Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  Once he struck it up, the effect was electrifying. With the sound of the guitar, even such a rudimentary guitar as this one, our dance really came to life. Now our troupe ceased being little more than a novelty. We were able to turn out true performances.

  We lacked only a singer. And soon we had two, a man and a woman. She was Spanish-Algerian, he a Moor from Algeria. They had been husband and wife on Earth, and had succeeded in finding each other again in Riverworld. On Earth they had performed in Cadiz and in the Casbah of Tangier. They sang the true Flamenco, the cante jondo of ancient days, and now the focus of our performance shifted, for they were true artists. De Falla composed for them, and Nijinsky choreographed new dances for our troupe.

  Our dance company entered a period of expansion, and many new dancers tried to join us. Diaghilev’s Company of Spanish Dance, as it was now called, was one of the few employers in that region of Riverworld. Perhaps in all of Riverworld, for all we knew. You could find work as a soldier anywhere, or a slave, or a concubine. After that, the jobs were few and far between.

  The kingdom of Oxenstierna was too small to set up as a powerful state. But the Northmen didn’t want to attach themselves to any of the other powers in the region. The Slavic kingdom of Stanislas II was on one side, and on the other, a Japanese group. Both outnumbered the north Europeans by a factor of ten to one. Eric Longhand showed some talent for diplomacy then, when he declared his area a free-trade zone and put himself under the protection of the three largest powers in the vicinity. His territory included a small island that had formed up half a mile offshore, and he had almost four miles of shoreline. To this territory anyone was welcome who came in peace. Weapons were bound with peace-strings when you entered Oxenstierna, and they were not meant to be broken until you left. Those who broke the law were turned over to their own tribal or city authorities for judgment and punishment.

  And so our enterprise prospered, senors, and so did the city of Oxenstierna. People came from far and wide to trade in our borders. And not just to trade. Oxenstierna offered something no other place in our vicinity could give: a sense of security, a chance to relax from the cares of state, and the constant scheming of who ruled whom, and what to do about it. In this new Earth of Riverworld, since the cares of getting food and erecting shelter had been more or less provided, what remained were the matters of who should rule whom, and what god they should worship. Men now had the chance to devote all of their time to matters of religion and state. But this interest was taken up by the more aggressive men. The others, who constituted the majority, were singularly uninterested in such matters, and cared even less for questions of color, race, and language. Language was a hodgepodge anyhow, and finally all of us had to learn the artificial language of Norse in order to converse. We could well be called the planet of Babel.

  Most of those reborn on Riverworld concerned themselves with thoughts of dominance. For them the highest good was the ability to lord it over their fellows, often in the name of some obsolete doctrine such as racial purity. The preponderance of men, however, now as in the past, cared little for such matters and wanted only to live in peace.

  Foremost among those who preached a racial purity were our Spanish conquistadors. I say it with regret. You will notice that I separate myself from them, senors. The world has always been a polyglot place, and no place is more so than this Riverworld, where our languages are clumped along a riverbank some millions of miles long.

  But our conquistadors were perhaps not so much racist as naively self-important: the old Spanish doctrine of Viva yo! Whatever the reason, they came flocking to our banners, Spaniards from all times and places, as well as criollos from Mexico and South America.

  Gonzalo Pizarro, in the meantime, had not been idle. The name Pizarro had a certain glamour among Spanish speakers. There was a thrill to remembering the old days of conquest, when Spanish arms had been preeminent around most of the known world, and this was aided by the fact that most of the other Spanish heroes didn’t show up in Riverworld. No one knew the whereabouts of the Cid, or Cortez, or Francisco Pizarro, or Balboa, or the other great figures from the conquest. This was not surprising, of course, in a land of thirty to thirty-five billion souls. It was amazing enough that Gonzalo himself was here.

  Other Spaniards began finding their way to our camp. Not just conquistadors, of course, and not just Spaniards from Spain. Spain’s population was never that large. They came from Castille, Aragon, and Extremadura, the heart of Spain, which was small indeed. Other Spaniards came: Andalucians and Catalans, and criollos in large numbers, too, Spaniards born in the overseas provinces of Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina.

  And so, slowly, as the weeks and months passed, the Spanish world began to reconstitute itself around Diaghilev and Gonzalo Pizarro. Not all as dancers, of course. And the territory of Oxenstierna prospered, even without direct taxes on the newcomers who came to trade there. There were taxes, of course, on those of us who lived there as full-time residents. But these taxes were low, because the Northmen, now in the minority, saw they were onto a good thing and the only way they could keep it was by treating us very well indeed.

  Meanwhile, Diaghilev, in despair of ever getting together a pure ballet troupe, and lacking a good accompanying music and orchestra, was looking into sources of dramatic entertainment from all over Europe. He introduced elements from the commedia dell’arte and other little plays and skits. But the Russian ballet and the Spanish dance continued to dominate, and this was the situation when a messenger came to Eric Longhand and announced that less than three hundred leagues up the River they had found a great Indian kingdom.

  These were Incas, he said, and they were under a ruler who called himself Atahualpa.

  The news of Atahualpa’s Incas being so near up-River electrified the Spaniards. The conquistadors, who formed the core of the dance troupe, had never gotten used to their status as entertainers. Gonzalo least of all. His mind was still inflamed by the memory of the great status he had attained in South America. Although he had been completely loyal to his brother Francisco, it hadn’t disturbed him that Francisco had never shown up. Nor any of his other two brothers. He was the only Pizarro around, and there was little doubt he liked it that way. Now his job was clear to him: he had to rouse the Spaniards to the greatness that lay ahead of them.

  When the Spaniards heard he was contemplating taking over the kingdom of the Incas for the second time, they thought at first he was crazy. But it was the sort of craziness they liked.

  “We did it once,” he pointed out. “The odds were heavily against us. There must have been a million of them. And we were one hundred and eighty men. We are more than that now!”

  “Not many more,” Tapia pointed out.

  Gonzalo harangued them at night over the campfire. He was a good speaker, and his tones carried utter conviction. He reminded them of past victories of Spanish arms. He told them that their lives now were nothing, less than nothing. They were men at arms, conquistadors. And what were they doing? Earning their keep as entertainers! It could not be tolerated. Especially not now, when there was a chance at something better, of doing a deed that would set Riverworld on its ear and make their fame everlasting.

  Talk of the conquest was heard all over the camp. Impossible to keep it a secret. These men talked. And the more they talked, the better the idea seemed. The Viking rulers of Oxenstierna heard, but decided to take no official notice. They didn’t want a civil war on their hands among several hundred crazed Spaniards. Eric Longhand had been waiting for something like this. He needed to extend his trade connections. The more people he could form alliances with, the better off his situation would be. And so he determined now to send his troupe of dancers and flamencos up the River in what craft they could get together and see if some arrangement could be made with these Incas.

  He was also pleased to give letters of introduction to Gonzalo and the others, graciously permitting them to keep all that they could conquer up-River. It
was Gonzalo’s idea to get this worthless paper, because Gonzalo wanted to follow a strict form, and pretended that he believed that Eric was his chieftain to whom he owed loyalty, as he had once owed it to the King of Spain. (He had forsworn that loyalty, but it had been a long time ago.)

  The Russians thought the plan was crazy, but went along for the dancing. When it came right down to it, they didn’t believe the Spaniards would really attempt anything. It seemed ridiculous to them to fight for the rulership of barbaric kingdoms when the dance troupe was coming along so well. Diaghilev agreed to go along and introduce the troupe to the Indians. He saw it as a further chance to spread culture up-River. Nijinsky, as usual, said very little. He was a strange fellow. Not even being reborn in Riverworld had rid him of his solitary ways. Nor had it cured him of his habit of staring into space vacant-eyed. He was as crazy in Riverworld as he had been back on Earth.

  We Spaniards put together a fleet of canoes and rafts, and began our trip up the River. The neighboring principalities that lined the banks let us pass. A strange, ominous mood accompanied us. The River itself was in a calm mood, but strange dark clouds haunted our passage. The heavens themselves seemed to presage the coming of some great event.

  After several weeks, we came into the Incan territory. At an outpost staffed with several officers we were to wait while they sent ahead for permission to enter the Kingdom of the Sun, as their empire was called.

  At length permission was received. We continued up-River, with several Indian officials aboard to act as guides. After another two days, they told us to pull into shore. From here we would have to walk.

  Gonzalo was feeling in a nervous, hectic, exalted mood. His Spaniards were armed as well as men could be in this land. They had several steel swords, and a lot of wooden ones with flint knives embedded in their ends. They had lances and knives, and even one or two crossbows, constructed at great effort and expense. The Indians they saw on their way into the hills didn’t appear to be armed.

  At length we reached the Inca city, which had been named Machu Picchu in honor of their lost capital on Earth. This place had been constructed on the upper ranges of the tallest hills, those that lay just before the main unscalable mountains. It looked like unfriendly territory. Why had they built here rather than in the more comfortable lowlands? No one could tell us. The city of Machu Picchu was constructed mostly of bamboo, but it was taller and more grand than anything we had seen before, much more impressive than Oxenstierna. Many of the buildings were three and four stories high, and instead of being individual huts like elsewhere, the buildings had been run into each other to construct a dozen great buildings that covered several acres.

  We dancers assembled in a square on the flattened top of a hill. At the head of the square, with three-story bamboo buildings behind, the Inca sat in the midst of his retinue. They were gorgeously attired in costumes made from the omnipresent towels, armed with a variety of fantastic bamboo swords, shields, bows and arrows. The retinue watched impassively as the Spaniards approached.

  “Your excellency,” Diaghilev said, speaking in his excellent Spanish, which the Incas spoke to the outside world, though they conversed among themselves in a language called Quechua, “we come to you from a far country down-River.” Diaghilev was dressed as formally as he could manage. He had found no substitute for the monocle he used to wear. Haughty and supremely confident, he bowed to the Inca. The Inca nodded. “Let the spectacle begin.”

  With a flourish, the dancers came on. They were accompanied by drums of various sizes, and by flutes, and there were several primitive bagpipes in this orchestra. It was a bright sight: the flamencos, male and females, stomping and whirling in front of the Inca, who, with his nobles behind him, watched without expression.

  The Spanish dancers were in full career. I heard Diaghilev say to Nijinsky, “What is this dance they are doing now? I don’t remember anything like this.”

  “They must have choreographed and rehearsed it on their own,” Nijinsky said. “I have never seen this one before.”

  The dance reached a climax. The final note sounded and the dancers froze in position. And then Gonzalo Pizarro cried, “Santiago! By God, let it begin!”

  The dancers whipped off their costumes. Beneath them they were encased in fishscale armor and were carrying edged weapons. I stood with Gurdjieff, dumbstruck, aghast at their foolishness, yet wishing I were with them, as they advanced threatingly toward the Inca. But Atahualpa stood his ground, and, as the Spaniards approached, made a slight gesture with his right hand.

  The foremost rank of Indians behind the Inca knelt down. There were more Indians behind them, and they were armed with guns. The weapons were crude, more like harquebuses than rifles, but they were indeed guns, and they appeared to be primed and ready to fire.

  Gonzalo and his men stopped dead in their tracks. Atahualpa said, “So you are Gonzalo Pizarro.”

  “Yes,” Gonzalo said. “I am.”

  “I have met the Pizarro family before,” the Inca said.

  “The results of that meeting are well-known,” Gonzalo said.

  “This time,” the Inca said, “we have firearms. It makes all the difference, doesn’t it?”

  Gonzalo had no answer to that. The Inca raised his arm. The door of one of the huts opened, and a man was led out between two Indian guards. He was tall, broad-shouldered. His arms were bound behind him, and he had a rope around his neck by which the Indians led him. I knew at once who he was. So did Gonzalo.

  Gonzalo finally managed to gasp, “Francisco! It is you!”

  “Yes, it is me,” Francisco Pizarro said bitterly, speaking with difficulty due to the rope.

  The dance troupe gathered together in a circle, back-to-back, weapons at the ready, ready to sell their lives dearly. But the Inca said, “Hold! We have no quarrel with you dancers. No, and not with Spaniards, either. It is the Pizarros we want. We have Francisco. Now Gonzalo Pizarro is here, and he must stay here.”

  The dancers muttered among themselves, but they were only a few hundred men, and they were surrounded by thousands of Indians, some of whom had guns.

  Diaghilev was the first among us to recover. “What do you want with the Pizarros?” he asked.

  “I have made it my lifework to collect them,” Atahualpa replied. “I have two of them now, and there are two still to go.”

  “And what will you do with these Pizarros?” Diaghilev asked.

  “That is none of your concern,” Atahualpa said.

  “This is a new world,” Diaghilev said.

  The Inca nodded grimly. “But there are old scores still to pay from the old one. You might consider what the Pizarros did to me and to my people. Here the worst we can do is kill them, and they will return to life elsewhere. But if any of you think this is unfair, I will permit you to substitute for either of the Pizarros, and we will let one of them go.”

  There was a long silence. No one was going to take the offer. Certainly not Diaghilev, whose concern this was not, and certainly not me, who was no longer a conquistador but a dance director and assistant to a genius.

  The Inca laughed. “Now, all of you, senors y senoras, get out of here before I change my mind.”

  And that was the end of it. And that is the story, senors, of how the Diaghilev dance troupe became preeminent for a second time, and entertained humanity throughout the Riverworld. It is also the story of the Pizarro brothers, and how once for a second time they found their destiny in a world of Indians.

  A NEW CHRISTMAS CAROL

  A tale of Christmas danger.

  When Amelia went down to the oil pump that morning, she was surprised to find no one there. That was strange. During her week on her grandfather’s planet, she had grown used to the robots’ morning tune-up ceremonies. They had been doing this ever since the Supreme Court of Earth had granted intelligent robots the right of self-lubrication.

  Amelia looked around, wondering if she should hurry back to the ranch house and tell Grandpa. Then
she saw movement in the distance, down at the little landing field where the spaceflights from other planets came in. She walked over, and saw that all of the farm robots had gathered. They were in their Sunday finery, though this was only a Thursday. (Robots’ liking for dressing up is not the least inexplicable thing about them.)

  There was Mrs. Huggins, the robot Laundress, wearing an old ballroom gown with a dusty cloth rose at the waist. It must have come from one of the costume trunks that robots always traveled with. Adams the Butler had on an ancient tuxedo. His gleaming aluminum face, slightly dented due to yesterday’s accident at the bauxite mine, where he’d had no business being in the first place, had two painted carmine spots in his cheeks. It was always surprising when robots wore makeup.

  All of the immediate household staff was there. There was Miss Huggins, the robot Housekeeper, and Miss Smith, the robot Cook, and Trina, the robot Housemaid, and Baxter, the robot Indoors Work Man. And from the field there was Ruiz and Gaspard, the two Chief Farming Robots, and Tomkinson, the Irrigation Expert Robot.

  Then Grandfather hurried up, short and choleric, still buttoning his plaid shirt, asking, “What is going on here? What is the meaning of this assembly?”

  “Please sir,” said Adams the Robot Butler, smoothing out his tux with a self-conscious air, “it is the arrival of the new worker. It is customary for all of us to gather to greet him.”

  “The new worker?” Grandfather said. “You mean the new robot?”