Mindswap

by Robert Sheckley

  The ganzer egg choked back his sobs. His voice became abruptly stronger.

  'All right,' he said to Marvin. 'I'm ready now. Go ahead and do your damnedest, you lousy son-of-a-bitch.'

  But the prayer of the ganzer egg had umnanned Marvin completely. With eyes wet and fetlocks trembling, Marvin opened the net and released his captive. The ganzer egg rolled out a little distance and then stopped, clearly fearing a trick.

  'You – you really mean this?' he said.

  'I do,' Marvin said. 'I was never cut out for this kind of work. I don't know what they will do to me back at the camp, but I shall never gather a single ganzer egg!'

  'Praised be the name of the Lord,' the ganzer egg said softly. 'I've seen a few strange things in my time, but it seems to me that the Hand of Providence-'

  The hypothesis of the ganzer egg (known as the Interventionalist Fallacy) was interrupted by a sudden ominous crashing in the underbrush. Marvin whirled, and remembered the dangers of the planet Melde. He had been warned, but had forgotten. And now, desperately, he fumbled for his blaster, which had become entangled in his net. Violently he wrenched at it, pulled it free, heard a shrill warning from the ganzer egg-

  And then he was flung violently to the ground. The blaster spun away into the underbrush. And Marvin gazed up into slit black eyes beneath a low armoured forehead.

  No introductions were necessary. Flynn knew that he had met a full-grown adult marauding ganzer, and had met him under possibly the worst of all circumstances. The evidence (if evidence were needed) was all too evident; close to hand was the damning net, the telltale sunglasses, the revealing tongs. And closer still – closing on his neck – was the tooth-edged jaw of the gigantic saurian, so close that Marvin could see three gold molars and a temporary porcelain filling.

  Flynn tried to wriggle free. The ganzer pressed him back with a paw the size of a yak saddle; his cruel claws, each the size of a pair of ice tongs, bit cruelly into Marvin's golden hide. The slavering jaws gaped hideously, descended, about to engulf his entire head …

  Chapter 11

  Suddenly – time stopped! Marvin saw the ganzer's jaws arrested in midslaver, his bloodshot left eye fixed in midblink, and his entire great body gripped in a strange and unyielding rigidity.

  Nearby, the ganzer egg was as motionless as a carven replica of itself.

  The breeze was stopped in midcareer. Trees were caught in straining postures, and a meritheian hawk was fixated in midflight like a dummy attached to a wire.

  The sun stopped its inexorable rolling flight!

  And in this strange tableau, Marvin stared with tremulous sensations in the direction of a single movement in the air three feet above his head and slightly to his left.

  It began as a whorl of dust, broadened, expanded, expatiated, thickening at the base and becoming convex at the apex. The rotation came faster, and the figure solidified.

  'Detective Urdorf!' Marvin cried. For it was indeed the Martian detective with the streak of bad luck who had promised to solve Marvin's case and to return to him his rightful body.

  'Terribly sorry to barge in like this,' Urdorf said, materializing fully and falling heavily to the ground.

  'Thank God you have come!' Marvin said. 'You have saved me from an extremely unpleasant fate, and now if you will help me out from under this creature-'

  For Marvin was still pinned to the ground by the ganzer's paw, which had taken on the rigidity of tempered steel, and from beneath which he was unable to wriggle.

  'Sorry,' the detective said, getting up and dusting himself off. 'I'm afraid I can't do that.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because it's against the rules,' Detective Urdorf told him. 'You see, any displacement of bodies during an artificial induced temporal stoppage (which is what this is) could result in a Paradox, which is forbidden since it might result in a temporal implosion which might conceivably have the result of warping the structure-lines of our continuum and thus destroy the universe. Because of this, any displacement is punishable by a prison sentence of one year and a fine of one thousand credits.'

  'Oh. I didn't know that,' Marvin said.

  'Well, I'm afraid that's how it is,' the detective said.

  'I see,' Marvin said.

  'I rather hoped you would,' the detective said.

  There was a long and uncomfortable silence. Then Marvin said, 'Well?'

  'Beg pardon?'

  'I said – I meant to say, why did you come here?'

  'Oh,' the detective said. 'I wished to ask you several questions which had not occurred to me earlier, and which would assist me in the rigorous investigation and solution of this case.'

  'Ask away,' Marvin said.

  'Thank you. First and foremost, what is your favourite colour?'

  'Blue.'

  'But exactly what shade of blue? Please try to be exact.'

  'Robin's-egg blue.'

  'Hmmm.' The detective noted it down in his notebook. 'And now, tell me quickly and without thinking, what is the first number that comes into your mind?'

  '87792.3,' Marvin replied without hesitation.

  'Um hum. And now, without reflection, tell me the name of the first popular song you can think of.',

  ' "Orang-Utan Rhapsody",' Marvin said.

  'Ummmm. Fine,' Urdorf said, snapping his notebook shut. 'I think that covers everything.'

  'What was the purpose of those questions?' Marvin asked.

  'With this information, I will be able to test various suspects for corpus-vestigial responses. It is part of the Duulman self-identity quiz.'

  'Oh,' Marvin said. 'Have you had any luck yet?'

  'Luck hardly enters into it,' Urdorf replied. 'But I can say that the case is proceeding in a satisfactory manner. We traced the thief to Iorama II, where he smuggled himself into a cargoload of flash-frozen beef destined for Goera Major. On Goera he represented himself as a fugitive from Hage XI, which won him a good deal of popular favour. He managed to raise enough money for fare to Kvanthis, where he had cached his money. Staying no more than a day on Kvanthis, he boarded the local to the Fiftystars Autonomous Region.'

  'And then?' Marvin asked.

  'Then we lost track of him temporarily. Fiftystars Region contains no less than 432 planetary systems with a combined population of 300 billion. So as you can see, our work is cut out for us.'

  'It sounds hopeless,' Marvin said.

  'Quite the contrary, it is a very good break for us. Laymen always mistake complication for complexity. But our criminal will find no safety in mere multiplicity, which is always susceptible to statistical analysis.'

  'So what happens now?' Marvin asked.

  'We continue analysing, and then we make a projection based upon the probabilities, and then we send our projection across the galaxy and see if it goes nova … I am speaking figuratively, of course.'

  'Of course,' Marvin said. 'Do you really think you'll catch him?'

  'I am fully confident of the results,' Detective Urdorf said. 'But you must have patience. You must remember that intergalactic crime is still a relatively new field, and therefore intergalactic investigation is newer still. There have been many crimes in which even the existence of a criminal could not be proven, much less detected. So in some respects, we are ahead of the game.'

  'I guess I'll have to take your word for it,' Marvin said.

  'Just don't worry. In these cases, it is best for the victim to continue his life as normally as possible, to stay alive, and not to give way to despair. I hope you will remember this.'

  'I'll try to,' Marvin said. 'But about this situation I'm in at present-'

  'It is the very sort of situation I have told you to avoid,' the detective said severely. 'Please remember that in the future, if you should manage to come out of this alive. Good luck, my friend, and stay alive!'

  Before Marvin's eyes, Detective Urdorf revolved, faster, faster, grew dimmer, and disappeared.

  Time unfroze.

  And Marvin gazed up
again into the ganzer's slit black eyes and low armoured forehead, and saw the hideous gaping jaws descending, about to engulf his entire head …

  Chapter 12

  'Wait!' Marvin shouted.

  'What for?' the ganzer asked.

  Marvin hadn't thought that far. He heard the ganzer egg muttering, 'Turnabout's fair play; and yet, he was kind to me. Still, what business is it of mine? Stick your neck out, somebody cracks your shell. And yet …'

  'I don't want to die,' Marvin said.

  'I didn't suppose you did,' the rock ganzer said, in a not unfriendly voice. 'And, of course, you want to discuss it with me. Ethics, morals, the whole bit. But I'm afraid not. We were specifically warned, you see, never to allow a Melden to talk. We were told to just do the job and get it over with, not to personalize it. Just do it and get on to the next bit of work. Mental hygiene, really. Therefore, if you would close your eyes …'

  The jaws moved closer. But Marvin, filled with wild surmise, cried out: 'Did you say job?'

  'Of course, it's a job,' the ganzer said. 'There's nothing personal in it.' He frowned, apparently annoyed at himself for having spoken.

  'A job! Your job is to hunt Meldens, is that it?'

  'Well, obviously. This planet of Ganzer isn't good for much, you see, except for hunting Meldens.'

  'But why do you hunt them?' Marvin asked.

  'Well, for one thing, a ganzer egg can grow to full maturity only in the host flesh of the adult Melden.'

  'I say,' the ganzer egg said, rolling around with embarrassment, 'must we get so damned biological? I mean to say, you don't hear me talking about your natural functions, do you?'

  'And secondly,' the ganzer continued, 'our sole export is Melden hides, which (after curing and tanning) are used for imperial vestments on Triana II, for good-luck charms on Nemo, and for seat covers on Chrysler XXX. This quest for the elusive and deadly Melden is our sole means of maintaining a tolerable degree of civilization and-'

  'That's exactly what they told me!' Marvin cried, and quickly repeated what the manager had said to him.

  'My gosh!' said the ganzer.

  Both realized the true situation now: the Meldens were utterly dependent upon the Ganzers, who in turn, were utterly dependent upon the Meldens. These two races hunted each other, lived and died for each other, and, through ignorance or guile, ignored any relationship between each other. The relationship was utterly symbiotic, but completely unacknowledged by either race. In fact, each race pretended that it alone was a Civilized Intelligence, and that the other was bestial, contemptible, and of no account,

  And it now occurred to both of them that they were, in equal measure, participants in the general concept of Humanity. (The ganzer egg was also a part, of course.)

  The realization was awesome; but Marvin was still pinned to the ground by the ganzer's heavy paw.

  'This leaves me in a somewhat embarrassing situation,' the ganzer said, after a while. 'My natural tendency is to release you; but I am working on this planet under a contract, which stipulates-'

  'Then you are not a real ganzer?'

  'No. I am a Swapper like yourself, and I come from Terra!'

  'My home planet!' Marvin cried.

  'I had guessed as much,' the ganzer replied. 'After a time one becomes sensitive to the idiosyncratic quality of differing minds, and learns to recognize one's countrymen through little tricks of thought and phraseology. I would guess that you are an American, probably from the East Coast, perhaps from Connecticut or Vermont-'

  'New York State!' Marvin cried. 'I am from Stanhope!'

  'And I am from Saranac Lake,' the ganzer said. 'My name is Otis Dagobert, and I am thirty-seven years old.'

  And with that, the ganzer lifted his paw from Marvin's chest. 'We are neighbours,' he said quietly. 'And so I cannot kill you, just as I am reasonably sure you would be unable to kill me, had you the opportunity. And now that we know the truth, I doubt if we will be able to perform any portion of our terrible jobs. But that is a sad thing to find out, for it means that we are doomed to Contractual Discipline; and then if we do not obey, our Companies will give us Extreme Severance. And you know what that means.'

  Marvin nodded sadly. He knew all too well. His head drooped, and he sat in disconsolate silence beside his newly found friend.

  'I can think of no way out,' Marvin said, after giving the matter some thought. 'Perhaps we could hide in the forest for a few days; but they would be sure to find us.'

  Suddenly, the ganzer egg spoke up. 'Come now, perhaps it isn't as hopeless as you think!'

  'What do you mean?'Marvin asked.

  'Well now,' the ganzer egg said, dimpling with pleasure, 'it seems to me that one good turn deserves another. I could get into plenty of hot water for this … But to hell with that. I think I can find a way off this planet for both of you.'

  Both Marvin and Otis broke into exclamations of gratitude; but the ganzer egg stopped them at once.

  'Maybe you won't thank me when you see what lies ahead,' he said ominously.

  'Nothing could be worse than this,' Otis said.

  'You'd be surprised,' the ganzer egg said flatly. 'You might be very surprised … This way, gentlemen.'

  'But where are we going?' Marvin asked.

  'I'm taking you to meet the Hermit,' the ganzer egg replied, and would say no more. He rolled purposefully away, and Marvin and Otis followed.

  Chapter 13

  Through the rain forest wild and free of Ganzer (or Melde, depending upon your point of view), they marched and rolled, ever alert for danger. But no creature menaced them, and they came at last to a clearing in the forest. They saw a rude hut in the centre of that clearing, and a humanoform creature dressed all in rags, squatting in front of the hut.

  'That is the Hermit,' said the ganzer egg. 'He's quite insane.'

  The two Terrans had no time in which to consider that information. The Hermit arose and cried, 'Now stand, hold, halt! Reveal yourselves to my understanding!'

  'I'm Marvin Flynn,' Marvin said, 'and this is my friend Otis Dagobert. We want to escape from this planet.'

  The Hermit didn't seem to hear them; he stroked his long beard and gazed thoughtfully at the treetops. In low, sombre tones, he said:

  'Ere this moment came, a flight of geese

  Passed low o'erhead, presaging woe;

  The refuge and disconsolate owl did pass

  This hid'n' place of mine, bereft

  Of that which nature freely gives but man denies!

  The stars are silent when they light our home:

  The trees themselves proclaim the flight of kings.'

  'He means,' the ganzer egg said, 'that he had a feeling you'd be coming this way.'

  'Is he crazy or something?' Otis asked. 'The way he talks-'

  'Now rede me this! I'll have no plattering roth

  To creep between the interstices of a mind

  Proclaiming treason.'

  The Hermit said.

  'He doesn't want you to whisper to each other.' the ganzer egg translated. 'It makes him suspicious.'

  'I could figure that much out for myself,' Flynn said.

  'So go screw yourself.' the ganzer egg said. 'I was just trying to be helpful.'

  The Hermit advanced several paces, halted, and said:

  'What wot ye here aroon?'

  Marvin looked at the ganzer egg, who remained obstinately silent. So, guessing at the meaning of the words, Marvin said, 'Sir, we are trying to escape from this planet, and we have come to you for help.'

  The Hermit shook his head and said:

  'What barbrous tongue is this? A thick-mouthed sheep

  Would clothe his meaning in a sound more clear!'

  'What does he mean?'Marvin asked.

  'You're so smart, figure it out for yourself,' the ganzer egg said.

  'I'm sorry if I insulted you.' Marvin said.

  'Forget it, forget it.'

  'I really am sorry. I'd appreciate it if you'd translate for
us.'

  'All right,' the ganzer egg said, still a little sulkily. 'He says he doesn't understand you.'

  'He doesn't? But what I said to him was clear enough.'

  'Not to him,' the ganzer egg said. 'You want to reach him, you'd better put it in metre.'

  'Me? I couldn't!' Marvin said, with that instinctual shudder of revulsion which all intelligent Terran males feel at the though of verse. 'I simply couldn't! Otis, maybe you-'

  'Not me!' Otis said, alarmed. 'What do you think I am? A fag?'

  'A silence swells and grows; yet honest men

  Speak bold, with well-formed mouth! Melikes it not

  What this development portends.'

  'He's getting edgy,' the ganzer egg said. 'You better have a shot at it.'

  'Perhaps you could do it for us,' Otis suggested.

  'I'm no fag,' the ganzer egg sneered. 'If you want to speak, you'll have to speak for yourselves.'

  'The only poem I can remember from school is the Ruba'iyat,' Marvin said.

  'Well, go to it,' the ganzer egg said.

  Marvin thought, twitched, and nervously said:

  'Behold! A pilgrim from the forest war

  Of race 'gainst race, does humbly implore

  Your aid and sustenance, and help and hope.

  Can you this humble earnest plea ignore?'

  'Very shaky,' whispered the ganzer egg. 'But not bad for a first attempt.' (Otis was giggling, and Marvin clouted him with his tail.)