Cemetery World

Chapter 2

Maxwell Peter Bell, manager of Mother Earth, Inc., North American division, was a pudgy man who wanted to be liked. He sat in his worn, stodgy, well-upholstered chair behind the heavy, shining desk in the penthouse office atop the administration building. He rubbed his hands together and smiled almost tenderly at me, and I would not have been surprised if the round, soft brownness of his eyes had begun to melt and run down his cheeks, leaving chocolate stains.

"You had a pleasant trip?" he asked. "Captain Anderson made you comfortable?"

I nodded. "As comfortable as possible. I am grateful, of course. I did not have the money to buy passage on a Pilgrim ship."

"You must not think of gratitude," he insisted gently. "It is we who should be glad. There are few persons of the arts who evince an interest in this Mother Earth of ours."

In his nice, slick way he was laying it on just a trifle thick, for over the years there had been many, as he called them, persons of the arts who had paid attention to the Earth, and in every case under the very polished and maternal auspices of Mother Earth itself. Even if one had not known of the patronage, it could have been suspected. Most of their work read, looked, or sounded like something a highly paid press relations outfit would have fabricated to advertise the Cemetery.

"It is pleasant here," I said, more to be making conversation than for any other reason.

I didn't know that I was asking for it, but I was. He settled down comfortably in his chair, like a brooding hen ruffling out her feathers over a clutch of eggs.

"You heard the pines, of course," he said. "There's a song to them. Even from up here, when a window happens to be open, you can hear them singing. Even after thirty years of hearing them, I listen by the hour. It is the song of an eternal peace that can be achieved in its totality nowhere else but Earth. At times it seems to me that it is not the song of pines and wind alone, nor yet alone the sound of Earth. Rather, it is the song of scattered Man gathered home at last."

"I hadn't heard all that," I said. "Perhaps in time I may. After I have listened a little longer. That is what I'm here for."

I might just as well have kept quiet. He wasn't even listening. He didn't want to listen. He had his piece to speak, his snow-job to be done, and he was intent on that and nothing else.

"For more than thirty years," he said, "I have bent every thinking moment to the great ideals of the Last Homecoming. It is not a job that can be accepted lightly. There have been many men before me, many other managers sitting in this chair, very many of them, and every one of them a man of honor and of sensitivity. It has been my job to carry on their work, but not their work alone. I must, as well, uphold the great traditions that have been fostered through the entire history of this Mother Earth."

He slumped back in his chair and his brown eyes became softer, if possible, and slightly watery.

"At times," he told me, "it is no easy matter. There are so many circumstances against which a man must need contend. There are the insinuations and the whispered rumors and the charges that are hinted, but never brought out in the open so that one might cope with them. I suppose that you have heard them."

"Some of them," I said.

"And believed them?"

"Some of them," I said.

"Let's not beat about the bush," he said a little gruffly. ''Leave us lay it out. Let us say immediately that Mother Earth, Incorporated, is a cemetery association and Earth a cemetery. But it is not a money-making fraud nor a pious imposition nor a high-pressure sales promotion scheme to retail at tremendous profit large pieces of worthless real estate. Naturally, we operate along accepted business lines. It is the only way to do. It is the only way we can offer our services to the human galaxy. All this calls for an organization that is vaster than one can easily imagine. Because it is so vast, it is necessarily loose. There is no such thing as maintaining tight control over the entire operation. There always exists the chance that we, here in administration, are unaware of a lot of actions we would not willingly condone.

"We employ a large corps of public relations specialists to promote our enterprise. We necessarily must advertise to the far corners of the areas peopled by humanity. We cheerfully concede that we have sales representatives on all planets occupied by humans. But all of this can be considered as no more than normal business practice. And you must consider this-that in pushing our business so forcefully we are conferring a great benefit upon the human race on at least two levels."

"Two levels," I said, astonished-astonished by the man rather than by his flow of words. "I had thought.."

"The personal level," he said. "That was the one you thought of. And it, of course, is the prime consideration. Believe me, there is a world of comfort in knowing that one's loved ones have been committed, once life is done, to the sacred keeping of the soil of Mother Earth. There is a deep satisfaction in knowing that one's self, when the time shall finally come, also will be laid to rest amid the hills of this lovely planet where mankind first arose."

I stirred uneasily in my chair. I was ashamed for him. He made me uncomfortable and I resented him as well. He must, I thought, consider me an utter fool if he thought that this flow of flowery, syrupy words would lay at rest any doubts I might have of Mother Earth, Inc., and convert me to Cemetery.

"Aside from this," he said, "there is a second level, perhaps of even greater service. We in Mother Earth, I earnestly believe, serve as a sort of glue that holds the concept of the race intact. Without the concept of Mother Earth, Man would have become a footless wanderer. He'd have lost his racial roots. There would have been nothing to tie him to this comparatively tiny speck of matter revolving about a very common star. No matter how slim the cord may be, it seems to me essential that there be something to bind Man together, some consideration that gives all men a certain thing in common. To serve in this wise, what could be better than a sense of personal association with the planet of their racial origin."

He hesitated for a moment and sat there staring at me. He may have expected some response after his fluent exposition of such noble thoughts. If so, I disappointed him.

"So Earth is a vast galactic cemetery," he went on after it became apparent I was not going to respond. "One must understand, however, it is something more than a common burial ground. It is, as well, a memorial and a memory and a tie that makes all mankind one, no matter where the individual man may be. Without our work, Earth long ago would have died from the memory of Man. It is not inconceivable that under other circumstances the star where Man arose might have become by now a matter of great academic concern and pointless argument, with expeditions blindly groping for some shadowy evidence that would help pin down that solar system where mankind got its start."

He tipped forward in his chair and put his elbows on his desk.

"I bore you, Mr. Carson?"

"Not at all," I told him. And it was the truth. He was not boring me. He fascinated me. It seemed impossible that he could, in conscience, believe this flowery rubbish.

"Mr. Carson," he said. "But the first name? The first name now escapes me."

"Fletcher," I said.

"Oh, yes, Fletcher Carson. And you, of course, have heard the stories. About how we overcharge, how we fool the people and high-pressure them, and how…"

"Some of the stories," I admitted, "have come to my attention."

"And you thought they might be true."

"Mr. Bell," I said, "I do not see the point-"

He cut me off. "There have been certain excesses on the part of some of our representatives," he said. "It may be that at times the enthusiasm of our copywriters may have given rise to advertisements that were somewhat more flamboyant than would be dictated by good taste. But by and large we have made an honest effort to maintain an essential dignity in keeping with the responsibility that has been placed upon our shoulders.

"Every Pilgrim who has visited Mother Earth will testify that there is nothing more beautiful than the developed portions of our project. The grounds are landscaped, in the most tasteful manner, with evergreen and yew, the grass is tended with a loving care and the floral beds are the most exquisite… but, Mr. Carson, you have seen all this."

"A glimpse of it," I said.

"To illustrate the.kind of trouble we must face," he told me in what seemed a sudden rush of confidence, as if somehow I had betrayed some sympathy, "a salesman of ours in a far sector of the galaxy caused to circulate, several years ago, a rumor that Mother Earth was running out of room and would soon be full and that those families who wished to have their dead interred here would be well advised to immediately reserve those few remaining lots that were still available."

"And that, of course," I said, "could not possibly be true. Or could it, Mr. Bell?"

I knew, of course, that it couldn't be. I was just needling him, but he didn't seem to notice.

He sighed. "Certainly it isn't true. Even those persons who heard it should have known it wasn't. They should have known it was a most malicious rumor and have shrugged it off. But a lot of them went running to complain about it and there was a most messy investigation of the whole affair, causing us no end of trouble, both mental and financial. The worst part of it is that the rumor still is reverberating throughout the galaxy. Even now, on some planets out there, it still is being whispered. We try to stamp it out. Whenever it comes to our attention we try to deal with it. We've been emphatic in our denials, but it seems to do no good."

"It still may sell plots for you," I pointed out. "If I were you, I would not try too hard to stamp it out."

He puffed out his cheeks. "You do not understand," he said. "Fairness and utmost honesty have always been our guides. And in view of that we do not feel that we should be held to strict accountability for the actions of that one salesperson. Because of the distances involved and the resultant difficulties in communication, our organization table is, of necessity, a rather loose affair."

"Which brings up the question," I said, "of the rest of Earth, the part of it that is not Cemetery. What might it be like? I am very anxious…"

He waved a chubby hand, dismissing not the question only, but the rest of Earth.

"There is nothing there," he said. "Just a wilderness. An utter wilderness. All that is significant on the planet is the Cemetery. For all practical purposes, the Earth is Cemetery."

"Nevertheless," I said, "I would like-" But he cut me off again and went on with his lecture on the trials of operating Cemetery.

"There is always," he declared, "the question of our charges, always with the implication that they are excessive. But let us, for a moment, consider the costs that are involved. The mere cost of maintaining an organization such as ours staggers the imagination. Add to this the cost of operating our fleets of funeral ships, which make their constant rounds to the many planets, gathering in the bodies of the late departed and returning them to Earth. Now add to this the cost of our operations here on Mother Earth and you'll arrive at a total which fully justifies our charges.

"Few family members, you must understand, care to experience the inconvenience necessary to accompany their loved ones on the funeral ship. Even if they did, we could not offer many of them such accommodations. You have had some months of it and you know that traveling on a funeral ship is no luxury cruise. The cost of chartered ships runs too high for all but the very wealthy and the arrival of the Pilgrim ships, which are not cheap to travel on, does not, as a rule, coincide with the arrival of the funeral ships. Since the family members most often are not able to attend the service of commitment to the sacred soil, we must take care of all the traditional considerations. It is unthinkable, of course, that one be given to Mother Earth without an appropriate expression of sorrow and of human loss. For that reason we must maintain a large corps of pallbearers and of mourners. There also are the florists and the grave-diggers, the monument makers and the gardeners, not to forget the pastors. The pastors are a case in point. There are, as you must realize, quite a lot of pastors. In the process of spreading to the stars, mankind's religions have splintered again and yet again, until now there are thousands of sects and creeds. But despite this, it is the proud boast of Mother Earth that no body is placed within the grave without the precise officiation of the loved one's exact and peculiar sect. To accomplish this, we must maintain a great number of pastors, each qualified in his particular faith, and there are many cases where some of those affiliated with the more obscure sects are called upon no more than a couple of times a year. Still, so that they may be available when the need arises, we must pay their salaries all the year around.

"It is true, of course, that we could effect certain economies. We could realize a substantial savings if we used mechanical excavators for the digging of the graves. But here we stand foursquare and solid in a great tradition and in consequence our human grave-diggers number in the thousands. There would be a saving, too, if we were content to use metal markers for the graves, but here, too, we subscribe to tradition. Each marker in the entire cemetery is carved by hand from the very rocks of Mother Earth.

"There is yet another thing which many are prone to pass over without understanding. There will come a day-far distant, but it will come-when Mother Earth is filled, when every foot of ground has been consecrated with the beloved dead. Then our income will cease, but there will still remain the duty and the cost of perpetual care. So to this end each year we must add to the fund for perpetual care, insuring that at no time, so long as Earth shall stand, will ruin or neglect obliterate the monuments to the everlasting memory which has been established here."

"This is all very well," I told him, "and I am glad you told me. But would you mind, I wonder, saying why you told me?"

"Why," he said in some astonishment that I should ask, "just to clear the air. To set the record straight. So that you might realize the problems that we face."

"And so that I might know your deep sense of duty and your firm devotion."

"Yes, that as well," he said, quite unabashed and without any shame at all. "We want to show you all there is to see. The pleasant little villages where our workers live, the beauty of our many woodland chapels, the workshops where the monuments are carved."

"Mr. Bell," I said, "I am not here to take a guided tour. I am not a Pilgrim."

"But surely you'll accept the small assistances and the little courtesies it would be our pleasure to extend."

I shook my head, I hope not too mulishly. "I must go on my own. It's the only way that it will work. I and Elmer and the Bronco."

"You and Elmer and the what?"

"The Bronco."

"The Bronco. I do not understand."

"Mr. Bell," I said, "you'd have to know the history of the Earth, some of its olden legends, to really understand."

"But the Bronco?"

"Bronco is an old Earth term for horse. A special kind of horse."

"This Bronco is a horse?"

"No, it's not," I said.

"Mr. Carson, I am not entirely sure I understand who you are or what you mean to do."

"I'm a compositor operator, Mr. Bell. I intend to make a composition of the planet Earth."

He nodded sagely, all doubt cleared from his mind. "Oh yes, a composition. I should have known at once. You have the look of a sensitive. And you could have chosen no better subject or no better place. Here on Mother Earth you'll find the inspiration that is nowhere else. There is a certain fleeting quality to this planet that has so far escaped the telling. There is music in the very warp and weave of it…"

"Not music," I told him. "Not entirely music."

"You mean a composition isn't music?"

"Not in this sense. A composition is a great deal more than music. It is a total art form. It includes music, but it includes as well the written and the spoken word, sculpture, painting, song."

"You mean you do all this?"

I shook my head. "Actually I do little of it. Bronco is the one that really does it."

He flapped his hands. "I am afraid," he said, "that I have become confused.''

"Bronco is a compositor," I told him. "It absorbs the mood, the visual impact, the underlying nuances, the sounds, the shape, the form. It takes all these and turns out a product. Not an entirely finished product, but the tapes and patterns for the product. I work with it; the two of us work together. For a time, I suppose you could say, I become a part of it. It picks up the basic materials and I furnish interpretation, although not all the interpretation. That also is shared between us. It becomes, I fear, a bit difficult to explain."

He shook his head. "I have never heard of anything like this. It is new to me."

"It is a fairly new concept," I told him. "It was developed on the planet Alden only a couple of centuries ago and has been in the process of refinement every since. No two of the instruments ever are alike. There is always something that can be done to make the next one better. It is an open-ended project when you settle down to design a compositor, which is an awkward name for it, but no one has thought of a better one."

"But you call this one Bronco. There must be something in the name…"

"It's like this," I said. "The compositor is rather large and heavy. It is a complex mechanism and there are many rather delicate components that require heavy shielding. It is not something that one could drag around; it has to be self-propelling. So while we were about it, we built a saddle on it so a man could ride."

"By ‘we’ I suppose you mean yourself and Elmer. How does it happen Elmer is not with you now?"

"Elmer," I told him, "is a robot and he is in a crate. He traveled on board the ship as freight."

Bell moved uneasily, protesting. "But, Mr. Carson, you must know. Surely you must know. Robots are not allowed on Mother Earth. I am afraid we must…"

"In this case, you have no choice," I said. "You cannot refuse him entry to the planet. He is a native of the Earth and this is something neither you nor I can claim."

"A native! It's impossible. You must be jesting, Mr. Carson."

"Not in the least. He was fabricated here. In the days of the Final War. He helped build the last of the great war machines. Since then he has become a free robot and, according to galactic law, holds all the rights a human has, with a very few exceptions."

Bell shook his head. "I am not sure." he said. "I am not sure at all. "

"You need not be sure," I said. "I am. I checked into the law, most thoroughly. Not only is Elmer a native, but in the meaning of the law he is native-born. Not fabricated. Born. Back on Alden there is a very legal document that attests to all of this and I have a copy with me." He did not ask to see the copy. "For all intents," I said, "Elmer is a human being."

"But surely the captain would have questioned…"

"The captain didn't care," I said. "Not after the bribe I paid him. And in case the law is not enough, I might point out that Elmer is all of eight feet tall and very, very tough. What is more, he is sentient. He wouldn't let me turn him off when I nailed him in the crate. I'd hate to think of what might happen if someone other than myself opened up that crate."

Bell eyed me almost sleepily, but there was a wariness behind the sleepiness. "Why, Mr. Carson," he asked, "do you think so badly of us? We appreciate your coming, your having thought of us. Any aid that Mother Earth can give is yours if you only mention it. If there should be financial problems…"

"There are financial problems, certainly. But we seek no aid."

He persisted. "There have been occasions when we extended monetary grants to other persons of the arts. To writers, painters…"

"I have tried as plainly as I can," I said, "to indicate that! we want no ties to Mother Earth or to the Cemetery. But you deliberately persist in your misunderstanding. Must I put it bluntly?"

"No," he said, "I would think there is no need. You are laboring under a romantic misapprehension there is more to Earth than the Cemetery and I tell You. sir there is nothing else. Earth is worthless. It was destroyed and abandoned ten thousand years ago and it would have been forgotten long ago if it had not been for us. Will you not reconsider? There would be much mutual benefit to both of us, I am intrigued by this new art form that you have described."

"Look," I said, "you might as well understand this. I don't propose to turn out a Cemetery work. I'm not up for hire as a press agent for Mother Earth. And I owe you nothing. I paid your precious captain five thousand credits to haul us here and…"

"Which was less," Bell said angrily, "than you would have paid on a Pilgrim ship. And a Pilgrim ship would not have taken all your freight."

"I thought," I said, "that it was sufficient payment."

I didn't say good-bye. I turned about and left. Walking down the steps of the administration building, I saw a ground car was parked in front of the steps, in the traffic circle. It was the only car in sight. The woman who sat in it was looking straight at me, as if she might have known that I was in the building and had been waiting for me.

The car was a screaming pink and that color, pink, made my thoughts go back to Alden, where it all had started.