by Fritz Leiber
“I don’t get this,” begged the Time Traveler. “You seem to find it not at all unreasonable that I am from the Past. You should also realize, then, that I, like any stranger, have no particularly accurate idea of what your civilization is like. What world this?”
The little man spat carefully.
“This is EGOBOO, prime world of the Pseudoscientific Universe. We represent the zenith of accomplishment of the Pseudoscientific Principle promulgated, advocated, and practiced by the race of Fen. That babe you just remarked ankling past is a Heroine.” He looked wistful.
“’Course, nobody dast touch a Heroine ’cept a Hero.” He sighed, then, brightened. “But there’s Jills, an’ Space Floozies for the rest of us! Y’see, the Fen are divided into classes, Heroes, Heroines, Rocketeers, Spacehands, and the like. There’s about a million classes, and more are created every year by the Prime Pseudoscientist.”
“Who is this Prime Pseudoscientist?”
A beatific expression transfixed the features of the meager little man.
“The gre-e-a-at gho-hod Vermilionn Swampwaterr XCVI!” he chanted and promptly fell flat on his face in a fit of cerebral ecstasy.
Entirely helpless in the face of this unexpected turn of events, the Time Traveler carefully stepped over the prostrate, twitching fellow and sought a path deeper into the metallic jungle.
He followed a broad lane through the forest of beams and girders, observing with an alive interest the bizarre tangle of machines, machines, and more machines, of which the planet seemed to be entirely composed in this ultimate age of pseudoscience. Every imaginable device was represented, each one functioning without purpose, clicking, buzzing, whirring, and glowing.
Light pleasure cars and heavy haulers whizzed past him on the broad highway, each at an identical, dizzying speed. Fen in the pleasure cars waved gaily at him while passing, and when he gestured with a thumb, they shouted, “No room! No room! Can’t stop! Can’t stop!” like characters from a scene in Alice in Wonderland.
“Hssssttt!”
The sound pierced sharply through the whir of racing motors, and the Time Traveler looked quickly around.
“Hey! Look up here!”
The Time Traveler looked up and beheld a fellow in crimson cloak, green tunic, broad-belted yellow pegtops, boots, and an aviation helmet possessing wings and a crest. He was perched on the tower rung of a swaying ladder of ropy metal that seemed to depend from a point above the arching, interlaced roof.
“Are you a Hero?” the Traveler asked mildly.
“Nah!” hissed the apparition. “I’m a Radical spy! I just dress like a Hero to fool the Pseudos—they don’t dare lay hand on a Hero, y’know… C’mon up!”
“I can’t fly—really!” said the Time Traveler.
In response, the pseudo-Superman swooped to ground level and seized the Traveler around the waist with one powerful arm. The Traveler felt himself leave the ground. There was a rush of wind in his face, a sensation of extreme ascending velocity; then he dangled with the Futureman a foot below the open side door of a hovering air-car.
“In you go!” grunted the fellow, and thrust the Time Traveler upward into the machine, no mean feat for a synthetic Hero to accomplish, and followed agilely after.
For a long moment he stared down at the matted canopy of metal; then with slitted eyes quickly scanned the horizon. Satisfied that the darting shapes he observed were only spaceships departing for and returning from all parts of the Galaxy, he turned to the controls.
“I think we’re safe,” he muttered, putting the air-car into motion, “You’re lucky I happened to be scanning this sector of EGOBOO with my Fernray Visi-Dissector, Pastman, or the Pseudos would have got you!”
“What makes you think I am from the Past?”
“Your clothes, bud! Nobody but a Fan from the 20th Century, D.A., would wear a rig like that!”
“You mean A.D., don’t you?”
“D.A., bud. Dark Ages.” The air-car sped with increasing velocity toward the horizon, a blurred streak a hundred feet above the canopy of interlaced metal that appeared to cover the whole of this pseudoscientific world. “You are now in the Third Millennium of the Pseudoscientific Era,” he went on, “under the enlightened leadership of Vermilionn Swampwaterr—Verminn XCVI!” There was an ironic undercurrent to the Futureman’s tone that was not lost on the Time Traveler.
“Who are the Radicals?” he asked.
The Futureman scowled apprehensively. “We are an association of Futurefen, Throw Ups from the Past, literary men and women, scientists, doctors, natural philosophers, etc. We live underground in ‘The Woods’—where the Pseudos cannot penetrate, because it is guarded by the applications of Real Science, against which the fantastic inventions of Pseudoscience are powerless. How long you been here in EGOBOO, bud?”
“Only a few hours. I left the Past at 1950 A.D.”
“Ten years before the uprising of Verminn the First,” observed the pilot.
“Who was he?”
“Vermilionn Swampwaterr—‘Verminn’ for short, y’see. He founded EGOBOO and the Pseudoscientific Era.”
“I recall the name,” returned the Time Traveler. “It was considered probably a group synonym for subversive fen—a semantically pseudoscientific plausibility.”
“It was after you left,” the pilot went on, “that Verminn began to experiment with the Pseudoscientific Principle. Science-fiction, he said, had demonstrably proved itself to be centuries ahead of real science. Scientists, ergo, were outmoded. Verminn’s research along lines of the pseudoscientific principle developed the H-bomb in less than two weeks—a problem that had baffled real scientists for years! In 1960, Verminn and both of his friends rose in armed rebellion and issued a Proclamation.”
“A proclamation?”
“The Proclamation. All fen, it read, were thenceforth to read those science-fiction stories in the s/f magazines specifically approved by Verminn. No one should ever again read weird or fantasy stories. Further, the Proclamation went on to say, no fan was to publish any fanzine (we call them foozines now—it sounds more pseudoscientific) without the express permission of Verminn himself.”
“What happened?”
“Revolt, of course Fandom revolted immediately and in its entirety—a great surprise to Verminn! Displeased, he proclaimed the whole world one State of Fandom; and the world revolted. Verminn’s paranoia took the form of a delusion of persecution. Being unable to tolerate this dissidence and evidence of dissatisfaction with his personal prejudices, hatreds, dislikes, spleens, etc., Verminn whipped out his pseudoscientific H-bomb and practically destroyed the world.”
The Time Traveler shuddered.
“And this is the outcome! Do none now revolt?”
“Nobody but us Radicals,” said the pilot gloomily. “As a consequence of Verminn’s H-bomb attack, the editorial staff of Weird Yarns Magazine was driven underground, where they continued to publish weirdies for a few fen who preferred the hunted freedom of choosing their own reading material to the outrageous dictates of Verminn, who; of course, justified his course of action with the announcement that he acted ‘for the best interests of Fandom’.”
“Some such clack as that was a favorite catch-phrase of his in my time,” observed the Time Traveler.
“All the advocates of science-fiction as a literary art,” the pilot went on, “as well as those who wrote or read fantasy of any kind other than Verminn’s particular dish, were hunted down and destroyed in the days following the H-bombing. Samson Seahorse, editor of Stultifying Science Stories, Verminn discovered, augmented his meager editorial income (he was paid in old but uncancelled postage stamps steamed from the return envelopes accompanying accepted mss.—the reason he bought so many)—any-hoo, Seahorse wrote in his spare time and among other things, sold love pulps to th
e Boudoir Classics chain. This so enraged Verminn, he created Seahorse thermidor via the boiled-in-oil method. And so it went.”
“But how did he discover the science-baffling H-bomb?”
“You are familiar with the A-bomb in your time, and know that it required a critical mass of U-235 to produce the explosion?”
“Yes, I know that. Go on.”
“Applying the principles of pseudoscience, Verminn discovered that a quantity of hydrogen need be brought into proximity with only small part of a critical mess, and it detonated with astounding violence 1000 times more powerful than the A-bomb! It was easy to extract hydrogen from the air—Verminn himself was the ‘critical mess’! The bomb he created was nothing more than a flask of hydrogen with a hair from Verminn’s head triggered to penetrate the gas at the crucial moment. Who could withstand him? Of course, Verminn remained bald from the time of the H-bombing; but, as he said, “No sacrifice for the good of Fandom is too great!”
The pilot glanced out the side window.
“Here we are. Hold your hat!”
The air-car dropped with a sickening lurch. The Time Traveler grabbed and hung on. He was momentarily conscious of a wall of green vegetation flashing upward, then the wall became bluish, blurred like the surface of a racing river; and the Time Traveler suspected that they plummeted into the bowels of the earth through some kind of metal-lined tube.
The air-car slowed its descent, feathered to a gentle landing on a smooth, hard surface.
“Welcome to Fantasia!” said the pilot. “The only place in the Universe where science-fiction, weird, and fantasy stories are still written, published, and read!”
“Is that true? How about the Fen of EGOBOO?”
The pilot regarded him pityingly. “They’re just Fen! They neither write nor read the stuff—they live it! In fact, nobody has ever been permitted to write anything, except what the ruling Verminn has liked to read. Since no Verminn ever liked anything he read, and since the Verminn line admits its failure at writing fiction; naturally, nothing of the kind has been either written or read in the World of EGOBOO. Hop out, now, and meet the people!”
* * * *
Myra Futurewoman was the most beautiful creature the Time Traveler had ever seen. Editor of Weird Yarns Science-Fantasy Magazine in this extravagant era, her position as Mayoress of Fantasia was tantamount to a queenship over the little band of hardy Radicals.
The Time Traveler’s interview took place in the Mayoress’ office, far above the gently murmuring city into which the pilot and the official airport greeters had conducted him.
“I used to be a Heroine in the upper world,” Myra smiled pensively, “but I tired of the continual pursuit of the Heroes. They are such wooden sticks! Moreover, I felt that surely there was a more real purpose in life than wearing a Zapp gun as almost my only garment (had to, you see), and making myself glamorous for annual Cover Girl Day, so I gave up and joined the Radicals.”
“I understand,” commented the Time Traveler, “that Verminn the First systematically eradicated every protagonist of weird and fantasy literature.”
“Of course,” agreed Myra, “though some escaped to join the Radicals underground; and others, to be sure, were destroyed, in the H-blasts. Oliver Snardvark, publisher of Baconship Classics, was, on the other hand, captured and made to eat an entire press run of his latest weird opus, hard covers included. ‘Since Snardvark has no taste at all,’ Verminn commented, ‘he can easily swallow his own words without discomfort.’ This turned out to be not entirely true.
“Roy Fistfiller, quondam editor of Emulsifying Stories and a magazine called Ultra Planets was detected while illegally instructing a kindergarten class in the rudiments of Fistfiller’s own brand of pseudoscience. Dick Q. Razorblade, who was present and holding the Great Editor’s hat at the time, barely had time to whimper, ‘The Deros are coming!’ when the H-bomb went off, destroying them both, along with the class of children and seven and a half million other citizens for a hundred miles around. ‘I did it for the good of Fandom,’ Verminn proclaimed afterwards. ‘Why should anybody who would listen to crud like that, get a chance to grow up?’ When it was pointed out to him that the other seven and a half million citizens had never heard of Fistfiller or of Razorblade’s fanciful ‘Cabins in the Sky’, Verminn merely shrugged and remarked that they probably were only readers of the Wednesday Morning Journal anyway.”
“Did he never know when to stop?”
“Never!” sighed Myra. “He even attacked the dead! Q. R. Sexcraft, late author of weird stories, he abused by destroying all copies of his works with pseudoscientific Z-rays. ‘Cthulhu my left foot!’ the tyrant grumbled as they burned. As for the long-defunct Egrallun Poo, Verminn not only burned his books but, decreed as well that thenceforth theatre patrons would have to shift for themselves in the matter of finding seats and further, he caused the word ‘usher’ to be struck from the dictionary.”
“Didn’t Verminn like anybody at all?”
“Well, he did demonstrate a predilection for a fan columnist called Bedd Buggs. It turned out, of course that Buggs was just a synonym for Swampwaterr.”
“You meant to say, ‘pseudonym’,” the Time Traveler interposed gracefully.
“If I did,” returned Myra, “it’s the first time I ever made that mistake!”
“Oh,” said the Time Traveler. “Well, tell me—can the Pseudos, or you Fantasiatics, travel in Time?”
A frown furrowed the brow of the alabaster maid.
“The pseudoscientific potentialities of time traveling have not been fully evaluated, owing to certain peculiarities inherent in the Pseudoscientific Principle. Travel into the Past is limited to the beginning of the Pseudoscientific Era. We cannot travel at all into the Future.”
The Time Traveler sat bolt upright, then slowly relaxed. A faint smile hovered about his firm mouth.
“Then I shall succeed!” he murmured.
“Succeed at what?” queried Myra.
“At destroying this Universe!”
Myra stared at him, eyes wide in fascination, as the color ebbed slowly from her cheeks.
“You are mad!” she whispered at last. “No one—not even in science-fiction!—has ever dreamed of destroying the entire Universe!”
“Henry Kuttner did!” returned the Time Traveler.
“Saint Henry!” cried Myra in reverent awe.
“Yes—in The Time Axis, Kuttner not only destroyed the Universe, but he rebuilt it into two totally new Universes! I, however, shall not rebuild what I shall destroy!”
For some time, a murmur had been rising from the level of the street below; and now the outcry rose to such volume that the Time Traveler repaired hastily to the window. At that moment, a man stumbled into the room, blood flowing from a nasty wound in his head. His features were drawn and haggard. He gasped as he spoke.
“The Pseudos! They are running amuck all through the city, killing and burning everywhere!”
Myra was on her feet, her great big beautiful eyes wide, violet pools of terror.
“The end we have expected for centuries! How—how could they have got past our patrols?”
“Earth-borer!” gasped the Fantasiatic, staggering. “They built a monstrous earth-borer and bored through from the other side of the Earth! They came out of the ground in the heart of the city and caught us by surprise!”
“How are we holding?” whispered the beautiful Mayoress. “Have we a chance?”
The wounded man drooped. A glazed look had come into his eyes. He shook his head with an effort. “Alas—all is lost! They are even now inside this building!”
And he dropped stone cold dead at the feet of Myra and the Time Traveler.
The Time Traveler’s disaster-sharpened senses caught the thudding of heavy space-boots on the stairs and the
spiteful snarl of Zapp guns spitting death and hatred.
“Quickly!” he cried. “There is not a moment to lose! Where in the Universe are the headquarters of Vermilionn Swampwaterr? We must go there at once!”
“Here on EGOBOO,” replied Myra, wringing her hands in true Heroine fashion. “But how? The enemy is almost at the door. Not even pseudoscience can save us!”
“But yes!” answered the Time Traveler with assurance. “I have read every science-fiction story ever written, and hence am a master pseudoscientist! Can you torkle?”
“No,” returned the maid of EGOBOO.
“No matter. I can torkle sufficiently for the two of us. Give me your hand, and let us torkle directly into the quarters of Vermilionn Swampwaterr…like this—!”
He took her hand as the vanguard of screaming, bloodthirsty minions of pseudoscience burst in; and the two together vanished like a piece of type dropped inadvertently into the wrong box!
* * * *
“Grab those people!” yelled the Prime Pseudoscientist. “How did they get in here? I won’t have it, I say! I know what I like, and one thing I don’t like is strange people suddenly coming in out of nowhere! It makes me nervous! Woo! Gosh!”
As green-uniformed guardsmen rushed upon the pair, ugly blasters leveled, the Time Traveler quietly raised his hand in an imperious gesture. His kingly features bore a look of supreme majesty that brought the thundering guardsmen to a confused halt.
“Hold!” he murmured in a tone of iron determination.
The Prime Pseudoscientist, a wizened little caricature of a human being, crouched like a spider crab (Macrocheira kampferi) behind his desk, claws outspread over a complex arrangement of studs and push-buttons.
“I’ve got you covered with a Foo Ray!” he yelled. “What are you doing here? Woo!”
“At the moment,” replied the Time Traveler, idly buffing his nails on his coat sleeve, “nothing.” He fixed Vermilionn Swampwaterr XCVI with a glance of scorn. “I carry in my pocket a small flask of hydrogen gas. The ionization property of your Foo Ray will affect the phlogiston and set up a transmissory effect between the physical element of the gas and the pseudoscientific crappistance of your engrammatic personality, retrogressive in the nature of its fulmination; which, heterodyned upon the multimillimetric wavelength of the tortus quanta, will remove me instantaneously to the safety of hyper space. At the same time, you and your odious World of EGOBOO will disintegrate into flinders from the liberated clevis force of the hydrogen atoms now circulating quietly in my coat pocket!”