Aaron’s father was a drygoods salesman on Kitanjar, a small green-and-black world in the general direction of the center. He was a hard man, and filled with old-fashioned views. He never really believed in the existence of the other civilized races. He thought it was a device of the devil for glorifying animals. Aaron’s mother had been a channel swimmer. She was also an amateur watercolorist of some note. She left Aaron’s father for unspecified riots in the year of the bipolar explosion, and moved to Syringin II with her son. Aaron lived there with her until she died when he was fourteen.
He left the school system the following year, and went to Sestes. He became a farmer on one of the quietest and least populated worlds in the galaxy, and this may be said to have helped him breed a certain independence of judgment that must have influenced his final decision in the Alien City 4 matter.
To Alien City 4, the strange place on the planet Myryx, Aaron has come. He wants to get in contact with his son, Lawrence; but even this is not a primary goal. In some fashion which he barely understands, Aaron has been searching for this place all his life. For the alien city is, paradoxically, the only place that is familiar and dear. This sounds paradoxical, but perhaps it isn’t, really. In order to grow up, Aaron, like everyone else, has to give up the secret place. It has been the subject of a thousand comparisons. It can be compared to a secret garden, the one which, if our intimations are correct, we used to play in when we were young. It is strange that the most alien place should also be the most familiar. But so it is. And in finding this place, in a sense Aaron has come home.
But how is he to explain this to the others? He doesn’t want to do what Lawrence did—give up even trying to communicate to others what is happening to him. This time he has the real thing, the objective correlative, the answer, the solution.
But what is he to say about this place? When the spirit is right, any place is good. Alien City has views and aspects, the looking at which is a sacred matter. Here a man can have two things usually incompatible: to be home and to be abroad; to live in the strange and in the familiar simultaneously.
The city is filled with wonders, but they seem only normal when you are on the inside. Such matters as food and drink are no problem. They just come up when the time for them is there. This is so with everything; all of it is so easy and natural. That is the greatest thing about Alien City, how natural it all is.
Aaron saw Lawrence on his third day in Alien City. The first day was spent finding a place to sleep and then collecting the sleeping bags and other gear necessary. There was no furniture in Alien City. From the size of the rooms, you could guess that the aliens had been scaled to nearly our proportions. Though somewhat larger, and with a longer stride, to judge by the distance between flagstones on the long sloping ascents to the upper chambers. It was not so much a city as a single house of many rooms, with open spaces where you could assume that markets had been. There was no sign that these aliens had been a violent people. Although there was a certain amount of ornamentation on the walls, it was strictly geometric. There were no representations of the human form that Aaron saw, nor, he learned later, had any been discovered. It was found later, however, that one symbol recurred frequently in some of the other deserted cities. This was a flying snake, an old symbol on Earth. But this one had curious bends and twists to his tail, and his wings were broad with long finger feathers, as can be observed in certain raptorial birds. But basically the aliens didn’t go in for much ornamentation. It was hard to figure out what the city had been intended for. It seemed to be more than shelter and sustenance. Although there were several thousand rooms in the city, maybe more, none of the doors had any external indication of a lock. Nor had the searchers found any sign of kitchens, larders, places to store food. Nor were there any restaurants. It seemed that the Seventh Race’s ideas of what a city was for were very different from those of Erthumoi.
“What’s this?” Aaron asked.
“We call this the central promenade,” Lawrence told him. “It occupies a midpoint of the city.”
“What is its significance?”
“We have no idea,” Lawrence said.
“I don’t know why you haven’t communicated some of these discoveries to the Council.”
“It’s difficult to know what to say about this place,” Lawrence said. “So much of it is nuance. You get a strong feeling about the aliens, but there’s nothing to point to where that feeling comes from. Do you feel it, Father?”
“It would be impossible not to,” Aaron said. “But this is natural. It is the sort of thing men felt when they uncovered the tombs of ancient Egypt on Earth, or the tombs of the Sultai on Amertegon.”
It was natural to feel awe in the presence of the very old. The feeling of antiquity here was palpable.
Lawrence said, “I want you to meet Moira. She is helping me in my investigations.”
Moira was a small, dark-haired girl, somewhat stocky, with an open, frank, cheerful face. She wore blue jeans and a man’s large, baggy sweater. She wore sandals. Instead of a purse, she carried a knapsack. Her face was innocent of makeup. She was wide-eyed, and her features were harmonious rather than beautiful.
“I am very pleased to meet you,” she said to Aaron, shaking his hand. “I have heard a great deal about you. Lawrence thinks very highly of you, you know.”
Aaron hadn’t known. He thanked her and stole a glance at Lawrence. His son was scribbling down a note and hadn’t seemed to hear what Moira was saying.
They proceeded deeper into the city. There were fewer lights here. Aaron had a sense of growing antiquity as they continued. The shapes as they went deeper became more angular, more stylized. The corridors took odd little jigs and turns for no apparent reason. And the lighting effects became more elaborate. The sense of mystery deepened, although as yet Aaron had seen nothing he considered extraordinary.
“This next will interest you,” Lawrence said. They went through a pair of open double doors, down a short flight of steps, then around another corner. When they were on a straight course again, Lawrence brought them to an abrupt halt.
“Here’s what I wanted you to look at,” Lawrence said.
The next revelation is even stranger. At first, wandering around Alien City, it seems a bunch of rather static wonders. Interesting, of course, but no different from any other alien city, not qualitatively different, that is, from what has been known before.
But gradually, there is a realization that Alien City 4 is something more than a diorama of marvels. Aaron has the glimmering recognition that the place is not dead, not inert. Something is happening here. Something is happening in response to the movements of others. In some sense, the city is like a teaching experiment. That is what Lawrence knows, and it is what Aaron is finding out.
“I could have sworn that doorway wasn’t here before.”
Lawrence nodded but made no comment.
“Is that true?”
“You’d better find out for yourself, Father.”
Aaron knew that he had been going to the third door on the left. Just a little while ago, it had been locked. Now, when he came back to it again, it opened to his touch.
“Did you change the door setting?”
Lawrence shook his head.
“Somebody must have. It was locked before. Now it isn’t.”
“No one has touched it. We have encountered this phenomenon before. The doors open when the city thinks you’re ready to go through them.”
To prove this, Lawrence went up to one of the doors and tried the knob. It was locked. He gestured to Aaron. Aaron tried the door and it came open.
“It must know that I have already eaten,” Lawrence said. “So it sees no reason to open the door for me. You, however, have not had either breakfast or lunch. It is more than ready to feed you.”
Aaron tried the door again, then cautiously slipped through it. After a moment, Lawrence turned the knob three times. This time the door opened for him.
“Where’d yo
u pick that up?” Aaron asked.
“Trial and error. I found that after the first override, the city is more than willing to let me through. I have to insist on it; that’s the only thing. It’s perfectly willing to let me through if I’m determined.”
Aaron looked around. The room was obviously a dining room. There was a marble and wood table and four chairs. There was a considerable setting of napkins, glassware, and china. And there were several large dishes in the middle of the table. When Aaron lifted their lids, a delicious aroma came forth. There was nothing alien about this food. It looked to Aaron like beef stew with potatoes and carrots. Not very exotic grub, but good sustenance.
“Who produced this food?” Aaron asked.
“The food simply appears.”
“Is it always the same?”
“Not at all. The city cycles its food. It hasn’t repeated itself yet. Sometimes there’s an Oriental food, sometimes Russian, sometimes Latin American. And sometimes there is something we don’t recognize. But we eat it anyhow, and it has never done us any harm.”
There were other things which were not so familiar. The dolls, for example. That was a puzzler. They appeared everywhere. Dolls, none more than eighteen inches in height, and always elaborately dressed. Some of the dolls were made of rags, but some were elaborately made of white and blue porcelain. Sometimes they had eyes made of precious stones. These dolls were ubiquitous; sometimes there were a few, other times many more. Aaron could never find the reason, the principle, behind the dolls. At times there were no dolls at all. Then suddenly there would be dozens, hundreds of them. Aaron tried to keep lists, trying to work out what brought along the dolls. But he could never get it right.
“Sara! What are you doing here? I thought you wanted no part of this.”
“I suppose I can change my mind.”
“Certainly, no doubt of that. But why have you changed your mind?”
“That’s my business.”
“And have you seen Lawrence yet?”
“Not yet. All that doesn’t seem as important as it did before I came here.”
“But of course it’s important!” Aaron said. “You must speak with Lawrence immediately. I know he’ll be delighted to see you.”
“Why don’t you stop trying to be so stinking nice?” Sara said. “Things have changed. We’ll have to see where we go from here.”
Somehow Lawrence and Sara didn’t come across each other. Aaron didn’t think they were avoiding each other, yet they never seemed to meet. It was impossible to tell which was avoiding the other. It seemed almost natural, the way they never happened to meet. But it bothered Aaron. It bothered him also that Sara didn’t seem interested in him. What had happened? Why had things changed so drastically?
The Samian said, “How are you, my friend?”
Aaron sat up. He had been spending more and more time recently lying down and contemplating the ceiling. Of late it had seemed that he had a great deal to think about. He wasn’t sure what it was, nor was it difficult. He felt very calm these days, and, in general, quite optimistic. But there was something else involved, too, and this was what the Samian was picking up. All was well with Aaron, especially since the nightmares had stopped. For a while the Samian had been nervous about his friend. Aaron had been muttering about tiny Samians rebelling against the larger ones. The Samian couldn’t imagine where his friend got such ideas.
“I’m fine,” Aaron told him.
The Samian could hear the guarded note. He was finding a number of curious things going on. There was quite a number of the six civilized species inside Alien City. They seemed to be intent on exploring. Yet they were imprecise as to what. At the entrance to Alien City, messages were piling up. Some of them were from the Council, who were bombarding Aaron with queries, as before they had questioned Lawrence. But Aaron, like his son, didn’t have time or inclination to answer. The Samian tried to talk him into replying. “These Council people, they’re going to think it odd.”
“I know,” Aaron said. “But it can’t be helped.”
“You could tell them something,” the Samian said. “It wouldn’t kill you, would it?”
“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “I’m not sure.”
The Samian began to wonder again if something were wrong with Aaron; perhaps, he thought, something was going wrong with everyone here. In fact, he had to ask himself if he were all right.
This sense of uneasiness went back to the humanoid centers. People were beginning to ask questions about Alien City. There had been no reply so far. Then Matthew, on behalf of the Council, told Aaron that they would have to come themselves, since Aaron couldn’t seem to get himself together.
“How do you feel about that?” the Samian asked.
“It’s probably for the best,” Aaron said. “There’s a lot going on here. In one sense, the original inhabitants of this city are not dead.”
“Is that a fact?” the Samian said.
“Oh, yes. Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“I’m afraid not,” the Samian said. “But then, we Samians are the second most recent and least sensitive members of the civilized races.”
It is curious how the other civilized species, with the exception of the Samians, have been reacting to Alien City. More and more of them have been coming to Myryx. There is a considerable colony scattered over several square miles outside Alien City. Each species has set up its own life-style. There is a certain penalty against some of them; the fliers, because the atmosphere lacks neon, the Cephallonians and the others because of their own limitations. Myryx is basically an oxygen-breather’s place with light gravity. The others have had to struggle along as well as they could. Special constructions have been set up. An entire water world was set up by the Cephallonians. Some of the fliers, the Crotonites, have set up special habitats. Within a sealed district, they have been able to increase the thickness of the atmosphere so that it affords some lift for their wings. There’s little they can do about the lessened gravity, however. Yet the planet of Myryx is forgiving even in that, as they seem to adapt to it. This is the closest to a universal planet for all species that has yet been found. Only the Samians have been staying away.
Octano Halfbarr, the Samian, has been alarmed by all this. He intends to inform his people that it’s not safe in this place.
“Hello? Gwinfar?”
Neutronic communication is so close to simultaneous that only a quibbler would say it isn’t immediate. Octano finally is able to speak with his clan chief, Gwinfar.
“What’s going on in this world?” Gwinfar asked.
“It worries me,” Octano said. “None of the other races seem to think much about it. At first they were really interested in investigating me.”
“Whatever for?”
“They seem to have some sort of delusional system going. Or maybe it’s the effect of Myryx.”
“What sort of delusional system?”
“They feel that we Samians are harboring some deep secret.”
“Hah! If only we were!”
“Yes, that’s exactly how I feel. But they don’t seem to understand that we’re just about as simple as we seem. They look for some kind of mystery about us.”
“Does it seem to correspond to what they call ‘paranoid thinking’?”
“I didn’t want to say it, but yes, it does,” Octano replied.
Back at the Council meeting room on the main planet of the Minieri system, Matthew was alarmed. Later he could trace the precise beginning of his concern. It was when the Samian sent his report in and asked for assistance.
“He must have directed his message through the wrong channel,” St.-Fleur said. “Why should a Samian request this meeting of us?”
“No,” Matthew said, “it can’t be a wrong channel affair. It’s got our identification marks.”
“This request of his for secrecy,” St.-Fleur said. “I don’t like it. It binds us in complicity with him.”
“We need to find out
what’s on his mind. You know as well as I do that something untoward is happening here. If Octano can throw any light on it, we need to use him.”
The meeting took place on Hester, a moon of the second humanoid planet. Although Hester was airless, a conference facility had been set up in one of the impact craters that dotted the side the little moon kept faced toward its primary. Not far from the conference room was an automated amusement facility. There was no sense in leaving living personnel on the planet, because trade wasn’t swift enough to justify the expense. But the automated amusements did well enough for the low density population situations that usually came up on Hester.
Straight ahead was the zero-grav roller coaster with its intricate twists and turns. There were the stark shapes of the other amusements—tribute to man’s ancient preoccupation with his own proprioceptive centers. The quick food stands were closed up now, but when St.-Fleur approached, the sensors picked up his arrival and the lights flashed on. They were genuine neon, ancient symbol of an old-time lurid civilization. Music started up too, beamed directly to their helmets. And then the mechanized voice of the huckster:
“Step up, ladies and gentlemen; step up and take your chances. Pin the tail on the wonky. Shoot down the sad old saber tooth. Run against the windrows of the sun. Quaff lethal beverage in zero time and enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes from outrage. Don’t be nervous; step up, boys and girls; take fun, enjoy pleasure!”
“This is quite unpleasant,” St.-Fleur remarked to Matthew. “Do these things always go on this way?”
“I’m afraid so,” Matthew said. “Newest thing, you know.”
“But why should this sort of thing be popular?”
“Difficult to predict what direction the mass taste will take. It has been proven, I believe, or at least so I learned in psych class back in university, that the taste for the degraded does not exist in isolation but is in reaction to the desire for the good. Whatever the mason, mankind has a need for these sleazy places. There is a theory that nothing human is alien or unnecessary.”
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