Dimension of Miracles

by Robert Sheckley

  The gestalt broke down completely, Carmody saw the thin black line, like a crack in the floor, that connected each of them to the ship. He stood, frozen, and watched them move towards him. They had no hands to raise, no feet to move, no eyes to see with, no mouth to explain with. They were in fact round-topped and featureless cylinders, artfully but superficially disguised as human. They had no parts with which to function; they were themselves parts, and they were now performing their sole function. They were the exact and terrible counterpart of three fingers on a giant’s hand. They advanced with supple bonelessness; they evidently wanted to drive him deeper into the black maw of the ship.

  The ship? Carmody darted around the three and raced back the way he had come in. But the hatch extruded pointed teeth from top and bottom, opened a little wider, and then began to close. How could he have thought it was metal? The dark shiny sides of the ship rippled now and began to contract. His feet were caught in the spongy, sticky deck, and the three fingers were moving around him, blocking him off from the diminishing square of daylight.

  Carmody struggled with the desperation of a fly caught in a spider’s web. (the simile was exact, but the insight had come too late). He fought with a frenzy and with no effect. The square of daylight had become round and wet, and shrunk to the size of a baseball. The three cylinders were holding him now, and Carmody could not tell one from the other.

  That was the final horror; that, and the fact that the walls and ceiling of the spaceship (or whatever it was) had turned a moist and livid red, and were closing in and engulfing him.

  There was no escape. Carmody was helpless, unable to move or shout, unable to do anything but lose consciousness.

  CHAPTER 16

  As from a vast distance, Carmody heard a voice say: ‘What do you think, Doctor? Can you do anything for him?’

  He recognized that voice; it was the Prize.

  ‘I’ll pay for it,’ another voice said. He recognized this as Maudsley. ‘Do you think you can do anything for him?’

  ‘He can be saved,’ said a third voice, presumably that of the doctor. ‘Medical science admits no limits to the feasible, only to the tolerable, which is the patient’s limitation, not ours.’

  Carmody struggled to open his eyes or his mouth, but found that he was completely immobilized.

  ‘So it’s serious, huh?’ asked the Prize.

  ‘That is a difficult question to answer with precision,’ the doctor said. ‘To begin with, we must assign categories. Medical science is easier than medical ethics, for example. We of the Galactic Medical Association are supposed to preserve life; we are also supposed to act in the best interests of the particular form we treat. But what should we do when these two imperatives are in contradiction? The Uiichi of Devin V, for example, seek a physician’s aid to cure them of life and help them achieve their desired goal of death. It is a damnably difficult task, let me say, and only possible when an Uiichi has grown old and enfeebled, But what does ethics have to say about this strange reversal of normal desire? Are we to do as the Uiichi desire, and perform acts which are reprehensible in nearly every corner of the galaxy? Or are we to act upon the basis of our own standards, and thus doom the Uiichi to a fate quite literally worse than death?’

  ‘What has this got to do with Carmody?’ Maudsley asked.

  ‘Not very much,’ the doctor admitted. ‘But I thought you might find it interesting, and it will help you see why we must charge the high fees we do.’

  ‘Is he in a serious condition?’ the Prize demanded.

  ‘Only the dead can be said to be in a really serious condition,’ the doctor stated. ‘And even then, there are exceptions. Pentathanaluna, for example, which laymen refer to as Five-Day Reversible Death, is really no worse than a common cold, despite vulgar rumours to the contrary.’

  ‘But what about Carmody?’ Maudsley asked.

  ‘He is definitely not dead,’ the doctor said soothingly. ‘He is merely in a state of – or tantamount to – deep shock. To put it more simply, he has, in a manner of speaking, fainted.’

  ‘Can you pull him out of it?’ the Prize asked.

  ‘Your terms are unclear,’ the Doctor said. ‘My work is difficult enough without –’

  ‘I mean, can you restore him to his original state of function?’ the Prize asked.

  ‘Well! That is rather a large order, as I think you will admit if you give it a moment’s thought. What was his original state of function? Does either of you know? Would he know himself if, miraculously, he could be consulted in his own cure? Of the million subtle alterations of personality, some of which take place at the mere instigation of a heartbeat, how can we know which was most characteristically his? Is not a lost personality like a lost second – something we can approximate but never truly reproduce? These, gentlemen, are questions of some weight.’

  ‘Damnably heavy,’ Maudsley said. ‘Suppose you just get him as near to what he was as you can. Will that be very tough?’

  ‘Not on me,’ the doctor said. ‘I have worked for a considerable time in my profession. I have become inured to the most ghastly sights, accustomed to the most hideous procedures. That is not to say that I have grown callous, of course; I have merely learned through sad necessity to direct my attention away from the soul-searing procedures which my profession demands of me.’

  ‘Cripes, Doc!’ the Prize said. ‘What do you gotta do to my buddy?’

  ‘I must operate,’ the doctor said. ‘It is the only reliable way. I shall dissect Carmody (speaking in layman’s terms) and put his limbs and organs into a preserving solution. Then, I shall soften him in a dilute solution of K-5. I will draw his brain and nervous system out through various orifices. The procedure then is to hook up the nervous system and brain to a Life-Simulator, and fire the synapses in carefully timed series. Thus we see if there are any breaks, bad valves, stoppages, and the like. Assuming the absence of these, we disassemble the brain, coming at last to the interaction point between mind and body. Removing this very carefully, we check all internal and external connections. If everything is all right up to this point, we open the interaction-point reservoir, looking for leaks, of course, and then checking the level of consciousness within. If it is low or depleted (and in cases like these, it almost always is) we analyse the residue and create a new batch. This new batch of consciousness is tested exhaustively, then injected into the interaction- point reservoir. All parts of the corpus are then reassembled, and the patient can be reanimated with the Life-Simulator. That’s pretty much the whole process.’

  ‘Hooee,’ said the Prize. ‘I wouldn’t treat a dog that way!’

  ‘Nor would I,’ the doctor said. ‘Not until the canine race has evolved further. Do you wish me to perform this operation?’

  ‘Well …’ The Prize mused. ‘I guess we can’t just leave him lying around unconscious, can we?’

  ‘Of course we can’t,’ Maudsley said. ‘The poor fellow has been counting on us and we must not fail him. Doctor, do your duty!’

  Carmody had been struggling with his malfunctioning functions through this entire conversation. He had listened with steadily mounting terror and with the growing conviction that his friends could do him more harm than his enemies could even imagine. Now, with a titanic effort, he burst open his eyes and wrenched his tongue away from the roof of his mouth.

  ‘No operation!’ he croaked. ‘I’ll cut your goddamned heart out if you try any goddamned operation!’

  ‘He has recovered his faculties,’ the doctor said, sounding quite pleased. ‘Often, you know, a verbalization of our operating procedure in the patient’s presence serves as a better anodyne than the operation itself. It is a placebo effect, of course, but certainly not to be sneered at.’

  Carmody struggled to stand up, and Maudsley helped him to his feet. He looked at the doctor for the first time, and saw a tall, thin, mournful man in black clothes, who looked exactly like Abraham Lincoln. The Prize was no longer a cauldron. Evidently under the
stress, he had, changed into a dwarf.

  ‘Send for me if you need me,’ the doctor said, and departed.

  ‘What happened?’ Carmody asked. ‘That spaceship, those people –’

  ‘We pulled you out just in time,’ the Prize said. ‘But that was no spaceship, keed.’

  ‘I know. What was it?’

  ‘That,’ Maudsley said, ‘was your predator. You walked right into his mouth.’

  ‘I guess I did at that,’ Carmody said.

  ‘And by doing that, you may have lost your only chance of getting back to Earth,’ Maudsley said. ‘I think you’d better sit down, Carmody. You have only a few choices now, and none of them is particularly enticing.’

  Carmody sat down.

  CHAPTER 17

  First and foremost, Maudsley talked about predators, their folkways and mores, habits and reactions, ways and means. It was important for Carmody to know just what had happened to him, and why, even if that knowledge came subsequent to the event.

  ‘Especially if it comes after the event,’ the Prize put in.

  Maudsley went on to say that, just as for every man there’s a woman, so for every living organism there’s a predator. The Great Chain of Eating (a poetic image for the totality of life in a state of dynamism in the Universe) must go on, for reasons of inner necessity if for nothing else. Life as we know it involves creation; and creation is inconceivable without death. Thus –

  ‘Why is creation inconceivable without death?’ Carmody asked.

  ‘Don’t ask stupid questions. Where was I? Oh, yes. Thus murder is justified, though some of its concomitants are less readily appreciated. A creature in its natural habitat lives off certain other creatures and is lived off by still other creatures. This process is usually so natural and simple, and in so fine a state of balance, that preyers and preyed-upon alike tend to ignore it for great stretches of time, putting their attention instead upon the creation, of art objects, the gathering of groundnuts, the contemplation of the Absolute, or whatever else the species finds of interest. And that is as it should be, because Nature (whom we may personify as an old lady dressed in russet and black) does not like to find her rules and regulations the subject of every cocktail party, swarming nest, Konklave, or what you will. But you, Carmody, by inadvertently escaping the checks and balances of your native planet, still have not escaped the inexorable Law of Process. Thus, if there were no existing predator for you in the farflung reaches of space, then one would have to be found. If one could not be found, then it would have to be created.’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ Carmody said. ‘But that spaceship, those people –’

  ‘– were not what they seemed,’ Maudsley told him. ‘That must be evident to you.’

  ‘It is now.’

  ‘They were actually it, a single entity, a creature created especially for you, Carmody. It was your predator, and it followed almost classically the simple, standard Laws of Predation.’

  ‘Which are?’ Carmody asked.

  ‘Yes, which are,’ the Prize sighed. ‘How nicely you put it! We may rant against fortune and the world, but we are left at the end with the stark proposition: These are the things which are.’

  ‘I wasn’t commenting,’ Carmody said, ‘I was asking. What are these Laws of Predation?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I misunderstood you,’ the Prize said.

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ Carmody said.

  ‘Thank you,’ the Prize said.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Carmody said. ‘I didn’t mean … No, I did mean! What are these simple, standard Laws of Predation?’

  ‘Must you ask?’ Maudsley said.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid I must.’

  ‘When you put it in the form of a question,’ Maudsley said severely, ‘predation ceases to be simple and standard, and even its status as a law becomes dubious. Knowledge of predation is inherent in all organisms, just like arms and legs and heads, but even more certain. It is much more basic than a law of science, you see, and therefore not subject to simplistic reductionism. The mere asking of that sort of question imposes a severe restriction upon the answer.’

  ‘Still, I think I should know everything possible about predation,’ Carmody said. ‘Particularly mine.’

  ‘Yes, definitely you should know,’ Maudsley said. ‘Or rather, you should have known, which is by no means the same thing! Still, I’ll try.’

  Maudsley rubbed his forehead vigorously and stated: ‘You eat, therefore you are eaten. That much you know. But how, precisely, are you to be eaten? How are you to be trapped, seized, immobilized, and prepared? Will you be served up piping hot or nicely chilled or at room temperature? Obviously, that depends on the tastes of that which feasts upon you. Shall your predator leap at your undefended back from a convenient height? Shall it dig a pit for you, or spin a web, or challenge you to single combat, or dive upon you with outstretched talons? That depends upon your predator’s nature, which determines his form and function. That nature is limited by and respondent to the exigencies of your own nature, which, like his, is informed by free will and thus ultimately unfathomable.

  ‘Now to particulars. Diving, digging or spinning are straightforward, but they lose effectiveness against a creature with the faculty of memory. A creature like youself, Carmody, could you avoid the simplistic deadly attack once, might never be deceived again.

  ‘Straightforwardness is not Nature’s way, however. It has been said that Nature has a vested interest in illusions, which are highways to death and birth. I for one will not argue the proposition. If we accept the concept, we see that your predator must engage in complex manoeuvres in order to snare a complex creature such as yourself.

  ‘There is another side to the problem also. Your predator was not conceived solely in order to eat you. You are the single most important thing in his life, granted; but he does possess free will, just as you do, and therefore is not limited to the strict logic of his eating function. Barn mice may think that the owl in the rafters was conceived and delineated for the sole purpose of hunting mice. But we know that the owl has several other things on his mind. This is how it is with all predators, including yours. From this, we draw an important conclusion: that all predators are functionally imperfect by virtue of their free will.’

  ‘I never thought of it that way before,’ Carmody said. ‘Does that help me?’

  ‘Well, not really. But I thought you should know it anyhow. You see, practically speaking, you may never be able to exploit your predator’s imperfections. Indeed, you may never even learn what they are. In this situation you are just like the barn mice. You may find a hole to scamper in when you hear the whirr of wings, but you will never be able to analyse the nature, talents, and limitations of the owl.’

  ‘Well, that’s just great,’ Carmody said, with heavy sarcasm. ‘I’m licked before I start. Or, to use your terminology, I’m as good as eaten even though nobody’s stuck a fork in me yet.’

  ‘Temper, temper,’ the Prize cautioned. ‘It isn’t quite as bad as that.’

  ‘So how bad is it? Can either of you tell me anything useful?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to do,’ Maudsley said.

  ‘Then tell me what this predator looks like.’

  Maudsley shook his head. ‘That is quite impossible. Do you think any victim can learn what his predator looks like? If he could, the victim would become immortal!’

  ‘And that’s against the rules,’ the Prize put in.

  ‘At least give me an idea,’ Carmody said. ‘Does he always go around disguised as a spaceship?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Maudsley said. ‘From your point of view, he is a shape-changer. Have you ever heard of a mouse walking into the jaws of a snake, or a fly lighting on a frog’s tongue, or a fawn stepping between the forepaws of a tiger? That is the essence of predation! And you must ask yourself: where did those deluded victims think they were going, and what did they think was in front of them? Similarly, you must ask yourself what was rea
lly in front of your eyes when you talked to three of the predator’s fingers and followed them straight into his mouth!’

  ‘They looked like people,’ Carmody said. ‘But I still don’t know what the predator looked like.’ ‘There is no way I can enlighten you,’ Maudsley said. ‘Information about predators is not easily gained. They are too complementary to oneself. Its traps and concealments are based upon your own memories, your dreams and fantasies, your hopes and desires. The predator takes your own treasured dramas and plays them for you, as you just saw. To know your predator, you must know yourself. And it is easier to know the entire Universe than to know oneself.’

  ‘What can I do?’ Carmody asked.

  ‘Learn!’ Maudsley said. ‘Be eternally vigilant, move at top speed, trust nothing and no one. Don’t think of relaxing until you have reached your home.’

  ‘Home!’ Carmody said.

  ‘Yes. You will be safe on your own planet. Your predator cannot enter your lair. You will still be subject to all commonplace disasters, but at least you will be spared this.’

  ‘Can you send me home?’ Carmody asked. ‘You said you were working on a machine.’

  ‘I have completed it,’ Maudsley said. ‘But you must, understand its limitations, which are a concomitant with my own. My machine can take you to Where Earth is now, but that is all it can do.’

  ‘But that’s all I need!’ Carmody said.

  ‘No, it is not. “Where” gives you only the first W of location. You will still have to solve for When and Which. Take them in order, is my advice. Temporality before particularity, to use a common expression. You will have to leave here at once; your predator, whose appetite you foolishly aroused, may be back at any instant. I may not be so lucky this time in my rescue attempts.’