Lem, Stanislaw (5 page)

him, he looked at the bead in the golden box. It was white but, as he

looked, turned slowly pink. "Aha," he said to himself,

"time to start with Gargantius!" And without further delay

he took out his secret formulae and set to work.

Klapaucius meanwhile found himself in

the other kingdom, which was ruled by the mighty King Ferocitus.

Here everything looked quite different than in Atrocia. This monarch

too delighted in campaigns and marches, and he too spent heavily on

armaments—but in an enlightened way, for he was a most generous

lord and a great patron of the arts. He loved uniforms, gold braid,

stripes and tassels, spurs, brigadiers with bells, destroyers, swords

and chargers. A person of keen sensibilities, he trembled every time

he christened a new destroyer. And he lavishly rewarded

paintings of battle scenes, patriotically paying according to the

number of fallen foes depicted, so that, on those endless

panoramic canvases with which the kingdom was packed, mountains

of
enemy dead reached up to the sky. In practice he was an

autocrat, yet with libertarian views; a martinet, yet magnanimous. On

every anniversary of his coronation he instituted reforms. Once he

ordered the guillotines decked with flowers, another time had them

oiled so they wouldn't squeak, and once he gilded the executioners'

axes and had them all resharpened—out of humanitarian

considerations. Ferocitus was not overly dainty, yet he did frown

upon excesses, and therefore by special decree regulated and

standardized all wheels, racks, spikes, screws, chains and clubs.

Beheadings of wrongthinkers—a rare enough event— took

place with pomp and pageantry, brass bands, speeches, parades and

floats. This high-minded monarch also had a theory, which he put into

action, and this was the Theory of Universal Happiness. It is well

known, certainly, that one does not laugh because one is amused, but

rather, one is amused because one laughs. If then everyone maintains

that things just couldn't be better, attitudes immediately improve.

The subjects of Ferocitus were thus required, for their own good, to

go about shouting how wonderful everything was, and the old,

indefinite greeting of "Hello" was changed by the King to

the more emphatic "Hallelujah!" —though children up

to the age of fourteen were permitted to say, "Wow!" or

"Whee!", and the old-timers, "Swell!"

Ferocitus rejoiced to see his people

in such good spirits. Whenever he drove by in his destroyer-shaped

carriage, crowds in the street would cheer, and whenever he

graciously waved his royal hand, those up front would cry:

"Wow!"—"Hallelujah!"—"Terrific!"

A democrat at heart, he liked to stop and chat awhile with old

soldiers who had been around and seen much, liked to hear tales of

derring-do told at bivouacs, and often, when some foreign dignitary

came for an audience, he would out of the blue clap him on the knee

with his baton and bellow: "Have at them!"—or:

"Swiggle the mizzen there, mates!"—or:

"Thunderation!" For there was nothing he loved so much or

held so dear as gumption, crust and pluck, roughness and toughness,

powder, chowder, hardtack, grog and ammo. And so, whenever he

was melancholy, he had his troops march by before him, singing:

"Screw up yer courage, nuts to the foe"—"When

currents lag, crank out the flag"—"We'll scrap, stout

lads, until we're nought but scrap"—or the rousing anthem:

"Lock, stock, and barrel." And he commanded that, when he

died, the old guard should sing his favorite song over the grave:

"Old Robots Never Rust."

Klapaucius did not get to the court of

this great ruler all at once. At the first village he came to, he

knocked on several doors, but no one opened up. Finally he

noticed in the deserted street a small child; it approached him and

asked in a thin, high voice:

"Wanna buy any, mister? They're

cheap."

"What are you selling?"

inquired Klapaucius, surprised.

"State secrets," replied the

child, lifting the edge of its smock to give him a glimpse of some

mobilization plans. This surprised Klapaucius even more, and he said:

"No, thank you, my little one.

But can you tell me where I might find the mayor?"

"What'cha want the mayor for?"

asked the child.

"I wish to speak with him."

"In secret?"

"It makes no difference."

"Need a secret agent? My dad's a

secret agent. Dependable and cheap."

"Very well then, take me to your

dad," said Klapaucius, seeing he would get nowhere with the

child. The child led him to one of the houses. Inside, though it was

in the middle of the day, a family sat around a lighted lamp—a

gray grandfather in a rocking chair, a grandmother knitting socks,

and their fully grown and numerous progeny, each busy at his own

household task. As soon as Klapaucius entered, they jumped up and

seized him; the knitting needles turned out to be handcuffs, the lamp

a microphone, and the grandmother the local chief of police.

"They must have made a mistake,"

thought Klapaucius, when he was beaten and thrown in jail. Patiently

he waited through the night—there was nothing else he could do.

The dawn came and revealed the cobwebs on the stone walls of his

cell, also the rusted remains of previous prisoners. After a length

of time he was taken and interrogated. It turned out that the little

child as well as the houses—the whole village, in fact—all

of it was a plant to trick foreign spies. But Klapaucius did not have

to face the rigors of a long trial; the proceedings were quickly

over. For attempting to establish contact with the informer-dad

the punishment was a third-class guillotining, because the local

administration had already allotted funds to buy out enemy agents for

that fiscal year, and Klapaucius, on his part, repeatedly refused to

purchase any State secrets from the police. Nor did he have

sufficient ready cash to mitigate the offense. Still, the prisoner

continued to protest his innocence—not that the judge believed

a word of it; even if he had, to free him lay outside his

jurisdiction. So the case was sent to a higher court, and in the

meantime Klapaucius was subjected to torture, though more as a matter

of form than out of any real necessity. In about a week his case took

a turn for the better; finally acquitted, he proceeded to the Capitol

where, after receiving instructions in the rules and regulations of

court etiquette, he obtained the honor of a private audience with the

King. They also gave him a bugle, for every citizen was obliged to

announce his comings and goings in official places with appropriate

flourishes, and such was the iron discipline of that land, that the

sun was not considered risen without the blowing of reveille.

Ferocitus did in fact demand new

weapons. Klapaucius promised to fulfill this royal wish; his plan, he

assured the King, represented a radical departure from the accepted

principles of military action. What kind of army—he asked

first—always emerged victorious? The one that had the finest

leaders and the best disciplined soldiers. The leader gave the

orders, the soldier carried them out; the former therefore had to be

wise, the latter obedient. However, to the wisdom of the mind, even

of the military mind, there were certain natural limits. A great

leader, moreover, could come up against an equally great leader. Then

too, he might fall in battle and leave his legion leaderless, or do

something even more dreadful, since he was, as it were,

professionally trained to think, and the object of his thoughts was

power. Was it not dangerous to have a host of old generals in the

field, their rusty heads so packed with tactics and strategy that

they started pining for the throne? Had not more than one kingdom

come to grief thereby? It was clear, then, that leaders were a

necessary evil; the problem lay in making that evil unnecessary. To

go on: the discipline of an army consisted in the precise

execution of orders. Ideally, we would have a thousand hearts and

minds molded into one heart, one mind, one will. Military regimens,

drills, exercises and maneuvers all served this end. The ultimate

goal was thus an army that literally acted as one man, in itself both

creator and executor of its objectives. But where was the embodiment

of such perfection to be found? Only in the individual, for no

one was obeyed as willingly as one's own self, and no one carried out

orders as cheerfully as the one who gave those orders. Nor could an

individual be dispersed, and insubordination or mutiny against

himself was quite out of the question. The problem then was to take

this eagerness to serve oneself, this self-worship which marked the

individual, and make it a property of a force of thousands. How

could this be done? Here Klapaucius began to explain to the keenly

interested King the simple ideas—for are not all things of

genius simple?—discovered by the great Gargantius.

Into each recruit (he explained) a

plug is screwed in front, a socket in back. Upon the command "Close

up those ranks!" the plugs and sockets connect and, where only a

moment before you had a crowd of civilians, there stands a battalion

of perfect soldiers. When separate minds, hitherto occupied with

all sorts of nonmartial nonsense, merge into one regimental

consciousness, not only is there automatic discipline, for the

army has become a single fighting machine composed of a million

parts—but there is also wisdom. And that wisdom is directly

proportional to the numbers involved. A platoon possesses the acumen

of a master sergeant; a company is as shrewd as a lieutenant colonel,

a brigade smarter than a field marshal; and a division is worth

more than all the army's strategists and specialists put

together. In this way one can create formations of truly staggering

perspicacity. And of course they will follow their own orders to the

letter. This puts an end to the vagaries and reckless escapades of

individuals, the dependence on a particular commander's

capabilities, the constant rivalries, envies and enmities

between generals. And detachments, once joined, should not be put

asunder, for that produces nothing but confusion. "An army whose

only leader is itself—this is my idea!" Klapaucius

concluded. The King was much impressed with his words and finally

said:

"Return to your quarters. I shall

consult my general staff…"

"Oh, do not do this, Your Royal

Highness!" exclaimed the clever Klapaucius, feigning great

consternation. "That is exactly what the Emperor Turbulon did,

and his staff, to protect their own positions, advised him against

it; shortly thereafter, the neighbor of Turbulon, King Enamuel,

attacked with a revolutionized army and reduced the empire to

ashes, though his forces were eight times smaller!"

Whereupon he bowed, went to his room

and inspected the little bead, which was red as a beet; that meant

Trurl had done likewise at the court of Atrocitus. The King soon

ordered Klapaucius to revolutionize one platoon of infantry; joined

in spirit and now entirely of one mind, this tiny unit cried, "Kill,

kill!" swooped down on three squadrons of the King's dragoons,

who were armed to the teeth and led moreover by six distinguished

lecturers of the Academy of the General Staff—and cut them to

ribbons. Great was the grief of the generals, marshals, admirals and

commanders in chief, for the King sent them all into a speedy

retirement; fully convinced of the efficacy of Klapaucius'

invention, he ordered the entire army revolutionized.

And so munitions electricians worked

day and night, turning out plugs and sockets by the carload, and

these were installed as necessary in all the barracks. Covered with

medals, Klapaucius rode from garrison to garrison and supervised

everything. Trurl fared similarly in the kingdom of Atrocitus, except

that, due to that monarch's well-known parsimony, he had to content

himself with the lifelong title of Great Betrayer of the Fatherland.

Both kingdoms were now preparing for war. In the heat of

mobilization, conventional as well as nuclear weapons were

brought into battle trim, and cannons and atoms subjected to the

utmost spit and polish, as per regulations. Their work now all but

done, the two constructors packed their bags in secret, to be ready

to meet, when the time came, at the appointed place near the ship

they had left in the forest.

Meanwhile miracles were taking place

among the rank and file, particularly in the infantry. Companies no

longer had to practice their marching drills, nor did they need to

count off to learn their number, just as one who has two legs never

mistakes his right for his left, nor finds it necessary to

calculate how many of himself there are. It was a joy to see those

new units do the Forward March, About Face and Company Halt; and