He was a machine, like all Tralfamadorians.
He was held together by cotter pins, hose clamps, nuts, bolts, and magnets. Salo's tangerine-colored skin, which was so expressive when he was emotionally disturbed, could be put on or taken off like an Earthling wind-breaker. A magnetic zipper held it shut.
The Tralfamadorians, according to Salo, manufactured each other. No one knew for certain how the first machine had come into being.
The legend was this:
Once upon a time on Tralfamadore there were creatures who weren't anything like machines. They weren't dependable. They weren't efficient. They weren't predictable. They weren't durable. And these poor creatures were obsessed by the idea that everything that existed had to have a purpose, and that some purposes were higher than others.
These creatures spent most of their time trying to find out what their purpose was. And every time they found out what seemed to be a purpose of themselves, the purpose seemed so low that the creatures were filled with disgust and shame.
And, rather than serve such a low purpose, the creatures would make a machine to serve it. This left the creatures free to serve higher purposes. But whenever they found a higher purpose, the purpose still wasn't high enough.
So machines were made to serve higher purposes, too.
And the machines did everything so expertly that they were finally given the job of finding out what the highest purpose of the creatures could be.
The machines reported in all honesty that the creatures couldn't really be said to have any purpose at all.
The creatures thereupon began slaying each other, because they hated purposeless things above all else.
And they discovered that they weren't even very good at slaying. So they turned that job over to the machines, too. And the machines finished up the job in less time than it takes to say, "Tralfamadore."
Using the viewer on the dash panel of his space ship, Old Salo now watched the approach to Titan of the space ship carrying Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono. Their ship was set to land automatically on the shore of the Winston Sea.
It was set to land amid two million life-sized statues of human beings. Salo had made the statues at the rate of about ten an Earthling year.
The statues were concentrated in the region of the Winston Sea because the statues were made of Titanic peat. Titanic peat abounds by the Winston Sea, only two feet under the surface soil.
Titanic peat is a curious substance--and, for the facile and sincere sculptor, an attractive one.
When first dug, Titanic peat has the consistency of Earthling putty.
After one hour's exposure to Titan's light and air, the peat has the strength and hardness of plaster of Paris.
After two hours' exposure, it is as durable as granite, and must be worked with a cold chisel.
After three hours' exposure, nothing but a diamond will scratch Titanic peat.
Salo was inspired to make so many statues by the showy ways in which Earthlings behaved. It wasn't so much what the Earthlings did as the way they did it that inspired Salo.
The Earthlings behaved at all times as though there were a big eye in the sky--as though that big eye were ravenous for entertainment.
The big eye was a glutton for great theater. The big eye was indifferent as to whether the Earthling shows were comedy, tragedy, farce, satire, athletics, or vaudeville. Its demand, which Earthlings apparently found as irresistible as gravity, was that the shows be great.
The demand was so powerful that Earthlings did almost nothing but perform for it, night and day--and even in their dreams.
The big eye was the only audience that Earthlings really cared about. The fanciest performances that Salo had seen had been put on by Earthlings who were terribly alone. The imagined big eye was their only audience.
Salo, with his diamond-hard statues, had tried to preserve some of the mental states of those Earthlings who had put on the most interesting shows for the imagined big eye.
Hardly less surprising than the statues were the Titanic daisies that abounded by the Winston Sea. When Salo arrived on Titan in 203,117 B.C., the blooms of Titanic daisies were tiny, star-like, yellow flowers barely a quarter of an inch across.
Then Salo began to breed them selectively.
When Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono arrived on Titan, the typical Titanic daisy had a stalk four feet in diameter, and a lavender bloom shot with pink and having a mass in excess of a ton.
Salo, having watched the approaching space ship of Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono, inflated his feet to the size of German batballs. He stepped onto the emerald clear waters of the Winston Sea, crossed the waters to Winston Niles Rumfoord's Taj Mahal.
He entered the walled yard of the palace, let the air out of his feet. The air hissed. The hiss echoed from the walls.
Winston Niles Rumfoord's lavender contour chair by the pool was empty.
"Skip?" called Salo. He used this most intimate of all possible names for Rumfoord, Rumfoord's childhood name, in spite of Rumfoord's resentment of his use of it. He didn't use the name in order to tease Rumfoord. He used it in order to assert the friendship he felt for Rumfoord--to test the friendship a little, and to watch it endure the test handsomely.
There was a reason for Salo's putting friendship to such a sophomoric test. He had never seen, never even heard of friendship before he hit the Solar System. It was a fascinating novelty to him. He had to play with it.
"Skip?" Salo called again.
There was an unusual tang in the air. Salo identified it tentatively as ozone. He was unable to account for it.
A cigarette still burned in the ash tray by Rumfoord's contour chair, so Rumfoord hadn't been out of his chair long.
"Skip? Kazak?" called Salo. It was unusual for Rumfoord not to be snoozing in his chair, for Kazak not to be snoozing beside it. Man and dog spent most of their time by the pool, monitoring signals from their other selves through space and time. Rumfoord was usually motionless in his chair, the fingers of one languid, dangling hand buried in Kazak's coat. Kazak was usually whimpering and twitching dreamingly.
Salo looked down into the water of the rectangular pool. In the bottom of the pool, in eight feet of water, were the three sirens of Titan, the three beautiful human females who had been offered to the lecherous Malachi Constant so long ago.
They were statues made by Salo of Titanic peat. Of the millions of statues made by Salo, only these three were painted with lifelike colors. It had been necessary to paint them in order to give them importance in the sumptuous, oriental scheme of things in Rumfoord's palace.
"Skip?" Salo called again.
Kazak, the hound of space, answered the call. Kazak came from the domed and minareted building that was reflected in the pool. Kazak came stiffly from the lacy shadows of the great octagonal chamber within.
Kazak looked poisoned.
Kazak shivered, and stared fixedly at a point to one side of Salo. There was nothing there.
Kazak stopped, and seemed to be preparing himself for a terrible pain that another step would cost him.
And then Kazak blazed and crackled with Saint Elmo's fire.
Saint Elmo's fire is a luminous electrical discharge, and any creature afflicted by it is subject to discomfort no worse than the discomfort of being tickled by a feather. All the same, the creature appears to be on fire, and can be forgiven for being dismayed.
The luminous discharge from Kazak was horrifying to watch. And it renewed the stench of ozone.
Kazak did not move. His capacity for surprise at the amazing display had long since been exhausted. He tolerated the blaze with tired rue.
The blaze died.
Rumfoord appeared in the archway. He, too, looked frowzy and palsied. A band of dematerialization, a band of nothingness about a foot wide, passed over Rumfoord from foot to head. This was followed by two narrow bands an inch apart.
Rumfoor
d held his hands high, and his fingers were spread. Streaks of pink, violet, and pale green Saint Elmo's fire streamed from his fingertips. Short streaks of pale gold fizzed in his hair, conspiring to give him a tinsel halo.
"Peace," said Rumfoord wanly.
Rumfoord's Saint Elmo's fire died.
Salo was aghast. "Skip--" he said. "What's--what's the matter, Skip?"
"Sunspots," said Rumfoord. He shuffled to his lavender contour chair, lay his great frame on it, covered his eyes with a hand as limp and white as a damp handkerchief.
Kazak lay down beside him. Kazak was shivering.
"I--I've never seen you like this before," said Salo.
"There's never been a storm on the Sun like this before," said Rumfoord.
Salo was not surprised to learn that sunspots affected his chrono-synclastic infundibulated friends. He had seen Rumfoord and Kazak sick with sunspots many times before--but the most severe symptom had been fleeting nausea. The sparks and the bands of dematerialization were new.
As Salo watched Rumfoord and Kazak now, they became momentarily two-dimensional, like figures painted on rippling banners.
They steadied, became rounded again.
"Is there anything I can do, Skip?" said Salo.
Rumfoord groaned. "Will people never stop asking that dreadful question?" he said.
"Sorry," said Salo. His feet were so completely deflated now that they were concave, were suction cups. His feet made sucking sounds on the polished pavement.
"Do you have to make those noises?" said Rumfoord peevishly.
Old Salo wanted to die. It was the first time his friend Winston Niles Rumfoord had spoken a harsh word to him. Salo couldn't stand it.
Old Salo closed two of his three eyes. The third scanned the sky. The eye was caught by two streaking blue dots in the sky. The dots were soaring Titanic bluebirds.
The pair had found an updraft.
Neither great bird flapped a wing.
No movement of so much as a pinfeather was inharmonious. Life was but a soaring dream.
"Graw," said one Titanic bluebird sociably.
"Graw," the other agreed.
The birds closed their wings simultaneously, fell from the heights like stones.
They seemed to plummet to certain death outside Rumfoord's walls. But up they soared again, to begin another long and easy climb.
This time they climbed a sky that was streaked by the vapor trail of the space ship carrying Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono. The ship was about to land.
"Skip--?" said Salo.
"Do you have to call me that?" said Rumfoord.
"No," said Salo.
"Then don't," said Rumfoord. "I'm not fond of the name--unless somebody I've grown up with happens to use it."
"I thought--as a friend of yours--" said Salo, "I might be entitled--"
"Shall we just drop this guise of friendship?" said Rumfoord curtly.
Salo closed his third eye. The skin of his torso tightened. "Guise?" he said.
"Your feet are making that noise again!" said Rumfoord.
"Skip!" cried Salo. He corrected this insufferable familiarity. "Winston--it's like a nightmare, your talking to me this way. I thought we were friends."
"Let's say we've managed to be of some use to each other, and let it go at that," said Rumfoord.
Salo's head rocked gently in its gimbals. "I thought there'd been a little more to it than that," he said at last.
"Let's say," said Rumfoord acidly, "that we discovered in each other a means to our separate ends."
"I--I was glad to help you--and I hope I really was a help to you," said Salo. He opened his eyes. He had to see Rumfoord's reaction. Surely Rumfoord would become friendly again, for Salo really had helped him unselfishly.
"Didn't I give you half my UWTB?" said Salo. "Didn't I let you copy my ship for Mars? Didn't I fly the first few recruiting missions? Didn't I help you figure out how to control the Martians, so they wouldn't make trouble? Didn't I spend day after day helping you to design the new religion?"
"Yes," said Rumfoord. "But what have you done for me lately?"
"What?" said Salo.
"Never mind," said Rumfoord curtly. "It's the tag-line on an old Earthling joke, and not a very funny one, under the circumstances."
"Oh," said Salo. He knew a lot of Earthling jokes, but he didn't know that one.
"Your feet!" cried Rumfoord.
"I'm sorry!" cried Salo. "If I could weep like an Earthling, I would!" His grieving feet were out of his control. They went on making the sounds Rumfoord suddenly hated so. "I'm sorry for everything! All I know is, I've tried every way I know how to be a true friend, and I never asked for anything in return."
"You didn't have to!" said Rumfoord. "You didn't have to ask for a thing. All you had to do was sit back and wait for it to be dropped in your lap."
"What was it I wanted dropped in my lap?" said Salo incredulously.
"The replacement part for your space ship," said Rumfoord. "It's almost here. It's arriving, sire. Constant's boy has it--calls it his good-luck piece--as though you didn't know."
Rumfoord sat up, turned green, motioned for silence. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm going to be sick again."
Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog Kazak were sick again--more violently sick than before. It seemed to poor old Salo that this time they would surely sizzle to nothing or explode.
Kazak howled in a ball of Saint Elmo's fire.
Rumfoord stood bolt upright, his eyes popping, a fiery column.
This attack passed, too.
"Excuse me," said Rumfoord with scathing decency. "You were saying--?"
"What?" said Salo bleakly.
"You were saying something--or about to say something," said Rumfoord. Only the sweat at his temples betrayed the fact that he had just been through something harrowing. He put a cigarette in a long, bone cigarette holder, lighted it. He thrust out his jaw. The cigarette holder pointed straight up. "We won't be interrupted again for three minutes," he said. "You were saying?"
Salo recalled the subject of conversation only with effort. When he did recall it, it upset him more than ever. The worst possible thing had happened. Not only had Rumfoord found out, seemingly, about the influence of Tralfamadore on Earthling affairs, which would have offended him quite enough--but Rumfoord also regarded himself, seemingly, as one of the principal victims of that influence.
Salo had had an uneasy suspicion from time to time that Rumfoord was under the influence of Tralfamadore, but he'd pushed the thought out of his mind, since there was nothing he could do about it. He hadn't even discussed it, because to discuss it with Rumfoord would surely have ruined their beautiful friendship at once. Very lamely, Salo explored the possibility that Rumfoord did not know as much as he seemed to know. "Skip--" he said.
"Please!" said Rumfoord.
"Mr. Rumfoord--" said Salo, "you think I somehow used you?"
"Not you," said Rumfoord. "Your fellow machines back on your precious Tralfamadore."
"Um," said Salo. "You--you think you--you've been used, Skip?"
"Tralfamadore," said Rumfoord bitterly, "reached into the Solar System, picked me up, and used me like a handy-dandy potato peeler!"
"If you could see this in the future," said Salo miserably, "Why didn't you mention it before?"
"Nobody likes to think he's being used," said Rumfoord. "He'll put off admitting it to himself until the last possible instant." He smiled crookedly. "It may surprise you to learn that I take a certain pride, no matter how foolishly mistaken that pride may be, in making my own decisions for my own reasons."
"I'm not surprised," said Salo.
"Oh?" said Rumfoord unpleasantly. "I should have thought it was too subtle an attitude for a machine to grasp."
This, surely, was the low point in their relationship. Salo was a machine, since he had been designed and manufactured. He didn't conceal the fact. But Rumfoord had never used the fact as an i
nsult before. He had definitely used the fact as an insult now. Through a thin veil of noblesse oblige, Rumfoord let Salo know that to be a machine was to be insensitive, was to be unimaginative, was to be vulgar, was to be purposeful without a shred of conscience--
Salo was pathetically vulnerable to this accusation. It was a tribute to the spiritual intimacy he and Rumfoord had once shared that Rumfoord knew so well how to hurt him.
Salo closed two of his three eyes again, watched the soaring Titanic bluebirds again. The birds were as big as Earthling eagles.
Salo wished he were a Titanic bluebird.
The space ship carrying Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono sailed low over the palace, landed on the shore of the Winston Sea.
"I give you my word of honor," said Salo, "I didn't know you were being used, and I haven't the slightest idea what you--"
"Machine," said Rumfoord nastily.
"Tell me what you've been used for--please?" said Salo. "My word of honor--I don't have the foggiest--"
"Machine!" said Rumfoord.
"If you think so badly of me, Skip--Winston--Mr. Rumfoord--" said Salo, "after all I've done and tried to do in the name of friendship alone, there's certainly nothing I can say or do now to change your mind."
"Precisely what a machine would say," said Rumfoord.
"It's what a machine did say," said Salo humbly. He inflated his feet to the size of German batballs, preparing to walk out of Rumfoord's palace and onto the waters of the Winston Sea--never to return. Only when his feet were fully inflated did he catch the challenge in what Rumfoord had said. There was a clear implication that there was something Old Salo could still do to make things right again.
Even if he was a machine, Salo was sensitive enough to know that to ask what that something was would be to grovel. He steeled himself. In the name of friendship, he was going to grovel.
"Skip--" he said, "tell me what to do. Anything--anything at all."
"In a very short time," said Rumfoord, "an explosion is going to blow the terminal of my spiral clear off the Sun, clear out of the Solar System."
"No!" cried Salo. "Skip! Skip!"
"No, no--no pity, please," said Rumfoord, stepping back, afraid of being touched. "It's a very good thing, really. I'll be seeing a lot of new things, a lot of new creatures." He tried to smile. "One gets tired, you know, being caught up in the monotonous clockwork of the Solar System." He laughed harshly. "After all," he said, "it isn't as though I were dying or something. Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was." He shook his head quickly, and cast away a tear he hadn't known was on his eyelid.
The Sirens of Titan Page 21
