He wakened cradled in stillness and looking at a bright full moon. The surrounding sky held a few big stars. His eyes were so dazzled that he rested them on the deep spaces between, but other stars started glittering there, and then whole. constellations; he could not watch a space, however tiny, without the silver dust of a galaxy coming to glimmer in it. With outspread wings his aircraft seemed hanging, slightly tilted, between the ceiling of stars and a floor of smooth clouds which spread, like them, from horizon to horizon, and was that most mysteriously splendid of all colours, whiteness seen by a dim light. This thinned and opened under him and for a moment the craft seemed to overturn, for the bright moon shone through the opening. He was looking down into the sky reflected in a circular lake, reflected and magnified, for a black speck in the centre of the lower moon was clearly a reflection of his bird-machine. The lake, though sombre, had colour of its own. A jet black halo surrounded the reflected moon, and a ring of deep blue water flecked with stars surrounded that. To left and right was a beach of pure sand as pearly-pale as the clouds, and the round lake and its beaches were enclosed by two curving shores which made the shape of an eye. And Lanark saw that it was an eye, and the feeling which came to him then was too new to have a name. His mouth and mind opened wide and the only thought left was a wonder if he—a speck of a speck floating before that large pupil—was seen by it. In an effort to think something else he looked up at the stars but looked down again almost at once, and the eye was nearer now, he could only see the stars reflected in the depth. There was a sound like remote thunder or the breathings of wind in the ear. “Is … is … is …” it said. “Is … if … is ….” He knew that half the stars were seeing the other half and smiled slightly, not knowing up from down or caring which was which. Then, dazed by infinity, he did not fall asleep but seemed to float out into it.
He wakened next in pale cold azure. He was above a plain of snowy clouds with a blue bird-like shadow skimming over them on one side and on the other, not far above the horizon, a small piercing sun which seemed to shoot golden wires at his eyes when he glimpsed it. Sometimes he passed through fountains of birdsong squirting up through rifts in the clouds and looked down for a moment on grass or rocks a mile or so beneath, but the only steady sound was the quietly thudding wings of the eagle-machine muted by the thin air. His body lay relaxed and warm on the firm satin. His face lay in a pool of cold air as refreshing as a rinse of cold water. On the horizon ahead he saw a mountain of white cloud as single as a milk jug on the edge of a bare table. A bird-shaped black dot, casting a fleck of shadow, seemed to cross the side of it. Later, when the peak and precipices of the mountain floated above him, creamy and dazzling toward the sun and toning into blue shadow away from it, he saw that the cloudy plain ended here and a real mountain stood under the cloud one. It had a sharp summit and granite precipices and was highest of a jagged range rising from heathery purple moors. It combined the massiveness of great sculptures with the most delicately imagined detail. A drifting movement on the shadowy side of a glen resolved into a herd of deer. A small loch on the moor had a waterfall spilling out of it and an angler, knee deep, near the edge. He saw differently coloured fields with white farmhouses along a shore, and a bay where the sand under shallow water was lemon-yellow with reddish gardens of weed. Farther out the water was ribbed by sea swells and ruffled all over by little waves that sparkled where the sunlight caught them. He passed over a pale green, slow-foaming triangle of wake with a long tanker moving onward at the tip. Then conversational sounds came from inside his eagle-machine, and he pulled his head in out of the sunlight.
A small voice near his toes was saying “… identify self. This is Provan Air Authority addressing the U-1 flight from Unthank. Repeat: will passenger please identify self. Over.” “I am the Lord Provost of the Greater Unthank region,” said Lanark firmly, yet with elation, “and delegate to the general assembly of council states.”
“Please rep—please rep—please repeat. Over.”
“The U-1 flight from Unthank may proceed to Hampden as planned on beam co—beam co—beam coordinate zero flux zero parahelion 43 minutes 19 point nought 7 seconds epihelion ditto neg—ditto neg—ditto negating impetus reversal flow 22 point nought 2—nought 2—nought 2—nought 2—nought 2 beyond the equinoctial of Quebus on the international nerve—national nerve—national nerve-circuit-decimal-calendar-cortexin-quantum-clock. Message understood? Over.”
“It sounds like gibberish to me,” said Lanark.
“Proceed as planned. Repeat: as planned. Repeat: as planned. Out.”
There was a click and silence. He lay thinking of how he kept being pushed into certain actions, and how people kept talking to him as though he had planned them. But perhaps the message had not been for him but for his aircraft. It had sounded very like a machine talking to a machine. He pushed his head out into sunlight again.
He was flying up a wide and winding firth with very different coasts. To the right lay green farmland with clumps of trees and reservoirs in hollows linked by quick streams. On the left were mountain ridges and high bens silvered with snow, the sun striking gold sparkles off bits of sea loch between them. On both shores he saw summer resorts with shops, church spires and crowded esplanades, and clanging ports with harbours full of shipping. Tankers moved on the water, and freighters and white-sailed yachts. A long curving feather of smoke pointed up at him from a paddle steamer churning with audible chunking sounds toward an island big enough to hold a grouse moor, two woods, three farms, a golf course and a town fringing a bay. This island looked like a bright toy he could lift up off the smoothly ribbed, rippling sea, and he seemed to recognize it. He thought, ‘Did I have a sister once? And did we play together on the grassy top of that cliff among the yellow gorse-bushes? Yes, on that cliff behind the marine observatory, on a day like this in the summer holidays. Did we bury a tin box under a gorse root in a rabbit hole? There was a half-crown piece in it and a silver sixpence dated from that year, and a piece of our mothers jewellery, and a cheap little notebook with a message to ourselves when we grew up. Did we promise to dig it up in twenty-five years? And dug it up two days later to make sure it hadn’t been stolen? And were we not children then? And was I not happy?’
The shores grew steeper, more wooded and close together; the firth was pinched between them to a water-lane marked by buoys and light-towers. In places docks embanked it and vessels were being built or unloaded beneath the arms of cranes. Then the high land sloped away left and right and he came to a valley, a broad basin of land filled by a city with the river gleaming toward a centre of spires, towers and high white blocks. The eagle-machine left the river and soared in a long curve over sloping hills to the south, then to the east, then to the north. It crossed tenements of clean stone enclosing gardens where children played and lines of washing flapped in a slow breeze. There was a holiday in this city for the air was transparent and the bowling greens and tennis courts busy with players. The width and beauty of the view, its clearness under the sun seemed not only splendid but familiar. He thought, ‘All my life, yes, all my life I’ve wanted this, yet I seem to know it well. Not the names, no, the names have gone, but I recognize the places. And if I really lived here once, and was happy, how did I lose it? Why am I only returning now?’
Sometimes he heard a sound like a slow explosion, a huge soft roaring from the city centre, and looking over there he saw tiny bird shapes moving to and fro. A shadow touched him and looking upward he saw, overhead toward the east, a great eagle crossing his course with the sign Z-1 on the underside of the breast. He realized his own craft was following a spiral path aimed at the city centre and getting lower all the time. It soared down the tree-filled gorge of another river, a small one linking parks full of strollers and sunbathers. Children on a grassy slope waved handkerchiefs at him and he thought, ‘Soon I’ll see the university.’ A moment later he looked down on twin quadrangles framed by pinnacled rooftops. He thought, ‘Soon we’ll reach the river with the big dock basin and cranes and warehouses’, but this time he was wrong. The small river entered a mainstream which spread out into arms of quiet water, but these lay among paths and trees surrounding a gigantic sports stadium. Figures were racing and vaulting round the tracks, on the rich green grass of the centre rested athletes in variously coloured suits, from the crowded terraces a dull hubbub of applause welled into a roar. Lanark’s aircraft joined five or six others circling overhead. At intervals one would drop toward a white canvas square spread before the main grandstand with red, blue and black target rings painted on it. A voice over a loudspeaker was saying “… and now Posky, Podgorny, Paleologue and Norn are entering the last lap; and just descending, bang on target, is Premier Kostoglotov of the Scythian People’s Republic; and Norn and Paleologue are passing, yes, passing Podgorny into second place, almost neck and neck, and the gap between them and Posky is closing fast”—here a great roar went up—
“and the Toltec of Tiahuanaco dips toward the target just as Posky falls into third place and now Norn leads, then Paleologue, then Posky with Podgorny a very poor fourth; and here comes the Provost of Unthank—I’m sorry the Lord Provost of Greater Unthank—dropping toward the target just as Norn, yes, Norn, yes, Norn of Thule breaks the tape, closely followed by Paleologue of Trebizond and Posky of Crim Tartary.”
Lanark’s eagle-machine thumped down on the canvas and stood rocking slightly. Six men in dust coats seized it and carried it a few yards to a row of similar machines standing against a long narrow platform. Lanark gripped his briefcase and was helped onto the platform by a girl in a scarlet skirt and blouse who said hurriedly, “The Unthank delegate, yes?”
“Yes.”
“This way, please, you’re half a minute behind schedule.”
She led him down some steps, through groups of relaxing athletes, across a momentarily bare cinder track and into a doorway under the terracing of the main grandstand. After the wide spaces of the sky it was perplexing to trot up a narrow passage in artificial light. He decided that whatever happened he would remain dour, sceptical and unimpressed. They came to a hall with open lifts along the walls. The girl ushered him into one, saying, “Go up to the executive gallery, they’re expecting you. Leave your luggage with me; I’ll make sure it reaches your room in the delegates’ repose village.”
“No, I’m sorry, these documents are vital,” said Lanark. He saw a row of buttons in a polished metal panel and touched one beside the words EXECUTIVE GALLERY. The lift ascended and he watched his reflection in the polished panel with satisfaction. Though older he was even more dignified than in the vestry lavatory. He had grown a pointed, compact, captainish little white beard, his cheeks were smooth and rosy, the effect was of well-groomed efficiency. The lift door opened and Wilkins, looking exactly as Lanark remembered him, shook his hand, saying, “Provost Sludden! Am I right?”
“No, Wilkins. My name is Lanark. We’ve met before.”
Wilkins peered closely and said, “Lanark! My God, so you are. What’s happened to Sludden?”
“He is coping at present with a very dangerous sanitary problem. The Greater Unthank regional committee have judged it wiser for me to represent the city.”
Wilkins smiled crookedly and said, “That man is a fox: a ninth-generation ecological fox. Never mind. Join the queue, join the queue.”
“Wilkins, our sanitary problem is assuming catastrophic dimensions. I have more than one report in this briefcase which shows that people will start dying soon and—”
“This is a social reception, Lanark, public health will be debated on Monday. Just join the queue and say hello to your hosts.”
“Hosts?”
“The Provan executive officer and Lord and Lady Monboddo. Join the queue, join the queue.”
They were in a broad curving corridor with glass double-doors on one side and a queue moving steadily through. Lanark noticed a woman in a silver sari and a brown man in a white toga but most people wore sober uniforms or business suits and had the wary look of important people who, without showing friendship, are prepared to respond judiciously to it in others. They were an easy crowd to join. At the glass door a loud voice announced the arrivals to a company beyond: “Senator Sennacherib of New Alabama. Brian de Bois Guilbert, Grand Templar of Languedoc and Apulia. Governor Vonnegut of West Atlantis….”
He reached the door and heard the satisfying cry, “Lord Provost Lanark of Greater Unthank,” and shook hands with a hollow-cheeked man who said, “Trevor Weems of Provan. Glad you could come.”
A stately woman in a blue tweed gown shook his hand and said, “Had you a nice trip?”
Lanark stared at her and said, “Catalyst.”
“Call her Lady Monboddo,” said Ozenfant, who was standing beside her. He shook Lanark’s hand briskly. “Time changes all the labels, as you yourself are proving also.”
A girl in a scarlet skirt and blouse took Lanark’s arm and led him down some steps saying, “Hello, I’m called Libby. I expect you need some refreshment. Shall I get you a snack from the buffet? Pâté de something? Breast of something? Locusts and honey?”
“Was Ozenfant …? Is Ozenfant …?”
“The new lord president director, yes hadn’t you heard? Doesn’t he look tremendously fit? I wonder why his wife is wearing that hairy frock? Perhaps you aren’t hungry. Neither am I. Let’s tuck into the booze instead, there’s heaps of it. Just sit there a minute.”
He sat down at the end of a long leather sofa and looked perplexedly around.
He was on the highest and largest of four floors which descended like steps to a wall of window overlooking the stadium. Half the people standing around seemed to be delegates and stood talking in quiet little groups. Girls in scarlet lent some liveliness to the company by carrying trays between the groups with flirtatious quickness, but they were balanced by silent, robust men who stood watchfully by the walls wearing black suits and holding glasses of whisky which they did not sip. On a glass-topped table near the sofa lay a sheaf of pamphlets entitled ASSEMBLY PROGRAMME. Lanark lifted and opened one. He read a printed letter from Trevor Weems welcoming the delegates on behalf of the people of Provan and trusting their stay would be a happy one. There was no possibility of danger to life or limb, as the newest sort of security staff had been rented from the Quantum-Cortexin group; the Red Girls, however, were human and anxious to help with any difficulty the delegates could bring to them. Then came six pages of region names listed alphabetically from Armorica to Zimbabwe. Lanark saw that the Greater Unthank delegate was given as Provost Sludden. Then came a page headed:
HOUR 11. Arrival and reception of delegates by Lord and Lady Monboddo
After this a press conference was listed, a lunch, an “opportunity for social and informal lobbying,” a sheepdog trial, a pipe band contest, a dinner with speeches, a performance by the Erse Opera Company of Purser’s Misfortunes of Elphin, a firework display and a party. Lanark turned a page impatiently and found something less frivolous.
HOUR 8.50. Breakfast. Lobbying.
HOUR 10. World Education Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Logos into Chaos.” The Erse delegate and sociosophist Odin Mac Tok analyzes the disastrous impact of literacy on the underedu-cated.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 15. Lunch. Lobbying.
HOUR 17. World Food Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Excrement into Aliment.” The Bohemian delegate and Volstat research scholar Dick Otoman explains how organic pollutions can be pre-processed to revitalize each other within the human body.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 22. Dinner. Lobbying.
HOUR 8.50. Breakfast. Lobbying.
HOUR 10. Public Order Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Revolutionary Stasis.” Kado Motnic, sociometrist and delegate of the People’s Republic of Paphlogonia describes the application of short-nerve-circuitry to libido-canalization in the infra-supra-25-40 spectrum.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 15. Lunch. Lobbying.
HOUR 17. World Energy Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Biowarp.” South Atlantis delegate and Algolagnics director Timon Kodac presents gene-warping as the solution to the fossil-fuel failure.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 22. Dinner. Lobbying.
HOUR 8.50. Breakfast. Lobbying.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Kindness, Kin and Capacity.” Hanseatic delegate and sociopathist Moo Dackin explains why healthy norms must be preserved by destroying other healthy norms.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 15. Lunch, social and informal.
HOUR 17. The Subcommittees report. Voting.
HOUR 21. Press conference.
HOUR 22. Dinner. Speeches.
Master of Ceremonies, Trevor Weems.
Opening speech: “Then, Now and Tomorrow.” Six millennia of achievement will be outlined by the Chairman of the Assembly, Moderator of the Expansion Project Director of the Institute and President of the Council, the Lord Monboddo. Trevor Weems, Chief Executive Officer of the Provan Basin, will propose a vote of thanks. Toadi Monk, Satrap of Troy and Trebizond, will move the vote of thanks to the hosts.
HOUR 25. The delegates depart.
Before reading all this Lanark had been gripped by a large undirected excitement. Since wakening to sunlight in his aircraft that morning he had felt himself nearing the centre of a great event, approaching a place where he would utter, publicly, a word that would change the world. The sight of Wilkins, the catalyst and Ozenfant-Monboddo had not damaged this feeling. He had been startled, but so had they, which was satisfying. But the assembly programme disconcerted him. It was like seeing the plans of a vast engine he meant to drive and finding he knew nothing about engineering. What did “Speeches. Motions. Voting” mean? What was “Lobbying” and why did it happen at mealtimes? Did the other delegates understand these things?
The gallery was very crowded now and two men sat at the other end of the sofa sipping pint glasses of black beer and gazing at the active little figures on the sunlit sports field below. One of them said cheerfully, “It’s great to see all this happening in Provan.”
“Oh, come now, Odin, you’ve worked as hard as anyone to bring the assembly here.”
The other said morosely, “Bread and circuses. Bread and circuses. A short spell of reasonable wages and long holidays while they plunder us and then wham! The chopper. Provan will be turned into another Greater Unmentionable Region.”
Lanark said eagerly, “Excuse me, are you complaining about the condition of this city?”
The morose man had thick white hair, a body like a wrestler’s and a pinkish battered face like a boxer’s. He looked at Lanark balefully for a moment, then said, “I think I’ve a right to do that. I live here.”
“Then you don’t know how lucky you are! I’m from a region with an unusually dangerous sanitary problem, and Provan strikes me as the most splendidly situated—”
“Are you a delegate?”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve just arrived by air.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t talk to me about Provan. You’re in the early stages of a Gulliver complex.”
Lanark said coldly, “I don’t understand you.”
“The first recorded aerial survey happened when Lemuel Gulliver, a plain, reasonable man, was allowed to stand on his feet beside the capital of Lilliput. He saw well-cultivated farms surrounding the homes, streets, and public buildings of a very busy little people. He was struck by the obvious ingenuity and enterprise of the rulers, the officials and the workmen. It took him two or three months to discover their stupidity, greed, corruption, envy, cruelty.”
“You pessimists always fall into the disillusion trap,” said the cheerful man cheerfully. “From one distance a thing looks bright. From another it looks dark. You think you’ve found the truth when you’ve replaced the cheerful view by the opposite, but true profundity blends all possible views, bright as well as dark.”
The morose man grinned and said, “Since nearly everyone clings to the cloud-cuckoo view it’s lucky one or two of us aren’t afraid to look at the state of the sewers.”
“Sorry I took so long,” said the Red Girl, placing a tray on the table. “I thought it might be fun to try a gaelic coffee.” “I’m glad you mentioned sewers,” said Lanark eagerly, “I come from Unthank, which is having trouble with its sewers. In fact the future of the whole region is being menaced—I mean, decided—by this assembly, and I’ve been sent here as advocate for the defence. But the programme”—he waved it—“tells me nothing about where and when to speak. Can you advise me?” “There’s no need to be so serious on the first day,” said the Red Girl.
“The future of a crippled region,” said the morose man slowly, “is usually hammered out by one of the subcommittees.”
“Which subcommittee? When and where does it meet?”
“This is a friendly social reception!” said the Red Girl, looking distressed. “Can’t we keep all this heavy stuff till later? There’s going to be such a lot of it.”
“Shut up, dear,” said the morose man. “Wilkins knows all the ropes. You’d better ask him.”
“Listen,” said the Red Girl. “I’ll take you to Nastler. He knows everything about everything, and he’s expecting to see you soon in the Epilogue room. He told me so.”
“Who is Nastler?”
“Our king. In a way. But he’s not at all grand,” said the Red Girl evasively. “It’s hard to explain.”
The morose man guffawed and said, “He’s a joker. You’ll get nothing out of him.”
Lanark opened his briefcase, locked the assembly programme inside and stood up.
“I understand that you are employed to help me with my difficulties,” he told the Red Girl. “I will speak to both Wilkins and this Nastler person. Which can I see first?”
“Oh Nastler, definitely,” said the red girl, looking relieved.
“He’s an invalid, anyone can see him anytime. But won’t you drink your coffee first?”
“No,” said Lanark, and thanked the morose man, and followed the Red Girl into the crowd.
Weems and the Monboddos were still shaking hands with the queue by the door, which was a short one now. As Lanark passed them the announcer was saying, “Chairman Fu of Xanadu. Proto-Presbyter Griffith-Powys of Ynyswitrin. Premier Multan of Zimbabwe.”
The Red Girl led him along the outer corridor till they came to a white panel without hinges or handle. She said, “It’s a door. Go through it.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“If you’re going to talk politics, I’m going to wait outside.” As Lanark pressed the surface he noticed a big word on it: