Norstrilia - Illustrated

by Cordwainer Smith

  As quick as thought she followed him, stopping just outside the door to the men’s room. She dared not go in; she trusted that the place was empty when Rod entered it, because she had heard no boom of a slow, heavy bullet, none of the crisp buzzing of a burner. Robots did not use toilets, so they went in only when they were investigating something. She was prepared to distract any man living if he tried to enter that toilet, by offering him the combination of an immediate seduction or a complimentary and unwanted monkey.

  A’gentur had awakened.

  “Don’t bother,” he said. “I called my father. Anything approaching that door will fall asleep.”

  An ordinary man, rather tired and worried-looking, headed for the men’s room. C’mell was prepared to stop him at any cost, but she remembered what A’gentur-E’ikasus had told her, so she waited. The man reeled as he neared them. He stared at them, saw that they were underpeople, looked on through them as though they were not there. He took two more steps toward the door and suddenly reached out his hands as if he were going blind. He walked into the wall two meters from the door, touched it firmly and blindly with his hands, and crumpled gently to the floor, where he lay snoring.

  “My dad’s good,” said A’gentur-E’ikasus. “He usually leaves real people alone, but when he must get them, he gets them. He even gave that man the distinct memory that he mistakenly took a sleeping pill when he was reaching for a pain-killer. When the human wakes up, he will feel foolish and will tell no one of his experience.”

  Rod came out of the ever-so-dangerous doorway. He grinned at them boyishly and did not notice the crumpled man lying beside the wall. “That was easier than turning back, and nobody noticed me at all. See, I saved you a lot of trouble, C’mell!”

  He was so proud of his foolhardy adventure that she did not have the heart to blame him. He smiled widely, his cat-whiskers tipping as he did so. For a moment, just a moment, she forgot that he was an important person and a real man to boot: he was a boy, and mighty like a cat, but all boy in his satisfaction, his wanton bravery, his passing happiness with vainglory. For a second or two she loved him. Then she thought of the terrible hours ahead, and of how he would go home, rich and scornful, to his all-people planet. The moment of love passed but she still liked him very much.

  “Come along, young fellow. You can eat. You are going to eat cat food since you are C’roderick, but it’s not so bad.”

  He frowned. “What is it? Do you have fish here? I tasted fish one time. A neighbor bought one. He traded two horses for it. It was delicious.”

  “He wants fish,” she cried to E’ikasus.

  “Give him a whole tuna for himself,” grumbled the monkey. “My blood sugar is still low. I need some pineapple.”

  C’mell did not argue. She stayed underground and led them into a hall which had a picture of dogs, cats, cattle, pigs, bears, and snakes above the door; that indicated the kinds of people who could be served there. E’ikasus scowled at the sign but he rode C’mell’s shoulder in.

  “This gentleman,” said C’mell, speaking pleasantly to an old bear-man who was scratching his belly and smoking a pipe, all at the same time, “has forgotten his credits.”

  “No food,” said the bear-man. “Rules. He can drink water, though.”

  “I’ll pay for him,” said C’mell.

  The bear-man yawned. “Are you sure that he won’t pay you back? If he does, that is private trading and it is punished by death.”

  “I know the rules,” said C’mell. “I’ve never been disciplined yet.”

  The bear looked her over critically. He took his pipe out of his mouth and whistled. “No,” said he, “and I can see that you won’t be. What are you, anyhow? A model?”

  “A girlygirl,” said C’mell.

  The bear-man leapt from his stool with astonishing speed. “Cat-madame!” he cried. “A thousand pardons. You can have anything in the place. You come from the top of Earthport? You know the Lords of the Instrumentality personally? You would like a table roped off with curtains? Or should I just throw everybody else out of here and report to my Man that we have a famous, beautiful slave from the high places?”

  “Nothing that drastic,” said C’mell. “Just food.”

  “Wait a bit,” said A’gentur-E’ikasus. “If you’re offering specials, I’ll have two fresh pineapples, a quarter-kilo of ground fresh coconut, and a tenth of a kilo of live insect grubs.”

  The bear-man hesitated. “I was offering things to the cat-lady, who serves the mighty ones, not to you, monkey. But if the lady desires it, I will send for those things.” He waited for C’mell’s nod, got it, and pushed a button for a low-grade robot to come. He turned to Rod McBan. “And you, cat-gentleman, what would you like?”

  Before Rod could speak, C’mell said, “He wants two sailfish steaks, fried potatoes, Waldorf salad, an order of ice cream, and a large glass of orange juice.”

  The bear-man shuddered visibly. “I’ve been here for years and that is the most horrible lunch I ever ordered for a cat. I think I’ll try it myself.”

  C’mell smiled the smile which had graced a thousand welcomes.

  “I’ll just help myself from the things you have on the counters. I’m not fussy.”

  He started to protest but she cut him short with a graceful but unmistakable wave of the hand. He gave up.

  They sat at a table.

  A’gentur-E’ikasus waited for his combination monkey and bird lunch. Rod saw an old robot, dressed in a prehistoric tuxedo jacket, ask a question of the bear-man, leave one tray at the door, and bring another tray to him. The robot whipped off a freshly starched napkin. There was the most beautiful lunch Rod McBan had ever seen. Even at a state banquet, the Old North Australians did not feed their guests like that. Just as they were finishing, the bear-cashier came to the table and asked,

  “Your name, cat-madame? I will charge these lunches to the government.”

  “C’mell, servant to Teadrinker, subject to the Lord Jestocost, a Chief of the Instrumentality.”

  The bear’s face had been epilated, so that they could see him pale.

  “C’mell,” he whispered. “C’mell! Forgive me, my Lady. I have never seen you before. You have blessed this place. You have blessed my life. You are the friend of all underpeople. Go in peace.”

  C’mell gave him the bow and smile which a reigning empress might give to an active Lord of the Instrumentality. She started to pick up the monkey but he scampered on ahead of her. Rod was puzzled. As the bear-man bowed him out, he asked,

  “C’mell. You are famous?”

  “In a way,” she said. “But only among the Underpeople.” She hurried them both toward a ramp. They reached daylight at last, but even before they came to the surface, Rod’s nose was assaulted by a riot of smells—foods frying, cakes baking, liquor spilling its pungency on the air, perfumes fighting with each other for attention, and, above all, the smell of old things: dusty treasures, old leathers, tapestries, the echo-smells of people who had died a long time ago.

  C’mell stopped and watched him. “You’re smelling things again? I must say, you have a better nose than any human being I ever met before. How does it smell to you?”

  “Wonderful,” he gasped. “Wonderful. Like all the treasures and temptations of the universe spilled out into one little place.”

  “It’s just the Thieves’ Market of Paris.”

  “There are thieves on Earth? Open ones, like on Viola Siderea?”

  “Oh, no,” she laughed. “They would die in a few days. The Instrumentality would catch them. These are just people, playing. The Rediscovery of Man found some old institutions, and an old market was one of them. They make the robots and underpeople find things for them and then they pretend to be ancient, and make bargains with each other. Or they cook food. Not many real people ever cook food these days. It’s so funny that it tastes good to them. They all pick up money on their way in. They have barrels of it at the gate. In the evening, or when they leave, t
hey usually throw the money in the gutter, even though they should really put it back in the barrel. It’s not money we underpeople could use. We go by numbers and computer cards,” she sighed. “I could certainly use some of that extra money.”

  “And underpeople like you—like us—” said Rod, “what do we do in the market?”

  “Nothing,” she whispered. “Absolutely nothing. We can walk through if we are not too big and not too small and not too dirty and not too smelly. And even if we are all right, we must walk right through without looking directly at the real people and without touching anything in the market.”

  “Suppose we do?” asked Rod defiantly.

  “The robot police are there, with orders to kill on sight when they observe an infraction. Don’t you realize, C’rod,” she sobbed at him, “that there are millions of us in tanks, way below in Downdeep-downdeep, ready to be born, to be trained, to be sent up here to serve Man? We’re not scarce at all, C’rod, we’re not scarce at all!”

  “Why are we going through the market then?”

  “It’s the only way to the Catmaster’s store. We’ll be tagged. Come along.”

  Where the ramp reached the surface, four bright-eyed robots, their blue enamel bodies shining and their milky eyes glowing, stood at the ready. Their weapons had an ugly buzz to them and were obviously already off the “safety” mark. C’mell talked to them quietly and submissively. When the robot-sergeant led her to a desk, she stared into an instrument like binoculars and blinked when she took her eyes away. She put her palm on a desk. The identification was completed. The robot sergeant handed her three bright disks, like saucers, each with a chain attached. Wordlessly she hung them around her own neck, Rod’s neck, and A’gentur’s. The robots let them pass. They walked in demure single file through the place of beautiful sights and smells. Rod felt that his eyes were wet with tears of rage. “I’ll buy this place,” he thought to himself, “if it’s the only thing I’ll ever buy.”

  C’mell had stopped walking.

  Rod looked up, very carefully.

  There was the sign: THE DEPARTMENT STORE OF HEARTS’ DESIRES. A door opened. A wise old cat-person’s face looked out, stared at them, snapped, “No underpeople!” and slammed the door. C’mell rang the doorbell a second time. The face reappeared, more puzzled than angry.

  “Business,” she whispered, “of the Aitch Eye.”

  The face nodded and said, “In, then. Quick!”

  THE DEPARTMENT STORE OF HEARTS’ DESIRES

  Once inside, Rod realized that the store was as rich as the market. There were no other customers. After the outside sounds of music, laughter, frying, boiling, things falling, dishes clattering, people arguing, and the low undertone of the ever-ready robot weapons buzzing, the quietness of the room was itself a luxury, like old, heavy velvet. The smells were no less variegated than those on the outside, but they were different, more complicated, and many more of them were completely unidentifiable.

  One smell he was sure of: fear, human fear. It had been in this room not long before.

  “Quick,” said the old cat-man. “I’m in trouble if you don’t get out soon. What is your business?”

  “I’m C’mell,” said C’mell.

  He nodded pleasantly, but showed no sign of recognition. “I forget people,” he said.

  “This is A’gentur.” She indicated the monkey.

  The old cat-man did not even look at the animal.

  C’mell persisted, a note of triumph coming into her voice: “You may have heard of him under his real name, E’ikasus.”

  The old man stood there, blinking, as though he were taking it in. “Yeekasoose? With the letter E?”

  “Transformed,” said C’mell inexorably, “for a trip all the way to Old North Australia and back.”

  “Is this true?” said the old man to the monkey.

  E’ikasus said calmly, “I am the son of Him of whom you think.”

  The old man dropped to his knees, but did so with dignity:

  “I salute you, E’ikasus. When you next think-with your father, give him my greetings and ask from him his blessing. I am C’william, the Catmaster.”

  “You are famous,” said E’ikasus tranquilly.

  “But you are still in danger, merely being here. I have no license for underpeople!”

  C’mell produced her trump. “Catmaster, your next guest. This is no c’man. He is a true man, an offworlder, and he has just bought most of the planet Earth.”

  C’william looked at Rod with more than ordinary shrewdness. There was a touch of kindness in his attitude. He was tall for a cat-man; few animal features were left to him, because old age, which reduces racial and sexual contrasts to mere memories, had wrinkled him into a uniform beige. His hair was not white, but beige too; his few cat-whiskers looked old and worn. He was garbed in a fantastic costume which—Rod later learned—consisted of the court robes of one of the Original Emperors, a dynasty which had prevailed for many centuries among the further stars. Age was upon him, but wisdom was too; the habits of life, in his case, had been cleverness and kindness, themselves unusual in combination. Now very old, he was reaping the harvest of his years. He had done well with the thousands upon thousands of days behind him, with the result that age had brought a curious joy into his manner, as though each experience meant one more treat before the long bleak dark closed in. Rod felt himself attracted to this strange creature, who looked at him with such penetrating and very personal curiosity, and who managed to do so without giving offense.

  The Catmaster spoke in very passable Norstrilian: “I know what you are thinking, Mister and Owner McBan.”

  “You can hier me?” cried Rod.

  “Not your thoughts. Your face. It reads easily. I am sure that I can help you.”

  “What makes you think I need help?”

  “All things need help,” said the old c’man briskly, “but we must get rid of our other guests first. Where do you want to go, excellent one? And you, cat-madame?”

  “Home,” said E’ikasus. He was tired and cross again. After speaking brusquely, he felt the need to make his tone more civil. “This body suits me badly, Catmaster.”

  “Are you good at falling?” said the Catmaster. “Free fall?”

  The monkey grinned. “With this body? Of course. Excellent. I’m tired of it.”

  “Fine,” said the Catmaster. “You can drop down my waste chute. It falls next to the forgotten palace where the great wings beat against time.”

  The Catmaster stepped to one side of the room. With only a nod at C’mell and Rod, followed by a brief “See you later,” the monkey watched as the Catmaster opened a manhole cover, leaped trustingly into the complete black depth which appeared, and was gone. The Catmaster replaced the cover carefully.

  He turned to C’mell.

  She faced him truculently, the defiance of her posture oddly at variance with the innocent voluptuousness of her young female body. “I’m going nowhere.”

  “You’ll die,” said the Catmaster, “Can’t you hear their weapons buzzing just outside the door? You know what they do to us underpeople. Especially to us cats. They use us, but do they trust us?”

  “I know one who does…” she said. “The Lord Jestocost could protect me, even here, just as he protects you, far beyond your limit of years.”

  “Don’t argue it. You will make trouble for him with the other real people. Here, girl, I will give you a tray to carry with a dummy package on it. Go back to the underground and rest in the commissary of the bear-man. I will send Rod to you when we are through.”

  “Yes,” she said hotly, “but will you send him alive or dead?”

  The Catmaster rolled his yellow eyes over Rod. “Alive,” he said. “This one—alive. I have predicted. Did you ever know me to be wrong? Come on, girl, out the door with you.”

  C’mell let herself be handed a tray and a package, taken seemingly at random. As she left Rod thought of her with quick desperate affection. She was his
closest link with Earth. He thought of her excitement and of how she had bared her young breasts to him, but now the memory, instead of exciting him, filled him with tender fondness instead. He blurted out, “C’mell, will you be all right?”

  She turned around at the door itself, looking all woman and all cat. Her red wild hair gleamed like a hearth-fire against the open light from the doorway. She stood erect, as though she were a citizen of Earth and not a mere underperson or girlygirl. She held out her right hand clearly and commandingly while balancing the tray on her left hand. When he shook hands with her, Rod realized that her hand felt utterly human but very strong. With scarcely a break in her voice she said,

  “Rod, goodbye. I’m taking a chance with you, but it’s the best chance I’ve ever taken. You can trust the Catmaster, here in the Department Store of Hearts’ Desires. He does strange things, Rod, but they’re good strange things.”

  He released her hand and she left. C’william closed the door behind her. The room became hushed.

  “Sit down for a minute while I get things ready. Or look around the room if you prefer.”

  “Sir Catmaster—” said Rod.

  “No title, please. I am an underperson, made out of cats. You may call me C’william.”

  “C’william, please tell me first. I miss C’mell. I’m worried about her. Am I falling in love with her? Is that what falling in love means?”

  “She’s your wife,” said the Catmaster. “Just temporarily and just in pretense, but she’s still your wife. It’s Earthlike to worry about one’s mate. She’s all right.”

  The old c’man disappeared behind a door which had an odd sign on it: HATE HALL.

  Rod looked around.

  The first thing, the very first thing, which he saw was a display cabinet full of postage stamps. It was made of glass, but he could see the soft blues and the inimitable warm brick reds of his Cape of Good Hope triangular postage stamps. He had come to Earth and there they were! He peered through the glass at them. They were even better than the illustrations which he had seen back on Norstrilia. They had the temper of great age upon them and yet, somehow, they seemed to freight with them the love which men, living men now dead, had given them for thousands and thousands of years. He looked around, and saw that the whole room was full of odd riches. There were ancient toys of all periods, flying toys, copies of machines, things which he suspected were trains. There was a two-story closet of clothing, shimmering with embroidery and gleaming with gold. There was a bin of weapons, clean and tidy—models so ancient that he could not possibly guess what they had been used for, or by whom. Everywhere, there were buckets of coins, usually gold ones. He picked up a handful. They had languages he could not even guess at and they showed the proud imperious faces of the ancient dead. Another cabinet was one which he glanced at and then turned away from, shocked and yet inquisitive: it was filled with indecent souvenirs and pictures from a hundred periods of men’s history, images, sketches, photographs, dolls and models, all of them portraying grisly, comical, sweet, friendly, impressive or horrible versions of the many acts of love. The next section made him pause utterly. Who would have ever wanted these things? Whips, knives, hoods, leather corsets. He passed on, very puzzled.