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

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Who will not believe me, Finn?” Roadstrum asked, “and what will they not believe me about? Bright honesty shines like beacons from every orifice of my body. How could anyone not believe me?”

  “The reporters refused to believe that fire-balls had landed even thought they scorched their skins from the heat of them and burned their eyeballs trying to look at them. Most of the scribbling fellows said that the ten fire-balls were probably all of them the planet Milo, or that they were kites that children had been flying, or that they were drifting pollen from the poke-weed plant or that they were golden scarab insects.”

  Twenty-seven powerful young men, nine to a bull, brought three whole roasted bulls (a little on the raw side), and set them before the three diners, mighty Roadstrum, big Hondstarfer, and heroic Finn McCool. Hondstarfer of the hammers, and Finn McCool the Tir hero were both of them genuine giants (in spite of Finn's near disavowal), and they'd have no trouble eating a whole bull each. And Roadstrum had dined often with giants and been much in their company. He was of extraordinary capacity for a mere man and he would die a-bursting before he would admit that he could not eat a whole bull.

  And then was heard a racketing, scatter-shot, ear-splitting explosion with a lot of style and a lot of verve. It was really a sexy sort of explosion. It came from the nearby countryside.

  “That was Margaret the houri,” Roadstrum remarked. “I'd recognize her tone and style in anything. Not much else, but she sure does have tone and style.”

  “I remember her from the comic strip,” said Finn McCool. “She was always another great favorite of mine. I suppose that she was never real, but that doesn't matter. None of you is real now.”

  “Not real? Man, we are the stuff itself!” Roadstrum swore. “But what will the reporters think if they are already present there when Margaret breaks out of her stone? If they do not believe it real, how will they explain it to themselves?”

  “It's easy, Roadstrum. Some of the observers and reporters may actually believe privately in some of the outer things. But they could not let it be known that they would even consider the possibility of creatures coming from other galaxies to Tir, or from other systems within the galaxy, or even from other planets within the system. The Newswriters Guild and the public can forcibly forbid any belief in extra-Tir-estrials. One offense means expulsion from the guild; two offenses mean expulsion from the human race; and a third offense is death. Even less are such programmed observers allowed to believe in Hornet craft. There have been reported sightings of the UHC's (unbelievable Hornet craft) for a century now, and some of the sightings have been pretty hard to explain away. But they are explained away. Most of the sightings are explained as pumpkin seeds flying high in the air. By the way, Roadstrum, that burnt-out, useless, gosh-awful, flaming Hornet hulk that is now in tight orbit around Tir (and all the media men are having the devil's own time not seeing such a clear and bright thing in its near passages), you're the captain of it, aren't you?”

  “Certainly, certainly, I'm the captain. But it is not useless. It's a fine craft, though once it was forgotten junk on World. Hondstarfer here could fix it up in half an hour with his stone hammers.”

  “I can do any sort of work, Finn, mechanical, electrical, medical, cosmological, artistic, with my stone hammers,” Hondstarfer said. “I am bonded. And I make house calls.”

  “The only hard thing would be to get Hondstarfer up there,” Roadstrum said. “He could fix that Hornet if he could get to it.”

  “I have an idea how even that might be done,” Finn said. “But even less than the news-writers and scat-talkers believing in extra-Tir-estrials, or believing the possibility of Hornet craft, would be their believing that humans could have tumbled onto Tir in the middle of molten rocks, fire-balls really. And seeing humans really burst their way out of those rocks is bound to put a strain on their disbelief.”

  There was another explosion from the countryside, a big, booming, blamming, echoing and re-echoing, gross, clumsy, crass, blatant explosion.

  “That has to be Crewman Clamdigger,” Roadstrum said. “I can't say that I recognize his tone; he hasn't any. I can't say that I recognize his style; he hasn't any style either. But it's Clamdigger, and his appearance out of a splitting rock will put a further strain on the reporters' disbelief. What is that quaking and shaking, Finn?”

  “Oh, it's only the big fellows up there. You've probably disturbed them at their table with your noise, Roadstrum,” said Finn McCool, the great hero and ordinary giant of Tir. “I'd be a little more quiet in my voice if I were you. No need to roar like that when Hondstarfer and myself are sitting here elbow to eye with you.”

  “Quiet nothing! I will yet roar at meat!” great Roadstrum roared. “I always do, you know. And what is the next course, good Finn? The bulls are all gone, horns and hides and hoofs and tract content and all.”

  “ 'Twill only be a moment. See, they are bringing Dublin Lawyer now,” Finn McCool beamed with both private and public joy, for he was proud of the good fare that they serve on Tir. “See, they are also bringing Sheep Stomach Surprise. And they're bringing Rice Rowdy and Pepperhead Pudding and Royal Rump Roast. And here's Hooly-Gooly aged in its own oaken bowls. There's nowhere else that it may be got. And look, Roadstrum, this is special: They're bringing Elephant Ear Delight.”

  “Finn, is that an earthquake that I feel?” Roadstrum asked.

  “Oh no. It was one of the big fellows just shuffling his feet a bit.”

  “Who shuffled whose feet? Finn, one of those pillars of this building just moved.”

  “Roadstrum, there are no pillars to this building,” Finn McCool explained patiently. “Having no roof, this building has no need for pillars.”

  “No roof? No pillars? Then what is this?” Roadstrum demanded, and he kicked the pedestal of one of the pillars, a pedestal that was as high as his head. “What is this then, Finn?” he asked, and he kicked it again.

  “That's my foot, Roadstrum,” a mighty voice sounded from dear up in the sky. “Come on up and talk with us. A man of your fame shouldn't be sitting at one of those little tables down under the big table.”

  Roadstrum's eyes (the one in his pocket, and the other one) were opened thereby, and they saw that things were not as they had seemed. The four big pillars of one sort were really the four legs of a very large table whose deal was so far above them that Roadstrum had at first believed it to be a canopy or firmament or sky over them. And the pillars of the second sort were now seen to be the eight legs of four extraordinary giants sitting at table, four of the extraordinary giants that Finn had referred to. And the pedestals of those pillars of the second sort, they were the huge, sloppy, shapeless, asymmetrical feet of the extraordinary giants.

  Roadstrum took his loose eye, his seeing-eye eye, and threw it as high as he could into the air. When, after a minute or so, it fell back to hand, it reported that things were indeed as Roadstrum had guessed, that there were really four of those unusual giants seated at that high table.

  Nothing daunted, and certainly in no way intimidated by mere size, Roadstrum sought for a means to ascent.

  There was another rending, searing, chortling explosion from the countryside.

  “That's Crewman Cutshark,” Roadstrum roared, “that's him breaking out of his rock so soon such as we all wrapped ourselves in at the time of the Great Nova. We took ten asteroids, and each of us burrowed to the center of one of them for protection. And the nova vaporized everything of the asteroids except the very central core of them, and these cores were wrapped around us in the form of glassified rock. Then our Hornet craft, which we had put on automatic and programmed for just such an eventuality, came and gathered us up again out of that billion degree sky. And it brought us to Tir and dumped us out on the first unmelted earth to be found.”

  “Ah, this will serve!” Roadstrum cried. It was a frayed thread dangling down from the tablecloth of the extraordinary giants. Roadstrum climbed it as if it were a tree trunk, up and up and
up some more, and he came onto the table of the big fellows. And he found that the agile Hondstarfer was there before him.

  “I always liked you, Roadstrum,” one of those extraordinary giants said. His nose was like a watchtower, and little knobs and blemishes on it looked like windows and shot holes in it. “Yours is the comic strip that I like the most of all,” the giant continued. “My name is Gigantipanteloni.” The bowls that the extraordinary giants were eating out of were as tall as ships and as broad. It could not be seen what the giants were eating out of them.

  “I have been hearing about this comic strip lately,” Roadstrum said. “But I have never seen it, and I never heard of it before I came to Tir. Whenever did it begin?”

  “It began shortly after the deaths of you and your companions,” the extraordinary giant said. “Your deaths were sad things to all of us, and the comic strip was begun to keep the memory of you and your crewmen green. Of course it is only the simple-minded persons who read your comic strip, but then it was only the simple-minded persons who followed your adventures while you were still alive. Like me. They call me the simple-minded giant.”

  “But I am alive, Gigantipanteloni,” Roadstrum explained, “and Hondstarfer here is also alive.”

  “Right, Captain, live as a lizard,” Hondstarfer declared.

  But the extraordinary giant Gigantipanteloni merely smiled. “I may be simple-minded but I'm not that simple-minded,” he said. “Dead you are, and dead you will ever be.”

  There was another booming, rattling explosion from the countryside.

  “What was that?” another of the extraordinary giants asked. “Which one was it?”

  “Crewman Crabgrass, I believe,” Roadstrum guessed.

  “But is he not one of the ghosts, one of the spooks?” Gigantipanteloni asked. “Didn't he first die on Polyphemia? Was he not, in fact, eaten by the Polyphemians? And is it not true that it was as a ghost that he took his place as a crewman on the Hornet for its last sad voyage? How then would it require an explosion for him to come out of a stone shell? Cannot ghosts come and go easily through such obstacles?”

  “In this case I believe not, Gigantipanteloni, not if one is hermetically sealed in, and I believe that all of us were hermetically sealed in when the asteroids of our selection were vaporized about us and the cores of them were solidified to such glassy-rocky consistency. As you may know, a ghost is mostly gas. In the galactic language, the word ‘ghost’ is related to the word ‘gust’, as a gust of wind; In an older tongue, a ‘spirit’ lurked like a ghost indeed in such words as ‘respire’ and ‘expire’, and here ‘spirit’ meant ‘breath’. And then ‘anima’ which is ghost, is the same word as ‘anemone’ which is wind. So these are all gassy names, and ghosts are made out of gas. Even in life, Crewman Crabgrass was a gassy sort of fellow. So you can see that all that gas which was trapped in the stony shell would require an explosion to get out.”

  “Listen, Roadstrum,” said Gigantipanteloni, “if you are ever in trouble (and I don't see any way that you can avoid bad trouble on Tir), I will help you in any way I can. When none of the intricate answers will take care of your trouble, think if there is not some simple-minded thing that you have overlooked and that might save you. We extraordinary giants have the name of being simple-minded. And even by the rest of them I am called the simple-minded giant. All I ever do is eat and sleep and read the funny paper and flip rocks on the blade of my spear.”

  “Is that your spear standing there?” Roadstrum asked. “It must be fifty meters long.”

  “Aw, Roadstrum, it's got cracks in it longer than that,” the simple-minded giant said.

  “How high can you flip the rocks?” Hondstarfer asked him.

  “Sometimes I can flip them so high that they don't come down again,” the giant said. “I don't know how you measure it that high.”

  “Don't any of them come down after you flip them?” Hondstarfer asked.

  “Yes, some of them come down. Oh man, how they do come down!” the giant cried.

  “Just how do you go about all this?” Roadstrum asked.

  “There is a razor back sort of hill nearby,” Gigantipanteloni said, “and the name of it is Razor Back Hill. I set my spear here so that the center of it is right on the razor back. Then put a big rock on the point or blade of my spear.”

  “How big a rock?” Hondstarfer asked.

  “Maybe a dozen times your own weight,” the big fellow said. “And when I have the rock set, I jump onto the haft-end of the spear. Oh, but that rock does fly then, little fellows.”

  There was another grumping, gargling-sort of explosion from the countryside.

  “ 'Tis Fairfeather,” said Roadstrum. “Now they should all be freed of their stones except two. I had better go and see whether they are having difficult parturitions, and see whether those already out of the stones are out of them alive.”

  “Yes, we'd best go, Roadstrum,” Finn called from below. “The night's near gone, and you spent most of it eating just one bull. I never saw a man dawdle so long over a carcass. And may as well tell you that I accompanied you this night in official capacity.”

  “What official capacity?” Roadstrum called as he was climbing down.

  “There'll be a hearing, perfunctory of course, to determine if there is any possibility at all of regarding you as valid; to determine, in short, whether it is possible to believe in you. I'll have to give evidence at that hearing.”

  “Well, do you believe in me, Finn?” Roadstrum asked, and he was almost down now.

  “Nah, I'd like to, Roadstrum, but I just can't bring myself to it. There's no hard evidence at all for your existence.”

  “I may develop hard evidence for myself this day,” Roadstrum said, “or I may play the cudgel game on some hard skulls.”

  “I believe in you, Roadstrum,” Gigantipanteloni called from high above in that sky-voice that giants develop. “I've been told that it's foolish to believe in comic strip characters, but I'll believe in you always.”

  “Thank you, Gigantipanteloni, and Hondstarfer thanks you also.”

  “And if you're ever in real trouble, Roadstrum, remember the simple-minded giant who has a very small handful of simple but naughty tricks.”

  3

  'Tis but a greasy, grimy, gritty grudgement day,

  And yet with all the final force of Judgment day.

  This kangaroo, it hops along so trippingly;

  And Finn McCool, his treason cuts so rippingly!

  “You may not be! You're naught! And that's the way it is.

  Existence is exactly what we say it is.”

  Such Judgments on these greats, the very cream of them,

  It really seemed a little bit extreme of them!

  —Kangaroo Book of Flying Objects

  “Hurry, Roadstrum, hurry!” that Tir hero Sencha McAllen was calling at the approach of the banqueters. “Hurry Hondstarfer. Your cause is already in the frying pan and it looks bad for you.”

  “We have been in hotter fires than any of you can provide on Tir,” mighty Roadstrum stated. “And we have lived through the things.”

  “That's the whole point,” Sencha said. “The consensus is that you haven't lived through them, that you haven't lived at all. Persons having the names you claim may once have lived, but even that is doubtful. If they ever did live, then they died completely in the nova and there are no remnants of them. It is a legal decision that no man walks away from a nova. It follows that you presumptuous people can have no being, that you are not here, that you are silly illusions seen only by silly people. We will order you to end even your pretense of being.”

  “Your hearing, and the weighing of the evidence concerning you, have already begun,” said Nemhead the warrior. “The hound has already raised one ear. He listens now. But he will not hear of you. There is nothing for him to hear. The omen of the hound dog is quite scientific and it will find against you.”

  “The crows are already in the air, coming down
from the steep sky,” the lady Morrighan said. “And the auspice of the crows is very scientific; for which reason it will read against you. The crows will come down with their talons on your shoulders, and if they come hooded it will be the signal for your destruction. That which they cannot see, is not, and must be obliterated. Ware of my crows!”

  “If the hound does not hear us and the crows do not see us, what scathe does that make?” Roadstrum demanded.

  “If you are not heard and if you are not seen, then you are not at all,” Fergus McRoy pronounced with careful pleasure. “And if we find that you are not, then we must remove and destroy every offensive appearance of you.”

  There was an explosion, possibly the loudest of all of them. It sent a rattle of rocks over a wide area and left a dazzle of flinty sparks in the air. And there stood huge Crewman Birdsong (Birdsong and Fairfeather had both been giants on Lamos for a season), as tough and rough a man as any anywhere, as live a lout as ever coursed his life's blood through every corner of the cosmos. The ten great venturers stood together then. They had flown Hornet craft everywhere; they had done absolutely everything; they had given a new meaning to ‘heroic’: Captain (Great Road Storm) Roadstrum, the last of the original Hornet commanders; Margaret the houri who had been in the female business even before Eve; Hondstarfer, the boy-giant from Lamos, the hammer-handling kid who could make anything that could be thought of; Crewman Clamdigger who was now sadly addled but still able; Crewman Trochanter the nonpareil; Crewman Cutshark who was always in the forefront (and 'twas while in the forefront that he had been eaten alive that time by the Siren-Zo); Crewman Crabgrass, Crewman Birdsong, Crewman Fairfeather, Crewman Threefountains. Ten of them there! Go through ten billions and try to find another such ten.

  “We be,” said Commander Roadstrum. “We stand here in our full wits and in our full history. We not only exist, but we exist in excess of any other group that I have ever heard of. Nobody has ever ventured or adventured so much as ourselves. If we are not real, then reality herself has a hooded face. Beware of what you do now, people of Tir. If you disbelieve in us, then you cannot logically believe in yourselves. We are the sign and the confrontation.”