Текст книги "Options"

Автор книги: Robert Sheckley

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28

"The beast that kills by boredom," said the robot, "is also found in these parts. His voice is firm and authoritative. His statements are unchallengeable and unbelievable. His appearance is unimpeachable and obnoxious. You meet him and wish him dead, although he had done nothing wrong, absolutely nothing. He speaks to you about this in a reasonable manner. The tension becomes unbearable. Your inability to act induces apathy, which is heightened by the extreme monotony of your situation. Since you cannot kill him, you kill yourself."

"Where is he now?" Mishkin asked.

"Boring fish for his dinner. He does this by lecturing to them on their inalienable rights."

"I beg your pardon," a fish said. "No fish has ever been bored to death."

"Go get stuffed," the robot snarled.

29. Confusion Termed Key to Understanding

Upon a flat white rock Mishkin saw a white princess telephone. As he came up to it the telephone began ringing.

Mishkin picked it up and said, "Hello."

"Tom? Tom Mishkin? Is that you?"

"It is," Mishkin said. "Who is this?"

"This is your uncle, Arnold Epstein. Tom, how is everything?"

"Not bad," Mishkin said. "I've got a few problems…"

"Who hasn't? But your health, is it good?"

"Fine, Uncle Arnold. And yours?"

"Not bad, considering. Tom, it's good to hear your voice."

"Uncle Arnold, how did you happen to call me here?"

"It was a free gift from the A & P. I was the millionth customer for the morning and they awarded me a basket of groceries and one telephone call to anyone I wanted to call anywhere."

"Well, it's nice that you called me, I appreciate it."

"It's been a pleasure for me to hear your voice. Listen, Tom, your parents, are they well?"

"Fine," Mishkin said.

"And your sister?"

"She's fine. She's in Europe."

"That's nice. And where are you, I didn't quite understand the operator."

"I'm on a planet called Harmonia."

"Is it a nice place?"

"I suppose so."

"Well, have a nice vacation. Tom, is there anything I can do for you?"

"As a matter of fact, there is," Mishkin said. "Have you got a pencil and a piece of paper?"

"You know me, Tom, I'm never without them."

"Then write down Engine Part L-1223A. I need it very badly."

"I got it written down. Don't they have a Sears, Roebuck where you are?"

"No, Uncle Arnold, they haven't got anything like that. Harmonia is a sort of undeveloped place."

"Like Tobago?"

"Even worse. Uncle Arnold, I need that engine part right now, by the fastest shipping service available."

"Tom, it's as good as done. You remember Seymour Gulstein, the son of your Aunt Rachel's best friend, Gertie? Well, Seymour is a field expeditor for F. B. Crowley Interplanetary Delivery Systems. I'll get the engine part this afternoon and put it in his hands and he'll get it to you in a couple of hours, a day at the most."

"That's great, Uncle Arnold. Will it really be that fast?"

"You can count on it, Tom. When has your Uncle Arnold ever failed you?"

"I don't know how to thank you, Uncle Arnold."

"Think nothing of it, Tom. Stay well. Give me a call when you get home."

Mishkin hung up, leaned back, and relaxed. If his Uncle Arnold said it would be done.

Governments might promise more than they could deliver, scientists might be overoptimistic about what they could accomplish, robots might have exaggerated ideas of their power; but Uncle Arnold actually made the world run while everyone else stood around trying to get it together. Uncle Arnold was maybe a little dull but absolutely irreplaceable. The turtle upon whose back Hercules stood when he held the Earth on his shoulders – that turtle was also called Arnold.

30

Mishkin and the robot came to a tree. At the end of its branches there were blue eyes with thick eyebrows. All of the eyes swivelled to stare at Mishkin.

"I thoughtyou would come by this way," the tree said, speaking from a speaker in its trunk. "I hope that you will not deny that you are Thomas Mishkin?"

"That's who I am," Mishkin said. "Who are you?"

"I am a bill collector disguised as a tree," said the bill collector disguised as a tree.

"For Chrissakes," Mishkin said. "Did you follow me all the way to Harmonia?"

"Indeed, I did. It's rather a curious story. Mr Oppenheimer, head of the Ne Plus Ultra Collection Agency for which I work, got an inspiration while stoned on acid at his local Tai Chi Chuan class. It suddenly occurred to Oppenheimer that the essence of life lies in completions, and a man can only judge his life in reference to the thoroughness with which he has played his life role. Hitherto, Oppenheimer had been an easygoing fellow who followed the usual practice of collecting the easily collectable debts and making a few ominous noises on the difficult ones, but ultimately saying to hell with them. Then Oppenheimer achieved his satori. To hell with mediocrity, he decided, if I'm head of a bill-collecting agency, then I'm going to make an ethic and a goal out of bill collecting.

The world may very well never understand me; but perhaps future generations will be able to judge the terrible purity of my motives.

"And so Oppenheimer embarked upon the poignant and quixotic course that will probably bankrupt him within a year. He called all of us collectors into the Ready Room.

"Gentlemen," he said, "this time we're going to get it all together. To hell with half measures! Our goal now is 100 per cent enforceability, and let the paranoia fall where it may. Go after those debts be they one dollar or a million. Go to San Sebastian or Samoa or Sambal V, if need be, and don't worry about the costs. We're following a principle now, and principles are always impractical. Boys, we're overthrowing the reality principle. So get out there and collect all of those debts and groove on completions."

"His speech is definitely late 1960s," said the robot. "Whereas this is the year 2138, or thereabouts. Somebody is conning somebody."

"Fuck off," snarled the author.

"That was the call to arms," the bill collector disguised as a tree said. "And that is why I am in Harmonia, Mr Mishkin. I have come here, as the result of one man's vision, to collect your debts regardless of time, trouble, and expense."

"I still can't believe this," Mishkin said.

"And, yet, there it is. I have a consolidation statement here for everything, Mr Mishkin.

Would you care to pay without fuss, or do you want me to get nasty?"

"What debts are you talking about?" Mishkin asked.

"To begin with, there is the matter of your back taxes, Federal, State, and City. Didn't quite get around to paying them last year, did you, Mr Mishkin?"

"It was a tough year."

"You owe eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars and fifty-one cents to your Uncle Sammy. Then there is the matter of child support. Sorta passed up on that for a year or so, didn't you, Mishkin? Well, it's a neat four-figure bundle that you owe to poor, abandoned Marcia and little Zelda. Marcia has a new boyfriend, by the way, and little Zelda just flunked out of the Little Red School House. Marcia asked me to tell you that she is well, having the best time of her life, and wants every cent you owe her, right now, or she'll have you into The Tombs so fast it'll make your teeth spin. She adds that, through psychoanalysis, she finally has the ego strength to tell you that you were always a lousy lay and that everybody breaks up when she relates how diffidently you tried to pursue perversions."

"That sounds like Marcia," Mishkin said.

"Next, you owe Marty Bargenfield a thousand dollars. He's your best friend, in case you don't remember. Or he was. I mean, hestill feels the same, but you've unaccountably cooled off. One might even say that you are avoiding him. Yet, his only crime was to loan you money in a moment of need when you were breaking up with Marcia and had to buy an abortion for Monique."

"How is Monique?" Mishkin asked.

"She's doing very nicely without you. She is back in Paris, working as a salesgirl in Galeries Lafayette. She still treasures the eighty-cent string of wooden beads that was your only present to her during a tumultuous four-month romance that you have described as "the most moving of my life"."

"I was broke," Mishkin said. "And, anyhow, she always said she hated gifts."

"But you knew better, hey, Mishkie? Never mind, I am not standing in judgement over you. The fact that your conduct, judged by any system of ethics you care to name, makes me want to puke is entirely a personal matter with me and need not concern you at all. Now we come to the Bauhaus Drugstore, at 31 Barrow Street, run by fat, friendly Charlie Ducks, who sold you Dexamyl spansules, Dexadrine tablets, Librium, Carbitol, Nembutal, Seconal, Doriden, and so on, in astonishing quantities during your drug years, all of them on the basis of one non-refillable prescription for phenobarbital – who continued to do so until two years ago when the heat got too hot and he went back to selling Excedrin and lipsticks, and whom you ripped off for one hundred and eighty-six dollars."

"He cleaned up on me," Mishkin said. "He charged me double for everything."

"You always knew that. Did you ever complain about it?"

"Anyhow, I'm going to pay him as soon as I have some money."

"But there's never enough money for last year's drugs, eh, Mish? We've all been down that road, baby; but it isloathsome, isn't it?"

"I can explain everything," Mishkin said. "I have a statement that I would like to read into the record. The facts are capable of various interpretations. I only need a moment to pull my self together."

The robot extruded an axe from his left hand. He stepped forward and briskly chopped down the bill collector, who perished miserably.

"But I was just about to explain," Mishkin said.

"Never explain anything," the robot told him. "Avoid bummers. Don't go on other people's trips."

"What is my trip?" Mishkin asked.

"That would be telling," said the robot.

31. Using Phenomena for Fun

Enjoy a visit to the phenomenal world!

Have a humanexperience – the most fascinating of all experiences.

Now you, too, can experience carnal love, unjustified rage, bad faith. You, too, can know boredom, ennui, angst, accidie.

Thrill to the experience of your «life» slowly draining away! Feel the inevitable «death», which you «know» to be a plunge into pure "nothingness".

Live a life of contradictions! Have a wife and lust for other women; possess them and never know satisfaction.

Have children – and feel anxiety, love, hate.

Learn how to be concerned about possessions! Worry about your job; identify yourself with what you own.

Feel cowardice!

Derange your senses with drugs!

Live the waking sleep of mortality, lit with uneasy flashes of "something else".

Experience the poignancy of wanting a "better life", and striving for it, and never achieving it.

Be swayed by external and internal stimuli. Be a passive receptor who is acted upon by forces beyond his control.

Have convictions, beliefs, likes and dislikes – for no rational reason!

Feel the intoxication of faith! Thrill to the passion of religion! Apply now!

No Angels under the age of 20,000 years will be allowed into the phenomenal world without written permission from God.

32

"Don't take any more of that dream medicine," the Life Systems Total Support Mechanism told Mishkin. "Use me, instead. I am good, useful, beautiful, docile. And you never have to worry about my breaking down and ceasing to function."

"Do you mean that you never break down?" Mishkin asked.

"That would be an impossible claim. All created things are subject to damage and disrepair. Nothing is immune from breakdown. The important question to be asked is, how are the breakdowns handled?"

"Well, how are they handled?" Mishkin asked.

"In my case," the LSTSM said, "I possess a set of interlocking infinite-backup repair systems. If I suffer damage I immediately repair myself, utilizing the most appropriate system. If the appropriate system itself is damaged I automatically shift over to another system."

"Your number of repair systems is finite, though, isn't it?" Mishkin asked.

"Of course. But the possible combinations and recombinations of my systems and subsystems is large enough to justify the word "infinite".

"Amazing," Mishkin said.

"Yes, I am an uncanny bit of machinery and quite perfect for your needs. I can take care of myself. All I desire is to serve."

"What is it exactly that you do?"

"I can fry eggs, wash clothes, accompany myself on the banjo – to name but a few of my talents."

"Everything about you sounds marvellous," Mishkin said. "I'll think about it. But now I have to point out that your right front tyre is flat."

"Damn," said the LSTSM. "How embarrassing."

"But I suppose you can fix it with your infinite-backup repair systems?"

"I'm afraid not," said the LSTSM. "It's an unaccountable lapse on the part of my designers. Damn! Back to the old drawing board."

"I'm sorry," said Mishkin.

"I am, too," said the LSTSM. "We could have been quite perfect for each other if you hadn't been so absurdly choosy."

The LSTSM turned without another word and limped away through the forest, looking frail, pathetic, and a little funny. Just then three leaves fell from a nearby tree.

33. Spread and Proliferation of Subassemblies

Orchidius had observed everything. Mishkin asked him what he thought about it all.

"There's only one part I didn't understand," said Orchidius.

"What part was that?"

"That was when the three leaves fell. Why did they do that just at that particular moment?"

"Coincidence," suggested Mishkin.

"I have heard machines speak and animals answer," said Orchidius. "People come and go mysteriously, yet with definite signs of hidden purpose. There is a meaning in everything. But three leaves falling, just then, just there! Who ever heard of such a thing?"

"Personally, I'm more interested in marvels," Mishkin said.

"I am, too," said Orchidius. "We simply disagree on what a marvel is."

"What are you looking for?" Mishkin asked.

"I really don't know," Orchidius said. "But I expect to know intuitively when I find it.

What are you looking for?"

"I can't remember," Mishkin said. "But I think I'll know it when I see it."

"Perhaps it's best not to know," Orchidius said. "Knowing what you're looking for interferes with your looking for it."

"I don't think that can be so," Mishkin said.

"Do you think it's a delusion?" Orchidius asked eagerly. "I've always wanted to have a genuine delusion."

The robot was unable to keep silent any longer. "I've never heard such frivolity in my life."

"I suppose that frivolity is also a permissible path to salvation?" Orchidius said mildly. "Whether it is or not, it is the path I'm on. And now my search leads me elsewhere. Good day, gentlemen."

At the edge of the forest Mishkin and the robot came to a hut with a crude sign over the door reading, INN OF THE FOUR WINDS. And there to greet them, wearing a shirt of homespun and leather bells, was Orchidius.

Mishkin expressed amazement at seeing his friend in this place, the evident owner of an inn; but Orchidius told him that it was the most natural thing in the world. He told how he had come to this place, tired and thirsty, but above all hungry. He had gathered herbs and vegetables and made a soup, and then he trapped a rabbit and made a stew.

People came by, tired and thirsty, but above all hungry. Orchidius shared his stew with them, and they helped him to build a hut. Others came by and Orchidius fed them, and sometimes they would not, or could not, pay, but usually they could and would, in one way or another. It seemed quite natural to them that there should be an inn here, at this place and no other, and that Orchidius should be running it. It never occurred to them that Orchidius was just passing through, like them, and that perhaps he, too, had other places to go to and other duties to attend to. They thought that he was a natural and necessary part of the scenery, since they believed that inns should be found wherever people needed them and that, according to universal law, every inn had to be equipped with an innkeeper.

After a while Orchidius came to accept this view. He advertised for a chambermaid. He complained that the quality of rabbits had fallen off. He suspected everyone of being an inspector from the Guide Michelin.He planned to expand his inn, to buy a soft ice-cream maker, to get a franchise from Howard Johnson's, to plant palm trees and illuminate them with hidden lights. He began to worry about fuel bills and taxes. He raised his prices for high season and offered specials for low season.

"But how did you get into all of that?" Mishkin asked.

"It seemed plausible at the time," Orchidius answered. "It still seems plausible."

"I want a single room with a bath," Mishkin said. "And a tank of gas for my robot."

"Regular or special?" Orchidius asked. Then he burst into tears. He wrote a note that read, "This inn is closed while its owner continues his Trip." He nailed the note to the door and left at once for parts unknown, taking nothing with him but a battery-operated television set and a pair of gold clubs.

34

Mishkin and the robot also resumed their journey. They passed a tree upon which were carved the words, "Orchidius was here in person on his Trip".

Carved on another tree: "This Trip is the property of Orchidius".

And on another: "Everybody is a bit player in the movie of Orchidius's life".

"We seem to meet quite often," Mishkin said. "Do you suppose that we are the same person?"

"Definitely not," said Orchidius. "You are logical and realistic and goal-oriented, and you have a personality and a history and even a few character traits, whereas I am an abstraction who just slips in and out of things for no reason and no purpose."

"My trip is overdetermined," Mishkin said. "It's also freaky. Too much is happening to me. I can't stand the changes."

"I can't stand them, either. Maybe we're going about things in the wrong way."

The robot said, "You are both going about things in the right way and you're both simultaneously the same person and different people and you're both on the same trip even though your trips aren't the same."

"Can you explain what all of that means?" Mishkin asked.

"No, I can't," the robot said. "Robots are allowed only a small supply of wisdom, and I have used up all of mine for at least a week."

All that week the robot could barely put one foot after another. He was incapable of oiling himself, couldn't finish the simplest task, and his answers to even the simplest questions were ridiculous in the extreme.

At the end of the week he was recovered and ready to explain what all of that had meant. But Mishkin didn't ask him. Mishkin liked to have his meals cooked properly and his clothes washed promptly. He thought it was no bargain to exchange a good servant for a sage of dubious qualifications. The robot himself offered no protest.

35. The Doctor of Juxtapositions

"Great Scott, MacGregor, I believe that in some unaccountable fashion we have passed through an obverse transverse of the space-time continuum and have actually returned to Earthand that we are now viewing everything through altered topological ratios, thus causing subtle changes in our perception of received reality!!!"

36. Festival of the Mind

Special techniques, reawaken!

Hypnotize yourself into becoming yourself. Energize your Receptive Centre. Shut off signals from the uptight old Censor. Give yourself suggestions. Give yourself autosuggestions. Give yourself automatic autosuggestions. New technique of «flagging» the subconscious allows you to give yourself automatic subconscious autosuggestions without your even knowing about it!

Go beyond drugs into experiences that simulate the drug simulations of experiences that can be achieved only by Higher Consciousness.

Enjoy sexual intercourse in your sleep without a partner.

Process the computer power in your mind: you can do it/it can do you.

READOUT IS INSIGHT. READOUT IS INSIGHT. READOUT IS INSIGHT.

Magi for sale or rent: plump Hindu Master, speaking incomprehensible prehensile English, has turban, will travel. Chinese Master with inscrutable smile and acupuncture kit never believed in communism, must travel. British Master specializing in discipline – "mental restraint is the road to freedom" – doesn't believe in socialism, listens to acid rock. American Master, AC-DC, doesn't believe in anything for very long – teaches the communal road to rugged individualism – has large supply of mandalas, mantras, yantras – uses rational mysticism to achieve mind-blowing pragmatic effects – disarming, boyish smile – wears fringed leather pants – doesn't believe in law of cause and effect but pays taxes anyhow – rates 35.2 on the schizophrenia machine – sexually liberated, except when anxious…

Orchidius was at the Festival of the Mind. He wore a headband, robe, and sandals, and employed hieratic gestures of great power and economy. He had his own booth and for two days gave prophecies with fair success but on the third day reverted to a previous imprinting and turned his booth into a hot dog stand.

Mishkin wandered through the Festival and ate cotton candy and thought bittersweet thoughts of his youth, just like everyone else. He smiled politely and disdainfully, just like everybody else. But this was no real indication of his true attitude. Mishkin was a secret pilgrim. He wanted out of his bag, out of repetition-compulsion, out of confusion, out of tedious novelty. Just like everybody else.

When does the ecstasy begin?