Shakespeare's Planet

by Clifford D. Simak

  If you are reading this, there is a probability you may have fallen in with that great monster, Carnivore. If such should be the case, don’t, for an instant, trust the miserable sonofabitch. I know he intends to kill me, but I shall have the last laugh on him. The last laugh is an easy thing for one who knows that, in any case, he is about to die. The inhibitor I carried with me is all but gone by now, and once I have no more of it, the malignancy will continue to eat into my brain. And I am convinced, before the final killing pain sets in, it would be an easier death for this slobbering monster to kill me than it would be to die in pain …

  “What does it say?” asked Nicodemus.

  “I’m not sure,” said Horton. “I have difficulty with it.”

  He pushed the book aside.

  “He talked to book,” said Carnivore, “with his magic stick. He never tell me what he said. You cannot tell me either?”

  Horton shook his head.

  “Able you should be,” insisted Carnivore. “You human just like he. What one says with stick-marks the other one should know.”

  “It’s the time factor,” said Horton. “We’ve been upon our way at least a thousand years to reach here. Perhaps a great deal more than a thousand years. In a thousand years or less there would be many changes in the symbols that the marking stick would make. Also, his inscription of the symbols are not of the best. He writes in a shaky hand.”

  “You will try again? Great curiosity to know what the Shakespeare say, especially what he say of me.”

  “I will keep on trying,” Horton said.

  He pulled the book back in front of him.

  … die in pain. He pretends great friendship for me, and he carries his role so well that it requires considerable analytical effort to discern his actual attitude. To arrive at an understanding of him, one must first learn what kind of thing he is and gain an acquaintance of his background and his motivation. It was only slowly that I came to a realization that he is, in truth, what he seems to be and what he boasts he is—not only a confirmed carnivore, but a predator as well. Killing is not only a way of life for him; it is a passion and religion. Not he alone, but his very culture, is based upon the art of killing. Bit by bit I have been able, through a deep insight gained from living with him, to piece together the story of his life and background. If you should ask him, I should imagine that he would tell you, proudly, he is of a warrior race. But that does not tell the entire story. He is, among his race, a very special creature, by his own light perhaps a legendary hero—or at least about to become a legendary hero. His life profession, as I understand it (and I am sure my understanding is correct), is to travel world to world and on each world challenge and kill the most deadly species that has evolved upon it. In the manner of the legendary North American Indians of Old Earth, he counts symbolic coup for each adversary that he kills and, as I understand it, he now is runner-up in the entire history of his race and yearns most worthily to become the all-time champion, the greatest killer of them all. What this will gain him I’m not certain, but can only speculate—perhaps the immortality of racial memory, being enshrined forever in his tribal pantheon …

  “Well?” asked Carnivore.

  “Yes?”

  “The book now talks to you. You move the finger, line by line.”

  “Nothing,” said Horton. “Really nothing. Mostly prayers and incantations.”

  “I knew it,” rasped Carnivore. “I knew it. He say my magic goddamn foolishness, and yet he practice of his own. He does not mention me? You sure he does not mention me?”

  “Not yet. Perhaps a little farther on.”

  But in this abomination of a planet he is trapped with me. He is barred, as I am, from those other worlds wherein he could seek out and battle and destroy, to the eternal glory of his race, the most puissant life-forms he can ferret out. In consequence, I am sure I can detect in the great warrior mentality of him a quietly growing desperation, and I feel certain that the time will come when all hope is gone of other worlds, that he will make me the last name on his victory roll, although, God knows, the killing of me will be small credit to him, for I would be hopelessly outmatched. By indirection, I have done my best to impress upon him, in many subtle ways, what a frail and feeble opponent I would be. In my weakness, I had thought, lay my only hope. But now I know I am wrong. I can see the madness and the desperation grow upon him. If it goes on, I know one day he will kill me. At that time when his madness serves to magnify me into a foeman worthy of him, he’ll have at me. Just what this will profit him, I do not know. It would seem there would be little point in killing when others of his race will not, cannot, know of it. But I somehow gain the impression, from what I do not know, that even in his present situation of being lost among the stars, the killing would be known and celebrated by others of his race. This is far beyond my understanding, and I have given up trying for an understanding of it.

  He sits across the table from me as I write and I can see him measuring me, knowing full well, of course, that I am no worthy subject of his ritualistic killing pattern, but still trying to psych himself into believing that I am. Someday he will do it, and that will be the day. But I have him beat hands down. I have an ace tucked up my sleeve. He does not know that within me lies a death that has only a short time now to run. I shall be ripe to die before he is ready for the killing. And since he is a sentimental slob—all killers are sentimental slobs—I shall talk him into killing me as a priestly office, for the performance of which I turn to him in my greatest need as the only one who can perform this deed of ultimate compassion. So I shall do two things: I shall use him to cut short the final agony which I know must come, and I shall rob him of his final killing since killing done in mercy will not count for him. He shall not count coup upon me. Rather, I’ll count coup on him. And as he kills me, mercifully, I shall laugh full in his face. For laughter is the final victory. Killing for him, laughter for me. This is the measurement between us.

  Horton lifted his head and sat in stunned silence. The man was mad, he told himself. Mad, with a cold, icy, congealed madness that was far worse than raving madness. Not mere madness of the mind, but madness of the soul.

  “So,” said Carnivore, “he finally mentioned me.”

  “Yes. He said you are a sentimental slob.”

  “That do not sound so good.”

  “It is,” said Horton, “a term of great affection.”

  “You are sure of that?” asked Carnivore.

  “Very sure,” said Horton.

  “Then the Shakespeare really loved me.”

  “I am certain that he did,” said Horton.

  He went back to the book, rifling through the pages. Richard III. The Comedy of Errors. The Taming of the Shrew. King John. Twelfth Night. Othello. King Lear. Hamlet. They all were there. And scribbled on the margins, inscribed on the partially blank pages where plays came to an end, was the crabbed writing.

  “He talked to it a lot,” said Carnivore. “Almost every night. Sometimes on rainy days when we stayed inside.”

  All’s Well That Ends Well, page 1038, scribbled on the left-hand margin:

  The pond stinks the worst today I’ve ever smelled it. It is an evil smell. Not just a bad smell, but an evil smell. As if it were alive, exuding evil. As if it hid in its depth some obscenity …

  King Lear, page 1143, the right-hand margin this time:

  I found emeralds, weathered out of a ledge a mile or so below the spring. Just lying there, waiting to be picked up. I filled my pockets with them. I don’t know why I bothered. Here I am, a rich man, and it doesn’t mean a thing …

  Macbeth, page 1207, bottom margin:

  There is something in the houses. Something to be found. A riddle to be answered. I don’t know what it is, but I feel it there …

  Pericles, page 1381, on the lower half of the page left blank as the text came to an end:

  We all are lost in the immensity of the universe. Having lost our home, we have no place to go or,
what is worse, too many places to go. We are lost not only in the depths of our universe, but in the depths of our minds as well. When men stayed on one planet, they knew where they were. They had yardsticks for measurement and thumbs to test the weather. But now, even when we think we know where we are, we still are lost; for there is either no path to lead us home, or, in many cases, we have no home to which it is worth our while returning.

  No matter where home may be, men today, at least intellectually, are footloose wanderers. Even though we may call a planet ‘home,’ even the few who still remain who can call the Earth their home, there is now no such thing as home. The human race now is fragmented to the stars, still scattering to the stars. We, as a race, are impatient with the past, and many of us with the present and we have only one direction, futureward, which takes us ever farther from the concept of home. As a race, we are incurable wanderers and we want nothing that will tie us down and nothing to hang onto—until that day which must come at some time to each of us, when we realize we’re not as free as we think we are, but, rather, lost. It is only when we try to recall, with our racial memory, where we’ve been and why we’ve been there, that we realize the full measure of our lostness.

  On one planet, or even in a single solar system, we could orient ourselves at the psychological center of the universe. For we had values then, values that we now see were limited, but at least values that provided a human framework within which we moved and lived. But that framework now is shattered, and our values have been splintered so many times by the different worlds we have trod upon (for each new world would give us either new values or negate some of the old ones to which we’d clung) that we have no basis upon which to form and exercise our judgments. We now have no scale upon which we can agree to delineate our losses or our aspirations. Even infinity and eternity have become concepts that differ in certain important ways. Once we used our science to structure the place in which we lived, to give it shape and reason; now we are confused because we have learned so much (although only a little of what there is to learn) that we cannot bring human scientific viewpoints to bear upon the universe as we see it now. We have more questions now then we ever had before, and less chance of finding answers. Provincial we may have been; there is no one who will deny that. But it must occur to many of us that in provincialism we found a comfort and a certain sense of safety. All life is set within an environment that is far greater than life itself, but given a few million years any kind of life can gain from its environment enough familiarity that it can live with its surroundings. But we, in leaving Earth, in spurning the planet of our birth for brighter, farther stars, have enlarged our environment enormously, and we do not have those few million years; in our haste we have no time at all.

  The writing came to an end. Horton closed the book and shoved it to one side.

  “Well?” asked Carnivore.

  “Nothing,” Horton said. “Just endless incantations. I do not understand them.”

  14

  Horton lay beside the fire, wrapped in his sleeping bag. Nicodemus moved about, putting more wood on the fire, his dark metal hide shot with glints of red and blue from the flicker of the flames. Above, the unfamiliar stars gleamed brightly, and down by the spring, something was complaining bitterly.

  Horton settled himself more comfortably, feeling sleep stealing in upon him. He closed his eyes, not too tightly, and settled down to wait.

  Carter Horton, said Ship, speaking in his mind.

  Yes, said Horton.

  I sense an intelligence, said Ship.

  Carnivore? asked Nicodemus, crouched beside the fire.

  No, not Carnivore. We would know Carnivore, having encountered him before. His intelligence pattern is not exceptional, is not greatly different from ours. This one is. Stronger and more keen, sharper, and somehow very different, but fuzzed and indistinct. As if it is an intelligence that is trying to stay hidden and escape attention.

  Nearby? asked Horton.

  Nearby. Close to where you are.

  There is nothing here, said Horton. The settlement is deserted. We’ve seen nothing all day long.

  If it were in hiding, you would not see it. You must remain alert.

  The pond, perhaps, said Horton. There may be something living in the pond. Carnivore seems to think there is. He thinks it eats the meat he throws in the pond.

  Perhaps, said Ship. We seem to remember Carnivore saying the pond was not really water, more like soup. You’ve not been near it?

  It stinks, said Horton. One does not go near it.

  We cannot pinpoint the intelligence, said Ship, except that we know it’s in your general area. Not too far away. Perhaps hidden. Take no chances. You wear your sidearms?

  Yes, of course we do, said Nicodemus.

  That is good, said Ship. Stay watchful.

  All right, said Horton. Good night, Ship.

  Not yet, said Ship. There is one thing. When you read the book, we tried to follow you, but could not make out all of what you read. This Shakespeare—Carnivore’s friend, not the ancient playwright—what about him?

  A human, said Horton. There can’t be any doubt of that. His skull, at least, is human and his writing seems to be authentic human writing. But there was a madness in him. Perhaps engendered by malignancy, a brain tumor, more than likely. He wrote of an inhibitor, a cancer inhibitor, I suppose, but said he was running out of it and knew that once he did, he would die in terrible pain. That’s why he tricked Carnivore into killing him, laughing all the while.

  Laughing?

  He laughed all the time at Carnivore. Letting Carnivore know he was laughing at him. Carnivore speaks of it often. He was deeply hurt by it and it weighs upon his mind. I thought at first that this Shakespeare was a smart-ass—you know, someone with an inferiority complex which demanded that somehow, at no danger to himself, he must continually feed his ego. One way to do that is to engage in secret laughter at others, bearing out the fiction of a self-conceived and illusory superiority. I thought that at first, I say. Now I think the man was mad. He was suspicious of Carnivore. He thought Carnivore was about to kill him. Convinced that Carnivore would finally do him in.

  And Carnivore? What do you think?

  He’s all right, said Horton. There’s no great harm in him.

  Nicodemus, what do you think?

  I agree with Carter. He’s no threat to us. I been meaning to tell you—we found an emerald mine.

  We know, said Ship. Note has been made of it. Although we suspect there’ll be nothing come of it. We are not now concerned with emerald mines. Although, once this is done, it might do no harm to bring back a bucketful of them. No one knows. They might, somewhere, sometime come in handy.

  We’ll do that, Nicodemus said.

  And now, said Ship, good night, Carter Horton. Nicodemus, you keep good watch while he sleeps.

  I intend to, said Nicodemus.

  Good night, Ship, said Horton.

  15

  Nicodemus shook Horton awake. “We have a visitor.”

  Horton reared upright out of the sleeping bag. He rubbed his sleep-smeared eyes to be sure of what he saw. A women stood off a pace or two, close beside the fire. She wore a pair of yellow shorts and white boots that reached halfway to her knees. She had on nothing else. A deep red rose was tatooed on one naked breast. She stood tall and had a willowy look about her. Strapped about her waist was a belt that supported a weird sort of handgun. A knapsack was slung across one shoulder.

  “She came walking up the path,” said Nicodemus.

  The sun was not up yet, but the first dawn light had come. There was a wet, wispy, soft quality to the morning.

  “You came up the path,” said Horton, speaking fuzzily, still only half-awake. “Does that mean you came through the tunnel?”

  She clapped her hands in pleasure. “How wonderful,” she said. “You speak the elder tongue as well. How delightful to find the two of you. I studied your speech, but until now have never had a chance t
o use it. As I suspected, I realize now that the pronunciation we were taught had lost something through the years. I was astonished; and gratified as well, when the robot spoke it, but I could not hope that I’d find others …”

  “It’s passing strange, this thing she says,” said Nicodemus. “Carnivore speaks the same tongue, and he learned it from Shakespeare.”

  “Shakespeare,” said the woman. “Shakespeare was an ancient …”

  Nicodemus jerked a thumb upward toward the skull. “Meet Shakespeare,” he said, “or what is left of him.”

  She looked in the direction of his thumb. She clapped her hands again. “How charmingly barbaric!”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” said Horton.

  Her face was thin to the point of boniness, but it was of an aristocratic cast. Her silver hair was skinned back from her face into a little topknot on the nape of her neck. The skinning back of the hair served to emphasize the boniness of her face. Her eyes were piercing blue and her lips were thin, with no color in them and without a trace of smile. Even when she had clapped her hands in joy, there had not been a smile. Horton found himself wondering if a smile was possible for her.

  “You travel in strange company,” she said to Horton.

  Horton looked around. Carnivore was emerging from the doorway. He looked like an unmade bed. He stretched, thrusting his arms far above his head. He yawned, his fangs gleaming in full splendor.

  “I’ll get breakfast,” said Nicodemus. “Are you hungry, ma’am?”

  “Ravenous,” she said.

  “Meat we have,” said Carnivore, “although not freshly killed. I make haste to welcome you to our small encampment. I am Carnivore.”

  “But a carnivore is a thing,” she objected. “A classification. It is not a name.”

  “He is a carnivore and proud of it,” said Horton. “That’s what he calls himself.”

  “Shakespeare name me it,” said Carnivore. “I hold another name, but it is not important.”