Venus on the Half-Shell (23 page)

“Do you get many visitors?”

“About seventy a year,” Mofeislop said. “That’s an average of about three every two weeks. Just right. There are not so many they become a burden, and each party is small enough so it can be easily handled.”

“I’m surprised anybody gets through,” Simon said, “what with the rough terrain and the wild beasts and the savages.”

“Be surprised then,” the sage said. “Today, I’m surprised, too. That’s the first woman I’ve seen in ten years. Women don’t come here seeking the Truth, you know. That’s because they think they already know it. Besides, even those women who have doubts aren’t likely to go through the Yetgul Forest to ask a
man
what it’s all about. They know that most men are pitiful creatures and not too bright, no matter how proficient they might be in science and technology and the arts.”

Simon said, “But you are the exception, heh?”

“Right,” the sage said. “But you’re in for several surprises today.”

“I hope I have strength enough to face them,” Simon said. “I know that, deep down, I’m like everybody else. I talk much about wanting to know Truth, I seek it out, but I’m not sure that when I’m about to face it, I might not run away.”

“Others have tried to run away,” Mofeislop said.

He straightened up. “Perhaps you’ve wondered why I’ve isolated myself so thoroughly. Why do I make it so hard for people to get to me? Well, if it were easier, I’d be surrounded, overwhelmed, with people clamoring for the Truth night and day. I don’t particularly like people in the mass and, in fact, seldom individually. But here, I’m so alone that when I get a visitor I welcome him. Odiomzwak, as you may have noticed, is not a very interesting conversationalist. Also, those who make it here really desire to see me; they’re not just driven by idle curiosity. So, I have plenty of time to meditate and I get just enough visitors to satisfy my needs for human beings. And I’m master here, total master. The government doesn’t bother with me.”

Simon was about to reply when he smelled the powerful odor of long-unwashed Odiomzwak behind him. He turned his head to look up over the chair. Something clicked. He cried out and began struggling, while, seemingly far off, Anubis barked in a panic.

Steel bands had sprung out from the arms of the chair and bound his wrists.

“So, you son of a bitch, you saw me sucking my tail!” Mofeislop shouted.

“I wouldn’t tell anybody!” Simon cried. “I couldn’t care less! I just want to know the Truth!”

“You
won’t
tell anybody,” the sage said, glowering. “That’s right. Not that it would have made any difference whether or not you did see me. But don’t worry. You will hear the Truth.”

Odiomzwak came from behind the chair carrying several long sharp knives of varying widths and lengths. These were enough to make Simon wet his pants, but Odiomzwak’s drooling and lip-licking ensured it.

“This’ll be a rare feast indeed,” Odiomzwak mumbled. “We’ve never had Earthman’s flesh before.”

“Not rare,” Mofeislop said. “Unique. You should consult the dictionary more often, my dear Odiomzwak.”

“Who cares?” Odiomzwak said sullenly.

“I do,” the sage said. “Remember, unique, not rare. We’re not barbarians.”

“I wouldn’t agree with that,” Simon said.

“That’s because you’re emotionally involved,” Mofeislop said. “You haven’t attained the cool objectivity of the true philosopher.”

Mofeislop gestured to his assistant to put the knives on the table. He sat down in a chair facing Simon’s and put the tips of his fingers and his thumbs together. The shape thus formed was commonly known as a church steeple. To Simon, it looked like the gaping mouth of a shark.

“I hope you’re not a filthy atheist,” Mofeislop said.

“What?” Simon said. And then, “Of course not!”

“Good!” Mofeislop said. “I’ve eaten too many of them, and they’ve all had a rank taste that is unpleasant. Attitudes determine the chemical composition of a person’s flesh, you know. You didn’t? Well, now you know. And I’m pleased to see that, though you smoke, you don’t smoke much. You may have noticed the slight taste of tobacco in the meat of the stew you ate the day you got here. That was your predecessor. He was a nicotine addict, though, I’m glad to add, not an atheist. Otherwise, he would have been almost inedible.”

“I’m going to throw up,” Simon said.

“That seems to be the usual reaction,” Mofeislop said cheerfully. “I doubt you’ll have much success. I’ve arranged it so that your meal would be fully digested when you confronted the Truth.”

“Which is?” Simon said after his stomach had tried to empty non-existent contents.

“After much thought about and around, I came out of the same door, much as that drunken Persian Sufi poet you told me about. Out of the same door into which I had entered. Here’s how it is, and don’t bother to argue with me. My logic is clear and indisputable, based on long-life observation.

“It’s this. The Creator has created this world solely to provide Himself with a show, to entertain Himself. Otherwise, He’d find eternity boring.

“And He gets as much enjoyment from watching pain, suffering, and murder as He does from love. Perhaps more, since there is so much more hate and greed and murder than there is of love. Just as I enjoy watching through my telescope the struggles of those who are fighting to get to me, a sadistic pleasure, I admit, so He enjoys watching the comedies and tragedies of the beings He created.”

“That’s it?” Simon said.

“That’s it.”

“That’s nothing new!” Simon said. “I’ve read a hundred books which say the same thing! Where’s the logic, the wisdom, in that?”

“Once you’ve admitted the premise that there is a Creator, no intelligent person can come to any other conclusion. Now, tell me, can you state honestly, from all you’ve observed, that the Creator regards His creatures, human or otherwise, as anything but actors in a drama? Poor actors, most of them, and great drama is rare. But I do my best to provide Him with an interesting play, though, I must admit, for purely selfish reasons.”

He spoke to Odiomzwak. “Get an axe. That dog may try to attack, though he’s hiding behind the chimney now.”

The assistant disappeared. Mofeislop said, “Dog meat’s good, too. And an additional welcome change of diet.”

“You cannibal!” Simon snarled.

“Not really,” the sage said. “Cannibalism is eating one’s own kind, and I am not of the same species as you. Or even of other Dokalians. I differ from them, have evolved from them, you might say, just as they evolved from apes. My intellect is so much superior to theirs that it’s not a matter of degree but of kind.”

“Bullshit!” Simon said. “You have the same philosophy as a college sophomore’s! But he leaves it behind with maturity.”

“Aging, you mean,” Mofeislop said. “He gets old, and he fears dying. And so he laughs at what he once thought, which was indeed the Truth. But his laughter springs from fear, fear that he was right when he was young.”

“You’re not trying to talk me to death, are you?”

Mofeislop smiled and said, “You’ll wish I had before I’m done.”

“I’ll tell you why you’re doing this!” Simon shouted. “You hate all people because you were ridiculed when you were young! You couldn’t break yourself of the habit of sucking on your tail!”

Mofeislop jumped to his feet. His hands were balled; his face, red; his head, shaking.

“Who told you that?” he finally screamed. “Odiomzwak?”

Simon had only guessed it, but he had no compunctions about lying if he could put off the inevitable moment.

“Yes, he told me this morning while we were down at the meadow.”

“I’ll kill the ugly bastard!” Mofeislop said. But he sat down and, after an evident struggle with himself, smiled. “You are lying, of course. In any event, you won’t be passing that on, and I need Odiomzwak.”

Simon looked out past the parapet, across the mountains and valleys, and up into the sky. The sky was as blue as a baby’s eye, and the air was as clear as a baby’s conscience. A newly born wind cried softly in his ear. The sun shone as brightly as a fond mother’s smile.

Suddenly, the blue eye had something in it. The specks slowly became larger, and Simon saw that they were vultures. They must have been many miles away, circling around, screaming. There had been nothing for them until a few minutes ago, and here they were. The frequency of peace and content had suddenly shifted; they were homing in on the beam, tuned in to death.

Simon couldn’t help thinking in poetic terms even at this moment. He was a creature of habits, mostly bad. But then, on the other hand, it’s easy to break good habits and hell to break the bad.

The stink of Odiomzwak preceded the sound of his step. He came into view with a long heavy sharp axe on his shoulder.

“Shall I kill the dog now?”

Mofeislop nodded, and the assistant shuffled off. The sage picked up a small knife curved inward like some surgeon’s tool. Simon lied again.

“Listen! If you kill me up here, you’ll be dead within a week!”

“Why is that?” the sage said, raising his thick eyebrows as if they were shrouds he was peeping under.

“Because I put a small observer satellite up before I came here! It’s suspended up there now, so far away you can’t see it. And it’s watching everything that takes place now. If it doesn’t see me leave here in a few days, it’s going to report to my partner in her spaceship in the capital city! And she’ll come barreling in here and investigate. Which means you’ll be done for!”

Mofeislop squinted up and then said, “I doubt you’re telling the truth. But just in case... Odiomzwak, come here!”

Simon smelled the assistant again, heard a click behind him, and the steel cuffs slid back into the arms of the chair. Odiomzwak stood near him, his axe held up, and Mofeislop had his hand on the hilt of a dagger in its sheath.

“Call your dog,” Mofeislop said, “and you take him inside. But move slowly, and no tricks.”

Odiomzwak whined, “He might jump over the side, like the last one.”

“Then you’ll go down after him, like the last time,” the sage said. “Anyway, I thought the bouncing down the mountain was just the thing. It tenderized him.”

“It won’t do any good to kill me inside,” Simon said. “The satellite can’t see you, but it’ll report that I haven’t come out of here.”

“Oh, it’ll see you leave here and enter the Yelgut Forest,” Mofeislop said cheerily. “I’ll be dressed in your clothes and my face’ll be made up to look like yours. I’ll come out of the forest looking like someone else. And I’ll tell your partner that you have perished on the way out.”

“And how will you explain the dog not being with me?” Simon said.

“It’ll be very inconvenient,” the sage said. “I’ll have to dodge by the newcomers and get Odiomzwak to hold them until I get back. But I’ll take the dog with me. I can dine on him once I’m under the cover of the trees.”

“Don’t forget to bring some steaks back for me,” Odiomzwak said. “You know how I love dog meat.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“He’s making us a lot of trouble,” Odiomzwak said. “He ought to be made to pay for it.”

“Oh, he will,” Mofeislop said.

Simon’s mouth felt as if it were full of dry ice. All his water was leaking out of his skin. He called to Anubis, but his voice squeaked like a bat’s.

“He’s going to try something,” Odiomzwak whined. “I can smell it. Otherwise, why’d he tell us about that there thing, what-you-call-it? in the sky?”

“He wants to put off the inevitable,” the sage said. “Like everybody else, he’d rather live through any number of bad moments than die in a good one.”

“Yeah, but that there eye in the sky’s already seen him cuffed to the chair and it’s seen the axe and the knives.”

“I’ll tell his partner it was just a sort of ritual I put all my seekers after the Truth through,” the sage said. “A sort of dumb-show to portray man’s lot in the universe. Don’t worry. Anyway, I don’t really think there is a satellite.”

Anubis came slowly and suspiciously to Simon. He patted the dog on the head, and Anubis walked behind him to the stairway. Odiomzwak ran ahead of him so he couldn’t make a break for it. The sage’s dagger pricked his back as soon as they had entered the stairway, out of sight of the imaginary observer. Odiomzwak, the axe held ready to bring down on Simon’s head, backed down the steps.

Simon kicked back, felt his heel strike Anubis, who yelped, and then launched himself toward Odiomzwak, his hands held out. Odiomzwak yelped, too, and started to bring the axe down. Simon went in under it, his head struck Odiomzwak’s, and, Simon half on top of him, they fell together down the steps.

Dazed, Simon sat up at the foot of the stairway. He knew he had to get up, but he could not control his legs. Above him, the sage stabbed at Anubis, who snarled and made short lunges up after him. Somebody groaned beside Simon, and he looked down. The hunchback was lying on his side, his eyes unfocused.

Simon managed to get some orders through to his legs, and he got slowly to his feet. Mofeislop called out to the hunchback to kill Simon. Odiomzwak sat up slowly, leaning on one hand, the other held to the side of his head. Blood oozed out between his fingers.

Simon picked up the axe as Odiomzwak got to his feet. The hunchback’s eyes suddenly focused, and he cried out. Simon swung the axe with the edge turned to one side so he would strike the man with the flat side. Even in his confusion and desperation, he did not want to kill his would-be killer. And he did not swing it as hard as he should have. The axe rang on the stone wall, missing Odiomzwak. He had leaped up and dodged out into the hallway.

Simon glanced above. Anubis was still holding the sage at bay, was, in fact, making him retreat. He ran out into the hall, though wobblingly. Odiomzwak wasn’t in sight. He ran down the long wide hallway and, as he went past a doorway, the hunchback leaped out at him. Simon thrust the end of the axe in his face; the man fell back but a flailing hand seized the axe-shaft. Twice as powerful as Simon, Odiomzwak tore the axe out of Simon’s hand. For a moment, though, the hunchback was half-stunned. Simon ran through the doorway, saw his banjo on a table, and picked it up. When Odiomzwak, yelling, came through the doorway, Simon broke the banjo over his head.