When the People Fell

by Cordwainer Smith

  But when the young pilot stepped before the television screen, on which was pictured the battle, and the maze of controls, he realized that his ability had been overestimated, by himself and by everyone else.

  He climbed up on the high stool and reached for the speed control levers, which were directly behind him. He leaned back, and fell! His head struck against two buttons: and he saw the Oberon and Titania blow themselves up.

  The three enemy ships cooperated in an attack on the Ariel. Bearden swung his ship around and rushed it into the smoke screen.

  He saw the huge bulk of the Tsing bear down upon him. He fired instinctively—and hit the control center.

  Dodging aside as the Tsing fell past him, he missed the Tsin by inches. The pilot of the Tsin shot at the reinforcements of the Ariel's right wing, loosening it.

  For a few moments, he was alone, or, rather, the Ariel was alone. For he was at the control board in the War Building in the City of Franklin.

  The Yuen, controlled by the master-pilot T'ang, rose up from beneath him, shot off the end of his left wing, and vanished into the mists of the smoke screen before the astonished Bearden was able to register a single hit.

  He had better luck with the Tsin. When this swooped down on the Ariel, he disabled its firing control. Then, when this plane rose from beneath, intending to ram itself into the Ariel, Bearden dropped half his machine-guns overboard. They struck the Tsin, which exploded immediately.

  Now only the Ariel and the Yuen remained! Master-pilot faced master-pilot.

  Bearden placed a lucky shot in the Yuen's rudder, but only partially disabled it.

  Yuen threw more smoke-screen bombs overboard.

  Bearden rose upward; no, he was still safe and sound in America, but the Ariel rose upward.

  The spectators in their helicopters blew whistles, shot off pistols, went mad in applause.

  T'ang lowered the Yuen to within several hundred feet of the water.

  He was applauded, too.

  Bearden inspected his ship with the autotelevisation. It would collapse at the slightest strain.

  He wheeled his ship to the right, preparatory to descending.

  His left wing broke under the strain: and the Ariel began hurtling downward. He turned his autotelevisation on the Yuen, not daring to see the ship, which carried his reputation, his future, crash.

  The Yuen was struck by his left wing, which was falling like a stone. The Yuen exploded forty-six seconds later.

  And, by international law, Bearden had won the war for America, with it the honors of war and the possession of the enormous Radiant Heat revenue.

  All the world hailed this Lindbergh of the twenty-second century.

  Western Science Is So Wonderful

  The Martian was sitting at the top of a granite cliff. In order to enjoy the breeze better he had taken on the shape of a small fir tree. The wind always felt very pleasant through non-deciduous needles.

  At the bottom of the cliff stood an American, the first the Martian had ever seen.

  The American extracted from his pocket a fantastically ingenious device. It was a small metal box with a nozzle which lifted up and produced an immediate flame. From this miraculous device the American readily lit a tube of bliss-giving herbs. The Martian understood that these were called cigarettes by the Americans. As the American finished lighting his cigarette, the Martian changed his shape to that of a fifteen-foot, red-faced, black-whiskered Chinese demagogue, and shouted to the American in English, "Hello, friend!"

  The American looked up and almost dropped his teeth.

  The Martian stepped off the cliff and floated gently down toward the American, approaching slowly so as not to affright him too much.

  Nevertheless, the American did seem to be concerned, because he said, "You're not real, are you? You can't be. Or can you?"

  Modestly the Martian looked into the mind of the American and realized that fifteen-foot Chinese demagogues were not reassuring visual images in an everyday American psychology. He peeked modestly into the mind of the American, seeking a reassuring image. The first image he saw was that of the American's mother, so the Martian promptly changed into the form of the American's mother and answered, "What is real, darling?"

  With this the American turned slightly green and put his hand over his eyes. The Martian looked once again into the mind of the American and saw a slightly confused image.

  When the American opened his eyes, the Martian had taken on the form of a Red Cross girl halfway through a strip-tease act. Although the maneuver was designed to be pleasant, the American was not reassured. His fear began to change into anger and he said, "What the hell are you?"

  The Martian gave up trying to be obliging. He changed himself into a Chinese Nationalist major general with an Oxford education and said in a distinct British accent, "I'm by way of being one of the local characters, a bit on the Supernatural side, you know. I do hope you do not mind. Western science is so wonderful that I had to examine that fantastic machine you have in your hand. Would you like to chat a bit before you go on?"

  The Martian caught a confused glimpse of images in the American's mind. They seemed to be concerned with something called prohibition, something else called "on the wagon," and the reiterated question, "How the hell did I get here?"

  Meanwhile the Martian examined the lighter.

  He handed it back to the American, who looked stunned.

  "Very fine magic," said the Martian. "We do not do anything of that sort in these hills. I am a fairly low-class Demon. I see that you are a captain in the illustrious army of the United States. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the 1,387,229th Eastern Subordinate Incarnation of a Lohan. Do you have time for a chat?"

  The American looked at the Chinese Nationalist uniform. Then he looked behind him. His Chinese porters and interpreter lay like bundles of rags on the meadowy floor of the valley; they had all fainted dead away. The American held himself together long enough to say, "What is a Lohan?"

  "A Lohan is an Arhat," said the Martian.

  The American did not take in this information either and the Martian concluded that something must have been missing from the usual amenities of getting acquainted with American officers. Regretfully the Martian erased all memory of himself from the mind of the American and from the minds of the swooned Chinese. He planted himself back on the cliff top, resumed the shape of a fir tree, and woke the entire gathering. He saw the Chinese interpreter gesticulating at the American and he knew that the Chinese was saying, "There are Demons in these hills . . ."

  The Martian rather liked the hearty laugh with which the American greeted this piece of superstitious Chinese nonsense.

  He watched the party disappear as they went around the miraculously beautiful little Lake of the Eight-Mouthed River.

  That was in 1945.

  The Martian spent many thoughtful hours trying to materialize a lighter, but he never managed to create one which did not dissolve back into some unpleasant primordial effluvium within hours.

  Then it was 1955. The Martian heard that a Soviet officer was coming, and he looked forward with genuine pleasure to making the acquaintance of another person from the miraculously up-to-date Western world.

  Peter Farrer was a Volga German.

  The Volga Germans are about as much Russian as the Pennsylvania Dutch are Americans.

  They have lived in Russia for more than two hundred years, but the terrible bitterness of the Second World War led to the breakup of most of their communities.

  Farrer himself had fared well in this. After holding the noncommissioned rank of yefreitor in the Red Army for some years he had become a sublieutenant. In a technikum he had studied geology and survey.

  The chief of the Soviet military mission to the province of Yunnan in the People's Republic of China had said to him, "Farrer, you are getting a real holiday. There is no danger in this trip, but we do want to get an estimate on the feasibility of building a secondary mountain highway a
long the rock cliffs west of Lake Pakou. I think well of you, Farrer. You have lived down your German name and you're a good Soviet citizen and officer. I know that you will not cause any trouble with our Chinese allies or with the mountain people among whom you must travel. Go easy with them, Farrer. They are very superstitious. We need their full support, but we can take our time to get it. The liberation of India is still a long way off, but when we must move to help the Indians throw off American imperialism we do not want to have any soft areas in our rear. Do not push things too hard, Farrer. Be sure that you get a good technical job done, but that you make friends with everyone other than imperialist reactionary elements."

  Farrer nodded very seriously. "You mean, comrade Colonel, that I must make friends with everything!"

  "Everything," said the colonel firmly.

  Farrer was young and he liked doing a bit of crusading on his own. "I'm a militant atheist, Colonel. Do I have to be pleasant to priests?"

  "Priests, too," said the colonel, "especially priests."

  The colonel looked sharply at Farrer. "You make friends with everything, everything except women. You hear me, comrade? Stay out of trouble."

  Farrer saluted and went back to his desk to make preparations for the trip.

  Three weeks later Farrer was climbing up past the small cascades which led to the River of the Golden Sands, the Chinshachiang, as the Long River or Yangtze was known locally.

  Beside him there trotted Party Secretary Kungsun. Kungsun was a Peking aristocrat who had joined the Communist Party in his youth. Sharp-faced, sharp-voiced, he made up for his aristocracy by being the most violent Communist in all of northwestern Yunnan. Though they had only a squad of troops and a lot of local bearers for their supplies, they did have an officer of the old People's Liberation Army to assure their military well-being and to keep an eye on Farrer's technical competence. Comrade Captain Li, roly-poly and jolly, sweated wearily behind them as they climbed the steep cliffs.

  Li called after them, "If you want to be heroes of labor let's keep climbing, but if you are following sound military logistics let's all sit down and drink some tea. We can't possibly get to Pakouhu before nightfall anyhow."

  Kungsun looked back contemptuously. The ribbon of soldiers and bearers reached back two hundred yards, making a snake of dust clutched to the rocky slope of the mountain. From this perspective he saw the caps of the soldiers and the barrels of their rifles pointing upward toward him as they climbed. He saw the towel-wrapped heads of the liberated porters and he knew without speaking to them that they were cursing him in language just as violent as the language with which they had cursed their capitalist oppressors in days gone past. Far below them all the thread of the Chinshachiang was woven like a single strand of gold into the gray-green of the twilight valley floor.

  He spat at the army captain, "If you had your way about it, we'd still be sitting there in an inn drinking the hot tea while the men slept."

  The captain did not take offense. He had seen many party secretaries in his day. In the New China it was much safer to be a captain. A few of the party secretaries he had known had got to be very important men. One of them had even got to Peking and had been assigned a whole Buick to himself together with three Parker 51 pens. In the minds of the Communist bureaucracy this represented a state close to absolute bliss. Captain Li wanted none of that. Two square meals a day and an endless succession of patriotic farm girls, preferably chubby ones, represented his view of a wholly liberated China.

  Farrer's Chinese was poor, but he got the intent of the argument. In thick but understandable Mandarin he called, half laughing at them, "Come along, comrades. We may not make it to the lake by nightfall, but we certainly can't bivouac on this cliff either." He whistled Ich hatt' ein Kameraden through his teeth as he pulled ahead of Kungsun and led the climb on up the mountain.

  Thus it was Farrer who first came over the lip of the cliff and met the Martian face to face.

  This time the Martian was ready. He remembered his disappointing experience with the American, and he did not want to affright his guest so as to spoil the social nature of the occasion. While Farrer had been climbing the cliff, the Martian had been climbing Farrer's mind, chasing in and out of Farrer's memories as happily as a squirrel chases around inside an immense oak tree. From Farrer's own mind he had extracted a great many pleasant memories. He had then hastened back to the top of the cliff and had incorporated these in very substantial-looking phantoms.

  Farrer got halfway across the lip of the cliff before he realized what he was looking at. Two Soviet military trucks were parked in a tiny glade. Each of them had tables in front of it. One of the tables was set with a very elaborate Russian zakouska (the Soviet equivalent of a smorgasbord). The Martian hoped he would be able to keep these objects materialized while Farrer ate them, but he was afraid they might disappear each time Farrer swallowed them because the Martian was not very well acquainted with digestive processes of human beings and did not want to give his guest a violent stomach ache by allowing him to deposit through his esophagus and into his stomach objects of extremely improvised and uncertain chemical makeup.

  The first truck had a big red flag on it with white Russian letters reading "WELCOME TO THE HEROES OF BRYANSK."

  The second truck was even better. The Martian could see that Farrer was very fond of women, so he had materialized four very pretty Soviet girls, a blonde, a brunette, a redhead, and an albino just to make it interesting. The Martian did not trust himself to make them all speak the correctly feminine and appealing forms of the Russian language, so having materialized them he set them all in lounge chairs and put them to sleep. He had wondered what form he himself should take and decided that it would be very hospitable to assume the appearance of Mao Tze-tung.

  Farrer did not come on over the cliff. He stayed where he was. He looked at the Martian and the Martian said, very oilily, "Come on up. We are waiting for you."

  "Who the hell are you?" barked Farrer.

  "I am a pro-Soviet Demon," said the apparent Mr. Mao Tze-tung, "and these are materialized Communist hospitality arrangements. I hope you like them."

  At this point both Kungsun and Li appeared. Li climbed up the left side of Farrer, Kungsun on the right. All three stopped, gaping.

  Kungsun recovered his wits first. He recognized Mao Tze-tung. He never passed up a chance to get acquainted with the higher command of the Communist Party. He said in a very weak, strained, incredulous voice, "Mr. Party Chairman Mao, I never thought that we would see you here in these hills, or are you you, and if you aren't you, who are you?"

  "I am not your party chairman," said the Martian. "I am merely a local Demon who has strong pro-Communist sentiments and would like to meet companionable people like yourselves."

  At this point Li fainted and would have rolled back down the cliff knocking over soldiers and porters if the Martian had not reached out his left arm, concurrently changing the left arm into the shape of a python, picking up the unconscious Li, and resting his body gently against the side of the picnic trucks. The Soviet sleeping beauties slept on. The python turned back into an arm.

  Kungsun's face had turned completely white; since he was a pale and pleasant ivory color to start with, his whiteness had a very marked tinge.

  "I think this wang-pa is a counter-revolutionary impostor," he said weakly, "but I don't know what to do about him. I am glad that the Chinese People's Republic has a representative from the Soviet Union to instruct us in difficult party procedure."

  Farrer snapped, "If he is a goose, he is a Chinese goose. He is not a Russian goose. You'd better not call him that dirty name. He seems to have some powers that do work. Look at what he did to Li."

  The Martian decided to show off his education and said very conciliatorily, "If I am a wang-pa you are a wang-pen." He added brightly, in the Russian language, "That's an ingrate, you know. Much worse than an illegitimate one. Do you like my shape, comrade Farrer? Do you have a cigarette lig
hter with you? Western science is so wonderful, I can never make very solid things, and you people make airplanes, atom bombs, and all sorts of refreshing entertainments of that kind."

  Farrer reached into his pocket, groping for his lighter.

  A scream sounded behind him. One of the Chinese enlisted men had left the stopped column behind and had stuck his head over the edge of the cliff to see what was happening. When he saw the trucks and the figure of Mao Tze-tung he began shrieking, "There are devils here! There are devils here!"

  From centuries of experience, the Martian knew there was no use trying to get along with the local people unless they were very, very young or very, very old. He walked to the edge of the cliff so that all the men could see him. He expanded the shape of Mao Tze-tung until it was thirty-five feet high. Then he changed himself into the embodiment of an ancient Chinese god of war with whiskers, ribbons, and sword tassels blowing in the breeze. They all fainted dead away as he had intended. He packed them snugly against the rocks so that none of them would fall back down the slope. Then he took on the shape of a Soviet WAC—a rather pretty little blonde with sergeant's insignia—and rematerialized himself beside Farrer.

  By this point Farrer had his lighter out.

  The pretty little blonde said to Farrer, "Do you like this shape better?"

  Farrer said, "I don't believe this at all. I am a militant atheist. I have fought against superstition all my life." Farrer was twenty-four.

  The Martian said, "I don't think you like me being a girl. It bothers you, doesn't it?"

  "Since you do not exist you cannot bother me. But if you don't mind could you please change your shape again?"

  The Martian took on the appearance of a chubby little Buddha. He knew this was a little impious, but he felt Farrer give a sigh of relief. Even Li seemed cheered up, now that the Martian had taken on a proper religious form.

  "Listen, you obscene demonic monstrosity," snarled Kungsun, "this is the Chinese People's Republic. You have absolutely no business taking on supernatural images or conducting unatheistic activities. Please abolish yourself and those illusions yonder. What do you want, anyhow?"