Cordwainer Smith: "No, No, Not Rogov!"

Cordwainer Smith
"No, No, Not Rogov!"
from The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith
16 pages


The following quotation constitutes the first three paragraphs of the story.

That golden shape on the golden steps shook and fluttered like a bird gone mad--like a bird imbued with an intellect and a soul, and, nevertheless, driven mad by ecstasies and terrors beyond human understanding--ecstasies drawn momentarily down unto reality by the consummation of superlative art.  A thousand worlds watched.

Had the ancient calendar continued this would have been A.D. 13,582.  After defeat, after disappointment, after ruin and reconstruction, mankind had leapt among the stars.

Out of meeting inhuman art, out of confronting non-human dances, mankind had made a superb esthetic effort and had leapt upon the stage of all the worlds.

.  .  .

The golden shape on the golden steps executed shimmering intricacies of meaning.  The body was gold and still human.  The body was a woman, but more than a woman.  On the golden steps, in the golden light, she trembled and fluttered like bird gone mad. 


"A thing of beauty is a joy forever," Keats once said.  This, of course, frequently leads to those who enjoy quibbling, and the quibbled topic usually is "beauty."  Is there some beauty that is recognized by all or is beauty always "in the eye of the beholder"?  Part of the debate may involve the issue of the beautiful that appears before its time. Many literary works, musical compositions, paintings, and sculptures are initially rejected or even castigated as ugly and then "rediscovered" a decade or more to be very beautiful.  Aside from these issues, I wonder if  it is "a joy forever," or even if it is a joy?  Could beauty be something else?   Is there a beauty that might be so profound that it becomes destructive to the unprepared?  Cordwainer Smith explores this idea in this short story. 


In spite of the introductory quotation, most of the story is told on a less exalted level.  It is set in the Soviet Union, begins during WWII, and continues on through several decades and commissars.  It takes place in a research laboratory, and the cast of characters includes Rogov, (the head of the research team),  Cherpas (initially Rogov's greatest rival and later his wife), and two observers installed by Stalin.  One is  Gausgofer (a scientist and a policewoman, whose real job is to watch the scientists), who falls in love with Rogov, and, therefore, hates Cherpas.  The other is Gauck (whose real job was to watch everybody, including Gausgofer), about whom nothing is said and who just watches and says little.  "Gauck had no friends, no enemies, no beliefs, no enthusiasm.  Even Gausgofer was afraid of him."

Their goal was to develop a device that, as a receiver, could read and record the thoughts of people at a distance.  In addition, once turned into a transmitter, it should be able to influence the thinking of people at a great distance.

Eventually they focused on the receiver function, but test results shifted the goal from reading thoughts at a distance to being able to see what targeted individuals were seeing.  Being able to see, for example, what the US president was seeing would give the USSR a decided advantage in that it could now read the briefing papers given to the president.  The USSR would know what the US president knew.

They succeed, but not in the way they expected.

Is there a beauty that is so overwhelming that, for those who haven't been prepared, it becomes destructive?



The final paragraphs:

On the golden steps in the golden, light, as golden shape danced a dream beyond the limits of all imagination, danced and drew the music to herself until a sigh of yearning, yearning which became a hope and a torment, went through the hearts of living things on a thousand worlds.

Edges of the golden scene faded raggedly  and unevenly into black.  The gold dimmed down to a pale gold-silver sheen and then to silver, last of all to white.  The dancer who had been golden was now a forlorn white-pink figure standing, quiet and fatigued, on the immense white steps.  The  applause of a thousand worlds roared in upon her.

She looked blindly at them.  The dance had overwhelmed her., too.  Their applause could mean nothing.  The dance was an end in itself.  She would have to live, somehow, until she danced again.  

As in many of Cordwainer Smith's stories, the focus is on the effects of technology and scientific advances on people rather than on the technology or science.  People are most important in his stories.

Cordwainer Smith is one of those sadly neglected SF short story writers from the late 1950s through the 1970s.  While many of his short works take place in a common universe, and several novels have been constructed by linking his short stories, he never got to the point of writing a series of novels that are so popular today, or perhaps required today.

I hope that maybe some visitors here will take a look at his stories.  It will be rewarding.