Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (44 page)

“Thanks, pop,” said Jackson.

“
Mun!
” declared the other officials.

“Glad you boys feel that way,” said Jackson. He turned to Erum. “Well, let's get it over with, okay?”

“
Mun-mun-mun
,” Erum replied. “
Mun, mun-mun
.”

Jackson stared at him for several seconds. Then he said, in a low, controlled voice, “Erum, baby, just exactly
what
are you trying to say to me?”

“
Mun, mun, mun
,” Erum stated firmly. “
Mun, mun mun mun. Mun mun
.” He paused, and in a somewhat nervous voice asked the mayor: “
Mun, mun?
”

“
Mun
... mun mun,” the mayor replied firmly, and the other officials nodded. They all turned to Jackson.

“
Mun, mun-mun?
” Erum asked him, tremulously, but with dignity.

Jackson was numbed speechless. His face turned a choleric red and a large blue vein started to pulse in his neck. But he managed to speak slowly, calmly, and with infinite menace.

“Just
what
,” he said, “do you lousy third-rate yokels think you're pulling?”

“
Mun-mun?
” the mayor asked Erum.

“
Mun-mun, mun-mun-mun
,” Erum replied quickly, making a gesture of incomprehension.

“You better talk sense,” Jackson said. His voice was still low, but the vein in his neck writhed like a firehose under pressure.

“
Mun!
” one of the aldermen said quickly to the borough president.

“
Mun mun-mun mun?
” the borough president answered piteously, his voice breaking on the last word.

“So you won't talk sense, huh?”

“
Mun! Mun-mun!
” the mayor cried, his face gone ashen with fright.

The others looked and saw Jackson's hand clearing the blaster and taking aim at Erum's chest.

“Quit horsing around!” Jackson commanded. The vein in his neck pulsed like a python in travail.

“
Mun-mun-mun!
” Erum pleaded, dropping to his knees.

“
Mun-mun-mun!
” the mayor shrieked, rolling his eyes and fainting.

“You get it now,” Jackson said to Erum. His finger whitened on the trigger.

Erum, his teeth chattering, managed to gasp out a strangled “
Mun-mun, mun?
” But then his nerves gave way and he waited for death with jaw agape and eyes unfocused.

Jackson took up the last fraction of slack in the trigger. Then, abruptly, he let up and shoved the blaster back in its holster.

“
Mun, mun!
” Erum managed to say.

“Shaddap,” Jackson said. He stepped back and glared at the cringing Naian officials.

He would have dearly loved to blast them all. But he couldn't do it. Jackson had to come to a belated acknowledgement of an unacceptable reality.

His impeccable linguist's ear had heard, and his polyglot brain had analyzed. Dismayingly, he had realized that the Naians were not trying to put anything over on him. They were speaking not nonsense, but a true language.

This language was made up at present of the single sound “
mun
.” This sound could carry an extensive repertoire of meanings through variations in pitch and pattern, changes in stress and quantity, alteration of rhythm and repetition, and through accompanying gestures and facial expressions.

A language consisting of infinite variations on a single word! Jackson didn't want to believe it, but he was too good a linguist to doubt the evidence of his own trained senses.

He could learn this language, of course.

But by the time he had learned it, what would it have changed into?

Jackson sighed and rubbed his face wearily. In a sense it was inevitable. All languages change. But on Earth and the few dozen worlds she had contacted, the languages changed with relative slowness.

On Na, the rate of change was faster. Quite a bit faster.

The Na language changed as fashions change on Earth, only faster. It changed as prices change or as the weather changes. It changed endlessly and incessantly, in accordance with unknown rules and invisible principles. It changed its form as an avalanche changes its shape. Compared with it, English was like a glacier.

The Na language was, truly and monstrously, a simulacrum of Heraclitus's river. You cannot step into the same river twice, said Heraclitus; for other waters are forever flowing on.

Concerning the language of Na, this was simply and literally true.

That made it bad enough. But even worse was the fact that an observer like Jackson could never hope to fix or isolate even one term out of the dynamic shifting network of terms that composed the Na language. For the observer's action would be gross enough by itself to disrupt and alter the system, causing it to change unpredictably. And so, if the term were isolated, its relationship to the other terms in the system would necessarily be destroyed, and the term itself, by definition, would be false.

By the fact of its change, the language was rendered impervious to condification and control. Through indeterminacy, the Na tongue resisted all attempts to conquer it. And Jackson had gone from Heraclitus to Heisenberg without touching second base. He was dazed and dazzled, and he looked upon the officials with something approaching awe.

“You've done it, boys,” he told them. “You've beaten the system. Old Earth could swallow you and never notice the difference; you couldn't do a damned thing about it. But the folks back home like their legalism, and our law says that we must be in a state of communication as a prior condition to any transaction.”

“
Mun?
” Erum asked politely.

“So I guess that means I leave you folks alone,” Jackson said. “At least, I do as long as they keep that law on the books. But what the hell, a reprieve is the best anyone can ask for. Eh?”

“
Mun mun
,” the mayor said hesitantly.

“I'll be getting along now,” Jackson said. “Fair's fair ... But if I ever find out that you Naians were putting one over on me—”

He left the sentence unfinished. Without another word, Jackson turned and went back to his ship.

In half an hour he was spaceworthy, and fifteen minutes after that he was under way.

In Erum's office, the officials watched while Jackson's spaceship glowed like a comet in the dark afternoon sky. It dwindled to a brilliant needlepoint, and then vanished into the vastness of space.

The officials were silent for a moment; then they turned and looked at each other. Suddenly, spontaneously, they burst into laughter. Harder and harder they laughed, clutching their sides while tears rolled down their cheeks.

The mayor was the first to check the hysteria. Getting a grip on himself he said, “
Mun, mun, mun-mun
.”

This thought instantly sobered the others. Their mirth died away. Uneasily they contemplated the distant unfriendly sky, and they thought back over their recent adventures.

At last young Erum asked, “
Mun-mun? Mun-mun?
”

Several of the officials smiled at the naiveté of the question. And yet, none could answer that simple yet crucial demand. Why indeed? Did anyone dare hazard even a guess?

It was a perplexity leaving in doubt not only the future but the past as well. And, if a real answer were unthinkable, then no answer at all was surely insupportable.

The silence grew, and Erum's young mouth twisted downwards in premature cynicism. He said quite harshly, “
Mun! Mun-mun! Mun?
”

His shocking words were no more than the hasty cruelty of the young; but such a statement could not go unchallenged. And the venerable first alderman stepped forward to essay a reply.

“
Mun mun, mun-mun
,” the old man said, with disarming simplicity. “
Mun mun mun-mun? Mun mun-mun-mun. Mun mun mun; mun mun mun; mun mun. Mun, mun mun mun—mun mun mun. Mun-mun? Mun mun mun mun!
”

This straightforward declaration of faith pierced Erum to the core of his being. Tears sprang unanticipated to his eyes. All postures forgotten, he turned to the sky, clenched his fist and shouted, “
Mun! Mun! Mun-mun!
”

Smiling serenely, the old alderman murmured, “
Mun-mun-mun; mun, mun-mun
.”

This was, ironically enough, the marvelous and frightening truth of the situation. Perhaps it was just as well that the others did not hear.

S
URELY
, you remember that bully who kicked sand on the ninety-seven-pound-weakling? Well, that puny man's problem has never been solved, despite Charles Atlas's claims to the contrary. A genuine bully
likes
to kick sand on people; for him, simply, there is gut-deep satisfaction in a put-down. It wouldn't matter if you weighed 240 pounds—all of it rock-hard muscle and steely sinew—and were as wise as Solomon or as witty as Voltaire; you'd still end up with the sand of an insult in your eyes, and probably you wouldn't do anything about it.

That was how Howard Cordle viewed the situation. He was a pleasant man who was forever being pushed around by Fuller Brush men, fund solicitors, headwaiters, and other imposing figures of authority. Cordle hated it. He suffered in silence the countless numbers of manic-aggressives who shoved their way to the heads of lines, took taxis he had hailed first, and sneeringly steered away girls to whom he was talking at parties.

What made it worse was that these people seemed to welcome provocation, to go looking for it, all for the sake of causing discomfort to others.

Cordle couldn't understand why this should be, until one midsummer's day, when he was driving through the northern regions of Spain while stoned out of his mind, the god Thoth-Hermes granted him original enlightenment by murmuring. “Uh, look, I groove with the problem, baby, but dig, we gotta put carrots in or it ain't no stew.”

“
Carrots
?” said Cordle, struggling for illumination.

“I'm talking about those types who get you uptight,” Thoth-Hermes explained. “They
gotta
act that way, baby, on account of they're carrots, and that's how carrots are.”

“If they are carrots,” Cordle said, feeling his way, “then I—”

“You, of course, are a little pearly-white onion.”

“Yes! My God, yes!” Cordle cried, dazzled by the blinding light of satori.

“And, naturally, you and all the other pearly-white onions think that carrots are just bad news, merely some kind of misshapen orangey onion; whereas the carrots look at you and rap about
freaky round white carrots, wow!
I mean, you're just too much for each other, whereas, in actuality—”

“Yes, go on!” cried Cordle.

“In actuality,” Thoth-Hermes declared, “
everything's got a place in The Stew
!”

“Of course! I see, I see, I see!”

“And
that
means that everybody who exists is necessary, and you
must
have long hateful orange carrots if you're also going to have nice pleasant decent white onions, or vice versa, because without all of the ingredients, it isn't a Stew, which is to say, life. It becomes, uh, let me see....”

“A soup!” cried ecstatic Cordle.

“You're coming in five by five,” chanted Thoth-Hermes. “Lay down the word, deacon, and let the people know the divine formula....”

“A
soup!
” said Cordle. “Yes, I see it now—creamy, pure-white onion soup is our dream of heaven, whereas fiery orange carrot broth is our notion of hell. It fits, it all fits together!”

“Om manipadme hum,” intoned Thoth-Hermes.

“But where do the green peas go? What about the
meat
, for God's sake?”

“Don't pick at the metaphor,” Thoth-Hermes advised him, “it leaves a nasty scab. Stick with the carrots and onions. And, here, let me offer you a drink—a house specialty.”

“But the spices, where do you put the
spices?”
Cordle demanded, taking a long swig of burgundy-colored liquid from a rusted canteen.

“Baby, you're asking questions that can be revealed only to a thirteenth-degree Mason with piles, wearing sandals. Sorry about that. Just remember that everything goes into The Stew.”

“Into The Stew,” Cordle repeated, smacking his lips.

“And, especially, stick with the carrots and onions; you were really grooving there.”

“Carrots and onions,” Cordle repeated.

“That's your trip,” Thoth-Hermes said. “Hey, we've gotten to Corunna; you can let me out anywhere around here.”

Cordle pulled his rented car off the road. Thoth-Hermes took his knapsack from the back seat and got out.

“Thanks for the lift, baby.”

“My pleasure. Thank
you
for the wine. What kind did you say it was?”

“
Vino de casa
mixed with a mere smidgen of old Dr. Hammerfinger's essence of instant powdered Power-Pack brand acid. Brewed by gnurrs in the secret laboratories of UCLA in preparation for the big all-Europe turn-on.”

“Whatever it was, it surely
was,”
Cordle said deeply. “Pure elixir to me. You could sell neckties to antelopes with that stuff; you could change the world from an oblate spheroid into a truncated trapezoid.... What did I say?”

“Never mind, it's all part of your trip. Maybe you better lie down for a while, huh?”

“Where gods command, mere mortals must obey,” Cordle said iambically. He lay down on the front seat of the car. Thoth-Hermes bent over him, his beard burnished gold, his head wreathed in plane trees.

“You OK?”

“Never better in my life.”

“Want me to stand by?”

“Unnecessary. You have helped me beyond potentiality.”

“Glad to hear it, baby, you're making a fine sound. You really are OK? Well, then, ta.”

Thoth-Hermes marched off into the sunset. Cordle closed his eyes and solved various problems that had perplexed the greatest philosophers of all ages. He was mildly surprised at how simple complexity was.