“I don’t get it.”
“It’s simple enough,” the Czech-looking man said. “This universe is self-organizing; but what will it self-organize itself into? That is the question that constantly perplexes it. And, of course, the universe has a great deal else to do apart from self-organization. So it created a Committee for Advice to the Self-Organizing Universe, which in turn created my committee, The Advisory Committee to the Committee for Advice to the Self-Organizing Universe, and it calls upon this committee for suggestions as to what to organize itself as next. It does not require itself to take these suggestions, of course, but a surprising amount of the time it does take them. In fact, it wouldn’t be too much to say that the universe gets many of its best ideas from the committee.”
“Really?” said Sheckley in demurring tones of deepest skepticism.
“Well you may demur,” the Czechish man said. “It is no small thing to claim to be the inspiration of the universe, which is perhaps too vast and weighty, and to concerned with the quotidian, to concern itself with matters of the future. For that reason it relies on people such as ourselves, who, unimaginative though we may be, supply imagination for the committee for the universal purpose. But you must excuse me now; my fellow members are waiting for me.” And with that, the man hurried off down the corridor.
Sheckley stood for a moment perplexed, there in the long, tedious corridor with its almost infinite cross-corridors, all suffused with a gray light from ceiling fixtures. And he heard a voice which seemed to emanate from within his own head, saying, “Sheckley!”
Glancing around, and seeing that he was alone for the moment, he said, “Yes?”
“It is I, the alternate Sheckley.”
“Why is there an alternate Sheckley?”
“Blame it on the universe, which for its own reasons, abhors a vacuum. I was created to fill the spot you vacated when you went to the Gateway, which, being a bridge between worlds, is neither of them.”
“So you’re on Earth and I’m in the Gateway?”
“You’ve got it, boychick.”
“So how do we refer to ourselves and each other?” Sheckley asked, going to the nomenclatural heart of the problem.
“For the present, let’s have you call yourself ‘Sheckley,’ while I will take the homelier and more familiar appellation of ‘Bob.’ It doesn’t matter. Eventually we will coalesce back into the single being we started out as. You get the better deal. All you have to do is look for the world of heart’s desire, while I stay here on Earth and try to take care of the bills.”
“You are a writer, then?”
“A writer, and the inheritor of a writer’s debts,” said Bob.
“I admit to them,” said Sheckley.
“Perhaps we can do something to rid ourselves of them,” said Bob.
“What would you suggest?” asked Sheckley.
“That you live the story, up there in Gateway, and I write the story, down here on Earth,” said Bob.
“How can I live the story?”
“Go find your world of heart’s desire.”
“Easy for you to say. But meanwhile, I’m sitting here in Gateway, and nothing has happened except for a non-descript conversation with a guy who looked like a Czech. I doubt you’ll be able to sell that.”
“You’re right. What we need here is a little action. I suppose I could supply you with some characters and plot twists.”
“That would be useful.”
“Just hang on, then. I’ll come up with something as soon as possible. This is Bob, signing off.”
And so the connection was broken. Sheckley was left marveling at how much Bob sounded like him. They had so much in common: There was that same note of panic in Bob’s utterances, the same grasping for words that didn’t quite fit the case, the same air of hangdog defiance.
It was a quiet evening. Sheckley found a place to sleep in an unused office. He found an old TV set tuned to reruns of Star Trek, with occasional interpolations of Mork and Mindy. He fell asleep on the wall-to-wall carpet. Waking up in the morning, he found a box of Ralston’s Purina in a desk drawer, and a container of Everlast milk. He brewed himself a cup, then showered and shaved in the adjoining bathroom, and, at last, ventured out again into the corridor.
In the distance, from the far end of the corridor, Sheckley heard a noise. It was a strange sort of sound, composed of women’s sighs, a man’s gruff barking voice, and the grating sound of metal being dragged across marble. Then the source of the sound appeared. It was a man, at least seven feet tall, a Hercules clad in a lion skin, a man with a heavy sullen face, little pig eyes, and a stomach that in fifty years or so would have a paunch but that now was rock-hard ribbed muscle. And did I mention that in one hand he carried a club made of some dense metal, and in the other hand he held a chain, and at the end of that chain were a dozen or so weeping women, some with babes in arms, being pulled along.
“What is this?” Sheckley asked.
“I am the Bleak Barbarian,” the half naked figure responded. “These are my captives.”
“What do you need captives for?”
“They will be my wives, as soon as I reach my world of heart’s desire.”
“How are you going to get in?”
The Bleak Barbarian smiled and twitched his club. “I’ll bash my way in.”
Sheckley noticed that the Barbarian had a small plastic box, hanging around his neck by a silver chain. “What’s that?” he asked.
“It is one of a class of objects that may be termed an Orpheus Machine, a musical device that transmits sweet and pacifying sounds to the ear, music which, in the words of the poet Tennyson, ‘gentlier on the spirit lies than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; music that calls sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.’ This is necessary for me since, I am of such an irascible nature that I would be apt otherwise to tear myself to pieces, and utterly destroy these ladies entrusted to my care.”
“Wait just a moment,” Sheckley said. He went into an empty office and closed the door. “Bob! Are you there?”
“So where should I be if I’m not there?”
Sheckley ignored that. “You sent me a barbarian.”
“I thought he’d help to spice up the plot, lend a little action.”
“He’s got women captives! He’s enslaving them!”
“He did that on his own. I didn’t plan it. Those damned bifurcations!”
“Why did you send this guy?”
“I was trying to do something for the story. You said it wasn’t exciting enough. So I’m bringing you back to your pulp origins.”
“But I need someone I can talk with. Reason with!”
“Follow the formula.”
“What formula?”
“You know, the formula. You were raised on those old pulp magazines just like I was. You need the formula to get these people to do what you want them to do.”
“What do I want this guy in the lion skin to do?”
“To use his strength to get you into the Next Place.”
“Gateways don’t work by bashing them,” Sheckley said.
“How do they work?”
“I don’t know, but not that way.”
“Why not give it a chance?”
“Because this barbarian guy won’t let me. He isn’t smart enough for one thing.”
“He’s plenty smart for a barbarian.”
“This is a more sophisticated setup.”
“Look,” Bob said, “I’ve got a lot on my mind these days. I didn’t know it was a sophisticated setup. I’ll come up with something else. Signing off, buddy.”
Sheckley wanted to ask about the Orpheus Machine, but the connection had been cut before he could begin.
When he came out of the office, the Bleak Barbarian was gone, though rust marks and several bobby pins on the corridor carpeting showed where he had passed with his entourage.
Sheckley spent the rest of the day wandering through corridors and from office to office, trying to find a way to the Next
Place. That evening, he found a place to sleep in an abandoned office. He found an old TV set tuned to reruns of Mork and Mindy, and after that, Star Trek. There was a little kitchenette stocked with various popular cereals, and there were frozen hamburgers in the freezer. So he wasn’t about to starve to death. He slept that night on an office couch, woke up in the morning and brewed himself a cup of Ralston. Then, after a shower and shave, he ventured out again.
He was beginning to wonder if Bob, his alter ego back on Earth, had much in the way of smarts. To pick a barbarian as a plot device . . . But there was really no sense thinking about it. Bob’s smarts were his, Sheckley’s smarts, and wondering about your smarts was a good way to lose what little you had. And anyhow, Bob on Earth had his own troubles—all of those debts, those bills. At least he, Sheckley, was spared that. There were no bills here in the Gateway, no debts . . . no home either, now that he came to think about it, no good food, no beautiful young woman to greet him in the evenings, loving arms outheld, perhaps holding a steaming casserole in her hands. None of that; and, as far as he could tell, no story. And no plots twist, either.
No debts . . . no woman. There seemed to be some sort of an equivalency in that thought, but he couldn’t figure out if it was true or not. When he went to The Next Place—the Great, Good Place—would there be a woman there for him? Or was he supposed to capture his own, chain her up, and take her to The Next Place with him? No, that didn’t seem right, what had Bob been thinking about?
These were uncomfortable thoughts, so he shook his head to rid himself of them and went to the Gateway lobby, where there were vending machines with sandwiches and chili and hot soup, and where somebody had laid out sleeping bags on folding cots for those who hadn’t found their way to The Next Place yet.
He ate, drank, and lay down. Just before falling asleep he remembered that he hadn’t found the plot twist he needed for his story, the plot twist that would make everything work. But he was too tired to worry about it. He fell asleep.
A hand on his arm awakened him, and he heard a voice saying to him in a whisper, “Sheckley . . . Are you awake?”
Sheckley opened his eyes. He felt in serious need of coffee.
As though the man had been reading his mind, a mug was pressed into his hand, and he sipped the hot brew gratefully.
“Thanks a lot. Got any sugar? No matter. Who are you?”
“A friend. Bob sent me.”
“He’s Sheckley, too,” Sheckley said.
“He said you needed help,” the man said, his whisper that made him sound like the old film star Peter Lorre. “And I’m here to give it.”
“Help? What sort of help did he mention?”
“Something about a plot twist. And that you needed to get into The Next Place.”
The man sat down on the cot beside Sheckley, who saw that this man was lean and hard looking, perhaps in his midforties, his hair a platinum blond, which he wore in a brush cut. There was something about his face, and a slight foreign quality to his whispering voice, that made Sheckley think he was not an American native. The guy was dressed entirely in black leather, but Sheckley didn’t think he was a rock star.
“What is your name?” Sheckley whispered.
“Erich von Turendeldt, at your orders,” the man whispered in his Peter Lorre voice, extending a gloved hand.
“German?” Sheckley questioned.
“A once and future German,” Erich said.
“What does that mean?”
“The present regime in my country has stripped me of my nationality. They don’t want to know me, and have declared me non-German, to be arrested on sight. The fools!”
“What did you do wrong?”
“Espoused unpopular views,” von Turendeldt said. “But let’s not talk about that. It’s a painful subject for me. I am a man without a country. But that changes when we have succeeded in our conquest of The Next Place . . .”
“Do we have to conquer it?” Sheckley asked. “I thought we just walked in and lived there.”
“Things are rarely that simple, my friend. Throughout European history it has been known that if you want a good thing, you must seize it.”
“Even if it’s something as—esoteric—as The Land of Heart’s Desire?”
“Especially then! You see, really desirable places—and especially The Next Place—are filled with undesirables.”
“I thought anyone could go to The Next Place,” Sheckley said.
“So far that has been true. Or was true until the non-Aryan Kafka organization took charge of it. But I mean to change all of that. Undesirable elements will get what they deserve—a painful hell of endless punishment. And this punishment will be meted out at the hands of the Righteous.”
Sheckley decided not to pursue the topic any further. This von Turendeldt was a frightening man, and Sheckley wanted nothing to do with him. He suspected that he, Sheckley, was one of the undesirables von Turendeldt was planning to wipe out, in this life and in the next.
“Do you have any ideas? Any plans?” Sheckley asked.
“Oh, I have arranged everything. As you Americans say, the fix is in. The right people have been bribed—or, if unbribable, disposed of in ways none will suspect until too late. We should be able to go through the Gate today and then, with a little luck, cross the bridge.”
“That’s how you get to The Next Place?”
“Of course. How else?”
“Then what’s holding things up?”
“Politics,” said van Turendeldt. “And the ill will of certain persons who have entrenched themselves in high places and now to seek to keep everyone else out. Come. We must leave at once.”
“Have you thought of a way to persuade them?”
“Oh, it’s not quite as simple as that. They have the entrance to The Next Place well guarded. They are allowing none to pass through until they can show credentials satisfactory to the present regime. And since headquarters hasn’t decided on what those credentials are, none are allowed through.”
“It sounds hopeless.”
“It would be, except for a certain expedient I happened upon while coming here.”
“What sort of expedient?”
“This!” and von Turendeldt held up a small box that Sheckley had last seen around the neck of the Bleak Barbarian.
“The Orpheus box!” Sheckley cried.
“I call it the Valhalla Box,” said van Turendeldt. “Oh, it plays music, to be sure, but that is to disguise its true use. What you see here, my friend, is a propaganda machine of the rarest quality. With this in hand, anyone can be persuaded to do anything.”
“You mean the people guarding the gate will just let us through after hearing this?”
“Seems impossible. And yet, that’s exactly what the machine will do.”
“And the barbarian gave you this?”
“Let’s say I persuaded him.” He tapped the holster on his waist. Visible in it was a dark gray automatic pistol—a Luger, to judge by its ominous shape. “One in the knee cap ensures cooperation. Two more in the skull provide the convincer.”
Von Turendeldt led Sheckley to an elevator that took them to an empty basement. The large, gloomy, ill-lit area was plastered with signs reading “Authorized Personnel only! No one may enter without a Class AAA pass! Attack guards and sniper dogs present, armed, and ready to shoot on sight!” And other words of a similar intimidating nature.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Sheckley asked.
“Down is the way up,” von Turendeldt said in his whispery, frightening voice.
They came to a huge brass door. On it was a sign: “Eternal damnation beyond this point! You have been warned!”
“This doesn’t sound so good,” Sheckley said.
They opened the brass door and proceeded by staircases and then ladders through wide concrete spaces where flickering florescent lamps revealed parking spaces empty except for the occasional forlorn BMW sitting all alone by itself. The lighting became w
orse as they descended, the rooms shabbier and covered with mildew, verdigris, and other bad things. They heard occasional clangorous sounds from above, but Sheckley could not identify them. They passed through a region of prison cells, dank, noisome places empty except for the occasional skeleton, still in chains, grimacing skull pressed toward what little light came from flickering fluorescents in the ceiling. It was a region of lost hopes and broken promises.
“I believe they call this the Slough of Despond,” von Turendeldt said.
“I don’t think this is going to lead us to anywhere but further bad stuff,” Sheckley said.
“Have faith! Don’t let the window-dressing get you down.”
“What is all this?”
“What we have here is the anticipation of a doom quite irrespective of outcome,” von Turendeldt said.
“Is that a fact?” said Sheckley, with feeble but deeply felt sarcasm.
After a while they became aware that something heavy and deadly sounding was following them. Its footsteps became increasingly loud, and there was a scratching sound as of steel toenails digging into the concrete floor.
“Pay it no mind,” von Turendeldt said. “As I mentioned, anticipation of horror to come is worse, in its own right, then the thing itself, whatever it is.”
And then, suddenly, they turned a corner, and there was a creature standing in front of them. It was a gigantic reptile, standing upright on its sizable back legs. Its small front legs were raised in front of it. Its mouth gaped open in a hideous grin, in which large triangular teeth could be seen. Even the meanest intelligence could make out that this was a Tyrannosaurus, one of the most feared of the great dinosaurs, believed extinct until this moment.
“Sometimes,” the Tyrannosaurus said, “the actual event turns out to be worse than the anticipation of it. This is what we call the fact of the fiction. The fiction is the imagining of it, and the fact is the embodiment of that imagining. But there are things to be learned from all this.”
“What, for example?” von Turendeldt asked.
The Tyrannosaurus’ left forelimb flicked out and with his extended foretalon he disemboweled von Turendeldt. The brush-haired fellow barely had time for an expression of astonishment before his guts tumbled out and he collapsed into them. The Tyrannosaurus picked the Orpheus Machine out of the mess.
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