Simak, Cliffard D - Shakespeare's Planet

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Clifford D. Simak

Shakespeare’s Planet

THERE were three of them, although sometimes there was only one of them. When that came

about, less often than it should, the one was not aware there ever had been three, for the one was a

strange melding of their personalities, When they became as one, the transformation was something

more than a simple addition of the three, as if by this pooling of themselves there had been added a

new dimension which made the sum of them greater than the whole. It was only when the three

were one, a one unconscious of the three, that the melding of three brains and of three personalities

approached the purpose of their being.

They were the Ship and the Ship was them. To become the Ship or to attempt to become the

Ship, they had sacrificed their bodies and, perhaps, a great deal of their humanity. Sacrificed,

perhaps their souls as well, although that was something no one, least of all themselves, ever agreed

on. This disagreement, it should be noted, stood quite apart from any belief or disbelief that they

might have souls.

They were in space, as was the Ship, and this was understandable since they were the Ship.

Naked to the loneliness and emptiness of space as the Ship was naked. Naked at once to the concept

of space, which is not understood in its entirety, and to the concept of time, which is, in the final

accounting, less understandable than space. And naked, too, they finally found, to those attributes of

space and time, infinity and eternity; two concepts that stand beyond the capability of any

intelligence.

As the centuries went on, they were collectively convinced they would become, in all truth, the

Ship and nothing but the Ship, sloughing off all they had ever been before. But they had not reached

that point yet. Humanity still persisted; memory still hung on. They still, at times, felt the old

identities, perhaps with some of the sharpness dulled, with the pride less bright; because of the

nagging doubt that they had been quite as noble in their sacrifices as they, at one time, had been

able to convince themselves. For it finally came to them, although not to all of them at once, but one

by one, that they had been guilty of semantic shuffling, using the term sacrifice to becloud and

camouflage their basic selfishness. One by one, it came to them in those tiny intervals when they

were truly honest with them selves, that the nagging doubts which hounded them might be more

important than the pride.

At other times, old triumphs and regrets came surging out of time long gone and alone, not

sharing with the others, each fondled the old triumphs and regrets, obtaining from them a

satisfaction they would not admit, even to themselves. On occasion they stood aside from one

another and talked to one another. This was a most shameful thing and they knew that it was

shameful, delaying the time when they could finally sink their own identities into the one identity

that came about through the consolidation of their three identities. In their more honest moments

they realized that in doing this they were instinctively shying away from that final loss of personal

identity which is the one outstanding terror all sentient life associates with death.

Usually, however, and increasingly as time went on, they were the Ship, and the Ship alone, and

in this there was a satisfaction and a pride, and at times a certain holiness. The holiness was a

quality that could not be defined In words or delineated in a thought, for it was outside and beyond

any sensation or accomplishment that the creature known as man could have conjured up even in

the utmost exercise of his not inconsiderable imagination, It was, in a way, a sense of minor

brotherhood with both time and space, the sense of being one, strangely identified, with the space-

time concept, that hypothetical condition which is the basic pattern of the universe. Under this

condition they were kin to the stars and neighbor of the galaxies, while the emptiness and

loneliness, although never losing frightfulness, became familiar ground.

In the best of times, when they most nearly came to their final purpose, the Ship faded from their

consciousness and they alone, the consolidated one of them alone, moved across and through and

over the loneliness and emptiness, no longer naked, but a native of the universe that was now their

country.

SHAKESPEARE said to Carnivore, “The time is nearly come. Life fades rapidly; I can feel it

go. You must be ready. Your fangs must pierce the flesh in that small moment before death. You

must not kill me, but eat me even as I die. And you remember, surely, all the rest of it. You do not

forget all that 1 have told you. You must be the surrogate of my own people since none of them is

here. As best friend, as only friend, you must not shame me as I depart from life.”

Carnivore crouched and shivered. “It is not something that I asked,” he said. “It is not something

that I would elect to do. It is not my way to kill the old or dying. My prey must be always full of life

and strength. But as one life to another, as one intelligence to another, I cannot refuse you. You say

it is a holy thing, that I perform a priestly office and this is something from which one must never

shrink, although every instinct in me cries out against the eating of a friend.”

“I hope,” said Shakespeare, “that my flesh be not too tough nor the flavor strong. I hope the

ingestion of it does not make you gag.”

“I shall not gag,” promised Carnivore. “I shall be strong against it. I shall perform most truly. I

shall do everything you ask. I shall follow all instructions. You may die in peace and dignity,

knowing that your last and truest friend will carry out the offices of death. Although you will permit

me the observation that this is the strangest and the most obnoxious ceremony I have ever heard of

in a long and misspent life.”

Shakespeare chuckled weakly. “I will allow you that,” he said.

CARTER HORTON came alive. He was, it seemed, at the bottom of a well. The well was filled

with fuzzy darkness

and, in sudden fright and anger, he tried to free himself of the fuzz and darkness and climb out

of the well. But the darkness wrapped itself about him, and the fuzziness made it difficult to move.

After a time he lay quiet. His mind clicked hesitantly as he sought to know where he was and how

he might have gotten there, but there was nothing to give him any answers. He had. no memories at

all. Lying quietly, he was surprised to find that he was comfortable and warm, as if he had been

always there, comfortable and warm, and only aware now of the comfort and the warmth.

But through the comfort and the warmth, he felt a frantic urgency and wondered why. It was quite

enough, he told himself, to continue as he was, but something in him shouted that it was not

enough. He tried again to climb out of the well, to shake off the fuzziness and darkness, and failing,

fell back exhausted.

Too weak, he told himself, and why should he be weak?

He tried to shout to attract attention, but his voice would not work. Suddenly he was glad it

didn’t, for until he was stronger, he told himself, it might be unwise to attract attention. For he did

not know where he was or what or who might be lurking near, nor with what intent.

He settled back into the darkness and the fuzziness, confident that it would conceal him from

whatever might be there, and was a bit amused to find he felt a slow, seeping anger at being forced

thus to huddle against attention.

Slowly the fuzziness and the darkness went away, and he was surprised to find that he was not in

any well. Rather, he seemed to be in a small space that he now could see.

Metal walls went up on either side of him and curved, only a foot or so above his head, to form a

ceiling. Funny-looking gadgets were retracted into slots in the ceiling just above his head. At the

sight of them, memory began seeping back, and carried by that memory was a sense of cold,

Thinking about it, he could not recall an actual coldness, although the sense of cold was there. As

the memory of the cold reached out to touch him, he felt a surge of apprehension.

Hidden fans were blowing warm air over him, and he then understood the warmth. He was

comfortable, he realized, because he was lying on a soft, thick pad placed upon the floor of the

cubicle. Cubicle, he thought—even the words, the terminology, were beginning to come back. The

funny-looking gadgets stored in the ceiling slots were part of the life-support system, and they were

there, he knew, because he didn’t need them any more. The reason he didn’t need them any more,

he realized, was that Ship had landed.

Ship had landed and he had been awakened from his cold-sleep—his body thawed, the recovery

drugs shot into his bloodstream, carefully measured doses of high-energy nutrients fed slowly into

him, massaged and warmed and alive once more. Alive, if he had been dead. Remembering, he

recalled the endless discussions over this very question, mulling over it, chewing it, lacerating it,

shredding it to pieces and then trying to put the pieces meticulously back together. They called it

cold-sleep, sure—they would call it that, for it had a soft and easy sound. But was it sleep or death?

Did one go to sleep and wake? Or did one die and come to resurrection?

It didn’t really matter now, he thought. Dead or sleeping, he was now alive. I be damned, he told

himself, the system really worked—realizing for the first time that he had held some doubt of it

really working despite all the experiments that had been carried out with mice and dogs and

monkeys. Although, he remembered, he had never spoken of the doubts, concealing them not only

from the others, but from himself as well.

And if he were here alive, so would the others be. In just a few more minutes he’d crawl Out of

the cubicle and the others would be there, the four of them reunited. It seemed only yesterday that

they had been together—as if they’d spent the evening in one another’s company and now, after a

short night’s sleep, had awakened from a dreamless night. Although he knew it would be much

longer than that—as much as a century, perhaps.

He twisted his head to one side and saw the hatch, with the port of heavy glass set into it.

Through the glass he could see into the tiny room, with the four lockers ranged against the wall.

There was no one about—which meant, he told himself, the others were still in their cubicles. He

considered shouting to them, but thought better of it. It would be unseemly, he thought—too

exuberant and somewhat juvenile.

He reached out a hand to the latch and pulled down on it. it operated stiffly, but finally he got it

down and the hatch swung out. He jackknifed his legs to thrust them through the hatch and had

trouble doing it, for there was little room. But finally he got them through, and twisting his body,

slid carefully to the floor. The floor was icy to his feet, and the metal of the cubicle was cold,

Stepping quickly to the adjacent cubicle, he peered through the glass of the hatch and saw that it

was empty, with the life-supports retracted into the ceiling slots. The other two cubicles were empty

as well. He stood transfixed with horror. The other three, revived, would not have left him. They

would have waited for him so they all could go out together. They would have done this, he was

convinced, unless something unforeseen had happened. And what could have, happened?

Helen would have waited for him, he was sure of that. Mary and Tom might have left, but Helen

would have waited.

Fearfully, he lunged at the locker that had his name upon it. He had to jerk hard on the handle

once he had turned it to get the locker open. The vacuum inside the locker resisted, and when the

door came open, it opened with a pop. Clothing hung upon the racks and footwear was ranged

neatly in a row. He grabbed a pair of trousers and climbed into them, forced his feet into a pair of

boots. When he opened the door of the suspension room, he saw that the lounge was empty and the

ship’s main port stood open. He raced across the lounge to the open port.

The ramp ran down to a grassy plain that swept off to the left. To the right, rugged hills sprang up

from the plain and beyond the hills a mighty mountain range, deep blue with distance, reared into

the sky. The plain was empty except for the grass, which billowed like an ocean as wind gusts

swept across it. The hills were covered with trees, the foliage of which was black and red. The air

had a sharp, fresh tang to it. There was no one in sight.

He went halfway down the ramp and still no one was in sight. The planet was an emptiness and

the emptiness seemed to be reaching out for him. He started to cry out to ask if anyone were there,

but fear and the emptiness dried up the words and he could not get them out. He shivered in the

realization that something had gone wrong. This was not the way it should be.

Turning, he went clumping up the ramp and through the lock.

“Ship!” he yelled. “Ship, what the hell is going on?”

Ship said, calmly, unconcernedly, inside his mind, What’s the problem, Mr. Horton?

“What’s going on?” yelled Horton, more angry now than frightened, angered by the supercilious

calmness of this great monster, Ship. “Where are all the others?”

Mr. Horton, said Ship, there aren’t any others.

“What do you mean there aren’t any others? Back on Earth there was a team of us.”

You are the only one, said Ship.

“What happened to the others?”

They are dead, said Ship.

“Dead? How do you mean, dead? They were with me just the other day!”

They were with you, said Ship, a thousand years ago.

“You’re insane. A thousand years!”

That’s the span of time, said Ship, speaking still inside his mind, we have been gone from Earth.

Horton heard a sound behind him and spun about. A robot had come through the port.

“I am Nicodemus,” said the robot.

He was an ordinary robot, a household service robot, the kind that back on Earth would be a

butler or a valet, or a cook or errand boy. There was no mechanical sophistication about him; he

was just a sloppy, flat-footed piece of junk.

You need not, said Ship, be so disdainful of him. You will find him, we are sure, to be quite

efficient.

“Back on Earth…”

Back on Earth, said Ship, you trained with a mechanical marvel that had far too much that could

go wrong with it. Such a contraption could not be sent out on a long-haul expedition. There would

be too much chance of it breaking down. But with Nicodemus there is nothing to go wrong. Because

of his simplicity he has high survival value.

“I am sorry,” Nicodemus said to Horton, “that I was not present when you woke. I had gone out

for a quick scout around. I had thought there was plenty of time to get back to you. Apparently, the

recovery and reorientation drugs worked much more swiftly than I’d thought. It usually takes a fair

amount of time for recovery from cold-sleep. Especially cold-sleep of such long duration. How are

you feeling now?”

“Confused,” said Horton. “Completely confused. Ship tells me I am the only human left,

implying that the others died.” And he said something about a thousand years. .

To be exact, said Ship, nine hundred fifty-four years, eight months and nineteen days.

“This planet,” said Nicodemus, “is a very lovely one. In many ways like Earth. Slightly more

oxygen, a bit less gravity. . .“

“All right,” said Horton, sharply, “after all these years we are finally landed on a very lovely

planet. What happened to all the other lovely planets? In almost a thousand years, moving close to

the speed of light, there must have been. .

“Very many planets,” Nicodemus said, “but none of them lovely. Nothing a human could exist

upon. Young planets, with the crusts unformed, with fields of bubbling magma and great volcanoes,

vast pools of molten lava, the sky seething with boiling clouds of dust and poisonous vapors and as

yet no water and little oxygen. Old planets slipping down to death, the oceans dry, the atmosphere

thinned out, without sign of life upon them—life, if it ever had existed, now wiped out. Massive gas

planets rolling along their orbits like great striped marbles. Planets too close to their suns, scoured

by solar radiation. Planets too far from their suns, with glaciers of frozen oxygen, seas of slushy

hydrogen. Other planets that somehow had gone wrong, clothed in atmosphere deadly to all life.

And a few, a very few, too, lusty with life—jungle planets occupied by ravening life-forms so

hungry and ferocious that it would have been suicidal to set foot upon them. Desert planets where

life had never started—barren rock, with no soil ever formed, with very little water, the oxygen

locked in eroding rock. We orbited some of the planets that we found; we merely glanced at others.

A few we landed on. Ship has all the data if you want a printout.”

“But now we’ve found one planet. What do we do now— look it over and go back?”

No, said Ship, we can’t go back.

“But this is what we came out for. We and the other ships, all of them hunting planets the human

race could colonize.”

We’ve been out too long, said Ship. We simply can’t go back. We’ve been out almost a thousand

years. If we started back right now, it would take almost another thousand years. Perhaps a little

less, for we’d not be slowing down to have a look at planets, but still not too far from two thousand

years from the time we left. Perhaps a great deal longer, for time dilation would be a factor, and we

have no reliable data on dilation. By now we’ve probably been forgotten. There would have been

records, but more than likely they now are lost or forgotten or misplaced. By the time we got back,

we’d be so outdated that the human race would have no use for us. We and you and Nicodemus.

We’d be an embarrassment to them, reminding them of their bumbling attempts of centuries before.

Nicodemus and we would be technologically obsolescent. You’d be obsolescent as well, but in

another way—a barbarian come from the past to haunt them. You’d be outdated socially, ethically,

politically. You’d be, by their standards, a possibly vicious moron.

“Look,” protested Horton, “there is no sense in what you say. There were other ships. .

Perhaps some of them found suitable planets, said Ship, shortly after they had left. In such cases

they could safely have returned to Earth.

“But you went on and on.”

Ship said, We performed our mandate.

“You mean, you hunted planets.”

We hunted for one particular planet. The kind of planet where man could live.

“And took almost a thousand years to find it.”

There was no time limit on the search, said Ship.

“I suppose not,” said Horton, “although it was something we never thought about. There were a

lot of things we never thought about. A lot of things, I suppose, we were never told. Then tell me

this: Suppose you’d not found this planet. What would you have done?”

We’d have kept on searching.

“A million years, perhaps?” If need be, a million years, said Ship.

“And now, having found it, we cannot go back.”

That is correct, said Ship.

“So what’s the good of finding it?” asked Horton. “We find it, and Earth will never know we

found it. The truth of the matter is, I think, that you have no interest in returning. There is nothing

back there for you.”

Ship made no answer.

“Tell me,” Horton cried. “Admit it.” Nicodemus said, “You’ll get no answer now. Ship stands on

silent dignity. You have offended it.”

“To hell with Ship,” said Horton. “I’ve heard enough from them. I want some answers from you.

Ship said the other three are dead . . .“

“There was a malfunction,” said Nicodemus. “About a hundred years out. One of the pumps

ceased functioning, and the cubicles heated up. I managed to save you.”

“Why me? Why not one of the others?”

“It was very simple,” said Nicodemus, reasonably. “You were number one on line. You were in

cubicle number one.”

“If I had been in cubicle number two, you would have let me die.”

“I let no one die. I was able to save one sleeper. Having done that, it was too late for the others.”

“You did it by the numbers?”

“Yes,” said Nicodemus, “I did it by the numbers. Is there a better way?”

“No,” said Horton. “No, I guess there’s not. But when three of us were dead, was there no thought

of aborting the mission and going back to Earth?”

“There was no thought of it.”

“Who made the decision? I imagine Ship.”

“There was no decision. Neither of us ever mentioned it.” It had all gone wrong, thought Horton.

If someone had sat down and worked at it, with wholehearted concentration and a devotion that

fringed on fanaticism, they couldn’t have done a better job of screwing it all up.

A ship, one man, one flat-footed stupid robot—Christ, what an expedition! And, furthermore, a

pointless one-way expedition. We might just as well not have started out, he thought. Except that if

they hadn’t started out, he reminded himself, he’d now be dead for many centuries.

He tried to remember the others, but could not remember them. He could see them only dimly, as

if he were seeing them through fog. They were indistinct and blurred. He tried to make out their

faces and they seemed to have no faces. Later on, he knew, he’d mourn them, but he could not

mourn them now. There was not enough of them to mourn. There was no time now for mourning

them; there was too much to do and to think about. A thousand years, he thought, and we won’t be

going back. For Ship was the only one that could take them back, and if Ship said it wasn’t going

back, that was the end of it.

“The other three?” he asked. “Burial in space?”

“No,” said Nicodemus. “We found a planet where they’ll rest through all eternity. Do you want to

know?”

“If you please,” said Horton.

FROM the platform of the high plateau where Ship had landed, the planetary surface stretched

out to distant, sharp horizons, a land with great blue glaciers of frozen hydrogen creeping down the

slopes of black and barren rock. The planet’s sun was so distant that it seemed only a slightly larger,

brighter star—a star so dimmed by distance and by dying that it did not have a name or number. On

the charts of Earth there was not even a pinprick marking its location. Its feeble light never had

been registered on a photographic plate by a terrestrial telescope.

Ship, asked Nicodemus, is this all that we can do?

Ship said, We can do no further.

It seems cruel to leave them here, in this place of desolation.

We sought a place of solitude for them, said Ship, a place of dignity and aloneness, where

nothing will find them and disturb them for study or display. We owe them this much, robot, but

when this is done, it is all that we can give them.

Nicodemus stood beside the triple casket, trying to fix the place forever in his mind, although, as

he looked out across the planet, he realized there was little he could fix. There was a deadly

sameness here; wherever one might look at it all seemed to look the same. Perhaps, he thought, it is

just as well—they can lie here in their anonymity, masked by the unknownness of their final resting

place.

There was no sky. Where there should have been a sky was only the black nakedness of space,

lighted by a heavy sprinkle of unfamiliar stars. When he and Ship were gone, he thought, for

millennia these steely and unblinking stars would be eyes staring down at the three who lay within

the casket—not guarding them, but watching them—staring with the frosty glare of ancient,

moldering aristocrats regarding, with frigid disaproval, intruders from beyond the pale of their

social circle. But the disapproval would not matter, Nicodemus told himself, for there now was

nothing that could harm them. They were beyond all harm or help.

He should say a prayer for them, he thought, although he’d never said a prayer before nor ever

thought of praying. He suspected, however, that prayer by such as he might not be acceptable, either

to the humans lying there or whatever deity might bend his ear to hear it. But it was a gesture—a

slender and uncertain hope that somewhere there might still be an agency of intercession.

And if he did pray, what could he say? Lord, we leave these creatures in your care— And once he

had said that? Once he had made a good beginning?

You might lecture him, said Ship. You might impress upon him the importance of these creatures

with whom you are concerned. Or you might plead and argue for them, who need no pleading and

are beyond all argument.

You mock me, said Nicodemus.

We do not mock, said Ship. We are beyond all mockery.

I should say some words, said Nicodemus. They would expect it of me. Earth would expect it of

me. You were human once. I would think there’d be, on an occasion such as this, some humanity in

you.

We grieve, said Ship. We weep. We feel a sadness in us. But we grieve at death, not at the leaving

of the dead in such a place. It matters not to them wherever we may leave them.

Something should be said, Nicodemus insisted to himself. Something solemnly formal, some

intonation of studied ritual, all spoken well and properly, for they’ll be here forever, the dust of

Earth transplanted. Despite all our logic in seeking out a loneliness for them, we should not leave

them here. We should have sought a green and pleasant planet…

There are, said Ship, no green and pleasant planets.

Since I can find no proper words to say, said the robot to the Ship, do you mind if I stay awhile?

We should at least do them the courtesy of not hurrying away.

Stay, said Ship. We have all eternity.

“And do you know,” Nicodemus said to Horton, “I never did get around to saying, anything.”

Ship spoke. We have a visitor. He came out of the hills and is waiting just beyond the ramp. You

should go out to meet him. But be alert and cautious and strap on your sidearms. He appears an

ugly customer.

THE visitor had halted some twenty feet beyond the end of the ramp and was waiting for them

when Horton and Nicodemus came out to meet him. He was human-tall and stood upon two legs.

His arms, hanging limply at his side, did not end in hands, but in a nest of tentacles. He wore no

clothing. His body was covered by a skimpy, molting coat of fur. That he was a male was

aggressively apparent. His head appeared to be a bare skull. It was innocent of hair or fur, and the

skin was tightly stretched over the structure of the bones. The jaws were heavy and elongated into a

massive snout. Stabbing teeth, set in the upper jaw, protruded downward, somewhat like the fangs

of the primitive saber-tooth of ancient Earth. Long, pointed ears, pasted against the skull, stood

rigid, overtopping the bald, domed cranium. Each of the ears was tipped with a bright red tassle.

As they reached the bottom of the ramp, the creature spoke to them in a booming voice. “I

welcome you,” he said, “to this asshole of a planet.”

“How the hell,” blurted Horton, startled, “do you know our language?”

“I learned it all from Shakespeare,” said the creature. “Shakespeare taught it to me. But

Shakespeare now is dead, and I miss him greatly. I am desolate without him.”

“But Shakespeare is a very ancient man and I do not understand …”

“Not an ancient one at all,” the creature said, “although not really young, and he had a sickness in

him. He described himself as human. He looked very much like you. I take it you are human, too,

but the other is not human, although it has human aspects.”

“You are right,” said Nicodemus. “I am not a human. I am the next best thing to human. I am a

human’s friend.”

“Then that is fine,” said the creature, happily. “That is fine indeed. For I was that to Shakespeare.

The best friend he ever had, he said. I surely miss the Shakespeare. I admire him very greatly. He

could do many things. One thing he could not do was to learn my language. So perforce I must

learn his. He told me about great carriers that go noisily through space. So when I hear you coming,

I hurry very fast, hoping that it be some of Shakespeare’s people coming.”

Horton said to Nicodemus. “There is something very wrong here. Man could not be this far out in

space. Ship fooled around, of course, slowing down for planets and it took a lot of time. But we’re

close to a thousand light-years out...”

“Earth by now,” said Nicodemus, “may have faster ships, going many times the speed of light.

Many of such ships may have overleaped us as we crawled along. So, peculiar as it may seem…”

“You talk of ships,” the creature said. “Shakespeare talk of them as well but he need no ship.

Shakespeare come by tunnel.”

“Now, look here,” said Horton, a trifle exasperated, “try to talk some sense. What is this tunnel

business?”

“You mean you do not know of tunnel that runs among the stars?”

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Horton.

“Let’s back up,” said Nicodemus, “and try to get another start. I take it you are a native of this

planet.”

“Native?”

“Yes, native. You belong here. This is your home planet. You were born here.”

“Never,” said the creature, most emphatically. “I would not urinate upon this planet could I avoid

it. I would not stay a small time-unit could I get away. I came hurriedly to bargain outward passage

with you when you leave.”

“You came as Shakespeare did? By tunnel?”

“Of course, by tunnel. How otherwise I get here?”

“Then leaving should be simple. Go to the tunnel and depart by it.”

“I cannot,” the creature wailed. “The damn tunnel does not work. It has gone the haywire. It

works only one way. It brings you here, but does not take you back.”

“But you said a tunnel to the stars. I gained the impression it goes to many stars.”

“To more than the mind can count, but here it need repair. Shakespeare try and I try, but we

cannot fix it.

Shakespeare pound upon it with his fists, he kick it with his feet, he yell at it, calling terrible

names. Still it does not work.”

“If you are not of this planet,” said Horton, “perhaps you’ll tell us what you are.”

“That is simply said. I am a carnivore. You know carnivore?”

“Yes. The eater of other forms of life.”

“I am a carnivore,” the creature said, “and satisfied to be one. Proud of being one. There be

among the stars those who look with disdain and horror upon carnivore. They say, mistakenly, it is

not right to eat one’s fellow beings. They say it be cruel to do so, but I tell you there is no cruelty.

Quick death. Clean death. No suffering at all. Better than sickness and old age.”

“All right, then” said Nicodemus. “No need to carry on. We hold nothing against a carnivore.”

“Shakespeare say humans also carnivores. But not as much as me. Shakespeare shared the meat I

killed. Would have killed himself, but not as good as me. I glad to kill for Shakespeare.”

“I bet you were,” said Horton.

“You are alone here?” asked Nicodemus. “You are the only one of your kind upon the planet?”

“The only one,” said Carnivore. “I arrive on sneaky trip. I tell no one of it.”

“This Shakespeare of yours,” said Horton. “He was on a sneaky trip as well?”

“There were unprincipled creatures who would have liked to find him, claiming he had done them

imaginary harm. He had no wish for them to find him.”

“But Shakespeare now is dead?”

“Oh, he’s dead, all right. I ate him.”

“You what?”

“The flesh only,” said Carnivore. “Careful not to eat the bones. And I don’t mind telling you he

was tough and stringy and not of a flavor that I relished. He had a strange taste to him.”

Nicodemus spoke hastily to change the subject. “We would be glad,” he said, “to come to the

tunnel with you and see about the fixing of it.”

“Would you, in all friendship, do that?” Carnivore asked gratefully. “I was hoping that you

would. You can fix the goddamn tunnel?”

“I don’t know,” said Horton. “We can have a look at it. I’m not an engineer…”

“I,” said Nicodemus, “can become an engineer.”

“The hell you can,” said Horton.

“We will have a look at it,” said this madman of a robot, “Then it is all settled?”

“You can count on it,” said Nicodemus.

“That is good,” said Carnivore. “I show you ancient city and...”

“There is an ancient city?”

“I speak too hugely,” said Carnivore. “I let my enthusiasm at the fixing of the tunnel to run off

with me. Perhaps not an actual city. Perhaps an outpost only. Very old and very ruined, but

interesting, perhaps. But now I must be going. The star is riding low. Best to be undercover when

darkness is come upon this place. I am glad to meet you. Glad Shakespeare’s people come. Hail and

farewell!! I see you in the morning and the tunnel fixed.”

He turned abruptly and trotted swiftly into the hills, without pausing to look back.

Nicodemus shook his head. “There are many mysteries here,” he said. “Much to ponder on. Many

questions to be asked. But first I must get dinner for you. You’ve been out of cold-sleep long

enough for it to be safe to eat. Good, substantial food, but not too much at first. You must curb your

greediness. You must take it slow.”

“Now just a goddamn minute,” Horton said. “You have some explaining to be done. Why did you

head me off when you knew I wanted to ask about the eating of this Shakespeare, whoever he might

be? What do you mean, you can become an engineer? You know damn well you can’t.”

“All in good time,” said Nicodemus. “There is, as you say, explaining to be done. But first you

must eat, and the sun is almost set. You heard what the creature said about being undercover when

the sun is gone.”

Horton snorted. “Superstition. Old wives’ tales.”

“Old wives’ tales or not,” said Nicodemus, “it is best to be ruled by local custom until one is

sure.”

Looking out across the sea of billowing grass, Horton saw that the level horizon had bisected the

sun. The sweep of grass seemed to be a sheet of shimmering gold. As he watched, the sun sank

deeper into the golden shimmer and as it sank, the western sky changed to a sickly lemon-yellow.

“Strange light effect,” he said.

“Come on, let’s get back aboard,” urged Nicodemus. “What do you want to eat? Vichyssoise,

perhaps—how does that sound to you? Prime ribs, a baked potato?”

“You set a good table,” Horton told him.

“I am an accomplished chef,” the robot said.

“Is there anything you aren’t? Engineer and cook. What else?”

“Oh, many things,” said Nicodemus. “I can do many things.”

The sun was gone and a purple haze seemed to be sifting down out of the sky. The haze hung

over the yellow of the grass, which now had changed to the color of old, polished brass. The

horizon was jet-black except for a glow of greenish light, the color of young leaves, where the sun

had set.

“It is,” said Nicodemus, watching, “most pleasing to the eye.”

The color was fading rapidly, and as it faded, a chill crept across the land. Horton turned to go up

the ramp. As he turned, something swooped down upon him, seizing him and holding him. Not

really seizing him, for there was nothing there to seize him, but a force that fastened on him and

engulfed him so he could not move. He tried to fight against it, but he could not move a muscle. He

attempted to cry out, but his throat and tongue were frozen. Suddenly he was naked—or felt that he

was naked, not so much deprived of clothes as of all defenses, laid open so that the deepest corner

of his being was exposed .for all to see. There was a sense of being watched, of being examined,

probed, and analyzed. Stripped and flayed and laid open so that the watcher could dig down to his

last desire and his final hope. It was, said a fleeting thought inside his mind, as if God had come and

was assessing him, perhaps passing judgment on him.

He wanted to run and hide, to jerk the flayed skin back around his body and to hold it there,

covering the gaping, spread-eagled thing that he had become, hiding himself again behind the

tattered shreds of his humanity. But he couldn’t run and there was no place to hide, so he continued,

standing rigid, being watched.

There was nothing there. Nothing had appeared. But something had seized and held and stripped

him, and he tried to drive out his mind to see it, to learn what kind of thing it was. And as he tried to

do this, it seemed his skull cracked open and his mind was freed, protruding and opening out so that

it could encompass what no man had ever understood before. In a moment of blind panic, his mind

seemed to expand to fill the universe, clutching with nimble mental fingers at everything within the

confines of frozen space and flowing time and for an instant, but only an instant, he imagined that

he saw deep into the core of the ultimate meaning hidden in the farthest reaches of the universe.

Then his mind collapsed and his skull snapped back together, the thing let loose of him and,

staggering, he reached out to grasp the railing of the ramp to hold himself erect.

Nicodemus was beside him, supporting him, and his anxious voice asked, “What is the matter,

Carter? What came over you?”

Horton grasped the railing in a death grip, as if it were the one reality left to him. His body ached

with tension, but his mind still retained some of its unnatural sharpness, although he could feel the

sharpness fading. Helped by Nicodemus, he straightened. He shook his head and blinked his eyes,

clearing his vision. The colors out on the sea of grass had changed. The purple haze had faded into a

deep twilight. The brassiness of the grass had smoothed into a leaden hue, and the sky was black.

As he watched, the first bright star came out.

“What is the matter, Carter?” the robot asked again.

“You mean you didn’t feel it?”

“Something,” said Nicodemus. “Something frightening. It struck me and slid off. Not my body,

but my mind. As if someone had used a mental fist and had missed the blow, merely brushing

against my mind.”

THE brain-that-once-had-been-a-monk was frightened, and the fright brought honesty.

Confessional honesty, he thought, although never in the confessional had he ever been as honest as

he was being now.

What was that? asked the grande dame. What was that we felt?

It was the hand of God, he told her, brushed against our brow.

That’s ridiculous, said the scientist. That is a conclusion reached without adequate data or

conscientious observation.

What then, asked the grande dame, do you make of it?

I make nothing of it, said the scientist. I note it; that is all. A manifestation of some sort. From far

out in space, perhaps. Not a product of this planet. I have the distinct impression that it was not of

local origin. But until we have more data, we must make no attempt to characterize it.

That’s the sheerest twaddle I have ever heard, said the grande dame. Our colleague, the priest,

did better.

Not a priest, said the monk. I have told you and told you. A monk. A mere monk. A very piss-poor

monk.

And that was what he’d been, he told himself, continuing with his honest self-assessment. He

never had been more. A less-than-nothing monk who had been afraid of death. Not the holy man

that he had been acclaimed, but a sniveling, shivering coward who was afraid to die, and no man

who was afraid of death ever could be holy. To the truly holy, death must be a promise of a new

beginning, and, thinking back, he knew he never had been able to conceive of it as anything but an

end and nothingness.

For the first time, thinking thus, he was able to admit what he never had been able to admit

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1CliffordD.SimakShakespeare’sPlanetCopyright©1976CliffordD.Simak1THEREwerethreeofthem,althoughsometimestherewasonlyoneofthem.Whenthatcameabout,lessoftenthanitshould,theonewasnotawarethereeverhadb\eenthree,fortheonewasastrangemeldingoftheirpersonalities,Whentheybecameasone,thetra\nsformationwassometh...

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Simak, Cliffard D - Shakespeare's Planet

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