Closter, the geologist on the voyage, remains deferential after he has assumed his posture but under his silence, that deference is the clear and dull insistence of one who will be heard; I know that if I do not permit him to address me a confrontation of some sort will develop. In part, this is one of the tactics of the strong leader: to evaluate the implications of all circumstance. If Closter were not charged to my care I would have to be concerned with his moods but since he is, his moods are the object of obsessive interest. Under all circumstances, the mission must be preserved. Thinking of this, realizing my dedication to a mission which in many ways I have already come to repudiate, I have a brief and searing moment of introspection: am I insane? Am I misjudging circumstance? Am I taking all of this, perhaps, too seriously? But that would be impossible; by the very dictates of the Bureau my judgments are absolute and therefore to be trusted.
“They consist,” Closter says to me, beginning as he so often does in mid-argument; there is very little sense of exposition or development with Closter’s arguments, they are simply there, all of a piece and to enter his world is to enter his rhetoric, “they consist of an agrarian society bound together by mythic elements, the mythic elements themselves coming out of their connection to the land. They have little taste for abstraction: these myths of which I speak cannot be said to be systematized but instead come from common elements: the weather, the cycles of the season, the appearance of vegetation and so on. This is quite characteristic of a society at this stage of development, pretechnological that is to say.”
“That is to say,” I echo rather mindlessly, looking at the sun setting in the distance, disappearing behind clouds of that very vegetation in the distance, the red cast of that sun bringing to me memories of old Earth and indeed rather inflaming me with nostalgia. The Bureau concentrates upon finding, planets, civilizations, atmospheres compatible with our own biology: still the similarities between Folsom’s Planet and that idealized Earth of retrospect are almost uncanny. If I were to close my eyes I would believe in fact that I were back upon the Earth, breezes bringing me home to memory . . . but I will not close my eyes, rather I fling them open to attention, “but then again what is there to say?” I turn toward Closter rather bemused, little flickers of irritation breaking my attention. Although his presence in the expedition is justified, although his bonding with Stark means that he need concern me little, I still (and I say this frankly) cannot stand the man. Perhaps this has to do with his rather academic and pedantic tone. I would not want to think that it is because he is a homosexual. Stark, after all, is a homosexual: both of them are homosexuals and Stark does not bother me at all. Sexuality is merely an extension of personality; a quirk or trait like the way in which one postures or shows preference for diet. Still, why does Closter irritate me so much? I think of Nina, a little tendril of lust streaking its way across the pane of consciousness and then slowly I adjust myself, become poised. I must go back. I must go back to her even though she is sleeping.
“Still,” Closter is saying, “there is this difficulty.”
“What difficulty? Difficulty with the native?”
“No. The native is fine. He is sleeping, we have prepared an enclosure for him; he rests comfortably. Furthermore, we are already in communication. He is eager to learn. He will cooperate. No, it is difficulty with the ethos.”
“I don’t think I understand you.”
“Theethos ,” Closter says, “difficulty with the ethos, their dreams, their fixations. The myths should be simple, agrarian, mere extensions of their limited environment . . . and yet they are not. There are elements of a strong monotheism here; the belief in a single and omnipotent deity which is almost unknown at this level of tribal consciousness. Also, the myths are very specific as to the appearance of the God, his manifestation, the origin of their world, the various ways in which the inhabitants fell from the state of grace . . . all of the common elements in short seem to have been somehow compressed and accelerated so that they manage to embrace both more and less than they should.”
“I still don’t understand,” I say. I have no interest in this as well but that would not be a commander’s place to say; the welfare of my little crew is my responsibility and this means that all which concerns them must concern me; I must take an interest in all of their little problems no matter how superficial they might be. “But why does this concern you so much?”
“Because it must,” Closter says rather sharply, far more sharply than I would have suspected, “because the disparity between the simple, tribal, pretechnological culture and the highly sophisticated myths is absolute. It is inexplicable. Throughout all of our contacts, in the whole history of the Federation itself, we have never come upon a race previously whose myths and culture were not mutually supportive. This cannot be.”
“Why?” I say and stretch out my legs, poised in position, still fixated on the sunset. “And why should this matter concern a geologist?”
Closter sighs. “Everything concerns a geologist.”
“But what you are talking about is sociological. That would be Stark’s material. How come he hasn’t discussed this with me?” and then an insight lances and I say, “unless he asked you to do so. Unless he didn’t want to discuss this himself.”
Closter sighs again. “It did seem that it would be better for me to bring it up than him.” He leans back shaking his head. “There was a certain reluctance to discuss anything with you.”
“But why?” I say, “why should that be?” And now the native in his enclosure screams, he has been screaming at intervals for some time now, one high piercing shriek followed by sobs and then a collapse to silence: the screams are like those of an animal except that there are no animals as far as we can see in this section of Folsom’s Planet, and no fauna at all. At the sound, as if it were a dart impacted into consciousness, Closter turns, shudders, then returns his attention with difficulty to me, the scream meanwhile extending, moving on a bright, red flowering thread, arcing upin the scale and finally Closter says, “I can’t stand this anymore, I just can’t take it,” and arching himself upward, his hands and knees like a bow, he moves into a scrambling run toward the native. Slowly I come to my feet, follow him: the native’s screams have not discomfited me this much and I would rather continue the discussion with Closter, find out, at the least, why he has been put up to this by Stark but the screams are indeed overwhelming, Closter was right in that regard: these are not the ordinary cries with which the native has responded to his circumstances intermittently for the past several hours but are cries which have instead risen to a real urgency, a stricken terror on which I find myself impaled.
Coming close to the enclosure in which the native has been placed, I see that Stark and Nina are already there, outside the rude opening which has been carved, the two of them bearing the stricken expression of those who have been possessed by the incomprehensible and cannot bear to come to grips with it. Stark’s face looks as if it has been whipped to pallor; with every scream it is as if a jolt of pain moves through him, condensing and Nina, although calmer, has to support herself with a hand against the side of the enclosure in order to maintain her position. As she sees me she beckons toward me in a gesture simultaneously so desperate and vulnerable that I feel myself touched; would almost plunge within the enclosure to bring an end to those screams no matter what the penalty, but it is Closter’s hand which restrains me as I move upon the earthen walls, shaking me into a simulacrum of containment, and the screams as if in response seem to modulate, wavering toward regularity. Stark sinks into a crouch, taps one of the walls, then turns toward me showing me his hands, the palms wet. “It’s my fault,” he says. “It’s all my fault.”
“What is it?”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” Stark says, “I shouldn’t have done it, and begins to shake in position, his knees colliding with one another and it is Closter who closes the ground upon him and brings Stark to a standing position, extending an arm, forcing Stark into flapping attention against one of the walls. Stark’s eyes are dazed and yet curiously submissive in this aspect as if he were submitting to Closter’s brutality almost joyfully, his due. He gasps, his body sways. Closter hits him broadhanded across the face, then once more and Stark takes the slaps with anah !, then straightens uprigidly once again. Nina extends a hand and I take it, feel that closing warmth around my palm. “I’m sorry,” Stark says, “I tell you, I’m sorry.”
“What did you do?” Closter says. “What did you do?” and Stark leans forward as if to answer, it really looks now as if he is going to answer and then the native itself suddenly appears, looking through an opening in the enclosure at eye level. For all the terror of his screams his face appears to be in a slack and perfect repose, the eyes cunning, measuring. We realize now that the screams have stopped. The alien looks through the opening and in this silence the four of us turn our attention toward him, feeling a certain rivetting sense of connection which passes almost as if in a palpable beam of light between us. Stark is quiet now, his fit over; he lies submissive against Closter, lolling in his grasp and then, almost tenderly Closter hits him again, drawing a thin bark of surprise from Stark as he slumps over. The alien peers out at us, his mouth opening and closing repetitively and then words begin to emerge from him: palpable, distinguishable words emerge from that mouth and it is with the feeling then of time commencing that I listen to him.
“I want to learn,” the alien says. “I want to learn.”
The syllables are harsh but distinct.Wa-anttoler-n.Wa-anttoler-n.
Closter turns toward me.
“Now it begins,” he says.