Olaf Stapledon

by Nebula Maker

  Then Fire Bolt: “In youth, as you can see by my baldness, I was a satellite. My great bully showed me nothing good, nothing worthy to dance with. And as for these warlords and powerlords, they are past ii savings.”

  To this Bright Heart replied, “No one is past saving. The underlying principle of glad beholding is in each one of us, striving for expression. That great principle, that spirit which conceived the cosmos, demands that all shall participate.”

  Again there was a pause, then Fire Bolt said, “I have come to persuade you that though your aim is right and glorious, your method is futile. It would be the right method if nebulae were far more intelligent than they are or far more generous. But in the world that is, not killing but limp mildness is the great error. And what has happened to your work? Triumphant at first, it is now stultified by mildness, and the cunning of the rulers. The time is come for ruthless action. If you will consent, and call your followers to arms, I, who am not without experience of action and not without followers, will be your ally. You shall provide the vision. I will provide the ruthlessness in pursuit of the vision. Together, we can make the new world.”

  But Bright Heart would not agree. He said only, “No, I will not kill, but I will be killed. And the manner of my dying shall kindle such a spirit as shall never be extinguished.”

  In vain Fire Bolt pleaded with him. “Can you not see,” he said, “that we are all directed by the sheer mechanism of our nature, that we are the sport of mighty forces, that you cannot alter the current of history by a fine example and a momentary widespread glow of emotion? The warlords and power-fiends cannot change their nature. They must love mastery, even as I do and you do. And fate has given them a mastery baleful to the people. They are but instruments through which mechanical power enslaves us all. It is useless to appeal to them. We must seize their power. This baleful-precious mechanical power must be controlled by those who will to establish the new world.”

  “This mechanical power,” said Bright Heart, “is to be had only by the slaughter of innocents. The dance pattern of the cosmos needs the cooperation of the lone nebulae no less than ourselves. We must forego power forever.”

  Fire Bolt answered, “We who are ready to die for the cause must dare to kill. Even when the revolution is achieved, and there is no further need for armaments, we shall still need power, that the lives of citizens may be enriched by swift travel and a thousand joy-giving inventions. Of what use are cattle save for the support of citizens?”

  The tresses of Bright Heart quivered and contorted in protest and indignation. But he said only, “Two solitaries I have known, and I have danced long and gladly with them. They are not cattle. They are imprisoned in themselves, but they shall be set free.”

  There was a pause, then Fire Bolt said, “I find it in my heart to believe you, and indeed you may well be right. It may be that the new world, when it has been established, will forego power and emancipate the lone nebulae. But meanwhile we must use them, or the revolution will never be achieved.”

  For some while, Bright Heart and Fire Bolt continued to plead with one another, but neither was convinced. Finally it was agreed that Bright Heart should first carry out his new plan, challenging the rulers even to the point of martyrdom; but that, if his death failed to bring in the new world, Fire Bolt should let loose his revolution.

  12

  DEATH OF BRIGHT HEART

  Slowly, unaided by mechanical power, Bright Heart returned to the busy and unhappy region whence he had come. With all his strength he broadcast his challenge to the rulers, and to their minions, his own tricked followers.

  To the disheartened faithful in all that region he cried, “Away with lying compromise! Refuse, refuse to do the foolish and wicked things that the rulers make to seem prudent and honourable. Refuse in your thousands, and all their power will vanish. They will kill us. Let them kill us by hundreds and thousands. But they cannot kill us all. There will be enough left for the making of the new world. Let us die gladly for the new world.”

  The authorities made haste to seize Bright Heart. But his words were already abroad upon the ether, and could not be recalled. So they tortured him to force him to recant what he had said. But he continued to proclaim the truth. When he was at the point of death he cried out, “Look! Look! The great Maker who made all nebulae in his likeness watches us from outside the world. His heart is bright. His tresses can brace the cosmos.”

  I, myself, half expecting to see a divine eternal nebula beyond the hosts of mortal nebula, looked. It was a strange shock to me to see, peering through the veil of innumerable nebulae, the almost human face of God, remote, inscrutable, intent, kindled (as it seemed to me) to ecstasy by the creatures of his own artistry.

  Looking once more to Bright Heart, I saw that he was dead, and that slaves were taking his flesh to the nearest munition makers.

  But the manner of his death and the words that he had spoken were rumoured from empire to empire throughout the cosmos. And it was said that he himself was the bright-hearted God, and that he had come into the world to save nebulae from their own folly.

  Everywhere it was said, “Let us set up the new world now without delay, before we forget the glory of this death.” Munition slaves left their battalions in hundreds to join the peace army of Bright Heart’s followers. Warriors broke up the dance life of their regiments and foreswore their weapons, fraternizing with the enemy. Empires were shaken and overthrown by the tidal wave of the new life which advanced in all directions like the tremors of an earthquake.

  Fire Bolt, observing these great events, wondered whether after all Bright Heart had been right and the new world was to be without further agony.

  But presently he saw that, though many rulers had fallen, their places had been taken by others of the same kind, who, while they spoke fair to Bright Heart’s followers, established themselves by the old methods. Then one by one the rulers told their peoples that some neighbouring power was insincere in its protestations of goodwill and was secretly planning an attack. Secretly each government provided its neighbours with evidence of its own warlike intentions, for use as propaganda. Thus, as the passion caused by Bright Heart’s death waned, and became only a memory, the peoples were tricked once more into fear and hate and war. And the priestly leaders of the followers of Bright Heart told their respective peoples that the divine spirit of Bright Heart, the underlying principle of glad beholding and dancing, was bidding them wage the last of all wars to clear the cosmos of the evil-minded foe.

  13

  FIRE BOLT

  Fire Bolt, after his talk with Bright Heart, had retired to his own much harassed region; and there he had set about inspiring and training a picked band of followers.

  He said to them, “We are the instruments of fate. Our wills are the expression of mighty forces at work in the cosmos. Through us the new world will be founded. Hitherto, power has been with the masters, the oppressors. Inevitably they have exercised it in their own interests, not for the world. But now, power is no longer in their hands alone. The knowledge of mechanical power, the skill for using it, has passed to those whom the oppressors enslaved. They have only to will resolutely to overthrow the oppressors and create the new world. If they will it, it will happen; for power is theirs. And it is for us who do will it, and do understand the way in which fate is working, to show the oppressed their opportunity and lead them to victory.”

  This he said in season and out of season. And he kindled his followers with his own fire, and he trained them secretly in the technique of obtaining mechanical power from disintegrating nebular flesh, and in the use of it for locomotion and offence.

  While he was doing this, he watched the career of Bright Heart. And when Bright Heart died, Fire Bolt said to his followers, “If we were all like him, there would be no need for revolution. Let us wait and see whether the example of his life changes the wills of nebulae, and brings the new world peaceably, as he hoped. It will not; but let us have proof that it will
not, so that we may convince the oppressed peoples that there is nothing for it but to destroy their oppressors.”

  And when at last the oppressors had tricked the followers of Bright Heart, and the empires were once more at war, and the peoples were everywhere slaving to produce power or to defeat an enemy people, Fire Bolt sent his followers abroad to create more and ever more followers, until in every group, in every munition corps, in every troop of warriors, there was a follower of Fire Bolt, working for the revolution, stirring up discontent, whispering seditious truths, appointing to each convert a particular task in the worldwide preparation and in the worldwide revolution itself.

  When all was ready, Fire Bolt gave the signal. Slowly it spread abroad upon the ethereal undulations from nebula to nebula. And as it passed, the conflagration which had been so carefully planned leapt into life. One by one, and with surprisingly little fighting, the peoples came into their own.

  But the revolution did not spread throughout the cosmos. The remoter regions had not been well enough prepared. In some the people rose too late to surprise the masters, and after a desperate struggle were subdued. In some they were half-hearted, or did not rise at all. Rather less than a third of the population of the cosmos was set free by the revolution.

  The peoples that had freed themselves now set about reorganizing their society, under the leadership of Fire Bolt. It was widely hoped that each nebula would now be allowed to go back to his native group and find full expression in the dance life of the group. For there was a widespread desire to express in significant dance forms all the cumulative passion of revolution. Many said to Fire Bolt, “Help us now at last to work out and establish the first measure of the cosmical dance pattern.”

  But Fire Bolt said, “The enemy outnumbers us by two to one, and will surely attack us. We must prepare for a very desperate war. But we shall win, and we shall free the enemy peoples, for we shall be strengthened by our great cause.”

  So the freed peoples freely submitted themselves to a very strict discipline. While there was yet time they drilled and practiced all the undertakings of war, and they piled up ammunition. And the enemy, seeing this, hastened their preparations. And the enemy rulers told their peoples that the revolutionary peoples had fallen into a worse servitude than before, that they were being cunningly and brutally used by their tyrants, that all glad beholding and dancing had vanished from them, and that Bright Heart, who watched from his heaven outside the cosmos, commanded all true believers to join together for the overthrow of that evil society.

  The war which followed was lengthy and destructive; but, though outnumbered, the peoples of the revolution were in the end victorious. For they had faith, unity of purpose and Fire Bolt. One by one the enemy peoples either suffered defeat, or spontaneously broke out into revolution.

  When the war was over, and all social nebulae throughout the cosmos had entered the revolutionary society as free citizens, everyone agreed that it was time to establish the cosmical dance pattern of all nebulae, which alone could afford every nebula the deepest aesthetic satisfaction, and was indeed the whole goal of nebular existence.

  Innumerable voices enquired of Fire Bolt how this thing was to be done. Now Fire Bolt was no longer what he had once been. He had used himself up in the revolution, and he was desperately tired. Moreover a strange “crumbling disease” was beginning to attack him, a disease increasingly common among the minute “satellite” nebulae, and by now not wholly unknown among the normal nebulae. His outer tissues were disintegrating into minute dense grains of fiery gas, and where this had happened his flesh was as though it was no longer his own. He could not move it. He could not perceive with it. Fire Bolt, in fact, was growing old. He was beginning to pass over from being a nebula to being a globular cluster of stars, a minute galaxy. But inwardly he was still almost his old ardent self, though tired, utterly tired.

  Now there were two views as to the kind of thing the cosmical dance pattern should be. According to one party it should be stately and restrained; and the course of each nebula should lie wholly within his own group. The cosmos should become a lovely pattern of distinct minuet figures. According to the other much larger party the cosmic dance must be far more violent. It must symbolize and commemorate by its far-flung measures the conflicts and agonies of the past. Only by an extravagance of swift intricate movement could it by potent suggestiveness waken the nebulae to a new order of percipience, intelligence and creative power. Moreover it was hoped that from the ecstasy born in every heart by means of this superb communal activity there might emerge an oversoul or single spirit of the cosmos, in whose exalted experience every individual nebula should participate.

  Now the less violent dance program could be carried out wholly by means of the native energies of the dancers, but the other entailed a huge expenditure of mechanical power. This would have to be obtained, as formerly, by the sacrifice of the lone nebulae, for there was no other source of energy but the flesh of the nebulae themselves. The advocates of the less violent dance insisted that the office of the lone nebulae could not be merely to give their lives for fuel but to play their part consciously and joyfully in the dance. No cosmical dance pattern could be wholesome, or significant, or satisfying to any sensitive individual, if the greater part of the cosmical population had to be left out of it entirely and murdered for its support. Those world citizens who still accepted the teaching of Bright Heart dared to point out that their master had actually succeeded in awakening two of the lone nebulae to a sense of community. Surely it was a supreme duty to organize a worldwide mission to the lone nebulae, so as to emancipate them from their solipsistic prison cells, and kindle them with the gospel of community, and the holy zest of the cosmical dance.

  But the other party would have none of this. They declared that the lone nebulae were mere brutes, cattle to be used up as seemed fitting to the community. The only right which could be claimed for them was the right to humane slaughter. All agreed that the supreme goal of existence was the creation of the cosmical dance pattern. After all then it was a kindness to the lone nebulae to enable them to contribute something important toward this end in the only way which was possible to them, namely by yielding up their flesh for fuel. Confident in their numbers and their realism, this party appealed to Fire Bolt to exercise his presidential fiat and forbid their opponents to disturb the harmony of the great cosmical undertaking by advocating their idealistic yet cowardly policy. Thinking to rouse his jealousy they added a suggestion that this heresy was a symptom of the widespread resurrection of the impracticable and sentimental ideals of Bright Heart.

  But Fire Bolt, already fatigued by the effort of “listening” to their lengthy petition, replied in a manner wholly unexpected. “That great seer,” he said, “erred only in having too good an opinion of nebular nature. He underestimated the weakness and stupidity of the peoples, and the self-regard of the oppressors. He thought the new world would be brought into being by the good will of all, not by the hate and courage of a few. But at bottom he was right. Though to overthrow the oppressors we had to do many terrible things and sacrifice many social and many lone nebulae, now that we have freed the world we must ‘gladly behold’ all nebulae, and dance with all nebulae, sacrificing none. I am sick and dying. You will remember me, for without me you could not have made the revolution. But more earnestly, more constantly, remember Bright Heart. For his work is still for you to do.”

  The petitioners departed in indignation, murmuring, “His mind is going.” They tried hard to keep Fire Bolt’s pronouncement from being made known, but the old sick nebula gathered his strength together to force his dying flesh to one last effort. One last, long impassioned speech he made, condemning the aims of the majority, pleading for the lone nebulae and for the unmechanized dance, and praising Bright Heart. Before he had said all that was in his mind to say, his speech organs were paralysed.

  Not long afterward he lost all power of movement and of external perception. He became as one
of the lone nebulae, though rich in precious memories of intercourse, memories of Bright Heart, of sedition, of revolution, and of the new world which he had founded. For a while his old spirit flickered on, imprisoned within an unresponsive dust of stars. And then he died.

  But his last appeal spread slowly, irresistibly, upon the ethereal medium, and was passed on from nebula to nebula.

  14

  THE LAST PHASE OF THE NEBULAR ERA

  The party which stood for the more primitive dance and for the emancipation of the lone nebulae was greatly strengthened by the dying speech of Fire Bolt, for the prestige of the great revolutionary was at its height. But most nebulae, and almost all who were in authority, continued to favour the policy of the mechanized cosmical dance life. The delight in the power and freedom of mechanical locomotion was by now too deeply rooted to be easily foresworn. The government, moreover, saw in the more violent dance a far greater scope for governmental control and centralization than in the other.

  While the dispute was raging it was suggested that no important decision should be made till experiment had revealed the actual capacities of the lone nebulae to respond to educative influence. Some of the party which advocated the more primitive dance life therefore set about making contact with several of the lone nebulae. They very soon found that the task was far more difficult than they had expected. Not one of them had Bright Heart’s genius for sympathetic insight and tact. Their clumsy efforts to give the solitaries an inkling of their presence were at first entirely unsuccessful. When, later, they managed to develop a partially successful technique, they received an unpleasant surprise. The lonely mind to whom they had with such difficulty revealed themselves had been so mauled and infuriated by their efforts that he regarded the intruders with furious hate, and would do nothing but stab blindly at them with shafts of his native radiation. Even when the technique had been so far improved that mental intercourse could be achieved without distressing the solitary, the attempt to give him some idea of the external world, by speech and by training his rudimentary powers of external vision, generally put him to such a severe mental strain that he had a nervous breakdown. In many cases the unfortunate patient went mad.