The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty
Page 118
“And you are a slashing female shrew, Annalouise, to refer to Dordogne and Riddle as respectively mad and half-mad while they are present,” Adrian D. volleyed the words back off Annalouise.
James Riddle had fixed Annalouise with a pleasant scowl when she called him half-mad. J. P. Dordogne had sketched on a square of paper, then balled it up thrown it to her. She smoothed it out and looked at it.
“They are no less mad for being present,” she said with some reason. “Let's start it again, old men. How are you going to solve the problem of world hunger with a mad cartoonist and a half-mad psychologist? Neither one of them knows anything about ecology. Neither one knows anything about anything. And as to food, why I could eat them both up within a week myself and be hungry again.”
Annalouise Krug, though she was both the largest and oldest person present, was also the prettiest. And she was not really so old: she was not yet thirty. None of the four persons present was of really advanced years or stiffened mind. This Annalouise was of the swift and powerful loveliness and full figure that is sometimes called Junoesque, but we will not call her so. She was suddenly in the fashion, though. There is something interesting about full-bodied women in those times when the edge is on the hunger just a bit. Besides which she held her age better than did most members of Amalgamated Youth.
The mad cartoonist was J. P. (Jasper Pendragon) Dordogne. He used to sign his strips “Dorg,” and some of his friends called him Mad Dorg. He was a small, sandy young fellow, all bland and grinning except for his mad black eyes which he said he had inked in himself. While Annalouise was tongue-lashing them, Dordogne had sat silently drawing lampoons of her, balling them up, and throwing them to her, and she caught them and smoothed them out with beautiful anger.
“The dorg has actually been seen, Annalouise,” Adrian Durchbruch lobbed the words in as he bounced around. “It has been seen by at least a dozen persons.” Adrian was not referring to the cartoonist “Dorg” Dordogne, but to the fabled animal named dorg that sometimes appeared in Dordogne's comic strip. And now there had been a whole spate of clownish reports that the burlesque animal had actually been seen out in the boondocks, alive and ill.
Adrian bounced around constantly as though he had springs in the balls of his feet. He expedited, he organized, he said things like “Let's have a brain-crash” when he meant “Let's discuss this for a moment.” He was the crash-oriented Chief of Remedial Ecology. He had held the job for only a week, and he wouldn't last another week if he didn't come with something good. There was a rapid turnover of chiefs in the Department of Remedial Ecology. That showed constant effort and reassessment, even if there were no results in the department.
“I don't believe it,” Annalouise chimed and resonated. A skinny girl simply will not have that full resonance. “If ever I see it I'll go get my eyes fixed. I will not believe it, not when the witless Dordogne invented it in his comic strip; not when the half-witless Jimmy Riddle declared that it was a creative act and that the animal was bound to appear soon afterward. There cannot be such an animal.”
“It's that or turnips,” the psychologist said, “and they've already got whole shoals of psychologists studying the creative act in neo-turnips.” James Riddle was the trilobal psychologist. He really had a third lobe or cerebral hemisphere to his brain, this on the actual testimony of proper doctors, but it didn't seem to do much for him. He was boyish and dreamy and horn-rimmed. His theories were astonishing, but he wasn't.
“Since this is our study and our problem, we may as well go and see if we can catch a glimpse of the dorg,” Riddle chattered.
“What worries me,” Adrian Durchbruch said, “is that there seems to be only one dorg, a male.”
“But that part is almost too good to be true,” Riddle exulted. “It's in total concord with my theory. You knew it would be that way, didn't you, Dordogne?”
“Yes, but I've been afraid to finish drawing it that way,” the mad cartoonist mumbled.
“Where has the dorg been sighted, Adrian?” Riddle asked him.
“Down in the Winding Stair Mountains of—ah—Oklahoma,” Durchbruch chirped, and bounced around in eagerness to be at it.
“Then let's fly down there right now,” Riddle offered. “I used to own an airplane. I wonder if I still have it.”
“Yes, you still have it,” Annalouise told him.
“Good, let's go.” All of them, Dordogne the mad cartoonist, James Riddle the trilobal psychologist, Adrian Durchbruch the crash-oriented Chief of Remedial Ecology, and Annalouise Krug the Amalgamated Youth went out to Riddle's place and got in the plane.
“Which way is Oklahoma?” Riddle asked when they were airborne. “Listen to the sound of that engine, people, to the sound of any engine anywhere. Do you know that functionally the engine sounds have no purpose? The various engines produce their monotonous noises solely to hypnotize human persons. Then the engines are able to —” But Riddle's warning words were suddenly blocked out by the engine's suddenly increased noise volume. Engines will do that every time the subject is about to be discussed.
The world was in pretty short supply as to food. The miracle of the barley loaves and the fishes had fed the multitudes for a long time. Barley had been developed that would yield five hundred bushels an acre, and billions and billions of fishes had been noodled out of the oceans. The oceans, however, are mostly desert, so have they always been; and the oases and streams and continental shelves of them had been harvested to their limits of both fish and plankton. And on land all the worthy areas were producing to their utmost, and still it was not enough. The solution: Turnip or Tetrapod. A plant was needed that would grow more lush than barley, more lush than grass, that would be fully edible for humans in both top and bottom of it, that would grow on even the worst land. And such a plant was being searched for carefully. More than that, it was being invented every day, everywhere, everyhow. But the new plants were not really good enough.
And a four-footed animal (they are the best kind) was being searched out. It would have to be a fine fleshed and multiple-bearing animal, with as many litters as possible a year; one that would grow quickly to great size and succulence; one that could eat and thrive on anything, anything, even— One that could eat—
About that time, the mad cartoonist J. P. Dordogne invented just such an animal in his comic strip. It was a big, comical, rock-eating animal. It struck the popular fancy and humor at once, though it did not at once put anything into the popular stomach. It was a shambling hulk of an animal, good-natured and weird. It ate earth and rocks and anything at all. It didn't even need vegetation, or water. It grew peculiarly fat on such feeding.
And the dorg had a fine slow wit as shown in the comic strip dialogue balloons. The people liked the dorg and especially liked the idea that the animal could grow so large and toothsome on nothing but rocks and earth. The animal was not loved the less because there was something unreal and mad about it, even beyond the unreality of all things in that medium. Something else: the dorg in the comic strip was always feeling bad: there was an air of something momentous about to happen to him.
The dorg filled an inner need, of emotion if not of stomach yet. It became the hopeful totem of the people on the biting edge of hunger. And the dorg was unmistakable; that was what gave the news reports their sharp interest. There was recognition and recollection of the dorg as matching a buried interior image. It could not be mistaken for something else.
The sighters had sighted the dorg, or they had suffered hallucination. But they had not mistaken some other object or creature for the dorg. And Dordogne the cartoonist, a bland little man except for the mad black eyes, was scared stupid by reports that the cartoon animal had actually been seen, alive and all.
It was then that there appeared, in Primitive Arts Quarterly, an odd piece by the trilobal psychologist James Riddle. The piece was titled “Lascaux, Dordogne, and the Naming of the Animals.” The essay contained this strange thesis: “What happened in the cave ar
t days of Lascaux was the ‘Naming’ of the Animals. The paintings were the namings, or at least they were an aspect of the namings. It must be understood that this was concurrent with the creative act. The depicted animals were absolutely new then. If the paleozoologists say otherwise, then the paleozoologists are wrong. The men also were absolutely new then.
“Some, perhaps all, of these cave paintings were anticipatory: the paintings appeared a slight time before the animals themselves appeared. My evidence for this is subjective, and yet I am as sure of this as I am of anything in the world. In several cases, the animals, when they appeared, did not quite conform to their depictment. In several other cases, owing I supposed to a geodetic accident, the corresponding animals failed to appear at all.
“It is certain that this art was anticipatory and prophetic, heralding the appearance of new species over the life horizon. It was precursor art, harbinger art. It is certain also that this art contained elements of effective magic; it is most certain that the species were of sudden appearance. The only thing not certain is just to what extent the paintings were creative of the animals. There is still fluid mystery about the mechanism of the sudden appearance of species. The paleontologists cannot throw any light on this mystery at all, and the biologists cannot. But the artist can throw light on it, and the psychologist can. It is clear that a new species appears, suddenly and completely developed, exactly when it is needed.
“And a new species is needed exactly now.
“It is for this reason that there is peculiar interest in a recent creation of the cartoonist Jasper Pendragon Dordogne. He has depicted a new species of animal. I do not believe that Dordogne realizes what he is doing. He isn't an intelligent man. I do not believe that the Lascaux cave painters realized what they were doing. But the art of J. P. Dordogne, like that of the old cave painters, is anticipatory, it is prophetic, it is precursor art, harbinger art. The new species of animal will appear almost immediately, if it has not already appeared. The exact effect that the cartoonist will have on the appearing species we do not know. The effect that we may be able to have on the cartoonist will not be exact, but it can be decisive.
“Above all, let us see it happen, if this is at all possible. Let us witness the appearance of a new species for once. It should answer very many questions. It should give the final answer to that dreary and tedious remnant of evolutionists that still lingers in benighted areas. Let our hope and our effort be toward this being a permanent appearance. Very many of them have not been permanent.”
Adrian Durchbruch, the newly appointed Chief of Remedial Ecology, had read the James Riddle article in Primitive Arts Quarterly on his first day on the job. He immediately requisitioned the mad-eyed cartoonist J. P. Dordogne and the trilobal psychologist for his program. They were both referring to the animal that the world and the project were looking for. However the two men might have their information confused, they did seem to have information of a sort. When Durchbruch incorporated himself and these other two men into his project, he also had to include a member of Amalgamated Youth to keep it legal. He accepted Annalouise Krug gladly. You should see what most members of Amalgamated Youth are like.
The reports of the actual sightings of the animal had come in immediately. And the four persons flew down to the area immediately.
Riddle landed the plane in tall grass near Talihina, Oklahoma, and the four dorg-seekers got out. “We will immediately contact the local authorities,” Adrian Durchbruch began as he bounded around on his feet on the springy ground, “and we will find whether—”
“Oh, shut up, Adrian,” Riddle said pleasantly. “This lady here knows where it can be found. If that were not so, I would have landed in some other place where a lady would know all about it. Time spent checking with authorities is always time lost. Where is the dorg, lady?”
“It went up in the high pasture this morning,” said the lady that was there. “It has been feeling so bad that we were worried about it. And you are the only one that knows what's the matter with it. You, mad-eyes, I'm talking to you. You know what is bothering it, don't you?”
“Gah, I'm afraid I do,” the cartoonist Dordogne grumbled sadly. “I've been afraid to say it or draw it, though. If it is true, then it will push me clear over the edge, and everyone says I haven't far to go. Don't let it happen! I don't want to be that crazy.”
“My husband followed him up there a while ago,” the lady said, “and he took his big Jim Bowie knife with him, in case we guessed right about it. They can't hardly do it by themselves, you know. They're not built for it. Oh, here they come now, and the little one is with them.”
The man, and the big dorg (moving painfully), and the little dorg were coming down the slope.
“But the big dorg is male!” Annalouise Krug cried out in unbelief.
“Yes, they have such a hard time of it,” the lady said. “There isn't any other way to get anything started, though.”
The man and the big male dorg and the little female dorg came down to them.
“It wasn't much trouble,” the man said. “He went to sleep.”
“The Tardemah, the deep sleep,” Riddle said reverently. “I should have guessed it.”
“Then I cut him open and took her out of his side,” the man said. “They will both be all right now.”
“By Caesarean section,” Annalouise mumbled. “Why didn't we all guess it?” There was a loud snapping noise.
“What was that?” Adrian demanded, bouncing around.
“My mind just snapped,” Dordogne said woozily. “I won't bother to keep up appearances any longer. Now I will be crazy with a clear conscience.”
The little dorg was near grown within one month and was impregnated. In another month she produced a litter of ten. In another five weeks another, and in another five weeks still another. And the young ones produced at two months, and again in five weeks, and again in another five weeks. Quite soon there were a million of them, and then one hundred million, shipped all over the world now. These were big cow-sized animals of excellent meat, and they ate only the rocks and waste hills where nothing had ever grown, turning it into fertile soil incidentally. Soon there were a billion dorgs in the world ready for butchering, and the numbers of them could be tapered off as soon as it seemed wise, and there was enough meat for everyone in the world.
“I have only one worry,” the trilobal psychologist James Riddle said as he met with Adrian Durchbruch and Annalouise Krug in a self-congratulatory session. J. P. Dordogne the mad cartoonist was in a sanitarium now and was really mad. “I keep remembering a part of those cave paintings at Lascaux.” “What were they, James?” Annalouise Krug asked. Annalouise was not so much in the fashion as she had once been. Well-fed nations somehow set their ideals on more svelte types.
“They were the crossed-out animals, the chiseled-over animals, the funny-looking animals. They are funny-looking to us only because we have never seen them in the flesh. They are the animals that did not survive. We don't know why they did not. They were drawn originally with the same boldness as the rest of them.”
“We don't know what the odds are,” Adrian said worriedly, forgetting to bounce. “We have no way at all to calculate them. It is so hard to take a census of things that aren't. We will keep our fingers crossed and all fetishes working full time. Without primordial fetish there wouldn't have been any animals or people at all.”
It went on smoothly for a year and a day after the dorgs had struck their proper world balance. There was plenty of meat for everyone in the world, there were plenty of dorgs, and they had to be segregated to prevent their being too many. Then the index of dorg fertility fell. The numbers of them were raised up past the safe level again only by unsegregating all flocks. The index fell again and continued to fall. It disappeared.
The last dorgs were born. There was breathless waiting to see if some of them might not be fertile. They weren't. It was all over with, and the world wailing raised higher than it had ever been.
“No,” Adrian Durchbruch said sadly.
“Where does the species male come from in the first place?” she asked.
“It appears for the first time on a Monday morning in a comic strip or on a cave mural,” James Riddle said. “I believe it is something about the syndication that new formats in cartoons always appear on Monday mornings.”
“Before that, I mean. Where does the male come from?” Annalouise said.
“I don't know,” Riddle groused.
“Well, somebody had better remember something right now,” Annalouise stated with a curious menace. “Riddle, what good does an extra lobe do you if you can't remember something special? Come up with something, I say.”
“I can't. There is nothing else to come up with,” Riddle said. But Annalouise picked the psychologist up and shook him till he near fell apart.
“Now remember something else,” she ordered.
“I can't, Annalouise, there is nothing else to remember.”
“You have no idea how hard I will shake you if you don't come up with something.” She gave him an idea of just how hard she could shake him.
“Now!” she ordered.
“Oh, yes, since my life is on the line, I will remember something else,” Riddle moaned, with not much wind left in him. “There are others of those cave paintings that are most curious. Some of them are printed and carved over and over and over again, always in the same region. Most of them are of the common animals of today. Did it come that close, do you think, with even the common ones of them? One at least (and this gives me some hope) was a common animal of today that had been crossed out as having failed. But someone was not content to let it remain crossed out. It was redrawn with great emphasis. And then redrawn and expanded again and again, always in the same region.”