Lord of the Afternoon

by Pablo Capanna Lord of the Afternoon

On “punitive expeditions” against human and non-human enemies that pose a threat, the Instrumentality utilizes all of its deterrent power. “Golden the Spaceship Was Oh! Oh! Oh!” (1959) tells the story of a military operation against the dictator Raumsog, who is hindering the stroon trade. The Instrumentality distracts him with an enormous counterfeit spaceship, taking the opportunity deliver the dictator a terrible blow.

  “Three to a Given Star” (1965) is another expedition undertaken against a race that detests humans. While they possess real offensive power, the three representatives sent by the Instrumentality (an enormous black cube, a metal giant and a slippery silver cigar) have been designed to frighten the enemy simply by their appearance.

  “The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal” (1964) is the story of an agent sent by the Instrumentality to combat a strange threat: descendants of colonizers forced to become hermaphrodites in order to survive. Suzdal defeats them but creates another uncontrollable threat, which results in his eventual appearance before a military tribunal.

  The Instrumentality is a “super-government” with authority over local authorities and their leaders.42 Pontoppidan has a Hereditary Dictator while Norstrilia is a kind of aristocratic republic.

  An Empire is also alluded to, one that dissolved in the 160th century, with power over vast sectors of the Galaxy.

  As this is science fiction, any mention of an Empire calls Asimov to mind.43 However, the similarity is superficial. This Empire is neither as powerful nor as lasting as the Instrumentality. It is merely a regional power whose rise and fall occurs under the strict vigilance of the Order but never comes to rival it, as can be seen in “A Planet Named Shayol” (1961).

  The main character is sentenced to the most severe punishment for an unspecified crime against the royal family. They send him to Shayol, a world infested by microscopic parasites, the dromozoa, that invade bodies and cause them to sprout additional limbs, heads and organs. These tumors are then amputated and used as transplants. Every once in a while, a prison guard comes by to harvest the organs and supply the inmates with drugs to alleviate their pain.

  Finally, a mission of the Instrumentality announces that the Empire has collapsed and the punishment center closed. This episode (an allegory of Nazi concentration camps) is one of the precursors of the Rediscovery.

  This stage culminates with the world in a state resembling the dystopia of Aldous Huxley. The drug stroon, manufactured in Norstrilia, allows for indeterminate prolongation of life, a luxury, however, reserved exclusively for Norstrilians.

  All citizens are entitled to live four hundred years, with three consecutive rejuvenations. Knowledge of the day and time of one’s painless and pleasant death is available to anyone at any time. No one dies due to sickness, and very few perish as a result of an accident.

  The Center for Population Programming designs individual genetic patterns. Fertilization and gestation are carried out in vitro, and newborns are delivered to those responsible for raising them, in accordance with planning. The notion that someone might be brought up by his “genealogical mother” is considered “dirty”.44 Pregnancy and birth are an “old-fashioned business”45, though with the Rediscovery they become fascinating innovations.

  Old Earth and the planets protected by the Instrumentality are societies in which there does not appear to be any social differences based on wealth. Food and other means of subsistence are free. Population density is extremely low. Post-Riesmanian societies are mentioned; the masses that inspired the title of David Riesman’s book The Lonely Crowd (1950) have disappeared.

  Religion is a thing of the past, and only harmless sects of eccentrics called “believers” remain. People are ignorant of art: “Music. Songs. Nice noise to dance.”46 Humans no longer are capable of creating anything new, Rod MacBan notes when he arrives on Earth.

  Everyone refers to the Old Common Language. People are identified by a number, though generally names consist of the last two digits of the code, as can be read in some of the old languages: Tigabelas, Talatashar, Veesey-koosey, Menerima, Nuro-or. This original touch introduces a bit of history into the timeless utopia.

  The Instrumentality has prohibited the enslavement of humans, contraband of underpeople, spread of religion and most importantly, “the news”. According to the philosophy of the Instrumentality, “news is the mother of opinion, opinion the cause of mass delusion, delusion the source of war.”47 The crime of “public opinion”48 is embedded in its codes. While the Rediscovery relaxes these disciplinary measures, Dr. Jeanjacques Vomact is condemned for renewing the publication of current events in the newspaper La Prensa.49

  When Rod MacBan arrives to Earthport, no one is there to greet him: “People waited, here and there. If there had been world-wide news coverage, the population would have converged on Earthport with curiosity, passion, or greed. But news had been forbidden long before; people could know only the things which concerned them personally.”50

  Sto Odin, one of the wisest Lords of the Instrumentality, wonders: “What is life? A bit of play, a bit of learning, some words well chosen, some love, a trace of pain, more work, memories, and then dirt rushing up to meet sunlight. That’s all we’ve made of it —we, who have conquered the stars.”51

  In “Under Old Earth” (1966) Sto Odin witnesses firsthand the vanity of this system of inhuman perfection.

  Marginal individuals and non-conformists have taken refuge in a forgotten subterranean zone. There they practice a strange nihilist cult created by the prophet Sun-boy, who has revived the ancient solar religion of the pharaoh Akhenaten.

  Sto Odin, at death’s door, descends underground to confront Sun-boy and discovers he is possessed by an extra-terrestrial intelligence. He destroys his cave but realizes that the Instrumentality must change if it wishes to avoid a repetition of situations like this. None other than Santuna, the girl who had once been Sun-boy’s companion, will implement the reform. Recruited by the Instrumentality, she will assume the name Alice More and inspire the Instrumentality’s most original project: the Rediscovery.

  Still, the renewal of the human race will not be brought about by the Rediscovery but through accomplishment of the underpeople.

  The most peculiar figures in the world of Cordwainer Smith are the underpeople. They are derived from old terrestrial animals (dogs, cats, cows, turtles and snakes) that science has endowed with human appearance and intelligence without eliminating their beastly nature.

  These “homunculi” coexist with the true men and hominids in a hybrid society of men, machines and beasts where even robots have avian brains. The underpeople inhabit all the worlds except Norstrilia, where they are considered an inadmissible luxury. They have slave status –or that of objects- and are used as servants for manual labor. Their story is a non-violent feat of epic heroism that results not only in the securing of their own human dignity but, thanks to a religious re-awakening, the salvation of humankind from its spiritual paralysis.

  In “The Dead Lady of Clown Town” (1964), the crusade of the underpeople begins with the meeting of three privileged beings. One is the girl Elaine, different as a result of a programming error. The second is the personality of Lady Panc Ashash, dead for centuries but stored on an abandoned computer. The third is the girl-dog D’joan.

  The tale is a deliberate reconfiguration of the story of Joan of Arc: Panc Ashash is Saint Catherine, Saint Michael is the hunter, and Elaine is Saint Margaret.

  In the forgotten tunnel, D’joan preaches love to the underpeople, convincing them to emerge from hiding and embrace humans. Converts are mercilessly exterminated, while D’joan is burned at the stake in a passage narrated with the aloofness of a silent movie.

  The martyrdom of D’joan persists in the underpeople’s memory. Over the course of centuries it comes to be associated with the Old Strong Religion, Christianity. From Fomalhaut III it spr
eads throughout the inhabited Galaxy, despite the zeal with which the Instrumentality tries to stop it.

  The story of C’mell

  After facing such crises as those of Sun-boy and D’joan, the Instrumentality realizes it must provide human life with incentives and settle the problem of the underpeople.

  Two Lords, Jestocost and Alice More, design and implement the plan that returns to humans the risk of being alive. They release previously controlled diseases, end immortality, and revive old languages and cultures. French, English, German and Spanish are spoken again. The use of old first names is recovered. Danger and insecurity are greeted like an irresistible fad: “Human beings in the costumes of a hundred historical periods were walking around.”52 Newspapers reappear, though they contain only old news from the 20th century.

  “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (1961) passes amidst the restoration of French culture. The lovers Paul and Virginia fall in love again and together invoke an ancient oracle of the underpeople, the Abba-dingo, a forgotten meteorological machine that formulates absurd oracles. Yet everything it predicts comes true: Paul loses Virginia and is rescued by the cat-girl C’mell. Ever since meeting C’mell, he begins to respect the underpeople, for whom he previously felt only fear and disgust.

  C’mell is the most fully defined character among the underpeople. “The Ballad of Lost C’mell” (1962) is the story of her passage through the life of Lord Jestocost. Their love is an impossible one, for the law punishes relations between true men and underpeople; he is immortal while she is soon destined to lose her youth.

  Out of love for C’mell, Jestocost learns to love the underpeople. She introduces him to E’telekeli, the spiritual guide of his people. Jestocost makes a covenant with him, offering to promote sub-human rights. Years later, he crosses paths with C’mell again. Old and running a restaurant, she has never stopped loving him.

  The history of Rod MacBan

  In the novel Norstrilia, C’mell accompanies Rod MacBan. She is a girlygirl, a kind of geisha that entertains tourists in Earthport. Jestocost has entrusted her with caring for Rod.

  Rod MacBan is a Norstrilian who was on the verge of being executed twice, for the rigid laws of his world sentence anyone who is not telepathic to death. Playing with an old military computer he keeps as a family memento, he earns an immense fortune and discovers that the entire Earth belongs to him.

  Rod travels to our world to escape persecution by a civil servant, although in reality his only desire is to fulfill a childhood dream: to own an extremely rare postage stamp in the shape of a triangle.

  On Earth, he moves about disguised as an underperson to avoid raising suspicions while C’mell pretends to be his girlfriend. C’mell takes him to the underground place where E’telekeli reigns. The spiritual leader convinces him to donate his riches to the Holy Insurgency, the emancipation movement of the underpeople. In return, he offers Rod a fully subjective “life” of love with the girl. Rod shares with C’mell a vast and deep dream that covers many years in a few hours and then returns to Norstrilia. Thanks to his wealth, the underpeople are able to purchase their dignity.

  Norstrilia

  Beyond the novel that bears this title, there is news of the Australian planet in the story “Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons” (1961).

  It is a tale of espionage, based on Hadji Baba and the Forty Thieves, in which the telepathic defenses of Norstrilia are put into action. The stroon planet defends its enormous wealth with a psychic weapon that projects all the hatred bound up in the brains of dozens of furious minks onto anything it risks coming into contact with. The trespassers go mad and end up destroying themselves. Such is the fate that awaits Benjamin Bozart, the audacious thief of Viola Siderea.

  Casher O’Neill

  The stories in Quest of the Three Worlds (1966) tell a tale of conspiracy in the 162nd century, many years after the time of C’mell.

  Military officials have deposed Casher O’Neill, heir to the throne of the planet Mizzer. It is not simply a coup d’état but a programmatic revolution that seeks to impose a “reign of virtue” by force.

  The uprising begins with the massacre of courtesans and the exile of Kuraf, the dissolute monarch. Casher, who despite being Kuraf’s nephew conspires against him, distances himself from the revolutionaries and ultimately flees when the Terror is established, determined someday to return.

  For years, he wanders between worlds with a safe-conduct from the Instrumentality, in search of weapons and money that will enable him to destroy the hated dictator Wedder. He longs to return the freedom to Mizzer it enjoyed “in the times of the old Republic of the Twelve Niles.”

  The first incident occurs in “On the Gem Planet” (1963). Casher is on the planet Pontoppidan searching for an exotic green ruby he needs to build a laser gun.

  Crystals and precious stones cover the surface of Pontoppidan. Paradoxically, the most coveted thing on the planet is fertile land.

  A Norstrilian hermit has died on Pontoppidan. His horse, immortal due to an overdose of stroon, is immune from death but suffers from no longer being able to serve his master. The horse is from Mizzer, and its deepest desire is to once again gallop across the prairies that line the Twelve Niles.

  Moved by the horse, the rich and carefree society of Pontoppidan opens a political debate regarding its fate. The only being able to communicate with the animal and comprehend its desires, however, is D’alma, a canine underperson that works in the palace kitchen.

  In “On the Storm Planet” (1963), Casher O’Neill tries to buy a warship and arm it with the laser he purchased on Pontoppidan.

  He is now on Henriada, a planet punished by hurricanes so massive that colonizers are powerless against them. It is a surrealist landscape, with aerial reefs and whales blown about by the wind, inhabited by flying hominids.

  In Beauregard mansion, an artificial oasis amidst the storms, Casher meets T’ruth, a character somewhere between the mystical and the grotesque. She is an underperson/turtle in which the personalities of the Hechizera of Gonfalon (“the greatest battle hypnotist of all history”) and Mrs. Agatha Madigan (an affluent dame) have been imprinted, without erasing her chelonian soul completely.

  Practically immortal, T’ruth lives to care for the body of her lord, Murray Madigan, who is in a coma. Girl and turtle, T’ruth is a nigh supernatural being with mysterious spiritual powers destined to live for twelve thousand years.

  Casher arrives to Beauregard ready to kill T’ruth, the price he must pay in exchange for the desired spacecraft. But as soon as he meets the immortal girl, he thinks he loves her and succumbs to her spell.

  To please T’ruth, Casher fights John Joy Tree, a pilot that went mad on his first and only voyage to the other side of the Galaxy. It is strange, hypnotic combat, and Casher is victorious only through the intervention of the girl. She reveals to him the secrets of the Old Strong Religion (Christianity) but asks him to leave with her, for she must remain at Madigan’s side.

  Casher consummates his “revenge” in “On the Sand Planet” (1965). He has returned to Mizzer, unrecognizable to all due to regeneration, the result of having travelled through a mystical dimension. Having learned the truth from T’ruth, he no longer yearns for revenge.

  Thanks to the powers he received from T’ruth, Casher subtly alters the personality of the dictator, who thereupon becomes wise and tolerant. The revolution presses on but justly and free of cruelty.

  Liberated from his obsession, Casher leaves the city and meets up with D’alma again, the woman-dog he met on Pontoppidan.

  A Lord of the underpeople has sent D’alma to accompany Casher to his final destination. By now, the underpeople are recognized as fully human, and the successors of E’telekeli and the Holy Insurgency possess a power parallel to that of the Instrumentality.

  With D’alma, Casher visits strange places
with Provençal names such as Quel, Mortoval and Kermesse Dörgueil, places inhabited by people searching for eternity down mistaken paths. He meets Celalta, a Lady of the Instrumentality that has renounced her honors, and sets off with her into the desert. The journey ends at the source of the Thirteenth Nile, an Eden that the two of them will inhabit.

  The epilogue is “Three to a Given Star” (1965), in which Casher and Celalta, while telepathically exploring outer space, discover a threat that triggers a “punitive expedition” of the Instrumentality.

  Era of the Lords of the Afternoon

  Spaceships of the First and Second Era travelled through Space-One, the space of Euclid, Newton and Einstein, while planoform craft moved through the different dimensions of Space-Two.

  But in the Cordwainerian universe it is also possible to travel through Space-Three by utilizing resources more spiritual than technological. Space-Three is a true “beyond”, a sphere with metaphysical and religious connotations. It came into being as “a mathematical idea, a romancer’s day-dream, but not a fact,” something “universal and instantaneous, in relation to our universe [where] everything was equally distant from everything else.”53 Crudelta, a Lord of the Instrumentality, plans a cruel expedition to determine if it is possible to travel through Space-Three. He selects the strong-willed Artyr Rambo, infuriating him on purpose with news that his beloved, light years away, will die if he does not arrive in time to save her.

  Crudelta ships Rambo off in an archaic rocket from the 20th century called Drunkboat and through this absurd ploy is able to use Rambo’s desperation to achieve a miracle: Rambo arrives to Earth before the planoform craft, “jumping” through Space-Three.