Lem, Stanislaw (18 page)

station, had pressed his own forehead with his free hand, to produce

two marks not unlike those left by the horns of a personality

transformer. Balerion had his men release Klapaucius and leave the

room; when the two of them were alone, he asked him to relate exactly

what had happened, omitting nothing. Klapaucius replied with a long

story of how he, a wealthy foreigner, had arrived only that day at

the harbor, his ship laden with two hundred cases of the prettiest

puzzles in creation as well as thirty self-winding fair maidens, for

he had hoped to present these to the great King Balerion; how they

were a gift from the great Emperor Proboscideon, who in this way

sought to express his boundless admiration for the great House of

Cymberia; but how, having arrived and disembarked, he had thought to

stretch his legs a little after the long journey and was strolling

peacefully along the quay, when this person, who looked just like

this
(here Klapaucius pointed to himself) and who had

already aroused his suspicions by gazing upon the splendor of his

foreign dress with such evident rapacity—when this person, in

short, suddenly ran towards him like a maniac, ran as if to run him

down, but doffed his cap instead and butted him viciously with a pair

of horns, whereupon an extraordinary exchange of minds took place.

Klapaucius put everything he had into

the tale, trying to make it as believable as possible. He spoke at

great length of his lost body, while heaping insults upon the one it

was now his misfortune to possess, and he even began to slap his own

face and spit on his own legs and chest; he spoke of the treasures

he'd brought with him, describing them in every detail, particularly

the self-winding maidens; he reminisced about the family he'd

left behind, his ion-scions, his hi-fi fido, his wife, one of three

hundred, who made a mulled electrolyte as fine as any that ever

graced the table of the Emperor Himself; he even let the Commissioner

in on his biggest secret, to wit, that he had arranged with the

captain of his ship to hand the treasures over to whomsoever came on

board and gave the password.

Balerion listened greedily, for it

seemed quite logical to him that Klapaucius, seeking to hide from the

police, should do so by entering the body of a foreigner, a foreigner

moreover attired in splendid robes, hence obviously wealthy,

which would provide him with considerable means once the transfer

were effected. It was plain that a similar scheme had hatched in the

brain of Balerion. Slyly, he tried to coax the secret password from

the false foreigner, who didn't require much coaxing, soon whispering

the word into his ear: "Niterc." By now the constructor was

sure Balerion had taken the bait: the King, loving puzzles as he did,

couldn't bear to see them go to the King, since the King, after all,

was no longer he; and, believing everything, he believed that

Klapaucius had a second transformer—indeed, he had no reason to

think otherwise.

They sat awhile in silence; one could

see the wheels turning in Balerion's head. Assuming an air of

indifference, he began to question the foreigner as to the location

of his ship, the name of the captain, and so forth. Klapaucius

answered, banking on the King's cupidity, nor was he mistaken, for

suddenly the King stood up, announced that he would have to verify

what the foreigner had told him, and hurriedly left the room, locking

the door securely behind him. Klapaucius then heard

Balerion—evidently the wiser from past experience—station

a guard beneath the window as he was leaving. Of course he would find

nothing, there being no ship, no treasure, no self-winding maidens

whatever. But that was the whole point of Klapaucius' plan. As soon

as the King was gone, he rushed over to the desk, pulled the device

from the drawer and quickly placed it on his head. Then he quietly

waited for the King to return. It wasn't long before there were heavy

footsteps outside, muffled curses, the grinding of teeth, a key

scraping in the lock—and the Commissioner burst in, bellowing:

"Scoundrel! Where's the ship, the

treasure, the pretty puzzles?!"

But that was all he said, for

Klapaucius leaped out from behind the door and charged like a mad

ram, butting him square in the head. Then, before Balerion had time

to get his bearings inside Klapaucius, Klapaucius, now the

Commissioner, roared for the guards to throw him in jail at once

and keep a close eye on him! Stunned by this sudden reversal,

Balerion didn't realize at first how shamefully he had been deceived;

but when it finally dawned on him that he had been dealing with the

crafty constructor all along, and there had never been any wealthy

foreigner, Balerion filled his dark dungeon with terrible oaths and

threats—harmless, however, without the device. Klapaucius, on

the other hand, though he had temporarily lost the body to which he

was accustomed, had succeeded in gaining possession of the

personality transformer. He put on his best uniform and marched

straight to the royal palace.

The King was still asleep, they told

him, but Klapaucius, in his capacity as Police Commissioner, said it

was imperative he see His Highness, if only for a few moments,

said that this was a matter of the utmost gravity, a crisis, the

nation hanging in the balance, and more of the same, until the

frightened courtiers led him to the royal bedchamber. Well-acquainted

with his friend's habits and peculiarities, Klapaucius touched the

heel of Trurl's foot; Trurl jumped up, instantly wide-awake, for he

was exceedingly ticklish. He rubbed his eyes and stared in amazement

at this hulking giant of a policeman before him, but the giant leaned

over and whispered: "It's me, Klapaucius. I had to occupy the

Commissioner—without a badge, they'd never have let me in—and

I got the device, it's right here in my pocket…"

Trurl, overjoyed when Klapaucius told

him of his stratagem, rose from the royal bed, declaring to all

that he was fully recovered, and later, draped in purple and holding

the royal orb and scepter, sat upon his throne and issued several

orders. First, he had them bring from the hospital his own body with

the leg Balerion sprained on the harbor steps. This swiftly done, he

enjoined the royal physicians to tend the patient with all the skill

and solicitude at their disposal. Then, after a brief conference with

his Commissioner, namely Klapaucius, Trurl proclaimed he would

restore order in the realm and bring things back to normal.

Which wasn't easy, there being no end

of complications to straighten out. Though the constructors had no

intention of returning all the displaced souls to their former

bodies; their main concern, actually, was that Trurl be Trurl as soon

as possible, and Klapaucius Klapaucius. In the flesh, that is. Trurl

therefore commanded that the prisoner (Balerion in his colleague's

body) be dragged from jail and hauled before His August Presence. The

first transfer promptly carried out, Klapaucius was himself again,

and the King (now in the body of the ex-commissioner of police) had

to stand and listen to a most unpleasant lecture, after which he was

placed in the castle dungeon, the official word being that he had

fallen into disfavor due to incompetence in the solving of a

certain rebus. Next morning Trurl's body was in good enough health to

be repossessed. Only one problem remained: it wasn't right, somehow,

to leave without having properly settled the question of succession

to the throne. To release Balerion from his constabulary corpus and

seat him once more at the helm of the State was quite unthinkable.

So this is what they did: under a great oath of secrecy the friends

told the honest sailor in Trurl's body everything, and seeing how

much good sense resided in that simple soul, they judged him worthy

to reign; after the transfer, then, Trurl became himself and the

sailor King. Before this, however, Klapaucius ordered a large

cuckoo clock brought to the palace, one he had seen in a nearby shop

when roaming the city streets, and the mind of King Balerion was

conveyed to the cuckoo's works, while it, in turn, occupied the

person of the policeman. Thus was justice done, for the King was

obliged to work diligently day and night thereafter, announcing

the hours with a dutiful cuckoo-cuckoo, to which he was compelled at

the appropriate moments by the sharp little teeth of the clock's

gears, and with which he would expiate, hanging on the wall of the

main hall for the remainder of his days, his thoughtless games,

not to mention having endangered the life and limb of two famous

constructors by so frequently changing his mind. As for the

Commissioner, he returned to his duties and functioned flawlessly,

proving that a cuckoo mentality was quite sufficient for that

post. The friends finally took their leave of the crowned sailor,

gathered up their belongings, shook the dust of that troublesome

kingdom from their feet, and continued on their way. One might

only add that Trurl's final action in the King's body had been to

visit the Royal Vault and take possession of the Royal Diadem of the

Cymberanide Dynasty, which prize he had fairly earned, having

discovered the very best hiding place in all the world.

The

Fifth Sally (A)

OR
Trurl's

Prescription

Not far from here, by a white sun,

behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious,

and they hadn't a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools,

no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or

antimatter—for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with

springs and gears and perfect in every respect. And they lived with

it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it was all they

had—first they saved up all their atoms, then they put them all

together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, and

everything was just fine. Each and every Steelypip had its own little

socket and its own little plug, and each was completely on its own.

Though they didn't own the machine, neither did the machine own them,

everybody just pitched in. Some were mechanics, other mechanicians,

still others mechanists: but all were mechanically minded. They

had plenty to do, like if night had to be made, or day, or an eclipse

of the sun—but that not too often, or they'd grow tired of it.

One day there flew up to the white sun behind the green star a comet

in a bonnet, namely a female, mean as nails and atomic from her head

to her four long tails, awful to look at, all blue from hydrogen

cyanide and, sure enough, reeking of bitter almonds. She flew up and

said, "First, I'll burn you to the ground, and that's just for

starters."

The Steelypips watched—the fire

in her eye smoked up half the sky, she drew on her neutrons, mesons

like caissons, pi-and mu-and neutrinos too—"Fee-fi-fo-fum

plu-to-ni-um." And they reply: "One moment, please, we are

the Steelypips, we have no fear, no spats in our vats, no rules, no

schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, for we have a

machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in

every respect, so go away, lady comet, or you'll be sorry."

But she already filled up the sky,

burning, scorching, roaring, hissing, until their moon shriveled up,

singed from horn to horn, and even if it had been a little cracked,

old, and on the small side to begin with, still that was a shame. So

wasting no more words, they took their strongest fields, tied

them around each horn with a good knot, then threw the switch: try

that on for size, you old witch. It thundered, it quaked, it groaned,

the sky cleared up in a flash, and all that remained of the comet was

a bit of ash—and peace reigned once more.

After an undetermined amount of time

something appears, what it is nobody knows, except that it's

hideous and no matter from which angle you look at it, it's even more

hideous. Whatever it is flies up, lands on the highest peak, so heavy

you can't imagine, makes itself comfortable and doesn't budge. But

it's an awful nuisance, all the same.

So those who are in the proximity say:

"Excuse us, but we are the Steelypips, we have no dread, we

don't live on a planet but in a machine instead, and it's no ordinary

machine but a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and

perfect in every respect, so beat it, nasty thing, or you'll be

sorry."

But
that
just sits there.

So, not to go to any great expense,

they send not a very big, actually a rather small scarechrome: it'll

go and frighten
that
off, and peace will reign once more.

The scarechrome sets off, and all you