Annals of Klepsis

by R. A. Lafferty

  And, oh, the people in that dim and dingy world: sad, empty-eyed, without hope, shaking with fear. Yes, there were people here, sinking and screaming into the land, and walking quakingly on the water. There were at least ten thousand people on that one promontory, and there were hundreds of other simultaneously crowded capes and heads. There were hopeless meadows and despondent sloughs and apathy valleys; and they were all populated by people who were somehow straited and incomplete.

  “This is the Doomsday Equation put into audio-visual form,” Doctor Gilmartin said. “The name of this three-D panorama is ‘The Introspections of Brannagan.’ But Brannagan isn’t introspecting Brannagan; we are introspecting Brannagan.”

  “I am sure that we can see only a small portion of it from here, but what it looks like to me—” Flobert Traxley, the man who talked to dragons, tried to explain something, and then he fell silent. His face was twitching.

  “I am sure this is only one aspect of it,” the Historian Titus Livius was saying, “like the tail of an elephant. But a man who really understands the tail end of things, might reconstruct—Oh God, what might he not reconstruct! No, no!”

  “I am sure that this is only a limited sampling of it,” Terpsichore Callagy was saying in a fearful voice, “but to one who has the artist’s eye and mind, as I have, the pattern is evident. Of course we are in the middle of—”

  “No, no, don’t say it,” the Greek-god-made-out-of-stone, Hektor Lafcadio, cried out. “It must be something else we are in. It cannot be what it seems to be. Do not say it!”

  “Of course we are in the middle of a giant human brain,” Terpsichore finished her bit. “Giant? Yes, giant. Many kilometers is every dimension of it.”

  “Och, Brannagan’s Brain!” O’Grogan shuddered the words out. “He was always an impossible and irresponsible man. I loved him more than any man on our world, but he was clearly an oaf and a slob, a wooden-legged slob. Ah, but he was always a brainy man! He really does hold all of us in his brain now. Oh, how can we hide from a person in his own brain?”

  “Let us not panic,” Doctor Luke Gilmartin said easily. “If this is really the Introspection of Brannagan that we are experiencing, then it is a happening worth living. As Brannagan’s Ghost’s physician and doctor, I have been into, though not in, Brannagan’s brain a few times before, extracting bullets from it and such routine things as that. I think I recognize a place in it now. I’ll just climb up there and let you know. In just a minute I’ll call down to you whether it is Brannagan’s brain or not.”

  It seemed to be easy but messy, rather malodorous, climbing. But old Doctor Gilmartin was entirely professional as he carried on his investigation. He climbed high, two hundred meters or so. He prowled about a spot there for a while. And then he called down in a glad but faint (from his great distance away) voice:

  “Triumph, scientific triumph! I have made absolute identification from a spot that I know well. Yes, this is Brannagan’s brain. Oh, it is big! From down there you can have no idea of the size of it. Immense, immense!

  “Ah, and the interior valleys and cities that I can see from this height! Millions and millions and millions of people in them. I really believe that all the people of all the worlds are there. They’re not very happy people, though. They’re a little bit like people who have never been awakened, or have never been born.”

  “Trapped in Brannagan’s brain! Then, we are all lost!” the O’Grogan moaned.

  But there was a movement that was a little less than a movement. Those of us who were paying attention knew immediately that we had begun another jump. The big human brain that had contained us vanished completely, and that left Doctor Gilmartin up in the air. He fell to the fore-deck of The Dina O’Grogan like a plummet and was killed and curdled into an unsavory mass.

  “Let the rule be: ‘Do not ever climb so high on the cliffs of imagination that the fall from the top will kill you,’” the Penny Philosopher Fairbridge Exendine said.

  “A good line,” the historian Titus approved, and he wrote it down in his pocket notebook.

  Like big thunder, we heard the happy, clattering laughter of Brannagan then, worlds away from us. He’d been having a little fun with one of his Projecting Tricks. He had always been full of them. Did you know that Brannagan had been a stage magician when he was a young man, on his first trip to Astrobe?

  We completed our planetary jump, and we came to …

  TENTH CANTO

  The Possibility of Worms

  For want of a nail the shoe is lost,

  For want of the shoe the horse is lost,

  For want of the horse the rider is lost,

  For want of the rider the battle is lost,

  For want of the battle the kingdom is lost,

  For want of the kingdom the world is lost,

  For want of the world the cosmos is lost,

  And all for the loss of the Horseshoe Nail.

  —Nescio Unde

  We completed our jump and came home to the little dock at the base of the hill below Ravel-Brannagan Castle. I went to hurl the leader rope for the tie-up hawser, but I saw that we were already made fast to dockside.

  Very little damage was done to us on our outlandish trips, and what damage was done was easily undone. Doctor Gilmartin, our only casualty (unless we put Brannagan and Quasimodo in that category) soon proved to be no casualty at all. The old doctor rose from the deck and seemed to pull himself together. He was neither dead nor impaired, he said, but he was stiff and muscle-tired from the high climb.

  “It was all a matter of proportion,” old Doctor Gilmartin said. “Sure, it was more-than a two-hundred-meter climb up that brain cliff, more than a furlong. But at the same time it was much less than a millimeter. And a fall of a millimeter isn’t going to kill me, not if I keep things in proportion.”

  There were crowds of people around the dock and around everywhere. They were not remnants of last night’s gala people. They were newly arrived people, many of them media people. How did I know that they were media people? I had asked my Princess Thorn.

  “They are media people,” she had said. “How can you be an historian and not know media people when you see them? And some of them are scientific people. From the way they are running around, it seems that they are all wanting places to stay. And they all want Instanto lines to Gaea-Earth and to Astrobe and to Camiroi. They all want conference rooms, and they all say that they are anchor-people. They all want something. What do you want, my love?”

  “I want to go on my honeymoon, Thorn, now that we have been almost everywhere else this busy night. I want to go now, when the morning is almost here, and the white dawn has already touched the top of O’Grogan’s Mountain.”

  “How sweet and how poetical! With whom would you go on honeymoon, my love?”

  “With you, of course, Thorn. With no one else, ever!”

  “But that would be vulgar. I’m married to you. Oh, don’t look so bedashed, Long John Tong Tyrone. I was just being quippy. How can you be an historian and not know quips when you see them? I think that second-rate history is almost entirely quips.

  “Oh, some of the media people are asking about the five royal, intelligent, golden bears who disappeared so mysteriously from Astrobe, disappeared right from in front of the eyes of fifty people there. They blocked all possible ways they might get off Astrobe, and yet they have been reported here on Klepsis. They sound a little bit like that nice bear family that was sitting next to us last night on O’Grogan’s Mountain. Well, where shall we go on our honeymoon? Around the Castle landing here, around this part of Klepsis, the rich people go to Kaye Spencer’s Hay Meadow, and the poor people go to Hogan’s Haystack.”

  “We are rich, Thorn. We are among the numerous co-owners of the greatest treasure in the universe. Neither the Hay Meadow nor the Haystack sounds very private, but we will go to the richer of them, the Hay Meadow. What is that oaf of a dockmaster saying? That we never left dock at all last night?”

 
“No, Duke Tyrone, of course you did not. Are you still kidders after morning has begun to appear? I have had to explain it to the Penny Philosopher and to several others that you did not leave dock last night,” the dockmaster was saying good-naturedly. “I even had to explain it to the Outcast Prince. Do you really believe that you left? At first I believed that you were carrying part of last night’s playacting over to this morning. This is the first time since I’ve worked here that The Dina O’Grogan has been host ship for the Shipboard Theatre. Indeed, there was a mix-up tonight. The people of the ship The Polled Unicorn believed that their ship was scheduled for it, and they were a little bit perturbed by the situation. But when they saw what good theatre you people on The Dina O’Grogan put on, they were appeased. I liked it best when Brannagan’s Ghost was chained to the main mast and sang those rousing ballads. Then I liked the part where you ‘space-jumped’ to the asteroid and all of you had green leaves growing out of your bellies when you got there. Who wrote that part of the skit anyhow? It was rich. And I liked the part where the tall, inflatable cliff collapsed and the funny doctor fell all the way down to the deck and was killed. And I liked the part where you pretended to forget to untie from the dock and you set your sails for voyaging. If there had been much wind last night, you might have wrecked the dock. It isn’t’ built very well, you know. I liked the part where you pretended that you were out on the stormy sea when you were still in calm tie-up. How did you make the ship bounce around like that anyhow? That was good theatre too, comic theatre. I tell you that the audience on shore was the biggest we’ve ever had for Shipboard Theatre. Even the slopes of O’Grogan’s Mountain were full of people watching you. It was classic.”

  “I wonder whether the bears watched us?” Thorn asked.

  “Of course they did. The five bears from Astrobe. They space-jumped from there, you know. Animals can do it easier than people can. I bet they never saw a show as good as yours on Astrobe. You were classic, classic.”

  “Classic indeed, dockmaster,” Thorn said. “What bait brings all the land fish from other planets to Klepsis this morning?”

  “It’s just the End of the World. Or maybe it is only the rumor of the End of the World, though everybody is pretty sure that it will happen this morning. The world is supposed to end on Klepsis slightly before it does on other places, and it will be big news. It’s all known as the Doomsday Equation.”

  “Oh, Science-Crisis-Catastrophe Theatre.”

  “Yes, something like that, Princess Thorn.”

  “You two can’t be taking off now,” Historian Titus protested to Thorn and myself. “You also are an historian, Duke Tyrone, and the stuff that history is made of is thick around this region this morning. There will be more than a hundred important historical and scientific symposia held around here, if they can find places to hold them all. I would like you and Thorn to attend those that I cannot attend. Nobody knows who is in charge of the arrangements here. It may be Prince Henry the Pirate, but he is not to be wakened this early in the morning. Besides, there’s a rumor that Prince Henry fell in a coup last night and is the only one who doesn’t know about it.”

  “Oh, I can do the ‘Prince Henry the Pirate’ role much better than Prince Henry can do it,” Prince Franco the Outcast chortled. “I love to be in charge of arrangements. What is it, people, special tickets that you want to something, special treatment? Nothing easier. We’ll just slip into the Castle and run off all the ‘special permission’ tickets you want. There are at least three hundred conference rooms in the Castle itself, and you people can bunk almost anywhere. If nobody else is in charge of the arrangements and hospitality, then I will be in charge. Begone, Thorn and Long John, you’ll not be needed here.”

  “Well, was there a coup last night?” Titus the Historian asked Princess Angela. “Who rules the realm now?”

  “There was a coup, yes,” Princess Angela said. “So far, we have told only a very few people about it, but it is in effect. And I rule the realm now.”

  Thorn and I went to Kaye Spencer’s Hay Meadow, and I was glad to see that it was an hotel (I had been told the day before that there were none of them on Klepsis) rather than an actual hay meadow. Scientific and media persons were waving thousand-thaler bills and demanding rooms. One of them used a cute approach.

  “You say that you have no rooms at all in reserve?” he asked the desk captain archly. “What if (where’s that list of local nobility?), what if Princess Tharrala Thorn should come looking for a room? Would you have a room for her?”

  “Indeed we would,” the desk captain said. “If the Princess Thorn should come, we’d have a suite for her.”

  “Well, she’s not coming,” he of the cute approach said. “Let me have that suite.”

  “But I am coming,” Princess Thorn spoke in her ringing voice. “We are coming, and we are here. What suite do you have for us?”

  “Well, what about the Princess Thorn Honeymoon Suite? Lord knows we’ve kept it waiting long enough for you, all through the years of your disappearance and exile.”

  “Yes, that will be fine. That will be wonderful,” my Princess Thorn said.

  “Let’s go over to Hogan’s Haystack and try the same line,” he of the cute approach said to his two traveling girlfriends. “This time, when I tell them that the Princess Thorn isn’t coming, I’ll be telling the truth.”

  “Is Hogan’s Haystack another hotel?” I asked.

  “No, there are no hotels on Klepsis,” the desk captain told me. “There are only such houses as this one that we open to our friends out of the hospitality of our hearts. Hogan’s Haystack is the second-best such house around here, and Hogan has the second-best heart in the neighborhood.”

  There really were top scientific people (not all of them human) who had gathered on Klepsis by white dawn that morning, and they continued to arrive all through the morning hours. And there were really top media people. They were overdue. Klepsis had many things of interest and mystery that should have been examined long ago. Then, why did all these people come today and not before, and why did they come in such clots and bunches? Because they were sheep and they flocked like sheep.

  It was not even certain when the end of the world would come. The Horseshoe Nail, that third focus of the construct, might not die until tomorrow morning.

  As to the honeymoon itself, both Thorn and myself were inexperienced in the thing. But each of us had read a book (a different book) on it, so we did know something about it.

  “I wish that I had married that Titus the Historian instead of you,” Thorn said, “because he is so much more eminent than you are. On the other hand, I’m glad that I married you instead of him because I’ve come to like you so much. But on the third hand, I wish I’d married him instead of you because he’s so much more personable than you are.”

  “Three hands are not allowed, Thorn,” I said. “There are no three-handed persons anywhere.”

  “Yes there are,” she happily contradicted me. “All the pickpockets on the Trader Planet Apateon are born with three hands. Really they are, my love. It’s in a proverb.”

  As both Thorn and I were of loving heart and healthy body, things went famously with us, and it was the happiest two hours I ever spent in my life. It was perfect down to Thorn’s final or frosting-on-the-cake proposal. And that one astonished me.

  “Oh, Thorn, that can’t possibly be in the instruction book,” I said.

  “No, but it’s going to be in the appendix of the next edition of the book,” she argued. “Come ahead and try it. Don’t be so fainthearted.”

  Thorn and I had a few slight interruptions during the morning. A green-and-orange bird came into the room out of the sound ventilator. All well-appointed buildings on Klepsis have sound ventilators as well as fresh-air and heating ducts. They have them so that the sound may circulate and will not become stale. Well, what is the matter with that? Sound really does have a tendency to become stale on Klepsis if not properly circulated and ventilated.r />
  “I come from Titus Livius Morrison-Bryce the Historian,” the parley bird spoke. (Titus had learned the mechanics of communication on Klepsis quickly, as a competent historian should.) “He begs me to inform you that one of the most important of all the symposia on Klepsis during this terminal emergency will be going on in the room just below yours. He begs that you should leave the sound duct open (in fact I have jimmied it open) so that you can hear and record this symposium. He begs that you understand the importance of it, made up as it is of leading scientists and philosophers and systems inventors and cosmological speculatives and end-of-the-world buffs. He begs that you will consider this deeply and then tell me whether you will do this or not. Please give me a yes or a no answer. I have a better record of accurate transmission on yes and no answers than on more complicated responses.”

  “The answer is no,” I said. “We are completely occupied with personal matters.”

  “The answer is yes,” Thorn said. “Oh yes, my love, I want to hear all these famous people. My attention actually increases when it is split among several different things. I have an awful amount of attention to spread around. I am always able to do several things well at one time; and listening to a symposium won’t interfere with our other activities.

  “The answer is yes,” Thorn told the parley bird, and the bird went away with that answer.

  “Plenty of the ‘My God What Grapes!’ grapes for them,” someone was speaking to someone else in the room below us. “And plenty of ice water. And pencils and pens, hundreds of pencils and pens. And a piece of paper, perhaps even two pieces of paper. That’s what to set out for people when they hold a symposium.”