“The northern entrance to the tunnel may be found in the following manner: from the last of the Upper Suns proceed directly toward the Pole for the time it takes to recite seven Now-I-lay me-down-to-sleep’s. Then go left, till you reach the wall of fire, which is a side of Glossaurontus, and locate the opening, a black dot in that white-hot furnace. Steer straight down into this, and put aside all fear, for the tunnel’s width will let eight ships, starboard to larboard, pass through. The sight that then appears outside your portholes truly has no equal. First there is the famous Phlogistinian Flamefall, and then as depending on the weather: when the solar depths are swept with pyromagnetic storms that surge a billion miles or more away, one sees great tortured knots of fire, pulsing arteries swollen with white, glowing clots; when, on the other hand, the storm is closer, or it is a typhoon of the seventh order, the roof will shudder, as if that white dough of incandescence were about to fall, but this is an illusion, for it spills over but does not fall, and burns, but cannot consume, held in check by the tensile ribs of the Fffian Force Fields. But when one observes the core of the prominence bulge, and the long-forked bolts of the foun-tainheads they call Infernions flare closer, it is best to keep a firm grip upon the wheel, and look sharp into the solar viscera and not at any chart, for the utmost steering skill is needed here. Indeed, that road is never traversed the same way twice; the entire tunnel gouged through Glossaurontus twists continually, writhes and thrashes like a serpent flailed. Keep therefore your eyes well peeled, and your safety frigi-packs (that rim your visors with transparent icicles) hard by, and carefully watch the blazing walls that rush up and lash their thundering tongues, and should you hear the hull begin to sizzle, battered and bespattered in the seething solar cauldron, then trust to nothing but your own lightning reflexes. Though you must also bear in mind that not every burst of flame nor every jump of the tunnel signifies a starquake or a squall in the white oceans of fire; remembering this, the seasoned mariner will not cry ‘man the pumps’ at the drop of a match, and later have to face the ridicule of his peers, who will say he is the type that would try to douse a star’s eternal light with a beaker of liquid nitrogen. To the one who inquires what he should do if a real quake descends upon his vessel, most wags will answer that then it is quite enough to heave a sigh, there being little time for prayer or the writing of wills, and as for the eyes, these may be open or shut according to personal preference, for the fire will burn them out in any event. Such disasters, however, are extremely rare, since the brackets and braces installed by the Imperial Myrapocles hold marvelously well, and really, intrastellar flight, gliding past the curved, sparkling hydrogen mirrors of Glossaurontus, can be a most delightful experience. Then too, they say—and not without reason—that whoever enters the tunnel will at least exit soon after, which certainly cannot be said of the Great Shroud Wastes. And were the tunnel to be totally destroyed by a quake, the only alternate route possible would go through those Wastes, which—as their name indicates—are blacker than night, for the light of the neighboring stars dares not enter there. There, as in a mortar, one finds a constant colliding and crashing together—which makes a terrific din—of scrap metal, cans, wrecks of ships that were led astray by the treachery of Glossaurontus and crushed in the cruel grip of those bottomless gravitational vortices, then left to drift in circles until such time as the Universe itself runs down. To the east of the Shroud is the kingdom of the Slipjaws, to the west, the Bogglyeyed, and in the south are roads, heavily dotted with fortified mortalitaries, leading to the gentler sphere of sky-blue Lazulia, beyond which lies the bud-beaming Murgundigan, where the archipelago of iron-poor stars, known as Alcaron’s Carriage, shines blood-red.
“The Shroud itself, as we said, is as black as the Glossaurontian corridor is white. Nor does the only peril there lie in its vortices, in debris pulled down from dizzy heights by the current, in meteors gone berserk; for some say that in an unknown place, among dark, crepuscular caverns, at the bottom of an immeasurably deep and unplumbed profundity, for ages and ages now there sits a certain creature, anomalous and wholly anonymous, for anyone who meets the thing and learns its name will surely never live to tell a soul. And they say that that Anonymoid is both a pirate and a mage, and it lives in a castle raised by black gravitation, and the moat is a perpetually raging storm, and the walls non-being, impenetrable in their nothingness, and the windows are all blind, and the doors dumb; the Anonymoid lies in wait for caravans, but whenever it feels an overwhelming hunger for gold and skeletons, it blows black dust into the faces of the suns that serve as signposts, and once these are extinguished, and some wayfarers have strayed from their path of safety, it comes whirling out of the void, wraps them tightly in its coils, and carries them off to its castle of oblivion, without ever dropping the least ruby brooch, for the monster is monstrously meticulous. Afterward, only the gnawed remains drift away and float through the Wastes, followed by long trails of ship rivets, which are spit out from the monster’s maw like seeds. But lately, ever since the Glossaurontian tunnel was opened by the forced labor of innumerable turboservoserfs, and all navigation takes the way of that brightest of corridors, the Anonymoid rages, deprived of further plunder, and the heat of its fury now illumines the darkness of the Shroud, and it glows through the black barriers of gravitation like a fiend’s skull rotting in some dank, phosphorescent cocoon. There are scoffers, true, who say that no such monster exists and never did—and they say so with impunity, for it is hard to assail an opinion of things for which there are no words, an opinion formed moreover on a quiet summer afternoon, far from cosmic shrouds and stellar conflagrations. Yes, it is easy not to believe in monsters, considerably more difficult to escape their dread and loathsome clutches. Was not the Murgundiganian Cybernator himself, with an entourage of eighty in three ships, swallowed up, so that nothing remained of that magnaterium but a few chewed buckles, which were cast up on the shore of Solara Minor by a nebular wave and subsequently discovered by the villagers of those parts? And were not countless other worthies devoured without mercy or appeal? Therefore let at least electronic memory pay silent tribute to these poor unburied multitudes, if no avenger can be found for them, one who will deal with that perpetrator according to the old sidereal laws.”
All this Trurl read one day from a book, yellowed with age, which he chanced to obtain from a passing peddler, and he took it straightway to Klapaucius and read it a second time, aloud, from beginning to end, as he was much intrigued by the marvels described therein.
Klapaucius, a wise constructor who knew the Cosmos well and had no little acquaintance with suns and nebulae of various kinds, only smiled and nodded, saying:
“You don’t believe, I hope, a single word of that rubbish?”
“And why shouldn’t I believe it?” Trurl bridled. “Look, here’s even an engraving, skillfully done, of the Anonymoid eating two photon schooners and hiding the booty in his cellar. Anyway, isn’t there in fact a tunnel through a super-giant? Beth-el-Geuse, I mean. Surely you’re not such an ignoramus in cosmography to doubt that possibility…”
“As for illustrations, why, I could draw you a dragon right now, with a thousand suns for each eye. Would you accept the sketch as proof of its existence?” Klapaucius replied. “And as for tunnels—first of all, the one of which you speak has a length of only two million miles, not some billions, and secondly, the star of which you speak is practically burnt out, and in the third place, intrastellar travel presents no hazard whatever, as you know perfectly well, having flown that way yourself. And as for the so-called Great Shroud Wastes, this is in reality nothing but a cosmic dump some ten kiloparsecs across, floating in the vicinity of Maeridia and Tetrarchida, and not around any Slopjaws or Gaussauronts, which don’t exist anywhere; and it’s dark there, yes, but simply because of all the garbage. And as for your Anonymoid, there’s obviously no such thing! It isn’t even a respectable, ancient myth, but some cheap yarn concocted out of a half-baked cranium.”
Tr
url bit his lip.
“You think the tunnel safe,” he said, “because it was I who flew it. But you would be of an altogether different opinion had it been you, instead. But enough of the tunnel. As far as the Shroud and Anonymoid are concerned, it isn’t my habit to settle such things with words. We’ll go there, and then you’ll see"—and he held up the heavy book— “you’ll see what’s true in here, and what is not!”
Klapaucius did his best to dissuade him, but when he saw that Trurl, stubborn as usual, had absolutely no intention of backing down from so singularly conceived a sally, he first declared that he would have nothing more to do with him, but before very long had joined in preparing for the voyage: he didn’t wish to see his friend perish alone—somehow, two can look death in the eye more cheerfully than one.
Finally, having stocked the larder with plenty of provisions, for the way would lead through vast, barren regions (not as picturesque, to be sure, as the book depicted), they took off in their trusty ship. During the flight, they stopped now and then to ask directions, particularly when they had left far behind the territory with which they were familiar. Not much could be learned from the natives, however, for these spoke reliably only about their immediate surroundings—of things that lay beyond, where they had never ventured themselves, they gave the most absurd account, and in great detail, elaborating with both relish and a sense of dread. Klapaucius called such tales “corroded,” having in mind the corrosis-sclerosion that attacks all aging brains.
But when they had come within five or six million light-blocks of the Black Wastes, they began to hear rumors of some robber-giant who called himself The PHT Pirate. No one they spoke to had actually seen him, nor knew what “PHT” was supposed to mean. Trurl thought this might be a distortion of “pH,” which would indicate an ionic pirate with a high concentration and very base, but Klapaucius, more level-headed, preferred to refrain from entertaining such hypotheses. To all accounts, this pirate was an ill-tempered brute, as evidenced by the fact that, even after stripping his victims of everything, he was never satisfied, his greed being great and insatiable, and beat them long and cruelly before setting them free. For a moment or two the constructors considered whether they shouldn’t arm themselves with blasters or blades before entering the Wastes, but soon concluded that the best weapon was their wits, sharpened in constructorship, subtle, agile and universal; so they set out just as they were.
It must be confessed that Trurl, as they traveled on, was bitterly disillusioned; the starry starlight, the fiery fires, the cavernous voids, the meteor reefs and shooting shoals were nowhere near as enchanting to the eye as promised in the ancient tome. There were only a few old stars about, and those were unimpressive, if not downright shabby; some barely flickered, like cinders in a heap of ashes, and some were completely dark and hardened on the surface, red veins glowing dully through cracks in their charred and wrinkled crusts. Of flaming jungles of combustion and mysterious vortices there was not a sign, nor had anyone ever heard of them, for the desolate waste was a place of tedium, and tedious in the extreme, by virtue of the fact that it was desolate, and a waste. As far as meteors went, they were everywhere, but in that rattling, clattering swarm was a good deal more flying refuse than honest magnetites, tektites or aerolites—for the simple reason that the Galactic Pole was only a stone’s throw away, and the swirling dark currents sucked to this very spot, southward, prodigious quantities of flotsam and jetsam from the central zones of the Galaxy. Hence all the tribes and nations in the neighborhood spoke of this area not as any sort of Shroud, but as nothing more or less than what it was: a junkyard.
Trurl hid his disappointment as best he could, in order not to occasion sarcastic comments from Klapaucius, and steered straight into the Wastes. Immediately sand began to patter on the bow; every kind of stellar debris, spewed from prominences or supernovae, collected and caked up on the ship’s hull, forming such a thick coat, that the constructors lost all hope of ever getting it clean again.
By now the stars had vanished in the general gloom, so the two proceeded gropingly, till suddenly their ship lurched, and all the furniture, pots and pans went flying; they felt themselves hurtling forward, faster and faster, then at last there was an awful crunch and the ship came to a stop, landing softly enough though at an angle, as if its nose had stuck in something doughy. They ran to the window, but couldn’t see a thing, as it was pitch black outside—and now they heard someone banging, someone fearfully strong, whoever it was, for the very walls were buckling in. At this point Trurl and Klapaucius began to feel a little less confident in the power of their unarmed wits, but it was too late now, so they opened the hatch, since otherwise it would be forced from without and broken for good.
As they looked, someone stuck his face in the opening— a face so huge, that it was clearly out of the question for the rest of the body to climb in after it, and not only huge, but unspeakably hideous, studded up and down and every which way with bulging eyes, and the nose was a saw, and an iron hook served for the jaw. The face didn’t move, pressed up against the open hatch, only the eyes darted back and forth, avidly examining everything, as if appraising whether or not the take was worth the trouble. Even someone far less intelligent than our constructors would have understood what that scrutiny meant, for it was unmistakable.
“Well?” said Trurl finally, exasperated by such shameless eyeing, which went on in silence. “What do you want, you unwashed mug?! I am Trurl, constructor and general omni-potentiary, and this is my friend Klapaucius, also of great renown, and we were flying by in our ship as tourists, so kindly remove your ugly muzzle and take us immediately out of this unsavory place—full of litter and rubbish, no doubt—and direct us to some clean, respectable sector, or we’ll lodge a complaint and they’ll have you broken down into little scrap—do you hear me, you scavenger, ragpicker, pack rat?!”
But the face said nothing, just looked and looked, as if calculating, making an estimate of how much.
“Listen here, you unmitigated freak,” yelled Trurl, throwing all caution to the winds, though Klapaucius kept elbowing him to show some restraint, “we have no gold, no silver, no precious stones, so you let us go this instant, and above all cover up that oversized physiognomy of yours, for it’s unspeakably hideous. And you"—he said, turning to Klapaucius—"stop jabbing me with that elbow! This is the way you have to talk to such types!”
“I have no use,” suddenly said the face, turning its thousand glittering eyes on Trurl, “for gold or silver, and the way you have to talk to me is delicately and with respect, as I am a pirate with a Ph.D., well-educated and by nature extremely high-strung. Other guests have been here and needed sweetening up—and when I’ve given you a proper pounding too, why, you’ll be positively dripping with good manners. My name is Pugg, I’m thirty arshins in every direction and it’s true I rob, but in a manner that is modern and scientific, for I collect precious facts, genuine truths, priceless knowledge, and in general all information of value. And now, let’s hand it over, otherwise I whistle! Very well then, I’ll count to five—one, two, three…”
And at five, when they had handed him nothing, he let loose such a whistle, that their ears nearly flew off, and Klapaucius realized that the “PHT” of which the natives spoke with terror was indeed “Ph.D.,” for the pirate had obviously studied at some higher institution, like the Criminal Academy. Trurl held his head and groaned—Pugg’s whistle was fully commensurate with his size.
“We’ll give you nothing!” he cried, while Klapaucius ran off to find some cotton. “And get your face out of here!”
“You don’t like my face, maybe you’ll like my hand,” replied the pirate. “It’s one huge humdinger of a hand and heavy as the devil! And here it comes!”
And indeed: the cotton Klapaucius brought was no longer needed, for the face had disappeared, and in its place was a paw, a paw to end all paws, with knots and knobs and shovel claws, and it rummaged and clutched, breaking tables and hutches and
cupboards, till all the pots and pans came crashing down, and the paw chased Trurl and Klapaucius into the engine room, where they climbed up on top of the atomic pile and rapped its knuckles—pow! pow!—with a poker. This made the diplomaed pirate mad, and he put his face back in the hatch and said:
“Look, I strongly advise you to come to terms with me at once, otherwise I’ll put you aside for later, at the very bottom of my storage bin, and cover you with garbage, and wedge you in with rocks, so you can’t move, and you’ll just sit there and slowly rust. So then, which is it to be?”
Trurl wouldn’t hear of negotiating, but Klapaucius politely asked what exactly it was that His Doctoral Diploma-hood wanted?
“Now you’re talking,” he said. “I gather rich mines of information, for such is my lifelong love and avocation, the result of a higher education and, I might add, a practical grasp of the situation, when you consider that, with the usual treasures untutored pirates like to hoard, there is not a blessed thing here one can buy. Information, on the other hand, satisfies one’s thirst for knowledge, and it is well known besides, that everything that is, is information; and thus for centuries now I gather it, and will continue to do so, though it’s true I’m not against a little gold or diamonds now and then, for they’re pretty and decorative—but that’s strictly on the side, as occasion warrants. Observe, however, that for false information, no less than for false coin, I give a good shellacking, since I am refined and insist on authenticity!”
“But what kind of authentic and valuable information do you require?” asked Klapaucius.
“All kinds, as long as it’s true,” replied the pirate. “You never can tell what facts may come in handy. I already have a few hundred wells and cellars full of them, but there’s room for twice again as much. So out with it; tell me everything you know, and I’ll jot it down. But make it snappy!”
The Cyberiad Page 13