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

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Be quiet, nothings,” the lady Macha said. “An honored person comes.”

  The honored person who was coming was a news-mat reporter. You could see that a kilometer away. And he was also an official of the local chapter of the Newsmen's Guild. You could see that ten kilometers away. Yet, for all his great power, he was not at all an overbearing man. He smiled softly at the rosebuds strewn in his path. But he did not relax his surety or his authority.

  “Where are the non-existent people?” he asked, though surely he could not see the ten embattled Hornet folks drawn up in disarray. No, apparently he couldn't, for when the lady Li Ban pointed in the direction of Roadstrum and his crew, the reporter said “I see no one.”

  “Hondstarfer, this poor man cannot see,” Roadstrum said with some concern. “Take your stone hammers and fix his eyes for him, since you can fix anything whatever with them.”

  “All right,” said Hondstarfer, and he moved to do the repair work.

  “No, no, protect me, people!” the reporter person cried.

  “Non-existent stone hammers will not hurt your eyes,” Roadstrum chided.

  “I see no stone hammers,” the reporter maintained. “But I do see certain rough and undressed stones and they could do great harm. Now then, good people of Tir, where did the report of the Unidentified Hornet Craft originate? And who started the rumor that disreputable and impossible-appearing persons had arrived on a Hornet craft, or that they had arrived in fire-balls?”

  The reporter then plopped a gall-ball from the ink-weed plant into his mouth. He chewed it to make ink, and he put a crow feather to his mouth and dabbled the point of it in the ink. Then he wrote some writing on a writing pad made of pressed, split reeds. This was a reporter who came equipped and prepared. “We begin with the fact that there cannot be such things as Hornet craft,” he said.

  “What is that in the sky if it is not a Hornet craft?” Roadstrum demanded as he pointed to the shining, smoking Hornet that was still going in tight orbit around Tir.

  “Hornet craft are non-existent,” the reporter said once more. “They are fictions of diseased imaginations. The mistaken appearances of them might actually be the planet Milo, or they might be sun-dogs, or they might be balloons with candles in them, or they might be swamp gas, or they might be watermelon seeds floating high in the air.”

  “Then what in pelican-plucking perdition am I?” Roadstrum demanded, “and if I did not come, wrapped in a fire-ball, by a Hornet craft, how did I come here?”

  “You are possibly an insane man escaped from durance,” said the newsfellow (he was a science-in-everyday-life reporter, that was almost sure). “Or you may be a common ruffian. But you did not come in a Hornet craft, and you did not come from another world, nor from further space. And if it turns out that you are a completely non-existent person then you will have to be exterminated in all your appearances and nothingnesses.”

  “What am I?” demanded Margaret the houri of the newsman.

  “What? What? Oh, nobody believes in houris any longer. Let's not introduce stupidity into this case. You are nothing at all, nothing. Or it is barely possible that you are a balloon with a candle burning inside.”

  “No. I'm not exactly a balloon with a candle burning inside,” Margaret said. “You must miss a great deal even on Tir if your eyesight is so poor.”

  “What are we? What are we?” demanded the other eight.

  “Be quiet, nothings,” said the lady Macha. “Another honored person comes.”

  The other honored person who was coming was a scientialist, which is very like a scientist. You could see a kilometer away that he was a scientialist. But he was in no way proud or arrogant. He smiled kindly as the fragrant lilacs were scattered before his feet.

  “Where are the non-scientifically-demonstrated people?” he asked, though he must have seen them clear enough standing there. “Are those the things that were mistaken for people who were supposed to have come in Hornet craft, or who were supposed to have come in fire-balls? We must have them taken apart, and then we will examine the mechanism that activates them. Then it may be that we will find some clue to the criminal hoaxers who built them, if indeed they were built, if indeed they have any appearance at all.”

  “He who built us is no hoaxer,” mighty Roadstrum maintained, “and we are as demonstrably people as are any others. As to our arriving, there is our Hornet craft shining in the sky as it goes round Tir in close orbit. And there are the broken and rocky remnants of the fire-balls that contained us when we arrived.”

  “It talks,” the scientialist said. “We must take it apart and discover whether there is a recording inside it.”

  “You'll not take me apart!” Roadstrum swore. “Not me, you won't. And I do have, for some very few subjects, a sort of recording inside me; and it gives invariant answers to the invarying things. But otherwise I am as flexible as anyone, and I'll state my own strong opinions in my own strong voice.”

  “You know, good people,” the scientialist addressed the heroes and ladies of Tir, “that belief in Hornet craft manifestations are absolutely forbidden. Such belief is delirium, it is hysteria, and it is unhealthy for the body public. Still more dangerous is the new belief that there may be humans (or creatures of whatever sort) who have come here from other worlds. Now then, people, it is not said that you do entertain belief in such things, but that there have been suspicions of such. In order for you to allay that suspicion, in order that you may purge yourselves of all fault and of all appearance of fault, you must obliterate this unscientific evidence that you thought you saw. There are, I have heard, ten pieces of such false evidence here: and they must be extirpated. Have the augurs for this extirpation been set in motion?”

  “They have, sir, and according to all the latest scientific methods it is being carried out,” that hero Fergus McRoy said. “The hound has already lifted one ear; and it is nearly certain that he will shake that ear but once to show that he does not hear the scientific evidence. And the crows are already in flight. They'll arrive soon from their steep skies and will settle with their talons on the shoulders of these ten false images. It is almost certain that the crows will come hooded to show that they will not see the unscientific evidence. And with these two sanctions to support us, we will proceed to the obliteration of the false evidence even though it means the destruction of these ten towers of false flesh also.”

  “Look,” Captain Roadstrum pointed with his hand and his voice. “There is our orbiting Hornet craft again. If we could but rise up to it we would leave this spastic-brained world and be on our adventurous way.”

  “But you cannot reach it,” said the scientialist. “On all Tir there is nothing that will enable you to reach so high.”

  “Good people, send for one hundred powerful men. These ten illusions, these ten non-existent persons, they show signs of stubbornness.”

  “The one hundred powerful men are already on the way,” Sencha McAllen said.

  “People of Tir, hear me!” Roadstrum suddenly bawled out. “Know that we are real and not illusions. Hear now the roll of our high adventures as they are inscribed in the book of life and also in the records of Archive World. We battled shamelessly throughout the whole Ten Years War and were responsible for the deaths of countless persons on each side. We met the soft dangers on Lotophage which is like Fiddlers' Green and Theleme rolled together and we escaped at the last possible minute from that world from which nobody else has ever escaped at all. We had every adventure possible on Lamas of the Laestrygons. We fought and died there, and lived again. And we escaped with our tongues torn out so we could never tell how much fun it was there. And I tell it now with my handicrafted false tongue; there was never so much fun to be found anywhere in the universes. We rode the veering rocks there and we fought in the sky.

  “We made our way through the wandering calf-rocks in the stampeding asteroids, and we ate high cow there. I lost my fine right eye there, and after I found it in my own pocket. We al
l died of old age except myself, and then we came back the way we had gone in. I won a thousand worlds at gambling on Roulettenwelt, and then more than lost them in a men's room encounter which I shall not narrate. We propped the universe for a while, and we all wrestled the saltiest sky dog of them all. We killed the Siren-Zo and let all the air out of the mountain which was its real body; this after we had foolishly allowed it to destroy a number of us.”

  “Oh brother!” the reporter said. “How much more of this is there?” And he chewed on the gall-ball of the ink plant.

  “We knew odd sheep on Polyphem,” Roadstrum continued to recite. “It was there that the Cacique of that world violated the honor of the board and gave so many of us over to be eaten. But how we got out of the device that got us out of Polyphemia is another story which must remain untold.

  “Would you believe it, we were all turned into animals by Aeaea Aeaea, and I myself was a pet monkey for a term. But we got out of that too, we get out of everything. We got out of that with canary blood on our hands.”

  “Oh brother-in-law of a goat!” the scientialist groaned. “How much more of this is there?”

  “We came down in Gimbaled Town that has the tipsiest skyscrapers of anywhere,” Roadstrum went on. “And we became members of the Club Mentiros which is so exclusive that at one time it had no members at all for more than a century. And we were taken to Hellpepper Planet which is a euphemism for Hell Itself. And we broke out of Hell. We are the only group ever to do so.”

  “That's enough,” said the scientialist. “This silly droning by that imaginary thing is interfering with our taking of testimony. Continue, Finn McCool.” For Finn McCool had been giving his testimony (under immunity) the whole while that Roadstrum had been talking.

  “So in conclusion,” Finn was saying, “I consorted and banqueted and caroused with the phenomenon called Roadstrum and the phenomenon called Hondstarfer for a whole night. I have concluded that they were not real, that there was nothing real about them, that they are imaginary, but not of good image even there. I ate raw bull with them and I ate Dublin Lawyer with them. If there was anything to them I would have discovered it. Alas, there was nothing to them at all. Thank you.”

  “Et tool, McCool,” Roadstrum said sorrowfully, for he was a classical scholar who possessed a fine sense of outrage. “Sencha McAllen,” he called to Sencha who was standing near, “why has Finn McCool turned traitor to us and we all thought he was our friend? And why have you and the others turned traitor to us?”

  “Jealousy,” said Sencha. “We ourselves belong to the guild of high heroes, and you fellows come along with accounts of higher heroics than our own. Your heroics aren't higher, but your talk is taller. We can't match you there. And then we are a little intimidated by the scientialist. We cannot stand up to his scorn if we should believe in impossible things.”

  “That fellow cut me off before I got to tell about the Nine Day War on Wamtangle,” Roadstrum complained.

  “Well, what is the delay?” the scientialist fussed. “The hundred strong men have arrived. What is the delay? What is holding up the two augurs?”

  A runner-messenger, grimed by the dusty kilometers and staggering with death's own stagger, made his way to the assembly with a final burst of speed.

  “The hound dog's ear,” he gasped. “It waggled but once. That means that he does not hear the strange stuff.”

  Then the runner-messenger fell dead at the feet of all of them. His great heart had ruptured.

  “We are the strong folk who turned the very sky upside down,” Roadstrum was still maintaining his position. “You've heard but a tenth of the adventures we got out of. Shall I tell this assembly how we get out of the ‘High Adventures of the Hound Dog's Ear’?”

  “Quiet!” ordered the scientialist. “There is no getting out of anything for you. You will be taken apart, and then you will be destroyed. What's the delay now? Where are the crows?”

  The crows came down from the steep sky with the soft singing of their wings. They were ten of them, and they settled on the shoulders of the ten fire-ball people, of the ten Hornet people. They gripped the shoulders of these ten people with their talons, and the blood ran down.

  The crows were hooded. That meant that they would not see the insufficient evidence. That meant that the sentence of the hopping court could be carried out, that all the brave Hornet people would be obliterated forever.

  Finn McCool sidled up very near to Roadstrum.

  “Roadstrum, listen closely, Roadstrum,” he said in a low voice.

  “I'll have no doings with traitors,” Roadstrum said bitterly.

  “You will if you want to live for any more adventures,” Finn whispered. “But I don't think of myself as a traitor. I'm more of an undercover agent.”

  “It is hard to be heroic on unbelieving Tir-world,” Roadstrum spoke to himself and paid no mind to the scurvy Finn McCool. “They've brought a hundred strong men, and they've a little handful of paltry horses to go with them. But even odds of no more than ten to one against us seem a little steep, considering the low mood that I'm in. Well, this is the way of it. Have at them, crew, and the blood you spill will be partly your own.”

  “No, Roadstrum, no,” Finn whispered furiously. “Roadstrum, remember Gigantipanteloni? He said that if you ever needed help—”

  “What help would he be? He's too slow for a fight, and that spear of his is a hundred times too long for dose-quarter slaughter. Ah, that spear of his—”

  “He's waiting at Razor Back Hill now, Roadstrum. With his spear.”

  “Crewmen, Companions, Adventurers!” Roadstrum roared. “Follow me. Run like you once ran over the hot rocks of Hell. Run, Run, and question me not. The answers will be given after we are off Tir and it no more than a button-sized thing shining in the sun.”

  Roadstrum ran with a roaring of the wind that he stirred up, and ten of the most venturesome persons ever ran after him with twenty-footed thunder.

  Ten? But there would only be nine to follow. The ten included Roadstrum himself.

  No. Ten. There were ten who followed him. Count them yourself. And, after a space, there were more than a hundred others who followed, in pursuit though, and not in the crewmen company.

  They came with booming breath to Razor Back Hill. The extraordinary giant Gigantipanteloni was there, and he was eying the shiny, smoky Hornet craft that was just disappearing around the hump of the sky.

  “The next round, the next round!” Roadstrum howled. “ 'Twill be only seconds. But in only seconds our foes will be upon us.” He took his seeing-eye from his pocket and he threw it as high as he could into the air.

  “Eye, my eye, keep great watch for us!” he called up after it. “This will be close; do what you can; keep open, eye.”

  The great spear of Gigantipanteloni lay athwart Razor Back Hill. The eleven adventurers gathered themselves together and stood on the blade tip of that big spear.

  Eleven, not ten? No. Eleven. Count them yourself.

  The swishing sound that hot hornets make began to be heard, and the hundred-foe was almost upon the gallant crew.

  “Is it time?” Roadstrum sent his thundering voice upward to his seeing-eye eye.

  “Aye,” said the eye. Gigantipanteloni, the extraordinary giant, jumped onto the haft of his long spear with the weight of three hundred elephants. And the eleven brave adventurers were catapulted out of the reach of their foes and into the high air towards the hot Hornet craft.

  Eleven of them, Roadstrum, Margaret, Hondstarfer; and the Crewmen Clamdigger, Trochanter, Cutshark, Crabgrass, Birdsong, Fairfeather, and Threefountains; and Finn McCool, ordinary giant and extraordinary hero of Tir.

  What was Finn McCool doing with them?

  “A single world like Tir doesn't give me full scope for my talents,” he said. “Oh, Hell, I'll explain it after we're on the Hornet, if we ever make it. Look out, look out!”

  Did they make it? With all those steep odds against them, did they make it
? If they reached it, could they hold onto its smooth and red-hot sides? Could Hondstarfer ever get it to running right again, even with all the skill of his seven hammers?

  What is the word? What is the word?

  What is recorded of this happening on Archive World?

  You're pterodactyl-plucking right they made the thing!

  Like A Class melodrama's end, to grade the thing.

  That hammer-kid has got it going grand again

  To soar through wonder-space to wonder-land again,

  Where evil lurks, and challenge; they're the guys for it,

  To drag sky-bait and have adventure rise for it.

  The Hornet saga grows and glitters, Great for it!

  Turn purple, hold your breath, O golly, wait for it!

  —New Adventure Weekly

  For All Poor Folks at Picketwire

  “We ought to have a bigger place for the children to play in the summertime,” Lemuel said one day. “How many do we have now?” Lemuel was a bent young man with bright and slightly peering eyes. “Five, Lem, five,” Griselda said. This Griselda was something of a looker.

  If Lemuel Windfall hadn't always seen so far ahead, he might have been one of the very top inventors of the world. But isn't foresight a good quality in an inventor or in anyone? Sure it is, but it's not good if you rub it into the ground. It is possible to be too foresightly. Lemuel could see ahead both into the immediate and to the ultimate use of whatever gadget he might devise. And he could pretty well weigh it out in green money how much it could be turned for. It would have been wonderful if he'd let it go at that; if he'd gathered each harvest in as it came to season, and had put his bills of expectation on their proper spindle till they had realized themselves. But Lemuel always saw forward, past the use and application of a device. He saw forward to its obsolescence And what is the use to activate a device or a potential or a condition if it is going to be obsolete in a decade or two?