Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  Although not usually fatal, the poison of the self pity bush has been known, in some cases, to infect people with the belief that they are Søren Kierkegaard.

  Theseus had avoided the bush’s first mad rush, but he was by no means safe. The plant had him backed up against a sheer granite cliff which seemed to ascend endlessly into the azure of the uncaring sky. There were shallow steps cut into the granite, and Theseus hastily began to climb, the plant in pursuit.

  He managed to gain a few steps on the plant, but was brought to a stop when he encountered a three car garage blocking his path. The Flowering Mood Dump moved toward him with its strange cry, “Look, did I choose this situation?” It was a cry that has been known to unnerve even strong men, sending into fibrillation the delicate organ whereby humans monitor whining.

  It looked like the end for Theseus’ good mood. But then suddenly there appeared, just to his right, a small vehicle which rested upon a monorail which plunged downward through a steepening catenary of fear into a mysterious place that lay beneath impenetrable cloud cover. He wondered, was it a good bet to take this way? But it was too late to think about all that, even had there been time.

  Theseus got into the vehicle and released the brake, which was the old-fashioned kind with a geared toe-in device to prevent accidental overruns. As it plunged into the previously described landscape, Theseus wondered, characteristically, if he had really made the right decision.

  The Flowering Mood Dump was momentarily baffled. But then, with a resolution quite unexpected in so sketchy a creation, it leaped onto the back of a passing skateboarder, wrapped its short nuzzling limbs around his neck, hypnotized him, and sent him off in pursuit of Theseus.

  Looking back, Theseus saw that the paths of the skateboarder and the monorail would converge at a point well short of infinity. It was coming right up, in fact. He would have to do something quickly, for the enraged plant was now capable of inflicting him with the most annoying and virulent form of critical self-analysis.

  Theseus reached into his knapsack hoping to find something useful. He discarded a shoehorn as inapropos, set aside a pass to Dreamland for two as premature, and pulled out the homing device.

  “Do something, please,” Theseus said.

  The homing device looked at him with irritation. It had its own problems.

  It had crept into Theseus’ pack because it had thought that was a cute thing to do, and it had its scholarly interests as well. But it found that Theseus had failed to provide it with mouse food, or any food at all, since heroes are well known as poor providers; for others, that is, since they usually do all right for themselves.

  So the mouse was in a delicate situation. It had to eat immediately, or turn into an upright piano. It was ridiculous, but those were the rules.

  One last desperate resource remained. The mouse took out the single Speedo capsule he always kept taped to his left armpit, and ingested it in the usual way. The drug, potent albeit proscribed, came on at once. Waves of power broke over the mouse. He rode the psychic shock wave to its peak, then changed himself into a cat.

  Artificially boosted by the Speedo, the cat he was was able to catch the mouse he had been and devour it and thus save himself from upright pianoization before anyone had a chance to make a rule that it couldn’t be done.

  “Your problem is clear enough,” the cat said. “But it has nothing to do with me. I’m along to help you find the Minotaur, nobody said anything about self pity plants. Theseus, I suggest that you apply to the gamemaster or whoever’s in charge around here.”

  “No time for that,” Theseus said, as the roller coaster car approached the end of the track where the self pity plant waited, having previously infected the hapless skateboarder with a rare form of Manichæism, then discarded him like the useless hulk he had become.

  There was no gainsaying the inherent nastiness of the spot. But Theseus’ cool did not desert him. Even in this extremity he was able to notice the small deviant aperture that had opened to one side of the track. Unhesitatingly he threw himself over the side of the car and plunged into the aperture.

  There was an indescribable moment of transition. Then Theseus found himself in the center of a large sticky net made of some tarry black substance. It was a spider’s web, but a very large one, the sort you used to encounter in old movies, and Theseus was stuck fast. Now he noticed the self pity plant nearby, wearing its spider’s hat, and creeping rapidly across the integuments of the web toward the hapless hero.

  “How come he gets to run along the web and I can’t move a finger?” Theseus asked the homing device cat.

  “I think it has something to do with Ohm’s Law,” the homing device said. “Try not to get any of that sticky stuff on me.” Catlike, it had climbed onto Theseus’ chest.

  The self pity plant, smiling in an unpleasant manner, spider hat cocked rakishly over one eye, continued to advance.

  “What do I do now?” Theseus asked—a rhetorical question for which Dædalus, in his wisdom had provided an answer; or at least the possibility of an answer. For there appeared in the air above Theseus, in the midst of a rosy glow of magical shimmerings, the figure of a beautiful young woman clad in the finest descriptive materials.

  “Ariadne!” Theseus cried.

  “You have been very careless,” Ariadne said, “and I ought to leave you to your fate, especially after the way you’re going to leave me on Naxos without even a valid credit card.”

  Theseus was momentarily taken aback, then remembered that in the Maze, chronology was merely a suggestion, like a stoplight to a Roman, certainly not a directive, and so you were liable to encounter the results of your future misdeeds before you had the pleasure of performing them.

  “But if I don’t rescue you,” Ariadne said, “I stand to lose a torrid love scene with Dionysus later. So here is what you need, Theseus.”

  She put into his fingers a small flask of a glassine substance, which Theseus immediately recognized as of Olympian manufacture, the veritable Soma, colored green and with runes inscribed on its sides.

  “It is the Soma!” Theseus cried, recognizing the runic label, “the blessed Soma of the gods, without which a man, even a hero, can’t expect to do much except fall prey to a self pity plant while his homing device sits on his chest trying to keep its paws clean.”

  Prying out the wax stopper with a small tool he always kept handy for this purpose, and which was the ancient world’s equivalent of the Swiss Army knife, Theseus drained the flask to the dregs, and then chewed and swallowed them, too.

  And there it was, the power! A harsh laugh of exultation rose in his throat, but he choked it back as the homing device cat said to him in a testy voice, “Oh get on with it, do please get on with it!”

  By the power conferred on him by the Soma of the gods, Theseus made an effort of will more intense than any recorded since the beginning of the universe. Through sheer crazed stubbornness of the human kind he forced a Chinese restaurant into existence.

  It wavered uncertainly for a moment, its red and orange pagoda superimposed ghostily upon the spider web and the advancing self pity plant in its black spider hat. Then the catastrophe occurred, the new thing happened, and the self pity plant, the spider web, the discarded skateboarder, and the spider hat all vanished back into the misty realm of the unrealized, the unrationalized, the unactualized.

  Theseus approached the restaurant cautiously, because creations of this kind are apt to vanish suddenly, leaving you with a sore throat and a feeling of having slept in the wrong bed.

  This Chinese restaurant passed the test of banality, however, by being there when he walked through the door and was shown a table by an impassive Chinese waiter.

  Theseus ordered an assortment of dim sum. “Oh, and a bowl of soup for my homing device,” he added, in response to a small sharp claw digging into his shoulder.

  21. Minotaur & Midas.

  The Minotaur came to see Midas, hoping to get a loan to finance his hornectomy. Mida
s’ palace was splendid. The Minotaur passed through landscaped lawns and artificial lakes, past heroic sculptures, belvederes, ruined abbeys, and arrived at the main building. A uniformed major domo led him inside, down endless corridors, dimly lit and hung with indifferent oil paintings of classical subjects, through leaf-choked interior courtyards, to an audience chamber deep in the building’s interior.

  Midas, the richest man in antiquity, was a small plump monarch with a gray goatee. He was seated at a long table covered with parchment scrolls and wax tablets. He had a typewriter capable of cutting cuneiform strokes into clay tablets. A ticker tape machine chattered in one comer. Beside it was a computer terminal. Despite his love of tradition, Midas found it impossible to get along without these things.

  King Midas was a good host. He offered the Minotaur a plate of straw ice cream, and then, a thoughtful specialty, a bowl of lightly poached maiden’s hearts with bread sauce on the side.

  He listens to the Minotaur’s request and begins shaking his head almost at once. The Minotaur has come at a bad time, the money market is down, interest rates are up, or perhaps it’s the other way around, in any case, money is tight and loans to individuals are out of the question at the moment. Midas regrets this, he would like to accommodate the Minotaur. The king is a great respecter of mythology and is aware of the Minotaur’s contributions to the Hellenic scheme of things, his secure place in the history of the fabulous. Midas’ very deep respect for the Minotaur and what he stands for made it all the more painful for him to have to refuse him, for he would really have liked to grant this loan, and would do so at once if it were only up to him—he is notorious for his soft heart—but he was accountable to his board of directors, who kept him on a tight rein; he has no discretion in these matters, alas.

  Midas went on at such length about the galling restrictions that hemmed him in and restricted his ability to grant loans that he passionately desires to make that the Minotaur began to feel quite sorry for him, poor wretched king with all his fabulous treasures, with his golden touch and his triple A credit rating, unable to assist the causes closest to his heart.

  The Minotaur said that he understood, and began to make a respectful exit. At the door Midas called him back, asking, Oh, by the way, what did he want the loan for?

  The Minotaur explained about the homectomy that will change him into a unicorn. Midas was thoughtful for a moment, then he made a telephone call, whispering in a Phrygian dialect which the Minotaur could not understand even if he could make out the words. Midas put down the telephone and beckoned the Minotaur to take a seat again.

  “My dear fellow, you should have told me about this operation in the first place. I had no idea. I assumed you wanted the money for something frivolous, like so many of our heroes and monsters do. But this homectomy, that’s business of a mythical nature, and that’s just what we’re trying to encourage. I mean, after all, mythology, it’s what Dædalus’ maze is all about, isn’t it? What did you plan to do, by the way, with the excised horn?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it,” the Minotaur said. “Keep it on the mantel as a souvenir, I suppose.”

  “Then you wouldn’t mind parting with it, once it has parted with you, so to speak?”

  “I don’t suppose so,” the Minotaur said. “But I don’t see—”

  “I can arrange the loan,” Midas said.

  “But what about the money market? What about the interest rate? What about your board of directors?”

  “Leave all that to me,” Midas said. “All I need is for you to sign over that horn to me as collateral.”

  “My horn?” the Minotaur asked, raising a hoof protectively to his forehead.

  “Not that it’s worth much,” Midas assured him, “but it does give me something to show to the Banking Triumvirate.”

  The Minotaur had no plans for the horn after its removal. Nevertheless, he felt a bit strange about giving it to someone else.

  “No objections, then?” Midas asked. The Minotaur nodded reluctantly. “Good, I have a standard loan application form right here. I’ll just fill in the details for you.”

  Midas takes a parchment, selects a stylus, scribbles.

  “I don’t suppose you know yet which horn you’re going to have removed? Well, no matter, we’ll just write in, ‘one Minotaur horn, either dexter or sinister, to be delivered no later than—” He glances at his calendar watch. “Let’s say, three days after the operation.”

  “I suppose that will be all right,” the Minotaur says. “But you know how it is in the maze, it’s impossible to say how long it will take to get from one place to another.”

  This was, in fact, one of the complaints the inhabitants of the maze expressed most often. Even a simple journey across town could take forever. If you had to go on a trip, it was a good idea to take your passport, all your money, a paperback book and a change of socks and underwear.

  “I don’t even know where to find Asclepius,” the Minotaur said.

  “I’ve already checked that out,” Midas said. “Asclepius is presently in Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, performing a nose job and face lift on Hera.”

  “Miami? Where’s that? Somewhere near Mallorca?”

  “Only spiritually,” Midas said with a snicker. “Never mind where it is. I can arrange for you to get there. As for getting back, that’s a little more tricky, but we’ll manage.”

  He looked through one of his desk drawers, found a card, gave it to the Minotaur.

  “This is an Instantaneous Transfer Card, quite valuable in its own right. Play it after the operation and it will bring you back here by the quickest possible means. And here is a voucher to give to Asclepius, guaranteeing his fee for the operation.”

  He gave the card and the voucher to the Minotaur. The Minotaur signed his name at the bottom of the parchment.

  “That’s it,” Midas said. “Good luck to you, my dear fellow. Oh, I almost forgot. One last formality.”

  He searched through his desk drawer again, found a plain gold ring, and, before the Minotaur knew what was happening, clipped it into the Minotaur’s nose.

  “What are you doing?” the Minotaur asked, startled.

  “Nothing to get upset about,” Midas said. “It’s just a standard insurance device required by the underwriters. We remove it as soon as you deliver the horn. Don’t try to remove it yourself—it’s fitted with an explosive device to prevent unauthorized tampering. It looks quite nice on you, actually. Goodbye, Minotaur, and good luck. See you very soon.”

  “But when do I get the operation”

  “Oh, I think the Alien Observer can tell you that better than a novice in temporal travel like myself.”

  “What Alien Observer? What are you talking about”

  But Midas would say no more. He had spent enough time with the Minotaur; now there were other things to be done, profits to be made, objects to be turned into gold. Midas hated to be away from work long, his real work, turning objects into gold. Already his armpits had that itch they get when they’ve gone too long without some object clutched under them, like a small ink bottle or paperweight, to aurefy by their contiguity.

  They shook hands. The Minotaur left. He was annoyed; he felt that Midas had acted in a high-handed manner. But never mind, now he could have his operation, that was the important thing. And it was nice, too, that he would finally have a chance to visit that part of the maze called Miami.

  22. Dædalus Dispenses with Causality.

  There was consternation when it was learned that Dædalus had decided to dispense with causality in his maze. People usually let the Master Builder have his own way in these matters, but this seemed to call for some explanation. A special meeting of the Mayor’s Maze Committee was convened, and Dædalus was called upon to explain why he had taken this unprecedented step.

  “Gentlemen, let us face facts,” Dædalus said. “As you know, we have designed our maze as a pure entertainment object, untainted by the faintest tinge of moral up
lift and incorporating no socially redeeming material whatsoever.”

  “And quite properly, too,” muttered the Committeemen, doctrinaire æsthetes of an unbending nature, like most of the Mayor’s appointees.

  “Nevertheless, despite all our efforts, it has come to our attention that the taint of significance has infected some parts of our maze, clouding the crystalline meaningless of our structure like a fungus growth of elucidation. It is because of that, gentlemen, that I have canceled the causality in the maze.”

  “I fail to see the connection,” said a member of the committee.

  “I had thought it obvious. Moral purpose attaches itself to objects by way of causality. By dispensing with causality I defeat the purposes of morality, which are to set standards by which men follow predetermined rules, or fail to follow them, and so judge themselves harshly. It is this circumstance which we are trying to avoid at all costs. Our project, gentlemen, is no less than the conquest of guilt itself.”

  This bold statement of purpose was greeted by cheers from the committee, all except for one old gentleman with forked white whiskers, who said, “But it’s, all a lot of fuss over nothing, is it not? Canceling causality just to avoid guilt seems to me an unnecessarily heroic measure. Why don’t people just constumpterize away their guilt like I do?”

  Dædalus said, “I must remind you that most people lack the constumpter gland which is given only to creatures of fiction.”

  “True, true,” said the old gentleman.

  “Remember that we are trying to provide the human race with happiness, something which has been in short supply during its short and miserable history.”

  “If I am not mistaken,” another committeeman said, “you hold the view, Dædalus, that mankind does not have to be goaded into upward evolution by the continual pain of war, famine, social inequity, and every sort of cruelty including the final result of self-judgment and self-doubt. That’s quite a radical view. Aren’t you afraid their natural laziness will prevail and they’ll grow tails again and take to the trees?”