"The Game of Rat and Dragon" (1955) (Rediscovery of Cordwainer Smith #4)

In my post on "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell," I argue--well, more like assert without argument--that Cordwainer Smith invents the sexy cat-girl trope and subverts it by pointing out how C'Mell status as a sexy cat-girl is intertwined with her status as a slave/underperson. But when you read "The Game of Rat and Dragon," you might lean towards the interpretation that Cordwainer Smith really liked cats.

The plot here is practically non-existent, since the only things that happen are that (1) a bunch of human telepaths get ready for a space flight with their cat-derived partners, (2) the space flight is attacked by the mysterious anti-life dragons, and (3) the main human recuperates in a hospital and feels more love for his cat-derived partner than for the human nurse. If that's too much plot for a haiku, it's not too much for a sonnet.

In fact, most of the story is setting description, with a sideline in character description that further does work as setting. So we learn about the telepaths and their pin-sets (amplifiers) and the cat-derived partners who see the space monsters as rats and attack by launching light bombs. If there's a lesson here for aspiring sf writers, I would say that you shouldn't be afraid of making the science weird and metaphorical. I mean, the "dragons" here could pretty easily fit in with some trans-dimensional Cthulhoid horror and the idea of driving off monster with light has a childish simplicity that never seems silly when you're reading this story. (Afterwards, however, you might wonder if hiding under a blanket would be equally effective in driving off the dragons.)

As usual, Cordwainer Smith makes some connections in these stories (the plano-forming ships are piloted by scanners and that sort of travel makes the Instrumentality possible); and as usual, there are many nice little details, like the fact that the cats don't think in words and are disappointed when the "rats" they kill disappear.

But that all gets us to the weird part of this. There's nothing wrong with forbidden love stories. I'm not even sure there's anything wrong with love that's forbidden because of species-difference. But as another story where a man loves a cat-creature, I think we're within our rights to ask Cordwainer Smith, "why cats?"

Cordwainer Smith was crazy, maybe?

Due to travel, I'll be brief. The Atlantic has an online article about Cordwainer Smith that boils down to:

1. Cordwainer Smith has been tentatively identified as "Kirk Allen," a pseudonym created for a psychological portrait of a man who was pretty normal, except he believed that he had lived before on alien worlds. Is Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger) actually that patient? We don't know!
2. Cordwainer Smith wrote really strange stuff, stories that were too out there even for science fiction editor like John Campbell, Jr., who even supported L. Ron Hubbard! So his stuff must really be crazy!
3. He's like a Tolkien of sci-fi, reaching for "mythic grandeur!"

In short, we have sensationalism (science fiction written by a crazy person!) with a touch of reductionism ("you've heard of Tolkien, right?").

I get that this is a short piece meant to introduce Cordwainer Smith, but the "Kirk Allen" stuff is pure speculation; and the article doesn't mention one of the foundational facts of Paul Linebarger, which is that his dad was involved with Sun Yat-sen and that Smith had a lot of exposure to Chinese culture. Which is kind of important when you're saying, "wow, this guy writes stuff that is totally confusing to Western readers!" Instead of reaching for the most sensational solution ("he was insane!"), there's a perfectly adequate theory (backed up by some criticism) that Smith used several Eastern works/tales/myths as inspiration.

"The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" (1962) (Rediscovery of Cordwainer Smith #3)

We've already seen (medical advance) how the Instrumentality humans beat death (with the Nostrilian drug stroon); and we've seen (military power) the Instrumentality enforce peace (with the Nostrilians defending stroon from the thief-planet. and the Instrumentality destroying the threat of Raumsog). Now we get a taste of the the third leg of Instrumentality power, the economic power of a permanent underclass used as slave/serf labor.

And let's not mince words here: although the underpeople here are related to animals, this story was published in the 1960s, around the time of the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington (1963). Unlike Steven Spielberg's recent Lincoln, which focuses on the machinations of white politicians instead of the roiling rebellion of blacks, Cordwainer Smith gives his underclass a central role, even naming the story after the cat-related C'Mell rather than the Lord of Instrumentality who helps her, Jestocost. Not so fast though: the C'Mell in the title is "Lost" and if we ask "Who loses her?" or "What is she lost from?" the story turns on us.

Lord Jestocost is a strange dude for a Lord of Instrumentality: he likes Ancient English, old tapestries, and justice, which is why he works to give more rights to the underpeople. His entry into their world is through the girlygirl C'Mell--and here's Cordwainer Smith eviscerating the "sexy cat-girl" trope as he invents it: because C'Mell is purposely bred and trained as a geisha-like courtesan, but her sexy cat girl aspects are all irrelevant to the action and even a distraction from the important thing about her, which is that she is not yet a full person under the law. It's the sf equivalent of Strom Thurmond working against civil rights for blacks but also having sex with African-American women: if you find a cat girl sexy but work to keep her an under-person, you are extra-specially terrible.

Jestocost is rather the opposite: because of his commitment to justice for underpeople, he forgoes any personal satisfaction for political satisfaction, which is one way that C'Mell ends up lost, going on to live a full life of personhood without Jestocost. (There's one great gibe against condescending reformers here, when Jestocost meets C'Mell later and makes a joke about the cat-people having litters; which is true, C'Mell admits, but even though her family looks inhuman and strange to him, she loves her children as much as any human loves theirs.)

Presaging William Gibson's tendency to make the big action happen off-screen, Cordwainer Smith shows us all the prologue and the epilogue to the great underpeople civil rights movement: the oppressed underpeople, the conspiracy between C'Mell and Jestocost, their heist of important information, the post-negotiation peace. But we never see the actual marches and negotiations.

Which raises an interesting lacuna here and some questions. First, while Jestocost and C'Mell are plotting, there's a third entity, a strange telepathic presence who remains mysterious here. (In Nostrilia, we learn more about this presence.) Here, E'Telekeli is the mastermind behind the whole info heist, the one who rides in on C'Mell into the sanctum of the Instrumentality and who stores the info called up by Jestocost. So in a very real way, the mechanism of rebellion remains off-screen and fantastical.

But second, why do we never see the rebellion/movement in action? Is it because picturing such a movement would involve some depressing compromise of justice? (I mean, for every C'Mell/Dubois, there's got to be a Booker T. Washington giving an "Atlanta Exposition Speech," about how underpeople don't need all the rights in the world.) Is it because Smith can't picture a successful underclass rebellion? As a technique, I love skipping scenes, bringing us up to the edge of world-historical action and forcing us to imagine it or take it for granted. But what if we can't actually imagine that event?

"Golden The Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh!" (1959) (Rediscovery of Cordwainer Smith #2)

"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" is considered something of a classic--for instance, Gardner Dozois published it in his 1992 Modern Classics anthology. By contrast, "Golden the Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh!" is not so classic, though at first glance, it tells a very similar story.

"Golden the Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh!" (1959) (p. 215-221)
Synopsis: The space dictator Raumsog threatens Earth, so the Instrumentality--which appears as a rather regular boardroom--decides to send out one of their Golden Ships, a giant ship that they usually store in nonspace and only take out to fight off exceptional enemies. Only the Golden Ship is actually mostly made of foam, without weapons or armor, used primarily to intimidate enemies and tie up their navies. The real damage against Raumsog is done by a small ship which contains biological weapons; a monitor (human) that will destroy the ship if it deviates; a "chronopathic idiot" who can move the ship in time; and a psychic who creates a quantum field of bad luck. After the short, brutal war, the Golden Ship pilot realizes that his contribution has given him a strange feeling of pleasure; while the people who actually did the killing get their minds wiped.

Thoughts, analysis: If the omniscience of "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" has gone out of favor--following two main characters and a few minor characters--the omniscience of "Golden The Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh!" is downright illegible by today's standards: in six pages we get

1. a prologue that tells us there was a war; 
2. a board meeting of the Instrumentality where the chairman proposes to unmothball one Golden Ship; 
3. a war cabinet of Raumsog where he wonders what they'll do with such a big ship; 
4. Captain Tedesco, a dissolute who likes to pump electricity into the pleasure centers of his brain, who captains the Golden Ship in its sham war; 
5. Prince Lovaduck who captains the real attack ship, with its monitor, chronopathic idiot, and psionic talent--a little girl who is a "class three etiological interference";
6. the story of Lovaduck's attack;
7. Raumsog's planet's destruction;
8. Tedesco returning to civilian life and no longer needing the electrical stimulation;
9. Lovaduck's mindwipe and reward;
10. a journalist's attempt to get the story of the Golden Ship from one of Raumsog's survivors after their memories have been "discoordinated."

Six pages! I've seen comparisons between Cordwainer Smith and traditional storytelling--fairytales, folktales--and it seems apt. Philip K. Dick could cram this much craziness into a story--time travel, offense use of jinx powers, a psy ops campaign with a giant but useless ship--but he would tell the story in limited third person or even first, sticking close to one person and that person's perceptual bias/madness. Smith has no such interest in limiting the reader, who gets a wide angle view of everyone else's perceptual failures.

Curiously, this earlier work seems a little more prone to use strange words to get an effect. For instance, that "class three etiological interference" when he could just note that she's a jinx or prone to bad luck. Calling her an "etiological interference" sounds strange; noting that she's "class three" reminds us that we're in a different frame of reference.

And yet, what really comes across here more than in "Mother Hitton's" is how arbitrary all this power is. The Instrumentality has psychics and biological weapons and psy ops capabilities, but it's all in support of a system which is repeatedly called corrupt, a system which routinely reworks people's memories, and which nearly depopulates an entire planet because of one enemy. Cordwainer doesn't at all try to defend this system as moral or correct, but simply notes that, when push comes to shove, the Instrumentality will push hard. Prince Lovaduck is left knowing he's a hero, but not knowing why, which is pretty much our position--he's done daring things, but has he done good things?

"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" (1961) (Rediscovery of Cordwainer Smith #1)

In the science fiction community, we all know that Cordwainer Smith has the best name. True, that's not his real name--that's Paul Linebarger, PhD in political science, and author of Psychological Warfare. Okay, fine, he's got a fun pseudonym and an interesting biography--Sun Yat-Sen was his godfather, he was friends with Chiang Kai-shek--but how are his stories?

That's what I plan to find out in my ongoing project to read all of his 30-odd published stories, most of which take place in his future history called The Instrumentality of Man, and all of which are republished in The Rediscovery of Man. First up, the awesomely named...

"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" (1961) (pages 355-374)
Synopsis (and spoilers): Benjacomin Bozart is a thief from the thief-planet of Viola Siderea and he's been tasked with the biggest heist of all time: breaking into Old North Australia--also known as the planet Norstrilia--and stealing the life-giving drug santaclara (or stroon, in its refined state). Bozart starts this heist by interrogating a Norstrilian child who writes out a clue about Norstrilian defense--"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons"--before Bozart kills him. Bozart then goes about the rest of the heist--reporting to his supervisors on Viola Siderea and mortgaging the entire planet's productivity to get the heist in gear.

During this same time, the story occasionally shows us who Mother Hitton is and how her Littul Kittons are part of the defense. Apparently, the Kittons are mink that have been bred for psychosis and Norstrilia protects itself by blanketing nearby space with this irresistible psychosis. On top of that, because they have a monopoly on the life-giving santaclara, the Norstrilians also have a huge secret intelligence network, and Bozart's search for information on the "Kittons" have triggered the network. So all of his underworld contacts are really Norstrilian agents who are leading him to his death. And the already rich Norstrilia ends up with a mortgage for the entire thief planet, Viola Siderea.

Thoughts and analysis: There's so much weird going on here. First, the story is told in omniscient third, a POV that has fallen out of favor these days, especially for stories of this length. In 20 pages, we get Benjacomin's plot, Katherine Hitton's preparation, the secret plots and thoughts of several secret agents, and a little history of Norstrilia.

Second, there's the extraordinary lengths the Norstrilians go to in order to kill Benjacomin Bozart with projected mink thoughts. After Bozart kills the young Norstrilian boy, his actions are almost all directed by Norstrilian agents, whose one goal is to get him into Norstrilian space. Considering the economics of the whole thing--it must be expensive to wake the mink up and get them to project their psychosis--you'd think it would be easier for someone to just poison Bozart before he gets there. (Though, from a legal standpoint, crime prevention-via-death penalty is probably still not accepted in the Instrumentality future. And getting Bozart to sign away years of his criminal planet is a real nice side-effect. Instead of stealing, the thief planet ends up getting stolen--through completely legal means.)

Third, the story matter is unmistakably Cordwainer Smith territory: a secret war carried out with projected mental states and an intelligence apparatus that gets triggered by a planted shibboleth. There's no sentimentality about the thief, who is himself a master of mood manipulation, especially skilled at hiding his own moods, but never a romantic figure.

Fourth, Cordwainer tends to keep his sentences real crisp here, allowing the content of the story to carry the punch. So, for instance, we get simple but nonsense sentences like "One of her weapons snored. She turned it over." Eventually--about ten pages later--that sentence will make sense, when we get the information that her weapons are her psychotic mink. But many of the sentences don't have any delay in making sense. We know what it means when we read "Benjacomin, trained thief that he was, did not recognize the policeman." It means that from the opening gambit, Benjacomin is going to die.