Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

They were looking, hopefully, for a charred corpse.

  But the Ambassador reappeared beside his desk, looking ruefully at the charred typewriter. He was completely unsinged.

  “Could you get me another typewriter?” he asked, looking directly at one of the hidden projectors. “I’m setting down a philosophy for you ungrateful wretches.”

  He seated himself in the wreckage of an armchair. In a moment, he was apparently asleep.

  “ALL right, everyone grab a seat,” Cercy said. “Time for a council of war.”

  Malley straddled a chair backward. Harrison lighted a pipe as he sat down, slowly puffing it into life.

  “Now, then,” Cercy said. “The Government has dropped this squarely in our laps. We have to kill the Ambassador—obviously. I’ve been put in charge.” Cercy grinned with regret. “Probably because no one higher up wants the responsibility of failure. And I’ve selected you three as my staff. We can have anything we want, any assistance or advice we need. All right. Any ideas?”

  “How about Plan Three?” Harrison asked.

  “We’ll get to that,” Cercy said. “But I don’t believe it’s going to work.”

  “I don’t either,” Darrig agreed. “We don’t even know the nature of his defense.”

  “That’s the first order of business. Malley, take all our data so far, and get someone to feed it into the Derichman Analyzer. You know the stuff we want. What properties has X, if X can do thus and thus?”

  “Right,” Malley said. He left, muttering something about the ascendancy of the physical sciences.

  “Harrison,” Cercy asked, “is Plan Three set up?”

  “Sure.”

  “Give it a try.”

  While Harrison was making his last adjustments, Cercy watched Darrig. The plump little physicist was staring thoughtfully into space, muttering to himself. Cercy hoped he would come up with something. He was expecting great things of Darrig.

  Knowing the impossibility of working with great numbers of people, Cercy had picked his staff with care. Quality was what he wanted.

  With that in mind, he had chosen Harrison first. The stocky, sour-faced engineer had a reputation for being able to build anything, given half an idea of how it worked.

  Cercy had selected Malley, the psychiatrist, because he wasn’t sure that killing the Ambassador was going to be a purely physical problem.

  Darrig was a mathematical physicist, but his restless, curious mind had come up with some interesting theories in other fields. He was the only one of the four who was really interested in the Ambassador as an intellectual problem.

  “He’s like Metal Old Man,” Darrig said finally.

  “What’s that?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard the story of Metal Old Man? Well, he was a monster covered with black metal armor. He was met by Monster-Slayer, an Apache culture hero. Monster-Slayer, after many attempts, finally killed Metal Old Man.”

  “How did he do it?”

  “Shot him in the armpit. He didn’t have any armor there.”

  “Fine,” Cercy grinned. “Ask our Ambassador to raise his arm.”

  “All set!” Harrison called.

  “Fine. Go.”

  In the Ambassador’s room, an invisible spray of gamma rays silently began to flood the room with deadly radiation.

  But there was no Ambassador to receive them.

  “That’s enough,” Cercy said, after a while. “That would kill a herd of elephants.”

  But the Ambassador stayed invisible for five hours, until some of the radioactivity had abated. Then he appeared again.

  “I’m still waiting for that typewriter,” he said.

  “HERE’s the Analyzer’s report.” Malley handed Cercy a sheaf of papers. “This is the final formulation, boiled down.”

  Cercy read it aloud: “The simplest defense against any and all weapons, is to become each particular weapon.”

  “Great,” Harrison said. “What does it mean?”

  “It means,” Darrig explained, “that when we attack the Ambassador with fire, he turns into fire. Shoot at him, and he turns into a bullet—until the menace is gone, and then he changes back again.” He took the papers out of Cercy’s hand and riffled through them.

  “Hmm. Wonder if there’s any historical parallel? Don’t suppose so.” He raised his head. “Although this isn’t conclusive, it seems logical enough. Any other defense would involve recognition of the weapon first, then an appraisal, then a countermove predicated on the potentialities of the weapon. The Ambassador’s defense would be a lot faster and safer. He wouldn’t have to recognize the weapon. I suppose his body simply identifies, in some way, with the menace at hand.”

  “Did the Analyzer say there was any way of breaking this defense?” Cercy asked.

  “The Analyzer stated definitely that there was no way, if the premise were true,” Malley answered gloomily.

  “We can discard that judgment,” Darrig said. “The machine is limited.”

  “But we still haven’t got any way of stopping him,” Malley pointed out. “And he’s still broadcasting that beam.”

  Cercy thought for a moment. “Call in every expert you can find. We’re going to throw the book at the Ambassador. I know,” he said, looking at Darrig’s dubious expression, “but we have to try.”

  DURING the next few days, every combination and permutation of death was thrown at the Ambassador. He was showered with weapons, ranging from Stone-Age axes to modern high-powered rifles, peppered with hand grenades, drowned in acid, suffocated in poison gas.

  He kept shrugging his shoulders philosophically, and continued to work on the new typewriter they had given him.

  Bacteria was piped in, first the known germ diseases, then mutated species.

  The diplomat didn’t even sneeze.

  He was showered with electricity, radiation, wooden weapons, iron weapons, copper weapons, brass weapons, uranium weapons—anything and everything, just to cover all possibilities.

  He didn’t suffer a scratch, but his room looked as though a bar-room brawl had been going on in it continually for fifty years.

  Malley was working on an idea of his own, as was Darrig. The physicist interrupted himself long enough to remind Cercy of the Baldur myth. Baldur had been showered with every kind of weapon and remained unscathed, because everything on Earth had promised to love him. Everything, except the mistletoe. When a little twig of it was shot at him, he died.

  Cercy turned away impatiently, but had an order of mistletoe sent up, just in case.

  It was, at least, no less effective than the explosive shells or the bow and arrow. It did nothing except lend an oddly festive air to the battered room.

  After a week of this, they moved the unprotesting Ambassador into a newer, bigger, stronger death cell. They were unable to venture into his old one because of the radioactivity and micro-organisms.

  The Ambassador went back to work at his typewriter. All his previous attempts had been burned, torn or eaten away.

  “Let’s go talk to him,” Darrig suggested, after another day had passed. Cercy agreed. For the moment, they were out of ideas.

  “COME right in, gentlemen,” the Ambassador said, so cheerfully that Cercy felt sick. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything. Through an oversight, I haven’t been given any food or water for about ten days. Not that it matters, of course.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Cercy said. The Ambassador hardly looked as if he had been facing all the violence Earth had to offer. On the contrary, Cercy and his men looked as though they had been under bombardment.

  “You’ve got quite a defense there,” Malley said conversationally.

  “Glad you like it.”

  “Would you mind telling us how it works?” Darrig asked innocently.

  “Don’t you know?”

  “We think so. You become what is attacking you. Is that right?”

  “Certainly,” the Ambassador said. “You see, I have no secrets from you.”

&n
bsp; “Is there anything we can give you,” Cercy asked, “to get you to turn off that signal?”

  “A bribe?”

  “Sure,” Cercy said. “Anything you—?”

  “Nothing,” the Ambassador replied.

  “Look, be reasonable,” Harrison said. “You don’t want to cause a war, do you? Earth is united now. We’re arming—”

  “With what?”

  “Atom bombs,” Malley answered him. “Hydrogen bombs. We’re—”

  “Drop one on me,” the Ambassador said. “It wouldn’t kill me. What makes you think it will have any effect on my people?”

  THE four men were silent. Somehow, they hadn’t thought of that.

  “A people’s ability to make war,” the Ambassador stated, “is a measure of the status of their civilization. Stage one is the use of simple physical extensions. Stage two is control at the molecular level. You are on the threshold of stage three, although still far from mastery of atomic and subatomic forces.” He smiled ingratiatingly. “My people are reaching the limits of stage five.”

  “What would that be?” Darrig asked.

  “You’ll find out,” the Ambassador said. “But perhaps you’ve wondered if my powers are typical? I don’t mind telling you that they’re not. In order for me to do my job and nothing more, I have certain built-in restrictions, making me capable only of passive action.”

  “Why?” Darrig asked.

  “For obvious reasons. If I were to take positive action in a moment of anger, I might destroy your entire planet.”

  “Do you expect us to believe that?” Cercy asked.

  “Why not? Is it so hard to understand? Can’t you believe that there are forces you know nothing about? And there is another reason for my passiveness. Certainly by this time you’ve deduced it?”

  “To break our spirit, I suppose,” Cercy said.

  “Exactly. My telling you won’t make any difference, either. The pattern is always the same. An Ambassador lands and delivers his message to a high-spirited, wild young race like yours. There is frenzied resistance against him, spasmodic attempts to kill him. After all these fail, the people are usually quite crestfallen. When the colonization team arrives, their indoctrination goes along just that much faster.” He paused, then said, “Most planets are more interested in the philosophy I have to offer. I assure you, it will make the transition far easier.”

  He held out a sheaf of typewritten pages. “Won’t you at least look through it?”

  Darrig accepted the papers and put them in his pocket. “When I get time.”

  “I suggest you give it a try,” the Ambassador said. “You must be near the crisis point now. Why not give it up?”

  “Not yet,” Cercy replied tonelessly.

  “Don’t forget to read the philosophy,” the Ambassador urged them.

  The men hurried from the room.

  “NOW look,” Malley said, once they were back in the control room, “there are a few things we haven’t tried. How about utilizing psychology?”

  “Anything you like,” Cercy agreed, “including black magic. What did you have in mind?”

  “The way I see it,” Malley answered, “the Ambassador is geared to respond, instantaneously, to any threat. He must have an all-or-nothing defensive reflex. I suggest first that we try something that won’t trigger that reflex.”

  “Like what?” Cercy asked.

  “Hypnotism. Perhaps we can find out something.”

  “Sure,” Cercy said. “Try it. Try anything.”

  Cercy, Malley and Darrig gathered around the video screen as an infinitesimal amount of a light hypnotic gas was admitted into the Ambassador’s room. At the same time, a bolt of electricity lashed into the chair where the Ambassador was sitting.

  “That was to distract him,” Malley explained. The Ambassador vanished before the electricity struck him, and then appeared again, curled up in his armchair.

  “That’s enough,” Malley whispered, and shut the valve. They watched. After a while, the Ambassador put down his book and stared into the distance.

  “How strange,” he said. “Alfern dead. Good friend . . . just a freak accident. He ran into it, out there. Didn’t have a chance. But it doesn’t happen often.”

  “He’s thinking out loud,” Malley whispered, although there was no possibility of the Ambassador’s hearing them. “Vocalizing his thoughts. His friend must have been on his mind for some time.”

  “Of course,” the Ambassador went on, “Alfern had to die sometime. No immortality—yet. But that way—no defense. Out there in space they just pop up. Always there, underneath, just waiting for a chance to boil out.”

  “His body isn’t reacting to the hypnotic as a menace yet,” Cercy whispered.

  “Well,” the Ambassador told himself, “the regularizing principle has been doing pretty well, keeping it all down, smoothing out the inconsistencies—”

  Suddenly he leaped to his feet, his face pale for a moment, as he obviously tried to remember what he had said. Then he laughed.

  “Clever. That’s the first time that particular trick has been played on me, and the last time. But, gentlemen, it didn’t do you any good. I don’t know, myself, how to go about killing me.” He laughed at the blank walls.

  “Besides,” he continued, “the colonizing team must have the direction now. They’ll find you with or without me.”

  He sat down again, smiling.

  “THAT does it!” Darrig cried. “He’s not invulnerable. Something killed his friend Alfern.”

  “Something out in space,” Cercy reminded him. “I wonder what it was.”

  “Let me see,” Darrig reflected aloud. “The regularizing principle. That must be a natural law we knew nothing about. And underneath—what would be underneath?”

  “He said the colonization team would find us anyhow,” Malley reminded them.

  “First things first,” Cercy said. “He might have been bluffing us . . . no, I don’t suppose so. We still have to get the Ambassador out of the way.”

  “I think I know what is underneath!” Darrig exclaimed. “This is wonderful. A new cosmology, perhaps.”

  “What is it?” Cercy asked. “Anything we can use?”

  “I think so. But let me work it out. I think I’ll go back to my hotel. I have some books there I want to check, and I don’t want to be disturbed for a few hours.”

  “All right,” Cercy agreed. “But what—?”

  “No, no, I could be wrong,” Darrig said. “Let me work it out.” He hurried from the room.

  “What do you think he’s driving at?” Malley asked.

  “Beats me,” Cercy shrugged. “Come on, let’s try some more of that psychological stuff.”

  First they filled the Ambassador’s room with several feet of water. Not enough to drown him, just enough to make him good and uncomfortable.

  To this, they added the lights. For eight hours, lights flashed in the Ambassador’s room. Bright lights to pry under his eyelids; dull, clashing ones to disturb him.

  Sound came next—screeches and screams and shrill, grating noises. The sound of a man’s fingernails being dragged across slate, amplified a thousand times, and strange, sucking noises, and shouts and whispers.

  Then, the smells. Then, everything else they could think of that could drive a man insane.

  The Ambassador slept peacefully through it all.

  “NOW look,” Cercy said, the following day, “let’s start using our damned heads.” His voice was hoarse and rough. Although the psychological torture hadn’t bothered the Ambassador, it seemed to have backfired on Cercy and his men.

  “Where in hell is Darrig?”

  “Still working on that idea of his,” Malley said, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Says he’s just about got it.”

  “We’ll work on the assumption that he can’t produce,” Cercy said. “Start thinking. For example, if the Ambassador can turn into anything, what is there he can’t turn into?”

  “Good questi
on,” Harrison grunted.

  “It’s the payoff question,” Cercy said. “No use throwing a spear at a man who can turn into one.”

  “How about this?” Malley asked. “Taking it for granted he can turn into anything, how about putting him in a situation where he’ll be attacked even after he alters?”

  “I’m listening,” Cercy said.

  “Say he’s in danger. He turns into the thing threatening him. What if that thing were itself being threatened? And, in turn, was in the act of threatening something else? What would he do then?”

  “How are you going to put that into action?” Cercy asked.

  “Like this.” Malley picked up the telephone. “Hello? Give me the Washington Zoo. This is urgent.”

  The Ambassador turned as the door opened. An unwilling, angry, hungry tiger was propelled in. The door slammed shut.

  The tiger looked at the Ambassador. The Ambassador looked at the tiger.

  “Most ingenious,” the Ambassador said.

  At the sound of his voice, the tiger came unglued. He sprang like a steel spring uncoiling, landing on the floor where the Ambassador had been.

  The door opened again. Another tiger was pushed in. He snarled angrily and leaped at the first. They smashed together in midair.

  The Ambassador appeared a few feet off, watching. He moved back when a lion entered the door, head up and alert. The lion sprang at him, almost going over on his head when he struck nothing. Not finding any human, the lion leaped on one of the tigers.

  The Ambassador reappeared in his chair, where he sat smoking and watching the beasts kill each other.

  In ten minutes the room looked like an abattoir.

  But by then the Ambassador had tired of the spectacle, and was reclining on his bed, reading.

  “I GIVE up,” Malley said. “That was my last bright idea.”

  Cercy stared at the floor, not answering. Harrison was seated in the corner, getting quietly drunk.

  The telephone rang.

  “Yeah?” Cercy said.

  “I’ve got it!” Darrig’s voice shouted over the line. “I really think this is it. Look, I’m taking a cab right down. Tell Harrison to find some helpers.”

  “What is it?” Cercy asked.