Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera

by Robert Sheckley

  Chuch said, “Uncle, there’s only one way of getting them off the planet. You must muster your ships for the attack on Glorm. Haldemar will follow.”

  “No,” Anne said, “we can’t even afford to fight Lekk, much less Glorm.”

  “Taking Glorm will make you rich,” Chuch said.

  “No, it won’t,” Anne told him. “Most of the profit would go to the surplus conquest tax. Haldemar might even want to keep Glorm for himself. Frankly, I don’t think any of us wants Haldemar for a neighbor.”

  They argued, and Doris served tea and went out for cigarettes and sandwiches. By nightfall, Haldemar’s troops were sacking the outskirts of Vacation City. A steady stream of refugees poured out of the city with tales of how blond berserkers in animal skins were using the cabanas without paying for them, charging hotel rooms and expensive dinners to imaginary people, driving around in motorcycle gangs (for the Vanir never went anywhere without their motorcycles), and generally making nuisances of themselves. Pushed and prodded by circumstance, Count John launched his fleet. Haldemar managed to get his men back aboard their ships with talk of the booty they would win. Soon the combined fleets were in space, making final preparations for the great campaign against Glorm.

  30

  Prince Chuch did not immediately join the combined fleet. There was no need, since the attack on Glorm could not begin until the ships of Crimsole and Vanir had maneuvered together and worked out problems of procedure and precedence. Once that boring stuff was out of the way, Chuch would join the fleet with his own troops, a squadron of killer cyborgs recently purchased at a clearance sale on Atigone. Then the fun would begin! Vividly Chuch pictured himself fighting at the head of his men, a bloodstained handkerchief knotted around his brow, hacking his way with flame sword and vibrator mace through Glorm’s crumbling defenses, penetrating at last to Ultragnolle. There would be deadly fighting, room to room and corridor to corridor, until he came face-to-face with Dramocles, the old stag brought to bay. Ah, the glory of that moment! While everyone watched, breathless, Chuch would defeat Dramocles in a dazzling display of swordsmanship. After that, he might kill the King, or merely disarm him contemptuously and spare his life. It would depend on how he felt at the time.

  The days passed slowly while the allied fleet practiced right turns and about-faces. Vitello fulfilled his marriage vow by taking Hulga to a rock concert in venerable Sligny Hall in downtown Crimsole. The band was a group from Lekk called Nose Candy. Their lead singer claimed to be Jim Morrison, a famous Earth rock singer of the 1960s, whose story of how he came to be doing gigs on Crimsole rather than lying dead in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris is too long to go into just now. Whoever “Jim Morrison” was, his rendition of “Crystal Ship” was declared “somewhere beyond inimitable” by Galba Davers, music critic for the Crimsole Times. Hulga said that she had been “just completely blown away.” It was the highest compliment she could render. Vitello’s marriage was getting off to a better start than it’s casual beginnings might have augured.

  Fufnir was given hospitality by a hospitable troll tribe living in the dark hills of Crimsole’s northern province of Feare. They swapped spells and got drunk and talked about the good old days when magic ruled the universe and science consisted only of solid geometry and a little physics. Chuch tried to resume his torturing of Doris, but the pleasure seemed to have gone out of it for him, and the girl was no help at all. When she was not tied to the rack, Doris was sweeping out the torture chamber, making cucumber sandwiches, dusting the gloomy portraits of Crimsole’s former kings, and chatting incessantly. Chuch always responded politely, since he felt that being a sadist didn’t excuse a man from having manners. But was he a sadist, really? He never seemed to think about pain anymore. What he enjoyed nowadays was consulting Doris on matters of homely practicality, like why he was always out of clean shirts and who had left the top off the mustard. Although he despised himself for it, Chuch walked around most of the time in a daze of domestic bliss.

  Then, suddenly, it was over. Count John signaled to him that the fleets would depart for Glorm in twelve hours. Ahead lay death or glory, or possibly some other alternative. The time for action had come at last.

  For his last night on Crimsole, Chuch decided to give Doris a birthday party. Vitello and Hulga came over, and Fufnir flew in from Feare. After dinner, it was time for presents.

  Vitello gave Doris a miniature castle made of marzipan, with four fine pearls nestled in each of its four turrets. Hulga’s gift was a parrot that could recite the opening stanzas of Longfellow’s “Hiawatha.” Fufnir presented her with an antique storybook that troll mothers used to frighten troll children. The opening lines were, “Once upon a time, a troll child wandered away from its mother and came to a clearing in the forest where humans were eating boiled babies and laughing.”

  Chuch had two gifts for Doris. The first was a box of precious gems. The second was her freedom–for Doris was still legally a slave. She had been born a free citizen of Aardvark, but had been captured by raiders and sold to Count John. Since Anne wouldn’t permit him to use the pretty Aardvarkian girl as he desired, the Count had given her to Chuch to debauch, figuring that a vicarious pleasure was better than no pleasure at all.

  Two tears stood out in Doris’s blue eyes as she read the Parchment of Enfranchisement. Then, opening the jewel box, she looked through the fine stones, exclaiming at their magnificence. One in particular caught her eye–a solitaire diamond in a delicate gold setting.

  “My Lord,” she said, “it looks exceedingly like an engagement ring.”

  Chuch scowled, but he was obviously pleased. “I suppose it does,” he said gruffly.

  “Then may I pretend from time to time that it was meant as such for me?”

  Chuch bit the end of his mustache. His sallow face grew pink. “Doris,” he said, “you may pretend to be engaged to me, and I shall pretend to do the same.”

  She thought for a few moments. “But my Lord, in that case, will not the pretense be true?”

  “And what if it is?” Chuch said, embarrassed but proud of himself. “But mark me, have clean T-shirts for my return, or the whole thing’s off.”

  Vitello, Hulga, and Fufnir congratulated the happy young couple. Then it was time to join the fleet.

  31

  Drusilla and Rufus met at their special place, Anastragon, a planetoid lying between Glorm and Druth. Anastragon had once belonged to mad King Bidocq of Druth, who had built a hunting lodge there, but had never gotten around to stocking the place with animals and oxygen. Anastragon was airless except for the hunting lodge. The little planetoid had one other peculiarity: it was invisible. Bidocq had had the entire place painted with Nondetecto, a product of the Old Science of Earth that turned back all frequencies of the visual spectrum and was also waterproof. Much of the paint had worn off now. Viewed from space, Anastragon looked like islets of volcanic rock floating next to each other in space for no apparent reason at all.

  Rufus was already there when Drusilla arrived. He loved Anastragon, for here he kept his collection of toy soldiers, the largest in the galaxy. At present he was recreating the Battle of Waterloo on the kitchen floor.

  Commander Rufus was in many ways a typical product of the War College on Antigone. He was brave, loyal, unsophisticated, perhaps even a bit simpleminded. His attention to detail was well known among his troops, who adored him. They used to say that Rufus could find dust on the edge of a palimpar. It was a standing joke among his officers that even during the supreme moment of the act of love, Rufus could be counted on to be thinking of thriolatry and its relation to field logistics.

  Rufus excelled at games of physical contact, and was an expert at kree-alai, the ancient Glormish game involving three balls, a baton, and a small green net. He seemed a simple and predictable man.

  “Hello, darling,” Drusilla said, throwing back her ermine hood.

  “Ah,” Rufus said. He was busy setting up Marshal Ney’s position at Quatre Bras. Ruf
us never seemed to notice Drusilla when they were alone together, and this fascinated her.

  Drusilla said, “Do you love me?”

  Rufus replied, “You know I do.”

  “But you never say so.”

  “Well, I’m saying it now.”

  “Saying what?”

  “You know.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “Damnit, Drusilla, I love you. Now will you stop nagging me?”

  “I suppose that will have to do,” Drusilla said, pouring herself a goblet of purplish green wine from Mendocino.

  “Was there something in particular you wanted to discuss?” Rufus asked. “Your request for a meeting was rather peremptory in tone.”

  “Well, I have something urgent on my mind,” Drusilla said. “Not to mince words, what would you think about betraying Dramocles?”

  “Betray Dramocles!” Rufus gave an uncertain laugh. “That’s a hell of a thing for his beloved daughter to say to his best friend. You always tell me I miss the point of jokes. Is this one?”

  “Unfortunately, it is not. I’m suggesting it in all seriousness as the only way of saving Dramocles from destroying himself and everybody else in an interplanetary war. Were he in his right senses, I’m sure that Dramocles himself would agree that betrayal was justified under these circumstances.”

  “But we can’t ask him, can we?” Rufus asked, fingering his mustache.

  “Of course not. If he were in his right mind, we wouldn’t have to ask him, would we?”

  Rufus showed his inner perturbation by picking up Wellington and absentmindedly setting him down in the English Channel. He gave his mustache a painful twist and said, “It wouldn’t look very good, my dear.”

  “I’ve spoken about it to Mr. Doyle, your public relations man. He says that, given the urgency of the situation, he could fix it so that the population of the Local Planets would consider you a savior rather than a treacherous dog.”

  “Brutus had the loftiest motives, too, when he joined the conspiracy against Julius Caesar. But his name ever since has been synonymous with treachery.”

  “My dear, that’s because he had no press agent,” Drusilla said. “Mark Anthony preempted the media and turned everyone against him. You know Mr. Doyle would never allow anything like that to happen to you. It would mean his job.”

  Rufus paced up and down the room, hands clasped behind his back. “It’s quite impossible. If I betrayed my friend Dramocles, I could never live with myself afterwards.”

  “As for that,” Drusilla said, “I took the liberty of discussing the matter with your therapist, Dr. Geltfoot. In his opinion, your ego strength is sufficient to bear the short-lived guilt you would experience. About a year of remorse is the worst you would have to expect, and that could be shortened considerably with drugs. Dr. Geltfoot asked me to point out that he is not advising you in this matter one way or the other. He is simply telling you that you can betray Dramocles without psychological damage to yourself if you think the circumstances warrant it.”

  Rufus paced rapidly up and down the room, pain and uncertainty evident on his blunt soldierly features. “Must it come to this?” he asked. “That Dramocles, the noblest and most generous soul in the world, should be betrayed by the two people who love him most? Why, Dru, tell me why?”

  Tears were flowing down Drusilla’s cheeks as she said, “Because it is the only way we can save him and the Local Planets from destruction.”

  “And there’s no other way?”

  “None at all.”

  “Can you explain to me how betrayal would help?”

  “My darling, I’m afraid it would be over your head. Couldn’t you take my word for it?”

  “Well, explain a little, anyhow.”

  “Very well. You know, Rufus, that the great moral balancing beam of the universe is slow to move from its pivot within men’s souls. Yet once it is set into motion, change is inexorable and irresistible. We are at such a point, Rufus, and all creation is hushed at this moment, poised for the plunge into catastrophe which none desire yet none can avert. The two great fleets, snubnosed destroyer facing lapstraked attacker, await the order; and Death, that grinning joker, shakes the dice of war and takes one last mocking look at the petty affairs of men before–”

  “You’re right,” Rufus said. “I don’t understand. I’ll just have to take your word for it. You say that I must betray Dramocles. How am I do to that?”

  “Military action is imminent,” Drusilla said. “Dramocles will be sure to call on you soon. He will ask you to do something with the fleet of Druth.”

  “Yes, go on.”

  “Whatever he asks of you, agree to it, but then do its opposite.”

  Rufus’s brow knitted in concentration. “Its opposite, you say?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Opposite,” Rufus said again. “All right, I think I’ve got it.”

  Drusilla put her hand on his arm. In low, thrilling tones she said, “Can we count on you, Rufus?”

  “We?”

  “Me and the civilized universe, my darling.”

  “Trust me, my love.”

  They embraced. Then Drusilla gave a start of alarm. “Rufus! There’s a face at the window!”

  Rufus whirled, needle beamer in his hand. But he could see nothing through the double-glazed windows except the usual floating bits of Anastragon’s real estate.

  “There’s nothing there,” he said.

  “I saw someone!” Drusilla declared.

  Rufus suited up, turned on the planetoid’s external lighting system, and went outside to investigate. He returned, shaking his head. “No one out there, my dear.”

  “But I did see a face!”

  “A hallucination, perhaps, brought on by stress.”

  “Did you check for spaceship tire marks?”

  “As a matter of fact, there were some out there.”

  “Aha!”

  “But they were from our own ships.”

  “I guess I do have a case of nerves,” Drusilla said, with a shaky laugh. “I’ll be glad when this is over!”

  They kissed, and Drusilla went out to her space cutter and set off for Ystrad.

  Rufus remained on Anastragon a while longer. He toasted marshmallows on the end of his sword over the gas ring and thought about what Drusilla had said. A dear girl, Drusilla, but overserious and inclined to hysterics. It was all nonsense, of course. Rufus had no intention of betraying Dramocles. If it came right down to it, better he and Dramocles and the universe should go down gloriously in atomic fire than that real friendship should be betrayed. But it would never come to that. Trust Dramocles to pull the marshmallows out of the fire, or rather, the chestnuts. Dru would see how wrong she had been, if any of them were alive after that.

  Rufus really didn’t mind the idea of a war. In fact, he was quite up for it, just like his friend, Dramocles.

  32

  There was an air of hushed expectancy in the dimly lit War Room of Ultragnolle Castle. On the TV displays, the screens were filled with tiny gleaming figures, rank upon rank of them. Two spacefleets were coming together in the immensity of space. To one side, the forces of Druth were arranged in neat phalanxes. Rufus’s ships were motionless, battle-ready, keeping station just behind the coordinates that marked Druth’s personal space. Approaching them, strung out in a double horn formation, were the enemy. John’s superdreadnoughts held the right flank and center, Haldemar’s lapstraked vessels the left. Dramocles could see that the enemy fleet was considerably larger than Rufus’s. John had called up all his reserves. Aside from the regular navy, there were stubby freighters outfitted with missile launchers, high-speed racers with jury-rigged torpedo tubes, experimental craft with bulky beam projectors. John had called up everything that could get off the planet and keep up with the fleet.

  Utilizing a split-screen technique handed down from the ancients, Dramocles could watch as well as listen to the conversation between Rufus and Count John.

&nb
sp; “Hello there, Rufus,” said Count John, in a voice of elaborate unconcern.

  Rufus, in his Operations Room, touched the fine tuning. “Why, hello, John. Come visiting, have you?”

  “That I have,” John said. “And I’ve brought along a friend.”

  Haldemar’s shaggy head appeared on another screen. “Hi, Rufus. Been awhile, ain’t it?”

  Rufus had been peeling a willow branch with a small pocket knife. “Reckon it has,” he said. “How you boys doin’ out there on Vanir?”

  “It’s pretty much the way it’s always been,” Haldemar said. “Not enough sunlight, too short a growing season, no industry, no decent-looking women. Not that I’m complaining, mind.”

  “I know it’s tough conditions out your way. But wasn’t there some big project planned for Vanir?”

  “You must mean Schligte Productions. They’d planned to film their new super war epic, Succotash Soldiers, on our planet. It would have meant a lot of work for the boys. But production’s been held up indefinitely.”

  “Well,” Rufus said, “that’s show business.”

  The amiable, rambling talk of these men could not conceal the air of tension that ran through their casual words like a filament of tungsten steel passing through the inconsequential fluff of a fiberfill pillow. At last Rufus asked, “Well, it’s nice to pass the time of day with you fellows. Now, is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Why yes, Rufus,” John said. “We’re just passing this way on our way to Glorm. We ain’t got no quarrel with you. Me and the boys would appreciate it right kindly if you’d ask your boys to step aside so we could continue.”

  Rufus said, “It downright distresses me to tell you this, but I don’t think I can do that.”

  John said, “Rufus, you know very well we’ve come here to have it out with Dramocles. Let us through. This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Just a minute.” Rufus turned to a side monitor that employed a tight-beam TV circuit passing through a double scrambler. He said to Dramocles, “What do you want me to do?”