Lem, Stanislaw (27 page)

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 combinations dealt with

such phenomena. No—protested the Adviser—Trurl wanted to

compromise and undo it by creating 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

encouraging official cooperation, not to mention interrogation

machinery 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, symbols, signals, probability

and information theory, and became 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 necessary 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

completely demolished in the process, the King was satisfied he

had done the right thing.

A week later, Trurl appeared at the

palace gates and requested 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

fashioned you a Perfect Adviser 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 shield 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 yourself

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 instrument

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 passed 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 hovering high above your planet in a

ship, 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 courtiers 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 matter;

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 recombinations. Now in order to make all this

clear, one would have to 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 assembly 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 knowledge 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 Multitudians 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

intentionally taught it anything, yet neither could you say that

the source of its knowledge lay outside me. As for the Multitudians,

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—altogether different, for they arose by the will of

wet and spongy beings, pale beings that fashioned them after their

own image 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 himself 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

company sat back and made themselves comfortable. The second

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 curious sounds came from the neighboring room—whistling,

hammering, rasping, the shattering of glass, and above all this noise

there boomed a powerful bass, 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 cellar, 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

terrifying voice cried out in a hoarse bass:

—Hey now, sons of vengeance!

Faster, my electric hearties! Shoulders to the wheel! Throw in

the protons, the iodine! Step lively now, let's have that

flap-eared whigma-leeriac, that would-be hoodwinking wizard,

misbegotten miscreant and incorrigible crank, let me grab him by

his unwashed 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 returned. 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, until around noon I heard

those now familiar shouts and hammering 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-fashioned cut, bright red and with a frill about the neck, and a

feathered cap; he himself 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