The Asutra

by Jack Vance

  "Halt! " cried the lead woman in her great coarse voice. "Here we wait for the omnibus. Now let me speak to you. Your old life is gone and irretrievably; this is the world Kahei and you are like fresh-born babes with another life ahead. It is not too bad unless they take you for testing, and then it is death. Still, who lives forever? In the meanwhile, you will never hunger or thirst or lack shelter, and life is tolerable. The men and agile women will be trained to fight in the war, and it is pointless to claim no part in the quarrel or think to avoid battle against men like yourselves; this is the fact and you must do the requirement.

  "Waste nothing on grief; it is the easy way and the futile way. Should you wish to breed, make application to one or another intercessor, and a suitable partner will be assigned.

  "Insubordination, lagging and loitering, fighting and mischievousness, all are forbidden; penalties are not graduated, but in all cases absolute. The omnibus is here. Climb up the ramp and step to the forward end."

  Crowded on the omnibus, Etzwane could see little of the passing countryside. The road led parallel to the hills for a space, then swung off across a plain. Occasionally a cluster of lumpy gray towers stood against the sky; a velvety growth of moss, dark red, dark green, or violet-black, covered the ground.

  The omnibus halted; the slaves filed out upon a concrete compound, surrounded on three sides by structures of oyster-white lumps. To the north rolled low hills, commanded by a landmark crag of rotten basalt. To the east spread a vast black quagmire, disappearing at the horizon into the gloom of the sky. Nearby, at the edge of the compound, rested a bronze disk-ship, all ports open and ramps down upon the concrete. Etzwane thought he recognized the ship as that which had evacuated the Roguskhoi chieftains from the Engh Valley in Palasedra. The slaves were herded to a barracks. Along the way they passed a set of long, narrow pens exhaling a vile stench. In some of the pens wandered andro-morphs of several freakish varieties. Etzwane noticed a dozen Roguskhoi. Another group verged toward the Ka. In one pen huddled half a dozen spindly creatures with Ka torsos and grotesque simulations of the human head. Behind the pens ran a long low shed: the laboratory, so Etzwane realized, where these biological anomalies were created. After years of speculation he had learned the source of the Roguskhoi.

  The captives were separated, men from women, then divided into platoons of eight persons. To each platoon was assigned a corporal drawn from a cadre of the captives already on the scene. To Etzwane's group came an old man, thin, gaunt, seamed as the bark of an old tree, but nonetheless muscular and incessantly active, all elbows and sharp knees.

  "My name is Polovits," declared the old man. "The first lesson you must learn, and learn well, is obedience, quick and absolute, because no second chance is offered. The masters are decisive. They do not punish, they destroy. A war is in progress: they fight a strong enemy and have no inclination toward clemency. I remind you once more: to every instruction give smart and scrupulous obedience, or you will not live to receive another order. In the next few days you will see my statements exemplified. There is generally a depletion of one third in the first month; if you value life, obey all orders without hesitation.

  "The rules of the cantonment are not complicated. You may not fight. I will adjudicate quarrels, and my judgment is final. You may not sing, shout, or whistle. You may not indulge your sexual desires without prior arrangement. You must be tidy; disorder is not tolerated. There are two principal roads to advancement. First, zeal. A dedicated man will become a corporal. Second, communication. If you learn the Great Song, you will gain valuable privileges, for very few persons can sing with the Ka. It is difficult, as those who try will discover, but fighting in the first rank is worse."

  Etzwane said, "I have a question. Whom must we fight?"

  "Ask no idle questions," snapped Polovits. "It is a useless habit and shows instability. Look at me! I have asked never a question and I have survived on Kahei for long years. I was taken from Shauzade district as a child during the second slavings. I saw the Red Warriors created, and it was a hard time. How many of us survive now? I could count their names in a trice. Why did we survive? " Polovits peered from face to face. "Why did we want to survive? " Polovits' own face showed a haggard triumph. "Because we were men! Fate has given us the one life to live, and we use it to the best! I make the same recommendation to you: do your best! Nothing else is valid."

  "You cautioned me in regard to idle questions," said Etzwane. "I ask a question which is not idle. Are we offered any inducement? Can we hope to see Durdane again as free men?"

  Polovits' voice became hoarse. "Your inducement is persistence of life! And hope-what is hope? On Durdane there is no hope; death comes for all, and it comes here as well. And freedom? It is at your option here and now. Notice the hills; they are empty. The way is open; go now and be free! No one will halt you. But before you go, take heed! The only food is weed and wort; the only water is mist. You will bloat on the herbs; you will call in vain for water. Freedom is yours."

  Etzwane asked nothing more. Polovits pulled the cloak around his thin shoulders. "We will now eat. Then we will commence our training."

  To eat, the squad stood up to a long trough containing lukewarm mush, stalks of a crisp, cold vegetable, and spiced pellets. After the meal Polovits put the men through calisthenics, then took them to one of the low, lizardlike vehicles.

  "We have been assigned the function of 'stealthy attack.' These are the strike cars. They move on vibrating pads and are capable of high speed. Each man of the squad will be assigned his car, and he must maintain it with care. It is a dangerous and valuable weapon."

  "I wish to ask a question," said Etzwane, "but I am not sure whether you will consider it 'idle.' I do not want to be struck dead for simple curiosity."

  Polovits put a stony gaze upon him. "Curiosity is a futile habit."

  Etzwane held his tongue. Polovits nodded curtly and turned to the lizard-car. "The driver lies flat, with his arms ahead. He looks down into a prism which shows him an adequate field of view. With arms and legs he controls the motion; with his chin he discharges either his torpedoes or his fire-stab."

  Polovits demonstrated the controls, then took the squad to a set of mock-ups. For three hours the group trained at the simulated controls; there was then a rest-break, then a two-hour demonstration of maintenance techniques which each man would be required to use on his vehicle. The sky darkened; with twilight came a fine rain. In the dismal graveloom the squad marched to the barracks. For supper the trough held a bland, sweet soup which the men dipped up with mugs. Polovits then.said, "Who among you wishes to learn the Great Song?"

  Etzwane asked, "What is involved?"

  Polovits decided that the question was legitimate. "The Great Song recounts the history of Kahei through symbolic sounds and sequences. The Ka communicate by singing themes of allusion, and you must do the same through the medium of a double-flute. The language is logical, flexible, and expressive, but difficult to learn."

  'I wish to learn the Great Song," said Etzwane.

  Polovits showed him a harsh grin. "I thought you. would decide as much. " And Etzwane decided that he did not like Polovits. The need for dissembling therefore increased; he must truckle and submit; he must throw himself into the program with apparent zeal.

  Polovits seemed to perceive the flow of Etzwane's thoughts and made a cryptic observation, "In either case I will be satisfied."

  For a period existence went quietly. The sun-or suns-never appeared; the dank gloom oppressed the spirits and made for dreariness and lethargy. The daily routine included calisthenics, periods of training in the lizard-cars, and work sessions, which might consist of food preparation, sorting of ores, shaping and polishing of swamp wood. Neatness was emphasized. Detachments policed the barracks and groomed the landscape. Etzwane wondered whether the insistence upon order reflected the will of the asutra or the Ka. Probably the Ka, he decided; it was unlikely that the asutra altered the personality of the Ka any more than
they had affected Sajarano of Sershan, or Jurjin, or Jerd Finnerack, or Hozman Sore-throat. The asutra dictated policy and monitored conduct; otherwise it seemed to remain aloof from the life of its host.

  Asutra were everywhere evident. Perhaps half the Ka carried asutra; mechanisms were guided by asutra, and Polovits spoke in awe of asutra-guided aircraft. The latter two functions seemed somewhat plebeian activity for the asutra, Etzwane reflected, and would indicate that asutra, no less than Ka, men, ahulph, and chumpa, were divided into categories and castes.

  At the end of the day, an hour was set aside for hygiene, sexual activity, which was permitted on the floor of a shed between the male and female barracks, and general recreation. The evening rain, occurring soon after light left the sky, put a term to the period, and the slaves went to their barracks, where they slept on mounds of dried moss. As Polovits had asserted, no guards or fences restrained the slaves from flight into the hills. Etzwane learned that on rare occasions a slave did so choose to seek freedom. Sometimes the fugitive was never again seen; as often he returned to camp after three or four days of hunger and thirst and thankfully resumed the routine. According to one rumor, Polovits himself had fled into the hills and upon his return had become the most diligent slave of the camp.

  Etzwane saw two men killed. The first, a stout man, disliked calisthenics and thought to outwit his corporal. The second man was Srenka, who ran amok. In both cases a Ka destroyed the offender with a spurt of energy. The Great Song of Kahei was for Etzwane a labor of love. The instructor was Kretzel, a squat old woman with a face concealed among a hundred folds and wrinkles. Her memory was prodigious, her disposition was easy, and she was always willing to entertain Etzwane with rumors and anecdotes. In her teaching she used a mechanism which reproduced the rasps, croaks, and warbles of the Great Song in its classic form. Kretzel then duplicated the tones on a pair of double-pipes and translated the significance into words. She made it clear that the Song was only incidentally music; that essentially it served as the basic semantic reference to Ka communication and conceptual thinking.

  The Song consisted of fourteen thousand cantos, each a construction of thirty-nine to forty-seven phrases.

  "What you will learn," said Kretzel, "is the simple First Style. The Second employs overtones, trills, and echoes; the Third inverts harmony and for emphasis reverses phrases; the Fourth combines the Second with augmentations and variations; the Fifth suggests rather than propounds. I know only the First, and superficially at that. The Ka use abbreviations, idioms, allusions, double and triple themes. The language is subtle."

  Kretzel was far less rigorous than Polovits. She told all she knew without restraint. Did the asutra use or understand the Song? Kretzel rocked her shoulders indifferently back and forth. "Why concern yourself? You will never address yourself to the things. But they know the Song. They know everything, and have brought many changes to Kahei."

  Encouraged by the woman's loquacity, Etzwane asked other questions. "How long have they been here? Where did they come from?"

  "All this is made clear in the last seven hundred cantos, which report the tragedy which came to Kahei. This very land, the North Waste, has known many terrible battles. But now we must work, or the Ka will presume sloth."

  Etzwane made himself a set of double-pipes, and as soon as he had subdued his aversion for the Ka musical intervals, which he found unnatural and discordant, he played the first canto of the Great Song with a skill to amaze the old woman. "Your dexterity is remarkable. Still, you must play accurately. Yes, my old ears are keen! Your tendency is to ornament and warp the phrases into the ways you know. Absolutely wrong! The Great Song becomes gibberish."

  Sexual activity among the slaves was encouraged, but couples were not allowed to form permanent liaisons. Etzwane occasionally saw Rune the Willow Wand across the compound where the women performed their own exercises, and one day during the period of "free calisthenics " he took the trouble to approach her. She had lost something of her insouciance and nonchalant grace; she looked at him now without cordiality, and Etzwane saw that she failed to recognize him.

  "I am Gastel Etzwane," he told her. "Do you remember the camp by the Vurush River where I played music and you dared me to knock away your cap?"

  Rune's face showed no change of expression. "What do you want?"

  "Sexual activity is not forbidden. If you are so inclined. I will apply to the corporal and specifically request that-"

  She cut him short with a gesture. "I am not so inclined. Do you think I care to bear a child on this dreary gray hell? Go spend yourself on one of the old women, and bring no more blighted souls to life."

  Etzwane expostulated, citing one principle, then another, but Rune's face became progressively harder. At last she turned and walked away. Etzwane somewhat wistfully returned to his calisthenics.

  The days dragged by with a slowness Etzwane found maddening. He estimated their duration to be four or five hours longer than the days of Shant: a situation which upset his natural rhythms and made him alternately morose and nervously irritable. He learned the first twelve cantos of the Song, both the melodies and the associated significances. He began to practice basic communication, selecting and joining musical phrases. His dexterity was counterbalanced by an almost uncontrollable tendency to play notes and phrases as personal music, slurring here, extending there, inserting gracenotes and trills, until old Kretzel threw up her hands in exasperation. The sequence goes thus and so," and she demonstrated. "No more, no less! It conveys the idea of a vain search for crayfish along the shore of the Ocean Quagmire during the morning rain. You introduce random elements of other cantos to create a mishmash, a farrago of ideas. Each note must be just, neither under- nor over-blown! Otherwise you sing absurdities! "

  Etzwane controlled his fingers and played the themes precisely as Kretzel had indicated. "Good!" she declared. "Now we proceed to the next canto, where proto-Ka, the Hiana, cross the mud flats and are annoyed by chirping insects."

  Etzwane much preferred Kretzel's company to the peevish admonitions of Polovits, and he would have spent all his waking hours practicing the Great Song had she allowed. "Such diligence is wasted," said Kretzel. "I know the cantos; I can sing to the black ones in faltering First Style. This is all I can teach you. If you lived a hundred years you might begin to play Second Style, but never could you know the feeling, for you are not a Ka. Then there are Third, Fourth, and Fifth, and then the idioms and cursive forms, the converging and diverging harmonics, the antichords, the stops, the hisses and slurs. Life is too short; why exert yourself?"

  Etzwane decided, nonetheless, to learn as best he could; he had nothing better to do with his time. Every day he found Polovits more detestable, and his only escape was to Kretzel. Or freedom in the hills. According to Polovits, the wilderness afforded neither food nor water, and Kretzel corroborated as much. His best hope of evading Polovits lay in the Great Song… What of Ifness? The name seldom occurred to Etzwane. His old life was vague; by the day it dwindled and lost detail. Reality was Kahei; here alone was life. Sooner or later Ifness would appear; sooner or later there would be a rescue-so Etzwane told himself, but every day the idea became more and more abstract.

  One afternoon Kretzel became bored with the Song. Complaining of cankerous gums she threw the pipes to a shelf. "Let them kill me; what difference does it make? I am too old to fight; I know the Song, so they stay my death, and I do not care; my bones will never know the soil of Durdane. You are young; you have hopes. One by one they will go, and nothing will be left but the bare fact of life. Then you will discover the transcendent value of life alone… We have been through much hardship; we have known cruel times. When I was young they bred their copper warriors and trained them to spawn in human women, for what purpose I never knew."

  Etzwane said, "I know well enough. The Roguskhoi were sent to Durdane. They devastated Shant and several great districts of Caraz. Is it not strange? They destroy the folk of Durdane, and at the same tim
e capture them to use as slave warriors against their enemy."

  "It is only another experiment," said Kretzel wisely. The Red Warriors failed, now they try a new weapon for their war. " She peered over her shoulder. "Take your pipes and play the Song. Polovits watches for slackness. Take heed of Polovits; he likes to kill. " She reached for her own pipes. "Ah, my poor, tortured gums! This is the nineteenth canto. The Sah and Aianu use raho fibers to wind rope and dig coral nut with blackwood sticks. You will hear both the schemes for blackwood and for rough wood employed in a rude scratching action, as is general usage. But you must carefully play the little-finger flutter, else the scheme is 'visiting a place where the quagmire may be distantly seen from Canto 9635."

  Etzwane played the pipes, watching Polovits from the corner of his eye. Polovits paused to listen, then turned Etzwane a flinty glance and continued on his way.

  Later in the day, during calisthenics, Polovits suddenly exploded into fury: "Crisply then! Do you de test exertion so much that you cannot put your hand to the ground? Never fear, I am watching, and your life is as fragile as a moth-shell. Why do you stand like a post?" "I await new orders, Corporal Polovits." "Your kind is the most venomous, always with a glib retort just short of insolence! Don't indulge in dreams of glory, my Song-playing virtuoso, you won't evade the worst of it! I assure you of this! So now: a hundred high leaps, for your health's sake; let them be agile, with a fine twinkling of the heels! "