Stand on Zanzibar

context (27)

STUDY GROUP REPORTS

“Linguistically Shinka in the pure traditional form exhibited only by extremely old men and women when reciting songs, catches and folk-tales learned as children is a typical member of the sub-family which dominates this area. A number of anomalies have been noted in addition to the ones originally cited, especially significant being the cognate relationship between the words for ‘warrior’ and ‘fool’, and the homonymic identity of the words for ‘wound’ and ‘disease’.

“However, ‘pure’ Shinka has been displaced almost completely. Heavy contamination exists in all urban centres with English, though there is no self-sufficient vocabulary forming a pidgin. The Holaini dialect constitutes a pidgin in that it hybridises a vocabulary mostly of local origin with grammar originating elsewhere and vice versa—these two poles often co-existing in the same speaker and varying in his speech according to the degree of communication he has with his listeners. Over the whole of the north of the country where Holaini influence is most pervasive the majority of the people irrespective of origin understand Holaini words and can follow simple Holaini sentences but the predominant domestic usage must be classed as contaminated Shinka.

“Additionally there are the enclaves of Inoko and Kpala each of which retains its parent language (now with heavy Shinka contamination) but is effectively bi-lingual or, in the case of children educated at schools where in class they have to speak English, tri-lingual.

“English is the language of government, foreign commerce and to a great extent of the intelligentsia. TV broadcasts are made in all five languages including English but entertainment is either locally produced in Shinka or bought in canned form from abroad in English.

“Languages of which traces can still be detected include Arabic, Spanish, Swahili, and along all the borders of the country the various adjacent dialects, which have occasionally supplied the common term for trade-objects.

“A systematic analysis of the vocabulary recorded will be begun as soon as…”

* * *

“Physically the inhabitants are negroid with marked incursions of Berber in the north and a substantial minority in the vicinity of Port Mey with some English or Indian ancestry. The average height for both sexes is below the average for adjacent countries (for men ½", for women 1" approx.) and so is the stripped weight. This is accountable (a) in terms of dietary deficiencies and (b) in terms of the debilitating effect of endemic diseases. Trypanosomiasis and malaria are well known to the inhabitants and they have been efficiently educated in public health measures for these, but an insidious and apparently antibiotic-resistant strain of ‘blackwater fever’ abounds and occasionally provokes infantile mortality though it does not appear to be fatal in adults. Tuberculosis, smallpox, and a number of other diseases are held at bay by an inoculation service well accepted by the populace, but…”

* * *

“The median IQ of the school pupils tested by our team lies nearly 2½ points below the average found in adjacent territories but it is uncertain at present whether this is statistically significant as the tests were difficult to weight for background noise. Assuming the difference is real it is probably due to dietary deficiencies over many generations, the staple diet of mealie flour, sago and other starches being only lightly reinforced with high-protein substances and fresh vegetables. Successful government education in the use of citrus fruits, however, has eradicated scurvy, and fish-meal is now available.

“On the other hand, a small number of outstandingly bright children were found, of whom one tested at approximately 176. Tests are continuing to try and determine whether there are any more exceptional genetic strains cropping out…”

* * *

“A number of conflicting rituals have been found associated with the standard landmark-events: birth, puberty, marriage, bearing and fathering of children, sickness and death. Some are of local origin while many others can be assigned to Muslim or Christian influence. A table is appended showing the significant features of such ceremonies with areas of highest incidence. NB: the attitude of the people towards these events is essentially celebratory rather than magical or propitiatory but it cannot be established whether this is an indigenous factor or due to gradual de-ritualisation by Europeans of their own religious festivals during the colonial period…”

* * *

“The structure of the family is typically patrilineal among Holaini and trends towards the matrilocal among the southern Shinka, especially in the cities where maximal movement of male labourers is found. However, both sexes enjoy equal rights before the law and folklore indicates that women of forceful personality were accepted into male councils before the advent of the European. The elaborate familial terms of aboriginal Shinka are giving way to a simplified pattern probably related to the English and much influenced by missionary teaching. However, it has not yet been determined…”

* * *

“The ideals of the community were examined both in Shinka and English with marked variation between the results. In English targets such as ‘wealth’ and ‘to be President’ scored high; in Shinka qualities such as (translating loosely) ‘public respect’ and ‘likable behaviour’ scored high. It has not yet been settled whether this is due to a real conflict or is a function of superior availability of the terms…”

* * *

“As is common in primitive societies there is a high reliance on proverbs and folk sayings in social conversation. However, the content is somewhat idiosyncratic.

“The universal admiration for Begi is well exemplified in the phrase ‘You could welcome Begi in your house’, a term of praise for someone whose family does him credit.

“Full study of the differences betwen Shinka and Holaini usage, as well as of Inoko and Kpala influence, must await…”

* * *

“To all study groups from Chad Mulligan:

“You don’t yet know! You haven’t yet established! You aren’t quite sure about!

“How about letting me have something I can take a proper grip on—soon?”

continuity (41)

SEWN ON WITH NEEDLE AND THREAD

An hour after sundown Jogajong shook Donald’s hand and gave him into the charge of one of his lieutenants. Escorted by four armed guerrillas and accompanied by four more carrying Sugaiguntung swathed in a sort of cocoon of plastic strips, he set out along a different trail from the one he had been brought in by. On his back, haversack-fashion, were the neatly rolled anti-radar flotation suits in which he and his companion would have to spend perhaps hours of lonely dark waiting before the coast was clear for the submarine.

The trail was rough and the black-light goggles he had been loaned were inefficient. Here, crossing one of the slopes radiating away from the foot of Grandfather Loa, the ground was too warm for the vegetation and the human bodies around him to show up except as blurs. Used to walking soundlessly through the dark jungle, the Yatakangis with him seemed to exude contempt whenever he brushed against a hanging branch or threatened to lose his footing on some lump of mud.

Somehow, though, the distance was covered and they reached the first stage’s end at the headwaters of a small river. A crude wooden platform jutted out of the bank, and moored to it was a shabby praheng driven by a stern-sweep. The boatman was waiting immobile, cross-legged on the jetty, smoking a cigarette cupped very carefully between his palms which nonetheless glinted like a firefly when his fingers parted.

Sugaiguntung was placed gently in the bow of the boat and covered with old sacks. Donald stepped aboard next and sat on a midships thwart. Behind him came two of the guerrillas, their bolt-guns across their laps. He could not help wondering how much attention they were paying to him, how much to their ostensible task of watching for spies on shore. With not a word spoken except the password to identify the party, they drifted into the centre of the narrow stream and the boatman began to work his sweep with a faint rhythmical creaking like a cricket’s.

The river was like a tunnel floored with water. The trees on either bank leaned together overhead, their crowns trailing strands of creeper and dangling moss. Occasionally a nightbird shrieked, and once some monkeys were disturbed, probably by a snake, and Donald’s spine crawled at the unexpected racket.

At the junction where this river joined a larger, they passed a village with not a light showing. In case of someone being wakeful, however, Donald was told to lie down on the bottom boards. When he was allowed to get up again they were well out in the middle of the main stream, riding with the current at a good walking pace, and the boatman had shipped his sweep, holding now a small paddle that served for rudder.

This is the twenty-first century. The thought crossed Donald’s mind for no special reason. This is Yatakang, one of the countries best-endowed with natural wealth and certainly not scientifically backward: witness, Sugaiguntung. And here I am being carried through the night in a rowing-boat.

Habitation began to become more frequent along the banks. This was one of the trickiest stages of the journey. Donald got off his thwart again and knelt on the bottom boards, his eyes just above the gunwale. A white police launch was tied up at a post facing a village larger than the first one, but there seemed to be no one on board. They passed it without incident and when it was well astern the boatman resumed his sweep. Their progress without it had slowed. Thinking the matter over, Donald deduced that they were approaching the estuary and running against the influx of the sea.

At the river-mouth itself there was a long necklace-strand of buildings, a small port devoted mainly to fishing to judge by the stretched nets on poles which were revealed by a few dim electric lights along the waterfront. Once more, however, no one was in sight; the boats would be out for their nightly expedition and it would be pointless to sit around and await their return before dawn. Donald began to breathe a little more easily.

A short distance from shore the boatman turned his fragile craft broadside to the direction it had been travelling in, and one of the guerrillas took up a flashlamp from the bottom of the boat. He hung it over the side after switching it on. It glowed pale blue. Donald guessed it was radiating mainly in the ultra-violet.

Ten minutes of interminable waiting passed. Then a larger boat, a fishing-prau, appeared from the drifting night mists that shrouded the surface of the water, exhibiting another lamp of the same blue tint as well as its normal running lights. The boatman went past Donald, tossing fenders over the side. Shortly, the two vessels bumped together, almost without noise for the big soft pads separating them.

Awkwardly, Donald helped the two guerrillas to manhandle Sugaiguntung into a rope sling that the sailors on the fishing-prau threw down. They guided him as he was lifted and vanished over the gunwale; then Donald followed and was seized by several hands.

The skipper of the prau greeted him and told him to put Sugaiguntung into his flotation suit right away because they planned to rely on the mist to make their drop closer to shore than they had anticipated. Donald did not question the wisdom of the decision. Everything had gone from him except a certain wan despair at the idea of returning home. The Donald Hogan who had lived in the world’s wealthiest country was lost forever, and he could not tell how the stranger who bore his old name would respond to the resumption of his former life.

He complied listlessly, easing each of Sugaiguntung’s limp limbs in turn into the soft plastic suit and pressing the valves on the inflation bottles. The scientist should be unconscious for about another hour.

He made a thorough check of the associated survival equipment—water-dye capsules, radio and sonar beacons for dire emergency, lifelines, iron rations, knife … After a little consideration he removed Sugaiguntung’s knife from its sheath and gave it to the skipper. He had said, back at Jogajong’s camp, that he had changed his mind. For the sake of insurance it might be as well to have him unarmed—not that an old man weakened by recent illness could offer any resistance to an eptified killer.

He donned his own suit in the same fashion and the skipper detailed one of his crew to rope them together with their lifelines. There must be no risk of them drifting apart while they were bobbing in the water.

He explained to Donald that they were going to be placed in a current that would carry them directly along the deepest part of the channel where the submarine was hiding. Standing by a few miles distant were units from the bases at Isola ready if necessary to mount a distracting raid on a port known to be used by Chinese ships for refuelling and refitment—a gross breach of Yatakangi neutrality, but one which Sugaiguntung’s defection would well repay. It was hoped, however, that no intervention would be necessary.

And then—over side in a sort of makeshift bosun’s chair, deposited in the water with scarcely a splash, the two of them together, spy and defector.

The crew waved, barely distinguishable for the dark and the swirling mist, and the prau faded into nothing. They were alone in a universe of blurs and ripples.

* * *

We must have been here an hour … No: my watch tells me thirty-five minutes.

Apprehensively Donald strained his eyes and saw exactly what he had expected to see—nothing. The bobbing motion was maddening, threatening to make him queasy; he had not eaten well during his stay at Jogajong’s camp although the rebel leader made a point of providing a balanced diet and keeping his followers healthy. The food had been monotonous and untempting. Now he wished he had filled up on something bland like plain boiled rice, for pangs of hunger were starting to quarrel with shadowy nausea in his belly.

Can they really spot us here, rendezvous with us, take us safely aboard?

It was no use reminding himself that this was how Jogajong had been stolen out of the country and sent back, or that Sugaiguntung’s value compelled the authorities at home to adopt the safest available route. The rest of the universe felt infinitely far away, as though there could be no contact between this place and any other. The recession of the galaxies had reached its limit; separated from one another by a gulf no light could pass, they too were beginning to disintegrate.

Is it all going to have been worth while? Shall I have saved the people of Yatakang from being deceived by a monstrous lie, as Sugaiguntung assured me?

But that was back in Gongilung. At Jogajong’s camp, the scientist had spoken of returning, refusing to co-operate after all.

Why did I not question him to find out his reasons?

He tried to disguise the answer to that from himself, and failed.

Because I was afraid to. If I took unfair advantage of superstition and exploited the traditional reward due to me against his will, I would prefer not to know. I want to believe as long as I can that he came voluntarily.

There was a moan. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins. For an instant his fevered imagination interpreted the faint sound as the wail of a police patrol-launch’s siren, far off in the mist. It was an eternal instant before he corrected the idea and realised it was a Yatakangi word in Sugaiguntung’s voice.

They had drifted apart to the limit of the lifeline linking their flotation suits. Hastily he hauled on the rope to bring them together. It must be a terrible shock to awaken here; he must offer reassurance before Sugaiguntung could think his mind deranged.

“Doctor, it’s all right—here I am, Donald Hogan!”

He grasped Sugaiguntung’s arms and peered close under his protective hood. The older man’s eyes were open to their limit and he was staring fearfully straight ahead. After a moment he appeared to relax.

“Where am I?” he said in a feeble voice.

“We’re waiting for an American submarine to come and pick us up,” Donald explained softly.

“What?” Sugaiguntung tensed all over, and the jerk made him bob violently so that Donald almost lost his grip. “You—you kidnapped me?”

“You said you wanted to come,” Donald countered. “You were very sick from the fever, you weren’t yourself, it was better not to overstrain you by making you walk through the jungle and—”

“You kidnapped me!” Sugaiguntung repeated. “I said, I told you, I had changed my mind about coming with you!”

“You couldn’t have gone back to Gongilung. Once you were committed, there was no turning back. And from here you can’t go back. Only onward.”

One can’t go back from anywhere. One can never, never, never go back!

For a while Sugaiguntung seemed weakened by his outburst. He shook himself free of Donald’s hands. Warily, Donald allowed that, keeping a tight grip on the rope instead so that they would remain within arms’ reach of each other, and watched as the scientist turned his head to this side and that until he was satisfied that they were truly isolated.

Eventually he spoke again, in a voice thin with weariness.

“What is this thing I’m wearing that’s so stiff and hard to move in?”

“It’s inflated to buoy you up. That’s why it’s stiff. It’s—I don’t know. I guess it’s one of the regular survival suits they use for fliers and submarine crews. Jogajong had some ready for use at his camp.”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard of them.” There were faint plashing noises as Sugaiguntung inspected the equipment hung about him. “Yes, I see, I understand. There are radar beacons, sonar beacons, to make sure the submarine will find us?”

“Those are only to be used in emergency, when the searchers don’t know where to look. Don’t worry—they’re absolutely sure where to come and collect us.” Donald spoke more optimistically than his mood warranted.

“They’re not operating?” The words were coloured with alarm.

“The risk is too great. There are Yatakangi patrols all over these waters and there’s been a lot of Chinese activity too, they tell me.”

“I see,” Sugaiguntung said again, and after another cautious survey of the suit fell silent.

That was all right by Donald. Once more he strained his eyes into the mist.

Christ, are they never going to turn up? How long should I allow them—one hour, two, three?

Suddenly, without warning, Sugaiguntung said, “You kidnapped me. I’m not here willingly. I shall not co-operate with your foreign government.”

Donald’s heart sank. He said fiercely, “You told me you had been tricked by your bosses! You said your people were being cheated! Solukarta had pretended you could turn them into supermen and that was a disgusting lie!”

“But I can,” Sugaiguntung said.

* * *

The words seemed to hang vast leaden weights on every limb of Donald’s body. He said. “You’re crazy. The fever—it must be the fever.”

“No, it was after the fever.” Sugaiguntung spoke without emotion. “It was while I was lying in the cave alone. I had time to think in a way which has not been possible for many years. Always there have been intriguing side-issues that I could not follow up, only assign to some of my students, and not all of them conducted the research properly. Four years ago, or perhaps five, I…”

“You what?”

“I thought of something which struck me as promising. A way of adjusting molecular relationships by compressing a signal in time—by programming a computer to perform the alterations so fast the effects of one would not interfere with the others.”

“Is that how you think you can succeed after all?”

“No. That is how I half-succeeded with my orang-outangs. But not even your famous Shalmaneser, not even K’ung-futse that they have in Peking, can react swiftly enough to eliminate all side-effects.”

“Then how do you think you can do it?” Donald demanded. He hauled on the line and brought himself face to face with the scientist, sweat making the interior of his suit clammy.

Sugaiguntung did not answer directly. He continued in the same passionless voice, “Then I tried another method which held promise. I developed a series of template solutions in which one could bathe genetic material, allowing the desired reactions to proceed unhurriedly and avoiding violent deformations of the molecular lattices.”

“Yes, I read about that,” Donald snapped. “Was that the method?”

“It worked on simple genes, but not on ones as complex as the human. The stability of the template organics tended to deteriorate faster than the process could be completed.”

“In God’s name, then, what—?”

“Also I had some success with stabilising genes at the temperature of liquid helium. But the return of the frozen material to normal activity took so long it was clearly uneconomic on the mass scale. Besides, unless the increase of temperature was perfectly smooth, at any moment a deviation of a degree or two could induce a dissociation in the genes and waste all one’s previous trouble. Discarding that, I next investigated the tuned sonic resonances which—”

He’s not telling me anything. He’s talking for the sake of talking. Why?

Donald stared all around. A faint stir of breeze touched him on the cheek. Was it his imagination or was the mist lifting? Christ, yes it was! Over there, distinct against the stars, the cone of Grandfather Loa lowering at him!

Unless the submarine turns up right away, we’ll be exposed as clearly as if we were—

The thought stopped, kicked aside from his mind by the fearful realisation of the reason for Sugaiguntung’s garrulity.

He whispered, “You drecky bleeder! Have you turned on your beacons?”

Not waiting for an answer, he tugged on the line with one hand and fumbled for his suit-knife with the other. He dragged the blade free while his imagination filled the air with the sound of patrol-boats closing in, the hiss of energy-bolts grounding in water and blasting up geysers of steam. He meant only to slash at the thongs holding the beacons on Sugaiguntung’s suit, separate the power-leads and drop them to the ocean-bed.

But Sugaiguntung divined his intention and tried to catch his arm. The water hampered him, and the clumsy suit. A movement halfway between a kick and plunge threw him off his aim. The knife went home.

There was a monstrous eruption of bubbles from one of the inflated compartments, and the last of them turned dark. He snatched back the knife, a roaring in his ears and a tingling all over his skin.

“Femoral artery,” Sugaiguntung said, now as before without any trace of emotion. “Don’t try to staunch it. I won’t let you. It is the least I can do to repay my people for the treachery I committed, doubting the word of those who knew better than I myself did. I have been … disloyal … but I go to join my ancestors in a way which…”

His head lolled suddenly to one side, and his upturned face showed a faint, enigmatic smile to the stars the parting mist had now revealed.

There was even yet not enough light to show the colour of the water, but Donald knew it was red. Staring, letting go the knife, letting go the rope, he saw it glow brighter and brighter, the brilliance of lava, and Grandfather Loa erupted in his brain and claimed the latest victim of all the uncounted thousands slain by his wrath.

When the submarine surfaced and he was dragged aboard, he had stopped screaming, but only because his throat was too raw to utter another sound.

tracking with closeups (31)

UNTO US A CHILD

When the girl Dora Kwezi appeared at the door of the schoolroom Frank Potter did not at first notice her. He had his back to the class, writing up a passage on the board and practically shouting over his shoulder because of the drumming of the rain on the roof. She had to call him twice before he heard her.

“Mr. Potter! Mr. Potter sir!”

He turned. She was splashed with mud almost to the knees and her frock was pasted to her handsome young body with the rain. What could have brought her out in this frantic hurry?

“Mr. Potter, please come to your missus!”

Oh my God. But it can’t be. Please God, it can’t be—it’s too soon, another five weeks!

“Go on with what I was telling you to do,” he said mechanically to the class, adding to the oldest boy as he passed his desk at the rear, “I rely on you to keep order, Lemuel!”

Then he seized his umbrella, opened it, and dived out into the pouring rain in Dora’s wake.

Across the squelching quagmire of the village “square”, up the verandah steps and into the small bungalow assigned to them. When they first came here Sheena had looked about her in despair and begun by listing all the things it didn’t have which she regarded as essential to mere survival. There wasn’t even a piped water-supply; a tank on the roof had to be filled from a water-truck at weekly intervals.

Yet it was a place where they could have their child, legally …

“She in the bedroom!” Dora said, pointing, and Frank thrust past her, dropping the umbrella without bothering to close it.

Sheena was stretched out on the bed with her eyes closed, her face very pale, her belly stretched large as a pumpkin under her too-tight dress. Beside her, bathing her face with a rag and iced water, was the nearest approach this forsaken little village could boast to a doctor: Dora’s mother Mamma Kwezi, the midwife and layer-out.

“Is it—?” Frank demanded, and could not finish.

Mamma Kwezi said with a shrug, “It is soon, but I have seen early pains before.” Her English was good but thick with Shinka consonants.

Frank dropped beside the bed and took Sheena’s hand. On his touch, she opened her eyes and gave him a wan smile that almost at once died into a grimace of pain.

He said inanely, “How long since it started?”

“Over two hours, I suppose…” Her voice was harsh.

“Why didn’t you tell me before, for heaven’s sake?”

“But it’s far too soon, Frank! It ought to happen next month some time!”

“It is bad to be afraid,” Mamma Kwezi said. “I was born, you were born—it is a thing for everyone, after all.”

“But if the baby is five whole weeks premature, then—” Frank checked himself, belatedly aware that this was the worst kind of talk to let Sheena hear.

“Yes, it will be weak, that cannot be helped,” Mamma Kwezi sighed.

“We’ve got to get her out of here—to a proper hospital!”

Mamma Kwezi looked at him with big round eyes. She gestured to Dora, hovering in the background, and relinquished to her the task of bathing Sheena’s hot face. Drawing Frank aside, she regarded him sadly.

“How will you take her, sir? The road to Lalendi is all mud, and in this rain—”

“I’ll phone for a copter!”

But even as he spoke the words he knew they were ridiculous. The pelting rain was practically a solid sheet of water now, the last violent spate before the winter dry period set in.

“No, a hovercraft! That can get through mud, it can get through anything.”

“Yes, sir. But can it get here from Lalendi, and back, in … well, two more hours?”

“Will it be that soon?”

“It will not be any longer. I have felt a—” Mamma Kwezi put her hand on her own ample belly, at a loss for the word.

“Contraction?”

“Yes. The water will break in a little while, I think.”

Frank’s world slipped off its axis and spun crazily. Mamma Kwezi put a sympathetic hand on his arm.

“She is a good healthy girl, sir, and you too are a strong father for the child. I am very experienced and careful and I have good medicines and the book they sent from Port Mey with the newest advice which I have read and remembered. It is not like an old juju-woman.”

“No, Mamma, I’m sure you’re—you’re going to do fine.” Frank swallowed hard. “But if the baby is going to be so weak and small…!”

“We will take good care of it. Now do go and talk on the phone to Lalendi. Have sent a car. Get to help me a good English-type doctor and say what is the trouble. Once I saw in Lalendi a special cradle with very strong air in big cans which is good for babies.”

Christ. Long ago and far away before that damned Eugenics Board ruling, I was planning to have Sheena take hyperbaric oxygen therapy during the pregnancy …

But techniques like that seemed unbelievable in the setting of this village built of timber and scrap with only a handful of modern houses in the centre: the school, this bungalow, the clinic, the library … Even those not modern, slab-sided huts on a grand scale made of concrete in cheap standard panels. Here where TV was something the whole village gathered to watch in a sort of crude cinema, here where there was one phone, no street-lighting, nothing but fluorescents in the homes instead of luminous ceilings, no this, no that …

How many thousand years of history could a man bridge in a day? Here he stood, nominally a citizen of a country whose wealth made the fabled powers of antiquity seem like beggars, sharing with naked cavemen the same sense of terror before the incomprehensible process of man becoming man.

He looked at the window. The word had got around. In the rain, eyes large and round under their improvised hoods, the women of the village were gathering as though to join in the traditional rituals which he had seen accompanying all the births since his arrival. His fist clenched and began to rise, framing a threatening gesture to drive them away. It stopped at hip-height and the fingers straightened.

At home they denied me the right to be a father. It is not home any longer, cannot be. I’ve thrown in my lot with these people. I like them. Some of them are becoming good friends. If I have to suffer a few of the things they endure—well, a man must pay for what his heart desires …

He went to the door and stepped out. One of the women gathered called uncertainly the formula for good luck at the time of a birth: “Brother, may you have a child like Begi!”

He was not yet fluent in Shinka, though he had been studying it diligently in his limited spare time, but he had heard the ritual exchange often enough to give the traditional answer.

“Begi brought good fortune wherever he went—if he comes to us let all share the joy!”

They relaxed and grinned and nudged one another. He smiled back and added in English, “Here, don’t stand in the rain. Come up on the verandah.”

And there, pushing through the women from the far side, were Chief Letli and his oldest son, who both bore the remarkable name of Bruce after a District Officer who had once been stationed at Lalendi. The chief called out.

“Mr. Potter, you are going to the phone? There is no need—my son spoke to the hospital and they will send out a hovercraft with a nurse and all the medicines!”

For an instant the words did not register; he continued forward until he was about to step off the the verandah. Then he stopped dead.

But I didn’t even have to ask. I never thought of asking anyone to do it for me. Something’s wrong with me. In a time of trouble should people not be able to ask help without feeling demeaned?

He thought about that a lot while he was waiting by the bed for his child to emerge into the world.

* * *

It was a girl. She was still alive when they got her into the oxygen tent, and the nurse who had come from Lalendi did terrifying things with pipes and needles connected to a buzzing machine driven from the ambulance’s engine. The local women watched with awe, some of them praying audibly. Words like “intravenous nourishment” and “maintenance of the uterine environment” meant nothing to them, and little more to Frank. But eventually he understood that what was being done to the helpless mite was making her welcome in a hostile world, restoring her to the warmth and support she had enjoyed inside her mother’s body.

He said to Sheena, pale and weak, “It’s been a long time since the cavemen.”

She didn’t understand. But she smiled at him anyway.

continuity (42)

AND SAY WHICH SEED WILL GROW

Months had gone by since Norman had spared Donald more than a passing thought. He had wondered occasionally what had become of him; once, someone had commented on the political crisis developing between the States and Yatakang, which had briefly extended to a rupture of diplomatic relations and then somehow been smoothed over, and mentioned in passing the possible relevance of the backpedalling Engrelay Satelserv had indulged in to cover the cessation of the dispatches from Gongilung under Donald’s byline, which had begun spectacularly and ended even more so.

At that point Norman had made a mental note to try and find out, perhaps to ask Elihu to sound out State—and the next moment a problem had arisen and he had never acted on the intention.

Chad had said, rightly, that from now on Shalmaneser would be running Beninian affairs. But one could not abdicate all the responsibility to a machine. Some of it had to be processed, at least, by a human being empowered to make human decisions, and Norman was that person. For months he had moved in a state like a waking dream, barely concerned at what he ate or wore, impatient of his body when it grew tired, angry when its hormones imposed desires on him. All that counted was that the project should move smoothly, and in that at least he was well satisfied.

Ahead of schedule, they were transferring the control centre to an inflated dome on the outskirts of Port Mey. A new wide road connected it to the harbour, where dredgers had increased the draft of the ships it could accept by over a hundred per cent. Moles and sea-walls were going up: a colossal sludge-reservoir was being carved out of the coast a mile or two distant so that raw material from MAMP could be pumped up in slurry form through pipes bigger than a man was tall. Those pipes now were being reeled out on to the bed of the ocean by a fleet of five ships.

The proportion of coloured to white in Port Mey had suddenly been transformed as volunteers from a dozen countries outside Africa and GT staffers mingled with the natives. Housing developments, power-stations, vehicles, people—somehow, he had to keep their relationships clear in his mind.

So, when the message arrived on his desk one morning, he at first stared at it blankly.

Donald, it stated, had heard about the Beninia project and wanted to see it since it was being run by an old friend of his. Would Mr. House be so kind as to indicate whether a visit from Mr. Hogan would be convenient?

There was a signature appended. Also there was a call code—somewhere in Washington, by the pattern of the numbers. Norman told an operator to get him a circuit and went back to what he was doing.

Eventually the screen lit with a reply, on a poor satellite connection suffering much interference from a storm in progress. However, Norman could determine that he was speaking to someone in a hospital office, wearing a white coverall.

“I’m Dr. Oldham, Mr. House. I gathered you received my message about your friend Donald Hogan.”

“Yes, of course. What I wanted to know was why he has to go through you to find out if he can call on me? I’d be delighted to see him again.”

There was a pause. “I should perhaps explain,” Dr. Oldham said at length, “that I’m calling from St. Faith’s Hospital, not from Washington as you may have suspected from the code we use. I don’t know if the name means anything to you?”

Norman said slowly, “Yes, of course. You’re the army psychiatric centre, aren’t you?”

“That is correct.” Oldham coughed. “Your friend underwent some very disturbing experiences while he was in—ah—yes, of course, his presence in Yatakang was public knowledge, wasn’t it? To be candid, he’s been insane for a considerable time and he’s even now suffering from the after-effects. This was why I wanted to sound you out.”

“Prophet’s beard,” Norman said. “Whatinole did you bleeders do to him?”

“Mr. House, that’s a very—”

“If you’re speaking from St. Faith’s you’re an officer, I guess. Colonel—general?”

“Of course—colonel—but one doesn’t use the—”

“Never mind. Suppose you answer my question?”

Oldham said stiffly, “Lieutenant Hogan was in a sense wounded in his country’s service and any other attitude to what has happened would be improper and unjustified. I hope that’s clear.”

“Have it your way,” Norman sighed. “All right, let’s stick to the orbit we were flying. You want to know if he can come and look over the Beninia project. Yes, he most certainly can, and if you’ve decided to discharge him from the service I’ll be happy to hire him myself. Tell him so—it might cheer him up if he’s depressed about something.”

“He is,” Oldham said shortly. “But you’ll see for yourself whether news like that is any use.”

* * *

For a while after that call, Norman was bewildered. No effort of imagination could explain convincingly how Donald could have been driven out of his skull. He had always seemed a stable, balanced codder, perhaps lacking in emotion, even. Was that what betrayed him—excessive self-control?

No good guessing.

With a start, Norman realised that for months past he had not taken in a news bulletin to digest it properly; he had sat in front of the screen and his mind had invariably wandered to something that directly concerned him. He recalled a few major items like the diplomatic breach with Yatakang, but he had no clear idea either what had caused it or what had ironed it out. There had been this tremendous row over the charge that Sugaiguntung had been lying—or someone had lied in Sugaiguntung’s name, he wasn’t sure which—and the genetic optimisation programme had been called a fake and now there was some sort of revolution going on with islands defecting to a rebel army led by a man with a funny name which made him think of horse’s hooves clopping, and the Chinese were accusing the Americans of fomenting it and retaliating by shipping arms to … where was it they searched a ship and found nuclear missiles hidden in the hold? Not Chile, but …

He stopped himself and told somebody to prepare a digest of the events relating to Yatakang over the past half-year, after which he was able to return to work.

* * *

When Donald did eventually arrive in Port Mey, Norman’s first reaction was shock. He had lost at least thirty pounds, and his cheeks were sunken under dark-circled eyes. Also there were patches of grey in his hair. Behind him, emerging from the same car, was a large young man with a watchful air who somehow made Norman think of bodyguards.

But he covered himself well and extended his hand, uttering a warm greeting. Donald let his own fingers rest laxly in Norman’s for a moment and answered with disconcerting directness.

“You’re wondering what’s made the change in me, aren’t you? Oh, don’t bother being polite—we shared an apt for years, didn’t we? I mean, the other Donald Hogan did.”

Norman’s heart sank. What was this about “the other” Donald? Was it a symptom of his mental derangement?

He looked past Donald at the man who had accompanied him, who gave a shrug and pursed his lips.

“That’s Tony,” Donald said. “They wouldn’t let me come without him. He’s not much of a nuisance except when I feel I’d like a shiggy and somehow with him watching me all the time I can’t persuade any girls to—never mind, though.” His manner reverted to something approaching the normal.

“Good to see you again! You’re turning into quite a public figure, know that? All the TV channels seem to be talking about you day and night. So I thought I’d like to come and see what it is that’s getting everyone so worked up.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Norman said. “I’ve laid on a tour of the kind we reserve for HIP’s.”

“I hope it includes the people I know here, which isn’t many, but they said Chad was here, and of course I suppose Elihu is?”

“I fixed for you to call on Elihu this afternoon—I thought you might want to say hullo. Of course, he’s pretty busy, but there’ll be time for a drink together, at least. As for Chad, though, he’s off up-country on the trail of an idea one of his study groups produced. I’ll do my best to get you together with him, but talk about trying to catch a fish with your bare hands…”

Chatting away, Norman ushered Donald into the dome.

* * *

The tour on which he escorted his visitor was a nightmare of tension for him. He hadn’t envisaged a change like this, and every second found him expecting another outburst of irrationality. It never materialised. Yet, without knowing exactly what form the disorder took, he couldn’t give up preparing for it. He was almost exhausted by the time they were due to call at the Embassy and see Elihu.

Gideon Horsfall was with him, and this was a relief; it meant there were two other people to carry the burden of conversation and he could rest until the subject reverted to something directly affecting him. For a while the talk was casual, concerning such public matters as President Obomi’s failing health and the good progress being made with the project, but it was inevitable that Donald should raise the name of Chad Mulligan again, and at that point Elihu glanced at Norman.

“I’m afraid I have no very clear idea what he’s doing,” the ambassador said. “Norman, you’re nominally his boss—can you explain?”

“Well, he’s conducting a tremendous social study of the country,” Norman shrugged. “He’s convinced that when he told Shalmaneser there was some unknown force operating among the people here he was speaking the truth, and he’s off looking for it.”

“And when he’s found it, what’s he going to do with it?” Donald demanded in a suddenly hostile tone. Norman’s scalp crawled, and he tried to make his answer as peaceable as possible.

“Well, I think you’d have to ask him about that.”

“Is he going to use it to change people?”

There was a blank silence. At length Elihu said, “Certainly Chad’s changed, himself, since I first met him. He struck me on first acquaintance as a loud-mouthed alcoholic, but now I know him better I think he was only embittered by rejection, and out here with a job that fully engages his attention he’s been transformed.”

“I was transformed, too,” Donald said loudly. “Did I tell you about that?”

From the corner in which he was sitting silently on his own, Tony said, “Now, Mr. Hogan, if you go on I shall have to—”

“Give me a trank and take me away!” Donald interrupted. “Fasten it, will you? Why they thought it would help me to recover having a stupid bleeder like you looking over my shoulder … Anyway, so what if I do talk about it? This is a Yew-Nigh-Ted States ambassador, remember?” He went on, addressing Elihu, without pausing for breath. “You know about being eptified, I guess. They did it to me, the drecky bleeders. They took me and trained me and when they’d finished I wasn’t Donald Hogan any more though I feel I’m entitled to use the name because he’s dead now. You see—”

As Elihu and Gideon were exchanging astonished glances, there was a sudden commotion outside. Relieved, Elihu said, “Excuse me, Donald! Gideon, see what that is, will you?”

Losing his audience, Donald fell to staring at his palms, both hands upturned on his lap, his head cocking first to one side, then the other.

Through the door, which Gideon had left ajar, there roared a familiar voice.

“I don’t care if he’s entertaining the Queen of sheeting Sheba! I want to talk to Norman House!”

“That’s Chad!” Donald raised his head.

“Right,” Norman muttered, and went to the door. In the foyer beyond, Chad was confronting two junior officials with an overdeveloped sense of protocol. On seeing Norman he pushed them out of his way and stormed into the room.

“Hi, Elihu—Donald! Christ, where did you spring from? Never mind, tell me in a minute. Norman, I had to find you and tell you at once.”

He put both hands triumphantly on his hips and planted his feet apart on the floor.

“Norman me old beddy, it looks as if we finally solved it!”

“What?” Norman was half out of his chair. “You—”

“I so testify. At least on present evidence. Elihu, can you ask one of your lackeys to bring me a good big drink? I think this deserves celebrating!”

He kicked around a vacant chair and plumped himself into it with a broad grin.

“So what is it?” Norman urged.

“It’s a mutation.”

* * *

They thought that over in silence for a second or two. Donald, annoyed at losing the attention he had been attracting when Chad interrupted, said, “That means change. I was going to tell you what they did to change me. They—”

“Donald, fasten it, will you?” Chad grunted. “I’m bursting to tell Norman the good news. I think maybe it’ll tickle his sense of humour.”

Astonished, Donald stared at him. He appeared to be out of the habit of being told to shut up. However, he shrugged and fell obediently silent.

“Ah, thanks!” Chad accepted the drink he was offered and took a healthy swig. “Well, you see, what happened was essentially this—for the benefit of Donald and Elihu and maybe Gideon if you haven’t been keeping in touch. Have you?”

Headshakes.

“I started off with these teams of sociologists and psychologists and anthropologists and none of them could tell me more than I already knew. So I said hell, maybe it’s in the food, and got Norman to hire me some dieticians and while I was at it I thought metabolic environment as well as external environment and insisted on some geneticists and—”

“And single-handed managed to upset my staffing budget for the entire year,” Norman sighed.

“A few months ago you were saying there was nothing more important in the world. If you’re back to penny-pinching I don’t want to know. As I was saying: way, way back at the beginning I decided I wasn’t going to be capable of co-ordinating all these people myself, so I asked for synthesists to link ’em together, but it wasn’t until just the other day that Norman got me one. Count him, one. When I could have used half a dozen and cut this business short—”

“Prophet’s beard, Chad! I did my best for you. I told you I—”

“Fasten it, Norman. Don’t be so touchy! I’m not blaming you for anything, just recounting what happened. So anyhow, the moment I got this codder I put him together with the geneticist we’d got hold of who had most offended his academic mentors in college, and they had a marvellous bull-session the whole of one night. I sat on it—wouldn’t have missed it for worlds. And they reached a conclusion.

“One: Shinkas don’t think killing each other is a good idea, under any circumstances.

“Two: everybody else, practically, does. They say they don’t and then they lose their tempers and smash in a few heads.

“Three: the situation here is a classic example of the overpopulation syndrome—poverty, influx of strangers who take a fat chunk of a small cake, lack of privacy, lack of property, et caetera. Port Mey is the only really big city in the country, I grant, but on the most favourable estimate it’s twenty per cent too large to escape violence and vandalism with its present standards of living.

“Four—am I keeping count? The hole with it! My tame synthesist explained to the geneticist all about releasers. Catch? I see a blank expression over there. A releaser is anything that triggers off a violent emotional outburst. It can be an insult, or it can be the sight of a shiggy taking off her clothes, or a fetish, or the areola provoking the nursing response—lots of things. Also, and far more important, it can be something we don’t consciously notice.

“Ever graphed the increasing sales of deodorants against those of commercial aphrodisiacs? A friend of mine once did. The lines ran virtually parallel. Pubic hair is there for a purpose—to concentrate a sexually exciting odour and provoke a reflex response.

“But we couldn’t manage without deodorants, because other body odours are also releasers. The scent of another male who’s been indulging in violent physical exertion is a releaser for the territorial-aggression response. Crudely, here’s a rival who’s come far and fast and I ought to send him back where he belongs. Every single densely populated urban community I can find has used disguising perfumes to counteract this, and then put on top erotic aromas like musk to restore the reflexes that the artificial scents have suppressed.

“Men in battle wear the same clothes for weeks or months on end and don’t get the chance to wash or scent themselves. If they’re penned up under siege they begin to crack, not through fear and despair alone but because they’re surrounded by other males whom they are not supposed to fight. The odour accumulates and pow!

“All this is a disgustingly simplified rehash of what my new beddy was telling this geneticist codder. So the latter says well, this is obviously a factor that’s been selected for on a perfectly conventional basis, which means it must be assignable to some part of the human genetic map we haven’t yet managed to analyse, so let’s go see what part and whether there’s an identifiable gene carrying the right secretions. We had to go up north and run a lot of comparative tests on immigrants who’d intermarried with the Shinka, and brothers, today, this very morning, we got it.”

He beamed around and gulped the rest of his drink.

“There’s a dominant mutation among the Shinka. I can’t see it, but my geneticists say it stands out a mile if you put a genotype from someone of pure Inoko blood alongside somebody’s who’s half Inoko and half Shinka. It makes the Shinka secrete, along with all their other bodily odours, a specific suppressant for the territorial-aggression reaction! You just walk into a nice, crowded, insanitary hut full of Shinkas, armed to the teeth and dead set on getting level with your rival males, and take a deep breath. You’ll be a happy, lazy, inoffensive slob inside the hour. It falleth as the gentle dew from— Excuse me. I’m a trifle manic at the moment.”

“Prophet’s beard,” Norman said. “Then they weren’t so wrong when they used to say Shinkas could steal a warrior’s heart out of his body.”

“Sheeting right they weren’t! And if anyone had taken that folk-saying seriously, I’d have been saved half a year of work!”

“Just a moment,” Elihu put in, frowning. “Are you saying a Shinka carries about with him—exudes—a sort of tranquilliser?”

“I guess you could say that,” Chad nodded.

“Well, why hasn’t this been noticed before? I mean, it must be a pretty conspicuous difference between—”

“It has. It has! Norman knew about it and you did for pity’s sake, and it went into Shalmaneser along with the rest of the data and he rejected it because he saw the significance of it and you hadn’t. I thought I’d only outwitted him when I put him back in orbit for the Beninia programmes, but he was smarter than me after all.”

“But if the geneticist said it showed up so clearly,” Norman objected, “then surely—”

“Ah, this is the bit I was just coming to, the one I said would tickle your sense of humour.” Chad was enjoying himself hugely. “Why hasn’t an expert spotted it before, is that what you’re going to say? Because it saved the Shinka from being made slaves in any great number. The Holaini, who settled down with the intention of sort of farming the Shinka as a slave-crop, lost their determination within a generation or so, partly because of interbreeding and partly because their aggression was being undermined by the company they were keeping. After that other slave-trading peoples avoided Shinka territory like the plague. They thought some powerful magic had been worked. Correctly!

“Virtually all the full-scale genetic studies of negroid stock have been done either in the New World, or in the most advanced countries of this continent, like South Africa. This country is too sheeting poor to enjoy the benefits, such as they are, of eugenic legislation. Nobody before now has mapped the genotype of any substantial number of Shinka, and certainly no one else but our group has been looking for what we were looking for.”

There was a pause. Half-inaudibly, Norman broke it, staring at the floor. He said, “That’s a shame. I’d begun to hope my ancestors might have come from here. I like this place.”

“Why shouldn’t you? Is there anywhere else on Earth where you escape the feeling that the human components of your environment are rivals, out to do you down? There used to be, but as far as I can tell this is the last to survive.” Chad upended his glass over his mouth. “Another, if I may!”

“I feel a bit stunned,” Gideon said. “You seem to be claiming that war could be cured, like a disease, with a dose of the proper medicine.”

“It’s early days yet, but that certainly doesn’t appear impossible,” Chad agreed. “Beyond that, though—there’s a target for a genetic optimisation programme! Building into every child born on the planet the in-stink-you-all attitudes of a Shinka. Sorry. Hey! Come to think of it, whatever happened to that project they had in Yatakang? I haven’t seen Sugaiguntung’s name in the news for—for ages.”

The others exchanged glances. Out of the corner of his eye Norman saw Donald tense and make as though to speak, but he didn’t.

Elihu said eventually, “Sugaiguntung’s dead, Chad. Did you not hear about it?”

“Christ, no!” Chad jolted forward on his chair. “Since I got here, I literally haven’t paid attention to anything except my work. You know how it is up-country where there’s one TV set for a village and you can’t get to see the screen because there are five hundred other people in the way.”

“The whole Yatakangi optimisation programme turned out to be a propaganda stunt,” Gideon said. “Sugaiguntung admitted he couldn’t do what the government had claimed and—”

“Yes, he could,” Donald said.

“What?”

“He could. He told me so just before I killed him.”

Norman tried to make his voice soothing; this, by the sound of it, was the renewed fit of irrationality he’d been afraid of. He said, “Come now, Donald! They killed Sugaiguntung themselves while he was trying to get away. He decided to defect because of the lies that had been put about.”

“Don’t you know you’re talking to the man who was there when he died?” Donald said.

After an incredulous pause, Norman gave a dumb head-shake.

“Oh, I heard the official version,” Donald said sourly. “What they said was like all good lies half-true. He did want to get away because he didn’t believe he could optimise human beings. But he realised that he could, after all. And far from the Yatakangi patrols homing on the beacon in his suit and shooting him out of the water while I escaped—that’s what they said, that’s the lie—I killed him. With a knife. While he was telling me all the ways he couldn’t do what he had promised.

“They’d trained me to kill people, you see. They took me away to a place on the water and there they showed me every way they’d ever thought of for one man to kill another. Do you want me to show you some of them?” He rose unsteadily to his feet. “I don’t want to kill any of you, but there’ll have to be a volunteer because otherwise I haven’t anything to work with, you see. You do see? It’s the highest expression of human ability to improve other humans, and it’s called eptification, and because it’s one of our finest and most monumental achievements—”

From behind, Tony, who had approached without a sound on soft-soled shoes, raised and fired a diadermic syringe at the nape of Donald’s neck. As though he had often practised the movement, he dropped it into one of his side-pockets and had his hands back in position to catch Donald as he slumped towards the floor.

“I’m sorry about that, sir,” he said to no one in particular. “It does happen with eptification for military purposes occasionally, that you get this exaggerated reaction. Of course you shouldn’t take any notice of what he said about wanting to demonstrate his skill on people—it’s part of the mental disorder he’s suffering as a result of his very difficult time over there in Yatakang. Perhaps you’ll excuse me; I’d better call an ambulance and get him back to the hotel before he wakes up. I only gave him a very light shot, just enough to relax him and…”

While he was speaking, the others remaining transfixed, he was carrying Donald towards the door. The sound of it closing behind him seemed to awaken the rest of the company from trance.

But none of them seemed anxious to say anything until Chad jumped up and began to pace the floor, occasionally shooting a venomous glance after Tony and his limp burden.

“Highest achievement! Faugh! I’ve heard about this dirty business of military eptification and it strikes me as the foulest thing one man can do to another, worse by far than killing him clean!”

“He talked about ‘the other’ Donald, and about having the right to use his name because he was dead,” Norman said. He tried to repress a shudder, and failed. “Allah be merciful! I wouldn’t have thought it possible … And I was saying I’d offer him a job with the project if he wanted one.”

He glanced at Elihu, and was shocked to see the ambassador’s face suddenly as old as Obomi’s.

“So Sugaiguntung is dead,” Chad said. “And Donald killed him. Well, it’s only to be expected, isn’t it? And according to Donald he did know, after all, how to carry out the improvements he’d promised.” He hesitated. “I’m inclined to think that was probably true, aren’t you? Everyone I know who’s grounded in the subject agreed that if anyone alive could do it Sugaiguntung was the man. Christ, doesn’t it make you sick?” He whirled suddenly, facing the others, and pounded his fist into his palm.

“Isn’t it typical? We train one man—one ordinary, inoffensive, retiring little man—to be an efficient killing machine and he kills the one person who stood a chance of saving us from ourselves!”

“Well, I guess if we put it to Shalmaneser—” Norman began, but Chad cut him short, stamping his foot.

“Norman, what in God’s name is it worth to be human, if we have to be saved from ourselves by a machine?”

* * *

There was no comment from anyone else. After a while, Chad walked dejectedly towards the door, head down. Norman nodded to Gideon and Elihu and followed him. He caught Chad up in the foyer and put his arm around his stooped shoulders.

Staring straight ahead of him, Chad said, “Sorry about that. I guess it’s better to be saved by a machine than not to be saved at all. And I guess, too, if they can tinker with bacteria they could synthesise whatever this stuff is that makes the Shinka peaceable. Christ, what does it matter if we have to take brotherly love out of an aerosol can? It’s contagious stuff no matter where you get it from.”

Norman nodded. His mouth was very dry.

“But it’s not right!” Chad whispered. “It’s not something to be made in a factory, packaged and wrapped and sold! It’s not something meant to be—to be dropped in bombs from UN aircraft! That’s what they’ll do with it, you know. And it isn’t right. It isn’t a product, a medicine, a drug. It’s thought and feeling and your own heart’s blood. It isn’t right!”

He ran forward suddenly, heels crashing on the hard tiled floor of the foyer, and tore open the double doors to the outside. On the steps beyond he halted, threw back his head, and shouted to the city, to Africa, to the world.

“God damn you for crazy idiots! All of you! You’re not fit to manage your own silly lives! I know you’re fools—I’ve watched you and wept for you. And … Oh my God!”

His voice cracked to a breathy moan.

“I love you! I’ve tried not to, and I can’t help it. I love you all…”

* * *

A long time later, when people had come from all the rooms to see what the shouting was about—Elihu, Gideon, scores of anonymous faces—he allowed Norman to take his hand and lead him quietly away.

the happening world (16)

OBITUARY

BUCKFAST Georgette Tallon (“Old GT”): of a cerebral haemorrhage; at the headquarters of the corporation she founded and devoted her life to; in her 91st year.

ELLERMAN Eric Charles: by suicide quote/unquote; on the track of the rapitrans system serving his home block; aged 33.

HOGAN Donald Orville: by military eptification; at Boat Camp, Ellay; he is survived by Donald Hogan Mark II.

LINDT Gerald Shamus, Pvt. U. S. Army: by partisan action; at Ellay; aged 19.

NOAKES Benjamin Ralph (“Bennie”): hitripping once too often, a trifle too far; at his home; aged 24.

PETERSON Philip Hugh Clarence: from the bolt of a policeman’s gun; at the apt of one of his victims; aged 20.

PETERSON Sasha Maureen (née Wilde): by her son’s hand; at her home; aged 44.

ROWLEY Grace Jane: from senility complicated by a broken heart; in an official institution for the aged poor; aged 77.

SHELTON Poppy: by a fall; on the ground outside the window of her home; aged 23.

SUGAIGUNTUNG Lyukakarta Moktilong (Dr. Med., Dr. Biochem., Prof. Tectogen. Dedication Univ.): by a knife-thrust in the femoral artery; in the lonely waters of the Shongao Strait; aged 54.

WHATMOUGH Victor Ernest: by a gunshot “while the balance of his mind was disturbed” at his home; aged 60.

* * *

Also victims of muckers, rioting, sabotage, partisan activity, disease, overdose of drugs, accident, warfare, old age …

* * *

Despite the foregoing, the human race by tens of thousands would be knee-deep in the water around Zanzibar.

tracking with closeups (32)

THE COOL AND DETACHED VIEW

Bathed in his currents of liquid helium, self-contained, immobile, vastly well informed by every mechanical sense: Shalmaneser.

Every now and again there passes through his circuits a pulse which carries the cybernetic equivalent of the phrase, “Christ, what an imagination I’ve got.”