Lem, Stanislaw (39 page)

rushed the barn and each time were forced to retreat, doubled over

with the beast's contractions. Much chagrined by this unforeseen

development, I realized now that the drug could be properly

tested only in the city, where there were no animals. So I quickly

packed my things and went to pay the bill. But as everyone about was

quite incapacitated in birthing that calf, there was no one available

with whom to settle accounts. I returned to my carriage, but finding

both coachman and horses deep in labor, decided instead to proceed to

the city on foot. I was crossing a small bridge when, as my ill

fortune would have it, the suitcase slipped from my hand and

fell in such a way, that it flew open and spilled my entire supply of

powder into the stream below. I stood there dazed while the quick

current carried off and dissolved all forty kilograms of Altruizine.

But nothing could be done now— the die was cast, inasmuch as

this stream happened to supply the entire city up ahead with its

drinking water.

It was evening by the time I reached

the city, the lights were lit, the streets were full of noise and

people. I found a small hotel, a place to stay and observe the first

signs of the drug taking effect, though as yet there seemed to be

none. Weary after the day's peregrination, I made straight for bed,

but was awakened in the middle of the night by the most horrible

screams. I threw off the covers and jumped up. My room was bright

from the flames that were consuming the building opposite. Running

out into the street, I stumbled over a corpse which was not yet cold.

Nearby, six thugs held down an old man and, while he cried for help,

yanked one tooth after another from his mouth with a pair of pliers—

until a unanimous shout of triumph announced that finally they had

succeeded in pulling the right one, the rotten root of which had been

driving them wild, due to the metapsychotropic transmission. Leaving

the toothless old man half-dead in the gutter, they walked off,

greatly relieved.

Yet it was not this that had roused me

from my slumber: the cause was an incident which had transpired in a

tavern across the way. It seems some drunken weightlifter had punched

his comrade in the face and, experiencing the blow forthwith, became

enraged and set upon him in earnest. Meanwhile the other customers,

no less affronted, joined in the fray, and the circle of mutual abuse

soon grew to such proportions, that it awoke half the people at my

hotel, who promptly armed themselves with canes, brooms and sticks,

rushed out in their nightshirts to the scene of battle, and hurled

themselves, one seething mass, among the broken bottles and shattered

chairs, until finally an overturned kerosene lamp started the fire.

Deafened by the wail of fire engines, as well as the wail of the

maimed and wounded, I hurried away, and after a block or two found

myself in a gathering—that is, a crowd milling about a little

white house with rose bushes. As it happened, a bride and groom were

spending their wedding night within. People pushed and pulled, there

were military men in the crowd, men of the cloth, even high-school

students; those nearest the house shoved their heads through the

windows, others clambered up on their shoulders and shouted, "Well?!

What are you waiting for?! Enough of that dawdling! Get on with it!"

and so on. An elderly gentleman, too feeble to elbow others aside,

tearfully pleaded to be let through, as he was unable to feel

anything at such a distance, advanced age having weakened his mental

faculties. His pleas, however, were ignored—some of the crowd

were lost in a transport of delight, some groaned with pleasure,

while others blew voluptuous bubbles through their noses. At first

the relatives of the newlyweds tried to drive off this band of

intruders, but they themselves were soon caught up in the

general flood of concupiscence and joined the scurrilous chorus,

cheering the young couple on, and, in this sad spectacle the

great-grandfather of the groom led the rest, repeatedly ramming the

bedroom door with his wheelchair. Utterly aghast at all of this, I

turned and hastened back to my hotel, encountering on the way several

groups, some locked in combat, others in a lewd embrace. Yet this was

nothing compared with the sight that greeted me at the hotel. People

were jumping out of windows in their underwear, more often than

not breaking their legs in the process, a few even crawled up on the

roof, while the owner, his wife, chambermaids and porters ran back

and forth inside, wild with fear, howling, hiding in closets or under

beds— all because a cat was chasing a mouse in the cellar.

Now I began to realize that I had been

somewhat precipitate in my zeal. By dawn the Altruizine effect

was so strong, that if one nostril itched, the entire neighborhood

for a mile on every side would respond with a shattering salvo of

sneezes; those suffering from chronic migraines were abandoned by

their families, and doctors and nurses fled in panic when they

approached—only a few pale masochists would hang around them,

breathing heavily. And then there were the many doubters who slapped

or kicked their compatriots, merely to ascertain whether there was

any truth to this amazing transmission of feelings everyone

spoke of, nor were these compatriots slow in returning the favor, and

soon the entire city rang with the sounds of slaps and kicks. At

breakfast time, wandering the streets in a daze, I came upon a

tearful multitude that chased an old woman in a black veil, hurling

stones after her. It so happened that this was the widow of one

much-esteemed cobbler, who had passed away the day before and was to

be buried that morning: the poor woman's inconsolable grief had so

exasperated her neighbors, and the neighbors' neighbors, that,

quite unable to comfort her in any way, they were driving her from

the town. This woeful sight lay heavy on my heart and again I

returned to my hotel, only to find it now in flames. It seems the

cook had burnt her finger in the soup, whereupon her pain caused a

certain captain, who was at that very moment cleaning his blunderbuss

on the top floor, to pull the trigger, inadvertently slaying his wife

and four children on the spot. Everyone remaining in the hotel now

shared the captain's despair; one compassionate individual, wishing

to put an end to the general suffering, doused everyone he could find

with kerosene and set them all on fire. I ran from the conflagration

like one possessed, searching frantically for at least one man who

might be considered, in any way whatever, to have been rendered

happy—but met only stragglers of the crowd returning from that

wedding night.

They were discussing it, the

scoundrels: apparently the newlyweds' performance had fallen short of

their expectations. Meanwhile each of these former vicarious

grooms carried a club and drove off any sufferer who dared to cross

his path. I felt I should die from sorrow and shame, yet still sought

a man—but one would do—who might a little lessen my

remorse. Questioning various persons on the street, I at last

obtained the address of a prominent philosopher, a true champion

of brotherhood and universal tolerance, and eagerly proceeded to that

place, confident I should find his dwelling surrounded by great

numbers of the populace. But alas! Only a few cats purred softly at

the door, basking in the aura of good will the wise man did so

abundantly exude—several dogs, however, sat at a distance and

waited for them, salivating. A cripple rushed past, crying,

"They've opened the rabbitry!" How that could be of benefit

to him, I preferred not to guess.

As I stood there, two men approached.

One looked me straight in the eye as he swung and smote the other

full force in the nose. I stared in amazement, neither grabbing my

own nose nor shouting with pain, since, as a robot, I could not feel

the blow, and that proved my undoing, for these were secret police

and they had employed this ruse precisely to unmask me. Handcuffed

and hauled off to jail, I confessed everything, trusting that they

would take into consideration my good intentions, though half the

city now lay in ashes. But first they pinched me cautiously with

pincers, and then, fully satisfied it produced no ill effects

whatever on themselves, jumped upon me and began most savagely to

batter and break every plate and filament in my weary frame. Ah, the

torments I endured, and all because I wished to make them happy! At

long last, what remained of me was stuffed down a cannon and shot

into cosmic space, as dark and serene as always. In flight I looked

back and saw, albeit in a fractured fashion, the spreading influence

of Altruizine—spreading, since the rivers and streams were

carrying the drug farther and farther. I saw what happened to the

birds of the forest, the monks, goats, knights, villagers and their

wives, roosters, maidens and matrons, and the sight made my last

tubes crack for woe, and in this state did I finally fall, O kind and

noble sir, not far from your abode, cured once and for all of my

desire to render others happy by revolutionary means…

From the

Cyphroeroticon,

OR

Tales of

Deviations,

Superfixations and

Aberrations of the

Heart

Prince Ferris and

the

Princess Crystal

King Armoric had a daughter whose

beauty outshone the shine of his crown jewels; the beams that

streamed from her mirrorlike cheeks blinded the mind as well as the

eye, and when she walked past, even simple iron shot sparks. Her

renown reached the farthermost stars. Ferrix, heir apparent to

the Ionid throne, heard of her, and he longed to couple with her

forevermore, so that nothing could ever part their input and their

output. But when he declared this passion to his father, the King was

greatly saddened and said:

"Son, thou hast indeed set upon a

mad undertaking, mad, for it is hopeless!"

"Why hopeless, O King and Sire?"

asked Ferrix, troubled by these words.

"Can it be thou knowest not,"

said the King, "that the princess Crystal has vowed to give her

hand to nothing but a paleface?"

"Paleface!" exclaimed

Ferrix. "What in creation is that? Never did I hear of such a

thing!"

"Surely not, scion, in thy

exceeding innocence," said the King. "Know then that that

race of the Galaxy originated in a manner as mysterious as it was

obscene, for it resulted from the general pollution of a certain

heavenly body. There arose noxious exhalations and putrid

excrescences, and out of these was spawned the species known as

paleface —though not all at once. First, they were creeping

molds that slithered forth from the ocean onto land, and lived by

devouring one another, and the more they devoured themselves,

the more of them there were, and then they stood upright, supporting

their globby substance by means of calcareous scaffolding, and

finally they built machines. From these protomachines came sentient

machines, which begat intelligent machines, which in turn conceived

perfect machines, for it is written that All Is Machine, from

atom to Galaxy, and the machine is one and eternal, and thou shalt

have no other things before thee!"

"Amen," said Ferrix

mechanically, for this was a common religious formula.

"The species of paleface

calciferates at last achieved flying machines," continued

the wizened monarch, "by maltreating noble metals, by

wreaking their cruel sadism on dumb electrons, by thoroughly

perverting atomic energy. And when the measure of their sins had been

attained, the progenitor of our race, the great Calculator Paternius,