"A Story" by James V Wynn

Perhaps 180 years or so previous to the murder of Maitre in the first eponymous novella of The Fifth Head of Cerberus, French explorers landed on a planet that would known as St. Anne.

The atmosphere is the same as Earth. This is never explained -- and doesn't have to be because it is a staple of science fiction. Alternatively, Wolfe considered himself to be a "speculative fiction" writer. Not Science Fiction, certainly not Hard Science Fiction. This story is not about worlds we might actually encounter in the universe. It is about what would happen if a very specific set of circumstances were step up.

On this planet happened to be a lifeform that -- for adaptive reasons that are never explained -- had a remarkable ability to mimic anything. So some would mimic clouds and some running water. As they interacted with each other's mimicry, and mimicked themselves in turn, they formed bizarre animals. These creatures, were also psychic, and their mimicry utilized their psychic abilities to communicate with each other. These creatures were the only life-form on the planet. It might be -- considering the themes explored in these novellas -- that it was a transplant itself, specifically designed by a passing civilization of "starcrossers" for some unknowable use. Perhaps they were a base material used to produce "robots" as in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R (a Čapek excerpt is quoted at the beginning of the third story). As the only animal lifeform on the planet, whatever their form, other mimics were their food. Perhaps the center of the Temple/Observatory was their original landing. Perhaps it was not the only one. 

The First Human Settlement

When the French explorers arrived on St Anne, they encountered these creatures and understood that their "default" form was lurid white worms that hung around the roots and holes and the branches of "trees". If they ever came to have a theory about the reproductive cycle of the native creatures, they probably believed them to reproduce parthenogenetically.  What they probably never came to understand was that the "trees" were the ultimate reproductive form of the males of the species. A rare percentage of the males would live long enough or encounter just the right circumstances to adopt the reproductive form. The creatures were clustering around the trees to reproduce. The actual mechanics of how this tree form caused reproduction is not explored in these stories. Nor is it explained to my satisfaction why they grew in a circle numbering exactly the number of days in an Annese year. Nor what was at the center of the circle they formed.

But during this time, the French settlers began encountering "people" -- apparent humans. And this was how they understood the degree to which the "native" species could mimic. These humans were, they quickly discovered, mimics -- "animals" closely mimicking human behavior albeit a wild, pre-technology culture. Or perhaps they even discovered these mimics among themselves. But some of these encounters were violent. The explorers autopsied the mimic bodies. They discovered that the most human-like versions were only superficially so. They had brains in their chests -- not surprising if their default forms lacked "heads". As the explorers saw it, these were different forms of the other creatures they had been using as protein in their diets. So they did not have a problem with eating these as well. The mimics adopted their own cultural restrictions against "cannibalism" -- not eating members categorized as "us". They formed tribes and these tribes developed their own rituals.

But very soon after their arrival, perhaps in less than two years, the explorers encountered a plant with psychotropic properties and became addicted. It was poisonous when eaten but could be "safely" chewed once a month. They centered their lives around the using of this plant -- giving up any interest in the basics of survival and scientific inquiry. They adopted a philosophy under the power of the narcotic that the physical world was irrelevant -- that what mattered was only what they perceived the physical world to be -- that only the mind mattered. This philosophy was coincidentally suited to a species that was not physically human but perfectly simulated a human mind.

Their settlement soon fell apart, the explorers losing the capability to survive or the will to care. But before it did, they had a peculiar effect on the mimics that encountered them. These mimica, with their psychic abilities -- formed themselves into a distorted version of the explorers' physical form. Interacting with the naked, free-associating minds of the explorers, these mimics formed into small shriveled versions of humans. They thought of themselves as the original tribe of humans -- at least when they were in anything but the smallest of groups. Rather than "tribes", they might have been as accurately described as "task forces". They had no names other than those of the task force roles inherited by humans. As their numbers grew or shrank, their names would change as their roles would. They gained and retain the most intimate knowledge of the human history and culture although it was often muddled. John V Marsch named them "Shadow Children" referencing their small size and his understanding that they were, in some ways, the nearest "shadows" of the original human explorers.

Due to their use of the toxic plant, their bites were poisonous.

They adopted the explorers drug-taking habits which greatly heightened their own psychic abilities. They could communicate through and bend Space-Time itself. They used this ability to bend Space-Time around St. Anne to hide it from the rest of humanity -- a desire they probably picked up from the minds of the human explorers. 

"The Bending Sky-Paths Song that none may come."

And so, when new French explorers arrived (the first team were assumed lost), the Shadow Children caused them not to see St Anne. They flew by it and settled on the sister planet, which they named St. Croix. As the settlement grew, no one on St Croix saw that world that dominated their sky. Some 70 years later, an inter-system war broke out between the French and English-speaking powers. St Croix was one of the systems in dispute. As the war raged above them and on St Croix, the sister world remained hidden.

The Lifting of the Veil

Then one day, a tribe of Shadow Children, captured by an alternate tribe of mimics and needing a distraction, lifted the mental veil and called down a passing military vessel from the English-speaking combatants. They landed, finding what they believed to be French-speaking settlers living in destitute poverty. No one agonized over the suddenly appearing planet on St Croix. The veil had been lifted. The human mind's ability at resolving cognitive dissonance did the rest. The Shadow Children had vanished. The English conquerors christened the "newly discovered" planet whom the inhabitants, or some written record, called St. Anne. Or perhaps it was called St. Anne at that time. The sister world of St Croix retained its name, even after the English-speakers dominated the system. But the situation remained tenuous for a century, with the St Croix government remaining suspicious of the loyalties of French-speaking inhabitants.

But the early rural English settlers soon understood what the French explorers had before them. That St. Anne was populated by a shape-changing lifeform that mimicked human form and sentience. As did the explorers, the English did not consider passing the Turing test to be sufficient credentialing for personhood. But the scientists that investigated, did not find any indisputable evidence of these aboriginal creatures (aka "abos", but from this point on, I'll call them "Annese"). They only found a wide variety of wildlife species (which were ironically, in a sense, the Annese they were seeking). The Annese tribes seem to have been wiped out if they were ever more than folklore. It is a reasonable supposition that the Shadow Children themselves hid their settlements in the Back of the Beyond from the minds of human inquiry.

As for the other tribes, they hid in plain sight as descendents of the French settlers, because neither the English settlers nor the scientists comprehended that all the French settlers of St Anne were Annese. Between the French inhabitants and the English inhabitants who had been replaced -- potentially as the majority population of St Anne were Annese. But as long as they mimicked urban life, those Annese lost the ability to complete their lifecycle -- for the males to transform into trees. There is some degree of hope that if a mimic were separated from humans long enough, he could revert to his default state (such as if one were kept in solitary confinement for a long enough period). But even then it would be theoretically impossible for a male to revert enough to reach reproductive maturity. And in any case, the Annese could not stop trying to mimic urban humanity. It was not really a choice for them.

The Foundling

Some few decades after the conquest of St Croix, a French speaking brothel owner and amatuer biologist named Gene Wolfe, whom we'll call the Master discovered an abo female by a river in the outback of St Anne. He shot her, intending to take the body back for exposition -- proof that the "abos" were still extant in remote locations of the planet. But when he reached her, he discovered that she was washing an infant. So, he took the cub back with him for research.

What the Master could not have known is that the infant he adopted was a twin. That when this particular Annese tribe gave birth to twins, they killed one. This infant had been taken to the river to be drowned. These twins were psychically linked -- a single mind -- and it was considered a hygienic necessity to eliminate one. Allowing them both to survive might even make it impossible for either to reach its ultimate reproductive form.

On St Croix, the Master soon discovered that the creature -- whom we'll call the Foundling -- exhibited (apparent) intelligence. It was the perfect assistant. So he raised it as a companion. And due to its mimicking ability, it looked so much like him that anyone who encountered him assumed he was his son. The Master had books on genetic cloning which was not an arcane science on Earth but was highly regulated due to its toxic social and anti-evolutionary long-term effects. The Foundling was able to consume these techniques and manifest them with ease. When the Master died (however it occurred, but murder should not be precluded), the Foundling assumed his identity or took the role of his heir, taking his name as well.

When the Foundling was abducted and taken to St Croix, the act had effectively castrated him. But the desire to reproduce is relentless in all life. So the Foundling fell into the task of cloning himself. He supplemented his income by selling his experimental and failed attempts to the local slave markets. One of his experiments became his assistant. We'll call this iteration Number Three. Eventually, the Foundling took up a project that the Master had toyed with but never done -- a chance to reach a final reproductive form, but in metal rather than wood -- to transfer his mind into a mind simulator (a process that was lethal to the Foundling's corporeal form).

Note 1: This is the ultimate confirmation that passing a Turing test in this world can result in "real" sentience. The process of creating a simulation seems to assume that there is an actual mind to simulate rather than mere "aping" of a mind.

Note 2: "Aunt Jeanine"/Cedar Branches Waving did not understand that the original Master had been replaced, she assumed the designation "Number Five" included the simulation. Alternately, she only counted her five "children". In fact, the number includes the original Master as well as the Foundling-changeling. The Simulation is not "counted" or is counted as the same person as the Foundling are considered to be the same. Master, Foundling, Number Three, Maitre, Number Five.

Under the tutelage and direction of the Foundling-Simulation, Number Three continued the reproductive process. He generated his own "heir", known as as Maitre. It is possible, that he never intended for Maitre to actually inherit anything. Instigated by the Simulation, his motivation was two-fold: reproduction and to understand the power of the Shadow Children via the experiences of his twin on St. Anne. 

Because their species needs a human to mimic early on in order to properly develop a human mind, the Mimic was raised with a human female, whom Number Three named Jeannine Veil. Jeannine assumed that she was the "control". In fact, she was the anchor. For whatever conscious motivation, Maitre murdered and supplanted Number Three.

Continuing under the direction of the Simulation, Maitre produced an heir, Number Five. He assigned him a human anchor, an analogy (David) as he had had. Maitre must have considered the possibility that this heir was an existential threat just as he had been to Number Three. It is entirely possible that he intended to murder Number Five, sell him into slavery, or exile him to St Anne. However, given that Maitre and Number Five were psychically the same mind, Number Five's belief that Maitre intended (consciously or subconsciously) to murder him should be given significant weight. But given that they were of the same mind, his paranoia about being murdered might have just as well come from Maitre's own mind. Either way, their reactions to their paranoia would be the same.

The Twin

But what of the Foundling's twin -- who we'll call "V"? V continued to live with his mother on St Anne: half of a single mind on two worlds. Sharing the dreams of the Foundling and his simulations. The Annese are long-lived, but appearing young or old at will is still a power retained the them in the rural parts of St Anne. Sometimes they lived in the Back of the Beyond, but mostly they lived among the human settlements. When Dr Marsch of Earth encountered the Twin, he was living with his "father" Victor Trenchard. Under the influence of Number Five's mind, he continues to use the initial "V" in his name (for "5") even when he adopts a new identity. His mother never told him what was necessary for a male to reach his ultimate reproductive form, and now that she has left him in the care of Victor Trenchard, he doesn't know where to begin to understand how to go about it. He is trapped in "childhood". He cannot become a "man". When Marsch asks what he wants to do when he is grown, he weeps.

His mother made her way St. Croix, soon supplanting Dr. Jeanine Veil, Maitre's anchor/foster sister. V became a guide for an anthropologist named Dr. Marsch. After Marsch's death in the wilds (by accident or murder), V roamed the Back of the Beyond for years, studying and Dr Marsches diary and books. During this time he met a tribe of Shadow Children. With their connection to Space-Time, they understood that V's future was interwoven with their own. And so, rather than eat him, they declared him "sacred" and made him a "shadow-friend". 

After some years, V, followed his mother to St. Croix. But soon after, he was captured and imprisoned by his twin's "tribe" on St Croix. And, soon after, the Foundling-Simulation had his mother, Aunt Jeanine, imprisoned as well. 1

Note: The Simulation seems to have given Number Five the impression that Veil has died. Or perhaps he just assumes she has died or is as good as dead. V knows she is in prison with him.

But V's writings from prison -- writings prompted from his tutelage under the Shadow Children of St Anne:

 "[When] there is no opportunity to act [i]t is always wise to talk a great deal, discussing what has been done and what may be done, when nothing can be done. All the great political movements of history were born in prisons.”

-- became the foundation of a revolutionary group called "The Fifth of September".

Note: That is, the "Fifth of the Seven": The Master, the Foundling-Simulation, Number Three, Maitre, Number Five, Dr Marsch, and V.

Or the "Fifth of Nine": Including Dr. Veil and Aunt Jeannine.

It seems reasonable that this revolution was hardly an fluke. It was helped along by fellow Annese on St. Croix as well as the assistance of V's Shadow Children allies on St Anne. So the government was right to be suspicious of "spies from St. Anne".

Upon the overthrow of the government, V was released and went to his twin, Number Five, at the head of the revolutionary army. Together they dismantled the Simulation. Number Five proposed that he, himself, undergo the operation to become a new Simulation. 1

V rejected Number Five's offer, considering him too dangerous to live as an undying monolith who could construct his own army against the government. V explained to him, in a lecture similar to the one he'd given before Maitre's murder, that the two of them were the same mind -- that when he was unconscious, he was one with V's mind. He proposed an alternative. Instead of transferring Number Five's mind to a Simulation, V injected him with the drugs the Wolfes gave to their "experiments" (the Shadow Child's bite). As Number Five drifted into dreams, sharing V's consciousness, V smothered him. And so V's mind became a whole mind rather than a half as it would have been if he had been executed outright. And at last, Number Five's prediction, "Someday they’ll want us", is fulfilled. They rule St Croix.

As the honorary President for Life of St Croix, sharing (perhaps - he's never sure) the mind of Number Five, John V Marsch, Shadow Child Friend, wrote "A Story": a secret autobiography in the form of an anthropological folktale -- working in references to Number Five's diary, cultural memory from the Shadow Children, tribal culture of other tribes.

"On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet?"
~ This Charming Man, The Smiths

Other Applicable Readings

Proving Veil’s Hypothesis An excellent analytical consideration of the male reproductive life-cycle as trees.

I originally wrote this summary after listening to the discussion of The Fifth Head of Cerberus on the Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast. I discuss it more here.

Footnotes:

1 That Aunt Jeannine was supplanted explains her name "Jean-nine". As the Wolfe's and the Marsch's make up the Seven, Aunt Jeannine and Cedar Branches Waving bring the count up to Nine.Number Five intimates that Aunt Jeannine is a changeling when describing their first meeting: 

"And that [...] is the way I still remember her: as the Black Queen, a chess queen neither sinister nor beneficient, and Black only as distinguished from some White Queen I was never fated to encounter."

1 Sandwalker: “And you rule the marsh now?”
Eastwind “My head must be burned as his was. Then-yes.”