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

by R. A. Lafferty

  “For the money, that's what's the use,” the wife, Griselda, would say. “We can use the money right now, and I don't care whether it will be obsoleted next century.”

  “But why should we be bothered for money?” Lemuel would always ask. “Surely it's always an advantage in any circumstance to reduce the number of moving parts, and money in this life is made up entirely of moving parts. And didn't I invent instant money just a fortnight ago?”

  “Indeed you did, Lem,” good Griselda said, “but you didn't go into production on the stuff. You looked into the future, and you discovered that it would be a short-term (not over fifty years' duration) affair. You said that ethical backlash and other difficulties would blow the whistle on it by then. Look, Lem, I'm reasonable. I'm not even asking for instant money today. I'll settle for thirty-minute money. I'll give you just thirty minutes to raise some household cash, and that's the limit. Thirty minutes, Lem. Did you hear me?”

  “Yes,” he would always say. Then he would put a few working drawings of something under his arm and would go down the street to Conglomerate Enterprises or Wheeler-Heelers and sell them for whatever he could get in thirty minutes.

  “I could get more for things if I had the time and fare to take them to Le Conglomerat in Paris,” Lem would say wistfully. “They've written me that they'll pay well for any new thing of mine, and they say that their offer will stand forever, for a reasonable ever. I could always get more if I had fifteen years to deal instead of thirty minutes.”

  “Lem, everything that you've ever sold, you've already had it on the shelf for at least fifteen years.” Griselda would say with weary patience.

  “Yes, I guess so,” Lem would admit.

  “And remember that you've promised me a trip to Paris.”

  “Yes, and I'll give it to you yet, Grissie.”

  And there was a worse hitch in the Lemuel mental and fabricatory process. He didn't like to produce anything unless working conditions were just right. And he had the sad conviction that nowhere in the world were conditions ever just right. “I should have a workshop that's in a total vacuum,” he would say sometimes. “That's the least of the conditions.”

  “You should have your head in a total vacuum,” Griselda would counter.

  “Why, such a thing would implode my brains,” Lem would state, “and what would be the compensating advantage?”

  “You never know, dear. There might be useful side effects.”

  “Yes, I should have a workshop in a total vacuum,” he'd dream and beam, “and dust free, and in a place completely without gravity. And it should be without the quality of temperature; neither medium, nor very high, nor very; low temperature will serve; it must be without even the idea of temperature. And it should be beyond the power of hard radiation of every sort, beyond the fury of excessive ultraviolet rays or actinic rays or triatomic oxygen. ‘And all baleful beams,’ as the psalmist says. And my place of enterprise should be beyond the temporal cloud, and I do not mean anything so simple as time-stand-still, no, nor eternity either. There must not be duration; there must be only moment. No duration is ever long enough to get anything done.

  “And my workshop should be spared the effect of every magnetic field, of every voltage differential, of every solar wind. And it should not have any topography at all. Perhaps it shouldn't even have location, or shape, or size. Griselda, if I had a workshop or factory so situated and appointed, all processes would become easy, and there would be scarce a limit to what might be achieved. Hey, I could make coal then! Oh, but there's plenty of coal. But in this little workshop here, and in the bigger workshop whose name is World, with all their disabilities of gravity and magnetism and electrical field, and baleful rays and temperature and existence in time and space, and subject to indexing as to shape and size and color and aroma, why, it just doesn't seem worthwhile even to try any work here.”

  “But, Lem, if you hadn't gone tilt-brained and thought up all these objections, then you could believe that you had the finest place in the world, and you could do the finest work anywhere. Say, there's a title to a piece of land in Colorado that came in the mail today. A Mr. Jasher Halfhogan sent it to you. As far as I can tell, the little piece of land is on a small creek named Picketwire, and there isn't any town near it anywhere.”

  “What? What? Oh, how fortuitous can it get!” Lemuel cried with real enthusiasm. “On Picketwire Creek in Colorado, you say? Why, that's almost the same thing as having no topography at all. Nuggets of gold and orichalcum on my head! I guess that this is just my lucky day.”

  “But shouldn't this man have sent you money instead of a title to a no-good piece of land?”

  “Of course he should have, Griselda. What luck he didn't! He should have sent me a great lot of money, and I suppose that there are persons who would prefer money. Oh, this is lucky! There is bound to be advantage come of it. One of the requirements of the ideal working place is that it should be unlocated and of no value. May the years teach me enough wisdom to find advantage in this thing! And in the meanwhile, it might be a nice place to turn the children loose in the summertime. How many of them do we have now?”

  “Six, Lem, six. They are six of the reasons that I'm often after you for money. And remember that you've promised me a trip to Paris. That takes money too.”

  In a different year Griselda said, “Do you know how much taxes we got a bill for on that stupid piece of land in Colorado, Lem? Eighty-five cents. It must be some place.” “It makes one feel cheap, doesn't it, Grissie? I'll see what I can do about getting the taxes raised. Jasher Halfhogan goes out there pretty often. I guess that I should find out a little bit more about that piece of property.”

  “I guess that I should find out a little bit more about that man Jasher Halfhogan,” Griselda said. “He has some kind of hook into you. Jasher Halfhogan sounds like a name that you'd invent. And that funny-looking old man looks like someone you'd invent too. I'm asking you seriously Lem: did you?”

  “No, not consciously I didn't invent him, Grissie. And yet I did invent him a little bit, I suppose. And he me. We are all formed by feedback and interaction. We see more than there is in other people, and we ourselves are seen for more than we are. And we grow to match our seeming. Don't you like Jasher?”

  “I've never met him, Lem. Every time I've seen him he was scurrying away like some night ghost that was afraid of being shone on by sunlight. Well, if he's a Halfhogan, what would a Wholehogan be?”

  “You really don't know, Griselda? Sometimes you astonish me,” Lemuel said. He was a bent man who had recently slipped into middle age without much noise. “But as to the Colorado land, Jasher says that it's a gateway to a whole new life. It has something to say to me in the future, I know. And meanwhile, it might be a nice place to take the children some summer. How many do we have now?”

  “Seven, Lem, seven.” Somehow Griselda had remained one of the really good-lookers.

  There finally came a year when Lemuel thrived in his erratic discoveries and enterprises in spite of his being forced to work and invent in places and circumstances of matter and atmosphere and gravity and magnetism and electrical manifestation and temperature and baleful rays and time and space and shape. Money seemed approximately sufficient. But always Griselda had something to worry about. “I won't say that I don't like your friend Jasher Halfhogan,” she said once. “I'm sure that he means well. I have met him now, you know, just a few years ago. Once, I believe, I saw him attempt a smile. It didn't work. But I do believe that he's a bad omen for you, Lem. A little buzzard recently whispered to me that he'll be the death of you yet.”

  “No, he'll not cause my death, Grissie,” Lemuel said seriously. “Though the neighborhood children of whatever age hoot at him and call him Mr. Deathman and Mr. Soul Broker, yet I believe that they misunderstand his role. He will not cause my death. 'Twill be a mere synchronicity. He wants me to locate by that entrance in Colorado some year soon, to go to that little property of ours. That's one of th
e entrances to the next step in living, he says. And it would be nice to visit it, Grissie, before we die, or soon after that, in any case. And it might be pleasant to take the children there for a little vacation. How many do we have now?”

  “Eight, Lem, but they're all married and moved away. I believe that it's too late for us to arrange such a trip together. In the next life, maybe.”

  “Maybe so, Grissie. It's good to think about.” Lem was a bent old man now, and he hadn't intended to let himself get into such a state. And Griselda was still a good-looker, now and forever. “Colorado seems to loom pretty big in the next life,” Lem was saying. “I'm feeling a bit doddery lately. I may ask Jasher Halfhogan what he thinks about it all.”

  So the next season, when Jasher came through town again, Lemuel asked him about several things. “I'd like someday to visit that little Colorado property that you once deeded to me for services rendered,” Lem said. “I have high expectations for it. And I'm reaching the age where I need something of value to concretize my expectations a little.” “Oh, the property itself is worthless, Lem,” Jasher said. “Don't set any expectations on its value.”

  “But, Jash, you once said that it was a gateway to a whole new life.”

  “So I did, and so it is. But even a broken gate that's not worth half a dollar may be a gateway to a whole new life. It's the location that's important. Lem. There are a few other localities equally important, and they all give ingress to the same place. But it would be impossible to put any of them into right context without the services of a special informant such as myself. The place is analogous to a mail drop, Lem, in that it gives communication to places almost without limit. Rather think of it as a world drop or a life drop. It's better to take these things under guidance and control than to go at random and in ignorance. Besides, I get a commission on you. I work largely on commission.”

  “I never did know what you did. Jasher,” Lemuel said. “I'm not one to wonder about a friend's occupation, but my wife often speculates out loud about yours. She says that you'll be the death of me yet.”

  “No death is foreordained, Lem. I'll collect a fee on yours when it does happen, but that's only because you're in my territory. Lemuel, do you have any particular later life desires or aspirations? We may be able to do something about them.”

  “Oh, yes. And what desires I have left do seem to get a little bit stronger with age. In particular, I've always believed that I could accomplish things almost without limit if I had the proper working conditions for discovering and processing and manufacturing. I have found, Jasher, quite a few things that had to have been fabricated in more nearly ideal circumstances than are found on Earth. Or at least they had to be patterned and triggered in more favorable circumstances. These things have been passed off by most persons as natural or quasi-natural phenomena. But they're not natural. I know manufactured things when I see them, and many of these things are manufactured. Aye, Jasher, but they're not made under the disabilities that afflict our local planet.

  “I want to make such things also. I want to make them in such profusion that they will be mistaken for natural or quasi-natural phenomena. I want to make them so nearly perfect that they will be almost unnoticed in their excellence, and so tremendously large that they will escape scrutiny and stand like invisible and accepted giants. I do not want money or recognition for these services that I am burning to perform. But, Jasher, the sites and circumstances for such doings are simply not to be found on this world.”

  “It may be that they are to be found with one foot on this world, Lem,” Jasher Halfhogan said, “or with one tentacle. The world puts out some very long and tricky tentacles, a few of them so tremendous that they do escape scrutiny. So I will bet that we can find good site and circumstances for your workshop or whatever. Just what specifications do you have in mind for it?”

  So Lemuel Windfall explained to Jasher Halfhogan just what he would need for the minimum. And Jasher nodded from time to time and mumbled, “I think so. Yes, I think so.” Lem listed the things that he had often poured into the erratic ears of his wife and into the stoppered ears of the world at large. All about the avoidance of atmosphere and magnetism and gravity and baleful rays. “And somehow Griselda must get a trip to Paris out of it,” he said.

  “You're making it easy for us, Lem,” Jasher said. “You're going right down the line with all our specialties. Lem, I know just the place for it. When will you be ready to go?”

  “I'd go quickly enough if I knew where I was going and what I'd find,” Lemuel stated with the confidence of one who doesn't expect his hand to be called.

  “You'll find just the conditions that you have been speaking of, Lem. But can you handle it, or will you go right past the place? I've never been certain that you have enough of the cantankerous metal in you, and without it you'll have too easy a passage to discover these conditions. Have you the need to be compensating enough that you must create things in such profusion and perfection? For it does go by need, and I simply don't believe that you have a strong enough need in you. Lem, I don't believe that you have been a bad enough man to be called to the extraordinary ransom and prodigy.”

  “Have I not been bad enough?” Lemuel crooked his voice at Jasher. “Let me tell you about it, low and into your ear here.” And Lemuel talked into Jasher's ear in a serious and hushed voice until all the blood was drained out of Jasher's face.

  “Stop, stop! Yes, you've been bad enough, Lem,” Jasher croaked with distaste. “I was wrong to doubt you. How soon will you be ready to go? It's to your little land in Colorado. It's a better entrance than most places to the whole new circumstance and life.”

  “I'll be ready to go by nightfall, Jasher,” Lemuel said.

  And that was almost the last that anyone saw of Lemuel Windfall around the old place. He cashed in his chips, as they say. He lowered his flag, so the colloquialism has it. He had his ticket punched, as the phrase goes. He went West, as the older fellows say. He shipped off to Colorado, as the proverb has it.

  His wife, Griselda, put on widow's weeds when he was gone.

  She had always been an impatient woman.

  2.

  More energy has been spent in explaining the presence of coal deposits on our Earth, and more especially in explaining petroleum deposits, than in almost any other thing. Probably more energy has been spent in explaining them than in forming them. But it comes to nothing.

  One authority insisted that the carboniferous gluts of our world came from the tails of comets that sideswiped the Earth. And this is one of the most nearly intelligent of all the explanations that have been put forward!

  There is one geologist who says that petroleum is formed only between layers of bituminous shale, and that it is formed in such case by great pressure and heat. That is a little like using cheese for the jaws of a vise intended to exert tremendous pressure. Bituminous shale just isn't the rock for the job. And trying to explain the presence of petroleum is child's play compared with trying to explain the presence of bituminous shale.

  There is another authority who maintains that petroleum and natural gas are largely due to the resinous spores of rhizocarps. Savor that opinion for a moment, reader, and you must conclude that there is at least one authority running loose who should be confined.

  In every case, the temperatures sufficient to form coal or petroleum are somewhat higher than the temperatures sufficient to vaporize the entire Earth. One exasperated authority stated that all such deposits must have been made by kobalds or gnomes laboring under the roots of mountains. He was righter than he knew. But the question remains: how could any circumstances on Earth serve to trigger such deposits and results? And the answer is an easy one: they couldn't.

  —Arpad Arutinov, The Back Door of History

  But there is a condition, neither on Earth nor off it, not in any place, really, where circumstances could trigger such results. This is a condition lacking the quality of location (Jews, close your ears! Greeks, harden yo
ur hearing! Covenanters, avert your senses lest you be affronted by it!), a realm of ransom and recompense and incredible self-assigned labor, a scene where such accumulations of carbonaceous matter are indeed patterned and planned and instigated.

  —Arpad Arutinov, The Back Door of History

  Second Revised Edition,

  There were new cargoes and traffics appearing, new potentials, and circumstances; but it was only Conglomerate Enterprises and Wheeler-Heelers and Le Conglomerat and such like firms that guessed that the new things weren't really natural or even quasi-natural. The new things were manufactured — these canny companies recognized this quickly enough — and they weren't exactly manufactured on this world.

  The conditions here just weren't right for them. And, as it seemed to the men of the several discerning firms and conglomerates, the new cargoes and traffics and products had the signature of one man all over them.

  So several gentlemen from Conglomerate Enterprises came to visit Griselda Windfall. They had been in the habit of taking advantage of Griselda's husband, Lemuel, and they didn't intend to get out of the habit just because he had left town.

  “It is absolutely necessary that we locate your husband, Lemuel Windfall,” they said in unison (there were three gentlemen).

  “It isn't necessary to me, it isn't necessary to Lem, and I'm not sure that it's necessary at all,” Griselda said. “If Lem had wanted to be located, he could have stayed here.”