Robert Sheckley - The Eryx

“Is this what I’m being paid?”

“Certainly not. This is just a little walking-around money. We’re going to pay you a lot more than this, Mr. Dalton.”

“And what am I supposed to do for it?”

“Just talk to people.”

“You mean, give lectures?”

“Whatever you want to call them.”

“What do you want me to tell them?”

“Whatever you wish. You might talk about how you discovered the Eryx. But you need not confine yourself to that. Tell them about yourself. Your life. Your opinions.”

“Why should anyone be interested in my life?”

“Whatever you care to say will be of interest. In our religion, Mr. Dalton, you hold a very significant place.”

“I told you I’m not religious.”

“Important figures in religion frequently are not. Religious people come afterwards. They were the interpreters. But the original cast, the ones who were there in the beginning, they are not necessarily religious. Often they are quite the contrary.”

“I’ve got a place in your religion? Like Judas, maybe?”

“Equal in importance, but nothing like him. We refer to you, Mr. Dalton, as the Last Adam.”

Talking has never been any problem for me, and I didn’t care if they called me the Last Adam or the First Charley. Or the Sixteenth Llewellyn, for that matter. A name is just another container for the wailing pile of shit that is a man. If you’ll pardon my French. But you’ve heard language like this all your life, haven’t you, Julie? It’s the way your father talked, and your mother, and all your friends. They all were a bunch of blasphemers, weren’t they, doll? And you knew right from the start, right from the get-go, that the only thing to do in this world was to look out for number one, live high and leave a good-looking corpse. You and I are so alike, Julie. That’s why you love me so.

I guess, as I went on giving my talks in Seattle, I started talking more about you, Julie girl. People started asking me, who is this Julie you’re always raving about? And I’d always tell them, she’s my dream girl, and she knows the way things really are. I told that to the ladies who kept me company during this time. There were a lot of them. I was famous, you see. I was Dalton, the guy who had found the Eryx.

Thanks to Ehrenzveig and his people, others began to see how important I was. They paid me a lot. They gave me respect.

“We’re going to fulfill your dreams of avarice, John,” Ehrenzveig said one day. It was a joke, I think, but he made it true. He kept on piling money on me, and I kept on buying things, and people, and more things. I had me a time, let me tell you. It was going so good for me that I didn’t even notice for quite a while that a lot of people were dying.

When you’re going good, like I was, you sort of over-look what other people are up to. I mean, let’s face it, who gives a damn about other people when there’s number one to be fed and pleasured? And as good as things might get, there’s always room for improvement, right? So I took little notice of the bad stuff that was going on. The die-off, I mean. It was all very tragic. But I couldn’t help thinking that it was for the best, in a weird sort of way, because it freed up a lot of real estate. And of course I wasn’t very interested in why it was happening.

A lot of people were blaming it on the Eryx. That’s people for you. Always ready to blame something. There were even scientists around eager to get their names in the papers, saying that the Eryx was a living organism, of a type never before seen. Long dormant. Now coming into activity. According to those guys, the Eryx had been releasing viruses since the day I found it. These viruses had traveled around the world, lodging in people’s bodies, not doing any harm, not calling any attention to them-selves, the sly little buggers. But this wasn’t out of good nature. This was because this Eryx virus was waiting, waiting until it had spread to the whole Earth, infected everyone. Then it took off like a timed-release capsule.

It got pretty bad, this die-off thing. And I guess I went out of my way not to notice it. Because if you’re going to die anyway, why depress yourself in advance with bad news? And anyhow, I figured some of those scientists they got out there would do something about it. And if not, not. It was Ehrenzveig who finally clued me in to what was going on. To where it was all leading. He came to visit me one morning. Frankly, he looked like hell—red-eyed, and his hands were shaking. It occurred to me that he’d caught this disease, and I had a little tremor of fear. If he got it, and him so high up in the Church of the Eryx, then I could get it, too.

“You look like death warmed over,” I told him. No sense kidding around.

“Yes. I’ve got it. Eryx Fever. I don’t have long.” “Hasn’t your god come up with a cure?” Ehrenzveig shook his head. “That’s not his way.” “Then what’s the advantage of being in his church?” “Some of us think knowledge is worth anything.” “Not me,” I told him.

Ehrenzveig spent a while coughing. Quite pathetic it was. Finally he was able to speak again.

“I’ve come to tell you the translation of the cloth that was found with the Eryx.” “I’m all ears.”

“It was a warning. It was written by one of the last beings to come across the Eryx.”

“Let’s cut to the chase. What did it say?” ‘ ‘It said, ‘The Eryx hates human life. It hates alien life. It tolerates no life but its own. When you find the Eryx, it is the beginning of the end of your species.’ I’m translat-ing very freely, you understand.”

“No problem,” I said. “It sounds like one of those old Egyptian curses.”

“Yes, very similar. In this case, it happens to be true.”

“That’s great,” I said, sarcastically, because of course Ehrenzveig was reading my own death sentence as well as his. But hey, I never thought I’d go on forever.

“So what happens now? Masque of the Red Death on a whole-world scale?”

“That’s about the size of it,” Ehrenzveig said.

“How long have you known?”

“For quite a while. All of us in the religion of the Eryx have known. The Eryx told us.”

“How’d it do that? Send out thoughts?”

“Dreams. Prophetic dreams. And we accepted what it told us, and found it good. It is only right, you see, that the Eryx can tolerate no other life than its own.”

“That’s understandable,” I said. “I like a little elbow room, too.”

Ehrenzveig bowed his head and didn’t speak.

Finally I asked him, “So what happens now?”

“I die,” Ehrenzveig said. “Everyone dies.”

“That’s obvious, dummy. I mean what happens to me?”

“Ah,” Ehrnezveig said, “the Eryx has plans for you. You’re the Last Adam.”

“What sort of plans?”

“You’ll see. Come with me.”

“On whose orders?”

“The Eryx wants to get a look at you.”

Well, I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. I decided it was about time to quit the organization, get away from the Earth, find something else. But Ehrenzveig wasn’t having it that way. He had a bunch of his buddies outside my door. They escorted me—under protest, I can assure you—to this place where I live now.

The followers of the Eryx bustled around me for the next few weeks, setting me up in my little apartment, installing the cameras, arranging for food. There were fewer of them every day, and finally I was here all alone. Locked in.

But even if I could get out, where would I go? I’ve got a feeling everybody’s gone now. I saw my last human face weeks, months ago. Frankly, I don’t miss people one bit. They were a bad lot and to hell with them. I’m glad they’re gone and I won’t be sorry when I’m gone, too.