Edgar Pangborn
A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS
to John V. Padovano
…But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; — because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle that I was better off as I was.
prelude
The office of the Director of North American Missions is a blue-lit room in Northern City, 246 feet below the tundra of the Canadian Northwest Territory. There is still a land entrance, as there has been for several thousand years, but it may have to be abandoned this century if the climate continues to warm up. Behind a confusion of random boulders, the entrance looks and smells like a decent bear den. Unless you are Salvayan — or Martian, to use the accepted human word — you will not find,inside that den, the pivoted rock that conceals an elevator. Nowadays the lock is electronic, responding only to the correct Salvayan words, and we change the formula from time to time.
The Abdicator Namir had not been aware of that innovation. He was obliged to wait shivering a few days in that replica of a bear den, his temper deteriorating, until a legitimate resident, returning from a mission, met him and escorted him with the usual courtesies to the office of the Director, who asked: “Why are you here?”
“Safe-conduct, by the law of 27,140,” said Namir the Abdicator.
“Yes,” said Director Drozma, and rang for refreshments. A century ago Drozma would have fetched the fermented mushroom drink himself, but he was painfully old now, painfully fat with age, entitled to certain services. He had lived more than six hundred years, as few Martians do. His birthdate was the year 1327 by the Western human calendar, the same year that saw the death of Edward II of England, who went up against Robert Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314 and didn’t come off too bloody well. In Drozma’s web of wrinkles were scars from the surgery which, about five hundred years ago, had made his face presentably human. His first mission into human society had been in 1471 (30,471), when he achieved the status of qualified Observer during the wars of York and Lancaster; later he made a study of three South American tribes even now unknown to human anthropology; in 30,854 he completed the history of the Tasmanians, which is still the recognized Martian text. His missions were far behind him. He would never again leave this office until it was time to die. He was not only Director of Missions, but also Counselor of Northern City, answerable to its few hundred citizens and, after them, to the Upper Council in Old City in Africa. He carried the honor lightly, yet in all the world there were only three other such Counselors — those of Asian Center, Olympus, and Old City itself. A strangely short while ago there were five Cities. We remember City of Oceans, but it is better to let the mind turn to the present or the deeper past. Soon enough a successor would take over Drozma’s burden. Meanwhile, his thought was crystalline-calm as the canals that wind among the Lower Halls of Earth. The Abdicator Namir watched him pet the little ork curled at his feet, the only breed except our own that survived the journey from slow-dying Mars more than thirty thousand years ago. It purred, licked ruddy fur, washed itself, and went back to sleep. “We had word of you recently, Namir.”
“I know.” Namir sat down with his drink, gracefully in spite of his own advanced age. He waited for the girl who had brought the drinks to pat Drozma’s cushion, smile and hover, and go away. “One of your Observers identified me. So I came, partly, to warn you not to interfere with me.”
“Are you serious? We can’t be intimidated by you Abdicators. I value Kajna’s reports — she’s a keen Observer.”
Namir yawned. “So? Did she mention Angelo Pontevecchio?”
“Of course.”
“I hope you don’t imagine you can do anything with that boy.”
“What we hear of him interests us.”
“T’chah! A human child, therefore potentially corrupt.” Namir pulled a man-made cigarette from his man-made clothes and rubbed his large human face in the smoke. “He shares that existence which another human animal has accurately described as ‘nasty, brutish, and short.’”
“I think you came merely to complain of humanity.”
Namir laughed. “On the contrary, I get sorry for the creatures, but the pity itself is a boredom.” He shifted casually into American English. “No, Drozma, I just stopped by to say hello.”
“After 134 years! I hardly—”
“Is it that long? That’s right, I resigned in 30,829.”
“I notice you’ve picked up human habits of conversation.”
“I did interrupt — beg your pardon. Please go on, sir.” Not in rebuke but from a private need, Drozma meditated fifteen minutes, hands folded on his belly, which eventually bounced in a chuckle. “You are bored with the society of other Abdicators?”
“No. They’re few. I rarely see them.”
“As one Salvayan to another, how do you put in the time?”
“Going up and down in the world. I’ve become quite a wizard at disguise. If I hadn’t long ago used up my scent-destroyer your Kajna could never have eavesdropped on my talk with the Pontevecchio boy.”
“The law of 27,140 provides that no assistance can be given to Abdicators by Salvayans of the Cities.”
“Why, Drozma, I wasn’t hinting that I wanted scent-destroyer. I don’t find it hard to avoid horses, they’re so scarce nowadays. Odd how no other animal seems to mind the Martian scent — Salvayan: you prefer the antique word even in talking English? Must have been tough in the ancient days before the destroyer was invented. But since human animals can’t catch the scent, I don’t need the stuff, except to help me avoid your sniffier Observers…. The smart thing, five or six thousand years ago, would have been to develop an equine epidemic, get rid of the damned beasts.”
Drozma winced in disgust. “I begin to see why you resigned. In all your life I think you never learned that patience is the well-spring.”
“Patience is a narcotic for the weak. I have enough for my needs.”
“If you had enough you’d cure yourself of resentments. Let’s not argue it: our minds don’t meet. Again, why have you come here?”
Namir flicked ash on the mosaic of the floor. “I wanted to find out if you still imagine human beings can ever amount to anything.”
“We do.”
“I see. Even after losing City of Oceans — or so I heard.”
“Namir, we do not talk about City of Oceans. Call it a taboo, or just a courtesy to me…. What did you ever hope to achieve by resigning?”
“Achieve? Oh, Drozma! Well, perhaps a spectator’s pleasure. The interest of watching the poor things weave a rope for their own hanging.”
“No, I don’t think that was it. That wouldn’t have turned you against us.”
“I’m not against you particularly,” said Namir, and pursued his original thought: “I thought they had that rope in 30,945, but there they are, still unhanged.”
“Tired of waiting?”
“Ye-es. But if I don’t live to see their finish, my son will.”
“A son…. Who is your Salvayan wife, may I know?”
“Was, Drozma. She died forty-two years ago, giving birth. She was Ajona, who resigned in 30,790 but continued to suffer from idealism until I effected a partial cure. The boy’s forty-two now, almost full grown. So you see I even have a father’s interest in hoping to witness the end of Homo quasi-sapiens…. . Might I ask your current population figures?”