The Rediscovery of Man - The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith - Illustrated

by Cordwainer Smith

  Another technician came up with a shaving bowl, a brush, and a straight razor. Under the gaze of Gauck’s deadly eyes he shaved an area four centimeters square on the top of Rogov’s head.

  Cherpas herself then took over. She set her husband’s head in the clamp and used a micrometer to get the skullfittings so tight and so clear that the needle would push through the dura mater at exactly the right point.

  All this work she did deftly with kind, very strong fingers. She was gentle, but she was firm. She was his wife, but she was also his fellow scientist and his fellow colleague in the Soviet State.

  She stepped back and looked at her work. She gave him one of their own very special smiles, the secret gay smiles which they usually exchanged with each other only when they were alone. “You won’t want to do this every day. We’re going to have to find some way of getting into the brain without using this needle. But it won’t hurt you.”

  “Does it matter if it does hurt?” said Rogov. “This is the triumph of all our work. Bring it down.”

  Gausgofer looked as though she would like to be invited to take part in the experiment, but she dared not interrupt Cherpas. Cherpas, her eyes gleaming with attention, reached over and pulled down the handle, which brought the tough needle to within a tenth of a millimeter of the right place.

  Rogov spoke very carefully. “All I felt was a little sting. You can turn the power on now.”

  Gausgofer could not contain herself. Timidly she addressed Cherpas. “May I turn on the power?”

  Cherpas nodded. Gauck watched. Rogov waited. Gausgofer pulled down the bayonet switch.

  The power went on.

  With an impatient twist of her hand, Anastasia Cherpas ordered the laboratory attendants to the other end of the room. Two or three of them had stopped working and were staring at Rogov, staring like dull sheep. They looked embarrassed and then they huddled in a white-smocked herd at the other end of the laboratory.

  The wet May wind blew in on all of them. The scent of forest and leaves was about them.

  The three watched Rogov.

  Rogov’s complexion began to change. His face became flushed. His breathing was so loud and heavy they could hear it several meters away. Cherpas fell on her knees in front of him, eyebrows lifted in mute inquiry.

  Rogov did not dare nod, not with a needle in his brain. He said through Hushed lips, speaking thickly and heavily, “Do—not—stop—now.”

  Rogov himself did not know what was happening. He thought he might see an American room, or a Russian room, or a tropical colony. He might see palm trees, or forests, or desks. He might see guns or buildings, washrooms or beds, hospitals, homes, churches. He might see with the eyes of a child, a woman, a man, a soldier, a philosopher, a slave, a worker, a savage, a religious one, a Communist, a reactionary, a governor, a policeman. He might hear voices; he might hear English, or French, or Russian, Swahili, Hindu, Malay, Chinese, Ukrainian, Armenian, Turkish, Greek. He did not know.

  Something strange was happening.

  It seemed to him that he had left the world, that he had left time. The hours and the centuries shrank up as the meters and the machine, unchecked, reached out for the most powerful signal which any humankind had transmitted. Rogov did not know it, but the machine had conquered time.

  The machine reached the dance, the human challenger, and the dance festival of the year that was not A.D. 13,582, but which might have been.

  Before Rogov’s eyes the golden shape and the golden steps shook and fluttered in a ritual a thousand times more compelling than hypnotism. The rhythms meant nothing and everything to him. This was Russia, this was Communism. This was his life—indeed it was his soul acted out before his very eyes.

  For a second, the last second of his ordinary life, he looked through flesh-and-blood eyes and saw the shabby woman whom he had once thought beautiful. He saw Anastasia Cherpas, and he did not care.

  His vision concentrated once again on the dancing image, this woman, those postures, that dance!

  Then the sound came in—music which would have made a Tchaikovsky weep, orchestras which would have silenced Shostakovich or Khachaturian forever, so much did it surpass the music of the twentieth century.

  The people-who-were-not-people between the stars had taught mankind many arts. Rogov’s mind was the best of its time, but his time was far, far behind the time of the great dance. With that one vision Rogov went firmly and completely mad. He became blind to the sight of Cherpas, Gausgofer, and Gauck. He forgot the village of Ya. Ch. He forgot himself. He was like a fish, bred in stale fresh water, which is thrown for the first time into a living stream. He was like an insect emerging from the chrysalis. His twentieth-century mind could not hold the imagery and the impact of the music and the dance.

  But the needle was there and the needle transmitted into his mind more than his mind could stand.

  The synapses of his brain flicked like switches. The future flooded into him.

  He fainted. Cherpas leapt forward and lifted the needle. Rogov fell out of the chair.

  V

  It was Gauck who got the doctors. By nightfall they had Rogov resting comfortably and under heavy sedation. There were two doctors, both from the military headquarters. Gauck had obtained authorization for their services by dint of a direct telephone call to Moscow.

  Both the doctors were annoyed. The senior one never stopped grumbling at Cherpas.

  “You should not have done it, Comrade Cherpas. Comrade Rogov should not have done it either. You can’t go around sticking things into brains. That’s a medical problem. None of you people are doctors of medicine. It’s all right for you to contrive devices with the prisoners, but you can’t inflict things like this on Soviet scientific personnel. I’m going to get blamed because I can’t bring Rogov back. You heard what he was saying. All he did was mutter, ‘That golden shape on the golden steps, that music, that me is a true me, that golden shape, that golden shape, I want to be with that golden shape,’ and rubbish like that. Maybe you’ve ruined a first-class brain forever—” He stopped himself short as though he had said too much. After all, the problem was a security problem and apparently both Gauck and Gausgofer represented the security agencies.

  Gausgofer turned her watery eyes on the doctor and said in a low, even, unbelievably poisonous voice, “Could she have done it, Comrade Doctor?”

  The doctor looked at Cherpas, answering Gausgofer. “How? You were there. I wasn’t. How could she have done it? Why should she do it? You were there.”

  Cherpas said nothing. Her lips were compressed tight with grief. Her yellow hair gleamed, but her hair was all that remained, at that moment, of her beauty. She was frightened and she was getting ready to be sad. She had no time to hate foolish women or to worry about security; she was concerned with her colleague, her lover, her husband, Rogov.

  There was nothing much for them to do except to wait. They went into a large room and tried to eat.

  The servants had laid out immense dishes of cold sliced meat, pots of caviar, and an assortment of sliced breads, pure butter genuine coffee, and liquors.

  None of them ate much.

  They were all waiting.

  At 9:15 the sound of rotors beat against the house.

  The big helicopter had arrived from Moscow.

  Higher authorities took over.

  VI

  The higher authority was a deputy minister, a man by the name of V. Karper.

  Karper was accompanied by two or three uniformed colonels, by an engineer civilian, by a man from the headquarters of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and by two doctors.

  They dispensed with the courtesies. Karper merely said, “You are Cherpas. I have met you. You are Gausgofer. I have seen your reports. You are Gauck.”

  The delegation went into Rogov’s bedroom. Karper snapped, “Wake him.”

  The military doctor who had given him sedatives said “Comrade, you mustn’t—”

  Karper cut him off. “Shut
up.” He turned to his own physician, pointed at Rogov. “Wake him up.”

  The doctor from Moscow talked briefly with the senior military doctor. He too began shaking his head. He gave Karper a disturbed look. Karper guessed what he might hear. He said, “Go ahead. I know there is some danger to the patient, but I’ve got to get back to Moscow with a report.”

  The two doctors worked over Rogov. One of them asked for his bag and gave Rogov an injection. Then all of them stood back from the bed.

  Rogov writhed in his bed. He squirmed. His eyes opened, but he did not see them. With childishly clear and simple words Rogov began to talk: “…that golden shape, the golden stairs, the music, take me back to the music, I want to be with the music, I really am the music…” and so on in an endless monotone.

  Cherpas leaned over him so that her face was directly in his line of vision. “My darling! My darling, wake up. This is serious.”

  It was evident to all of them that Rogov did not hear her, because he went on muttering about golden shapes.

  For the first time in many years Gauck took the initiative. He spoke directly to the man from Moscow. Karper. “Comrade, may I make a suggestion?”

  Karper looked at him. Gauck nodded at Gausgofer. “We were both sent here by orders of Comrade Stalin. She is senior. She bears the responsibility. All I do is double-check.”

  The deputy minister turned to Gausgofer. Gausgofer had been staring at Rogov on the bed; her blue, watery eyes were tearless and her face was drawn into an expression of extreme tension.

  Karper ignored that and said to her firmly, clearly, commandingly. “What do you recommend?”

  Gausgofer looked at him very directly and said in a measured voice, “I do not think that the case is one of brain damage. I believe that he has obtained a communication which he must share with another human being and that unless one of us follows him there may be no answer.”

  Karper barked, “Very well. But what do we do?”

  “Let me follow—into the machine.”

  Anastasia Cherpas began to laugh slyly and frantically. She seized Karper’s arm and pointed her finger at Gausgofer. Karper stared at her.

  Cherpas slowed down her laughter and shouted at Karper, “The woman’s mad. She has loved my husband for many years. She has hated my presence, and now she thinks that she can save him. She thinks that she can follow. She thinks that he wants to communicate with her. That’s ridiculous. I will go myself!”

  Karper looked about. He selected two of his staff and stepped over into a corner of the room. They could hear him talking, but they could not distinguish the words. After a conference of six or seven minutes he returned.

  “You people have been making serious security charges against each other. I find that one of our finest weapons, the mind of Rogov, is damaged. Rogov’s not just a man. He is a Soviet project.” Scorn entered his voice. “I find that the senior security officer, a policewoman with a notable record, is charged by another Soviet scientist with a silly infatuation. I disregard such charges. The development of the Soviet State and the work of Soviet science cannot be impeded by personalities. Comrade Gausgofer will follow. I am acting tonight because my own staff physician says that Rogov may not live and it is very important for us to find out just what has happened to him and why.”

  He turned his baneful gaze on Cherpas. “You will not protest, Comrade. Your mind is the property of the Russian State. Your life and your education have been paid for by the workers. You cannot throw these things away because of personal sentiment. If there is anything to be found Comrade Gausgofer will find it for both of us.”

  The whole group of them went back into the laboratory. The frightened technicians were brought over from the barracks. The lights were turned on and the windows were closed. The May wind had become chilly.

  The needle was sterilized.

  The electronic grids were warmed up.

  Gausgofer’s face was an impassive mask of triumph as she sat in the receiving chair. She smiled at Gauck as an attendant brought the soap and the razor to shave a clean patch on her scalp.

  Gauck did not smile back. His black eyes stared at her. He said nothing. He did nothing. He watched.

  Karper walked to and fro, glancing from time to time at the hasty but orderly preparation of the experiment.

  Anastasia Cherpas sat down at a laboratory table about five meters away from the group. She watched the back of Gausgofer’s head as the needle was lowered. She buried her face in her hands. Some of the others thought they heard her weeping, but no one heeded Cherpas very much. They were too intent on watching Gausgofer.

  Gausgofer’s face became red. Perspiration poured down the flabby cheeks. Her fingers tightened on the arm of her chair.

  Suddenly she shouted at them, “That golden shape on the golden steps.”

  She leapt to her feet, dragging the apparatus with her.

  No one had expected this. The chair fell to the floor. The needle holder, lifted from the floor, swung its weight sidewise. The needle twisted like a scythe in Gausgofer’s brain. Neither Rogov nor Cherpas had ever expected a struggle within the chair. They did not know that they were going to tune in on A.D. 13,582.

  The body of Gausgofer lay on the floor, surrounded by excited officials.

  Karper was acute enough to look around at Cherpas.

  She stood up from the laboratory table and walked toward him. A thin line of blood flowed down from her cheekbone. Another line of blood dripped down from a position on her cheek, one and a half centimeters forward of the opening of her left ear.

  With tremendous composure, her face as white as fresh snow, she smiled at him. “I eavesdropped.”

  Karper said, “What?”

  “I eavesdropped, eavesdropped,” repeated Anastasia Cherpas. “I found out where my husband has gone. It is not somewhere in this world. It is something hypnotic beyond all the limitations of our science. We have made a great gun, but the gun has fired upon us before we could fire it. You may think you will change my mind, Comrade Deputy Minister, but you will not.

  “I know what has happened. My husband is never coming back. And I am not going any further forward without him.

  “Project Telescope is finished. You may try to get someone else to finish it, but you will not.”

  Karper stared at her and then turned aside.

  Gauck stood in his way.

  “What do you want?” snapped Karper.

  “To tell you,” said Gauck very softly, “to tell you. Comrade Deputy Minister, that Rogov is gone as she says he is gone, that she is finished if she says she is finished, that all this is true. I know.”

  Karper glared at him. “How do you know?”

  Gauck remained utterly impassive. With superhuman assurance and perfect calm he said to Karper, “Comrade, I do not dispute the matter. I know these people, though I do not know their science. Rogov is done for.”

  At lust Karper believed him. Karper sat down in a chair beside a table. He looked up at his staff. “Is it possible?”

  No one answered.

  “I ask you, is it possible?”

  They all looked at Anastasia Cherpas, at her beautiful hair, her determined blue eyes, and the two thin lines of blood where she had eavesdropped with small needles.

  Karper turned to her. “What do we do now?”

  For an answer she dropped to her knees and began sobbing, “No, no, not Rogov! No, no, not Rogov!”

  And that was all that they could get out of her. Gauck looked on.

  On the golden steps in the golden light, a golden shape danced a dream beyond the limits of all imagination, danced and drew the music to herself until a sigh of yearning, yearning which became a hope and a torment, went through the hearts of living things on a thousand worlds.

  Edges of the golden scene faded raggedly and unevenly into black. The gold dimmed down to a pale gold-silver sheen and then to silver, last of all to white. The dancer who had been golden was now a forlorn white-pink figu
re standing, quiet and fatigued, on the immense white steps. The applause of a thousand worlds roared in upon her.

  She looked blindly at them. The dance had overwhelmed her, too. Their applause could mean nothing. The dance was an end in itself. She would have to live, somehow, until she danced again.

  War No. 81-Q (Rewritten Version)

  For a few brief happy centuries, war was made into an enormous game. Then the world population passed the thirty-billion point, Acting Chief Minister Chatterji presented the “Rightful Proportions” formula to the world authorities, and war turned from a game into realities. When it was over, hideous new creepers covered the wreckage of cities, saints and morons camped in the overpasses of disused highways, and a few man-hunting machines scoured the world in search of surviving weapons.

  I

  Long before real war set mankind back a thousand ages, the nations played with their formulae of “safe war.” Wars were easily declared, safely fought, won or lost with noblesse oblige, and accepted as decisive. Wars were rare enough to sweep all other events from the television screens, beautiful enough to warrant the utmost in scenic decoration, and tough enough to call for champions with perfect eyesight and no nerves at all. The weapons were dirigibles armed with missiles, countermissiles, and feinting screens; they had been revived because they were slow enough to show well on the viewscreens, hard enough to demand a skillful fight. A whole class of warriors developed to manage these—men who trained on the ski-slopes and underwater beaches of the world’s resorts and who then, tanned and fit, sat in control rooms and managed the ships from their own home bases. The kinescopes were paired up so that pictures of the battle alternated with scenes of the warriors sitting in their controls, the foreheads wrinkled with worry, their gasps of dismay or smiles of triumph showing plainly, and the whole drama of human emotion revealed in their performance of a licensed war.

  War came near between Tibet and America.

  Tibet had been liberated from the Goonhogo, the central Chinese government, only with generous American help and with the threat (was it bluff? was it death?) trembling in the rocket pits around Lake Erie. No one ever found out whether the Americans would have risked real war, because the Chinese did not force a show of strength. The Americans had been supported by the Reunion of India and the Federated Congos on the floor of the world assembly, and there were political debts to be settled when the Tibetan liberation came true. The Congo asked for support on Saharan claims, which was easy enough, since this was a matter of voting in the assembly, but the Reunion of India asked for the largest solar power-collector, to reach eighty miles along the southern crest of the Himalayas. The Americans hesitated, and then built it under lease from Tibet, keeping title in their own hands. Just before the first surges of power were due to pour down into the Bengal plains, Tibetan soldiers entered the control rooms with a warrant from the Tibetan ministry of the interior seizing the plant, Tibetan technicians hooked in new cables which had been flown from the Goonhogo base at Teli in Yünnan, and the Tibetans announced they had leased the entire power output to their recent enemies, the Goonhogo of China.