Norstrilia

by Cordwainer Smith

  “Ready for what?”

  “For the tests and changes there.” The Catmaster nodded at the door marked HATE HALL.

  “I suppose so,” said Rod. “I don’t have much choice.”

  “No,” said the Catmaster, sympathetically and almost sadly, “not at this point, you don’t. If you walk out that door, you’re an illegal cat-man, in immediate danger of being buzzed down by the robot police.”

  “Please,” said Rod, “win or fail, can I have one of these Cape triangles?”

  The Catmaster smiled. “I promise you—if you want one, you shall have it.” He waved at the door: “Go on in.”

  * * *

  Rod was not a coward, but it was with feet and legs of lead that he walked to the door. It opened by itself. He walked in, steady but afraid.

  The room was dark with a darkness deeper than mere black. It was the dark of blindness, the expanse of cheek where no eye has ever been.

  The door closed behind him and he swam in the dark, so tangible had the darkness become.

  He felt blind. He felt as if he had never seen.

  But he could hear.

  He heard his own blood pulsing through his head.

  He could smell—indeed, he was good at smelling. And this air—this air—this air smelled of the open night on the dry plains of Old North Australia.

  The smell made him feel little and afraid. It reminded him of his repeated childhoods, of the artificial drownings in the laboratories where he had gone to be reborn from one childhood to another.

  He reached out his hands.

  Nothing.

  He jumped gently. No ceiling.

  Using a fieldman’s trick familiar from times of dust storms, he dropped lightly to his hands and feet. He scuttled crabwise on two feet and one hand, using the other hand as a shield to protect his face. In a very few meters he found the wall. He followed the wall around.

  Circular.

  This was the door.

  Follow again.

  With more confidence, he moved fast. Around, around, around. He could not tell whether the floor was asphalt or some kind of rough worn tile.

  Door again.

  A voice spieked to him.

  Spieked! And he heard it.

  He looked upward into the nothing which was bleaker than blindness, almost expecting to see the words in letters of fire, so clear had they been.

  The voice was Norstrilian and it said,

  Rod McBan is a man, man, man.

  But what is man?

  (Immediate percussion of crazy, sad laughter.)

  Rod never noticed that he reverted to the habits of babyhood. He sat flat on his rump, legs spread out in front of him at a ninety-degree angle. He put his hands a little behind him and leaned back, letting the weight of his body push his shoulders a little bit upward. He knew the ideas that would follow the words, but he never knew why he so readily expected them.

  Light formed in the room, as he had been sure it would.

  The images were little, but they looked real.

  Men and women and children, children and women and men marched into his vision and out again.

  They were not freaks; they were not beasts; they were not alien monstrosities begotten in some outside universe; they were not robots; they were not underpeople; they were all hominids like himself, kinsmen in the Earthborn races of men.

  First came people like Old North Australians and Earth people, very much alike, and both similar to the ancient types, except that Norstrilians were pale beneath their tanned skins, bigger, and more robust.

  Then came Daimoni, white-eyed pale giants with a magical assurance, whose very babies walked as though they had already been given ballet lessons.

  Then heavy men, fathers, mothers, infants swimming on the solid ground from which they would never arise.

  Then rainmen from Amazonas Triste, their skins hanging in enormous folds around them, so that they looked like bundles of wet rags wrapped around monkeys.

  Blind men from Olympia, staring fiercely at the world through the radars mounted on their foreheads.

  Bloated monster-men from abandoned planets—people as bad off as his own race had been after escaping from Paradise VII.

  And still more races.

  People he had never heard of.

  Men with shells.

  Men and women so thin that they looked like insects.

  A race of smiling, foolish giants, lost in the irreparable hebephrenia of their world. (Rod had the feeling that they were shepherded by a race of devoted dogs, more intelligent than themselves, who cajoled them into breeding, begged them to eat, led them to sleep. He saw no dogs, only the smiling unfocused fools, but the feeling dog, good dog! was somehow very near.)

  A funny little people who pranced with an indefinable deformity of gait.

  Water-people, the clean water of some unidentified world pulsing through their gills.

  And then—

  More people, still, but hostile ones. Lipsticked hermaphrodites with enormous beards and fluting voices. Carcinomas which had taken over men. Giants rooted in the Earth. Human bodies crawling and weeping as they crept through wet grass, somehow contaminated themselves and looking for more people to infect.

  Rod did not know it, but he growled.

  He jumped into a squatting position and swept his hands across the rough floor, looking for a weapon.

  These were not men—they were enemies!

  Still they came. People who had lost eyes, or who had grown fire-resistant, the wrecks and residues of abandoned settlements and forgotten colonies. The waste and spoilage of the human race.

  And then—

  Him.

  Himself.

  The child Rod McBan.

  And voices, Norstrilian voices calling: “He can’t hier. He can’t spiek. He’s a freak. He’s a freak. He can’t hier. He can’t spiek.”

  And another voice: “His poor parents!”

  The child Rod disappeared and there were his parents again. Twelve times taller than life, so high that he had to peer up into the black absorptive ceiling to see the underside of their faces.

  The mother wept.

  The father sounded stern.

  The father was saying, “It’s no use. Doris can watch him while we’re gone, but if he isn’t any better, we’ll turn him in.”

  “Kill him?” shrieked the woman. “Kill my baby? Oh, no! No!”

  The calm, loving, horrible voice of the man, “Darling, spiek to him yourself. He’ll never hier. Can that be a Rod McBan?”

  Then the woman’s voice, sweet-poisonous and worse than death, sobbing agreement with her man against her son.

  “I don’t know, Rod. I don’t know. Just don’t tell me about it.”

  He had hiered them, in one of his moments of wild penetrating hiering when everything telepathic came in with startling clarity. He had hiered them when he was a baby.

  The real Rod in the dark room let out a roar of fear, desolation, loneliness, rage, hate. This was the telepathic bomb with which he had so often startled or alarmed the neighbors, the mind-shock with which he had killed the giant spider in the tower of Earthport far above him.

  But this time, the room was closed.

  His mind roared back at itself.

  Rage, loudness, hate, raw noise poured into him from the floor, the circular wall, the high ceiling.

  He cringed beneath it and as he cringed, the sizes of the images changed. His parents sat in chairs, chairs. They were little, little. He was an almighty baby, so enormous that he could scoop them up with his right hand.

  He reached to crush the tiny loathsome parents who had said, “Let him die.”

  To crush them, but they faded first.

  Their faces turned frightened. They looked wildly around. Their chairs dissolved, the fabric falling to a floor which in turn looked like storm-eroded cloth. They turned for a last kiss and had no lips. They reached to hug each other and their arms fell off. Their spaceship had gone mil
ky in mid-trip, dissolving into traceless nothing. And he, he, he himself had seen it!

  The rage was followed by tears, by a guilt too deep for regret, by a self-accusation so raw and wet that it lived like one more organ inside his living body.

  He wanted nothing.

  No money, no stroon, no Station of Doom. He wanted no friends, no companionship, no welcome, no house, no food. He wanted no walks, no solitary discoveries in the field, no friendly sheep, no treasures in the gap, no computer, no day, no night, no life.

  He wanted nothing, and he could not understand death.

  The enormous room lost all light, all sound, and he did not notice it. His own naked life lay before him like a freshly dissected cadaver. It lay there and it made no sense. There had been many Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBans, one hundred and fifty of them in a row, but he—151! 151! 151!—was not one of them, not a giant who had wrestled treasure from the sick Earth and hidden sunshine of the Norstrilian plains. It wasn’t his telepathic deformity, his spieklessness, his brain deafness to hiering. It was himself, the “Me-subtile” inside him, which was wrong, all wrong. He was the baby worth killing, who had killed instead. He had hated mama and papa for their pride and their hate: when he hated them, they crumpled and died out in the mystery of space, so that they did not even leave bodies to bury.

  Rod rose to his feet. His hands were wet. He touched his face and he realized that he had been weeping with his face cupped in his hands.

  Wait.

  There was something.

  There was one thing he wanted. He wanted Houghton Syme not to hate him. Houghton Syme could hier and spiek, but he was a shortie, living with the sickness of death lying between himself and every girl, every friend, every job he had met. And he, Rod, had mocked that man, calling him Old Hot and Simple. Rod might be worthless but he was not as bad off as Houghton Syme, the Hon. Sec. Houghton Syme was at least trying to be a man, to live his miserable scrap of life, and all Rod had ever done was to flaunt his wealth and near-immortality before the poor cripple who had just one hundred and sixty years to live. Rod wanted only one thing—to get back to Old North Australia in time to help Houghton Syme, to let Houghton Syme know that the guilt was his, Rod’s, and not Syme’s. The Onseck had a bit of a life and he deserved the best of it.

  Rod stood there, expecting nothing.

  He had forgiven his last enemy.

  He had forgiven himself.

  The door opened very matter-of-factly and there stood the Catmaster, a quiet wise smile upon his face,

  “You can come out now, Mister and Owner McBan; and if there is anything in this outer room which you want, you may certainly have it.”

  Rod walked out slowly. He had no idea how long he had been in HATE HALL.

  When he emerged, the door closed behind him.

  “No, thanks, cobber. It’s mighty friendly of you, but I don’t need anything much, and I’d better be getting back to my own planet.”

  “Nothing?” said the Catmaster, still smiling very attentively and very quietly.

  “I’d like to hier and spiek, but it’s not very important.”

  “This is for you,” said the Catmaster. “You put it in your ear and leave it there. If it itches or gets dirty, you take it out, wash it, and put it back in. It’s not a rare device, but apparently you don’t have them on your planet.” He held out an object no larger than the kernel of a ground-nut.

  Rod took it absently and was ready to put it into his pocket, not into his ear, when he saw that the smiling attentive face was watching, very gently but very alertly. He put the device into his ear. It felt a little cold.

  “I will now,” said the Catmaster, “take you to C’mell, who will lead you to your friends in Downdeep-downdeep. You had better take this blue two-penny Cape of Good Hope postage stamp with you. I will report to Jestocost that it was lost while I attempted to copy it. That is slightly true, isn’t it?”

  Rod started to thank him absent-mindedly and then—

  Then, with a thrill which sent gooseflesh all over his neck, back and arms, he realized that the Catmaster had not moved his lips in the slightest, had not pushed air through his throat, had not disturbed the air with the pressure of noise. The Catmaster had spieked to Rod, and Rod had hiered him.

  Thinking very carefully and very clearly, but closing his lips and making no sound whatever, Rod thought,

  “Worthy and gracious Catmaster, I thank you for the ancient treasure of the old Earth stamp. I thank you even more for the hiering-spieking device which I am now testing. Will you please extend your right hand to shake hands with me, if you can actually hier me now?”

  The Catmaster stepped forward and extended his hand.

  Man and underman, they faced each other with a kindness and gratitude which was so poignant as to be very close to grief.

  Neither of them wept. Neither.

  They shook hands without speaking or spieking.

  EVERYBODY’S FOND OF MONEY

  WHILE Rod McBan was going through his private ordeal at the Department Store of Hearts’ Desires, other people continued to be concerned with him and his fate.

  A Crime of Public Opinion

  A middle-aged woman, with a dress which did not suit her, sat uninvited at the table of Paul, a real man once acquainted with C’mell.

  Paul paid no attention to her. Eccentricities were multiplying among people these days. Being middle-aged was a matter of taste, and many human beings, after the Rediscovery of Man, found that if they let themselves become imperfect, it was a more comfortable way to live than the old way—the old way consisting of aging minds dwelling in bodies condemned to the perpetual perfection of youth.

  “I had flu,” said the woman. “Have you ever had flu?”

  “No,” said Paul, not very much interested.

  “Are you reading a newspaper?” She looked at his newspaper, which had everything except news in it.

  Paul, with the paper in front of him, admitted that he was reading it.

  “Do you like coffee?” said the woman, looking at Paul’s cup of fresh coffee in front of him.

  “Why would I order it if I didn’t?” said Paul brusquely, wondering how the woman had ever managed to find so unattractive a material for her dress. It was yellow sunflowers on an off-red background.

  The woman was baffled, but only for a moment.

  “I’m wearing a girdle,” she said. “They just came on sale last week. They’re very, very ancient, and very authentic. Now that people can be fat if they want to, girdles are the rage. They have spats for men, too. Have you bought your spats yet?”

  “No,” said Paul flatly, wondering if he should leave his coffee and newspaper.

  “What are you going to do about that man?”

  “What man?” said Paul, politely and wearily.

  “The man who’s bought the Earth.”

  “Did he?” said Paul.

  “Of course,” said the woman. “Now he has more power than the Instrumentality. He could do anything he wants. He can give us anything we want. If he wanted to, he could give me a thousand-year trip around the universe.”

  “Are you an official?” said Paul sharply.

  “No,” said the woman, taken a little aback.

  “Then how do you know these things?”

  “Everybody knows them. Everybody.” She spoke firmly and pursed her mouth at the end of the sentence.

  “What are you going to do about this man? Rob him? Seduce him?” Paul was sardonic. He had had an unhappy love affair which he still remembered, a climb to the Abba-dingo over Alpha Ralpha Boulevard which he would never repeat, and very little patience with fools who had never dared and never suffered anything.

  The woman flushed with anger. “We’re all going to his hostel at twelve today. We’re going to shout and shout until he comes out. Then we’re going to form a line and make him listen to what each one of us wants.”

  Paul spoke sharply: “Who organized this?�
��

  “I don’t know. Somebody.”

  Paul spoke solemnly. “You’re a human being. You have been trained. What is the Twelfth Rule?”

  The woman turned a little pale but she chanted, as if by rote: “‘Any man or woman who finds that he or she forms and shares an unauthorized opinion with a large number of other people shall report immediately for therapy to the nearest subchief.’ But that doesn’t mean me …?”

  “You’ll be dead or scrubbed by tonight, madam. Now go away and let me read my paper.”

  The woman glared at him, between anger and tears. Gradually fear came over her features. “Do you really think what I was saying is unlawful?”

  “Completely,” said Paul.

  She put her pudgy hands over her face and sobbed. “Sir, sir, can you—can you please help me find a subchief? I’m afraid I do need help. But I’ve dreamed so much, I’ve hoped so much. A man from the stars. But you’re right, sir. I don’t want to die or get blanked out. Sir, please help me!”

  Moved by both impatience and compassion, Paul left his paper and his coffee. The robot waiter hurried up to remind him that he had not paid. Paul walked over to the sidewalk where there were two barrels full of money for people who wished to play the games of ancient civilization. He selected the biggest bill he could see, gave it to the waiter, waited for his change, gave the waiter a tip, received thanks, and threw the change, which was all coins, into the barrel full of metal money. The woman had waited for him patiently, her blotched face sad.

  When he offered her his arm, in the old-French manner, she took it. They walked a hundred meters, more or less, to a public visiphone. She half-cried, half-mumbled as she walked along beside him, with her uncomfortable, ancient spiked-heel feminine shoes:

  “I used to have four hundred years. I used to be slim and beautiful. I liked to make love and I didn’t think very much about things, because I wasn’t very bright. I had had a lot of husbands. Then this change came along, and I felt useless, and I decided to be what I felt like—fat, and sloppy, and middle-aged, and bored. And I have succeeded too much, just the way two of my husbands said. And that man from the stars, he has all power. He can change things.”