Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera

by Robert Sheckley

  Bedizened finished his drink and lit up a thin panatela. “It’s entirely up to you, of course. You might even get your show back.”

  “I’ll think about it. By the way, who are the new people who’ve taken over GBC?”

  “It’s a group called Tlaloc, Inc.”

  “Never heard of them,” John said.

  27

  Ultragnolle Castle was headquarters for the conduct of the Lekkian War, and the War Room was the heart of the operation. It was a large room filled with consoles and banks of dials and TV screens, and there were uniformed men and women sitting at the consoles and pushing buttons. The lighting was subdued, there was a low hum of machinery, and you really felt like serious business was going on here. Dramocles loved this room.

  The castle was filled with people at all hours of the day and night, hurrying up and down the corridors on official business. Several new restaurants had opened near the War Room, to save time for the people fighting the war. Dramocles usually ate at the Hellenic Palace Snack Bar, and was especially fond of their foot-long Texas red hots with chili and chopped onions and melted cheese, the food of heroes. When he reached the Hellenic today, however, the place was closed for repairs.

  Why should a snack bar need repairs? The place had looked all right yesterday. Dramocles considered complaining, or, better, ordering the owners to get the place opened at once and to hell with the repairs–didn’t they know there was a war on? But he didn’t, because he prided himself on being just like everyone else while the state of emergency was on. “I’m just one of you,” he had told his staff only yesterday. “I’m just doing a job, like the rest of you. To be sure, my job is to run the whole show; but so what? That doesn’t make me any more important than the rest of you, though it might seem to. The fact is, gentlemen, we are all fighting for our homeland, for freedom, for Glorm.”

  Dramocles decided to have lunch at the Sword & Stomach, a rather pretentious eating place just down the hall. The S & S was crowded, as usual. It was a long, U-shaped room with chandeliers and a bar of polished wood. There were tall mirrors on the walls, and a reddish tinge to the lighting made everyone look healthier than they were. Waiters rushed back and forth with trays. All the tables were occupied.

  “How long will it take?” Dramocles asked the head-waiter.

  “I think a table is opening up now, Sire,” the head-waiter said. He made a subtle gesture with his chin. Four husky waiters hurried out and cleared a table.

  “I don’t want to rush you,” Dramocles said to the table’s occupants.

  “Not at all, Sire! Just finishing dessert.”

  “But that can’t be true,” Dramocles said. “You’re eating onion soup.”

  “Hate to contradict, Sire, but I always end my meal with onion soup. Jeff here usually finishes with the pâté maison. It’s a little habit we picked up in Chinese restaurants.”

  Dramocles knew they were just saying that for his benefit, so he wouldn’t feel bad. They didn’t have to do that. But of course he’d never be able to convince them. And it probably wasn’t true, anyhow. He sat down and ordered the lobster bisque and oysters cretaceous.

  The war on Lekk was not going well. Dramocles had expected a quick victory over Snint’s insignificant militia. Then John’s robots, striking unexpectedly, had almost overwhelmed his troops. Rux had managed to stabilize the front, but morale was bad among the Glormish forces. The robots seemed to be affected by an analogue of uncertainty.

  On the other hand, the people of Glorm were reacting well to the war. Max had seen to that. His newspaper series, “Why Are We Fighting?,” had told about the great conspiracies that were being directed against Glorm. Max had hired teams of writers to elaborate the various points, and the GBC was presenting the material in prime-time segments every night. Citizens of Glorm were learning all about the various conspiracies–economic, religious, racial, and just plain evil-minded–that were boiling up around them.

  That sort of thinking found a large and ready audience. A substantial portion of the population of Glorm had always believed that they were victims of a large interstellar conspiracy. Another large portion of the Glormish were members of this conspiracy, or were believed to be. Paranoid thinking was congenial to the Glormish· character–typically, an open, bluff, good-natured exterior combined with a haunted, doubt-riddled, fear-obsessed interior. Nobody on Glorm found it difficult to believe in Max’s theory of interstellar conspiracy. Most people said, “I always knew it!” And all Glormians reaffirmed their determination to preserve the Glormish way of life at all costs, except for those who were secretly planning on destroying it.

  Max joined Dramocles for coffee. He was eager to discuss his latest findings with the King. Dramocles was getting a little worried about Max. He seemed to have been captured by his own theories.

  “The vile plot is coming clear at last,” Max said. “I’m finally gathering the evidence I need. I have proof of psychic alien incursions and spirit possession as well as outright subversion.”

  Dramocles nodded and lit a cigarette.

  “It’s all documented,” Max said. “The roles of secret agents. Their program of provocation, intimidation, and assassination. The mysterious affair of Dr. Vinicki. The disastrous influences from Earth–the Carbonari, the Illuminati, the Tibetan Masters, and now the most powerful of all, Tlaloc.”

  “That’s the first I’ve heard that name,” Dramocles said.

  “You’ll be hearing it more. Tlaloc is our real enemy. He and his agents are planning to destroy most of our population so that they can take over Glorm and make everyone engage in revolting sexual practices and devil worship. Tlaloc himself is something more than a man; he’s a magician of supreme powers.”

  “Yeah,” Dramocles said. “Right.”

  “Tlaloc has been waiting for a very long time, centuries, circling our planet in his invisible spaceship, waiting for our technology to reach the point where we would be worth taking over. He has decided that now is the time, and this war is the beginning of the final, the ultimate war.”

  “All right, Max,” Dramocles said. “It’s a little florid, but I think it sounds fine.”

  Max looked puzzled. “Beg pardon, Sire? Every word I’m telling you is true.”

  “Max, you and I both know how this war started. I started it. Remember?”

  Max produced a weary, knowing smile. “My dear Lord, it was much more complicated than that. You were influenced to start this war. By Tlaloc. I can show you proof.”

  Dramocles decided that this was not the time to have it out with Max.

  “Okay, Max, we’ll go into it later. You’re doing a splendid job. You must continue to keep our people informed and united against the common enemy.”

  “Oh, I will, Sire. The agents of Tlaloc are everywhere, infiltrating, subverting. But I have a loyal group of men working with me. We will wipe out this evil.”

  “That’s good, Max. Go out there and get ’em.”

  Max stood to attention with a click of heels. He pressed his left hand to his heart. His right hand gripped his belt. “Hail Dramocles!” he cried, and departed.

  28

  Spearheaded by Max’s elite group, the population of Glorm got behind the anti-Tlaloc crusade with great enthusiasm. A standard college text was printed: Tlalocism: The Philosophy of Degradation. High schools used A History of the Tlaloc, and grade schools taught A Child’s History of the Tlaloc. On the kindergarten level, The Evil Tlaloc Picture Book was required coloring. The biggest best-seller that year was My Five Years with Tlaloc, and the movie Tlaloc–My Father, My Husband! was a smash at the box office.

  Dramocles didn’t know what to make of it all. Max’s industry was keeping the people of Glorm happy and occupied. The Glormish liked conspiracy, and that made them easy to govern.

  He wasn’t happy when the arrests began, but he saw that they were necessary. You can’t have a conspiracy without arresting some of the conspirators. If there are no arrests, people don’t thi
nk you’re serious. He told Max to see that the Tlaloc agents got sentences only for the duration of the war, and to make sure they were not mistreated. He figured he didn’t have to think any more about Tlalocism. Then came the incident in Oenome Village.

  Oenome Village was situated in distant Surnigar Province, a ragged peninsula in the north polar regions of Glorm. It was nearly seven thousand herdules from Ultragnolle, and some of that distance was over the Fearinger Divide, which clove the peninsula into two uneven parts before turning abruptly westward and merging with the great Sardekkian range. The village, with its little harbor of Fusmule, was a quiet place. The gaily painted fishing boats went out every morning, returning at sunset with their catch of spider lobster, nerdfish, saucy thrale, oligote, nemser, and sometimes, the prize catch of all, the elusive glibbin.

  Oenome was important because of the spaceship control station at nearby Point Nefrarer. This was a major tracking station for interplanetary and interstellar traffic. From here the feeder lines went to the computation station at Lisi Surrengar, and to the missile base two hundred svelti down the coast of Numinor Head. Control of the Point Nefrarer Station was necessary for the successful prosecution of an off-planet war. Thus the shock Dramocles experienced when he read the following story on page one of the Glorm Gazette:

  SHOCKING INCIDENT

  IN OENOME VILLAGE!

  Loyalty of Officers Questioned

  Who would Glormish officers obey in a crisis–their superiors, or Tlaloc, the mysterious entity to whom increasing numbers of people are said to have sworn loyalty? Recent events have raised this question.

  In Oenome Village, Jakkiter Durr was taken into custody today after raising local suspicions by giving a series of literary teas for liberal causes.

  Town constables searched Durr’s home and found large quantities of Tlalocian literature concealed in a false-bottomed pool table. An examination of Durr’s personal papers revealed a number of signed pledges to Tlaloc from local inhabitants. Some of the pledges were from officers at the nearby tracking station. Durr was also in possession of a top-secret chart of the station’s various functions.

  When questioned, the implicated officers admitted their guilt, but claimed they were “hypnotized by an alien presence,” and forced against their wills to attend “unspeakable orgies in a special dream-place that could be called neither real nor unreal.”

  Durr made several sensational statements to the arresting constables. He admitted that he was indeed an agent of Tlaloc. He claimed that Tlaloc had come to him in a series of lucid dreams, promising him “an immeasurable reward” for his cooperation. Durr added, “Doubt not that a time of heavy tribulation is coming. Tlaloc and his followers will soon manifest. The great choice will be on us all, and woe to him who chooses wrong, for he will find death, whereas Tlaloc is eternal life.”

  Durr is being held for further questioning, and charges will be brought against him at his arraignment later this month.

  Upon reading this, Dramocles marveled greatly, and fell into a mood of sore perplexity. Could there be something behind Max’s conspiracy theory after all? Did Tlaloc exist? Dramocles just didn’t want to think about it. Life was difficult enough without Tlaloc. He decided to look into it later, when he had time.

  29

  During Vitello’s mission to Vanir, Chuch sequestered himself in the Purple Palace, which his uncle had put at his disposal. The place was famous in the history of Crimsole. It was here that the earls of Cromstitch had come to rally the shattered forces of Elginwrath and his Freedom Stumpers, thus beginning the social movement known as Stitivism. It was in the Purple Palace, or, to be precise, in the formal gardens on its western side, that the Treaty of Horging was signed, thus ensuring a permanent linguistic gap between the speakers of Roemit and those of Old Tanth, and reducing to impotency the pretensions of Clarence, Duke of Hraughtly. It was a fine-looking place with its onion-shaped minarets and pointy towers, all surrounded by massive crenellated walls. The view from the upper battlements of the River Dys and the foothills of the Crossets was unsurpassed.

  Chuch was amusing himself in the downstairs torture chamber when the loudspeaker crackled into life. “Visitor at the gate,” it announced.

  The Prince looked up from his intense study of the naked young woman tied to the rack. “Who could that be?” he asked.

  “I’ll bet it’s Vitello,” said the naked young woman.

  “It’s Vitello,” the loudspeaker added.

  “Send him in,” Chuch said. “As for you,” he said, turning to the naked young lady, “I don’t think you are taking this as seriously as you should. You are helpless and in my power, and I am going to torture you painfully just as sure as matins ring out over cherry orchards on cold October evenings.”

  “Oh, I know, Your Lordship,” the young woman said. “And at first I felt badly about it, when Count John, whose gift to you I am, explained that I was to be grievously used to satisfy the brutish and sadistic lusts of my Lord Chuch. It was the first time I’d ever been in such a situation, so I didn’t know quite how to react, if you know what I mean. But I’ve been thinking, lying here on this rack, that it’s really quite romantic, you and me meeting this way. And, of course, your intense interest in me is most flattering. My name, by the way, is Doris.”

  “Woman,” Chuch said, “your assumptions are fantastical and untenable. There is no relationship between us. To me, you are simply a mass of flesh, a sentient cipher with legs, a nothing to be abused and cast aside.”

  “It really excites me when you say those things,” Doris said.

  “It is not supposed to!” Chuch shouted. Then, more calmly, he said, “I’d really prefer it if you didn’t talk at all. Couldn’t you just moan?”

  Doris moaned obligingly.

  “No, no, too cowlike,” Chuch said. “You’re supposed to be feeling pain.”

  “I realize that. But Sire, you haven’t gotten around to administering any pain yet. Even with this rack upon which I am stretched, naked, with my various orifices open to your eager inspection–”

  “Please,” Chuch said, wincing.

  “I was saying, not even this rack, upon which I am salaciously stretched, is done up tight enough to give me any pain, though of course I am simulating it as well as I can. It’s funny about pain–”

  “There’s nothing funny about pain,” Chuch said. “It hurts.”

  “I know. But it’s also exciting. When do we begin the rough stuff?”

  “When do I begin!” Chuch roared. “That is the question! I told you, this is entirely my show, and you–”

  “Yes, yes,” Doris said, moaning or mooning. “You know, you’re really very nice. There’s something boyish about you. And I like the way your eyes crinkle when you get angry.”

  Chuch walked across the torture chamber and lighted a cigarette with shaking fingers. The bloody woman had ruined everything. Why couldn’t she act the way she was supposed to?

  Just then the door creaked open and Vitello walked in. He wore a felt hunting cap with a buzzard’s claw stuck jauntily in the sweatband. His jerkin was robin’s egg blue, and it was set off nicely by his low-slung swordbelt of deepest pastrami pink. Orange, curly-toed boots of ganzer hide, imported from an entirely different realm of discourse, completed his ensemble. Hulga and Fufnir were with him.

  “What ho!” Vitello cried.

  “Besmirch me your ho’s,” Chuch said. “What news do you bring?”

  “Why, Lord, the stars move steadily in their courses, and, on the little worlds of man, the seasons advance, spring to summer, summer to fall–”

  “Really, Vitello, you are not to deliver rhapsodic flights under pain of my extreme displeasure.”

  Vitello smiled into his sleeve, for he knew that he was presently indispensable to Prince Chuch, who had no one else around with whom he could discuss his situation.

  “Don’t be so sure of yourself,” Chuch said, reading Vitello’s thoughts. “This place is full of servants
who would listen night and day to my utmost whines if I so desired it.”

  “But that would not be satisfactory, Sire,” Vitello said. “Such a discourse would not advance the plot, and would be sure to leave a sour taste of exposition in your mouth.”

  “You could talk to me,” Doris said wistfully.

  “To business,” Chuch said. “Vitello, can you forgo your madcap antics long enough to tell me the news?”

  “Aye, Sire, and the news is good. I have been successful in negotiating a treaty with Haldemar. He is your ally now, Sire, and ready to join your attack against Glorm.”

  “Oh, that’s good news indeed!” Chuch cried. “Events are moving my way at last! A drink! We must all have a drink!”

  Liquor was found and Doris was untied so she could join in. A bathrobe was found for her because she was taking up entirely too much attention.

  Several drinks later, Count John came rushing in.

  “Haldemar is here!” he cried.

  “That’s as it should be,” said Chuch. “He is our ally, Uncle.”

  “But those men with him–”

  “His retinue, no doubt.”

  “There are at least fifty thousand of them,” John said. “They have landed on my planet without permission!”

  Chuch turned to Vitello. “Did you tell that barbarian he could land his troops?”

  “Certainly not! I was much against it. But what could I do? Haldemar insisted upon accompanying me to Crimsole with his fleet. Since they were allies, I could not stop them from landing. I was just able to divert them from the capital by suggesting they might like to try Fun Park at nearby Vacation City. You know what barbarians are like.”

  “But I don’t want them here,” John said. “Can’t we just thank them and give them a good dinner and send them back home until we need them?”

  Just then Anne rushed in, her face ashen. “They’re spreading over the countryside, getting drunk and making remarks to women! I’ve pacified them temporarily by giving them unlimited free rides on the roller coaster, but I don’t know how long that will hold them.”