Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (28 page)

“Had enough, Dillon?” Arek asked.

“Not at all,” Dillon answered, through thirst-blackened lips. “You can't go on forever, Arek. There's a limit to even your vitality.”

“Really?” Arek asked.

“You can't have much left,” Dillon said, trying to show a confidence he did not feel. “Why not be reasonable? I'll leave you room, Arek, I really will. I ... well, I sort of respect you.”

“Thanks, Dillon,” Arek said. “The feeling is sort of mutual. Now, if you'd give in—”

“No,” Dillon said. “
My
terms.”

“OK,” Arek said. “You asked for it!”

“Bring it on,” Dillon muttered.

Abruptly, the rocky hillside vanished.

He was standing knee-deep in a gray marsh. Great gnarled trees rank with moss rose from the still green water. Lilies white as a fish's belly jerked and swayed, although there was no breeze at all. A dead white vapor hung over the water and clung to the trees' rough bark. There was not a sound in the swamp, although Dillon sensed life all around him.

He waited, turning slowly around. He sniffed the stagnant, slow-moving air, shuffled his feet in the gluey mud, smelled the decaying fragrance of the lilies. And a realization came to him.

This swamp had never existed on K'egra!

He knew it, with the certainty with which an Earthman senses alien worlds. The gravity was different, and the air was different. Even the mud beneath his feet was unlike the mud of K'egra.

The implications came crowding in, too quickly to be sorted. Could K'egra have space travel, then? Impossible! Then how could Arek know so well a planet other than his own? Had he read about it, imagined it, or—

Something solid glanced heavily off his shoulder. In his speculation, the attack had caught Dillon off guard.

He tried to move, but the mud clung to his feet. A branch had fallen from one of the giant overhanging trees. As he watched, the trees began to sway and crackle. Boughs bent and creaked, then broke, raining down upon him.

But there was no wind.

Half stunned, Dillon fought his way through the swamp, trying to find solid ground and a space away from the trees. But the great trunks lay everywhere, and there was no solidness in the swamp. The rain of branches increased, and Dillon whirled back and forth, looking for something to fight against. But there was only the silent swamp.

“Come out and fight!” Dillon shrieked. He was beaten to his knees, stood up, fell again. Then, half-conscious, he saw a place of refuge.

He struggled to a great tree and clung tightly to its roots. Boughs fell, branches whipped and slashed, but the tree couldn't reach him. He was safe!

But then he saw, with horror, that the lilies at the base of the tree had twined their long stalks around his ankles. He tried to kick them loose. They bent like pale snakes and clung tighter to him. He slashed them loose and ran from the shelter of the tree.

“Fight me!” Dillon begged, as the branches rained around him. There was no answer. The lilies writhed on their stalks, reaching for him. Overhead was a whirr of angry wings. The birds of the swamp were gathering, black and ragged carrion crows, waiting for the end. And as Dillon swayed on his feet, he felt something warm and terrible touch his ankles.

Then he knew what he had to do.

It took a moment to get up his courage. Then Dillon plunged head-first into the dirty green water.

As soon as he dived, the swamp became silent. The giant trees froze against the slate sky. The lilies lost their frenzy and hung limp on their stalks. The white vapor clung motionless to the rough bark of the trees, and the birds of prey glided silently through the thick air.

For a while, bubbles frothed to the surface. Then the bubbles stopped.

Dillon came up, gasping for breath, deep scratches across his neck and back. In his hands was the shapeless, transparent creature who ruled the swamp.

He waded to a tree and swung the limp creature against it, shattering it completely. Then he sat down.

Never had he been so tired and so sick, and so convinced of the futility of everything. Why was he struggling for life, when life occupied so insignificant a part in the scheme of things? Of what significance was his instant of life, measured against the swing of the planets, or the stately flaming of the stars? And Dillon was amazed at the lewdness with which he was scrambling for existence.

The warm water lapped around his chest. Life, Dillon told himself sleepily, is nothing more than an itch on the hide of the non-living, a parasite of matter. Quantity counts, he told himself, as the water stroked his neck. What is the tininess of life compared to the vastness of nonliving? If nonliving is natural, he thought as the water touched his chin, then to live is to be diseased. And life's only healthy thought is the wish for death.

Death was a pleasant thought at that moment, as the water caressed his lips. There was a tiredness past resting, and a sickness past healing. Now it would be easy to let go, go down, abandon—

“Very good,” Dillon whispered, pulling himself to his feet. “Very good try, Arek. Perhaps you're tired, too? Perhaps there's not much left in you but a little emotion?”

It grew dark, and in the dark something whispered to Dillon, something that looked like him in miniature, that curled itself warmly on his shoulder.

“But there are worse things than death,” his miniature said. “There are things no living being can face, guilty knowledge concealed in the very bottom of the soul, loathed and detested, but
knowledge
, and never to be denied. Death is better than this knowledge, Dillon. Death becomes precious, and infinitely costly. Death is to be prayed for, and cunning schemes are laid to capture death—when you must face what lies at the bottom of your soul.”

Dillon tried not to listen to the creature who looked so much like himself. But the miniature clung to his shoulder and pointed. And Dillon saw something forming in the darkness, and recognized its form.

“Not this, Dillon,” his double pleaded. “Please, not this! Be courageous, Dillon! Choose your death! Be bold, be brave! Know how to die at the right time!”

Dillon, recognizing the shape of what was coming toward him, felt a fear he would never have imagined possible. For this was knowledge from the bottom of his soul, guilty knowledge of himself and all he ever thought he stood for.

“Quickly, Dillon!” his double cried. “Be strong, be bold, be true!
Die while you still know what you are!
”

And Dillon wanted to die. With a vast sigh of relief he began to release his hold, to let his essence slip away ...

And couldn't.

“Help me!” he screamed.

“I can't!” his miniature screamed back. “You must do this for yourself!”

And Dillon tried again, with knowledge pressing close to his eyeballs, asked for death, begged for death, and could not let himself die.

So there was only one thing to do. He gathered his last strength and flung himself despairingly forward, at the shape that danced before him.

It disappeared.

After a moment Dillon realized that every threat was gone. He was standing alone in territory he had conquered. In spite of everything, he had won! Before him now lay the citadel, untenanted, waiting for him. He felt a wave of respect for poor Arek. He had been a good fighter, a worthy adversary. Perhaps he could spare him a little living space, if Arek didn't try to—

“That's very kind of you, Dillon,” a voice boomed out.

Dillon had no time to react. He was caught in a grip so powerful that any thought of resistance was futile. Only then did he sense the real power of the K'egran's mind.

“You did well, Dillon,” Arek said. “You need never be ashamed of the fight you fought.”

“But I never had a chance,” Dillon said.

“No, never,” Arek said gently. “You thought the Earth invasion plan was unique, as most young races feel. But K'egra is ancient, Dillon, and in our time we have been invaded many times, physically and mentally. So it's really nothing new for us.”

“You played with me!” Dillon cried.

“I wanted to find out what you were like,” Arek said.

“How smug you must have felt! It was a game with you. All right, get it over with, finish it!”

“Finish what?”

“Kill me!”

“Why should I kill you?” Arek asked.

“Because—because what else can you do with me? Why should I be treated differently from the rest?”

“You met some of the others, Dillon. You wrestled with Ehtan, who had inhabited a swamp on his home planet, before he took to voyaging. And the miniature who whispered so persuasively in your ear is Oolermik, who came not too long ago, all bluster and fire, much like yourself.”

“But—”

“We accepted them here, made room for them, used their qualities to complement ours. Together we are more than we had been apart.”

“You live together?” Dillon whispered. “In
your
body?”

“Of course. Good bodies are scarce in the galaxy, and there's not much room for the living. Dillon, meet my partners.”

And Dillon saw the amorphous swamp creature again, and the scaly-hided Oolermik, and a dozen others.

“But it can't be!” Dillon cried. “Alien races can't live together! Life is struggle and death! That's a fundamental law of nature.”

“An early law,” Arek said. “Long ago we discovered that cooperation means survival for all, and on far better terms. You'll get used to it. Welcome into the confederacy, Dillon!”

And Dillon, still dazed, entered the citadel, to sit in partnership with many races of the galaxy.

E
VERETT
Barthold didn't take out a life insurance policy casually. First he read up on the subject, with special attention to Breach of Contract, Willful Deceit, Temporal Fraud, and Payment. He checked to find how closely insurance companies investigated before paying a claim. And he acquired a considerable degree of knowledge on Double Indemnity, a subject which interested him acutely.

When this preliminary work was done, he looked for an insurance company which would suit his needs. He decided, finally, upon the Inter-Temporal Insurance Corporation, with its main office in Hartford, Present Time. Inter-Temporal had branch offices in the New York of 1959; Rome, 1530; and Constantinople, 1126. Thus they offered full temporal coverage. This was important to Barthold's plans.

Before applying for his policy, Barthold discussed the plan with his wife. Mavis Barthold was a thin, handsome, restless woman, with a cautious, contrary feline nature.

“It'll never work,” she said at once.

“It's foolproof,” Barthold told her firmly.

“They'll lock you up and throw away the key.”

“Not a chance,” Barthold assured her. “It can't miss—if you cooperate.”

“That would make me an accessory,” said his wife. “No, darling.”

“My dear, I seem to remember you expressing a desire for a coat of genuine Martian scart. I believe there are very few in existence.”

Mrs. Barthold's eyes glittered. Her husband, with canny accuracy, had hit her weak spot.

“And I thought,” Barthold said carelessly, “that you might derive some pleasure from a new Daimler hyper-jet, a Letti Det wardrobe, a string of matched ruumstones, a villa on the Venusian Riviera, a—”

“Enough, darling!” Mrs. Barthold gazed fondly upon her enterprising husband. She had long suspected that within his unprepossessing body beat a stout heart. Barthold was short, beginning to bald, his features ordinary, and his eyes were mild behind horn-rimmed glasses. But his spirit would have been perfectly at home in a pirate's great-muscled frame.

“Then you're sure it will work?” she asked him.

“Quite sure, if you do what I tell you and restrain your fine talent for overacting.”

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Barthold, her mind fixed upon the glitter of ruumstones and the sensuous caress of scart fur.

Barthold made his final preparations. He went to a little shop where some things were advertised and other things sold. He left, several thousand dollars poorer, with a small brown suitcase tucked tightly under his arm. The money was untraceable. He had been saving it, in small bills, for several years. And the contents of the brown suitcase were equally untraceable.

He deposited the suitcase in a public storage box, drew a deep breath, and presented himself at the offices of the Inter-Temporal Insurance Corporation.

For half a day, the doctors poked and probed at him. He filled out the forms and was brought, at last, to the office of Mr. Gryns, the regional manager.

Gryns was a large, affable man. He read quickly through Barthold's application, nodding to himself.

“Fine, fine,” he said. “Everything seems to be in order. Except for one thing.”

“What's that?” Barthold asked, his heart suddenly pounding.

“The question of additional coverage. Would you be interested in fire and theft? Liability? Accident and health? We insure against everything from a musket ball to such trivial but annoying afflictions as the very definitely common cold.”

“Oh,” said Barthold, his pulse rate subsiding to normal. “No, thank you. At present, I am concerned only with a life insurance policy. My business requires me to travel through time. I wish adequate protection for my wife.”

“Of course, sir, absolutely,” Gryns said. “Then I believe everything is in order. Do you understand the various conditions that apply to this policy?”

“I think I do,” replied Barthold, who had spent months studying the Inter-Temporal standard form.

“The policy runs for the life of the assured,” said Mr. Gryns. “And the duration of that life is measured only in subjective physiological time. The policy protects you over a distance of one thousand years on either side of the Present. But no further. The risks are too great.”