Notions: Unlimited

by Robert Sheckley

  “Well, friend,” Billie Benz had said, “come along and let me tell you. Better still, let me show you.”

  They walked east on 62nd Street, while the deep blue twilight darkened into night. Manhattan’s lights came on, stars appeared on the horizon, and a crescent moon glowed through thin haze.

  “Where are we going?” Piersen asked.

  “Right hyar, podner,” Benz said.

  They were in front of a small brownstone building. A discreet brass sign on the door read NARCOLICS.

  “New free drug parlor,” said Benz. “It was opened just this evening by Thomas Moriarty, the Reform Candidate for Mayor. No one’s heard about it yet.”

  “Fine!” Piersen said.

  There were plenty of free activities in the city. The only problem was getting to them before the crowds collected, because almost everyone was in search of pleasure and change.

  Many years back, the Central Eugenics Committee of the United World Government had stabilized the world population at a sensible figure. Not in a thousand years had there been so few people on Earth and never had they been so well cared for. Undersea ecology, hydroponics, and full utilization of the surface lands made food and clothing abundantly available—over available, in fact. Lodgings for a small, stable population was no problem, with automatic building methods and a surplus of materials. Even luxury goods were no luxury.

  It was a safe, stable, static culture. Those few who researched, produced and kept the machines running received generous compensation. But most people just didn’t bother working. There was no need and no incentive.

  There were some ambitious men, of course, driven to acquire wealth, position, power. They went into politics. They solicited votes by feeding, clothing, and entertaining the populace of their districts, out of abundant public funds. And they cursed the fickle voters for switching to more impressive promise-makers.

  It was a utopia of sorts. Poverty was forgotten, wars were long gone, and everyone had the guarantee of a long, easy life.

  It must have been sheer human ingratitude that made the suicide rate so shockingly high.

  Benz showed his passes to the door, which opened at once. They walked down a corridor to a large, comfortably furnished living room. Three men and one woman, early birds who had heard of the new opening, were slumped comfortably on couches, smoking pale green cigarettes. There was a pleasantly unpleasant pungent odor in the air.

  An attendant came forward and led them to a vacant divan. “Make yourselves right at home, gentlemen,” he said. “Light up a narcolic and let your troubles drift away.”

  He handed them each a pack of pale green cigarettes.

  “What’s in this stuff?” Piersen asked.

  “Narcolic cigarettes,” the attendant told them, “are a choice mixture of Turkish and Virginian tobaccos, with a carefully measured amount of narcola, an intoxicant plant which grows in Venus’ equatorial belt.”

  “Venus?” Benz asked. “I didn’t know we’d reached Venus.”

  “Four years ago, sir,” the attendant said. “The Yale Expedition made the first landing and set up a base.”

  “I think I read something about that,” said Piersen. “Or saw it in a newsreel. Venus. Crude, jungly sort of place, isn’t it?”

  “Quite crude,” the attendant said.

  “I thought so,” said Piersen. “Hard to keep up with everything Is this narcola habit-forming?”

  “Not at all, sir,” the attendant reassured him. “Narcola has the effect alcohol should have, but rarely does—great lift, sensations of well-being, slow taper, no hangover. It comes to you courtesy of Thomas Moriarty, the Reform Candidate for Mayor. Row A-2 in your voting booths, gentlemen. We humbly solicit your votes.”

  Both men nodded and lighted up.

  Piersen began to feel the effects almost at once. His first cigarette left him relaxed, disembodied, with a strong premonition of pleasure to come. His second enhanced these effects and produced others. His senses were marvelously sharpened. The world seemed a delightful place, a place of hope and wonder. And he himself became a vital and necessary part of it.

  Benz nudged him in the ribs. “Pretty good, huh?”

  “Damned fine,” said Piersen. “This Moriarty must be a good man. World needs good men.”

  “Right,” agreed Benz. “Needs smart men.”

  “Courageous, bold, farsighted men,” Piersen went on emphatically. “Men like us, buddy, to mold the future and—” He stopped abruptly.

  “Whatsa matter?” Benz asked.

  Piersen didn’t answer. By a fluke known to all drunkards, the narcotic had suddenly reversed its effect. He had been feeling godlike. Now, with an inebriate’s clarity, he saw himself as he was.

  He was Walter Hill Piersen, 32, unmarried, unemployed, unwanted. He had taken a job when he was eighteen, to please his parents. But he had given it up after a week, because it bored him and interfered with his sleep. He had considered marriage once, but the responsibilities of a wife and family appalled him. He was almost thirty-three, thin, flabby-muscled, and pallid. He had never done anything of the slightest importance to himself or to anyone else, and he never would.

  “Tell your buddy all about it, buddy,” Benz said.

  “Wanna do great things,” Piersen mumbled, dragging on the cigarette.

  “You do, pal?”

  “Damn right! Wanna be adventurer!”

  “Why didn’t you say so? I’ll fix it up for you!” Benz jumped up and tugged at Piersen’s arm. “Come on!”

  “You’ll what?” Piersen tried to push Benz away. He just wanted to sit and feel terrible. But Benz yanked him to his feet.

  “I know what you need, pal,” Benz said. “Adventure, excitement! Well, I know the place for it!”

  Piersen frowned thoughtfully, swaying on his feet. “Lean close,” he said to Benz. “Gotta whisper.”

  Benz leaned over. Piersen whispered, “Want adventure—but don’t wanna get hurt. Get it?”

  “Got it,” Benz assured him. “Know just what you want. Let’s go! Adventure lies ahead! Safe adventure!”

  Arm in arm, clutching their packs of narcolics, they staggered out of the Reform Candidate’s drug parlor.

  A breeze had come up, swaying the tree in which Piersen clung. It blew across his hot, damp body, suddenly chilling him. His teeth began to chatter and his arms ached from gripping the smooth branch. His parched throat felt as though it were clogged with fine, hot sand.

  The thirst was more than he could stand. If necessary, he’d face a dozen blue-black creatures now for a drink of water.

  Slowly he started down the tree, shelving his dim memories of last night. He had to know what happened, but first he needed water.

  At the base of the tree, he saw the blue-black creature, its back broken, sprawled motionless upon the ground. He passed it and pushed into the jungle.

  He trudged forward, for hours or days, losing all track of time under the glaring, unchanging white sky. The brush tore at his clothing and birds screamed warning signals as he plunged on. He ignored everything, glassy-eyed and rubber-legged. He fell, picked himself up and went on, fell again, and again. Like a robot, he continued until he stumbled upon a thin, muddy brown stream.

  With no thought to the dangerous bacteria it might contain, Piersen sprawled on his face and drank.

  After a while, he rested and surveyed his surroundings. Close around him were the walls of the jungle—bright, dense, alien. The sky above was glaring white, no lighter or darker than before. And small, unseen life chirped and squeaked in the underbrush.

  This was a very lonely place, Piersen decided, and a very dangerous one. He wanted out.

  But which way was out? Were there any cities here, any people? And if so, how would he ever find them in this directionless wasteland?

  And what was he doing here?

  He rubbed his unshaven jaw and tried to remember. Last night seemed a million years ago and a totally different life. New York was like a ci
ty in a dream. For him, the only truth was this jungle, and the hunger gnawing at his belly, and the strange humming that had just begun.

  He looked around, trying to locate the source of the sound. It seemed to come from all sides, from nowhere and everywhere. Piersen doubled his fists and stared until his eyes hurt, trying to catch sight of the new menace.

  Then, close to him, a brilliant green shrub moved. Piersen leaped away from it, trembling violently. The shrub shook all over and its thin hooked leaves produced a humming sound.

  Then—

  The shrub looked at him.

  It had no eyes. But Piersen could feel the shrub become aware of him, focus on him, come to a decision about him. The shrub hummed louder. Its branches stretched toward him, touched the ground, rooted, sent out searching tendrils which grew, rooted, and sent out new tendrils.

  The plant was growing toward him, moving at the speed of a man walking slowly.

  Piersen stared at the sharp, glittering hooked leaves reaching toward him. He couldn’t believe it, yet he had to believe it.

  And then he remembered the rest of what had happened last night.

  “Hyar we be, podner,” Benz said, turning into a brightly lighted building on Madison Avenue. He ushered Piersen into the elevator. They rode to the twenty-third floor and stepped into a large, bright reception room.

  A discreet sign on one wall read ADVENTURES UNLIMITED.

  “I’ve heard about this place,” Piersen said, dragging deeply on a narcolic cigarette. “It’s supposed to be expensive.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Benz told him.

  A blonde receptionist took their names and led them to the private office of Dr. Srinagar Jones, Action Consultant.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” said Jones.

  He was slight, thin and wore heavy glasses. Piersen found it hard to restrain a giggle. This was an Action Consultant?

  “So you gentlemen desire adventure?” Jones inquired pleasantly.

  “He wants adventure,” said Benz. “I’m just a friend of his.”

  “Of course. Now, then, sir,” Jones said, turning to Piersen, “what kind of adventure did you have in mind?”

  “Outdoor adventure,” Piersen replied, a trifle thickly, but with absolute confidence.

  “We have just the thing,” Jones said. “Usually there is a fee. But tonight all adventures are free, courtesy of President Main. Row C-1 in your voting booth. Come this way, sir.”

  “Hold on. I don’t want to get killed, you know. Is this adventure safe?”

  “Perfectly safe. No other kind of adventure would be tolerated in this day and age. Here’s how it works. You relax comfortably on a bed in our Explorer’s Room and receive a painless injection. This causes immediate loss of consciousness. Then, through a judicious application of auditory, tactile, and other stimuli, we produce an adventure in your mind.”

  “Like a dream?” Piersen asked.

  “That would be the best analogy. This dream adventure is absolutely realistic in content. You experience actual pain, actual emotions. There’s no way you can tell it from the real thing. Except, of course, that it is a dream and therefore perfectly safe.”

  “What happens if I’m killed in the adventure?”

  “It’s the same as dreaming that you’re killed. You wake up, that’s all. But while you’re in this ultra-realistic, vividly colored dream, you have free will and conscious power over your dream movements.”

  “Do I know all this while I’m having the adventure?”

  “Absolutely. While in the dream, you have full knowledge of its dream status.”

  “Then lead on!” Piersen shouted. “On with the dream!”

  The bright green shrub grew slowly toward him. Piersen burst into laughter. A dream! Of course, it was all a dream! Nothing could harm him. The menacing shrub was a figment of his imagination, like the blue-black animal. Even if the beast’s jaws had closed on his throat, he would not have been killed.

  He would simply have awakened in the Explorer’s Room of Adventures Unlimited.

  It all seemed ridiculous now. Why hadn’t he realized all this earlier? That blue-black thing was obviously a dream creation. And the bright green shrub was preposterous. It was all rather silly and unbelievable, once you really thought about it.

  In a loud voice, Piersen said, “All right. You can wake me up now.”

  Nothing happened. Then he remembered that you couldn’t awaken simply by requesting it. That would invalidate the sense of adventure and destroy the therapeutic effects of excitement and fear upon a jaded nervous system.

  He remembered now. The only way you could leave an adventure was by winning through all obstacles. Or by being killed.

  The shrub had almost reached his feet. Piersen watched it, marveling at its realistic appearance.

  It fastened one of its hooked leaves into the leather of his shoe. Piersen grinned, proud of the way he was mastering his fear and revulsion. He merely had to remember that the thing couldn’t hurt him.

  But how, he asked himself, could a person have a realistic adventure if he knew all the time that it wasn’t real? Surely Adventures Unlimited must have considered that.

  Then he remembered the last thing Jones told him.

  He had been lying on the white cot and Jones was bending over him, hypodermic needle ready. Piersen had asked, “Look, pal, how can I have an adventure if I know it’s not real?”

  “That has been taken care of,” Jones had said. “You see, sir, some of our clients undergo real adventures.”

  “Huh?”

  “Real, actual, physical adventures. One client out of many receives the knockout injection, but no further stimulus. He is placed aboard a spaceship and taken to Venus. There he revives and experiences in fact what the others undergo in fantasy. If he wins through, he lives.”

  “And if not?”

  Jones had shrugged his shoulders, waiting patiently, the hypodermic poised.

  “That’s inhuman!” Piersen had cried.

  “We disagree. Consider, Mr. Piersen, the need for adventure in the world today. Danger is necessary, to offset a certain weakening of human fiber which easy times has brought to the race. These fantasy adventures present danger in its safest and most palatable form. But they would lose all value if the person undergoing them did not take them seriously. The adventurer must have the possibility, no matter how remote, that he is truly engaging in a life and death struggle.”

  “But the ones who really go to Venus—”

  “An insignificant percentage,” Jones assured him. “Less than one in ten thousand. Simply to enhance the possibility of danger for the others.”

  “But is it legal?” Piersen had insisted.

  “Quite legal. On a total percentage basis, you run a greater risk drinking miniscarette or smoking narcotics.”

  “Well,” said Piersen, “I’m not sure I want—”

  The hypodermic bit suddenly into his arm.

  “Everything will be all right,” Jones said soothingly. “Just relax, Mr. Piersen...”

  That was his last memory before awakening in the jungle.

  By now, the green shrub had reached Piersen’s ankle. A slender hooked leaf slid, very slowly, very gently, into his flesh. All he felt was the faintest tickling sensation. After a moment, the leaf turned a dull red.

  A blood-sucking plant, Piersen thought with some amusement

  The whole adventure suddenly palled on him. It had been a silly drunken idea in the first place. Enough was enough. He wanted out of this, and immediately.

  The shrub edged closer and slid two more hooked leaves into Piersen’s leg. The entire plant was beginning to turn a muddy red-brown.

  Piersen wanted to go back to New York, to parties, free food, free entertainment, and a lot of sleep. If he destroyed this menace, another would spring up. This might go on for days or weeks.

  The quickest way home was to let the shrub kill him. Then he could simply wake up.

  H
is strength was beginning to ebb. He sat down, noticing that several more shrubs were growing toward him, attracted by the scent of blood.

  “It can’t be real,” he said out loud. “Who ever heard of a bloodsucking plant, even on Venus?”

  High above him were great, black-winged birds, soaring patiently, waiting for their chance at the corpse.

  Could this be real?

  The odds, he reminded himself, were ten thousand to one that it was a dream. Only a dream. A vivid, realistic dream. But a dream, nevertheless.

  Still, suppose it was real?

  He was growing dizzy and weak from loss of blood. He thought, I want to go home. The way home is to die. The chance of actual death is so small, so infinitesimal....

  The truth burst upon him. In this age, no one would dare risk the life of a voter. Adventures Unlimited couldn’t really put a man in jeopardy!

  Jones had told him about that one in ten thousand merely to add a sense of reality to the fantasy adventure!

  That had to be the truth. He lay back, closed his eyes and prepared to die.

  While he was dying, thoughts stirred in his mind, old dreams and fears and hopes. He remembered the one job he had held and his mingled pleasure and regret at leaving it. He thought of his obtuse, hard-working parents, unwilling to accept the rewards of civilization without, as they put it, earning them. He thought, harder than ever before in his life, and he came into contact with a Piersen whose existence he had never suspected.

  The other Piersen was a very uncomplicated creature. He simply wanted to live. He was determined to live. This Piersen refused to die under any circumstances—even imaginary.

  The two Piersens, one motivated by pride, the other by desire for survival, struggled briefly, while strength ebbed out of their body. Then they resolved the conflict upon mutually satisfactory terms.

  “That damned Jones thinks I’ll die,” Piersen said. “Die in order to wake up. Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll give him the satisfaction!”

  It was the only way he could accept his own desire to live.

  Frighteningly weak, he struggled to his feet and tried to pull the blood-sucking plant loose. It wouldn’t release its grip. With a shout of rage, Piersen reached down and wrenched with all his strength. The hooks slashed his legs as they pulled free, and other hooks slid into his right arm.