Horrible Imaginings

by Fritz Leiber

  “Yes, Zocky, you did.”

  “I don’t like this case, though,” the blond detective went on. “This Groener’s not a bad guy. Think of listening to those chimes night after night!”

  “If they were all bad guys, our job would be easy.”

  “Yeah. Say, I just realized we don’t know any of their first names—not Groener’s or either of the dames.”

  “Cohan will have them,” the Lieutenant said. “But that’s a very important point about detective work you’ve just made, Zocky. Never know their first names.”

  MYSTERIOUS DOINGS IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

  The top half of the blade of grass growing in a railed plot beside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan said “Beetles! You’d think they were the Kings of the World, the way they carry on!”

  The bottom half of the blade of grass replied, “Maybe they are. The distinguished writer of supernatural horror stories H. P. Lovecraft said in The Shadow Out of Time there would be a ‘hardy Coleopterous species immediately following mankind,’ to quote his exact words. Other experts say all insects, or spiders, or rats will inherit the Earth, but old H.P.L. said hardy coleopts.”

  “Pedant!” the top half mocked. “ ‘Coleopterous species’!” Why not just say ‘beetles’ or just ‘bugs’? Means the same thing.”

  “You favor long words as much as I do,” the bottom half replied imperturbably, “but you also like to start arguments and employ a salty, clipped manner of speech which is really not your own—more like that of a deathwatch beetle.”

  “I call a spade a spade,” the top half retorted. “And speaking of what spades delve into (a curt keening signifying the loamy integument of Mother Earth), I hope we’re not mashed into it by gunboats the next second or so. Or by beetle-crushers, to coin a felicitous expression.”

  Bottom explained condescendingly, “The president and general secretary of the Coleopt Convention have a trusty corps of early-warning beetles stationed about to detect the approach of gunboats. A coleopterous Dewline.”

  Top snorted, “Trusty! I bet they’re all goofing off and having lunch at Schrafft’s.”

  “I have a feeling it’s going to be a great con,” bottom said.

  “I have a feeling it’s going to be a lousy, fouled-up con,” top said. “Everybody will get conned. The Lousicon—how’s that for a name?”

  “Lousy. Lice have their own cons. They belong to the orders Psocoptera, Anoplura, and Mallophaga, not the godlike, shining order Coleoptera.”

  “Scholiast! Paranoid!”

  The top and bottom halves of the blade of grass broke off their polemics, panting.

  The beetles of all Terra, but especially the United States, were indeed having their every-two-years world convention, their Biannual Bug Thing, in the large, railed-off grass plot in Central Park, close by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, improbable as that may seem and just as the grassblade with the split personality had said.

  Now, you may think it quite impossible for a vast bunch of beetles, ranging in size from nearly microscopic ones to unicorn beetles two and one-half inches long, to hold a grand convention in a dense urban area without men becoming aware of it. If so, you have seriously underestimated the strength and sagacity of the coleopterous tribe and overestimated the sensitivity and eye for detail of Homo Sapiens—Sap for short.

  These beetles had taken security measures to awe the CIA and NKVD, had those fumbling human organizations been aware of them. There was indeed a Beetle Dewline to warn against the approach of gunboats—which are, of course, the elephantine, leather-armored feet of those beetle-ignoring, city-befuddled giants, men. In case such veritable battleships loomed nigh, all accredited beetles had their directives to dive down to the grassroots and harbor there until the all-clear sounded on their ESP sets.

  And should such a beetle-crusher chance to alight on a beetle or beetles, well, in case you didn’t know it, beetles are dymaxion-built ovoids such as even Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright never dreamed of, crush-resistant to a fabulous degree and able to endure such saturation shoe-bombings without getting the least crack in their resplendent carapaces.

  So cast aside doubts and fears. The beetles were having their world convention exactly as and where I’ve told you. There were bright-green ground beetles, metallic wood-boring beetles, yellow soldier beetles, gorgeous ladybird beetles, and handsome and pleasing fungus beetles just as brilliantly red, charcoal—gray blister yellow hieroglyphs imprinted on their shining green backs, immigrant and affluent Japanese beetles, snout beetles, huge darksome stag and horn beetles, dogbane beetles like fire opals, and even that hyper-hieroglyphed rune-bearing yellow-on-blue beetle wonder of the family Chrysomelidae and subfamily Chrysomelinae Calligrapha serpentine. All of them milling about in happy camaraderie, passing drinks and bons mots, as beetles will. Scuttling, hopping, footing the light fantastic, and even in sheer exuberance lifting their armored carapaces to take short flights of joy on their retractable membranous silken wings like glowing lace on the lingerie of Viennese baronesses.

  And not just U.S. beetles, but coleopts from all over the world— slant-eyed Asian beetles in golden robes, North African beetles in burnished burnooses, South African beetles wild as fire ants with great Afro hairdos, smug English beetles, suave Continental bugs, and brilliantly clad billionaire Brazilian beetles and fireflies constantly dancing the carioca and sniffing ether and generously spraying it at other beetles in intoxicant mists. Oh, a grandsome lot.

  Not that there weren’t flies in the benign ointment of all this delightful coleopterous sociability. Already the New York City cockroaches were out in force, picketing the convention because they hadn’t been invited. Round and round the sacred grass plot they tramped, chanting labor-slogans in thick accents and hurling coarse working-class epithets.

  “But of course we couldn’t have invited them even if we’d wanted to,” explained the Convention’s general secretary, a dapper click beetle, in fact an eyed elater of infinite subtlety and resource in debate and tactics. As the book says, “If the eyed elater falls on its back, if lies quietly for perhaps a minute. Then, with a loud click, it flips into the air. If it is lucky, it lands on its feet and runs away; otherwise it tries again.” And the general secretary had a million other dodges as good or better. He said now, “But we couldn’t have invited them even if we’d wanted to, because cockroaches aren’t true beetles at all, aren’t Coleoptera; they belong to the order Orthoptera, the family Blattidae—blat to them! Moreover, many of them are mere German (German-Jewish, maybe?) Croton bugs, dwarfish in stature compared to American cockroaches, who all once belonged to the Confederate Army.”

  In seconds the plausible slander was known by insect grapevine to the cockroaches. Turning the accusation to their own Wobbly purposes, they began rudely to chant in unison as they marched, “Blat, blat, go the Blattidae!”

  Also, several important delegations of beetles had not yet arrived, including those from Bangladesh, Switzerland, Iceland and Egypt.

  But despite all these hold-ups and disturbances, the first session of the Great Coleopt Congress got off to a splendid start. The president, a portly Colorado potato beetle resembling Grover Cleveland, rapped for order. Whereupon row upon row of rainbow-hued beetles rose to their feet amidst the greenery and sonorously sang—drowning out even the guttural blats of the crude cockroaches—the chief beetle anthem:

  “Beetles are not dirty bugs

  Spiders, scorpions or slugs.

  Heroes of the insect realms,

  They sport winged burnished helms.

  They are shining and divine.

  They are kindly and just fine.

  Beetles do not bite or sting.

  They love almost everything.”

  They sang it to the melody of the Ode to Joy in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth.

  The session left many beetle wives, larval children, husbands and other nonvoting members at loose ends. But provision had been made
for them. Guided by a well-informed though somewhat stuffy scribe beetle, they entered the Metropolitan Museum for a conducted tour designed for both entertainment and cultural enrichment.

  While the scribe beetle pointed out notable items of interest and spoke his educational but somewhat longwinded pieces, they scuttled all over the place, feeling out the forms of great statues by crawling over them and revealing inside the many silvery suits of medieval armor.

  Most gunboats didn’t notice them at all. Those who did were not in the least disturbed. Practically all gunboats—though they dread spiders and centipedes and loath cockroaches—like true beetles, as witness the good reputation of the ladybug, renowned in song and story for her admirable mother love and fire-fighting ability. These gunboats assumed that the beetles were merely some new educational feature of the famed museum, or else an artistry of living arabesques.

  When the touring beetles came to the Egyptian Rooms, they began to quiet down, entranced by art most congenial to coleopts by reason of its antiquity and dry yet vivid precision. They delighted in the tiny, toy-like tomb ornaments and traced out the colorful murals and even tried to decipher the cartouches and other hieroglyphs by walking along their lines, corners and curves. The absence of the Egyptian delegation was much regretted. They would have been able to answer many questions, although the scribe beetle waxed eloquent and performed prodigies of impromptu scholarship.

  But when they entered the room with the sign reading SCARABS, their awe and admiration knew no bounds. They scuttled softer than mice in feather slippers. They drew up silently in front of the glass cases and gazed with wonder and instinctive reverence at the rank on rank of jewel-like beetle forms within. Even the scribe beetle had nothing to say.

  Meanwhile, back at the talkative grassblade, the top half, who was in fact a purple boy tiger beetle named Speedy, said “Well, they’re all off to a great start, I don’t think. This promises to be the most fouled-up convention in history.”

  “Don’t belittle,” reproved the bottom half, who was in reality a girl American burying beetle named Big Yank. “The convention is doing fine—orderly sessions, educational junkets, what more could you ask?”

  “Blat, blat, go the Blattidael” Speedy commented sneeringly. “The con’s going to hell in a beetle basket. Take that sneaky click beetle who’s general secretary—he’s up to no good, you can be sure. An insidious insect, if I ever knew one. An eyed elater—who’d he ever elate? And that potato bug who’s president—a bleedin’ plutocrat. As for that educational junket inside the museum, you just watch what happens!”

  “You really do have an evil imagination,” Big Yank responded serenely.

  Despite their constant exchange of persiflage, the boy and girl beetles were inseparable pals who’d had many an exciting adventure together. Speedy was half an inch long, a darting purple beauty most agile and difficult for studious gunboats to catch. Big Yank was an inch long, gleaming black of carapace with cloudy red markings. Though quick to undermine and bury small dead animals to be home and food for her larvae, Big Yank was not in the least morbid in outlook.

  Although their sex was different and their companionship intimate, Speedy and Big Yank had never considered having larvae together. Their friendship was of a more manly and girlish character and very firm-footed, all twelve of them.

  “You really think something outr is going to happen inside the museum?” Big Yank mused.

  “It’s a dead certainty,” Speedy assured her.

  In the Scarab room silent awe had given way to whispered speculation. Exactly what and or who were those gemlike beetle forms arranged with little white cards inside the glass-walled cases? Even the scribe-beetle guide found himself wondering.

  It was a highly imaginative twelve-spotted cucumber beetle of jade-green who came up with the intriguing notion that the scarabs were living beetles rendered absolutely immobile by hypnosis or drugs and imprisoned behind walls of thick glass by the inscrutable gunboats, who were forever doing horrendous things to beetles and other insects. Gunboats were the nefarious giants, bigger than Godzilla, of beetle legend. Anything otherwise nasty and inexplicable could be attributed to them.

  The mood of speculation now changed to one of lively concern. How horrid to think of living, breathing beetles doped and brainwashed into the semblance of death and jailed in glass by gunboats for some vile purpose! Something must be done about it.

  The junketing party changed its plans in a flash, and they all scuttled swifter than centipedes back to the convention, which was deep into such matters as Folk Remedies for DDT, Marine Platforms to Refuel Transoceanic Beetle Flights, and Should There Be a Cease Fire Between Beetles and Blattidae? (who still went “Blat, blat!”).

  The news brought by the junketters tabled all that and electrified the convention. The general secretary eyed elater was on his back three times running and then on his feet again—click, click, click, click, click, click! The president Colorado potato beetle goggled his enormous eyes. It was decided by unanimous vote that the imprisoned beetles must be rescued at once. Within seconds Operation Succor was under way.

  A task force of scout, spy, and tech beetles was swiftly sent off and dispatched into the museum to evaluate and lay out the operation. They confirmed the observations and deductions of the junketters and decided that a rare sort of beetle which secretes fluoric acid would be vital to the caper.

  A special subgroup of these investigators traced out by walking along them the characters of the word Scarab. Their report was as follows:

  “First you got a Snake character, see?” (That was the S.)

  “Then you get a Hoop Snake with a Gap.” (That was the C.)

  “Then Two Snakes Who Meet in the Night and have Sexual Congress.” (That was the A.)

  “Next a Crooked Hoop Snake Raping an Upright or Square Snake.” (The R.)

  “Then a repeat of Two Snakes Who Meet in the Night, et cetera.” (The second A.)

  “Lastly Two Crazy Hoop Snakes Raping a Square Snake.” (The B.)

  “Why all this emphasis on snakes and sex we are not certain.”

  “We suggest the Egyptian delegation be consulted as soon as it arrives.”

  Operation Succor was carried out that night.

  It was a complete success.

  Secreted fluoric acid ate small round holes in the thick glass of all cases. Through these, every last scarab in the Egyptian Rooms were toted by carrying beetles—mostly dung beetles—down into deep beetle bunkers far below Manhattan and armored against the inroads of cockroaches.

  Endless atempts to bring the drugged and hypnotized beetles back to consciousness and movement were made. All failed.

  Undaunted, the beetles decided simply to venerate the rescued scarabs. A whole new beetle cult sprang up around them.

  The Egyptian delegation arrived, gorgeous as pharaohs, and knew at once what had happened. However, they decided to keep this knowledge secret for the greater good of all beetledom. They genuflected dutifully before the scarabs just as did the beetles not in the know.

  The cockroaches had their own theories, but merely kept up their picketing and their chanting of “Blat, blat, go the Blattidae.”

  Because of their theories, however, one fanatical Egyptian beetle went bats and decided that the scarabs were indeed alive though drugged and that the whole thing was part of a World Cockroach Plot carried out by commando Israeli beetles and their fellow travelers. His wild mouthings were not believed.

  Human beings were utterly puzzled by the whole business. The curator of the Met and the chief of the New York detectives investigating the burglary stared at the empty cases in stupid wonder.

  “Godammit,” the detective chief said. “When you look at all those little holes, you’d swear the whole job had been done by beetles.”

  The curator smiled sourly.

  Speedy said, “Hey, this skyrockets us beetles to the position of leading international jewel thieves.”

  For once Big
Yank had to agree. “It’s just too bad the general public, human and coleopterous, will never know,” she said wistfully. Then, brightening, “Hey, how about you and me having another adventure?”

  “Suits,” said Speedy.

  WHEN BRAHMA WAKES

  God shouldered open the swollen back door and amidst the plosive shower of rust and dust sneaked a quick squint upward.

  There wasn’t a star or planet in sight. They were all masked by an opalescent gray blanket. An invisible gray thread snaking down to His nostrils informed Him of the blanket’s advanced industrial origin—not honest coal smoke so much as the sulphuric stench that was a by-product of the manufacture of plastics, high-grade fuels, and steel.

  While the music of the spheres drowned by a restless, incessant throbbing like the grumbling of a thousand distant dragons and the hissing of ten thousand serpents.

  God squared His chin surlily. That was the trouble with meditating on His creation, Zen or no Zen. It gave the Adversary a chance to undo it. He’d dozed off dreaming of a glittering city with silver spires climbing toward a bespangled Heaven and swarms of His happy creatures, rainbow-clad, dancing on the greensward between the skyscrapers. And while He’d slept, the Adversary had devised smog and freeways.

  It was a wonder that when He’d originally rested on the seventh day, He hadn’t waked on the eighth to find everything redesigned. The Adversary had been sluggish then, but now he was carrying the contest to His very door.

  God backed away without closing it. There was an old cloak hanging beside it, and a slouch hat that had seen better days, and a black eyepatch dangling by its worn elastic. God’s shaggy white head brushed a large, empty birdcage and set it swinging.

  He’d have to re-think this Adversary business very carefully. He told Himself as He turned. Maybe He’d been too quick in letting his cozening creatures woo Him away from gnosticism and convince Him that the Adversary was only a paper devil, who’d crumple and flare to nothing like flash paper on Judgment Day, or the Japanese fleet before Pearl Harbor. Ahriman might be a better name for the Adversary, an evil strong as His own good. In which case He’d damn well better do the Persian again and be Ormazd fast.