The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  TWELVE

  ... is there no place left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but by submission; and that word disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced with other promises and other vaunts than to submit, boasting I could subdue the omnipotent. Aye me! They little know how dearly I abide that boast so vain, under what torments inwardly I groan.

  —Milton, Paradise Lost

  THEY WERE ALL in Chairman Parleau’s intimidating office, making small talk before the meeting got under way; Eykor was having one of his interminable low-grade arguments with Plattsman over the differences in functions between Security and Control, as well as the historical reasons for the rise of the latter at much of the expense of the former. Parleau took no active part in the argument, although from time to time he would goad one to make some audacious sally, which was immediately pounced upon by the other.

  The heart of the discussion at this point lay in Eykor’s accusation that over the years Control had actually usurped much of the best part of Security, namely, the prediction and anticipation of events warranting the use of deadly force. Plattsman was following the counterargument that the aim of Control, with its sophisticated statistical analyses, monitor stations, and status-reporting networks, was in fact to make the predictions so good and so accurate that corrective action was backed up from corrective, but coercive, force, to a “best trade-off” action taken this side of force. It might have been moot to say that the original object of the whole system of Control was to illuminate problems and cure them, a true bridge between managerial government and naked power politics.

  Plattsman was saying, “Ultimately, we could not usurp Security, for we have, in plain fact, no troops.”

  “We are your troops, most of the time,” replied Eykor.

  “Symbiosis, then. Hands and eyes that work together. The ability of the hand to sense its field of action is limited to close field work—touch, heat detection. On the other hand, the eye sees and integrates, but can of itself take no action to implement its evaluations. It can’t even evade a threat.”

  They could have continued much longer, and would have, but Parleau grew restive and waved them to a halt. He knew, of course, that Plattsman was basically correct in his analogy of hand and eye, but that he had left out several factors. One of these was that once Control had become firmly established, it began to evolve from an initial position of rather altruistic professionalism toward the self-perpetuations of the classical bureaucracy, thus lessening its true functional growth. Secondly, Control over the years had become vastly entangled in the manipulation of information for its own sake, and had, on several occasions, come perilously close to strangling itself on its own internal flow problems and turbulences. They had weathered these crises remarkably well, and their integrity was a watchword within the various regional departments. But Parleau was of the opinion that too much reliance was placed upon them; there had always been a requirement for “wetwork,” as the jargon of the day put it. Parleau’s own phrasing of it might have been, as he sometimes observed to his most trusted associates from the old days, “At the bottom line, you’re always going to need some hard-faced bastard to kick the arses and take the names. There is simply no substitute for a good truncheon, a rubber hose, or perhaps a coat hanger, applied with a will and decided upon unhesitatingly.” Security filled that requirement commendably, although it could often be denounced for excesses of zeal. And its requests for manpower were simply not to be believed!

  Parleau motioned for them to begin. All those present shuffled papers, rearranged their notes, made their positions ready, moved restlessly in their seats, then fell quiet. Plattsman would be first, of course. He had the data they had been waiting for, or so they hoped and had been led to believe. Plattsman had sheaves and sheaves of machine-print reports and summaries, analyses and conclusions.

  Plattsman began, “Well. Monitors in the office of one W. Vance, Institute Director, recorded a conversation between Vance and a Hando Errat, apparently of Continental, their subject being a representation of the girl who was picked up in the vandalism case.”

  Something stirred in Parleau’s mind then, about Errat. He had heard that name before, but he couldn’t place it. Had it been at Continental? He tried to remember, but the expression on Eykor’s face distracted him, and he lost it. No matter, they could follow it later. What interest did Continental have in this?

  Plattsman paused slightly, to be sure he had their attention with his use of the word “vandalism” when Eykor had called it “terrorism” from the beginning. Then he continued, “Shortly thereafter, Vance solicited assistance from one Doctor Harkle, head of Research and Development. She recalled the girl immediately, and this data was reported upchannel. We also were able to capture a disprint of the repro, and it matches the girl.”

  Parleau interjected, “Was this recorded? Did you run a check on this Errat?”

  Plattsman hesitated, then replied, “No, Chairman, no record was made. We had been overseeing Vance somewhat earlier, and the tap had been taken off. There was still sampling being conducted, but it was being run on a priority-five basis, which is ‘no recorders.’ We were extremely lucky to get this, as it was. Indeed, were it not for some quick thinking, with the disprint equipment, we wouldn’t have been able to match the girl up. It was only uncovered for a few minutes.”

  “Naturally, no disprint of Errat.”

  “We didn’t get one. By the time our monitor realized what was happening, Errat was gone. We did check with Continental Control, but they could not discuss the matter over an open line. Referred us to Section Q, Denver. We did not press the matter.”

  “I understand.” Indeed Parleau did understand. People who asked questions of Section Q were asked questions by “the Q” and then faded away from sight.

  Something was still nagging at Parleau’s mind, but now Plattsman continued, “Pertinent data follows: the subject is one Maellenkleth Srith Perklaren, age twenty; sex, female. She was a part-time research assistant in the Math Department, then R and D. She was, according to evaluations we have been able to obtain, of a tendency to be somewhat abstracted and distant, but competent. She appears to have been shy and retiring, but withal, cooperative and pleasant. There was one uncorroborated entry about family problems, but we were unable to determine their nature. She is listed in the Institute personnel records as being an insibling in their family reference.”

  Plattsman stopped, and Parleau looked up, expecting more. This was what Plattsman called a meeting for? He asked Eykor, “Is that all? What does Security have?”

  Eykor said, “We didn’t think we’d find anything, because we don’t get into reservation business. I would like to have chased down her family relationship, and all that crap, but we ran a routine check of our own stuff to see if there was any correlation. We found nothing on this one, but we did find in the records a reference, indeed a file, on another, who was listed only initially as Perklaren, M.S., in the space program, if you can believe that. We went further into it, actually physically dug out the fiche files. This one was called Mevlannen Srith Perklaren, and from the photo we determined that they are not the same person. The Perklaren that Security found is also a ler female, now has a security clearance of Level Four, Access type B, ratings excellent. Performance has been rated as ‘outstanding and innovative.’ Assigned to Team Trojan Eye. She is normally located about the West Coast Test Range, or actually in space. I cross-referred with Control and we were able to pinpoint her location as on the ground at present. Additionally, we were able to insert a request to keep her there for the time being. Distraction and excuses. We could bring her in easily enough.”

  “What does this Perklaren do?”

  “Apprentice free-fall structural technician, and optics specialist.”

  Klyten laughed. “Now there’s one for you! A ler in optics. Might as well find an amputee employed as a pavement-breaker, handling a chipper-stripper!”


  Everyone turned and stared at Klyten. He recovered his academic composure and explained, “They are rather notorious for having what we consider to be poor eyesight. The ler retina is almost totally comprised of cone cells. They have an extreme degree of color acuity, but less capability of resolution; and of course they are severely handicapped in light levels of semidarkness, where a human would see quite well, if primarily in monotone. They compensate for this by having more kinds of cone cells, and a broadened spectrum that includes, so I understand, two distinct ‘colors’ below what we call red and one in the near ultraviolet, but it doesn’t help them much. So one working as an optician, building a telescope, is really something. You know, on the ground, here on Earth, they are reputed to have great difficulty seeing anything in the night sky below Magnitude three, rarely four. That’s why I laughed: she’s working under a severe handicap.”

  Parleau observed, “She must also be very good at what she does to work under it and still produce results. Is there any connection between her and the girl we caught?”

  Klyten answered, “The custom in naming is that the names don’t repeat. Each person carries a name that is unique and meaningful, if somewhat fanciful and exotic for my taste. They try to run seven generations before repeating a proper name. As for the surnames, they don’t repeat either. Each surname of a family group relates to an occupation, and if they have more than one such group in an activity, they prefix a number to the name root. According to what I have in my files, the names ‘Klaren’ would equate to, well, ‘Player.’ But they have two such family groups, so the older is called Perklaren, ‘First-player,’ and the second, Terklaren, ‘Second-player.’ Now since neither name repeats, and we have two who are the same, then they are in the same group. Properly speaking, they don’t use surnames once they graduate to elder status, so these would have to be in the same generation. Eykor, what was your girl’s age?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Then they are insiblings to one another. Hm. . . . But that would mean that their family group, or Braid, as they call it, has two insiblings of the same sex, unless there was a twinning we don’t know about. This could be the source of the family problems.”

  Parleau said, “How so? I don’t understand.”

  Klyten replied, “The tradition is that the insiblings marry, or weave, if you’d rather, each other.”

  “That would be incest,” observed Parleau.

  “Perhaps. Depends on your definitions. But it’s not, genetically; the insiblings have different parents, completely, and are not related at all, as we would call it, even though they are raised together, if anything, more closely than the usual brother-sister relationship. But now, in this case, it would appear to follow the condition they call Polhovemosi: ‘sexed-out.’ If the insiblings are of the same sex, then the Braid ends and all must weave into other Braids in the outsibling position. They lose a lot: status, continuity with the past, tradition. These things are highly valued among them. To lose one’s family-group role is one of the unkindest blows.”

  Eykor observed, “Well, I suppose that’s interesting enough, but not of very much use to us, here. Is there anything worth digging into in their surname?”

  And Parleau added, as an afterthought, “And how about the connection between Maellenkleth the Player and Maellenkleth the vandal? If she resented her situation, as well it appears she might from what you say, then why didn’t she vandalize something of her own people’s? After all, we didn’t make up their cultural structures for them.”

  Eykor said, “It would appear that at least one of them harbored no resentments, at least visibly. Her ratings were impressive, and doubly so, when you consider Klyten’s dissertation on her eyesight.”

  Klyten answered, “It is true what you guess by instinct, that their family groups tend to be very homogenous in their value systems; that the one is an achiever probably doesn’t mean that the other would be, but it does argue against her being a vandal. . . . But these are only probabilities, not oracles or predictions. What say you, Plattsman, for Control?”

  “As always, that we need more data. Basically, I agree, but vandalism is an intricate structure, and I should like to know more about the girl, her matrix, internal values of the class of which she belongs. I don’t know if we can project the human family structure or sexual values onto them with any accuracy either. Need some work, there, back in the vaults.”

  Klyten nodded, as if his suspicions had been confirmed, and began to feel his way into Eykor’s question, which had almost been forgotten. What, indeed, was in the surname? He said, “I said that every Braid has a role or profession, which is indicated by the name. In the case of the two Player groups, that is what they do—play a Game. It is a very curious matter, just another of their oddities.”

  Up until this time, Parleau had been somewhat disengaged, aloof from the flow of the remarks, but now his interest deepened. “They play a Game?”

  “Well, yes, it is peculiar, full of all kinds of anomalies; it seems that they have, included in their social order, two families whose role is exactly that, to play a Game in public exhibitions. But as we understand the term, professional sportsmen somehow seems inappropriate to this. You see, it happens to be the only organized sport they have, played with formal rules and organized teams. Without exception, all of the rest of their games are informal and very unstructured, more like traditional children’s games than anything else. What’s more, it, this Game, is not played on a field or a court, but on a portable electronic display panel. This, mind, in a culture that almost never uses electric power or electronics.”

  Parleau raised his eyebrows, and opened his mouth to speak, but Plattsman contributed before he could, “We have also studied this game, in Control, and what Klyten says is true. Their board is both portable and durable, apparently has an independent power supply, and is extremely reliable. At the least, they have never had a breakdown during a public Game. We can deduce that a computer has been integrated into its structure, although we cannot as yet specifically locate its position within the machine.”

  Parleau leaned back in his chair, reflectively. He mused, aloud, “No breakdowns in public is not so hard to attain with good mechanics, engineers, and tight scheduling. And as for where the switching and logic and memory units would be—good, tight design could work it into almost any volume you could care to mention.”

  Plattsman replied, looking at the chairman’s shiny forehead. “I understand, Chairman. That’s all true. What Klyten is trying to point out, and I as well, is that this is occurring, over a period of generations, within a culture that suppresses technology, particularly electronic technology, as we know it.”

  Klyten put in, before Parleau could think of some rationalization, “And a formal Game with elaborate rules and rigid operations in a culture that plays unstructured children’s games that occur spontaneously. Now consider this, too: this inside a conceptual Surround in which every family group has a functional occupation, a necessity to society. The Players do nothing, aside from some low-level self-support, except play the Game.”

  Parleau returned to a normal position, then leaned forward, his heavy arms and hands pressed flat on the surface on his desk. He said, “Every Braid supports and contributes to the whole, but the Players are, in effect, subsidized?”

  “Exactly,” said Klyten.

  Plattsman added, “We don’t have access to their macroeconomics, but by the models in the studies that have been done using offset simulations, it would appear that considerable cost is involved.”

  Klyten added more. “And that is verified by their whole value system. Marginal activities—for example, arts—exist in quantity, but only as sidelines. In fact, there is an extremely sophisticated management system integrated at the popular culture level that simply eliminates occupations that don’t contribute, no matter how attractive they might be. And this management system is as hard to pin down as the location of the computer in their Game display board. We know tha
t the function must exist, but no one yet has located it. There is also some consideration of the idea that the vast majority of the ler people themselves are unaware of this system. They fit into it so harmoniously. . . .”

  Parleau knotted his brows. “This is hard for me to say, because I never believed that I’d ever find myself saying it. What you are saying by all your remarks, is that in fact these woods-bound rustics actually operate a . . . nation, with almost no visible government, at a greater efficiency and with less friction than we do.”

  Klyten answered, “So it appears. These facts have been known for years, of course, but it is so low-key that nobody ever assembled it before. This explains much—how they can operate the reservation at a profit, not counting what the Institute brings in, and it also explains the true source of the product of the Institute, and the data they feed us.”