Not To Mention Camels

by R. A. Lafferty

  “A life is always well lost, Noah, if it is for a really successful and fulfilling sinfulness. Do you not yet understand that sinfulness is the aim of life, the culmination? Without this aim and fulfillment, life would have no concord. But how am I likely to lose my life this night, Noah?”

  Pilgrim was now eating bleu cheese and mistignette mushrooms on a sideboard there on the veranda. One of the young Media Lords came out to him and brought a token that had once been a pendant.

  “Perhaps he had once worn it around his neck and under his shirt,” the young Lord said. “But now he had it under the skin, under the skin of his neck. It was in the flesh of the neck of the spy, Mr. Dusmano, the spy that we called ‘the Rubber Knife.’ We almost didn’t see it. It’s yours, of course, since the spy was your kill.”

  “Thank you,” Pilgrim said softly. The token was a leather and hair badge of a group known as “the Camel’s Revenge.”

  “Ah, he was one of the order of the humpbacked flesh. Do you believe, Zontik, that those of the common and camelous clay could really be avenged on a fire-flesh person like myself?” Pilgrim asked lightly.

  “Yes. I think they can, and I’d wish they would, if I weren’t under this foolish compulsion to protect you. Yes, it is the Camels who will kill you tonight, Pilgrim, if you’re not careful,” Zontik warned. “Or it will be one of the other groups equally outraged by your behavior.”

  “I’ll try to arrange that it be the Camels,” Pilgrim said. “I’ll guide the affair and I’ll lead it. And I’ll draw the Camels right into my trap.”

  “How? Into what trap, Pilgrim?”

  “I’ll trap them into killing me, Noah. Is that not clever of me? I always wanted to be done to death by mad Camels. You see, Noah, I’m leaving tonight.”

  “Leaving town, Pilgrim?”

  “Leaving the world, Noah, and leaving life.”

  “Ah, it’s more of your damned foolish talk, Pilgrim.”

  “I boast that I’m foolish and I hope that I’m damned. I’ve always believed that damnation was the ultimate pleasure but that it had been given a hard name so we would deny ourselves the experience. I believe there is an elite group that wishes to preserve damnation uncrowded for its own members. I may join them on my own terms. For you see, Noah, I’m not quite as other men are. I will live all the lives of my own parallels, and I am regenerated by walking on new worlds. We talked of such things this morning, Noah, but you didn’t quite understand.”

  “I understand that I’m assigned to guard and protect you, Pilgrim. I can’t recall who it was who assigned me to that not very pleasant task, but I believe it was done before the world began.”

  “Before which world began, Noah? But are you not also assigned to protect Evenhand, he who is now unmasked and revealed as the precarious Consul? Isn’t he another of your clients?”

  “He is my client and my friend, as you are. I am responsible for him. It is both for him and for you that I’m here. I intend to save both lives and souls of the two of you, though you seem not to want to be saved. That is no matter. I am a good protection man, and I will protect both of you, my clients.”

  “Both blades won’t cut, Noah. Evenhand is my one powerful enemy on this world, just as you are my one powerful friend. I doubt if Evenhand is up to hating me even now. He didn’t choose me as enemy, I chose him; he’s perfect at the role. I must effect it that you do not succeed in protecting him, or me. Both Evenhand and I leave this world tonight. We have an appointment against each other at a tricky place over the edge, but he doesn’t know of that yet.”

  “If both of you go from this world, then I go too,” Zontik mumbled. “I have not been told that I’m restricted to this world. I’ve but been told to do my jobs. But you are prodigal of your own lives, Dusmano. You play a game that others are afraid to play because you believe that you have lives aplenty. But no man has an infinite number of lives. Not even you. Not even if you can do what you believe you can do.”

  “Yes, I’ll have billions of lives, Noah, but not an infinite number of them. It doesn’t pinch me as much yet as it will in a hundred billion years, after the odds have tightened on me a little.”

  “One of the lives will have to be on Prime World, Pilgrim.”

  “That also I will begin to worry about in a hundred billion years. Will you come inside and eat the final course with me?”

  “I will not. I believe that you eat abominations today.”

  And pleasurable abominations they were that Pilgrim ate. He went to table inside the Club again. One plate only was set before him. One short shisk-spear was beside it, the only table utensil. One great glob of roasted flesh-meat was on the plate. There was no condiment. This flesh-meat was its own condiment. There was no bread, no wine. The meat was its own everything. The chef stood there in quiet triumph.

  “It’s Blut.” The chef spoke in intense transport.

  “Of course,” Pilgrim whispered in his intricate voice. He stabbed the rich red ritual roast meat with the shisk-spear, and he began to eat. He had a godly gleam in his eye such as cult figures often have. But his was a new and mutated gleam.

  “The burned flesh is pleasant in my mouth,” Pilgrim said.

  There are pleasures that less favored persons hardly know about.

  7

  For he who lives more lives than one

  More deaths than one must die.

  O. Wilde

  And when the ritual hounds are done

  The dead are you and I.

  Hound Dog Huckster

  Pilgrim Dusmano engaged a knacker of a special sort that afternoon. This knacker did not deal much in the bodies of dead animals. He did not pick them up from the streets and roads and pastures and haul them to the soap and oil extractors and to the processors of dog meat and cat meat.

  Sometimes he did deal with the bodies of dead men, but more often he dealt with the fortunes and commerces and affairs that were left derelict by the deaths of those bodies. Sometimes a quick and knowing knacker can board a hulk-ship of fortune or affairs and declare it derelict when it wasn’t quite so before. And by declaring it so, he can sometimes make it to be so.

  It’s a fine question whether a knacker can be counted as a Lord Spiritual, though often in his business he runs athwart spirits departing, and spirits refusing to depart.

  Pilgrim Dusmano had engaged this talented knacker to arrange to pick up the affair-bones and to scrape the fortune-marrow of nine men. These nine men were the Consul Evenhand and his associates, with the code names of Blut, Brut, Flut, Glut, Gut, Hut, Mut, and Wut. All of these men had been propertied and rich beyond the needs for dishonesty. All were a little bit unguarded in their wealth in the manner that only a few very high men, mistakenly secure in their innocence, will carelessly allow to happen. And all these nine men were newly dead today, or they would be dead by the fall of night.

  To swoop it all in! That would be the last great commercial stroke for Pilgrim Dusmano before leaving the world. This would be the real final pleasure, a break-bone and blood-suck pleasure. The red joy of it, gathering in all the fine property with its long roots with bits of flesh still clinging to them, would go far to nourish even the parallel Dusmanos on alternate worlds or aspects. It was a corporate good, really.

  These dead or soon-to-be-dead men had all been declared traitors to the commonweal, and their property had been denominated derelict. In such cases, a trustworthy and knowing man can be declared governor or guardian over the property. And where was there a more trustworthy or knowing man than Pilgrim Dusmano?

  Part of this property was of a sort that Pilgrim, but fewer than ten other men in the whole world, really knew something about. For a substantial part of it was property that was not even visible on this world.

  There was, for instance, off-the-world commerce, particularly in the affairs of Evenhand. Evenhand had not conducted his off-the-world commerce by the same methods as Pilgrim had conducted his own. Evenhand had operated by “blissful permit,”
for he was a saint. Evenhand had not been fully conscious of his distant commerce, any more than Pilgrim Dusmano had been completely conscious of his own. Pilgrim had already ascertained that he could not operate by “blissful permit” between any two worlds at all. Nor could he use Evenhand’s “blissful permit” even though he burdened himself with Evenhand’s property and processes. There are rules out on the interworld routes. There are even monitors—not human monitors—assigned to enforce those rules. But the consolidation of Evenhand’s commerce with his own would still profit Pilgrim in this world and the next, and the next, and the next.

  Much of the knacker business of harvesting fortunes was conducted in that armored and secluded All-Effects Hall that was behind the Golden Grotto of the Pilgrim Cult. Mary Morey and her brother James were there, as they gave many hours to the grotto effects and knew most of the secrets. They were in charge of the furnaces where the golden images were cast. They were in charge of most of the machines.

  “It helps that you are a certified cult figure,” the knacker told Pilgrim Dusmano. “Cults are very strong this decade. Interworld they are absolutely blue chip. It hurts, though, that you do not come up to the moral minimum expected of cult figures, but that can’t be helped. What we may give away in sanction, we may gain with power and speed. The combining of cults is always easier than one might believe. One flings documentary sleep broadcast into the eyes of all who oversee these things, and the eyes fall shut in most of the cases. I am drawing up certain documents and prophecies now that will add the Mut (Satterfield) Strength-in-Purity, Strength-in-Serenity cult to yours.”

  “Fine, knacker, fine.” Pilgrim rubbed his charismatic hands in pleasure and fulfillment. “Really, I believe I’m a better ‘body beautiful’ object than Mut is. He’s a bit too knobby, a little too bulky. I must confess that he handled me like a child this day, but I’ll handle him like a gooney in arranging his death. We may keep him here. We’ll not have him torn to pieces like the others. We’ll eviscerate him, fill his cavities with molten gold, and then we’ll plate him with gold in one quick dip into the vat. Oh, he’ll make a fine cult statue! And then we may add another cult statue today. This is the day for growing and addition. I’ll not leave a mean grotto for the bright-eyed charismatic parallel myself who will come when I go. I always like to do well for myself and to give myself a good welcome when I come to a new place.”

  “Which would the other cult statue be, Dusmano?” the knacker asked. “I can think of none but Mut who would fit in here.”

  “Never mind the other. So far he’s only a sudden idea that has come into my mind. And yet I believe he will fit in well. And as to Mut—well, I have these two young gold workers here, and there’s a lot of ingot gold and statued gold to be derived from the Mut Cult.”

  “Yes, there is, Dusmano, quite a lot. And I will take my own share, my own pay, out of the Mut gold. One of the loves of my life is fancy and enabling paper, but in the final call I prefer present gold to any written title for it. I will have it today, Dusmano, today, in heavy ingot gold and in artful statue gold.”

  “Tomorrow,” said pilgrim.

  “Today,” the knacker insisted. “I’m knacker enough to know which body will not be alive tomorrow.”

  “I will be here tomorrow, knacker,” Pilgrim gave gestured assurance. “I become aware of a certain synchronicity in all this. I will leave, and at no great distance I will arrive soon after. Yes, I will be here tomorrow. I myself, though I may appear a little bit changed.”

  “You will appear so changed that you will not remember me or our bargains,” the knacker accused. “You will be so changed tomorrow that you cannot be tied to pledges that you make today. You will be so changed that you cannot be positively identified as yourself. I want the Mut gold here now, within the hour. Send these two young people to bring it in that big dray there. It is a very sturdy dray. It will carry, I believe, the gold tonnage that I require, the tonnage which I calculate should be found at the Mut Cult.”

  “We haven’t set up the apparatus to grab it yet, knacker,” Dusmano said. “Cult transfers are intricate even when the power is in one’s favor. But I assure you that I will set up the transfer procedure a little later in the day.”

  “I am setting up the transfer procedure now, Dusmano,” the knacker said. “It’s late enough in the day. I have drawn up authority of guardianship for these two young people. They will become convincing guardians of the Mut Cult gold, and they will bring it here. I have the documents ready now, though you would not recognize some of them as documents. These two will bring the gold here with no great trouble.”

  “And how much of it are you demanding?” Pilgrim asked.

  “Never mind. Have them bring it all here, Dusmano. How can we count it when it is partly here and partly there? Bring it here, and then we will cast portions. These young people will pass for the roles, yes, with a bit more documentation. You know that my documentations sometimes go beyond the conventional. Now I will give a numinous quality to these two. It will stagger their brains, but it will not otherwise hurt them. ’Twill give them a glowing beauty, in fact. See! That’s an effect they and you should learn in this House of Effects. They are lighted up with the auferous glow itself, are they not?”

  Mary and James Morey did indeed light up with golden shine. They seemed to be transcendent people, cloud-walkers. There was a divinity glow on them.

  “This simple trick has been known for millennia,” the knacker informed them, “but it has never been known by more than three men in this world at any one time. And one of those men, for all those millennia, has always been an ancestor of mine.”

  These knackers and their despicable trade, they have never been highly regarded by people. But animals have respected them for attending to their remains, and animals recognize fitness in this field. The remains that the knacker was attending to now were not quite animal, though they’d have become smelly residuals without this expert care.

  “Be careful that you two don’t harm or break anything,” the knacker told the two Moreys. “Numinosity is always accompanied by exceptional strength.”

  “I know, I can feel it,” Mary said. “And I like mine,” she added, referring to her numinous glow. “But they know us at the Mut Body Cult temple. We cult people visit and talk shop. They know us as belonging to the Pilgrim Cult. They won’t turn over any boodle to us. They won’t believe that we are prophesied guardians.”

  “I said that my documentation went beyond the conventional,” the knacker insisted. “So I will document the faces of the two of you to a new appearance. I have the information and templates on two honored and dead and departed members of the Mut Cult. They are such persons as will be accepted as returning from the grave. See, it’s done. You two now look exactly like those two honored and dead cultists. And you also look just as the Mut Cult people would expect prophetic guardians to look. The Mut Cult people aren’t overly astute. Frankly, they’re not much smarter than the Pilgrim Cult people. What? Have I said something wrong? Forgive me. I’m only a poor blunt man and a knacker. I haven’t the niceties. But I do have my talents. Go now, you two.”

  “Yes, go and get it, Mary and James,” Pilgrim Dusmano gave the soft order. “Do it all very quickly. Even the mist in the eyes raised by a good knacker will not last forever.”

  “Prophetic or not, look-alike with a dead girl or not, I don’t like my new face,” Mary protested. “Will it wash off, or what?”

  “It will wash off about as well as any other hypnotic projection will wash off, girl,” the knacker said. “It will wear off, as all immaterial projections and documents do. Hurry, so it does not wear off before you two are finished.”

  Mary and James Morey took the large powered dray and went out from the All-Effects Hall that is behind the Golden Grotto. They went to pick up cult gold and other cult power and property.

  And the knacker continued to forge enabling documents. But forge is not quite the word for what he was doing. As a y
ounger man, the knacker had falsified instruments and forged supporting documents for them. But when a thing grows large and respected, then the small words will no longer serve. There should be better words than “forge” and “falsify” to describe the things the master knacker was doing.

  In his earlier days the knacker had documented animal bodies with skinning knife or bone saw, or he had documented them with his haul-away wagon. Now he documented and processed larger and smellier bodies with more varied instruments. It was for some of the great and unhandy disposals he had made that he had been created a Lord Spiritual. This knacker was one of the uniquely capable men in that postanarchic world.

  These were big carcasses, the mortal remains and residues of nine men: the Consul Evenhand, who was Rut, and his eight associates, Blut, Brut, Flut, Glut, Gut, Hut, Mut, and Wut. These wealths, these fortunes, these commerces, these accumulations were the bodies, just as well as the flesh-meats were the bodies. Pilgrim was not the only great man who lusted for these accumulations. He may have been the only one who lusted so strongly for the flesh-meat bodies and slaked his lust on them. But there were other money giants who longed to become more giantlike on this prey. The usual way was to divide such wealths with gauged snarlings and bluffings. But Pilgrim had rashly put out the word that he was claiming everything. “These are my kills,” he said, posting his property claims.

  And how long could he bluff the other powerful ones away from his kills? They would fang their way in tomorrow sure and overwhelm the foolish Pilgrim who had overplayed his hand and left himself vulnerable.