The Ninth Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur C. Clarke

  “So you’re my rope, is that it?”

  “I said you wouldn’t understand. Goddam metaphors. If you’d stop thinking about yourself for a while, you wouldn’t be so damn thoughtless.”

  I didn’t want to think about it, so I changed the subject. “You mentioned something earlier about being in two places at once. How is that possible?”

  “We can do it. It ain’t easy, nawsir, but we can do it. It’s an old Indian trick.”

  “Yeah? Which ones?”

  He looked at me with those eyes. “You deef? The old ones. Now sleep.”

  And I did. And dreamed as I slept, badly.

  * * * *

  And so I woke up. We were going at a pretty good clip. It had been full dark when I went to sleep; now the light from outside was muted, like twilight in summer. There was something odd about it, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Eldritch? Is that the word? In any case, it was impossible to judge how much time had passed.

  I took stock. I was God-knew-where, with this old man who was demonstrably as crazy as a loon, on a freight train in a rickety old boxcar. I was stiff, it was hot, and I was hungry. I sat up and shook my head to try and clear it. This had gone seriously past the point of being a lark.

  I asked him again, this time a little more pointedly, “Look, who are you? I’ve got to know.”

  He looked over at me, for once both eyes staring directly into mine.

  “I am mortally weary of you asking that same damn question, is who I am. But since you ask so nice, I’ll tell you—if you got the guts to hear it.

  “I am who I am, boy. I am a man of constant sorrow. I am a man of the moon. I am the man of a thousand face. I am the man who never says die.” He drew himself up to his full height and continued, his voice getting louder and stronger.

  “I am he who knocked one over the fence in 1925, the one that all know as the old man down the road. I hold nothing in my hands that I cannot own, and nothing sets in my pockets that I did not put there. There are no flies on me, nor are there mind-control rays from Mars. I am no longer well-to-do and never was. I have all that I can do to stand before you and am as strong as the rails that rumble beneath our asses.”

  As he spoke, he leaned closer to me so that I could feel his breath, warm against my face. It smelled of coffee and time.

  “Most of all, I am Joshua Abraham Norton the Second, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico, a direct descendant of Emperor Joshua Abraham Norton the First. I am all that, and I contain several multitudes, boy, and don’t you forget it.” He held my eyes with his for a moment longer, then leaned back and looked out at the world.

  “I think I understand,” I said in a hushed voice.

  “Nawp, not yet you don’t,” he sighed, “but it’s a start.”

  We sat in silence after that, watching the passing scenery. Presently, I could make out a train yard up ahead, and the old man—the Emperor!—gathered himself up.

  “Time to go, son. Don’t leave nothing behind that you brought, and don’t take anything with you that was already here.”

  We hopped off the train as it crept past a siding. That weird light showed a flat, grassy area surrounded by trees and brush. A bulky figure was slowly and carefully stirring something in a big coffee can held over a fire by sticks.

  The old man called out, “Hey, ’bo!”

  The figure rose and bowed low. “Welcome, Your Imperial Majesty.” His voice rumbled deep and clear, like a slow freight rolling on fresh snow.

  The Emperor waved a hand in dismissal. “Don’t stand on ceremony, ’bo, just set back down and mind your mulligan. Anything in that pot for us?”

  “It’s all for you, Your Imperial Majesty,” the big man replied as he resumed stirring, “if you’ve got the hunger and a little something to add to it.”

  “Oh, we got the hunger, all right,” the old man said. “And I’ve got just the thing to make it pee-cont.” He reached into his back pocket, brought out that old rag and tied it in a knot. He tossed this to the figure who caught it without looking.

  “How long are we gonna be here?” I asked the old man querulously.

  He shrugged. “I’ll be five-feet ten inches. How ’bout you?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant. You don’t know what you meant. Just set back and relax yourself.”

  I tried to. I sat down with my back against an old wooden crate that, from the smell, had once held onions. I could hear night birds and cicadas, and in the distance the clanking and chuffing of the train yard. After a while, I noticed that my breathing was easier, and my eyes were becoming accustomed to the strange light.

  The big man at the fire leaned in to add the contents of the rag to whatever it was in the can. As he did, the flames illuminated a face that was somehow even older than the Emperor’s; for all that there were no lines or wrinkles. I got the idea that he was so old that erosion had erased any mark of time.

  I tapped the Emperor on the arm. “Who’s he?” I asked in a low voice, then added, “Your Majesty.”

  He shook his head. “Y’know, for somebody who don’t even know his own self, you got a hell of an obsession with knowing who everybody else is. Besides, I ain’t been here any longer than you. Hey, ’bo,” he said in a louder voice, “you got a moniker?”

  The big man paused and set the ladle down on a tin plate. “Yeah, I got a few. I get called a lot of stuff. ‘Easy’ Ace, Tarheel Slim, Sidedoor, Tiny…you name it, I been called it.” He stood and stretched. “Right now, though, I’m just the Cook.”

  The breeze was wafting the aroma of good, hearty stew to us and my mouth watered. I felt like I hadn’t eaten for days, and I’d been a lot more active than I’m used to.

  “Cook,” I asked, a little nervously. “Where exactly are we?”

  He looked around slowly, and then turned to me. “Dunno, exactly. Could be anywhere. Place like this isn’t exactly nailed down, you see. Might be you could walk in two different directions and end up the same place. Might could be you’d walk a day and a night and never leave.”

  Although it was warm, I felt a chill. “What…what time is it?”

  The Cook resumed stirring. “Why? You need to be somewhere?”

  “No, I’m just curious.”

  “Could be most any time, I guess. Could be March, or time-and-a-half. Could be time for every purpose under Heaven. Might could even be Thursday. Time don’t change much here. It don’t have to. It never gets full dark, never gets full light. Way I see it,” he looked up and nodded to me, “it’s pretty fine the way it is. Not so bright it blinds you, not so dark you can’t see the mysteries.” The fire popped and sparks flew up around his face. “All I know is I been sittin’ here stirring this mulligan since I inherited it from the last Cook, back a long ways. Should be ready ’most any time, now.”

  “Then if the time is right,” the Emperor said, “dip us out a bowl apiece, and we’ll be much obliged.”

  The Cook reached for a couple of battered old soup bowls and ladled some of the stew into them. He passed them to us one at a time, then tore off two big hunks of dark bread and tossed them to us. I noticed that he didn’t eat himself, and asked him if he wasn’t going to join us.

  “’Preciate the thought,” he said, shaking his head, “but naw. I don’t eat much. Never did. And anyhow, I ain’t s’posed to right now.”

  “Here’s to it, then,” the Emperor said and began to eat. I soaked up some of the stew with my bread and tasted it. It was unbelievably good; rich without being overwhelming, just sweet and salty enough to make you want more. The meat—whatever it was, and I didn’t care to speculate—was so tender it almost fell apart without being chewed. As I swallowed that first bite, I could feel all the cells in my body open up in surprise and welcome. It was like eating for the first time in my life, and I began shoveling it in as fast as I could.

  Then the old man spoke up. “Now, I need to warn you, son,”
he said as I dipped my bread back into the stew, “this is gonna open some doors you didn’t even know was there. By whatever time this is tomorrow, we’re gonna know for sure about those two Frog Levels.”

  This was getting too weird for me. Hell, this had started out as a joke; I was following some crazy guy around the countryside looking for proof that we’d gotten a present from aliens, for Christ’s sake.

  I put my bowl down. “Look, guys, this is right over the top. I can’t go along with it anymore, I don’t even know what’s in this stuff!”

  “Ain’t nothing in it you ain’t had before,” the Cook replied. “Ain’t nothing in it you didn’t already have in you.”

  “Too late now, anyway,” the old man said. “Might as well have a full stomach for what lies ahead.”

  “What lies ahead?” I asked in desperation.

  “No more lies,” the old man said. “Just the truth.”

  I ate. There was an excitement in my belly that I couldn’t deny. I was back on that train, strapped to the engine, and it was going downhill faster than a hell-bound bat.

  “Look to your shadow, son,” the Emperor said.

  I looked down. It was where it had always been, at the end of my feet. Silently, I pointed to it.

  “Naw,” he said, “not that. That’s just where you block the light. Where’s your shadow?”

  I didn’t know. “If that’s not my shadow, then where is it?” I was worried, it should have been back hours ago, or at least called, the ungrateful bastard.

  The Cook said, “You didn’t have it when you came in. From the looks of you, I’d say it’s been gone a long time.”

  “Your shadow’s your conscience, boy,” the Emperor explained. “Your identity. Your integrity. Everybody’s got one, they just lose ’em every once and again. They’re the truth of you, but they’re mysteries, too.”

  He stood, and wiped his hands on his pants. “You can’t find it when you’re in one place, because it could be anywhere. When you’re in two places, though, it gets easier. It’s always in the other one.”

  It didn’t make sense. No, it made sense, but it was not-sense. Stuff and not-sense. After a while, though, it didn’t seem so weird, just inevitable. Just unavoidable. Just amenable. Just a minute.… It was just a matter of time.

  “It’s time to go, son.”

  “’To the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie?’”

  “Shadows don’t lie. We gotta get going.”

  “Where?” I stood up unclosely…excuse me, unsteadily. “If we don’t know where we are, how will we know when we get where we’re going?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Matter, for one thing. Here, take my hand.”

  I did, although I already had two of my own. “Can we really do this?”

  “We already have. Look around you.”

  It was dark, but a bright kind of dark that hurt my eyes. I could see everything, but there wasn’t any light to see it by. Even the shadows were brightly lit; even the reflections of the sun in the windows were shaded.

  “Are we…are we there?”

  He shook his head. “‘Theres’.”

  “What?”

  “There’s where we are.” He pointed to a road sign. It read “Frog Level” in white letters against green. There seemed to be two of them though, one on the other, neither of them the same size or shape. I looked around as best I could, being eyeful that my mind…excuse me, mindful that my eyes hurt.

  Vertigo, vertigoing, vertigone. I shook my head but couldn’t shake the double vision. It was endless, it seemed; and seamless, it ended. With a bright snap, my head got itself around something larger than it could contain, and I found myself losing it.

  I really was theres. I was in both Frog Levels at the same time, and ah, God, it hurt. It burned like I’d swallowed fire and sicked it back up; it hurt so bad I could goddam well hear it. I could see both place, not blurred, but slurred, slued, skewed. I was screwed, and I spewed. It hit the pavements and sparked.

  “Here!” the old man shouted at me, pain in the ass that he was. Pain in my head, too, for all that he wasn’t inside it. “Keep hold of my hand.”

  “Why, you going to drop it?”

  “Look up the street,” he said in his dark-light voice. “Look at the street and tell me what you see.”

  “I spy, with my little eye…something that begins the beguine.” I giggled at my own cleverness. He slapped me, hard, and my eyes blinked on and off rapidly.

  “What do you see?”

  I looked. I saw a roads, badly paved; a cars or two, a streets with a combination convenience stores and gas stations.

  “I don’t know,” I said shakily. “I see what you see, I guess. What am I supposed to see?”

  “What I don’t see. Look at your reflection in that window. What are you wearing?”

  “Out my welcome, I’d say. Aren’t you?”

  “Fine. And your shadow?”

  “I can’t look at them. It hurts too much.”

  “No, boy, you only have one. Nobody has but one. Now, look for it!”

  I did. It wasn’t there. It had to be somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. I bet he couldn’t, either, but I was too tired, hurt too much, to say so.

  “You can’t find it, can you?”

  “No, it’s not theres. It’s not anywheres. I bet somebody stole it.”

  “Nobody stole it, you turned it loose a long time ago. But you got to find it now to be whole. You understand?”

  “But I am whole, I’m an ass-whole.” I half-laughed at my own purl of knit-wit.

  “It’s not here, boy, because you ain’t here. You’re there. You’re in the other Frog Level. Feel around you, try and find it.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t feel too good. I don’t feel well, either, I might be sick again.”

  “Be sick on your own time, not everybody else’s.”

  With my eyes squeezed shut, I felt around for my shadow. I felt a round something at my feet, but it was a pumpkin. Didn’t Jack Sprat keep his shadow in a pumpkin? Or was that Lamont Cranston and Margot Lane? I couldn’t remember.

  I picked up the pumpkin and shook it; it rattled and rolled out of my hands, so I chased it down the streets. I caught it just before it went around a corners and turned into a drugstores. Lucky me, I could never have picked it back up if it was a drugstores.

  I hefted it over my head and threw it through the windows. It smashed, and my shadow leapt up and out and into me.

  I thought it hurt before, but I was wronged. Fusing with my shadow was fusion; I was out of control in the heart of the sun. Blood burst hot from my heart and shattered against the light, sending bright shrapnel into me from the inside out. The Earth and all that went with it rose up and fell toward me. I was running out of time.

  That’s when it hit me. I understood at last, at least. I began humming a Bach Partita, and started running in time to it, eyes still clamped shut. I knew where the real Frog Level was. It was hidden by the Light of the Present, and I could find it if I could just hear the right note, the best note; the thank-you note.

  Better than that: I was a musician, I was the Music Ian, and I could goddam well write the thank you notes! I could sing the thank-you notes!

  So I did, and I sang them loud and clear, and the aliens heard, and the old man was crying and shouting, and I was breathless and not breathing and the notes went on and on like a flock of geese had flown out of my mouth and my lungs were full of air, full of the Air, an Air on the Geese String that wouldn’t end until it was over, and it flew over and over both places called Frog Level, and if anyone but the aliens and the two of us heard it, well, we’ll never know, will I?

  * * * *

  By and by, I came back to myself, to my own head, to one place. I hurt all over, but not the same way being in two places did. It hurt good, like a hard day’s work. And I suppose it had been just that.

  I sat up and looked around.
The clearing was gone, and the fire and the stew as well, although I’m sure that somewhere the Cook is still slowly stirring, stirring, and offering his mulligan to hungry travelers. I was alone beside the creek.

  I stood and stretched. It felt damned good, too. I felt damned good, as a matter of fact. I felt like a job well done and a full day’s pay.

  Something white fluttered against a nearby tree and caught my eye. I walked over and it was a note stuck to the trunk with a stag-handled penknife.

  “Son,” it said, “you done good when the push came to the shovel. I knew you had it in you when I first saw you, and now that you’ve let it out, you’ll never be rid of it. Deal with that, and you’ll never lose at poker.

  “I’m out of here. I got places to be seen in and things to have done; I hear there’s three goddamn Frog Levels in North Carolina alone, so I got my work cut out for me. Doubt I’ll be back anytime soon, but you knew that anyway.”

  My eyes burned; probably smoke from the fire that wasn’t there anymore. I read on:

  “Don’t fret about getting back. Just follow the creek around to the left and it’ll take you to the real Frog Level. From there, you can get to almost any place if you try hard enough.

  “I give you my best. You already gave me yours.”

  It was signed, “Joshua Abraham Norton II, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico”.

  I still have the note, in a frame on my office wall. I have an office wall, now, and an office for it to be in, I should point out. Something about that day (days? I’ll never know) ironed out a lot of my own rough spots. After I got back home, I knuckled down and finished my Masters. I don’t mind telling you that it wasn’t a simple task; the habits of a lifetime aren’t easily broken, and I’d had more of my energies invested in being lazy than I’d ever thought possible. But I managed it nonetheless, and now I’m teaching at a small college in the Mid-West, working on my doctorate.

  I still have the penknife, too; it “sets in my pocket because I put it there.” I don’t use it much, I don’t have to. It’s enough to know where it came from and where it is. And you never know when you might need a penknife on the road.