“You’re safe, Elaine, you’re safe,” said Charley-is-my-darling, his sly smile very warm and his smooth voice carrying the ring of sincere conviction. For himself, he did not believe a word of it. He thought they were all in danger, but there was no point in terrifying Elaine. Elaine was the only real person on their side, except for the Hunter, who was a strange one, almost like an animal himself, and for the Lady Panc Ashash, who was very benign, but who was, after all, a dead person. He was frightened himself, but he was afraid of fear. Perhaps they were all doomed.
In a way, he was right.
VII
The Lady Arabella Underwood had called the Lady Goroke.
“Something has tampered with my mind.”
The Lady Goroke felt very shocked. She threw back the inquiry. Put a probe on it.
“I did. Nothing.”
Nothing?
More shock for the Lady Goroke. Sound the alert, then.
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no. It was a friendly, nice tampering.” The Lady Arabella Underwood, being an Old North Australian, was rather formal: she always thought full words at her friends, even in telepathic contact. She never sent mere raw ideas.
But that’s utterly unlawful. You’re part of the Instrumentality. It’s a crime! thought the Lady Goroke.
She got a giggle for reply.
You laugh…? she inquired.
“I just thought a new Lord might be here. From the Instrumentality. Having a look at me.”
The Lady Goroke was very proper and easily shocked. We wouldn’t do that!
The Lady Arabella thought to herself but did not transmit, “Not to you, my dear. You’re a blooming prude.” To the other she transmitted, “Forget it then.”
Puzzled and worried, the Lady Goroke thought: Well, all right. Break?
“Right-ho. Break.”
The Lady Goroke frowned to herself. She slapped her wall. Planet Central, she thought at it.
A mere man sat at a desk.
“I am the Lady Goroke,” she said.
“Of course, my Lady,” he replied.
“Police fever, one degree. One degree only. Till rescinded. Clear?”
“Clear, my Lady. The entire planet?”
“Yes.” she said.
“Do you wish to give a reason?” His voice was respectful and routine.
“Must I?”
“Of course not, my Lady.”
“None given, then. Close.”
He saluted and his image faded from the wall.
She raised her mind to the level of a light clear call. Instrumentality Only—Instrumentality Only. I have raised the police fever level one degree by command. Reason, personal disquiet. You know my voice. You know me. Goroke.
Far across the city—a police ornithopter flapped slowly down the street.
The police robot was photographing a sweeper, the most elaborately malfunctioning sweeper he had ever seen.
The sweeper raced down the road at unlawful speeds, approaching three hundred kilometers an hour, stopped with a sizzle of plastic on stone, and began picking dust-motes off the pavement.
When the ornithopter reached it, the sweeper look off again, rounded two or three corners at tremendous speed, and then settled down to its idiot job.
The third time this happened, the robot in the ornithopter put a disabling slug through it, flew down, and picked it up with the claws of his machine.
He saw it in close view.
“Birdbrain. Old model. Birdbrain. Good they don’t use those any more. The thing could have hurt a Man. Now, I’m printed from a mouse, a real mouse with lots and lots of brains.”
He flew toward the central junkyard with the wornout sweeper. The sweeper, crippled but still conscious, was trying to pick dust off the iron claws which held it.
Below them, the Old City twisted out of sight with its odd geometrical lights. The New City, bathed in its soft perpetual glow, shone out against the night of Fomalhaut III. Beyond them, the everlasting ocean boiled in its private storms.
On the actual stage the actors cannot do much with the scene of the interlude, where Joan was cooked in a single night from the size of a child five years old to the tallness of a miss fifteen or sixteen. The biological machine did work well, though at the risk of her life. It made her into a vital, robust young person, without changing her mind at all. This is hard for any actress to portray. The storyboxes have the advantage. They can show the machine with all sorts of improvements—flashing lights, bits of lightning, mysterious rays. Actually, it looked like a bathtub full of boiling brown jelly, completely covering Joan.
Elaine, meanwhile, ate hungrily in the palatial room of Englok himself. The food was very, very old, and she had doubts, as a witch, about its nutritional value, but it stilled her hunger. The denizens of Clown Town had declared this room “off limits” to themselves, for reasons which Charley-is-my-darling could not make plain. He stood in the doorway and told her what to do to find food, to activate the bed out of the floor, to open the bathroom. Everything was very old-fashioned and nothing responded to a simple thought or to a mere slap.
A curious thing happened.
Elaine had washed her hands, had eaten, and was preparing for her bath. She had taken most of her clothes off, thinking only that Charley-is-my-darling was an animal, not a man, so that it did not matter.
Suddenly she knew it did matter.
He might be an underperson but he was a man to her. Blushing deeply all the way down to her neck, she ran into the bathroom and called back to him:
“Go away. I will bathe and then sleep. Wake me when you have to, not before.”
“Yes, Elaine.”
“And—and—”
“Yes?”
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much. Do you know, I never said ‘thank you’ to an underperson before.”
“That’s all right,” said Charley-is-my-darling with a smile. “Most real people don’t. Sleep well, my dear Elaine. When you awaken, be ready for great things. We shall take a star out of the skies and shall set thousands of worlds on fire…”
“What’s that?” she said, putting her head around the corner of the bathroom.
“Just a figure of speech,” he smiled. “Just meaning that you won’t have much time. Rest well. Don’t forget to put your clothes in the ladysmaid machine. The ones in Clown Town are all worn out. But since we haven’t used this room, yours ought to work.”
“Which is it?” she said.
“The red lid with the gold handle. Just lift it.” On that domestic note he left her to rest, while he went off and plotted the destiny of a hundred billion lives.
They told her it was mid-morning when she came out of the room of Englok. How could she have known it? The brown-and-yellow corridor, with its gloomy old yellow lights, was just as dim and stench-ridden as ever.
The people all seemed to have changed.
Baby-baby was no longer a mouse-hag, but a woman of considerable force and much tenderness. Crawlie was as dangerous as a human enemy, staring at Elaine, her beautiful face gone bland with hidden hate. Charley-is-my-darling was gay, friendly, and persuasive. She thought she could read expressions on the faces of Orson and the S-woman, odd though their features were.
After she had gotten through some singularly polite greetings, she demanded, “What’s happening now?”
A new voice spoke up—a voice she knew and did not know.
Elaine glanced over at a niche in the wall.
The Lady Panc Ashash! And who was that with her?
Even as she asked herself the question, Elaine knew the answer. It was Joan, grown, only half a head less tall than the Lady Panc Ashash or herself. It was a new Joan, powerful, happy, and quiet; but it was all the dear little old D’joan too.
“Welcome,” said the Lady Panc Ashash, “to our revolution.”
“What’s a revolution?” asked Elaine. “And I thought you couldn’t come in here with all the thought shielding?”
The Lady Panc Ashash lifted a
wire which trailed back from her robot body. “I rigged this up so that I could use the body. Precautions are no use any more. It’s the other side which will need the precautions now. A revolution is a way of changing systems and people. This is one. You go first, Elaine. This way.”
“To die? Is that what you mean?”
The Lady Panc Ashash laughed warmly. “You know me by now. You know my friends here. You know what your own life has been down to now, a useless witch in a world which did not want you. We may die, but it’s what we do before we die that counts. This is Joan going to meet her destiny. You lead as far as the Upper City. Then Joan will lead. And then we shall see.”
“You mean, all these people are going too?” Elaine looked at the ranks of the underpeople, who were beginning to form into two queues down the corridor. The queues bulged wherever mothers led their children by the hand or carried small ones in their arms. Here and there the line was punctuated by a giant underperson.
They have been nothing, thought Elaine, and I was nothing too. Now we are all going to do something, even though we may be terminated for it. “May be,” thought she: “shall be” is the word. But it is worth it if Joan can change the worlds, even a little bit, even for other people.
Joan spoke up. Her voice had grown with her body, but it was the same dear voice which the little dog-girl had had sixteen hours (they seem sixteen years, thought Elaine) ago, when Elaine first met her at the door to the tunnel of Englok.
Joan said, “Love is not something special, reserved for men alone.
“Love is not proud. Love has no real name. Love is for life itself, and we have life.
“We cannot win by fighting. People outnumber us, outgun us, outrun us, outfight us. But people did not create us. Whatever made people, made us too. You all know that, but will we say the name?”
There was a murmur of no and never from the crowd.
“You have waited for me. I have waited too. It is time to die, perhaps, but we will die the way people did in the beginning, before things became easy and cruel for them. They live in a stupor and they die in a dream. It is not a good dream and if they awaken, they will know that we are people too. Are you with me?” They murmured yes. “Do you love me?” Again they murmured agreement. “Shall we go out and meet the day?” They shouted their acclaim.
Joan turned to the Lady Panc Ashash. “Is everything as you wished and ordered?”
“Yes,” said the dear dead woman in the robot body. “Joan first, to lead you. Elaine preceding her, to drive away robots or ordinary underpeople. When you meet real people, you will love them. That is all. You will love them. If they kill you, you will love them. Joan will show you how. Pay no further attention to me. Ready?”
Joan lifted her right hand and said words to herself. The people bowed their heads before her, faces and muzzles and snouts of all sizes and colors. A baby of some kind mewed in a tiny falsetto to the rear.
Just before she turned to lead the procession, Joan turned back to the people and said, “Crawlie, where are you?”
“Here, in the middle,” said a clear, calm voice far back.
“Do you love me now, Crawlie?”
“No, D’joan. I like you less than when you were a little dog. But these are my people too, as well as yours. I am brave. I can walk. I won’t make trouble.”
“Crawlie,” said Joan, “will you love people if we meet them?”
All faces turned toward the beautiful bison-girl. Elaine could just see her, way down the murky corridor. Elaine could see that the girl’s face had turned utter, dead white with emotion. Whether rage or fear, she could not tell.
At last Crawlie spoke, “No, I won’t love people. And I won’t love you. I have my pride.”
Softly, softly, like death itself at a quiet bedside. Joan spoke, “You can stay behind, Crawlie. You can stay here. It isn’t much of a chance, but it’s a chance.”
Crawlie looked at her. “Bad luck to you, dog-woman, and bad luck to the rotten human being up there beside you.”
Elaine stood on tiptoe to see what would happen. Crawlie’s face suddenly disappeared, dropping downward.
The snake woman elbowed her way to the front, stood close to Joan where the others could see her, and sang out in a voice as clear as metal itself:
“Sing ‘poor, poor, Crawlie,’ dear people. Sing ‘I love Crawlie,’ dear people. She is dead. I just killed her so that we would all be full of love. I love you too,” said the S-woman, on whose reptilian features no sign of love or hate could be seen.
Joan spoke up, apparently prompted by the Lady Panc Ashash. “We do love Crawlie, dear people. Think of her and then let us move forward.”
Charley-is-my-darling gave Elaine a little shove. “Here, you lead.”
In a dream, in a bewilderment, Elaine led.
She felt warm, happy, brave when she passed close to the strange Joan, so tall and yet so familiar. Joan gave her a full smile and whispered, “Tell me I’m doing well, human woman. I’m a dog and dogs have lived a million years for the praise of man.”
“You’re right, Joan, you’re completely right! I’m with you. Shall I go now?” responded Elaine.
Joan nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.
Elaine led.
Joan and the Lady Panc Ashash followed, dog and dead woman championing the procession.
The rest of the underpeople followed them in turn, in a double line.
When they made the secret door open, daylight flooded the corridor. Elaine could almost feel the stale odor-ridden air pouring out with them. When she glanced back into the tunnel for the last time, she saw the body of Crawlie lying all alone on the floor.
Elaine herself turned to the steps and began going up them.
No one had yet noticed the procession.
Elaine could hear the wire of the Lady Panc Ashash dragging on the stone and metal of the steps as they climbed.
When she reached the top door, Elaine had a moment of indecision and panic. “This is my life, my life,” she thought. “I have no other. What have I done? Oh, Hunter, Hunter, where are you? Have you betrayed me?”
Said Joan softly behind her, “Go on! Go on. This is a war of love. Keep going.”
Elaine opened the door to the upper street. The roadway was full of people. Three police ornithopters flapped slowly overhead. This was an unusual number. Elaine stopped again.
“Keep walking,” said Joan, “and warn the robots off.”
Elaine advanced and the revolution began.
VIII
The revolution lasted six minutes and covered one hundred and twelve meters.
The police flew over as soon as the underpeople began pouring out of the doorway.
The first one glided in like a big bird, his voice asking, “Identify! Who are you?”
Elaine said, “Go away. That is a command.”
“Identify yourself,” said the bird-like machine, banking steeply with the lens-eyed robot peering at Elaine out of its middle.
“Go away,” said Elaine. “I am a true human and I command.”
The first police ornithopter apparently called to the others by radio. Together they flapped their way down the corridor between the big buildings.
A lot of people had stopped. Most of their faces were blank, a few showing animation or amusement or horror at the sight of so many underpeople all crowded in one place.
Joan’s voice sang out, in the clearest possible enunciation of the Old Common Tongue:
“Dear people, we are people. We love you. We love you.”
The underpeople began to chant love, love, love in a weird plainsong full of sharps and halftones. The true humans shrank back. Joan herself set the example by embracing a young woman of about her own height. Charley-is-my-darling took a human man by the shoulders and shouted at him:
“I love you, my dear fellow! Believe me, I do love you. It’s wonderful meeting you.” The human man was startled by the contact and even more startled by the glowing warmth of
the goat-man’s voice. He stood mouth slack and body relaxed with sheer, utter, and accepted surprise.
Somewhere to the rear a person screamed.
A police ornithopter came flapping back. Elaine could not tell if it was one of the three she had sent away, or a new one altogether. She waited for it to get close enough to hail, so that she could tell it to go away. For the first time, she wondered about the actual physical character of danger. Could the police machine put a slug through her? Or shoot flame at her? Or lift her screaming, carrying her away with its iron claws to some place where she would be pretty and dean and never herself again? “Oh, Hunter, Hunter, where are you now? Have you forgotten me? Have you betrayed me?”
The underpeople were still surging forward and mingling with the real people, clutching them by their hands or their garments, and repeating in the queer medley of voices:
“I love you. Oh, please, I love you! We are people. We are your sisters and brothers…”
The snake-woman wasn’t making much progress. She had seized a human man with her more-than-iron hand. Elaine hadn’t seen her saying anything, but the man had fainted dead away. The snake-woman had him draped over her arm like an empty overcoat and was looking for somebody else to love.
Behind Elaine a low voice said, “He’s coming soon.”
“Who?” said Elaine to the Lady Panc Ashash, knowing perfectly well whom she meant, but not wanting to admit it, and busy with watching the circling ornithopter at the same time.
“The Hunter, of course,” said the robot with the dear dead lady’s voice. “He’ll come for you. You’ll be all right. I’m at the end of my wire. Look away, my dear. They are about to kill me again and I am afraid that the sight would distress you.”
Fourteen robots, foot models, marched with military decision into the crowd. The true humans took heart from this and some of them began to slip away into doorways. Most of the real people were still so surprised that they stood around with the underpeople pawing at them, babbling the accents of love over and over again, the animal origin of their voices showing plainly.
The robot sergeant took no note of this. He approached the Lady Panc Ashash only to find Elaine standing in his way.
The Rediscovery of Man - The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith - Illustrated Page 36
