First Cycle Part 7

The open car came to a stop just outside the triangle of the landing-craft. Four of the six occupants got out and stood talking for a moment. The driver remained in his seat, as did the one who sat beside him (her? Yssa wondered; she couldn't tell-all the ones she could see seemed to be of the same s.e.x. They looked male, but she'd like to have seen a female for comparison), who was crouched behind something that looked like a heavy, rapid-fire gun.

The four who descended took off their belts and put them on the seats of the vehicle, and then advanced toward the Hetairans, their arms extended in front of them. Vandro nodded to himself, pleased. To lay aside weapons and approach with plainly empty hands seemed like an obvious peace-gesture to him; the fact that these natives thought so too was a sign that their mental processes were not totally unsimilar.

They had six fingers, the two outside ones thumbs, he noted, and made a small bet with himself that their mathematics would be based on a duodecimal system. Their faces were broad, with wide mouths and heavy jaws, bulging eyes and erect, pointed ears; but all the parts seemed to be in the right places. The most alien-looking thing about them was their body baldness-a.s.suming it carried through under their clothing-and the strange stuff on their heads, which was definitely not fur. Yssa was right, despite-or, perhaps, because of-the great similarities in what one might call gross appearance, they did look pretty horrible.

The circling shuttle-craft came roaring down for one more pa.s.s, with the sound-maker on again, and the newcomers ducked their heads as one, although the puff of red smoke it released was a good five hundred lances over their heads. Dantro Fanzagarro, kneeling beside the radio transmitter, began reporting into it, and Lylla kept the television camera aimed at the delegation of s.h.i.+ning Sister's unpleasant-looking children.

Chapter Thirteen

It was three sleep-periods later when the Successor-Controller and his entourage arrived at the Doroda Alcohol Center on Dudak. Before going out to look at the great s.h.i.+ps that had landed in the narga-field, they paused to refresh themselves after the journey-Krav-Torov didn't want to look tired or worn when meeting the aliens; probably the most important confrontation he'd have during his whole ministry.

His car headed the small convoy that left the distillery buildings and headed for the field of narga-stubble. "Slower, Citizen Driver," he instructed as they entered the field, "and a little to the left; when we get closer, half-circle around them to give me a look at them."

"Obedience, Citizen Controller-Successor."

The car slowed, and Krav-Torov leaned across Harv-Sarov, on his right. The three s.p.a.ce vehicles were ahead; great streamlined shapes in black and silver, larger than any aircraft ever built by the Organic State, at least three times as large as anything currently flying. They had huge jet engine pods on their triangular wings, with great air-intake scoops that looked as though they closed up for streamlining when they weren't in use. A cl.u.s.ter of rocket nozzles came out of the rear of the strange craft.

Much as their size impressed him, it didn't seem that they were large enough to carry sufficient fuel for the return trip. They could have had disposable tanks for the trip across, but if so they were obviously disposed of already. Scientists working on the problem for him had hypothesized that the reason why the earlier s.h.i.+p had not landed was that it could not have carried enough fuel to lift itself out of the gravity well and crossed s.p.a.ce to its home planet again.

But a s.h.i.+p could carry enough fuel to reach a low orbit and return to the ground several times. Which meant that these s.h.i.+ps had probably been launched from some gigantic s.p.a.ce-travelling vehicle, which must even now be orbiting around his planet. If these, then, were indeed mere landing-craft, the thought of what the s.h.i.+p that carried them must be like awed him, as did the scientific and organizational abilities of its builders. These beings must certainly have some sort of an Organic State, probably one more highly developed than his own.

He had been worrying about the inadequacy of the troops available, and wis.h.i.+ng that the Organie State, after the b.l.o.o.d.y extinction of its last rival, had not allowed its armed forces to deteriorate. But now he realized that no army that had ever been fielded on his planet, not even the forces which had marched to the conquest of Dudak in 2078, would have been of any use to him against the beings who had built these s.h.i.+ps. The only hope for the survival of the Organic State lay in conciliation and avoidance of conflict-at least until the science of these aliens could be appropriated and applied.

The cars stopped at the edge of the triangle bounded by the three shuttle-craft, and everybody, even the drivers, got out and stared at the group around the tables that had been set up at the center. Krav-Torov spared a hasty glance at Skrov-Rogov, the supervisor of the Doroda Alcohol Center, and his a.s.sistants, and then turned his full attention to examining the aliens.He had expected to find beings different from himself, but he was shocked at the extent of the difference. These creatures were at least a head taller than any of his own race, and red in color. They wore leather trousers and vests, and short boots, and carried what looked like weapons at their belts. One of his race dressed that way would have looked scantily-clad, but these beings didn't. It was, perhaps, because of the body- covering of some kind of fine down which extended to every visible part of their anatomy. No, not down, he corrected himself as he approached the tables; it was finer, as fine as the nap of velvet. The color was not uniform. One of them had a pinkish splash across its flat-nosed, triangular-eared face; another, scarlet elsewhere, was almost white under its chin.

They were, he was suddenly startled to notice, missing a thumb on each hand. It would have been the under-thumb when the two hands were extended and clasping each other.

He also noted differences between the aliens in physical structure, which were almost certainly secondary s.e.xual characteristics. Like his own race, these aliens would seem to be gamogenetically-reproducing mammals. That was rea.s.suring; it promised a common psychological base. Although, he reminded himself, the ability to understand another's psychology did not necessarily equate with the ability to get along. The svarps were gamogenetically-reproduced mammals, of whom there was a folk-saying, "As dirty and disgusting as a svarp."

This party seemed to consist of four males and four females. He wondered, idly, which was the dominant s.e.x.

The aliens had set up quite a bit of apparatus around the field, and Krav-Torov examined it as best he could as he strode toward the central tables. There was what looked like a portable radio. One of the males was beside it, talking into the hand-phone.

A large, angular, plastic or painted-metal box with a wide lens in its face sat on a heavy tripod. A female was keeping it pointed toward him and his party. Some sort of camera, he supposed, and then realized with a start that, for all he knew, it could be a deadly weapon. There were a few more metal or plastic boxes, studded with dials, levers, and k.n.o.bs; two of them had large screens which glowed with bluish light and on which pictures s.h.i.+fted.

The tops of the two tables were littered with pads of paper and books, and what looked like oversized photograph-folios. To the left of the tables was a big, white plastic board, on its own stand something like an artist's easel. There were drawings on it; diagrams of some sort "done in colored grease-pencil. One of Skrov-Rogov's subordinates and one of the alien females seemed to have been using it to explain something to each other.

When Citizen Successor-Controller Krav-Torov reached the tables in the middle of the triangle, Supervisor Skrov-Rogov and the rest of his party rose from their seats, and the one who had been trying to converse with the alien female put down his grease-pencil.

They all gave him the Organicist salute and bowed deeply, holding the bow for perhaps an exaggerated length of time, following Skrov-Rogov's lead, to show the aliens the importance of their visitor. The aliens stared at this happening, and then spoke to each other in queer, high-pitched voices. No doubt, Krav-Torov thought, they were trying to decide just how important he was among his own kind.

"Tell them, Skrov-Rogov," he said, "tell them who I am."

Skrov-Rogov turned to the alien male he had been talking to. "Name Krav-Torov," he said, indicating the Successor-Controller. "Big high man for all people this world."The alien advanced toward Krav-Torov, grimacing in what was probably his version of a friendly smile. Krav-Torov resisted the urge to take a step backward with each step the alien took forward.

"Name Vandro Hannaro," the alien said, slowly and carefully, and only slightly squeaky. "People my world friends people your world. Your world, my world, sisters; your people, my people, sisters' children."

Krav-Torov looked at Skrov-Rogov with respectful surprise. To have taught these aliens so much of the language in the few days since their arrival had been a considerable feat. He made a mental note to have Citizen Skrov-Rogov's brain-cell category revised upward very sharply.

He tapped himself on the chest. "Name Krav-Torov. My world glad people your world come," he said. "Your world, my world, good friends always. Learn much from each other. Welcome."

"We learn much, your world. We want know all, your world. We work much time, come your world," the alien said. He gestured toward the screens with the glowing pictures. "Learn much, much to learn."

Krav-Torov turned toward the screens and stepped closer, so he could make out the pictures. 'One was a view of the country around Doroda Alcohol Center, as seen from about three kilometers overhead; the point-of-view was s.h.i.+fting slowly, circling around the complex. The other screen showed a magnification of the scene in the first. In it he could see the three great shuttle-craft, and the grouped tables and chairs, and the equipment, and the people and aliens inside the triangle. He could even make himself out, staring at the screen. Then the scene in the magnified image drifted, and the cars in which he had arrived came into view on one side, to move off the other, followed by the armored trucks, the stand of unharvested nerga-plants, and then the ma.s.sed infantry and combat-vehicles and artillery deployed a league and a half away, waiting on his word. All of this, in plain sight on this strange screen!"

"Citizen Skrov-Rogov," he said, working to keep his voice calm, casual. "What sort of devices are those screens!"

"It seems to be a thing like radio, Citizen Successor-Controller," Skrov-Rogov answered, "except that it transmits pictures instead of sound. We don't know enough of each other's languages yet for them to explain it in any technical way, but that's the basic idea: That box over there, with the lens set into the front, is picking up what's happening here and sending the pictures, in continuous motion, to another s.p.a.cecraft circling overhead. And that one, in turn, is sending views of the, ah, countryside."

Wonderful! Krav-Torov thought. If we make one hostile move, every alien on the planet not only knows about it, but sees pictures of it. Then the bombs begin to fall. He wondered what sort of bombs they'd be-explosive, fire, poison gas, strange disintegrating rays, little puffs of smoke that turn us into vegetables? Vran only knew which of the endless possibilities.

Krav-Torov took a deep breath. "You have done well, Citizen Skrov-Rogov," he said.

"You will turn the management of your farms and distillery over to your immediate subordinate. I'm ordering you immediately re-cla.s.sified to Category Four. From now on, you'll maintain contact with these beings, and coordinate the work of exchanging linguistic and other information with them. You will follow such directives as you arefrom time to time given, always keeping in mind that your prime directive is to gain and hold the friends.h.i.+p of these beings at any cost. Have you got that?"

"Yes, Citizen Successor-Controller."

"Remember," Krav-Torov said, stepping close to Skrov-Rogov and dropping his voice to a whisper. "Gain their trust. Make friends with them.

Learn their language. Learn their technology. Call on what expert help you need. The resources of the State are yours. Steady increasing success will be rewarded."

"Yes, Citizen Successor-Controller."

"There is a corollary that I don't think we need discuss," Krav-Torov continued. "And that is the price of failure."

"I understand, Citizen Successor-Controller."

Mysterious and deep is the Mind of Vran! Strange and secret are the thoughts of Vran! Incomprehensible are the ways of Vran! Skrov-Rogov repeated this litany to himself piously. How had the Hand of Vran worked to single him out this way! His transfer to Doroda Alcohol Center had actually been a demotion. He had held a much better position at Urava, in the central office of the Bureau of Agrarian Industry Control, until a superior had made an outrageous blunder and had needed a scapegoat. At the time Skrov-Rogov had thought himself lucky not to have been amputated; it never occurred to him to harbor any bitterness about what was plainly a legitimate act of bureaucratic self- defense. He would have done the same, had their positions been reversed.

Now, having tried his loyalty to the machinery of the State, behold how Vran had rewarded him! That he should be given the credit for the fact that these aliens had developed a superb system for teaching and learning languages seemed every bit as just as that he should bear the blame for his superior's idiocy.

Skrov-Rogov soon found himself as the Deputy-Controller in charge of the Agency for Communications With and Technological Studies Of the Visitors from the Horizon Object. It was set up as a regular Control Bureau in miniature. Using the authority given him by the Citizen Successor-Controller, he took over what had been the country estate of one of the wealthy landowners of the old Dudakan Confederacy, now a rest-resort for upper-category brain-cells, and converted it into lodgings for the aliens and headquarters for himself and his a.s.sistants. A landing-field for the aliens' shuttlecraft was provided, and the entire company of the orbiting mother-s.h.i.+p, at one time or another, came down to visit.

There were bitter power.-struggles with brain-cells of greater tenure or higher category than his own, but Skrov-Rogov had a good grounding in bureaucratic infighting, and he managed to keep control of his agency. With the Citizen Successor-Controller solidly behind him, he had his own brain-cell category revised upward twice, getting a special waiver of time-in-category from the Committee on Grants and Waivers. This was deemed necessary, not only for his own status, but so that he might have authority over the high- category specialists that were a.s.signed to his agency.

He contrived that everything learned from the Outsiders must pa.s.s over his desk, that the different specialists were kept in ignorance of the details of each other's work, and that the extent to which Vandro Hannaro and the other aliens partic.i.p.ated in the work was kept to a minimum. The Outsiders were, to the greatest extent possible, to be amused rather than informed; and they were to teach rather than be taught.He also made sure that the area was surrounded by a high fence, and kept under constant guard. Whenever any of the Outsiders left it, they were always attended by members of the Organic State Police-to protect them from embarra.s.sment and annoyance, he explained, because there was considerable fear of them and resentment of them among the more ignorant people. This, of course, would pa.s.s away in time; but for the present- The only trouble with this explanation was that the Outsiders refused to understand.

The concept of the ignorant public was one Skrov-Rogov was weaned on: the body-cells, the working ma.s.s, the serfs. But the Outsiders persisted in thinking he was referring to feeble-minded or organically brain-damaged people, and wondering why they were allowed to roam around. Won't they hurt themselves? And this problem did not lessen as time pa.s.sed. It almost seemed as if, as communication between the races improved, mutual incomprehension increased.

Skrov-Rogov almost collided with Harv-Sarov, a priest and professor at the Sacred University of Urava, as he emerged from the main doorway of the Outsiders' Guest House. They snarled angrily at one another, and then, as mutual recognition dawned, apologized, laughing ruefully.

"It's no wonder that our tempers are short, Citizen," Harv-Sarov said. "The wonder is that we aren't biting one another. Dealing with those animals is surely a case of Vran testing our patience, our faith, and our fort.i.tude. They are lying to us, those Outsider animals, and laughing in our faces, and we have to smile and pretend to believe them."

"You think so. Citizen?" Skrov-Rogoy asked, taking the priest's arm and guiding him to a nearby bench. "I wish I could believe that."

Harv-Sarov looked at him in surprise. "Explain, Citizen Skrov-Rogov."

"Look at it this way, Citizen Priest-Professor; if they're lying, they must have a reason for lying, and we should be able to figure out what it is. If they're not lying, if they're telling the truth, it would invalidate everything we have been taught to believe in all our lives. It's like one of those problems in truth-telling you get in school: three people are locked in a room; one of them can only lie, one can either lie or tell the truth, and the third can only tell the truth. What question can you ask any one of them to instantly know which he is, and which the other two are?' Well, in real life the problem is invalid, because n.o.body always lies or always tells the truth. But with these Outsiders, we are faced with just that problem."

"How do you mean. Citizen?"

"Let me put it this way. Reverend Citizen; these beings claim not to understand what we're talking about when we tell them about the Organic State, because they don't have such a thing. Well, that's all right. There was a time when we had not evolved to the high point we're now at. So what sort of government do they have? We haven't been able to find out. Why? Because they have no word for the very concept of 'government.' They don't know what we're talking about."

The priest nodded. "Their language, if we are to believe what they tell us, lacks terms for the fundamental social relations.h.i.+ps of authority, or regulation, or even law."

"And yet," Skrov-Rogov said, gesturing toward the landing field, from which one of the shuttles was thrusting itself into the atmosphere, climbing its ladder of flame, "they have developed a culture which has produced that. What sort of culture had we before the Citizen-Originator Dov-Soglov and the Citizen-First-Controller Zov-Zolkov? Guns thatloaded at the muzzle with loose powder; wretchedly inefficient steam-turbines; no telephones or radio or electric power. Why, all that we have accomplished was accomplished under the Organic State, and yet these creatures, far in advance of our science, claim that they have no equivalent to the Organic State. Worse; they claim they possess no equivalent to the state! Their condition, they would have us think, is more anarchic than any in recorded history." He used an oath at which the priest frowned. "Can we believe them? And, more to the point, Citizen-Priest, dare we believe them?"

Harv-Sarov tied his two hands together with his fingers and stared glumly at the rough concrete walk. "I see what you mean, Citizen Director. But their problem goes much deeper for one of the Shoe, like myself. Their pretended ignorance of the very concepts of religion strike me to my soul. What are we to do with a race like this? How can they have achieved a high state of civilization, and not come to any awareness of the Glory of Vran?

How would He have permitted such a thing? Could it be that He is testing us?"

"Would that not be a rea.s.suring answer, Reverend Citizen?"

"For you, perhaps, but not for me. If we are being tested by Vran, then what are the right answers to the test? What is it that Vran would have us do?" He turned to Skrov- Rogov and spread his hands wide, a gesture of bafflement. "Why, the most degraded savage in the darkest corner of the globe before the Englightenment had some concept, dim and barbarous though it might have been, of Vran. Yet you should have heard that female Outsider, the one called Leel-lah Something-Or-Other, with the bright red fuzz on her body and the white splash under her chin. She laughed at me when I tried to explain the existence of the Universe in the Mind of Vran. I tell you, I could hear that laugh echoing in the convolutions of the Mind itself. You know what she asked me? She asked me to tell her whose mind Vran existed in!"

"I saw a peasant on Vashtur hanged by the wrists over a slow fire and roasted to death for such blasphemous talk," Skrov-Rogov said.

"May he find forgiveness in the Memory of Vran," the priest mumbled, making the Holy Sign. "But that's not the worst of it. Disbelief we can handle, even from aliens. The Successor-Controller has authorized the Office of the Stabilization of the Faith to start a new Bench. It will be called the Bench for the Propagation of the Word of Vran Among the Outsiders. Of course, we are not to do any propagating now; nothing to annoy the fuzzy beasts yet. But when we have the upper hand-we'll convert them, or we'll eliminate the race trying!"

"That's the idea," Skrov-Rogov approved.

"But their att.i.tude, and their behavior; I don't know how long I can stand it. They have no sense of shame or morality. They degrade women by letting them do men's work."

"They do seem to have complete equality of the s.e.xes," Skrov-Rogov said.

"Disgusting!" the priest said. "And have you seen how they behave toward each other?

Running around naked; both s.e.xes bathing together. And they certainly like to bathe- they're the cleanest beasts I ever saw. And the other day I came across two of them under a tree-a male and a female. And they were-openly-fornicating. And when they saw me watching, it didn't seem to bother them at all. Not at all. Just like animals."

"And yet-" Skrov-Rogov looked toward the landing field. "The problem is real. If they're lying to us-in word, deed, and behavior-they are not only impeccably schooled in the lie, but they must have a powerful motive. What could it be? And if they are notlying, if their every word and every action reflects what they truly believe, who they truly are-" He paused, thoughtfully. "Why?" he asked, of the air in front of him, not of the priest. "Why would the universe look thus to them and thus to us? And who is right?"

"Citizen Skrov-Rogov!" the priest said, the shock evident in his voice.

Yssa Balkadranna looked up from the writing machine and her stack of notes as Lylla Rovorrido came into the room and laid her notebook on the table in front of Vandro.

"Anything new?" Vandro asked.

Lylla shrugged. "I'm afraid I horrified one of them, again. Harv-Sarov, the one who always wears that blue smock with the gold tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and the shoes with the gold buckles. Just asked him a simple question, too. These people are so sensitive, and about the silliest things."

Dantro Fanzagarro, who had been dozing on a couch across the room, opened one eye.

"What was it this time, Lylla?" he asked. "Tizzy and Puzzy and Vran; or the mind-cells and the body-cells and everybody in his place?"

"It was Tizzy and Puzzy this time. It seems you mustn't ask questions about that. What kind of a civilization can you develop if you can't ask questions? How did they get as advanced as they are without asking questions? And how did they ever get a system of beliefs like that?"

"Don't ask me," Dantro said. "Ask them."

"I have done so," Lylla said. "I asked why I shouldn't ask, and he told me not to ask that. And I then asked him how we could learn if we didn't ask."

"What did he say to that?" Vandro asked.

"He said I was only to ask the approved questions, that that was the only way to learn."

Yssa leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head. "I hate to say this," she said, "but I'm beginning to suspect that Our Sister's Children are crazy. All of them."

"Yssa," Vandro said, looking up from the notebook, "that's not fair, really. Different from us, even very different, is not necessarily crazy."

"I don't mean different from us," Yssa said. "I mean crazy. Not sane."

"The whole planet? All the people?"

"If this is a representative sample, yes. Of course there's always the possibility that we've landed in an insane asylum. I spent some time working in an insane asylum in my youth. There are certain similarities in behavior between the poor unfortunates in there, and the people of this planet."

"Well, they don't run around frothing at the mouth and biting people, and they don't go off and sit in dark corners with blankets over their heads, mumbling to themselves. That's how all the crazy people I've ever seen acted," Vandro said.

"You never saw that poor woman at Salgrazzo's Town, did you?" Lylla asked. "The one whose child burned to death in the grainery fire? She refuses to believe the child is dead, and goes all around town hunting for it and calling its name. She isn't sane, is she?"

. "Thank you, Lylla," Yssa said. "That's the sort of thing I mean. I think we have a whole planet here that suffers from what that poor woman suffers-from. It's a systematic rejection of reality and subst.i.tution of delusion-belief. That woman couldn't endure the reality of her baby's death, and so she rejected it. She subst.i.tuted the fiction that the childwas alive somewhere out of her sight. No one can convince her of the truth; for her, the delusion has become the truth."

"So?" Vandro asked. "I sympathize with the poor woman, but what has that to do with Our Sister's Children?"

"That woman and these people have the same sort of non-sanity. Sanity, in this context, consists of thinking-patterns that are in agreement with perceptible reality. What that woman did, and what these people are doing, is rejecting reality and setting up a consistent system of delusion-beliefs."

"But that woman was under a tremendous stress," Vandro said. "You can't think every person on this planet has had a loved-one burn to death?"

"That woman," Yssa said, "was under a tremendous stress for a very short period of time. What would happen to someone who was put under a smaller stress, but over a much longer period of time?"

"I don't know," Vandro said.

"Neither do I," Yssa admitted, "but I think there's a pretty good chance that it's the explanation of what's happened here."

Dantro swung his legs over the edge of the couch and sat up. "Now, there's an idea we want to kick around for a while," he said. "I'm glad it occurred to Yssa, for it wouldn't have occurred to any of the rest of us. We don't have many really non-sane people at home; and those we have are cared for out of common funds in special asylums. We've never found any way to cure these people, although sometimes they get well spontaneously. Is that right, Yssa?"

"That's right," she said.

"So," Dantro continued, "we don't understand deviations from sanity too well. Most of us tend to think of frothing at the mouth, or other obvious symptoms. But you can't tell that delusional people are crazy; not unless you happen to know the truth about whatever their delusion is. I mean, if you were a stranger in Salgrazzo's Town, and ran across that poor woman, you'd have no reason to think she wasn't looking for a perfectly real, living child, that just happened to be out of sight."

"That's true," Vandro agreed. "So, what's the point?"

"The point is that if these people are really non-sane, we'll have to stop trying to deal with them as though they were sane. It won't do any good."

"Maybe it's just a question of different kinds of sanity," Vandro suggested.