THE SPACE TRILOGY - Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra & That Hideous Strength. C. S. Lewis

been that of an intelligent creature. A moment later the whole of the thing came into view with a startling jump. Ransom guessed that it was a pfifltrigg—and was glad that he had not met one of this third race on his first arrival in Malacandra. It was much more insect-like or reptilian than anything he had yet seen. Its build was distinctly that of a frog, and at first Ransom thought it was resting, frog-like, on its ‘hands.’ Then he noticed that that part of its fore-limbs on which it was supported was really, in human terms, rather an elbow than a hand. It was broad and padded and clearly made to be walked on; but upwards from it, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, went the true fore-arms—thin, strong forearms, ending in enormous, sensitive, many-fingered hands. He realized that for all manual work from mining to cutting cameos this creature had the advantage of being able to work with its full strength from a supported elbow. The insect-like effect was due to the speed and jerkiness of its movements and to the fact that it could swivel its head almost all the way round like a mantis; and it was increased by a kind of dry, rasping, jingling quality in the noise of its moving. It was rather like a grasshopper, rather like one of Arthur Rackham’s dwarfs, rather like a frog, and rather like a little, old taxidermist whom Ransom knew in London.

      ‘I come from another world,’ began Ransom.

      ‘I know, I know,’ said the creature in a quick, twittering, rather impatient voice. ‘Come here, behind the stone. This way, this way. Oyarsa’s orders. Very busy. Must begin at once. Stand there.’

      Ransom found himself on the other side of the monolith, staring at a picture which was still in process of completion. The ground was liberally strewn with chips and the air was full of dust.

      ‘There,’ said the creature. ‘Stand still. Don’t look at me. Look over there.’

      For a moment Ransom did not quite understand what was expected of him; then, as he saw the pfifltrigg glancing to and fro at him and at the stone with the unmistakable glance of artist from model to work which is the same in all worlds, he realized and almost laughed. He was standing for his portrait! From his position he could see that the creature was cutting the stone as if it were cheese and the swiftness of its movements almost baffled his eyes, but he could get no impression of the work done, though he could study the pfifltrigg. He saw that the jingling and metallic noise was due to the number of small instruments which it carried about its body. Sometimes, with an exclamation of annoyance, it would throw down the tool it was working with and select one of these; but the majority of those in immediate use it kept in its mouth. He realized also that this was an animal artificially clothed like himself, in some bright scaly substance which appeared richly decorated though coated in dust. It had folds of furry clothing about its throat like a comforter, and its eyes were protected by dark bulging goggles. Rings and chains of a bright metal—not gold, he thought—adorned its limbs and neck. All the time it was working it kept up a sort of hissing whisper to itself; and when it was excited—which it usually was—the end of its nose wrinkled like a rabbit’s. At last it gave another startling leap, landed about ten yards away from its work, and said:

      ‘Yes, yes. Not so good as I hoped. Do better another time. Leave it now. Come and see yourself.’

      Ransom obeyed. He saw a picture of the planets, not now arranged to make a map of the solar system, but advancing in a single procession towards the spectator, and all, save one, bearing its fiery charioteer. Below lay Malacandra and there, to his surprise, was a very tolerable picture of the space-ship. Beside it stood three figures for all of which Ransom had apparently been the model. He recoiled from them in disgust. Even allowing for the strangeness of the subject from a Malacandrian point of view and for the stylization of their art, still, he thought, the creature might have made a better attempt at the human form than these stock-like dummies, almost as thick as they were tall, and sprouting about the head and neck into something that looked like fungus.

      He hedged. ‘I expect it is like me as I look to your people,’ he said. ‘It is not how they would draw me in my own world.’

      ‘No,’ said the pfifltrigg. ‘I do not mean it to be too like. Too like, and they will not believe it—those who are born after.’ He added a good deal more which was difficult to understand; but while he was speaking it dawned upon Ransom that the odious figures were intended as an idealization of humanity. Conversation languished for a little. To change the subject Ransom asked a question which had been in his mind for some time.

      ‘I cannot understand,’ he said, ‘how you and the sorns and the hrossa all come to speak the same speech. For your tongues and teeth and throats must be very different.’

      ‘You are right,’ said the creature. ‘Once we all had different speeches and we still have at home. But everyone has learned the speech of the hrossa.’

      ‘Why is that?’ said Ransom, still thinking in terms of terrestrial history. ‘Did the hrossa once rule the others?’

      ‘I do not understand. They are our great speakers and singers. They have more words and better. No one learns the speech of my people, for what we have to say is said in stone and suns’ blood and stars’ milk and all can see them. No one learns the sorns’ speech, for you can change their knowledge into any words and it is still the same. You cannot do that with the songs of the hrossa. Their tongue goes all over Malacandra. I speak it to you because you are a stranger. I would speak it to a sorn. But we have our old tongues at home. You can see it in the names. The sorns have big-sounding names like Augray and Arkal and Belmo and Falmay. The hrossa have furry names like Hnoh and Hnihi and Hyoi and Hlithnahi.’

      ‘The best poetry, then, comes in the roughest speech?’

      ‘Perhaps,’ said the pfifltrigg. ‘As the best pictures are made in the hardest stone. But my people have names like Kalakaperi and Parakataru and Tafalakeruf. I am called Kanakaberaka.’

      Ransom told it his name.

      ‘In our country,’ said Kanakaberaka, ‘it is not like this. We are not pinched in a narrow handramit. There are the true forests, the green shadows, the deep mines. It is warm. It does not blaze with light like this, and it is not silent like this. I could put you in a place there in the forests where you could see a hundred fires at once and hear a hundred hammers. I wish you had come to our country. We do not live in holes like the sorns nor in bundles of weed like the hrossa. I could show you houses with a hundred pillars, one of suns’ blood and the next of stars’ milk, all the way . . . and all the world painted on the walls.’

      ‘How do you rule yourselves?’ asked Ransom. ‘Those who are digging in the mines—do they like it as much as those who paint the walls?’

      ‘All keep the mines open; it is a work to be shared. But each digs for himself the thing he wants for his work. What else would he do?’

      ‘It is not so with us.’

      ‘Then you must make very bent work. How would a maker understand working in suns’ blood unless he went into the home of suns’ blood himself and knew one kind from another and lived with it for days out of the light of the sky till it was in his blood and his heart, as if he thought it and ate it and spat it?’

      ‘With us it lies very deep and hard to get and those who dig it must spend their whole lives on the skill.’

      ‘And they love it?’

      ‘I think not . . . I do not know. They are kept at it because they are given no food if they stop.’

      Kanakaberaka wrinkled his nose. ‘Then there is not food in plenty on your world?’

      ‘I do not know,’ said Ransom. ‘I have often wished to know the answer to that question but no one can tell me. Does no one keep your people at their work, Kanakaberaka?’

      ‘Our females,’ said the pfifltrigg with a piping noise which was apparently his equivalent for a laugh.

      ‘Are your females of more account among you than those of the other hnau among them?’

      ‘Very greatly.