Robert Silverberg: We Know Who We Are

“We know who we are and what we want to be,” say the people of Shining City whenever they feel particularly uncertain about things. Shining City is at least a thousand years old. It may be even older, but who can be sure? It stands in the middle of a plain of purple sand that stretches from the Lake of No Return to the River Without Fish. It has room for perhaps six hundred thousand people. The recent population of Shining City has been perhaps six hundred people. They know who they are. They know what they want to be.

Things got trickier for them after the girl who was wearing clothes came walking in out of the desert.

Skagg was the first one to see her. He knew immediately that there was something unusual about her, and not just that she was wearing clothes. Anybody who ever goes out walking in the desert puts clothes on, because the heat is fierce—there being no Cool Machine out there—and the sun would roast you fast if you didn’t have some kind of covering, and the sand would blow against you and pick the meat from your bones. But the unusual thing about the girl was her face. It wasn’t a familiar one. Everybody in Shining City knew everybody else, and Skagg didn’t know this girl at all, so she had to be a stranger, and strangers just didn’t exist.

She was more than a child but less than a woman, and her body was slender and her hair was dark, and she walked the way a man would walk, with her arms swinging and her knees coming high and her legs kicking outward. When Skagg saw her he felt afraid, and he had never been afraid of a woman before.

“Hello,” she said. “I speak Language. Do you?”

Her voice was deep and husky, like the wind on a winter day pushing itself between two of the city’s towers. Her accent was odd, and the words came out as if she were holding her tongue in the wrong part of her mouth. But he understood her.

He said, “I speak Language, and I understand what you say. But who are you?”

“Fa Sol La,” she sang.

“Is that your name?”

“That is my name. And yours?”

“Skagg..”

“Do all the people in this city have names like Skagg?”

“I am the only Skagg,” said Skagg. “Where do you come from?”

She pointed eastward. “From a place beside the River Without Fish. Is this Shining City?”

“Yes,” Skagg said.

“Then I am where I want to be.” She unslung the pack that she was carrying over one shoulder and set it down, and then she removed her robe, so that she was as naked as he was. Her skin was very pale, and there was practically no flesh on her. Her breasts were tiny and her buttocks were flat. From where he stood, Skagg could easily have mistaken her for a boy. She picked up the pack again. “Will you take me into your city?” she asked.

They were on the outskirts, in the region of the Empty Buildings. Skagg sometimes went there when he felt that his mind was too full. Tall tapering towers sprouted here. Some were sagging and others had lost their outer trim. Repair Machines no longer functioned in this part of the city.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“To the place where the Knowing Machine is,” said Fa Sol La.

Frowning, he said, “How do you know about the Machine?”

“Everyone in the world knows about the Knowing Machine. I want to see it. I walked all the way from the River Without Fish to see the Knowing Machine. You’ll take me there, won’t you, Skagg?”

He shrugged. “If you want. But you won’t be able to get close to it. You’ll see. You’ve wasted your time.”

They began to walk toward the center of the city.

She moved with such a swinging stride that he had to work hard to keep up with her. Several times she came close to him, so that her hip or thigh brushed his skin, and Skagg felt himself trembling at the strangeness of her. They were silent a long while. The morning sun began to go down and the afternoon sun started to rise, and the double light, blending, cast deceptive shadows and made her body look fuller than it was. Near the Mirror Walls a Drink Machine came up to them and refreshed them. She put her head inside it and gulped as if she had been dry for months, and then she let the fluid run out over her slim body. Not far on a Riding Machine found them and offered to transport them to the center. Skagg gestured to her to get in, but she waved a no at him.

“It’s still a great distance,” he said.

“I’d rather walk. I’ve walked this far, and I’ll walk to the end. I can see things better.”

Skagg sent the machine away. They went on walking. The morning sun disappeared and now only the green light of afternoon illuminated Shining City.

She said, “Do you have a woman, Skagg?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you have a woman, I said.”

“I heard the words. But how does one have a woman? What does it mean?”

“To live with. To sleep with. To share pleasure with. To have children with.”

“We live by ourselves,” he said. “There’s so much room here, why crowd together? We sleep sometimes with others, yes. We share pleasure with everyone. Children rarely come.”

“You have no regular mates here, then?”

“I have trouble understanding. Tell me how it is in your city.”

“In my city,” she said, “a man and a woman live together and do all things together. They need no one else. Sometimes, they realize they do not belong together and then they split up and seek others, but often they have each other for a lifetime.”

“This sounds quite strange,” said Skagg.

“We call it love,” said Fa Sol La.

“We have love here. All of us love all of us. We do things differently, I suppose. Does any man in your city have you, then?”

“No. Not any more. I had a man, but he was too simple for me. And I left and walked to Shining City.”

She frightened him even more, now.

They had started to enter the inhabited part of the city. Behind them were the long stately avenues and massive residential structures of the dead part; ahead lay the core, with its throbbing machines and eating centers and bright lights.

“Are you happy here?” Fa Sol La asked as they stepped between a Cleansing Machine’s pillars and were bathed in blue mist.

“We know who we are,” Skagg said, “and what we want to be. Yes, I think we’re happy.”

“I think you may be wrong,” she said, and laughed, and pressed her body tight up against him a moment, and sprinted ahead of him like something wild.

A Police Machine rose from the pavement and blocked her way. It shot out silvery filaments that hovered around her, ready to clamp close if she made a hostile move. She stood still. Skagg ran up and said, “It’s all right. She’s new to the city. Scan her and accept her.”

The machine bathed both of them in an amber glow and went away.

“What are you afraid of here?” Fa Sol La asked.

“Animals sometimes come in from the desert. We have to be careful. Did it scare you?”

“It puzzled me,” she said.

Others were nearing them now. Skagg saw Glorr, Derk, Prewger, and Simit; and more were coming. They crowded around the girl, none daring to touch her but everyone staring hard.

“This is Fa Sol La,” said Skagg. “I discovered her. She comes from a city at the River Without Fish and walked across the desert to visit us.”

“What is your city called?” Derk demanded.

“River City,” she said.

“How many people live there?” asked Prewger.

“I don’t know. Many but not very many.”

“How old are you?” Simit blurted.

“Five no-suns,” she said.

“Did you come alone?” Glorr said.