In the morning Derek went fishing. For bait he used a local bug. It looked like a caterpillar: fat and green with a lot of legs. There were hundreds of the creatures along the river. They fed on the monster grass. The fish fed on them. We fed on the fish.
“And thus we understand the great chain of being,” Derek said as he finished the last piece of fish.
Nia looked puzzled. He had spoken in English.
“Nature red in tooth and claw,” he went on. “That’s a line from Tennyson. He also said that we rise on the stepping stones of our dead selves to higher things.” He grinned at me. “I used to be fascinated by the history of the West, especially the history of industrial societies. That was when I first left my people. I thought—there is a secret here, in Marx and Tennyson and in the big machines. Later I decided my people were right. It is better to be close to the gray whale and the peyote cactus. But by that time I was used to being comfortable. What do we do now, Lixia?”
“Travel west. There are people on the plain. Nomads. Nia says she can find them for us. I mean to do as much fieldwork as possible. I want my name all over the preliminary report.”
He grinned. “Is this ambition in little Lixia?”
“I know what I am. A first-rate collector of facts. But I’ve never been good at the academic bullshit. The analysis. The playing with theory. If I am ever going to get anywhere, it’s going to be on the basis of what I do here in the field.”
“Maybe. There’s no question about your ability to collect facts. You can learn a language faster than anyone I know.”
“Except Gregory.”
He made the gesture that acknowledged that I might be right. “But listen to the way you talk. You say ‘academic bullshit’ and ‘playing with theory.’ This shows a bias. The refusal to theorize is—in itself—a theoretical position, my love. Unfortunately for you, it is not a popular position. Where would we be without our systems, our hierarchies of information, our analyses? Our points and our morals?”
He got up and stretched. “Those animals of yours don’t look any faster than horses. I can keep up.” He kicked dirt on the fire. Then he collected his belongings: his pack and fishing line, wound in a coil, a bow and half a dozen arrows.
“You made the bow?”
“Of course.” He looked down at his feet. “I can’t run like this.” He took off his boots and socks. “Here.” He gave them to me.
Nia said, “If you are going to travel without shoes, keep to the trail or—if you are off it—watch where you put your feet. There are plants that sting on the plain. Don’t step on anything that looks unusual.”
“Always good advice,” said Derek. He made the gesture of gratitude.
We saddled up. I tied my belongings and Derek’s on my animal. Nia and I mounted. We splashed through the river. On the other side we found a trail that wound through the monster grass. Soon we were back on the plain. It stretched to the west and north and south without interruption.
At first Derek tried to walk beside us, but the trail was too narrow. He loped ahead. His hair was untied and flapped in the wind. So did the tail of his shirt. He moved easily, confidently. He looked happy and relaxed.
“This man is strange,” said Nia. She glanced at me. I made the gesture of agreement.
“Is this the way your men are?”
“No. He is something special. He makes most of us uneasy.”
“Hu!”
The land changed. Now it was rolling. Often, in the distance, I saw clumps of monster grass: tall and brilliant green, like a stand of trees. Late in the afternoon we made camp in a hollow. Derek and Nia went to gather dung. I took care of the animals. They were restless—thirsty, I decided. When Nia came back I said, “Why don’t we go into one of those groves? You told me they grow near water.”
“There is an animal. The killer of the plain. It lies in wait near water. Bowhorns come to drink. It jumps on them.”
“Oh.” I thought for a moment. “That’s why you were uneasy when we came to the river.”
Nia made the gesture of agreement. “I knew there was no way around the river. We had to cross it. But I am afraid of that animal.”
After dinner I called the ship. Eddie answered.
“Why is Derek here?”
Eddie laughed. “He made it, eh? Three reasons, Lixia. He is a first-rate field worker, and he was being wasted off by himself.” He paused for a moment. “Nia is our most unusual informant. We wanted a second evaluation of her and her information. That is reason number two. Finally, you don’t call in often enough. Derek is there to keep tabs on you and Nia.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Uh-huh. You lack social responsibility. If I were Chinese, I’d be upset with you.”
I bit the edge of my thumb. “Is that so?”
“Uh-huh. Speaking of our comrades from East Asia, there are a lot of posters going up along Democracy Wall.”
There was a main corridor that went through the living quarters. The Chinese had lined part of it with corkboard and named it Democracy Wall. They said it was necessary for the proper expression of the mass will.
What was wrong with computers? the rest of us asked.
Computers isolated people, each one in front of a little screen. The wall brought people together. They could discuss what they read. They could look around and see how their neighbors were reacting. They could tell who was listening.
Computers emphasized linear thinking and logic. The wall, like the Chinese ideogram, used linear and nonlinear ways of organizing information: pattern as well as sequence, space as well as time. When one looked at the wall, one used the entire human brain.
Besides, it was traditional. Human beings had always written and drawn on walls.
It was hard to argue with that, and the wall had a certain disheveled charm. There was no telling what people would put up: a clever drawing, a stupid limerick, a papier-mâché mask. “Wanted—a partner for chess.” And a lot of political arguments. It was a way of getting at the people who would never think of entering any of the political discussion networks.
Eddie went on. “Lu Jiang, the plumber, has a theory, which she has posted. It goes as follows: if the information we have now is right, all the native societies are stuck at a pre-urban stage. As far as we know, it is impossible to develop an advanced technology outside of cities. Without an advanced technology, there can be no proletariat. Without a proletariat, there can be no socialist revolution. Therefore, she argues, the unfortunate inhabitants of this planet can never achieve a socialist society. She has, of course, been criticized for undervaluing the role of the peasantry in achieving socialism.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
“It’s dangerous, Lixia. People are beginning to say if Jiang is right, then maybe we ought to make contact with the natives of the planet—formal contact, telling them who we are. Maybe we have to offer them our technology. If we don’t, we condemn them to an existence without the possibility of progress. They will remain as they are forever.”
I rubbed my nose.
He went on. “What I see happening is an alliance between the altruists and the technologists. The lovers of the people and the lovers of machinery. They will both decide that we have to open up the planet.”
“Eddie, you are borrowing trouble.”
“Listen to me. My grandfather was a medicine man. He saw things before other people did. And I tell you, right now I have his ability. I can see it like a vision: the mines and the refineries and the furry proletarians, punching the clock every morning.”