by John Brunner
But then, when it was discovered that humans and Yanfolk could make love…
Well, that was just one of the improbable facts to conjure with. Additionally, they were highly peaceable. Yet they endured the depredations of shrimashey, commitment to a brutal, random, violent means of population-control! And if one sought to get to grips with the reason, one had to travel by way of such human concepts as “holy”, “sacred”, “taboo”. Not what you would predict for a rational species.
Yet rational they certainly were—and intelligent, and self-aware. At some time in the past, as the wats, mandalas and menhirs demonstrated, they had been technically more advanced, in some fields, than mankind was now. But they appeared to have lost interest in that kind of thing. Their society had been stable for millennia. Custom ruled them, not governments, and they had no officials or administrators—just an informal clique of certain persons who were hrath, or “optimal”: in other words, peculiarly able to convey the sense of “rightness” or “propriety” to the next generation.
Nonetheless, when the arrival of aliens from the stars posed a brand-new problem, they reacted promptly and with perfect aptness. They singled out one of their number and called him Elgadrin: “one-who-speaks-for”.
And…
Dr Lem blinked in astonishment. He had separated from the tutors and their retinue of children, and was now looking around for someone he could share his forebodings with: Ducci, perhaps, or the merchant Pedro Phillips. But his gaze had landed instantly on the unmistakable features of Speaker Kaydad, accompanied by Vetcho, and both of them were starting in his direction, bowing politely.
He wanted to turn and run, but he couldn’t. At his side Pompy—overjoyed by all the attention the children had lavished on her—crooned with contentment. He wished he could get so much simple pleasure out of life.
The Speaker himself was a trifle taller than the Yannish average, his height enhanced by his crest of blue-black hair, which fanned out over his crown from pointed ear to pointed ear and down his nape to the level of his armpits. Lack of the normal widow’s-peak over each eye was almost the only token, apart from his slow gait and speech, by which one might have guessed his extreme age. He was, of course, scarred in several places, and two of his fingers had been broken and healed crooked, but that was the inevitable consequence of shrimashey, and could have happened to him any time from sixty onward.
Like all his kind, he looked at a casual glance as though he wore a mask. His forehead, scalp and eye-ridges were pale, a light wooden colour between white and brown. Both his cheeks, however, were of a red shade like seasoned mahogany, and the whole of the rest of his skin was patched with palm-sized areas of the same hue networked with irregular lines of the lighter colour. There was a hypothesis to the effect that while humans had evolved among scrub and along seashores, Yanfolk were of glade stock, but there was no proof of this, Yanfolk being remarkably uninterested in their ancestry. It was a guess based on analogies with Earthside creatures such as giraffe and zebra.
Apart from his pigmentation, he differed visually from a human male in having tufts of hair at knees and elbows, and if he had been nude one could have seen the genital proboscis which, in a sense, symbolised the whole series of difficulties radiating from this contact between species.
Of course, the deeper one went the more marked the differences became. His liver-kidney was at the front of his abdomen; his heart was in his pelvis; on either side of it, in front of the hip-joints, were the male rudiments of twin organs which in the female corresponded to breasts, nourishing the newborn infant with a clear serum from special glands adjacent to the intestine. And his lungs were at his sides, drawing air directly through spiracles between the ribs; like a bagpipes, they had continual throughput. Sound to talk with was generated by a tympanal membrane and relayed through resonating chambers in the gullet, giving a rather pleasant, if monotonous, timbre; in Kaydad’s case, resembling a ‘cello droning away on a single note.
Those superficialities apart, however, it never ceased to amaze Dr Lem just how closely their two species resembled one another. Limbs, spine, skull, eyes, mouth—the list of likenesses was far longer than the tale of contrasts. Who cares, Dr Lem had always thought, if they can talk for an hour without pausing for breath? Just so long as their brains shape concepts we can grasp!
And then he glanced past the approaching Speaker and saw the inevitable band of apes trailing behind Alice Ming and her lover: determinedly imitating Earthly clothing, fidgeting to try and keep concealed the breathing-slits cut in their upper garments, somehow surrounded by the permanent aura of resentment which, he knew, was due to their not being allowed to visit other planets.
Perhaps, he thought now, it isn’t a good thing after all?
But at least the glimpse of those apes had given him a clue to the reason why Kaydad was seeking him out, to talk to him.
Kaydad’s notoriously a conservative type, not as chauvinistic as Vetcho or introverted as—what’s his name?—Goydel, but a great respecter of the status quo. If someone has told the Yanfolk about Gregory Chart, I bet the youngsters are all for having him perform here, and I bet that’s the last thing Kaydad’s generation want: some arrogant Earthling meddling in their prized ancient lore!
Because that was the only thing which could have tempted Chart here. He was certain his deduction was right.
And this could lead to a satisfactory conclusion after all. Smiling, he greeted Kaydad with hand outstretched.
“Anything happened yet, papa?” Guiseppe Ducci panted as he hurried up to his father.
“Speaker Kaydad just cornered Doc Lem over there,” Ducci grunted, binox still to his eyes as though they had become glued there. “And—”
“About the ship, I mean!” Guiseppe interrupted.
“No, nothing.” And, suddenly remembering, Ducci rounded On him, at first forgetting to lower the binox, then peeling them away with a sucking noise. They had left big curved grooves on the upper edges of his cheeks.
“Did you fix the news-machine?” he demanded.
“Oh, sure!” Guiseppe laughed. “It’s old, like you said. Sort of goofy. Too many trips across the go-board, maybe. It went into the usual routine—‘What events of galactic note have occurred here…?’ All that crap. So I sent it down into Prell, using the major population centre circuit. It’ll be tied up for hours trying to figure what disaster emptied the town.”
“Good boy,” Ducci said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Morning, Hector—morning, Zepp,” a worried-sounding voice said, and they turned to find Pedro Phillips, the enclave’s merchant, approaching them. “Say, have we had any confirmation that that is Chart aboard the ship?”
He rubbed his hands together reflexively. He was almost a paradigm of the merchant type, a portly man, though not as stout as Ducci, with a too-ready smile and a keen mind.
“I’ve been trying to get acknowledgments out of him,” Ducci said, hefting his communet extension. “So far, not a word.”
“I see.” Phillips frowned. “I’m beginning to wonder if it is Chart in there, you know. I mean, I can’t see what would bring him here. Surely he doesn’t imagine three hundred of us in the enclave can afford his rates? And as for the Yanfolk hiring him—well, how’d they pay him?”
Ducci nodded. Yannish currency did exist, but it related to a complex and subtle system of personal obligations, not to what humans would call a financial transaction.
“I guess he could just have come to look the planet over,” Guiseppe offered. “Like a visit.”
“Not in a million years,” Phillips declared, and Ducci nodded agreement, tugging at his mustachios and frowning dreadfully. No, it couldn’t just be a visit. Star-travel was not a cheap pastime, even for someone like Chart—if there was anybody like him—who signed contracts with continents and spoke as an equal with the governments of planets.
“Ever seen him working?” he asked Phillips. The merchant shook his head.
“Can’t say I want to, either.”
“Oh, I do!” Guiseppe exclaimed. “Mama was on Ilium when he came—you know about that?” he added to Phillips in parenthesis. “And she says it was wonderful!”
“Well, it’s not up to us, anyhow,” his father said after a pause. “You saw that Doc Lem is over there talking to the Speaker? I bet I know what they’re discussing. The apes might want Chart to put on a show here, but the old folk—hell, no!”
“I sure hope you’re right,” Phillips muttered.
Since his belly was even emptier than the houses, Erik Svitra had finally decided to take the risk of helping himself to some food. He’d found a locally-made bread, with a good flavour, and a wedge of something cheese-like, strong but edible. There was a mouthful of it on the way down when he heard a tapping at the door. He jumped, inhaled a crumb, coughed, blew a wet mixture of bread and cheese all over the table he was sitting at, and the world dissolved into a swirling blur as his eyes filled with tears.
“It’s okay!” he forced out as soon as he could. “I was just hungry—I’ll pay for what I…”
But his vision had cleared by that time, and he was able to make out the nature of the intruder: an elderly Epsilon news-machine, of a type he had often encountered while crossing the go-board.
“Well!” he said sourly. “I guess I’m the only news in town today, hm?”
The machine said, seeming agitated as it wove its sensors back and forth in a complex pattern, “Sir, since it would appear you are the sole survivor of the catastrophe which has emptied this town of its inhabitants a là the apocryphal ocean-going vessel, Marie-Celeste, kindly inform me if you can of the nature of the said event.”
“Catastrophe?” Erik blinked rapidly several times. “What catastrophe? Everyone’s gone out of town to look at a starship that landed. Belonging to”—he searched for the name again, located it—“Gregory Chart, I think they told me. Say, I—”
But the machine had reacted in the most extraordinary manner. It had withdrawn its sensors, stood trembling for a moment, and then spun around in its own length and departed at a headlong run.
“What a world,” Erik sighed. “Drives even machines crazy!”
He went back to his bread and cheese.
VII
The ship had lain inert for so long that hardly anybody now was paying it much attention. It came as a shock when without preamble a vastly amplified but pleasantly inflected voice suddenly rang out all around it.
“Good morning! This is Gregory Chart. Forgive me for having taken so long to confirm what you doubtless already suspected, but after a lengthy interstellar voyage there are certain essential routine procedures to attend to.”
The haloed sun was well clear of the horizon by this time. Oddly, both humans and Yanfolk seemed to be approaching the ship no closer than the fringe of its blurred shadow. And they had not surrounded it on all sides, but predominantly on the side nearer Prell, forming a rough horseshoe. All the watchers now, without exception, turned to face the source of the words.
“I believe that—yes, there he is. A friend of a friend of mine is present, I discern, who happens also to be a prominent member of your community. While we are not, regrettably, yet in a position to mingle with you, we’d like to invite him aboard straight away. When Dr Yigael Lem has finished his current conversation…?”
A section of the ship’s hull slid back, or dissolved—it happened so quickly, the naked eye could not determine which. A pale grey access ramp licked out like the tongue of a chubble, to touch the irregular rocky ground. Down this ramp a vast mass of roses spilled, and a fanfare roared from a score of amplified trumpets. Some of the Yannish apes clapped their hands gleefully; that was another convention they had copied from Earthsiders.
Next, kicking the flowers aside with careless boots, appeared an honour guard of soldiers two metres tall, in black skin-hugging uniforms with high red shakos on their heads. They took station either side of the ramp, five deep, and at a barking word of command slammed their weapons into salute position. Drums rattled thunderously as a prelude to the emergence of a band of musicians in leopard-skins, playing a four-square march tune with a crude elemental pulse, who wheeled about at the foot of the ramp and divided into two groups, facing each other and marking time.
“Well, who would have thought it?” Guiseppe Ducci marvelled. He had been much impressed by the account his mother had given of Chart’s work on Ilium. “Old Dr Lem—knowing somebody as famous as that!”
“He only knows somebody he knows,” his father corrected absently, and went on staring through his binox, so that he did not notice the scowl his son bestowed on him.
It had taken Chevsky an eternity to make himself presentable: to shower, to dress neatly in the proper uniform, to organise the decorations on it, to fix his hangover, to cope with a depilator which kept trying to wander off across his scalp and carve deep ruts in his hair instead of confining itself to his cheeks and chin. He was as sweaty and ill-tempered at the end of the process as he had been at the beginning.
Stumbling up the rough track leading to the place where the ship had landed, he heard the blaring of the fanfare, and cursed his wife to the uttermost hells of every planet he had ever heard of.
“We would not wish to delay your meeting with this friend of your friend,” Speaker Kaydad said. That degree of acquaintance, in Yannish terms, was one of the closest; they tracked such contacts to the eighth degree as a matter of course.
Dr Lem forced a smile. It was hard. He was aware that everybody’s eyes were on him—the eyes of such a crowd as probably had not been seen on Yan since the arrival of the first Earthsider ship, if then—and he hated the sensation of being… What was the ancient phrase? Oh, yes: “in the beam”.
Still, there was no alternative. He took his leave mechanically and set off towards the ship’s ramp with Pompy, as ever, at his heels. The curve of the vessel loomed over him, its scale provoking the irrational fear that it might roll over him and crush him into a little wet smear. Behind its limb he saw a particularly brilliant meteorite stab down from the Ring towards Kralgak, visible against the daylight sky. He wished he hadn’t noticed that. It was too much like an omen. This vast ship also had dropped out of heaven.
When he arrived within twenty metres of them, the honour guard and the band turned to face him, saluting a second time. He wondered optimistically whether Chart had picked on this approach because he believed Yan to be a backward planet. It was a slim hope. But any hope was better than none at all right now.
The instant he set foot on the ramp it began to carry him smoothly upwards, and Pompy also. Astonished, the chubble sat down, all her feet planted firmly on what should have been but was not solid ground, and let out a yowl of complaint. Bending absently to comfort her, he picked up one of the roses and examined it with a connoisseur’s eyes. Amazing. “Peace”, still breeding true after all these centuries.
Pompy licked it, and decided she didn’t like that, either. She snuggled close against his leg for reassurance.
At the top of the ramp he found himself in a place not so much a lock, or even a hallway, as a grotto. From overhead draped stalactites hung, reminding him of the curtain effect which had opened last night’s auroral display, lit from concealed sources to produce a bewildering range of light and shade. Water was running somewhere, and a lemony scent pervaded the air.
From among stone pillars flanking him, girls appeared in filmy robes, all beautiful, all graceful, who whispered welcome to him in a hundred soft individual voices. One in pale blue confronted him and urged him caressingly forward. He complied with a glance over his shoulder, and saw that the entrance to the ship had closed, as though it had never existed.
He looked again at the girl escorting him, meaning to put a question to her, and gave a gasp. He was no longer looking at a lovely blonde in a blue gown, but at a creature with green fangs and eyes like the glow of putrescent meat. A blast of brimstone assailed him, making his nostri
ls and throat sting; a braying noise like a mad donkey rang in his ears, and the hard floor under his feet turned to squelchy, nauseating mud.
Darkness fell.
But, paradoxically, Pompy continued to walk at his side, leaning slightly on his leg.
Hmm!
Dr Lem said after a pause, “There’s no need to try and impress me, you know. And apparently you can’t impress my chubble.”
“Really?” a light voice countered from nowhere, in which sarcasm mingled with amusement. “Well, then, I’ll stop the show. Although not many people benefit from an exclusive performance directed by Gregory Chart, and I can assure you the opportunity will not recur.”
Light sprang up, and there was no sign of the grotto or the girls. Dr Lem found himself in a huge plain open volume flanked by the supporting girders of the ship, facing and looking up towards a sort of translucent bubble from which the light emanated. On the front of the bubble, colossally magnified and distorted, was the face of a man with a beaklike nose, deep-set eyes, thick slightly shiny lips, skin like old parchment oiled and stretched on a frame of second-hand bone.
Pompy didn’t like that either, and said so, very faintly.
“So you’re Yigael Lem,” said the ten-metre-high face. “Doyen of the human enclave here, so they tell me… Take the ascensor on your right, if you please.”
The race began to shrink, drawing away. Head was joined by shoulders, then chest and arms, then a whole figure, still diminishing. Within the translucent globe, fox one brief second, it looked as though some dreadfully overdue foetus were floating in luminous amniotic fluid.
Pompy absolutely refused to mount the ascensor, so he had to pick her up. Fortunately chubbles, although bulky, were light. Cradling her on his left arm, Dr Lem studied the globe in which Chart presented himself, and realised that it was the eye on the front of the ship’s brain, pineally sunk inside the cranium of the hull. Its bulbous transparent surface was networked with the spider-tracery of non-refractive vidscreens; he counted automatically, found forty by thirty—twelve hundred possible different points of view which could be cast before Chart to make an insectile mosaic of the world.