Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Yes, that’s what visiting aliens usually want,” Tony said. “Come, let me take you to Dungruel.”

  “Delighted,” Anna said. “Will we meet your leader, president, secretary-general, or whatever you call him, there?”

  “Actually, he’s rather busy,” Tony said. “I’m supposed to fill in for him.”

  “We shall have to see him before we leave,” Anna said, Her tone left no doubt that this would be accomplished in one way or another, peacefully if possible, but any which way if necessary.

  IX.

  The Eleroians know all about alien invasions. They have had a lot of them. So many that when aliens land from other planets, the Eleroians just shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, it’s aliens again, trying to involve us in their fugacious embranglements.”

  It’s all right if the aliens were just coming for a visit. Curiosity is understandable, though deplorable. Usually they go away if not encouraged. All you have to do is talk to them and pose for photographs and wave when they fly away.

  But all bets are off if the aliens find fascinating ruins. Most aliens are crazy about old ruins.

  The Eleroi take care to hide their antiquities underneath reservoirs and landfills. Even so, some especially pertinacious races have discovered them.

  As often as they have been invaded, even more often have the Eleroi been sent gifts by soft-hearted peoples. The Eleroi have no prejudice against taking things. It makes the giver feel good and does no one any harm. But the gifts pile up in carefully camouflaged warehouses because the Eleroi don’t need this stuff.

  Some explorers come to Khasara in order to study Eleroi culture. These aliens tend to be earnest, honest, erudite, and very dangerous, because they often stay on for years and years asking boring questions and bringing in many assistants. The Eleroi try to discourage cultural curiosity by displaying only art objects that a Matagalpan Indian with a bone through his nose wouldn’t spit on, and passing off these monstrosities as their highest cultural treasures. In fact, the Eleroi have learned to produce the sort of painting no intelligent being in his right mind would dream of hanging in his house. It’s the only defense against alien collectors, and a lot of the time even that doesn’t work.

  The Eleroi are naturally weak, shiftless, lazy, and too clever by half. Their fatal flaw is the inability to resist leaving clues of their cleverness—tipping off their game—because to be appreciated is the highest reward. Luckily, most invaders are not intelligent enough, or are too opinionated and set in their views to pick up the nuances.

  The Eleroi system usually works. Aliens land and stay for a while and then go away again, leaving the Eleroi to their immemorial pursuits. But sometimes fate or chance steps in, something you can do nothing about.

  It had to be fate that brought people like Brodsky and Anna to a place like this.

  X.

  “How far is it to Dungruel?” Brodsky asked.

  “About five lii,” Tony said. “Our lii equals l.002 of your standard kilometers. I’m afraid we’ll have to walk.”

  “Don’t you have any transportation?” Anna asked.

  “We just haven’t gotten around to inventing any yet,” Tony said. “We were late discovering the wheel, you know.”

  “Luckily we brought our own vehicle,” Anna said. “Brodsky, why don’t you show him the altersoar?”

  Brodsky went to the storage hold and brought out a large box about the size of a standard Terran coffin. He pushed it outside—it had wheels—told everyone to stand back, removed the safety interlock, and pushed a button marked ARTICULATE. The box exfoliated, revealing itself to be a collection of memory-tagged aluminum struts and a small central driving unit. These quickly assembled themselves into a vehicle.

  “Pretty neat,” Tony said. He followed Brodsky and Anna into the vehicle. It was a tight squeeze, but they all made it. Brodsky set the controls to lift, leveling off a hundred meters or so above the ground.

  “Dungruel is right over there,” Tony said. “you can steer by the pillar of smoke.”

  “What causes that smoke?” Anna asked.

  “That’s the new Smoke Factory.”

  “What does the factory produce?” Anna asked.

  “Nothing. Just smoke.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Anna said.

  “It’s perfectly reasonable,” Tony told her. “You can always decide later what a factory should make. The first step is to find out if you can stand the smoke.”

  XI.

  Dungruel was a large, shabby place of low ramshackle buildings and dirty streets. Tony pointed out the main sights—the Beggars’ Guildhall, the Ministry of Handouts, the Pigout Restaurant. The few people in the streets were mean-featured, loutish, dressed in filthy rags, and sporting an impressive collection of running sores.

  “Very interesting,” Anna said at the conclusion of the tour. “Now we must return to our ship. Will you come visit us again first thing in the morning?”

  “Certainly,” Tony said. “There are several other sights well worth seeing. Our Clamarang Mountains, for example, which soar almost four hundred feet into the air. And the River Mote, mean depth of ten feet, nearly three hundred meters wide at its widest point.”

  “We are not interested in your mountains or rivers,” Anna said.

  “And who could blame you for your disinterest?” said Tony, smiling miserably. “After all, it should be obvious that we are not a prosperous people, nor are we inventive or even intelligent. But we’ll try to show you a good time before you depart for more promising places.”

  “I don’t know why you run yourselves down so,” Anna said. “There’s nothing wrong with you Eleroians that vitamin supplements and a good education won’t take care of.”

  “Vitamins might not be a bad idea,” Tony said. “I suppose you could drop some off before you leave.”

  “We are not going anywhere yet, Tony,” Anna said firmly. “Tomorrow we look forward to meeting with your leader and explaining to him the advantages, both physical and spiritual, of joining our Alliance.”

  “I have no doubt that Aftenby, the lord of Khasara, will be interested in your views.”

  “As well he should be,” Anna said.

  “But frankly, I’d better warn you in advance, we Eleroi really aren’t joiners.”

  “That will have to change now,” Anna told him. “All over the universe humankind is engaged in a desperate war. Our very survival is at stake, and so is yours. You are going to have to choose sides. You are going to have to join our Alliance.”

  “I’ll tell Aftenby,” Tony said. “But he’s not going to like it.”

  XII.

  “But what did she mean, her alliance?” Aftenby asked. “I mean, it wasn’t literal, was it?”

  “I think she was referring to an alliance of which she is a representative,” Tony said.

  “It’s obvious that she means a group of planets,” Denton said. “It’s the sort of things barbarians do: form alliances among themselves in order to overturn other alliances. Obviously they want us to join. That’s how they get members, you see, by forcing people to join them.”

  Aftenby shuddered at the thought of joining an alliance. It was precisely the sort of thing the Eleroi had avoided throughout their long existence.

  These aliens weren’t convinced of the worthlessness of the Eleroi people and the planet they lived on. It was time for the most extreme measures.

  XIII.

  “No, I don’t want any more curry,” Brodsky said over breakfast. “And I don’t want any more of your high-handed ways, either.”

  Anna stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “We were sent here to explore and report back. Not to coerce people into joining the Alliance.”

  “You have your orders and I have mine,” Anna said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Wake up to reality, Brodsky. There really is a war on, you know. Do you think anybody can sit on the fence? What
happens to these people if the Khalia or their allies find them before we have time to station a garrison?”

  “It’s their own decision,” Brodsky said, “whether to join or not.”

  “They can leave the Alliance any time they want,” Anna said. “Those are the rules. But they have to join first before they can quit.”

  “There are no standing orders to that effect.”

  “It’s a field decision, left to the discretion of the officer on the spot.”

  “I’m an officer, too,” Brodsky pointed out.

  “Yes, but I’ve held my commission longer than you have. That makes me senior and gives me the right to make a ruling.”

  Just then there was a heavy pounding at the spaceship port. Brodsky got up to answer it. As he undogged the hatch, he said to Anna, “I don’t know why we’re quarreling. Our views aren’t so far apart. I think the Eleroi ought to be in the Alliance, too. But you’re going about it in the wrong way.”

  “You think you know the right way? Since when have you become an expert on Eleroian psychology? Brodsky, I’m warning you, let me handle this.”

  “Be my guest,” Brodsky said, opening the lock. “Come on in, Tony.”

  Tony entered, followed by two men. Brodsky knew even before being introduced that these were the lord of the planet and his right-hand man.

  And anyhow, there were no introductions. Aftenby, the lord of the planet, said, “So you’re the aliens? I understand that you have a flying machine. Please take me aloft so I can show you what damage your visit has brought about.”

  XIV.

  From the air, you could see that the green fields of the Eleroi had turned brown overnight. Rivers that had been green and swift-moving just the previous night had now dried up. A scorching wind blew from all directions. For as far as the eye could see, the desolation was complete.

  “I regret this very much,” Anna said when they had returned to the ship. “I don’t know what happened to cause all that destruction. But it surely was a natural catastrophe of some sort, and no fault of ours, though we will certainly be willing to help you put matters straight again.”

  “Very kind of you, I’m sure,” Aftenby said bitterly. “Come here and wreck our planet, then offer to tidy up afterward. No, thank you very much, please just go away, and we’ll do our own tidying.”

  Anna looked uncertain. She wasn’t sure what to do. And she was starting to get flashes of a court-martial ahead if this whole thing weren’t handled carefully.

  “Brodsky,” she said, “what do you think?”

  Brodsky looked surprised. “You want my recommendations?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  Brodsky walked across the cabin and stood in front of Aftenby, Denton, and Tony. They looked at him with grave, grief-stricken faces. Brodsky began to laugh.

  “All right,” he said. “You can turn it off now.”

  “What are you talking about?” Denton said. “Turn what off?”

  “I am referring to the psycho-physio-biological interface you Eleroi have with your planet and with all its energetic systems. I’m talking about your ability to control every process on this planet.”

  “You think we did this ourselves?” Denton asked.

  “Of course. It’s obvious to me that you Eleroi have not cultivated defense in the accepted meaning of the term. You have cued your body chemistry into that of the plant life. When you feel bad, the whole planet feels bad. Crops fail. Water pollutes. The air turns foul. The invader at last leaves in disgust. That’s the scenario. No doubt it’s worked in the past. But it’s not going to work this time.”

  “How did you know about us?” Aftenby asked in a low voice.

  “I was able to infer it because I’m just like you. Too clever for my own good, but not particularly skilled at anything.”

  “You are like us,” Denton said. “I suppose you know that all life is founded in contradiction but one does the best one can. But there’s no escaping the inner flaw. Intelligence works to minimalize the occurrence of conditions that would activate the destructive mechanisms which the flaw represents. Or am I going too fast for you?”

  “Not at all,” Brodsky said. “You’re saying that no matter how smart you are, it takes a little luck. And you Eleroi have been lucky so far. But how you do in the future is going to depend on the choice you make right now.”

  “Still trying to make us join your beastly Alliance?” Aftenby muttered.

  “No, I’m not,” Brodsky said. “My colleague and I will leave the choice up to you. If you decide not to join, we’ll go away and leave you alone. Whether the Khalia and their friends will do likewise, I can’t say. But I can promise for us. Can’t I, Anna?”

  Anna looked puzzled. She’d never thought Brodsky could take charge like this. So definite, so sure of himself. She decided that his commanding officer had assigned him to the exploration program for reasons a little better than just getting rid of him.

  “Yes, I’ll abide by their, decision,” Anna said.

  “Well, that’s very nice of you,” Aftenby said. “Sporting, very sporting. We’ll think about all the things you’ve said, and give the matter our best attention. But for the present, why don’t you nice people just go away, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve invented transspatial communication.”

  “Aftenby, stop talking for a moment,” Denton said. “Can’t you see he’s laughing at you? The alien knows something we don’t know!”

  Brodsky nodded and turned to Denton. “You’re so clever, Mr. Prime Minister. Surely you’ve inferred already what I’m laughing about?”

  “I know, I know!” Tony said, jumping up and down.

  Denton said, with dignity, “What, pray tell, are you laughing about? What do you know?”

  Brodsky said, “I know what you Eleroi are really afraid of.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Tony, who loved to out-infer grown-ups and was very good at it. “Tell them, Brodsky! But begin at the beginning!”

  “Right,” Brodsky said. “But the beginning was so far back that probably even you Eleroi don’t remember when it began. So let’s pick an arbitrary time, maybe a million or so years ago, when you Eleroi discovered that you could live peaceably with each other. I bet none of you even knows when you had your last war. You are the only intelligent cooperative society I’ve ever heard of. How did you do it?”

  “Some of it was luck,” Denton said. “We had the good fortune to be smart enough to decide to make several key modifications in the genetic engineering of our race. We opted for biological altruism within a game-playing frame.”

  “You opted for stagnation. You froze your development. Maybe you picked the perfect point at which to stop growing, but stop you did. You turned your back on the universe, pretended it wasn’t there, but unfortunately for you the universe hasn’t forgotten you. Fellow Eleroi—for I count myself one of you—it’s time to try another tactic.”

  “Join your Alliance, you mean?” Aftenby said. “That’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it, all your specious argumentation?”

  “Of course. But it isn’t specious. I could be wrong. But it’s what I feel would be best for you. I also feel that you agree with me but are looking for a graceful way of claiming the idea as your own.”

  “Well, damn it all,” Aftenby said. “If you’re going to put it that way, what can we say? Eh, Denton?”

  “Yes, I suppose it’s time,” Denton said.

  Anna couldn’t stand it any longer. “You’re actually going to join the Alliance? Just because he advised you to?”

  “Actually, Brodsky had very little to do with it,” Denton said. “Historical necessity throws up its mouthpieces when and as they are required. Not to take anything away from you, old man. But it was inevitable that a race of our intelligence would figure out the next step for itself. Join the Alliance. Yes. I have only one slight remaining fear about that . . .”

  “Set your mind at rest,” Brodsky said. “I can assure you that w
hat you fear will never happen.”

  “Will you all stop being so goddamned clever and tell me what you are talking about?” Anna cried. “What do you fear, Denton? And Brodsky, how can you be so sure it’ll never happen? What is it?”

  Denton smiled the peevish smile of a man-child too clever by half. “No sense even discussing it,” he said. “Perhaps you could tell me how one joins this Alliance of yours. Are there forms to fill out? Does it matter that we don’t have any spaceships? And could I possibly bother you for a cup of tea?”

  “I’ll get it,” Brodsky said.

  “No, I’ll get it,” Anna said and went past him into the galley. She put up the water, fuming. Those Eleroi were really insufferable. And so was that smart aleck, Brodsky. Trouble was, she was beginning to get used to him. She decided, quite spontaneously, to make him a really nice curry dinner that night. But what was it that the Eleroi feared?

  XV.

  “I’m back,” Leo Huue the Watcher called out as he approached the hut of Ottoline Guaschi. “Where’s your daughter?”

  “Hah!” cried Guaschi, coming out the door with a revolver leveled at Leo. “You fool! There is no daughter, only miserable death which awaits you on this windswept hillside.” He leveled the revolver.

  Leo wasn’t really convinced, but he closed his eyes because if he was going to be shot, he didn’t want to watch it happening.

  “No, I was just kidding,” Guaschi said, putting the revolver down on a rock. “Come out, Chloe!”

  From his hut came a small, delectable bright-eyed girl with strawberry curls and a smile that could melt granite.

  Leo took one look at her and knew that they were going to be very happy together. And he also knew, or at least inferred, that she had set up this whole thing herself, since the girls of Eleroi did this sort of thing, going in for fantastical forms of courtship once they decided on who the lucky man was going to be. But he also knew, or was pretty sure, that there was one thing she didn’t know.