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

by Cordwainer Smith

  The Ballad of Lost C’mell

  She got the which of the what-she-did,

  Hid the bell with a blot, she did,

  But she fell in love with a hominid.

  Where is the which of the what-she-did?

  from THE BALLAD OF LOST C’MELL

  She was a girlygirl and they were true men, the lords of creation, but she pitted her wits against them and she won. It had never happened before, and it is sure never to happen again, but she did win. She was not even of human extraction. She was cat-derived, though human in outward shape, which explains the C in front of her name. Her father’s name was C’mackintosh and her name C’mell. She won her tricks against the lawful and assembled Lords of the Instrumentality.

  It all happened at Earthport, greatest of buildings, smallest of cities, standing twenty-five kilometers high at the western edge of the Smaller Sea of Earth.

  Jestocost had an office outside the fourth valve.

  I

  Jestocost liked the morning sunshine, while most of the other Lords of the Instrumentality did not, so that he had no trouble in keeping the office and the apartments which he had selected. His main office was ninety meters deep, twenty meters high, twenty meters broad. Behind it was the “fourth valve,” almost a thousand hectares in extent. It was shaped helically, like an enormous snail. Jestocost’s apartment, big as it was, was merely one of the pigeonholes in the muffler of the rim of Earthport. Earthport stood like an enormous wineglass, reaching from the magma to the high atmosphere.

  Earthport had been built during mankind’s biggest mechanical splurge. Though men had had nuclear rockets since the beginning of consecutive history, they had used chemical rockets to load the interplanetary ion-drive and nuclear-drive vehicles or to assemble the photonic sail-ships for interstellar cruises. Impatient with the troubles of taking things bit by bit into the sky, they had worked out a billion-ton rocket, only to find that it ruined whatever countryside it touched in landing. The Daimoni—people of Earth extraction, who came back from somewhere beyond the stars—had helped men build it of weatherproof, rustproof, timeproof, stressproof material. Then they had gone away and had never come back.

  Jestocost often looked around his apartment and wondered what it might have been like when white-hot gas, muted to a whisper, surged out of the valve into his own chamber and the sixty-three other chambers like it. Now he had a back wall of heavy timber, and the valve itself was a great hollow cave where a few wild things lived. Nobody needed that much space any more. The chambers were useful, but the valve did nothing. Planoforming ships whispered in from the stars; they landed at Earthport as a matter of legal convenience, but they made no noise and they certainly had no hot gases.

  Jestocost looked at the high clouds far below him and talked to himself, “Nice day. Good air. No trouble. Better eat.”

  Jestocost often talked like that to himself. He was an individual, almost an eccentric. One of the top council of mankind, he had problems, but they were not personal problems. He had a Rembrandt hanging above his bed—the only Rembrandt known in the world, just as he was possibly the only person who could appreciate a Rembrandt. He had the tapestries of a forgotten empire hanging from his back wall. Every morning the sun played a grand opera for him, muting and lighting and shifting the colors so that he could almost imagine that the old days of quarrel, murder, and high drama had come back to Earth again. He had a copy of Shakespeare, a copy of Colegrove, and two pages of the Book of Ecclesiastes in a locked box beside his bed. Only forty-two people in the universe could read Ancient English, and he was one of them. He drank wine, which he had made by his own robots in his own vineyards on the Sunset Coast. He was a man, in short, who had arranged his own life to live comfortably, selfishly, and well on the personal side, so that he could give generously and impartially of his talents on the official side.

  When he awoke on this particular morning, he had no idea that a beautiful girl was about to fall hopelessly in love with him—that he would find, after a hundred years and more of experience in government, another government on Earth just as strong and almost as ancient as his own—that he would willingly fling himself into conspiracy and danger for a cause which he only half understood. All these things were mercifully hidden from him by time, so that his only question on arising was, should he or should he not have a small cup of white wine with his breakfast. On the one hundred seventy-third day of each year, he always made a point of eating eggs. They were a rare treat, and he did not want to spoil himself by having too many, nor to deprive himself and forget a treat by having none at all. He puttered around the room, muttering, “White wine? White wine?”

  C’mell was coming into his life, but he did not know it. She was fated to win; that part, she herself did not know.

  Ever since mankind had gone through the Rediscovery of Man, bringing back governments, money, newspapers, national languages, sickness, and occasional death, there had been the problem of the underpeople—people who were not human, but merely humanly shaped from the stock of Earth animals. They could speak, sing, read, write, work, love, and die; but they were not covered by human law, which simply defined them as “homunculi” and gave them a legal status close to animals or robots. Real people from offworld were always called “hominids.”

  Most of the underpeople did their jobs and accepted their half-slave status without question. Some became famous—C’mackintosh had been the first Earth-being to manage a fifty-meter broad-jump under normal gravity. His picture was seen in a thousand worlds. His daughter, C’mell, was a girlygirl, earning her living by welcoming human beings and hominids from the outworlds and making them feel at home when they reached Earth. She had the privilege of working at Earthport, but she had the duty of working very hard for a living which did not pay well. Human beings and hominids had lived so long in an affluent society that they did not know what it meant to be poor. But the Lords of the Instrumentality had decreed that underpeople—derived from animal stock—should live under the economics of the Ancient World; they had to have their own kind of money to pay for their rooms, their food, their possessions, and the education of their children. If they became bankrupt, they went to the Poorhouse, where they were killed painlessly by means of gas.

  It was evident that humanity, having settled all of its own basic problems, was not quite ready to let Earth animals, no matter how much they might be changed, assume a full equality with man.

  The Lord Jestocost, seventh of that name, opposed the policy. He was a man who had little love, no fear, freedom from ambition, and a dedication to his job: but there are passions of government as deep and challenging as the emotions of love. Two hundred years of thinking himself right and of being outvoted had instilled in Jestocost a furious desire to get things done his own way.

  Jestocost was one of the few true men who believed in the rights of the underpeople. He did not think that mankind would ever get around to correcting ancient wrongs unless the underpeople themselves had some of the tools of power—weapons, conspiracy, wealth, and (above all) organization with which to challenge man. He was not afraid of revolt, but he thirsted for justice with an obsessive yearning which overrode all other considerations.

  When the Lords of the Instrumentality heard that there was the rumor of a conspiracy among the underpeople, they left it to the robot police to ferret it out.

  Jestocost did not.

  He set up his own police, using underpeople themselves for the purpose, hoping to recruit enemies who would realize that he was a friendly enemy and who would in course of time bring him into touch with the leaders of the underpeople.

  If those leaders existed, they were clever. What sign did a girlygirl like C’mell ever give that she was the spearhead of a crisscross of agents who had penetrated Earthport itself? They must, if they existed, be very, very careful. The telepathic monitors, both robotic and human, kept every thought-band under surveillance by random sampling. Even the computers showed nothing more significa
nt than improbable amounts of happiness in minds which had no objective reason for being happy.

  The death of her father, the most famous cat-athlete which the underpeople had ever produced, gave Jestocost his first definite clue.

  He went to the funeral himself, where the body was packed in an ice-rocket to be shot into space. The mourners were thoroughly mixed with the curiosity-seekers. Sport is international, inter-race, inter-world, inter-species. Hominids were there: true men, one hundred percent human, they looked weird and horrible because they or their ancestors had undergone bodily modifications to meet the life conditions of a thousand worlds.

  Underpeople, the animal-derived “homunculi,” were there, most of them in their work clothes, and they looked more human than did the human beings from the outer worlds. None were allowed to grow up if they were less than half the size of man, or more than six times the size of man. They all had to have human features and acceptable human voices. The punishment for failure in their elementary schools was death. Jestocost looked over the crowd and wondered to himself, “We have set up the standards of the toughest kind of survival for these people and we give them the most terrible incentive, life itself, as the condition of absolute progress. What fools we are to think that they will not overtake us!” The true people in the group did not seem to think as he did. They tapped the underpeople peremptorily with their canes, even though this was an underperson’s funeral, and the bear-men, bull-men, cat-men, and others yielded immediately and with a babble of apology.

  C’mell was close to her father’s icy coffin.

  Jestocost not only watched her; she was pretty to watch. He committed an act which was an indecency in an ordinary citizen but lawful for a Lord of the Instrumentality: he peeped her mind.

  And then he found something which he did not expect.

  As the coffin left, she cried, “Ee-telly-kelly, help me! help me!”

  She had thought phonetically, not in script, and he had only the raw sound on which to base a search.

  Jestocost had not become a Lord of the Instrumentality without applying daring. His mind was quick, too quick to be deeply intelligent. He thought by gestalt, not by logic. He determined to force his friendship on the girl.

  He decided to await a propitious occasion, and then changed his mind about the time.

  As she went home from the funeral, he intruded upon the circle of her grim-faced friends, underpeople who were trying to shield her from the condolences of ill-mannered but well-meaning sports enthusiasts.

  She recognized him, and showed him the proper respect.

  “My Lord, I did not expect you here. You knew my father?”

  He nodded gravely and addressed sonorous words of consolation and sorrow, words which brought a murmur of approval from humans and underpeople alike.

  But with his left hand hanging slack at his side, he made the perpetual signal of alarm! alarm! used with the Earthport staff—a repeated tapping of the thumb against the third finger—when they had to set one another on guard without alerting the offworld transients.

  She was so upset that she almost spoiled it all. While he was still doing his pious doubletalk, she cried in a loud clear voice:

  “You mean me?”

  And he went on with his condolences: “…and I do mean you, C’mell, to be the worthiest carrier of your father’s name. You are the one to whom we turn in this time of common sorrow. Who could I mean but you if I say that C’mackintosh never did things by halves, and died young as a result of his own zealous conscience? Good-bye, C’mell, I go back to my office.”

  She arrived forty minutes after he did.

  II

  He faced her straightaway, studying her face.

  “This is an important day in your life.”

  “Yes, my Lord, a sad one.”

  “I do not,” he said, “mean your father’s death and burial. I speak of the future to which we all must turn. Right now, it’s you and me.”

  Her eyes widened. She had not thought that he was that kind of man at all. He was an official who moved freely around Earthport, often greeting important offworld visitors and keeping an eye on the bureau of ceremonies. She was a part of the reception team, when a girlygirl was needed to calm down a frustrated arrival or to postpone a quarrel. Like the geisha of ancient Japan, she had an honorable profession; she was not a bad girl but a professionally flirtatious hostess. She stared at the Lord Jestocost. He did not look as though he meant anything improperly personal. But, thought she, you can never tell about men.

  “You know men,” he said, passing the initiative to her.

  “I guess so,” she said. Her face looked odd. She started to give him smile No. 3 (extremely adhesive) which she had learned in the girlygirl school. Realizing it was wrong, she tried to give him an ordinary smile. She felt she had made a face at him.

  “Look at me,” he said, “and see if you can trust me. I am going to take both our lives in my hands.”

  She looked at him. What imaginable subject could involve him, a Lord of the Instrumentality, with herself, an undergirl? They never had anything in common. They never would.

  But she stared at him.

  “I want to help the underpeople.”

  He made her blink. That was a crude approach, usually followed by a very raw kind of pass indeed. But his face was illuminated by seriousness. She waited.

  “Your people do not have enough political power even to talk to us. I will not commit treason to the true human race, but I am willing to give your side an advantage. If you bargain better with us, it will make all forms of life safer in the long run.”

  C’mell stared at the floor, her red hair soft as the fur of a Persian cat. It made her head seem bathed in flames. Her eyes looked human, except that they had the capacity of reflecting when light struck them; the irises were the rich green of the ancient cat. When she looked right at him, looking up from the floor, her glance had the impact of a blow. “What do you want from me?”

  He stared right back. “Watch me. Look at my face. Are you sure, sure that I want nothing from you personally?”

  She looked bewildered. “What else is there to want from me except personal things? I am a girlygirl. I’m not a person of any importance at all, and I do not have much of an education. You know more, sir, than I will ever know.”

  “Possibly,” he said, watching her.

  She stopped feeling like a girlygirl and felt like a citizen. It made her uncomfortable.

  “Who,” he said, in a voice of great solemnity, “is your own leader?”

  “Commissioner Teadrinker, sir. He’s in charge of all outworld visitors.” She watched Jestocost carefully; he still did not look as if he were playing tricks.

  He looked a little cross. “I don’t mean him. He’s part of my own staff. Who’s your leader among the underpeople?”

  “My father was, but he died.”

  Jestocost said, “Forgive me. Please have a seat. But I don’t mean that.”

  She was so tired that she sat down into the chair with an innocent voluptuousness which would have disorganized any ordinary man’s day. She wore girlygirl clothes, which were close enough to the everyday fashion to seem agreeably modish when she stood up. In line with her profession, her clothes were designed to be unexpectedly and provocatively revealing when she sat down—not revealing enough to shock the man with their brazenness, but so slit, tripped, and cut that he got far more visual stimulation than he expected.

  “I must ask you to pull your clothing together a little,” said Jestocost in a clinical turn of voice. “I am a man, even if I am an official, and this interview is more important to you and to me than any distraction would be.”

  She was a little frightened by his tone. She had meant no challenge. With the funeral that day, she meant nothing at all; these clothes were the only kind she had.

  He read all this in her face.

  Relentlessly, he pursued the subject.

  “Young lady, I asked about your
leader. You name your boss and you name your father. I want your leader.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, on the edge of a sob. “I don’t understand.”

  Then, he thought to himself, I’ve got to take a gamble. He thrust the mental dagger home, almost drove his words like steel straight into her face. “Who…” he said slowly and icily, “is…Ee…telly…kelly?”

  The girl’s face had been cream-colored, pale with sorrow. Now she went white. She twisted away from him. Her eyes glowed like twin fires.

  Her eyes…like twin fires.

  (No undergirl, thought Jestocost as he reeled, could hypnotize me.)

  Her eyes…were like cold fires.

  The room faded around him. The girl disappeared. Her eyes became a single white, cold fire.

  Within this fire stood the figure of a man. His arms were wings, but he had human hands growing at the elbows of his wings. His face was clear, white, cold as the marble of an ancient statue; his eyes were opaque white. “I am the E’telekeli. You will believe in me. You may speak to my daughter C’mell.”

  The image faded.

  Jestocost saw the girl staring as she sat awkwardly on the chair, looking blindly through him. He was on the edge of making a joke about her hypnotic capacity when he saw that she was still deeply hypnotized even after he had been released. She had stiffened and again her clothing had fallen into its planned disarray. The effect was not stimulating; it was pathetic beyond words, as though an accident had happened to a pretty child. He spoke to her.

  He spoke to her, not really expecting an answer.

  “Who are you?” he said to her, testing her hypnosis.

  “I am he whose name is never said aloud,” said the girl in a sharp whisper. “I am he whose secret you have penetrated. I have printed my image and my name in your mind.”

  Jestocost did not quarrel with ghosts like this. He snapped out a decision. “If I open my mind, will you search it while I watch you? Are you good enough to do that?”