SHARDS Brian Aldiss I THE way of telling the time down here in Mudland was very ingenious. Double A had a row of sticks stuck in the mud in the blackness before his eyes. With his great spongy hands that sometimes would have nothing to do with him, he gripped the sticks one by one, counting as he went, sometimes in numbers, sometimes in such abstractions as lyre birds, rusty screws, pokers, or seaweed. He would go on grimly, hand over fist against time, until the beastly old comfort of degradation fogged over his brain and he would forget what he was trying to do. The long liverish gouts of mental indigestion that were his thought processes would take over from his counting. And when later he came to think back to the moment when the takeover occurred, he would know that that had been the moment when it had been the present. Then he could guess how far ahead or behind of the present he was, and could give this factor a suitable name—though lately he had decided that all factors could be classified under the generic term Standard, and accordingly he named the present time Standard O’clock. Standard O’Clock he pictured as a big Irish guardsman with moustaches sweeping round the roseate blankness of his face. Every so often, say on pay day or on passing out parade, the Lance-Standard would chime, with pretty little cuckoos pop ping out of all orifices. As an additional touch of humour, Double A would make O’clock’s pendulum wag. By this genial ruse, he was slowly abolishing time, turning himself into the first professor of a benighted quantum. As yet the experiments were not entirely successful, for ever and anon his groping would communicate itself to his hands, and back they’d come to him, slithering through the mud, tame as you please. Sometimes he bit them; they tasted unpleasant; nor did they respond. ‘You are intellect,’ he thought they said. ‘But we are the tools of intellect. Treat us well.’ * * * * II Another experiment concerned the darkness. Even sprawling in the mud with his legs amputated unfor tunately represented a compromise. Double A had to admit there was nothing final in his degradation, since he had begun to—no, nobody would force him to use the term ‘enjoy the mud’, but on the other hand nobody could stop him using the term ‘ambivelling the finny claws (clause?)’ with the under standing that in certain contexts it might be interpreted as approximately synonymous with ‘enjoying the mud’. Anyhow, heretofore, and nutmeggaphonically, it remained to be continued that everywhere was compromise. The dark ness compromised with itself and with him. The darkness was sweet and warm and wet. When Double A realized that the darkness was not utter, that the abstraction utterness was beyond it, he became furious, drumming imaginary heels in the mud, urinating into it with some force and splendour, and calling loudly for dark glasses. The dark glasses were a failure, for they became covered in mud, so that he could not see through them to observe whether or no the darkness increased. So they came and fitted him with a pair of ebony contact lenses, and with this splendid con descension on their part, Double A hoped he had at last reached a point of non-compromise. Not so! He had eyelids that pressed on the lenses, drawing merry patterns on the night side of his eyeballs. Pattern and darkness cannot exist together, so again he was defeated by myopic little Lord Compromise, knee-high to a pin and stale as rats’ whiskers, but still Big Reeking Lord of Creation. Well, he was not defeated yet. He had filled in Application No. Six Oh Five Bark Oomph Eight Eight Tate Potato Ten in sticks and sandbars and the old presumption factor for the privilege of Person Double A, sir, late of the Standard O’clock Regi ment, sir, to undergo total partial and complete Amputation of Two Vermicularform Appendages in the possession of the aforesaid Double A and known henceforth as his Eyelids. Meanwhile the application was accepted and the scalpels served, he tried his cruel experiments on the darkness. He shouted, whispered, spoke, gave voice, uttered, named names, broke wind, cracked jokes, split infinitives, passed par ticiples, and in short and in toto interminably talked, orated, chattered, chatted, and generally performed vocal circumbendibusses against the darkness. Soon he had it cowering in a corner. It was less well equipped orally than Double A, and he let it know with a ‘Three wise manias came from the Yeast, causing ferment, and bringing with them gifts of gold and Frankenstein and murder’ and other such decompositions of a literary-religio-medico-philosophico-nature. So the powers of darkness had no powers against the powers of screech. ‘Loot there be light!’ boomed Double A: and there was blight. Through the thundering murk, packed tight with syllables, he could see the dim mud-bound form of Gasm. ‘Let there be night!’ doomed Double A. But he was too late, had lost his chance, had carried his experiment beyond the pale. For in the pallor and squalor, Gasm remained revoltingly there, whether invisible or visible. And his bare ness in the thereness made a whereness tight as harness. * * * * III So began the true history of Mudland. It was now possible to have not only experiments, which belong to the old in tellect arpeggio, but character conflict, which pings right out of the middle register of the jolly old emotion chasuble. Amoebas, editors, and lovers are elements in that vast orches tra of classifiable objects to whom or for whom character conflict is ambrosia. Double A went carefully into the business of having a C.C. with Gasm. To begin with, of course, he did not know whether he himself had a C: or, of course squared, since we are thinking scientifically, whether Gasm had a C. Without the first C., could there be the second? Could one have a C.-less C? Alas for scientific inquiry. During the o’clock sticks that passed while Double A was beating his way patiently through this thicket of thorny questions, jealousy crept up on him unawares. Despite the shouting and the ebony contact lenses, with which the twin polarities of his counter-negotiations with the pseudo-dark were almost kept a near-maximum in the fairly brave semi-struggle against compromise, Gasm remained in-gloriously visible, lolling in the muck no more than a measur able distance away. Gasm’s amputations were identical with Double A’s: to wit, the surgical removal under local anaesthetic and two aspirin of that assemblage of ganglions, flesh, blood, bone, toe-nail, hair, and kneecap referred to hereafter as Legs. In this, no cause for jealousy existed. Indeed, They had been scrupulously democratic: one vote, one head; one head, two legs; two heads, four legs. Their surgeons were paragons of the old equality regimen. No cause for Double A’s jealousy. But. It was within his power to imagine that Gasm’s ampu tations were other than they were. He could quite easily (and with practice he could perfectly easily) visualize Gasm as hav ing had not two legs but one leg and one arm removed. And that amputation was more interesting than Double A’s own amputation, or the fact that he had fins. So the serpent came even to the muddy paradise of Mudland, writhing between the two bellowing bodies. C.C. became reality. * * * * IV Double A abandoned all the other experiments to concen trate on beating and catechizing Gasm. Gradually Mudland lost its identity and was transformed into Beating and Cate chizing, or B and C. The new regimen was tiring for Double A, physically and especially mentally, since during the entire procedure he was compelled to ask himself why he should be doing what he was, rather than resting contentedly in the mud with his hands. The catechism was stylized, ranging over several topics and octaves as Double A yelled the questions and Gasm screamed the answers. ‘What is your name?’ ‘My name is Gasm.’ ‘Name some of the other names you might have been called instead.’ ‘I might have been called Plus or Shob or Fred or Shit or Droo or Pennyfeather or Harm.’ ‘And by what strange inheritance does it come about that you house your consciousness among the interstices of lungs, aorta, blood, corpuscles, follicles, sacroiliac, ribs, and pre bendary skull?’ ‘Because I would walk erect if I could walk erect among the glorious company of the Higher Vertebrates, who have grown from mere swamps, dinosaurs and dodos. Those that came before were dirty brates or shirty brates; but we are the vertebrates.’ ‘What comes after us?’ ‘After us the deluge.’ ‘How big is the deluge?’ ‘Deluge.’ ‘How deep is the deluge?’ ‘Ai, deluge.’ ‘How deluge is the deluge?’ ‘Deluge, deluger, delugest.’ ‘Conjugate and decline.’ ‘I decline to conjuge.’ ‘Who was that dinosaur I dinna saw you with last night?’ ‘That was no knight. That was my dinner.’ ‘And what comes after the vertebrates?’ ‘Nothing comes after the vertebrates because we are the highest form of civilization.’ ‘Name the signs whereby the height of our civilization may be determined.’ ‘The heights whereby the determination of our sign may be civilized are seven in number. The subjugation of the body. The resurrection of the skyscraper. The perpetuation of the species. The annihilation of the species. The glorification of the nates. The somnivolence of the conscience. The omnivorousness of the sex. The conclusion of the Hundred Years War. The condensation of milk. The conversation of muts. The confiscation of monks------’ ‘Stop, stop! Name next the basic concept upon which this civilization is based.’ ‘The interests of producer and consumer are identical.’ ‘What is the justification of war?’ ‘War is its own justification.’ ‘What is the desire to feed on justice?’ ‘A manifestation of opsomania.’ ‘Let us sing a sesquipedelian love-song in octogenarian voices.’ At this point they humped themselves up in the mud and sang the following tuneless ditty: No constant factor in beauty is discernible. Although the road that evolution treads is not returnable, It has some curious twists in it, as every shape and size And shade of female breast attestifies. Pointed, conical, flat or sharp or bonical, Pendulous or cumulus, pear-shaped, oval, tumulus, Each one displays its beauty or depravity In Syncline, incline, outcropping or cavity Yet from Peru to Timbuctu The bosom’s lines are only signs Of all the pectoral muscles’ tussles With a fairly constant factor, namely gravity. They fell back into the mud, each lambasting his mate’s nates. * * * * V Of course for a time it was difficult to be certain of every thing or anything. The uncertainties became almost infinite, but among the most noteworthy of the number were the un certainty as to whether the catechizings actually took place in any wider arena of reality than Double A’s mind; the uncer tainty as to whether the beatings took place in any wider arena of reality than Double A’s mind; the uncertainty as to whether, if the beatings actually took place, they took place with sticks. For it became increasingly obvious that neither Double A nor Gasm had hands with which to wield sticks. Yet on the other appendage, evidence existed tending to show that some sort of punishment had been undergone. Gasm no longer re sembled a human. He had grown positively torpedo-shaped. He possessed fins. The idea of fins, Double A found to his surprise, was not a surprise to him. Fins had been uppermost in his mind for some while. Fins, indeed, induced in him a whole watery way of thinking; he was flooded with new surmises, while some of the old ones proved themselves a wash-out. The idea, for example, that he had ever worn dark glasses or ebony contact lenses...Absurd! He groped for an explanation. Yes, he had suffered hallu cinations. Yes, the whole progression of thought was unravel ling and clarifying itself now. He had suffered from hallucina tions. Something had been wrong in his mind. His optic centres had been off-centre. With something like clarity, he became able to map the area of disturbance. It occurred to him that he might some time investigate this cell or tank in which he and Gasm were. Doors and windows had it none. Perhaps like him it had undergone some vast sea change. Emitting a long liquid sigh, Double A ascended slowly off the floor. As he rose, he glanced upwards. Two drowned men floated on the ceiling, gazing down at him. * * * * VI Double A floated back to his former patch of mud only to find his hands gone. Nothing could have compensated him for the loss except the growth of a long strong tail. His long strong tail induced him to make another experi ment; no more nor less than the attempt to foster the illusion that the tail was real by pretending there was a portion of his brain capable of activating the tail. More easily done than thought. With no more than an imaginary flick of the imagin ary appendage, he was sailing above Gasm on a controlled course, ducking under but on the whole successfully ignoring the two drownees. From then on he called himself Doublay and had no more truck with time or hands or ghosts of hands and time. Though the mud was good, being above it was better, especially when Gasm could follow. They grew new talents—or did they find them? Now the questions were no sooner asked than forgotten, for by a mutual miracle of understanding, Doublay and Gasm began to believe themselves to be fish. And then they began to dream about hunting down the alien invaders. * * * * VII The main item in the laboratory was the great tank. It was sixty feet square and twenty feet high; it was half-full of sea-water. A metal cat-walk with rails round it ran along the top edge of the tank; the balcony was reached by a metal stair. Both stair and cat-walk were covered with deep rubber, and the men that walked there wore rubber shoes, to ensure maximum quiet. The whole place was dimly lit. Two men, whose names were Roberts and Collison, stood on the cat-walk, looking through infra-red goggles down into the tank. Though they spoke almost in whispers, their voices nevertheless held a note of triumph. ‘This time I think we have succeeded, Dr. Collison,’ the younger man was saying. ‘In the last forty-eight hours, both specimens have shown less lethargy and more awareness of their form and purpose.’ Collison nodded. ‘Their recovery has been remarkably fast, all things con sidered. The surgical techniques have been so many and so varied. . . . Though I played a major part in the operations myself, I am still overcome by wonder to think that it has been possible to transfer at least half of a human brain into such a vastly different metabolic environment.’ He gazed down at the two shadowy forms swimming round the tank. Compassion moving him, he said, ‘Who knows what terrible traumas those two brave souls have had to undergo? What fantasies of amputation, of life, birth and death, of not know ing what species they were.’ Sensing his mood, and disliking it, Roberts said briskly, ‘They’re over it now. It’s obvious they can communicate. The underwater mikes pick up their language. They’ve adjusted well. Now they’re raring to go.’ ‘Maybe, maybe. I still wonder if we had the right-----’ Roberts gestured impatiently, guessing Collison spoke only to be reassured. He knew how proud the old man secretly was, and answered him in the perfunctory way he might have answered one of the newspaper men who would be round later. ‘The security of the world demanded this drastic experiment. The alien ship “landed” a year ago in the North Atlantic, off Bermuda. Our submarines have investigated its remains on the ocean bed. They have found proof that the ship landed where it did under control, and was only destroyed when the aliens left it. ‘The aliens were fish people, aquatics. The ocean is their element, and undoubtedly they have been responsible for the floods extending along the American and European seaboards and inundating the West Indies. Undoubtedly the popular press is right to claim we are being defeated in an alien invasion.’ ‘My dear Roberts, I don’t doubt they’re right, but——’ ‘There can be no buts, Dr. Collison. We’ve failed to make any contact with the aliens. They have eluded the most careful submarine probes. Nor is there any “but” about their hostile intent. It seems more than likely that they have killed off all the eel family in some unimaginable slaughter under the Sar gasso Sea. Before they upset our entire oceanic ecology, we must find them out and gain the information about them with out which they cannot be fought. Here are our spies, here in this tank. They have post-hypnotic training. In a couple more days, when they are fit, they can be released into the sea to go and get that information and return with it to us. There are no buts; only imperatives in this equation.’ Slowly the two men descended the metal stairway, the giant tank on their left, glistening with condensation. ‘Yes, it’s as you say,’ Collison agreed wearily. ‘I would so much like to know, though, the insane sensations passing through those shards of human brain embedded in fish bodies.’ ‘Ethics don’t enter into it,’ Roberts said firmly. In the tank, in the twilight, the two giant tunnies swam rest lessly back and forth, readying themselves for their mission.