Cordwainer Smith - Norstrilia

“This is right nice.”

Ruth smiled languidly and seductively. She did not know why Eleanor laughed out loud.

The Lord William Not-from-here came up from below the deck. He carried two silver mugs in his hands. They were frosted.

“I am glad,” said he unctuously, “that you young people are happy. These are mint juleps, a very ancient drink indeed.”

He watched as Eleanor sipped hers and then smiled.

He smiled too: “You like it?”

Eleanor smiled right back at him, “Beats washing dishes, it does!” said “Rod McBan” enigmatically.

The Lord William began to think that the rich young man was odd indeed.

The Lord Crudelta commanded, “Send Jestocost here!”

The Lord Jestocost was already entering the room.

“What’s happened on that case of the young man?”

“Nothing, Sir and Senior.”

“Tush. Bosh. Nonsense. Rot.” The old man snorted. “Nothing is something that doesn’t happen at all. He has to be somewhere.”

“The original is with the Catmaster, at the Department Store.”

“Is that safe?” said the Lord Crudelta. “He might get to be too smart for us to manage. You’re working some scheme again, Jestocost”

“Nothing but what I told you, Sir and Senior.”

The old man frowned. “That’s right. You did tell me. Proceed. But the others?”

“Who?”

“The decoys?”

The Lord Jestocost laughed aloud. “Our colleague, and Lord William, has almost betrothed his daughter to Mister McBan’s workwoman, who is temporarily a ‘Rod McBan’ herself. All parties are having fun with no harm done. The robots, the eight survivors, are going around Earthport city. They are enjoying themselves as much as robots ever do. Crowds are gathering and asking for miracles. Pretty harmless.”

“And the Earth economy? Is it getting out of balance?”

“I’ve set the computers to work,” said the Lord Jestocost, “finding every tax penalty that we ever imposed on anybody. We’re several megacredits ahead.”

“FOE money.”

“FOE money, Sir.”

“You’re not going to ruin him?” said Crudelta.

“Not at all, Sir and Senior,” cried the Lord Jestocost. “I am a kind man.”

The old man gave him a low duty smile. “I’ve seen your kindness before, Jestocost, and I would rather have a thousand worlds for an enemy than have you be my friend! You’re devious, you’re dangerous, and you are tricky.”

Jestocost, much flattered by this comment, said formally, “You do an honest official a great injustice, Sir and Senior.”

The two men just smiled at each other: they knew each other well.

The E’telekeli stood from the lectern at which he had been praying.

His daughter was watching him immovably from the doorway.

He spieked to her, “What’s wrong, my girl?”

“I saw his mind, father, I saw it for just a moment as he left the Catmaster’s place. He’s a rich young man from the stars, he’s a nice young man, he has bought Earth, but he is not the man of the Promise.”

“You expected too much, E’lamelanie,” spieked her father.

“I expected hope,” she spieked to him. “Is hope a crime among us underpeople? What Joan foresaw, what the Copt promised — where are they, father? Shall we never see daylight or know freedom?”

“True men are not free either,” spieked the E’telekeli. “They too have grief, fear, birth, old age, love, death, suffering, and the tools of their own ruin. Freedom is not something which is going to be given us by a wonderful man beyond the stars. Freedom is what you do, my dear, and what I do. Death is a very private affair, my daughter, and life — when you get to it — is almost as private.”

“I know, father,” she spieked. “I know. I know. I know.” (But she didn’t)

“You may not know it, my darling,” spieked the great bird-man, “but long before these people build cities, there were others in the Earth — the ones who came after the Ancient World fell. They went far beyond the limitations of the human form. They conquered death. They did not have sickness. They did not need love. They sought to be abstractions lying outside of time. And they died, E’lamelanie — they died terribly. Some became monsters, preying on the remnants of true men for reasons which ordinary men could not even begin to understand. Others were like oysters, wrapped up in their own sainthood. They had all forgotten that humanness is itself imperfection and corruption, that what is perfect is no longer understandable. We have the fragments of the Word, and we are truer to the deep traditions of people than people themselves are, but we must never be foolish enough to look for perfection in this life or to count on our own powers to make us really different from what we are. You and I are animals, darling, not even real people, but people do not understand the teaching of Joan, that whatever seems human is human. It is the word which quickens, not the shape or the blood or the texture of flesh or hair or feathers. And there is that power which you and I do not name, but which we love and cherish because we need it more than do the people on the surface. Great beliefs always come out of the sewers of cities, not out of the towers of the ziggurats. Furthermore, we are discarded animals, not used ones. All of us down here are the rubbish which mankind has thrown away and has forgotten. We have a great advantage in this because we know from the very beginning of our lives that we are worthless. And why are we worthless? Because a higher standard and a higher truth says that we are — the conventional law and the unwritten customs of mankind. But I feel love for you, my daughter, and you have love for me. We know that everything which loves has a value in itself, and that therefore this worthlessness of underpeople is wrong. We are forced to look beyond the minute and the hour to the place where no clocks work and no day dawns. There is a world outside of time, and it is to that which we appeal. I know that you have a love for the devotional life, my child, and I commend you for it, but it would be a sorry faith which waited for passing travelers or which believed that a miracle or two could set the nature of things right and whole. The people on the surface think they have gone beyond the old problems, because they do not have buildings which they call churches or temples, and they do not have professional religious men within their communities. But the higher power and the large problems still wait for all men, whether men like it or not. Today, Believing among mankind is a ridiculous hobby, tolerated by the Instrumentality because the Believers are unimportant and weak, but mankind has moments of enormous passion which will come again and in which we will share. So don’t you wait for your hero beyond the stars. If you have a good devotional life within you, it is already here, waiting to be watered by your tears and ploughed up by your hard, clear thoughts. And if you don’t have a devotional life, there are good lives outside.

“Look at your brother, E’ikasus, who is now resuming his normal shape. He let me put him in animal form and send him out among the stars. He took risks without committing the impudence of enjoying risk. It is not necessary to do your duty joyfully — just to do it. Now he has homed to the old lair and I know he brings us good luck in many little things, perhaps in big things. Do you understand, my daughter?”

She said that she did, but there was still a wild blank disappointed look in her eyes as she said it.

“The robot sergeant says he can do no more without violating the rule against hurting human beings.” The subchief looked at his chief, licking his chops for a chance to get out of the office and to wander among the vexations of the city. He was tired of view-screens, computers, buttons, cards, and routines. He wanted raw life and high adventure.