Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Of course,” the spy reminds himself, “I must never make the error of thinking that all things can be reduced to a matter of spying and its techniques. Even if this appears to be the case, it is the sort of simplification which an intelligent man must avoid. No, spying is not everything! It is merely the key to everything.” Having established that, the spy goes on to say, “Spying is not everything; but luckily for me, this matter of the map does concern spying. Maps are the very heart of spying, and when I hold a map in my hand and know that the government made it, then I am dealing with a problem for which I have a special competency. A map in cipher is of particular concern to spying, as is a map which is partially false. Even a map which was wholly false would necessarily concern spying.”

  Now the spy is ready to analyze the map. He tells himself, “There are three possibilities. First, the map is true, and in cipher. In that case, I must decode it, using all my patience and skill.

  “Secondly, the map is only partially true and in cipher. In that case I will determine which is the true part, and then decode it. That might seem difficult to a person who knew nothing about the work; but to the expert it is the sort of difficulty which can be overcome. And as soon as I have decoded the tiniest fraction of the maps true portion, all the rest will open for me. That would leave the false portion, which someone else might throw away. But I would not. I would treat the false portion exactly as I would treat the entire map if it were false, which is possibility number three.

  “Thirdly, if the entire map is false, I must see what kind of information I can extract from that falseness. Granted that the idea of a false government map is absurd, let’s say that’s the case. Or rather, let’s say that falseness was the intention of the makers of the map. In such a case I would have to ask, how does one draw a false map?

  “It is no easy matter, that I know. If the mapmaker works in this building, moves up and down its corridors, steps into and out of its offices, then he knows the building as no other person could. If this man tries to draw a false map, how can he avoid inadvertently drawing some portion of the true building?

  “He can’t, really. The truth in which he is steeped would render his quest for absolute falseness impossible. And if he drew by accident any portion of the true map, I could infallibly find that true part, and all of the building’s jealously guarded security would be for nothing.

  “But let’s assume that the high officials are aware of all this and have given careful study to the problem of constructing a false map. Let’s give them the benefit of every doubt within the necessities of the situation. They know that the map, in order to serve its purpose, must be drawn by a skilled mapmaker who will make it conform to the logical rules for maps and for buildings; and that the map must be false, and not true even inadvertently.

  “To solve the problem, let us say that the high officials find a civilian mapmaker who had no knowledge of the building. He is brought to the place blindfolded, given a carefully guarded office, and told to draw a map of an imaginary building. He does so; but the problem of inadvertent truth still remains. Therefore, a government mapmaker who does know the truth must check the map. The government mapmaker checks (and no person but a mapmaker would be competent to judge) and he says that this map is excellent since it is entirely false.

  “In that ultimate case, the map is still nothing but a cipher! It has been drawn by a skilled civilian mapmaker, and thus conforms to the general principles which govern the drawing of maps. It is of a building, and conforms to the rules for drawing buildings. It has been judged false; but it has been judged so by an official mapmaker who knew the truth, and was able to decide about every detail of the map on the basis of his knowledge of the true building. The so-called false map, then, is merely a sort of reversed or distorted image of the truth known by the official mapmaker; and the relationship between the true building and the false map has been established through his judgement, since he knew both true and false and judged their dissimilarity. His necessary intermediary judgement demonstrates the nature of the false map—which, being a logical distortion that conceals the truth, may be called a cipher!

  “And since this cipher follows the accepted rules for maps and buildings, it is susceptible to cipher analysis!”

  This completes the spy’s analysis of the three possibilities of the map, all of which can now be reduced to one: that the map is true, and in cipher.

  Dazed by this discovery, the spy says, “They thought they could trick me, but it cannot be done in my chosen field. In my search for truth, I have lived all my life by falsehood and deceit; but I have always known my own reality. Because of myself and my search, I above all men know that there is no such thing as falsehood, and that everything is either the truth or a cipher. If it is the truth, I follow it; and if it is a cipher, I solve it. A cipher, after all, is merely a concealed truth!”

  At last the spy is happy. He has moved through the deepest perplexities, and has had the courage to face the most terrible possibilities. His reward is before him.

  For now, paying strict attention to the map, and holding that well-made creation with loving care, the spy begins the task that is the culmination of his life, and which eternity would not be long enough to complete. He starts upon his attempt to decipher the false map.

  THE MAPMAKER’S EXPLANATION

  When the colonel had finished, he and Joenes stood silently for a while. Then Joenes said, “I can’t help feeling sorry for that spy.”

  “It was a sad story,” the colonel said. “But then, all men’s stories are sad.”

  “If the spy is caught, what will his punishment be?”

  “He has already imposed it on himself,” the colonel replied. “His punishment is to decipher the map.”

  Joenes could think of no worse fate. He asked, “Do you catch many spies here in the Octagon?”

  “To date,” the colonel said, “not a single spy has succeeded in passing our outer security measures and penetrating into the building proper.”

  The colonel must have noticed a look of disappointment on Joenes’s face, for he added quickly, “That, however, does not invalidate my story. If a spy did get in here in spite of all security, he would behave just as I told you. And believe me, spies are caught every week in the network of outer defences.”

  “I didn’t notice any defences,” Joenes said.

  “Of course not. For one thing, you aren’t a spy. For another, security knows its work well enough not to reveal its presence, but only to act when necessary. That is how matters stand at present. For the future, when more cunning spies are born, we in Cartography have our false maps.”

  Joenes nodded. He was eager now to continue his own job, but unsure how to go about it. Deciding on indirection, he asked the colonel, “Are you convinced that I am not a spy?”

  “Everyone is a spy to some extent,” the colonel said. “But in regard to the special meaning you imply, yes, I am quite convinced that you are not a spy.”

  “Well then,” Joenes said, “I must tell you that I am under special orders to go to a certain office here.”

  “May I see those orders?” the colonel asked. Joenes handed them over. The colonel studied the orders and gave them back.

  “They seem official,” the colonel said. “You should certainly go to that office at once.”

  “That is my problem,” Joenes said. “The truth is, I’m lost. I tried to follow one of your excellent false maps, and naturally enough I found nothing at all. Since you know I’m not a spy, and also know that I’m on official business, I would appreciate any assistance you could give me.”

  Joenes had made this request in a careful and roundabout way, which he thought would be most suitable to the colonels mentality. But the colonel looked away with an expression of embarrassment on his dignified features.

  “I’m very much afraid I can’t help you,” the colonel said, “I do not have the faintest idea where your office is, and I don’t even know what direction to reco
mmend.”

  “But that’s impossible!” Joenes cried. “You are a cartographer, an official mapmaker of this building. And even though you draw false maps, I’m sure you also draw true ones, since that must be in your nature.”

  “All that you say is correct,” the colonel said. “Especially that last about my nature. Anyone can deduce the nature of a cartographer, since his nature resides in his work. That work is to draw maps of the most exacting accuracy, maps so precise and lucid that the dullest of men could follow them. My function has been perverted by necessities beyond my control, so I must spend much of my time drawing false maps which give the appearance of truth. But as you have guessed, nothing can stop a genuine mapmaker from drawing genuine maps. I would do it even if it were forbidden. And luckily, it is not forbidden. It is expressly commanded.”

  “By whom?” Joenes asked.

  “By the high officials of this building,” the colonel said. “Those persons control security, and they use the true maps to aid them in disposing their forces. But of course, the true maps are a mere convenience for them, a bit of paper they refer to as casually as you would glance at your watch to see whether it was three-thirty or three-forty. If necessary they could do without the maps entirely, relying on their knowledge and power. They might find it an annoyance, but not a serious one.”

  “If you draw true maps for them,” Joenes said, “surely you can tell me where to go now.”

  “I can’t,” the colonel said. “Only the high officials know the building well enough to go where they want.”

  The colonel saw Joenes s look of disbelief. He said, “I know how unreasonable all this must sound to you. But you see, I draw only one section of the building at a time; no other method would work since the building is so vast and so complex. I draw my section and send it to a high official by messenger, and later I draw another section, and so on. Perhaps you think I could combine my knowledge of the various parts and know the whole? I tell you at once that I cannot. For one thing, there are other cartographers, who draw parts of the building which I never have time to see. But even if I mapped the entire structure by myself, piece by piece, I could never combine all those pieces into an understandable unity. Any one portion of the building seems comprehensible to me, and I represent it with great accuracy on paper. But when it comes to understanding all the countless sections I have mapped, then I become confused, I can’t tell one part from the other. And if I think about it for very long, my sleep and appetite are affected, I smoke too much, I find solace in drink, and my work suffers. Sometimes, when these bad spells are on me, I make inaccuracies, and I do not perceive my errors until the officials send that portion of the map back for revision. This shakes my faith in my own proven abilities; I determine to end my bad habits and stick to my task of skillful portrayal of one section at a time, not bothering my head about the whole.”

  The colonel paused and rubbed his eyes. “As you may expect,” he went on, “my good resolves don’t last for long, especially when I am in the company of my fellow cartographers. At those times we sometimes discuss the building and try to determine among us what it really is. Usually we cartographers are shy men; like spies, we prefer to do our work in solitude and not to discuss it with each other. But the solitude we love can become overwhelming; and then we overcome the limits of our nature and talk about the building, each of us adding his increment of knowledge eagerly and without jealousy, all of us bent upon understanding the whole building. But it is those times which prove the most discouraging.”

  “Why is that?” Joenes asked.

  “As I told you,” the colonel said, “our map sections are sometimes sent back for revision, and we assume that we have made mistakes even though there is never any official comment. But when we map-makers talk together, we occasionally find that two of us have mapped the same section, each remembering and drawing it differently. That sort of human error is to be expected, of course. But what is disconcerting is when the high officials accept both versions. You can imagine a mapmaker’s sensations when he learns something like that!”

  “Do you have any explanation for it?” Joenes asked.

  “Well, for one thing, mapmakers have their individual styles and idiosyncrasies, and that might account for the discrepancy. For another, even the best of memories is untrustworthy, so we might not have mapped the same section. But to my way of thinking these explanations are not sufficient, and only one thing makes sense.”

  “What’s that?” Joenes asked.

  “I believe that workmen, under orders from the high officials, are continually changing portions of the building. It is the only explanation that satisfies me. I have even caught glimpses of what could only be workmen. But even if I hadn’t seen them, I would still believe the same. Just consider: The high officials are concerned with security, and the finest security possible would be to keep the building in a constant state of change. Next, if the building were static, a single mapmaking survey would be sufficient, instead of the continual drawing and revising we are called upon to do. Finally, the high officials are trying to control a complex and ever-changing world; therefore as the world changes, so must the building. More offices must be built, and old ones have to be altered for new tenants; a row of cubicles must be removed and an auditorium put in its place; whole corridors must be closed down to allow the installation of new wiring and plumbing. And so forth. Some of these changes are extremely evident. Any man can see them, not only a mapmaker. But other changes are done apparently in secrecy, or in parts of the building I do not visit until the work is completed. Then the new looks bafflingly like the old, although I can still sense a difference. It is for those reasons that I believe the building is continually being changed, thus rendering a complete knowledge of it impossible.”

  “If this place is as unknowable as you say it is,” Joenes said, “then how do you find your way back to your own office?”

  ‘There, I am ashamed to say, my mapmaking skill does not help me. I find my office just as everyone else here finds his office—by something which resembles instinct. The other workers don’t know this; they think they find their way by some process of the intelligence, some kind of a turn-right turn-left system. Like the spy, they believe they could learn anything about the building if they wanted to. It would make you laugh or cry to hear the statements these people make about the building, even though they have never ventured beyond the corridor that leads to their office. But I, a mapmaker, wander all over the building in my work. Sometimes great changes occur in territory I have already passed, rendering it unrecognizable. Then something which is not knowledge guides me back to my office, exactly as it guides the office workers.”

  “I see,” Joenes said, though he was actually very confused. “So you really don’t know what I should do in order to find this office?”

  “I really do not know.”

  “Could you give me any advice about the way I should go about looking, or what sort of thing I should look for?”

  “I am an expert on the building,” the colonel said sadly, “and I could talk about it for a year without repeating myself. But unfortunately, there is nothing I can say which would aid your particular situation.”

  Joenes asked, “Do you think I will ever find the office I was sent to?”

  “If your business here is important,” the colonel said, “and if the high officials really want you to find the office, then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble. On the other hand, your business may not be of importance to anyone but you, in which case your search will doubtless be a long one. True, you carry official orders; but I suspect that the high officials occasionally send men to imaginary offices simply to test the security of the inner defences of the building. If that is the case with you, your chance of success is small indeed.”

  “One way or another,” Joenes said gloomily, “my prospects don’t look very good.”

  “Well, those are the risks all of us run here,” the colonel said. “Spies suspect t
hat their rulers have sent them on a dangerous mission simply to get rid of them, and mapmakers suspect that they are ordered to draw simply to keep their fingers out of mischief. We all have our doubts, and I can only wish you the best of luck and the hope that your doubts are never proven true.”

  With that, the colonel bowed courteously and continued down the corridor.

  Joenes watched him go and considered following him. But he had already been that way, and it seemed a necessary act of faith to go forward into what he did not know instead of turning back at the first discouragement.

  So Joenes went on, but not entirely out of faith. He also suspected that the corridors behind him might have been changed by now.

  Joenes walked down greathalls and corridors, up stairways, through bypasses, across lobbies, and down more corridors. He resisted the urge to consult his beautiful false map, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw the map away. So he kept it in his pocket and continued walking.

  There was no way of telling the passage of time, but at last Joenes became very weary. He was now in an ancient part of the building. The floors here were of wood rather than marble, and they were badly decayed, making the footing dangerous. The walls, built of an inferior plaster, were flaked and tom. In some places the plaster had fallen away to reveal the wiring of the building, most of its insulation rotten and constituting an obvious fire hazard. Not even the ceiling seemed secure, but bulged ominously in places, making Joenes fear it would come down on him.

  Whatever offices had once been here were now gone, and the place was in need of immediate and drastic repairs. Joenes even saw a workman’s hammer lying on the floor; this convinced him that repairs would someday be made, even though he didn’t see any workman.