The Sirens of Titan: Chapter 12: The Gentleman From Tralfamadore Summary & Analysis

Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with an oxygen atmosphere. It also has a pleasant temperature and three seas and three seas, which are each named after Rumfoord. Although it is unclear why, the spirals of Rumfoord, Kazak, and Titan precisely coincide, such that while Rumfoord and Kazak only materialize on other planets temporarily, they are permanently materialized on Titan. They live on an island there, in a “flawless reproduction” of the Taj Mahal, which Rumfoord has humorously named Dun Roamin.

The only other person on Titan is Salo. He is 11 million Earthling years old. His skin is the color of a tangerine; he has three legs, and each of his feet is an inflatable sphere that becomes a suction cup when deflated. He has no arms and three eyes, with a round head that hangs “on gimbals.” His voice is something like a bike horn, and he speaks 5,000 languages. In 483,441 B.C.E. Salo was telepathically determined to be the most handsome, healthy, and morally upstanding being on his planet. The government on Tralfamadore, a kind of “hypnotic anarchy,” was celebrating its 100 millionth anniversary.

Thousands of years ago, Salo is nominated to carry a message from Tralfamadore across the universe. It has been prepared by a sort of Tralfamadorian equivalent of a university, and is sealed in a lead wafer, submerged in water, and clamped around Salo’s neck. He is strictly instructed not to open the message until he reaches his destination. Titan, where he is stuck, is still 18 million light years away from the place he’s going. Once he gets there, he is supposed to learn the language of its beings and then translate the message for them. As a Tralfamadorian, Salo is a machine, and thus follows these orders without question. Indeed, he has internalized the instruction not to open the message as “the very core of [his] being.”

Salo is stranded on Titan due to technical problems on his spaceship resulting from a missing part that is no larger than a can opener. Without it, the spaceship can only travel comparatively short distances across the Solar System. Once stranded, Salo sends a message about his problems back to Tralfamadore, which takes 150,000 years to arrive. While waiting, Salo makes sculptures, grows daisies, and watches the activities of Earthlings. One day, while watching, he finds a message on Earth’s surface written in Tralfamadorian, in what the Earthlings called Stonehenge. The message reads, “Replacement part being rushed with all possible speed.”

After that, Salo receives four further messages; the first is the Great Wall of China, the second is Emperor Nero’s Golden House, the third is the Kremlin, and the fourth is the Palace of the League of Nations. Each assures Salo that he is abandoned, and one tells him to prepare to be able to leave at a moment’s notice. Yet Salo also knows that not every message is carried out; often whole civilizations implode before they can build the structure that contained a message for him. Salo hasn’t told Rumfoord all of this, for fear that Rumfoord will be horrified that all of human history exists only to deliver Salo his missing part. Salo loves Rumfoord, not in a sexual manner—as he is a machine—but in a different way.

According to Tralfamadorian myth, the beings that preexisted the machines that now live there were organic, and obsessed with the idea that “everything had a purpose.” Not only this, but they ranked different purposes, and felt humiliated and horrified when they had to perform a role for a purpose that wasn’t high enough. When this happened, they invented machines to do this role for them. Eventually, the beings assigned the machines they’d built to learn the purpose of the beings’ existence. The machines concluded that the beings didn’t have one, and in horror, the beings slaughtered each other. Before long, they gave this job to the machines, too, and almost instantaneously all the beings were dead.

Salo watches as the spaceship containing Constant, Beatrice, and Chrono descends onto Titan. He has made a sculpture garden of two million life-size sculptures of humans. Salo is fascinated by the boundless human appetite for entertainment. Along with the sculptures, he has become skilled at daisy-breeding, and now grows daisies so large they weigh more than one ton. Salo inflates his feet as he goes to greet the newcomers. He calls Rumfoord “Skip” (which Rumfoord dislikes) in order to establish a sense of intimacy between them. Searching for Rumfoord, Salo looks into Rumfoord’s pool. At the bottom are statues of the three sirens of Titan made by Salo.

Kazak runs toward Salo, but immediately Salo notices that something is wrong; Kazak looks poisoned. Suddenly, Kazak lights up with Saint Elmo’s fire, an electrical discharge that makes a creature look like they are on fire, when they actually aren’t. Salo then spots Rumfoord, who has a “band of dematerialization” running through him, meaning a strip of him is completely missing. Weakly, Rumfoord explains, “Sunspots.” A storm on the sun has affected the chrono-synclastic infundibulum. Sunspots have made Rumfoord and Kazak ill before, but not like this. Rumfoord snaps irritably at Salo, and Salo is horrified.

Irritated, Rumfoord suggests that he and Salo “drop this guise of friendship.” Salo is heartbroken, and tells Rumfoord he thought they really were friends; however, Rumfoord replies that they are just using each other for their respective purposes. Salo lists all the kind things he has done for Rumfoord. He is grieving through his noisy suction-cup feet, which further irritates Rumfoord. Miserable, Salo says that if he could cry like an Earthling, he would do that instead. Rumfoord mentions that the replacement part Salo has been waiting for will arrive imminently. He then projectile vomits.

Salo realizes that Rumfoord now knows that he was personally being controlled by Tralfamadore, and that this has likely upset him severely. Now, Rumfoord shouts that the Tralfamadorians have used him like a “potato peeler.” This was one of the aspects of the future that Rumfoord denied even to himself, refusing to believe it was true. Rumfoord rudely belittles Salo for being a machine. Despite being deeply hurt, Salo resorts to groveling. However, at this moment Rumfoord informs him that very soon, an explosion on the sun will blow his spaceship out of the chrono-synclastic infundibulum and all the way out of the Solar System. Salo is horrified, but Rumfoord insists that he doesn’t pity him.

Rumfoord tries to hide the fact that he is crying. As a parting wish, he demands to know the contents of Salo’s message. Salo hesitates, but Rumfoord insists “in the name of our friendship.” Meanwhile, Constant, Beatrice, and Chrono have finally arrived on Titan. They are each leaning against one of Salo’s statues. The statue Beatrice is leaning against, entitled “Discovery of Atomic Power,” depicts a young, seemingly noble student of physics. Beatrice hasn’t noticed that the statue has a large erection. Meanwhile, Chrono is leaning against a statue depicting a Neanderthal family committing cannibalism.

Constant announces that he will never allow himself to be used for someone else’s purposes again. It is the same speech he has made again and again over the 17 months it took his family to travel from Earth to Titan. Beatrice is not angry with Constant, only disinterested. She and Chrono maintain their deep bond, but neither of them feel any affection for Constant. Chrono spots a creature rowing a “gilded rowboat” in the distance, near Rumfoord’s palace. The creature is Salo, who is rowing for the first time and isn’t very good at it. When Salo pulls up, Chrono threatens him with his knife, while Beatrice picks up a rock with which to smash his head.

Salo tells them they are welcome to kill him. He says he wishes he was dead. He tells them that Rumfoord is dying and that he wants to see them, but never wants to see Salo again. When the family find him, Rumfoord makes an effort to speak to them warmly. He greets Beatrice as “wife,” Constant as “Space Wanderer,” and Chrono as “German batball star.” Rumfoord tells them that he is not dying, because, from his “chrono-synclastic infundibulated” perspective, everything always remains and everything that has ever happened is still happening. He then tells them that everything that has happened on Earth has been “warped” and controlled by the Tralfamadorians.

Rumfoord then points at Chrono and explains that Chrono has the part that Salo needs. It is the good-luck piece. He explains that he asked Salo to show him the secret message he is carrying across the universe, but because Salo is a machine, he can’t disobey his orders. An electrical spiral envelops Rumfoord; he acknowledges that this is the end, and in parting says he has done his best to serve Earth and hopes that now that Salo’s message can resume, the Tralfamadorians will leave Earthlings alone. He asks to be remembered as “a gentleman of Newport, Earth, and the Solar System,” then says goodbye and disappears with Kazak forever.

Just at this moment, Salo comes racing over, shouting “Skip! The message! I’ll tell you the message!” However, he then realizes with a start that Rumfoord is dead. He then immediately begins to chastise himself for being such a terrible machine, full of weaknesses and flaws. Salo lays the message on Rumfoord’s empty chair, explaining that he is no longer really a machine anymore because he managed to disobey his most important command. The message is a single dot, and Salo explains—to the air where Rumfoord used to be—that the dot means “Greetings” in Tralfamadorian.

Having announced this, Salo races away and kills himself by disassembling his parts and flinging them all over. Chrono walks among the scattered parts and thinks about how he always knew that his good-luck piece belonged to some other, superior being, because this is how good-luck pieces work. He feels happy to play a small role in the broader story, and drops his good-luck piece among Salo’s scattered parts, certain that everything will ultimately work out.