Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley

by Robert Sheckley

  As Maarten approached the village, a natural and highly symbolic ceremony presented itself. The natives were waiting in their village, which was in a clearing in the forest. Separating forest from village was a dry stream bed, and across that bed was a small stone bridge.

  Maarten advanced to the center of the bridge and stopped, beaming benignly on the Durellans. When he saw several of them shudder and turn away, he smoothed out his features, remembering his own injunction on facial contortions. He paused for a long moment.

  “What’s up?” Croswell asked, stopping in front of the bridge.

  In a loud voice, Maarten cried, “Let this bridge symbolize the link, now eternally forged, that joins this beautiful planet with—” Croswell called out a warning, but Maarten didn’t know what was wrong. He stared at the villagers; they had made no movement.

  “Get off the bridge!” Croswell shouted. But before Maarten could move, the entire structure had collapsed under him and he fell bone-shakingly into the dry stream.

  “Damnedest thing I ever saw,” Croswell said, helping him to his feet. “As soon as you raised your voice, that stone began to pulverize. Sympathetic vibration, I imagine.”

  Now Maarten understood why the Durellans spoke in whispers. He struggled to his feet, then groaned and sat down again.

  “What’s wrong?” Croswell asked.

  “I seem to have wrenched my ankle,” Maarten said miserably.

  Chief Moréri came up, followed by twenty or so villagers, made a short speech and presented Maarten with a walking stick of carved and polished black wood.

  “Thanks,” Maarten muttered, standing up and leaning gingerly on the cane. “What did he say?” he asked Chedka.

  “The chief said that the bridge was only a hundred years old and in good repair,” Chedka translated. “He apologizes that his ancestors didn’t build it better.”

  “Hmm,” Maarten said.

  “And the chief says that you are probably an unlucky man.”

  He might be right, Maarten thought. Or perhaps Earthmen were just a fumbling race. For all their good intentions, population after population feared them, hated them, envied them, mainly on the basis of unfavorable first impressions.

  Still, there seemed to be a chance here. What else could go wrong?

  Forcing a smile, then quickly erasing it, Maarten limped into the village beside Moréri.

  Technologically, the Durellan civilization was of a low order. A limited use had been made of wheel and lever, but the concept of mechanical advantage had been carried no further. There was evidence of a rudimentary knowledge of plane geometry and a fair idea of astronomy.

  Artistically, however, the Durellans were adept and surprisingly sophisticated, particularly in wood carving. Even the simplest huts had bas-relief panels, beautifully conceived and executed.

  “Do you think I could take some photographs?” Croswell asked.

  “I see no reason why not,” Maarten said. He ran his finger lovingly over a large panel, carved of the same straight-grained black wood that formed his cane. The finish was as smooth as skin beneath his fingertips.

  The chief gave his approval and Croswell took photographs and tracings of Durellan home, market, and temple decorations.

  Maarten wandered around, gently touching the intricate bas-reliefs, speaking with some of the natives through Chedka and generally sorting out his impressions.

  The Durrellans, Maarten judged, were highly intelligent and had a potential comparable to that of Homo sapiens. Their lack of a defined technology was more the expression of a cooperation with nature rather than a flaw in their makeup. They seemed inherently peace-loving and nonaggressive—valuable neighbors for an Earth that, after centuries of confusion, was striving toward a similar goal.

  This was going to be the basis of his report to the Second Contact Team. With it, he hoped to be able to add, A favorable impression seems to have been left concerning Earth. No unusual difficulties are to be expected.

  Chedka had been talking earnestly with Chief Moréri. Now looking slightly more wide awake than usual, he came over and conferred with Maarten in a hushed voice. Maarten nodded, keeping his face expressionless, and went over to Croswell, who was snapping his last photographs.

  “All ready for the big show?” Maarten asked.

  “What show?”

  “Moréri is throwing a feast for us tonight,” Maarten said. “Very big, very important feast. A final gesture of good will and all that.” Although his tone was casual, there was a gleam of deep satisfaction in his eyes.

  Croswell’s reaction was more immediate. “Then we’ve made it! The contact is successful!”

  Behind him, two natives shook at the loudness of his voice and tottered feebly away.

  “We’ve made it,” Maarten whispered, “if we watch our step. They’re a fine, understanding people—but we do seem to grate on them a bit.”

  By evening, Maarten and Croswell had completed a chemical examination of the Durellan foods and found nothing harmful to humans. They took several more pink tablets, changed coveralls and sandals, bathed again in the degermifier, and proceeded to the feast.

  The first course was an orange-green vegetable that tasted like squash. Then Chief Moréri gave a short talk on the importance of intercultural relations. They were served a dish resembling rabbit, and Croswell was called upon to give a speech.

  “Remember,” Maarten whispered, “whisper!”

  Croswell stood up and began to speak. Keeping his voice down and his face blank, he began to enumerate the many similarities between Earth and Durell, depending mainly on gestures to convey his message.

  Chedka translated. Maarten nodded his approval. The chief nodded. The feasters nodded.

  Croswell made his last points and sat down. Maarten clapped him on the shoulder. “Well done, Ed. You’ve got a natural gift for—what’s wrong?”

  Croswell had a startled and incredulous look on his face. “Look!”

  Maarten turned. The chief and the feasters, their eyes open and staring, were still nodding.

  “Chedka!” Maarten whispered. “Speak to them!”

  The Eborian asked the chief a question. There was no response. The chief continued his rhythmic nodding.

  “Those gestures!” Maarten said. “You must have hypnotized them!” He scratched his head, then coughed once, loudly. The Durellans stopped nodding, blinked their eyes, and began to talk rapidly and nervously among themselves.

  “They say you’ve got some strong powers,” Chedka translated at random. “They say that aliens are pretty queer people and doubt if they can be trusted.”

  “What does the chief say?” Maarten asked.

  “The chief believes you’re all right. He is telling them that you meant no harm.”

  “Good enough. Let’s stop while we’re ahead.”

  He stood up, followed by Croswell and Chedka.

  “We are leaving now,” he told the chief in a whisper, “but we beg permission for others of our kind to visit you. Forgive the mistakes we have made; they were due only to ignorance of your ways.”

  Chedka translated, and Maarten went on whispering, his face expressionless, his hands at his sides. He spoke of the oneness of the Galaxy, the joys of cooperation, peace, the exchange of goods and art, and the essential solidarity of all human life.

  Moréri, though still a little dazed from the hypnotic experience, answered that the Earthmen would always be welcome.

  Impulsively, Croswell held out his hand. The chief looked at it for a moment, puzzled, then took it, obviously wondering what to do with it and why.

  He gasped in agony and pulled his hand back. They could see deep burns blotched red against his skin.

  “What could have—”

  “Perspiration!” Maarten said. “It’s an acid. Must have an almost instantaneous effect upon their particular makeup. Let’s get out of here.”

  The natives were milling together and they had picked up some stones and pieces of wood
. The chief, although still in pain, was arguing with them, but the Earthmen didn’t wait to hear the results of the discussion. They retreated to their ship, as fast as Maarten could hobble with the help of his cane.

  The forest was dark behind them and filled with suspicious movements. Out of breath, they arrived at the spaceship. Croswell, in the lead, sprawled over a tangle of grass and fell head-first against the port with a resounding clang.

  “Damn!” he howled in pain.

  The ground rumbled beneath them, began to tremble and slide away.

  “Into the ship!” Maarten ordered.

  They managed to take off before the ground gave way completely.

  “It must have been sympathetic vibration again,” Croswell said, several hours later, when the ship was in space. “But of all the luck—to be perched on a rock fault!”

  Maarten sighed and shook his head. “I really don’t know what to do. I’d like to go back, explain to them, but—”

  “We’ve outlived our welcome,” Croswell said.

  “Apparently. Blunders, nothing but blunders. We started out badly, and everything we did made it worse.”

  “It is not what you do,” Chedka explained in the most sympathetic voice they had ever heard him use. “It’s not your fault. It’s what you are.”

  Maarten considered that for a moment. “Yes, you’re right. Our voices shatter their land, our expressions disgust them, our gestures hypnotize them, our breath asphyxiates them, our perspiration burns them. Oh, Lord!”

  “Lord, Lord,” Croswell agreed glumly. “We’re living chemical factories—only turning out poison gas and corrosives exclusively.”

  “But that is not all you are,” Chedka said. “Look.”

  He held up Maarten’s walking stick. Along the upper part, where Maarten had handled it, long-dormant buds had burst into pink and white flowers, and their scent filled the cabin.

  “You see?” Chedka said. “You are this, also.”

  “That stick was dead,” Croswell mused. “Some oil in our skin, I imagine.”

  Maarten shuddered. “Do you suppose that all the carvings we touched—the huts—the temple—”

  “I should think so,” Croswell said.

  Maarten closed his eyes and visualized it, the sudden bursting into bloom of the dead, dried wood.

  “I think they’ll understand,” he said, trying very hard to believe himself. “It’s a pretty symbol and they’re quite an understanding people. I think they’ll approve of—well, at least some of the things we are.”

  PROTECTION

  THERE’LL be an airplane crash in Burma next week, but it shouldn’t affect me here in New York. And the feegs certainly can’t harm me. Not with all my closet doors closed.

  No, the big problem is lesnerizing. I must not lesnerize. Absolutely not. As you can imagine, that hampers me.

  And to top it all, I think I’m catching a really nasty cold.

  The whole thing started on the evening of November seventh. I was walking down Broadway on my way to Baker’s Cafeteria. On my lips was a faint smile, due to having passed a tough physics exam earlier in the day. In my pocket, jingling faintly, were five coins, three keys, and a book of matches.

  Just to complete the picture, let me add that the wind was from the northwest at five miles an hour, Venus was in the ascendancy, and the Moon was decidedly gibbous. You can draw your own conclusions from this.

  I reached the corner of 98th Street and began to cross. As I stepped off the curb, someone yelled at me, “The truck! Watch the truck!”

  I jumped back, looking around wildly. There was nothing in sight. Then, a full second later, a truck cut around the corner on two wheels, ran though the red light, and roared up Broadway. Without the warning, I would have been hit.

  You’ve heard stories like this, haven’t you? About the strange voice that warned Aunt Minnie to stay out of the elevator, which then crashed to the basement. Or maybe it told Uncle Joe not to sail on the Titanic. That’s where the story usually ends.

  I wish mine ended there.

  “Thanks, friend,” I said and looked around. There was no one there.

  “Can you still hear me?” the voice asked.

  “Sure I can.” I turned a complete circle and stared suspiciously at the closed apartment windows overhead. “But where in the blue blazes are you?”

  “Gronish,” the voice answered. “Is that the referrent? Refraction index. Creature of insubstantiality. The Shadow knows. Did I pick the right one?”

  “You’re invisible?” I hazarded.

  “That’s it!”

  “But what are you?’

  “A validusian derg.”

  “A what?”

  “I am—open your larynx a little wider please. Let me see now. I am the Spirit of Christmas Past. The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Bride of Frankenstein. The—”

  “Hold on,” I said. “What are you trying to tell me—that you’re a ghost or a creature from another planet?”

  “Same thing,” the derg replied. “Obviously.”

  That made it all perfectly clear. Any fool could see that the voice belonged to someone from another planet. He was invisible on Earth, but his superior senses had spotted an approaching danger and warned me of it.

  Just a plain, everyday supernormal incident.

  I began to walk hurriedly down Broadway.

  “What is the matter?” the invisible derg asked.

  “Not a thing,” I answered, “except that I seem to be standing in the middle of the street talking to an invisible alien from the farthest reaches of outer space. I suppose only I can hear you?”

  “Well, naturally.”

  “Great! You know where this sort of thing will land me?”

  “The concept you are sub-vocalizing is not entirely clear.”

  “The loony bin. Nut house. Bug factory. Psychotic ward. That’s where they put people who talk to invisible aliens. Thanks for the warning, buddy. Good night.”

  Feeling light-headed, I turned east, hoping my invisible friend would continue down Broadway.

  “Won’t you talk with me?” the derg asked.

  I shook my head, a harmless gesture they can’t pick you up for, and kept on walking.

  “But you must,” the derg said with a hint of desperation “A real sub-vocal contact is very rare and astonishingly difficult. Sometimes I can get across a warning, just before a danger moment. But then the connection fades.”

  So there was the explanation for Aunt Minnie’s premonition. But I still wasn’t having any.

  “Conditions might not be right again for a hundred years!” the derg mourned.

  What conditions? Five coins and three keys jingling together when Venus was ascendant? I suppose it’s worthy of investigation—but not by me. You never can prove that supernormal stuff. There are enough people knitting slipcovers for straitjackets without me swelling their ranks.

  “Just leave me alone,” I said. A cop gave me a funny look for that one. I grinned boyishly and hurried on.

  “I appreciate your social situation,” the derg urged, “but this contact is in your own best interests. I want to protect you from the myriad dangers of human existence.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “Well,” the derg said, “I can’t force you. I’ll just have to offer my services elsewhere. Good-bye, friend.”

  I nodded pleasantly.

  “One last thing,” he said. “Stay off subways tomorrow between noon and one-fifteen P.M. Good-bye.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Someone will be killed at Columbus Circle, pushed in front of a train by shopping crowds. You, if you are there. Good-by.”

  “Someone will be killed there tomorrow?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’ll be in the newspapers?”

  “I should imagine so.”

  “And you know all sorts of stuff like that?”

  “I can perceive all dangers radiating towa
rd you and extending into time. My one desire is to protect you from them.”

  I had stopped. Two girls were giggling at me talking to myself. Now I began walking again.

  “Look,” I whispered, “can you wait until tomorrow evening?”

  “You will let me be your protector?” the derg asked eagerly.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” I said. “After I read the late papers.”

  The item was there, all right. I read it in my furnished room on 113th Street. Man pushed by the crowd, lost his balance, fell in front of an oncoming train. This gave me a lot to think about while waiting for my invisible protector to show up.

  I didn’t know what to do. His desire to protect me seemed genuine enough. But I didn’t know if I wanted it. When, an hour later, the derg contacted me, I liked the whole idea even less, and told him so.

  “Don’t you trust me?” he asked.

  “I just want to lead a normal life.”

  “If you lead any life at all,” he reminded me. “That truck last night—”

  “That was a freak, a once-in-a-lifetime hazard.”

  “It only takes once in a lifetime to die,” the derg said solemnly. “There was the subway, too.”

  “That doesn’t count. I hadn’t planned on riding it today.”

  “But you had no reason not to ride it. That’s the important thing. Just as you have no reason not to take a shower in the next hour.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “A Miss Flynn,” the derg said, “who lives down the hall, has just completed her shower and has left a bar of melting pink soap on the pink tile in the bathroom on this floor. You would have slipped on it and suffered a sprained wrist.”

  “Not fatal, huh?”

  “No. Hardly in the same class with, let us say, a heavy flowerpot pushed from a rooftop by a certain unstable old gentleman.”

  “When is that going to happen?” I asked.

  “I thought you weren’t interested.”