The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 4: Trips: 1972-73

by Robert Silverberg

  “Thanatos.”

  “Thanatos, yes. This must be his kingdom. Come and look.”

  Arios and Breckenridge exchanged shrugs. Breckenridge stepped into the tunnel. The walls on both sides were lined from floor to ceiling with tiers of coffins, stacked eight or ten high and extending as far as the beam of light reached. The coffins were glass-faced and covered over with dense films of dust. Scarp drew his fingers through the dust over one coffin and left deep tracks; clouds rose up, sending Breckenridge back, coughing and choking, to stumble into Arios. When the dust cleared they could see a figure within, seemingly asleep, the nude figure of a young man lying on his back. His expression was one of great serenity. Breckenridge shivered. Death’s kingdom, yes, the place of Thanatos, the house of Pluto. He walked down the row, wiping coffin after coffin. An old man. A child. A young woman. An older woman. A whole population lay embalmed here. I died long ago, he thought, and I don’t even sleep. I walk about beneath the earth. The silence was frightening here. “The people of the city?” Scarp asked. “The ancient inhabitants?”

  “Very likely,” said Arios. His voice was as crisp as ever. He alone was not trembling. “Slain in some inconceivable massacre? But what? But how?”

  “They appear to have died natural deaths,” Breckenridge pointed out. “Their bodies look whole and healthy. As though they were lying here asleep. Not dead, only sleeping.”

  “A plague?” Scarp wondered. “A sudden cloud of deadly gas? A taint of poison in their water supply?”

  “If it had been sudden,” said Breckenridge, “how would they have had time to build all these coffins? This whole tunnel—catacomb upon catacomb—” A network of passageways spanning the city’s entire subterrane. Thousands of coffins. Millions. Breckenridge felt dazed by the presence of death on such a scale. The skeleton with the scythe, moving briskly about its work. Severed heads and hands and feet scattered like dandelions in the springtime meadow. The reign of Thanatos, King of Swords, Knight of Wands.

  Thunder sounded behind them. Footfalls in the well.

  Scarp scowled. “I told them to wait up there. That fool Militor—”

  Arios said, “Militor should see this. Undoubtedly it’s the resting place of the city dwellers. Undoubtedly these are human beings. Do you know what I imagine? A mass suicide. A unanimous decision to abandon the world of life. Years of preparation. The construction of tunnels, of machines for killing, a whole vast apparatus of immolation. And then the day appointed—long lines waiting to be processed—millions of men and women and children passing through the machines, gladly giving up their lives, going willingly to the coffins that await them—”

  “And then,” Scarp said, “there must have been only a few left and no one to process them. Living on, caretakers for the dead, perhaps, maintaining the machinery that preserves these millions of bodies—”

  “Preserves them for what?” Arios asked.

  “The day of resurrection,” said Breckenridge.

  The footfalls in the well grew louder. Scarp glanced toward the tunnel’s mouth. “Militor?” he called. “Horn?” He sounded angry. He walked toward the well. “You were supposed to wait for us up—”

  Breckenridge heard a grinding sound and whirled to see Arios tugging at the lid of a coffin—the one that held the serene young man. Instinctively he moved to halt the desecration, but he was too slow; the glass plate rose as Arios broke the seals, and, with a quick whooshing sound, a burst of greenish vapor rushed from the coffin. It hovered a moment in midair, speared by Arios’ beam of light; then it congealed into a yellow precipitant and broke in a miniature rainstorm that stained the tunnel’s stone floor. To Breckenridge’s horror the young man’s body jerked convulsively. Muscles tightened into knots and almost instantly relaxed. “He’s alive!” Breckenridge cried.

  “Was,” said Scarp.

  Yes. The figure in the glass case was motionless. It changed color and texture, turning black and withered. Scarp shoved Arios aside and slammed the lid closed, but that could do no good now. A dreadful new motion commenced within the coffin. In moments something shriveled and twisted lay before them.

  “Suspended animation,” said Arios. “The city builders—they lie here, as human as we are, sleeping, not dead, sleeping. Sleeping! Militor! Militor, come quickly!”

  Feingold said, “Let me see if I have it straight. After the public offering our group will continue to hold eighty-three percent of the Class B stock and thirty-four percent of the voting common, which constitutes a controlling block. We’ll let you have 100,000 five-year warrants and we’ll agree to a conversion privilege on the 1992 6½ percent debentures, plus we allow you the stipulated underwriting fee, providing your Argentinian friend takes up the agreed-upon allotment of debentures and follows through on his deal with us in Colorado. Okay? Now, then, assuming the SEC has no objections, I’d like to outline the proposed interlocking directorates with Heitmark A.G. in Liechtenstein and Hellaphon S.A. in Athens, after which—”

  The high, clear, rapid voice went on and on. Breckenridge toyed with his lunch, smiled frequently, nodded whenever he felt it was appropriate, and otherwise remained disconnected, listening only with the automatic-recorder part of his mind. They were sitting on the terrace of an open-air restaurant in Tiberias, at the edge of the Sea of Galilee, looking across to the bleak, brown Syrian hills on the far side. The December air was mild, the sun bright. Last week Breckenridge had visited Monaco, Zurich, and Milan. Yesterday Tel Aviv, tomorrow Haifa, next Tuesday Istanbul. Then on to Nairobi, Johannesburg, Peking, Singapore. Finally San Francisco and then home. Zap! Zap! A crazy round-the-world scramble in twenty days, cleaning up a lot of international business for the firm. It could all have been handled by telephone, or else some of these foreign tycoons could have come to New York, but Breckenridge had volunteered to do the junket. Why? Why? Sitting here ten thousand miles from home having lunch with a man whose office was down the street from his own. Crazy. Why all this running, Noel? Where do you think you’ll get?

  “Some more wine?” Feingold asked. “What do you think of this Israeli stuff, anyway?”

  “It goes well with the fish.” Breckenridge reached for Feingold’s copy of the agreement. “Here, let me initial all that.”

  “Don’t you want to check it over first?”

  “Not necessary. I have faith in you, Sid.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t cheat you, that’s true. But I could have made a mistake. I’m capable of making mistakes.”

  “I don’t think so,” Breckenridge said. He grinned. Feingold grinned. Behind the grin there was something chilly. Breckenridge looked away. You think I’m bending over backward to treat you like a gentleman, he thought, because you know what people like me are really supposed to think about Jews, and I know you know, and you know I know you know, and—and—well, screw it, Sid. Do I trust you? Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. But the basic fact is I just don’t care. Stack the deck any way you like, Feingold. I just don’t care. I wish I was on Mars. Or Pluto. Or in the year Two Billion. Zap! Right across the whole continuum! Noel Breckenridge, freaking out! He heard himself say, “Do you want to know my secret fantasy, Sid? I dream of waking up Jewish one day. It’s so damned boring being a Gentile, do you know that? I feel so bland, so straight, so sunny. I envy you all that feverish kinky complexity of soul. All that history. Ghettos, persecutions, escapes, schemes for survival and revenge, a sense of tribal unity born out of shared pain. It’s so hard for a goy to develop some honest paranoia, you know? Let alone a little schiziness.” Feingold was still grinning. He filled Breckenridge’s wine glass again. He showed no sign of having heard anything that might offend him. Maybe I didn’t say anything, Breckenridge thought.

  Feingold said, “When you get back to New York, Noel, I’d like you out to our place for dinner. You and your wife. A weekend, maybe. Logs on the fire, thick steaks, plenty of good wine. You’ll love our place.” Three Israeli jets roared low over Tiberias and vanished in the direction of Lebano
n. “Will you come? Can you fit it into your schedule?”

  Some possible structural hypotheses:

  LIFE AS A MEANINGLESS CONDITION

  Breckenridge on Wall Street.

  The four seekers moving randomly.

  The dead city.

  LIFE RENDERED MEANINGFUL THROUGH ART

  Breckenridge recollects ancient myths.

  The four seekers elicit his presence and request the myths.

  The dead city inhabited after all. The inhabitants listen to Breckenridge.

  THE IMPACT OF ENTROPY

  His tales are garbled dreams.

  The seekers quarrel over theory.

  The city dwellers speak an unknown language.

  ASPECTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

  He is a double self.

  The four seekers are unsure of the historical background.

  Most of the city dwellers are asleep.

  His audience was getting larger every night. They came from all parts of the city, silently arriving, drawn at sundown to the place where the visitors camped. Hundreds, now, squatting beyond the glow of the campfire. They listened intently, nodded, seemed to comprehend, murmured occasional comments to one another. How strange: they seemed to comprehend.

  “The story of Samson and Odysseus,” Breckenridge announced.

  “Samson is blind but mighty. His woman is known as Delilah. To them comes the wily chieftain Odysseus, making his way homeward from the land of Ithaca. He penetrates the maze in which Samson and Delilah live and hires himself to them as bond servant, giving his name as No Man. Delilah entices him to carry her off, and he abducts her. Samson is aware of the abduction but is unable to find them in the maze. He cries out in pain and rage, No Man steals my wife! No Man steals my wife! His servants are baffled by this and take no action. In fury Samson brings the maze crashing down on himself and dies, while Odysseus carries Delilah off to Sparta, where she is seduced by Paris, Prince of Troy. Odysseus thus loses her and by way of gaining revenge he seduces Helen, the Queen of Troy, and the Trojan War begins.”

  And then he told the story of how mankind was created:

  “In the beginning there was only a field of white sand. Lightning struck it, and where the lightning hit the sand it coagulated into a vessel of glass, and rainwater ran into the vessel and brought it to life, and from the vessel a she-wolf was born. Thunder entered her womb and fertilized her and she gave birth to twins, and they were not wolves but a human boy and a human girl. The wolf suckled the twins until they reached adulthood. Then they copulated and engendered children of their own. Because they were ashamed of their nakedness they killed the old wolf and made garments from her hide.”

  And then he told them the myth of the Wandering Jew, who scoffed at God and was condemned to drift through time until he himself was able to become God.

  And he told them of the Golden Age and the Iron Age and the Age of Uranium.

  And he told them how the waters and winds came into being, and the seasons, the months, day and night.

  And he told them how art was born:

  “Out of a hole in space pours a stream of life-force. Many men and women attempted to seize the flow, but they were burned to ashes by its intensity. At last, however, a man devised a way. He hollowed himself out until there was nothing at all inside his body, and had himself dragged by a faithful dog to the place where the stream of energy descended from the heavens. Then the life force entered him and filled him, and instead of destroying him it took possession of him and restored him to life. But the force overflowed within him, brimming over, and the only way he could deal with that was to fashion stories and sculptures and songs, for otherwise the force would engulf him and drown him. His name was Gilgamesh and he was the first of the artists of mankind.”

  The city dwellers came by the thousands now. They listened and wept at Breckenridge’s words.

  Hypothesis of structural resolution:

  He finds creative fulfilment.

  The four seekers have bridged space and time to bring life out of death.

  The sleeping city dwellers will be awakened.

  Gradually the outlines of a master myth took place: the creation, the creation of man, the origin of private property, the origin of death, the loss of innocence, the loss of faith, the end of the world, the coming of a redeemer to start the cycle anew. Soon the structure would be complete. When it was, Breckenridge thought, perhaps rains would fall on the desert, perhaps the world would be reborn.

  Breckenridge slept. Sleeping, he experienced an inward glow of golden light. The girl he had encountered before came to him and took his hand and led him through the city. They walked for hours, it seemed, until they came to a well different from all the others, rectangular rather than circular and surrounded at street level by a low railing of bright metal mesh. “Go down into this one,” she told him. “When you reach the bottom, keep walking until you reach the room where the mechanisms of awakening are located.” He looked at her in amazement, realizing that her words had been comprehensible. “Are you speaking my language,” he asked, “or am I speaking yours?” She answered by smiling and pointing toward the well.

  He stepped over the railing and began his descent. The well was deeper than the other one; the air in its depths was stale and dry. The golden glow lit his way for him to the bottom and thence along a low passageway with a rounded vault of a ceiling. After a long time he came to a large, brightly lit room filled with sleek gray machinery. It was much like the computer room at any large bank. Mounted on the walls were control panels, labeled in an unknown language but also clearly marked with sequential symbols:

  I II III IIII IIIII IIIIII

  While he studied these he became aware of a sliding, hissing sound from the corridor beyond. He thought of sturdy metal cables passing one against the other, but then into the control room slowly came a creature something like a scorpion in form, considerably greater than a man in size. Its curved tubular thorax was dark and of a waxen texture; a dense mat of brown bristles, thick as straws, sprouted on its abdomen; its many eyes were bright, alert, and malevolent. Breckenridge snatched up a steel bar that lay near his feet and tried to wield it like a lance as the monster approached. From its jaws, though, there looped a sudden lasso of newly spun silken thread that caught the end of the bar and jerked it from Breckenridge’s grasp. Then a second loop, entangling his arms and shoulders. Struggle was useless. He was caught. The creature pulled him closer. Breckenridge saw fangs, powerful palpi, a scythe of a tail in which a dripping stinger had become erect. Breckenridge writhed in the monster’s grip. He felt neither surprise nor fear; this seemed a necessary working out of some ancient foreordained pattern.

  A cool, silent voice within his skull said, “Who are you?”

  “Noel Breckenridge of New York City, born A.D. 1940.”

  “Why do you intrude here?”

  “I was summoned. If you want to know why, ask someone else.”

  “Is it your purpose to awaken the sleepers?”

  “Very possibly,” Breckenridge said.

  “So the time has come?”

  “Maybe it has,” said Breckenridge. All was still for a long moment. The monster made no hostile move. Breckenridge grew impatient. “Well, what’s the arrangement?” he said finally.

  “The arrangement?”

  “The terms under which I get my freedom. Am I supposed to tell you a lot of diverting stories? Will I have to serve you six months out of the year, forever more? Is there some precious object I’m obliged to bring you from the bottom of the sea? Maybe you have a riddle that I’m supposed to answer.”

  The monster made no reply.

  “Is that it?” Breckenridge demanded. “A riddle?”

  “Do you want it to be a riddle?”

  “A riddle, yes.”

  There was another endless pause. Breckenridge met the beady gaze steadily. At last the voice said, “A riddle. A riddle. Very well. Tell me the answer to this. What goes on four legs in the
morning, on two legs in the afternoon, on three legs in the evening?”

  Breckenridge repeated it. He pondered. He frowned. He coughed. Then he laughed. “A baby,” he said, “crawls on all fours. A grown man walks upright. An old man requires the assistance of a cane. Therefore the answer to your riddle is—”

  He left the sentence unfinished. The gleam went out of the monster’s eyes; the silken loop binding Breckenridge dissolved; the creature began slowly and sadly to back away, withdrawing into the corridor from which it came. Its hissing, rustling sound persisted for a time, growing ever more faint.

  Breckenridge turned and without hesitation pulled the switch marked I.

  The aurora no longer appears in the night sky. A light rain has been falling frequently for some days, and the desert is turning green. The sleepers are awakening, millions of them, called forth from their coffins by the workings of automatic mechanisms. Breckenridge stands in the central plaza of the city, arms outspread, and the city dwellers, as they emerge from the subterranean sleeping places, make their way toward him. I am the resurrection and the life, he thinks. I am Orpheus the sweet singer. I am Homer the blind. I am Noel Breckenridge. He looks across the eons to Harry Munsey. “I was wrong,” he says. “There’s meaning everywhere, Harry. For Sam Smith as well as for Beethoven. For Noel Breckenridge as well as for Michelangelo. Dawn after dawn, simply being alive, being part of it all, part of the cosmic dance of life—that’s the meaning, Harry. Look! Look!” The sun is high now, not a cruel sun but a mild, gentle one, its heat softened by a humid haze. This is the dreamtime, when all mistakes are unmade, when all things become one. The city folk surround him. They come closer. Closer yet. They reach toward him. He experiences a delicious flash of white light. The world disappears.