Not To Mention Camels

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Humpbacked Hog-Nog!” the kids hooted at Polder. “Hog and Og, they raise a fog!”

  Polder caught and killed one of the children. The rest fell silent and looked at him with fang-bared hatred. There is no accounting for the responses of children. But he would win even them; he would win everyone to him. He would compel everyone to love and support him. He activated the Hand from Heaven again and let it point down on him.

  “I don’t like that note on the pointing finger,” Polder said. “How much more would the manifestation cost if that little bit of advertising were left off, Moira?”

  The note on the pointing finger of the Hand from Heaven read “Sky-Signs and Prodigies by Multi-Media Productions. Call us!”

  Moira told Polder what the additional cost would be.

  “No, it’s too much,” he said. “We’ll leave it like it is. Many persons, looking at it with only their bare eyes, will hardly notice the note that is written there.”

  Had Polder Dossman had no intelligence at all behind the finely sculptured flesh and the carefully arched bone of his brow, he would still have won devotees as fast as he could process and indoctrinate them. And there were those who said that Polder did not have any intelligence, who said that his brains had all been gobbled up or spilled out in an encounter in a narrow passage, who said that his seeming intelligence was only the echo and shadow of other intelligences that had flourished in other brains and persons, in projecting minds and personalities. They said that his whole person was only the echo and shadow of other persons in times past and in places apart. And yet those who said these things were often among the most avid followers of Polder; theirs were the projecting minds and personalities. Then why did they project them into so dudgery a skull as that of Polder Dossman?

  If Polder had possessed no strength or power that he could bring to bear, his appearance of having these things would be as effective as his really having them. If he had been destitute of wealth (in this particular instance he was nearly destitute of it; on his arrival at the world of record he had no more than a dozen kilograms of gold to serve as a picture of what wealth sometimes looked like), he still could have sold his tongue ten thousand times over for whatever wealth was needed, and still have had his first tongue remaining to him with all its eloquence.

  If the words he spoke didn’t really make sense (and often they did not), the itching ears of his eager listeners would lend the words whatever sense was needed. Such ringing declarations as were his, such contained thunder, such haunting affirmation, such striking and prophetic-sounding parallels—they could not be mere gibberish. There is a firm law somewhere that promulgates that such things create their own reason and direction.

  “Hog and Og, that’s what the hooter kids were bantering,” Polder said to the young man Oak Scath. “Did they mean the two of us? Are Og and Oak the same?”

  “Oak, Og, yes,” the young man said. “I am ancient Og who rode the ridgepole of the ark all through the deluge, and who held the umbrella over the ark. It was so poorly caulked topside that it would have taken on enough water to sink it otherwise. So will your own craft ship too much water if someone does not hold the umbrella over it, Polder.”

  “Take care of it, man, take care of it,” Polder said. “I’ll not be bothered with such details, and I’ll not tolerate the devious rains falling on my head.”

  If Polder had had no sense of commerce and no nose for trends and high-pay discrepancies, he still would have had resounding success at commercial affairs. This was because of the impression he made on people. He was the all-powerful figure who nevertheless needed shielding and guarding. He was the all-wealthy figure to whom it was necessary incessantly to make gifts: of crass money, or of less crass opportunity for money; of auriferous information; of organizational aptitudes and of favorable commercial climates and of lucky trade winds; of cartels; and of multiworld rake-offs. How could Polder have felt uneasy about accepting gifts when they were given with such obvious joy, with such obviously induced joy?

  So Polder Dossman was into many profitable businesses from the day of his arrival on that current world. It was as if these things were handled elsewhere by others, and the bountiful decisions were being made in minds other than his own. His own mind had become a narrow and straited area of sterile rocks by this time, or perhaps it was a clutter of broken shards. Young Oak said that it was a mind filled with broken bats of baked-clay bricks, and that these bricks and bats of bricks bore old and entitled writing (Oak saw the writing) that would give document and title to almost any claim Polder might want to make. It’s good to have a cluttered mind when it all comes out rich.

  But the cultish affairs did not go as well as the commercial affairs. Moira tried, with brochures and songfests and talk-a-lots, to create Polder’s image as that of the “Laughing God.” This remained a failure. Polder was never a good laugher. He was too jerky, too affected. Perhaps he had been better at it in former times.

  So it happened that, within nine days of Polder’s arrival on the ragged hillside, his commerces were shooting up like cockleburs in the springtime. But his cult had not yet caught flame on that world. The cult grotto had very few visitors. There was an obstacle here.

  “Why doesn’t my cult thrive, Oak?” Polder asked that young man. “I’m sure it has thrived in other places in times past, though my memory is not permitted to tell me where and when this happened. This world, this aspect here, does not seem to have a really active cult of any kind. There is a vacuum for me to fill. I’m sure, from other evidence of art and high story, that this world has an appreciation for the heroic and its flavor. Then why does my cult languish, Oak?”

  “I don’t quite know, Mr. Dossman. Maybe it’s just that the whole idea isn’t funny enough.”

  “Funny? Cults aren’t supposed to be funny, Oak. Pleasant, yes. Gracious, yes. Attractive, yes. Exciting, heart-seizing, elevating, enfolding, comprehensive, shining, shattering, yes; but not funny.”

  “On this world, they had better be funny, Mr. Dossman, or they had better not be at all,” Oak said.

  “We will see about that, young man.” Polder didn’t like to be contradicted in his views, not by persons, not by worlds. He believed that he knew about cults and what made them go. If a cult that was built to his specifications should miss success in a place, then the fault must be with the place and not with the cult. And yet he was quite able to change his specifications for a cult.

  “Would it help if I became a Lord of the Zodiac, Oak?” Polder asked his young assistant and protector.

  “Could you become a Zodiac Lord? Could you swing it?”

  “I think so. I believe I’m entitled to one of the twelve positions. I may make a grab for two. Both the camel and the boar were once in the zodiac. They were defeated in ancient feud, but they still have rights to those places. I want to become a double Lord of the Zodiac in the reconstituted signs of the camel and the boar.”

  “Well, it can’t hurt anything to try it, Mr. Dossman.”

  “I want you to work very closely with Moira in promoting my cult,” Polder told Oak or Og. “In working on this project, we may discover what is wrong with you in respect to the cult. And in this, I believe, what is wrong with you is also what is wrong with the world. We will find out what is wrong with you. We will correct you. And we will correct this world. It’s simple.”

  “No, it isn’t simple. But I am,” the young man Oak or Og said. “I’m too simple to fall for so compounded a thing as this cult. There are too many moving parts to it. I don’t like it; not if it’s supposed to be serious, I don’t. I will not promote it. I will not work with it at all.”

  “You will do what I tell you to do,” Polder ordered.

  “Only if it seems like a good idea,” Og Scath said. “Up to now, everything else you’ve suggested has been a good idea. But your cult isn’t. The only thing of yours that I am promoting is Amalgamated Camel Enterprises.”

  “Very well,” Polder said. He knew now what
was the matter with Og about the cult. Og was stubborn. But the cult could not tolerate any outside stubbornness. And being stubborn was also what was the matter with that world on that subject. Stubbornness can be cured, but the curing requires certain strategic destructions.

  “You are a puzzler, young man,” Polder told Oak. “It’s as though I remembered you when you were much older. And I’m sure we’ve had previous encounters before my coming here.”

  “I had been made responsible for you before you came here, yes. I was told to wait for you and to watch over you. But I don’t remember any earlier encounter between us.”

  “Responsible for me? Who made you responsible for me, lad?” Polder demanded.

  “I’ll not tell you who it was. I am not absolutely certain myself of it.”

  “Responsible for me? Yes, that arrogance was in you at our meeting before this one. And before that, and before that, and before that. But is Dunlunk’s Fifth Law enough to account for my almost remembering you?”

  “No. I believe it’s an older law,” Og said. “I don’t know how the law is phrased. I really don’t know much about it.” Og Scath looked at Polder Dossman with puzzled eyes. Scenes flicked past those puzzled eyes and were reflected in them. They were off-this-world scenes, out-of-mind scenes, out-of-context scenes. They were deep and enduring scenes that had happened far away and long ago. And, really, they were scenes that had happened to at least two other persons; but they hadn’t happened to Polder Dossman or to Og Scath at all.

  How could distant and unremembered acquaintances and friendships among other men have such reflection and near recollection in these two? Well, such things as had happened to alternate or parallel persons had very nearly happened to these two also. That was the only explanation.

  “This man Polder is allied with the Eidetic Lords,” Og Scath said to Moira and Jake one day, “and with all the various Media Lords. I suppose they have really created him, since he seems to be of doubtful flesh, since all the valid elements of him are clearly artificial. Shall I blame his evil on the Eidetic Lords, then? I must blame it on someone, since I am charged with delivering him from all evil. And the Eidetic Lords who make these things so irresponsibly (for Polder Dossman is a made-thing of theirs) are the true Lords of unreason and darkness. How did such a group and such a situation ever come about?”

  “Polder Dossman is such a good man,” Moira said, “that I would change every name of everything else in the worlds rather than say that he was anything else than good. I will say that white is black. I will say that sweet is sour. I will say that up is down. And I will say that Polder is a good man. The evidence, of course, is entirely against this. What we need to do is convince the Lord of the Worlds of the fact that Polder is good. But how will the estranged ones like ourselves even get an audience with the Lord of the Worlds?”

  Polder was at Oak Scath’s place one morning. It was a large and spacious place for so young a man to own, and there were certain things to be found there that were large beyond all reason. There was, for instance, the “bed” of Og Scath. It was on that “bed” that the two men sat.

  Well, call it a sofa, then, or a divan. Call it what you will. But a ladder is not required to ascend to most sofas, or to most beds. And most such furnitures are not more than fifteen feet or five meters long, nor more than six feet or two meters wide. It was a very large iron “bed.” It seemed to be old. And it was probably of value.

  “Oak!” Polder spoke with a twinkle that had once been an eidetic affectation but now had become almost normal, a good-humored, bantering way of talking. “Once you were a much older man. We know that. But I also guess that you were once a very much larger man. And you slept in this giant’s bed.”

  “I still sleep in it, Mr. Dossman,” Scath said. “Why should I use another bed when I have this?”

  “And, Oak, your coat of arms there on the wall is also giant-sized. It’s a coat of arms of an Irish giant family.”

  “No. We’re primordials. We were the only people when I began, and I am still of that only-one people.”

  “But your coat of arms gives the name of O’Basham. Were your ancestors named that?”

  “No, merchant Polder, cult figure Polder, I’m the only one who was titled that. I come from Basham, but I can’t locate it in modern geography.”

  “And what’s the central image on the coat, Oak? It looks like a very large covered boat, almost like the ark. Is it?”

  “Yes, the ark. Employer Polder, I’ve told all this to you before, but your mind would not accept or remember it. Nor will it accept or remember it this time. Yes, the ark; the only boat ever built quite like that. It wasn’t a successful design, except for one unusual purpose. The strain on it of being masted would have broken it like an eggshell, so it had no masts at all. It was too steep and closed to have oarlocks, so it wasn’t rowed. The water soon got too deep for it to be punted, so there was no way of controlling it or moving it at all. It was like a wagon without wheels.”

  “And that appears to be a very large man sitting astride the roof ridge of that closed and covered ark. The face of that man looks like—”

  “It looks like me,” Og Scath said.

  “Yes. And he’s holding what looks very much like a huge umbrella. Why should he sit astride the roof ridge of an open boat out in the rain and hold so big an umbrella as that? He is caught in the rain. That is rain, isn’t it?”

  “Man, that is rain!” Og swore.

  “Why should he sit atop the boat in the rain instead of going inside? Why should he hold that big umbrella? And why should he hold it aside and not over his head?”

  “I was holding the umbrella over the main hatch, Mr. Dossman. The hatch would have filled and the boat would have foundered if I hadn’t held an umbrella over it.”

  “Why wasn’t the hatch cover on?”

  “There wasn’t any hatch cover. There was only the great central hatch, and no provisions had been made to cover it. There was no ventilation at all except for the hatches. The boat and its live cargo would have stifled if the hatches had been on. The design and planning were bad. The designer made a mistake, but I sure will not complain to him about it. Why isn’t your own hatch cover on, Polder?”

  “Oh, I have my own cargo of animals, Oak, and I’m not a very well-ventilated man. You have to admit that your ancestor looks mighty silly sitting straddling that roof ridge and holding a huge umbrella over a boat hatch.”

  “That is no ancestor. You don’t listen. That is myself.”

  “What? You? Not really. I do believe it’s an ancestor. I always say, Oak, that an alternate or parallel of one’s own person is only an ingrown ancestor. Our ancestors can be divided off from our persons by more things than time.”

  “It is myself and no ancestor. Would I remember such a thing if I hadn’t been there?”

  “How is it painted, Oak? Or how is it done in whatever medium?”

  “In water color, Mr. Dossman. In water color and in sky color. Am I an artist? I don’t know how it was done. I was there, and this is the imprint of my being there. Have you a coat of arms yourself?”

  “I think so,” Dossman said uncertainly, “but it isn’t completed. There are still several cantons of it that lack devices.”

  Og Scath drove a thriving business for Polder. A young man who is so good at a business is entitled to a few pretensions and quirks and oddities. But he went too far and stumbled over too much: he had learned a secret.

  He had learned that Polder Dossman wasn’t real.

  And now the same knowledge swept over Polder Dossman like green nausea. He knew himself to be an artificial contrivance, a stuffed sausage of a puppet who had been made by manipulators for a joke. He knew this for an instant, and then he smashed that knowledge in himself into a hundred pieces. Whether he was something, whether he was nothing, he would still pretend to be a god.

  13

  My corpse, my core, my nerves, my nous,

  Are artificial, gimp and
gaster.

  But whose the artifice? And who’s

  The artificial puppet-master?

  Anon., Eidetic Elegies

  Polder Dossman went to see Hector Bogus, who was one of the local Eidolon or Media Lords. Hector had the reputation of being much more technical than most of the Lords.

  “You’re as pleasant a sight as rain in parched places,” Hector said pleasantly, “and as devious as the devil himself. I have heard of your magnetism and charm. I wonder if your magnetism will work on a nonferrous person like myself? But you do make a fine appearance, Polder. And now you have come to tell me my own business, which I know pretty well, and which you do not know at all. Is that not the way it is, Dossman?”

  “No, it is not, Bogus. There is nothing whatever of which you can say that I know it not at all. I understand all the media quite well, and I understand the print-out areas in much detail. Wherever I have been, I have always worked very closely with the Eidetic and Media Lords. And then I have my own unnamed medium in which I’m expert. It consists of setting certain modifications into the larger media flow. I am the solar medium in this, and the conventional media are the planetaries to me. The words and messages and gestures are furnished by myself, and the amplifications will be furnished by you working Lords in the field.”

  “It sounds like a mighty lame arrangement, Dossman. But I’m no Lord of any sort.”

  “Have your disclaimers if it pleases you. But I know your power, and I want to modify a portion of that power-flow to my own satisfaction and to the bettering of the world. What are you playing with?”