Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “I don’t want to seem inquisitive,” Kinkaid said, “but would you mind telling me how you got here, really?”

  “I told you. The spaceship dropped me off.”

  “Spaceship?”

  “Yes. I am not a human. I am an Andar. The ship will return for me tonight.”

  “Well, that’s really something.” Kinkaid said, humoring her. “Did you come a long way?”

  “Oh, I suppose it must be hundreds of millions of miles to our planet of Andar. We have ways of getting around the speed of light, of course.”

  “Sure, that figures,” Kinkaid said. Either the girl was carrying a joke a long way or she was a loony. The latter, most likely. Her story was so ridiculous he wanted to laugh. But she was so heartbreakingly beautiful he knew he’d break down and cry if he didn’t get her. He decided to play along. “What’s your name? Why did you come here?” he asked.

  “You can call me Alia. This is one of the planets the Andar decided to look into, after the Disappearance forced us to leave our home planet and go out into space. But I’m not supposed to talk about the Disappearance.”

  She was crazy all right, but Kinkaid was so charmed by her that he didn’t care.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be one of the old gods, would you?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, I’m not one of the Olympians,” she told him. “But there were stories about them in the old days, when my people visited this planet.”

  Kinkaid didn’t care what she said or where she was from. He wanted her. He’d never made it with an extraterrestrial. It would be an important first for him. Aliens as pretty as this didn’t come along every day. And who knows, maybe she was from another planet. It was OK with him.

  Whatever she was and however she got here, she was a beautiful woman. Suddenly he wanted her desperately.

  And she seemed to feel something for him, too. He considered the shy yet provocative way she kept on glancing at him, then looking away. There was a glow of color in her cheeks. Perhaps unconsciously, she moved closer to him as they talked.

  He decided it was time for action. Masterful Kinkaid took her in his arms.

  At first she responded to his embrace, then pushed him away.

  “You are very attractive,” she said. “I’m surprised at the strength of my feelings toward you. But love between us is impossible. I am not of your race or planet. I am of the Andar.”

  The alien thing again. “Do you mean that you are not a woman in the sense we would mean on Earth?” Kinkaid asked.

  “No, it isn’t that. It’s a matter of psychology. We women of the Andar do not love lightly. For us, the act of mating means marriage and a lifetime commitment. We do not divorce. And we do intend to have children.”

  Kinkaid smiled at that. He had heard it before, from the Catholic girls he used to date back in Short Hills, New Jersey. He knew how to handle the situation.

  “I really do love you,” he said. For the moment, at least, it was true.

  “I have—certain feelings toward you, too,” she admitted. “But you can’t imagine what is involved when you love an Andar woman.”

  “Tell me about it,” Kinkaid said, slipping an arm around her waist and drawing her to him.

  “I cannot,” she said. “It is our sacred mystery. We are not allowed to reveal it to men. Perhaps you should leave me now, while there’s still time.”

  Kinkaid knew it was good advice: there was something spooky about her and the way she had appeared on the island. He really ought to leave. But he couldn’t. As far as women were concerned he was a danger junkie, and this lady represented an all-time high in female challenges. He was no painter or writer. His amateur archaeology would never gain him any recognition. The one thing he could leave behind was his record of sexual conquests. Let them carve it on his tombstone: Kinkaid had the best, and he took it where he found it.

  He kissed her, a kiss that went on and on, a kiss that continued as they dissolved to the ground in a montage of floating clothing and the bright flash of flesh. The ecstasy he experienced as they came together went right off the scale of his ability to express it. So intense was the feeling that he barely noticed the six sharp punctures, three on either side, neatly spaced between his ribs.

  It was only later, lying back, spent and contented, that he looked at the six small, clean puncture wounds in his skin. He sat up and looked at Alia. She was naked, impossibly lovely, her dark red hair a shimmering cloud around her heart-shaped face. She did have one unusual feature which he had not noticed in the passion of lovemaking.

  There were six small erectile structures, three on each side of her rib cage, each armed with a slender hollow fang. He thought of certain female insects on the Earth who bite off the heads of their mates during the act of love. He still didn’t really believe she was an extraterrestrial. But he didn’t disbelieve it quite as strongly as before. He thought of different species of insect on the Earth which resemble other species—katydids that look like dry twigs, flies that imitate wasps. Is that it? Was she about to take off her body?

  He said, “It was terrific, baby, even if it is going to cost me my life.”

  She stared at him. “What are you saying?” she cried. “Do you actually think I will kill you? Impossible! I am an Andar female; you are my mate for life, and life for us lasts a very long time.”

  “Then what did you do to me?” Kinkaid asked.

  “I’ve simply injected the children into you,” Alia said. “They’re going to be so lovely, darling. I hope they have your coloring.”

  Kinkaid couldn’t quite grasp it at first. “Are you sure you haven’t poisoned me?” he asked. “I feel very strange.”

  “That’s just the hibernation serum. I injected it along with the babies. You’ll sleep now, my sweet, here in this nice dry cave, and our children will grow safely between your ribs. In a year I’ll come back and take them out of you and put them into their cocoons and take them home to Andar. That’s the next stage of their development.”

  “And what about me?” Kinkaid asked, fighting the desire to sleep that had come powerfully over him.

  “You’ll be fine,” Alia said. “Hibernation is perfectly safe, and I’ll be back in plenty of time for the birth. Then you’ll need to rest for a while. Perhaps a week. I’ll be here to take care of you. And then we can make love again.”

  “And then?”

  “Then it’ll be hibernation time again, my sweet, until the next year.”

  Kinkaid wanted to tell her that this wasn’t how he’d planned to spend his life—an hour of love, a year of sleep, then giving birth and starting all over again. He wanted to tell her that, all things considered, he’d prefer that she bite his head off. But he couldn’t talk, could barely stay awake. And Alia was getting ready to leave.

  “You’re really cute,” he managed to tell her. “But I wish you’d stayed on Andar and married your hometown sweetheart.”

  “I would have, darling,” she said, “but something went wrong back home. The men must have been spying on our sacred mysteries. Suddenly we couldn’t find them anymore. That’s what we call the Great Disappearance. They went away, all of them, completely off the planet.”

  “It figures they’d catch on sooner or later.” Kinkaid said.

  “It was very wrong of them,” Alia said. “I know that childbearing makes great demands on the men, but it can’t be helped; the race must go on. And we Andar women can be relied upon to keep it going, no matter what lengths we must go to. I did give you a sporting chance to get away. Goodbye, my darling, until next year.”

  THE RESURRECTION MACHINE

  AD 2135

  Simms hit the button and the tiny glowing figure of Marcus Tullius Cicero came up inside the depths of the holo tank without a flicker. As the tiny togaed figure began to explore its cloudy kingdom, Simms called out to Murchison, “He’s ready.” Murchison put down his newspaper and came across the room. Peering over Simms’ shoulder, he watched the tiny togaed figure wandering thr
ough its foggy landscape within the darkened holo tank.

  “So that’s Cicero.” Murchison turned away from the doll-like figure in its ancient Roman clothing. “He’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

  “What do you mean?” Simms asked. “The simulacrum’s perfect.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your simulation,” Murchison said. “I mean it would have been more commercial if they’d picked someone better-known—Shakespeare, for example, or some star of the past, Jim Morrison, maybe. You ever heard of Morrison, doctor?”

  Simms shrugged. “I seem to remember his name from a liberal arts course.”

  “If I could only sell the services of Jim Morrison’s simulacrum! I suppose you science guys could handle his vocal output?”

  “We wouldn’t even need Morrison for that.”

  “Anyway, we don’t have him. We’ve got Cicero and that other guy, the Russian. Neither exactly a household name. And I’m supposed to make some money for the backers out of them.”

  “You could book Cicero on a TV show,” Simms said.

  Murchison pursed his lips. “You might have something there. There are a lot of money-making possibilities in this technology aside from one-on-one gaming situations. Let me have a better look.” Simms slipped his hands into the data gloves and magnified the image. Cicero’s expression was calm, almost nonchalant. The Roman had adjusted his toga and seated himself on a cloud-like object—part of the primary environment.

  “OK,” Murchison said. “Put me in.”

  “Voice and image?”

  “Make it voice only.”

  Cicero had always prided himself on his ability to awaken from a sleep with his faculties fully alert, prepared for everything and anything. He had always claimed that a man versed in philosophy should be surprised at nothing, since the possibilities of things extend far beyond man’s limited knowledge. Only a god can have perfect apprehension. But a man, particularly a Roman, a man of virtus, should be astonished at nothing. Antiquity offered many examples of this attitude, which the Stoics named apathia.

  He had awakened to find himself floating, more or less insubstantially, in a place that looked like nothing he had ever seen before. Or, to be more precise, a place that looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

  He seemed to be in the cloud-filled kingdom of the upper heavens. This was how Olympus, home of the gods, was supposed to look. Or so the old poets said. But Cicero had never believed in the gods, neither Greek nor Latin.

  Olympus? This place seemed not so much Olympian as Aristophanean. Could it be that he was witnessing, perhaps even participating in, a performance of Aristophanes’ “Clouds” ? But how had they managed these amazing effects?

  “Marcus Tullius Cicero!” The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, deep-toned, faintly sinister.

  Despite the firmness of his will, nature had endowed Cicero with quick responses which he could not always keep under control. The voice came as a shock. A sensation of panic came over him, a feeling that he was powerless in the hands of something monstrous. He struggled for control.

  He reminded himself that he was a Roman, and, if he could not control outer circumstances, he could at least preserve inner calm . . .

  “Do you hear me, Marcus Tullius?”

  “Yes, lord,” Cicero said. “I hear you.”

  “Why do you call me lord?”

  “It is the common term for one who is superior to oneself in power.”

  “And why do you presume that I have power?” Cicero had himself well in hand now, He rattled off the points with practiced orator’s skill.

  “The first point of evidence is, you know who I am but I do not know who you are. Second, you seem able to see me but not I you. Third, you know what is happening and I do not.”

  “I like you, Marcus Tullius,” the voice said. “But perhaps we could continue our conversation in more mundane surroundings.”

  “A very acceptable idea,” Cicero said. “Did you have a place in mind?”

  “The place, Marcus Tullius, I leave up to you.” Cicero answered cautiously. “Would you care to expand upon your meaning? And who are you anyhow?”

  “Call me Martin. I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject. Consider it a little problem for you to solve, Marcus.”

  “But I am incorporeal!” Cicero said, “and I am suspended in incorporeality. How can any action be performed in this condition?”

  “I assure you, even given your present circumstances, the problem is solveable.”

  And then the voice was gone and Marcus Tullius Cicero was alone in nowhere.

  The Epicureans had held that the gods exist in space, in human form, but without human bodies. Cicero had not only refuted this, but had also pointed out the absurdity of the conception in his treatise, “On the Nature of the Gods.” And now here he was, himself a bodiless being existing somewhere in space, in human form, but without a body. Did that prove the Epicureans were correct? And if so, did it by definition mean that Marcus Tullius Cicero was a god?

  Something had happened, that was clear, but as to its nature and meaning, he would have to wait until more evidence was in. Meanwhile, there was the matter of getting from nowhere to somewhere.

  The solution to the problem of locomotion was, in fact, absurdly simple, and Cicero came upon it very quickly. Since he was unable to effect any physical change the answer had to be mental. He willed himself to descend through the clouds. He drifted easily through them, and saw the earth come up toward him, and then he landed, light as gossamer, in a clearing on the edge of a pine forest.

  The land was unfamiliar to him. Ahead he could see a dwelling, but of an unusual, even eccentric, form. It was a barbaric sort of place, made of rough-hewn logs, large, with carved and sawn decorations. The house had many windows, and each was covered with glass of a purity and evenness he had never before seen. This was not in Italy or Greece, nor Gaul or Germany, either. Could he have been reborn in the northern land of the Scythians?

  Cicero strolled to the house, or rather, floated, in the ghostly, effortless manner he was quickly growing accustomed to. As he reached the front door he saw a man standing in front of it. The man was dressed in shapeless black barbarian trousers and coat. He was large, moon-faced, sparsely bearded, with a pale complexion. His face was not handsome, but it was arresting. His most interesting feature was perhaps his eyes. There was something oriental about them, with their hint of epithalic fold.

  “Greetings,” Cicero said. “I am Marcus Tullius Cicero.”

  At least the barbarian recognized his language. He answered at once. “I am Michael Bakunin. I suppose you’re going to stay here, too.”

  “Yes, I am.” Cicero went inside, brushing past and partially through Bakunin who was partially blocking the way.

  “So we are to share this villa,” Cicero remarked later. “Tell me, Michael, do you have any idea where we are?”

  “It looks strangely like my old home of Premukhino,” Bakunin said. “There’s a hedgerow outside like one I knew. And that grandfather clock on the mantle. Yes, and the portrait of Catherine the Great on the wall.”

  “So they have created a replica of your home,” Cicero said. “I wonder why.”

  Bakunin looked at him and smiled. “Because they’re clever.”

  “They?”

  “The secret police who arrange these matters.”

  “Ah, I see,” Cicero said. “But why have these so-called secret police gone to all this trouble?”

  Bakunin’s large features creased into a childlike smile. “It’s obvious I must be important to them. That is why they have created this illusion for me.”

  “Whereas I am not?” Cicero inquired.

  “You are probably one of them,” Bakunin said. “Or you are part of the illusion.”

  Cicero said, “If you are determined to believe that, we shall have a difficult time holding a conversation.”

  “Well,” said Bakunin, “tentatively, I will accept your
reality.”

  “That’s good of you,” Cicero said. “Now then, why should your secret police want me?”

  “Because you’re important to them,” Bakunin said. “But as a codifier of existing legal systems, no doubt. Not as an innovator, like as I am.”

  “You? An innovator?”

  “My dear Cicero, even during my own lifetime I was recognized as the founder of anarchism.”

  “That is nonsense,” Cicero said. “Anarchism is an ancient doctrine. Our Latin poet Ovid, in his ‘Metamorphoses’, spoke of the golden age when men lived without law and without external compulsion, without fear of punishment. It was a time when men kept faith with each other of their own accord and there was no need to engrave the laws on tablets of bronze.”

  Bakunin shrugged. “I was never much good at classics in school. Anyhow, the stuff doesn’t matter. I am the father of anarchism in modem times. Even Marx acknowledged as much. Perhaps the secret powers brought me back because I am famous.”

  “Without wishing to make you unhappy,” Cicero said, “I think it is obvious that I am much more famous than you.”

  Bakunin sighed. The delight drained out of him. “Perhaps you are. But the fact remains, we are living in a Russian house, not a Roman villa. How do you explain that?”

  “Maybe that was one of the stage-sets they had available,” Cicero said.

  There was no way of telling time in the silent Russian house. Cicero and Bakunin drifted like ghosts down its corridors, through its bedrooms, in and out of its provisionless kitchen. Sometimes Bakunin would tell Cicero about his hopes for mankind, his distrust of Marx, his admiration for Fichte and, above all, his worship of the great Hegel. He would speak of the necessity of anarchism, the need to abolish the aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie, and, at last, the proletariat.