Noticing his attention, the girl in the sailing-ship hairdo smiled at him. Estru received an inward jolt. Her smile was at once winsome, proud and tempestuous, exciting him quite against his will.
Amara, too, was realizing that they were being subjected to a clever propaganda exercise. It was becoming easy to let small, treacherous doubts contend with their Ziodean upbringing. Were the results the Caeanics gained from their practices – or imagined they gained – really harmful? More and more people were coming into the stadium now, giving the place the air of a festival. Amara watched one young woman saunter shyly across the soft moss which covered the floor of the bowl. She wore a gauzy outfit which was known generically as a flimsy, though this version was doubtless named after some species of bird. She even walked somewhat after the manner of a bird, stepping delicately and nervously, as though at any moment she might take to the air in fright, and go winging away over the surrounding towers and terraces.
Caldersk beckoned to a footman, who handed him a moulded purple control box.
‘After all, the Art of Attire merely gives life a civilized texture,’ he remarked. ‘But enough of this talk about your obsession that we have an obsession. Your tour of Caean should show you that we do have interests other than pride in our appearance. For the present, how about some entertainment?’
His fingers went to touch the controls on the box. The centre of the stadium glowed slightly, then came to life.
For the next hour the Ziodeans were obliged to view a spectacular extravaganza, a kaleidoscopic documentary on various Caeanic pursuits. Caldersk was clearly at pains to illustrate that, as he had stated, there was more than one aspect to his countrymen’s existence. They saw drama, ballet, stratospheric racing, and sporting and scientific activities that were not always easy to follow. Caldersk explained that some of the scenes were recordings, while others were being transmitted directly from various parts of Verrage and from other nearby planets. He was able to modify the programme at will by means of the control box, bringing in relays from a thousand different locations.
His efforts to give Caean a more balanced image were largely unsuccessful, due to the fact that to Ziodean eyes costume played an almost manic part in everything that was portrayed. For every single activity there was a form of dress. The stratospheric racers wore outfits made up of brilliantly flaring yellow panes that gave them the look of hurtling gods out of some fiery pantheon. Scientists working to perfect a new industrial process were god-like in a more abstract manner, robed in gowns of dispassionate simplicity on which the signs for the scientific constants shone in luminous gold. Strangest of all was a short, incomprehensible drama in which the players were accoutred in machine-like rig-outs of silver and black, robbing them of any resemblance to human life.
All of this was apparently so normal to the Caeanics that they scarcely noticed it. Probably for this reason. Caldersk did not neglect to represent the Art of Attire specifically. He showed a short sequence in which a master sartorial produced garments in a dazzling display of virtuosity. He gave them a tantalizing glimpse into the semi-secret, labyrinthine world of the sodalities, or sartorial sub-cults, concentrating on the historical sodalities. Those societies, each steeped in one or another phase of history, had succeeded in resurrecting entirely the spirit, the life-style and even the personages of their chosen time. The Ziodeans were fascinated by the segue-created procession of period costumes, going back thousands of years as far as the Egyptian era.
In what might have been a veiled warning, Caldersk ended by asserting the usefulness of Caeanic attire in the military field.
‘Although we are not by inclination a military race, every nation must be prepared to defend itself,’ he said. ‘In the wardrobe of every Caeanic is a military uniform, specially styled to inculcate the qualities of a soldier. Furthermore it facilitates his receptiveness to military training, so that we would be able to field an enormous army in a remarkably short space of time.’
The figure that was projected to illustrate Caldersk’s words amused Amara at first. It was like nothing so much as a toy soldier, of an antiquated variety at that, wearing a bright red tunic with gold braid across the chest, stiff buff trousers with a broad stripe down the side of each leg, and shining black boots. The headgear was a shako with an unusually large peak. The soldier marched stiffly, jerkily, as if worked by a spring mechanism, and carried a dull green pack on his back, also bearing a doubtlessly efficient force rifle at the slope.
But as he marched closer her comic impression of him began to change. There was a certain wooden ferocity in the face. A look of unrelenting will to win that she found quite frightening. She imagined a million such men, marching in rank after rank. It was terrifying.
The soldier halted and performed a number of machinelike drill movements. A transparent face-plate snapped down from the broad peak of the shako, converting it into a complete space helmet. The whole uniform, indeed, served as a spacesuit equipped for all conditions.
The image faded. The show was over.
‘Impressive,’ Amara commented.
Caldersk rose from his place and stretched his arms luxuriously. ‘The night is but begun,’ he said. ‘Plenty of time to enjoy ourselves!’
Dusk was falling on Inxa. Amara felt overloaded with the new and strange sights that had been forced upon her. The richness and variety of vesture was almost too much for her senses. She rose also, feeling a need to exercise her limbs.
And then the paramnesia came over her again, much stronger this time. Instead of smiling, lively faces around her she saw – masks, glaring from within their multicoloured casks of cloth. Humanity was gone; instead there was something alien and incomprehensible, something implacable and malevolent.
I’ve been overworking, she thought. Momentarily she swayed, and as Caldersk chanced to move nearer her hand touched the scalloped front of his tunic. The feel of the cloth was something odd and thrilling.
‘What’s that made of?’ she asked wonderingly.
‘Prossim. The finest cloth in the universe!’
She took a deep breath, at which her head seemed to clear. There was a hubbub of talk and laughter all around her. She lifted her eyes to the bowl of the stadium and the greater bowl of Inxa beyond that, with the dusk settling all over it.
Suddenly there was a flurry far up on one of the topmost terraces, and what she took to be a flock of birds exploded across the sky, soaring and swooping towards the stadium. Only when they made ready to land on the moss did they become distinguishable as human beings wearing various types of bird costume – including the girl in the flimsy Amara had noted earlier.
I should have anticipated it, she told herself wryly. Personal antigrav units.
The bird-people alighted all over the stadium. A flamboyantly plumed flier, wearing on his head a gilded balzo which completed his likeness to a scintillating, strutting cock, came striding towards the banqueting table. Caldersk, evidently recognizing him as a messenger, stepped forward and they spoke briefly.