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

by R. A. Lafferty

  “This is a little unusual,” Mrs. Trux said to some of the Skandia women. “I was never short on hospitality. It is our physical resources, not our willingness, that becomes strained. There are so many of you!”

  “Don't give it a thought,” the Skandia women said. “It is the intent that counts, and it was so kind of you people to invite us. We seldom get a chance to go anywhere. We came a little early, but the main bunch will be along very soon. Don't you just love to go visiting.”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” said Mrs. Trux. “I never realized till now just how much I wanted to go visiting.”

  But when she saw the whole outdoors black with the new people, Mrs. Trux decided that she had better stay where she was.

  Truman Trux was figuring with a pencil.

  “Our lot is fifty feet by a hundred and fifty feet, Jessica,” he said. “That is either 7,500 or 75,000 square feet depending on how many zeroes you carry it out to.”

  “You were always good at math,” said Mrs. Trux. “How do you do it anyhow?”

  “And do you know how many people are living with us here on this lot, Jessica?” Truman asked.

  “Quite a few.”

  “I am guessing between six and seven thousand,” said Truman. “I found several more blocks of them this morning that I didn't know about. They have a complete city built in our back yard. The streets are two and a half feet wide; the houses are eight feet by eight feet with six foot ceilings, and most of them are nine stories high. Whole families live in each room and cook there besides. They have shops and bazaars set up. They even have factories built. I know there is an entire wholesale textile district in our back yard. There are thirteen taverns and five music halls in our yard to my own knowledge, and there may be more.”

  “Well, some of those places are pretty small, Truman. The Little Hideout is the broom closet of the Big Hideout, and I don't know if we should count it as a separate tavern. You have to go into the Sideways Club side-ways; the Thinman Club is only nine inches wide from wall to wall and it's quite a trick to bending an elbow there; and the Mouse Room is small. But the better clubs are up in our attic, Truman. Did you ever count them? The Crazy Man Cabaret is up there, and the After Hours Club. Most of the other attic clubs are key clubs and I'm not a member. They've set up the Skandia Art Theater in our basement now, you know. They have continuous performances.”

  “I know it, Jessica, I know it.”

  “Their comedies are so funny that I nearly die. The trouble is that it's so crowded there that you have to laugh in when the one next to you laughs out. And I cry just like they do at their tragedies. They're all about women who can't have any more children. Why don't we have a bunch more, Truman? There's more than twenty shops in our yard where they sell nothing but fertility charms. I wonder why there aren't any children with the Skandia?”

  “Ah, they say that this is just a short first visit by a few of them and they didn't presume to bring their children with them. What is that new racket superimposed on the old?”

  “Oh, that's the big drums and the cymbals. They're having a political campaign to elect temporary officials for the time of their visit here. Imperial City, that's the town in our yard, and our house, will elect delegates to go to Congress to represent this whole block. The elections will be tonight. Then we'll really hear some noise, they say. The big drums don't really waste space, Truman. There are people inside them and they play them from the inside. Some of our neighbors are getting a little fussy about the newcomers, but I always did like a house full of people.”

  “We have it now, Jessica. I never got used to sleeping in a bed with nine other people, even if they are quiet sleepers. I like people, and I am fond of new experiences. But it is getting crowded.”

  “We have more of the Skandia than anyone else in the block except the Skirveys. They say it's because they like us more than some of the others. Mamie Skirvey is taking four kinds of the fertility pills now. She is almost sure she will be able to have triplets. I want to too.”

  “All the stores are stripped, Jessica, and all the lumber yards and lumber camps; and the grain elevators will be empty in two more days. The Skandia pay for everything in money, but nobody knows what it says on it. I haven't got used to walking on men and women when I go out, but there's no avoiding it since the ground is covered with them.”

  “They don't mind. They're used to it. They say it's crowded where they come from.”

  The Winterfield Times-Tribune Telegraph had a piece about the Skandia:

  The plain fact is that for two days the Earth has had ten billion visitors from Skandia, wherever that is. The plain fact is that the Earth will die of them within a week. They appear by invisible transportation, but they have shown no inclination to disappear in the same manner. Food will be gone, the very air we breathe will be gone. They speak all our languages, they are polite, friendly and agreeable. And we will perish from them.

  A big smiling man broke in on Bar-John, who was once again president of Big State Amalgamated, former U.S.A.

  “I'm the president of the Skandia Visitation,” he boomed. “We have come partly to instruct you people and we find that you do need it. Your fertility rate is pathetic. You barely double in fifty years. Your medicine, adequate in other fields, is worse than childish in this. We find that some of the nostrums peddled to your people actually impede fertility. Well, get in the Surgeon General and a few of the boys and we'll begin to correct the situation.”

  “Gedoudahere,” said President Bar-John.

  “I know you will not want your people to miss out on the population blessing,” said the Skandia Visitation President. “We can aid you. We want you to be as happy as we are.”

  “Jarvis! Cudgelman! Sapsucker!” President Bar-John called out. “Shoot down this man. I'll implement the paperwork on it later.”

  “You always say that but you never do,” Sapsucker complained. “It's been getting us in a lot of trouble.”

  “Oh, well, don't shoot him down then if you're going to make an issue of it. I long for the old days when the simple things were done simply. Dammit, you Skandia skinner, do you know that there are nine thousand of you in the White House itself?”

  “We intend to improve that this very hour,” the Skandia president said. “We can erect one, two, or even three decks in these high-ceilinged rooms. I am happy to say that we will have thirty thousand of our people quartered in the White House this night.”

  “Do you think I like to take a bath with eight other persons — not even registered voters — in the same tub?” President Bar-John complained. “Do you think I like to eat off a plate shared by three or four other people? Or to shave, by mistake, faces other than my own in the morning?”

  “I don't see why not,” said the Skandia Visitation president. “People are our most precious commodity. Presidents are always chosen as being those who most love the people.”

  “Oh, come on, fellows,” said President Bar-John. “Shoot down the ever-loving son. We're entitled to a free one now and then.”

  Jarvis and Cudgelman and Sapsucker blazed away at the Skandia, but they harmed him not at all.

  “You should have known that we are immune to that,” the Skandia said. “We voted against its effect years ago. Well, since you will not cooperate, I will go direct to your people. Happy increase to you, gentlemen.”

  Truman Trux, having gone out from his own place for a little change, was sitting on a park bench. He wasn't actually sitting on it, but several feet above it. In that particular place, a talkative Skandia lady sat on the bench itself. On her lap sat a sturdy Skandia man reading the Sporting News and smoking a pipe. On him sat a younger Skandia woman. On this younger woman sat Truman Trux, and on him sat a dark Skandia girl who was filing her fingernails and humming a tune. On her in turn sat an elderly Skandia man. As crowded as things had become, one could not expect a seat of one's own.

  A fellow and his girl came along, walking on the people on the grass.

 
“Mind if we get on?” asked the girl.

  “Quite all right,” said the elderly gentleman on top.

  “S'all right,” said the girl working on her nails.

  “Certainly,” said Truman and the others, and the Sporting News man puffed into his pipe that it was perfectly agreeable.

  There was no longer any motor traffic. People walked closely packed on streets and sidewalks. The slow stratum was the lowest, then the medium, then the fast (walking on the shoulders of the mediums and combining the three speeds). At crossings it became rather intricate, and people were sometimes piled nine high. But the Earth people, those who still went out, quickly got onto the Skandia techniques.

  An Earthman, known for his extreme views, had mounted onto a monument in the park and began to harangue the people, Earth and Skandia. Truman Trux, who wanted to see and hear, managed to get a nice fifth-level seat, sitting on the shoulders of a nice Skandia girl, who sat on the shoulders of another who likewise to the bottom.

  “Ye are the plague of locusts!” howled the Earth-side crank. “Ye have stripped us bare!”

  “The poor man!” said the Skandia girl who was Truman's understudy. “He likely has only a few children and is embittered.”

  “Ye have devoured our substance and stolen the very air of our life. Ye are the Apocalyptical grasshoppers, the eleventh plague.”

  “Here is a fertility charm for your wife,” said the Skandia girl, and reached it up to Truman. “You might not need it yet, but keep it for the future. It is for those who have more than twelve. The words in Skandia say ‘Why stop now?’ It is very efficacious.”

  “Thank you,” said Truman. “My wife has many charms from you good people, but not one like this. We have only one child, a young girl.”

  “What a shame! Here is a charm for your daughter. She cannot begin to use them too early.”

  “Destruction, destruction, destruction on ye all!” screamed the Earth-side crank from atop the monument.

  “Quite an adept,” said the Skandia girl. “To what school of eloquence does he belong?”

  The crowd began to break up and move off. Truman felt himself taken down one level and then another.

  “Any particular direction?” asked the Skandia girl.

  “This is fine,” said Truman. “We're going toward my home.”

  “Why, here's a place almost clear,” said the girl. “You'd never find anything like this at home.” They were now down to the last level, the girl walking only on the horizontal bodies of those lounging on the grass. “You can get off and walk if you wish,” said the girl. “Here's a gap in the walkers you can slip down into. Well, toodle.”

  “You mean toodle-oo?” Truman asked as he slid off her shoulders.

  “That's right. I can never remember the last part of it.”

  The Skandia were such friendly people!

  President Bar-John and a dozen other regents of the world had decided that brusqueness was called for. Due to the intermingling of Earth and Skandia populations, this would be a task for small and medium arms. The problem would be to gather the Skandia together in open spots, but on the designated day they began to gather of themselves in a million parks and plazas of the Earth. It worked perfectly. Army units were posted everywhere and went into action. Rifles began to whistle and machine guns to chatter. But the effect on the Skandia was not that expected.

  Instead of falling wounded, they cheered everywhere.

  “Pyrotechnics yet!” exclaimed a Skandia leader, mounting onto the monument in one park. “Oh, we are honored!”

  But, though the Skandia did not fall from the gunshot, they had began to diminish in their numbers. They were disappearing as mysteriously as they had appeared a week before.

  “We go now,” said the Skandia leader from the top of the monument. “We have enjoyed every minute of our short visit. Do not despair! We will not abandon you to your emptiness. Our token force will return home and report. In another week we will visit you in substantial numbers. We will teach you the full happiness of human proximity, the glory of fruitfulness, the blessing of adequate population. We will teach you to fill up the horrible empty places of your planet.”

  The Skandia were thinning out. The last of them were taking cheering farewells of disconsolate Earth friends.

  “We will be back,” they said as they passed their last fertility charms into avid hands. “We'll be back and teach you everything so you can be as happy as we are. Good increase to you!”

  “Good increase to you!” cried the Earth people to the disappearing Skandia. Oh, it would be a lonesome world without all those nice people! With them you had the feeling that they were really close to you.

  “We'll be back!” said the Skandia leader, and disappeared from the monument. “We'll be back next week and a lot more of us,” and then they were gone.

  “—And next time we'll bring the kids!” came the last fading Skandia voice from the sky.

  Land of the Great Horses

  “They came and took our country away from us,” the people had always said. But nobody understood them.

  Two Englishmen, Richard Rockwell and Seruno Smith, were rolling in a terrain buggy over the Thar Desert. It was bleak, red country, more rock than sand. It looked as though the top had been stripped off it and the naked underland left uncovered. They heard thunder and it puzzled them. They looked at each other, the blond Rockwell and the dark Smith. It never thundered in the whole country between New Delhi and Bahawalpur. What would this rainless north India desert have to thunder with?

  “Let's ride the ridges here,” Rockwell told Smith, and he sent the vehicle into a climb. “It never rains here, but once before I was caught in a draw in a country where it never rained. I nearly drowned.”

  It thundered again, heavy and rolling, as though to tell them that they were hearing right.

  “This draw is named Kuti Tavdavi—Little River,” Smith said darkly. “I wonder why.”

  Then he jerked back as though startled at himself.

  “Rockwell, why did I say that? I never saw this draw before. How did a name like that pop into my mind? But it's the low draw that would be a little river if it ever rained in this country. This land can't have significant rain. There's no high place to tip whatever moisture goes over.”

  “I wonder about that every time I come,” said Rockwell, and raised his hand toward the shimmering heights—the Land of the Great Horses, the famous mirage. “If it were really there it would tip the moisture. It would make a lush savanna of all this.”

  They were mineral explorers doing ground minutiae on promising portions of an aerial survey. The trouble with the Thar was that it had everything—lead, zinc, antimony, copper, tin, bauxite—in barely submarginal amounts. Nowhere would the Thar pay off, but everywhere it would almost pay.

  Now it was lightning about the heights of the mirage, and they had never seen that before. It had clouded and lowered. It was thundering in rolling waves, and there was no mirage of sound.

  “There is either a very large and very busy bird up there or this is rain,” Rockwell said.

  And it had begun to rain, softly but steadily. It was pleasant as they chukkered along in the vehicle through the afternoon. Rain in the desert is always like a bonus.

  Smith broke into a happy song in one of the northwest India tongues, a tune with a ribald swing to it, though Rockwell didn't understand the words. It was full of double rhymes and vowel-packed words such as a child might make up.

  “How the devil do you know the tongues so well?” Rockwell asked. “I find them difficult, and I have a good linguistic background.”

  “I didn't have to learn them,” Smith said, “I just had to remember them. They all cluster around the boro jib itself.”

  “Around the what? How many of the languages do you know?”

  “All of them. The Seven Sisters, they're called: Punjabi, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Marathi, Sindhi, Hindi.”

  “Your Seven Sisters only number six,”
Rockwell jibed.

  “There's a saying that the seventh sister ran off with a horse trader,” Smith said. “But that seventh lass is still encountered here and there around the world.”

  Often they stopped to survey on foot. The very color of the new rivulets was significant to the mineral men, and this was the first time they had ever seen water flow in that country. They continued on fitfully and slowly, and ate up a few muddy miles.

  Rockwell gasped once and nearly fell off the vehicle. He had seen a total stranger riding beside him, and it shook him.

  Then he saw that it was Smith as he had always been, and he was dumbfounded by the illusion. And, soon, by something else.

  “Something is very wrong here,” Rockwell said.

  “Something is very right here,” Smith answered him, and then broke into another song in an Indian tongue.

  “We're lost,” Rockwell worried out loud. “We can't see any distance for the rain, but there shouldn't be rising ground here. It isn't mapped.”

  “Of course it is,” Smith sang. “It's the Jalo Char.”

  “The what? Where did you get a name like that? The map's a blank here, and the country should be.”

  “Then the map is defective. Man, it's the sweetest valley in the world! It will lead us all the way up. How could the map forget it? How could we all forget it for so long?”

  “Smith! What's wrong? You're pie-eyed.”

  “Everything's right, I tell you. I was reborn just a minute ago. It's a coming home.”

  “Smith! We're riding through green grass.”

  “I love it. I could crop it like a horse.”

  “That cliff, Smith! It shouldn't be that close! It's part of the mir—”

  “Why, sir, that is Lolo Trusul.”

  “But it's not real! It's not on any topography map!”