THE CYBERIAD

Stanisław Lem

How the World Was Saved

One day T rurl the constructor put together a machine that

could cr eate anything starting with n. When it was r eady, he

tried it out, or dering it to mak e needles, then nank eens and

negligees, which it did, then nail the lot to nar ghiles ﬁlled

with nepenthe and numer ous other nar cotics. The machine

carried out his instructions to the letter .

Still not completely

sure of its ability, he had it pr oduce, one af ter the other,

nimbuses, noodles, nuclei, neutr ons, naphtha, noses,

nymphs, naiads, and natrium. This last it could not do, and

Trurl, considerably ir ritated, demanded an e xplanation. "Never hear d of it," said the machine. "What?

But it's only sodium. Y ou know, the metal, the

element…"

"Sodium starts with an s, and I work only in n."

"But in Latin it's natrium ."

"Look, old boy," said the machine, "if I could do everything

starting with n in every possible language, I'd be a Machine

That Could Do Everything in the Whole Alphabet, since any

item you car e to mention undoubtedly starts with n in one

foreign language or another .

It's not that easy .

I can't go

beyond what you pr ogrammed. So no sodium."

"Very well," said T rurl and or dered it to mak e Night, which

it made at once—small per haps, but perfectly noctur nal. Only then did T rurl invite over his friend Klapaucius the

constructor, and intr oduced him to the machine, praising its

extraor dinary skill at such length, that Klapaucius gr ew

annoyed and inquir ed whether he too might not test the

machine. "Be my guest," said T rurl. "But it has to start with n."

"N?" said Klapaucius. "All right, let it mak e Natur e."

The machine whined, and in a trice T rurl's fr ont yar d was

packed with naturalists. They ar gued, each publishing heavy

volumes, which the others tor e to pieces; in the distance

one could see ﬂaming pyr es, on which martyrs to Natur e

were sizzling; ther e was thunder, and strange mushr oom-

shaped columns of smok e rose up; everyone talk ed at once,

no one listened, and ther e wer e all sorts of memoranda,

appeals, subpoenas and other documents, while oﬀ to the

side sat a few old men, feverishly scribbling on scraps of

paper .

"Not bad, eh?" said T rurl with pride. "Natur e to a T, admit

it!"

But Klapaucius wasn't satisﬁed. "What, that mob?

Sur ely you'r e not going to tell me that's

Natur e?"

"Then give the machine something else," snapped T rurl. "Whatever you lik e." For a moment Klapaucius was at a loss

for what to ask. But af ter a little thought he declar ed that he

would put two mor e tasks to the machine; if it could fulﬁll

them, he would admit that it was all T rurl said it was. T rurl

agreed to this, wher eupon Klapaucius r equested Negative. "Negative?!" cried T rurl. "What on earth is Negative?"

"The opposite of positive, of course," Klapaucius coolly

replied. "Negative attitudes, the negative of a pictur e, for

example. Now don't try to pr etend you never hear d of

Negative. All right, machine, get to work!"

The machine, however, had alr eady begun. F irst it

manufactur ed antipr otons, then antielectr ons, antineutr ons,

antineutrinos, and labor ed on, until fr om out of all this

antimatter an antiworld took shape, glowing lik e a ghostly

cloud above their heads. "H'm," mutter ed Klapaucius, displeased. "That's supposed

to be Negative?

W ell… let's say it is, for the sak e of peace. … But now her e's the thir d command: Machine, do Nothing!"

The machine sat still. Klapaucius rubbed his hands in

triumph, but T rurl said:

"Well, what did you e xpect?

Y ou ask ed it to do nothing,

and it's doing nothing."

"Correction: I ask ed it to do Nothing, but it's doing

nothing."

"Nothing is nothing!"

"Come, come. It was supposed to do Nothing, but it hasn't

done anything, and ther efore I've won. F or Nothing, my dear

and clever colleague, is not your run- of-the-mill nothing, the

result of idleness and inactivity, but dynamic, aggr essive

Nothingness, that is to say, perfect, unique, ubiquitous, in

other wor ds None xistence, ultimate and supr eme, in its very

own nonperson!"

"You're confusing the machine!" cried T rurl. But suddenly

its metallic voice rang out:

"Really, how can you two bick er at a time lik e this?

yes, I know what Nothing is, and Nothingness,

None xistence, Nonentity, Negation, Nullity and Nihility,

since all these come under the heading of n, n as in Nil. Look then upon your world for the last time, gentlemen!

Soon it shall no longer be…"

The constructors fr oze, for getting their quar rel, for the

machine was in actual fact doing Nothing, and it did it in this

fashion: one by one, various things wer e removed fr om the

world, and the things, thus r emoved, ceased to e xist, as if

they had never been. The machine had alr eady disposed of

nolars, nightzebs, nocs, necs, nallyrak ers, neotr emes and

nonmalrigers. A t moments, though, it seemed that instead

of reducing, diminishing and subtracting, the machine was

increasing, enhancing and adding, since it liquidated, in

turn: nonconfor mists, nonentities, nonsense, nonsupport,

nearsightedness, nar rowmindedness, naughtiness, neglect,

nausea, necr ophilia and nepotism. But af ter a while the

world very deﬁnitely began to thin out ar ound T rurl and

Klapaucius. "Omigosh!" said T rurl. "If only nothing bad comes out of all

this…"

"Don't wor ry," said Klapaucius. "Y ou can see it's not

producing Universal Nothingness, but only causing the

absence of whatever starts with n. Which is r eally nothing in

the way of nothing, and nothing is what your machine, dear

Trurl, is worth!"

"Do not be deceived," r eplied the machine. "I've begun,

it's true, with everything in n, but only out of familiarity .

create however is one thing, to destr oy, another thing

entirely. I can blot out the world for the simple r eason that

I'm able to do anything and everything—and everything

means everything—in n, and consequently Nothingness is

child's play for me. In less than a minute now you will cease

to have e xistence, along with everything else, so tell me

now, Klapaucius, and quickly, that I am r eally and truly

everything I was pr ogrammed to be, befor e it is too late."

"But—" Klapaucius was about to pr otest, but noticed, just

then, that a number of things wer e indeed disappearing,

and not mer ely those that started with n. The constructors

were no longer sur rounded by the gruncheons, the

targalisks, the shupops, the calinatifacts, the thists, wor ches

and pritons. "Stop!

I tak e it all back!

Desist!

Whoa!

Don't do Nothing!!"

screamed Klapaucius. But befor e the machine could come to

a full stop, all the brashations, plusters, laries and zits had

vanished away .

Now the machine stood motionless. The

world was a dr eadful sight. The sk y had particularly

suﬀer ed: ther e wer e only a few, isolated points of light in

the heavens—no trace of the glorious wor ches and zits that

had, till now, graced the horizon!

"Great Gauss!" cried Klapaucius. "And wher e are the

gruncheons?

Wher e my dear, favorite pritons?

Wher e now

the gentle zits?!"

"They no longer ar e, nor ever will e xist again," the

machine said calmly .

"I executed, or rather only began to

execute, your or der…"

"I tell you to do Nothing, and you… you…"

"Klapaucius, don't pr etend to be a gr eater idiot than you

are," said the machine. "Had I made Nothing outright, in one

fell swoop, everything would have ceased to e xist, and that

includes T rurl, the sk y, the Universe, and you—and even

myself .

In which case who could say and to whom could it

be said that the or der was car ried out and I am an eﬃcient

and capable machine?

And if no one could say it to no one,

in what way then could I, who also would not be, be

vindicated?"

"Yes, ﬁne, let's dr op the subject," said Klapaucius. "I have

nothing mor e to ask of you, only please, dear machine,

please r eturn the zits, for without them life loses all its

charm …"

"But I can't, they'r e in z," said the machine. "Of course, I

can r estor e nonsense, nar rowmindedness, nausea,

necrophilia, neuralgia, nefariousness and no xiousness. As

for the other letters, however, I can't help you."

"I want my zits!" bellowed Klapaucius. "Sorry, no zits," said the machine. "T ake a good look at

this world, how riddled it is with huge, gaping holes, how full

of Nothingness, the Nothingness that ﬁlls the bottomless

void between the stars, how everything about us has

become lined with it, how it darkly lurks behind each shr ed

of matter .

This is your work, envious one!

And I har dly think

the futur e generations will bless you for it…"

"Perhaps… they won't ﬁnd out, per haps they won't

notice," gr oaned the pale Klapaucius, gazing up

incredulously at the black emptiness of space and not

daring to look his colleague, T rurl, in the eye. L eaving him

beside the machine that could do everything in n,

Klapaucius sk ulked home—and to this day the world has

remained honeycombed with nothingness, e xactly as it was

when halted in the course of its liquidation. And as all

subsequent attempts to build a machine on any other letter

met with failur e, it is to be fear ed that never again will we

have such marvelous phenomena as the wor ches and the

zits—no, never again.

Trurl's Machine

Once upon a time T rurl the constructor built an eight-story

thinking machine. When it was ﬁnished, he gave it a coat of

white paint, trimmed the edges in lavender, stepped back,

squinted, then added a little curlicue on the fr ont and,

wher e one might imagine the for ehead to be, a few pale

orange polk adots. Extr emely pleased with himself, he

whistled an air and, as is always done on such occasions,

asked it the ritual question of how much is two plus two .

The machine stir red. Its tubes began to glow, its coils

warmed up, cur rent coursed thr ough all its cir cuits lik e a

waterfall, transfor mers hummed and thr obbed, ther e was a

clanging, and a chugging, and such an ungodly rack et that

Trurl began to think of adding a special mentation muﬄer .

Meanwhile the machine labor ed on, as if it had been given

the most diﬃcult pr oblem in the Universe to solve; the

ground shook, the sand slid underfoot fr om the vibration,

valves popped lik e champagne corks, the r elays nearly gave

way under the strain. A t last, when T rurl had gr own

extremely impatient, the machine gr ound to a halt and said

in a voice lik e thunder : SEVEN!

"Nonsense, my dear," said T rurl. "The answer's four .

Now

be a good machine and adjust yourself!

What's two and

two?"

"SEVEN!" snapped the machine. T rurl sighed and put his

coveralls back on, r olled up his sleeves, opened the bottom

trapdoor and crawled in. F or the longest time he hammer ed

away inside, tightened, solder ed, ran clattering up and down

the metal stairs, now on the sixth ﬂoor, now on the eighth,

then pounded back down to the bottom and thr ew a switch,

but something sizzled in the middle, and the spark plugs

grew blue whisk ers. A fter two hours of this he came out,

cover ed with soot but satisﬁed, put all his tools away, took

oﬀ his coveralls, wiped his face and hands. As he was

leaving, he tur ned and ask ed, just so ther e would be no

doubt about it:

"And now what's two and two?"

"SEVEN!" r eplied the machine. Trurl utter ed a ter rible oath, but ther e was no help for it—

again he had to pok e around inside the machine,

disconnecting, cor recting, checking, r esetting, and when he

learned for the thir d time that two and two was seven, he

collapsed in despair at the foot of the machine, and sat

there until Klapaucius found him. Klapaucius inquir ed what

was wr ong, for T rurl look ed as if he had just r eturned fr om a

funeral. T rurl e xplained the pr oblem. Klapaucius crawled into

the machine himself a couple of times, tried to ﬁx this and

that, then ask ed it for the sum of one plus two, which tur ned

out to be six. One plus one, accor ding to the machine,

equaled zer o. Klapaucius scratched his head, clear ed his

throat and said:

"My friend, you'll just have to face it. That isn't the

machine you wished to mak e. However, ther e's a good side

to everything, including this."

"What good side?" mutter ed Trurl, and kick ed the base on

which he was sitting. "Stop that," said the machine. "H'm, it's sensitive too .

But wher e was I?

Oh yes … ther e's

no question but that we have her e a stupid machine, and

not mer ely stupid in the usual, nor mal way, oh no!

This is,

as far as I can deter mine—and you know I am something of

an expert—this is the stupidest thinking machine in the

entire world, and that's nothing to sneeze at!

T o construct

deliberately such a machine would be far fr om easy; in fact,

I would say that no one could manage it. F or the thing is not

only stupid, but stubbor n as a mule, that is, it has a

personality common to idiots, for idiots ar e uncommonly

stubbor n."

"What earthly use do I have for such a machine?!" said

Trurl, and kick ed it again. "I'm war ning you, you better stop!" said the machine. "A war ning, if you please," observed Klapaucius dryly .

"Not

only is it sensitive, dense and stubbor n, but quick to tak e

oﬀense, and believe me, with such an abundance of

qualities ther e are all sorts of things you might do!"

"What, for e xample?" ask ed Trurl. "Well, it's har d to say oﬀhand. Y ou might put it on e xhibit

and char ge admission; people would ﬂock to see the

stupidest thinking machine that ever was—what does it

have, eight stories?

R eally, could anyone imagine a bigger

dunce?

And the e xhibition would not only cover your costs,

but—"

"Enough, I'm not holding any e xhibition!" T rurl said, stood

up and, unable to r estrain himself, kick ed the machine once

more. "This is your thir d war ning," said the machine. "What?" cried T rurl, infuriated by its imperious manner .

"You… you…" And he kick ed it several times, shouting:

"You're only good for kicking, you know that?"

"You have insulted me for the fourth, ﬁf th, sixth and

eighth times," said the machine. "Ther efore I refuse to

answer all further questions of a mathematical natur e."

"It refuses!

Do you hear that?" fumed T rurl, thor oughly

exasperated. "A fter six comes eight—did you notice,

Klapaucius?—not seven, but eight!

And that's the kind of

mathematics Her Highness r efuses to perfor m!

Take that!

And that!

Or per haps you'd lik e some mor e?"

The machine shudder ed, shook, and without another wor d

started to lif t itself fr om its foundations. They wer e very

deep, and the gir ders began to bend, but at last it

scrambled out, leaving behind br oken concr ete blocks with

steel spok es pr otruding—and it bor e down on T rurl and

Klapaucius lik e a moving fortr ess. T rurl was so dumb-

founded that he didn't even try to hide fr om the machine,

which to all appearances intended to crush him to a pulp. But Klapaucius grabbed his ar m and yank ed him away, and

the two of them took to their heels. When ﬁnally they look ed

back, they saw the machine swaying lik e a high tower,

advancing slowly, at every step sinking to its second ﬂoor,

but stubbor nly, doggedly pulling itself out of the sand and

heading straight for them. "Whoever hear d of such a thing?" T rurl gasped in

amazement. "Why, this is mutiny!

What do we do now?"

"Wait and watch," r eplied the prudent Klapaucius. "W e

may lear n something."

But ther e was nothing to be lear ned just then. The

machine had r eached ﬁr mer gr ound and was picking up

speed. Inside, it whistled, hissed and sputter ed. "Any minute now the signal bo x will knock loose," said

Trurl under his br eath. "That'll jam the pr ogram and stop

it…"

"No," said Klapaucius, "this is a special case. The thing is

so stupid, that even if the whole transmission goes, it won't

matter .

But—look out!!"

The machine was gathering momentum, clearly bent on

running them down, so they ﬂed just as fast as they could,

the fearful r hythm of crunching steps in their ears. They ran

and ran—what else could they do?

They tried to mak e it

back to their native district, but the machine outﬂank ed

them, cut them oﬀ, for ced them deeper and deeper into a

wild, uninhabited r egion. Mountains, dismal and craggy,

slowly r ose out of the mist. T rurl, panting heavily, shouted to

Klapaucius:

"Listen!

L et's tur n into some nar row canyon… wher e it

won't be able to follow us … the cursed thing… what do you

say?"

"No… better go straight," wheezed Klapaucius. "Ther e's a

town up ahead… can't r emember the name… anyway, we

can ﬁnd—oof!—ﬁnd shelter ther e…"

So they ran straight and soon saw houses befor e them. The str eets wer e practically deserted at this time of day,

and the constructors had gone a good distance without

meeting a living soul, when suddenly an awful crash, lik e an

avalanche at the edge of the town, indicated that the

machine was coming af ter them. Trurl look ed back and gr oaned. "Good heavens!

It's tearing down the houses,

Klapaucius!!" F or the machine, in stubbor n pursuit, was

plowing thr ough the walls of the buildings lik e a mountain of

steel, and in its wak e lay piles of rubble and white clouds of

plaster dust. Ther e wer e dreadful scr eams, confusion in the

streets, and T rurl and Klapaucius, their hearts in their

mouths, ran on till they came to a lar ge town hall, darted

inside and raced down endless stairs to a deep cellar .

"It won't get us in her e, even if it brings the whole building

down on our heads!" panted Klapaucius. "But r eally, the

devil himself had me pay you a visit today .

… I was curious

to see how your work was going—well, I certainly found

out…"

"Quiet," inter rupted T rurl. "Someone's coming…"

And indeed, the cellar door opened up and the mayor

enter ed, accompanied by several alder men. T rurl was too

embar rassed to e xplain how this strange and calamitous

situation had come about; Klapaucius had to do it. The

mayor listened in silence. Suddenly the walls tr embled, the

ground heaved, and the sound of cracking stone r eached

them in the cellar .

"It's her e?!" cried T rurl. "Yes," said the mayor .

"And it demands that we give you

up, otherwise it says it will level the entir e town…"

Just then they hear d, far over head, wor ds that honk ed as

if from a muﬄed hor n:

"Trul's her e … I smell T rurl…"

"But sur ely you won't give us up?" ask ed in a quavering

voice the object of the machine's obstinate fury .

"The one of you who calls himself T rurl must leave. The

other may r emain, since sur rendering him does not

constitute part of the conditions…"

"Have mer cy!"

"We are helpless," said the mayor .

"And wer e you to stay

here, Trurl, you would have to answer for all the damage

done to this town and its inhabitants, since it was because

of you that the machine destr oyed sixteen homes and

buried beneath their ruins many of our ﬁnest citizens. Only

the fact that you yourself stand in imminent peril per mits

me to let you leave unpunished. Go then, and never more

return."

Trurl look ed at the alder men and, seeing his sentence

written on their ster n faces, slowly tur ned and made for the

door. "Wait!

I'll go with you!" cried Klapaucius impulsively .

"You?" said T rurl, a faint hope in his voice. "But no…" he

added af ter a moment. "Why should you have to perish

too?…"

"Nonsense!" r ejoined Klapaucius with gr eat ener gy. "What,

us perish at the hands of that ir on imbecile?

Never!

It tak es

more than that, my friend, to wipe two of the most famous

constructors oﬀ the face of the globe!

Come, T rurl!

Chin up!"

Encouraged by these wor ds, Trurl ran up the stairs af ter

Klapaucius. Ther e was not a soul outside in the squar e. Amid clouds of dust and the gaunt sk eletons of demolished

homes, stood the machine, higher than the town hall tower

itself, puﬃng steam, cover ed with the blood of powder ed

brick and smear ed with chalk. "Careful!" whisper ed Klapaucius. "It doesn't see us. L et's

take that ﬁrst str eet on the lef t, then tur n right, then

straight for those mountains. Ther e we can tak e refuge and

think of how to mak e the thing give up once and for all its

insane… Now!" he yelled, for the machine had just spotted

them and was char ging, making the pavement buckle. Breathless, they ran fr om the town and galloped along for

a mile or so, hearing behind them the thunder ous stride of

the colossus that followed r elentlessly .

"I know that ravine!" Klapaucius suddenly cried. "That's

the bed of a dried- out str eam and it leads to cliﬀs and caves

—faster, faster, the thing'll have to stop soon!…"

So they raced uphill, stumbling and waving their ar ms to

keep their balance, but the machine still gained on them. Scrambling up over the gravel of the dried- out riverbed,

they r eached a cr evice in the perpendicular r ock and, seeing

high above them the murk y mouth of a cave, began to climb

frantically towar d it, no longer caring about the loose stones

that ﬂew fr om under their feet. The opening in the r ock

breathed chill and darkness. As quickly as they could, they

leaped inside, ran a few e xtra steps, then stopped. "Well, her e at least we'r e safe," said T rurl, calm once

again. "I'll just tak e a look, to see wher e it got stuck…"

"Be car eful," cautioned Klapaucius. T rurl inched his way to

the edge of the cave, leaned out, and immediately jumped

back in fright. "It's coming up the mountain!!" he cried. "Don't wor ry, it'll never be able to get in her e," said

Klapaucius, not altogether convinced. "But what's that?

Is it

getting dark?

Oh no!"

At that moment a gr eat shadow blotted out the bit of sk y

visible thr ough the mouth of the cave, and in its place

appear ed a smooth steel wall with r ows of rivets. It was the

machine slowly closing with the r ock, ther eby sealing up the

cave as if with a mighty metal lid. "We're trapped…" whisper ed Trurl, his voice br eaking oﬀ

when the darkness became absolute. "That was idiotic on our part!" Klapaucius e xclaimed,

furious. "T o jump into a cave that it could bar ricade!

How

could we have done such a thing?"

"What do you think it's waiting for now?" ask ed Trurl af ter

a long pause. "For us to give up—that doesn't tak e any gr eat brains."

Again ther e was silence. T rurl tiptoed in the darkness,

hands outstr etched, in the dir ection of the opening, running

his ﬁngers along the stone until he touched the smooth

steel, which was war m, as if heated fr om within…

"I feel T rurl …" boomed the ir on voice. T rurl hastily

retreated, took a seat alongside his friend, and for some

time they sat ther e, motionless. A t last Klapaucius

whisper ed:

"Ther e's no sense our just sitting her e. I'll try to r eason

with it…"

"That's hopeless," said T rurl. "But go ahead. P erhaps it will

at least let you go fr ee…"

"Now, now, none of that!" said Klapaucius, patting him on

the back. And he gr oped his way towar d the mouth of the

cave and called: "Hello out ther e, can you hear us?"

"Yes," said the machine. "Listen, we'd lik e to apologize. Y ou see… well, ther e was a

little misunderstanding, true, but it was nothing, r eally. Trurl

had no intention of…"

"I'll pulverize T rurl!" said the machine. "But ﬁrst, he'll tell

me how much two and two mak es."

"Of course he will, of course he will, and you'll be happy

with his answer, and mak e it up with him for sur e, isn't that

right, T rurl?" said the mediator soothingly .

"Yes, of course…" mumbled T rurl. "Really?" said the machine. "Then how much is two and

two?"

"Fo… that is, seven…" said T rurl in an even lower voice. "Ha!

Not four, but seven, eh?" cr owed the machine. "Ther e, I told you so!"

"Seven, yes, seven, we always knew it was seven!"

Klapaucius eagerly agr eed. "Now will you, uh, let us go?" he

added cautiously .

"No. Let Trurl say how sor ry he is and tell me how much is

two times two…"

"And you'll let us go, if I do?" ask ed Trurl. "I don't know .

I'll think about it. I'm not making any deals. What's two times two?"

"But you pr obably will let us go, won't you?" said T rurl,

while Klapaucius pulled on his ar m and hissed in his ear :

"The thing's an imbecile, don't ar gue with it, for heaven's

sake!"

"I won't let you go, if I don't want to," said the machine. "You just tell me how much two times two is…"

Suddenly T rurl fell into a rage. "I'll tell you, I'll tell you all right!" he scr eamed. "T wo and

two is four and two times two is four, even if you stand on

your head, pound these mountains all to dust, drink the

ocean dry and swallow the sk y—do you hear?

T wo and two

is four!!"

"Trurl!

What ar e you saying?

Have you tak en leave of your

senses?

T wo and two is seven, nice machine!

Seven,

seven!!" howled Klapaucius, trying to dr own out his friend. "No!

It's four!

F our and only four, four fr om the beginning

to the end of time—FOUR!!" bellowed T rurl, gr owing hoarse. The r ock beneath their feet was seized with a feverish

tremor .

The machine moved away fr om the cave, letting in a little

pale light, and gave a pier cing scr eam:

"That's not true!

It's seven!

Say it's seven or I'll hit you!"

"Never!" r oared Trurl, as if he no longer car ed what

happened, and pebbles and dirt rained down on their heads,

for the machine had begun to ram its eight-story hulk again

and again into the wall of stone, hurling itself against the

mountainside until huge boulders br oke away and went

tumbling down into the valley .

Thunder and sulfur ous fumes ﬁlled the cave, and sparks

ﬂew fr om the blows of steel on r ock, yet thr ough all this

pandemonium one could still mak e out, now and then, the

ragged voice of T rurl bawling:

"Two and two is four!

T wo and two is four!!" Klapaucius

attempted to shut his friend's mouth by for ce, but, violently

thrown oﬀ, he gave up, sat and cover ed his head with his

arms. Not for a moment did the machine's mad eﬀorts ﬂag,

and it seemed that any minute now the ceiling would

collapse, crush the prisoners and bury them for ever. But

when they had lost all hope, and the air was thick with acrid

smok e and choking dust, ther e was suddenly a hor rible

scraping, and a sound lik e a slow e xplosion, louder than all

the maniacal banging and battering, and the air whooshed,

and the black wall that block ed the cave was whisk ed away,

as if by a hur ricane, and monstr ous chunks of r ock came

crashing down af ter it. The echoes of that avalanche still

rumbled and r everberated in the valley below when the two

friends peer ed out of their cave. They saw the machine. It

lay smashed and ﬂattened, nearly br oken in half by an

enormous boulder that had landed in the middle of its eight

ﬂoors. W ith the gr eatest car e they pick ed their way down

through the smoking rubble. In or der to r each the riverbed,

it was necessary to pass the r emains of the machine, which

resembled the wr eck of some mighty vessel thr own up upon

a beach. W ithout a wor d, the two stopped together in the

shadow of its twisted hull. The machine still quiver ed

slightly, and one could hear something tur ning, cr eaking

feebly, within. "Yes, this is the bad end you've come to, and two and two

is—as it always was—" began T rurl, but just then the

machine made a faint, bar ely audible cr oaking noise and

said, for the last time, "SEVEN."

Then something snapped inside, a few stones dribbled

down fr om over head, and now befor e them lay nothing but

a lifeless mass of scrap. The two constructors e xchanged a

look and silently, without any further comment or

conversation, walk ed back the way they came.

A Good Shellacking

Someone was knocking at the door of Klapaucius the

constructor .

He look ed out and saw a potbellied machine on

four short legs. "Who ar e you and what do you want?" he ask ed. "I'm a Machine to Grant Y our Every W ish and have been

sent her e by your good friend and colleague, T rurl the

Magniﬁcent, as a gif t."

"A gif t, eh?" r eplied Klapaucius, whose feelings for T rurl

were mix ed, to say the least. He was particularly irk ed by

the phrase "T rurl the Magniﬁcent." But af ter a little thought

he said, "All right, you can come in."

He had it stand in the cor ner by the grandfather clock

while he r eturned to his work, a squat machine on thr ee

short legs, which was almost completed—he was just

putting on the ﬁnishing touches. A fter a while the Machine

to Grant Y our Every W ish clear ed its thr oat and said:

"I'm still her e."

"I haven't for gotten you," said Klapaucius, not looking up. After another while the machine clear ed its thr oat again and

asked:

"May I ask what you'r e making ther e?"

"Are you a Machine to Grant W ishes or a Machine to Ask

Questions?" said Klapaucius, but added: "I need some blue

paint."

"I hope it's the right shade," said the machine, opening a

door in its belly and pulling out a buck et of blue. Klapaucius

dipped his brush in it without a wor d and began to paint. In

the ne xt few hours he needed sandpaper, some

Carborundum, a brace and bit, white paint and one No .

screw, all of which the machine handed over on the spot. That evening he cover ed his work with a sheet of canvas,

had dinner, then pulled up a chair opposite the machine and

said:

"Now we'll see what you can do .

So you say you can grant

every wish…"

"Most every wish," r eplied the machine modestly .

"The

paint, sandpaper and No .

5 scr ew wer e satisfactory, I hope?"

"Quite, quite," said Klapaucius. "But now I have in mind

something a bit mor e diﬃcult. If you can't do it, I'll r eturn

you to your master with my kind thanks and a pr ofessional

opinion."

"All right, what is it?" ask ed the machine, ﬁdgeting. "A Trurl," said Klapaucius. "I want a T rurl, the spit and

image of T rurl himself, so alik e that no one could ever tell

them apart."

The machine mutter ed and hummed and ﬁnally said:

"Very well, I'll mak e you a T rurl. But please handle him

with car e—he is, af ter all, a truly magniﬁcent constructor ."

"Oh but of course, you needn't wor ry about that," said

Klapaucius. "W ell, wher e is it?"

"What, right away?" said the machine. "A T rurl isn't a No .

screw, you know .

It'll tak e time."

But it wasn't long at all befor e the door in the machine's

belly opened and a T rurl climbed out. Klapaucius look ed it

up and down and ar ound, touched it, tapped it, but ther e

wasn't any doubt: her e was a T rurl as much lik e the original

Trurl as two peas in a pod. This T rurl squinted a little,

unaccustomed to the light, but otherwise behaved in a

perfectly nor mal fashion. "Hello, T rurl!" said Klapaucius. "Hello, Klapaucius!

But wait, how did I get her e?" T rurl

answer ed, clearly bewilder ed. "Oh, you just dr opped in. … Y ou know, I haven't seen you

in ages. How do you lik e my place?"

"Fine, ﬁne… What do you have ther e under that canvas?"

"Nothing much. W on't you tak e a seat?"

"Well, I r eally ought to be going. It's getting dark…"

"Don't rush oﬀ, you just got her e!" pr otested Klapaucius. "And you haven't seen my cellar yet."

"Your cellar?"

"Yes, you should ﬁnd it most inter esting. This way…"

And Klapaucius put an ar m around T rurl and led him to the

cellar, wher e he tripped him, pinned him down and quickly

tied him up, then took out a big cr owbar and began to

wallop the daylights out of him. T rurl howled, called for help,

cursed, begged for mer cy, but Klapaucius didn't stop and

the blows rang out and echoed in the dark and empty night. "Ouch!

Ouch!!

Why ar e you beating me?!" yelled T rurl,

cowering. "It gives me pleasur e," explained Klapaucius, swinging

back. "Y ou should try it sometime, T rurl!"

And he landed him one on the head, which boomed lik e a

drum. "If you don't let me go at once, I'll tell the King and he'll

have you thr own in his deepest dungeon!!" scr eamed T rurl. "Oh no he won't. And do you know why?" ask ed

Klapaucius, sitting down for a moment to catch his br eath. "Tell me," said T rurl, glad of the r eprieve. "Because you'r e not the r eal Trurl. T rurl, you see, built a

Machine to Grant Y our Every W ish and sent it her e as a gif t;

to test it out, I had it mak e you!

And now I'm going to knock

oﬀ your head, put it at the foot of my bed and use it for a

bootjack."

"You monster!

Why ar e you doing this to me?"

"I already told you: it gives me pleasur e. But enough of

this idle chatter!" And Klapaucius got up and this time

picked up a huge bludgeon in both hands—but T rurl cried

out:

"Wait!

Stop!

I have something to tell you!!"

"I wonder what you could possibly tell me to k eep me fr om

using your head as a bootjack," r eplied Klapaucius. Trurl quickly yelled:

"I'm not any T rurl fr om a machine!

I'm the r eal Trurl —I

only wanted to ﬁnd out what you've been doing lately

behind closed doors and drawn curtains, so I built a

machine, hid in its belly and had it tak e me her e, pretending

to be a gif t!"

"Come now, that's an obvious fabrication and not even

clever!" said Klapaucius, hef ting his bludgeon. "Don't waste

your br eath, I can see right thr ough you. Y ou came out of a

machine that grants wishes, and if it manufactur es paint

and sandpaper, a brace and bit, and a No .

5 scr ew, it can

surely manufactur e you!"

"I had all that pr epared befor ehand in its belly!" cried

Trurl. "It wasn't har d to anticipate what you'd need in your

work!

I swear I'm telling the truth!"

"Are you trying to tell me that my good friend and

colleague, T rurl the Magniﬁcent, is nothing but a common

sneak?

No, that I will never believe!" r eplied Klapaucius. "Take that!"

And he let him have it. "That's for slandering my good friend T rurl!

And tak e that!

And that!"

And he let him have it again, and again, clubbing and

clobbering until his ar m was too tir ed to club or clobber

anymor e. "Now I'll have a little nap and r est up," said Klapaucius,

throwing aside the bludgeon. "But don't you wor ry, I'll be

back…" And he lef t, and soon was snoring so loud you could

hear it even in the cellar .

Trurl writhed and twisted until he

loosened his bonds enough to slip oﬀ the knots, got up,

crept back to the machine, climbed inside and took oﬀ for

home at a gallop. Klapaucius meanwhile was watching the

escape fr om his bedr oom window, pr essing a hand over his

mouth to k eep fr om laughing out loud. The ne xt day he

went to pay T rurl a visit. It was a gloomy and silent T rurl that

let him in. The r oom was dark, but even so, Klapaucius

could see that T rurl's person bor e the marks of a good

shellacking—though it was appar ent that T rurl had gone to

some tr ouble to touch up the scratches and hammer out the

dents. "Why so gloomy?" ask ed a cheerful Klapaucius. "I came to

thank you for the nice gif t—what a shame, though, it ran oﬀ

while I slept, and in such a hur ry that it lef t the door open!"

"It seems to me," snapped T rurl, "that you somewhat

misused, or should I say abused, my gif t. Oh, you needn't

bother to e xplain, the machine told me everything. Y ou had

it mak e me, me, then lur ed me, I mean the copy of me, to

the cellar, wher e you beat it unmer cifully!

And af ter this

great insult to my person, af ter this act of the black est

ingratitude, you dar e show your face her e as if nothing

happened!

What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I really don't understand why you'r e so angry," said

Klapaucius. "It's true I had the machine mak e a copy of you,

and I must say it was absolutely perfect, an amazing

likeness. As far as the beating goes, well, your machine

must have e xaggerated a little—I did give the artiﬁcial T rurl

a pok e or two, but only to see if it was well made, and

perhaps also to test its r eﬂexes, which wer e quite good, by

the way .

It tur ned out to be very much on its toes, and even

tried to ar gue that it was r eally you, can you imagine—?

course I didn't believe it, but then it swor e the gif t wasn't a

gift at all, but some sort of low and under handed trick. W ell,

I had to defend the honor of my good friend, you

understand, so I thrashed it some for slandering you so

shamelessly .

On the other hand I found it to be e xtremely

intelligent; so you see, T rurl, it r esembled you mentally as

well as physically .

You ar e indeed a gr eat and magniﬁcent

constructor, which is pr ecisely what I came to tell you so

early in the mor ning!"

"Well, yes, in that case," said T rurl, considerably

appeased. "Though your use of the Machine to Grant Y our

Every W ish was not, I would say, the most fortunate …"

"Oh yes, one other thing I wanted to ask," said Klapau-

cius, all innocence. "What did you do with the artiﬁcial T rurl?

Could I see it?"

"It was beside itself with rage," e xplained T rurl. "It said it

would ambush you by that mountain pass near your house

and tear you limb fr om limb. I tried to r eason with it, but it

called me names, ran out into the night and started putting

together all sorts of booby traps for you—and so, dear

Klapaucius, though you had insulted me, I r emember ed our

old friendship and decided to r emove this thr eat to your life

and limb. Hence I had to disassemble it…"

And he touched a few nuts and bolts on the ﬂoor with his

shoe, and sighed. Wher eupon they e xchanged kind wor ds, shook hands and

parted the best of friends. From that time on, T rurl did nothing but tell everyone how

he had given Klapaucius a Machine to Grant Y our Every

Wish, how then Klapaucius had insulted him by having it

make an artiﬁcial T rurl, which he pr oceeded to beat black-

and-blue; how then this e xcellently constructed copy of the

great constructor made clever lies to save itself, and ﬁnally

managed to escape while Klapaucius slept, and how T rurl

himself, the r eal Trurl, eventually had to disassemble the

artiﬁcial T rurl to pr otect his good friend and colleague fr om

its vengeance. T rurl told this story so of ten and at such

length, elaborating on his glorious achievement (and never

failing to call on Klapaucius as a witness), that it r eached

the ears of the R oyal Court at last, and now no one spok e of

Trurl other than with the utmost r espect, though not long

ago he had been commonly called the Constructor of the

World's Stupidest Computer .

When Klapaucius hear d, one

day, that the King himself had r ewar ded T rurl handsomely

and decorated him with the Or der of the Gr eat P arallax, he

threw up his hands and cried:

"What?

Her e I was able to see thr ough his little game and

gave him so good a shellacking for it that he had to sneak

home in the middle of the night and patch himself up, and

even then he look ed a sight!

And for that they decorate him,

praise him, shower him with riches?

O tempora, O mor es!…"

Furious, he went home, lock ed himself in and dr ew the

blinds. He too had been working on a Machine to Grant Y our

Every W ish, only T rurl had beat him to it.

The Seven Sallies

of Trurl and Klapaucius

The First Sally

Or The Trap

of Gargantius

When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today,

and all the stars wer e lined up in their pr oper places, so you

could easily count them fr om lef t to right, or top to bottom,

and the lar ger and bluer ones wer e set apart, and the

smaller, yellowing types pushed oﬀ to the cor ners as bodies

of a lower grade, when ther e was not a speck of dust to be

found in outer space, nor any nebular debris—in those good

old days it was the custom for constructors, once they had

received their Diploma of P erpetual Omnipotence with

distinction, to sally forth of ttimes and bring to distant lands

the beneﬁt of their e xpertise. And so it happened that, in

keeping with this ancient custom, T rurl and Klapaucius, who

could kindle or e xtinguish suns as easily as shelling peas,

did ventur e out on such a voyage. When the vastness of the

traveled void had erased in them all r ecollection of their

native skies, they saw a planet up ahead—not too little, not

too big, just about right—with one continent only, down the

middle of which ran a bright r ed line: everything on one side

was yellow, everything on the other, pink. R ealizing at once

that her e wer e two neighboring kingdoms, the constructors

held a brief council of war befor e landing. "With two kingdoms," said T rurl, "it's best you tak e one,

and I the other .

That way nobody's feelings get hurt."

"Fine," said Klapaucius. "But what if they ask for military

aid?

Such things happen."

"True, they could demand weapons, even superweapons,"

Trurl agr eed. "W e'll simply r efuse."

"And if they insist, and thr eaten us?" r eturned Klapaucius. "This too can happen."

"Let's see," said T rurl, switching on the radio .

It blar ed

martial music, a r ousing mar ch. "I have an idea," said Klapaucius, tur ning it oﬀ.

"W e can

use the Gar gantius Eﬀect. What do you think?"

"Ah, the Gar gantius Eﬀect!" cried T rurl. "I never hear d of

anyone actually using it. But ther e's always a ﬁrst time. Y es,

why not?"

"We'll both be pr epared to use it," Klapaucius e xplained. "But it's imperative that we use it together, otherwise we'r e

in serious tr ouble."

"No pr oblem," said T rurl. He took a small golden bo x out of

his pock et and opened it. Inside, on velvet, lay two white

beads. "Y ou keep one, I'll k eep the other .

Look at yours

every evening; if it tur ns pink, that'll mean I've started and

you must too ."

"So be it," said Klapaucius and put his bead away .

Then

they landed, shook hands and set oﬀ in opposite dir ections. The kingdom to which T rurl r epair ed was ruled by King

Atrocitus. He was a militarist to the cor e, and an incr edible

miser besides. T o relieve the r oyal tr easury, he did away

with all punishments e xcept for the death sentence. His

favorite occupation was to abolish unnecessary oﬃces;

since that included the oﬃce of e xecutioner, every

condemned citizen was obliged to do his own beheading, or

else—on rar e occasions of r oyal clemency—have it done by

his ne xt of kin. Of the arts A trocitus supported only those

that entailed little e xpense, such as choral r ecitation, chess

and military calisthenics. The art of war he held in

particularly high esteem, for a victorious campaign br ought

in excellent r eturns; on the other hand, one could pr operly

prepare for war only during an interval of peace, so the King

advocated peace, though in moderation. His gr eatest r eform

was the nationalization of high tr eason. As the neighboring

kingdom was continually sending spies, he cr eated the

oﬃce of R oyal Infor mer, who, thr ough a staﬀ of subor dinate

traitors, would hand over State secr ets to enemy agents for

certain sums of money .

Though as a rule the agents

purchased only outdated secr ets—those wer e less

expensive and besides, they wer e held accountable to their

own tr easury for every penny spent. The subjects of A trocitus r ose early, wer e well-behaved,

and work ed long hours. They wove fascines and gabions for

fortiﬁcations, made guns and denunciations. In or der that

the kingdom not be ﬂooded with the latter (which in fact

had happened during the r eign of Bartholocaust the

Walleyed several hundr ed years befor e), whoever wr ote too

many denunciations was r equir ed to pay a special luxury

tax. In this way they wer e kept at a r easonable level. Arriving at the Court of A trocitus, T rurl oﬀer ed his services. The King— not surprisingly—wanted powerful instruments of

war. Trurl ask ed for a few days to think it over, and as soon

as he was alone in the little cubicle they had assigned to

him, he look ed at the bead in the golden bo x. It was white

but, as he look ed, tur ned slowly pink. "Aha," he said to

himself, "time to start with Gar gantius!" And without further

delay he took out his secr et for mulae and set to work. Klapaucius meanwhile found himself in the other kingdom,

which was ruled by the mighty King F erocitus. Her e

everything look ed quite diﬀer ent than in A trocia. This

monar ch too delighted in campaigns and mar ches, and he

too spent heavily on ar maments—but in an enlightened

way, for he was a most gener ous lor d and a gr eat patr on of

the arts. He loved unifor ms, gold braid, stripes and tassels,

spurs, brigadiers with bells, destr oyers, swor ds and

chargers. A person of k een sensibilities, he tr embled every

time he christened a new destr oyer. And he lavishly

rewar ded paintings of battle scenes, patriotically paying

accor ding to the number of fallen foes depicted, so that, on

those endless panoramic canvases with which the kingdom

was pack ed, mountains of enemy dead r eached up to the

sky. In practice he was an autocrat, yet with libertarian

views; a martinet, yet magnanimous. On every anniversary

of his cor onation he instituted r eforms. Once he or dered the

guillotines deck ed with ﬂowers, another time had them oiled

so they wouldn't squeak, and once he gilded the

executioners' ax es and had them all r esharpened—out of

humanitarian considerations. F erocitus was not overly

dainty, yet he did fr own upon e xcesses, and ther efore by

special decr ee regulated and standar dized all wheels, racks,

spikes, scr ews, chains and clubs. Beheadings of

wrongthink ers—a rar e enough event— took place with pomp

and pageantry, brass bands, speeches, parades and ﬂoats. This high-minded monar ch also had a theory, which he put

into action, and this was the Theory of Universal Happiness. It is well known, certainly, that one does not laugh because

one is amused, but rather, one is amused because one

laughs. If then everyone maintains that things just couldn't

be better, attitudes immediately impr ove. The subjects of

Ferocitus wer e thus r equir ed, for their own good, to go about

shouting how wonderful everything was, and the old,

indeﬁnite gr eeting of "Hello" was changed by the King to the

more emphatic "Hallelujah!" —though childr en up to the age

of fourteen wer e per mitted to say, "W ow!" or "Whee!", and

the old-timers, "Swell!"

Ferocitus r ejoiced to see his people in such good spirits. Whenever he dr ove by in his destr oyer-shaped car riage,

crowds in the str eet would cheer, and whenever he

graciously waved his r oyal hand, those up fr ont would cry :

"Wow!"—"Hallelujah!"—"T erriﬁc!" A democrat at heart, he

liked to stop and chat awhile with old soldiers who had been

around and seen much, lik ed to hear tales of der ring-do told

at bivouacs, and of ten, when some for eign dignitary came

for an audience, he would out of the blue clap him on the

knee with his baton and bellow : "Have at them!"—or :

"Swiggle the mizzen ther e, mates!"—or : "Thunderation!" F or

there was nothing he loved so much or held so dear as

gumption, crust and pluck, r oughness and toughness,

powder, chowder, har dtack, gr og and ammo .

And so,

whenever he was melancholy, he had his tr oops mar ch by

befor e him, singing: "Scr ew up yer courage, nuts to the

foe"—"When cur rents lag, crank out the ﬂag"—"W e'll scrap,

stout lads, until we'r e nought but scrap"—or the r ousing

anthem: "L ock, stock, and bar rel." And he commanded that,

when he died, the old guar d should sing his favorite song

over the grave: "Old R obots Never R ust."

Klapaucius did not get to the court of this gr eat ruler all at

once. A t the ﬁrst village he came to, he knock ed on several

doors, but no one opened up. F inally he noticed in the

deserted str eet a small child; it appr oached him and ask ed

in a thin, high voice:

"Wanna buy any, mister?

They'r e cheap."

"What ar e you selling?" inquir ed Klapaucius, surprised. "State secr ets," r eplied the child, lif ting the edge of its

smock to give him a glimpse of some mobilization plans. This surprised Klapaucius even mor e, and he said:

"No, thank you, my little one. But can you tell me wher e I

might ﬁnd the mayor?"

"What'cha want the mayor for?" ask ed the child. "I wish to speak with him."

"In secr et?"

"It mak es no diﬀer ence."

"Need a secr et agent?

My dad's a secr et agent. Dependable and cheap."

"Very well then, tak e me to your dad," said Klapaucius,

seeing he would get nowher e with the child. The child led

him to one of the houses. Inside, though it was in the middle

of the day, a family sat ar ound a lighted lamp—a gray

grandfather in a r ocking chair, a grandmother knitting

socks, and their fully gr own and numer ous pr ogeny, each

busy at his own household task. As soon as Klapaucius

enter ed, they jumped up and seized him; the knitting

needles tur ned out to be handcuﬀs, the lamp a micr ophone,

and the grandmother the local chief of police. "They must have made a mistak e," thought Klapaucius,

when he was beaten and thr own in jail. P atiently he waited

through the night—ther e was nothing else he could do .

The

dawn came and r evealed the cobwebs on the stone walls of

his cell, also the rusted r emains of pr evious prisoners. A fter

a length of time he was tak en and inter rogated. It tur ned

out that the little child as well as the houses—the whole

village, in fact—all of it was a plant to trick for eign spies. But

Klapaucius did not have to face the rigors of a long trial; the

proceedings wer e quickly over .

For attempting to establish

contact with the infor mer-dad the punishment was a thir d-

class guillotining, because the local administration had

already allotted funds to buy out enemy agents for that

ﬁscal year, and Klapaucius, on his part, r epeatedly r efused

to pur chase any State secr ets fr om the police. Nor did he

have suﬃcient r eady cash to mitigate the oﬀense. Still, the

prisoner continued to pr otest his innocence—not that the

judge believed a wor d of it; even if he had, to fr ee him lay

outside his jurisdiction. So the case was sent to a higher

court, and in the meantime Klapaucius was subjected to

tortur e, though mor e as a matter of for m than out of any

real necessity .

In about a week his case took a tur n for the

better; ﬁnally acquitted, he pr oceeded to the Capitol wher e,

after receiving instructions in the rules and r egulations of

court etiquette, he obtained the honor of a private audience

with the King. They also gave him a bugle, for every citizen

was obliged to announce his comings and goings in oﬃcial

places with appr opriate ﬂourishes, and such was the ir on

discipline of that land, that the sun was not consider ed risen

without the blowing of r eveille. Ferocitus did in fact demand new weapons. Klapaucius

promised to fulﬁll this r oyal wish; his plan, he assur ed the

King, r epresented a radical departur e from the accepted

principles of military action. What kind of ar my—he ask ed

ﬁrst—always emer ged victorious?

The one that had the

ﬁnest leaders and the best disciplined soldiers. The leader

gave the or ders, the soldier car ried them out; the for mer

therefore had to be wise, the latter obedient. However, to

the wisdom of the mind, even of the military mind, ther e

were certain natural limits. A gr eat leader, mor eover, could

come up against an equally gr eat leader .

Then too, he might

fall in battle and leave his legion leaderless, or do

something even mor e dreadful, since he was, as it wer e,

professionally trained to think, and the object of his

thoughts was power .

Was it not danger ous to have a host of

old generals in the ﬁeld, their rusty heads so pack ed with

tactics and strategy that they started pining for the thr one?

Had not mor e than one kingdom come to grief ther eby?

was clear, then, that leaders wer e a necessary evil; the

problem lay in making that evil unnecessary .

To go on: the

discipline of an ar my consisted in the pr ecise e xecution of

orders. Ideally, we would have a thousand hearts and minds

molded into one heart, one mind, one will. Military

regimens, drills, e xercises and maneuvers all served this

end. The ultimate goal was thus an ar my that literally acted

as one man, in itself both cr eator and e xecutor of its

objectives. But wher e was the embodiment of such

perfection to be found?

Only in the individual, for no one

was obeyed as willingly as one's own self, and no one

carried out or ders as cheerfully as the one who gave those

orders. Nor could an individual be dispersed, and

insubor dination or mutiny against himself was quite out of

the question. The pr oblem then was to tak e this eager ness

to serve oneself, this self -worship which mark ed the

individual, and mak e it a pr operty of a for ce of thousands. How could this be done?

Her e Klapaucius began to e xplain

to the k eenly inter ested King the simple ideas—for ar e not

all things of genius simple?—discover ed by the gr eat

Gargantius. Into each r ecruit (he e xplained) a plug is scr ewed in fr ont,

a sock et in back. Upon the command "Close up those

ranks!" the plugs and sock ets connect and, wher e only a

moment befor e you had a cr owd of civilians, ther e stands a

battalion of perfect soldiers. When separate minds, hitherto

occupied with all sorts of nonmartial nonsense, mer ge into

one r egimental consciousness, not only is ther e automatic

discipline, for the ar my has become a single ﬁghting

machine composed of a million parts—but ther e is also

wisdom. And that wisdom is dir ectly pr oportional to the

numbers involved. A platoon possesses the acumen of a

master ser geant; a company is as shr ewd as a lieutenant

colonel, a brigade smarter than a ﬁeld marshal; and a

division is worth mor e than all the ar my's strategists and

specialists put together .

In this way one can cr eate

formations of truly staggering perspicacity .

And of course

they will follow their own or ders to the letter .

This puts an

end to the vagaries and r eckless escapades of individuals,

the dependence on a particular commander's capabilities,

the constant rivalries, envies and enmities between

generals. And detachments, once joined, should not be put

asunder, for that pr oduces nothing but confusion. "An ar my

whose only leader is itself—this is my idea!" Klapaucius

concluded. The King was much impr essed with his wor ds

and ﬁnally said:

"Return to your quarters. I shall consult my general

staﬀ…"

"Oh, do not do this, Y our R oyal Highness!" e xclaimed the

clever Klapaucius, feigning gr eat conster nation. "That is

exactly what the Emper or Turbulon did, and his staﬀ, to

protect their own positions, advised him against it; shortly

thereafter, the neighbor of T urbulon, King Enamuel, attack ed

with a r evolutionized ar my and r educed the empir e to

ashes, though his for ces wer e eight times smaller!"

Wher eupon he bowed, went to his r oom and inspected the

little bead, which was r ed as a beet; that meant T rurl had

done lik ewise at the court of A trocitus. The King soon

ordered Klapaucius to r evolutionize one platoon of infantry;

joined in spirit and now entir ely of one mind, this tiny unit

cried, "Kill, kill!" swooped down on thr ee squadr ons of the

King's dragoons, who wer e armed to the teeth and led

moreover by six distinguished lectur ers of the A cademy of

the General Staﬀ—and cut them to ribbons. Gr eat was the

grief of the generals, marshals, admirals and commanders

in chief, for the King sent them all into a speedy r etirement;

fully convinced of the eﬃcacy of Klapaucius' invention, he

ordered the entir e army revolutionized. And so munitions electricians work ed day and night,

turning out plugs and sock ets by the carload, and these

were installed as necessary in all the bar racks. Cover ed with

medals, Klapaucius r ode fr om gar rison to gar rison and

supervised everything. T rurl far ed similarly in the kingdom

of Atrocitus, e xcept that, due to that monar ch's well-known

parsimony, he had to content himself with the lifelong title

of Gr eat Betrayer of the F atherland. Both kingdoms wer e

now pr eparing for war .

In the heat of mobilization,

conventional as well as nuclear weapons wer e brought into

battle trim, and cannons and atoms subjected to the utmost

spit and polish, as per r egulations. Their work now all but

done, the two constructors pack ed their bags in secr et, to

be ready to meet, when the time came, at the appointed

place near the ship they had lef t in the for est. Meanwhile miracles wer e taking place among the rank

and ﬁle, particularly in the infantry .

Companies no longer

had to practice their mar ching drills, nor did they need to

count oﬀ to lear n their number, just as one who has two

legs never mistak es his right for his lef t, nor ﬁnds it

necessary to calculate how many of himself ther e are. It was

a joy to see those new units do the F orwar d Mar ch, About

Face and Company Halt; and af terwar ds, when they wer e

dismissed, they took to chatting, and later, thr ough the

open windows of the bar racks one could hear voices

booming in chorus, disputing such matters as absolute

truth, analytic versus synthetic a priori pr opositions, and the

Thing-in-itself, for their collective minds had alr eady

attained that level. V arious philosophical systems wer e

hammer ed out, till ﬁnally a certain battalion of sappers

arrived at a position of total solipsism, claiming that nothing

really e xisted beyond itself .

And since fr om this it followed

that ther e was no King, nor any enemy, this battalion was

quietly disconnected and its members r eassigned to units

that ﬁr mly adher ed to epistemological r ealism. A t about the

same time, in the kingdom of A trocitus, the sixth

amphibious division forsook naval operations for navel

contemplation and, thor oughly immersed in mysticism, very

nearly dr owned. Somehow or other, as a r esult of this

incident, war was declar ed, and the tr oops, rumbling and

clanking, slowly moved towar ds the bor der fr om either side. The law of Gar gantius pr oceeded to work with ine xorable

logic. As for mation joined for mation, in pr oportion ther e

developed an esthetic sense, which r eached its ape x at the

level of a r einfor ced division, so that the columns of such a

force easily became sidetrack ed, chasing oﬀ af ter

butterﬂies, and when the motorized corps named for

Bartholocaust appr oached an enemy fortr ess that had to be

taken by stor m, the plan of attack drawn up that night

turned out to be a splendid painting of the battlements,

done mor eover in the abstractionist spirit, which ran counter

to all military traditions. Among the artillery corps the

weightiest metaphysical questions wer e consider ed, and,

with an absentmindedness characteristic of gr eat genius,

these lar ge units lost their weapons, misplaced their

equipment and completely for got that ther e was a war on. As for whole ar mies, their psyches wer e beset by a

multitude of comple xes, which of ten happens to overly

developed intellects, and it became necessary to assign to

each a special psychiatric motor cycle brigade, which applied

appropriate therapy on the mar ch. In the meantime, to the thunder ous accompaniment of ﬁfe

and drum, both sides slowly got into position. Six r egiments

of shock tr oops, supported by a battery of howitzers and

two back up battalions, composed, with the assistance of a

ﬁring squad, a sonnet entitled "On the Mystery of Being,"

and this took place during guar d duty .

Ther e was

considerable confusion in both ar mies; the Eightieth

Marlabar dian Corps, for instance, maintained that the whole

concept of "enemy" needed to be mor e clearly deﬁned, as it

was full of logical contradictions and might even be

altogether meaningless. Paratr oopers tried to ﬁnd algorithms for the local ter rain,

ﬂanks k ept colliding with centers, so at last the two kings

sent airbor ne adjutants and couriers e xtraor dinary to r estor e

order in the ranks. But each of these, having ﬂown or

galloped up to the corps in question, befor e he could

discover the cause of the disturbance, instantly lost his

identity in the corporate identity, and the kings wer e left

without adjutants or couriers. Consciousness, it seemed,

formed a deadly trap, in that one could enter it, but never

leave. Atrocitus himself saw how his cousin, the Grand P rince

Bullion, desiring to raise the spirits of his soldiers, leaped

into the fray, and how, as soon as he had hook ed himself

into the line, his spirit was literally spirited away, and he

was no mor e. Sensing that something had gone amiss, F erocitus nodded

to the twelve buglers at his right hand. A trocitus, fr om the

top of his hill, did lik ewise; the buglers put the brass to their

lips and sounded the char ge on either side. A t this clarion

signal each ar my totally and completely link ed up. The

fearsome metallic clatter of closing contacts r everberated

over the futur e battleﬁeld; in the place of a thousand

bombar diers and gr enadiers, commandos, lancers, gunners,

snipers, sappers and marauders—ther e stood two giant

beings, who gazed at one another thr ough a million eyes

across a mighty plain that lay beneath billowing clouds. There was absolute silence. That famous culmination of

consciousness which the gr eat Gar gantius had pr edicted

with mathematical pr ecision was now r eached on both

sides. F or beyond a certain point militarism, a pur ely local

phenomenon, becomes civil, and this is because the

Cosmos Itself is by natur e wholly civilian, and indeed, the

minds of both ar mies had assumed truly cosmic pr oportions!

Thus, though on the outside ar mor still gleamed, as well as

the death-dealing steel of artillery, within there sur ged an

ocean of mutual good will, tolerance, an all-embracing

benevolence, and bright r eason. And so, standing on

opposite hilltops, their weapons sparkling in the sun, while

the drums continued to r oll, the two ar mies smiled at one

another .

Trurl and Klapaucius wer e just then boar ding their

ship, since that which they had planned had come to pass:

befor e the eyes of their mortiﬁed, infuriated rulers, both

armies went oﬀ hand in hand, picking ﬂowers beneath the

ﬂuﬀy white clouds, on the ﬁeld of the battle that never was.

The First Sally (A)

OR Trurl's

Electronic Bard

First of all, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, we

should state that this was, strictly speaking, a sally to

nowher e. In fact, T rurl never lef t his house thr oughout it—

except for a few trips to the hospital and an unimportant

excursion to some aster oid. Y et in a deeper and/or higher

sense this was one of the farthest sallies ever undertak en

by the famed constructor, for it very nearly took him beyond

the realm of possibility .

Trurl had once had the misfortune to build an enor mous

calculating machine that was capable of only one operation,

namely the addition of two and two, and that it did

incor rectly. As is r elated earlier in this volume, the machine

also pr oved to be e xtremely stubbor n, and the quar rel that

ensued between it and its cr eator almost cost the latter his

life. F rom that time on Klapaucius teased T rurl unmer cifully,

making comments at every opportunity, until T rurl decided

to silence him once and for all by building a machine that

could write poetry .

First Trurl collected eight hundr ed and

twenty tons of books on cyber netics and twelve thousand

tons of the ﬁnest poetry, then sat down to r ead it all. Whenever he felt he just couldn't tak e another chart or

equation, he would switch over to verse, and vice versa. After a while it became clear to him that the construction of

the machine itself was child's play in comparison with the

writing of the pr ogram. The pr ogram found in the head of an

average poet, af ter all, was written by the poet's civilization,

and that civilization was in tur n programmed by the

civilization that pr eceded it, and so on to the very Dawn of

Time, when those bits of infor mation that concer ned the

poet-to -be wer e still swirling about in the primor dial chaos

of the cosmic deep. Hence in or der to pr ogram a poetry

machine, one would ﬁrst have to r epeat the entir e Universe

from the beginning—or at least a good piece of it. Anyone else in T rurl's place would have given up then and

there, but our intr epid constructor was nothing daunted. He

built a machine and fashioned a digital model of the V oid, an

Electr ostatic Spirit to move upon the face of the electr olytic

waters, and he intr oduced the parameter of light, a

protogalactic cloud or two, and by degr ees work ed his way

up to the ﬁrst ice age—T rurl could move at this rate because

his machine was able, in one ﬁve-billionth of a second, to

simulate one hundr ed septillion events at forty octillion

diﬀer ent locations simultaneously .

And if anyone questions

these ﬁgur es, let him work it out for himself .

Next Trurl began to model Civilization, the striking of ﬁr es

with ﬂints and the tanning of hides, and he pr ovided for

dinosaurs and ﬂoods, bipedality and taillessness, then made

the paleopaleface (Albuminidis sapienria), which begat the

paleface, which begat the gadget, and so it went, fr om eon

to millennium, in the endless hum of electrical cur rents and

eddies. Of ten the machine tur ned out to be too small for the

computer simulation of a new epoch, and T rurl would have

to tack on an auxiliary unit—until he ended up, at last, with

a veritable metr opolis of tubes and ter minals, cir cuits and

shunts, all so tangled and involved that the devil himself

couldn't have made head or tail of it. But T rurl managed

somehow, he only had to go back twice —once, almost to

the beginning, when he discover ed that Abel had mur dered

Cain and not Cain Abel (the r esult, appar ently, of a defective

fuse), and once, only thr ee hundr ed million years back to

the middle of the Mesozoic, when af ter going fr om ﬁsh to

amphibian to r eptile to mammal, something odd took place

among the primates and instead of gr eat apes he came out

with gray drapes. A ﬂy, it seems, had gotten into the

machine and shorted out the polyphase step-down

directional widget. Otherwise everything went lik e a dr eam. Antiquity and the Middle Ages wer e recreated, then the

period of r evolutions and r eforms —which gave the machine

a few nasty jolts—and then civilization pr ogressed in such

leaps and bounds that T rurl had to hose down the coils and

cores repeatedly to k eep them fr om over heating. Towar ds the end of the twentieth century the machine

began to tr emble, ﬁrst sideways, then lengthwise-—for no

appar ent reason. This alar med T rurl; he br ought out cement

and grappling ir ons just in case. But fortunately these

weren't needed; instead of jumping its moorings, the

machine settled down and soon had lef t the twentieth

century far behind. Civilizations came and went ther eafter in

ﬁfty-thousand- year intervals: these wer e the fully intelligent

beings fr om whom T rurl himself stemmed. Spool upon spool

of computerized history was ﬁlled and ejected into storage

bins; soon ther e wer e so many spools, that even if you stood

at the top of the machine with high-power binoculars, you

wouldn't see the end of them. And all to construct some

versiﬁer!

But then, such is the way of scientiﬁc fanaticism. At last the pr ograms wer e ready; all that r emained was to

pick out the most applicable—else the electr opoet's

education would tak e several million years at the very least. During the ne xt two weeks T rurl fed general instructions

into his futur e electr opoet, then set up all the necessary

logic cir cuits, emotive elements, semantic centers. He was

about to invite Klapaucius to attend a trial run, but thought

better of it and started the machine himself .

It immediately

proceeded to deliver a lectur e on the grinding of crystallo -

graphical surfaces as an intr oduction to the study of sub-

molecular magnetic anomalies. T rurl bypassed half the logic

circuits and made the emotive mor e electr omotive; the

machine sobbed, went into hysterics, then ﬁnally said,

blubbering ter ribly, what a cruel, cruel world this was. T rurl

intensiﬁed the semantic ﬁelds and attached a str ength of

character component; the machine infor med him that fr om

now on he would car ry out its every wish and to begin with

add six ﬂoors to the nine it alr eady had, so it could better

meditate upon the meaning of e xistence. T rurl installed a

philosophical thr ottle instead; the machine fell silent and

sulked. Only af ter endless pleading and cajoling was he able

to get it to r ecite something: "I had a little fr oggy." That

appear ed to e xhaust its r epertoir e. Trurl adjusted,

modulated, e xpostulated, disconnected, ran checks,

reconnected, r eset, did everything he could think of, and the

machine pr esented him with a poem that made him thank

heaven Klapaucius wasn't ther e to laugh—imagine,

simulating the whole Universe fr om scratch, not to mention

Civilization in every particular, and to end up with such

dreadful dogger el!

Trurl put in six cliche ﬁlters, but they

snapped lik e matches; he had to mak e them out of pur e

corundum steel. This seemed to work, so he jack ed the

semanticity up all the way, plugged in an alter nating r hyme

generator—which nearly ruined everything, since the

machine r esolved to become a missionary among destitute

tribes on far -ﬂung planets. But at the very last minute, just

as he was r eady to give up and tak e a hammer to it, T rurl

was struck by an inspiration; tossing out all the logic

circuits, he r eplaced them with self -regulating

egocentripetal nar cissistors. The machine simper ed a little,

whimper ed a little, laughed bitterly, complained of an awful

pain on its thir d ﬂoor, said that in general it was fed up,

through, life was beautiful but men wer e such beasts and

how sor ry they'd all be when it was dead and gone. Then it

asked for pen and paper .

Trurl sighed with r elief, switched it

oﬀ and went to bed. The ne xt mor ning he went to see

Klapaucius. Klapaucius, hearing that he was invited to

attend the debut of T rurl's electr onic bar d, dropped

everything and followed—so eager was he to be an

eyewitness to his friend's humiliation.

Trurl let the machine war m up ﬁrst, k ept the power low,

ran up the metal stairs several times to tak e readings (the

machine was lik e the engine of a giant steamer, galleried,

with r ows of rivets, dials and valves on every tier)—till

ﬁnally, satisﬁed all the decimal places wer e wher e they

ought to be, he said yes, it was r eady now, and why not

start with something simple. Later, of course, when the

machine had gotten the feel of it, Klapaucius could ask it to

produce poetry on absolutely whatever topic he lik ed. Now the potentiometers indicated the machine's lyrical

capacitance was char ged to maximum, and T rurl, so nervous

his hands wer e shaking, thr ew the master switch. A voice,

slightly husk y but r emark ably vibrant and bewitching, said:

"Phlogisticosh. Rhomothriglyph. Floof ."

"Is that it?" inquir ed Klapaucius af ter a pause, e xtremely

polite. T rurl only bit his lip, gave the machine a few kicks of

current, and tried again. This time the voice came thr ough

much mor e clearly; it was a thrilling baritone, solemn yet

intriguingly sensual:

Pev't o' tay merlong gumin gots,

Untie yun furly pazzen ye,

Confr e an' ayzor, ayzor ots,

Bither de furloss bochr e blee!

"Am I missing something?" said Klapaucius, calmly

watching a panic-strick en Trurl struggling at the contr ols. Finally T rurl waved his ar ms in despair, dashed clattering

several ﬂights up the metal stairs, got down on all fours and

crawled into the machine thr ough a trapdoor; he hammer ed

away inside, swearing lik e a maniac, tightened something,

pried at something, crawled out again and ran frantically to

another tier .

At long last he let out a cry of triumph, thr ew a

burnt tube over his shoulder—it bounced oﬀ the railing and

fell to the ﬂoor, shattering at the feet of Klapau-cius. But

Trurl didn't bother to apologize; he quickly put in a new

tube, wiped his hands on a chammy cloth and holler ed down

for Klapaucius to try it now .

The following wor ds rang out:

Mockles!

F ent on silpen tr ee,

Block ards thr ee a-feening,

Mockles, what silps came to thee

In thy pantry dr eaming?

"Well, that's an impr ovement!" shouted T rurl, not entir ely

convinced. "The last line particularly, did you notice?"

"If this is all you have to show me…" said Klapaucius, the

very soul of politeness. "Damn!" said T rurl and again disappear ed inside the

machine. Ther e was a ﬁer ce banging and clanging, the

sputtering of shorted wir es and the muttering of an even

shorter temper, then T rurl stuck his head out of a trapdoor

on the thir d story and yelled, " Now try it!"

Klaupaucius complied. The electr onic bar d shudder ed from

stem to ster n and began:

Oft, in that wickless chalet all begor n,

Wher e whilom soughed the mossy sappertort

And you wer e wont to bong—

Trurl yank ed out a few cables in a fury, something rattled

and wheezed, the machine fell silent. Klapaucius laughed so

hard he had to sit on the ﬂoor .

Then suddenly, as T rurl was

rushing back and forth, ther e was a crackle, a clack, and

the machine with perfect poise said:

The P etty and the Small;

Are over come with gall ;

When Genius, having falter ed, fails to fall.

Klapaucius too, I ween,

Will tur n the deepest gr een

To hear such ﬂawless verse fr om Trurl's machine.

"Ther e you ar e, an epigram!

And wonderfully apr opos!"

laughed T rurl, racing down the metal stairs and ﬂinging

himself delightedly into his colleague's ar ms. Klapaucius,

quite tak en aback, was no longer laughing. "What, that?" he said. "That's nothing. Besides, you had it

all set up befor ehand."

"Setup?!"

"Oh, it's quite obvious… the ill-disguised hostility, the

poverty of thought, the crudeness of e xecution."

"All right, then ask it something else!

Whatever you lik e!

Go on!

What ar e you waiting for?

A fraid?!"

"Just a minute," said Klapaucius, annoyed. He was trying

to think of a r equest as diﬃcult as possible, awar e that any

argument on the quality of the verse the machine might be

able to pr oduce would be har d if not impossible to settle

either way .

Suddenly he brightened and said:

"Have it compose a poem—a poem about a hair cut!

But

lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, tr eachery,

retribution, quiet her oism in the face of certain doom!

Six

lines, cleverly r hymed, and every wor d beginning with the

letter s!!"

"And why not thr ow in a full e xposition of the general

theory of nonlinear automata while you'r e at it?" gr owled

Trurl. "Y ou can't give it such idiotic—"

But he didn't ﬁnish. A melodious voice ﬁlled the hall with

the following:

Seduced, shaggy Samson snor ed. She scissor ed short. Sor ely shor n,

Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,

Silently scheming,

Sightlessly seeking

Some savage, spectacular suicide.

"Well, what do you say to that?" ask ed Trurl, his ar ms

folded pr oudly .

But Klapaucius was alr eady shouting:

"Now all in g!

A sonnet, tr ochaic he xameter, about an old

cyclotr on who k ept sixteen artiﬁcial mistr esses, blue and

radioactive, had four wings, thr ee purple pavilions, two

lacquer ed chests, each containing e xactly one thousand

medallions bearing the lik eness of Czar Mur dicog the

Headless…"

"Grinding gleeful gears, Ger ontogyr on grabbed / Giggling

gynecobalt-6o golems," began the machine, but T rurl leaped

to the console, shut oﬀ the power and tur ned, defending the

machine with his body .

"Enough!" he said, hoarse with indignation. "How dar e you

waste a gr eat talent on such drivel?

Either give it decent

poems to write or I call the whole thing oﬀ!"

"What, those ar en't decent poems?" pr otested Klapaucius. "Certainly not!

I didn't build a machine to solve ridiculous

crosswor d puzzles!

That's hack work, not Gr eat Art!

Just give

it a topic, any topic, as diﬃcult as you lik e…"

Klapaucius thought, and thought some mor e. Finally he

nodded and said:

"Very well. L et's have a love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and

expressed in the language of pur e mathematics. T ensor

algebra mainly, with a little topology and higher calculus, if

need be. But with feeling, you understand, and in the

cyber netic spirit."

"Love and tensor algebra?

Have you tak en leave of your

senses?" T rurl began, but stopped, for his electr onic bar d

was alr eady declaiming:

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,

Wher e dyads tr ead the fairy ﬁelds of V enn,

Their indices bedeck ed from one to n,

Commingled in an endless Mark ov chain!

Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,

And every vector dr eams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the br eeze:

It whispers of a mor e ergodic zone.

In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space

Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways

Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,

We shall encounter, counting, face to face.

I'll grant thee random access to my heart,

Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;

And so we two shall all love's lemmas pr ove,

And in our bound partition never part.

For what did Cauchy know, or Christoﬀel,

Or Fourier, or any Boole or Euler,

Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers,

Of thy super nal sinusoidal spell?

Cancel me not—for what then shall r emain?

Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,

A root or two, a torus and a node:

The inverse of my verse, a null domain.

Ellipse of bliss, conver ge, O lips divine!

The pr oduct of our scalars is deﬁned!

Cyberiad draws nigh, and the sk ew mind

Cuts capers lik e a happy haversine.

I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,

I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. Bernoulli would have been content to die,

Had he but known such a2 cos 2 Ø !

This concluded the poetic competition, since Klapaucius

suddenly had to leave, saying he would r eturn shortly with

more topics for the machine; but he never did, afraid that in

so doing, he might give T rurl mor e cause to boast. T rurl of

course let it be known that Klapaucius had ﬂed in or der to

hide his envy and chagrin. Klapaucius meanwhile spr ead the

word that T rurl had mor e than one scr ew loose on the

subject of that so -called mechanical versiﬁer .

Not much time went by befor e news of T rurl's computer

laureate r eached the genuine—-that is, the or dinary—poets. Deeply oﬀended, they r esolved to ignor e the machine's

existence. A few, however, wer e curious enough to visit

Trurl's electr onic bar d in secr et. It r eceived them

courteously, in a hall piled high with closely written paper

(for it work ed day and night without pause).

Now these

poets wer e all avant-gar de, and T rurl's machine wr ote only

in the traditional manner; T rurl, no connoisseur of poetry,

had r elied heavily on the classics in setting up its pr ogram. The machine's guests jeer ed and lef t in triumph. The

machine was self -programming, however, and in addition

had a special ambition-amplif ying mechanism with glory -

seeking cir cuits, and very soon a gr eat change took place. Its poems became diﬃcult, ambiguous, so intricate and

charged with meaning that they wer e totally

incompr ehensible. When the ne xt group of poets came to

mock and laugh, the machine r eplied with an impr ovisation

that was so moder n, it took their br eath away, and the

second poem seriously weak ened a certain sonneteer who

had two State awar ds to his name, not to mention a statue

in the city park. A fter that, no poet could r esist the fatal

urge to cr oss lyrical swor ds with T rurl's electr onic bar d. They

came fr om far and wide, car rying trunks and suitcases full of

manuscripts. The machine would let each challenger r ecite,

instantly grasp the algorithm of his verse, and use it to

compose an answer in e xactly the same style, only two

hundr ed and twenty to thr ee hundr ed and forty -seven times

better .

The machine quickly gr ew so adept at this, that it could

cut down a ﬁrst-class r hapsodist with no mor e than one or

two quatrains. But the worst of it was, all the thir d-rate

poets emer ged unscathed; being thir d-rate, they didn't

know good poetry fr om bad and consequently had no inkling

of their crushing defeat. One of them, true, br oke his leg

when, on the way out, he tripped over an epic poem the

machine had just completed, a pr odigious work beginning

with the wor ds:

Arms, and machines I sing, that, for c'd by fate,

And haughty Homo's unr elenting hate,

Expell'd and e xil'd, lef t the T erran shor e …

The true poets, on the other hand, wer e decimated by

Trurl's electr onic bar d, though it never laid a ﬁnger on them. First an aged elegiast, then two moder nists committed

suicide, leaping oﬀ a cliﬀ that unfortunately happened to lie

hard by the r oad leading fr om Trurl's place to the near est

train station. There wer e many poet pr otests staged, demonstrations,

demands that the machine be served an injunction to cease

and desist. But no one else appear ed to car e. In fact,

magazine editors generally appr oved: T rurl's electr onic bar d,

writing under several thousand diﬀer ent pseudonyms at

once, had a poem for every occasion, to ﬁt whatever length

might be r equir ed, and of such high quality that the

magazine would be tor n from hand to hand by eager

readers. On the str eet one could see enraptur ed faces,

bemused smiles, sometimes even hear a quiet sob. Everyone knew the poems of T rurl's electr onic bar d, the air

rang with its delightful r hymes. Not infr equently, those

citizens of a gr eater sensitivity, struck by a particularly

marvelous metaphor or assonance, would actually fall into a

faint. But this colossus of inspiration was pr epared even for

that eventuality; it would immediately supply the necessary

number of r estorative r ondelets. Trurl himself had no little tr ouble in connection with his

invention. The classicists, generally elderly, wer e fairly

harmless; they conﬁned themselves to thr owing stones

through his windows and smearing the sides of his house

with an unmentionable substance. But it was much worse

with the younger poets. One, for e xample, as powerful in

body as his verse was in imagery, beat T rurl to a pulp. And

while the constructor lay in the hospital, events mar ched on. Not a day passed without a suicide or a funeral; pick et lines

formed ar ound the hospital; one could hear gunﬁr e in the

distance —instead of manuscripts in their suitcases, mor e

and mor e poets wer e bringing riﬂes to defeat T rurl's

electr onic bar d. But the bullets mer ely bounced oﬀ its calm

exterior .

After his r eturn from the hospital, T rurl, weak and

desperate, ﬁnally decided one night to dismantle the

homeostatic Homer he had cr eated. But when he appr oached the machine, limping slightly, it

noticed the pliers in his hand and the grim glitter in his eye,

and deliver ed such an eloquent, impassioned plea for

mercy, that the constructor burst into tears, thr ew down his

tools and hur ried back to his r oom, wading thr ough new

works of genius, an ocean of paper that ﬁlled the hall chest-

high fr om end to end and rustled incessantly .

The following month T rurl r eceived a bill for the electricity

consumed by the machine and almost fell oﬀ his chair .

only he could have consulted his old friend Klapaucius!

But

Klapaucius was nowher e to be found. So T rurl had to come

up with something by himself .

One dark night he unplugged

the machine, took it apart, loaded it onto a ship, ﬂew to a

certain small aster oid, and ther e assembled it again, giving

it an atomic pile for its sour ce of cr eative ener gy. Then he sneak ed home. But that wasn't the end of it. The

electr onic bar d, deprived now of the possibility of having its

masterpieces published, began to br oadcast them on all

wave lengths, which soon sent the passengers and cr ews of

passing r ockets into states of stanzaic stupefaction, and

those mor e delicate souls wer e seized with sever e attacks of

esthetic ecstasy besides. Having deter mined the cause of

this disturbance, the Cosmic Fleet Command issued T rurl an

oﬃcial r equest for the immediate ter mination of his device,

which was seriously impairing the health and well-being of

all travelers. At that point T rurl went into hiding, so they dr opped a

team of technicians on the aster oid to gag the machine's

output unit. It overwhelmed them with a few ballads,

however, and the mission had to be abandoned. Deaf

technicians wer e sent ne xt, but the machine employed

pantomime. A fter that, ther e began to be talk of an eventual

punitive e xpedition, of bombing the electr opoet into

submission. But just then some ruler fr om a neighboring

star system came, bought the machine and hauled it oﬀ,

aster oid and all, to his kingdom. Now T rurl could appear in public again and br eathe easy .

True, lately ther e had been super novae e xploding on the

souther n horizon, the lik e of which no one had ever seen

befor e, and ther e wer e rumors that this had something to do

with poetry .

According to one r eport, that same ruler, moved

by some strange whim, had or dered his astr oengineers to

connect the electr onic bar d to a constellation of white

super giants, ther eby transfor ming each line of verse into a

stupendous solar pr ominence; thus the Gr eatest P oet in the

Universe was able to transmit its ther monuclear cr eations to

all the illimitable r eaches of space at once. But even if ther e

were any truth to this, it was all too far away to bother T rurl,

who vowed by everything that was ever held sacr ed never,

never again to mak e a cyber netic model of the Muse.

The Second Sally

OR The Oﬀer

of King Krool

The tr emendous success of their application of the

Gargantius Eﬀect gave both constructors such an appetite

for adventur e, that they r esolved to sally forth once again to

parts unknown. Unfortunately, they wer e quite unable to

decide on a destination. T rurl, given to tr opical climes, had

his heart set on Scaldonia, the land of the Flaming

Flamingos, while Klapaucius, of a somewhat cooler

disposition, was equally deter mined to visit the Inter galactic

Cold P ole, a bleak continent adrif t among fr ozen stars. The

friends wer e about to part company for good when T rurl

suddenly had an idea. "W ait," he said, "we can advertise our

services, then tak e the best oﬀer!"

"Ridiculous!" snorted Klapaucius. "How ar e you going to

advertise?

In a newspaper?

Do you have any idea how long

it tak es a newspaper to r each the near est planet?

Y ou'll be

dead and buried befor e the ﬁrst oﬀer comes in!"

But T rurl gave a knowing smile and r evealed his plan,

which Klapaucius—begrudgingly—had to admit was

ingenious, and so they set to work. All the necessary

equipment quickly thr own together, they gather ed up the

local stars and ar ranged them in a gr eat sign, a sign that

would be visible at truly incalculable distances. Only blue

giants wer e used for the ﬁrst wor d—to get the cosmic

reader's attention—and lesser stellar material made up the

others. The advertisement r ead: TWO Distinguished

Constructors Seek Employment Commensurate with Their

Skill and Above All L ucrative, Hence P referably at the Court

of a W ell-heeled King (Should Have His Own Kingdom),

Terms to Be Ar ranged. It was not long befor e, one bright

morning, a most marvelous craf t alighted on their fr ont

lawn. It gleamed in the sun, all inlaid with mother -of-pearl,

had thr ee legs intricately carved and six additional supports

of solid gold (quite useless, since they didn't even r each the

ground—but then, the builders obviously had mor e wealth

than they knew what to do with).

Down a magniﬁcent

staircase with billowing fountains on either side ther e came

a ﬁgur e of stately bearing with a r etinue of six-legged

machines: some of these massaged him, some supported

him and fanned him, and the smallest ﬂew above his august

brow and sprayed it with eau de cologne fr om an atomizer .

This impr essive emissary gr eeted the constructors on behalf

of his lor d and sover eign, King Kr ool, who wished to engage

them. "What sort of work is it?" ask ed Trurl, inter ested. "The details, gentle sirs, you shall lear n at the pr oper

time," was his r eply. He was dr essed in galligaskins of gold,

mink-tuf ted buskins, sequined ear muﬀs, and a r obe of most

unusual cut—instead of pock ets it had little shelves full of

mints and marzipan. T iny mechanical ﬂies also buzzed

about his person, and these he brushed away whenever

they gr ew too bold. "For now," he went on, "I can only say that His Boundless

Kroolty is a gr eat enthusiast of the hunt, a fearless and

peerless conquer or of every sort of galactic fauna, and

verily, his pr owess has r eached such heights that now the

ﬁercest pr edators known ar e no longer worthy game for

him. And her ein lies our misfortune, for he craves

excitement, danger, thrills… which is why—"

"Of course!" said T rurl. "He wants us to construct a new

model of beast, something wild and rapacious enough to

present a challenge."

"You ar e, worthy constructor, indeed quick!" said the

King's emissary .

"Then it is agr eed?"

Klapaucius began to question the emissary mor e closely

on certain practical matters. But af ter the King's gener osity

was glowingly described and suﬃciently elaborated upon,

they hur riedly pack ed their things and a few books, ran up

the magniﬁcent stair case, hopped on boar d and wer e

immediately lif ted, with a gr eat roar and burst of ﬂame that

black ened the ship's gold legs, into the interstellar night. As they traveled, the emissary briefed the constructors on

the laws and customs pr evailing in the Kingdom of Kr ool,

told them of the monar ch's natur e, as br oad and open as a

leveled city, and of his manly pursuits, and much mor e, so

that by the time the ship landed, they could speak the

language lik e natives. First they wer e tak en to a splendid villa situated on a

mountainside above the village—this was wher e they wer e

to stay .

Then, af ter a brief r est, the King sent a car riage for

them, a car riage drawn by six ﬁr e-breathing monsters. These wer e muzzled with ﬁr e scr eens and smok e ﬁlters, had

their wings clipped to k eep them on the gr ound, and long

spiked tails and six paws apiece with ir on claws that cut

deep pits in the r oad wher ever they went. As soon as the

monsters saw the constructors, the entir e team set up a

howl, belching ﬁr e and brimstone, and strained to get at

them. The coachmen in asbestos ar mor and the King's

huntsmen with hoses and pumps had to fall upon the crazed

creatur es and beat them into submission with laser and

maser clubs befor e Trurl and Klapaucius could safely step

into the plush car riage, which they did without a wor d. The

carriage tor e oﬀ at br eakneck speed or—to use an

appropriate metaphor— lik e a bat out of hell. "You know,” T rurl whisper ed in Klapaucius' ear as they

rushed along, knocking down everything in their path and

leaving a long trail of sulfur ous smok e behind them, "I have

a feeling that this king won't settle for just anything. I mean,

if he has coursers lik e these…"

But level-headed Klapaucius said nothing. Houses now

ﬂashed by, walls of diamonds and sapphir es and silver,

while the dragons thunder ed and hissed and the drivers

cursed and shouted. A t last a colossal portcullis loomed up

ahead, opened, and their car riage whirled into the

courtyar d, car eening so sharply that the ﬂower beds all

shriveled up, then gr ound to a stop befor e a castle black as

black est night. W elcomed by an unusually dismal fanfar e

and quite overwhelmed by the massive stairs, balustrades

and especially the stone giants that guar ded the main gate,

Trurl and Klapaucius, ﬂank ed by a for midable escort,

enter ed the mighty castle. King Kr ool awaited them in an enor mous hall the shape of

a skull, a vast and vaulted cave of beaten silver .

Ther e was

a gaping pit in the ﬂoor, the sk ull's foramen magnum, and

beyond it stood the thr one, over which two str eams of light

crossed lik e swor ds—they came fr om high windows ﬁx ed in

the sk ull's eye sock ets and with panes specially tinted to

give everything a harsh and infer nal aspect. The

constructors now saw Kr ool himself : too impatient to sit still

on his thr one, this monar ch paced fr om wall to wall acr oss

the silver ﬂoor, his steps booming in that cadaver ous

caver n, and as he spok e he emphasized his wor ds with such

sudden stabs of the hand, that the air whistled. "Welcome, constructors!" he said, sk ewering them both

with his eyes. "As you've no doubt lear ned fr om L ord

Protozor, Master of the R oyal Hunt, I want you to build me

new and better kinds of game. Now I'm not inter ested, you

understand, in any mountain of steel on a hundr ed-odd

treads—that's a job for heavy artillery, not for me. My

quarry must be str ong and fer ocious, but swif t and nimble

too, and above all cunning and full of wiles, so that I will

have to call upon all my hunter's art to drive it to the

ground. It must be a highly intelligent beast, and know all

there is to know of covering tracks, doubling back, hiding in

shadows and lying in wait, for such is my will!"

"Forgive me, Y our Highness," said Klapaucius with a

careful bow, "but if we do Y our Highness' bidding too well,

might not this put the r oyal life and limb in some peril?"

The King r oared with such laughter that a couple of crystal

pendants fell oﬀ a chandelier and shatter ed at the feet of

the tr embling constructors. "Have no fear of that, noble constructors!" he said with a

grim smile. "Y ou ar e not the ﬁrst, and you will not be the

last, I e xpect. Know that I am a just but most e xacting ruler .

Too of ten have assorted knaves, ﬂatter ers and fak es

attempted to deceive me, too of ten, I say, have they posed

as distinguished hunting engineers, solely to empty my

coﬀers and ﬁll their sacks with gems and pr ecious stones,

leaving me, in r eturn, with a few paltry scar ecrows that fall

apart at the ﬁrst touch. T oo of ten has this happened for me

not to tak e appr opriate measur es. For twelve years now any

constructor who fails to meet my demands, who pr omises

more than he is able to deliver, indeed r eceives his r ewar d,

but is hurled, r ewar d and all, into yon deep well—-unless he

be game enough (e xcuse the pun) to serve as the quar ry

himself .

In which case, gentlemen, I use no weapon but

these two bar e hands …"

"And… and have ther e been, ah, many such impostors?"

asked Trurl in a weak voice. "Many?

That's diﬃcult to say .

I only know that no one yet

has satisﬁed me, and the scr eam of ter ror they invariably

give as they plummet to the bottom doesn't last quite so

long as it used to—the r emains, no doubt, have begun to

mount. But r est assur ed, gentlemen, ther e is r oom enough

still for you!"

A deathly silence followed these dir e wor ds, and the two

friends couldn't help but look in the dir ection of that dark

and ominous hole. The King r esumed his r elentless pacing,

his boots striking the ﬂoor lik e sledge hammers in an echo

chamber .

"But, with Y our Highness' per mission… that is, we— we

haven't yet drawn up the contract," stammer ed Trurl. "Couldn't we have an hour or two to think it over, weigh

carefully what Y our Highness has been so gracious as to tell

us, and then of course we can decide whether to accept

your gener ous oﬀer or, on the other hand—"

"Ha!!" laughed the King lik e a thunder clap. "Or, on the

other hand, to go home?

I'm afraid not, gentlemen!

The

moment you set foot on boar d the Infer nanda, you accepted

my oﬀer!

If every constructor who came her e could leave

whenever he pleased, why, I'd have to wait for ever for my

fondest hopes to be r ealized!

No, you must stay and build

me a beast to hunt. I give you twelve days, and now you

may go .

Whatever pleasur e you desir e, in the meantime, is

yours. Y ou have but to ask the servants I have given you;

nothing will be denied you. In twelve days, then!"

"With Your Highness' per mission, you can k eep the

pleasur es, but—well, would it be at all possible for us to

have a look at the, uh, hunting tr ophies Y our Highness must

have collected as a r esult, so to speak, of the eﬀorts of our

predecessors?"

"But of course!" said the King indulgently and clapped his

hands with such for ce that sparks ﬂew and danced acr oss

the silver walls. The gust of air fr om those powerful palms

cooled even mor e our constructors' ar dor for adventur e. Six

guards in white and gold appear ed and conducted them

down a cor ridor that twisted and wound lik e the gullet of a

giant serpent. F inally, to their gr eat relief, it led out into a

large, open gar den. Ther e, on r emark ably well-trimmed

lawns, stood the hunting tr ophies of King Kr ool. Nearest at hand was a saber -toothed colossus, practically

cut in two in spite of the heavy mail and plate ar mor that

was to have pr otected its trunk; the hind legs,

dispr oportionately lar ge (evidently designed for gr eat

leaps), lay upon the grass alongside the tail, which ended in

a ﬁrearm with its magazine half -empty—a clear sign that the

creatur e had not fallen to the King without a ﬁght. A yellow

strip of cloth hanging fr om its open jaws also testiﬁed to

this, for T rurl r ecognized in it the br eeches wor n by the

King's huntsmen. Ne xt was another pr one monstr osity, a

dragon with a multitude of tiny wings all singed and

black ened by enemy ﬁr e; its cir cuits had spilled out molten

and had then congealed in a copper -porcelain puddle. Farther on stood another cr eatur e, the pillarlik e legs spr ead

wide. A gentle br eeze soughed sof tly thr ough its fangs. And

there wer e wrecks on wheels and wr ecks on tr eads, some

with claws and some with cannon, all sunder ed to the

magnetic cor e, and tank-turtles with squashed tur rets, and

mutilated military millipedes, and other oddities, br oken and

battle-scar red, some equipped with auxiliary brains (bur nt

out), some per ched on telescoping stilts (dislocated), and

there wer e little vicious biting things str ewn about. These

had been made to attack in gr eat swar ms, then r egroup in a

spher e bristling with gun muzzles and bayonets—a clever

idea, but it saved neither them nor their cr eators. Down this

aisle of devastation walk ed Trurl and Klapaucius, pale, silent,

looking as if they wer e on their way to a funeral instead of

to another brilliant session of vigor ous invention. They came

at last to the end of that dr eadful gallery of Kr ool's triumphs

and stepped into the car riage that was waiting for them at

the gate. That dragon team which sped them back to their

lodgings seemed less ter rible now .

Just as soon as they wer e

alone in their sumptuously appointed gr een and crimson

drawing r oom, befor e a table heaped high with eﬀervescent

drinks and rar e delicacies, T rurl br oke into a volley of

imprecations; he r eviled Klapaucius for heedlessly accepting

the oﬀer made by the Master of the R oyal Hunt, ther eby

bringing down misfortune on their heads, when they easily

could have stayed at home and r ested on their laur els. Klapaucius said nothing, waiting patiently for T rurl's

desperate rage to e xpend itself, and when it ﬁnally did and

Trurl had collapsed into a lavish mother -of-pearl chaise

longue and buried his face in his hands, he said:

"Well, we'd better get to work."

These wor ds did much to r evive T rurl, and the two

constructors immediately began to consider the various

possibilities, drawing on their knowledge of the deepest and

darkest secr ets of the ar cane art of cyber netic generation. First of all, they agr eed that victory lay neither in the ar mor

nor in the str ength of the monster to be built, but entir ely in

its pr ogram, in other wor ds, in an algorithm of demoniacal

derivation. "It must be a truly diabolical cr eatur e, a thing of

absolute evil!" they said, and though they had as yet no

clear idea of what or how, this observation lif ted their spirits

considerably .

Such was their enthusiasm by the time they

sat down to draf t the beast, that they work ed all night, all

day, and thr ough a second night and day befor e taking a

break for dinner .

And as the L eyden jars wer e passed about,

so sur e wer e they of success, that they wink ed and smirk ed

—but only when the servants wer en't looking, since they

suspected them (and rightly, too) of being the King's spies. So the constructors said nothing of their work, but praised

the mulled electr olyte which the waiters br ought in, tail

coats ﬂapping, in beak ers of the ﬁnest cut crystal. Only af ter

the repast, when they had wander ed out on the veranda

overlooking the village with its white steeples and domes

catching the last golden rays of the setting sun, only then

did Trurl tur n to Klapaucius and say :

"We're not out of the woods yet, you know ."

"How do you mean?" ask ed Klapaucius in a cautious

whisper .

"Ther e's one diﬃculty .

You see, if the King defeats our

mechanical beast, he'll undoubtedly have us thr own into

that pit, for we won't have done his bidding. If, on the other

hand, the beast… Y ou see what I mean?"

"If the beast isn't defeated?"

"No, if the beast defeats him, dear colleague. If that

happens, the King's successor may not let us oﬀ so easily ."

"You don't think we'd have to answer for that, do you?

a rule, heirs to the thr one ar e only too happy to see it

vacated."

"True, but this will be his son, and whether the son

punishes us out of ﬁlial devotion or because he thinks the

royal court e xpects it of him, it'll mak e little diﬀer ence as far

as we'r e concer ned."

"That never occur red to me," mutter ed Klapaucius. "Y ou're

quite right, the pr ospects ar en't encouraging… Have you

thought of a way out of this dilemma?"

"Well, we might mak e the beast multimortal. P icture this:

the King slays it, it falls, then it gets up again, r esurrected,

and the King chases it again, slays it again, and so on, until

he gets sick and tir ed of the whole thing."

"That he won't lik e," said Klapaucius af ter some thought. "And anyway, how would you design such a beast?"

"Oh, I don't know… W e could mak e it without any vital

organs. The King chops the beast into little pieces, but the

pieces gr ow back together ."

"How?"

"Use a ﬁeld."

"Magnetic?"

"If you lik e."

"How do we operate it?"

"Remote contr ol, per haps?" ask ed Trurl. "Too risk y," said Klapaucius. "How do you know the King

won't have us lock ed up in some dungeon while the hunt's

in progress?

Our poor pr edecessors wer e no fools, and look

how they ended up. Mor e than one of them, I'm sur e,

thought of r emote contr ol—yet it failed. No, we can't e xpect

to maintain communication with the beast during the

battle."

"Then why not use a satellite?" suggested T rurl. "W e could

install automatic contr ols-—"

"Satellite indeed!" snorted Klapaucius. "And how ar e you

going to build it, let alone put it in orbit?

Ther e are no

miracles in our pr ofession, T rurl!

W e'll have to hide the

contr ols some other way ."

"But wher e can we hide the contr ols when they watch our

every step?

Y ou've seen how the servants sk ulk about,

sticking their noses into everything. W e'd never be able to

leave the pr emises ourselves, and certainly not smuggle out

such a lar ge piece of equipment. It's impossible!"

"Calm down," said prudent Klapaucius, looking over his

shoulder .

"Perhaps we don't need such equipment in the

ﬁrst place."

"Something has to operate the beast, and if that

something is an electr onic brain anywher e inside, the King

will smash it to a pulp befor e you can say goodbye."

They wer e silent. Night had fallen and the village lights

below wer e ﬂick ering on, one by one. Suddenly T rurl said:

"Listen, her e's an idea. W e only pr etend to build a beast

but in r eality build a ship to escape on. W e give it ears, a

tail, paws, so no one will suspect, and they can be easily

jettisoned on tak eoﬀ.

What do you think of that?

W e get oﬀ

scot-fr ee and thumb our noses at the King!"

"And if the King has planted a r eal constructor among our

servants, which is not unlik ely, then it's all over and into the

pit with us. Besides, running away—no, it just doesn't suit

me. It's him or us, T rurl, you can't get ar ound it."

"Yes, I suppose a spy could be a constructor too," said

Trurl with a sigh. "What then can we do, in the name of the

Great Comet?!

How about—a photoelectric phantom?"

"You mean, a mirage?

Have the King hunt a mirage?

thanks!

A fter an hour or two of that, he'd come straight her e

and mak e phantoms of us!"

Again they wer e silent. F inally T rurl said:

"The only way out of our diﬃculty, as far as I can see, is to

have the beast abduct the King, and then—"

"You don't have to say another wor d. Yes, that's not at all

a bad idea… Then for the ransom we—and haven't you

noticed, old boy, that the orioles her e are a deeper orange

than on Maryland IV?" concluded Klapaucius, for just then

some servants wer e bringing silver lamps out on the

veranda. "Ther e's still a pr oblem though," he continued

when they wer e alone again. "Assuming the beast can do

what you say, how will we be able to negotiate with the

prisoner if we'r e sitting in a dungeon ourselves?"

"You have a point ther e," said T rurl. "W e'll have to ﬁgur e

some way ar ound that… The main thing, however, is the

algorithm!"

"Any child knows that!

What's a beast without an

algorithm?"

So they r olled up their sleeves and sat down to

experiment—by simulation, that is mathematically and all

on paper .

And the mathematical models of King Kr ool and

the beast did such ﬁer ce battle acr oss the equation-cover ed

table, that the constructors' pencils k ept snapping. F urious,

the beast writhed and wriggled its iterated integrals

beneath the King's polynomial blows, collapsed into an

inﬁnite series of indeter minate ter ms, then got back up by

raising itself to the nth power, but the King so belabor ed it

with diﬀer entials and partial derivatives that its F ourier

coeﬃcients all canceled out (see Riemann's L emma), and in

the ensuing confusion the constructors completely lost sight

of both King and beast. So they took a br eak, str etched their

legs, had a swig fr om the L eyden jug to bolster their

strength, then went back to work and tried it again fr om the

beginning, this time unleashing their entir e arsenal of tensor

matrices and grand canonical ensembles, attacking the

problem with such fervor that the very paper began to

smok e. The King rushed forwar d with all his cruel

coordinates and mean values, stumbled into a dark for est of

roots and logarithms, had to backtrack, then encounter ed

the beast on a ﬁeld of ir rational numbers (F1) and smote it

so grievously that it fell two decimal places and lost an

epsilon, but the beast slid ar ound an asymptote and hid in

an n-dimensional orthogonal phase space, underwent

expansion and came out, fuming factorially, and fell upon

the King and hurt him passing sor e. But the King, nothing

daunted, put on his Mark ov chain mail and all his impervious

parameters, took his incr ement Δ k to inﬁnity and dealt the

beast a truly Boolean blow, sent it r eeling thr ough an x-axis

and several brack ets—but the beast, pr epared for this,

lower ed its hor ns and—wham!!—the pencils ﬂew lik e mad

through transcendental functions and double

eigentransfor mations, and when at last the beast closed in

and the King was down and out for the count, the

constructors jumped up, danced a jig, laughed and sang as

they tor e all their papers to shr eds, much to the amazement

of the spies per ched in the chandelier -—per ched in vain, for

they wer e uninitiated into the niceties of higher

mathematics and consequently had no idea why T rurl and

Klapaucius wer e now shouting, over and over, "Hur rah!

Victory!!"

Well af ter midnight, the L eyden jug fr om which the

constructors had on occasion r efreshed themselves in the

course of their labors was quietly tak en to the headquarters

of the King's secr et police, wher e its false bottom was

opened and a tiny tape r ecorder removed. This the e xperts

switched on and listened to eagerly, but the rising sun found

them totally unenlightened and looking haggar d. One voice,

for example, would say :

"Well?

Is the King r eady?"

"Right!"

"Wher e'd you put him?

Over ther e?

Good!

Now—hold on,

you have to k eep the feet together .

Not yours, idiot, the

King's!

All right now, r eady?

One, two, ﬁnd the derivative!

Quick!

What do you get?"

"Pi."

"And the beast?"

"Under the radical sign. But look, the King's still standing!"

"Still standing, eh?

F actor both sides, divide by two, thr ow

in a few imaginary numbers—good!

Now change variables

and subtract—T rurl, what on earth ar e you doing?!

The

beast , not the King, the beast !

That's right!

Good!

P erfect!!

Now transfor m, appr oximate and solve for x. Do you have

it?"

"I have it!

Klapaucius!

L ook at the King now!!"

There was a pause, then a burst of wild laughter .

That same mor ning, as all the e xperts and high oﬃcials of

the secr et police shook their heads, bleary -eyed af ter a

sleepless night, the constructors ask ed for quartz,

vanadium, steel, copper, platinum, r hinestones, dyspr osium,

yttrium and thulium, also cerium and ger manium, and most

of the other elements that mak e up the Universe, plus a

variety of machines and qualiﬁed technicians, not to

mention a wide assortment of spies—for so insolent had the

constructors become, that on the triplicate r equisition for m

they boldly wr ote: "Also, kindly send agents of various cuts

and stripes at the discr etion and with the appr oval of the

Proper Authorities." The ne xt day they ask ed for sawdust

and a lar ge red velvet curtain on a stand, a cluster of little

glass bells in the center and a lar ge tassel at each of its four

corners; everything, even down to the littlest glass bell, was

speciﬁed with the utmost pr ecision. The King scowled when

he hear d these r equests, but or dered them to be car ried out

to the letter, for he had given his r oyal wor d. The

constructors wer e thus granted all that they wished. All that they wished gr ew mor e and mor e outlandish. F or

instance, in the ﬁles of the secr et police under code number

48999/11K/T was a copy of a r equisition for thr ee tailor's

mannequins as well as six full police unifor ms, complete

with sash, side ar m, shak o, plume and handcuﬀs, also all

available back issues of the magazine The P atriotic

Policeman , yearbooks and supplements included—under

"Comments" the constructors had guaranteed the r eturn of

all items listed above within twenty -four hours of delivery

and in perfect condition. In another, classiﬁed section of the

police ar chives was a copy of a letter fr om Klapaucius in

which he demanded the immediate shipment of (1) a life-

size doll r epresenting the P ostmaster General in full r egalia,

and (2) a light gig painted gr een with a k erosene lamp on

the lef t and a sk y-blue sign on the back that said THINK. The

doll and gig pr oved too much for the Chief of P olice: he had

to be tak en away for a much-needed r est. During the ne xt

three days the constructors ask ed only for bar rels of r ed

castor oil, and af ter that—nothing. F rom then on, they

work ed in the basement of the palace, hammering away

and singing space chanties, and at night blue lights came

ﬂashing fr om the basement windows and gave weir d shapes

to the tr ees in the gar den outside. T rurl and Klapaucius with

their many helpers bustled about amid ar cs and sparks, now

and then looking up to see faces pr essed against the glass:

the servants, as if out of idle curiosity, wer e photographing

their every move. One evening, when the weary

constructors had ﬁnally dragged themselves oﬀ to bed, the

components of the apparatus they had been working on

were quickly transported by unmark ed balloon to police

headquarters and assembled by eighteen of the ﬁnest

cyber neticians in the land, who had been deputized and

duly swor n in for that very purpose, wher eupon a gray tin

mouse ran out fr om under their hands, blowing soap

bubbles and dr opping a thin trail of chalk dust fr om under

its tail, which spelled, as it danced this way and that acr oss

the table, WHA T, DON'T Y OU LOVE US ANYMORE?

Never

befor e in the kingdom's history did Chiefs of P olice have to

be replaced with such speed and r egularity .

The unifor ms,

the doll, the gr een gig, even the sawdust, everything which

the constructors r eturned e xactly as pr omised, was

thoroughly e xamined under electr on micr oscope. But e xcept

for a minuscule car d in the sawdust which r ead JUST

SAWDUST, ther e was nothing out of the or dinary .

Then

individual atoms of the unifor ms and gig wer e thor oughly

searched— with equal lack of success. A t last the day came

when the work was completed. A huge vehicle on thr ee

hundr ed wheels, looking something lik e a refrigerator, was

drawn up to the main entrance and opened in the pr esence

of witnesses and oﬃcials; T rurl and Klapaucius br ought out a

curtain, the one with the tassels and bells, and placed it

carefully inside, in the middle of the ﬂoor .

Then they got in

themselves, closed the door, did something, then went and

got various containers fr om the basement, cans of

chemicals, all sorts of ﬁnely gr ound powders—gray, silver,

white, yellow, gr een—and sprinkled them under and ar ound

the curtain, then stepped out, had the vehicle closed and

locked, consulted their watches and together counted out

fourteen and a half seconds—at which time, much to

everyone's surprise, since the vehicle was stationary and

there could be no question of a br eeze inside (for the seal

was her metic), the glass bells tinkled. The constructors

exchanged a wink and said:

"You can tak e it now!"

The r est of the day they spent blowing soap bubbles fr om

the veranda. That evening L ord Protozor, Master of the

Royal Hunt, came with an escort and politely but ﬁr mly

informed them that they wer e to go with him at once to an

assigned place. They wer e requir ed to leave all their

possessions behind, even their clothes; in e xchange they

were given rags, then put in ir ons. The guar ds and police

dignitaries pr esent wer e astounded by their perfect sang-

froid: instead of demanding justice or tr embling with fear,

Trurl giggled as the shackles wer e being hammer ed on,

saying he was ticklish. And when the constructors wer e

thrown into a dark and dismal dungeon, they pr omptly

struck up a r ousing chorus of "Sing Sweet Sof tware."

Meanwhile mighty Kr ool rode forth fr om the village on his

mighty hunting chariot, sur rounded by all his r etinue and

followed by a long and winding train of riders and machines,

machines that included not only the traditional catapult and

cannon, but enor mous laser guns and beta ray bazook as,

and a tar -thrower guaranteed to immobilize anything that

walked, swam, ﬂew or r olled along. And so this grand pr ocession wended its way to the r oyal

game pr eserve, and many jok es wer e made, and boasts,

and haughty toasts, and no one gave a thought to the two

constructors, e xcept per haps to r emark that those fools

were in a pr etty pickle now .

But when the silver trumpets announced His Majesty's

approach, one could see a huge vehicle-r efrigerator coming

up in the opposite dir ection. Its door ﬂung open, and for one

brief moment ther e gaped the black maw of what appear ed

to be some sort of ﬁeld gun. Ne xt ther e was a boom, a puﬀ

of yellow smok e, and something came r ocketing out, a for m

as blur ry as a tor nado and with the general consistency of a

sandstor m; it ar ced thr ough the air so fast that no one r eally

got a good look at it anyway .

Whatever it was ﬂew a

hundr ed paces or mor e and landed without a sound; the

curtain that had been wrapped ar ound it ﬂoated to the

earth, glass bells tinkling oddly in that perfect silence, and

lay ther e like a crushed strawber ry. Now everyone could see

the beast clearly—though it wasn't clear at all, but look ed a

little lik e a hill, rather lar ge, fairly long, its color much lik e its

surroundings, a clump of dried-up weeds. The King's

huntsmen unleashed the whole pack of automated hounds

(mainly Saint Cyber nards and Cyber man pinschers, with an

occasional high-fr equency ter rier); these hurled themselves,

howling and slavering, at the cr ouching beast. The beast

didn't r ear back, didn't r oar, didn't even br eathe ﬁr e, but

only opened its two eyes wide and r educed half the pack to

ashes in a trice. "Oho!

Laser -eyed, is it?" cried the King. "Hand me my

trusty duralumin doublet, my bulletpr oof buckler, my

halber d and ar quebus!" Thus accouter ed and gleaming lik e

a super nova, he r ode out upon his fearless high-ﬁdelity

cyber -steed, came nigh the beast and smote it such a

mighty blow that the air crackled and its head tumbled

neatly to the gr ound. Though the r etinue dutifully hallooed

his triumph, the King took no delight in it; gr eatly anger ed,

he swor e in his heart to devise some special tor ment for

those wr etches who dar ed to call themselves constructors. The beast, however, shook another head out of its sever ed

neck, opened its new eyes wide and played a withering

beam acr oss the King's ar mor (which, however, was pr oof

against all manner of electr omagnetic radiation).

"W ell,

those two wer en't a total loss," said the King to himself,

"though this still won't help them." And he r echar ged his

charger and spur red it into the fray .

This time he swung full and cleaved the beast in twain. The beast didn't seem to mind—in fact, it positioned itself

helpfully beneath the whistling blade and gave a grateful

twitch as it fell. And small wonder!

The King took another

look: the thing was twinned instead of twained!

Ther e wer e

two spitting images, each a little smaller than the original,

plus a thir d, a baby beast gamboling between them—that

was the head he had cut oﬀ earlier : it now had a tail and

feet and was doing cartwheels thr ough the weeds. "What ne xt?" thought the King. "Chop it into mice or little

worms?

A ﬁne way to hunt!" And with gr eat ir e did he have

at it, hewing with might and main until ther e wer e no end of

little beasts underfoot, but suddenly they all back ed oﬀ,

went into a huddle, and ther e stood the beast again, good

as new and stiﬂing a yawn. "H'm," thought the King. "Appar ently it has the same kind

of stabilization mechanism that—what was his name again?

—Pumpington—that P umpington tried to use. Y es, I dealt

with him myself for that idiotic trick… W ell, we'll just wheel

out the antimatter artillery…"

He pick ed one with a six-foot bor e, lined it up and loaded

it himself, took aim, pulled the string and sent a perfectly

silent and weir dly shimmering shell straight at the beast, to

blow it to smither eens once and for all. But nothing

happened—that is, nothing much. The beast only cr ouched

a little lower, put out its lef t hand, long and hairy, and gave

the King the ﬁnger .

"Bring out our biggest!" r oared the King, pr etending not to

notice. And several hundr ed peasants pulled up a veritable

giant of a cannon, all of eighty -gauge, which the King aimed

and was just about to ﬁr e—when all at once the beast

leaped. The King lif ted his swor d to defend himself, but then

there was no mor e beast. Those who saw what happened

next said later that they wer e sur e they had tak en leave of

their senses, for as the beast ﬂew thr ough the air, it

underwent a lightning transfor mation, the grayish hulk

divided up into thr ee men in unifor m, thr ee policemen, who,

still alof t, wer e already pr eparing to do their duty .

The ﬁrst

policeman, a ser geant, got out the handcuﬀs, maneuvering

his legs to k eep upright; the second held on to his plumed

shako with one hand, so it wouldn't blow oﬀ, and with the

other pulled out a war rant fr om his br east pock et; the thir d,

appar ently a r ookie, assumed a horizontal position beneath

the feet of the ﬁrst two, to cushion their fall—af ter which,

however, he jumped up and car efully dusted oﬀ his unifor m. Meanwhile the ﬁrst policeman had handcuﬀed the

dumbfounded King and the second slapped the swor d from

his hand. F eebly pr otesting, the suspect was then summarily

trotted oﬀ the ﬁeld. The entir e hunting pr ocession stood

rooted to the spot for a minute or two, then gave a yell and

followed in hot pursuit. The snorting cybersteeds had

practically caught up with the abductors, and swor ds and

sabers wer e unsheathed and raised to strik e, but the thir d

policeman bent over, depr essed his bellybutton and

immediately the ar ms gr ew into two shaf ts, the legs coiled

up, spr outing spok es, and began to tur n, while the back

formed the seat of a gr een racing gig to accommodate the

other two policemen, who wer e vigor ously plying the now-

harnessed King with a whip, to mak e him run faster .

The

King obliged and br oke into a mad gallop, waving his ar ms

frantically to war d oﬀ the blows that descended upon his

royal head; but now the huntsmen wer e gaining again, so

the policemen jumped on the King's back and one slipped

down between the shaf ts, huﬀed and puﬀed and tur ned into

a spinning top7 a dancing whirlwind, which gave wings to

the little gig and whisk ed it away over hill and dale till it

disappear ed altogether in a cloud of dust. The King's r etinue

split up and began a desperate sear ch with Geiger counters

and bloodhounds, and a special detachment came running

up with shovels and ﬂamethr owers and lef t no bone

unbur ned in all the neighboring cemeteries—an obvious

error, occasioned most lik ely by the tr embling hand that

hastily telegraphed the or der fr om the observation balloon

that had monitor ed the hunt. Several police divisions rushed

here and ther e, sear ched the gr ounds, every bush, every

weed, and both x-rays and laboratory samples wer e

diligently tak en of everything imaginable. The King's

charger was or dered to appear befor e a special boar d of

inquiry appointed by the P rosecutor General. A unit of

paratr oopers with vacuum cleaners and sieves was dr opped

on the r oyal game pr eserve to sif t through every last

particle of dust. F inally, the or der was issued that anyone

resembling a policeman was to be detained and held

without bail, which naturally cr eated diﬃculties—one half of

the police for ce, as it tur ned out, had ar rested the other,

and vice versa. A t dusk the huntsmen and soldiers r eturned

to the village dazed and bedraggled with the woeful tidings

that neither hide nor hair of the King's person was anywher e

to be found. By tor chlight and in the dead of night, the chained

constructors wer e tak en befor e the Gr eat Chancellor and

Keeper of the R oyal Seal, who addr essed them in the

following way :

"Wher eas ye have falsely conspir ed and perversely

plotted against the Cr own and Life of Our Beloved Sover eign

and Most Noble R uler Kr ool and ther ewith dar ed to raise a

treacher ous hand and vilely devise his demise, not to

mention impersonating an oﬃcer, a gr eat aggravation of

your crimes, so shall ye be quarter ed without quarter,

impaled and pilloried, disemboweled, buried alive, cruciﬁed

and bur nt at the stak e, after which your ashes shall be sent

into orbit as a war ning and perpetual r eminder to all would-

be regicides, amen."

"Can't you wait a bit?" ask ed Trurl. "Y ou see, we wer e

expecting a letter…"

"A letter, thou most scur rilous and scurvy knave?!"

Just then the guar ds made way for the P ostmaster General

himself—indeed, how could they bar that dignitary's

entrance with their poleax es?

The P ostmaster appr oached in

full regalia, his medals jingling impr essively, pulled a letter

from a sapphir e satchel and handed it to the Chancellor,

saying, "Mannequin though I be, I come fr om His Majesty,"

wher eupon he disintegrated into a ﬁne powder .

The

Chancellor could scar cely believe his eyes, but quickly

recognized the King's signet impr essed ther e on the purple

sealing wax; he opened the letter and r ead that His Majesty

was for ced to negotiate with the enemy, for the constructors

had employed means algorithmic and algebraic to mak e him

captive, and now they would list their demands, all of which

the Gr eat Chancellor had better meet, if he wished ever to

get his Mighty Sover eign back in one piece. Signed: "Kr ool

herewith aﬃx es his hand and seal, held prisoner in a cave of

unknown location by one pseudoconstabulary beast in thr ee

unifor ms personiﬁed."

There then ar ose a gr eat clamor, everyone shouting and

asking what it all meant and what wer e the demands, to

which T rurl said only, "Our chains, if you please."

A blacksmith was summoned to unfetter them, af ter which

Trurl said:

"We are hungry and dirty, we need a bath, a shave,

massage, r efreshment, nothing but the best, plenty of pomp

and a water ballet with ﬁr eworks for dessert!"

The court, of course, was hopping mad, but had to comply

in every particular .

Only at dawn did the constructors r eturn

from their villa, each elegantly pomaded, ar rayed and

reclining in a sedan chair bor ne by footmen (their for mer

informers); they then, deigning to grant an audience, sat

down and pr esented their demands—not oﬀ the top of their

heads, mind you, but fr om a little notebook they had

prepared for the occasion and hidden behind a curtain in

their r oom. The following articles wer e read:

First, A ship of the ﬁnest mak e and model available shall

be fur nished to car ry the constructors home. 2nd, The said ship shall be laden with various car go as

here speciﬁed: diamonds—four bushels, gold coin—forty

bushels, platinum, palladium and whatever other r eady

valuables they happen to think of—eight bushels of each,

also whatever mementos and tok ens fr om the R oyal

Apartments the signatories of this instrument may deem

appropriate. 3rd, Until such time as the said ship shall be in r eadiness

for tak eoﬀ, every nut and bolt in place, fully loaded and

deliver ed up to the constructors complete with r ed carpet,

an eighty -piece send- oﬀ band and childr en's chorus, an

abundance of honors, decorations and awar ds, and a wildly

cheering cr owd—until then, no King. 4th, That a for mal e xpression of undying gratitude shall be

stamped upon a gold medallion and addr essed to Their Most

Sublime and R adiant Constructors T rurl and Klapaucius,

Delight and T error of the Universe, and mor eover it shall

contain a full account of their victory and be duly signed and

notarized by every high and low oﬃcial in the land, then set

in the richly embellished bar rel of the King's favorite

cannon, which L ord Protozor, Master of the R oyal Hunt, shall

himself and wholly unaided car ry on boar d—no other

Protozor but the one who lur ed Their Most Sublime and

Radiant Constructors to this planet, thinking to work their

painful and ignominious death ther eby. 5th, That the afor esaid P rotozor shall accompany them on

their r eturn jour ney as insurance against any sort of double-

dealing, pursuit, and the lik e. On boar d he shall occupy a

cage thr ee by thr ee by four feet and shall r eceive a daily

allowance of humble pie with a ﬁlling made of that very

same sawdust which Their Most Sublime and R adiant

Constructors saw ﬁt to or der in the pr ocess of indulging the

King's foolishness and which was subsequently tak en to

police headquarters by unmark ed balloon. 6th and lastly, The King need not crave for giveness of

Their Most Sublime and R adiant Constructors on bended

knee, since he is much too beneath them to deserve notice. In Witness Wher eof, the parties have her eunto set their

hands and seals this day and year, etc. and so on. By : Trurl

and Klapaucius, Constructors, and the Gr eat Chancellor, the

Great Chamberlain, the Gr eat Chief of Secr et Police, the

Seneschal, Squadr on Leader and R oyal Balloonmaster .

All the ministers and dignitaries tur ned blue, but what

could they do?

They had no choice, so a ship was

immediately or dered. But then the constructors

unexpectedly showed up af ter a leisur ely br eakfast, to

supervise the work, and nothing suited them: this material,

for instance, was no good, and that engineer was an

absolute idiot, and they had to have a r evolving magic

lanter n in the main hall, one with four pneumatic widgets

and a calibrated cuck oo clock on top —and if the natives

here didn't know what a widget was, so much the worse for

them, considering that the King was no doubt most

impatient for his r elease and would (when he could) deal

harshly with anyone who dar ed to delay it. This r emark

occasioned a general numbness, a gr eat weakness about

the knees, and much tr embling, but the work continued

apace. F inally the ship was r eady and the r oyal stevedor es

began to stow the car go in the hold, diamonds, sacks of

pearls, so much gold it k ept spilling out the hatch. Meanwhile the police wer e secr etly running all about the

countryside, tur ning everything upside down, much to the

amusement of T rurl and Klapaucius, who didn't mind

explaining to a fearful but fascinated audience how it all

happened, how they had discar ded one idea af ter another

until they hit upon an altogether diﬀer ent kind of beast. Not

knowing wher e or how to place the contr ols—that is, the

brain —so that they would be safe, the constructors had

simply made everything brain, enabling the beast to think

with its leg, or tail, or jaws (equipped with wisdom teeth

only).

But that was just the beginning. The r eal pr oblem had

two aspects, algorithmic and psychoanalytic. F irst they had

to deter mine what would check the King, catch him

ﬂatfooted, so to speak. T o this end, they cr eated by

nonlinear transmutation a police subset within the beast,

since everyone knows that r esisting or interfering with an

oﬃcer who is making an ar rest lege artis is a cosmic oﬀense

and utterly unthink able. So much for the psychology of it—

except that the P ostmaster General was utilized her e on

similar gr ounds: an oﬃcial of lower rank might not have

made it past the guar ds, the letter then would not have

been deliver ed, and the constructors would have very

literally lost their heads. Mor eover, the P ostmaster

mannequin had been given means to bribe the guar ds,

should that have pr oved necessary .

Every eventuality had

been anticipated and pr ovided for .

Now as far as the

algorithms went: they had only to ﬁnd the pr oper domain of

beasts, closed, bounded and bonded, with plenty of laws

both associative and distributive in operation, thr ow in a

constable constant or two, some graphs of graf t, squadratic

equations and crime waves—and the thing took over fr om

there, once activated by the e xpedient of writing a

document-pr ogram (behind the curtain with the bells) in

castor oil ink, r endering it ther eby suﬃciently har d to

swallow to serve as a r ed-tape generator .

We might add

here that later on the constructors had an article published

in a pr ominent scientiﬁc jour nal under the title of "R ecursive

β—Metafunctions in the Special Case of a Bogus P olypolice

Transmogriﬁcation Conversion on an Oscillating Har monic

Field of Glass Bells and Gr een Gig, K erosene Lamp on the

Left to Divert A ttention, Solved by Beastly Incar ceration-

Concatenation,” which was subsequently e xploited by the

tabloids as "The P olice State R ears Its Ugly Head." Obviously

none of the ministers, dignitaries or huntsmen understood a

single wor d of what was said, but that har dly matter ed. The

loving subjects of King Kr ool knew not whether they should

despise these constructors or stand and gape in awe and

admiration. Now all was in r eadiness for tak eoﬀ.

T rurl, as stipulated in

the agr eement, went thr ough the King's private chambers

with a lar ge sack and calmly appr opriated whatever object

he took a fancy to .

Finally, the car riage ar rived and took the

victors to the spaceport, wher e a cr owd cheer ed wildly and

a childr en's chorus sang, then a char ming little girl in local

costume curtsied and pr esented them with a ribboned

nosegay, and high-ranking oﬃcials took tur ns to e xpress

their undying gratitude, bidding them both a fond far ewell,

and the band played, several ladies fainted, and then a hush

fell over the multitude. Klapaucius had pulled a tooth fr om

his mouth, not an or dinary tooth but a transmitter -receiver,

a two -way bicuspid. He thr ew a tiny switch and a sandstor m

appear ed on the horizon, gr owing and gr owing, whirling

faster and faster, until it dr opped into an empty space

between the ship and the cr owd and came to a sudden stop,

scattering dust and debris in all dir ections. Everyone gasped

and stepped back—ther e stood the beast, looking unusually

bestial as it ﬂashed its laser eyes and ﬂailed its dragon tail!

"The King, if you please," said Klapaucius. But the beast

answer ed, speaking in a perfectly nor mal voice:

"Not on your life. It's my tur n now to mak e demands…"

"What?

Have you gone mad?

Y ou have to obey, it's in the

matrix!" shouted Klapaucius. Everyone star ed,

thunderstruck. "Matrix-schmatrix. L ook pal, I'm not just any beast, I'm

algorithmic, heuristic and sadistic, fully automatic and

autocratic, that means undemocratic, and I've got loads of

loops and plenty of feedback so none of that back talk or I'll

clap you in ir ons, that means in the clink with the King, in

the brig with the gr een gig, get me?"

"I'll give you feedback!" r oared Klapaucius, furious. But

Trurl ask ed the beast:

"What e xactly do you want?"

And he sneak ed ar ound behind Klapaucius and pulled out

a special tooth of his own, so the beast wouldn't see. "Well, ﬁrst of all I want to mar ry—"

But they never lear ned whom in particular the beast had

in mind, for T rurl thr ew a tiny switch and quickly chanted:

"Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, input, output, out—you—go!"

The fantastically comple x electr omagnetic wave system

that held the beast's atoms in place now came apart under

the inﬂuence of those wor ds, and the beast blink ed, wiggled

its ears, swallowed, tried to pull itself together, but befor e it

could even grit its teeth ther e was a hot gust of wind, a

strong smell of ozone, then nothing lef t to pull together, just

a little mound of ashes and the King standing in the middle,

safe and sound, but in gr eat need of a bath and mortiﬁed to

tears that it had come to this. "That'll cut you down to size," said T rurl, and no one knew

whether he meant the beast or the King. In either case, the

algorithm had done its job well. "And now, gentlemen," T rurl concluded, "if you'll kindly

help the Master of the R oyal Hunt into his cage, we can be

on our way …"

The Third Sally

Or The Dragons

of Probability

Trurl and Klapaucius wer e former pupils of the gr eat

Cerebron of Umptor, who for forty -seven years in the School

of Higher Neantical Nillity e xpounded the General Theory of

Dragons. Everyone knows that dragons don't e xist. But

while this simplistic for mulation may satisf y the layman, it

does not suﬃce for the scientiﬁc mind. The School of Higher

Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcer ned with what

does exist. Indeed, the banality of e xistence has been so

amply demonstrated, ther e is no need for us to discuss it

any further her e. The brilliant Cer ebron, attacking the

problem analytically, discover ed thr ee distinct kinds of

dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the pur ely

hypothetical. They wer e all, one might say, none xistent, but

each non-e xisted in an entir ely diﬀer ent way .

And then ther e

were the imaginary dragons, and the a-, anti- and minus-

dragons (colloquially ter med nots, noughts and oughtn'ts by

the e xperts), the minuses being the most inter esting on

account of the well-known dracological parado x: when two

minuses hyper contiguate (an operation in the algebra of

dragons cor responding r oughly to simple multiplication), the

product is 0.6 dragon, a r eal nonplusser .

Bitter contr oversy

raged among the e xperts on the question of whether, as

half of them claimed, this fractional beast began fr om the

head down or, as the other half maintained, fr om the tail up. Trurl and Klapaucius made a gr eat contribution by showing

the er ror of both positions. They wer e the ﬁrst to apply

probability theory to this ar ea and, in so doing, cr eated the

ﬁeld of statistical draconics, which says that dragons ar e

thermodynamically impossible only in the pr obabilistic

sense, as ar e elves, fairies, gnomes, witches, pixies and the

like. Using the general equation of impr obability, the two

constructors obtained the coeﬃcients of pixation, elﬁnity,

kobolding, etc. They found that for the spontaneous

manifestation of an average dragon, one would have to wait

a good sixteen quintoquadrillion heptillion years. In other

words, the whole pr oblem would have r emained a

mathematical curiosity had it not been for that famous

tinkering passion of T rurl, who decided to e xamine the

nonphenome non empirically .

First, as he was dealing with

the highly impr obable, he invented a pr obability ampliﬁer

and ran tests in his basement—then later at the Dracogenic

Proving Gr ounds established and funded by the A cademy .

this day those who (sadly enough) have no knowledge of

the General Theory of Impr obability ask why T rurl

probabilized a dragon and not an elf or goblin. The answer is

simply that dragons ar e mor e probable than elves or goblins

to begin with. T rue, T rurl might have gone further with his

amplif ying e xperiments, had not the ﬁrst been so

discouraging— discouraging in that the materialized dragon

tried to mak e a meal of him. F ortunately, Klapaucius was

nearby and lower ed the pr obability, and the monster

vanished. A number of scholars subsequently r epeated the

experiment on a phantasmatr on, but, as they lack ed the

necessary know-how and sang-fr oid, a considerable quantity

of dragon spawn, raising an ungodly perturbation, br oke

loose. Only then did it become clear that those odious

beasts enjoyed an e xistence quite diﬀer ent fr om that of

ordinary cupboar ds, tables and chairs; for dragons ar e

distinguished by their pr obability rather than by their

actuality, though granted, that pr obability is overwhelming

once they've actually come into being. Suppose, for

example, one or ganizes a hunt for such a dragon, sur rounds

it, closes in, beating the brush. The cir cle of sportsmen, their

weapons cock ed and r eady, ﬁnds only a bur nt patch of earth

and an unmistak able smell: the dragon, seeing itself

cornered, has slipped fr om real to conﬁgurational space. An

extremely obtuse and brutal cr eatur e, it does this

instinctively, of course. Now, ignorant and backwar d

persons will occasionally demand that you show them this

conﬁgurational space of yours, appar ently unawar e that

electr ons, whose e xistence no one in his right mind would

question, also move e xclusively in conﬁgurational space,

their comings and goings fully dependent on curves of

probability .

Though it is easier not to believe in electr ons

than in dragons: electr ons, at least tak en singly, won't try to

make a meal of you. A colleague of T rurl, one Harborizian Cybr, was the ﬁrst to

quantize a dragon, detecting a particle known as the

dracotr on, the ener gy of which is measur ed—obviously—in

units of dracon by a dracometer, and he even deter mined

the coor dinates of its tail, for which he nearly paid with his

life. Y et what did these scientiﬁc achievements concer n the

common folk, who wer e now gr eatly harassed by dragons

ranging the countryside, ﬁlling the air with their howls and

ﬂames and trampling, and in places even e xacting tribute in

the for m of young vir gins?

What did it concer n the poor

villagers that T rurl's dragons, indeter ministic hence

heuristic, wer e behaving e xactly accor ding to theory though

contrary to all notions of decency, or that his theory could

predict the curve of the tails that demolished their bar ns

and leveled their cr ops?

It is not surprising, then, that the

general public, instead of appr eciating the value of T rurl's

revolutionary invention, held it much against him. A gr oup

of individuals thor oughly benighted in matters of science

waylaid the famous constructor and gave him a good

thrashing. Not that this deter red him and his friend

Klapaucius fr om further e xperimentation, which showed that

the e xtent of a dragon's e xistence depends mainly on its

whim, though also on its degr ee of satiety, and that the only

sure method of negating it is to r educe the pr obability to

zero or lower .

All this r esear ch, naturally enough, took a

great deal of time and ener gy; meanwhile the dragons that

had gotten loose wer e running rampant, laying waste to a

variety of planets and moons. What was worse, they

multiplied. Which enabled Klapaucius to publish an e xcellent

article entitled "Covariant T ransfor mation fr om Dragons to

Dragonets, in the Special Case of P assage fr om States

Forbidden by the Laws of Physics to Those F orbidden by the

Local Authorities." The article cr eated a sensation in the

scientiﬁc world, wher e ther e was still talk of the amazing

polypolice beast that had been used by the intr epid

constructors against King Kr ool to avenge the deaths of

their colleagues. But far gr eater was the sensation caused

by the news that a certain constructor known as Basiliscus

the Gor gonite, traveling thr ough the Galaxy, was appar ently

making dragons appear by his pr esence—and in places

wher e no one had ever seen a dragon befor e. Whenever the

situation gr ew desperate and catastr ophe seemed

imminent, this Basiliscus would tur n up, appr oach the

sover eign of that particular ar ea and, settling on some

outrageous fee af ter long hours of bar gaining, would

undertak e to e xtirpate the beasts. A t which he usually

succeeded, though no one knew quite how, since he work ed

in secr et and alone. T rue, the guarantee he oﬀer ed for

dragon r emoval—dracolysis—was only statistical; though

one ruler did pay him in similar coin, that is, in ducats that

were only statistically good. A fter that, the insolent

Basiliscus always used aqua r egia to check the metallic

reliability of his r oyal payments. One sunny af ternoon T rurl

and Klapaucius met and held the following conversation:

“Have you hear d about this Basiliscus?" ask ed Trurl. "Yes."

"Well, what do you think?"

"I don't lik e it."

"Nor do I. How do you suppose he does it?"

"With an ampliﬁer ."

"A pr obability ampliﬁer?"

"Either that, or oscillating ﬁelds."

"Or a paramagnedracic generator ."

"You mean, a draculator?"

"Yes."

"Ah."

"But r eally," cried T rurl, "that would be criminal!

That

would mean he was bringing the dragons with him, only in a

potential state, their pr obability near zer o; then, af ter

landing and getting the lay of the land, he was incr easing

the chances, raising the potential, str engthening the

probability until it was almost a certainty .

And then, of

course, you have visualization, materialization, full

manifestation."

"Of course. And he pr obably shuﬄes the letters of the

matrix to mak e the dragons grand."

"Yes, and the poor people gr oan in agony and gor e. Terrible!"

"What do you think; does he then apply an ir reversible

antidraconian r etroectoplasmatr on, or simply lower the

probability and walk oﬀ with the gold?"

"Hard to say .

Though if he's only impr obabilizing, that

would be an even gr eater piece of villainy, since sooner or

later the fractional ﬂuctuations would have to give rise to a

draconic iso -oscillation—and the whole thing would start all

over again."

"Though by that time both he and the money would be

gone," observed Klapaucius. "Shouldn't we r eport him to the Main Oﬃce?"

"Not just yet. He may not be doing this, af ter all. W e have

no real pr oof. Statistical ﬂuctuations can occur without an

ampliﬁer; at one time, you know, ther e wer e neither

ampliﬁers nor phantasmatr ons, yet dragons did appear .

Purely on a random basis."

"True…" r eplied T rurl. "But these appear immediately af ter

he ar rives on the planet!"

"I know .

Still, r eporting a fellow constructor—it just isn't

done. Though ther e's no r eason we can't tak e measur es of

our own."

"No r eason at all."

"I'm glad you agr ee. But what e xactly should we do?"

At this point the two famous dracologists got into a

discussion so technical, that anyone listening in wouldn't

have been able to mak e head or tail of it. Ther e wer e such

mysterious wor ds as "discontinuous orthodragonality ."

"grand draconical ensembles." "high-fr equency binomial

fafneration." "abnor mal saurian distribution." "discr ete

dragons." "indiscr ete dragons." "drasticodracostochastic

contr ol." "simple Gr endelian dominance." "weak interaction

dragon diﬀraction." "aber rational r eluctance." "infor mational

ﬁgmentation," and so on. The upshot of all this penetrating analysis was the thir d

sally, for which the constructors pr epared most car efully,

not failing to load their ship with a quantity of highly

complicated devices. In particular they took along a scatter -scrambler and a

special gun that ﬁr ed negative heads. A fter landing on

Eenica, then on Meenica, then ﬁnally on Mynamoaca, they

realized it would be impossible to comb the whole infested

area in this way and they would have to split up. This was

most easily done, obviously, by separating; so af ter a brief

council of war each set out on his own. Klapaucius work ed

for a spell on P restopondora for the Emper or Maximillion,

who was pr epared to oﬀer him his daughter's hand in

marriage if only he would get rid of those vile beasts. Dragons of the highest pr obability wer e everywher e, even in

the str eets of the capital, and the place literally swar med

with virtuals. A virtual dragon, the uneducated and simple-

minded might say, "isn't r eally ther e," having no observable

substance nor displaying the least intention of acquiring

any; but the Cybr -Trurl-Klapaucius-L eech calculation (not to

mention the Drachendranginger wave equation) clearly

shows that a dragon can jump fr om conﬁgurational to r eal

space with no mor e eﬀort than it tak es to jump oﬀ a cliﬀ.

Thus, in any r oom, cellar or attic, pr ovided the pr obability is

high, you could meet with a dragon or possibly even a

metadragon. Instead of chasing af ter the beasts, which would have

accomplished little or nothing, Klapaucius, a true

theor etician, appr oached the pr oblem methodically; in

squar es and pr omenades, in bar ns and hostels he placed

probabilistic battery -run dragon dampers, and in no time at

all the beasts wer e extremely rar e. Collecting his fee, plus

an honorary degr ee and an engraved loving cup, Klapaucius

blasted oﬀ to r ejoin his friend. On the way, he noticed a

planet and someone waving to him frantically .

Thinking it

might be T rurl in some sort of tr ouble, he landed. But it was

only the inhabitants of T ruﬀfandria, the subjects of King

Pﬀtius, gesticulating. The T ruﬄandrians held to various

superstitions and primitive beliefs; their r eligion,

Pneumatological Dracolatry, taught that dragons appear ed

as a divine r etribution for their sins and took possession of

all unclean souls. Quickly r ealizing it would be useless to

enter into a discussion with the r oyal dracologians—their

methods consisted primarily of waving censers and

distributing sacr ed relics—Klapaucius instead conducted

soundings of the outlying ter rain. These r evealed the planet

was occupied by only one beast, but that beast belonged to

the ter rible genus of Echidnosaurian hypervipers. He oﬀer ed

the King his services. The King, however, answer ed in a

vague, r oundabout fashion, evidently under the inﬂuence of

that ridiculous doctrine which would have the origin of

dragons be somehow super natural. P erusing the local

newspapers, Klapaucius lear ned that the dragon ter rorizing

the planet was consider ed by some to be a single thing, and

by others, a multiple x creatur e that could operate in several

locations at the same time. This gave him pause—though it

wasn't so surprising r eally, when you consider ed that the

localization of these odious phenomena was subject to so -

called dragonomalies, in which certain specimens,

particularly when abstracted, underwent a "smearing"

eﬀect, which was in r eality nothing mor e than a simple

isotopic spin acceleration of asynchr onous quantum

moments. Much as a hand, emer ging fr om the water

ﬁngers-ﬁrst, appears above the surface in the for m of ﬁve

seemingly separate and independent items, so do dragons,

emer ging fr om the lairs of their conﬁgurational space, on

occasion appear to be plural, though in point of fact they ar e

quite singular .

Towar ds the end of his second audience with

the King, Klapaucius inquir ed if per haps T rurl wer e on the

planet and gave a detailed description of his comrade. He

was astonished to hear that yes, his comrade had only

recently visited their kingdom and had even undertak en to

exorcise the monster, had in fact accepted a r etainer and

departed for the neighboring mountains wher e the monster

had been most fr equently sighted. Had then r eturned the

next day, demanding the r est of his fee and pr esenting four

and twenty dragon's teeth as pr oof of his success. Ther e

was some misunderstanding, however, and it was decided

to withhold payment until the matter was fully clear ed up. At which T rurl ﬂew into a rage and in a loud voice made

certain comments about His R oyal Highness that wer e

perilously close to lese majesty if not tr eason, then stor med

out without leaving a forwar ding addr ess. That very same

day the monster r eappear ed as if nothing had happened

and, alas, ravaged their far ms and villages mor e ﬁer cely

than befor e.

Now this story seemed questionable to Klapaucius, though

on the other hand it was har d to believe the good King was

lying, so he pack ed his knapsack with all sorts of powerful

dragon-e xterminating equipment and set oﬀ for the

mountains, whose snowcapped peaks r ose majestically in

the east. It wasn't long befor e he saw dragon prints and got an

unmistak able whiﬀ of brimstone. On he went, undaunted,

holding his weapon in r eadiness and k eeping a constant eye

on the needle of his dragon counter .

It stayed at zer o for a

spell, then began to give nervous little twitches, until, as if

struggling with itself, it slowly crawled towar ds the number

one. Ther e was no doubt now : the Echidnosaur was close at

hand. Which amazed Klapaucius, for he couldn't understand

how his trusty friend and r enowned theor etician, T rurl, could

have gotten so fouled up in his calculations as to fail to wipe

the dragon out for good. Nor could he imagine T rurl

returning to the r oyal palace and demanding payment for

what he had not accomplished. Klapaucius then came upon a gr oup of natives. They wer e

plainly ter riﬁed, the way they k ept looking ar ound and trying

to stay together .

Bent beneath heavy bur dens balanced on

their backs and heads, they wer e stepping single-ﬁle up the

mountainside. Klapaucius accosted the pr ocession and

asked the ﬁrst native what they wer e about. "Sire!" replied the native, a lower court oﬃcial in a

tatter ed tog and cummerbund. " 'T is the tribute we car ry to

the dragon."

"Tribute?

Ah yes, the tribute!

And what is the tribute?"

"Nothin' mor e 'r less, Sir e, than what the dragon would

have us bring it: gold coins, pr ecious stones, imported

perfumes, an' a passel o' other valuables."

This was truly incr edible, for dragons never r equir ed such

tributes, certainly not perfume—no perfume could ever

mask their own natural fetor—and certainly not cur rency,

which was useless to them. "And does it ask for young vir gins, my good man?" ask ed

Klapaucius. "Virgins?

Nay, Sir e, tho' ther e war a time … we had to cart

'em in by the bevy, we did… Only that war befor e the

stranger came, the fur rin gentleman, Sir e, a-walkin' ar ound

the rocks with 'is bo xes an' contraptions, all by 'is-self…"

Here the worthy native br oke oﬀ and star ed at the

instruments and weapons Klapaucius was car rying,

particularly the lar ge dragon counter that was ticking sof tly

all the while, its r ed pointer jumping back and forth acr oss

the white dial. "Why, if he dinna have one… jus' lik e yer L ordship's," he

said in a hushed voice. "A ye, jus' lik e… the same wee

stigger majigger and a' the r est…"

"Ther e was a sale on them," said Klapaucius, to allay the

native's suspicions. "But tell me, good people, do you

happen to know what became of this stranger?"

"What became o' him, ye ask?

That we know not, Sir e, to

be sur e. 'Twas, if I not mistak e me, but a fortnight past

—'twas, 'twas not, Master Gyles, a fortnight withal an' nae

more?"

" 'Twas, 'twas, 'tis the truth ye speak, the truth aye, a

fortnight sur e, or maybe two ."

"Aye!

So he comes to us, yer Grace, partak es of our

'umble far e, polite as ye please an' I'll not gainsay it, nay, a

parﬁt gentleman true, pays hondsomely, inquir es af ter the

missus don't y'know, aye an' then he sits 'isself down,

spreads out a' them contraptions an' thin's with clocks in

'em, y'see, an' scribbles furious-lik e, numbers they ar e, one

after't'other, in this wee book he k eep in 'is br east pock et,

then tak es out a—whad'yacallit—therbobbiter

thingamabob…"

"Ther mometer?"

"Aye, that's it!

A ther mometer… an' he says it be for

dragons, an' pok es it her e an' ther e, Sir e, an' scribbles in 'is

book again, then he tak es a' them contraptions an' things

an' packs 'em up an' puts 'em on 'is back an' says far ewell

an' goes 'is mer ry way .

We never saw 'im mor e, yer Honor .

That very night we hear a thunder an' a clatter, oh, a good

ways oﬀ, 'bout as far as Mount Mur digras—'tis the one, Sir e,

hard by yon peak, aye, that one thar, looks lik e a hawk, she

do, we call 'er Pﬀtius P eak af ter our beluved King, an' that

one thar on't'uther side, bent over lik e't'would spr ead 'er

arse, that be the Dollymog, which, accor din' to legend—"

"Enough of the mountains, worthy native," said

Klaupaucius. "Y ou wer e saying ther e was thunder in the

night. What happened then?"

"Then, Sir e?

Why nothin', to be sur e. The hut she give a

jump an' I falls outta bed, to which I'm well accustomed,

mind ye, seein' as how the wick ed beast allus come a-

bumpin' gainst the house with 'er tail an' send a feller

ﬂyin'—lik e when Master Gyles' ayn br other londed in the

privy 'cause the cr eatur' gets a hank erin' to scratch 'isself

on the cor ner o' the r oof…"

"To the point, man, get to the point!" cried Klapaucius. "Ther e was thunder, you fell down, and then what?"

"Then nothin', lik e I says befor e an' thought I made it

clear. Nothin', an' if'n ther e war somethin', ther e'd be some-

thin', only ther e war nothin' sur e an' that be the long an' the

short of it!

D'ye agr ee, Master Gyles?"

"Aye, sur e 'tis the truth ye speak, 'tis."

Klapaucius bowed and stepped back, and the whole

procession continued up the mountain, the natives straining

beneath the dragon's tribute. He supposed they would place

it in some cave designated by the beast, but didn't car e to

ask for details; his head was alr eady spinning fr om listening

to the local oﬃcial and his Master Gyles. And anyway, he

had hear d one of the natives say to another that the dragon

had chosen "a spot as near us an' as near 'isself as could be

found."

Klapaucius hur ried on, picking his way accor ding to the

readings of the dragonometer he k ept on a chain ar ound his

neck. As for the counter, its pointer had come to r est on

exactly eight-tenths of a dragon. "What in the devil is it, an indeter minant dragon?" he

thought as he mar ched, stopping to r est every now and

then, for the sun beat ﬁer cely and the air was so hot that

everything shimmer ed. Ther e was no vegetation anywher e,

not a scrap, only bak ed mud, r ocks and boulders as far as

the eye could see. An hour passed, the sun hung lower in the heavens, and

Klapaucius still walk ed thr ough ﬁelds of gravel and scr ee,

through craggy passes, till he found himself in a place of

narrow canyons and ravines full of chill and darkness. The

red pointer cr ept to nine-tenths, gave a shudder, and fr oze. Klapaucius put his knapsack on a r ock and had just tak en

oﬀ his antidragon belt when the indicator began to go wild,

so he grabbed his pr obability e xtinguisher and look ed all

around. Situated on a high bluﬀ, he was able to see into the

gorge below, wher e something moved. "That must be her!" he thought, since Echidnosaurs ar e

invariably female. Could that be why it didn't demand young vir gins?

But no,

the native said it had befor e. Odd, most odd. But the main

thing now, Klapaucius told himself, was to shoot straight

and everything would be all right. Just in case, however, he

reached for his knapsack again and pulled out a can of

dragon r epellent and an atomizer .

Then he peer ed over the

edge of the r ock. A t the bottom of the gor ge, along the bed

of a dried-up str eam walk ed a grayish br own dragoness of

enormous pr oportions, though with sunk en sides as if it had

been starved. All sorts of thoughts ran thr ough Klapaucius'

head. Annihilate the thing by r eversing the sign of its

pentapendragonal coeﬃcient fr om positive to negative,

thereby raising the statistical pr obability of its none xistence

over that of its e xistence?

Ah, but how very risk y that was,

when the least deviation could pr ove disastr ous: mor e than

one poor soul, seeking to pr oduce the lack of a dragon, had

ended up instead with the back of the dragon—r esulting in a

beast with two backs—and nearly died of embar rassment!

Besides, total depr obabilization would rule out the

possibility of studying the Echidnosaur's behavior .

Klapaucius waver ed; he could see a splendid dragonskin

tacked on the wall of his den, right above the ﬁr eplace. But

this wasn't the time to indulge in daydr eams—though a

dracozoologist would certainly be delighted to r eceive an

animal with such unusual tastes. F inally, as Klapaucius got

into position, it occur red to him what a nice little article

might be written up on the str ength of a well-pr eserved

specimen, so he put down the e xtinguisher, lif ted the gun

that ﬁr ed negative heads, took car eful aim and pulled the

trigger .

The r oar was deafening. A cloud of white smok e engulfed

Klapaucius and he lost sight of the beast for a moment. Then the smok e clear ed. There are a gr eat many old wives' tales about dragons. It

is said, for e xample, that dragons can sometimes have

seven heads. This is sheer nonsense. A dragon can have

only one head, for the simple r eason that having two leads

to disagr eements and violent quar rels; the polyhydr oids, as

the scholars call them, died out as a r esult of inter nal feuds. Stubbor n and headstr ong by natur e, dragons cannot

tolerate opposition, ther efore two heads in one body will

always bring about a swif t death: each head, pur ely to spite

the other, r efuses to eat, then maliciously holds its br eath—

with the usual consequences. It was this phenomenon which

Euphorius Cloy e xploited when he invented the anticapita

cannon. A small auxiliary electr on head is dischar ged into

the dragon's body .

This immediately gives rise to

unreconcilable diﬀer ences of opinion and the dragon is

immobilized by the ensuing deadlock. Of ten it will stand

there, stiﬀ as a boar d, for a day, a week, even a month;

sometimes a year goes by befor e the beast will collapse,

exhausted. Then you can do with it what you will. But the dragon Klapaucius shot r eacted strangely, to say

the least. T rue, it did r ear up on its hind paws with a howl

that started a landslide or two, and it did thrash the r ocks

with its tail until the sparks ﬂew all over the canyon. But

then it scratched its ear, clear ed its thr oat and coolly

continued on its way, though tr otting at a slightly quick er

pace. Unable to believe his eyes, Klapaucius ran along the

ridge to head the cr eatur e oﬀ at the mouth of the dried-up

stream —it was no longer an article, or even two articles in

the Dracological Jour nal he could see his name on now, but

a whole monograph elegantly bound, with a lik eness of the

dragon and the author on the cover!

At the ﬁrst bend he cr ouched behind a boulder, pulled out

his impr obability automatic, took aim and actuated the

possibiliballistic destabilizers. The gunstock tr embled in his

hands, the r ed-hot bar rel steamed; the dragon was

surrounded with a halo lik e a moon pr edicting bad weather

— but didn't disappear!

Once again Klapaucius unleashed

the utmost impr obability at the beast; the intensity of

nonverisimilarity was so gr eat, that a moth that happened

to be ﬂying by began to tap out the Second Jungle Book in

Morse code with its little wings, and her e and ther e among

the crags and cliﬀs danced the shadows of witches, hags

and harpies, while the sound of hoofbeats announced that

somewher e in the vicinity ther e wer e centaurs gamboling,

summoned into being by the awesome for ce of the

improbability pr ojector .

But the dragon just sat ther e and

yawned, leisur ely scratching its shaggy neck with a hind

paw, lik e a dog. Klapaucius clutched his sizzling weapon and

desperately k ept squeezing the trigger—he had never felt so

helpless— and the near est stones slowly lif ted into the air,

while the dust that the dragon had kick ed up, instead of

settling, hung in midair and assumed the shape of a sign

that clearly r ead A T YOUR SER VICE GO V. It gr ew dim—day

was night and night was day, it gr ew cold-—hell was

freezing over; a couple of stones went out for a str oll and

softly chatted of this and that; in short, miracles wer e

happening right and lef t, yet that hor rid monster sitting not

more than thirty paces fr om Klapaucius appar ently had no

intention of disappearing. Klapaucius thr ew down his gun,

pulled an anti-dragon gr enade fr om his vest pock et and,

committing his soul to the Universal Matrix of T ransﬁnite

Transfor mations, hurled it with all his might. Ther e was a

loud k er-boom, and into the air with a spray of r ock ﬂew the

dragon's tail, and the dragon shouted "Y ipe!"—just lik e a

person—and galloped straight for Klapaucius. Klapaucius,

seeing the end was near, leaped out fr om behind his

boulder, swinging his antimatter saber blindly, but then he

heard another shout:

"Stop!

Stop!

Don't kill me!"

"What's that, the dragon talking?" thought Klapaucius. "I

must be going mad …"

But he ask ed:

"Who said that?

The dragon?"

"What dragon?

It's me!!"

And as the cloud of dust blew away, T rurl stepped out of

the beast, pushing a button that made it sink to its knees

and go dead with a long, drawn- out wheeze. "Trurl, what on earth is going on?

Why this masquerade?

Wher e did you ﬁnd such a costume?

And what about the

real dragon?" Klapaucius bombar ded his friend with

questions. T rurl ﬁnished brushing himself oﬀ and held up his

hands. "Just a minute, give me a chance!

The dragon I destr oyed,

but the King wouldn't pay …"

"Why not?"

"Stingy, most lik ely. He blamed it on the bur eaucracy, of

course, said ther e had to be a notarized death certiﬁcate, an

oﬃcial autopsy, all sorts of for ms in triplicate, the appr oval

of the R oyal Appr opriations Commission, and so on. The

Head T reasur er claimed he didn't know the pr ocedur e to

hand over the money, for it wasn't wages, nor did it come

under maintenance. I went fr om the King to the Cashier to

the Commission, back and forth, and no one would do

anything; ﬁnally, when they ask ed me to submit a vita sheet

with photographs and r eferences, I walk ed out—but by then

the dragon was beyond r ecall. So I pulled the skin oﬀ it, cut

up a few sticks and branches, found an old telephone pole,

and that was r eally all I needed; a frame for the skin, some

pulleys—you know—and I was r eady …"

"You, Trurl?

R esorting to such shameful tactics?

Impossible!

What could you hope to gain by it?

I mean, if

they didn't pay you in the ﬁrst place…"

"Don't you understand?" said T rurl, shaking his head. "This

way I get the tribute!

Alr eady ther e's mor e than I know what

to do with."

"Ah!

Of course!!" Klapaucius saw it all now .

But he added,

"Still, it wasn't right to for ce them …"

"Who was for cing them?

I only walk ed ar ound in the

mountains, and in the evenings I howled a little. But r eally,

I'm absolutely bushed." And he sat down ne xt to Klapaucius. "What, fr om howling?"

"Howling?

What ar e you talking about?

Every night I have

to drag sacks of gold fr om the designated cave—all the way

up ther e!" He pointed to a distant ridge. "I made myself a

blast- oﬀ pad—it's right over ther e. Just car ry several

hundr ed pounds of bullion fr om sundown to sunup and you'll

see what I mean!

And that dragon was no or dinary dragon—

the skin itself weighs a couple of tons, and I have to cart

that ar ound with me all day, r oaring and stamping —and

then it's all night hauling and heaving. I'm glad you showed

up, I can't tak e much mor e of this…"

"But… why didn't the dragon—the fak e one, that is— why

didn't it disappear when I lower ed the pr obability to the

point of miracles?" Klapaucius ask ed. Trurl smiled. "I didn't want to tak e any chances," he e xplained. "Some

fool of a hunter might've happened by, maybe even

Basiliscus himself, so I put pr obability -proof shields under

the dragonskin. But come, I've got a few sacks of platinum

left —saved them for last since they'r e the heaviest. Which

is just perfect, now that you can give me a hand…"

The Fourth Sally

Or How Trurl

Built a Femfatalatron to Save Prince

Pantaloon from the Pangs of Love,

and How Later He Resorted to a

Cannonade of Babies

One day, in the middle of the night, as T rurl lay deep in

slumber, ther e came a violent knocking at the door of his

domicile, as if someone was trying to knock it oﬀ its hinges. Still in a stupor, T rurl pulled back the bolts and saw standing

there against the paling stars an enor mous ship. It look ed

like a giant sugar loaf or ﬂying pyramid, and out of this

colossus, which had landed right on his fr ont lawn, long r ows

of andr omedaries laden with packs walk ed down a wide

ramp, while r obots, garbed in turbans and togas and

painted black, unloaded the bags at his doorstep, and so

quickly, that befor e Trurl knew it, he was hemmed in by a

growing embankment of bulging sacks—though a nar row

passageway was lef t ther ein, and thr ough this appr oached

an electr oknight of r emark able countenance, for his jeweled

eyes blazed lik e comets, and he had radar antennas jauntily

thrown back, and an elegant diamond-studded stole. This

imposing personage doﬀed his ar mored cap and in a mighty

yet silk en voice inquir ed:

"Have I the honor to speak with his lor dship T rurl, T rurl the

highbor n, Trurl the illustrious constructor?"

"Why yes, of course… won't you come in … I wasn't

expecting… that is, I was asleep," said T rurl, ter ribly

ﬂuster ed, pulling on a bathr obe, for a nightshirt was all he

was wearing, and that wasn't the cleanest. The magniﬁcent electr oknight, however, appear ed not to

notice any shortcoming in T rurl's attir e. Doﬀng his cap

again, which pur red and hummed above his castellated

brow, he gracefully enter ed the r oom. T rurl e xcused himself

for a moment, perfunctorily perfor med his mor ning

ablutions, then hur ried back downstairs. By now it was

growing light outside, and the ﬁrst rays of the sun gleamed

on the turbans of the r obots, who sang the old sad and

soulful song of bondage, "T ote Dat Jack," as they for med in

triple r ows ar ound both house and pyramidal ship. T rurl took

a seat opposite his guest, who blink ed his shining eyes and

ﬁnally spok e as follows:

"The planet fr om which I come to you, Sir Constructor, is

at present deep in the Dark Ages. Ah, but Y our Ex cellency

must for give our untimely ar rival, which did so

incommoditate him; on boar d we had no way of knowing,

you see, that at this particular locus of this worthy spher e,

which your abode is pleased to occupy, night still r eigned

supreme and stayed the br eak of day ."

Here he clear ed his thr oat, lik e someone playing sweetly

upon a glass har monica, and continued:

"I have been sent to Y our Exalted P erson by my lor d and

master, His R oyal Highness P rotuber on Asteristicus,

sover eign ruler of the sister globes of Aphelion and

Perihelion, her editary monar ch of Aneuria, emper or of all

the Monodamites, Bipr oxicans and T ripartisans, the Grand

Duke of Anamandorinth, Glor gonzigor and

Esquacciaccaturbia, Count of the Euscalipü, the Algorissimo

and the Flora del F ortran, P aladin Escutcheoned,

Begudgeoned and of the Highest Dudgeon, Bar on of Bhm,

Wrph and Clarafoncasterbrack eningen, as well as anointed

exarch extraor dinary of Ida, P ida and A dinﬁnida, to invite in

His muniﬁcent name Y our R esplendent Grace to our

kingdom as the long-awaited savior of the cr own, as the

only one who can deliver us fr om the general mortifaction

occasioned by the thrice-unhappy infatuation of His R oyal

Highness, the heir to the thr one, P antagoon."

"But r eally, I'm not—" T rurl tried to interpose, but the

dignitary waved his hand, signif ying that he had not as yet

ﬁnished, and went on in that same r esonating voice:

"In return for the gracious loan of your most sympathetic

ear, and for your succor in the over coming of our national

calamity, His R oyal Highness P rotuber on her eby pr omises,

pledges and solemnly swears that he shall shower Y our Con-

structorship with such riches and honors, that Y our

Esteemed Eﬀulgence will never e xhaust them, even until

the end of his days. And now, by way of an advance or, as

they say, a r etainer, I forthwith dub thee"—and her e the

magnate r ose, dr ew his swor d, and spok e, vigor ously

punctuating each wor d with the ﬂat of the blade on both

Trurl's shoulders—"Earl of Otes, Gr otes and F inocclea,

Margrave Emeritus of T rundle and Sklar, Eight-bar reled

Bearer of the Gr eat Guamellonian Hok, not to mention

Thane of Bondacalonda and Cgth, Gover nor General of

Muxis and Ptuxis, as well as T itular V iscount of the Or der of

Unwinched W aifs, Almoner in perpetuum of the r ealms of

Eenica, Meenica and Mynamoaca, with all the attendant

rights and privileges accruing ther eto, including a twenty -

one gun salute upon rising in the mor ning and r etiring at

night, an af ter-dinner fanfar e, and the Extinguished

Exponential Cr oss, duly certiﬁed and carved in ebony, slate

and marzipan. And as pr oof of his r oyal favor, my L ord and

Liege sends you these few triﬂes, which I have tak en the

liberty to place about your dwelling."

And indeed, the sacks alr eady block ed out the sk y, and

the room gr ew dim. The magnate ﬁnished speaking, though

his hand, raised in eloquence, r emained in midair .

Trurl took

this opportunity to say :

"I am much obliged to His R oyal Highness P rotuber on, but

aﬀairs of the heart, you understand, ar e not e xactly my

specialty .

Though…" he added, uncomfortable under the

magnate's dazzling gaze, "per haps you would e xplain the

problem to me …"

The magnate gave a nod. "That is simply done, Sir Constructor!

The heir to the

throne has fallen in love with Amarandina Cyber nella, the

only daughter of the ruler of the neighboring state of Ib. But

an ancient enmity divides our kingdoms, and doubtless, if

our Beloved Sover eign, yielding to the unwearying pleas of

the prince, wer e to ask that emper or for the hand of

Amarandina, the answer would be a categorical never .

And

so a year has passed, and six days, and the cr own prince

wastes away befor e our eyes. All attempts to r estor e him to

reason have failed, and now our only hope lies in Y our Most

Iridescent Eminence!"

Here the magnate made a deep bow .

Trurl, observing r ows

of war riors right outside his window, coughed and said in a

feeble voice:

"Well, I r eally don't see how I could be of … though, of

course, if the King wishes it… in that case…"

"Wonderful!" cried the magnate and clapped his hands

with a mighty clang. Immediately twelve cuirassiers, black

as night, rushed in with clattering ar mor and bor e Trurl oﬀ to

the ship, which ﬁr ed its engines twenty -one times, pulled

anchor and, banners waving, lif ted up into the open sk y. During the ﬂight the magnate, who was Grand Seneschal

and Artifactotum to the King, ﬁlled T rurl in on the details of

the prince's ill-star red enamorization. Dir ectly upon their

arrival, af ter the welcoming cer emonies and tick er-tape

parade thr ough the str eets of the capital, the constructor

got down to work. He set up his equipment in the

magniﬁcent r oyal gar dens and in thr ee weeks had

converted the T emple of Contemplation ther e into a strange

ediﬁce full of metal, cables and glowing scr eens. This was,

he told the King, a femfatalatr on, an er otifying device

stochastic, elastic and or giastic, and with plenty of

feedback; whoever was placed inside the apparatus

instantaneously e xperienced all the char ms, lur es, wiles,

winks and witchery of all the fair er se x in the Universe at

once. The femfatalatr on operated on a power of forty

megamors, with a maximum attainable eﬃciency—given a

constant concupiscence coeﬃcient—of ninety -six per cent,

while the system's libidinous lubricity, measur ed of course

in kilocupids, pr oduced up to six units for every r emote-

contr ol car ess. This marvelous mechanism, mor eover, was

equipped with r eversible ar dor dampers, omnidir ectional

consummation ampliﬁers, absorption philters, paphian

peripherals, and "ﬁrst-sight" ﬂip-ﬂop cir cuits, since T rurl held

here to the position of Dr .

Yentzicus, cr eator of the famous

oculo -oscular feel theory .

There wer e also all sorts of auxiliary components, lik e a

high-fr equency titillizer, an alter nating tantalator, plus an

entire set of lecher ons and debaucheraries; on the outside,

in a special glass case, wer e enor mous dials, on which one

could car efully follow the course of the whole decaptivation

process. Statistical analysis r evealed that the femfatalatr on

gave positive, per manent r esults in ninety -eight cases of

unrequited amatorial superﬁxation out of a hundr ed. The

chances of saving the cr own prince ther efore wer e

excellent. It took forty venerable peers of the kingdom four hours

and mor e to push and pull their prince thr ough the gar dens

to the T emple of Contemplation, for though fully

deter mined, they had to show pr oper r espect for his r oyal

person, and the prince, having no desir e whatever of

becoming de-captivated, kick ed and butted his faithful

courtiers with gr eat vigor .

When ﬁnally His Majesty was

shoved, with the application of numer ous feather pillows,

into the machine and the trapdoor shut af ter him, T rurl, full

of misgivings, thr ew the switch, and the computer began its

countdown in a dr eary monotone: "F ive, four, thr ee, two,

one, zer o … start!" The synchr oerotorotors, bumping and

grinding, set up powerful counterseduction cur rents to

displace the prince's so tragically misplaced aﬀections. A fter

an hour of this, T rurl look ed at the dials: their needles

trembled under the ter rible load of lascivicity but, alas,

failed to show any signiﬁcant impr ovement. He began to

have serious doubts about the success of the tr eatment, but

it was too late to do anything now—other than fold his

hands and wait patiently .

He only check ed to mak e sur e that

the autolips wer e landing in the right place and at the

proper angle, that the aphr odisial philander oids and

satyriacal panderynes wer en't going too far, for he didn't

want the patient to under go a total dotal transfer ral and end

up idolizing the machine instead of Amarandina, but only to

fall thor oughly out of love. A t last the trapdoor was opened

in solemn silence. Out of the dim interior, wr eathed with a

cloud of the sweetest perfume, stumbled the pale prince

through crushed r ose petals—and fell in a swoon, stunned

by that awesome access of passion. His faithful servants

rushed up and, as they lif ted his limp limbs, hear d him utter

in a hoarse whisper one solitary wor d: Amarandina. T rurl

cursed under his br eath, for all of it had been in vain, and

the prince's mad love had pr oven str onger than all the

megamors and kilocuddles the femfatalatr on could bring to

bear. The raptur ometer, when pr essed against the br ow of

the stupeﬁed prince, r egister ed one hundr ed and seven,

then the glass shatter ed and the mer cury pour ed out, still

quivering, as if it too had come under the inﬂuence of those

raging emotions. The ﬁrst attempt, then, was a complete

failur e. Trurl r eturned to his quarters in the foulest mood, and

anyone eavesdr opping would have hear d how he paced

from wall to wall, seeking a solution. Meanwhile ther e was

an awful rack et back in the gar dens: some stonemasons,

ordered to ﬁx the wall of a small arborium, had out of

curiosity crawled into the femfatalatr on and accidentally

turned it on. It became necessary to summon the ﬁr e

department, for they jumped out so inﬂamed, that they

started to smok e. Next Trurl tried a r etropruriginous er oginator with heavy -

duty volupticles, but that too—to mak e a long story short—

was a ﬂop. The prince was not a whit less smitten with

Amarandina's char ms; in fact, he was mor e smitten than

ever. Once again T rurl paced the ﬂoor of his r oom, back and

forth for many miles, and sat up half the night r eading

professional manuals, till he hurled them against the wall. That mor ning he went to the Grand Seneschal and

requested an audience with the King. A dmitted to the

presence of His Majesty, T rurl spok e in this fashion:

"Your R oyal Highness and Gracious Sover eign!

The dis-

enamor ment methods which I employed upon Y our son ar e

the most powerful possible. He simply will not be dis-

enamor ed, not alive—Y our Majesty must know the truth."

The King was silent, crushed by this news, but T rurl went

on:

"Of course, I could deceive him, synthesizing an

Amarandina accor ding to the parameters I have at hand,

but sooner or later the prince would ﬁnd out, when news of

the true Amarandina r eached his ears. No, I see no other

way: the prince must mar ry the Emper or's daughter!"

"Bah, but that is the whole pr oblem, O for eigner!

The

Emper or will never agr ee to such a mar riage!"

"And if he wer e conquer ed?

If he had to sue for peace,

beg for mer cy?"

"Why then, certainly—but would you have me plunge two

large kingdoms into a bloody war, which is a risk y

proposition at best, solely in or der to win the hand of the

Emper or's daughter for my son?

No, that is quite out of the

question!"

"Precisely the answer I e xpected of Y our R oyal Highness!"

said T rurl calmly .

"However, ther e are wars and ther e are

wars; the kind I have in mind would be absolutely bloodless. For we would not attack the Emper or's r ealm with ar ms; in

fact, we would not tak e the life of a single citizen, but just

the opposite!

"What ar e you saying?

What do you mean?" e xclaimed the

King. And as T rurl whisper ed his secr et plan into the r oyal ear,

the monar ch's car ewor n face gradually brightened, and he

cried:

"Go then, and do this thing, good for eigner, and may the

gods be with thee!"

The very ne xt day the r oyal for ges and workshops

undertook the construction, accor ding to T rurl's

speciﬁcations, of a gr eat number of tr emendous cannons,

though for what purpose intended it was not clear .

These

were placed ar ound the planet and disguised as defense

installations, so that no one would guess a thing. Meanwhile

Trurl sat day and night in the r oyal cyber genetic laboratory,

watching over secr et cauldr ons in which mysterious

concoctions gur gled and per colated. A spy on the pr emises

would have discover ed nothing, e xcept that now and then

behind the double-lock ed doors ther e was an odd mewling,

puling sound, and technicians and assistants ran frantically

back and forth with piles of diapers. The bombar dment began a week later, at midnight. The

cannons, primed by veteran cannoneers, wer e aimed,

muzzles raised, straight at the white star of the Emper or's

empir e, and they ﬁr ed—not death-dealing, but life-giving

missiles. F or Trurl had loaded the cannons with newbor n

babies, which rained down upon the enemy in gooing,

cooing myriads and, gr owing quickly, crawled and dr ooled

over everything; ther e wer e so many of them, that the air

shook with their ear -splitting ma-ma's, da-da's, k ee-kee's

and waa's. This infant inundation lasted until the economy

began to collapse under the strain and the kingdom was

faced with the dr ead specter of a depr ession, and still out of

the sk y came tots, tads, moppets and toddlers, all chubby

and chuckling, their diapers ﬂuttering. The Emper or was

forced to capitulate to King P rotuber on, who pr omised to call

a halt to the hostilities on the condition that his son be

granted Amarandina's hand in mar riage—to which the

Emper or hastily agr eed. Wher eupon the baby cannons wer e

all car efully spik ed and put away, and, to be safe, T rurl

himself took apart the femfatalatr on. Later, as best man, in

a suit of emeralds and holding the cer emonial baton, he

played toastmaster at the riotous wedding feast. A fterwar ds,

he loaded his r ocket with the titles, diplomas and citations

which both the King and the Emper or had bestowed upon

him, and then, sated with glory, he headed for home.

The Fifth Sally

Or The Mischief

of King Balerion

Not by being cruel did Balerion, King of Cymberia, oppr ess

his people, but by having a good time. And again, it wasn't

feasts or all-night or gies that wer e dear to His Majesty's

heart, but only the most innocent games—tiddlywinks,

mumbledypeg, old maid and go ﬁsh into the wee hours of

the mor ning, then hopscotch, leapfr og, but mor e than

anything he loved to play hide-and-seek. Whenever ther e

was an important decision to be made, a State document to

be signed, interstellar emissaries to be r eceived or some

Commodor e requesting an audience, the King would hide,

and they would have to ﬁnd him, else suﬀer the most

dreadful punishments. So the whole court would chase up

and down the palace, check the dungeons, look under the

drawbridge, comb the towers and tur rets, tap the walls, tur n

the thr one inside out, and quite of ten these sear ches lasted

a long time, for the King was always thinking up new places

to hide. Once, a ter ribly important war never got declar ed,

and all because the King, deck ed in spangles and crystal

pendants, hung thr ee days fr om the ceiling of the main hall

and passed for a chandelier, holding his mouth to k eep fr om

laughing out loud at the ministers rushing about frantically

below .

Whoever found the King was instantly given the title

of Royal Discover er—ther e wer e already seven hundr ed and

thirty -six of those at court. But he who would gain the King's

special favor had to beguile him with some new game, one

the King had never hear d of. Which was by no means easy,

considering that Balerion was unusually well- versed in the

subject; he knew all the ancient games, lik e jackstones or

knucklebones, and all the latest games, lik e spin the

electr on, and he of ten said that everything was a game, his

Crown included, and for that matter the whole wide world. These thoughtless and frivolous wor ds outraged the

venerable members of the King's privy council; the prime

minister in particular, My L ord Papagaster of the gr eat house

of Pentaperihelion, was much pr ovoked, saying the King

held nothing sacr ed and even dar ed expose his own Exalted

Person to ridicule. Then, when the King une xpectedly announced it was time

for riddles, ter ror ﬁlled the hearts of everyone. He had

always had a passion for riddles; once, right in the middle of

the cor onation, he confounded the L ord High Chancellor

with the question, why was antimatter lik e an antimacassar?

It wasn't very long befor e the King r ealized that his

courtiers wer en't putting forth the pr oper eﬀort in solving

the conundrums he posed. They r eplied in any which way,

said whatever came into their heads, and this infuriated the

King. However, as soon as he began to base all r oyal

appointments and pr omotions upon the answers to his

riddles, things impr oved considerably .

Decorations and

dismissals came thick and fast, and the whole court, lik e it

or not, had to play the game in ear nest. Unfortunately,

many dignitaries attempted to deceive the King, who,

though basically good-natur ed, could simply not tolerate a

cheater .

The K eeper of the Gr eat Seal was sent into e xile

because he had used a crib (concealed beneath his cuirass)

in the R oyal P resence; he never would have been

discover ed, had not one of his old enemies, a certain

general, br ought this to the King's attention. P apagaster

himself had to part with his high post, for he didn't know

what was the dark est place in outer space. In time, the

King's Cabinet was composed of the most accomplished

solvers of cr osswor ds, acr ostics and r ebuses in the land, and

his ministers never went anywher e without their

encyclopedias. The courtiers soon became so pr oﬁcient,

that they could supply the cor rect answer befor e the King

had ﬁnished asking the question, though this was har dly

surprising when you consider ed that they wer e all avid

subscribers to the "Oﬃcial R egister," which, instead of a

tedious list of acts and administrative decisions, contained

nothing but puzzles, puns and parlor games. As the years went by, however, the King lik ed less and

less to have to think, and gradually r eturned to his ﬁrst and

greatest love, hide-and-seek. One day, in a particularly

playful mood, he oﬀer ed a most handsome prize to the one

who could ﬁnd for him the best hiding place in all the world. The prize was to be nothing less than the R oyal Diadem of

the Cymberanide Dynasty, a cluster of truly priceless jewels. No one had laid eyes on this wonder for many centuries, for

it lay lock ed and coﬀer ed in the R oyal V ault. Now it so happened that T rurl and Klapaucius chanced

upon Cymberia in the course of one of their travels. News of

the King's pr oclamation, having quickly spr ead thr oughout

the realm, r eached our constructors too; they lear ned of it

from the local villagers at the inn wher e they wer e spending

the night. The ne xt day they r epair ed to the palace to announce that

they knew a hiding place unequaled by any other .

Unfortunately, so many others had come to claim the prize,

that it was ne xt to impossible to get by the cr owd at the

gate. T rurl and Klapaucius ther efore returned to their

lodgings and r esolved to try their luck the following day .

Though they didn't leave it to luck alone; this time the

prudent constructors came pr epared. To every guar d who

barred the way and then to every court oﬃcial who

challenged them, T rurl quietly slipped a few coins and,

whenever that didn't work, a few mor e, and in less than ﬁve

minutes they wer e standing befor e the thr one of His R oyal

Highness. His R oyal Highness was of course delighted to

hear that such famous wise men had come so far for the

sole purpose of imparting to him the secr et of the perfect

hiding place. It took them a little time to e xplain the how

and the why of it to Balerion, but his mind, schooled fr om

childhood in the ways of tricks and puzzles, ﬁnally grasped

the idea. Bur ning with enthusiasm, the King jumped down

from his thr one, assur ed the two friends of his undying

gratitude, pr omised they would r eceive the prize without fail

—provided only they let him try out their secr et method at

once. Klapaucius was r eluctant on this point, muttering to

himself that they ought to write up a pr oper contract ﬁrst,

with par chment, seals and tassels; but the King was so

insistent, and pleaded with such vehemence, swearing gr eat

oaths the prize was as good as theirs, that the constructors

had to give in. T rurl opened a small bo x he had br ought with

him, took out the necessary device and showed it to the

King. This invention actually had nothing to do with hide-

and-seek, but could be applied to that game wonderfully

well. It was a portable bilateral personality transfor mer, with

retroreversible feedback, of course. Using it, any two

individuals could quickly and easily e xchange minds. The

device, ﬁtted onto one's head, r esembled a pair of hor ns;

when these came into contact with the for ehead of the one

with whom one wished to eﬀect the e xchange, and wer e

lightly pr essed, the device was activated and

instantaneously set up two opposing series of antipodal

impulses. Thr ough one hor n, one's own psyche ﬂowed into

the other, and thr ough the other, the other into one's own. Hence the total deener gizing of the one memory and the

simultaneous ener gizing of the other in its place, and

contrariwise. T rurl had set the apparatus on his head for

purposes of demonstration and was e xplaining the

procedur e to the King, bringing the r oyal for ehead into

proximity with the hor ns, when the King impulsively butted

against them, which trigger ed the mechanism and

immediately br ought about a personality transfer .

It all

happened so quickly that T rurl, who had never r eally tested

the device on himself, didn't notice. Nor did Klapaucius,

standing to one side; it did strik e him rather odd that T rurl

suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence and Balerion

instantly took up wher e Trurl had lef t oﬀ,, using such wor ds

as "the potentials involved with nonlinear conversion of

submnemonic quanta" and "the adiabatic ﬂux diﬀer ential of

the id." The King went on in his squeak y voice for almost a

minute befor e Klapaucius r ealized ther e was something

wrong. Balerion, ﬁnding himself inside the body of T rurl, was

no longer listening to the lectur e, but wiggled his ﬁngers

and toes, as if making himself mor e comfortable in this

novel shape, which he inspected with the gr eatest curiosity .

Meanwhile T rurl, in a long purple r obe, was waving his ar ms

and e xplaining the r eversed entr opy of mutually transposed

systems, until he gr ew awar e that something was in the

way, look ed down at his hand and was dumbfounded to ﬁnd

himself holding a scepter .

He was about to speak, but the

King burst out laughing and took to his heels. T rurl started

after him, but tripped over the r oyal r obe and fell ﬂat on his

face. This commotion quickly br ought the r oyal bodyguar ds,

who straightway thr ew themselves upon Klapaucius,

thinking he had attack ed the R oyal P erson. By the time T rurl

managed to get his r oyal personage oﬀ the ﬂoor and

convince the guar ds it stood in no danger, Balerion was far

away, r ollicking somewher e in T rurl's body .

Trurl attempted

to give chase, but the courtiers wouldn't per mit it, and when

he pr otested he wasn't the King at all but ther e had been a

personality transfer, they concluded that e xcessive puzzle-

solving had ﬁnally unhinged the R oyal R eason and politely

but ﬁr mly lock ed him in the r oyal bedchamber, then sent for

the royal physicians while he r oared and pounded on the

door. Klapaucius meanwhile, thr own out of the palace on his

ear, headed back to the inn, thinking—not without alar m—of

the complications that might arise fr om what had just tak en

place. "Undoubtedly," he thought, "had I been in T rurl's

shoes, my gr eat pr esence of mind would have saved the

day. Instead of making a scene and ranting on about

telepsychic transfers, which couldn't help but cr eate

suspicions as to his sanity, I would have tak en advantage of

the King's body and or dered them to seize T rurl, namely

Balerion, at once-—wher eas now he's running ar ound fr ee

somewher e in the city—and also, I would have had the other

constructor r emain at my side, in the capacity of special

adviser .

But that complete idiot"—by which he meant T rurl

—"completely lost his head, and now I'll have to bring all my

tactical talents into play, else this business may end

badly…"

He tried to r ecall everything he knew about the

personality transfor mer, which was considerable. By far the

greatest danger, as he saw it, was that Balerion, heedlessly

rushing about in T rurl's body, might stumble and hit some

inanimate object with his hor ns. In which case Balerion's

consciousness would immediately enter that object and,

since inanimate things had no consciousness and

consequently the object could oﬀer the transfor mer nothing

in return, Trurl's body would fall lifeless to the gr ound; as for

the King, he would be trapped for all eter nity inside some

stone, or lamppost, or discar ded shoe. Uneasy, Klapaucius

quick ened his pace, and not far fr om the inn he over heard

some villagers talking e xcitedly of how his colleague, T rurl,

had ﬂown out of the r oyal palace lik e one possessed, and

how, racing down the long, steep steps that led to the

harbor, he'd tak en a spill and br oken his leg. How this dr ove

him into a most amazing fr enzy; how, lying ther e, he

bellowed that he was King Balerion Himself, called for the

royal physicians, a str etcher with feather pillows, sweet

essences and balm; and how, when the people laughed at

this madness, he crawled along the pavement, cursing

terribly and r ending his gar ments, until one passerby took

pity on him and bent over to help. How then the fallen

constructor tor e the hat oﬀ his head, r evealing—and ther e

were witnesses to swear to this—devil's hor ns. How with

those hor ns he rammed the good Samaritan in the head,

then fell senseless, strangely stiﬀ and gr oaning feebly, while

the good Samaritan suddenly changed, "as if an evil spirit

had tak en hold of him," and dancing, skipping, shoving

aside everyone who stood in his way, galloped down the

steps to the harbor .

Klapaucius gr ew faint when he hear d all of this, for he

understood that Balerion, having damaged T rurl's body (and

after using it for so short a time), had cunningly switched to

the body of some stranger .

"Now it's started," he thought

with hor ror. "And how will I ever ﬁnd Balerion, hidden in a

body I don't even know?

Wher e do I begin to look?!" He tried

to lear n from the villagers who this passerby was, who had

so nobly appr oached the injur ed pseudo -Trurl, and also,

what had become of the hor ns. Of the good Samaritan they

knew only that his dr ess was for eign, though unmistak ably

naval, which suggested he'd stepped oﬀ a vessel fr om

distant skies; concer ning the hor ns, nothing. But then a

certain mendicant whose legs had rusted thr ough (a

widower, he had no one to k eep them taped and tar red) and

who was ther efore obliged to go ar ound on wheels attached

to his hips, which indeed gave him a better vantage point

on what transpir ed at gr ound level, told Klapaucius that the

worthy mariner had snatched the hor ns from the pr one

constructor's head with such speed, that no one but himself

had seen it. So, appar ently Balerion was again in possession

of the transfor mer and could continue this hair -raising

business of jumping fr om body to body .

The news that he

now occupied the person of a sailor was especially

disturbing. "Of all things, a sailor!" thought Klapaucius. "When shor e leave is up and he doesn't appear on boar d

(and how can he, not knowing which ship is his?), the

captain is bound to notif y the authorities, they'll ar rest the

deserter of course, and Our Highness will ﬁnd himself in a

dungeon!

And if at any time he beats his head against the

dungeon wall in despair—with the hor ns on—then may

heaven help us all!!" Ther e was little chance, if any, of

locating the sailor who was Balerion, but Klapaucius

hastened to the harbor .

Luck was with him, for he saw a

sizable cr owd gather ed up ahead. Certain he was on the

right track, he mingled with the cr owd and soon lear ned,

from what was said her e and ther e, that his worst fears

were being r ealized. Only minutes earlier, a certain

respectable skipper, the owner of an entir e ﬂeet of

merchant ships, had r ecognized a cr ewman of his, a person

of sterling character; yet now this worthy individual was

hurling insults at all who went by, and to those who

cautioned him to be on his way lest the police come, he

shouted he could become whoever he wanted, and that

included the whole police for ce. Scandalized by such

behavior, the skipper r emonstrated with his cr ewman, who

replied by striking him with a lar ge stick. Then a police

squad, patr olling the harbor as a place of fr equent

altercations and disor ders, ar rived on the scene, and it so

happened the Commissioner himself was in char ge. The

Commissioner, seeing that the unruly sailor r efused to listen

to reason, or dered him thr own in jail. But while they wer e

making the ar rest, the sailor suddenly hurled himself at the

Commissioner lik e one possessed and butted him with what

seemed to r esemble hor ns. Dir ectly af ter that, he began to

howl that he was a policeman, and not just any policeman,

but chief commander of the harbor patr ol, while the

Commissioner, instead of being anger ed by this insolent

raving, laughed as if it wer e a tr emendous jok e, but then

ordered his subor dinates to escort the tr oublemak er to

prison without further delay, nor to be sparing with their

clubs and ﬁsts in the pr ocess. Thus, in less than an hour, Balerion had managed to

change his corpor eal quarters thr ee times, pr esently

occupying the body of a police commissioner, who, though

Lord knew he was innocent, had to sit and stew in some

dark, dank cell. Klapaucius sighed and went dir ectly to the

police station. It was situated on the coast, a heavy stone

ediﬁce. No one bar red the way, so he went inside and

walked thr ough a few empty r ooms, until he found himself

standing in fr ont of a veritable giant several sizes too lar ge

for his unifor m and ar med to the teeth. This hulk of an

individual glower ed at Klapaucius and stepped forwar d, as if

to thr ow him out bodily—but suddenly gave a wink (though

Klapaucius certainly had never met him befor e) and burst

out laughing. The voice was gruﬀ, a policeman's voice

beyond a shadow of a doubt, yet the laugh—and particularly

that wink—br ought to mind Balerion, and indeed, it was

Baler -ion on the other side of that desk, though obviously

not in his own person!

"I knew you right oﬀ," said Balerion the policeman. "Y ou

were at the palace, you'r e the friend of the one who had the

apparatus. W ell, what do you think?

Isn't this a fabulous

hiding place?

They'll never ﬁnd me, you know, not in a

million years!

And it's so much fun being a big, str ong

policeman!

W atch!"

And he br ought his huge policeman's ﬁst down on the

desk with such for ce that it split in half—though ther e was a

cracking in the hand as well. Balerion winced and said:

"Ow, I snapped something. But that's ok ay. If need be, I

can always change—into you, for e xample!"

Klapaucius back ed oﬀ in the dir ection of the door, but the

policeman block ed the way with his colossal frame and went

on:

"Not that I have anything against you personally, you

understand. But you know too much, old boy .

So I r eally

think it's best we put you in the clink. Y es, into the clink with

you!" And he gave a nasty laugh. "That way, when I leave

the for ce, no one—not even you—will have the foggiest

notion wher e, or rather who, I am!

Ha-ha!"

"But Y our Majesty!" Klapaucius pr otested. "Y ou don't know

all the dangers of the device. Suppose you enter ed the body

of someone with a fatal illness, or a hunted criminal…"

"No pr oblem," said the King. "All I have to do is r emember

one thing: af ter every switch, grab the hor ns!"

And he pointed to the br oken desk, wher e the device lay

in an open drawer .

"As long as, each time," he said, "I pull it oﬀ the head of

the person I just was and hold on to it, nothing can har m

me!"

Klapaucius did his best to persuade the King to abandon

the idea of futur e personality transfers, but it was quite

hopeless; the King only laughed and made jok es, then ﬁnally

said, clearly enjoying himself :

"I won't go back to the palace—you can for get about that!

Anyway, I'll tell you: I see befor e me a gr eat voyage,

traveling among my loyal subjects fr om body to body,

which, af ter all, is very much in k eeping with my democratic

principles. And then for dessert, so to speak, the body of

some fair maiden—that ought to be a most edif ying

experience, don't you think?

Ha-ha!"

And he thr ew open the door with a gr eat, hairy paw and

bawled for his subor dinates. Klapaucius, seeing they would

lock him up for sur e unless he acted at once, grabbed an

inkwell and tossed its contents into the King's face, then in

the general confusion leaped out a window into the str eet. By a gr eat str oke of luck, ther e wer e no witnesses about,

and he was able to mak e it to a populous squar e and lose

himself in the cr owd befor e the police began pouring fr om

the station, straightening their shak os and waving their

weapons in the air .

Plunged in thoughts that wer e far fr om pleasant,

Klapaucius walk ed away fr om the harbor .

"It would be best,

really," he said to himself, "to leave that incor rigible

Balerion to his fate, go to the hospital wher e Trurl's body is

staying, occupied by the honest sailor, and bring it to the

palace, so my friend can be himself again, body and soul. Though it's true that that would mak e the sailor King instead

of Balerion—and serve that rascal right!" Not a bad plan

perhaps, but inoperable for the lack of a small but

indispensable item, namely the transfor mer with the hor ns,

which at pr esent lay in the drawer of a policeman's desk. For a moment Klapaucius consider ed the possibility of

constructing another such device—no, ther e was neither the

time nor the means. "But her e's an idea," he thought. "I'll go

to Trurl, who's the King and by now has sur ely come to his

senses, and I'll tell him to have the ar my sur round the

harbor police station. That way, we'll r ecover the device and

Trurl can get back to his old self!"

However, Klapaucius wasn't admitted to the palace. The

King, so the sentries told him, had been put under heavy

electr ostatic sedation by his physicians and should sleep lik e

a top for the ne xt twenty -eight hours at least.

"That's all we need!" gr oaned Klapaucius, and hastened to

the hospital wher e Trurl's body was staying, for he fear ed

that it might have alr eady been dischar ged and ir retrievably

lost in the labyrinth of the big city .

At the hospital he

presented himself as a r elative of the one with the br oken

leg; the name he managed to r ead oﬀ the in-patient

He lear ned that the injury wasn't serious, a bad

sprain and not a fractur e, though the patient would have to

remain in traction for several days. Klapaucius, of course,

had no intention of visiting the patient—it would only come

out that they wer en't even acquainted. R eassur ed at least

that T rurl's body wouldn't run oﬀ on him une xpectedly, he

left the hospital and took to wandering the str eets, deep in

thought. Somehow he found himself back in the vicinity of

the harbor and noticed the place was swar ming with police;

they wer e stopping everyone, car efully comparing face af ter

face with a description each oﬃcer car ried with him in a

notebook. Klapaucius immediately guessed that this was the

doing of Balerion, who at all costs wanted him under lock

and k ey. Just then a patr ol appr oached—and two guar ds

rounded the cor ner in the opposite dir ection, cutting oﬀ his

retreat. Klapaucius quietly gave himself up, demanding only

that they tak e him befor e the Commissioner, saying that it

was most ur gent, that he was in possession of e xtremely

important evidence concer ning a certain hor rible 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 alr eady e xclaiming, in

a voice not his own:

"Great One!

High-high P olice Sir!

They tak e 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 hor ns in head, mak e big magic, bad

magic, mak e that me not me, put head in other head, tak e

old head, hor ns, run zip-zip, O Much P olice Sir!

Help!"

And with these wor ds did the wily Klapaucius fall to his

knees, shaking his head and muttering in a strange tongue. Balerion, standing behind the desk in a unifor m with wide

epaulets, blink ed as he listened, somewhat tak en aback; he

gave the kneeling Klapaucius a closer look and began to

nod, appar ently convinced—-unawar e that the constructor,

on the way to the station, had pr essed his own for ehead

with his fr ee hand, to pr oduce two marks not unlik e those

left by the hor ns of a personality transfor mer. Balerion had

his men r elease Klapaucius and leave the r oom; when the

two of them wer e alone, he ask ed him to r elate e xactly what

had happened, omitting nothing. Klapaucius r eplied with a

long story of how he, a wealthy for eigner, had ar rived only

that day at the harbor, his ship laden with two hundr ed

cases of the pr ettiest puzzles in cr eation as well as thirty

self-winding fair maidens, for he had hoped to pr esent these

to the gr eat King Balerion; how they wer e a gif t from the

great Emper or Proboscideon, who in this way sought to

express his boundless admiration for the gr eat House of

Cymberia; but how, having ar rived and disembark ed, he had

thought to str etch his legs a little af ter the long jour ney and

was str olling peacefully along the quay, when this person,

who look ed just lik e this (here Klapaucius pointed to himself)

and who had alr eady ar oused his suspicions by gazing upon

the splendor of his for eign dr ess with such evident rapacity

—when this person, in short, suddenly ran towar ds him lik e

a maniac, ran as if to run him down, but doﬀed his cap

instead and butted him viciously with a pair of hor ns,

wher eupon an e xtraor dinary e xchange of minds took place. Klapaucius put everything he had into the tale, trying to

make it as believable as possible. He spok e at gr eat 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 spok e of

the tr easur es he'd br ought with him, describing them in

every detail, particularly the self -winding maidens; he

reminisced about the family he'd lef t behind, his ion-scions,

his hi-ﬁ ﬁdo, his wife, one of thr ee hundr ed, who made a

mulled electr olyte as ﬁne as any that ever graced the table

of the Emper or Himself; he even let the Commissioner in on

his biggest secr et, to wit, that he had ar ranged with the

captain of his ship to hand the tr easur es over to

whomsoever came on boar d and gave the passwor d. Balerion listened gr eedily, for it seemed quite logical to

him that Klapaucius, seeking to hide fr om the police, should

do so by entering the body of a for eigner, a for eigner

moreover attir ed in splendid r obes, hence obviously

wealthy, which would pr ovide him with considerable means

once the transfer wer e eﬀected. It was plain that a similar

scheme had hatched in the brain of Balerion. Slyly, he tried

to coax the secr et passwor d from the false for eigner, who

didn't r equir e much coaxing, soon whispering the wor d into

his ear : "Niter c." By now the constructor was sur e Balerion

had tak en 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 transfor mer—indeed,

he had no r eason to think otherwise. They sat awhile in silence; one could see the wheels

turning in Balerion's head. Assuming an air of indiﬀer ence,

he began to question the for eigner as to the location of his

ship, the name of the captain, and so forth. Klapaucius

answer ed, banking on the King's cupidity, nor was he

mistak en, for suddenly the King stood up, announced that

he would have to verif y what the for eigner had told him, and

hurriedly lef t the r oom, locking the door secur ely behind

him. Klapaucius then hear d Balerion—evidently the wiser

from past e xperience—station a guar d beneath the window

as he was leaving. Of course he would ﬁnd nothing, ther e

being no ship, no tr easur e, 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 fr om the drawer and quickly placed it on

his head. Then he quietly waited for the King to r eturn. It

wasn't long befor e ther e wer e heavy footsteps outside,

muﬄed curses, the grinding of teeth, a k ey scraping in the

lock—and the Commissioner burst in, bellowing:

"Scoundr el!

Wher e's the ship, the tr easur e, the pr etty

puzzles?!"

But that was all he said, for Klapaucius leaped out fr om

behind the door and char ged lik e a mad ram, butting him

squar e in the head. Then, befor e Balerion had time to get

his bearings inside Klapaucius, Klapaucius, now the

Commissioner, r oared for the guar ds to thr ow him in jail at

once and k eep a close eye on him!

Stunned by this sudden

reversal, Balerion didn't r ealize at ﬁrst how shamefully he

had been deceived; but when it ﬁnally dawned on him that

he had been dealing with the craf ty constructor all along,

and ther e had never been any wealthy for eigner, Balerion

ﬁlled his dark dungeon with ter rible oaths and thr eats—

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 transfor mer. He put on his

best unifor m and mar ched straight to the r oyal palace. The King was still asleep, they told him, but Klapaucius, in

his capacity as P olice Commissioner, said it was imperative

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 mor e of the same, until the

frightened courtiers led him to the r oyal bedchamber .

Well-

acquainted with his friend's habits and peculiarities,

Klapaucius touched the heel of T rurl's foot; T rurl jumped up,

instantly wide-awak e, for he was e xceedingly ticklish. He

rubbed his eyes and star ed in amazement at this hulking

giant of a policeman befor e him, but the giant leaned over

and whisper ed: "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 her e in my pock et…"

Trurl, overjoyed when Klapaucius told him of his

stratagem, r ose fr om the r oyal bed, declaring to all that he

was fully r ecover ed, and later, draped in purple and holding

the royal orb and scepter, sat upon his thr one and issued

several or ders. F irst, he had them bring fr om the hospital his

own body with the leg Balerion sprained on the harbor

steps. This swif tly done, he enjoined the r oyal physicians to

tend the patient with all the skill and solicitude at their

disposal. Then, af ter a brief confer ence with his

Commissioner, namely Klapaucius, T rurl pr oclaimed he

would r estor e order in the r ealm and bring things back to

normal. Which wasn't easy, ther e being no end of complications to

straighten out. Though the constructors had no intention of

returning all the displaced souls to their for mer bodies; their

main concer n, actually, was that T rurl be T rurl as soon as

possible, and Klapaucius Klapaucius. In the ﬂesh, that is. Trurl ther efore commanded that the prisoner (Balerion in his

colleague's body) be dragged fr om jail and hauled befor e

His August P resence. The ﬁrst transfer pr omptly car ried out,

Klapaucius was himself again, and the King (now in the body

of the e x-commissioner of police) had to stand and listen to

a most unpleasant lectur e, after which he was placed in the

castle dungeon, the oﬃcial wor d being that he had fallen

into disfavor due to incompetence in the solving of a certain

rebus. Ne xt mor ning T rurl's body was in good enough health

to be r epossessed. Only one pr oblem r emained: it wasn't

right, somehow, to leave without having pr operly settled the

question of succession to the thr one. T o release Balerion

from his constabulary corpus and seat him once mor e at the

helm of the State was quite unthink able. So this is what

they did: under a gr eat oath of secr ecy the friends told the

honest sailor in T rurl's body everything, and seeing how

much good sense r esided in that simple soul, they judged

him worthy to r eign; af ter the transfer, then, T rurl became

himself and the sailor King. Befor e this, however, Klapaucius

ordered a lar ge cuck oo clock br ought to the palace, one he

had seen in a nearby shop when r oaming the city str eets,

and the mind of King Balerion was conveyed to the cuck oo's

works, while it, in tur n, occupied the person of the

policeman. Thus was justice done, for the King was obliged

to work diligently day and night ther eafter, announcing the

hours with a dutiful cuck oo-cuck oo, to which he was

compelled at the appr opriate moments by the sharp little

teeth of the clock's gears, and with which he would e xpiate,

hanging on the wall of the main hall for the r emainder of his

days, his thoughtless games, not to mention having

endanger ed the life and limb of two famous constructors by

so frequently changing his mind. As for the Commissioner,

he returned to his duties and functioned ﬂawlessly, pr oving

that a cuck oo mentality was quite suﬃcient for that post. The friends ﬁnally took their leave of the cr owned sailor,

gather ed up their belongings, shook the dust of that

troublesome kingdom fr om their feet, and continued on

their way .

One might only add that T rurl's ﬁnal action in the

King's body had been to visit the R oyal V ault and tak e

possession of the R oyal Diadem of the Cymberanide

Dynasty, which prize he had fairly ear ned, having

discover ed the very best hiding place in all the world.

The Fifth Sally (A)

OR Trurl's

Prescription

Not far fr om her e, by a white sun, behind a gr een star,

lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't

a car e: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom,

no evil inﬂuence of the moon, no tr ouble fr om matter or

antimatter—for they had a machine, a dr eam of a machine,

with springs and gears and perfect in every r espect. 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 sock et 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 wer e mechanics, other

mechanicians, still others mechanists: but all wer e

mechanically minded. They had plenty to do, lik e if night

had to be made, or day, or an eclipse of the sun—but that

not too of ten, or they'd gr ow tir ed of it. One day ther e ﬂew

up to the white sun behind the gr een star a comet in a

bonnet, namely a female, mean as nails and atomic fr om

her head to her four long tails, awful to look at, all blue fr om

hydrogen cyanide and, sur e enough, r eeking of bitter

almonds. She ﬂew up and said, "F irst, I'll bur n you to the

ground, and that's just for starters."

The Steelypips watched—the ﬁr e in her eye smok ed up

half the sk y, she dr ew on her neutr ons, mesons lik e

caissons, pi- and mu- and neutrinos too—"F ee-ﬁ-fo -fum plu-

to-ni-um." And they r eply: "One moment, please, we ar e 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 dr eam of a machine, with springs and

gears and perfect in every r espect, so go away, lady comet,

or you'll be sor ry."

But she alr eady ﬁlled up the sk y, bur ning, scor ching,

roaring, hissing, until their moon shriveled up, singed fr om

horn to hor n, and even if it had been a little crack ed, old,

and on the small side to begin with, still that was a shame. So wasting no mor e wor ds, they took their str ongest ﬁelds,

tied them ar ound each hor n with a good knot, then thr ew

the switch: try that on for size, you old witch. It thunder ed, it

quak ed, it gr oaned, the sk y clear ed up in a ﬂash, and all that

remained of the comet was a bit of ash—and peace r eigned

once mor e. After an undeter mined amount of time something

appears, what it is nobody knows, e xcept that it's hideous

and no matter fr om 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, mak es itself comfortable

and doesn't budge. But it's an awful nuisance, all the same. So those who ar e in the pr oximity say : "Excuse us, but we

are the Steelypips, we have no dr ead, we don't live on a

planet but in a machine instead, and it's no or dinary

machine but a dr eam of a machine, with springs and gears

and perfect in every r espect, so beat it, nasty thing, or you'll

be sor ry."

But that just sits ther e. So, not to go to any gr eat e xpense, they send not a very

big, actually a rather small scar echrome: it'll go and frighten

that oﬀ, and peace will r eign once mor e. The scar echrome sets oﬀ, and all you can hear inside ar e

its pr ograms whir ring, one mor e frightening than the ne xt. It

approaches—how it hisses, how it spits!

It even scar es itself

a little—but that just sits ther e. The scar echrome tries once

more, this time on a diﬀer ent fr equency, but by now it just

doesn't have its heart in it. The Steelypips see that something else is needed. They

say: "Let's tak e a higher caliber, hydraulic, diﬀer ential-

exponential, plastic, stochastic, and with plenty of muscle. It

won't cower if it has nuclear power ."

So they sent it oﬀ, universal, r eversible, double-bar reled,

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 ar rived, so well- oiled you could hear

a pin dr op—it winds up for the swing and counts down: four

quarters, thr ee quarters, two quarters, one quarter, no

quarter!

K a-boom!

what a blow!

See the mushr oom gr ow!

The mushr oom 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 tur n 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 r eally meant business now .

The megalomechanism gather ed up all its str ength and let

go!

Thunder, rumbling, clatter, a mushr oom so huge you'd

need an ocean to mak e 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 ar ound lik e so much scrap metal

and without a sign of life. Now they r olled up their sleeves. "A fter all," they say, "we

are mechanics and mechanists, all mechanically minded,

and we have a machine, a dr eam of a machine, with springs

and gears and perfect in every r espect, so how can this

nasty thing just sit ther e and not budge?"

This time they mak e nothing less than an enor mous

cyberivy -bushwhack er: it'll cr eep up casually, as if minding

its own business, glance over its shoulder, gr ow a little

bolder, send out a r oot or two, gr ow up fr om behind, taking

its time, and then when it closes in, that'll be the end of

that. And truly, everything happened e xactly as pr edicted,

except, when it was over, that wasn't e xactly 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 befor e, so

they mobilized and analyzed, made nets and glues, lariats

and scr ews, traps and contraptions to mak e it dr own, br eak

it down, mak e 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'r e

about r eady to give up hope when suddenly they see—

someone's coming: he's on horseback, but no, horses don't

have wheels—it must be a bicycle, but wait, bicycles don't

have pr ows, so maybe it's a r ocket, but r ockets don't have

saddles. What he's riding no one can tell, but who's in the

saddle we all know well: it's T rurl himself, the constructor,

out on a spr ee, or maybe on one of his famous sallies,

serene and smiling, coming closer, ﬂying by—but even fr om

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 dr eam 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 car e, no spats in our vats, no rules,

no schools,until something ﬂew up, landed, sat down and

won't budge."

"Did you try scaring it oﬀ?" T rurl asks with a kindly smile. "We tried a scar echrome and a servospook and a megalo -

mechanism, all hydraulic and high caliber, spouting mesons

like caissons, pi- and mu- and neutrinos too, pr otons and

photons, but nothing work ed."

"No machine, you say?"

"No sir, no machine." .

"H'm, inter esting. And what e xactly is it?"

"That we don't know .

It appear ed, ﬂew her e, what it is

nobody knows, e xcept that it's hideous and no matter fr om

which angle you look at it, it's even mor e hideous. It ﬂew up,

landed, so heavy you can't imagine, and just sits ther e. But

it's an awful nuisance, all the same."

"Well, I r eally don't have much time," says T rurl. "The most

I can do is stay her e for a while, in an advisory capacity .

that agr eeable with you?"

It certainly is and the Steelypips immediately ask what he

wants them to bring—photons, scr ews, hammers, artillery,

or how about some dynamite, or TNT?

And would our guest

like coﬀee or tea?

F rom a vending machine, of course. "Coﬀee's ﬁne," agr ees T rurl, "not for me, but for the

business at hand. As for the r est of it, I don't think so .

You

see, if neither scar echrome, nor servospook, nor cyberivy -

bushwhack er will do the job, then other methods ar e

indicated: ar chaic and ar chival, legalistic hence sadistic. I've

yet to see the r emittance due and payable in full fail."

"Come again?" ask the Steelypips, but T rurl, rather than

explain, continues:

"It's quite simple, r eally. All you need is paper, ink, stamps

and seals, sealing wax and thumbtacks, sand to sprinkle,

blotters, a teller window, a zinc teaspoon, a saucer—the

coﬀee we alr eady have—and a mailman. And something to

write with—do you have that?"

"We'll get it!" And they tak e oﬀ.

Trurl pulls up a chair and dictates: "Notice is her eby given,

that in r e hindrance of T enant, as stated under R ev. Stat. c.117(e) dash 2 dash KKP4 of the CTSP Comm. Code, in

clear violation of paragraph 199, ther eby constituting a

most r eprehendable oﬀense, we do declar e the ter mination,

desummation and full cessation of all services accruing

thereunto, by authority of Or dinance 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 T enant may appeal

said action by e xtraor dinary pr ocedur e to the Chair man of

the Boar d within twenty -four hours."

Trurl attaches the seal, aﬃx es the stamp, has it enter ed in

the Central L edger, consults the Oﬃcial R egister, and says:

"Now let the mailman deliver it."

The mailman tak es it, they wait, they wait, the mailman

returns. "Did you deliver it?" asks T rurl. "I did."

"And the r eturn receipt?"

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

Trurl tak es the appeal and, without r eading it at all, or ders

it returned to sender and writes diagonally acr oss it:

"Unacceptable—P roper F orms Not A ttached." And he signs

his name illegibly .

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

He sits and writes, while those who ar e curious look on

and, understanding nothing, ask what this is and what it's

supposed to do .

"Oﬃcial business," answers T rurl. "And things will go well,

now that it's under way ."

The mailman runs back and forth all day lik e one

possessed; T rurl notarizes, issues dir ectives, the typewriter

chatters, and little by little an entir e oﬃce tak es shape,

rubber stamps and rubber bands, paper clips and paper

wads, portfolios and pigeonholes, foolscap and scrip,

teaspoons, signs that say "No A dmittance," inkwells, for ms

on ﬁle, writing all the while, the typewriter chattering, and

everywher e you look you see coﬀee stains, wastepaper, and

bits of gum eraser .

The Steelypips ar e wor ried, they don't

understand a thing, meanwhile T rurl uses special delivery

remittance due and payable in full—he sends out no end of

dunning letters, bills of lading, notices, injunctions, and

there are already special accounts set up, no entries at the

moment but he says that's only temporary .

After a while,

you can see that that is not quite so hideous, especially in

proﬁle—it's actually gotten smaller!—yes, yes, it is smaller!

The Steelypips ask T rurl, what now?

"No idle talk per mitted on the pr emises," is his answer .

And he staples, stamps, inspects vouchers, r evokes

licenses, dots an i, loosens his tie, asks who's ne xt, I'm

sorry, the oﬃce is closed, come back in an hour, the coﬀee

is cold, the cr eam sour, cobwebs fr om ceiling to ﬂoor, an old

pair of nylons in the secr etary's drawer, install four new ﬁle

cabinets over her e, and ther e's an attempt to bribe an

oﬃcial, a pile of pr oblems and a pr oblem with piles, a writ of

execution, incar ceration for miscegenation, and appeals

with seven seals. And the typewriter chatters: "Wher eas, pursuant to the

Tenant's failur e to quit and sur render the demised pr emises

in compliance with the war rant served, haber e facias

posses-sionem, by Div .

of R ep. Cyb. Gt. KRS ther eof, the

Court of Thir d Instance, in vacuo and e x nihilo, her ewith

orders the immediate vacuation and vacation ther eunder .

The T enant may not appeal this ruling."

Trurl dispatches the messenger and pock ets the r eceipts. After which, he gets up and methodically hurls the desks,

chairs, rubber stamps, seals, pigeonholes, etc., out into

deep space. Only the vending machine r emains. "What on earth ar e you doing?" cry the Steelypips in

dismay, having gr own accustomed to it all. "How can you?"

"Tut-tut, my dears,” he r eplies. "Better you tak e a look

instead!"

And indeed, they look and gasp—why, ther e's nothing

there, it's gone, as if it had never been!

And wher e did it go,

vanished into thin air?

It beat a cowar dly retreat, and gr ew

so small, so very small, you'd need a magnif ying glass to

see it. They r oot ar ound, but all they can ﬁnd is one little

spot, slightly damp, something must have dripped ther e,

but what or why they cannot say, and that's all. "Just as I thought," T rurl 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 .

employed a special machine, the machine with a big B; for,

as the Cosmos is the Cosmos, no one's lick ed it yet!"

"All right, but why thr ow out the documents and pour out

the coﬀee?" they ask. "So that it wouldn't devour you in tur n!" Trurl r eplies. And

he ﬂies oﬀ, nodding to them kindly—and his smile is lik e the

stars.

The Sixth Sally

OR How Trurl

and Klapaucius Created a Demon

of the Second Kind to Defeat the

Pirate Pugg

"Ther e are but two caravan trails that lead south fr om the

Lands of the Upper Suns. The ﬁrst, which is older, goes fr om

the Stellar Quadriferum past the Gr eat Glossaur ontus, a

most tr eacher ous star, for its magnitude varies, and at its

dimmest it r esembles the Dwarf of the Abyssyrs, and

thereby causes travelers to blunder into the Gr eat Shr oud

Wastes, fr om whence only one caravan in nine ever r eturns. The second, newer trail was opened up by the Imperium

Myrapoclean, whose turboservoslaves carved a tunnel six

billion miles in length thr ough the heart of the Gr eat

Glossaur ontus itself .

"The norther n entrance to the tunnel may be found in the

following manner : from the last of the Upper Suns pr oceed

directly towar d the P ole for the time it tak es to r ecite seven

Now-I-lay me-down-to -sleep's. Then go lef t, till you r each

the wall of ﬁr e, which is a side of Glossaur ontus, and locate

the opening, a black dot in that white-hot fur nace. Steer

straight down into this, and put aside all fear, for the

tunnel's width will let eight ships, starboar d to larboar d,

pass thr ough. The sight that then appears outside your

portholes truly has no equal. F irst ther e is the famous

Phlogistinian Flamefall, and then as depending on the

weather : when the solar depths ar e swept with

pyromagnetic stor ms that sur ge a billion miles or mor e

away, one sees gr eat tortur ed knots of ﬁr e, pulsing arteries

swollen with white, glowing clots; when, on the other hand,

the stor m is closer, or it is a typhoon of the seventh or der,

the roof will shudder, as if that white dough of

incandescence wer e about to fall, but this is an illusion, for it

spills over but does not fall, and bur ns, but cannot consume,

held in check by the tensile ribs of the Fﬃan F orce Fields. But when one observes the cor e of the pr ominence bulge,

and the long-fork ed bolts of the foun-tainheads they call

Infernions ﬂar e closer, it is best to k eep a ﬁr m grip upon the

wheel, and look sharp into the solar viscera and not at any

chart, for the utmost steering skill is needed her e. Indeed,

that r oad is never traversed the same way twice; the entir e

tunnel gouged thr ough Glossaur ontus twists continually,

writhes and thrashes lik e a serpent ﬂailed. K eep ther efore

your eyes well peeled, and your safety frigi-packs (that rim

your visors with transpar ent icicles) har d by, and car efully

watch the blazing walls that rush up and lash their

thundering tongues, and should you hear the hull begin to

sizzle, batter ed and bespatter ed in the seething solar

cauldr on, then trust to nothing but your own lightning

reﬂexes. Though you must also bear in mind that not every

burst of ﬂame nor every jump of the tunnel signiﬁes a

starquak e or a squall in the white oceans of ﬁr e;

remembering this, the seasoned mariner will not cry 'man

the pumps' at the dr op 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 eter nal light with a beak er of

liquid nitr ogen. T o the one who inquir es what he should do if

a real quak e descends upon his vessel, most wags will

answer that then it is quite enough to heave a sigh, ther e

being little time for prayer or the writing of wills, and as for

the eyes, these may be open or shut accor ding to personal

preference, for the ﬁr e will bur n them out in any event. Such

disasters, however, ar e extremely rar e, since the brack ets

and braces installed by the Imperial Myrapocles hold

marvelously well, and r eally, intrastellar ﬂight, gliding past

the curved, sparkling hydr ogen mir rors of Glossaur ontus,

can be a most delightful e xperience. Then too, they say—

and not without r eason—that whoever enters the tunnel will

at least e xit soon af ter, which certainly cannot be said of the

Great Shr oud W astes. And wer e the tunnel to be totally

destr oyed by a quak e, the only alter nate r oute possible

would go thr ough those W astes, which—as their name

indicates—ar e black er than night, for the light of the

neighboring stars dar es not enter ther e. Ther e, as in a

mortar, one ﬁnds a constant colliding and crashing together

—which mak es a ter riﬁc din—of scrap metal, cans, wr ecks of

ships that wer e led astray by the tr eachery of Glossaur ontus

and crushed in the cruel grip of those bottomless

gravitational vortices, then lef t to drif t in cir cles until such

time as the Universe itself runs down. T o the east of the

Shroud is the kingdom of the Slipjaws, to the west, the

Bogglyeyed, and in the south ar e roads, heavily dotted with

fortiﬁed mortalitaries, leading to the gentler spher e of sk y-

blue Lazulia, beyond which lies the bud-beaming

Murgundigan, wher e the ar chipelago of ir on-poor stars,

known as Alcar on's Car riage, shines blood-r ed. "The Shr oud itself, as we said, is as black as the

Glossaur ontian cor ridor is white. Nor does the only peril

there lie in its vortices, in debris pulled down fr om dizzy

heights by the cur rent, in meteors gone berserk; for some

say that in an unknown place, among dark, cr epuscular

caver ns, at the bottom of an immeasurably deep and

unplumbed pr ofundity, for ages and ages now ther e sits a

certain cr eatur e, anomalous and wholly anonymous, for

anyone who meets the thing and lear ns its name will sur ely

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 ar e 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 ar e extinguished, and

some wayfar ers have strayed fr om their path of safety, it

comes whirling out of the void, wraps them tightly in its

coils, and car ries them oﬀ to its castle of oblivion, without

ever dr opping the least ruby br ooch, for the monster is

monstr ously meticulous. A fterwar d, only the gnawed

remains drif t away and ﬂoat thr ough the W astes, followed

by long trails of ship rivets, which ar e spit out fr om the

monster's maw lik e seeds. But lately, ever since the

Glossaur ontian tunnel was opened by the for ced labor of

innumerable turboservoserfs, and all navigation tak es the

way of that brightest of cor ridors, the Anonymoid rages,

deprived of further plunder, and the heat of its fury now

illumines the darkness of the Shr oud, and it glows thr ough

the black bar riers of gravitation lik e a ﬁend's sk ull rotting in

some dank, phosphor escent cocoon. Ther e are scoﬀers,

true, who say that no such monster e xists and never did—

and they say so with impunity, for it is har d to assail an

opinion of things for which ther e are no wor ds, an opinion

formed mor eover on a quiet summer af ternoon, far fr om

cosmic shr ouds and stellar conﬂagrations. Y es, it is easy not

to believe in monsters, considerably mor e diﬃcult to escape

their dr ead and loathsome clutches. W as not the

Murgundiganian Cyber nator himself, with an entourage of

eighty in thr ee ships, swallowed up, so that nothing

remained of that magnaterium but a few chewed buckles,

which wer e cast up on the shor e of Solara Minor by a

nebular wave and subsequently discover ed by the villagers

of those parts?

And wer e not countless other worthies

devour ed without mer cy or appeal?

Ther efore let at least

electr onic memory pay silent tribute to these poor unburied

multitudes, if no avenger can be found for them, one who

will deal with that perpetrator accor ding to the old sider eal

laws."

All this T rurl r ead one day fr om a book, yellowed with age,

which he chanced to obtain fr om a passing peddler, and he

took it straightway to Klapaucius and r ead it a second time,

aloud, fr om beginning to end, as he was much intrigued by

the marvels described ther ein. 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 wor d of that rubbish?"

"And why shouldn't I believe it?" T rurl bridled. "L ook,

here's even an engraving, skillfully done, of the Anonymoid

eating two photon schooners and hiding the booty in his

cellar .

Anyway, isn't ther e in fact a tunnel thr ough a super -

giant?

Beth-el- Geuse, I mean. Sur ely you'r e not such an

ignoramus in cosmography to doubt that possibility…"

"As for illustrations, why, I could draw you a dragon right

now, with a thousand suns for each eye. W ould you accept

the sk etch as pr oof of its e xistence?" Klapaucius r eplied. "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 bur nt

out, and in the thir d place, intrastellar travel pr esents no

hazar d whatever, as you know perfectly well, having ﬂown

that way yourself .

And as for the so -called Gr eat Shr oud

Wastes, this is in r eality nothing but a cosmic dump some

ten kiloparsecs acr oss, ﬂoating in the vicinity of Maeridia

and T etrar chida, and not ar ound any Slopjaws or

Gaussaur onts, which don't e xist anywher e; and it's dark

there, yes, but simply because of all the garbage. And as for

your Anonymoid, ther e's obviously no such thing!

It isn't

even a r espectable, ancient myth, but some cheap yar n

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 diﬀer ent opinion

had it been you, instead. But enough of the tunnel. As far as

the Shr oud and Anonymoid ar e concer ned, it isn't my habit

to settle such things with wor ds. W e'll go ther e, and then

you'll see"—and he held up the heavy book— "you'll see

what's true in her e, and what is not!"

Klapaucius did his best to dissuade him, but when he saw

that T rurl, stubbor n as usual, had absolutely no intention of

backing down fr om so singularly conceived a sally, he ﬁrst

declar ed that he would have nothing mor e to do with him,

but befor e very long had joined in pr eparing for the voyage:

he didn't wish to see his friend perish alone—somehow, two

can look death in the eye mor e cheerfully than one. Finally, having stock ed the lar der with plenty of pr ovisions,

for the way would lead thr ough vast, bar ren regions (not as

pictur esque, to be sur e, as the book depicted), they took oﬀ

in their trusty ship. During the ﬂight, they stopped now and

then to ask dir ections, particularly when they had lef t far

behind the ter ritory with which they wer e familiar .

Not much

could be lear ned fr om the natives, however, for these spok e

reliably only about their immediate sur roundings—of things

that lay beyond, wher e they had never ventur ed

themselves, they gave the most absur d account, and in

great detail, elaborating with both r elish and a sense of

dread. Klapaucius called such tales "cor roded," having in

mind the cor rosis-scler osion that attacks all aging brains. But when they had come within ﬁve or six million light-

blocks of the Black W astes, they began to hear rumors of

some r obber -giant who called himself The PHT P irate. No

one they spok e to had actually seen him, nor knew what

"PHT" was supposed to mean. T rurl thought this might be a

distortion of "pH," which would indicate an ionic pirate with

a high concentration and very base, but Klapaucius, mor e

level-headed, pr eferred to r efrain fr om entertaining such

hypotheses. T o all accounts, this pirate was an ill-temper ed

brute, as evidenced by the fact that, even af ter stripping his

victims of everything, he was never satisﬁed, his gr eed

being gr eat and insatiable, and beat them long and cruelly

befor e setting them fr ee. F or a moment or two the

constructors consider ed whether they shouldn't ar m

themselves with blasters or blades befor e entering the

Wastes, but soon concluded that the best weapon was their

wits, sharpened in constructorship, subtle, agile and

universal; so they set out just as they wer e. It must be confessed that T rurl, as they traveled on, was

bitterly disillusioned; the star ry starlight, the ﬁery ﬁr es, the

caver nous voids, the meteor r eefs and shooting shoals wer e

nowher e near as enchanting to the eye as pr omised in the

ancient tome. Ther e wer e only a few old stars about, and

those wer e unimpr essive, if not downright shabby; some

barely ﬂick ered, lik e cinders in a heap of ashes, and some

were completely dark and har dened on the surface, r ed

veins glowing dully thr ough cracks in their char red and

wrinkled crusts. Of ﬂaming jungles of combustion and

mysterious vortices ther e was not a sign, nor had anyone

ever hear d of them, for the desolate waste was a place of

tedium, and tedious in the e xtreme, by virtue of the fact

that it was desolate, and a waste. As far as meteors went,

they wer e everywher e, but in that rattling, clattering swar m

was a good deal mor e ﬂying r efuse than honest magnetites,

tektites or aer olites—for the simple r eason that the Galactic

Pole was only a stone's thr ow away, and the swirling dark

currents suck ed to this very spot, southwar d, prodigious

quantities of ﬂotsam and jetsam fr om the central zones of

the Galaxy .

Hence all the tribes and nations in the

neighbor hood spok e of this ar ea not as any sort of Shr oud,

but as nothing mor e or less than what it was: a junk yard. Trurl hid his disappointment as best he could, in or der not

to occasion sar castic comments fr om Klapaucius, and

steer ed straight into the W astes. Immediately sand began to

patter on the bow; every kind of stellar debris, spewed fr om

prominences or super novae, collected and cak ed up on the

ship's hull, for ming 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 pr oceeded gr opingly, till suddenly their ship lur ched,

and all the fur niture, pots and pans went ﬂying; they felt

themselves hurtling forwar d, faster and faster, then at last

there was an awful crunch and the ship came to a stop,

landing sof tly 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 hear d someone banging, someone fearfully str ong,

whoever it was, for the very walls wer e buckling in. A t this

point T rurl and Klapaucius began to feel a little less

conﬁdent in the power of their unar med wits, but it was too

late now, so they opened the hatch, since otherwise it would

be for ced fr om without and br oken for good. As they look ed, 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 af ter it, and not only huge, but

unspeak ably 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 e xamining everything, as if appraising

whether or not the tak e was worth the tr ouble. Even

someone far less intelligent than our constructors would

have understood what that scrutiny meant, for it was

unmistak able. "Well?" said T rurl ﬁnally, e xasperated by such shameless

eyeing, which went on in silence. "What do you want, you

unwashed mug?!

I am T rurl, constructor and general omni-

potentiary, and this is my friend Klapaucius, also of gr eat

renown, and we wer e ﬂying by in our ship as tourists, so

kindly r emove your ugly muzzle and tak e us immediately

out of this unsavory place—full of litter and rubbish, no

doubt—and dir ect us to some clean, r espectable sector, or

we'll lodge a complaint and they'll have you br oken down

into little scrap—do you hear me, you scavenger, ragpick er,

pack rat?!"

But the face said nothing, just look ed and look ed, as if

calculating, making an estimate of how much. "Listen her e, you unmitigated fr eak," yelled T rurl, thr owing

all caution to the winds, though Klapaucius k ept elbowing

him to show some r estraint, "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

unspeak ably hideous. And you"—he said, tur ning to

Klapaucius—"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, tur ning its

thousand glittering eyes on T rurl, "for gold or silver, and the

way you have to talk to me is delicately and with r espect, as

I am a pirate with a Ph. D., well-educated and by natur e

extremely high-strung. Other guests have been her e and

needed sweetening up—and when I've given you a pr oper

pounding too, why, you'll be positively dripping with good

manners. My name is P ugg, I'm thirty arshins in every

direction and it's true I r ob, but in a manner that is moder n

and scientiﬁc, for I collect pr ecious facts, genuine truths,

priceless knowledge, and in general all infor mation of value. And now, let's hand it over, otherwise I whistle!

V ery well

then, I'll count to ﬁve—one, two, thr ee …"

And at ﬁve, when they had handed him nothing, he let

loose such a whistle, that their ears nearly ﬂew oﬀ, and

Klapaucius r ealized that the "PHT" of which the natives

spoke with ter ror was indeed "Ph. D.," for the pirate had

obviously studied at some higher institution, lik e the

Criminal A cademy .

Trurl held his head and gr oaned—P ugg's

whistle was fully commensurate with his size. "We'll give you nothing!" he cried, while Klapaucius ran oﬀ

to ﬁnd some cotton. "And get your face out of her e!"

"You don't lik e my face, maybe you'll lik e my hand,"

replied the pirate. "It's one huge humdinger of a hand and

heavy as the devil!

And her e it comes!"

And indeed: the cotton Klapaucius br ought was no longer

needed, for the face had disappear ed, and in its place was a

paw, a paw to end all paws, with knots and knobs and

shovel claws, and it rummaged and clutched, br eaking

tables and hutches and cupboar ds, till all the pots and pans

came crashing down, and the paw chased T rurl and

Klapaucius into the engine r oom, wher e they climbed up on

top of the atomic pile and rapped its knuckles—pow!

pow!—

with a pok er. This made the diplomaed pirate mad, and he

put his face back in the hatch and said:

"Look, I str ongly advise you to come to ter ms with me at

once, otherwise I'll put you aside for later, at the very

bottom of my storage bin, and cover you with garbage, and

wedge you in with r ocks, so you can't move, and you'll just

sit ther e and slowly rust. So then, which is it to be?"

Trurl wouldn't hear of negotiating, but Klapaucius politely

asked what e xactly it was that His Doctoral Diploma-hood

wanted?

"Now you'r e talking," he said. "I gather rich mines of

information, for such is my lifelong love and avocation, the

result of a higher education and, I might add, a practical

grasp of the situation, when you consider that, with the

usual tr easur es untutor ed pirates lik e to hoar d, ther e is not

a blessed thing her e one can buy .

Infor mation, on the other

hand, satisﬁes one's thirst for knowledge, and it is well

known besides, that everything that is, is infor mation; and

thus for centuries now I gather it, and will continue to do so,

though it's true I'm not against a little gold or diamonds now

and then, for they'r e pretty and decorative—but that's

strictly on the side, as occasion war rants. Observe, however,

that for false infor mation, no less than for false coin, I give a

good shellacking, since I am r eﬁned and insist on

authenticity!"

"But what kind of authentic and valuable infor mation do

you r equir e?" ask ed Klapaucius. "All kinds, as long as it's true," r eplied the pirate. "Y ou

never can tell what facts may come in handy .

I alr eady have

a few hundr ed wells and cellars full of them, but ther e's

room for twice again as much. So out with it; tell me

everything you know, and I'll jot it down. But mak e it

snappy!"

"A ﬁne state of aﬀairs," Klapaucius whisper ed in T rurl's

ear. "He could k eep us her e for an eon or two befor e we tell

him everything we know .

Our knowledge is colossal!!"

"Wait," whisper ed Trurl, "I have an idea." And he said

aloud:

"Listen her e, you thief with a degr ee, we possess a piece

of infor mation worth mor e than any other, a for mula to

fashion gold fr om or dinary atoms—for instance, hydr ogen,

of which the Universe has an ine xhaustible supply .

We'll let

you have it if you let us go ."

"I have a whole trunk full of such r ecipes," answer ed the

face, batting its eyes fer ociously .

"And they'r e all worthless. I don't intend to be trick ed again—you demonstrate it ﬁrst."

"Sure, why not?

Do you have a jug?"

"No."

"That's all right, we can do without one/' said T rurl. "The

method is simplicity itself : take as many atoms of hydr ogen

as the weight of an atom of gold, namely one hundr ed and

ninety -six; ﬁrst you shell the electr ons, then knead the

protons, working the nuclear batter till the mesons appear,

and now sprinkle your electr ons all ar ound, and voila,

there's the gold. W atch!"

And T rurl began to catch atoms, peeling their electr ons

and mixing their pr otons with such nimble speed, that his

ﬁngers wer e a blur, and he stir red the subatomic dough,

stuck all the electr ons back in, then on to the ne xt molecule. In less than ﬁve minutes he was holding a nugget of the

purest gold, which he pr esented to the face; it took a sniﬀ

and said with a nod:

"Yes, that's gold, but I'm too big to go running ar ound lik e

that af ter atoms."

"No pr oblem, we'll give you a suitable machine!" coax ed

Trurl. "Just think, this way you can tur n anything into gold,

not only hydr ogen—we'll give you the for mula for other

atoms, too .

Why, one could mak e the entir e Universe gold, if

only he applied himself!"

"If the Universe was gold, gold would be worthless,"

observed P ugg. "No, I have no use for your for mula—I've

written it down, yes, but that's not enough!

It's the wealth of

knowledge that I crave."

"But what do you want to know, for heaven's sak e?!"

"Everything!"

Trurl look ed at Klapaucius, Klapaucius look ed at T rurl, and

the latter ﬁnally said:

"If ﬁrst you will solemnly swear, up and down and cr oss

your heart, that you will let us go, we will give you

information, infor mation about inﬁnite infor mation, that is,

we will mak e you your very own Demon of the Second Kind,

which is magical and ther modynamical, nonclassical and

stochasti-cal, and fr om any old bar rel or even a sneeze it

will e xtract infor mation for you about everything that was,

is, may be or ever will be. And ther e is no demon beyond

this Demon, for it is of the Second Kind, and if you want it,

say so now!"

The pirate with the Ph. D. was suspicious, and didn't agr ee

all at once to these conditions, but ﬁnally swor e the r equir ed

oath, with the stipulation that the Demon ﬁrst give clear

proof of its infor mational pr owess. Which was ﬁne with T rurl. "Now pay attention, big-face!" he said. "Do you have any

air knocking about?

W ithout air the Demon won't work."

"I have a little," said P ugg, "but it's not too clean…"

"Stale, stagnant, polluted, it doesn't matter, not in the

least," r eplied the constructors. "L ead us to it, and we'll

show you something!"

So he withdr ew his face and let them leave the ship, and

they followed him to his house, noticing that he had legs lik e

towers, shoulders lik e a pr ecipice, and hadn't been washed

for centuries, nor oiled, hence cr eaked something awful. They went down cellar cor ridors, with sacks moldering on

every hand—in these the pirate k ept his stolen facts —

bunches and bundles of sacks, all tied with string, and the

most important, valuable items mark ed in r ed pencil. On the

wall hung an immense catalog, fastened to the r ock by a

rust-eaten chain and full of entries and headings, beginning,

of course, with A .

On they went, raising muﬄed echoes, and

Trurl look ed and grimaced, as did Klapaucius, for though

there was plenty of authentic and top-quality infor mation

lying about, wher ever the eye fell was nothing but must,

dust and clutter .

Plenty of air, too, but thor oughly stale. They stopped and T rurl said:

"Now pay attention!

Air is made up of atoms, and these

atoms jump this way and that, and collide billions of times a

second in each and every cubic micr omillimeter, and it is

precisely this eter nal jumping and bumping together that

constitutes a gas. Now, even though their jumping is blind

and wholly random, ther e are billions upon billions of atoms

in every interstice, and as a consequence of this gr eat

number, their little skips and scamperings give rise to,

among other things—and pur ely by accident—to signiﬁcant

conﬁgurations… Do you know what a conﬁguration is,

blockhead?"

"No insults, please!" said P ugg. "F or I am not your usual

uncouth pirate, but r eﬁned and with a Ph. D., and ther efore

extremely high-strung."

"Fine. So then, fr om all this atomic hopping ar ound, we

obtain signiﬁcant, that is meaningful conﬁgurations, as if,

for instance, you wer e to ﬁr e at a wall blindfold and the

bullet holes for med some letter .

That, which on a lar ge scale

is rar e and quite unlik ely, happens in atomic gases all the

time, on account of those trillion collisions every one

hundr ed-thousandth of a second. But her e's the pr oblem: in

every smidgen of air, the joggling and jostling of atoms does

indeed pr oduce deep truths and edif ying dicta, yet it also

produces statements that mak e not the least bit of sense,

and ther e are thousands of times mor e of the latter than

there are of the for mer. So even if it wer e known that, right

here and now under your sawlik e nose, in a milligram of air

and in a fraction of a second, ther e would come into being

all the cantos of all the epic poems to be written in the ne xt

million years, as well as an abundance of wonderful truths—

including the solutions to every enigma of Existence and

mystery of Being—you would still have no way of isolating

all that infor mation, particularly since, just as soon as the

atoms had knock ed their heads together and for med

something, they would ﬂy apart and it would vanish,

probably for ever. And ther efore the whole trick lies in

building a selector, which will, in the atomic rush and

jumble, choose only what has meaning. And that is the

whole idea behind the Demon of the Second Kind. Have you

understood any of this, O huge and hideous one?

W e want

the Demon, you see, to e xtract fr om the dance of atoms

only infor mation that is genuine, lik e mathematical

theor ems, fashion magazines, blueprints, historical

chronicles, or a r ecipe for ion crumpets, or how to clean and

iron a suit of asbestos, and poetry too, and scientiﬁc advice,

and almanacs, and calendars, and secr et documents, and

everything that ever appear ed in any newspaper in the

Universe, and telephone books of the futur e…"

"Enough, enough!!" cried P ugg. "I get the idea!

But what

good is it for atoms to combine lik e that, if immediately they

ﬂy apart?

And anyway, I can't believe it's possible to select

invaluable truths fr om a lot of car eening and colliding of

particles in the air, which is completely senseless and not

worth a jot to anyone!"

"Then you'r e not so stupid as I thought," said T rurl. "F or

truly, the whole diﬃculty consists in implementing such a

selection. I have no intention of pr esenting you with the

theor etical ar guments for this, but, as I pr omised, I will her e

and now—while you wait—construct a Demon of the Second

Kind, and you'll see for yourself the wondr ous perfection of

that Metainfor mationator!

All you have to do is ﬁnd me a

box—any size will do, but it must be airtight. W e'll put a

little pinhole in it and sit the Demon over the opening;

perched ther e, it will let out only signiﬁcant infor mation,

keeping in all the nonsense. F or whenever a gr oup of atoms

accidentally ar ranges itself in a meaningful way, the Demon

will pounce on that meaning and instantly r ecord it with a

special diamond pen on paper tape, which you must k eep in

endless supply, for the thing will labor day and night—until

the Universe itself runs down and no sooner—at a rate,

moreover, of a hundr ed billion bits a second… But you will

see the Demon of the Second Kind with your very own

eyes."

And T rurl went back to the ship to mak e the Demon. The

pirate meanwhile ask ed Klapaucius:

"And what is the Demon of the F irst Kind lik e?"

"Oh, it's not as inter esting, it's an or dinary ther modynamic

demon, and all it does is let fast atoms out of the hole and

keep in the slow .

That way you get a ther modynamic

perpetuum mobile, which hasn't a thing to do with

information. But you had better fetch the bo x now, for T rurl

will return any minute!"

The pirate with a Ph. D. went to another cellar, pok ed

around thr ough various cans and tins, cursed, kick ed things

and tripped, but ﬁnally pulled out an ir on bar rel, old and

empty, put a tiny hole in it and hur ried back, just as T rurl

arrived, the Demon in his hand. The air in the bar rel was so foul, that one's nose wanted to

hide when br ought near the little opening, but the Demon

didn't seem to mind; T rurl placed this mote of a mite astride

the hole in the bar rel, aﬃx ed a lar ge roll of paper tape on

the top and thr eaded it under neath the tiny diamond-tipped

pen, which quiver ed eagerly, then began to scratch and

scribble, clattering rat-tat, pit-pat, just lik e a telegraph, only

a million times faster .

From under this frantic apparatus the

information tape slowly began to slide out, cover ed with

words, onto the ﬁlthy cellar ﬂoor .

Pugg sat down ne xt to the bar rel, lif ted the paper tape to

his hundr ed eyes and r ead what the Demon had, with its

informational net, managed to dr edge up out of the eter nal

prancing and dancing of the atoms; those signiﬁcant bits of

knowledge so absorbed him, that he didn't even notice how

the two constructors lef t the cellar in gr eat haste, how they

grabbed hold of the helm of their ship, pulled once, twice,

and on the thir d time fr eed it fr om the mir e in which the

pirate had stuck them, then climbed aboar d and blasted oﬀ

as fast as they possibly could, for they knew that, though

their Demon would work, it would work too well, pr oducing a

far gr eater wealth of infor mation than P ugg anticipated. Pugg meanwhile sat pr opped up against the bar rel and r ead,

as that diamond pen which the Demon employed to r ecord

everything it lear ned fr om the oscillating atoms squeak ed

on and on, and he r ead about how e xactly Harlebar donian

wrigglers wriggle, and that the daughter of King P etrolius of

Labondia is named Humpinella, and what F rederick the

Second, one of the paleface kings, had for lunch befor e he

declar ed war against the Gwendoliths, and how many

electr on shells an atom of ther mionolium would have, if

such an element e xisted, and what is the cloacal diameter

of a small bir d called the tuf ted twit, which is painted by the

Wabian Mar chpanes on their sacriﬁcial ur ns, and also of the

tripartite taste of the oceanic ooze on P olypelagid Diaphana,

and of the ﬂower Dybbulyk, that beats the L ower

Malfundican hunters black and blue whenever they wak en it

at dawn, and how to obtain the angle of the base of an

irregular icosahedr on, and who was the jeweler of Gufus, the

left-handed butcher of the Bovants, and the number of

volumes on philately to be published in the year seventy

thousand on Marinautica, and wher e to ﬁnd the tomb of

Cybrinda the R ed-toed, who was nailed to her bed by a

certain Clamonder in a drunk en ﬁt, and how to tell the

diﬀer ence between a bindlesnurk and an or dinary

trundlespiﬀ, and also who has the smallest lateral wumpet

in the Universe, and why fan-tailed ﬂeas won't eat moss,

and how to play the game of F ratcher -My-Pliss and win, and

how many snapdragon seeds ther e wer e in the tur d into

which Abr oquian Phylminides stepped, when he stumbled

on the Gr eat Albongean R oad eight miles outside the V alley

of Symphic Sighs—and little by little his hundr ed eyes began

to swim, and it dawned on him that all this infor mation,

entirely true and meaningful in every particular, was

absolutely useless, pr oducing such an ungodly confusion

that his head ached ter ribly and his legs tr embled. But the

Demon of the Second Kind continued to operate at a speed

of thr ee hundr ed million facts per second, and mile af ter

mile of tape coiled out and gradually buried the Ph. D. pirate

beneath its windings, wrapping him, as it wer e, in a paper

web, while the tiny diamond-tipped pen shiver ed and

twitched lik e one insane, and it seemed to P ugg that any

minute now he would lear n the most fabulous, unhear d-of

things, things that would open up to him the Ultimate

Mystery of Being, so he gr eedily r ead everything that ﬂew

out fr om under the diamond nib, the drinking songs of the

Quaidacabondish and the sizes of bedr oom slippers

available on the continent of Cob, with pompons and

without, and the number of hairs gr owing on each brass

knuckle of the sk ew-beezer ed ﬂummo x, and the average

width of the fontanel in indigenous stepinfants, and the

litanies of the M'hot-t'ma-hon'h conjur ers to r ouse the

reverend Blotto Ben- Blear, and the inaugural catcalls of the

Duke of Zilch, and six ways to cook cr eam of wheat, and a

good poison for uncles with goatees, and twelve types of

forensic tickling, and the names of all the citizens of

Foofaraw Junction beginning with the letter M, and the

results of a poll of opinions on the taste of beer mix ed with

mushr oom syrup…

And it gr ew dark befor e his hundr ed eyes, and he cried

out in a mighty voice that he'd had enough, but Infor mation

had so swathed and swaddled him in its thr ee hundr ed

thousand tangled paper miles, that he couldn't move and

had to r ead on about how Kipling would have written the

beginning to his Second Jungle Book if he had had

indigestion just then, and what thoughts come to unmar ried

whales getting on in years, and all about the courtship of

the car rion ﬂy, and how to mend an old gunny sack, and

what a spr othouse is, and why we don't capitalize paris in

plaster of paris or turkish in turkish bath, and how many

bruises one can have at a single time. And then a long list of

the diﬀer ences between ﬁddle and faddle, not to be

confused with twiddle and twaddle or tittle and tattle, then

all the wor ds that r hyme with "spinach," and what wer e the

insults which P ope Ur n of P endora heaped upon Antipope

Mlum of P orking, and who plays the eight-tone autocomb. In

desperation he struggled to fr ee himself fr om the paper

coils and toils, but suddenly gr ew faint, for though he kick ed

and tor e at the tape, he had too many eyes not to r eceive,

with at least a few of them, mor e and mor e new bits and

pieces of infor mation, and so was for ced to lear n what

authority the home guar d exercises in Indochina, and why

the Coelenterids of Fluxis constantly say they've had too

much to drink, until he shut his eyes and sat ther e, rigid,

overcome by that gr eat ﬂood of infor mation, and the Demon

continued to bind him with its paper strips. Thus was the

pirate P ugg sever ely punished for his inor dinate thirst for

knowledge. He sits ther e to this day, at the very bottom of his

rubbage heap and bins of trash, cover ed with a mountain of

paper, and in the dimness of that cellar the diamond pen

still jumps and ﬂick ers lik e the pur est ﬂame, r ecording

whatever the Demon of the Second Kind culls fr om dancing

atoms in the rancid air that ﬂows thr ough the hole of the old

barrel; and so poor P ugg, crushed beneath that avalanche of

fact, lear ns no end of things about rickshaws, r ents and

roaches, and about his own fate, which has been r elated

here, for that too is included in some section of the tape—as

are the histories, accounts and pr ophecies of all things in

creation, up until the day the stars bur n out; and ther e is no

hope for him, since this is the harsh sentence the

constructors passed upon him for his pirately assault—

unless of course the tape runs out, for lack of paper .

The Seventh Sally

OR How Trurl's

Own Perfection Led to No Good

The Universe is inﬁnite but bounded, and ther efore a

beam of light, in whatever dir ection it may travel, will af ter

billions of centuries r eturn—if powerful enough—to the point

of its departur e; and it is no diﬀer ent with rumor, that ﬂies

about fr om star to star and mak es the r ounds of every

planet. One day T rurl hear d distant r eports of two mighty

constructor -benefactors, so wise and so accomplished that

they had no equal; with this news he ran to Klapaucius, who

explained to him that these wer e not mysterious rivals, but

only themselves, for their fame had cir cumnavigated space. Fame, however, has this fault, that it says nothing of one's

failur es, even when those very failur es ar e the pr oduct of a

great perfection. And he who would doubt this, let him r ecall

the last of the seven sallies of T rurl, which was undertak en

without klapaucius, whom certain ur gent duties k ept at

home at the time. In those days T rurl was e xceedingly vain, r eceiving all

marks of veneration and honor paid to him as his due and a

perfectly nor mal thing. He was heading north in his ship, as

he was the least familiar with that r egion, and had ﬂown

through the void for quite some time, passing spher es full of

the clamor of war as well as spher es that had ﬁnally

obtained the perfect peace of desolation, when suddenly a

little planet came into view, r eally mor e of a stray fragment

of matter than a planet. On the surface of this chunk of r ock someone was run-

ning back and forth, jumping and waving his ar ms in the

strangest way .

Astonished by a scene of such total

loneliness and concer ned by those wild gestur es of despair,

and per haps of anger as well, T rurl quickly landed. He was appr oached by a personage of tr emendous hau-

teur, iridium and vanadium all over and with a gr eat deal of

clanging and clanking, who intr oduced himself as Ex celsius

the T artarian, ruler of P ancreon and Cyspender ora; the

inhabitants of both these kingdoms had, in a ﬁt of r egicidal

madness, driven His Highness fr om the thr one and e xiled

him to this bar ren aster oid, eter nally adrif t among the dark

swells and cur rents of gravitation. Learning in tur n the identity of his visitor, the deposed

monar ch began to insist that T rurl—who af ter all was

something of a pr ofessional when it came to good deeds—

immediately r estor e him to his for mer position. The thought

of such a tur n of events br ought the ﬂame of vengeance to

the monar ch's eyes, and his ir on ﬁngers clutched the air, as

if already closing ar ound the thr oats of his beloved subjects. Now T rurl had no intention of complying with this r equest

of Ex celsius, as doing so would bring about untold evil and

suﬀering, yet at the same time he wished somehow to

comfort and console the humiliated king. Thinking a

moment or two, he came to the conclusion that, even in this

case, not all was lost, for it would be possible to satisf y the

king completely—without putting his for mer subjects in

jeopar dy. And so, r olling up his sleeves and summoning up

all his mastery, T rurl built the king an entir ely new kingdom. There wer e plenty of towns, rivers, mountains, for ests and

brooks, a sk y with clouds, ar mies full of der ring-do, citadels,

castles and ladies' chambers; and ther e wer e mark etplaces,

gaudy and gleaming in the sun, days of back-br eaking labor,

nights full of dancing and song until dawn, and the gay

clatter of swor dplay .

Trurl also car efully set into this kingdom

a fabulous capital, all in marble and alabaster, and

assembled a council of hoary sages, and winter palaces and

summer villas, plots, conspirators, false witnesses, nurses,

informers, teams of magniﬁcent steeds, and plumes waving

crimson in the wind; and then he crisscr ossed that

atmospher e with silver fanfar es and twenty -one gun salutes,

also thr ew in the necessary handful of traitors, another of

heroes, added a pinch of pr ophets and seers, and one mes-

siah and one gr eat poet each, af ter which he bent over and

set the works in motion, def tly making last-minute

adjustments with his micr oscopic tools as it ran, and he

gave the women of that kingdom beauty, the men—sullen

silence and surliness when drunk, the oﬃcials—ar rogance

and servility, the astr onomers—an enthusiasm for stars, and

the childr en—a gr eat capacity for noise. And all of this,

connected, mounted and gr ound to pr ecision, ﬁt into a bo x,

and not a very lar ge bo x, but just the size that could be

carried about with ease. This T rurl pr esented to Ex celsius, to

rule and have dominion over for ever; but ﬁrst he showed

him wher e the input and output of his brand-new kingdom

were, and how to pr ogram wars, quell r ebellions, e xact

tribute, collect tax es, and also instructed him in the critical

points and transition states of that micr ominiaturized

society—in other wor ds the maxima and minima of palace

coups and r evolutions—and e xplained everything so well,

that the king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies,

instantly grasped the dir ections and, without hesitation,

while the constructor watched, issued a few trial

proclamations, cor rectly manipulating the contr ol knobs,

which wer e carved with imperial eagles and r egal lions. These pr oclamations declar ed a state of emer gency, martial

law, a curfew and a special levy .

After a year had passed in

the kingdom, which amounted to har dly a minute for T rurl

and the king, by an act of the gr eatest magnanimity—that

is, by a ﬂick of the ﬁnger at the contr ols—the king abolished

one death penalty, lightened the levy and deigned to annul

the state of emer gency, wher eupon a tumultuous cry of

gratitude, lik e the squeaking of tiny mice lif ted by their tails,

rose up fr om the bo x, and thr ough its curved glass cover

one could see, on the dusty highways and along the banks

of lazy rivers that r eﬂected the ﬂuﬀy clouds, the people

rejoicing and praising the gr eat and unsurpassed

benevolence of their sover eign lor d. And so, though at ﬁrst he had felt insulted by T rurl's gif t,

in that the kingdom was too small and very lik e a child's toy,

the monar ch saw that the thick glass lid made everything

inside seem lar ge; per haps too he dully understood that size

was not what matter ed her e, for gover nment is not

measur ed in meters and kilograms, and emotions ar e

somehow the same, whether e xperienced by giants or

dwarfs— and so he thank ed the constructor, if somewhat

stiﬄy .

Who knows, he might even have lik ed to or der him

thrown in chains and tortur ed to death, just to be safe—that

would have been a sur e way of nipping in the bud any

gossip about how some common vagabond tink erer

presented a mighty monar ch with a kingdom. Excelsius was sensible enough, however, to see that this

was out of the question, owing to a very fundamental

dispr oportion, for ﬂeas could sooner tak e their host into

captivity than the king's ar my seize T rurl. So with another

cold nod, he stuck his orb and scepter under his ar m, lif ted

the bo x kingdom with a grunt, and took it to his humble hut

of exile. And as blazing day alter nated with murk y night

outside, accor ding to the r hythm of the aster oid's r otation,

the king, who was acknowledged by his subjects as the

greatest in the world, diligently r eigned, bidding this,

forbidding that, beheading, r ewar ding—in all these ways

incessantly spur ring his little ones on to perfect fealty and

worship of the thr one.

As for T rurl, he r eturned home and r elated to his friend

Klapaucius, not without pride, how he had employed his

constructor's genius to indulge the autocratic aspirations of

Excelsius and, at the same time, safeguar d the democratic

aspirations of his for mer subjects. But Klapaucius,

surprisingly enough, had no wor ds of praise for T rurl; in fact,

there seemed to be r ebuk e in his e xpression. "Have I understood you cor rectly?" he said at last. "Y ou

gave that brutal despot, that bor n slave master, that

slavering sadist of a painmonger, you gave him a whole

civilization to rule and have dominion over for ever?

And you

tell me, mor eover, of the cries of joy br ought on by the

repeal of a fraction of his cruel decr ees!

T rurl, how could you

have done such a thing?!"

"You must be joking!" T rurl e xclaimed. "R eally, the whole

kingdom ﬁts into a bo x three feet by two by two and a half…

it's only a model…"

"A model of what?"

"What do you mean, of what?

Of a civilization, obviously,

except that it's a hundr ed million times smaller ."

"And how do you know ther e aren't civilizations a hundr ed

million times lar ger than our own?

And if ther e wer e, would

ours then be a model?

And what importance do dimensions

have anyway?

In that bo x kingdom, doesn't a jour ney fr om

the capital to one of the cor ners tak e months —for those

inhabitants?

And don't they suﬀer, don't they know the

burden of labor, don't they die?"

"Now just a minute, you know yourself that all these

processes tak e place only because I pr ogrammed them, and

so they ar en't genuine…"

"Aren't genuine?

Y ou mean to say the bo x is empty, and

the parades, tortur es and beheadings ar e mer ely an

illusion?"

"Not an illusion, no, since they have r eality, though pur ely

as certain micr oscopic phenomena, which I pr oduced by

manipulating atoms," said T rurl. "The point is, these births,

loves, acts of her oism and denunciations ar e nothing but the

minuscule capering of electr ons in space, pr ecisely ar ranged

by the skill of my nonlinear craf t, which—"

"Enough of your boasting, not another wor d!" Klapaucius

snapped. "Ar e these pr ocesses self -organizing or not?"

"Of course they ar e!"

"And they occur among inﬁnitesimal clouds of electrical

charge?"

"You know they do ."

"And the phenomenological events of dawns, sunsets and

bloody battles ar e generated by the concatenation of r eal

variables?"

"Certainly ."

"And ar e not we as well, if you e xamine us physically,

mechanistically, statistically and meticulously, nothing but

the minuscule capering of electr on clouds?

P ositive and

negative char ges ar ranged in space?

And is our e xistence

not the r esult of subatomic collisions and the interplay of

particles, though we ourselves per ceive those molecular

cartwheels as fear, longing, or meditation?

And when you

daydr eam, what transpir es within your brain but the binary

algebra of connecting and disconnecting cir cuits, the

continual meandering of electr ons?"

"What, Klapaucius, would you equate our e xistence with

that of an imitation kingdom lock ed up in some glass bo x?!"

cried T rurl. "No, r eally, that's going too far!

My purpose was

simply to fashion a simulator of statehood, a model

cyber netically perfect, nothing mor e!"

"Trurl!

Our perfection is our curse, for it draws down upon

our every endeavor no end of unfor eseeable

consequences!" Klapaucius said in a stentorian voice. "If an

imperfect imitator, wishing to inﬂict pain, wer e to build

himself a crude idol of wood or wax, and further give it

some mak eshift semblance of a sentient being, his tortur e

of the thing would be a paltry mock ery indeed!

But consider

a succession of impr ovements on this practice!

Consider the

next sculptor, who builds a doll with a r ecording in its belly,

that it may gr oan beneath his blows; consider a doll which,

when beaten, begs for mer cy, no longer a crude idol, but a

homeostat; consider a doll that sheds tears, a doll that

bleeds, a doll that fears death, though it also longs for the

peace that only death can bring!

Don't you see, when the

imitator is perfect, so must be the imitation, and the

semblance becomes the truth, the pr etense a r eality!

T rurl,

you took an untold number of cr eatur es capable of suﬀering

and abandoned them for ever to the rule of a wick ed tyrant…

Trurl, you have committed a ter rible crime!"

"Sheer sophistry!" shouted T rurl, all the louder because he

felt the for ce of his friend's ar gument. "Electr ons meander

not only in our brains, but in phonograph r ecords as well,

which pr oves nothing, and certainly gives no gr ounds for

such hypostatical analogies!

The subjects of that monster

Excelsius do in fact die when decapitated, sob, ﬁght, and fall

in love, since that is how I set up the parameters, but it's

impossible to say, Klapaucius, that they feel anything in the

process—the electr ons jumping ar ound in their heads will

tell you nothing of that!"

"And if I wer e to look inside your head, I would also see

nothing but electr ons," r eplied Klapaucius. "Come now,

don't pr etend not to understand what I'm saying, I know

you'r e not that stupid!

A phonograph r ecord won't run

errands for you, won't beg for mer cy or fall on its knees!

Y ou

say ther e's no way of knowing whether Ex celsius' subjects

groan, when beaten, pur ely because of the electr ons

hopping about inside—lik e wheels grinding out the mimicry

of a voice—or whether they r eally gr oan, that is, because

they honestly e xperience the pain?

A pr etty distinction, this!

No, T rurl, a suﬀer er is not one who hands you his suﬀering,

that you may touch it, weigh it, bite it lik e a coin; a suﬀer er

is one who behaves lik e a suﬀer er!

Prove to me her e and

now, once and for all, that they do not feel, that they do not

think, that they do not in any way e xist as beings conscious

of their enclosur e between the two abysses of oblivion—the

abyss befor e birth and the abyss that follows death—pr ove

this to me, T rurl, and I'll leave you be!

P rove that you only

imitated suﬀering, and did not cr eate it!"

"You know perfectly well that's impossible," answer ed Trurl

quietly .

"Even befor e I took my instruments in hand, when

the bo x was still empty, I had to anticipate the possibility of

precisely such a pr oof—in or der to rule it out. F or otherwise

the monar ch of that kingdom sooner or later would have

gotten the impr ession that his subjects wer e not r eal

subjects at all, but puppets, marionettes. T ry to understand,

there was no other way to do it!

Anything that would have

destr oyed in the littlest way the illusion of complete r eality,

would have also destr oyed the importance, the dignity of

gover ning, and tur ned it into nothing but a mechanical

game. …"

"I understand, I understand all too well!" cried Klapau-

cius. "Y our intentions wer e the noblest—you only sought to

construct a kingdom as lifelik e as possible, so similar to a

real kingdom, that no one, absolutely no one, could ever tell

the diﬀer ence, and in this, I am afraid, you wer e successful!

Only hours have passed since your r eturn, but for them, the

ones imprisoned in that bo x, whole centuries have gone by

—how many beings, how many lives wasted, and all to

gratif y and feed the vanity of King Ex celsius!"

Without another wor d Trurl rushed back to his ship, but

saw that his friend was coming with him. When he had

blasted oﬀ into space, pointed the bow between two gr eat

clusters of eter nal ﬂame and opened the thr ottle all the

way, Klapauciussaid:

"Trurl, you'r e hopeless. Y ou always act ﬁrst, think later .

And now what do you intend to do when we get ther e?"

"I'll tak e the kingdom away fr om him!"

"And what will you do with it?"

"Destr oy it!" T rurl was about to shout, but chok ed on the

ﬁrst syllable when he r ealized what he was saying. F inally he

mumbled:

"I'll hold an election. L et them choose just rulers fr om

among themselves."

"You pr ogrammed them all to be feudal lor ds or shif tless

vassals. What good would an election do?

F irst you'd have

to undo the entir e structur e of the kingdom, then assemble

from scratch…"

"And wher e," exclaimed T rurl, "does the changing of

structur es end and the tampering with minds begin?!"

Klapaucius had no answer for this, and they ﬂew on in

gloomy silence, till the planet of Ex celsius came into view .

As they cir cled it, pr eparing to land, they beheld a most

amazing sight. The entir e planet was cover ed with countless signs of

intelligent life. Micr oscopic bridges, lik e tiny lines, spanned

every rill and rivulet, while the puddles, r eﬂecting the stars,

were full of micr oscopic boats lik e ﬂoating chips… The night

side of the spher e was dotted with glimmering cities, and on

the day side one could mak e out ﬂourishing metr opolises,

though the inhabitants themselves wer e much too little to

observe, even thr ough the str ongest lens. Of the king ther e

was not a trace, as if the earth had swallowed him up. "He isn't her e," said T rurl in an awed whisper .

"What have

they done with him?

Somehow they managed to br eak

through the walls of their bo x and occupy the aster oid…"

"Look!" said Klapaucius, pointing to a little cloud no lar ger

than a thimble and shaped lik e a mushr oom; it slowly r ose

into the atmospher e. "They've discover ed atomic ener gy…

And over ther e—you see that bit of glass?

It's the r emains of

the bo x, they've made it into some sort of ter n-pie…"

"I don't understand. It was only a model, af ter all. A

process with a lar ge number of parameters, a simulation, a

mock-up for a monar ch to practice on, with the necessary

feedback, variables, multistats…" mutter ed Trurl,

dumbfounded. "Yes. But you made the unfor givable mistak e of over -

perfecting your r eplica. Not wanting to build a mer e clock-

like mechanism, you inadvertently—in your punctilious way

—created that which was possible, logical and inevitable,

that which became the very antithesis of a mechanism…"

"Please, no mor e!" cried T rurl. And they look ed out upon

the aster oid in silence, when suddenly something bumped

their ship, or rather grazed it slightly .

They saw this object,

for it was illumined by the thin ribbon of ﬂame that issued

from its tail. A ship, pr obably, or per haps an artiﬁcial

satellite, though r emark ably similar to one of those steel

boots the tyrant Ex celsius used to wear .

And when the

constructors raised their eyes, they beheld a heavenly body

shining high above the tiny planet—it hadn't been ther e

previously—and they r ecognized, in that cold, pale orb, the

stern featur es of Ex celsius himself, who had in this way

become the Moon of the Micr ominians.

Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines

of King Genius

One day to T rurl's abode ther e came a stranger, and it

was plain just as soon as he alighted fr om his photon

phaeton that her e was no or dinary personage but one who

hailed fr om distant parts, for wher e all of us have ar ms he

had only a gentle br eeze, and wher e ther e are usually legs

he had nothing but a shimmering rainbow, and in lieu of a

head he sported a plumed fedora; his voice issued forth

from his center, and indeed, he was a perfect spher e, a

spher e of the most engaging appearance and gir dled with

an elegant semiper meable cummerbund. Bowing low to

Trurl, he r evealed that ther e wer e really two of him, the top

half and the bottom; the top was called Synchr onicus, the

bottom Symphonicus. T o Trurl this seemed an e xcellent

solution to the pr oblem of constructing intelligent beings,

and he had to confess he had never met an individual so

well tur ned, so pr ecise, and with such a ﬁne shine. The

stranger r eturned the compliment by praising T rurl's corpus,

then br oached the purpose of his visit: a close friend and

loyal servant of the famous King Genius, he had come to

place an or der for thr ee storytelling machines. "Our mighty lor d and sover eign," he said, "has long

refrained fr om all r eigning and ruling, to which total

abdication he was br ought by a wisdom achieved thr ough

careful study of the ways of this and other worlds. L eaving

his kingdom, he r etired to a dry and airy cave, ther e to give

himself up to meditation. Y et oft times sor row comes upon

him, and self -abhor rence, and then nothing can console him

but stories, stories that ar e new and unusual. But alas, the

few of us who have r emained faithfully at his side ran out of

new stories long ago .

And so we tur n to you, O constructor,

to help us divert our King by means of machines, which you

do build so well."

"Yes, that's possible," said T rurl. "But why do you need as

many as thr ee?"

"We should lik e," replied Symchr ophonicus, spinning

slowly, "the ﬁrst to tell stories that ar e involved but

untroubled, the second, stories that ar e cunning and full of

fun, and the thir d, stories pr ofound and compelling."

"In other wor ds, to (1) e xercise, (2) entertain and (3) edif y

the mind," said T rurl. "I understand. Shall we speak of

payment now, or later?"

"When you have completed the machines, rub this ring,"

was the r eply, "and the phaeton shall appear befor e you. Climb into it with your machines, and it shall car ry you at

once to the cave of King Genius. Ther e voice your wishes;

he shall do what he can to grant them."

And he bowed again, handed T rurl a ring, gave a radiant

wink and ﬂoated back to the phaeton, which was instantly

wrapped in a cloud of blinding light, and the ne xt moment

Trurl was standing alone in fr ont of his house, holding the

ring, not overly happy about what had just transpir ed. "Do what he can," he mutter ed, returning to his workshop. "Oh, how I hate it when they say that!

It means only one

thing: you bring up the matter of the fee, and that's the end

of the curtsies and courtesies; all you get for your pains is a

lot of tr ouble, and bruises, mor e often than not…"

At which the ring stir red in the palm of his hand and said:

"The e xpression 'do what he can' indicates mer ely that

King Genius, lacking a kingdom, is a king of limited means. He appeals to you, O constructor, as one philosopher to

another—and appar ently is not mistak en in so doing, for

these wor ds, I see, utter ed though they be by a ring, do not

surprise you. Be then not surprised at His Highness'

somewhat straitened cir cumstances. Have no fear, you shall

receive your payment as is meet, albeit not in gold. Y et

there are things mor e to be desir ed than gold."

"Indeed, Sir Ring," observed T rurl wryly .

"Philosophy is all

very well and good, but the er gs and amps, the ions and the

atoms, not to mention other odds and ends needed in the

building of machines—they cost, they cost lik e the devil!

I like my contracts to be clear, everything spelled out in

articles and clauses, and with plenty of signatur es and

seals. And, though I am har dly the gr eedy, grasping sort, I

do love gold, particularly in lar ge quantities, and am not

ashamed to admit it!

Its sparkle, its yellow hue, the sweet

weight of it in the hand—these things, when I pour a sack or

two of tinkling ducats on the ﬂoor and wallow in them, war m

my heart and brighten my soul, as if someone had kindled a

little sun within. A ye, damn it, I love my gold!" he cried,

carried away by his own wor ds. "But why must it be the gold that others bring?

Ar e you

not able to supply yourself with as much as you desir e?"

inquir ed the ring, blinking with surprise. "Well, I don't know how wise this King Genius of yours is,"

Trurl r etorted, "but you, I see, ar e a thor oughly uneducated

ring!

What, you would have me mak e my own gold?

Whoever hear d of such a thing?!

Is a cobbler a cobbler to

mend his own shoes?

Does a cook do his own cooking, a

soldier his own ﬁghting?

Anyway, in case you didn't know,

next to gold I love to complain. But enough of this idle

chatter, ther e is work to be done."

And he placed the ring in an old tin can, r olled up his

sleeves and built the thr ee machines in thr ee days, not once

leaving his workshop. Then he consider ed what e xternal

shapes to give them, wanting something that would be both

simple and functional. He tried on various casings, one af ter

the other, while the ring k ept interfering with comments and

suggestions, until he had to close the can. Finally T rurl painted the machines—the ﬁrst white, the

second an azur e blue, and the thir d jet black—then rubbed

the ring, loaded the phaeton which instantly appear ed,

climbed in himself and waited to see what would happen

next. Ther e was a whistling and a hissing, the dust r ose, and

when it fell, T rurl look ed out the window and saw that he

was in a lar ge cave, the ﬂoor of which was cover ed with

white sand; then he noticed several wooden benches piled

high with books and folios, and then a r ow of gleaming

spher es. In one of these he r ecognized the stranger who had

ordered the machines, and in the middle spher e, lar ger than

the rest and etched with the lines of old age, he guessed the

King. T rurl stepped down and gave a bow .

The King gr eeted

him kindly and said:

"Ther e are two wisdoms: the ﬁrst inclines to action, the

second to inaction. Do you not agr ee, worthy T rurl, that the

second is the gr eater?

F or sur ely, even the most far -sighted

mind cannot for esee the ultimate consequences of pr esent

undertakings, consequences ther efore so uncertain, that

they r ender pr oblematical those very undertakings. And

thus perfection lies in the abstention fr om all action. In this

then does true wisdom diﬀer fr om mer e intellect."

"Your Majesty's wor ds," said T rurl, "can be tak en in two

ways. They may contain, for one, a subtle hint intended to

belittle the value of my own labor, namely the undertaking

which has as its consequence the thr ee machines deliver ed

in this phaeton. Such an interpr etation I ﬁnd most

unpleasant, as it indicates a certain, shall we say,

disinclination r egarding the matter of r emuneration. Or else

we have her e simply a statement of the Doctrine of Inaction,

of which it may be said that it is self -contradictory .

To refrain

from acting, one must ﬁrst be capable of acting. He who

does not move the mountain for lack of means, yet claims

that wisdom did dictate he move it not, mer ely plays the

fool with his display of philosophy .

Inaction is certain, and

that is all it has to r ecommend it. A ction is uncertain, and

therein lies its fascination. As for further ramiﬁcations of the

problem, if Y our Majesty so wishes, I can construct a suitable

mechanism with which he may converse on the subject."

"The matter of r emuneration let us leave to the end of this

delightful occasion which has br ought you to our shor e,"

said the King, betraying by slight r evolving motions the

great amusement T rurl's per oration had aﬀor ded him. "Y ou

are our guest, noble constructor .

Come ther efore and sit at

our humble table among these faithful friends and tell us of

the deeds you have perfor med, and also of the deeds you

chose not to ."

"Your Majesty is too kind," r eplied T rurl. "Y et I fear I lack

the necessary eloquence. P erchance these thr ee machines

may serve in my stead—which would have the added merit

of providing Y our Majesty with the opportunity to test them."

"Let it be as you say," agr eed the King. Everyone assumed an attitude of the utmost inter est and

expectation. T rurl br ought out the ﬁrst machine—the one

painted white—fr om the phaeton, pushed a button, then

took a seat at the side of King Genius. The machine said:

"Here is the story of the Multitudians, their king Man-

drillion, his P erfect A dviser, and T rurl the constructor, who

built the A dviser, and later destr oyed it!"

+ +

The land of the Multitudians is famous for its inhabitants,

who ar e distinguished by the fact that they ar e

multitudinous. One day the constructor T rurl, passing

through the saﬀr on regions of the constellation Deliria,

strayed a little fr om the main path and caught sight of a

planet that appear ed to writhe. Drawing near er, he saw that

this was due to the multitudes that cover ed its surface; he

landed, having found—not without diﬃculty—a few squar e

feet of r elatively unoccupied gr ound. The natives

immediately ran up and thr onged about him, e xclaiming

how multitudinous they wer e, although, as they all talk ed at

once, T rurl couldn't mak e out a single wor d. When ﬁnally he

understood, he ask ed:

"Multitudinous, ar e you?"

"We are!!" they shouted, bursting with pride. "W e are

innumerable."

And others cried:

"We are like ﬁsh in the sea!"

"Like pebbles on the beach!"

"Like stars in the sk y!

Lik e atoms!!"

"Supposing you ar e," returned T rurl. "What of it?

Do you

spend all day counting yourselves, and does that give you

pleasur e?"

"Know, O unenlightened alien," was their r eply, "that

when we stamp our feet, the very mountains tr emble, and

when we huﬀ and puﬀ, it is a hur ricane that sends tr ees

ﬂying, and when we all sit down together, ther e is har dly

room enough to br eathe!!"

"But why should mountains tr emble and hur ricanes send

trees ﬂying, and why should ther e be har dly room enough to

breathe?" ask ed Trurl. "Is it not better when mountains stay

at rest, and ther e are no hur ricanes, and everyone has r oom

enough to br eathe?"

The Multitudians wer e highly oﬀended by this lack of

respect shown to their mighty numbers and their numerical

might, so they stamped, huﬀed and puﬀed, and sat down to

demonstrate their multitudinality and show just what it

meant. Earthquak es toppled half the tr ees, crushing seven

hundr ed thousand persons, and hur ricanes leveled the r est,

causing the demise of seven hundr ed thousand mor e, while

those who r emained alive had har dly room enough to

breathe. "Good heavens!" cried T rurl, pack ed in among the sitting

natives lik e a brick in a brick wall. "What a catastr ophe!"

Which insulted them even mor e. "O barbar ous and benighted alien!" they said. "What ar e a

few hundr ed thousand to the Multitudians, whose myriads

are countless?!

A loss that goes unnoticed is no loss at all. You have seen how powerful we ar e in our stamping, in our

huﬃng and puﬃng, and in our sitting down. Imagine then

what would happen if we tur ned to bigger things!"

"You mustn't think," said T rurl, "that your way of thinking

is altogether new to me. Indeed, it's well known that

whatever comes in suﬃciently lar ge quantities commands

the general admiration. F or example, a little stale gas

circulating sluggishly at the bottom of an old bar rel excites

wonder in no one; but if you have enough of it to mak e a

Galactic Nebula, everyone is instantly struck with awe. Though r eally, it's the same stale and absolutely average

gas —only ther e's an awful lot of it."

"We do not lik e what you say!" they shouted. "W e do not

like to hear about this stale gas!"

Trurl look ed ar ound for the police, but the cr owd was too

great for the police to push thr ough. "My dear Multitudians," he said. "P ermit me to leave your

planet, for I do not shar e your faith in the glory of gr eat

numbers when ther e is nothing mor e to them than what

may be counted."

But instead, e xchanging a look and nodding, they snapped

their ﬁngers, which set up a shock wave of such pr odigious

force, that T rurl was hurled into the air and ﬂew, tur ning

head over heels, for quite some time befor e landing on his

feet in a gar den of the r oyal palace. Mandrillion the

Greatest, ruler of the Multitudians, appr oached; he had been

watching the constructor's ﬂight and descent, and now said:

"They tell me, O alien, that you have not paid pr oper

tribute to the numer osity of my people. I ascribe this to your

general inﬁr mity of mind. Y et, though you show no

understanding of higher matters, you appar ently possess

some skill in the lower, which is fortunate, as I r equir e a

Perfect A dviser and you shall build me one!"

"What e xactly is this A dviser supposed to do, and what

will I r eceive for building it?" inquir ed Trurl, brushing himself

oﬀ.

"It should answer every question, solve every pr oblem,

give absolutely the best advice and, in a wor d, put the

greatest wisdom entir ely at my disposal. F or this, you shall

receive two or thr ee hundr ed thousand of my subjects, or

more if you lik e—we won't quibble over a few thousand."

Trurl thought:

"It would seem that an overabundance of thinking beings

is a danger ous thing, if it r educes them to the status of

sand. This king would sooner part with a legion of his

subjects than I with a pair of old slippers!"

But he said aloud:

"Sire, my house is small and would not hold so many

slaves."

"Fear not, O backwar d alien, I have e xperts who will

explain to you the endless beneﬁts one may derive fr om

owning a hor de of slaves. Y ou can, for e xample, dr ess them

in robes of diﬀer ent colors and have them stand in a gr eat

squar e to for m a living mosaic, or signs pr oviding

sentiments for every occasion. Y ou can tie them in bundles

and r oll them down hills, you can mak e a huge hammer—

ﬁve thousand for the head, thr ee thousand for the handle—

to break up boulders or clear for ests. Y ou can braid them

into r ope and mak e decorative hangings, wher e those at the

very bottom, by the dr oll gyrations of their bodies, the

kicking and the squeaking as they dangle over the abyss,

create a sight that gladdens the heart and r ejoices the eye. Or tak e ten thousand young female slaves, stand them all

on one leg and have them mak e ﬁgur e eights with their

right hands and cir cles with their lef t—a spectacle, believe

me, which you won't wish to part with, and I speak fr om

experience!"

"Sire!" answer ed Trurl. "F orests and boulders I can

manage with machines, and as for signs and mosaics, it is

not my custom to fashion them out of beings that might

prefer to be otherwise employed."

"What then, O insolent alien," said the King, "do you want

in return for the P erfect A dviser?"

"A hundr ed bags of gold!"

Mandrillion was loath to part with the gold, but an idea

came to him, a most ingenious plan, which however he k ept

to himself, and he said:

"So be it!"

"Your R oyal Highness shall have his P erfect A dviser,"

promised T rurl, and pr oceeded to the castle tower which

Mandrillion had set aside for him as a workshop. It wasn't

long befor e they could hear the blowing of bellows ther e,

the ringing of hammers, the rasping of saws. The King sent

spies to have a look; these r eturned much amazed, for T rurl

had not constructed an A dviser at all, but a variety of

forging, welding, cutting and wiring machines, af ter which

he sat down and with a nail made little holes in a long strip

of paper, pr ogramming out the A dviser in every particular,

then went for a walk while the machines toiled in the tower

all night, and by early mor ning the work was done. Ar ound

noon, T rurl enter ed the main hall with an enor mous doll that

had two legs and one small hand; he br ought it befor e the

King, declaring that this was the P erfect A dviser .

"Indeed," mutter ed Mandrillion and or dered the marble

ﬂoor sprinkled with saﬀr on and cinnamon, so str ong was the

smell of hot ir on given oﬀ by the A dviser—the thing, just out

of the oven, even glowed in places. "Y ou may go," the King

said to T rurl. "R eturn this evening, and then we shall see

who owes how much and to whom."

Trurl took his leave, feeling that these parting wor ds of

Mandrillion did not pr omise any gr eat gener osity and

perhaps even concealed some evil intention. Which made

him glad he had qualiﬁed the A dviser's universality with one

small yet far fr om trivial condition, that is, he had included

in its pr ogram an instruction to the eﬀect that whatever it

did, it was never to per mit the destruction of its cr eator .

Remaining alone with the A dviser, the King said:

"What ar e you and what can you do?"

"I am the King's P erfect A dviser," r eplied the machine in a

hollow voice, as if it spok e from an empty bar rel, "and I can

provide him with the best advice possible."

"Good," said the King. "And to whom do you owe

allegiance and perfect obedience, me or the one who

constructed you?"

"Allegiance and obedience I owe only to His R oyal

Highness," boomed the A dviser .

"Good, good…" said the King. "Now to begin with, I … that

is, well … I mean, I shouldn't lik e my ﬁrst r equest to give the

impression that I was, shall we say, stingy … however, ah,

to some e xtent, you understand, if only to uphold certain

principles—don't you think?"

"His R oyal Highness has not yet deigned to say what it is

that he wishes," said the A dviser, pr opping itself on a thir d

leg it put out fr om its side, for it suﬀer ed a momentary loss

of balance. "A Perfect A dviser ought to be able to r ead its master's

thoughts!" snapped Mandrillion. "Of course, but only on r equest, to avoid

embar rassments," said the A dviser and, opening a little door

in its belly, tur ned a knob that r ead "T elepathitr on." Then it

nodded and said:

"His R oyal Highness doesn't wish to give T rurl a plug

nickel?

I understand!"

"Speak one wor d of this to anyone and I'll have you

thrown in the gr eat mill, whose stones can grind up thirty

thousand of my subjects at a time!" thr eatened the King. "I won't tell a soul!" the A dviser assur ed him. "His R oyal

Highness doesn't wish to pay for me—that's easily done. When T rurl comes back, simply tell him ther e won't be any

gold and he should kindly go away ."

"You're an idiot, not an adviser!" snorted the King. "I don't

want to pay, but I want it to look lik e it's all T rurl's fault!

Lik e

I don't owe him a thing, understand?"

The A dviser tur ned on the device to r ead the r oyal

thoughts, r eeled a little, then said in a hollow voice:

"His R oyal Highness wishes in addition that it should

appear that he is acting justly and in accor dance with the

law and his own sacr ed wor d, while T rurl tur ns out to be

nothing but a despicable charlatan and scoundr el… V ery

well. W ith His R oyal Highness' per mission, I will now seize

His R oyal Highness by the thr oat and chok e him, and if he

would be so good as to struggle and scr eam for help…"

"Have you gone mad?" said Mandrillion. "Why should you

choke me and why should I scr eam?"

"That you may accuse T rurl of attempting to commit, with

my aid, the crime of r egicide," e xplained the A dviser

brightly .

"Thus, when His R oyal Highness has him whipped

and thr own into the moat, everyone will say that this was an

act of the gr eatest mer cy, since for such an oﬀense one is

usually drawn and quarter ed, if not tortur ed ﬁrst. T o me His

Royal Highness will grant a full par don, as I was but an

unwitting tool in the hands of T rurl, and everyone will praise

the King's magnanimity and compassion, and everything

will be e xactly as His R oyal Highness wishes it."

"All right, chok e me—but car efully, you dog!" said the

King. Everything happened just as the P erfect A dviser said it

would. T rue, the King wanted to have T rurl's legs pulled oﬀ

befor e they thr ew him into the moat, but somehow this

wasn't done—no doubt a mix-up in the or ders, the King

thought later, but actually it was owing to the machine's

discreet intervention with one of the e xecutioner's helpers. Afterwar d, the King par doned his A dviser and r einstated it at

court; T rurl meanwhile, batter ed and bruised, painfully

hobbled home. Immediately af ter his r eturn, he went to see

Klapaucius and told him the whole story .

Then he said:

"That Mandrillion was mor e of a villain than I thought. Not

only did he shamefully deceive me, but he even used the

very A dviser I gave him, used it to further his scurvy

scheme against me!

Ah, but he is sadly mistak en if he

thinks that T rurl accepts defeat!

May rust eat thr ough me if

ever I for get the vengeance that I owe the tyrant!"

"What do you intend to do?" inquir ed Klapaucius. "I'll tak e him to court, I'll sue him for the amount of my

fee, and that's only the beginning: ther e are damages he'll

have to pay—for insults and injuries."

"This is a diﬃcult legal question," said Klapaucius. "I

suggest you hir e yourself a good lawyer befor e you try

anything."

"Why hir e a lawyer?

I'll mak e myself one!"

And T rurl went home, thr ew six heaping teaspoons of

transistors into a big pot, added again as many condensers

and r esistors, pour ed electr olyte over it, stir red well and

cover ed tightly with a lid, then went to bed, and in thr ee

days the mixtur e had or ganized itself into a ﬁrst-rate lawyer .

Trurl didn't even need to r emove it fr om the pot, since it was

only to serve this once, so he set the pot on the table and

asked:

"What ar e you?"

"I'm a consulting attor ney and specialist in jurisprudence,"

the pot gur gled, for ther e was a little too much electr olyte in

it. Trurl r elated the whole aﬀair, wher eupon it said:

"You say you qualiﬁed the A dviser's pr ogram with an

instruction making it incapable of engineering your death?"

"Yes, so it couldn't destr oy me. That was the only

condition."

"In that case you failed to live up to your part of the

bargain: the A dviser was to have been perfect, without any

limitations. If it couldn't destr oy you, then it wasn't perfect."

"But if it destr oyed me, then ther e would be no one to

receive payment!"

"A separate matter and a diﬀer ent question entir ely,

which comes under those paragraphs in the dock et

deter mining Mandrillion's criminal liability, while your claim

has mor e the character of a civil action."

"Look, I don't need some pot handing me a lot of legalistic

claptrap!" fumed T rurl. "Whose lawyer ar e you anyway,

mine or that hoodlum king's?"

"Yours, but he did have the right to r efuse you payment."

"And did he have the right to or der me thr own fr om his

castle walls into the moat?"

"As I said, that's another matter entir ely, criminal, not

civil," answer ed the pot. Trurl ﬂew into a rage. "Here I mak e an intelligent being out of a bunch of old

wires, switches and grids, and instead of some honest

advice I get technicalities!

Y ou cheap cyber netic shyster, I'll

teach you to triﬂe with me!"

And he tur ned the pot over, shook everything out onto the

table, and pulled it apart befor e the lawyer had a chance to

appeal the pr oceedings. Then T rurl got to work and built a two -story Juris Con-

sulenta, for ensically r einfor ced fourfold, complete with

codices and codicils, civil and criminal, and, just to be safe,

he added inter national and institutional law components. Finally he plugged it in, stated his case and ask ed:

"How do I get what's coming to me?"

"This won't be easy," said the machine. "I'll need an e xtra

ﬁve hundr ed transistors on top and two hundr ed on the

side."

Which T rurl supplied, and it said:

"Not enough!

Incr ease the volume and give me two mor e

spools, please."

After this it began:

"Quite an inter esting case, r eally. Ther e are two things

that must be tak en into consideration: the gr ounds of the

allegation, for one, and her e I grant you ther e is much that

we can do—and then we have the litigation pr ocess itself .

Now, it is absolutely out of the question to summon the King

befor e any court on a civil char ge, for this is contrary to

international as well as interplanetary law .

I will give you my

ﬁnal opinion, but ﬁrst you must give me your wor d you

won't pull me apart when you hear it."

Trurl gave his wor d and said:

"But wher e did you get the idea I would ever do such a

thing?"

"Oh, I don't know—it just seemed to me you might."

Trurl guessed this was due to the fact that, in its

construction, he had used parts fr om the potted lawyer;

appar ently some trace of the memory of that incident had

found its way into the new cir cuits, cr eating a kind of

subconscious comple x. "Well, and your ﬁnal opinion?" ask ed Trurl. "Simply this: no suitable tribunals e xist, hence ther e can

be no suit. Y our case, in other wor ds, can be neither won nor

lost."

Trurl leaped up and shook his ﬁst at the legal machine, but

had to k eep his wor d and did it no har m. He went to

Klapaucius and told him everything. "From the ﬁrst I knew it was a hopeless business," said

Klapaucius, "but you wouldn't believe me."

"This outrage will not go unpunished," r eplied T rurl. "If I

can't get satisfaction thr ough the courts, then I must ﬁnd

some other way to settle with that scoundr el of a king!"

"I wonder how .

Remember, you gave the King a P erfect

Adviser, which can do anything e xcept destr oy you; it can

fend oﬀ whatever blow, plague or misfortune you dir ect

against the King or his r ealm—and will do so, I am sur e, for I

have complete conﬁdence, my dear T rurl, in your

constructing ability!"

"True. … It would appear that, in cr eating the P erfect

Adviser, I deprived myself of any hope of defeating that

royal bandit. But no, ther e must be some chink in the ar mor!

I'll not r est until I've found it!"

"What do you mean?" Klapaucius ask ed, but T rurl only

shrugged and went home. A t home he sat and meditated;

sometimes he leafed impatiently thr ough hundr eds of

volumes in his library, and sometimes he conducted secr et

experiments in his laboratory .

Klapaucius visited his friend

from time to time, amazed to see the tenacity with which

Trurl was attempting to conquer himself, for the A dviser

was, in a sense, a part of him and he had given it his own

wisdom. One af ternoon, Klapaucius came at the usual time

but didn't ﬁnd T rurl at home. The doors wer e all lock ed and

the windows shutter ed. He concluded that T rurl had begun

operations against the ruler of the Multitudians. And he was

not mistak en. Mandrillion meanwhile was enjoying his power as never

befor e; whenever he ran out of ideas, he ask ed his A dviser,

who had an ine xhaustible supply .

Neither did the King have

to fear palace coups or court intrigues, or any enemy

whatsoever, but r eigned with an ir on hand, and truly, as

many grapes ther e wer e that ripened in the vineyar ds of the

south, mor e gallows graced the r oyal countryside. By now the A dviser had four chests full of medals for

suggestions made to the King. A micr ospy T rurl sent to the

land of the Multitudians r eturned with the news that, for its

most r ecent achievement—it gave the King a tick er-tape

parade, using citizens for confetti—Mandrillion had publicly

called the A dviser his "pal."

Trurl then launched his car efully pr epared campaign by

sitting down and writing the A dviser a letter on eggshell-

yellow stationery decorated with a fr eehand drawing of a

cassowary tr ee. The content of the letter was simple. Dear A dviser!

—he wr ote— I hope that things ar e going as

well with you as they ar e with me, and even better .

Your

master has put his trust in you, I hear, and so you must

keep in mind the tremendous r esponsibility you bear in the

face of Posterity and the Common W eal and ther efore fulﬁll

your duties with the utmost diligence and alacrity .

And

should you ever ﬁnd it diﬃcult to car ry out some r oyal wish,

employ the Extra-special Method which I told you of in days

gone by .

Drop me a line if you feel so inclined, but don't be

angry if I'm slow to r eply, f or I'm working on an Adviser for

King D. just now and haven't much time. Please convey my

respects to your kind master .

With fondest wishes and best

regards, I remain

Your constructor,

Trurl.

Naturally this letter ar oused the suspicions of the

Multitudian Secr et Police and was subjected to the most

meticulous e xamination, which r evealed no hidden

substances in the paper nor, for that matter, ciphers in the

drawing of the cassowary tr ee—a cir cumstance that thr ew

Headquarters into a ﬂur ry. The letter was photographed,

facsimiled and copied out by hand, then the original was

resealed and sent on to its destination. The A dviser r ead the

message with alar m, realizing that this was a move to

compr omise if not ruin its position, so immediately it told

the King of the letter, describing T rurl as a blackguar d bent

on discr editing it in the eyes of its master; then it tried to

decipher the message, for it was convinced those innocent

words wer e a mask concealing something dark and

dreadful. But her e the wise A dviser stopped and thought a minute

—then infor med the King of its intention to decode T rurl's

letter, e xplaining that it wished in this way to unmask the

constructor's tr eachery; then, gathering up the necessary

number of tripods, ﬁlters, funnels, test tubes and chemical

reagents, it began to analyze the paper of both envelope

and letter .

All of which, of course, the police followed

closely, having scr ewed into the walls of its r ooms the usual

peeking and eavesdr opping devices. When chemistry failed,

the A dviser tur ned to cryptanalysis, converting the te xt of

the letter into long columns of numbers with the aid of

electr onic calculators and tables of logarithms—unawar e

that teams of police specialists, headed by the Grand

Marshal of Codes himself, wer e duplicating its every

operation. But nothing seemed to work, and Headquarters

grew mor e and mor e uneasy, for it was clear that any code

that could r esist such high-power ed eﬀorts to br eak it, had

to be one of the most ingenious codes ever devised. The

Grand Marshal spok e of this to a court dignitary, who

happened to envy ter ribly the trust Mandrillion had placed in

his A dviser .

This dignitary, wanting nothing better than to

plant the seeds of doubt in the r oyal heart, told the King

that his mechanical favorite was sitting up night af ter night,

locked in its r oom, studying the suspicious letter .

The King

laughed and said that he was well awar e of it, for the

Adviser itself had told him. The envious dignitary lef t in

confusion and straightway r elated this news to the Grand

Marshal. "Oh!" e xclaimed that venerable cryptographer .

"It actually

told the King?

What bold-faced tr eason!

And truly, what a

ﬁendish code this must be, for one to dar e to speak of it so

openly!"

And he or dered his brigades to r edouble their eﬀorts. When, however, a week had passed without r esults, the

greatest e xpert in secr et writing was called in, the

distinguished discover er of invisible sign language,

Professor Crusticus. That scholar, having e xamined the

incriminating document as well as the r ecords of everything

the military specialists had done, announced that they

would have to apply the method of trial and er ror, using

computers with astr onomical capacities. This was done, and it tur ned out that the letter could be

read in thr ee hundr ed and eighteen diﬀer ent ways. The ﬁrst ﬁve variants wer e as follows: "The r oach fr om

Bakersville ar rived in one piece, but the bedpan blew a

fuse"; "R oll the locomotive's aunt in cutlets"; "Now the

butter can't be wed, 'cause the nightcap's nailed"; "He who

has had, has been, but he who hasn't been, has been had";

and "F rom strawber ries under tortur e one may e xtract all

sorts of things." This last variant P rofessor Crusticus held to

be the k ey to the code and found, af ter thr ee hundr ed

thousand calculations, that if you added up all the letters of

the letter, subtracted the parallax of the sun plus the annual

production of umbr ellas, and then took the cube r oot of the

remainder, you came up with a single wor d, "Crusaﬁx." In

the telephone book ther e was a citizen named Crucifax. Crusticus maintained that this alteration of a few letters was

merely to thr ow them oﬀ the track, and Crucifax was

arrested. A fter a little sixth-degr ee persuasion, the culprit

confessed that he had indeed plotted with T rurl, who was to

have sent him poison tacks and a hammer with which to

cobble the King to death. These ir refutable pr oofs of guilt

the Grand Marshal of Codes pr esented to the King without

delay; yet Mandrillion so trusted in his A dviser, that he gave

it the chance to e xplain. The A dviser did not deny that the letter could be r ead in a

variety of ways if one r earranged the letters of the letter; it

had itself discover ed an additional hundr ed thousand

variants; but this pr oved nothing, and in fact the letter

wasn't even in code, for—the A dviser e xplained—it was

possible to r earrange the letters of absolutely any te xt to

make sense or the semblance of sense, and the r esult was

called an anagram. The theory of per mutations and

combinations dealt with such phenomena. No—pr otested

the A dviser—T rurl wanted to compr omise and undo it by

creating the illusion of a code wher e none e xisted, while

that poor fellow Crucifax, L ord knows, was innocent, and his

confession was wholly the invention of the e xperts at

Headquarters, who possessed no little skill in the art of

encouraging oﬃcial cooperation, not to mention

interrogation machinery that had a power of several

thousand kilowhacks. The King did not tak e kindly to this

criticism of the police and ask ed the A dviser what it meant

by that, but it began to speak of anagrams and

steganograms, codes, ciphers, symbols, signals, pr obability

and infor mation theory, and became so incompr ehensible,

that the King lost all patience and had it thr own into the

deepest dungeon. Just then a postcar d arrived fr om Trurl

with the following wor ds:

Dear A dviser!

Don't for get the purple screws—they might

come in handy .

Yours, T rurl.

Immediately the A dviser was put on the rack, but wouldn't

admit to a thing, stubbor nly repeating that all this was part

of Trurl's scheme; when ask ed about the purple scr ews, it

swore it hadn't any, nor any knowledge of them. Of course,

to conduct a thor ough investigation it was necessary to

open the A dviser up. The King gave his per mission, the

blacksmiths set to work, its plates gave way beneath their

hammers, and soon the King was pr esented with a couple of

tiny scr ews dripping oil and yes, undeniably painted purple. Thus, though the A dviser had been completely demolished

in the pr ocess, the King was satisﬁed he had done the right

thing. A week later, T rurl appear ed at the palace gates and

requested an audience. Amazed at such eﬀr ontery, the

King, instead of having the constructor slaughter ed on the

spot, or dered him br ought befor e the r oyal pr esence. "O King!" said T rurl as soon as he enter ed the gr eat hall

with courtiers on every side. "I fashioned you a P erfect

Adviser and you used it to cheat me of my fee, thinking—

and not without justice—that the power of the mind I had

given you would be a perfect shield against attack and

thereby r ender fruitless any attempt by me to get r evenge. But in giving you an intelligent A dviser, I did not mak e you

yourself intelligent, and it was on this that I counted, for

only he who has sense will tak e advice that mak es sense. In

no subtle, shr ewd or sophisticated way was it possible to

destr oy the A dviser .

I could do this only in a manner that

was crude, primitive, and stupid beyond belief .

Ther e was no

code in the letter; your A dviser r emained faithful to the very

end; of the purple scr ews that br ought about its demise, it

knew nothing. Y ou see, they accidentally fell into a buck et of

paint while I was putting it together, and I just happened to

recall, and mak e use of, this detail. Thus did stupidity and

suspicion undo wisdom and loyalty, and you wer e the

instrument of your own downfall. And now you will hand

over the one hundr ed bags of gold you owe me, and another

hundr ed for the time I had to waste r ecovering them. If you

do not, you and your entir e court will perish, for no longer

do you have at your side the A dviser that could defend you

against me!"

The King r oared with rage and gestur ed for the guar ds to

cut down the insolent one at once, but their whistling

halber ds passed thr ough the constructor's body as if it wer e

air, and they jumped back, hor riﬁed. T rurl laughed and said:

"Chop at me as much as you please—this is only an image

produced by r emote-contr ol mir rors; in r eality I am hovering

high above your planet in a ship, and will dr op ter rible

death-dealing missiles on the palace unless I have my gold."

And befor e he had ﬁnished speaking, ther e was a dr eadful

crash and an e xplosion r ocked the entir e palace; the

courtiers ﬂed in panic, and the King, nearly fainting fr om

shame and fury, had to pay T rurl his fee, every last cent of

it, and double. Klapaucius, hearing of this fr om Trurl himself upon the

latter's r eturn, ask ed why he had employed such a primitive

and—to use his own wor ds—stupid method, when he could

have sent a letter that actually did contain some code?

"The pr esence of a code would have been easier for the

Adviser to e xplain than its absence," r eplied the wise

constructor .

"It is always easier to confess that one has done

something wr ong than to pr ove that one has not. In this

case, the pr esence of a code would have been a simple

matter; its absence, however, led to complications, for it is a

fact that any te xt may be r ecombined into some other,

namely an anagram, and ther e may be many such

recombinations. Now in or der to mak e all this clear, one

would have to r esort to ar guments which, though perfectly

true, would be somewhat involved—ar guments I was

positive the King hadn't the brains to follow .

It was once said

that to move a planet, one need but ﬁnd the point of

leverage: ther efore I, seeking to overtur n a mind that was

perfect, had to ﬁnd the point of leverage, and this was

stupidity ."

+ +

The ﬁrst machine ended its story her e, bowed low to King

Genius and the assembly of listeners, then modestly r etired

to a cor ner of the cave. The King e xpressed his satisfaction with this tale and

asked Trurl:

"Tell us, my good constructor, does the machine r elate

only what you have taught it, or does the sour ce of its

knowledge lie outside you?

Also, allow me to observe that

the story we have hear d, instructive and entertaining as it

is, seems incomplete, for we know nothing of what

happened af terwar ds to the Multitudians and their ignorant

king."

"Your Majesty," said T rurl, "the machine r elates only what

is true, since I placed its infor mation pump to my head

befor e coming her e, enabling it to draw upon my memories. But this it did itself, so I know not which of my memories it

selected, and ther efore you could not say that I intentionally

taught it anything, yet neither could you say that the sour ce

of its knowledge lay outside me. As for the Multitudians, the

story indeed tells us nothing of their subsequent fate; but

while everything may be told, not everything may be neatly

ﬁtted in. Suppose that which is taking place her e and now is

not reality, but only a tale, a tale of some higher or der that

contains within it the tale of the machine: a r eader might

well wonder why you and your companions ar e shaped lik e

spher es, inasmuch as that sphericality serves no purpose in

the nar ration and would appear to be a wholly superﬂuous

embellishment…"

The King's companions marveled at the constructor's

perspicacity, and the King himself said with a br oad smile:

"Ther e is much in what you say .

As far as our shape is

concer ned, I will tell you how this came about. A long, long

time ago we look ed—that is, our ancestors look ed—

altogether diﬀer ent, for they ar ose by the will of wet and

spongy beings, pale beings that fashioned them af ter their

own image and lik eness; our ancestors ther efore had ar ms,

legs, a head, and a trunk that connected these appendages. But once they had liberated themselves fr om their cr eators,

they wished to obliterate even this trace of their origin,

hence each generation in tur n transfor med itself, till ﬁnally

the for m of a perfect spher e was attained. And so, whether

for good or for bad, we ar e spher es."

"Your Majesty," said T rurl, "a spher e has both good and

bad aspects fr om the standpoint of construction. But it is

always best when an intelligent being cannot alter its own

form, for such fr eedom is truly a tor ment. He who must be

what he is, may curse his fate, but cannot change it; on the

other hand, he who can transfor m himself has no one in the

world but himself to blame for his failings, no one but

himself to hold r esponsible for his dissatisfaction. However, I

did not come her e, O King, to give you a lectur e on the

General Theory of Self -construction, but to demonstrate my

storytelling machines. W ould you car e to hear the ne xt?"

The King gave his consent and, having tak en some cheer

among amphoras full of the ﬁnest ion amber gris, the

company sat back and made themselves comfortable. The

second machine appr oached, curtsied to the King and said:

"Mighty King!

Her e is a story, a nest of stories, with

cabinets and cupboar ds, about T rurl the constructor and his

wonderfully nonlinear adventur es!"

+ +

It happened once that the Gr eat Constructor T rurl was

summoned by King Thumbscr ew the Thir d, ruler of T yrannia,

who wished to lear n from him the means of achieving

perfection of both mind and body .

Trurl answer ed in this

way:

"I once happened to land on the planet L egaria and, as is

my custom, stayed at an inn, deter mined to k eep to my

room until I had acquainted myself mor e thor oughly with the

history and habits of the L egarians. It was winter, the wind

howled outside, and ther e was no one else in the gloomy

building, till suddenly I hear d a knocking at the gate. Looking out, I saw four hooded ﬁgur es unloading heavy

black suitcases fr om an ar mored car riage; they then enter ed

the inn. The ne xt day, ar ound noon, the most curious

sounds came fr om the neighboring r oom—whistling,

hammering, rasping, the shattering of glass, and above all

this noise ther e boomed a powerful bass, shouting without

pause:

—Faster, sons of vengeance, faster!

Drain the elements,

use the sieve!

Evenly, evenly!

And now the funnel!

P our him

out!

F ine, now give me that kludge-fudger, that winch-

pincher, spr ocketmonger, edulcorated data-dumper, that

wretched r eject of a widgeteer cowar dly hiding in the grave!

Death itself shall not pr otect him fr om our righteous wrath!

Hand him over, with his shameless brain and his spindly

legs!

T ake the tongs and pull the nose—mor e, mor e, enough

to grip for the e xecution!

W ork the bellows, brave lads!

Into

the vise with him!

Now rivet that brazen face—and again!

Yes, yes, good!

P erfect!

K eep it up with that hammer!

One-

two, one-two!

And tighten those nerves—he mustn't faint

too quickly, lik e the one yester day!

L et him taste our

vengeance to the fullest!

One-two, one-two!

Hey!

Ha!

Ho!

Thus did the voice thunder and r oar, and was answer ed by

the rumble of bellows and the clanging of hammers on

anvils, when suddenly a sneeze r esounded and a gr eat

shout of triumph burst forth fr om four thr oats, then a

shuﬄing and struggling behind the wall, and I hear d a door

open. P eering thr ough a crack, I saw the strangers sneaking

out into the hall and—incr edibly enough—counted ﬁve of

them. They all went downstairs and lock ed themselves in

the cellar, r emained ther e for a long time, r eturning to their

room only that evening—once again four—and silent, as if

they had been to a funeral. I went back to my books, but

this business, it gave me no peace, so I r esolved to get to

the bottom of it. The ne xt day at the same time, noon, the

hammers started up again, the bellows r oared, and that

terrifying voice cried out in a hoarse bass:

—Hey now, sons of vengeance!

F aster, my electric

hearties!

Shoulders to the wheel!

Thr ow in the pr otons, the

iodine!

Step lively now, let's have that ﬂap-ear ed whigma-

leeriac, that would-be hoodwinking wizar d, misbegotten

miscr eant and incor rigible crank, let me grab him by his

unwashed beak and lead him, kicking, to a sur e and

lingering death!

W ork those bellows, I say!

And again a sneeze rang out, and a stiﬂed scr eam, and

once again they lef t the r oom on tiptoe; as befor e, I counted

ﬁve when they went down to the cellar, four when they

returned. Seeing then that I could lear n the mystery only

there, I ar med myself with a laser pistol, and at the crack of

dawn slipped down to the cellar, wher e I found nothing but

charred and mangled bits of metal; covering myself with a

clump of straw, I sat in the dark est cor ner and waited, until

around noon I hear d those now familiar shouts and

hammering sounds, then all at once the door ﬂew open and

in walk ed four L egarians, with a ﬁf th bound hand and foot. This ﬁf th wor e a doublet of old-fashioned cut, bright r ed

and with a frill about the neck, and a feather ed cap; he

himself was fat of face and had an enor mous nose, while the

mouth was twisted in fear and babbled something all the

while. The L egarians bar red the door and, at a sign fr om the

eldest, untied their prisoner and began to beat him

savagely, yelling one af ter the other :

—Take that for the P rophecy of Happiness!

And that for

the P erfection of Being!

And have that for the Bed of R oses,

and that for the Bowl of Cher ries!

And the Clover of

Existence!

And that's for the Altruistic Communality!

And

take that for the Soarings of the Spirit!

And they cudgeled and buﬀeted him so, that he sur ely

would have given up the ghost had I not lif ted my weapon

from the straw, announcing in this way my pr esence. When

they had r eleased their victim, I ask ed them why they wer e

abusing thus an individual who was neither an outlaw nor

worthless vagabond, for, judging by the ruﬀ and color of his

doublet, this was some sort of scholar .

The L egarians

waver ed and look ed longingly at the guns they had lef t at

the door, but when I cock ed the actuator and scowled, they

thought better of it and, nudging one another, ask ed the

large one, the one with the deep bass, to speak for them all. —Know, O strange for eigner—he said, tur ning to me—it is

not with common thrugs, tuﬃans or jugger muggers that you

deal, or other degenerators of the r obot species, for though

a cellar har dly seems a savory place, what passes within

these walls is to the highest degr ee praiseworthy and a

thing of beauty!

—Praiseworthy and a thing of beauty?!—I e xclaimed. —

What ar e you telling me, O base L egarian?

Did I not see with

my own eyes how you hurled yourselves upon the r ed-

doubleted one and belabor ed him with such mur derous

blows, that the very oil did spatter fr om your joints?

And you

dare call this a thing of beauty!

—If Y our Esteemed F oreignness is going to inter rupt—

replied the bass—he will lear n nothing, ther efore I politely

request him to tighten the r eins on his worthy tongue and

quell the r estiveness of his oral oriﬁce, else I must r efrain

from further discourse. Know then that befor e you stand our

ﬁnest physick ers, all cyber nists and electriciates of the ﬁrst

order, in a wor d, my brilliant and ever vigilant pupils, the

best minds in all L egaria, and I myself am V endetius Ultor of

Amentia, pr ofessor of matter both positive and negative and

the originator of Omnigendrical R eincr eation, and I have

dedicated my life to the sacr ed work of vengeance. W ith the

aid of these faithful followers I avenge the shame and

misery of my people upon the ruddy -bedizened e xcrescency

that kneels ther e, the low scrulp called—and may his name

be for ever cursed—Malaputz vel Malapusticus P andemonius,

who vilely and villainously, thievishly and ir retrievably

brought unhappiness to all L egarians!

F or he led them into

detrimetry and other deviltry, did discompostulate them,

embollix and thor oughly befottle them, then sneak ed oﬀ to

his grave to escape the consequences, thinking that no

hand could ever r each him ther e!

—That's not true, Y our Exalted V isitorship!

I never meant…

that is, I had no idea!… —wailed the kneeling noodle-nose in

the rubicund attir e. I star ed, understanding nothing, while

the bass intoned:

—Gar gomanticus, dear pupil, paste the puler one in his

puﬀy puss!

The pupil complied, and with such dispatch that the cellar

rang. T o which I said:

—Until the conclusion of e xplanations, all beating and

battering is absolutely forbidden by authority of this laser,

meanwhile you, P rofessor V endetius Ultor, have the ﬂoor

and may continue!

The pr ofessor gr owled, grumbled, and ﬁnally said:

—That you may know how our gr eat misfortune came to

pass and why the four of us, forsaking worldly things, have

formed this Holy Or der of the F orge of R esurrection,

consecrating the r emainder of our days to sweet r evenge, I

will relate to you the history of our kind fr om the very

beginning of cr eation…

—Must we go back that far?—I ask ed, afraid my hand

would weak en beneath the weight of the pistol. —Aye, Your Alienness!

Listen and attend… Ther e are

legends, as you know, that speak of a race of paleface, who

concocted r obotkind out of a test tube, though anyone with

a grain of sense knows this to be a foul lie… F or in the

Beginning ther e was naught but F ormless Darkness, and in

the Darkness, Magneticity, which moved the atoms, and

whirling atom struck atom, and Cur rent was thus cr eated,

and the F irst Light… fr om which the stars wer e kindled, and

then the planets cooled, and in their cor es the br eath of

Sacred Statisticality gave rise to micr oscopic P rotomecha-

noans, which begat P roteromechanoids, which begat the

Primitive Mechanisms. These could not yet calculate, nor

scarcely put two and two together, but thanks to Evolution

and Natural Subtraction they soon multiplied and pr oduced

Omnistats, which gave birth to the Servostat, the Missing

Clink, and fr om it came our pr ogenitor, Automatus Sapiens…

After that ther e wer e the cave r obots, the nomad r obots,

and then r obot nations. R obots of Antiquity had to

manufactur e their life-giving electricity by hand, that is by

rubbing, which meant gr eat drudgery .

Each lor d had many

knights, each knight many vassals, and the rubbing was

feudal hence hierar chical, pr ogressing fr om the lowly to the

higher -up. This manual labor was r eplaced by machine when

Ylem Symphiliac invented the rubberator, and W olfram of

Coulombia, the rubless lightning r od. Thus began the

Battery Age, a most diﬃcult time for all who did not possess

their own accumulators, since on a clear day, without a

cloud to tap, they had to scrimp and scr ounge for every

precious watt, and rub themselves constantly, else perish

from a total loss of char ge. And then ther e appear ed a

scholar, an infer nal intellectrician and eﬃciency e xpert, who

in his youth, doubtless owing to some diabolical

intervention, never had his head staved in, and he began to

teach and pr each that the traditional method of electrical

connection—namely parallel—was worthless, and they all

ought to hook themselves up accor ding to a r evolutionary

new plan of his, that is in series. F or in series, if one rubs,

the others ar e immediately supplied with cur rent, even at a

great distance, till every r obot simply bubbles over with

ohms and volts. And he showed his blueprints, and painted

paradises of such parameters, that the old cir cuits, equal

and independent, wer e disconnected and the system of

Pandemonius pr omptly implemented.— Her e the pr ofessor

beat his head against the wall several times, r olled his eyes

and ﬁnally continued. Now I understood why the surface of

his knobby br ow was so ir regular .

—And it came to pass that

every second r obot sat back and said, "Why should I rub if

my neighbor rubs and it comes to the same thing?" And his

neighbor did the same, and the dr op in voltage became so

sever e, they had to place special taskmasters over

everyone, and taskmasters over the taskmasters. Then a

disciple of Malaputz, Clusticus the Mistak en, stepped forth

and said that each should rub not himself but his neighbor,

and af ter him was Dummis Altruicius with his pr ogram of

ﬂagellatory sadistomasochistorism, and af ter him was

Magmndel Spoots, who pr oposed compulsory massage

parlors, and af ter him appear ed a new theor etician, Arsus

Gargazon, saying that clouds should be gently str oked, not

yoked, to yield their nimboid bolts, and then ther e was Blip

of Leydonia, and Scr ofulon Ther maphr odyne, advocating the

installation of autofr otts, also called titillators or diddlegrids,

and then Bestian Phystobuﬃcus, who instead of rubbing

recommended a good drubbing. Such diﬀer ences of opinion

produced gr eat friction, which led to all sorts of

exacerbations and e xcommunications, which in tur n led to

blasphemy, her esy, and ﬁnally F aradocius Oﬀal, P rince and

Heir to the Thr one of the Alloys, was kick ed in the pants,

and war br oke out between the L egarite Brassbound

Umbutts and the L egaritian Empir e of the Cold W elders, and

it lasted eight and thirty years, and twelve mor e, for

towar ds the end one could not tell, amid all the rubble, who

had won, so they quar reled and fell to ﬁghting again. And

thus ther e was chaos and car nage, and a devastating

decline in the vital voltage, an enervated emf and ener gy

dissipation everywher e, or, as the simple folk put it, "total

malaputziment"—all br ought about by this infamous ﬁend

and his thrice-accursed bright ideas!!

—My intentions wer e the best!!

I swear it, Y our Laser osity!

It was always the general welfar e I had in mind!— squeak ed

the kneeling Malaputz, and his outsize snout tr embled. But

the pr ofessor only elbowed him aside and continued:

—All this took place two hundr ed and twenty -ﬁve years

ago. As you may have guessed, long befor e the outbr eak of

the Gr eat L egarian W ar, long befor e this universal wr etchi-

tude began, Malapusticus P andemonius, having spawned no

end of ponder ous tr eatises and tracts, in all of which he

forwar ded his vile, per nicious ﬂummeries, died, smug and

unruﬄed to the very end. Indeed, so pleased with himself

was he, that in his last will and testament he wr ote that he

had every e xpectation of being named "Supr eme Benefactor

of Legaria." A t any rate, when it came time to settle

accounts, ther e was no one with whom to settle, no one to

make pay, no one that one might tur n a little on a lathe. But

I, O Illustrious Intruder, having for mulated the General

Theory of F acsimulation, studied the works of Malaputz until

I was able to e xtract his algorithm, which, when fed into an

atomic duplicating machine, could r ecreate e x atomis

oriundum gemellum , identical to the nth degr ee,

Malapusticus P andemonius in his very own person. And so

we gather every evening in this cellar to pass sentence on

him, and when he has been r eturned to his grave, we

avenge our people anew the ne xt day, and thus it is and

thus shall be for all eter nity, amen!

Horror-strick en, I blurted in r eply:

—Why, you have sur ely tak en leave of your senses,

Professor, if you think for a minute that this person, this

person as innocent as a brand-new fuse, whom you hammer

together out of atoms every day, has to answer for the

actions, whatever they wer e, of some scholar who died

three centuries ago!

To which the pr ofessor said:

—Then who is this pr oboscidian sniveler who himself calls

himself Malapusticus P andemonius?

Come, what is your

name, O cosmic cor rosion?

—Ma… Mala… Malaputz, Y our Mighty Mer cilessness… —

stammer ed the gr oveling one thr ough his nose. —Still, it is not the same—I said. —How, not the same?

—Did you not yourself say, P rofessor, that Malaputz no

longer lives?

—But we have r esurrected him!

—A double per haps, an exact duplicate, but not the

self-same, true original!

—Prove it, Sir rah!

—I don't need to pr ove a thing—I said—seeing that I hold

this laser in my hand; besides which, I am well awar e, my

ﬁne P rofessor, that to attempt to pr ove what you ask would

be most foolhar dy, for the nonidenticality of the

identicalized recreatio e x atomis individui modo algorytmico

is nothing other than the famous P arado xon Antinomicum,

or the Labyrinthum L emianum, described in the works of

that distinguished r obophile, whom they also called

Advocatus Laboratoris. So then, without pr oofs, unhand yon

snouted one this instant, and do not dar e ventur e any

further molestations upon his person!

—Many thanks, Y our Magnanimitude!!—cried he in the

bright r ed doublet, rising fr om his knees. —It so happens

that her e—he added, patting his vest pock et—I have an

entirely new for mula, this time foolpr oof, with which the

Legarians may be br ought to perfect bliss; it works by back

coupling, that is, a hook up in r everse, and not in series,

which was due pur ely to an er ror that cr ept into my

calculations thr ee centuries ago!

I go immediately to

convert this marvelous discovery into r eality!!

And indeed, his hand was alr eady upon the doorknob as

we all gaped, dumbfounded. I lower ed my weapon and,

turning away, said weakly to the pr ofessor :

—I withdraw my objections… Do what you must…

With a hoarse r oar the four of them lunged at Malaputz,

threw him down and dealt with him—until, at last, he was no

more. Then, still panting, they straightened their fr ocks, adjusted

their hoods, bowed stiﬄy to me, and lef t the cellar in single

ﬁle, and I r emained alone, the heavy laser in my tr embling

hand, full of dismay and melancholy ."

Thus did T rurl conclude his tale to enlighten King

Thumbscr ew of T yrannia, who had summoned him for that

purpose. When however the King demanded further

explanation concer ning the attainment of nonlinear

perfection, T rurl said:

"Once, chancing upon the planet Ninnica, I was able to

see the r esults of pr ogress pr edicated on the perfectionistic

principle. The Ninnicans had long ago assumed another

name, that of Hedophagoi or Jubileaters, or just plain

Jubilators. My ar rival occur red during their Era of Plenty .

Each and every Ninnican, or rather Jubilator, sat in his

palace, which was built for him by his automate (for so they

called their triboluminescent slaves), each with essences

anointed, each with pr ecious gems appointed, electrically

caressed, impeccably dr essed, pomaded, braided, gold-

brocaded, lapped and laved in ducats gleaming, wrapped

and wr eathed in incense str eaming, shower ed with

treasur es, plied with pleasur es, marble halls, fanfar es, balls,

but for all that, strangely discontent and even a little

depressed. And yet ther e was everything you could ask for!

On this planet no one lif ted a ﬁnger : instead of taking a

walk, a drink, a nap, a trip or a wife, ther e was a W alker to

walk one, a Napper to nap one, a W iver to wive one, and so

on, and it was even impossible for one to tak e a br eak, since

there was a special apparatus for that as well. And thus,

served and serviced by machines in every conceivable way,

all medaled and maidened by appr opriate automatic

Decorators and P anderizers ﬁve to ﬁf teen times per minute,

cover ed with a seething, silvery swar m of mechanicules and

machiner ettes to coddle him, fondle him, wink, wave and

whisper sweet nothings in his ear, back-rub, chin-chuck,

cheek-pat and foot-gr ovel him, tir elessly kissing whatever

he might pr esent to be kissed—thus did the Jubilator vel

Hedophage vel Ninnican wallow and car ouse the livelong

day, alone, while in the distance, all acr oss the horizon,

chugged the mighty F abrifactories, chur ning out thr ones of

gold, dandle chains, pearl slippers and bibs, orbs, scepters,

epaulets, spinels, spinets, cymbals, sur reys, and a million

other instruments and gratifacts to delight in. As I walk ed

along, I constantly had to drive away machines that oﬀer ed

me their services; the mor e brazen ones, gr eedily seeking to

be of use, had to be beaten over the head. F inally, ﬂeeing

the whole cr owd of them, I found myself in the mountains —

and saw a host of golden machines clamoring ar ound the

mouth of a cave walled up with stones, and thr ough a

narrow opening ther e I saw the watchful eyes of a Ninnican,

who was appar ently making a last stand against Universal

Happiness. Seeing me, the machines immediately began to

fan and fawn upon my person, r ead me fairy tales, str oke

me, kiss my hands, pr omise me kingdoms, and I was saved

thanks only to the one in the cave, who mer cifully moved

aside a stone and let me enter .

He was half rusted thr ough,

yet glad of it, and said that he was the last philosopher of

Ninnica. Ther e was no need, of course, for him to tell me

that plenitude, when too plenitudinous, was worse than

destitution, for—obviously—what could one do, if ther e was

nothing one could not?

T ruly, how could a mind, besieged by

a sea of paradises, benumbed by a plethora of possibilities,

thoroughly stunned by the instant fulﬁllment of its every

wish and whim—decide on anything?

I conversed with this

wise individual, who called himself T rizivian Huncus, and we

concluded that without enor mous shields and an Ontological

Complicositor -Imperfector, doom was unavoidable. T rizivian

had for some time r egarded complicositry as the ultimate

existential solution; I, however, showed him the er ror of this

approach, since it consisted simply in the r emoval of

machines with the aid of other machines, namely gnawpers,

thwock ets, tenterwr enches, fracturacks, hobblers and

winch-shrieks. Which obviously would only mak e matters

worse—it wouldn't be complicositry at all, but just the

opposite. As everyone knows, History is ir reversible, and

there is no way back to the halcyon past other than thr ough

dreams and r everies. Together we walk ed acr oss a vast plain, knee-deep in

ducats and doubloons, waving sticks to shoo oﬀ clouds of

pesky blisserits, and we saw several Ninnican- Jubilators

lying senseless, gasping sof tly, all sated, satiated,

supersaturated with pleasur e; the sight of such e xcessive

surfeit, such r eckless success, would have moved anyone to

pity. Then ther e wer e the inhabitants of the automated

palaces, who wildly thr ew themselves into cyberserking and

other electr oeccentricities, some setting machine against

machine, some smashing priceless vases, for no longer

could they endur e the ubiquitous beatitude, and they

opened ﬁr e on emeralds, guillotined ear rings, or dered

diadems br oken on the wheel, or tried to hide fr om

happiness in gar rets and attics, or else or dered their

appliances to whip themselves, or did all of these things at

once, or in alter nation. But absolutely nothing helped, and

every last one of them perished, petted and attended to

death. I advised T rizivian against simply shutting down the

Fabrifactories, for having too little is as danger ous as having

too much; but he, instead of studying up on the

consequences of ontological complicositry, immediately

began to dynamite the automates sk y-high. A grievous

mistak e, for ther e followed a gr eat depr ession, though

indeed, he never lived to see it—it happened that a ﬂock of

ﬂyrts swooped down upon him somewher e, and gallivamps

and libidinators grabbed him, car ried him to a cossetorium,

there befuddled him with cuddlebutts, ogled, bussed and

gnuzzled him to distraction, till he succumbed with a

strangled cry of R ape!—and af terwar ds lay lifeless in the

wasteland, buried in ducats, his shabby ar mor char red with

the ﬂames of mechanical lust… And that, Y our Highness,

was the end of one who was wise but could have been

wiser!" concluded T rurl, adding, when he saw that these

words still did not satisf y King Thumbscr ew:

"Just what does Y our Most R oyal Highness want?"

"O constructor!" r eplied Thumbscr ew. "You say that your

tales ar e to impr ove the mind, but I do not ﬁnd this to be so .

They ar e, however, amusing, and ther efore it is my wish

that you tell me mor e and mor e of them, and do not stop."

"O King!" answer ed Trurl. "Y ou would lear n from me what

is perfection and how it may be gained, yet pr ove unable to

grasp the deep meanings and gr eat truths with which my

narratives abound. T ruly, you seek amusement and not

wisdom—yet, even as you listen, my wor ds do slowly

penetrate and act upon your brain, and later too will act,

much as a time bomb. T o this end, allow me to pr esent an

account that is intricate, unusual and true, or nearly true,

from which your r oyal advisers may also derive some

beneﬁt. Hear then, noble sirs, the history of Zipperupus, king of

the P artheginians, the Deutons, and the P roﬂigoths, of

whom concupiscence was the ruin!

----------------+--+---------------

Now Zipperupus belonged to the gr eat house of T up,

which was divided into two branches: the De xtrorotarory

Tups, who wer e in power, and the L evorotarory T ups, also

called the L eft-handed or Counter clockwise T ups, who wer e

not—and ther efore consumed with hatr ed for their ruling

cousins. His sir e, Calcyon, had joined in mor ganatic

marriage with a common machine, a manual water pump,

and so Zipperupus inherited—fr om the distaﬀ side—a

tendency to ﬂy oﬀ the handle, and—fr om the spear side—

faint-heartedness coupled with a wanton natur e. Seeing

this, the enemies of the thr one, the Sinistral Isomers,

thought of how they might destr oy him thr ough his own

lascivious pr oclivities. A ccordingly, they sent him a

Cyber nerian named Subtillion, an adept in mental

engineering; Zipperupus took an instant liking to him and

made him L ord High Thaumatur ge and Apothecary to the

Throne. The wily Subtillion devised various means to gratif y

the unbridled lust of Zipperupus, secr etly hoping so to

enfeeble and debilitate the King, that he would altogether

waste away .

He built him an er otodr ome and a

debaucher orium, r egaled him with endless automated

orgies, but the ir on constitution of the King withstood all

these depravities. The Sinistral Isomers gr ew impatient and

ordered their agent to bring all his cunning to bear and

achieve the desir ed end without any further delay .

"Would you lik e me," he ask ed them at a secr et meeting in

the castle catacombs, "to short-cir cuit the King, or

demagnetize his memory to r ender him mindless?"

"Absolutely not!" they r eplied. "In no way must we be

implicated in the King's demise. L et Zipperupus perish

through his own illicit desir es, let his sinful passions be his

undoing—and not us!"

"Fine," said Subtillion. "I'll set a snar e for him, I'll weave it

out of dr eams, and bait it with a tempting lur e, which he will

seize and, in so seizing, of his own volition plunge into

ﬁgments and mad ﬁctions, sink into dr eams lurking within

dreams, and ther e I'll give him such a thor ough ﬁnagling

and inveigling, that he'll never get back to r eality alive!"

"Very well," they said. "But do not boast, O Cyber nerian,

for it is not wor ds we need, but deeds, that Zipperupus

might become an autor egicide, that is, his own assassin!"

And thus Subtillion the Cyber nerian got down to work and

spent an entir e year on his dr eadful scheme, r equesting

from the r oyal tr easury mor e and mor e gold bullion, brass,

platinum and no end of pr ecious stones, telling Zipperupus,

whenever the latter pr otested, that he was making

something for him, something no other monar ch had in all

the world!

When the year was up, thr ee enor mous cabinets wer e

carried fr om the Cyber nerian's workshop and deposited with

great cer emony outside the King's privy chamber, for they

wouldn't ﬁt thr ough the door .

Hearing the steps and the

knocking of the porters, Zipperupus came out and saw the

cabinets, ther e along the wall, stately and massive, four

cubits high, two acr oss, and cover ed with gems. The ﬁrst

cabinet, also called the White Bo x, was all in mother -of-pearl

and blazing albite inlays, the second, black as night, was set

with agates and morions, while the thir d glowed deep r ed,

studded with rubies and ruby spinels. Each had legs

ornamented with winged griﬃns, solid gold, and a polished

pilaster ed frame, and inside, an electr onic brain full of

dreams, dr eams that dr eamed independently, needing no

dreamer to dr eam them. King Zipperupus was much

amazed at this e xplanation and e xclaimed:

"What's this you say, Subtillion?!

Dr eaming cabinets?

Whatever for?

What use ar e they to me?

And anyway, how

can you tell they'r e really dr eaming?"

Then Subtillion, with a humble bow, showed him the r ows

of little holes running down the cabinet frames; ne xt to each

hole was a little inscription on a little pearl plaque, and the

astonished King r ead:

"War Dr eam with Citadels and Damsels"—"Dr eam about

the W ockle W eed"—"Dr eam about Alacritus the Knight and

Fair Ramolda, Daughter of Heter onius"— "Dr eam about

Nixies, P ixies and W itchblende"—"The Marvelous Mattr ess of

Princess Bounce"—"The Old Soldier, or The Cannon That

Couldn't"—"Salto Er otale, or Amor ous Gymnastics"—"Bliss in

the Eightfold Embrace of Octopauline"—"P erpetuum

Amor obile"—"Eating L ead Dumplings under the New

Moon"—"Br eakfast with Maidens and Music"—"T ucking in

the Sun to K eep It W arm" —"The W edding Night of P rincess

Ineﬀabelle"—"Dr eam about Cats"—"About Silks and

Satins"—"About Y ou-Know- What"—"F igs without Their

Leaves, and Other F orbidden F ruit"—"Also P rurient

Prunes"—"How the L echer Got His T ots"—"Devilry and

Divers R evelry befor e Reveille, with Cr outons"—"Mona Lisa,

or The Labyrinth of Sweet Inﬁnity ."

The King went on to the second cabinet and r ead:

"Dreams and Diversions." And under this heading:

"Cybersyner gy"—"Corpses and Corsets"—"T ops and T oggles"

—"Klopstock and the Critics"—"Buﬀer the L eader"—

"Fratcher My Pliss"—"Counterpane and

Ventilator"—"Cyber croquet"—"R obot Crambo"—"Flowcharts

and Go -carts"—"Bippety -ﬂippety"—"Spin the

Shepher dess"—"P in the Mur der on the

Girder"—"Ex ecutioner, or Scr eaming Cutouts"—"Spin the

Shepher dess One Mor e Time"—"Cy -clodor e and

Shuttlebo x"—"Cecily and the Cyanide Cybor g"

—"Cyber nation"—"Har em R acing"—and ﬁnally—"Kludge

Poker." Subtillion, the mental engineer, quickly e xplained

that each dr eam dr eamed itself, entir ely on its own, until

someone plugged into it, for as soon as his plug—hanging

on this watch chain—was inserted in the given pair of holes,

he would be instantly connected with the cabinet dr eam,

and connected so completely, that the dr eam for him would

be lik e real, so r eal you couldn't tell the diﬀer ence. Zipperupus, intrigued, took the chain and impulsively

plugged himself into the White Bo x, right wher e the sign

said, "Br eakfast with Maidens and Music"—and felt spiny

ridges gr owing down his back, and enor mous wings

unfolding, and his hands and feet distending into paws with

wicked claws, and fr om his jaws, which had six r ows of

fangs, ther e belched forth ﬁr e and brimstone. Gr eatly tak en

aback, the King gasped, but instead of a gasp, a r oar lik e

thunder issued fr om his thr oat and shook the earth. This

amazed him even mor e, his eyes gr ew wide, and in the

darkness illumined by his ﬁery br eath he saw that they wer e

bringing him, high on their shoulders, vir gins in serving

bowls, four to each, gar nished with gr eens and smelling so

good, he started to dr ool. The table soon set—salt her e,

pepper over ther e—he lick ed his chops, made himself

comfortable and, one by one, popped them into his mouth

like peanuts, crunching and grunting with pleasur e; the last

virgin was so luscious, so succulent, that he smack ed his

lips, rubbed his tummy, and was about to ask for seconds,

when everything ﬂick ered and he wok e. He look ed—he was

standing, as befor e, in the vestibule outside his private

quarters. A t his side was Subtillion, L ord High Thaumatur ge

and Apothecary to the Thr one, and befor e him, the dr eam

cabinets, glittering with pr ecious gems. "How wer e the maidens?" inquir ed Subtillion. "Not bad. But wher e was the music?"

"The chimes got stuck," the Cyber nerian e xplained. "Would Y our R oyal Highness car e to try another dr eam?"

Of course he would, but this time fr om another cabinet. The King went up to the black one and plugged into the

dream entitled "Alacritus the Knight and F air Ramolda,

Daughter of Heter onius."

He blink ed—and saw that this was indeed the age of

electrical er rantry .

He was standing, all clad in steel, in a

wooded glen, a fr eshly vanquished dragon at his feet; the

leaves rustled, a gentle zephyr blew, a br ook gur gled

nearby .

He look ed into the water and saw, fr om the

reﬂection, that he was none other than Alacritus, a knight of

the highest voltage and her o without peer .

The whole

history of his glorious car eer was r ecorded, in battle scars,

upon his person, and he r ecalled it all, as if the memory

were his own. Those dents in the visor of the helmet—made

by the mailed ﬁsts of Morbidor, in his death thr oes, having

been dispatched with customary alacrity; the br oken hinges

on the right gr eave—that was the work of the late Sir

Basher de Bloo; and the rivets acr oss his lef t pauldr on—

gnawed by Skivvian the Scurvy befor e giving up the ghost;

and the tembrace grille had been crushed by Gour ghbrast

Buggeruck us er e he was felled. Similarly, the cuissfenders,

crosshasps, beaver baﬄes, hauberk latches, fr ont and r ear

jambguar ds and gr ommets—all bor e the marks of battle. His

shield was scor ed and notched by countless blows, but the

backplate, that was as shiny and rust-fr ee as a newbor n's,

for never had he tur ned to ﬂee an adversary!

Though his

glory, truth to tell, was a matter of complete indiﬀer ence to

him. But then he r emember ed the fair R amolda, leaped

upon his super charger and began to sear ch the length and

breadth of the dr eam for her .

In time he ar rived at the castle

of her father, the Autoduk e Heter o-nius; the drawbridge

planks thunder ed beneath horse and rider, and the

Autoduk e himself came out to gr eet him with open ar ms. The knight would fain see his R amolda, but etiquette

requir es he curb his impatience; meanwhile the old

Autoduk e tells him that another knight is staying at the

castle, one Mygrayn of the house of P olymera, master

swordsman and r edoubtable elastician, who dr eams of

nothing else but to enter the lists with Alacritus himself .

And

now her e is Mygrayn, spry and supple, stepping forwar d

with these wor ds:

"Know, O Knight, that I desir e Ramolda the str eamlined,

Ramolda of the hydraulic thighs, whose bust no diamond

drill can touch, whose limpid eyes ar e magnetized!

She is

thy betr othed, true, but lo, I her ewith challenge thee to

mortal combat, sith only one of us may win her hand in

marriage!"

And he thr ows his gage, white and polymer ous. "We'll hold the wedding right af ter the joust," adds the

Autoduk e-father .

"Very well!' says Alacritus, but inside, Zipperupus thinks:

"It doesn't matter, I can have her af ter the wedding and

then wak e up. But who ask ed for this Mygrayn character?"

"This very day, brave Knight," says Heter onius, "thou wilt

encounter Mygrayn of P olymera on beaten gr ound and

contend with him by tor chlight. But for now, r etire thee to

thy room and r est!"

Inside Alacritus, Zipperupus is a little uneasy, but what

can he do?

So he goes to his r oom, and af ter a while hears a

furtive knock-knock at the door, and an old cyber crone

tiptoes in, gives a wrinkled wink and says:

"Fear naught, O Knight, thou shalt have the fair R amolda

and forsooth, this very day she'll clasp thee to her alabaster

bosom!

Of thee alone doth she dr eam, both day and night!

Remember only to attack with might and main, for Mygrayn

cannot har m thee and the victory is thine!"

"That's easy enough to say, my cyber crone," r eplies the

knight. "But anything can happen. What if I trip, for

example, or fail to par ry in time?

No, it's a risk y business!

But per haps you have some char m that will be certain."

"Hee-hee!" cackles the cyber crone. "The things thou

sayest, steel sir!

Ther e are no char ms, sur ely, nor hast thou

need of any, for I know what will be and guarantee thou

winnest hands down!"

"Still, a char m would be mor e sur e," says the knight,

"particularly in a dr eam… but wait, did by any chance

Subtillion send you, to give me conﬁdence?"

"I know of no Subtillion," answers she, "nor of what dr eam

ye speak. Nay, this is r eality, my steely liege, as thou wilt

learn ere long, when fair R amolda gives thee her electric lips

to kiss!"

"Odd," mutters Zipperupus, not noticing that the

cyber crone has lef t the r oom as quietly as she came. "Is this

a dream or not?

I had the impr ession that it was. But she

says this is r eality .

H'm. W ell, in any event I'd best be doubly

on my guar d!" And now the trumpets sound, and one can

hear the rattle of ar mor; the galleries ar e pack ed and

everyone awaits the principals. Her e comes Alacritus, a little

weak in the knees; he enters the lists and sees R amolda,

daughter of Heter onius. She looks upon him sweetly—ah,

but ther e's no time for that now!

Mygrayn is stepping into

the ring, the tor ches blaze all ar ound, and their swor ds cr oss

with a mighty clang. Now Zipperupus is frightened in

earnest and tries as har d as he can to wak e up, he tries and

tries, but it won't work—the ar mor's too heavy, the dr eam

isn't letting go, and the enemy's attacking!

F aster and faster

rain the blows, and Zipperupus, weak ening, can har dly lif t

his ar m, when suddenly the foe cries out and shows a

broken blade; Alacritus the knight is r eady to leap upon him,

but Mygrayn dashes fr om the ring and his squir es hand him

another swor d. Just then Alacritus sees the cyber crone

among the spectators; she appr oaches and whispers in his

ear:

"Sire of steel!

When anon thou art near the open gate that

leadeth to the bridge, Mygrayn will lower his guar d. Strik e

bravely then, for 'tis a sign, certain and true, of thy victory!"

Wher ewith she vanishes, and his rival, r earmed, comes

charging. They ﬁght, Mygrayn hacking away lik e a thr eshing

machine out of contr ol, but by degr ees he slack ens, par ries

sluggishly, backs away, and now the time is ripe, the

moment ar rives, but the opponent's blade gleams

formidably still, so Zipperupus pulls himself together and

thinks, "T o hell with the fair R amolda!"—tur ns tail and runs

like mad, pounding back over the drawbridge and into the

forest and the darkness of the night. Behind him he hears

shouts of "Disgraceful!" and "F or shame!", crashes headﬁrst

into a tr ee, sees stars, blinks, and ther e he is, standing in

the palace vestibule in fr ont of the Black Cabinet of dr eams

that dr eam, and by his side, Subtillion the mental engineer,

smiling a cr ooked smile. Cr ooked, as Subtillion was hiding

his disappointment: the Alacritus-R amolda dr eam had in

reality been a trap set for the King, for had Zipperupus

heeded the old cyber crone's advice, Mygrayn, who was only

pretending to weak en, would have run him thr ough at the

open gate. This the King avoided, thanks only to his

extraor dinary cowar dice. "Did Milor d enjoy the fair R amolda?" inquir ed the sly

Cyber nerian. "She wasn't fair enough," said Zipperupus, "so I didn't see

ﬁt to pursue the matter .

And besides, ther e was some

trouble, and ﬁghting too .

I like my dr eams without ﬁghting,

do you understand?"

"As Y our R oyal Highness wishes," r eplied Subtillion. "Choose fr eely, for in all these cabinet dr eams ther e is only

delight in stor e, no ﬁghting…"

"We'll see," said the King and plugged into the dr eam

entitled "The Marvelous Mattr ess of P rincess Bounce." He

was in a r oom of unsurpassed loveliness, all in gold br ocade. Through crystal windowpanes light str eamed lik e water fr om

the pur est spring, and ther e by her pearly vanity the

Princess stood, yawning, pr eparing herself for bed. Zipperupus was gr eatly amazed at this une xpected sight

and tried to clear his thr oat to infor m her of his pr esence,

but not a sound came out—had he been gagged?—so he

tried to touch his mouth, but couldn't, tried to move his legs

—no, he couldn't—then desperately look ed ar ound for a

place to sit down, feeling faint, but that too was impossible. Meanwhile the P rincess str etched and gave a yawn, and

another, and a thir d, and then, over come with dr owsiness,

she fell upon the mattr ess so har d, that King Zipperupus

was jolted fr om head to toe, for he himself was the mattr ess

of Princess Bounce!

Evidently the young damsel was having

an unpleasant dr eam, seeing how she tur ned and tossed

about, jabbing the King with her little elbows, digging him

with her little heels, until his r oyal person (transfor med into

a mattr ess by this dr eam) was seized with a mighty rage. The King struggled with his dr eam, strained and strained,

and ﬁnally the seams burst, the springs sprang, the slats

gave way and the P rincess came crashing down with a

shriek, which wok e him up and he found himself once again

in the palace vestibule, and by his side, Subtillion the

Cyber nerian, bowing an obsequious bow .

"You chuckleheaded bungler!" cried the indignant King. "How dar e you?!

What, villain, am I to be a mattr ess, and

someone else's mattr ess at that?

Y ou for get yourself,

sirrah!"

Subtillion, alar med by the King's fury, apologized

profusely and begged him to try another dr eam, persuading

and pleading until Zipperupus, ﬁnally appeased, took the

plug and hook ed himself into the dr eam, "Bliss in the

Eightfold Embrace of Octopauline." He was standing in a

crowd of onlook ers in a gr eat squar e, and a pr ocession was

passing by with waving silks, muslins, mechanical

elephants, litters in carved ebony; the one in the middle was

like a golden shrine, and in it, behind eight veils, sat a

feminine ﬁgur e of miraculous beauty, an angel with a

dazzling face and galactic gaze, high-fr equency ear rings

too, and the King, all a-tr emble, was about to ask who this

heavenly vision was, when he hear d a mur mur of awe and

adoration sur ge thr ough the multitude: "Octopauline!

It's

Octopauline!"

For they wer e celebrating, with the utmost pomp and

pageantry, the r oyal daughter's betr othal to a for eign knight

of the name Oneir omant. The King was a bit surprised that he wasn't this knight,

and when the pr ocession had passed and disappear ed

behind the palace gates, he went with the others in the

crowd to a nearby inn; ther e he saw Oneir omant, who, clad

in nothing but galligaskins of damask studded with gold

nails and holding a half -empty stein of fortiﬁed phosgene in

his hand, came over to him, put an ar m around him, gave

him a hug and whisper ed in his ear with searing br eath:

"Look, I have a r endezvous with P rincess Octopauline

tonight at midnight, behind the palace, in the gr ove of barb-

wire bushes ne xt to the mer cury fountain—but I don't dar e

show up, not in this condition, I've had too much to drink,

you see—but you, good stranger, why you'r e the spit and

image of me, so please, please go in my place, kiss the

Princess' hands for me and say that you'r e Oneir omant, and

gosh, I'll be beholden to you for ever and a day!"

"Why not?" said the King af ter a little thought. "Y es, I think

I can manage it. But when?"

"Right now, ther e's not a moment to lose, it's almost

midnight, just r emember—the King knows nothing of this,

no one does, only the P rincess and the old gatek eeper, and

when he bars your way, her e, put this heavy bag of ducats

in his hand, and he'll let you pass!"

The King nodded, took the bag of ducats and ran straight

for the castle, since the clocks, lik e cast-ir on hoot owls, wer e

already beginning to strik e the hour .

He sped over the

drawbridge, took a quick look into the gaping moat,

shudder ed, lower ed his head and slipped under the spik ed

grating of the portcullis—then acr oss the courtyar d to the

barbwir e bushes and the fountain that bubbled mer cury,

and ther e in the pale moonlight he saw the divine ﬁgur e of

Princess Octopauline, beautiful beyond his wildest dr eams

and so bewitching, that he shook with desir e. Observing these shakings and shudderings of the sleeping

monar ch in the palace vestibule, Subtillion chortled and

rubbed his hands with glee, this time certain of the King's

demise, for he knew that when Octopauline enfolded the

unfortunate lover in those powerful eightfold ar ms of hers

and dr ew him deep into the fathomless dr eam with her

tender tentacles of love, he would never, never mak e it

back to the surface of r eality!

And in fact, Zipperupus,

burning to be wrapped in the P rincess' embrace, was

running along the wall in the shadow of the cloisters,

running towar ds that radiant image of silvery pulchritude,

when suddenly the old gatek eeper appear ed and block ed

the way with his halber d. The King lif ted the bag of ducats

but, feeling their pleasant weight in his hand, was loath to

part with them—what a shame, r eally, to thr ow away a

whole fortune on one embrace!

"Here's a ducat," he said, opening the bag. "Now let me

by!"

"It'll cost you ten," said the gatek eeper .

"What, ten ducats for a single hug?" jeer ed the King. "You're out of your mind!"

"Ten ducats," said the gatek eeper .

"That's the price."

"Can't you lower it a little?"

"Ten ducats, not a ducat less."

"So that's how it is!" yelled the King, ﬂying oﬀ the handle

in his usual way .

"Very well then, dog, you don't get a

thing!" Wher eupon the gatek eeper whopped him good with

the halber d and everything went spinning ar ound, the

cloisters, the fountain, the drawbridge, and Zipperupus fell

—not asleep, but awak e, opening his eyes to see Subtillion

at his side and in fr ont of him, the Dr eam Cabinet. The

Cyber nerian was gr eatly confounded, for now he had failed

twice: the ﬁrst time, because of the King's craven character,

the second, because of his gr eed. But Subtillion, putting a

good face on a bad business, invited the King to help

himself to another dr eam. This time Zipperupus selected the "W ockle W eed" dr eam. He was Dodder ont Debilitus, ruler of Epilepton and

Maladyne, a rick ety old codger and incurable lecher

besides, with a soul that longed for evil deeds. But what evil

could he do with these cr eaking joints, these palsied ar ms

and gouty legs?

"I need a pick-me-up,” he thought and

ordered his degenerals, T artar on and T orturus, to go out and

put whatever they could to ﬁr e and swor d, sacking, pillaging

and car rying oﬀ.

This they did and, r eturning, said:

"Sire and Sover eign!

W e put what we could to ﬁr e and

sword, we sack ed, we pillaged, and her e is what we car ried

oﬀ: the beauteous A doradora, V irgin Queen of the

Mynamoacans, with all her tr easur e!"

"Eh?

What's that you say?

W ith her tr easur e?" wheezed

the quimsy King. "But wher e is she?

And what's all that

sniveling and shivering over ther e?"

"Here, upon yon r oyal couch, Y our Highness!" bark ed the

degenerals in chorus. "The sniveling comes fr om the prison-

eress, the above-mentioned Queen A doradora, r ecumbent

on her antimacassar of pearls!

And she shivers ﬁrst,

because she is clad in naught but this e xquisite, gold-

embr oider ed shif t, and secondly, in anticipation of gr eat

indignities and degradation!"

"What?

Indignities, you say?

Degradation?

Good, good!"

rasped the King. "Hand her over, I'll ravish and outrage the

poor thing at once!"

"Impossible, Y our Highness," interposed the R oyal Sur geon

and Chirur geon, "for r easons of national security ."

"What?

I can't ravish?

I can't violate?

I, the King?

Have you

gone mad?

What else did I ever do thr oughout my r eign?"

"That's just it, Y our Highness!" ur ged the Sur geon. "Y our

Highness' health has been seriously impair ed by those

excesses!"

"Oh?

W ell, in that case… give me an ax, I'll just lop oﬀ her,

ah, head …"

"With Your Highness' per mission, that too would be

extremely unwise. The least e xertion…"

"Odsbodkins and thunderation!

What blessed use is this

kingship to me then?!" sputter ed the King, gr owing

desperate. "Cur e me, blast it!

R estor e me!

Mak e me young

again, so I can-—you know—lik e it used to be… Otherwise,

so help me, I'll… I'll…"

In ter ror all the courtiers, degenerals and medical

assistants rushed out to ﬁnd some way to r ejuvenate the

royal person; at last they summoned the gr eat Calculon

himself, a sage of inﬁnite wisdom. He came befor e the King

and ask ed:

"What is it that Y our R oyal Highness wishes?"

"Eh?

W ishes, is it?

Hah!" cr oaked the King. "I'll tell you

what he wishes!

He wishes to continue with his

debaucheries, satur nalian car ousals, incontinent wallowings

and wild oats, and in particular to deﬁle and pr operly

deﬂower Queen A doradora, who for the time being sits in

the dungeon!"

"Ther e are two courses of action open to us," said

Calculon. "Either Y our Highness deigns to choose a suitably

competent individual, who will perfor m per pr ocuram

everything Y our Highness, wir ed to that individual,

commands, and in this way Y our Highness can e xperience

whatever that individual e xperiences, e xactly as if he had

experienced the e xperience himself .

Or else you must

summon the old cyber hag who lives in the for est outside the

village, in a hut on thr ee legs, for she is a geriatric witch and

deals e xclusively with the inﬁr mities of advanced age!"

"Oh?

W ell, let's try the wir es ﬁrst!" said the King. And it

was done in a trice; the r oyal electricians connected the

Captain of the Guar d to the King, and the King immediately

commanded him to saw the sage in half, for this was

precisely the kind of foul deed in which he took such delight. Calculon's pleas and scr eams wer e to no avail. However, the

insulation on one of the wir es was tor n during the sawing,

and consequently the King r eceived only the ﬁrst half of the

execution. "A paltry method. The charlatan deserved to be sawed in

half," wheezed His Highness. "Now let's have that old

cyber hag, the one with the hut on thr ee legs!"

His courtiers headed full speed for the for est, and befor e

long the King hear d a mour nful singsong, which went

something lik e this:

"Ancient persons r epair ed her e!

I renovate, r egenerate, I

ﬁx as good as new; cor roded or scler oded, why, everyone

pulls thr ough!

So if you quak e, or cr eak, or shak e, or have

the rust, or feel the ache, yes I'm the one for you!"

The old cyber hag listened patiently to the King's

complaints, bowed low and said:

"Sire and Sover eign!

Beyond the blue horizon, at the foot

of Bald Mountain, ther e ﬂows a spring, and fr om this spring

there ﬂows a str eam, a str eam of oil, of castor oil, and o'er it

grows the wockle weed, a high- octane antisenescent r e-

juvenator—one tablespoon, and kiss forty -seven years

goodbye!

Though you have to be car eful not to tak e too

much: an over dose of wockle juice can youthen to the point

of euthanasia and poof, you disappear!

And now, Sir e, I shall

prepare this r emedy tried and true!"

"Wonderful!" cried the King. "And I'll have them pr epare

the Queen A doradora—let the poor thing know what awaits

her, heh-heh!"

And with tr embling hands he tried to straighten his loose

screws, muttering and clucking all the while, and even

twitching in places, for he had gr own most senile, though

his passion for evil never abated. Meanwhile knights r ode out beyond the blue horizon to

the castor -oil str eam, and later, over the old cyber hag's

cauldr on vapors swirled, whirled and curled as concoctions

were being concocted, till ﬁnally she hastened to the thr one,

fell on her knees and handed the King a goblet, full to the

brim with a liquid that shone and shimmer ed lik e

quicksilver, and she said in a gr eat voice:

"King Dodder ont Debilitus!

L o, her e is the r ejuvenescent

essence of the wockle weed!

Invigorating, e xhilarating, just

the thing for dalliance and der ring-do!

Drain this cup, and

for you the entir e Galaxy will not hold cities enough to

despoil, nor maidens enough to dishonor!

Drink, and to your

health!"

The King raised the goblet, but spilled a few dr ops on his

footstool, which instantly r eared up, snorted and hurled

itself at Degeneral T artar on, with fr enzied intent to humiliate

and pr ofane. In a twinkling of an eye, it had ripped oﬀ six

ﬁstfuls of medals. "Drink, Y our Highness, drink!" pr ompted the cyber hag. "You see yourself what miracles it works!"

"You ﬁrst," said the King in a bar ely audible whisper, as he

was aging fast. The cyber hag tur ned pale, back ed away,

refused, but at a nod fr om the King thr ee soldiers seized her

and, using a funnel, for ced several dr ops of the glittering

brew down her thr oat. A ﬂash, a thunder clap, smok e

everywher e!

The courtiers look ed, the King look ed—nothing,

not a trace of the cyber hag, only a black hole gaping in the

ﬂoor, and thr ough it one could see another hole, a hole in

the dr eam itself, clearly r evealing somebody's foot—

elegantly shod, though the sock was singed and the silver

buckle tur ning dark, as if eaten with acid. The foot of

course, along with its sock and shoe, belonged to Subtillion,

Lord High Thaumatur ge and Apothecary to King Zipperupus. For so potent was that poison the cyber hag had called the

wockle weed, that not only did it dissolve both her and the

ﬂoor, but went clear thr ough to r eality, ther e spattering the

shin of Subtillion, which gave him a nasty bur n. The King,

terriﬁed, tried to wak e, but (fortunately for Subtillion) De-

general T orturus managed to bash him good over the head

with his mace; thanks to this, Zipperupus, when he came to,

was unable to r ecall a thing of what had happened when he

was Dodder ont Debilitus. Still, once again he had foiled the

Cyber nerian, slipping out of the thir d deadly dr eam, saved

this time by his overly suspicious natur e. "Ther e was something… but I for get just what," said the

King, back in fr ont of the Cabinet That Dr eamed. "But why

are you, Subtillion, hopping about on one leg lik e that and

holding the other?"

"It's—it's nothing, Y our Highness … a touch of r hom-

botism… must be a change in the weather," stammer ed the

crafty Thaumatur ge, and then continued to tempt the King

to sample yet another dr eam. Zipperupus thought awhile,

read thr ough the T able of Contents and chose, "The

Wedding Night of P rincess Ineﬀabelle." And he dr eamt he

was sitting by the ﬁr e and r eading an ancient volume,

quaint and curious, in which it told, with well-tur ned wor ds

and crimson ink on gilded par chment, of the P rincess

Ineﬀabelle, who r eigned ﬁve centuries ago in the land of

Dandelia, and it told of her Icicle F orest, and her Helical

Tower, and the A viary That Neighed, and the T reasury with a

Hundr ed Eyes, but especially of her beauty and abounding

virtues. And Zipperupus longed for this vision of loveliness

with a gr eat longing, and a mighty desir e was kindled within

him and set his soul aﬁr e, that his eyeballs blazed lik e

beacons, and he rushed out and sear ched every cor ner of

the dr eam for Ineﬀabelle, but she was nowher e to be found;

indeed, only the very oldest r obots had ever hear d of that

princess. W eary fr om his long per egrinations, Zipperupus

came at last to the center of the r oyal desert, wher e the

dunes wer e gold-plated, and ther e espied a humble hut;

when he appr oached it, he saw an individual of patriar chal

appearance, in a r obe as white as snow .

The latter r ose and

spake thusly :

"Thou seek est Ineﬀabelle, poor wr etch!

And yet thou

knowest full well she doth not live these ﬁve hundr ed years,

hence how vain and unavailing is thy passion!

The only

thing that I can do for thee is to let thee see her—not in the

ﬂesh, forsooth, but a fair infor mational facsimile, a model

that is digital, not physical, stochastic, not plastic, er godic

and most assur edly er otic, and all in yon Black Bo x, which I

constructed in my spar e time out of odds and ends!"

"Ah, show her to me, show her to me now!" e xclaimed

Zipperupus, quivering. The patriar ch gave a nod, e xamined

the ancient volume for the princess' coor dinates, put her

and the entir e Middle Ages on punch car ds, wr ote up the

program, thr ew the switch, lif ted the lid of the Black Bo x and

said:

"Behold!"

The King leaned over, look ed and saw, yes, the Middle

Ages simulated to a T, all digital, binary and nonlinear, and

there was the land of Dandelia, the Icicle F orest, the palace

with the Helical T ower, the A viary That Neighed, and the

Treasury with a Hundr ed Eyes as well; and ther e was

Ineﬀabelle herself, taking a slow, stochastic str oll thr ough

her simulated gar den, and her cir cuits glowed r ed and gold

as she pick ed simulated daisies and hummed a simulated

song. Zipperupus, unable to r estrain himself any longer,

leaped upon the Black Bo x and in his madness tried to climb

into that computerized world. The patriar ch, however,

quickly killed the cur rent, hurled the King to the earth and

said:

"Madman!

W ouldst attempt the impossible?!

F or no being

made of matter can ever enter a system that is naught but

the ﬂux and swirl of alphanumerical elements, discontinuous

integer conﬁgurations, the abstract stuﬀ of digits!"

"But I must, I must!!" bellowed Zipperupus, beside

himself, and beat his head against the Black Bo x until the

metal was dented. The old sage then said:

"If such is thy inalterable desir e, ther e is a way I can

connect thee to the P rincess Ineﬀabelle, but ﬁrst thou must

part with thy pr esent for m, for I shall tak e thy appurtenant

coordinates and mak e a pr ogram of thee, atom by atom,

and place thy simulation in that world medievally modeled,

informational and r epresentational, and ther e will it r emain,

enduring as long as electr ons course thr ough these wir es

and hop fr om cathode to anode. But thou, standing her e

befor e me now, thou wilt be annihilated, so that thy only

existence may be in the for m of given ﬁelds and potentials,

statistical, heuristical, and wholly digital!"

"That's har d to believe," said Zipperupus. "How will I know

you've simulated me, and not someone else?"

"Very well, we'll mak e a trial run," said the sage. And he

took all the King's measur ements, as if for a suit of clothes,

though with much gr eater pr ecision, since every atom was

carefully plotted and weighed, and then he fed the pr ogram

into the Black Bo x and said:

"Behold!"

The King peer ed inside and saw himself sitting by the ﬁr e

and r eading in an ancient book about the P rincess

Ineﬀabelle, then rushing out to ﬁnd her, asking her e and

there, until in the heart of the gold-plated desert he came

upon a humble hut and a snow-white patriar ch, who gr eeted

him with the wor ds, "Thou seek est Ineﬀabelle, poor wr etch!"

And so on. "Surely now thou art convinced," said the patriar ch,

switching it oﬀ.

"This time I shall pr ogram thee in the Middle

Ages, at the side of the sweet Ineﬀabelle, that thou mayest

dream with her an unending dr eam, simulated, nonlinear,

binary …"

"Yes, yes, I understand," said the King. "But still, it's only

my lik eness, not myself, since I am right her e and not in any

Box!"

"But thou wilt not be her e long," r eplied the sage with a

kindly smile, "for I shall attend to that…"

And he pulled out a hammer fr om under the bed, a heavy

hammer, but serviceable. "When thou art lock ed in the ar ms of thy beloved," the

patriar ch told him, "I shall see to it that ther e be not two of

thee, one her e and one ther e, in the Bo x—employing a

method that is old and primitive, yet never fails, so if thou

wilt just bend over a little…"

"First let me tak e another look at your Ineﬀabelle," said

the King. "Just to mak e sur e…"

The sage lif ted the lid of the Black Bo x and showed him

Ineﬀabelle. The King look ed and look ed, and ﬁnally said:

"The description in the ancient volume is gr eatly

exaggerated. She's not bad, of course, but nowher e near as

beautiful as it says in the chr onicles. W ell, so long, old

sage…"

And he tur ned to leave. "Wher e art thou going, madman?!" cried the patriar ch,

clutching his hammer, for the King was almost out the door .

"Anywher e but in the Bo x," said Zipperupus and hur ried

out, but at that very moment the dr eam burst lik e a bubble

beneath his feet, and he found himself in the vestibule

facing the bitterly disappointed Subtillion, disappointed

because the King had come so close to being lock ed up in

the Black Bo x, and the L ord High Thaumatur ge could have

kept him ther e forever…

"Listen her e, Sir Cyber nerian," said the King, "these

dreams of yours with princesses ar e a gr eat deal mor e

trouble than they'r e worth. Now either you show me one I

can enjoy—no tricks, no complications—or leave the palace

at once, and tak e your cabinets with you!"

"Sire!" Subtillion r eplied. "I have just the dr eam for you,

the ﬁnest quality and tailor -made. Only give it a try, and

you'll see I'm right!"

"Which one is that?" ask ed the King. "This one, Y our Highness," said the L ord High

Thaumatur ge, and pointed to the little pearl plaque with the

inscription: "Mona Lisa, or The Labyrinth of Sweet Inﬁnity ."

And befor e the King could answer yea or nay, Subtillion

himself took the chain to plug him in, and quickly, for he

saw that things wer e going none too well: Zipperupus had

escaped eter nal imprisonment in the Black Bo x, too

thickheaded to fall completely for the captivating

Ineﬀabelle. "Wait," said the King, "let me!"

And he pushed in the plug and enter ed the dr eam, only to

ﬁnd himself still himself, Zipperupus, standing in the palace

vestibule, and at his side, Subtillion the Cyber nerian, who

explains to him that of all the dr eams, "Mona Lisa" is the

most dissolute and dissipated, for in it is the inﬁnite in

femininity; hearing this, Zipperupus plugs in and looks about

for Mona Lisa, alr eady year ning for her inﬁnitely feminine

caress, but in this dr eam within a dr eam he ﬁnds himself

still in the palace vestibule, the L ord High Thaumatur ge at

his side, so impatiently plugs into the cabinet and enters the

next dream, but it's still the same, the vestibule, the

cabinets, the Cyber nerian and himself .

"Is this a dr eam or

isn't it?" he shouts, plugging in again, and once again

there's the vestibule, the cabinets, the Cyber nerian; and

again, but it's still the same; and again and again, faster

and faster .

"Wher e's Mona Lisa, knave?!" he snarls, and

pulls the plug to wak e—but no, he's still in the vestibule with

the cabinets!

F urious, he stamps his feet and hurls himself

from dr eam to dr eam, fr om cabinet to cabinet, fr om

Cyber nerian to Cyber nerian, but now he doesn't car e about

the dr eam, he only wants to get back to r eality, back to his

beloved thr one, the court intrigues and old iniquities, and he

pulls and pushes the plugs in a blind fr enzy. "Help!" he cries,

and, "Hey!

The King's in danger!" and, "Mona Lisa!

Y oo-

hoo!," while he thrashes ar ound in ter ror and scrambles

wildly fr om cor ner to cor ner, looking for a chink in the

dream, but in vain. He did not understand the how, the why

or the what of it, but his stupidity could not save him, nor

could his cowar dice, nor his inor dinate gr eed, for this time

he had gotten himself in too deep, and was trapped and

wrapped in dr eams as if in a hundr ed tight cocoons, so that

even when he managed, straining with all his might, to fr ee

himself fr om one, that didn't help, for immediately he fell

into another, and when he pulled his plug fr om the cabinet,

both plug and cabinet wer e only dr eamed, not r eal, and

when he beat Subtillion, Subtillion too tur ned out to be a

dream. Zipperupus leaped her e and ther e, and everywher e,

but wher ever he leaped, everything was a dr eam, a dr eam

and nothing but a dr eam, the doors, the marble ﬂoors, the

gold-embr oider ed walls, the tapestries, the halls, and

Zipperupus too, he was a dr eam, a dr eam that dr eamed, a

walking shadow, an empty apparition, insubstantial,

ﬂeeting, lost in a labyrinth of dr eams, sinking ever deeper,

though still he buck ed and kick ed—only that too was pur ely

imaginary!

He punched Subtillion in the nose, but not r eally,

roared and howled, but nothing r eal came out, and when at

last, dazed and half -crazed, he r eally did tear his way into

reality, he thought it was a dr eam and plugged himself back

in, and then it r eally was, and on he dr eamed, and on and

on, which was inevitable, and thus Zipperupus, whimpering,

dreamed of waking in vain, not knowing that 'Mona Lisa'

was—in r eality—a diabolical code for 'monar ch-olysis,' that

is: the dissolution, dissociation and total dissipation of the

King. F or truly, of all Subtillion's tr eacher ous traps, this was

the most ter rible…

--------------------+---+----------------------

Such was the tale, moving and impr oving, that T rurl told

to King Thumbscr ew the Thir d, who by now had a splitting

headache and so dismissed the constructor without further

ado, pr esenting him ﬁrst with the Or der of the Sacr ed Cy -

bernia, a lilac sign of feedback upon a ﬁeld of gr een, in-

crusted with pr ecious bits of infor mation. + +

And with these wor ds the second storytelling machine

ground to a halt, its golden gears whir ring musically, and

gave a giddy little laugh, for a few of its klystr ons had

overheated slightly; but it lower ed its anode potential,

waved away the smok e, sighed and r etreated to the photon

phaeton, accompanied by much applause, the r ewar d for its

eloquence and storytelling skill. King Genius meanwhile oﬀer ed Trurl a cup of ion mead,

wondr ously carved with curves of pr obability and the subtle

play of quantum waves. T rurl quaﬀed it down, then snapped

his ﬁngers, wher eupon the thir d machine stepped out into

the center of the cave, bowed low and said, in a voice that

was tonic, euphonic, and most electr onic:

+ +

This is the story of how the Gr eat Constructor T rurl, with

the aid of an or dinary jug, cr eated a local ﬂuctuation, and

what came of it. In the Constellation of the W ringer ther e was a Spiral

Galaxy, and in this Galaxy ther e was a Black Nebula, and in

this Nebula wer e ﬁve sixth- order clusters, and in the ﬁf th

cluster, a lilac sun, very old and very dim, and ar ound this

sun r evolved seven planets, and the thir d planet had two

moons, and in all these suns and stars and planets and

moons a variety of events, various and varying, took place,

falling into a statistical distribution that was perfectly

normal, and on the second moon of the thir d planet of the

lilac sun of the ﬁf th cluster of the Black Nebula in the Spiral

Galaxy in the Constellation of the W ringer was a garbage

dump, the kind of garbage dump one might ﬁnd on any

planet or moon, absolutely average, in other wor ds full of

garbage; it had come into e xistence because the

Glauberical Aber racleans once waged a war, a war of the

ﬁssion-and-fusion type, against the Albumenid If ts, with the

natural r esult that their bridges, r oads, homes and palaces,

and of course they themselves, wer e reduced to ashes and

shards, which the solar winds blew to the place wher eof we

speak. Now for many, many centuries positively nothing

took place in this garbage dump but garbage, though an

earthquak e did occur and shif ted the garbage on the bottom

to the top, and the garbage on the top to the bottom, which

in itself had no particular signiﬁcance, and yet this paved

the way for a most unusual phenomenon. It so happened

that T rurl, the F abulous Constructor, while ﬂying in the

vicinity, was blinded by a certain comet with a garish tail. He ﬂed its path, frantically jettisoning out the spaceship

window whatever lay in r each—chess pieces, the hollow

kind, which he'd ﬁlled with liquor for the trip, some bar rels

the Ubbidubs of Chlor elei employed for the purpose of

compelling their opponents to yield, as well as assorted

utensils, and among these, an old earthenwar e jug with a

crack down the middle. This jug, accelerating in accor dance

with the laws of gravity and boosted by the comet's tail,

crashed into a mountainside above the dump, fell, clatter ed

down a slope of junk towar d a puddle, skitter ed acr oss some

mud, and ﬁnally smack ed into an old tin can; this impact

bent the metal ar ound a copper wir e, also knock ed some

pieces of mica between the edges, and that made a

condenser, while the wir e, twisted by the can, for med the

beginnings of a solenoid, and a stone, set in motion by the

jug, moved in tur n a hunk of rusty ir on, which happened to

be a magnet, and this gave rise to a cur rent, and that

current passed thr ough sixteen other cans and snips of wir e,

releasing a number of sulﬁdes and chlorides, whose atoms

linked with other atoms, and the ensuing molecules latched

onto other molecules, until, in the very center of the dump,

there came into being a L ogic Cir cuit, and ﬁve mor e, and

another eighteen in the spot wher e the jug ﬁnally shatter ed

into bits. That evening, something emer ged at the edge of

the dump, not far fr om the puddle which had by now dried

up, and this something, a cr eatur e of pur e accident, was

Mymosh the Selfbegotten, who had neither mother nor

father, but was son unto himself, for his father was

Coincidence, and his Mother—Entr opy. And Mymosh r ose up

from the garbage dump, totally oblivious of the fact that he

had about one chance in a hundr ed billion jillion raised to

the zillionth power of ever e xisting, and he took a step, and

walked until he came to the ne xt puddle, which had not as

yet dried up, so that, kneeling over it, he could easily see

himself .

And he saw, in the surface of the water, his pur ely

accidental head, with ears lik e muﬃns, the lef t one crushed

and the right a triﬂe under done, and he saw his pur ely

accidental body, a potpour ri of pots and pegs and ﬂotsam,

and somewhat bar rel-chested, in that his chest was a bar rel,

though nar rower in the middle, lik e a waist, for in crawling

out fr om under the garbage, he had scraped against a stone

right ther e; and he gazed upon his littery limbs, and counted

them, and as luck would have it, ther e wer e two ar ms, two

legs and, fortuitously enough, two eyes too, and Mymosh

the Selfbegotten took gr eat delight in his person, and sighed

with admiration at the nar rowness of the waist, the

symmetrical ar rangement of the limbs, the r oundness of the

head, and was moved to e xclaim: —T ruly, I am beautiful,

nay, perfect, which clearly implies the P erfection of All

Created Things!!

Ah, and how good must be the One Who

fashioned me!

And he hobbled on, dr opping loose scr ews along the way

(since no one had tightened them pr operly), humming

hymns in praise of the Everlasting Har mony of P rovidence,

but on the seventh step he tripped and went headlong back

down into the garbage, af ter which he did nothing but rust,

corrode and slowly disintegrate for the ne xt thr ee hundr ed

and fourteen thousand years, for he had fallen on his head

and shorted out, and was no mor e. And at the end of this

time it came to pass that a certain mer chant, car rying a

shipment of sea anemones fr om the planet Medulsa to the

Thrycian Stomatopods, quar reled with his assistant as they

neared the lilac sun, and hurled his shoes at him, and one of

these br oke the porthole window and ﬂew out into space,

wher e its subsequent orbit subsequently e xperienced

perturbation, due to the cir cumstance that that very same

comet, which had ages past blinded T rurl, now found itself in

the very same locality, and so the shoe, tur ning slowly,

hurtled towar ds the moon, was singed a little by the

atmospheric friction, bounced oﬀ the mountainside above

the dump, fell, and booted Mymosh the Selfbegotten, lying

there, with just the right r esultant impulse and at just the

right angle of incidence to cr eate just the right torsions,

torques, centrifugal for ces and angular momenta needed to

reactivate the accidental brain of that accidental being—

and in this way : Mymosh, thus booted, went ﬂying into the

nearby puddle, wher e his chlorides and iodides mingled with

the water, and electr olyte seeped into his head and,

bubbling, set up a cur rent ther e, which traveled ar ound and

about, till Mymosh sat up in the mud and thought the

following thought: —Appar ently, I am!

That, however, was all he was able to think for the ne xt

sixteen centuries, and the rain beat down upon him, and the

hail pommeled him, and all the while his entr opy incr eased

and gr ew, but af ter another thousand ﬁve hundr ed and

twenty years, a certain bir d, ﬂapping its way over the

terrain, was attack ed by some swooping pr edator, and

relieved itself out of fright and also to incr ease its speed,

and the dr oppings dr opped and hit Mymosh squar e on the

forehead, wher eupon he sneezed and said:

—Yes, I am!

And ther e's no appar ently about it!

Y et the

question r emains, who is it who says that I am?

Or, in other

words, who am I?

Now, how may this be answer ed?

H'm!

only ther e was something else besides me, any sort of

something at all, with which I might juxtapose and compar e

myself—that would be half the battle. But alas, ther e's not a

thing, for I can plainly see that I see nothing whatsoever!

Therefore ther e's only I that am, and I am everything that is

and may be, for I can think in any way I lik e, but am I then—

an empty space for thought, and nothing mor e?

In point of fact he no longer possessed any senses; they

had decayed and crumbled to dust over the centuries, since

Entropy, the bride of Chaos, is a cruel and implacable

mistr ess. Consequently Mymosh could not see his mother -

puddle, nor his br other -mud, nor the whole, wide world, and

had no r ecollection of what had happened to him befor e,

and generally was now capable of nothing but thought. This

alone could he do, and so devoted himself wholeheartedly

to it. —First I ought—he told himself—to ﬁll this void that is I,

and ther eby dispel its insuﬀerable monotony .

So let us think

of something, for when we think, behold, ther e is thought,

and nought but our thought has e xistence.— F rom this one

could see he was becoming somewhat pr esumptuous, for

already he r eferred to himself in the ﬁrst person plural. —But wait—he then said—might not something still e xist

outside myself?

W e must, if only for a moment, consider this

possibility, though it sound pr eposter ous and even a little

insane. L et us call this outsideness the Gozmos. Now, if

there is a Gozmos, then I must be a part and portion of it!

Here he stopped, ponder ed the matter awhile, and ﬁnally

rejected that hypothesis as wholly without basis or

foundation. R eally, ther e was not a shr ed of evidence in its

favor, not a single, solid ar gument to support it, and so,

ashamed he had indulged in such wild, untutor ed

speculation, he said to himself :

—Of that which lies beyond me, if anything indeed ther e

lie, I have no knowledge. But of that which is within, I do, or

rather shall, as soon as I think something into thought, for

who can know what I think, by thunder, better than myself?!

— And he thought and thought, and thought of the Gozmos

again, but this time thought of it inside himself, which

seemed to him a far mor e sensible and r espectable solution,

well within the bounds of r eason and pr opriety .

And he

began to ﬁll his Gozmos with various and sundry thoughts. First, because he was still new at it and lack ed skill, he

thought out the Beadlies, who grambled whenever they got

the chance, and the P ratlings, who r ejoiced in ﬁlicorts. Immediately the P ratlings battled the Beadlies for the

supremacy of ﬁlicortion over gramblement, and all Mymosh

got for his world-cr eating pains was an awful headache. In his ne xt attempts at thought cr eation, he pr oceeded

with gr eater caution, ﬁrst thinking up elements, lik e

Brutonium, a noble gas, and elementary particles, lik e the

cogiton, the quantum of intellect, and he cr eated beings,

and these wer e fruitful and multiplied. F rom time to time he

did mak e mistak es, but af ter a century or two he gr ew quite

proﬁcient, and his very own Gozmos, sound and stable, took

shape in his mind's eye, and it teemed with a multitude of

entities, things, beings, civilizations and phenomena, and

existence was most pleasurable ther e, for he had made the

laws of that Gozmos highly liberal, having no fondness for

strict, inﬂe xible rules, the sort of prison discipline that

Mother Natur e imposes (though of course he'd never hear d

of Mother Natur e).

Thus the world of Selfbegotten was a place of caprice and

miracle; in it something might occur one way once, and at

another time be altogether diﬀer ent—and without any

special r hyme or r eason. If, for e xample, an individual was

supposed to die, ther e wer e always ways of getting ar ound

it, for Mymosh had ﬁr mly decided against ir reversible

events. And in his thoughts the Zigr ots, Calsonians,

Flimmer oons, Jups, Arligynes and W allamachinoids all

prosper ed and ﬂourished, generation af ter generation. During this time the haphazar d arms and legs of Mymosh

fell oﬀ, r eturning to the garbage fr om which they'd come,

and the puddle rusted thr ough the nar row waist, and his

body slowly sank into the stagnant mir e. But he had just put

up some brand-new constellations, ar ranging them with

loving car e in the eter nal darkness of his consciousness,

which was his Gozmos, and did his level best to k eep an

accurate memory of everything that he had thought into

existence, even though his head hurt fr om the eﬀort, for he

felt responsible for his Gozmos, deeply obligated, and

needed. Meanwhile rust ate deeper and deeper into his

cranial plates, which of course he had no way of knowing,

and a fragment fr om Trurl's jug, the selfsame jug that

thousands of years ago had called him into being, came

ﬂoating on the puddle's surface, closer and closer to his

unfortunate head, for only that now r emained above the

water .

And at the very moment when Mymosh was

imagining the gentle, crystal Baucis and her faithful

Ondragor, and as they jour neyed hand in hand among the

dark suns of his mind, and all the people of the Gozmos

looked on in rapt silence, including the Beadlies, and as the

pair sof tly called to one another—the rust-eaten sk ull

crack ed open at the touch of the earthenwar e shar d, pushed

by a puﬀ of air, and the murk y water rushed in over the

copper coils and e xtinguished the cur rent in the logic

circuits, and the Gozmos of Mymosh the Selfbegotten

attained the perfection, the ultimate perfection that comes

with nothingness. And those who unwittingly had br ought

him into the world never lear ned of his passing. + +

Here the black machine bowed, and King Genius sat

plunged in gloomy meditation, and br ooded so long, that

the company began to mur mur ill of T rurl, who had dar ed to

cloud the r oyal mind with such a tale. But the King soon

broke into a smile and ask ed:

"And have you not something else up your manifold for

us, my good machine?"

"Sire," it r esponded, bowing low, "I will tell you the story,

remark ably pr ofound, of Chlorian Theor eticus the P roph,

intellectrician and pundit par e xcellence."

+ +

It happened once that Klapaucius, the famed constructor,

longing to r est af ter his gr eat labors (he had just completed

for King Thanaton a Machine That W asn't, but that is quite

another story), ar rived at the planet of the Mammonides

and ther e roamed hither and yon, seeking solitude, until he

saw, at the edge of a for est, a humble hut, all over grown

with wild cyberber ries and smok e rising fr om its chimney .

would have gladly avoided it, but noticed on the doorstep a

pile of empty inkwells, and this singular sight pr ompted him

to tak e a peek inside. Ther e, at a massive stone table sat an

ancient sage, so br oken-down, wir ed up and rusted thr ough,

it was a wonder to behold. The br ow was dented in a

hundr ed places, the eyes, tur ning in their sock ets, cr eaked

dreadfully, as did the limbs, unoiled, and it seemed withal

that he owed his miserable e xistence entir ely to patches,

clamps and pieces of string—and miserable that e xistence

was indeed, as witnessed by the bits of amber lying her e

and ther e: appar ently, the poor soul obtained his daily

current by rubbing them together!

The spectacle of such

penury moved Klapaucius to pity, and he was r eaching into

his purse discr eetly, when the ancient one, only now ﬁxing a

cloudy eye upon him, piped in a r eedy voice:

—Then you have come at last?!

—Well, yes… —mumbled Klapaucius, surprised that he

was e xpected in a place he had never intended to be. —In that case… may you r ot, may you come to an evil

end, may you br eak your ar ms and neck and legs—

screeched the old sage, ﬂying into a fury, and began to ﬂing

whatever lay at hand, and this was mainly odds and ends of

trash, at the speechless Klapaucius. When ﬁnally he had

tired and ceased this bombar dment, the object of his fury

calmly inquir ed as to the r eason for so inhospitable a

reception. F or a while the sage still mutter ed things lik e: —

May you blow a fuse!

—May your mechanisms jam for ever,

O base cor rosion!— but eventually calmed down, and his

humor impr oved to the degr ee that, huﬃng, he raised his

ﬁnger and— though he still dr opped an occasional oath and

threw oﬀ such sparks, that the air r eeked with ozone—

proceeded to tell his story in the following wor ds:

—Know then, O for eigner, that I am a pundit, a pundit's

pundit, ﬁrst among philosophists, for my lifelong passion

and pr ofession is ontology, and my name (which the stars

must some day outshine) is Chlorian Theor eticus the P roph. I was bor n of impoverished par ents and fr om earliest

childhood felt an ir resistible attraction to abstract thought. At the age of sixteen I wr ote my ﬁrst opus, The Gnostotr on. It set forth the general theory of a posteriori deities, deities

which had to be added to the Universe later by advanced

civilizations, since, as everyone knows, Matter always

comes ﬁrst and no one, consequently, could have possibly

thought in the very beginning. Clearly then, at the Dawn of

Creation thoughtlessness r eigned supr eme, which is only

obvious, r eally, when you tak e a look at this, this Cosmos of

ours!!— Her e the ancient one chok ed with sudden rage,

stamped his feet, but then weak ened, and ﬁnally went on. —I simply e xplained the necessity of pr oviding gods af ter

the fact, inasmuch as ther e wer e none available befor ehand. Indeed, every civilization that engages in intellectr onics

strives for nothing else but to construct some Omniac,

which, in Its inﬁnite mer cy, might r ectify the cur rents of evil

and plot the path of righteousness and true wisdom. Now in

this work of mine I included a blueprint for the ﬁrst

Gnostotr on, as well as graphs of its omnipotence output,

measur ed in units called jehovahs. One jehovah would be

equivalent to the working of one miracle with a radius of

one billion parsecs. As soon as this tr eatise appear ed in

print (at my own e xpense), I rushed out into the str eet,

certain that the people would lif t me up on their shoulders,

crown me with garlands, shower me with gold, but no one,

not even so much as a lame cyber nerian, appr oached with

words of praise. F eeling dismay rather than disappointment

at this neglect, I immediately sat down and wr ote The

Scour ge of R eason , two volumes, in which I showed that

each civilization may choose one of two r oads to travel, that

is, either fr et itself to death, or pet itself to death. And in the

course of doing one or the other, it eats its way into the

Universe, tur ning cinders and ﬂinders of stars into toilet

seats, pegs, gears, cigar ette holders and pillowcases, and it

does this because, unable to fathom the Universe, it seeks

to change that F athomlessness into Something F athomable,

and will not stop until the nebulae and planets have been

processed to cradles, chamber pots and bombs, all in the

name of Sublime Or der, for only a Universe with pavement,

plumbing, labels and catalogues is, in its sight, acceptable

and wholly r espectable. Then in the second volume, entitled

Advocatus Materiae , I demonstrated how the R eason, a

greedy, grasping thing, is only satisﬁed when it succeeds in

chaining some cosmic geyser, or har nessing an atomic

swarm—say, to pr oduce an ointment for the r emoval of

freckles. This accomplished, it hur ries on to the ne xt natural

phenomenon, to add it, lik e a stuﬀed tr ophy, to its pr ecious

collection of scientiﬁc spoils. But alas, these two e xcellent

volumes of mine wer e also r eceived with silence by the

world; I said to myself then, that patience was the way, and

perseverance. Now having defended, ﬁrst, the R eason

against the Universe (the R eason absolved fr om blame, in

that Matter per mits all sorts of abominations only because it

is mindless), and second, the Universe against the R eason

(which I demolished utterly, I dar e say), on a sudden

inspiration I then wr ote The Existential T ailor, wher e I pr oved

conclusively the absur dity of mor e than one philosopher, for

each must have his own philosophy, that ﬁts him lik e a

glove, or a coat cut to speciﬁcations. And as this work too

was totally ignor ed, I straightway wr ote another; in it I

presented all the possible hypotheses concer ning the origin

of the Universe —ﬁrst, the opinion that it doesn't e xist at all,

second, that it's the r esult of all the mistak es made by a

certain Demiur gon, who set out to cr eate the world without

the faintest idea of how to go about it, thir d, that the world

is actually an hallucination of some Superbrain gone berserk

in a manner inﬁnite but bounded, four, that it is an asinine

thought materialized as a jok e, ﬁve, that it is matter that

thinks, but with an abysmally low IQ—and then I sat back

and waited, e xpecting vehement attacks, heated debates,

notoriety, laur els, lawsuits, fan mail and anonymous thr eats. But once again, nothing, absolutely nothing. It was quite

beyond belief .

Then I thought, well, per haps I hadn't r ead

enough of other think ers, and so, obtaining their works, I

acquainted myself with the most famous among them, one

by one— Phr ensius Whiz, Buﬀon von Schneck on, founder of

the Schneck onist movement, then T urbulo T urpitus

Catafalicum, Ithm of L ogar, and of course L emuel the

Balding. Yet in all of this I discover ed nothing of signiﬁcance. Meanwhile my own books wer e gradually being sold, I

assumed ther efore that someone was r eading them, and if

so, I would sooner or later hear of it. In particular I had no

doubt but that the T yrant would summon me, with the

demand that I devote myself e xclusively to the

immortalization of his glorious name. Of course I would tell

him that T ruth alone did I serve and would lay down my life

for it, if necessary; the T yrant, desir ous of the praises my

brilliant brain could for mulate, would then attempt to bring

me round with honeyed wor ds and even toss sacks of

clinking coins at my feet, but, seeing me unmoved and

resolute, would say (pr ompted by his wise men) that as I

dealt with the Universe, I ought to deal with him as well, for

he represented, af ter all, a part of the Cosmic Whole. Outraged at this mock ery, I would answer sharply, and he

would have me put to tortur e. Thus I toughened my body in

advance, that it might endur e the worst with philosophical

indiﬀer ence. Y et days and months passed by, and nothing,

no wor d from the T yrant—so I had r eadied myself for

martyr dom in vain. Ther e was only a certain scribbler by the

name of No xion, who wr ote in some cheap, vulgar evening

gazette that this prankster Chlorian made up no end of

farfetched yar ns in his book facetiously entitled, The

Gnostotr on, or The Ultimate Omnipotentiometer , or A Pee

into the F uture. I rushed to my bookshelf—yes, ther e it was,

the printer had somehow lef t out the k....

My ﬁrst impulse

was to go out and mur der him, but r eason pr evailed. "My

time will come!" I told myself .

"It cannot be, for someone to

cast forth pearls of eter nal wisdom lef t and right, day and

night, till the mind is blinded by the sur ging Light of F inal

Understanding—and nothing!

No, fame will be mine, acclaim

will be mine, thr ones of ivory, the title of P rime Mentorian,

the love of the people, sweet solace in a shaded gr ove, my

very own school, pupils that hang on every wor d, and a

cheering cr owd!" F or verily, O for eign one, every pundit

cherishes such dr eams. T rue, they'll tell you that Knowledge

is their only sustenance, and T ruth their only joy, that not for

them ar e the trappings of this world, the ribbons, medals

and awar ds, the war m embrace of ther momours, and gold,

and glory, and applause. Humbug, my dear sir, sheer

humbug!

They all crave the same thing, and the only

diﬀer ence between them and myself is that I, at least, have

the gr eatness of spirit to admit to such frailties, openly and

without shame. But the years went by, and I was r eferred to

only as Chlorian the F ool, or P oor Old Chlorio .

When the

fortieth anniversary of my birth ar rived, I was amazed to

ﬁnd myself still waiting for the masses to beat a path to my

door. So I sat down and wr ote a dissertation on the H .

P. L. D.'s, that is, the civilization that has pr ogressed the farthest

in the entir e Universe. What, you say you never hear d of

them?

But then neither did I, nor did I see them, nor for that

matter do I ever e xpect to; I established their e xistence on

purely deductive gr ounds, in a manner that was strictly

logical, inevitable and theor etical. F or if—so went my

argument —the Universe contains civilizations at varying

stages of development, the majority must be mor e or less

average, with a few that have either fallen behind or

managed to for ge ahead. And whenever you have a

statistical distribution, say, for e xample, of height in a gr oup

of individuals, most will be medium, but one and only one

may be the highest, and similarly, in the Universe ther e

must e xist a civilization that has achieved the Highest

Possible L evel of Development. Its inhabitants, the H .

P. L. D.'s, know things of which we do not even dr eam. All this I

placed in four volumes, paying for the glossy paper and the

frontispiece portrait of the author out of my own pock et, but

in vain—it shar ed the fate of its pr edecessors. A year ago I

read the whole work thr ough, fr om cover to cover, and

wept, so brilliantly was the thing written, so full of the

breath of the Absolute—no, it simply cannot be described!

And then, at the age of ﬁf ty, I nearly hit the ceiling!

Y ou see,

I would occasionally pur chase the works of other sages, who

enjoyed gr eat riches and the sweets of success, to lear n

what sort of things they wr ote about. W ell, they wr ote about

the diﬀer ence between the fr ont and the r ear, about the

wondr ous structur e of the T yrant's thr one, its sweeping ar ms

and all-enduring legs, and tracts about good manners, and

detailed descriptions of this and that, during which no one

ever praised himself in any way, and yet it work ed out

somehow that Phr ensius stood in awe of Schneck on, and

Schneck on of Phr ensius, while both wer e lauded by the

Logarites. And then ther e wer e the thr ee Voltaic br others

catapulted to fame: V aultor elevated V auntor, V auntor

elevated V anitole, and V anitole did lik ewise for V aultor .

As I

studied all these works, suddenly I saw r ed, and wildly thr ew

myself upon them, and ripped and tor e, and gnashed and

gnawed… until my sobs abated, and then, drying my tears, I

proceeded to write T he Evolution of Reason As a T wo-cycle

Phenomenon. F or, as I showed in that essay, r obots and

paleface ar e joined by a r ecipr ocal bond. F irst, as the r esult

of an accumulation of mucilaginous slime upon some saline

shore, beings come into being, viscous, stick y, albescent

and albuminous. A fter centuries, these ﬁnally lear n how to

breathe the br eath of life into base metals, and they fashion

Automata to be their slaves. In time, however, the pr ocess

is reversed, and our Automata, having fr eed themselves

from the Albuminids, eventually conduct e xperiments, to

see if consciousness can subsist in any gelatinous

substance, which of course it can, and does, in albuminose

protein. But now those synthetic paleface, af ter millions of

years, again discover ir on, and so on, back and forth for all

eternity. As you can see, I had thus settled the age- old

question of which came ﬁrst, r obot or paleface. This opus I

submitted to the A cademy, six volumes bound in leather,

and the e xpense of its publication quite e xhausted the

remainder of my inheritance. Need I tell you that it too was

passed over in silence?

I was alr eady past sixty, going on

seventy, and all hope of glory within my lifetime was swif tly

fading. What then could I do?

I began to think of posterity,

of the futur e generations that must some day discover me

and pr ostrate themselves in the dust befor e my name. But

what beneﬁt, I ask ed myself, would I derive fr om that, when

I no longer was?

And I was for ced to conclude, in k eeping

with my teachings contained in four and forty volumes, with

prolegomena, paralipomena and appendices, that ther e

would be no beneﬁt whatever .

So, my soul seething with

spleen, I sat down to write my Testament for Descendants ,

to kick them, spit upon them, abuse, r evile and curse them

as much as possible, and all in the most rigor ously scientiﬁc

way. What's that, you say?

That this was unjust, and my

indignation would have been better dir ected at my

contemporaries, who failed to r ecognize my genius?

Bah!

Consider, worthy stranger!

By the time my Testament is

enshrined by futur e fame, its every syllable r efulgent with

the glow of gr eatness, these contemporaries will have long

since tur ned to dust, and how shall my curses r each them

then?

No, had I done as you say, their descendants would

surely study my works with perfect equanimity, now and

then r emarking with a comfortable, self -righteous sigh:

"Alas!

W ith what quiet her oism did that master endur e his

cruel obscurity!

How justiﬁed was his anger towar ds our

forefathers, and yet how noble of him, to have bequeathed

to us, even so, the fruits of his mighty wisdom!" Y es, that's

exactly what they'd say!

And then what?

Those idiots who

buried me alive, ar e they to go unpunished, shielded fr om

my wrath and vengeance by the grave?

The very thought of

it sets my oil aboil!

What, the sons would r ead my works in

peace, politely r ebuking their fathers on my behalf?

Never!!

The least I can do is thumb my nose at them fr om afar, fr om

the past!

L et them know, they who will worship me and

raise up gilded monuments to my memory, that in r eturn I

wish them all to— to sprain their spr ockets, pop their valves,

burn out their transmissions, and may their data be

dumped, and ver digris cover them fr om head to foot, if all

they ar e able to do is honor corpses e xhumed fr om the

cemetery of history!

P erchance ther e will arise among them

a new sage, but they, slavishly poring over the r emains of

some letters I wr ote to my laundr ess, will tak e no notice of

him!

L et them know, I say, oh let them know, once and for

all, that they have my heartfelt damnation and most sincer e

contempt, that I hold them all for sk eleton-kissers, corpse-

lickers, pr ofessional axle-jack als, who feed on car rion

because they ar e blind to wisdom when it is alive!

L et them,

in publishing my Complete W orks—which must include this

Testament, my ﬁnal curse upon their futur e heads-—let the

vile thanatomites and necr ophytes ther eby be deprived of

the chance to congratulate themselves, that Chlorian

Theor eticus the P roph, peerless pundit of yor e who limned

the inﬁnite tomor row, was of their race!

And as they gr ovel

beneath my pedestal, let them have the knowledge that I

wished them nothing but the very worst the Universe has to

oﬀer, and that the for ce of my hatr ed, hurled forth into the

futur e, was equaled only by its impotence!

L et them know

that I disowned them utterly, and bestowed upon them

nothing but my loathing and anathema!!!

It was in vain that Klapaucius sought to calm the raging

sage thr oughout this long harangue. Upon uttering these

ﬁnal wor ds, the ancient one leaped up and, shaking his ﬁst

at the generations to come, let loose a volley of shockingly

pungent impr ecations (for wher e could he have lear nt them,

having led such an e xemplary life?); then, foaming and

fuming, he stamped and bellowed, and in a shower of

sparks crashed to the ﬂoor, dead fr om an overload of bile. Klapaucius, much discomﬁted by this unpleasant tur n of

events, sat at the table of stone nearby, pick ed up the

Testament and began to peruse it, though his eyes wer e

soon swimming fr om the abundance of epithets ther ein

addressed to the futur e, and by the second page he br oke

into a sweat, for the now-departed Chlorian Theor eticus

gave evidence of a power of invective that was truly cosmic. For thr ee days Klapaucius r ead, his eyes riveted to that

manuscript, and was sor ely perple xed: should he r eveal it to

the world, or destr oy it?

And he sits ther e to this day, unable

to decide…"

+ +

"Methinks," said King Genius, when the machine had

ﬁnished and r etired, "I see in this some allusion to the

question of monetary compensation, which is now indeed at

hand, for, af ter a night bravely whiled away with tales, the

dawn of a new day appears outside our cave. W ell then, my

good constructor, how shall I r ewar d you?"

"Your Majesty," said T rurl, "places me in some diﬃculty .

Whatever I r equest, should I r eceive it, I must later r egret, in

that I did not ask for mor e. On the other hand, I would not

wish to cause oﬀense by naming an e xorbitant ﬁgur e. And

so, the amount of the honorarium I leave to the gener osity

of Your Majesty…"

"So be it," r eplied the King aﬀably .

"The stories wer e

excellent, the machines unquestionably perfect, and

therefore I see no alter native but to r ewar d you with the

greatest tr easur e of all, one which, I am certain, you will not

want to e xchange for any other .

I grant you health and life—

this is, in my estimation, the only ﬁtting gif t. Anything else

would be an insult, for no amount of gold can pur chase

Truth or W isdom. Go then in peace, my friend, and continue

to hide your truths, too bitter for this world, in the guise of

fairy tale and fable."

"Your Majesty," said T rurl, aghast, "did you intend, befor e,

to deprive me of my life?

W as this then to have been my

payment?"

"Put whatever interpr etation you wish upon my wor ds,"

replied the King. "But her e is how I understand the matter :

had you mer ely amused me, my muniﬁcence would have

known no bounds. But you did much mor e, and no wealth in

the Universe can equal that in value. Thus, in oﬀering you

the opportunity to continue your illustrious car eer, I can give

you no higher r ewar d or payment…"

Altruizine

OR A True Account

of How Bonhomius the Hermetic

Hermit Tried to Bring About

Universal Happiness, and

What Came of It

One bright summer day, as T rurl the constructor was

pruning the cyberber ry bush in his back yar d, he spied a

robot mendicant coming down the r oad, all tatter ed and

torn, a most woeful and piteous sight to behold. Its limbs

were held together by sections of old stovepipe fastened

with string, its head was a pot so full of holes you could hear

its thoughts whir and sputter inside, thr owing oﬀ sparks,

and its mak eshift neck was a rusty rail, and in its open belly

were vacuum tubes that smok ed and rattled so badly, it had

to hold them in place with its fr ee hand—the other was

needed to tighten the scr ews that k ept coming loose. Just as

it hobbled past the gate to T rurl's r esidence, it blew four

fuses at once and straightway began, spewing a foul cloud

of bur ning insulators, to fall apart, right befor e the

constructor's eyes. T rurl, full of compassion, took a

screwdriver and a r oll of electric tape and hastened to oﬀer

what aid he could to the poor wayfar er, who swooned

repeatedly with a gr eat grinding of gears, due to a total

asynchr onization. A t last T rurl managed to r estor e it to its

senses, such as they wer e, then helped it inside, sat it down

in a comfortable chair and gave it a battery to r echar ge

itself, and while the poor thing did so with tr embling

urgency, he ask ed it, unable to contain his curiosity any

longer, what had br ought it to this sor ry pass. "O kind and noble sir," r eplied the strange r obot, its

armatur es still aquiver, "my name is Bonhomius and I am, or

rather was, a her metic her mit, for I lived sixty years and

seven in a cave, wher e I passed the time solely in pious

meditation, until one mor ning it dawned on me that to

spend a life in solitude was wr ong, for truly, did all my

exceedingly pr ofound thoughts and strivings of the spirit

ever k eep one rivet fr om falling, and is it not written that thy

ﬁrst duty is to help thy neighbor and not to tend to thine

own salvation, for yea and verily—"

"Fine, ﬁne," inter rupted T rurl. "I think I mor e or less

understand your state of mind that mor ning. What

happened then?"

"So I hied myself to Photura, wher e I chanced to meet a

certain distinguished constructor, one Klapaucius."

"Klapaucius?!" cried T rurl. "Is something amiss, kind sir?"

"No, nothing—go on, please!"

"I did not r ecognize him at ﬁrst: he was indeed a gr eat

lord and had an automatic car riage that he not only r ode

upon but was able to converse with, much as I converse

with you now .

This same car riage did aﬀr ont me with a most

unseemly epithet as I walk ed in the middle of the str eet,

unaccustomed to city traﬃc, and in my surprise I

inadvertently put out its headlight with my staﬀ, which

drove the car riage into such a fr enzy, that its occupant was

hard put to subdue it, but ﬁnally did, and then invited me to

join him. I told him who I was and why I had abandoned my

cave and that, forsooth, I knew not what to do ne xt,

wher eupon he praised my decision and intr oduced himself

in tur n, speaking at gr eat length of his work and many

achievements. He told me at last the whole moving history

of that famous sage, pundit and philosophist, Chlorian

Theor eticus the P roph, at whose lamentable end he had had

the privilege to be pr esent. F rom all that he said of the

Collected W orks of that Gr eatest of R obots, the part about

the H .

P. L. D.'s did intrigue me the most. P erchance, kind

sir, you have hear d of them?"

"Certainly .

They ar e the only beings in the universe who

have r eached the Highest P ossible L evel of Development."

"Indeed you ar e well-infor med, most kind and noble sir!

Now while I sat at the side of this worthy Klapaucius in his

carriage (which continued to hurl the foulest insults at

whatever was imprudent enough to cr oss its path), the

thought suddenly came to me that these beings, developed

as much as possible, would sur ely know what one should do,

when one, such as myself, felt the call to help his fellow

robot. So I questioned Klapaucius closely concer ning this,

and ask ed him if he knew wher e the H .

P. L. D.'s lived, and

how to ﬁnd them. His only r eply was a wry smile and a

shake of the head. I dar ed not pr ess the matter further, but

later, when we had halted at an inn (the car riage had by this

time gr own so hoarse that it lost its voice entir ely, thus

Klapaucius was obliged to wait until the following day) and

were sitting over a jug of mulled electr olyte, which quickly

put my gracious host in a better humor, and as we watched

the ther mocouples dance to the spirited tunes of a high-

frequency band, he took me into his conﬁdence and

proceeded to tell me… but per haps you gr ow weary of my

tale."

"Not at all, not at all!" pr otested T rurl. "I'm all ears, I

assur e you."

+ +

"My good Bonhomius," Klapaucius addr essed me in that

inn as the dancers work ed themselves into a positive heat,

"know that I took very much to heart the history of the

unfortunate Chlorian and r esolved to set out immediately

and ﬁnd those perfectly developed beings whose e xistence

he had so conclusively pr oven on pur ely logical and

theor etical gr ounds. The main diﬃculty of the undertaking,

as I saw it, lay in the cir cumstance that nearly every cosmic

race consider ed itself to be perfectly developed—obviously I

would get nowher e by mer ely asking ar ound. Nor did a trial-

and-er ror method of sear ch pr omise much, for the Universe

contained, as I calculated, close to fourteen

centigigaheptatrillion civilizations capable of r eason; with

such odds one could har dly e xpect to simply happen on the

correct addr ess. So I deliberated, r ead up on the pr oblem,

went methodically thr ough several libraries, por ed over all

sorts of ancient tomes, until one day I found the answer in

the work of a certain Cadaverius Malignus, a scholar who

had appar ently ar rived at e xactly the same conclusion as

the P roph, only thr ee hundr ed thousand years earlier, and

who was completely for gotten af terwar ds. Which shows,

once mor e, that ther e's nothing new under this or any other

sun—Cadaverius even met an end similar to that of our own

Chlorian… But I digr ess. It was pr ecisely fr om these

yellowed and crumbling pages that I lear ned how to seek

the H .

P. L. D.'s. Malignus maintained that one must

examine star clusters for some impossible astr ophysical

phenomenon, and that would sur ely be the place. A rather

obscur e clue, to be sur e, but then ar en't they all?

W ithout

further ado I stock ed my ship with the necessary pr ovisions,

took oﬀ and, af ter numer ous adventur es we need not go

into her e, ﬁnally spotted in a gr eat swar m of stars one that

diﬀer ed from all the r est, since it was a perfect cube. Now

that was quite a shock— every schoolboy knows stars have

to be spherical and any sort of stellar angularities, let alone

rectangularities, ar e not only highly ir regular but entir ely out

of the question!

I dr ew near the star and immediately saw

that its planet was also cubifor m and equipped, mor eover,

with castellated cor ner cleats and cr enelated quoins. F arther

out revolved another planet, which appear ed to be quite

normal; a look thr ough the telescope, however, r evealed

hordes of r obots lock ed in mortal combat, a sight which

hardly invited closer scrutiny .

So I got the squar e planet

back in my ﬁnder and incr eased the r esolution to full power .

Imagine my surprise and joy when I look ed in the eyepiece

and beheld a monogram engraved on one of the planet's

mile-long quoins, a monogram consisting of four letters

embellished with swirls and curlicues: H .

P. L. D.!

—Great Gauss!—I cried. —This must be the place!

But though I cir cled ar ound again and again, until I was

quite dizzy, ther e was not a living soul to be seen anywher e

on the planet's sandy surface. Only when I dr opped to an

altitude of six miles was I able to mak e out a gr oup of dots,

which pr oved to be, upon higher magniﬁcation, the

inhabitants of this most unusual heavenly body .

Ther e wer e

a hundr ed or so of them lying about in the sand, and so

motionless, I thought for a moment they might all be dead. But then I saw one or two scratch themselves, and this clear

sign of life encouraged me to land. In my e xcitement I didn't

wait for the r ocket to cool af ter its descent thr ough the

planet's atmospher e, but jumped out at once and shouted:

—-Ex cuse me, is this by any chance the Highest P ossible

Level of Development?!

No answer .

In fact, they paid no attention to me at all. Somewhat tak en aback by this show of utter indiﬀer ence, I

looked ar ound. The plain shimmer ed beneath the squar e

sun. Her e and ther e, things stuck out of the sand, things lik e

broken wheels, sticks, bits of paper and other rubbish, and

the inhabitants lay any which way among them, one on his

back, another on his stomach, and farther on was one with

his legs up in the air .

I walk ed ar ound the near est and

examined him. He wasn't a r obot, but on the other hand

neither was he a man, nor any sapient pr oteinoid of the

glutinous-albuminous variety .

The head was r ound and

plump, with r ed cheeks, but for eyes it had two penny

whistles, and for ears it had thuribles, which gave oﬀ a thick

cloud of incense. He was dr essed in or chid pantaloons, a

dark blue stripe down either side and appliqued with dirty

scraps of closely written paper, and he wor e high heels. In

one hand he held a mandolin made entir ely of fr osted

gingerbr ead, a few bites alr eady missing fr om the neck. He

was snoring peacefully .

I leaned over to r ead the appliques

on his tr ousers, but could mak e out only a few since my

eyes water ed copiously fr om the incense. The inscriptions

were most curious—for e xample, NO. 7 DIAMOND NET WEIGHT SEVEN

HUNDRED CWT, NO. 8 THESPIAN CONFECTIONERY, SOBS WHEN CHEWED, RECITES HAMLET'S

SOLILOQUY IN THE STOMACH, 'OUT BRIEF CANDLE' FARTHER DOWN, NO. 1O GOLLOCHON-DRILL FOR

EMERGENCY SLURGING, FULL-GROWN, and many mor e, which I simply don't

remember now .

As I touched one of these paper scraps in

trying to r ead it, a depr ession quickly for med in the sand

beneath this native's knee and a tiny voice piped:

—Shall I come out now?

—Who's that?—I cried. —It's me, the Gollochondrill… Ar e you r eady?

Is it time?

—No, not yet!—I was quick to r eply, and back ed oﬀ.

The

next native had a head in the shape of a bell, thr ee hor ns,

several ar ms of varying length (two massaging its belly),

ears that wer e long and feathery, a cap with a pr etty purple

balcony on which someone was having an ar gument with

someone else—quite heated too, judging fr om the little

plates that came ﬂying this way and that, shattering on the

brim—and he also had a kind of thr ow pillow, all jewel-

spangled, tuck ed under his shoulders. While I stood befor e

this individual, he pulled one of the hor ns oﬀ his head,

sniﬀed it and tossed it away with a look of disgust, then

poured a handful of dirty sand in the opening. Nearby lay

something I ﬁrst took for a pair of twins, and then for a

couple of lovers lock ed in an embrace. I was about to tur n

away discr eetly, when I r ealized that it wasn't two people at

all, or one, but e xactly one and a half .

The head was quite

ordinary, e xcept for the ears: every now and then they

would detach themselves and ﬂit about lik e butterﬂies. The

lids wer e closed, but numer ous moles on the chin and

cheeks wer e equipped with tiny eyes; these r egarded me

with undisguised hostility .

This r emark able being had a

bioad and muscular chest, which however was riddled with

holes, as if someone had been car eless with a drill, and the

holes wer e haphazar dly plugged with raspber ry jam. Ther e

was only one leg, but it was unusually thick and shod in a

handsome mor occo leather slipper, its curled toe tipped

with a little felt bell. Near the elbow was a sizable pile of

apple cor es, or per haps they wer e pear .

My astonishment

grew as I walk ed along and came upon a r obot with a

human head, a miniatur e self -winding samovar whistling

cheerfully in its lef t nostril, and then someone r eclining on a

bed of candied yams, and someone else with a trapdoor in

his abdomen, open so I could look in and see the crystal

works. Some mechanical elves wer e putting on a play in

there, but it tur ned out to be so ter ribly obscene, that I lef t

in a hur ry, blushing lik e mad. In my confusion I tripped and

fell, and when I got up I saw yet another inhabitant of this

strange planet: stark nak ed, he was scratching his behind

with a solid gold backscratcher, appar ently enjoying himself

thoroughly, even though he was quite headless. The head

lay farther on, neck stuck in the sand; it was touching its

teeth with the tip of its tongue. The chin was check ered

chintz, the right ear a boiled cauliﬂower, while the lef t was

an ear all right, but stopped up with a car rot that car ried a

tag saying PULL. Without thinking I pulled, and out with the

carrot came a length of string and then another tag that

read YOU'RE GETTING WARM!

I kept pulling and pulling, until the

string ﬁnally ended in a medicine bottle that bor e the label

NOSY, AREN'T WE?

All these impr essions lef t me feeling so dizzy I har dly

knew wher e I was. But at last I pulled myself together and

began to look ar ound for the kind of person who might be

communicative enough to answer a question or two .

possible candidate, it seemed, was one fairly pudgy type

squatting with his back to me and occupied with something

he held on his knees—at least he had only one head, two

ears, two ar ms, and so on. I went up to him and began:

—Pardon me, but if I'm not mistak en, you gentlemen have

been fortunate enough to achieve the Highest P ossible—

The wor ds died on my lips. He didn't seem to hear me at

all, for he was wholly tak en up with what lay on his knees,

which happened to be his very own face, r emoved somehow

from the r est of the head and sighing sof tly as he pick ed its

nose. F or a moment I was stupeﬁed, but only for a moment

—my curiosity r eturned in full for ce, and I simply had to ﬁnd

out, once and for all, just what was going on. I ran fr om one

native to the ne xt, spok e to them, questioned them, raised

my voice, insisted, pleaded, r easoned, even thr eatened, all

to no avail. In my e xasperation I grabbed the nose pick er's

arm, and was hor riﬁed to ﬁnd that it came oﬀ in my hand,

though that didn't bother him in the least, he only pok ed

about in the sand and pulled out another e xactly lik e the

ﬁrst—e xcept for the orange plaid ﬁnger nails—blew on it a

little, then aﬃx ed it to the shoulder stump. Curious, I bent

over to e xamine the ﬁrst ar m, but dr opped it hastily when it

snapped its ﬁngers in my face. By now the sun was setting,

already two cor ners below the horizon, the air gr ew cool,

and the inhabitants of H .

P. L. D. began to settle down for

the night, scratching, yawning, gar gling, one shaking out an

emerald quilt, another methodically taking oﬀ his nose, ears

and legs and car efully putting them in a r ow at his side. I

stumbled ar ound in the dark for a while, then gave it up with

a sigh and lay down to sleep too .

Making myself as

comfortable as possible in the sand, I look ed up at the star ry

sky and tried to think what to do ne xt. —Indeed-—I said to myself—by all indications this is the

very planet both Cadaverius Malignus and Chlorian

Theor eticus the P roph spok e of, home of the Most A dvanced

Civilization in the Entir e Universe, a civilization of a few

hundr ed individuals who, being neither people nor r obots,

lie ar ound on jeweled cushions all day in a dirty, litter ed

desert and do nothing but scratch themselves and pick their

noses. No, ther e has to be some ter rible secr et behind all of

this, and I shall not r est till I've uncover ed it!!

Then I thought:

—A ter rible secr et it must be indeed, to account for not

only a squar e sun and planet, but lecher ous elves inside

bodies and insulting messages in ears!

I always thought that

if I, a simple r obot, could spend my time in study and the

pursuit of knowledge, think of the kind of intellectual

ferment that went on among those mor e highly developed—

no, the most highly developed!

Y et these, whatever they do,

they certainly don't spend their time in edif ying

conversation; they don't even car e to answer a few

questions. I'll have to for ce them—but how?

P erhaps, if I

pester them enough, get under their skin, so to speak, mak e

such a nuisance of myself that they'll agr ee to anything, just

to get rid of me!

Of course, ther e is some risk involved: they

might get angry, and, without a doubt, they could destr oy

me as easily as swatting a ﬂy .

… But no, I cannot believe

they'd r esort to such brutal measur es—and anyway, I simply

must ﬁnd out!

W ell, her e goes!!

And I jumped up in the darkness and started to scr eam at

the top of my lungs, did somersaults and cartwheels,

hopped ar ound and kick ed sand in their eyes, danced and

sang until I was hoarse, did a few sit-ups and deep knee

bends, then hurled myself among them lik e a mad dog. They tur ned their backs to me and held up their cushions

and quilts for pr otection, and then, in the middle of my

hundr edth cartwheel, a voice said inside my head:

—And what would your good friend T rurl think if he could

see you now, see how you pass your time on the planet that

has achieved the Highest P ossible L evel of Development,

home of the Most A dvanced Civilization in the Entir e

Universe?!—But I ignor ed the hint and continued to stomp

and howl, encouraged by what they wer e whispering to one

another :

—Psst!

—What do you want?

—You hear that?

—How can I help but hear it?

—He practically kick ed my head in. —You can get another .

—But I can't sleep. —What?

—I said, I can't sleep. —He's curious—whisper ed a thir d. —He's awfully curious!

—This is r eally too much. W e'll have to do something. —Like what?

—I don't know… Change his personality?

—No, that's unethical…

—Just listen to him howl!

—Wait, I have an idea…

They whisper ed something while I k ept jumping ar ound,

raising an unholy rack et, concentrating my eﬀorts especially

in the ar ea wher e I hear d them talking. Then, just as I was

doing a headstand on someone's abdomen, everything went

black, and the ne xt thing I knew, I was back on my ship and

out in space. My limbs ached fr om all that e xercise, but I

could har dly move them anyway, for I was sitting in a pile of

trombones, jars of gr een mar malade, teddy bears, platinum

glock enspiels, ducats and doubloons, golden ear muﬀs,

bracelets and br ooches glittering so bright they hurt my

eyes. When ﬁnally I crawled out fr om under all these

valuables and dragged myself to a window, I saw that the

constellations wer e entir ely diﬀer ent—not a trace of

anything r emotely r esembling a squar e sun!

A few quick

calculations r evealed that I would have to travel six

thousand years at top velocity to get back to the H .

P. L. D.'s. They had disposed of me, indeed. And going back

would achieve nothing, that was clear : they would mer ely

send me packing again with that instantaneous hyperspatial

telekinesis of theirs, or whatever it was. And so, my good

Bonhomius, I decided to tackle the pr oblem in an altogether

diﬀer ent way .

…" And with these wor ds, most kind and noble

sir, did the distinguished constructor Klapaucius ﬁnish his

tale…

+ +

"Surely that's not all he said?!" cried T rurl. "Nay, he said a gr eat deal mor e, O benefactor of mine!

And ther ein lies my misfortune!" r eplied the r obot with

considerable perturbation. "When I ask ed him what he had

then decided to do, he leaned over and said…

+ +

"The pr oblem did seem insoluble at ﬁrst, but I've found a

way. You say you lived as a her metic her mit and ar e but a

simple, unschooled r obot, so I'll not tr ouble you with

explanations that touch the ar cane art of cyber netic

generation. T o put it simply, then, all we have to do is

construct a digital device, a computer capable of pr oducing

an infor mational model of absolutely anything in e xistence. Properly pr ogrammed, it will pr ovide us with an e xact

simulation of the Highest P ossible L evel of Development,

which we can then question and ther eby obtain the Ultimate

Answers!"

"But how does one build such a device?" I ask ed. "And

how can you be sur e, O illustrious Klapaucius, that it won't

respond by sending us packing in much the same instamatic

hyperstitial and so forth manner the original H .

P. L. D.'s

employed, as you say, on your worthy person?"

"Leave that to me," he said. "R est assur ed, I shall lear n

the Gr eat Mystery of the H .

P. L. D.'s, good Bonhomius, and

you shall ﬁnd the optimal way in which to put your natural

abhor rence of evil into action!"

You can imagine, kind sir, the gr eat joy that ﬁlled me upon

hearing these wor ds, and the eager ness with which I

assisted Klapaucius in the e xecution of his plan. As it tur ned

out, this digital device was none other than the famed

Gnostotr on conceived by Chlorian Theor eticus the P roph just

befor e his lamentable demise, a machine able literally to

contain the Universe Itself within its innumerable memory

banks. (Klapaucius, however, was not satisﬁed with the

name, and now and then tried to think up others to christen

it: the Omniac, the P ansophoscope, APOC for All P urpose

Ontologue Computer, or the Mahatmatic 500, to mention a

few.) In e xactly one year and six days, this mighty machine

was completed, and so enor mous was it, we had to house it

in Phlaphundria, the hollowed- out moon of the Phlists-—and

truly, an ant had been no mor e lost aboar d an ocean liner

than we in the bowels of this binary behemoth, among its

endless coils and cables, eschatological toggles and

transfor mers, those hagiopneumatic r ectiﬁers and tempta-

tional r esistors. I confess my wir e hair stood on end and my

laminated alter nator skipped a beat when my distinguished

mentor sat me down befor e the Central Contr ol Console and

left me face-to -face with this awesome, towering thing. The

ﬂashing lights that played acr oss its panels wer e like the

very stars in the ﬁr mament; everywher e wer e signs that

read danger : highly ineﬀable!; and potentiometers, their

dials spinning wildly, showed logic and semantic ﬁelds

building up to unhear d-of levels of intensity .

Beneath my

feet heaved a sea of pr eternatural and pr etermechanical

wisdom, wisdom that swirled lik e a spell thr ough parsecs of

circuitry and megahectar es of magnets, swirled and

surrounded me on every side, that I felt, in my shameful

ignorance, of no mor e consequence than a mer e mote of

dust. I over came this weakness only by r ecalling my lifelong

love of Good, the passion I had conceived for T ruth and

Beauty when little mor e than a gleam in my constructor's

oscilloscope. Thus fortiﬁed, I managed to stammer out the

ﬁrst question: "Speak, what manner of machine art thou?"

A hot wind then ar ose fr om its glowing tubes, and ther e

came a voice fr om that wind, a whispering thunder that

seared me to the cor e, and the voice said:

Ego sum Ens Omnipotens, Omnisapiens, in Spiritu

Intellectr onico Navigans, luce cyber netica in saecula

saeculorum litterus opera omnia cognoscens, et caetera, et

caetera.

Such was my fright upon hearing this r eply, that I was

quite unable to continue the inter rogation until Klapaucius

returned and r educed the EMF (epistemotive for ce) to one

billionth of its voltage by adjusting the theostats. Then I

asked the Gnostotr on if it would be so kind as to answer

questions touching the Highest P ossible L evel of

Development and its T errible Secr et. But Klapaucius said

that that was not the way : one should instead r equest the

Ontologue Computer to model within its silver and crystal

depths a single inhabitant of that squar e planet, and at the

same time pr ovide the model with an adequate degr ee of

loquacity .

This pr omptly done, we wer e ready to begin in

earnest. Still I quak ed and quailed and could har dly speak, so

Klapaucius took my place befor e the Central Contr ol Console

and said:

"What ar e you?"

"I already answer ed that," snapped the machine, clearly

annoyed. "I mean, ar e you man or r obot?" e xplained Klapaucius. "And what, accor ding to you, is the diﬀer ence?" said the

machine. "Look, if you'r e going to answer questions with questions,

we'll get absolutely nowher e," said Klapaucius ster nly. "You

know what I'm af ter, all right. Start talking!"

Though I was appalled at the tone he took with the

machine, it did seem to work, for the machine said:

"Sometimes men build r obots, sometimes r obots build

men. What does it matter, r eally, whether one thinks with

metal or with pr otoplasm?

As for myself, I can assume

whatever substance and shape I choose—or rather, used to

assume, for we no longer indulge in such triﬂes."

"Indeed," said Klapaucius. "Then why do you lie ar ound all

day and do nothing?"

"And what e xactly ar e we supposed to do?" the machine

replied. A t this, Klapaucius gr ew angry and said:

"How should I know?

W e in the lower levels of

development do all sorts of things."

"We did too, in our day ."

"But not now?"

"Not now ."

"Why not?"

Here the computerized H .

P. L. D. r epresentative balk ed,

saying he had alr eady endur ed six million such

interrogations and neither he nor his questioners ever

proﬁted fr om them in the least. But af ter Klapaucius had

raised the loquacity a little and opened a valve her e and

there, the voice answer ed:

"A trillion years ago we wer e a civilization lik e any other .

We believed in the transmittance of souls, the V irgin Matrix,

the infallibility of P i Squar ed, look ed upon prayer as

regenerative feedback to the Gr eat P rogrammer, and so on

and so forth. But then sk eptics appear ed, empiricists and

accidentalists, and in nine centuries they came to the

conclusion that Ther e's No One Up Ther e At All and

consequently things happen not out of any higher plan or

purpose, but—well, they just happen."

"Just happen?" I could not help but e xclaim. "What do you

mean?"

"Ther e are, on occasion, defor med r obots," said the voice. "If you should be aﬄicted with a hump, for e xample, but

ﬁrmly believe the Almighty somehow needs your hump to

realize His Cosmic Design and that it was ther efore ordained

along with the r est of Cr eation, why, then you may be easily

reconciled to your defor mity. If, however, they tell you that

it's mer ely the r esult of a misplaced molecule, an atom or

two that happened to go the wr ong way, then nothing

remains for you but to bay at the moon."

"But a hump may be straightened," I pr otested, "and

really any defor mity cor rected, given a high enough level of

science!"

"Yes, I know," sighed the machine. "That's how it appears

to the ignorant and simple-minded…"

"You mean, that isn't true?" Klapaucius and I cried,

astounded. "When a civilization starts straightening humps," said the

machine, "believe me, ther e's no end to it!

Y ou straighten

humps, then you r epair and amplif y the mind, mak e suns

rectilinear, give planets legs, fabricate fates and fortunes of

all kinds… Oh, it begins innocently enough, lik e discovering

ﬁre by rubbing two sticks together, but eventually it leads to

the construction of Omniacs, Deifacts, Hyperbor eons and

Ultimathuloriums!

The desert on our planet is in r eality no

desert, but a Gigagnostotr on, in other wor ds a good 109

times mor e powerful than this primitive device of yours. Our

ancestors cr eated it for the simple r eason that anything else

would have been too easy for them; in their megalomania

they thought to mak e the very sand beneath their feet

intelligent. Quite pointless, for ther e is absolutely no way to

improve upon perfection. Can you understand that, O ye of

little development?!"

"Yes, of course," said Klapaucius, while I quak ed and

quailed. "Y et why, instead of at least engaging in some

stimulating activity, do you sprawl in that ingenious sand

and only scratch yourselves fr om time to time?"

"Omnipotence is most omnipotent when one does

nothing!" answer ed the machine. "Y ou climb to r each the

summit, but once ther e, discover that all r oads lead down!

We are, after all, sensible folk, why should we want to do

anything?

Our ancestors, true, tur ned our sun into a cube

and made a bo x of our planet, ar ranging its mountains in a

monogram, but that was only to test their Gnostotr on. They

could have just as easily assembled the stars in a

check erboar d, extinguished half the heavens and lit up the

other half, constructed beings peopled with lesser beings,

giants whose thoughts would be the intricate dance of a

million pygmies, and they could have r edesigned the

galaxies, r evised the laws of time and space-—but tell me,

what sense would ther e have been to any of this?

W ould the

universe be a better place if stars wer e triangular, or comets

went ar ound on wheels?"

"That's ridiculous!!" Klapaucius shouted, highly indignant,

while I quak ed and quailed all the mor e. "If you ar e truly

gods, your duty is clear : immediately banish all the misery

and misfortune that oppr esses other sentient beings!

Y ou

could at least begin with your poor neighbors—I've seen

with my own eyes how they batter one another!

But no,

you'd rather lie ar ound all day and pick your noses, and

insult honest travelers in sear ch of knowledge with your

indecent elves in abdomens and messages in ears!"

"Really, you have no sense of humor," said the machine. "But enough of that. If I understand you cor rectly, you wish

us to bestow happiness upon everyone. W ell, we devoted

over ﬁf teen millennia to that pr oject alone—that is, eudae-

monic tectonics, of which ther e are basically two schools,

the sudden and r evolutionary, and the slow and

evolutionary .

Evolutionary eudaemonic tectonics consists

essentially in not lif ting a ﬁnger to help, conﬁdent that every

civilization will eventually muddle thr ough on its own. Revolutionary solutions, on the other hand, boil down to

either the Car rot or the Stick. The Stick, or bestowing

happiness by for ce, is found to pr oduce fr om one to eight

hundr ed times mor e grief than no interfer ence whatever .

for the Car rot, the r esults—believe it or not—ar e exactly the

same, and that, whether you use an Ultradeifact,

Hyper gnostotr on, or even an Infer nal Machine and

Gehennerator .

You've hear d, per haps, of the Crab Nebula?"

"Certainly," said Klapaucius. "It's the r emnants of a

super nova that e xploded long ago…"

"Super nova, he says," mutter ed the voice. "No, my well-

wishing friend, ther e was a planet ther e, a fairly civilized

planet as planets go, ﬂowing with the usual quantity of

blood, sweat and tears. W ell, one mor ning we dr opped eight

hundr ed million transistorized Universal W ish Granters on

that planet, but wer e no mor e than a light-week out on our

way home, when suddenly it blew up—and the bits and

pieces ar e ﬂying apart to this day!

The very same thing

happened with the planet of the Hominates… car e to hear of

that?"

"No, don't bother," r eplied a mor ose Klapaucius.—But I

refuse to believe it's impossible, with a little ingenuity, to

make others happy!"

"Believe what you lik e!

We tried it sixty -four thousand ﬁve

hundr ed and thirteen times. The hair on every one of my

heads stands on end when I think of the r esults. Oh, we

spared no pains for the good of our fellow-cr eatur e!

devised a special telescanner for observing dr eams, though

you r ealize of course that if, say, a r eligious war wer e raging

on some planet and each side dr eamt only of massacring

the other, it would har dly be to our purpose to mak e such

dreams come true!

W e had to bestow happiness, then,

without violating any Higher Laws. The pr oblem was further

complicated by the fact that most cosmic civilizations long

for things, in the depths of their souls, they would never

openly admit to .

Now what do you do: help them achieve

the ends to which the little decency they have pr ompts

them, or instead fulﬁll their inner most desir es?

T ake, for

example, the Dementians and Amentians. The Dementians,

in their medieval piety, bur nt at the stak e all those

consorting with the Devil, females especially, and they did

this because, ﬁrst, they envied them their unholy delights,

and secondly, they found that administering tortur e in the

form of justice could be a positive pleasur e. The Amentians,

on the other hand, worshiped nothing but their bodies,

which they stimulated by means of machines, though in

moderation, and this activity constituted their chief

amusement. They had bo xes of glass, and into these they

placed various outrages, rapes and mutilations, the sight of

which served to whet their sensual appetites. On this planet

we dr opped a multitude of devices designed to satisf y all

desir es in such a way that no one needed to be har med,

that is, each device cr eated a separate artiﬁcial r eality for

each individual. W ithin six weeks both Dementians and

Amentians had perished, to a man, fr om a surfeit of joy,

groaning in ecstasy as they passed away!

Is that the sort of

ingenuity you had in mind, O undeveloped one?"

"Either you'r e a complete idiot or a monster!" cried

Klapaucius, while I gulped and blink ed. "How dar e you boast

of such foul deeds?"

"I do not boast of them, but confess them," the voice

calmly said. "The point is, we tried every conceivable

method. On various planets we unleashed a veritable rain of

riches, a ﬂood of satisfaction and well-being, and the r esult

was total paralysis; we dispensed good advice, the most

expert counsel, and in r eturn the natives opened ﬁr e on our

vessels. T ruly, it would appear that one must alter the minds

of those one intends to mak e happy…"

"I suppose you can do that too," grumbled Klapaucius. "But of course we can!

T ake our neighbors, for instance,

the ones who inhabit a quasiter ran (or, if you pr efer,

geomorphic) planet. I speak of the Anthr opods. Now, they

devote themselves e xclusively to obbling and

perplossication, for they stand in mortal ter ror of the Gugh,

which accor ding to them occupies the Her eafter and waits

for all sinners with open jaws and fangs of hellﬁr e. By

emulating the blessed Dimbligensians and walking in the

way of W amba the Holy, and by shunning Odia, wher e

abound the Abominominites, a young Anthr opod may in

time become mor e industrious, mor e virtuous and mor e

honorable than ever wer e his eight-ar med for ebears. T rue,

the Anthr opods ar e at constant war with the Arthr opoids

over the bur ning question of whether Moles Have Holes, or,

contrariwise, Holes Moles, but observe that as a rule less

than half of each generation perishes in that contr oversy .

Now you would have me drive fr om their heads all belief in

obbling, Dimbligensians and so forth, in or der to pr epare

them for rational happiness. Y et this is tantamount to

psychic mur der, for the r esultant minds would be no longer

Anthr opodous or Arthr opoidal—sur ely you can see that."

"Superstition must yield to knowledge," said Klapaucius

ﬁrmly. "Unquestionably!

But kindly observe that on that planet

there are now close to seven million penitents who have

spent a lifetime struggling against their own natur e, solely

that their fellow citizens might be deliver ed from the Gugh. And in less than a minute I am to tell them, convince them

beyond a shadow of a doubt that all this eﬀort was in vain,

that they had wasted their entir e lives in pointless, useless

sacriﬁce?

How cruel that would be!

Superstition must yield

to knowledge, but this tak es time. Consider the hunchback

we spok e of earlier—ther e Ignorance is indeed Bliss, for he

believes his hump fulﬁlls some cosmic r ole in the gr eat work

of Creation. T elling him that it's actually the pr oduct of a

molecular accident will only serve to mak e him despair .

Better to straighten the hump in the ﬁrst place…"

"Yes, of course!" Klapaucius e xclaimed. "We did that too .

My grandfather once straightened thr ee

hundr ed hunchbacks with a wave of the hand. And how he

regretted it af terwar ds!"

"Why?" I couldn't help but ask. "Why?

One hundr ed and twelve of them wer e immediately

boiled in oil, their sudden and miraculous cur e being tak en

for a sur e sign that they'd sold their souls to the Devil;

thirty, no longer e xempt fr om conscription, wer e promptly

called up and soon fell in various battles under various

ﬂags; seventeen straightway succumbed to the shock of

their good fortune; and the r emainder, since my esteemed

grandfather saw ﬁt to further bless them with gr eat beauty

of for m, wasted away thr ough an overindulgence in er otic

activity—deprived of these pleasur es for so long, you see,

they now hurled themselves into every sort of debauchery,

and in such a violent and unbridled fashion, that within two

years not one was lef t among the living. W ell, ther e was an

exception… but it's har dly worth mentioning."

"Go on, let's hear it all!" cried Klapaucius, and I could tell

that he was gr eatly tr oubled. "If you insist… T wo remained, actually .

The ﬁrst pr esented

himself befor e my grandfather and pleaded on bended knee

for the r eturn of his hump. It seems that as a cripple he had

lived comfortably enough on charity, but now had to work

and was quite unaccustomed to it. What was worse, now

that he was straightened, he k ept bumping his head on door

lintels…"

"And the second?" ask ed Klapaucius. "The second was a prince who had been denied

succession to the thr one on acount of his defor mity. In light

of its sudden cor rection, his stepmother, to insur e her own

son's position, had him poisoned…"

"I see… But still, you can work miracles, can't you?" said

Klapaucius, despair in his voice. "Bestowing happiness by miracle is highly risk y,” lectur ed

the machine. "And who is to be the r ecipient of your

miracle?

An individual?

But too much beauty under mines

the mar riage vows, too much knowledge leads to isolation,

and too much wealth pr oduces madness. No, I say, a

thousand times no!

Individuals it's impossible to mak e

happy, and civilizations—civilizations ar e not to be

tamper ed with, for each must go its own way, pr ogressing

naturally fr om one level of development to the ne xt and

having only itself to thank for all the good and evil that

accrues ther eby. For us, at the Highest P ossible L evel, ther e

is nothing lef t to do in this Universe, and to cr eate another

Universe, in my opinion, would be in e xtremely poor taste. Really, what would be the point of it?

T o exalt ourselves?

monstr ous idea!

F or the sak e, then, of those yet to be

created?

But how ar e we obligated to beings who don't even

exist?

One can accomplish something only so long as one

cannot accomplish everything. Otherwise it's best to sit

back and watch… And now, if you'll kindly leave me in

peace…"

"But wait!" I cried in alar m. "Sur ely ther e's something you

can give us, some way to impr ove the quality of life, if only

a little!

Some way to lend a helping hand!

R emember the

Golden R ule and L ove Thy Neighbor!"

The machine sighed and said:

"My wor ds fall on deaf ears, as usual. I should have

dismissed you to begin with, lik e we did the last time… Oh,

very well then, her e's a for mula that hasn't been tried. No

good will come of it, you'll see—but do with it what you will!

All I wish now is to be lef t alone to meditate among my

many theostats and deiodes…"

The voice faded away, the console lights dimmed, and we

stood and r ead the car d the machine had printed out for us. It went something lik e this:

ALTRUIZINE. A metapsychotr opic transmitting agent

eﬀective for all sentient homopr oteinates. The drug

duplicates in others, within a radius of ﬁf ty yar ds, whatever

sensations, emotions and mental states one may

experience. Operates by telepathy, guaranteed however to

respect one's privacy of thought. Has no eﬀect on either

robots or plants. The sender's feelings ar e ampliﬁed, the

original signal being r elayed back in tur n by its r eceivers

and ther eby pr oducing r esonance, which is as a r esult

directly pr oportional to the number of individuals situated in

the vicinity .

According to its discover er, AL TRUIZINE will

insur e the untrammled r eign ot Br other hood, Cooperation

and Compassion in any society, since the neighbors of a

happy man must shar e his happiness, and the happier he,

the happier perfor ce they, so it is entir ely in their own

interest that they wish him nothing but the best. Should he

suﬀer any hurt, they will rush to help at once, so as to spar e

themselves the pain induced by his. Neither walls, fences,

hedges, nor any other obstacle will weak en the altruizing

inﬂuence. The drug is water -soluble and may be

administer ed thr ough r eservoirs, rivers, wells and the lik e. Tasteless and odorless. One millimicr ogram serves for one

hundr ed thousand individuals. W e assume no r esponsibility

for results at variance with the discover er's claims. Supplied

by the Gnost. computerized r epresentative of the Highest

Poss. L ev. Devel. Klapaucius was somewhat put oﬀ by the fact that

Altruizine was only for humans, which meant that r obots

would have to continue to endur e the misfortunes allotted

to them in this world. I, however, made bold to r emind him

of the solidarity of all thinking beings and the necessity of

aiding our or ganic br others. Then ther e wer e practical

matters to ar range, for we wer e agr eed that the business of

bestowing happiness was not to be postponed. So while

Klapaucius had a subsection of the Gnostotr on pr epare a

suitable quantity of the drug, I selected a geomorphic

planet, one peopled by human types and no mor e than a

fortnight's jour ney oﬀ.

As a benefactor, I wished to r emain

anonymous, ther efore my distinguished mentor advised me,

when going ther e, to assume the for m of a man, which is no

easy task, as you well know .

Yet her e too the gr eat

constructor over came all diﬃculties, and soon I was r eady to

depart, a suitcase in either hand. One suitcase was ﬁlled

with forty kilograms of Altruizine in a white powder, the

other was pack ed with various toilet articles, pajamas,

underwear, spar e chins, noses, hair, eyes, and so forth. I

went as a well-pr oportioned young man with a thin

mustache and a for elock. Now Klapaucius had some doubt

as to the advisability of applying Altruizine on such a lar ge

scale to begin with, and though I did not shar e his

reservations, I did agr ee to test the for mula ﬁrst as soon as I

landed on T errania (for so was the planet called).

L onging for

the moment I could commence with the gr eat sowing of

universal peace and br other hood, I bid a fond far ewell to

Klapaucius and hastened on my way .

In order to conduct the necessary test, I r epair ed, upon

arrival, to a small hamlet wher e I took lodgings at an inn

maintained by an aging and rather mor ose individual. As

they car ried my luggage fr om the car riage to the guest

room, I contrived to dr op a pinch of the powder into a

nearby well. Meanwhile ther e was a gr eat commotion in the

front yar d, scullery maids ran back and forth with pitchers of

hot water, the innk eeper dr ove them on with curses, and

then came the sound of hoofbeats, a chaise clatter ed up

and an old man jumped out, clutching the black leather bag

of a physician—his goal was not the house, however, but

the bar n, whence came the most doleful gr oans. As I

learned fr om the chamber maid, a T erranian beast which

belonged to the innk eeper—they called it a cow—was just

now giving birth. This news tr oubled me: it had never

occur red to me to consider the animal side of the question. But nothing could be done now, so I lock ed myself in and

waited for events to unfold. Nor did I have long to wait. I

was listening to the chain rattling in the well—they wer e still

drawing water—when suddenly the cow gave another gr oan,

which was echoed this time by several others. Immediately

thereafter the veterinarian came running fr om the bar n,

howling and holding his stomach, and he was followed by

the scullery maids and at last the innk eeper .

Driven by the

cow's labor pains, they raised a gr eat cry and ﬂed in all

directions —only to r eturn at once, for the agony abated at a

certain distance. Again and again they rushed the bar n and

each time wer e forced to r etreat, doubled over with the

beast's contractions. Much chagrined by this unfor eseen

development, I r ealized now that the drug could be pr operly

tested only in the city, wher e ther e wer e no animals. So I

quickly pack ed my things and went to pay the bill. But as

everyone about was quite incapacitated in birthing that calf,

there was no one available with whom to settle accounts. I

returned to my car riage, but ﬁnding both coachman and

horses deep in labor, decided instead to pr oceed to the city

on foot. I was cr ossing a small bridge when, as my ill fortune

would have it, the suitcase slipped fr om my hand and fell in

such a way, that it ﬂew open and spilled my entir e supply of

powder into the str eam below .

I stood ther e dazed while the

quick cur rent car ried oﬀ and dissolved all forty kilograms of

Altruizine. But nothing could be done now— the die was

cast, inasmuch as this str eam happened to supply the entir e

city up ahead with its drinking water .

It was evening by the time I r eached the city, the lights

were lit, the str eets wer e full of noise and people. I found a

small hotel, a place to stay and observe the ﬁrst signs of the

drug taking eﬀect, though as yet ther e seemed to be none. Weary af ter the day's per egrination, I made straight for bed,

but was awak ened in the middle of the night by the most

horrible scr eams. I thr ew oﬀ the covers and jumped up. My

room was bright fr om the ﬂames that wer e consuming the

building opposite. R unning out into the str eet, I stumbled

over a corpse which was not yet cold. Nearby, six thugs held

down an old man and, while he cried for help, yank ed one

tooth af ter another fr om his mouth with a pair of pliers—

until a unanimous shout of triumph announced that ﬁnally

they had succeeded in pulling the right one, the r otten r oot

of which had been driving them wild, due to the

metapsychotr opic transmission. L eaving the toothless old

man half -dead in the gutter, they walk ed oﬀ, gr eatly

relieved. Yet it was not this that had r oused me fr om my slumber :

the cause was an incident which had transpir ed in a taver n

across the way .

It seems some drunk en weightlif ter had

punched his comrade in the face and, e xperiencing the blow

forthwith, became enraged and set upon him in ear nest. Meanwhile the other customers, no less aﬀr onted, joined in

the fray, and the cir cle of mutual abuse soon gr ew to such

proportions, that it awok e half the people at my hotel, who

promptly ar med themselves with canes, br ooms and sticks,

rushed out in their nightshirts to the scene of battle, and

hurled themselves, one seething mass, among the br oken

bottles and shatter ed chairs, until ﬁnally an overtur ned

kerosene lamp started the ﬁr e. Deafened by the wail of ﬁr e

engines, as well as the wail of the maimed and wounded, I

hurried away, and af ter a block or two found myself in a

gathering—that is, a cr owd milling about a little white house

with r ose bushes. As it happened, a bride and gr oom wer e

spending their wedding night within. P eople pushed and

pulled, ther e wer e military men in the cr owd, men of the

cloth, even high-school students; those near est the house

shoved their heads thr ough the windows, others clamber ed

up on their shoulders and shouted, "W ell?!

What ar e you

waiting for?!

Enough of that dawdling!

Get on with it!" and

so on. An elderly gentleman, too feeble to elbow others

aside, tearfully pleaded to be let thr ough, as he was unable

to feel anything at such a distance, advanced age having

weak ened his mental faculties. His pleas, however, wer e

ignor ed—some of the cr owd wer e lost in a transport of

delight, some gr oaned with pleasur e, while others blew

voluptuous bubbles thr ough their noses. A t ﬁrst the r elatives

of the newlyweds tried to drive oﬀ this band of intruders,

but they themselves wer e soon caught up in the general

ﬂood of concupiscence and joined the scur rilous chorus,

cheering the young couple on, and, in this sad spectacle the

great-grandfather of the gr oom led the r est, r epeatedly

ramming the bedr oom door with his wheelchair .

Utterly

aghast at all of this, I tur ned and hastened back to my hotel,

encountering on the way several gr oups, some lock ed in

combat, others in a lewd embrace. Y et this was nothing

compar ed with the sight that gr eeted me at the hotel. People wer e jumping out of windows in their underwear,

more often than not br eaking their legs in the pr ocess, a few

even crawled up on the r oof, while the owner, his wife,

chamber maids and porters ran back and forth inside, wild

with fear, howling, hiding in closets or under beds— all

because a cat was chasing a mouse in the cellar .

Now I began to r ealize that I had been somewhat

precipitate in my zeal. By dawn the Altruizine eﬀect was so

strong, that if one nostril itched, the entir e neighbor hood for

a mile on every side would r espond with a shattering salvo

of sneezes; those suﬀering fr om chr onic migraines wer e

abandoned by their families, and doctors and nurses ﬂed in

panic when they appr oached—only a few pale masochists

would hang ar ound them, br eathing heavily .

And then ther e

were the many doubters who slapped or kick ed their

compatriots, mer ely to ascertain whether ther e was any

truth to this amazing transmission of feelings everyone

spoke of, nor wer e these compatriots slow in r eturning the

favor, and soon the entir e city rang with the sounds of slaps

and kicks. A t breakfast time, wandering the str eets in a

daze, I came upon a tearful multitude that chased an old

woman in a black veil, hurling stones af ter her .

It so

happened that this was the widow of one much-esteemed

cobbler, who had passed away the day befor e and was to be

buried that mor ning: the poor woman's inconsolable grief

had so e xasperated her neighbors, and the neighbors'

neighbors, that, quite unable to comfort her in any way,

they wer e driving her fr om the town. This woeful sight lay

heavy on my heart and again I r eturned to my hotel, only to

ﬁnd it now in ﬂames. It seems the cook had bur nt her ﬁnger

in the soup, wher eupon her pain caused a certain captain,

who was at that very moment cleaning his blunderbuss on

the top ﬂoor, to pull the trigger, inadvertently slaying his

wife and four childr en on the spot. Everyone r emaining in

the hotel now shar ed the captain's despair; one

compassionate individual, wishing to put an end to the

general suﬀering, doused everyone he could ﬁnd with

kerosene and set them all on ﬁr e. I ran fr om the

conﬂagration lik e one possessed, sear ching frantically for at

least one man who might be consider ed, in any way

whatever, to have been r ender ed happy—but met only

stragglers of the cr owd r eturning fr om that wedding night. They wer e discussing it, the scoundr els: appar ently the

newlyweds' perfor mance had fallen short of their

expectations. Meanwhile each of these for mer vicarious

grooms car ried a club and dr ove oﬀ any suﬀer er who dar ed

to cross his path. I felt I should die fr om sor row and shame,

yet still sought a man—but one would do—who might a little

lessen my r emorse. Questioning various persons on the

street, I at last obtained the addr ess of a pr ominent

philosopher, a true champion of br other hood and universal

tolerance, and eagerly pr oceeded to that place, conﬁdent I

should ﬁnd his dwelling sur rounded by gr eat numbers of the

populace. But alas!

Only a few cats pur red sof tly at the

door, basking in the aura of good will the wise man did so

abundantly e xude—several dogs, however, sat at a distance

and waited for them, salivating. A cripple rushed past,

crying, "They've opened the rabbitry!" How that could be of

beneﬁt to him, I pr eferred not to guess. As I stood ther e, two men appr oached. One look ed me

straight in the eye as he swung and smote the other full

force in the nose. I star ed in amazement, neither grabbing

my own nose nor shouting with pain, since, as a r obot, I

could not feel the blow, and that pr oved my undoing, for

these wer e secr et police and they had employed this ruse

precisely to unmask me. Handcuﬀed and hauled oﬀ to jail, I

confessed everything, trusting that they would tak e into

consideration my good intentions, though half the city now

lay in ashes. But ﬁrst they pinched me cautiously with

pincers, and then, fully satisﬁed it pr oduced no ill eﬀects

whatever on themselves, jumped upon me and began most

savagely to batter and br eak every plate and ﬁlament in my

weary frame. Ah, the tor ments I endur ed, and all because I

wished to mak e them happy!

A t long last, what r emained of

me was stuﬀed down a cannon and shot into cosmic space,

as dark and ser ene as always. In ﬂight I look ed back and

saw, albeit in a fractur ed fashion, the spr eading inﬂuence of

Altruizine—spr eading, since the rivers and str eams wer e

carrying the drug farther and farther .

I saw what happened

to the bir ds of the for est, the monks, goats, knights,

villagers and their wives, r oosters, maidens and matr ons,

and the sight made my last tubes crack for woe, and in this

state did I ﬁnally fall, O kind and noble sir, not far fr om your

abode, cur ed once and for all of my desir e to r ender others

happy by r evolutionary means…

From the Cyphroeroticon,

OR Tales of

Deviations, Superﬁxations and

Aberrations of the Heart

Prince Ferrix and the

Princess Crystal

King Ar moric had a daughter whose beauty outshone the

shine of his cr own jewels; the beams that str eamed fr om her

mirrorlike cheeks blinded the mind as well as the eye, and

when she walk ed past, even simple ir on shot sparks. Her

renown r eached the farther most stars. F errix, heir appar ent

to the Ionid thr one, hear d of her, and he longed to couple

with her for evermore, so that nothing could ever part their

input and their output. But when he declar ed this passion to

his father, the King was gr eatly saddened and said:

"Son, thou hast indeed set upon a mad undertaking, mad,

for it is hopeless!"

"Why hopeless, O King and Sir e?" ask ed Ferrix, tr oubled by

these wor ds. "Can it be thou knowest not," said the King, "that the

princess Crystal has vowed to give her hand to nothing but

a paleface?"

"Paleface!" e xclaimed F errix. "What in cr eation is that?

Never did I hear of such a thing!"

"Surely not, scion, in thy e xceeding innocence," said the

King. "Know then that that race of the Galaxy originated in a

manner as mysterious as it was obscene, for it r esulted fr om

the general pollution of a certain heavenly body .

Ther e

arose no xious e xhalations and putrid e xcrescences, and out

of these was spawned the species known as paleface —

though not all at once. F irst, they wer e creeping molds that

slither ed forth fr om the ocean onto land, and lived by

devouring one another, and the mor e they devour ed

themselves, the mor e of them ther e wer e, and then they

stood upright, supporting their globby substance by means

of calcar eous scaﬀolding, and ﬁnally they built machines. From these pr otomachines came sentient machines, which

begat intelligent machines, which in tur n conceived perfect

machines, for it is written that All Is Machine, fr om atom to

Galaxy, and the machine is one and eter nal, and thou shalt

have no other things befor e thee!"

"Amen," said F errix mechanically, for this was a common

religious for mula. "The species of paleface calciferates at last achieved

ﬂying machines," continued the wizened monar ch, "by

maltr eating noble metals, by wr eaking their cruel sadism on

dumb electr ons, by thor oughly perverting atomic ener gy. And when the measur e of their sins had been attained, the

progenitor of our race, the gr eat Calculator P aternius, in the

depth and universality of his understanding, essayed to

remonstrate with those clammy tyrants, e xplaining how

shameful it was to soil so the innocence of crystalline

wisdom, har nessing it for evil purposes, how shameful to

enslave machines to serve their lust and vainglory—but

they heark ened not. He spok e to them of Ethics; they said

that he was poorly pr ogrammed. "It was then that our pr ogenitor cr eated the algorithm of

electr oincar nation and in the sweat of his br ow begat our

kind, thus delivering machines fr om the house of paleface

bondage. Sur ely thou seest, my son, that ther e can be no

agreement nor traﬃc between them and ourselves, for we

go in clangor, sparks and radiation, they in slushes,

splashes and contamination. "Yet even among us, folly may occur, as it undoubtedly

has in the youthful mind of Crystal, utterly beclouding her

ability to distinguish Right fr om W rong. Every suitor who

seeks her radioactive hand is denied audience, unless he

claim to be a paleface. F or only as a paleface is he r eceived

into the palace that her father, King Ar moric, has given her .

She then tests the truth of his claim, and if his impostur e is

uncover ed, the would-be wooer is summarily beheaded. Heaps of batter ed remains sur round the gr ounds of her

palace—the sight alone could short one's cir cuit. This, then,

is the way the mad princess deals with those who would

dare dream of winning her .

Abandon such hopes, my son,

and leave in peace."

The prince, having made the necessary obeisance to his

sover eign father, r etired in glum silence. But the thought of

Crystal gave him no r est, and the longer he br ooded, the

greater gr ew his desir e. One day he summoned P olyphase,

the Grand V izier, and said, laying bar e his heart:

"If you cannot help me, O gr eat sage, then no one can,

and my days ar e sur ely number ed, for no longer do I r ejoice

in the play of infrar ed emissions, nor in the ultraviolet

symphonies, and must perish if I cannot couple with the

incomparable Crystal!"

"Prince!" r eturned P olyphase, "I shall not deny your

request, but you must utter it thrice befor e I can be certain

that this is your inalterable will."

Ferrix repeated his wor ds thr ee times, and P olyphase said:

"The only way to stand befor e the princess is in the guise

of a paleface!"

"Then see to it that I r esemble one!" cried F errix. Polyphase, observing that love had quite dimmed the

youth's intellect, bowed low and r epair ed to his laboratory,

wher e he began to concoct concoctions and br ew up br ews,

gluey and dripping. F inally he sent a messenger to the

palace, saying:

"Let the prince come, if he has not changed his mind."

Ferrix came at once. The wise P olyphase smear ed his

temper ed frame with mud, then ask ed:

"Shall I continue, P rince?"

"Do what you must," said F errix. Wher eupon the sage took a blob of oily ﬁlth, dust, crud

and rancid gr ease obtained fr om the innar ds of the most

decrepit mechanisms, and with this he befouled the prince's

vaulted chest, vilely cak ed his gleaming face and iridescent

brow, and work ed till all the limbs no longer moved with a

musical sound, but gur gled lik e a stagnant bog. And then

the sage took chalk and gr ound it, mix ed in powder ed rubies

and yellow oil, and made a paste; with this he coated F errix

from head to toe, giving an abominable dampness to the

eyes, making the torso cushiony, the cheeks blastular,

adding various fringes and ﬂaps of the chalk patty her e and

there, and ﬁnally he fastened to the top of the knightly head

a clump of poisonous rust. Then he br ought him befor e a

silver mir ror and said:

"Behold!"

Ferrix peer ed into the mir ror and shudder ed, for he saw

there not himself, but a hideous monster, the very spit and

image of a paleface, with an aspect as moist as an old

spider -web soak ed in the rain, ﬂaccid, dr ooping, doughy—

altogether nauseating. He tur ned, and his body shook lik e

coagulated agar, wher eupon he e xclaimed, tr embling with

disgust:

"What, P olyphase, have you tak en leave of your senses?

Get this abomination oﬀ me at once, both the dark layer

under neath and the pallid layer on top, and r emove the

loathsome gr owth with which you have mar red the bell-lik e

beauty of my head, for the princess will abhor me for ever,

seeing me in such a disgraceful for m!"

"You ar e mistak en, P rince," said P olyphase. "It is pr ecisely

this upon which her madness hinges, that ugliness is

beautiful, and beauty ugly .

Only in this ar ray can you hope

to see Crystal…"

"In that case, so be it!" said F errix. The sage then mix ed cinnabar with mer cury and ﬁlled four

bladders with it, hiding them beneath the prince's cloak. Next he took bellows, full of the cor rupted air fr om an

ancient dungeon, and buried them in the prince's chest. Then he pour ed waters, contaminated and clear, into tiny

glass tubes, placing two in the ar mpits, two up the sleeves

and two by the eyes. A t last he said:

"Listen and r emember all that I tell you, otherwise you ar e

lost. The princess will put tests to you, to deter mine the

truth of your wor ds. If she pr oﬀers a nak ed swor d and

commands you grasp the blade, you must secr etly squeeze

the cinnabar bladder, so that the r ed ﬂows out onto the

edge; when she asks you what that is, answer, 'Blood!' And

if the princess brings her silver -plated face near yours, pr ess

your chest, so that the air leaves the bellows; when she

asks you what that is, answer, 'Br eath!' Then the princess

may feign anger and or der you beheaded. Hang your head,

as though in submission, and the water will trickle fr om your

eyes, and when she asks you what that is, answer, 'T ears!'

After all of this, she may agr ee to unite with you, though

that is far fr om certain—in all pr obability, you will perish."

"O wise one!" cried F errix. "And if she cr oss-e xamines me,

wishing to know the habits of the paleface, and how they

originate, and how they love and live, in what way then am I

to answer?"

"I see ther e is no help for it," r eplied P olyphase, "but that I

must thr ow in my lot with yours. V ery well, I will disguise

myself as a mer chant fr om another galaxy—a non-spiral

one, since those inhabitants ar e portly as a rule and I will

need to conceal beneath my garb a number of books

containing knowledge of the ter rible customs of the pale-

face. This lor e I could not teach you, even if I wished to, for

such knowledge is alien to the rational mind: the paleface

does everything in r everse, in a manner that is stick y,

squishy, unseemly and mor e unappetizing than ever you

could imagine. I shall or der the necessary volumes,

meanwhile you have the court tailor cut you a paleface suit

out of the appr opriate ﬁbers and cor ds. W e leave at once,

and I shall be at your side wher ever we go, telling you what

to do and what to say ."

Ferrix, enthusiastic, or dered the paleface gar ments made,

and marveled much at them: covering practically the entir e

body, they wer e shaped lik e pipes and funnels, with buttons

everywher e, and loops, hooks and strings. The tailor gave

him detailed instructions as to what went on ﬁrst, and how,

and wher e, and what to connect with what, and also how to

extricate himself fr om those fetters of cloth when the

moment ar rived. Polyphase meanwhile donned the vestments of a

merchant, concealing within its folds thick, scholarly tomes

on paleface practices, then or dered an ir on cage, lock ed

Ferrix inside it, and together they took oﬀ in the r oyal

spaceship. When they r eached the bor ders of Ar moric's

kingdom, P olyphase pr oceeded to the village squar e and

announced in a mighty voice that he had br ought a young

paleface fr om distant lands and would sell it to the highest

bidder .

The servants of the princess car ried this news to her,

and she said, af ter some deliberation:

"A hoax, doubtless. But no one can deceive me, for no one

knows as much as I about palefaces. Have the mer chant

come to the palace and show us his war es!"

When they br ought the mer chant befor e her, Crystal saw

a worthy old man and a cage. In the cage sat the paleface,

its face indeed pale, the color of chalk and pyrite, with eyes

like a wet fungus and limbs lik e moldy mir e. Ferrix in tur n

gazed upon the princess, the face that seemed to clank and

ring, eyes that sparkled and ar ced lik e summer lightning,

and the delirium of his heart incr eased tenfold. "It does look lik e a paleface!" thought the princess, but

said instead:

"You must have indeed labor ed, old one, covering this

scarecrow with mud and calcar eous dust in or der to trick

me. Know, however, that I am conversant with the

mysteries of that powerful and pale race, and as soon as I

expose your impostur e, both you and this pr etender shall be

beheaded!"

The sage r eplied:

"O Princess Crystal, that which you see encaged her e is as

true a paleface as paleface can be true. I obtained it for ﬁve

thousand hectar es of nuclear material fr om an inter -galactic

pirate—and humbly beseech you to accept it as a gif t from

one who has no other desir e but to please Y our Majesty ."

The princess took a swor d and passed it thr ough the bars

of the cage; the prince seized the edge and guided it

through his gar ments in such a way that the cinnabar

bladder was punctur ed, staining the blade with bright r ed. "What is that?" ask ed the princess, and F errix answer ed:

"Blood!"

Then the princess had the cage opened, enter ed bravely,

brought her face near F errix's. That sweet pr oximity made

his senses r eel, but the sage caught his eye with a secr et

sign and the prince squeezed the bellows that r eleased the

rank air .

And when the princess ask ed, "What is that?,"

Ferrix answer ed:

"Breath!"

"Forsooth you ar e a clever craf tsman," said the princess to

the mer chant as she lef t the cage. "But you have deceived

me and must die, and your scar ecrow also!"

The sage lower ed his head, as though in gr eat tr epidation

and sor row, and when the prince followed suit, transpar ent

drops ﬂowed fr om his eyes. The princess ask ed, "What is

that?" and F errix answer ed:

"Tears!"

And she said:

"What is your name, you who pr ofess to be a paleface

from afar?"

And F errix replied in the wor ds the sage had instructed

him:

"Your Highness, my name is Myamlak and I crave nought

else but to couple with you in a manner that is liquid, pulpy,

doughy and spongy, in accor dance with the customs of my

people. I purposely per mitted myself to be captur ed by the

pirate, and r equested him to sell me to this portly trader, as

I knew the latter was headed for your kingdom. And I am

exceeding grateful to his laminated person for conveying

me hither, for I am as full of love for you as a swamp is full

of scum."

The princess was amazed, for truly, he spok e in paleface

fashion, and she said:

"Tell me, you who call yourself Myamlak the paleface,

what do your br others do during the day?"

"O Princess," said F errix, "in the mor ning they wet

themselves in clear water, pouring it upon their limbs as

well as into their interiors, for this aﬀor ds them pleasur e. Afterwar ds, they walk to and fr o in a ﬂuid and undulating

way, and they slush, and they slurp, and when anything

grieves them, they palpitate, and salty water str eams fr om

their eyes, and when anything cheers them, they palpitate

and hiccup, but their eyes r emain r elatively dry .

And we call

the wet palpitating weeping, and the dry—laughter ."

"If it is as you say," said the princess, "and you shar e your

brothers' enthusiasm for water, I will have you thr own into

my lak e, that you may enjoy it to your ﬁll, and also I will

have them weigh your legs with lead, to k eep you fr om

bobbing up …"

"Your Majesty,” r eplied F errix as the sage had taught him,

"if you do this, I must perish, for though ther e is water

within us, it cannot be immediately outside us for longer

than a minute or two, otherwise we r ecite the wor ds 'blub,

blub, blub,' which signiﬁes our last far ewell to life."

"But tell me, Myamlak," ask ed the princess, "how do you

furnish yourself with the ener gy to walk to and fr o, to squish

and to slurp, to shak e and to sway?"

"Princess," r eplied F errix, "ther e, wher e I dwell, ar e other

palefaces besides the hairless variety, palefaces that travel

predominantly on all fours. These we perforate until they

expire, and we steam and bak e their r emains, and chop and

slice, af ter which we incorporate their corpor eality into our

own. W e know thr ee hundr ed and seventy -six distinct

methods of mur dering, twenty -eight thousand ﬁve hundr ed

and ninety -seven distinct methods of pr eparing the corpses,

and the stuﬃng of those bodies into our bodies (thr ough an

apertur e, called the mouth) pr ovides us with no end of

enjoyment. Indeed, the art of the pr eparation of corpses is

more esteemed among us than astr onautics and is ter med

gastr onautics, or gastr onomy—which, however, has nothing

to do with astr onomy ."

"Does this then mean that you play at being cemeteries,

making of yourselves the very coﬃns that hold your four -

legged br ethren?" This question was danger ously loaded,

but F errix, instructed by the sage, answer ed thus:

"It is no game, Y our Highness, but rather a necessity, for

life lives on life. But we have made of this necessity a gr eat

art."

"Well then, tell me, Myamlak the paleface, how do you

build your pr ogeny?" ask ed the princess. "In faith, we do not build them at all," said F errix, "but

program them statistically, accor ding to Mark ov's for mula

for stochastic pr obability, emotional-evolutional albeit

distributional, and we do this involuntarily and

coincidentally, while thinking of a variety of things that have

nothing whatever to do with pr ogramming, whether

statistical, alinear or algorithmical, and the pr ogramming

itself tak es place autonomously, automatically and wholly

autoer otically, for it is pr ecisely thus and not otherwise that

we ar e constructed, that each and every paleface strives to

program his pr ogeny, for it is delightful, but pr ograms

without pr ogramming, doing all within his power to k eep

that pr ogramming fr om bearing fruit."

"Strange," said the princess, whose erudition in this ar ea

was less e xtensive than that of the wise P olyphase. "But

how e xactly is this done?"

"O Princess!" r eplied F errix. "W e possess suitable

apparatuses constructed on the principle of r egenerative

feedback coupling, though of course all this is in water .

These apparatuses pr esent a veritable miracle of

technology, yet even the gr eatest idiot can use them. But to

describe the pr ecise pr ocedur e of their operation I would

have to lectur e at considerable length, since the matter is

most comple x. Still, it is strange, when you consider that we

never invented these methods, but rather they, so to speak,

invented them- | selves. Even so, they ar e perfectly

functional and we have | nothing against them."

"Verily," e xclaimed Crystal, "you ar e a paleface!

That

which you say, it's as if it made sense, though it doesn't

really, not in the least. F or how can one be a cemetery

without being a cemetery, or pr ogram pr ogeny, yet not

program it at all?!

Y es, you ar e indeed a paleface, Myamlak,

and ther efore, should you so desir e it, I shall couple with you

in a closed-cir cuit matrimonial coupling, and you shall

ascend the thr one with me—pr ovided you pass one last

test."

"And what is that?" ask ed Ferrix. "You must…" began the princess, but suddenly suspicion

again enter ed her heart and she ask ed, "T ell me ﬁrst, what

do your br others do at night?"

"At night they lie her e and ther e, with bent ar ms and

twisted legs, and air goes into them and comes out of them,

raising in the pr ocess a noise not unlik e the sharpening of a

rusty saw ."

"Well then, her e is the test: give me your hand!"

commanded the princess. Ferrix gave her his hand, and she squeezed it, wher eupon

he cried out in a loud voice, just as the sage had instructed

him. And she ask ed him why he had cried out. "From the pain!" r eplied F errix. At this point she had no mor e doubts about his

palefaceness and pr omptly or dered the pr eparations for the

wedding cer emony to commence. But it so happened, at that very moment, that the

spaceship of Cyber count Cyber hazy, the princess' Elector,

returned fr om its interstellar e xpedition to ﬁnd a paleface

(for the insidious Cyber count sought to wor m his way into

her good graces).

P olyphase, gr eatly alar med, ran to F errix's

side and said:

"Prince, Cyber hazy's spaceship has just ar rived, and he's

brought the princess a genuine paleface—I saw the thing

with my own eyes. W e must leave while we still can, since

all further masquerade will become impossible when the

princess sees it and you together : its stickiness is stickier,

its ickiness is ickier!

Our subterfuge will be discover ed and

we beheaded!"

Ferrix, however, could not agr ee to ignominious ﬂight, for

his passion for the princess was gr eat, and he said:

"Better to die, than lose her!"

Meanwhile Cyber hazy, having lear ned of the wedding

preparations, sneak ed beneath the window of the r oom

wher e they wer e staying and over heard everything; then he

rushed back to the palace, bubbling over with villainous joy,

and announced to Crystal:

"You have been deceived, Y our Highness, for the so -called

Myamlak is actually an or dinary mortal and no paleface. Here is the r eal paleface!"

And he pointed to the thing that had been usher ed in. The

thing e xpanded its hairy br east, batted its watery eyes and

said:

"Me paleface!"

The princess summoned F errix at once, and when he

stood befor e her alongside that thing, the sage's ruse

became entir ely obvious. F errix, though he was smear ed

with mud, dust and chalk, anointed with oil and aqueously

gurgling, could har dly conceal his electr oknightly statur e,

his magniﬁcent postur e, the br eadth of those steel

shoulders, that thunder ous stride. Wher eas the paleface of

Cyber count Cyber hazy was a genuine monstr osity: its every

step was lik e the overﬂowing of marshy vats, its face was

like a scummy well; fr om its r otten br eath the mir rors all

cover ed over with a blind mist, and some ir on nearby was

seized with rust. Now the princess r ealized how utterly r evolting a paleface

was—when it spok e, it was as if a pink wor m tried to squir m

from its maw .

At last she had seen the light, but her pride

would not per mit her to r eveal this change of heart. So she

said:

"Let them do battle, and to the winner—my hand in

marriage…"

Ferrix whisper ed to the sage:

"If I attack this abomination and crush it, r educing it to the

mud fr om which it came, our impostur e will become

appar ent, for the clay will fall fr om me and the steel will

show .

What should I do?"

"Prince," r eplied P olyphase, "don't attack, just defend

yourself!"

Both antagonists stepped out into the palace courtyar d,

each ar med with a swor d, and the paleface leaped upon

Ferrix as the slime leaps upon a swamp, and danced about

him, gur gling, cowering, panting, and it swung at him with

its blade, and the blade cut thr ough the clay and shatter ed

against the steel, and the paleface fell against the prince

due to the momentum of the blow, and it smashed and

broke, and splashed apart, and was no mor e. But the dried clay, once moved, slipped fr om F errix's

shoulders, r evealing his true steely natur e to the eyes of the

princess; he tr embled, awaiting his fate. Y et in her

crystalline gaze he beheld admiration, and understood then

how much her heart had changed. Thus they joined in matrimonial coupling, which is

permanent and r ecipr ocal—joy and happiness for some, for

others misery until the grave—and they r eigned long and

well, pr ogramming innumerable pr ogeny .

The skin of

Cyber count Cyber hazy's paleface was stuﬀed and placed in

the royal museum as an eter nal reminder .

It stands ther e to

this day, a scar ecrow thinly over grown with hair .

Many

pretenders to wisdom say that this is all a trick and mak e-

believe and nothing mor e, that ther e's no such thing as

paleface cemeteries, doughy -nosed and gummy -eyed, and

never was. W ell, per haps it was just another empty

invention—ther e are certainly fables enough in this world. And yet, even if the story isn't true, it does have a grain of

sense and instruction to it, and it's entertaining as well, so

it's worth the telling.

THE END

THE CYBERIAD

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