Annals of Klepsis

by R. A. Lafferty

  ANNALS OF KLEPSIS

  R. A. Lafferty

  www.sfgateway.com

  Enter the SF Gateway …

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  First Canto:

  All the Peg-legged Irishmen or Salt for the Ocean

  Second Canto:

  To Ravel-Brannagan Castle

  Third Canto:

  Oh, Hospitality Most Strong!

  Fourth Canto:

  The Slaves at the Sale

  Fifth Canto:

  Tales of Tarshish

  Sixth Canto:

  Treasure Caves of Klepsis

  Seventh Canto:

  Conversations in a Walk-in Tomb

  Eighth Canto:

  A Commission in Lunacy

  Ninth Canto:

  The Introspections of Brannagan or One Star Too Many in the Sky

  Tenth Canto:

  The Possibility of Worms

  Eleventh Canto:

  Greater Love Has No Man

  Twelfth Canto:

  Lords and Commons of This Realm

  Thirteenth Canto:

  Doomsday in the Morning

  Website

  Also by R.A. Lafferty

  About the Author

  Copyright

  “The humanly inhabited universe, according to the best—or at least the newest—mathematical theory, does have a tertiary focus, and it is there that it is vulnerable. The humanly inhabited universe, with its four suns and its seventeen planets, is an unstable closed system of human orientation and precarious balance, a kinetic three-dimensional ellipse in form, with its third focus always approaching extinction. As with any similar unstable premise-system, the entire construct must follow its third focus into extinction. This is known as the ‘Doomsday Equation.’

  “The Equation has been bad-mouthed because it originated on an asteroid and not a planet; but must we forever believe that planetary mathematics is always superior to asteroid mathematics?

  “The third focus of the humanly inhabited universe has been determined to be both a point and a person on the Planet Klepsis, on the surface of the planet, which is extraordinary in itself. Of the person, the human element of the anthropo-mathematical function, little is known except the code name the ‘Horseshoe Nail,’ and the fact that the person is more than two hundred years old. This is an added precarious element. Actuary figures show that only one in a hundred billion humans will reach the age of two hundred standard years, and that none will go far beyond it.

  “What are the possibilities of combating the Doomsday Equation? The moving of some of the planets or suns to other positions and orbits to nullify the kinetic three-dimensional ellipse construct is very chancy, and it is also at the very limit of our technology. The transfer of the focus to another person is a million-to-one shot; and it has already been done once, from a notorious and discredited person to this same ‘Horseshoe Nail.’

  “There is a further complication in the essential balance of this critical person code-named ‘Horseshoe Nail.’ He cannot be allowed to awake, and he cannot be allowed to die.

  “Unless mathematical advance in the field is made very soon, there is no hope at all for the survival of the kinetic three-dimensional ellipse which is the humanly inhabited universe. And the humanly inhabited universe—that’s us! There are, however, very many possible universes that are more mathematically stable than the humanly inhabited universe.”

  “Come Bend Your Mind With Me”

  —Karl Sayon

  FIRST CANTO

  All the Peg-legged Irishmen

  or

  Salt for the Ocean

  Remember these things, burn them into your mind, think of them always:

  The Particular Universe, a kinetic three-dimensional ellipse with three foci and consisting of four suns and seventeen habitable worlds, from Gaea-Earth around Sol-Sun to the elegant planets around the Proxima and Alpha Suns, to the inelegant planets around the Beta Sun, the most inelegant of all being the three Trader Planets, Emporion, Apateon, and Klepsis. Of these three, Emporion has no law, Apateon has no ethics, and Klepsis has no history.

  The Doomsday Equation, which threatens this Universe with extinction.

  Klepsis itself, the Thief Planet, the Pirate Planet. Its government has always been a “Covenanted Piracy.” The Ocean of Klepsis, which shouts “My Name is Adventure.” The ship The Dina O’Grogan, which still sails that ocean. Ravel-Brannagan Castle on Klepsis, and the Six Watchtowers of the Castle, named the Christopher, Januarius, Juda, David, Cloud, and Henry Watchtowers. These are named for the six successive rulers of Klepsis: Christopher Brannagan, Januarius O’Grogan, Juda O’Grogan-Brannagan, David Ravel, Cloud Ravel-Brannagan, and Henry Ravel-Brannagan. Five of the watchtowers are now inhabited by the ghosts of their name-men, and the sixth is inhabited by a living man.

  Christopher Brannagan, the Founder, Discoverer, and Inventor of Klepsis.

  The Ghost of Brannagan, a peg-legged specter who worries because Klepsis is two hundred years old and has no history.

  Prince Henry the Pirate, he of the sixth bell tower and the present ruler of Klepsis. And his twin.

  Prince Franco the Outcast, a much more pleasant person.

  Princess Angela Gilmartin Ravel, the most beautiful woman on Klepsis (it says so on the coins) and the wife of the surly Prince Henry.

  Tharrala Thorn, of the Royal Family but in disrepute because of having committed the unspeakable sin.

  Long John Tong Tyrone, one of the Peg-Legged Irishmen who came to Klepsis, an historian who becomes the consort of Tharrala. This person is myself, the narrator of this account.

  These persons and things are the hinges of the account.

  Remember us, burn us into your minds, think of us always.

  There were three peg-legs on the flight from Apateon to Klepsis. They went “swush thump, swush thump, swush thump” when they walked about the crowded ship—the sounds of their flesh legs and their wooden legs. Two young men and one young lady, all peg-legs, and they had come to Klepsis the Pirate Planet.

  The tall tale of the peggies was that Christopher Begorra Brannagan, on
e of the earliest explorers of the Trader Planets, had been acted against because he had a wooden leg (and explorers are supposed to be physically perfect, how would it look else?), and because he was Irish (and explorers are supposed to be of the superior races, how would a person of an inferior race impress an alien?), and Brannagan resented his ill treatment.

  Having been treated unfairly, Brannagan swore that, as soon as he had acquired a billion thalers, he would set up a fund whereby any one-legged Irishman anywhere in the universe could receive free transportation to Klepsis and could also receive any help he needed after arriving at that blessed place.

  “How will we define ‘Irish’?” the first administrator of the fund had asked Brannagan.

  “If they have Irish names, they are Irish altogether,” Brannagan laid it down. “Few of the other breeds would be caught dead with an Irish name.”

  Of the three peg-legs on the flight from Apateon Planet to Klepsis, one was clearly black, one was probably Gaea-Earth Eurasian, and one was plainly Latino; their names were Andrew “Gold Coast” O’Mally, Long John Tong Tyrone, and Conchita O’Brian. Gold Coast and Long John had their left legs missing, Conchita her right.

  “When are you going to have your leg cut off, Terps?” Conchita asked Terpsichore Callagy. “There’s several people getting amputated now down by the ship’s handball court. You get a rebate on your passage after you get your leg cut off. You’d better go get it done now.”

  “I wasn’t going to have my leg cut off at all,” Terpsichore said. “I’m very much against the whole idea. It’d hurt.”

  “But you already got your name changed to an Irish one,” Conchita reminded her. “That hurts more than having a leg cut off.”

  “Callagy is my real name,” Terpsichore explained.

  “Nobody’s real name is Callagy,” Conchita insisted. “What’s your line, Terps?”

  “Art. I’m into art.”

  “Then you came to the wrong place. Klepsis has the worst art anywhere. Yes, and on purpose! The rich people on Klepsis collect the worst art they can find in all the worlds, and they pay out big money for it. ‘If it’s bad, they’ll buy it on Klepsis’ is a saying.”

  “Yes, and I am going to look for the facts behind that saying,” Terpsichore said with sudden determination. “Any art whose colors bark and howl out loud at you is worth studying.”

  Then a very gory incident took place, right there in the third-class luxury lounge of the ship. A man rose to his feet and began to scream in the most horrifying voice I have ever heard:

  “The ten second warning! No, no, no! Give me time! I have the money with me. We will land on Klepsis in ten minutes and I can have the debt paid in fifteen. Give me time!” Then the man’s head exploded. Well, it exploded all the way down to his waist, and only the lower members were left of him. There was a fine shower of flesh and blood all over us, a thing that was distasteful to all of us third-class passengers.

  “My own line is coded technology,” Conchita said with a merry lilt as though wishing to change the subject. But then she went back to it. “The time of most loans given by Klepsis moneylenders is one million seconds,” she said. “When a loan is given, a mysterious sliver is inserted in the skull of the borrower. When he pays, the sliver is removed; but only the lender knows how to remove it. If the borrower does not repay the loan within one million seconds, his head explodes fatally. One million seconds is about twelve Klepsis days and nights.”

  “There isn’t much coded technology on Klepsis,” Andrew Gold Coast O’Mally said, “not what we mean by coded. I believe you have come on a wild merganser chase, girl Conchita. My own line is gold. And there is gold on Klepsis, billions of kilograms of it. I myself have more than one hundred treasure maps showing the locations of gold on Klepsis.”

  “What is your line, Long John Tong Tyrone?” Terpsichore asked.

  “History,” I said, for I am Long John Tong Tyrone, the probably Eurasian peg-leg. “Do we all have our salt? It’s important that we should.”

  Slowing for our landing at Klepsis Third Port, we came over a little arm of the ocean. The oceans of Klepsis lack salt, and all visitors to the planet must make a token contribution.

  “I don’t have any salt,” Terpsichore moaned. “I’d forgotten about that requirement.”

  “There’s a man in the whiskey bar who’ll sell you a hectogram of salt for one thousand Klepsis thalers,” Gold Coast said with perhaps a touch of cruelty. “You can’t leave the ship without making a ritual offering of salt, you know.”

  “Oh, oh, I can’t afford one thousand thalers,” Terpsichore complained. “And I can’t afford not to disembark here either. Oh, oh!”

  “I got some, pet,” Conchita told her. “I thought I’d better bring an extra pack. Here. You have to pour it into the ocean yourself. Good. I bet that makes it a lot saltier. But there isn’t any history on Klepsis, Long John Tong Tyrone.”

  “Then I’ll find some,” I said, “or I’ll make some.”

  Klepsis is sometimes called the Pirate Planet. Many of the persons on Klepsis do indeed wear roughly formalized pirate costumes which are almost burlesques of those worn by stage pirates on Gaea or Astrobe. They wear loose, baggy shirts and loose, baggy trousers of Dahae mineral-silk in very bright colors, shouting yellows and oranges and scarlets, gold and bloodstone, sky-blue and sea-green, saturation-purple. They wear knotted head-kerchiefs that are brighter still. Oh, and they have eye patches and peg legs, short swords dangling in sword sashes, and earrings dangling in lop-ears. Most of the peggies have their wooden legs painted red and white, striped like barber poles, although other colors are used for them. And nobody on Klepsis wears sensible shoes. They wear slaughterhouse boots or cowboy boots, or they go barefoot. Wait, though—most of the barefoot ones have their feet painted in one of the bright primary colors, orange or scarlet or yellow. For a Klepsis farthing they can step into a trough that will color their feet with a color that will last all day.

  Some of the people wear green-and-orange birds perched on their shoulders, as Gaea pirates used to wear Gaea parrots. These however are actually parley birds that may be sent to repeat oral messages to persons a reasonable distance away. But the birds can remember messages no more than two hundred words long, and they remember them for no more than two or three hours. And, if they are questioned for clarification of the messages, the birds go all to pieces.

  Some of the pirate-dressed persons wear snakes also. Probably half of the sword-sashes are really living snakes. And these creatures are even brighter in their coloration than are the birds.

  The bushes (there are no real trees on Klepsis) are brilliantly colored also, as is the land carpet of that world (it is not botanically related to Gaea or Astrobe or Camiroi grass) and all of the ocean meadows (floating-growing vegetation of eye-blinding brightness). Because of the sharp and stunning light, many persons wear colored wraparound goggles, and some wear colored monocles. These monocles do not seem to cut down on the bright colors, though; they amplify them. The people often flip the monocles high into the air and then catch them fitted perfectly into their eyes. Indeed, the young children practice this monocle-flipping as strenuously as they practice goat-roping or whip-popping or slingshotting birds.

  The fact is that it is always bright on Klepsis, even at night. Klepsis has two moons and two suns other than its own Beta Sun. The Proxima Sun and the Alpha Sun are more distant, but they always turn the night into at least a cloudy day. Forever are there lights in the sky. These dazzle the people, even those born on Klepsis, and they made me dizzy for the first part of my journey there.

  At customs there was a sign of greeting to all arrivals:

  OH COME TO US AND CLAIM YOUR SHARE, AND BREATHE OUR RANK AND LAWLESS AIR.

  It sounded like a welcome, if you could take it by the handle. And at customs there were bowls heaping over with the most luscious grapes that I had ever seen or smelled or slavered over.

  “My God, what are they?” I asked s
ome customs people. “My God, what grapes! May I eat some? What are they really?”

  “You may eat all you wish,” the customs people told me. “You are encouraged to eat all that you can hold. And you have named them correctly, as does everyone who comes to Klepsis. The official and botanical name of them is the ‘My God What Grapes!’ grapes, though in the earliest times of Klepsis they were called simply ‘Summertime Grapes.’”

  I ate some of them, and then ate some more. All of the arrivals ate some of them. They brightened up everything for me. They gave a spring to my step and a sparkle to my eye. My God, what grapes!

  ‘But I must locate myself and see where my prey, history, can best be hunted,’ I told myself as I stood in line at customs. I scanned the booths that were nearby.

  “Have you maps?” I asked a girl who had a booth, though I could not deduce what she sold from it. She did not seem interested in selling anything.

  “Oh yes,” she told me. “I have maps of almost all the sectors of all the worlds. We even have some city maps. Some of the worlds have cities, you know.”

  “I want maps of all the nearby sectors of Klepsis, and of any large neighboring cities on Klepsis,” I said.

  “We have no maps of Klepsis,” the girl spoke as if I were out of my mind. “We are on Klepsis. Are you somehow confused about where you are? Why would anyone want maps of Klepsis when they are on Klepsis itself? One original is worth ten thousand imitations, as the proverb says. A map is only a formalized picture. Why should you look at a picture of a thing rather than at the thing itself? If you were out with a girl, would you be looking at the girl or would you rather be looking at a picture of the girl? Why do you want maps of Klepsis?”

  “Pure perversity on my part, I suppose,” I said. “But where could I catch a train or plane to the nearest large town?”

  “Nowhere. There are no towns on Klepsis, and there are no trains and hardly any planes. People travel on water by boat. On land they ride animals if they are rich, or walk if they are poor. Are you rich, or are you poor?”