The Cat Wore Electric Goggles

by Ian Hutson

  ‘The very least that she can.’

  ‘It is always thus.’

  ‘The hominidae here present such a distasteful biological aspect - so many limbs in the wrong assembly, features so ill-proportioned. Their bodies are primitive and incidental in construction.’

  ‘However unpleasant, they are what has been given to us here.’

  ‘Then from among them I choose the naked ones, we should give them decency; raiment and position in life.’

  ‘I concur. The orange-haired apes appeal but they have not the mettle, they are perhaps too content with their lot.’

  ‘What of the small black-hairs? They show dexterity and are not prisoners of the grasses, but move also among the trees.’

  ‘The small black-hairs are too fond of their trees, within a cycle of our leaving they would return to them. Besides, they kill their young too often and without due cause. Technical Report J.Goodall XVIa refers.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘What of the larger black-hairs then? The silver-backs?’

  ‘The larger black-hairs are all too fond of their leisure and ease, they are content with everything.’

  ‘A sleeping nest is the measure of their reach.’

  ‘They are without ambition.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Are we all of a single mind? Indicate acceptance.’

  Hoots of acquiescence to the collective choice were beamed from vessel to vessel. Of all of the sounds of the species, the hoot of acquiescence was their most satisfying, and they revelled in it. Brass-framed ivory-backed VU meters lit by amber bulbs pushed their needles hard into the red and remained there, causing common consternation among each vessel’s communication automata. Speaker-horns vibrated, ululating like over-pressured factory steam-whistles.

  After some decent interval when their lungs were near exhaustion and the volume fading, The Chair then caused the sound of a banging gavel to be heard in all the vessels.

  ‘I deem that the Council is agreed. We choose the naked apes. Their improvement will also serve to remove a moral outrage from this planet, since they are the most shameless. We shall clothe them in society and order. And clothes. Most definitely in clothes.’

  ‘The technical problems will be overcome. We shall invent.’

  ‘We will develop them.’

  ‘How then shall we proceed? This planet is without form, and it is void - there is intellectual darkness even in the light.’

  ‘Duty and obligation and hierarchy shall light the way. We shall gift them those.’

  ‘The land has already been divided from the waters. That which we choose shall be fruitful and multiply, they shall tend all the land.’

  ‘We will give them dominion over over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air. We shall set them above all other creatures that creepeth upon the land.’

  ‘Order from chaos.’

  ‘Purpose from ignorance.’

  ‘We shall make them toil, and we shall make them spin.’

  ‘They will know heavy industry in all their days and nights.’

  ‘In the ending of this not even Solomon in all his glory shall be arrayed as one of these.’

  Solomon, always flamboyant in his presentation to the physical dimensions, looked suitably abashed at their gentle mocking. The Chair, who had not really been amused, cut short the mirth and gave the order.

  ‘Prepare the Improvement Engine and set it among them.’

  ‘It will be done.’

  On the seventh day of the mission the masters of the saucers withdrew again unto themselves and preparations were made to leave the planet. Final wastes were dumped in the shadowy corners of the valley for the insects and smaller animals to pick over, as was their place. Probes and screws retracted into the undersides of the vessels’ hulls. All was again shrouded in steam and smoke from the engines. Presently the vapours cleared, and the craft had gone. In their stead lay the device that would undertake the necessary promotions to the environment, and to the chosen species, the naked ape.

  The Improvement Engine bore a proud plate written in an alien language of twenty-six squiggles and some half-dozen lesser symbols: “Victoria Manufactory. Pat. Pending.”

  Thick glass vats of viscous liquid held within elaborate lattices of copper and brass were supported by a heavy, workmanlike cast iron frame. Cams, valves and regulators populated the interstices. Lead pipework carrying coolants and fuels snaked between coiled Tesla transformers, and massive springs damped the movement of the beast, although the pumps that forced the fires raging within still shook the land.

  The Engine sat quite alone on the valley meadow grass, and in the beginning it sat impassively. It learned all that could be learned and deep within its interior complex, calculation-levers and logic-valves sketched out a course of action according to the Golden Rules of Improvement. The Engine identified the naked apes from among the others and it noted their few strengths and all of their many weaknesses. It sensed the lie of the land, the nature of the earth beneath its feet, and it drew up lists of what would be used and what would remain wasted. In hoppers directly beneath its electro-mechanical brain-gland, card after card of punched instructions fell in perfect order, awaiting the time when they would be read. Each tiny hole in each and every card indicated a tree to be felled, some flesh to be excised or favoured, some detail of the improved landscape that was to come.

  Gorilla and orang-utan and chimpanzee wisely avoided the machine, for they did not like the vapours of heated oils any more than they trusted the fabric of the machine itself, which was so very unlike any tree or rock that they had seen in the valley before. The naked apes, however, dared each other to get closer and closer, trumpeting their bravery and congratulating themselves until one of them ran forth and finally touched the metalwork. Sensing a need to foreshorten its agenda, the machine increased internal voltages and currents, and the centrifugal governors atop the machinery began to rotate more urgently. The improvements to the environment were set in a motion concurrent with the remainder of the planning survey. Punched-cards in the belly of the beast began to be read and to control the limbs and manipulating devices of the machine.

  Drills shot out from The Engine and burrowed deep into the soil and the rock, sucking whatever was needed and whatever could be found from the Earth. The engine moved about, like a metal queen bee laying drone eggs, and it built a foundation for itself, and it built a forge and a workshop where it toiled ceaselessly at the more delicate of its tasks. By day all was fire and smoke and fume, by night the valley was lit by the yellow-amber glow of heated metals being poured and formed. All around The Engine piled up sharps coils of swarf, and crisp grey ashes, spent from its fires.

  Frightened by the sudden change in the strange new thing the apes were no longer quite so brave , and they retreated to the familiar safety of their caves and did not hunt again.

  The Engine built itself to twice its former size and it then began to send forth smaller engines, engines that scurried alone like spiders, engines that burrowed like wasps, engines that fetched things with speeds no living creature could hope to match. The grasp of the device grew to encompass everything that the apes had ever known. The valley meadow grasses became worn and trampled under the multiple-legged devices, and a shadow of dust and blackness spread in all directions. Trees became timber and water was sucked from the river as a mosquito sucks blood. The river downstream ran foul with an oily, sooty slick.

  The hungry apes watched from their caves and they saw the pattern of the scuttling and scampering things change. Six fresh patterns emerged from among the mechanical dance, six new swirls of activity, and at the centre of each grew a fresh Engine. These then too gave birth to yet more insect-machines and soon the valley meadow was awash with horrors. They ran over one another without regard and to a depth of three and four or more, like ants swarming on a carcass. The apes retreated further into their caves, and huddled one upon the other for warmth and comfort and safety.


  The new machines that The Engine had built then left the valley and swarmed out into the land. Fires raged like the fires of Hell. Deep mines were sunk and stone and glass and metals were formed into new shapes. The green growing things and the un-chosen animals were beaten back and processed and contained by the swarming things and the land echoed to a new melody. Throughout day and night alike there came a great hammering upon iron and steel, and the hiss of water and steam was made known by heat and flame in boiler and hearth. Gone were the bellows of the mammoths and the shrieks of chimp and other ape. In their stead came the bass rumble and rattle of industry, and from this dark stain a city was born. The Engine filed punched cards that had been actioned, and at the last it called this new city “London”.

  The machines moved out once more and again they multiplied themselves. Fresh cards of instructions fed through these machines and they cleared and they built. They built houses back to back, and they built houses grand with pastured parks and lakes reserved among the remaining trees. They built factories and mills and mines, dockyards and roads and railway lines and canals and they populated all with barge and locomotive and wagon and carriage according to the plan.

  All was built by the machines to suit a bipedal creature sixty or seventy inches in the standing, dexterous of limb with opposable thumb and yet with a dire vulnerability to the merest environmental elements of his home planet. From the brand new city of London, centred on the snaking river Thames, as far to the north as Manchester and Leeds and Newcastle the devices scurried and they changed and they re-shaped and they prepared. The Engine looked upon the work of its child-machines, and saw that it was good.

  The habitat had been prepared.

  The child-machines withdrew to the parent again for adaptation and re-instruction to the next task.

  There came a moment when six times six times six machines arranged themselves to face the apes in the valley, and they entered directly into the task at hand, carrying with them the charge towards cave and corner and tree. Instructions flicked through the machines like packs of cards being shuffled, and they fell upon the chosen animals like spiders upon juicy flies caught in a web, and they subdued them to their new, improved purpose for a new, improved world.

  There had been ten thousand naked ape animals on all of this sceptred isle, hungry in their caves and corners and trees, no longer daring to venture even to hunt for fear of the machines.

  They had been right to fear the machines, even though their fear came late.

  The machines had punched cards detailing a Grand Plan for the naked apes.

  The machines made them all Human.

  As with raw resources of coal and ore and water before them the raw hominid resources were taken into the larger machines. In these larger machines cold, impassionate scalpel and drill was set to skin and flesh and bone each according to the instructions on the cards. The machines had no ear for screams, and they knew only repair and disrepair, design and form, lacking all knowledge of pain and terror.

  Gorilla and chimp and orang-utan heard the cries of the naked apes, and they cowered in the small territories that had been given over unto them. It was wise to avoid the unfamiliar and the strange. Why had the humans not been wise? These other apes, being wiser, turned then inwards to their own lives among their trees. The naked apes became a “gone” thing among the animal world, brothers no more.

  As each new human spent time in the machines so carbolic soap followed scalding water, and surgical saw and skin-blade and suture-needle followed both. Galvanic probes were set upon the enlarged brains and chaotic, primitive thoughts slowly became ordered, improved, industrious thoughts. Creatures that had been fetched screaming from caves were fed into one facet of the machines, and creatures seeking purpose and meaning, seeking dominion and control emerged from another. These new creatures had poise and assurance and social order, and they had a cold, injured, unnatural shadow buried deep in their hearts. What was the point of hugging and expressions of loving? It hadn’t stopped a single one from being dragged from each other’s arms, screaming, into the thundering Improvement Engine.

  The alien machines worked tirelessly to their given pattern cards and they sent their product to the towns and parks, as a farmer might send animals out into a safe paddock in springtime. Each new human was attended by smaller, scurrying machines that gave instruction and order to set them upon the path prescribed in The Plan.

  For a time, alien machine walked with man and man walked nowhere without machine, they were as one, master and apprentice. The machines began with “sit” and “stand” and “walk” and “eat” and “sleep”, and they pushed hard at the new-humans until all that was required was “discover” and “invent” and “manufacture” and “buy” and “sell” and “divine right” and, eventually, “empire”.

  In their due course, each was given unto a niche and a skill and well founded in it. Some were set high and given great tasks, others were set low, as needles to the conscience and a reminder that challenge maketh or destroyeth the man. In the fields between the cities machine taught man to farm, and in the towns to the north, machine taught man to labour with his own machines in mill and factory. As each new skill was acquired by man the smaller machines grew fewer and more distant in their manner, and mankind began to stand afresh, alone. The new-humans were slowly given dominion over all things, and they were given industry and duty.

  The major devices withdrew from the land once more, and took it upon themselves to go into the savage, foreign world, rolling abroad into the hot, moist, insanitary places and even into the colder wastes. There they prepared all that they found for the chosen apes and set The Empire to waiting for them. It was written in the code in the cards that men would walk among all the resources of the whole world, and the machines saw to it that the way was paved for him.

  Released from the oversight of The Engine these much Improved peoples of England looked around themselves. The troop, the tribe was gone and it had not saved them. Family? Family was a paper-trail of inheritance and disinheritance. Warmth? Warmth lay in the thickness of one’s coat, not the depth of fellow creatures sharing one’s fireplace. Safety? Safety lay in money in the new banks, for now a single man could hold back and command or defeat an army at the stroke of a fountain pen. Love? Love was an embarrassment too close to animal passions for comfort, and it was hidden forever under a weight of dutiful marriage and heavy obligation. Love had never opened a single factory, nor yielded up a single guinea in profit. Love was beaten back into obscurity, and was given unto academe to be a plaything for scholars and poets.

  In place of love the new-humans felt purpose, and a higher, less base meaning. Industry waited and, unhinged from primitive tribal bond to one another, they determined to let it wait no longer. Each among them had their new place and each among them knew their new place, and this they saw was good and right and proper because it had been made and given, it was not random. Those who had been created to rule took their places, and those that had been created to serve found level and meaning among the lower work. Factory, mill and mine filled with those best suited to the task, Palace and Parliament settled their better arses on the benches, and they rested in the stately homes.

  A history had been created and gifted to suit the need of new-humans and it over-wrote and filled all the years and all of the ages that had gone before. As it had been written by The Engine, so it was accepted without question. The new schools and universities told those who needed to know what they needed to know. Books were written and books were read detailing mighty battles and honourable monarchs and the steady tread of English foot upon the land. There was order in this history and it was better, much better, than no history at all - and better by far than stories of cave-dwelling savages lifted recently from the mire. It felt good to be exalted as the chosen apes, and new-humankind was pleased and eager to believe. A sense of history replaced the sense of the moment and their days seemed somehow larger, more important for it. />
  The new-humans then busied themselves among their beam-engines and their ships and their barges and their trains, and industry and social propriety took all of their energies. The labours in the fields for food came to be undertaken wholly by mankind, not by alien machine, and this world began to spin productively, as all decent worlds should. In time, as was proper, new-humans crossed the English Channel and they crossed their oceans and they ruled as they saw fit, over all that they had been given. Wherever they went the clothed naked-apes sought to impose order and rule and industry, and to fill up empty foreign days with such proper meaning and purpose and structure such as had been gifted to them.

  Years fed into decades and the decades piled neatly upon one another, although some of the order was lost, as is the way with moving, living things. Untended by The Makers, The Plan began to fall into decay. Those who served began to question those who ruled. Work labour came to be divided from life-labour, and new and unproductive leisures were invented. The workings of money came to distort all that was industrious, and took value to itself that it had not earned. Real and heavy industry was perverted into sleight of banking hand and into mere fiscal trickery, and the making of things was forgotten. Form and appearance came to exclude substance and purpose. New-Humans, with their predators and limitations removed, failed to control their own numbers and they filled the world beyond all capacity.

  War followed peace, uneasy peace followed war and then the two became confused until everyone was in terror of everything all of the time. Proscriptions and edicts were issued forbidding this and demanding that, and where freedom and choice once reigned, the cheek by jowl population found a new, uncomfortable order imposed.

  Society and Establishment sought no longer to be the framework within which individuals lived, but became the framework by which they lived under pain of harsh penalty. Law became an end unto itself, with civil peace maintained at whatever cost to the new-human contentments and freedoms. Disaster and loss of life attendant upon the over-reaching came to be valued not in terms of grief, but in terms of money. Freedom, fairness and justice were restricted and meted out each according to their cost to the exchequer. All things were reduced to accommodate least effort and the mind was sacrificed to unambitious acceptance of all things. The new world staggered and fell to feasting upon itself in an orgy of money-lenders and purveyors of snake-oil solutions. All that remained was the stiffness and hurt hidden deep inside, and the memory in their bones of the pain of their creation.