The Missionaries (v1.0), page 4
Item from the Missionaries’ I.G. Handbook.
The timing of early campaign stages is delicate. Discovery before proper acclimatisation has been made should be avoided. To this end the M-ship should be returned to orbit with the minimum delay and missionaries should take advantage of available cover. It should be remembered that the Mission will be treated as a threat to organised authority until it has proved itself otherwise.
Next morning the sun shone. In the first hours after dawn the countryside steamed, laying a thin veil of mist between it and the cloudless, white-blue sky. Then the mist disappeared and the hillsides were clear and bright, proclaiming their green and their never-to-be-repeated newness. Trees scattered noisy flakes of the golden sun into hollows, into lanes, and into streams that caught them and added them to their own leaping tumult.
For Gordon a simple earthy bank, the soil slipped away showing strands of root, tiny snail shells, and blue irridescent beetles, became anew the crying miracle it had always been. An unpainted gate, even the single furrowed bar along its top, spoke of life in the brilliant sunlight, and of the constant change that made all things new yet left them ultimately the same.
Gordon had been up and about by eight. He disliked his bed and slept little in it, preferring to doze about tbe house when he felt the need. After a strong sweet cup of tea which he made for himself—army tea in the proper way—ignoring Sylvia, he went down on his own across the home paddock and into the orchard where he had his beehives. There was a high hedge along one side to lift the little beggars above the lane—it was ridiculous really how a simple precaution like that could save you from the inconvenience of outsiders getting stung.
He walked slowly, hardly using his stick, enjoying the sun. When he readied his line of hives he sat down on the thick stump of an old cherry tree he had felled himself. He remembered the logs burning up in the house that winter, noisy wood that oozed great gobs of resin. Through the trees behind him he could see glimpses of the house, brilliant white under its thick blanket of thatch. He’d whitewashed it himself, and chased the thatcher every yard of the way. The roses were his, and the clematis. The drive was gravelled, and he’d even got the paddock clear of rushes. Bit of a waste, that-^the boy had never shown the slightest damn bit of interest in horses—but you never lost, improving your property. He’d done a lot in the years he’d been there—till he’d been forced to slow up.
He turned his attention to die bees. The day was warming, and the honey flow looked heavy. He had what wind there was at his back, and the bees’ flight stream was taking them up, over the hedge, across the lane and onto the moor beyond. A single bee veered in his direction and poised itself on the wing a few inches in front of his face. He disliked being stung but wasn’t prepared to be moved on in his own orchard by just one inquisitive litde beggar. So he sat quite still, watching it, and it presently moved off to more fruitful pursuits. It was marvellous, all those thousands of litde insects working themselves to the bone to give him honey.
He closed his eyes, felt the sun on his head and the backs of his hands, and listened to the morning. He heard other mornings also: the watery cry of a curlew across the dawn fens, his gun smelling sharply of oil; guns rumbling, comfortably distant, while his batman fried eggs by an Italian wood, Riserva di Caccia; waves creeping and rustling on a grey beach while the wind whistled through the dune grass and the pre-breakfast swim had suddenly seemed madness.
Particularly, on this morning when he could dare hear anything, he heard a morning in hospital, a morning just like all the other mornings, a morning totally different from all the other mornings, a morning of teacups and squeaking castors and thermometers, when he had woken for the first time and known the truth, and had wanted to cry. And, to his lasting shame, he had cried.
It was a long time ago, and there had been plenty of mornings in betwen—surprisingly many. At first you expected every morning to be your last, poisoning each with resentment. Then, when nothing very dramatic happened, you found more sense.
He stretched, feeling the sun on his wrists. He’d last till the spring. He’d get Dacre to help him with wintering the bees. He’d last till the spring and the summer and the autumn. With his bees and the sun on his wrists he would last for ever.
Dacre called from the orchard gate.
“Lovely morning, Dad. You’re out early.”
Dacre was afraid of the bees.
“Lovely morning. Why don’t you come on in?”
“I’d rather not.”
He was wise, of course. They smelled his sweat and went for him. Didn’t he wash enough, or did he sweat because he was afraid? Gordon rose from his stump, waited for his heart to catch up, and then made his way back across the orchard to the gate. He leaned on the worn grey wood.
“I’ve been listening to the honey growing,” he said. “You could do worse.”
“I was thinking that very thing myself. I could do a great deal worse.”
They stood quietly, one on each side of the gate. The boy’s shoes were wet from crossing the marshy part of the paddock. The sun was on him too, warming him. At the same moment they both looked up, saw the pair of buzzards tacking high above them, heard the distant new.
“About last night,” Dacre said.
Gordon frowned, resenting the intrusion. “Over and done with. Lesson learnt.”
“Mother doesn’t seem to think it’s over and done with.”
“Perhaps that’s because she had to bear the worst of it.” Blast the boy. “Or hadn’t you thought of that?”
“I just wanted to tell you—”
“Don’t tell me, boy. Tell her. It’s a godawful life she has out here, miles away from anybody. You mustn’t be surprised if she takes things to heart.”
Dacre looked away. “I don’t know how you stick it,” he said.
Gordon was suddenly very angry, angry that his son should think such things, that he should dare push in saying them, angry that the precious morning should be used like this. Then, as suddenly, he was not angry any more but weary.
“You’re not a child any more. You ought to try to understand.”
“I do try.”
“Understand that it’s been a long time…”
There was far more to be said, far more that Dacre was wanting him to say. Surely embarrassment was for those with plenty of time. But not today—perhaps tomorrow he would feel less weary. He opened the gate. His son moved to one side and he went through it, starting the climb up the paddock to the house. Dacre stayed behind.
The path across the paddock skirted the marshy bottom and wound gently up to the gate onto the drive. Gordon took it in easy stages, leaning on his stick when he paused and forcing his eyes up from the ground in front of him. The rushes were coming back—he should have laid proper drainage in the first place. And gorse had seeded itself down from the moor, smelling in the hot sun strangely like coconut. He made it to the top gate and rested there, his chin on his chest, breathing shallow cupfuls of the sun-scented air.
He heard footsteps on the gravel of the drive. He lifted his head and saw, blurred by the blood vessels in his eyes, a group of people approach. Four of them. He thought there were four of them. Young people, two boys, two girls.
“Good morning, Gordon.” It was a voice he almost recognized. “I hope your boy got home safely last night. If Sylvia has finished washing up the breakfast things perhaps we could talk to you both. We think you deserve an explanation about what happened last night.”
The shape of the words worried him. Their enunciation was strange—perfect, yet somehow overcareful. He looked up, puzzled, into the young man’s face.
Item from the Missionaries’ I.G. Handbook.
First contacts will be made by following up specimens’ experience stores. Examination of thought-ways will provide dues as to the best procedure. I-levels above 147 will have built up complex social behaviour, and this should be followed in the minutest detail. Success or failure of first contacts will depend on missionaries’ ability to operate completely within the new thoughtways. In particular, missionaries should resist interpersonal communication by means other than those in indiginous use. A thorough understanding, by firsthand experience, of local limitations is essential to future field work.
Dacre had stood, disappointed. A door that he had never before tried to open had been locked in his face. Now he heard voices, dismissed the other matter carefully from his mind, and followed his father up to the gate. There were four young people standing there, two boys in identical motorcycling gear, and two girls also dressed alike, in frayed jeans, fur waistcoats, and short black plastic macs. There were no signs of any motorcycles out on the road, yet the four of them all carried helmets and thick leather gloves. They stood in attitudes of easy friendship, swinging their helmets and talking respectfully with his father. In such a setting—white five-barred gate, neat brown gravel, cushions of white and purple alyssum in a drystone wall—they were an incongruous party. But it was their faces that troubled Dacre most, and troubled him in a way that was hard to analyse.
There was nothing wrong with their faces. Each feature was acceptable, each expression pleasant. And yet there was nothing right There was no logic, no homogeneity, no proper sequence from eyebrows to nose to mouth to chin. They were assembled. Permutated. They were Identikit faces. They were, Dacre decided, faces that would be frightening if only half seen. And they talked to his father as if they had known him all their lives.
“What do you want?” Dacre said.
“Hullo there.” A hand was stretched out. “I’m George. That one’s William. The girls are Sally and Cora. We’ve just been talking to your father about what happened last night.”
“It’s no business of yours what happened last night.” He ignored the hand. They were of his generation, of his ethos, and yet they frightened him. “My father is ill. He doesn’t want to be bothered. “I’m sorry, but will you please go away.”
“I thought we might ask them in.” His father’s gaze was on the telephone wire, following it as it swooped away down the valley. “It’s a hot morning, and apparently they’ve been walking for some time. I’d hate to seem unhospitable.”
“Alright then.” Perhaps his father knew what he was doing. “If you’re sure you’re up to it.”
They began walking back towards the house, followed at a discreet distance by the four visitors. So far their behaviour was unexceptionable. But their smiling faces—he glanced over his shoulder—were still just as odd.
“You keep them talking,” his father murmured,” and I’ll ring for the police.”
“But why? They’re not—”
His father tickled irritably. “Your lorry story and now these four jokers—it’s too much of a coincidence.”
“But this lot isn’t a bit like the ones who—”
“I take it this isn’t another stage in some bloody elaborate practical joke of yours?”
“Of course not.”
“Then there’s too many coincidences. I shall call the police. Let them sort it out.”
Dacre opened the door to let his father go in first, and then the others. He noticed an interesting thing—while the boys hardly bothered even to look around them, the girls were fascinated by everything they saw. They were simultaneously awed and scornful; it was an attitude he recognised. Gang girls must be the same the world over.
His mother was called from the kitchen to be introduced. She came, removing her apron, but stopped when she saw the social group and age of her visitors.
“Did I head the Brigadier say you’d been walking?” She eyed them coldly. “Why? Have your motorbikes broken down or something?”
There was an embarrassed silence. Then the one called William turned angrily on his friends.
“I told you we shouldn’ve degra’d a couple of that bike. Now we’ve alienated our very first contact.” George laughed lightly, but fixed his companion with a gaze of peculiar intensity.
“Talking technicalities isn’t very polite, William. Besides, if you’d only look at the thoughtways you’d see that this particular alienation was a dead cert from the very beginning. Bikes or no bikes. Considering the given personality.” He laughed again, and turned back to Dacre’s mother. “I really must apologise for William, Sylvia. He is…”
William made an interruptive noise. “Try the thought-ways yourself, George. Forms of address. You’re a near stranger, remember.”
George closed his eyes, shook his head as if to clear it, then said, “You’re quite right, of course.” He tried again. “I’m afraid you must think we’re very peculiar, Mrs. Wordsworth. The truth is, we’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
The brigadier nudged his son, and then moved forward.
“Suppose you go into the sitting room,” he said, “and make yourselves comfortable. Dacre will look after you while I help my wife with things in the kitchen. You’ll be thirsty after your walk. There’s some cider in the house, or would you prefer coffee muck?”
Dacre was amused to see how smoothly the old man was handling things: The perfect host, shutting four dangerous spies in the sitting room while he phoned for the fire brigade. It was ludicrous; whatever these four extraordinary people were up to, they certainly weren’t spies. They weren’t good enough at it. (Where the hell had the spy idea come from anyway?) Besides, he’d just noticed that one of them, William, was wearing his shirt, the shirt with grease on its collar that he’d put in the dirty linen basket before going to bed. Come to that, so was George. They were both wearing his shirt with grease on its collar that he had put in the dirty linen basket before going to bed. And he’d have sworn they were both wearing his leathers too. Which, being impossible, made the whole thing even more ludicrous than ever.
He began to laugh inwardly, and found himself trembling. If the situation weren’t so funny, it’d be bloody terrifying.
And now George, obviously unfooled by the brigadier’s little scheme, was leading him gently but firmly into the sitting room. He also was smooth, but with the insistant smoothness of a dream, leaving no alternatives.
“It’s very kind of you, Brigadier Wordsworth. But could we please get our explanations over and done with first? We’re really not at all thirsty, and there’s such a lot to be got through.”
Dacre’s mother followed them, apparently unaware of everything except a group of young people typically good at getting round her fool of a husband. And Dacre, Dacre himself also went into the sitting room. He watched his parents, and felt uneasier than ever. Somewhere around there was an experience that he didn’t remember, that he hadn’t had, and that therefore he couldn’t—much as he suddenly wanted to—warn them of.
Item from the Missionaries’ I.G. Handbook.
Exposition must be graded to assessed I-levels. Linguistic limitations may be the controlling factor. Missionaries’ alien origin may be deeply unacceptable, involving a loss of native status or assumed uniqueness. Contacts’ acceptance performance will provide a useful parameter of subsequent behaviour under conversion techniques. Total rejection need not carry a poor prognosis, however, since it suggests an instability that—once used—may be remediable.
“I don’t believe a word it it,” Sylvia announced. Somebody needed to say it. The Brigadier had sat in his chair, unmoving throughout the whole fantastic story. He had recently acquired this habit of absenting himself from things that were troublesome to him. It left her extremely vulnerable. Dacre was no help either, over there by the window, pretending to be amused. She couldn’t tell at all what he was really thinking. She never could. The other four—why had Gordon ever invited them in?—were sitting round on her chairs, leaning on her cushions, their feet on her carpet. They had paired off—of course—one of the girls with William on the sofa, the other with George at the table. In outward appearance, with the sun streaming calmly in through the low leaded windows, the group reminded her of one of those afternoons she sometimes helped the vicar with down in South Molton. Marriage Guidance, perhaps.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” she said again. “What’s this place called that you’re supposed to have come from?”
“I could tell you our name for it, but that wouldn’t be much help. I might find it on a good astronomical atlas, but there isn’t one in the house.”
“I don’t know why you say that. The Brigadier has some excellent maps and things.”
“I think your son would know of it, and I can find no trace in his experience stores.”
“And that’s another thing. You should stop pretending you know what’s in my son’s mind. It’s wicked and sinful. Only God can see into men’s minds.”
“Believe me, Mrs. Wordsworth, I’m no god.”
“I’m glad to hear you say so.”
“A mind is a chemical storehouse, Mrs. Wordsworth. As I told you, we have a machine that can reproduce any given structure. I have a replica of your son’s mind, just as I have replicas of his clothes and the things in his pockets.”
“I don’t believe it.”
If she said it often enough, perhaps they’d go away, perhaps they’d shrivel and disappear under the blast of her disbelief.
But George remained unblasted. He took out his—Dacre’s?—wallet which she didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know any of it. But she had to look, peering painfully sideways at the wallet’s contents laid out on the table, the driving licence, the YHA card, the seamed photograph of herself and Gordon by the pyramids that she hadn’t even known Dacre possessed.
“If you have everything of his,” she said obstinately, “why haven’t you his face?”
“If I had, could you talk to me even as easily as this? If William and I and your son were all identical wouldn’t you be more put off than ever?”
