A Mirror for Observers

prelude

The office of the Director of North American Missions is a blue-lit room in Northern City, 246 feet below the tundra of the Canadian Northwest Territory. There is still a land entrance, as there has been for several thousand years, but it may have to be abandoned this century if the climate continues to warm up. Behind a confusion of random boulders, the entrance looks and smells like a decent bear den. Unless you are Salvayan — or Martian, to use the accepted human word — you will not find,inside that den, the pivoted rock that conceals an elevator. Nowadays the lock is electronic, responding only to the correct Salvayan words, and we change the formula from time to time.

The Abdicator Namir had not been aware of that innovation. He was obliged to wait shivering a few days in that replica of a bear den, his temper deteriorating, until a legitimate resident, returning from a mission, met him and escorted him with the usual courtesies to the office of the Director, who asked: “Why are you here?”

“Safe-conduct, by the law of 27,140,” said Namir the Abdicator.

“Yes,” said Director Drozma, and rang for refreshments. A century ago Drozma would have fetched the fermented mushroom drink himself, but he was painfully old now, painfully fat with age, entitled to certain services. He had lived more than six hundred years, as few Martians do. His birthdate was the year 1327 by the Western human calendar, the same year that saw the death of Edward II of England, who went up against Robert Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314 and didn’t come off too bloody well. In Drozma’s web of wrinkles were scars from the surgery which, about five hundred years ago, had made his face presentably human. His first mission into human society had been in 1471 (30,471), when he achieved the status of qualified Observer during the wars of York and Lancaster; later he made a study of three South American tribes even now unknown to human anthropology; in 30,854 he completed the history of the Tasmanians, which is still the recognized Martian text. His missions were far behind him. He would never again leave this office until it was time to die. He was not only Director of Missions, but also Counselor of Northern City, answerable to its few hundred citizens and, after them, to the Upper Council in Old City in Africa. He carried the honor lightly, yet in all the world there were only three other such Counselors — those of Asian Center, Olympus, and Old City itself. A strangely short while ago there were five Cities. We remember City of Oceans, but it is better to let the mind turn to the present or the deeper past. Soon enough a successor would take over Drozma’s burden. Meanwhile, his thought was crystalline-calm as the canals that wind among the Lower Halls of Earth. The Abdicator Namir watched him pet the little ork curled at his feet, the only breed except our own that survived the journey from slow-dying Mars more than thirty thousand years ago. It purred, licked ruddy fur, washed itself, and went back to sleep. “We had word of you recently, Namir.”

“I know.” Namir sat down with his drink, gracefully in spite of his own advanced age. He waited for the girl who had brought the drinks to pat Drozma’s cushion, smile and hover, and go away. “One of your Observers identified me. So I came, partly, to warn you not to interfere with me.”

“Are you serious? We can’t be intimidated by you Abdicators. I value Kajna’s reports — she’s a keen Observer.”

Namir yawned. “So? Did she mention Angelo Pontevecchio?”

“Of course.”

“I hope you don’t imagine you can do anything with that boy.”

“What we hear of him interests us.”

“T’chah! A human child, therefore potentially corrupt.” Namir pulled a man-made cigarette from his man-made clothes and rubbed his large human face in the smoke. “He shares that existence which another human animal has accurately described as ‘nasty, brutish, and short.’”

“I think you came merely to complain of humanity.”

Namir laughed. “On the contrary, I get sorry for the creatures, but the pity itself is a boredom.” He shifted casually into American English. “No, Drozma, I just stopped by to say hello.”

“After 134 years! I hardly—”

“Is it that long? That’s right, I resigned in 30,829.”

“I notice you’ve picked up human habits of conversation.”

“I did interrupt — beg your pardon. Please go on, sir.” Not in rebuke but from a private need, Drozma meditated fifteen minutes, hands folded on his belly, which eventually bounced in a chuckle. “You are bored with the society of other Abdicators?”

“No. They’re few. I rarely see them.”

“As one Salvayan to another, how do you put in the time?”

“Going up and down in the world. I’ve become quite a wizard at disguise. If I hadn’t long ago used up my scent-destroyer your Kajna could never have eavesdropped on my talk with the Pontevecchio boy.”

“The law of 27,140 provides that no assistance can be given to Abdicators by Salvayans of the Cities.”

“Why, Drozma, I wasn’t hinting that I wanted scent-destroyer. I don’t find it hard to avoid horses, they’re so scarce nowadays. Odd how no other animal seems to mind the Martian scent — Salvayan: you prefer the antique word even in talking English? Must have been tough in the ancient days before the destroyer was invented. But since human animals can’t catch the scent, I don’t need the stuff, except to help me avoid your sniffier Observers…. The smart thing, five or six thousand years ago, would have been to develop an equine epidemic, get rid of the damned beasts.”

Drozma winced in disgust. “I begin to see why you resigned. In all your life I think you never learned that patience is the well-spring.”

“Patience is a narcotic for the weak. I have enough for my needs.”

“If you had enough you’d cure yourself of resentments. Let’s not argue it: our minds don’t meet. Again, why have you come here?”

Namir flicked ash on the mosaic of the floor. “I wanted to find out if you still imagine human beings can ever amount to anything.”

“We do.”

“I see. Even after losing City of Oceans — or so I heard.”

“Namir, we do not talk about City of Oceans. Call it a taboo, or just a courtesy to me…. What did you ever hope to achieve by resigning?”

“Achieve? Oh, Drozma! Well, perhaps a spectator’s pleasure. The interest of watching the poor things weave a rope for their own hanging.”

“No, I don’t think that was it. That wouldn’t have turned you against us.”

“I’m not against you particularly,” said Namir, and pursued his original thought: “I thought they had that rope in 30,945, but there they are, still unhanged.”

“Tired of waiting?”

“Ye-es. But if I don’t live to see their finish, my son will.”

“A son…. Who is your Salvayan wife, may I know?”

“Was, Drozma. She died forty-two years ago, giving birth. She was Ajona, who resigned in 30,790 but continued to suffer from idealism until I effected a partial cure. The boy’s forty-two now, almost full grown. So you see I even have a father’s interest in hoping to witness the end of Homo quasi-sapiens…. . Might I ask your current population figures?”

“About two thousand, Namir.”

“In all the — er — four Cities?”

“Yes.”

“H’m. Bigger, of course, than our few dozen of the enlightened. But that’s deceptive, since you are all dreamers.”

“Men vanish, and you repopulate from a few dozen?”

“I don’t suppose they’ll vanish completely. Too damn many of ’em.”

“You have plans for the survivors?”

“Well, I don’t feel free to give you blueprints, old man.”

“The law of 27,140—”

“Is a routine expression of Salvayan piety. You couldn’t use it against us. After all, we have a weapon. Suppose men, with a little help, were to locate the — remaining cities?”

“You couldn’t betray your own kind!” Namir did not answer…. “You consider the Abdicators peculiarly enlightened?”

“Through suffering, boredom, observation, disappointment, realistic contact — yes. What could be more educational than loss and loneliness and hope deferred? Why, ask even Angelo Pontevecchio at twelve. He adored his dead father, there’s no one he can talk with, childhood keeps him in a cage with life outside — result, he begins to be quite educated. Of course he’s a directionless kitten still, a kitten in a jungle of wolves. And the wolves will give his education another lift.”

“Love, if you’ll excuse the expression, is more educational.”

“Now I could never make that mistake. I’ve watched human beings fool around with love. Love of self mostly, but also love of place, work, ideas; love of friends, of male and female, parent and child. I can’t think of any human illusions more comic than those of love.”

“May I know more about what you do, outside?”

Namir looked away. “Still an Observer, in my fashion.”

“How can you observe through a sickness of hatred?”

“I observe sharply, Drozma.”

“You confuse sharpness with accuracy. As if a microscopist forgot to allow for relative size and saw an amoeba as big as an elephant…. As I remember, after your resignation you were first seen by us in 30,896, in the Philippines.”

“Was I?” Namir chuckled. “Didn’t know that. You get around.”

“They say you made a convincing Spaniard. In Manila, a day or so after the official murder of José Rizal. You had some part in that?”

“Modesty forbids — no, really, his human killers could have managed perfectly well without me. Rizal was an idealist. That made his slaughter almost automatic, a human reflex action.”

“Other idealists have — oh, I think eternity would be too short to argue with you. Not a single kind word for humanity then?” Namir smiled. “Not even for Angelo Pontevecchio?”

“You’re truly concerned over that child? Ridiculous! As I said, he’s a kitten now, but I’ll make a tiger of him. You’ll hear the lambs bleat with blood in the throat even up here among your pretty dreams.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Would you dare to bet on it?”

The Director reached for a primitive telephone. “If you like. It won’t affect the outcome. Nor would any Observer I send, maybe. However…” He spun the crank. “Regardless of whom I send, Namir, your real antagonist is not the Observer, not I, but Angelo himself.”

“Of course. Telephones! Getting modern as next week.”

Drozma said pedantically: “It happens we invented the telephone in 30,834. Naturally when Bell reinvented the wretched thing independently in ’876 he made some improvements. We’re not gadget-minded. And his successors — oh dear! Fortunately we don’t need all those refinements. Anyway we had to wait till men brought their lines north of Winnipeg before it was convenient to talk City-to-City. Now I suppose you might call us — ah — unofficial subscribers. We have a full-time Communicator in Toronto, sorry I’m not free to give you his name. Hello…? Hello…?” Namir chortled. Drozma said plaintively: “I suppose the operator is in contemplation. Does it matter? I can always call again. You know, Namir, I had this — ah — gimmick installed simply because I can’t easily walk around any more. I don’t actually like the things. I — oh, hello…? Why, thank you, my dear, and on you the peace of the laws. When you have time, will you send word that I want to see Elmis?… Yes, the historian. He’s probably in the Library, or else the Music Room, if this is his practice time — I can’t remember. Thank you, dear.” He put away the receiver with a twiddle of pudgy fingers. “A gimmick.”

“Can’t wait till you grow up to radio.”

“Radio? We’ve had excellent receiving sets ever since human beings invented it. Obviously we mustn’t broadcast, but we hear it. Have you forgotten your history? Radio was known on Salvay, one of the little techniques our ancestors abandoned — from lack of important need, I suppose — during the first miserable centuries in this wilderness. Don’t you ever think of ancient times, Namir? The shock, loneliness, no hope of return even if Salvay had not been a dying planet — except to the Amurai, I suppose. They could wall themselves in, accept the underground life that we rejected. And then we had to accept it here after all! Think of the ordeal of adaptation too. History says it was two hundred years before the first successful births, and even then the mothers usually died. What an age of trial!”

“History is a dead language.”

“Can’t agree. Well, our mathematicians study the human broadcasts. Over my head, the mathematics, but I’m sure radio’s immensely useful.”

“Immensely emetic. While we wait for your big-time operator, would you care for a word of advice?”

“Certainly. Television too — damn it, I love television. You were about to say?”

“On my way here, I passed six settlements in northern Manitoba and Keewatin District, all new since the last time I was near there, in 30,920. The icecap goes faster all the time. You’re losing the Arctic shield. No concern of mine but I thought I’d mention it.”

“Thanks. Our Observers watch it. The waterlock will be finished before we need to close the land entrance. And did you know that the human plastics industry is almost ready with greenhouse dwellings, size limited only by convenience? In a few decades there’ll be garden villages all through the Arctic, independent of climate, and in a century the population of Canada will probably match that of the States — if they’re still technically separate countries by that time. Personally I’m pleased about it. Come in, Elmis.”

Elmis was long-legged, slim, powerful, his complexion close to that colorful pallor human beings call white. From his agony of surgery long ago, his face and hands were properly human. The brown-haired scalp and artificial fifth fingers had been almost-normal parts of him for over two hundred years. If he had to show himself barefoot, the four-toed feet would pass for a human anomaly. Drozma explained: “I’m sorry to call you from the work you prefer, Elmis. I know you’d hoped never to go out as an Observer again. But you’re much better qualified than anyone else available, so I can’t help myself. This is Namir the Abdicator.”

Elmis’ manlike voice said in English: “I think I remember you.” Namir nodded inattentively. “You’ve returned to us?”

“What an idea! No, just passing by, and I must be on my way. A pleasure. By the way, Drozma — care to put up some little consideration to make that bet interesting? Say, a human soul?”

“Why, assuming anyone could dispose of a human soul—”

“Sorry. For a minute there I thought you wanted to play God.” He squirmed into his arctic gear. “So long, children. Keep your noses clean.”

“?” said Elmis, and entered contemplation, head on his knees.

Presently Drozma sighed. “A time factor, Elmis, or I wouldn’t interrupt your thought. Would the name ‘Benedict Miles’ suit you?”

“‘Miles’ — yes, a nice anagram. Urgent, sir?”

“Maybe. A human child becomes a man more swiftly than one can write a poem. Is your work in such state that you can leave it?”

“Someone else can always go on with it, Drozma.”

“Tell me more about it.”

“Still tracing ethical concepts as lines of growth. Trying to see through the froth of conflicts, wars, migrations, social cleavages, ideologies. I was restudying Confucius when you called me.”

“Tentative conclusions?”

“A few, confirming your own intuition of a hundred years ago: that a genuine ethical revolution — comparable to the discovery of fire, of agriculture, of social awareness — might be in progress about 31,000, and might develop for the necessary centuries. The germs are present. Hard to see, but certainly present, just as the germ of society was latent in pre-language family groups. Of course one can make no allowance for such unpredictables as atomic war, pestilence, a too sudden rise in the water level. Fortunately the dream of security is a human weakness we needn’t share. As a very rash prediction, Drozma, I think Union with them might be possible late in my son’s lifetime.”

“Truly…? Seems very soon, but it’s a refreshing thought. Well, here’s your mission. Observer Kajna came home yesterday. She was overdue, and with the worst of the journey ahead of her, when she had to wait on a train connection in Latimer — that’s a small city in Massachusetts. She spent the time in a park. A nice old gentleman was feeding the pigeons and talking to a boy about twelve years old. Kajna caught the Martian scent. She renewed her scent-destroyer, listened in on the conversation from another bench. The old man was Namir. She’d seen him once using a similar disguise in Hamburg, years ago. You know we try to keep track of the Abdicators so long as it doesn’t interfere with more important work. Kajna happens to feel rather strongly about them. She wanted to follow Namir, she had to get home to us soon, and as she listened a third necessity developed. In the end, when the old man and the boy went different ways, Kajna followed the boy, not Namir. Followed him to a lodging house where he lives. She inquired about a room, enough to start a conversation, pick up a few facts. The boy is the landlady’s only child — Angelo Pontevecchio. The landlady, Rosa Pontevecchio, is — Kajna used the term ‘sweet-minded.’ Not much education, and on a very different psychophysical level; a fat woman in poor health. Kajna saw and empathized enough to suggest valvular heart disease, but wasn’t sure. Well, then Kajna came home. Used her own judgment. As you will have to do.”

“And Namir?”

“Oh, he identified her after all. Mentioned it when he was here.”

“Whatever brought him? More than a century since he resigned.”

“I think, Elmis, he has some rather dirty little plans for Angelo, and wanted to find out what plans we had, if any. We have none, except as they will develop in your good Observer’s mind. The boy may or may not be as potentially important as Kajna felt he was. I hope he is — you know I wouldn’t send you out for a trivial cause. You’re to go there to Latimer, live in or near that lodging house as Benedict Miles. On your own. I must have your independent judgment. That’s why I won’t tell you any more about the child, and I’d rather you didn’t talk with Kajna about the mission before you go. As for Namir, you know the law of 27,140. The Abdicators aren’t to be acted against, so long as they do no positive harm.” Drozma stroked the ork as it rose to stretch squabby legs. His voice shook. “I can imagine situations in which you might have to review the definitions of that cloudy word ‘harm.’ You know also that an Observer must not risk violating human law, unless he is prepared to — to prevent betrayal of Salvayan physiology.”

“Sir, we don’t need euphemism, you and I. I’ll ask Supply to give me a suicide-grenade recheck. And, I think, a spare grenade, unless you object.”

Drozma bit his lip. “I don’t object. I’ve already told Supply to have everything ready for you…. Elmis, the bitterness I saw just now in Namir — I’d almost forgotten such feelings could exist. Be careful. I suppose he’s always in pain. His own thought turns on him and eats him like a cancer. Salvayan pain, remember. No matter how human he acts, don’t ever forget he has our lower threshold of suffering along with our greater endurance. I’m sure he still meditates, though he might deny it. And if his angry heart is set on a thing, he’ll turn aside for nothing except superior force.” Drozma shifted fretfully on his cushion. “It’s an extended mission, Elmis. If you feel you should stay for the whole of that boy’s lifetime, you have my leave. Spare no expense — be sure you draw all the human money you’ll need, and I’ll authorize the Toronto Communicator to honor any emergency requests. But even if you return quite soon I may not be here, so I think I’ll give you this.”

From under his cushion he took a wrapped package, heavy but small. “A mirror, Elmis. Unwrap it and look at it later if you like, not now. An Observer — his name is lost — brought this in 23,965 from the island now called Crete. Bronze — we’ve kept the patina away from the best reflecting side. I don’t suppose it’s the first mirror made by human beings, but surely one of the first. You might want the boy Angelo to look at his face in it. You see, we think it possible that he’s one of those who can learn how to look in a mirror.”

“Ah…! Am I good enough for such a mission?”

“Try to be. Do your best. The peace of the laws be with you.”