Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  It held, as it turned out. But something strange happened. There was a sharp crack and something came through the picture window. It didn’t shatter it. It bored through it like a rifle bullet. But it was bigger than a rifle bullet, to judge by the starred hole it left behind. And unlike a rifle bullet, it didn’t spend itself in the room. Like some sort of living thing, it buzzed and danced around the room.

  I just cowered there on the floor watching it darting around and thinking to myself, “Well, this really is too much.” I mean, not only had I been hurt, now I was being forced to take part in some sort of weird, perhaps supernatural matter. For what else could this thing be?

  “Stop that,” I told it irritably as it buzzed around my head. But if the thing, whatever it was, heard, it showed no signs of it. I don’t know what it had been when it came through the window, but now it was a sphere about the size of a baseball, and sparkling with many colors. It was spinning furiously and darting around the room like a large angry hornet. It dodged around and slammed into a wall, and changed shape, going all misshapen for a moment, before popping out again into a sphere. I couldn’t decide whether something was really happening or if I was having an hallucination. I was rooting for the hallucination, because the supernatural or the supernormal or whatever it was was exactly what I didn’t want.

  Does this seem over-emphatic to you? Consider my position. I am twenty-seven years old. A junior stockbroker in a well-known Boston company. I’m doing very well, thank you, through a combination of intelligence, steady nerve, rational assessment of the factors involved, and self-discipline. By self-discipline, I mean that I didn’t spend much time asking myself why I was doing the work I was doing. I sensed that asking that could open up a nasty can of worms. Spiritually, stockbroker might be hard to justify. But I figured I’d get around to that later; in my fifties, maybe, when I’d retire rich and move with Janie to some warmer climate.

  I guess I haven’t mentioned Janie yet. Janie Sommers. We’re engaged. I’m head over heels in love. Not just with Janie, though she’s extremely lovable, but with what Janie and I were planning to do with our lives.

  It was going to be a good life, a rich life, filled with shiny cars and a swimming pool and a big house filled with excellent art objects. Janie’s stipend from Vogue wouldn’t bring that about. But her inheritance when she turned twenty-five would. Together, we could have everything we wanted. That may sound crass. But how could I not calculate our joint incomes, with a view to making life better for Janie as well as for me?

  I really don’t want to get into all this. But I thought I should explain why I was so dead set against visionary experience. It would commit me to something I wanted no part in. To giving up the delightful, worldly life I had planned and turning to disseminating the “truth” as I had conceived it.

  Once I admitted to visionary experience, I knew I was a goner. I could hear myself bending my friends’ ears: “Let me tell you what happened to me one strange night in New Hampshire . . .”

  I wanted none of that.

  And yet, the logic of visionary experience demands that you spread it around. Tell the world about it. But that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do as I watched the glowing, spinning sphere dance around the room against all the laws of gravity and common sense, and I heard myself saying, “I don’t want to be the subject of a National Public Radio hour on strange unexplained experiences, I want to do something I’m good at, stockbrokering, make a lot of money, live well.”

  The sphere took one more brush against the wall, dislodging Edwin’s high school graduation certificate, and then it split in two, its halves fluttering to the floor. Something came out of it. Something small and smoky that grew in size and then solidified for a moment into a small body and staring face—staring at me—and then this thing, whatever it was, faded and became invisible and I had my hands full to control the seizures I was considering falling into. (“Yes, I saw it with my own eyes! It was not of this world!”)

  I resisted the impulse of the true believer and looked at the shell the thing had come in. It drooped, it melted, and then it was gone, leaving behind only a trace of moisture on the rug.

  I LOOKED AROUND the room. I saw the storm pouncing against the picture windows. Blown snow slanting past in hypnotic lines, accompanied by the wavering mutter of the wind. Inside the room, there was a profound darkness contrasting with the glaring white rectangle of the picture window. Although the room was in darkness, a few objects in it—the top of a ladder chair, the head of a plaster statue of some classical deity—were still bathed in light. A Rembrandt effect. And the creature or whatever it was that came out of the sphere was nowhere to be seen. But that didn’t mean that it was gone.

  “You look for it in the kitchen,” I told Janie. “I’ll keep on checking here.”

  No, Janie wasn’t there. But in some weird way, she was. I can’t explain it. I can only report to you how it seemed to me at the time.

  I checked the room again. Looking for the creature from the sphere. Looking for her. Funny how I’d already decided it was a she. Funny how I could sense her presence still in the room, watching me.

  Something watching me. The moment stretched out . . . And dissolved in my sudden annoyance. I don’t want her looking at me! How dare this invisible thing look at me?

  What else was she intending? My mind had taken a curious turn. From judging an event as an hallucination to rejudging it as something real. And now I was really worried.

  It had been so much more comfortable when I’d thought it was an hallucination. But I’d had to give up that comforting thought. Trying to force myself to believe I was hallucinating felt like a bad idea. It would make my judgments unreliable. It’s madness to consider yourself unreliable. In a situation like that, who are you going to rely on?

  I summed up what I thought I knew. I had the distinct feeling that the storm had plucked something invisible out of the air and hurled it through my picture window. The thing it had thrown was let’s say a sort of very small spaceship. Inside the living room, the little ship had buzzed around like a deranged being. No doubt it was no longer working right. Finally it fell apart, and something came out.

  That was as far as my thought took me at the time. I just knew that something uncanny was in the same room with me, watching me, and I had no idea what that invisible thing intended with me.

  Since I had nothing to go on but my suppositions, I decided to give them free rein.

  It seemed to me that this being had blundered into this room by accident, and now couldn’t find her way out. I remembered the way the sphere had darted back and forth and bumped into walls. I’d seen a robin do the same thing, trapped in an attic window that Janie had opened to air out, and dashed itself to death before we could shoo it out the window which it couldn’t find.

  I suspected it was going to attack me.

  With a shudder I turned defensive. My hands were raised in boxer’s position. My head slowly turned from one side of the room to another. Although I knew I could not see her, yet I thought I could sense her. And, with a little luck, do something about it before she did me a mischief.

  IT WAS AN EERIE time for me as I sat propped up against the couch, my ankle throbbing, the hole in my back oozing blood, the wind rattling the windows and the darkness engulfing everything as night came on. I couldn’t see the thing and therefore I saw it everywhere. It was the odd humpbacked shape on the mantel, the suspicious shadow on the rug, the triangle of greater darkness that peered out of closets and cubbyholes.

  I caught a glimpse of it for a moment, then lost sight of it in the darkening living room. And then I felt something at my back, near my wound, felt something wet and sticky on my skin, I turned, and saw it. It was glued to my back. It seemed to be sucking my blood. I screamed and swatted at it, and it darted away and lost itself in a corner of the room.

  Janie came out of the kitchen then. “Where is it?” I pointed. She went at it with a pillow, flailing, shout
ing, “Leave him alone, damn you!” And she caught the thing one solid whack as it darted around, sending it crashing to the floor. And then she was pounding at it with the pillow, and I had gotten off the couch and was stomping it with my good foot. I think we were both shouting then, or maybe screaming. Or maybe it was just me, because of course Janie wasn’t really there.

  I guess I went a little off my head at that point. I started imagining Janie was there, and I was talking to her, telling her about this discovery I’d made, this Horla. Because that was what I was certain it was—a Horla, the uncanny creature described by Guy de Maupassant.

  Janie was saying, “Look, Ed. None of this is happening. I want a normal life. We can have it all. The best. The summer house in Connecticut, the apartment in Manhattan, the beach bungalow in Mustique. You’re making money and I’ve got money coming to me. We can do this: But honey, we can’t put any supernatural stuff in this. You can’t go around telling people you had this visitation from another world. Who’s going to buy stocks from you if you do that? We don’t want to be unreliable. People who’ve had visions are unreliable. Fanatical. You can’t tell what they’ll do. And our life is based on knowing very well what we can and will do. And what we will not do. Talking about our mystic experiences is one thing we won’t do.”

  I’ve often thought about asking Janie if she was there that night. If she remembers any of it. If she can say anything at all that might account for what I saw, or thought I saw. But of course, that’s getting into pretty weird stuff, and Janie and I don’t do that. The Horla is one of a number of things we don’t talk about.

  Janie is so pretty. And she makes such good sense. And I was in such agony as I sat there, listening to her. Because this thing had happened, the more she talked, the surer of it I became. I sensed that to repudiate it, pretend it never happened—well, that would be a pretty crass thing to do. If I did that, it would be difficult to live with myself.

  On the other hand, Janie was right. If you go around talking about your other-worldly experiences, you never again have quite the same relationship with people. You’re a zealot, a fanatic, a crazy, someone most right-thinking people try to avoid. You’re seeing visions, and that’s weird. You’re telling everyone, I’ve found something more important than what you’ve staked your life to get. I’ve got news from the other side!

  People don’t like you when you talk like that.

  I didn’t want to be driven by the force of an experience I’d never bargained for, didn’t want now that I had it, wanted to get rid of it.

  “Whatever it was, we don’t owe it anything,” Janie said. “We’ve killed it. Let’s just never mention it again.”

  I nodded.

  She looked at me very seriously. “It’s agreed, then.”

  I nodded again. And we never talked about it again.

  Except that I’m writing about it now. Janie doesn’t know. Won’t know until I publish it. And then?

  I don’t know. But I have to write this.

  You see, I figured out, after a very long time, just what the creature was up to.

  She was sealing off that puncture wound in my back. What else was that sticky stuff she sprayed on me but some way of stopping the wound? Even the doctor, when I finally got to see one the next day, asked me about it.

  The Horla had just finished sealing my wound when Janie got her with the pillow.

  Not that I’m blaming Janie.

  I figure we killed that thing together. Or maybe I did it alone. Because I sure wanted to, even if I didn’t actually do it. But I think I did.

  We weren’t ready for the Horla, and for what it might bring.

  Anyway, Janie wasn’t really there, so I must have killed the Horla myself. But in another way, Janie did it.

  I’m not going to change anything now. It’s impossible to get the weird stuff that happens to you down all neat and straight. But I figured I needed to tell the story. In case the Horla’s family—lover—friends—she must have had someone—never learned what happened to her, blown off course by a sudden storm, trapped in a weird room, pursued by a big creature—or maybe the ghost of a big creature—whom she was trying to help and who wanted only to kill her. And finally did.

  The Horla gave up her life for me. If she has any friends, family, or lovers out there, if there’s any way my words can get to them, I thought they’d be proud of her.

  Well, that’s the only experience I can call genuinely weird in a rather ordinary life. A story I’ve never told. Especially that last part about Janie swatting it with a pillow. Because, of course, I did that. Janie wasn’t there.

  As for Janie and me, we’re as well as can be expected.

  THE THREE CIGARS

  Robert Sheckley vaulted to the front ranks of science fiction writers in the 1950s with his prodigious output of short, witty stories that explored the human condition in a variety of earthly and unearthly settings. His best tales have been collected in Untouched by Human Hands, Pilgrimage to Earth, and the comprehensive Collected Short Stories of Robert Sheckley. His novels include the futuristic tales The Status Civilization, Mindswap, and Immortality Delivered, which was filmed as “Freejack.” He has also written the crime novels Calibre .50 and Time Limit. Elio Petri’s cult film The Tenth Victim is based on his story “The Seventh Victim.”

  The phone call came in the small hours of the morning, waking me from my first decent sleep in weeks. It’s no small thing to be president of the First Rumanian Science Fiction Commando, and to have the responsibility for the American Civil War Replay on your shoulders.

  Kevin was calling me from the relay station on top of the Empire Department Store in downtown Bucharest. “Sorry to get you up at this ungodly hour,” he said, “but I’m making a final check on everything. Can you tell me what you’re doing about the three cigars?” I told him, “Katya is taking care of that. She’s worked something out.”

  “What has she decided?”

  “She hasn’t told me.”

  “Has she told anyone?”

  “Not as far as I know. She said it was going to be a surprise.”

  “I guess you haven’t heard. Katya is dead. Killed in a traffic accident last night near the Obolensky Circle. And we don’t know what she was planning to do about the three cigars.”

  Katya dead? My head swam. Katya, our party theoretician, Katya, plump and red-haired, with her dreams for the rule of the Science Fiction Commando, not just here in Rumania, but throughout the world. Losing Katya was a tragedy. But the Civil War Replay had to go on, with or without the explanation of the three cigars.

  The basic facts are simple enough:

  On Wednesday, September 3, 1862, General Robert E. Lee wrote to President Jefferson Davis, announcing his intention of invading Maryland. He then moved his armies to Leesburg, Virginia, about thirty miles upriver from Washington, D.C.

  On September 4th, Confederate troops arrived at White’s Ford, where Stonewall Jackson’s men made a crossing over the next four days.

  Late on Friday, September 5th, General McClellan merged John Pope’s Army of Virginia into the Army of the Potomac and began marching six of his eight corps into Maryland.

  On Sunday, September 7th, Lee’s last columns crossed the Potomac and caught up with the main body of Confederate troops.

  On September 10th, Lee wrote out his plan and hopes for the coming hostilities in Special Order 191. Handwritten by Lee’s adjutant, Colonel Robert H.

  Chilton, copies were dispatched to General Stonewall Jackson, General James Longstreet, and General D.H. Hill.

  D.H. Hill’s copy never reached him. It is surmised that it got into the hands of an unidentified Confederate staff officer, who wrapped the document around three cigars and put the package in his pocket. After that? Who knows?

  The Federal Army’s 12th Army Corps arrived at Frederick, Maryland, at noon of September 12, 1862. Colonel Silas Colgrove commanded the 27th Indiana Volunteers, belonging to the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division of that corp
s.

  The 27th camped on ground occupied the evening before by D.H. Hill’s division.

  A document entitled Special Order 191 was discovered by Private B. W. Mitchell, of Company F, 27th Indiana Volunteers. It was wrapped around three cigars.

  Mitchell showed the paper to 1st Sergeant John M. Bloss. The two men brought the document and cigars to Colonel Silas Colgrove.

  Colgrove gave the order to General A. S. Williams’ adjutant-general, Colonel S. E. Pittman.

  Pittman recognized Chilton’s signature. He had served with him in Detroit.

  The order was brought to General McClellan, commanding the Army of the Potomac. McClellan is reported to have said, exultantly, “With this, if I can’t beat Bobby Lee, I’ll go home.”

  Within an hour, his army was on the move.

  Not long after that, Jeb Stuart’s troops learned that McClellan had the complete marching orders for the Confederate armies for the next several days. He reported this to Lee.

  Events unfolded. But there is no further mention of the three cigars.

  These are the facts on which the first or Ur-Civil War is based, and which serves as a model for our Rumanian replays.

  Lost Order 191 was the key defining point in our reconstruction. The three cigars around which the order was wrapped are the strange attractor within the nexus of energies we call The Lost Order.

  Once a series of similar terms has been established, any one of them can serve as the original, since “original” is a literary term, not a mathematical one.

  “Order 191 Lost” expresses an anomalous situation. Sequences based on something not happening are unstable and unnatural: anomalous. Energy must be continually put into anomalous situations for them to persevere, that is, so that 191 will remain lost.

  The consequences will vary in subsequent replays.

  They will get more and more deviant—bizarre. Individual minds during a battle are quanta of uncertainty. It turns out to be impossible to fight the same battle twice.