When the People Fell

by Cordwainer Smith

  "Has that ever happened?"

  "Never," she said, "not yet. But I'm ready. Watch that wire. You're turning him too fast. There now, that's right. You can stand back while I massage him on the back."

  She went back to her job of being a masseuse. Starting at the muscles joining the skull to the neck, she worked her way down the body, pouring ointment on her hands from time to time. When she got to his legs, she seemed to work particularly hard. She lifted the feet, bent the knees, slapped the calves.

  Then she put on a rubber glove, dipped her hand into another jar—one which opened automatically as her hand approached—and came out with her hand greasy. She thrust her fingers into his rectum, probing, thrusting, groping, her brow furrowed.

  Her face cleared as she dropped the rubber glove in a disposal can and wiped the sleeping man with a soft linen towel, which also went into a disposal can. "He's all right. He'll get along well for the next two hours. I'll have to give him a little sugar then. All he's getting now is normal saline."

  She stood facing him. There was a faint glow in her cheeks from the violent exercise in which she had been indulging, but she still looked both the child and the lady—the child irrecoverably remote, hidden in her own wisdom from the muddled world of adults, and the lady, mistress in her own home, her own estates, her own planet, serving her master with almost-immortal love and zeal.

  "I was going to ask you, back there—" said Casher and then stopped.

  "You were going to ask me?"

  He spoke heavily. "I was going to ask you, what happens to you when he dies? Either at the right time or possibly before his time. What happens to you?"

  "I couldn't care less," her voice sang out. He could see by the open, honest smile on her face that she meant it. "I'm his. I belong to him. That's what I'm for. They may have programmed something into me, in case he dies. Or they may have forgotten. What matters is his life, not mine. He's going to get every possible hour of life that I can help him get. Don't you think I'm doing a good job?"

  "A good job, yes," said Casher. "A strange one, too."

  "We can go now," she said.

  "What are those alcoves for?"

  "Oh, those—they're his make-believes. He picks one of them to go to sleep in—his coffin, his fort, his ship, or his bedroom. It doesn't matter which. I always get him up with the hoist and put him back on his table, where the machines and I can take proper care of him. He doesn't really mind waking up on the table. He has usually forgotten which room he went to sleep in. We can go now."

  They walked toward the door.

  Suddenly she stopped. "I forgot something. I never forget things, but this is the first time I ever let anybody come in here with me. You were such a good friend to him. He'll talk about you for thousands of years. Long, long after you're dead," she added somewhat unnecessarily. Casher looked at her sharply to see if she might be mocking or deprecating him. There was nothing but the little-girl solemnity, the womanly devotion to an established domestic routine.

  "Turn your back," she commanded peremptorily.

  "Why?" he asked. "Why—when you have trusted me with all the other secrets."

  "He wouldn't want you to see this."

  "See what?"

  "What I'm going to do. When I was the citizeness Agatha—or when I seemed to be her—I found that men are awfully fussy about some things. This is one of them."

  Casher obeyed and stood facing the door.

  A different odor filled the room—a strong wild scent, like a geranium pomade. He could hear T'ruth breathing heavily as she worked beside the sleeping man.

  She called to him: "You can turn around now."

  She was putting away a tube of ointment, standing high to get it into its exact position on a tile shelf.

  Casher looked quickly at the body of Madigan. It was still asleep, still breathing very lightly and very slowly.

  "What on earth did you do?"

  T'ruth stopped in mid-step: "You're going to get nosy."

  Casher stammered mere sounds.

  "You can't help it," she said. "People are inquisitive."

  "I suppose they are," he said, flushing at the accusation.

  "I gave him his bit of fun. He never remembers it when he wakes up, but the cardiograph sometimes shows increased activity. Nothing happened this time. That was my own idea. I read books and decided that it would be good for his body tone. Sometimes he sleeps through a whole Earth-year, but usually he wakes up several times a month."

  She passed Casher, almost pulled herself clear of the floor tugging on the great inside levers of the main door.

  She gestured him past. He stooped and stepped through.

  "Turn away again," she said. "All I'm going to do is to spin the dials, but they're cued to give any viewer a bad headache so he will forget the combination. Even robots. I'm the only person tuned to these doors."

  He heard the dials spinning but did not look around.

  She murmured, almost under her breath, "I'm the only one. The only one."

  "The only one for what?" asked Casher.

  "To love my master, to care for him, to support his planet, to guard his weather. But isn't he beautiful? Isn't he wise? Doesn't his smile win your heart?"

  Casher thought of the faded old wreck of a man with the yellow pajama bottoms. Tactfully, he said nothing.

  T'ruth babbled on, quite cheerfully, "He is my father, my husband, my baby son, my master, my owner. Think of that, Casher, he owns me! Isn't he lucky—to have me? And aren't I lucky—to belong to him?"

  "But what for?" asked Casher, a little crossly, thinking that he was falling in and out of love with this remarkable girl himself.

  "For life!" she cried. "In any form, in any way. I am made for ninety thousand years and he will sleep and wake and dream and sleep again, a large part of that."

  "What's the use of it?" insisted Casher.

  "The use," she said, "the use? What's the use of the little turtle-egg they took and modified in its memory chains, right down to the molecular level? What's the use of turning me into an undergirl, so that even you have to love me off and on? What's the use of little me, meeting my master for the first time, when I had been manufactured to love him? I can tell you, man, what the use is. Love."

  "What did you say?" said Casher.

  "I said the use was love. Love is the only end of things. Love on the one side, and death on the other. If you are strong enough to use a real weapon, I can give you a weapon which will put all Mizzer at your mercy. Your cruiser and your laser would just be toys against the weapon of love. You can't fight love. You can't fight me."

  They had proceeded down a corridor, forgotten pictures hanging on the walls, unremembered luxuries left untouched by centuries of neglect.

  The bright yellow light of Henriada poured in through an open doorway on their right.

  From the room came snatches of a man singing while playing a stringed instrument. Later, Casher found that this was a verse of the Henriada Song, the one which went:

  Don't put your ship in the Boom Lagoon,

  Look up North for the raving wave.

  Henriada's boiled away

  But Ambiloxi's a saving grave.

  They entered the room.

  A gentleman stood up to greet them.

  It was the great go-pilot, John Joy Tree. His ruddy face smiled, his bright blue eyes lit up, a little condescendingly, as he greeted his small hostess, but then his glance took in Casher O'Neill.

  The effect was sudden, and evil.

  John Joy Tree looked away from both of them. The phrase which he had started to use stuck in his throat.

  He said, in a different voice, very "away" and deeply troubled, "There is blood all over this place. There is a man of blood right here. Excuse me. I am going to be sick."

  He trotted past them and out the door which they had entered.

  "You have passed a test," said T'ruth. "Your help to my master has solved the problem of the captain and honorab
le John Joy Tree. He will not go near that control room if he thinks that you are there."

  "Do you have more tests for me? Still more? By now, you ought to know me well enough not to need tests."

  "I am not a person," she said, "but just a built-up copy of one. I am getting ready to give you your weapon. This is a communications room as well as a music room. Would you like something to eat or drink?"

  "Just water," he said.

  "At your hand," said T'ruth.

  A rock-crystal carafe had been standing on the table beside him, unnoticed. Or had she transported it into the room with one of the tricks of the Hechizera, the dreaded Agatha herself? It didn't matter. He drank. Trouble was coming.

  XII

  T'ruth had swung open a polished cabinet panel. The communicator was the kind they mount in planoforming ships right beside the pilot. The rental on one of them was enough to make any planetary government reconsider its annual budget.

  "That's yours?" cried Casher.

  "Why not?" said the little-girl lady. "I have four or five of them."

  "But you're rich!"

  "I'm not. My master is. I belong to my master, too."

  "But things like this. He can't handle them. How does he manage?"

  "You mean money and things?" The girlish part of her came out. She looked pleased, happy, and mischievous. "I manage them for him. He was the richest man on Henriada when I came here. He had credits of stroon. Now he is about forty times richer."

  "He's a Rod McBan!" exclaimed Casher.

  "Not even near. Mister McBan had a lot more money than we. But he's rich. Where do you think all the people from Henriada went?"

  "I don't know," said Casher.

  "To four new planets. They belong to my master and he charges the new settlers a very small land-rent."

  "You bought them?" Casher asked.

  "For him." T'ruth smiled. "Haven't you heard of planet-brokers?"

  "But that's a gambler's business—" said Casher.

  "I gambled," she said, "and I won. Now keep quiet and watch me."

  She pressed a button. "Instant message."

  "Instant message," repeated the machine. "What priority?"

  "War news, double A one, subspace penalty."

  "Confirmed," said the machine.

  "The planet Mizzer. Now. War and peace information. Will fighting end soon?"

  The machine clucked to itself.

  Casher, knowing the prices of this kind of communication, almost felt that he could see the arterial spurt of money go out of Henriada's budget as the machines reached across the galaxy, found Mizzer, and came back with the answer.

  "Skirmishing. Seventh Nile. Ends three local days."

  "Close message," said T'ruth.

  The machine went off.

  T'ruth turned to him. "You're going home soon, Casher, if you can pass a few little tests."

  He stared at her.

  He blurted, "I need my weapons, my cruiser, and my laser."

  "You'll have weapons. Better ones than those. Right now, I want you to go to the front door. When you have opened the door, you will not let anybody in. Close the door. Then please come back to me here, dear Casher, and if you are still alive, I will have some other things for you to do."

  Casher turned in bewilderment. It did not occur to him to contradict her. He could end up a forgetty, like the maidservant Eunice or the Administrator's brown man, Gosigo.

  Down the halls, he walked. He met no one except for a few shy cleaning-robots, who bowed their heads politely as he passed.

  He found the front door. It stopped him. It looked like wood on the outside, but it was actually a Daimoni door, made of near-indestructible material. There was no sign of a key or dials or controls. Acting like a man in a dream, he took a chance that the door might be keyed to himself. He put his right palm firmly against it, at the left or opening edge.

  The door swung in.

  Meiklejohn was there. Gosigo held the Administrator upright. It must have been a rough trip. The Administrator's face was bruised and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His eyes focused on Casher.

  "You're alive. She caught you, too?"

  Quite formally, Casher asked, "What do you want in this house?"

  "I have come," said the Administrator, "to see her."

  "To see whom?" insisted Casher.

  The Administrator hung almost slack in Gosigo's arms. By his own standard and in his own way, he was a very brave man, indeed. His eyes looked clear, even though his body was collapsing.

  "To see T'ruth, if she will see me," said Rankin Meiklejohn.

  "She cannot," said Casher, "see you now. Gosigo!"

  The forgetty turned to Casher and gave him a bow.

  "You will forget me. You have not seen me."

  "I have not seen you, lord. Give my greetings to your lady. Anything else?"

  "Yes. Take your master home, as safely and swiftly as you can."

  "My lord!" cried Gosigo, though this was an improper title for Casher. Casher turned around.

  "My lord, tell her to extend the weather machines for just a few more kilometers and I will have him home safe in ten minutes. At top speed."

  "I can tell her," said Casher, "but I cannot promise she will do it."

  "Of course," said Gosigo. He picked up the Administrator and began putting him into the groundcar. Rankin Meiklejohn bawled once, like a man crying in pain. It sounded like a blurred version of the name Murray Madigan. No one heard it but Gosigo and Casher; Gosigo busy closing the groundcar, Casher pushing on the big house door.

  The door clicked.

  There was silence.

  The opening of the door was remembered only by the warm sweet salty stink of seaweed, which had disturbed the odor-pattern of the changeless, musty old house.

  Casher hurried back with the message about the weather machines.

  T'ruth received the message gravely. Without looking at the console, she reached out and controlled it with her extended right hand, not taking her eyes off Casher for a moment. The machine clicked its agreement. T'ruth exhaled.

  "Thank you, Casher. Now the Instrumentality and the forgetty are gone."

  She stared at him, almost sadly and inquiringly. He wanted to pick her up, to crush her to his chest, to rain his kisses on her face. But he stood stock still. He did not move. This was not just the forever-loving turtle-child; this was the real mistress of Henriada. This was the Hechizera of Gonfalon, whom he had formerly thought about only in terms of a wild, melodic grand opera.

  "I think you are seeing me, Casher. It is hard to see people, even when you look at them every day. I think I can see you, too, Casher. It is almost time for us both to do the things which we have to do."

  "Which we have to do?" he whispered, hoping she might say something else.

  "For me, my work here on Henriada. For you, your fate on your homeland of Mizzer. That's what life is, isn't it? Doing what you have to do in the first place. We're lucky people if we find it out. You are ready, Casher. I am about to give you weapons which will make bombs and cruisers and lasers and bombs seem like nothing at all."

  "By the Bell, girl! Can't you tell me what those weapons are?"

  T'ruth stood in her innocently revealing sheath, the yellow light of the old music room pouring like a halo around her.

  "Yes," she said, "I can tell you now. Me."

  "You?"

  Casher felt a wild surge of erotic attraction for the innocently voluptuous child. He remembered his first insane impulse to crush her with kisses, to sweep her up with hugs, to exhaust her with all the excitement which his masculinity could bring to both of them.

  He stared at her.

  She stood there, calm.

  That sort of an idea did not ring right.

  He was going to get her, but he was going to get something far from fun or folly—something, indeed, which he might not even like.

  When at last he spoke, it was out of the deep bewilderment of his own
thoughts, "What do you mean, you're going to give me yourself? It doesn't sound very romantic to me, nor the tone in which you said it."

  The child stepped close to him, reaching up and patting his forehead.

  "You're not going to get me for a night's romance, and if you did, you would be sorry. I am the property of my master and of no other man. But I can do something with you which I have never done to anyone else. I can get myself imprinted on you. The technicians are already coming. You will be the turtle-child. You will be the citizeness Agatha Madigan, the Hechizera of Gonfalon herself. You will be many other people. And yourself. You will then win. Accidents may kill you, Casher, but no one will be able to kill you on purpose. Not when you're me. Poor man! Do you know what you will be giving up?"

  "What?" he croaked, at the edge of a great fright. He had seen danger before, but never before had danger loomed up from within himself.

  "You will not fear death, ever again, Casher. You will have to lead your life minute by minute, second by second, and you will not have the alibi that you are going to die anyhow. You will know that's not special."

  He nodded, understanding her words and scrabbling around his mind for a meaning.

  "I'm a girl, Casher. . . ."

  He looked at her and his eyes widened. She was a girl—a beautiful, wonderful girl. But she was something more. She was the mistress of Henriada. She was the first of the underpeople really and truly to surpass humanity. To think that he had wanted to grab her poor little body. The body—ah, that was sweet!—but the power within it was the kind of thing that empires and religions are made of.

  ". . . and if you take the print of me, Casher, you will never lie with a woman without realizing that you know more about her than she does. You will be a seeing man among blind multitudes, a hearing person in the world of the deaf. I don't know how much fun romantic love is going to be to you after this."