Robert Sheckley - Mindswap

'Is – is that-?' Marvin began.

'Yes, my son,' Valdez said quietly. 'That is the village of Montana de los Tres Picos, in Adelante Province, in the country of Lombrobia, in the valley of the Blue Moon.'

Marvin thanked his old guru – for no other name was applicable to the role that the devious and saintly Valdez had played – and began his descent to the Location-Point where his wait for Cathy would begin.

Montana de Los Tres Picos! Here, surrounded by crystal lakes and high mountains, a simple, good-hearted peasantry engage in unhurried labour beneath the swan-necked palms. At midday and midnight one may hear the plaintive notes of a guitar echo down the crenellated walls of the old castle. Nut-brown maidens tend the dusty grape vines while a moustached cacique watches, his whip curled sleepily on his hairy wrist.

To this quaint memento of a bygone age came Flynn, led by the faithful Valdez.

Just outside the village, on a gentle rise of land, there was an inn, or posada. To this place Valdez directed them.

'But is this really the best place to wait?' Marvin asked.

'No, it is not,' Valdez said, with a knowing smile. 'But by choosing it instead of the dusty town square, we avoid the fallacy of the "optimum". Also, it is more comfortable here.'

Marvin bowed to the moustached man's superior wisdom and made himself at home in the posada. He settled himself at an outdoor table that commanded a good view of the courtyard and of the road beyond it. He fortified himself with a flagon of wine, and proceeded to fulfil his theoretical function as called for by the Theory of Searches: viz, he waited

Within the hour, Marvin beheld a tiny dark figure moving slowly along the gleaming white expanse of the road. Closer it came, the figure of a man no longer young, his back bent beneath the weight of a heavy cylindrical object. At last the man raised his haggard head and stared directly into Marvin's eyes.

'Uncle Max!' Marvin cried.

'Why, hello, Marvin,' Uncle Max replied. 'Would you mind pouring me a glass of wine? This is a very dusty road.'

Marvin poured the glass of wine, scarcely believing the testimony of his senses; for Uncle Max had unaccountably disappeared some ten years ago. He had last been seen playing golf at the Fairhaven Country Club.

'What happened to you?' Marvin asked.

'I stumbled into a time warp on the twelfth hole,' Uncle Max said. 'If you ever get back to Earth, Marvin, you might speak to the club manager about it. I have never been a complainer ; but it seems to me that the greens committee ought to know about this, and possibly build a small fence or other enclosing structure. I do not care so much for myself, but it might cause a nasty scandal if a child fell in.'

'I'll certainly tell them,' Marvin said. 'But Uncle Max, where are you going now?'

'I have an appointment in Samarra,' Uncle Max said. 'Thank you for the wine, my boy, and take good care of yourself. By the way; did you know that your nose is ticking?'

'Yes,' Marvin said. 'It's a bomb.'

'I suppose you know what you're doing,' Max said. 'Goodbye, Marvin.'

And Uncle Max trudged away down the road, his golf bag swinging from his back and a number two iron in his hand as a walking-stick. Marvin settled back to wait.

Half an hour later, Marvin spied the figure of a woman hurrying down the road. He felt a rising sensation of anticipation, but then slumped back in his chair. It was not Cathy after all. It was only his mother.

'You're a long way from home, Mom,' he said quietly.

'I know, Marvin,' his mother said. 'But you see, I was captured by white slavers.'

'Gosh, Mom! How did it happen?'

'Well, Marvin,' his mother said, 'I was simply taking a Christmas basket to a poor family in Cutpurse Lane, and there was a police raid, and various other things happened, and I was drugged and awoke in Buenos Aires in a luxurious room with a man standing near me and leering and asking me in broken English if I wanted a little fun . And when I said no, he bent down and clasped me in his arms in an embrace that was plainly designed to be lecherous.'

'Gosh! What happened then?'

'Well,' his mother said, 'I was lucky enough to remember a little trick that Mrs Jasperson had told me. Did you know that you can kill a man by striking him forcibly under the nose? Well, it actually does work. I didn't like to do it, Marvin, although it seemed a good idea at the time. And so I found myself in the streets of Buenos Aires and one thing led to another and here I am.'

'Won't you have some wine?' Marvin asked.

'That's very thoughtful of you,' his mother said, 'but I really must be on my way.'

'Where?'

'To Havana,' his mother said. 'I have a message for Garcia. Marvin, have you a cold?'

'No, I probably sound funny because of this bomb in my nose.'

'Take care of yourself, Marvin,' his mother said, and hurried on.

Time passed. Marvin ate his dinner on the portico, washed it down with a flagon of Sangre de Hombre, '36, and settled back in the deep shadow cast by the whitewashed palladium. The sun stretched its golden bottom towards the mountain peaks. Down the road, the figure of a man could be seen hurrying past the inn …

'Father!' Marvin cried.

'Good afternoon, Marvin,' his father said, startled but hiding it well. 'I must say, you turn up in some unexpected places.'

'I could say the same of you,' Marvin said.

His father frowned, adjusted his necktie and changed his briefcase to the other hand. 'There is nothing strange about me being here,' he told his son. 'Usually your mother drives me home from the station. But today she was delayed, and so I walked. Since I was walking, I decided to take the shortcut which goes over one side of the golf course.'

'I see,' Marvin said.

'I will admit,' his father continued, 'that this shortcut seems to have become a "long" cut, as one might express it, for I estimate that I have been walking through this countryside for the better part of an hour, if not longer.'

'Dad,' Marvin said, 'I don't know how to tell you this, but the fact is, you are no longer on Earth.'

'I find nothing humorous about a remark like that,' his father stated. 'Doubtless I have gone out of my way; nor is the style of architecture what I would normally expect to find in New York State. But I am quite certain that if I continue along this road for another hundred yards or so, it will lead into Annandale Avenue, which in turn will take me to the intersection of Maple Street and Spruce Lane. From there, of course, I can easily find my way home.'

'I suppose you're right,' Marvin said. He had never been able to win an argument from his father.

'I must be getting along,' his father said. 'By the way, Marvin, were you aware that you have some sort of obstruction in your nose?'

'Yes sir,' Marvin said. 'It's a bomb.'

His father frowned deeply, pierced him with a glance, shook his head regretfully, and marched on down the road.

'I don't understand it,' Marvin remarked later to Valdez. 'Why are all of these people finding me? It just doesn't seem natural.'

'It isn't natural,' Valdez assured him. 'But it is inevitable, which is much more important.'

'Maybe it is inevitable,' Marvin said. 'But it is also highly improbable.'

'True.' Valdez agreed. 'Although we prefer to call that a forced-probability; which is to say, it is an indeterminate concomitant of the Theory of Searches.'

'I'm afraid I don't fully understand that,' Marvin said.

'Well, it's simple enough. The Theory of Searches is a pure theory; which is to say that on paper it works every time, with no conceivable refutation. But once we take the pure and ideal and attempt to make practical applications, we encounter difficulties, the foremost of which is the phenomenon of indeterminacy. To put it in its simplest terms, what happens is this: the presence of the Theory interferes with the working of the Theory. You see, the Theory cannot take into account the effect of its own existence upon itself. Ideally, the Theory of Searches exists in a universe in which there is no Theory of Searches. But practically – which is our concern here – the Theory of Searches exists in a world in which there is a Theory of Searches, which has what we call a "mirroring" or "doubling" effect upon itself. According to some thinkers, there is a very real danger of "infinite duplication", in which the Theory endlessly modifies itself in terms of prior modifications of the Theory by the Theory, coming at last to a state of entropy, in which all possibilities are equally valued. This argument is known as Von Gruemann's Fallacy, in which the error of implying causality to mere sequence is self-evident. Does it become more clear?'