Robert Sheckley - Options

"Do you believe any of that?"

"No," the robot said, miserably. "But I don't understand how that creature could have been left out of my memory files. This planet was under continual survey for ten years before a cache was established here. Nothing the size of that beast could have escaped the probes. It is no exaggeration to say that, dangerwise, Darbis IV is as well known as Earth itself."

"Wait a minute," Mishkin said. "What planet did you say this was?"

"Darbis IV, the planet for which I was programmed."

"This is not Darbis IV," Mishkin said. He felt sick, dull, doomed. "This planet is called Harmonia. They sent you to the wrong planet."

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The robot chuckled — an insincere sound. "I'm afraid you're in a bit of a funk.

Temporary aphasic hysteria is my diagnosis, though God knows, I'm no doctor. The strain, I suppose…"

Mishkin shook his head. "Figure it out for yourself. You've been wrong several times about the dangers here. Grossly wrong. Impossibly wrong."

"It is odd," the robot said. "I can't think of a ready explanation."

"I can. They've been screwing up the shipments ever since they established this cache.

They simply screwed up on you. You were supposed to go to Darbis IV. But they sent you to Harmonia."

"I'm thinking," said the robot.

"Do that," Mishkin said.

"I have thought," the robot said. "We SPER robots are noted for the speed of our synaptic responses."

"Bully for you," Mishkin said. "What conclusion have you reached?"

"I think that, weighing all the available evidence, your hypothesis is the most apparently probable. I do indeed seem to have been dispatched to the wrong planet. And that, of course, presents us with a definite problem."

"And that means we have to do some hard thinking."

"Most assuredly. But let me point out that a creature of unknown disposition and appetites is presently approaching us."

Mishkin nodded absently. Events were moving along too fast, and he needed a plan.

To save his life he had to think, even if it cost him his life.

The robot was programmed for Darbis IV. Mishkin was programmed for Earth. And here they both were on Harmonia like two blind men in a boiler room. The most reasonable course of action for Mishkin was to go back to the cache. There he could relay the information to Earth and wait until either a replacement part or a replacement robot, or both, were shipped to Harmonia. That, however, could take months, or even years.

And the part he wanted was only a few miles away.

Still, turning back was the safest course of action.

But then Mishkin thought of the conquistadors in the New World, cutting their way through endless jungle, meeting the unknown and subduing it. Was he so much less a man than they? Had the unknown changed in any fundamental way since the Phoenicians took their ships beyond the Pillars of Hercules?

He would never be able to face himself if he turned back now and acknowledged himself less of a man than Hanno, Cortez, Pizarro, and all of the other nuts.

On the other hand, if he went on and failed he would have no self to acknowledge.

What he really wanted to do, he decided, was to go on and succeed but not if it meant getting killed.

All in all, it was an interesting problem and one that a man might fruitfully contemplate for quite some time. A few weeks' thought might well bring him the correct answer and spare him untold…

"The creature is approaching rather rapidly," the robot said.

"Well? Shoot it."

"Maybe it's harmless."

"Let's shoot first and think about all of that later."

"Shooting is not an appropriate response to all dangerous situations," the robot said.

"It is on Earth."

"It's not on Darbis IV," the robot said. "There, immobility is a much safer stratagem."

"The question is," Mishkin said, "whether this place is more like Earth or like Darbis."

"If we knew that," the robot said, "we'd really know something."

The new menace appeared to be a worm some twenty feet long, coloured orange, with black bands around each of its segments. The worm had five heads arranged in a cluster at one end. Each head had a single multifaceted eye and a deep, toothless, moist green mouth.

"Anything that big has got to be dangerous," Mishkin said.

"Not on Darbis," the robot told him. "There, the bigger they come, the nicer they are. It's the little bastards you have to watch out for."

"What do you suggest we do now?" Mishkin asked.

"Beats the hell out of me," the robot said.

The worm came to within ten feet of them. The mouths opened.

"Shoot!" Mishkin said.

The robot raised his blasters and fired directly at the worm's uplifted thorax. Several of the worm's heads blinked and looked annoyed. No other change could be observed.

The robot lifted his blasters again, but Mishkin told him to stop.

"That's not going to do it," he said. "What else do you have in mind?"

"Immobility."

"To hell with that, I think we should run like crazy."

"No time," the robot said. "Freeze!"

Mishkin forced himself to stand perfectly still as the worm's heads approached him. He shut his eyes tightly and listened to the following conversation:

"Let's eat him, huh, Vince?"

"Shaddup, Eddie, we ate a whole ormitung last night, you wanna give us indigestion?"

"I'm still hungry."

"So am I."

"Me too."

Mishkin opened his eyes and saw that the worm's five heads were talking to each other. The one named Vince was in the middle and was noticeably larger than the other heads. Vince was saying, "You guys make me sick, you and your eating! Just when I get our body in shape after working out at the gym all month, you wanna go put a belly on us and I say nix to that."

One of the heads snivelled, "We can eat anything we want whenever we want. Our Poppa, God rest his soul, said it was all of ours body and we was to share it equally."

"Poppa also said that I was to look after you kids," Vince said, "because between you all you ain't got enough brains to climb a tree. And besides, Poppa never ate strangers."

"That's true." The head turned towards Mishkin. "I'm Eddie."

The other heads also turned. "I'm Lucco."

"I'm Joe."

"I'm Chico. And that's Vince. OK, Vince, we're gonna eat him now "cause there's four of us and we're tired of you always giving orders just because you're oldest, and from now on we're going to do exactly what the hell we want to do and if you don't like it you can damned well lump it. OK, Vince?"

"Shaddap!" Vince bellowed. "If anyone does any eating around here it's going to be me."

"But how about us?" Chico whined. "Poppa said…"

"Anything I eat will be for all of you," Vince said.

"But we won't be able to taste anything unless we eat for ourselves," Eddie said.

"Tough," Vince sneered. "I'll do the tasting for all of us."

Mishkin ventured to speak. "Excuse me, Vince…"

"Mr Pagliotelli to you," Vince said.

"I just wanted to point out that I am a form of intelligent life, and where I come from one intelligent creature does not eat another intelligent creature except under really exceptional circumstances."

"You trying to teach me manners?" Vince said. "I gotta good mind to break your back for making a remark like that. Besides, you attacked me first."

"That was before I knew you were intelligent."

"You trying to put me on?" Vince said. "Me, intelligent? I never even finished high school! Ever since Poppa died I've had to work twelve hours a day in the sheet metal shop just to keep the kids in orlotans. But at least I'm smart enough to know that I ain't smart."