The Year of the Fruit Cake Read online

  Anyhow, to the anecdote.

  During World War II, Australian consumers had a passion for tartan skirts. Importation of such things was limited, due to the war, so an enterprising firm ordered their own tartan for these fashionable garments. It was a family firm and the family name was “Black”, so they called it the McBlack. It comprised three other tartans, one of which was the Royal Stewart. It was all produced locally, from the wool to the final product, so it wasn’t dependent on international trade.

  The tartan itself offended some people.

  Let me make this clear, for it’s very much an Earth thing. Tartan is a controlled substance. It’s not addictive or dangerous to the body in any way, so it’s hard to see why the restrictions apply. It’s like clan colours, in some ways, but instead of being a thing of government legislation, it’s governed independently. It’s colour and pattern only, not molecular design and so forth. This illustrates the primitive nature of Earth.

  Australia was not a signatory to any laws regarding tartan, and the McBlack was not illegal as far as I can gather. It was, however, a matter of culture and a matter of honour. This is the world that believes in the power of story, remember? Because of its position in the story of the Scottish people, an unapproved tartan is a form of cultural intrusion, even, under the right circumstances, cultural appropriation. So they police it.

  Given this, it’s not surprising this tartan offended some and was desirable to others. Nor was it surprising when Mr Black found himself the surprised recipient of a visitor from the authority that monitors tartans. The situation was explained to him and he nodded and agreed not to make any more skirts.

  Mr Black told his family it was very easy to accede to the will of the authority. The tartan trend wasn’t as strong as it had been, so he was running down his supplies. As a result, he had less than a bolt of the material in stock. He replaced the tartan skirts with another fabric and the episode was over.

  How do I interpret this story?

  Outcomes. It’s all about outcomes. The outcomes of this were not what they appeared. Instead of one party being punished, everyone got what they wanted. The mischief-makers who alerted the authorities were the ones who lost out, for there were no replacement tartans, invented or other, until the end of the war. Keep this in mind.

  If you go by her collections, my subject had a strange and wandering mind. But she brought everything together at a deep level. She also thought about it all at a very deep level, one of which she seldom spoke. This is the difference between small anecdotes and being such an agent for change. Keep this in mind, too.

  I must keep in mind, myself, that my whole accounting is taking the shape of that collector of tidbits and notes that I’m studying. Pulling it together into a story is very difficult.

  I should be thankful at this point that I’m pulling it into equations, ultimately. I can see why Diana wrote this way and why I’m copying it. It’s far easier to find the values of a small anecdote that has links to others than a giant story that flows smoothly.

  Ease aside, it’s much less straightforward to Judge a people who use stories to think instead of maths. There isn’t as much clarity. Complex concepts are harder to break down and link in strange ways with other complex concepts. That doesn’t mean than humans don’t have the capacity to think in an advanced way: obviously they do. What it means is that it’s extraordinarily hard to explain humanity, even using a human language. Their propensity for story hid their limitations in terms of deep understanding and their similarities to us obscured their deep differences. This affects Judgement.

  Of course it affects Judgement. Even if the situation on Earth had been entirely regular, Judgement would have been affected, because we require complete affinity with the people if the people are to live.

  My recommendation is that this need for complete affinity should be reconsidered. We still must Judge, for how is life possible without making the difficult decisions? But we need to find more stable and sound reasons for applying Judgement.

  The Observer’s Notes

  “Go away, all of you.”

  —me, today. And yesterday. And probably tomorrow. And definitely the day after.

  I need a warm, lined place that’s safe. Nothing here is safe. Not even the past is safe. Not even my home is safe. I’m always showing my frilled, frail side to the world.

  There’s never a moment that doesn’t hurt.

  I shall wear my dark yellow scarf tomorrow.

  The Observer’s Notes

  Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.

  —Margaret Mead, read online (quotation not verified)

  I’m more comfortable with old people. Their faces have contours. Study the contours and it’s possible to know a person without even speaking to them. The older the person, the more comfortable they are to be with, for the more their face explains who they are.

  Young humans are pretty. Not quite people yet, but pretty. The softness and sharpness and me-I-am hide who they are and who they will become.

  If the human race were made of young people and if I were the judge of it, then humanity would…

  I do not want to think this thought. The thought I want to think is the small smile lifting the right side of the face of the elderly woman who walked past me a moment ago. Her bushy white hair gave her thin brown skin an astonishing halo. If I were to judge humanity on her alone, humanity would survive. Her facelines demonstrated kindness and humour and troubles well-borne.

  My one consolation when I watch film and TV, when I catch a crowded bus, is that most of the faces I see will eventually find their contours. Most of humanity can be saved, if it wants to be. It’s a great shame that saving is not for each and every human, but for the whole race, and that age is not a factor. I could argue for saving humans. I have so many reasons. Old faces are but one of a mountain of them.

  Saving humans isn’t what’s happening here. Judging humanity is.

  And there’s no mountain for that. Merely me.

  Still, if I were judging and not Judging, that elderly lady would be safe.

  The woman’s slow voice...

  was counting again

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, fifty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine

  I do not want to think ahead to this. I do not want to plan for this. I should stop counting.

  I won’t count again unless I have to.

  May that day never arrive.

  The Observer’s Notes

  “Go away. I’m not ready. I never will be ready. Go away and stay away.”

  —me, of course.

  I want my burrow. Now. Forever.

  I don’t want to do this thing. I never wanted to do this thing. They made me forget I refused and objected and dug my heels in and that I was still forced to be Judge.

  I need my burrow.

  Notes tow
ards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  Let me sum up events. Simply.

  Cut through the complex descriptions and subjective feelings that have led me to this point. The earlier notes were pushing me towards this: they can now be discarded. In fact they must be discarded. I am developing sentiment towards the stories they begin to tell, and sentiment towards anything linked with story is quite evidently one of the major causes of this disaster.

  We had sent a final team of anthropologists to this planet. We had decided on Judgement.

  After Judgement, everything changes. Always. The sentient residents of the planet become like us, for we teach them to be like us. Or they die.

  There are no other paths.

  Our technical experts are neither as technical nor as expert as they should be. I tested this side of matters in my early days on Earth. This is when I discovered what a complete mess had been made of the technical side of Earth’s early colonisation. This is a factor, too, like story.

  At first, it looked as if it was a simple mix-up: somehow the Judge had been given the mind-treatment meant for an anthropologist, along with the human body both required. But it was not a simple matter of giving someone the wrong identity. That was, when I investigated, almost impossible to do, and rightly so. Those identities should never have been wiped or reshaped.

  It was impossible to find a clear culprit, but it was not a simple error.

  We don’t have many recourses in this kind of circumstance. The immediate investigation submitted a recommendation, and those technicians were at once sent to new work with less responsibility. They were also fined.

  Whatever the outcome of the rest of my research, they were partly responsible. Even if we discover that they were not involved in deciding it should happen, they didn’t follow standard procedure. The mindwipe/download cycle couldn’t have been done without them, whether it was intentional or not.

  I originally gave them the benefit of the doubt, and agreed with those penalties. However, the file is still open on them for, from the moment fruitcake occurred, there were issues that needed resolving and they are not yet done.

  Right now, I still think it’s possible that these technicians were purposefully involved with a group of activists intent on creating a martyr. Or with a group of hooligans intent on creating entertainment for voyeurs back home. Or with one of two other groups I have identified. They have been punished for being incompetent, not for being culpable.

  Mistake One, therefore, was lack of control over the technical side, so that cultural benefit (in this case porn or political change: probably porn) overrode basic principles. The limitations of the sex options in this society were too tempting on one hand, and those responsible were too late in applying an ethical code that was suitable for human interface. The immediate consequence of this was the diversion of two systems upgrades into their porn industry, so we now have excellent interpersonal pornographic experience starring our anthropologists on the Planet Earth. Art has been created.

  On the other hand there is the intentional interference with the life of the Judge, to bring about her early demise. This is in addition to the porn problem, but the porn problem is what affected the upgrades.

  Porn was not what the upgrades were for, obviously. They were to provide the more complex and robust mind conditioning a Judge needs. As a result, the Judge broke down. This was Mistake Two.

  These were the initial errors that caused all else to go wrong.

  Judges are selected for their strength of personality, and having one who was there reluctantly was bad enough. The fact that she was reluctant and had solid reason to distrust the techs was Mistake Three, for it meant that, until now, no-one has had full access to what happened. The Judge hid her private thoughts in this language (English), which is why this later investigation needed native speaker level and the capacity to interpret her words as she intended them. The errors in her preparation caused, as far as I can tell, her to see no problems at all in communicating in English and in writing English into her journal. She hid much material in places we may not have found, so there is no guarantee our record is complete. This is unheard of.

  The usual warning signs and blocks that limit action in order to reduce contamination were, it appears, excluded entirely from her prep. Whoever made that decision should be given a more severe punishment.

  This third mistake, to my vast regret, means that Earth culture has become a significant problem for us and has resulted in cultural corruption. Even before I came along, seventy-four people took on this human language and concepts. The total damage is significantly higher and covers significantly more people than was earlier suggested.

  I strongly recommend limited Mindwipe for all of my team. It will only serve to cordon-off the problem, but it is nevertheless essential to contain the corruption. You will note that I, too, am contaminated.

  Because our culture was contaminated before I was appointed to this investigation, I recommend that two options be considered in my case. The first is that I am Mindwiped of all events since the beginning of this project and am allowed to return to my normal life. The other is that I retain my memory in case further need of this subject mastery will help us, by avoiding still more need for the language and culture mastery. In the latter case, I should be banned from my clan. I personally would prefer the former, but I understand the practical implications of Mindwipe and will not protest if the latter is decided upon.

  The blame for this lies solely at the feet of the early anthropologists who worked on this world. English has a phrase for the phenomenon we have encountered. It’s called “going native”. Given this was identified as an exceptional likelihood of normal cultural immersion, and given our safety measures failed so thoroughly, Earth should have been regarded as a dangerous world, regardless of its level of technological achievement.

  Mistake Four lies in not informing the Judge of the truth, that Judges never return to normal life after the decision. This Judge is not the first to identify their actual fate and have it influence their decision. It is the instance with the most catastrophic outcomes, however.

  Lying about a Judge’s future to a Judge only works when the Judge has no reason to disbelieve the lies.

  I’m not yet convinced that this problem would not have arisen anyway. Humanity was not a suitable candidate for Judgement, as I have suggested elsewhere. Sending this particular Judge was more due to political expedience (silencing a critic) than Judging Earth.

  I have explored the relationship between human language and thought through taking it on, and I have explored the relationship between the Judge and humanity through taking on the Judge’s language set. In some ways they are too like us. Our rules would have been modified by their participation, just as my mind has been modified by the process of learning about the Judgement and where it went wrong. They would have corrupted our culture even after we had colonised them.

  This is the chief reason I am willing to address the issue that admitting this modification means I cannot return home in the normal way with my mind in its current state: it would significantly add to the already far-too-great corruption of our culture.

  I must point out (reluctantly) that exiling me compounds the problem. I am needed to teach these complications in order to prevent them happening with another planet. I am needed to help shape policy, for the same reason. I am willing to do this off-planet, in one of our client cultures, in order to contain the obviously problematic consequences.

  I understand that, as regards myself, I have suggested several solutions and that they are all mutually incompatible. The reason for the fruitcake is that Earth has presented us with choices that are impossible given our current ethical system and due to the doctrine of cultural purity.

  While I cannot give firm and clear recommendations on all issues (and you will note that I have tried), my immediate recommendat
ion regarding this underlying problem is that we comprehensively reform our policies concerning anything that might pollute our culture. Alien porn is encouraged, yet we do not accept someone back into society who has engaged in total cultural immersion. We then require total cultural immersion for a range of jobs. There is a flaw in the logic, to my mind. It produces an equation that is impossible to solve.

  I recommend that special consideration be given to me, given the exceptional circumstances.

  Most importantly, I recommend that the Judge’s decision stand.

  I cannot recommend that decision concerning the life of the Judge be reversed, for it is too late. I belatedly extend my sympathy to the Judge’s burrow, kin and clan for a tragic loss under difficult circumstances. Given that the Judge was forced into this job, I strongly recommend that recompense be considered, so that burrow, kin and clan are not left in a degraded position due to government error. The issues created by the Judge were due to the aforementioned errors and gross interference, and should not be translated into penalty of any sort. I consider the Judge, having paid such a high personal price for this endeavour, worthy of recompense.

  This is my final note.

  I hope to never have to use this Human language again. It encourages a narrative approach beyond any other tongue I have encountered. It terrifies me.

  I trust that you will permit me to return to some sort of civilisation at the earliest instant.

  The Observer’s Notes

  “They say the greatest legacy a person can leave is that of wonderful memories in those who miss them after they've gone. But being the one doing the missing sucks.”

  —overheard in the emergency waiting room of the hospital

  It’s time.

  If I can find ten good reasons over the next week. If life presents me with just ten good reasons. I will not act like God with Sodom and Gomorrah. Will not accept one or two. Ten reasons I need. And humanity will survive. Nine reasons and their fate is sealed. This is the Work of the Judge and this is My Work on this planet. This is my formal statement as required.