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

by R. A. Lafferty

  “But, Austro, Monkey-Face Muldoon is only a character you made up in your Rocky McCrocky comic strip.”

  “No, no, much more than that, Roy. He's the Monkey Inside.”

  Well, how slippery can things get? Slippery-gip mist, when it settled one molecule thick on a surface, created an entirely new concept of slipperiness. Things you never thought of doing it slid. Listen, clothes slid off people while they stood or walked. Stones slid out of unmortared walls, and they continue to slide like blocks of ice on icy surfaces. Paint slid right off of walls. It was held there mostly by friction anyhow, and friction was finished now. Cars, whether parked or moving, slid off the high streets onto lower streets. There was no such thing as traction where slippery-gip had touched; there was no such thing as friction. A person could keep his position only by holding onto something stationary, and you'd be surprised how many things lost their stationary quality in the face of the new slipperiness. And almost all ‘holding on’ involves friction, and friction was no more. Austro dispensed Roy Mega and his joker friends from the slippery effects by laying his hands on their heads. They called him ‘The Bishop’ when he did that, but just what did he do? “It is my species juice,” Austro said. “I let a little of it flow from me to you. Then you are only as slippery as it will profit you to be!”

  Well, would you tell the secret of as good a trick as that?

  Roy's jokers got little whiffs of the stuff into houses and business places and public areas. And then they'd wait for what might happen. All the litter on a coffee table in a house would slide off onto the floor, and it would continue to slide to the lowest part of the house, or it would slide right out of the house if it could find a way out. Dishes would slide out of their cabinets. Spreads would slide off of beds, and sheets would follow. And so would the people slide out if they were in any of the beds. Drawers would slide out of bureaus. Nothing was perfectly level, and everything would slide in some direction or other. A house might very well slide right off its foundations, rupturing all its piping and wiring as it went. And do you know how much machinery, even household machinery, works by friction drive? Well, it wouldn't work now.

  Sometimes people would tumble out of a house and swear that the house was haunted. The clothes would have slipped off of most of the people. Sweet reason would have slipped off of all of them.

  And there were unexpected sorrows and sufferings. Listen, did you ever play cards under the condition of total slipperiness? A neat pile of cards is sitting there waiting to be dealt. And then that neat pile comes apart and slides off in fifty-two different directions. And you can hardly hold the cards in your hand. Well, you can't do it! There they go! Without friction, you just play hob holding anything at all. It all squirts out and slides away. Even money, whether paper or coin, just plain slides off the table. Then it slides off the floor too. The people slide off their chairs, and the chairs and tables slide right out of the room and out of the house. Gentlemen, you just can't play cards under those conditions!

  Supermarkets are good; there's so many things piled up there just waiting to slide off. All offices are good. No paper will stay on any desk under conditions of maximum slipperiness. Restaurants are good. Aw, every place is good. Every place is a barrel full of monkeys. No, no those monkeys would slide right out of the barrel while it was sliding down a street somewhere.

  In the streets, no traffic could move except what was sliding out of control. A car could not be driven, not on streets that were like super-slick ice and would give no traction at all.

  After dark, people began to crawl to that little workshop of Austro and Roy Mega. They came by intuition to that source of troubles, or else they just slipped and slid there because it was the lowest part of town. They pled hardship cases and they begged for mercy. And Austro would put his hands on their heads and let a little of the special species-juice flow from himself to them.

  Roofers had had to knock off work that day. Well, how many times do you have to slide off a roof to get the idea? There were mothers of babies that squirted right out of their arms and then along the floors and streets. That's hard on little babies.

  About midnight, Barnaby Sheen clumped down to the little workshop of Austro and Roy Mega. Well, both the young geniuses worked for Barnaby Sheen.

  “Ah there, old mule-skinner, what is amiss?” Austro asked with nervous heartiness. “Is it making any real noise in the world yet, Mr. Sheen? Is it having real effect?”

  “Austro, the effect has reached ‘G’ on the world-is-coming-to-an-end scale,” Barnaby said ponderously. “That means that there will be a very-high-ranking officer, a ‘G’ officer, here in just a bit. It's only super-glycerine with some targeting substance added to it, isn't it, Austro?”

  “Yeah, with a targeting juice added, but I'll say no more about that.”

  “Yes you will too, Austro. What targeting juice?”

  “Aw, it's people-juice, Mr. Sheen,” Austro said nervously.

  “People is the last ones I'd have suspected. Why should you have sicced this ravening, slickness monster onto people, Austro?”

  “Who's as well-heeled as people? How are you going to blackmail dogs or trees or insects or things like that? What would they pay off with?”

  “Well, back it off for a couple of hours, boys,” Barnaby ordered. “Let's have no more harassment till the ‘G’ Grade General gets here and we see how much damage has been done.”

  “How come you don't slip and slide and fall down like the rest of the people do, Mr. Sheen?” Austro asked, worried.

  “Because I'm smarter than you are,” Barnaby Sheen said.

  In our town, ‘G’-rated General Gamaliel knew in what pond to look for strange fish. He knew that in every town, which is why he had become 'G'-rated General. The strange fish would be somewhere around Barnaby Sheen's establishment. And that was his first stop in checking out the latest ‘The-World-Is-Coming-To-An-End’ threat. While he was still in the air, he phoned Barnaby to have breakfast ready for him, and to have all the fishy suspects present at that breakfast also. So Barnaby had Austro and Roy Mega and one of Roy's joker friends Oliver Clatter. This General Gamaliel was pleasantly pompous, and he didn't break stride or lose pomposity easily, not when he sat down to the breakfast table with his three important aides General-Doctor Halefellow, General-Prosecutor Sam Hotspur, and General-Projectman Anthony Longarm. He didn't lose his pomposity when he slipped off his chair and almost slipped off the floor either. He took a firm position, spread-eagled on his back, and with his feet braced against the two walls of the lowest corner of the room.

  “Oh yes,” he said genially. “You made me a special target of the phenomenon so I could experience it at first hand, or first rump. Thoughtful of somebody. The world is in no danger of this thing. I tell you though, there's a hairy-faced kid who's in danger.”

  “Oh, the world is in danger, General,” Austro said, “and I will blackmail the whole world with that danger. I will let the world go slide, and it will ruin itself. Be a good guy, General, and talk the world into buying me off.”

  “You look bad, Austro,” the General said. “That pallor of yours may be a symptom of something fatal. But I don't take your threat too seriously. Some people are having fun with your trick. Scoobie-doobie dancers are turning as many as thirteen complete cartwheels in the air when they hit a good slick spot.”

  “It's slippery, General, slippery,” Austro said modestly.

  “What have you targeted it onto, Austro? People? Austro, you do look bad this morning. A doctor's examination is in order for you and could save your life. People, and the things handled by people, that's what the slippery mist will work on, the whole human ambient. Austro, if I looked as bad as you do, I'd want a doctor.”

  “At least I'm not flat on my back. You wouldn't try to trick me, General?”

  “Would I have the temerity to try to trick a super-trickster like you?”

  “No, I guess not,” Austro admitted.

  “Is everyb
ody in the mood for a little fun?” asked that joker Oliver Clatter. It was already old stuff, of course, when the three important aides of General Gamaliel slipped out of their chairs and fell heavily to the floor, and then kept on slipping and sliding. And they slipped out of their clothes too. Ah yes, sheets of paper began to slide out of attaché cases and portfolios, the important sheets of paper that aides to generals carry around with them.

  “Are you watching, General?” Austro asked. “Writing and typing are sliding off of those sheets of paper. Marks on paper are mostly held on by friction, and my thing abolishes friction. There will be a big payoff, or I will let the whole world slide over its own edge.”

  “Austro, my boy, I worry about you,” the General said. “You look terrible. You need a doctor. And fortunately we have one here.”

  “All right, but no tricks,” Austro said. He placed his hands on the General-Doctor's head and let a little species-juice flow into him. That person was then able to rise from the floor, retrieve his sliding satchel, and begin to run tests on Austro. He took blood and serum and various other fluids out of him. “We will soon have you bright-eyed and chipper again, Austro,” General-Doctor Halefellow said.

  “Right, bright-eyed and chipper,” Austro agreed. “Take the samples from me and make cures for me. But don't try to trick the super-trickster. And the fun can still go on while you're fixing me up.”

  “Several can play this game, Austro,” General Gamaliel warned.

  “But I'm the only one who can win it,” Austro said. “I made the rules.”

  “Just where do you come from, Austro?” the floor-bound General Gamaliel asked.

  “From the Guna Slopes of Africa,” Austro said, “but you won't trick me into telling you exactly what part of them.”

  “We know exactly what part of them,” General Gamaliel said. “We've had a locator tracking backwards on you for the last ten minutes.”

  General-Doctor Halefellow had taken all the samples he needed from Austro. He went to the door and gave the vials to somebody. And that somebody made the sound of a quick departure.

  “How long will it be till you cure me?” Austro asked.

  “About nine thousand miles, a little less than an hour,” Doctor Halefellow said. “We'll do it as quickly as we can. There's a little chemical laboratory on the plane, and they can put the essential juice together long before they arrive there. And they have spraying attachments on the plane. Your cure'll start in about an hour.”

  “And how long will it take then?”

  “Austro, your cure will be almost instantaneous,” G-Grade General Gamaliel said with a note of happy menace in his voice.

  Meanwhile the fun went on in that breakfast room at Barnaby Sheen's. Woop, woop, woop, the wooden interior of the building was held together mostly by nails, and it is by friction that the nails hold so tightly into wood. Woop, woop, woop, things were coming apart pretty rapidly in that room. Water was flowing from faucets in that room and in many others. After all, the slightest water pressure will back off a faucet when it has no friction to sustain its position, and the water flows so much more powerfully through the pipes when it has no friction to slow it down. Yeah, gas was coming through a lot of apertures by the same token. It could be an explosive situation.

  “Did you ever wonder what might happen to the mantle of the world when the strata start to slip and slide?” Austro asked the Generals. “It would be just like sheets of paper sliding or playing cards sliding. There is no stratum so perfectly balanced that it will not slide in one of several directions when all friction is nullified. General of the Military, we are talking about miles and miles of thickness that might be slipping and sliding and squirting massive globs of earth out between them.”

  Outside in the town, morning jokers were going about their slippery joker business. Bodies slid off mortuary slabs and kept right on sliding, down steps, out of buildings, down streets, as if they still had a dogged notion of their own.

  “Why do you pick on people, Austro?” General Gamaliel asked. He was a little tired from being spread-eagled on the floor. “Don't you like people?”

  “Sure, I like them the second best of all,” Austro said. “You might well remember that in people the cortex is fastened to the cerebellum by friction alone. In just a little while, in all of you, it will slip off as its friction fails, and you will all go mad. G-Grade General Gamaliel, you had better recommend that the world start paying off.”

  “It couldn't happen,” General-Doctor Halefellow said. “This little ape-face is having fun with us.” But something was going to pop in just a minute. Those who have not lived under conditions of total slipperiness don't know what pressures can be built up. Something had to pop.

  Something popped.

  Well, it didn't pop there exactly, but its effect was felt there. It popped a few thousand miles away, on the other side of the world, on the Guna Slopes of Africa. Yeah, it had taken about an hour.

  “Oh, Oh, Oh, I'm having visions, awful visions!” Austro cried out. “Don't let it happen to them! Don't let it happen!” On the Guna Slopes of Africa, a middle-aged Australopithecus slipped on the rocks and fell very hard. He had heard a plane overhead, and he felt a slight mist and a sense of something wrong. He had taken falls on the rocks all his life, but not such violent or brainless ones as that. He thought about it as he sat among the flints. He scratched his brindled, hairy jaw, and he fell even flatter. Then he began to slip and slide down the mile-long slopes.

  And back in Barnaby Sheen's breakfast room, a twelve year old (going on thirteen) Australopithecus felt a horrible apprehension and threat, for all Australopithecines are connected in one empathic web. The young Austro felt the fear and apprehension and disorientation of his elder kinsman more than he would have felt his own.

  “Don't do it to him!” Austro cried out. “He's one of ours!”

  “And the people who have been distracted by your slippery tricks for so many hours are ours!” General Gamaliel barked.

  “No, no, the whole slope will go!” Austro cried, “nine thousand feet of slopes!” On the slopes, ninety-seven other Australopithecines took sudden and simultaneous pratfalls. (This accounted for all the rest of them; there were only ninety-nine Australopithecines in the world.) Those falls hurt them. They have less cushy prats than have people. They slipped and they slipped, and interior cogs in them slipped also. Now both their feet and their wits flew out from under them.

  “No, no, no!” Austro howled. “Stop it! Don't hurt them!”

  “We will make some deals, Austro,” said the G-General. “Then we'll stop it.”

  “It's blackmail!” Austro wailed. “There's nothing lower than blackmail.”

  A Major on G-General Gamaliel's staff came in and sprayed a bit of a third juice, and that released all the floor prisoners from their spell. The major sprayed another whiff of the stuff and Austro turned eleven complete cartwheels in the door and fell flat on his face.

  “For every dote there is an antidote, Austro,” General Gamaliel said. “Your cure is going on right now. Kid, you'd better get cured fast. We can think of a lot of tricks too, you know. Australopithecus hair is coarser and looser than people hair, and I believe that nine out of ten of your hairs are held in their follicles by friction alone. How would you like to be called ‘Baldy’, Austro?”

  “It's dirty blackmail, but I give up,” Austro said. “I've learned my lesson.” So they sprayed a bit of a new mist and released him from the slipperiness syndrome.

  “I've learned that blackmail is crude,” Austro said. “I've learned that safe-and-sure, blue-sky promotion is the best. Invest in super-glycerines. The publicity will have done wonders for this newest of industries. Gentlemen, there is a great slipperiness in your future! The super-slick things that can be done are almost without limit. But not just any super-glycerine. Invest in ‘Austro's Super-Slick Industries’. Stock shares will be printed within the hour.”

  “And who controls ‘Austro's Su
per-Slick Industries’?” General Gamaliel asked.

  “I do!” Austro crowed, “and I'm selling stock, now, for a limited time only—”

  Bang! Austro did no less than fifteen complete cartwheels in the air, and really landed flat on his face.

  “What happened?” he demanded. “I gave up once.”

  “It must have been a carry-over effect,” General Gamaliel said. And Austro was up again.

  “I am extending my special get-rich-quick offer to a limited number of very slick individuals,” Austro was saying. “For anyone who can lay out ten thousand dollars in the next ten minutes, we offer membership in a special stock-owning group. Be super-slick, be super-rich, be—”

  Bang! Austro turned no less than seventeen complete cartwheels in the air, and you wouldn't believe how flat on his face he landed!

  “What happened?” Austro wailed. “Oh wow wow wow, what happened?”

  “There must have been a little bit of the stuff left in the sprayer,” Barnaby Sheen said.

  Splinters

  The three town-and-country men kept loose hours, so it was just one o'clock in the morning when they began to talk of going fishing at once. “It would help if we knew what the weather would be for the next few hours,” Charles Penstock said. “If it will be fog, we can go and jug for bullhead catfish on Silly Ghost Cove on Keystone Lake. If it will clear to a quick frost, we can drag for walleyes on Tenkiller. Or we can dynamite for pond pickerel on Oolagab.”

  “If it is heavy dew, we can spear frogs on Euchie,” Ed Rivet said. “What did the weatherman give on the evening news?”

  “He gave predictions that are now three hours old,” Otto Pankration said. “That's too old. We'll just have the weatherman up and see what he says now. He might be intuitive and hit it sharp if we get him out of his sleep.”