Uncanny Tales

by Robert Sheckley

  “So’ll you,” I said.

  She gave me a curious look. “I can handle that. You’re not so hard to take.”

  And then she left quickly.

  I learned that evening and in the days after it that Cedric Smith had been born in the Texas Republic, where he had worked in one of the large cotton mills. He proved an exceptional businessman. He moved quickly up through the ranks, and within a few years he was manager of the entire operation, second only to decrepit old Mr. Dodds, the owner. The sudden opening of Argentina under Lopez de Aragon to Texas Republic cotton manufacturing presented Smith with new opportunities. He went into business for himself, opened a mill in Buenos Aires, then another mill in Mendoza, and then another. Within five years he had a chain of businesses up and down the Western Hemisphere.

  He became vastly wealthy, and moved to the Caribbean island of Dominica, where easy tax laws and a pleasant life style under a grandson of the Empress Josephine had proven tempting to many businessmen the world over.

  Like many of his kind, Smith wanted to leave his mark upon the world. He was wealthy enough to have indulged in art collecting, that reliable diversion of the untalented rich. Or he could have founded libraries, hospitals, even universities. He chose none of these. A man with a strong visionary streak, and with something of the megalomaniac in his makeup, Cedric Smith chose to go to the new frontier of space.

  He had been working for a long time with Dr. Hanna on a mindpower project. He decided it would be best pursued away from the restraining laws of Earth, in space, where he was answerable to no one.

  It was typical of Smith that he did the trip in style. No less than ten medium-sized long-haul ships brought his goods out to the asteroid belt. His agents had already laid claim to a good-sized chunk of rock. It was no more than ten miles in diameter, a handy-sized little world to make over for the use of people. Rocket-assisted spin provided gravity. Water could be mined from chunks of archaic ice in the asteroids, and oxygen could be extracted from the water.

  Smith brought his house out from Earth, transporting it in pieces and reassembling it on the spot. That was the origin of this gracious rambling mansion.

  Smith brought his wife Luella with him into the asteroids, and their baby daughter, Vera. Luella Smith tried to make a go of it, but the asteroids were a man’s world, of little interest to women. She succumbed after a little more than two years to melancholia and a wasting illness which Dr. Hanna was unable to cure.

  Vera, the daughter, grew up in this place, dreaming her dreams of far-away Earth, praying for the day when she could get away from here, away from her father’s mad experiments and the atmosphere of fanaticism and gloom that hung like a dark cloud over the little world. She was desperate to get out. And I was the first chance that had come along. I was desperate to get away, too. And I thought Vera was pretty cute.

  9.

  Vera and I mooned around like honeymooning doves, putting on a good show for everyone, amusing ourselves, and planning our escape. I learned that the doors between me and the spacelock were sealed. My space ship was there. Only Smith could get in. I’d have to wait until Vera could find a way to get in.

  After dinner one evening, Smith asked me into his study.

  “You’re one of us now, Ned,” he said. “On probation, but still, potentially at least, one of us. Let me show you around now for real, and put you completely into the picture. We’re on to something very important here. Important not just for us, but for America and the whole human race.”

  Smith and Dr. Hanna were convinced that mankind’s next breakthrough would be in the area of mental power. Present- day experiments in telepathy and telekinesis on Earth had pointed the way. But all of these had been done with individual subjects working alone. You couldn’t generate enough mind power that way, Smith explained. A team effort was needed. A group of mediators working together under direction, through focusing machinery. That was the way to produce the breakthrough into another dimension of power.

  The technical side of the work was beyond me. Smith explained that Hanna had perfected techniques of computer-generated pull-lines—spiral patterns which in effect pulled the mind into the computer and helped it zero in on the area of focus. Meter readings showed brain wave activity and also served to let the supervisors know if any of the mind-slaves wasn’t pulling his weight. Cooperation and synchronization between minds was essential if you wanted to generate any real power. Unattended, the mind-objects so produced had only a brief perseverance. The objects were “real,” however, in the sense that they were physical entities which would pass any test of physicality.

  Although they were real, mind-objects seemed to belong to a different dimension of space-time. When not powered by the mind-slaves, they vanished into a hypothetical other dimension. This other dimension was perhaps the fourth dimension, perhaps something beyond that. The key to entry was mind-power.

  “The problem,” Smith summed up, “is how to generate enough power to get there. We have insufficient men on Manitori to accomplish this. And the men don’t have enough motivation to do the job well. But we’re making progress. We hope yet to make a definitive breakthrough.”

  I returned to my room, thinking about all this. Later Vera came to me, late at night.

  “I’ve arranged everything,” she said. “I’ve been able to null the interior lock system for an hour. If we hurry, we can get to your spaceship and get out of this place.”

  She grabbed my hand. “Come on,” she said.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “Before we go, I have to free the slaves.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Vera said. “You’re really too much.”

  “Yeah. But I promised.”

  “So what’s a promise to a slave?”

  “The promise means something to me,” I said angrily.

  10.

  It took a little time but I did it. The slaves’ quarters had a special locking mechanism. I insisted that Vera take me to the master control panel and set the doors to open. I wanted to find Henke and tell him about this, but there was no time. I hoped the slaves would find out for themselves. I had done what I could. Now Vera and I had to get out fast.

  We hurried down the corridors, passed through the spacelock and into my ship. I sealed the doors and prepared to fire up. That was one hell of a moment to hear over my radio the steely soft tones of Cedric Smith, saying, “Surely you can’t be thinking of leaving us so soon, Fletcher?”

  I motioned Vera to get out of sight and turned on the TV screen. The Governor’s image came up sharply.

  “Sorry I have to hurry off,” I said. “I meant to tell you, I’m behind schedule.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have my daughter with you, by any chance?” Smith asked.

  The hell of it was, I didn’t know if the best answer was “yes” or “no.” Finally I decided upon honesty, since he probably knew, anyway.

  “I’m taking her shopping,” I said, on sudden inspiration. “Never thought of that, did you? Young women like to go shopping. I’m taking her to Earth for a couple of weeks. Then we’ll come back.”

  The sheer effrontery of it must have given him pause. He considered for a moment. I had turned off the magnetic grapples that held us to the asteroid. Already ship and asteroid were beginning to drift apart.

  “It’s kind of you to look after my daughter, Mr. Fletcher. But I think I can take care of that very well myself, thank you.”

  He turned to his control panel, his fingers moving quickly over the computer’s keys. Twin gantries, with great hooks at their ends, swung out from either side of the platform my ship was on. I could eyeball the result. The hooks would get my ship before I could get out of their reach.

  Vera had come out of hiding behind the pilot’s seat. She looked her father in the TV screen square in the eye.

  “You always did spoil my fun,” she screamed at him. “You never gave me what I wanted, even when I was a little gir
l. Mom was more important to me than you and I can’t even remember her. How about giving me a break, Dad? Give me and Ned a nice apartment in Paris, where we can have some fun. Come on, Dad, how about it?”

  “Vera,” he said, “I’d love to give you what you want. You must believe that. But I can’t. Not yet. My experiments in elevating human thought to self-sustaining levels is worth more than any number of human lives.”

  “You always say that,” Vera screamed at him.

  “Well, it’s true,” Smith said. “I’m truly sorry, but I’m afraid you can’t leave.”

  “We’re going anyhow,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “You’re as good as helpless. Your thrust-tubes can do some superficial damage to the superstructure, but nothing serious, nothing that can’t be quickly repaired. I’ve got you.”

  “You haven’t got me yet,” I told him. “They build these hulls of pretty good gauge steel, specially hardened. I didn’t notice any equipment around that could cut through that.”

  “I don’t have to blast you out,” Smith said. “There are other ways. Have you considered the effects of electricity, for example? No doubt Dr. Hanna could arrange for us to pass a few million volts through your hull. You might find that discomfiting.”

  “So might your daughter,” I said.

  “If you do indeed love her,” Smith said, “you will send her out before we attack your ship.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Vera yelled. “I’m staying right here.”

  “In any event,” Smith said, “I do not propose to attack you unless forced. I’d like to make you an offer.”

  “Let’s hear what he has to say,” Vera said.

  “Open your hatches,” Smith told me. “Come out, both of you, and enter into a full partnership with me and my colleagues. No strings attached—except that you and Vera must stay here until such time as has been mutually agreed upon by all parties. This is my world so I am empowered to marry people. You could take a honeymoon on one of the private worlds nearby, as long as Captain Lopez accompanied you to ensure your return.”

  “Not interested,” I told him.

  “I’d appreciate you taking a moment to reconsider. I suppose I should have explained everything to you at once. But it’s difficult, you know. And why should I explain myself to you, a stranger? But you and my daughter have hit it off. I am in favor of the match. I give my parental blessing. But first you must hear me out.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “You see this little world and my position in it as something evil. I suppose you would characterize what I do as a callous exploitation of the weak by the strong.”

  “That’s a pretty good summary,” I said. “Are you going to argue that it isn’t so?”

  “No. But it is so for a purpose. Mr. Fletcher, do you have any idea what we can do if we get this power properly working?”

  “Make a lot of money off the patents, I suppose.”

  “That’s a petty thought, unworthy of you even as sarcasm. Mr. Fletcher, it must have struck you that there is an immense disparity between mankind’s intelligence and its level of achievement. Our minds are able to plumb the deepest depths and reach to the highest heights, to create immortal poetry, to learn nature’s deepest secrets. Yet we live among our own kind like barely civilized animals. Temporarily there is peace in the world. But that will pass as soon as one of the great powers grows jealous of another again, or our government degenerates in its efficiency of rule. Mankind’s history is one of social instability and chaos. There is an underlying reason for this. Nature fashioned us with two salient and conflicting qualities. Independence, on the one hand, and cooperation on the other. Between the demands of these opposing qualities, we tear ourselves apart. Our species lacks or hasn’t yet developed the one sense that it requires in order to make use of all its other gifts. We need to develop true mind power, whether it be called telepathy, clairvoyance, or telekinesis. The key to greater mind power lies in the sort of work that Dr. Hanna and I are doing, work that links together human minds so they can work in concert. This experiment has never been tried before in the history of mankind, Mr. Fletcher—a group of minds concentrating together in a state of empathy, working to develop something that can be done. In fact that we have already met with success is crucial for the human race. Once our technique is fully developed, men will be able to act together to improve their circumstances and to explore other dimensions.”

  “What you’re doing isn’t fair to those men!”

  “Of course not. But if my ideas are correct, then the world a hundred years from now will consider us scientists and humanitarians, and the mind-slaves will be honored martyrs to the cause of the liberation of all mankind.”

  “That’s a lot of self-serving crap,” I told him.

  “It’s true, Mr. Fletcher, it’s true! The door to the future is right here in Manitori. I’m inviting you to come back here with my daughter, forget your parochial concerns, or put them aside for a while, and work with me for the advancement of all mankind!”

  “And the alternative?”

  “There is no alternative. Think about it, Ned.”

  The Governor smiled graciously and signaled to a servant. A white-clad figure glided into the picture with a glass of wine. As The Governor reached for the wine glass, it disappeared from the tray.

  11.

  “Insolence!” cried The Governor. “Who’s in charge of maintaining household goods? Where are my guards?”

  Watching the screen, I saw successive shots of Smith’s guards hurrying down corridors and staircases. Calamity seemed to overtake them. That’s when I put it together. The mind-slaves must have discovered the doors were unlocked. And now all hell was breaking loose.

  The guards and supervisors tried to restore order. They waded into the workers, who now had flooded the corridors, with fist and whip. But they kept on having accidents. At a crosswalk, a piece would be missing, and a guard would fall screaming to his death in the metallic depths below. A section of flooring would open up. A ceiling would collapse. The mind-slaves were no longer keeping up the reality with the sweat of their minds. The reality of Manitori was failing.

  Some of the guards fell into precipices which shouldn’t have been there. The structures of Manitori were coming apart, and only the dead rock of the planet was holding its own.

  A remaining group of guards and supervisors tried to make a stand in the upper apple orchard. But the slaves gleefully let it collapse and fall in on itself, and the supervisors fell through to the chilly lunar rock below.

  The green hills of Manitori vanished, replaced by the slagheaps they had disguised. I saw Smith run out of his house as it began disappearing behind him. I saw him turn in horror to behold what had once been a gracious mansion, now reduced to the plain shack it had been at the beginning, and then even that was gone. He ran out onto the carefully tended lawn, and I couldn’t see at first where he was going. But then I saw that he was making for a structure on the far side of the little world.

  A spaceship, maybe, ready for an emergency takeoff, just in case. Before he could reach it, however, some of the inner scaffolding of the world dissolved, and the wall through the chunks of rock which were disappearing like gigantic bits of a jigsaw puzzle. And then he had fallen past the rocks and was slowly screaming in the airless vacuum of space. And then he had stopped trying to scream, and was just an inert substance, turning slowly as it drifted into the flotsam and jetsam of the asteroids.

  One by one Manitori’s architectural features disappeared. The hills blinked out, the false clouds vanished. The reality which Smith had tried to shut out came through, revealed under the merciless glare of the stars.

  The asteroid was beginning to collapse in on itself. My ship was suddenly free of its restraints and I was cautiously maneuvering on minimum power out of a sky full of rocks.

  Vera said, “Let’s get away from here, Ned. Let’s go to Earth.”

  I made the necessary adjustm
ents. Vera settled back in the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Earth is the place for us,” she told me. “I want to live in Paris and have holidays in New York, Rome, Rio, and London. I want to have your children. There’ll be money, too. Daddy’s money. I’ll inherit it. We can live as we please! Isn’t that what you want, too?”

  I nodded, too numb and shocked to speak. I was thinking about the Manitori project and why it had failed. Smith had made a mistake common to the rich. He thought he could buy everything, even men’s minds. He had gone about his project in the wrong way. He had about fifty unwilling mind-slaves and it hadn’t been enough. The way to do it was with volunteers, salaried and working for shares, working in shifts, with recreation when they weren’t working. With four or five hundred men the thing could work, become self-sustaining. And then you’d have it. Consciousness without a single physical body necessary to sustain it. Pure consciousness! And with that, one could exist like gods!

  So on the way back to Earth, Vera was dreaming about living in Paris and having babies, and I was thinking about how to recruit a couple of hundred men who didn’t mind giving all their attention for a while to something really big.

  Pandora’s Box—Open With Care

  What a pleasure it was to write this story about elemental spirits, and the humans they were supposed to be associated with.

  Supposed to be? The two classes of living things are separated here. Where are the humans? Read the story and find out.

  It was a beautiful planet, with balmy breezes, a benevolent ocean, beautiful mountains, cool glades, and grassy meadows. The nicest thing was, there was not a soul there. Or rather, there were only souls there. Souls, but no people.

  On this vast, beautiful planet, there was not a single human being. No people, but there were plenty of spirits.

  Impalpable, transparent, ineffable, ubiquitous, the spirits were everywhere. The soul of the west wind played over the meadows, rustling the grain that had no one to harvest it. The grapes grew heavy on the vine, and the light-hearted spirit of the grape presided over their ripening. There was a spirit for everything, and everything had its spirit. In the distant mountains, volcanoes exploded from time to time, not of their own accord, but due to the whim of the volcano god, who caused the hot lava to burst out and flow down onto the plain.