Lem, Stanislaw (8 page)

hard by the road leading from Trurl's place to the nearest train

station.

There were many poet protests staged,

demonstrations, demands that the machine be served an injunction to

cease and desist. But no one else appeared to care. In fact,

magazine editors generally approved: Trurl's electronic bard,

writing under several thousand different pseudonyms at once, had a

poem for every occasion, to fit whatever length might be required,

and of such high quality that the magazine would be torn from hand to

hand by eager readers. On the street one could see enraptured faces,

bemused smiles, sometimes even hear a quiet sob. Everyone knew

the poems of Trurl's electronic bard, the air rang with its

delightful rhymes. Not infrequently, those citizens of a greater

sensitivity, struck by a particularly marvelous metaphor or

assonance, would actually fall into a faint. But this colossus

of inspiration was prepared even for that eventuality; it would

immediately supply the necessary number of restorative rondelets.

Trurl himself had no little trouble in

connection with his invention. The classicists, generally elderly,

were fairly harmless; they confined themselves to throwing

stones through his windows and smearing the sides of his house with

an unmentionable substance. But it was much worse with the younger

poets. One, for example, as powerful in body as his verse was in

imagery, beat Trurl to a pulp. And while the constructor lay in the

hospital, events marched on. Not a day passed without a suicide or a

funeral; picket lines formed around the hospital; one could hear

gunfire in the distance —instead of manuscripts in their

suitcases, more and more poets were bringing rifles to defeat Trurl's

electronic bard. But the bullets merely bounced off its calm

exterior. After his return from the hospital, Trurl, weak and

desperate, finally decided one night to dismantle the homeostatic

Homer he had created.

But when he approached the machine,

limping slightly, it noticed the pliers in his hand and the grim

glitter in his eye, and delivered such an eloquent, impassioned plea

for mercy, that the constructor burst into tears, threw down his

tools and hurried back to his room, wading through new works of

genius, an ocean of paper that filled the hall chest-high from end to

end and rustled incessantly.

The following month Trurl received a

bill for the electricity consumed by the machine and almost fell

off his chair. If only he could have consulted his old friend

Klapaucius! But Klapaucius was nowhere to be found. So Trurl had to

come up with something by himself. One dark night he unplugged the

machine, took it apart, loaded it onto a ship, flew to a certain

small asteroid, and there assembled it again, giving it an atomic

pile for its source of creative energy.

Then he sneaked home. But that wasn't

the end of it. The electronic bard, deprived now of the possibility

of having its masterpieces published, began to broadcast them on

all wave lengths, which soon sent the passengers and crews of passing

rockets into states of stanzaic stupefaction, and those more delicate

souls were seized with severe attacks of esthetic ecstasy besides.

Having determined the cause of this disturbance, the Cosmic Fleet

Command issued Trurl an official request for the immediate

termination of his device, which was seriously impairing the health

and well-being of all travelers.

At that point Trurl went into hiding,

so they dropped a team of technicians on the asteroid to gag the

machine's output unit. It overwhelmed them with a few ballads,

however, and the mission had to be abandoned. Deaf technicians

were sent next, but the machine employed pantomime. After that,

there began to be talk of an eventual punitive expedition, of

bombing the electropoet into submission. But just then some ruler

from a neighboring star system came, bought the machine and hauled it

off, asteroid and all, to his kingdom.

Now Trurl could appear in public again

and breathe easy. True, lately there had been supernovae exploding on

the southern horizon, the like of which no one had ever seen before,

and there were rumors that this had something to do with poetry.

According to one report, that same ruler, moved by some strange whim,

had ordered his astroengineers to connect the electronic bard to a

constellation of white supergiants, thereby transforming each line of

verse into a stupendous solar prominence; thus the Greatest Poet in

the Universe was able to transmit its thermonuclear creations to

all the illimitable reaches of space at once. But even if there were

any truth to this, it was all too far away to bother Trurl, who vowed

by everything that was ever held sacred never, never again to make a

cybernetic model of the Muse.

The

Second Sally

OR
The Offer

of King Krool

The tremendous success of their

application of the Gargantius Effect gave both constructors such an

appetite for adventure, that they resolved to sally forth once

again to parts unknown. Unfortunately, they were quite unable to

decide on a destination. Trurl, given to tropical climes, had his

heart set on Scaldonia, the land of the Flaming Flamingos, while

Klapaucius, of a somewhat cooler disposition, was equally determined

to visit the Intergalactic Cold Pole, a bleak continent adrift among

frozen stars. The friends were about to part company for good when

Trurl suddenly had an idea. "Wait," he said, "we can

advertise our services, then take the best offer!"

"Ridiculous!" snorted

Klapaucius. "How are you going to advertise? In a newspaper? Do

you have any idea how long it takes a newspaper to reach the nearest

planet? You'll be dead and buried before the first offer comes in!"

But Trurl gave a knowing smile and

revealed his plan, which Klapaucius—begrudgingly—had to

admit was ingenious, and so they set to work. All the necessary

equipment quickly thrown together, they gathered up the local stars

and arranged them in a great sign, a sign that would be visible at

truly incalculable distances. Only blue giants were used for the

first word—to get the cosmic reader's attention—and

lesser stellar material made up the others. The advertisement read:

TWO Distinguished Constructors Seek Employment Commensurate with

Their Skill and Above All Lucrative, Hence Preferably at the Court of

a Well-heeled King (Should Have His Own Kingdom), Terms to Be

Arranged. It was not long before, one bright morning, a most

marvelous craft alighted on their front lawn. It gleamed in the sun,

all inlaid with mother-of-pearl, had three legs intricately

carved and six additional supports of solid gold (quite useless,

since they didn't even reach the ground—but then, the builders

obviously had more wealth than they knew what to do with). Down a

magnificent staircase with billowing fountains on either side there

came a figure of stately bearing with a retinue of six-legged

machines: some of these massaged him, some supported him and fanned

him, and the smallest flew above his august brow and sprayed it with

eau de cologne from an atomizer. This impressive emissary

greeted the constructors on behalf of his lord and sovereign, King

Krool, who wished to engage them.

"What sort of work is it?"

asked Trurl, interested.

"The details, gentle sirs, you

shall learn at the proper time," was his reply. He was dressed

in galligaskins of gold, mink-tufted buskins, sequined earmuffs, and

a robe of most unusual cut—instead of pockets it had little

shelves full of mints and marzipan. Tiny mechanical flies also buzzed

about his person, and these he brushed away whenever they grew too

bold.

"For now," he went on, "I

can only say that His Boundless Kroolty is a great enthusiast of

the hunt, a fearless and peerless conqueror of every sort of galactic

fauna, and verily, his prowess has reached such heights that now the

fiercest predators known are no longer worthy game for him. And

herein lies our misfortune, for he craves excitement, danger,

thrills… which is why—"

"Of course!" said Trurl. "He

wants us to construct a new model of beast, something wild and

rapacious enough to present a challenge."

"You are, worthy constructor,

indeed quick!" said the King's emissary. "Then it is

agreed?"

Klapaucius began to question the

emissary more closely on certain practical matters. But after the

King's generosity was glowingly described and sufficiently elaborated

upon, they hurriedly packed their things and a few books, ran up the

magnificent staircase, hopped on board and were immediately

lifted, with a great roar and burst of flame that blackened the

ship's gold legs, into the interstellar night.

As they traveled, the emissary briefed

the constructors on the laws and customs prevailing in the Kingdom of

Krool, told them of the monarch's nature, as broad and open as a

leveled city, and of his manly pursuits, and much more, so that by

the time the ship landed, they could speak the language like

natives.

First they were taken to a splendid

villa situated on a mountainside above the village—this was

where they were to stay. Then, after a brief rest, the King sent a

carriage for them, a carriage drawn by six fire-breathing monsters.

These were muzzled with fire screens and smoke filters, had their

wings clipped to keep them on the ground, and long spiked tails and

six paws apiece with iron claws that cut deep pits in the road

wherever they went. As soon as the monsters saw the constructors, the

entire team set up a howl, belching fire and brimstone, and strained

to get at them. The coachmen in asbestos armor and the King's

huntsmen with hoses and pumps had to fall upon the crazed creatures

and beat them into submission with laser and maser clubs before Trurl

and Klapaucius could safely step into the plush carriage, which

they did without a word. The carriage tore off at breakneck speed

or—to use an appropriate metaphor— like a bat out of

hell.

"You know,” Trurl whispered

in Klapaucius' ear as they rushed along, knocking down everything in

their path and leaving a long trail of sulfurous smoke behind them,

"I have a feeling that this king won't settle for just anything.

I mean, if he has coursers like these…"

But level-headed Klapaucius said

nothing. Houses now flashed by, walls of diamonds and sapphires and

silver, while the dragons thundered and hissed and the drivers cursed

and shouted. At last a colossal portcullis loomed up ahead, opened,

and their carriage whirled into the courtyard, careening so

sharply that the flower beds all shriveled up, then ground to a stop

before a castle black as blackest night. Welcomed by an

unusually dismal fanfare and quite overwhelmed by the massive

stairs, balustrades and especially the stone giants that guarded the

main gate, Trurl and Klapaucius, flanked by a formidable escort,

entered the mighty castle.

King Krool awaited them in an enormous

hall the shape of a skull, a vast and vaulted cave of beaten silver.

There was a gaping pit in the floor, the skull's foramen magnum, and

beyond it stood the throne, over which two streams of light crossed

like swords—they came from high windows fixed in the skull's

eye sockets and with panes specially tinted to give everything a

harsh and infernal aspect. The constructors now saw Krool himself:

too impatient to sit still on his throne, this monarch paced from

wall to wall across the silver floor, his steps booming in that

cadaverous cavern, and as he spoke he emphasized his words with such

sudden stabs of the hand, that the air whistled.

"Welcome, constructors!" he

said, skewering them both with his eyes. "As you've no doubt

learned from Lord Protozor, Master of the Royal Hunt, I want you to

build me new and better kinds of game. Now I'm not interested, you

understand, in any mountain of steel on a hundred-odd treads—that's

a job for heavy artillery, not for me. My quarry must be strong and

ferocious, but swift and nimble too, and above all cunning and full

of wiles, so that I will have to call upon all my hunter's art to

drive it to the ground. It must be a highly intelligent beast, and

know all there is to know of covering tracks, doubling back, hiding

in shadows and lying in wait, for such is my will!"

"Forgive me, Your Highness,"

said Klapaucius with a careful bow, "but if we do Your Highness'

bidding too well, might not this put the royal life and limb in some

peril?"

The King roared with such laughter

that a couple of crystal pendants fell off a chandelier and shattered

at the feet of the trembling constructors.