Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera

by Robert Sheckley

  20

  Back when the universe was young and still unsure of itself, there were a number of primitive races who inhabited the crowded worlds of the galactic center. One of these were the Vanir, barbarians addicted to shaggy dress and strange customs. Though far older than some branches of humankind, the Vanir never claimed to be the original, or Ur, race. The identity of the first true humans is still disputed, although the Lekkians have as good a claim as any.

  As they pushed outward in their lapstraked spaceships, the Vanir came to Glorm. Here they encountered the Ystradgnu, or Little People, as they were called by the many races taller than themselves. Many great battles were fought between the two, but at last the Vanir prevailed. They enjoyed a period of dominance before the arrival of the last humans, fleeing a barren and poisoned Earth. Again there were great battles, resulting in the Vanir being driven off Glorm and out of the Local System and all the way back to the chilly outermost planet. The Ystradgnu had called this planet Wuullse, but the Vanir renamed it after themselves. Glorm and Vanir had fought many times since then, most notably during the expansionist phase of the short-lived Glormish Empire. Peace had prevailed for the last thirty years, sometimes precariously.

  At the time of this telling, Haldemar was high king of the Vanir, and his heart raged with aggressive tendencies. Oftentimes Haldemar lay on his thagskin in a drunken stupor and dreamed of the spoils to be gotten by a quick raid into Crimsole or Glorm. It was especially women that Haldemar was interested in: sleek, perfumed women to replace the large-thewed Vanir girls, who, in bed, could always be counted upon to say, at their moment of highest ecstasy, “Oh, ya, dis good fun.” Whereas civilized women always wanted to discuss their relationship with you, and that was exciting for a barbarian who had been brought up on a minimum of relationships and plenty of fresh air.

  Haldemar had been to civilization only once, when he was invited to make an appearance on the “Alien Celebrities“ show that the GBC had tried out for a season, then dropped. Haldemar remembered well the excitement and bustle around the studio, and how the people asking him questions had actually listened to the answers. It had been the greatest time in his life. He would do anything to get back into show business, and for several years had stayed near his telephone, waiting for a call from his agent.

  The call never came, and Haldemar grew to despise the fickle superficiality of the warm-planet peoples. His deepest desire was to let loose his lapstraked spaceships upon the effete civilizations of the inner worlds. But the inner-planet peoples had too much going for them. They had deadly weapons and fast ships scavenged from the ruins of Earth, and they banded together whenever the Vanir attacked any one of them. So Haldemar stayed his hand and waited for an opportunity, and meanwhile led his people in their migrations across Vanir in search of good grazing land for the luu, the small, fierce, carnivorous cattle that supplied food and drink, and whose year’s molt provided clothing as well.

  And now, at last, an emissary had come to him from civilization.

  Haldemar arranged a meeting at once, as protocol demanded. Although he had a primitive man’s distrust of manners, yet he also possessed a barbarian’s exquisite sense of ritual. He went to the meeting with hope and trepidation, and for the occasion he put on a new luumolt shirt.

  21

  The audience was held in Haldemar’s banquet hall. Haldemar had the place swept out and fresh rushes laid on the floor. At the last moment, remembering the refinements of civilization, he borrowed two chairs from Sigrid Eigretnose, his scrivener.

  The emissary wore a cloak of puce and mauve, colors unknown in this rough barbarian world. He was a man of above the middling height, with a breadth of shoulder and broadness of thew that led Haldemar to think that the fellow might not be unavailing at swordplay. The emissary wore other things, too, but Haldemar, with a barbarian’s indifference to detail, did not notice them.

  “Welcome!” said Haldemar. “How are matters?”

  “Pretty good,” Vitello said. “How are things here?”

  Haldemar shrugged. “The same as always. Raising luu and raiding each other’s settlements are our principal occupations. Raiding is particularly useful, and is one of our chief contributions to social theory. It serves to keep the men occupied, the population down, and goods like swords and goblets in constant circulation.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Vitello said.

  “It’s a living,” Haldemar admitted.

  “Not like the old days, eh? Raiding each other can’t be as much fun as raiding other people.”

  “Well, it’s insightful of you to realize that,” Haldemar said. “But what can we do? Our weapons are too primitive and our numbers too small to permit us to raid the civilized planets without getting our asses kicked, it you’ll excuse the expression.”

  Vitello nodded. “That’s the way it has been, up till now.”

  “That’s how it still is,” Haldemar said, “unless you bring news to the contrary.”

  Vitello said, “Haven’t you heard of the great changes that are going on? Dramocles of Glorm has taken Aardvark and landed troops on Lekk. Count John of Crimsole opposes him, as does my master, Prince Chuch, son of Dramocles. There’s trouble brewing, and where there’s trouble, there’s a profit to be made and some fun to be had.”

  “Reports of this have reached us,” Haldemar said, “but we considered it no more than a family affair. If the Vanir were to enter the conflict, the various antagonists would combine against us, as they have done in the past.”

  “It has gone beyond family squabbles,” Vitello said. “My Lord Chuch has sworn to be seated on the throne of Glorm. Count John and Snint of Lekk have pledged their support. There’ll be no patching up this quarrel. It’s going to be war.”

  “Well, good enough. But what has that to do with us?”

  Vitello smiled deviously. “Prince Chuch felt that no interplanetary war could be complete without the participation of the Vanir. He invites you to join his side.”

  “Aha!” Haldemar pretended to think for a moment, and tugged at his greasy mustaches. “What inducement does Prince Chuch offer?”

  “A full partner’s share in the anticipated spoils of Glorm.”

  “Promises are easy,” said Haldemar. “How do I know I can trust your master?”

  “Sire, he also sends you a treaty of amicability and accord, which he has already signed. This provides a legal basis for you to raid and ravage Glorm. In the ancient language of Earth it is known as a license to steal.”

  Vitello presented the treaty, a rolled parchment tied with red ribbon and bristling with seals. Haldemar touched it gently, for, barbarian to the core, he considered all pieces of paper sacred. Yet still he hesitated.

  “What other sign of his love does Prince Chuch send me?”

  “My spaceship is loaded with gifts for you and your nobles,” Vitello said. “There are Erector and Leggo sets, puzzles and riddles, comic books, a selection of the latest rock recordings, Avon cosmetics for the ladies, and much else besides.”

  “That is good of the Prince,” Haldemar said. “Guard! See that no one gets into that stuff until I’ve had first pick. If a king can’t pick first, what’s the sense of being a king? Perhaps I should just go out and make sure–”

  “Sire, the treaty,” Vitello said.

  “We’ll discuss it later,” Haldemar said. “First I want a look at what you’ve got, and then we will have our feast of friendship.”

  22

  Haldemar provided as fine a banquet as the limited resources of Vanir would allow. Long wooden tables were set up, with benches on either side for the local nobility. At a smaller table set on a low platform sat Haldemar and Vitello. The first course was barley gruel flavored with bits of bacon. Next came an entire roasted hrol, a creature that looked like a pig and tasted like a shrimp. It was stuffed with a mixture of salt herring and leeks and served with a brown sauce. After that came platters of boiled salted turnips and a filet of vinegary blue-fleshed f
ish.

  There was entertainment, too. First a harpist, then two bagpipers, then an exhibition of ax dancing, then a clown whose jokes were bawdy, to judge by the unrestrained guffaws of the guests, but delivered in an accent so broad that Vitello found it incomprehensible. Dessert was a compote of local fruits laced with pinecone brandy and wild mountain honey. Horns of lichen beer were passed around by large-busted serving wenches, and, at the end, the King’s bard–a tall, white-bearded old man with a patch over one eye–recited a traditional saga and accompanied himself on a hammer dulcimer. Vitello couldn’t understand a word of it.

  At last, the feast done, Haldemar’s guests gave themselves up to drunkenness and merriment, and Haldemar withdrew with Vitello to a room at the rear of the wooden palace. Here the two men reclined at their ease upon mattresses of obvious Glormish manufacture. And Haldemar said, “Well, Vitello, I have been considering, and this proposed alliance with your prince pleases me greatly.”

  “I am glad,” Vitello said, taking out the treaty and unrolling it. “If Your Majesty would just sign here and here, and initial here and here–”

  “Not so fast,” said Haldemar. “Before signing an important document such as this, it is customary for the guest to perform for us.”

  “My singing is not the most melodious,” Vitello said, “but if it please you–”

  “I didn’t mean singing,” Haldemar said. “I meant fighting.”

  “Oh?” said Vitello.

  “Here on Vanir, it is traditional to allow an honored guest to show his prowess. You’re a well set-up young fellow. I think you’d do well in single combat against the Doon of Thorth.”

  “Can’t we just sign the treaty and forget about the window dressing?”

  “Impossible,” Haldemar said. “For really important occasions, we Vanir need either a love story or a fighting story. Otherwise the bards can’t make proper poetry out of it. It may seem silly to you, but the people expect it. We are barbarians, you know.”

  “I understand the problem,” Vitello said. “But don’t you have a daughter around whose love I could win?”

  “I wish I could oblige you,” Haldemar said. “Unfortunately my only child, Hulga, was carried off some time ago by Fufnir, the Demon Dwarf.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Tell me about the Doon.”

  “He is a five-armed creature of surpassing strength and agility, and a master at swordplay. But don’t let that put you off. He’s never been matched against a man like yourself.”

  “Nor will he be now, because I’m not going to fight him.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “Yes, I really do.”

  “I hesitate to call you cowardly, because you are my guest. But you must admit that your stance is hardly heroic.”

  “I don’t care,” Vitello said. “I’m supposed to be doing a comic role.”

  Haldemar considered for a while. “Perhaps we could find something less taxing. You could go through the magical gate into the underworld and rescue Hulga.”

  “That’s out, too. Forget the danger bit, Haldemar. I appreciate your wanting to do things in style, but you’re thinking too small. This isn’t one of your local folklore scenes. This concerns all the planets of our system. I’m giving you a chance at the big time, the main event of civilization, universal history! It’s not an offer that comes along every day. So let’s get on with it, King, or let me depart in peace.”

  “Oh, very well,” Haldemar said. “I was just trying to please my constituents before sending off thousands of them to be killed senselessly on alien planets. May I borrow your pen?”

  Before Haldemar could sign, there was a flaring of trumpets and a sudden bright shimmering in the air. A figure could be seen within it.

  “Hulga!” Haldemar cried.

  The light faded, leaving behind a large, plain, freckled girl with a broad, pleasant face framed in short blond pigtails.

  “Oh, Daddy!” Hulga cried, rushing to Haldemar’s arms. “It’s been so long! And I’ve missed Snicker, too.”

  “Who?” Vitello asked.

  “Snicker is her pet wolf,” Haldemar told him. “There’s a rather curious story about that–”

  “Some other time, Daddy,” Hulga said. “The Demon Dwarf wants to speak to you.”

  The Demon Dwarf stepped out of a smaller shimmer. He was slightly overweight, reddish-brown in color, and had two small black horns growing out of his forehead.

  “O Haldemar!” the Demon Dwarf said formally. “I have monitored your conversation with Vitello, and he’s right, this is a chance for us all to get out of this backwater and into universal history. I have returned Hulga on two conditions, the first being that she marry Vitello, thus ensuring me at least a footnote in the annals of history. It’s not much, but it’s a beginning.”

  “He’s always hated the fact that he’s only known locally,” Hulga said.

  “What’s the second condition?” Vitello asked.

  “That you take me along with you. Nothing’s going on underground these days, and I really feel I’m ready for the main action.”

  Haldemar said, “What say you, Vitello? Will you marry the girl?”

  Vitello looked at Hulga. A complete lack of expression crossed his face. This was followed by a sly look as he said, “Would that put me in the line of succession for kingship of Vanir if Your Excellency met with an untimely accident?”

  “No, Vitello, only a man of our own race can rule us. But your son by Hulga, if you had one, could rule.”

  “So I could be father to the next king of Vanir. … Well, it’s not what I would have planned for myself.”

  “But it’s a good position,” Haldemar pointed out. “A pension goes with it, and you’d still have plenty of time for a second career.”

  “True enough,” said Vitello. “Hulga, what do you say?”

  “I’ll marry you, Vitello, but you must promise to take me to a rock concert when we have reached civilization.”

  “And what about me?” Fufnir asked.

  “All right, you can come along,” Vitello said.

  The ceremony was held that afternoon.

  Immediately after it, Vitello asked to inspect the levy of Vanir. Only then did Haldemar reveal a difficulty concerning his troops.

  23

  Four hundred and thirty years ago, the Vanir had come under attack by a people even more barbaric than themselves. The terrible Monogoths had swept out of Galactic Center in uncountable numbers, their squat, bat-winged spaceships darkening the skies. They were ferocious copper-skinned warriors armed with flint-headed light-spears, vibrator maces, and electronic longbows, and clad in the poorly cured skins of panther and bear. This race of heavyset, mustached men fell upon Vanir like an avalanche.

  Outnumbered, the Vanir armies fell back, abandoning their seaports and settlements and reassembling in the vast forest of Illsweep. Many hand-to-hand combats took place in the deeply shadowed woods, and the Monogoths were cut down in great numbers. Yet more and more of them came, and it seemed only a matter of time before they wiped out the Vanir.

  Harald Hogback, high king at this time, had to face the loss not only of the war, but perhaps also of the Vanir race. He decided upon a desperate stratagem. The core of his army, the redoubtable Skullsmasher Brigade, was still mostly intact, though fearfully battered. These fifty thousand men, berserkers all, were facing a Monogoth army of about a quarter of a million men. Hogback decided it was vital to preserve his troops for the future of the Vanir race.

  After casting the rune stones, Harald Hogback ordered the Vanir women to set up the great copper cauldrons and prepare a feast. This done, he detached the Skullsmashers from the defense line and led them deep into Illsweep forest.

  The Monogoths pursued hotly, but their way led through the Vanir camp, and they smelled the boiled beef simmering deliciously in the copper cauldrons, and sniffed the mounds of boiled potatoes with creamy horse-radish and parsley. It was too much for them, raised as they all we
re on an exclusive diet of hot dogs fried in lard. The Monogoths gave a single great cry and rushed at the viands. By the time their sergeants had restored order, the Vanir had made good their retreat into the depths of Illsweep.

  Hogback led his troops into a vast limestone cavern hidden in the woods beneath a cedarn cover. He commanded his men to lie down and make themselves comfortable. Then Harald intoned words over them, using the last of his store of Old Magick to cause the entire host to fall asleep. With this accomplished, Harald ordered the entrance sealed. And so the berserkers slept, and continued to sleep, right up to the present day.

  This was the story that Haldemar told Vitello as they rode into the forest of Illsweep. And Vitello wondered at it greatly, and asked what had happened in the war between the Monogoths and the Vanir. Haldemar told him that those superlative warriors, despite their seeming indestructibility, had been prone to the illnesses of civilization. The Monogoths were wiped out by an epidemic of hoof-and-mouth disease, and the Vanir soon repopulated their own planet.

  “And the Skullsmasher Brigade?”

  “They still lie in sleep,” Haldemar said. “These are the troops that we need.”

  24

  The forest was astir with muffled and secretive movements. Pale sunshine filtered down through the tangled canopy of branches. Vitello could hear the piercing cry of the moviola bird, that shy resident of the upper treetops, with its plaintive cry of “Ida Lupino, Ida Lupino.” Haldemar rode beside him, and several members of the household guards followed close behind. Soon enough they came to a glade in the woods, and standing in the glade was a tall man clad in forest green, and this was Ole Grossfoot, guardian of the sleeping host.

  “They’re over this way,” Grossfoot said, pushing back the mop of reddish brown hair from his glittering eyes.

  The brigade’s original home in the vast limestone cavern had to be abandoned when Grossfoot discovered leaks in the rocky wall, bathing his charges in limewater and threatening to encase their extremities in stone. Moving them had been difficult. There were no moving companies on the planet Vanir. Grossfoot had turned to Fufnir, the Demon Dwarf, and his people. The dwarves had managed to carry the sleeping soldiers onto the forest floor without mishap, except for Edgar Bluekiller, whom they accidentally dropped over a cliff.