Barrington Bayley - The Garments of Caean

The calculations on which Amara placed such stock made used of the sociological notion of ‘decay time’ – the time taken for cultural forces to lose their impetus and die. A passing fad or fashion might have a decay time of weeks or months. An obsession like the one ruling Caean could, at the other end of the scale, persist for centuries. Amara’s parameters, she believed, were solid. The ‘half-life’ of Caean was even shorter than she had at first supposed. By this time Caean should have grown out of its specific syndrome, should be a nation more nearly resembling Ziode.

‘This is a sick nation,’ she said. ‘But something is keeping it sick – making it sicker. We have to find out what.’

‘Maybe the computation is wrong?’ someone suggested bravely.

Amara scowled.

Estru took up the thread. ‘It could be we have underestimated the staying power of the Sovyan experience. Our equations don’t allow, for instance, for total erasure of body image.’

‘ Total erasure?’ Amara came back at him indignantly.

‘The Sovyans clearly demonstrate that the normal body image – the image that exists in the mind for purposes of personal and species identify – can be overlaid with an alternative image,’ Estru said. ‘The Sovyans see themselves as big spacesuits. But suppose the original human body image has no instinctive or genetic component? What if it can be erased permanently? Then the Caeanic syndrome could be stable – not subject to decay.’

‘Plausible,’ Amara admitted. ‘The Caeanic phenomenon would then emerge as a form of accelerative evolution, analogous to biological evolution. Psychologically, in terms of outward image, the Caeanics could be diverging into countless new species.’

Estru felt encouraged. ‘That’s right. Especially if some of these images are archetypal, dragged from the subconscious as Matt-Helver believed. A Caeanic puts on a fox-type suit and it makes him into a foxy individual, because he feels like a fox. I recall that List had something to say along those lines in his Cultural Compendium .’

‘It’s plausible, but it’s wrong ,’ Amara stated. ‘The natural body image is genetic. It can’t be permanently obliterated.’

‘Arms and legs are genetic, but Alexei Verednyev didn’t have any to speak of when we first found him,’ her staff chief said.

She waved a hand in exasperation. ‘ Proliferation. Proliferation is the very thing that knocks Estru’s argument down. Caeanic sartorials are enterprising enough not to leave stones unturned. Even if the basic image had been erased, what’s to prevent it appearing again? How long before some sartorial whizz-kid discovered that the naked body is an exciting object in it own right? What’s to prevent garments becoming increasingly scanty until nakedness becomes acceptable, as it is with us? Yet in fact the naked body, where it is an erotic object, is such only as an unspeakable perversion.’

As she said this she blushed deeply, then to hide her embarrassment turned to study the display screens again. ‘There is something blocking the natural process of normalization,’ she said.

There was a silence in which they all stared at the screens. Suddenly Estru spoke up again.

‘Isn’t there something else we should be talking about, more important than this? What we have also failed to find is any aggressive intention towards Ziode.’

Everyone murmured. ‘Yes, that’s so,’ Amara said with a frown, almost reluctantly. ‘It seems Abrazhne Caldersk was telling the truth in that respect.’

‘Well, shouldn’t our first priority be to explain this to the Directorate? We ought to be giving some thought to it. After all it might not be as easy as it sounds.’

‘Oh? Why not?’

‘After gearing up for war, to some people it can seem a pity not to go to war,’ Estru said.

‘Yes, it is unnerving,’ Alexei said mildly, in reasonably intelligible Ziodean. ‘All the time.’

Mast responded feelingly. ‘You poor bastard. God, I thought I was a villain until I met some of these scientific types we’ve got here.’

‘I’m managing to cope,’ Alexei said. ‘They give me drugs to keep me moderately schizophrenic. That’s the only way to get through this type of experience, I’m told.’

As he spoke Alexei’s face was deadpan. He probably never would learn to use facial expression, even though all the requisite muscles had been revitalized.

Mast was aware that Alexei could tolerate human company only with difficulty. But, he told himself, the Sovyan must also be lonely.

They were walking along one of the belly passages that ran the curve of the Callan ’s hull, Alexei stepping awkwardly and falteringly so that every now and then Mast automatically put out a hand to save him from falling, though in fact the Sovyan lost his balance only rarely. As they reached an observation window Alexei stopped, as if to regain breath. Mast stood by, embarrassed, while he gazed with homesick longing into the vacuum of space.

Then he hurried on. They turned aside from the belly corridor and came to Amara Corl’s sociology department, which Mast took care to visit at least once a day. A murmur of agitated talk was coming from behind the door of the conference room. No one took any notice as Mast rudely pushed the door open and went in, followed by his limping companion.

The team had drifted apart into two groups. One, bunched around Amara, was busy with some kind of calculation using a computer terminal at the other end of the room. The rest didn’t seem to be doing anything very much, except to talk aimlessly in the sort of crass jargon which Mast found irritating.

He listened patiently to their drivel for a minute or two until Estru, who had been gazing into a mirror, suddenly interrupted the discussion.

‘It’s wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this is the sort of clue we’re looking for,’ he announced.

Mast came closer. The mirror was oval, set in a frame of wrought gold. It seemed unremarkable, unless it was that its surface was a little too bright.

‘What, that mirror?’ someone asked.

Estru chuckled. ‘Yes, just a mirror, an ordinary silvered glass reflector. Only it isn’t. While you’re looking into the mirror, the mirror is looking back at you.’

He turned it over in his hands, explaining. ‘The glass isn’t ordinary silica glass; it’s hologram glass. Instead of being coated with mercury in the usual manner, it’s painted with a micro-computer backing of about the same thickness. The hologram glass digitizes the image that falls on it, absorbing all the incident light, and passes it into the computer, which then puts it through the perception process. Eventually – a few nanoseconds later – the reconstituted image bounces back into the hologram glass and is re-emitted by fluorescence.’

‘What in the galaxy is the point of all that?’

‘Yes,’ someone else joined in, ‘that’s a very complicated method for a simple convenience.’

‘The difference is that the mirror has machine sentience. Only in an extremely receptive, passive way, of course. It has no output leads whatsover; no outcome. It’s a mirror with a mind that reflects what it experiences. So you’re looking at yourself being looked at – the more you think about that, the less simple it seems.’ He chuckled again. ‘You could say it’s a mirror with an open mind.’

Mast peered at the artifact over Estru’s shoulder. ‘But what practical use is it?’

‘None at all. It’s an ornament, a typical Caeanic conceit. Though there’s a little more to it. Sometimes it modifies the “reflected” image, and occasionally quite drastically. The effect can be pretty scary if you don’t know how it’s done. But it still doesn’t invent or add anything. It brings out latent qualities, points out what the human eye might miss.’