A, B, C: Three Short Novels

by Samuel R. Delany

  “I bet you must be looking forward to school,” she said as they walked. “You and Iimmi might turn up in some of the same classes, now that you know each other.”

  “Maybe,” said Geo.

  “My, are you glum!” She pulled a long face under short shocks of red hair.

  “I hope Iimmi and I do get into some classes together,” Geo said.

  “That’s more like it.” Suddenly she looked serious. “Your arm is worrying you. Why?”

  Geo shrugged again. “I don’t feel like a whole person. I guess I’m not really a whole person.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Argo. “Besides, maybe Snake will let you have one of his. How are the medical facilities in Leptar?”

  “I don’t think they’re up to anything like that.”

  “We did grafting of limbs back on Aptor,” Argo said. “A most interesting way we got around the antibody problem too. You see—”

  “But that was back in Aptor,” Geo said. “This is the real world we’re going into now.”

  “Maybe I can get a doctor from the Temple to come over.” She shrugged. “And then, maybe I won’t be able to.”

  “It’s a pleasant thought,” Geo said.

  When they reached the back of the ship, Argo took out the contraption from the paper bag. “I salvaged this in my tunic. Hope I dried it off well enough last night.”

  “It’s your motor,” Geo said.

  “Uh-huh.” She set it on a low set of lockers by the cabin back wall.

  “How are you going to work it?” he asked. “It’s got to have that stuff, electricity.”

  “There is more than one way to shoe a centipede,” Argo assured him. She reached behind the locker and pulled up a strange gizmo of glass and wire. “I got the lens from Mom,” she explained. “She’s awfully nice, really. She says I can have my own laboratory all to myself. And I said she could have all the politics, which I think was wise of me, considering. Don’t you?” She bent over the contraption. “Now, this lens here focuses the sunlight—isn’t it a beautiful day?—focuses it on these here thermocouples. I got the extra metal from the ship’s smith. He’s sweet. Hey, we’re going to have to compare poems from now on. I mean I’m sure you’re going to write a whole handful about all of this. I certainly am. Anyway, you connect it up here.”

  She fastened two wires to two other wires, adjusted the lens; the tips of the thermocouple glowed beneath the glass. The armature tugged about its pivot.

  Geo looked up to see Snake and Iimmi leaning over the rail on the cabin roof.

  “Hey,” Argo called. “Move out of the light!”

  Grinning, they moved aside.

  Brushes hissed on the turning rings. The coil whirled to copper haze. “Look at that thing go!” She stepped back, fists proudly on her hips. “Just look at that thing go!”

  New York

  February 1962

  the ballad of beta-2

  Oh, one came back to the City,

  Over sand with her bright hair wild,

  With her eyes coal black and her feet sole sore,

  And under her arms a green-eyed child.

  —FROM “THE BALLAD OF BETA-2”

  chapter one

  “Quite simply, the answer is: because they are there!”

  White light from the helical fixtures struck down at the professor’s bony face.

  “But—” began Joneny.

  “But no,” the professor interrupted. They were alone in the office. “It isn’t that simple, is it? The reason is that many of them were once there, and they did something that had never been done before—that will never be done again—and because remnants of them are still there now. That is why you will study them.”

  “But, sir,” Joneny persisted, “that’s not what I asked. I’m requesting a personal dispensation that will exempt me from research work on this unit. I expect to be held accountable for all examination questions on the Star Folk; but I’m already an honors student, and on the strength of that, I’m asking to skip the detail work on them. I’m perfectly willing to put in the time on my thesis topic, the Nukton Civilization of Creton III, or anything else that’s reasonable, sir.” Then, as an afterthought: “I realize it would be a privileged exemption that only you can grant.”

  “That’s quite correct,” the professor said coolly; he leaned forward. “On the strength of your ‘honors,’ Joneny—and you’re more than a good student, you’re an amazing one—I’ll listen to your objections. But I have to admit that there’s something about your request that annoys me.”

  Joneny took a breath. “I just don’t want to waste my time on them, sir. There’s so much needed research in a field like Galactic Anthropology; and, as far as I can see, the Star Folk are a dead end, with no significance at all. They were a very minor transition factor that was eliminated from the cosmic equation even before the terms were fully written out. Their ‘contributions to the arts’ are entirely derivative—and they produced nothing else. All that remains of them is a barbaric little settlement, if you can call it that, which the Federation sentimentally allows to exist out near Leffer VI. There are too many cultures and civilizations crying to be researched for me to waste time poking through dozens of chrome-plated eggshells, documenting the history of a…a bunch of chauvinistic, degenerate morons. And I don’t care what anyone says, sir. That’s all they are!”

  “Well,” the professor said. “Well. You are vehement on the subject.” He glanced at the screen on his desk, flicked a few notes across it, then looked sternly at Joneny. “I am not going to grant your request. But I’ll tell you why. In fact, I’ll even argue with you—because of your ‘honors’ status. You say that the culture of the Star Folk was an insignificant transitional factor, superseded before its purpose was achieved. Why?”

  “Because, sir…”—Joneny was prepared for that question—“they left Earth for the stars in their ships early in 2242, expecting to cruise through space for twelve generations before reaching an uncertain destination. They’d been gone only sixty years when the hyperspace drive became a large-scale reality. By the time the ten remaining generation-ships arrived in the Leffer system, Earth had already established a going-business of trade and cultural exchange, already a hundred or so years old, with scores of planetary systems. And it was just as well too, because the level of civilization on the starships was at a primitive-barbaric stage; and the descendants of the Star Folk who had left Earth with such exalted goals would never have been able to survive on alien planets, much less make friendly contact with any of their cultures. So the ten ships were herded into orbit around Leffer and, with the imbecilic remnants of their population, allowed to dodder toward extinction. From all reports, they are as contented as such creatures can be; I say leave them there. But I personally am not interested in knowing much more about them.” Certain that he had made his point, he waited for the professor’s—perhaps reluctant—acquiescence to his request; but the silence lengthened.

  When the professor spoke, it was in a tone more distant than before. “You assert that they produced no significant contribution to the arts. Are you completely familiar with all the records?”

  Joneny’s face reddened. “I’m hardly an expert, sir. But again, you’d think that in twelve generations there would be one poem, one painting, something—other than those insipid, maudlin, derivative exercises in nostalgia.”

  The professor raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  Joneny went doggedly on. “I’ve looked through the collection of their ballads Xamol Nella made in ’79, and there’s not a single metaphor or simile in any of them that could be called original or even relevant to life on a starship. There’s nothing but semimythical folktales couched in terms of sand and sea and cities and nations—some of them very interesting, no doubt, but complete fantasies with no relation to the people living and dying on the ships. I couldn’t be less interested in such cotton-candy effusions.”

  The professor raised his other eyebrow. “Oh? Well,
before I give you your assignment, I want to stress what I said in the beginning: the Star Folk did something never done before or since. They traveled through space—a lot of it—for a very long time. No one else has ever really been there, because the hyperspace drive actually takes you around interstellar space.” He laughed softly. “So perhaps they did find all the sand and sea and cities and nations there.” He raised a hand as Joneny started to object. “You haven’t been there, so you can’t disprove it. At any rate, they made what is perhaps the most dangerous journey imaginable, and for that alone they deserve to be studied.”

  “What could be safer than interstellar space, sir?” Joneny’s tone was slightly contemptuous. “There’s nothing in it.”

  Both the professor’s eyebrows fell. “Even if we knew that to be true—which we do not—what in blazes makes you think it would be safe for Earthmen in Earth starships? It’s within the realm of possibility that there were others. I remind you that although twelve ships left Earth, only ten reached the Leffer system, and two of those arrived empty. Perhaps there was something in the ‘safety’ of interstellar space—in the sand and the sea—which we do not know about yet.” Bony fingers pushed buttons below the screen. More notes flicked across. “You say you are familiar with the Nella’s ballad collection? Then no doubt you know ‘The Ballad of Beta-2.’ ” I want a complete historical analysis of that ballad—from primary sources. That will be your detail assignment for this unit.”

  “But, Professor—!”

  “Dismissed.”

  chapter two

  Joneny scanned Xamol Nella’s laconic footnote: *“Beta-2 was one of the starships that arrived at its destination, the Leffer system, empty. The ballad is extremely popular among the remaining Star Folk. (See Appendix for music.) Note the irregular repetition of the refrain, an original feature of many of the Star Folk ballads, as well as the slightly elliptical syntax.”

  That’s really straining for originality, Joneny thought as he turned back to the ballad’s text:

  Then came one to the City,

  Over sand with her bright hair wild,

  With her eyes coal black and her feet sole sore,

  And under her arms a green-eyed child.

  Three men stood on the City wall,

  One was short and two were tall,

  One had a golden trumpet clear

  That he shouted through so all would hear

  That one had come to the City,

  Over sand…etc.

  A woman stood by a Market stall,

  The tears like diamonds on her cheek,

  One eye was blind, she could not speak

  But she heard the guards of the City call

  Out: One has come to the City,

  Over sand…etc.

  One man stood by the courthouse door

  To judge again as he’d judged before,

  When he heard the guards of the City cry,

  He said, “She’s come back to the City to die.”

  Yes, she’s come back to the City,

  Over sand…etc.

  Another man stood on Death’s Head hill,

  His face was masked, his hands were still.

  Over his shoulder he carried a rope,

  And he stood stock quiet on Death’s Head slope.

  Three at the City wall cried: “Away!

  Come back to the City another day.”

  But down below the woman stood:

  I came back like I said I would;

  Yes, I’ve come back to the City,

  Over sand with my bright hair…etc.

  A time you gave me to travel far,

  Find the green-eyed one who made you what you are.

  Well, I’ve searched a City and the desert dunes,

  And I’ve found no man who caused our ruin.

  But I’ve come back to the City

  Over sand…etc.

  She walked through the gates and the children cried,

  She walked through the Market and the voices died,

  She walked past the courthouse and the judge so still,

  She walked to the bottom of Death’s Head hill.

  Down from the hill came the man with the rope,

  Met her at the bottom of Death’s Head slope,

  She looked at the City and she turned and smiled.

  A one-eyed woman held her green-eyed child.

  Fire and blood, meat, dung, and bone—

  Down on your knees; steel, stone, and wood

  Today are dust, and the City’s gone,

  But she came back like she said she would.

  Yes, one came back to the City,

  Over sand, with her bright hair wild,

  With her eyes coal black and her feet sole sore,

  And under her arms a green-eyed child.

  A complete historical analysis from primary sources meant he would have to visit the starships in person and find out what he could about the ballad from at least three different Star Folk. The “lab period” was twenty-four hours, but he could get a Time Adjustment through the Clearing Center of the University—which would mean that he could spend up to a week out at the starships while only twenty-four hours passed on campus. Joneny had no intention of spending more than the minimum requisite time on this research project. And, in order to make his task as easy as possible, he’d decided to preface his jaunt with a couple of hours more in the library.

  As a start, he rescanned the Introduction to the Nella Star Folk Ballads. He found something vaguely interesting: “Of course I did not actually go inside the starships, because of time limitations and cultural incompatibility; but a robot recorder was allowed entry, and a fair amount of cooperation was shown. The recorder transmitted a printed copy of the words and lead sheets of the music and, of course, made a permanent recording. The only changes I have made are where an obvious mispositioning of words or phrases occurred. This project was carried out rather hurriedly, and such mistakes could be, I must point out, either a fault in the recorder’s copying device or simply a mistake on the part of the singer. Consult Variorum Edition for any discrepancies.”

  Joneny sat back, feeling a conscientious researcher’s anger. Robot recorder, no actual entrance, the entire collection probably made in less time than he was going to spend on a single ballad. He could reconstruct it easily: Nella, somewhere in the vicinity of Leffer, suddenly getting the idea of sending his recorder in to see what he could pick up from the starships (probably did it while making some repairs or stuck in quarantine); leaving the machine on for six or seven hours; and then turning up with what appeared to be a scholarly collection of inaccessible folk songs. Such slipshod investigation infuriated Joneny, and he was sure that there was a lot of it in the inexhaustible archives of the Galactic Anthropology Library.

  For the hell of it, he consulted the Variorum Edition anyway. The only lines of “The Ballad of Beta-2” that Nella had amended occurred in the seventh stanza. The recorder had given the lines as:

  “She walked through the gates and the voices cried;

  She walked through the Market and the children died.”

  Well, that was an obvious correction—or was it? Joneny frowned. No, he decided, Nella was probably right; otherwise it was a little too surreal—and that was the antithesis of everything he believed about the Star Folk.

  There was a pleasant sort of simplicity about the song, he realized as he reread it slowly and carefully; too bad it wasn’t about anything.

  He went to the catalogue and selected a couple more crystal records on the Star Folk. There were only a half dozen or so to choose from, and he looked for a blue one (indicating a firsthand account). To his surprise, there was only one. Suspecting an error in the catalogue, he checked with the librarian and found that it was indeed the only blue.

  It was without a title, and when he slipped it into the player, he was surprised to find that it was a recording of the primary contact when the almost-forgotten starships hove into the ken of the Federation, n
inety years before.

  The voice was that of an Earthman, speaking in the heavily consonanted and jarring-syllabled High Centaurian (an extremely compressed language and therefore eminently suitable for official reports), on the initial contacts and the first belligerent repulsion by the Star Folk:

  …finally hypnotic vibrations had to be used. Even so, entry has been extremely difficult. Deëvolution is at an advanced stage. The sleeping creatures, slumped over their weapons on the floor of the inner locks, are hairless, naked, pale-skinned and fragile. Despite their frantic (one might say “heroic”) efforts to keep us out, they caused us no casualties, and the probe shows that they are not basically hostile. However, they are so enslaved by an incredible mythology that has sprung up among them, based on indecipherable incidents of their crossing, that we feel it advisable to leave them alone. Their technical means would not suffice for an interplanetary jump of more than six or seven million miles. There appears to have been some intercourse between ships by radio contact and, it is surmised, by occasional parties making the crossing from one to another. [There was an extended silence; then the voice continued:] They still have writing and, despite the polyglot nature of the original population, it is English, but an English difficult to follow because of orthographic changes and because the text seems to be composed entirely of euphemisms. A great many of the reports we have studied had to do with trouble in the “Market,” which we assumed to be the hydroponic gardens or one of the other food-supplying devices on the ship. It took semanticist Burber an hour to discover that this was a reference to the complex breeding and birth process that was devised for the starships. To keep the population stable, birth was to continue artificially in a mechanical “birth bank,” or rather “birth market,” where the prospective parents would receive their children. It was intended as a means of keeping the race fairly consistent and of safeguarding it against too many radiation deformities. From the appearance of these poor folk, it was not entirely successful.

  Joneny flipped the switch and reread the two corrected lines in the ballad. So that’s what the “Market” was. Then perhaps “Market” did belong with “children.” Undoubtedly the correction should have been: