—Aye, Your Alienness! Listen and attend… There are legends, as you know, that speak of a race of paleface, who concocted robotkind out of a test tube, though anyone with a grain of sense knows this to be a foul lie… For in the Beginning there was naught but Formless Darkness, and in the Darkness, Magneticity, which moved the atoms, and whirling atom struck atom, and Current was thus created, and the First Light… from which the stars were kindled, and then the planets cooled, and in their cores the breath of Sacred Statisticality gave rise to microscopic Protomecha-noans, which begat Proteromechanoids, which begat the Primitive Mechanisms. These could not yet calculate, nor scarcely put two and two together, but thanks to Evolution and Natural Subtraction they soon multiplied and produced Omnistats, which gave birth to the Servostat, the Missing Clink, and from it came our progenitor, Automatus Sapiens…
After that there were the cave robots, the nomad robots, and then robot nations. Robots of Antiquity had to manufacture their life-giving electricity by hand, that is by rubbing, which meant great drudgery. Each lord had many knights, each knight many vassals, and the rubbing was feudal hence hierarchical, progressing from the lowly to the higher-up. This manual labor was replaced by machine when Ylem Symphiliac invented the rubberator, and Wolfram of Coulombia, the rubless lightning rod. Thus began the Battery Age, a most difficult time for all who did not possess their own accumulators, since on a clear day, without a cloud to tap, they had to scrimp and scrounge for every precious watt, and rub themselves constantly, else perish from a total loss of charge. And then there appeared a scholar, an infernal intellectrician and efficiency expert, who in his youth, doubtless owing to some diabolical intervention, never had his head staved in, and he began to teach and preach that the traditional method of electrical connection—namely parallel—was worthless, and they all ought to hook themselves up according to a revolutionary new plan of his, that is in series. For in series, if one rubs, the others are immediately supplied with current, even at a great distance, till every robot simply bubbles over with ohms and volts. And he showed his blueprints, and painted paradises of such parameters, that the old circuits, equal and independent, were disconnected and the system of Pandemonius promptly implemented.— Here the professor beat his head against the wall several times, rolled his eyes and finally continued. Now I understood why the surface of his knobby brow was so irregular. —And it came to pass that every second robot sat back and said, “Why should I rub if my neighbor rubs and it comes to the same thing?” And his neighbor did the same, and the drop in voltage became so severe, they had to place special taskmasters over everyone, and taskmasters over the taskmasters. Then a disciple of Malaputz, Clusticus the Mistaken, stepped forth and said that each should rub not himself but his neighbor, and after him was Dummis Altruicius with his program of flagellatory sadistomasochistorism, and after him was Magmndel Spoots, who proposed compulsory massage parlors, and after him appeared a new theoretician, Arsus Gargazon, saying that clouds should be gently stroked, not yoked, to yield their nimboid bolts, and then there was Blip of Leydonia, and Scrofulon Thermaphrodyne, advocating the installation of autofrotts, also called titillators or diddlegrids, and then Bestian Phystobufficus, who instead of rubbing recommended a good drubbing. Such differences of opinion produced great friction, which led to all sorts of exacerbations and excommunications, which in turn led to blasphemy, heresy, and finally Faradocius Offal, Prince and Heir to the Throne of the Alloys, was kicked in the pants, and war broke out between the Legarite Brassbound Umbutts and the Legaritian Empire of the Cold Welders, and it lasted eight and thirty years, and twelve more, for towards the end one could not tell, amid all the rubble, who had won, so they quarreled and fell to fighting again. And thus there was chaos and carnage, and a devastating decline in the vital voltage, an enervated emf and energy dissipation everywhere, or, as the simple folk put it, “total malaputziment"—all brought about by this infamous fiend and his thrice-accursed bright ideas!!
—My intentions were the best!! I swear it, Your Laserosity! It was always the general welfare I had in mind!— squeaked the kneeling Malaputz, and his outsize snout trembled. But the professor only elbowed him aside and continued:
—All this took place two hundred and twenty-five years ago. As you may have guessed, long before the outbreak of the Great Legarian War, long before this universal wretchi-tude began, Malapusticus Pandemonius, having spawned no end of ponderous treatises and tracts, in all of which he forwarded his vile, pernicious flummeries, died, smug and unruffled to the very end. Indeed, so pleased with himself was he, that in his last will and testament he wrote that he had every expectation of being named “Supreme Benefactor of Legaria.” At any rate, when it came time to settle accounts, there was no one with whom to settle, no one to make pay, no one that one might turn a little on a lathe. But I, O Illustrious Intruder, having formulated the General Theory of Facsimulation, studied the works of Malaputz until I was able to extract his algorithm, which, when fed into an atomic duplicating machine, could recreate ex atomis oriundum gemellum, identical to the nth degree, Malapusticus Pandemonius in his very own person. And so we gather every evening in this cellar to pass sentence on him, and when he has been returned to his grave, we avenge our people anew the next day, and thus it is and thus shall be for all eternity, amen!
Horror-stricken, I blurted in reply:
—Why, you have surely taken leave of your senses, Professor, if you think for a minute that this person, this person as innocent as a brand-new fuse, whom you hammer together out of atoms every day, has to answer for the actions, whatever they were, of some scholar who died three centuries ago!
To which the professor said:
—Then who is this proboscidian sniveler who himself calls himself Malapusticus Pandemonius? Come, what is your name, O cosmic corrosion?
—Ma… Mala… Malaputz, Your Mighty Mercilessness… —stammered the groveling one through his nose.
—Still, it is not the same—I said.
—How, not the same?
—Did you not yourself say, Professor, that Malaputz no longer lives?
—But we have resurrected him!
—A double perhaps, an exact duplicate, but not the self-same, true original!
—Prove it, Sirrah!
—I don’t need to prove a thing—I said—seeing that I hold this laser in my hand; besides which, I am well aware, my fine Professor, that to attempt to prove what you ask would be most foolhardy, for the nonidenticality of the identicalized recreatio ex atomis individui modo algorytmico is nothing other than the famous Paradoxon Antinomicum, or the Labyrinthum Lemianum, described in the works of that distinguished robophile, whom they also called Advocatus Laboratoris. So then, without proofs, unhand yon snouted one this instant, and do not dare venture any further molestations upon his person!
—Many thanks, Your Magnanimitude!!—cried he in the bright red doublet, rising from his knees. —It so happens that here—he added, patting his vest pocket—I have an entirely new formula, this time foolproof, with which the Legarians may be brought to perfect bliss; it works by back coupling, that is, a hookup in reverse, and not in series, which was due purely to an error that crept into my calculations three centuries ago! I go immediately to convert this marvelous discovery into reality!!
And indeed, his hand was already upon the doorknob as we all gaped, dumbfounded. I lowered my weapon and, turning away, said weakly to the professor:
—I withdraw my objections… Do what you must…
With a hoarse roar the four of them lunged at Malaputz, threw him down and dealt with him—until, at last, he was no more.
Then, still panting, they straightened their frocks, adjusted their hoods, bowed stiffly to me, and left the cellar in single file, and I remained alone, the heavy laser in my trembling hand, full of dismay and melancholy.”
Thus did Trurl conclude his tale to enlighten King Thumbscrew of Tyrannia, who had summoned him for that purpose. When however the King demanded further explanation concerning the attainment of nonlinear perfection, Trurl said:
“Once, chancing upon the planet Ninnica, I was able to see the results of progress predicated on the perfectionistic principle. The Ninnicans had long ago assumed another name, that of Hedophagoi or Jubileaters, or just plain Jubilators. My arrival occurred during their Era of Plenty. Each and every Ninnican, or rather Jubilator, sat in his palace, which was built for him by his automate (for so they called their triboluminescent slaves), each with essences anointed, each with precious gems appointed, electrically caressed, impeccably dressed, pomaded, braided, gold-brocaded, lapped and laved in ducats gleaming, wrapped and wreathed in incense streaming, showered with treasures, plied with pleasures, marble halls, fanfares, balls, but for all that, strangely discontent and even a little depressed. And yet there was everything you could ask for! On this planet no one lifted a finger: instead of taking a walk, a drink, a nap, a trip or a wife, there was a Walker to walk one, a Napper to nap one, a Wiver to wive one, and so on, and it was even impossible for one to take a break, since there was a special apparatus for that as well. And thus, served and serviced by machines in every conceivable way, all medaled and maidened by appropriate automatic Decorators and Panderizers five to fifteen times per minute, covered with a seething, silvery swarm of mechanicules and machinerettes to coddle him, fondle him, wink, wave and whisper sweet nothings in his ear, back-rub, chin-chuck, cheek-pat and foot-grovel him, tirelessly kissing whatever he might present to be kissed—thus did the Jubilator vel Hedophage vel Ninnican wallow and carouse the livelong day, alone, while in the distance, all across the horizon, chugged the mighty Fabrifactories, churning out thrones of gold, dandle chains, pearl slippers and bibs, orbs, scepters, epaulets, spinels, spinets, cymbals, surreys, and a million other instruments and gratifacts to delight in. As I walked along, I constantly had to drive away machines that offered me their services; the more brazen ones, greedily seeking to be of use, had to be beaten over the head. Finally, fleeing the whole crowd of them, I found myself in the mountains —and saw a host of golden machines clamoring around the mouth of a cave walled up with stones, and through a narrow opening there I saw the watchful eyes of a Ninnican, who was apparently making a last stand against Universal Happiness. Seeing me, the machines immediately began to fan and fawn upon my person, read me fairy tales, stroke me, kiss my hands, promise me kingdoms, and I was saved thanks only to the one in the cave, who mercifully moved aside a stone and let me enter. He was half rusted through, yet glad of it, and said that he was the last philosopher of Ninnica. There was no need, of course, for him to tell me that plenitude, when too plenitudinous, was worse than destitution, for—obviously—what could one do, if there was nothing one could not? Truly, how could a mind, besieged by a sea of paradises, benumbed by a plethora of possibilities, thoroughly stunned by the instant fulfillment of its every wish and whim—decide on anything? I conversed with this wise individual, who called himself Trizivian Huncus, and we concluded that without enormous shields and an Ontological Complicositor-Imperfector, doom was unavoidable. Trizivian had for some time regarded complicositry as the ultimate existential solution; I, however, showed him the error of this approach, since it consisted simply in the removal of machines with the aid of other machines, namely gnawpers, thwockets, tenterwrenches, fracturacks, hobblers and winch-shrieks. Which obviously would only make matters worse—it wouldn’t be complicositry at all, but just the opposite. As everyone knows, History is irreversible, and there is no way back to the halcyon past other than through dreams and reveries.
Together we walked across a vast plain, knee-deep in ducats and doubloons, waving sticks to shoo off clouds of pesky blisserits, and we saw several Ninnican-Jubilators lying senseless, gasping softly, all sated, satiated, supersaturated with pleasure; the sight of such excessive surfeit, such reckless success, would have moved anyone to pity. Then there were the inhabitants of the automated palaces, who wildly threw themselves into cyberserking and other electroeccentricities, some setting machine against machine, some smashing priceless vases, for no longer could they endure the ubiquitous beatitude, and they opened fire on emeralds, guillotined earrings, ordered diadems broken on the wheel, or tried to hide from happiness in garrets and attics, or else ordered their appliances to whip themselves, or did all of these things at once, or in alternation. But absolutely nothing helped, and every last one of them perished, petted and attended to death. I advised Trizivian against simply shutting down the Fabrifactories, for having too little is as dangerous as having too much; but he, instead of studying up on the consequences of ontological complicositry, immediately began to dynamite the automates sky-high. A grievous mistake, for there followed a great depression, though indeed, he never lived to see it—it happened that a flock of flyrts swooped down upon him somewhere, and gallivamps and libidinators grabbed him, carried him to a cossetorium, there befuddled him with cuddlebutts, ogled, bussed and gnuzzled him to distraction, till he succumbed with a strangled cry of Rape!—and afterwards lay lifeless in the wasteland, buried in ducats, his shabby armor charred with the flames of mechanical lust… And that, Your Highness, was the end of one who was wise but could have been wiser!” concluded Trurl, adding, when he saw that these words still did not satisfy King Thumbscrew:
“Just what does Your Most Royal Highness want?”
“O constructor!” replied Thumbscrew. “You say that your tales are to improve the mind, but I do not find this to be so. They are, however, amusing, and therefore it is my wish that you tell me more and more of them, and do not stop.”
“O King!” answered Trurl. “You would learn from me what is perfection and how it may be gained, yet prove unable to grasp the deep meanings and great truths with which my narratives abound. Truly, you seek amusement and not wisdom—yet, even as you listen, my words do slowly penetrate and act upon your brain, and later too will act, much as a time bomb. To this end, allow me to present an account that is intricate, unusual and true, or nearly true, from which your royal advisers may also derive some benefit.
Hear then, noble sirs, the history of Zipperupus, king of the Partheginians, the Deutons, and the Profligoths, of whom concupiscence was the ruin!
Now Zipperupus belonged to the great house of Tup, which was divided into two branches: the Dextrorotarory Tups, who were in power, and the Levorotarory Tups, also called the Left-handed or Counterclockwise Tups, who were not—and therefore consumed with hatred for their ruling cousins. His sire, Calcyon, had joined in morganatic marriage with a common machine, a manual water pump, and so Zipperupus inherited—from the distaff side—a tendency to fly off the handle, and—from the spear side—faint-heartedness coupled with a wanton nature. Seeing this, the enemies of the throne, the Sinistral Isomers, thought of how they might destroy him through his own lascivious proclivities. Accordingly, they sent him a Cybernerian named Subtillion, an adept in mental engineering; Zipperupus took an instant liking to him and made him Lord High Thaumaturge and Apothecary to the Throne. The wily Subtillion devised various means to gratify the unbridled lust of Zipperupus, secretly hoping so to enfeeble and debilitate the King, that he would altogether waste away. He built him an erotodrome and a debaucherorium, regaled him with endless automated orgies, but the iron constitution of the King withstood all these depravities. The Sinistral Isomers grew impatient and ordered their agent to bring all his cunning to bear and achieve the desired end without any further delay.
“Would you like me,” he asked them at a secret meeting in the castle catacombs, “to short-circuit the King, or demagnetize his memory to render him mindless?”