Authors: Robert Sheckley
But getting back to the question of amusements: aside from the multifarious complications which they encounter in their consecutive existences, Aaians are brought together by their devotion to the Game. It is outside the range of this brochure to attempt to characterize the Game. Standard works on the subject are Wolfschmidt’s
Players of the Galactic Noh Play
and
Charleroi’s
Strategy of Incongruity.
There are many immediate pleasures for the tourist to sample. Of special note is the Gardens of Rui in East Cetesphe. This vast amusement complex, on its own estate of ten million acres of dramatic countryside, borders on the violet waters (made so by the marine organism
grunius
) of the Pyrametique Sea, and commemorates the famous space battle of Inferdung Pass in which the armed forces of Aaia broke the power of the mad Asthark Lethume and his hordes of wild Mitsumian tribesmen. The Gardens are laid out to provide maximum pleasure for each of the space-traveling Nineteen Civilized Species. There is much here for everyone, and at modest cost. For the adventurous, there are pleasures compounded of the most guilty and deeply hidden desires – to be brought to light and staged for you by a plentiful staff of your own species to ensure the authenticity of all delights – unlike the Gouville FunLand on Drog’hvasta II, where all services, sexual and otherwise, are performed by shape-changing (and sometimes absentminded!) Duverian Hungorfyyords.
But the description is not the described, as Amirra Tauba remarked as he chewed up the map of the galaxy! Words, in the final analysis, are just about as futile as actions, and much less fun. So welcome to Aaia, where we promise you the time of your incarnation!
Crompton put the brochure in his pocket. He was sitting in the lobby of the Pingala Arms in downtown Cetesphe. His ship had ‘come out of the tube’ (as Captain Remonstrator jocularly expressed it) some twelve hours previously. He was now seated in the lobby of his hotel awaiting the arrival of a man who might be able to help him.
Edgar Loomis, whom he sought, was the pleasure component of the scattered Crompton personality. He was the fun-seeker, the sensation-lover; without him, there was no party for Crompton, no immediacy, no Now. Loomis was indispensable. But it looked as though there were going to be considerable difficulties in finding him.
Soon after his arrival, Crompton had gone to the Hall of Records, where information on the whereabouts of all beings on Aaia was scrupulously maintained and updated. He was told that Edgar Loomis was in good health and was currently employed at the Gardens of Rui. But no other information was given to him: by virtue of a very recent law, the addresses of persons and other beings working in the Gardens were no longer to be disclosed. The android clerk, though sympathetic and in agreement that the law made no apparent sense, could do nothing for him except suggest that he conduct a personal search of the Gardens.
Crompton decided against this. It would be futile, considering their vast extent and the hordes of people employed there, some of them indoors in capacities that would make a chance encounter with a male of their own race unlikely in the extreme.
He discussed his problem with the desk clerk at the Pingala Arms. The clerk hinted that something might be done, under certain circumstances difficult to define. Crompton, after several agonizing seconds, figured out what the man meant and, crimson with embarrassment, offered him a crumpled handful of Aaian pronics. The clerk accepted them matter-of-factly and made a telegnomic call. He told Crompton to wait in the lobby until someone came for him.
The hotel’s central intake orifice dilated and a small hunchbacked person in a long tattered gray overcoat and cracked brown shoes slid through and said, ‘You Crompton? Follow me.’
He led Crompton outside, to a waiting limousine. (Crompton learned later that this vehicle ran on the power supplied by a small psychophysical converter that extracted volition from chimpanzees bred especially for this purpose, then converted that energy into torque.) The hunchback seated himself next to Crompton and waited until Crompton paid him six hundred pronics. Then he gave instructions to the driver and the vehicle gibbered away.
The hunchback said, ‘I’m not guaranteeing anything, but I’m taking you to see the only person who can help you, if he wants to.’
‘Who is this person?’ Crompton asked.
‘He is the newly elected Council Member for East Cetesphe. He is also the person who sponsored the law that prevents you from learning what you need to know.’
‘How can he help me?’
‘It is a custom of Aaia that the man responsible for a new law is also granted a legal exception to that law, to use as he pleases, or to bestow on someone else.’
‘You’re saying that the man who passes a new law is legally entitled to break it?’
‘Precisely.’
‘But that’s immoral! It’s blatant corruption!’
‘On the contrary, the law prevents corruption by legitimatizing it.’
‘That makes no sense to me at all,’ Crompton said. ‘And anyhow, why would this Council Member want to help me?’
‘For the same reason that the desk clerk and I are helping you,’ the hunchback said. ‘For a bribe.’
‘I see,’ Crompton said coldly.
‘We’re very much into bribery this century,’ the hunchback explained. ‘It’s become quite a fad.’
Crompton sat in a scornful silence.
‘I suppose you were expecting more godlike behavior?’
‘Well –’
‘Most tourists do. But we Aains got sick of the god-like thing many thousands of years ago. It wasn’t much fun, and it interfered with the Game.’
‘I see,’ Crompton said.
They rode in silence for a while. Then the hunchback said, ‘I see that you’re wondering how come I, an Aaian with the power to take on any shape I desire, am currently walking around with a hunchback and tatty clothes.’
‘I really don’t like you reading my mind,’ Crompton snapped.
‘Sorry,’ the Aaian said.
After a while Crompton asked, ‘Well, since you brought it up, why?’
‘It’s because of a bad move I made in the Game a few centuries ago. I’ve got to wear this body exactly as it is for another eighty years. The hunch isn’t so bad – I can store water in it, you know – but I’ve got dyspepsia so bad it would drive you crazy.’
‘Huh,’ Crompton said.
‘You’re really not a very interesting conversationalist,’ the hunchback told him. ‘Anyhow, here we are.’ The car came to a stop in front of a small green office building. ‘Go right down the central corridor and enter the first door on your right. Good luck.’
Crompton got out. The car gibbered away, and Crompton entered the office building. He found the door that the hunchback had indicated. He knocked.
‘Come in,’ a voice said.
Crompton opened the door and walked into a richly furnished office. At a desk, turning toward him now, was an Aaian with a familiar face and an unmistakable crew cut. It was Secuille.
9
Secuille looked at him as though seeing him for the first time. ‘Yes, what can I do for you?’ he asked in a pleasant, slightly harassed voice.
‘I’m Alistair Crompton. Don’t you remember me?’
Secuille studied his face, then shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. Perhaps you’ve mixed me up with someone else.’
‘Your name is Secuille,’ Crompton said. ‘We just met on a starship. We talked for about an hour, then you disappeared.’
‘You’re quite sure of that?’
‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d be likely to get wrong. You told me that you were playing the Game, or just about to begin playing it. You said that I was going to be a pawn in your Game.’
‘Damnation!’ Secuille struck his forehead with the flat of his hand. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m going to check this out with Giant Computer.’
He pressed a button on a small violet tabletop computer terminal situated just to the left of the blotter. He asked, ‘Did I happen to commit myself to the Game in the last few days? And was I out of temporal sequence for a part of that time?’ He studied the flashing lights on the readout panel, then said, ‘I see. Thank you, Giant Computer.’ He turned to Crompton. ‘What else did I tell you?’
‘You said that you thought it might be amusing to explain things to me out of temporal sequence. You said that you wouldn’t remember, however, and I would have to remind you.’
‘I see,’ Secuille said. ‘Yes, it’s just the sort of clownish stunt I’m likely to do. There was this party last week, and some pretty potent items were passed around. We Aaians take anything, you know, because we can’t be killed that way; maybe
no
way, but certainly not that way. So we drop it all down the old hatch, whatever it is. We’ve been doing this for untold millennia, and it takes quite a lot to get us off. Most of the time we just get a bad taste in the mouth. So when Chush and his twin brought the packet of semi-aspirated derii weed from Aztec II, I thought nothing of it. The next two days were a blank. I wish I could get some more of that stuff. …’
‘I don’t understand any of this,’ Crompton said. ‘But I
do
have my own problems. Will you give me the address of Edgar Loomis?’
‘And who,’ Secuille asked, ‘is Edgar Loomis?’
‘Must I go through all of that again?’ Crompton asked. ‘You said on the ship that by meeting me out of temporal sequence we could cut out the tedious explanations when we actually did meet, which I presume is now, unless this meeting also doesn’t count.’
‘Calm down,’ Secuille said. ‘I’ve just taken the liberty of peeking into your mind and finding out about Edgar Loomis and all the rest of it. I’m completely at home with the situation by now. By the way, I’m sorry I passed that law concerning the employees of the Rui Gardens. I had no idea it would affect you.’
‘It’s quite obvious that you did that,’ Crompton said, ‘in order to force me to find you and ask a favor.’
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ Secuille said. ‘I – the identity who is speaking to you now – had no idea of your existence, and passed the nondisclosure law in all innocence. It was one of my other identities, the one whom you met on the star ship, who influenced me to pass that law.’
‘How many identities do you have?’ Crompton asked.
‘Innumerable,’ Secuille said.
‘I find all of this difficult to believe,’ Crompton said.
‘That is only because you haven’t consciously experienced for yourself the influences which your selves, past and present, have on the identity you happen to be at the moment. Crompton, every sentient creature Eves simultaneously in various timebound sequences, and tries to better things for himself by influencing one or more of his other selves. The voices that you hear in your head, telling you what to do and what not to do, these are the voices of your other selves at other times and places, casting their votes, trying to improve conditions for themselves.’
‘Maybe that’s true for you,’ Crompton said. ‘But it’s not for me. I’m always the same person.’
‘Some of your other selves are presently out of touch,’ Secuille admitted. ‘But what I say is as true for you as it is for me. You yourself, at this moment, are nothing more than one thin voice in the mind of some inconceivable Crompton who might not yet have dreamed that this was one of this situations.’
‘I don’t understand any of that,’ Crompton said. ‘The fact remains that you passed the law that won’t allow me to learn Loomis’s whereabouts. And now I suppose you’ll give me his address only if I agree to be a pawn in your Game.’
Secuille looked amazed, then threw back his head and laughed. Aaians don’t laugh whole-heartedly as a rule when in the company of other beings: Aaians, being ancient and wise, are filled to bursting with various kinds of psychic powers. The sudden explosive release of emotion tends to allow these powers to manifest.
That is what happened now. Secuille’s laughter gave form to the following beings: a brown-skinned girl with long black hair and dancing eyes, two Babylonian demons, a yeti, and a red-faced man in a brown and yellow checked suit.
‘Do you see what I see?’ one of the demons remarked to the other indicating the girl. ‘Poontang!’
‘Is good to eat?’ the other demon asked.
‘Eeee,’ said the girl.
‘To think,’ said the red-faced man, ‘that I should wind up to be mere illusion in the mind of an extraterrestrial being who, during my lifetime, I never even dreamed existed! Yet he might equally be a figment of someone else’s imagination. Which would make me an apparition of a second order of unreality, counting from the left.’
‘Let’s get married,’ the brown-skinned girl said to no one in particular.
‘All right, that’s enough of that,’ Secuille said; and the illusions forlornly turned into smoke and reentered the Aaian’s head, all except the yeti, who escaped by the fire exit and was hunted down and dispatched several days later by the Royal Aaian Illusion Squad.
‘You have really missed the point, Crompton,’ Secuille said after everything was back under control and the chair that the yeti had knocked over had set itself upright, somewhat abashed at having been overturned by a mere illusion. ‘Can you actually believe that I would try to coerce you into playing in my Game?’