The Sirens of Titan

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

  “‘And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth.’”

  Bobby Denton spitted his audience on a bright and loving gaze, and proceeded to roast it whole over the coals of its own iniquity. “Are these not Bible times?” he said. “Have we not builded of steel and pride an abomination far taller than the Tower of Babel of old? And did we not mean, like those builders of old, to get right into Heaven with it? And haven’t we heard it said many times that the language of scientists is international? They all use the same Latin and Greek words for things, and they all talk the language of numbers.” This seemed a particularly damning piece of evidence to Denton, and the Love Crusaders agreed bleakly without quite understanding why.

  “So why should we cry out in surprise and pain now when God says to us what He said to the people who builded the Tower of Babel: ‘No! Get away from there! You aren’t going to Heaven or anywhere else with that thing! Scatter, you hear? Quit talking the language of science to each other! Nothing will be restrained from you which you have imagined to do, if you all keep on talking the language of science to each other, and I don’t want that! I, your Lord God on High want things restrained from you, so you will quit thinking about crazy towers and rockets to Heaven, and start thinking about how to be better neighbors and husbands and wives and daughters and sons! Don’t look to rockets for salvation—look to your homes and churches!’”

  Bobby Denton’s voice grew hoarse and hushed. “You want to fly through space? God has already given you the most wonderful space ship in all creation! Yes! Speed? You want speed? The space ship God has given you goes sixty-six thousand miles an hour—and will keep on running at that speed for all eternity, if God wills it. You want a space ship that will carry men in comfort? You’ve got it! It won’t carry just a rich man and his dog, or just five men or ten men. No! God is no piker! He’s given you a space ship that will carry billions of men, women, and children! Yes! And they don’t have to stay strapped in chairs or wear fishbowls over their heads. No! Not on God’s space ship. The people on God’s space ship can go swimming, and walk in the sunshine and play baseball and go ice skating and go for family rides in the family automobile on Sunday after church and a family chicken dinner!”

  Bobby Denton nodded. “Yes!” he said. “And if anybody thinks his God is mean for putting things out in space to stop us from flying out there, just let him remember the space ship God already gave us. And we don’t have to buy the fuel for it, and worry and fret over what kind of fuel to use. No! God worries about all that.

  “God told us what we had to do on this wonderful space ship. He wrote the rules so anybody could understand them. You don’t have to be a physicist or a great chemist or an Albert Einstein to understand them. Not And He didn’t make a whole lot of rules, either. They tell me that if they were to fire The Whale, they would have to make eleven thousand separate checks before they could be sure it was ready to go: Is this valve open, is that valve closed, is that wire tight, is that tank full?—and on and on and on to eleven thousand things to check. Here on God’s space ship, God only gives us ten things to check—and not for any little trip to some big, dead poisonous stones out in space, but for a trip to the Kingdom of Heaven! Think of it! Where would you rather be tomorrow—on Mars or in the Kingdom of Heaven?

  “You know what the check list is on God’s round, green space ship? Do I have to tell you? You want to hear God’s countdown?”

  The Love Crusaders shouted back that they did.

  “Ten!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you covet thy neighbor’s house, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor’s?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Nine!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you bear false witness against thy neighbor?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Eight!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you steal?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Seven!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you commit adultery?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Six!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you kill?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Five!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you honor thy father and thy mother?”

  “Yes!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Four!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy?”

  “Yes!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Three!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you take the name of the Lord thy God in vain?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Two!—” said Bobby Denton. “Do you make any graven images?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “One!—” cried Bobby Denton. “Do you put any gods before the one true Lord thy God?”

  “No!” cried the Love Crusaders.

  “Blast off!” shouted Bobby Denton joyfully. “Paradise, here we come! Blast off, children, and Amen!”

  “Well—” murmured Malachi Constant, there in the chimneylike room under the staircase in Newport, “it looks like the messenger is finally going to be used.”

  “What was that?” said Rumfoord.

  “My name—it means faithful messenger,” said Constant. “What’s the message?”

  “Sorry,” said Rumfoord, “I know nothing about any message.” He cocked his head quizzically. “Somebody said something to you about a message?”

  Constant turned his palms upward. “I mean—what am I going to go to all this trouble to get to Triton for?”

  “Titan,” Rumfoord corrected him.

  “Titan, Triton,” said Constant. “What the blast would I go there for?” Blast was a weak, prissy, Eagle-Scoutish word for Constant to use—and it took him a moment to realize why he had used it. Blast was what space cadets on television said when a meteorite carried away a control surface, or the navigator turned out to be a space pirate from the planet Zircon. He stood. “Why the hell should I go there?”

  “You do—I promise you,” said Rumfoord.

  Constant went over to the window, some of his arrogant strength returning. “I tell you right now,” he said, “I’m not going.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” said Rumfoord.

  “I’m supposed to do something for you when I get there?” said Constant.

  “No,” said Rumfoord.

  “Then why are you sorry?” said Constant. “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing,” said Rumfoord. “I’m only sorry for you. You’ll really be missing something.”

  “Like what?” said Constant.

  “Well—the most pleasant climate imaginable, for one thing,” said Rumfoord.

  “Climate!” said Constant contemptuously. “With houses in Hollywood, the Vale of Kashmir, Acapulco, Manitoba, Tahiti, Paris, Bermuda, Rome, New York, and Capetown, I should leave Earth in search of happier climes?”

  “There’s more to Titan than just climate,” said Rumfoord. “The women, for instance, are the most beautiful creatures between the Sun and Betelgeuse.”

  Constant guffawed bitterly. “Women!” he said. “You think I’m having trouble getting beautiful women? You think I’m love-starved, and the only way I’ll ever get close to a beautiful woman is to climb on a rocket ship and head for one of Saturn’s moons? Are you kidding? I’ve had women so beautiful, anybody between the Sun and Bete
lgeuse would sit down and cry if the women said as much as hello to ’em!”

  He took out his billfold, and slipped from it a photograph of his most recent conquest. There was no question about it—the girl in the photograph was staggeringly beautiful. She was Miss Canal Zone, a runner-up in the Miss Universe Contest—and in fact far more beautiful than the winner of the contest. Her beauty had frightened the judges.

  Constant handed Rumfoord the photograph. “They got anything like that on Titan?” he said.

  Rumfoord studied the photograph respectfully, handed it back. “No—” he said, “nothing like that on Titan.”

  “O.K.,” said Constant, feeling very much in control of his own destiny again, “climate, beautiful women—what else?”

  “Nothing else,” said Rumfoord mildly. He shrugged. “Oh—art objects, if you like art.”

  “I’ve got the biggest private art collection in the world,” said Constant.

  Constant had inherited this famous art collection. The collection had been made by his father—or, rather, by agents of his father. It was scattered through museums all over the world, each piece plainly marked as a part of the Constant Collection. The collection had been made and then deployed in this manner on the recommendation of the Director of Public Relations of Magnum Opus, Incorporated, the corporation whose sole purpose was to manage the Constant affairs.

  The purpose of the collection had been to prove how generous and useful and sensitive billionaires could be. The collection had turned out to be a perfectly gorgeous investment, as well.

  “That takes care of art,” said Rumfoord.

  Constant was about to return the photograph of Miss Canal Zone to his billfold, when he felt that he held not one photograph but two. There was a photograph behind that of Miss Canal Zone. He supposed that that was a photograph of Miss Canal Zone’s predecessor, and he thought that he might as well show Rumfoord her, too—show Rumfoord what a celestial lulu he had given the gate to.

  “There—there’s another one,” said Constant, holding out the second photograph to Rumfoord.

  Rumfoord made no move to take the photograph. He didn’t even bother to look at it. He looked instead into Constant’s eyes and grinned roguishly.

  Constant looked down at the photograph that had been ignored. He found that it was not a photograph of Miss Canal Zone’s predecessor. It was a photograph that Rumfoord had slipped to him. It was no ordinary photograph, though its surface was glossy and its margins white.

  Within the margins lay shimmering depths. The effect was much like that of a rectangular glass window in the surface of a clear, shallow, coral bay. At the bottom of that seeming coral bay were three women—one white, one gold, one brown. They looked up at Constant, begging him to come to them, to make them whole-with love.

  Their beauty was to the beauty of Miss Canal Zone as the glory of the Sun was to the glory of a lightning bug.

  Constant sank into a wing chair again. He had to look away from all that beauty in order to keep from bursting into tears.

  “You can keep that picture, if you like,” said Rumfoord. “It’s wallet size.”

  Constant could think of nothing to say.

  “My wife will still be with you when you get to Titan,” said Rumfoord, “but she won’t interfere if you want to frolic with these three young ladies. Your son will be with you, too, but he’ll be quite as broad-minded as Beatrice.”

  “Son?” said Constant. He had no son.

  “Yes—a fine boy named Chrono,” said Rumfoord.

  “Chrono?” said Constant.

  “A Martian name,” said Rumfoord. “He’s born on Mars—by you, out of Beatrice.”

  “Beatrice?” said Constant.

  “My wife,” said Rumfoord. He had become quite transparent. His voice was becoming tinny, too, as though coming from a cheap radio. “Things fly this way and that, my boy,” he said, “with or without messages. It’s chaos, and no mistake, for the Universe is just being born. It’s the great becoming that makes the light and the heat and the motion, and bangs you from hither to yon.

  “Predictions, predictions, predictions,” said Rumfoord musingly. “Is there anything else I should tell you? Ohhhhh—yes, yes, yes. This child of yours, this boy named Chrono—

  “Chrono will pick up a little strip of metal on Mars—” said Rumfoord, “and he will call it his ‘good-luck piece.’ Keep your eye on that good-luck piece, Mr. Constant. It’s unbelievably important.”

  Winston Niles Rumfoord vanished slowly, beginning with the ends of his fingers, and ending with his grin. The grin remained some time after the rest of him had gone.

  “See you on Titan,” said the grin. And then it was gone.

  “Is it all over, Moncrief?” Mrs. Winston Niles Rumfoord called down to the butler from the top of the spiral staircase.

  “Yes, Mum—he’s left,” said the butler, “and the dog, too.”

  “And that Mr. Constant?” said Mrs. Rumfoord—said Beatrice. She was behaving like an invalid—tottering, blinking hard, making her voice like wind in the treetops. She wore a long white dressing gown whose soft folds formed a counter-clockwise spiral in harmony with the white staircase. The train of the gown cascaded down the top riser, making Beatrice continuous with the architecture of the mansion.

  It was her tall, straight figure that mattered most in the display. The details of her face were insignificant. A cannonball, substituted for her head, would have suited the grand composition as well.

  But Beatrice did have a face—and an interesting one. It could be said that she looked like a buck-toothed Indian brave. But anyone who said that would have to add quickly that she looked marvelous. Her face, like the face of Malachi Constant, was a one-of-a-kind, a surprising variation on a familiar theme—a variation that made observers think, Yes—that would be another very nice way for people to look. What Beatrice had done with her face, actually, was what any plain girl could do. She had overlaid it with dignity, suffering, intelligence, and a piquant dash of bitchiness.

  “Yes,” said Constant from below, “that Mr. Constant is still here.” He was in plain view, leaning against a column in the arch that opened onto the foyer. But he was so low in the composition, so lost in architectural details as to be almost invisible.

  “Oh!” said Beatrice. “How do you do.” It was a very empty greeting.

  “How do you do,” said Constant.

  “I can only appeal to your gentlemanly instincts,” said Beatrice, “in asking you not to spread the story of your meeting with my husband far and wide. I can well understand how tremendous the temptation to do so must be.”

  “Yes—” said Constant, “I could sell my story for a lot of money, pay off the mortgage on the homestead, and become an internationally famous figure. I could hob-nob with the great and near-great, and perform before the crowned heads of Europe.”

  “You’ll pardon me,” said Beatrice, “if I fail to appreciate sarcasm and all the other brilliant nuances of your no doubt famous wit, Mr. Constant. These visits of my husband’s make me ill.”

  “You never see him any more, do you?” said Constant.

  “I saw him the first time he materialized,” said Beatrice, “and that was enough to make me ill for the rest of my days.”

  “I liked him very much,” said Constant.

  “The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms,” said Beatrice.

  “Insane?” said Constant.

  “As a man of the world, Mr. Constant,” said Beatrice, “wouldn’t you say that any person who made complicated and highly improbable prophecies was mad?”

  “Well—” said Constant, “is it really very crazy to tell a man who has access to the biggest space ship ever built that he’s going out into space?”

  This bit of news, about the accessibility of a space ship to Constant, startled Beatrice. It startled her so much that she took a step back from the head of the staircase, separated herself from the rising spiral. The small step backward
transformed her into what she was—a frightened, lonely woman in a tremendous house.

  “You have a space ship, do you?” she said.

  “A company I control has custody of one,” said Constant. “You’ve heard of The Whale?”

  “Yes,” said Beatrice.

  “My company sold it to the Government,” said Constant. “I think they’d be delighted if someone would buy it back at five cents on the dollar.”

  “Much luck to you on your expedition,” said Beatrice.

  Constant bowed. “Much luck to you on yours,” he said.

  He left without another word. In crossing the bright zodiac on the foyer floor, he sensed that the spiral staircase now swept down rather than up. Constant became the bottommost point in a whirlpool of fate. As he walked out the door, he was delightfully aware of pulling the aplomb of the Rumfoord mansion right out with him.

  Since it was foreordained that he and Beatrice were to come together again, to produce a child named Chrono, Constant was under no compunction to seek and woo her, to send her so much as a get-well card. He could go about his business, he thought, and the haughty Beatrice would have to damn well come to him—like any other bimbo.

  He was laughing when he put on his dark glasses and false beard and let himself out through the little iron door in the wall.

  The limousine was back, and so was the crowd.

  The police held open a narrow path to the limousine door. Constant scuttled down it, reached the limousine. The path closed like the Red Sea behind the Children of Israel. The cries of the crowd, taken together, were a collective cry of indignation and pain. The crowd, having been promised nothing, felt cheated, having received nothing.

  Men and boys began to rock Constant’s limousine.

  The chauffeur put the limousine in gear, made it creep through the sea of raging flesh.

  A bald man made an attempt on Constant’s life with a hot dog, stabbed at the window glass with it, splayed the bun, broke the frankfurter—left a sickly sunburst of mustard and relish.