Lem, Stanislaw (2 page)

them life loses all its charm …"

"But I can't, they're in
z
,"

said the machine. "Of course, I can restore nonsense,

narrowmindedness, nausea, necrophilia, neuralgia, nefariousness and

noxiousness. As for the other letters, however, I can't help you."

"I want my zits!" bellowed

Klapaucius.

"Sorry, no zits," said the

machine. "Take a good look at this world, how riddled it is with

huge, gaping holes, how full of Nothingness, the Nothingness that

fills the bottomless void between the stars, how everything about us

has become lined with it, how it darkly lurks behind each shred of

matter. This is your work, envious one! And I hardly think the future

generations will bless you for it…"

"Perhaps… they won't find

out, perhaps they won't notice," groaned the pale Klapaucius,

gazing up incredulously at the black emptiness of space and not

daring to look his colleague, Trurl, in the eye. Leaving him beside

the machine that could do everything in
n
, Klapaucius

skulked home—and to this day the world has remained honeycombed

with nothingness, exactly as it was when halted in the course of its

liquidation. And as all subsequent attempts to build a machine on any

other letter met with failure, it is to be feared that never again

will we have such marvelous phenomena as the worches and the zits—no,

never again.

Trurl's

Machine

Once upon a time Trurl the constructor

built an eight-story thinking machine. When it was finished, he gave

it a coat of white paint, trimmed the edges in lavender, stepped

back, squinted, then added a little curlicue on the front and, where

one might imagine the forehead to be, a few pale orange polkadots.

Extremely pleased with himself, he whistled an air and, as is always

done on such occasions, asked it the ritual question of how much is

two plus two.

The machine stirred. Its tubes began

to glow, its coils warmed up, current coursed through all its

circuits like a waterfall, transformers hummed and throbbed, there

was a clanging, and a chugging, and such an ungodly racket that Trurl

began to think of adding a special mentation muffler. Meanwhile the

machine labored on, as if it had been given the most difficult

problem in the Universe to solve; the ground shook, the sand slid

underfoot from the vibration, valves popped like champagne corks, the

relays nearly gave way under the strain. At last, when Trurl had

grown extremely impatient, the machine ground to a halt and said in a

voice like thunder: SEVEN!

"Nonsense, my dear," said

Trurl. "The answer's four. Now be a good machine and adjust

yourself! What's two and two?"

"SEVEN!" snapped the

machine. Trurl sighed and put his coveralls back on, rolled up his

sleeves, opened the bottom trapdoor and crawled in. For the longest

time he hammered away inside, tightened, soldered, ran clattering up

and down the metal stairs, now on the sixth floor, now on the eighth,

then pounded back down to the bottom and threw a switch, but

something sizzled in the middle, and the spark plugs grew blue

whiskers. After two hours of this he came out, covered with soot but

satisfied, put all his tools away, took off his coveralls, wiped his

face and hands. As he was leaving, he turned and asked, just so there

would be no doubt about it:

"And now what's two and two?"

"SEVEN!" replied the

machine.

Trurl uttered a terrible oath, but

there was no help for it—again he had to poke around inside the

machine, disconnecting, correcting, checking, resetting, and when he

learned for the third time that two and two was seven, he collapsed

in despair at the foot of the machine, and sat there until Klapaucius

found him. Klapaucius inquired what was wrong, for Trurl looked as if

he had just returned from a funeral. Trurl explained the problem.

Klapaucius crawled into the machine himself a couple of times, tried

to fix this and that, then asked it for the sum of one plus two,

which turned out to be six. One plus one, according to the machine,

equaled zero. Klapaucius scratched his head, cleared his throat and

said:

"My friend, you'll just have to

face it. That isn't the machine you wished to make. However, there's

a good side to everything, including this."

"What good side?" muttered

Trurl, and kicked the base on which he was sitting.

"Stop that," said the

machine.

"H'm, it's sensitive too. But

where was I? Oh yes … there's no question but that we have

here a stupid machine, and not merely stupid in the usual, normal

way, oh no! This is, as far as I can determine—and you know I

am something of an expert—this is the stupidest thinking

machine in the entire world, and that's nothing to sneeze at! To

construct deliberately such a machine would be far from easy; in

fact, I would say that no one could manage it. For the thing is not

only stupid, but stubborn as a mule, that is, it has a personality

common to idiots, for idiots are uncommonly stubborn."

"What earthly use do I have for

such a machine?!" said Trurl, and kicked it again.

"I'm warning you, you better

stop!" said the machine.

"A warning, if you please,"

observed Klapaucius dryly. "Not only is it sensitive, dense and

stubborn, but quick to take offense, and believe me, with such an

abundance of qualities there are all sorts of things you might do!"

"What, for example?" asked

Trurl.

"Well, it's hard to say offhand.

You might put it on exhibit and charge admission; people would flock

to see the stupidest thinking machine that ever was—what does

it have, eight stories? Really, could anyone imagine a bigger dunce?

And the exhibition would not only cover your costs, but—"

"Enough, I'm not holding any

exhibition!" Trurl said, stood up and, unable to restrain

himself, kicked the machine once more.

"This is your third warning,"

said the machine.

"What?" cried Trurl,

infuriated by its imperious manner. "You… you…"

And he kicked it several times, shouting: "You're only good for

kicking, you know that?"

"You have insulted me for the

fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth times," said the machine.

"Therefore I refuse to answer all further questions of a

mathematical nature."

"It refuses! Do you hear that?"

fumed Trurl, thoroughly exasperated. "After six comes eight—did

you notice, Klapaucius?—not seven, but eight! And that's the

kind of mathematics Her Highness refuses to perform! Take that! And

that! And that! Or perhaps you'd like some more?"

The machine shuddered, shook, and

without another word started to lift itself from its foundations.

They were very deep, and the girders began to bend, but at last it

scrambled out, leaving behind broken concrete blocks with steel

spokes protruding—and it bore down on Trurl and Klapaucius like

a moving fortress. Trurl was so dumbfounded that he didn't even try

to hide from the machine, which to all appearances intended to crush

him to a pulp. But Klapaucius grabbed his arm and yanked him away,

and the two of them took to their heels. When finally they looked

back, they saw the machine swaying like a high tower, advancing

slowly, at every step sinking to its second floor, but stubbornly,

doggedly pulling itself out of the sand and heading straight for

them.

"Whoever heard of such a thing?"

Trurl gasped in amazement. "Why, this is mutiny! What do we do

now?"

"Wait and watch," replied

the prudent Klapaucius. "We may learn something."

But there was nothing to be learned

just then. The machine had reached firmer ground and was picking up

speed. Inside, it whistled, hissed and sputtered.

"Any minute now the signal box

will knock loose," said Trurl under his breath. "That'll

jam the program and stop it…"

"No," said Klapaucius, "this

is a special case. The thing is so stupid, that even if the whole

transmission goes, it won't matter. But—look out!!"

The machine was gathering momentum,

clearly bent on running them down, so they fled just as fast as they

could, the fearful rhythm of crunching steps in their ears. They ran

and ran—what else could they do? They tried to make it back to

their native district, but the machine outflanked them, cut them off,

forced them deeper and deeper into a wild, uninhabited region.

Mountains, dismal and craggy, slowly rose out of the mist. Trurl,

panting heavily, shouted to Klapaucius:

"Listen! Let's turn into some

narrow canyon… where it won't be able to follow us …

the cursed thing… what do you say?"

"No… better go straight,"

wheezed Klapaucius. "There's a town up ahead… can't

remember the name… anyway, we can find—oof!—find

shelter there…"

So they ran straight and soon saw

houses before them. The streets were practically deserted at this

time of day, and the constructors had gone a good distance without

meeting a living soul, when suddenly an awful crash, like an

avalanche at the edge of the town, indicated that the machine was

coming after them.

Trurl looked back and groaned.

"Good heavens! It's tearing down

the houses, Klapaucius!!" For the machine, in stubborn pursuit,

was plowing through the walls of the buildings like a mountain of

steel, and in its wake lay piles of rubble and white clouds of

plaster dust. There were dreadful screams, confusion in the streets,

and Trurl and Klapaucius, their hearts in their mouths, ran on till

they came to a large town hall, darted inside and raced down endless

stairs to a deep cellar.

"It won't get us in here, even if

it brings the whole building down on our heads!" panted

Klapaucius. "But really, the devil himself had me pay you a

visit today. … I was curious to see how your work was

going—well, I certainly found out…"

"Quiet," interrupted Trurl.

"Someone's coming…"

And indeed, the cellar door opened up

and the mayor entered, accompanied by several aldermen. Trurl was too

embarrassed to explain how this strange and calamitous situation had

come about; Klapaucius had to do it. The mayor listened in silence.

Suddenly the walls trembled, the ground heaved, and the sound of

cracking stone reached them in the cellar.

"It's here?!" cried Trurl.

"Yes," said the mayor. "And

it demands that we give you up, otherwise it says it will level the

entire town…"

Just then they heard, far overhead,

words that honked as if from a muffled horn:

"Trul's here … I smell

Trurl…"

"But surely you won't give us

up?" asked in a quavering voice the object of the machine's

obstinate fury.

"The one of you who calls himself

Trurl must leave. The other may remain, since surrendering him does

not constitute part of the conditions…"

"Have mercy!"

"We are helpless," said the

mayor. "And were you to stay here, Trurl, you would have to

answer for all the damage done to this town and its inhabitants,

since it was because of you that the machine destroyed sixteen homes

and buried beneath their ruins many of our finest citizens. Only the

fact that you yourself stand in imminent peril permits me to let you

leave unpunished. Go then, and nevermore return."

Trurl looked at the aldermen and,

seeing his sentence written on their stern faces, slowly turned and

made for the door.

"Wait! I'll go with you!"

cried Klapaucius impulsively.

"You?" said Trurl, a faint

hope in his voice. "But no…" he added after a

moment. "Why should you have to perish too?…"

"Nonsense!" rejoined

Klapaucius with great energy. "What, us perish at the hands of

that iron imbecile? Never! It takes more than that, my friend, to

wipe two of the most famous constructors off the face of the globe!

Come, Trurl! Chin up!"

Encouraged by these words, Trurl ran

up the stairs after Klapaucius. There was not a soul outside in the

square. Amid clouds of dust and the gaunt skeletons of demolished

homes, stood the machine, higher than the town hall tower itself,

puffing steam, covered with the blood of powdered brick and smeared

with chalk.

"Careful!" whispered

Klapaucius. "It doesn't see us. Let's take that first street on

the left, then turn right, then straight for those mountains. There

we can take refuge and think of how to make the thing give up once

and for all its insane…
Now
!" he yelled, for the

machine had just spotted them and was charging, making the pavement

buckle.

Breathless, they ran from the town and

galloped along for a mile or so, hearing behind them the thunderous

stride of the colossus that followed relentlessly.

"I know that ravine!"