Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “I daresay it is,” he said. “But I don’t perceive it.”

  “Look,” I said, “this free will you’re giving your people, isn’t that a kind of fatality also?”

  “It could be considered as such. But the difference—”

  “And besides,” I said hastily, “Since when are free will and fatality incompatible?”

  “They certainly seem incompatible,” he said.

  “That’s only because you don’t understand science,” I said, performing the old switcheroo right under his hooked nose. “You see, my dear sir, one of the most basic laws of science is that chance plays a part in everything. Chance, I’m sure you know, is the mathematical equivalent of free will.”

  “But what you’re saying is quite contradictory,” he said.

  “That’s how it goes,” I said. “Contradiction is one more of the fundamental rules of the universe. Contradiction generates strife, without which everything would reach a stage of entropy. So we couldn’t have any planet or any universe if things didn’t exist in an apparently irreconcilable state of contradiction.”

  “Apparently?” he said quickly. “Right as rain,” I said. “Contradiction, which we can define provisionally as the existence of reality-paired opposites, isn’t the last word on the subject. For example, let’s posit a single isolated tendency. What happens when you push a tendency to the limit?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” the old guy said. “The lack of specifics in this sort of discussion—”

  “What happens,” I said, “is that the tendency turns into its opposite.”

  “Does it really?” he asked, considerably shook up. These religious types are something when they try to tackle science.

  “It really does,” I assured him. “I’ve got the proofs in my lab, though the demonstrations are a bit tedious—”

  “No, please, I take your word,” the old guy said. “After all, we did make a Covenant.”

  That was the word he always used for contract. It meant the same thing, but sounded better.

  “Paired opposites,” he mused. “Determinism. Things becoming their opposites. It’s all quite intricate, I’m afraid.”

  “And aesthetic as well,” I said. “But I didn’t finish about the transformation of extremes.”

  “Kindly go on,” he said.

  “Thanks. Now then, we have entropy, which means that things persist in their motion unless there is outside influence. (Sometimes even when there is outside influence, in my experience.) But so, we got entropy driving a thing toward its opposite. If one thing is driven toward its opposite, then all things are driven toward their opposites, because science is consistent. Now you get the picture? We’ve got all these opposites transforming themselves like crazy and becoming their opposites. On a higher level of organization, we have groups of opposites going through the same bit. And higher and higher. So far so good?”

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  “Fine. Now, the question naturally arises, is this all? I mean, these opposites turning themselves inside out and then outside in, is that the whole ball game? And the beauty-part is, it’s not! No sir, these opposites flipping around like trained seals are only an aspect of what’s really happening. Because—” And here I paused and spoke in a very deep voice. “—because there is a wisdom that sees beyond the clash and turmoil of the phenomenal world. This wisdom, sir, sees through the illusory quality of these real things and sees beyond them into the deeper workings of the universe, which are in a state of like great and magnificent harmony.”

  “How can a thing be both illusory and real?” he asked me, quick as a whip.

  “It is not for me to know an answer like that,” I told him. “Me, I am a mere humble scientific worker, and I see what I see and act accordingly. But maybe there’s an ethical reason behind it.”

  The old boy mused on that one for a while, and I could see he was having quite a tussle with himself. He could detect a logical fallacy as fast as anyone, of course, and my reasons had been shot through with them. But like all eggheads, he was fascinated with contradictions and he had the strong urge to incorporate them into his system. And all the propositions I had proposed—well, his common sense told him that things couldn’t be that tricky, but his intellectuality told him that maybe things did indeed seem that complicated, although maybe there was a nice simple unifying principle underneath it all. Or, if not a unifying principle, at least a good solid moral. And finally, I had hooked him all over again just because I had used the word ethics. Because this old gent was a perfect demon for ethics, he was supersaturated with ethics; you could call him Mr. Ethics, make no mistake. And so, quite accidentally, I had given him the idea that the whole bloody universe was a series of homilies and contradictions, of laws and inequities, all leading to the most exquisite and rarefied sort of ethical order.

  “There is a greater depth here than I had considered,” he said after a while. “I had planned to instruct my people in ethics only and to direct their attention to morally imperative questions such as how and why a man should live instead of what constitutes living matter. I wanted them to be explorers plumbing the depths of joy, fear, piety, hope, despair, rather than scientists who examine stars and raindrops and form grandiose and impractical hypotheses on the basis of their findings. I was aware of the universe, but considered it superfluous. Now you have corrected me.”

  “Well, look,” I said, “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just thought I should point out this stuff . . .”

  The old man smiled. “By causing me trouble,” he said, “you have spared me greater trouble. I can create in my own image, but I will not create a world peopled with miniature versions of myself. Free will is important to me. My creatures will have it, to their glory and their sorrow. They will take this glittering useless toy which you call science, and they will elevate it to an undeclared Godhead. Physical contradictions and solar abstractions will fascinate them; they will pursue knowledge of these things and forget to explore the knowledge of their own heart. You have convinced me of this, and I am grateful for the forewarning.”

  “I’ll be frank, he got me a little nervous just about then. I mean, he was a nobody, he didn’t know any important people, and yet, he had the grand manner. I had the feeling that he could cause me one hell of a lot of trouble, and I felt that he could do it with a few words, a sentence like a poisoned dart lodged in my mind and never to be removed. And that scared me a little, to tell the truth.

  Well sir, the old joker must have been reading my mind. For he said, “Do not be frightened. I accept without reservation the world you have built for me; it will serve very well, exactly as it is. As for the flaws and defects which you also built into my world, I accept those, not entirely without gratitude, and I pay for those, too.”

  “How?” I asked. “How do you pay for errors?”

  “By accepting them without dispute,” he said. “And by turning away from you now and going about my business and the business of my people.”

  And old gentleman left without another word.

  Well, it left me pretty thoughtful. I’d had all the good arguments, but the old boy left somehow with the last word. I knew what he meant; he had fulfilled his contract with me and that ended it. He was leaving with no word for me personally. From his point of view, it was a kind of punishment.

  But that’s only the way he saw it. What did I need with his word? I wanted to hear it, of course—that’s only natural—and for quite a while I tried to look him up. But he didn’t care to see me.

  So it really doesn’t matter. I made a pretty nice profit on that world, and even if I bent the contract here and there, I didn’t break it. That’s how things are; you owe it to yourself to make a profit. You can’t get too worked up over the consequences.

  But I was trying to make a point out of all this, and I want you boys to listen carefully. Science is filled with a lot of rules, because I invented it that way. Why did I invent it that way? Because rul
es are a great assistance to a smart operator, just as a lot of laws are a great help to lawyers. The rules, doctrines, axioms, laws, and principles of science are there to help you, not to hinder you. They’re there in order to provide you with reasons for what you do. Most of them are true, more or less, and that helps.

  But always remember—these rules are there to help you explain to the customers what you do after you do it, not before. When you have a project, do it exactly as you see fit; then fit the facts around the event, not the other way around.

  Remember—these rules exist as a verbal barrier against people who ask questions. But they should not be used as a barrier by you. If you’ve learned anything from me, you’ve learned that our work is inevitably inexplicable; we simply do it, and sometimes it comes out well and sometimes not.

  But never try to explain to yourselves why some things happen and why other things don’t happen. Don’t ask, and don’t imagine that an explanation exists. Get me?

  The two assistants nodded vehemently. They looked enlightened, like men who have found a new religion. Carmody would have bet anything that those two earnest young men had memorized every one of the builder’s words, and would now proceed to elevate those words into—a rule.

  THE PEOPLE TRAP

  This story grew from a “treatment” done by Robert Sheckley for ABC-TV’s commendable but short-lived series, Stage 67. A “treatment” is basically a story idea synopsized in some detail; Mr. Sheckley was not involved with the script or production of this particular show. This prose account of Steve Baxter’s perilous journey from Jersey City to Times Square is quite different in approach from the TV play; it is all Sheckley, and, as you will quickly determine, it is not entirely serious.

  IT WAS LAND RACE DAY—A time of vaunting hope and unrelieved tragedy, a day which epitomized the unhappy twenty-first century. Steve Baxter had tried to reach the starting line early, like the other contestants, but had miscalculated the amount of time he would require. Now he was in trouble. His Participant’s Badge had got him through the outer exocrowd without incident. But neither badge nor brawn could be relied upon to carry a man through the obdurate inner core of humanity which made up the endocrowd.

  Baxter estimated this inner mass at 8.7 density—not far from the pandemic level. A flash point might occur at any moment, despite the fact that the authorities had just aerosoled the endocrowd with tranquillizers. Given enough time, a man might circle around them; but Baxter had only six minutes before the race began.

  Despite the risk, he pushed his way directly into their ranks. On his face he wore a fixed smile—absolutely essential when dealing with a high-density human configuration. He could see the starting line now, a raised dais in Jersey City’s Glebe Park. The other contestants were already there. Another twenty yards, Steve thought; if only the brutes don’t stampede!

  But deep within the corecrowd he still had to penetrate the final nuclear mob. This was composed of bulky, slack-jawed men with unfocused eyes—agglutinating hysterophiliacs, in the jargon of the pandemiologists. Jammed together sardine fashion, reacting as a single organism, these men were incapable of anything but blind resistance and irrational fury towards anything that tried to penetrate their ranks.

  Steve hesitated for a moment. The nuclear mob, more dangerous than the fabled water buffaloes of antiquity, glared at him, their nostrils flared, their heavy feet shuffling ominously.

  Without allowing himself time to think, Baxter plunged into their midst. He felt blows on his back and shoulders and heard the terrifying urrr of a maddened endomob. Shapeless bodies jammed against him, suffocating him, relentlessly pressing closer and closer.

  Then, providentially, the authorities turned on the Muzak. This ancient and mysterious music, which for over a century had pacified the most intractable berserkers, did not fail now. The endomob was decibeled into a temporary immobility, and Steve Baxter clawed his way through to the starting line.

  The chief judge had already begun to read the Prospectus. Every contestant and most of the spectators knew this document by heart. Nevertheless, by law the terms had to be stated.

  “Gentlemen,” the judge read, “you are here assembled to take part in a race for the acquisition of public-domain lands. You fifty fortunate men have been chosen by public lottery from fifty million registrants in the South Westchester region. The race will proceed from this point to the registration line at the Land Office in Times Square, New York—an adjusted approximate mean distance of 5.7 statute miles. You contestants are permitted to take any route; to travel on the surface, above, or below ground. The only requirement is that you finish in person, substitutes not being permitted. The first ten finalists—”

  The crowd became deathly still.

  “—will receive one acre of unencumbered land complete with house and farming implements. And each finalist will also be granted free Government transportation to his freehold, for himself and for his immediate family. And this aforesaid acre shall be his to have and to hold, free and clear, perpetually unalienable, as long as the sun shines and water flows, for him and his heirs, even unto the third generation!”

  The crowd sighed when they heard this. Not a man among them had ever seen an unencumbered acre, much less dreamed of possessing one. An acre of land entirely for yourself and your family, an acre which you didn’t have to share with anyone—well, it was simply beyond the wildest fantasy.

  “Be it further noted,” the judge went on, “the Government accepts no responsibility for deaths incurred during this contest. I am obliged to point out that the unweighted average mortality rate for Land Races is approximately 68.9 percent. Any contestant who so wishes may withdraw now without prejudice.”

  The judge waited, and for a moment Steve Baxter considered dropping the whole suicidal idea. Surely he and Adele and the kids and Aunt Flo and Uncle George could continue to get by somehow in their cozy one-room apartment in Larchmont’s Fred Allen Memorial Median Income Housing Cluster. After all, he was no man of action, no muscled bravo or hairy-fisted brawler. He was a systems-deformation consultant, and a good one. And he was also a mild-mannered ectomorph with stringy muscles and a distinct shortness of breath. Why in God’s name should he thrust himself into the perils of darkest New York, most notorious of the Jungle Cities?

  “Better give it up, Steve,” a voice said, uncannily echoing his thoughts.

  Baxter turned and saw Edward Freihoff St. John, his wealthy and obnoxious neighbor from Larchmont. St. John, tall and elegant and whipcord-strong from his days on the paddle-ball courts. St. John, with his smooth, saturnine good looks, whose hooded eyes were too frequently turned towards Adele’s blonde loveliness.

  “You’ll never make it, Stevie baby,” St. John said.

  “That is possible,” Baxter said evenly. “But you, I suppose, will make it?”

  St. John winked and laid a forefinger alongside his nose in a knowing gesture. For weeks he had been hinting about the special information he had purchased from a venal Land Race comptroller. This information would vastly improve his chances of traversing Manhattan Borough—the densest and most dangerous urban concentration in the world.

  “Stay out of it, Stevie baby,” St. John said in his peculiar rasping voice. “Stay out, and I’ll make it worth your while. Whaddaya say, sweetie pie?”

  Baxter shook his head. He did not consider himself a courageous man; but he would rather die than take a favor from St. John. And in any event, he could not go on as before. Under last month’s Codicil to the Extended Families Domicile Act, Steve was now legally obliged to take in three unmarried cousins and a widowed aunt, whose one-room sub-basement apartment in the Lake Placid industrial complex had been wiped out by the new Albany-Montreal Tunnel.

  Even with anti-shock injections, ten persons in one room was too much. He simply had to win a piece of land!

  “I’m staying,” Baxter said quietly.

  “OK, sucker,” St. John said, a frown marring his hard, sardonic face. “But
remember, I warned you.”

  The chief judge called out,” Gentlemen, on your marks!”

  The contestants fell silent. They toed the starting line with slitted eyes and compressed mouths.

  “Get ready!”

  A hundred sets of leg muscles bunched as fifty determined men leaned forward.

  “Go!”

  And the race was on!

  A blare of supersonics temporarily paralyzed the surrounding mob. The contestants squirmed through their immobile ranks and sprinted over and around the long lines of stalled automobiles. Then they fanned out but tended mainly to the east, towards the Hudson River and the evil-visaged city that lay on its far shore, half concealed in its sooty cloak of unburned hydrocarbons.

  Only Steve Baxter had not turned to the east.

  Alone among the contestants, he had swung north, towards the George Washington Bridge and Bear Mountain City. His mouth was tight, and he moved like a man in a dream.

  In distant Larchmont, Adele Baxter was watching the race on television. Involuntarily, she gasped. Her eight-year-old son Tommy cried, “Mom, Mom, he’s going north to the bridge! But it’s closed this month. He can’t get through that way!”

  “Don’t worry, darling,” Adele said. “Your father knows what he’s doing.”

  She spoke with an assurance she did not feel. And, as the figure of her husband was lost in the crowds, she settled back to wait—and to pray. Did Steve know what he was doing? Or had he panicked under pressure?

  The seeds of the problem had been sown in the twentieth century; but the terrible harvest was reaped a hundred years later. After uncounted millennia of slow increase, the population of the world suddenly exploded, doubled, and doubled again. With disease checked and food supplies assured, death rates continued to fall as birthrates rose: Caught in a nightmare geometric progression, the ranks of humanity swelled like runaway cancers.