Lem, Stanislaw (11 page)

And with great ire did he have at it, hewing with might and main

until there were no end of little beasts underfoot, but suddenly they

all backed off, went into a huddle, and there stood the beast again,

good as new and stifling a yawn.

"H'm," thought the King.

"Apparently it has the same kind of stabilization mechanism

that—what was his name again?—Pumpington—that

Pumpington tried to use. Yes, I dealt with him myself for that

idiotic trick… Well, we'll just wheel out the antimatter

artillery…"

He picked one with a six-foot bore,

lined it up and loaded it himself, took aim, pulled the string and

sent a perfectly silent and weirdly shimmering shell straight at the

beast, to blow it to smithereens once and for all. But nothing

happened—that is, nothing much. The beast only crouched a

little lower, put out its left hand, long and hairy, and gave the

King the finger.

"Bring out our biggest!"

roared the King, pretending not to notice. And several hundred

peasants pulled up a veritable giant of a cannon, all of

eighty-gauge, which the King aimed and was just about to fire—when

all at once the beast leaped. The King lifted his sword to defend

himself, but then there was no more beast. Those who saw what

happened next said later that they were sure they had taken leave of

their senses, for as the beast flew through the air, it underwent a

lightning transformation, the grayish hulk divided up into three men

in uniform, three policemen, who, still aloft, were already preparing

to do their duty. The first policeman, a sergeant, got out the

handcuffs, maneuvering his legs to keep upright; the second held

on to his plumed shako with one hand, so it wouldn't blow off, and

with the other pulled out a warrant from his breast pocket; the

third, apparently a rookie, assumed a horizontal position beneath the

feet of the first two, to cushion their fall—after which,

however, he jumped up and carefully dusted off his uniform. Meanwhile

the first policeman had handcuffed the dumbfounded King and the

second slapped the sword from his hand. Feebly protesting, the

suspect was then summarily trotted off the field. The entire

hunting procession stood rooted to the spot for a minute or two, then

gave a yell and followed in hot pursuit. The snorting cybersteeds had

practically caught up with the abductors, and swords and sabers were

unsheathed and raised to strike, but the third policeman bent over,

depressed his bellybutton and immediately the arms grew into two

shafts, the legs coiled up, sprouting spokes, and began to turn,

while the back formed the seat of a green racing gig to accommodate

the other two policemen, who were vigorously plying the now-harnessed

King with a whip, to make him run faster. The King obliged and broke

into a mad gallop, waving his arms frantically to ward off the blows

that descended upon his royal head; but now the huntsmen were gaining

again, so the policemen jumped on the King's back and one slipped

down between the shafts, huffed and puffed and turned into a spinning

top
₇
a dancing whirlwind, which gave wings to the little

gig and whisked it away over hill and dale till it disappeared

altogether in a cloud of dust. The King's retinue split up and began

a desperate search with Geiger counters and bloodhounds, and a

special detachment came running up with shovels and flamethrowers and

left no bone unburned in all the neighboring cemeteries—an

obvious error, occasioned most likely by the trembling hand that

hastily telegraphed the order from the observation balloon that had

monitored the hunt. Several police divisions rushed here and there,

searched the grounds, every bush, every weed, and both x-rays and

laboratory samples were diligently taken of everything imaginable.

The King's charger was ordered to appear before a special board of

inquiry appointed by the Prosecutor General. A unit of paratroopers

with vacuum cleaners and sieves was dropped on the royal game

preserve to sift through every last particle of dust. Finally,

the order was issued that anyone resembling a policeman was to be

detained and held without bail, which naturally created

difficulties—one half of the police force, as it turned out,

had arrested the other, and vice versa. At dusk the huntsmen and

soldiers returned to the village dazed and bedraggled with the woeful

tidings that neither hide nor hair of the King's person was anywhere

to be found.

By torchlight and in the dead of

night, the chained constructors were taken before the Great

Chancellor and Keeper of the Royal Seal, who addressed them in the

following way:

"Whereas ye have falsely

conspired and perversely plotted against the Crown and Life of Our

Beloved Sovereign and Most Noble Ruler Krool and therewith dared to

raise a treacherous hand and vilely devise his demise, not to

mention impersonating an officer, a great aggravation of your

crimes, so shall ye be quartered without quarter, impaled and

pilloried, disemboweled, buried alive, crucified and burnt at the

stake, after which your ashes shall be sent into orbit as a warning

and perpetual reminder to all would-be regicides, amen."

"Can't you wait a bit?"

asked Trurl. "You see, we were expecting a letter…"

"A letter, thou most scurrilous

and scurvy knave?!"

Just then the guards made way for the

Postmaster General himself—indeed, how could they bar that

dignitary's entrance with their poleaxes? The Postmaster

approached in full regalia, his medals jingling impressively, pulled

a letter from a sapphire satchel and handed it to the Chancellor,

saying, "Mannequin though I be, I come from His Majesty,"

whereupon he disintegrated into a fine powder. The Chancellor could

scarcely believe his eyes, but quickly recognized the King's signet

impressed there on the purple sealing wax; he opened the letter

and read that His Majesty was forced to negotiate with the enemy, for

the constructors had employed means algorithmic and algebraic to make

him captive, and now they would list their demands, all of which

the Great Chancellor had better meet, if he wished ever to get his

Mighty Sovereign back in one piece. Signed: "Krool herewith

affixes his hand and seal, held prisoner in a cave of unknown

location by one pseudoconstabulary beast in three uniforms

personified."

There then arose a great clamor,

everyone shouting and asking what it all meant and what were the

demands, to which Trurl said only, "Our chains, if you please."

A blacksmith was summoned to unfetter

them, after which Trurl said:

"We are hungry and dirty, we need

a bath, a shave, massage, refreshment, nothing but the best,

plenty of pomp and a water ballet with fireworks for dessert!"

The court, of course, was hopping mad,

but had to comply in every particular. Only at dawn did the

constructors return from their villa, each elegantly pomaded, arrayed

and reclining in a sedan chair borne by footmen (their former

informers); they then, deigning to grant an audience, sat down

and presented their demands—not off the top of their heads,

mind you, but from a little notebook they had prepared for the

occasion and hidden behind a curtain in their room. The following

articles were read:

First, A ship of the finest make and

model available shall be furnished to carry the constructors home.

2nd, The said ship shall be laden with

various cargo as here specified: diamonds—four bushels, gold

coin—forty bushels, platinum, palladium and whatever other

ready valuables they happen to think of—eight bushels of

each, also whatever mementos and tokens from the Royal Apartments the

signatories of this instrument may deem appropriate.

3rd, Until such time as the said ship

shall be in readiness for takeoff, every nut and bolt in place, fully

loaded and delivered up to the constructors complete with red

carpet, an eighty-piece send-off band and children's chorus, an

abundance of honors, decorations and awards, and a wildly

cheering crowd—until then, no King.

4th, That a formal expression of

undying gratitude shall be stamped upon a gold medallion and

addressed to Their Most Sublime and Radiant Constructors Trurl and

Klapaucius, Delight and Terror of the Universe, and moreover it shall

contain a full account of their victory and be duly signed and

notarized by every high and low official in the land, then set in the

richly embellished barrel of the King's favorite cannon, which Lord

Protozor, Master of the Royal Hunt, shall himself and wholly unaided

carry on board—no other Protozor but the one who lured Their

Most Sublime and Radiant Constructors to this planet, thinking to

work their painful and ignominious death thereby.

5th, That the aforesaid Protozor shall

accompany them on their return journey as insurance against any sort

of double-dealing, pursuit, and the like. On board he shall occupy a

cage three by three by four feet and shall receive a daily allowance

of humble pie with a filling made of that very same sawdust which

Their Most Sublime and Radiant Constructors saw fit to order in

the process of indulging the King's foolishness and which was

subsequently taken to police headquarters by unmarked balloon.

6th and lastly, The King need not

crave forgiveness of Their Most Sublime and Radiant Constructors on

bended knee, since he is much too beneath them to deserve notice.

In Witness Whereof, the parties have

hereunto set their hands and seals this day and year,
etc.
and so on.

By: Trurl and Klapaucius, Constructors, and the Great Chancellor, the

Great Chamberlain, the Great Chief of Secret Police, the Seneschal,

Squadron Leader and Royal Balloonmaster.

All the ministers and dignitaries

turned blue, but what could they do? They had no choice, so a ship

was immediately ordered. But then the constructors unexpectedly

showed up after a leisurely breakfast, to supervise the work, and

nothing suited them: this material, for instance, was no good, and

that engineer was an absolute idiot, and they had to have a revolving

magic lantern in the main hall, one with four pneumatic widgets and a

calibrated cuckoo clock on top —and if the natives here didn't

know what a widget was, so much the worse for them, considering that

the King was no doubt most impatient for his release and would (when

he could) deal harshly with anyone who dared to delay it. This remark

occasioned a general numbness, a great weakness about the knees, and

much trembling, but the work continued apace. Finally the ship was

ready and the royal stevedores began to stow the cargo in the

hold, diamonds, sacks of pearls, so much gold it kept spilling out

the hatch. Meanwhile the police were secretly running all about the

countryside, turning everything upside down, much to the

amusement of Trurl and Klapaucius, who didn't mind explaining to

a fearful but fascinated audience how it all happened, how they had

discarded one idea after another until they hit upon an altogether

different kind of beast. Not knowing where or how to place the

controls—that is, the brain —so that they would be safe,

the constructors had simply made everything brain, enabling the beast

to think with its leg, or tail, or jaws (equipped with wisdom teeth

only). But that was just the beginning. The real problem had two

aspects, algorithmic and psychoanalytic. First they had to determine

what would check the King, catch him flatfooted, so to speak. To this

end, they created by nonlinear transmutation a police subset

within the beast, since everyone knows that resisting or interfering

with an officer who is making an arrest
lege artis
is a

cosmic offense and utterly unthinkable. So much for the psychology of

it—except that the Postmaster General was utilized here on

similar grounds: an official of lower rank might not have made it

past the guards, the letter then would not have been delivered, and

the constructors would have very literally lost their heads.

Moreover, the Postmaster mannequin had been given means to bribe the

guards, should that have proved necessary. Every eventuality had been

anticipated and provided for. Now as far as the algorithms went: they

had only to find the proper domain of beasts, closed, bounded and

bonded, with plenty of laws both associative and distributive in

operation, throw in a constable constant or two, some graphs of

graft, squadratic equations and crime waves—and the thing took

over from there, once activated by the expedient of writing a

document-program (behind the curtain with the bells) in castor oil

ink, rendering it thereby sufficiently hard to swallow to serve as a

red-tape generator. We might add here that later on the constructors

had an article published in a prominent scientific journal under

the title of "Recursive β—Metafunctions in the