When the People Fell

by Cordwainer Smith

  "I would like," said the Martian mildly, "to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party."

  Farrer and Kungsun stared at each other. Then they both spoke at once, Farrer in Russian and Kungsun in Chinese. "But we can't let you in the Party."

  Kungsun said, "If you're a demon you don't exist, and if you do exist you're illegal."

  The Martian smiled. "Take some refreshments. You may change your minds. Would you like a girl?" he said, pointing at the assorted Russian beauties who still slept in their lounge chairs.

  But Kungsun and Farrer shook their heads.

  With a sigh the Martian dematerialized the girls and replaced them with three striped Siberian tigers. The tigers approached.

  One tiger stopped cozily behind the Martian and sat down. The Martian sat on him. Said the Martian brightly, "I like tigers to sit on. They're so comfortable. Have a tiger."

  Farrer and Kungsun were staring open-mouthed at their respective tigers. The tigers yawned at them and stretched out.

  With a tremendous effort of will the two young men sat down on the ground in front of their tigers. Farrer sighed. "What do you want? I suppose you won this trick . . ."

  Said the Martian, "Have a jug of wine."

  He materialized a jug of wine and a porcelain cup in front of each, including himself. He poured himself a drink and looked at them through shrewd, narrowed eyes. "I would like to learn all about Western science. You see, I am a Martian student who was exiled here to become the 1,387,229th Eastern Subordinate Incarnation of a Lohan and I have been here more than two thousand years, and I can only perceive in a radius of ten leagues. Western science is very interesting. If I could, I would like to be an engineering student, but since I cannot leave this place I would like to join the Communist Party and have many visitors come to see me."

  By this time Kungsun made up his mind. He was a Communist, but he was also a Chinese—an aristocratic Chinese and a man well versed in the folklore of his own country. Kungsun used a politely archaic form of the Peking court dialect when he spoke again in much milder terms. "Honored, esteemed Demon, sir, it's just no use at all your trying to get into the Communist Party. I admit it is very patriotic of you as a Chinese Demon to want to join the progressive group which leads the Chinese people in their endless struggle against the vicious American imperialists. Even if you convinced me I don't think you can convince the party authorities, esteemed sir. The only thing for you to do in our new Communist world of the New China is to become a counter-revolutionary refugee and migrate to capitalist territory."

  The Martian looked hurt and sullen. He frowned at them as he sipped his wine. Behind him Li began snoring where he slept against the wheel of a truck.

  Very persuasively the Martian began to speak. "I see, young man, that you're beginning to believe in me. You don't have to recognize me. Just believe in me a little bit. I am happy to see that you, Party Secretary Kungsun, are prepared to be polite. I am not a Chinese Demon, since I was originally a Martian who was elected to the Lesser Assembly of Concord, but who made an inopportune remark and who must live on as the 1,387,229th Eastern Subordinate Incarnation of a Lohan for three hundred thousand springs and autumns before I can return. I expect to be around a very long time indeed. On the other hand, I would like to study engineering and I think it would be much better for me to become a member of the Communist Party than to go to a strange place."

  Farrer had an inspiration. Said he to the Martian, "I have an idea. Before I explain it, though, would you please take those damned trucks away and remove that zakouska? It makes my mouth water and I'm very sorry, but I just can't accept your hospitality."

  The Martian complied with a wave of his hand. The trucks and the tables disappeared. Li had been leaning against a truck. His head went thump against the grass. He muttered something in his sleep and then resumed his snoring. The Martian turned back to his guests.

  Farrer picked up the thread of his own thoughts. "Leaving aside the question of whether you exist or not, I can assure you that I know the Russian Communist Party and my colleague, Comrade Kungsun here, knows the Chinese Communist Party. Communist parties are very wonderful things. They lead the masses in the fight against wicked Americans. Do you realize that if we didn't fight on with the revolutionary struggle all of us would have to drink Coca-Cola every day?"

  "What is Coca-Cola?" asked the Demon.

  "I don't know," replied Farrer.

  "Then why be afraid to drink any?"

  "Don't be irrelevant. I hear that the capitalists make everybody drink it. The Communist Party cannot take time to open up supernatural secretariats. It would spoil irreligious campaigns for us to have a demonic secretary. I can tell you the Russian Communist Party won't put up with it and our friend here will tell you there is no place in the Chinese Communist Party. We want you to be happy. You seem to be a very friendly demon. Why don't you just go away? The capitalists will welcome you. They are very reactionary and very religious. You might even find people there who would believe in you."

  The Martian changed his shape from that of a roly-poly Buddha and assumed the appearance and dress of a young Chinese man, a student of engineering at the University of the Revolution in Peking. In the shape of the student he continued, "I don't want to be believed in. I want to study engineering, and I want to learn all about Western science."

  Kungsun came to Farrer's support. He said, "It's just no use trying to be a Communist engineer. You look like a very absent-minded demon to me and I think that even if you tried to pass yourself off as a human being you would keep forgetting and changing shapes. That would ruin the morale of any class."

  The Martian thought to himself that the young man had a point there. He hated keeping any one particular shape for more than half an hour. Staying in one bodily form made him itch. He also liked to change sexes every few times; it seemed sort of refreshing. He did not admit to the young man that Kungsun had scored a point with that remark about shape-changing, but he nodded amiably at them and asked, "But how could I get abroad?"

  "Just go," said Kungsun, wearily. "Just go. You're a Demon. You can do anything."

  "I can't do that," snapped the student-Martian. "I have to have something to go by."

  He turned to Farrer. "It won't do any good, your giving me something. If you gave me something Russian and I would end up in Russia, from what you say they won't want to have a Communist Martian any more than these Chinese people do. I won't like to leave my beautiful lake anyhow, but I suppose I will have to if I am to get acquainted with Western science."

  Farrer said, "I have an idea." He took off his wrist-watch and handed it to the Martian.

  The Martian inspected it. Many years before, the watch had been manufactured in the United States of America. It had been traded by a G.I. to a fräulein, by the fräulein's grandmother to a Red Army man for three sacks of potatoes, and by the Red Army man for five hundred rubles to Farrer when the two of them met in Kuibyshev. The numbers were painted with radium, as were the hands. The second hand was missing, so the Martian materialized a new one. He changed the shape of it several times before it fitted. On the watch there was written in English "MARVIN WATCH COMPANY." At the bottom of the face of the watch there was the name of a town: "waterbury, conn."

  The Martian read it. Said he to Farrer, "Where is this place Waterbury, Kahn?"

  "The Conn, is the short form of the name of one of the American states. If you are going to be a reactionary capitalist that is a very good place to be a capitalist in."

  Still white-faced, but in a sickly ingratiating way, Kungsun added his bit. "I think you would like Coca-Cola. It's very reactionary."

  The student-Martian frowned. He still held the watch in his hand. Said he, "I don't care whether it's reactionary or not. I want to be in a very scientific place."

  Farrer said, "You couldn't go any place more scientific than Waterbury, Conn., especially Conn.—that's the most scientific place they have in America and I'm sure they a
re very pro-Martian and you can join one of the capitalist parties. They won't mind. But the Communist parties would make a lot of trouble for you."

  Farrer smiled and his eyes lit up. "Furthermore," he added, as a winning point, "you can keep my watch for yourself, for always."

  The Martian frowned. Speaking to himself the student-Martian said, "I can see that Chinese Communism is going to collapse in eight years, eight hundred years, or eighty thousand years. Perhaps I'd better go to this Waterbury, Conn."

  The two young Communists nodded their heads vigorously and grinned. They both smiled at the Martian.

  "Honored, esteemed Martian, sir, please hurry along because I want to get my men over the edge of the cliff before darkness falls. Go with our blessing."

  The Martian changed shape. He took on the image of an Arhat, a subordinate disciple of Buddha. Eight feet tall, he loomed above them. His face radiated unearthly calm. The watch, miraculously provided with a new strap, was firmly strapped to his left wrist.

  "Bless you, my boys," said he. "I go to Waterbury." And he did.

  Farrer stared at Kungsun. "What's happened to Li?"

  Kungsun shook his head dazedly. "I don't know. I feel funny."

  (In departing for that marvelous strange place, Waterbury, Conn., the Martian had taken with him all their memories of himself.)

  Kungsun walked to the edge of the cliff. Looking over, he saw the men sleeping.

  "Look at that," he muttered. He stepped to the edge of the cliff and began shouting. "Wake up, you fools, you turtles. Haven't you any more sense than to sleep on a cliff as nightfall approaches?"

  The Martian concentrated all his powers on the location of Waterbury, Conn.

  He was the 1,387,229th Eastern Subordinate Incarnation of a Lohan (or an Arhat), and his powers were limited, impressive though they might seem to outsiders.

  With a shock, a thrill, a something of breaking, a sense of things done and undone, he found himself in flat country. Strange darkness surrounded him. Air, which he had never smelled before, flowed quietly around him. Farrer and Li, hanging on a cliff high above the Chinshachiang, lay far behind him in the world from which he had broken. He remembered that he had left his shape behind.

  Absentmindedly he glanced down at himself to see what form he had taken for the trip.

  He discovered that he had arrived in the form of a small, laughing Buddha seven inches high, carved in yellowed ivory.

  "This will never do!" muttered the Martian to himself. "I must take on one of the local forms . . ."

  He sensed around in his environment, groping telepathically for interesting objects near him.

  "Aha, a milk truck."

  Thought he, Western science is indeed very wonderful. Imagine a machine made purely for the purpose of transporting milk!

  Swiftly he transferred himself into a milk truck.

  In the darkness, his telepathic senses had not distinguished the metal of which the milk truck was made nor the color of the paint.

  In order to remain inconspicuous, he turned himself into a milk truck made of solid gold. Then, without a driver, he started up his own engine and began driving himself down one of the main highways leading into Waterbury, Connecticut . . . So if you happen to be passing through Waterbury, Conn., and see a solid gold milk truck driving itself through the streets, you'll know it's the Martian, otherwise the 1,387,229th Eastern Subordinate Incarnation of a Lohan, and that he still thinks Western science is wonderful.

  Nancy

  Two men faced Gordon Greene as he came into the room. The young aide was a nonentity. The general was not. The commanding general sat where he should, at his own desk. It was placed squarely in the room, and yet the infinite courtesy of the general was shown by the fact that the blinds were so drawn that the light did not fall directly into the eyes of the person interviewed.

  At that time the colonel general was Wenzel Wallenstein, the first man ever to venture into the very deep remoteness of space. He had not reached a star. Nobody had, at that time, but he had gone farther than any man had ever gone before.

  Wallenstein was an old man and yet the count of his years was not high. He was less than ninety in a period in which many men lived to one hundred and fifty. The thing that made Wallenstein look old was the suffering which came from mental strain, not the kind which came from anxiety and competition, not the kind which came from ill health.

  It was a subtler kind—a sensitivity which created its own painfulness.

  Yet it was real.

  Wallenstein was as stable as men came, and the young lieutenant was astonished to find that at his first meeting with the commander in chief his instinctive emotional reaction should be one of quick sympathy for the man who commanded the entire organization.

  "Your name?"

  The lieutenant answered, "Gordon Greene."

  "Born that way?"

  "No, sir."

  "What was your name originally?"

  "Giordano Verdi."

  "Why did you change? Verdi is a great name too."

  "People just found it hard to pronounce, sir. I followed along the best I could."

  "I kept my name," said the old general. "I suppose it is a matter of taste."

  The young lieutenant lifted his hand, left hand, palm outward, in the new salute which had been devised by the psychologists. He knew that this meant military courtesy could be passed by for the moment and that the subordinate officer was requesting permission to speak as man to man. He knew the salute and yet in these surroundings he did not altogether trust it.

  The general's response was quick. He countersigned, left hand, palm outward.

  The heavy, tired, wise, strained old face showed no change of expression. The general was alert. Mechanically friendly, his eyes followed the lieutenant. The lieutenant was sure that there was nothing behind those eyes, except world upon world of inward troubles.

  The lieutenant spoke again, this time on confident ground.

  "Is this a special interview, General? Do you have something in mind for me? If it is, sir, let me warn you, I have been declared to be psychologically unstable. Personnel doesn't often make a mistake but they may have sent me in here under error."

  The general smiled. The smile itself was mechanical. It was a control of muscles, not a quick spring of human emotion.

  "You will know well enough what I have in mind when we talk together, Lieutenant. I am going to have another man sit with me and it will give you some idea of what your life is leading you toward. You know perfectly well that you have asked for deep space and that so far as I'm concerned you've gotten it. The question is now, 'Do you really want it?' Do you want to take it? Is that all that you wanted to abridge courtesy for?"

  "Yes, sir," said the lieutenant.

  "You didn't have to call for the courtesy sign for that kind of a question. You could have asked me even within the limits of service. Let's not get too psychological. We don't need to, do we?"

  Again the general gave the lieutenant a heavy smile.

  Wallenstein gestured to the aide, who sprang to attention.

  Wallenstein said, "Send him in."

  The aide said, "Yes, sir."

  The two men waited expectantly. With a springy, lively, quick, happy step a strange lieutenant entered the room.

  Gordon Greene had never seen anybody quite like this lieutenant. The lieutenant was old, almost as old as the general. His face was cheerful and unlined. The muscles of his cheeks and forehead bespoke happiness, relaxation, an assured view of life. The lieutenant wore the three highest decorations of his service. There weren't any others higher and yet there he was, an old man and still a lieutenant.

  Lieutenant Greene couldn't understand it. He didn't know who this man was. It was easy enough for a young man to be a lieutenant but not for a man in his seventies or eighties. People that age were colonels, or retired, or out.

  Or they had gone back to civilian life.

  Space was a young man's game.
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  The general himself arose in courtesy to his contemporary. Lieutenant Greene's eyes widened. This too was odd. The general was not known to violate courtesy at all irregularly.

  "Sit down, sir," said the strange old lieutenant.

  The general sat.

  "What do you want with me now? Do you want to talk about the Nancy routine one more time?"

  "The Nancy routine?" asked the general blindly.

  "Yes, sir. It's the same story I've told these youngsters before. You've heard it and I've heard it, there's no use of pretending."

  The strange lieutenant said, "My name's Karl Vonderleyen. Have you ever heard of me?"

  "No, sir," said the young lieutenant

  The old lieutenant said, "You will."

  "Don't get bitter about it, Karl," said the general. "A lot of other people have had troubles, besides you. I went and did the same things you did, and I'm a general. You might at least pay me the courtesy of envying me."

  "I don't envy you, General. You've had your life, and I've had mine. You know what you've missed, or you think you do, and I know what I've had, and I'm sure I do."

  The old lieutenant paid no more attention to the commander in chief. He turned to the young man and said,

  "You're going to go out into space and we are putting on a little act, a vaudeville act. The general didn't get any Nancy. He didn't ask for Nancy. He didn't turn for help. He got out into the Up-and-Out, he pulled through it. Three years of it. Three years that are closer to three million years, I suppose. He went through hell and he came back. Look at his face. He's a success. He's an utter, blasted success, sitting there worn out, tired, and, it would seem, hurt. Look at me. Look at me carefully, Lieutenant. I'm a failure. I'm a lieutenant and the Space Service keeps me that way."

  The commander in chief said nothing, so Vonderleyen talked on.

  "Oh, they will retire me as a general, I suppose, when the time comes. I'm not ready to retire. I'd just as soon stay in the Space Service as anything else. There is not much to do in this world. I've had it."