Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Oh, yes,” Nero said. “It’s at least twelve feet tall, not even counting the base.” Nero was figuring in Roman feet, which were somewhat larger than English feet, so that was very big indeed.

  “Well, that great statue,” the stranger said, “would make no more than a baby dinosaur from one of the smaller species.”

  “Okay,” Nero said, “I think I got what you mean. You mean really big.”

  “I mean big,” the stranger said. “These things will really fill a city street. Think of a dinosaur as equivalent to a herd of elephants.”

  “Elephants,” Nero said. “Yes, I’ve seen those.”

  “Try five or six times bigger, and armored all over, and they got huge jaws and teeth.”

  “And you want to bring these things into downtown Rome?”

  “You got it.”

  “But why?”

  “Ah, don’t ask why,” the stranger said. “When you can do these things, there’s no asking why. Let’s just say because it would be amusing.”

  “I don’t think it would be very amusing,” Nero said.

  “You’ll love it,” the stranger said. “Any guy who can burn Rome ought to love dinosaurs.”

  “I did not burn Rome!” Nero said.

  In his next proclamation, Nero said, “Let all Romans know by this message that I have had a visit from a representative of the gods who tells me that Rome is going to be singularly blessed by a visitation, one might almost say an infestation, of dinosaurs. These will be free range roaming dinosaurs, and they will be our honored guests. It is your emperor’s pleasure to grant these dinosaurs the rights of Roman citizens. They are not human beings, but I have been assured that they are intelligent and in their own way quite tractable. Please be on your best behavior with these dinosaurs. This is only a temporary measure. Everyone will have to watch the traffic patterns because there is going to be a little trouble until things have been sorted out. Faithfully yours, Nero, Emperor of all the Romans.”

  There was a lot of discussion about this throughout Rome, as you might expect. People said, “The emperor will do anything to get people’s attention off the burning issue. But we all know he burned Rome.”

  A lot of people didn’t believe anything was going to happen. “Dinosaurs,” they said. “Who ever heard of such things?” Still, a very good crowd showed up the first day when the first assembly of dinosaurs was declared. The dinosaurs were going to march into town along the Viale Victor Emanuel II, or where that great street would be some centuries later.

  At first there was a cloud of dust from off toward the Appian Way, then a stamping of feet, and then they came, the dinosaurs. They came marching through town in their ones and fives and their threes and their sixes. Handbills had been printed to identify some of the main species, because the gods, or the guys who were passing themselves off as gods, had decided that people really ought to have a program for an event like this. There were line drawings so the main outlines of the main dinosaur species could be identified. This was before the invention of the printing press, of course, but what the hell, once you start the anachronism thing you might as well throw caution to the winds and try at least to be clear.

  The dinosaurs came in their astounding variety. There were allosaurs and trogodonts and flying nimichisaurs and big lumbering protosquabosaurs, and small nimble nimblokides, and there were chironprontes walking in threes as they always did, while overhead the pterodactyls soared with their long thin beaks and their short leathery claws. And the crowds lining either side of the great boulevards, chewing garlic and onion sandwiches which had been passed out as free party favors by the dinosaur advisory commission hoping to make a good impression at the very start, applauded wildly as some of the bigger beasts came by. And watching all this from the imperial bandstand, Nero thought it seemed a pretty good idea after all, because, as the god guy had told him in a private conversation, this was certainly getting people’s minds off the burning of Rome and was even better than gladiatorial games. It’s true it didn’t leave much room for Nero’s artistic initiatives, and that was always a matter dear to his heart. But still, it was something, and Nero thought it might work out very well indeed.

  2. DINOSAUR LETTER

  Dear Atherwell,

  In answer to your recent psychic communication: Your ancestor, George, whom you were asking about, was a medium-sized tyrannosaurus, weighing about nine tons in his prime, who lived in southern Italy. He was born in the late Cretaceous, probably toward the end of the Campanian Age (records were a little sparse in those days). His family, the Atherwells, (same name as you, my darling!) were socially prominent reptiles, members of the ruling council for the Campanian region. Of his immediate biological family, little is known, except for one sister, Aethra, who became a fairly well-known artist in her day. We know a little about his associative horizontal family, the list of associations by which dinosaurs have always grouped themselves. They include several stegosaurs, one brontosaurus, a small tribe of triceratops who lived by themselves near Lodi, and several archeopteryx. So you can see that your uncle was by no means “a nameless dinosaur of no social position,” as has been alleged by some of his detractors. Your other uncle, Anchides, was one of the first of the tyrannosaurs to arrive in Rome. He took up residence in a very large stone barn which had been built just where the Spanish Steps would be some centuries later.

  The biggest problem in Rome at that time was keeping the streets clean of dinosaur dung. Dinosaurs, even civilized ones, are quite unconcerned about where they deposit their dung. And although dinosaurs have many fine and even endearing qualities, one that they do not have is that of cleaning up after themselves. “As sloppy as a dinosaur,” was a popular expression in the ancient world.

  A special class of men, known as dinosaur sweepers-upper, had to be enlisted. These quickly formed a labor union of their own with their own rights and privileges, and soon, their own ancient rituals, special feast days, secret handshakes, and holiday songs.

  Traffic regulation was a formidable problem. Luckily, the dinosaurs picked regular hours to go back and forth in and out of the city. Most dinosaurs liked to live outside of Rome, in the green fields and the pleasant meadows out on the Appian Way. This was a good deal, especially for the herbivores among them. They had big appetites. Especially the brontosaurs, who weighed fifty or sixty tons and could in a day’s browsing put away half or more of their own body bulk. Fast-growing grass species had to be imported from Asia, where they had such things.

  No one knows what we would have done if it hadn’t been for the carnivores among them who kept trimming down the brontosaur population. This worked to the advantage of the Romans, too, who in the normal course of things were supplied with a great deal of brontosaurus meat. Brontosaurs tasted a great deal like buffalo but with a certain tang that reminded you of wild duck. It was pretty tasty grub, and that was good because there was really a lot of it.

  Huge clouds of dust arose as the dinosaurs migrated in and out of the city, following the major routes like the via Flaminia. But the situation wasn’t entirely satisfactory. A lot of people got trampled to death before the Romans got the hang of the new traffic patterns.

  The arrival of the dinosaurs changed Roman and European history. In the east, the Parthians broke through the Armenian line but decided against invading Rome when they heard about the dinosaurs. They decided they had enough problems of their own without adding dinosaurs. The Germans and Gauls who were invading Italy across the Alps at this time decided to adopt a wait-and-see policy. Even if they did conquer Italy, what would they do with the dinosaurs?

  With the dinosaurs wandering freely around Rome, the Romans found themselves with a really difficult upkeep problem. The dinosaurs were so big and clumsy, they were always chipping the cornices off buildings. And even with all the handbills available, most people didn’t know one dinosaur from another, so they couldn’t tell which dinosaur was responsible when they brought their complaints to the local dino
saur control boards.

  It was inevitable that dinosaurs would be introduced to the gladiatorial games. It seemed a natural. But there were difficulties.

  3. A CONVERSATION WITH THE DINOSAUR MASTER AT THE GLADIATOR SCHOOL

  “Hail, Rufus.”

  “Hail, Lepidus.”

  “What success have you had with this afternoon’s training?”

  “Not too much, sir. We expended twelve gladiators against two allosaurs. The results were not impressive.”

  “Were you able to score any points against the dinosaurs?”

  “Since, as you told us, sir, the dinosaurs are too expensive to be killed in practice sessions, but must be kept alive for the main event in the Colosseum, we observed great care not to harm them, attacking only with blunted swords and spears without metal heads. Our precautions were unnecessary, however. These dinosaurs are well able to take care of themselves. Even bowmen are unable to provide any hits that might have proved fatal. These creatures are extensively armored, as you have noted, sir, and not even a direct shot to the eye or down the throat could be counted on to prove fatal. In fact, my lord, I have my doubts as to whether any number of my gladiators could be counted on to kill the big dinosaur they call The Tyrant.”

  “Nonsense, Rufus. Of course they can do it. It will simply call for teamwork. One, or better still, several of the gladiators, must distract the beast while others run in and hamstring him. They must run in behind him and cut the muscles in his thighs. The dinosaur must be immobilized, then he will be easier to deal with.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rufus said. But he wasn’t convinced.

  4. NERO TALKS WITH THE DINOSAUR MASTER

  Not everyone agrees that the gods brought the dinosaurs to Rome. Some say that the dinosaurs were brought to Rome through purely Roman efforts, as a result of finding a hidden valley in the Alps where a strange foreign man was found keeping watch over a small clutch of dinosaurs. This man, who claimed to be a dinosaur-keeper from the future, was taken to Nero and the following interview took place.

  “You are the master of the dinosaurs?”

  “I am the one associated with them. Not the master, no, I don’t think any man could be considered their master.”

  “You perhaps are ignorant of the accepted form. When you address me, you call me Your Majesty, or Excellency, or at least Caesar. I do not normally stand on ceremony, but it would be churlish to not insist upon a common and respectful form of address.”

  “I am sorry, Caesar. I am still overawed by being in your presence. I never thought I’d get to see ancient Rome and a Roman emperor.”

  “That’s better. I think they said your name is Silas? Now, tell me something, Silas, about the place where my soldiers found you when they went hunting for dinosaurs. How did you happen to get to the past, as you call it?”

  “It is very difficult to explain, Caesar. We do not have a common vocabulary about these matters. I still do not know how your soldiers came to the Time-Locked Valley where I was observing the dinosaurs.”

  “I thought you had been informed as to that. When we rescued the last of the sibylline books, before the hag in whose keeping they were had a chance to burn them as she had done with the others, we looked in it and found spells for the passing to a place of great mystery. This mystery was described in detail, and there were descriptions within it of the monsters to be found there. The details as to how we got there have been mentioned by some of our writers. Our wise men, with a half legion of soldiers to protect them, invoked the spell and went to the place. There, in a great valley of ferns and strangely-shaped trees, they found the dinosaurs and you. Now then, where was this place, Master Silas?”

  “You must understand, Caesar, that I am not a man of your own time. I come from a different age. It is several thousand years in the future from this time. This is not easy to understand . . .”

  “I understand it perfectly well. You claim to come from the future. Please go on.”

  “In that future, Caesar, we have learned how to travel in time. It is an ability we use only rarely. There are dangers involved. When you go to the past, there is the possibility that you will change some important fact that our own time, your future, depended on. It is known as the Butterfly Theory. The trembling of a butterfly’s wings, this theory goes, can discommode the entire progress of a civilization.”

  “That is very fanciful, no doubt.”

  “Not at all, Excellency. It is the simple truth. It is what I have been trying to warn you about.”

  5. THE DINOSAUR MASTER WROTE A LETTER TO THE FUTURE, THE CONTENTS OF WHICH ARE HERE REVEALED FOR THE FIRST TIME

  Dear Linda,

  I doubt there will be any way of reaching you with this letter. Yet I must try it anyhow, and, even if it is impossible to think of it being delivered, I need to unburden my heart. You can imagine my surprise when, one afternoon, I was examining my parasite specimens in the little laboratory which the society constructed for me, and looked up to hear loud noises. They weren’t the familiar bellowings of the dinosaurs, or any other natural sounds. Instead I heard the clash of metal objects, and the hoarse voices of men. At first I was utterly dumbstruck. There was anger in those voices, and dismay. My immediate thought was that a change of administration had taken place in our own time, and that a crew had been sent to dismantle the laboratory and remove me from the Pleistocene. This project has always been controversial, and there have always been those who say we should not be maintaining a presence in Earth’s past, not even under present circumstances, when we have walled off this past from the main line of Earth’s present and future. So, expecting to find a scientific group put forth by the new administration, I went outside, and there beheld a group of about fifty Roman soldiers of the classical period. They were small men, wearing leather uniforms upon which were plates of bronze. They wore helmets and tunics, and heavy marching sandals. Each man was armed with the pilum and had the short sword on his hip. I am by no means an expert on the classical period, or any other period of history, since my work is as a general biologist. But I had studied the period enough in university that I could make some guesses.

  6. EXCERPTS FROM THE CHARLES A. BAXTER LECTURES IN COMPARATIVE FOLKLORIC DINOSAURICITY

  There are two important matters in dinosaurology which we will go into today. The first has to do with why the stegosaurus had a hindbrain, situated in the area of its hips, in addition to its forebrain, which was in the usual spot, its cranium.

  The second question has to do with the use made of the very small front arms of the tyrannosaurus. Following our usual practice, we will answer the second first.

  The tyrannosaurus, though a hulking twenty-foot-tall monster weighing some ten or fifteen tons, had very tiny forearms not much larger than a man’s. The question has been raised, what did it do with these forearms, and why were they there at all?

  The answer should come as no surprise. The tyrannosaurus, with its small forearms and its long dainty fingers—inaccurately called claws—was the preeminent cardplayer of the archaic world. The fingers of his hand, even without the presence of a true opposable thumb—something over which people make entirely too much of a fuss—were inadequate for tearing and rending, but were perfectly suited for holding cards.

  Cards themselves were not a dinosaur invention. Playing cards were introduced to Earth, along with toilet fixtures and neckties, by the very first alien race to come to this planet; a race that traveled here long before the development of mankind. This race—the proto-Atlanteans—came from Arcturus, a large star with very pretty coloring.

  The Arcturans could be distinguished from true humans by their possession of double opposable thumbs, which made them twice as clever as the single-opposed-thumbed humans who were to evolve later. The Arcturans had brought along with them certain subhuman servants with a shambling gait and strange coloration. These eventually became our ancestors.

  The Arcturans landed here in early Paleolithic times, back when the climate was war
m and mild and there was plenty of real estate around for everybody. That was before the Age of Flowers. The Arcturans didn’t mind; they brought their own. Their flowers gave birth to our own Age of Flowers. Which stands to reason, of course. Where else would flowers come from? Certainly not from ferns, which are dreary things. Just as their subhumans eventually developed into our humans, as you would expect.

  When the Arcturans got here, they found there was nobody around to talk to except the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were a lot smarter in those days. They looked like they had a great future. Size counted for a whole lot back then. And there were some really big ones. The bones found lying around are mainly of some of the smaller species. The big, smart dinosaurs didn’t leave any bones to give themselves away with.

  There were a lot of big old dinosaurs in those days, stamping and galumphing around. Galumphing is a technical term that refers to a dinosaur’s natural way of progressing.

  The Arcturans came down and built their tent cities and looked around for something to do. They were a card-playing race—one of the most advanced—and soon after building latrines and dance halls, they got their familiar card games going. Their game was duplicate bridge, though hearts ranked second, and there were always earnest contingents of rummy players.

  The tyrannosaurs used to kibitz these games. In fact, “kibitz” is an Arcturan word meaning to watch and make snide comments. After a while, the Arcturans noted that the tyrannosaurs were making small squealing sounds through their noses during certain plays. At first the Arcturans thought this was merely a nervous mannerism. But then, checking more closely, they saw that the giant reptiles were trying to encourage certain lines of play and discourage others. Independent scientific studies by independent scientific groups verified these findings. The tyrannosaurs had a rudimentary but natural card sense, one of those prodigal endowments that nature sometimes casts upon a species.