Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “I’ve explained it to you,” Masrin said wearily.

  “And don’t tell me any more about this paradox business. I don’t understand it, anyhow. But I’ll split fifty-fifty with you on what I get for the dub.”

  “No.”

  “O.K. I’ll be seeing you.” Harf started for the door.

  “Wait.”

  “Yes?” Harf’s thin, spidery mouth was smiling now.

  Masrin examined his choice of evils. If he brought back a dub there was a good chance of starting a paradox, by removing all that the club had done in the past. But if he didn’t, Harf would call in the newspapers and scientists. They could find out if Harf was speaking the truth by simply carrying him downstairs; something the police would do anyhow. He would disappear, and then—”

  With more people in on it, a paradox would be inevitable. And all Earth might, very possibly, be removed. Although he didn’t know why, Masrin knew this for a certainty.

  He was lost either way, but getting the club seemed the simpler alternative.

  “I’ll get it,” Masrin said. He walked to the staircase, followed by Kay and Harf. Kay grabbed his hand.

  “Don’t do it,” she said.

  “There’s nothing else I can do.” He thought for a moment of killing Harf. But that would only result in the electric chair for him. Of course, he could kill Harf and take his body into the past, and bury it.

  But the corpse of a twentieth century man in prehistoric America might constitute a paradox anyhow. Suppose it was dug up?

  Besides, he didn’t have it in him to kill a man.

  Masrin kissed his wife, and walked downstairs.

  There were no savages in sight on the plain, although Masrin thought he could feel their eyes, watching him. He found two clubs on the ground. The ones that struck him must be taboo, he decided, and picked one up, expecting another to crush his skull any moment. But the plain was silent.

  “Good boy!” Harf said. “Hand it here!” Masrin handed him the club. He went over to Kay and put his arm around her. It was a paradox now, as certainly as if he had killed his great-great-grandfather before he was born. “That’s a lovely thing,” Harf said, admiring the club under the light. “Consider your rent paid for the rest of the month—.”

  The club disappeared from his hand. Harf disappeared.

  Kay fainted.

  Masrin carried her to the bed, and splashed water on her face.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Masrin said, suddenly very puzzled about everything. “All I know is, we’re going to stay here for at least two weeks. Even if we have to eat beans.”

  TO: CENTER Office 41

  ATTN: Asst Controller Miglese

  FROM: Contractor Carienomen

  SUBJ: MORSTT Metagalaxy

  Sir:

  Your offer of a job repairing damaged stars is an insult to my company and myself. We refuse. Let me point out my work in the past, outlined in the brochure I am enclosing. How can you offer so menial a job to one of CENTER’S greatest companies?

  Again, I would like to put in my request for work on the new MORSTT Metagalaxy.

  As for ATTALA Metagalaxy—the work is now completed, and a finer job cannot be found anywhere this side of chaos. The place is a wonder.

  The impacted man is no longer impacted. I was forced to extract. However, I did not extract the man himself. Instead, I was able to remove one of the external influences on him. Now he can grow out normally.

  A nice job, I think you’ll admit, and solved with the ingenuity that characterizes all my work.

  My decision was: Why extract a good man, when I could save him by pulling the rotten one beside him?

  Again, I welcome your inspection. I request reconsideration on MORSTT Metagalaxy.

  PAYMENT IS STILL DUE!

  Respectfully,

  Carienomen

  Enclosed:

  1 brochure, 9978 pages

  THE END

  WRITING CLASS

  “Never use cliches in describing alien life-forms,” Professor Corner admonished his class. But Eddie persisted—with good reason!

  EDDIE McDermott paused at the door, then caught his breath and tiptoed into the classroom and to his seat. Mort Eddison, his best friend, looked at him reprovingly; the class had been in session for almost fifteen minutes, and one just didn’t come late to Professor Carner’s lecture. Especially on the first day.

  Eddie breathed easier as he saw that Professor earner’s back was to the class as he completed a diagram on the blackboard.

  “Now then,” Carner said. “Suppose you were writing about the—ah.—the Venusian Threngener, which, as you know, has three legs. How would you describe it?”

  One of the students raised his hand. “I’d call it a three-legged monstrosity, spawned in the deepest hells of—”

  “No,” Carner said quietly. “That kind of writing might have been all right in the earliest days of our subject. But remember: You are no longer dealing with a simple, credulous audience. To achieve the proper effects nowadays, you must underplay! Understand? Underplay! Now, someone else?”

  Mort raised his hand, threw a glance at Eddie, and said: “How about, this tri-pedal blob of orange protoplasm, octopus like in its gropings—”

  “That’s better,” Carner said. “Tripedal is very nice, very exact. But must you compare it to an octopus?”

  “Why not?” Mort asked.

  “An octopus,” the professor said, “is a well-known form of Earth life. It inspires no terror, no wonder. You might better compare the Threngener to another strange monster; a Callistan Eddel-splaver, for example.” He smiled winningly at the class.

  Eddie frowned and scratched his blonde crewcut. He had liked it better the first way. But Carner should know, of course. He was one of the best-known writers in the entire field, and he had done the college a favor by agreeing to teach the course. Eddie remembered reading some of Carner’s stuff. It had scared the living daylights out of him when he was younger. That description of Saturnian brains immobilizing Earth-confederation ships, for example. That had been a great yarn.

  THE trouble is, Eddie thought, I’m just not interested. He had had serious doubts about this course. Actually, he had signed up only because Mort had insisted.

  “Any questions at this point?” Carner asked. One of the students—a serious-looking fellow wearing black horn-rimmed glasses—raised his hand.

  “Suppose,” he asked, “suppose you were writing a story speculating on an interstellar combine formed with the purpose of taking over Earth? Would it be permissible, for greater contrast, to make Earth’s enemies black-hearted villains?”

  A political thinker, Eddie thought with a sneer. He glanced hopefully at the clock.

  “It wouldn’t be advisable.” Carner sat casually on the corner of his desk. “Make them human also; show the reader that these aliens—whether they have one head or five—have emotions understandable to them. Let them feel joy and pain. Show them as being misguided. Pure evil in your characters has gone out of fashion.”

  “But could I make their leader pure evil?” the young man asked, busily jotting down everything Carner had said.

  “I suppose so,” Carner said thoughtfully. “But give him motivations also. By the way, in dealing with that sort of story—the panoramic kind—remember not to oversimplify the aliens’ problems. If they amass an army of twenty million, all have to be fed. If the rulers of fifty scattered star systems meet in conclave, remember that different star systems have different languages, and different races have different nervous systems. Bear in mind also, that there would be little logical reason for attacking earth; the galaxy is filled with so many stars and planets, what is the necessity of fighting for one?”

  The horn-rimmed fellow nodded dubiously, writing his notes with tremendous speed. Eddie stifled a yawn. He preferred to think of his villains as pure unadulterated evil; it made characterization so much easier. And he was gettin
g tremendously bored.

  Carner answered questions for the next half hour. He told them not to describe Venus as a ‘jungle-choked green hell,’ never, never to call the moon ‘pock-marked,’ ‘small-pox pitted,’ or ‘scarred from centuries of meteoric bombardment.’

  “All this has been said,” he explained. “Millions of times. Do not use cliches.”

  He went on to explain that the red spot of Jupiter need not be called a malevolent red eye, that Saturn’s rings don’t necessarily resemble a halo, and that the inhabitants of Venus are not Venetians.

  “All common errors,” he said. “I want a thousand words from each of you next time. I suggest that you choose a planet and write a fresh study of it, avoiding with care all the cliches I mentioned. Class dismissed.”

  “Well, whadja think?” Mort asked Eddie in the hall. “Isn’t he great? I mean, he really knows!”

  “I’m dropping out of the class,” Eddie said, making up his mind.

  “What! Why?”

  “Well,” Eddie said, “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t call the red spot on Jupiter a malevolent red eye. I put that in a story last month, and it sounded good. And that Venetian Threngener—I think it’s a monstrosity, and I’m going to write about it that way.”

  He paused, and his face hardened with conviction.

  “But the real reason—well, I’m just not interested in journalism. I’m dropping earner’s course in fact feature-article writing, because I want to write fiction!”

  THE END

  1953

  THE LAST WEAPON

  The first science-fiction magazine was born in 1926; two years later was born a boy baby to a quiet and previously unremarkable Brooklyn family. Young Bob Sheckley was late getting into the science-fiction field; his first story appeared only one year before the original publication date of this collection. But what he lacked in promptness he made up in velocity, for at the conclusion of his first full year of writing he had sold more than thirty stories, to almost every major science-fiction magazine in the country and to such lesser periodicals as Collier’s and Today’s Woman as well. We offer you . . .

  Edsel was in a murderous mood. He, Parke, and Faxon had spent three weeks in this part of the deadlands, breaking into every mound they came across, not finding anything, and moving on to the next. The swift Martian summer was passing, and each day became a little colder. Each day Edsel’s nerves, uncertain at the best of times, had frayed a little more. Little Faxon was cheerful, dreaming of all the money they would make when they found the weapons, and Parke plodded silently along, apparently made of iron, not saying a word unless he was spoken to.

  But Edsel had reached his limit. They had broken into another mound, and again there had been no sign of the lost Martian weapons. The watery sun seemed to be glaring at him, and the stars were visible in an impossibly blue sky. The afternoon cold, seeped into Edsel’s insulated suit, stiffening his joints, knotting his big muscles.

  Quite suddenly, Edsel decided to kill Parke. He had disliked the silent man since they had formed the partnership on Earth. He disliked him even more than he despised Faxon.

  Edsel stopped.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” he asked Parke, his voice ominously low.

  Parke shrugged his slender shoulders negligently. His pale, hollow face showed no trace of expression.

  “Do you?” Edsel asked.

  Parke shrugged again.

  A bullet in the head, Edsel decided, reaching for his gun.

  “Wait!” Faxon pleaded, coming up between them. “Don’t fly off, Edsel. Just think of all the money we can make when we find the weapons!” The little man’s eyes glowed at the thought. “They’re right around here somewhere, Edsel. The next mound, maybe.”

  Edsel hesitated, glaring at Parke. Right now he wanted to kill, more than anything else in the world. If he had known it was like this, when they formed the company on Earth . . . It had seemed so easy, then. He had the plaque, the one which told where a cache of the fabulous lost Martian weapons were. Parke was able to read the Martian script, and Faxon could finance the expedition. So, he had figured all they’d have to do would be to land on Mars and walk up to the mound where the stuff was hidden.

  Edsel had never been off Earth before. He hadn’t counted on the weeks of freezing, starving on concentrated rations, always dizzy from breathing thin, tired air circulating through a replenisher. He hadn’t thought about the sore, aching muscles you get, dragging your way through the thick Martian brush.

  All he had thought about was the price a government—any government—would pay for those legendary weapons.

  “I’m sorry,” Edsel said, making up his mind suddenly. “This place gets me. Sorry I blew up, Parke. Lead on.”

  Parke nodded, and started again. Faxon breathed a sigh of relief, and followed Parke.

  After all, Edsel thought. I can kill them anytime.

  They found the correct mound in mid-afternoon, just as Edsel’s patience was wearing thin again. It was a strange, massive affair, just as the script had said. Under a few inches of dirt was metal. The men scraped and found a door.

  “Here, I’ll blast it open,” Edsel said, drawing his revolver. Parke pushed him aside, turned the handle and opened the door.

  Inside was a tremendous room. And there, row upon gleaming row, were the legendary lost weapons of Mars, the missing artifacts of Martian civilization.

  The three men stood for a moment, just looking. Here was the treasure that men had almost given up looking for. Since man had landed on Mars, the ruins of great cities had been explored. Scattered across the plains were ruined vehicles, artforms, tools, everything indicating the ghost of a titanic civilization, a thousand years beyond Earth’s. Patiently deciphered scripts had told of the great wars ravaging the surface of Mars. The scripts stopped too soon, though, because nothing told what had happened to the Martians. There hadn’t been an intelligent being on Mars for several thousand years. Somehow, all animal life on the planet had been obliterated.

  And, apparently, the Martians had taken their weapons with them.

  These lost weapons, Edsel knew, were worth their weight in radium. There just wasn’t anything like them.

  The men went inside. Edsel picked up the first thing his hand reached. It looked like a .45, only bigger. He went to the door and pointed the weapon at a shrub on the plain.

  “Don’t fire it,” Faxon said, as Edsel took aim. “It might backfire or something. Let the government men fire them, after we sell.”

  Edsel squeezed the trigger. The shrub, seventy-five feet away, erupted in a bright red flash.

  “Not bad,” Edsel said, patting the gun. He put it down and reached for another.

  “Please, Edsel,” Faxon said, squinting nervously at him. “There’s no need to try them out. You might set off an atomic bomb or something.”

  “Shut up,” Edsel said, examining the weapon for a firing stud.

  “Don’t shoot any more,” Faxon pleaded. He looked to Parke for support, but the silent man was watching Edsel. “You know, something in this place might have been responsible for the destruction of the Martian race. You wouldn’t want to set it off again, would you?”

  Edsel watched a spot on the plain glow with heat as he fired at it.

  “Good stuff.” He picked up another, rod-shaped instrument. The cold was forgotten. Edsel was perfectly happy now, playing with all the shiny things.

  “Let’s get started,” Faxon said, moving toward the door.

  “Started? Where?” Edsel demanded. He picked up another glittering weapon, curved to fit his wrist and hand.

  “Back to the port,” Faxon said. “Back to sell this stuff, like we planned. I figure we can ask just about any price, any price at all. A government would give billions for weapons like these.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Edsel said. Out of the corner of his eye he was watching Parke. The slender man was walking between the stacks of weapons, but so far he hadn’t
touched any.

  “Now listen,” Faxon said, glaring at Edsel. “I financed this expedition. We planned on selling the stuff. I have a right to—well, perhaps not.”

  The untried weapon was pointed squarely at his stomach.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, trying not to look at the gun.

  “To hell with selling it,” Edsel said, leaning against the cave wall where he could also watch Parke. “I figure I can use this stuff myself.” He grinned broadly, still watching both men.

  “I can outfit some of the boys back home. With the stuff that’s here, we can knock over one of those little governments in Central America easy. I figure, we could hold it forever.”

  “Well,” Faxon said, watching the gun, “I don’t want to be a party to that sort of thing. Just count me out.”

  “All right,” Edsel said.

  “Don’t worry about me talking,” Faxon said quickly. “I won’t. I just don’t want to be in on any shooting or killing. So I think I’ll go back.”

  “Sure,” Edsel said. Parke was standing to one side, examining his fingernails.

  “If you get that kingdom set up, I’ll come down,” Faxon said, grinning weakly. “Maybe you can make me a duke or something.”

  “I think I can arrange that.”

  “Swell. Good luck.” Faxon waved his hand and started to walk away. Edsel let him get twenty feet, then aimed the new weapon and pressed the stud.

  The gun didn’t make any noise; there was no flash, but Faxon’s arm was neatly severed. Quickly, Edsel pressed the stud again and swung the gun down on Faxon. The little man was chopped in half, and the ground on either side of him was slashed, also.

  Edsel turned, realizing suddenly that he had left his back exposed to Parke. All the man had to do was pick up the nearest gun and blaze away. But Parke was just standing there, his arms folded over his chest.

  “That beam will probably cut through anything,” Parke said. “Very useful.”

  Edsel had a wonderful half hour, running back and forth to the door with different weapons. Parke made no move to touch anything, but watched with interest. The ancient Martian arms were as good as new, apparently unaffected by their thousands of years of disuse. There were many blasting weapons, of various designs and capabilities. Then heat and radiation guns, marvelously compact things. There were weapons which would freeze, and weapons which would burn; others which would crumble, cut, coagulate, paralyze, and any of the other ways of snuffing out life.