The Underpeople, page 1
THE UNDERPEOPLE
CORDWAINER SMITH
Contents:
CHAPTER ONE: LOST MUSIC IN AN OLD WORLD
CHAPTER TWO: DISCOURSES AND RECOURSES
CHAPTER THREE: THE ROAD TO THE CATMASTER
CHAPTER FOUR: THE DEPARTMENT STORE OF HEARTS’ DESIRES
CHAPTER FIVE: EVERYBODY’S FOND OF MONEY
CHAPTER SIX: TOSTIG AMARAL
CHAPTER SEVEN: BIRDS, FAR UNDERGROUND
CHAPTER EIGHT: HIS OWN STRANGE ALTAR
CHAPTER NINE: COUNSELS, COUNCILS, CONSOLES AND CONSULS
A PYRAMID BOOK PYRAMID SCIENCE FICTION X-1910
First printing, November, 1968
This book is fiction. No resemblance is intended between any character herein and any person, living or dead; any such resemblance is purely coincidental.
Copyright 1968 by Genevieve Linebarger
PYRAMID BOOKS are published by
Pyramid Publications, Inc.
444 Madison Avenue,
New York,
New York 10022, U.S.A.
CHAPTER ONE: LOST MUSIC IN AN OLD WORLD
You may have seen the musical play which was written about the confrontation of Rod McBan, the boy who had bought Earth, and the Lady Johanna Gnade, proudest and most self-willed of all the Lords of the Instrumentality. It was not a very long play. Indeed, among the many plays and ballads that were composed about Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan the hundred and fifty-first, this short drama was characterized by economy of form, understatement of the dramatic elements and the generous use of music. People remembered the music even when they forgot which play it came from. (Then the Instrumentality stepped in and ordered that the play be withdrawn, gradually and imperceptibly, on the ground that the music was licentious. Unfortunately, it was. Old music from the First Space Age has a real tendency to corrupt people of our own time. You can’t pick something out of a half-mythical place like ancient “New York” and turn it loose without people getting very queer ideas indeed.)
This is the way it happened.
Hansgeorg Wagner was one of the first musicians to be imprinted with the Doych language, sometimes called German or Teut, when the Rediscovery of Man began bringing the pre-Ruin cultures back into the world.
Hansgeorg Wagner had a neat eye for the dramatic. When the story of Rod McBan began to leak out, soon after McBan went back to his home planet of Old North Australia, Wagner refused to consider the obvious scenes: the boy gambling for Earth on his dry, faraway planet, and winning most of the available money in the universe; the boy walking on Mars; the boy meeting his “wife,” C’mell, most beautiful of the cat-women who served as the girlygirl hostesses for Earth; the boy fighting Amaral for the life of one of them; the mystery of the Department Store of Hearts’ Desires and what befell Rod there; or even the terrifying terminal scene with the E-telekeli. Wagner did not even want the dramatic scene in which Rod’s companion, his workwoman Eleanor, parted from him on Earthport tower soon after C’mell had sung her own famous little tower song to Rod:
And oh! my love, for you.
High birds crying, and a
High sky flying, and a
High wind driving, and a
High heart striving, and a
High brave place for you!
Wagner, with the instinct of a real artist, took the meeting in the music room instead.
In the Music Room: A Meeting with the Past
The passenger dropshaft from Earthport was like an ancient elevator shaft, except for the fact that if an actual ancient had seen it, he would have been surprised. It was ten miles deep, or more (it’s hard to figure out exactly what miles were, but they were much longer than kilometers), and it had no elevators. The shaft was ornamentally illuminated. There were signs for information, frequent stops for refreshment, and curious sights to be seen. This was for people only. People put on magnetic belts, stepped into the shaft, and were carried up or down at the rate of about twenty meters a minute, depending on which shaft they had gotten into; shafts always came in pairs, an up shaft and a down shaft.
By contrast, the freight shaft had no signs, no refreshments, and no amenities. The down speed was considerably faster. Freight rose or fell, tied to magnetic belts; underpeople and robots wore the belts, unless they forgot them and swiftly became bloody pulp or mashed machinery far below. The freight shaft, like the passenger shaft, did have warning in both the up and the down shaft, because if people got loose from their belts, they whistled downward to their deaths. Each set of shafts had interceptor nets, both for saving falling persons or objects, and to protect the other passengers below, but the nets did not work too well.
Wagner’s drama has an initial scene showing Rod McBan and C’mell pausing at the top of the freight dropshaft. She is carrying the small monkey-surgeon A’gentur, who has gone to sleep, bone-weary after the trip. Rod McBan, standing a full head taller than most cat-men, is expostulating with gestures more coarse and more real than any c’man ever used. His big bush of yellow hair had been made cat-like before he landed on earth and the long sparse whiskers of his cat-moustache twitched oddly indeed as he explained his emphatic desires with forthright Old North Australian gestures.
After a short development of the scene, Wagner has both of them singing the lyric refrain, “Earth is mine, but what good does it do me?” from Rod, and “Earth is yours but be patient, my love” from C’mell. A touch of comedy is provided by C’mell’s trying to get a magnetic harness on Rod while he squirms. The scene ends with the two of them stepping over the edge of the dropshaft (which looks bottomless) on their long, long drop down to the surface of the Earth.
We know that the two of them dropped easily. The only difficulty was caused by Rod’s tendency to talk too much when he, the richest man in the world, was supposed to be travelling in the disguise of a poor, simple cat-man. Torn between irritation and love, C’mell switched between humoring him and shushing him.
Crisis came (and Hansgeorg Wagner catches it in his play) when Rod heard the sound of unbelievable music.
It was like no music he had ever heard before.
“What’s that?” he cried to C’mell.
“Music,” said she, soothingly.
He did not call her a fool, but he growled in annoyance and reached over to seize a rung of the endless emergency ladder which followed the dropshaft down. He climbed a dozen rungs upward and peered into a pitch-black lateral corridor which led, apparently, to nowhere but from which strange fierce beautiful music was certainly coming. He had climbed against the gentle throbbing pull of the magnetic belt and he breathed heavily with the double exertion. C’mell had dropped another ten meters before she saw what he was doing. Wearily, but with no word of complaint, she climbed up the ladder to him, carrying her own weight, that of the sleeping monkey-surgeon whom she had tossed over her shoulder, and the pull of her own belt as well. When her head reached the level of Rod’s feet, he stepped carefully off the ladder and took two very gingerly steps into the dark lateral corridor.
The music was clear to both of them.
Throbbing, beaten strings made the lovely sounds.
She sensed his inquiry though she could not see his face in the dark.
“That instrument - it’s a piano. They’ve started making them again.”
Rod put his hand on her arm to quiet her. “Listen, I think he’s singing.”
Full-bodied and full-noted the music of the piano and a man’s tenor voice came clearly and fully at them from the corridor, hidden by the darkness but not sounding too far away:
Ignoraba yo.
I didn’t used to know it.
Ignoraba yo.
I didn’t used to show it
that I loved you, loved you so.
I love you and I love you,
Hoy y mańana.
There’s nothing else in life for me,
Hoy y mańana.
You love me wild and use me up,
Hoy y mańana.
Was I happier or sadder when I didn’t even know you?
Ignoraba yo,
I couldn’t even show you.
The voice trailed away. There were a few flourishes of beaten strings, as though the player were trying to get the arrangement just right.
“Part of that is Ancient Inglish,” said Rod, “but I never heard the other language before. And I certainly never heard that kind of a melody, anywhere.”
“I know most of the music which is played on Earth,” whispered C’mell, “and I never heard anything like that before. Come on, Rod. Let’s go on down the shaft. When we get to a safe place, I will send messengers back to find out what is going on in this part of Earthport tower.”
“No,” said Rod, “I’m going in.”
“You can’t, Rod. You can’t. It might ruin everything. The disguise, Lord Jestocost’s plans, your safety.”
“I bought this world,” said Rod, “and I’m a ruddy fool if I can’t even ask for a piece of music. I’m going in.”
“Rod,” she cried.
“Stop me,” he said, crudely, and walked boldly down the corridor into the dark, just as though there might be no trap doors or electric screens. C’mell followed him, carefully and reluctantly.
The corridor blazed red with letters of warning:
KEEP OUT
NO PEOPLE ALLOWED
INSTRUMENTALITY WORK - SECRET
A recorded voice shouted at them, “Go away! Go away! No robots. No underpeople. No real persons. Lords of th
Rod ignored the voice even though C’mell was plucking at his sleeve.
The red warning lights had revealed the outline of a door with a doorknob.
He took the doorknob, twisted it. It was locked. The door itself did not seem to be of steel or Daimoni material. Perhaps it was even wood, which was much too precious on Old North Australia to be used for anything as cheap as a common door: the Norstrilians used plastics derived from sheep-bones.
Rod shouted, “Open up, inside. Open up.”
“Go away,” said a mild, pleasant voice from beyond the door, so near that it startled them.
The voice was so near and the door so fragile that Rod was tempted.
He stepped back until he was next to C’mell. He was sorry when he heard her sigh with relief - apparently at the thought that he had heeded the warning and was going to go back to the dropshaft.
Instead, he used a fighting trick which he had learned at home. He jumped with the full force of his body at the door, striking the door just above the knob with both his feet and putting his hands below him so as to cushion the fall of his body against the floor.
Results were startling:
The door yielded so easily that Rod plunged on through into a bright sun-lit room, landed on a carpet and slid with the carpet until his feet, firmly but gently, were stopped by a large beautiful upright wooden box, elegantly polished, which seemed to have a rudimentary console. A middle-aged gentleman, showing great surprise, jumped out of his way. Blinking against the brightness of the light, C’mell and A’gentur followed Rod into the room.
Their startled host spoke:
“You’re underpeople! Do you want to die? Somebody will kill you for this. Not I, of course. What do you want here?”
Rod brought himself to his feet with all the dignity which he could command.
“My name is Rod McBan,” said he, “and I take full responsibility for what has happened. I am the new owner of this planet Earth, and I want to hear some more of that music you were making.”
“Ignoraba yo. That Spanish bop? What business is it of yours, cat-man? That is secret work for the Instrumentality. And all you are going to do is to die when the robot police arrive.”
C’mell spoke up. Her voice had a calm urgency to it, which could not be ignored by anyone. Said she, “You have a connection with the Central Computer?”
“Of course,” said the man, “all protected offices do.”
“You are not a person?”
“Of course not, cat-woman. I am the dog-man D’igo and I am the musical historian assigned to work in this office.”
“I am C’mell,” said she flatly.
The dog-man was startled but when he spoke, his voice was very agreeable: “I know who you are. Anything here is at your service, C’mell.”
“Your connection?” she demanded.
He nodded his head at one side of the room. She saw the speaker in the wall. A’gentur sat sleepily on the floor, while Rod had produced one single clear note by pushing one of the keys of the beautiful big upright box.
C’mell called, “Rod, come here.”
“Right ho,” he said, coming over to the speaker.
“Listen. Your life may be in danger, Rod. I’ll call Central Computer and I want you to assert your authority over this room and this work. Demand to hear the music that you want. Tell the Central Computer the truth. That may keep the robot police from coming in and killing you before they find that you are not really a cat-man.”
“He isn’t a cat-man….” murmured D’igo in wonderment from the side.
“Sh-h,” said C’mell to Digo. To Rod she said, “Speak now. Establish your rights.”
“Centputer,” said Rod, “take this name down. Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan the hundred and fifty-first from Old North Australia. Got it?”
“Affirmative.”
“Do I own you, Centputer?”
“Repeat. Repeat.”
“Centputer, have I bought you?”
“Apparently impossible, but this-machine will check. No, you have not bought this-machine.”
“Can you tell where I am, Centputer?”
“Restricted workroom of the Instrumentality.”
“Do I own Earthport?”
“Affirmative.”
“Do I own this room too?”
“Affirmative.”
“I am in it.”
“Re-state the instruction. This-machine cannot make your statement operational.”
“I have taken this room from the Instrumentality and I will return it to the Lords of the Instrumentality when I see fit.”
“That is not possible. The room belongs to the Instrumentality.”
“And I,” said Rod, “override the Instrumentality. Tell them to keep out till I am through.”
“The instruction is impossible. This-machine has records that you own Earthport, and that the Instrumentality sold you all of it, including the room you are in. Therefore the room is yours. This-machine also has a basic programmed command that the Instrumentality cannot be overridden. This-machine must appeal to higher authority. The robot police will be warned away from your person until this-machine has been re-coded or reaffirmed by higher authority.” Click went the speaker, and the Central Computer itself broke the connection.
“You’re in for it,” said C’mell. Her green eyes, which could look fierce at times, scanned him with soft indulgence: Rod could see that she was very proud of him, and he was not altogether sure of the reason. Her warning was ominous, but her expression betrayed no fear, only a new-found Confidence that he would see them through.
A’gentur spoke from the floor to D’igo: “Do you have any cocoanut, raisins, shelled nuts, or pineapple, dog-man?”
“Forgive him, colleague D’igo, if he’s rude, but he’s very tired and very hungry.”
“It’s all right,” said D’igo. “I have none of those things, though I have some excellent raw liver and an assortment of bones in my cold-box. My master, a Lord, has left a pot of cocoa which I could warm up for you, animal. Would you like that?”
“Anything, anything,” said A’gentur cheerfully.
“Now I’ve seen everything,” declared D’igo with a species of desperate composure as he put the cocoa on to warm it up. “My secret room is attacked, the famous C’mell herself pays me a visit, a cat-man gives orders to the Central Computer, and I have to feed an animal in my workshop. It’s not often that this sort of thing happens, is it, madame C’mell?”
“We came in here,” said C’mell gracefully and quickly, “because this friend of mine insisted on hearing your music.”
“You like it,” smiled D’igo. “I like it myself. It’s secret music and I’m not sure that it will ever be cleared for use. My master, the Lord Ingintau, wanted me to find the last song ever sung in New York.”
“That was a city, wasn’t it?”
“The biggest city on this continent. When New York was destroyed, there were various primitive electronic stations transmitting, some sending pictures and others relaying just words and music. The search-robots out in space have been recording all the salvageable messages from in that period of the First Doom, and I think that I have narrowed the choice down to three songs. You heard Ignoraba Yo - that was Inglish and Spanish mixed, in the style called bop. I’m not sure of the next one, because I have most of the melody, but for the words, only the refrain has come through. I got my helper, a dog-girl, to sing the part while I played the piano, and I spooled it just last week. Would you like to hear it?”
“That’s what I burst in for,” said Rod cheerfully.
The musician D’igo rested his hand against a blank part of the wall and said, “Forty-seven, please.”
The room was immediately filled with the wild catchy music of the “piano,” expertly played. The particularly musical melody was quick, startling, amusing and witty in its use of a tune. By Norstrilian standards, that song would be condemned as lascivious, thought Rod - but then, that wasn’t Old North Australia. It was what Ancient Earth sang as Earth died the first of a hundred deaths.
