Richard Wagner writes in a letter; ‘I want everyone who can take pleasure in my works, i.e. my life and what I do, to know that what gives them pleasure is my suffering, my extreme misfortune!. . . if we had life, we should have no need of art. Art begins at precisely the point where life breaks off.’>
* * * *
No one in the High Command knew how to pronounce Ou Neua, but Ou Neua, in the north of Laos, was where the High Command established itself. General Fairstepps had taken over the Royal Laotian Hotel. The Laotian government had voiced no complaint, having just been promised five billion univs towards the rebuilding of the infrastructure of the nation.
Among the few advantages Ou Neua possessed—and certainly those advantages had greatly diminished since the High Command and all its ancillary services had moved into town — was a cardinal one: it stood on the frontier with Tebarou. It was on neutral territory, but within striking distance of Tebihai, the capital of Tebarou.
Even now, the first wave of ground troops was advancing on Tebihai. Even now, Fairstepps was on the short-wave, bellowing into his microphone.
‘I am not letting my troops go in without air support. Get that clear. Where are these bloody SS20s we hear so much about? Put me on to the Air Chief Marshal at once . . . He’s what? He’s inAustria? What the hell’s he doing in Austria, for god’s sake? . . . can’t help that . . . Well, put me on to whoever is in charge . . . Yes, pronto . . .’
A pause.
‘Who’s that? Speak up, man! Captain Masters? . . . No, I don’t remember you. Look here, I have a straight order for you, Captain Masters. Get those bloody SS20s of yours in the air heading this way at once. Okay? . . . Otherwise, heads will roll, including yours and your bloody Air Chief Marshal’s. Out.’
* * * *
The ancient river Sang Ba runs green and fast through gorges it cut in the past. The cliffs, eroded by torrential rain and tree roots, collapse frequently into the waters below. It is not an easy river to navigate, and the EU engineers on the landing craft were finding it hard going.
The Sang Ba rises twelve hundred kilometres away, high in the Chinese-owned Kuolo Shan of the Himalayas, and has almost as many kilometres to go before it reaches the Gulf of Tonkin and the warm waters of the South
China Sea. Never a placid stream, the Sang Ba has become much angrier of recent years, as ancient snows high in the Kuolo Shan have been melting under the changing climatic conditions. Now there are boulders bouncing along among the turbulence of waters, and dead animals, and whole trees.
Rain slashed down on the boat and on the huddled troops standing in it as the craft chugged its way slowly upstream. This was the cutting edge of the invasion force. Other craft were following behind. With visibility curtailed, they could no longer be seen.
The current began to flow more rapidly. Progress slowed.
Suddenly a shout went up. Some metres ahead, scarcely to be seen through the murk, a great section of cliff was crumbling. At first, mere slabs descended. Then, with a rush, a massive rock slice tottered forward and fell with a colossal splash into the river.
The engineers headed for the Tebarese bank. Already the greasy green of the water had become a streaky brown. Great slabs of rock bobbed along as if they had achieved buoyancy. They jostled the sides of the boat. An anchor was flung ashore and the landing craft was hauled in to the safety of the bank.
A sergeant shouted orders to get ashore. The shout was hardly needed. The men were already climbing out of the boat. A tree came whirling along in the flood. Its blackened branches became entangled with the craft. One man, less quick than his friends, was catapulted overboard as if by the horns of a bull. The rest of them lined up on the bank, heads down to avoid the rain, much like a herd of animals.
They watched in horror as the bank began to crumble. The anchor rope tautened and twanged. The boat began to swing away from the bank. A corporal took a flying leap back into the craft. He bent and seized a second anchor to throw. But too late.
A whole slice of the bank fell away. At once the first anchor was gone, the craft was gone, wallowing helplessly downstream, bumping and turning as it went. Very soon, it had disappeared, the corporal with it.
‘Now what the fuck do we do?’ asked several squaddies.
‘We are an invasion force,’ said the sergeant, a Sgt Jacques Bargane. ’Our orders are to attack Tebihai and so we will attack Tebihai. Get fell in properly.’
They began to march in single file along the towpath. The rain dwindled and blew away. A remote sun appeared, high above the tousled tops of the forest trees, banishing cloud with tropical rapidity. Uniforms dried. Boots ceased squelching. The men sang as they marched.
‘Singing I will if you will, so will I.
I will if you will, so will I.
I will if you will,
I will if you will,
I will if you will so will I.
‘I will if you will, so will I.
I will if you will, so will I.
I will if you will,
I will if you will,
Oh, I will if you will, so will I, half-past shirt.’
No one knew why they ended the song with ‘half-past shirt’. But someone had once done so and found it funny. So now they all found it funny and did so.
* * * *
It is the pressure of these biological forces which has brought into being the enlarged central nervous system we call the brain—and the coming-into-being of mind. The mind’s essential function is that of presiding over the survival of the organism: earthworm, insect, intellectual, all are the same in this.
For this purpose, the brain resorts to well-tried panaceas to reduce tension and anxiety. Men in danger will think alike, becoming a kind of mass-mind. Even atheists pray when the boat they’re on is sinking. Their concern is not primarily with discerning truth or non-truth. A frightened child does not examine the question of whether its mother is omnipotent while running to her arms.
In ‘adult’ life, such supposedly omnipotent persons as parents are superseded by the fantasy-created personae of mythology and religion. They come into phantom existence in order to relieve injurious terrors in the organism. Occasionally, rebellious persons reject these figments. Indeed, many such godlike figments have been rejected. It is no longer worth blaspheming against Baal>
* * * *
Cassidy Bargane was in his brother’s platoon, as were two jolly black men who gave their names as Henry and LeRoy. They had previously been Muhammad, but had rethought the situation in order to join the army, which they hoped would be a lot of fun. They marched along with vigour, with the rest of the platoon. On their left side the Sang Ba river flowed, angry and noisy On their right, great flaking yellow crusts of cliff towered.
Although they were on Tebarese territory, they met with no opposition. Presumably the Tebarese did not expect an enemy rash enough to attempt an invasion by land.
Paulus Stromeyer entered the laboratory in the morning. He greeted his colleagues rather abstractedly as he headed for his own office. Only later did he realise how frosty had been the greetings those colleagues returned. It was obvious that his theory of boims and serds was not being well received.
His laboratory assistant, Veronica Distell, was her usual self: self-contained, nursing her own ambitions, ill-dressed but with a certain authoritative air. Paulus did not care to cross her.
When Veronica wished him bon jour, his response was muted. She asked him what the problem was,
since she had good news for him.
He said he had bad news. The body of Daniel Potts had just been found in the Danube. Although police were investigating the matter, there appeared to be no doubt that it was a case of suicide. Potts had tied a large weight about his body.
‘I knew Dan fairly well. He had family problems. Not the most clubbable of men but — well, a man with a good intellect. It’s such a miserable end.’
They talked about Potts’s career for a moment. But she had something to tell Paulus which would not wait.
‘I have the X-rays,’ she said. ‘I recalibrated the microscope. The results are perfectly clear — and in our favour.’ She could not entirely suppress her excitement.
He studied the prints she handed him, tracing the cellular structure of the citrus fruit under examination. There was no doubt of it: he had uncovered another strand of the proof he needed, the function of hydroxyl-carboxylic acid. There were anatomical factors retarding ethical development in human beings; meat-eating was negatively involved in the equation. The human brain had a largely unexplored dependency on the central ‘crossroads’ in the complex system of metabolic linkages. There were enzymes located in the mitochondria which, he suspected, were reinforced by percentages of protein. These enzymes were implicated in replicating and perpetuating themselves, thus preventing extensions of human consciousness. He thought he saw a way in which hydroxy-carboxylic acid might reinforce the metabolic linkages and moderate the hostile enzymes.
He looked up into Veronica’s face.
‘The answer’s a lemon!’ he said.
But it would need the further development of his new calculus before the equation could be suitably disentangled. Then he would be able to free the human race from its genetic stupidity.
He tried to tell himself it was too early to feel any triumph.
He was right. Veronica handed him a communication in a brown envelope which had arrived that morning.
‘Doesn’t look good, Paulus,’ she said. She dared to put a protective arm about his shoulder as he opened the envelope.
It was a message from the Department of Science and Development. It expressed regret that, as a wartime measure, Stromeyer’s department had had its grant rescinded. It was hoped that the measure would be only temporary and would cause no inconvenience.
‘“Would cause no inconvenience”!’ Veronica exclaimed. ‘Oh, shit! Those mad bastards!’
* * * *
‘Yes, it’s the Wee Small Hours Show, and my name is Brandyball Fritz. We want to send a cheer to our brave boys out in the Far East, where we are giving Tebarou its well-deserved comeuppance.
‘First on the show we present the Reverend Angus Lesscock to give us his thoughts as — “A Parson Speaks”.’
‘Good evening, or should I say good morning? I had a friend who, at the age of ninety, sailed round the world single-handed. And not only single-handed but single-footed too. He had lost one of his two pedal appendages in a traffic accident. As a consequence he was always dishevelled. He never bothered to shevell himself, but he was never defeated.
‘In this time of war, we all are metaphorically sailing alone round the world of crisis. We must not be defeated: God is our right foot, as well as our right hand. We must stay shevelled and never lose him. Every toenail, every verruca of faith counts. In that manner, we keep afoot of danger, hoping our brave boys will do the same, in his name.’
‘That was “A Parson Speaks”. Our intrepid interviewer, Lisa Fort, is on the streets again, to ask ordinary people for their opinons regarding the brilliant new series, History of Western Science, now showing on the ambient. Are you there, Lisa?’
* * * *
Sitting in his drab room above the pharmacie, the Reverend Lesscock ordered Fritz, his android, to switch the radio off.
‘Why did I say “afoot of danger”? I meant “abreast of danger”. How vexing!’
‘No one will notice, dear,’ said his wife. ‘They won’t sack you for a slip like that.’
He regarded Marthe gloomily. ’Why are we out of coffee? Why haven’t you been shopping? One day, mark my words, they will sack me. That’s capitalism, that’s the capitalist system. Those who have power crush those who haven’t.’
‘Oh, rubbish, Angus! That’s human nature, not capitalism. All the progress of the world is owed to capitalism.’
Lesscock rose and went to stare out of the grimy window at the street below. ‘Progress! It’s capitalism causing Europe to be destroyed by the ruined climate. Is that progress? When I think how my father lived . . .’
‘That old fool!’ Marthe exclaimed. She was about to say more when her husband turned his angry face towards her.
‘Go out and buy us some coffee, woman!’
‘Send Fritz!’ They began a familiar argument, while Fritz looked on.
* * * *
‘Hello. Lisa, are you there?’
‘Hi there, I’m here! I’m Lisa Fort, and I am talking to an elderly lady out walking on crutches instead of being tucked up safe in bed. What have you been doing to yourself, dear?’
‘Sorry, I’m just getting a bit elderly. I don’t drink at all and I attend the Wilhelmstrasse Methodist Church every Sunday and I have three cats and I am nearly one hundred years old and my mother—’
‘That’s great news. And what do you think of the science series?’
‘I downloaded it so I could read it on paper. It’s easier for me. The pages and all that. Well, I did enjoy the novel, but there were all these difficult names to pronounce, like Erasmus and — what is it? — Copper Nickers? Where do they get all these funny names from?’
‘It’s not a novel, dear. It’s a history.’
‘I’m very disappointed to hear that. I used to know a man who wrote novels. Very nice man, he was, too. He fixed my wardrobe for me.’
‘Thank you. And you, lady, what did you think about it?’
‘That last bit was very very perverted to my way of thinking. I mean. All this genetic alteration stuff? I mean. We don’t need it. We don’t want none of this H.G. Wells Brave New World business. Settle for the perfeckly good genes you got, that’s what I say.’
‘But medical science would say, if you have bad genes, then—’
‘That’s your bad luck, isn’t it? But I liked the funny bits of the programme. Very good. Well put together. Excellent, I think. I even enjoyed the perverted bits. But my little boy was rather scared. They shouldn’t put these things on. I mean.’
‘Thank you. You, sir, ‘scuse me, what is your opinion?’
‘Excellent programme. It makes you realise how far we have advanced. Extracting the energy from sea water, for instance. That was excellent. Those scientists who claimed that one bucketful would do to run a Slo-Mo for fifty miles. Or was it five? And all the space stuff was excellent. I wonder why we haven’t heard from the guys on Europa for so long. Hope they’re not dead.’
‘Many thanks . . . Oh, and here comes an android of old-fashioned design! Let’s see what he has to say, shall we? Hello, what is your name?’
‘My name is Fritz. AAI 5592.’
‘Have you any opinions on theHistory of Western Science?’
‘All the progress of the world is owed to capitalism. It’s capitalism causing Europe to be destroyed by the ruined climate.’
‘You think that is a good thing?’
‘Geology is good. It is made of rock. Air is not made of rock, which makes it unstable. The difference is interesting.’
‘That’s not got much to do with capitalism.’
‘Naturally. Because rock was invented first. Even a human knows that. But air is a problem because it can move so fast.’
‘Um, thanks, Fritz. Goodbye.’
‘Yes, buy us some coffee.’
‘Goodbye . . . Sir, excuse me! You look rather harassed. How did you like the programme?’
‘I’m trying to flag down a taxi. I’m Professor Daniel Potts of—’
‘Oh, wow! Your son is Ol
duvai Potts, a famous name!’
‘I am not exactly unknown in my own right, young lady! I tend to side with these messages from the Insanatics, whoever they may be. The government is now trying to suppress them under some idiotic new wartime act. There’s proof—’
‘And the science series, sir, what about that?’
‘Well then, let’s just take one fact discussed on the programme. Phenomenally rapid growth of the human skull. Brain capacity has absolutely soared, from approximately five hundred cubic centimetres just four million years ago to fifteen hundred cubic centimetres today. That argues a hastily jerry-built brain, with some very dubious structuring. It’s as if you engaged a blind amateur to build you a house, and he, without thinking—’
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