Store of Infinity

by Robert Sheckley

  “Ominous,” Loomis said nervously.

  “Yes, quite ominous,” Crompton agreed, growing overawed by his surroundings.

  The Blood River carried them deep into the interior of the continent. At night, moored to a midstream boulder, they could hear the war-hums of hostile Ais. One day two canoes of Ais pulled into the stream behind them. Crompton’s men leaned into their paddles and the canoe sprinted forward. The hostiles clung doggedly to them, and Crompton took out a rifle and waited. But his paddlers, inspired by fear, increased their lead, and soon the raiders were lost behind a bend of the river.

  They breathed more easily after that. But at a narrow bend they were greeted by a shower of arrows from both banks. One of the paddlers slumped across the gunwale, pierced four times. The rest leaned to their paddles, and soon were out of range.

  They dropped the dead Ais overboard, and the hungry creatures of the river squabbled over his disposition. After that, a great armored creature with crablike arms swam behind the canoe, his round head raised above the water, waiting doggedly for more food. Even rifle bullets wouldn’t drive him away, and his presence gave Crompton nightmares.

  The creature received another meal when two paddlers died of a grayish mold that crept up their paddles. The crablike creature accepted them and waited for more. But this river god protected his own. A raiding party of hostiles, seeing him, raised a great shout and fled back into the jungle.

  He clung behind them for the final hundred miles of the journey. And, when they came at last to a moss-covered wharf on the river bank, he stopped, watched disconsolately for a while, then turned back upstream.

  The paddlers pulled to the ruined dock. Crompton climbed onto it and saw a piece of wood daubed with red paint. Turning it over he saw written on it, “Blood Delta. Population 92.”

  Nothing but jungle lay beyond. They had reached Dan Stack’s final retreat.

  A narrow, overgrown path led from the wharf to a clearing in the jungle. With the clearing was what looked like a ghost town. Not a person walked on its single dusty street, and no faces peered out of the low, unpainted buildings. The little town baked silently under the white noonday glare, and Crompton could hear no sound but the scuffle of his own footsteps in the dirt.

  “I don’t like this,” Loomis said.

  Crompton walked slowly down the street. He passed a row of storage sheds with their owners’ names crudely printed across the walls. He passed an empty saloon, its door hanging by one hinge, its mosquito-netting windows ripped. He went by three deserted stores, and came to a fourth which had a sign saying, “Stack & Finch. Supplies.”

  Crompton entered. Trade goods were in neat piles on the floor, and more goods hung from the ceiling rafters. There was no one inside.

  “Anyone here?” Crompton called. He got no answer, and went back to the street.

  At the end of the town he came to a sturdy, barn-like building. Sitting on a stool in front of it was a tanned and moustached man of perhaps fifty. He had a revolver thrust into his belt. His stool was tilted back against the wall, and he appeared to be half asleep.

  “Dan Stack?” Crompton asked.

  “Inside,” the man said.

  Crompton walked to the door. The moustached man stirred, and the revolver was suddenly in his hand.

  “Move back away from that door,” he said.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” the moustached man asked.

  “No! Who are you?”

  “I’m Ed Tyler, peace officer appointed by the citizens of Blood Delta and confirmed in office by the commander of the Vigilantes. Stack’s in jail. This here place is the jail, for the time being.”

  “How long is he in for?” Crompton asked.

  “Just a couple hours.”

  “Can I speak to him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can I speak to him when he gets out9”

  “Sure,” Tyler said, “but I doubt he’ll answer you.”

  “Why?”

  The peace officer grinned wryly. “Stack will just be in jail a couple hours on account of this afternoon we’re taking him out of the jail and hanging him by the neck until he’s dead. After we’ve performed that little chore you’re welcome to all the talking you want with him. But like I said, I doubt he’ll answer you.”

  Crompton was too tired to feel much shock. He asked, “What did Stack do?”

  “Murder.”

  “A native?”

  “Hell no,” Tyler said in disgust. “Who gives a damn about natives? Stack killed a man name of Barton Finch. His own partner. Finch isn’t dead yet, but he’s going fast. Old Doc says he won’t last out the day, and that makes it murder. Stack was tried by a jury of his peers and found guilty of killing Barton Finch, breaking Billy Redburn’s leg, busting two of Eli Talbot’s ribs, wrecking Moriarty’s Saloon, and generally disturbing the peace. The judge—that’s me—prescribed hanging by the neck as soon as possible. That means this afternoon, when the boys are back from working on the new dam.”

  “When did the trial take place?” Crompton asked.

  “This morning.”

  “And the murder?”

  “About three hours before the trial.”

  “Quick work,” Crompton said.

  “We don’t waste no time here in Blood Delta,” Tyler said proudly.

  “I guess you don’t,” Crompton said. “You even hang a man before his victim’s dead.”

  “I told you Finch is going fast,” Tyler said, his eyes narrowing. “Watch yourself, stranger. Don’t go around imputing the justice of Blood Delta, or you’ll find yourself in plenty trouble. We don’t need no fancy lawyer’s tricks to tell us right from wrong.”

  Loomis whispered urgently to Crompton, “Leave it alone, let’s get out of here.”

  Crompton ignored him. He said to the sheriff, “Mr. Tyler, Dan Stack is my half-brother.”

  “Bad luck for you,” Tyler said.

  “I’d really appreciate seeing him. Just for five minutes. Just to give him a last message from his mother.”

  “Not a chance,” the sheriff said.

  Crompton dug into his pocket and took out a grimy wad of bills. “Just two minutes.”

  “Well. Maybe I could—damn!”

  Following Tyler’s gaze, Crompton saw a large group of men coming down the dusty street.

  “Here come the boys,” Tyler said. “Not a chance now, even if I wanted to. I guess you can watch the hanging, though.”

  Crompton moved back out of the way. There were at least fifty men in the group, and more coming. For the most part they were lean, leathery, hard-bitten no-nonsense types, and most of them carried sidearms. They conferred briefly with the sheriff.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Loomis warned.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” Crompton said.

  Sheriff Tyler opened the barn door. A group of men entered and came out dragging a man. Crompton was unable to see what he looked like, for the crowd closed around him.

  He followed as they carried the man to the far edge of town, where a rope had been thrown across one limb of a sturdy tree.

  “Up with him!” the crowd shouted.

  “Boys!” came the muffled voice of Dan Stack. “Let me speak!”

  “To hell with that,” a man shouted. “Up with him!”

  “My last words!” Stack shrieked.

  Suddenly the sheriff called out, “Let him say his piece, boys. It’s a dying man’s right. Go ahead, Stack, but don’t take too long about it.”

  They had put Dan Stack on a wagon, the noose around his neck, the free end held by a dozen hands. At last Crompton was able to see him. He stared, fascinated by this long-sought-for segment of himself.

  Dan Stack was a large, solidly built man. His thick, deeply lined features showed the marks of passion and hatred, fear and sudden violence, secret sorrow and secret vice. He had wide, flaring nostrils, a thick-lipped mouth set with strong teeth, and narro
w, treacherous eyes. Coarse black hair hung over his inflamed forehead, and there was a dark stubble on his fiery cheeks. His face betrayed his stereotype—the Choleric Humour of Air, caused by too much hot yellow bile, bringing a man quickly to anger and divorcing him from reason.

  Stack was staring overhead at the glowing white sky. Slowly he lowered his head, and the bronze fixture on his right hand flashed red in the steady glare.

  “Boys,” Stack said, “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my time.”

  “You telling us?” someone shouted.

  “I’ve been a liar and a cheat,” Stack shouted. “I’ve struck the girl I loved and struck her hard, wanting to hurt. I’ve stolen from my own dear parents. I’ve brought red murder to the unhappy natives of this planet. Boys, I’ve not lived a good life!”

  The crowd laughed at his maudlin speech.

  “But I want you to know,” Stack bellowed, “I want you to know that I’ve struggled with my sinful nature and tried to conquer it. I’ve wrestled with the old devil in my soul, and fought him the best fight I knew how. I joined the Vigilantes, and for two years I was as straight a man as you’ll find. Then the madness came over me again, and I killed.”

  “You through now?” the sheriff asked.

  “But I want you all to know one thing,” Stack shrieked, his eyeballs rolling in his red face. “I admit the bad things I’ve done, I admit them freely and fully. But boys, I did not kill Barton Finch!”

  “All right,” the sheriff said. “If you’re through now we’ll get on with it.”

  Stack shouted, “Listen to me! Finch was my friend, my only friend in the world! I was trying to help him, I shook him a little to bring him to his senses. And when he didn’t, I guess I lost my head and busted up Moriarty’s Saloon and fractured a couple of the boys. But before God I swear I didn’t harm Finch!”

  “Are you finished now?” the sheriff asked.

  Stack opened his mouth, closed it again, and nodded.

  “All right, boys,” the sheriff said. “Let’s go!”

  Men began to move the wagon upon which Stack was standing. And Stack, with a look of hopeless desperation on his face, caught sight of Crompton.

  And recognized him.

  Loomis was speaking to Crompton very rapidly. “Watch out, take it easy, don’t do anything, don’t believe him, look at his record, remember his history, he’ll ruin us, smash us to bits. He’s dominant, he’s powerful, he’s homicidal, he’s evil.”

  Crompton, in a fraction of a second, remembered Dr. Berrenger’s estimate of his chances for a successful Reintegration.

  Madness, or worse…

  “Totally depraved,” Loomis was saying, “evil, worthless, completely hopeless!”

  But Stack was part of him! Stack too longed for transcendence, had fought for self-mastery, had failed and fought again. Stack was not completely hopeless, no more than Loomis or he himself was completely hopeless.

  But was Stack telling the truth? Or had that impassioned speech been a last-minute bid to the audience in hope of a reprieve?

  He would have to assume Stack’s good faith. He would have to give Stack a chance.

  As the wagon was pushed clear, Stack’s eyes were fastened upon Crompton’s. Crompton made his decision and let Stack in.

  The crowd roared as Stack’s body plunged from the edge of the cart, contorted horribly for a moment, then hung lifeless from the taut rope. And Crompton reeled under the impact of Stack’s mind entering his.

  Then he fainted.

  Crompton awoke to find himself lying on a cot in a small, dimly lighted room.

  “You all right?” a voice asked. After a moment Crompton recognized Sheriff Tyler bending over him.

  “Yes, fine now,” Crompton said automatically.

  “I guess a hanging’s something of a shock to a civilized man like yourself. Think you’ll be okay if I leave you alone?”

  “Certainly,” Crompton answered dully.

  “Good. Got some work to do. I’ll look in on you in a couple hours.”

  Tyler left. Crompton tried to take stock of himself.

  Integration…Fusion…Completion…Had he achieved it during the healing time of unconsciousness? Tentatively he searched his mind.

  He found Loomis wailing disconsolately, terribly frightened, babbling about the Orange Desert, camping trips at All Diamond Mountain, the pleasures of women, luxury, sensation, beauty.

  And Stack was there, solid and immovable, unfused.

  Crompton spoke to him, mind to mind, and knew that Stack had been absolutely and completely sincere in his last speech. Stack sincerely wished for reform, self-control, moderation.

  And Crompton also knew that Stack was completely and absolutely unable to reform, to exercise self-control, to practice moderation. Even now, in spite of his efforts, Stack was filled with a passionate desire for revenge. His mind rumbled furiously, a deep counterpoint to Loomis’ shrill babbling. Great dreams of revenge swam in his mind, gaudy plans to conquer all Venus. Do something about the damned natives, wipe them out, make room for Terrans. Rip that damned Tyler limb from limb. Machine-gun the whole town, pretend the natives had done it. Build up a body of dedicated men, a private army of worshipers of STACK, maintain it with iron discipline, no weakness, no hesitation. Cut down the Vigilantes and no one would stand in the way of conquest, murder, revenge, fury, terror!

  Struck from both sides, Crompton tried to maintain balance, to extend his control over the two personalities. He fought to fuse the components into a single entity. A stable whole. But the minds struck back, refusing to yield their autonomy. The lines of cleavage deepened, new and irreconcilable schisms appeared, and Crompton felt his own stability undermined and his sanity threatened.

  Then Dan Stack, with his baffled and unworkable reforming urge, had a moment of lucidity.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can’t help. You need the other.”

  “What other?”

  “I tried,” Stack moaned. “I tried to reform! But there was too much of me, too much conflict, hot and cold, on and off. Thought I could cure it myself. So I schismed.”

  “You what?”

  “Can’t you hear me?” Stack asked. “Me, I was schizoid too. Latent. It showed up here on Venus. When I went back to Port New Haarlem I got another Durier body, and fissioned…I thought everything would be easier if I was simpler. But I was wrong!”

  “There’s another of us?” Crompton cried. “Of course we can’t Reintegrate! Who is it, where is he?”

  “I tried,” Stack moaned. “Oh, I tried! We were like brothers, him and me. I thought I could learn from him, he was so quiet and good and patient and calm! I was learning! Then he started to give up.”

  “Who was it?” Crompton asked.

  “So I tried to help him, tried to shake him out of it. But he was failing fast, he just didn’t care to live. My last chance was gone and I went a little crazy and shook him and broke up Moriarty’s Saloon. But I didn’t kill Barton Finch! He just didn’t want to live!”

  “Finch is the last component’”

  “Yes! You must go to Finch before he lets himself die, and you must bring him in. He’s in the little room in back of the store. You’ll have to hurry…”

  Stack fell back into his dreams of red murder, and Loomis babbled about the blue Xanadu Caverns.

  Crompton lifted the Crompton body from the cot and dragged it to the door. Down the street he could see Stack’s store. Reach the store, he told himself, and staggered out into the street.

  He walked a million miles. He crawled for a thousand years, up mountains, across rivers, past deserts, through swamps, down caverns that led to the center of the Earth, and out again to immeasurable oceans, which he swam to their furthest shore. And at the long journey’s end, he came to Stack’s store.

  In the back room, lying on a couch with a blanket pulled up to his chin, was Finch, the last hope for Reintegration. Looking at him, Crompton knew the final hopelessness of his search. />
  Finch lay very quietly, his eyes open and unfocused and unreachable, staring at nothing. His face was the great, white, expressionless face of an idiot. Those placid Buddha features showed an inhuman calm, expecting nothing and wanting nothing. A thin stream of saliva bubbled from his lips, and his heart beat occasionally. Least adequate of the four, he was the ultimate expression of the Earthly Humour of Phlegm, which makes a man passive and uncaring.

  Crompton forced back madness and crawled to the bedside. He stared into the idiot’s eyes and tried to force Finch to see him, recognize him, join him.

  Finch saw nothing.

  He had failed. Crompton allowed the tired, overstrained Crompton body to slump by the idiot’s bedside. Quietly he watched himself slip toward madness.

  Then Stack, with his despairing reformer’s zeal, emerged from his dream of revenge. Together with Crompton he willed the idiot to look and see. And Loomis searched for and found the strength beyond exhaustion, and joined them in the effort.

  Three together they stared at the idiot. And Finch, evoked by three-quarters of himself, parts calling irresistibly for the whole, made a final rally. A brief expression flickered in his eyes. He recognized.

  And entered.

  Crompton felt the vast flooding patience and tolerance of Finch. The Four Essential Humours of the Temperament, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, were joined at last. And at last fusion was possible.

  But what was this? What was happening? What force was taking over now, driving everything before it?

  Crompton shrieked, tried to rip his throat open with his fingernails, nearly succeeded, and collapsed on the floor near the corpse of Finch.

  When the body on the floor opened its eyes again, it yawned and stretched copiously, enjoying the sensation of air and light and color, content with itself and thinking that there was work for it to do on this world, and love to be found, and a whole life to be lived.