Authors: The Cyberiad [v1.0] [htm]
incommoditate him; on board we had no way of knowing, you see, that
at this particular locus of this worthy sphere, which your abode is
pleased to occupy, night still reigned supreme and stayed the break
of day."
Here he cleared his throat, like
someone playing sweetly upon a glass harmonica, and continued:
"I have been sent to Your Exalted
Person by my lord and master, His Royal Highness Protuberon
Asteristicus, sovereign ruler of the sister globes of Aphelion
and Perihelion, hereditary monarch of Aneuria, emperor of all the
Monodamites, Biproxicans and Tripartisans, the Grand Duke of
Anamandorinth, Glorgonzigor and Esquacciaccaturbia, Count of the
Euscalipü, the Algorissimo and the Flora del Fortran, Paladin
Escutcheoned, Begudgeoned and of the Highest Dudgeon, Baron of Bhm,
Wrph and Clarafoncasterbrackeningen, as well as anointed exarch
extraordinary of Ida, Pida and Adinfinida, to invite in His
munificent name Your Resplendent Grace to our kingdom as the
long-awaited savior of the crown, as the only one who can deliver us
from the general mortifaction occasioned by the thrice-unhappy
infatuation of His Royal Highness, the heir to the throne,
Pantagoon."
"But really, I'm not—"
Trurl tried to interpose, but the dignitary waved his hand,
signifying that he had not as yet finished, and went on in that same
resonating voice:
"In return for the gracious loan
of your most sympathetic ear, and for your succor in the overcoming
of our national calamity, His Royal Highness Protuberon hereby
promises, pledges and solemnly swears that he shall shower Your
Constructorship with such riches and honors, that Your Esteemed
Effulgence will never exhaust them, even until the end of his days.
And now, by way of an advance or, as they say, a retainer, I
forthwith dub thee"—and here the magnate rose, drew
his sword, and spoke, vigorously punctuating each word with the flat
of the blade on both Trurl's shoulders—"Earl of Otes,
Grotes and Finocclea, Margrave Emeritus of Trundle and Sklar,
Eight-barreled Bearer of the Great Guamellonian Hok, not to mention
Thane of Bondacalonda and Cgth, Governor General of Muxis and Ptuxis,
as well as Titular Viscount of the Order of Unwinched Waifs, Almoner
in perpetuum
of the realms of Eenica, Meenica and Mynamoaca,
with all the attendant rights and privileges accruing thereto,
including a twenty-one gun salute upon rising in the morning and
retiring at night, an after-dinner fanfare, and the Extinguished
Exponential Cross, duly certified and carved in ebony, slate and
marzipan. And as proof of his royal favor, my Lord and Liege sends
you these few trifles, which I have taken the liberty to place about
your dwelling."
And indeed, the sacks already blocked
out the sky, and the room grew dim. The magnate finished speaking,
though his hand, raised in eloquence, remained in midair. Trurl took
this opportunity to say:
"I am much obliged to His Royal
Highness Protuberon, but affairs of the heart, you understand, are
not exactly my specialty. Though…" he added,
uncomfortable under the magnate's dazzling gaze, "perhaps you
would explain 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 Cybernella, the only daughter of the ruler of the
neighboring state of Ib. But an ancient enmity divides our kingdoms,
and doubtless, if our Beloved Sovereign, yielding to the unwearying
pleas of the prince, were to ask that emperor for the hand of
Amarandina, the answer would be a categorical never. And so a year
has passed, and six days, and the crown prince wastes away before our
eyes. All attempts to restore him to reason have failed, and now our
only hope lies in Your Most Iridescent Eminence!"
Here the magnate made a deep bow.
Trurl, observing rows of warriors right outside his window, coughed
and said in a feeble voice:
"Well, I really 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 armor and bore
Trurl off to the ship, which fired its engines twenty-one times,
pulled anchor and, banners waving, lifted up into the open sky.
During the flight the magnate, who was
Grand Seneschal and Artifactotum to the King, filled Trurl in on the
details of the prince's ill-starred enamorization. Directly upon
their arrival, after the welcoming ceremonies and ticker-tape parade
through the streets of the capital, the constructor got down to work.
He set up his equipment in the magnificent royal gardens and in three
weeks had converted the Temple of Contemplation there into a
strange edifice full of metal, cables and glowing screens. This was,
he told the King, a femfatalatron, an erotifying device stochastic,
elastic and orgiastic, and with plenty of feedback; whoever was
placed inside the apparatus instantaneously experienced all the
charms, lures, wiles, winks and witchery of all the fairer sex in the
Universe at once. The femfatalatron operated on a power of forty
megamors, with a maximum attainable efficiency—given a
constant concupiscence coefficient—of ninety-six percent, while
the system's libidinous lubricity, measured of course in kilocupids,
produced up to six units for every remote-control caress. This
marvelous mechanism, moreover, was equipped with reversible ardor
dampers, omnidirectional consummation amplifiers, absorption
philters, paphian peripherals, and "first-sight" flip-flop
circuits, since Trurl held here to the position of Dr. Yentzicus,
creator of the famous oculo-oscular feel theory.
There were also all sorts of auxiliary
components, like a high-frequency titillizer, an alternating
tantalator, plus an entire set of lecherons and debaucheraries; on
the outside, in a special glass case, were enormous dials, on which
one could carefully follow the course of the whole decaptivation
process. Statistical analysis revealed that the femfatalatron gave
positive, permanent results in ninety-eight cases of unrequited
amatorial superfixation out of a hundred. The chances of saving the
crown prince therefore were excellent.
It took forty venerable peers of the
kingdom four hours and more to push and pull their prince through the
gardens to the Temple of Contemplation, for though fully determined,
they had to show proper respect for his royal person, and the prince,
having no desire whatever of becoming decaptivated, kicked and
butted his faithful courtiers with great vigor. When finally His
Majesty was shoved, with the application of numerous feather pillows,
into the machine and the trapdoor shut after him, Trurl, full of
misgivings, threw the switch, and the computer began its countdown in
a dreary monotone: "Five, four, three, two, one, zero …
start!" The synchroerotorotors, bumping and grinding, set up
powerful counterseduction currents to displace the prince's so
tragically misplaced affections. After an hour of this, Trurl looked
at the dials: their needles trembled under the terrible load of
lascivicity but, alas, failed to show any significant improvement. He
began to have serious doubts about the success of the treatment, but
it was too late to do anything now—other than fold his hands
and wait patiently. He only checked to make sure that the
autolips were landing in the right place and at the proper angle,
that the aphrodisial philanderoids and satyriacal panderynes weren't
going too far, for he didn't want the patient to undergo a total
dotal transferral and end up idolizing the machine instead of
Amarandina, but only to fall thoroughly out of love. At last the
trapdoor was opened in solemn silence. Out of the dim interior,
wreathed with a cloud of the sweetest perfume, stumbled the pale
prince through crushed rose petals—and fell in a swoon, stunned
by that awesome access of passion. His faithful servants rushed up
and, as they lifted his limp limbs, heard him utter in a hoarse
whisper one solitary word: Amarandina. Trurl cursed under his breath,
for all of it had been in vain, and the prince's mad love had proven
stronger than all the megamors and kilocuddles the femfatalatron
could bring to bear. The rapturometer, when pressed against the brow
of the stupefied prince, registered one hundred and seven, then the
glass shattered and the mercury poured out, still quivering, as if it
too had come under the influence of those raging emotions. The first
attempt, then, was a complete failure.
Trurl returned to his quarters in the
foulest mood, and anyone eavesdropping would have heard how he paced
from wall to wall, seeking a solution. Meanwhile there was an awful
racket back in the gardens: some stonemasons, ordered to fix the
wall of a small arborium, had out of curiosity crawled into the
femfatalatron and accidentally turned it on. It became necessary to
summon the fire department, for they jumped out so inflamed, that
they started to smoke.
Next Trurl tried a retropruriginous
eroginator with heavy-duty volupticles, but that too—to make a
long story short— was a flop. The prince was not a whit less
smitten with Amarandina's charms; in fact, he was more smitten than
ever. Once again Trurl paced the floor of his room, back and forth
for many miles, and sat up half the night reading professional
manuals, till he hurled them against the wall. That morning he went
to the Grand Seneschal and requested an audience with the King.
Admitted to the presence of His Majesty, Trurl spoke in this fashion:
"Your Royal Highness and Gracious
Sovereign! The dis-enamorment methods which I employed upon Your son
are the most powerful possible. He simply will not be dis-enamored,
not alive—Your Majesty must know the truth."
The King was silent, crushed by this
news, but Trurl went on:
"Of course, I could deceive him,
synthesizing an Amarandina according to the parameters I have at
hand, but sooner or later the prince would find out, when news of the
true Amarandina reached his ears. No, I see no other way: the prince
must marry the Emperor's daughter!"
"Bah, but that is the whole
problem, O foreigner! The Emperor will never agree to such a
marriage!"
"And if he were conquered? If he
had to sue for peace, beg for mercy?"
"Why then, certainly—but
would you have me plunge two large kingdoms into a bloody war, which
is a risky proposition at best, solely in order to win the hand of
the Emperor's daughter for my son? No, that is quite out of the
question!"
"Precisely the answer I expected
of Your Royal Highness!" said Trurl calmly. "However,
there are wars and there are wars; the kind I have in mind would be
absolutely bloodless. For we would not attack the Emperor's realm
with arms; in fact, we would not take the life of a single citizen,
but
just the opposite!
"
"What are you saying? What do you
mean?" exclaimed the King.
And as Trurl whispered his secret plan
into the royal ear, the monarch's careworn face gradually brightened,
and he cried:
"Go then, and do this thing, good
foreigner, and may the gods be with thee!"
The very next day the royal forges and
workshops undertook the construction, according to Trurl's
specifications, of a great number of tremendous cannons, though for
what purpose intended it was not clear. These were placed around the
planet and disguised as defense installations, so that no one would
guess a thing. Meanwhile Trurl sat day and night in the royal
cybergenetic laboratory, watching over secret cauldrons in which
mysterious concoctions gurgled and percolated. A spy on the
premises would have discovered nothing, except that now and then
behind the double-locked doors there was an odd mewling, puling