Norstrilia

by Cordwainer Smith

  Paul did not answer her, except to nod sympathetically.

  At the visiphone he stood until a robot appeared. “A subchief,” he said. “Any subchief.”

  The image blurred and the face of a very young man appeared. He stared earnestly and intently while Paul recited his number, grade, neo-national assignment, quarters number and business. He had to state the business twice, “Criminal public opinion.”

  The subchief snapped, not unpleasantly, “Come on in, then, and we’ll fix you up.”

  Paul was so annoyed at the idea that he would be suspected of criminal public opinion, “any opinion shared with a large number of other people, other than material released and approved by the Instrumentality and the Earth Government,” that he began to spiek his protest into the machine.

  “Vocalize, man and citizen! These machines don’t carry telepathy.”

  When Paul got through explaining, the youngster in uniform looked at him critically but pleasantly, saying,

  “Citizen, you’ve forgotten something yourself.”

  “Me?” gasped Paul. “I’ve done nothing. This woman just sat down beside me and—”

  “Citizen,” said the subchief, “what is the last half of the Fifth Rule for All Men?”

  Paul thought a moment and then answered, “The services of every person shall be available, without delay and without charge, to any other true human being who encounters danger or distress.” Then his own eyes widened and he said, “You want me to do this myself?”

  “What do you think?” said the subchief.

  “I can,” said Paul.

  “Of course,” said the subchief. “You are normal. You remember the braingrips.”

  Paul nodded.

  The subchief waved at him and the image faded from the screen.

  The woman had seen it all. She, too, was prepared. When Paul lifted his hands for the traditional hypnotic gestures, she locked her eyes upon his hands. She made the responses as they were needed. When he had brainscrubbed her right there in the open street, she shambled off down the walkway, not knowing why tears poured down her cheeks. She did not remember Paul at all.

  For a moment of crazy whimsy, Paul thought of going across the city and having a look at the wonderful man from the stars. He stared around absently, thinking. His eye caught the high thread of Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, soaring unsupported across the heavens from faraway ground to the mid-height of Earthport: he remembered himself and his own personal troubles. He went back to his newspaper and a fresh cup of coffee, helping himself to money from the barrel, this time, before he entered the restaurant.

  On a Yacht Off Meeya Meefla

  Ruth yawned as she sat up and looked at the ocean. She had done her best with the rich young man.

  The false Rod McBan, actually a reconstructed Eleanor, said to her:

  “This is right nice.”

  Ruth smiled languidly and seductively. She did not know why Eleanor laughed out loud.

  The Lord William Not-from-here came up from below the deck. He carried two silver mugs in his hands. They were frosted.

  “I am glad,” said he unctuously, “that you young people are happy. These are mint juleps, a very ancient drink indeed.”

  He watched as Eleanor sipped hers and then smiled.

  He smiled too. “You like it?”

  Eleanor smiled right back at him. “Beats washing dishes, it does!” said “Rod McBan” enigmatically.

  The Lord William began to think that the rich young man was odd indeed.

  Antechamber of the Bell and Bank

  The Lord Crudelta commanded, “Send Jestocost here!”

  The Lord Jestocost was already entering the room.

  “What’s happened on that case of the young man?”

  “Nothing, Sir and Senior.”

  “Tush. Bosh. Nonsense. Rot.” The old man snorted. “Nothing is something that doesn’t happen at all. He has to be somewhere.”

  “The original is with the Catmaster, at the Department Store.”

  “Is that safe?” said the Lord Crudelta. “He might get to be too smart for us to manage. You’re working some scheme again, Jestocost.”

  “Nothing but what I told you, Sir and Senior.”

  The old man frowned. “That’s right. You did tell me. Proceed. But the others?”

  “Who?”

  “The decoys?”

  The Lord Jestocost laughed aloud. “Our colleague, the Lord William, has almost betrothed his daughter to Mister McBan’s workman, who is temporarily a ‘Rod McBan’ herself. All parties are having fun with no harm done. The robots, the eight survivors, are going around Earthport city. They are enjoying themselves as much as robots ever do. Crowds are gathering and asking for miracles. Pretty harmless.”

  “And the Earth economy? Is it getting out of balance?”

  “I’ve set the computers to work,” said the Lord Jestocost, “finding every tax penalty that we ever imposed on anybody. We’re several megacredits ahead.”

  “FOE money.”

  “FOE money, Sir.”

  “You’re not going to ruin him?” said Crudelta.

  “Not at all, Sir and Senior,” cried the Lord Jestocost. “I am a kind man.”

  The old man gave him a low dirty smile. “I’ve seen your kindness before, Jestocost, and I would rather have a thousand worlds for an enemy than have you be my friend! You’re devious, you’re dangerous, and you are tricky.”

  Jestocost, much flattered by this comment, said formally, “You do an honest official a great injustice, Sir and Senior.”

  The two men just smiled at each other: they knew each other well.

  Ten Kilometers Below the Surface of the Earth

  The E’telekeli stood from the lectern at which he had been praying.

  His daughter was watching him immovably from the doorway.

  He spieked to her, “What’s wrong, my girl?”

  “I saw his mind, father, I saw it for just a moment as he left the Catmaster’s place. He’s a rich young man from the stars, he’s a nice young man, he has bought Earth, but he is not the man of the Promise.”

  “You expected too much, E’lamelanie,” spieked her father.

  “I expected hope,” she spieked to him. “Is hope a crime among us underpeople? What Joan foresaw, what the Copt promised—where are they, father? Shall we never see daylight or know freedom?”

  “True men are not free either,” spieked the E’telekeli. “They too have grief, fear, birth, old age, love, death, suffering and the tools of their own ruin. Freedom is not something which is going to be given us by a wonderful man beyond the stars. Freedom is what you do, my dear, and what I do. Death is a very private affair, my daughter, and life—when you get to it—is almost as private.”

  “I know, father,” she spieked. “I know. I know. I know.” (But she didn’t.)

  “You may not know it, my darling,” spieked the great bird-man, “but long before these people built cities, there were others in the Earth—the ones who came after the Ancient World fell. They went far beyond the limitations of the human form. They conquered death. They did not have sickness. They did not need love. They sought to be abstractions lying outside of time. And they died, E’lamelanie—they died terribly. Some became monsters, preying on the remnants of true men for reasons which ordinary men could not even begin to understand. Others were like oysters, wrapped up in their own sainthood. They had all forgotten that humanness is itself imperfection and corruption, that what is perfect is no longer understandable. We have the Fragments of the Word, and we are truer to the deep traditions of people than people themselves are, but we must never be foolish enough to look for perfection in this life or to count on our own powers to make us really different from what we are. You and I are animals, darling, not even real people, but people do not understand the teaching of Joan, that whatever seems human is human. It is the word which quickens, not the shape or the blood or the texture of flesh or hair or feathers. And there is that
power which you and I do not name, but which we love and cherish because we need it more than do the people on the surface. Great beliefs always come out of the sewers of cities, not out of the towers of the ziggurats. Furthermore, we are discarded animals, not used ones. All of us down here are the rubbish which mankind has thrown away and has forgotten. We have a great advantage in this, because we know from the very beginning of our lives that we are worthless. And why are we worthless? Because a higher standard and a higher truth says that we are—the conventional law and the unwritten customs of mankind. But I feel love for you, my daughter, and you have love for me. We know that everything which loves has a value in itself, and that therefore this worthlessness of underpeople is wrong. We are forced to look beyond the minute and the hour to the place where no clocks work and no day dawns. There is a world outside of time, and it is to that which we appeal. I know that you have a love for the devotional life, my child, and I commend you for it, but it would be a sorry faith which waited for passing travelers or which believed that a miracle or two could set the nature of things right and whole. The people on the surface think they have gone beyond the old problems, because they do not have buildings which they call churches or temples, and they do not have professional religious men within their communities. But the higher power and the large problems still wait for all men, whether men like it or not. Today, Believing among mankind is a ridiculous hobby, tolerated by the Instrumentality because the Believers are unimportant and weak, but mankind has moments of enormous passion which will come again and in which we will share. So don’t you wait for your hero beyond the stars. If you have a good devotional life within you, it is already here, waiting to be watered by your tears and ploughed up by your hard, clear thoughts. And if you don’t have a devotional life, there are good lives outside.

  “Look at your brother, E’ikasus, who is now resuming his normal shape. He let me put him in animal form and send him out among the stars. He took risks without committing the impudence of enjoying risk. It is not necessary to do your duty joyfully—just to do it. Now he has homed to the old lair and I know he brings us good luck in many little things, perhaps in big things. Do you understand, my daughter?”

  She said that she did, but there was still a wild blank disappointed look in her eyes as she said it.

  A Police-Post on the Surface, Near Earthport

  “The robot sergeant says he can do no more without violating the rule against hurting human beings.” The subchief looked at his chief, licking his chops for a chance to get out of the office and to wander among the vexations of the city. He was tired of viewscreens, computers, buttons, cards, and routines. He wanted a raw life and high adventure.

  “Which offworlder is this?”

  “Tostig Amaral, from the planet of Amazonas Triste. He has to stay wet all the time. He is just a licensed trader, not an honored guest of the Instrumentality. He was assigned a girlygirl and now he thinks she belongs to him.”

  “Send the girlygirl to him. What is she, mouse-derived?”

  “No, a c’girl. Her name is C’mell and she has been requisitioned by the Lord Jestocost.”

  “I know all about that,” said the chief, wishing that he really did. “She’s now assigned to that Old North Australian who has bought most of this planet, Earth.”

  “But this hominid wants her, just the same!” The subchief was urgent.

  “He can’t have her, not if a Lord of the Instrumentality commands her services.”

  “He is threatening to fight. He says he will kill people.”

  “Hmm. Is he in a room?”

  “Yes, Sir and Chief.”

  “With standard outlets?”

  “I’ll look, Sir.” The subchief twisted a knob and an electronic design appeared on the left-hand screen in front of him. “Yes, sir, that’s it.”

  “Let’s have a look at him.”

  “He got permission, sir, to run the fire sprinkler system all the time. It seems he comes from a rain-world.”

  “Try, anyhow.”

  “Yes, sir.” The subchief whistled a call to the board. The picture dissolved, whirled, and resolved itself into the image of a dark room. There seemed to be a bundle of wet rags in one corner, out of which a well-shaped human hand protruded.

  “Nasty type,” said the chief, “and probably poisonous. Knock him out for exactly one hour. We’ll be getting orders meanwhile.”

  On an Earth-Level Street Under Earthport

  Two girls talking.

  “… and I will tell you the biggest secret in the whole world, if you will never, never tell anyone.”

  “I’ll bet it’s not much of a secret. You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I’ll never tell you then. Never.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Really, if you even suspected it, you would be mad with curiosity.”

  “If you want to tell me, you can tell me.”

  “But it’s a secret.”

  “All right, I’ll never tell anybody.”

  “That man from the stars. He’s going to marry me.”

  “You? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Why is it so ridiculous? He’s bought my dower rights already.”

  “I know it’s ridiculous. There’s something wrong.”

  “I don’t see why you should think he doesn’t like me if he has already bought my dower rights.”

  “Fool! I know it’s ridiculous, because he has bought mine.”

  “Yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both of us?”

  “What for?”

  “Search me.”

  “Maybe he is going to put us both in the same harem. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

  “They don’t have harems in Old North Australia. All they do is live like prudish old farmers and raise stroon and murder anybody at all that even gets near them.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “Let’s go to the police.”

  “You know, he’s hurt our feelings. Maybe we can make him pay extra for buying our dower rights if he doesn’t mean to use them.”

  In Front of a Café

  A man, drunk:

  “I will get drunk every night and I will have musicians to play me to sleep and I will have all the money I need and it won’t be that play money out of a barrel but it will be real money registered in the computer and I will make everybody do what I say and I know he will do it for me because my mother was named MacArthur in her genetic code before everybody got numbers and you have no call to laugh at me because his name really is MacArthur McBan the eleventh and I am probably the closest friend and relative he has on Earth …”

  TOSTIG AMARAL

  ROD McBan left the Department Store of Hearts’ Desires simply, humbly; he carried a package of books, wrapped in dustproofing paper, and he looked like any other first-class cat-man messenger. The human beings in the market were still making their uproar, their smells of food, spices, and odd objects, but he walked so calmly and so straightforwardly through their scattered groups that even the robot police, weapons on the buzz, paid no attention to him.

  When he had come across the Thieves’ Market going the other way with C’mell and A’gentur, he had been ill at ease. As a Mister and Owner from Old North Australia, he had been compelled to keep his external dignity, but he had not felt ease within his heart. These people were strange, his destination had been unfamiliar, and the problems of wealth and survival lay heavy upon him.

  Now, it was all different. Cat-man he might still be on the outside, but on the inside he once again felt his proper pride of home and planet.

  And more.

  He felt calm, down to the very tips of his nerve endings.

  The hiering-spieking device should have alerted him, excited him: it did not. As he walked through the market, he noticed that very few of the Earth people were communicating with one another telepathically. They preferred to babble in their loud airborne language, of which they had not one but many ki
nds, with the Old Common Tongue serving as a referent to those who had been endowed with different kinds of ancient language by the processes of the Rediscovery of Man. He even heard Ancient Inglish, the Queen’s Own Language, sounding remarkably close to his own spoken language of Norstrilian. These things caused neither stimulation nor excitement, not even pity. He had his own problems, but they were no longer the problems of wealth or of survival. Somehow he had confidence that a hidden, friendly power in the universe would take care of him, if he took care of others. He wanted to get Eleanor out of trouble, to disembarrass the Hon. Sec., to see Lavinia, to reassure Doris, to say a good goodbye to C’mell, to get back to his sheep, to protect his computer, and to keep the Lord Redlady away from his bad habit of killing other people lawfully on too slight an occasion for manslaughter.

  One of the robot police, a little more perceptive than the others, watched this cat-man who walked with preternatural assurance through the crowds of men, but “C’roderick” did nothing but enter the market from one side, thread his way through it, and leave at the other side, still carrying his package; the robot turned away: his dreadful, milky eyes, always ready for disorder and death, scanned the marketplace again and again with fatigue-free vigilance.

  Rod went down the ramp and turned right.

  There was the underpeople commissary with the bear-man cashier. The cashier remembered him.

  “It’s been a long day, cat-sir, since I saw you. Would you like another special order of fish?”

  “Where’s my girl?” said Rod bluntly.

  “C’mell?” said the bear-cashier. “She waited here a long time but then she went on and she left this message, ‘Tell my man C’rod that he should eat before following me, but that when he has eaten he can either follow me by going to Upshaft Four, Ground Level, Hostel of the Singing Birds, Room Nine, where I am taking care of an offworld visitor, or he can send a robot to me and I will come to him.’ Don’t you think, cat-sir, that I’ve done well, remembering so complicated a message?” The bear-man flushed a little and the edge went off his pride as he confessed, for the sake of some abstract honesty, “Of course, that address part, I wrote that down. It would be very bad and very confusing if I sent you to the wrong address in people’s country. Somebody might burn you down if you came into an unauthorized corridor.”