The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  “You Analoi are sentient creatures of great natural intelligence, Landmaster. As such it is even possible that you have souls.”

  “We have souls that are fully realized. What could humans give to us who transcend humanity?”

  “The Truth, the Way, the Life, the Baptism.”

  “We have the first three greatly beyond yourselves. The last — the crabbed rite of a dying sect — what could that give us?”

  “Forgiveness of your sins.”

  “But we haven't any sins. That's the whole point about us. We've long since passed beyond that. You humans are still awkward and guilt-ridden. You are of a species which as yet has no adult form. Vicariously we may be the adult form of yourselves. The idea of sin is an aspect of your early awkwardness.”

  “Everybody has sins, Landmaster.”

  “Only according to your own childish thesis, little priest. And consequent to that, you would reason that everybody must be saved — and by yourselves, a race of crop-eared, flat-faced children.

  “But consider how meaningless it becomes in relation to ourselves, the Analoi. How could we sin? What would we have to sin about? Our procreation no longer follows the grotesque pattern of your own, and ours is without passion. You can see that ninety percent of your sin is already gone.

  “What else is left to us? What other opportunity — if that is the word for it — have we for sinning? We have no poverty, no greed, no envy. Our metabolism is so regulated that neither sloth nor hysterical activity is possible. We have long ago attained a balance in all things; and ‘sin’ is only a form of unbalance.

  “I have forgotten, little priest. What are the ‘sins’ of the childish races?”

  “Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth,” said Padreco Barnaby. “These are the capital sins and the sources of sin. All others derive from them.”

  “Spoken like a valiant little mime. And nothing is derived but from a source. But you can see how completely we lack these seven stumbling blocks of children. Pride is only a misunderstanding of the nature of achievement; covetousness disappears when all that could be coveted has been acquired; lust is an adjunct of an arrangement that no longer has a counterpart in ourselves. Anger, gluttony, envy, sloth are only malfunctions. All malfunctions are subject to adjustment and correction, and we have corrected them.”

  Padreco Barnaby was defeated for the while, and he let his mind wander. He gazed over the countryside of Analos.

  An early explorer has given his impression of that world:

  “It was as though I were walking under water,” he wrote. “This was not from any obstruction or resistance, for the atmosphere is lighter than Earth's. It was from a sort of shimmering and wavering of the air itself and from the ‘air shadows,’ not clouds, that pass along like the running shadows of overhead waves. This, coupled with the flora (very like the underwater plants of Earth, though free-standing) gave me the feeling that I was walking on the bottom of the ocean.

  To the Padreco it seemed as though he had been talking under water and that he had not been heard.

  “What is the meaning of that giant kettle in the center of your main plaza, Landmaster?” he finally asked. “It seems quite old.”

  “It is a relic of our old race, and we keep it. We have a certain reverence for the past — even the obsoleted past. In minds as great as ours there is room even for relics.”

  “Then it has no present use?”

  “No. But under a special condition we could revert to an ancient use of it. That need not concern you now.”

  A kettle, a giant kettle! You have no idea how grotesquely pot-bellied the thing was!

  But the Padreco returned impotently to his main theme. “There has to be sin, Landmaster! How else can there be salvation?”

  “We have salvation, little priest. You haven't How could you bring it to us?”

  So Padreco Barnaby left Landmaster and went out to see if he could not discover sin somewhere on Analos. He asked a small boy about it.

  “Sonny, do you know what sin is? Have you ever run across the thing?”

  “Sir and stranger, sin is an archaic word for an outmoded thing. It is an appurtenance to an unclarified state of mind that still obtains on the more benighted worlds. The word and the concept behind it will pass into oblivion as soon as true light can be brought into those dark places.”

  Damnation! — a meaningless word on Analos: even the children of the gargoyles were too polite to be human.

  “You little monster, do all the children on Analos talk like that?”

  “All who are not deviationists would of necessity talk as I do. And ‘monster,’ as you call me with disapprobation, means a ‘show-piece,’ that which is displayed, a wonder. The late meaning of the word in the sense of a grotesque animal is an accretion. I gladly accept the name of monster in its true meaning. We are the Monsters of the Universe.”

  Damme, I believe that you are, the Padreco said to himself. Polygot little prig! He couldn't even cope with the children of the things.

  “Sonny, do you ever have any fun?” he finally asked.

  “Fun is another archaic word; but I am not sound on its meaning,” said the boy. “Is it not related to the obsolete concept of sin?”

  “Not directly, boy. Fun is the third side of a two-headed coin. It slips in. Or it used to.”

  “Sir and stranger, it is possible that you should take course in corrective semantics.”

  “I may be taking one now. But what of the children are deviationists? Where are they? And what are like?”

  “I don't know. If they don't pass their probationary period, we don't see them any more. I believe they are sent to another place.”

  “I have to find a little bit of sin somewhere,” the Padreco mumbled to himself. “An honest man should be able to find it anywhere if he really inquires. On Earth the saying was that a taxi-driver would always know where to find it.”

  The Padreco hailed a taxi. A taxi is a circle. That is to say that one clambers over and sits in the single circular seat that faces inward. The Analoi are gregarious and like to gaze on the faces of their fellows. Only the shame-capable humans would wish to sit in Unfacing rows. The driver sits above in an open turret, and dangles his head down to talk.

  “Where would you go, stranger?” the driver asked the Padreco. There was one other passenger, a thoughtful man of early middle age.

  “I'm looking for sin,” the Padreco told the driver. “It's a tradition that taxi-drivers always know where to fin it.”

  “Riddles is it, stranger? Let me deliver my other customer while I puzzle this one out. It's his last ride and that makes it important.”

  “How is it your last ride?” Padreco Barnaby asked the thoughtful man. Conversation was unavoidable in such a taxi. The facing was too direct to get out of it.

  “Oh, my time has come,” said the man, “a little earlier than with most. I've drunk the cup empty, so there's nothing left. It was a nice life — well, I suppose it was. Rather expected more out of it, but I see now that I shouldn't have. An adult will know when it's over. And they do make a clean end of it for you.”

  “Deus meus; is that the way it ends on Analos?”

  “How else? Natural death has been pushed back so far that nobody could contemplate waiting for it. Should we drag out our lives and become abridged repetitious creatures like those of the lesser races? One goes quietly when he realizes that he has covered it all.”

  “But that is despair!”

  “A little boy's word for a little boy's thing. Termination with dignity — that's the only way. Goodbye to you both. And to all.”

  The thoughtful man got out and entered the Terminators.

  “Now what was the name of that thing you wanted to be taken to, stranger?” the taxi-driver asked the Padreco.

  “Never mind. I may have found it already. I'll walk back.”

  There was something here that needed a name.

  He walked till he came to th
e buildings of the city again, and the buildings distorted as he neared them. The edifices of Analos seem bulbous at near view, and indeed they are built slightly so. Yet when seen at a distance, due to a vagary of atmosphere called Towering by Earth meteorologists, they appear normal and straight. The few buildings built to Earth specifications seemed pinched-in when viewed from afar, almost collapsing on themselves. But to the Padreco, the pot-bellied buildings of Analos made him feel a complete alien. He was lost in this world, and he cried out:

  “Oh, for the old familiar sins that one can get hold of and denounce! In my book, Termination is not the only way, and Dignity has another meaning. Where are the people who sin like people? Is there nowhere a healthy case of d.t.s or a hoppy in need of reform? Is there no burglar I can call my brother? No golden-hearted chippy who needs only be shown the right way? Is there no thief or usurer or politician to strike a note of reality? Hypocrites, wife-beaters, seducers, demagogues, sleazy old perverters, where can I find you? Answer me! I need you now!”

  “Sir, sir, you are crying out in the street,” a young Analoi lady told him. “Are you ill? What are you calling out for?”

  “Sin. A little sin, please, for the love of Christ. If there is no sin in my cellar, then the foundation of my house is not what I supposed.”

  “Hardly anyone uses sin any more, sir. What a peculiar thing to be crying out in the street for! But I believe there is one shop that still handles it. Here. I will write you the address.”

  Padreco Barnaby took the address and ran to the shop. It was not what he sought. Sin was an old name of a scent, but the name had been changed as no longer conveying a meaning.

  There were very many of these scent shops. Too many. And the scent of the scent shops was not the odor of sanctity. Was it possible that a new sensuality had taken the place of the old?

  And the other shops — block after block of them — what were they for? What were the uses of the strange apparatus displayed in them? And why should the give that sticky feeling of menace?

  The Padreco spent a long day wandering through the capital city of Analos. The pavements were green and artfully shadow-painted so as to resemble turf. The effect, however, was not that of placid nature; it was of a primordial wildness able to break through the thin shell at any time. And what was the new weirdness that came over him when he walked through the parks. The earlier explorer had been mistaken: the plants of Analos did not resemble the undersea plants of Earth; they resembled the undersea animals. They leered like devilfish and grinned like sharks.

  It was here everywhere. But it had changed its name.

  It was with shameful triumph that Padreco Barnaby first uncovered the sweeping outlines of the thing. It was with growing horror that he amassed the details. When he had enough of it, he went back to Landmaster, who was now with several others of his kind.

  “Repent! Repent!” the Padreco called to them. “The ax is already laid to the roots. The tree that bears evil fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire!”

  “Of what should we repent, little priest?” Landmaster asked.

  “Of your sins! At once! Before it is too late!”

  “I have explained to you that we have no sins, little priest; and that we could not have them according to our developing nature. Your repetition would annoy us… if we ever let anything annoy us.”

  Landmaster made a sign to one of his fellows, who left them at once.

  “What were the rather humorous names you gave them this morning?” Landmaster asked, turning again to the priest.

  “You remember the names I gave. Now I give others. Too effete for the ancient sins themselves, you have the deadly shadows of them: presumption, establishment, ruthlessness, selfishness, satiety, monopoly, despair.”

  “An interesting argument. We have a Department of Interesting Arguments. You should go there and have it recorded.”

  “I will record it here. You practice infanticide, juvenicide, senectucide, suicide.”

  “Yes, the Gentle Terminators.”

  “You murder your own children who do not measure up to your atrocious norm.”

  “Judicious Selection.”

  “You have invented new lusts and perversions.”

  “Refined Amusements.”

  “There are the evil who are evil openly. There are the evil who hide their evil and deny that they are venomous. There are the ultimate in evil who keep the venom and change the Name of the Snake.”

  “I'm happy that we're the ultimate,” said Landmaster. “We would be affronted by a lesser classification.”

  Padreco Barnaby raised his head.

  “I smell wood burning,” he said suddenly. “You no longer use wood for fuel here.”

  “In one case only,” said Landmaster. An ancient and seldom employed ritual of ours.”

  “Which?”

  “You do not understand, little priest? Ten million Earth cartoons of the thing and still you do not understand them or comprehend their origin. What is the unvarying fate of the Missioner cast up on the Savage Shore?”

  “You are not supposed to be savage.”

  “We revert, little priest. In this one case we revert. It is our ancient answer to the obstreperous missioner who persists in asking us the irksome question. We cannot allow ourselves to be irked.”

  Padreco Barnaby couldn't believe it Even after they put him in the monstrous kettle he couldn't believe it. They were setting the long tables for the feast — and surely it was all a mistake!

  “Landmaster! You people — you creatures — can't be serious!”

  “Why no, little priest. This is a comical affair. Why should we be serious? Do you not think it comical that the missioner should be boiled in a pot?”

  “No! No! It's ghastly!”

  This had to be a dream — an underwater nightmare.

  “Why did you make ten million comical cartoons of the thing if you didn't find it comic?” Landmaster asked with black pleasure.

  “I didn't make them! Yes, I did — two of them — when I was a seminarian, and for our own little publication. Landmaster! The water is hellish hot!”

  “Are we magicians that we can boil a man in cold water?”

  “Not — not shoes and all?” the Padreco gasped. That seemed to be the ultimate outrage.

  “Shoes and all, little priest. We like the flavor. What was your own favorite caption for the race-memory cartoons, Padreco?”

  “You can't do this to me!!”

  “Yes, that was a good one. But it was the subscript, as I remember it, and the caption was ‘Famous Last Words.’ However, my own favorite, while it concerns anthropophagi, does not concern a missioner. It was the cannibal chief who said, ‘My wife makes a fine soup. I'll miss her.’ What was your favorite of the kettle jokes, Shareshuffler?”

  Shareshuffler had a great two-tined fork, and he stuck it into Padreco Barnaby to see if he was done yet. The Padreco was far from done, and the clamor he set up made it impossible to hear Shareshuffler's own favorite of the folk jokes. This is a loss, for it was one of the best of them all.

  How loud the little priest was against the Analoi carrying out their ancient custom!

  “A lobster doesn't make such a noise when he's boiled,” chided Landmaster. “An oyster doesn't, and a Xtleconutlico doesn't. Why should a man make such a noise? It would be irritating to us — if we ever let anything irritate us.”

  But they didn't — nothing at all. They were too developed a race to allow themselves to be irritated.

  When the Padreco was finally done, they had him out of the kettle and polished him off. They dealt in the prescribed manner with the ancient menace, and they had a superb feast out of it too.

  The Analoi weren't quite what they seemed. They had hid from themselves, and dealt in shadows instead of things. They had even changed the name of their nature… but they hadn't changed their nature.

  But on occasion they could still revert. They could stage an old-time, red-blooded, slumgullion-s
lurping, bone-gnawing dangeroo of a feast. Men and monsters, they did have one now!

  Citizens, that Padreco had good stuff in him!

  Parthen

  Never had the springtime been so wonderful. Never had business been so good. Never was the World Outlook so bright. And never had the girls been so pretty. It is true that it was the chilliest spring in decades — sharp, bitter, and eternally foggy — and that the sinuses of Roy Ronsard were in open revolt. It is admitted that bankruptcies were setting records, those of individuals and firms as well as those of nations. It is a fact that the aliens had landed (though their group was not identified) and had published their Declaration that one half of mankind was hereby obsoleted and the other half would be retained as servants. The omens and portents were black, but the spirits of men were the brightest and happiest ever.

  To repeat, never had the girls been so pretty! There was no one who could take exception to that.

  Roy Ronsard himself faced bankruptcy and the loss of everything that he had built up. But he faced it in a most happy frame of mind. A Higher Set of Values will do wonders toward erasing such mundane everyday irritations.

  There is much to be said in favor of cold, vicious springtimes. They represent weather at its most vital. There is something to be said for exploding sinuses. They indicate, at least, that a man has something in his head. And, if a man is going to be a bankrupt, then let him be a happy bankrupt.

  When the girls are as pretty as all that, the rest does not matter.

  Let us make you understand just how pretty Eva was! She was a golden girl with hair like honey. Her eyes were blue — or they were green — or they were violet or gold and they held a twinkle that melted a man. The legs of the creature were like Greek poetry and the motion of her hips was something that went out of the world with the old sail ships. Her breastwork had a Gothic upsweep — her neck was passion incarnate and her shoulders were of a glory past describing. In her whole person she was a study of celestial curvatures.