How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays (7 page)

As Your Excellency is well aware, the discovery of the energy-generating possibilities of citric acid not only caused galactic leadership to pass into the hands of the underdeveloped, lemon-producing countries, but also brought radical economic change, ending the age of industrial technology and mass consumption. Now, while in theory the possibility of provoking local wars remains, their utility has vanished. And this has obviously exacerbated the two major problems of the Army's internal functioning, as it eliminates the normal renewal of the troops (once necessitated by casualties) and the promotion of officers for feats in combat. These serious deficiencies have been remedied thanks to the Conflictual Potlatch, and today our space stadiums are thrilled every Sunday by the bloody clashes between units of our glorious Army, who regularly perform, in amicable combat, splendid acts of bravery and daring, inspired by friendship, the spirit of cooperation, and contempt for danger. Never in previous history had anyone seen young people of every race and social background die with a smile on their lips, without a word of hatred for the "enemy," who in fact is sportingly hailed as a friend and a brother, fighting on the opposite side merely through random selection. And, at this point, I trust I may remind you of the heroic behavior of the Fourth Chameleon Hypertransported Division last Sunday in the Southern Cross Derby. Driven towards the boundary of the celestial hemisphere by the Lions of Serpentarius, rather than crash into the government's grandstand erected on Fomalhaut, it crashed on Alpha, enhancing the Conflictual Potlatch with the annihilation of fifty thousand civilian inhabitants—boldly reintroducing into our War Games the sacrifice of non-belligerent victims, a practice that had fallen into complete desuetude since the archaic Napalm period.

But to return to our problem: while the Conflictual Potlatch has solved the problem of the rotation of troops as well as that of bravery-in-action promotions, it has certainly not solved the espionage problem. Obviously it is pointless for a fighting unit to engage in espionage against the unit it is to face in the Potlatch Galactic Series, because the selection of the forces involved is a matter of public record, readily ascertained via the various military sports publications. But, on the other hand, the non-existence of foreign enemies would risk stripping the Secret Services of any raison d'être: for, just as a nation cannot survive without Armed Forces, so Armed Forces cannot survive without Secret Services. If for no other reason than, as the Honki-Henki doctrine illustrates, the Secret Services play an essential biological role, allowing an army in order to "burn off" that surplus of generals and admirals who can never be promoted to the highest responsible positions. Therefore Secret Services must exist, and must carry out an intense activity; but this activity must be totally ineffectual and harmful to the self-maintenance of the State. A knotty problem not easily solved.

Now, one virtue of the Honki-Henki doctrine is that it has revived a valuable practice that originated in the area formerly known as Italia, today's Vinotria, towards the end of the twentieth century of the Vulgar Era: the system of reciprocal espionage among the Special Branches.

For the Special Branches to spy on one another there are two ineluctable requisites. First, each must engage in intense and secret activity that the other Special Branches are anxious to know about, and spies must have easy access to this information. The second requisite is the existence of the Loner Spy: a single agent expert in double-dealing and thus able to spy on several Special Branches at once. He can always be relied on for fresh news from an unimpeachable but unidentified source.

But what is to be done when the Special Branches, in accordance with the principle of Institutionalized Wheelspinning, have nothing to do, publicly or secretly? Then the spy concerned must possess a third requisite, namely the ability to collect and redistribute invented information. In this sense the spy becomes not only a conveyor but the very source of his information. In a certain sense it can be said that it is not so much the Special Branch that creates the Spy as it is the Spy who creates the Special Branch.

It was in this perspective that agent Wwwsp Gggrs was suggested as the most appropriate candidate—and for various reasons. First of all, as a Cassiopeian bivalve, he reasons according to a polyvalent logical system and only in sentences of a high referential opacity; the wondrous blend of these two characteristics makes these bivalves peculiarly adept at lying, systematic self-contradiction, rapid manipulation of apparent synonyms, and judicious mixing of terms
de re
and terms
de dicto
(on the order of "if Tullius is Cicero and Tullius is a seven-letter word, then Cicero is a seven-letter word"—a kind of reasoning that, thanks probably to the high level of logical formalization achieved by our officers, proves especially popular even in the most remote garrisons of the galactic outskirts).

In the second place, Wwwsp Gggrs is, as I mentioned, a miniaturized bivalve (like the majority of Cassiopeia's inhabitants, for that matter). It is thus easy for him to penetrate the most unlikely places, compensating for his motor handicap by adopting an appropriate disguise, as a cigarette case or a lady's compact, and slipping into the pocket or the handbag of his contact. Coming and going, passing in this fashion from one body to another while eluding all surveillance, he brilliantly carries out the mission assigned to the Infiltrators of every Special Branch.

Now that the reasons why agent Gggrs was recruited by at least three army corps have been explained, we must still find an explanation of the incident that motivated the request for clarification from Your Excellency's office.

The agent in question, in the pay not only of the Capricorn High Command but of the Antares Police Corps and the Ursa Major Military GHQ as well, while concurrently drawing pay from Capricorn for spying on Antares and Ursus, from Antares for spying on Ursus and Capricorn, and from Ursus for spying on Antares and Capricorn (this would have earned him six separate salaries), apparently inspired by his innate love of intrigue, secretly demanded payment from Antares for spying on Antares, from Ursus for spying on Ursus, and from Capricorn for spying on Capricorn. The impropriety of this activity, which involved each Special Branch in heavy expenditure to buy information about itself, is immediately evident. The deceit might never have been discovered, since the information supplied by the agent was false; each Special Branch head continued to receive information new to him, and thus assumed that this information involved another branch.

But all became clear when General Proazamm of the Capricorn High Command, desiring top-secret information about his own vice-commander, decided to engage Wwwsp Gggrs for this purpose, and called in Captain Coppola, who was paying monthly visits to Pluto to hand-carry the agent's pay to him (the agent, by the way, was being sought by other Capricorn auhorities for minor crimes). It was only in speaking with Captain Coppola that the General became aware of the ambiguous situation and began to suspect that there were some irregularities in the organization of the Capricorn Secret Service; he therefore contacted this office, which—simply doing its duty—professed total ignorance of the whole matter. This assertion was enough for General Proazamm, who sensed his suspicions were well founded. Since Capricornians are notoriously telepathic, General Proazamm's suspicions were inevitably picked up by the telepathy agency of the
Procyon Gazette,
notoriously hungry for any bit of gossip. The inevitable public scandal ensued.

We are, however, in a position to assure Your Excellency that the guilty agent was promptly rendered ineffective, and we can assure you he will not be in a position to engage in further missions. In fact, he has been named Executive Secretary of the Intergalactic Commission for the Moralization of Espionage Services. As for General Proazamm, who was transferred to a new post of authority with the Quicksands Bureau of Betelgeuse, we received just this morning word of his accidental death there while inspecting Swamp No. 26. And the
Procyon Gazette
has been taken over by the Citric Acid High Command, which has issued a statement guaranteeing the paper's continuance as a voice of freedom and democracy.

I remain, Excellency, your Excellency's
most devoted Space Admiral, Squadron IV
(name omitted for security reasons)
Director-in-Chief, Special Branches Coordination

PS. Please take note of the fact that, in conformity with the regulations of this office, all information contained in the above letter is false, for reasons of military security.

***

Intergalactic High Command
Casino, Monaco
From General Giansaverio Rebaudengo
To all Galactic Corps

Officers, semi-officers, soldiers, I assume today the high and complete command of our glorious Army. May the memory of our heroic battles at Gallipoli and the Somme, on the Piave and Monte Cassino, serve as inspiration for our future victories.

Long live the Universe!

PS. To celebrate Galactic Day next Sunday, 2 June, in the Gemini Area, a Conflictual Potlatch will be held. The Sirius III Hymenoptera Contingent will be pitted against the Vega Thunder Battalion.

(signed) Giansaverio Rebaudengo

***

URGENT ASTROGRAM
FROM: COMILITER SIRIUS
TO: HIGH COMMAND, CASINO

RESPECTFULLY REMIND HIGH COMMAND THAT SIRIUS HYMENOPTERA MEASURE SIX REPEAT SIX MILLIMETERS HEIGHT AND TWO REPEAT TWO MILLIMETERS CIRCUMFERENCE, WHEREAS VEGA SOLDIERS IN THUNDER BATTALION BELONG TO GARAMANTI PACHYDERM SPECIES WEIGHING EIGHT REPEAT EIGHT TONS EACH STOP THEREFORE COMPETITION PROBABLY IMPRACTICAL BECAUSE OF SCANT DENSITY OF SIRIUS III POPULATION HYMENOPTERA UNIT NUMBERS FIVE HUNDRED REPEAT FIVE HUNDRED MEMBERS WHEREAS VEGA THUNDER BATTALION CONSISTS OF TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND REPEAT TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND UNITS STOP

(SIGNED) GENERAL BEE

ASTROGRAM
FROM: HIGH COMMAND
TO: COMILITER SIRIUS

WORD IMPOSSIBLE UNKNOWN TO INTERGALACTIC SOLDIERS VOCABULARY STOP CARRY ON STOP

(SIGNED) GENERAL GIANSAVERIO REBAUDENGO

***

Memo to General Giansaverio Rebaudengo
EYES ONLY/TOP SECRET

We take the liberty of pointing out to Your Excellency that, in the course of our normal rotation of Intergalactic Units for the honor guard pool of the Federation President, duty for the current month has been assigned to the Pegasus Cavaliers of Death. This office is well aware of the splendid military training of this brave unit, but must point out that the inhabitants of Pegasus have a median height of eighteen meters, and their feet measure, on average, three meters by two. The fact that they are monopod does not make the situation less problematical, as these soldiers proceed by leaps and bounds. During the inaugural ceremony at the Bari Trade Fair last week, one of the President's guards involuntarily trampled the Archbishop of Apulia. We therefore beg Your Excellency to advance the rotation of the roster, excluding from duty soldiers of ethnic groups not congruous with terrestrial format.

The President further advises against participation in the Conflictual Potlatch by the Orion Runners. As the Orion civilization has developed a system of transmigration of souls a.k.a. metempsychosis, the Ori-onides regard death with extreme nonchalance, and any sports competition in which they participate thus proves extremely unsporting. If their presence is absolutely necessary, it is suggested that they be matched with other units having a highly developed sense of life after death: Swiss Guards from the Vatican, Irish Infantry, Spanish Falange, Japanese Air Force.

From the secretariat, Federal Palace
La Turbie

***

High Command
To: President, Intergalactic Federation
La Turbie

Your Excellency, I do not believe I can implement the suggestions you have sent me through the secretariat. All intergalactic soldiers are equal in the eyes of this Command, and I cannot permit any sort of preference or discrimination. During my long and glorious service as a soldier, I have never made distinctions between rich and poor, Calabrian and Bostonian, tall and short. I remember how, way back in 2482, I firmly resisted the pressures of a bigoted and covertly racist press and assigned Sahara patrol duty to the IV Corps of Inuit Harpooners from Prince Joseph's Land. Those magnificent soldiers died, every last one of them, in the line of duty. When a soldier is in uniform, I give no thought to his bulk. I am sorry about the unfortunate mishap of the late, distinguished prelate from Apulia, but the army cannot make exceptions. In the long-past twentieth century hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers were sent to the steppes of Russia wearing tennis shoes, but to my knowledge the prestige of the High Command at the time remained intact. It is the Commander's decisiveness that assures the soldier's heroism.

Long live the Universe!

(signed) General Giansaverio Rebaudengo

***

ASTROGRAM
FROM: HIGH COMMAND
TO: QUARTERMASTER HQ
BETELGEUSE

SHOCKED BY IRREGULAR VARIETY RATIONS AND ALARMED BY EXCESSIVE CULINARY PERMISSIVENESS UNDERMINING TRADITIONS AND DISCIPLINE OUR GLORIOUS ARMY STOP AS OF TODAY ALL VICTUALS MUST CONFORM TO STANDARD FORMAT FOR ALL TROOPS FEDERATED GALAXIES NAMELY FIVE HECTOGRAMS HARDTACK ONE TIN FROZEN MEAT FOUR CHOCOLATE BARS ONE DECILITER GRAPPA STOP

(SIGNED) GENERAL GIANSAVERIO REBAUDENGO

***

ASTROGRAM
FROM: QUARTERMASTER HQ
BETELGEUSE
TO: HIGH COMMAND
CASINO

RESPECTFULLY REMIND HIGH COMMAND BIOLOGICAL DIVERGENCES AMONG VARIOUS UNITS INTERGALACTIC ARMY STOP FOR EXAMPLE ALTAIR SOLDIERS CUSTOMARY DAILY CONSUMPTION THREE HUNDRED SIXTY KILOGRAMS ALTAIR GNU MEAT STOP AURIGA LIQUID SAPPERS COMPOSED EXCLUSIVELY OF ETHYL ALCOHOLS HENCE GRAPPA RATION OFFENSIVE TO THEM SUGGESTING CANNIBALISM STOP HOOKS MILITIA OF BELLATRIX CONFIRMED VEGETARIANS WHEREAS CHASSEURS FROM COMA BERENICES NORMALLY FEED ON LOCAL HAIRLESS BIPED GAME HENCE SOME DEPLORABLE MISUNDERSTANDINGS WHEN CHASSEURS DEVOURED ENTIRE BATTALION MOUNTAIN TROOPS MISTAKING THEM FOR RATIONS SHIPMENT STOP IN THIS REGARD WE WOULD AGAIN UNDERLINE IMPOSSIBILITY OF STANDARDIZING UNIFORMS AS PER HIGH COMMAND ORDER STOP IMPOSSIBLE FIT STANDARD TUNIC AND LEGGINGS TO SOLDIERS EIGHT METERS TALL WITH FIVE ARMS WHEREAS STANDARD ISSUE TROUSERS TOTALLY UNSUITABLE FOR VERMIFORM TROOPS STOP URGE PROMPT DECISION RECOMMENDING FLEXIBILITY RECOGNIZING VARYING BIOLOGICAL DEMANDS STOP