Perilous Planets

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘Tell me,’ Schwartz said earnestly, ‘what it’s like to know you’ll have ten successive bodies and live more than a thousand years.’

  ‘First tell me,’ said the Antarean, ‘what it’s like to know you’ll live ninety years or less, and perish forever.’

  ==========

  Somehow he continues. The pain in his chest grows more intense, he cannot focus his eyes, he believes he will lose consciousness at any moment and may even have lost it already at least once, and yet he continues. Clinging to the lectern, he outlines the program he developed in The Mask Beneath the Skin. A rebirth of tribalism without a revival of ugly nationalism. The quest for a renewal sense of kinship with the past. A sharp reduction in nonessential travel, especially tourism. Heavy taxation of exported artifacts, including films and video shows. An attempt to create independent cultural units on Earth once again while maintaining present levels of economic and political interdependence. Relinquishment of materialistic technological-industrial values. New searches for fundamental meanings. An ethnic revival, before it is too late, among those cultures of mankind that have only recently shed their traditional folkways. (He repeats and embellishes this point particularly, for the benefit of the Papuans before him, the great grandchildren of cannibals.)

  The discomfort and confusion come and go as he unreels his themes. He builds and builds, crying out passionately for an end to the homogenization of Earth, and gradually the physical symptoms leave him, all but a faint vertigo. But a different malaise seizes him as he nears his peroration. His voice becomes, to him, a far-off quacking meaningless and foolish. He has said all this a thousand times, always to great ovations, but who listens? Who listens? Everything seems hollow tonight, mechanical, absurd. An ethnic revival? Shall these people before him revert to their loincloths and their pig-roasts? His starship is a fantasy; his dream of a diverse Earth is mere silliness. What is, will be. And yet he pushes on to-ward his conclusion. He takes his audience back to that starship, he creates a horde of fanciful beings for them, he completes the metaphor by sketching the structures of half a dozen vanished ‘primitive’ cultures of Earth, he chants the chants of the Navaho, the Gabon Pygmies, the Ashanti, the Mundugu-mor. It is over. Cascades of applause engulf him. He holds his place until members of the sponsoring committee come to him and help him down; they have perceived his distress. ‘It’s nothing,’ he gasps. “The lights—too bright—’ Dawn is at his side. She hands him a drink, something cool. Two of the sponsors begin to speak of a reception for him in the Green Room. ‘Fine,’ Schwartz says. ‘Glad to.’ Dawn murmurs a protest. He shakes her off. ‘My obligation,’ he tells her. ‘Meet community leaders. Faculty people. I’m feeling better now. Honestly.” Swaying, trembling, he lets them lead him away.

  ‘A Jew,’ the Antarean said. ‘You call yourself a Jew, but what is this exactly? A clan, a sect, a moiety, a tribe, a nation, what? Can you explain?’

  ‘You understand what a religion is?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Judaism—Jewishness—it’s one of Earth’s major religions.’

  ‘You are therefore a priest?’

  ‘Not at all. I don’t even practice Judaism. But my ancestors did, and therefore I consider myself Jewish, even though—’

  ‘It is an hereditary religion, then,’ the Antarean said, ‘that does not require its members to observe its rites?’

  ‘In a sense,’ said Schwartz desperately. ‘More an hereditary cultural subgroup, actually, evolving out of a common religious outlook no longer relevant.’

  ‘Ah. And the cultural traits of Jewishness that define it and separate you from the majority of humankind are—?’

  ‘Well—’ Schwartz hesitated. ‘There’s a complicated dietary code, a rite of circumcision for newborn males, a rite of passage for male adolescents, a language of scripture, a vernacular language that Jews all around the world more or less understand and plenty more, including a certain intangible sense of clannishness and certain attitudes, such as a peculiar self-deprecating style of humor—’

  ‘You observe the dietary code? You understand the language of scripture?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Schwartz admitted. ‘In fact I don’t do anything that’s specifically Jewish except think of myself as a Jew and adopt many of the characteristically Jewish personality modes, which, however, are not uniquely Jewish any longer—they can be traced among Italians, for example, and to some extent among Greeks. I’m speaking of Italians and Greeks of the late twentieth century, of course. Nowadays—’ It was all becoming a terrible muddle. ‘Nowadays—’

  ‘It would seem,’ said the Antarean, ‘that you are a Jew only because your maternal and paternal gene-givers were Jews, and they—’

  ‘No, not quite. Not my mother, just my father, and he was Jewish only on his father’s side, but even my grandfather never observed the customs, and—’

  ‘I think this has grown too confusing,’ said the Antarean. ‘I withdraw the entire inquiry. Let us speak instead of my own traditions. The Time of Openings, for example, may be understood as—’

  ==========

  In the Green Room some eighty or a hundred distinguished Papuans press toward him, offering congratulations. ‘Absolutely right,’ they say. ‘A global catastrophe.’ ‘Our last chance to save our culture.’ Their skins are chocolate-tinted but their faces betray the genetic mishmash that is their ancestry—perhaps they call themselves Arapesh, Mundugumor, Tchambuli, Mafulu, in the way that he calls himself a Jew, but they have been liberally larded with chromosomes contributed by Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, Africans, everything. They dress in International Contemporary. They speak slangy, lively English. Schwartz feels seasick. ‘You look dazed,’ Dawn whispers. He smiles bravely. Body like dry bone. Mind like dead ashes. He is introduced to a tribal chieftain, tall, gray-haired, who looks and speaks like a professor, a lawyer, a banker. What, will these people return to the hills for the ceremony of the yam harvest? Will newborn girl-children be abandoned, cords uncut, skins unwashed, if their fathers do not need more girls? Will boys entering manhood submit to the expensive services of the initiator who sacrifices them with the teeth of crocodiles? The crocodiles are gone. The shamans have become stockbrokers.

  Suddenly he cannot breathe.

  ‘Get me out of here,’ Schwartz mutters hoarsely, choking.

  Dawn, with stewardess efficiency, chops a path for him through the mob. The sponsors, concerned, rush to his aid. He is floated swiftly back to the hotel in a glistening little bubble-car. Dawn helps him to bed. Reviving, he reaches for her.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she says. ‘You’ve had a rough day.’

  He persists. He embraces her and takes her, quickly, fiercely, and they move together for a few minutes and it ends and he sinks back, exhausted, stupefied. She gets a cool cloth and pats his forehead, and urges him to rest. ‘Bring me my drugs,’ he says. He wants siddharthin, but she misunderstands, probably deliberately, and offers him something blue and bulky, a sleeping pill, and, too weary to object, he takes it. Even so, it seems to be hours before sleep comes.

  He dreams he is at the skyport, boarding the rocket for Bangkok, and instantly he is debarking at Bangkok—just like Port Moresby, only more humid—and he delivers his speech to a horde of enthusiastic Thais, while rockets flicker about him, carrying him to skyport after skyport, and the Thais blur and become Japanese, who are transformed into Mongols, who become Uighurs, who become Iranians, who become Sudanese, who become Zambians, who become Chileans, and all look alike, all look alike, all look alike.

  ==========

  The Spicans hovered above him, weaving, bobbing, swaying like cobras about to strike. But their eyes, warm and liquid, were sympathetic: loving even. He felt the glow of their compassion. If they had had the sort of musculature that enabled them to smile, they would be smiling tenderly, he knew.

  One of the aliens leaned close. The little translating device dangled toward Schwartz like a holy medallion. He narrowed
his eyes, concentrating as intently as he could on the amber words flashing quickly across the screen.

  ‘… has come. We shall…’

  ‘Again, please,’ Schwartz said. ‘I missed some of what you were saying.’

  ‘The moment… has come. We shall… make the exchange of sacraments now.’

  ‘Sacraments?’

  ‘Drugs.’

  ‘Drugs, yes. Yes. Of course.’ Schwartz groped in his pouch. He felt the cool smooth leather skin of his drug-case. Leather? Snakeskin, maybe. Anyway. He drew it forth. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Siddharthin, learitonin, psilocerebrin, acidly. Take your pick.’ The Spicans selected three small blue siddharthins. ‘Very good,’ Schwartz said. ‘The most transcendental of all. And now—’

  The longest of the aliens proffered a ball of dried orange fungus the size of Schwartz’ thumbnail.

  ‘It is an equivalent dose. We give it to you.’

  ‘Equivalent to all three of my tablets, or to one?’

  ‘Equivalent. It will give you peace.’

  Schwarts smiled. There was a time for asking questions, and a time for unhesitating action. He took the fungus and reached for a glass of water.

  ‘ Wait !‘ Pitkin cried, appearing suddenly. ‘What are you—’

  ‘Too late,’ Schwartz said serenely, and swallowed the Spican drug in one joyous gulp.

  ==========

  The nightmares go on and on. He circles the Earth like the Flying Dutchman, like the Wandering Jew, skyport to skyport to skyport, an unending voyage from nowhere to nowhere. Obliging committees meet him and convey him to his hotel. Sometimes the committee members are contemporary types, indistinguishable from one another, with standard faces, standard clothing, the all-purpose new-model hybrid unihuman, and sometimes they are consciously ethnic, elaborately decked out in feathers and paint and tribal emblems, but their faces, too, are standard behind the gaudy regalia, their slang is the slang of Uganda and Tierra del Fuego and Nepal, and it seems to Schwartz that these masqueraders are, if anything, less authentic, less honest, than the other sort, who at least are true representatives of their era. So it is hopeless either way. He lashes at his pillow, he groans, he wakens. Instantly Dawn’s arms enfold him. He sobs incoherent phrases into her clavical and she murmurs soothing sounds against his forehead. He is having some sort of breakdown, he realizes: a new crisis of values, a shattering of the philosophical synthesis that has allowed him to get through the last few years. He is bound to the wheel; he spins, he spins, he spins, traversing the continents, getting nowhere. There is no place to go. No. There is one, just one, a place where he will find peace, where the universe will be as he needs it to be. Go there, Schwartz. Go and stay as long as you can. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Dawn asks. He shivers and shakes his head. ‘Take this,’ she says, and gives him some sort of pill. Another tranquillizer. All right. All right. It will help him get where he must go. The world has turned to porcelain. His skin feels like a plastic coating. Away, away, to the ship. To the ship! ‘So long,’ Schwartz says, and lets himself slip away.

  ==========

  Outside the ship the Capellans twist and spin in their ritual dance as, weightless and without mass, they are swept toward the rim of the galaxy at nine times the velocity of light. They move with a grace that is astonishing for creatures of such tremendous bulk. A dazzling light that emanates from the center of the universe strikes their glossy skin and, rebounding, resonates all up and down the spectrum, splintering into brilliant streamers of ultra-red, infra-violet, exo-yellow. All the cosmos glows and shimmers. A single perfect note of music comes out of the remote distance and, growing closer, swells in an infinite crescendo. Schwartz trembles at the beauty of all he perceives.

  Beside him stands the seal-slick Antarean. She—definitely she, no doubt of it, she— plucks at his arm and whispers, ‘Will you go to them?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  ‘So will I. Wherever you go.’

  ‘Now,’ Schwartz says. He reaches for the lever that opens the hatch. He pulls down. The side of the starship swings open.

  The Antarean looks deep into his eyes and says blissfully,

  ‘I have never told you my name. My name is Dawn.’ Together they float through the hatch into space. The blackness receives them gently. There is no chill, no pressure at the lungs, no discomfort at all. He is surrounded by luminous surges, by throbbing mantles of pure color, as though he has entered the heart of an aurora. He and Dawn swim toward the Capellans, and the huge beings welcome them with deep glad booming cries. Dawn joins the dance at once, moving her sinuous limbs with extravagant ease; Schwartz will do the same in a moment, but first he turns to face the starship, hanging in space close by him like a vast coppery needle, and in a voice that could shake universes he calls, ‘Come, friends! Come, all of you! Come dance with us!’ And they come, pouring through the hatch, the Spicans first, then all the rest, the infinite multitude of beings, the travelers from Formalhaut and Achernar and Acrux and Aldebaran, from Thuban and Arcturua and Altair, from Polaris and Canopus and Sirius and Rigel, hundreds of star-creatures spilling happily out of the vessel, bursting forth, all of them, even Pitkin, poor little Pitkin, everyone joining hands and tentacles and tendrils and whatever, forming a great ring of light across space, everyone locked in a cosmic harmony, everyone dancing. Dancing. Dancing.

  * * *

  AFTERWORD

  The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

  The furrow followed free;

  We were the first that ever burst

  Into that silent sea.

  Or into that silent atmosphere, that other planet beyond reach of Ancient Mariner. New ocean, new atmosphere, new life—to these adventures the soul greatly responds, for they are part of everyone’s fundamental experience, even when marred or muffled by suburban living.

  I cannot claim to have fulfilled adequately the task I set myself in this volume; for that I would need much more space much more time. Yet these stories give a hint that one of the most stirring of science fiction adventures remains our first sight of Deneb IV. The science fiction adventure is more than merely an adventure. It stands for one of the fundamentals of the psyche, the quest for knowledge. What is unknown must be known. Though it brings disaster.

  Brush aside the palsied claim that this sf or that is pessimistic. For there are dark riddles in our nature that must be faced. Many of the great life-giving legends concern the necessity for acquiring knowledge even if it brings disaster. The story of Adam and Eve, the story of Faust, of Frankenstein, of Dr Jekyll, all embody this understanding. The knowledge always brings pain, and often degradation as well; yet still the journey into knowing must be made. One day, there will be a journey into knowledge that will bring a fairer reward—and then perhaps Mankind itself will be changed. The Sack need not always give a dusty answer.

  Perhaps that redeeming knowledge will be found on another planet, though personally I doubt it (the journey to wisdom needs stillness, not action). Meanwhile, there remains the romantic excitement of viewing, at the end of the journey, another fragment of matter harbouring its own secrets, silences sea birds. The South African poet, Roy Campbell, said it precisely in the first verses of a poem celebrating his sight of Tristan da Cunha, as it stood out from the wastes of the South Atlantic:

  Snore in the foam; the night is vast and blind;

  The blanket of the mist about your shoulders,

  Sleep your old sleep of rock, snore in the wind,

  Snore in the spray! the storm your slumber lulls,

  His wings are folded on your nest of boulders

  As on their eggs the grey wings of your gulls.

  No more as when, so dark an age ago,

  You hissed a giant cinder from the ocean,

  Around your rocks you furl the shawling snow

  Half sunk in your own darkness, vast and grim,

  And round you on the deep with surly motion

  Pivot your league-long shadow as you s
wim…