Dimension of Miracles

by Robert Sheckley

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Maudsley processed him into one of his projects. Quite without malice, of course. Still, poor Dewer is now three pistons and a camshaft in a reciprocating engine, and can be seen weekdays in Maudsley’s Museum of Historical Power Applications.’

  ‘That’s really quite shocking,’ Carmody said. ‘Can’t anyone do anything about it?’

  ‘No one wants to bring it to Maudsley’s attention,’ the Prize said. ‘Maudsley hates to admit an error and can be quite unpleasant if he feels he’s being chivvied.’

  The Prize must have perceived the look on Carmody’s face, for he quickly added, ‘But you mustn’t let that alarm you! Maudsley is never vicious, and is in fact quite a good-hearted fellow. He likes praise, as do all of us; but he detests flattery. Just speak up and make yourself known, be admiring but avoid the fulsome, take exception to what you don’t like, but don’t be stubbornly critical; in short, exercise moderation except where a more extreme attitude is clearly called for.’

  Carmody wanted to say that this advice was as good as no advice at all; worse, in fact, since it merely served to make him nervous. But now there was no time. Maudsley was here, tall and white-haired, in chinos and a leather jacket, flanked by two men in business suits with whom he was talking vehemently.

  ‘Good day, sir,’ Carmody said firmly. He stepped forward, then scuttled out of the way before the oblivious trio ran into him.

  ‘A bad beginning,’ the Prize whispered.

  ‘Shut up,’ Carmody whispered back. With a certain grimness, he hurred after the group.

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘So this is it, eh, Orin?’ Maudsley said.

  ‘Yes sir, this is it,’ Orin, the man on his left said, smiling proudly. ‘What do you think of it, sir?’

  Maudsley turned around slowly and surveyed the meadow, the mountains, the sun, the river, the forest. His face betrayed no expression. He said, ‘What do you think of it, Brookside?’

  Brookside said, in a tremulous voice, ‘Well sir, I think that Orin and I did a nice job. A really nice job, if you take into account that it was our first independent project.’

  ‘And do you concur in that judgement, Orin?’ Maudsley asked.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ Orin said.

  Maudsley bent down and plucked a blade of grass. He sniffed it and threw it away. He scuffed the dirt beneath his feet, then stared for several moments full into the blazing sun. In a measured voice, he said, ‘I am amazed, truly amazed. But in a most unpleasant way. I ask you two to build a world for one of my customers and you come up with this! Do you really consider yourselves engineers?’

  The two aides did not reply. They had stiffened, like boys awaiting the birch rod.

  ‘Engineers!’ Maudsley said, getting almost fifty foot-pounds of contempt into the word. ‘“Creative but practical scientists who can build the planet where and when you want it.” Do either of you recognize those words?’

  ‘They’re from the standard brochure,’ Orin said.

  ‘That is correct,’ Maudsley said. ‘Now, do you consider this a good example of “creative, practical engineering”?’

  Both men were silent. Then Brookside blurted out, ‘Well sir, yes sir, I do!

  ‘We examined the job specs very carefully. The request was for a Type 34Bc4 planet with certain variations. And that’s exactly what we built. This is only a corner of it, of course. But still –’

  ‘But still, I can see what you did and judge accordingly,’ Maudsley said. ‘Orin! What kind of a heating unit did you use?’

  ‘A type O5 sun, sir,’ Orin replied. ‘It fitted the thermal requirements nicely.’

  ‘I daresay it did. But this was a budget world, you will remember. If we don’t keep the costs down, we don’t make a profit. And the biggest single cost item is the heating unit.’

  ‘We are aware of that, sir,’ Brookside said. ‘We didn’t at all like to use an O5-type sun for a single-planet system. But the heat and radiation requirements –’

  ‘Haven’t you learned anything from me?’ Maudsley cried. ‘This type of star is entirely superfluous. You there – ’ He beckoned to the workmen. ‘Take it down.’

  The workmen hurried forward with a folding ladder. One man braced it and another man unfolded it, ten times, a hundred times, a million times. Two other workmen raced up the ladder as fast as it went up.

  ‘Handle it carefully!’ Maudsley called up to them. ‘And be sure you’re wearing gloves! That thing’s hot!’

  The workmen at the very top of the ladder unhooked the star, folded it into itself and put it into a padded box marked ‘star: handle with care.’

  When the lid fell, everything went black.

  ‘Hasn’t anyone any sense around here?’ Maudsley asked. ‘Damn it all, let there be light.’

  And just like that, there was light.

  ‘OK,’ Maudsley said. ‘That O5-type sun goes back into storage. On a job like this we can use a G13-type star.’

  ‘But sir,’ Orin said nervously, ‘it isn’t hot enough.’

  ‘I know that,’ Maudsley said. ‘That’s where you have to use your creativity. If you move the star closer in, it’ll be hot enough.’

  ‘Yes sir, it will,’ Brookside said. ‘But it’ll be emitting PR rays without enough space to allow them to dissipate harmlessly. And that might kill off the entire race that’s going to occupy this planet.’

  Maudsley said, very slowly and distinctly, ‘Are you trying to tell me that G13-type stars are dangerous?’

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t mean it exactly that way,’ Orin said. ‘I meant to say, they can be dangerous, just like anything else in the universe, if proper precautions are not taken.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Maudsley said.

  ‘The proper precautions,’ Brookside said, ‘involve, in this case, the wearing of protective lead suits weighing some fifty pounds each. But this is impractical, since the average member of this race only weighs eight pounds.’

  ‘That’s their lookout,’ Maudsley said. ‘It’s not our business to tell them how to live their lives. Am I supposed to be responsible whenever they stub their toe on a rock I put on their planet? Besides, they don’t have to wear lead suits. They can buy one of my optional extras, a solar screen that’ll block out the PR rays.’

  Both men smiled nervously. But Orin said timidly, ‘I believe this is a somewhat underprivileged species, sir. I think perhaps they can’t afford the solar screen.’

  ‘Well, if not right now, maybe later,’ Maudsley said. ‘And anyhow, the PR radiations aren’t instantly fatal. Even with it, they’ll have an average lifespan of 9·3 years, which ought to be enough for anyone.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ the two assistant engineers said, not happily.

  ‘Next,’ Maudsley said, ‘what’s the height of those mountains?’

  ‘They average six thousand feet above sea level,’ Brookside said.

  ‘At least three thousand feet too high,’ Maudsley said. ‘Do you think mountains grow on trees? Pare them down and put what you have left over into the warehouse.’

  Brookside took out a notebook and jotted down the change. Maudsley continued to pace around, looking and frowning.

  ‘How long are those trees supposed to last?’

  ‘Eight hundred, years, sir. They’re the new improved model Appleoak. They give fruit, shade, nuts, refreshing beverages, three useful fabrics, they make excellent building material, hold the soil in place, and –’

  ‘Are you trying to bankrupt me?’ Maudsley roared. ‘Two hundred years is entirely long enough for a tree! Drain off most of their élan vital and store it in the life-force accumulator!’

  ‘They won’t be able to perform all of their designed functions, then,’ Orin said.

  ‘Then cut down on their functions! Shade and nuts is plenty, we don’t have to make a damned treasure chest out of those trees! Now then, who put those cows out there?’

  ‘I did, sir,’ Brookside said. ‘
I thought it would make the place look – well, sort of inviting, sir.’

  ‘You oaf,’ Maudsley said. ‘The time to make a place look inviting is before the sale, not after! This place was sold unfurnished. Put those cows into the protoplasm vat.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Orin said. ‘Terribly sorry, sir. Is there anything else?’

  ‘There’s about ten thousand other things wrong,’ Maudsley said. ‘But you can figure out those for yourselves, I hope. What, for example, is this?’ He pointed at Carmody. ‘A statue or something? Is he supposed to sing a song or recite a poem when the new race arrives?’

  Carmody said, ‘Sir, I am not part of this. A friend of yours named Melichrone sent me, and I’m trying to get home to my own planet –’

  Maudsley clearly did not hear what Carmody was saying. For, while Carmody was trying to speak, Maudsley was saying, ‘Whatever he is, the job specs don’t call for him. So stick him back in the protoplasm vat with the cows.’

  ‘Hey!’ Carmody shouted as workmen lifted him up by his arms. ‘Hey, wait a minute!’ he screamed. ‘I’m not a part of this planet! Melichrone sent me! Wait, hold on, listen to me!’

  ‘You really ought to be ashamed of yourselves,’ Maudsley went on, oblivious to Carmody’s shrieks. ‘What was that supposed to be? One of your interior decorating touches, Orin?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Orin said. ‘I didn’t put him there.’

  ‘Then it was you, Brookside.’

  ‘I never saw him before in my life, chief.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Maudsley said. ‘You’re both fools, but you’ve never been liars. Hey!’ he shouted to the workmen. ‘Bring him back here!’

  ‘All right, pull yourself together,’ Maudsley said to Carmody, who was shaking uncontrollably. ‘Get a grip on yourself, I can’t wait around here while you have a fit of hysterics! Better now? All right, would you mind explaining just what you’re doing trespassing on my property and why I shouldn’t have you converted into protoplasm?’

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘I see,’ Maudsley said, after Carmody had finished explaining. ‘It’s an interesting story, though I’m sure you’ve overdramatized it. Still, here you are, and you’re looking for a planet called – Earth?’

  ‘That is correct, sir,’ Carmody said.

  ‘Earth,’ Maudsley mused, scratching his head. ‘This is most fortunate for you; I seem to remember the place.’

  ‘Do you really, Mr Maudsley?’

  ‘Yes, I’m quite sure of it,’ Maudsley said. ‘It’s a small green planet, and it supports a monomorphic humanoid race like yourself. Am I right?’

  ‘Completely right!’ Carmody said.

  ‘I have rather a memory for these things,’ Maudsley said. ‘And in this particular case, as it happens, I built Earth.’

  ‘Did you really, sir?’ Carmody asked.

  ‘Yep. I remember distinctly, because in the course of building it, I also invented science. Perhaps you will find the story amusing.’ He turned to his aides. ‘And you might find the tale instructive.’

  No one was going to deny Maudsley the right to tell a story. So Carmody and the assistant engineers assumed attentive postures, and Maudsley began.

  the story of the creation of earth

  I was still quite a small contractor then. I put up a planet here and there, and I got to do an occasional dwarf star. But jobs were always hard to come by, and the customers were invariably capricious, fault-finding, and slow in their payments. Customers were hard to please in those days; they argued about every little detail. Change this, change that, why must water flow downhill, the gravity’s too heavy, the hot air rises when it ought to fall. And so forth.

  I was quite naïve in those days. I used to explain the aesthetic and practical reasons for everything I did. Before long, the questions and the explanations were taking longer than the jobs. There was entirely too much talk-talk. I knew that I had to do something about it, but I couldn’t figure out what.

  Then, just before the Earth project, a whole new approach to customers’ relations began to shape itself in my mind. I found myself muttering to myself, ‘Form follows function.’ I liked the way it sounded. But then I would ask myself, ‘Why must form follow function?’ And the reason I gave myself was, ‘Form follows function because that is an immutable law of nature and one of the fundamental axioms of applied science.’ And I liked the sound of that, too, although it didn’t make much sense.

  But sense didn’t matter. What mattered was that I had made a new discovery. I had unwittingly stumbled into the art of advertising and salesmanship, and I had discovered the gimmick of great possibilities, namely, the doctrine of scientific determinism.

  Earth was my first test case, and that is why I will always remember it.

  A tall, bearded old man with piercing eyes had come to me and ordered a planet. (That was how your planet began, Carmody.) Well, I did the job quickly, in six days I believe, and thought that would be the end of it. It was another of those budget planets, and I had cut a few corners here and there. But to hear the owner complain, you’d have thought ‘I’d stolen the eyes out of his head.

  ‘Why are there so many tornadoes?’ he asked. ‘It’s part of the atmosphere circulation system,’ I told him. (Actually, I had been a little rushed at that time; I had forgotten to put in an air-circulation overload valve.)

  ‘Three-quarters of the place is water!’ he told me. ‘And I clearly specified a four-to-one land-to-water ratio!’

  ‘Well, we couldn’t do it that way!’ I told him. (I had lost his ridiculous specifications; I never can keep track of these absurd little one-planet projects.)

  ‘And you’ve filled what little land you gave me with deserts and swamps and jungles and mountains.’

  ‘It’s scenic,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I don’t care from scenic!’ the fellow thundered. ‘Oh, sure, one ocean, a dozen lakes, a couple rivers, one or two mountain ranges, that would have been fine. Dresses the place up, gives the inhabitants a good feeling. But what you gave me is shlock!

  ‘There’s a reason for it,’ I said. (In point of fact, we couldn’t make the job pay except by using reconstituted mountains, a lot of rivers and oceans as filler, and a couple of deserts I had bought cheap from Ourie the Planet-Junker. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.)

  ‘A reason!’ he screamed. ‘What will I tell my people? I’m putting an entire race on that planet, maybe two or three. They’ll be humans, made in my own image; and humans are notoriously picky, just as I am. What am I supposed to tell them?’

  Well, I knew what he could tell them; but I didn’t want to be offensive, so I pretended to give the matter some thought. And strangely enough, I did think. And I came up with the gimmick to end all gimmicks.

  ‘You just tell them the plain scientific truth,’ I said. ‘You tell them that, scientifically, everything that is must be.’

  ‘Huh?’ he said.

  ‘It’s determinism,’ I said, making up the name on the spur of the moment. ‘It’s quite simple, though a bit esoteric. To start with, form follows function; therefore your planet is exactly as it should be by the simple fact of being at all. Next, science is invariable; so if anything isn’t invariable, it ain’t science. And finally, everything follows definite rules. You can’t always figure out what those rules are, but you can be sure they’re there. So, it stands to reason that no one ought to ask why this instead of that? Instead, everyone ought to ask how does it work?’

  Well, he asked me some pretty tough questions, and he was a pretty smart old fellow. But he didn’t know damn-all about engineering; his field was ethics and morals and religion and spook stuff like that. So of course, he just wasn’t able to come up with any real objections. He was one of these types who love abstractions, and he started repeating, ‘“That which is is that which must be.” Hmm, a very intriguing formula and not without its patina of stoicism. I shall incorporate some of these insights into the lessons I give to my people … But tell me this: how can I r
econcile this indeterminate fatality of science with the free will I plan to give to my people?’

  Well, the old boy almost had me there. I smiled and coughed to give myself time to think, and then I said, ‘The answer is obvious!’ Which is always a good answer, as far as it goes.

  ‘I daresay it is,’ he said. ‘But I don’t perceive it.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘this free will you’re giving your people, isn’t that a kind of fatality also?’

  ‘It could be considered as such. But the difference –’

  ‘And besides,’ I said hastily, ‘since when are free will and fatality incompatible?’

  ‘They certainly seem incompatible,’ he said.

  ‘That’s only because you don’t understand science,’ I said, performing the old switcheroo right under his hooked nose. ‘You see, my dear sir, one of the most basic laws of science is that chance plays a part in everything. Chance, I’m sure you know, is the mathematical equivalent of free will.’

  ‘But what you’re saying is quite contradictory,’ he said.

  ‘That’s how it goes,’ I said. ‘Contradiction is one more of the fundamental rules of the Universe. Contradiction generates strife, without which everything would reach a stage of entropy. So we couldn’t have any planet or any universe if things didn’t exist in an apparently irreconcilable state of contradiction.’

  ‘Apparently?’ he said, quick as a flash.

  ‘Right as rain,’ I said. ‘Contradiction, which we can define provisionally as the existence of reality-paired opposites, isn’t the last word on the subject. For example, let’s posit a single isolated tendency. What happens when you push a tendency to the limit?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ the old guy said. ‘The lack of specifics in this sort of discussion –’

  ‘What happens,’ I said, ‘is that the tendency turns into its opposite.’