, drawn by some remorseless force.

  She was out of her mind. Her eyes gleamed. She stalked like a cat. In her left hand she held a bowl and chopsticks.

  The viewers all over the world watching the screen could not understand the scene. Two alarmed and dazed Apicians followed the humans, wondering what was going to happen.

  Calvin Dredd made a sudden reach. He pulled out the body of Schmeckst.

  The fire had finished Schmeckst. Not a feather remained on him. And then the flash fire, because of the peculiar dryness of the bamboo and the paper and the thousands upon thousands of candles, had baked him. The television operator had an inspiration. He turned on the smell-control.

  Throughout the planet Earth, where people had gathered to watch this unexpected and singularly interesting tragedy, there swept a smell which mankind had forgotten. It was an essence of roast duck.

  Beyond all imagining, it was the most delicious smell that any human being had ever smelled. Millions upon millions of human mouths watered. Throughout the world people looked away from their sets to see if there were any Apicians in the neighborhood. Just as the Lords of the Instrumentality ordered the disgusting scene cut off, Calvin Dredd and the lady Ch'ao began eating the roast Apician, Schmeckst.

  Within twenty-four hours most of the Apicians on Earth had been served, some with cranberry sauce, others baked, some fried Southern style. The serious leaders of Earth dreaded the consequences of such uncivilized conduct. Even as they wiped their lips and asked for one more duck sandwich, they felt that this behavior was difficult beyond all imagination.

  The blocks that the Apicians had been able to put on human action did not operate when they were applied to human beings who, looking at an Apician, went deep into the recesses of their personality and were animated by a mad hunger which transcended all civilization.

  The Lords of the Instrumentality managed to round up Schmeckst's deputy and a few other Apicians and to send them back to their ship.

  The soldiers watching them licked their lips. The captain tried to see if he could contrive an accident as he escorted his state visitors. Unfortunately, tripping Apicians did not break their necks, and the Apicians kept throwing violent mind-blocks at human beings in an attempt to save themselves.

  One of the Apicians was so undiplomatic as to ask for a chicken salad sandwich and almost lost a wing, raw and alive, to a soldier whose appetite had been restimulated by reference to food.

  The Apicians went back, the few survivors. They liked Earth well enough and Earth food was delicious, but it was a horrible place when they considered the cannibalistic human beings who lived there—so cannibalistic that they ate ducks!

  The Lords of the Instrumentality were relieved to note that when the Apicians left they closed the space lane behind them. No one quite knows how they closed it, or what defenses they had. Mankind, salivating and ashamed, did not push the pursuit hotly. Instead, people tried to make up chicken, duck, goose, Cornish hen, pigeon, sea-gull, and other sandwiches to duplicate the incomparable taste of a genuine inhabitant of Gustible's planet. None were quite authentic and people, in their right minds, were not uncivilized enough to invade another world solely for getting the inhabitants as tidbits.

  The Lords of the Instrumentality were happy to report to one another and to the rest of the world at their next meeting that the Apicians had managed to close Gustible's planet altogether, had had no further interest in dealing with Earth, and appeared to possess just enough of a technological edge on human beings to stay concealed from the eyes and the appetites of men.

  Save for that, the Apicians were almost forgotten. A confidential secretary of the Office of Interstellar Trade was astonished when the frozen intelligences of a methane planet ordered forty thousand cases of Munich beer. He suspected them of being jobbers, not consumers. But on the instructions of his superiors he kept the matter confidential and allowed the beer to be shipped.

  It undoubtedly went to Gustible's planet, but they did not offer any of their own citizens in exchange.

  The matter was closed. The napkins were folded. Trade and diplomacy were at an end.

  Himself in Anachron

  And Time there is

  And Time there was

  And Time goes on, before—

  But what is the Knot

  That binds the time

  That holds it here, and more—

  Oh, the Knot in Time

  Is a secret place

  They sought in times of yore—

  Somewhere in Space

  They seek it still

  But Tasco hunts no more . . .

  HE FOUND IT

  from "Mad Dita's Song"

  First they threw out every bit of machinery which was not vital to their lives or the function of the ship. Then went Dita's treasured honeymoon items (foolishly and typically she had valued these over the instruments). Next they ejected every bit of nutrient except the minimum for survival for two persons. Tasco knew then. It was not enough. The ship still had to be lightened.

  He remembered that the Subchief had said, bitterly enough: "So you got leave to time-travel together! You fool! I don't know whether it was your idea or hers to have a 'honeymoon in time,' but with everyone watching your marriage you've got the sentimental mob behind you. 'Hon
eymoon in time,' indeed. Why? Is it that your woman is jealous of your time trips? Don't be an idiot, Tasco. You know that ship's not built for two. You don't even have to go at all; we can send Vomact. He's single." Tasco remembered, too, the quick warmth of his jealousy at the mention of Vomact. If anything had been needed to steel his determination, that name had done it. How could he possibly have backed out after the publicity over his proposed flight to find the Knot. The Subchief must have realized from the expression on his face something of his feelings; he had said with a knowledgeable grin: "Well, if anybody can find the Knot, it'll be you. But listen, leave her here. Take her later if you like but go first alone." But Tasco could remember, too, Dita's kitten-soft body as she nestled up to him holding his eyes with her own and murmuring, "But, darling, you promised . . ."

  Yes, he had been warned, but that didn't make the tragedy any easier. Yes, he could have left her behind, but what kind of marriage would they have had with the blot of her bitterness on the first days of their married life? And how could he have lived with himself if he had let Vomact go in his place? How, even, would Dita have regarded him? He could not deceive himself; he knew that Dita loved him, loved him dearly, but he had been a hero ever since she had known him and how much would she have loved him without the hero image? He loved her enough not to want to find out.

  And now, one of them must go, be lost in space and time forever. Tasco looked at her, his beloved. He thought, I have loved you forever, but in our case forever was only three earth days. Shall I love you there in space and timelessness? To postpone, if only for minutes, the eternal parting, he pretended to find some other instrument which could be disposed of, and sent through the hatch one person's share of the remaining nutrient. Now the decision was made. Dita came over to stand beside him.

  "Does that do it, Tasco? Is the ship light enough now for us to get out of the Knot? Instead of answering he held her tightly against him. I've done what I had to, he thought . . . Dita, Dita, not to hold you ever again . . .

  Softly, not to disturb the moon-pale curve of her hair, he passed his hand over her head. Then he released her.

  "Get ready to take over, Dita. I could not murder you, oh my darling, and unless the ship is lightened by the weight of one of us we will both die here in the Knot. You must take it back, you have to take back the ship and all the instrument-gathered data. It's not you or me or us now. We're the servants of the Instrumentality. You must understand . . ."

  Still within his arms, she backed away enough to look at his face. She was dewy-eyed, loving, frightened, her lips trembling with affection. She was adorable, and Cranch! how incompetent. But she'd make it; she had to. She said nothing at first, trying to hold her lips steady, and then she said the thing that would annoy him most. "Don't, darling, don't. I couldn't stand it. . . . Please don't leave me."

  His reaction was completely spontaneous: His open hand caught her across the cheek, hard. A reciprocal anger flashed across her eyes and mouth, but she gained control of herself. She returned to pleading.

  "Tasco, Tasco, don't be bad to me. If we have to die together, I can face it. Don't leave me, please don't leave me. I don't blame you . . ." I don't blame you! he thought. By the Forgotten One, that's really rather good!

  He said, as quietly as he could, "I've told you. Somebody has got to take this ship back to our own time and place. We've found the Knot. This is the Knot in Time. Look."

  He pointed. The Merochron swung slightly back and forth, from + 1,000,000:1 to -500,000:1. "Look hard—twenty-years-a-minute-plus to ten-years-a-minute-minus. The ship has a chance of getting out if the load is lightened. We've thrown everything else we could out. Now I'm going. I love you; you love me. It will be as hard for me to leave you as for you to see me go. A lifetime with you would not have been enough. But, Dita, you owe me this . . . to take the ship back safely. Don't make it harder for me. If you can hold it on Left Subformal Probability, do it. If not, keep on trying to slow down in backtime."

  "But, darling . . ."

  He wanted to be tender. Words caught in his throat. But their time had run out. Their honeymoon had been a gamble, their own gamble, and now it and their life together were over. Three earth days! The Instrumentality remained; the Chiefs and Lords waited; a million lives would be a cheap price for a fix on the Knot in Time. Dita could do it. Even she could do it if the ship were lighter by a man.

  His farewell kiss was not one she would remember. He was in a hurry now to finish it; the sooner he left, the better her chances were of getting back. And still she looked at him as if she expected him to stay and talk. Something in her eyes made him suspicious that she would try to hinder him. He cut in his helmet speaker and said:

  "Goodbye. I love you. I have to go now, quickly. Please do as I ask and don't get in my way."

  She was weeping now. "Tasco, you're going to die . . ."

  "Maybe," he said.

  She reached for him, tried to hold him. "Darling, don't. Don't go. Don't hurry so."

  Roughly he pushed her back into the control seat. He tried to hold his anger that she would not let him do even this right, to die for her. She would make it a scene. "Sweetheart," he said, "don't make me say it all over again. Anyhow, I may not die. I'll aim for a planet full of nymphs and I'll live a thousand years."

  He had half expected to stir her to jealousy or anger . . . at least some other emotion, but she disregarded his poor joke and went on quietly weeping. A wisp of smoke rising in the hot moving air of the cabin made them look to the control panel. The Probability Selector was glowing. Tasco kept his face immobile, glad that she did not realize the significance of the reading. Now no one will ever find me, even if I live, he thought. But go, go, go!

  He smiled at her through his shimmering suit. He touched her arm with his metal claw. Then, before she could stop him he backed into the escape hatch, slammed the door on himself, fumbled for the ejector gun, pressed the button. Pressed it hard.

  Thunder, and a wash like water. There went his world, his wife, his time, himself . . . He floated free in anachron. Others had gone astray between the Probabilities; none had come back. They had borne it, he supposed. If they could, he could too. And then it caught him. The others, had they left wives and sweethearts? Was it for them too a personal tragedy? Himself and Dita, they had not had to come. Vanity, pride, jealousy, stubbornness. They had come. And now: himself in anachron.

  He felt himself leaping from Probability to Probability like a pebble bouncing down a corrugated plastic roof. He couldn't even tell whether he was going toward Formal or Resolved. Perhaps he was still somewhere in Left Subformal.

  The clatter ceased. He waited for more blows.

  One more came. Only one, and sharp.

  He felt tension go out of him. He felt the Probabilities firming around him, listened to the selector working in his helmet as it coded him into a time-space combination fit for human life. The thing had a murmur in it which he had never heard in a practice jump, but then, this wasn't practice. He had never before gotten out between the Probabilities, never floated free in anachron.

  A feeling of weight and direction made him realize that he was coming back to common space. His feet were touching ground. He stood still, attempting to relax while a world took shape around him. There was something very strange about the whole business. The grey color of the space around him resembled the grey of fast backtiming, the blind blur which he had so often seen from the cabin window when, having chosen a Probability, he had coursed it down until the Selectors had given him an opening he could land in. But how could he be backtiming with no ship, no power?

  Unless—

  Unless the Knot in Time in flinging him out had imparted to him a time-momentum in his own body. But even if that were so he should decelerate. Was he coming down in ratio? This still felt like hightiming, 10,000:1 or higher.

  He tried briefly to think of Dita but his personal situation outweighed everything else. A new worry hit him. What was his own per
sonal consumption of time? With time so high outside his unit was it also rising inside? How long would his nutrients last? He tried to be aware of his own body, to feel hunger, to catch a glimpse of himself. Was the automatic nutrition keeping up with the changing time? On inspiration, he rubbed his face against the mask to see if his whiskers had grown since he left the ship.

  He had a beard. Plenty.

  Before he could figure that one out, there was one last Snap! and he fainted.

  When he recovered, he was still erect. Some kind of frame supported him. Who had put it there, and how? By the continued greyness he could tell that his physiological time and external time had not yet met. He felt a violent impatience. There should be some way to slow down. His helmet felt heavy. Disregarding the risks, he clawed at the mask until it came off.

  The air was sweet but thick, thick. He had to fight to breathe it in. It was hardly worth the struggle.

  He was still hightiming, more so than he had thought anybody could with an exposed body. He looked down and saw his beard tremble as it grew. He felt the stab of fingernails growing against his palms; there should have been an automatic cut-off but time was going too fast. Clenching his hand, he broke off the nails roughly. His boots had apparently broken off his toenails, and although his feet were uncomfortable the pressure was bearable. Anyway there was nothing he could do about it.

  His immense tiredness warned him that the automatic nutrient system was not keeping up with his bodily time. With effort he fitted his claw to his belt and twisted until the supplementary food vial was released. He felt the needle pierce the skin of his belly; he twisted again until the hot surge of nourishment told him that the food-injector had reached a vein. Almost immediately his strength began to rise.

  He watched the blur of buildings flashing into instantaneous shape around him, standing a moment, and then melting slowly away. Now he could see a little more of his surroundings. He seemed to be standing in the mouth of a cave or in a great doorway. It was curious, that, about the buildings. All the other buildings he had seen in time had worked the other way. First the slow upthrust as they were built, then the greying evenness of age, then the flash of removal. But, he reminded himself tiredly, he was backtiming and he thought it probable that no other human being had ever backtimed so hard and fast or for so long a time.