Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “A cyanide capsule,” Batman said. “Poor deluded fool. It’s all over now, Mr. President. But I think you’re going to need a new deputy director.”

  Back at his house in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne was reading the newspaper in the drawing room when Alfred came in with a letter on a silver tray. “For you, sir. From Miss Vera.”

  Bruce opened it and scanned it quickly. “She says she’s having a wonderful time,” he said, “but misses me and wishes I would join her.”

  “A very good idea, sir,” Alfred said from the door. Bruce Wayne needed less than a second to consider and make up his mind. “Alfred, pack my tropicals and book me the next flight to Rio.”

  “Very good, sir!” the butler said, smiling despite his best efforts to maintain a grave face. “And the Batman Suit, sir?”

  “Don’t pack it. This time I’m really going to take a vacation.”

  MIND-SLAVES OF MANITORI

  Rights are available!

  1.

  I was almost past the plane of the asteroids when I picked up a signal at the edge of my radar reception. The flash pattern showed it was an inhabited planetoid, although it wasn’t listed in the Properties List in the back of my Asteroid Pilot. It set me to thinking. I could get to it in a few hours by an insignificant change of direction. A day or two lost in my months-long run to Io wouldn’t matter much.

  Travelers were always welcomed in the few inhabited asteroid worlds. I punched in the new course. I figured that had to be a private world, not one of the ones that the Great Powers maintained for the sake of their prestige.

  Into this setup, especially when you figured in the cost of Earth-normal gravity and lighting. A rich man’s plaything, I thought. A little out of my league.

  Still, what the hell. I radioed for permission to land. It was granted at once.

  It all seemed simple enough. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

  2.

  By the way, I’m Ned Fletcher. I’m a spaceship driver for Southern Extractions, a company with mining interests all around the solar system.

  It’s a pretty good job, even if it is sort of low-class work, like driving a truck, only less interesting, and without much in the way of truck stops where you can get a cup of coffee and a little conversation. Not that I’m complaining. There’s a depression on, I know I’m lucky to have any work at all.

  Back when I was a kid in East Orange, New Jersey, and watching television specials on the wonders of spaceflight, I always thought that when I grew up I’d live in a world where great spaceliners moved majestically through space on their way to strange worlds where exotic races lived. But the early explorers never ran into any other races. Men soon found that living on Mars or Luna wasn’t as interesting as people thought it would be. All the real action was on Earth. So by the time I grew up, only embassies and eccentrics lived in space, and a few men like myself who drove the ore boats.

  My father had been a small town lawyer, and an honest one, and therefore poor. All he could hand me was a legacy of friends in high places in southern New Jersey politics.

  One of those friends pulled some strings and got me into the Spaceship Drivers’ Union.

  We spend weeks and months alone, piloting our ships to the mines and depots on the Moon and in the asteroids. We collect the ores from the automatic mining machines and load them by machinery, without even a helper. There had been talk of having the ships carry more than one man, and this had been tried, but with poor results. Two-man teams were apt to get into violent quarrels; three-man teams usually ended up with two against one. Husband and wife spaceship teams were suggested, but the union voted this down vehemently. They needed to take care of their members, not throw the field open to their wives and girlfriends.

  Anyhow, that might have led to the ridiculous situation of babies in space—for where would the mothers leave their children? The idea was optimistic, maybe even visionary, but it was not to be tried at this time, with unemployment at 25 percent of the male adult work force.

  The first commercial space drive was developed by Daimler in Brandenburg in 1922. Dollfus was chancellor of the Austro-Hungarian empire at that time, and John Anthony Grimes was President of the United States.

  Times were bad in the thirteen colonial States of America, surrounded as we were by inimical powers. There was Spanish Florida and French Louisiana to the south. Mexico stretched from the borders of the Texas Republic clear around to San Francisco. Above that was the Russian state of Siberia-Alaska, and the British Canada and French Canada. The Colonial States of America was a small country.

  A lot of us felt that the breaks had gone against us. Who could have thought that Pershing’s expedition into Mexico would bring down the prolonged horrors of the Mexican & Indian Wars, and this at a time when we had our hands full with the French, who were threatening to expand out of Louisiana into Indian Territory? We also had to contend with separatist American States like the Mormon Theocratic Republic of Moroni. And there were frequent border incidents with Comancheria, Apacheria, or one of the other Indian nations on our continent. There were too many countries occupying North America, and we quarreled with each other a lot of the time. Some people felt we should have united right at the beginning and saved ourselves a lot of trouble. But it’s hard to imagine that as a possibility, given the strength of the Indians and Mexicans and the tenacity of the Europeans.

  Our last hope died with George Washington at Valley Forge. It was too bad we lost that one. A few years later the British granted us our independence. But the final treaty imposed heavy territorial restriction to keep us from expanding beyond our original borders.

  Other countries had already staked their claims in the North American wilderness, and the Colonial American government wasn’t strong enough to throw them out. Not only was history against us, but economics, too.

  In 1914, when the threat of war in Europe was miraculously averted by the assassination of Crown Prince Rudolph at Sarajevo, the world embarked on a spending spree that ended in 1929 when everyone went broke. A world-wide depression began then and it’s still going on.

  At first we had thought that space flight and extraterrestrial commerce would change the world situation and bring prosperity to us Americans.

  We set up our mining operations on the moon and in the asteroid belt. The low cost of space travel made these operations workable for us even without much European or Oriental capital investment. Profits from the extraterrestrial mining operations gave our country some additional income, but it didn’t change our general situation of subservience to the Europeans, and it didn’t stop us from doing their farming and mining for them.

  The situation rankled, and many of us were waiting for a chance to break out of it, to enter into a destiny which we still thought was glorious and unlimited. Despite all our setbacks, America was still a land of hope and dreams.

  3.

  I docked the ship, went through the space locks and came into a large metal room which served as the asteroid’s receiving station. There was a man there to greet me, bearded, older than me, in his mid-thirties, wearing black slacks, a blue and white sailor’s shirt and a black sailor’s cap.

  He said, “Welcome to Manitori. I am Henke. Please follow me.”

  He led me down a corridor and up a flight of stairs, then down another corridor. He stopped at a door, opened it.

  “These are your quarters. Clothes have been laid out for you. The gentlemen always dress for dinner. The Governor will join you in the dining room later.”

  It was a good-sized, luxuriously furnished room. On the large, low bed there were the clothes—a white silk jacket and white sports pants.

  Adjoining the room was a white tiled bathroom, and a bathtub like a small swimming pool: Nothing like that on our ships. I took a long, luxurious scrub, gave myself a real close shave, dressed. Henke returned to take me to dinner.

  The dining room was like a banquet hall. The walnut paneling must have cost plenty, to say
nothing of the crystal chandeliers overhead.

  There was a long table set with five places. Four people were already there. The tall, bald old fellow with the flowing beard, sitting at the head of the table, was obviously my host. I went up to him and offered my hand.

  “I’m Ned Fletcher,” I said. “I want to thank you for letting me come aboard your planet.”

  “You are most welcome,” said my host. “I am Mr. Smith. I own this little planetoid we call Manitori. The people here often call me The Governor. Please be seated, Mr. Fletcher.”

  I sat down at the place he indicated.

  “You will have noted that most of our places at table are empty. I do enjoy company, but strangers come by so seldom. Allow me to present my associates, Dr. Hanna and Captain Gomez, and my daughter, Vera.”

  Vera was small, with curly reddish-brown hair framing features of considerable piquancy and animation. She was an attractive girl of about twenty. She wore a sort of pale green chiffon evening dress. I learned later that the dress was from Paris, though she had never been there. She looked at me and smiled, a small, wistful smile, and looked away. But later I caught her looking at me again.

  What followed was a feast that would have been remarkable Earthside, but out here in the asteroids was little short of miraculous. Course after course was served by Henke and another man, also in a blue and white striped sailor shirt. Although they were skillful enough, they didn’t seem very alert. There was a zombie-like quality to them which I was to remember later. Captain Gomez was small and olive-skinned. He had a hair-line mustache and wore a freshly pressed khaki uniform without insignias. He didn’t talk much.

  Dr. Hanna engaged me in conversation over the crayfish bisque. Hanna was middle-aged, with black, bushy hair and thick, hairy hands which shook with a fine tremor. He told me he was in charge of health services on Manitori, but that took up little of his time. He spent most of his time doing research. He didn’t specify its nature.

  “It’s a pleasure for us all to see a face from Outside,” Smith said, at the conclusion of the meal. “For Vera, especially, I’m sure. She doesn’t get to see many young people around here. Mr. Fletcher, you’re welcome to stay here as long as your busy schedule permits. The room and whatever we can provide are at your service.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir,” I said. “I’m much obliged.”

  “Good! Feel free to wander over the entire structure. Manitori is a wonderful little world. A lot of detailing has gone into it. Vera will be glad to show you around. You’ll find certain areas marked forbidden except to authorized personnel. This is for the protection of the few guests we have. The forbidden areas have to do with the energy that runs our world.”

  4.

  I retired early. The next day I went for a stroll around the planetoid. Wherever I looked, the landscaping was expensive, beautiful, and realistic. There was enough roughness of texture and irregularity of outline to convince you that this place had come about naturally rather than artificially. I marveled at the complications that had gone into this, how it had been put together and how it was maintained. I stayed a day, then another. So pleasant and perfect was this little world that it was difficult to tear myself away.

  Vera frequently accompanied me on my tours. We wandered through crisp yellow meadows in the warm heat of a late summer day. Vera wheedled special permission from her father to stage a thundershower for me on the weather machine. She called up bulging, purple-bottomed cumulus clouds stacked atop each other like giant soft-edged anvils. There were flashes of many-branched lightning, long deep drum rolls of the thunder, and then the rain, and after that the mist.

  We ran through the pelting rain, our clothes plastered against us, leaning against the whistling wind, and we fought our way to a stand of trees, slipping and falling and laughing in the grass-buried mud. We clung to each other shivering under a giant oak and while the elements raged around us, we clung together for warmth. I became acutely aware of Vera’s womanly presence. But I told myself to forget about it. Smith was a very wealthy man. I was sure he had more brilliant plans for his daughter than marriage to a spaceship driver.

  One thing bothered me about this place. Even using sophisticated energy sources and automatic switching equipment, I didn’t see how it was possible for so few people to maintain such an elaborate setup.

  There was something curious here. I really wanted to get a look at the Power Level. But the entrance to it was on a little hill and it was surrounded by barbed wire.

  That evening Henke laid out fresh clothes for me and turned down the sheets.

  “Henke,” I said, “what’s going on around here? Why is the Power Level forbidden?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about that,” Henke said.

  “I suppose I’ll have to ask The Governor.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Why not? What’s going on around here?”

  Henke looked at me steadily for a moment. “If you really want to know, I’ll show you.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Very well. But not now.”

  “When?”

  Henke thought for a moment. “If you can slip away without being noticed, come to the automatic weather station behind the Power Level at 3 p.m. tomorrow, when the others are taking their siestas.”

  5.

  The asteroid was run on a very Terran schedule, and the lighting and temperature effects were arranged accordingly. Every night the sun came down, the temperature fell, dew appeared, night came. In the morning the little artificial sun increased its heat output, a dry Mediterranean heat, and one felt sleepy and in need of a rest in a shady bedroom. I threw off my lethargy, however, and went for a walk as usual.

  I passed no one on my way out. Henke met me in a clump of trees behind the Power Level.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You might learn something—unpleasant.”

  “Now you’ve really got me curious,” I said.

  “All right, Mr. Fletcher. Come with me.”

  We went into a side door cut into the hill that led directly to the Power Level. Henke led me down stone steps into a passageway below ground. Yellow lights set into the ceiling flickered as we continued our descent toward the heart of the operation. And then we were in the Operating Sector.

  Henke brought me to a little room and opened a slit window. Looking through the slit, I could see below me a large amphitheater. At first I thought it was a kind of school. There were row upon row of benches, with tables in front of them, and men sat on the benches in front of the tables and stared into television monitors. They all wore black-striped T-shirts, black slacks, and black caps.

  I did not understand immediately what they were doing. I thought at first they were watching pictures on the screen. Then I saw that each screen showed a moving pattern of lines. Between the benches a few uniformed men strode to and fro, their hands clasped behind their backs, their attitude one of superiority. Obviously, they were supervisors.

  I noticed also that these supervisors all carried small thin whips. When one of the workers didn’t seem to be working hard enough, the supervisor would reach out and touch him on a shoulder with the whip. The whips must have been electrically charged; a touch was enough.

  “What are they doing?” I asked Henke. “What’s going on?”

  “The people at the monitors are the mind-slaves,” Henke said. “They keep this planetoid going.”

  “How?”

  “Their mental labors, combined and synchronized through Dr. Hanna’s machines, produce most of the effects you see on this world. The mind-slaves have literally constructed most of what you have seen on this planetoid.”

  “With their minds? That’s impossible!”

  “Dr. Hanna has found a way to assist the principles of telepathy and psychokinesis. He can translate brain power directly into force.”

  “Force? Do you mean electricity?”

  Henke shook his head. “
The force produced by combined minds is like nothing else the world has ever seen.”

  I thought Henke had to be out of his mind. And yet, the setup before me looked effective and sinister.

  “What is that group working on?” I asked. Eight men were seated together at a table, staring into their monitors.

  “That’s the garden wall detail. Our walls, even our hills, are constructed and maintained almost entirely by mind work. Mr. Smith is very proud of it.”

  “They don’t look like they’re having much fun,” I said.

  “Nor would you if you had to spend all your waking hours staring into a screen and thinking about a hill or a garden wall.”

  “And that group there?”

  “They make the clouds in our sky. Other groups visualized and maintain other physical features.”

  I watched them bend over their monitors, their faces strained, their bodies tensed.

  “It looks like hellish hard work,” I said.

  Henke nodded. “Your volition drains away. That’s the effect The Governor’s infernal machines have. All day you sit in front of your computer. You have to push your willpower at it constantly. And you can’t cheat. They can read our concentration levels on their dials and assess what kind of an effort we’re making. And punish us if we slacken. Not much fun, I can assure you. Come, we’d better get away from here.”

  6.

  We went out through the dark underground passageway and came out again into the light. We walked around the hillside until we came to a little stand of trees. We sat down in the shade.

  “Is this all they let you do?” I asked. “Don’t you get any free time?”

  “Oh, we get a few hours a day free time,” Henke said. “And of course, they can’t stop us from sleeping, not unless they want to kill us, which they don’t, not until there are replacements. But they take everything out of us by the cruelest punishment known to man, and all the more cruel because it is refined and mental. I mean the cruelty of forcing a man to think, deeply and with utter concentration, about something that he doesn’t want to think about, and to keep that up for hours and hours, day after day, week after week.”