Universe 10 - [Anthology] Read online

  So local family makes good. Poor sharecropping Mississippi people turn out to have a father dying with a smile on his face, and two daughters who between them own a large portion of the planet.

  I open the envelope before me. Ms. Alma Molière had listened politely to my story (the university had called ahead and arranged an introduction through the director of the Port Louis Museum, who knew Ms. Molière socially) and told me what she could remember. Then she sent a servant out to one of the storehouses (large as a duplex) and he and two others came back with boxes of clippings, scrapbooks and family photos.

  “I haven’t looked at any of this since we left St. Thomas,” she said. “Let’s go through it together.”

  Most of it was about the rise of Citizen Gudger.

  “There’s not many pictures of us before we came to Louisiana. We were so frightfully poor then, hardly anyone we knew had a camera. Oh, look. Here’s one of Annie Mae. I thought I threw all those out after Mamma died.”

  This is the photograph. It must have been taken about 1927. Annie Mae is wearing some unrecognizable piece of clothing that approximates a dress. She leans on a hoe, smiling a snaggle-toothed smile. She looks to be ten or eleven. Her eyes are half hidden by the shadow of the brim of a gapped straw hat she wears. The earth she is standing in barefoot has been newly turned. Behind her is one corner of the house, and the barn beyond has its upper hay-windows open. Out-of-focus people are at work there.

  A few feet behind her, a huge male dodo is pecking at something on the ground. The front two-thirds of it shows, back to the stupid wings and the edge of the upcurved tail feathers. One foot is in the photo, having just scratched at something, possibly an earthworm, in the new-plowed clods. Judging by its darkness, it is the grey, or Mauritius, dodo.

  The photograph is not very good, one of those 3 1/2 x 5 jobs box cameras used to take. Already I can see this one, and the blowup of the dodo, taking up a double-page spread in S.A. Alma told me around then they were down to six or seven of the ugly chickens, two whites, the rest grey-brown.

  Besides this photo, two clippings are in the package, one from the Bruce Banner-Times, the other from the Oxford newspaper; both are columns by the same woman dealing with “Doings in Water Valley.” Both mention the Gudger family moving from the area to seek its fortune in the swampy state to the west, and telling how they will be missed. Then there’s a yellowed clipping from the front page of the Oxford newspaper with a small story about the Gudger Farewell Party in Water Valley the Sunday before (dated October 19, 1929).

  There’s a handbill in the package, advertising the Gudger Family Farewell Party, Sunday Oct. 15, 1929 Come One Come All. (The people in Louisiana who sent expense money to move Daddy Gudger must have overestimated the costs by an exponential factor. I said as much.)

  “No,” Alma Molière said. “There was a lot, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. Daddy Gudger was like Thomas Wolfe and knew a shining golden opportunity when he saw one. Win, lose, or draw, he was never coming back there again. He would have thrown some kind of soirée whether there had been money for it or not. Besides, people were much more sociable then, you mustn’t forget.”

  I asked her how many people came.

  “Four or five hundred,” she said. “There’s some pictures here somewhere.” We searched awhile, then we found them.

  · · · · ·

  Another thirty minutes to my flight. I’m not worried sitting here. I’m the only passenger, and the pilot is sitting at the table next to mine talking to an RAF man. Life is much slower and nicer on these Colónial islands. You mustn’t forget.

  · · · · ·

  I look at the other two photos in the package. One is of some men playing horseshoes and washer-toss, while kids, dogs, and women look on. It was evidently taken from the east end of the house looking west. Everyone must have had to walk the last mile to the old Gudger place. Other groups of people stand talking. Some men in shirtsleeves and suspenders stand with their heads thrown back, a snappy story, no doubt, just told. One girl looks directly at the camera from close up, shyly, her finger in her mouth. She’s about five. It looks like any snapshot of a family reunion which could have been taken anywhere, anytime. Only the clothing marks it as backwoods 1920s.

  · · · · ·

  Courtney will get his money’s worth. I’ll write the article, make phone calls, plan the talk show tour to coincide with publication. Then I’ll get some rest. I’ll be a normal person again; get a degree, spend my time wading through jungles after animals which will be dead in another twenty years, anyway.

  Who cares? The whole thing will be just another media event, just this year’s Big Deal. It’ll be nice getting normal again. I can read books, see movies, wash my clothes at the laundromat, listen to Jonathan Richman on the stereo. I can study and become an authority on some minor matter or other.

  I can go to museums and see all the wonderful dead things there.

  · · · · ·

  “That’s the memory picture,” said Alma. “They always took them at big things like this, back in those days. Everybody who was there would line up and pose for the camera. Only we couldn’t fit everybody in. So we had two made. This is the one with us in it.”

  The house is dwarfed by people. All sizes, shapes, dresses, and ages. Kids and dogs in front, women next, then men at the back. The only exceptions are the bearded patriarchs seated towards the front with the children—men whose eyes face the camera but whose heads are still ringing with something Nathan Bedford Forrest said to them one time on a smoke-filled field. This photograph is from another age. You can recognize Daddy and Mrs. Gudger if you’ve seen their photograph before. Alma pointed herself out to me.

  But the reason I took the photograph is in the foreground. Tables have been built out of sawhorses, with doors and boards nailed across them. They extend the entire width of the photograph. They are covered with food, more food than you can imagine.

  “We started cooking three days before. So did the neighbors. Everybody brought something,” said Alma.

  It’s like an entire Safeway had been cooked and set out to cool. Hams, quarters of beef, chickens by the tubful, quail in mounds, rabbit, butterbeans by the bushel, yams, Irish potatoes, an acre of corn, eggplant, peas, turnip greens, butter in five-pound molds, cornbread and biscuits, gallon cans of molasses, redeye gravy by the pot.

  And five huge birds—twice as big as turkeys, legs capped like for Thanksgiving, drumsticks the size of Schwarzenegger’s biceps, whole-roasted, lying on their backs on platters large as cocktail tables.

  The people in the crowd sure look hungry.

  “We ate for days,” said Alma.

  · · · · ·

  I already have the title for the Scientific American article. It’s going to be called “The Dodo Is Still Dead.”

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  * * * *

  Special Non-Fact Articles Section

  The range of science fiction’s speculation about possible realities is hold and unlimited: sometimes science fiction isn’t even fiction, quite. Sf writers delight in imagining how such frequently dreary things as business letters or government committee reports might seem if they came from the future or from slightly different worlds.

  Herewith, two examples.

  * * * *

  SUPERL

  Charles E. Elliott

  Your request for information [writes Lt. Comdr. Boethius C. Heminstitch, the Public Relations Officer of the Division of Unusual Languages of the U. S. Coast Guard] about superl has been forwarded to me. I hope that you will not take offense because I have not used superl in this letter; it has been a long-standing policy of this office to answer all requests in the language of the request.

  As you probably already know, superl is a language devised to replace all of the so-called natural languages. It is streamlined and rationally designed and has every advantage over the “natural” languages.

  superl was developed by a team of U. S. Coa
st Guard linguists on an abandoned oil rig off Santa Barbara. The Coast Guard sponsored this research and development project for obvious reasons having to do with interservice funding. The project stretched over a period of six months and resulted in Coast Guard handbooks in superl Grammar, superl Phonology, and superl Readers I and II. At present an exhaustive superl Dictionary is under preparation. Over five hundred centers for teaching superl have been established, and it is already the official language of several government departments.

  The advantages of superl are many. Using it, speakers may talk directly in mathematics, physics, chemistry, spherical trigonometry, and anthropology, without the necessity of an intervening language. It of course makes direct conversion of the foot-pound-Fahrenheit system to the metric-Celsius system, thus relieving users of laborious and time-consuming computations. In its binary mode, superl may be used directly with computers, bypassing any computer languages. With superl a thesaurus is unnecessary: an alphabetical listing is a thesaurus. The real relationships of concepts are phonologically represented, and the unwholesome arbitrariness of phonetic symbolization is done away with.

  The articulation of superl involves many facial muscles, so that it is impossible to say something illogical in superl without at least a weak smile. Blatant absurdities result in broad grins and repeated winks.

  However, while these are major advantages, they might be built into “natural” languages, superl has, in addition, two characteristics that no “natural” language has: truth and compactness.

  Grammatical utterances in superl are always true. Thus, new truths about the universe can be discovered by babbling. This has obvious advantages. Speakers of superl have at their tongue tip (so to speak) the combined knowledge of mankind, and, what is more, all the facts about the universe they will ever need. The Coast Guard is presently exploiting this characteristic in a unique project. Thirty garrulous people have been gathered in our laboratory in Peoria and instructed to talk about whatever interests them. What they say is recorded and will be compiled into the superl Encyclopedia. We modestly hope that ultimately this will be the Ultimate Compendium of All Knowledge. If it is ever declassified it may prove of interest to scholars and teachers.

  The grammar of superl is equipped for many uses. For example, history can be recounted using the past perfect. Count nouns are used for the nobility, and there are mass nouns for the people. And not only does it have a passive voice for the cautious, it even has a future tense for the anxious.

  superl is, in addition, amazingly compact. What may be a lengthy exegesis in a “natural” language is often a simple sentence in superl. A classic example of this is B. A. Booper’s refutation of stratificational analysis. It was a single word! Whole novels have been written on the back of Howard Johnson menus, superl lends itself quite naturally to poetry. For example:

  Gnuj

  Wroj

  —which shows a height of lyricism not often attained in awkward “natural” languages. The approximate English translation is “As the moon casts silvery fingers (or greasy forks) over the spider’s (or lampshade’s or fodder’s) back, does he (or the moon) care, really care? I will return (or become nauseous) to my beloved (or the general public). Is there any other way? (or Do you have any oranges?)” The entire works of Shakespeare are being translated into superl; the result is expected to be a single trilogy of plays. There may be some difficulties with actual production, for, as one writer observed, “The cast is large, but the soliloquies are short.”

  In spite of the many advantages of superl, large numbers of people still sullenly refuse to say anything in it. We guess that this may be the result of half-baked rumors and spurious opinions about superl. It would be well to straighten out a few expressions of anti-SUPERL sentiment

  Some object because speakers seem to be unable to make jokes in superl. This seems to be a rather pointless objection. Jokes have their place, but there are all sorts of practical jokes that don’t require any use of language at all. Let those who cite this as an objection stitch a friend’s trouser legs together, or pour olive oil into their wives’ cocktail glasses. In any case, to satisfy these spoilsports, we may point out that already a team of United States Coast Guard Transmogrificational Grammarians is at work devising a set of standard jokes that may be recited in superl.

  That chimpanzees seem to be able to learn superl faster and better than human beings is not really an objection to the language, either. There is simply a difference between the brains of chimps and the brains of human beings. Vive la différence!

  The rumor that a recent anthropological finding, an artifact, had no name in superl, and that proponents of superl subsequently smashed and disposed of the artifact, has no truth in it. Speakers of superl have tested this rumor by trying to repeat it in superl. They were able to repeat the rumor, but only with broad grins and guffaws. Thus, even if true, the rumor had to be most illogical.

  The most vicious rumor is that it is possible to say “The world is coming to an end soon” in superl without even the hint of a smile. This we must simply discount. If the present trend of diversity in “natural” languages continues to pollute our linguistic atmosphere, we really are in for trouble. Let the anti-SUPERLites consider that, instead of carping at a minor inconsistency in superl.

  I hope I have given you the information you require. You may be amused to know that there are dirty words in superl. In the interests of National Security, however, these words have been classified and may be used only by the highest echelons of the government and the military.

  Please write me directly if you are in need of further information about superl. I would also be grateful if you would forward to me the names of any you hear being critical of superl. Please indicate in your report if they are supported by any government moneys.

  <>

  * * * *

  REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE

  ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE

  Eric G. Iverson

  30 November 1491

  To: Their Hispanic Majesties Fernando II and Isabel

  From: The Special Committee on the Quality of Life

  Re: The environmental impact upon Spain of the proposed expedition of the Genoese navigator Cristóbal Colón, styled in his native Italian Cristoforo Colombo

  The commission of learned men and mariners, established by Your Majesties under the chairmanship of Fr. Hernando de Talavera, during the period 1486-90 studied exhaustively the proposals set forth by the Genoese captain Colón, and rejected them as being extravagant and impractical. In the present year a second commission, headed by the Grand Cardinal, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, has also seen fit to decline the services of Colón. The present Special Committee on the Quality of Life finds itself in complete accord with the actions of the previous two bodies of inquiry. It is our unanimous conclusion that the rash scheme advocated by this visionary would, if adopted, do serious damage to the finances and ecology of Spain; that this damage, if permitted, would set a precedent for future, more severe, outrages of our environment; that even if successful it would unacceptably alter the life-style of the citizens of Spain; and, most important, that the proposed voyage would expose any sailors engaged thereon to unacceptable risks of permanent bodily illness and injury and even death.

  Certain people may perhaps suggest that the sea program of this kingdom is essential to its future growth. To this uninformed view we may only offer our wholehearted opposition. The Atlantic sea program offers extremely high expenses and hazards in both men and materiel for gains at best speculative but most likely nonexistent. Now more than ever, resources need to be concentrated at home, to bring the long war against the heathen Moors of Granada to a successful conclusion. At such a crucial time the state should waste no money on a program whose returns, if any, will not he manifest for some decades.

  If funding must be committed to the sea program, they should be earmarked for national defense goals in the Mediterranean Sea, not spent on wild-eyed jaunts i
nto the trackless and turbulent Atlantic. Unless and until we succeed in overcoming the corsair gap now existing, our southern coast will remain vulnerable to attacks from Algeria and Morocco even after the Moors of Granada are brought under our control. Moreover, if we fail to move against the heathen states of Africa, they shall surely fall under the aegis of the expansionist Ottoman Sultanate, with potential profound consequences to the balance of power in the area, as strong infidel forces will then be enabled to strike at our routes to our Italian possessions.

  It may be argued that shipbuilding will aid the economy of those areas near ports. This view is superficial and shortsighted. True, jobs may be provided for lumberjacks, carpenters, sailmakers, etc., but at what cost to the world in which they live? Barring reforestation projects, for which funding does not appear to be forthcoming, any extensive shipbuilding venture will inevitably result in the deforestation of significant areas of the kingdom and the deformation of the long-established ecological patterns of the wildlife therein. In any case, it is questionable if shipbuilding represents the ideal utilization of our limited timber resources. The quantity of wood required to construct an oceangoing vessel could better be used to provide low-income housing for whole villages of peasants or could furnish many underprivileged citizens with firewood sufficient for an entire year. Further, especially for long voyages such as that urged by Colón, ships must carry extensive stores (this point will again be alluded to later in the report). The question must be posed as to whether our agricultural industry is even adequate to care for the needs of the populace of Spain itself. Surely an affirmative answer to this question, such as cannot with assurance be made at present, is necessary before expansion can be contemplated and resources diverted for it. We must put a halt to these environmentally disadvantageous programs before they become so ingrained in our lifestyle that their removal presents difficulties.