Robert Sheckley: Options

"It's coming," the robot said grimly, twirling the blasters by their trigger guards.

The drone increased in volume and amplitude. Then Mishkin saw something that looked like a butterfly with a six-foot wingspan come fluttering past, droning merrily. It ignored them and went off stage left.

"What was that?" Mishkin asked.

"It sure as hell looked like a butterfly with a six-foot wingspan," the robot said.

"That's what I thought. But you said…"

"Yes, yes, yes," the robot said testily. "It's obvious enough what happened. That butterfly critter has learned how to imitate the mating cry of the proto-B. Mimicry is a commonplace phenomenon throughout the galaxy."

"Commonplace? It took you by surprise."

"What's so surprising about that? It was the first time I ever encountered that butterfly critter."

"You should have known about it," Mishkin said.

"Wrong. I'm programmed only to detect and cope with situations and things that'll be dangerous to humans. That big old flapper couldn't hurt you unless you tried to swallow it, so naturally enough I've got nothing on it in my memory files. You gotta realize that I'm not a goddamned encyclopedia. I deal strictly with dangerous stuff, not with every damned thing that walks or swims or flies or crawls or burrows or however it happens to get around. You get my meaning, son?"

"I get it," Mishkin said. "I suppose you know what you're doing."

"That's what I happen to have been built for," the robot said. "C'mon, let's get on with this promenade."

"I have been having mental difficulties for some time now. I get these ideas, these images. But I don't know what is real and what is not. Sometimes I think that I've eaten and then I find that I have not. Sometimes I think that I have lived and then I find that I have not. I cannot remember why I am here or what crime I stand accused of. Whatever it is, I am sure that I am innocent. I am sure that I am innocent, no matter what I have done."

Mishkin looked up hopefully but found that the jury had recessed, the judge had recessed, the world had recessed, and a bored guard was thumbing through an old issue of Rolling Stone.

Mishkin came to a sudden stop.

"What is it?" the robot asked.

"I see something up ahead."

"Big deal," the robot sneered. "I see plenty of things up ahead. I always see plenty of things up ahead. Christ, everybody always sees plenty of things up ahead."

"This thing up ahead seems to be an animal."

"What's so impressive about that?"

The thing that Mishkin saw up ahead was roughly the size and shape of a tiger but with a shorter tail and bigger feet. It was coloured a dappled chocolate with brilliant orange stripes. It looked like a mean, hungry, and unscrupulous hallucination.

"It looks dangerous," Mishkin said.

"That shows how much you know about it," the robot told him. "That there critter is a pachynert, which is an herbivorous beast with a disposition like a cow's, only more timid."

"But the teeth."

"Don't let the teeth fake you out."

"Mimicry?"

"That's it, ace. Now git ahold of yourself and let's move out."

They continued across the purple plain. The robot, not even bothering to draw his blasters, was whistling "Elmer's Tune". Mishkin, walking two steps behind him, was humming "Valse Triste".

The pachynert turned towards them and stared with eyes the colour of coagulated yak's blood. He yawned, revealing incisors like Turkish scimitars. He stretched, showing a smooth ripple of muscle down either flank like sluggish octopi grappling beneath a thin sheet of plastic.

"You're sure he's herbivorous?" Mishkin asked.

"Nothing but grass and dandelions," the robot said. "Although they do appreciate an occasional turnip."

"He looks pretty mean."

"Nature is capable of myriad disguises."

Man and robot came closer to the beast. The pachynert laid back his ears. His tail stood out stiff and straight and high, like the indicator of a dial calibrated for trouble. He stretched out claws like the cruel, curved tines of the devil's pitchfork. He snarled — a sound that prompted several peripatetic trees to close down their branches, pull up their roots, and make for quieter territory on the north forty.

"Nature is overdoing it," Mishkin said. "I could swear that that critter is about to attack us."

"Nature exaggerates," the robot said. "That is the nature of nature."

They were within ten yards of the pachynert, which stood utterly still and gave an excellent imitation of a deadly animal about to charge in a berserk manner and maim and kill any human in sight — and maybe a robot and a couple of trees, too, just for the hell of it.

Mishkin stopped. "Now, look," he said, "there's something wrong about all this. I think…"

"You think too much," the robot said, in a tight, hard voice. "For God's sake, get hold of yourself, man. I am a SPER robot especially trained for this work, and I give you my word that that pitiful cow in tiger's clothing…"

Just then the pachynert charged. One moment it was standing still, the next moment it had burst into a furious rush, claws and teeth gleaming golden in the afternoon glare of the saffron Harmonia sun and its dull, mysterious, little red companion. The beast came with a maximum of verisimilitude, just like a hungry, feral, omnivorous beast who doesn't care what it goes up against, especially if the target is of a manageable size and hasn't got much in the way of claws and teeth.

"Shoo, pachynert, shoo!" the robot called out in an unconvincing voice.

"Hit the deck!" shouted Mishkin.

"Aaaaagggrrrh!" roared the pachynert.

"Tom, are you all right?"

Mishkin blinked. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

Mishkin giggled: that was a very funny remark.

"What's so funny?"

"You're funny. I can't even see you, and that's funny."

"Drink this."

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Just drink it."

"Drink nothing and you turn into nothing!" Mishkin roared. With a supreme effort he opened his eyes. He couldn't see anything. He forced himself to see things. Now what?

What was the rule? Yes! Reality is achieved by the indefinite enumeration of objects.

Therefore: bed table, fluorescent light, incandescent light, stove, chest, bookcase, typewriter, window, tiles, glass, bottle of milk, coffee mug, guitar, ice bucket, friend, garbage bag… et cetera.

"I have achieved reality," Mishkin said, with quiet pride. "I'm going to be all right now."

"What is reality?"

"One of the many possible illusions."

Mishkin burst into tears. He had wanted an exclusive reality. This was terrible, this was worse than before. Now anything…

" This can't be happening ," he thought. But there was the pachynert, like a dubious proof of its own reality, coming at him in an extremely plausible whirlwind of claws and teeth. Mishkin accepted the gambit. He threw himself to one side and the beast swept past him.

"Shoot!" Mishkin screamed, getting into the spirit of the thing.

"I am not supposed to kill herbivorous animals," the robot said. But there was little conviction in his voice.

The pachynert had wheeled around and was coming again, drooling. Mishkin jumped to the right, then to the left. The pachynert followed like his shadow. The massive jaws opened. Mishkin closed his eyes.

He felt a burst of heat on his face. He heard a snarl, a grunt, and the sound of something heavy falling.

He opened his eyes. The robot had finally brought himself to fire and had dropped the beast neatly at Mishkin's feet.

"Herbivorous," Mishkin said, bitterly.

"There is such a thing as behavioural mimicry, you know. In actual cases the imitative behaviour is carried to the point of living like the model predator, even to the point of eating flesh; which, to a herbivore, is both repugnant and indigestible."