Cities of the Red Night

by William S. Burroughs

  Many Transmigrants preferred not to wait for the infirmities of age and the ravages of illness, lest their spirit be so weakened as to be overwhelmed and absorbed by the Receptacle child. These hardy Transmigrants, in the full vigor of maturity, after rigorous training in concentration and astral projection, would select two death guides to kill them in front of the copulating parents. The methods of death most commonly employed were hanging and strangulation, the Transmigrant dying in orgasm, which was considered the most reliable method of ensuring a successful transfer. Drugs were also developed, large doses of which occasioned death in erotic convulsions, smaller doses being used to enhance sexual pleasure. And these drugs were often used in conjunction with other forms of death.

  In time, death by natural causes became a rare and rather discreditable occurrence as the age for transmigration dropped. The Eternal Youths, a Transmigrant sect, were hanged at the age of eighteen to spare themselves the coarsening experience of middle age and the deterioration of senescence, living their youth again and again.

  Two factors undermined the stability of this system. The first was perfection of techniques for artificial insemination. Whereas the traditional practice called for one death and one rebirth, now hundreds of women could be impregnated from a single sperm collection, and territorially oriented Transmigrants could populate whole areas with their progeny. There were sullen mutters of revolt from the Receptacles, especially the women. At this point, another factor totally unforeseen was introduced.

  In the thinly populated desert area north of Tamaghis a portentous event occurred. Some say it was a meteor that fell to earth leaving a crater twenty miles across. Others say that the crater was caused by what modern physicists call a black hole.

  After this occurrence the whole northern sky lit up red at night, like the reflection from a vast furnace. Those in the immediate vicinity of the crater were the first to be affected and various mutations were observed, the commonest being altered hair and skin color. Red and yellow hair, and white, yellow, and red skin appeared for the first time. Slowly the whole area was similarly affected until the mutants outnumbered the original inhabitants, who were as all human beings were at the time: black.

  The women, led by an albino mutant known as the White Tigress, seized Yass-Waddah, reducing the male inhabitants to slaves, consorts, and courtiers all under sentence of death that could be carried out at any time at the caprice of the White Tigress. The Council in Waghdas countered by developing a method of growing babies in excised wombs, the wombs being supplied by vagrant Womb Snatchers. This practice aggravated the differences between the male and female factions and war with Yass-Waddah seemed unavoidable.

  In Naufana, a method was found to transfer the spirit directly into an adolescent Receptacle, thus averting the awkward and vulnerable period of infancy. This practice required a rigorous period of preparation and training to achieve a harmonious blending of the two spirits in one body. These Transmigrants, combining the freshness and vitality of youth with the wisdom of many lifetimes, were expected to form an army of liberation to free Yass-Waddah. And there were adepts who could die at will without any need of drugs or executioners and project their spirit into a chosen Receptacle.

  I have mentioned hanging, strangulation, and orgasm drugs as the commonest means of effecting the transfer. However, many other forms of death were employed. The Fire Boys were burned to death in the presence of the Receptacles, only the genitals being insulated, so that the practitioner could achieve orgasm in the moment of death. There is an interesting account by a Fire Boy who recalled his experience after transmigrating in this manner:

  “As the flames closed round my body, I inhaled deeply, drawing fire into my lungs, and screamed out flames as the most horrible pain turned to the most exquisite pleasure and I was ejaculating in an adolescent Receptacle who was being sodomized by another.”

  Others were stabbed, decapitated, disemboweled, shot with arrows, or killed by a blow on the head. Some threw themselves from cliffs, landing in front of the copulating Receptacles.

  The scientists at Waghdas were developing a machine that could directly transfer the electromagnetic field of one body to another. In Ghadis there were adepts who were able to leave their bodies before death and occupy a series of hosts. How far this research may have gone will never be known. It was a time of great disorder and chaos.

  The effects of the Red Night on Receptacles and Transmigrants proved to be incalculable and many strange mutants arose as a series of plagues devastated the cities. It is this period of war and pestilence that is covered by the books. The Council had set out to produce a race of supermen for the exploration of space. They produced instead races of ravening idiot vampires.

  Finally, the cities were abandoned and the survivors fled in all directions, carrying the plagues with them. Some of these migrants crossed the Bering Strait into the New World, taking the books with them. They settled in the area later occupied by the Mayans and the books eventually fell into the hands of the Mayan priests.

  The alert student of this noble experiment will perceive that death was regarded as equivalent not to birth but to conception and go on to infer that conception is the basic trauma. In the moment of death, the dying man’s whole life may flash in front of his eyes back to conception. In the moment of conception, his future life flashes forward to his future death. To reexperience conception is fatal.

  This was the basic error of the Transmigrants: you do not get beyond death and conception by reexperience any more than you get beyond heroin by ingesting larger and larger doses. The Transmigrants were quite literally addicted to death and they needed more and more death to kill the pain of conception. They were buying parasitic life with a promissory death note to be paid at a prearranged time. The Transmigrants then imposed these terms on the host child to ensure his future transmigration. There was a basic conflict of interest between host child and Transmigrant. So the Transmigrants reduced the Receptacle class to a condition of virtual idiocy. Otherwise they would have reneged on a bargain from which they stood to gain nothing but death. The books are flagrant falsifications. And some of these basic lies are still current.

  “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” The last words of Hassan i Sabbah, Old Man of the Mountain.

  “Tamaghis … Ba’dan … Yass-Waddah … Waghdas … Naufana … Ghadis.”

  It is said that an initiate who wishes to know the answer to any question need only repeat these words as he falls asleep and the answer will come in a dream.

  Tamaghis: This is the open city of contending partisans where advantage shifts from moment to moment in a desperate biological war. Here everything is as true as you think it is and everything you can get away with is permitted.

  Ba’dan: This city is given over to competitive games and commerce. Ba’dan closely resembles present-day America with a precarious moneyed elite, a large disaffected middle class and an equally large segment of criminals and outlaws. Unstable, explosive, and swept by whirlwind riots. Everything is true and everything is permitted.

  Yass-Waddah: This city is the female stronghold where the Countess de Gulpa, the Countess de Vile, and the Council of the Selected plot a final subjugation of the other cities. Every shade of sexual transition is represented: boys with girls’ heads, girls with boys’ heads. Here everything is true and nothing is permitted except to the permitters.

  Waghdas: This is the university city, the center of learning where all questions are answered in terms of what can be expressed and understood. Complete permission derives from complete understanding.

  Naufana and Ghadis are the cities of illusion where nothing is true and therefore everything is permitted.

  The traveler must start in Tamaghis and make his way through the other cities in the order named. This pilgrimage may take many lifetimes.

  GET OUT OF THE DEFENSIVE POSITION

  We now have a sufficient stockpile of the new weapons to initiate our campaign, and it seems u
nwise to delay longer. Sooner or later the enemy will learn something of our plans and the means we possess to implement them. We will apply the classic rules of hit-and-run warfare against a larger force, drawing them deeper and deeper into our territory while raiding and cutting supply lines. This is the tactic that beat Crassus’s Roman Legions in the disastrous Parthian campaign. The Parthians would suddenly appear over a rise mounted on horses, loose a shower of arrows and ride away, luring the Romans deeper and deeper into the desert as thirst, hunger, and disease took their toll. Only a handful of the Legionnaires made their way back to the sea.

  Once this tactic has sufficiently weakened the enemy, we will shift to all-out attack on a series of enemy positions. Failure to follow through on a successful attack is as disastrous as attempting an attack against unfavorable odds. It was this error that lost Hannibal the war against Rome. He did not realize that he had beaten the whole Roman army, so instead of marching on the unprotected city without delay, he retrenched to consolidate his position until he had no position left.

  We can expect a landslide of defections to our cause, and we must follow through to deliver a series of knockout blows. Nor will we allow time for the French and English to recognize the danger and join Spain against a common enemy. As soon as we see victory on the way in the southern hemisphere of the American continent, we will strike in the northern hemisphere. Then we will open a diplomatic offensive concentrating on England to negotiate treaties, trade agreements, and recognition of our independent and sovereign status.

  Of course the new weapons will be common knowledge in a short time, but by then we will have a lead that will be difficult to overtake. We will be able to produce the weapons in any quantity, and by attracting inventors, skilled workers and technicians with higher wages and better living conditions, we can continue to turn out better weapons than our adversaries. We have also the incalculable advantage of a huge territory virtually impossible to invade successfully, whereas European countries, with the exception of Russia, are vulnerable to invasion, since they have no place to retreat to. We expect the Articles to spread through Africa, the Near and Far East, and we could invade Spain from North Africa.

  Our immediate plan is to provoke the Spanish into a massive attack by taking Panama City and Guayaquil. This should divert much of the Pacific fleet to these two locations and dispatch land forces from Lima to Guayaquil and from Cartagena to Panama. If necessary, we shall retreat into the swamps of southern Panama and to the mountainous and heavily wooded areas northwest of the city. In the event of decisive land victories, we will immediately launch attacks on the depleted garrisons at Lima and Cartagena, inflict what damage we can on the fleet, and at the same time, strike in Mexico.

  The Iguana twins have returned to Mexico to organize our movement there, and Bert Hansen has gone with them. Captain Strobe has gone to Panama to assess the strength of the Spanish garrison and to organize partisan resistance to the north and east of the city. The area to the south is already in our hands. Juanito and Brady, with a force of fifty men, have gone south to set up fortified positions west of Guayaquil from which the attack on the city can be launched and to which our forces can withdraw, luring the Spanish ground forces into a deadly trap.

  The sea battles will be directed by Opium Jones, Skipper Nordenholz, and Captain Strobe. A number of Destroyers are under construction.

  * * *

  Then one morning we received word on the signal drums that Captain Strobe had been taken in Panama City and sentenced to hang.

  On receipt of this news, we set out for Panama City with a force of fifty men armed with the double-barreled rifles and a good stock of mortars, both of the type that explode on contact and those that explode from timed fuses. We had little hope of arriving in time, so we sent back word to the local partisans to take what measures they could to effect a rescue, that an expeditionary force was on the way.

  Marching day and night without sleep, on opium and yoka, we were five miles south of the city at dawn of the third day. A warm mist enveloped us and I was reminded of the steam bath in my little Michigan lake town and found myself walking with an erection. Suddenly we heard a terrific explosion from the direction of Panama City and stopped, our faces lifted to the rising sun.

  Shortly thereafter, a runner informed us that Captain Strobe had been rescued and was heading south in a fishing boat towards one of our Pacific bases opposite the Pearl Islands. We instructed the runner to inform the Spanish garrison that the pirates who had engineered the destruction of the armory and the escape of Captain Strobe were just south of the city, that they were few in number and almost out of powder. As we had hoped, the Spanish fell into our trap and immediately dispatched a column of soldiers in pursuit, leaving only a hundred to guard the city.

  * * *

  The country here is low hills with outcroppings of limestone, ideally suited for ambush. We select a narrow valley between slopes strewn with limestone boulders. Rocky terrain is the best for mortar attacks. We dispose twenty men on each slope, about fifty yards from the path the Spanish column will take. The remaining ten will serve as decoys, fleeing as the soldiers approach. Once the concealed riflemen open up on the enemy flanks, they will seek cover and fire directly into the Spanish column, who will then be caught in a three-way fire. Concealed behind boulders, we settle down to wait.

  It is not long before the Spanish appear. There are about two hundred men in the column, with four officers on horseback. As they catch sight of the decoys, the officers urge their horses on, shouting to the men to follow. The lead officer, a major, is leaning forward in the saddle, his sword raised, his teeth bared under a bristling black mustache. Using a rifle with contact mortar, I take careful aim, leading the horse by four feet to allow for forward speed. Even so, I miscalculate slightly, and the mortar hits the horse in the withers instead of in the shoulder as I had intended. The explosion blows the major out of the saddle and over the horse’s head. His sword flies out of his severed right hand in a glittering arc. The horse rears, screaming and kicking, entrails spilling from a gaping hole.

  My shot is the signal for the others to open up, bouncing mortars off boulders by the foot soldiers and under the horses. One officer whirls and gallops back towards the city. After two rounds of mortar fire, we shift to the double-barreled rifles. In a few minutes, all but a handful are dead or dying and the survivors are fleeing back to the city in a blind panic. I give the signal to hold fire, since the accounts carried by the fugitives will place our number at five to eight hundred. The rumor of a large force of well-armed privateers, probably English, will spread panic in the city, whose defenders are now reduced to a scant hundred men.

  We advance to the outskirts of the city, where a party of officers display a flag of truce and indicate that they wish to parley. We state our terms as immediate and unconditional surrender of the garrison and the city, telling the officers that we have better than eight hundred men behind us. If they surrender the city, we promise to spare the lives of the Governor, the officers and soldiers, and all the inhabitants. If not, we will kill any who offer the slightest resistance, and will sack and burn the city. They have no option except to agree.

  Meanwhile, about three hundred local partisans have gathered, armed with weapons taken from the dead, since we do not want the officers to see the new weapons until we are able to effectively seal the city. We then stipulate that all soldiers, officers and armed civilians must come to this spot and lay down their arms. Anyone subsequently found in possession of arms will be summarily executed.

  The soldiers, having laid down their arms, are ordered to remove their uniforms, boots and socks. Clad only in undergarments, they are marched to the garrison and locked in. The officers, the Governor, the wealthy inhabitants, and the clergy, protesting the indignity, are locked in the prison after all the prisoners have been released.

  We post notices to the inhabitants to go about their daily business and to fear no harm. We set up the Articles i
n public places, impound all ships in the harbor, and post guards at all exits. No boat may leave the harbor and no person may leave the city.

  For the next two days, while we are catching up on our sleep, the soldiers, officers and hostages are to be given adequate food, but the partisans who guard them and bring the food have orders not to talk or to answer any questions.

  On the third day, fully rested, we gather around a conference table in the governmental dining room. News of our success has spread throughout the area, and there are now more than five hundred partisans gathered in the city, more than enough for routine guard duty. We consult maps and formulate plans for a series of attacks on the Spanish-held garrisons on the east side of the isthmus. These garrisons are for the most part small, and will be no match for our mortars. Within a month, we will control a string of garrisons from Port Roger to northern Panama. It is decided that the post of Commandante shall rotate each day. Since the ambush was largely according to my plan, I will assume the first shift.

  WE ARE THE LANGUAGE

  As I was reading the Cities of the Red Night text, the Iguana sister brought some books and put them down on the table. I laid aside the folder.

  “Who wrote this?”

  “A scholar who prefers to remain anonymous. Research into this area is not reinforced. If, as he suggests, conception is the basic trauma, then it is also the basic instrument of control.” She gestured to the books stacked on the table. I saw at a glance that they were elaborately bound in a variety of colors. They looked very expensive.