Robert Sheckley - Options

"Not just now, Tyie," said Professor MacAllister in quiet tones.

Tyie turned to go. But then it became apparent, even to his untrained and unobservant eye, that there was something strange and unnatural in the bearing of the two people he had known for only a month but already prized more than anyone in the world.

"Is anything the matter?" Tyie asked.

Before anyone could answer, Lois MacAllister's younger sister, Patty, came down the inner steps and out on to the veranda. Not yet seventeen, Patty was singularly developed for her age. She sat down in a faded green armchair and crossed the long, generously curved legs that fell from the slender waist below her ample and delicately shaped breasts.

"Yes, John," she said, tart-sweet, "is anything the matter?"

Professor MacAllister went a shade pale beneath the healthy glow of his tan. He noted that his wife's grey eyes had widened. Quietly, he said, "Now, wait just a minute…"

The kitchen door opened. Out on to the veranda came Chang, the Chinese cook, Kyoto, the Philippine houseboy, and Mary Lou, the Jamaican housekeeper. They ranged themselves silently along the wall. And now it was Patty's turn to go pale.

There was a long silence. Then Tyie said, "Uh, I guess I'd better be getting home. The paint on the birdcage is probably dry by now, and I…"

"Don't rush away, Tyie," said Lois MacAllister. "There's someone here I think you should meet."

The cellar door opened and out on to the veranda came a bald, one-eyed dwarf, a thin man in a black suit, and a pair of giggling, blonde, female twins.

"Now I think we can clear this thing up," MacAllister said. "First, as to the so-called mysterious package that Ed Whittaker found in the bilge of the garbage scow, Clotilda, just two days before his disappearance…"

"Yes?" Patty breathed.

"It contained nothing more than an engine part for a spaceship. It was supposed to be sent to a Mr Mishkin of Harmonia, and in the presence of Judge Clarke I forwarded it to the Dade County Emergency Expediting Service."

Patty slumped back, her body slack with relief. "Well, that takes care of that! We've all been a pack of fools!"

"Maybe," said Lois MacAllister. "But we still haven't heard any explanation for the rest of it."

Professor MacAllister looked thoughtfully at the people on the veranda. "That," he said, "may take a little longer." He went to the sideboard and poured himself a drink.

The sign on the door read: CONTINUITIES, INC. Uncle Arnold went inside and was shown to the office of Thomas Grantwell.

"I've come here about my nephew," Uncle Arnold said. "Tom Mishkin is his name. He's stranded on a planet called Harmonia, and he's gotta have a certain engine part so's he can make his spaceship run again. But I can't seem to get the part to him."

"Have you tried shipping it by space freight?" Grantwell asked.

"I have. But they told me that the Interstellar Space Flight Premise had been suspended this year, and therefore they were unable to help me".

"Did you ask them what was supposed to happen to your nephew?"

"They said that they would provisionally have to deny his existence until the Premise was reinstated."

"That's government for you," Grantwell said. "Leaves you — or rather young Mishkin — in quite a spot."

"Is there anything your organization can do to help the lad?" asked Uncle Arnold.

"There is," Grantwell said, firmly. "Continuities, Inc was designed to create connections between incompatible assumptions. We will design a scenario that will provide a link between these two different realities without doing violence to either."

"That's wonderful," Uncle Arnold said.

And so it came to pass that all the toads were smoothed over and various elephants were secretly enlisted. The next step was more severe: suitable gapping material had to be found, heads had to be turned, performances judged. Spontaneity died in Kansas City and was replaced by probity.

Gigantic mechanisms were turned loose upon a suspecting Earth. Various marches were organized. The input factory increased outputs. Crimson dagles carried darkness and invisibility. People decided things. There was a necessary series of transactions conducted via radio and involving a compromise about permissible ratios of feeling.

Nor was this all. The world stood revealed in dark vestments. Certain facts of long-established limpidity died aborning. The strain on the normative cause-and-effect linkages was tremendous. Voices were raised in protest. Outright revolt was threatened.

The author, in the meantime, had formed a dismal awareness of the difficulties involved. He toyed with various possibilities, even considered killing Mishkin off and starting a new book — a cookbook, perhaps. Still…

"Damn it all," said Mishkin, "another zero-null game."

The engine part could be seen in all its splendour, isolated in the author's mind. It was a hazy visualization, sometimes resembling a pot roast, at other times a Citroen 2 cv.

The part sounded like a rock band. It smelt like a butane burner.

Mishkin was resting in a glade. The robot was enjoying a pseudo-rest, since he didn't need a real rest. Mishkin looked up and became aware that someone was striding across the sward towards him.

"Hello, there," said The Man of a Thousand Disguises. "I'm in charge of this sequence. I have come here in person to formalize a resolution."

"What are you talking about?" Mishkin asked. "I'm just waiting here for a spaceship part."

The Man grimaced. "I'm terribly sorry about that, but you see, we are no longer entertaining that premise. The whole conception of you on an alien planet, waiting for a spaceship part — well, it had been declared dramatically unsound. Therefore, we are scrapping it."

"Does that mean that you are also scrapping me?"

The Man looked at him unhappily. "Well, yes, I'm afraid that it does. We have found a new hero to take your place."

THE NEW HERO

He was complicated, devious, terribly attractive, masculine, universal. He had idiosyncracies, habits, traits. He had soul, pzazz, vital juices. He had a sex life. He had a complicated and ambiguous history. He had a little mole to the left of his nose. He had satanic eyebrows. He was a knockout.

"This is your replacement," said The Man. "You've done your best, Mishkin. It's no fault of yours if you've gotten into this untenable situation. But really, we must end this thing, and to do that we need some cooperation from our characters, and you — well, you simply don't have any characteristics for us to work with."

Mishkin instantly developed a facial tic, a stammer, a way of biting his lips before and after speaking, a moustache, and a removable false tooth.

"Sorry, it's not quite what we had in mind," said The Man. "Now, I will just leave you boys to get acquainted." The Man turned himself into a tree.

MR MISHKIN MEETS MR HERO

"How do you do?" Mishkin said.

"How do you do?" said Mr Hero.

"Would you care for a nice cup of coffee?" said Mishkin.

"Thanks, that would be nice," said Mr Hero.

Mishkin poured coffee. They sipped in silence.

Mr Hero said, "Nice weather we've been having."

"Where?" Mishkin said.

"Oh, in Limbo," said Mr Hero. "I've been waiting there with the other archetypes."

"It's been nice here, too," Mishkin said.

The tree changed into The Man. "Interact!" he hissed and turned into a tree again.

Mr Hero smiled diffidently. "Rather an awkward situation, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," Mishkin said. "Personally, ever since I started this thing I've been in just one awkward situation after another. Maybe a rest would do me good."