Super-State

by By Brian Aldiss

  ‘There wouldn’t be much point in bombing Jupiter — not until we find there are people living on the planet.’

  They chuckled, and Rebecca remarked that bombing Jupiter, like bombing Tebarou, would be what her father had called ‘action at a distance’.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Paulus. ’It’s part of the megamachine under which we hardly realise we live. The cult of the impersonal. “The scribe directeth every work in this land”, as an Egyptian of the First Kingdom once said. No doubt the scribes were necessary for the building of those monstrous structures, the pyramids. Which came first, I wonder, scribes or pyramids?’

  ‘Just as their equivalents are necessary today for our high-rises.’

  ‘And for SS20s, to take the term “high-rise” rather literally. You see, we are controlled by a residual magic in our languages. Their very adverse qualities, vagueness, ambiguity, references to unseen objects and unverifiable events — in short, their subjectivity — are those which enabled the diverse nations of the EU to bind together.’

  ‘ “Papering over the cracks”, it was called, I remember,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Quite so. Now the cracks inevitably reappear — the attacks of the Insanatics are evidence of that. No state is perfect. We see how the emotional language used against Tebarou awakens public response.’

  Rebecca was alarmed less by what her father said than by his body language. Seeing his fists clench, she said, ‘You are not to go out on the streets demonstrating, Pa!’

  Paulus laughed. ‘Oh no, I’m not a man of action, as my defeat by Souto shows. I am just going to sit here safely at my computer and try to evolve a new mathematics which will iron out language and hopefully cure what the latest Insanatics’ bulletin calls “mental astigmatism”. I’m working on a new pair of spectacles for humanity.’

  * * * *

  Paulus went to feed the birds in the garden. He walked through the heavy old twentieth-century conservatory, where the parakeets he was breeding were flying and chirruping in their cages, into the open air.

  The garden was narrow, with high walls confining it. Not a particularly sunny garden. The Stromeyer android, nicknamed Alfie, stood silent under a laburnum. There was no room for it in the house, and Ruth found it rather spooky. Here, under the old tree, Alfie made a pleasant garden ornament. ‘Good afternoon,’ said the garden ornament as Paulus passed.

  Rebecca came into the garden to her father, and put an arm about his waist.

  Between them, they scattered birdseed and biscuit on the flagstones. They waited, stock-still. Birds emerged from hiding places in bushes and hopped almost at their feet. The larger birds, blackbirds in particular, frequently ceased their feeding to chase off sparrows and greenfinches pecking some metres away. They gave no quarter.

  ‘What shits birds are, really!’ Rebecca exclaimed. ‘Greedy, selfish! No sense of justice!’

  ‘Here we see what life must have been like in the Jurassic, if these pitiable little creatures are the descendants of dinosaurs, as we believe.’

  ‘Perhaps the birds dream of being as big as houses. Then they’d sort the smaller ones out!’

  They stood there, listening with pleasure to nearby birdsong.

  Paulus was looking beyond the feeding birds at a new line of molehills.

  ‘There’s a little animal I can’t grow to love. Moles are such a damned nuisance.’

  ‘Maybe not to other moles,’ Rebecca said with a giggle.

  ‘I have read that their love lives are pretty brutal.’

  ‘Having to do it underground with a face full of earth is not exactly conducive to romance . . .’

  They went indoors to find Moshe Stromeyer wandering about the rooms. Paulus and Ruth had taken his father in to live with them when Moshe’s wife had died, two years earlier. He was installed in a refurbished attic at the top of the house.

  ‘I was looking for something,’ he said, giving them a sort of grin. Moshe was becoming stooped. He had dressed himself in an old-fashioned striped flannel shirt and worn corduroy trousers. When Paulus offered to help, the old man said, ‘Trouble is, I can’t remember what it is I’ve lost. Bit absent-minded, I’m afraid.’

  He spoke with his back to Rebecca and Paulus, but turned and gave them a wholly benevolent smile, a smile of blessing and benevolence.

  ‘Are you going to the synagogue, Grampa?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘The synagogue? No, I wasn’t thinking of going. I don’t go so much these days.’

  ‘I can always drive you there, Grampa.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Doris.’

  ‘Becky.’

  ‘Becky. Silly of me. Bit absent-minded, I’m afraid.’ He was moving rather uncertainly round the room. Paulus said nothing. There was in his father’s manner something that worried him. He could see that Rebecca was also disturbed. She was about to help the old man negotiate a chair when Moshe unzipped his trousers, pulled out his penis, and held it lying in his right hand. He contemplated it absently, nodded, and tucked it back again.

  Rebecca hurried from the room, much alarmed.

  Paulus remained where he was, standing by the conservatory door. The incident had shocked him; his father was such a private man, and always had been. The gesture reminded him of a long-forgotten gardener they had had when he was a boy, who had always worn an old fob watch in his ancient tattered waistcoat, his one souvenir of a father who had perished in Auschwitz.

  The gardener had used Moshe’s selfsame gesture, consulting his watch, holding it in a horny hand, when he believed it was time to knock off.

  The memory brought horror and misery with it. ‘Time to knock off’. Perhaps the time was drawing near when his old pa would knock off, and another link with the past be severed.

  He went and gently took his father’s arm. He led the old man unprotesting back upstairs, taking the stairs one step at a time.

  ‘Wonder what it was I lost . . .’ said the old man when he got to his private door.

  That night, Paulus dreamed that he was in a garden somewhere. He was trying to stamp out molehills, flattening them with a spade. Out of one molehill climbed a huge black creature, perhaps a gorilla or a panther. As he woke in startlement, he could not be sure of the nature of the subterranean thing.

  * * * *

 
  This simple desire is complicated at every turn as we undergo the necessary stages of childhood, adolescence, youth, so-called maturity, old age and senescence. We are too poor or too unwell or too stupid or we cannot find the right friends, the right partner; the right house, the right job, the right identity. For any or all of these things we have to struggle. We are greedy for wealth, not least because we live in societies geared to wealth. So we are never comfortable.

  The longer we live, the more uncomfortable we become, because the more insecure. Longevity has increased during this century; in fact, this means not increased youth, which might be worth having, but protracted senescence.>

  ‘Parents! Don’t worry! Teenage pregnancies are shown statistically to drop off after age 25.’

  * * * *

  Report from the Roddenberry:

  ‘Hi, this is Kathram Villiers calling from the Roddenberry. We have fixed the solar wing problem. Alexy Stromeyer and I did a joint EVA. The rotator drive was a problem. [Break in transmission here.] Okay now. We are manoeuvring into our Jupiter orbit now. The gas giant looks absolutely scrumptuous this close. The most thrilling sight. Unfortunately there’s high density electrical bombardment and storms all around . . . [Break in transmission here] . . . swimming in electrons. We seem to be okay. It’s just our fridge systems got holed from outside. We’ve plugged the hole, but food is severely low. Must sign off. Much interference on all bands ‘Bye, Earth. Out.’

  * * * *

  Esme Brackentoth was cold — cold and bruised. She said to her captor, ‘You realise that this is never goi
ng to work? The police and the army will track you down soon enough.’

  Her captor stood in front of her, not speaking, apparently unmoved. Over his faded jeans he wore a thick black robe. He was not tall. He was certainly thin. His countenance was grim and lined, although it seemed he was no more than thirty. He said his name was Ali. He simply waited.

  Esme sat on an old wooden box, clutching herself, shivering. She was still confused. She had been resting on the cliff path at Kilberkilty when two men had seized her, gagged her and put a sack over her head. They had carried her between them at a run and had thrown her into the back of a small van. She had been terrified.

  By the bumping of the van, she had guessed they were travelling not along a road but over rough ground. There was no protection from the bumps. Her captors had bound her arms and legs with adhesive tape. She rolled about like a sack of potatoes.

  The journey had ended. Mercifully, they had not travelled far, possibly two kilometres. She was carried into a building of some sort and laid — more gently now, since they were no longer acting in such haste — on a carpeted floor. After a while, the men had taken her down a narrow flight of steps. When they removed the sack from her head, she had found herself in a chill, damp cellar.

  A light bulb shone overhead, its glow hardly disturbing the gloom at the corners of the room. Some boxes stood about. There was no other furniture. There was no window. The feeling was extremely subterranean. She knew that one man had gone. The noise of the van leaving came clearly to her. She was alone with Ali.

  As she sat in fear, she heard a noise she thought must be distant machinery. Only later did she realise it was the sound of the sea, quite close.

  Ali had placed a sheet of paper and a blue crayon on a box in front of her.

  ‘Draw this plan I ask. How is the house. Then I let you go free.’

  He pointed with an open hand to the paper before her.

  She knew what he wanted: a plan of the rooms and corridors of her new father-in-law’s palace outside Brussels. If this fearsome man wanted such a thing, it could only be because he intended to break in, perhaps to kill the President.

  ‘I don’t know the place at all well. I was there only once.’

  ‘You were there five times.’

  He was accurate. Someone had been watching the palace.

  She could warn Victor’s father if she ever got away. If this man did not kill her when she had drawn the plan.

  Ali said, ’I will leave you. When I come back, you will draw the plan or you be killed.’ As he left the cellar, climbing stone stairs, he switched off the light.

  Esme was left in the dark. She began to cry.

  * * * *

  ‘Be trendy!—with this original present. This lovely pen with its gilded metal case and ballpoint tip also displays the time accurate to the very microsecond. Plus date function. No more missing appointments!

  ‘What’s more, the miracle pen unfolds to become a pair of sunglasses with anti-dazzle lenses. Fear no more the glare of the sun.

  ‘In gold, silver; or modish black.’

  * * * *

  The usual commercials preceded the event of the evening, introduced by the media mogul Wolfgang Frankel. Professor Daniel Potts was giving the month’s science lecture at the ancient University of Ingolstadt. Daniel Potts had been famous in his youth as a Catholic priest who had taken up archaeology and made a remarkable find in the Olduvai Gorge in Africa. He named his son Olduvai, after the site which had made his name.

  His wife, Lena, had then presented him with a daughter, Josie. Later, Daniel had hurled abuse at the Pope for the Pope’s continued opposition to contraceptive devices and left — or rather had been expelled from — the Church. He had become even more famous. It was reckoned a distinguished career.

  ‘Are you going to watch your pop’s lecture?’ asked Roberta, Olduvai’s current girlfriend.

  ‘No way, baby!’ said Olduvai, firmly. ‘I hate the old bastard. Let’s go to bed.’

  ‘I want to see what your pop’s like.’

  She stayed. Olduvai retreated. The big ambient screen lit.

  The Rector of Ingolstadt was to be seen walking down an ancient shady street towards his university, singing the praises of his famous and controversial alumnus, Dr Daniel Potts. Potts appeared on screen, his old weathered face arranged in an expression of amiability.

  He said, ‘We are poised on the threshold of great discoveries in space. Now is the time to take stock.

  ‘I shall show you the film I planned to show. But before that I will say a word in defence of the group calling themselves the Insanatics. Their bulletins have been the cause of massive discontent. Most people — including most so-called intelligent people — have been contemptuous of the bulletins. They feel themselves insulted.

  ‘I wish to register my support of the thesis of the Insanatics group.

  ‘I was persuaded by their latest bulletin which I find particularly timely, as it seems we are about to plunge into war. Here is that bulletin again, unaltered from its original format.’

  * * * *

 
  If you require proof, do not listen to us. Look about you. Look at your rulers. Look at your neighbours. Look at yourselves>

  * * * *

  ‘Dare we not admit the painful truth of such observations?

  ‘Now for my film, made several months ago, before we had heard from the Insanatics. And before our EU forces sank a steamer carrying four thousand innocent people off the heel of Italy. All of whom perished.’

  Potts now went straight into his film, showing himself in a bleak and waterless gorge. A hard blue sky burned overhead. There were tents behind him and, more distantly, two men resting on their spades. Potts himself was in a sandy hole in the ground.

  ‘I am kneeling here in the dirt. You see I am holding a skull we have just disinterred. The skull is yellowed but perfectly intact. Its eye sockets regard me gloomily. I am told it is about thirty thousand years old. [Potts held up the skull for inspection. The eye sockets looked out at the viewer.]

  ‘Why is the skull so well preserved? Why so durable, with its upper set of teeth intact? Why is it so solidly built, when we consider it was designed for a creature, a man or a woman, destined never to live more than seventy years — the biblical “three score years and ten”? Why has it survived those years by about four hundred and thirty times the bearer’s own allotted lifespan?

  ‘The answer is that the skull is a sort of helmet, developed by evolution to protect one of the most precious of human assets, the brain. Even after a bash on the head, the brain, with luck, will continue to function. That brain, that cunning maze of memory, consciousness, and thought, is what has given mankind dominance over the planet Earth. Or at least an illusory dominance.

  ‘I say illusory because bacteria always win in the end, here as elsewhere, then as now Bacteria devoured the brain that once burned, however dimly, in this skull. The invisible life of Earth, if weighed, would outweigh all the visible life, the cumbersome mammal things, many times over.

  ‘The brain consumes a large percentage of the body’s energy. It has evolved at a certain cost to its owners. Were the skull to get any larger, future mothers in labour would suffer even more than they now do in the delivery of offspring through the narrow aperture of their cervix. [A woman was depicted in childbirth.]

  ‘Nevertheless, when we look around us and see the distance we have put between us and mud huts or the branches of trees, and the comforts of central heating and the ambient, we generally consider the cost worth paying. [This part of the argument was voice-over against a computerised view of a man and woman climbing down from a tree, leaving a forest, getting rapidly dressed, going to a town which g
rew around them, and entering a stylish building. Snow fell beyond the windows while the couple made themselves comfortable in a warm room.]

  ‘So how come, if the brain is so precious, we as a species are so wicked and so stupid?

  ‘Let’s review some examples of stupidity. Our frequent inability to conduct our national, our family, our personal affairs properly Our reliance on drugs, with their destructive effects on mind and body, from cigarettes, alcohol, heroin, ever onwards. (It was possibly almost permanent drunkenness which got our species through the Ice Age. If so, we have never been able to shake the habit.)

  ‘More stupidities. Our sudden volte-face, as when we exclaim, “Why did I do that?” Our religious persecutions and schisms. Our continued toleration of a church hostile to reason in the matter of over-population. Our constant forgetfulness, not merely of facts but even of familiar names and faces. Our absurd provinciality, a preference for — a madness to support—the place in which we were born which, on a larger scale, becomes an unthinking patriotism. From which follows our not infrequent eagerness to build up weapons of war and to wage war.