Patrick recovered his aplomb.
“I apologize,” he said. “It is not my business to judge what I cannot understand. But you will realize I must be puzzled.”
“I do indeed. And you are my friend—my first friend in fifty years. I will tell you everything you want to know. Only, it is hard to know how to start.
“Tell me: in your world, are there . . . beings . . . persons that are not human?”
Patrick smiled indulgently. “Some people in my world believe so. Everybody believed so once.”
“Here also. Only, I have proved that they are real.”
Oh, come now! Patrick thought. Fairy tales at this point? “You have?” he said in his best diplomatic manner.
“As you see about you . . . Then, have you a story that one may force such a being to do one’s will?”
“We do have a myth—a symbol which has inspired some of our greatest artists—about selling one’s soul to the devil—”
“Oh, as with the Nameless!” Zoth turned pale and raised his arms high, the thumbs and forefingers firmly pressed together. “Do not speak of Him!”
Patrick remembered the terrifying hundred-foot statue in the nave of the great temple. Unreasoningly, he knew that this was the Nameless; and for a moment he felt less scornful of the fairy tale.
“No,” Zoth went on; “what I mean is closer to the simple akkir plane. These are lesser beings, but powerful enough. If one of them can be brought into your power, he can be compelled to grant you five wishes. You have such?”
“Fairies, leprechauns, demons . . . I see what you mean. But on Earth it is, according to legend, only three wishes that he grants. ”
“You are luckier than we.”
So Zoth’s Standard Galactic, the scout thought with amusement, was not so altogether perfect as he had assumed—luckier when he meant less lucky. Patrick hid a smile as Zoth refilled their goblets.
“I shall tell you the whole story. It is the easiest way to make it clear.”
. . . if not necessarily convincing, Patrick thought. And yet, he asked himself, have you, my bright Galactic scout, found any normal rational method of accounting for this deserted planet, this celestial Mary Celeste:5
“Fifty years ago I was twenty-three years old. You look surprised. I can age like other akkir, but I can never be senile.
“I was young. I was poor. I had a mean job I hated. I was lonely, with no close friends—I, so gregarious a man—and I was madly in love with a girl who would not even look at me. I was in despair.
“How the grosh was summoned to me and how he came under my power I shall not tell you. It would be too hard to make it plain, and besides, these are secret things better not told. But he came, and I did subdue him to my will.”
“The grosh—that’s the demon?”
“You may call him so; he is in any event a being like neither you nor me, nor any material creature. I may tell you that my own grandfather was a vardun— a priest in the great temple of the Nameless in this city—and from him, though I myself was not chosen to be a vardun, I had learned many things in my boyhood.”
He repeated the propitiatory gesture—the arms raised and the thumbs and forefingers pressed together.
“So there I was, with five wishes at my disposal. Even then—though I never guessed”—Zoth shuddered—“I thought it wise not to use up all of them at once, but to keep one at least in reserve. You will see how wise that was—but still not wise enough.
“What does anyone want? Long life, health, wealth, love, fame perhaps, though that I did not care about: and if one’s heart is good, one wants also good fortune for others as well. I was canny; I had speculated long, to get into small compass as much as possible of the things I craved and had never had.”
“Understandably,” Patrick nodded. “We are of different worlds, Zoth, but of the same nature.”
“So I wished, first, to live to a hundred years at least, and always in good health and strength, without injury or illness. ‘Granted,’ said the grosh.
“Then I wished, not for great wealth which may be a burden, but that I should never lack for any comfort or luxury I might desire. And, since I am one who loves my fellow-beings, loves company and good talk—I, who for fifty years have spoken only to that silly creature in there!—I specified that among these comforts and luxuries must be the ability to converse freely with every person I ever met. You must realize that in Xilmuch at that time there were different communities, all equal, but speaking different tongues—”
“You mean, different nations?”
“Of course; that is your word for them. I intended to travel much, and I wanted to be able to associate with all whom I met. So this, I stipulated, must be part of my second wish.”
“So that’s how you speak Standard Galactic, is it? That’s puzzled me a lot.”
“That is how. And if you had spoken any other language, I could have understood and spoken it just as well.”
“And what was your third wish?” Patrick began to see a pattern forming—and wished that he did not.
Zoth paced the room, his glass of stralp in his hand. He glanced furtively at the door through which Jyk had vanished. Then he said in a shaking voice:
“I told the grosh—the Nameless forgive me!—that I wished that the girl with whom I was then so madly in love should love me in return, as madly and forever. I wished that she might be willing to marry me at once. And I wished that she should never leave me, but would live exactly as long as I did myself.
“And the grosh said, ‘Granted.’ ”
“That’s three wishes.” Patrick hesitated. “Did you make any more?”
“One more. Do you know what a war is?”
“Certainly. It has been centuries since there has been a war on Earth, but in the past they were only too common. Even now, we must guard vigilantly against hostility and conflict between rival groups.”
“We had not progressed so far. At one time or another, all of our various— nations, as you call them—on Xilmuch had been at one another’s throats. We had torn one another almost to pieces, and as our science advanced our wars grew still more terrible. And at that very moment there was threat of a new war that would have advanced my own people, here in this city.
“I was an idealistic young man, who hated bloodshed. So for my fourth wish, I wished that everywhere on Xilmuch there should be complete and perpetual peace.
“ ‘Granted,’ said the grosh.
“These were my four wishes. And I told the grosh that when I was ready to make the fifth, I would summon him: these beings are immortal, you know. I have still not made it.”
“But I don’t understand,” Patrick objected. “It seems to me that those were all practicable wishes. And you say you had the—the grosh in your power. Didn’t he really grant them?”
“He granted them all,” said Zoth.
“As for the first, I am as you see me. I shall live at least 27 years more, and I shall never know illness or bodily pain. That wish I have no doubt the grosh granted me with pleasure—knowing that long before the end I should yearn in vain for death.
“And I have, as you observe, every comfort and luxury I could desire. I live in a palace, and I have at my disposal the food, the clothing, the furniture, all the paraphernalia of life of a great city. The supply, easily obtained, will certainly outlast my lifetime. As for the ability to converse with my fellow-beings in their own tongues, it is only today that I have had occasion to test it—and that with an akkir from a world of outer space. But you see it was granted to me.”
“But the third wish? What went wrong about the girl you loved? How did the demon get out of really granting you that?”
“He didn’t . . . It was Jyk.”
“Oh.”
“I had thought my heart was broken when she spurned every advance I made. Now of her own accord she came to me: she loved me wildly, as she always will. I was in ecstasy. We were married at once. I was the happiest man on Xilmuch.
“How could I foresee that my own love would turn to loathing? But against my will, it did: first she bored me, then she disgusted me, now I hate her with all my heart.
“And she will be with me all my life. She will live exactly as long as I.”
“So that’s why—” Patrick exclaimed.
“Yes, that is why no knife, nor any other means, can ever rid me of her.
“I am ashamed that you saw that scene; it does not happen often. But can you imagine what it must be like to have someone, someone you detest, pester you with constant worship? Sometimes I think I shall go mad: nothing, nothing will ever offend or alienate her, and she clings to me every minute. I know she is not sleeping now; she will do whatever I tell her, but she is waiting for me right now with open arms; if I did not go to her eventually, she would seek me out, wherever I might be. And for fifty years there has been no akkir on Xilmuch but her and me!”
He paused, fighting for self-control.
“I don’t want you to think I am naturally cruel,” he went on in a calmer voice. “If I had pity left for anyone but myself, I should pity her. But I need not; she is happy just to be with me, however I treat her. Nearly always I can pretend patience. It was only today, when your coming had so excited me—”
The scout averted his eyes. Quickly, to change the subject, he asked:
“But your fourth wish? Did the demon grant you that?”
“Is there not peace on Xilmuch?” asked Zoth simply.
The Terran was silent. Demons indeed! But this planet. . . the pattern . . .
“Yes,” his host went on, “the grosh knew. We akkir are not made by nature for perpetual peace—or we were not so made fifty years ago. The animals also . . . There is no animal on this planet now which fights with others for its mate, or kills others for its food.
“And there is great and lasting and perpetual peace today on Xilmuch.”
Patrick said nothing. His host filled their glasses.
Finally the Terran broke the silence.
“Is there no way,” he said hesitantly, “by which, with the wisdom you have acquired, you could use the fifth wish still at your disposal to undo some of the evil the demon did you?”
You might wish, Patrick thought, to return your wife’s love once more, and salvage that much out of the mess; but probably it’s too late for that now.
Zoth shook his head.
“Do you think I haven’t worn myself out trying to find some way? The truth is, Patrick, I’ve been afraid to wish again—afraid he will twist that also to his own evil advantage. And then I should be completely defenseless, at his mercy.
“It is only today, my friend, that a bit of hope has come to me. How could even a grosh, I wonder, spoil so modest a wish? It is little enough to ask—I’ve been so horribly lonely—”
He looked long and speculatively at the Terran.
Patrick drained the last of his stralp and stood up. He felt himself trembling.
“Zoth,” he said apologetically, “I hate to break this up, but I’m afraid I’m asleep on my feet. Let’s go to bed now, shall we? Tomorrow’s another day.”
“Oh, my friend, forgive me! Of course—you must be worn out! What a way to treat a guest—and a guest who means so much to me! You must excuse an old man who has half a century of conversation to make up! I’ll show you where you are to sleep.”
He led the way through still a third door to another huge room, a corner of which had been screened off to hold a low couch covered with some soft woolly fabric.
“My guestroom,” he smiled. “You are the first ever to occupy it. I hope you will find it comfortable. Right through here you will find the toilet facilities. You turn the light off thus.
“Sleep well, my friend. I shall be sleeping late in the morning myself—I don’t often keep such hours as this. When you wake, come to the living hall, and a meal will be ready for you.”
Patrick was alone at last.
He made no attempt to undress or go to bed. He had brought his knapsack in with him, and he checked its contents. Then he sat quietly on the edge of the couch, thinking.
He sat there for two solid hours, until there was no glimmer of light anywhere and from a distant room came the sound of faint but steady snoring.
The tall windows opened outwards, and this was the ground floor. Outside, he put on his boots.
It was very dark. No one could have seen him as he crept from tree to tree, in the shadow of the overgrown ornamental bushes, to the nearest bridge.
Once across, he set out at as rapid a pace as possible. Even so, it took three hours, and the sky was beginning to gray, before he reached his ship.
An hour later, well beyond the orbit of Xilmuch, he began to wonder if he had made a fool of himself.
. . . Who ever heard of the entire population of a planet’s being wiped out, just to grant somebody’s wish for worldwide peace? Space knew, there were enough other roads to devastation! Wasn’t the reasonable conclusion that in some entirely natural way, some epidemic or other frightful catastrophe on Xilmuch, only this man and his wife had survived? Wouldn’t it be logical that such a shock would have crazed them both? Hadn’t he spent a day and a night listening to the tale of a lunatic?
It was obvious that the man was desperately lonely, and would have kept his chance guest just as long as he could; but did it make sense that he could have done so by merely uttering an unused wish? Wasn’t Patrick Ostronsky-Vierra just as crazy as Zoth Cheruk to swallow such a story, even late at night and full of rexshan and stralp?
. . . But then why were there no carnivorous animals on Xilmuch, but plenty of herbivorous ones and every sort of vegetation? Catastrophes were not quite so selective as that.
And how . . . how else could Zoth have plunged a knife deep into his wife’s breast—Patrick’s horror-stricken eyes had seen the blade go in to the handle—and draw not a single drop of blood, elicit no sign of pain?
Xilmuch would be a wonderful planet for colonization. Its discovery would be the climax of his career as a scout; there would be no limit to his rise in the profession after that.
And how Zoth would welcome the colonists!
. . . And what unguessed harm he could do them unwittingly by that fifth wish of his!
In twenty-seven years or so Zoth and Jyk would both be dead. Zoth could do no harm then. But what would the Galactic Presidium think if a scout should announce that here was a perfect colonization-point—only it must not be approached while an old man was still alive who might jinx them?
And with or without Zoth, how about a planet evidently full of mischievous, rancorous, double-crossing grosh, with who knew what bags of tricks in their possession?
To say nothing of the Nameless, that distinctly unpretty god or devil whose image Patrick had seen for himself.
Patrick Ostronsky-Vierra, trusted and dedicated Two Star Scout, decided deliberately to violate his sacred oath of office.
When he returned to the headquarters of the Galactic Presidium, his report read:
“I visited Planet IV of Altair, which has been hitherto undiscovered, and which on first approach appeared to be suitable for colonization. On further investigation I found that the atmosphere consists mostly of methane. The planet itself is still in a semi-molten state, with incessant volcanic eruptions and violent windstorms of ethane gas.
“I advise that the planet be given a wide berth—permanently. It is completely unfit for human habitation.”
But there was another report: a private one. It was found among OstronskyVierra’s effects after his death in 4009. It was in a plastic closure marked: For the Sealed Files of the Galactic Presidium. To Be Opened 50 Years after Receipt.
In it was this complete narrative as I, Mari Swenskold-Wong, Secretary of the Presidium in this year 4060, read it to the entire Presidium at its meeting upon February 30.
We are still, as everyone knows, in great need of more living-space in the colonized planets. There has been much disc
ussion of the possibility of colonizing Xilmuch, and there will be much more discussion, perhaps even insistence upon the part of the Opposition.
But the majority opinion, in which I concur, is that no foreseeable Galactic situation, even the mounting pressure of expansion, can justify sending colonists to what Ostronsky-Vierra justly labeled the Mary Celeste of space. Empty of Zoth Cheruk and his Jyk it must be by now, but not of its Nameless and its grosh (and who can say what powerful type of unknown life-form hides behind these supernatural masks?).
Superstitious, I hope I may safely say, we surely are not; but neither are we, in our Chairman’s ringing words, “reckless damn fools.” There are other worlds.
Recipe for Curry De Luxe
Anthony Boucher loved to cook. Poul Anderson says that he had considered an Anthony Boucher Cookbook. The following recipe was one of the ones that his widow, Phyllis White, gave to Anne McCaffrey for Cooking Out of This World. We present it here to give you a sampling of yet another side of Anthony Boucher.
Make a powder of the first group of nine ingredients (curry, anise, paprika, chili powder, turmeric, mace, cumin, cloves, and cardamom). Grind the whole spices in a mortar, add the others, and mix thoroughly. Chop the vegetables and fruit coarsely and sauté them in the oil with Worcestershire and 1/2 the powder mixture. Add the meat and brown it with the rest of the powder. Dissolve the bouillon cube and paste in the water and pour over all. Let simmer for 11/4 hours. Remove the meat to a serving platter. Add the sherry and the juice of the lime or lemon to the curry in the pan. Beat an egg lightly in the milk, add this, and cook, stirring, about another minute, or until it begins to thicken. Pour over the meat, and serve with rice and chutney. This should serve four, but two can make a terrible hole in it.
Notes
[1] Excerpt from Rom Gul’s Teritian History and Culture. Translated by Anthony Boucher. 12 vols. Kovis, 4739.
[2] See my refutation in Academy Proceedings, 2578: 9, 11/76.
The Compleat Boucher Page 79