The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Will it snow long?” asked Violet, his somewhat overcharming secretary. Dr. Eimer often said that he kept Violet for her looks only, as she was not much smarter than the average PhD.

  “I think not,” he answered. “Possibly not more than ninety thousand years of maintained snow, and the accumulation itself will come in the first fraction of that period; a very short duration. This will be a sort of sport among the ice ages. There is no good reason for it to happen, and it could have been prevented. However, once the balance is tipped, it takes it a little while to swing back. We can be thankful that it will not be as long nor as cold as Wurm.”

  “Or Mindel or Riss,” said Professor Schubert.

  “Or Gunz,” said Professor Gilluly. “I'd hate to have to go through that one again.”

  “None of you act as though it were serious,” said Violet.

  “Yes,” said Doctor Eimer, “the world is dying and that is serious. But we will save ourselves, and part of the luggage we take with us is a little good humor. If we are too serious, we will die also. The serious always die first.”

  “What was wrong with your calculations?” asked Professor Schubert. “If we hadn't cut and run for it, we'd never have made it. Another half hour and we'd have been trapped for good.” “My calculations, as always, were perfect. But the balance was so delicate that a bit of unlooked for turbulence set it off.”

  “Turbulence?”

  “Possibly less than two hundred fission warheads that struck our launching bases. Who would have believed that such a little thing could upset the balance a day early. But the balance was delicate.”

  “LaPlace-Mendira said that an ice age must be preceded by a thirty thousand year cooling-off period.”

  “LaPlace-Mendira is an idiot. The Siberian mammoths were frozen solid with green grass between their teeth. There was no more a cooling-off period then than now. In ninety or a hundred thousand years from now, black Angus cattle will be found in the Kansas snow frozen solid with green grass in their several stomachs. It will be a wonder — black, proto-bovine animals with incredibly short legs, and looking almost like a cross between a pig and a cow. You know, of course, that all cattle at the beginning of the fifth interglacial will be red, or red and white, and quite tall.”

  “I had not known that.”

  “It seems that almost anybody would be able to predict the way the combination color and shoulder-height-coefficient gene would respond under moderately prolonged glacial stress.”

  “To tell you the truth, Doctor, I've never given it a thought.” Professor Gilluly, in some ways, seemed not to have a complete scientific devotion.

  “But it never before glaciated the whole surface of the earth.”

  “Nor will it now.”

  “But you said that even the Padiwire Valley where we are going will have ice and snow.”

  “Oh, that is only temporary — a period of so short duration that we can disregard it, except of course to take precautions that we don't freeze to death. I venture that it will not have fallen to within fifteen degrees above zero when we land there, and there will be less than nine inches of snow. You must remember that it is nearly on the equator, and we are less than two weeks from the vernal equinox. The quick-freeze period will last less than ten days. Then the clouds will clear, for the simple reason that all the moisture will have fallen, and the sun will have come through. And here, at least, the snow will somewhat melt — though further north and south it will not.

  “For a period of about seven years there will be very heavy snowfall and the ocean depth will drop about five feet a year. Then we enter the next phase — which will last no more than eighty-five years — when the snow will continue to accumulate on earth, but at a reduced rate, and the sea level will drop only about a foot a year. After that, the ice age will be barely able to maintain itself and will essentially be over.

  “It is true that the snow will linger for another eighty-thousand years, but it will not greatly increase. And one day it will begin to diminish, and this will be much more rapid than experts believe. Then the oceans will rise at the rate of a foot a year for a hundred years, and a large part of the land will have different and larger rivers, and some former islands will be joined to the mainland, and new islands will be sliced off.”

  “You can predict ninety-thousand years, but can you tell us what is happening right now? How did the other two planes get ahead of us?”

  “If they did, then I can only say that they passed us in the snow for it does look as though two planes have already landed.”

  “Well, does it look as if we have already landed too?” asked Violet. “There is a third plane down there. Is that us?”

  “Obviously it is not. Are you getting light-headed? There are, if you will look closely, at least seven planes there. Well, we have made no preparations for landing elsewhere. We will land as we planned.”

  And as soon as they touched down they were taken into custody.

  Nauchnii-Komandir Andreyev, known in scientific circles as the Anagallic, was pleased and perfunctory. “Ah, liddle Doctor Eimer, is it true you are not a complete idiot? I had thought you were nearly complete. An idiot may, or may not know enough to come in out of the rain, but you have come in out of the snow. You surprise me. As you see we are in total control. These three are your only planes?”

  “No. No. We have quite an armada on the way.”

  “Those who are not practiced should lie little or not at all. But there has been stupidity all around. This morning our leaders thought they would have the whole world in their hand, and this afternoon it is some of their delegates who do have all that will be left of it. It pleases me the way it happened. I would not have changed it if I could. I am now the commander of the world.”

  “You are not our commander.”

  “You are dogs. Learn that. We have studied the Eskimo, and one rule they have: the dogs do not sleep in the house or the tent. The dogs grow lazy if they sleep inside. We have your equipment. You are the dogs and you will sleep in the snow and learn your place.”

  “We will see.”

  “We have already seen. We have you outnumbered now by three hundred to fifty. It will not always be so we hope — the working dogs should outnumber the men. But our positions will not change. You know (though few others hold theories that coincide with my own) that during the last ice age, the Wurm, there were two types of men or near-men: the Neanderthal who were the masters, and the Grimaldi who were their slaves. We are the new Neanderthalan and you are the new Grimaldi. We had thought to use a few jungle Indian remnants for that, but now we will use you.

  “But you must be more numerous. There seems to be only twenty-seven women among you, and my census clerk has just reported that fifteen of them are without mates. This will be corrected. Arrange it among yourselves, but arrange it by nightfall. And remember, we expect fruition within nine months. I believe that in one of your obsoleted books there is a phrase about cutting down the tree that will not bear fruit. And do not any of you get peculiar ideas about resisting. We have with us a sadist group. I shudder at these things myself, but those to whom I delegate them will not shudder.”

  They were in a white and brown world. The savanna vegetation on the fringe of the jungle, unacquainted with frost for thousands of years, withered at its touch. Every growing thing seemed suddenly to die. Yet the snow could not yet cover it all, it was too lush and high and thick; the small trees would bend with its weight, and then spring free and shake it off their crowns, so that when it finally covered them it covered them from the bottom up. “Can we even live here?” asked Violet. “It seems that we could starve or freeze here as easily as at home. We might not freeze quite as hard, if that is any comfort.”

  “No, we will do neither,” said Gully Gilluly. “We will not have it bad. By dark tonight a million birds will descend on this valley. They will perch on every tree and bush and on the ground. We can knock ten thousand of them in the heads and stack them in the
snow.

  “We cannot lack for fuel. Enough trees for a hundred years have been struck dead here within several hours. And within ten days there will be better adapted new vegetation start through the old. Dr. Eimer says this always happens; that seeds that have been here dormant since Wurm will now come to life. And by that time there will be patches through the snow. We will have two three-month periods a year when much of the snow will disappear, and we will be in the middle of one of them. It will not be bad. Of course we will have to get the jump on our little red minded brothers. That will not be easy.”

  “Oh, don't hurry about that. They have one good idea. I would kind of like to have a mate by evening. Do you have any ideas?”

  “I have an idea about what your idea is. But what is that look on your face? If it's a smile, it surely has some odd overtones. Violet, don't look at me like that. I can't get married. Violet — I have my work to do.”

  “Your work is back in New York under quite a few feet of snow. Think how deep it'll be by morning. And just remember, it will be nearly ninety thousand years before you can get back to it. That's a long time to be a bachelor.”

  “Yes, that's a long time, Violet — I never thought about it that way.”

  “Which would you rather have, me or the sadist group?”

  “I don't know, Violet. There's a lot to be said against both of you. Oh, I didn't mean that quite the way it sounded. I would prefer you immeasurably to the sadist group. But I have a stubborn streak. I will not be forced by these jokers.”

  “Couldn't you be stubborn about something else? There will be much you can be stubborn about under these new circumstances.”

  “I will be stubborn about this. Maybe it is only about fifteen above zero, maybe there are only seven or ten inches of snow. And even though it will moderate within ten days it will be bitter tonight. Be a good girl, get your bolo, and see how much wood you can cut.”

  “I had a date tonight for the opening of ‘Pink Snow’. Now I don't believe there will be any opening, and my boyfriend has probably frozen to death.”

  They worked hard as the afternoon wore on. Commander Andreyev kept buzzing around them; and, though he was insulting, yet he seemed to want their company.

  “Professor Gilluly, you are high in the confidence of Dr. Eimer. Has he any particular ideas of governing this colony?”

  “None that I know of. Ask him. Here he comes.”

  “No. None, Andy — we figured it would take care of itself.”

  “And now providently we have taken that worry from you.”

  “There was no worry, and you have taken nothing from us.”

  “I am the commander of the world,” said Andreyev.

  “You said that before.”

  “My superiors will all be dead in hours or days. There will be no one to give me orders.” He said this last wistfully.

  “Do you need someone to give you orders?”

  “No. No. Of course not. Now I shall give the orders.” And he went away.

  But in less than an hour he was back. “Do you think, Dr. Eimer, that it is snowing harder in Moscow than in New York?”

  “Of course it is. That is in line with my predictions. Is it not in line with yours?”

  “Certainly. But I only wondered…”

  “What?”

  “I wondered if it were possible for someone to be making it snow very hard in my country?”

  “What are you talking about? How could anyone be making it snow? You have been studying the coming glaciation for twenty years. What is the matter with you now?”

  “It is nothing, nothing at all. It is just something I picked up on the radio a moment ago. You understand there is a great deal of panic in the world, and many things are being said that in normal times would not seem normal. It is just something I heard on the radio.”

  He went away. And the professors, doctors, and assorted persons worked very hard until they had attained the means and assurance of shelter and heat for the night. Then they rested.

  “I always thought you were all crazy,” said Violet, “but you paid well — so I worked for you. But how did you know it was going to get cold? What makes an ice age?”

  “There's a lot of things that can do it, Violet. It only takes a little change. Between freezing and melting there is only a fraction of a degree, and if it is worldwide that is all that is needed. There is a solar variable cycle involved here, and an oxygen carbon-dioxide balance or unbalance: there is a cloud envelope disparity and a change of worldwide air flow. But that is just a fancy way of saying it, Violet. The straight fact is that every now and then it just plain gets cold.

  About dark, commander Andreyev came to them again. “I extend the hand of friendship,” said Andreyev.

  “Good for you, Andy.”

  “My remarks earlier today were intemperate and ill-advised.”

  “Indeed they were. But how did you come to realize it?”

  “I propose that we join our forces.”

  “I propose that we leave things unjoined. We should gradually learn to get along.”

  “I propose that you reign as supreme commander, Dr. Eimer.”

  “I propose that you get over your nonsense, whatever it is.”

  “I am putting all my forces at your disposal, everything, even my sadist group — they are yours. Say the word. Is there anyone you want tortured or intimidated. They are avid to do it.”

  “There is nobody. But please explain the change.”

  “Dr. Eimer, if you were accustomed to obeying orders and believed it right to do so, should you not obey a final order — even though it were unenforceable on you?”

  “I think so.”

  “It is an order I received, perhaps the last order that will come over the air. There have been all-channel and all languages broadcasts. I cannot disobey an order. It is to all our commanders and agents everywhere in the world.”

  “And what is the order?”

  “It is that we surrender unconditionally to you.”

  “What is there left to surrender? And why have they done it?”

  “They seem to believe in my country, even the leaders — oh, I don't know how to say what they believe in my country!”

  For if it was snowing in Washington and New York, and in the tropics, it was snowing doubly in Moscow — an odd quirk of the new glaciation that had been predicted by both Dr. Eimer and Commander Andreyev working independently on two different continents. By noon eastern time, when white night had already descended on the Russias, the mysterious urgent pleas had come to a heart-rending climax.

  By cable and broadcast came the notes.

  “The launchings were unauthorized,” said the first note.

  “The launchings were in error. We request that you stop the snow until negotiations can be resumed,” said the second.

  “Urgent, repeat, urgent, that snow be stopped,” said the third.

  It was a puzzled President and staff that read the cables, and a mystified public that heard the broadcasts. They did not immediately realize that Moscow believed the incredible snow was an American secret weapon, unleashed in retaliation of the missile launchings and destruction of the American bases.

  The notes became pleading: “Government being completely redesigned on more amenable lines. Request patience and understanding. Urgent snow be stopped. It is now more than four meters. Advise surrender terms. Cessation of nivalation critical.”

  “It is hardly less critical here,” said the President. “Nine feet is no light snow, and I doubt if it can be stopped by either act of Congress or executive directive. I could give a lot of orders, but what good would it do? Nobody is going anywhere.”

  By the time of the Washington dusk, which was only a grey overlay of the blurred white, Moscow was buried under twenty-six feet of snow, and there was two-thirds as much over most of America.

  Down in the Padiwire Valley on the equator Dr. Eimer, Professors Schubert and Gilluly and some others went with abdicate
d Commander Andreyev to his tent to hear the last of the broadcasts. “Abject surrender. Request for the love of God you stop snow.” And the last message was only a broken particle of phrase: “Milocerd!”

  Mercy!

  Girl Of The Month

  Mansard Moluney belonged to the Bibelots, to the Bibliophiles, to the Bibliomanes, to the Seventeenth-Century Book Club, to the Eighteenth-Century Book Club, to the Fine Editions Club, to the Library Editions Club, to the Cook-Book of the Month Club, to the Man-About-Town Book Club, and to the Off-Beat-Book of the Month Club. He belonged to numerous Record of the Month Clubs, and to a whole dynasty of Art-Album, Around-The-World-Booklet, Chinese-Silk-Print, and Exotic Gifts Clubs. He even belonged to a rather unusual club that delivered to his door a packet of different kinds of sausage on every single day of the year; and this included Yak, Rattlesnake, and giant Sloth sausage before the year was out. As far as we know this is the only club in the line. It is not to be confused with the Salami-A-Day club to which he also belonged.

  When he saw an advertising card inserted in one of his For-Discerning-Adults-Only-Book-Club choices he naturally signed it and mailed it.

  This made him a member of the Girl of the Month Club.

  He did not know it, but he was now a member of the newest and most exclusive Month Club in the world, one limited to thirty members.

  In the fullness of time (three days), he received a beautiful colored art photograph which he hung on his wall. As his eyes had grown dim from his activities he did not read the fine print under the accompanying cover, and so did not realize that he had become the seventeenth-day member unless he immediately expressed a preference for a different day. Had he read it he would not have acted, as to him one day was much like another.

  But on the evening of the seventeenth day of that month which shall be nameless (you who are presently among the thirty members of the club, knowing the month, would be likely to identify the girl) on that evening a quite nice young girl came to his door. And when his eyes had undimmed he realized that she was the girl of the Art Photo.