Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Can’t someone talk to the tribes?” Nat asked. “Isn’t there someone who could point out how disastrous a course the shaman is leading them on?”

  “Why yes, there is such a person,” Marduk said.

  “Who is he?”

  “You know him well,” Marduk said, “although in another sense you don’t know him at all.”

  “You refer to me?”

  “No other.

  “The tribes would not listen to me! I do not speak their language!”

  “You speak a universal language,” Marduk said. “I refer of course to the power of sorcery. If you but defeat Two Coyotes in the Dream Country, the tribes will understand better than any words could tell how hopeless his pretension is. They will go back to their tents. Many lives will be saved.”

  “You expect me to fight the shaman? I am unskilled at these battles of sorcerers, Marduk. And I am a long time out of practice. How can you expect this of me?”

  “Oh, you’re quite right, of course,” Marduk said. “Who could expect you to stretch out a finger or put yourself in a moment of possible harm for the sake of saving the lives of a few hundred settlers and a few thousand Indians? It is unthinkable to ask that of you. I most humbly apologize.”

  “That’s not fair,” Nat said.

  “How not?”

  Nat was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “I perceive on second thought that what you say is fair enough.”

  “I thought you’d come to it,” Marduk said. “You’re not a bad sort, Nat, Just a little spoiled.”

  “Yes. I see it now.”

  “Well, I’ve made my point,” Marduk said. “Come on, Nat, let’s get out of here, you and I.”

  “No,” Nat said. “We have something to do first.”

  “Have we indeed? And what is that?”

  Nat rose and started down the pasture toward the river bank.

  “Where are you going?” Marduk asked.

  “To wash in the river.”

  “You surprise me,” Marduk said. “This is a curious time to take a bath.”

  “Ritual ablution is customary in these cases,” Nat said.

  “What cases, Nat?”

  “You know very well what I’m talking about. It’s time that Two Coyotes and I had this thing out.”

  “Bravely spoken! But aren’t you frightened? This Indian is formidable!”

  “There’s no time for fear,” Nat said. “No, nor for courage, either, or hope. This is the time when a man does what he has to do.”

  “The widow would like you a little better,” Marduk said, “if she heard you talking now. To the river, then!”

  The Dream Country is reached by way of the Land of Sleep. This Land of Sleep is a place all people know, though they have no control of themselves once they are there. For most men, dreams are simply things that happen to them. For Nat and others trained in the magical art of dream mastery, sleep is a state that can be entered consciously, a place that has a climate and a scenery and even a characteristic lighting and color. These qualities change from time to time, but the main characteristics of the Dream Country remain constant.

  And so this time Nat found himself in a dream-forest, with purple trees and red clouds that lay in clumps on the forest floor. He continued, and his intent made all directions easy, and soon he found himself in front of a wall. He stood a moment and looked at it, then sighed and made a motion. As his dream-hand rose, a hole appeared in the wall; a dream-hole in a dream-wall. And Nat entered, and he was in the Dream Country.

  This was a place where shapes were malleable and unfixed. Colors ran one into the other, and sounds behaved as if they hadn’t quite made their minds up, wavering eerily up and down on the scale. It was not a good place, but Nat moved forward, and strove to pick up the details. One moment the place seemed a forest, the next it had turned into a great desert with mountains in the near distance shaped like stovepipe hats, and colored in brilliant yellows and fuchsias. Nat kept on moving forward, and if he had any doubts, now was not the time to exercise them, because he could see, far ahead, a tiny black dot against the gloriously colored swirling background of lights that marked the shaman’s entrance.

  Two Coyotes advanced on him and then stood close enough for Nat to make out the shaman’s strong features. Two Coyotes spoke, and since he spoke in the universal language of dreams, Nat could understand him.

  “So you have come! I thought you would not dare!”

  “Obviously you were wrong about that,” Nat said. “And there’s quite a lot else you’re wrong about.”

  The shaman grinned. “How sad, tiny, and insignificant your words sound! Come to your death, then!” And so the combat was begun.

  No tongue in the world is equipped to tell of the combat of dream-warriors in a dream-space. Such contests are the essence of the uncanny. These are deeds that take place on the border of what is reality and what is spirit. Such deeds cannot aptly be recorded in the mundane language we use to speak of pecks of lima beans and bushels of com. The recording muse felt faint when faced with the challenge of describing the ineffable, but managed to point out that the Indian advanced along the line of his best capabilities, his physical prowess, his lithe and pantherlike passion. Whereas Nat was a representative of another culture entirely. It was his way to examine the onslaughts which the shaman perpetrated. His rationality led him to find an object interesting even when it was trying to kill him. Due to this psychic setup he was almost drowned when the shaman, drawing strength from the depths of his being, commanded a cataract of water to fall in its broken white-waved immensity on Nat’s head. The waters rose around him, churning and frothing as wind-spirit energies whipped their surface to a stinging froth. Nat could see for himself that if a dream-warrior died a dream-death in a dream-place, death would come, too, back in the place his body was. So Nat summoned up strength and fought his way out of the flood that washed over him, forming handholds on the rapidly passing river bank, and then creating hands with which to hold on to the handholds. And this strategem sufficed, and for the moment he could lift himself above the raging waters.

  But he found that he had merely passed from one peril to another. Because now he was assailed by birds, small and large, some bright of feather and some dull, a raging conflagration of birds, and these attacked him with beak and claw and insensate rage. They came at him in a dizzying whirl of wings, clawing with their taloned feet, and striking with their beaks. Nat countered at once, more rapidly than the time before, because now he was growing more adept and accustomed to the rules of the combat. He dodged the flailing beaks and clutching claws for a moment, then created a shield of shiny black obsidian. With this on his arm, he interposed its adamantine surface between himself and his winged attackers. The foremost of them dashed themselves to bloody pulp against his shield, and the rest drew back for a moment and buzzed together in a hovering black cloud of beating wings. They seemed to come to some decision, because in a moment they had returned to the attack, but this time they had changed shape, and Nat found, coming at him from all sides, snakelike creatures with the many tiny hooked claws of leeches. They came in a torrent, and Nat had to devise a perch for himself so he would not be engulfed by them entirely. He did so, and he was beginning to think again, because clearly something was needed here, some expedience, because the shaman’s attacks were mounting in ferocity and Nat had never been at his best in dealing with animal analogues.

  The moment of analysis gave him the clue he needed to move to the next step. His own countermove, coming right up! And so he suddenly created a locomotive, alive with fire in its belly and steam bursting out of its joints. Its great rods moved in and out of their cylinder boxes, and the vast mechanism moved forward, laying track as it came, like a gigantic metal monster with a steel skin and copper eyes.

  With this one coming at him, the shaman hesitated one fatal moment. The locomotive was new, even in the East. He was from one of the wild tribes that had never seen the white man’s ways u
p close. He had heard of this monstrosity that the white man possessed, but this was the first time he’d seen it And as terrible as the locomotive was, it was even more terrible when viewed in its dream state, where all its potentialities for harm were in view.

  The shaman tried to interpose a mountain. Quickly Nat countered with the dream image of the latest tunnelling equipment from St. Louis. His bit of purest diamond cut through the granite of the shaman’s refuge, penetrated into the depths of the mountain, ate through the walls and sought out the shaman himself within. As the drill bit came toward him, Two Coyotes knew fear at last.

  Then the locomotive came through the tunnel drilled in the rock and began to stalk the shaman across the quivering metaphoric surface of the Dream Country. Two Coyotes retreated, created a fastness of hills just behind him, a place where he could retreat and hide. But before he could do that, Nat had interposed another dream entity between the shaman and his refuge, and this dream entity was a cotton gin. Its belt-driven shafts went up and down; it rolled forward on bicycle wheels; its headlights shone with the lambent glow of commercial magic; steam oozed from its joints as it came toward him.

  Then Two Coyotes saw his peril, and steadied himself for one final blow, his last forlorn hope.

  Next morning, the old boatman at the Mississippi station sat up when he heard a halloo from outside. The man who greeted him was tall and thin, dressed as a Western frontiersman. He rode a tall black horse.

  “Can I get a passage across the river?” Nat asked.

  “That you can, stranger,” the boatman said. “But it’ll cost you a dollar.”

  Nat took a silver dollar out of his pouch and flipped it to the boatman. “That’s the last of them.”

  “What you gonna do for money?” the boatman asked.

  “Maybe where I’m going I won’t need any.”

  “Place like that sounds like Heaven,” the boatman remarked. “You wouldn’t happen to be a religious man, would you, mister?”

  “Not particularly. Why do you ask?”

  “A man would need a lot of faith to be travelling alone in these parts with Two Coyotes and his tribes on the loose.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Nat asked. “Two Coyotes is dead.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “No one knows. He was found this morning. Seems like he died in his sleep. As soon as the bucks saw he was dead, they started to disperse, giving up the attack and returning to their various people. The news is all over Missouri by now.”

  “Well, I’ll be dinged.” The boatman scratched his head. “You travelling alone, mister?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “You can go down to the boat any time. I push off inside of the hour whether anyone else shows up or not.”

  Nat led the horse down the gentle slope toward the boat tied up to a makeshift dock on the Mississippi. He was alone. He took a sack out of his bag, untied it, and emptied broken bronze that had been an eagle into the water.

  “Good luck, centurion,” he said.

  Then he bowed his head and said, “Earth spirit, thanks for your help. I wish success and happiness for you. This is the prayer I promised you.”

  Then he took out his pouch and took the amulet from it. “Marduk?”

  “Yes, Nat?”

  “I’m going on. To the West.”

  “Without the widow, Nat?”

  “She wouldn’t want to go where I’m going. Up into the mountains. To learn.”

  “From the Indians?”

  “Yes, from them. I only wish I hadn’t had to kill Two Coyotes. Least I can do is learn something about those people. But listen, I’ve done with witchcraft and now I am going to cast the amulet into the river and let you go free.”

  “That’s right kind of you, Nat,” Marduk said. “But don’t bother.”

  “Aren’t you going to leave?”

  “You make such an excellent packhorse, Nat, I thought I’d stay around for a while. This amulet is quite comfortable, too. I’ve lived here for a couple of millenia. Why give it up now?”

  “You’re staying with me?”

  “Put the amulet away and get on the boat. It’s time we went to that Western country.”

  1993

  DISQUISITIONS ON THE DINOSAUR

  1. THE DINOSAURS OF ANCIENT ROME

  Nero was very surprised when one day his freedman Pallas announced that there was a person who wanted to talk to him and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  “Who is this person?” Nero said. “I don’t talk to just anybody.”

  “You’d better talk to this guy,” Pallas said.

  “Why? What is it about him? He something special?”

  Pallas rolled his eyes. Nero knew that when Pallas rolled his eyes, it meant something very special indeed.

  “Where is this guy?” Nero asked.

  “He’s outside, in the waiting room. But he said he wasn’t going to wait long.”

  A sudden flash of fear coursed through Nero’s body. He had a good-looking body. In fact, it was one of the best-looking bodies in Rome that year. A little fleshy, perhaps, but topped with glorious hair of a tawny color. Nero was one of the best-looking emperors there had been so far. Gaius, whom they called Caligula, had been a good-looking emperor, too. But he’d been crazy. In fact, poor old Uncle Claudius had been crazy, too.

  “He’s waiting,” Pallas said.

  Nero looked around. He was in a room made entirely out of marble. There were beautiful vases on the table. Etruscan work. You couldn’t get any better.

  “I don’t really feel up for this,” Nero said. “Why couldn’t this guy have sent in a papyrus requesting an interview, like other people?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Pallas snapped. His tone of voice was really ugly. Nero recoiled.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Nero asked.

  “Nerves,” Pallas said. “It’s been getting rough ever since . . .”

  “I know,” Nero said. “Don’t even mention it.”

  “I’m not going to mention it,” Pallas said. “But really . . . Burning down Rome!”

  “I told you not to mention it!”

  “And why did you have to burn down the Freedman’s Club? People like me haven’t got a lot of places to go to.”

  “I didn’t set that fire,” Nero said.

  They were referring to the fire that had recently burned down three quarters of Rome. It had been a very bad fire. There was a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that the emperor had started it himself. Nero swore that he hadn’t. But, of course, what else was he going to say? They had managed to put the blame on the Christians. The Christians were a very tough sect. Everyone knew they were capable of anything. But no one believed that they had started the fire that had burned Rome. What the hell, they’d lost a lot of their own stuff in that fire. A dozen proto-churches had burned down. That was not nothing. So it always came down to Nero. He was the one who was always talking about “burning with a hard gemlike flame.” And Nero kept on saying, “I didn’t do it.” And since he was emperor, it was hard arguing with him. But since everyone knew he did it, it was hard to believe him when he said he didn’t.

  “Okay,” Nero said, “show him in.”

  “Thank God,” Pallas muttered under his breath. But not so softly that the emperor didn’t hear it. He made a mental note: this freedman is getting mighty uppity. He’s got to go. As soon as I find another freedman to take his place. But not now, because he needed Pallas to announce new people coming in.

  Pallas went out of the marble room into the waiting room and returned with a tall man wearing outlandish clothing. Nero had never seen anything like this clothing, and if Nero hadn’t seen it you could be pretty sure nobody else in Rome had. The guy was wearing what would later be recognized as a three-piece business suit. Slate gray. Enameled cuffs. Notched lapels. Regimental tie.

  The guy said, “Ah, Nero, about time.”

  Nero could see at once that there was going to be
a lot of trouble with this guy. As a rule, the emperor had a pretty quick way of handling people who had any potential for causing trouble. He had them killed. But this person oozed power from his every pore. The stranger had hair of a glittery blond color. His eyes were like lasers, which Nero hadn’t seen yet, but which he had imagined in some of his worst nightmares.

  “Welcome to Imperial Rome,” Nero said, in what he hoped was an affable tone. “What can I do for you?”

  “Look,” the stranger said, “I got no time to fool around here. We’re going to change things a bit.”

  “We?”

  “Me and the boys. You’d call us gods. Actually we’re just scientists, but to you we’re gods.”

  “Oh my God,” Nero said.

  “That’s the idea,” the guy said. “Now the fact is, things have gone along pretty well up in what you’d call heaven but we just call Control Central. It’s been getting pretty dull and we’ve been thinking of introducing a few changes. To liven things up. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to introduce dinosaurs into Rome.”

  Nero gaped. Then he collected himself sufficiently to close his mouth.

  “Dinosaurs?” he said. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone of that name before.”

  “Think lizards,” the stranger said.

  “Ah, lizards! I’ve seen them.”

  “But these are big,” the man said.

  “Yes, of course,” Nero said.

  “No, no,” the man said. “I don’t mean just big. I mean humongous big. I mean really huge. You know the size of the Apollo that stands near the Parthenon?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Nero said. “I saw that on my last trip to Greece. Divine, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” the stranger said. “Art is not my field. But it’s big, isn’t it?”