The Masters: Cordwainer Smith
by Brandon Barr
Cordwainer Smith is the pseudonym for Paul M. Lineberger. Under this pseudonym,
he wrote his great science fiction short stories that make up the
“Instrumentality of Mankind.” Today Smith is revered as a founder of literary
science fiction and as James B. Jordan noted, “Several of the most important
science fiction writers, including Harlan Ellison and Ursula LeGuin, give him
credit for showing them that it is possible to write really serious science
fiction” (Jordan 37). Smith’s influence on other science fiction writers is
profound, and the greatest aspect of it all is that he is a Christian and his
beliefs are found throughout his works. Ursula K. Le Guin, a cornerstone in the
annuls of science fiction and fantasy authors, had this to say of Smith’s
writings:
For example of the use of science fiction of a living religious mythos one may
turn to the work of Cordwainer Smith, whose Christian beliefs are evident, I
think, all through his work…. Whether or not one is a Christian, one may admire
wholeheartedly the strength and passion given the works by the author’s living
belief. (Le Guin 76)
Cordwainer Smith, rarely heard of outside of knowledgeable science fiction
enthusiasts, has depicted in his stories the earth twenty thousand years into
the future.
The first of Smith’s stories ever published, a deeply symbolic work, is
“Scanners Live in Vain,” published in 1949. The central focus of the story is
upon a group of men who, by way of a terrible technology, allow their brains to
be cut from all sensations and functions except for their eyes and they become
machines in order to serve an important function of society. These men are
called the Scanners, and their job is to preserve the lives of men while in “the
Great Plain of Space”. They are a highly respected and a revered part of society
and they are few.
The main character, a scanner named Martel, has just come home
from months away at space when he receives an emergency call to return to duty.
This is a difficult order, for he has just turned off the machine and has again
become fully alive. It is a risk every time he transitions from virtually dead
to living, and from living to dead. So Martel heads to the meeting, still in his
mechanical Scanner suit, but remaining fully alive. He arrives at the meeting
and he is the only Scanner present who is completely alive and not machine. It
is announced at the meeting that a man by the name of Adam Stone has discovered
a method to “Screen Out the Pain of Space”. All of the Scanners except Martel
vote that Stone must die, for they are both afraid of losing their high
positions as Scanners, and their minds are impaired due to their bodies being in
a machine-like state.
The story up to this point has created a symbolic picture of the Jewish
priesthood. This is alluded to early in the story when Martel is with his wife.
Martel does not taste, feel, hear, or smell because he is in complete machine
form. But when he comes home and repossesses his body, his wife makes him some
meat but Martel is startled by the smell and asks his wife adamantly to tell him
what it is. She tells him it is lamb and he whispers for her to
“Cut—off—that—smell”. The smell begins to turn his “chestboxes” to overload
because it reminds him of the smoldering flesh of men burning in space. The lamb
meat symbolizes the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that allow men to be
right with God.
Special individuals called “habermen” can be killed in space by
something called the great pain, which is death to any man who ventures into
space. The habermen do the menial labor on the spaceships and are only kept
alive by aid of the Scanners. However the habermen sometimes die so that the
great plains of space can be crossed. The habermen symbolize the animals that
are slaughtered for human sin in the Old Testament and the great plain of space
represents the separation between man and God.
At the meeting the Scanners find out that their profession will become useless
and they began to rise up against the man called Adam Stone. Martel grows
worried. He realizes the incredible blessing that would free him and the rest of
mankind of this terrible mechanized ritual of death. The Scanners question if
this great discovery by Adam Stone is even true. The head of the Scanners,
Vomact, concludes with this: “Therefore, if Adam Stone has succeeded, he
threatens the ruin of the Confraternity and should die. Therefore, if Adam Stone
has not succeeded, he is a liar and a heretic, and should die. I move the death
of Adam Stone” (Scanners 83).
This is strikingly similar to what might have
taken place among the Sanhedrin while they discussed the problem of Jesus Christ
in the Gospels. Adam Stone’s name has symbolic meaning in itself. Its
connotation is in the name Adam—Christ being a man (Adam the first man to sin)
come to take away the sins of the world—and also in the last name stone, which
alludes to Christ being a stumbling block to the Jews.
The Scanners vote to kill Adam Stone. Martel, unable to stay silent, pleads for
them to rethink but ends up being silenced. While constrained by his fellow
Scanners “Martel imagined that he could see a cruel joyful smile on Vomact’s
dead face—the smile of a man who knew himself righteous and who found his
righteousness upheld and affirmed by militant authority.” Cordwainer Smith uses
words such as “righteous” and “militant authority” to continue to parallel in a
new way the story of the Jewish priesthood in the gospels.
Finally, a Scanner
named Parizianski is sent to assassinate Adam Stone, and Martel decides to warn
him. Martel arrives in time and ends up fighting his brother Scanner in front of
Adam Stone. While struggling with Parizianski “[h]e reache[s] over and twist[s]
Parizianski’s Brainbox up to Overload. Parizianski’s eyes glittered in terror
and understanding” (Scanners 94). But Martel is fatally overheating and “He
tried to speak, to say, ‘Get a Scanner, I need help, get a Scanner…’ But the
darkness rose about him, and the numb silence clasped him” (Scanners 94). Martel
symbolically dies fighting to save Stone and ironically is calling out for a
Scanner to help. It is ironic because they represent the old Law of sacrifice.
Martel is so conditioned to the fact that only Scanners (the priesthood) could
save him.
However, Martel awakes to discover his wife smiling beside him. In addition
something else amazing has happened to him:
Martel tried to lift his head, to scan himself. He could not. […]. ‘My darling
husband! You’re back again, to stay!’ Still, Martel tried to see his box.
Finally he swept his hand across his chest with a clumsy motion. There was
nothing there. The instruments were gone. He was back to normality but still
alive. (Scanners 94)
A direct picture of being born again, Martel realizes he no longer has the old
instruments upon his body and he finds himself restored to normality (freed from
sin and the law).
Cordwainer Smith imaginatively retells the story of the new and old covenants in
this allegorical science fiction story. It is the best way to tell a story that
is about God’s grace extended to mankind. God’s home and spirit are so high
above the reach of man’s understanding. That is why science fiction and fantasy
best depicts the awesomeness of God.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “The less known the real
world is, the more plausibly your marvels can be located near at hand. As the
area of knowledge spreads, you need to go further afield: like a man moving his
house further and further into the country as the new building estates catch him
up” (On Science Fiction 68).
The more man discovers, the more he rids the
discoveries of God’s touch. It is this lack of awe and irreverence that man is
good at developing. He familiarizes himself with something like a snow-peaked
mountain or a radiant sunset over a calm sea and he slowly begins to lose his
sense of awe and then he no longer sees the beautiful fingerprints of God.
Smith’s story gives new eyes to the reader, both Christian and non-believer—for
the same blinding familiarity can corrupt the eyes of the saints and a saint
needs to retain his awe for God or the light of his beacon will grow dim.
For example of the use of science fiction of a living religious mythos one may
turn to the work of Cordwainer Smith, whose Christian beliefs are evident, I
think, all through his work…. Whether or not one is a Christian, one may admire
wholeheartedly the strength and passion given the works by the author’s living
belief. (Le Guin 76)
Cordwainer Smith, rarely heard of outside of knowledgeable science fiction enthusiasts, has depicted in his stories the earth twenty thousand years into the future.
The first of Smith’s stories ever published, a deeply symbolic work, is “Scanners Live in Vain,” published in 1949. The central focus of the story is upon a group of men who, by way of a terrible technology, allow their brains to be cut from all sensations and functions except for their eyes and they become machines in order to serve an important function of society. These men are called the Scanners, and their job is to preserve the lives of men while in “the Great Plain of Space”. They are a highly respected and a revered part of society and they are few.
The main character, a scanner named Martel, has just come home from months away at space when he receives an emergency call to return to duty. This is a difficult order, for he has just turned off the machine and has again become fully alive. It is a risk every time he transitions from virtually dead to living, and from living to dead. So Martel heads to the meeting, still in his mechanical Scanner suit, but remaining fully alive. He arrives at the meeting and he is the only Scanner present who is completely alive and not machine. It is announced at the meeting that a man by the name of Adam Stone has discovered a method to “Screen Out the Pain of Space”. All of the Scanners except Martel vote that Stone must die, for they are both afraid of losing their high positions as Scanners, and their minds are impaired due to their bodies being in a machine-like state.
The story up to this point has created a symbolic picture of the Jewish priesthood. This is alluded to early in the story when Martel is with his wife. Martel does not taste, feel, hear, or smell because he is in complete machine form. But when he comes home and repossesses his body, his wife makes him some meat but Martel is startled by the smell and asks his wife adamantly to tell him what it is. She tells him it is lamb and he whispers for her to “Cut—off—that—smell”. The smell begins to turn his “chestboxes” to overload because it reminds him of the smoldering flesh of men burning in space. The lamb meat symbolizes the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that allow men to be right with God.
Special individuals called “habermen” can be killed in space by something called the great pain, which is death to any man who ventures into space. The habermen do the menial labor on the spaceships and are only kept alive by aid of the Scanners. However the habermen sometimes die so that the great plains of space can be crossed. The habermen symbolize the animals that are slaughtered for human sin in the Old Testament and the great plain of space represents the separation between man and God.
At the meeting the Scanners find out that their profession will become useless and they began to rise up against the man called Adam Stone. Martel grows worried. He realizes the incredible blessing that would free him and the rest of mankind of this terrible mechanized ritual of death. The Scanners question if this great discovery by Adam Stone is even true. The head of the Scanners, Vomact, concludes with this: “Therefore, if Adam Stone has succeeded, he threatens the ruin of the Confraternity and should die. Therefore, if Adam Stone has not succeeded, he is a liar and a heretic, and should die. I move the death of Adam Stone” (Scanners 83).
This is strikingly similar to what might have taken place among the Sanhedrin while they discussed the problem of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. Adam Stone’s name has symbolic meaning in itself. Its connotation is in the name Adam—Christ being a man (Adam the first man to sin) come to take away the sins of the world—and also in the last name stone, which alludes to Christ being a stumbling block to the Jews.
The Scanners vote to kill Adam Stone. Martel, unable to stay silent, pleads for them to rethink but ends up being silenced. While constrained by his fellow Scanners “Martel imagined that he could see a cruel joyful smile on Vomact’s dead face—the smile of a man who knew himself righteous and who found his righteousness upheld and affirmed by militant authority.” Cordwainer Smith uses words such as “righteous” and “militant authority” to continue to parallel in a new way the story of the Jewish priesthood in the gospels.
Finally, a Scanner named Parizianski is sent to assassinate Adam Stone, and Martel decides to warn him. Martel arrives in time and ends up fighting his brother Scanner in front of Adam Stone. While struggling with Parizianski “[h]e reache[s] over and twist[s] Parizianski’s Brainbox up to Overload. Parizianski’s eyes glittered in terror and understanding” (Scanners 94). But Martel is fatally overheating and “He tried to speak, to say, ‘Get a Scanner, I need help, get a Scanner…’ But the darkness rose about him, and the numb silence clasped him” (Scanners 94). Martel symbolically dies fighting to save Stone and ironically is calling out for a Scanner to help. It is ironic because they represent the old Law of sacrifice. Martel is so conditioned to the fact that only Scanners (the priesthood) could save him.
However, Martel awakes to discover his wife smiling beside him. In addition something else amazing has happened to him:
Martel tried to lift his head, to scan himself. He could not. […]. ‘My darling husband! You’re back again, to stay!’ Still, Martel tried to see his box. Finally he swept his hand across his chest with a clumsy motion. There was nothing there. The instruments were gone. He was back to normality but still alive. (Scanners 94)
A direct picture of being born again, Martel realizes he no longer has the old instruments upon his body and he finds himself restored to normality (freed from sin and the law).
Cordwainer Smith imaginatively retells the story of the new and old covenants in this allegorical science fiction story. It is the best way to tell a story that is about God’s grace extended to mankind. God’s home and spirit are so high above the reach of man’s understanding. That is why science fiction and fantasy best depicts the awesomeness of God.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “The less known the real world is, the more plausibly your marvels can be located near at hand. As the area of knowledge spreads, you need to go further afield: like a man moving his house further and further into the country as the new building estates catch him up” (On Science Fiction 68).
The more man discovers, the more he rids the discoveries of God’s touch. It is this lack of awe and irreverence that man is good at developing. He familiarizes himself with something like a snow-peaked mountain or a radiant sunset over a calm sea and he slowly begins to lose his sense of awe and then he no longer sees the beautiful fingerprints of God. Smith’s story gives new eyes to the reader, both Christian and non-believer—for the same blinding familiarity can corrupt the eyes of the saints and a saint needs to retain his awe for God or the light of his beacon will grow dim.