Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera

by Robert Sheckley

  It was at this time that the Vanir migrated from Galactic Center in their lapstraked spaceships, entering history and further complicating it. But the various wars, alliances, treaties, and battles involving them are not part of this history.

  Attempts were made throughout this period to form world governments, but Glorm was not united politically until the reign of Ilk the Forswearer, so named because he would say anything to get his way. Planetary unification made possible another dream: single control of all the local planets, or “Universal Rule” as it was somewhat grandiosely called. The Glormish Empire came and went, and Otho’s father, Deel the Unfathomable, was the first to publicly declare it an invalid proposition, and to propose in its place the republican principle as it applied to kings. Otho carried on his father’s work, and, by the end of his reign, peace among the planets was a reality.

  Otho was a man of high intelligence, iron will, and raging ambition. With warfare, the sport of kings, barred from him by his own decision, he looked around for something else to do, something sufficiently bold and challenging to capture and hold his sometimes fickle attention. After trying chess, trout fishing, landscape painting, and crosscountry bicycling, in all of which he excelled, he turned to the occult.

  In Otho’s time, the occult included science, itself a deep mystery to the Glormians, who had inherited their technology entire, ran it blindly, had little or no idea how it worked, and couldn’t fix it when it broke down. Otho’s approach was on several levels. He suspected that science and magic were co-existing realities, in many ways interchangeable. Despite this insight, Otho might have remained a mere dabbler if he had not acquired, in a momentous trade, an advanced computer from Earth, along with a skilled robot technician named Dr. Fish. For these two semisentient machines, Otho paid King Sven, Haldemar’s father, a thousand spaceship-loads of pigs. The pork barbecue that followed remains a high point in Vanir history.

  The computer could be considered a living thing. It had no bodily functions except for occasional unexplained discharges of electricity. In its years on Earth, it had in fact known Sir Isaac Newton. At the time of their meeting in 1718, Newton had already been recognized as England’s most outstanding scientist. A quiet, unpretentious man, pleased with the honors his accomplishments had won him, Newton chose not to reveal his discoveries in magic to the superstitious gentry among whom he lived. The world would not be ready for such knowledge until mankind had reached a much higher moral and scientific level. Newton kept his real occult knowledge to himself, only hinting at it in the many volumes of arcana that he wrote in his last years. But he saw no harm in discussing what he knew with the strange, brilliant Latvian exile who was earning a living grinding lenses for Leeuwenhoek and others.

  Subsequently, the computer instructed Otho in Newton’s mysteries, though denying any interest in them itself. The computer was interested in men, whom it found more interesting and less predictable than the subatomic particles whose habits and configurations it had been studying previously. When asked to explain certain illogicalities, inconsistencies, and even downright contradictions in its behavior, the computer had replied that it was practicing being a man. The computer’s own story–by whom it was built, how it came to visit eighteenth-century London, why it turned up later as part of a shipment of booty on Vanir–though interesting in its own right, has no place in the present account.

  Under the computer’s tutelage, and concealed from the populace at large, Otho learned many matters of a curious and profound nature. He became an occultist, and proved to have an incredible gift for “The Work.” The computer often said that Otho was better than any magician he had ever known, better than Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus, better even than Raimondo Llull, the Majorcan polymath. The person he most resembled, the computer said, was an Earthman named Dr. Faustus, a mage of great capacity who came to a bad end and whose story has been told in many garbled versions.

  True magicians are extremely practical and hard-headed men. They are spiritual stockbrokers, trying to get a corner on the most precious commodity of all, longevity. Life is fundamental to all enterprises, the acquiring of it the most fundamental of occupations. The magician, seer, shaman, or mystic seeks the rejuvenating effects of astral travel. Through long practice in trance, he acquires the power to separate mind from body and to project the essence of himself to other times and places. The magician’s personality is able to survive the death of his body, at least for a while. How long depends on the power he can attract, bind, and direct. Living is a matter of power.

  Modern magicians can bypass the tedious methods of the past and go directly to the source of power–the explosion of atoms, the unbinding of the ultimate particles. Controlling these forces within the lines of a man-dalic visualization, the magician can project himself to another world, another reality.

  Traveling between realities is the way to life everlasting.

  This is what Otho told his twenty-year-old son, Dramocles, shortly before setting off to his laboratory on Gliese, smallest of Glorm’s three moons, and blowing it to bits, and himself, too, apparently.

  In actuality, Otho didn’t die. He had planned the explosion. Directing it, riding it, joining it, Otho journeyed to a different dimension along a wormhole in the cosmic foam. Where he came out, there was a place called Earth, its history different from the Earth in Otho’s reality. In this reality, there was no Glorm.

  In their final talk, Otho told Dramocles about his destiny. Young Dramocles had been awestruck by the splendor that lay before him; for Otho intended immortality for his son as well as for himself, intended the two of them to be as gods in the cosmos, self-sufficient, and bound to nothing at all. And Dramocles had also understood the necessity of having his memories of this destiny suppressed for a while. Otho had allotted himself thirty years to get control of Earth. During that time he needed Dramocles to rule quietly, passively, unconsciously. Dramocles had to wait, and it was better for him not even to know that he was waiting.

  “But now,” Otho said, “the final veil is lifted. We are together again, my dear son, and the time of your destiny has come at last. The final act approaches.”

  “What final act?” Dramocles asked.

  “I refer to the great war which is soon to begin, yourself and Rufus against John and Haldemar. It is what I planned, and it must take place. We need an atomic holocaust to produce enough power to open the wormhole between Earth and Glorm, and to keep it open. Then we will be able to travel between realities as we please, using our power to get more power. You and I, Dramocles, and our friends, will control the access to other dimensions. We will be immortal and live like gods.”

  “But have you considered the price?” Dramocles asked. “The destruction will be almost unimaginable, especially upon Glorm.”

  “That’s true,” Otho said, “and no one regrets it more than I. If there were any other way, I’d spare them.”

  “The war can still be stopped.”

  “And that would be the end of our dreams, our immortality, our godhood. They’ll all be dead in a few decades anyhow. But we can live forever! This is it, Dramocles, your destiny, and the moment of decision is here. What do you want to do?”

  40

  Decision time! At last the long years of waiting were over. Now Dramocles knew what his destiny was, and the terrible choices that were required of him so that it would come to pass. It was a heavy knowledge, and required of him an agonized decision. Everyone in the War Room watched him, some with bated breath, others with ordinary breath. And each moment seemed to slow down and stretch out, to take longer and longer, as though time itself were waiting for Dramocles’ deliberations to resolve themselves.

  Chemise tried to read the expression in Dramocles’ yellow eyes. In which direction was he leaning? Did he have compassion for the world of mortals, of which, temporarily at least, he was still one? Or had Otho managed, with his well-shaped words of wizardry, to captivate the good-natured but notoriously vagrant attention of
the King?

  Dramocles’ lips moved, but, though all strained to hear, no translatable sound came forth, nothing but a faint susurration of breath that, despite its apparent meaninglessness, all sought to interpret.

  At last Dramocles heaved a deep sigh and said, “You know, Dad, this immortality thing is really tempting. But it’s not a good thing to do, killing everyone except your friends. It’s more than just bad–I could maybe put up with that–but the fact is, it’s downright evil.”

  “Yes, it is,” Otho admitted. “That which brings death to further its own existence may fairly be called evil by those whose lives are about to be taken. But one must not sentimentalize. Killing in order to live is the universal condition from which nothing and no one is exempt. To the carrot, the rabbit is the very personification of evil. And so it goes, all up and down the chain of life.”

  An alarm sounded above the readout tank. The Operations Chief called Dramocles’ attention to the fact that Rufus’s ships were out of contact with the enemy and still withdrawing. A decision would have to be made immediately if Dramocles wanted any help from the fleet of Druth.

  “I can give us a few more moments,” Otho said. “I’m going to create a very small nexus which will let us operate out of time temporarily while we finish our discussion.”

  Otho paused to create a small nexus. It looked like a hemisphere of shiny, gauzy material and enclosed the control room entirely.

  “I’ve always known you as a kindly father and compassionate man,” Dramocles said. “How can you consider killing millions of people, even to gain yourself so great a thing as immortality?”

  “You’re not looking at it properly,” Otho said. “From the viewpoint of an immortal, humans are as ephemeral as houseflies. Still, I’d spare them if I could. But when the rewards of godhood are within your grasp, standard human morality no longer applies.”

  “That’s too much for me,” Dramocles said.

  “Then forget about immortality. It’s an idealized concept, anyhow. What we’re really talking about is an open-ended longevity, and all that we’re trying to do is get from this moment of life to the next, just like any other living creature. This moment, and the hope of the next, is all we have.”

  “We have this moment,” Dramocles said, “and we kill in order to go to the next moment, and we go on doing that forever. Is that correct?”

  “Not forever,” Otho said. “Only for as long as you wish. Living for a day and living forever require exactly the same decisions, the same sad choices. It takes energy to live. A rose needs energy just as surely as a Rosicrucian. Death is always the result of a failure of power.”

  Otho paused to see how the nexus was holding up. It was dissolving at the usual rate. He still had a few moments of hiatus left.

  “Since power is an irreducible requirement of existence, it is appropriate to seek it in order to maintain your existence. But you must understand the ramifications of this. There’s no homeostasis in nature, no point where you can say, all right, it’s enough, I’ll coast for a while. It’s never enough, there must always be more power, power or death. This struggle to survive is a universal condition. The power one needs for oneself is evil for all the other seekers, and this is true throughout the entire range of life. When intelligence enters the picture, the need for power becomes greater, the moral questions more acute. And now you stand at the point where intelligence must leave instinct behind or perish. Your choice, Dramocles, is to live as a god or die as a man. All the evidence is in. It is time for you to decide.”

  Before Dramocles could speak, his computer came forward, placing one foot on the still unexplained metal box. “I must point out,” it said, “that not quite all the evidence has been heard yet.”

  “Right,” Dramocles said. “For example, what’s in that still unexplained metal box?”

  The computer said, “We’ll get to that later. For now, I have what you have been waiting for so long. It is the key. It is the key key. And it will unlock the key key memory.”

  “Tell it to me,” Dramocles said.

  “La plume de ma tante,” said the computer.

  41

  The key key unlocked a memory of a day thirty years ago. Otho had just left Glorm in his space yacht, going to his laboratory on the moon Gliese, which he would soon blow up, apparently destroying himself in the atomic blast. Among the very few who knew differently were Dramocles, the computer, and Dr. Fish.

  Dramocles had always remembered his father with love and appreciation. Or so he had thought. In this memory, however, that was not true at all. In this memory he disliked his father, had disliked him since childhood, considering him tyrannical, mean-minded, uncaring, and more than a little crazed with his grandiose occult notions.

  Father and son had talked before Otho’s departure, and the conversation had gone badly. Young Dramocles had been vehemently opposed to Otho’s plan for personal immortality at the cost of many millions of lives. And he had found Otho’s plans for Dramocles himself and for his reign totally unacceptable. Dramocles was furious at his father, not only for refusing to die, but also for insisting on exercising control over his son from beyond the grave or wherever he was going, thus making his son’s lifetime no more than a footnote to his own monstrously extended existence.

  “I won’t go along with your plans,” he had told Otho. “When I’m king I’ll do as I please.”

  “You’ll do as I want you to,” Otho had told him, “and you’ll do it willingly.”

  Dramocles had not understood. He had stood with Dr. Fish in Ultragnolle’s highest observation tower, watching his father’s ship, a yellow point of light quickly lost in the bottomless blue sky. “He’s gone at last,” he had said to Fish. “Good riddance to him, wherever he goes. Now, at last, I can–”

  He had felt a pinprick in his arm, and turned, startled, to see Dr. Fish putting away a small syringe.

  “Fish! What is the meaning of this? Why–”

  “I’m sorry,” Fish said, “I have no choice in this matter.”

  Dramocles had succeeded in taking two steps toward the door. Then he was falling through a midnight sea of enervation, filled with strange birdcalls and eerie laughter, and he knew nothing more until he returned to consciousness. He found himself in Dr. Fish’s laboratory. He was strapped to an operating table, and Fish was standing over him examining the edge of a psychomicrotome.

  “Fish!” he cried. “What are you doing?”

  “I am about to perform a memory excavation and replantation on you,” Fish said. “I realize that this is not a proper thing to do, but I have no choice, I must obey my owner’s orders. King Otho commanded me to alter and rearrange all memories dealing with your destiny and his, and, most especially, your last conversation with him. You will think he died in the atomic blast on Gliese.”

  “Fish, you know this is wrong. Release me at once.”

  “Further, I am commanded to excise, alter, or substitute various other memories, going as far back into your childhood as needs be. You will remember Otho as a loving father.”

  “That coldhearted bastard!”

  “He wants to be remembered as generous.”

  “He wouldn’t even give me a ski slope for my birthday,” Dramocles said.

  “You will consider him an essentially moral man, eccentric but kind.”

  “After that stuff he told me earlier? About killing everyone so that he could become immortal?”

  “You won’t remember any of that. By judicious tampering with certain key memories, Otho expects to win your love, and hence your obedience. You will remember none of this, Dramocles, not even this conversation. When you get up from this table, you will think that you have discovered your destiny all by yourself. You will realize that you can do nothing about it for thirty years. After due consideration, you will ask me to excise your memories of these matters, keying them to a phrase which a Remembrancer will keep for you until the proper time. After that you will blow me up–not actually,
of course, though you will think so. I will take a thirty-year vacation, and you will have a quiet reign, always wondering what it is you are supposed to be doing with your life, until, at last, you learn.”

  “Oh, Fish! You can see how wrong this is. Must you do this to me?”

  “To my regret, I must. I am incapable of refusing a direct order from my owner. But there is an interesting philosophical point to consider. As far as Glormish law is concerned, Otho is going to die in the next few hours.”

  “Of course!” Dramocles said. “So if you just delay the operation for a while, I’ll own you, and I’ll cancel the order.”

  “I can’t do that,” Fish said. “Delay would be unthinkable, a violation of deepest machine ethics. I must operate at once. And believe me, your position would be worse if I didn’t. But my thought was this: I must do as Otho commands, but there’s no reason why I can’t do something for my future owner.”

  “What can you do, Fish?”

  “I can promise to return your true memories to you during your final encounter with Otho.”

  “That’s good of you, Fish. Let’s discuss this a little more.”

  Dramocles struggled against his bonds. Then he felt another pinprick in his arm, and that was the end of those memories until the present time.

  Back in the control room, everyone stood around, dazed at these revelations. At this point, the computer opened up the previously unexplained metal box. Out of it stepped Dr. Fish, looking slightly older but none the worse for that.

  42

  If Otho was chagrined at these revelations, he concealed it well. Lounging back in his chair and lighting a thin dappled panatela, he said, “Fish, I’m surprised at you, betraying me on the basis of a shaky legalistic quibble.” Turning to Dramocles, he said, “Yes, my son, it is true, I did have your memories altered. But there was no malice in it. Despite what you may think, I have always loved you, and simply wanted your love in return.”