A Chink led them through a low archway and gestured to them to be seated in a carriage that appeared, to Heshke’s astonished eye, to be made of green jade. The carriage moved silently along meandering pathways, giving Heshke a chance to observe the people of the city. Their styles of dress were varied; most common among the men, however, was a long, flowing silk robe with enormous sleeves. The older men generally affected long, sparse beards, adding yet more strangeness to their slanted, scarcely human features.
The dress of the women was much more diverse. Some swathed themselves in voluminous silk, others wore short, revealing split skirts or scarcely anything at all, and all wore flowers in their invariably black hair. Despite his natural revulsion for devs, Heshke gazed fascinated at their alien beauty, and at the graceful, sedate fashion in which both they and the men carried themselves.
More and more his “educated” attitudes as regards deviant subspecies were coming crashing to the ground. It was impossible to claim now, as Lieutenant Gann had, that all this was the creation of extraterrestrials. Quite obviously these Chinks had a superb sense of beauty – something which, in Titan doctrine, only True Man possessed. He thought of Blare Oblomot, who would not have been at all surprised by it.
Ascar, he reflected, had been right yet again: their ideas had been all wrong. And Ascar was certainly no underground sympathiser. He turned to him to make a comment; but Ascar was taking no notice whatsoever of his surroundings. He sat looking blankly at his lap, his face wearing his customary sullen scowl.
It just doesn’t get through to him, Heshke thought wonderingly. He’s all intellect – he’s blind to everything that isn’t abstract.
The carriage entered a set of vertical guide rails that took it up, amid masses of perfumed foliage, to another level. Here there were no more gardens; the prospect was that of an endless summerhouse whose apartments were partitioned by flimsy, movable screens, exquisitely decorated. At their conductor’s request they left the carriage and walked a short distance through this open-plan habitat. Heshke noted the sparsity of furniture; indeed, too much furniture would have entirely spoiled the light, airy effect. Everything here in this city, it seemed, was arranged to provide perfect harmony.
They rounded a corner and came to a stop in a fairly small room where a tall, bearded old man regarded them with cold detachment. On a table beside him were several bowls and an assortment of slender needles, some gold, some silver. Unrecognisable apparatus stood on the other side of the table, while on the wall behind was an apparently normal television screen.
The old man uttered some quiet words, and with much dignity motioned Heshke to recline on a nearby chair-couch.
Heshke did so with reluctance, and then felt a sudden panic as the Chink took up one of the long, slender needles. All his repugnance of devs came flooding back, and his mind filled with fears of hideous, infinitely cunning tortures. Seeing his terror, the old Chink paused, head inclined.
Ascar spoke, struggling with unfamiliar syllables. To Heshke’s boundless admiration he had actually succeeded in picking up a few phrases of the impossibly difficult language. He listened to the Chink’s reply, spoken slowly and clearly for his benefit.
“Relax,” Ascar said then to Heshke. “He’s not going to hurt you. It’s some sort of processing. They’re going to teach us the language.”
Partially reassured, Heshke leaned back. The oldster approached, muttering something, and touched him just behind his ear. Where his fingers touched, Heshke seemed to go numb. Then the Chink applied the needle he was holding; from his action Heshke knew that he was inserting it under the skin, deeper and deeper.
Into his brain!
He fought not to feel frightened. The Chink, with the assurance and solicitude of a skilled doctor, used about a dozen needles on him in all, in various parts of his body: chiefly around his head, neck, hands and arms. But as the treatment progressed a curious soothing feeling overcame him and his fears vanished. Finally the oldster stepped away and returned a few moments later, slipping some earphones over his ears and some goggles over his eyes which plunged him into blackness. He heard the snap of a switch.
And Heshke fell instantly asleep.
He awoke, he did not know how much later, to find the old man deftly pulling the needles from his skin. Ascar, too, had just finished his treatment. He rose from a second chair-couch, smiling sardonically at Heshke.
“Excellent,” said the old man. “And may you both be honoured guests in our city.”
He had spoken in the singsong Chink tongue – and yet Heshke had understood it.
“This is really remarkable!” he exclaimed. But the other waved his hand.
“You’re still speaking in your own language,” he intoned. “Try to find the other tongue in your mind – and speak again.”
Puzzled, Heshke tried to do as he was instructed, turning his attention inward as he spoke. “I was merely praising the effectiveness of your treatment,” he said. “I’d like to know how you did it.”
And then, while he was speaking, he found it: the “other tongue” – lying alongside his own in his mind, ready to seize his larynx and tongue and to express his thoughts, as automatically and faultlessly as he used his own language. His last few words came out in the language of the Chinks.
It was strange at first – like being able to switch to another vidcast channel at will.
The old man smiled politely. “The principle is quite simple,” he explained. “A computer-programmed language course was fed into your mind at high speed while you were unconscious, so that for every word or phrase of your own language, the speech centre of your brain now contains the equivalent word or phrase of our language.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” Ascar interjected, also speaking flawless Chink. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible – not in such a short space of time, anyway.”
Heshke listened fascinated to the way the foreign syllables flowed off Ascar’s tongue – and was just as fascinated at his ability to understand them.
“The brain’s capacity to absorb information at computer speed is not, I believe, known to your people,” the old man admitted. “We’re able to achieve it with the assistance of an ancient technique called acupuncture.” He indicated the needles that lay on the table. “By inserting these fine needles at particular points under the skin we’re able to deaden or stimulate the nerves selectively. By this means we open the requisite pathways to the brain so that it’s able to assimilate data at a much faster rate than normally – and there are also many other uses for acupuncture.”
“But that seems such a primitive way of going about things.” Heshke commented, staring at the needles. “Your apparatus is hardly sophisticated.”
“The technique depends more on knowledge and skill than upon technology,” the old man replied. “It is a very old practice, but it’s been vastly refined and extended by us here in Retort City. It’s said to have been invented originally by the ancient philosopher Mao Tse-Tung, who also invented the generation of electricity.” The Chink smiled tolerantly. “But these legends are not, of course, reliable; they also tell of him driving out the evil demons Liu Shao-Chi and Lin Piao.”
Ascar grunted and cast a sarcastic glance at Heshke. “You’re right – history tells nothing but fairy stories.”
Heshke ignored the gibe. “I take it your people have a reason for bringing us here,” he said to the old man. “When will we learn what it is?”