Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera

by Robert Sheckley

  Dramocles glanced at the differential accelerometer. It showed that John and Haldemar’s spaceships were creeping forward slowly, taking their time, just moseying along; but they were on the move, directly toward Rufus’s phalanx.

  Dramocles had already ordered his own ships to a distant backup position on the perimeter of Glorm. He told Rufus to hold position and await orders. Then he heard a commotion behind him. The guards were arguing with someone who was trying to gain admittance to the War Room. Dramocles saw that it was Max. There was a woman with him.

  “What is it?” Dramocles asked.

  Max said, “Have you given Rufus any orders yet? No? Thank God! Sire, you must listen to me and to this young lady. There’s treachery afoot, my Lord!”

  The enemy fleet was not yet within firing range of Rufus’s ships. There was still a little time.

  “Hold everything for a moment, Rufus,” Dramocles said. “I’ll get back to you in a minute.” He turned to Max. “Come in. This had better not be some wild fancy, Max. And who’s your friend?”

  “They call me Chemise,” the girl said.

  33

  While these events were transpiring, Drusilla sat and brooded in her castle in Ystrad. She had gone there directly after leaving Anastragon. By the time she arrived, she was in a state of misery. The righteous anger that had sustained her while she had been with Rufus was gone. Doubts had begun to assail her. She wondered now why she had trusted Chuch so readily, when she knew well his hatred of Dramocles and his propensity toward lying. Had she done the right thing? She was no longer certain, and her depression deepened until she could bear it no longer. Luckily for her, her psychiatrist, Dr. Eigenlicht, happened to have a cancellation that very day.

  Their session was extremely productive. Drusilla told Eigenlicht what she had done, and why, and then went into hysterics.

  Eigenlicht waited until she had calmed down. Then he lighted a short, stubby black cigar, sat back in his armchair, crossed his short, stubby black legs, and said, “My dear, this is what I call a real breakthrough. Your perception of your brother’s true motives forces you to recognize your own unconscious motivation for accepting his treacherous plan so readily. Now you can see that your oh-so-great love for Dear Old Daddy was actually a cover-up for feelings of unacknowledged rage and a desire for revenge.”

  “But I love him!” Drusilla wailed.

  “Of course you do. But you also hate him. The ambivalence is obvious. How could it be otherwise? Consider your childhood, think of all those girl friends Dramocles had. But Daddy never wanted little Dru in that way, did he? Little Dru wanted to be Daddy’s girl friend, but her perfidious father always treated her like a child, always wanted someone else. Thus were engendered feelings of murderous rage, unacceptable to your conscious mind. In an attempt to sublimate them you went into religion, seeking to subsume your destructive energies under the aegis of a higher purpose. And this is why you chose Rufus to love–Rufus, the embodiment of stern control, another father figure, a man obsessed with many things, but not with you. When the chance came to take revenge upon Dramocles, the subtle servant of bad faith, rationalization, let you clothe your vengeful feelings in the sweetest and most loving of motivations.”

  “Oh, Doctor,” Drusilla said, “I guess you must be right. I’m so ashamed.”

  “Nonsense, everyone feels that way. You have made a splendid breakthrough, my dear, and you should be proud of yourself. It is a triumph for your ego strength! With this ancient and suppressed complex drained of its poisonous energies, you can realize at last your true love for your father.”

  “Oh, Dr. Eigenlicht, you’re right,” Drusilla said, smiling through her tears. “It’s like some unbearable weight has been lifted off me, you know what I mean?”

  “Indeed I do,” said Dr. Eigenlicht. “But remember, this is the first flush of your enthusiasm. There’s still a lot of hard work for us to do so that we can consolidate your gains.”

  “I know,” Drusilla said.

  “I see that our time is about up. Shall we say next Thursday at the same time?”

  “Oh dear,” Drusilla said. “I just remembered. We’re on the verge of war.”

  “Yes? What are your associations to that?”

  “No, really, Doctor, this is a reality situation. I must see my father and Rufus at once! I just hope there’s time, before civilization is destroyed.”

  Dr. Eigenlicht gave her an imperturbable smile and uncrossed his short, stubby black legs. “In the event that civilization is not destroyed,” he said calmly, “I will see you at this time next Thursday.”

  34

  “Max,” Dramocles said, “I’ve got no time for Tlaloc. The real fighting is about to begin.”

  “I know that, Sire,” Max said. “It’s why I have come. I have just received the most astounding information. It is of vital cornern to the war. It involves treachery.”

  “Treachery? In the military?”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “Who?”

  “It is most lamentable,” Max said. “This lady has brought me incontrovertible proof that Rufus is going to betray you in the coming battle.”

  “Rufus, did you say?”

  “Aye, Sire.”

  “Come with me,” Dramocles said. He led them through the War Room to an unoccupied office. The room had two lumpy couches, some wooden folding chairs, and a desk piled high with Xeroxed duty rosters. Dramocles told them to sit down. He drew a cup of cappuccino from the wall spigot, then turned to Max.

  “The evidence had better be something stronger than overwhelming, or I’ll see your head on the end of a pike as soon as I can get one from Supply.”

  Max said to Chemise, “Give it to him, girl.”

  Chemise opened her purse and gave the King a tiny cassette recorder. Within it was a single-use Reprono cassette. Reprono, an Earth invention, could only record once, and would only play back once. Any attempt to dub or replay a Reprono cassette resulted in a steady hiss of static punctuated by old weather forecasts.

  Dramocles played the tape and listened to the entire conversation between Rufus and Drusilla at the lodge on Anastragon. As he listened, a look of shock and amazement came over his face.

  “Betrayed!” he said at last. “And by my beloved daughter and my dearest friend!” He staggered and might have fallen had not Max helped him into a canvas director’s chair. Stenciled on the back were the words: Dramocles Rex. The Buck Stops Here.

  “O unforeseen action of the merciless gods! Now is red-eyed Sorrow come to me indeed, for my own best friend–but say not friend, but rather, a false-faced scallion whose love of malice sought to reduce–”

  “I think you meant ‘scullion,’” Max said.

  Dramocles’ eyes flashed red. The guards, understanding that look, rushed up and seized Max. Too late the hapless PR man realized that, in the excitement of the moment, he had been guilty of interrupting a soliloquy given by the protagonist at a moment of high emotion. The penalty was death. Max tried to speak, but words choked in his throat. He fell to his knees, hands clasped pleadingly.

  “Nay, let him be,” Dramocles growled at the guards. “I may take up the speech again later, as is my right as king and protagonist and tragic hero. For now, there’s work to be done. So Rufus will betray me by reversing my orders? Give me the telephone!”

  “Rufus!” he boomed, as soon as the connection was made. “Is all well?”

  “Well indeed, Sire.”

  “The enemy?”

  “They approach steadfastly.”

  “You must not impede them in any way, Rufus. You must pull back your ships and let them through.”

  “But to what end, Sire? What of Glorm? Your fleet alone will not suffice to throw back Haldemar’s shock-haired berserkers, aided as they are by John’s smooth-haired shirkers.”

  “I’ve a stratagem, never fear.”

  “Then you’ll crush them, old boy?”

  “Yes, and swallow them, bones and all,” Dram
ocles said, grinding his teeth.

  “Can you tell me the plan?”

  “Not over the phone. Trust me, old friend. At the proper moment, you’ll have your part to play.”

  “Good, good,” said Rufus. “It shall be as you wish.”

  Dramocles put down the phone. “Okay. Since I told him to let the enemy through, the only way he can betray me is by holding them at his perimeter. That ought to give me time enough to regroup my ships, plan a counterattack–”

  “Dramocles,” said Chemise.

  “Yes, girl?”

  “There’s something better that you can do.”

  “And that is?”

  “Make peace! On any terms at all, but make peace.”

  “The matter’s gone too far for that,” Dramocles told her. “Besides, this is my destiny.”

  “But that’s just the point!” cried Chemise. “This is not your destiny at all! It’s someone else’s! You have been manipulated, Dramocles, duped, deceived! You think you command, but there’s another who directs you by indirection, forcing you to go against your deepest wishes in order to achieve his!”

  “And who is this personage?”

  “He is Tlaloc!”

  Dramocles looked intently into her frank blue eyes. “My dear,” he said gently, “I have no time to talk conspiracy. There is no Tlaloc. Max invented him.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “So Max thought at one time, though he knows better now. Actually, the name was suggested to him by Tlaloc himself, and projected by astral telepathy from the planet where he lives.”

  “This is madness! What planet are you talking about?”

  “Earth, my Lord.”

  “Earth is in ruins.”

  “That’s not the Earth I mean,” Chemise said. “There are uncountable Earths, each lying within its own reality strata. Normally, there’s no way of getting from one reality strata to another. But in this case, a singularity exists, forming a connection between Glorm and this Earth. The two are tied together by a wormhole in the cosmic foam.”

  “I don’t understand this at all,” Dramocles said. “Do we really need these complications? And how do you know all this, anyhow?”

  “Because, King, I am from that Earth. I can show proof of this, but it will take time. I beg you to accept my word for the present. Tlaloc exists, and he is a magician of supreme power. He needs Glorm, and he is making you dance to his tune.”

  Dramocles looked at the nearest monitor. He could make no sense out of the confusion of colored dots and streaky lines. Spacefleets were maneuvering, and the situation was unclear.

  “All right,” Dramocles said. “Who are you? What the hell is going on?”

  35

  Chemise told Dramocles that she was a girl from Earth, born in Plainfield, New Jersey, some twenty-six years ago. Her name at that time was Myra Gritzler. Normal in all other respects, Myra had the misfortune of weighing 226 pounds at the age of sixteen. This was due to an obscure pituitary defect that Earth doctors were unable to correct, but that, in ten years, would remit spontaneously and dramatically when Myra traveled through the cosmic wormhole between Earth and Glorm. But she could not know that then. At sixteen she was a bright, lonely fat girl, scholastically superior to the children around her, laughed at by her classmates and never invited to pajama parties.

  Life was discouraging until the day she met Ron Bugleat. Ron was seventeen, tall and skinny, red-haired, with homely country good looks. He was president of his school’s computer club. He had been Fan Guest of Honor at Pyongcon, North Korea’s first science-fiction convention. He also published his own magazine. It was called Action at a Distance: A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Non-Obvious Forces That Shape Us. Ron was a conspiracy buff.

  Ron believed that much of mankind’s history had been influenced by secret forces and hidden influences unacknowledged by the “official” historians. Many people in America believed something like this, but Ron didn’t believe what they believed. He looked down on most conspiracy buffs as gullible and intellectually naïve. They were the sort of people who would believe in Atlantis, Lemuria, deros in underground caverns, little green men from Mars, and anything else that was presented to them with some show of verisimilitude. These people could be manipulated by superior intellects, and evidence of that manipulation could be hidden to all except the very discerning. A false conspiracy was a good concealment for a real conspiracy.

  Ron believed that superior intellects had been manipulating humankind intermittently throughout recorded history. He thought it was happening now. He thought he knew who was doing it.

  All of the leads that Ron had been following in the last few years led to one organization, a large corporation called Tlaloc, Inc.

  Myra joined Ron in his investigations. They turned up more and more evidence of Tlaloc’s influence in high places. A pattern began to emerge of a large, secretive corporation gaining power through corruption and psychic domination. Tlaloc, Inc., had a way of reaching people and gaining adherents. The people who worked for Tlaloc seemed to have a special understanding among themselves. Intelligent and arrogant, they respected no one except their leader, the mysterious and reticent Tlaloc himself.

  As their investigations continued, Ron and Myra turned up increasing evidence of occult influences at work. One of the newer Tlaloc officials whom they interviewed even hinted that the long-awaited marriage of science and magic was soon to take place, and that Tlaloc would be the leader of a new mystic world order. When they questioned him again, the official denied having said anything like that and threatened them with a suit for slander.

  Not long after that, Myra learned that the Tlaloc organization was aware of her and Ron, and displeased. The local police began to harass them. Ron’s license to vend chocolate-chip cookies on the street was revoked without reason. Myra was enjoined by court order from selling her macrame without supplying documentary proof that all of her string was made in the USA. They began to receive obscene phone calls, and finally, outright threats.

  Just as their situation was growing desperate, they were visited by a mild-mannered man in his sixties with a hearing aid and wearing a seersucker suit. He introduced himself as Jaspar Cole of Eureka, California, a retired prosthetics manufacturer. Cole and his friends had become alarmed about the growing power of Tlaloc, Inc., but they could think of nothing to do about it until they read a newspaper article about Ron and Myra. Jaspar Cole had come to offer them financing in their continuing efforts to unmask the real identity of Tlaloc and the true purpose of his organization.

  When the threats and harassment turned ugly, Ron and Myra went underground to protect their lives. It was at this time that Myra changed her name to Chemise. Working out of an abandoned warehouse in Wichita, Kansas, she and Ron gathered conclusive evidence of Tlaloc’s biggest coup: outright purchase of all Mafia services for a period of ten years.

  Against her advice, Ron presented his evidence to local CIA headquarters. They thanked him politely and said he would be hearing from them. Two days later, Ron was dead. The only evidence of foul play was the green stain on his fingernails, officially listed as “idiopathic anomaly.” Chemise knew from her research that the newest CIA poison, KLAKA-5, produced similar stains.

  Working alone, Chemise found aid and assistance from science-fiction fans all over the country. Occult groups devoted to white magic also helped her. As her work went on, she discovered that she was developing psychic powers, as if in response to her long association with Tlaloc. She learned that this was indeed the case in her one meeting with Tlaloc himself.

  In Waco, Texas, Chemise had been tracking down a rumor about a coven of Tlaloc worshipers. The telephone in her motel room rang. The caller identified himself as Tlaloc. Since she was so interested in him, he suggested that they meet. He would send a car around for her immediately.

  Chemise had a few minutes of absolute panic. She was sure it was Tlaloc she had been speaking to; the force in that voice had been extraord
inary, as had been the sense of evil that it conveyed. It was Tlaloc, all right. But he didn’t have to lure her to a secret rendezvous in order to kill her. Tlaloc was powerful enough to have her eradicated anytime he wanted to. No, there was some other reason for this meeting, and Chemise was curious.

  A limousine took her down State Highway 61, past Popeye’s Fried Chicken, Wendy’s Hamburgers, and Fat Boy’s Pork Barbecue, past Hotdog Heaven and Guns for Sale; past an Exxon station, past Smilin’ Johnson’s Used Car Emporium and Slim Nelson’s Pancake Palace, to the Alamo Motel on the outskirts of town. The driver told her to go to room 231. Chemise knocked, and was told to come in. Within the dimly lighted room, a bald, mustached man was sitting in an armchair, waiting for her. He reminded her of Ming the Merciless from the old Flash Gordon comic strips. She knew who he was even before he told her.

  “I am Tlaloc,” he said. “And you are Myra Gritzler, also known as Chemise, and my enemy, sworn to destroy me.”

  “When you put it that way, it really sounds ridiculous,” Chemise said.

  Tlaloc smiled. “There is a considerable disparity between our powers. But you have potential, my dear. A good enemy is not to be despised. And a resourceful magician finds a use for anything.”

  Chemise said, “So you are actually a magician?”

  “Yes, as you have surmised. I am what you call a black magician, dedicated to myself and my followers rather than to that illusory abstraction men call God. I am a remarkable magician, if you will permit me to say so. My abilities are greater than those of Paracelsus or Albertus Magnus, greater than Raimondo Llull’s or the remarkable Cagliostro, greater even than the infamous Count of Saint-Germain.”

  Chemise believed him. Tlaloc was powerful, evil, and her enemy. At the same time, she felt unthreatened in his presence. She knew that he wanted to talk, to be admired, and that her life was not presently in danger.

  “I will admit,” Tlaloc went on, “that this is an easy century in which to be a magician. Today, profit sharing has replaced religion, and the blind worship of science has done away with the last vestiges of common sense. A few hundred years ago, the Church would have burned me at the stake. Today, the agents of the FBI and CIA have replaced the familiars of the Inquisition. Many of them are for sale, like most things in this admirably pragmatic country. Twentieth-century science gives me greater power than any of my predecessors could have imagined. Not only does science work–unlike alchemy–but it is also a powerful symbol system, itself a source of great energies.”