The Undesired Princess Page 2

  Hoimon took a grip on the pseudo-tree and broke it off close to the ground. Then he snapped the trunk across his knee to make a massive four-foot walking stick. He spoke: “We must hasten, O Rollin, leaving the full account for a more propitious time. Briefly, know that King Gordius of Logaia is bound by the curse to offer his first daughter to the androsphinx upon her coming of age. As His Altitude has been kind to us ascetics, I undertook to find a champion who would rescue the maiden. You, O Rollin, are he.” He set off briskly again, twirling his stick.

  “Interesting if true,” groused Hobart. “But listen, mister, I never rescued a maiden from anything, unless you count the time my secretary got her head stuck in the waste basket.”

  “So think you,” replied Hoimon serenely. “My search carried me through several universes, and nowhere . . .” His voice died and ceased sharply in Hobart’s ears as the engineer flattened himself against the side of one of the cones. Hoimon, continuing around the curve, was immediately out of sight. Hobart listened, then began to tiptoe off in the opposite direction.

  “Ho!” came the ascetic’s deep voice around the curve. Rollin Hobart began to run. A muscular hand from nowhere came down on his back with staggering force, and gripped coat, vest, shirt, and a considerable fold of skin. Hobart yelped as he was jerked off his feet and whisked around the bend by an arm that had stretched out to a length of at least thirty feet to grab him.

  The arm contracted to its normal length, and Hobart found himself looking into the ascetic’s melancholy eyes. Said Hoimon: “Little know you of Logaia, O Rollin, or you would not try to escape. If you remained in the mountains after sunset, the cavefolk—lest you try such a stupid trick again, you shall precede me. March!”

  Hobart walked slowly, scowling. He protested: “Maybe you think this is fun, but I’ve got a job to get back to!” Hoimon gave him a push that almost sent him headlong.

  “Hasten,” said the old man. “Now must I punish myself for using force on you.”

  Hobart continued: “You’re impeding the defense program! My firm has some important contracts—”

  Another push. “The loss of the State of Unity is the gain—Ah!” The last exclamation announced their exit from the mountains—just like that. There were no foothills. The two men emerged from the last pair of conical peaks, and then the country was as flat in front of them as a skating rink, except for a cluster of hemispherical domes of black rock off to the left.

  The black domes rose from a vast expanse of flat pebbly ground, like an indefinite enlarged gravel driveway except that the gravel was a startling red.

  Hobart supposed that from this tract’s lack of vegetation it should be called a desert, even though it did not look like any desert he had seen. It extended to a sharp, straight horizon, unbroken in front and to the left by any feature except the black hemispheres.

  But to the right the landscape was something else. Thirty feet away began a fantastic jungle. Along a line as sharp as if it had been surveyed the red gravel gave way to blue moss, and from the moss rose tall, regularly spaced trees, everyone with an implausible even-tapering cylindrical trunk, apparently covered by black patent leather. The leaves were blue; some were circular, some elliptical, some other shapes, but all geometrically precise as though they had been cut out of blue paper to go into a store window display.

  In fact, reflected Hobart, this whole garish landscape looked as if it had been laid out with drawing instruments either by a gifted child or by a draftsman who had gone insane on the subject of functional design.

  He had hardly begun to absorb his surroundings when his attention was attracted by something else, which riveted his eyesight precisely because it was not built from a blueprint. “It” was a girl tied to a section of glossy black tree-trunk, sawn off at the top and planted in the gravel of the desert a few paces from the edge of the forest. As Hobart crunched unbidden over the pebbles toward the girl, he realized that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  “That,” came Hoimon’s voice behind him, “is the Princess Argimanda.”

  2

  The first fact that Rollin Hobart noticed about the Princess Argimanda was that her hair was red. That was the first thing that anybody from the Earth, Solar System, or Newton-Einstein universe would have observed, for this was not a coppery-red or russet, but a real honest-to-gosh red like that of a stop light or a two-cent stamp.

  It was also borne upon him as he approached that her skin was very pale, and the contrast between the white skin and the bright red of her cheeks gave her a heavily made-up look. When he got closer it appeared that the color was natural. She was tall, with delicate features, and wore a loose white knee-length garment of a very flimsy sheer material. She was tied to the stump by what appeared to be a few loops of ordinary package string.

  Nor was she alone. A little way off a young man sat on a chair with an easel in front of him. This youth wore what looked at first sight like a suit of long red underwear, which matched his hair.

  The princess’ blue eyes took in Rollin Hobart, and she cried in a strained voice: “Is this your champion, Hoimon?”

  “Aye, O Princess,” rumbled the ascetic. “How far have the painful proceedings gone?”

  The princess tossed her head toward the black rock domes. “The Court’s taken to the hills,” she said. Hobart, shading his eyes, made out a cluster of tiny figures atop the nearest dome. Some sort of banner rose from their midst. “And,” continued Argimanda, “my dear brother has set up his sketching pad, so everything is ready. I sent Theiax into the forest that he might warn us, but he has not returned. I do hope the androsphinx has not eaten him.”

  “Might diminish his appetite for you, my girl,” said a high male voice. It was the young man of the long underwear, which Hobart saw was really a skin-tight suit of red silk, with a jeweled belt and a little round feathered cap. The resemblance between the youth and the princess was obvious. He was nervously tossing an octahedral pebble from hand to hand, and inquired: “This the champion, eh? Don’t tell me I’ve set up my kit for nothing!”

  Hoimon boomed: “I think Your Dignity might show more concern for the fate of your innocent sister!”

  The young man shrugged. “Can’t be helped, you know, so we might as well have an artistic record.”

  Hoimon growled, and finally articulated: “O Prince Alaxius, I present Rollin Ho—”

  “Don’t bother me with names, old thing,” interrupted the artist, “especially as he’ll probably be devoured shortly. Greetings, champion. Mustn’t mind me; an aesthete puts his art first, you know. By the way, what is the color of that thing you’re wearing? I’ve been making color notes; can’t be expected to do a complete painting when the whole thing’ll be over in a few minutes. I’m a hero if I know what to call your—ah—suit.”

  Hobart glanced down at his conservative business suit. “Brown,” he responded. “But look here, what the devil’s this all about? What am I—”

  “Brown?” repeated Prince Alaxius wonderingly. “Never heard of it. That suit—I won’t comment on its appalling lack of fit—it’s something like yellow, yet it isn’t—I tell you, sir, it’s an impossible color! Either a thing’s yellow or it isn’t! I shall have to omit you from the picture; I haven’t—”

  Hobart raised his voice: “Damn it, listen! What’s all this nonsense about the young lady’s needing a rescue? Why can’t she bust those little strings and walk oft?”

  “Because,” said Alaxius, “then there wouldn’t be any sacrifice, and the androsphinx would harry the kingdom instead. Hoimon, is this your idea of a champion? Stupidest ass—”

  “Shut up!” howled Hobart. “Why can’t one of you birds rescue her then?”

  Hoimon tolled: “Neither of us has the means, O Rollin.”

  “Whaddya mean, means? I haven’t got a gun or anything!”

  “The androsphinx,” explained Hoiman, “is to be defeated, not by guns or swords, but by wit and logical acumen.”

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bsp; “Yeah? I’d be willing to save your young lady if I knew how, if you’d promise to let me go home when it’s over. But—” Hobart stopped as something emerged from the forest. He jumped, and controlled an impulse to flee when he saw that the other two men showed no alarm. The newcomer was a huge bright-yellow lion.

  “Is—is this your androsphinx?” asked Hobart, beginning to sweat.

  “No,” said Hoimon, “this is one of our friends: the social lion. O Theiax, I present Rollin Hob—”

  “He comes,” said the lion, whereat Hobart jumped again. The lion’s voice was a prolonged groan.

  Prince Alaxius shrilled: “Oh dear, I must get to work! I wish you luck, dear sister.”

  “What kind?” asked the lion.

  “Good or bad; I don’t care.” Alaxius trotted back to his easel and began sketching furiously.

  “Someday,” growled the lion, “that precious brother of yours learns what being eaten feels like—”

  “You promised, Theiax!” said the princess firmly.

  Hobart cried: “What am I supposed to do?”

  Hoimon explained: “The androsphinx will ask you a question; you shall try to answer it. It is simple.”

  “Yeah? Suppose I can’t?”

  “Then I regret to say, you will be eaten. So will the Princess Argimanda. That also is simple.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “It has always happened up to now. Ah, our enemy approaches!”

  Around the corner of the forest where it abutted the conical mountains lumbered another beast. It was superficially much like a lion, but vastly larger, almost elephantine in bulk. Its face was human; four times life size, and a very low-browed, Neanderthaloid sort of human, but still anthropomorphous, with a yellow goat-beard wagging from a chin whose recession it failed to conceal. The creature was splay-footed and sway-backed, with scabby patches of disease on its wrinkled yellow skin.

  The princess watched its approach with her lips pressed together in a tight red line. The social lion crouched trembling a little way off with his tail between his legs. Prince Alaxius sketched harder than ever. Hoimon folded his arms across his bony chest and stood erect. Neither of these two men showed any fear of the brute, which presumably followed certain rules as to whom it should devour.

  On came the androsphinx in dead silence except for the crunch of its paws on the gravel. When it was close enough for its stench to pucker Hobart’s nose, it lowered its broad hindquarters heavily to the gravel.

  It spoke in a hoarse, foggy whisper: “Do you serve me another champion?”

  Rollin Hobart was not eager to identify himself as such, but Hoimon jerked a thumb: “This is he, O androsphinx!”

  “Ah,” drooled the monster. “Are you ready for the question, champion?”

  Hobart tried to say “no,” but his vocal organs refused to function.

  “Then,” said the androsphinx, “is it not true that no cat has nine tails?”

  “I—uh—what?” said Hobart, taken off-guard. His mind was so full of conflicting urges and inchoate schemes that he had missed all but the last few words.

  The androsphinx repeated, and continued: “And is it also true, will you not stipulate, that no cat has eight tails either?”

  “I suppose so,” muttered Hobart, wondering how far and fast the androsphinx could run.

  “But it is also—”

  “Hey!” Hobart broke in. “Haven’t I answered a couple of questions already? Thought there was only one.”

  “Those were mere rhetoric,” gasped the androsphinx. “Addressed to the atmosphere, as it were. You need not have answered—yet. The question is yet to come. Now, it is also true that every cat has one tail more than no cat. Hence, if no cat has eight tails, every cat must have nine tails! Explain that, champion!”

  “I—uh—you—if—”

  “I shall count three,” wheezed the androsphinx. “One—”

  That “One!” brought Hobart’s whirling mind into focus. It shouldn’t be too . . .

  “Two—” the androsphinx rose to all fours.

  Hobart threw up a hand. “Hold on! Got it! You’re using two different ‘no’s!’ ”

  “What mean you? ‘No’ means ‘no.’ Thr—”

  “The hell it does!” crackled Hobart. “When you said no cat had eight tails, you used ‘no’ in the sense of ‘not any’; when you said a cat had one more tail than no cat, you used it in the sense of ‘the absence of a.’ ”

  “But—”

  “Shut up! In the first sentence you make a statement about the class of cats; in the second you were talking about things of another class, incommensurable with the first: the absences of cats. The absence of a given cat may have any number of tails you like; for instance in place of the cat you might have a dog with one tail. So your last statement is simply not true in general.”

  “But,” protested the androsphinx, “I meant not the absence of a cat; I meant a non-existent cat . . .”

  “Even worse! Not only is ‘no’ meaning ‘not any’ different from ‘no’ meaning ‘non-existent,’ but real cats have real tails whereas unreal cats can have only unreal tails; hence an imaginary cat can’t have any number of real tails, from zero up! So your statement that a real cat has one more tail than an imaginary one is inherently meaningless, since it uses both ‘no’ and ‘tail’ in two quite different and incommensurable senses . . .”

  At this point the androsphinx interrupted with a mighty belch which made Hobart stagger and cough. Another followed, and another. The princess coughed also. Hobart reeled back out of range. Hoimon stood with folded arms and a martyred expression as long as he could; then the ascetic, too, beat a retreat.

  He cried: “Observe, O Rollin! Nois be praised!”

  The androsphinx had sat down again; its head hung, drooling, with half-closed eyes as belch followed belch. Hobart jerked out his pocket knife and cut the princess’ nominal bonds. When he looked at the monster again—it had shrunk! It was no bigger than a rhinoceros, and with each burp it lost further bulk.

  When the princess without warning threw her arms around Rollin Hobart’s neck and pressed her ruby lips to his, he was so busy watching the biological marvel that he practically ignored the girl’s embrace; he held her limply and let her plaster his chin with kisses while he stared over her scarlet hair at the androsphinx.

  The creature was now down to the size of a mere Alaskan grizzly. There was a flashing blur of yellow past Hobart’s right as the social lion charged with a thunderous roar. The androsphinx reared wearily to meet the attack; the two great bodies slammed together, and then were rolling over and over and kicking showers of geometrical red pebbles in all directions. Hobart heard a ripping sound as Theiax’s hind claws found the androsphinx’s belly; then the monster shuddered and relaxed, the lion standing over it with his teeth fixed in its neck, shaking his foe’s anthropoid head and growling through his nose.

  The princess, meeting only the most tepid response from her champion, started to release him, but stopped at a cry of “Hold it, please!” from her brother. The gravel around Prince Alaxius was littered with sheets from his drawing-board, and the young man in the tight costume was working frantically on another: evidently a sketch of the hero embracing his rescuee.

  A large sinewy hand fell on Hobart’s shoulder. “O Rollin,” intoned Hoimon, “you have won where every previous champion has failed. Go and claim your temporal reward: the hand of the princess, and half of the Kingdom of Logaia!”

  “Huh?” said Hobart. “But—I don’t want the hand of the princess—excuse me, young lady; nothing personal—and I don’t want half the kingdom either!”

  3

  Hoimon took his hand away with a puzzled frown. “How now? Is not the greatest reward that King Gordius can bestow enough for you?”

  “Not that at all,” said Hobart. “This infradimensional world of yours is very interesting, but I can’t stay around to admire it. Want to get back to my work.”

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p; “Strange,” mused Hoimon. “But I fear I cannot help you. I must return to the Conical Mountains to collect my bed of nails, after which I must punish myself for doing violence to the integrity of living creatures in bringing you here and causing the death of the androsphinx.”

  “Can’t you even tell me how to get back?”

  “Nay, that I cannot. Of all the ascetics of Logaia, I alone have achieved sufficient spiritual perfection to pass from universe to universe.”

  “Well—look here, I didn’t ask to be brought; I’ve got every right to return. If you refuse to take me back you’re doing more violence to my integrity; constructively, that is.”

  Hoimon frowned. “Now that you put it that way—”

  “What is this?” groaned the lion, who had left off shaking the androsphinx’s corpse and ambled over. “Who makes my mistress cry?” Hobart looked around, startled, to see the princess with her hands pressed to her face and her shoulders shaking.

  “My love—” she got out “—wants—to go away!”

  “Huh?” cried Hobart in new alarm. “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m not your love! I’m a confirmed bachelor! I—”

  He stopped at a low rumble from Theiax: “You talk foolishness, champion. Rescuer always falls in love with princess and versy visa. You behave, or—”

  “What?”

  “Guess,” said the lion, showing fangs.

  Hoimon the ascetic slapped Hobart on the back. “That settles that, O Rollin,” he said cheerfully, “for I should be committing a greater constructive violence if I conducted you hence, thereby causing Theiax to eat you, than by leaving you here. Farewell!” He took a hitch in his towel, and off he strode twirling his stick.

  Hobart watched him go with sagging shoulders. The lion sat down in front of him and cocked his head on one side. “What is matter?” he grumbled. “Man does not look mournful when he marries girl who is clever, good, and beautiful! Look, I do trick!” Here the lion lay down and rolled over. Hobart could not help smiling.

  “Better,” said Theiax. “Here comes His Altitude.” The lion lay down and began licking the scratches inflicted by the late androsphinx.