The City of the Sun

by Stableford, Brian

  There was a square apron of pavement, where we all dismounted. From the inner face of the last wall grew the same higgledy-piggledy mass of square cells with ladders and balconies and catwalks, but instead of stretching out toward the center it formed only an inner ring—a kind of encrustation on the great white expanse. A few of the people I could see moving on the catwalks were dressed in green—the others were archers.

  The mounts were led away to what was presumably a stable—a long, tall rectangular building distinctly different from the human habitations. The man in the silvery tunic led us into the gardens along a path inlaid with mosaic tiles. The archers didn’t follow.

  There were birds fluttering about in the trees, but they didn’t call out. There was no wind to rustle the branches and so the slight, scratchy sound of the moving birds was all that held back the silence. But now the clip-clop of the ox’s feet was no longer beneath and around me I could hear faint sounds emanating from distant parts of the city—or perhaps from chambers underneath it. Faint, anonymous, arrhythmic sounds.

  In the middle of the gardens—presumably at the geometric center of everything—there was a stone building, shaped like a tetrahedral pyramid but stepped with balconies and gabled windows.

  Our guide opened the main door and motioned us inside, then followed us. The ground floor extended the whole way across the building, with no internal walls, though there were three rows of thick stone pillars supporting the rest of the building and two wide spiral staircases. There was no carpet and no chairs, but at the farther end of the huge chamber there were what looked like a series of parallel curved rows of cushions. We didn’t get a chance to have a closer look because we were taken to one of the staircases. Still without opening his mouth, the dark man indicated that we should go up.

  The first floor had corridors and ordinary rooms. We went up to the second, which was considerably smaller in extent owing to the slope of the pyramid’s sides. Here there seemed to be one corridor leading away in two directions, with a set of rooms on its outer side but only one within the inner wall. We were shown into the odd one, and here our guide finally abandoned us, closing the door quietly behind us.

  The room wasn’t large. It was triangular, with a low ceiling. The three angles of the triangle were curtained off. In the center of the floor was a set of six cushions, arranged to approximate a circle. There was no other furniture save for a low table, on which stood an assortment of crockery. There were four cups—or possibly soup bowls—with handles like pans. There was also a teapot, and a bowl containing some kind of dried fruit. No milk jug, no sugar bowl. A thin wisp of steam was rising from the spout of the teapot.

  A man stepped out of the curtains protecting the farthest angle of the room. They rippled together behind him. He looked to be old but well-preserved. He was tall and thin. He had a long neck and a deep jaw, which gave the impression that the top part of his body was elongated unnaturally. The black parasite grew over his skull almost to the brow ridges, and gathered on either side of his neck almost to meet at the Adam’s apple. His tunic was black, too, and in the dim light—the room was lit by three oil lamps set in alcoves in each of the three walls—it was difficult to be sure where the garment ended and the growth began. His forearms were bare, and the network of black line seemed to enclose them like extensions of his sleeves. Only his sandals, which were brown, contrasted with the extensions of the parasites. He was brown-skinned, but his eyes had a hint of oriental canthus. His eyes were beady and black.

  He moved forward fluidly, seeming perfectly relaxed. There was the ghost of a welcoming smile about his lips.

  “Please sit down,” he said. He gestured with his hand, not offering to shake Nathan’s. Nathan had stepped forward, but quickly altered his movement and sank down rather awkwardly on one of the cushions. I sat on his left, Mariel on his right. Our host took up the position which left a spare cushion to either side of him. I suspected that six cushions had been set out for exactly that reason. I had already noticed that there were four cups instead of three. News had preceded our actual arrival.

  “You are the first visitors from elsewhere that our city has ever entertained,” said the man in black, as he picked up the teapot and leaned across the table to begin pouring. “We have no customs prepared for such occasions. I am improvising, and I hope not to offend you.”

  His voice was thin and reedy. I couldn’t immediately hazard a guess as to whether he was as underdeveloped as the archers or not.

  Nathan reassured him that we were quite unoffended, and introduced himself, then Mariel, and finally me.

  “I am called the Ego,” said the other. “I have no personal name—I gave that up in taking my place. It has been decided that I should question you. It is necessary that we should know the purpose of your visit.”

  “May we question you in return?” asked Nathan.

  “You may,” said the Ego, cordially, “but there are certain answers which I am bound to withhold at this time. I hope that this will not cause offense.”

  Nathan diplomatically assured him that this was his city, and that we would abide by his decisions.

  I tasted my tea. It didn’t taste much like any tea I’d ever tasted before. But then, I was taking it in through a multileaf filter and sterilizer. I looked up again to see the Ego watching me. Maybe he’d expected me to take the suit off. Maybe that had been the real purpose of offering us the drink.

  Nathan and Mariel were also sipping. Small droplets of the liquid began to dribble down the outer surface of their suits beneath the intake. Drinking through a filter is a difficult art to master—it’s easier if you can use specially prepared tubes that squeeze fluid through without wastage.

  We ignored the dried fruit, not being able to take solids. The man in black, presumably out of politeness, also left them alone.

  While we sipped our clumsy way through a few milliliters of the strange brew, we all looked closely at our host. He looked back, very closely. There was no sign here of the diffidence of the people in the street. I was never so fully conscious of being studied and measured. It was as if he were doing all the staring that his people had failed to do—doing it for them. And yet...it wasn’t really curiosity. There was no wonderment, no eagerness in his gaze. His attitude was purely analytical.

  “What is your purpose in coming here?” he asked, when the pause had dragged on a little too long for my liking.

  “We are visiting the colonies sent out from Earth more than a hundred years ago,” said Nathan. “Our task is to find out how they have fared. We also offer certain kinds of help to those colonies which need it. We have a genetic engineering laboratory aboard the Daedalus—it can help in adapting crops which have not been successful, in combating pests, in controlling any health difficulties which have arisen. When humans move into an alien environment there are always problems of some kind—usually minor ones. Sometimes the colonists do not realize that the problems exist, or that they can be solved. Thus, we offer help, in return for learning about the ways that you have helped yourselves. Other colonies may soon be sent out, and there is a good deal that you could teach us that may be valuable to them.”

  It was a pretty enough speech, with some delicate hedging in it. The Ego soaked it all up without changing expression.

  “Which nation sent your ship?” he asked.

  “The United Nations,” said Nathan. “Things haven’t changed a great deal since you left Earth—since your ancestors left, that is. No one nation has a space program. The UN combines the funds and efforts contributed by all the nations.”

  “There is only one Nation here,” said the Ego. I could tell by the way he pronounced the crucial word that it had a capital letter—and presumably a capital significance.

  “That is as it should be,” said Nathan, smoothly. “A colony must remain united if it is to flourish.”

  The Ego ignored that. I would have ignored it too. A philosophical advertising jingle...a cheap platitude.

&
nbsp; “Genetic engineering involves interference with natural processes, does it not?” said the man in black, after another sip from his teacup. I’d abandoned mine, feeling that I’d made the gesture. I didn’t like the stuff well enough to drink it for its own sake.

  “Genetic engineering can improve crops and destroy pests,” I said. “It is interference, of course. But agricultural development is itself interference. All the crops your fathers brought from Earth were the products of genetic engineering—manipulated for hardiness and high yield.”

  “We have a new way of living now,” he said, unperturbed.

  I wanted to point out that they still had agriculture, but Nathan nudged me to be silent.

  “We would like to study your way of living,” he said.

  “Why do you wear these curious clothes?” asked the Ego, bluntly.

  The odd thing was that his voice was perfectly even and unaggressive, yet somehow I got the impression he was hostile, that his question about genetic engineering was outright condemnation. I felt defensive, and I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps Mariel could tell us more about his attitude later.

  “The suits are for protection,” said Nathan calmly. Because we’d already been seen without them he couldn’t claim that it was routine, and therefore he had to steer a course much closer to the truth than he would have liked. “We knew that this world had a rich complement of parasitic organisms,” he went on, “and when we saw the growth on the skin of the men who came to meet us we feared that it might be one such. We felt it better to be safe until we had talked to you and you had explained it to us.”

  At least the truth constituted a kind of challenge. The way was clear for the Ego to offer us some kind of explanation.

  The man in black didn’t hesitate. “The word ‘parasite’ is wrong,” he said. “You do not understand. I cannot attempt to explain at this time. How many people are there aboard your ship?”

  “Seven in all,” replied Nathan.

  “And what, precisely, do you intend to do here?”

  “We would like to stay for several months,” said Nathan. “Perhaps a year. We would like to examine the colony in detail, in order to prepare a full report. We would like to study its history and its geography, its sociology and its ecology. We would like to examine the people and the land. And, as I have said, we would like to help you in dealing with any difficulties you have encountered in establishing yourselves.”

  He didn’t deny that there were any difficulties. That was odd. Everywhere we went the people denied they had problems—or declared that they didn’t want our help in dealing with them. Nobody was ever glad to see us, and the situation suggested that this man was even less pleased than the others. He was treating us with the utmost caution. But he didn’t say right out that Arcadia needed no help and that we might as well go right now. He was too cautious even for that.

  “It may be good that you should learn about us,” he said. “But that is for the Self to decide. What do you think of our city?”

  Nathan rode the switchback conversation with ease. Abrupt changes of direction never bothered him.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Why did you take as your model Campanella’s description of the City of the Sun?”

  “The design was appropriate.”

  “And are you, then, the metaphysicus—an autocratic high priest?” It was a sharp question. Nathan had apparently decided that what went for the opposition should go for him too.

  “Our Nation needs no autocrat,” said the man in black, “and God needs no priests.” The second sentence, at least, sounded significant.

  “So it is just the city walls that echo Campanella,” said Nathan. “Not your social philosophy. But why the decorations? Surely this is a somewhat...flamboyant...gesture?”

  The Ego sipped patiently at his tea. “The walls communicate,” he said. “They contain the knowledge of the Nation. They represent the Nation.”

  “Chipped stones are not knowledge. They can do no more than symbolize it.”

  “That is all that is necessary.”

  I had the feeling that we weren’t winning the debate. I had a thousand questions, but I knew how difficult they were to ask. Even with the barrier of scrupulous politeness gone there was no way I was going to find out what I needed to know about the black parasite in conversation.

  “What form of government do you have?” asked Nathan. “What is the Self that makes your decisions?”

  “It is our collective will,” he replied.

  “But how do you establish the collective will? By voting? How are decisions actually taken?”

  “If you are allowed to remain on this world,” replied the Ego, with perfect equanimity, “you will come to understand. And the Self, in its turn, will come to understand you. I do not think that understanding is possible at this time. Are you frightened by what you see in the city?”

  It was a very delicate way of putting the issue. Not: are you frightened by the black markings on our bodies? but: are you frightened by what you see in the city?

  “We are disposed to caution,” said Nathan, carefully. “We do not yet understand, and thus we are wary. But we are not afraid.”

  “The people seem strange to you?”

  “Of course. But not everything that is strange is implicitly fearful. We have visited several alien worlds. We have seen many things which were strange when we first encountered them.”

  The Ego rose quickly to his feet then. He had obviously mastered the art of rising from a low cushion. We hadn’t, and we had to use our hands to push ourselves up in a somewhat ungainly fashion.

  “You must wait in another room now,” he said. “We will give you beds. You may sleep while the Self decides whether you will be allowed to stay here. In the morning, you will hear the decision.”

  “Thank you,” said Nathan, with a slight bow. The Ego walked to the door, moving easily and lightly. We followed him. The same man that had brought us was waiting outside, in the corridor, and he led us a few small steps to another door, and let us into one of the rooms at the outer edge of the building. Then he closed the door behind us. I almost expected to hear the sound of a key or a bolt, but the door wasn’t equipped for locking.

  We heard him move away, and then we were alone.

  “Well,” said Nathan, “what the hell do you make of this?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  This room, like the inner chamber, was furnished only with cushions and a single low table, but three of the cushions—positioned against the walls—were huge enough to qualify as beds. The corners of the room were curtained, and behind one I found a bowl of lukewarm water and a toilet seat. The hole seemed bottomless, but there was no offensive smell.

  This room had a window, set in a door which gave out onto a balcony, but a thick piece of curtain was tacked over it to prevent a draught. Even so, the room was very cold—had it not been for the suits we would have been less than comfortable. I tested the door to the balcony. It wasn’t locked.

  Mariel sat down on one of the “beds” before beginning to answer Nathan’s question. Nathan and I followed suit.

  “In normal circumstances,” she said, “people are most readable when they’re asking questions and when they’re evading them. In the first case, the answers they expect tend to show up in their faces, in the second case, the answers they avoid. That man did nothing but ask and evade questions, but I couldn’t pick up a thing. He’s like the others—mechanical. It’s as if he were an actor reading from a script. Uninvolved. He didn’t anticipate answers, or let the ones he was hiding materialize unspoken in his mind. It was just as if he weren’t a person at all, but an arm or a leg working by habit and reflex. There’s an active consciousness somewhere, but it’s only a shadow in his facial expressions, in anything I could really feel.”

  “In other words,” said Nathan, “he’s being controlled.”

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said. “Of course I’m no
t sure. I’m telling you what impression I get. Even putting it into words distorts it—and maybe I’m choosing all the wrong words. Maybe control is a bad one. But I think that he’s under some kind of influence all right...something which is reducing his independence drastically. His mind is so ordered...it has become machinelike.”

  How could I argue? She seemed certain, and she was laying it on the line quite clearly. There seemed to be only one possible interpretation that could be put on the evidence we had.

  “It looks bad,” I agreed. “What’s our next move?”

  “It isn’t our move at all,” said Nathan, dourly. “It’s theirs. All the moves are theirs, for the present.”

  “Do you think they’ll tell us to get off their world and never to darken their doorstep again?” asked Mariel.

  “I’ve a feeling,” he said, “that there may be worse prospects than that.”

  “Here we are in the parlor,” I said, acidly, “as the fly said nervously to the spider. But they’re still thinking about it. They could have grabbed us at any time.”

  “They’re testing us out,” said Nathan. “They knew how many of us were coming...so they must have known about the suits. But they prepare tea and dry fruit, to see if politeness is going to make us open up. That was no interrogation we went through...he could have asked a thousand detailed questions if he’d wanted to. The fact that he didn’t can only mean one thing.”

  “He didn’t expect to get truthful answers,” I supplied.

  “They’re afraid of us,” said Nathan. “They’re afraid of the impression that they might have made. They don’t want us to go away because they aren’t sure they can afford to let us get away. On the other hand, do they dare let us stay...if staying means that we get a chance to study this thing and perhaps find a way of destroying it. The thing they really want to do is capture the ship...make sure it never leaves. But they know full well that that won’t be easy. The purpose of this interview was for the so-called Ego—or whatever’s pulling his strings—to find out just how suspicious we are. The simple fact that we have the suits on must have told him more than enough. Our heads are right between the alligator’s jaws.”