The Undesired Princess

by L. Sprague DeCamp

  Sham Khovind added in a guttural voice: “We can make it beeger than just the three keengdoms, Sham Shamzen; we can conquer the wild Theoiri—”

  “And,” Gordius broke in, “I’m sure the Psythoris will join us if invited—”

  “And eef they do not, we take them anyway—”

  “And we really should seize the golden city of Plakh; it controls the trade routes to Gan Zheng—”

  “And we need the Buryonoi Mountains, for a—how you say eet—strategic frontier—”

  Hobart heard in thin-lipped silence. When they reached the sham’s tent, he asked with quiet grimness: “While you men plan how I can conquer the whole planet, will you excuse me? I want to be alone for a while.”

  Of course, they clamored, he could be alone as long as he wished; he was King of Kings, and what he said went. Hobart retreated to one of the smaller compartments which he had used as sleeping quarters the night after the battle. He grasped the rodent skull and called for Kai.

  The yellow man popped into view, glancing about nervously at the sounds of celebration that filtered through the tent-walls. His bare hide bore a score of large red lumps.

  “Hornets get you?” asked Hobart sympathetically. “Too bad, old boy; can’t you cure ’em by magic?”

  Kai spread his hands helplessly. “I buy spell from magic peddler; does not work. Peddlers always cheats poor fish-eaters. Can you stop them, Sham Shamzen?”

  “Maybe. I see you’ve kept up with the news. Look, when you do that disappearing act, can you take somebody else with you?”

  “Sure; you take me by the hand, I pull you along, foosh-whush.”

  “Okay. Know where Nois hangs out?”

  “You mean Baaa, master of all?”

  “Nois or Zhav or Baaa, whichever you prefer.”

  “I know,” said Kai, apprehension growing on his dish-face.

  “Well, I want you to take me there. Now!”

  Kai was seized with violent trembling, and sank to his knees. “Oh, Sham Shamzen Shamzen! I am afraid! Baaa is lord of everything! Very powerful! Why you want to see him?” he wailed.

  “He’s been up to some more tricks, and I don’t like it. He and I are going to the mat. Come on, give me your hand!” As Kai continued to ululate his fears, Hobart snatched one dirty hand and shook the savage roughly. “Get going!” he roared.

  “Y-you take care of my poor people when I am gone?”

  “Yes! Damn it, get—” At this instant Kai dissolved into dusty opaqueness; Hobart felt a violent tug on the hand he held. He gripped it more tightly, and felt himself pulled along, though he knew not what. Everything was roaring confusion.

  “Here we are,” squeaked Kai. The surroundings crystallized into shape, and Hobart gasped.

  They were standing in a huge bowl of sleek black rock, miles across. There were no steps or other irregularities in the sides of the bowl. Hobart did not see how anyone, having once slid into the depression, could get out with neither wings nor magic.

  The floor of the bowl was circular and flat; they stood at its edge, where the obsidianlike rock began to curve up. In the center of the floor, which was perhaps half a mile across, rose a great white pyramid, unnaturally bright, since the rays of the evening sun slanted across the bowl above the pyramid’s apex.

  15

  “That is it,” said Kai, pointing superfluously. “I go now, quick. Will you give me the skull? Will not work for you anymore.”

  Hobart handed over the necklace. Kai said: “Goodbye, Sham Shamzen Shamzen Shamzen. You are great man; you do not need me anymore. But remember your promise to protect poor fish-eaters. If you want me, I shall be with my people at Lake Nithrid.” And the medicine-man was gone.

  Hobart turned toward the pyramid, wishing he had remembered to bring his musket. There was no substitute for the confidence conferred by possession of a loaded gun, even a muzzle-loading matchlock.

  The sun dipped below the edge of the bowl, and the skylight went out with a rush. Hobart was standing in star-spangled blackness, facing the pyramid, which sprang into vivid luminescence, glowing with a cold ghostly white light. He hesitated for a second, then walked firmly toward it.

  It grew larger and larger until it towered over him. He stopped and shouted: “Hey!” After a pause he added: “Does Nois live here?”

  An entrance appeared silently in the white surface, in which stood a tall majestic old man who intoned: “What dost thou seek, Rollin Hobart?”

  “I’m looking for the big boss, if you don’t mind. You him?”

  “Nay, I am but a servitor of our lord, Psylleus by name. Dost know what that which thou askest implieth?”

  “No, but I want to see Nois anyway. They told me anybody could.”

  “Very well, if thou hast duly considered—”

  “Skip it,” snapped Hobart irritably. “This thing has gone far enough, and it’s cold out here. Does this Nois of yours really exist?”

  Psylleus’ brows went up. “Of course! The most perfect being necessarily exists. Nois is the most perfect being; therefore Nois exists. Q.E.D.”

  Hobart waved a weary hand. “Lead on, Aristotle.”

  The priest bowed and motioned Hobart in. It was hard to make out the features of the interior because of the ubiquitous dead-white glow. There seemed to be passages—Hobart almost ran into a wall at a turn—and then they were out in a lofty chamber. As Hobart’s eyes accustomed themselves to his surroundings, he made out another, smaller pyramid—of the step kind—in the middle of the chamber. Instead of a sharp apex it was crowned by a glowing white chair of stiff straight lines. In the chair sat a dimly seen white-robed figure.

  “He has come,” boomed Psylleus.

  “Ah,” replied a voice from the top of the pyramid. It was a strong voice, but very old and a bit creaky. “Stand forth, Rollin Hobart. Why dost thou seek me?”

  Hobart said boldly: “I’ve been told that you had a hand in some of the things that have happened to me during the past couple of weeks.”

  “Ah. That may be. But first the questions, then the audience.”

  “What questions?”

  “Didst not know? All who seek me must answer three questions, or failing, render up their souls that their Nois may continue.”

  “Hey, I thought anybody could see you—”

  “So they may, but nothing is said about leaving my presence afterward, ha-ha.”

  “What happens to ’em if they don’t answereth?”

  “They are placed below the throne on which I sit.”

  “You mean inside that pyramid?”

  “Exactly, Rollin Hobart.”

  “What then?”

  “Then? Why they cease to exist as separate entities.”

  This was all sufficiently ominous, if vague, to make Hobart sweat. He continued impatiently: “Now look here, Mr. Nois—”

  “Ah, Rollin Hobart, the questions! Nay, think not of escape, nor wish for thy musket; both thoughts are futile, and thou wilt need thy brain for more constructive enterprise. Art ready?”

  “Art,” snapped Hobart. Just let them try to stick him into the electric oven or whatever was under the throne of Nois!

  “Question the first: if everything is in space, as is generally believed, then space itself must be in space; and the space wherein the space is must also be in space, and so on to infinity. But this is absurd, for there is but one space by definition. How explainest thou this paradox?”

  Hobart knitted his brows, then grinned in the ghastly light. “Simple, Your Highness or whatever you like to be called. There’s no paradox; only a confusion between two meanings of the little word ‘in.’ Things are in space in the sense of ‘are surrounded by,’ but space is in space in the sense of ‘is congruent or identical with’. Get it?”

  There was a moment of silence from the step-pyramid, then came the voice, lower: “O Rollin, thou hast solved the problem of space, which for centuries hath baffled the wise wits of the world. But the problem of time thou shal
t not perchance find so easy.

  “Question the second: before a body in motion can reach a given point, it must needs first traverse half the distance; before it can traverse the half it must first traverse the quarter, and so on to infinity. Hence before it can pass from one point to another, it must needs traverse an infinite number of divisions. But an infinite number of distances cannot be traversed in a finite time. Hence motion is impossible; yet it taketh place every day. How explainest thou this paradox?”

  Hobart squared his shoulders. “Say, who sold you that as a hard problem? Who said a distance with an infinite number of divisions is the same as an infinite distance? If you take a finite distance, which is what I suppose you started out with, and divide it into an infinite number of parts, the parts will be infinitely small, so it’ll take an infinitely short time to pass any one of ’em, so your infinities cancel out.”

  “I do not quite see, Rollin Hobart—”

  “That’s because you never took calculus at M.I.T. Anyway infinities are just mathematical concepts, because nobody ever walked an infinite distance or divided an inch into an infinite number of parts. By the way, these problems sound vaguely familiar. Didn’t a Greek philosopher named Zeno think them up?”

  There was a stir of the dim white robes. “It is not strange that I should know thy name, Rollin Hobart, but how dost thou know mine?”

  “You mean to tell me you’re Zeno of Elea?”

  “I was, before I became Nois. I even visited thy world, the three-value world, in an attempt to find the answers to these questions. I failed then, but I see that thy world progresseth.”

  “What do you mean, three-value world?”

  “Why, there do be an infinite number of worlds, according to the logic whereon they are built. Know that this is the world of two-value logic—everything either is or is not something—whereas thy world is the world of three-valued logic—everything is something, or is not something, or is partly something.”

  “Sounds as if this world were the world of Aristotelian logic,” said Hobart.

  “Ha-ha, thou wilt be the death of me, Rollin Hobart! Know that shortly after I returned hither and became Nois, we had a learned doctor, one Aristoteles by name, who swore to go to your world and teach the inhabitants thereof the true logic, by which he meant that of this world. I never heard what became of him, but it appeareth that he made his mark.”

  Hobart asked: “What would a world of one-valued logic be like?”

  “Monotonous; verily I do not recommend it unto thee. But come; thou hast solved the problem of time. Perchance thou mayst not find the problem of motion so easily disposed of, for a truly knotty problem it is. Question the third: two bodies moving with equal speed traverse equal spaces in the same time. But when two bodies move with equal speed in opposite directions the one passeth the other in half the time in which it passeth it when at rest. How solvest thou this paradox, Rollin Hobart?”

  Hobart laughed aloud. “Didn’t you ever hear of the relativity of motion? Look, the term ‘motion’ doesn’t mean a thing except with respect to something else, which we call the frame of reference . . .” And Hobart launched into an impassioned ten-minute lecture.

  When he ended, the figure replied slowly: “Thou hast solved the problems, Rollin Hobart, as I was sure thou wouldst. My term is passed.” And the figure heaved itself out of its throne and tottered down the steps of the pyramid. As it approached Hobart saw that it was merely an old, old man with a scanty wreath of white chin-whiskers.

  “Hey,” he said, “what are you going to do?”

  “Do?” quavered the ancient. “Why, die, of course, and verily it is about time. There is no more need for me, since thou art the new Nois.”

  “What?”

  “Certainly, Rollin Hobart; thou hast answered the questions. Is it not simple? Long have I sought thee, for I am utterly weary of my exalted state. When my dust hath been removed, take thou my robe and ascend unto my place. Food thou wilt not need; the soul stuff of visitors who are unable to answer thy questions will suffice thee. The priests will explain thy powers and duties unto thee. And now farewell. Oh, Psylleus, come hither!”

  Hobart exploded: “By God, I won’t do it! I don’t want to be a prince or king or emperor, or a god either! I’ll see you all in Hell first—”

  “Yes, master?” said the priest from the entrance, ignoring Hobart’s fist-waving dance of fury.

  “I die, good Psylleus,” said Nois. “Rollin Hobart hath been the death of me, as I said he would. Take thou good care of him. Farewell!” With which the little wizened figure sagged and collapsed to the glowing floor. The white robe settled down over it, lower, lower, until there was no visible space between it and the floor.

  Psylleus picked up the robe and shook out a little silvery dust. He held it up for Hobart to don. “Thy robe, Nois,” he intoned when Hobart seemed disinclined to slip into it.

  “To hell with it,” shrieked Hobart. “I’m not your Nois! Get me out of here; get that guy Hoimon!”

  “Thou art the next Nois, lord of all,” persisted Psylleus. “Wilt thou not take thy robe and thy throne, that thy servant may prostrate himself in adoration?”

  “NO! If you prostrate yourself I’ll give you a boot in the rump! Where’s that damned entrance—ah, here! So long, Whiskers, I’m going!”

  “Oh, but my lord!” cried the priest. “Thou canst not leave the pyramid!”

  “Why not?”

  “Without a Nois, actual or inchoate, verily our world would crumble!”

  “Let it.” Hobart started for the door again, when Psylleus gave such a pitiful shriek of terror that he stopped. “Well, if you don’t want me to go, you get Hoimon! If you’re such a hot high priest, you ought to be able to locate one skinny ascetic!”

  “Very well,” babbled the priest. “It shall be as my lord wisheth. Oh, Chidelas!”

  “Coming,” rumbled a sleepy voice. Presently a short fat priest, younger than the other, appeared. “I was just getting to sleep—goodness gracious, is this now our Nois-elect?”

  “It is.”

  “Why doth he not ascend his throne?”

  “I know not,” muttered Psylleus. “It is against all precedent. Go thou, Chidelas, and seek Hoimon the Ascetic, for our Lord desireth his presence forthwith.”

  “Yeah, and I mean damn quick,” snarled Hobart.

  Chidelas protested: “If my lord will take his high seat, he can summon Hoimon himself!”

  “Yeah? Could I leave the throne once I’d sat in it?”

  “Well—uh—” hesitated Psylleus, “thou wouldst not wish to leave, verily—”

  “Ha! Thought there was a catch! We’ll do it the hard way: one of you will go fetch Hoimon right now!”

  The fat priest went out, shaking his head. Hobart sat down on the floor wearily, and said: “You might get me some grub, Psylleus.”

  “Dost thou mean the larva of an insect?”

  “No, I mean food!”

  “If my lord will but ascend—”

  “YEEOW! I won’t ascend your damned throne, and that’s that! I’d rather sit in an electric chair with a lunatic fooling around the switch! And when I say food I mean food! Plain ordinary human fodder!”

  Psylleus scuttled out, and returned in a little while with a loaf of bread, a lump of cheese, a pot of jam, and a bottle of wine. Hobart relaxed a little. “Nothing funny about this food, is there? I’d put an awful curse on you if there were. Here, sit down; make yourself comfortable.”

  “But—my lord—it is against all precedent—”

  “To hell with your precedent! Sit down and help me consume this stuff. Mmmm, not bad. Guess you priests do pretty well by yourselves, huh?”

  Psylleus ate sparingly, with the expression of one who wonders whether he or his companion is crazy.

  After the meal, Hobart had nothing to do but wait.

  It would be easier if he could just sit on the lowest step of the throne-pyramid—but, no, he was as near the
infernal thing now as he wanted to be. After a while he got sleepy. Despite the omnipresent light he stretched out on the floor and dropped off.

  When he awakened, undivinely stiff and sore, he was relieved to find that the devout Psylleus had not carried him up the step-pyramid while he was asleep. Day was breaking—or exploding, which would better describe its action in the two-value world. The big pyramid was translucent. Despite the glow of the white material Hobart could follow the motion of the sun through the walls. Was it an optical illusion, or was the sun rising at an abnormal rate?

  Psylleus appeared with breakfast, at which the sun immediately halted its swoop zenithward. Hobart ate, and when he relaxed afterward the sun started its dizzy soar again.

  “Psylleus!” he called. The sun stopped.

  “Yea, lord?” the priest stuck his head out of the entrance, plate and dishrag in hand.

  “Am I seeing things, or can I stop the sun by speaking, the way that fellow Joshua did?”

  “The sun hath pursued its wonted course, Lord.”

  Hobart scratched his head, and explained the phenomenon in more detail.

  “Oh,” said Psylleus. “My lord forgetteth that when he but thinketh his own vast thoughts, time passeth for him at a far greater rate than for us humble mortals, so that a thousand days are to him as one.”

  That explained how Zeno, the former Nois, had lasted so well since the Fifth Century B.C. It also suggested that there would be no particular advantage to such an existence, even from the point of view of longevity, since the Nois would not have the consciousness of any more elapsed time of life than an ordinary person. On the other hand it was an excellent preventive of boredom, for the day whizzed past before Hobart had a chance to fidget—much. He was still worried; this time-phenomenon made things look as though he had already acquired some godlike powers, which of all things he wished to eschew.

  The day raced past; so did the next, during which Hobart did not budge from his place on the floor of the temple. The merest suggestion from Psylleus that his lord might find it more comfortable . . . brought an explosion of temper from Hobart, who instantly suspected sinister motives.