the Dark Light Years (11 page)

"Grr, you little carnivore!" she whispered. She treated herself to a suspicion of perfume, an exclusive perfume that contained ambergris which (she hastily censored the image) is the undigested remnant of squid and octopus found in the intestines of the spermaceti whale. She touched up her hair, clipped on her street mask, and whisked superbly out to greet Pasztor.

He had already clipped his mask on. Together, they went down into the street.

War had not improved the city. Whereas other cities in other nations had long ago banished - or at least brought in legislation to deal with - various metropolitan abuses, London suffered under a multiplication of them.

Ash and rubbish bins stood all along the pavement, while the gutters were full of litter. The shortage of un-skilled
labor
was crippling the city.
This shortage had caused some streets to be closed to traffic, for their surfaces had become impassable, and there was nobody to repair them.
Many people saw little to regret in this, for to pedestrians any relief from the heaving hooting traffic was welcome. As Mihaly walked along with Mrs. War-boon, he sardonically said thanks for such gifts to
civilization
as their street masks, which alone guaranteed that they did not fall swooning from the waste gases pouring out of the cars snorting at their elbows.

Gigantic hoardings, covering a site where an office block had burnt down before a fire engine could crawl four blocks to save it. announced that Holidays At Home were Fun, as well as being in the national interest; that Death could be turned to Financial Account by bequeathing one's body to Burgess's Body Chemicals; and that
Gonorrhea
was Out of Control, with a graph to prove it, by courtesy of the World
Gonorrhea
Year. There was also a smaller poster issued by minigag, the Ministry of Gastronomy and Agriculture, proclaiming that animal foods caused premature ageing and that man-made foods contained no toxics; the point was rammed deftly home by two pictures, one of an old man having a heart attack, one of a young girl having a synthash.

Mercifully, most of this townscape was wrapped in a decent obscurity, since power cuts imposed semi-blackouts on the capital's gaiety every night.

"Walking here, I can hardly think of walking on a different planet," Mrs. Warhoon said.

"You certainly
don’t
get much sight of the universe here," Pasztor said, speaking above the snarl of engines.

"In another two or three centuries, mankind will have a different outlook on life and the rules by which he lives. He will have digested the universe into his art, architecture, customs, everything. As yet we're adolescents. The city's our savage playground." She gestured at a shop window exhibiting one enormous motor bike, shaped like a system-ship and glittering like El Dorado. "It's a place where we undergo perpetual initiation rites, ordeals by fire, crowds, and gas. We aren't mature enough to deal with your ETA's.”

With a shock. Mihaly thought, "My God, she's tight!
We drank real wine and she's probably used to synthwine...."
She went on talking, even when he clutched her arm so that she would not trip over the old newspapers blowing about their feet "We started wrongly with those creatures, Mihaly, by making them adhere to our rules instead of studying theirs. Perhaps the Gansas will find more of them and we will have another chance to make contact, on their terms.”

"As yet we don't know what their terms are. Should we respect their inclination to live in their own waste pro-ducts? We could let them accumulate this - er, matter, as they seem disposed to do. You know I suggested that. But it is - well, it's malodorous, and poor old Bodley and his staff have to work in there with them....”

He was glad to get her to the theatre.

The play was a jolly send-up of the Cold War era. a non-musical version of West Side Story, played in quaint pre-World War III costume. Both Pasztor and Mrs. War-boon enjoyed it; but her mind kept drifting back to the prospect of making vacuum with the Gansas, so that in the interval Pasztor threw himself into the free-for-all struggle round the theatre bar rather than let her start another discussion. As they came out of the theatre at the end of the play, she insisted she must go home, and he competed with evening dresses and uniforms to cram into one of the sinkers that rose to connect with the district shuttle. It had rained during their incarceration, clearing the city air somewhat Drops of oily water splashed on them from the overhead rail; still Mrs. Warhoon stuck bravely to her subject "Do you remember Wittgenbacher's saying that our intelligence might merely be an instinct for space?”

"I have thought about it," he said, elbowing forward.

"Do you think I'll be following my instinct if I join the Gansas?”

He looked at her, tall and still fairly slender, her eyes attractive over her mask.

"What's wrong with you this evening. Hilary? What do you want me to say to you?”

"You could tell me for instance whether I am going into deep space to integrate myself - to become matured away from my womb world and all that sort of thing - or whether I am doing it to flee from an unsatisfactory marriage I would be better employed mending.”

A man in astrogator's uniform wedged behind her looked at her in sudden interest as he caught part of this remark.

"I don't know you well enough to answer that," Mihaly said.

"Nobody does." She spoke the words dismissively, smiling, for he had finally got her to the doors of the sinker. She touched his fingers and passed in. Pasztor had to fight not to be carried in as well.

The doors closed, the pellet was sucked up its tube. He watched its lights rise up to the level of the monobus rail. A globule of water splashed into his left eye. He turned and made his way home through emptying streets.

Back in his flat over the Exozoo, he walked about aimlessly, thinking.
Clearing the remains of their meal away, he swept cutlery and dishes from the dining-table into the disposer, watching soft flame rise as they disintegrated. Then he resumed his pacing.

Hilary had a grain of truth among her chaff, though earlier in the evening he had mentally
labeled
it sickness. Wasn't truth a sickness man spent a lifetime seeking, just as a dog seeks the coarse grass that makes it vomit? What was that epigram that he had trotted forth too often, about civilization being the distance man placed between himself and his excreta? But it was nearer the truth to say that civilization was the distance man had placed between him-self and everything else, for cradled deep in the concept of culture was the need for privacy. Once away from the hurly-burly of camp fires, man invented rooms, barriers, behind which he developed his most characteristic
practices
. Meditation arose from mere abstraction, the
individual
arts arose from folk crafts, love arose from sex. the concept of the individual arose from the tribe.

But were the barriers valuable when one faced another culture? And again, mightn't one of the difficulties with coming to grips with ETA's be that you hardly realized how strong a hold the mores of your own culture had on you?

It was, Pasztor thought, what might be called a Good Question, and damn it, he would act on it now.

He took the lift down to the ground floor. The Exozoo was dark about him; only the simultaneously shrill and deep chuckle of a stone-cracker in the High-G House sent a shiver through the darkness. Man, shut in his culture, so anxious to imprison other animals with him....

The two ETA's were seemingly asleep as he entered and the pallid lights came on.
One of the lizard creatures took a flying leap back into the arm socket of its protector, but the big bulk did not stir.

Pasztor moved through the side door and so came into the back of the cage. He unlocked the low barrier and walked up to the ETA's. They opened their eyes with what looked like infinite weariness.

"Don't worry, fellows. I'm sorry to trouble you, but a certain lady who has your interests at heart has given me. all unwittingly, a new line of approach. Look, fellows. I'm trying to be friendly, see. I do want to reach across, if it can be done.”

Removing his trousers, squatting close to them, speaking gently, the director of the Exozoo defecated on to the plastic floor.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"How far-seeing you were to christen this world
Grudgrodd
. Cosmopolitan,1' the third Politan said.

"I've explained several times my reason for thinking that we cannot any longer be on Grudgrodd," said the Sacred Cosmopolitan, as the two utods lay comfortably together.

"And I still say that I don't believe metal could be made strong enough to withstand launching into the star-realms. Don't forget I took a course in metal-fracture when I was a priestling. Besides, the metal thing wasn't the right shape for a spaceship. I know it doesn't do to be too dogmatic, but there are some points on which one has to make a stand: though I do it with regards to your cosmopolity only with apologies.”

"Say what you may, I have the feeling in my bones that the Triple suns no longer shine on these skies - not that these thin lifeforms ever permit us to see the skies.”

As he spoke, the Sacred Cosmopolitan
swiveled
one of his heads to watch the thin lifeform performing his natural function a few feet distant. He thought he recognized this thin lifeform as one of those whose habits did not arouse disgust; certainly he was not the one who came with an attachment that spurted a jet of cold water. Nor did he seem to be one of those who sat about with machines and two assistants (no doubt they were this world's equivalents of the priesthood) so palpably trying to seduce him and the third Politan into communication.

The thin lineform stood up and assembled the cloth over the lower part of his body.

"That is very interesting!" the Politan exclaimed. "It confirms what we were saying a couple of days ago.”

"In most particulars, yes.
As we thought, they have two heads as we do, but one is for dunging and one for speaking.”

"
What seems so laughable is that they have a pair of legs sticking out of their lower heads. Yes, perhaps after all you are right, father-mother; despite all logic, perhaps we really are spirited far away from the Triple Suns, for it is difficult to imagine any of this sort of horrid absurdity on the planets under their sway. Why do you think he came to perform a dung ritual here?”

The Cosmopolitan twiddled one of his fingers in a motion of bafflement.

"He can hardly regard this as a sacred seeding spot. It may be that he performed merely to let us see that we were not the only ones possessing fertility; or on the other hand, it may have been merely from curiosity, in order to see what we did. Here's a case again. I think, where for the time being we must admit that the thinlegs' ways of thought are too alien for us to interpret, and that any tentative explanation we may offer is bound to be
utodomorphic
. And while we're on the subject. ... I don't want to alarm you in any way ... no, as Cosmopolitan, I must keep these things to myself.”

"Please - since there have been only the two of us, you have told me many things from the rich store of your mind that you would not otherwise have told me. Snort on, I beg you.”

The alien lifeform was standing near by, watching. He was unable to maintain stillness for any length of time. Ignoring him, the Cosmopolitan began to speak cautiously, for he knew on what dangerous ground he trod. When one of his grorgs began to crawl under his belly, he slapped it back into position with a firmness that surprised even himself.

"I don't want you to be alarmed at what I am about to say, son, though I am aware that I may seem at first to strike at the very foundations of our belief. You remember that moment when the thinlegs came to us in the dark, when we were in the midden by the side of the star-realm-ark?”

"Though it seems a long while ago, I do not forget it.”

"
The thinlegs came to us then and immediately translated the others Into their carrion stage.”

"
I remember. I was startled at first. I crept close to you.”

"And then?”

"When they were taking us in their wheeled truck, to "the tall metal thing you say may have been a star-realm-ark, I was so overcome with shame that I had not been chosen to move further along the utodammp cycle, that I hardly took in any other impressions.”

The thinlegs was making signals with the mouth of his upper head, but they moved on to a higher audibility band, as was appropriate when discussing personal aspects, and ignored him from then on.

The Sacred Cosmopolitan continued.
"My son, I find this difficult to say, since our language naturally does not hold the appropriate concepts, but these lifeforms may be as alien in thought as they are in shape: not just in their upper thoughts, but in their whole psychological constitution.
For a long while I felt as you did, a sort of shame that our six companions had been chosen for translation while we hadn't But... supposing, Blug Lugug, that these lifeforms did not exercise choice, suppose they translated us at random.”

"Random? I'm surprised to hear you use such a vulgar word, Cosmopolitan. The fall of a leaf or the splash of a raindrop may be - er, random, but with higher lifeforms -everything higher than a mud snwitch - the fact that they form part of life cycles prevents anything random.”