“Welcome to Heaven,” the Recording Angel said, and opened a great brass-bound ledger. Squinting through thick bifocals, the angel ran his finger down the dense rows of names. He found Greer’s entry and hesitated, his wing tips fluttering momentarily in agitation.
“Is something wrong?” Greer asked.
“I’m afraid so,” the Recording Angel said. “It seems that the Angel of Death came for you before your appointed time. He has been badly overworked of late, but it’s still inexcusable. Luckily, it’s quite a minor error.”
“Taking me away before my time?” Greer said. “I don’t consider that minor.”
“But you see, it’s only a matter of five minutes. Nothing to concern yourself over. Shall we just overlook the discrepancy and send you on to the Eternal City?”
The Recording Angel was right, no doubt. What difference could five more minutes on Earth make to him? Yet Greer felt they might be important, even though he couldn’t say why.
“I’d like those five minutes,” Greer said.
The Recording Angel looked at him with compassion. “You have the right, of course. But I would advise against it. Do you remember how you died?”
Greer thought, then shook his head. “How?” he asked.
“I am not allowed to say. But death is never pleasant. You’re here now. Why not stay with us?”
That was only reasonable. But Greer was nagged by a sense of something unfinished. “If it’s allowed,” he said, “I really would like to have those last minutes.”
“Go, then,” said the Angel, “and I will wait for you here.”
And suddenly Greer was back on Earth. He was in a cylindrical metal room lit by dim flickering lights. The air was stale and smelled of steam and machine oil. The steel walls were heaving and creaking, and water was pouring through the seams.
Then Greer remembered where he was. He was a gunnery officer aboard the U.S. submarine Invictus. There had been a sonar failure; they had just rammed an underwater cliff that should have been a mile away, and now were dropping helplessly through the black water. Already the Invictus was far below her maximum depth. It could only be a matter of minutes before the rapidly mounting pressure collapsed the ship’s hull. Greer knew it would happen in exactly five minutes.
There was no panic on the ship. The seamen braced themselves against the bulging walls, waiting, frightened, but in tight control of themselves. The technicians stayed at their posts, steadily reading the instruments that told them they had no chance at all. Greer knew that the Recording Angel had wanted to spare him this, the bitter end of life, the brief sharp agony of death in the icy dark.
And yet, Greer was glad to be here, though he didn’t expect the Recording Angel to understand. How could a creature of Heaven understand the feelings of a man of Earth? Greer knew that he had been given a rare opportunity of saying goodbye to his home, and to do so without fear of what lay ahead. As the walls collapsed he was thinking of the beauties of the Earth, trying to remember as many as he could, like a man packing provisions for a long trip into a strange land.
THE EYE OF REALITY
Legend tells of a nameless planet located on the edge of our island universe. On that planet there is a single tree. Wedged in its topmost branch is a large diamond, put there by a long-vanished race. Looking into the stone, a man may see all that is or was or may be. The tree is called the Tree of Life, and the diamond is called the Eye of Reality.
Three men set out to find this tree. After much danger and difficulty, they came to the place where it grew. Each in turn climbed to the top of the tree and looked through the gem. Then they compared their impressions.
The first man, an author of considerable reputation, said, “I saw innumerable actions, some grand and some petty. I knew then that I had found the keyhole of the universe, which Borges calls the Aleph.”
The second man, a renowned scientist, said, “I saw the curvature of space, the death of a photon, and the birth of a star. I realized that I was looking into a superhologram, self-created and self-creating, whose entirety is our universe.”
“Understanding is sensuous,” said the third man, an artist. He showed them the sketches he had just made, of women, and leopards, violins and deserts, mountains and spheres.
“Like you,” he said, “I saw pretty much what I always see.”
1983
DRAMOCLES
The author, perhaps best known for his story “The Seventh Victim,” later made into the popular movie “The Tenth Victim,” has recently stepped down from the post of fiction editor of Omni, and is reported to be living in the wilds of Florida. What follows is an excerpt (which does stand alone) from his upcoming (and long overdue) novel.
1.
King Dramocles, ruler of Glorm, awoke and looked about him and couldn’t remember where he was. This happened to him frequently because of his habit of sleeping in different rooms in his palace as the mood struck him. His palace of Ultragnolle was the largest man-made structure on Glorm, and perhaps in the galaxy. It was so large that it required its own internal transportation system. Within this colossal structure, Dramocles had forty-seven personal bedrooms. He also kept another sixty or so rooms equipped with couches, pull-out beds, convertible sofas, air mattresses, and the like, for impulse sleeping. On account of this, going to bed was a nightly adventure for him, and waking up was a daily mystery.
A neatly stenciled sign on the corridor wall told him that he was at coordinates R52-J26. A monorail ran down the middle of the corridor, so at least he was within the palace transportation network. Of course, there was no train in sight. Furious, Dramocles stomped down the corridor. He figured he had at least an hour’s hike before he reached one of the populated sectors of Ultragnolle. What had he been doing out here in this godforsaken sector last night? He seemed to remember a party, some drugs, some booze, a lot of laughter, and then oblivion. He trudged along and stopped when he heard the sound of a motor far behind him.
Far down the corridor he could see something tiny with a winking yellow light coming toward him. It grew in size, and was discernible at last as a corridor car, a type of one-wheeled vehicle used by the nobility to get around the palace in a hurry.
The car came to a neat stop beside him. The bubble top opened and a cheerful, curly-haired boy of twelve or so looked out and said, “Is that you, Father?”
“Of course it’s me,” Dramocles said. “Which one are you?”
“I’m Sanizat, Father,” the boy said. “My mother is Andrea.”
“Andrea? Small, dark-haired woman with a piercing voice?”
“That’s her. We live in the Saint Michel sector of Glorm. Mother frequently telephones you about her dreams.”
“Portents she calls them,” Dramocles said. He got in beside Sanizat. “Take me to Palace Central.” Sanizat threw the corridor car into gear and accelerated fast enough to scorch the wax on the corridor floor.
After a while the corridor opened into a wide, balustraded balcony. Sanizat turned abruptly down a long flight of stairs, then slowed as they approached the vast domed room that contained St. Leopold’s Square. It was an important regional market, filled with striped tents in front of which men and aliens sat and sold a great variety of goods. There were Geiselmen from Gloria’s northernmost province, offering bright wallisberries in small wicker baskets. There were Grots, members of the ancient race which had inhabited Glorm before the arrival of humans, nodding over their bowls of narcotic porridge. Brungers from Dispasia and the flatlands of Arnapest were there too, imposing in their national costume of polished leather and taffeta, offering the intricately carved walking sticks and miniature peaches for which they were famous. And, floating high above the animated scene, were the great blue and gold banners which proclaimed this the thirtieth year of the Pax Glormicae.
Rudolphus, the Chamberlain, was waiting for him by the inner steps, agitation showing on his plump, moustached face.
“Sire,” he said, “you are late for the audien
ce!”
“Consider me scolded. Tonight is the official beginning of the Pax Glormicae celebration, I believe?”
“It is, Sire, and everything is in readiness. King Adalbert of Aardvark arrived last night, and we housed him in the small mansion on the rue Mountjoy. Lord Rufus of Druth is here with his retinue, and they have been given Trontium Castle for their stay. King Snint of Lekk is in the Rose Garden Hotel on Temple Avenue. Your brother, Count John of Crimsole, is docking in the spaceport even now. Only King Haldemar of Vanir has neglected to show up or even RSVP.”
“Just as we suspected. I will meet with the kings later.”
2.
The audience was the usual boring affair of deciding the penalties for various counts and barons who had come under the royal disfavor for cheating the peasants, or the tax machines, or each other. There wasn’t anything for Dramocles to do, or even to think about, because the Chamberlain had already made all of the decisions, following the precepts of Otho the Weird, Dramocles’ father. The cases droned on, and Dramocles sat on the high throne and felt sorry for himself.
Despite being absolute monarch of Glorm, and preeminent throughout the Local Planets, Dramocles knew that he had done very little with his life, had just responded to circumstances and absentmindedly ruled Glorm through a long period of unprecedented peace. Bored and unhappy, he fidgeted on his throne and chain-smoked and thought to himself that being a great king was not so great after all. And then the old woman stepped forward, and from that moment everything in his life changed.
She was a small, humpbacked old woman, dressed entirely in black except for her gray shoes and wimple. She pressed through the crowd of lesser nobility and made as to approach the throne, until the guards stopped her with their crossed halberds. Then she called out, “Oh, great king!”
“Yes, old lady,” said Dramocles, motioning the outraged Rudolphus to be quiet. “I take it you wish to address us. Please do so, and for your sake I hope it’s good.”
“Sire,” she said, “I must humbly request private audience. What I am to say is solely for the ear of the king.”
“Indeed?” Dramocles said.
“Aye, indeed,” the old woman replied.
Dramocles looked at her appraisingly, and a change so subtle as to be unnoticeable crossed his high-colored features. He snubbed his cigarette in an ashtray carved from a single emerald.
“Lead her to the Green Chamber,” he said to the nearest guard. “Will that suit you, my dear?”
“Yes, Sire, so long as it is not orange.”
The court gasped at her effrontery. But Dramocles merely smiled and, after the guard had led the woman away, signaled the Chamberlain to get on with the day’s business.
An hour later the audience had ended for the day. Dramocles went to the Green Chamber. There he seated himself in a comfortable armchair, lit up a cigarette, and turned to the old lady, who sat primly before him in a straight-backed chair.
“So,” he said, “you have come.”
“At the very time appointed,” the old woman said. “It took no little courage for me to bring myself to your awesome presence, and I did so only because I greatlier feared the not doing so.”
“At first I thought you were a crazy person,” Dramocles said. “But then I said to you, ‘Indeed,’ and you replied, ‘Aye, indeed,’ and I recognized one of the mnemonics which I use as a private recognition code between me and my agents. In the next sentence I used the word ‘green,’ and you replied with ‘orange,’ putting the matter beyond doubt. Did I teach you others?”
“Ten others, making twelve in all, so that I could signal to you somehow if a different sequentiation of dialogue had occurred between us.”
“Twelve mnemonics,” Dramocles marveled. “My entire stock! I must have judged this a matter of earthshaking importance. I don’t even know your name, old woman.”
“That, Sire, is how you said it would be, back when you taught me the mnemonics. My name is Clara.”
“A mystery! And it’s happening to me!” Dramocles said happily. “Tell your story, Clara.”
Clara said, “Oh great king, you visited me thirty years ago, in my city, Murl, where I earned a modest living remembering things for people who are too busy to remember them for themselves. You said to me, ‘Clara’ (reading my name above the door—Clara’s Remberatorium), ‘I have a message of great importance which I want you to learn by heart and tell me thirty years from today, when I shall need to remember it. I myself will not even remember this conversation until you come to remind me of it, because that’s the way it’s got to be.’
“You may rely on me, Highness,’ I said.
“Of that I have no doubt,’ you replied, ‘because I have taken the precaution of putting your name on the official criminal calendar, to be executed summarily thirty years and one day from today. That way, I figure you’re going to show up on time.’ And then you smiled at me, Sire, gave me the message and took your departure.”
“You must have been a trifle nervous about possible unexpected delays on your way here,” Dramocles said.
“I took the precaution of moving to your great city of Glorm shortly after our meeting, and setting up my trade of Remembrancer in the Street of the Armorers just five minutes’ walk from the palace.”
“You are a wise and prudent woman, Clara. Now, tell me what I told you to tell me.”
“Very well, Sire. The key word is—Shazaam!”
Upon hearing that word from the Ancient Tongue, Dramocles was flooded with a luminous memory of a certain day thirty years past.
The years sped backwards like a dissolving newsreel montage. Young Dramocles, twenty years ago, sat in his private study, sobbing. He had just received the news that his father, King Otho of Glorm, popularly called ‘The Weird’, had died just minutes ago when his laboratory on the moonlet Gliese had blown up. Presumably this was due to some miscalculation on Otho’s part, since he was the only person in his laboratory or even on Gliese at the time. It was a fittingly flamboyant way for the king to depart, in an atomic explosion that had blown apart the entire moonlet.
Tomorrow, all Glorm would be in mourning. Later in the week, a coronation would be held, confirming Dramocles as the new king. Although he looked forward to this, Dramocles cried, because he had loved his difficult and unpredictable father. But grief struggled with joy in his heart, because, just before his ill-fated trip to Gliese, Otho had a heart-to-heart talk with his son, reminding him of his duties and responsibilities when he was king, and then quite unexpectedly revealing to him the great destiny that Dramocles had before him.
Dramocles had been amazed by what Otho had told him. He had always wanted a destiny. Now his life would have meaning and purpose, and those were the greatest things anyone could have.
There was only one hitch. As Otho had explained, Dramocles could not begin the active pursuit of his destiny just yet. He was going to have to wait, and it would be a long wait. Thirty years would have to pass before the conditions were right. Only then could the work of Dramocles’ destiny begin, and not a day sooner.
Thirty years! A lifetime! And not only was he going to have to wait, he was also going to have to keep his destiny a secret until the moment for action came. There was nobody he could trust with something as big as this.
He brooded for a while, chain-smoking cigarettes and considering various alternatives. At last he came to a momentous decision and called for his psychiatrist android, Dr. Fish.
“Fish,” he said briskly, “I have a certain train of thought in my mind. I don’t want to remember it.”
“Easy enough to suppress a thought, or even an entire topic,” Fish said, in that squeaky voice which androids have, despite great advances in voice-box technology. “Your esteemed father, Otho, always had me blot out the names of mistresses who didn’t work out, all except their birthdays, since he was a kindly man. He also insisted upon not remembering the color blue.”
“But I don’t want to lose this t
hought, either,” Dramocles said. “It’s a very important thought. I want to remember it thirty years from now.”
“That’s considerably more difficult,” Fish said.
“Couldn’t you suppress the thought but give me a posthypnotic command to remember it thirty years hence?”
“I did use that technique successfully for King Otho. He wanted to think of Gilbert and Sullivan every six months, for reasons he never disclosed to me. Unfortunately, thirty years is too long for a reliable posthypnotic memory trigger.”
“Isn’t there something else you can do?”
“Well, I could key the memory to a word or phrase. Then Your Highness would have to entrust the key word to some trusty person who would say that word to you in thirty years’ time.”
“Such as a Remembrancer.” Dramocles thought about it for a few seconds. Although not entirely foolproof, it seemed a pretty good plan. “What do you suggest for a key word?” he asked Fish.
“Personally, I’d pick ‘shazaam,’ ” the android replied.
After the memory had run its course, Dramocles leaned back in his armchair and fell to musing. How wonderful and unexpected a thing was life, he thought. He had an important destiny after all, and meaningful work to fulfill; that was really all a man could desire after he was already a king, and rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and had possessed uncountable numbers of the most beautiful women on many worlds. After you’ve had all that, spiritual values begin to mean something to you.
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