The Cyberiad Part 9

And should you ever find it difficult to carry out some royal 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 reply, for 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 aroused the suspicions of the Mult.i.tudian Secret Police and was subjected to the most meticu-lous examination, which revealed no hidden substances in the paper nor, for that matter, ciphers in the drawing of the ca.s.sowary tree-a circ.u.mstance that threw Headquarters into a flurry. The letter was photographed, facsimiled and copied out by hand, then the original was resealed and sent on to its destination. The Adviser read the message with alarm, realizing that this was a move to compromise if not ruin its position, so immediately it told the King of the letter, describing Trurl as a blackguard bent on discrediting it in the eyes of its master; then it tried to decipher the message, for it was convinced those innocent words were a mask concealing something dark and dreadful.

But here the wise Adviser stopped and thought a minute -then informed the King of its intention to decode Trurl's letter, explaining that it wished in this way to unmask the constructor's treachery; then, gathering up the necessary number of tripods, filters, funnels, test tubes and chemical reagents, it began to a.n.a.lyze the paper of both envelope and letter. All of which, of course, the police followed closely, having screwed into the walls of its rooms the usual peeking and eavesdropping devices. When chemistry failed, the Ad-viser turned to crypta.n.a.lysis, converting the text of the letter into long columns of numbers with the aid of electronic calculators and tables of logarithms-unaware that teams of police specialists, headed by the Grand Marshal of Codes himself, were duplicating its every operation. But nothing seemed to work, and Headquarters grew more and more un-easy, for it was clear that any code that could resist such high-powered efforts to break it, had to be one of the most ingenious codes ever devised.

The Grand Marshal spoke of this to a court dignitary, who happened to envy terribly the trust Mandrillion had placed in his Adviser. This dignitary, wanting nothing better than to plant the seeds of doubt in the royal heart, told the King that his mechanical favorite wa.s.sitting up night after night, locked in its room, studying the suspicious letter. The King laughed and said that he was well aware of it, for the Adviser itself had told him. The envious dignitary left in confusion and straightway related this news to the Grand Marshal.

"Oh!" exclaimed that venerable cryptographer. "It actu-ally told the King? What bold-faced treason! And truly, what a fiendish code this must be, for one to dare to speak of it so openly!"

And he ordered his brigades to redouble their efforts. When, however, a week had pa.s.sed without results, the greatest expert in secret writing was called in, the distin-guished discoverer of invisible sign language, Professor Crusticus. That scholar, having examined the incriminating doc-ument as well as the records of everything the military spe-cialists had done, announced that they would have to apply the method of trial and error, using computers with astro-nomical capacities.

This was done, and it turned out that the letter could be read in three hundred and eighteen different ways.

The first five variants were as follows: "The roach from Bakersville arrived in one piece, but the bedpan blew a fuse"; "Roll the locomotive's aunt in cutlets"; "Now the b.u.t.ter 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 "From strawberries under torture one may extract all sorts of things." This last variant Professor Crusticus held to be the key to the code and found, after three hundred thou-sand calculations, that if you added up all the letters of the letter, subtracted the parallax of the sun plus the annual production of umbrellas, and then took the cube root of the remainder, you came up with a single word, "Crusafix." In the telephone book there was a citizen named Crucifax. Crusticus maintained that this alteration of a few letters was merely to throw them off the track, and Crucifax was ar-rested. After a little sixth-degree persuasion, the culprit confessed that he had indeed plotted with Trurl, who was to have sent him poison tacks and a hammer with which to cobble the King to death. These irrefutable proofs of guilt the Grand Marshal of Codes presented to the King without delay; yet Mandrillion so trusted in his Adviser, that he gave it the chance to explain.

The Adviser did not deny that the letter could be read in a variety of ways if one rearranged the letters of the letter; it had itself discovered an additional hundred thousand variants; but this proved nothing, and in fact the letter wasn't even in code, for-the Adviser explained-it was possible to rearrange the letters of absolutely any text to make sense or the semblance of sense, and the result was called an anagram. The theory of permutations and com-binations dealt with such phenomena. No-protested the Adviser-Trurl wanted to compromise and undo it by cre-ating the illusion of a code where none existed, while that poor fellow Crucifax, Lord knows, was innocent, and his confession was wholly the invention of the experts at Headquarters, who possessed no little skill in the art of encourag-ing official cooperation, not to mention interrogation ma-chinery that had a power of several thousand kilowhacks. The King did not take kindly to this criticism of the police and asked the Adviser what it meant by that, but it began to speak of anagrams and steganograms, codes, ciphers, sym-bols, signals, probability and information theory, and be-came so incomprehensible, that the King lost all patience and had it thrown into the deepest dungeon. Just then a postcard arrived from Trurl with the following words: Dear Adviser! Don't forget the purple screws-they might come in handy. Yours, Trurl.Immediately the Adviser was put on the rack, but wouldn't admit to a thing, stubbornly repeating that all this was part of Trurl's scheme; when asked about the purple screws, it swore it hadn't any, nor any knowledge of them. Of course, to conduct a thorough investigation it was neces-sary to open the Adviser up. The King gave his permission, the blacksmiths set to work, its plates gave way beneath their hammers, and soon the King was presented with a couple of tiny screws dripping oil and yes, undeniably painted purple. Thus, though the Adviser had been com-pletely demolished in the process, the King was satisfied he had done the right thing.

A week later, Trurl appeared at the palace gates and re-quested an audience. Amazed at such effrontery, the King, instead of having the constructor slaughtered on the spot, ordered him brought before the royal presence.

"O King!" said Trurl as soon as he entered the great hall with courtiers on every side.

"I fas.h.i.+oned you a Perfect Ad-viser 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 s.h.i.+eld against attack and thereby render fruitless any attempt by me to get revenge. But in giving you an intelligent Adviser, I did not make you your-self intelligent, and it was on this that I counted, for only he who has sense will take advice that makes sense. In no subtle, shrewd or sophisticated way was it possible to destroy the Adviser. I could do this only in a manner that was crude, primitive, and stupid beyond belief. There was no code in the letter; your Adviser remained faithful to the very end; of the purple screws that brought about its demise, it knew nothing. You see, they accidentally fell into a bucket of paint while I was putting it together, and I just happened to recall, and make use of, this detail. Thus did stupidity and suspicion undo wisdom and loyalty, and you were the in-strument of your own downfall. And now you will hand over the one hundred bags of gold you owe me, and another hundred for the time I had to waste recovering them. If you do not, you and your entire court will perish, for no longer do you have at your side the Adviser that could defend you against me!"

The King roared with rage and gestured for the guards to cut down the insolent one at once, but their whistling halberds pa.s.sed through the constructor's body as if it were air, and they jumped back, horrified. Trurl laughed and said: "Chop at me as much as you please-this is only an image produced by remote-control mirrors; in reality I am hover-ing high above your planet in a s.h.i.+p, and will drop terrible death-dealing missiles on the palace unless I have my gold."

And before he had finished speaking, there was a dreadful crash and an explosion rocked the entire palace; the cour-tiers fled in panic, and the King, nearly fainting from shame and fury, had to pay Trurl his fee, every last cent of it, and double.

Klapaucius, hearing of this from Trurl himself upon the latter's return, asked why he had employed such a primitive and-to use his own words-stupid method, when he could have sent a letter that actually did contain some code?

"The presence of a code would have been easier for the Adviser to explain than its absence," replied the wise constructor. "It is always easier to confess that one has done something wrong than to prove that one has not. In this case, the presence of a code would have been a simple mat-ter; its absence, however, led to complications, for it is a fact that any text may be recombined into some other, namely an anagram, and there may be many such recom-binations. Now in order to make all this clear, one would haveto resort to arguments which, though perfectly true, would be somewhat involved-arguments 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: therefore I, seeking to overturn a mind that was perfect, had to find the point of leverage, and this was stupidity."

The first machine ended its story here, bowed low to King Genius and the a.s.sembly of listeners, then modestly retired to a corner of the cave.

The King expressed his satisfaction with this tale and asked Trurl: "Tell us, my good constructor, does the machine relate only what you have taught it, or does the source of its knowl-edge lie outside you? Also, allow me to observe that the story we have heard, instructive and entertaining as it is, seems incomplete, for we know nothing of what happened afterwards to the Mult.i.tudians and their ignorant king."

"Your Majesty," said Trurl, "the machine relates only what is true, since I placed its information pump to my head before coming here, enabling it to draw upon my memories. But this it did itself, so I know not which of my memories it selected, and therefore you could not say that I intention-ally taught it anything, yet neither could you say that the source of its knowledge lay outside me. As for the Multi-tudians, 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 here and now is not reality, but only a tale, a tale of some higher order that contains within it the tale of the machine: a reader might well wonder why you and your companions are shaped like spheres, inasmuch as that sphericality serves no purpose in the narration 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 broad smile: "There is much in what you say. As far as our shape is concerned, I will tell you how this came about. A long, long time ago we looked-that is, our ancestors looked-alto-gether different, for they arose by the will of wet and spongy beings, pale beings that fas.h.i.+oned them after their own im-age and likeness; our ancestors therefore had arms, legs, a head, and a trunk that connected these appendages. But once they had liberated themselves from their creators, they wished to obliterate even this trace of their origin, hence each generation in turn transformed itself, till finally the form of a perfect sphere was attained. And so, whether for good or for bad, we are spheres."

"Your Majesty," said Trurl, "a sphere has both good and bad aspects from the standpoint of construction. But it is always best when an intelligent being cannot alter its own form, for such freedom is truly a torment. He who must be what he is, may curse his fate, but cannot change it; on the other hand, he who can transform himself has no one in the world but himself to blame for his failings, no one but him-self to hold responsible for his dissatisfaction. However, I did not come here, O King, to give you a lecture on the General Theory of Self-construction, but to demonstrate my storytelling machines. Would you care to hear the next?"

The King gave his consent and, having taken some cheer among amphoras full of the finest ion ambergris, the com-pany sat back and made themselves comfortable. The sec-ond machine approached, curtsied to the King and said:"Mighty King! Here is a story, a nest of stories, with cabinets and cupboards, about Trurl the constructor and his wonderfully nonlinear adventures!"

It happened once that the Great Constructor Trurl was summoned by King Thumbscrew the Third, ruler of Tyrannia, who wished to learn from him the means of achieving perfection of both mind and body. Trurl answered in this way: "I once happened to land on the planet Legaria and, as is my custom, stayed at an inn, determined to keep to my room until I had acquainted myself more thoroughly with the history and habits of the Legarians. It was winter, the wind howled outside, and there was no one else in the gloomy building, till suddenly I heard a knocking at the gate. Looking out, I saw four hooded figures unloading heavy black suitcases from an armored carriage; they then entered the inn. The next day, around noon, the most curi-ous sounds came from the neighboring room-whistling, hammering, rasping, the shattering of gla.s.s, and above all this noise there boomed a powerful ba.s.s, shouting without pause: -Faster, sons of vengeance, faster! Drain the elements, use the sieve! Evenly, evenly!

And now the funnel! Pour him out! Fine, now give me that kludge-fudger, that winch-pincher, sprocketmonger, edulcorated data-dumper, that wretched reject of a widgeteer cowardly hiding in the grave! Death itself shall not protect him from our righteous wrath! Hand him over, with his shameless brain and his spindly legs! Take the tongs and pull the nose-more, more, enough to grip for the execution! Work the bellows, brave lads! Into the vise with him! Now rivet that brazen face-and again! Yes, yes, good!

Perfect! Keep it up with that hammer! One-two, one-two! And tighten those nerves-he mustn't faint too quickly, like the one yesterday! Let him taste our vengeance to the fullest! One-two, one-two! Hey! Ha! Ho!

Thus did the voice thunder and roar, and was answered by the rumble of bellows and the clanging of hammers on anvils, when suddenly a sneeze resounded and a great shout of triumph burst forth from four throats, then a shuffling and struggling behind the wall, and I heard a door open. Peering through a crack, I saw the strangers sneaking out into the hall and-incredibly enough-counted five of them. They all went downstairs and locked themselves in the cel-lar, remained there for a long time, returning 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 resolved to get to the bottom of it. The next day at the same time, noon, the hammers started up again, the bellows roared, and that ter-rifying voice cried out in a hoa.r.s.e ba.s.s: -Hey now, sons of vengeance! Faster, my electric heart-ies! Shoulders to the wheel!

Throw in the protons, the io-dine! Step lively now, let's have that flap-eared whigma-leeriac, that would-be hoodwinking wizard, misbegotten mis-creant and incorrigible crank, let me grab him by his un-washed beak and lead him, kicking, to a sure and lingering death! Work those bellows, I say!

And again a sneeze rang out, and a stifled scream, and once again they left the room on tiptoe; as before, I counted five when they went down to the cellar, four when they re-turned. Seeing then that I could learn the mystery only there, I armed myself with a laser pistol, and at the crack of dawn slipped down to the cellar, where I found nothing but charred and mangled bits of metal; covering myself with a clump of straw, I sat in the darkest corner and waited, un-til around noon I heard those now familiar shouts andham-mering sounds, then all at once the door flew open and in walked four Legarians, with a fifth bound hand and foot.

This fifth wore a doublet of old-fas.h.i.+oned cut, bright red and with a frill about the neck, and a feathered cap; he him-self was fat of face and had an enormous nose, while the mouth was twisted in fear and babbled something all the while. The Legarians barred the door and, at a sign from the eldest, untied their prisoner and began to beat him savagely, yelling one after the other: -Take that for the Prophecy of Happiness! And that for the Perfection of Being! And have that for the Bed of Roses, and that for the Bowl of Cherries! And the Clover of Exis-tence! 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 surely would have given up the ghost had I not lifted my weapon from the straw, announcing in this way my presence. When they had released their victim, I asked them why they were 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 Legarians wa-vered and looked longingly at the guns they had left at the door, but when I c.o.c.ked the actuator and scowled, they thought better of it and, nudging one another, asked the large one, the one with the deep ba.s.s, to speak for them all.

-Know, O strange foreigner-he said, turning to me-it is not with common thrugs, tuffians or juggermuggers that you deal, or other degenerators of the robot species, for though a cellar hardly seems a savory place, what pa.s.ses within these walls is to the highest degree praiseworthy and a thing of beauty!

-Praiseworthy and a thing of beauty?!-I exclaimed. -What are you telling me, O base Legarian? Did I not see with my own eyes how you hurled yourselves upon the red-doubleted one and belabored him with such murderous blows, that the very oil did spatter from your joints? And you dare call this a thing of beauty!

-If Your Esteemed Foreignness is going to interrupt- replied the ba.s.s-he will learn nothing, therefore I politely request him to tighten the reins on his worthy tongue and quell the restiveness of his oral orifice, else I must refrain from further discourse. Know then that before you stand our finest physickers, all cybernists and electriciates of the first order, in a word, my brilliant and ever vigilant pupils, the best minds in all Legaria, and I myself am Vendetius Ultor of Amentia, professor of matter both positive and negative and the originator of Omnigendrical Reincreation, and I have dedicated my life to the sacred work of vengeance. With the aid of these faithful followers I avenge the shame and misery of my people upon the ruddy-bedizened excrescency that kneels there, the low scrulp called-and may his name be forever cursed-Malaputz vel Malapusticus Pandemonius, who vilely and villainously, thievishly and irretrievably brought unhappiness to all Legarians! For he led them into detrimetry and other deviltry, did discompostulate them, embollix and thoroughly befottle them, then sneaked off to his grave to escape the consequences, thinking that no hand could ever reach him there!

-That's not true, Your Exalted Visitors.h.i.+p! I never meant... that is, I had no idea!...

-wailed the kneeling noodle-nose in the rubicund attire. I stared, understanding nothing, while the ba.s.s intoned: -Gargomanticus, dear pupil, paste the puler one in his puffy puss!

The pupil complied, and with such dispatch that the cellar rang. To which I said:-Until the conclusion of explanations, all beating and battering is absolutely forbidden by authority of this laser, meanwhile you, Professor Vendetius Ultor, have the floor and may continue!

The professor growled, grumbled, and finally said: -That you may know how our great misfortune came to pa.s.s and why the four of us, forsaking worldly things, have formed this Holy Order of the Forge of Resurrection, con-secrating the remainder of our days to sweet revenge, I will relate to you the history of our kind from the very begin-ning of creation...

-Must we go back that far?-I asked, afraid my hand would weaken beneath the weight of the pistol.

-Aye, Your Alienness! Listen and attend... There are legends, as you know, that speak of a race of paleface, who concocted robotkind out of a test tube, though anyone with a grain of sense knows this to be a foul lie... For in the Beginning there was naught but Formless Darkness, and in the Darkness, Magneticity, which moved the atoms, and whirling atom struck atom, and Current was thus created, and the First Light... from which the stars were kindled, and then the planets cooled, and in their cores the breath of Sacred Statisticality gave rise to microscopic Protomecha-noans, which begat Proteromechanoids, 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 produced Omnistats, which gave birth to the Servostat, the Missing Clink, and from it came our progenitor, Automatus Sa-piens...

After that there were the cave robots, the nomad robots, and then robot nations.

Robots of Antiquity had to manu-facture their life-giving electricity by hand, that is by rub-bing, which meant great drudgery. Each lord had many knights, each knight many va.s.sals, and the rubbing was feudal hence hierarchical, progressing from the lowly to the higher-up. This manual labor was replaced by machine when Ylem Symphiliac invented the rubberator, and Wolfram of Coulombia, the rubless lightning rod. Thus began the Bat-tery Age, a most difficult time for all who did not possess their own acc.u.mulators, since on a clear day, without a cloud to tap, they had to scrimp and scrounge for every precious watt, and rub themselves constantly, else perish from a total loss of charge. And then there appeared a scholar, an infernal intellectrician and efficiency expert, who in his youth, doubtless owing to some diabolical interven-tion, never had his head staved in, and he began to teach and preach that the traditional method of electrical connec-tion-namely parallel-was worthless, and they all ought to hook themselves up according to a revolutionary new plan of his, that is in series. For in series, if one rubs, the others are immediately supplied with current, even at a great dis-tance, till every robot simply bubbles over with ohms and volts. And he showed his blueprints, and painted paradises of such parameters, that the old circuits, equal and inde-pendent, were disconnected and the system of Pandemonius promptly implemented.- Here the professor beat his head against the wall several times, rolled his eyes and finally con-tinued. Now I understood why the surface of his k.n.o.bby brow was so irregular.

-And it came to pa.s.s that every second robot 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 drop in voltage became so severe, they had to place special taskmasters over everyone, and taskmasters over the taskmasters. Then a disciple of Malaputz, Cl.u.s.ticus the Mistaken, stepped forth and said that each should rub not himself but his neighbor, and after him was Dummis Altruicius with his program of flagellatory s.a.d.i.s.tom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.torism, and after him was Magmndel Spoots, who proposed compulsory ma.s.sage parlors, and after him ap-peared a new theoretician, Arsus Gargazon, saying that clouds should begently stroked, not yoked, to yield their nimboid bolts, and then there was Blip of Leydonia, and Scrofulon Thermaphrodyne, advocating the installation of autofrotts, also called t.i.tillators or diddlegrids, and then Bestian Phystobufficus, who instead of rubbing recom-mended a good drubbing. Such differences of opinion pro-duced great friction, which led to all sorts of exacerbations and excommunications, which in turn led to blasphemy, heresy, and finally Faradocius Offal, Prince and Heir to the Throne of the Alloys, was kicked in the pants, and war broke out between the Legarite Bra.s.sbound Umb.u.t.ts and the Legaritian Empire of the Cold Welders, and it lasted eight and thirty years, and twelve more, for towards the end one could not tell, amid all the rubble, who had won, so they quarreled and fell to fighting again. And thus there was chaos and carnage, and a devastating decline in the vital voltage, an enervated emf and energy dissipation everywhere, or, as the simple folk put it, "total malaputziment"-all brought about by this infamous fiend and his thrice-accursed bright ideas!!

-My intentions were the best!! I swear it, Your Laserosity! It was always the general welfare I had in mind!- squeaked the kneeling Malaputz, and his outsize snout trem-bled. But the professor only elbowed him aside and con-tinued: -All this took place two hundred and twenty-five years ago. As you may have guessed, long before the outbreak of the Great Legarian War, long before this universal wretchi-tude began, Malapusticus Pandemonius, having sp.a.w.ned no end of ponderous treatises and tracts, in all of which he forwarded his vile, pernicious flummeries, died, smug and unruffled to the very end. Indeed, so pleased with himself was he, that in his last will and testament he wrote that he had every expectation of being named "Supreme Benefactor of Legaria." At any rate, when it came time to settle ac-counts, there was no one with whom to settle, no one to make pay, no one that one might turn a little on a lathe. But I, O Ill.u.s.trious Intruder, having formulated the General Theory of Facsimulation, studied the works of Malaputz until I was able to extract his algorithm, which, when fed into an atomic duplicating machine, could recreate ex atomis oriundum gemellum, identical to the nth degree, Malapusticus Pandemonius in his very own person.

And so we gather every evening in this cellar to pa.s.s sentence on him, and when he has been returned to his grave, we avenge our people anew the next day, and thus it is and thus shall be for all eternity, amen!

Horror-stricken, I blurted in reply: -Why, you have surely taken leave of your senses, Pro-fessor, if you think for a minute that this person, this person as innocent as a brand-new fuse, whom you hammer to-gether out of atoms every day, has to answer for the actions, whatever they were, of some scholar who died three cen-turies ago!

To which the professor said: -Then who is this proboscidian sniveler who himself calls himself Malapusticus Pandemonius? Come, what is your name, O cosmic corrosion?

-Ma... Mala... Malaputz, Your Mighty Mercilessness... -stammered the groveling one through his nose.

-Still, it is not the same-I said.

-How, not the same?

-Did you not yourself say, Professor, that Malaputz no longer lives?-But we have resurrected him!

-A double perhaps, an exact duplicate, but not the self-same, true original!

-Prove it, Sirrah!

-I don't need to prove a thing-I said-seeing that I hold this laser in my hand; besides which, I am well aware, my fine Professor, that to attempt to prove what you ask would be most foolhardy, for the nonidenticality of the identicalized recreatio ex atomis individui modo algorytmico is nothing other than the famous Paradoxon Antinomic.u.m, or the Labyrinthum Lemianum, described in the works of that distinguished robophile, whom they also called Advocatus Laboratoris. So then, without proofs, unhand yon snouted one this instant, and do not dare venture any fur-ther molestations upon his person!

-Many thanks, Your Magnanimitude!!-cried he in the bright red doublet, rising from his knees. -It so happens that here-he added, patting his vest pocket-I have an entirely new formula, this time foolproof, with which the Legarians may be brought to perfect bliss; it works by back coupling, that is, a hookup in reverse, and not in series, which was due purely to an error that crept into my calcula-tions three centuries ago! I go immediately to convert this marvelous discovery into reality!!

And indeed, his hand was already upon the doork.n.o.b as we all gaped, dumbfounded. I lowered my weapon and, turning away, said weakly to the professor: -I withdraw my objections... Do what you must...

With a hoa.r.s.e roar 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 frocks, ad-justed their hoods, bowed stiffly to me, and left the cellar in single file, and I remained alone, the heavy laser in my trembling hand, full of dismay and melancholy."

Thus did Trurl conclude his tale to enlighten King Thumbscrew of Tyrannia, who had summoned him for that purpose. When however the King demanded further ex-planation concerning the attainment of nonlinear perfec-tion, Trurl said: "Once, chancing upon the planet Ninnica, I was able to see the results of progress predicated on the perfectionistic principle. The Ninnicans had long ago a.s.sumed another name, that of Hedophagoi or Jubileaters, or just plain Jubilators. My arrival occurred 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 precious gems appointed, electrically caressed, impeccably dressed, pomaded, braided, gold-bro-caded, lapped and laved in ducats gleaming, wrapped and wreathed in incense streaming, showered with treasures, plied with pleasures, marble halls, fanfares, b.a.l.l.s, but for all that, strangely discontent and even a little depressed. And yet there was everything you could ask for! On this planet no one lifted a finger: instead of taking a walk, a drink, a nap, a trip or a wife, there was a Walker to walk one, a Napper to nap one, a Wiver to wive one, and so on, and it was even impossible for one to take a break, 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 appropriate automatic Deco-rators and Panderizers five to fifteen times per minute, cov-ered with a seething, silvery swarm of mechanicules and machinerettes to coddle him, fondle him, wink, wave and whisper sweet nothings in his ear, back-rub,chin-chuck, cheek-pat and foot-grovel him, tirelessly kissing whatever he might present to be kissed-thus did the Jubilator vel Hedophage vel Ninnican wallow and carouse the livelong day, alone, while in the distance, all across the horizon, chugged the mighty Fabrifactories, churning out thrones of gold, dandle chains, pearl slippers and bibs, orbs, scepters, epaulets, spinels, spinets, cymbals, surreys, and a million other instruments and gratifacts to delight in. As I walked along, I constantly had to drive away machines that offered me their services; the more brazen ones, greedily seeking to be of use, had to be beaten over the head. Finally, fleeing the whole crowd of them, I found myself in the mountains -and saw a host of golden machines clamoring around the mouth of a cave walled up with stones, and through a nar-row opening there I saw the watchful eyes of a Ninnican, who was apparently making a last stand against Universal Happiness. Seeing me, the machines immediately began to fan and fawn upon my person, read me fairy tales, stroke me, kiss my hands, promise me kingdoms, and I was saved thanks only to the one in the cave, who mercifully moved aside a stone and let me enter. He was half rusted through, yet glad of it, and said that he was the last philosopher of Ninnica. There was no need, of course, for him to tell me that plenitude, when too plenitudinous, was worse than dest.i.tution, for-obviously-what could one do, if there was nothing one could not? Truly, how could a mind, besieged by a sea of paradises, benumbed by a plethora of possibil-ities, thoroughly stunned by the instant fulfillment of its every wish and whim-decide on anything? I conversed with this wise individual, who called himself Trizivian Huncus, and we concluded that without enormous s.h.i.+elds and an Ontological Complicositor-Imperfector, doom was unavoid-able. Trizivian had for some time regarded complicositry as the ultimate existential solution; I, however, showed him the error of this approach, since it consisted simply in the re-moval of machines with the aid of other machines, namely gnawpers, thwockets, tenterwrenches, fracturacks, hobblers and winch-shrieks. Which obviously would only make mat-ters worse-it wouldn't be complicositry at all, but just the opposite. As everyone knows, History is irreversible, and there is no way back to the halcyon past other than through dreams and reveries.

Together we walked across 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 softly, all sated, satiated, supersaturated with pleasure; the sight of such excessive surfeit, such reck-less success, would have moved anyone to pity. Then there were the inhabitants of the automated palaces, who wildly threw themselves into cyberserking and other electroeccentricities, some setting machine against machine, some smash-ing priceless vases, for no longer could they endure the ubi-quitous beat.i.tude, and they opened fire on emeralds, guillo-tined earrings, ordered diadems broken on the wheel, or tried to hide from happiness in garrets and attics, or else ordered their appliances to whip themselves, or did all of these things at once, or in alternation. But absolutely noth-ing helped, and every last one of them perished, petted and attended to death. I advised Trizivian against simply shut-ting down the Fabrifactories, for having too little is as dan-gerous as having too much; but he, instead of studying up on the consequences of ontological complicositry, immedi-ately began to dynamite the automates sky-high. A grievous mistake, for there followed a great depression, though in-deed, he never lived to see it-it happened that a flock of flyrts swooped down upon him somewhere, and gallivamps and libidinators grabbed him, carried him to a cossetorium, there befuddled him with cuddleb.u.t.ts, ogled, bussed and gnuzzled him to distraction, till he succ.u.mbed with a stran-gled cry of Rape!-and afterwards lay lifeless in the waste-land, buried in ducats, his shabby armor charred with the flames of mechanical l.u.s.t... And that, Your Highness, was the end of one who was wise but could have been wiser!" concluded Trurl, adding, when he saw that these words still did not satisfy King Thumbscrew:"Just what does Your Most Royal Highness want?"

"O constructor!" replied Thumbscrew. "You say that your tales are to improve the mind, but I do not find this to be so. They are, however, amusing, and therefore it is my wish that you tell me more and more of them, and do not stop."

"O King!" answered Trurl. "You would learn from me what is perfection and how it may be gained, yet prove un-able to grasp the deep meanings and great truths with which my narratives abound. Truly, you seek amus.e.m.e.nt and not wisdom-yet, even as you listen, my words do slowly pene-trate and act upon your brain, and later too will act, much as a time bomb. To this end, allow me to present an account that is intricate, unusual and true, or nearly true, from which your royal advisers may also derive some benefit.

Hear then, n.o.ble sirs, the history of Zipperupus, king of the Partheginians, the Deutons, and the Profligoths, of whom concupiscence was the ruin!

Now Zipperupus belonged to the great house of Tup, which was divided into two branches: the Dextrorotarory Tups, who were in power, and the Levorotarory Tups, also called the Left-handed or Counterclockwise Tups, who were not-and therefore consumed with hatred for their ruling cousins. His sire, Calcyon, had joined in morganatic mar-riage with a common machine, a manual water pump, and so Zipperupus inherited-from the distaff side-a tendency to fly off the handle, and-from the spear side-faint-heartedness coupled with a wanton nature. Seeing this, the ene-mies of the throne, the Sinistral Isomers, thought of how they might destroy him through his own lascivious procliv-ities. Accordingly, they sent him a Cybernerian named Subtillion, an adept in mental engineering; Zipperupus took an instant liking to him and made him Lord High Thauma-turge and Apothecary to the Throne. The wily Subtillion devised various means to gratify the unbridled l.u.s.t of Zip-perupus, secretly hoping so to enfeeble and debilitate the King, that he would altogether waste away. He built him an erotodrome and a debaucherorium, regaled him with endless automated orgies, but the iron const.i.tution of the King withstood all these depravities. The Sinistral Isomers grew im-patient and ordered their agent to bring all his cunning to bear and achieve the desired end without any further delay.

"Would you like me," he asked them at a secret meeting in the castle catacombs, "to short-circuit the King, or de-magnetize his memory to render him mindless?"

"Absolutely not!" they replied. "In no way must we be implicated in the King's demise. Let Zipperupus perish through his own illicit desires, let his sinful pa.s.sions be his undoing-and not us!"

"Fine," said Subtillion. "I'll set a snare for him, I'll weave it out of dreams, and bait it with a tempting lure, which he will seize and, in so seizing, of his own volition plunge into figments and mad fictions, sink into dreams lurking within dreams, and there I'll give him such a thorough finagling and inveigling, that he'll never get back to reality alive!"

"Very well," they said. "But do not boast, O Cybernerian, for it is not words we need, but deeds, that Zipperupus might become an autoregicide, that is, his own a.s.sa.s.sin!"

And thus Subtillion the Cybernerian got down to work and spent an entire year on hisdreadful scheme, requesting from the royal treasury more and more gold bullion, bra.s.s, platinum and no end of precious stones, telling Zipperupus, whenever the latter protested, that he was making some-thing for him, something no other monarch had in all the world!

When the year was up, three enormous cabinets were carried from the Cybernerian's workshop and deposited with great ceremony outside the King's privy chamber, for they wouldn't fit through the door. Hearing the steps and the knocking of the porters, Zipperupus came out and saw the cabinets, there along the wall, stately and ma.s.sive, four cubits high, two across, and covered with gems. The first cabinet, also called the White Box, was all in mother-of-pearl and blazing albite inlays, the second, black as night, was set with agates and morions, while the third glowed deep red, studded with rubies and ruby spinels. Each had legs ornamented with winged griffins, solid gold, and a pol-ished pilastered frame, and inside, an electronic brain full of dreams, dreams that dreamed independently, needing no dreamer to dream them. King Zipperupus was much amazed at this explanation and exclaimed: "What's this you say, Subtillion?! Dreaming cabinets? Whatever for? What use are they to me? And anyway, how can you tell they're really dreaming?"

Then Subtillion, with a humble bow, showed him the rows of little holes running down the cabinet frames; next to each hole was a little inscription on a little pearl plaque, and the astonished King read: "War Dream with Citadels and Damsels"-"Dream about the Wockle Weed"-"Dream about Alacritus the Knight and Fair Ramolda, Daughter of Heteronius"- "Dream about Nixies, Pixies and Witchblende"-"The Marvelous Mattress of Princess Bounce"-"The Old Sol-dier, or The Cannon That Couldn't"-"Salto Erotale, or Amorous Gymnastics"-"Bliss in the Eightfold Embrace of Octopauline"-"Perpetuum Amorobile"-"Eating Lead Dumplings under the New Moon"-"Breakfast with Maid-ens and Music"-"Tucking in the Sun to Keep It Warm" -"The Wedding Night of Princess Ineffabelle"-"Dream about Cats"-"About Silks and Satins"-"About You-Know-What"-"Figs without Their Leaves, and Other For-bidden Fruit"-"Also Prurient Prunes"-"How the Lecher Got His Tots"-"Devilry and Divers Revelry before Rev-eille, with Croutons"-"Mona Lisa, or The Labyrinth of Sweet Infinity."

The King went on to the second cabinet and read: "Dreams and Diversions." And under this heading: "Cybersynergy"-"Corpses and Corsets"-"Tops and Toggles"

-"Klopstock and the Critics"-"Buffer the Leader"- "Fratcher My Pliss"-"Counterpane and Ventilator"-"Cybercroquet"-"Robot Crambo"-"Flowcharts and Go-carts"-"Bippety-flippety"-"Spin the Shepherdess"-"Pin the Murder on the Girder"-"Executioner, or Screaming Cutouts"-"Spin the Shepherdess One More Time"-"Cy-clodore and Shuttlebox"-"Cecily and the Cyanide Cyborg"

-"Cybernation"-"Harem Racing"-and finally-"Kludge Poker." Subtillion, the mental engineer, quickly explained that each dream dreamed itself, entirely 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 dream, and connected so completely, that the dream for him would be like real, so real you couldn't tell the difference. Zipperupus, intrigued, took the chain and impulsively plugged him-self into the White Box, right where the sign said, "Break-fast with Maidens and Music"-and felt spiny ridges grow-ing down his back, and enormous wings unfolding, and his hands and feet distending into paws with wicked claws, and from his jaws, which had six rows of fangs, there belched forth fire and brimstone. Greatly taken aback, the King gasped, but instead of a gasp, a roar like thunder issued from his throat and shookthe earth. This amazed him even more, his eyes grew wide, and in the darkness illumined by his fiery breath he saw that they were bringing him, high on their shoulders, virgins in serving bowls, four to each, gar-nished with greens and smelling so good, he started to drool. The table soon set-salt here, pepper over there-he licked his chops, made himself comfortable and, one by one, popped them into his mouth like peanuts, crunching and grunting with pleasure; the last virgin was so luscious, so suc-culent, that he smacked his lips, rubbed his tummy, and was about to ask for seconds, when everything flickered and he woke. He looked-he was standing, as before, in the vesti-bule outside his private quarters. At his side was Subtillion, Lord High Thaumaturge and Apothecary to the Throne, and before him, the dream cabinets, glittering with precious gems.

"How were the maidens?" inquired Subtillion.

"Not bad. But where was the music?"

"The chimes got stuck," the Cybernerian explained. "Would Your Royal Highness care to try another dream?"

Of course he would, but this time from another cabinet. The King went up to the black one and plugged into the dream ent.i.tled "Alacritus the Knight and Fair Ramolda, Daughter of Heteronius."

He blinked-and saw that this was indeed the age of electrical errantry. He was standing, all clad in steel, in a wooded glen, a freshly vanquished dragon at his feet; the leaves rus-tled, a gentle zephyr blew, a brook gurgled nearby. He looked into the water and saw, from the reflection, that he was none other than Alacritus, a knight of the highest volt-age and hero without peer. The whole history of his glorious career was recorded, in battle scars, upon his person, and he recalled 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 throes, having been dispatched with cus-tomary alacrity; the broken hinges on the right greave-that was the work of the late Sir Basher de Bloo; and the rivets across his left pauldron-gnawed by Skivvian the Scurvy before giving up the ghost; and the tembrace grille had been crushed by Gourghbrast b.u.g.g.e.ruckus ere he was felled.

Sim-ilarly, the cuissfenders, crosshasps, beaver baffles, hauberk latches, front and rear jambguards and grommets-all bore the marks of battle. His s.h.i.+eld was scored and notched by countless blows, but the backplate, that was as s.h.i.+ny and rust-free as a newborn's, for never had he turned to flee an adversary! Though his glory, truth to tell, was a matter of complete indifference to him. But then he remembered the fair Ramolda, leaped upon his supercharger and began to search the length and breadth of the dream for her. In time he arrived at the castle of her father, the Autoduke Hetero-nius; the drawbridge planks thundered beneath horse and rider, and the Autoduke himself came out to greet him with open arms.

The knight would fain see his Ramolda, but etiquette requires he curb his impatience; meanwhile the old Autoduke tells him that another knight is staying at the castle, one Mygrayn of the house of Polymera, master swordsman and redoubtable elastician, who dreams of nothing else but to enter the lists with Alacritus himself. And now here is Mygrayn, spry and supple, stepping forward with these words: "Know, O Knight, that I desire Ramolda the streamlined, Ramolda of the hydraulic thighs, whose bust no diamond drill can touch, whose limpid eyes are magnetized! She is thy betrothed, true, but lo, I herewith challenge thee to mortal combat, sith only one of us may win her hand in marriage!"And he throws his gage, white and polymerous.

"We'll hold the wedding right after the joust," adds the Autoduke-father.

"Very well!' says Alacritus, but inside, Zipperupus thinks: "It doesn't matter, I can have her after the wedding and then wake up. But who asked for this Mygrayn character?"

"This very day, brave Knight," says Heteronius, "thou wilt encounter Mygrayn of Polymera on beaten ground and contend with him by torchlight. But for now, retire thee to thy room and rest!"

Inside Alacritus, Zipperupus is a little uneasy, but what can he do? So he goes to his room, and after a while hears a furtive knock-knock at the door, and an old cybercrone tiptoes in, gives a wrinkled wink and says: "Fear naught, O Knight, thou shalt have the fair Ramolda and forsooth, this very day she'll clasp thee to her alabaster bosom! Of thee alone doth she dream, both day and night! Remember only to attack with might and main, for Mygrayn cannot harm thee and the victory is thine!"

"That's easy enough to say, my cybercrone," replies the knight. "But anything can happen. What if I trip, for ex-ample, or fail to parry in time? No, it's a risky business! But perhaps you have some charm that will be certain."

"Hee-hee!" cackles the cybercrone. "The things thou sayest, steel sir! There are no charms, surely, nor hast thou need of any, for I know what will be and guarantee thou winnest hands down!"

"Still, a charm would be more sure," says the knight, "par-ticularly in a dream... but wait, did by any chance Subtillion send you, to give me confidence?"

"I know of no Subtillion," answers she, "nor of what dream ye speak. Nay, this is reality, my steely liege, as thou wilt learn ere long, when fair Ramolda gives thee her electric lips to kiss!"

"Odd," mutters Zipperupus, not noticing that the cybercrone has left the room as quietly as she came. "Is this a dream or not? I had the impression that it was. But she says this is reality. H'm. Well, in any event I'd best be doubly on my guard!" And now the trumpets sound, and one can hear the rattle of armor; the galleries are packed and every-one awaits the princ.i.p.als. Here comes Alacritus, a little weak in the knees; he enters the lists and sees Ramolda, daughter of Heteronius. She looks upon him sweetly-ah, but there's no time for that now! Mygrayn is stepping into the ring, the torches blaze all around, and their swords cross with a mighty clang. Now Zipperupus is frightened in earnest and tries as hard as he can to wake up, he tries and tries, but it won't work-the armor's too heavy, the dream isn't letting go, and the enemy's attacking!

Faster and faster rain the blows, and Zipperupus, weakening, can hardly lift his arm, when suddenly the foe cries out and shows a broken blade; Alacritus the knight is ready to leap upon him, but Mygrayn dashes from the ring and his squires hand him another sword. Just then Alacritus sees the cybercrone among the spectators; she approaches 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 guard. Strike bravely then, for 'tis a sign, certain and true, of thy victory!"Wherewith she vanishes, and his rival, rearmed, comes charging. They fight, Mygrayn hacking away like a thresh-ing machine out of control, but by degrees he slackens, par-ries sluggishly, backs away, and now the time is ripe, the moment arrives, but the opponent's blade gleams formid-ably still, so Zipperupus pulls himself together and thinks, "To h.e.l.l with the fair Ramolda!"-turns tail and runs like mad, pounding back over the drawbridge and into the for-est and the darkness of the night. Behind him he hears shouts of "Disgraceful!" and "For shame!", crashes headfirst into a tree, sees stars, blinks, and there he is, standing in the palace vestibule in front of the Black Cabinet of dreams that dream, and by his side, Subtillion the mental engineer, smiling a crooked smile.

Crooked, as Subtillion was hiding his disappointment: the Alacritus-Ramolda dream had in reality been a trap set for the King, for had Zipperupus heeded the old cybercrone's advice, Mygrayn, who was only pretending to weaken, would have run him through at the open gate. This the King avoided, thanks only to his extraor-dinary cowardice.

"Did Milord enjoy the fair Ramolda?" inquired the sly Cybernerian.

"She wasn't fair enough," said Zipperupus, "so I didn't see fit to pursue the matter.

And besides, there was some trouble, and fighting too. I like my dreams without fighting, do you understand?"

"As Your Royal Highness wishes," replied Subtillion. "Choose freely, for in all these cabinet dreams there is only delight in store, no fighting..."