Uncanny Tales Read online

  Uncanny Tales

  Robert Sheckley

  Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  A Trick Worth Two of That

  Mind-Slaves of Manitori

  Pandora’s Box—Open with Care

  The Dream of Misunderstanding

  Magic, Maples, and Maryanne

  The New Horla

  The City of the Dead

  The Quijote Robot

  Emissary from a Green and Yellow World

  The Universal Karmic Clearing House

  Deep Blue Sleep

  The Day the Aliens Came

  Dukakis and the Aliens

  Mirror Games

  Sightseeing, 2179

  Agamemnon’s Run

  To my wife Gail—beloved friend, irreplaceable companion, impeccable warrior.

  Introduction

  It is not an easy thing to write a short story. But it is more difficult by far to write an introduction to a collection of short stories. When faced with a difficult task like this, my way is to set my timer and start writing. It’s the only way I can find out what I’m thinking.

  The first thing I come up with is, why is it so difficult for me to do this?

  At least a part of the answer is that I have no standard for introductions, no real idea of the form. I daresay I am unlikely to find A Periodical Guide to Introductional Literature. (I’ll check this out later.) Nor will I find an Anthology of Great (or Beloved) Introductions. What I’d really like to have is a copy of Introductions That Took the World by Storm or An Everyman’s Guide to Introductions. Or even, The Art of the Introduction Through the 20th Century.

  Assuming I can find no literature on the subject, what do I know about introductions? Or think I know?

  1. They are typically designed to show the author of the work in a good light.

  2. They are usually written in a modest tone.

  If I were writing about someone else’s book, I could say he (or she) is a genius. I suspect it wouldn’t be good form to say that about myself, whether I believe it or not. If I write about someone else’s work, I can say, “His dialogue is sharp.” I can’t say that about myself, no matter how much I may believe it. Nor can I praise my deep knowledge of science fiction, or my love of mythology and folklore. I can’t tell you what a praiseworthy fellow I am, or how lucky you are to read me. I can’t recommend myself to your attention. At least not directly.

  I’ve started my search of the Web. “Introductions” gave me only dating services. “Writing Introductions” yielded a lot more. I’m at the first ten of 86,180 entries.

  Obviously, I was wrong about there being nothing written on “Introductions.” Instead I find an embarrassment of wealth. I could quote from it. But I don’t think I’ll do that. Better my own prejudices than the Web’s so-called information. Am I really supposed to read this stuff? And to learn anything useful from it?

  My question should have been, “How is Robert Sheckley to write an introduction to his book of short stories?”

  How am I to write this? I ask myself. The answer is immediate. That’s one I have to write.

  When I write, I sit down and start writing. That’s how I write stories, so it’s going to be how I write introductions, too. The stream of words appears in my mind faster than I can write it down.

  What about typing, or taping, or a new invention, instantaneous thought transcription?

  No. None of these are for me. My thoughts form up only as I write them down by hand, the tail of a sentence appearing only after I secure its head. The production of words and the exfoliating expression of them form a combined act. That’s how I write stories. That’s how I write introductions. I’m a pro. I can sit on my porch in this pleasant summer weather and work with my pen and pad.

  I see by the trail of words behind me that I am writing something. It would take masochism greater than I possess to believe that I am not writing an Introduction. I told myself to write an Introduction, and of course I am writing an Introduction. The word “Introduction” appears in just about every paragraph. How could this be anything but an Introduction?

  I note that writing an Introduction is easier than writing a story. Not much plot is called for. The characterization takes care of itself.

  The secret to an introduction, my friends, may be as simple as having the fortitude and the stamina to have a conversation with yourself on paper. If you don’t write it down, there’s no conversation, no introduction, no story, memoir or article, no novel, not even an advertising jingle.

  Writing it down is somewhat difficult. Your hand has to form all those letters. Your mind is forever racing ahead of the line of words, thinking of another half dozen thoughts to say. But before you come to write them, as often as not, they are replaced by different, or at least slightly different thoughts. What you had hoped would be a pleasant reverie has turned into a race to capture pertinent thoughts before they vanish. A mad scramble, my friends.

  But this effort is what produces the work, no matter what you call it. It is how this Introduction is getting written.

  What you say reveals your natural tendency. If it is errant, if it refutes or sidesteps the rules laid down in 86,000 articles on the Web, you just have to accept that.

  It’s easy to write an introduction. What seems difficult now is to know when to stop.

  An introduction should be no more than about a thousand words. If it is introducing a collection of short stories, it should be short enough to be read as a short story. These are my own rules as they come to me out of the blue. Also, an Introduction should contain a minimum of personal data. We’re not writing a biography here, after all. (Not yet!) We are just following story practice: “write until you find you’ve said something, come to the end as it appears to you to be, and close.”

  We add a graceful note of thanks to whoever may read this, since you are the occasion of my writing it.

  A Trick Worth Two of That

  I wrote this story in a car, traveling across Transylvania, during a summer storm. The story is on one of the great themes, my own interpretation of that theme.

  There had been a lot of traffic at first, but now our car was the only one on the road. We had left Timisoara in the late morning, after a viewing of the last total eclipse of 1999. Unfortunately, a cloud had obscured the sun at the key moment. Silviu had claimed he’d seen a glimpse of the diamond ring, as the flaring feature on the eclipsed sun is called. I had not noticed it myself, but had been impressed by the dramatic darkening of the sky, the sudden clamor of bewildered birds, and the coolness that for a few minutes replaced the stifling heat of the last days.

  Now, several hours later, we were most of the way across Rumania, not far from the Hungarian border, on our way back to Venice, where Helene and I would return to our small villa on the Lido, while our friends would go on to their apartment in Milan.

  For days, the heat had been relentless, and the sky a clear blue up to the day of the eclipse. But today, a weather system had moved in and the sky was white. The traffic, which had clogged the narrow two lane roads and slowed our progress, had diminished with the oncoming rain, light at first, then heavy and relentless. Now we were the only car on what passed for the main road to Budapest. We had entered the region of Transylvania. Dark, gray-white mists clung to the mountains and crept down toward the road in thick tendrils, like the tentacles of an enormous ectoplasmic octopus.

  Silviu, who was driving, was growing alarmed at the conditions. He was muttering to himself, peering through the windshield through the rivulets of water that the wipers could scarcely manage, and nervously plucking at his shirt with gestures that I took to be surreptitious signs of the cross. I knew Silviu as a modern man, a scientist, a member of the
Rumanian Academy of Sciences. Yet something in him seemed to be moved, atavistically, perhaps, by our lonely journey through these mountains of evil omen. My wife Helene, sitting beside Silviu and me in the front seat, seemed abstracted and was nervously chewing on her lower lip. Our Italian friends, Giulio and Gina, in the back, had been laughing and chatting, and munching biscuits which they had purchased at the last AGIP station. But presently, as the rain increased and the sky darkened with the approach of evening, even these light-hearted creatures fell silent.

  Torrents of water cascaded down, forming small lakes on the road which our car passed over and through with a hiss. Here and there, the low stone retaining walls on the mountainside had given way, and our car passed over an ever- increasing accumulation of twigs, pebbles, and small branches.

  The flooding grew worse as we continued. A deserted car park had become a lake, empty except for one white plastic chair floating in it. Thunder came down with a crack. The skies lighted momentarily with lightning.

  And then the catastrophe we had all been expecting happened. We rounded a bend and Silviu brought the car to a quick stop. Ahead of us, a pile of rocks and tree limbs had come down the mountainside, blocking the road completely. Rocks were still falling, tumbling down the steep slope in a steady stream.

  There would be no getting to Budapest by tonight.

  “What now?” I asked.

  Silviu said, “There was a turnoff a hundred yards or so back. Do you remember seeing it?”

  I nodded. “It slanted up the mountain, as I recall.”

  “Yes, I think so. But it was macadamized. I think it might go in parallel with this road.”

  “Worth a try,” I said. “If it looks bad, we can always park for the night.”

  We were all in agreement. We backed up cautiously to the turnoff. It seemed safe enough, so we turned up the mountain at not too steep an angle.

  The road was good for a while, but in half a mile the macadam ended and we were on a dirt track. The surface was beginning to wash out. Any time now we were likely to get trapped. The car was sliding from one side to the other. There was some danger of going over the edge, down a steep hillside to our destruction.

  Silviu kept the car barely at a crawl, his hands tense on the wheel. Conversation had stopped. The Italians in the back seat were silent, Giulio, the young engineer, and Gina, his fashionable wife, gripping each other’s hands, their faces tight and concerned. Beside me in the front seat, Helene’s face, lighted by flashes of lightning, was pale and drawn. It looked as though we would have to stop and spend the night in the car.

  We had no provisions to speak of—half a liter of mineral water, and a few not very good Rumanian cookies we had picked up at the last gas stop. There wasn’t enough room in the car for all of us to lie down. We would have to spend the night sitting up. Not the worst of disasters, but something to

  be avoided all the same.

  I was remembering tales I had heard of these Transylvanian mountains. Giulio, in the back seat, as though echoing my thoughts, wondered aloud how far we were from the castle of Vlad the Impaler. Gina laughed, a little shakily. “That’s no more than a tourist attraction nowadays.”

  We all laughed. But it became obvious that Silviu didn’t find this sort of talk amusing.

  He said, “It is true that Vlad is only a legend now. But strange things still go on in this region. They don’t come to the attention of the world outside Rumania. They’re barely noted in Bucharest, where people have other things to think about. But the common wisdom is, inexplicable things still happen around here. It is a region best avoided. Especially on nights like this.”

  It was full dark now, the blackness of the mountainside contrasting eerily with the white mist. We were just deciding to stop. The going was simply too treacherous, with a precipice on the right and the steep, heavily wooded mountain on the left. But there was no place to turn out. We wondered, should we continue, looking for a place to pull off the road? Or just stop where we were? It was unlikely any other vehicle would be traveling this road on a night like this. Still, it called for a decision, and meanwhile Silviu kept the car barely creeping along, trying to make out the edges of the road through the streams of water pouring down the windshield.

  Suddenly I saw a flashing light up ahead. Silviu saw it at the same time, and slowed the car still more, until it began to buck in low gear.

  “What’s that?” Helene asked, while the others crowded forward to see.

  “I have no idea,” Silviu said. “But we might as well find out.” He slowed slightly again, because the car was now slipping and sliding badly on the dirt track.

  “Gear up,” Giulio advised, and Silviu shifted up to second, getting slightly better traction. At last we came up to the light and saw that it was a man, dressed in a long rain slicker and waving a flashlight. We stopped and Silviu wound the window down.

  There followed a brief conversation in what I took to be Rumanian. At the end of it, Silviu groaned and pounded the steering wheel with his fist.

  The man said, in English, “I was telling your friend that this road leads nowhere. It comes to an end in another two miles. And it is unsafe even in good weather. Didn’t you see the warning sign?”

  “It must have washed out,” I said. “What do you suggest?”

  “Come ahead another twenty yards,” the man said. “There is a road to the left up into the mountain. Dirt, but passable. I have my lodge there. I suggest you spend the night with me.”

  “A lodge? Here at the end of nowhere?”

  “Only a few rooms are completed,” the man said. “When it is all done, and the road hardened, my hotel will have the finest view in these mountains. Not that you can see much of it now.”

  “Your lodge is a hotel?”

  “It will be. The finest in the region. But in the meantime, even in its present state, it is a better place for you than out here in the weather. If you agree, I will lead you to my drive.”

  It seemed the best option. Silviu followed the man, crawling along in low gear to a turnoff twenty yards ahead. Then we climbed again up a high-crowned dirt road, our wheels sliding treacherously, Silviu wrestling with the wheel to keep us out of the runoff ditches on either side. At last the road leveled out into a broad clearing, and at the end of it was a partially finished structure.

  Flashes of lightning revealed a small hotel constructed in what I took to be an old Rumanian style with elaborate carvings. The lower floor was lighted, and our host stood in front of the doorway, waving us in with his flashlight.

  We came inside, soaked by even that short an exposure to the rain. Our host had towels at hand to dry ourselves off. He was of average height, broad but not portly, balding, and with a round, cheerful face. He introduced himself.

  “I am loan Florin. Welcome to my hotel. It is still incomplete, as I told you, but I can offer you beds for the night, and dinner, if you are not too choosy.”

  We thanked Florin. I asked him, “How did you know we were coming?”

  “I didn’t know, of course,” Florin said. “But I was looking out over the landscape from one of the upper windows and saw your headlights coming up from the road below. Since I know this road leads nowhere except to here, and I am not yet officially opened for business, I deduced you were travelers in need of assistance, and acted accordingly.”

  Florin prepared a dinner for us—a tasty goulash soup that reminded us we were not far from the Hungarian border. This, with chunks of bread and a local white wine, and finishing with a dish resembling apple strudel, satisfied our hunger, which had grown intense during the hours on the road.

  Afterwards, before retiring, Florin invited us into his parlor, a large, cheerful room that took up most of the finished portion of the downstairs. Here, with small glasses of the local plum brandy, we settled back and unwound from our ordeal.

  Florin proved to be a good conversationalist as well as an excellent host. Born in this region but educated in Bucharest, he had work
ed for some years in Budapest in an uncle’s hotel business. He spoke Hungarian and German as well as Rumanian and English, and was a treasure trove of local folklore.

  Our talk turned inevitably to stories of old Transylvania—of the horrifying Vlad the Impaler, whose castle was not far from here, of Elizabeth Bathory and her penchant for taking rejuvenating baths in the blood of young servant maids, and others, less well known but equally unsavory. From there we moved on to vampires, succubae, and other unclean creatures of the night.

  Silviu didn’t like this line of talk. “These legends,” he said, “are part of the old folklore of this area. And the world is entranced with them still. But their main use is to entertain adults and frighten children. Nowadays we know that there is no such thing as supernatural phenomena, and that one part of this Earth is, psychically speaking, very like another.”

  “I agree with our friend,” Florin said, nodding to Silviu. “Science is no doubt correct, and to believe otherwise is worse than superstition—it is indefensible self-indulgence. Yet some in Calinesti—the village nearest to us—believe that nature herself, in her blind construction, is guided by spirits who take a hand from time to time in the affairs of men—and then we have brief upheavals of what appears to be the supernatural, the unnatural, the uncanny.”

  “You appear to be an educated man,” Silviu said. “Surely you don’t believe this peasant nonsense?”

  Florin shrugged. “I believe situations come about as if there were a supernatural. You are familiar with Vaihinger’s thesis?”

  Silviu shrugged. “German philosophers can also be guilty of superstition under the guise of scientific discourse.”

  “Perhaps. But however it comes about, it is common knowledge that certain places have a shape, a contour, a positioning of elements that is not merely suggestive of evil, but is evil itself. Such a notion was put forward in slightly altered form by Mr. G. K. Chesterton, if I am not mistaken.”

  “As a literary conceit,” Silviu said.

  “But an interesting one. It is the idea that the shapes and arrangements of things can carry a meaning. Like an artist’s grouping of elements in a landscape. Nature herself is arguably the greatest of artists. Who is to say that her creations don’t sometimes have a purpose, an intention, a meaning greater than chance arrangement?”