Clifford Simak - The Shipshape Miracle - And Other Stories

Which sounded like something out of the Alice books.

“It’s safe,” said the cabinet. “It’s perfectly safe. You can come back any time you wish.”

“Thank you,” said Bishop.

He went into the room and sat down in the chair and studied the buttons on the arms.

History?

Might as well, he told himself. He knew a bit of history. He’d been interested in it and had taken several courses and done a lot of supplemental reading.

He punched the “History” button.

A panel in the wall before the chair lit up and a face appeared—the face of a Kimonian, the bronzed and golden face, the classic beauty of the race.

Aren’t any of them homely? Bishop wondered. None of them ugly or crippled, like the rest of humanity?

“What type of history, sir?” the face in the screen asked him.

“Type?”

“Galactic, Kimonian, Earth—almost any place you wish.”

“Earth, please,” said Bishop.

“Specifications?”

“England,” said Bishop. “October 14, 1066. A place called Senlac.”

And he was there.

He was no longer in the room with its single chair and its four bare walls, but he stood upon a hill in sunny autumn weather with the gold and red of trees and the blueness of the haze and the shouts of men.

He stood rooted in the grass that blew upon the hillside and saw that the grass had turned to hay with its age and sunshine—and out beyond the grass and hill, grouped down on the plain, was a ragged line of horsemen, with the sun upon their helmets and flashing on their shields, with the leopard banners curling in the wind.

It was October 14th and it was Saturday and on the hill stood Harold’s hosts behind their locked shield wall, and before the sun had set new forces would have been put in motion to shape the course of empire.

Taillefer, he thought. Taillefer will ride in the fore of William’s charge, singing the “Chanson de Roland” and wheeling his sword into the air so that it becomes a wheel of fire to lead the others on.

The Normans charged and there was no Taillefer. There was no one who wheeled his sword into the air, there was no singing. There was merely shouting and the hoarse crying of men riding to their death.

The horsemen were charging directly at him and he wheeled and tried to run, but he could not outrun them and they were upon him. He saw the flash of polished hoofs and the cruel steel of the shoes upon the hoofs, the glinting lance point, the swaying, jouncing scabbard, the red and green and yellow of the cloaks, the dullness of the armor, the open roaring mouths of men—and they were upon him. And passing through him and over him as if he were not there.

He stopped stock-still, heart hammering in his chest, and, as if from somewhere far off, he felt the wind of the charging horses that were running all around him.

Up the hill there were hoarse cries of “Ut! Ut!” and the high, sharp ring of steel. Dust was rising all around him and somewhere off to the left a dying horse was screaming. Out of the dust a man came running down the hill. He staggered and fell and got up and ran again and Bishop could see that blood poured out of the ripped armor and washed down across the metal, spraying the dead, sere grass as he ran down the hill.

The horses came back again, some of them riderless, running with their necks outstretched, with the reins flying in the wind, with foam dashing from their mouths.

One man sagged in the saddle and fell off, but his foot caught in the stirrup and his horse, shying, dragged him sideways.

Up on top of the hill the Saxon square was cheering and through the settling dust he saw the heap of bodies that lay outside the shield wall.

Let me out of here! Bishop was screaming to himself. How do I get out of here! Let me out—

He was out, back in the room again, with its single chair and the four blank walls.

He sat there quietly and he thought: There was no Taillefer.

No one who rode and sang and tossed the sword in the air.

The tale of Taillefer was no more than the imagination of some copyist who had improved upon the tale to while away his time.

But men had died. They had run down the hill, staggering with their wounds, and died. They had fallen from their horses and been dragged to death by their frightened mounts. They had come crawling down the hill, with minutes left of life and with a whimper in their throats.

He stood up and his hands were shaking. He walked unsteadily into the next room.

“You are going to bed, sir?” asked the cabinet.

“I think I will,” said Bishop.

“Very good, then, sir. I’ll lock up and put out.”

“That’s very good of you.”

“Routine, sir,” said the cabinet. “Is there anything you wish?”

“Not a thing,” said Bishop. “Good night.”

“Good night,” said the cabinet.

In the morning he went to the employment agency which he found in one corner of the hotel lobby.

There was no one around but a Kimonian girl, a tall, statuesque blonde, but with a grace to put to shame the most petite of humans. A woman, Bishop thought, jerked out of some classic Grecian myth, a blonde goddess come to life and beauty. She didn’t wear the flowing Grecian robe, but she could have. She wore, truth to tell, but little, and was all the better for it.

“You are new,” she said.

He nodded.

“Wait, I know,” she said. She looked at him. “Selden Bishop, age twenty-nine Earth years, I.Q., 160.”

“Yes, ma’m,” he said.

She made him feel as if he should bow and scrape.

“Business administration, I understand,” she said.

He nodded bleakly.

“Please sit down, Mr. Bishop, and we will talk this over.”

He sat down and he was thinking: It isn’t right for a beautiful girl to be so big and husky. Nor so competent.

“You’d like to get started doing something,” said the girl.

“That’s the thought I had.”

“You specialized in business administration. I’m afraid there aren’t many openings in that particular field.”

“I wouldn’t expect too much to start with,” Bishop told her with what he felt was a becoming modesty and a realistic outlook. “Almost anything at all, until I can prove my value.”

“You’d have to start at the very bottom. And it would take years of training. Not in method only, but in attitude and philosophy.”

“I wouldn’t—”

He hesitated. He had meant to say that he wouldn’t mind. But he would mind. He would mind a lot.

“But I spent years,” he said. “I know—”

“Kimonian business?”

“Is it so much different?”

“You know all about contracts, I suppose.”

“Certainly I do.”

“There is no such thing as a contract on all of Kimon.”

“But—”

“There is no need of any.”

“Integrity?”

“That, and other things as well.”

“Other things?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“It would be useless, Mr. Bishop. New concepts entirely so far as you’re concerned. Of behavior. Of motives. On Earth, profit is the motive—”

“Isn’t it here?”

“In part. A very small part.”

“The other motives—”

“Cultural development for one. Can you imagine an urge to cultural development as powerful as the profit motive?”

Bishop was honest about it. “No, I can’t,” he said.

“Here,” she said, “it is the more powerful of the two. But that’s not all. Money is another thing. We have no actual money. No coin that changes hands.”

“But there is money. Credit notes.”

“For the convenience of your race alone,” she said. “We created your money values and your evidence of wealth so that we could hire your services and pay you—and I might add that we pay you well. We have gone through all the motions. The currency that we create is as valid as anywhere else in the galaxy. It’s backed by deposits in Earth’s banks and it is legal tender so far as you’re concerned. But Kimonians themselves do not employ money.”