The Garments of Caean

She reflected for a moment, taken aback. ‘Well, do you claim that you have never had such ambitions?’

‘Again, absolutely.’

‘Oh, I know better than that!’ Amara flared.

Noting that she had rejected the syllabub, Caldersk reached across the table and drew close a succulent meat dish. ‘Try this.’

Amara waved it away.

He shrugged, raising his eyebrows with an air of deliberation. ‘Remember that we see the Art of Attire as being the essence of civilized life,’ he said. ‘It is true that, in the past, idealists among us have wished to spread Caean’s unquestionable superiority in this field to the rest of mankind. But their plans were of a missionary, rather than a military, nature, and took the form of loading up fleets of giant spaceships with sumptuous apparel with which to bombard the barbarian planets. Even this scheme was abandoned, owing to the hostility of other nations, chiefly Ziode – though for a fact many of the ships still lie in their hangars, fully laden. I expect it is stories of these efforts that have produced the fears prevalent among your people.’

Amara became aware that by her side her assistant was listening intently. ‘So you do admit that you have expansionist leanings,’ Estru remarked drily.

Trupp answered him from farther up the table. ‘That is so, but only in a cultural sense. The urge to propagate one’s cultural values is nowhere regarded as reprehensible.’

‘It is where those values are inimical to one’s own – which is our case.’

Caldersk made a jovial, explosive gesture. ‘Come, come. We no longer think of swamping Ziodean culture beneath our own – until, that is, the superiority of Caeanic attire becomes evident to the Ziodeans themselves. I have just explained that the missionary zeal of an earlier generation has abated. You have nothing to fear from us – nothing but your own ignorance of our nature.’

‘So you say,’ Second Officer Borg put in. ‘But if I may put matters bluntly – how can we confirm this? The Ziodean Directorate will take a lot of convincing.’

‘Exactly!’ Caldersk agreed with satisfaction. ‘I am glad you asked that. We would ask you to confirm for yourselves that our society is peaceful, our natures unaggressive. To demonstrate our good faith we give you liberty to travel about Caean at will, without let or hindrance, to carry out your sociological investigations.’

Amara glanced wildly at Estru, unable to conceal her amazement. ‘You will let us take the Callan anywhere? Survey any planet? Talk to anyone – obtain information from universities, cultural scientists, military establishments? Without supervision?’

‘You may regard yourselves as free agents,’ Caldersk said, ‘though I must draw the line at giving you carte blanche with the military – that will have to depend on the local commanders.’

‘But that’s wonderful – that’s just what we need.’

‘There was never any need to go sneaking about the fringes,’ Caldersk told her. ‘All you needed to do was come and ask. We are a much more easy-going society than you are in Ziode.’

‘One thing needs to be said,’ Estru put in. ‘You are trying hard to represent yourselves as reasonable and harmless. If that’s the case how could our people be so wrong about you, even to the extent of preparing for war? Our people at home think of you as being far from harmless.’

He was answered by Svete Trupp. ‘As sociologists, you must be aware of the theory of cultural repulsion. Disparate cultures repel one another, is that not how the theorem goes? In fact the bad relations between us are solely the result of mistrust and misconception. We are probably not as unalike as you have always imagined. You believe, for instance, that we have some kind of obsession with clothing. This is not true.’

Amara raised her eyebrows and seemed about to laugh.

‘I am sure your coming researches will show you that you have exaggerated our preoccupation with costume,’ Caldersk took up, seeing her expression. ‘Very few Ziodeans have studied Caean, after all. What reference sources do you use?’

‘Matt-Helver’s Travels in the Tzist Arm is the standard text,’ Amara told him defensively.

‘Ah yes, Matt-Helver. Full of inaccuracies – a very amusing book! Yet in the end Matt-Helver settled here himself and came to know us better, I believe.’

‘You mean he was wrong about the place of sartorialism in Caeanic society?’

‘Every civilization has typical artforms, does it not? Ours is dress. It has nothing to do with religion, as some foreigners have supposed. It is a matter of practical psychology, that is all. We have found that our science of adornment has the power to lend life a positive, forward-looking aspect. To us it is you who are obsessed – obsessed with man’s evolutionary past, unable to escape from the single shape arbitrarily imposed on man by nature.’