Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  The four horsemen of the Apocalypse, those ancient policemen, could no longer be relied upon to maintain order. Pestilence and famine had been outlawed, and war was too luxurious for this subsistence age. Only death remained—much diminished, a mere shadow of his former self.

  Science, with splendid irrationality, continued to work insensately towards the goal of more life for more people.

  And people marched on, still increasing, crowding the earth with their numbers, stifling the air and poisoning the water, eating their processed algae between slices of fish-meal bread, dimly awaiting a catastrophe to thin out their unwieldy ranks, and waiting in vain.

  The quantitative increase in numbers produced qualitative changes in human experience. In a more innocent age, adventure and danger had been properties of the waste places—the high mountains, bleak deserts, steaming jungles. But by the twenty-first century most of these places were being utilized in the accelerating search for living-space. Adventure and danger were now to be found in the monstrous, ungovernable cities.

  In the cities one found the modern equivalent of savage tribes, fearsome beasts, and dread disease. An expedition into New York or Chicago required more resourcefulness and stamina, more ingenuity, than those lighthearted Victorian jaunts to Everest or the source of the Nile.

  In this pressure-pot world, land was the most precious of commodities. The Government parceled it out as it became available, by means of regional lotteries culminating in Land Races. These contests were patterned after those held in the 1890s for the opening of the Oklahoma Territory and the Cherokee Strip.

  The Land Race was considered equitable and interesting—both sporty and sporting. Millions watched the races, and the tranquillizing effect of vicarious excitement upon the masses was duly noted and approved. This in itself was sufficient justification for the races.

  Additionally, the high mortality rate among the contestants had to be considered an asset. It didn’t amount to much in absolute numbers; but a stifled world was grateful for even the smallest alleviation.

  The race was three hours old. Steve Baxter turned on his little transistor radio and listened to the latest reports. He heard how the first group of contestants had arrived at the Holland Tunnel and had been turned back by armored policemen. Others, more devious, had taken the long southern trek to Staten Island and were presently approaching the approaches of the Verrazzano Bridge. Freihoff St. John, all by himself, flashing a deputy mayor’s badge, had been allowed past the Lincoln Tunnel barricades.

  But now it was time for Steve Baxter’s gamble. Grim-faced, with quiet courage, he entered the infamous Free Port of Hoboken.

  It was dusk on the Hoboken foreshore. Before him, in a sweeping crescent, lay the trim, swift ships of the Hoboken smuggling fleet, each with its gleaming Coast Guard medallion. Some already had cargo lashed to their decks—cases of cigarettes from North Carolina, liquor from Kentucky, oranges from Florida, goof balls from California, guns from Texas. Each case bore the official marking, CONTRABAND—TAX PAID. For in this unhappy day and age, the hard-pressed Government was forced to tax even illegal enterprises, and thus to give them a quasi-legal status.

  Choosing his moment carefully, Baxter stepped aboard a rakish marijuana runner and crouched down among the aromatic bales. The craft was ready for imminent departure; if he could only conceal himself during the short passage across the river . . .

  “Har! What in the hell have we here?”

  A drunken second engineer, coming up unexpectedly from the fo’c’sle, had caught Baxter unawares. Responding to his shout, the rest of the crew swarmed onto the deck. They were a hard-bitten, swaggering lot, feared for their casually murderous ways. These were the same breed of Godless men who had sacked Weehawken some years ago, had put Fort Lee to the torch, had raided and pillaged all the way to the gates of Englewood. Steve Baxter knew that he could expect no mercy from them.

  Nevertheless, with admirable coolness, he said,” Gentlemen, I am in need of transportation across the Hudson, if you please.”

  The ship’s captain, a colossal mestizo with a scarred face and bulging muscles, leaned back and bellowed with laughter.

  “Ye seek passage of uns?” he declared in the broad Hobokenese patois. “Think ’ee we be the Christopher Street ferry, hai?”

  “Not at all, sir. But I had hoped—”

  “To the boneyard wit’ yer hopes!”

  The crew roared at the witticism.

  “I am willing to pay for my passage,” Steve said with quiet dignity.

  “Pay is it?” roared the captain. “Aye, we sometimes sell passages—nonstop to midstream, and thence straight down!”

  The crew redoubled its laughter.

  “If it is to be, then let it so be,” Steve Baxter said. “I request only that you permit me to drop a postcard to my wife and children.”

  “Woife and tuckins?” the captain inquired. “Why didn’t yer mention! Had that lot myself aforetime ago, until waunders did do marvain to the lot.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Steve said with evident sincerity.

  “Aye.” The captain’s iron visage softened. “I do remember how, in oftens colaim, the leetle blainsprites did leap giner on the saern; yes, and it was roses all till diggerdog.”

  “You must have been very happy,” Steve said. He was following the man’s statements with difficulty.

  “I maun do,” the captain said heavily.

  A bowlegged little forebow deckman thrust himself forward. “Hi, Captain, let’s do for him and get underway before the pot rots on the spot.”

  “Who you giving orders at, ye mangy, scut-faced hogifier!” the captain raved. “By Big Jesus, we’ll let the pot rot till I say not! And as for doing him—nay, I’ll do one deed for me blainsprites, shiver me if I won’t!” Turning to Baxter, he said,” We’ll carry ye, laddie, and for naught ought loot.”

  Thus, fortuitously, Steve Baxter had touched upon a bittersweet memory in the captain’s recollection and had thereby won respite. The marijuana men pushed off, and soon the sleek craft was breasting the sallow gray-green waves of the Hudson.

  But Steve Baxter’s respite was short-lived. In midstream, just after they entered Federal waters, a powerful search-light flashed out of the evening gloom and an officious voice ordered them to heave to. Evil luck had steered them straight into the path of a destroyer on the Hudson patrol.

  “Damn them!” the captain raved. “Tax and kill, that’s all they know! But we’ll show them our mettle! To the guns, bullies!”

  Swiftly the crew peeled the tarpaulins from the fifty-caliber machine guns, and the boat’s twin diesels roared defiance. Twisting and dodging, the pot runner raced for the sanctuary of the New York shore. But the destroyer, forereaching, had the legs of her, and machine guns were no match for four-inch cannon. Direct hits splintered the little ship’s toe rail, exploded in the great cabin, smashed through the maintop forestays, and chopped down the starboard mizzen halyards.

  Surrender or death seemed the only options. But, weatherwise, the captain sniffed the air. “Hang on, hearties!” he screamed. “There’s a Wester do be coming!”

  Shells rained around them. Then, out of the west, a vast and impenetrable smog bank rolled in, blanketing everything in its inky tentacles. The battered little kif ship slid away from the combat; and the crew, hastily donning respirators, gave thanks to the smoldering trashlands of Secaucus. As the captain remarked, it is an ill wind that blows no good.

  Half an hour later they docked at the 79th Street Pier. The captain embraced Steve warmly and wished him good fortune. And Steve Baxter continued on his journey.

  The broad Hudson was behind him. Ahead lay thirty-odd downtown blocks and less than a dozen crosstown blocks. According to the latest radio report, he was well ahead of the other contestants, ahead even of Freihoff St. John, who still had not emerged from the labyrinth at the New York end of the Lincoln Tunnel. He seemed to be doing very nicely, all things considered.

&
nbsp; But Baxter’s optimism was premature. New York was not conquered so easily. Unknown to him, the most dangerous parts of his journey still lay before him.

  After a few hours’ sleep in the back of an abandoned car, Steve proceeded southwards on West End Avenue. Soon it was dawn—a magical hour in the city, when no more than a few hundred early-risers were to be found at any given intersection. High overhead were the crenellated towers of Manhattan, and above them the clustered television antennae wove a faery tapestry against a dun and ochre sky. Seeing it like that, Baxter could imagine what New York had been like a hundred years ago, in the gracious, easygoing days before the population explosion.

  He was abruptly shaken out of his musings. Appearing as if from nowhere, a party of armed men suddenly barred his path. They wore masks, wide-brimmed black hats, and bandoliers of ammunition. Their aspect was both villainous and picturesque.

  One of them, evidently the leader, stepped forward. He was a craggy-featured, balding old man with a heavy black moustache and mournful red-rimmed eyes. “Stranger,” he said, “let’s see yore pass.”

  “I don’t believe I have one,” Baxter said.

  “Damned right you don’t,” the old man said. “I’m Pablo Steinmetz, and I issue all the passes around here, and I don’t recollect ever seeing you afore in these parts.”

  “I’m a stranger here,” Baxter said. “I’m just passing through.”

  The black-hatted men grinned and nudged each other. Pablo Steinmetz rubbed his unshaven jaw and said. “Well, sonny, it just so happens that you’re trying to pass through a private toll road without permission of the owner, who happens to be me; so I reckon that means you’re illegally trespassing.”

  “But how could anyone have a private toll road in the heart of New York City?” Baxter asked.

  “It’s mine ’cause I say it’s mine,” Pablo Steinmetz said, fingering the notches on the stock of his Winchester 78. “That’s just the way it is, stranger, so I reckon you’d better pay or play.”

  Baxter reached for his wallet and found it was missing. Evidently the pot-boat captain, upon parting, had yielded to his baser instincts and picked his pocket.

  “I have no money,” Baxter said. He laughed uneasily. “Perhaps I should turn back.”

  Steinmetz shook his head. “Going back’s the same as going forward. It’s toll road either way. You still gotta pay or play.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to play,” Baxter said. “What do I do?”

  “You run,” Old Pablo said, “and we take turns shooting at you, aiming only at the upper part of your head. First man to bring you down wins a turkey.”

  “That is infamous!” Baxter declared.

  “It is kinda tough on you,” Steinmetz said mildly. “But that’s the way the mortar crumbles. Rules is rules, even in an anarchy. So, therefore, if you will be good enough to break into a wild sprint for freedom . . .”

  The bandits grinned and nudged each other and loosened their guns in their holsters and pushed back their wide-brimmed black hats. Baxter readied himself for the death run—

  And at that moment, a voice cried, “Stop!”

  A woman had spoken. Baxter turned and saw that a tall, red-headed girl was striding through the bandit ranks. She was dressed in toreador pants, plastic galoshes, and Hawaiian blouse. The exotic clothing served to enhance her bold beauty. There was a paper rose in her hair, and a string of cultured pearls set off the slender line of her neck. Never had Baxter seen a more flamboyant loveliness.

  Pablo Steinmetz frowned and tugged at his moustache. “Flame!” he roared. “What in tarnation are you up to?”

  “I’ve come to stop your little game, Father,” the girl said coolly. “I want a chance to talk to this tanglefoot.”

  “This is man’s business,” Steinmetz said. “Stranger, git set to run!”

  “Stranger, don’t move a muscle!” Flame cried, and a deadly little Derringer appeared in her hand.

  Father and daughter glared at each other. Old Pablo was the first to break the tableau.

  “Damn it all, Flame, you can’t do this,” he said. “Rules is rules, even for you. This here illegal trespasser can’t pay, so he’s gotta play.”

  “That’s no problem,” Flame announced. Reaching inside her blouse she extracted a shiny silver double eagle. “There!” she said, throwing it at Pablo’s feet. “I’ve done the paying, and just maybe I’ll do the playing, too. Come along, stranger.”

  She took Baxter by the hand and led him away. The bandits watched them go and grinned and nudged each other until Steinmetz scowled at them. Old Pablo shook his head, scratched his ear, blew his nose, and said, “Consarn that girl!”

  The words were harsh, but the tone was unmistakably tender.

  Night came to the city, and the bandits pitched camp on the corner of 69th Street and West End Avenue. The black-hatted men lounged in attitudes of ease before a roaring fire. A juicy brisket of beef was set out on a spit, and packages of flash-frozen green vegetables were thrown into a capacious black cauldron. Old Pablo Steinmetz, easing the imaginary pain in his wooden leg, drank deep from a jerry can of premixed Martinis. In the darkness beyond the campfire you could hear a lonely poodle howling for his mate.

  Steve and Flame sat a little apart from the others. The night, silent except for the distant roar of garbage trucks, worked its enchantment upon them both. Their fingers met, touched, and clung.

  Flame said at last, “Steve, you—you do like me, don’t you?”

  “Why, of course I do,” Baxter replied, and slipped his arm around her shoulders in a brotherly gesture not incapable of misinterpretation.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking,” the bandit girl said. “I’ve thought . . .” She paused, suddenly shy, then went on. “Oh, Steve, why don’t you give up this suicidal race? Why don’t you stay here with me! I’ve got land, Steve, real land—a hundred square yards in the New York Central Switchyard! You and I, Steve, we could farm it together!”

  Baxter was tempted—what man would not be? He had not been unaware of the feelings which the beautiful bandit girl entertained for him, nor was he entirely unresponsive to them. Flame Steinmetz’s haunting beauty and proud spirit, even without the added attraction of land, might easily have won any man’s heart. For a heartbeat he wavered, and his arm tightened around the girl’s slim shoulders.

  But then, fundamental loyalties reasserted themselves. Flame was the essence of romance, the flash of ecstasy about which a man dreams throughout his life. Yet Adele was his childhood sweetheart, his wife, the mother of his children, the patient helpmate of the long years together. For a man of Steve Baxter’s character, there could be no other choice.

  The imperious girl was unused to refusal. Angry as a scalded puma, she threatened to tear out Baxter’s heart with her fingernails and serve it up lightly dusted in flour and toasted over a medium fire. Her great flashing eyes and trembling bosom showed that this was no mere idle imagery.

  Despite this, quietly and implacably, Steve Baxter stuck to his convictions. And Flame realized sadly that she would never have loved this man were he not replete with the very high principles which rendered her desires unattainable.

  So in the morning, she offered no resistance when the quiet stranger insisted upon leaving. She even silenced her irate father, who swore that Steve was an irresponsible fool who should be restrained for his own good.

  “It’s no use, Dad—can’t you see that?” she asked. “He must lead his own life, even if it means the end of his life.”

  Pablo Steinmetz desisted, grumbling. And Steve Baxter set out again upon his desperate Odyssey.

  Downtown he traveled, jostled and crowded to the point of hysteria, blinded by the flash of neon against chrome, deafened by the incessant city noises. He came at last into a region of proliferating signs:

  ONE WAY

  DO NOT ENTER

  KEEP OFF THE MEDIAN

  CLOSED SUNDAYS AND HOLIDAYS

  CLOSED WEEKDAYS
/>   LEFT LANE MUST TURN LEFT!

  Winding through this maze of conflicting commands, he stumbled accidentally into that vast stretch of misery known as Central Park. Before him, as far as the eye could see, every square foot of land was occupied by squalid lean-tos, mean teepees, disreputable shacks, and noisome stews. His sudden appearance among the brutalized park inhabitants excited comment, none of it favorable. They got it into their heads that he was a health inspector, come to close down their malarial wells, slaughter their trichinoidal hogs, and vaccinate their scabrous children. A mob gathered around him, waving their crutches and mouthing threats.

  Luckily, a malfunctioning toaster in Central Ontario triggered off a sudden blackout. In the ensuing panic, Steve made good his escape.

  But now he found himself in an area where the street signs had long ago been torn down to confuse the tax assessors. The sun was hidden behind a glaring white overcast. Not even a compass could be used because of the proximity of vast quantities of scrap iron—all that remained of the city’s legendary subway system.

  Steve Baxter realized that he was utterly and hopelessly lost.

  Yet he persevered, with a courage surpassed only by his ignorance. For uncounted days he wandered through the nondescript streets, past endless brownstones, mounds of plate glass, automobile cairns, and the like. The superstitious inhabitants refused to answer his questions, fearing he might be an FBI man. He staggered on, unable to obtain food or drink, unable even to rest for fear of being trampled by the crowds.

  A kindly social worker stopped him just as Baxter was about to drink from a hepatitic fountain. This wise gray-haired old man nursed him back to health in his own home—a hut built entirely of rolled newspapers near the moss-covered ruins of Lincoln Center. He advised Baxter to give up his impetuous quest and to devote his life to assisting the wretched, brutalized, superfluous masses of humanity that pullulated on all sides of him.

  It was a noble ideal, and Steve came near to wavering: but then, as luck would have it, he heard the latest race results on the social worker’s venerable Hallicrafter.