Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  And then the king of the region wanted his share, and some for his wife, her sister, his wisest councilor and his wiliest general.

  Finally there was just enough unicorn horn left for Ctesiphon to take his own dose. But before he could do so there was a knock at the door. It was Heldonicles the wizard.

  Ctesiphon was a little embarrassed because he hadn’t called on the wizard since his return. He had been too busy handing out shaved unicorn horn to the many claimants.

  “Went well, then, did it?” Heldonicles enquired.

  “Well indeed,” Ctesiphon said. “And I have you to thank for it. How can I ever repay you?”

  “Easily enough. Just give me that bit of horn you have left over.”

  “But that’s the last of it!” Ctesiphon exclaimed.

  “I know. It makes it all the more valuable, and therefore desirable.”

  This was a difficult moment for Ctesiphon, and yet not so difficult after all, because he had already considered who would be his partners in immortality if he took the horn. They would be in-laws and politicians for the most part, and he had no great desire to spend immortality with them.

  He gave the bit of horn to Heldonicles and asked him, “Will you take it now or later?”

  “Neither,” Heldonicles said and left.

  Ctesiphon was confused by this but he had fulfilled his primary purpose—to save Calixitea’s life.

  However, when he visited her, he found that things had changed. Calixitea had decided, in consultation with her parents and relatives, that although Ctesiphon was a fine young man, and would no doubt make an acceptable husband for a single lifetime, he left something to be desired as a husband for all eternity.

  Calixitea wasn’t at all sure she would even want to marry another immortal—that could be sticky in a country with no divorce, and no death to substitute for it.

  She needed, at the least, someone who could provide for her, not only in the years to come, but in the centuries that lay after those years, and the centuries after that. What the family had decided upon was a rich man who would already possess the basis of a fortune sufficient to keep Calixitea and her family secure throughout eternity.

  There was nothing personal in this decision, and no criticism of Ctesiphon was intended. But circumstances had changed, and Ctesiphon had no one to blame but himself.

  Feeling decidedly strange, Ctesiphon returned to his house to try to figure out what to do next. He wasn’t home very long when there was a rap on the door and the wizard Heldonicles was there.

  Ctesiphon asked him in, poured him a glass of wine, and asked him how it felt to be immortal.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Heldonicles said. “I didn’t take the powdered unicorn horn for myself, but to sell. The richest man in the country paid me a very good price for it.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to use it,” Ctesiphon said.

  “You shouldn’t be. It should be apparent to you by now that immorality is delusive. In fact, it’s a game for weak-minded people who haven’t thought the situation through.”

  “What are you going to do?” Ctesiphon asked.

  “With the money I got for the horn, I’ve bought the materials that will let me travel to the Land of Infinite Possibilities.”

  “I never heard of it,” Ctesiphon said.

  “Of course not. You’re not a shaman. But it lies at the heart of all men’s dreams and hopes.”

  Ctesiphon mused for a moment, then asked, “In this Land of Infinite Possibilities, is anything at all possible?” “Just about.”

  “Eternal life?”

  “No, that’s the one thing the Land of Infinite Possibilities can’t deliver. Without death, you see, nothing is really possible.”

  “But aside from that—”

  “Yes, aside from that, anything is possible.” Ctesiphon said, “Wizard, will you take me along?”

  “Of course,” the wizard said. “That’s what I’ve come here for. It’s what I was planning all along.”

  “Why didn’t you mention it before?”

  “You had to suggest it yourself.”

  “But why me?” Ctesiphon asked. “Am I so special?” “It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s difficult to find a decent apprentice these days. One with the necessary mixture of naivete and cunning, but not too much of either quality. One who could be interested in the work of wizardry for its own sake.”

  And so the wizard and his new apprentice rode off into the blue in search of the ineffable, and for all we know are there still, exploring the kingdoms of the possible for new and ever newer knowledge and delight. They left behind Calixitea and her insufferable parents and a few rich people with their immortality, and from that choice all of us are descended, and all of us live out our endless years in boredom and apathy, because nothing new can ever happen.

  Still, the outlook is not entirely grim, children. We believe that Death will return some day and relieve us of the vast tedium of our lives. This is a matter of faith with us. We can’t prove the existence of Death, but we believe in it nonetheless. Someday, children, with a little luck and God’s mercy, all of us will die.

  1998

  FUGUE PLAYERS OF NEW VENICE

  Chapter 1

  “So then in fact you Eneshti rule us?”

  “Not directly, no. But in fact, yes.”

  “By what right do you rule us?”

  “We are the best. We have certain crucial advantges over you. It can’t be helped. We were simply born and developed with powers that men of Earth do not have. Therefore we must rule.”

  “And we humans must be your slaves?”

  “Not at all. The object of our rule is to bring mankind up to our level. But this takes time. It calls for certain programs to be initiated, certain conditions to be met. It is a long-range scheme. You must trust that we are thinking in the long-range interests of mankind.”

  “We’d rather you left us alone and went somewhere else..”

  “That condition cannot be met. We are here on Earth, we have appeared on the human scene, we must live our lives and continue our own development.”

  Joseph W. Painter, “Talks with the Eneshti,” Mystic Insights Press, 2217. 7th Edition.

  He returned to consciousness in slow indistinct stages. At first there was no more than a wavering perception of light as he floated in and out of consciousness. At last the light steadied as he grew more alert, and he could make out the fluorescent tube in the ceiling, providing a cold white illumination. Next he became aware of a soft roughness beneath him. It took him a while to notice that he was lying on a coarse blanket that was spread over the steel springs of an iron cot. The cot was fixed to the concrete wall with iron pipes.

  Opening his eyes more fully and craning his neck, he saw that he was in a room, about ten feet to a side, with a high ceiling at least fifteen feet above his head. There was a door but no window. In a corner he saw a porcelain wash basin with a faucet, and, beneath it, a pail that he supposed served as a commode.

  He forced himself to sit up, slowly, because he was still shaky and nauseous. He sat for a while with his head in his hands, swaying to the rhythm to which the room pulsated. It took him a while to realize that the motion was in his mind and that the room itself was steady.

  At last he was able to sit up, look around, take stock. But this was the worst moment of all so far, because although he could perceive the room clearly, he couldn’t remember how he had gotten into it. He didn’t know how he had lived before he came here. He couldn’t even remember his own name. He was an anonymous man in an anonymous room. He had no memories, only an endless thirst and pain in his body.

  He tried standing, very carefully. Turning, he saw that there was writing on the blanket on his cot. It read, PROPERTY OF SAGAMORE PRISON, NEW PAWLS, NEW YORK.

  So he was in prison. Was there nothing to drink here? He looked around but saw no water or any receptacle. He got up off the cot and got down cautiously on his knees. He peered u
nder the cot. Nothing there. And that exhausted the possibilities.

  He sat down again. His mind was clamoring with questions, but he forced himself to ignore them, for he had no answers. If he didn’t even know who he was, how could he know anything else?

  He became aware that his body knew a few things, even if his mind did not. His body knew it was thirsty and hungry. It knew that it hurt, that it was bruised and lacerated, as though it had recently been beaten. His body also knew it was sitting here in this small room without anything to eat or drink, without anything to do. And bad as that was, it was probaby better than what had come before. All the world held out for him now was two states: in this cell, where he languished in pain, hunger and thirst, and outside the cell, where the blows that marked him had come from.

  “Appreciate this while you can,” he told himself, “for what comes next might be worse.” He lay back on the cot, on the prison blanket, closed his eyes, lay there with one hand covering his eyes, smelling the sweaty smell of himself, wondering what came next.

  It seemed he didn’t have to wait long at all. A bell started to ring, a harsh, high-pitched mechanical sort of a ring, and then buzzers joined in, and the light in the ceiling began to flash.

  “What is it now?” he said aloud, and got up off the couch and stood, arms raised defensively, waiting for something unpleasant to happen.

  There was the rattle of a lock turning, and his cell door suddenly flew open. He could hear men shuffling past in the corridor outside. A man in a peaked cap put his head in the door.

  “Rise and shine,” he said. “Dinner and your daily airing.”

  Chapter 2

  “Mankind has never been alone. There have been intrusions from the outside almost from the beginning. Mankind didn’t even evolve here on Earth. The seeds of life were brought to this place from far away.”

  “Where did life first develop?”

  “We can’t tell you yet how life evolved in the first place. You wouldn’t understand. Even we, without our superior development, scarcely understand. But the fact is, you are no more indigenous to the Earth than we are. You have no more superior claim to it than we have. Indeed, we offer a situation much better than the one the stronger among you have offered your own subject races. Historically, where one tribe or group of you have taken over, the subject groups have been obliterated. Or at least decimated. At the least, even when the subject peoples were not exterminated, they were set far back on the course of their development. Others, the conquerers, developed at the expense of the weaker. So what we are doing is by no means inhuman or a-human. It is all too human.”

  Joseph W. Painter, “Talks with the Eneshti,” Mystic Insights Press, 2217. 7th Edition.

  His celldoor slid open. He stepped out of the cell, saw other men walking along the corridor. They were all dressed just as he was: shapeless trousers of some heavy material, originally light in color, yellow or white, now streaked with grime. A blouse-like shirt of the same material, short-sleeved, heavy and clumsy. On his feet, tattered black slippers, the uppers made of the same material as his clothes, the soles of a gritty felt. The pants were too big for him. He wore the same sort of clothes. He kept his pants up with a piece of twine, wrapped around his waist twice and tied in a square not.

  Outside his cell, he joined the line of similarly attired men. There were guards walking along among them—men in dark blue uniforms with silver buttons and badges, armed with truncheons, with pistols in holsters on their hips. The guards were urging them to move along, don’t loiter, keep on moving. Another buzzer sounded. The doors of the cells slid shut. Evidently some sort of electric system.

  He marched along, stealing glimpses of the men he was marching with. He didn’t recognize them. But one of them seemed to recognize him. A voice behind him said, in a carrying whisper, “How you doin’ there, Vinnie?”

  Vinnie! A name! He must be Vinnie! The knowledge that he had a name was curiously comforting. Vinnie had to be short for Vincent. But Vincent what? What was his last name?

  “I’m OK,” he said, speaking without thinking in the same sort of harsh whisper. “You?”

  “Tommy Trent is always bright and bushy-tailed,” the other man said with an ironic grin.

  Vinnie looked at the other man once, quickly, appraisingly. Tommy Trent, as he had called himself, was smaller than Vincent, a slighter man, and older in appearance. Tommy Trent had white hair sleeked back; a rough, wised-up face; and he walked with a noticeable limp.

  “Whatcha looking at?” Trent asked.

  Vinnie shook his head. “Just checking you out. Looking pretty sharp, Tommy.”

  “You gotta be kidding,” Trent said.

  “Silence in the ranks!” a guard called out. “No talking in the line.”

  They walked along in silence. The corridor was very long. It was windowless. Overhead lights, spaced every ten feet or so, provided the only illumination. There was no sound but the shuffling of the prisoners’ feet.

  The corridor was damp and chilly, and the harsh overhead lighting accentuated the contrasting lights and darks. They came at last to a door, with a guard at it, making a count of them as they passed him. Once past the door, Vinnie could see he was in a big room filled with tables and chairs, with a steam table at the far end. There were other men in canvas clothing, but wearing tall white chef’s hats, waiting beside the steam table, evidently to serve the prisoners.

  The prisoners stood at attention, waiting. There was a sharp whistle. Trent, standing beside Vinnie, muttered, “Another roll call! Where do they think we’d get to?”

  Vinnie shrugged and joined the other prisoners in a long line facing outward. A guard came out to face them. He carried a clipboard. He read names from it. Each time a man’s name was called, the prisoner answered sharply, “Yes, sir!”

  “Austin!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Werther!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Defrangian!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Delgado!”

  No answer. The prisoners started to snicker until a guard with raised truncheon sharply commanded them to shut up.

  “Delgado!”

  Trent, standing beside Vinnie, punched him surreptitiously in the thigh. “You want trouble?” he hissed. “Answer the man!”

  “Yes, sir!” Vinnie called out. “Sorry, sir!”

  The guard glared at him and seemed ready to make something of it. But then he went back to his list and read off the rest of the names. They finished without incident.

  And Vinnie had found his name. Vincent Delgado. He had no association with it, had never to the best of his knowledge heard it before. But at least it gave him something to call himself.

  At a command from the guards they all walked past the steam tables, where they were served by the prisoners in the tall white hats. Although Delgado was hungry he could barely stomach the prison food. He forced himself to eat it anyhow. He knew he couldn’t be choosy in this place. He needed to keep his strength, keep his wits about him, while he tried to figure out who he was, where he was from, what happened to him, what he was doing here. So he ate, and looked around, estimating the prisoner population. There seemed to be several hundred here. At one table near the front, a man in prisoner’s clothes ate alone. Delgado wondered about this but didn’t want to show his ignorance by asking.

  After the meal, at the sound of a bell, all the prisoners rose, left their trays and implements for the mess hall attendents to collect, and marched out. They reentered the corridor by which they had come, turned into a side corridor, kept on marching. They went a long way, passing branching corridors, led by the guards, with guards bringing up the rear. After a while they came to double doors. These were unlocked by a guard and they were led into an auditorium. Here they took seats. A guard got up on the small stage, looked at his watch.

  “OK, you get half an hour television time. Remember, no talking here.”

  A large screen in front of them lig
hted up. Delgado watched with more interest than most, because the events depicted were new to him. First there was a special on the work of the government in uncovering Eneshti agents. Several of these agents were shown: wretched men and women in handcuffs. But at no time was the term “Eneshti” explained.

  There was a report on local movements in stock prices on the various world markets.

  A report on unrest in Assan Province, wherever that was.

  A report on voting in Contran and Norican to elect new delegates to the world council.

  Sporting events took up the final portion of the program. Latest scores from Norrcan and Eurcan.

  When it was over, the screen went dark and the prisoners were marched out again. They were led this time through the corridors again to a large courtyard enclosed by buildings on all four sides. Here there were basketball hoops, soccer equipment, and, against the walls, bodybuilding equipment. Talking was allowed in this section.

  “What happens next?” Delgado asked.

  “Back to the cells, of course. You been here long enough to know the routine.”

  Delgado wanted to get information. But it seemed important not to disclose the fact that he had lost his memories. He had no idea why it was important to keep this a secret. Nor did he fear Trent, who seemed well-disposed toward him. But he thought he would have to know more about what was going on before he revealed his ignorance of it.

  “Gets a man a little crazy,” Trent said. “Same thing every day. Boredom is a part of the punishment, of course. They’ve got it down real good.”