The Cyberiad Part 4

"Oho! Laser-eyed, is it?" cried the King. "Hand me my trusty duralumin doublet, my bulletproof buckler, my hal-berd and arquebus!" Thus accoutered and gleaming like a supernova, he rode out upon his fearless high-fidelity cyber-steed, came nigh the beast and smote it such a mighty blow that the air crackled and its head tumbled neatly to the ground. Though the retinue dutifully hallooed his triumph, the King took no delight in it; greatly angered, he swore in his heart to devise some special torment for those wretches who dared to call themselves constructors. The beast, how-ever, shook another head out of its severed neck, opened its new eyes wide and played a withering beam across the King's armor (which, however, was proof against all manner of elec-tromagnetic radiation). "Well, those two weren't a total loss," said the King to himself, "though this still won't help them." And he recharged his charger and spurred it into the fray.

This time he swung full and cleaved the beast in twain. The beast didn't seem to mind-in fact, it positioned itself helpfully beneath the whistling blade and gave a grateful twitch as it fell. And small wonder! The King took another look: the thing was twinned instead of twained! There were two spitting images, each a little smaller than the original, plus a third, a baby beast gamboling between them-that was the head he had cut off earlier: it now had a tail and feet and was doing cartwheels through the weeds.

"What next?" thought the King. "Chop it into mice or little worms? A fine way to hunt!" And with great ire did he have at it, hewing with might and main until there were no end of little beasts underfoot, but suddenly they all backed off, went into a huddle, and there stood the beast again, good as new and stifling a yawn.

"H'm," thought the King. "Apparently it has the same kind of stabilization mechanism that-what was his name again?-Pumpington-that Pumpington tried to use. Yes, I dealt with him myself for that idiotic trick... Well, we'll just wheel out the antimatter artillery..."

He picked one with a six-foot bore, lined it up and loaded it himself, took aim, pulled the string and sent a perfectly silent and weirdly shimmering sh.e.l.l straight at the beast, to blow it to smithereens once and for all. But nothing hap-pened-that is, nothing much.The beast only crouched a little lower, put out its left hand, long and hairy, and gave the King the finger.

"Bring out our biggest!" roared the King, pretending not to notice. And several hundred peasants pulled up a verit-able giant of a cannon, all of eighty-gauge, which the King aimed and was just about to fire-when all at once the beast leaped. The King lifted his sword to defend himself, but then there was no more beast. Those who saw what happened next said later that they were sure they had taken leave of their senses, for as the beast flew through the air, it underwent a lightning transformation, the grayish hulk divided up into three men in uniform, three policemen, who, still aloft, were already preparing to do their duty. The first policeman, a sergeant, got out the handcuffs, maneu-vering his legs to keep upright; the second held on to his plumed shako with one hand, so it wouldn't blow off, and with the other pulled out a warrant from his breast pocket; the third, apparently a rookie, a.s.sumed a horizontal position beneath the feet of the first two, to cushion their fall-after which, however, he jumped up and carefully dusted off his uniform. Meanwhile the first policeman had handcuffed the dumbfounded King and the second slapped the sword from his hand. Feebly protesting, the suspect was then sum-marily trotted off the field. The entire hunting procession stood rooted to the spot for a minute or two, then gave a yell and followed in hot pursuit. The snorting cybersteeds had practically caught up with the abductors, and swords and sabers were unsheathed and raised to strike, but the third policeman bent over, depressed his bellyb.u.t.ton and immediately the arms grew into two shafts, the legs coiled up, sprouting spokes, and began to turn, while the back formed the seat of a green racing gig to accommodate the other two policemen, who were vigorously plying the now-harnessed King with a whip, to make him run faster. The King obliged and broke into a mad gallop, waving his arms frantically to ward off the blows that descended upon his royal head; but now the huntsmen were gaining again, so the policemen jumped on the King's back and one slipped down between the shafts, huffed and puffed and turned into a spinning top7 a dancing whirlwind, which gave wings to the little gig and whisked it away over hill and dale till it disappeared altogether in a cloud of dust. The King's retinue split up and began a desperate search with Geiger counters and bloodhounds, and a special detachment came running up with shovels and flamethrowers and left no bone unburned in all the neighboring cemeteries-an obvious error, occasioned most likely by the trembling hand that hastily telegraphed the order from the observation balloon that had monitored the hunt. Several police divisions rushed here and there, searched the grounds, every bush, every weed, and both x-rays and laboratory samples were diligently taken of everything imaginable. The King's charger was ordered to appear before a special board of inquiry appointed by the Prosecutor General. A unit of paratroopers with vacuum cleaners and sieves was dropped on the royal game pre-serve to sift through every last particle of dust. Finally, the order was issued that anyone resembling a policeman was to be detained and held without bail, which naturally cre-ated difficulties-one half of the police force, as it turned out, had arrested the other, and vice versa. At dusk the huntsmen and soldiers returned to the village dazed and bedraggled with the woeful tidings that neither hide nor hair of the King's person was anywhere to be found.

By torchlight and in the dead of night, the chained con-structors were taken before the Great Chancellor and Keeper of the Royal Seal, who addressed them in the fol-lowing way: "Whereas ye have falsely conspired and perversely plotted against the Crown and Life of Our Beloved Sovereign and Most n.o.ble Ruler Krool and therewith dared to raise a treacherous hand and vilely devise his demise, not to men-tion impersonating an officer, a great aggravation of your crimes, so shall ye be quartered without quarter, impaled andpilloried, disemboweled, buried alive, crucified and burnt at the stake, after which your ashes shall be sent into orbit as a warning and perpetual reminder to all would-be regicides, amen."

"Can't you wait a bit?" asked Trurl. "You see, we were expecting a letter..."

"A letter, thou most scurrilous and scurvy knave?!"

Just then the guards made way for the Postmaster Gen-eral himself-indeed, how could they bar that dignitary's en-trance with their poleaxes? The Postmaster approached in full regalia, his medals jingling impressively, pulled a letter from a sapphire satchel and handed it to the Chancellor, saying, "Mannequin though I be, I come from His Maj-esty," whereupon he disintegrated into a fine powder. The Chancellor could scarcely believe his eyes, but quickly recognized the King's signet impressed there on the purple seal-ing wax; he opened the letter and read that His Majesty was forced to negotiate with the enemy, for the constructors had employed means algorithmic and algebraic to make him cap-tive, and now they would list their demands, all of which the Great Chancellor had better meet, if he wished ever to get his Mighty Sovereign back in one piece. Signed: "Krool herewith affixes his hand and seal, held prisoner in a cave of unknown location by one pseudoconstabulary beast in three uniforms personified."

There then arose a great clamor, everyone shouting and asking what it all meant and what were the demands, to which Trurl said only, "Our chains, if you please."

A blacksmith was summoned to unfetter them, after which Trurl said: "We are hungry and dirty, we need a bath, a shave, mas-sage, refreshment, nothing but the best, plenty of pomp and a water ballet with fireworks for dessert!"

The court, of course, was hopping mad, but had to comply in every particular. Only at dawn did the constructors return from their villa, each elegantly pomaded, arrayed and reclining in a sedan chair borne by footmen (their former in-formers); they then, deigning to grant an audience, sat down and presented their demands-not off the top of their heads, mind you, but from a little notebook they had prepared for the occasion and hidden behind a curtain in their room. The following articles were read: First, A ship of the finest make and model available shall be furnished to carry the constructors home.

2nd, The said ship shall be laden with various cargo as here specified: diamonds-four bushels, gold coin-forty bushels, platinum, palladium and whatever other ready val-uables they happen to think of-eight bushels of each, also whatever mementos and tokens from the Royal Apartments the signatories of this instrument may deem appropriate.

3rd, Until such time as the said ship shall be in readiness for takeoff, every nut and bolt in place, fully loaded and de-livered up to the constructors complete with red carpet, an eighty-piece send-off band and children's chorus, an abun-dance of honors, decorations and awards, and a wildly cheer-ing crowd-until then, no King.

4th, That a formal expression of undying grat.i.tude shall be stamped upon a gold medallion and addressed to Their Most Sublime and Radiant Constructors Trurl and Klapaucius, Delight and Terror of the Universe, and moreover it shall contain a full account of their victory and be duly signed and notarized by every high and low official in the land, then set in the richly embellished barrel of the King's favorite cannon, whichLord Protozor, Master of the Royal Hunt, shall himself and wholly unaided carry on board-no other Protozor but the one who lured Their Most Sublime and Radiant Constructors to this planet, thinking to work their painful and ignominious death thereby.

5th, That the aforesaid Protozor shall accompany them on their return journey as insurance against any sort of double-dealing, pursuit, and the like. On board he shall occupy a cage three by three by four feet and shall receive a daily allowance of humble pie with a filling made of that very same sawdust which Their Most Sublime and Radiant Con-structors saw fit to order in the process of indulging the King's foolishness and which was subsequently taken to po-lice headquarters by unmarked balloon.

6th and lastly, The King need not crave forgiveness of Their Most Sublime and Radiant Constructors on bended knee, since he is much too beneath them to deserve notice.

In Witness Whereof, the parties have hereunto set their hands and seals this day and year, etc. and so on. By: Trurl and Klapaucius, Constructors, and the Great Chancellor, the Great Chamberlain, the Great Chief of Secret Police, the Seneschal, Squadron Leader and Royal Balloonmaster.

All the ministers and dignitaries turned blue, but what could they do? They had no choice, so a ship was imme-diately ordered. But then the constructors unexpectedly showed up after a leisurely breakfast, to supervise the work, and nothing suited them: this material, for instance, was no good, and that engineer was an absolute idiot, and they had to have a revolving magic lantern in the main hall, one with four pneumatic widgets and a calibrated cuckoo clock on top -and if the natives here didn't know what a widget was, so much the worse for them, considering that the King was no doubt most impatient for his release and would (when he could) deal harshly with anyone who dared to delay it.

This remark occasioned a general numbness, a great weakness about the knees, and much trembling, but the work continued apace. Finally the ship was ready and the royal steve-dores began to stow the cargo in the hold, diamonds, sacks of pearls, so much gold it kept spilling out the hatch. Meanwhile the police were secretly running all about the country-side, turning everything upside down, much to the amuse-ment of Trurl and Klapaucius, who didn't mind explaining to a fearful but fascinated audience how it all happened, how they had discarded one idea after another until they hit upon an altogether different kind of beast. Not know-ing where or how to place the controls-that is, the brain -so that they would be safe, the constructors had simply made everything brain, enabling the beast to think with its leg, or tail, or jaws (equipped with wisdom teeth only). But that was just the beginning. The real problem had two aspects, algorithmic and psychoa.n.a.lytic. First they had to determine what would check the King, catch him flatfooted, so to speak. To this end, they created by nonlinear trans-mutation a police subset within the beast, since everyone knows that resisting or interfering with an officer who is making an arrest lege artis is a cosmic offense and utterly unthinkable. So much for the psychology of it-except that the Postmaster General was utilized here on similar grounds: an official of lower rank might not have made it past the guards, the letter then would not have been delivered, and the constructors would have very literally lost their heads. Moreover, the Postmaster mannequin had been given means to bribe the guards, should that have proved necessary. Every eventuality had been antic.i.p.ated and provided for. Now as far as the algorithms went: they had only to find the proper domain of beasts, closed, bounded and bonded, with plenty of laws both a.s.sociative and distributive in op-eration, throw in a constable constant or two, some graphs of graft, squadratic equations and crime waves-and the thing took over from there, once activated by the expedient of writing a doc.u.ment-program (behind the curtain with the bells) in castor oil ink, rendering it thereby sufficiently hard to swallow to serve as a red-tape generator. Wemight add here that later on the constructors had an article pub-lished in a prominent scientific journal under the t.i.tle of "Recursive a-Metafunctions in the Special Case of a Bogus Polypolice Transmogrification Conversion on an Oscillating Harmonic Field of Gla.s.s Bells and Green Gig, Kerosene Lamp on the Left to Divert Attention, Solved by Beastly Incarceration-Concatenation," which was subsequently ex-ploited by the tabloids as "The Police State Rears Its Ugly Head." Obviously none of the ministers, dignitaries or huntsmen understood a single word of what was said, but that hardly mattered. The loving subjects of King Krool knew not whether they should despise these constructors or stand and gape in awe and admiration.

Now all was in readiness for takeoff. Trurl, as stipulated in the agreement, went through the King's private chambers with a large sack and calmly appropriated whatever object he took a fancy to. Finally, the carriage arrived and took the victors to the s.p.a.ceport, where a crowd cheered wildly and a children's chorus sang, then a charming little girl in local costume curtsied and presented them with a ribboned nose-gay, and high-ranking officials took turns to express their undying grat.i.tude, bidding them both a fond farewell, and the band played, several ladies fainted, and then a hush fell over the mult.i.tude. Klapaucius had pulled a tooth from his mouth, not an ordinary tooth but a transmitter-receiver, a two-way bicuspid. He threw a tiny switch and a sandstorm appeared on the horizon, growing and growing, whirling faster and faster, until it dropped into an empty s.p.a.ce be-tween the ship and the crowd and came to a sudden stop, scattering dust and debris in all directions. Everyone gasped and stepped back-there stood the beast, looking unusually b.e.s.t.i.a.l as it flashed its laser eyes and flailed its dragon tail!

"The King, if you please," said Klapaucius. But the beast answered, speaking in a perfectly normal voice: "Not on your life. It's my turn now to make de-mands..."

"What? Have you gone mad? You have to obey, it's in the matrix!" shouted Klapaucius. Everyone stared, thunder-struck.

"Matrix-schmatrix. Look pal, I'm not just any beast, I'm algorithmic, heuristic and s.a.d.i.s.tic, fully automatic and auto-cratic, that means undemocratic, and I've got loads of loops and plenty of feedback so none of that back talk or I'll clap you in irons, that means in the clink with the King, in the brig with the green gig, get me?"

"I'll give you feedback!" roared Klapaucius, furious. But Trurl asked the beast: "What exactly do you want?"

And he sneaked around behind Klapaucius and pulled out a special tooth of his own, so the beast wouldn't see.

"Well, first of all I want to marry-"

But they never learned whom in particular the beast had in mind, for Trurl threw a tiny switch and quickly chanted: "Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, input, output, out-you-go!"

The fantastically complex electromagnetic wave system that held the beast's atoms in place now came apart under the influence of those words, and the beast blinked, wiggled its ears, swallowed, tried to pull itself together, but before it could even grit its teeth therewas a hot gust of wind, a strong smell of ozone, then nothing left to pull together, just a little mound of ashes and the King standing in the middle, safe and sound, but in great need of a bath and mortified to tears that it had come to this.

"That'll cut you down to size," said Trurl, and no one knew whether he meant the beast or the King. In either case, the algorithm had done its job well.

"And now, gentlemen," Trurl concluded, "if you'll kindly help the Master of the Royal Hunt into his cage, we can be on our way ..."

The Third Sally

Or The Dragons of Probability

Trurl and Klapaucius were former pupils of the great Cerebron of Umptor, who for forty-seven years in the School of Higher Neantical Nillity expounded the General Theory of Dragons. Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the ba.n.a.lity of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the prob-lem a.n.a.lytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical.

They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each non-existed in an entirely different way. And then there were the imaginary dragons, and the a-, anti- and minus-dragons (colloquially termed nots, noughts and oughtn'ts by the ex-perts), the minuses being the most interesting on account of the well-known dracological paradox: when two minuses hypercontiguate (an operation in the algebra of dragons cor-responding roughly to simple multiplication), the product is 0.6 dragon, a real nonplusser. Bitter controversy raged among the experts on the question of whether, as half of them claimed, this fractional beast began from the head down or, as the other half maintained, from the tail up. Trurl and Klapaucius made a great contribution by showing the error of both positions. They were the first to apply probability theory to this area and, in so doing, created the field of statistical draconics, which says that dragons are thermodynamically impossible only in the probabilistic sense, as are elves, fairies, gnomes, witches, pixies and the like. Using the general equation of improbability, the two constructors obtained the coefficients of pixation, elfinity, kobolding, etc. They found that for the spontaneous manifestation of an average dragon, one would have to wait a good sixteen quintoquadrillion heptillion years.

In other words, the whole problem would have remained a mathematical curiosity had it not been for that famous tinkering pa.s.sion of Trurl, who decided to examine the nonphenome non empirically. First, as he was dealing with the highly improbable, he invented a probability amplifier and ran tests in his bas.e.m.e.nt-then later at the Dracogenic Proving Grounds established and funded by the Academy. To this day those who (sadly enough) have no knowledge of the General Theory of Improbability ask why Trurl probabilized a dragon and not an elf or goblin. The answer is simply that dragons are more probable than elves or goblins to begin with. True, Trurl might have gonefurther with his amplifying experiments, had not the first been so discouraging- discouraging in that the materialized dragon tried to make a meal of him. Fortunately, Klapaucius was nearby and low-ered the probability, and the monster vanished. A number of scholars subsequently repeated the experiment on a phantasmatron, but, as they lacked the necessary know-how and sang-froid, a considerable quant.i.ty of dragon sp.a.w.n, raising an unG.o.dly perturbation, broke loose. Only then did it be-come clear that those odious beasts enjoyed an existence quite different from that of ordinary cupboards, tables and chairs; for dragons are distinguished by their probability rather than by their actuality, though granted, that probability is overwhelming once they've actually come into be-ing. Suppose, for example, one organizes a hunt for such a dragon, surrounds it, closes in, beating the brush. The circle of sportsmen, their weapons c.o.c.ked and ready, finds only a burnt patch of earth and an unmistakable smell: the dragon, seeing itself cornered, has slipped from real to configurational s.p.a.ce. An extremely obtuse and brutal creature, it does this instinctively, of course. Now, ignorant and back-ward persons will occasionally demand that you show them this configurational s.p.a.ce of yours, apparently unaware that electrons, whose existence no one in his right mind would question, also move exclusively in configurational s.p.a.ce, their comings and goings fully dependent on curves of prob-ability. Though it is easier not to believe in electrons than in dragons: electrons, at least taken singly, won't try to make a meal of you.

A colleague of Trurl, one Harborizian Cybr, was the first to quantize a dragon, detecting a particle known as the dracotron, the energy of which is measured-obviously-in units of dracon by a dracometer, and he even determined the coordinates of its tail, for which he nearly paid with his life. Yet what did these scientific achievements concern the common folk, who were now greatly hara.s.sed by dragons ranging the countryside, filling the air with their howls and flames and trampling, and in places even exacting tribute in the form of young virgins? What did it concern the poor villagers that Trurl's dragons, indeterministic hence heuris-tic, were behaving exactly according to theory though con-trary to all notions of decency, or that his theory could pre-dict the curve of the tails that demolished their barns and leveled their crops? It is not surprising, then, that the gen-eral public, instead of appreciating the value of Trurl's revo-lutionary invention, held it much against him. A group of individuals thoroughly benighted in matters of science waylaid the famous constructor and gave him a good thrashing. Not that this deterred him and his friend Klapaucius from further experimentation, which showed that the extent of a dragon's existence depends mainly on its whim, though also on its degree of satiety, and that the only sure method of negating it is to reduce the probability to zero or lower. All this research, naturally enough, took a great deal of time and energy; meanwhile the dragons that had gotten loose were running rampant, laying waste to a variety of planets and moons. What was worse, they multiplied. Which enabled Klapaucius to publish an excellent article ent.i.tled "Covariant Transformation from Dragons to Dragonets, in the Spe-cial Case of Pa.s.sage from States Forbidden by the Laws of Physics to Those Forbidden by the Local Authorities." The article created a sensation in the scientific world, where there was still talk of the amazing polypolice beast that had been used by the intrepid constructors against King Krool to avenge the deaths of their colleagues. But far greater was the sensation caused by the news that a certain constructor known as Basiliscus the Gorgonite, traveling through the Galaxy, was apparently making dragons appear by his pres-ence-and in places where no one had ever seen a dragon before. Whenever the situation grew desperate and catas-trophe seemed imminent, this Basiliscus would turn up, ap-proach the sovereign of that particular area and, settling on some outrageous fee after long hours of bargaining, would undertake to extirpate the beasts. At which he usually suc-ceeded, though no one knew quite how, since he worked in secret and alone. True, the guarantee he offered for dragon removal-dracolysis-was only statistical; though one ruler did pay him in similarcoin, that is, in ducats that were only statistically good. After that, the insolent Basiliscus always used aqua regia to check the metallic reliability of his royal payments. One sunny afternoon Trurl and Klapaucius met and held the following conversation: "Have you heard about this Basiliscus?" asked Trurl.

"Yes."

"Well, what do you think?"

"I don't like it."

"Nor do I. How do you suppose he does it?"

"With an amplifier."

"A probability amplifier?"

"Either that, or oscillating fields."

"Or a paramagnedracic generator."

"You mean, a draculator?"

"Yes."

"Ah."

"But really," cried Trurl, "that would be criminal! That would mean he was bringing the dragons with him, only in a potential state, their probability near zero; then, after landing and getting the lay of the land, he was increasing the chances, raising the potential, strengthening the proba-bility until it was almost a certainty. And then, of course, you have visualization, materialization, full manifestation."

"Of course. And he probably shuffles the letters of the matrix to make the dragons grand."

"Yes, and the poor people groan in agony and gore. Ter-rible!"

"What do you think; does he then apply an irreversible antidraconian retroectoplasmatron, or simply lower the probability and walk off with the gold?"

"Hard to say. Though if he's only improbabilizing, that would be an even greater piece of villainy, since sooner or later the fractional fluctuations would have to give rise to a draconic iso-oscillation-and the whole thing would start all over again."

"Though by that time both he and the money would be gone," observed Klapaucius.

"Shouldn't we report him to the Main Office?"

"Not just yet. He may not be doing this, after all. We have no real proof. Statistical fluctuations can occur without an amplifier; at one time, you know, there were neither am-plifiers nor phantasmatrons, yet dragons did appear. Purely on a random basis."

"True..." replied Trurl. "But these appear immediately after he arrives on the planet!"

"I know. Still, reporting a fellow constructor-it just isn't done. Though there's noreason we can't take measures of our own."

"No reason at all."

"I'm glad you agree. But what exactly should we do?"

At this point the two famous dracologists got into a dis-cussion so technical, that anyone listening in wouldn't have been able to make head or tail of it. There were such mys-terious words as "discontinuous orthodragonality." "grand draconical ensembles."

"high-frequency binomial fafneration." "abnormal saurian distribution." "discrete dragons." "indiscrete dragons." "drasticodracostochastic control." "simple Grendelian dominance." "weak interaction dragon diffraction." "aberrational reluctance."

"informational figmentation," and so on.

The upshot of all this penetrating a.n.a.lysis was the third sally, for which the constructors prepared most carefully, not failing to load their ship with a quant.i.ty of highly com-plicated devices.

In particular they took along a scatter-scrambler and a special gun that fired negative heads. After landing on Eenica, then on Meenica, then finally on Mynamoaca, they realized it would be impossible to comb the whole infested area in this way and they would have to split up. This was most easily done, obviously, by separating; so after a brief council of war each set out on his own. Klapaucius worked for a spell on Prestopondora for the Emperor Maximillion, who was prepared to offer him his daughter's hand in marriage if only he would get rid of those vile beasts. Dragons of the highest probability were everywhere, even in the streets of the capital, and the place literally swarmed with virtuals. A virtual dragon, the uneducated and simple-minded might say, "isn't really there," having no observable substance nor displaying the least intention of acquiring any; but the Cybr-Trurl-Klapaucius-Leech calculation (not to mention the Drachendranginger wave equation) clearly shows that a dragon can jump from configurational to real s.p.a.ce with no more effort than it takes to jump off a cliff.

Thus, in any room, cellar or attic, provided the probability is high, you could meet with a dragon or possibly even a metadragon.

Instead of chasing after the beasts, which would have accomplished little or nothing, Klapaucius, a true theoretician, approached the problem methodically; in squares and prom-enades, in barns and hostels he placed probabilistic battery-run dragon dampers, and in no time at all the beasts were extremely rare. Collecting his fee, plus an honorary degree and an engraved loving cup, Klapaucius blasted off to rejoin his friend. On the way, he noticed a planet and someone waving to him frantically. Thinking it might be Trurl in some sort of trouble, he landed. But it was only the inhab-itants of Trufffandria, the subjects of King Pfftius, gesticu-lating. The Trufflandrians held to various superst.i.tions and primitive beliefs; their religion, Pneumatological Dracolatry, taught that dragons appeared as a divine retribution for their sins and took possession of all unclean souls.

Quickly realiz-ing it would be useless to enter into a discussion with the royal dracologians-their methods consisted primarily of waving censers and distributing sacred relics-Klapaucius in-stead conducted soundings of the outlying terrain. These revealed the planet was occupied by only one beast, but that beast belonged to the terrible genus of Echidnosaurian hypervipers. He offered the King his services. The King, how-ever, answered in a vague, roundabout fashion, evidently under the influence of that ridiculous doctrine which would have the origin of dragons be somehow supernatural.

Perus-ing the local newspapers, Klapaucius learned that the dragon terrorizing the planet was considered by some to be a single thing, and by others, a multiplex creature that could operate in several locations at the same time. This gave him pause-though itwasn't so surprising really, when you con-sidered that the localization of these odious phenomena was subject to so-called dragonomalies, in which certain speci-mens, particularly when abstracted, underwent a "smearing" effect, which was in reality nothing more than a simple isotopic spin acceleration of asynchronous quantum moments. Much as a hand, emerging from the water fingers-first, ap-pears above the surface in the form of five seemingly sepa-rate and independent items, so do dragons, emerging from the lairs of their configurational s.p.a.ce, on occasion appear to be plural, though in point of fact they are quite singular. Towards the end of his second audience with the King, Klapaucius inquired if perhaps Trurl were on the planet and gave a detailed description of his comrade. He was aston-ished to hear that yes, his comrade had only recently visited their kingdom and had even undertaken to exorcise the monster, had in fact accepted a retainer and departed for the neighboring mountains where the monster had been most frequently sighted. Had then returned the next day, de-manding the rest of his fee and presenting four and twenty dragon's teeth as proof of his success. There was some mis-understanding, however, and it was decided to withhold pay-ment until the matter was fully cleared up. At which Trurl flew into a rage and in a loud voice made certain comments about His Royal Highness that were perilously close to lese majesty if not treason, then stormed out without leaving a forwarding address. That very same day the monster reap-peared as if nothing had happened and, alas, ravaged their farms and villages more fiercely than before.

Now this story seemed questionable to Klapaucius, though on the other hand it was hard to believe the good King was lying, so he packed his knapsack with all sorts of powerful dragon-exterminating equipment and set off for the mountains, whose snowcapped peaks rose majestically in the east.

It wasn't long before he saw dragon prints and got an unmistakable whiff of brimstone. On he went, undaunted, holding his weapon in readiness and keeping a constant eye on the needle of his dragon counter. It stayed at zero for a spell, then began to give nervous little twitches, until, as if struggling with itself, it slowly crawled towards the number one. There was no doubt now: the Echidnosaur was close at hand. Which amazed Klapaucius, for he couldn't under-stand how his trusty friend and renowned theoretician, Trurl, could have gotten so fouled up in his calculations as to fail to wipe the dragon out for good. Nor could he imag-ine Trurl returning to the royal palace and demanding pay-ment for what he had not accomplished.

Klapaucius then came upon a group of natives. They were plainly terrified, the way they kept looking around and trying to stay together. Bent beneath heavy burdens bal-anced on their backs and heads, they were stepping single-file up the mountainside.

Klapaucius accosted the proces-sion and asked the first native what they were about.

"Sire!" replied the native, a lower court official in a tat-tered tog and c.u.mmerbund. "

'Tis the tribute we carry to the dragon."

"Tribute? Ah yes, the tribute! And what is the tribute?"

"Nothin' more 'r less, Sire, than what the dragon would have us bring it: gold coins, precious stones, imported per-fumes, an' a pa.s.sel o' other valuables."

This was truly incredible, for dragons never required such tributes, certainly notperfume-no perfume could ever mask their own natural fetor-and certainly not currency, which was useless to them.

"And does it ask for young virgins, my good man?" asked Klapaucius.

"Virgins? Nay, Sire, tho' there war a time ... we had to cart 'em in by the bevy, we did... Only that war before the stranger came, the furrin gentleman, Sire, a-walkin'

around the rocks with 'is boxes an' contraptions, all by 'is-self..." Here the worthy native broke off and stared at the instruments and weapons Klapaucius was carrying, partic-ularly the large dragon counter that was ticking softly all the while, its red pointer jumping back and forth across the white dial.

"Why, if he dinna have one... jus' like yer Lordship's," he said in a hushed voice. "Aye, jus' like... the same wee stiggermajigger and a' the rest..."

"There was a sale on them," said Klapaucius, to allay the native's suspicions. "But tell me, good people, do you hap-pen to know what became of this stranger?"

"What became o' him, ye ask? That we know not, Sire, to be sure. 'Twas, if I not mistake me, but a fortnight past -'twas, 'twas not, Master Gyles, a fortnight withal an'

nae more?"

" 'Twas, 'twas, 'tis the truth ye speak, the truth aye, a fortnight sure, or maybe two."

"Aye! So he comes to us, yer Grace, partakes of our 'umble fare, polite as ye please an'

I'll not gainsay it, nay, a parfit gentleman true, pays hondsomely, inquires after the missus don't y'know, aye an' then he sits 'isself down, spreads out a' them contraptions an'

thin's with clocks in 'em, y'see, an' scribbles furious-like, numbers they are, one after't'other, in this wee book he keep in 'is breast pocket, then takes out a-whad'yacallit-therbobbiter thingamabob..."

"Thermometer?"

"Aye, that's it! A thermometer... an' he says it be for dragons, an' pokes it here an'

there, Sire, an' scribbles in 'is book again, then he takes a' them contraptions an' things an'

packs 'em up an' puts 'em on 'is back an' says farewell an' goes 'is merry way. We never saw 'im more, yer Honor. That very night we hear a thunder an' a clatter, oh, a good ways off, 'bout as far as Mount Murdigras-'tis the one, Sire, hard by yon peak, aye, that one thar, looks like a hawk, she do, we call 'er Pfftius Peak after our beluved King, an' that one thar on't'uther side, bent over like't'would spread 'er a.r.s.e, that be the Dollymog, which, accordin' to legend-"

"Enough of the mountains, worthy native," said Klaupaucius. "You were saying there was thunder in the night. What happened then?"

"Then, Sire? Why nothin', to be sure. The hut she give a jump an' I falls outta bed, to which I'm well accustomed, mind ye, seein' as how the wicked beast allus come a-b.u.mpin'

gainst the house with 'er tail an' send a feller flyin'-like when Master Gyles' ayn brother londed in the privy 'cause the creatur' gets a hankerin' to scratch 'isself on the corner o'