The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  Then he noticed that the mono was moving, had been moving, and it had started so subtly he had missed it. Its speed increased, and it glided effortlessly along its single, flattened concrete track, silently. It curved away to the northwest, passing through a grove of pine trees. For a time he could follow its motion behind the trees, watching the lights, but at last it vanished from view entirely, fading behind the shoulder of a low rise. Vance looked away from the window, walked back to the dumbwaiter panel, and ordered more tea. Then he returned to his seat and waited. He knew what would come.

  The room was almost dark. It grew fractionally more dim, almost night-dark, and the night advanced still another increment. Vance waited. He did not wait because he was a patient man, or because he had learned the fine art of time-watching from Fellirian. Or because he was placid of disposition; rather he waited because he expected a certain specific event to occur. For a time there was no indication of any event to come. But at last a tiny sound broke the after-hours stillness of the building. It was a small noise from the ceiling, an indeterminate click whose precise location could not be pinpointed. Vance heard it. He did not look up.

  He said, seemingly into empty air, in a tired voice, “To whom do I speak today?”

  The voice replied with perfect fidelity, just as if it were issuing from the mouth and throat of a person physically present in the room here with him, the mechanisms transmitting even the most subtle inflections of personal mannerism which reproducers usually missed. The voice was a breathy one, a little scratchy, a voice with a bubble of confidence in it. A smug voice. A voice belonging to someone having all the high cards.

  It said, “Very sly, there. As if you had known before, and so I should follow the habit. Smooth, Director. But you know that the identity is never given; against the rules, so it is. And after all, what does it matter? We all say the same things.”

  Vance replied, “As usual you are right. I just wondered if I would draw an inexperienced one of you, just once.”

  The voice chuckled, genuine humor which it deigned to share. “Hardly that, sir. We don’t work that way. You wouldn’t believe the training we get, the evaluations we must pass. Rigorous is simply not the proper word! We even have a simulator to reproduce this kind of environment, to prepare us for fielding these little questions, these sly feints. But, Director, I assure you, we deal with some real masters; sly indeed they are, sneakier than an agency head in budget-cutting time. But enough of the poor Controller’s job, yes? We want to get to business. So I must congratulate you on an exceptionally fine performance tonight and this evening, yes, all of it. The remarks about the new staff at Region Central, the new chairman. He’ll be pleased, he will, and if I may reveal a confidence, he’s pleased as a rule with little enough. No nonsense, him. Why, with a bit of training I believe you could make an agent provocateur. A provoc. Or were you sincere? Impossible. But yes, indeed, they’ll like all this. The chairman likes a little hostility, controlled, of course. He says that it gives his directors that cutting edge.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “So I must regretfully inform you that we shall probably stop this circuit now.”

  “And so you have agreed with what I first told you.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. This was not doubt of your word, Director Vance, just routine verification. What we derived today has already gone upchannel to Timely Analysis Branch. Real-time forwarding, or almost so, at any rate. They concur, but their concurrence returns when they send it; they have to mull things over up there, not like us front-liners down here on the killing floor, so to speak. So they agree, as did we, you and I, if I may use the pronoun loosely. There’s no ore in this Fellirian for processing, neither a dram nor a scruple. Her stress index appears rather high today, but it was steady; no jumps when special tagged subject matter is introduced. We quite agree with her that she knows of no conspiracy.”

  “So much for what she and I know. Is there one?”

  “Aha! Questions from the answerer! You’ll be a Controller yet. But conspiracies? I couldn’t say at this point in time. There are anomalies, peculiarities. You have no need to know them now.”

  “Oh.”

  “So this circuit will be terminated. Deactivated. If you care to forward an evaluation of the proceedings as they have occurred, please utilize form eight-four-four-A, address attention F-six-three-two. I can use index points as well as you, as everyone in this competitive world.”

  “Speaking of points, when do mine get registered?”

  “They have already been credited with the Bonus Section. You’ll get a come-back copy soon. Congratulations on your sixer.”

  “Six? I was told it would be twenty!”

  “Who was it told you that? I . . . well, you almost never see much over a deuce for this kind of work. After all, one can demonstrate negatives all day, can’t one?”

  Vance had no answer. The voice paused, then added, “Do you have any final comments before I break the circuit? It’s my break time now.”

  Vance felt, almost like a pain, a sudden surge of pure rage, of frustration, of anger, growing rapidly, a spike of clean emotion, now; but it passed, and his system of internal modulations took over without too conscious a thought, leaving behind only a bitter aftertaste. Vance, like everyone else of the day, was expert at controlling his own emotions. He had done so for years, with the system, and with individuals, such as Fellirian. He said to the bodiless voice, “Perhaps this might be considered overly bold, but I must say that spying upon one’s oldest friends is a degrading act requiring great compensation. I hope you have no more of these cooperations.”

  “Freely said, freely taken.” There was a pause. Then the voice began again, “Analysis says you get one bonus point for honesty, minus two for too great an attachment to an imaginary peer-group value.” The voice hardened. “And you’re too soft in that area, you know. We do. Still, you end up with a fiver for today’s work. Over average. Keep working at it.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  “I have a last word of advice. Guidelines, if you will. The first is this: if one will sell, his price can be driven down to its true value. We could have run this operation without your cooperation, entirely. But then you would have got nothing. Perhaps a minus, who knows. Consider yourself lucky that we asked first. You know the rules; we don’t have to. The second thing is this: you believed the ler lady’s innocence of conspiracy. So it has turned out to be no little thing to assist Control in a little surveillance when one’s friends are indeed innocent. What harm does it do? We work by eliminations, by isolation of most-improbables. So now, by a little work, your friend has been eliminated as an active suspect. So states the report. That should relieve you. And then this third thing: you are director of Interface Institute, and the New People, the ler as they call themselves, are most interesting. But to us who must manage the dangerous world, they represent a greater danger than the Cro-Magnon men did to the poor Neanderthals. We never found the aliens in deep space, Director; we made them here at home—and those people are stranger than anything we could expect to find out in the stars. Fins, fur, hands, paws, flippers; air-breathers, water-filterers, ammonia processors. Those kinds of aliens we could handle. These we can’t. And these we take no chances with.”

  “They are much like us. Almost the same, really. Could it be that we don’t really understand ourselves?”

  “One problem area at a time. Control doesn’t work Research.”

  “Certainly, but . . .”

  “Good evening, Director.”

  “Good evening.” Vance never heard any audible indication that the circuit had indeed been broken. After the last parting remarks by the unnamed Controller, there passed only silence. Vance could not be sure at what moment they turned it off. If they turned it off. He got up from his chair and walked tiredly to the dumbwaiter. The tea was cold.

  They were disembodied voices in the night; where they were didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. They could be anywh
ere; they were everywhere, seemingly. In the place where they were, it was always night, the lighting artificial. There were no windows. Shift relieved shift. Incoming members reviewed instructions, read notices, signed forms. Outgoing members also signed forms. Shift relieved shift. And the voices had passed and echoed through the circuits so many times that when repairmen went into the cable tunnels, they sometimes found unexplained traffic still going on what were supposed to be deactivated lines. They called these fading voices “copper ghosts,” the imprints of gone and forgotten Controllers still wandering through the circuits. Voices in an eternal night.

  “Sector Ten. Go ahead, there.”

  “Two-Alpha Control. A hard copy record format follows my voice report. Going now, there, depress your acknowledge.”

  “Got it there, Two-Alpha.”

  There was a pause, but the line remained open and live.

  “And Ten here.”

  “Two-Alpha. Go ahead.”

  “Re your hard copy, noted and concur. Eval says Vance to be reassigned to a more innocuous position at the first discreet opportunity. Negative haste. Promotion category Delta. He’s getting unreliable. Too specialized. Needs more generalist work. We also recommend that there be no more passives like this, permissive, you know, for not less than thirty days, as per Schedule twenty-nine, column twenty, line fifteen.”

  “Charlie your instructions. Have it right here. We’ll set up the involuntaries, and forward tell the take to your house.”

  “Right that. According to schedule, there. Ten out, break.”

  And for a time, along a certain channel of communications, along wires, over laser beams in evacuated pipes, along wave-guides in which nothing passed save microwaves, there was silence. The line was dead. But there was not, at the ends of such channels, inaction.

  THREE

  The teacher instructs the student; just so the master with the novice. It is the final measure of both instructorship and master-hood how much the instructor learns from the student. We can further state that the greater the distance-of-relationship between the two, the more apparent this becomes, so that with a very young child, the best teacher actually learns more than the child in the process of instruction.

  —The Game Texts

  THE RESERVATION MONORAIL was their sole concession to modernity; for the rest of the space enclosed by the boundary fence, the only modes of travel available were walking, riding a pony, or driving a cart pulled either by oxen or the heavy, solid horses the ler preferred. Its track plan covered most of the reservation in a skewed figure eight, the north loop leaned sharply over into the northwest corner, and the south loop broadened and spread out to the southeast. There were two trains, which ran in the same direction twelve hours apart, each drifting around the whole of the route more or less in the course of a day.

  On the days when Fellirian worked at the Institute, she had to spend almost all of the previous day traveling, spending the night at the Institute hostel (operated by Braid Shuren). Then, the next day, she would board the mono for the ride back. But where before the way of motion had been against her, so that she had to ride all the way around to get to the southeast where the Institute was located, the way back, to the contrary, was short and almost direct, straight into the center of the reservation, where lay her Braid holding.

  It would be late when she arrived at last, after a lone ride, a long day, and a lone walk as well; and in the cold and damp season of the year. Still, for her, it was better than spending another night out. It would be near midnight when she finally got home, but that was fine enough— they would save some supper for her, and some would stay up late to share some talk. She did not care so much for travel, as did her insibling and co-spouse Morlenden, who did most of the Braid’s field work. That was the drudgery, the visits, the ceremonies. But Morlenden never complained, aside from some grousing which they all knew was not serious. Her work down at the Institute was tiresome; but it was a window on the outside, one of the few maintained of which she was aware. Her evaluations of that narrow view were all part of a grist constantly being fed to the lineal ruling Braid, the Revens, Pellandrey Reven, Insibling and Klandorh . . . the feelings and the thoughts which went with them trailed off.

  Boarding the mono, which was operated by the Gruzen Braid, she could see yet, even in the deep evening light, the modest monument the people had erected for the enlightenment of the visitors; it reassured her. An inlaid woodcarving with an overlay of subtle color wash, it was supposed to be a visual image of the central doctrine of ler self-image.

  Circular in outline, the bas-relief of the Emblem was divided internally into four quarters, as aligned with the four points of the compass; within each was depicted a person, highly suggestive in symbolism. The upper quarter showed a ler elder, with the long double braids characteristic of the class, wreathed in clouds bordered with lightning in the sky and flame along the base. The heraldic figure was reaching out of the clouds with its right hand toward the center of the Emblem, while its left hand, upraised, held some of the lightnings. The expression along the planes of the face appeared stern, judicial, abstract, emotionless. It was, so far as the human visitors could determine, utterly undifferentiated by sexual characteristics.

  The figure depicted in the right-hand panel seemed to be a military figure, drawn with great subtlety and respect. This figure seemed mature, rather than elder; the single braid of hair falling to the middle of the back reinforced this impression. And where the elder in the upper panel had been clothed in a simple pleth, a utility garment, this one was depicted wearing a kiltlike garment about the hips and thighs, while the upper torso was covered by a light sleeveless vest or jacket. The kilt or skirt seemed to suggest leather, the vest a coarse weave, or perhaps chain mail. On the head was a light leather helmet with a stiffened ridge along the top. The Warrior, as it was known, held a short, leaf-bladed sword in its left hand, the one nearest the viewer. The point was held down, deliberately, not simply drooping. And with its right hand, it reached also for the center of the Emblem.

  On the opposing left side, the figure depicted appeared to be similar in age and class to the military figure on the right, but it was dressed in a long, flowing gown, with a hood attached to the garment, but folded back. This one was shown in the act of emerging from a garden through a simple arched masonry gate, carrying a basket filled with various fruits and vegetables, some recognizable, others enigmatic. It carried the basket in the right hand, toward the viewer, and reached into the center with its left. This figure suggested a feminine nature, to the same degree that the figure to the right suggested masculinity. Subtly. One imagined, but was not quite sure.

  The figure in the bottom quarter panel seemed the most striking of all: unlike the others, which were colored in a direct and naturalistic manner, she was almost completely painted in tones of blue, as were her surroundings in the panel. She: the image was of a young girl dressed in a filmy homespun shift that suggested almost every detail of the supple body beneath; and she was shown reaching upward, yearning, with both arms and hands upraised, her young and innocently lovely face also turned upward, filled with an expression of rapture. She was shown emerging from a pool of water around which water plants grew profusely. . . .

  Riding along the track of the mono, Fellirian now saw full night through the windows of the coach she was riding; and little else. The mono made its deliberate and unhurried way through the nighted country of the reservation. She looked through the windows more closely; while she could not make out much of the passing unlit details, she could make out the forest silhouette of the treetops, outlined against the weak sky-glow which was always present, no matter what part of the reservation one happened to be in. There were no lights within the reservation to cause this; rather, they were all outside its borders, the signs of the industrial civilization which surrounded it on all sides. It was stronger in the west and north, but the glow was never invisible, not even in the center.

  There was har
dly a place on the entire planet, on the waters as well as along the lands, where it was not possible to read a newsgram from the public information agency by available light in the hours of darkness. Human society worked around the clock, in total disregard of local time. On their calendar, they still showed the ancient days of the week, but the number of people who actually used them for their schedules was very small, almost nonexistent. For the rest, the vast mass of twenty billion, they oriented themselves to their particular shift cycle. There were four of these shifts, interlaced so that each person within a shift worked, in succession, five evenings, one off, five midnights, one off, five days, followed by five days off. Four shifts, each with an identity of its own.

  Fellirian continued to meditate, relaxing, letting the thoughts lead where they would. Shifter Society, they called it; its emblem was a cube with a staring brown eye upon each of its visible faces. Fellirian thought it peculiar, unnecessary. They didn’t need to put the whole planet on shifts for a war footing against some invader, not for production reasons, for it took as much to sustain a twenty-four-hour-a-day operation as they gained from it. But she thought she knew. There seemed to be two main reasons; one was that by having shifts one could use space more efficiently, and hedge against the panic brought by overcrowding. It also gave the millions idled by arbitrary changes something to do while they were being reoriented.

  As each man’s work had become steadily more piecemeal and meaningless, so had establishments interlocked into one another and pressed into private lives. One by one, the nations had grown into one another; governments did not protect their people, but protected themselves. Some radicals hoped and strove for the day when people would wake up. But if they ever had, there had been no sign of it; the conscious decisions were no improvement over the half-asleep ones. Of course, at the very end of the old period, pre-shift, there had been some frictions, bickerings, adjustments. That had been the days of the Attitude Patrols, volunteers who did not monitor performance, but intangibles such as feelings and motivations. The end of the first population crisis had seen Shift Society emerge triumphant. And so afterward public buildings were multipurpose, used full-time, all year, every day. There was no wasted space. Every square foot which did not contain working space, contained the minuscule living quarters allotted to all. Everything left over was either power production or agriculture.