The Cyberiad Part 6

However, Klapaucius wasn't admitted to the palace. The King, so the sentries told him, had been put under heavy electrostatic sedation by his physicians and should sleep like a top for the next twenty-eight hours at least.

"That's all we need!" groaned Klapaucius, and hastened to the hospital where Trurl's body was staying, for he feared that it might have already been discharged andirretrievably lost in the labyrinth of the big city. At the hospital he presented himself as a relative of the one with the broken leg; the name he managed to read off the in-patient register. He learned that the injury wasn't serious, a bad sprain and not a fracture, though the patient would have to remain in traction for several days. Klapaucius, of course, had no in-tention of visiting the patient-it would only come out that they weren't even acquainted. Rea.s.sured at least that Trurl's body wouldn't run off on him unexpectedly, he left the hospital and took to wandering the streets, deep in thought. Somehow he found himself back in the vicinity of the harbor and noticed the place was swarming with police; they were stopping everyone, carefully comparing face after face with a description each officer carried with him in a notebook. Klapaucius immediately guessed that this was the doing of Balerion, who at all costs wanted him under lock and key. Just then a patrol approached-and two guards rounded the corner in the opposite direction, cutting off his retreat. Klapaucius quietly gave himself up, demanding only that they take him before the Commissioner, saying that it was most urgent, that he was in possession of extremely important evidence concerning a certain horrible crime. They took him into custody and handcuffed him to a burly policeman; at the station, the Commissioner-Balerion- greeted him with a grunt of satisfaction and an evil twinkle in his beady eyes. But Klapaucius was already exclaiming, in a voice not his own: "Great One! High-high Police Sir! They take me, they say me Klapaucius, me not Klapaucius, not-not, me not even know who-what Klapaucius! Maybe that Klapaucius he bad one, one who bam-bam horns in head, make big magic, bad magic, make that me not me, put head in other head, take old head, horns, run zip-zip, O Much Police Sir! Help!"

And with these words did the wily Klapaucius fall to his knees, shaking his head and muttering in a strange tongue. Balerion, standing behind the desk in a uniform with wide epaulets, blinked as he listened, somewhat taken aback; he gave the kneeling Klapaucius a closer look and began to nod, apparently convinced--unaware that the constructor, on the way to the station, had pressed his own forehead with his free hand, to produce two marks not unlike those left by the horns of a personality transformer. Balerion had his men release Klapaucius and leave the room; when the two of them were alone, he asked him to relate exactly what had happened, omitting nothing. Klapaucius replied with a long story of how he, a wealthy foreigner, had arrived only that day at the harbor, his s.h.i.+p laden with two hundred cases of the prettiest puzzles in creation as well as thirty self-winding fair maidens, for he had hoped to present these to the great King Balerion; how they were a gift from the great Emperor Proboscideon, who in this way sought to express his boundless admiration for the great House of Cymberia; but how, having arrived and disembarked, he had thought to stretch his legs a little after the long journey and was strolling peacefully along the quay, when this person, who looked just like this (here Klapaucius pointed to him-self) and who had already aroused his suspicions by gazing upon the splendor of his foreign dress with such evident rapacity-when this person, in short, suddenly ran towards him like a maniac, ran as if to run him down, but doffed his cap instead and b.u.t.ted him viciously with a pair of horns, whereupon an extraordinary exchange of minds took place.

Klapaucius put everything he had into the tale, trying to make it as believable as possible. He spoke at great length of his lost body, while heaping insults upon the one it was now his misfortune to possess, and he even began to slap his own face and spit on his own legs and chest; he spoke of the treasures he'd brought with him, describing them in every detail, particularly the self-winding maidens; he rem-inisced about the family he'd left behind, his ion-scions, his hi-fi fido, his wife, one of three hundred, who made a mulled electrolyte as fine as any that ever graced the table of the Emperor Himself; he even let the Commissioner in on his biggest secret, to wit, that he had arranged with the captain ofhis s.h.i.+p to hand the treasures over to whomsoever came on board and gave the pa.s.sword.

Balerion listened greedily, for it seemed quite logical to him that Klapaucius, seeking to hide from the police, should do so by entering the body of a foreigner, a foreigner more-over attired in splendid robes, hence obviously wealthy, which would provide him with considerable means once the transfer were effected. It was plain that a similar scheme had hatched in the brain of Balerion. Slyly, he tried to coax the secret pa.s.sword from the false foreigner, who didn't require much coaxing, soon whispering the word into his ear: "Niterc." By now the constructor was sure Balerion had taken the bait: the King, loving puzzles as he did, couldn't bear to see them go to the King, since the King, after all, was no longer he; and, believing everything, he believed that Klapaucius had a second transformer-indeed, he had no reason to think otherwise.

They sat awhile in silence; one could see the wheels turn-ing in Balerion's head.

a.s.suming an air of indifference, he began to question the foreigner as to the location of his s.h.i.+p, the name of the captain, and so forth. Klapaucius answered, banking on the King's cupidity, nor was he mistaken, for suddenly the King stood up, announced that he would have to verify what the foreigner had told him, and hurriedly left the room, locking the door securely behind him. Klapaucius then heard Balerion-evidently the wiser from past experience-station a guard beneath the window as he was leaving. Of course he would find nothing, there being no s.h.i.+p, no treasure, no self-winding maidens whatever. But that was the whole point of Klapaucius' plan. As soon as the King was gone, he rushed over to the desk, pulled the device from the drawer and quickly placed it on his head. Then he quietly waited for the King to return. It wasn't long before there were heavy footsteps outside, m.u.f.fled curses, the grinding of teeth, a key sc.r.a.ping in the lock-and the Commissioner burst in, bellowing: "Scoundrel! Where's the s.h.i.+p, the treasure, the pretty puzzles?!"

But that was all he said, for Klapaucius leaped out from behind the door and charged like a mad ram, b.u.t.ting him square in the head. Then, before Balerion had time to get his bearings inside Klapaucius, Klapaucius, now the Com-missioner, roared for the guards to throw him in jail at once and keep a close eye on him! Stunned by this sudden re-versal, Balerion didn't realize at first how shamefully he had been deceived; but when it finally dawned on him that he had been dealing with the crafty constructor all along, and there had never been any wealthy foreigner, Balerion filled his dark dungeon with terrible oaths and threats-harmless, however, without the device. Klapaucius, on the other hand, though he had temporarily lost the body to which he was accustomed, had succeeded in gaining possession of the personality transformer. He put on his best uniform and marched straight to the royal palace.

The King was still asleep, they told him, but Klapaucius, in his capacity as Police Commissioner, said it was impera-tive he see His Highness, if only for a few moments, said that this was a matter of the utmost gravity, a crisis, the nation hanging in the balance, and more of the same, until the frightened courtiers led him to the royal bedchamber. Well-acquainted with his friend's habits and peculiarities, Klapaucius touched the heel of Trurl's foot; Trurl jumped up, instantly wide-awake, for he was exceedingly ticklish. He rubbed his eyes and stared in amazement at this hulking giant of a policeman before him, but the giant leaned over and whispered: "It's me, Klapaucius. I had to occupy the Commissioner-without a badge, they'd never have let me in-and I got the device, it's right here in my pocket..."

Trurl, overjoyed when Klapaucius told him of his strata-gem, rose from the royal bed,declaring to all that he was fully recovered, and later, draped in purple and holding the royal orb and scepter, sat upon his throne and issued several orders. First, he had them bring from the hospital his own body with the leg Balerion sprained on the harbor steps.

This swiftly done, he enjoined the royal physicians to tend the patient with all the skill and solicitude at their disposal. Then, after a brief conference with his Commissioner, namely Klapaucius, Trurl proclaimed he would restore order in the realm and bring things back to normal.

Which wasn't easy, there being no end of complications to straighten out. Though the constructors had no intention of returning all the displaced souls to their former bodies; their main concern, actually, was that Trurl be Trurl as soon as possible, and Klapaucius Klapaucius. In the flesh, that is. Trurl therefore commanded that the prisoner (Balerion in his colleague's body) be dragged from jail and hauled before His August Presence. The first transfer promptly carried out, Klapaucius was himself again, and the King (now in the body of the ex-commissioner of police) had to stand and listen to a most unpleasant lecture, after which he was placed in the castle dungeon, the official word being that he had fallen into disfavor due to incompetence in the solv-ing of a certain rebus. Next morning Trurl's body was in good enough health to be repossessed. Only one problem remained: it wasn't right, somehow, to leave without having properly settled the question of succession to the throne. To release Balerion from his constabulary corpus and seat him once more at the helm of the State was quite unthink-able. So this is what they did: under a great oath of secrecy the friends told the honest sailor in Trurl's body everything, and seeing how much good sense resided in that simple soul, they judged him worthy to reign; after the transfer, then, Trurl became himself and the sailor King. Before this, how-ever, Klapaucius ordered a large cuckoo clock brought to the palace, one he had seen in a nearby shop when roaming the city streets, and the mind of King Balerion was conveyed to the cuckoo's works, while it, in turn, occupied the person of the policeman. Thus was justice done, for the King was obliged to work diligently day and night thereafter, an-nouncing the hours with a dutiful cuckoo-cuckoo, to which he was compelled at the appropriate moments by the sharp little teeth of the clock's gears, and with which he would expiate, hanging on the wall of the main hall for the re-mainder of his days, his thoughtless games, not to mention having endangered the life and limb of two famous con-structors by so frequently changing his mind. As for the Commissioner, he returned to his duties and functioned flawlessly, proving that a cuckoo mentality was quite suffi-cient for that post. The friends finally took their leave of the crowned sailor, gathered up their belongings, shook the dust of that troublesome kingdom from their feet, and con-tinued on their way. One might only add that Trurl's final action in the King's body had been to visit the Royal Vault and take possession of the Royal Diadem of the Cymberanide Dynasty, which prize he had fairly earned, having dis-covered the very best hiding place in all the world.

The Fifth Sally (A)

OR Trurl's Prescription.

Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, ill.u.s.trious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter-for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect.

And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it was all they had-first they saved up all their atoms, then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine. Each and every Steelypip had its own little socket and its own little plug, and each was completely on its own. Though they didn't own the machine, neither did the machine own them, everybody just pitched in.

Some were mechanics, other mechanicians, still others mechanists: but all were mechan-ically minded. They had plenty to do, like if night had to be made, or day, or an eclipse of the sun-but that not too often, or they'd grow tired of it. One day there flew up to the white sun behind the green star a comet in a bonnet, namely a female, mean as nails and atomic from her head to her four long tails, awful to look at, all blue from hydro-gen cyanide and, sure enough, reeking of bitter almonds. She flew up and said, "First, I'll burn you to the ground, and that's just for starters."

The Steelypips watched-the fire in her eye smoked up half the sky, she drew on her neutrons, mesons like caissons, pi- and mu- and neutrinos too-"Fee-fi-fo-fum plu-to-ni-um." And they reply: "One moment, please, we are the Steelypips, we have no fear, no spats in our vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, for we have a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect, so go away, lady comet, or you'll be sorry."

But she already filled up the sky, burning, scorching, roaring, hissing, until their moon shriveled up, singed from horn to horn, and even if it had been a little cracked, old, and on the small side to begin with, still that was a shame. So wast-ing no more words, they took their strongest fields, tied them around each horn with a good knot, then threw the switch: try that on for size, you old witch. It thundered, it quaked, it groaned, the sky cleared up in a flash, and all that remained of the comet was a bit of ash-and peace reigned once more.

After an undetermined amount of time something ap-pears, what it is n.o.body knows, except that it's hideous and no matter from which angle you look at it, it's even more hideous. Whatever it is flies up, lands on the highest peak, so heavy you can't imagine, makes itself comfortable and doesn't budge. But it's an awful nuisance, all the same.

So those who are in the proximity say: "Excuse us, but we are the Steelypips, we have no dread, we don't live on a planet but in a machine instead, and it's no ordinary ma-chine but a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect, so beat it, nasty thing, or you'll be sorry."

But that just sits there.

So, not to go to any great expense, they send not a very big, actually a rather small scarechrome: it'll go and frighten that off, and peace will reign once more.

The scarechrome sets off, and all you can hear inside are its programs whirring, one more frightening than the next. It approaches-how it hisses, how it spits! It even scares it-self a little-but that just sits there. The scarechrome tries once more, this time on a different frequency, but by now it just doesn't have its heart in it.

The Steelypips see that something else is needed. They say: "Let's take a higher caliber, hydraulic, differential-exponential, plastic, stochastic, and with plenty of muscle.It won't cower if it has nuclear power."

So they sent it off, universal, reversible, double-barreled, feedback on every track, all systems go heigh-ho, and inside one mechanic and one mechanist, and that's not all because just to be on the safe side they stuck a scarechrome on top. It arrived, so well-oiled you could hear a pin drop-it winds up for the swing and counts down: four quarters, three quar-ters, two quarters, one quarter, no quarter! Ka-boom! what a blow!

See the mushroom grow! The mushroom with the radioactive glow! And the oil bubbles, the gears chatter, the mechanic and the mechanist peer out the hatch: can you imagine, not even a scratch.

The Steelypips held a council of war and then built a mechanism which in turn built a metamechanism which in turn built such a megalomechanism that the closest stars had to step back. And in the middle of it was a machine with cogs and wheels and in the middle of that a servospook, because they really meant business now.

The megalomechanism gathered up all its strength and let go! Thunder, rumbling, clatter, a mushroom so huge you'd need an ocean to make soup out of it, the clenching of teeth, darkness, so much darkness you can't even tell what's what. The Steelypips look-nothing, not a thing, just all their mechanisms lying around like so much sc.r.a.p metal and without a sign of life.

Now they rolled up their sleeves. "After all," they say, "we are mechanics and mechanists, all mechanically minded, and we have a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect, so how can this nasty thing just sit there and not budge?"

This time they make nothing less than an enormous cyberivy-bushwhacker: it'll creep up casually, as if minding its own business, glance over its shoulder, grow a little bolder, send out a root or two, grow up from behind, taking its time, and then when it closes in, that'll be the end of that. And truly, everything happened exactly as predicted, except, when it was over, that wasn't exactly the end of that, not at all.

They fell into despair, and they didn't even know what to think because this had never happened to them before, so they mobilized and a.n.a.lyzed, made nets and glues, lariats and screws, traps and contraptions to make it drown, break it down, make it fall, or maybe wall it up-they try this way and that and the other, but one is as poor as another.

They turn everything upside-down, but nothing helps. They're about ready to give up hope when suddenly they see-some-one's coming: he's on horseback, but no, horses don't have wheels-it must be a bicycle, but wait, bicycles don't have prows, so maybe it's a rocket, but rockets don't have saddles. What he's riding no one can tell, but who's in the saddle we all know well: it's Trurl himself, the constructor, out on a spree, or maybe on one of his famous sallies, serene and smiling, coming closer, flying by-but even from a distance you'd know that this wasn't just anybody.

He lowers, he hovers, so they tell him the whole story: "We are the Steelypips, we have a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect, we saved up all our atoms, put them all together ourselves, we hadn't a care, nospats in our vats, no rules, no schools,until something flew up, landed, sat down and won't budge."

"Did you try scaring it off?" Trurl asks with a kindly smile.

"We tried a scarechrome and a servospook and a megalo-mechanism, all hydraulic and high caliber, spouting mesons like caissons, pi- and mu- and neutrinos too, protons and photons, but nothing worked."

"No machine, you say?"

"No sir, no machine." .

"H'm, interesting. And what exactly is it?"

"That we don't know. It appeared, flew here, what it is n.o.body knows, except that it's hideous and no matter from which angle you look at it, it's even more hideous. It flew up, landed, so heavy you can't imagine, and just sits there. But it's an awful nuisance, all the same."

"Well, I really don't have much time," says Trurl. "The most I can do is stay here for a while, in an advisory capac-ity. Is that agreeable with you?"

It certainly is and the Steelypips immediately ask what he wants them to bring-photons, screws, hammers, artil-lery, or how about some dynamite, or TNT? And would our guest like coffee or tea? From a vending machine, of course.

"Coffee's fine," agrees Trurl, "not for me, but for the business at hand. As for the rest of it, I don't think so. You see, if neither scarechrome, nor servospook, nor cyberivy-bushwhacker will do the job, then other methods are indi-cated: archaic and archival, legalistic hence s.a.d.i.s.tic. I've yet to see the remittance due and payable in full fail."

"Come again?" ask the Steelypips, but Trurl, rather than explain, continues: "It's quite simple, really. All you need is paper, ink, stamps and seals, sealing wax and thumbtacks, sand to sprin-kle, blotters, a teller window, a zinc teaspoon, a saucer-the coffee we already have-and a mailman. And something to write with-do you have that?"

"We'll get it!" And they take off.

Trurl pulls up a chair and dictates: "Notice is hereby given, that in re hindrance of Tenant, as stated under Rev. Stat. c.117(e) dash 2 dash KKP4 of the CTSP Comm. Code, in clear violation of paragraph 199, thereby consti-tuting a most reprehendable offense, we do declare the ter-mination, desummation and full cessation of all services ac-cruing thereunto, by authority of Ordinance 67 DPO No. 14(j) 1101 et seq., on this the 19th day of the 17th month of the current year, aff'g 77 F. Supp. 301. The Tenant may appeal said action by extraordinary procedure to the Chair-man of the Board within twenty-four hours."

Trurl attaches the seal, affixes the stamp, has it entered in the Central Ledger, consults the Official Register, and says: "Now let the mailman deliver it."The mailman takes it, they wait, they wait, the mailman returns.

"Did you deliver it?" asks Trurl.

"I did."

"And the return receipt?"

"Here it is, signed on this line. And here's the appeal."

Trurl takes the appeal and, without reading it at all, orders it returned to sender and writes diagonally across it: "Unacceptable-Proper Forms Not Attached." And he signs his name illegibly.

"And now," he says, "to work!"

He sits and writes, while those who are curious look on and, understanding nothing, ask what this is and what it's supposed to do.

"Official business," answers Trurl. "And things will go well, now that it's under way."

The mailman runs back and forth all day like one pos-sessed; Trurl notarizes, issues directives, the typewriter chat-ters, and little by little an entire office takes shape, rubber stamps and rubber bands, paper clips and paper wads, port-folios and pigeonholes, foolscap and scrip, teaspoons, signs that say "No Admittance," inkwells, forms on file, writing all the while, the typewriter chattering, and everywhere you look you see coffee stains, wastepaper, and bits of gum eraser. The Steelypips are worried, they don't understand a thing, meanwhile Trurl uses special delivery registered C.O.D., certified with return receipt, or, best of all, remit-tance due and payable in full-he sends out no end of dun-ning letters, bills of lading, notices, injunctions, and there are already special accounts set up, no entries at the mo-ment but he says that's only temporary. After a while, you can see that that is not quite so hideous, especially in pro-file-it's actually gotten smaller!-yes, yes, it is smaller! The Steelypips ask Trurl, what now?

"No idle talk permitted on the premises," is his answer. And he staples, stamps, inspects vouchers, revokes licenses, dots an i, loosens his tie, asks who's next, I'm sorry, the office is closed, come back in an hour, the coffee is cold, the cream sour, cobwebs from ceiling to floor, an old pair of nylons in the secretary's drawer, install four new file cab-inets over here, and there's an attempt to bribe an official, a pile of problems and a problem with piles, a writ of execu-tion, incarceration for miscegenation, and appeals with seven seals.

And the typewriter chatters: "Whereas, pursuant to the Tenant's failure to quit and surrender the demised premises in compliance with the warrant served, habere facias posses-sionem, by Div. of Rep. Cyb. Gt. KRS thereof, the Court of Third Instance, in vacuo and ex nihilo, herewith orders the immediate vacuation and vacation thereunder.

The Tenant may not appeal this ruling."

Trurl dispatches the messenger and pockets the receipts. After which, he gets up and methodically hurls the desks, chairs, rubber stamps, seals, pigeonholes, etc., out into deep s.p.a.ce. Only the vending machine remains.

"What on earth are you doing?" cry the Steelypips in dis-may, having grown accustomed to it all. "How can you?"

"Tut-tut, my dears," he replies. "Better you take a look instead!"And indeed, they look and gasp-why, there's nothing there, it's gone, as if it had never been! And where did it go, vanished into thin air? It beat a cowardly retreat, and grew so small, so very small, you'd need a magnifying gla.s.s to see it. They root around, but all they can find is one little spot, slightly damp, something must have dripped there, but what or why they cannot say, and that's all.

"Just as I thought," Trurl tells them. "Basically, my dears, the whole thing was quite simple: the moment it accepted the first dispatch and signed for it, it was done for. I employed a special machine, the machine with a big B; for, as the Cosmos is the Cosmos, no one's licked it yet!"

"All right, but why throw out the doc.u.ments and pour out the coffee?" they ask.

"So that it wouldn't devour you in turn!" Trurl replies. And he flies off, nodding to them kindly-and his smile is like the stars.

The Sixth Sally

OR How Trurl and Klapaucius Created a Demon of the Second Kind to Defeat the Pirate Pugg

"There are but two caravan trails that lead south from the Lands of the Upper Suns.

The first, which is older, goes from the Stellar Quadriferum past the Great Glossaurontus, a most treacherous star, for its magnitude varies, and at its dimmest it resembles the Dwarf of the Abyssyrs, and thereby causes travelers to blunder into the Great Shroud Wastes, from whence only one caravan in nine ever returns. The second, newer trail was opened up by the Imperium Myrapoclean, whose turboservoslaves carved a tunnel six billion miles in length through the heart of the Great Glos-saurontus itself.

"The northern entrance to the tunnel may be found in the following manner: from the last of the Upper Suns pro-ceed directly toward the Pole for the time it takes to recite seven Now-I-lay me-down-to-sleep's. Then go left, till you reach the wall of fire, which is a side of Glossaurontus, and locate the opening, a black dot in that white-hot furnace.

Steer straight down into this, and put aside all fear, for the tunnel's width will let eight s.h.i.+ps, starboard to larboard, pa.s.s through. The sight that then appears outside your portholes truly has no equal. First there is the famous Phlogistinian Flamefall, and then as depending on the weather: when the solar depths are swept with pyromagnetic storms that surge a billion miles or more away, one sees great tortured knots of fire, pulsing arteries swollen with white, glowing clots; when, on the other hand, the storm is closer, or it is a ty-phoon of the seventh order, the roof will shudder, as if that white dough of incandescence were about to fall, but this is an illusion, for it spills over but does not fall, and burns, but cannot consume, held in check by the tensile ribs of the Fffian ForceFields. But when one observes the core of the prominence bulge, and the long-forked bolts of the foun-tainheads they call Infernions flare closer, it is best to keep a firm grip upon the wheel, and look sharp into the solar vis-cera and not at any chart, for the utmost steering skill is needed here. Indeed, that road is never traversed the same way twice; the entire tunnel gouged through Glossaurontus twists continually, writhes and thrashes like a serpent flailed. Keep therefore your eyes well peeled, and your safety frigi-packs (that rim your visors with transparent icicles) hard by, and carefully watch the blazing walls that rush up and lash their thundering tongues, and should you hear the hull be-gin to sizzle, battered and bespattered in the seething solar cauldron, then trust to nothing but your own lightning re-flexes. Though you must also bear in mind that not every burst of flame nor every jump of the tunnel signifies a starquake or a squall in the white oceans of fire; remember-ing this, the seasoned mariner will not cry 'man the pumps' at the drop of a match, and later have to face the ridicule of his peers, who will say he is the type that would try to douse a star's eternal light with a beaker of liquid nitrogen. To the one who inquires what he should do if a real quake descends upon his vessel, most wags will answer that then it is quite enough to heave a sigh, there being little time for prayer or the writing of wills, and as for the eyes, these may be open or shut according to personal preference, for the fire will burn them out in any event. Such disasters, however, are extremely rare, since the brackets and braces installed by the Imperial Myrapocles hold marvelously well, and really, intrastellar flight, gliding past the curved, sparkling hydro-gen mirrors of Glossaurontus, can be a most delightful ex-perience. Then too, they say-and not without reason-that whoever enters the tunnel will at least exit soon after, which certainly cannot be said of the Great Shroud Wastes. And were the tunnel to be totally destroyed by a quake, the only alternate route possible would go through those Wastes, which-as their name indicates-are blacker than night, for the light of the neighboring stars dares not enter there. There, as in a mortar, one finds a constant colliding and cras.h.i.+ng together-which makes a terrific din-of sc.r.a.p metal, cans, wrecks of s.h.i.+ps that were led astray by the treachery of Glossaurontus and crushed in the cruel grip of those bottomless gravitational vortices, then left to drift in circles until such time as the Universe itself runs down. To the east of the Shroud is the kingdom of the Slipjaws, to the west, the Bogglyeyed, and in the south are roads, heavily dotted with fortified mortalitaries, leading to the gentler sphere of sky-blue Lazulia, beyond which lies the bud-beam-ing Murgundigan, where the archipelago of iron-poor stars, known as Alcaron's Carriage, s.h.i.+nes blood-red.

"The Shroud itself, as we said, is as black as the Glossaurontian corridor is white. Nor does the only peril there lie in its vortices, in debris pulled down from dizzy heights by the current, in meteors gone berserk; for some say that in an unknown place, among dark, crepuscular caverns, at the bottom of an immeasurably deep and unplumbed profund-ity, for ages and ages now there sits a certain creature, anom-alous and wholly anonymous, for anyone who meets the thing and learns its name will surely never live to tell a soul.

And they say that that Anonymoid is both a pirate and a mage, and it lives in a castle raised by black gravitation, and the moat is a perpetually raging storm, and the walls non-being, impenetrable in their nothingness, and the windows are all blind, and the doors dumb; the Anonymoid lies in wait for caravans, but whenever it feels an overwhelming hunger for gold and skeletons, it blows black dust into the faces of the suns that serve as signposts, and once these are extinguished, and some wayfarers have strayed from their path of safety, it comes whirling out of the void, wraps them tightly in its coils, and carries them off to its castle of ob-livion, without ever dropping the least ruby brooch, for the monster is monstrously meticulous. Afterward, only the gnawed remains drift away and float through the Wastes, followed by long trails of s.h.i.+p rivets, which are spit out from the monster's maw like seeds. But lately, ever since the Glossaurontian tunnel was opened by the forced labor of innumerable turboservoserfs,and all navigation takes the way of that brightest of corridors, the Anonymoid rages, deprived of further plunder, and the heat of its fury now illumines the darkness of the Shroud, and it glows through the black barriers of gravitation like a fiend's skull rotting in some dank, phosph.o.r.escent coc.o.o.n. There are scoffers, true, who say that no such monster exists and never did-and they say so with impunity, for it is hard to a.s.sail an opinion of things for which there are no words, an opinion formed moreover on a quiet summer afternoon, far from cosmic shrouds and stellar conflagrations. Yes, it is easy not to be-lieve in monsters, considerably more difficult to escape their dread and loathsome clutches. Was not the Murgundiganian Cybernator himself, with an entourage of eighty in three s.h.i.+ps, swallowed up, so that nothing remained of that magnaterium but a few chewed buckles, which were cast up on the sh.o.r.e of Solara Minor by a nebular wave and subse-quently discovered by the villagers of those parts? And were not countless other worthies devoured without mercy or ap-peal? Therefore let at least electronic memory pay silent tribute to these poor unburied mult.i.tudes, if no avenger can be found for them, one who will deal with that perpetrator according to the old sidereal laws."

All this Trurl read one day from a book, yellowed with age, which he chanced to obtain from a pa.s.sing peddler, and he took it straightway to Klapaucius and read it a second time, aloud, from beginning to end, as he was much in-trigued by the marvels described therein.

Klapaucius, a wise constructor who knew the Cosmos well and had no little acquaintance with suns and nebulae of various kinds, only smiled and nodded, saying: "You don't believe, I hope, a single word of that rub-bish?"

"And why shouldn't I believe it?" Trurl bridled. "Look, here's even an engraving, skillfully done, of the Anonymoid eating two photon schooners and hiding the booty in his cellar. Anyway, isn't there in fact a tunnel through a super-giant? Beth-el-Geuse, I mean.

Surely you're not such an ignoramus in cosmography to doubt that possibility..."

"As for ill.u.s.trations, why, I could draw you a dragon right now, with a thousand suns for each eye. Would you accept the sketch as proof of its existence?" Klapaucius replied.

"And as for tunnels-first of all, the one of which you speak has a length of only two million miles, not some billions, and secondly, the star of which you speak is practically burnt out, and in the third place, intrastellar travel presents no hazard whatever, as you know perfectly well, having flown that way yourself. And as for the so-called Great Shroud Wastes, this is in reality nothing but a cosmic dump some ten kilopa.r.s.ecs across, floating in the vicinity of Maeridia and Tetrarchida, and not around any Slopjaws or Gaussauronts, which don't exist anywhere; and it's dark there, yes, but simply because of all the garbage. And as for your Anonymoid, there's obviously no such thing! It isn't even a respectable, ancient myth, but some cheap yarn concocted out of a half-baked cranium."

Trurl bit his lip.

"You think the tunnel safe," he said, "because it was I who flew it. But you would be of an altogether different opinion had it been you, instead. But enough of the tunnel. As far as the Shroud and Anonymoid are concerned, it isn't my habit to settle such things with words. We'll go there, and then you'll see"-and he held up the heavy book- "you'll see what's true in here, and what is not!"

Klapaucius did his best to dissuade him, but when he saw that Trurl, stubborn asusual, had absolutely no intention of backing down from so singularly conceived a sally, he first declared that he would have nothing more to do with him, but before very long had joined in preparing for the voyage: he didn't wish to see his friend perish alone-some-how, two can look death in the eye more cheerfully than one.

Finally, having stocked the larder with plenty of provi-sions, for the way would lead through vast, barren regions (not as picturesque, to be sure, as the book depicted), they took off in their trusty s.h.i.+p. During the flight, they stopped now and then to ask directions, particularly when they had left far behind the territory with which they were familiar. Not much could be learned from the natives, however, for these spoke reliably only about their immediate surround-ings-of things that lay beyond, where they had never ven-tured themselves, they gave the most absurd account, and in great detail, elaborating with both relish and a sense of dread. Klapaucius called such tales "corroded,"

having in mind the corrosis-sclerosion that attacks all aging brains.

But when they had come within five or six million light-blocks of the Black Wastes, they began to hear rumors of some robber-giant who called himself The PHT Pirate. No one they spoke to had actually seen him, nor knew what "PHT" was supposed to mean.

Trurl thought this might be a distortion of "pH," which would indicate an ionic pirate with a high concentration and very base, but Klapaucius, more level-headed, preferred to refrain from entertaining such hypotheses. To all accounts, this pirate was an ill-tempered brute, as evidenced by the fact that, even after stripping his victims of everything, he was never satisfied, his greed being great and insatiable, and beat them long and cruelly before setting them free. For a moment or two the constructors considered whether they shouldn't arm them-selves with blasters or blades before entering the Wastes, but soon concluded that the best weapon was their wits, sharpened in constructors.h.i.+p, subtle, agile and universal; so they set out just as they were.

It must be confessed that Trurl, as they traveled on, was bitterly disillusioned; the starry starlight, the fiery fires, the cavernous voids, the meteor reefs and shooting shoals were nowhere near as enchanting to the eye as promised in the ancient tome. There were only a few old stars about, and those were unimpressive, if not downright shabby; some barely flickered, like cinders in a heap of ashes, and some were completely dark and hardened on the surface, red veins glowing dully through cracks in their charred and wrinkled crusts. Of flaming jungles of combustion and mysterious vortices there was not a sign, nor had anyone ever heard of them, for the desolate waste was a place of tedium, and tedious in the extreme, by virtue of the fact that it was deso-late, and a waste. As far as meteors went, they were every-where, but in that rattling, clattering swarm was a good deal more flying refuse than honest magnet.i.tes, tekt.i.tes or aerolites-for the simple reason that the Galactic Pole was only a stone's throw away, and the swirling dark currents sucked to this very spot, southward, prodigious quant.i.ties of flotsam and jetsam from the central zones of the Galaxy. Hence all the tribes and nations in the neighborhood spoke of this area not as any sort of Shroud, but as nothing more or less than what it was: a junkyard.

Trurl hid his disappointment as best he could, in order not to occasion sarcastic comments from Klapaucius, and steered straight into the Wastes. Immediately sand began to patter on the bow; every kind of stellar debris, spewed from prominences or supernovae, collected and caked up on the s.h.i.+p's hull, forming such a thick coat, that the constructors lost all hope of ever getting it clean again.

By now the stars had vanished in the general gloom, so the two proceeded gropingly, till suddenly their s.h.i.+p lurched, and all the furniture, pots and pans went flying; they felt themselves hurtling forward, faster and faster, then at last there was an awful crunch andthe s.h.i.+p came to a stop, landing softly enough though at an angle, as if its nose had stuck in something doughy. They ran to the window, but couldn't see a thing, as it was pitch black outside-and now they heard someone banging, someone fearfully strong, whoever it was, for the very walls were buckling in. At this point Trurl and Klapaucius began to feel a little less con-fident in the power of their unarmed wits, but it was too late now, so they opened the hatch, since otherwise it would be forced from without and broken for good.

As they looked, someone stuck his face in the opening- a face so huge, that it was clearly out of the question for the rest of the body to climb in after it, and not only huge, but unspeakably hideous, studded up and down and every which way with bulging eyes, and the nose was a saw, and an iron hook served for the jaw. The face didn't move, pressed up against the open hatch, only the eyes darted back and forth, avidly examining everything, as if appraising whether or not the take was worth the trouble. Even someone far less intel-ligent than our constructors would have understood what that scrutiny meant, for it was unmistakable.

"Well?" said Trurl finally, exasperated by such shameless eyeing, which went on in silence. "What do you want, you unwashed mug?! I am Trurl, constructor and general omni-potentiary, and this is my friend Klapaucius, also of great renown, and we were flying by in our s.h.i.+p as tourists, so kindly remove your ugly muzzle and take us immediately out of this unsavory place-full of litter and rubbish, no doubt-and direct us to some clean, respectable sector, or we'll lodge a complaint and they'll have you broken down into little sc.r.a.p-do you hear me, you scavenger, ragpicker, pack rat?!"

But the face said nothing, just looked and looked, as if calculating, making an estimate of how much.

"Listen here, you unmitigated freak," yelled Trurl, throw-ing all caution to the winds, though Klapaucius kept elbow-ing him to show some restraint, "we have no gold, no silver, no precious stones, so you let us go this instant, and above all cover up that oversized physiognomy of yours, for it's un-speakably hideous. And you"-he said, turning to Klapau-cius-"stop jabbing me with that elbow! This is the way you have to talk to such types!"

"I have no use," suddenly said the face, turning its thou-sand glittering eyes on Trurl, "for gold or silver, and the way you have to talk to me is delicately and with respect, as I am a pirate with a Ph.D., well-educated and by nature extremely high-strung. Other guests have been here and needed sweet-ening up-and when I've given you a proper pounding too, why, you'll be positively dripping with good manners. My name is Pugg, I'm thirty ars.h.i.+ns in every direction and it's true I rob, but in a manner that is modern and scientific, for I collect precious facts, genuine truths, priceless knowl-edge, and in general all information of value. And now, let's hand it over, otherwise I whistle! Very well then, I'll count to five-one, two, three ..."

And at five, when they had handed him nothing, he let loose such a whistle, that their ears nearly flew off, and Klapaucius realized that the "PHT" of which the natives spoke with terror was indeed "Ph.D.," for the pirate had obviously studied at some higher inst.i.tution, like the Crim-inal Academy. Trurl held his head and groaned-Pugg's whistle was fully commensurate with his size.