Title: Scanners Live in Vain
Author: Cordwainer Smith
Date of First Publication: January 1950
Place of Publication: Fantasy Book
Type: Short Story
Characters: None
Themes: SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; POSTHUMAN; RACE/POLITICS; ANDROID
Critical Summary: This short story appears in Smith’s Instrumentality of Mankind collective, and is a work that projects a futurist vision of the coming institutionalization of humanity as it expands into the far reaches of space. Leaving behind a post-apocalyptic Earth, humans have begun their expansion into the universe; however, interstellar travel has a price. Traveling in spaceships causes excruciating pain, so passengers must spend the entire trip in cryogenic sleep. This leaves ships to be piloted by Habermans, augmented human cyborgs who have had the human qualities of personality and autonomy removed, and only the sense of vision to operate the ship’s piloting systems. The Habermans rely on “Scanners” to monitor and regulate their physiological functions, as well as guard their physical safety. Scanners also have limited senses, but can temporarily channel them by ‘cranching,’ a process that requires a physical connection to a machine.
Martel is a Scanner. Scanners and Habermans undergo the same surgical procedures, but are differentiated by their circumstances in life. While Habermans were criminals or heretics, Scanners were volunteers, elevated to a higher class by their actions. Both types are converted from their human forms and augmented by the Haberman Device to perform their duties in service to humanity.
When Martel is home, he stays cranched as much as possible, seeking normalcy in his life. As Martel and Luci are enjoying his temporary humanity, his superior, Vomact, calls an emergency guild meeting summoning all Scanners to attend. Martel goes to the meeting while still cranched, a breach of the rules, but giving him the opportunity to see the scanners as humans do. Vomact informs them that a scientist, Adam Stone, has discovered a way to filter the pain of space travel. The scanners deny the claim, stating that it is impossible. They call Stone a liar and invoke the secret duty of the Scanners. A vote is called and the majority rules that Stone must be killed, lest they become obsolete. Martel, still cranched, believes Stone’s discovery is their salvation, not their destruction and he protests the murder of Stone. He is restrained and removed from the meeting.
Martel is not the only one opposed to Stone’s assassination. His friends Chang and Parizianski also vote against killing Stone. Ironically, Parizianski is assigned the task of assassination. Martel heads into the city where Stone lives and tries to warn him. If successful, he would prevent a murder and end humanity’s dependency on Habermans and Scanners alike.
Smith’s futuristic universe pits humanity against itself, covering literary tropes of imperialism, race, class, and the android. The Habermans are of the lowest class and somewhat disposable because they are technically dead, yet kept alive and augmented to serve as space pilots furthering humanity’s colonization across the galaxy. As cyborgs, Habermans are othered by society while owing their existence to them. They are a race of inhuman slaves, which provides a convenient solution to the moral question of slavery.
As a Scanner, Martel is also a cyborg. Though he volunteers for the job, he struggles to regain his sense of humanity to live a normal life. Martel is the Posthuman figure, and Sympathetic Monster. Trapped between two realities, Martel’s humanity is regulated by the dangers of cranching, as his sensory circuits can become overloaded and lead to death. As a Scanner, Martel’s motor functions are primitive, almost monstrous; under the effects of cranching, he experiences moments of clarity as his human qualities return.
Administrative Notes: David Marshel, CSUF; Adam Shelley (editing)