For the next meal they could think of nothing.
Then Gregor conceived a final idea.
He thought it over carefully. Another failure would shatter their badly bent morale. But, slim though the chance of success might be, he had to try it.
Slowly he approached the Configurator. Arnold looked up, frightened by the wild light gleaming in his eyes.
“Gregor! What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to give this thing one last command,” Gregor said hoarsely. With a trembling hand he punched the button and whispered his request.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Arnold shouted, “Get back!”
The machine was quivering and shaking, dials twitching, lights flickering. Heat and energy indicators flashed through red into purple.
“What did you tell it to produce?” Arnold asked.
“I didn’t tell it to produce anything,” Gregor said. “I told it to reproduce!”
The Configurator gave a convulsive shudder and emitted a cloud of black smoke. The partners coughed and gasped for air.
When the smoke cleared away the Configurator was still there, its paint chipped, and several indicators bent out of shape. And beside it, glistening with black machine oil, was a duplicate Configurator.
“You’ve done it!” Arnold cried. “You’ve saved us!”
“I’ve done more than that,” Gregor said, with weary satisfaction. “I’ve made our fortunes.” He turned to the duplicate Configurator, pressed its button and cried, “Reproduce yourself]”
Within a week, Arnold, Gregor and three Configurators were back in Kennedy Spaceport, their work on Dennett completed. As soon as they landed, Arnold left the ship and caught a taxi. He went first to Canal Street, then to midtown New York. His business didn’t take long, and within a few hours he was back at the ship.
“Yes, it’s all right,” he called to Gregor. “I contacted several different jewelers. We can dispose of about twenty big stones without depressing the market. After that, I think we should have the Configurators concentrate on platinum for a while, and then—what’s wrong?”
Gregor looked at him sourly. “Notice anything different?”
“Huh?” Arnold stared around the cabin, at Gregor, and at the Configurators. Then he noticed it.
There were four Configurators in the cabin, where there had been only three.
“You had them reproduce another?” Arnold said. “Nothing wrong with that. Just tell them to turn out a diamond apiece—”
“You still don’t get it,” Gregor said sadly. “Watch.”
He pressed the button on the nearest Configurator and said, “A diamond.”
The Configurator began to quiver.
“You and your damned pleasure principle,” Gregor said. “Repetition! These damned machines are sex mad.”
The machine shook all over, and produced—
Another Configurator.
REDFERN’S LABYRINTH
Charles Angier Redfern received two curious letters in his mail on an otherwise undistinguished morning. One letter was in a plain white envelope, and for a moment Redfern thought he recognized the handwriting. He opened the envelope and took out a letter with no salutation or signature. He puzzled for a while over the strange yet familiar handwriting, then recognized it as an imitation of his own. Mildly intrigued, but with a faint anticipation of boredom, he read the following:
Most of the propositions in Redfern’s ineptly titled Labyrinth will doubtless go unchallenged, as no one could possibly care one way or another. Redfern’s Labyrinth fails to evoke anything except Redfern’s own baffled impotence. One senses that Redfern has failed to overcome his own meek and hateful slavishness, his boundless desire to comply.
Because of this resonant failure, the reader’s first sensation is apt to be pointedly inconsequential: a concern with the humble brevity of the Labyrinth, and a spiteful wish that it were shorter still.
But this quickly passes, and the reader discovers that his predominant mood is a muted reluctance to feel anything at all. With gratitude he discovers himself to be indifferent. And, although he surely does not wish to remember the Labyrinth, he does not even care enough to forget it.
Thus the reader meets Redfern’s boredom with an even more devastating boredom of his own; he imitates Redfern’s
hostility, and easily surpasses it. He refuses even to acknowledge Redfern’s existence-, and to that end, he has the absentminded sensation of never having experienced the Labyrinth at all. (He is right, of course; no number of re-encounters would ever correct that eminently logical conclusion.
This Labyrinth, it seems, could be used as an exemplary monument to tedium, were it not marred (how typical of Redfern!) by a single provocative idea.
This occurs in Proposition 113, which states: “All men know that the Maze rules its haphazard victims with an iron law; but very few realize the logical consequences of this: namely, that the Maze itself must be one of these victims, and must therefore be equally subject to the rule of an irksome law.”
Redfern does not state the “law,” a lapse which we might have anticipated. But it can easily be inferred from his otherwise meaningless Proposition 282: “Providence, despite all outward appearances, is inevitably merciful.”
Therefore, following Redfern: the Maze rules men, but Providence rules the Maze. How can we know this? By the law to which the Maze (in common with all things except Providence) is subject. What is this law? That the Maze is under a mandate to make itself known. Our proof of this? The fact that Redfern, the meekest and most imitative of men, knows it.
But now we wish to know exactly what this law is that governs the Maze. How must the Maze make itself known? Without a description of this, we have nothing; and Redfern is useless to us in this quest. He cannot tell us, he probably would not even if he could. Therefore, for the description of the law which circumscribes the Maze, its particular manner and form, together with several homely hints to aid in its recognition, we turn to the otherwise undistinguished Charles Angier Redfern.
Redfern put down the letter. Its forced ambiguities had bored him. Its specious and arbitrary manner and its meretricious effect had given him the curiously comforting sensation that one gets by discovering as a falsehood what one suspected as truth. He turned to the second letter.
The envelope was unnaturally long and narrow, and colored a tedious aqua; it retained a faint but unmistakable odor of kelp. His name, printed in a faded, machine-simulated hand, was correctly spelled; but his address was incorrectly given as 132 Bruckner Boulevard. That had been crossed out, and a printed imitation of a post-office stamp read: “Return to Sender.” (There was no return address on the envelope.) That, in turn, had been slashed with a black crayon, and someone had written: “Try 137 W. 12th Street,” which was his true address.
Redfern realized that these details were superfluous; they seemed to be in imitation of the letter within. He opened the envelope and extracted the letter, which was written gratuitously on a torn piece of brown wrapping paper. It read:
hi there! !!
You have been selected as one of those few truly modern and discerning people for whom novelty outweighs apprehension, and whose desire for the unusual is metered only by his innate good taste and sense of style. Above all we believe that you are the sort of uninhibited free-swinger with whom we would like to be friends.
Therefore we take this opportunity of inviting you to the
grand opening of Our labyrinth! ! ! ! !
This Labyrinth (the only one of its kind on the Eastern Seaboard) is, needless to say, replete with kicks. There are no squares on our curves!!! This Labyrinth beggars the description and infantilizes the desires.
Please call us and we’ll arrange a time and place of Entrance to suit your convenience. Our charges are merely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Call us soon, hear? And thanks a lot, fella! ! ! ! !
Instead of a signature, there was a telepho
ne number.
Redfern flicked the letter regretfully in his hand. It was obviously the work of an over-eager English major—tediously hip, drearily cute.
The writer of the letter was obviously trying to perpetrate a hoax; therefore, Redfern decided to hoax the hoaxer through a show of credence. He picked up the telephone and dialed the number he had been given.
The voice of a middle-aged woman, querulous but resigned, said: “Redfern Behavioral Research Institute.”
Redfern frowned, cleared his throat, and said, “I am calling to inquire about the Labyrinth.”
“About the what?” the woman said.
“The Labyrinth.”
“What number are you calling?”
Redfern told her. The woman agreed that he had the correct number for the Redfern Institute; but she knew nothing about any Labyrinth. Unless, of course, he was referring to the well-known L Series of mazes, which were used for the testing of rats. The L Series mazes, she went on, were available in various models and were priced according to their square footage. They ranged from the L-1001, a simple forced choice binary maze of twenty-Five square feet, all the way up to the L-10023, a multiple-choice random-selection model of nine hundred square feet, suitable for auditorium viewing.
“No,” Redfern said, “I’m afraid that wasn’t exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.”
“Then what exactly did you have in mind?” the woman asked. “We also build custom mazes, as our advertisement in the Yellow Pages points out.”
“But I don’t want you to build a maze for me,” Redfern said. “You see, according to the letter I received, this Labyrinth, or maze, is already in existence and seems to be quite extensive in size and to have been designed for humans, that is to say, for people.”
“Just exactly what are you talking about?” the woman asked, in tones of deepest suspicion.
Redfern found himself babbling: “It’s this letter I received. I’ve been invited to the grand opening of this Labyrinth, which gave your telephone number for further information—”
“Listen, mister,” the woman interrupted in an angry, grating voice, “I don’t know if you’re some kind of nut or if this is some kind of gag or what, but the Redfern Institute is a respectable business of over thirty-five years standing, and if you bother me again with this nonsense, I’ll have this call traced and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!”
She hung up.
Redfern sat back in his chair. He found that his hands were trembling. Having detected the primary hoax, as he had been meant to do, he had tried a counter-hoax and had thereby fallen into a second or ancillary hoax. He felt ridiculous.
Then a disturbing thought occurred to him. He opened the Manhattan telephone book and looked up the Redfern Behavioral Research Institute.
There was no such listing.
He dialed information and asked for New Listings, then for Regular Listings; but as he had foreseen, there was no Redfern Institute. Finally, taking down the Yellow Pages, he looked up Mazes, Labyrinths, Research, Behavior, Scientific Equipment, and Laboratory Equipment. There was no Redfern, and no firm which specialized in the construction of mazes.
He realized that, in penetrating the secondary hoax, he had inevitably fallen for a tertiary hoax; nor did this necessarily end the series.
But of course, too much evidence had accumulated by now to permit him to retain the thought of a hoax. The series had been, in fact, a part of the Labyrinth itself, a small loop, curving quickly back to its original point of departure. Or to a point closely resembling the original.
One of the primary aspects of a labyrinth is duplication. That had been faithfully carried out: overtly by the use of Redfern’s name in both letters and the imitation of his handwriting; implicitly by the monotonous contradiction of every statement.
The description of the law of the maze (which, it was asserted, he had known but also had not known) was simple enough now. It could be a description only of his own emotions concerning the maze; its forced ambiguities had bored him. It specious and arbitrary manner and its generally meretricious effect had given him the curiously comforting sensation that one gets by discovering as a falsehood what one had suspected as truth.
Followed this, he saw, the first letter was actually the Labyrinth—that slavish, endlessly duplicating monument to tedium whose perfection was marred by one significant detail: its own existence. The second letter was the obligatory duplication of the first, thus fulfilling the requirements for a labyrinth.
Other viewpoints were also possible; but at this point, it occurred to Redfern that he might have thought all of this before.
PROOF OF THE PUDDING
His arms were very tired, but he lifted the chisel and mallet again. He was almost through; only a few more letters and the inscription, cut deeply into the tough granite, would be finished. He rounded out the last period and straightened up, dropping his tools carelessly to the floor of the cave. Proudly he wiped the perspiration from his dirty stubbled face and read what he had written.
I ROSE FROM THE SLIME OF THE PLANET, NAKED AND DEFENSELESS, I FASHIONED TOOLS. I BUILT AND DEMOLISHED, CREATED AND DESTROYED. I CREATED A THING GREATER THAN MYSELF THAT DESTROYED ME.
MY NAME IS MAN AND THIS IS MY LAST WORK.
He smiled. What he had written was good. Not literary enough, perhaps, but a fitting tribute to the human race, written by the last man. He glanced at the tools at his feet. Having no further use for them, he dissolved them, and hungry from his long work, squatted in the rubble of the cave and created a dinner. He stared at the food for a moment, wondering what was lacking; then, sheepishly, created a table and a chair, utensils and plates. He was embarrassed. He had forgotten them again.
Although there was no need to rush, he ate hurriedly, noting the odd fact that when he didn’t think of anything specific, he always created hamburger, mashed potatoes, peas, bread, and ice-cream. Habit, he decided. Finished, he made the remnants of the meal disappear, and with them the plates, utensils, and table. The chair he retained. Sitting on it, he stared thoughtfully at the inscription. It’s fine, he thought, but no human other than myself will ever read it.
It was fairly certain that he was the last man alive on Earth. The war had been thorough. Thorough as only man, a meticulous animal, could make it. There had been no neutrals in this war, no middle-of-the-road policy. You were on one side or the other. Bacteria, gas, and radiations had covered Earth like a vast cloud. In the first days of that war, an invincible secret weapon had succeeded secret weapon with almost monotonous regularity. And after the last hand had pushed the last button, the bombs, automatically guided and impelled, had continued to rain down. Unhappy Earth was a huge junkyard, without a living thing, plant or animal, from pole to pole.
He had watched a good part of it. He had waited until he was fairly sure the last bomb had been dropped; then he had come down.
Very clever of you, he thought bitterly, looking out of the mouth of the cave at the lava plain his ship rested on and at the twisted mountains behind it.
You’re a traitor—but who cares?
He had been a captain in the Western Hemisphere Defense. Within two days of warfare, he had known what that end would be. Filling a cruiser with canned air, food, and water, he had fled. In the confusion and destruction, he knew that he would never be missed; after a few days there was no one left to miss him. He had raced the big ship to the dark side of the moon and waited. It was a twelve-day war—he had guessed it would last fourteen—but he had to wait nearly six months before the automatic missiles stopped falling. Then he had come down.
To find himself the only survivor…
He had expected others to recognize the futility of it, load ships, and flock to the dark side of the moon also. Evidently there had been no time, even if there had been the desire. He had thought that there would be scattered groups of survivors, but he hadn’t found any. The war had been too thorough.
Landing on Earth
should have killed him, for the air was poisoned. He hadn’t cared—and he had lived. He seemed to be immune to the various kinds of germs and radiations, or perhaps that was part of his new power. He certainly had encountered enough of both, skipping around the world in his ship, from the ruins of one city to another, across blasted valleys and plains, scorched mountains. He had found no life, but he did discover something.
He could create. He realized the power on his third day on Earth. Wistfully, he had wished for a tree in the midst of the melted rock and metal; a tree had appeared. The rest of the day he experimented and found that he could create anything that he had ever seen or heard about.
Things he knew best, he could create best. Things he knew just from books or conversation—palaces, for example—tended to be lopsided and uncertain, although he could make them nearly perfect by laboring mentally over the details. Everything he created was three-dimensional. Even food tasted like food and seemed to nourish him. He could forget all about one of his creations, go to sleep, and it would still be there when he awakened. He could also uncreate. A single concentrated thought and the thing he had made would vanish. The larger the thing, the longer it took to uncreate.
Things he hadn’t made—valleys and mountains—he could uncreate too, but it took longer. It seemed as though matter was easier to handle once he had shaped it. He could make birds and small animals, or things that looked like birds and small animals.
He had never tried to make a human being.
He wasn’t a scientist; he had been a space pilot. He had vague concept of atomic theory and practically no idea of genetics. He thought that some change must have taken place in his germ plasm, or in his brain, or perhaps on Earth. The why of it all didn’t especially bother him. It was a fact and he accepted it.
He stared at the monument again. Something about it bothered him.
Of course, he could have created it, but he didn’t know if the things he made would endure after his death. They seemed stable enough, but they might dissolve with his own dissolution. Therefore he compromised. He created a chisel and mallet, but selected a granite wall that he hadn’t made. He cut the letters into the inside of the wall of the cave so they would be safe from the elements, working many hours at a stretch, sleeping and eating beside the wall.
The People Trap Page 12
